E-mail: taptap@mn.rr.com
Title: Most Favored
Pairing: Angel/Spike
Rating: Adult
Summary: The Aurelius Clan chooses a new Master
DISTRIBUTION: Various S/A friendly lists.
Spoilers: Post NFA. Angel slays the dragon, and the battle is won with Illyria's manipulation of time, which also results in Wesley's return. Angel, Spike, Wesley, Gunn, and Fred/Illyria are now back in the 'Angel Investigation' business. All live in the Hyperion.
Disclaimer: I don't own Angel or Spike or anything else from ME.
Feedback: Always welcome.
Part 30:
"I'm sorry it's come to this, Will, to the point where I was too afraid to acknowledge you, and you were too angry to acknowledge me. It's hurt us both. Maybe it's too late, but I've got to try and fix it. Remember that this is my intent. Not to ignore, abuse or ridicule. Remember that, Will."
Spike frowned but remained silent, staring resolutely straight ahead, not meeting the older vampire's eyes, until he'd finally, thankfully, moved out of sight behind him. Some of the things just said had gotten to him far more than he cared to admit or show. The fact that Angel had just admitted, for the second time this day, that he was proud of his accomplishments, made his chest ache. He'd wanted that for so long that for a moment he'd felt tears sting his eyes. But then the big bastard had to go on about him being the stronger of the two.
Like Spike didn't already know that. He didn't need his nose rubbed in it. Despite his own reference to the fight over the cup of Perpetual Torment, he knew the reality as well as Angel did. He'd said it to the humans; 'Angel fights to win, he wins,' and he'd meant it. If Angel had really wanted to beat him that day, he'd have been the one lying on the ground watching his Sire tower above him with the cup. He wasn't stupid. He'd known then that Angel hadn't wanted to win, even though it was beyond him as to the reason why. He took advantage of it, though, oh yeah. A chance to take down the mighty one, for whatever reason, was never a chance to be missed.
That thought made him smile for a moment, but the smile disappeared an instant later when he remembered what else Angel had said a minute ago. That Angel had been hurt by Spike's denial of him as a Sire was something Spike had never considered. He didn't like how it made him feel now, and he desperately grasped on to his anger to keep the rest buried. Showing his true emotions in the past had gotten him nothing but pain and loss, and even now he was regretting some of the things he'd said during the thrall session with the humans. He felt vulnerably exposed, and had no one to blame but himself. Damn Angelus and his bloody Irish accent!
So despite what he knew and despite what he felt, Spike instead focused on the challenge ahead. Angel thought he wasn't strong enough yet to beat him, eh? Well maybe he couldn't take him down physically, without a little help from the Ponce himself, but he could take whatever Angel dished out. He was certain of that. He huffed angrily, and the muscles along his body flexed and tensed, waiting for the first blow.
It came at that very moment, a stinging flash along his back. Angel had predictably chosen a soft weapon to start. The leather was supple and worn, and for a moment an image flashed before him of Angel sitting down here caring for the leather and steel implements in the chest of horrors. What a mixed message that sent.
The next lash came, and it was barely harder than the first. Six tails, there were six, each tipped with a leather knot. He could identify each of the different trails left along his flesh and knew that with certainty, just as he knew no blood had yet been drawn. That would come later, with the metal-tipped flogger or a tougher, single-tailed whip. Maybe he'd go so far as to bring out the bullwhip. There'd be blood for sure then.
Of course he really only needed his nose to ascertain the lack of blood. He wished he could see the pink stripes, though. He bet they looked pretty on his pale flesh. His nostrils flared purposefully and yes, there it was, the scent of Angel's arousal. He'd always gotten off on marking his boy in the past.
"Having fun, Angelus? Like the welts, do we?"
As always, Spike couldn't help but goad when he should be silent.
"You know I do. They're so pretty on your pale skin."
Spike snorted at the expected response that so perfectly echoed his own thought and muttered, "Ponce." At least he'd had the sense to keep it to himself.
Angel heard but chose to ignore, at least for the moment, that lapse in civility.
"What's the first thing I taught you, William?"
Obey your Sire...
The words whispered through his head, without pause.
Angelus had taken over young William's training immediately, long before he claimed him officially for his own. It had started exactly like this, with him chained in the basement of the house they'd occupied at the time, and Angel working over him. He remembered how even a simple tool like this flogger had made him cry, and that only made him angrier now. He'd been so young then, brand new.
But he wasn't now. He wasn't a fledge, and he sure as hell wasn't William, and Angelus wasn't going to make him cry this time.
He hung on to that thought as Angel covered his back, buttocks, chest and thighs in stripes. Far from hurting, the most difficult thing to resist was the pleasure they inspired. Angelus had done his job well back in the day. Even now, more than five score years later, Spike got off on the pain. When he'd woken in the chains he'd found at least one thing to be thankful for; the bloody erection he'd been sporting for what felt like hours was finally gone.
Well it was back again now, and with a vengeance. He closed his eyes to try and get it under control, but just then the absolute worst happened; Angel reached around and gripped him tight. He gasped and his eyes flew open and down to see Angel's big hand tight around his cock and balls. If he hadn't been holding him so tight, Spike was absolutely certain he'd have come.
"I see you're enjoying it too, William," Angel whispered in his ear, his bare chest brushing lightly against the welts on his back. "Just like I taught you. Good boy. You see, I know you remember."
There was that damned 'William' again. As for the 'good boy', well, that just wasn't fair. Spike gritted his teeth, determined not to concede to anything Angel said, even something as obviously true as the words just spoken.
"But I think you could be just a bit harder, don't you?" Angel added to Spike's dismay.
Spike groaned when the hand left his balls to circle his shaft and begin a firm, long stroking motion. Angel pulled the tissue-thin foreskin up over the tip of his weeping cock with each up-stroke, and milked his balls with each down-stroke until he felt full-to- bursting. This was the true torture.
Just then, a moment before Spike knew it would be too late, the hand was removed and Angel appeared before him. He reached into a pocket of his black cotton pants and removed the thin leather band he'd retrieved from the trunk earlier. Spike eyed it warily. He'd been forced to wear a cock-ring often as a fledge, sometimes for days on end. While it would definitely save him the embarrassment of being forced to come by his Sire's hand, it would provide its own degree of humiliation. He didn't say anything, though, and only watched as Angel clinically held his throbbing prick to position and tighten the band around the base.
"That's better. Can't have you come too soon now, can we? Not before you tell me what I want to hear. What's the first thing I taught you? Come on, Spike, it's an easy one, and I know you know it."
Obey your Sire...
Damn! It wasn't helping him any to constantly hear the answer in his head when he was so determined to withhold it. It rang so clear that for a moment he thought he might have actually said it out loud, but when Angel patiently asked the same question again a moment later, he breathed a sigh of relief.
The sigh of relief turned to other things over the next few hours, when, just as he'd predicted, the soft, multi-tailed flogger was exchanged first for a harder one, tipped with steel, then a crop. That particular toy had provided a welcome relief from the pain of the previous one, but had almost been his undoing, especially when the swishy, flat leather end had been used against the tender underside of his cock and balls. When Angel was finished with the crop, it was on to the single-tailed whip that had cut his flesh and made him bleed.
Through it all, Angel asked only one thing; 'What was the first thing I taught you?' and each time the answer; Obey your Sire... echoed in Spike's head.
But the words stayed in his head and he remained stubbornly silent through it all. The pain was growing larger, now, filling his body from the inside out, threatening to encompass him completely. He felt himself closing in, and knew he would soon lose consciousness, but certain now that the words Angel sought would remain unspoken.
He'd won.
Suddenly, though the semi-conscious haze left to him, a new sensation entered – the cessation of pain. A moment more and the shackles around his wrists were released and he fell to his knees on the cold floor. A few seconds later and the bands around his ankles fell away. And then his most recent thought was reflected back to him in a quiet voice that seemed both near and very far away.
"You win, Spike."
Spike blinked hazily to clear his vision and finally focused on the space about him. He knelt in the center of the cage and the bloodied whip lay coiled on the floor before him, abandoned. The door to the cage was open and the room was empty. Angel was gone.