sarea | BtVS/AtS drabble

This is only 567 words, but it's got spoilers galore -- specifically BtVS "Chosen" and AtS "Damage." This is the first time I've ever written in either of those verses. Not even Spike has made me want to put pen to paper. This is all for Andrew.

Edited to add: The other day, Jade wrote a drabble in Buffy POV that was a response to someone else who wrote Angel POV. I said, "I should write an Andrew POV drabble." Then Pud compared him to Neville, and it was just one more reason to write this. <g>

The Choices We Don't Make
by Sarea Okelani

Rated PG-13

*~*

When I saved the world (well, me, Spike, Buffy, and some other people), I really thought that was going to be the end of me. Like, still Andrew, only dead. Because everyone knows that the unlikable, sort-of bad guy who comes onto the scene late, then realizes that his true destiny is to fight the forces of evil with the good guys, is going to die. I mean, it has all the makings of dramatic tension: Oh, isn't it sad that he became good, then went to fight and died for the cause? But in a way, that's how he makes up for all the bad things he did in the past.

I would be Grace Jones from A View to a Kill. Only not black. And not as tall as her. And not a woman. And I've never slept with Buffy, who is the equivalent of James Bond. But otherwise, just like her.

Anyway, so it turned out that I didn't die, which was kind of weird. I mean, believe me, it wasn't exactly easy going with everyone else, knowing that I had the highest probability of not coming back. But that was okay, because I'd done a lot of bad things to a lot of cool people, and I don't think the universe would want me to live after what I did to Jonathan. Because, like, anyone who could kill his best friend, there's no ... I mean, there's no making up for that.

But see, I totally forgot what everyone who's out for justice knows: Death isn't your punishment; it's living with what you've done.

So I didn't know what to do. I wasn't mentally prepared to be here. I didn't expect to have to face everyone again, after it was done, with two of us gone and neither being me. I really liked the idea that if I had died, they would have thought better of me. That they would remember I gave up my life to make up for what I'd done. Spike got to do that. But I've given up nothing. Why, I ask myself, why couldn't I have been a vampire who fell in love with Buffy and got myself a soul so that in the end I would have worn an amulet that destroyed all our enemies so that I would be remembered for that last act more than I would be remembered for all the terrible things I'd done before it? Why? It wasn't fair.

And no matter how much Mr. Giles treats me like everyone else (he's so Obi-Wan) and tells me that I'm making a difference, I always think that the story should have ended the other way.

So you know, I was really glad to see Spike when I went to Wolfram and Hart. I mean, we saved the world together, so we're like, bonded (you know how Iceman tells Maverick at the end of Top Gun that he can be his wingman any time? I think that's how Spike and I are). But I was also glad because it turns out he didn't give anything up, either. And he seems to know exactly how that feels. That's why he's my Frodo.

We lived when we should have died, and it's kind of like a betrayal, and now we don't know what we're doing or why we're here.

But I guess we'll figure it out.

*~*

BTW, I've figured out who I think Story of the Year sounds like. They're Remy Zero meets Incubus meets Simple Plan.