It's always been blood. He was born in it, woken by it, and the scent that cut through his coffin-panic was the smell of it as it oozed from his torn knuckles. It makes other vamps lazy, complacent, to be well-fed. It makes Spike as sharp as a razor blade; as sharp as his own fangs. It's not the food, either, not really.

It's the moment. The kill. That instant where fangs meet flesh and the blood hits the air and his tongue at the same time as he tears the throat out of whoever he's eating tonight. Fighting for the moment only makes it sweeter. It's why he's got such a taste for Slayers.

Angelus never got it, not really, just like Spike never understood why the miserable old sod got his jollies from fear and broken toys. Oh, terror tastes sweet in the blood, but fury is a thousand times better and there's none of that left once a human's been broken.

Besides, torture is boring. Spike tends to get tired of the game and kill his subject. It doesn't really take that long to shove a railroad spike through someone's head; Spike is fairly sure that it looks more painful than it actually is.

Angelus threatened to do it to him once, after the fury-borne killing spree that not only earned Spike his name, but brought half of London down on them in a raging mob with constables at its head. Spike had laughed in his face, earning himself the worst beating he's ever taken. He'd taken it though, and not like a man, either, but rather like the demon he is. The Scourge of Europe had beaten him bloody and beyond, and he'd still been laughing at the end. Angelus had hated that. Spike hadn't given a toss.

***

Notes: Unbeta'd, so please forgive (and feel free to point out) any mistakes. Feedback keeps plot-bunnies from starving to death.