crack_van | Absence by violethamster (teen)

Fandom: BUFFY
Pairing: Angelus/Spike
Author on LJ:

violethamster
Author Website: BtVS/Ats Fanfic
Why this must be read:

A glimpse of a single night during season two of BtVS in which Spike and Angelus kill some time and some people.

Spike's point of view, fogged by alcohol and the tedium of waiting in his wheelchair while Angelus sets up the scene of death, conveys a disarming sense of how tiresome a kill in a small town in Southern California can be when the only props smack of cliche and the targeted victims don't have any CDs worth stealing.

violethamster ably sketches Spike's sour perspective regarding this particular version of Angelus, who in Spike's opinion has been brought low, a watered-down and suburban-ized version of his former monstrous self. The story is aptly titled, for the sense of absence -- the absence of thrill in the kill, Spike's absence (or denial) of feelings for Angelus, and the absence of intensity and arousal that must have once marked their dynamic -- pervades the narrative in every detail of gore and cultivated emotional distance.

Absence

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