Title: Laundry Whirlwind
Author: Scynneh 
Feedback: scynneh@yahoo.com
Improv 21: Happy Ending. 
Pairing: Angelus/Lindsey  
Rating: R
Dedication: To Lar, because she was amused by my babbling. *raises a raspberry margarita* - to rants about Lindsey. 
Notes: This is further in ‘That Damn Darla Mess’ series, which I have neglected. It is not the final installment, but some happiness is always a good thing. If I may add a small editorial note- Please understand that I am not doing this to gain money; while many writers would like to be paid, this is pure wishful thinking, and I acknowledge that. Under duress I may even say that the individuals used herein are not mine, and if anyone wants to tell them whom they belong to, warn me and I shall not be on the premises. Thank you. 
July 2001

*
I wake up.  Halfheartedly I ponder the benefits of getting dressed, as opposed to having my elderly and much-too inquisitive neighbor see me prancing around without seams or pockets of any sort.  I saunter downstairs and after glancing out my window, note that yes, the perverted codger has decided to burn more of his trees instead of spy on me.  I curse him and wander back upstairs, yanking a shirt over my head.  As I thought, my lover, the ultimate ‘fly by night’ visitor has vacated my home.  I smile in recollection of our new method of communication and then firmly pull myself back to the present.

    All right, I admit it: I have no life.  A bold statement yes, but one that needed to be put out there for my fellow life-lacking compatriots of the Internet.  I abide by one of the unspoken rules of this society: College.

    Or rather, College Sucks.  It doesn’t really, and that is the problem.  College will cause you to compromise all that you believe in: getting a full-night’s sleep, lounging around in bed for hours at a time, only emerging from your domicile to obtain beverages and/or sustenance of a doughnut-shape, and lastly, having to pretend that you actually intend to use any amount of the knowledge that is being forced on you in the name of furthering yourself in the Harsh World beyond High School- Ignorance and Bliss. 

    I speak hypothetically, because I have met a great many people for whom the years of secondary schooling were levels of Hades, and if I were to neglect mentioning them, they would probably hunt me down and hit me with their mice-those used in conjunction with computers that is. 

    And, I did not like being in High School.  I have said it, and this revelation is only one of many:  High School is evil.  If you are one of those lucky people able to play the games of ‘matching socks, shoes, jockstrap, vest, and smile,’ then you are going to be well on your way to the top of the social ladder.  If however, you are like the majority of the ‘normal ones’, you will scuttle around the taller, more fantastic of your class, and hope to be noticed. 

    Then there are the ‘others.’  I was so strange that none of the underclassmen remembered me the next year- except for the fact that I was very odd and I painted a purple and blue cougar on our class mural.  That was a damn skippy cat, and I was very pleased with the way it turned out.  

    But the truth is that- and it is not only out there, it is rabid; I had more fun removing my socks and shoes, and then running down the halls after school with my fellow weirdoes.  We used to stand on each other’s feet and ‘dance’- not falling down was an exciting thing.  The security guards thought that we were ‘quaint’, and didn’t say anything- or not much that we listened to.  Believe it or not, I never found myself in even the tiniest form of detention.

*
I take a time out of venting to scrounge out edibles.  Having solved the problem of hunger, I sit down again.

    I stare at the bag of Mexi-Nuggets, and feel that their positioning on the table reflects on the connection that we have managed to forge during our brief time together.  Carefully, I pick up one of the succulent, processed morsels, contemplate it a moment longer and then bite down.  Excellent, my taste buds declare, and my brain, occupied with counting up the various cholesterol and calorie barriers broken as my teeth closed down, croaks before surrendering.  I gleefully disregard the more reasonable portions of my body and continue chewing.  Life is good when one has America’s contribution to fine dining to savor.

    But I shall not be truly content until I find that elusive shred of sense that I have so longed for.  And I would be remiss if I did not credit my parents with having sent me some distance down the path that I am now stumbling along: the honorable profession of Laundering: an indiscriminate calling.

    No, this is not a fad or some overnight fling; I am firmly convinced that anyone who complains that they stay at home doing nothing has a secret devotion to some household craft.  And while you may not be hidden away perming your hair and stalking Jack Nicholson in hopes that he will levitate you over swimming pools, you are certainly not interested in caking on obscene amounts of makeup and slumming around with girls who cannot figure out that they should a) find worthwhile men to manipulate, or b) forget the men and date each other, while enacting some horrid vengeance on all those who would force them to wear unattractive wool skirts and vests that bunch up around the arms.  Understand, I love ‘The Craft’, though some of its elements though made me laugh, and others were so devoted to ‘saving the children’ that I threw popcorn at my television set in anger.

  There is never a point where lying is out of fashion or use.  We cultivate that talent in our youth, and then hone it carefully against family members, to gauge how much is proper in the ‘World That Holds the Promise of Incarceration If You Are Caught.’  Most folks are abysmal liars, and if they attempt to exercise their lack, they will end up in uncomfortably unconditioned rooms, staring at foolish authority figures garbed in robes and made of disgusting shaded suits, mostly rough wool.

  Or, if you are very, very good, you may be fortunate enough to wear one of those absurd outfits and prod the less canny with questions that wiggle, wormlike into their personals lives, all for the entertainment and feeding of a gaggle of carnivorous geese watching from their pen.

  Wolfram and Hart: A meeting of some importance.

*
Lilah glanced at Lindsey.   To be fair, she looked at him with such intensity that anyone who had the slightest clue of what was going on should have immediately noticed the attention, but the aforementioned male did not.

Fierce looks did not work, and an impressive but delicately feminine clearing of the throat was likewise ineffective.  When she sneezed for the third time, she was handed a handkerchief, taking only a moment to notice the fine stitching on the corner, she glared even harder at her partner., ignoring the drone of the man giving them a stern ‘talking to.’

“So my words didn't sink in?”  Inquired the man who had been promoted to the post of 'mentor' to Lindsey.  Trouble was, that the fellow had the misfortune to have grown up not understanding about poverty, or the results of it, so he did not know how to handle the various moods of his charge.  Added to that, he liked ties in shades of red and chartreuse that made him not look sleek and sophisticated, as he thought, but more like reanimated meat, without the pleasant offsetting hook on which he ought to have hung.  It was no surprise that he was neither popular nor well-respected, and he would not be ever.   And even as his cheeks bulged with annoyance, he was not given any attention.

His flesh had been pounded and sliced before someone thought of shaping it into human form.  Lindsey fervently hoped that the individual responsible had been 'fired', in every sense of the word, and he wondered if the lights outside of Los Angeles the other evening had been the send off ceremony.

As a body, he was the head of their section, but one had the notion that all it would take would be the severance of one or two choice threads, and he would be another stain on the carpet.

Lilah watched the signs of building temper with a slightly curled lip, appearing eager to move away from her superior.  Lindsey seemed unaffected, while’ Mr. Snubs’ expounded on the loss that had been suffered by the firm- with Holland Manners' death.  Lindsey didn't bother pretending to be moved- bosses came and went, sometimes very quickly, but there would be another.  He wasn't very shocked when ‘Mr. Snubs’ stressed the importance of having confidence in the 'home office'.  And he was sure that everyone was doing his or her best.

“And furthermore and so forth-”

*
I had known that Lilah was doing what she thought was a discreet job of getting my attention.   Though she didn’t know it, our section chief was also staring at me, and he was wondering why she had seen fit to interrupt his lecture when it was clear that I had no interest in engaging in company gossip.  When Lilah finally noticed that she was the focus of her superior’s gaze, she flushed and stopped immediately.

He muttered the incantation that concluded some of the more formal meetings, or those conducted by strange old men; which seemed to be a lot of Latin syllables lopped off their brothers and then slip knotted together as if he had been given a painstakingly clear outline on 'How to summon a spirit, or other supernatural being'.  Perhaps there had been a handout at the last company meeting, if there had been, I knew that I lacked the materials to stay focused on what was happening- my evening had been more full than expected, and allowances had needed to be made. 

Besides, it wasn’t as though I would be allowed to inquire about anything I’d missed, the important things that I might use later, who was sick, about to be canned, etcetera.  Despite having warnings imprinted firmly on our paychecks, none of the staff truly followed the most important of lessons.    

Curiosity had no place in a good company setting.  Such things might grow into poking in dark spots where there was a lot of dust and intimidating individuals who might be soft spoken, but loud in their actions.

There have forever existed two levels to words, the surface and the deep.  The former: how the meaning was brought out to the listener. And the deeper: what  really moved at the bottom of the stopped-up well of syllables.  To survive and flourish in the corporate swamp, a person had to realize that de-clogger was expensive, and even more when the bran used came in bottles with foreign labels.  Anything to facilitate the passing of information should be utilized.

I walked down the steps, ignoring the murmurs from the escorts of colleagues that had no idea of my objectives.  They too had seen the car waiting at the curb, and its driver, waiting.  

As I slid into the passenger seat, I got a small grin, and the knowledge that Angelus had been about in a most messy way.  Probably scoping out the territory, just as I had been.

  Complete innocence was more my style, though that act had never been quite sufficient when it came to demons who were too unhappy to abandon their expensive coats, hideous duties, and just dress in clothes that suited them so much more: silk shirts and those nicely fitting leather pants , which I was glad, Angel had never worn.

    If asked about his clothes, I would swear that they had pheromone transmitters in the weave, the vampire's appeal didn't do so bad in Dockers, but when leather was over any portion of that long lean body, then he was a danger in his own right, never mind that he hadn't a clue about what to do with what little he knew, he only had to realize what kind of pull his ass and sway of a walk held, and he'd be running the country in no time at all.  If he neglected to distribute justice to every has-been oldster that popped into his office and begged that he right his or her wrongs that was.   Angelus was aware of what he had going for himself, and used everything, in all the right ways.

    Leather pants can save lives; most would agree the killing of someone with that nice of an ass should be a criminal offense.  'And watch the way he stalks kids, he'll eat you up while you're gawking.'

    Now there was nothing to stand in his way, not when all boundaries had been obliterated.  Want was free to romp with Crave, all of them standing on Reasonable Outcome.

    I could easily believe the claims of harassed medical professionals who said that the  vampire had a multiplicity of complexes, maybe they stemmed from his childhood, not to mention that bitch Darla, and what was her name again?  The one who did the nasty with that military boy?   Our sources had been quite thorough about the Sunnydale Crowd.

    I couldn't recall her name, and that was just as well, she was mortal and young, and full of moral fiber, something that was just unnecessary in Los Angeles.

    He put a disc in the cd player, and I raised an eyebrow when the woman's voice spilt out of the speakers.  It was erotic music. Designed to enhance the experience for both partners no doubt, but the curve of imagined flesh was enough to make me smile and give him a look out of the corner of my eyes.  Where did he find this stuff?  The woman gasped and moaned, and Angelus tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. I figured out what I wanted from Angelus while he was buried inside of me: family, pack, whatever the psychologists call the unit which sees to the rest of its members and takes care of their needs, and protects them and gives instruction.

      I moved my hands across Angelus' chest, seeing in my memory the purple spots of contact with fists or cement.  Almost healed, but when I pressed inwards, it was easy to imagine inside, the tissues knitting together, holding pain in a stew of organs and rejuvenating blood. I was unable to get past the alabaster flesh but traced over the place where a heart might rest, dead, cold.  My curious fingers provoked a response; the rumble of the beast in his throat, and I was painfully hard in my fitted slacks.  

    The slide of muscle from shoulder to fingertips was marvelously cheerful, the flesh perversely movable and statuesque in coinciding seconds.  Nipples rose hardened under my tongue. and the primal supplication in that need rode over archaic country-bred standards and moralities 'till I bit down.  Appreciation was expressed with a slack mouth.  Skewed distribution of brain cells in my head made it clear that either control or a quick surrender might be of equal pleasure. However; as Angelus was the one driving, it seemed better that I tease and he pay some amount of attention to the road.   So I limbered up muscles left unused by the world of dry-cleaned shirts and splotched stockings and wondered if I should swing by the apartment and pick up my tools. 

    Magic was in the air, sticky sweat-down-the-back of the neck conjurings that expected one's collar to adhere to skin, ands suggested so politely that eyes in the back of the head weren't just demonic any longer, they were good for survival- please disregard the absence of able surgeons or anesthesia,  and step up for your very own set.

Fin