"Enjoying yourself?" Angel asked.
"Yeah, man. Who wouldn't? Want another one?"
"No, thanks, and maybe you should stop drinking too?"
"Nah, I'm good for a lot more than this."
Angel just shook his head. It was kind of fun, listening to all of Lorne's poorer-than-average-singing clientele and not feeling any social pressure. He wasn't supposed to get up and talk with anyone. All he had to do was hang out with Doyle, and he'd had months of practice at that.
"Angelcakes!" announced a familiar voice as Lorne plopped himself down in the third seat at their table, kicked his feet onto the fourth seat, and took a deep draft of his Sea Breeze. "Who's your friend?"
Come to think of it, "Angelcakes" was a whole lot better than "Deadboy." Maybe Lorne wasn't as annoying as Xander after all.
"Lorne, Doyle. He was my seer before Cordelia--you know, he first had the visions that were suppoed to guide me?" Lorne grinned. Angel went on. "Doyle, Lorne. He owns the club, and he reads people's destinies when they sing karaoke."
"'Sing' is such a loose term," Lorne said. "So how come you've never introduced me to your friend before?"
"He was dead," Angel said painfully.
"And quite a tale that is, too" added Doyle.
Lorne waved the hand that wasn't holding the Sea Breeze. "Never mind," he said. "I thought you looked familiar. You were the first warrior, and you sacrificed yourself so Angelwings here could keep up the good fight."
Doyle looked rather proud of himself, but then shot Angel an incredulous look as if to ask what Angel had been saying about him. Angel spread his hands in his best nonverbal mystified expression. He knew he'd never mentioned Doyle to Lorne.
Lorne, oblivious as usual, said, "Let's see your Brachen face."
"I'd have to be a whole lot drunker than this to show that off to the whole bar," Doyle said with some heat. "How did you know about my demon half?"
Lorne took a deep breath with his making-up-a-fabulous-story face. Angel glared at him. "I've been seeing you in your friends' pasts since they started coming in here," Lorne said. Another pause; another glare from Angel. "I can read you just a little because of your accent," Lorne admitted.
"Good, 'cause I'm not singin'."
"His voice is worse than mine," Angel added. "Listen, Lorne, we were hoping you could...without having to get up there again..."
"Can't dress, can't sing, look stupid," Doyle muttered. Angel didn't think he was supposed to have heard, but two years in the grave would make one forget about vampire hearing.
Angel opened his mouth to tell Doyle none of that was true...well, it was, but it didn't matter, but Lorne beat him to that.
"You're important enough for Cordelia to upset every force of nature there is to bring you back from the dead," Lorne said. "And you're sitting here with Mr. Loner, making him happier than I've ever seen him."
Angel thought that was a bit unfair. "You never said you could read me when I don't sing."
Was Lorne laughing at him? "I can't. You really can't see yourself, how you're acting right now?"
Angel glared at his one drink.
"All those little movements of yours have purposes. You act connected. You've been saying what you think, even since I've been here."
There was absolutely nothing Angel could say to that.
"If you're so perceptive, why don't you have a pithy little nickname for me, too?" said Doyle.
"Give me a little while, cupcake," said Lorne. "You two decide what you want to sing. I'll be back." He swept away, but a moment later, a smiling demon serving girl appeared with a carafe of blood, and Angel couldn't get her to go away until he took it.
"Some club," said Doyle.
Angel grunted.
"I think I liked the Oracles better than him."
"You never personally met the Oracles."
"Exactly."
Angel tried the blood. It wasn't bad. Not human, but not pig, either--well, he really didn't want to know where Lorne ordered the vampire drinks.
"I don't think I ever saw you do that before," said Doyle.
"What? This? Oh." Angel put his glass down, trying not to look embarrassed. "Cordelia made me get used to it, way back after the batcave went up in flames and I had to live around her and Wesley for awhile." Angel chuckled. "She shoved it in my hand and said 'don't be embarrassed, we're family.'"
Doyle chuckled. "Family. I like that."
"It doesn't bother you, all the catching up you've had to do? I mean, it's still not quite real to me that you're here."
"You and me both, man." He paused. "It's eating you up that you're not off with Buffy, doing something about the latest Angel Investigations case."
"She--" Angel looked down. "Doyle? This doesn't go all over the office, but I'm a little afraid that I'll hurt Buffy right now. I sometimes have a big mouth, but she's used to giving orders. She's more of a hero than I am, actually; more than any of us, because the destiny came on her, and she fights for it instead of something in her own soul. Once I forgot that. I just told Buffy exactly what I was thinking. I think she was strong enough to bear that then, but she wouldn't be now. So I let her go this time without a fight."
"I get that."
"You're doing it again," Angel said suddenly. "You're being the messenger again, the guy who shows up knowing my entire history without saying a thing about his own. You're more than that, Doyle, you're so much more than the messenger, and I came here hoping we'd find some answers for you!"
"I don't have quite as many stories to tell--being dead, mostly days pass alike--well, no, they don't, but--"
Angel put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "You're scared, aren't you?"
"I think scared is still comin'. You leave your life behind, you leave the things that connect you to it. You want, you grow, you change, but in a different way, in a place where time doesn't have meaning. I--I don't have the strength to do this, man."
It had cost Doyle something to admit that, Angel knew now. He echoed his own words from long ago. "You never know your strength until you're tested."
"And this is the test? Stay or go back?"
"It's your choice." That was painful. Angel had no idea how he'd ever deal with losing his friend again, having had him suddenly given back like this, but he'd deal somehow. "You may not be meant to be with us anymore." He said softly, "You've no idea how much it hurts to say that."
"You're being duty and honor guy again."
"Aren't you?"
Doyle pointed across the bar, where Lorne was headed their way. "I know how to get him off our backs, man," he said. Then, loudly enough for Lorne, who was only a few paces away by that point, to hear, but not loudly enough to create any more of a scene in the already noisy bar, Doyle started an old Irish hymn. Or had it been an old Irish drinking song first? The words were different than the ones Liam had sung in all those bars, but Angel picked up the tune and hummed along.
Lorne looked sour.
"Now I guess you have to tell us our destinies," said Doyle. "Angel told me all we have to do is sing where you can hear. No reason for us to torture your club now."
"Whatever," said Lorne. "That guy," he gestured to the orange demon on stage, "needed a lesson in humility. Guy thinks he's Michael Crawford, and he knows he's destined to spend his life dealing blackjack in a demon casino."
"Like my rendition of Mandy would really teach him humility," said Angel. "Spill. What did you read?"
"A whole heck of a lot. First of all, Angel, where did you fall in with a spaz like him?" Lorne chucked a thumb at Doyle. "Guy's competing destinies made my head spin in circles and all the while he's dramatizing every line of his song."
Doyle looked a bit proud, actually. "You don't suppose I could have another--" he gestured to his glass.
"One more, and that's the limit," Lorne signaled the server.
Angel was too frightened to play along with the green demon. "Lorne, what did you see?" he said again, a little more urgently.
"You are mellow today. You're not threatening to punch my face in." Lorne sighed. "I told you I wasn't your link to the Powers that Be. They mess with your destiny, and then you get in there with your own free will and mess with your destiny, and you end up with such a confusing mess you'd rather just pass out."
Doyle was acting as if this was a little too funny, in Angel's opinion. He hoped his friend wasn't scared enough to resort to hysterics.
"When they called me to be their messenger, the Powers that Be made it seem like they knew everythin'," said Doyle. "I was kickin' and screamin' about being their little tool, and not that I really object to that, but I wasn't combat-ready guy, you know? They just showed me things and told me to act."
"Yeah, they know a lot about life and death," said Lorne. "But love, and who we choose to love--that's all free will."
"What does love have to do with this?" Angel interjected.
"Love has everything to do with destiny. What, you didn't know that? The Powers That Be considered it to be a mistake that Cordelia ended up with the visions, for one thing, and that happened because Doyle loved her."
"You said you only meant to kiss her," Angel hissed at Doyle.
"Like I'd want Cordelia thinkin' I didn't want to kiss her!"
“You should probably tell Cordelia that as soon as you can,” Angel said. “She doesn’t like being lied to.”
"Think about yourself, Angelcakes," said Lorne. "Remember Whistler?"
"You knew Whistler?"
"Used to be one of my best customers, couple of years back. Full of stories about you before he headed off to Cleveland to--well, that's not important and he'll cut my horns off if I tell anyway. He told me about finding you. Telling you that you had two possible futures, how you could completely let your guilt devour you and lose your mind, or you could turn it around and become someone who mattered. A hero, a champion. And do you remember what it was that made you choose the life you live right now?"
"Buffy."
"Love."
"I went beyond that, though," Angel said, and he could hardly hear his own voice; he was surprised at how closely Lorne and Doyle were listening. "Losing Buffy didn't kill me. She mattered to me, more than anyone ever has, but I kept on going. Cordelia said that wasn't betraying her, that was honoring her."
"She was right. You'd already chosen love, you'd already chosen your destiny," said Lorne. "Lots of different kinds of love, remember?"
What was it about this guy, that you had to keep asking and asking to get a straight answer? Lorne looked at Angel again and said, slowly, "Your future depends on free choice, but not yours this time."
"I'm just the messenger." Doyle said.
"You're the Promised One."
"That was Angel."
"Who actually saved the Listers from the Beacon?" Lorne sighed. "What is it with you heroes, you gotta do everything the hard way."
Doyle jumped. He made a face at Lorne.
"I'm not telling you exactly what I saw in Angel's future," Lorne said. "You've already heard the word 'apocalypse.' Probably more often than you ever wanted to."
"How is the world going to end this time?" Angel muttered. Then, louder, "I've known that ever since reading the Shanshu prophecy. You're a little behind, Lorne. Besides, you were talking to Doyle."
"Yeah, I was. You're pretty important." Lorne played with his empty glass and thought for a long moment before he spoke, and when he did, it was seriously and earnestly right to Doyle. "I know what's been done to you. That much was obvious even before I read you, how you were supposed to have been finished and someone else's free choice made you start the battle all over again. I'm gonna quote Angelwings--'the world isn't the way it should be; it's hard and cold, but that's why there's us, to live as if the world was the way it should be and transform it.' You have a harder task than the others, because you know exactly what it's like to live in a world that is the way it should be. But you really are needed in this one."
"I wasn't supposed to come back."
"Cordelia wasn't supposed to love you that much. You weren't supposed to fall in with people who go all cold and armored without you."
"What? I mean, one of the first things I told Angel was that it was about getting out there and making that connection, but I meant--"
"You meant it. And you made it possible. Look just at Cordelia, how she used to put armor around her heart, how the visions you passed on to her helped her come out of all of that, move beyond the oblivion, the confidence that is confidence but also armor..."
Doyle was starting to look a bit panicked. Angel started to say something to rescue him, but Lorne suddenly stopped talking about Cordelia.
"It isn't going to be easy, Doyle," said Lorne. "The fire and the cold have to be burned out of you, not just left to smoulder. Love is the only thing that is gonna do that. Not just the romantic. The way your friends need you. It's possible, though. That's what I read. You have the strength." Lorne got up. "I have to go read someone else now," he said. "No need to thank me."
Perhaps he realized that both Doyle and Angel were stunned, because he actually left.
"Bit more comforting than the generic 'Powers that Be,'" Doyle said finally.
"Doyle..."
"I never was really considerin' not staying," Doyle said. "I think I know now, how I'm goin' to make that permanent."
"Good."
Doyle got up. "The strike force has probably found something by now, no? Are you goin' to pay that singin' demon, or what?"
Angel laughed and elbowed him.
"Hey, I had no money before I was dead..."
