Not Invincible
by
Princess McPhee
Disclaimer: Not mine. Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt aren't me. Not even the right gender. So, therefore, I don't own.
Author's Note: Ideas from just about every Angel or Spike fic on the planet. So, if an idea very closely resembles yours, please don't take offense.
Summary: Spike goes to Angel, after Buffy beats up on him the latest time. AU from there.
Rating: R
Chapter One
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Los Angeles, 2002
He shows up at my door one night. The man--no, beast, that I hate most in the world. The thing that has tortured me, disrespected me, violated me and hurt me continuously for more than a hundred years.
He's crying.
He's strong, if I can say nothing else good about this one. I don't know why Dru changed him, but sometimes I think she might have sensed the inner strength in him. To most, it must have looked like an accident. The crazy vampire grabbed the first young man who took her fancy in the street. But it wasn't like that.
After he was turned, Dru brought him home. Then she went off to play with her dolls, and left him with me and Darla. She couldn't take care of a fledgling. She wanted her 'puppy' back only when he was housebroken, when he knew the ropes. And it was up to me to train him.
Darla, of course, wanted nothing to do with him. She wasn't horribly fond of Dru, but the crazy thing grew on her over the course of the years, and by this time, though she might upset her or be careless with her feelings, she wouldn't have openly rejected her choice of childer. But that didn't mean she wasn't all for throwing the newly changed William out in the sun and saying it was an accident. That he didn't know better.
A little-known thing about vampires is that when we rise, we don't actually know to stay away from the sun. It isn't instinctive, as some make it out to be. We rise at night because our bodies know to, but if an older vampire doesn't explain the ropes to the fledgling, they may inadvertently stay up to greet the sun. Most don't, simply because they feed and fall asleep, and every creature looks for shelter before they lay down and become vulnerable.
Drusilla was incorrigible for long weeks after I first changed her. As a human, she had loved the sun, and as a vampire, she wasn't sane enough to realize what it would do to her, no matter how many times I patiently explained it to her, and Darla attempted to bodily knock it into her. She would stare at the boarded up windows and weep, little, childish sounds of sorrow, and no one could console her. She eventually got over it, but I was on fledgling-watch for an awful long time then. Darla never once relieved me, so I didn't sleep for nearly three weeks.
Eventually I boarded my crazy childe into a room and took a twenty-hour nap and a huge feed. I felt better after that, and Dru, it seemed, had finally learned her lesson.
Spike, too, was a hard one to convince. Not, it seemed, because he lacked to brain power to do so, but just because from the moment he was raised, he never once wanted to believe anything an older, wiser person would say to him. He would listen to Drusilla, of course. Since she was crazy, and after all, obviously the only credible source of information around. And then, anytime time Darla would casually chastise him or I would try to teach him something, he had to try it out himself, and make sure we were telling the truth. I know he only did it to spite us.
It only took one hand out in the sun to make him believe me that time. But I still can't believe he did that, sometimes. I have never once in my life or unlife met a vampire who, after being told it would burn if he did, still put a limb out into direct sunlight, on purpose, nonetheless.
But that's Spike for you.
So, since Dru was pretty much uninterested in her 'baby', except when it came to coddling him and getting anything she wanted from him, it fell on my shoulders to housebreak the stubbornest vampire ever to set foot on the planet.
He gave me hell for several weeks. By that time, I'd shown him how to feed, how to will the change, to stay away from holy water, crosses, and what would kill him. He liked to irritate me, and Drusilla still wanted nothing to do with him during the better part of the day. So, he became my shadow.
The day he walked brashly in on Darla and I having sex was the end of that little arrangement. Not that I actually cared he'd walked in on us, but that he hadn't become submissive and left the room with his head bowed. That he hadn't been a good little vampire. Instead, he'd smirked, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and cocked his head to watch us better.
I'd thrown him out the door. Just pushed him away, and told him that if he came back in a week, not dust, I'd let him in again. He'd shrugged, told me it would be a piece of cake, and wandered off into the night.
Three days later, I'd ended up rescuing him from a gang of vampires about Darla's age. He'd been, as usual, impertinent, and they'd decided to teach him a lesson. I'd heard his cursing a block away, and had wandered toward where they were, but I was in no particular hurry. Even once I'd gotten there, I had only stood and watched for long moments. But when they pulled out the wood, I'd intervened, if for no other reason than because Drusilla would have been terribly upset.
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France, 1881
"Hello."
The vampires looked up. Two in game face, one not. Obviously the oldest, and the one who seemed to be the leader of this pack. It took a while to place him, but then I remember. "Krup."
He'd looked me over, not recognizing me. It wasn't a surprise. I'd met him only a few years after Darla turned me, and she'd introduced me only briefly, and then, only as 'my new project'. But eventually, he seemed to remember, and it clicked. "You... you're Darla's pet project!"
I nodded, smirking a little, not altogether happy with being called that, but not willing to pick a fight over it, especially not with these three. "Angelus."
He nods, and the other two, who are by his sides, copy him. "Good to see you. Is Darla around?"
I nod. "She's hunting. Shouldn't be too far from here."
He grins, and slaps his leg. Big, barrel-ish vampire, Krup was, Russian-bear-thing, even in life. He looks good-natured, like a gentle giant, but I knew better. "Great! I'd like to see her."
I smile thinly. "Shall we go to her?"
He nods. "Come on, boys." They follow him, but one of them taps his arm.
"What should we do with him?" He asks, pointing at Spike, who, at the time, was still William.
Krup looks back at him. "Kill it."
The vampire goes back to do his dirty work.
I don't speak too fast, don't show too much interest. I know that Spike, only a few months old, will never survive this other vampire's attack, even though I sense he is but a few years old himself. A vampire's strength increases dramatically in the first few years, and then at a steady pace as he gets older. In theory, a four or five thousand year-old vampire should be able to do anything they please, simply out of sheer power. "May I have him?" I ask politely.
Krup looks surprised. "You know him?"
I nod, sparing a disdainful glance for the batter fledgling. Krup does too, his fare more venomous than mine.
"Is this true, filth?"
Spike nods reluctantly. "He's my bloody grandsire." Then he adds, muttering under his breath. "And damn well too bad, too." Krup and I both pretend not to hear.
"Where's his sire?" The big Russian vampire asks.
I shrug. "Dru's not really..."
"Sane?" Pipes up Spike, helpfully.
I look at Krup, and shrug. "He's right."
"Who takes responsibility for this fledgling's actions, then?"
I sigh, a sound of the long-suffering. And goodness knows I am, as is any creature who has ever spent even a moment's time in Spike's insufferable company. "I do."
Krup looks at me for a long moment, and I wonder if I'm about to get myself into a fight. But then he chuckles, and starts back off down the street, waving the vampire with the stake to come with him. "Come, Angelus! We don't want to keep Darla waiting."
I nod, and follow him, my concern for Spike once again gone. I hear his struggle to his feet behind us, and then before us, Dru rounds the corner, swaying to music only she can hear. "Daddy!" She cries, and runs towards me.
I smile. "Hello, baby. Did you have fun?"
She nods and a goofy grin spreads across her face. "I met a little boy. He tasted delicious!"
I grin at her, and then throw my thumb over my shoulder. "Why don't you go check on William, darling? I think he got himself into some trouble."
She nods, and starts to saunter off down the street in the general direction of where I left Spike. Krup and I continue off to find Darla.
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Los Angeles, 2002
And now, here he stands, that insolent childe who was always getting himself into trouble, on my doorstep. He's sopping wet, his hair and face dripping, his stance downcast and his eyes refusing to meet mine. It's still day, and it's good it's cloudy outside, because I don't think he would have noticed if it wasn't.
"What are you doing here?" My initial reaction is to be much harsher. After all, he's done unspeakable things to me. But he's also my childe, in more senses than one. My blood does flow through Drusilla's veins, and as such, through his, too. But more than that, he is my childe because it is I who raised him. I who tried, time and again to make him into a proper vampire, but he never would cooperate. That was always what Spike was worst at. Throw anything else at him, and he could get it done, but if it involved sharing, cooperating, anything to do with other people, he couldn't manage it.
He doesn't raise his head. "Nowhere else to go." There's no insult thrown in with this statement. Now I know he is suffering.
Against my better judgment, I open the door wider and step aside. "Come in, Spike."
A little of the old spark returns to his eyes. "You don't have to invite me in, anymore, remember? Vampire's place of residence, yada yada yada?"
I smile a little, strangely glad to see him behaving more like himself. "I remember. But Fred and Conner live here too, now."
He nods listlessly. "'Spose so."
Pulling a towel from under the front desk, after all, Wesley, Gunn and I often come in covered in goop or at best, water, I throw it at him. "Dry off, Spike. Then sit, and tell me why you're here."
He complies. I don't know which surprises me more, the fact that he listened to me for once and did as I told him to without questioning it, or the fact that he's just ripped off his beloved leather duster and thrown it on the ground, kicking it away like it's contaminated or something. I don't comment.
When he's done, he sits down on the couch. I wonder if we should go somewhere else, but then I remember that no one is here except me and Conner. I think Lorne's at Caritas. I don't know where Cordy and Wesley are. Fred and Gunn went out to dinner, tacos I think. They were strangely excited about it. I didn't ask about that either.
We're silent for a long while. Then Spike speaks. "Has anyone told you how sodding suffocating it's gettin in ol' Sunnyhell?"
I shake my head, and wait for him to continue.
He does, slowly. "Me and the Slayer, we had kind of a thing." My hackles immediately rise, but I hear him out. He continues. "I loved her. Maybe I still do, don't know. Anyway, she comes back, and doesn't know what to do. So she turns to me. And it's all incredibly bloody complicated, but somehow we ended up fuckbuddies."
I feel as if my heart is being ripped from my chest. I remind myself that I left Buffy behind a long time ago, but it doesn't make the hurt go away. Then I feel a surge of anger, because it's Spike we're talking about, and I left her so that she could have better than that. But one look into Spike's eyes, and I can see he knows that. There's no use in telling him, he's had it drilled into him too many times already, I can see.
"Anyway, these crazy science nerd-types who've decided to become real pains in the ass came to visit us and left us a real nice welcome card. Some girl. Only thing is, she's dead, and they set it up so that Buffy would think she killed the poor thing."
My head is spinning and my chest is tight. God, that must have torn Buffy apart. I'm about to open my mouth to ask when Spike speaks again. "Yeah, she took it really hard. Was goin' to the police, tryin' to turn herself in. I tried to stop her, but she beat me up pretty bad."
Now that I look, I can see the split lip line that mars one side of Spike's lip. A bruise is slowly forming over his eye. His hair is unusually tousled, though initially I thought that was because of the rain. It's not, though. I know that look. He was in a pretty good fight.
He continues, heedless of what's going through my head. "She called me some stuff. All things I've heard before, nothing more than usual. But this time, it just sunk in, you know? I mean, I know she deserves someone better than me. You know that. Hell, everyone knows that. I've always taken the punches before, never thought about it, really."
He pauses, and looks away. "But last night, when I thought I was going to lose her, I started thinking about us. About what we had. About how worthless I am, and how useless I really am to the Sunnydale crew." He laughs bitterly.
"I thought about doin' it myself, you know. Just get up and greet the sunrise. After all, nobody needs me anymore, do they? Buffy doesn't even like me. The little Bit's got her sis back, and the witches, too. Xander and Anya are gettin' married. But I couldn't do it. 'Cause I'm too much of a soddin' coward. How' you like that, huh Peaches? You raised such a sissy he can't even properly kill himself."
Spike stands, surprising me. He turns to face me, pulls something out of his jeans pocket and tosses it to me. I catch it. A stake.
He spreads his arms and closes his eyes. "So, I'm here. Figured, I'm your bloody son, for all intents and purposes. Might as well let you pass judgment on me. Do whatever you like. Stake me, I don't care. It might even be a relief." He seems to have come to peace with it, and just stands there, a blank expression on his face.
There's a long moment of silence, and then I put the stake down softly, and walk up to him. Raising a hand, I caress his face softly. His eyes open, but his body doesn't move. He looks at me, his eyes so full of pain, and I pull his arms into his body, and then wrap myself around him. He's so much smaller than I am. His body is slight, and mine is so large. I can practically cover him with only my flesh.
He turns his head and buries it in my shoulder. Then his shoulders start to wrack with sobs, and he cries silently for a long few moments before he speaks again.
"God!" His voice is muffled. "I just wanted to die! But even you won't kill me. No one will kill me. I won't even kill me. It's just pathetic."
I rub his back as if he's a child, and hold him tight for a while longer.
When his sobs dry and he tries to pull away, I hold him even tighter. I wipe his eyes with my thumb, and take his hands and walk him upstairs. He wrenches his hands from my grasp, his last shred of dignity fighting, but he follows me.
I take him to an empty room. I sit him on the bed, check his pockets, in which I find two other stakes and a bottle of holy water, and leave him to go get some clothes. I find a few things in my room that are too small, they'll still be too big for Spike, but they'll do. When I return, he's still sitting on the bed in exactly the same position I put him there in.
"Spike?" No answer.
I walk to him, and start pulling off his shirt. That gets an answer. Again, he wrenches away from me, but he disrobes while I walk away to turn on the shower. "Warm up," I tell him. He doesn't argue like he usually would about vampire's not needing to be warm, but goes willingly. I leave the clothes in his room, and rifle quickly through the drawers, making sure I'm not leaving anything that he could use.
God, I'm on suicide-watch for a vampire? What the hell happened to me?
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I give him to time to emerge after the shower goes off. When he doesn't, I wander in to check on him, and find him completely asleep on the bed, his too-big clothes rumpled around his slight form. I watch him sleep for a moment before go to his side, press a soft kiss to his forehead, and then retreat.
He sleeps all morning. When I turn in, about noon, he's still asleep. His room connects to a bathroom and I've left him instructions to call my room if he wakes up needing something, so I lock the door from the outside. I don't know why some of the doors do that, but it's a handy trick. I know he'll be able to get past it if he really wants to, but then again, I don't think anything could stop Spike if he really wants something. It's meant as more of a deterrent than anything.
The phone rings around seven. I pick it up, but Spike hangs up. Going downstairs, I warm him blood and take it to him in a mug. Conner is gone, and there's a note from Cordy, which explains the amount of sleep I got. Let me tell you, I love my son, but he's not really into the 'sleeping-for-more-than-six-hours-at-a-stretch' thing. Luckily she didn't notice Spike, or else I'm sure she wouldn't much care that I'd been sleeping, either.
I carry two mugs upstairs. When I pull out a key and unlock his door, I walk in to find Spike sitting on the edge of the bed, not moving a muscle, just posed as if he was stone. "Hello," I greet him softly, thinking I'll get some kind of response.
Nothing.
I sit down next to him and give him the mug of warm blood. He takes it, but makes no other move. Sipping it slowly, rather than downing it in a gulp like he usually does, he makes no effort to communicate. His hair is tousled, something I haven't seen in a hundred years. There are shadows under his eyes, and he looks... defeated.
He looks like a man who doesn't care about his life anymore, and somehow, it scares me much more than I think it should.
I know I've worn this face a million times in the past hundred and a few years, know that there have been periods of time, long periods of time when I didn't care if I lived or died. But never. Never have I seen this look in Spike's eyes.
Spike has always been so full of sparkly life that it was almost sickening. Back in our vampire days, it got us into infinite trouble. It caused more fights between us than I can count, not to mention Dru and Darla. It comes through really strong when he's really happy or really pissed, it fades a little when something happens, like Dru leaving him. From her odd description of his behavior, I'd say it faded a bit when I left the pack, too.
But I've never seen it gone. Now, there's nothing in his silver-blue eyes. Nothing but empty expanses, like he's given up on everything, like he thinks he's seen all the world can show him.
And in a way, it's true. I'm older than Spike, by about a hundred and twenty years, but I took a ninety-five year break. And I got my soul back. Spike has been the same vampire for a hundred and thirty years. He's seen a lot. Vampires are unnatural creatures, and though most deny it or sublimate it to the point they forget their inferiority, every once in a while, along comes a smart one, like my grandchilde.
I think that Spike's time with the humans of Sunnydale has changed his attitude, and re-harnessed his ability to see the supernatural as other than normal.
I think that Spike has discovered, for the first time, how repulsive we are, as a species.
I put an arm over his shoulder, and he lets me. "Will," I start.
He shakes me off with a little snarl. "I'm not bloody William, Angelus! Haven't been for a century!"
My demon and human sides are really battling over this one. Childer are NOT supposed to snarl at their sires. But he's acting more like himself, and that makes the man I've become happy, for some odd reason. I start again.
"Spike, I know you and I, we aren't in the same situation, but still, I feel what you're going through. It's hard to wake up one morning and realize that we are creatures of the night, that we're the monsters every little child fears."
He snorts, and interjects softly. "I liked being that monster, mate." He didn't, though. Even when I ran with them, William was a soft-hearted thing. Sure, he had an annoying tendency to be... well, impertinent, and that was probably a big part of it, but he never reached the heights of evil a lot of vampires can. I have never seen William torture anyone, and Spike didn't like it, last year. I saw it in his eyes. Still, I let him have his delusion.
"Alright. So you liked it. Then what?"
He doesn't bother looking at me when he responds. "What what, Peaches?"
Goddamn him, I hate it when he calls me that.
He laughs bitterly. "I know what you're thinking, Angel. And I think God already damned me. Several times over."
How does he do that? All these years later, and he still knows what I'm thinking. Can still tell what I'm going to say before I ever say it. I do my best to ignore him, and ask my question again. "What's so wrong, then, that you'd come to me?"
He doesn't have an answer for that.
We sit there for a long time. Then, I head downstairs, check the message machine. Wait for Wesley to come to work. Vampires hours, you know. At least, that's his excuse. In reality, I'm not actually that blind. I know he's working because of Fred and Gunn. But he's lucky. A bruised rib heals faster than a broken one. I should know.
So does a heart.
Unless, of course, the heart isn't metaphoric, in which case, good luck surviving with a broken one. Yet another reason to get it bruised and not broken.
I leave Spike's door unlocked, and he comes downstairs about an hour later to plop himself like a big lump of vampire on my couch, his boots on the cushions, and watch some horrible old soap opera re-runs. I don't say anything.
When he lights his cigarette and starts puffing on it, though, I pluck it from his grasp and put it out. "Hey!" He says. "It's not like I'm gonna get lung cancer or something, you bloody poof!"
I explain calmly. "I don't care if you smoke, Spike. But my child lives here, and he will grow up without second-hand smoke wrecking his lungs." I pull him up and shove him towards the door. "Smoke outside. It's dark."
Impertinently, he plops back down on the couch and shoves his cigarette pack away. "Don't need to smoke. Just wanted to." With that, he goes back to watching TV, and I go back to leaving him alone.
Wesley arrives at eight-thirty, and walks right into his office, not looking anywhere or at anything. He's getting better, he just has his nose in a book today. He can be awfully hard to reach when he's reading something.
Cordelia wanders in about nine-fifteen, half an hour past Conner's bedtime. She swears that he can't possibly need a bedtime, considering the fact that he doesn't even have a fully defined night, what with his dad being a vampire and all, but it says in the baby books that a schedule is very important, and since he may be the only good thing I ever do with my sorry existence, I'm going to do it right.
"You're late," I tell her without looking up from the case file I have my own nose in.
She shrugs impertinently. "We were shopping."
I look her up and down. "For what?"
"For Conner, of course!" She pulls my son from his blanket, and he looks at me sleepily, content just to be in Cordy's arms. And there he is, in a pair of miniature jeans, baby boots, and a fake leather duster. I don't even want to know where she found that, or how much she spent on it.
She watches me, waiting for a reaction. "Well? Don't you like it? It's Angel, and mini-Angel!"
I smile wryly. "Thanks, Cordy, but if it's all the same to you, I'd prefer my son doesn't grow up to be a miniature version of me."
She shrugs. "That's all right. I'd prefer that he not be a demon and all, too. But he can still inherit your fashion sense. Even if you do wear nothing but black for long periods of time, it's generally pretty good."
I nod, not quite sure what she means, completely sure that I don't care, and reach out for my son. Just then Gunn and Fred walk in the door, laughing, and Spike comes from the living room to see what all the commotion's about.
All hell breaks loose.
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Within seconds Gunn has Fred behind his back and a stake in his hand, fighting stance ready. Wesley comes running from his office, skidding a little on the hardwood floors and grabbing a battle-ax as he comes to a stop before even looking at the evil we're 'fighting'. I guess he heard Cordelia scream.
Conner did too. He's crying in my arms, his own lungs very well developed, apparently. I rub his back, and hold out a hand to the crew. "Guys," I say. They don't even bother too look at me, their eyes too glued to the sight of Spike, lounging around my hotel in my clothes, not looking the least concerned with the two fighters facing him. Not only that, but he's smoking.
"Guys!"
Finally, they look up at me. "It's okay." I explain.
Wesley's eyes keep darting back and forth from Spike to me and back. Gunn is looking at me, giving me his full attention, but clearly has Spike pegged in his peripheral vision. He has a firm hand on Fred, keeping her behind his bulk. She's peering around his shoulder, clearly more curious than afraid.
Cordelia looks at me like I'm crazy. "It's Spike." She says that like it explains everything. I suppose, to her, it does. She's only ever seen Spike as an evil thing to be destroyed.
Whereas I, in contrast, have seen Spike as everything from a cherished childe to an annoying, blood-sucking immortal pain in the ass, his torture of me days rating higher on the scale than it goes.
But honestly, though I harbor resentment towards him, he's my childe, and I love him. How could I not? At the very least, I don't hate him. And on a good day, I might even be able to stand him.
No one is any closer to being convinced. I look at my childe, staring pointedly at the cigarette, and motion towards the den where he came from. "William, a moment?" He doesn't comment about the name, merely retreats.
I remember a moment later, just as he's closing the door behind him. "Will?"
He sticks his head out, cigarette between his lips. "Yeah?" He asks, kind of mumbled by the stick of tar.
"Put the cigarette out."
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I motion the guys closer, and they gather around. I lead them into Wesley's office, knowing full-well about vampire hearing. When I can no longer hear Spike mumbling to himself and cursing me, I stop and turn back to my associates, who are far from happy.
"What the hell is that about?" Cordelia asks.
Wesley nods. "I must agree, Angel. If there is an explanation for Spike being here, I can't imagine what."
I sigh. "Look, guys. He's been hanging out with the Sunnydale gang for a while now. When Buffy came back, apparently she was clingy, looking for someone to hang on to. That was Spike. But she's been using him, and abusing his love. He may not look it, but he's incredibly broken-up."
They stare at me incredulously. Fred is the first to speak. She raises her hand a little as she does so. "Um, I hate to be in the dark like this and all, but who is he?"
Gunn turns to her. "He's a vampire. A particularly nasty vampire, whom our own resident vampire sired about a hundred-twenty years ago." He looks to me. "That right?"
I'm forced to nod reluctantly. "Yes. Except that about three years ago, he was caught by a military force and chipped. He can't inflict pain on a human anymore. So, he's been hanging out with Buffy's group, helping to kill demons. He fell in love with her. And then all this happened."
Wesley broke in. "Wait. He fell in love with her? How is that possible?"
I shrug. "He's a vampire. That doesn't mean he can't love."
Gunn looks at me incredulously. "It don't?"
I sigh. I can see I'm in for a vamp history here. "Newly-turned vampires are extremely loyal to their masters. You know that, right?" When they all nod, I continue, rocking Conner in my arms as I do so.
"Well, it isn't exactly love, but it's close enough. As the vampire gets older, the bloodlust tames a bit and his thoughts and feelings become a little less primal, a bit like a child growing up. That's when he learns to love."
I sigh, not really wanting to get into my past, but not seeing a way around it.
"Some of them, only really end up feeling anything for their sires or childer, and it's pretty much out of their control. Some can extend it to anyone they get close to, like a human. Spike's one of those."
"So he fell in love with Buffy?" Wesley inquires. I wish he'd quit asking questions that were already answered. Especially when those questions are about my ex and my childe sleeping together.
"Yes. For a long time, it was one-sided. Then, when Buffy came back from the dead and began to cling to him, it became a little more mutual. But she was using him, and she beat him up."
Cordy gasped a little. "Buffy did that to him?"
I nod.
Gunn looks at me, ever suspicious. "How do you know he's not lying?" He asks.
I shrug. "I don't. But he was incredibly broken up when he came here. He asked me to stake him."
Cordelia, usual tact showing looks at me. "And you didn't?"
"Cordy, he's my childe. I may not like him much most of the time, but I'll always love him. I created him."
Cordy mumbles something under her breath that I'm sure I don't want to hear.
"Any other questions?" I ask, looking around the room, most of who's occupants look shocked into silence. "Good."
"Actually, I do have one," Wesley says.
"What?"
"What are you doing with him?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, why is he still here, and how long is he staying?"
I meet Wes's gaze head-on. He may be the boss of Angel Investigations now, but this is my hotel, and Spike is my childe as much as Conner is. Granted, he's mixed up with a lot of other feelings, but that one of possession isn't going away. "He's staying as long as I feel he needs to."
"Not as long as he wants to?"
I hold his gaze still. "No. He's suicidal, and he's not going anywhere until I feel like letting him go."
Gunn coughs in the back, and mumbles something like, 'and why don't I care?' under his breath sarcastically. I ignore him.
"Any problems, come to me. I know you all have other places to stay if you need to, so if you're really too uncomfortable, you don't need to come to the hotel until he leaves."
They all look at me like I'm crazy, but at least I'm the crazy who was listened to, now.
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I go back to see Spike as the group disperses into the hotel. Wesley tucks a spray-bottle of holy water into his waistband, in plain view of everyone. Cordelia glares at me, but doesn't say anything. Gunn shoves stakes into every conceivable location on his clothes, and gives Fred a bottle of holy water. Lorne isn't back from Caritas yet, but when he is, he won't care.
Holding Conner, I walk into the room. Spike doesn't look up, but at least he's put out the cigarette. I have no clue what he's watching, and I don't want to know, but I put a mug of blood by his hand on the table, and stand around to watch him try and ignore me for a while.
Conner whines. Spike turns, and clicks off the television when he sees him. "Hey! Is this the little bugger?"
I nod. Spike picks himself up from the couch and comes to stand in front of me. He touches Conner's forehead, and looks at him with affection. "I never got to see the Niblet this small," He says, a bit wistfully. "They're awfully cute."
"Who?"
"The Niblet. Little Bit, Bitty Buffy. Dawn."
"Oh."
He looks a little sad. "I'm going to miss her."
"Dawn?"
"Yeah. She's th' only real friend I got in Sunnyhell, anymore."
Interesting. I didn't know that Spike was close to Dawn. "How much time do you spend with her?" I ask, curious to see how much Spike has intricated his life with the Sunnydale crew.
His eyes look distant for a second, then he snaps back. "Not much, anymore."
"What about... before?"
He doesn't answer for a moment. Then, "Every minute of every day."
I must have looked surprised. I certainly wasn't expecting that answer. Spike explains himself a little.
"The witches moved into the Slayer's house, but Dawn didn't want anything to do with them. She snuck out so many times that I finally let her stay with me. We went out, rode around on my bike at night, played poker with some old friends. Eventually, the Scoobs said we must be held together by superglue, she was so hard to pry away from my side." Pause.
"I didn't exactly try to stay away from her, either."
Definitely interesting. So it was Spike, and not Willow and Tara who had watched Dawn all summer.
On an impulse, I hold Conner out. He looks at Spike sleepily, then yawns, clenches his tiny fists, and goes back to sleep. Spike looks at me incredulously. "You're going to let me hold the kid?"
I nod, and pass him Conner. Spike takes my son carefully, gently, holding him just right. He looks down on the baby with pure affection. "I guess this little fellow's sort of like my brother, huh, Angelus?"
I nod. I hadn't really thought of it that way before, but now that I think about it, Spike's right. He and Conner are both my children, in different ways, and I guess that makes them 'sort of' brothers.
"Can we pretend he's my nephew, though?" Spike asks. "Cause I'm a Master vampire, and he's like, babbling in a crib."
I smile. Only Spike can put things that way, and still keep in my good graces. "Sure."
Spike coos at Conner, and I must say, I think that is the strangest sound I have ever heard. My hundred-twenty year-old childe making baby sounds at my four-month-old son. "Hey, Conner," He says in that baby-talk voice. "I'm your uncle Spike."
Conner opens his eyes and stares up at Spike, not saying anything or complaining, just watching. Spike smiles at him, and Conner starts to wail.
Spike looks up at me, trying to hide his concern. "What, he doesn't like me?"
I smile a little. "No, sometimes he just gets that way. He's a baby."
But my son won't shut up, and I know what to do. I don't take him back, even as Spike tries to hand him back to me. "Vamp out," I tell him.
"What?!"
"You heard me. He likes it."
Spike shakes his head. "Disturbed kid you spawned, Angelus." Then he shakes his head once, violently, and his demon visage takes the place of his sharp features. Conner quiets immediately, and even starts to giggle a little, funny gurgling baby sounds coming from his throat.
Spike hands him back to me, and shakes off his demon face. "I think that's all I can handle of your crazy kid tonight, Peaches."
I nod. "I'm going to put him to sleep. I'll be back in a little while."
"Don't bother. I'm going out."
I catch his eye with mine, unaware that Cordelia is watching from the doorway. "No, you're not."
Spike starts to bluster. "Bloody hell, Angelus! You might have been my sire once upon a time, but you're not my master!"
I shake my head, deadly serious. "You're my childe. I feel you are in danger of injuring yourself. Therefore, I'm exercising my right, as your sire, to tell you what to do and what not to do."
Spike starts getting really prickly now. His tone, instead of being angry, is white-hot. "I'm a Master vampire, Angelus."
I nod. "And as such, you don't have to take orders from anyone." Pause. "Except your sire."
"You're not even my sire!"
"Close enough."
"Dru sired me! How does that equal you being my sire? I can't remember anything about having to obey my grandsire!"
I'm getting a little pissed. "I raised you, boy, and you know as well as I do what that means."
"That I was bloody unlucky?"
I step up to him, but he doesn't back down. We're only inches away from each other when Cordelia intervenes.
"Uh, I hate to break up this male posturing thing, but I'm going to take the baby before he gets squashed, and then you can continue."
I step reluctantly back from Spike, and hand Conner to Cordelia. "Thanks," I tell her softly.
"No problem," She replies equally softly, and retreats.
I look hard at my childe, and he looks back defiantly. "You're not going anywhere, boy, and that's that." I stalk out of the room, and Spike throws himself angrily back on the couch, turning up some television show to full blast, knowing full well that it's incredibly annoying to my ears.
Without turning around, I yell at him. "Turn that down!"
"Fuck you!"
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