Story Notes: The prompt here was for a story set in s4 and s5 where Buffy gets to see some of Spikes vulnerability and humanity, and bonus points if he admits he's lonely. Nothing says humanity to me like Spike's genuine pain at Buffy losing her mother, and how much that brushes up against Spike's own backstory, so I built a story where that played a much bigger part, and by doing that ended up with something a little more serious than I expected (and perhaps more unexpectedly aligned with current events!) But hopefully there are still plenty of banter and hijinks involved. 
Claire, thank you for all of the amazing, amazing art you bring to the community.