Author's Notes: Um...this is completely AU. I wouldn't even know where to begin to describe where it fits into the series. I just really wanted to see how Spike would deal with being in a 4-year-old's body with a 4-year-old's mentality...and what that would do to poor Angel. Read and Enjoy.

Disclaimer: NOT MINE.

Little Bad

Chapter One - Spilled Milk

"Soddin' milk."

It had slipped from his hand too quickly to save - and if it was too fast for vampire reflexes, you knew that was one soddin' fast container of milk.

"Bloody hell."

It was like a bloody white flood, moving in all directions and spreading its milky goodness like some common male street wench.

Christ, what did a bloke have to do to make a bloodshake around here? He favored the cardboard carton of vanilla ice cream and half pint of pigs blood with a lascivious gaze. It had been such a brilliant idea...

The bleached blond vampire lifted up his foot and sneered in distaste, watching the white substance drip to the floor. Bleedin' milk.

"S'pose I should clean this mess up."

Towel...where was a towel? Stupid Angel. Milk and ice cream and even pigs blood, but a towel? No. Of course there was no bloody towel in the dumbarsed Peaches's kitchen. Towels were bloody well important and Nancyboy'd do well to remember that in times of crisis.

Milk was starting to smell bad, after all. What were they going to do when the shite curdled on the kitchen floor? What then? Well, there was thing that this vampire was sure of: it wasn't the Big Bad's duty to save the world...

"Bleedin' Poof!" He emphasized the snarl by kicking the kitchen cabinets. He found that the milk didn't like that very much, as he felt himself slipping and falling to the hard tile, knocking his platinum-blond head on the counter on the way down.

Angel was very good at brooding. Nobody could quite master the art of the brood as well as Angel did. Angel might as well have INVENTED the brood.

However, it was difficult to brood when his overly-sensitive ears caught onto his wayward childe cursing and banging around in his kitchen. The colorful swears emanating from Spike's mouth kept the ensouled vampire thoroughly entertained. The last bang was the loudest...and the silence afterwards filled Angel with a sense of dread.

"Spike?"

Angel tread softly out of the room, making little to no noise on his way to the kitchen. The first thing he saw was the ice cream on the counter, sidled alongside the pint of blood. Then his eyes moved downwards, toward the floor and the spilled milk and the...really small child?

The little unconscious face was baby soft and innocent, eyes shut and covered with a mop of blonde hair. So small and devoid of evil...and yet it was undoubtably Spike. Angel knew the scent of his childe and this kid reeked of Spike.

"Spike?" he whispered, kneeling beside the boy and gently taking the limp form into his arms. The blue eyes popped open and the small body noticeably tensed...but when mini-Spike's face focused on Angel's concerned brown eyes, he relaxed immediately.

"Angel?" he mumbled sleepily. "What's goin' on?" He curled into his sire's chest and closed his eyes again. "Spilled the bloody milk. Couldn't find a soddin' towel. Slipped..."

"Spike...you need to listen to me right now."

"Spike's sleepy, Sire. Listen to you later. Naptime now."

"You're really small," Angel tried again.

"Who're you callin' small, you bleedin' poof?" the little boy demanded.

"Listen to yourself talk, Spike..."

"I am aware of what I sound like, An-" the boy's eyes widened again. "What in the bleedin'...FUCK. BOLLOCKS." He roughly pushed his sire away and scrambled to his feet, measuring his full height to that of his sire's sitting position and finding that he barely reached Angel's forehead. He started to panic. "What's going on, Angelus?" He started to hyperventilate. "Why am I...what am I..."

Tears sprung to his eyes as he looked narrowly down at the spilled milk.

"This is all YOUR fault!" he declared, pointing an accusing finger at the half-soaked in liquid and stomping his foot for emphasis. "Bleedin' Hell! I'm the Big Bad! I'm the Big Bad, I say! What say you? I'll rip off your soddin' bollocks and then see how you like bein' three bloody inches tall. Fucking milk!"

Angel watched with interest as Spike jump up and down in an attempt to defeat the evil milk. When he saw the boy lose his balance, he snatched out his arms and caught him before he hit the floor again.

"Spike," he attempted.

"BLOODY SODDIN' CUNT, I'M GOING TO RIP THE FUCKING UDDERS OFF THE COW WHO SPAWNED THAT EVIL FILTH..."

"Spike, calm down," the older vampire tried to soothe his childe, but to no avail.

"THEN I'LL DO THE OL' SLICE AND DICE ON THAT HERBIVOROUS BINT AND INJECT THE BITCH'S MEAT WITH SOME FATAL DISEASE SO ANY WANKER THAT THINKS OF HAVIN' A TASTE WILL DIE A HORRIBLE AND AMUSING DEATH..."

"Spike!"

"I'm too soddin' small, Sire!" Spike wailed. "I'm like four bleedin' years old! I want to be big again! Big and bad! I wanna be the big bad!" With that he pulled away from the dark vampire, and tumbled to the floor screaming in outrage at the injustice of his situation, banging his little fists against the milky tile.

For the first minutes, Angel simply stared in awe. It was one mighty temper tantrum, after all. Then he noticed that Spike's little fists had taken on a red, raw appearance as if the skin were on the verge of breaking.

"Stop it, Spike," he said, attempting to pick the boy up from the floor only to be struck by a strong foot. Well...the kid still had his vampire strength. That was for sure. "You're hurting yourself." Spike screamed all the louder and lashed out all the more painfully. "WILLIAM, stop that this instant!"

Silence.

Spike stared at his sire, sniveling and wiping his tears away with the back of his hand.

"We're going to figure it out," Angel promised, laying a hand on the boy's back. "We'll figure this out." He was more than a little surprised when his childe crawled on his lap and nestled in his arms, crying softly into his chest. "We'll figure this out," he repeated.

"We'll figure this out," Spike cried softly. "Bloody well figure this out. Too lil' to be the Big Bad. Too lil' to be anythin'." He sat up and wrapped his little arms around his sire's neck, burying his face into the dark vampire's neck.

"Lets put you to bed, hmm?" Angel spoke into the soft blond hair after a few moments. "Maybe you'll feel better after some sleep." Spike sniffled into his shoulder and shook his small head.

"Don't wanna go to sleep. Wanna drink a bloodshake and watch telly," he whimpered pathetically, pulling away from his sire and grasping Angel's face in his small, cold hands.

"I'm still dead. I'm still a vampire. How am I gonna grow?" he asked, pleading blue eyes boring into Angel's deep brown ones. "I'm gonna be stuck.-" he choked on a fresh sob. "...like this forever." After detaching himself from his sire, he continued in a soft voice, "They say that milk's s'posed to make you all big and strong." He sucked in a breath, inclined his head to the side and screamed, "DO I LOOK BLOODY BIG AND STRONG TO YOU?" He cracked a cabinet door with a strong, angry kick and began to wail at the top of his lungs.

"Wha...?" Cordelia Chase stopped dead in her tracks at the threshold of the kitchen. "Angel...?" Realizing that the mighty cry of the little boy dramatically outweighed her own voice, she yelled, "Did you know that there was a really small kid screaming in a puddle of milk in your kitchen?"

Angel rewarded her with a very tired look before slumping against the cabinets and settled for watching the kid wail. Sensing a massive brood coming on, Cordelia felt it within her line of duty to join her fanged friend.

"It's Spike," he told her.

"Spike made the kid cry? Did you stake him?"

"No. It's Spike," Angel groaned, pointing to the small child. "Something's dark here. Dark and amiss."

"Grave danger?" Cordelia sighed.

"Yeah...a four-year-old vampire prone to large temper tantrums." He looked into her widened eyes with a carefully calculated look of dread and grim amusement, "I think we'd better pray for our lives."

TBC...