Aw, that's very touching. Excellent drabble.

Now that I've finally finished watching the whole series (just finished on Sunday!), I can finally enjoy these properly, with some context. And I really enjoyed this one. I'm honestly not sold on Spike/Dawn, but generically tender!Spike gets me every time.

I've always liked ritual candle-lighting.

We do a more public variation of that in my church -- there's a bit at the beginning of each service called Joys and Sorrows (or Joys and Concerns, depending), where you get up in front of the congregation and light a candle and explain what it's for. Usually people will offer sympathy or congratulations afterwards; the support is comforting.

I can see why the Scoobies would want to keep their sorrows private or within a small circle of friends, though. And yes, they all have far too many candles.

aw, very sweet.

I typed a larger comment here, but then lj had to go ruin it and wipe the thing, and now i can't be arsed to rewrite. Don't worry though, the missing part largely just contained some wierd quip about fratboys "stomping that sweet thang". It was bad.

I nearly wrote 'sad' instead of 'sweet', but i think it was Spike's concern that tipped it over into the latter category.

Poor Dawn ... lovely story.

*hugs Dawn* - now there's a line I never thougth I'd find myself writing in response to a fic

push them under a bus.
Don't know that I'd necessarily go that far but *g*