"Connor," Spike whispered, shoving him lightly.
The little boy sighed. Shoving Connor didn't seem to do any good at all. Wasn't he trained to jump up ready to fight at the slightest noise? He must have gone soft in his old age.
"Connor," he repeated more urgently.
Connor only snorted in his sleep and rolled over.
Spike grinned a devilish grin for no one in particular before reaching out and running the nail of his index finger straight up Connor's bare foot that was hanging out from underneath the covers.
Connor's eyes flew open.
"Hi," Spike greeted from right there on his bed. "I been here for ages. Thought you'd never wake up."
Connor regarded him silently for several seconds before he was fully satisfied that the previous night's events hadn't been one of his weird, messed up dreams.
"What time is it?" he finally groaned sleepily, reaching for his alarm clock and pulling it toward him to read the obnoxious orange display.
"Eight in the morning... Spike... We don't get up at eight in the morning in this house. You know that."
He attempted to set his clock back down on his nightstand, but missed, and it clunked noisily to the floor. They both ignored it.
"You made me go to bed too early," Spike pointed out. "Now I'm up, and I want breakfast."
"Then go get some," Connor said, closing his eyes and slinging one arm over his face. "You know where the fridge is."
"I want you to get it," Spike insisted. "I... Well, all right. You may as well find out now."
"What?" Connor asked warily, suddenly quite a bit more awake.
Spike bit his bottom lip.
"Never mind," he said.
"What did you do?" Connor asked, pulling himself reluctantly out of bed and yanking a t-shirt over his head.
"Nothin'," Spike mumbled. "I'll go back to bed."
"Should I go wake up Angel?" Connor asked pointedly.
He didn't like having to invoke his father's name like that, but it was the only thing his half-asleep brain could come up with to get this boy to talk.
"No!" Spike said quickly. "Just... Fine, come on."
With a sigh, Spike led Connor downstairs. He hadn't really wanted to admit to this mistake, but honestly, who else in the house would have been covering frosted flakes with pig's blood and missed the bowl? And then knocked the bowl off the counter... And then accidentally tracked the mess through the lobby...
"Aw, man," Connor groaned immediately upon seeing the mess. "How did you even manage all this?"
"Don't tell on me!" Spike begged. "Please?"
"'Tell on you?'" Connor asked, amused. "What are we, five? … Oh. Right. Well, I assume this was an accident?"
"Yes," Spike agreed, nodding earnestly.
"Then there's nothing to tell on you for, is there?" Connor asked, giving him a reassuring pat on the head. "I'll help you clean it up."
"Oh," Spike said, sounding disappointed.
"What, you thought I'd just clean it all up myself?" Connor asked, smirking.
"No," Spike lied, sullenly taking the dish towel that Connor handed him.
"I just had these floors redone, you know," Connor informed him, stooping down to swipe a mess of bloody cereal back toward its bowl. "And here you are trying to repaint them with blood."
"Who's repainting the floors?" Angel asked groggily as he appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "What are you talking about, Connor? We just had the floors done, why do you want someone to paint—oh."
Spike noticed that Angel noticed the mess, and he immediately burst into tears.
"What happened?" Angel asked, and though he sounded neither angry nor upset, Spike continued to cry.
"Just an accident," Connor said, washing his hands. "Go back to bed, Dad."
"I didn't mean to," Spike blubbered brokenly to Connor. "I swear I didn't."
"Don't cry, buddy," Connor said, kneeling down and using a thumb from each hand to wipe the tears from both of Spike's cheeks concurrently. "It was just an accident. You're not in trouble. Okay?"
Spike glanced warily at Angel before slowly nodding his acceptance of that statement.
"Just be a little more careful," Angel said mildly, taking the dish towel from Spike and cleaning up the mess himself.
Spike burst into fresh tears at the gentle scolding, and Angel immediately handed the dish towel to Connor and knelt down in front of Spike himself.
"Hey, now," he said. "What's all this about, champ?"
Spike took an instinctive step back, and a grimace of pain crossed Angel's face, but he tried his best to suppress it and pretend like he hadn't noticed Spike's unconscious attempt at fleeing.
"Do you want me to fix you a new bowl of cereal?" he offered gently.
After he received an encouraging glance from Connor behind Angel's back, Spike nodded shyly.
When Angel handed Spike his new bowl of cereal, the little boy stood there looking uncertain.
"What?" Angel asked kindly. "Do you want something else?"
Spike shook his head, but didn't say anything.
"What's the matter, then?" Angel asked. "Do you want to ask me something?"
"Can there be cartoons? On the telly?" Spike finally asked, clearly doubtful.
"You bet there can!" Angel answered enthusiastically, and Spike smiled up at him with relief. "You can even eat that in my room, on my bed. If you promise not to spill it..."
Spike nodded again, without needing Connor's encouragement this time, and Angel took him upstairs to get him settled in.
"When did you get a telly?" Spike asked rather timidly as Angel piled pillows up on both sides of him. "And what are you doing?"
"Connor made me," Angel answered, ignoring the other question as he continued to secure the little vampire on the bed with pillows. "He said never watching television wasn't healthy for me. So I put it in here to shut him up."
"Never turn it on, do you?" Spike asked with a grin.
"Nope," Angel said, returning the grin, and then tapped him playfully on the nose. "And don't you go telling him so, either."
"Well... I won't if you're nice," Spike answered, sounding quite serious.
"Here," Angel said, placing the remote in the hand not occupied with the cereal bowl. "I don't know how to work it, so you're on your own."
"I think I can manage," Spike answered, already turning his attention toward the television.
Angel smiled, shook his head, and returned downstairs to talk to his son about the day's plans.
It was a mess. It was an absolute mess. In fact, it bordered on being a disaster, and Spike loved every bit of it. He gathered an armload of feathers from the floor, clambered awkwardly back to the top of Angel's bed, and let them fly. That was almost as good as the initial feather flood when the pillow first broke, but not quite.
"And then, he continued to hit me with the pillow until the damn thing split open," he heard Connor saying as two pairs of feet mounted the stairs. "And this was the result."
Spike stood guiltily on the bed as Angel took in the scene before him. Ten million—no, maybe twenty million—feathers. Everywhere. On Spike. On the floor. On the bed. On the bookcase, the lampshade, and even lying across the tops of the picture frames on the walls. Everywhere.
"Wow," Angel commented lightly.
"Wow?" Connor asked irritably.
"Did you do this, young man?" Angel asked, doing his best to glare at the little vampire.
"Yeah," Spike answered, hopping down from the bed and standing in a particularly fluffy pile of feathers. They felt good underneath his bare feet.
"And did Connor tell you to stop?" Angel continued.
"Maybe."
"Did he tell you to stop hitting him with the pillow? My pillow?" Angel demanded. "Long before it broke?"
"Yeah," Spike answered, chewing on his bottom lip and twisting the hem of his shirt in his little fists.
"Yet you kept doing it," Angel said.
"Yeah," Spike said softly.
"You know better than that," Angel scolded, though he wasn't entirely sure that was the case. "You owe Connor an apology. Right now."
Spike didn't really want to apologize. He didn't see the need to. It had been Connor's fault, really. Connor was the one who wouldn't leave him alone. He'd just wanted to finish watching his program, but Connor kept standing in the way of the telly, making demands like, "Come on, we really need to get you into some clean clothes" and "Stop swinging that pillow around like that; you're going to damage it, and you know how Angel likes his pillows." If Angel liked his pillows so much, why had he piled them all around Spike like that? Surely he'd meant for him to play with them, at least a little. Right?
"Sorry," he offered sullenly, staring at some little white feathers that had made their way between his toes.
"You can do better than that," Angel said sternly.
"Sorry I didn't listen to you, and that I made a big mess," he offered.
"And now you're going to clean this big mess up," Angel instructed. "Every single feather, you hear me?"
Clean it up? Why on earth would he want to clean it up? It was amazing! It was like... like having snow inside, only it wasn't all cold and melty, just pretty. Why did they want to take away all his pretty decorations?
"No! I'll not!" Spike shouted defiantly, stomping his foot for good measure, which sent a few stray feathers flying back into the air.
"What do you mean, you'll not?" Angel asked, taken aback. "You'll do it, or I'll warm your little bottom for you. Is that what you want?"
"I won't, I won't, I won't!" Spike insisted.
Angel took a step toward him, and Spike tried to flee, but his legs were short and couldn't get him out of harm's way fast enough. Angel grasped him firmly by one arm and spun him around, kneeling down so that they were eye level with each other.
"Now, you listen to me, young man," Angel said sternly. "This behavior is not acceptable. You are not going to talk to me like that, do you understand?"
Spike's only reply was a petulant pout.
"You are just a little boy," Angel continued. "Little boys don't always get their way. Little boys have to do as they're told."
"I won't..." Spike said, but he sounded far less sure of himself.
"Then you'll have to get a spanking," Angel said matter-of-factly, drawing his hand back threateningly.
"No!" Spike whined, twisting his behind out of the way and jutting his lower lip out farther than it should have been able to go. "No, don't! I'll do it! I'll clean it up!"
"That's my good boy," Angel said, scooping Spike up into his arms and tousling his hair. "I'll help you clean it all up, okay?"
Connor rolled his eyes. When it came to little Spike, Angel just had no backbone. If that had been little Connor, he'd have already had his butt beat with the wooden spatula, he was sure of it.
"Angel?" Spike said timidly.
"Yeah, champ?"
"I... I just wanted to keep it for a little while longer, that's all," he tried to explain. "'Cause it's pretty."
"You think it's pretty?" Angel asked in surprise, glancing around the room as if trying to see it from Spike's point of view.
"It is pretty, don't you think?" Spike asked.
"Well, okay," Angel said noncommittally. "I'll tell you what. How about we take a picture of it before we clean it up? Then you can always remember how pretty it was. Without ever making a mess like this again, got it?"
"Got it," Spike grumbled.
"Connor, bring me the camera," Angel said.
"Why, certainly," Connor said sarcastically. "Since you asked so nicely and all."
If Angel didn't appreciate his tone of voice, he didn't mention it. That irked Connor a little bit. He obediently fetched the camera, however, and watched as Angel "taught" Spike how to use it, though he was fairly certain Spike probably already knew how better than Angel did.