Chapter Text
One minute, she was swinging her legs over the edge of a desk in Arashmaharr, belonging to some low-level demon she had been flirting with for the better part of a morning, and the next moment, she was back up on Earth, flung head-first into, what she assumed to be, some marital spat.
The air was warm, stifling, almost, in its smoky sweetness. Sugar and gasoline, and the faint aroma of grease. The population was higher than that of Sunnydale, she could tell that much by the barely audible chatter from every direction. Probably twice the amount of humans. Demons? She couldn’t yet tell. Plenty of men, though, and that was more or less the same thing.
It was distinct, in a way most small cities in the Midwest weren’t, plagued by a constant, vaguely pink ambiance of pollution, drifting in with the cool breeze.
The Midwest part was obvious enough, something she had learned to distinguish in the early 20th century, when the term had only just become widely established, but, usually, it took her a good few hours to pinpoint which state, much less which specific city. Maybe she just lucked out, returning to a place she had visited before.
Pawnee, Indiana. First in Friendship, Fifth in Obesity. Probably fourth, by now, Anya thought to herself. Not important.
What was important was her job, her way of life, once upon a time.
Vengeance.
Someone in Pawnee needed it, apparently, and Anya was more than ecstatic to deliver her worst to some snivelling man-child. Or, maybe, she would be delivering her absolute best, thank you very much — but that was all dependent on perspective.
Vengeance was in her blood, had been for millenia, would be until the day she died. It was such a fundamental part of her life, that, when D’Hoffryn had offered to reinstate her former role in the good ol’ vengeance gig, following the nightmarish failure that was her wedding, she pounced at the opportunity, and being back in the game, well, it felt right. Anyanka-Anya-Aud was vengeance.
She was still a little rusty, clearly, if the lack of yelling within her direct earshot was anything to go off of. There wasn’t any screaming nearby, nor were there mysterious flying objects, hurled at her head, or those shaky, body-wracking sobs she was used to.
Leaves crunched beneath her feet as she made her way through empty, darkened streets. The leaves, once vibrant yellows and oranges, were trampled into muddy browns by the soles of her kitten heels.
Oh, how she wished D’Hoffryn would give her a heads up once in a while, wished he would allow her to change into something more seasonally appropriate. Yes, she was a demon, but she still felt cold, okay? And Pawnee was cold, damn it!
Still, she trudged on, wrapping the sequined scarf around her neck a little more, covering up her goosebump littered skin. Maybe she would put in a complaint with Vengeance L.L.C. when she returned to Arashmaharr, begging for a little more of her former power, just enough to allow her to change outfit at will.
She almost missed it, too busy pulling her short sleeves down her arms to notice the noise. That noise, so familiar and distinct from every other noise that bombarded her at all times.
Being a vengeance demon was kinda like being Spiderman, she liked to think, because, much like the fictional superhero (that she had only recently heard of, thanks to Xander’s nerdy interest in comic books), she also got a strange tingling sensation when she neared her summoner. Not that kind of tingling sensation, no, but her body did similarly feel electric with each step closer.
It was as if she was jolted and shocked by an electric fence, just minus the electrocution and the burning, and all of that gross stuff, and with the addition of a magnetic pull to the source. She had no choice but to follow, drawing nearer to a nice house. The noise was more audible, then, loud enough to make out the odd word amidst the chaos within.
“April……….I……is boring…” a voice whined. It was distinctly male, likely her target, and he spoke a name, April, Anya thought, the woman scorned. She walked closer, making her way up the long driveway until she stood outside of the door. Realistically, a window would be the better choice, but something about the element of surprise, and the act of holding herself in suspense until she had enough context, was appealing, especially in her second stint as a demon.
“Andy, you can’t just quit your job,” a woman said, her voice raised slightly and her tone strained with a hint of stress. “We have rent to pay, and bills. I can’t go back to shouldering all of our finances again.”
She, April, Anya corrected internally, sounded desperate and tired, as if fighting a battle she had already soldiered through time and time again, trapped in those well-worn trenches as he loomed above, never backing down, never seeing her side.
“I have a plan!” the male voice, Andy, insisted. “I’ll go back to shining shoes, we’ll be fine.”
“Shoe shining isn’t a |plan, babe. Shoe shining doesn’t pay nearly enough to make ends meet. What happens if we break up some day, and all you have is a shoe shiner’s salary, which won’t cover rent anywhere, let alone on this place. What will you do, then?”
“You’re gonna break up with me?” Andy asked, voice rising in pitch. Anya couldn’t yet see him, but, God, he sounded like a pathetic creature. A kicked puppy, almost. She rolled her eyes, and pressed her ear to the wooden door.
“I’m–” The woman cut herself off and sighed. “That’s not what I’m saying. But babe, you, we need to be realistic. It’s lame, having to spend everything I own on bills, and we won’t get to do fun stuff anymore.”
Definitely a puppy. Maybe April would wish for him to become a dog. Anya hoped she would, at least. She really wanted to watch a man-dog hybrid scampering around on all fours as he chased after a frisbee, penis-tail wagging. It had been a few decades since she had the privilege of seeing anything that fun.
“If you’re gonna quit, you need something else lined up, Andy,” she sighed once more, and Anya rolled her eyes from the other side of the door. Men suck. “Something real.”
“Shoe shining, though?”
“Shoe shining, no,” April murmured. A door somewhere inside of the house closed with a muffled Bang!, and Anya took that as her cue to finally knock.
She knocked once, twice, then waited. Anya was not a very patient woman, and, as she stood there shivering, she let out a huff of air, watching the burst of steam as it dissipated into the cold air around her head. Another knock, and the door swung open.
A man stood before her, tall and blonde-ish, with unshaven stubble and a bright smile. Definitely, definitely a puppy.
“Hi!” Anya greeted, forcing a smile as she stared past him, trying to get a good look into the home. “I’m Anya Jenkins, I’m here to see April, is she in?”
Andy nodded, then turned. “Babe, someone’s here to see you, says her name’s Anya Jenkins.”
“Ann’s here?” April yelled back, voice muffled through the closed bathroom door. “We were meant to meet at JJ’s in, like, three hours?”
Andy laughed as he turned back to Anya. “She thinks you’re Ann. That’s funny.”
“Who’s Ann?” Anya asked, looking at him with big, brown eyes.
“My ex-girlfriend, and April’s… enemy friend? I don’t know what they are. They hate each other. Well, April says she hates Ann, and Ann likes April, and she knows April hates her, but they hang out sometimes.”
“Oh,” she nodded. “That’s weird. Can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure!” Andy nodded as he took a step back, allowing Anya to enter before he closed the door. It slammed, and Anya jumped slightly, then composed herself. “So, this is mi hombre su casa,” he said with a grin, and Anya didn’t correct him.
Leading her further inside, he narrated each part of the living room, clearly under some false assumption that Anya cared in the slightest. “This is where Champion sleeps, but he’s with Chris right now,” he gestured to the couch, decorated with mismatched pillows. “Sometimes I think he likes Chris more than he likes me, but I know he doesn’t. He has three legs, that’s pretty cool, right? That’s why we kept him.” Anya nodded. Who the fuck is Champion? “And this is my frisbee, well, not anymore. It’s Champion’s frisbee now, but it was mine. We used it as a plate for like, a year and a half, which is cute, right?”
“Oh,” Anya murmured as she looked around. At least the frisbee would be useful later, if she got her own way. “That’s… Both of you used it?”
“Yeah! We passed it between us. And, this is even better, trust me, we only had one fork for ages, so we swapped that, too.”
April came out of the bathroom, then, hair pulled up into a loose ponytail. Anya could see the pain just ooze out of her, like a strawberry-blood-jelly filled doughnut. Anya nodded, and offered her a small smile, a silent hello of sorts. April’s gaze flicked to Anya for just a moment, before returning to glare at Andy, like she was trying to wish him out of existence right then and there.
“Well… I’ll… go somewhere. Can we talk later?” he asked, practically batting his eyelashes at his wife. Anya made a mental note to ask him which brand of eyelash serum he used before she ripped him limb from limb and displayed his guts across the lawn, strewn amidst the grass for all to see.
April sighed. “Whatever.”
Andy looked like he had just been kicked. He turned to Anya, and murmured, “Hey, good meeting you, Girl.” He absolutely did not remember her name. He looked back at April, all six foot something of him exuding the general likeness of a pathetic wet rag.
April tried to remain stoic, to show no emotion on her expressive face, but each ooze of pain spilled faster, seeping through her skin, out of her eye sockets, down her face. Anya was more than ready to make that stupid man suffer to great lengths.
After what must have been at least twenty minutes of silent puppy-dog staring and death glares, Andy left the room, his metaphorical (for the time being) tail tucked between his legs.
“Wow!” Anya said, chortling.
April scratched her neck. “Yeah.” She pressed her back up against the wall. Next to her, a photo hung, crooked on its misaligned nail. It depicted a couple, standing by a tree, in what Anya assumed to be a park. Likely, given Pawnee’s apparent obsession with parks. You get a park, you get a park, you get a park, you get a park, you get a park, you… get a park, you get a park. Everybody gets a damn park!
She needed to watch way less Oprah in her off-time.
April had on a hoodie, mustard yellow to compliment the oozing, red pain that dripped from her nose. Just a drop of it, back then, nothing like it was as she stood before the demon in that very moment. She wore blue jeans, scuffed and faded around the knees, and a wicked smile that almost reached her eyes, before falling atoms short and fading away. Her idiot husband had his long, thick man arms around her waist, and he was pressing a kiss to her forehead. A large rat sat by their side.
“So… you’re not Ann.” Anya nodded her head in agreement. “How do I know you, then?”
“You summoned me,” Anya said immediately, as if an unconscious reaction. Shit, I’m not supposed to say that. She forgot how difficult aliases were. I’m a Pawnee-on. More sugar please! Check out my warts. Fuck it, that character was out the window. Surely, ‘Sunnydale Anya’ would work just as fine.
“Yeah? How?” April asked. Anya just made a gesture towards April’s entire being. “Ah.”
“Are you gonna offer me a drink?”
April stood staring for a moment, before saying, “Bag of blood? You’d have to pay the going blood bank rate, though.”
“Ohhh, pricey! Not in this economy, the company card doesn’t cover systemic extortion these days. How about a margarita?”
“We’ve got the mix but not much of the other stuff,” she shrugged, almost apologetically.
“Oh. That’s okay!” Anya said cheerily, trying to pretend that she wasn’t at least a little disappointed. Flirting with demons all day can really dry a gal out. She practically skipped round to the sofa, plummeting down onto it, with a huff.
“Make yourself at home,” April said, monotonously, not that it was any change from the already monotonous manner in which she had said most things thus far. She walked over to one of the chairs diagonal from Anya, standing behind it, leaning over the back with her hands planted firmly at the top.
“Oh no, I’m not planning on staying. I’m actually working right now. You know, people to see, men to turn inside out by their bowels.” She took off her scarf, flipping the pink sequins back and forth with the tips of her fingers.
“Did someone send you?” April asked, somewhat accusatory, she wasn’t expecting it. April just came across as the type of person that didn’t really give a hoot. “Did someone tell you I like freaky shit?”
“No. You summoned me.” Anya’s eyes traced the reaction on April’s face, she didn’t give much away. Anya continued, “I mean, If anything, you sent me. You have a very short memory, probably from being with that Andy guy.”
“You are a demon woman from hell.”
“Sweden, actually! Good guess, though.”
There was the reaction. “Dude, what?” April said, certainly baffled.
“I heard your call in the night. Like an owl, or a crow. Hoot-hoot. Cacaw!” Anya replied, imitating both the owl and the crow to absolute perfection. You spend over a thousand years with these guys and you get pretty damn good at impressions.
“You make weirdly good bird noises, are you a bird in a human suit?” April asked as she walked around to the other side of the chair to sit down, slumping back and kicking her feet up on the coffee table. She crossed her arms, probably to show that she was still not opening up, despite Anya’s cheery, nice, very welcoming demeanour that she had really improved on since working at The Magic Box. Retail work certainly had its perks.
“No. Demon. Vengeance demon.” Anya talked low, and out of the side of her mouth, “I’m not really supposed to say this but if you wish for something I might be able to make your dreams come true.”
April took a few seconds to process, humans tended to do that. “What are you, a fucking genie?”
“Demon! Vengeance! Vengeance Demon!” Anya huffed.
“OK, dude, awesome,” April said, genuinely.
“Correct!”
“I thought demons were like, all dark and spooky, with seven heads and eighty-five fingers, and a flaming pitchfork aimed at my asshole?”
“Sorry to disappoint. Some of us are like that, in a way, but not me. I’m just a plain old vengeance sort, nothing special,” she paused, pursing her lips for a moment. “Except when I do this.” A grin spread across her face as her skin stretched and reshaped itself over her skull, forming her demon face, as humans liked to refer to it.
April narrowed her eyes at Anya. “Lame. You don’t even have horns.”
“Well, doubly sorry to disappoint.”
They fell into a tense silence, neither woman speaking as they moved from their respective spots and settled side by side on the couch. It was littered in short hairs, probably from that oversized rat in the photograph, Champion. At least she knew Champion wasn’t a rabbit, that was a weight off her very overburdened shoulders.
They sat there, tension simmering between them, as some nature documentary played on the television. Elk, or something. Anya remembered those from her time in Colorado (not that she saw much elk during that time. She was there for blood, not cute, giant animal sightings).
TV was kinda boring when it wasn’t a bunch of people screaming, or a charismatic woman in very little clothing describing how to use a product. Infomercials were Anya’s favourite, by far —- they followed a very innovative business model! Maybe April would let her put on some infomercials, rather than dull elk breeding habits.
Probably not.
April didn’t seem the type to enjoy business talk, Anya noted.
The silence stretched on, and on, and on, right into mid-afternoon, when April finally looked at her.
“Come on, I have to go meet Ann,” April murmured as she got up from the couch, sliding her glass across the table until it teetered on the very edge. Anya followed suit, exiting through the door she had entered over two hours beforehand.
She missed the good old days, where a woman would simply wish their pathetic excuse for a partner out of existence, or request a fate that killed a man slowly, painfully, and brutally as she stood by and watched. Those were fun times, where she didn’t have to open up a girl, peeling back petal after petal after damn fucking petal to get to the core of her desires.
She was not patient, and April was, perhaps, her toughest cause to date. She was built up like a stone fortress, manned by cannoned remarks and swift arrows of information that flew by before Anya could even begin to make sense of them.
Anya waited as April unlocked her car, she wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, but she was definitely waiting. It was going to be make or break from here on out. She could not go back to Arashmaharr, to D’hoffryn, with another failed vengeance mission. So, truthfully, she hoped that this was not the end of their night. Her ego could not take another blow.
She was on the verge of praying, just two more hours at least with this stranger, maybe she could regain some semblance of respect and reputation. If she would just help her out.
“Are you getting in the car?” April asked, dragging Anya out of her own head.
“You want me to come with you? To meet your enemy friend?” she replied, head tilted. Huh, she thought. Maybe I’m further through those defences than I thought. No miracles needed.
“Well, I don’t want to come home to a dead husband,” she paused, contemplative. Anya watched as more pain oozed from her pores, souring her mood as she took a seat in the driver’s seat. “And she isn’t my friend. Or my enemy. She’s just… Ann. Now, get in, demon.”
The drive was tense. Anya fidgeted with her scarf, firmly wrapped around her throat once more. The sequins scratched at her skin, peppering the pale expanse in tiny, red marks of irritation.
They pulled into the parking lot, the yellow glow of the giant diner sign out front shone off the wet asphalt. They got out of the car, Anya’s heels hitting the yellow hue with a small splash. As they walked to the door to the small building, Anya giggled to herself. If that sign was any brighter we’d look like The Simpsons, she thought. April looked back at her, brows furrowed.
JJ’s Diner was about as quaint as Anya had expected it to be, and, in a way, it kinda reminded her of Sunnydale, but with a severe deficiency of the dried blood stains that littered almost every Sunnydale surface, and even less Southern Californian sun. She followed April, led to a booth towards the back of the establishment, where a cheerful, freckled woman waved them over. She was a few years older than April, evident by the slight lines around her eyes.
Or, maybe, she had a really terrible husband at home, those terrible men tended to age a woman faster than time ever could.
“Hey,” April murmured as she sat down opposite the woman. Anya paused for a moment, waiting to see if April would move further over, which, to Anya’s dismay, she did not. She shrugged and slid into the other side, next to the perky woman. “That’s Anya.”
“Hi, Anya,” the woman smiled at her, almost shy, but not quite. “April didn’t tell me she was bringing a friend today. I’m Ann, by the way.”
“Oh, April isn’t my friend,” Anya grinned back. “She summoned me.” She already let it slip, so, screw it to Arashmaharr, she thought. May as well reveal it to every other woman. I can always just say I’m networking, if D’Hoffryn catches wind.
“Like… she called a hooker, summoned you, or…?”
“She’s a demon, or something,” April murmured, head resting on her hands. She looked sad, Anya noticed. No shit, Aud. “Which would be sorta cool if I did summon her, but I didn’t summon her, she just appeared.”
“You summoned me, April. I don’t just appear unless someone needs me.”
Ann looked between the two, as if both of them had suddenly sprouted a second face. Anya could see April’s singular face, and certainly hoped she hadn’t grown a second one herself. She was a vengeance demon, not a Bifröus. Although, in all honesty, the whole seeing into the past and future thing Bifröus had going on would certainly be beneficial.
“What does summoning you entail, exactly?” Ann asked, studying Anya as she shuffled away marginally. “A… a spell? A sacrifice?”
“A blood ritual,” Anya grinned, basking in the horrified glance Ann sent in her direction, before the nurse stared at April, wide eyed.
“See, I told you I didn’t summon her, I do some weird shit, but blood rituals are lame,” April murmured, rolling her eyes. “She just spawned on my doorstep, Ann, it was so creepy.”
“Wow, rude!” the demon gasped, hand over her heart. “I didn’t spawn on your doorstep, first of all. I spawned about 10 minutes away from your home, which is very nice, by the way, and very much wasted on the man-dog you insist on keeping inside of it. Second, the blood ritual was a joke. Demons make jokes, you know?”
“Ha, ha. Funny,” the youngest of the trio drawled as an aged man, that Anya assumed to be JJ, set three coffees on the table. “How’d I spawn you, then, demon Anya?”
“You were upset. Scorned, even. And I, Anyanka, Patron Saint of Women Scorned, have a sixth sense for that kind of suffering.”
“That… is a mouthful,” Ann whispered as she turned back to Anya.
“Thought your name was Anya?” April added.
“It is. Kind of,” she shrugged. “I was born Aud of Sjornjost, I was demonised as Anyanka, and my… I guess my human name is Anya. Well, Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins.”
“Two middle names… Greed’s a sin, you know.”
Anya looked at April, brows furrowed. “Is that not normal?”
April was in the middle of taking a sip of her drink, Anya hadn’t noticed that she even ordered a drink until now, time was weird. It wasn’t too long ‘til she answered the question. “I only have one middle name, Ann only has one middle name, so statistically…”
“What’s your middle name?” Anya asked, leaning across the table, syrup-sticky under bare arms. It was a disgusting sensation, but she didn’t move away from it, just kept her eyes on April, silently willing the human to give her something to work with.
“I’m not telling you.” Fucking impenetrable.
Anya shrugged, sipping her drink, woah she had a drink too, chocolatey. “I’ll just read your file when I’m back at the office?”
“Demons have offices?” Ann spluttered, almost choking on her coffee.
“I have a job, of course I have an office,” she replied, as if the most obvious, sensible thing she had ever said. “Where else would I work, if not in an office?”
“Satan’s butt.”
“Wait,” Ann said, looking between the two women before her. “You said you’re summoned by scorned women?” Anya nodded at her, watching the gears as they turned in Ann’s head, occasionally sticking and jamming. “April is… your scorned woman?”
“Yes,” she replied, gaze flitting to April briefly, before she turned back to Ann. “It was definitely April, the one to summon me.”
“So, that means… Is something up with Andy?”
April just ducked her head, averting her gaze as she rolled her eyes. The demon watched as more of that gloopy, oozing pain seeped through the fabric of her tank top, staining crimson over her heart.
“April,” Ann whispered, cogs fully in motion as she studied the younger woman. Concern seated itself firmly across Ann’s features, her eyes wide and worried, brows furrowed slightly. Anya watched her, watching April, watched the lines on her face deepen, then smooth out again when April sat up slightly.
“We had a fight, it’s nothing.”
“How much of a scorned woman does it take to summon you, Anya?”
“Oh, quite a lot,” Anya beamed, then schooled her expression at Ann’s narrowed eyes. Not the time, she thought. “Uh, well, usually, it’s a cheating husband, or just… a really terrible guy, you know? The kind of people who deserve a little demon wrath to balance the scales.”
“Is Andy cheating?”
“No,” April muttered, turning to face Ann fully. “We’re fighting over jobs. I don’t know why she’s even here, it isn’t that big of a deal.” She gestured to Anya in disdain, and Anya would have taken offence, if it wasn’t for the hollow void behind those brown eyes, her pain ooze unknowingly on full display to the demon.
Ann listened silently, not badgering her to open up, or asking questions. She simply let her speak. Huh, Anya thought, studying the pair.
“He wants to quit being Leslie’s assistant. He thinks it’s too boring, or something, and I would support him in quitting if he had any kinda plan, but he’s being lame about it. He wants to go back to shoe shining, which makes nowhere near enough for us to live like we have been.” She looked at Ann as if she held every answer, every solution to every issue in the universe. Huh… “And, fuck, man, I don’t know. I want him to be happy, but what makes him happy makes me miserable, and he’s too much of a kid to compromise in any way.”
“Men suck!” Anya groaned. Both women nodded in agreement. “We should just… become nuns, or something. Or I’ll keep doing this vengeance demon thing until all the men are dead and gone, and Earth is just a lesbian Eden.”
April’s eyes fixed once again on her mug, and, with all the seriousness she could muster, she said, “You’d make a really hot nun.”
“I know.”
“He won’t change,” Ann said, voice gentle. She peered at April as if she was looking deep into her soul, as if she could see the same pain Anya saw. “He won’t. I know you want him to, so did I when he was with me, but he won’t. He’s a thirty-one year old kid. He’s immature and selfish without even realising it, and you can’t change him, April.”
“Well,” Anya murmured, a little louder than she had intended, if the stares were anything to go by.
“What do you mean ‘Well’?”
“I did tell you my secret,” she shrugged, looking at April. “You know, that thing that I’m contractually not allowed to tell people.”
“Oh,” April replied. Her eyes widened after a moment. “Oh!”
“So you want to get into it? Deets, disfigurements, deaths, darkness, disposal. All that jazz?”
“Yes,” April said as she leaned in, showing more enthusiasm than Ann had ever seen her show before. “I want to hear everything.”
“I’m not sure I like where this is going,” Ann countered, bracing herself in anticipation.
“I’ve got some gnarly medical marvels that you may enjoy. I don’t exactly have a menu though, so you ask, and I’ll tell.”
“So, how many men have you forced to vomit out their guts, and entrails, and stuff?” A jolt of pure joy appeared on April’s face as she asked the question. This was starting to cheer her up and Anya hadn’t even replaced the guy’s food with kibble yet.
“At least 350.”
“Sweet.”
Ann nodded slowly, processing the images as they flashed through her mind at rapid speed. Anya smiled brightly as she patted Ann’s knee. She didn’t want to freak Ann out, she seemed nice, and, in another life, Anya could imagine them having a very nice, boring friendship.
“Now, tell me more about these giant worms.” Anya wasn’t sure how April knew about that but the question still needed to be answered and she was more than happy to do so.
“Well, I have a lot of power when people wish for shit.”
“Awesome. How big are they? Do they rip people in half? What are their faces like? Do they have faces?” April’s questioning was persistent, like an excitable child on Christmas, which was such a juxtaposition from the dejected woman Anya had been acquainted with earlier that day. It was nice, seeing her so engaged, so distracted from that pain that bubbled inside of her and seeped out steadily.
“Fucking huge,” Anya said, a grin firmly planted on her face as she spoke. She loved talking about giant demon worms. “They can, or in, like, quarters or eighths, even sixteenths, I think? I haven’t seen sixteenths in a few centuries, though, so maybe that was a one off. Lots of teeth, eyeless.”
“Nostrils?”
Anya nodded enthusiastically.
Ann piped up, eyes widened with a blend of curiosity and disgust. “Can they go to the bathroom, or would they need a catheter fitted?”
“Absorbtion, excretion, yada-yada, one with the earth, and all that. You get the gist. Giant worms are like, total, penis-less hippies! Or at least the demon ones are.”
Ann, still in a not entirely distinguishable state of emotion, smiled? Frowned? Looked? She was pleased in an oddly sweet way. “Cool. Makes my job easier… sorta.”
“Yeah! Aww.”
“Do you get to catheterise giant worms often, Ann?” April asked, head tilted in amusement. Then, she paused for a second, her face falling back to a carefully crafted mask of neutrality. “Do I have to wish for painful shit?”
“No,” Anya said. “You can ask for whatever you want, more or less.”
April took a second to think it over, both Ann and Anya looked at her, back at each other, then at her again. The anticipation was tangible. April took a deep breath and let out a long sigh, “I wish I had a mature, stable and reliable partner.”