The Gift

AUTHOR: Little Mouse (elf_night@hotmail.com)

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Joss'. Lucky man.

WARNINGS: Language (duh, it's a Spike fic!) Violence (see former 'duh') explicit M/M slashy stuff! Whee!

ARCHIVE: Please ask first.

PAIRING(S): Angel/Spike; with mentions of Angel/Buffy, Spike/Drusilla, Angelus/Drusilla

SUMMARY: Drusilla gives her Daddy a present.

CHAPTER  NINE

Angel woke up to a very interesting sensation.

After finishing his argument with Giles - which ended when he simply got up and walked away, leaving the man sputtering - he’d come upstairs to curl around his sleeping Childe, determined to keep his promise and be there when Spike woke up. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but he hadn’t exactly rested over the last twenty-four hours.

He’d gone to sleep fully dressed, with a cool, firm little body snuggled in his arms.

He woke up completely naked, with a cool, wet little mouth exploring his genitals.

He blinked.

Then he moaned.

Wickedly innocent blue eyes gazed up at him, and Spike lifted his head just long enough to say, “‘Lo!” cheerfully, before turning back to his explorations.

“Hello, yourself,” Angel groaned, thrusting helplessly as his Childe began to suck, “I guess... you feel better?”

“Mmm,” Spike hummed his reply and Angel nearly came right then.

“Giles may be right about you being evil...”

Spike snickered, the sound vibrating against his Sire.

Angel gave in and climaxed, shuddering as he felt his Childe swallowing around him. He reached down and plucked the smaller vampire off, pulling him up and into a possessive kiss. “Nice way to wake up. Thank you.”

Spike just smiled at him.

“Hungry?”

Spike shrugged.

Angel gave him an odd look. “You’re very quiet. Are you hungry?”

“Not really,” Spike replied, snuggling down against his shoulder. “Been feedin’ a lot.”

“You’re thinner than you used to be,” Angel remarked, running gentle fingers over his ribs.

“I think... I think I been fightin’ - haven’t I?” Spike sounded uncertain. “Been fightin’ demons, a lot.”

“I suppose that would make you lose weight,” Angel agreed, but he was still certain that the Scoobies had been under feeding his boy.

“Have I been fightin’ demons?” Spike pressed, trying to see if his vague memories were true.

“Yes,” Angel stroked his hair, winding his fingers into the thick curls. “You’ve been fighting demons almost every night. I heard you were quite good at it.”

“I think... that I like to fight,” Spike offered, studying his Sire’s face.

Angel grinned. “I think you certainly do. Maybe we’ll go out tonight, and you can do some fighting? Would you like that?”

Spike looked thoughtful, then a pleased smile spread across his pretty face. “Yeah, like that. But... I think... don’t I fight with humans? Help ‘em, or somethin’?”

“Yes, sometimes you do.”

“Why?”

Angel sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“Oh. All right.” Spike didn’t insist on an explanation. He rolled away from his Sire and got up. “Shower?”

Angel looked at the rather painful erection he hadn’t realized his Childe was still sporting. “Wouldn’t you like me to take care of that, Precious?”

Spike nodded, then repeated the question. “Shower?”

Angel raised an eyebrow, then nearly levitated out of the bed, scooped his laughing Childe up, and ran to the bathroom.

*

Giles was studying a very old book called ‘Myths of Sire and Childer’ when the door slammed open and Buffy appeared, looking wild-eyed and upset.

“What’s wrong?” he asked sharply, closing the book and staring at her.

“Big demon,” she gasped in reply. “Really, really big demon!”

“How big?” Giles pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was all he needed - a threat to his Slayer and the community while he was trying to puzzle out what was going on with Angel and Spike. He’d had a brilliant idea after last night’s argument - if he could write a paper on this Spell-Turning, and possibly another, a first-hand account of a fledgling Childe, then his career with the Watcher’s Council would be set in stone.

Hell, he’d probably end up as head of the Council!

Either way, a ‘really big demon’ wasn’t something he wanted to deal with right now - but he had his responsibilities. “What did it look like?”

Buffy frowned, trying to dredge up every detail of the picture she’d studied in the book that morning, while Giles had been in a back room. “It was really tall - about twelve feet, easy - and it was grey and scaly. It had a head like a snake but its body was like somebody grabbed a person and stretched.”

“That sounds familiar,” Giles said, frowning, then turned and picked up the very book Buffy had seen the picture in. He didn’t notice the odd little smile that flickered across the blonde girl’s face.

The Slayer was more than pleased with herself - most of the time she ignored the information in Giles’ books, but what she’d read about this particular demon made her certain that the plan she and Riley had come up with last night would work. There was no way she could slay this one on her own, if it was really here, and no way Angel would be able to say no to a request for assistance.

“Oh, dear,” Giles said, distracting her from her thoughts. “Oh, dear, indeed. It’s a Khalna.”

“That’s bad?”

“They only eat children.”

“Yep, that’s bad.”

Her Watcher sighed and put the book down, reaching for the phone. “We’ll need help with this one; I’ll call the others while you wrap the axe and the spears in aluminum foil.”

“While I do what?” she stared at him.

“Wrap them in foil; the Khalna can only be killed with aluminum-tipped weapons. Or by ripping its head off, but since its neck is made of stone, that’s rather difficult.”

“Right. Wrapping the weapons, then. Who are you going to phone?”

“Willow, Tara, Xander, and Angel’s group.”

“Oh,” Buffy forced her expression to become uncertain. “Do you really think they’ll help? I mean, Angel is so mad at me...”

“Angel claims he’s still fighting the good fight, protecting the innocent. He’ll hardly want to leave a Khalna running amok if that’s the truth. Besides, it eats the children of any species, and that includes vampire fledglings. If nothing else, he’ll help us to protect Spike.”

Even though that had been exactly why Buffy had chosen that particular demon, she still scowled. “Spike’s so important to everyone now - I can’t believe they don’t remember how evil he is! They just look at that little boy smile and those blue eyes and they’re all mush.”

“I’m not,” Giles said huffily, “I remember how well Spike can pretend.”

“I wasn’t counting you,” Buffy said quickly, giving him her best admiring look, “I know you’re too smart to be taken in by that little rat.”

Giles looked suitably flattered. “Yes, well - you go ahead and take care of the weapons. I’ll make the calls and start researching; there may be more information on this demon that we can use.”

“Okay,” Buffy said agreeably - far too agreeably, Giles would have realized, if he hadn’t been trying to remember the number to Angel’s mansion - and vanished into the training room, where the axes and spears were.

*

It was a few hours later, about two hours after sunset, when the two groups met at Spike’s cemetery.

Buffy was less than happy to see a hyperactive, platinum blond fledgling nearly bouncing at Angel’s side.

“Why did you bring him?” she demanded, then modified her tone. “He could get hurt, you know?”

“Yes,” Giles looked over his glasses at the vampire, who was dressed only in jeans and one of Angel’s silk t-shirts, his duster conspicuously absent. “He’ll practically be bait for this thing. It will try to eat him.”

‘And he’s supposed to be tucked up in the house for Riley’s friends to take!’ Buffy shrieked mentally, trying to keep the scowl off her face.

“Why should I leave him behind?” Angel asked cooly, grinning as Spike shot past him to perch on a tombstone, balancing on one leg like a gangly stork. “He’s healed, and he’s energetic enough that he’s driving Cordelia to distraction.”

“You can say that again,” muttered the brunette, who’d spent a good part of her day being playfully stalked. She’d chosen to wear a very pretty, very fluttery yellow sundress today.

And she’d regretted it.

Angel had patiently explained that fledgling vampires were attracted to motion - any motion - like a kitten was mesmerized by a piece of string. It was instinct; a subconscious note that motion could mean another predator - or prey. They couldn’t help it; they had to pounce.

Spike had been able to restrain himself - barely - from tackling her, but he had not been able to resist the lure of following her every step, batting at the fluttering layers of her filmy, floaty skirt. It had been amusing for about six seconds.

Then she’d started threatening him, which apparently meant, to Spike, that she was playing the game.

That’s when the stalking had started.

Every time she turned a corner or went into another room or even turned her head away, the vampire took it as an open invitation to jump at her and try to scare the living daylights out of her.

It was quite embarrassing, how often he’d succeeded. Her throat was hoarse from all the screeching.

The others - even Gunn - had been highly amused, and she was fairly certain they had egged Spike on when she wasn’t looking.

Even now, Spike turned his head and grinned when the soft breeze made the layers of her skirt dance around her thighs.

“Back off, Blondie!” she threatened, and his grin got wider.

“Don’t’cha wanna play?” he half-crooned, his blue eyes alight with mischief.

“No!”

“Spike, give Cordelia a rest,” Angel said, smiling at his playful Childe. He’d forgotten how much fun a fledgling could be - hell, back when he’d been Angelus, he’d thought it was more annoying than fun. That was mostly Darla’s fault, he supposed - she’d found everything about fledglings - and especially Will - to be a strain on her nerves. He’d automatically followed his Sire’s example.

Drusilla, however, had adored her playful fledge, and Angel was beginning to realize just how much he’d missed by being so strict.

It hadn’t hurt that Cordelia had been in one of her haughty, ‘I’m so much better than this little crap town’ moods. Angel had always wanted to scare the hell out of her when she was acting that way, just to hear her scream. But he’d always been held back by remembering other young girls, who had screamed in much the same way.

Right before he’d killed them.

Spike, however, hadn’t seemed to have the least problem with it. Of course, he didn’t have a soul and he probably didn’t remember any screaming young girls yet.

“Is that it?” Willow asked suddenly, derailing his train of thought.

Angel peered through the shadows to see a long, thin shape lurking around the far end of the cemetery. “It certainly looks like it. I can see the snake head.”

“Weapons ready?” Gunn asked, casting a critical eye over the untrained Scoobies, who were clutching their aluminum-wrapped weapons and looking very nervous. He wondered, not for the first time, what Rupert Giles was thinking. The man could at least have shown them the proper way to hold a sword.

Buffy was gaping.

Staring and gaping.

She looked a lot like a surprised goldfish.

“It’s really here,” she whispered, eyes going even wider as the grey, scaled snake-head of the Khalna demon came closer.

“Well, you said you saw it around the cemetery,” Giles reminded her absently, wishing he had a camera. These demons were rare, he should have thought to bring some film and document it.

“Oh, yeah, right,” Buffy swallowed her amazement, remembering her story just in time, before she said something stupid and gave herself away. “So, it’s gotta be hit with the aluminum, or its head torn off? Hit anywhere specific?”

“The torso is best,” Giles replied, “anywhere else just makes it angry.”

“Very angry,” Wesley added, “and anger allows it to double its strength.”

“Well, that’s just peachy,” Xander grumbled, “anything else it can do that we ought to know about?”

“No, that’s about it,” Wesley said, remarkably cheerful.

“That’s enough,” Angel added, “these things aren’t easy to fight.”

“Can I kill it?” Spike asked suddenly, still standing on the tombstone, but on two feet, now.

Angel gave him a considering look.

“Gonna come after me anyway, ain’t it?” Spike pleaded. “Likes ta eat Childer, heard that bloke say so.” He pointed at Giles.

Angel didn’t have time to reply; the Khalna lifted its head, scented the air, and then let out a bellow as it dashed straight for Spike.

The blond vampire gave a howl of glee and threw himself at it.

Without a single weapon.

“Shit!” Angel yelped, grabbed the axe out of Buffy’s hands, and jumped after his Childe.