~*~

The Hellmouth is weird.

It’s weird.

I never even knew there WAS a hellmouth until today. I mean, I knew there was a reason all this stuff would happen, and I knew that if it wasn’t for Buffy and her friends I would probably be gone by now, but I mean, this is Sunnydale. It’s like, normal.

Life sucking is normal in Sunnydale.

It’s always been normal like that for me.

Life sucking, I mean. I don’t think it’s ever going to really change either. Or at least that’s what I thought, until today.

You know that feeling when you go through life and you feel so invisible, so unimportant that it’s like people can pass right through you?

I was a loser. I am a loser.

I know that. I’ve never tried to be anything else, cause I know I would suck at it.

I’m short. I talk funny. I can’t wear cool clothes, and even if I tried I would look like some… wannabe.

Not that that would be any different.

I knew how it was, because it was how was how she treated me.

I was her lap dog.

She went through this phase in sophomore year where she allowed me to “date” her. All it was really was me being her personal slave until she got tired of it. And I didn’t care. I wanted to do it. Because it was her. I mean, just to even get close to her, that was more than people ever dreamed.

You get to know a lot about people when you’re a loser. All the popular kids, the beautiful kids, they don’t’ see what we do.

And so you sit and you watch and you see.

And I watched her. Her and Buffy. They were so different, and it was weird, cause I never even thought they could be friends.

Cordelia Chase was mean. She was mean and so much above me. She was tall and gorgeous with legs that went up to here.

She was untouchable.

And then the weirdest thing happened. She started dating Xander.

If there was a step above me, that’s Xander.

It was like… a shock. A big shock. Cause I would sit there, invisible and losery and tripping on my shoes and getting pushed around and my bags thrown and she would saunter by with that smile, her hand in his, leaning into him.

It was all over the school, how she told Harmony off and said she could date whoever the hell she wanted to.

That was true though. Cordelia Chase could date whoever she wanted.

She just couldn’t’ fall for them.

I saw it before she did, I think.

See, Cordelia treats guys like property values. Stuff you have to put up with because eventually they’ll increase her value, and then when she’s done, she dumps them and moves on. She’s untouchable.

And then she was all over him.

And she was hanging out with Buffy. Man, Buffy is gorgeous.

I remember, sitting there on the steps and they would walk by, chattering about demons and stuff so loudly I thought they were nuts. It was like this secret society.

Buffy was the strong one, and they were like her groupies.

And she was one of them. And when she smiled, it was a different smile than I had seen.

And life kept sucking for me.

So I kept sitting on my steps senior year, watching when I saw Xander give Willow this look. And I watched when they jumped away when Cordelia came up, her face all bright and sunny.

It’s his fault.

His fault she went back to being the way she was.

Before that time in the hospital, she used to smile at me. Not a real smile, but a nice one, like, Oh hey, yeah, I sorta see you.

And then he cheated on her and it was clear he had broken her heart, and she became the Cordelia that had stomped on me before.

She didn’t’ smile at me anymore. She didn’t even pretend I wasn’t there. I was such a loser she made a point to even skirt around me.

And I got a gun, and I would have killed myself. I would have, if Buffy hadn’t been there.

I wanted to ask her to prom. But… I don’t know. Buffy wouldn’t’ say yes. Not to me. She’s too picky. She had that big brooding guy hanging around her all the time.

And now we’re here.

It’s graduation and I’m loaded with wood stuff, and the mayor has turned into a big lizard and it’s eating people and life still sucks.

But it’s a different kind of suck.

Because I’m not a loser anymore. It’s the kind of suck I can do something about.

And I actually believe it. I don’t care what Cordelia thinks or what Buffy thinks. The only thing I think about is how pissed I am that these vampire guys who are walking around in daylight have managed to make my life even suckier by trashing graduation.

And I’m kicking ass.

Me. Short little Jonathon.

I never realized who was fighting beside me until I got pushed into a cardigan, making her almost lose her balance.

“Watch it, Jonathon!”

She said my name. That made me freeze cold, as I turned and I saw her, not a scratch on her, ducking from this vampire and grabbing her stake and slamming it into his chest.

“Cordelia?”

“HERE!” Suddenly there was a stake shoved into my hand and I felt an impact as a vampire lunged into me. Turning, I yelled loudly, screeching in anger and slamming the point home.

She was tripped.

I scrambled up, slamming into the vampire standing over her and with my best Tarzan pissed yell, I slammed the stake into his chest too.

Damn. I was good at this.

Breathing hard, I turned, leaned over her, trying to ignore the surprised look in her eyes.

“You okay?”

“Ummm.. yeah. . . Thanks.” I didn’t stutter or say something stupid. I didn’t trip over my own feet. I didn’t bow to her or thank her for saying my name.

I just lifted out my hand.

And she grabbed it, used it and pulled herself up.

I wasn’t a loser anymore.

And life still sucked, because students were fighting and some were dying, and wasn’t that Harmony’s yell?

But Cordelia Chase had her arm around my waist, and I didn’t even think about it. It was okay. We were equals.

“There’s Buffy,” she breathed, and I watched as Buffy ran into the school, and Cordelia and I looked at each other and we knew what was coming.

It came.

A lot.

It was huge, heaving, and hot and bright.

And I did the only thing I knew to.

I slipped my arms around her and I pulled her close, trying to protect her from the blast.

Her head tucked into my shoulder, holding me tight, and me, the school loser, and her, the head cheerleader, just held each other and watched the blast.

That was my school.

My sucky school that was so fucked up I almost killed myself.

“I wish it had been me.”

“What?” she breathed, looked down at me.

“That pressed the button.”

“Oh.” She got quiet, and then looked back at the burning building. “Yeah, me too.”  And she grabbed my hand and held it.

And it never occurred to me that I was holding hands with Cordelia Chase, until my heart stopped pounding and I realized just how much I ached, and how much I hurt.

And how weird it was that I was holding her hand.

And how weird it was that I didn’t care.

It was okay.

‘Cause Sunnydale is weird.

“Life sucks.”

The sentence said it all, and I looked up, and up, and up to her as we sat side by side on the curb by the wreckage, watching the policemen start talking about gangs on PCP or something stupid like that.

“Yeah.”

We were quiet again, and she sighed, running her hand through her dark hair and then leaned on me, her head on my shoulder.

“I staked a vampire today.”

“Yeah, me too. That’s what they were, right?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, and then snorted. “Or you can believe the gangs on PCP lines. GOD these cops are so inept.”

“Yeah.”

“We blew up high school.”

“Yeah we did.”

She pursed her lips, lost in thought, her face slightly smudged with ash, and then she cocked her head. “Good. I hated high school.”

I felt myself smile as she leaned closer, and I didn’t even think about it as I slipped my hand around the May Queen and squeezed. “Me too.”

“Really? I always thought you had it easy.”

“Huh?” That was confusing.

She only shrugged though. “Yeah. You mean it’s not easy being Jonathan.”

“Are you kidding? Look at me.  Look at you.”

She looked at me, her eyes drifting up and down my body. “My life sucks too.”

“Yeah, I know. I think everybody’s life sucks. Just like… a different kind of suck.”

“A different kind of suck. Well that’s pleasant.”

And we got quiet, and for once I didn’t feel like she was untouchable. It didn’t matter anymore. I wasn’t a loser anymore, and she wasn’t up there anymore, not to me.

She was Cordelia, and she was… here. And I was holding her.

Her eyes floated around the wreckage and she spotted Xander and Willow and Oz the music guy, and suddenly she stood, and my arm slipped away.

It was over, whatever it was.

And she turned, and she smiled at me, and then leaned forward, whispering in my ear. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For being there when it counted.”

And she turned, and she left, walking to the group of kids that all the weird stuff happened to.

And I stood; my hands in my pockets, watching her go to them. I looked back at the burning high school, and I sighed, walking away from the building, from Cordelia, from the wreckage that was my life.

Life sucked.

But it was a different kind of suck now.

Not the sucky you’re invisible suck, but more of a life is what you make of it, and you can’t screw it up kinda suck.

Cause I knew now we weren’t losers or untouchables. When push came to shove, we were all the same.

Life sucked for all of us.
It was just a different kinda suck.

And all we had to do was make it… less sucky.

I sucked in my breath and smiled, breathing it out as I kicked at a rock with my shoe.

I could do that.

I could definitely do that.

FIN