Spike the Bloody, master vampire, was getting sick of the sight of fields and didn't find the occasional pasture or orchard to be any relief. He groaned again as the turning his vampire instincts unfailingly told him would take him closer to civilization didn't.
As he finally approached a farm house, he shouted to an inner voice, "Sod that, I am not going to stop and ask for directions!" Abashed, that inner voice suggested another possibility and he accepted it with a grin. "But I will stop for a bite to drink."
It was past midnight but there was a light on and he could see a small boy, maybe five or six, playing with a toy truck. He knocked lightly and the meals with wheels package went over to the door.
"Hello, my name's uhm, William, I'm a tourist here and got lost, don't you know, would you mind terribly if I used your phone for a minute? Can I come in?" They fall for the toff accent every time. The boy hesitated for a second, and then opened the screened door.
Spike liked the idea of an hors d'oeuvre but not fancy dining habits, so simply grabbed the boy, changed into game face, and bit down.
"Bloody hells, you broke my fangs!" His shout was muffled by his own hand, which had flown to his face. Then the boy reached up and pulled his hand away from his face, despite Spike's efforts to keep it there, and at the transformation. After a moment, he giggled, "Halloween was last month."
"Yeah, well, I do my own thing." Spike tried to press the tips of his fangs back on but they wouldn't go. "Now I can't even go bite a cow. Not that I'd have wanted to, anyway. You ever try to bite through leather? Well, actually, you prob'ly could."
Do they at least have Weetabix? He started to rummage, very quietly. If this is what the sprog's like, I don't want to meet mummy and daddy. Well, at least there was some leftover pie. He started eating while the kid stared up at him, then turned around, disappeared, and then reappeared before Spike could blink.
"Read to me?" Spike automatically reached for the book and the kid grabbed his free hand so hard that Spike couldn't extricate himself.
"The Velveteen Rabbit? Only if you promise not to cry. Drusilla, that's my girlfriend, she cries every time I read it to her."
"Daddy says that even though I'm a big boy, sometimes it's okay to cry." The kid sat them down at the table and Spike obediently started reading, only pausing for a second when the boy scrambled into his lap, eyes getting sleeping.
After the story ended, Spike himself started to doze, then woke up with a start. Almost 4:00, which meant the sun would definitely rise soon, and quite possibly even more formidable parents. Spike tried to put him on the floor and headed towards the door, but the kid woke up and grabbed him by the leg. "Don't you want to read some more?"
"Uh, absolutely love to, but unless Uncle Spikey is gone by the time that the big nasty sun comes up, he's going to end up as a pile of ashes on the nice, clean floor," Spike tried to explain.
"Please?" Big wide eyes and a smile that seemed to trust the universe itself. Spike hated to think what Drusilla would think about this kid.
"No, Uncle Spikey's got to go now."
"Make your funny face again, please?"
"It'd be a lot more impressive if you hadn't make me break my teeth," Spike muttered, but changed back into game face while the kid giggled again.
"Okay, bye bye." Spike rushed for the door and his car before the kid could change his mind.
He suspected that if he turned around to look, the kid would be waving.
A few days later, Jonathan asked Martha if she knew why Clark kept making such funny faces, "like the funny man who read to me."
"No, sweetheart, I've no idea."
AN: This one actually originated before Marsters appeared on the show; I've just been a combination of incredibly busy and incredibly lazy. It's actually the Diehard's fault. Completely unprovoked, she said something about how it's a good thing Smallville didn't have vampires, since young!Clark would doubless break mirrors and invite everybody in. That made this little fic inevitable.