The Loss of a Loved One
A/n: betaed by the lovly sublimatedangel. Part of the slash100 challenge.
Angel watched the scene with a smirk on his face. Last week, Spike had convinced Xander that they had to have a family for their triad relationship to be more fulfilling. Spike insisted that they had to get a pet. So, the next day they had gone to the pet store only to come home with a glass bowl and a fish. Spike had pouted about not being able to get the pit bull puppy they had seen at the store, but was still rather excited about having his own fish.
At the time Angel had found it exceedingly cute that his child was so besotted with a little tiny orange fish, but over the last week he had become highly annoyed with the little bugger as it seemed that Spike was extremely protective over him - meaning that he yelled at Angel if he ventured too close to the bowl.
Xander had confided in him that he had had Willow cast a long life charm on the fish so that it would be harder for Spike to kill. He said that he didn't want to see Spike crushed when he realized he had forgotten to feed his pet and found him floating at the top of the bowl. Xander told him that someone would have to deliberately kill the fish, with poison or something, for the fish to kick the bucket. At the time Angel had found it simply amusing that Xander had gone to such lengths to please Spike; later he had found the information useful. As the week drew to a close, Angel was sick and tired of Spike's yelling and ranting whenever he passed the bowl on the way to the couch or kitchen. Finally, Angel decided that the fish had to go. So tonight he'd brought home some ground up hemlock and slipped it into the fish bowl while Spike and Xander were in the kitchen getting beer and snacks.
Not much later, he noticed that the fish had eaten the hemlock and was currently belly up. He snickered at the expression of devastation on Xander's face when he came into the room. Xander heard the snicker and turned to glare at Angel.
"What did you do!" he asked, sounding torn between anger and fear.
"I was sick of Spike yelling at me over the stupid thing," Angel retorted, only noticing after he said it how much he sounded like a little child.
Xander was about to yell at him when Spike came in and looked around at their faces. For a moment he seemed at a loss until he looked at his fish bowl and saw his now dead fish. His face quickly crumbled and a small sob let lose. The next fifteen minutes were spent with Spike whining about defective fish and uncaring boyfriends. Xander tried to soothe Spike while Angel looked on in amusement, finding it humorous that a little fish could cause so much trouble.
He was brought out of his own thoughts when he heard Xander's reassurances get louder. "Don't worry sweetheart, your Xan will fix this. Shhh, don't worry.
how would you feel if we bought you another pet"
"Another pet?" Spike asked softly as Angel looked on in horror. He knew he couldn't get away with killing their next pet and he knew Spike would be even more protective over it since the death of his fish.
"Yes, sweetheart... how about a kitten?" Xander asked and he heard Angel moan in pain in response.