A/N: Hola, peoples! This is the third installment in my Angel/Spike series after "A Different Hole in the World" and "Underneath the Grief". You'll probably want to read those two before starting here, but to each his own. I welcome - nay, crave - reviews and comments, so please go ahead and let me know if you have any opinions about each chapter. I'm updating in one-chapter-per-day intervals, as usual. Be on the lookout for those daily updates!

Spoiler alert for the previous two episodes and a little summary in case you want it - Spike inherited the visions from Cordelia, allowing him and Angel to save Fred from Illyria's demon essence. However, Wesley was killed when he stepped into the chamber as Illyria was being expelled. Grieving over the loss of his friend, Angel allows himself to be with Spike and they start sleeping together. Soon it is revealed that Fred's brain has done the wacky and Illyria's personality is still in there, along with her own. Hi-jinks ensue, including the death of the traitorous Knox. Spike spends all his nights in Angel's bed now, and the relationship between them deepens, though neither will admit it out loud. Seeking more information about the Senior Partners and the coming apocalypse, Angel, Spike and Gunn rescue Lindsey MacDonald from a torturous holding dimension, where Gunn must take his place. Lindsey fills them in on the Senior Partners' plan, telling them it's already in motion and it looks like Angel has chosen the wrong side.

Anyway, on to this next episode, which I hope you like.

~Ptera

Origin of the Lies - Part 1

I woke up screaming. It wasn't the first time this had happened to me; it wasn't even the first time since I'd started having visions. Unfortunately I was sleeping with my face right next to Angel's ear, head resting on his shoulder, nestled between his arm and his chest. When I yelled in pain, he woke with his hand clasped to his ear, jumping out of bed completely naked. Within a second he had a sword in his hand, ready for a fight. Ignoring his nakedness - which is something I don't often do - I curled into a fetal position, grasping my head while I waited for the vision to come and the pain to pass.

"Jesus Christ, Spike," said Angel, kneeling back down on the bed next to me and placing a hand on my shoulder. "What do you see?"

"There's a boy, a young man," I muttered through gritted teeth. "There are some demons in a van, a white van, that are going to attack him."

"Okay," said Angel, leaving my side to put on underwear and pants. "Do you see where we need to go?"

"Yeah." The pain was lessening now, and I could focus on what The Powers that Be were trying to tell me. "Out in the suburbs somewhere," I announced, "Pasadena. There's a house number: 210 Pine Drive. No, Pine Street."

The blackness returned behind my eyelids and I opened my eyes, to see Angel open-mouthed and his brow in a pained furrow. "What?" I asked him.

"No," he breathed, grabbing the rest of his clothes and shoving them on as he insisted, "no, no, no, no!"

I got out of bed and found my pants, stepping into them as I asked Angel, "What? Do you know who lives there?"

"You could say that." Angel was almost fully dressed at this point. "Spike, can you be ready to go in the next five seconds?"

"Uh, sure," I said, grabbing a shirt and pulling it over my head.

He sat on the bed to pull on his shoes, "Because I won't wait for you otherwise."

I buttoned my jeans and grabbed my boots and my jacket, following Angel to the lift without putting them on. "Who is this kid? Why is he so important?"

The lift doors opened and we entered, Angel stone faced and ignoring my questions.

"Angel! What's going on?" As the lift descended, I pulled my boots onto my feet, keeping an eye on my silent partner. What wouldn't he tell me? It's not like I don't know all the evil things he's done. All the pain he's caused. Especially to me.

In the car park under the building, Angel took a running start out of the lift, grabbing the keys for one of the closest cars from the board. I had to jog to keep up with him as he started the engine of the Viper, barely making it into the car before he pealed out, rubber screeching.

"Angel, you'd better start talking, mate. What's so important about this kid?"

"Spike," he warned, his voice barely more than a growl. He drove through the late afternoon streets of LA much faster than one would have thought possible. I buckled my seat belt, not to avoid injury, but to avoid tumbling over onto Angel whenever we took an especially sharp right turn.

A thought occurred to me and I couldn't resist torturing Angel with it. "Oh, is he your boy on the side, then?"

"What?" Angel shot me a disbelieving and disgusted look as we barreled down a straight away toward the suburbs. "No, Spike! That's –! No." A small part of me was relieved. Okay, maybe it was a huge bloody part of me that was relieved.

"What then? This info could be useful to the mission. To protecting this boy. You want me to follow you into this blind?"

"No." Angel's jaw was clenched and his knuckles were turning whiter on the steering wheel with every passing block. He sighed loudly through his nose, sounding frustrated and furious. I often have that affect on him, the ponce. Lately, though – since we've been sleeping together – sex tends to set everything to rights. Or maybe it's letting him drink my blood. Sex and blood, it's always one of the two, innit?

"So spill, Peaches. What am I getting into here?"

"Fine," he muttered, voice still low and dangerous. "He's my son."

Huh? I sat totally confused for a couple seconds. The only thing my mind could come up with was, "You sired this kid? You've sired a bunch of us, Angel. Why's this one so important?"

"He's not a vampire," Angel growled, piloting the car onto the freeway at breakneck speed. "He's mine, flesh and blood."

"As in you're his father?"

"Yes."

"How?" If Angel had fathered a son before he died, the lad would be long grown and dead, dust and ashes in the ground.

"The universe owed me a life."

"And somehow this translates into a son?" Trying to recall my vision, I supposed that the boy was in his late teens. That would make him about two decades old, born right during the time Angel had spent living in gutters, feeding off vermin and generally pissing his afterlife away. It didn't make any sense. "You didn't start fighting the good fight until what, 'bout eight years ago? How did you earn a life from the universe before then?"

"He was born two years ago." Angel gave me a harsh look as I snorted, saying, "There was a dimensional portal involved. I really don't want to get into this now."

"How come no one told me you had a son? How come you didn't tell me?"

"I'm the only one who remembers. Even Connor doesn't remember who he is, so don't you dare tell him." Angel was speaking to me like I was an untrustworthy child. First off, I'm a good hundred and thirty-one, so he has no right speaking to me like that. Even though he does more often than I'd like. And second, I've been very trustworthy since I got my soul. Scout's honor.

I studied his face as we drove, noting the pain and the worry. If Angel was a father, and his son was in trouble, his actions made a lot more sense. I actually started getting worried for Angel and for his son - Connor he had said. This worry was one of the hazards of caring for someone, of falling in love with someone. Not that I would actually tell Angel I was falling. He'd probably kick me out on my ass if I dared to say it out loud.

"I won't tell the whelp on you, pet. If you ask it of me."

"Please, Spike," he implored, taking the exit toward Pasadena. "Things got really bad before. That's why I had them change his memory, give him a new life. He can't know who I am."

"Your secrets are safe with me," I purred, trying to lighten the mood a little bit. Angel's scornful glance before he returned to driving told me I had failed miserably. Shit, this was going to be a bad one.