for want of a dream
Anya likes things just so.
She likes her partner to be malleable, to be easily bent to her whims. She needs to know that, at the end of the day, she is the one who could walk away and not have a care in this world.
Anya cannot figure out where she went wrong because Buffy is none of those things. Buffy does not bend, not even with Anya's best tricks applied to the situation. No clever words, offers of power, or wishes fulfilled affect her. No revenge scenarios, whether amusing or apocalyptic, sway her to Anya's way of thinking. There is no allure in what Anya can offer that will seduce Buffy to her arms, to her bed.
It's damned frustrating. It's driving Anya to the brink of madness. She has never felt so angry and tense and worked up in her life. She has also never been quite so deeply enamored of any other creature in her life. Buffy is the only thing Anya can think about, and it fills her every waking moment. She stares, without apology, whenever Buffy is in the same room, taking in each movement and memorizing the way Buffy's body moves.
At night, Anya's mind replays those well-memorized movements and applies them to much more entertaining images. Buffy naked, skin gleaming as she lies on Anya's sheets, her arms lifting to pull Anya closer. Strong limbs wrap around Anya's own, and she breathes in deeply, shivering from the musky sweet scent of Buffy's body, heated and eager. Anya wakes each time to find herself slick with sweat, panting on the other side of a climax that is more powerful than anything she has experienced with any other lover. And it is no wonder, she thinks to herself as she touches her own tender flesh. Buffy would know better than any man how to make a woman's body come to life in every way.
It never fails to give Anya the little extra thrill she needs to touch herself again, still trembling from her dream orgasm, and bring on another just as hard. Her fingers caress tight nipples, slide over slippery wet folds between her thighs, and Anya moans her dream lover's name into the empty room as she comes.
Weeks pass with no change. She dresses in her prettiest clothes, she offers helpful suggestion when they are all together, trying to fight whatever demon or beast has crawled into town. She finds herself almost breathless when Buffy looks at her and nods, acknowledging that she has seen Anya and accepted something from her.
She is becoming the very thing she despises - a woman obsessed with someone who will not love her the way she needs to be loved.
She seeks help when she can finally bring herself to admit that she's in over her head. Anya chants for hours until D'Hoffryn appears to her. She humiliates herself when she begs for him to grant her a wish of her own and feels worse still when she sees the pity in his eyes.
"You were my best and my brightest," he tells her and reaches out to pat her head. "Now look at you. You've become one of those women who wish away the world to satisfy their own desperate needs." He sighs deeply and draws his robes around himself. "Anyanka, I weep for what's become of you."
She stiffens at that. "I'm fine!" she snaps, drawing herself up and glaring at him haughtily. "It's this human body you've trapped me in. I cannot eliminate these hormonal impulses, I've tried. This compulsion is not mine. It belongs to this... person I'm trapped inside."
"Child," he says and shakes his head. "How many men have you gleefully tortured to death without a single pause? How many women have you listened to, bitter and ruined by this human disease they fall prey to day after day? They call it love and try to put a ribbon on it but it is still a disease. And you, my dearest, are quite infected with it."
"Me?" Anya says, blinking and startled. "I am not infected with love. I am just... I think it is simply... I... I..." She rubs a hand over her face, presses her fingers against her lids until little flares of light throb in time to her pulse. When she looks at him again, there are bursts of black flowers clouding her vision. "I hurt. Why won't it stop?" she whispers finally.
"I cannot help you, child," D'Hoffryn says and steps back. "Give me a chant if you manage to rid yourself of this... complication." And in a flash he is gone, leaving Anya alone.
She sighs heavily and stares into the blank space where he was standing moments ago. "I am not infected," she says out loud, barely managing to stop herself from stamping her foot. "I am Anyanka, and I have had a hundred humans in my bed. I do not love this girl. It is ridiculous. It is impossible."
She smiles, a forced grin that doesn't touch her eyes. She turns to leave, practicing her smile, her casual glance. She knows she has lied to many people over the years. She has told so many tales that she cannot remember them all. But the tallest tale, the biggest lie, is the one she is trying to tell herself. And deep inside her heart, she knows she is waiting for the day when Buffy meets her eyes and Anya sees something there that matches the affection of girl who loves her so completely in Anya's dreams.
She can wait. She is nothing if not patient. She has all the time in the world.