You have a real talent for Spike and Cordelia back and forth. It's interesting because in my head they are part of a category of Buffy characters I call truthsayers that includes Spike, Cordelia and Anya. They don't care about social conventions, they don't care about hurt feelings, they speak the truth as they see it. Which makes interaction between Spike and Cordelia particularly delicious especially as we got so little of it in canon. Cordelia wary rather than dismissive worked for your story very well.

The hooks into canon were quite finely crafted as well.

I enjoyed this a great deal. Thank you for another fine installment of the Buffyverse legacy.