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.

Chapter Note: I finally decided. Please, no flames about my decision to make this S/A. If you don't like it, you've been duly warned, though I hope you'll continue reading!

Summary: Spike goes to Angel, after Buffy beats up on him the latest time. AU from there.

Rating: R

Chapter Five

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Spike appears, five minutes later, dressed in a pair of raggedy old black jeans, his Doc Martins, and one of my black, button-up silk shirts. He's taken the tails of the too-big shirt and tied them together behind his back, he's wearing it over the top of a white undershirt, and the whole outfit has this kind of Billy Idol-meets-Mobster look. His hair is flat against his head again, a change from the unruly half-curls half-spikes that it turns into overnight.

I don't comment on the clothes. The shirt's expensive, but I don't want to break my boy. Just make him see who's in charge. If I don't care about the shirt, he can do with it what he likes. If I have feelings about the shirt, he better damn well abide by them. So, I pretend I don't have a lick of feelings one way or the other about the 200-dollar silk he's tied into a knot.

It's early, and no one is around yet. Fred's door is still locked, she keeps strange hours and I never know when she'll be awake. Cordy won't be in till noon unless she has a vision. Wes should be here at office hours, about eight-thirty, and Gunn will troll in to check on things a little after that, and then disappear again until we need him. My crew, or Wesley's crew, whoever's it is, they know the routine.

Besides, bad things tend to happen in spurts. When it's quiet, it's quiet. And when there's trouble brewing, it comes one bad piece of news after the other. Right now, the only thing that's going on is Spike, and for me, this is the quietest of the quiet times. Nothing is happening, amazingly enough. And that never happens in LA. It makes me faintly suspicious.

It would be just like Wes or Cordy, or possibly both of them, to decide that I needed a break, and keep me from the cases they're working. But they've tried before, and neither is very good at lying. Or, it could just be that vampire senses are better at detecting the subtle things that go along with lying, such as twitching, sweating and not meeting a person's eyes.

Spike distracts me from this depth of thought with one of his usually sarcastic comments. "Are you gonna get that blood out of the micro in the next century or two, Peaches? Cause if you don't, you'll just have to run it through all over again." Good to see my boy hasn't lost all sense of touch with his present self, after last night.

I pull the mugs of blood from the microwave and set them on the table. Spike shakes his head. "Not hungry, mate." He doesn't elaborate on that, but I know what he's talking about. And I also know why I'm ravenous this morning.

I drink both mugs of blood and fish through the paper for anything unusual that could possibly have supernatural origins. Spike grabs the comics, and starts reading, his booted feet on the table, his chair tipped back and my shirt bunched up and straining at the seams. This morning, I know if I sent him the right look, he'd obey instantly. There's something about sire's blood that does that to you. But the thing is, he doesn't recognize that he's doing anything wrong. He's just Spike... being Spike. So I don't comment.

When I'm through circling suspicious occurrences with a red pen, I put the paper back on the table, grab three manila folders, and start case files for all of them. They're not necessarily supernatural happenings, but if I even start to investigate them, I keep files on them. Makes it easier to find notes and stuff if it turns into a real case.

Spike finishes with the comics section and drops it back on the table. Then he takes the rest of the newspaper from under my elbow, and starts flipping through it. He guffaws as soon as he finds my red-circled articles. "Peaches, this guy got his ass kicked by some gang or another 'cause he didn't pay up," he says, condescendingly. "It ain't your jurisdiction."

I don't look up. "Maybe, maybe not. But it says that there were strange marks on the body, and the gang members said he was extremely strong. I'm going to look into it, just in case."

Spike rolls his eyes. "Angelus, the guy got some tattoos and did a little body-building. So what? He's dead, ain't he?"

I finally glance up, and meet his gaze. "His family could want retribution. And demons seeking retribution usually want to do bad things to humans. I'm going to look into it."

Spike shrugs. "Suit yourself."

"I will, thank you very much."

Conner's cries take me from my seat and send me upstairs, where I change and dress my son, then return to the dinner table. As soon as he's settled into his high chair, his cries become gurgling, and pretty quickly, happy bubbling. The baby cereal goes everywhere, but Conner has a blast, and I don't mind cleaning up. The benefits of having wanted something for so long: when you finally get it, you're willing to put up with the flaws.

Spike, on the other hand, has different thoughts on the matter. "Hey, Peaches," He says, "you never let me get away with that!"

I look at Spike, trying to convey the insanity of that statement back to him. "You were twenty-three years old, Spike," I tell him. He shrugs.

"Not like you treated me like it."

I roll my eyes. "Did you deserve it?"

He cocks his head at me, and then shrugs again. "Probably not. But then, back to why you never let me act like that?" He points at Conner.

I sigh, trying to convey the amount of immaturity that I feel this conversation holds. Spike just grins and goes back to the articles in the paper.

A few moments later, while I'm cleaning up Conner's mess, and he's giggling and gesturing wildly with pudgy arms in the high chair, Spike breaks into laughter again. Conner squeals, always glad to see someone in a good mood, and waves his arms in my childe's direction.

"Peaches... this is even.... more bloody.... ridiculous... than that deadbeat!" He manages in between guffaws.

I don't bother to ask what his explanation for this is, I'm sure he'll tell me without any prompting.

"He went paint-balling and then got run over! And for that matter of fact, what's so bloody strange about a paint-y guy getting hit by a car, anyway?"

Sure enough.

"Spike, it's not every day that someone literally covered in blue and red paint gets run over," I explain. "We investigate anything strange and possibly supernatural. That falls into the previously outlined category, don't you think?"

He shakes his head and opens his mouth. Before he can speak, I cut him off. "And what's paint-balling anyway, Spike?"

His jaw drops, and he makes a big show out of looking theatrically amused. "You don't know what paint-balling is?"

I sigh, roll my eyes, and shake my head, sure that I'm about to be subjected to another lecture on one of the many things I missed out on about the twenty-first century. Instead, Spike smirks, and my non-beating heart drops. This is not a good look, at least not when it's on my childe's face.

"Well, I'll just have to show you, then, won't I?"
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"Spike, I'm not sure this is a good idea."

"Why?"

"Because you refused to tell me what it involves!"

He smirks. "Are you going to chicken out, Peaches?"

I shake my head, the bit of pride I have left firmly in place. "No."

He throws my coat at me. "Good. Then let's go."

Leaving Conner with Fred and Gunn, I catch the coat and follow my childe reluctantly. Wesley's in the office, and he smiles at me as we pass by. "Have a good time!" He calls.

Spike smirks in that way that makes me want to tie him up and torture him until he tells me what he's thinking. "Don't worry, Watcher, I'll make sure Peaches here lets out the fun-vampire for at least a little while."

I'm really in for it.

A drive to the crime-scene is not what I expected. Spike parks on the side of the road and jumps out of the car, heading for a building next to us. I stare at the ground, my powerful senses catching a whiff of human blood still stuck to the pavement, even after several hundred cars passed over this stretch of road on their way to work this morning.

"C'mon!" My impatient childe calls. I reluctantly join him at the door, and he leads me into a small office. "Two admissions to the soonest session," he tells the woman at the front desk. "And whole gear-sets."

I look at the prices displayed in front of me for something I still don't understand. "And just who's paying for this, Will?"

He grins up at me. "Why, you are, Angelus!"

I sigh, and hand him my credit card. It's not as if I'm poor, I might as well let Spike have his day of fun. And I admit, I'm getting a little intrigued.

Once Spike has squared away the admission and 'gear', with my money, he leads me into a dressing room. Promptly stripping down to nothing but his boxers and undershirt, he pulls on the coverall, zipping it quickly up the front. He looks over at me. "Well? What are you doing just standing there! Get changed."

Reluctantly, I change into another one of the suits, and Spike hands me goggles, like the ones welder's use. He puts them on, and I follow suit, even more recalcitrantly. What the hell are we doing?

Heading out the door into what looks like it used to be a huge warehouse, I look around as Spike procures bags full of something for us. The room is huge, easily three times as big as the lobby of the Hyperion, which is already pretty good-sized. The floor is dirt, but in places concrete shows, so they must have trucked a whole bunch of dirt in here and laid it down. There's a big hay pile in one corner, about twice as tall as me, and a bunch of pipes and paint-splattered wooden climbing structures throughout the room.

My examination of the space is interrupted by my childe. "Here," he says, handing me a bag. "Your first lesson in paint-ball."

He reaches into my bag and pulls a ball of some kind out. It's gooey and loosely held together, and I look at it oddly. He hands it to me, and it smears my hand with paint. Meanwhile, he's gotten one of his own out of his bag. "This," he says, pointing, "is a paint-ball."

"I think I figured that out, Spike."

He ignores me. "I throw paint-balls at you, you throw paint-balls at me, we run around and hide and see who's better at dodging the balls, and have a good ol' time."

I look at him dubiously.

"Oh c'mon Angelus! Don't be a spoilsport." He breaks out the pouty lip. "Please?"

I sigh. "Alright, alright. What do we do?"

"Is your old brain too feeble to remember what I said just a few seconds ago?" He asks.

"Spike..."

"Okay, okay. I'll behave. Here. You go to that end" he points to the far corner of the room, "and I'll stand right here." He motions, and I jog away.

Once I get to the corner of the room, I turn around to find Spike, not too unexpectedly, gone. Turning slowly, extending my senses, I look for him.

All of a sudden, a wet splat hits the middle of my chest. I look down in surprise, and then up into the laughing eyes of my childe, standing mostly behind a wooden structure and watching me.

Suddenly, something comes over me, and my hand's in the bag of yucky paint-balls, grabbing three and hauling them out. Spike obviously sees something in my eyes, because he ducks behind the structure and dashes away as I come towards him at a dead run. Swinging the paint-balls with all the strength I can muster, enough to knock out a human, I nail Spike on the back with the green and yellow ones, the red one missing his elbow by just the narrowest of margins.

With my childe on the run, I take the chance to throw a bunch more paintballs at him. Only about a third of them hit him. After all, I may have vampiric strength and aim, but Spike is using his vampiric speed to get out of the way, so it evens things out more than a little bit.

The game only goes on for the next twenty minutes, though it seems like much longer. Spike becomes a laughing, pointing, little boy nothing like his usual self, and I crack several more smiles than usual. Something about being covered in paint does that to you.

Finally, things wind down. Spike's out of paint-balls, and the buzzer's just about to ring. I throw the last few at him, but he dodges and they miss, and I'm out too. The bell rings loudly, and I walk slowly towards the locker room. The attendant at the door takes our empty paint-ball bags, and starts to fill them with more in preparation for the next group of crazy people who want to throw them at each other. Spike and I just walk tiredly into the locker room and strip out of our paint-covered overalls and goggles. A bin by the door says that used 'equipment' should go there, so we drop the gear inside, grab two towels from the pile, and head to the showers at the other end of the room.

I've seen Spike naked many, many times. I raised him, ran with him for twenty years, and have been his enemy for the past hundred-plus. I've seen him naked a lot. But somehow, it's a whole different thing when there's this new vibe between us, one of perhaps unexpected, but much present mutual respect. And as the water sluices down his lean body, my eyes devour him.

He seems to know this, as he leans back into the stream of water with a grin on his face, and swings his arms at his side so that I can see all of him from where I'm standing. I don't look away, as odd as this moment is.

Slowly, his eyes open, and the blue depths that are usually so twinkly, but hard at the same time, are sleepy and calm right now. He seems to like having me look at him this way. At the very least, he's a lot more relaxed than I am.

The water beats down on us for long moments before I reluctantly pull myself back to the real world, and wash the paint off as thoroughly as possible. I scrub the shampoo through my hair and rinse it out, watching Spike mirror my movements whenever possible.

We're almost done, and my childe turns his other side to water, turning his back to me. He rinses his hair quickly, efficiently, but misses a spot of bright red paint on the back of his head, near the hairline. "Will," I say softly, not wanting to break this mood, whatever it may be. "There's paint on your neck."

He just looks at me for a long moment and his eyes are hazy. I can't tell what he's thinking. Then he takes the few steps across the room to my shower, and turns his back to me. "Show me?"

I don't know what the hell we're doing. But I soap up my hands, and then run them gently through the curls on the back of his neck. The paint is stuck on, and I have to rub softly, tugging a little at the skin, to get it off. Spike lets his head loll forward a little, and a shiver runs through his body. I put it down to the cold of standing out of the shower. I don't want to think about the other things it could mean, right now.

Yet I continue until there's not a trace of red paint left in my childe's hair, and when that's done, I lovingly rinse his head, like I do for Conner. "There."

Wrapped in towels, we head back to the lockers, where we retrieve our clothing. I change into my clothes immediately, but Spike drops his on a chair, takes the towel from around his body and starts rubbing his hair dry with it.

Finally, when we're finished dressing, Spike pulls something from the pocket of his black jeans and squeezes something from the tube into his hands. Streaking it through his hair, he makes it lie down flat again, getting rid of that mussed little-boy look. It almost makes me sad, but I love the flat, gelled look too, so it doesn't bother me much.

Returning to the Hyperion, Spike does his usual, stupid dash for the front door. He still hasn't clued into this fact that he's a vampire and could burn himself to a crisp that way. Sometimes he genuinely worries me when he does that. Of course, there's really no better way to go out during the daytime, but still... he could just not. Go out in the daytime.

Fred comes into the room, a big smile on her face. "Hi, Angel! And Spike." She looks between us, less thrilled to see my childe than me, but not letting it get in the way of grinning with happiness the whole time. This is not a good sign. I wonder what Conner's gotten into that she's so happy to see me.

"Hey, Fred." Pause. Then the question that I don't really want to ask. "How's Conner?"

"Asleep." With that, she watches us for a moment longer, crazy grin never fluctuating, and then pads off into the next room on her tiptoes, like a dancer.

"Crazy little thing," Spike says from behind me, but his voice holds affection, surprisingly. "Kind o' reminds me of Anya."

I nod, though I don't know what I'm agreeing to. I met Anya a time or two because of who she had been, but she wasn't a big part of the Scoobies when I was in Sunnydale. I do remember that she was... quirky. Being abruptly relieved of your demon-hood after a thousand years will do that to you, I suspect.

Out of the side of my vision, I see Cordy poke her head out of the office, Fred right next to her. They seem to be looking at us, but I ignore them. Maybe they'll go away if they see we're just being boring.

Unfortunately, Cordy doesn't seem to think we're being boring. I don't know how she figures that, all we're doing is standing in the front lobby, but a grin spreads across her face, and Fred, giggling at something, whispers in her ear. They duck back around the corner and into the office once more, and I shake my head.

"Bints gone?" Spike asks. He never ceases to amaze me with his powers of perception. He wasn't even looking in that direction and he could sense they were watching us. I nod, not even objecting to his terminology when applied to my ex-employees. He drapes his coat over his arm and stomps noisily up the stairs.

"Spike!"

He turns, one eyebrow raised.

"Quiet. Conner's asleep." He rolls his eyes, but moves much more stealthily. I watch his back retreat. He's probably going to catch a nap- even vampires accustomed to sleeping in the night find it much more comfortable to slumber during the daylight hours. Being awake during the day results in kind of a slowed, sleepy function, which helps prevent vampires from going crazy during the summer when the days are at their longest. Though it never stopped Will or Dru from attempting to drive me and Darla insane.

I retreat to the study with a new tome I picked up at a used bookstore around here. They had no idea of the value of the text, and sold it for a very low price. It's an encyclopedia of vampire families, and worth several thousand dollars to the right people. I'm only glad that the council didn't get their hands on it, because a lot of the information is inaccurate and/or out of date. But still, it's an entertaining read, and will provide some guesses to fill in the holes in the histories of some more infamous lines.

Around two, three hours after Spike and I got back from the paint-ball place, Conner awakens with loud cries. Cordelia appears in the doorway. "Do you want me to get him, Angel?" She asks.

I shake my head, already on my feet. "I've got it." She nods and retreats, going back to whatever it is she was doing. I think it was painting her nails. Cordelia really is a useful employee, but sometimes there's just nothing to do. Like now.

I head up the stairs two at a time, my tall frame making it much less awkward than it looks. Leaning over Conner and cooing at him, I calm him down enough to stop the ear-splitting cries, but he's still fussy. I lift him from his crib, change his diaper, feed him a bottle and walk around singing 'Rock-a-bye-baby' before he settles down again.

Cordelia appears again and wants to take him off my hands. "Fred and I are going to the park," She says. "Want us to take him with?"

I nod. "Sure. I think he's up for a while, so that might be a good idea." I hand him over to her, and watch as she disappears down the stairs, baby-talking to him all the way. He coos and giggles, waving a little fist, and she grins. I crack my own smile, something of a rarity. There's nothing in the world like being a father.

Spike appears behind me, his hair mussed and his eyes blinking rapidly, still half-asleep. He yawns, not bothering to raise his hand to hide it, and blinks again. "That kid has a set of lungs on him, that's for sure." I nod, and we stand there in companionable silence for a while.

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Days pass, and I think Spike and I have reached kind of a balance. He's willing to respect me so far, and I'm willing to respect him so far. Sometimes, when our frustration is high and our patience is low, the middle doesn't meet in either category, but most of the time we make do. And when we just can't manage, Spike ruins or breaks something, and then I get to yell at him without feeling guilty, and we're okay again.

My crew, Wesley's crew, whoever they are, are getting used to having a platinum-blond, blood-drinking, alcohol chugging, cigarette smoking annoyance around. He takes endless joy in taunting them, but stays a careful distance from Gunn, who still watches warily with his hand on a weapon whenever my childe's in the room. He senses that Gunn means business, and will stake him, no matter what he might mean to me, if he gets out of line.

The night after the paint-ball fiasco, Spike slept in his own bed again, downstairs. I didn't think I needed to worry about him running off after the reaffirmation of the bond the previous night, and I was right, for once. Of course, I awoke to find things burning in the kitchen instead, but at least I didn't have to go trouncing around in the sewers to find him.

Blood-sharing between a sire and childe is a powerful thing. True, it's Drusilla's blood that first ran through Spike's veins, but since then, it's always been mine, and the difference is now barely noticeable. The call of the liquid red is nearly tangible to a fledgling, I recall clearly. And its power exists still, even on a master vampire such as Spike and me.

Between vampires, blood-sharing has three main purposes: Sex, power, and healing. When it's used for healing, all of the energy goes to heal the vampire, and the bond tie is only slightly involved. When it's used for power, that's when the bond tie is reaffirmed the most. When the childe is most vulnerable to his or her sire. It depends on the strength of the vampire, how soon it wears off.

And then, there's sexual blood exchange. For the childe, the effect is roughly the same as if power were the objective. For the sire, though, it's different. It's this immense feeling of connection, this almost physical link to the other vampire, accompanied by an incredible high. Occasionally non-related vampires, or vampires with generations between them do exchange blood during sex, but it doesn't provide this high.

Then, not only are there several uses for blood-sharing, there are several ways vampires share blood. A neck-bite is always involved in changing or marking. Neck-bites are sometimes involved in sex, but it's always the sire biting the childe. If the childe is allowed to drink the sire's blood at all, it can be anywhere the elder vampire allows it- except the neck.

I breached this protocol about ninety-five years ago. It didn't bother me any more than any of the other rules of vampire lore I broke.

Most commonly, a childe is invited to drink from a sire's wrist. I guess there's just something about a neck-bite that automatically makes the one biting dominant, and vampires are very hierarchical creatures. Childer are never allowed to even make a play at dominating their sires.

Of course, since there isn't really a vampire police or anything, the rules really go uninformed by anyone except the sire in question. Which means that for sure, I am not the only vampire to have broken many of them. For instance, I never had a problem with allowing Drusilla to dominate me to some degree, because she was insane. It just didn't bother my alpha sense. On the other hand, I never would have taken it from Spike, and Darla never took it from me. So, it's more of a personal thing.

Kind of like parenting.

After Spike has served my (Wesley's, Wesley's!) crew their semi-burnt breakfast and swiped one of the donuts Cordy brought, ignoring his own painful concoction, he throws a bag of blood in the microwave to heat, and sits down beside me. "Good morning, little guy!" He says to Conner, in my arms. "You like pancakes?"

I look at him. "Spike, he's four months old."

Spike shrugs, then frowns, ignoring me entirely. "You don't really have any teeth, though, do you?" He peers at Conner's mouth, trying to see. "Oh, well. Guess you're gonna have to get a little older, huh, pet?" He hasn't spoken to me once, nor looked at me. He only does this when he's trying to hide something.

"Spike?"

My childe ignores me, and I reach down and grab him by the hair pulling his gaze up to meet me. I'm even fairly gentle, I think.

Spike doesn't agree. "Ow! Bloody hell, Angel, what'd you have to do that for?"

It's my turn to ignore him, a chance I take gratefully as I down a swallow of coffee. It's the only human substance I consume. I don't know if caffeine has any effect on vampires, but if I had to guess, I'd learn towards yes, since I'm becoming addicted to a cup of coffee in the morning before I can wake up. "What are you hiding?" I ask calmly.

"Nothing!"

"Did you break anything?"

He shakes his head.

"Did you otherwise ruin anything of mine or any of my friends?"

He shakes his head again, stuffing an entire half of a donut in his mouth and reaching for another. I catch his hand before it can reach the box. "Spike..."

He swallows hurriedly, and turns to me, his face serious, and strangely enough, a little upset. "Later, okay?" The fact that he doesn't put a derogatory term in place of my name on the end of that sentence makes me even more suspicious, but I nod slowly, and respect his request.

What the hell does he want to tell me?

Spike returns to being his usual, annoying self for the rest of the day, though. He sleeps through the afternoon, and unusually, I keep everyone hushed so that he can get some rest. Something worries me about the way he behaved in the kitchen this morning. He wasn't flip or sarcastic like usual, and that can only mean something serious is afoot.

Cordy goes home around seven, saying she'll call if she has a vision, and to call her if we get a case. I nod absently. Spike perks up from the seat where he's been crashed since he awoke half an hour ago, leaning over Wesley's shoulder and reading some ancient text, bothering our boss to no end. "Tired, pet?" He asked solicitously.

She nods slowly, suspicious immediately. She knows Spike too well by now, to take his seemingly-considerate question at face value. "I guess."

"Gonna take a shower? Maybe a nice, hot bath?"

My Seer clams up instantly. "Spike. It's none of your business." She turns to leave.

His smile turns mischievous as quickly as her answer leaves her mouth. "Need someone to wash your back?" He leers. Then, putting a hand under his chin, he looks thoughtful. "You are going to be alone, aren't you?"

Cordy makes a face. "Ugh! No, Spike."

He perks up faster than she can rectify her slip of the tongue. "You're not? Shame on you, pet. Who's the lucky guy?" He smirks, satisfied with his chaos-causing ability for the moment.

She looks pissed, but not rattled. "If you must know, I have a ghost."

"Ooh! The Seer's gettin' her lovin' from a ghost!"

"No! No 'lovin'! Just ordinary, platonic help! And not in the shower." She glares at him, silently challenging him to come up with something else, and my childe can never resist a challenge.

"Then you do need some help washing your back after all." He leers.

"No! And if I did, I wouldn't call you! Angel, make him shut up!" She stalks out the door.

"Shut up, Spike," I say mildly, without even looking up from my book.

"No, you'd just call Peaches!" Spike yells after her, ignoring me as usual. Then, Cordelia-baiting forgotten, he returns to hanging over Wes. A little smirk on his face is the only evidence of his childish actions that probably just pissed Cordy off enough so that I'll have to hear about it for the next three weeks.

I glare at him from across the room as this thought processes into horrific images of hearing this story, from Cordelia, every hour like she's liable to do for those next three weeks.

True to Spike, he only smiles angelically back.

Gunn comes in from routine patrol at ten. He shelves the weapons and collects Fred. They're going somewhere, dancing I think. They asked yesterday for the night off. Wes and I said yes, of course, so long as they carried their cell phones for emergencies. They promised, and they get their date while we can get a hold of them on the spot if need be.

Finally, Wesley leaves at eleven-thirty when I 'suggest' for the third time that he get some rest. He knows as well as I do that after a quiet spell, the cases roll in three times faster than we can handle them, and then some, and I'm sincere in my desire to have him well-rested when that happens, as well as just out of the hotel right now. He packs up his books and notes in a bag, and leaves, emptying the Hyperion of humans besides my son, who's long since asleep.

Spike's watching television in his bedroom, munching on potato chips dipped first in peanut butter and then in blood, which is about as disgusting a thing as I have ever seen a being eat. I grimace, and he looks up, grinning. "Hey, Peaches."

I ignore the nickname, for now. I really want to know what's bothering Spike. I haven't seen him that serious in a while. "What's going on?" I ask without preamble, sitting down next to him.

He plays dumb. "What do you mean?"

I stare at him, catching his piercing blue eyes with my gaze. "You know what I mean. This morning, at the table, when you asked to talk about it later." He still doesn't respond, and I look at him pointedly. "It's later."

Spike looks away, something I haven't seen him do in a while. "Oh. That."

"Yes. That." I lean closer, noticing that he's really genuinely upset about something, and try to soften my tone. "What's wrong?"

He doesn't answer for long moments, then he stares at the television and responds in a totally blank tone with utterly no emotional inflection whatsoever. "I think I should leave."

Out of all the things he might say, this was one that never even made the list. I don't know why, though. It seems pretty obvious, doesn't it?

"Why?"

He stares at me, his eyes even more piercing now. "You really have to ask that, Peaches?" He looks at my blank expression and sighs, rolling his eyes. Then he points a finger at me and speaks slowly, as if I'm a child. "You. Mr. 'goody-goody, I've got a soul' vampire, gotta save all the other tortured souls, can never atone for my sins, blah blah blah blah blah."

Then he points a finger at himself. "Me. Ugly demon who remembers slaughtering people by the dozens and doesn't regret it and doesn't feel guilty and has no need to save the people of Los Bloody Angeles from their own selves on a nightly basis!"

He looks a little sad, even, like he's reminiscing when he asks me if I understand. "Do you get it now? That's why," He says in a soft tone that sounds incredibly out of place on him. Spike to me is all edges and hardness, he's not gentle or kind. But I'm beginning to think that William wasn't banished as thoroughly as I thought, because my childe still has a very basic, very gentle person inside of him that comes out at the strangest times.

I bet he acts like this when he's around Dawn.

I nod slowly, a little shocked. But I pull myself together and try to face him down confidently. "But you can't leave, Spike."

He doesn't even get upset at this like I'm expecting him to. "Angel. The reason you weren't gonna let me leave was 'cause you thought I'd cause more harm than was already done to myself, right?"

I nod.

"Well, I'm not going to off myself. I don't bloody well know what I'm going to do, but I rather like my immortality. I jus' had to remember that. You've done your bit, it's time for me to leave." He returns to the television like the conversation is over.

A little stunned and definitely still trying to take in the fact that Spike used reasoning to convince me of something, I just sit there, looking absolutely stupid, I'm sure. It's only when Spike looks over at me and sees me like this, that I move. Just my eyes, though, to meet his.

He sighs and rolls his eyes, then clicks off the television. Grabbing me by the arm, he pulls my from the couch and walks me to the door. "Look, Angelus. This would never work. I'm not gonna go out and fight the forces of darkness for you, and you're not gonna stop being all broody and tortured for me. So let's just forget it. I'll leave, you stay here, we'll both live our merry unlives free of torment." He pauses, then smirks, looking a little more like the old Spike. "Well, I'll live mine free of torment. You'll undoubtedly live yours with several thousand, so you can continue to brood all the time."

I look at him, finally getting it. Something more is going on than just the fact that Spike doesn't want to become a 'goody-goody'. Something a lot more important, and I think I know what it is.

"What would never work, Will?" I ask softly, trying to confirm my guesses.

He looks at the ground and grinds his heel into the floor, totally interested in the tips of his Docs. "It just wouldn't, okay?"

I pull his chin gently up and force him to look me in the eye. My tone is as gentle as I can make it, trying to get him to open up to me at least a little. I need to know this, and I think he needs to tell me. "William, what won't work?"

He flicks his eyes around the lobby behind me nervously, and then seems to decide on something. A bit more confidence in his posture, he stares me in the eye. "This," He says. And he leans in and pushes himself onto his tiptoes, and kisses me.

In shock, I don't respond. He pulls away slowly, retreats into his room, and stands in the doorway for a moment, a sad expression out of place on his usually so cheerful face. "'This', Peaches. This wouldn't work."

He closes the door in my face, and I hear the lock click softly in place.

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