The Bunker of Debunking

The Myth: Buffy will never love Spike

10-Feb-2002

Yeah. Right.

Buffy doesn't do casual sex. How long did she know (and date) Angel before she slept with him? How long had she known Riley before they slept together? Her only experience with casual sex was Parker - and that was hardly a template for future relationships!

We have canonical evidence throughout season 6 that Buffy feels something for Spike. There is a strong suggestion that she loves him. At the least, she has strong feelings for him that are developing into love.

As early as AfterLife, we see her opening up to Spike in a way that she simply cannot with her friends the Scoobies. She reacts to his presence in her house, seeks him out in his crypt, ultimately tells him the truth of where she has been.

This comfortable relationship continues in Flooded, where she is happy to just spend time with him, sitting quietly on the porch together.

In Life Serial, we see further support of her growing feelings for Spike, where she once again seeks him out - this time to tell her she's okay after her series of failures in the real world. "The only person I can stand to be around is a neutered vampire who cheats at kitten poker," she tells him.

From "Thanks" and the Basement Of Sexual Tension in All the Way we get to Once More, With Feeling.

Last Season, Buffy told Spike, "The only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious." (Crush). This time, when Spike tells Buffy of his love, she runs away, unable to face him and the truth of his feelings. In the scene at the Magic Box, we see that his message - stay away because it hurts too much to be close to you - has hurt her deeply. She wants to be with him.

For 147 nights, Spike saved Buffy; in OMWF, he finally has his chance to do it for real. It is Spike who, with Dawn, actually gets through to her, and saves her from dancing herself to death. As the Scoobies have their big group hug, Buffy follows Spike outside, telling him once again that he can make her feel and kissing him. It's not real yet, but it's a start.

Tabula Rasa highlights again the deep connection between Spike and Buffy (or Randy and Joan). It is significant that they, of all the Buffyverse couples, are drawn together as a team. This episode also ends with a kiss - more specifically, with Buffy chasing Spike to stop him leaving, and the pair kissing, clinging to one another. Buffy later writes this off as her depression at Giles' leaving, but if that were the case she had a whole barful of men to choose from. She's hardly unattractive, if she wanted a quick snog with no meaning she had both the means and the opportunity.

Smashed shows us a Spike who is still trying to get the hang of whatever it is between him and Buffy, and a Buffy who is clearly thinking about Spike far more than she would like as the double entendres fly in the Magic Box. It is Buffy who initiates the sexual contact - "SO completely, mind-numbingly wild. Everything she's needed. Escape. Release. Ecstasy. With Spike." (Shooting Script for Wrecked).

In Wrecked, even as Buffy tries to deny what she and Spike had together, she still can't deny that she has feelings for him.

SPIKE: Now, I admit, you've had me by the short hairs. I love you. You know it. (then) But I got my rocks back. You felt something last night-
BUFFY: Not love-
SPIKE (stung): Not yet. But I'm in your system now. You're going to crave me like I crave blood.

In Gone, Invisible!Buffy feels freed from her responsibilities. She can do whatever she wants - and what she wants is to make sweet love to Spike, in his crypt, on his bed, even tease him in front of Xander. She seeks him out to tease him (and satisfy him) sexually, just as in Double Meat Palace she follows him outside for sex. Buffy is clearly shown as the sexual aggressor, with Spike the one who wants to "chat it out" (Gone).

Which brings us to Dead Things. They're finally starting to communicate on more than a sexual level - but of course Spike inserts foot into mouth and Buffy runs out "virtue fluttering". Spike pulls the relationship back to sex - which we know he does well, and which Buffy claims is all she wants. Later, though, we see her drawn to him as she patrols the cemetery, leading to the door scene where we see that "She can feel Spike on the other side, like an animal sensing its mate.". This frightens her more than great sex, more than conversations even, and she runs.

SPIKE: So you thought you'd just slip away, then? Vampire, remember? (drawing close) I could feel you.

Buffy can feel Spike, too; the connection between them is visceral. The scene is a honkin' great anvil for the viewers: This is the relationship to watch. It's real, it's scary, and it's more powerful than they are.

Buffy dreams of Spike. She dreams of him comforting her, and she dreams of betraying him. We know she trusts him, but can he trust her? Apparently not, as we see in almost the next scene, as she lays into him, crying out all her fears for herself as she beats him to a bloody pulp.

SPIKE: You always hurt... the one you love, pet.

In the Magic Box, Buffy echoes Spike's words with a look of realisation. Her later conversation with Tara shows that she has finally realised: She loves Spike. Not only that, she's using him to make her feel.

BUFFY: Why can't I stop? Why do I keep letting him in?
TARA: Do you love him?
Buffy, still sobbing, looks at Tara as if she can't even comprehend the question. It clearly has made it worse.
TARA (cont'd): It's okay if you do... He's done a lot of good, and he does love you... and Buffy, it's okay if you don't. You're going through a hard time, and you're...
BUFFY: Using him? What's okay about that?
TARA: It's not that simple.
BUFFY: It is! It's wrong. I'm wrong...

Buffy is desperate for Tara to tell her it's not okay, that there is something wrong with her, that the reason she is doing these things is not that she loves him, not that she has feelings for "the evil bloodsucking fiend" but that she is somehow wrong.

Tara can't do that, though. Because Buffy is really the really real Buffy - and her feelings for Spike are real too.