or rather would he claim or wouldn’t he? i would like to preface with: i’m not bashing claim fics AT ALL. i’ve read some really awesome ones, and the act fell in well with the story. my question is though; do you really think, that if “claiming” also referred to as mating, and any other form of the ‘rest of your life and mine’ stamp from a vampire, were real in the buffyverse [which imo i don’t think it is] that spike would actually do it to buffy? not that i’m saying he wouldn’t want to, cause he’s all for buffy, and often blinded by it, but he’s also incredibly intelligent. he knows that people change and grow, for the better and the worse at times, and that she might not love him for all eternity, as she believes she does in the moment of the act. as well as, how much would it really take for buffy’s friends and family to come around to that? no matter how much she grows, i believe, that their opinion reigns supreme in her mind, and spike is more then aware of that. whether or not her love for him was great enough or not, do you think he would knowingly place her between a rock and a hard place, and actually force her to choose between him and her friends. yeah, spike often pulled her to himself in a very selfish fashion at times in their farce of a relationship, but he never forced her to really choose. spike loved buffy, beyond simple infatuation and, even though it seemed so at time, beyond earnest obsession, but would not his love for buffy hold spike back from locking her to him in a forever longer then marriage arrangement? she was his sunshine [which may be one to many fics speaking through] would he take her real sunshine away from her? just a thought i had in the aftermath of a claim fic, thought up the next day while i was showering. and while i was drying off i had a really good setup and argument, several 12 hour work days latter it seems to have come out a tad muddled. but if you’ve thought about it, and if you just now are, i’d wonder what you thought.

One of the things about canon Spike's character that makes him interesting is that even as a soulless vampire he is a romantic.  He may have been over a century old, but regardless of the number the things wrong between him and Drusilla, he still thought they were supposed to be "forever" and would have continued to work on it if she had allowed it.  So yes, I think Spike would have claimed Buffy. And I don't think there would have been a great deal of discussion about "are you sure" and so forth.  For Spike, consent would have "naturally" meant that Buffy wanted him forever, and he wouldn't have considered anything beyond that, I think. He would have too enraptured at having finally achieved the great poetic ever after love that he's been searching for since his human days, whether it is actually true at the time or not. I'm not stating this well - I think his perception of the situation would be colored by his romantic beliefs and desires just it always was with Drusilla.