Comfort.

It is an easy thing to offer, yet the hardest thing to ask for. Is it a sign of weakness to admit you need it? Or should it be taken as a sign of strength? To admit you need comfort, even when it could be portrayed as a weakness, could just prove how strong you really are.

Xander is good at providing comfort. He has always played the role of the strong shoulder. As far back as he can remember, he has been comforting Willow. The first day they met, she was crying over a broken crayon. He made her feel better. That gave Xander a sense of accomplishment. He had something of value to offer others. Comfort.

When Jesse died, he held Willow while she cried. When Oz left, he offered comfort again. When Buffy died and their world came to an end, Xander did what he did best. He gathered his girls into his arms and held them close. But alone in the dark, who was there to comfort him?

Spike was strong. He needed nothing from no one. He went through his unlife taking what he wanted, when he wanted. Then he got chipped. For the first time since his turning, Spike wasn’t strong anymore. He was helpless to defend himself against humanity. He was lost and alone. He needed comfort, but had no one to turn to. Then he came up with a plan.

Finding shelter with the enemy was the only option left to him, unable to hunt or feed, Spike depended on the slayer’s sense of fairness that she wouldn’t just stake him on sight. Sometimes, he wished she had.

When Buffy came back from the dead, she turned to Spike for comfort. Of course it was a twisted, sick, perverted kind of comfort. But Spike gave her what she wanted, what she needed. When she no longer had need of him, she cast him aside. With no one to turn to, no one to comfort him, Spike’s anger got the better of him and he tried to take what he wanted, the way he did before the chip. It was wrong, and he couldn’t follow through on it. He left.

When Spike came back, he was a changed man. He had a soul. It didn’t change things for him and Buffy. In fact it made things worse. She couldn’t deal with the guilt she felt, that he loved her enough to get his soul back for her and she still felt nothing for him. She dumped him off on Xander and left.

Scared and alone, Spike lashed out at the only person around - Xander. He didn’t know at the time that it would lead to his salvation. The first time Xander struck him he was afraid. He thought the man had finally reached his limit and would kill him. Again, he almost wished he would. But then the pain made him aware. It called him back from the brink of insanity, it comforted him. To know that he could feel something, was better than nothing. At least when Xander hit him, he was real.

But now, things are different between them. After Angel’s visit - when Xander defended him, protected him - there is comfort as well as punishment. Gentleness as well as pain. When Spike needs the pain, Xander still gives it to him, but when all he really wants is comfort - strong arms to hold him, soft assurances that things will be better - Xander gives him that too.

When Xander has a bad day, when things are looking bleak and he feels the weight of the world on his shoulders - Spike is there. Spike will curl up beside him on the couch and rest his head on his chest. He’ll wrap his arms around Xander and purr. It is the only way he knows to offer comfort. It’s more than enough for Xander. Just knowing that he’s there, that he wants to make it better, is everything. Spike gives him the one thing no one else has ever offered.

Comfort.