Title:Subtleties
Author: Anna S.
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing: Xander/Spike
Category: Post-series, AU, hurt/comfort, angst, romance
Length: Epic
Warnings: n/a

Author on LJ: eliade
Author's website: Anna's Stories and So Forth None at the moment.

Review:

I am bored. I would like Spike to go to NYC and kick around in a funk until one day--needing money and blood, too souled to kill, too grumpy to fight the good fight any more--he decides to sell one of his few marketable skills and contracts himself out to an escort service, where he plays the bored role of stony-eyed rough trade to an unending series of eager businessmen.

A few years later, Xander is sent to find him, because they need him once more for a mission, that's the story, and Spike just looks at him and blows cigarette smoke in his face.

That's the set-up and the start of things. Get past the loose format of the opening that also pops up a bit near the beginning (a bit of fourth-wall knocking that I believe actually adds to the feel of the entire piece), and you have a fic about Xander Harris, resident comedian/heart of the Scooby Gang bringing home, inadvertently connecting with and falling in love with Spike, vampire/wiseass supreme. This fic is a classic, one of those stories you pull out when you want to savor the slow sweet (oh, you can *savor* it) progression of a relationship between two seemingly different people trying to find their places in the aftermath of the happenings at the Hellmouth.

Subtleties