A/N: Based on spoiler speculations and WB contracts for Angel Season 5. Angel's POV, on the arrival of a former blood relation.
He's waiting in the lobby. Waiting to speak to me, they say. Hah.
Not funny, for several reasons.
One, he's supposed to be gone. That much was confirmed by several sources.
Two, I can smell him sitting on my sofa. Talking with my friends. He's there, and he smells so different I almost doubt it's really him.
No, it is him. I can still vaguely recall his scent from…
I can't go down there right now. I'm afraid that if I do, I just might snap that now-brittle neck of his.
He's always emulated me. It doesn't matter whether it was intentional or not. He's always followed in my footsteps.
First there was the whole looking-up-to-me phase. Those were the good days—in a strictly evil and immoral way, of course. Back then, I was basically God…or the Devil, in practicality. Everything I did was an example: how to keep those torture victims alive the longest, how to conserve the inevitable spill of fresh blood, how to hide and disguise the bodies…
Well, he'd never been a good student. He'd always liked to kill violently, with no respect for tact or secrecy. He'd liked to leave the bodies out in the open, rotting nicely with railroad spikes driven through the heads.
He'd never really caught onto my sense of style.
But let's not get sidetracked. Aside from me basically being his idol, he's also taken to consorting with my women. Always fell in love and devoted himself to the women I had claimed first. It's sort of sad, how sentimental and idealistic he can be.
And he calls me a poof.
I guess in a way I pity him; even he knows that Dru will forever come back to me and that I'll always be first in Buffy's heart, he still loves them with all his being.
Poor, foolish boy. No matter how much he tries, he'll never…
And then there was the matter with the soul. Just how far should one go with the whole emulation of one's idols? I mean, really. First it was all special, then he had to go along and pick one up too. Is it just me, or did the uniqueness just fly out of the window there?
Oh no, I'm not jealous. Why should I be jealous?
All that I could abide. Even though I wasn't exactly happy finding him with my women and with the rip-off soul, I could deal. But this?
That prophecy was for me. Everyone thought so, Wolfram and Hart, Wesley, even the PTB. Me.
Not him.
Yet he's drinking hot chocolate and chatting with my friends, down in my lobby, in the pool of sunshine that always finds its way to the sofa this time of day. Only for once the windows are open, and he's not frying.
He smells like he did that night so long ago when, weeping and blundering, he'd crashed into me on his way to find some privacy.
This was the first time he'd smelled like that since then.
Why didn't Buffy let me stay? Why did she kick me out, tell me to leave? Prepare. She said she wanted me to leave, to prepare. Prepare for what? The apocalypse was averted without me having to lift a finger.
Our roles should have been switched. I should have been there on that final day.
He'd never asked for it, prayed for it, existed for the possibility that it might happen one day. He'd never wanted it back the way I did.
Sometimes the only reason I continued was the vague hope that I'd receive it one day.
If this is the PTB's idea of a little joke, I might put this law firm to good use yet.
I mean, really! He didn't even want it, that sniveling, ungrateful brat! He'd probably wander out, get drunk, and get run over by a truck or murdered in an alley…again…this very evening.
And why shouldn't he? Dru was the best thing that had ever happened to him in his miserable, pathetic life. He probably hated being stuck in living flesh again.
What I wouldn't give to be in his place.
~ La fin.