A/N: Just going to point something out so you can all acknowledge my brilliance (yeah right); all of Angel's brothers, in the show, all had a thing for Buffy at one point or another… Not all at the same time though… I'm just pointing out pointless facts, don't mind me.
Thanks to my beta and to everyone who reviewed. Hope it's worth the wait.
Angel's mother dragged him away from his brothers and up the stairs, leaving Spike to the wolves so to speak. Jenny wrapped her arms around her eldest and gave him another hug as he rubbed circles on her back.
Sniffing discretely in a subtle attempt to clean herself up, Jenny pulled back and smiled at Angel. "Thank you for coming. I know you must have been busy, but it means a lot to me, and to the boys. Quentin's a good husband, but he's not cut out for being a father."
Angel nodded, but agreed with only half of her last statement. She sighed tiredly, and Angel bit his tongue to stop himself from questioning Quentin's adequacy as a husband. Instead he pulled her into another hug. "It'll be okay mum." He whispered into her dark hair.
"I don't know what I'd do without you." She mumbled. Her shoulders were shaking and Angel held her steady while she tried not to cry. They were both tense with emotion before she pulled away, immediately making Angel wish to be safe in his mother's arms again.
"You need something to eat, and good sleep," Angel told her, before pulling some stones out of his pocket, "and these." He placed the silk wrapped crystals in her hand and closed her fingers around them. "Don't take them out here. Hide them from Quentin."
"Lapis stones?" she asked, searching her memory for which stones would help in this sort of situation.
"Yeah, And Rose Quartz." Angel looked down the hallway and at the many doors coming off it. "I got the message you left on my phone. I think I can get her to talk." He smiled sadly. "Getting her out of her room is another thing all together though."
Jenny nodded as she wiped the stray tears from her face. "Of course, you can only try." She gestured to the hallway. "You know where her room is so I'll let you get to it. I'll ask the twins to set up somewhere for your friend to sleep." She wiped her cheeks again with the heel of her hand, just to make sure she was presentable for their guest, before going back down the stairs.
Angel walked down the hall and stopped at a door with a small metal sign that read 'Lizzy's Room' in colourful letters. It had been there for years and was in no hurry to be taken down even though the room's occupant had far outgrown it.
Out of politeness Angel knocked on the door before entering, even though he was planning on going in regardless of the answer if she was going to even answer.
The room was fairly large and was dominated by a double bed covered in pastel colours. Lying on the bed was a blond teenager, who was reading a book of some sorts and had a sandwich halfway to her mouth, but seemed too engrossed with the novel to bring it the rest of the distance.
"Buffy?" Angel asked, drawing her attention by using the nickname that everyone else refused to use. She looked up and a small smile tugged at her lips, but vanished before Angel could be sure it had even been there. "It's good to see you're at least eating." He lamely started, mentally kicking himself afterwards.
She looked at her sandwich as if it was the first time she was seeing it. The grief that had settled in Angel felt more like lead now then it had before. Buffy had always been sort of ditzy, but never to the point where she wouldn't know that she had been eating a sandwich. Always the bouncy and happy one in the family, and seeing her like this seemed to put a lot of Angel's own feelings into perspective.
"I know you don't want to talk to anyone about how you feel, or about anything else for that matter," he added as an afterthought, cutting straight to the point, not wanting to see his only sister like this for longer then necessary, "so I'm just going to tell you how I feel instead. Is that okay with you?"
Buffy's eyes saddened with a flicker of hesitance and thinly veiled curiosity. She nodded while marking her page and setting the book aside. Straightening up and crossing her legs and arms, she put on a defensive expression and looked at him.
Angel sighed wearily. He could still remember himself at eleven, receiving the news that he had a new baby sister. Up to that point the Angelus children had consisted of exclusively males, so the announcement of a female amongst the ranks had sent shockwaves through the family tree.
Elizabeth 'Buffy' Angelus had been so innocent and pure, and Angel had missed out the transition from a sweet kid to a completely hormonal teenager. Needles to say, it was just another thing he regretted from his time as 'Angelus'.
"I was eighteen when our father died." He started softly. "I didn't know what to think. Life had been easy up 'till then. I would tutor talented high school kids in art from Monday to Wednesday I'd have the next two days for myself and my art, and then work at The Bronze on weekends." He said referring to the local 'hangout area'.
He didn't stop to marvel the fact he could still recall his routine from so long ago. Buffy nodded for him to continue.
"When dad died, it threw everything out of whack. I couldn't find the will to do anything anymore, and I'm still not completely sure why. I felt… Abandoned, I suppose is the best word for it. So I left, thinking that if there was no one to abandon me then I would never have to feel that way again"
Angel hunched his shoulders and took a shaky breath. He didn't really want to go into what he'd done after leaving. She had grown up since he'd last saw her but she was still young in his eyes, so he bit his tongue as tears stung his eyes and his gut churned. He had never been good at putting emotions into words, and these feeling were some huge ones that were impossible not to under-describe.
He closed his eyes, both wanting and not wanting Buffy to see the tears shining in them. A sympathetic voice, rough from past tears, rang through the room.
"It's different with Ford though."
"Yeah," he responded with a voice thick with emotion. "I've failed him. I could have been here helping him try alternative methods." For a second an ugly look flashed across his face. "I bet Quentin made him stick with the heavy meds. Fucking son of a whore."
Buffy blinked, suddenly taken back at Angel's anger since she had never heard him swear before.
Putting his head in his hands,. Angel sighed as the anger retreated back into him like a snake in its hole. "I don't know what the hell to do."
"I'm scared."
Angel moved up the bed towards Buffy so he could pull her into a comforting hug. "You're not alone."
"Why are you on my bed?" Angel demanded to know from the bleach blond who was making himself comfortable on the double bed. "It's my bed!" he whined, sounding somewhat like a spoilt child wanting a lollipop. Honestly, he didn't care how he sounded since he was emotionally drained and just wanted to sleep… on a bed!
"I am not sleeping on that thing," Spike waved his hand at the mattress they'd made up for him on the floor.
Angel covered his eyes with the heels of his hands and rotated them in an attempt to release the pressure that was building in his skull behind them. Fatigue washed over him before he could entertain the thought of pushing Spike off the bed for long. Dropping to his knees he crawled onto the mattress, ignoring Spike's shocked look at Angel backing out of the fight so quickly.
He didn't care that it was uncomfortable, the day had left him with only one thought rattling around in his head; sleep. That night he could have slept in a pile of nettles and not noticed, and inevitably failed to notice the two hands that situated a pillow under his head, along with the blankets that were placed on him.
"Sleep well, pet."
In the darkness, Angel tried to fight off the morning with all his might, but that didn't stop consciousness from washing over him. It took a moment or two before he became aware of the gentle shaking that resonated through his body.
"Oi, Angel, wake up."
"M'up." He managed to mumble. His body felt light as if he were floating, while his eyelids seemed to be fused shut and the only thing he was really aware of. Vaguely, he realized that he'd been interrupted from some sort of dream, Angel searched the vastness that was his mind but couldn't come up with any images other then of him choking a blonde model for needlessly waking him up.
"About time too! It's past twelve, mate, sleeping in's supposed to be my thing."
A panic alarm went off in Angel's head. Twelve! He'd slept through half the day; he hadn't even done that when he was a teenager. And trying to move his limbs was clearly not a good thing at the moment. As soon as his brain sent the message to his appendages to do something, they seemed to weigh more then they possibly could.
Spike looked down at the man who was slowly uncurling from the foetal position and stretching out. Much to his dislike, Spike had woken early that morning and wasn't able to go back to sleep.
After helping Jenny make breakfast, Spike had spent a while sitting uncomfortable in the lounge room, feeling very much like an outsider even though he had only been watching T.V. By the time he'd gotten so uncomfortable he had to retreat back to the bedroom, he had almost finished his whole pack of smokes. The box had long been finished in the comfort of the room, and then discarded out the window, before Spike had woken Angel.
Angel blinked his eyes open and looked up blearily at the peroxided menace. He closed his dark eyes, yawned and stretched his arms above his head, causing the blanket to fall down to his waist. Spike drank in the sight and tilted his head to the side while imagining the glorious body withering beneath him and his lips moving slowly to Angel's nip…
"I gotta get out of this bloody house." Said Spike, more to himself then to Angel but it wasn't interpreted that way.
Propping himself up on his elbows he gave the younger man his sleepiest glare. "You woke me up so I could walk you? Spike, your name must have gone to your head, because you're not a dog." He flopped back down. "You're a big boy, go walk yourself."
Spike threw his arms up in frustration. "Well I don't exactly know my way around the place. Took me ten minutes to find the bathroom this morning. Kept running into bloody cupboards."
After rolling away from the cockney blonde, Angel pulled the covers over his head. He just seemed to have almost no emotions left; they hadn't been completely spent but they had definitely been working overtime. He just wanted to stay in bed for as long as possible.
After waiting around for a few more minutes, Spike understood the hint. He did, however, chose to half ignore it and hung around in the room, lying backwards on the bed with his feet on the headboard.
Angel closed his eyes and tried not to think of anything, although that seemed impossible. He was able to turn his thoughts away from anything immediately depressing, but they then always floated back to the same thing; Spike. They went from 'I didn't know he could be this quiet', to 'I wonder if shutting up caused him physical pain', and then finally ended with 'god, I feel so alone without his voice'.
"Spike?" He said softly, as to not alarm the blond by shattering the silence too violently.
"Yeah?", came the bored reply.
Angel rolled onto his back. "You want to go get some air?"
Smirking, Spike hung the top part of his body over the edge of the bed. "Thought you'd never ask, mate." He jumped off the bed and offered a hand to Angel to help him up. "C'mon, pet, let's go for a walk."
Allowing himself to be helped up, Angel shook his head slightly to clear his still groggy head and grabbed a shirt off a chair at the desk. He needed a shower first, so running a hand though his hair, he told Spike to wait for him in the backyard and they'd take a few back shortcuts.
The water felt good against his skin. Each droplet seemed to cleanse him and he could almost physically feel each muscle loosen beneath the heat. It was as hot as he could take it as he tried to use it to relax the heavy feeling in his stomach as it was doing to everything else. When his thoughts turned to Spike, it eased. The blonde was bloody obnoxious, but so hard to get out of his head.