Southern Comfort (12/?)

Author- Midnight Faith

Spoilers- 'Waiting in the Wings' BtVS 'Real me'

Distribution- FF.net, AOH anyone else just ask :)

Pairing- Lilah/Lindsey

Rating- PG-13

Summary- Lindsey's finding it hard without Lilah…

Disclaimer- not mine… yadda, yadda

Angel appeared in the doorway to Wesley's office, early on Monday morning, three weeks after Lilah had moved into Fred's room.

It was mid-June, fast approaching midsummer's night and on most days the temperature in the Hyperion exceeded 100 ^o F.

Even at seven a.m. Lilah had the stand-alone fan in the office fixed to the highest setting.

"Hi," Angel said awkwardly.

"Hey," she said, looking up from the case files strewn across Wesley's desk, giving him a genuine smile.

He walked into the office and sat down on the office chair on the opposite side of the desk to her.

"Early start?" he asked.

"Yeah I need to get my head back into this case… we need a substitute word for demon… say crazy dog or rabid racoon…" she told Angel.

He laughed. In the past weeks once they'd got through the initial awkward phase and scratched away Lilah's frightened exterior he found she was really easy to talk to… in a concerned, brief five minute conversation way.

"No Lindsey?" Angel asked apathetically.

"What you really mean are how are things with you and Lindsey?" Lilah clarified. "They're fine. We have a purely professional thing going on. We sit. We work. We discuss nothing but the case. We stop at five, he goes to his room and I don't see him until the next morning."

"So you won't be moving into your old room anytime soon?"

"Anytime period. Lindsey and Cordy are spending today painting up his new room."

"It doesn't bother you?"

"Why should it?" Lindsey and I are no longer together… why are you asking anyway?"

"We've got someone coming to stay with us for the summer. Her name's Dawn. Kinda a long story…"

"Sister of your ex?" she grinned devilishly.

"Apparently not that long. How did you know?"

"I know everything. So you want the room for her? Go ahead. It's not like we'll be using it anytime soon…"

*****

"Is this the best you could do?" Cordy asked Lindsey rolling the pistachio green paint onto the walls of his room.

From his place up the stepladder where he was white washing the ceiling Lindsey looked down at her.

"No-one has any money," Lindsey reminded Cordy, "We're getting sued. Pistachio was the cheapest stuff I could find at the hardware store."

"We could've just coated the walls with tar," Cordy quipped nonchalantly, "That would've been classier… how are you going to live with this colour since you spend most of your time hiding up here anyway?"

"I do not *hide* up here… it's … easier… that's all,"

"Easier?"

"Yeah… it's just…"

"Last night Lilah and Gunn went to a bar didn't get home til four a.m. and you got really jealous?" Cordy finished for him.

"Yes… I mean no… I don't know." Lindsey said.

Cordelia put her paint tray and roller down on the floor and sat down cross-legged.

"There's nothing between Gunn and Lilah," Cordy told him, "Seriously there's not. She gave up her Sunday to work on some trivial law suit so Gunn took her out for a drink to say thankyou."

"Exactly… Gunn took her out… I thought Wesley was supposed to be the boss…"

"He is… he's just kinda… uncomfortable around Lilah. So he asked Gunn to take her out instead because they get on so well… they're just friends…"

"Yeah and that's all she wants to be with me as well… just friends. It's like… the worst two words in the entire English language." Lindsey said not looking to conceal the fierce jealousy in his voice anymore.

"So ask her if she wants to go somewhere… just as friends tomorrow night." Cordy advised.

"What about tonight?"

Cordy paused for a while before saying,

"Lilah's going to the movies tonight with Gunn…"

"Well that's great!" Lindsey said, "And you tell me they're just friends."

"You didn't let me finish my sentence. Lilah's going to the movies tonight with Gunn and Fred. You may have failed to notice that Gunn is dating Fred."

"Since when do three people go out on a date?"

"They're just trying to make Lilah feel less detached…" Cordy said exasperatedly. "Just ask her if you can go with them."

"I can't do that…"

"Why not? You're supposed to be friends… friends go to the movies together. It's gotta beat sitting in here and looking at this stupid paint anyway…"

*****

"There you go…" Cordy said, fastening the silver chain around Lilah's neck.

Lilah smiled and moved away from her.

"Thanks," she told Cordy sitting down on her bed on the left side of Fred's room.

Cordy sat down directly opposite on Fred's single bed.

"You look nice," Cordy told Lilah with a smile.

"Thanks…"

"The green brings out the blue of your eyes… Lindsey will totally flip."

"But I don't want Lindsey to flip because we are just friends…"

Cordy arched an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Yeah… I'm not ready for a full on relationship right now and much as I love Lindsey he's way intense," Lilah told Cordy.

"Much as you love him?"

"In a *friends* way… much as I love Lindsey in the way that he's a friend."

Lilah crossed over to the dressing table and sprayed some of Fred's dewberry perfume from a bottle on the tabletop on her pulse points at her neck.

"So why are you wearing the perfume that only yesterday Lindsey said he liked on Fred?" Cordy asked with mild allegation.

"I have different pheromones to Fred. Lindsey won't notice it's the same perfume because perfumes smell different on different people… besides… all my perfumes went up in flames," she reminded Cordy. "Lindsey has practically no sense of smell. When we worked together and I used to wear $100 Gucci perfumes for three years straight he didn't say anything once…"

"That's because Lindsey was not completely in love with you then…"

"He's not… he just thinks he is…"

Cordy rolled her eyes.

"Whatever…"

*****

"I had a really great time tonight," Lindsey told Lilah as they walked back to the hotel along the brightly-lit pedestrian street that held the Hyperion at the west corner.

"Yeah," Lilah told him, smiling at him, "It was nice to have a conversation not entirely composed of five syllable legalese."

When they'd got to the movies they'd had a dispute of gender over which movie to catch. Fred and Lilah wanted to see a 'girlie chick flick' as Gunn had put it and Lindsey and Gunn had wanted to see a 'blood and guts action movie' as Fred had put it.

They'd eventually compromised by Fred reluctantly agreeing to see the action movie and Lindsey going with Lilah to see the romantic comedy.

With the huge time difference in the two movies' finish times they'd agreed to just see each other tomorrow.

They passed a bustling all night ice cream parlour.

"Want an ice cream?" Lindsey asked her.

She shook her head.

"No, I'm fine thanks."

"Yeah you just must be full from those three pieces of popcorn you had…"

"I had more than three pieces… besides… I was concentrating on the movie…"

"Yeah because Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta Jones require so much mental capacity…"

"Lindsey…"

"I just worry about you that's all,"

"And I worry about you…"

They turned the corner almost at the hotel.

"So what's the plan for the rest of the night?" he asked her casually.

"I dunno. Have a shower, put some deep conditioner in my hair and grab a book from somewhere… you?"

"Probably go and see Connor… just to help Angel out a bit… if he wants to go on a demon hunt or something…"

She nodded.

"Of course…"

They reached the front door of the Hyperion and let themselves in quietly looking around for other people.

"Where is everyone?" Lilah asked, beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.

"Angel's probably upstairs and Cordy and Wesley split early," Lindsey told her.

"Oh… right."

"I'll walk you upstairs if you want," he told her.

She shrugged.

"OK."

They walked up the staircase together in silence and they reached her door at the end of the third flight corridor.

"Well goodnight…" he said unwillingly.

She surprised him by pulling him into a loving hug.

"Thankyou," she said in his ear.

Lindsey shut his eyes and breathed in the scent of her perfume.

He drew back from her slightly and looked into her eyes, tracing a stray finger across her jawbone.

"Every night… at five," he told her, "It's getting harder to say goodbye."

"I know," she found herself whispering back, "But we can't… it was complicated enough the first time around…"

She kissed him casually on the cheek, before disappearing behind the door and locking it after her…