AUTHOR: Mari, aka Cyni1@aol.com
FEEDBACK: Praise, critiques.....I'm just a feedback junkie who lives off it all
RATING: PG-15 for themes dealing with cutting and suicide. If you have issues with either of these things I strongly suggest you not read it.
SPOILERS: Epiphany
DISCLAIMER: Joss, not I.
DEDICATION: To Autumn for doing a fantastic job as Beta Reader

The bruises faded to a sickly yellow-brown in a few weeks time. Soon they would be healed entirely and no sign of the fight between he and Angel would remain, except for the little smirk Lilah would get on her face as she asked him if he had fallen and hit his face on any more countertops. And of course there were his own memories, his own hatred.

Lindsey stared at himself in the mirror above his bathroom sink, noting but not really focusing on the dark circles under his eyes and the gaunt, worn down look his face was beginning to take. He lightly pressed the fading marks with the tips of his fingers. Though they were no longer physically painful the bruises were only another reminder of Angel's victory.

He emerged from the living room, tried to sit down on the couch, and immediately jumped up again to prowl about the room. Too many reminders for him to be allowed rest. Exquisite, tasteful furniture paid for with both innocent blood and his own. Rich blood that Darla had sipped refinedly, either straight out of the bottle or from the delicate wineglasses that she was so fond of, while lounging on his couch and whispering soft promises into his ear. She would stroke the sides of his face and laugh with a bell-like, seductive pleasure that she had never exhibited as a human while she spoke of the future they could have together if he would only do this one more thing for her... Lindsey set his lips into so hard a line that they nearly disappeared. False promises and words that he had lapped up as trustingly as a child. She had told him that when the time was right she would turn him and he would feel no more guilt, no more pain. Idiot, he had believed her.

Lindsey fixed himself a strong drink and made no pretense of savoring it. In three gulps it was gone and he was immediately making another. Lindsey was losing weight; the only thing he could seem to keep down was bourbon. He hardly even had the benefit of getting drunk anymore. It was just a transition period from one bout with consciousness to another.

'You sold your soul for a corner office and a company car.' Angel's voice from nearly a year before echoing through his head. "Maybe, " Lindsey murmured, "but I did it on my own terms, didn't I?" He raised the glass to the empty room and drained it. The perpetual headache behind his eyes lessened a little. If he drank long enough it would, not disappear, but at least fade to the point where it became a background distraction. Guilt was not so easy to push away. Lindsey wondered if he could ever get enough booze into his system to free himself from that great burden. If he ever managed to it would probably kill him. 'Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.'

And if he died tonight from the very liquor that was making it possible for him to function, what then? He had a good idea. Someplace nice and hot. Lindsey couldn't say he had earned any better for himself. So determined not to be his father, not to be pathetic and let himself be walked over, that now he didn't know how to survive beyond those self-serving ideals.

More than a little drunk now, Lindsey prepared his third drink and made it disappear as quickly as the other two. He turned the empty glass slowly, watching bright points of light play across it. On an impulse he slammed the glass with all his strength against the edge of the counter and watched it shatter. Most of the pieces were harmless slivers, but one fragment of the perfect size winked up at him from the mess on the floor. Almost entranced by the way the light still played with the piece of glass even though it had been destroyed, Lindsey bent down and picked it up. The glass bit deeply into his into his fingers as they closed around it, but he was beyond feeling the pain. Lindsey turned the fragment from side to side, inspecting it. A weapon really could be made from anything. Lindsey slowly lowered it to his forearm. A moment's more hesitation and he pressed down, watching a bead of redness well up from the site. It didn't hurt, Lindsey marveled. It was just ... numb. Finally. He felt nothing. Finally. The attorney pressed the jagged piece down harder, still feeling nothing that could be definitively labeled as pain, just an odd, detached feeling of rightness. On the second stroke Lindsey pressed the odd little weapon down even further and dragged it until the glass met with the tender skin in the crook of his elbow. The drop of scarlet turned into a small river that ran across the plastic fingers of his new prosthetic, bought with even more blood through firm connections. Still nothing. Nothing and nothing and nothing.

Lindsey stared impassively at the shallow wound for a moment more, then raised the glass to the light again. It was stained a rich ruby red. Was that really his blood? How could it be, when he had yet to feel the wound?

The attorney set the bit of glass down and reached for the bottle of bourbon. He drank deeply, until long after the burning in his throat turned into the incomparably more pleasant glow in his stomach. The load of guilt that had been riding his heels for months wasn't going to be put away with bourbon and a few bleeding wounds on his arm. Oh no, not that easily, not at all. Lindsey chuckled without humor. There was only one way he was going to be rid of that. If he had the balls, that was. Lindsey tilted his chin up an experimentally placed the glass against the vulnerable hollow of his throat. It was just the right size to fit comfortably, as if it were made to rest there. All it would take was one little nudge or flick of the wrist on Lindsey's part and that would be the end of it. The end of the guilt and the sorrow and the endless pain in exchange for, if he was lucky, eternal nothingness. Lindsey closed his eyes, steeling himself with several deep breaths, and pushed on the lethal bit of glass.

Pain. Bright and clarifying and a hell of a lot less pleasurable than the numbness he had been riding. Lindsey gasped and his eyes flew open. He jerked, hurling away the unassuming weapon that had nearly ended his life. Lindsey clamped his hand to his throat and felt the warm stickiness of his own blood. Not a lot, but enough to make him stare disbelievingly at the redness on his palm. The heavy drunkenness lifted somewhat and everything slammed back into place.

"Oh, my God." Lindsey slowly sank to the floor and dropped his head into his hands. He had been so very, very close to throwing away the only chance he had left. For the sake of guilt, for the sake of weakness, he had been ready to end it. Lowering his head further, Lindsey began to weep. It made him feel no lighter, but he didn't seek the tempting abyss again.

Near dawn, Lindsey struggled to his feet. Bone deep weariness followed him to the phone, watched as he lifted the receiver to his ear and dialed a number. Lindsey sagged against the wall and closed his eyes as he waited for the other line to be picked up.

"Hello?" Lindsey pulled the phone away from his ear and nearly placed it back in the cradle. 'Make your choice,' he ordered himself, 'and make it now.' "Hello? Okay, whoever's there, I need you to talk to me before I can help you."

"I'm sorry," Lindsey finally whispered brokenly into the phone.

There was an eternally long pause. "Lindsey?" The vampire's voice became guarded.

A deep breath, and he almost wished for the numbness again. "I need your help."