Buffy didn’t consider herself a drinker, not really. She’d only been drunk a few times in her life and she honestly didn’t know a thing about alcohol. She had no preference except that she hated whiskey. But, even with all the experience she lacked, she knew one thing: when things got really rough, a good drink or two could ease the pain. And boy did she have a lot of pain. Everywhere she looked things had been going wrong. She’d had to deal with a distraught sister, betrayals, a media blitz she had zero ways to handle, an ensouled vampire to reform, and now the impending doom of a dear friend. It was all too much, she hadn’t really learned how to cope with such issues. But she needed to push them to the back of her mind, if only for a night.
And so, she found herself at a bar. She was on her third White Russian, a drink she’d never tried before, and she felt pretty damn good. Sure, the world around her was a little watery and she had to focus really hard in order to see straight but none of it really mattered. At least she was free from her life for a little while. The only thing that seemed of great importance to her at the moment was unzipping her makeup bag so she could touch up her lipgloss. This proved to be a harder task than she’d imagined before she started it but she focused really hard and eventually undid the zipper finding the squishy little tube from which the glittery goop came. She gave it what she thought was a light squeeze and slathered it onto her lips, she got out of the “lines” a little bit but she knew she still looked good. She could just tell.
By the time she finished this task she looked up to the bartender to ask for another drink, but her focus was derailed by the person sitting next to her. She hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t alone, but the familiar face caught her eye. Sitting next to her was, of all people, Anya. Anya, the dead ex-vengeance demon. Yes, she was fairly certain that Anya was dead. But Anya was there despite the fact that she was dead. It didn’t really make sense and she found herself needing to figure it out what on earth was going on, and pronto.
“Anya! Aren’t you supposed to be dead? You need to explain yourself right now Anya. I can’t have dead things being alive right now, it just won’t do…” The words flew out of her mouth with a sort of desperation she hadn’t intended. She was aiming for suave but instead came off sort of demanding. She didn’t really think it was a problem though. Anya always forgot her manners even when she was sober, so Buffy hoped in some corner of her mind that Anya wouldn’t be offended by her lack of any real greeting. She looked at her old friend expectantly and with intense focus, she was trying really hard not to fall out of her chair. She found the edge of the bar and clung to it for dear life with both of her hands, grasping so hard that her knuckles turned white.
This Is A Test 