Setting: After Angel's Untouched and set during Buffy's Crush which has been moved up in the time line as Dru went straight to Sunnydale and was never in LA.
Rated R
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~Part: 1~
Darla was laying with Angel, watching his face as she tried to control his dreams. She was trying to alter old memories. A night he had spent alone would now be a night filled with passion. If she changed enough of his memories, pulled enough lust to the surface, she would have complete control of her boy. It wasn't working. Needless to say Darla was getting vexed, it didn't take much to vex Darla. A scream was trying to wretch itself from her gut but she it held back. She watched his dream like a movie on a screen and it pissed the hell out of her.
Dream Darla was doing her damnedest to seduce Dream Angelus yet the man denied her. Who was her childe to deny her? He couldn't refuse her! She had made him! She was his goddess! The memory she was trying to change was a dull one. She had been in Paris with Drusilla and had left Angelus with the idiot childe as a punishment. He had not pleased her lately and she had thought that perhaps a month apart would drive her boy mad for her. She knew that it must have been an awful time because when she came back he had been so sad. Knowing this she had selected a random night from Angel's memories of the time. She would make the dreary night into one they had shared with bloody passion.
"What are you doing Angelus?" she asked softly as she walked over the cobblestone towards him. Her parasol had no purpose in the night but the dark blue made her skin even paler by contrast.
Smiling wistfully he said, "I'm waiting."
"For what?" she asked with a coy smile, "For me to come home? I have."
"No," his words were distant as he repeatedly scanned the crowd.
She clicked her tongue in displeasure. "What do you wait for?"
"Will," he breathed and left the spot he had been standing in and went to the idiot childe. He didn't even glance back at her.
Her jaw set as she watched her boy envelope that slut in his arms. She watched him wipe blood from the whore's mouth. He laughed and pulled the boy close and suddenly Darla was thrown out of his dream. She should have known that the fool had something to do with it.
As she left in disgust Angel sank back into his dream. Sighing in his sleep he reveled in holding his childe close and listen to the boy excitedly tell him of his hunt. He felt something in the back of his mind, as if he had seen something out of the corner of his sight. His focus went back to his beautiful boy and wished, not for the first time, that Dru and Darla would never come back.
~Part: 2~
After two more days, two more attempts, and two more failures, Darla decided to take leave of her childe. She hated having her golden childe so close to her while he was farther away than ever. After the last dream she watched she knew that she would never have her dear boy, not the way she wanted him. He was well and truly broken and it was the fool childe's fault.
She had thought to go back to the night Angel received his soul. She wanted to replace the memory of her screaming, beating him, and throwing him out, with one of comfort and gentleness. Vampires have odd memories. After two hundred and fifty years you don't really care what you ate for breakfast one day in April of the year dot. Slowly memories become sorted and then conveniently lost. Only the important events stay with you. While aware that you did eat on that day in April you don't remember it. Darla sorted through the filing cabinets of Angel's mind. She came to the night in question and paused. She looked over the short hand minutes of the night. 1) eat gypsy. 2) hunt with Will. 3) get cursed. 4) minutia. 5) pain.
The unaccountable time was most likely spent moping or used in some other equally dull manner. Looking in the file she saw a transcript of events but wasn't particularly interested. Behind the summery was videotape. How typically Angel to have not invested in a DVD player. As she watched on her screen she fast forward to get to scene five: the pain. She knew that she had destroyed her boy that night, she saw it in his eyes on the night he killed her. When he plunged that wood into her she saw that he wasn't protecting the slayer but getting some form of restitution.
She stopped the film when she had reached scene four, the scene Angel's mind had titled minutia. She saw a slightly blurred and distorted version of herself standing over her cowering childe. The fuzziness of the picture suggested that it had faded and that it would soon be nothing more than a whisper. But if that, if *she* was the minutia what merited the title of pain? Desperately she fast- forwarded not knowing what she would find. And when she finally came to the memory she accepted once and for all that she couldn't fix her boy: he was well and truly broken.
She stepped through the screen like so many times before. This time, however, she had not intention of interacting with the events. She was simply there to watch. He was standing out side in the shadows. Covered in his own blood he was weeping. It wasn't the tears of a physical wound. She peered over his shoulder to see what he was looking at. Framed in the window there she was, kicking Spike in the side. He was lying in a pool of his own blood and sobbing, begging. He had been turned twenty years prior, the only marks on him should have been possessive, familial scars. Marks of love and pride. But instead he was covered in battle wounds inflicted by the people who were meant to protect him. And yet he still believed blindly that Darla wouldn't *really* hurt him. He thought she loved him deep down. The only thing that had saved him that night was Darla's exhaust.
Angel was sobbing and she could feel the pain, anger, and self- loathing roll off of him. He should have been in there. Fuck his fears, he should have been protecting Spike. One's childer come before personal safety. But there he stayed watching as his god beat his Angel. At the sound of her own voice she looked back to the scene. "You're the reason! It's your fault! Yours!"
"Darla, please, Sire! I. . . the gypsies! Not me! Please!" William's words were labored as though broken bone was pushing into his lungs. So young, he still believed he needed to breath. "Please!"
"You drove him away!"
"You beat the shite out of him!" replied Will, perhaps it was not wise to anger the strong woman in stilettos.
"You made him weak! He had *affection* for you!"
"It's not true!!" he sobbed, hurt by his words and her actions.
"You lie, boy!" she was kicking him so hard she left dents in his body in the shape of pointed shoes.
"No! Honestly!" His posh voice had come to the forefront in his fear and pain, the affected drawl long gone. "He told me! I asked him, begged him to love me. He told me I was his childe and nothing more. That I was his but that he was not mine! I was nothing to him!"
Angelus collapsed to his knees as he keened into the night. The people inside did not here him, too caught up in their own pain. Darla watched over him dispassionately and turned back to the window. She watched as the Dream Darla shook her head and left the room after breaking the heel of her shoe off in an open wound on Spike's side. Drusilla came in and nursed her "Sweet William" in much the same manner as she doctored her dolls, Darla was shocked the boy lived through it.
"Drusilla," he panted, "We must leave. Darla doesn't want me here. You do, pet, right? Take me somewhere else? Somewhere safe?" he begged her knowing full well that he couldn't walk unaided and he needed to leave before Darla came back for round two.
"But, Daddy?" she asked with a confused light in her eyes.
"He's left us, love. The git left us." The pair disappeared for a few minutes as Dru dressed her ward in clean clothes and packed her finery away. And then they were back in the window and coming out the door.
Angel lurched to his feet, "Will," his words were faint and whipped away with the wind. Yet still Spike turned instantly, if slowly back to Angel. His face was an unreadable mask of pain, "I love you."
Spike stared at his for a moment, "Fuck off." He turned away and hobbled off with Dru half carrying him.
"Who was that?" Drusilla asked, not recognizing the aura around her sire.
"No one, pet." Spike glanced back and looked Angel in the eye. "No one."
She felt a force, like a bad comedian being pulled from the stage. Suddenly she was back in front of the filing cabinet and even more suddenly back in her own body on Angel's bad. Her body had gotten acclimated to the effects of the spell but tonight something was different; Angel was awake and looking at her. "Last few nights, e've bin havin weird dreams. Care to esplain, *Sire*?" His heavy Irish drawl was present in his anger and fear laced voice. "Din't e kill ye?"
"Goodbye, dear boy. You wont be seeing me again."
She got up to leave but Angel grabbed her arm and spoke into her face, "Is there a reason fer yer bein' human?" She shook him off and stared at him, defying him to cross her. "Ye may be human. But the next time e see ye? Em killin' ye."
And now here she was, standing alone in the apartment Lindsey had gotten her. He had scouted down Drusilla for her, sweet boy. She wouldn't torture him when she finally ate him. She was headed to Sunnydale, the place she died. She was headed into hell to be sired by a halfwit. Life, for Darla, could get no worse.
~Part: 3~
She watched the sunlight as it played on her skin. A shudder ran through her and she wished, not for the first time, that she was dead. She hated this functional body. So loud, so filthy. *Humanity* what a horrible state of being. She didn't like being human the first time around and she certainly didn't like it now. The cities and towns flashed by her window on the train. She couldn't wait to get off the machine. Drusilla, the idiot, would turn her and in a few hours she would be as good as new. . . or should that be old? A mental "To Do" list flashed through her head. Rumors had reached her ears that dear William was dead. Apparently he went to Sunnydale to kill the slayer and was never seen again. She wanted to thank the girl personally. . . and then kill her. No slayer would ever kill someone in her bloodline and get away with it. Darla loathed the boy but he was hers to destroy and she wouldn't have it become common knowledge that the line of Aurelius had been bested by a mortal.
First she had to find Drusilla and coax her girl into turning her. She sighed and moaned slightly when she saw Lindsey coming up the aisle. What was the boy doing here? She was quickly losing patients. And he was close to getting struck off the very short list of people she would not torture before granting them death.
~~~*~~~
Angel was sitting in his office four days after he had last seen Darla. Of course he had no idea that she had spent the last three days in Sunnydale, he had no idea where she was. He was doing something that he would never refer to as sulking. Nope, he definitely *wasn't* thinking about his youngest. And, no, those weren't tears he was fighting to hold back, it was allergies. Vampires can have hay fever. He scrubbed his face hard as he heard the door open. He looked up to see Cordelia staring at him.
"Are you ok? Only, I heard sniffing." Spoke in her normal affected bored drawl. He saw the worry in her eyes.
"Hay fever."
"You're never outside. Anyway, you're dead. Boy, why are you crying?" she meant for her words to sound firm.
He laughed at her unintentional allusion to Peter Pan. He was a little boy who couldn't grow up. So stuck in the here and now that he saw only the bleakness of his life and not the wonderful times of his past or the possible future that awaited him. She looked sternly at him and he burst into another fit of giggles. "Sorry, I'm not crying. I'm a vampire. We don't have the glands for it."
"Fine, What are you not crying about?"
The worry in her voice touched Angel and he felt he couldn't tell her to leave him be, "My family."
"The ones you killed?" asked Cordy bemusedly.
Angel smiled again at her innocence, "No. My real family. Spike, and Drusilla, and Penn, and Darla," her name caught in his throat, "I loved them all so much." Wistfully he said, "Dru and William would get into bloody fights in the middle of the night and I would go split them up and sleep between them. And I would slap their legs if they tried to kick."
Cordelia chocked on a sip of coffee. "What so you were all domesticated?"
He smiled ruefully his gaze set somewhere beyond Cordelia in the middle distance. "No, it was blood, and anger, and fun. But, I failed them. I worshiped and feared Darla. And she ruled us all. She dictated how my childer were raised. She was scary as all hell and I followed her. I was cold, mean to my childer and I hurt them because I feared what she would do if I showed my affection to them. She loathed human emotion. When she went off to see The Master, her sire, I got to treat them right. Usually she would take Dru with her, Dru entertained her. And Penn would always run off. And it was just me and Will and we would hunt. My dear boy. And I suppose we were domesticated then, it wasn't just about the kill, it was the hunt, and we would go to the theater, how he loved culture. I was so unkind while she was there, I belittled him into having the "Big Bad" complex, he thought he needed to prove himself and be tough. But he never was, he was an innocent child and my harsh treatment broke him. If she had known what I felt for him she would have killed him, slowly and painfully while I was forced to watch on and then she would do the same to me. I was trying to protect him. . . "
"I thought Dru sired Spike?" asked Cord looking very confused.
"Why would you think that?"
"That's what he told Buffy."
"When was he talking to Buffy?!" He could see Cordelia's mind start to backtrack. "Why was my childe anywhere near the slayer!?" He felt bile raise in him as he thought far too quickly. Spike had told her that Dru sired him? Was he ashamed? Did he hate Angel so much as to need to lie about his origins? And what in Satan's name was he talking to the slayer for?
"You can't kill me. I was sworn to secrecy. I'm sorry! It just slipped, I can't tell you."
"You will," Angel stood up and loomed threateningly, "Where is my childe?" His words weren't angry, simply informative.
Swallowing hard the girl said, "In Sunnydale."
"Why? And why is he talking to Buffy?" He hated the idea of his childe being anywhere near the killer of their kind.
"He went to kill her. He was captured by a army group. They put a chip in his head, he can't hurt living things. So he helps Buffy for money to by blood."
Anger filled Angel's body, ever fiber of him screamed out that he should break things. His childe was forced to work for a *human*? A *slayer*? He felt ill. His boy was a beautiful creature that was never meant to be tamed or captured. Spike wasn't evil, just in for a good time, out to prove that he could be someone. But who was he now? "Who did you promise that you wouldn't tell me?"
"Willow told me, but also told me that Spike didn't want you to know."
Angel felt the lump of heat burn his throat. Turning to the window he shut Cordelia out of his sight and mind. Vampires don't cry. And he certainly wasn't.
~Part: 4~
*Three Days Ago*
Darla ordered a drink and grimaced at the first sip. She had forgotten how much she hated liquor as a human. Waving over to the barkeep she got down to the real reason she was there. "You're Willy the Snitch?" He started shaking his head, she slapped a hundred dollar bill onto the counter, and his movement became a nod. "I'm looking for someone."
"Aren't we all?" asked the grungy little man with a leer.
"No," said Darla, "I'm looking for my grandchilde."
Willy's face was a wash on confusion. He knew she was human. He *knew* that. And he also knew that she was way to young to have grandkids. "Grandchild?"
Sighing heavily she said, "You don't remember me. I was only here a few weeks before my idiot childe killed me. I'm Angel's sire." He blinked, "Human from a curse," she explained curtly. "I heard my grandchilde is here and I want to be turned. I was also told you're the man to go to."
Looking totally befuddled Willy said slowly, "I'll give you directions to his crypt."
"His? No, no I'm looking for Drusilla. A woman."
"She's staying with him."
"Him?" she repeated slowly.
Willy was frightened by her tone. Although she might have not been a vampire it didn't mean that she wouldn't soon be one. Swallowing convulsively he spoke carefully, "Spike."
Darla was taken aback by the statement. "I thought the slayer killed his *worthless ass* dead?" Her words were cold and slow, tempered with fire.
From experience Willy knew that in situations such as this it was best to squeal like the pig he was. Thoughts and words stumbled out of his mouth as he prayed for his health. "She started the rumor to protect him. He's a marked man."
"Why would she do a thing like that? Why is he marked" her words were still slow but sounded somewhat amused. It was even more frightening.
"Government put a fucking chip in his brain. Can't hurt a fly. No living thing. So he helps the slayer and gets money for blood and smokes in return."
She laughed, he tried to too but was cut off by her sudden words. "Fool. I'll make him wish he was dead. Where is he?"
*Tonight*
Angel sat up in bed. Cold sweat ran down his back. "Oh fuck!" Stumbling out of bed he pulled on varying shades of black, "She's been gone for four fucking days, moron! Fuck! I'm sorry, Spike. I'll be there as soon as I can. Hold on! I'm so sorry."
He ran gracelessly down the stairs bouncing off the stairwell walls. Colliding with Cordelia he said tersely, "Need to go to Sunnydale, gotta save Spike. Few days, be back." And then he was gone.
The sun had just set and Cor looked at her watch, she would generally be there for another four hours, "Does this mean I get to go home?"
~Part: 5~
*Three Days Ago*
She knocked on the crypt door and waited. She took one last drag of her cigarette before stamping on it with the heel of her boot. If she was stuck in a human body she was going to take full advantage of her properly working lungs. As the door sung open she caught sight of her pathetic grandchilde. He was thin and pale, pale even for him. He stood carefully out of the rays of the sun and looked at her with confusion evident in his eyes. For a moment she considered simply grabbing his arm and dragging him into the light. But that would have been too simple, no fun at all.
"Aren't you going to invite me in, William?"
"You're human, ma'am, you don't need an invite." The title rolled off his tongue before he could think. The name had been beaten into his mind.
"It's still polite, *childe*."
"Darla, won't you come in?"
"No," she said with a sneer. "What's this I hear about you helping the slayer?"
"It's not like that, ma'am, I'll kill her the minute I can it's just. . ."
"I heard about your emasculation." She reached out to touch his face, "Poor childe."
He leaned into her touch and closed his eyes. Yet he didn't flinch when she scraped her nails down his face and drew blood. He had known that it would happen. He was tactile not an idiot. And he craved her touch, his blood screamed out to be touched by family. He blinked back tears, now was not the time to think of Angelus.
"Why hasn't he come for you?" asked Darla and Spike wondered if he had been muttering.
"He doesn't know."
"Why?" she asked and wrenched his face up to look at her as he answered.
"I don't want him to know."
"Why?" she asked feeling exacerbated.
"Because," he said softly. He couldn't lie to the woman, even after all this time he feared her. He couldn't lie and say something false, she would see through it and he would be punished, "I'm not his responsibility any more. And if I don't call he doesn't know and therefore doesn't come to save me. Whereas if he did know and *still* didn't come to save me then I would be. . ."
"Why would he not save you?" she asked in a deceptively gentle tone that Spike knew all too well.
"Because I'm a monster," his voice slipped into a cultured tone and he was pulled back in time to when he was a fledge and so eager to please the woman. "And he never loved me anyway. We both know you were the only person he loved. And I would rather believe that he would save me than know in actuality that he doesn't."
"Don't lie, boy!" he looked at her fully in the face for the first time and she saw the honesty there. William still believed what he had been told! The innocence and trust in his eyes made her stomach contract and she nearly vomited just thinking of it. "He loved you!"
A scared look finally hit his face when Spike realized why she was there, "Please, Darla, I've done nothing to harm you!"
"You took my childe!"
"I didn't! I wouldn't dare, you're my sire!" the title was a blanket term for anyone above him whom he feared and respected. Spike was no fool. Even he, the big bad, knew that Darla would cream him. A vampire Darla would wipe the floor with him and this Darla. . . he couldn't touch a human. "Drusilla!" he said clutching at straws, "Drusilla is here! She could turn you! And then you could lay into me like in the good days! I miss those days, miss being your boy."
"You were never my boy!" she screamed as she brought an open hand down on his face. The force and speed caused her nails to rip yet more of his flesh. And he knew he was well and truly screwed. "And I do intend to have the halfwit change me but not until after I've had my fun with you!"
"But if you do it like this," said Spike as another blow sent him down to his knees, "You're simply winning by default. Wouldn't it be more rewarding to be a vamp and be secure in the knowledge that I'm not fighting back because I fear *you*? Not some chip?"
"Winning is winning! Vampires don't play by rules of valor and I haven't yet gotten used to this human life so I shall beat you whichever way I see fit." She kicked him hard in the gut and as he sprawled out over the floor she said, "It's almost like killing a puppy. . . which I haven't had the chance to do recently. Feel free to scream. I always kinda liked it."
Something happened that hadn't occurred in over a century. Spike silently prayed. Once he had prayed for his sire's safety when Angelus was called into Darla's quarters. When his god had come out beaten beyond recognition William vowed he would never pray again. Yet now here he was begging an absent god to watch him and protect him. He doubted anyone was listening but it occupied his mind and stopped him from screaming aloud. He wouldn't give the bitch that satisfaction.
*Tonight*
Angel got scared the minute he saw that the door was a jar. It had taken him twenty minutes to find out where Spike lived. Willy wasn't talking. So Angel did what should have been the unthinkable, he beat up Giles. The man wouldn't tell Angel where his own fucking childe was! He had once sworn that he would do nothing to harm the man. After all Angel had killed his girlfriend and tortured him. In Angel's mind that equaled an instant get out of jail free card. But this went beyond the protection that guilt afforded Giles. The watcher said that Spike wouldn't want Angel to know. Angel's fist informed the fool that he didn't really care what William wanted right now.
He paused and swallowed hard. He didn't want to go into the crypt. He could smell the blood from where he was standing two hundred yards away. Why was his boy in a crypt to begin with? Did he honestly think Angel wouldn't help him? Angel knew he had been a real dick to the lad, but deep down he always thought that Spike knew how he felt. This "refection" was just an excuse to stall. Slowly he approached the door.
Though it was open he still knocked. "Will?" he called.
"Bog off!" The reply was weak, as though ripped from a ruined throat. What scared the dark vampire most was its lack of animosity. There was no power behind the statement. Will always had a biting tone, even after Darla ripped his tongue out once.
"May I come in?" asked Angel patiently.
"No." He ignored the statement and walked in anyway, "Bloody hell, what is wrong with people? You and she both do exactly what I say not to."
Angel sighed, "Darla," it wasn't a question. He couldn't see the boy but the voice was close. He rounded the stone coffin in the center of the room and stopped in his tracks.
"Darla," agreed Spike not meeting his sire's eyes. "Shut your mouth, flies will get in."
"Oh my god." The blood puddle went a good four feet out from what at first glance was a mangled corpse.
"It's not that bad."
"Oh my god." Angel couldn't figure out why Spike wasn't shutting his eyes. His boy always shut his eyes when he didn't want to hear what was going on, Angel, Angelus, always thought it was endearing for it's total lack of logic. And when he realized the reason for William's wide eyes he felt himself retch. He made it outside before he threw up. Spike had no eyelids. Spike. Had. No. Eyelids. Darla hadn't wanted him to be able to block out what was happening so she had taken his only form of security away.
Silently watching his sire Spike saw the fear, and the anger, and the love held in those brown orbs. Confusion and odd pleasure swam over his broken body, "Sire?" he asked slowly with shaking hope. And then it occurred to him, he had passed out and this was his body's way of coping, He saw the question in Angel's eyes, "She said she wouldn't kill me. She said my pet slayer would have to put me out of my misery. But you're here now." If it was to be his last fantasy he was bloody well going to enjoy it, "Angelus, I need blood."
Instantly, without saying a word, Angel had his open wrist at Spike's mouth. He pulled the boy up a little trying to ensure that Spike didn't chock, he made soft hushing sounds as his other hand traversed the young vamp's body looking for injuries. "She's an idiot, always under estimated you, you'll be fine." He went to hold Spike's hand but realized all his fingers had been cut off just below his first knuckle. The bone had been sawed through. Spike was missing his left ear and clumps of hair missing. His face was puffed up nearly beyond recognition. The burns on his flesh smelled of cooked meat. He had been laying there for days it seemed. There were stops where she had cut away flesh right down to the bone and removed whole chunks of the tissue. Angel knew that he would have to look through Spike's rooms below, all those parts were hidden somewhere as a nice surprise. He looked back into Spike's face and smiled bravely hoping the screaming hysterics were only inside his own head. "It'll all grow back. Right as rain you'll be."
"Angel?" asked Spike after a few minutes more when he knew that Angel would pass out if he drank anymore of his blood. He knew that the old vampire would not push him away, would not deny him what he needed to heal, Angelus never denied his childer anything so long as Darla wasn't there to witness.
"Yes?" said Angel softly.
"For a minute I thought you were him. But you're crying. And I can taste the soul."
Angel looked away ashamed and disgusted and waited for Spike to send him away. "The minute I found out where she was going, where you were, I had to come. I'm sorry."
"Thank you," said Will. He leaned up slightly as if to say something in Angel's ear. And then. . . he passed out.
~Part: 6~
*Tonight*
He was careful as he jumped down the hole. Beneath the crypt was Spike's apartment. If he could get the boy downstairs and into bed he would be able to think. Beds are domestic, safe. A part of his mind wouldn't shut up. Silent, manic laughter and screams were threatening to drive Angel mad. He needed blood. His vision was blinking out but that didn't even register in his mind. He needed blood to give to William. His boy needed blood. His own needs could go fuck themselves. He tucked Spike in and then went to tuck Spike's hair behind his ear but remembered it was missing.
Sighing gratefully he saw Spike's small fridge, humming in the corner. He nearly ripped the door off it's hinges in his hast. Yet then Angel slammed it shut just as quickly. A dry heave ripped from him and he was so glad there was nothing left for him to sick up. He had butchered people in the past, had enjoyed it. It wasn't so much the fact that all of Spike's missing parts were in the fridge. It was that he hadn't been prepared for it. It was like an Easter egg hunt, only . . . not. Until that moment he hadn't realized just how much flesh his sire had cut from Will. Clearly Spike had healed quite a bit between the attack and Angel's arrival. But if he was healed now what the hell had he looked like before?
"Pull yourself together, Liam," he muttered. He always ended up referring to himself in the third person when it got like this, always ended up using his human name. He looked around and found a garbage bag. Shutting his eyes he promised himself that he could do it. Angel opened the fridge again. Scanned it quickly to answer the question, no, there was no blood sachets. There were just body parts. He tried not to think about what he was doing as he placed bits of his childe in a plastic bag. Separation would be a good thing, these were organs, just organ, defiantly not *William's* organs . . . no it didn't work, his mind was still screaming like a girl.
"Sire?" Will called. Angel looked over and realized that he was in vamp form. Will must have woken up at the noises of him crashing about, "Angelus?" he asked hopefully.
Angel winced. It wasn't Spike's fault he wanted his real sire. And with Angel acting as he was he knew that the young vampire could easily confuse them, "No, Spike, it's me." He walked to the bed so Spike could study him. After a minute the blond nodded and weakly let his head fall back onto the mattress. "I'm gonna go get you some blood. I'll be back real soon," Angel assured the broken man on the bed.
"It's ok," said Spike in a dejected whisper, "you don't need to lie. I know you won't come back. It's ok. I understand."
"No! I'll be back I swear," his voice was shaking with repressed sobs. He knelt by Spike's side. "Why did they not find you? Why aren't they here? I thought Cordelia said that you were working together!"
He tried to laugh but gave up as he felt his shattered ribs dig into his dead lungs. "They only come when they need me. I think they're trying to give me space. Even Buffy knocks now when she comes in. They pity me and so they act courteous out of "compassion". Act like 'm a man." He snorted again. "It's pathetic. The only one who really likes me is the whelp." He saw Angel's confused eyes, "Xander." He laughed again at the shock on Angel's face. "He was supposed to come over last night with a bad kung-fu movie but I begged off . . . I told 'im I was gettin' laid." He started to cry and then shank back from the felling of salt hitting his wounded eyes. Why was he telling Angel this? He had never wanted Angel to know he was there and now he was talking about movie night with Harris?
"I beat the living fuck out of the watcher before he would tell me where you were. I had to come for you. I'm so sorry. But please, I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Do me a favor? Hand me the phone?" he pointed to his cell and Angel gave it to him with confusion evident in his eyes. He watched as his childe hit speed dial four. "Watcher? Did that pillock come to you? No it's alright . . . Well he is a ponce . . . Tonight? Nah, 'm gonna go kill thin's by meself tonight. Yeah, alright." He hung up, "Buffy would have come to check on me." He explained as Angel put the phone back on Spike's side table. "You can go, I don't need you."
"Oh yeah, 'cause you're ready to dance the night away." Angel's words were steeped in sarcasm to hide his fear, "You can barely lift your head."
"*Barely* I *can* do it, it just takes effort."
Without thinking Angel dropped a hasty kiss on Spike's forehead as he stood straight again. "I'll be back in a little while. Just stay still."
"Actually I was thinking of dancing the night away." It was good to see that Spike could find rumor in his near death mutilation.
~Part: 7~
*Ten Minutes Later*
How did he always manage to end up there? It was like a huge and filthy magnet, he didn't want to go the Alibi Room but he would always find himself there. With a heavy sigh he walked into the bar. The plain fact was that he needed blood and Willy had the best blood around. He heard the heartbeat speed up the instant he saw the barman.
"Can I place an order?"
"Hey! Angel! How you doin?"
"I asked you a question." He had no interest in small talk.
"I'm outta that business."
"I need four gallons of blood, three human, one not."
"Angel. . ."
"This isn't a sting." Angel rolled his eyes.
"I have some in the back," Willy said dropping his claim to innocence. He headed into the back office, "You're back on the good stuff?"
Angel examined his nails he loathed the little man, "No the human isn't for me."
A soft thud sounded behind him and as he turned he was confronted with a sorry sight, "You're evil."
"I'm not evil, Xander!" Vampires don't whine, they just get sick of the same accusations being used repeatedly. "I'm only here to see Spike."
"He doesn't want to see you! You hit Giles, Giles wasn't telling you because *Spike* didn't want you to know."
"We talked, he's ok with me being here."
"Spike?" asked Willy immerging from the back room. "A woman was here few days ago lookin' for him. What was her name. . . Darling?"
"Darla," corrected Angel. "I should have known it was you that directed the loose cannon." He turned to Xander, "It proves how *not* evil I am that I'm letting this bastard live. I have to go." Picking up the four gallon, plastic, milk containers he asked, "Which one isn't human?"
"The one in the whole milk bottle. See? It has a red top unlike the others."
Turning to leave he nearly laughed when Xander tried to block him. "What are you doing, boy?"
"What have you done to him? Why does he need that much blood?" When Xander got angry he had the nasty habit of being antagonistic with the wrong people.
Angel almost pitied the boy, he saw true worry in brown eyes. "Here," he handed the man his cell phone, "call him and see if I'm being a bother." Xander was flicking through screens and Angel sighed, "He won't be in the address book, I don't know how to work it and I didn't know where he was until tonight."
Warily Xander dialed keeping his eyes trained on the vampire, "Spike?" he said and paused, "I'm at Willy's and you'll never guess who's here." His tone was sarcastic as he raked Angel's figure over. He listened for a moment, "You knew. . . are you ok?. . . I'm coming with Captain Broody. . . No one's seen you in days." His tone was pleading and he waited for the verdict from on high. "No, I'm coming."
He handed Angel the phone with a resolute look, "Sorry," apologized Angel.
"I don't want him to come. Please. . . sire." The word was stilted as it fell from the young vampire's mouth.
Angel smiled despite himself, "Ok, childe, I'll take care of it." After hanging up he looked up at Xander with a pained look, "He doesn't want you there."
"Probably because you beat him up and he fears what you'll do if I see!"
Rolling his eyes Angel pinched just above his nose and then nodded to the bar, "Sit down." Xander watched him for a moment before sitting down. "Spike doesn't want to see you. Be a good boy and don't follow me."
Xander rose to protest but as he stood quickly he felt his arm jerk back and he realized with horror that Willy had handcuffed him to the bar.
"Stay," commanded Angel as he turned and left.
~Part: 8~
Angel managed to walk out of the bar with a high head, haughty and cold. The minute the door shut behind him he broke into a run. In Sunnydale the roads were never empty and it was faster for him to run than to drive back to the crypt. After all he had his vampiric speed and he was even faster when agitated. The confrontation with Xander had confused him. The boy smelled of his childe. Xander was worried about Spike. He knew Spike's number by heart. It was all wrong. Angel wanted to rip Xander apart for touching his boy. But he knew it was simply jealousy and internalized disgust. He hated Xander because he knew he should have been the one to watch Spike, it was his job. And somehow he was able to displace his guilt and turn it into anger that he could aim at an easy target, he had never liked the idiot.
Three minutes later he was banging through Spike's door. He dropped down to Spike's bedroom. Spike seemed to be asleep. Silently he searched the small room for a mug and a microwave. He found both with little difficulty. As he opened the microwave door he flinched at the sight. There on the revolving dish sat two fangs a heart was drawn around them in blood. He hissed.
"Gelus, what's wrong?" asked Spike stirring into consciousness.
"I was just reminded for the thousandth time today that my sire is an evil bitch." Angel couldn't take his eyes off the teeth. Spike laughed and the noise kicked Angel into the real world and out of the place in his head that was *still* laughing and screaming. With a brush of his hand he swept the teeth away and placed the big mug of blood into the microwave. He didn't turn to his childe until the machine pinged. He replaced the mug in the microwave with another one and then carried the warm one to the bed. Standing above Spike he said softly, "Open your mouth." Spike raises a bloody eyebrow but did as he was told. Angel ran a finger over Spike's gums. The new teeth were breaking through. "Don't morph while drinking."
Laughing Spike said, "Ashamed? Don't want to see my real face as it reminds you of your own? I bet you love not having to see yourself in mirrors."
The slap was a surprise to the young vampire. It wasn't hard, just hard enough to make he pay attention. "The pain you feel has made it so that lesser hurts don't register. She ripped out your fucking teeth, you change and you'll rip your whole mouth apart. Don't play the game where you say something wrong just so I'll correct you. You know I was never ashamed of you."
"Since when?" asked Spike bitterly. He started to morph and then with a grimace of pain went back to his fully human look. "Ow, I thought you were bluffing."
Xander had bribed Willy with promises of keeping the man away from Buffy's rage if Willy let him go. As he walked into Spike's crypt he paused and listened to the angry and hurt voices below.
Watching Spike drink Angel just sighed at his boy's antics, "I've never been ashamed of you. You're my dear boy, you're my childe. And then I find out from Cordelia Fucking Chase that you're here? And that you told the girl child slayer that Dru sired you? What am I supposed to think? You just disclaim me? Why would you lie? Why didn't you tell her that I sired you?"
"Because."
"That's not an answer, William!" Shouted Angel. He regretted the action when Spike flinched.
The microwave pinged, "May I have another glass of blood?" asked Spike looking down at the bed.
"Of course. . . after you tell me the truth. Why didn't you come to me? Why, if you didn't want to be mine, did you go to her instead?"
"There is no one I want to belong to other than you. I wasn't trying to eradicate our past. I know you love her and I didn't want to add to the list of reasons why you feel ashamed when you see her. I mean you killed the watcher's girlfriend, you tortured him, you beat him up tonight, why add me to your list of sins?"
"One, why are you so sure I'm ashamed of you? You're the one good thing I've ever had a hand in. Two, I don't love Buffy, I obsessed over her, I felt great affection, but I never loved her. I've only ever loved one person."
"Darla," Spike confirmed.
"You! Why do you think Darla hates you? Because I've always loved you." He stood and retrieved the mug of blood from the machine, refilled the empty one and placed that one in the nuke. Opening the bottle, he drank half of the pig's blood cold, it was disgusting. Going over to Spike he handed his childe the warm mug and sat next to him. Spike crawled closer, instinctually needing to be close to his sire. He was practically on Angel's lap when the older vamp said, "I-"
A loud thud sounded and when Angel turned he saw Xander staring at his childe. Spike saw Xander and saw the horror in the human's face and buried his face in Angel's shoulder so as to not have to look at the man child. "you said you would take care of it."
"I thought I had."
"What the fuck is going on?" Xander was staring at the top of Spike's head. Why was the vampires face in ruins? What had that bastard done to his friend? "Start talking."
"Go away," Spike's words were muffled but Xander's reaction made it clear that he had understood.
Slowly Angel eased his childe off of his lap and back onto the bed. He blocked Xander's view with his back. Looking into Spike unblinkable eyes he said softly, "Drink your blood, ok? I'll be back in a minute." Spike nodded silently. Standing, he was at Xander's side with vampiric speed he pulled the boy upstairs with no concern for the boy's physical comfort.
Throwing Xander out side he slammed the door behind himself. "He told you not to come! You heard it from his own mouth. As his *friend* you should have stayed away."
"What did you do to him?" Xander's voice was small and scared but still angry.
"Don't be an idiot, boy, I don't have a fucking mark on me. What could have done that to him. Think, I know it's hard but just try to think."
"A human," said Xander softly.
"A human," confirmed Angel, "and now you, his favorite pet human has witnessed his humiliation. Leave, don't come back, stop the others from coming around, and forget everything you heard."
"You're his sire?"
"Technically I should pull you limb from limb. You have no right to eavesdrop on a sire and his childe. As it is, Spike likes you and so you get to go. But if you breath a word I'll kill you."
"You never loved her."
Angel sighed, "I fooled myself into believing I did." He looked the boy in the eye. "You may hate me. But if you tell her to will only cause her to hurt. I don't care one way or the other." Xander nodded and Angel took pity on the kid, "I'll have Spike call you in a few days, once I've gotten him settled in and well."
"You're taking him away?!?"
"I'm bringing him home." Angel turned and shut the crypt's door behind him.
The moon shone on the lone figure in the cemetery.
~Part: 9~
Spike was finishing his blood when Angel came back. He wiped his finger around the inside of his mug getting the last drops. And without looking up he asked, "He gone?"
"I'm sorry he was here to begin with." Angel headed directly to the microwave and got out the warm mug. He brought it over and sat back on the bed so he could watch his childe drink. At least Spike could hold the mug by himself now.
"You tried." Spike shrugged and then grimaced.
The fingers that clasped the mug shook. And Angel got up to get the half gallon of cold pigs blood. God, it was so disgusting to drink. He shook his head trying to clear his mind of the taste.
"There is a microwave," Spike point out.
"Too long to wait. If you didn't need the heat so badly I would have you chugging it cold too."
Sullenly Spike muttered, "I don't need it that badly." Angel came back to the bed and took the half empty mug away, "Bloody hell, fine I need it! Can I have it back now that you have my dignity?" Angel just shook his head in response. He placed the mug down, out of Spike's reach, as he sat on the bed. Silently Angel ripped his wrist open for the second time of the night. Studying the offered wound Spike said softly, "What are you doing?"
"Trying to feed my childe as human blood isn't healing him fast enough." Angel brushed his wrist against Spike's lower lip. "Drink."
"You haven't done this in a hundred years," said Spike as he shied away from the blood.
"No, I did this earlier, you just kept blinking out of consciousness. I need you well before-" he stopped himself from saying, "before I take you home". He didn't want Spike to get angry. "C'mon, Will, feed."
Spike heard the abrupt stop in Angel's words. But it didn't matter Spike knew how the sentence would end, "before I leave". Of course Angel would want to get out of here as soon as possible. It was surprising that Angel had come in the first place. "Ok," he said softly while not meeting his sire's eyes. And as he drank, Angel pulled him into his arms. He was glad, this way Angel couldn't see him cry. His wounds throbbed with the salt hitting them. Though he hid his face the older vampire smelt the salt and felt a dampness on his shoulder. Angel rubbed his back and hushed him softly. His comfort hurt more, one because his back was shredded up, and two because he knew his sire was gonna be gone again.
"Angel? Stay with me for a while? I'll do anything. Just don't leave yet."
Angel shuddered at hearing Spike's tone as he said, "I'll do anything". His childe would rather be raped than be alone. Rape. That was all he could call what the majority of his and Spike's couplings had been. It was what he technically thought of as consensual rape. William had never denied him but that didn't mean he had wanted it. He loved his sire and wanted his sire but he didn't want to be treated the way Angelus had treated him. All it had been for Will was pain mixed with desperate hope, hope that Angelus would see him for what he was, hope that Angelus would love him. "You don't need to do anything, Will, I'm staying," Angel finally said.
"Why? What's in this for you?" asked Spike sounding genuinely confused.
Shame swept over Angel, "I just want to be your sire. That's my job."
"So this is about responsibility? If that's all you *can* leave. You gave me your blood and enough human blood to last me a few weeks. That fulfills your moral obligation."
"Just a minute ago you begged me to stay."
"That was when I could offer you something. You never welsh on a deal but you have broken promises. And I want to be sure you'll be here in the morning."
"I swear on my mother's grave that I'll be here."
"You killed your mother."
"I swear on my soul." And then after a long silence Angel asked, "Would anyone break in here?"
"No one's that stupid."
"Then let me get us a hotel room? You can take a real bath and get rested up in a place with air conditioning."
"Ok," Spike said softly looking at the floor, "but I can't stand up."
Smiling Angel handed him the half empty bottle of human blood, "Drink it cold, try not to focus on the taste. I'll help you up the stairs."
~Part: 10~
"Why are you here?" asked Spike again as Angel helped him into the rented room. "How did you know to come?"
"I killed Darla a few years ago. A law firm brought her back. She came to me every night and tried to change my memories as I slept. Memories of when she would leave us alone and I was able to treat you right, when I could love you without fearing her. And she would get so angry every night when I fought her and wouldn't let her take those nights away from me. And one night I woke up and found her there in my bed. I was so scared. Even as a human she still scared me as much as she did back then. So I was told Cordelia about those days, when we were happy. I told her about failing you. And then she told me that you had been sired by Dru. She told me that you told Buffy that Dru made you. And then with slight threatening she told me you were here. Darla was MIA and I figured that she must have found out where you were. And I ran here as fast as I could. Why didn't you come to me? Why did I have to find out from a cheerleader?"
"I didn't think you would care." Spike picked at the bedspread and drank his cold blood.
"Well that makes sense. I mean it excuses you for not calling. But why did you swear everyone else to secrecy? Did you just not want to be proved right?"
After a long silence Spike said, "I told the whelp not to tell the prom queen, knew she'd be the weak link."
"Do you really doubt me so much? I thought you knew me better than that."
Laughing Spike said, "I don't know *you* at all. I haven't known you since the night you came home all soul having."
"My soul? So that's what this is about? You don't think I'm your sire because I have a soul?"
"It had nothing to do with your soul. You know I would have followed you into hell just to be with you!" he shouted and then took a breath into his ruined lungs before saying calmly, "Remember when you were human and you liked someone? Remember those pacts you made with yourself? Ya know, if the girl throws her head a certain way she loves you. Or, if she looks into your face for more then three seconds it means that she wants to mother your children?" Angel nodded silently. "I told myself that if you chose me over her, just once, that you loved me." Angel listened with a slightly confused look. "I saw you, Angel. I'm not blind." Angel on continued with his blank expression, "I saw you, that night, standing outside and watching. I thought I was going to die and you just watched."
"It wasn't that close," Angel defended himself softly and weakly.
"Well I thought it was! I was scared and I wanted my sire there. I was still a fledgling! I was twenty years old and yet I was still a fledge! You kept me a fledge. I could barely feed without you. You crippled me and made me to be completely dependent on you and then you just up and left!"
"I'm so sorry, Will."
"I tried so hard!" Spike said, now on a roll. His accent was pure upper crust, his affected drawl was left in the dust of his raw passion. All of his emotions had thrown him into a tailspin. His body was shattered, had hadn't fed for days and then glutted. Words wouldn't stop falling out of his mouth, "I tried to be the perfect childe. I tried so hard to prove myself over and over again. But I was never good enough. The four of you used me as a boot scraper. And I let you! Hoping that it would be enough, that you would see what a good boy I was being." Little boy tears fell down his face caused by the little boy hurt.
Angel slowly wrapped his arms around Spike and purred with his chest against the young vampire's back, "You *were* good. You *are* good. You didn't need to do anything. You were perfect even when you were human."
"Then why?" asked Spike tiredly as he leaned against Angel's rumbling frame, "You left me there with her, you tried to kill me at parent/teacher night."
"I was afraid of her."
"You could've taken her," Spike said petulantly, "You were strong."
Laughing softly Angel said, "You saw me as strong. But I wasn't that old myself. And Darla's ancient. If you and I had a real fight who'd win?"
"You," Spike said grudgingly.
"Why?"
"Because you're my sire and I'll never be able to outclass you."
"Exactly. If she had known how much I loved you she wouldn't have *let* you die. She would have tortured you for a hundred years. I was trying in a warped way to protect you. But the only person my act fooled was you." Angel sighed and tightened his grip around his boy, "And you were the one person who never should have fallen for it. I've always loved you. You're the only person I loved. Dru was sweet and dear to me. Penn made me proud. And Darla just scared the wit out of me. Remember when it was just us? God I loved to watch you smile. I hated it when you looked hurt, or confused. You should have known that you were my whole world. And then, that night, you told me to fuck off and I knew that you had actually fallen for it. I fucked you up. There was never any need for you to be anything other than you. You were my childe, that's all you needed to be." He smiled slightly, "And as for back to school night, are you dead?"
"No."
"Then was I trying to kill you?"
"No." Spike smiled a tiny smile.
"Of course not." Angel ran his hand through Spike's blood matted hair. He ghosted his finger's over Spike missing ear. The wound had healed and he felt a slight bump, "Hey, you're getting a new ear already! You'll be fine by morning. That's great!"
Looking down at his slowly healing fingers Spike asked a question in his Oxford English accent, "And then you'll go?"
"I'm not going anywhere without you." Angel started to carefully undress his childe. He took stock of each of Spike's wounds and catalogued them for later. None were bleeding and he thought it was best to let them just air. Setting bones is never easy but Spike had at least ten small fractures and all of his ribs were smashed in. Angel did it all as tenderly as possible. He murmured apologies and kept purring. He slipped Will under the covers and went to grab the blood out of the hot water he had filled the bathtub with earlier. He poured some into an over filled mug and brought it back to bed. But When he came back into the room Spike was already asleep.