Seeing the boy take that step back, and the sudden scent of fear coming off the kid, had the demon within chomping at the bit. Yet even as Carl spoke up, and offered an apology too, the blonde shakily pulled the pack of smokes from his pocket. Pausing to light up, and finally relaxing as that smoke filled his lungs as he inhaled deeply. For a long silent moment William didn't say a word. Instead he merely let the nicotine do it's thing while the vamp calmed the inner demon down.
Sure most folks saw smoking as a bad habit, but for the vampire it was a sweet little release. Especially since his lungs were always healing themselves, so that every single cigarette was always like his first. And that chemical rush of the nicotine just helped draw the man's focus away from the misplaced anger.
At last, after exhaling a small cloud of smoke from his lips, Spike's blue eyes landed on Carl again. "It's not you, mate. So no worries. You've got nothing to apologize for....well maybe not nothing, since I'll never be able to forget that bloody scent thanks to you two. But really, I'm not mad at you. It's just had a rough morning, and seeing you there was the final little spark. Honestly it's just too sodding bright out, and I spent the last four hours or so wrestling with a project from hell. Which isn't even over yet, since I still have one more stop to make before I can finally go back to bed." Now that he had managed to calm down at last it was easy enough to see that none of the vamp's anger was truly aimed Carl's way. Nor did the blonde seem to be worried that Carl would hurt Dawn either.