A/N: Sorry that a lot of this seems to be background information, I prefer to do conversations and characters interacting with each other but I thought I’d best get this part out of the way.

 

Surprises

 

Spike parked his car and walked inside, seeing Wes flopped out on the couch watching a documentary. He went and sat down next to him, and for once didn’t nick the remote off him and change it to another channel.

 

“Hey Wes.”

 

“You seem awfully chipper, I take it someone got lucky…” Wes replied.

 

“That I did,” Spike replied, “He’s so hot and he seems really nice, hes just moved to the area.” Spike told him.

 

“What’s his name?” Wes asked.

 

“Angel,” Spike replied, “well actually that’s just his nickname, his real name’s Liam.”

 

Wes nodded, “so are you seeing him again?”

 

“Yeh, he asked for my number and said he’d call me soon.”

 

“Good for you,” Wes was used to Spike coming home from a club and had learnt to be able to pick out whether or not Spike had met anyone he was interested in by his mood. He decided that this guy must be something, because Spike was in a hell of a good mood. Spike continued to tell him all about Liam until Wes eventually fell asleep and Spike sauntered off to his room, in too good a mood to care.

 

-------------------

 

Angel drove out of the club, very excited about the new guy he’d just met and somewhat worried about how he’d get up for work the next morning. Spike seemed perfect, he looked somewhat young, but Angel figured he couldn’t be any younger than about 19, and that was only five years younger than what he was. Angel sighed, tomorrow was going to be a long day, he was nervous about starting up teaching at a new school, he found that a lot of the faculty at the old school he taught at hadn’t taken him seriously; in fact that had been his reason for moving. He was pretty much fresh out of university and had spent only a year teaching at a public school in LA, he had wanted to move because he hadn’t really been accepted as one of the staff and he had heard that Sunnydale was so desperate for teachers that they welcomed pretty much anyone with open arms. Angel thought back to Spike, he was probably exactly the opposite of Angel, he seemed somewhat punk and had bleached blonde hair, whilst Angel was more subdued and sensitive and liked classical music. He was the picture of a perfect gay man, he liked classical music, he was a teacher, was sensitive and a borderline metro sexual according to his best friend Cordy back in LA. He missed her, she was just about the only thing he missed about LA, he really wanted to tell her about Spike, he always told her about all the new guys he met and she had always told him about all the ones she did. He decided as soon as he got home from work tomorrow he would call her and tell her everything. He pulled into the driveway of the house he had bought when he had moved here last week. He’d managed to buy a house fairly easily, Angel figured it was better than renting and the house was quite nice; everything was still in boxes but Angel had plans to eventually unpack everything and decorate his new house and hopefully sometime soon invite Cordelia around for a visit. He parked his car and went inside. He got to his bedroom and just stripped off and crashed, completely wiped.

 

Angel woke up the next morning filled with dread. He hated new things, he liked being in places where he felt comfortable. He got out of bed and quickly showered and got dressed. He quickly made himself some breakfast, just settling on toast, he loved to cook but he’d woken up kinda late and didn’t have enough time. He grabbed his bag and headed out the door. He drove to school and pulled into the teachers carpark a few minutes later, taking a deep breath as he walked into the school office. As the new head of the school English program he now had his own office and he went inside, dumping his stuff on one of the chairs inside. This place would really need some work, he thought to himself. He checked his schedule, he had to teach grade 12 first period. He was looking forward to it in a way, not many other teachers liked teaching the older grades, the ones who thought that they knew everything, but Angel loved it, he loved challenges. He had spent quite a bit of the weekend reading over the student’s folders and looking at their past grades, working out which ones he knew could do better. He checked his watch and heard the bell ring, he grabbed some folders and headed off to class. He was glad that he already knew his way around, they’d given him a tour after he arrived last week.

 

He walked into the classroom in which he would be spending an awful lot of time during the next year or so and wrote his name up on the board. ‘Mr. O’Connor’. It felt weird writing his name up as Mr O’Connor, so formal, but then he wouldn’t be entirely comfortable with his students calling him Angel or Liam. He watched the students file into class and started marking the role, leaving blank spaces next to the absent students in case they came in late. One particular late-comer caught his eye, it was Spike. His Spike. They locked eyes and both of them froze for a moment, neither knowing what to do. Angel couldn’t believe it, Spike was a student, and even worse his student. Angel thought back over their conversation, surely somewhere along their conversation Spike had to have mentioned that he was finished highschool, then he remembered that they hadn’t really had much of a conversation as much as a make out session. He blushed slightly thinking about it. He couldn’t believe that the guy he thought was so perfect was suddenly completely off limits. He watched Spike slowly sit down close to the back and his attention went back to marking the role. He went to write down Spike’s name as present and then remembered that his real name was Will. Will! That was one of the students he had planned to help. Shit. It couldn’t get a hell of a lot worse than this. He briefly considered not helping Spike, not not teaching him, just not going out of his way. The he saw how unfair it would be, it wasn’t Spike’s fault. He took a deep breath and figured he would have to talk to Spike after class, as uncomfortable as it would be he had to do it.

 

The rest of the lesson was a blur, Angel mostly sized out where abouts the class was up to in their work and went through his classroom rules and what he expected from them etc.

 

He heard the bell go and he dismissed them, “Sp-Will can you stay back a minute?” He asked nearly calling him Spike but thankfully the rest of the students were so content on leaving they didn’t even notice and probably figured that Angel had just forgotten his name.

 

“Sure,” Spike said and racked a hand through his hair, moving to the front as the rest of the students flocked to the door.

 

Before long the classroom was empty, it was just Angel and Spike and the level of sexual tension rose exponentially.

 

“So…?” Spike prompted.

 

“I didn’t know you were a student,” Angel started.

 

“I gathered that this morning… I didn’t know you were a teacher…” Spike replied, not knowing whether or not he still wanted Angel and whether or not it bothered him that he knew what Angel was about to say. While the idea of dating a teacher was not really something Spike considered a good one, he couldn’t help still being attracted to him.

 

Angel took a deep breath, “I think we both know that things can’t go any further than what they did last night, in fact they shouldn’t have gone that far at all. It was just wrong.”

 

The moment the words were out of Angel’s mouth Spike’s face fell. How could Angel think it was so wrong when Spike had thought it was so right?

 

Angel knew the second he had said it that it was the wrong thing to say. God he wasn’t good at this, but then it wasn’t as though he’d had a hell of a lot of practice, actually he’d never been in this situation before. “That’s not what I meant.” He said and absent-mindedly combed his hair with his fingers.

 

“Well what did you mean then?” Spike asked.

 

“I meant that-“ Angel paused, trying to think of what to say, “I meant that while there was definitely something there,” He hesitated again, wondering whether or not it was legal to tell a student that there was something between them, but then it was a bit late for that now, “there’s no way that anything could happen. You’re a student, I’m a teacher. I’m *your* teacher…” Angel continued.

 

“It’s ok,” Spike said, “I understand, I mean it was what? One kiss?” He said, not really sure of whether he was actually agreeing with Angel or trying to convince himself.

 

“Yeh,” Angel said, now for the harder part, “so maybe we should just forget it ever happened…” Angel hated himself for even saying it, no part of him wanted to forget that kiss, or those dances, or the feel of Spike inside his arms… ok now he was venturing down a very bad path…

 

“Yeh, forget.” Spike said quietly.

 

“So that part’s settled,” Angel said, “there was actually something else that I wanted to talk to you about: your English grades. I was looking at your profile over the weekend, I was looking at everyone’s it was before I even met you,” Angel added so he wouldn’t seem like he was some sort of stalker, “anyway, I really think that you could be doing a lot better. I read some of your assignment’s and you have great grammar, sentence structure and communication skills, you just need inspiration.”

 

“Inspiration?” Spike said, “I thought I ‘lacked imagination’,” he said quoting his old teacher.

 

“No. I’ve no doubt you have imagination, what you need is something to inspire you. It could be a thing of great beauty, or something completely evil, just anything that makes you feel passionate about something.”

 

“Uhuh,” Spike said, half his mind still a little uncertain and the other half still thinking about how he would never get to kiss Angel’s perfect lips again.

 

The bell sounded for them to get to their next class.

 

“Well think about what I just said,” Angel said, “and as for the rest, I’m sure we can put it behind us…” He finished, nearly believing it himself.

 

“Yeh, sure. And don’t worry, I wont tell anyone.”

 

“I wasn’t worried, and I’d like you to do something for me, write a poem, it can be about anything you like, just focus on what you’re writing about rather than what you are actually writing.” Angel said.

 

Spike was curious about what Angel wanted him to do and in a way he was also interested in seeing how it would turn out. “Sure,” he said moving to leave the classroom. He paused, “I’d better go, I’ll catchya later, *Mr O’Connor*.” He said feeling really weird about calling him that.

 

Angel struggled to think of something, anything to say to keep him here, whilst he knew that things between them couldn’t work out, he also knew that he didn’t want Spike to leave, not yet.

 

Spike looked over at him, waiting for him to say something, but nothing came out so he just walked off, still trying to process what had just happened.

 

Angel watched him walk out the door, getting a sinking feeling inside, something about this just wasn’t right. He was supposed to have a new start, meet new people. Things had been going fine, he had definitely gotten his new start, he had gone out, met cute guy, only cute guy wasn’t supposed to be 17. He sighed and thought back to when Spike had called him Mr O’Connor, that moment had really set it in that he and Spike were so different and that no matter how much he wanted to change that there was no way he could, but he had felt it; the passion was still there and Angel knew it would certainly make the next few weeks interesting if nothing else.

 

A/N: Feedback anyone? Ideas? Suggestions? Comments? Criticism?

 

 

 

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