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.
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.
Spike swallowed hard and glanced down to the leather band still secured around his swollen and purple cock. Release was going to hurt after such an extended period of time erect. He unfastened the leather band with a gasp, determined to get it over with quickly, then frowned as the blood drained away, back to the rest of his body's blood supply, leaving him flaccid. Huh.
The next focus of his attention was the blood on the outside of his body. It dripped down his belly and legs from the numerous lashings there and along his chest and back. He stared at the viscous trails, bemused; Angel had always licked him clean after his punishments, taking his Childe's blood back into himself, where it had originated, making him clean, making him whole...
The direction his thoughts were taking him was not a happy one, and he shook them away, then slowly unfurled from his kneeling position, stretching out tensed muscles until they eased. Silently he left the cage and the room.
No one was in the workout room as he passed, a pale, silent wraith, streaked with red. No one was in the lobby either. Upstairs he approached Angel's closed door and stood still for a moment, assessing what lay beyond; Angel, Wes, Gunn and Illyria. They were all there, behind that door.
Spike could picture the three humans spooned together on Angel's bed, still lost in the deep sleep of the thrall. He could picture Angel sitting on the chair where he himself had so recently sat, silently watching over them, no doubt brooding over what had just happened, thinking himself the injured party, in place of the rightful victim, the one whose body was beaten and bloody. A body that didn't belong to Angel, Spike thought, trying to raise up the righteous anger he knew should be his.
It wasn't working too well for some reason, so he pushed the thought roughly aside and considered the closed door once more.
They were all there.
All of them except him.
There was no sound within, but he knew that Angel was as aware of his presence on this side of the door as surely as Spike was aware of all of theirs on the other side, knew that Angel had sensed his approach a minute ago, and could smell the blood still coating him. But there was nothing from within that sounded even faintly like someone coming to care for his supposed Childe, and finally Spike turned to his own room.
Shower first. He would focus on the little details, and worry about the big picture later. Not that there was a big picture to worry about, he told himself as he watched the red blood – blood of his Sire, a soft voice whispered – stain the water pink at his feet before washing uselessly away down the drain.
He should have made a Childe years ago, that's what he should have done. If he had he'd have someone to care for him now, someone who knew his place in the scheme of things. Yeah, he should've made a Childe years ago. Maybe he would yet. Find some nice, shiny boy with real potential, someone worthy to stand by his side, someone who would watch his back and obey his Sire in all things, as was his due.
Then again, with his luck he'd probably get one that talked back and resisted and was generally annoying when all he wanted was a bit of peace and quiet and attention now and then...
A muscle in his jaw jumped. Maybe he wouldn't make a Childe after all.
He'd only done what any other vampire in his position would have done, he thought suddenly. He'd defended his status, and what was wrong with that?
Status was everything, every vampire knew that. He was a Master in his own right, just like Angelus. True, Angelus was his Sire. It wasn't as though he'd actually been denying that with his stories about Dru and his turning to the Slayer, the Watcher and others in Sunnydale and L.A. After all, Dru had turned him.
He just hadn't told the whole story. The part of the story where Angelus remade him anew and claimed him for his own in a ritual so rare that Aurelian members had come thousands of miles and from several continents just to say they had witnessed such an event.
Okay, so he was the Childe of Angelus, had been the Childe of Angelus. That was then and this was now. They hadn't been Sire and Childe for over a hundred years. It didn't matter that Angel insisted it was still so. It didn't matter that Angel was willing to renew the Most Favored claim in front of the whole Order of Aurelius once more...
That wasn't the point, he insisted to himself, forcibly wrenching the argument away from that avenue. That wasn't the point at all! And besides, he was certain that Angel would never have agreed to such a thing if the leadership of the Order hadn't been within his grasp. That was what this was really about; Angel's ambition. It had nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with Angel's desire to have his Childe back...
Angel didn't really want him. He'd never wanted him. Angelus, on the other hand, had wanted him. That demon had adored the demon he'd created and molded. But neither were the same any more. He wasn't the Childe of Angelus any longer, and had never been the Childe of Angel. Dru was gone, and he had no one to look after, no one to look after him. No Childe of his own, no Sire to care for him...
Suddenly Spike felt a bone-deep weariness settle over him, weighing
him down. He turned off the shower, walked into the bedroom and
burrowed beneath the covers, still soaking wet. He rolled and kicked,
making a nest for himself in the bedding, until he was completely
enclosed. When even his vampire eyesight could see nothing, and when he
was sure no one could see him – had there been anyone there to see – he
let the tears that had been hovering so close fall. He fell asleep with
them still wet upon his cheeks.