Title: Not Wrong
Author: Robin the Crossover Junkie
Disclaimer: I don’t own Buffy, or anything to do with her or her show. Except Angel. I own him. And on Sundays, I rent Spike, Xander, and Wesley. We have naked parties. You should come. Really.
Rating: PG, I guess.
Summary: Angsty little ficlet, Buffy’s POV
Spoilers: up to and including “Dead Things”
My mom ran an art gallery, but she never painted. My little sister paints, sometimes. She enjoys her art classes. At least, she used to, until I took her out of that class to tell her that our mother was dead. She used to talk about negative space and dark strokes. I never used to get it. I get it now.
Negative space and dark strokes. Neither of them is really an art term. Negative space is me. I take up negative space. Everything about me is negative. I thought it was wrong. I hoped it was wrong.
Now I know the truth. I’m not wrong. What I do is wrong. Everything about me is wrong, but I’m not wrong. I’m horrible, and cruel, and a bad person, but I’m still me. I’m Buffy.
I’m Buffy. I use people. I beat people. I ignore my sister. I exclude my friends. I’m not wrong.
Dark strokes. That’s what I’ve been doing to everything around me. Everyone. A thick paintbrush in my tiny, weak hand. It strikes against the canvas of my life, thick black lines taking out everything I love, replacing it with black. With negative space.
It’s like smoke, putrid and black, pluming up from my heart, filling the room I’m in with thick smog. It’s hard to see, hard to breathe, but I do it anyway. Because it’s the right thing to do. I can’t leave Dawnie again. She’ll fall apart. So I keep breathing, and walking, through the smog, and I hope that one of these days someone opens a window before I suffocate.
Maybe that’s why Spike can stand to be around me. Why he…loves me. Because he doesn’t need to breathe. He can walk with me through the smog, and he doesn’t have to breathe it in.
I’m Buffy. I sleep with someone I hate because it’s the only way to feel okay, even though it’s so wrong. And as wrong as it is, and as wrong as it feels, I don’t want it to stop.
I can’t stop.
It’s strange. I was so much happier when I thought that I’d come back wrong. It meant that it was okay for me to use Spike and not love him. But now I have to face it. If I don’t love him, then I’ve been using him. If I haven’t been using him, then I’ve fallen in love with a demon that I’m supposed to kill.
I’ve been down that road. I can’t love another vampire. There’s too much heartache involved, and I really can’t take anymore heartache than I’ve got right now. I’ve got more than enough. I’ve reached my heartache quota.
And I’m not wrong. Everything in me that hurts, it’s supposed to hurt. And the things that aren’t hurting, that are supposed to, they’re the worst. Because if I’m not wrong, then that means I’m not right.
I want to be right.
I’m Buffy.
And I’m not wrong.
