Slayer
A little oneshot cuz I was bored. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon, no arguments there.
Slayer. The name would have meant little to her when she was younger, it sounded like an evil villain, the kind she would cower at behind her hands during the superhero movies her dad liked to take her to. The villain's plot would always be foiled by the hero, and the movie would be tied up in a nice pretty bow with everyone paired up before the end credits rolled. But her life was ironic. The slayer was the superhero, not the villain, and nothing was ever wrapped up quite properly, much less ending with her in the arms of a guy that belonged to the cover of the Abercrombie catalog.
But until now, things had worked out pretty well. A few vampires running around more or less, but nothing that had affected her all that personally besides the prophecy of her own death. She good, vampires bad, stakey stakey. There was no such thing as undefined with slaying. Black and white, but no gray. Now she had found the gray, and it haunted her long into the night.
One stab. That was all it took. One stab in exchange for the world not being sucked into hell. Not a high price to pay. Angelus had murdered Ms. Calendar, humiliated her, and threatened to kill her. He was the bad guy, she was the good. Things couldn't be clearer if Buffy wore a superhero costume. She had thought Angel was long gone, only Angelus remaining, and she had few qualms as she backed him up into the statue, ready to save the world again.
Until he changed. Her Angel had returned to her, but it was too late. It was him or the world. She remembered how his lips had brushed hers, his eyes wide in pain as she pulled back the sword and stabbed it into him. Pain, beseeching. Emotions normally vampires don't show. He had reached out to her, holding onto hope before the statue sucked him into hell.
Who was the villain now? The clear lines had been blurred in Buffy's simple world. Power came with being the slayer, and she had used hers rightly. She should be proud of her decision, proud of saving the world. Maybe she had saved THE world, but hers had been plunged into a shade of night. She had done the right thing, the good thing, the thing all comic book heroes would like to brag of. Then why did it feel like a little of her had died along with Angel.
Nothing is simple. There is no black and white. Emotions ruin the perfection, running rampant on the surface. Slayer. Maybe it was something in between.