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Childish Things

One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.
George Santayana

Angel could hear them down in the lobby of the Hyperion. Wesley and Cordelia were bickering mildly about something. Angel effortlessly tuned them in; his hearing able to pick up even their distant voices. The coffee? Cordelia had forgotten to buy filters again. The coffee tasted bitter. Coffee was meant to be bitter.

Well, I want tea.

You’re such an old woman, Wesley.

Coming from a woman isn’t that an odd choice of insult? Does that mean you actually consider yours the inferior gender? Ow! Ow! Cordelia!

In the past, before Angel had gone darkside, fired them all, then been forced to wheedle his way back into their affections, that would have been the point when Wesley would have called out to Angel for arbitration. He would have been hearing that one word suits all occasions ‘An-gel!’ that meant ‘Tell her!’ or ‘Tell him!’ or ‘Make them stop!’ which really made it clear how long Wesley had been in the kind of institutions where there was always a prefect or a teacher to complain to about someone being mean to you. The wonder was that he didn't still raise his hand before answering a question.

In the past, Angel had tried not to be play too much into the parental dynamic with Wesley, trying to be slightly stern and aloof when he went all whiney kid on him, even though secretly he thought it was cute, because Wesley really was too old for that act. Unfortunately, there was a part of him that really liked Cordelia, Gunn, and Wesley acting like his kids and him having to sigh wearily and parentally admonish and calm them. Equally unfortunately that part of him had been completely buried by the whole Darla obsession thing and he’d gone from saying a mild ‘Children, stop fighting’ or being genuinely upset that they were disagreeing and trying to get them to play nice, to turning into the father from hell who demanded that his offspring grew up now, at once, this minute, got the hell out of his life and got themselves a job.

They had done so. Picked up their belongings, put aside their differences, gone out there and fought the good fight with no assistance from him, and were now all grown up. Pretty soon Angel had found himself in the position of a previously good father who, having run off with another woman, only got to peer longingly at his kids through the school gates. He knew he should be proud of them and at heart he was. He really was proud of the way Cordelia shouldered the burden of the visions, and Wesley had shouldered the burden of leadership, even when he was having to do so from a wheelchair, and the way Gunn - who had been only slightly bound to the group through his connection with Angel - had stepped up to the plate and taken on the responsibility of being these people’s protector. The guy who was all about showing other people he didn’t take orders from them and made his own decisions, and who had always made it clear to the two hundred and fifty year old vampire that he was his own man, now called Wesley ‘Boss’. That was one hell of a concession from Gunn and most certainly a sign of great maturity. And although Wesley had rubbed it into Angel that Angel now worked for them, on Cordelia’s behalf as well as his own, Angel realized, he was tactful and responsible about dividing responsibilities between himself and Gunn, and listening to Gunn’s input.

It still felt wrong to Angel that he wasn’t the person in charge, and it also felt wrong to him that they should have grown up so fast while his attention was diverted. He would never have admitted it aloud but, proud though he was of them, he really did miss being the parent of this particular dysfunctional family.

Sighing, he made his way down to the lobby. Gunn had arrived and was putting in his two cents worth as they clustered around the front desk.

“It’s too early in the morning for me to listen to you two bitching and whining.”

“I don’t whine!” Cordelia retorted.

“No - you bitch, Wesley whines, and between the two of you, you are driving me buggo!”

Wesley rolled his eyes in protest. “All I wanted was a cup of tea.”

“You dissed my coffee!” Cordelia retorted fiercely.

“Only because it was undrinkable,” Wesley returned as if that made it better.

Angel thought about telling them not to quarrel, and then realized sadly that he’d forfeited the right to tell them to do anything for a while. He missed that. He missed everyone remembering that he was the old wise super strong guy and looking to him for commonsense and protection. Supposing they ever had, which he was now wondering about. He definitely remembered a time when Wesley had trusted his judgement and looked to him for orders and thought Angel was pretty much the noblest champion in this or any other dimension. And he thought Cordelia has been inclined to think the best of him as well. Even Gunn hadn’t thought he was a complete waste of space.

“This Angel Investigations?”

Angel turned to see a delivery guy carrying two small parcels.

“Yes.” He looked over his shoulder at Wesley. “More books?”

Wesley shook his head. “I wish, but we can’t afford any more at present.”

Gunn looked at Cordelia. “More shoes?”

She snorted. “Like I’d buy those by mail order when we live in a city of a thousand shoe shops.”

The delivery man pushed a clipboard under Angel’s nose. “You Angel? Sign here.” As Angel did so the delivery man handed over one of the parcels and then turned to look at the others. “And which one of you is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce?”

Standing between the very female Cordelia and a Wesley who was sipping his tea aggrievedly, Gunn just looked at the delivery man. “Take a wild guess.”

The delivery man crossed over to where Wesley was and handed him a pen before holding out the clipboard. “Sign here.”

“How come only you and Angel get goodies?” Cordelia demanded.

“Perhaps because Santa loves us best.” Wesley signed with a quiet flourish every syllable of his double-barrelled name.

Looking between them as if he thought they were slightly insane, the delivery man handed Wesley a parcel and went out shaking his head.

“Well, I bet it’s something boring or lethal,” Cordelia said. “And I’ll standing over here while you open it.”

Wesley smiled in a superior fashion. “You’re just jealous because you didn’t get a mysterious parcel and Angel and I both did.”

“Maybe because they’re going to save killing me for later,” she retorted. “So, that after your ticking timebomb explodes Gunn and I are still left standing to clean up the gloop.”

Wesley paused and put the parcel to his ear carefully. “It’s not ticking.”

“Does it smell edible?” Gunn enquired. “Because I'm hungry.”

“Mine doesn’t smell of anything.” Angel gingerly began to unwrap the box. It didn’t feel very heavy and there was no return address anywhere. The label had been hand-printed in clear black print but he didn’t recognize the handwriting.

“I bet it’s from Wolfram & Hart,” Cordelia added. “They’ve already tried to kill Wesley once.”

“They weren’t trying to kill me specifically,” Wesley pointed out. “Just to separate Angel from his links to humanity.”

Gunn frowned. “Which would be us, right?”

“That bomb not having your actual stuffy English name on it didn’t stop it blowing you halfway to hell,” Cordelia pointed out.

“Yes, but I wasn’t targeted in the way that you were. I think it’s perfectly possible that the people at Wolfram & Hart don’t even know how to spell my actual stuffy English name.”

Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Wes, I don’t know how to spell your name, but I still know who you are.”

Wesley held up the parcel. “But the person who sent this did know how to spell my name, Cordelia. No ‘h’ in ‘Wyndam’ and Pryce with a ‘y’. Do you know how rare it is for someone to get that right?”

Angel put in quietly, “Wes, Wolfram & Hart are the people who are most likely to get your name right. They have access to files that other people don’t.”

“Or it could be my Aunt Cynthia sending me some new socks,” Wesley protested.

Angel held up his parcel. “Would she be sending me socks too?” He motioned to the others to get back behind the front desk. “Let me open mine and if I get vaporized, don’t open yours.”

Wesley sighed but did reluctantly begin to move behind the desk along with Cordelia and Gunn. “Just for once it would be nice if someone was sending us parcels because they liked us.”

Cordelia took Wesley’s elbow and moved him firmly behind the protection of the counter. “Like I told you before, no one likes a smartass rogue demon hunter, and given all the nasty things that keep happening to us, that must go extra for Vision Girl, the Dark Avenger and Hubcap Harry here.”

Gunn rolled his eyes. “You all get to sound like Superheroes from a Marvel Comic and I get ‘Hubcap Harry’?”

“Get yourself a proper axe and maybe we can talk again about that name.”

Angel glanced across at them. “I'm opening the possibly lethal parcel in a selflessly self sacrificing gesture now - if any of you want to stop squabbling for long enough to notice.”

“Sorry!” Wesley called back.

“We’re very impressed by your bravery,” Gunn added.

“And we’d be even more impressed if you speeded it up a bit,” Cordelia added. “The suspense is killing us.”

“Although hopefully not in a very real and very literal sense,” Wesley murmured.

Angel opened the box and peered inside. There was a lot of bubble-wrap, which seemed rather a mundane way to send something that was promising all kinds of excitingly lethal death. Pulling back the bubble-wrap he found there was some tissue paper and inside the tissue paper a small and rather unimpressive bronze amulet. He touched it carefully, waiting for a fizzing or explosion to happen. Nothing did. He picked it up by the chain and it glinted benignly under the hotel lighting. A somewhat insignificant-looking amulet with some carvings on it.

“What is it?” Cordelia demanded.

“An amulet.” Angel held it up for inspection and they cautiously emerged from behind the counter.

“Someone’s sending Angel jewellery?” Gunn enquired.

“Mystical jewellery?” Wesley peered at the amulet curiously.

“Made in Taiwan type jewellery going by the look of it,” Cordelia sniffed. “Looks like a cheap hunk of crap to me.” She caught Gunn’s sleeve. “You know what this means?”

“What?”

“Someone is sending Angel and Wesley his’n’his matching amulets! That’s so sweet. Do you think we should all go to Vegas for the wedding? I'm sure Lorne would be happy to sing.”

“Lorne is always happy to sing, cupcakes, but what’s the occasion?”

Holding the amulet in the palm of his hand, Angel turned to see the green demon advancing elegantly down the stairs from the front doors. He was wearing something stylish in blue silk and looked - as always - as if he were about to accept a microphone from someone and burst into radiant song.

“Wes and Angel getting hitched.” Gunn shrugged. “Apparently.”

Angel winced as he caught his palm on the edge of the amulet. “Ow!” He licked his palm and the blood was salt and rich on his tongue, the hunger flaring momentarily before he fought it back down.

“Gunn and Cordelia sulking because they didn’t get a mysterious parcel and Angel and I did,” Wesley countered.

Cordelia shrugged. “So, someone thinks you and Angel are cheap and gay? How is that enviable? You now run the risk of getting beaten up in the street but you didn’t even get good taste to go with it?”

“Children, please…” Angel murmured. Thinking how much easier it had been when they did what he said. Or didn’t. But were meant to at least. And how much he had liked being a single parent to dysfunctional adopted kids in the past.

Gunn nudged Wesley. “Open your parcel. Let’s see if you really did get matching amulets.”

“Can I see the inscription on yours first, Angel?” Wesley enquired. Angel suspected that Wesley was just trying to put off the evil moment when it would be revealed that someone really had sent them matching amulets and they were therefore going to be teased about it endlessly by Cordelia and Gunn.

“No.” Cordelia nudged Wesley much harder in the ribs, making him wince and clutch his still tender abdomen. “Open your parcel. Lorne can decipher the Made in Hong Kong symbols while you’re wrestling with bubble-wrap.”

Angel handed the amulet to Lorne who examined it curiously under the lights. “Ancient Tibetan Wish Amulet, kids.” Lorne shrugged. “Nothing particularly unusual about it. Except when I say 'Ancient' I mean knocked out last Wednesday and when I say 'Tibetan' I mean never been near Lhasa in its lifetime and when I say 'Wish' I mean you wish it would work and when I say Amulet I mean, well…actually the 'amulet' part is pretty accurate.”

“I bet Wesley has one the same.” Cordelia took five steps backwards towards the stairs. “But just in case it’s something scarier, I think I’ll go and stand over here.”

“I think I’ll stand over here.” Gunn moved towards the front desk.

Wesley rolled his eyes. “You’re both overreacting absurdly.” Nevertheless, Angel could hear his heart was beating rather faster than usual as he peeled back another layer of bubble-wrap to reveal… “Well, it’s not an amulet.”

“It’s a bomb, isn’t it?” Cordelia asked faintly.

“It’s an orb of some kind.” Wesley picked it out of the tissue paper and held it up for inspection. “Rather pretty. I could do with a paperweight.”

“Isn’t there a note with it, crumpet?” Lorne enquired uneasily. “Some explanation of why someone is sending you these mystical gee-gaws?”

Wesley shrugged. “No, nothing. It must be a reward for our nice manners and clear diction. Explaining why the Americans didn’t get any.” His glance at Angel made it clear that he was more than a little rattled but trying not to show it.

“Can I see it?” Angel held out a hand, forgetting about the cut on his palm until the solid weight of the orb pressed against it and made him wince. “It’s heavy.”

“It’s glowing!” Gunn added in some alarm.

“Switch it off!” Cordelia told him quickly.

“How?” Angel demanded. The orb was indeed glowing now, a swirling mist appearing in the centre of it like a fortune-teller’s crystal ball. As he turned it in his hands, trying to find some kind of symbols on it that could possibly tell him how to stop it doing whatever it was now doing, a ray of light shot out from it and hit the amulet Lorne was holding, immediately refracting from the amulet in four bolts of light, the first hit Gunn and enveloped him in light, the second, Cordelia, the third, Wesley, and then a fraction after the others, the fourth hit Angel but instead of enveloping him in light as with the others, it immediately died, causing the other lights to cut off at the same time.

“What the hell was…?” Angel turned around to see how the others were faring and his jaw dropped in disbelief.

“Mystical munchkins,” Lorne murmured.

Angel gazed in horror at what were now standing in the places where his associates had recently been. “Tell me I'm dreaming.”

Lorne reached across and pinched him, hard. “Wide awake I'm afraid, cream puff, and it looks like you just became a Daddy.” He turned around slowly. “Three times over.”

Where a moment before six feet four of twenty-something Gunn had been standing, there was now a belligerent-looking child of no more than four, enveloped in clothes from which he was struggling angrily to emerge. A six year old girl, swamped in her designer frock, her small feet lost in Cordelia’s elegant pumps, was standing with her mouth open, clearly torn between wailing in dismay and throwing a full out tantrum. Next to Angel a thin shocked-looking Wesley of perhaps eight years old was gazing up at Angel in horror through glasses far too big for his pinched little face. His trousers and underpants were around his ankles, which didn’t much matter as his shirt now fell way below his knees.

“What happened?” he said breathlessly.

Angel crouched down in front of him. “Do you know who I am?”

“I think so.” Wesley looked around the hotel in confusion. “Everything’s fuzzy.” He looked down at himself, reaching up automatically to hold onto his glasses and then saw what had happened, gasping in horror. “Did a spell happen?”

“And how, bitesize.” Lorne also crouched down to Wesley’s eye level. “But don’t worry, we’re going to fix this.” He gently removed the glasses that were now far too big for him from Wesley’s face. “And these.”

“How?” Wesley’s lower lip was trembling and he looked ready to burst into tears. He said rapidly: “I don’t want to be a child again. Angel, I don’t want to be small!”

Cordelia’s wail cut through Wesley’s panic like a police siren and Angel could just tell that this was a sound she could keep up for some considerable time. “I don’t like this! I'm not me! Why don’t my shoes fit me?” As she tried to take a step, she fell out of her pumps and landed with a bump on the floor. Lorne hurried to help her up but her wailing only went up another scale.

“There there, Cordy Junior.” Lorne hastily gathered her into his arms. “We’ll have you back to magnificent life size in no time. Right, Angel?”

Angel patted Wesley reassuringly on his scarily thin little shoulder and hurried over to where Gunn was still fighting clothing as if it was a sewer demon, punching and kicking angrily at the folds that were smothering him. “Let me help you out of there…” He picked the little boy up out of his jeans and boots, revealing a cross little four year old, ridiculously cute in a hugely oversized red sweatshirt.

Little Gunn promptly kicked Angel hard in his family jewels. “Put me down! I'm not a little kid!”

“Yes, you are,” said Wesley sadly. “We all are.”

Gunn stabbed a finger at Angel. “I’m not doing what you say just because you’re bigger than me. So there.”

Lorne, still patting Cordelia on the back while she wailed in his arms, looked at Angel. “Oh my god, is that too cute for words or…?”

Gunn bunched his hand into a tiny fist. “One more word and I'm going to punch you on the nose, Lorne!” Then he looked at how small his fist was, gave up the unequal fight between memory and biology, and drummed his bare feet furiously into Angel’s abdomen in what was undoubtedly a full out small child paddy.

Wesley sat down on the floor and put his hands up to his face. “I don’t want to be a child again,” he said quietly, closing his eyes and clearly wishing for all he was worth. “Please don’t make me be a child again.” He opened his eyes and looked down at himself hopefully, and then his face fell.

Angel carried the still kicking Gunn over to where Wesley was and crouched down next to him. “Wes, are you still you? Do you still know what you know as an adult?”

“Sort of.” Wesley looked up at him and his blue eyes looked enormous in his child-sized face. The adult Wesley was skinny - although only Cordelia was usually tactless enough to mention it - but it was offset by the fact that he was also fit and leanly muscled, however he really did make for a painfully thin little boy. “But I think it will fade quite quickly, Angel. The biological imperative of being this size will inevitably overwhelm all other factors.”

“You still sound just the same,” Angel pointed out.

“I'm not though.” Wesley looked down at himself again in dismay. “And as I only have a child-sized brain now I probably won’t be able to remember everything I did as an adult. Gunn will regress even faster because he seems to have lost even more years than I did.”

“Don’t wanna regress!” Gunn kicked Angel angrily again while Cordelia’s wailing got louder.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” said Wesley faintly, trying to pull back his sleeves far enough to find his hands. Once he had finally pushed back enough cloth to find them he looked at them in misery, his heart rate increasing as he gulped at the air.

“Gunn, stop kicking me,” Angel told him firmly. “Cordy, stop crying. Wes, stop panicking. Lorne and I are going to figure this out and put you back how you were, okay?”

“But you’re just a stupid vampire!” Gunn shouted at Angel, still drumming his toes against his abdomen. “Wes is the smart one and he’s just a kid now! We’re going to be stuck like this forever. How can I fight demons like this?”

“Stop. Kicking. Me,” Angel said through gritted teeth.

Still in Lorne’s arms, Cordelia pointed piteously at her new pumps. “My shoes! None of my shoes will fit me! My beautiful shoes!”

“But think of all those new outfits you’ll be able to get into, princess,” said Lorne desperately.

“Angel is a hundred years out of date!” Cordelia wailed. “He’ll probably make me wear pinafore dresses and bobby sox!”

“Actually little girls wore silk and lace and lots of petticoats when I was growing up,” Angel observed. “They looked lovely.”

Cordelia stared at him for a moment and then wailed louder. “I'm going to be a freak!”

“I'm not going back to school again for anyone!” Gunn shouted at Angel. “You can’t make me go to school and if you do I'm not doing my homework!”

“School.” Wesley clasped his hands together tightly, clearly fighting the urge to rock only by a great effort. “Having to learn everything all over again.”

“No sex!” Gunn shouted.

Angel put a hand over his mouth. “Don’t say things like that. One, because we’re going to fix this, and, two, because you’re four years old and it’s too freaky.”

“No sex?” Cordelia looked at Gunn aghast. “No shopping by myself? No wearing my own clothes for ten years! Just kill me now. I don’t even want to live.”

Wesley wrapped his arms around his knees and looked up at Angel fearfully. “Social services won’t let you keep us. They’ll take us away and send us back to our parents.”

“My parents are dead.” Gunn stopped kicking Angel at last. “They’ll put me up for adoption.”

“My father’s in prison and my mother’s having a long slow breakdown.” Cordelia clung onto Lorne a little tighter, as if she needed the comfort of someone familiar. He rocked her automatically while patting her on the arm.

“My parents are alive,” said Wesley faintly. “My father could spend the next ten years telling me how badly I turned out the first time.”

“That is not going to happen.” Angel tightened his grip on Gunn protectively.

Lorne looked across at him. “The munchkins have a point, Angelcakes. You could pass as Cordy and Wes’s father maybe, if we could get you some fake papers, but no one is going to buy you as our sawn off TotGunn’s biological father.”

“My second wife was African-American.”

“So, where is she?” Lorne enquired. “And come to that where’s your first wife too? And how come neither of them ever visits their kids? The kids you haven’t registered in any school in LA? And why does Cordelia have an American accent but Wesley doesn’t?”

“We just arrived from England. Wesley’s mother was English. That’s why he sounds like that.”

“So, how many wives have you had, Angel? What are you, Bluebeard? And where’s your passport?” Lorne sighed. “It’s not as if you don’t have enemies. If Wolfram & Hart get a sniff of what’s happened to our kindergarten chums here they’re going to be contacting social services within the hour. Is there anywhere you can take them where you can work on reversing this spell in peace?”

“Sunnydale,” said Wesley quietly.

Angel looked down at him. “What?”

“Giles might be able to help and if I turn completely into an eight year old we’re going to need someone else who can do research as well as you.”

“Wesley’s right.” Cordelia wiped her eyes. “You suck at research.”

“Buffy.” Angel sighed. He had been trying so hard to avoid seeing her; trying not to add to their pain at being separated and her pain at having just lost her mother. “I’ll have to ask her to take us in for a while.”

“No!” Cordelia’s shriek made Lorne flinch and almost drop her.

“Sweetheart, you’re going to perforate my eardrum.”

“I can’t go to Sunnydale looking like this!” Cordelia shouted. “Xander will see me! He’ll make fun of me!”

Wesley sighed. “Cordy, I'm not exactly relishing the prospect of going back to a place where everyone despised and disliked me either - especially as I'm now a small child - but I don’t think there’s any choice. I don’t know anyone except Giles who might be able to help us.” He looked up at Angel and although he’d sounded very adult for a moment there his big blue eyes were full of an eight year-old’s anxiety. “Do you?”

Angel shook his head. “Wes is right. We need to go to Sunnydale. I’ll call Giles now. Lorne? Can you go and buy the…children some clothes? We can get Wesley some new glasses in Sunnydale but they’re going to need underwear, pyjamas, socks, shoes, toothbrushes, everything you can think of. Take my wallet. Do you need to measure them first?” He looked at the three of them uncertainly.

Lorne put Cordelia down gently and she sank down on the floor next to Wesley who wordlessly put out his hand to her. Angel noticed the way she took it and held on tightly. Lorne said, “I think we both have their new dimensions pretty much burned into our disbelieving brains, Daddy-o. There’s a store that’s cool with demons and humans where I can get them fitted out - the store owner owes me for a reading that averted a domestic situation the like of which you don’t even want to know about but suffice to say it would have made your homelife with Darla look like the Waltons - so he should give me a big discount. But nothing I buy Wesley is going to fit him properly unless there’s a Refugee Kids R Us around here and any clothes Cordelia would consent to be dressed in you can’t afford.”

Angel crouched down next to them, placing Gunn on the floor next to Wesley as he did so. “Kids, I want you to remember that you’re going to be adults again very soon. In the meantime, Cordy you’re going to have to wear clothes for little girls that weren’t designed by anyone in particular and, Wes, we’re probably going to have to use some safety pins to keep your pants up. Gunn, you’re going to have to face the fact that you’re at the insanely cute age when even total strangers will stop in the street to coo over you and even scowling won’t help you. But this is temporary, okay?” Gunn scowled up at him but Angel noticed the way he inched closer to Wesley and Wesley put his right arm around him, the fingers of his left hand still tightly interlocked with Cordelia.

Angel wasn’t sure he could reverse this, although nothing short of torture was going to make him admit it, but he was damned sure that no harm was going to come to these three while he was undead to prevent it, and nothing and no one was going to separate them as long as they wanted to be together. He tossed his wallet to Lorne. “Get what you think they need. I want to get them out of here as soon as the sun goes down.”

As Lorne nodded and took his leave, Angel looked down at the three children, Wesley and Cordelia still with their hands clasped, and Gunn cuddled mournfully up against Wesley. “It’s going to be okay, I promise,” he told them gently. “Keep out of sight and I’ll be right back.”

Part Two