I love when I get to kick off the season! This one isn’t sexual, but it’s all about coming back to each other and the contradictions implicit in their relationship after Seeing Red.
Title: Enemies with Benefits; Friends with Obstacles
Author: Garnigal
Era/season/setting: Season 7, Episode 2 (Beneath You)
Rating: PG
“Can we rest now? Buffy? Can we rest?”
Through a haze of tears, she watched him hang on the cross, tendrils of smoke rising from his skin. He’d paced and raged through the church, his body tense and voice strident. He had made her nervous; she’d watched him carefully and kept a tight grip on her makeshift stake. She let it slip out of her hand now; he was calm and relaxed, as if the pain of the burns he was receiving from the holy relic had soothed the emotional turmoil in his mind.
He was completely crazy.
Or was he? He was lucid enough to realize he was doing and saying crazy things, but not lucid enough to stop doing them.
So maybe he was only half crazy.
She shook off her inner thoughts and wiped away her tears. Now wasn’t the time to be all introspective girl. It wasn’t her strong suit anyway. She was action girl! And so she needed to take action….
But what action?
There was someone in front of her suffering physically and emotionally.
But it was a vampire.
But it was someone who’d helped her.
But it was someone who tried to rape her.
But he stopped and regretted that.
But he was someone who killed people.
But he was changing into someone who kill people anymore.
But he’d just hurt someone today.
But it was an accident.
But it was Spike.
Spike was a vampire who helped her, and hurt her, and killed people, and was changing into someone who didn’t kill people, and hurt someone today, and accidentally hurt someone today, and was Spike.
She didn’t forgive him.
She didn’t trust him.
But it was Spike.
And Spike was suffering, and she couldn’t make his soul stop hurting him, and she could stop the guilt from making him half or completely insane, but she could….
She could take him off the cross.
“Yes, Spike. We can rest.”
Originally posted at https://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/687186.html
