SPOILERS: All of them. This is set after the BtVS series finale and the ANGEL season 4 finale.
DISTRIBUTION: Sure, wherever you like. Just please let me know where it's going.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please! lokibard@yahoo.com.au
NOTE: I adore Andrew. Just wanted to say it.
SUMMARY: Andrew's got a brand-new gig.
this redemption itches
He works in West Hollywood nowadays, at Meltdown. It isn't The Golden Apple, but it pays the rent. He sees Xander occasionally; there's one of those Ye Olde Magick Shoppes just down the alley across the way. He's sometimes accompanied by Willow and Kennedy, sometimes by an athletic-looking black man, sometimes by a slender girl with long dark hair. He's never alone.
Andrew doesn't let Xander see him. He doesn't deserve it.
Because Andrew should be dead.
At night, Andrew walks the streets of Silverlake, waiting to be killed. Holy water in one pocket, tazer in the other. Sometimes he takes a sword, because redemption needs something sharp to accompany it. Along the way, he's managed to rack up nine vampires and seven assorted demons. This surprises him, but Andrew has seen Final Destination three times and he knows it won't be long until his number is up.
He has made a semi-friend. Jake is nineteen and thinks Andrew is the coolest person in the world. They were together once when he took out a stumbling, drunken vampire near the dumpsters behind their work.
"Oh my god," Jake says, face white. "Oh my god, oh my god. That was totally cool and brave. You're like Northstar in Alpha Flight where he revealed he was ga-"
Andrew walks away.
"I wish," he mutters to himself on the bus home. "I wish, I wish, I wish."
None of his wishes work.
Stupid little monkey, he hears her say, and imagines that he hears affection in her tone. What do you think you're doing? I wasn't a hero and neither are you.
"I know," he tells her, sitting on his ratty couch. "But I'm going to keep going, until something makes me stop."
Sometimes he thinks he sees her, too. In coffee shops. On the street. He tells this to Jake.
"Visions? You mean like in issue three of Preacher when Jesse hits his head on the motel sink and-"
"Dude," Andrew interrupts coldly, "don't be such a geek."
On his way home, Andrew saves a posse of squealing cheerleaders from a skinny-looking four-toed Saruchis demon. He gets four scratches on his left cheekbone, a bruised ribcage and the hitching-breathed gratitude of four sixteen-year old girls.
It's a good night.