Title: Sweet Dreams Shattered
Fandom: Angel
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Lorne, mentions Lorne/Angel and Angel/Cordelia
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: Lorne has nowhere left to go after he kills Lindsey.
Word Count: 1,416
Written For: Ficlet Zone100 Fandom Hell Fandom #21: Angel, and 100 Ships 61: Green
Warnings: Cannon Character Deaths
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.







He couldn't run this time. He had tried, but in the end, he had not been able to. Angel's mind had been set, and there had really been very few other options. Certain deeds had had to be done, and he had done them. He had done them not only because Angel had asked him to. Actually, that was the absolute least of the reasons he had committed Lindsey's murder. He had been prepared to tell Angel no, but the dreams he'd been having, the visions he'd been having when nobody had been singing... Those had ultimately convinced him that Angel had been right.

And that was why he now had blood on his hands and he was leaving. A part of him would like to think that Lindsey's murder had been necessary, but another part knew that killing was never the answer. Spilling blood, violence of any sort really, was never the only answer. His mother would have been proud.

That thought made Lorne ache inside even more. His horned head sank into his hands, his fingers thrusting up his fedora, and if it had not been for his cabby's voice reminding him that his true nature might be seen, he would have probably sat like that for hours. Instead he snatched himself back up to an alert, sitting position when his driver spoke. He had no idea what had been said, however, until the little, gross man repeated his question, "Where to, boss?"

"Anywhere." Lorne sighed.

"That's gonna cost you extra."

"Just drive." He looked out into the night, knowing it could be the Earth's last one, it could be his last one, it could be Angelcake's last one, his last night, his last battle, his last victory... What kind of a victory was it any way? They would save the Earth, but at what cost? Lorne raised his eyes to the stars he couldn't see as he whispered a soft, pleading prayer, "What now, Brown Eyes?" If she had been here still, what would she have said? Could she have found another way?

But they had been robbed of her beauty, her wisdom, and her grace. They had been robbed of her heart, and that was why the entire team had fallen apart. This had been coming ever since Cordelia's death. He had always known the Seer had seen so very much more than just the visionary lead-ups to their next missions. She had seen into the very hearts, every single one of them, and losing her had hit them all. It had ultimately destroyed the team, the little family they had once shared.

Lorne shuts his eyes against the stars and the tears welling within his blood red orbs. When he reopened them, he focused for a moment on his breathing, and then he realized that they were only a few blocks away from the apartment Cordelia had once shared with phantom Dennis. He wondered how the old ghost was doing. He'd been by there a few times when nobody had known, just to chat with the old spook and reminisce about their Princess.

Lorne sighed again, his shoulders sagging. What would Dennis think if he knew what had happened? What did their Princess think, looking down upon them all now from her pedestal in Heaven? She was a bona fide Angel now, he was certain, but she had always been their Angel. Tears slipped silently down his cheeks as he thought of the woman who had found herself while guiding them all. She had grown in such immensely wonderful ways and touched them all forever. She had been the most precious friend he had ever known, a sister of sorts to him and to lonely, little Fred as well and even to Charles. She had been so very much more, however, to both Angel and Wesley. She had served as hope and inspiration and guidance to all of them very many times over their few, short years together.

Was she crying now too? Lorne thought. How badly had his deceit hurt her? Did she even understand why he had done it, why he had finally accepted that he had to kill Lindsey and acted the part he'd had to perform? It didn't make sense, he reflected. Why would the Powers That Be steal away both of Angel's guides? He couldn't guide the man! The damn man wouldn't listen to him!

"Was it a girl," his driver asked, and when Lorne failed to answer, he pressed, "or a guy?"

"Both," Lorne whispered, his very horns drawing down over his sorrowful, green face. "Everything." Between the two of them, they had been everything to him. He'd often ran away with Cordelia, gone shopping or just shared girltalk, when things had gotten too bad, but with her gone, he'd had nowhere left to run except to dive deeper into his music. Even his songs couldn't save him now. His horrible mother had been right: the whole, wretched world did expect every man to indulge in violence. And he had failed to stay true to himself not only because of his desire to see this world continue but because of the love he'd had for Angel. He'd told him he had done it for him, for them, but the truth had gone so much deeper.

And perhaps, he admitted to himself, been all that much more shameful. Somebody else could have killed Lindsey. He should have made certain that somebody else had. Why, the way he'd committed the murder, he could have hired any hitman in L.A. to do it! Charles was right: He had sold himself out in the end. The man had been wise to duck out of the team before things had worsened. He had been wise to leave not too long after their Princess had been killed.

Lorne drew a heart on his window as he continued to gaze out into the night. Insanity was opening behind them, the very bowels of Hell engulfing L.A., but his cabbie bravely, or perhaps stupidly, continued to do exactly for what he had been hired. He continued to drive, but he could never put enough distance between Lorne and Angel and all that had happened. Nobody could. No matter where he went, no matter what happened from here on out, Lorne was never going to be able to hide from the truth. He had loved a man who had never loved him, and that love had led him to doing the very thing he'd always professed he would never do. Love for that same man had also killed the most wonderful woman, the sweetest friend, he had ever known.

Lorne wiped his tears away. Not only did more fall in their place, however, but it was actually raining now. He gazed back up toward the Heavens and the Princess he knew who was looking down upon them all and watching everything in this gigantic nightmare from which none of them, or even the very world itself, would never be the same. Perhaps she was crying. Maybe the raindrops now belting his window and taxi cab were teardrops from Heaven in disguise. "I'm sorry, Princess. I'm sorry I failed us all." He bowed his head. "I'm sorry I couldn't save him, or me, or you."

There was a Heaven, Lorne was certain. Cordelia, if no one else, had made him certain of that fact. That was the only place to which he had left to escape, and he couldn't escape there quite yet. He could go home now, he thought. He was a killer; he could finally make his mother proud. But Pylea was no longer home. It had never really been his home.

He'd had a home once, a home beyond his club, a home where Cordy and Angel and the others had laughed and smiled and chatted with him, where they had all co-existed together in a world Lorne was only now beginning to understand had been their last good dream, a sweet, sweet dream they had all shared together of family and love and which had been utterly destroyed with their Princess -- no, their Queen's -- death. He thought of her, of how his fellow Pyleans had gotten one thing right, of how she had shone in Pylea and so many times afterward, and how terribly disappointed she would be now, of how terribly disappointed he was in himself. Lorne hung his head, and he cried as he was driven through the night.




The End