Loving His Child

Angel grinned as he rolled to the side, effectively avoiding the sword hitting the spot where his body had been only a split second ago. The dark-haired vampire was currently in the sewers in LA, trying to stop two sorcerers from bringing forth the apocalypse. He was fighting for his life.

"Come on!" he teased as he jumped to his feet and ducked yet another swing of the sorcerers' swords. "I thought you Kavesh-guys were supposed to be good at sword-fighting."

Taking a step back, he ducked again before delivering a kick into the younger sorcerer's stomach. The dark-skinned warlock was sent flying backwards and landed hard on his back. "Ba-bom!" Angel said in an imitation of Hades from Disney's Hercules.

The other sorcerer followed his friend with his eyes, before he turned back to Angel, his green pupils glowing. "You'll pay for that!"

"Oh, okay," Angel said with a nod as he sidestepped the older sorcerer, immediately punching him in the head. "Do you take Master Card?" The vampire hit his opponent again as he turned back around. "Visa?"

The youngest knocked him over the head from behind and pushed him into the sewer wall. "I prefer cash."

Knocking his elbow back, Angel growled and easily freed himself from the sorcerer's grip. "Yeah? Then I'm sorry - I seem to have left my wallet somewhere. Looks like I won't be paying for anything, then."

Then he spun around and into a roundhouse-kick, knocking the sword out of the younger sorcerer's hand. "Mind if I borrow this?"

The vampire picked up the sword just in time to parry a block from the older sorcerer. "Didn't your mum ever teach you not to play with sharp objects?"

"To be honest, I can't remember," Angel replied, swinging his sword wide, making the other man jump back. "It's been a long time since I last saw her."

The younger sorcerer came barging towards Angel, unarmed and with a soaring scream. The dark-haired vampire turned in pure reflex, swinging his sword out at the same time. The sharp edge of the blade struck the young warlock in the chest, and he stopped, watching Angel with wide, green eyes.

Angel's head snapped around just as the remaining sorcerer started to walk quickly backwards, waving his arms in the air. Small sparks of light started to appear between the two men, and they quickly increased both in strength and number.

"Kavanaan, hji lorsh'aalt," the sorcerer declared in a loud voice, the white cape around him starting to move around him as a sudden wind chased through the sewers.

It didn't take Angel long to realize the sorcerer was casting a spell. However, doing something about it turned out to be difficult. Immediately, the dark-haired vampire bolted forward, running towards the cape-clad man with the sword raised and ready to kill.

Suddenly, the wind increased and grew so strong that Angel was nearly swept off his feet. Only pure luck stopped him from being blown down the tunnel. Yet, the sorcerer stood still in his place.

"Hybnaz dex omkhaweeni, hybnaz dex omkhaweeni," he chanted, before he closed his eyes and reached one hand towards Angel. "Phora!"

"Yes, you do, Slayer! You dress like a slut, act like a fourteen year old and walk around, thinkin' you're the world's savior!"

The peroxide-blonde vampire known to the world as William the Bloody, aka Spike, rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth. "Bloody hell, woman!"

Buffy Summers, student at UC Sunnydale by day and Vampire Slayer by night, did the same before she stuck out her tongue to the already mentioned vampire.

Spike made a fake gasp and snarled at the blonde. "Oh, that hurt, Slayer! Got me right 'ere," he said, placing a hand over his heart.

"Well, it's true!" Buffy quipped, scowling at the vampire by her side. The two had accidentally run into each other while Buffy was fighting a newly risen vampire, and it hadn't even taken the two former enemies half a minute to start a quarrel, which quickly had developed into a verbal fight of dimensions when Spike had dared to comment on Buffy's mini-skirt.

"You can't bite, you can't hit, you can barely threaten anymore! You're pathetic!" the Slayer announced, very annoyed with the vampire.

"Well, that's not my bloody fault, now is it?" Spike shot back, crossing his arms in a stubborn gesture. "I seem to recall it's all to blame on a certain girl we both know, who's a bottle-blond Slayer?"

"Hey, you leave me mum out of this!" Spike said quickly, pointing an angry finger at the Slayer. "You can be glad those effin' soldier boys fucked up my skull, or I'd rip your fuckin' throat out!"

"Ooo, I'm so scared!" Buffy mocked, shaking her knees. "Look at me, I'm shaking in my little Slayer-boots!"

That was about as far the peroxide-blonde vampire got, before a bright light engulfed the two former enemies. When it disappeared, Spike had disappeared with it.

Spike groaned as he came to, raising a hand to his throbbing head. Carefully opening his eyes, he saw that he was laying in an alley, that it was nighttime, that it was raining - and that Angel was watching him.

Blinking owlishly, Spike sat up, slowly. "Oh, yeah, I'm dreaming, alright. Because there's no way in hell that my bastard Sire is sitting over by the wall there, watching me." Then he paused and glanced at Angel's hair. "And there's no way his hair stays that perfect in this rain."

The blonde just glared at the older vampire, before looking around. "Where the fuck are we?"

"Well, duh!" Spike replied, before standing up. Angel remained sitting by the wall, all the time following Spike with his eyes. "Your work?" Spike asked, gesturing to the dark alley. They could hear faint sounds of cars and city life around them.

"I was fighting a couple of sorcerers," Angel replied with a small shrug. "They got kind of mad."

"Oh God!" Spike groaned. "Don't tell me you're still doing that vampire detective-thing in LA?"

"Bloody hell, Angelus! When are you going to realize that the nasty things in the dark won't go away even if you fight all the demons in this entire mother-fucking world? Evil will still exist! Some demon will always be stronger than you!"

"Not stronger," Angel replied. "Just luckier. So what about you, Spike? Why don't you leave Sunnydale? Why are you still keeping your worthless hide around? It's not like you can kill or maim, anymore."

"Who says I can't?" Spike snapped, not wanting to be reminded of the implant in his head.

"Buffy," Angel replied. At Spike's baffled and angry look, he just shrugged, a slight grin forming on his face. "We talk on occasions," he simply said.

"I cannot believe that bitch would spill information on me to *you* of all people!" Spike exclaimed, kicking the wall in anger.

"Yeah?" Spike turned to Angel and took a few threatening steps closer. "I do what I please."

"Wanna give it a go, mate?" Spike spat out, walking towards Angel until they were standing nose to nose.

"My pleasure," Angel replied, before he lashed out with his foot, catching Spike's shin.

"Ow!" the peroxide-blonde exclaimed, surprised that Angel had actually taken him seriously. Hopping on one foot, he scowled at his Sire. "That hurt, you poof!"

Then he raised his hand and punched Angel's nose in, immediately following up with a backhand swing. The dark-haired vampire straightened, then stared at his Childe with a stunned expression on his face for a few seconds, before he responded with a punch aimed at Spike's stomach.

Spike reacted quickly and managed to block the punch aimed at his stomach, but he didn't have the time to block the kick to his side. The sounds of punches, kicks and growls filled the alley as the two vampires fought each other.

Angel glanced at Spike as the younger vampire wiped at his nose, his hand coming away bloody. They had finally stopped fighting when neither had much strength left, and were currently sitting next to each other by the wall in the alley. The rain was still falling down on them, but neither cared.

"You know, I'm surprised you lasted that long," Angel commented, trying to catch the breath he really didn't need.

"Well, you do have a tendency of underestimating me," Spike replied, carefully touching a small cut over his eye.

"Or it could be the fact that you just have a lot of energy to burn," Angel said, wiping away the small trickle of blood running down the side of his own face. "I mean, since you can't have your daily dose of killing and maiming, anymore."

"Could be," Spike agreed with a small shrug. Then the blonde stood, taking a deep breath. "So... Where are we?"

"Because earlier, you said I wouldn't believe you if you told me. That means you have got to know, or at least have a bloody idea of where we are."

Angel's frown disappeared and he nodded. "Oh, right." He picked up a soaking wet newspaper laying next to him, and handed it to Spike.

Spike moved his gaze to the top of the newspaper, quickly finding the date. "July sixteenth, nineteen twenty-four?!" he exclaimed loudly, his jaw dropping open. "Nineteen twenty-four?! Nineteen twenty fucking-four???"

"No shit, Sherlock!" Spike said, throwing the newspaper away. Then he sat down next to Angel again, a stunned look on his face. "Nineteen twenty-four?" he repeated. Then the stunned look on his face was replaced with an angry scowl. "This is all your fault, you prick!"

"Why me?" Spike asked, leaning his head against the wall as he wiped away the last traces of blood from his face. "Why me? Why do I have to get sucked into your little adventures? Why did I have to end up with you as my Sire?"

"Don't know, bad luck and pure lust from my side," Angel replied to his Childe's questions.

"They were rhetorical questions," the blonde replied, sending his Sire a look that could kill. "So now what? How do we get back?"

Spike was at his feet in a split second. "What? You mean, you're to blame because we're stuck somewhere in the past, and now you're saying you don't know how to get us home???"

Angel appeared to be in deep thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying."

Spike gaped at his Sire for a second, then he just gave him a disgusted look and headed down the alley.

Spike just flipped Angel the bird over his shoulder and continued without breaking his stride. Angel sighed deeply and briefly wondered what he'd done to deserve ending up in the past with his most annoying Childe. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be punished for all the things he'd done as Angelus, and he groaned out loud.

He caught up with Spike at the end of the alley, where the peroxide-blonde had frozen completely. He wasn't moving a finger - he was just staring at his surroundings, his blue eyes wide, and for once he wasn't making any snide remarks. Angel could understand that.

Street lights were lining both sides of the large street they found themselves in, and down both ways they could see the telltale signs of a rich nightlife. To their right, they could see a hotel and several restaurants, faint music coming from them.

To their left, they spotted some other buildings they didn't know what were, as well as some stores and a couple of pubs, music reaching their ears from that direction as well.

A young couple walked past them, and the vampires couldn't help but follow them with their eyes. She was wearing spaghetti-strap shoes with spiked heels, a short dress which glittered weakly in the dim light, and an oversized brown trench coat which obviously belonged to her date, while he was dressed in a suit.

Thanks to their vampiric senses, the two vampires could smell the weak scent of champagne, indicating that the couple were coming from a party somewhere.

"Bloody hell," Spike muttered, finally able to speak. "Have I mentioned I hate you, yet?"

It was one thing to see a newspaper that indicated they'd been sent back to the twenties - actually seeing it and knowing it was true was a completely different thing. Walking slowly further out onto the pavement, Spike and Angel looked down the street in both directions, wondering where to go.

Angel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let's see... We should try to find a magic shop and see if we can work a spell to get us home." When the peroxide-blonde arched a skeptical brow, Angel shrugged. "What? There's bound to be a magic shop somewhere in London, even at this point in history! I mean, witchcraft and such have existed-"

"I just wanted the short version, I didn't need the entire soddin' encyclopedia, nonce," Spike snapped. "And I know that. I just think we should wait until tomorrow, and the reason is hanging straight behind you."

Angel turned to see a clock hanging from one of the street lights not too far away from him. It showed 12:58 in the night, and he turned back to Spike and nodded.

"Okay, you're probably right. No stores would be open at this hour. So what do we do then?"

Spike grinned widely. "What do you think, mate? We scare some rich bloke, take his money, place ourselves at a pub for the night, then get ourselves a nice, comfy hotel room for the day, yeah?"

"Spike, we're not going to rob anyone," Angel said with a warning sigh, but the blonde just shrugged.

"Fine, you don't want to, I'll do it," Spike said, and before the dark-haired vampire even had the time to fully register what was going on, his Childe had already disappeared around a corner just across the street.

Angel was torn between following Spike and waiting where he was. If he followed Spike, he could endanger his own, Spike's or Spike's victim's life, or he and Spike could get separated. But if he stayed, someone innocent would probably get scared to death and robbed for their money. Angel knew nobody's life was threatened since Spike couldn't bite, but that didn't mean it was okay for the blonde to rob them instead.

The older vampire had barely started to brood when the blonde returned, bouncing happily across the street, his hands buried in the pockets of his duster.

"Jackpot," he grinned when he reached Angel, pulling out two heavy wallets. "Stupid humans. They take one look at a bloke's face, and start screamin' that they'll do anything I want. Pfft! Well, it provided us with some money, at least. And not a fly got hurt. Okay?"

"No, not okay," Angel sighed, but still he accepted one of the wallets and started counting the bills in it. They needed a place to stay for the day, and they needed money for the magic shop if they were going to stand a chance of getting back home, anyway. So for now, he would just have to live with his annoying Childe and his crazy ideas.

Angel glanced around the pub once more as he listened to Spike order two beers from the bartender.

Spike had decided that the two should kill some time by visiting pubs and he made it very clear that there was no room for discussion there. He said he hadn't been to one of London's pubs for over three decades, so he'd love to go there when he had the chance. After all, it wasn't like they had anything else to do, so Angel had followed him into the pub he chose.

The pub was made up of one big room which was dark and smoke-filled, but there was something nice about the atmosphere there. Without much ado, Spike dragged Angel to the bar, practically pushed him down onto a seat and waved at the bartender. So here Angel was, sitting next to Spike in a smoke-filled pub in London in 1924, listening to the buzz of people around them talking.

It wasn't until Spike had gotten his second beer and Angel's first one was half-drunk that the blonde started to speak. "So what's the plan for getting us home?"

"I know you've been working on a plan to get us home, or else you wouldn't have just been sitting there, drinkin' your goddamn beer!" Spike said, gesturing to Angel's half-empty glass. "So what's the plan?"

"Oh," Angel said. "Right. I remember reading about a spell that can take us back to 2000, but I can't remember all the ingredients. I know we need a circle of white candles and raven feathers. I also know we need chalk, flint stone and newt eyes... But that's all I remember. I know that there's more to it tha-"

"It's not newt eyes," Spike said, interrupting Angel. "It's tails. Five of them. And we also need bile, sage and jasmine. Possibly some essence of violet as well."

Angel arched a brow, his jaw hanging slightly open. Spike just took a sip of his beer and shrugged casually. "It's a spell from The Book Of Gava, right? I've read that one."

When Angel's facial expression still didn't change, Spike put his beer down with a heavy sigh. "Look, peaches, I *have* learned to read, yes, but it's no big deal. Let's just try to make it to tomorrow evening so we can get the fuck out of here, okay?"

Angel finally snapped out of his stupor. "How long have you been able to read?" he finally stammered out, amazed, shocked and somewhat proud of his Childe. Spike had been completely illiterate when the older vampire had turned him, and when Angelus got his soul back, the blonde still didn't know how to read as far as Angel knew.

"I think it was back in the fifties sometime," Spike said with another shrug. "No big deal."

This time, Spike slammed his glass down so beer spilled over the sides. "It's. No. Big. Deal," he told Angel with a deadly look in his eyes.

Deciding to let the subject drop - for now - Angel took another sip of his beer and shrugged. "Okay, if you say so. Now all we have to do is wait."

"Well, not normally, no," Angel said with a smirk, "but since I'm with you I know you'll get us in trouble at least once every hour. Nothing ever goes smoothly with you."

The dark-haired vampire wobbled a bit on his chair, before he fell sideways despite his attempts to straighten himself again and he promptly crashed into the guy on the seat next to him. The man who sat there was about Angel's size and did not look happy at all about getting his beer spilled all over himself.

Standing, he radiated fury as he looked down on the vampire on the floor. "Hey!" he said, and Angel rolled his eyes immediately, knowing his Childe probably had gotten him into trouble again. "What's your problem?" the man asked.

Just when it looked like Angel's fears were about to be avoided and the fight might have been stopped even before it had started, Spike's head popped up over his shoulder.

The punch to Spike's jaw came so fast that even the blonde vampire didn't have time to react - not that it would have done him any good anyway, since he couldn't really fight humans because of the chip in his head. Knowing that he had to help his somewhat helpless - and somewhat hopeless - Childe, Angel grabbed the man's shoulder.

As he threw the first of many punches, he wondered if The Powers That Be weren't taking his punishment a bit far by placing him in the past with Spike of all people.

"See, that's what I'm talking about!" Angel said sternly as the two vampires walked down the street. "Nothing *ever* goes smoothly with you!"

Angel's lip was bloodied and he had an angry scowl on his face. Spike was skulking a few feet behind him, almost struggling to keep up with his Sire's brisk pace.

Angel had taken what was probably the beating of his unlife - at least from humans - in that pub, and while the blonde had enjoyed watching the fight as it slowly spread to involve not only the management but the police officers that had come to break up the fight, he did have the decency to look embarrassed for the trouble he'd put Angel through.

The two vampires had only managed to escape the police by sneaking out through the back, and it was pure luck that they actually got away.

"Hey peaches, are you going to stay mad at me for long?" Spike asked, trying not to let on the fact that he actually was ashamed over himself. He made a mental promise to try to behave a bit nicer, then made a mental promise to stake himself for turning into a wanker.

"It doesn't help that you keep calling me those idiotic nicknames!" Angel spat back, wiping away the tiny drops of blood from his lip.

Spike bit back his apology - he might be neutered, but he was still a demon - and instead ran a couple of steps to come up next to Angel. "Listen, Angel," he said, emphasizing the older vampire's name. "Why don't we go find a hotel or something where we can stay tomorrow, okay, and then we can go find a magic shop so we can get home. And I promise I'll behave."

"No, you don't get it, Spike!" Angel snapped, stopping to point an angry finger at the blonde. "It's not your impossible behavior that gets to me! I'm used to it - I lived with it for almost a century for God's sake-"

"Well, technically you didn't live," Spike interrupted quickly, a bit disturbed by his Sire's sudden burst of anger.

"Whatever! What I was trying to say, was that I'm used to you being reckless, sarcastic, and not doing what you're told. Hell, I even liked it once! The point is, that if you're going to be like that, stay behind to clean up the mess you're making, okay? Don't always let other people - like me - clean it up for you, because that gets old really fast."

Angel paused just to sigh and rub his forehead. "Normally I wouldn't be so upset, I know you're thinking that, and you're not wrong. It's just that... Did you stop to think even for a second what would happen if we were put in jail here? Killed here? We would change the entire future! It's very possible that the world would end one of the times I or Buffy has saved it, because technically that wouldn't happen! We would alter everything!"

Finally catching up with what Angel was saying and realizing why he was so upset, Spike remained silent, not knowing what to say. Finally deciding that he had to bite his tongue and actually apologize to his Sire, the blonde opened his mouth to speak - and nothing came out.

He froze with his jaw hanging slightly open, and his blue eyes widened as his gaze traveled past Angel to the other side of the street.

As his eyes followed the person walking by on the other side of the street, Angel noticed his Childe's stunned expression and a frown spread across his face.

"Spike?" Angel asked, slightly concerned. Turning, he followed the peroxide-blonde's gaze to the other side of the street, but saw nothing special.

A man was walking away from them, a dark coat over his shoulders. A couple was passing him, the woman's pale skin and fiery red hair seemingly lighting up the night. A beggar was standing underneath a street light, reaching out his hand as the couple passed him. When they simply ignored him, his head fell and he sank down onto the pavement.

Turning back to Spike, Angel's frown grew. "Spike?" he asked again, raising a hand to snap his fingers in Spike's line of vision.

When Angel's fingers showed up in front of his face, Spike blinked owlishly twice, before returning his eyes to the dark-haired man. "Huh?" he said intelligently.

Spike blinked once more, before he shrugged, seemingly returning to normal again. "Nothing," he replied. "I just zoned out a bit."

"Oh, yeah, right," Spike said with a lopsided grin, before raising his left hand and placing his right over his still heart. "I, Spike, William the Bloody, William Walter O'Shea, promise solemnly that I will keep Angel, Angelus, Liam Flannery, out of trouble by behaving really, really, really nice the rest of this fuckin' trip."

The words hadn't even left Spike's mouth, before they heard an angry voice from further up the street. "There! That's 'im!"

Both vampires turned to see two young men dressed in tuxedos and three police officers come running towards them.

"Bugger!" Spike exclaimed and grabbed Angel's arm before the dark-haired vampire really understood what was happening. When his Childe took off running, however, his brain finally registered what was going on, and he took off after Spike, easily catching up with him.

"Well, yeah," Spike admitted. "But I didn't exactly expect them to go to the effin' cops, and least of all that the wankers would actually do something!"

Angel shook his head as they turned down an alley. "You've grown too used to the Sunnydale police, Spike."

His sentence ended in a short yelp as Spike suddenly turned again, pushing him into another small alley. Dimly, Angel registered that they were running in the opposite direction of the one they started to run in, and that they were probably running through an alley parallel to the larger street they'd been walking down when the police came.

When Spike made yet another left turn, bringing them out onto the larger street again, Angel rolled his eyes and followed him without saying anything, but he wondered what the blonde was up to.

Instead of running down the street like Angel had expected him to, the younger vampire continued across the street and into an alley on that side instead.

After following Spike in all directions through the network of London's alleys, Angel was about to tell his Childe that they probably had lost their followers about fifty alleys ago, when the blonde suddenly stopped, causing Angel to crash straight into him. The younger vampire stumbled but he didn't fall. He just stood there, frozen in his place.

"What?" Angel asked. That's when he caught sight of something a few feet from them in the alley; a vampire, draining a young woman.

At the sound of Angel's voice, his head snapped up, his yellow eyes daring anyone to interrupt him. Then a spark of recognition flittered across the golden orbs and he dropped the woman to the ground, a huge smile spreading across his face. He morphed back into his human features and Angel watched the man carefully as he slowly came closer.

His hair was tied up in a short ponytail, the deep brown color - when Angel looked closer, more black than brown, really - and his dark gray eyes gleamed dangerously. His face was smooth with sharp cheekbones like Spike, and from his bottom lip was a small stripe of beard running down to his chin.

His grin grew as he approached Spike and Angel, his feet making small 'clacks' as he walked. "Well, well, well..." he said coolly.

His voice made Angel's skin curl. It was a long time since Angel's demon had been frightened to the core, but this man, this vampire, scared even Angelus to the very center of his being. There was something about his behavior, about his voice, about his attitude, about his looks - hell, about his entire being - that frightened Angel more than he liked to admit.

For the first time since he'd first laid eyes upon the vampire approaching them, Angel noticed his Childe. Spike's face looked paler than usual and the older man could easily see the tick in his cheek as he clenched his jaw tightly. In anger or in fear, Angel didn't know.

He hoped it wasn't the latter, because Spike was even more difficult to scare than Angelus at times. And if this vampire scared Spike, Angel would probably opt for the 'run, run, run as hell' strategy.

"Spike, Spike," Jack tsked as he came to a halt only a couple of feet away from the two. "Is that a way to greet your Childe after - what? Two decades?"