Fanfic: Birds In Cages.

[cadhla]

Title: Birds in Cages.
Fandom: elements of both ‘Angel’ and ‘Buffy: the Vampire Slayer’, Spike/Angel. Lynnevitational ficathon entry for stakebait.
Rating: R, for swearing, violence, and sexual content.
Description: It was always about power. It was never about love. (It was always about lying to yourself.)

Comments

[seraphcelene]

Wow. That is awesome and really kind of fucked up. But in a really awesome way. I love the way you align the characters, make them into sort of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Love it. Love the way the beginning and the end are reflections of each other. This, I think, is very true for who Spike was. His journey has alot to do with connections and belonging. It's definitly about love, but the punk rock vampire that he is, the one who kills Slayers, wouldn't allow for that to be a truth and so it has to be about power. Knowing where he comes from, that that kind of sentiment would be a weakness for Darla and Angel, and that Dru wouldn't really comprehend it, would make him try to change the definitions of his engagement with the world.

I also love the language here, the tangled, doubling ... so damn biblical and perverted.

So many lines ring true. I especially liked:

Darla kisses like the plague personified; cheap lipstick, spoiled port, and the distant, dying burn of thwarted end-stage syphilis, the disease cut off at the

[cafedemonde]

Really quite amazing! Too much that I love, but this hit me:

If Darla was Pestilence in corset and curls, Drusilla was Famine in painted petticoats -- she smiled and smiled and stole everything you’d ever loved or wanted away, took it and ground it into dust, and pouted prettily when you screamed.

Perfect.

[kita0610]

This was absolutely beautiful. The language completely blew me away, you had me hooked from the first sentence, and by the last, I didn't want it to end.

Gorgeous work.

[lynnenne]

Oh, my. This whole piece is lovely, and the ENDING. Oh, Spike! My boy!! You've captured his passion so beautifully, and finally, his peace with himself.

he looks out on the life he threw away, and he knows, here, at the end, that he made the right decision.

It was about love.

So let the birds fly home.

*BAWLS*

Loved it! Every word. Thank you so much for writing this. :)))

[lostakasha]

This is exquisite.

I read this slowly, rolled your words on my tongue ... I did not want this to end.

Darla kisses like the plague personified; cheap lipstick, spoiled port, and the distant, dying burn of thwarted end-stage syphilis, the disease cut off at the finish line and eternally preserved in her pretty, frozen flesh. Quite possibly the most apt -- certainly the most evocative -- description of Darla I've read.

Brava!