One of Those Days
Summary: So, a vengeance demon and a wolf-chick walk into a bar... Twilight/Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossover. Anya/Leah friendship. Set sometime between Hell's Bells and the end of Season 6 along the Buffy end of things, and...some non-specific point before Breaking Dawn along the Twilight.
Disclaimer: Anya, Buffy, Xander, Spike and Giles are the creations and property of Joss Whedon. I think. Everyone else appearing in this story belongs to Stephanie Meyer. The author of this silly little extended-gag fic is making no money from the aforementioned.
It had been one of those days; the kind that starts off with your annoying kid brother pounding on your door, insisting that you'd taken his favourite t-shirt (which you definitely hadn't, you wouldn't touch that dirt-encrusted thing with a ten-foot pole, and you have no idea how Mom can stand to touch it long enough to take it to the wash without a hazmat suit and a pair of tongs, and anyway, you gave it back last week, so quit your bitching, Seth).
The kind that continues happily onward towards total crap when you go to take a much-needed shower (because you were too wiped from an all-night jog through the rain on four paws to do more than flop into bed and assume a near-vegetative state when you got home), only to have all the hot water vanish immediately into the twisting nether the second you step in.
The kind of day that sees you reluctantly turning down a much-needed extra shift from a frantic co-worker with the flu because you were out the door on your way to a meeting, just getting ready to tie the closest clean clothes (including Seth's recently washed favourite t-shirt, just to spite him) around your leg and bolt for the forest, so Tracy's just going to have to keep a barf bucket in the milk cooler and a stash of flat ginger ale at the register, you have important standing around to do.
The kind of day where you manage to piss off the rest of the pack before you even get to the meeting, which in turn pisses you off, because it actually wasn't intentional for once. But naturally, it's okay for all these lovesick idiots to bombard you with soft-focus porn images of silky thighs and full bountiful breasts and generally more than you'd ever particularly wanted to see of Rachel Black; and Kim What's-Her-Name from Jared's class; and Bella Swan, who didn't even need some mystical soulmate crap to get Jacob tied in a pretty bow around her little finger; and Emily, beautiful, perfect, saintly Emily who does everything with such grace and sweetness that even pilfering her cousin's boyfriend seems like the pinnacle of moral perfection; but when you reflect that you'd rather be manning the register at the grocery store and earning some extra cash, it's just Leah being a bitch again, and why can't you ever do anything without complaining?
The kind of day when the double standards inherent in society are driven home that little bit more because when you point out the discrepancy between what you're allowed to think and what everyone else is allowed to think, the same old fight erupts, so familiar by now you could probably do it in your sleep and so achingly boring that you might just find out for sure when you drift off somewhere between don't drag everyone else down with you just because you can't let it go and don't blame Emily because you can't keep a guy happy. You wake up pretty quick when Sam snaps at all of you to grow up, and the rest of the afternoon passes more or less uneventfully because this time, you resist the urge to ask if the attention span of a moth in a fireworks show is a sign of true maturity.
Finally, the kind of day that sees you heading out to your favourite blues bar in the hopes of finding someone in an even worse mood than you, only to find instead that they're hosting their first annual, totally unprecedented Love Songs Night, so instead of some nice, depressing blues to soothe your wounded spirit, you get to hear a bunch of talentless idiots warbling about the way I feel when I look in his eyes, and watch demonstrations occurring all over the room, and damn it, whoever threw that revolting hot pink and faux leopard print bra at you is not getting it back, unless she wants to fish through the garbage for the scraps and reassemble it herself.
Yes, one of those days.
And, Leah reflected with a grimace as the blonde sidled up to the bar, smiled engagingly, and hopped up onto the barstool next to her, disgustingly pretty and petite, the kind of girl every man loves to have around, to protect and cuddle and keep in his pocket, the last kind of girl she wanted to see right now, it seemed like it was only going to get worse from here.
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It had been one of those days.
The kind that sees you waking up in a cold sweat from a nightmare involving a band of cunning and bloodthirsty bunnies rising to power and enslaving humankind, and reflecting as you wait for the nausea to subside that Elmer Fudd really was one of the great heroes of our day.
The kind where you roll over on your side to impart this wisdom to the other inhabitant of the bed, along with the suggestion that a shotgun might be a good investment, just in case, only to recall in a sickening jolt of desolation that there is no other inhabitant anymore, this isn't even the same bed, which also probably explains the lack of the comfortingly familiar scratch of cracker crumbs scattered among the sheets. There won't be any mad rush today to hammer those last few details into place for the wedding, because the wedding has come and gone, but without the customarily resulting marriage because men are spineless cowards and utterly incapable of honouring a commitment, but even with this undeniable fact shoved in your face, you can't bring yourself to be grateful for your narrow escape, can only hope that this is just one long, drawn out dream sequence that puts even your hostile bunny takeover nightmare to shame.
The kind of day where you drag yourself reluctantly out of bed because you can't expect your life to rebuild itself if you won't take the initiative to pick up a hammer and some two-by-fours (here, you take a moment to curse Xander for getting you stuck on all these construction metaphors), and slog unenthusiastically into work. Retail waits for no woman, halts for no heartbreak, and so you throw yourself into the sale of herbs and books and overpriced New Age trinkets, and totally rework the inventory system, because Giles came up with it, and Giles is a man, and men are useless, so clearly, the existing system will eventually run the store into the ground if you don't do something about it.
The kind of day where you've just fallen into the peaceful rhythms of hard-selling and joyously separating people from their money, when Halfrek barges in unbidden, already running off at the mouth about how D'Hoffryn is very unhappy with your lack of motivation recently, as as your friend she's telling you to shape up and wreak some bloody vengeance before you end up in the middle of a really ugly audit. She's off to the dimension without shrimp, where there's apparently a young lady who desperately needs her help, and she thinks the change of scenery would do you good.
Finally, the kind of day where you follow the screams for vengeance that nearly knocked you on your ass the second you landed here, and find yourself in a run-down blues bar with absolutely awful music (seriously, does blues mean something different here than it does in your dimension? Like, maybe sentimental, formulaic, poorly-done drivel?You've seen meanings get lost in translation before, but never quite like this), perched on a barstool next to a young lady who seems to strongly object to this invasion of her personal space, if her look of pure loathing is any indication.
Yes, one of those days.
But, Anya reflected, grimacing as a pair of leopard print underwear trimmed in hot pink landed over the back of the girl's chair, it probably wasn't the best time to start worrying about personal boundaries, with her job on the line and everything, so she smiled twice as brightly as she turned to her potential client again, attempting to flag down the bartender with one hand.
"Hi, there. You look a little down. Would you like to talk about it over an obscene amount of alcohol? I'm buying."
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"You know what I hate?" Leah demanded approximately two hours, fifteen double Gin and Tonics, and a relocation to a booth away in the back of the bar later.
Anya assumed as deeply sympathetic expression, giving Leah's hand a sympathetic squeeze.
"Sam?" she suggested with a delicate sip at her Scotch - incidentally, a habit she had acquired when she had happened upon Giles's secret stash during a particularly depressing late night at the Magic Box. "I'm getting that sense, what with all the stories about his disgusting and annoying habits that made your breakup a narrow escape."
"Yes! Sam!" Leah nodded emphatically, bringing one hand down on the thick, varnished tabletop. Anya winced slightly as the sound of splintering wood filled the air, and made a mental note to keep on this young lady's good side if she possibly could. The mere thought of what might happen if Miss Clearwater formed an inebriated, man-hating alliance with Buffy sent a distinctly unpleasant shudder through her. Seconds later, the angry expression on the girl's lovely face crumpled into something approaching tears. "No, I love that idiot."
"Emily?" Anya guessed. "It's very common for a woman to transfer onto another woman the seething hatred that rightly belongs to the man."
"Only sometimes." She sighed gustily into her palm, chin propped on her hand. "We were best friends."
Anya nodded. She had vague recollections of this fact coming up in conversation.
"Until she stole your boyfriend."
"She didn't really steal him," Leah objected. "He kind of..." She trailed off, gesturing vaguely. "Kind of...stole himself. Then he ripped off half her face. Now they're engaged."
"It sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me," Anya announced matter-of-factly. "Unless...Sam isn't part Cyprbel demon, is he? Because I think that might be part of the courtship ritual. It's right before the female lays the eggs in the male's mouth and secretes a toxin that will keep him paralyzed until the eggs have hatched and ripped his jaw right off. Most male Cyprbel demons only mate once - the jawless look isn't exactly popular with the ladies."
Leah stared, closer to bewildered than she would ever willingly admit.
"Uh, what?"
"Nothing!" Anya said innocently, inwardly cursing her inborn need to impart useful knowledge whenever the opportunity presented itself. "Just...um, something I saw on the Discovery Channel the other night."
The dark-haired girl nodded hesitantly, then sighed gustily.
"Nope, Sam's just a demon in the sack, according to Emily, according to Sam's mind," the younger girl replied sourly. "Hate him sometimes, too."
"I don't blame you," Anya said sympathetically, opting against trying to untangle this rather bewildering statement. There were, after all, a lot more species of demon out there, and plenty of them had telepathic abilities. The mysterious Sam could easily carry blood from any one of them. "Don't you wish--"
"Imprinting! I hate imprinting!"
Anya blinked.
"Um...you mean, like stamps? Footprints? Printing presses? Societal conditioning?"
"No," Leah replied, waving these ideas off impatiently. "Like, the stupid, fatalistic soulmate bullshit we get shoved down our throats. Just because we turn into giant wolves sometimes, we don't get to pick our own girlfriends? What the hell is that about?"
"Girlfriends?" Anya echoed, wondering if the mysterious Sam might possibly be more of a Samantha than she had imagined. Then, as something else occurred to her, she stared blankly. "Giant wolves?"
"Oh, I didn't tell you about that?"
"No, not--"
"Yeah, we turn into giant wolves sometimes." She frowned. "Wow, I probably shouldn't have told you that." Her frowned deepened further. "Surprised I could tell you. Huh; Sam must have lifted his telling-people ban. Unless you're not human or something," she finished with a snicker.
Anya, in the process of choking over her drink at the giant wolf revelation, gave a shrill, nervous laugh.
"Oh, Leah, you're so silly!"
"Yeah, I'm a real barrel of laughs," she snorted. "That's why they call me Chuckles Clearwater."
Anya surveyed her skeptically.
"They do?"
"Not if they want to keep all their limbs attached."
"Good, because that's the third silliest nickname I've ever heard," Anya announced very seriously, then fell into a decidedly nervous silence. This was what she hated about cross-dimensional jobs - you could never be sure if you really were dealing with some mythological creature, or if it was just the teleportation-lag and the fundamental differences in dimensions playing tricks on you. Particularly when you were on a flying trip, and hadn't had a chance to study the locals long enough to ascertain whether an insanely high tolerance for alcohol and the distinctly...canine sense she got from this young lady was the norm around here, or the result of some fun surprise like this. She was quite certain, though, that if she'd had any idea that this was a case of the latter, she would have left Miss Clearwater to her drinking, despite the undeniable fact that she'd heard the poor thing screaming for revenge from Sunnydale - like, home-Sunnydale.
After all, she hadn't known Oz very long, and her previous experience with werewolves had been surprisingly limited. Therefore, she was still a little fuzzy on just what a werewolf could smell on a person, and whether or not it extended to detecting that subtle aroma of Vengeance Demon Hell-Bent on Bringing Pain and Destruction to Men Everywhere. Particularly when she had all but brought up the idea of not being the only not-entirely-human at the table.
"Wow, giant wolves!" she finally said brightly, and Leah's eyes narrowed warningly.
"You even think about making any flea collar or dog toy jokes, I'll rip your throat out. And steal your wallet. And use your credit card to buy more Scotch."
"I wasn't going to!" Anya protested. "Although, now that you mention it, I have always wondered if those luxury dog beds they make nowadays are any good. Okay, sorry!" she hastened to add as Leah's glare intensified. "So is it a hobby? The giant wolf thing, I mean."
"Nah, it's more like...a really, really crappy job you don't get paid for."
Anya thought of Buffy and her (usually) adamant refusal to charge for her slaying services.
"I think I know what you mean."
"Stupid vampires," Leah said with something remarkably like a pout. "They decide they just have to live the next town over, so my life gets fucked up. Smug, sparkly bastards."
Once again, Anya found herself staring blankly and wracking her brains for any trace of sparkle about the vampires she had been helping to eliminate from Sunnydale for the past two and a half years of her life, and the one that she associated with on a semi-regular basis. From what she could recall from that ill-advised, drunken tabletop adventure, Spike didn't sparkle anywhere. Finally, she raised one hand.
"'Sparkly' in what sense?"
"Sparkly in the...sparkly sense," Leah shrugged. "You know, you get them in direct sunlight and they look like they just took a dip in some body glitter."
Anya stared for a long moment of disbelief.
"Hold on; so, your--I mean, vampires not only don't burst into flames in the sun, but they turn into human disco balls?"
"Human disco balls," Leah snickered. "I like that."
"Well, humanoid disco balls, anyway," Anya amended with a careless wave. She made a mental point to tell Spike at great length what he was missing; not only could he be walking proudly in the sun, but he could also break very successfully into the glam scene with a gimmick like that. He would either be very jealous of these odd, glittery creatures, or he would be extremely relieved to have escaped the same fate. She shook away the errant thought. "So...you help the vampires--"
"No, we don't help them," Leah broke in impatiently, taking her drink directly from the waitress's hand and downing it in one decidedly annoyed gulp before ordering another. The thought occurred to Anya that Giles would either be horrified by this swift consumption of expensive Scotch, or terribly impressed. "We fight them. Well, we're supposed to fight them, but the ones living in Forks don't drink human blood, so we're not allowed to start something until they become a threat. I don't know why we needed to sprout tails and fur in the first place if our hands are tied anyway, but what can you do?"
"Complain incessantly?" Anya suggested helpfully. "That's what I'd do."
"Okay, have you been listening for the last...whatever?" Leah demanded, eyeing the older girl incredulously.
"Of course I have," Anya assured her, giving her hand another squeeze. "And I'm glad, because it sounds like you really needed a sympathetic ear."
"Yeah, bitching makes everything better," Leah agreed with a snicker. "That's why I do it all the , that, and it's either that or actually listen to the guys when I'm stuck in their heads."
Feeling a deep sense of deja vu, Anya stared blankly.
"Stuck in their heads?"
"We can read each other's minds while we're phased. It's another wolf-thing," she added with a vague loopy gesture.
"...Like the soulmate thing?"
"Yeah, but less creepy."
"I'm deeply disturbed that anything could possibly be creepier than having a group of adolescent males roaming around inside your head," Anya said, shuddering. "I have a friend who does that on occasion, and it is definitely creepy. And she's not even an adolescent male!"
"Well, yeah, it's creepy, but it's not as creepy as being brainwashed to fall in love with your perfect genetic match, and roping her into an existence that revolves around popping out the strongest puppies possible to protect the tribe in the next genertion. I mean, the guys are turning into these dopey, co-dependent love zombies one by one, and I'm supposed to accept that it's the pinnacle of happiness? My kid brother has every girl at school chasing after him, and he's terrified to get close to anyone, because he's afraid he's going to break her heart when his perfect soulmate comes around. He got to watch me turn into a raging bitch because Sam left me for my cousin's genetic makeup, and he doesn't want to do that to a girl."
"And...the soulmate thing...is imprinting?" Anya confirmed hesitantly.
Leah sighed gustily.
"Yup. That's imprinting. So I can't even be mad at Sam and Emily, because they're screwing like sex-crazed weasels for the good of the tribe," she finished in a shrill voice that almost certainly sounded nothing like whoever had lectured her on this point, unless helium had been somehow involved. "I know it's not their fault, but sometimes I wish he'd imprint on a frickin' toaster."
As Leah spoke the words she had been waiting for all night, Anya perked up.
"Done!"
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And so it was that, in one cozy little starter home in La Push, one young man attempting to sneak quietly downstairs for a glass of water without waking the light of his life stopped in his tracks, stunned by the image beauty before him.
Those pert, shapely knobs; those slender, delicate heating elements just barely peeping out of those saucy little toast slots; the perfect, beckoning smoothness of the white plastic exterior...
Gazing in awe at the glorious small hosuehold appliance perched on the kitchen counter, Sam Uley felt gravity shift and reallign once again.
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Leah looked at Anya strangely.
"Huh?"
"Um, dumb!" the blonde amended, eyes wide and earnest. "Men are so dumb, I wouldn't put it past them to just sort of randomly start falling in love with kitchen appliances. Because--because they're dumb," she added rather lamely.
"Yup, they sure are," Leah agreed, and Anya sent up a silent prayer of thanks that the mass quantities of alcohol had apparently slowed down her drinking buddy's cognitive processes.
"So, another round?" Anya asked hopefully. Now that the job itself was done, and she still had all her limbs attached and her jugular remained intact, she was free to enjoy herself. And enjoying she was; Miss Clearwater's acerbic sarcasm and bizarre turns of phrase were reminding her achingly of the lousy, scum-sucking male who had run screaming from her own life, and she caught herself wondering if the breakup with Sam had been bad enough to turn Leah towards females.
"Nah, I think I've put a big enough dent in your finances," the aforementioned Leah replied with a snicker. She climbed from the booth and stretched, then turned back to Anya. "So, uh, thanks. This was kind of fun."
"Any time," Anya beamed. Then she frowned. "Well, as long as it's in the next day or two. I'm flying back home on Monday."
"Oh, yeah? Where's home?"
Anya slid out of the booth.
"Sunnydale. Little town in California."
"California. Sweet."
"It is awfully nice, even with the increased supernatural activity and constant risk of dismemberment by various spiky and slimy things," Anya admitted, stopping off at the bar to settle the tab. As they reached the parking lot, something occurred to her. "Do you need a lift home?"
Leah surveyed her in disbelief.
"Are you serious? You drank as much as I did."
Anya inwardly kicked herself.
"I, um, I have an abnormally high tolerance to alcohol. It runs in the family. We're descended from Vikings, and my God, could those people drink! Or so I've heard," she added quickly as Leah peered strangely at her. "I certainly don't know from personal experience, because the Vikings lived a very long time ago. When I say descended, I absolutely do not mean by a single generation, because that would entail being over a thousand years old, and the average human lifespan is only seventy-two years, or seventy-six years without a penis. And while I do not have a penis, seventy-six is still a much smaller number than a thousand no matter how much you've had to drink, and as a completely average human being, even one without a penis, I couldn't possibly be the direct offspring of a nice Viking couple, could I?"
Leah snickered.
"Whatever you say, man. As long as you're not changing your mind about buying, go sack and pillage whatever you want."
"So...is that a yes for the ride?" Anya ventured after several unsuccessful seconds of attempting to trace the conversation back to whether or not Leah had already answered. Apparently, she decided sadly, Viking blood wasn't all it was cracked out to be. Although, as she recalled, much of her village had a hard time keeping track of complex conversation.
"Oh; uh, no thanks. I arranged a ride," Leah replied. Just as soon as I can find a nice, secluded place to get naked, she added to herself, the to herself aspect of which was rather spoiled by the havoc a night of drinking had already wreaked upon her internal monologue.
"I'd offer to let you use my hotel room, but I don't think I'm ready to get naked with someone yet so soon after the breakup," Anya said sadly. "Well, unless the purpose is to make Xander jealous, and he would probably only be annoyed that he missed the chance to capture the event on video."
"I'm not coming onto you!" Leah protested, a faint blush visible through the darkness. "I just don't want to tear all my clothes to shreds, and I can't really take them off here!"
"Oh! In that case, I'd offer to let you use my hotel room, except the hotel has a no-animals policy, and I'm fairly certain that giant wolves count as animals. I suppose I could explain that you're actually my new friend from the bar, but I don't know if they would believe me."
"Nah, probably not," Leah agreed absently, already shrugging out of her jacket. "See you around."
And with that, she was off, nary a hint of unsteadiness in her slow jog, until she attempted to take off her shoes and socks while running, and ended up sprawled across the grass for her trouble.
"What a nice girl," Anya reflected happily as Leah's shouted profanity rang through the chill night air.
With a cheerful wave in her new friend's direction, Anya hopped into her rental car, her mind already busily channel-flipping on the little TV in her hotel room.
After all, she didn't get the chance to visit the dimension without shrimp very often, and she was rather anxious to see if the simple removal of one species of shellfish from the world had any lasting effects on the set-up of American Idol.
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It was approximately twenty minutes later that saw Leah startled from the business of not running headlong into a tree by Seth's voice, verging on frantic.
Leah! Where have you been?
She attempted to sigh gustily, and gave up in despair when a bug flew directly down her throat.
Out. Why?
Well, get back here, quick! There's a problem with Sam!
The smallish grey wolf ducked stealthily between two of the trees lining the highway out of town, and stopped short as the wail of an ambluance grew rapidly louder.
Okay...what kind of problem?
Um... Seth's voice took on a distinctly embarrassed tone.
Yes?
There was a...a kitchen accident. Kind of. They're taking him into the burn unit.
Keeping carefully to the shadows, she watched as the wildly flashing lights of the ambulance grew swiftly nearer, and took a long moment to let this revelation sink in.
Then, for the first time in many a month, Leah smiled in perfect contentment.