Archive of Our Own ^beta

It had been 7 years, 3 months and 21 days since Lindsey disappeared.

They came for him one night, when one of Cordelia's visions took them to a dirty alley near Boyd St where a group of Polgara had begun feeding on the local homeless people. Lindsey had just started going on field missions with them, after they grew sure he would not knife (or stake) any of them behind their backs.

One moment, Angel was dodging the Polgara demons and their sharp skewers. The next, he was face to face with the last person he expected to ever encounter in a place like that.

Darla.

Her smile was all jagged shards and blood as she spoke, words he could not remember, but that still made the beast inside him growl and trash. Something about finally finding. Something about losing forever.

He remembered the smell of demon guck as he cut through the Polgara, who seemed to flood in from all corners. He remembered fighting Darla, and realising that while she existed, Wolfram & Hart would keep using her against him. He remembered the hoarseness of Lindsey's voice as he cast a spell against the horde of demons flooding the alley, trying to shield Gunn while he attacked. He remembered the deafening silence when he suddenly stopped.

He remembered Darla's betrayed eyes, and the chalky stickiness on his hands after he drove the stake right through. And when the dust settled, piles of demon bodies were strewn on the pavement, and Gunn was clutching a wounded arm while Lindsey—

'They took him, Angel. He's gone.'

A light knock on his door cut through the fog of Angel's memories. It was midnight, and the vampire rubbed his eyes tiredly. Between losing Buffy, killing Darla and letting Lindsey slip through his fingers into Wolfram & Hart's clutch again, he seemed to have one nail too many in his personal coffin of failures. Angel knew that, over the course of his deathless existence, he had failed many. Yet, of all people, he seemed to have failed Lindsey the most.

It shouldn't matter that much anymore—Lindsey and him had been fierce enemies for longer than they had been companions. But try as he might, Angel could not erase their few months together, the scent of coffee in the early mornings, the melodious humming down the corridors, the gentle strumming of a guitar in moments of solitude, the blue-grey eyes that watched him attentively from behind a book... All signs of a new human presence filling up the empty spaces of the Hyperion building, sounds and smells in which Angel discovered a peculiar kind of comfort.

It had been 7 years, 3 months and 22 days since Lindsey disappeared.
Angel decided that, from then on, he would stop counting.

~*~

If Eliot had been able to predict the future, he would have taken the hinky job in Pakistan in a heartbeat.

But no. Apparently, now he had scruples. So when an old brother-in-arms showed up at the nondescript diner they were supposed to meet on a wheelchair, and begged Eliot to help him rescue his wife, the hitter found himself teetering on the edges of Los Angeles once more, the one place on the planet he was supposed to stay away from.

Damn it. Until then, he hadn't even known that Mitchell took a bullet to the spine while in Iraq. The word 'yes' left his mouth before he even knew what he was doing.

The job was meant to be easy, anyway, the only likely complication being the fact he had to retrieve a living person rather than information or goods. It took no advanced forensics to discover the warehouse from which the gang operated. Eliot was even somewhat disappointed to discover that 'gang' was just a grandiloquent name for a small group of desperados and third-class drug dealers trying to to keep their heads above the water while competing with the much larger criminal associations that flourished in Greater Los Angeles. They figured they could hustle some quick cash by kidnapping the wife of a crippled Joe and then asking for a ransom.

Amateurs, the whole lot of them, not to mention completely unimaginative. Eliot almost felt sorry when he flattened the three inexperienced punks who guarded the entrance. They couldn't have been older than 20.

It all went pretty smoothly until he got to the tiny storage room in which Mitchell's wife was being kept. Eliot hadn't even needed to punch (much) the dirtbag he was dragging around for the info—he just gave him the death glare, and the man answered all his questions, far more worried about keeping his trousers unsoiled.

When the door was opened, they were met with Lisa Mitchell's frightened blue eyes... and an unconscious man, lying limply in the far right corner of the room. The dirtbag swore that he had no idea how that guy ended up there... and he was actually backed by Lisa, who confirmed she hadn't seen the man before, not until Eliot pointed at him.

Well, I'll be damned, Eliot thought. Part of him wanted to leave the unknown man behind but, guess what, newfound scruples are a bitch. Besides, when he took a better look at the guy's face he seemed... strangely familiar, in a way that sat like a cold, hard lump in Eliot's stomach. So after returning Lisa to her husband and making sure all gang members had scrammed, he went back for him. And as he carried the still unconscious man out of the warehouse, Eliot called the only person that could help him figure out the next step.

"Hey Nate, how's it goin'? Yeah, yeah, I know you said no calls but..."

~*~

The first thing Nate ordered him to do, right before he took the first flight back to LA to meet Eliot, was to find a safehouse. No, no hospitals—they had no idea who the guy was, whether he had enemies in the system or was an enemy of the system. Until he woke up and gave them some answers, they were better off laying low.

"And keep him handcuffed, Eliot," was Nate's final instruction before he got into the plane and turned his cellphone off. Eliot wanted to bristle at being given orders—Nathan wasn't his boss anymore, for Chrissake—, but his body was already doing everything the older man had said, to the letter.

He took the unconscious man to a small motel off the beaten path, one he went to more than once when he needed an anonymous warm shower and a few hours of sleep. That was before he had the Leverage office to go to... before the whole place got blown up to smithereens. Eliot hadn't openly wept over the loss of their headquarters like Hardison did, but he would be lying if he said it hadn't left an empty spot in his life.

Eliot tried to pull the unconscious John Doe from his car and drag him to their room without attracting attention. Alas, that was the exact moment when the motel clerk decided to have his smoke break, and thus Eliot was forced to interact with him in a way that would not raise suspicions. Thankfully, the guy seemed to be a glass half-full sort of person.

"Oh man, your brother's really wasted!"

My what? Eliot thought, but figured that if the guy had already made up a backstory for them in his own mind then he might as well just roll with it. "Yeah, yeah, can't pace himself, the poor fuck."

"Sure he ain't dead?"

"Nah, he ain't," Eliot answered, tightly but still trying to play nice, "Probably gonna wish he were though, when he wakes up."

"Yeah, I hear ya," the clerk said, with a sympathetic grin. "If you need anything, I got some painkillers in the office."

"Thanks man."

When he finally got into the room, Eliot laid his burden none-too-gently onto the bed, handcuffed him to the bedpost and quickly swept the room for bugs, cameras and other transmitters. He also tested the windows in case they needed to get out, or someone else tried to get in. It was very unlikely that anyone would bother to come looking for him in San Bernardino, but having a price on one's head accounted for some reasonable paranoia.

Through all the driving and the moving, John Doe did not stir nor show any signs that he was about to wake up. Eliot checked him for bleeding, tearing, visible head trauma, broken bones, everything he could think of... and found nothing. His pulse and breathing seemed normal, if a bit slow, as if he had been heavily roofied. Aside from the scruffiness of his clothes—jeans, tee under a flannel shirt and boots—, the guy seemed pretty much untouched.

Nathan arrived a little after midnight, grousing about the half-day long trip in a cramped plane and the cabby who prattled nonstop all the way from ONT to the motel. Then, as he dropped his go bag at the foot of the double bed, he finally noticed their sleeping guest. Eliot saw the instant the man's mind switched from cranky traveller to the focused strategist he knew.

"He's still out?"

"Cold."

Nate approached the bed, feeling for the guy's pulse just below his jawline. Then he pulled out a keychain light from his pocket and carefully raised John Doe's eyelids, checking his pupils.

"Must've been a strong drug," Nate said, while going through the man's few pockets for documents that might help identify him. "But he's responsive, and that's a good sign."

"So what do we do?"

"Let's give him the whole night, see if he recovers spontaneously," Nate answered, getting back on his feet and stretching a bit. "If not, then we will have to take him to the hospital. Maybe get him admitted with a fake ID."

Eliot nodded, and expected the man to turn around and leave, to grab a bite or use the restroom. But Nate just kept staring at John Doe, with that same look he had when he was studying chess tactical puzzles.

"I can see why this guy got you on the case, Eliot."

"See what?" the hitter asked, crossing his arms with a scowl. He did not like the implication that he had deeper motives to try and help a poor bastard who got dumped in a random warehouse by who knows whom—Nate of all people should know that, having been the mastermind behind a company that did exactly that: help random people. Then again, something about the guy had definitely caught Eliot's attention...

"Eliot... he is your spitting image," Nate grinned, his deep blue eyes zeroing on Eliot. "Give him longer hair and stubble, more muscle, and he could be your twin."

Eliot wasn't the sort to be struck dumb very easily. Heck, he could count on one hand the times in his life that it had happened. But now that he gave John Doe a careful once over, he understood why the motel clerk had believed that they were brothers, and he felt like hitting himself on the head with his carbon-steel wok pan.

"Oh, fuck me..."

~*~

Eliot spent the whole damn night tossing and turning, expecting his unexpected twin to wake up screaming, pulling against his restraints and enacting a botched exorcism-like scene. But when the man did come round, early in the morning, he was surprisingly subdued. He opened his eyes slowly, looked around, made a halfhearted attempt to move his limbs and only saw Eliot standing there when he noticed his own wrist cuffed to the bedpost.

The last time Eliot had woken up next to a cuffed person, they had been having sex, so he figured he should leave the bedside manners to Nathan in this case. He left John Doe alone for the couple of minutes that it took to call Nate from his room next door, and then came back. Apparently, being with two unknown guys in an unknown room did the trick and kicked John Doe's fight or flight response in the ass, because their guest grew agitated and tried to jump off the bed, cuffed hand notwithstanding.

"Take it easy, cowboy," Nathan admonished him, pushing the man gently back towards the pillows. "You had a rough patch, but you're safe now, ok? You're safe."

The man's eyes went from Nathan to Eliot, and the hitter noticed that, despite being in clear disadvantage, he was carefully assessing them, gouging how much of a threat they could be and whether they were telling the truth. He seemed to find what he was looking for, because he visibly relaxed against the pillows.

"I know you," the man rasped, pointing his chin at Nate. "You work for IYS Insurance. Nathan Ford, isn't it?"

"That's right, I used to work there," Nathan explained, sitting on the end of the bed. "But I don't think we've met?"

"Not in person. I'm Lindsey McDonald, I worked for Wolfram & Hart."

"Ah, a lawyer then," Nathan concluded, crossing his legs. "Yes, I remember IYS had business with many Wolfram & Hart clients."

"Yeah," Lindsey agreed, and then his eyes turned to Eliot. It was like staring at a shaven, leaner, short-haired version of himself, and it made the hitter extremely uncomfortable. "And you are?"

"Eliot. Nathan's partner."

He felt, more than saw, Nathan arch an eyebrow at his choice of word. Damned Ford—Eliot wasn't about to hand out his entire resume to a man he'd just met.

"You look like you could use some water, coffee and food," Nathan said, springing up from the bed in a fluid movement. "I'll go get us some, you and Eliot... talk, ok?"

Eliot's first reaction was to mentally curse Nathan for leaving him to carry on the whole bleeding heart chit chat. I ain't Sophie, for Chrissake. On the other hand, the hitter couldn't help but feel curious about the man he had rescued... a man who looked so much like himself, and yet seemed to have come from another world, as if dropped in by an alien spacecraft.

"So," Eliot started, sitting on the edge of the bed. "You said you were with Wolfram & Hart... not working there anymore I take?"

"No, I'm not," was the terse response.

"Working anywhere else right now?"

"Not exactly."

"Any family in Los Angeles?"

"No."

"Friends?"

Silence.

"Listen, man," Eliot said, trying to keep his exasperation in check. "You gotta help me help ya, ok?"

The man's blue-grey eyes narrowed on him, as if he resented being told what to do, even if it was for his own good. Eliot could relate to the feeling, but he hadn't singlehandedly dragged the guy this far to be stonewalled by his pride.

He tried again, his voice just on this side of pissed. "Is there anyone we can call, to let them know where you are?"

Lindsey closed his eyes and took a deep breath, like it physically pained him to have to answer to that. Then he relented. "Angel Investigations."

"Angels what?"

"They are my current... employers... at least they were before I was taken."

"Address? Phone number?"

"1481 Hyperion Avenue, in Los Angeles. Telephone... 555-0163, I think."

Eliot reached out for the motel notepad and pen, on the bedside table, and wrote down the information Lindsey gave him. He tried to question Lindsey further, find out who had taken him and where to, but the lawyer pretty much clammed up. Eliot figured he was just weary of giving two strangers more details—and, in all honesty, Eliot couldn't really condemn the guy for that.

Thankfully, Nate arrived with coffee and breakfast for the three of them. Eliot uncuffed Lindsey so he could eat more comfortably, and then went to sit with Nate at the small table on the corner of the room. They ate in silence until Lindsey excused himself to the bathroom—the window there was too small for anyone to jump through, so Eliot didn't worry about him escaping—, and only when the hitter heard the shower running that he told the older man about his findings.

"He told me he was workin' for a place called Angel Investigations," Eliot whispered, in a conspiratorial tone. "Me, I never even heard of 'em. And trust me, I've had a bunch of people after me in LA."

Nate cocked his head thoughtfully. "Sounds like a PI business, judging by the name."

"We need more intel. For all we know, they could be the ones who tried gettin' rid of him."

They looked at each other in silent agreement. "Hardison."

~*~

Threatening to break all of Hardison's fingers if he dared to come anywhere near LA to try and help them in person earned Eliot a petulant 'you are not the boss me' from the hacker. Apparently, all it took was a fatherly half-resigned 'Hardison' from Nathan to get through to the younger man.

Eliot huffed at Nate's victorious smirk. The man had irremediably broken them.

"So," Nate started, as they exited the freeway and drove into Silver Lake. "Apparently, 'Angel Investigations' doesn't track down embezzlers or do divorce business. Their field of operation is very specialised... something like Philip Marlowe meets Eldritch horror."

The hitter resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and instead glanced at the backseat, to check Lindsey's reaction. The man had sat quietly during the entire ride, perfecting the art of scowling vacantly at the passing landscape, but under Eliot's scrutiny he finally opened his mouth.

"Yeah, something like that."

"We in any danger here?" Eliot asked.

Lindsey scoffed. "Not really."

"Don't think they did this to you, do ya?"

"I know they didn't."

There was an unshakable certainty in Lindsey's voice—clearly, he trusted these people, and it assuaged Eliot's worry. Not that he had any reason to be worried but, for some reason, he had grown somewhat attached to his fake-twin and wanted to make sure he left him better than he had found him. Damned scruples.

"They can't be that great investigators if they failed to find you for, what, seven years?" Nate goaded, offhandedly. Jesus, Ford could really be a bastard when he put his mind to it. Nevertheless, it got them a reaction.

"You don't understand, do you? They wouldn't have found me, no matter what!" Lindsey exclaimed, his accent thickening to an angry southern drawl. For a minute there, Eliot almost worried they were, really, lost twins, but then shook the thought away, as Lindsey continued to talk. "Not there! Not with the sentinels and the Braznarc conjurers, and with Wolfram & Hart—"

Lindsey couldn't finish, his explanation drowning in a frustrated gasp as he pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes, helplessly. When the lawyer's breathing eased back into a comfortable rhythm, Nate tried again, this time gently.

"Can you tell us anything about where you were?"

"I— no—"

Eliot had enough experience with prisons to know that some places messed you up so badly, your mind did you the favour of erasing most of it, condensing the whole thing into an indistinct, but still deeply felt, pain. He could tell a man had gone through such an ordeal just by the look in their eyes when they were forced to recall it, that hundred yard stare that aimed not outwards, but inwards, back to that place in which they hid when their bodies became inhabitable.

He could see that haunted look in Lindsey's eyes, so much like his own. Wherever he had been, it had left scars, perhaps not on his body, but somewhere deeper, harder to access. Eliot really hoped someone at Angel Investigations could help him with that, for Lindsey's sake.

Nathan pulled the rental car over in front of the hotel and got out, inviting Lindsey to follow them. When the man refused to move, Eliot offered for him to wait in the car, at least until they had surveyed the place.

"Promise you ain't running?"

The jaded look Lindsey shot him was all the answer Eliot needed.

Whatever Eliot had expected to find as he and Nate passed by the rectangular fountain in the courtyard and walked through the glass double doors that led into the lobby, a loud squeal definitely wasn't it.

"Lindsey!?"

Eliot stopped on his tracks, tensing for a moment as his body automatically prepared for a fight. But when the source of the voice came into view, he relaxed again. It was a beautiful brunette, standing behind a wrap-around counter, staring at him with wide, transfixed eyes.

"You look so... buff?"

"What!?"

"Lindsey!?"

It seemed the woman's voice attracted the rest of the company, because two men emerged from a door near the front desk. The tall guy in glasses didn't look like the brawling type, but the black guy next to him surely had a fighter stance to him.

"Wait, I ain't Lindsey!"

"You sure?" asked the black guy, crossing his arms. "'Cause you sure look a lot like his twin... the one who lifts tho'."

"The voice is also uncannily the same," commented the other man, with a British tinge to his voice.

Eliot turned pleading eyes to Nate, but the man just chuckled. He did, however, seem to take pity on Eliot's distress and cleared his throat as if about to speak. Before he could start, he was interrupted by another voice, a low and sombre utterance that echoed off the high walls.

"Lindsey?"

The voice belonged to a pale dark-haired man, all dressed in black, who was watching the commotion in his lobby from the stairs. Just from the way all the others went immediately quiet at his presence, Eliot could ascertain that he was the boss. He noticed how the man sized Nathan up from across the hall with gimlet eyes, and the way Nate bore the weight of that stare without buckling. They were measuring each other up, trying to read each other's intentions. Then the man's dark eyes turned to Eliot and, despite putting on his best menacing growling face, every hair on his neck was bristling.

Nathan chose this moment to put on his little show.

"We are sorry for this misunderstanding," Nate started, waltzing back and forth as if in his living room, and not surrounded by potential foes. "I'm Nathan Ford, and this is my associate—"

"Eliot Spencer," he barked through gritted teeth, as to discourage any more squealing about him being Lindsey.

"Yes, and he's not Lindsey. We are here because the actual Lindsey told us he worked for you, and gave us this address."

"Lindsey's here? Where?" the dark-haired man demanded, coming down the stairs with all the poise of a predator who hasn't decided whether he will strike or not. Nathan seemed rather unimpressed by the whole display, but Eliot still took a step closer to him. Nate laid himself open too fucking often for Eliot's taste.

"In the car, taking his sweet time," Nathan deadpanned. "Relax, ok? He's fine, we found him during one of our jobs and we helped him."

"And what sort of job do you do?"

The Angel Investigation bossman was getting too close for comfort, but Nathan obviously refused to be intimidated. "How about I get some names first? I don't appreciate being interrogated by complete strangers."

That seemed to disarm the man a bit, and he stepped out of Nate's personal space. "I'm Angel."

Angel? What kind of fuckin' name... Eliot thought, his eyes scanning the room as the others also introduced themselves. The pretty brunette was Cordelia, the British guy, Wesley, and the black guy, Gunn. He made sure to remember their names and faces well, so he could ask Hardison to run a background check on them, if needed.

"So, as I was saying—"

"I found Lindsey in a warehouse just outside the city," Eliot barged in, tired of Nate beating around the bush. "He was out cold, like he'd been drugged. Apparently he's been gone for nearly seven years, kept in a prison he can't even talk about, probably being tortured," he spat the last part, very pissed off all of a sudden.

Nate lay a calming hand on his upper arm. Easy Eliot, don't threaten Lindsey's only potential allies, the pressure of his fingertips said.

"We didn't know," Cordelia spoke, and the distress in her voice was so palpable it immediately deflated Eliot. "I mean, we knew Wolfram & Hart took him.. we tried going into their building hundreds of times to get information... I kept waiting for a vision but it never came..."

"It's true," Wesley concurred, "we went after every demon that could have information on his whereabouts, even tried to get to Lilah, his ex-colleague, to no avail..."

"Wait, wait—demons?" Nathan asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

"It's complicated," Angel said, running a hand through his meticulously gelled hair and messing it up in the process. "Where is Lindsey?"

"I'm here, Angel."

Everyone's heads whipped back towards the front door so fast Eliot swore he heard a faint 'swoosh' in the silence of the room. Lindsey was standing there, his body very straight and very still, like a condemned building seconds before demolition.

Angel was instantly in front of him, eyes roaming over Lindsey as if he couldn't decide whether or not he was real. There was something frantic about the way they looked at each other, Eliot could not tell whether it was fury, hatred or passion, but the intensity put him unease. There was something between these two he could not gather, an important thing he was missing, and it bothered him. He turned to Nate, whose deceptively soft eyes glittered with newfound understanding.

"Where were you, Lindsey?"

"I don't know."

"How can you not know?" Angel demanded, sounding way too angry for someone who was seeing a lost comrade for the first time in years. The others visibly flinched at it.

"I can't— I don't—"

Angel suddenly grabbed Lindsey by the upper arms, shaking him a bit. "Were you back with them? Were you?"

A flush of indignation spread over Lindsey's face, and he shoved Angel away with a merciless push on his chest before rushing out of the door. Eliot followed him, leaving Nathan to sort things out with Angel and his team.

~*~

They were mostly silent on the ride back to the motel, with Nathan promising Lindsey they would find a way to clarify things with Angel and his team. Lindsey didn't seem to buy it though, getting all cagey during the drive.

Eliot wondered what kind of life he had led to make him so mistrustful. Not that trust was ever a given in Eliot's line of work, but when the opportunity came to relax, enjoy himself and, maybe, lend a little short-term trust, Eliot usually took it—a temporary solace in his life of violence. He counted on his instincts to keep him smart, and he also knew he could defend himself if things went downhill.

Maybe that was a big difference between them. There was a side of Eliot that had always remained kinda wild, sniffing the wind for threats and priming itself for the conflicts life would throw his way. That was the part of him that kept his body strong and healthy, and that enjoyed a good roll in the hay, a hearty plate of food and a warm fire to sit by. It was also that side of him that lost control sometimes—always with brutal consequences—, but one couldn't have the good without some of the bad.

He glanced at the man through the rear-view mirror. Perhaps Lindsey never got a chance at this. His wild self had been beaten, starven, forced into captivity, trapped inside suits, its self-defence instincts blunted by excessively mental jobs.

He wondered if Nathan could be going down the same path as Lindsey. He already had, in many ways. But Nate seemed to be made of a different material altogether, he had a cold steel core underneath all that deceiving languor and, even when he was as drunk as a skunk, his instincts were sharp. He trusted his inner voice and vision. And now that he was, apparently, taking a break from alcohol, he seemed to be even more self-possessed—although Eliot could only imagine what a bitch of a withdrawal Nate must have endured the first days of going cold turkey.

There had been hope for Nate. There must also be hope for Lindsey.

~*~

"We were enemies. I spent nearly two years of my life hating Angel's guts."

Eliot was taken aback when Lindsey began to talk spontaneously. He had just arrived with dinner for both of them—Nate was off doing whatever Nade did—and he had expected to spend the rest of the evening in unnerving silence. But as soon as they sat down at the table to eat their Thai takeout, Lindsey seemed to get comfortable enough to speak.

"What changed?" Eliot asked, keeping a light touch.

"There were jobs Wolfram & Hart gave me that I just... couldn't," Lindsey said, filling the gap with an evocative twirl of his hand, "and then I went to Angel for help. After the first time we worked together, I ended up going back to the firm."

"They took you back?"

"They offered me a promotion."

Well fuck me runnin'. Bureaucracy, backstairs influence and duplicitous fine-print caveats were only some of the reasons why Eliot had always avoided big companies like the plague, except to steal from them. Wolfram & Hart did seem to take corporate mindfuck to a whole new level though.

"And Angel... he was a bastard, treated me like shit. Not that I hadn't it coming but—"

"Not a promising partnership, eh?"

Lindsey nodded in agreement, shoving a big shrimp in his mouth. Eliot couldn't explain why, but seeing the other in the mood to eat made him happy.

"And the second time?" he probed, tentatively.

"That's when I decided to quit. I'd nowhere to go, and I knew Wolfram & Hart would come after me. They don't leave loose ends. So I went to Angel again and... he took me in. For the intel, I guess. I mean, he had all the reason in the world to turn me away but he let me stay."

"You don't have to keep makin' excuses for him, y'know?"

"We both had a hand in stirring things up," Lindsey stated, in a way that evinced he had spent a long time confronting his own mistakes. It took courage to shoulder one's allotment of sins without rationalising them, or hiding them in a closet. Eliot himself still resisted looking down the bloody trail of his own past, so he admired Lindsey for having the guts to come clean with himself.

With a sigh, and after another mouthful of his Coconut Curry Shrimp, Lindsey continued. "The firm meddled with Angel's past. They brought up... things... that were better off left dead. I got in too deep, and crushing Angel became my Holy Grail. I thought that if I could best him, I'd prove myself... worthy," Lindsey snickered, self-deprecatingly. "In the end it all went to shit, and I'd no one to turn to."

Eliot nodded, quietly encouraging Lindsey to carry on while taking a sip of his beer. When Lindsey spoke again, his voice was cracking slightly, and he avoided Eliot's eyes.

"But Angel was there. He didn't have to be, not for me, but he was."

They ate the rest of the food in companionable silence. Later on, when both were lying side by side on the double bed, trying to watch whatever game the shitty tube TV in the room was airing, it dawned on Eliot that he had gained Lindsey's trust without having done much to warrant it, at least not in his opinion. He wondered if their uncanny physical likeness had prompted the other man to confide in him, just like it had made Eliot go out of his way to help him

"It's kinda funny but," Lindsey started, and for the first time he sounded relaxed, "the team only started trusting me for real when I helped them negotiate a better lease agreement for the hotel. Real Estate Law isn't really my area, but beggars can't be choosers."

Lindsey chuckled and Eliot just followed him, naturally.

"After that, things got easier. I got along better with Cordelia, even Wesley seemed less jittery about having me around. And Angel, we... sorta fell into a routine."

"A good one?"

"Yeah," Lindsey whispered, his sleepy eyes looking far away into the past. "For the first time I felt... safe. Crazy, uh?"

Eliot shrugged. "He wasn't your enemy anymore."

"Guess not."

Eliot then turned to him, before asking the difficult question. "Then what happened?"

"Wolfram & Hart set a trap for him," Lindsey explained, giving Eliot a sideways glance. "And used the opportunity to punish me. Two birds, one stone."

The conclusive silence that followed told Eliot that was it, no more talking for the night. He had already got more from Lindey than he could have ever hoped for. Not feeling sleepy enough yet to turn in, Eliot asked the lawyer if he wanted anything from the vending machine.

"Anything not too trashy," Lindsey answered, with a small smile.

So Eliot got up from the bed and went down the corridor to where the vending machines were. He was there, trying to make the damned thing accept his extra wrinkly dollar bill, when someone cleared his throat behind him. Nathan. He always made sure to let Eliot know he was approaching, in order to not startle him.

All in all, a very smart survival strategy.

"Lawyers... they live in a world of exploitation, dirt-digging and backstabbing," Nate reasoned, resting against the vending machine. "It's no surprise that he doesn't trust easily. And, clearly, he and Angel have a private bone to pick that's making things worse."

Of course Nathan has already puzzled the situation out, even without knowing the details. The man had an eagle eye for people's feelings and motivations, except when it came to the maze of his own self.

Eliot clicked his tongue. "That's why I don't like dealin' with suits."

"You deal with me," Nate quipped.

"It's different."

"How?"

Eliot could not really articulate a decent response, so he turned away from Nate's prying eyes and went to take the Clif Bars back to Lindsey. They had arranged with Angel's team to return to the Hyperion the next day, to try and get to the bottom of the 'Lindsey problem', and Eliot wanted to be in top form for it.

Besides, Eliot knew now that he was no longer just a man on a job—he was a man on a mission.

~*~

Being a part of a discussion with Angel's team was, Eliot thought, like walking into a convention of crazy. He tried to follow the conversation with as much an open mind as possible, but hearing about demons, dimensional pockets and visions was something his military mind found a bit hard to assimilate.

Nathan, on the other hand, seemed as unfazed as usual, rolling with the punches, as if talking about interdimensional hellish prisons and time distortion was something he often did. And maybe he had done so, at some point in his career. With Nate, there was no telling.

"From what you are describing, Lindsey aged not one jot since he was taken," the British guy, Wesley, said. When Nathan and Eliot arrived, all of Angel's team had been already expecting them, except for Gunn who had left on an errand of his own.

"Yep," Nate agreed, "and as you can imagine, he was very disoriented when he discovered he missed seven years of his life."

"I am not surprised," Wesley continued, flipping through a heavy book he had in his hand. "Prison dimensions are notorious for their time distortion devices."

"They do that to torture their inmates for longer?" Eliot asked, trying to find a parallel between Lindsey's supernatural imprisonment and his own personal experience.

"It might be, depending on what they want from their prisoners," Wesley said. "With time distortion, they can draw the torture out for years, whereas if time passed as it does for us, the prisoner would die or go mad too quickly."

"Well," Nathan chimed in, "Wolfram & Hart would certainly draw punishment out, especially against one of their own, if he betrayed them."

"How do you even know about the firm?" Cordelia asked.

"I, uh, had my skirmishes with their attorneys, back in the day," Nate explained, sheepishly. "Wolfram & Hart clients have a thing for both hoarding and destroying ancient artefacts."

Cordelia turned to Wesley, who confirmed the information with a sympathetic bob of his head. Eliot made a mental note to ask Nathan later if he and Sterling ever had to investigate a demon's lair—and if they knew the client was a demon, in the first place.

"Something still bothers me though," Nathan continued, walking to and fro like he often did in front of the six-screen video display at the Leverage office. "Why release Lindsey now? Because unless he developed a dimensional crossing superpower while in prison, well... They must have let him go."

"And not only did they let him go," Wesley added, picking up where Nathan left. "They abandoned him in a place where no one would find him, or go looking for him."

"They left him there to die alone," Eliot concluded, dryly.

"Why go through all this trouble just to let him die?" Angel asked, speaking up for the first time since Nate and Eliot arrived in his office.

"What if Lindsey wasn't their only target?" Nathan put forth, his shrewd eyes turning towards Angel, who seemed to instantly grasp what the mastermind was alluding to. Eliot could swear he saw a faint blush spread across the man's eerily pale skin.

Angel crossed his arms petulantly, as if the whole thing had nothing to do with him. "And why would I care if Lindsey got taken? It wouldn't be the first time he ran back to Wolfram & Hart anyway."

"Oh, c'mon Angel, we all know he didn't run back to them," Cornelia scoffed, standing there with her hands on her hips in a way that practically dared Angel to challenge her. "Besides, you've been counting the days ever since he disappeared."

"I stopped it, Cordy!" Angel protested, defensively.

"When?" Nathan asked, and Angel seemed surprised by the man's seriousness.

"A few... days... ago?"

Eliot groaned. Who the fuck spent seven years tallying up that sort of thing unless they—Shit. He turned his eyes to Nathan, who tilted his head in acknowledgment. It never ceased to amaze Eliot how seamlessly their minds worked together, even if they arrived at the same conclusion by entirely different means.

"According to Eliot," Wesley pointed, "that's more or less when he found Lindsey at the warehouse."

"So, the duration of Lindsey's captivity depended on... Angel counting?" Cordelia asked, her perfect eyebrows knit in a frown.

"It depended on Angel giving up on finding him," Eliot reasoned, his words hanging like a heavy cloud over the entire room.

"And knowing Wolfram & Hart, they'd eventually lead you to his body, to capitalise on your guilt," Nate spoke, in the calculating tone he used when closing a con. "Stir something bad in you that benefits them."

"That might've worked, especially after Darla," Cordelia noted, getting the stink eye from Angel, which she masterfully ignored.

Angel shook with barely contained emotion, but his face was unreadable. They all remained immersed in a thoughtful silence, until a presence at the front door snapped them out of it.

"Yo, Wes," Gunn's voice called, a little out of breath. "I found that Lubber demon Lorne told us about. Vokoth said the firm put a spell on him when he was taken, that made it impossible to talk about what'd happened there. Lorne had to help him unblock it, and it took months."

When no one responded, Gunn threw himself into one of the armchairs, taking in the grave atmosphere of the room. "What'd I miss?"

"I'll fill you in later," Wesley said, turning to Angel. "We need to bring Lindsey back, Angel."

"He needs us," Cordelia seconded.

Clearly, being cornered by own team did not agree with Angel, because he disappeared upstairs before any of them could say anything else.

~*~

They were somewhere near the Los Angeles River when the nagging weight of unfinished business in Eliot's stomach got the best of him, and he asked Nathan to pull over. The older man eyed him curiously, but made no protest nor demanded any explanation when Eliot got out of the car, claiming there was something he had to take care of.

"Watch Lindsey when you get back," Eliot instructed.

"Want me to come pick you up later?"

"Nah, I'll take a cab."

"Suit yourself," Nate shrugged. "But you'll pay through your nose."

Eliot tried to make a face, but Nate's winsome little grin disarmed him, so he just shut the door of the car and watched as the other drove off his way. He then turned around and started walking back to the Hyperion Hotel, giving himself some time to think.

He would be lying if he said he felt comfortable with the idea of a supernatural world superimposed upon the reality he was used to. But Eliot was the sort of man who took the bull by the horns, so if the situation demanded that he suspend his disbelief, he would do that just fine.

The problem was that it opened a whole new can of worms right before his eyes.

Eliot's gut churned with the certainty that finding Lindsey had been no mere coincidence. The man might have been released from his imprisonment by Angel's decision to stop looking for him. But he had crossed Eliot's path for another reason, one that the hitter couldn't begin to explain, because the whole abracadabra thing eluded him. He simply knew it to be so.

He and Lindsey were connected. How and why? He had no idea, but he was sure it was something Wesley could find the answer to.

By the time he arrived at the Hyperion, the sun had already set. Eliot knew that Angel's team was active at night, so he was surprised to find the hotel lobby completely dark and deserted when he walked in.

Not all of Eliot's training and experience could have prepared him for the hands that curled around his upper arms, turning him around and pressing him into the nearest wall so fast at least three laws of physics were broken in the process. Angel's presence had always caused Eliot to be on his guard, but now he knew for a fact that the man was strong, preternaturally strong, and this could be first time in Eliot's life that he had been physically overpowered before even getting into the fight.

Eliot had never been a prey, no matter how unfavourable his position. But at that moment, pinned helpless against the wall, he felt like one.

"Lindsey?"

"Christ on a crutch! I'm not—"

He was cut short by Angel bending down to sniff his neck. And not just sniff, but inhale, as if he were a drug addict and Eliot was a statue made of the purest coke. Normally, Eliot would have gladly thrown the motherfucker across the room for that little stunt, but this particular motherfucker held him down with a body as unyielding as steel, and nearly as heavy.

"You look just like him."

The sheer grief in Angel's words was like a bucket of cold water on Eliot's anger. Then he felt warm lips graze the junction between his neck and shoulder, and froze on the spot.

"But you don't smell like him."

No shit, Eliot thought, as Angel finally released him and walked over to sit on a red couch nearby. The hitter smoothed down his clothes and straightened his jacket before joining the other man there, deciding to keep him company for a bit. After all, he had to make sure Lindsey had somewhere safe to return to, and he needed to know if Angel was on board with it.

"When I saw you," Angel started, without looking at him, "I almost hoped that you were Lindsey."

"Why?"

"Because it'd have meant that Lindsey came back stronger. Strong enough to keep the firm off his back. Strong enough to... not need someone like me."

"Lindsey is strong," Eliot argued. "He just needs someone to remind him. Can you imagine surviving seven years of... whatever happened to him? And stayin' sane?"

"I know," Angel said, ruefully. "It's just... I'm a danger to him."

"He doesn't seem to think that."

Angel let out a mirthless laugh. "You have no idea the things I've done to him. And now he got kidnapped and tortured because of me, so maybe he should wise up."

"Yeah, and you sent him away, so maybe you should sit here with your head up your guilty ass 'til kingdom come, 'cause that's gonna do y'all a helluva good."

This time, Angel's chuckle was honest. "Cordy gave me hell over it."

"As she damn well should. Look," Eliot said, scooting over closer to Angel, "I don't know what you are or what you've done, and I don't wanna know. But I know a thing or two about being a loose canon and ruining everything, alright?"

"It's not the same—"

"No, listen—I know what's like to be afraid that you're gonna wake up one morning and run rampant on your own people. But you gotta give them more credit. You gotta believe in their strength just as much as they believe in yours." At Angel's subtle nod, Eliot continued. "For men like us, the people we choose to love become the line we don't cross. Push them away, and you won't have your line. And that's when you'll become the danger you were fearing all along."

Angel sat quietly for a while, as if weighing Eliot's words. The aura of remorse that seemed to cling to the man like a second skin was still there, but his overall posture relaxed a bit. Eliot was no fool—he knew no pep talk would fix whatever had happened between Angel and Lindsey, that had made their relationship so damn complicated. But words were all he had to give at the moment, and he needed Angel willing to fight.

For Lindsey's sake, he needed Angel willing to believe in himself.

"I'm not sure Lindsey will ever trust me again," Angel sighed.

"Open your eyes, Angel," Eliot grinned, patting the other man on the shoulder. "Linds' just waiting for you to tell him he can come home."

~*~

In the end, Eliot had to pay an arm and a leg for the cab back to San Bernardino. It wouldn't have been quite as aggravating if he hadn't had to endure Nate's shit-eating smirk throughout dinner afterwards. The only reason he did not knock the man sometimes was because he had come to like and trust him more than it was reasonable.

At least he had good news to deliver. Judging by how antsy Lindsey got, though, one could have easily assumed that Eliot had offered to take him to the scaffold instead of home.

Home, Eliot thought. Home was where the heart was, and his heart hadn't been in any of the small jobs he had taken since the Leverage team scattered. The truth was that life without Nathan and the others was lacklustre, but Eliot wasn't quite ready to acknowledge that yet, despite his nice speech to Angel. Eliot didn't torture himself over it, though—his own homecoming would happen when it had to, and not a minute too soon.

The hour-long drive to the Hyperion Hotel the next morning was, as usual, very quiet. Wistfully, Eliot realised that this would be the last time they drove down that familiar road, at least for the time being. Only a few days had passed since he'd found Lindsey unconscious in that warehouse, but as with all the things ruled by the emotions, time had stretched so that he felt he had known Lindsey for much longer than that.

There was another world, coexisting side by side with the very reality that Eliot took for granted. Who knew what mystery had caused their paths to cross? And who could say it hadn't happened before? In the end, Eliot's only regret was that he never got around to asking Wesley about it.

When they parked in front of the hotel, Eliot expected Lindsey to rush inside to meet Angel and the others. Instead, the lawyer slowed down his steps until he came to a complete halt, in the middle of the courtyard.

"Eliot, a word?"

Eliot looked at Nate, who was a few steps ahead, waiting for them. Nate read the request in his eyes and walked on, granting them privacy.

"What is it?"

"We haven't known each other for long but... you never felt like a complete stranger, y'know? Maybe it's because you look so much like me..."

Eliot shoved his hands down his pocket, unusually self-conscious. But he was smiling when he answered. "So you felt it too."

"Yeah, and I kept thinking about it," Lindsey mused, crossing his arms. "Well, looks like Wes and I have some research to do."

"If you find the answer, let me know. Here," Eliot retrieved a small piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Lindsey. "That's my phone. Sometimes I go, uh, off the grid, but I'll call back when I can."

"Alright then," Lindsey said, running his hand through his hair. "Thanks for everything, Eliot."

The two of them finally went inside the hotel. Much to Eliot's surprise, the only person waiting for them there besides Nate was Angel, and the two of them were talking casually, in hushed tones. The conversation ceased immediately as soon as Angel noticed Lindsey's presence.

Once again, Eliot felt the intense way they gazed at each other, and it was as if the air itself grew denser with all the unsaid things standing between the two of them. This time, however, he understood what it was all about, and promptly moved out of the way to give them more space.

"Hey Linds," Angel greeted, awkwardly.

"Angel."

"I'm sorry about the other day, I—"

It was Lindsey who crossed the distance between them first, while Angel stumbled over the many apologies he felt he owed the other man. He only stopped when Lindsey patted him on the arm, in a friendly gesture. "I know Angel. It's fine."

"No, it's not," Angel said, earnestly, placing his hands on Lindsey's shoulders. "We'll find out what happened to you. And whatever it is, whatever it means... you won't go through it alone anymore. I promise you."

Lindsey didn't respond, but the way he lowered his lashes, clearly shielding his eyes from Angel's resolute gaze, said everything. And they stayed like that, in a slow, silent dance of mutual recognition, until Angel spoke again.

"Your guitar is still in your room," he said in a gentle voice, and his manner was almost shy.

"I still have a room?" Lindsey asked, guardedly.

"Always. For as long as you want it."

It took only a heartbeat of uncertainty before Lindsey responded. "I want it, Angel."

At that, Eliot took his cue to leave, and he was not surprised to see Nathan follow him outside. Eliot hadn't told Nate about the previous evening, when he came to confront Angel by himself, but he suspected the man had already sussed it out. Eliot could count in one hand the things in life that gave him the heebie-jeebies, but Nathan's uncanny mental acuity was definitely amongst them.

"Our job here's done but... they still have a long way to go," Eliot commented, tipping his head towards the door from which they had just come.

"Don't we all, Eliot?" Nate remarked, cryptically, while gazing at the hitter with equally hieroglyphic eyes. For some reason, this unnerved Eliot more than Angel sniffing him had.

Eliot had agreed to return the rental car on his way to the airport, so he pretty much expected the other man to simply walk away as soon as their job was done. Asking Nathan to come all the way to Los Angeles, where at any moment Sterling and his goons could find him, had been a tall request, and Eliot would not hold it against him if he decided to wrap things up without further ado.

Nate, however, did not seem to be in any hurry to leave. In fact, his mood was uncharacteristically affable—a far cry from the unstable, wretched (if still brilliant) man of a few months before. Whatever epiphany Nate had after getting his revenge on Blackpool and coming clear with Maggie, it was certainly doing him good.

But tempting fate was never wise, and Eliot knew that every minute they remained out there, in broad daylight, increased exponentially the chance of one of them being seen and caught. It was time to say goodbye.

"Thanks Nate."

"Any time, Eliot," Nate said, leaning a bit too much into Eliot's personal space. "Take care". And then he gave Eliot that good-natured wink he usually reserved for Parker, before shouldering his bag and turning around to hail a cab.

Eliot stood there long after the cab disappeared from his field of vision. Something inside him moved, treacherously, and he caught himself trying to make sense of it, without much success.

Perhaps some time in Pakistan would help him figure it out.