Doing vengeance with the Scoobies had never gone well for Anya. That time in Sunnydale she’d tried to rally them all against Xander to avenge her nuptial abandonment — oh, that had been mortifying. Not to mention her reality-warping dealings with Cordelia, which had landed her in high school and mortal in the first place. When she’d first arrived in Cleveland, she’d quietly sworn to herself never to initiate a vengeance gig with one of them, no matter how tempting the circumstances, but all of that had evidently long fallen to pieces — back when she made the decision, she’d also been under the impression that she was going to kill Xander with several floating knives or other miscellaneous bladed objects, so really, a lot had changed, and it was no surprise she’d ended up teleporting into Kennedy’s living room and sitting down next to Buffy in a Cleveland bar.
All things considered, the best stroke of luck she’d had since she came here was running into Buffy drunk instead of sober and with a stake in her hand.
“Oh, men screw over the best of us, Buffy,” Anya sighed empathetically, returning the shoulder pat with more than a little awkwardness. “I think we can all agree the planet’d be better off without them — granted the rest of us could evolve fast enough to compensate for the whole no-reproduction deal — but sadly, they’re here for good, and sometimes they’re even lovable.” She winced. Whatever man Buffy had vested her trust in had let her down big time, judging by the smell of assorted beverages on her breath. Besides, not just anybody jilted the Slayer.
She shifted in her seat as she considered her next stratagem. Telling Buffy she was a vengeance demon straight off the bat again wouldn’t do at all, despite Buffy’s throwaway comment about how much of a shame it was she wasn’t a demon anymore. Even if she was inebriated enough to be okay with it for the time being, she’d probably grab her axe and psych herself up to decapitate her as soon as she got over her hangover, knowing how seriously she’d taken her actions the last time she went demonic. No, that was far too risky a plan, and would likely derail things completely. The way she saw it, she just needed to guide Buffy along the path to vengeance until she said the magic words; once the wish was over and done with, and its consequences presumably well-received, maybe Anya could take a chance and tell Buffy the real story. Hopefully she’d be so satisfied with the deliverance of vengeance that she’d view Anya in a light favourable enough not to consider fighting her again, even if she had made a few vengeance kills along the way. Until their business was concluded, though, she couldn’t know.
“Anyway, you’re in luck, Buffy,” Anya clasped her hands together and smiled, “because I happen to have the perfect, cathartic little exercise for you.” She bit the inside of her lip, trying not to glance down at the hand print in the bar she knew was there. Slayer strength without the control to accompany it was terrifying. “It sounds like you feel powerless because you just need someone to share things with. So! Why don’t you just pretend I’m still a vengeance demon, and tell me the whole story? What he did to you, how it felt, what you hypothetically wish would happen to him… all that.”
Buffy nodded sagely in agreement with Anya. She was definitely the best, and somehow even she got the short end of the stick sometimes when it came to men. Anya gave her a shoulder pat of comforting. It was a little stiff, but Buffy’d take it. That Anya, it turned out she was nice after all. Who would have thought. Buffy knew she was good when she wasn’t all vengeancey, but even then she’d never gone as far as to say she was nice. No, Anya was pretty rude most of the time. But you couldn’t hold that against her, or at least Buffy felt bad when she did. Buffy let out a small hiccup and reached for the half-empty glass in front of her. She didn’t think she was too drunk, nope she was fully in control. She just had to put in a little effort to maintain that control was all. With a lot of effort, Buffy drew the drink to her mouth with a fairly steady hand. If she was grading her cup holding skills right now, she’d probably give herself a B+.
Buffy smiled at her B+, not really listening too closely to what Anya was saying. Something about ridding the world of men? It wasn’t a very smart idea whatever it was. Without men the world would be full of ladies and that just wouldn’t do. Even though they were a nuisance to Buffy at times, she appreciated some of them. Angel and Giles and Xander and even Spike were decent enough. Much more decent than a certain other man in her life, or out of it now, but still. Cameron: what a bastard. And to think she was going to have his baby? No. That couldn’t be true. Everything felt like a hazy memory to Buffy when it came to Cameron, or possibly even a dream. It just didn’t make sense.
“What did I do to deserve that?” she asked Anya. It didn’t really cross Buffy’s mind that Anya probably had no idea what she was talking about. Anya seemed to respond anyways. Cathartic? What was that? Anya was one of those smart talking people and in this state Buffy just couldn’t even bother to pretend she knew what was being said to her. “Anya, I don’t get so much the big words… But, I’ll do your exercise.” Buffy nodded her head once again only this time she wagged her head with a much lighter enthusiasm than when she was agreeing on the terribleocity of men. Or she should say man.
The alcohol was somehow able to clear her mind instead of clouding it. She zeroed in on the root of all her problems. Her fuckbuddy, her gay best friend, and her potential baby-daddy: Cameron. Cameron, with his sexy stealy demon powers. That prick had the audacity (whoa A++ vocab!) to go and get his demony sperm all up in her uterus. Nobody knocked up Buffy Summers, she just didn’t have the time for that shit. She was more sure than she’d ever been about anything ever that he was the root of all this media drama that had been making her life a living hell. That fake bitch of a vampire, Matthew, wouldn’t have had the courage to spin his web of bullshit without the support of his pussywhipped little boyfriend/dog-slave.
“This story Anya, it starts, as they all seem to, with a man. A god-damned sexy demon bastard who somehow wriggled his way into my life…” With much gusto Buffy launched into her story. She felt every emotion over again as she spoke. She felt the intense sting of betrayal sneak up on her once again like a slap to the face. Hand gestures were flung every which way as she got carried away in telling her tale. She may or may not have hit a glass off the table or possibly punched the bartender. It all seemed to blur together after a while. As she wound down from the cheesy soap opera of a story (And it was all true!) she relayed to Anya, she found herself in tears. She wasn’t really sad, though. She was just pissed, and she was miserable, and she was in hell. God was her life hell right now. And it was all because of Cameron…
“You know Cameron? I’ve told you about him… But either way, if you did know him.” the tears continued to stream down her face which was splotchy and red. “Oh, Anya. If you only knew him you’d know that he just…” Buffy didn’t think about the words that were coming out of her mouth anymore, they just sort of spilled out of their own accord. “He really should just go to hell. He can have sex with Hitler in his fiery little prison cell, for all I care! I just, I wish he’d go to hell.” With a scrunched up face from both anger and the burn of alcohol, Buffy downed the rest of her drink and collapsed on the table into a puddle of blonde tresses and salty tears.
This Is A Test 