For meet_indreams
For the first two days after the whole Sunnydale collapse, I was going completely batty. I wasn't eating bugs or throwing my poo or anything, but I couldn't eat, I didn't feel clean even after running out of hot water in the shower, I had zero interest in going out for mexican with the others ...I couldn't even handle reading. And I really, really wanted to read because 1) we were in LA and there are some really good comic book stores there and 2)-- best alone-time escapism ever (aside from maybe Final Fantasy XI). Xander even took me to a store to cheer me up; I bought four singles ...that are currently still in the bag that I brought them home in three weeks ago.
But, heavenly handshakes, the first two days were the creepiest. I couldn't stop thinking about it. The same ten minutes over and over in my head, even when I was watching TV or listening to Dawn and Willow discuss what they wanted to do next.
The loop in my brain went a little something like this (hit it): in the hallway, I was supposed to be killed by any supervamps that had gotten past the girls at the seal. That was the arrangement. I'm not saying I had my heart set on it or anything, but, I really honestly just knew that they were going to kill me. It was fated, right? I would be torn apart by an ubervamp and then Buffy or maybe one of the new slayers would chop its head off and, later, when everything was over, Anya would tell Xander how I'd served my purpose ...and died trying to do the right thing.
But, when I heard the footsteps coming up the halls behind us, everything got all screwy. Time really does get weird when there is danger. Suddenly there were those gross eyeless bringer guys all over the place and I thought, "How did they know?" Anya was waving her sword around as I cowered behind her. I backed myself into a corner so no one could sneak up on me and before I knew it, dudes who couldn't even see were all up in my face. I could see the curved knife coming at me and I remember that. A knife. I hadn't thought about it, but I think I knew it would be a knife that killed me.
But, I didn't pee my pants like I thought I was going to and my life didn't flash before my eyes like I hoped it would. Thinking that maybe murderers don't get the whole life re-cap, I wasn't surprised when it didn't come. Instead, I saw Anya's sword come through the chest of the guy who was getting ready to stab me; the shock and goriness of it knocked me straight to the ground. She saved me before I could even think about using my own sword. As I realized that, I raised my own sword up ...at the same time that my other attacker lunged at me and impaled himself. I seriously almost laughed. It was like something out of Pumpkinhead. I wanted to tell Anya to check him out, halfway hoping I'd come up with some pithy phrase, but as soon as I glanced at her, I saw the bringer get her from the back. The back that I was supposed to be protecting.
So, yeah. I saw what happened to Anya. My eyes were open, my heart was pounding, and I saw it go down. Her go down. It was horrible, even from the back, even with bringer blood in my eyes. Thank Xavier, I couldn't see her face, because then her expression would have replayed in my head, too. Two days of watching Anya get chopped in half from the back was already driving me bananas, and I had to get it out. I decided to sit Xander down and tell him, because he loved her and he was the only other person, I thought, that might miss her. I don't completely understand why, but he said he didn't want to know any details. He was like "She's dead and it's over." Move on, is what he said, and I don't know if he meant he should, or I should. All I knew is that I couldn't. Not when every time I closed my eyes -- and a lot of times while they were still open -- I saw Anya die again.
Then I spent a couple days wondering if I was in love with Anya. It's not that weird of a thought... she was funny and pretty in a kind of young Lucille Ball way. So, love? Why else would I miss her so much, or feel so bad when I thought about her? It sounds stupid and I'll freely admit that I don't know very much about what love feels like, but if love is feeling an ache in your chest every time you think of someone, or wishing that they were just hanging out in the kitchen, doing something stupid, daily crap like washing carrots -- that's how I felt. Jonathan died because of me. Warren died in spite of me. But Anya died for me. Even if she interrupted my farewell speech, she was the only person who actually cared if I lived or died. All that stuff we talked about her loving humans... she loved me. I get that. She was protecting me. I mean, she was protecting herself, too, but, she went out fighting. Whereas ...I didn't go out at all.
So the question I meant to ask, while riding in the hero bus wasn't so much, "Why didn't I die?" as much as "--instead of Anya."
Anyway, so, screenwipe. I re-watched my documentary and looked at how she looked at Xander, and... I wasn't in love with her. I just loved her. So, long story short, I tried to bring her back. There were precedents, of course. Buffy, for one, but that was different. She'd died a mystical death, so I was kind of on my own with the whole 'death by stabination' thing. And, everyone knew about the Mrs. Summers zombie that almost ruined everything between Buffy and Dawn. No one would help me, probably because I didn't completely tell anyone what I wanted to do. Instead, I went and talked to a shaman and asked about bringing Anya back. On one hand, I was asking about resurrecting a girl who used to be a demon, but she was also a demon, who used to be a girl. Was I looking for a resurrection (which is totally hard and like, way beyond my capabilities)? Or, since the circumstances were different than with a normal ol' human, what about summoning Anyanka?
The shaman told me that the best way would be to maybe combine both. He was very wise and very... whoa. Weird. I don't think I should mention any names, but he's a musician. That used to perform with a sock on his wingding. Yeah. (The short one. Who knew?)
Anyway, I set about it. It was settled, at least in my head. Anya was my hero. And probably the only friend I'd had since Jonathan. Don't get me wrong -- the others were nice enough to me, but, none of them thought much of me, if they thought of me at all. Anya was different. And, after watching her parts of the footage I took at the Summers' house, I pretty much just holed up in my motel room with a pile of Power Bars and I worked on the spells.
But not hard enough, though, apparently. Because it didn't work. I didn't really figure out what parts of the ritual should adhere to the summoning and which should follow the instructions for resurrections. And the whole "blood of the innocent" thing was a complete disaster. I bought a guinea pig from the pet store and they wouldn't let me leave the store without naming it. (Strider.) So, I had to kill a pet, when I was hoping to just kill a little, inconsequential animal. I cried a lot. It's no fun at all to murder a cute little fuzzy woobie and I had a hard time getting enough blood out of him. It. Blood out of it.
In the end, just: crackle, fizzle, pop. No Anya. No Strider. No demon pimpdaddy. No message from the gods or the powers-that-be. Just, nothing. A little blood on my hands and on the hotel towels. Just a mess, but no Anya. Three weeks of working and planning and suffering, and I only wound up with bloodstains and a bad taste in my mouth.
Disappointment tastes funny. And... not 'funny ha-ha.'
But, heavenly handshakes, the first two days were the creepiest. I couldn't stop thinking about it. The same ten minutes over and over in my head, even when I was watching TV or listening to Dawn and Willow discuss what they wanted to do next.
The loop in my brain went a little something like this (hit it): in the hallway, I was supposed to be killed by any supervamps that had gotten past the girls at the seal. That was the arrangement. I'm not saying I had my heart set on it or anything, but, I really honestly just knew that they were going to kill me. It was fated, right? I would be torn apart by an ubervamp and then Buffy or maybe one of the new slayers would chop its head off and, later, when everything was over, Anya would tell Xander how I'd served my purpose ...and died trying to do the right thing.
But, when I heard the footsteps coming up the halls behind us, everything got all screwy. Time really does get weird when there is danger. Suddenly there were those gross eyeless bringer guys all over the place and I thought, "How did they know?" Anya was waving her sword around as I cowered behind her. I backed myself into a corner so no one could sneak up on me and before I knew it, dudes who couldn't even see were all up in my face. I could see the curved knife coming at me and I remember that. A knife. I hadn't thought about it, but I think I knew it would be a knife that killed me.
But, I didn't pee my pants like I thought I was going to and my life didn't flash before my eyes like I hoped it would. Thinking that maybe murderers don't get the whole life re-cap, I wasn't surprised when it didn't come. Instead, I saw Anya's sword come through the chest of the guy who was getting ready to stab me; the shock and goriness of it knocked me straight to the ground. She saved me before I could even think about using my own sword. As I realized that, I raised my own sword up ...at the same time that my other attacker lunged at me and impaled himself. I seriously almost laughed. It was like something out of Pumpkinhead. I wanted to tell Anya to check him out, halfway hoping I'd come up with some pithy phrase, but as soon as I glanced at her, I saw the bringer get her from the back. The back that I was supposed to be protecting.
So, yeah. I saw what happened to Anya. My eyes were open, my heart was pounding, and I saw it go down. Her go down. It was horrible, even from the back, even with bringer blood in my eyes. Thank Xavier, I couldn't see her face, because then her expression would have replayed in my head, too. Two days of watching Anya get chopped in half from the back was already driving me bananas, and I had to get it out. I decided to sit Xander down and tell him, because he loved her and he was the only other person, I thought, that might miss her. I don't completely understand why, but he said he didn't want to know any details. He was like "She's dead and it's over." Move on, is what he said, and I don't know if he meant he should, or I should. All I knew is that I couldn't. Not when every time I closed my eyes -- and a lot of times while they were still open -- I saw Anya die again.
Then I spent a couple days wondering if I was in love with Anya. It's not that weird of a thought... she was funny and pretty in a kind of young Lucille Ball way. So, love? Why else would I miss her so much, or feel so bad when I thought about her? It sounds stupid and I'll freely admit that I don't know very much about what love feels like, but if love is feeling an ache in your chest every time you think of someone, or wishing that they were just hanging out in the kitchen, doing something stupid, daily crap like washing carrots -- that's how I felt. Jonathan died because of me. Warren died in spite of me. But Anya died for me. Even if she interrupted my farewell speech, she was the only person who actually cared if I lived or died. All that stuff we talked about her loving humans... she loved me. I get that. She was protecting me. I mean, she was protecting herself, too, but, she went out fighting. Whereas ...I didn't go out at all.
So the question I meant to ask, while riding in the hero bus wasn't so much, "Why didn't I die?" as much as "--instead of Anya."
Anyway, so, screenwipe. I re-watched my documentary and looked at how she looked at Xander, and... I wasn't in love with her. I just loved her. So, long story short, I tried to bring her back. There were precedents, of course. Buffy, for one, but that was different. She'd died a mystical death, so I was kind of on my own with the whole 'death by stabination' thing. And, everyone knew about the Mrs. Summers zombie that almost ruined everything between Buffy and Dawn. No one would help me, probably because I didn't completely tell anyone what I wanted to do. Instead, I went and talked to a shaman and asked about bringing Anya back. On one hand, I was asking about resurrecting a girl who used to be a demon, but she was also a demon, who used to be a girl. Was I looking for a resurrection (which is totally hard and like, way beyond my capabilities)? Or, since the circumstances were different than with a normal ol' human, what about summoning Anyanka?
The shaman told me that the best way would be to maybe combine both. He was very wise and very... whoa. Weird. I don't think I should mention any names, but he's a musician. That used to perform with a sock on his wingding. Yeah. (The short one. Who knew?)
Anyway, I set about it. It was settled, at least in my head. Anya was my hero. And probably the only friend I'd had since Jonathan. Don't get me wrong -- the others were nice enough to me, but, none of them thought much of me, if they thought of me at all. Anya was different. And, after watching her parts of the footage I took at the Summers' house, I pretty much just holed up in my motel room with a pile of Power Bars and I worked on the spells.
But not hard enough, though, apparently. Because it didn't work. I didn't really figure out what parts of the ritual should adhere to the summoning and which should follow the instructions for resurrections. And the whole "blood of the innocent" thing was a complete disaster. I bought a guinea pig from the pet store and they wouldn't let me leave the store without naming it. (Strider.) So, I had to kill a pet, when I was hoping to just kill a little, inconsequential animal. I cried a lot. It's no fun at all to murder a cute little fuzzy woobie and I had a hard time getting enough blood out of him. It. Blood out of it.
In the end, just: crackle, fizzle, pop. No Anya. No Strider. No demon pimpdaddy. No message from the gods or the powers-that-be. Just, nothing. A little blood on my hands and on the hotel towels. Just a mess, but no Anya. Three weeks of working and planning and suffering, and I only wound up with bloodstains and a bad taste in my mouth.
Disappointment tastes funny. And... not 'funny ha-ha.'