a.connor  a.doyle  a.lindsey  a.oz  a.spike  a.wesley  a.xander  a.other  three.somes  het.fic  character.study           
Title: Not yet
Author: Criss Moody
Pairing: Buffy/Angel (past)
Rating: G
Setting: Just post- 'The Gift'
 

"In what 'whole thing?' This is the stuff I'm supposed to
get invested in. Going to a formal. Graduating.  Growing
up."
- Buffy, The Prom
 
 

Nothing is ever happy ever after.

In the end, the princess may get the prince but she's
walked over plain sisters and life twisted stepmothers to
do so.  Not everyone got the happy ending, not everyone
walks off into the sunset with the one they love.

Not everyone.  Not me.

I didn't expect it.  None of it.  And I know that's a lame
excuse for not leaving this room for a month.  But I don't
care and I don't intend to leave until this makes more
sense.

She's dead.

At 20, I expected several more years of whoring and
drinking, broken up by a marriage to a dour-faced, prissy
little Irish girl, who loved God and did her duty.  Then,
after having fully disappointed family and friends, I'd
tumble into the grave as unrepentant as I shot out of the
womb.  Uncaring what effect I'd had on anyone's life.

That's what you get when you expect things.

Blood and dark pink roses, thorns prick tiny bits of blood
from my dead flesh as I roll into the undead.  Life means
more, grander on a scale I didn't think about when I said
I'd always wanted to see the world.  That wasn't what I had
in mind.  Wasn't for over a hundred years before I cared.
Before I thought about expectations again.

//I want to help her. I want to. . . I want to become
someone.  I want to help.//

Until I drove up to a modern monstrosity of an American
High School.  Saw her skip down the steps, embraced in the
tragic mediocrity of teen life.  Bright, and fresh, and
unknowing.  Poised on the cusp of womanhood.  About to fall
into duty and sacrifice.

I loved her.

She had no idea who she was or what.  She was 15, she was
invincible, and everything important was right in front of
her.  Vague ideas of marriage and babies and a happy life.
She had boys who fawned after her, friends who fawned after
her, and parents who loved her.

Right there in that moment, I wanted her.  That dream she
represented.   Cotton candy and sunshine.  Untouched by
petty annoyances of every day mortal life.  Before all that
security and trust broke down into parents divorcing,
destiny, and endings.  Before she knew what it meant to
love.  Long before she understood what it really was to
lose someone you love.

//I don't know how to live in this world, if these are the
choices, if everything's just stripped away then I don't
see the point. I just wish... I wish my mom was here.//

No expectations.

I crashed into her.  She was a little bundle of everything
I'd never done and would never do.  I wanted to protect her
and savor her youth, her inability to believe that there
was something she *couldn't* do.  That wasn't possible and
she didn't waste time thinking about it.  She hadn't
learned to worry yet.

I worried every second of every day after I met her.
Couldnât comprehend her loss and didn't want to.   So lost
in her concerns and life that I became what she thought I
was.  A lonely, brooding vampire who loved her.

She wasn't entirely wrong.

I did love her.

But calling me lonely and brooding is to only see the
surface.  I'm more than that.  I was more than that.  I
like to sit alone and read.  I like to think.  Quiet
contemplation does not quid pro quo mean I'm depressed.
And eventually, her expectations for me broke me.

She frustrated me.  I couldn't empathize with her
childishness because I couldn't remember feeling that way.
Maybe I did.  If so, it was so long ago that now it's
crumpled under the weight of 240 some years of memories.
She made me mad.  Furious in a way I hadn't felt since.
Before I had a soul and cared for little blonde girls.  She
wanted me to be her everything.  An everything I didn't
know how to be.

I had to be silent, understanding, loving, sexy, brooding,
gentle, and love her.  All but the last got annoying.
Loving her was easy.  Living with loving her presented a
greater challenge.

//I just gotta... I gotta walk away from this.//

// "I don't love Xander."  "Yeah, but he's in your life. He
gets to be there when I can't. Take your classes, eat your
meals, hear your jokes and complaints. He gets to see you
in the sunlight."//

// "I want my life to be with you."  "I don't."//

The crux.  The critical point at which I made a decision.
Walk away, stay.  Stay and let her wishes and needs cover
me.  Watch her grow and change and fight and die.

I didn't want my life to be with her because I didn't
*have* a life with her.  I wasn't sure what a life was.
I'd spent so long lurking in her shadows that I only knew I
loved her.  Nothing existed outside of that and suddenly it
terrified me.  Because she would die.  And I would be
without what made me become·.what?  What had I become?  A
nameless savior?  The Slayer's boyfriend?

Leaving her ripped new wounds inside, but it also gave me a
chance to grow.  To change.  To become a better whatever I
am.  Vampires do change.  Two years ago, if someone had
brought me blood with cinnamon on top, I wouldn't have even
understood the caring behind the gesture.  I didn't think I
wanted them, but I got a secretary, a partner, a second
partner, and friends.  I have friends now.  We've gone
around the bend and back together.  They know me better
than Buffy ever did.

But I still love her.

I hope she knew that.  Love doesn't die, it doesn't end.
Turns, twists, flows in and out of favor.  It's like
molecules.  Divided into their parts, their atoms still
remain the same.  Oxygen is part of hydrogen peroxide, but
it's not the same.  Not quite.

For the last two years, I was her ex.  Her former true love
who lived in LA.  I was the stumbling block in her growing
up and finding new loves.  But eventually she broke down
the block into little pieces and made her way into
adulthood.

She grew up.

She learned the value of sacrifice.  That sometimes, the
needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few but that
doesn't mean you listen.  There's an inner voice that will
tell you if you'll listen: this is the way, this is what
you were meant to do.

The sun's casting slitted shadows on the wall.  I study the
cast of light on my bedside lamp, the way the shadow falls
into the creases in the bed sheets.  Simple things.  Thick
clear glass keeping me from the outside and the outside
from me but permitting the sun and sight to pass.

I'm glad I knew her.  Because I will live a very long time.
Regardless.  And my memories will live with me.

Tomorrow, or maybe the next day/week/month or year, I'll
walk out of this room.  Feel the creep of the sun at my
toes, reminding me that I'm not invincible.  I'll amble
downstairs and absently ask Cordy if she's made coffee.
Brief moments of adjustment and things will continue on
until I'm gone or they're gone or we don't manage to save
the world.  But I'm not ready just yet.

Not yet.

~end~

Feedback