Rating- pg13
Warning- angst abounds
Pairing: Spike/Angel
Summery: what if Spike and not Darla had found Angel the night he was ensouled?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Don't leave me," he begged softly as Spike laid him done on the bed of a little hotel. They had reached it just before dawn and Spike had begrudgingly paid for the rooms.
It was strange to Spike to hear his Sire ask for something. Generally he just demanded and if Spike did not obey he was punished. This new Angelus seemed almost soft. "I will never leave you, Sire. I wouldn't if I could." He said striping his sire and then himself as he climbed into the bed. "Now go to sleep, you'll wake healed and we'll figure out what's next." He felt weird telling his sire what they would do. He was the childe, never once had he told this man what would happen.
He pulled Angelus close to him as the man began to weep. "What have I done, William? What is to come of me?"
"You had no control over what you did, it was purely your demon. And whatever is to come, I'll be there with you. Now hush, sleep now." He held the larger man close and caressed his face, "'The moving finger writes and having writ moves on' the past is done and there is nothing to change that all we can do is hope for a better tomorrow." He watched over his God until he was sure the man was asleep, he kissed his lips chastely, and then passed out himself.
~~~*~~~
Spike woke at ten to five knowing his sire to be an early riser. He slip out of the close embrace and groped for clothes on the floor. He kissed his sire's hand and wrote a note leaving it on the pillow beside Angelus' head. *Sire, Gone to a butchers to get blood. Be back in five minutes. Don't leave the room 'til I come home. Love, William* He shut the door softly behind him. He had an amazing gift for language before he died he knew French and Latin. Since then he learnt Romanian, Italian, and Spanish.
He saw the chamber maid walking toward him. She was a small Romanian girl no older than twelve. He asked her, in Romanian, not to disturb his companion. She laughed and replied that he had seemed very drunk when they came in that morning: what with Spike carrying him and all. They both laughed and he handed her twelve British pounds which was surely more money than she'd seen in her life. He winked at her and said thank you for understanding and try to keep everyone else out. She nodded mutely in amazement.
Spike wandered down to a butcher's but couldn't remember the name for blood sausage and so made the gesture of someone eating a large sausage. The butcher's wife mistook the show as a proposition and told him to get the hell out of her establishment. After a few more gesture, one of which was a cow being slaughtered, he had two liters of bovine blood in four glass bottles.
As he walked up the stairs he saw the chamber maid and nodded to her as way of greeting. She called for him to stop and told him that a "tall, blond, angular woman" had been looking for him and his friend. Spike started to panic. But the girl just laughed and said that she used discretion and told the woman that they had only had a drink in the tavern there early that morning. He kissed the girl full on the lips and gave her another ten pound note. She tried to give it back but he insisted she kept it saying she'd saved them both from a fate worse than death. He started dancing with her, thanked her and walked back to the room.
~~~*~~~
"What were you doing to the maid?" asked Angelus as Spike walked in. It was obvious that he had just woken up. Spike shook one of the bottles of blood and handed it to his sire.
"She saved us." He said. "Darla came searching probably to kill you off and the girl told her we weren't here. I like her. And she laughed when she thought you were drunk. She's got class. How are you feeling?"
"I feel physically fine." He said slowly staring at the bottle. "I can't drink this."
"Focus on the physical, forget about emotional. Why can't you drink it? It's bovine."
"I feel sick at the thought."
"Angelus-" Spike started but was cut off.
"Don't call me that name! She gave me that name! I did everything under that name." Said a nearly crying Angel.
Mood swing boy, thought Spike but then said out loud, "What shall I call you? Sire, Liam?"
"No, call me nothing for that is what I am." He sobbed.
"Melodramatic much? You must have a name. Chose one for yourself if need be. . . what about Conner that's a nice Irish name."
"That name is filled with foreboding." Said the sulking Angelus.
"Then what about Angel? It's neither before you were a vamp nor after. . . it's during."
"You don't think it sounds like a ponce's name?" he asked like a child worried by monsters asking for reassurance from their parents.
"No, it's far too poofy to be a ponce's name." Spike said with a soft laugh. "Now drink."
"I cannot." He said with resolution.
"You will die, Sire." He said trying to reason.
"Perhaps that would be best, ma boy." Came the self loathing reply.
Spike was instantly angered at that. His sire had just said he'd rather be dead with no regard for Spike's feelings. And yes, Spike knew he was soft and that vampires weren't supposed to have feelings. And yes, he could have accepted it from Angelus but this new "Angel" wasn't supposed to want to hurt him. He yanked the bottle away from the larger man and swallowed the contents in one gulp. He felt the blood course through his veins. He bit hard into his wrist and thrust it into Angel's face. "Drink." He said. Angel shook his head. "Think of it not as feeding, think of it as your sire's right to take of your childe."
"I don't want to hurt you for the sake of some right."
"It won't hurt! This is a gift given willingly from me to you. Please, if that doesn't please you realize that I want you to feed from me, so really you'd only be hurting me by not doing it." Spike started to cry, "Please, Sire, for me please drink."
Angel's tears were restarted by the sight of his childe's. He pulled the boy into his strong arms and placed feather kisses all over his face before devouring his wrist.