Fic: Nice Guys Finish Last

[holli]

Title: Nice Guys Finish Last
Summary: Andy, Jonathan, the afterlife, and a lot of beer.
Rating: G
Notes: Spoilers through the end of Buffy, Angel, and current SPN. I apologize in advance, you guys, but arliss made me do it.



"Dude, I'm *telling* you," Andy said, gesturing wildly. Only with the one hand, though, because the other hand had the beer. "We got shafted. Totally shafted."

Jonathan hunched his shoulders. He was several beers behind Andy, claiming low tolerance-- which, please, afterlife beer only got you as drunk as you wanted, and never left a hangover. That was one of the things that made Andy less annoyed about being dead. The perks were totally outnumbered, though, no matter what the J-man said.

"Well, I mean, maybe *you* did," Jonathan said, "but I still feel like I had it coming. I mean, the stabbing sucked, but I made kind of a mess of things, towards the end there." He took a prim little sip, which seemed like a waste of perfectly good beer to Andy. "Anyway, I kind of like it here. It's pretty quiet, I can keep an eye on things at home, and like half my graduating class is here already."

In the corner, a blonde hottie in a slinky purple dress was feeding quarters into the jukebox. Andy raised an eyebrow at her, but she just shot him a sly grin and slid her arm around the waist of some hulking quarterback type in a tight black T-shirt and even tighter jeans, which, wow, dude was secure to wear those pants. The bar was crowded, for a-- well, days of the week weren't really the thing to go by, here. The afterlife was funny that way.

Andy liked the bar when it was quieter, most of the time. They had decent food, and he always met interesting people, and he could usually get the bartender to tune one of the TVs in on whatever was going on back at home. He'd met the J-man here, sitting in the corner nursing a G&T he hadn't seemed to be enjoying very much. Andy had made it his mission to get the guy to live a little; the way he figured it, being dead didn't mean you had to give up on the fun parts of life.

Jonathan had been dead a while longer than Andy, but he didn't seem to be adjusting to it half as well. Andy met all kinds of cool people-- he'd even settled things with Ava, which he felt was damn noble of him-- but the only real friend Jonathan seemed to have was this totally stacked brunette named Cordelia, who generally treated Andy like something scraped off her shoe. Andy hadn't even gotten Jonathan to come meet the blue lady with him, which was a shame, since she was totally Zen and kind of a bad-ass.

So Andy had resorted to Plan B, which was getting Jonathan drunk and convincing him he'd been unfairly dealt with by the universe. It wasn't going great.

"C'mon, man," Andy said, and signaled for another pitcher. "You were *stabbed*. By your best friend! You don't feel like that was a raw deal?"

"Well, I guess. Kinda. If you look at it that way." He drained the rest of his beer, though, which was progress. "Anyway, apparently Andrew-- y'know, that Andrew-- felt really bad about it."

Andy snorted. "Yeah, he's really living a life of remorse, dude." He pointed at the TV over the bar, where Jonathan's lame-o ex-friend was putting on cufflinks to match his tux, and a super-powered chick in a cocktail dress was lounging on the bed waiting for him to finish. "I'm seeing a lot of repentance, there."

Jonathan scowled into his glass-- which, whoops, was empty. Andy took care of that for him. "Yeah, well. Why do you think you got the short end, anyway? You got killed by totally legitimate evil."

"Oh, yeah, some asshole demon's Thunderdome is totally a dignified way to go. Anyway, Sam got a return ticket, I don't see why I don't deserve one too." Wow, that pitcher had gone fast. Fortunately, the waitress was way ahead of him, and dropped a fresh one on the table.

"I guess." Jonathan mostly just looked morose, though, and Andy was starting to feel the same way. Right as they killed the pitcher, though, the waitress came back with a couple of shots.

"You guys are starting to bum me out," she said. "Try these, I'm experimenting."

Andy held his shot up to the light. It was sort of purplish-red, with-- wait, no, more of a blue--

It turned bright green, then faded to sort of an aqua, and then started looking purple again. Afterlife booze, man. Andy shrugged, and downed it. Jonathan did, too, after a second. It didn't burn going down, really, but he started feeling pleasantly fuzzy almost instantly.

The rest of the night-- well, call it night, time being sort of an optional thing-- but at any rate, the next little while was sort of blurry. Andy's pretty sure they didn't leave the bar immediately-- he remembers dancing with the girl in the purple dress, and Jonathan talking to this big-eyed, dark-haired girl about Star Wars for, like, a while. But at some point after that, they both paid a visit to Jonathan's friend Cordelia, because Andy definitely explained to her how they both got snookered out of the chance to do something cool before they died. And he's pretty sure they went to see the blue lady.

After that, things went dark.

Andy woke up with a pounding headache, which he knew wasn't right-- there was a reason he hadn't had one of those lately, wasn't there? Also, he seemed to have his face pressed into a cold floor of some kind, and, oh. Hey. Naked. That was awkward.

He heard footsteps approaching, every one like a bass drum in his skull, and a girl's voice from somewhere above him said "Oh my god! Are you-- are you okay? Where did you-- guys, go get help, and, uh, some clothes." Andy managed to peel an eye open, but that didn't help much, what with the blindingly bright light and the blurriness. He could make out a vague brown-haired shape, but that was all.

"Nnrgh," he managed.

"Oh, jeez," the girl said. "Um. Have you got a name? We can't just call you 'naked guy.' I mean, we could, but that would be weird."

"Andy," he managed. "Can you, um, not... breathe so loud? And, and turn off that light?"

"Oh my god," said the girl, "Are you *hung over*?"

"Stupid afterlife booze," Andy muttered, and then: "Wait." He propped himself up on one arm, and blinked until his vision cleared a little. He was on a kitchen floor somewhere, apparently. The girl was a couple of years younger than him, with long straight brown hair, and she looked vaguely familiar. Andy couldn't figure out from where, though.

"Where am I?" he said.

"Cleveland," said the girl, and then a ton of people started pouring into the kitchen. Girls, most of them, of varying ages, but there was a tall guy with an eyepatch Andy knew he'd seen somewhere, and at the back of the pack, carrying a blanket and a pair of pants, was someone Andy definitely recognized.

"Oh, crap," Andy said. "You're that asshole who stabbed Jonathan." And then the pounding in his head caught back up with him, and he found himself facedown on the cool tile floor again.