There is no home for me in canon

[botias]

OK so you got this guy.  And you treated him really bad, and then he did something REALLY awful to you, ‘cause, well, he is bad.  But then he felt bad, and went to get his soul.

And you forgive him, and you help him out, save his life really, defend him to your family and friends, stand with him against overwhelming evidence, you let him know that he’s your hero, and Wind Beneath My Wings is playing in your head the whole time.  Finally you fricken hold hands with him even though he’s fricken on fire and standing in a fricken collapsing mouth of hell and, what the heck, you go ahead and say it out loud besides.  You love him.

And then he doesn’t call.  He doesn’t write.  Oh, but he has plenty of time for a nooner with his ex.  And so the verdict is in.  Now that he’s gotten his soul, made the changes, Spike is no longer ‘Hillside Strangler meets Hells Angel’ on the boyfriend scale.  The arrow is moving, it’s moving…  Ding, ding, ding!  Congratulations!  You’re now the ‘Guy That Doesn’t Call’.  Hello Parker!Spike.  Vast improvement I have to say.

  Now many folks contend that Spike was being self-sacrificing, not troubling Buffy with his bad self .  Or that he didn’t think she cared much one way or the other (when he was frickin on fire dammit.)  I’m fine with him not getting on the boat, so far as that goes.  But to not call or write? 

Setting aside the whole ‘I love you’ thing, if Spike could really look back on everything Buffy did for him in S7, going above and beyond and even against the call of her duty to give him a chance at a good life, and still think that it wasn’t extremely important to Buffy whether he was alive or dead, than that gives gives him the emotional intelligence of a one-celled organism.  I just can’t want Paramecium!Spike or Parker!Spike for Buffy.  To my mind… Spike’s wedding tackle shrunk 3 sizes that day.  And given Buffy’s trust issues, it’s hard for me to imagine her ever letting him in again.

I know the non-contact thing was largely dictated by external realities.  It’s pretty impossible to assume that if Spike wrote or called, that Buffy wouldn’t show up.  The Angel writers could have gone to the trouble of having them meet off-screen, but I doubt that the issue of whether Buffy, a non-character, would ever trust Spike, a secondary character, again was a big priority for them.

And so I just write off canon after Chosen.  And for post NFA fics?  I just suspend belief I guess.

Comments

Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[botias.livejournal.com]

I thought he kicked her out because he realized that she had only come to him because she was invisible and no one could see her with him, even herself really. There's a blow to the ego. He realizes that she's brought him only her lust, and tells her if he can't have all of her than she should just get out.

He seemed blind to her responsibilities to me. Not surprising given that vampires don't really have any. He encourages her to neglect Dawn after their first night together, and when he entreats her to 'come outside', and when he tries to get her to walk away from her job, and when he has sex with her on her break, you can bet that would have gotten her fired if she'd gotten caught.

I noticed the parallel, but leaving your job because you don't like it, presumably to make a living trafficing demon eggs and mugging people vs. to save lives by slaying demons, however enjoyable, is not really the same.

What's really sad about Spike's luring, such as it is, is that he can't lure her to the dark side. He's not there himself. The scourge of Europe is now only the scourge of kittens, and people who wander around at night carrying cash.

Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[rahirah]

I don't think Spike agreed with Buffy's priorities, which was not always a good thing. But he spent a hundred years taking care of Drusilla, so I think he understands responsibility in a general sense. Spike's not happy about Buffy only coming to him because she's invisible, but she specifically says that being invisibible makes her free of rules and reports, free of her life. Spike replies caustically that there's another word for that--dead. And it's only after that that he tells her to get out, because he doesn't want her if he can't have all of her. He's well aware that she's running away from her life with the invisibility, and does not consider it a good thing. After all, he wants one of them to be living.

He does encourage her to stay with him on several occasions, and Buffy always uses Dawn as an excuse for leaving. In the case of Wrecked, I think Buffy's in the right; she's been out all night without calling. In later instances, though, it's hard to tell whether Dawn isn't just a convenient "left the chillun on the stove" excuse. Dawn certainly doesn't say anything about Buffy being late, or feeling neglected, in AYW; she just seems disappointed that it's Doublemeat again.

Buffy creates a dichotomy in her own mind: I can spend time with Spike or I can spend time with Dawn. But the dichotomy is false. There's nothing preventing her from saying "No, I can't have sex with you now. But you can come in and watch us eat our crappy Doublemeat dinner if you want." Except, of course, for her desire to keep Spike cordoned off from the rest of her life, which in turn puts Spike into competition with her friends and family for her time.

Buffy would have gotten fired if they'd caught her having sex on her break. (But let's note there is no luring on Spike's part there, either, unless one counts just strolling past as lureful.) But she also would have gotten fired for walking out mid-shift with no warning. At least, if she weren't blackmailing them into letting her work there to begin with. Both Spike and Riley encourage Buffy to walk out on her job--Riley because he wanted her help, Spike because he wanted to help her. I don't remember Riley expressing any worry about Buffy losing her only source of income because of him; Spike offers to help her out.

Now, it's perfectly true that Spike's idea of financial aid was dubious at best, and Buffy's quite within her rights to tell him that she can't accept stolen money. However, I can't see Spike's motives as being selfish here. He doesn't bring sex into it. He just tells her that this job will hurt her, that she's better than this. To all appearences, he's really concerned about her wellbeing.

Buffy may decide that "I don't like it" is a less worthy reason for leaving her job than "Riley needs me!" She may well be right. But that's a seperate issue from Spike's and Riley's motives for asking her to leave, and in this case, I don't think that Spike's reasons are any less worthy than Riley's--it's a case of apples and oranges.