Loss and Gain
TITLE: Loss and Gain
AUTHOR: Fyre
EMAIL: Fyredansa@hotmail.com
SUMMARY: Snow, two lawyers and wackiness
FEEDBACK: Tell me what ya think...please?
DISTRIBUTION: "You got the stones" and anywhere else that wants it - ask if you want it.
SPOILERS: A:TS
COUPLE: Lindsey/Drusilla, Lilah/?
RATING: PG-16
DISCLAIMER: Do I sound like Joss Whedon? Darn! My ploy almost suceeded!
CLASSIFICATION: Lonely widdle fic
NOTES: This is a challenge from "You got the stones?" - "Must have all of the following: A freak snow storm, A character stuck in his/her car, Lindsey, Lilah getting hit with a snowball, Two characters snowbound in a building.
Must have at least two of the following: A drunk character, Twinkies, A lighter that won't work, Vampire getting staked with an icicle, Lindsey getting together with one of these ladies: Kate, Cordelia, Lilah, Darla or Drusilla, Brett Mogler.
Bonus points if you do it all. You will win... um... um... Me being totally impressed?"
DEDICATED: Bridget - thanks for the challenge!
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Pulling her sleeve over her hand, Lilah leaned forward, rubbing the condensation that was gathering on the misted windscreen with a frown, a shiver running through her body.
This was impossible.
Completely and utterly ridiculous.
The windscreen wipers squealed and buckled under the strain, the thick snow weighing them down, falling in thick flurries around the car, as the lawyer desperately tried to steer and stay on the ice-coated road.
Unsuccessfully.
All four tyres skidded out of control, the vehicle spinning and careening off into a small snowdrift by the side of the road, the driver's hands bracing her against the steering wheel.
"This is ridiculous." She hissed, wriggling in her seat. "It's June, for God's sake! Why the hell would it be snowing in June? And in L.A.?" Struggling in her seat, she brushed one cold hand down the window, staring out into the street in dismay. "This can't be happening to me."
A pair of twinkling, dark brown eyes peered back in at her, as she fumbled with the handle of the door, trying to push outward, despite the snow that was starting to pile up around the sides of the car.
Pushing her suited-shoulder against the door, she glared at the observer who stood on the opposite side of the glass, an inane grin on his handsome features, not even attempting to move in and help her.
"Oh this is good." She grumbled softly, the door jamming against the heap of snow, despite all her best efforts to force it open. "Damn, this is just the best."
Pressing his nose against the glass, the man outside grinned at her, tilting his head, his eyes strangely misty.
A drunken vampire who was biggest problem for her company pulling faces at her through a window of a snowed-under car. Things couldn't possibly get any worse than they already were.
Turning her attention to her briefcase, she raked through until she found her cell-phone, dialling the only number she could think of, while trying to ignore the grinning vampire at the window.
~~~~~
Picking up the receiver boredly, Lindsey leaned back in his seat with a sigh and asked. "Yeah?"
"Lindsey?"
Jerking upright, he almost dropped the phone. "Lilah! Where the hell are you?"
"You won't believe this." Her voice crackled down the line, her annoyance at their romantic evening being disrupted more than apparent. "I'm trapped in my car and our arch-nemisis is sitting outside laughing at me."
"Damn." Looking out of the window over the snow-coated city, Lindsey shook his head. "I'm trapped as well, though. As if that would cheer you up." He'd never seen snow drifting as heavily or quickly as it was doing this freakishly-sudden cold June day. "The building has been snowed in. No way in or out."
"So you won't be coming to help any time soon?" If anything, her anger made her colder. Icier. More distant.
Groping in his drawer, he replied calmly. "If I could, I would, Lilah, but I can't." He winced at her snort of indignation, then the dull beep of the phone that signaled she had cut herself off. "What do I see in that bitch anyway?"
"She has fire." A soft voice replied from the doorway. "You like to get burned, but never to ashes or to dust. Not like me or my grandmum."
Dropping his hidden stash of twinkies, the lawyer squinted in the darkness. "Who are you? How did you get in here?"
"So many questions without so many answers." The voice continued hypnotically, a shadowed figure moving along near the walls, the soft sound of fingers brushing along the paneling reaching his ears. "All from a man with so many dark secrets."
His hand strayed to the small crucifix he always kept in his pocket, taking a wary step back as the figure stepped into the moonlight that flooded in the huge windows, her dark head bowed as she walked.
"I haven't played with my kitten in such a long time." Raising deep blue eyes to the lawyer, her lower lip trembled, as if she were on the verge of tears. "Miss Edith told me he would be coming here for me, but he's gone. Gone to the girl who made my Angel's heart stink of sweetness."
"Angel?" Moving to lean on the desk, he couldn't help but stare at the girl, her long, dark hair tumbling in uncontrolled waves around her thin face, wide, mysterious eyes flitting around the room with the curiosity of a child.
"Yeah." She nodded, as if she had just realised it was true. "My Angel. He's all rotten and full of goodness and guilt." A look of dissatisfaction crossed her face. "And my Spike...he's hurtin'. Miss Edith told me to find him. Make him better."
Lindsey ran his thumb uneasily over the crucifix, examining the girl. "Who are you?" He asked again. "How do you know Angel?"
"My Angel..." She twirled around, her fingers twisting into the crimson and black of her dress. "He'll know where my sweet is."
"Maybe I can help you?"
Frowning sceptically at the floppy-haired man, the dark-haired girl moved closer, raising a hand to touch his temple. "Be in me." She whispered seductively, drawing his gaze to her hypnotic eyes. "Be in me."
Lindsey felt a ticklish sensation in his mind, as he met the dark woman's eyes, her cold fingers tracing across his cheek.
"You." Her voice was hushed, a curious look in her eyes. "You have a lot of hate. I can hear it singing in my head." With a smile, her fingers slid down his chest. "Such strong, hot hatred. Your pain...it fills me all up...like a sweet little child..."
Taking his head between her strong hands, she stared at him for a long moment, before covering his mouth with her own.
"What are you doing?" He jerked away, roughly rubbing his hand over his lips, the chill of her skin lingering there.
"I want to play." She pouted prettily, lowering her head, her eyes gazing at him from beneath the tangle of her dark lashes. "Will you play with me? Make me be your special Princess?"
The image of stiff, cold Lilah rose in his mind, as he let his eyes wander over the girl in her beautiful, old-fashioned garb. "I think I can do that." He smiled, pulling her to him.
~~~~~
"Arrogant, pig-headed, self-righteous male." Forcing the sunroof open, the lawyer yelped as a lump of snow dropped down the back of her neck, melting its way down her back. "When I find you..."
She had waited until she was certain the vampire had gone, the dark streets around her deserted as she squeezed her way out through the gap, reminding herself to make a date to go to the spa again.
If her hips couldn't fit through that gap, what chance did she have of fitting into next season's fashion.
Pushing herself up, she sat on the roof with a sigh of relief, the cold, icy air cutting through her thin, summer suit. A damp patch spread on her skirt, the chill moving rapidly down her legs, as she pivoted and lifted her legs up.
Her briefcase dropped onto the thick snow, then she lowered herself down carefully, sinking into the knee-deep mass of white, her shoes squelching in the still-soft mud hidden below the drifts.
"Dammit." She grunted, a cool numbness spreading through her bare legs. Slamming her case down on the bonnet of the snow-covered car, she fumbled with the lock, her hands trembling from the cold. "Double dammit."
The ice coating the tiny lock was solid, not even the hacking of her keys shifting it, her hands growing bluer as every second passed. She only had the one coat with her and it was folded neatly inside her briefcase.
Digging through the pockets of her suit, she sighed with relief, her numb fingers closing in around the small silver lighter she had been gifted months before by a drunk, grateful client.
Snow was starting to fall again, only in light, feathery soft flakes, sprinkling like dust across her soaking back and shoulders as she flicked the lighter, urging it to produce a flame through a combination of pleas and curses, none of which worked.
With a groan of annoyance, the high-class lawyer, spat a curse and hurled the useless lighter away, the soft thump as it hit the snow forgotten, as it sank out of sight.
Leaning against the side of the car, she sighed, then awkwardly picked her way out of the high snowbank, losing a shoe in the process, until she reached the safety of solid road again.
Taking in her surroundings, she had a good idea where she was: Not too far from the Wolfram and Hart main buildings, which meant that if she walked she could reach there in a few...
*Pfft*
The snowball exploded on her back with such force she almost fell over, her hair and suit coated in the sprinkling of the ball of ice.
A raucous laugh made her heart sink. Not again. Not him. Not now.
Stumbling out of the shadows, Angel practically giggled. "Look at you!" He crowed, lumbering closer. "I hit you! You didn't even duck or move or anything and it just went whump! Right in your back! Ha!"
"It wasn't funny." Brushing the ice off her suit as best she could, she glared at the intoxicated vampire, half-wary, half-furious.
Sniggering under his undead breath, the dark-haired vampire disagreed vehemently with the cold, wet and grumpy lawyer. "Yes it was!" He feigned aiming carefully, then throwing a snowball, followed by a triumphant 'YES!' gesture. "It was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time!"
Stalking towards him, her entire body shivering with fury and cold, she paused to snap an icicle off a nearby bin, her eyes furious. "It wasn't funny. You say it wasn't or I'll stake you."
Looking at the icicle, then at the lawyer, her make-up running down her face, her clothes soaked and her hair standing every which but the right one, Angel bit down on his lower lip, but couldn't stifle the giggles. "It wasn't funny." He tried to say.
It would have been acceptable...if he hadn't broken into a burst of completely hysterical giggles between every single word, the woman's eyes narrowing furiously, as she lunged at him, plunging the icy, make-shift stake into his body.
"Ow!" Looking down at the 'stake', then back at his potential Slayer, Angel jutted out his lower lip with a pout. "That wasn't very nice." He mumbled. "Now I'm going to be hung over and have a tummy ache tomorrow."
"Aren't you meant to die or something?" Lilah demanded suspiciously, as he pulled the sliver of ice nonchalantly out of the flesh of his belly.
"If a man's heart really was his stomach, I would be dead." He rubbed the wound with a growl, the alcohol numbing the pain that he knew would come as soon as he was sober again. "You played nasty."
Turning, he stomped away down the street, never hearing the snowball sailing through the air before it exploded against the back of his head, but by the time he turned round, Lilah was gone.
~~~~~
Sliding in on of the windows that had been left open, Lilah fell in a heap on the floor of the second storey room, getting her breath back from the strenuous climb up the snowdrift outside.
She was soaked to the skin, her hair hanging in tangled knots around her face, her skin blue with the cold. Shivering uncontrollably, she rubbed her cold - still blood-stained - hands together, getting to her feet shakily.
Making her way to the nearest bathrooms, she hit the hot tap, plunging her hands under the steaming stream of hot water, a sigh of relief escaping her as the feeling returned to her numb fingers, the dark crusts of the vampire's dried blood quickly disappearing down the plug hole.
Things really couldn't get any weirder than they already had today.
Being trapped in her own car in a snowstorm in the middle of June in L.A. and missing a date with her part-time lover while her only true enemy watched her from the outside, drunk out of his mind was bad enough.
Reducing herself to having a semi-snowball fight with the aforementioned enemy after thrusting a skewer of ice through his belly, getting his blood all over her suit and hands was just that little bit worse.
With a rough towel, she scrubbed her hands until they were raw, dry and tingling with warmth.
Things definitely couldn't get any weirder, she mused, stepping into the elevator and hitting the number that would take her straight to Lindsey's floor, bending and picking her other shoe off, her tights laddered and ripped from her earlier escapades.
Limping down the hall, her briefcase in one hand, her solitary shoe in the other, she reached the office, a fond smile crossing her face as she glanced at the name plate, then stepped into the room, only for her mouth to fall open in astonishment.
"Lindsey?"
Scrambling to his feet, the lawyer took in his bedraggled mistress, a frown of confusion on his face. "Lilah...when did you get here?"
"A while ago." Dropping her shoe and case carelessly, she looked at the figure on the floor then at her partner. "Do you know where...our friend's address is?" She asked, fixing her eyes back on the human's face.
"It's in your folder." He replied, his hands splayed across his crotch, the rest of his naked body as red as his face.
"Very good." She smiled with deceptive brightness. "I've got to go anyway. I'll leave you and your...acquaintance. I have the information I was coming in for, so there's no point hanging around."
Making her way back out into the hall, she shook her head with a grin.
"I was wrong." She murmured to herself, her mind working double time. "Things definitely can get a whole lot weirder."
With that, she made her way back out into the streets, heading in the direction of the offices of a hunk of sexy, drunken vampire to make up for the exercises she had been planning on working on with the currently-engaged Mr McDonald.
One lawyer's loss was another one's gain.
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