Chapter 1
Someone Get Smaller
A/N: This is a response to a challenge by Higgy... I just loved her fic! So if you like this, or even if you don't, go read her fic, 'Not so Big Bad'. It's really good!
This is actually my first Angel fic, so be gentle. And any inconsistencies are completely intentional... sorta... I also haven't come to terms with the fact that Fred is gone, so I decided she wasn't! And now she's happy with Wes! Because that's how I like my world...
Spike allowed himself to recline into the psychiatrist's soft lounge chair, deciding, if he was going to waste his time here, he was going to waste it in comfortably. He looked over at Dr. Mordred, who sniffed. "Uptight sod," Spike muttered to himself. Dr Mordred raised an eyebrow, and hurriedly scribbled something in his notebook. Spike kicked off his boots with a smirk, earning him another reproachful sniff from Dr Mordred. Spike didn't care, infact, the more annoyed the doctor got, the better Spike felt. Maybe this psychiatrist wouldn't be a boring waste of time after all.
"So Spike, what would you like to talk about?" Dr Mordred asked in a mind- numbingly calm voice.
"Gee, I dunno. Maybe I wanna pour out my heart to a perfect stranger?!"
"Hmm, quite." Dr Mordred smiled, reaching towards the coffee table for a bowl of peanuts. "Would you like something to eat?" he offered Spike the bowl.
Spike grabbed a handful and unceremoniously threw them into his mouth. "And that's another thing!" He said angrily. "You psychiatrists are all, 'Get comfortable, relax, tell me all your problems.' Well you know what? It's hard to get comfortable with some weirdo pervert taking notes on what a man has to say! Deciding weather you're bloody well sane or not!" Spike's voice quivered, and he suddenly burst into tears, "I never knew my father." He wailed. "It was just me an' mum, and it ended badly between us. No one liked my poems" He sobbed "They were a cry for help! No one cared! No one ever cares!!" Spike caught himself, tears streaming down his cheeks. "What the bloody hell is this?" He choked.
"Misery peanuts." The doctor replied dismissively, "They make you verbalise your misery. Now, you were talking about your father?"
"Misery peanuts." Sobbed Spike, "Great, just great."
"Ahem. Your father?" Dr Mordred prompted.
"Huh, you probably know more about him than I do... bet you can read my thoughts too. Why not just open up my head and eat my brains! Go on!" Spike said, tilting his head sideways. The misery peanuts were really getting to him.
"I see..." Said Dr Mordred, going to his desk and pulling out a comically large syringe. "It seems to me, that you have some unresolved trauma in your early childhood. I suggest regression re-immersion therapy."
"What?" asked Spike, getting a hold of his emotions. "Is that where I start sucking my thumb and act like a kid. Then you can be my mother and say how much you love me?" Spike shivered, "Oh bloody hell that's sick. I'm gonna have nightmares now..."
Dr Mordred laughed, "No, it's more or a literal regression." He said, rolling up Spike's sleeve to reveal his vein.
"Literal?" Spike cried, trying to get up. But the Doctor pushed him down again.
"Just relax," He said. With the ease that comes from years of practice Dr Mordred inserted the needle into Spike's arm, and expelled it's contents into his blood stream. "Nothing to worry about." He said as Spike when limp. "Until you wake up. Then I think there will be a lot to worry about."
Angel was looking over some papers at his desk, something he did rather a lot, when Harmony delivered his afternoon memos. He thumbed through the usual junk; client this, reports that, demon something else, when he came upon something unusual. "Harmony?" he called. His secretary poked her head around the door, "What's this message?" he asked, holding out a memo for her to inspect, "Spike transferred to hospital?"
Harmony took the card and peered at it. "Huh, I think... Spike's in the hospital!" She chimed, "Wow, mystery solved!"
"Yes, thankyou," Angel tersely replied, "but why?"
Harmony sighed "It says right there; regression to youth."
"And, what does that mean?" He asked.
"Duh, he's become a child! I thought that much was obvious."
Angel leapt from his chair aghast, "He's what?"
Angel was slumped in a chair beside Spike's bed in the hospital. He had come straight from his office, unable to believe it was true, but there he was, tiny little Spike, fast asleep in the hospital bed. He couldn't be more than 6 years old, Angel thought as he watched the tiny chest move up and down. Spike's hair was longer, and if possible, more blond, but the rest was the same, same little scar over his eyebrow. Some one had dressed him in a child's hospital gown with dinosaurs all over it. Spike's big clothes were folded on the end of the bed. Who ever had done this had obviously taken care of Spike.
He looks so small and helpless, thought Angel, hardly like Spike at all.
As he watched, the little boy began to wake. He made a little mewing noise and rubbed his tiny hands over his pink nose. Opening his eyes, he squinted at his surroundings.
Angel couldn't help himself. He smiled. "Hi" He whispered. Spike gave him a sleepy puzzled look. He tried to remind himself that the tired little cherub in front of him was Spike, but it was impossible. This frightened, innocent little boy couldn't possibly be the annoying, pain-in-the-ass Angel knew and hated. "I'm Angel" He whispered.
Spike rubbed his eyes, and looked bemusedly up at Angel, "I...I...I'm... thirsty." He mumbled.
"Are you?" Angel asked quietly, "What would you like?"
Spike thought for a minute. "Juice?"
Angel furrowed his brow. Spike, one of the most violent and bloodthirsty vampires in history, was six years old, lying in bed with a dinosaur hospital gown on and asking for juice. Something was very, very wrong.