"I never really understood the reasoning behind shaping hearts like this," said Anya, holding up a heart-shaped doily before taping it to the Magic Box counter. Xander gave her a funny look, and she elaborated, "It's not anatomically accurate. It would probably be more romantic if it was anatomically accurate, because it would be an adequate representation of what's inside your chest. So giving this to someone would mean giving them your heart in a slightly more literal sense."
"Ahn, it's a human thing," Xander replied with an affectionately condescending smile as he hurried past to start on stringing up heart-shaped lights.
Anya didn't mind it when he said things like that. She really didn't. He had a point, after all. She wasn't human, and she hadn't been human in a very long time, which was why she needed Xander to steer her in the right direction.
Her demon self (the one with the wisdom, the one that understood women and their pain) was something she'd discarded and ignored, because that's what Xander had done, and Xander was better at being normal and human than any of the other Scoobies. Giles and Willow and Tara were magic dabblers, and Buffy was a superhuman, and Spike was a vampire, and Xander was just your average Joe, which wasn't something Anya had quite a lot of experience with.
And if this thing with Xander didn't work out (she'd seen plenty of perfectly wonderful relationships fall apart in an awful, bloody mess), she had to know how to make the average Joes like her. Because without Xander, there would be no Scoobies. Being tactless didn't make Anya an idiot; she saw Giles's little eye rolls and heard Willow's muttered comments to Buffy. They wouldn't put up with her for longer than a few months before she would start getting left out of discussions—that is, assuming that she even came to Scooby meetings anymore.
Anya sometimes felt a little jealous of Spike, because the Scoobies were very up-front about the way they felt about him. It was always "go away, Spike" or "you're an evil demon, Spike" and when he'd try to defend himself, someone (Xander) would say something like "Once a demon, always a demon."
She suspected that they'd forgotten that she was a demon. They didn't treat her like they would Anyanka, patron saint of scorned woman, observer of a thousand years of human history. They treated her like ditzy, rude, pesky Anya, Magic Box employee and Xander's fiancée.
She hadn't always been human, but she had a pretty face and she gave Xander nice hugs and she hadn't tried to kill one of them, so she fit the Scooby bill.
She didn't know if she liked fitting the Scooby bill. Xander listened to what she had to say sometimes, usually when they were alone, but around his friends and in public he treated her like either an annoyance or a pet that had to be patted on the head to keep it happy.
"Hey, you okay?" she heard Xander ask, and then she felt his fingertips on her chin, gently lifting her face up to look him in the eye. "What's going down in Anya-town?" Dark, warm eyes, fluffy dark hair, smile sugar-sweet and playful. Everything about him made Anya feel like she'd eaten too much candy, like she should have just stopped earlier when it was still good.
"I'm fine," Anya replied, and forced a smile, which was enough for Xander to give her a quick peck before heading back to work on decorating the shop.
God, she was a moron. Seeing flaws in Xander, who was wonderful and good and probably the best she was going to get.
Still a man, though.
"Once a demon, always a demon," she mumbled to herself, and taped down another doily.