If you could only carry one memory with you into the afterlife, which would you choose?
There was that time me and Anya stood in the school with all these uber-vampyres coming at us, and I totally freaked out and got down on the floor and couldn't even look hardly, and Anya wasn't doing much better. The only thing is she was in front of me, so they got her first. I was just lucky. (That's not the memory I'm talking about though.)
I wished I could have died, because then the last thing people would remember about me is that I bravely sacrificed my life for a higher cause. They wouldn't know I didn't even fight. They'd think I helped save the world, and they'd remember that the longest. I wished I was a martyr like Spike. Everybody thought so highly of him, even Xander. I wondered all the way out of the city why I was lucky. I wondered if I really wasn't lucky at all. (That's not the memory I want to tell you about either.)
Xander was so scared for Anya. He wanted to know what happened to her. I couldn't say she got cut in half after like one minute. I couldn't say she didn't do much of anything to stop them coming. At first I started to say I didn't really see.
[Now an intermission, because I have to back up.]
Everybody always told me not to make up stories. "You have to learn the difference between fantasy and reality." They thought it was bad for me. It's kind of what made me let myself kill Jonathan. Because I'd be the bad guy who turns to the side of light and redeems himself, which is always a way more interesting comic than a guy who's just good because. And I was pretending it was really Warren talking to me and we were really gonna be together forever...
So I told Xander that Anya saved my life. I flat out lied, and it made him smile. I said she was amazing. He really really liked believing that. It made the pain less. And that's why I didn't die; because I'm the dumb chickenshit geek with the sociopathic need to make things up and the no ability to tell what's real. I can believe what I'm saying, and that made Xander let her go.
No one will ever know I proved them wrong, that making up stories is good. But that's why I'm here, and that's what I should remember. I mean if I die. If I only got to remember one thing. I'd want to remember that when his city and his love got destroyed and everything was tears and pain, I made Xander smile.
Muse: Andrew Wells
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Wordcount: 444
I wished I could have died, because then the last thing people would remember about me is that I bravely sacrificed my life for a higher cause. They wouldn't know I didn't even fight. They'd think I helped save the world, and they'd remember that the longest. I wished I was a martyr like Spike. Everybody thought so highly of him, even Xander. I wondered all the way out of the city why I was lucky. I wondered if I really wasn't lucky at all. (That's not the memory I want to tell you about either.)
Xander was so scared for Anya. He wanted to know what happened to her. I couldn't say she got cut in half after like one minute. I couldn't say she didn't do much of anything to stop them coming. At first I started to say I didn't really see.
[Now an intermission, because I have to back up.]
Everybody always told me not to make up stories. "You have to learn the difference between fantasy and reality." They thought it was bad for me. It's kind of what made me let myself kill Jonathan. Because I'd be the bad guy who turns to the side of light and redeems himself, which is always a way more interesting comic than a guy who's just good because. And I was pretending it was really Warren talking to me and we were really gonna be together forever...
So I told Xander that Anya saved my life. I flat out lied, and it made him smile. I said she was amazing. He really really liked believing that. It made the pain less. And that's why I didn't die; because I'm the dumb chickenshit geek with the sociopathic need to make things up and the no ability to tell what's real. I can believe what I'm saying, and that made Xander let her go.
No one will ever know I proved them wrong, that making up stories is good. But that's why I'm here, and that's what I should remember. I mean if I die. If I only got to remember one thing. I'd want to remember that when his city and his love got destroyed and everything was tears and pain, I made Xander smile.
Muse: Andrew Wells
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Wordcount: 444