About the Spike/Will thing, I think us Buffyverse readers are quite used to seeing that polarity and it comes natural to us to see Will as the softer side that gets hurt, and Spike as the defense mechanism. Guess it's usually not that extreme in real people, but yeah, it works just fine here. In fact it's part of what I like with the wonderful interaction between Will and Liam. They're good together, and it's good reading them toghether. I think this fic is better and better.