Thanks goes out to alwaysjbj and amyb for the beta work and reading it through... I love you guys!
Was it the Ding Dong or the PB and J that finally did it? she asked herself, tapping her chin thoughtfully. I guess it doesn’t really matter...
Packing Xander’s lunch each day was something that she had done since she had moved in with him. It wasn’t until she had seen the Skippy commercial, in between the innumerable cartoons she was forced to watch, that she even questioned it.
The cat and mouse cartoon did have its moments. When the mouse finally let the cat have it, she felt a rush of satisfaction on par with her better wreakings of vengeance; that cat certainly always had it coming!
Snapping back to the subject at hand... It had to be the PB and J.
She had probably seen the commercial seven hundred-plus times already, but this one time it struck her. It was a MOM and her son that were having those delicious crustless sandwiches. Not a fabulous, attractive girlfriend packing the perfect lunch.
When added to the other commercials...
Ding Dongs? Mother and son. Check.
Fruit Roll-ups? Again with the mom. Check.
Let’s not even think about the juice boxes... What self-respecting man would drink those? Check.
With her checklist all full, she knew for certain that she was on to something.
This was the stuff that made for research—not nasty old Blevoriak demons. Blevoriaks were so ho-hum; everyone knew about them! Well, that would have to be almost everyone, it seemed, since she had spent all of the previous night searching through tome after tome to find information on them—information that she knew and gave them, but that they wanted double-checked anyway. It had really been kind of rude.
Why wouldn’t they believe me when I told them their eating habits, main fighting skills, and very unorthodox mating ritual? I mean, who has sex one time a year? I don’t know why they don’t ever believe me. But no, it’s always the typical eyerolls and dismissal. Buffy, I can understand; she’s naturally prejudiced against me and my former kind. Willow naturally thinks that she knows everything, and for her to admit that I know something that she doesn’t would kill her. Tara and Dawn always stay silent, one not wanting to get involved in a “discussion” and the other in the ‘ignore me’ section of the same boat as me. Through all of this, what does Xander do? Gives me his patented eyeroll and dismissive shrug and condescending, “we’ll just look it up to be sure, Anya.” Xander was such a jerk last night! And when they finally find the stupid thing, and everything that I had told them was correct, not one of them said sorry to me. Well, Giles did, but he doesn’t count. He always listens to what I say, but always needs to reconfirm everything, even if it’s stuff that he’s sure of, too. If only he realized that there are better resources than books out there.
Her silent musings were interrupted by a customer, and soon came the happy sound of change being made from the register.
“Thank you for shopping the Magic Box, the one-stop shop for all of your magical and mundane needs.” Without missing a beat Anya continued, “so, have you ever found yourself making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for your significant other?”
The young girl gave her a strange look. “No... my mom makes me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, though. I’ve told her over and over that they’re for little kids, but she won’t listen.”
Anya wanted to stomp her foot in frustration, but she had discovered early in her career in commerce that such tantrums only scared away potential returning customers. Plastering her most winning smile upon her face, she grabbed a stone from the bowl by the register.
“Thanks for your input. Here, this stone should help you to get your wish.”
She snatched one of the semi-precious stone chips that sat in a bowl by the register and dropped it unceremoniously into the bag. The girl’s smiling face squashed some of the inner capitalist’s wail over giving something away for free.
She never heard the door to the storage room open, and was therefore startled by Giles’ sudden presence behind the counter.
What’s with the quiet, stealthy watcher ways? she wondered silently, sending him an annoyed look; he really hadn’t frightened her badly enough to earn her glare, but she had decided that all men were jerks before settling in to recount the cash drawer, and it would have been hypocritical to treat him as more than a jerk.
Misinterpreting her look for disgruntlement over her repeated attempts to enlighten them on all things Blevoriak from the night before, Giles decided that he owed her another apology - with conditions, of course.
“Anya, about last night, dear. I do hope you realize that I meant no offense. I am quite sure that you have first hand knowledge of many things... that is to say, demons that we encounter. I hope that you didn’t feel as though I doubted you; I am simply trained to seek out the cold hard facts, and research has become almost a knee-jerk reaction for me. A problem comes along and I reach for a book as a first resort.”
Anya stood still during his little speech; she found that if she kept quiet at times and controlled her need for rebuttal, she would find out the most interesting things. Such silence also made apologies run longer, and occasionally they became groveling. She quite liked the groveling.
Giles stared at her when he had finished, hoping that she would accept his apology and that things could go back to normal in the little shop. He had regretted her mood all day, and although he would deny it should anyone asked, he had missed her humming and her relentlessly cheerful manner as she tidied up the various goods. He also thought that she might have snapped at a paying customer earlier; although he’d had earlier suspicions, the fact that she was allowing sarcasm to interfere with money told him that something was very wrong.
The silence between them was palpable, and for a few uncomfortable seconds his brain scrambled to find something to say to make this right.
“In fact, Anya, I just thought of a marvelous idea. Would you be willing to meet here for a few nights—at your convenience, of course, and after the shop has closed—so that we might go over pertinent facts regarding the demon community? Then I can cross reference your answers against the texts and be better prepared for what the Hellmouth throws at us.”
He reached up and grabbed his glasses, bringing them to the hem of his sweater and beginning to furiously rub them, never realizing that what a telling gesture that would be. Anya had spent enough time with Giles in the years since she’d been stranded in this dimension to know that he only did that when he was thoroughly disgusted or excited.
Anya mentally crossed off disgusted from the list.
He already spends a large portion of his time with me, and although he was planning on going back to England, it had nothing to do with me personally. We actually get along rather well.
So that left excited, which meant that he really was interested in her demony past and all of its connections and resources. That was a first for her, since most of the time Xander went out of his way to try to prove that she wasn’t a demon, or to deny that she had ever had any connection to the demon world at all.
Sure, I have tons of wedding planning to do, and my new issue of “Bride” magazine will be in tonight, and Xander will be home by four thirty and will expect me to come home and cook, and then he’ll want to watch one of his outer space shows…
That was another thing, Anya thought suddenly, indignantly. Xander was home first; would it kill him to even fire up the grill once in a while? Men were supposed to enjoy throwing slabs of dead animals on fire; all the men on the television did it, and she was quite certain that Xander was at least as much man as any of them. So why couldn’t he help her with meals occasionally? She wouldn’t ask for a soufflé; she’d settle for chicken. Was that so demanding? She remembered an article she had come across months before in a “Cosmopolitan,” a fascinating article called, “Woman’s Night Off;” tonight was as good a night as any to start her occasional domestic vacations, she decided.
She glanced up at Giles and noticed that his glasses were perched upon his face again; no longer sheepish and apologetic, she found that now he was looking at her expectantly.
That magazine can wait, and Xander can ‘fend for himself’ she thought, self-satisfied at her solution. She was so thankful for all of her subscriptions; this night off was just another great concept garnered from a magazine, much like the information on the G-spot that she’d not-so-subtly hidden inside Xander’s lunch bag a few months earlier. He had seemed angry at first, but her orgasms had improved, and so she didn’t mind so much; she imagined that this instance would be much the same.
Anya slammed the cash register drawer closed, turning to Giles with a huge grin on her face. “That sounds great, Rupert. I will be happy to serve as a resource for your research. In fact, I can start thinking about the demons that I know that are drawn to the Hellmouth’s energy, although I must warn you that the majority of the demon population is, you know. Maybe I can narrow it down by how aggressive they are. Hmmm...”
Giles, swept up in her enthusiasm, asked what her schedule looked like for the rest of the week, eager to commence this fascinating study.
“Well, I am supposed to go meet with the caterer, and then there is a photographer that I have an appointment with, but, everything else I can put off till the weekend. When are you free?”
“Tonight or Thursday, although actually I can make a few alterations if must needs and find a way to fit my schedule around yours.”
Anya smiled, pleased by his consideration of her convenience. That was new and different, too. She rather liked this newness. “Then after we close up, I’ll order some food and I’ll start running down my list. Let me just give Xander a quick call.”
Let him fend for himself for once!
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