full 3/4 1/2   skin light dark       
 
 
Chapter 1
 
   >>
 

Notes: I must acknowledge solstice’s beautiful story Second String which made me realize the perfect format for this odd, dark, depressing little tale. Really, check out that story. It’s awesome.





    Anyanka sat musing in the Bronze, hoping to get drunk and forget how she was feeling. There was some kind of moony local band playing, the music ethereal and emotive, and it wasn’t helping Anya’s mood. Her magic store – a ruin. Her relationship – slaughtered. Her friendships – gone. She was a vengeance demon, given the district of Sunnydale to “ease into” as she got back into the vengeance gig. This meant that rather than picking and choosing vengeances, as she used to be able to do, she had to go where the vengeance called her, right here in Sunnydale.

    There actually weren’t that many cruel and abusive men in a small town like Sunnydale. She was hard pressed to find them, and even harder pressed to wring vengeance wishes out of the usually forgiving women in the area. The Bronze was the best place to find a woman in a vengeancy mood. She could feel the pain and the betrayals all around her, but most knew vengeance wouldn’t help, or didn’t even really want it.

    One burning spike of Wronged Woman had just slid into the club a minute ago, for instance. And without even looking, Anya knew the wronged party wouldn’t up and wish for vengeance. Shame. Because that would have been the kind of vengeance which would get D’Hoffryn off her back. Performing vengeance for a Slayer... that was the kind of gig that could take a vengeance demon off the B list and get her global clearance again.

    But she knew Buffy was never going to make a vengeance wish about Spike. If she was ever going to take vengeance for any real or perceived wrong, she’d do it herself, with her fists, and have a good time doing it too. Shame.

    Buffy had come in with Xander, which was enough to make Anya wish she herself wasn’t at the club. She thought about getting up and leaving, but she was kind of hidden behind the stairs, and getting up from her corner would put her in full view of Xander. She... she didn’t want to see him.

    Buffy and Xander got drinks and came to sit at their favorite table... the one by the stairs.... Anya carefully didn’t think about the fact that she was sitting in this spot because she’d almost sat at the Xander table herself, through habit, and then intentionally moved over to one... near it, but not too near it. Somewhere she would be able to see Xander if he happened to show up.

    Sometimes Anya wished she could wreak vengeance on herself. She kept betraying herself. She kept loving that bastard... stupid self-deluded vengeance demon. She should have known better. She’d only focused her attention on Xander Harris in the first place because he was her vengeance gig. And then he was cute and funny and nicely shaped and warm and his lips tasted like cherry soda... or they had at the prom, when she’d declared, “Is it customary for this social function that we interact romantically?” and he’d gotten all nervous and blushing, and she’d kissed him to see what it would feel like to kiss someone as a human being. And it had felt... amazing. So potent, so real, so powerful, that Xander Harris had never left her thoughts since.

    But he was still Xander Harris. He’d betrayed Cordelia Chase, and sure enough, he’d betrayed Anya, too. Once an unfaithful bastard, always an unfaithful bastard.

    As Buffy and Xander sat down, it became very clear why Buffy’s Wronged Woman aura was flaring quite so bright. Xander had decided to dredge the whole thing up again. Why couldn’t that bastard ever leave it alone? He had to keep stirring the cesspool to see what would float. Jerk.

    “I just don’t get it,” Xander said. “I mean, why did it happen?”

    “He just didn’t know how to not be evil, Xander,” Buffy said quietly. “He lost it for a minute is all. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

    “I didn’t mean the rape,” Xander said, not noticing how his friend flinched. He could be so thoughtful and insightful, Xander could. And other times – like this – he could be the blindest most self-centered, ham-fisted coxcomb the world had ever known. “I mean, I get that. That’s just evil undead doing what evil undead do. I mean... why did you start... I mean... even in the first place? Why’d you let him think it was ever okay to touch you?”

    It happened because Buffy’s not completely human, and Spike is hot! Anyanka thought to herself. I mean, how much do you need it spelled out, Harris!

    “It’s complicated, Xander,” Buffy said, and took a sip of her drink.

    “What do you mean? I mean, vampire, crypt, bad. You said it yourself.”

    “Well, I wasn’t in a real good place myself,” Buffy said, sounding annoyed. “I mean, I’d been dead, okay? He knew what it was like to be dead, we started talking, it got away from us. All right? End of story.”

    “I just... I just don’t understand it. How anyone could sleep with that thing?”

    Then Anya was sure. It didn’t have anything to do with Buffy. This was about her. Anya was about to stand up and reveal herself, and tell Xander everything there was about Spike which made him a far superior lay to Xander freaking Harris. It would have been lies – she’d never been in love with Spike. He didn’t make her heart flutter and her insides turn to mush. Spike had been drunk and perfunctory and keeping his eyes closed as he drowned in sensation, like he drowned in the drink, and Anya had been doing much the same. As hot as impulsive drunken table-sex could be, as gorgeous and sexy-smelling as the vampire had been, it was not the sweetest memory in Anya’s thousand year existence.

    No. Most of the sweetest memories had been from just before her ersatz wedding day.

    “What does it even matter?” Buffy asked.

    Xander put her hand on Buffy’s arm. “It matters,” he said. “I need to understand.”

    “Why? It’s way over. It was never serious. And he’s gone now.”

    “Right. He should have done that years ago,” Xander said. “I wish he’d never come to Sunnydale.”

    “Then Angel would have destroyed the world,” Buffy said dully. Xander looked up, confused. “Acathla?” Buffy reminded him.

    “Right. Then I wish he’d never come back.”

    “Dawn,” Buffy said. “Glory.”

    Xander looked disgruntled.

    “I know,” Buffy said quietly. “It’s hard to hate him. That’s why.”

    “It’s not hard to hate him,” Xander said. “Not after what he did to you.”

    Buffy didn’t say anything. Anya knew rather too much about the relationship Buffy and Spike had had – Spike had spilled more than he realized while drunk and venting his pain. What Spike had done to Buffy kind of paled in comparison to some of the things Buffy had done to Spike. But like they said in the police force, ‘You can’t pick the vic.’ Not all victims were perfect. Most could be just as bad as their attackers. Buffy still had Wronged Woman flaring in her aura.

    “Just... if he was gonna be so evil and that, and it was gonna mess you up... I don’t know. I just wish he hadn’t been the one you felt you could turn to.” Buffy still didn’t say anything. “I wish he and his wacked out evil-playing-good thing just hadn’t been there to confuse you when you were brought back.”

    “Yeah,” Buffy said quietly. “Me too.”

    That was enough for a vengeance demon. Particularly one as pissed off as Anyanka. She smiled in her seat as the power flowed through her. “Wish granted.”

 

 
   >>