Chapter Eight:

In Spikes opinion Angel O'Neil was a 'Peach'; nice enough to look at, tanned and glossy exterior but with a hard and bitter heart of stone. The more Spike got to know him the more convinced he was of the analogy. When they were young, Xander, Willow and he would analyze each other and those around them trying to come up with metaphors to describe personalities. Willow had described 'William' as a 'pineapple'; rough and spiky on the outside with a sweet heart of gold. After that Xander had started calling him Spike and it had stuck. Everyone seemed to assume it was to do with some crazy violent thing from his past and so his 'don't mess with me' image took off full force.

William probably would have been beaten up a lot in high school but for the first few weeks his new look had confused people and then when people started calling him Spike, well he managed to bluff his way out of most situations and when bluff didn't work? Well he wasn't the biggest but he was defiantly the fastest in a fight, nothing a bunch of high school jocks could do could compete with that previous summer.

Actually Willow and Xander confessed that that was why they had tried to make friends with him initially, he looked tough enough to be a body guard but not big enough to be a football player. In some ways Spike was glad that back then, after everything that happened over the summer with Warren, he decided to become someone new.

Angel fumed. Just the sight of those social rejects and their pathetic loser leader was enough to turn his stomach. He hated Spike Winters, he was the only person upon who Angels presence seemed to have no effect. Even after all these years Angel couldn't understand how it happened. He left to spend the holidays in Japan with his father and came home to start high school to find pathetic, predictable William gone and some Billy Idol reject in his place. No matter what Angel said he couldn't get his friends to see the looser behind the leather and where had that stupid name come from? What kind of name was Spike?

Angel heard one of the seniors back in their first year at Sunnydale High say it was because he'd seen the Winters kid stab a guy with a rail road spike….yeah right! But somehow his team mates weren't so sure. Then when Spike had given Adam a black eye in year nine all bets were off and unless Angel was there no one gave him any trouble, even his loser friends were relatively ignored and left to their loser lives.

Oh how he hated that bleached blonde and his stupid accent. Those other loosers would have been a lot easier to deal with if Spike was gone. They were nothing special, just a couple of geeks and freaks. It was time someone reminded them of that. Angel started to jog over past them shouting;

"hey look guys, it's the vampire and his lifeless losers"

"look, its Peaches and his brainless shadow puppets"

Spikes reply came back with lightening speed and Xander almost choked on his Coke from the look of furry on Angels face. Angel would probably never learn, he could never compete with Spikes sarcasm and wit, but the dumb Jock always tried anyway.

"You're pathetic Winters, you and your misfit freaks. You will never be anything, we're heroes in this town and what are you? What do you have?"

"Well peaches, we're students who earned our place at university, we'll graduate with friends, a career and most of our brain cells functioning, and you, if your lucky and don't injure your selves, will still be standing in the cold playing with your selves"

Spike smirked that trademark smart ass smirk as his comment registered on their battered and alcohol soaked brains and the vain in Angels neck started to pulsate. Spike was infuriating but he wasn't stupid so he shot an amused look at his friends and stood up.

"Ah well. Have fun playing with your balls boys. Good luck Friday night."