|
DISCLAIMER: I want Linds, please? He's so evil, so handsome and so lawyer-y, I
want him!
SUMMARY: He is not. And betrayal. AtS5 spoilers.
WORDCOUNT: 669
DEDICATION: For Ragna. *hugs*
HERITANCE
by Leni
He isn't the man he dreamed to be as a child. That man
would lead a normal life, have a cozy home, a loving wife and kisses good-night without
getting his heart extricated from his chest as a payment. He was supposed to be a
good-hearted fellow, someone others would look up to. That man wouldn’t have accepted
to work at Wolfram & Hart, he definitely wouldn’t have striven to get promotion
after promotion until the top was so close he could touch it. That man would have never
survived a week in his job, he would have blurred in the background of the rest of
humanity, a simple number in statistics no one cared about. That man would be nothing,
just that dream a clueless child conjured decades ago. Lindsey couldn’t handle the
thought of being nothing, so he became.
He’s not a good guy. Good guys always try his best at that redemption stuff. Lindsey
found he wasn’t really interested after only a couple months. He knows that’s
nothing, knows first hand of a schmuck going at it for a century and plus already. A good
guy would still be on the road, as far from Los Angeles as he could get, always attempting
hard to gain his freedom and his own forgiveness. A good guy would still be fleeing from
Wolfram & Hart, like a mouse trying to outrun the cat, still looking behind his
shoulder every five minutes and seeing Collectors in every street. No, Lindsey's not in
that life, so he pulled over and came back.
But he’s not evil either. If he were, he would have never tried to leave Wolfram
& Hart in the first place. But then, he’s learned that very few people – or
non people – are actually evil. Ask a Luith if it’s evil. They aren’t. They
don’t want to end the world or make humans their slaves. By humanity’s standards
Luiths, as all other demons, should be evil. Yet they breathed, walked and ate the same as
anyone else. Luiths just wanted to be left alone, live in peace, and sacrifice a firstborn
every second solstice. In a world where abortion is a God-given right and winter brings
too many little bodies to the morgues, what was the big deal? Were Luiths really
‘evil’? If Lindsey limited his functions to smooth things and paperwork so that
there’d be as few casualties as possible, should he be 'evil' too? No, of
course not.
He’s human, though, and plans to stay that way. There were times when he was offered
the elixir of life, eternity being dangled before him as the ultimate prize. It’s
not. Not for him. Mortality is too underrated in his world, which is strange when
it’s populated by so many who wear the weight of centuries in their eyes. He can gain
everything he wants in one lifetime, Lindsey is that confident in his abilities. He’s
already had power, money and the life millions only read about and he knows more awaits
him. There’s something poetic in the idea of his own mortality, something natural
where nothing else is. Sometimes Lindsey wonders what’ll happen after Death catches
him, who’ll have his eyes, or his voice, and will know his story to continue it in
his absence. Those are the times Lindsey looks at Eve with the kindest look he can find,
thinking that life will be good long before it is over.
Too bad it’s too late to change his mind.
He's not good, not a hero, not the monster and just too human, too mortal. He is dying
now, that he is. Betrayed by the one Lindsey thought to be a good man, the best-hearted
demon. Betrayed by the one who should be evil but wasn't. Lorne is no hero, either, too
human to be a demon and too guilty not to.
As his eyes close and shocked disbelief becomes acceptance, Lindsey can't help but be
amused that it is Lorne who will follow his steps.
The End
30/01/05
Feedback
is welcome!
|