Embers, Part 4/22 (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

[coalitiongirl]

Title: Embers
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Rating: PG-13, most likely for the whole fic. Possibly some R action later on.

That's how betrayal works. It sends out ripples of hurt. Ones right next to you...ones you can't even see.

A year after the events of Season Eight, Buffy is still reeling. But while she and Spike try to sort out the hurt and confusion that

Comments

[slaymesoftly]

Oh, wonderful UST! I love flirty, caring Spike. And Simone - had forgotten all about her. Great update.

[coalitiongirl]

I love flirty, caring Spike.

Heh, don't we all? ;D

I'm slowly going to incorporate most of what's already been hinted at for S9, but as even Buffy doesn't know about it, sit may be a long time coming...

[slaymesoftly]

I don't think I've looked at any of the season 9 speculation or hints. I'm just going my merry way with my little fic and hoping I don't get too Jossed. (Wishful thinking, I'm sure, but...) I'm feeling a bit like the writers back when the series was still airing must have felt when they wrote something for later in the season, or post an early season, and then Joss made them all wildly AU. :)

[coalitiongirl]

I haven't either- I really don't want to hear nonstop promises that won't be fulfilled, and I'd rather have my hope. ;) I'm basing all of this speculation on #40 and what it indicates may be next.

I'm feeling a bit like the writers back when the series was still airing must have felt when they wrote something for later in the season, or post an early season, and then Joss made them all wildly AU. :)

Yes! I'm just racing to get this fic finished before S9 actually starts, because I don't know how effectively I can write once I'm competing with Joss... ;D

[slaymesoftly]

I don't know how effectively I can write once I'm competing with
Joss... ;D I hear you. I know mine will be done long before then. It will just quietly fade into AU, never happened, dom once the comics start up again. *sigh*

[coalitiongirl]

Somehow, though, I suspect that people will prefer the fic, as is the norm. :D #40 left us with so much promise that I broke my own personal rule and started a new longfic, just because I wanted to see Spuffy as a slow burn and not whatever nightmare Joss may have in store for us. (Though as of yet, I think there's only one Spuffy scene in canon that I'm not fond of, S8 included. Dare I hope that things will continue on that thread? :D)

[slaymesoftly]

It's remotely possible that he will give us an issue or two of Spuffy just to balance the space frakking stuff and be an equal-opportunity shipper annoyer. :) But I have no expectations for anything resembling a happy ending for them, and I'll be surprised if we even get the couple of issues. Issue 40 did seem hopeful, but that was probably just to keep us coming back.

[coalitiongirl]

Yes, I think the one thing that disappoints me is that he probably will do that. It seems so anticlimactic to take years and years of character development and cheapen it with a few scenes in an issue or two (and this is mostly why the BA shipper in me is annoyed with the BA S8 scenes). I'd much rather see a slow burn, or even something like S7, where the characters are clearly in love and don't discuss it. (And I think the realization that we wouldn't get that was why I decided I needed to write this fic- which, regardless of the events in the most recent chapter, WILL be a slow burn. :D) I don't want our ship to be written off, something Joss can check off on his list of requirements for S9. I want those four years (and between) of character and relationship development to get the continuation- not ending!- that they deserve.

I may be asking for too much. :D