To Be Claimed

Spike idly flicked ash off his cig. The boy was up to something. He'd seen that coat before. The whelp only wore it when building up his confidence for something. He'd worn it out the day before that wedding fiasco. Spike seemed to be the only one who'd seen the things connection to the whelp's life-shattering moments. Probably because the boy had worn it that night so many years past when his Sire had given the boy to him. Oh, he'd taken it off long before the scene in the school, but Spike's minions had watched him go back to get it later—well after the whelp had run away to save his neck. Spike smiled in proud remembrance. His boy had good survival instincts. Instincts Spike had been wearing away for months now. At least, in regards to himself.

There had always been something tasty in the very air around the boy. Slayer didn't know what she said when she called him a 'demon magnet.' Anything with a decent sense of smell would want to meet this one. Have him. There were markers in his scent that oozed purity and innocence and submission. Humans just didn't have those markers. The boy was a demon and drew them like flies. Sweet, his boy was. There were days when Spike would lay awake wondering if the boy knew. Then there were times, like now, when the boy's eyes swept over his surroundings with a dark possession and a faint glimmer, and Spike was certain the boy knew. The look would disappear the second the Slayer was near. The whelp took on the role of doughnut boy with the ease of a shapeshifter. Spike wanted him. Hell below, Spike almost had him. Almost.

It was that 'almost' that had Spike at the boy's throat somedays. Something screaming in his head that his boy—HIS—was challenging him. He'd never liked being challenged, and the whelp seemed to delight in it. Challenge. Test. Pushing just to see how far he could go. Nights when Spike absolutely howled to take the boy away from the Slayer and teach him exactly what those entoxicating scents of submission meant. Spike knew. Knew full well that properly claimed the boy would follow every order put to him. He tossed the burned down cig into some bushes. A beautiful sight his boy could be. Tell him to kill, and he would. Probably wouldn't even get the typical squirming about good versus evil. Just follow the order and wait for another. They could be terrors. Spike could get his reputation back as Big Bad. Seemingly-human minion at his complete beck and call to deal with anything the bloody chip might object to.

Spike paused his thoughts as he watched the boy run a hand through hair that was a shade too long for business chic and much too short for boytoy cool. What would the boy think? Would the possible level of anger and despair be worth the glorious bloody mayhem? Spike snorted at the thoughts. The boy would belong to him in every way. What would the whelp's feelings matter? Yet for some odd reason, his forehead furrowed in thought, Spike wondered if maybe, just maybe mind, he should ask first.

"Perish the very thought," he muttered, taking out his bout of frustration by snarling at the relatively harmless doorman. Xander frowned at him momentarily before sliding passed and vanishing into the mass of people in the Club.