FIC: And Don't Let Go

[snickfic]

Title: And Don't Let Go
Author: snickfic
Setting: post-NFA
Words / Rating: 2900 words / PG
Genres: shanshu!Spike, post-apocalyptic, babyfic
Warnings: mpreg

A/N: I've been sporadically posting to my LJ a series of vignettes in which the NFA battle went badly, Spike's human now, and Buffy's just trying to hold the world together and also deal with Spike having a baby. This one is the earliest in the chronology of any I've posted, so you don't need to have read the others, although if you want to they are all here. I think there may be another one for Free-For-All day.

Thanks much to my betas, bobthemole and penny_lane_42, for helping me get this into shape.

~~~~~

Buffy hurried the cracked concrete sidewalk towards home, or what passed for it nowadays, her steps echoing flat and hollow against the blackened, gape-windowed mansions on each side. Up the steps to porch: the world was over and the commune she supervised squatted in some mogul’s sprawling multi-story, but hey, she still had a porch. She shoved the door open and glanced around the living room, at Giles sharpening a knife, at Estefany, sitting up on the sofa and looking less battered than she had since the Sheeznik first hit her over the head weeks ago. Willow’d come already, then. “Is she still here?”

“Buffy,” Giles said, nodding in greeting. “I’m afraid Willow left her regrets – a safe house in the Hills needed her before dark, she said.”

“Right,” Buffy said, but for the first time since she’d realized the trouble downtown couldn’t wait, she took a breath that felt almost natural. If something were really wrong with Spike, Willow would have stayed to tell Buffy herself. She hoped. “Did she say...?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Okay. Okay. I’m just gonna go...” She gestured towards the basement door, and he nodded and let her go. He understood. They hardly could find words with each other anymore, but he understood.

She closed the basement door behind her and stomped down the stairs, past the weapons rack and the ancient boiler that Xander swore would kill them all one day. Once she’d turned the corner, staring across the space to Spike sitting half-naked on their bed with his head bowed over his clenched hands, all her energy sank down her legs and out of her boots.

“Spike?”

He lifted his head. “Buffy.”

She swallowed, and closed the distance between them. Tentative, she sat on the bed. “What did Willow say?”

He snorted – less at the question, she thought, then at some cruel irony not yet told. She gripped the edge of the mattress with both hands.

“She made me list – again – all the genuine live human symptoms I’m enjoying.”

Fever and chills, snotty sinuses and a cough clinging to the top of his lungs, the headachy weariness of a body remembering how to live and nausea that varied with diet and time of day but never really settled. Three sucky months of ‘adjustment.’ This was the reward Angel had wanted? But Angel, thought Buffy, probably would have thought he deserved it.

“And then she did her mojo and looked at the general state of my corpus.”

“Now with a hundred percent less corpse,” Buffy said lightly. Spike’s answering smile was strained. With careful off-handedness, Buffy said, “And?”

He stared off towards the water jugs stacked against the far wall. “Always figured with this shanshu business, the lucky vamp’d get turned back into a man.”

“Pretty sure you did,” Buffy said, feeling her perpetual grimace thaw into a smile. She slid her hand up his thigh and was rewarded with a lascivious but half-hearted smirk. “Just tell me, Spike.”

“Right.” His thumbs slid over each other, under and over again. Fiddle, fiddle. He mumbled something, half-caught.

“You’re carrying a... what? A disease? A gun? Because those things are never—”

“A child.” Deep breath. “I’m carrying a child.”

She looked at him blankly. “Huh?” If she stared long enough, maybe the words he’d said would rearrange themselves into something that made sense. Some meaning would coelesce in the nuance of his expression.

It didn’t. There was only him, staring at his knuckles. “You heard me,” he said.

“You’re pregnant,” she said flatly, daring him to confirm.

He looked up at her finally, his expression rueful. “Yeah.”

The world had ended, civilizationally speaking; Spike was human now; Dawn turned green when she got excited. Buffy had no more surprise left in her for this new development. “How did that happen?”

“Something to do with the shanshu, Willow says. Some leftover scrap of vivifying energy, looking for a home.” He eyed her almost shyly. “You remember that first time again, when we...” He trailed off.

“Yeah.” Actual love-making, which they’d never, ever done, that somehow escalated into the hottest sex she had ever had, and that was saying something. “So it was mystical,” she said. “The sex.”

Spike nodded.

And then afterwards Spike staring at her, wide-eyed and breath heaving, and asking if that’s always how it was for humans, which was how she found out that he’d never actually had sex as a human the first time around.

Focus, Buffy. “I guess that explains a lot.”

“Yeah.”

“And... Willow’s herbs and thingies for keeping us baby-free?”

She saw the barest hint of a smirk. “Apparently worked better on you than on me.”

Her gaze dropped, and she found herself staring at Spike’s stomach – which was, if anything, alarmingly hollowed, what with the sucky diet and his confused digestion... Oh. “The puking.”

“Probably. Although with some of the junk we’ve been eating...”

“Right.” She swallowed. Okay. ‘Honey, I’m pregnant.’ There were things you had to do about this, right? Questions you had to ask. “When... when would you... be due? I mean, if...”

“February sometime. Six months.”

“But you don’t have to. I mean, is it a spell? Can you... stop it?”

“Willow thinks she can. If we do it... soon. Says it’s all bound up somehow, like a knot, but if she cuts it...” He mimed scissor blades with his fingers.

“And then you’ll be better?”

His tongue flicked across his lips. “I’d still be human.”

“But less with the feeling icky.”

His expression turned wry. “Might not be so bad after all, being human. Seeing as how almost all the time I’ve been human—”

“You’ve been pregnant,” she finished.

“Yeah.”

“So,” she said, and paused. She tried again. “So Willow’s coming back to...” She gestured helplessly towards him. “To fix it?”

His sidelong glance was full of things that made no sense: hope and terror and resolve. “Told her I wanted to talk to you first.”

It came to her then. All the pauses and hesitations, just static before, came clear. “You want to keep it.”

Instantly his gaze broke from hers, his mouth working.

“That’s. No. Can you even do that?”

“Willow thinks so.”

“Willow,” Buffy said, “is the most dangerous optimist I know.”

“She says she can see the magic of it. Says I’ll likely tire out faster than a woman would – the magic’s feeding on that new shiny life-force of mine to help with the maintenance. She thinks she can funnel me a boost now and then.”

“But you don’t have to. You just said. You can fix it.” She mimed his snip-snip gesture.

“I’m not your strongest fighter anymore,” he said gently. “Not hardly. You won’t be hurting too bad if I’m out of commission a few months.”

“You can’t have a baby, Spike!”

“Darla did it, apparently – and she was a vampire at the time. Dawn’s eyes have turned colors and she’s shooting green sparks out her fingertips. I’m human, and meanwhile Willow—”

“I’m not talking about Willow,” she said flatly, in the tone he obeyed in all but his most desperate moods.

“I’m just saying, in this Technicolor world of ours what’s to stop me from carrying a baby?”

“I’m saying, why would you want to bring a baby into ‘this Technicolor world of ours’? We're barely hanging on.” She stood, and even as she paced she could feel Spike’s eyes on her. “Do you even realize all the supplies you need for a baby? And, and vaccines?”

“We can’t afford it, you mean,” he said, goading, undaunted. “One more mouth to feed might break the budget?”

“We couldn’t take care of it,” she said, anger gone and leaving her suddenly bereft. She sank on the bed next to him. “God, Spike, you’re the one who deals with this stuff. Supplies. Getting us what we need.”

“And I’m saying we could manage. Making connections, figuring out who’s selling what. Humanity’s not the only species with a mania for little froggy sleepers.”

“I guess you’ve got it all worked out,” she said. Bitter. God, why was she such a harpy? Spike’d just discovered yet another miracle slapped into him, unlooked-for, and all she could feel was this cold resignation, this familiar weary suspense of adding still more logistics to the calculation of their existence.

“Buffy?”

“I can’t do this right now,” Buffy said, and pushed up and away from the bed. She didn’t look at him because she had an idea she’d see his heart in his eyes. “Look, I have to go over to the Los Loros house and see if they killed the Kazhal demon. Okay?” She was halfway across the room when he started to stand, and she added over her shoulder, “But you probably shouldn’t, right? With the...” She twirled her fingers near her belly-button, although she knew he couldn’t see. “With the being pregnant.”

“Right,” she heard him say, resigned, as she fled.

~*~*~

They didn’t talk about it.

Buffy and Estefany took out a particularly large Granth demon that had been oozing like a very slow, acidic tsunami towards the house.

Spike joined the house crew of Slayers to negotiate a truce with some spiny demons whose names Buffy couldn’t pronounce.

Buffy and a full Slayer squad braved the streets to the local clinic for med supplies and barely survived a vicious multi-species demon stampede. Those happened less often now, but not because of her Slayers’ efforts; some of the ferals died at the hand/tusk/whatever of those less anarchically inclined, but she was pretty sure most were just dispersing to lay waste elsewhere.

She tried not to think about that. Or about Spike. Or - bloody hell, she thought, because nowadays in her head she swore like him – about the baby.

~*~*~

“It’s ours, Buffy,” Spike pleaded. He’d waited up for her, though she could see he was sagging. At least they knew what all the sleeping was about now. “It’s half you. A little mini-Buffy, maybe.”

“We can make a mini-Buffy later. And, like, the normal way. Because I don’t care how much magic there is in this thing, you being pregnant cannot be healthy.”

“But this one’s already started,” he said. “Seems a shame to waste it.” Dropping his eyes, he said, “I’ve ended so many lives. I can’t end this one.”

Voice shaking with something – fear? – Buffy said, “It’s not the same.”

Head still bowed, he answered, “I know.”

~*~*~

He didn’t come with the girls on patrol anymore. The first outing after their big finding-out, he watched her strap on her knives and her crossbow; as the posse left, he nodded to her, his expression quiet but certain. And when she limped back up the sidewalk hours later, trailing her bone-weary crew behind, he met her at the bottom of the steps and wrapped her whole icky self in his arms.

He didn’t explain the change, and she didn’t ask. She knew.

~*~*~

“Isn’t it weird?” she demanded.

He didn’t ask what she meant. “Well, yeah.”

“How can you be okay with this? First you hated even being human and now you want to be pregnant?”

He scowled. “Not especially.”

“Then, what?”

Softly, “I want what comes after.”

~*~*~

She caught him eyeing her sometimes when he thought she wasn’t looking, searching her for sign of something she was pretty sure she didn’t have. He’d open his mouth and shut it again, open and shut, never quite managing to get the words out, whatever they were.

~*~*~

She missed him.

~*~*~

She woke one early morning to find him gone. He’d already been asleep when she and the team finished strategizing; made sense he’d wake up first. She tiptoed up the basement stairs, through the first floor, up to the second. No sight or sound of an early-rising ex-vampire. Finally she rolled her eyes and crawled out the second story gable window. As she stretched around the frame, a hand gripped her arm and pulled her up.

She crawled the rest of the way onto the roof and settled next to Spike. In the twilit dawn his face was gray, how she remembered it sometimes when he’d still been a vampire and hadn’t fed.

“Never thought I cared about the sun,” he said, conversational. “A good lark, sure, but everything that really happens, happens after dark. So I thought.”

She nestled against his shoulder. “And now?”

“Something to be said for it,” he said. “Big fiery orb lighting everything at once. Extravagant, you know. All that heat vented off into a vast nothingness that’s got no use for it.”

“But some of it comes here.” They hadn’t talked like this in weeks. They hadn’t talked at all.

“Yeah.”

She waited, but apparently that was all the conversation Spike had; she certainly had no small talk prepped this early in the morning. She wrapped a hand around his arm, ruffling the hairs and warming her fingers on the living heat beneath.

“There it is,” he said.

She opened her eyes, fallen shut, and looked off into the ever-thinning haze. The barest glint of orange shone over the hills. Buffy felt Spike suck in a breath. They waited.

When the sun was full and floating, throwing sharp shadows down the lines of Spike’s cheekbones, Buffy inhaled a slow, deep breath, and then she said, “So you want to have a baby.”

Spike stilled, glancing at her with the mirror-smooth calm he’d perfected that last year in Sunnydale. Who knew souls were such camouflage? Eventually, he said, “I can’t just end it.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to,” he added, more softly still.

“I know.”

“It’s ours,” he said, earnestness pressed deep into the words.

Abruptly she scooted far enough away to face him. “We’ll have to talk to the others. Explain why you get more food and no fighting.”

“I can pull my weight.” he said, and then rolled his eyes. “No pun intended. But scavenging, playing at public relations – it’s what I’m best for now anyway.”

“Best for...” Shaking her head, she crawled around behind him and crossed her legs. Then she wrapped a hand around each shoulder and tugged at him until he, skeptical but compliant, shrugged down onto his back and laid his head in her lap. She buried her fingers in his curls – going brown again, as they’d stay until the next time he remembered to look in a mirror – and he shivered with the same old anticipation. Yet another thing undeath apparently had nothing to do with. “This isn’t about ‘best for,’” she said, words weighted with anger: the only passion she could muster easily anymore. “This isn’t about logistics.”

He turned an eye up to her. “Sure it’s not Giles you’re talking to, love?”

“Shut up,” she said, kneading his scalp. His eyelids drooped shut, as she’d known they would. “This is not about logistics or survival or ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ or any of Giles’s other stupid ethics exercises.”

“Isn’t it?” he murmured.

“No. I am... I am so over those decisions, Spike. Look at us. World ended! Can’t get much worse!”

“Oh, but it can,” he said, staring up at her upside-down from those winter-blue eyes, full and earnest with all those things she’d never quite been able to accept aloud. She felt the thaw again and tried to resist, because numbness was preferable to the post-frostbite agony. Spike reached up to slip a strand of her hair between his fingers and smiled his private, know-it-all smile, and suddenly she was fighting back tears.

“Shh,” he whispered, thumbing dampness away from her cheek.

“I had a point,” she said, taking a deep breath against the sniffles. “The world is kind of beyond saving. Dark versus light – pretty much over.”

“Redistribution of weight, that’s all,” he said. “Whigs and Tories, and a new panic every time the balance shifts.”

“It’s just us, Spike,” she said. “You and me and the crew and any humans we stumble across and whatever nice demons we try to give a hand against the not-nice demons – we’re it. We’re the world.” She cupped her hand against his prickly cheek. “So saving the world pretty much means saving us. And whatever keeps us going...”

“A point in the world’s favor.”

“So.” She made herself look down into his eyes. “Is this something you need to keep you going?”

“Me and the human race both, don’t you think?” he said, eyes briefly merry. She waited, and his gaze flitted away to roam the sky awhile before meeting hers again. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I think it might be.”

“Okay.”

He pushed himself up and twisted around to search her face for... doubt? Fear? She didn’t have the energy to pretend whatever he wanted to see or hide what he didn’t. What he saw must have been enough, because he smiled, small and careful, like too much visible joy might jinx something. “Yeah?”

This was it: the axis around which the whole future spun. “Yeah,” she said firmly. “Let’s do this.”

He reached for her hand, and his grip was like certainty. Enough of it for both of them, maybe. She held on and hoped.

Finis

Comments

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

How do you make mpreg all touching and and life-affirming and in character and stuff?

At any rate it's just possible that this one made me get a little bit sniffly. And looking forward to the one on the free-for-all day!

[snickfic]

How do you make mpreg all touching and and life-affirming and in character and stuff?

If I manage to do that, it's because I love the trope so, and because that's what I want all (okay, not necessarily all, but a lot more) mpreg to be.

Sniffles are high praise indeed. Thank you for the lovely comment. :)

[smells_corrupt.livejournal.com]

This was awesome! Usually Mpreg is one of the only things that I absolutely cannot get into, but I got into this. I look forward to more!

[snickfic]

Thank you! I'm so glad the fic managed to win you over despite the mpreg. :)

[spikesgurl.livejournal.com]

Beautifully done, hun. Bravo! I really loved it.

[snickfic]

Yay, thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed. :)

[missus-grace.livejournal.com]

Why have I missed the other stories in this 'verse?

Why is it too late to start reading them now?

Why didn't I compliment you first?

This was fantastic. A nice glimmer of hope in a dark world. And Spike and Buffy loving each other. Wonderful!

[snickfic]

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Glimmers of hope in a dark world are some of my favorite things. And fortunately, it isn't too late to start reading the other fics in the 'verse.

Thank you for the lovely comment. :)

[anviloverheaven.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, mpreg is one of my big squicks. I wasn't too sure how I'd feel about reading this story, but all I can say is wow. Just wow.

It's just so beautifully written, and the rooftop conversation just flows so natuarally.

I'm going to toddle off now to visit the rest of the vignettes 'cause, yeah, wow.

[snickfic]

Thank you so much! I'm thrilled to hear that the fic won you over despite the mpreg. And I'm especially glad you enjoyed the rooftop scene. Originally that whole conversation was going to take place in their 'bedroom' in the basement, where the fic starts, but sitting up high on the roof seemed a more fitting, hopeful place for it to happen.

Thank you for the lovely comment. :)

[prophecygirrl.livejournal.com]

Very very lovely. And so intensely in character for both of them that the mpreg seems...natural. I bet you get that a lot with this story, but I feel like applauding.

[snickfic]

And so intensely in character for both of them that the mpreg seems...natural.

\o/

I could ask for no higher praise. It's a trope I'm fascinated by, but I like it best when it acts as just another lense through which to view our characters.

I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed the fic. :)

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

A great addition to the genre. And damn you! made me read male-preg again! Only kidding. Went into this one with my eyes open, knowing it was going to be real and poignant and sad and happy.

[snickfic]

Went into this one with my eyes open, knowing it was going to be real and poignant and sad and happy.

Hurrah! See, it's not so bad, being won over by the icky, cracky trope. *g* I'm so glad you enjoyed it and that it did the things you hoped it would do. :)

[relurker.livejournal.com]

Just read the three pieces, and loved them, hope for more to come. What I liked best (apart from the very convincing characterization), was this general feeling of walking on eggshells: they both have so much baggage!

[snickfic]

I'm glad you enjoyed the fics. You're right, between the world ending and their own past history, Spike and Buffy have a whole lot of damage they're living with. I think maybe they'll make it though, if they stick together. :)

Thank you for the lovely comment.

[spikereader.livejournal.com]

Skimming over the fact that I've just read m-preg fic, and it's brought me to tears, having read all three pieces back to back my main impression is that Buffy really really loves him. She's not running away (however much avoiding she's trying to do) and she's doing her best to be there for him and their baby.

Wonderful writing, I love the post apocolypty bleakness and human Spike having a hard time adjusting, and Buffy being so very Buffy. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this future, as and when you have it.

[snickfic]

Buffy really really loves him.

She does. It's not something she voices easily, but when she loves she loves so hard. *hugs her*

I love the post apocolypty bleakness

I do have a weakness for that bleak survivalist all-in-it-together mode. I fully expect there to be more; I've got three or four snippets now that I think I can work into something. I'm glad you enjoyed. :)

[louise39.livejournal.com]

“I’ve ended so many lives. I can’t end this one.”

“I can’t just end it.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to,” he added, more softly still.
“I know.”
“It’s ours,” he said, earnestness pressed deep into the words.

Amidst the horror and uncertainty, your story bring hope and love - not easily but with a different kind of vigor.

I haven't read your other mpreg but I liked this thoughtful Spike.

[snickfic]

Amidst the horror and uncertainty, your story bring hope and love - not easily but with a different kind of vigor.

I'm so glad! Hope amidst the horror is a favorite story element of mine. If you liked this, the other snippets in this universe - linked above - are similar in tone.

Thank you for the lovely comment. :)

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

Oh, there are lines here that I just love:

The world had ended, civilizationally speaking; Spike was human now; Dawn turned green when she got excited. Buffy had no more surprise left in her for this new development

“Willow,” Buffy said, “is the most dangerous optimist I know.”

because nowadays in her head she swore like him

“Me and the human race both, don’t you think?”

Willow feeding Spike on magic... is that going to be okay? Hmm.

I also loved Buffy's exhaustion, fear, negativity - which sounds mad, but it's just right for post-apocalypse. Seeing Spike's need eventually is just enough to get her past that, but there's no way this is a simple, fluffy tale. Great characterisation!

[snickfic]

“Willow,” Buffy said, “is the most dangerous optimist I know.”

Would you believe, out of the whole Spuffy fic I think this about Willow might be my favorite line. It encapsulates so much of my thoughts on her. I'm glad it rang true for you, too.

Great characterisation!

Yay, thank you! This is all several steps farther away from canon than I usually write, and it always worries me a little crawling this far out on the limb. Glad to know it worked. :)

[lilred26x.livejournal.com]

I've never read a mpreg story, but I enjoyed this one. I also read your other two pieces, and really liked the way Buffy expressed her disbelief and uncertainty with all of it. It seemed a very believeable reaction to me. I also liked how she worked to reassure Spike.

Thanks for sharing!

[snickfic]

Yay, thank you! Believable reactions were really important to me while I wrote this, so I'm thrilled to know it rang true for you. Glad you enjoyed. :)

[genericmarn.livejournal.com]

I love this fic. Pitch perfect voices and characterizations, and some really wonderful turns of phrase. Here's my favorite:

“Never thought I cared about the sun,” he said, conversational. “A good lark, sure, but everything that really happens, happens after dark. So I thought.”

She nestled against his shoulder. “And now?”

“Something to be said for it,” he said. “Big fiery orb lighting everything at once. Extravagant, you know. All that heat vented off into a vast nothingness that’s got no use for it.”

I completely believe they'd have to dance around the issue before taking it on. This conversation, and the whole story, rings true.

[snickfic]

Yay, I'm glad you liked that bit. I worried a little that it came across as just frothy and irrelevant, but I needed to them started talking with something and that's what came to mind. As you say, a bit of beating around the bush was required before they got into the deep conversation.

I'm glad you enjoyed, and thank you for the lovely comment. :)

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Post-apocalyptic mpreg babyfic. It sounds like a joke - but you turned it into a wonderful character study, bleak and uncompromising. Great story!

[snickfic]

You're right - when you put it like that, it sounds like pure crack. *g* I'm glad it didn't come across that way in the telling, though. Thank you for the lovely comment. :)

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

Your mpreg is the only mpreg I enjoy. Carry on.

[snickfic]

Aw, thank you! There really is other good stuff out there, I swear. It can be a struggle to find it, though.

[seapealsh.livejournal.com]

That's strong stuff. Very touching. Well-characterized. And you always have the most logical mpreg explanations, which just make it hard to resist. And it really shows Spike's tender side like nothing else.

[snickfic]

Well-characterized. And you always have the most logical mpreg explanations, which just make it hard to resist.

I'm glad it came across that way; to me this one feels like the hand-waviest thing ever: "Oh, the shanshu did it!"

I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for the lovely comment. :)

[shapinglight]

Like all these stories, I enjoyed this very much. You're the only person I've ever come across who can make mpreg stories not only enjoyable but believeable.

[snickfic]

I am convinced that there is a multitude who could write fantastic mpreg if they, you know, wanted to. *g* Alas, there are only we undaunted few.

I'm especially glad that this came across as believable, as I worried that the whole "the shanshu did it!" explanation would come off as pretty hand-wavy. (Confession: it is hand-wavy. I just don't care very much about the mechanics in this piece. *g*)

And as always, I'm thrilled you enjoyed it.

[ellievanna.livejournal.com]

Your mpreg fics (both Seraph and the other vignettes in this 'verse) have some of the best characterization I've seen, and that's something I'd never thought I'd find in mpreg. This definitely not an exception. Your Buffy is so Buffy, because of course everything isn't fine right away, but it might be in a while, because she really does love him. The whole rooftop scene is just amazing, both the dialog and all of the things surrounding it. I'll go and revisit the other parts now, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of this.

Also, I've been lurking around your journal for a while, and I'd like to keep up, so I'd like to friend you, if that's okay?

[snickfic]

Wow, thank you so much! Your words - on the fic as a whole, on the rooftop scene in particular - are wonderful to hear. It's not very often we get to watch Buffy actively work at loving Spike; most fics end about the time they get together. I'm enjoying looking at what happens after.

Friend away! The more the merrier. Just FYI, I'm moving over to snickfic as my main journal, but I'll still be crossposting to snickfic.

Thank you for your lovely comment.

[timeofchange.livejournal.com]

End-of-the-word mpreg, full of optimism and hope and stuff. Only you could pull this off. Lovely stuff!

[snickfic]

Hey, the end of the world is when you most need optimism and hope and stuff. *g* Glad you enjoyed!

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Oh! Lovely! :)

[snickfic]

Yay. I'm glad you enjoyed. :)

[gryfndor-godess.livejournal.com]

Things I love about this fic:
-How you set the tone instantly in the first paragraph with lines like “or what passed for it nowadays” and give enough detail about the post-apocalyptic world for us to understand it without the setting bogging down the plot.

-She slid her hand up his thigh and was rewarded with a lascivious but half-hearted smirk.”
It’s so them, using sexy time as a cheerer-up.

-His sidelong glance was full of things that made no sense: hope and terror and resolve. “Told her I wanted to talk to you first.” 

It came to her then. All the pauses and hesitations, just static before, came clear. “You want to keep it.”
Really fabulous, evocative imagery (?) I don't know if 'imagery' is the right word...emotional imagery?

-“Willow,” Buffy said, “is the most dangerous optimist I know.”
Perfect description of her character! It explains both her flaws and her strengths.

-God, why was she such a harpy? Spike’d just discovered yet another miracle slapped into him, unlooked-for, and all she could feel was this cold resignation, this familiar weary suspense of adding still more logistics to the calculation of their existence.
Though heartbreaking (for Spike, I’m sure, as well as for us readers), this seems so realistic a reaction for her to have, unable to process and feeling guilty for not being able to process and just having to escape.

-bloody hell, she thought, because nowadays in her head she swore like him
<3

-“Seems a shame to waste it.” Dropping his eyes, he said, “I’ve ended so many lives. I can’t end this one.”
<3 <3 <3

-Softly, “I want what comes after.”
<3 <3 <3 I’m not sure what else to say besides <3. Maybe, flail.

-“Something to be said for it,” he said. “Big fiery orb lighting everything at once. Extravagant, you know. All that heat vented off into a vast nothingness that’s got no use for it.”
Really cool description (and creative way of looking at it) of the sun.

-Spike stilled, glancing at her with the mirror-smooth calm he’d perfected that last year in Sunnydale. Who knew souls were such camouflage?
I love when fics reference how good he got at masking his emotions in S7, since it’s such a huge difference from earlier seasons.

-and he shivered with the same old anticipation…His eyelids drooped shut, as she’d known they would.
Yeah he does [shivers]! The concept of them knowing exactly how to stimulate/calm each other is almost as hot as actual sexy times.

-He pushed himself up and twisted around to search her face for... doubt? Fear? She didn’t have the energy to pretend whatever he wanted to see or hide what he didn’t. What he saw must have been enough, because he smiled, small and careful, like too much visible joy might jinx something.
More flailing!

This fic is gorgeous and heartbreaking and a lovely prologue to the rest of the series. All of the characters’ motivations/reactions make sense, from Buffy needing to compartmentalize everything and ignore it for a while to Willow being hopeful and helpful. It’s easy to see how Buffy’s nervousness, helplessness, and unintentional coldness in the other fics stem from her characterization here. I especially like how steadfast and assured Spike is, the way he never outright says that he’ll have the baby even without her support but how it’s kind of implied and how he never stops hoping/trying to sway her in his patient-but-persistent-knows-that-Buffy-needs-time way.

[snickfic]

OHHHH, you make me so happy with your lovely long comment of happiness. This pretty much made my day, right here.

give enough detail about the post-apocalyptic world for us to understand it without the setting bogging down the plot.

Yay! I actually have quite a few ideas about what this post-apocalyptic world looks like, but oddly enough, I don't actually care that much about writing about them. So all the reader ends up getting are the glimpses.

Perfect description of her character! It explains both her flaws and her strengths.

I confess, even though this is a Spuffy fic, that line about Willow may be my favorite line in it. It summarizes so much of how I see her as a character. I'm glad it rang true with you as well. :)

The concept of them knowing exactly how to stimulate/calm each other is almost as hot as actual sexy times.

Yay! This is an excellent thing, seeing as I probably will never manage to write the actual sexy times. *g* The intimacy is the part of their sexual relationship I care part more than the mechanics of the thing, and it's the part I always appreciate most in other people's writing. (rahirah and st_salieri are two of my favorites for that sort of thing.) I am thrilled you got something similar from this fic.

It’s easy to see how Buffy’s nervousness, helplessness, and unintentional coldness in the other fics stem from her characterization here.

Yay. I actually had most of this written before I started posting the snippets, so I knew where she was coming from emotionally, but this just took a lot longer to beat into shape. Yay for seasonal_spuffy and deadlines. *g*

he never outright says that he’ll have the baby even without her support but how it’s kind of implied

Yes. But as you say, he also knows where Buffy's at and he gives her time to process. Now, probably the next fic I need to write is the one prior to this, in which he deals with all his suddenly!human issues. But that one's going to take some really careful handling, and I haven't gotten around to tackling it yet.

Thank you SO much for the long detailed comment and especially for your very kind words. I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it, and that you got out so much of what I put in.

[gingerwall.livejournal.com]

I loved the quiet darkness of this story. And the more I read your awesome mpreg, the more I wonder why it never makes it to actual media, or at least in something other than slapstick form. Especially Joss who is obsessed with mystical pregnancies in women. I mean, if everything is magic based, what's stopping you from crossing into the other sex?

[snickfic]

Yay, thank you!

You know, as I told someone up-thread, I'm really quite fond of Junior, with Arnold and Danny DeVito and Emma Thompson (whom I fangirl madly anyway). It has some nice moments of genuine emotion in it, I think, and it does a pretty good job of grounding its high-concept storyline with sympathetic, not-entirely-cliched characters. Also I think Arnold is severely underrated as a comedic actor.

I think the likeliest place for a concept like this to turn up in a serious way would be in SF, whether TV or lit, and in fact mpreg shows up in written SF periodically, although mostly in the background, at least in the books I've read.

As for Joss, feh. I have enough issues with the way the women's pregnancies were handled on Ats that I don't know that I'd have wanted anyone on the team to try their hand at mpreg, although I'd agree with you in theory. "Expecting" would have been the obvious place to have some mpreg, it seems to me; that ep could hardly have gotten any crackier than it already was. I cannot imagine it would have been very *good* mpreg, though.

It is possible that I have thought about all this waaaay too much. *g*

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I never reviewed here! Doing so now.

This is so realistic to me--that it's Spike who wants this, and wants it badly, and that it takes Buffy a long time to come around. That things are awkward during that time and that it takes some time to get things back to where they need to be.

And your Buffy and Spike are always really wanting to take care of each other, even though Buffy is sometimes not quite sure of how to do that, but she keeps trying, and I love that. That's how I like them together.

[snickfic]

Yay! Spike and Buffy trying to take care of each other is how I like them, too. It seems a little weird to me it took me ending the world to be able to write their relationship the way I want it, although ideally Buffy would be a lot less weary than she is here.

And yes, it's always seemed to me that under most circumstances, Spike would be the one who'd fall for the idea first.

I'm so glad you liked, and thanks again for the beta.

Speaking of, have you made any plans yet for your SS thingy?

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

That Willow line is a real standout. Brava. Here are a few others that got me:

Three sucky months of ‘adjustment.’ This was the reward Angel had wanted? But Angel, thought Buffy, probably would have thought he deserved it.

...the general state of my corpus.” “Now with a hundred percent less corpse."

Heh. Good one, Buffy.

Spike staring at her, wide-eyed and breath heaving, and asking if that’s always how it was for humans.

Ohhh. Guh. Very evocative and moving.

“We can’t afford it, you mean,” he said, goading, undaunted.

Love the use of "goad" in this.

So saving the world pretty much means saving us.

you being pregnant cannot be healthy.

Gotta say, I'm with Buffy on that last one. Also, I'm apparently unable to stop myself from saying:

Spike is not a vessel.

Whew! That's better. Lovely piece, darling.

[snickfic]

Thank you so much for the lovely feedback! I always love knowing which lines struck people.

Spike is not a vessel.

Er. Glad we got that cleared up? (I think you're making an SPN reference, but I'm not quite that far yet. S4 starts next week! *g*)

Yay! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I always look forward to hearing your thoughts. :)