Now Comes the Night (1/1)

[eowyn_315]

Title: Now Comes the Night
Pairing: Spuffy
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst
Summary: "I need to be here. With you."
Word Count: 1,930

Comments

[eowyn_315]

Thank you for the lovely (and long!) comment! I'm sorry I didn't respond to it sooner, but I was away for the holidays and then LJ's been stupid. :(

I personally didn't need to see them shagging (although a more sex-friendly message for our female hero would have been appreciated on my part); and I didn't have any doubt that they loved each other even if they didn't know what to call it or what to do about it.

Yes, absolutely. I tend to be torn between wanting the sex for the reason you had mentioned and thinking that it wouldn't really be right for them at this point in time. It would be nice to see Buffy in a positive sexual relationship, but I didn't need it to know that they loved each other. And given their uncertainty about their feelings for each other, sex under these circumstances probably only would have confused them even more! "Does s/he really want me, or is it just because we might die tomorrow?"

I love how you touch on Spike's death wish - everyone speaks of Buffy's, but someone (I can't remember who now, was it you?) osbserved that Spike's comment to her in FFL can be read as a bit of projection on his part.

Ha, it may have been me...? I do think that his comment in FFL is projection, because it doesn't really describe Buffy at that point. She'd just been wounded because she was overconfident. She thought she was invincible, that's not the same as a death wish. Obviously, she gets to that point by the end of the season, but it's always struck me as a bit odd. Spike talking about himself, on the other hand? Yeah, that I can totally see. :)

I do think by this point she "loved" him but again - it really doesn't matter, does it?

I think she loved him, too, I'm just not convinced that he believed it. :) Which is understandable, because so much of how Buffy expresses love is nonverbal. But after having misunderstood her SO badly last season, I don't think he trusts himself to read her emotions anymore. He needs her to actually say the words, which is the one thing she has trouble doing, and by the time she does, it's too late.

I've seen the assumption that if Buffy had only accepted his love earlier (in S5-6) they could have had a happier relationship and the soul-getting would have been unnecessary. I don't know where you stand on that, but I disagree personally.

I straddle the line on this one, actually! I tend to view Spike as flawed without the soul, but not prohibitively so. There are some things he'll just never understand - he knows right from wrong, generally, but he doesn't always get why it matters to Buffy. I love Barb's AU series and the way she deals with Spike having a somewhat different perspective on things and how sometimes that causes conflict with Buffy, but by and large they are able to work through those issues. I think Spike and Buffy are capable of a functional relationship without him getting a soul.

But that comes with the huge stipulation of if they'd never descended into season 6 territory. I don't think that their s6 relationship is inevitable - it was a perfect storm of Buffy being depressed and isolated and still sort of death wishy, and Spike being the only one she could trust while also being exactly the wrong person to deal with it - so pre-s6 Spuffy works for me. But once they cross that line, once they go through the trauma of their season 6 relationship, I can't imagine it working without a soul. The only way to get out of that downward spiral was if Spike recognized how unhealthy their relationship was, and I think he couldn't understand that without the soul. It's pretty clear when he comes back in s7 that he has a completely different view of what they did to each other.

Thank you again for your comments! It's been aaaages since I've discussed Buffy. :) I'm so glad you enjoyed the fic.