Title: Deserving
Pairing: Angel/Xander
Time frame: Early season 3
Part: 1/2
Rated R for angst and cussing
Dear Angel,
I told her to kill you. Are you shocked? I told her to kill you because I hated you. And I hated you because you never loved me.
Did you ever tell her about us? Did you ever tell your precious slayer that you'd lived in Sunnydale for two years before she came? Or was she not interested in your past?
I was your boy and you dropped me like a hot rock for her. I gave you two years of my life. I gave you my innocence, my blood. I told you all my fears and I listened to all your wonderful stories. Does she, even now, know you half as well as I did? Does she know that Whistler told you that she would come? That you lived her for two fucking years before the demon dropped in again to let you know that she had arrived? That life for you existed pre-Buffy?
They thought I hated you. I did hate you. They don't know that it was because I loved you. They thought I was jealous that you got Buffy. My supposed friends were too blind to see that I didn't want her, don't ever want anybody but you.
You never loved me. You told me you did but you were lying. You never lost your soul. No matter how much you said you loved me I couldn't give you a moment of happiness. Two hundred nights of passion weren't enough to rip the curse away from you. Was I ever good enough for you? Why wasn't I good enough for you?
And when you came to the hospital. You called me Buffy's white knight. You mocked me for my weakness. But we weren't talking about Buffy were we? I just let you go, didn't I? I let you walk all over me and then you went after the new girl and I said nothing. Fuck, I befriended her. Because I somehow felt that I deserved what you did to me. I thought that maybe being friends with her would keep you and me connected. I am a loser. I didn't deserve you.
And I don't need the book learnin' no more. I've hung around Giles enough to pick up the important stuff. Like cognitive dissonance. If you wrong someone you then justify it by telling yourself they deserved it. So, for instance, if you threw away someone who loved you to try and get into the pants of someone more powerful than yourself you would then tell yourself that your lover was a loser to begin with. No one ever viewed me as the Zeppo until you joined our "close knit" group. No one ever thought I was stupid and reliable. They thought I was funny, and cool in a geeky sort of a way. But then you turned up and made everything a competition. And you always beat me and made sure I came out in the worst light possible. I loved you and you ruined me because of it. You felt guilty for hurting me, for not loving me, and you needed a way to make it all acceptable. You put me in the worst light possible and made it impossible for them not to compare you and me. And I'm the loser right?
I liked Angelus in a way. It was so fucking nice to see you uninhibited, unashamed of what you were. You were beautiful like that, you were hot in your joy and your revelry in your own wickedness. I didn't really like it when you killed Willow's fish. And I hated that you killed Miss Calendar. But you had restrained yourself for a hundred years. I couldn't hate you for acting on what you were. She was going to chain you again. I can understand what you did.
Seeing you like that made me feel even more like a loser. I should have helped you free yourself. Buffy acted like it was so awful. But what was awful about seeing you happy? I tried so fucking hard to make you happy. You were always so miserable. And I strived to make you happy, to make you forget to feel ashamed for even just a minute. And what I worked on for two years she did in a night. She treated you like her pet vampire, like a tamed cat to patronize and preen over. I loved you for exactly who you were and never asked you to be anything else.
You were everything to me. So why wasn't I anything to you? I just wanted your affection, you told me you loved me. My parents never did. You and Willow were the only ones. You told me once that you were proud of me. What wasn't a lie, Angel? It was my revenge. Wicked and pathetic as it might have been. I only ever wanted you and you wouldn't give me that.
I didn't even really want you dead. I knew you wouldn't be dead long. The powers that love to fuck about wouldn't let go of their champion that easily. They see the good man you are. What I wanted was simple. I wanted to make you right. I couldn't make you happy but I could prove you right. I'm a loser, just like you wanted people to believe. I let my own lover die. There is no longer any doubt that I deserve your contempt. You no longer have to justify hating me. I killed you because you wouldn't love me.
But I will always love you, will always belong to you.
Your Xander