[ There are a number of more innocuous ways he could start, from commenting on her choice of username to asking after the colored tinsel in her hair or why she always looks so sour at meals, but, ever at least assuming the mask of a gentleman: ]
( it shouldn't be entirely shocking he tracked her down — but no guy is staring at small details like her nails and her tattoos to connect the pieces, instead of her tits. there's a notable delay of a few hours, leaving him on read, just to make a point of it. then, )
"thank you"? you're making it sound like i'm running a charity babe next time, i'll be sure to charge you double :)
[ On the eve of their respective establishments' openings, Silco leaves a delivery for Ani with one of her girls. When the (simple, red) wrapping paper is peeled back, a cigar box is revealed underneath, packed full and bearing a note that reads, simply: ]
[ A few hours after seeing this, Giles leaves a tray outside Ani's door. There's a butterfly cake on a little plate with a single candle in it, a small vase with some flowers from the dining room, and a note. ]
( the next day, a book appears outside giles' door — a beat-up paperback of the picture of dorian gray, dog-eared and spine-wrecked, like it's been shoved in a purse too many times or splashed on in a bathtub. the cover's been graffitied in black pen, devil horns and a cigarette drawn on dorian gray. tucked inside is a folded napkin from the bar used as a bookmark, smudges from what has to be ani's lipstick on the corners, an embossed velvet membership card for the pink slip and a note written in the inside cover with looping, feminine cursive: )
Old book, pretty boy, lots of feelings no one wants to talk about. I circled the parts where I think he deserved it. And the ones where I didn't. — A.
(PS: Lord Henry's a prick.)
( scribbled inside are a series of ani's annotations in glitter pen, beneath several lines:
"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral..." this bitch would've loved instagram.
"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic." lol. no shit. wear glitter, cry in the bathroom. that's the job.
"I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else." get in line.
"There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love." said every guy who cried in my lap at 3am then blocked me. (next to that: fuck off, dorian.)
on a quote by dorian gray: bet he cried in the mirror after fucking someone he couldn't remember the name of. on a monologue by lord henry: this guy talks like every rich asshole i danced for. smart tho. i'd key his car.
at the final page: moral of the story, don't let hot people talk you into shit. they're never cleaning up their own mess. dude should've just gone to therapy. )
Edited (omg my many edits i forgot the most important part) 2025-05-20 03:22 (UTC)
( at the carnival, she'd won ani a pink bear, and herself a matching yellow one. so. with the message comes attached a picture — her yellow bear pinned to a stripper pole, arms tucked around it, coyly peering from the side. it does look like a stiff breeze would probably knock it out of place. the positioning definitely took some time. a lot of time, actually. )
still hiring? mr. money shot needs to make rent. gambling addiction. it's really serious.
( attached: her fuzzy bear propped up to the mess of her vanity mirror, a perfect pink match for the glitz of ani's decor, one of ani's velvet chokers tied to its neck, and a paw balancing lube like it's a glossy trophy. in the reflection, her wide smile is cut off to give the focus to a manicured hand playfully flashing a middle finger, a gemstone shining on the nail. )
tell mr. money shot to get good at hustling or stop blowing his load on blackjack so early 💸💸💸
got some follow-up questions for him before i try him out 1. does he look cute in a bowtie 2. can he pop it
[true to his word, there's a delivery to ani's door before the end of his first day back at the hex club, where he's bright-eyed and chipper and earnest. the basket is a simple one, mostly things from the pantry -- a decent bottle of champagne, chocolates, some candied fruit -- that seemed "thank you for helping me be a slut" appropriate. there's also a set of press-on nails that koby had made himself, while convalescing in bed over the last week or so. they're a touch clumsy in places (he had been concussed), but overall painstaking work.
and of course, there's the review: single-spaced, typed, no emoji's or glitter pen, nothing overly fancy:]
Formal Lubricant Review for Ms. Ani Disclaimer: All opinions therein are the author's own and in no way reflect the official position of the Hex Club, Pink Slip or associated entities, this author is not being reimbursed for review and receives no monetary compensation for positive lubrication scoring, names have been changed to protect the innocent but you can probably guess who I'm talking about.
First and foremost, thank you for the time, attention to detail and dedication in your gifting, Ms. Ani, it was very much appreciated by myself and my partner(s). I hope my token of appreciation is to your standards, though please let me know your favorites so I can be better prepared moving forward. As promised, I've collected the following reflections on the supplies provided and come to the following conclusions:
[and then koby meticulously rates and reviews every single flavor of lube, from the cotton candy to the strawberry to the "bizarrely named, respectfully" bubblegum-raspberry-twist. the highest rated is by far:]
Pink Lemonade TASTE: ★★★★★ CONSISTENCY: ★★★★☆ EFFECTIVENESS: ★★★★★ (+bonus) LONGEVITY: ★★★★☆ OVERALL: ★★★★★ (+bonus) COMMENTS: Slightly slicker than bubblegum, tasted much better, not too sweet with enough sourness that I said offhand "my mouth is already watering so much" and he did that thigh-shuddery ready-to-come thing he does and told me I needed to dirty talk more (hence the bonus). I'm not sure if this counts as my homework since it was sort of unintentional, but I did say other things when he was ready to go a second and third time.
[and so on and so forth, concluding with:] I hope this review is satisfactory, though please let me know if any edits are needed and what further homework might assist in my upward mobility as an employee. And I hope you like the nails. :)
( it’s by happenstance that buffy crosses ani’s path in the hallways of saltburnt, two girls in a rush in opposite directions, barely looking up to offer each other a glance of acknowledgement. they knew each other before the bad month, and had barely any interaction during. so, there’s no awkwardness between them besides the inevitable understanding that, in all likelihood, bad things happened to each of them last month. things that have them storming off, heads bowed, uninterested in interacting with anyone.
buffy doesn’t know why she does it, really. genuinely liking ani, genuinely disliking the thought she might be upset over some invisible enemy, something buffy will never understand and cannot defeat. she spins on her heels, to face her. ) Hey, Ani. ( a little unsure, she offers a smile, a small shrug. ) Buy you a drink?
( buy doing a lot of work in that sentence, because there’s no buying here, and they eventually take aim at the pink slip, as owned by ani, so really. it’s earlier in the day, the place vacant except for the pair of them. ani slips behind the bar and makes them two blowjob shots, and buffy watches her tongue while she laps up the whipped cream, grateful the low light hides her blush. anyway. it’s not just one blowjob for the both of them — it’s two, and then they switch to pink whitney cocktails but they take too long to drink, so then it’s tequila shots with lime and salt, presumably until one of them passes out. they’re both chasing away their troubles, not talking about it. happy to not talk about it, in fact. buffy had every intention of holing away for the foreseeable while, before potentially joining a convent or something equally as dramatic and full of change, but this? watching ani meanly laugh at her every time she struggles and cringes and makes bleh, yucky faces to every freshly poured shot? this is preferable.
she’s at that stage of drunk enough that she’s handsy, not grabby but eager to touch her, hands on ani’s cheeks and pulling her in just to look at her closely, worthy of every ounce of buffy’s drunken, hyperfixated attention. with a deserved amount of seriousness: )
Why are you so pretty? Ani, why? Who let that happen.
( as far as hiding places go, the pink slip is a decent pick. daytime dims its sparkle into less of a glitter bomb to the senses, less dazzling, less loud — but ani likes the secrecy of it. the lack of windows to the outside world, denying sunlight and peeping toms their chance for a sneak peek. the magic of the sliding door they pass through, like falling down the rabbit hole — a portal to somewhere that feels secret and unknown to the rest of the world. just theirs, for awhile.
she lets buffy take up at the bar like ani's a queen holding court in her private kingdom, and buffy's the lucky petitioner she's let through the gates. more access than she's allowed most, walls up, entry denied. maybe it's because there's no chance of buffy cupping her face between soft palms and seeing someone else, some lingering afterimage of another woman wearing her face like stolen skin, memories ani's still trying to shed like a snake stuck in molt.
there's a pinch of seriousness right between buffy's eyebrows. probably the first warning sign she's doing drunk girl math equations, reaching for an inpossible solution to an impossible question. ani laughs, a warm bite of a sound, in the face of it. doesn't flinch when buffy keeps looking, and looking — ani's too comfortable in the armor she's painted on: a full-beat of spiky falsies and glittery eyeshadow that screams i'm fine to anyone looking for a defect. instead, she smooths down the bridge of her nose, flattening out the wrinkles in buffy's expression. little, creased lines of interest in just how pretty ani knows she is, from little miss i'm straight, i swear. more like little miss ani made a liar out of me and shit, those shots went straight to my head. after that last pour, her bloodstream has to contain more alcohol than sense. )
I guess God made me this pretty as a punishment or something. Tragic for the rest of you, huh?
( — a tone that implies she's the punishment to mankind, obviously. all of it combined with an irreverent shrug that only playfully pretends at modesty, the kind of attitude from a girl who doesn't invest much faith in any higher power that isn't the dollar bill. lotion-smooth fingers fan across buffy's face in a teasing echo. it has the advantage of feathering away some of the honey-wheat strands blocking ani's view, best in the house, of buffy's face. cute, confused. those touchy-feely hands put her close enough to taste booze on her breath, to know the inside of buffy's mouth is glossed with lime rinds and tequila. a little burn of something sweet with her sour. )
[ Classic Eurodance has been thumping out of Buffy's room for over an hour.
Giles, having been warned of the room's new occupant thanks to Buffy's thoughtful note, has so far been polite and welcoming, if a little unsure as to how he should proceed. He doesn't want to intrude on any burgeoning friendship between her and Buffy, but his previous encounters with Ani feel like unanswered questions, and recent events have, if nothing else, taught him that his baser instincts are not to be trusted. So rather than go and ask her to turn it down, or doing something sensible like leaving and going to the library, he's stayed in his room, trying and failing to read his book, listening to someone sing boom boom boom and baby be my lover, I don't want no other and I'm dancing naked in the rain.
Eventually he forces himself to get up, tucking his book under his arm as he makes his way through the shared bathroom to knock on the adjoining door. When he doesn't get an answer -- probably because of the volume of the music -- he eases the door open and peers around it. ]
( hiding is a strong word for what she's doing, one meant for pussies, runaways, felons with a warrant to outrun. (girls who can't stand to have the bones of the past dug up. girls who can't grieve for what they've lost a second time over. girls who need to shove it back into the dirt where it can't haunt and hurt anymore, good fucking riddance.) what ani tells herself it is: relaxing. no different than paid time off before she returns, rested and ready and renewed, to the grind.
buffy needs it, too. though maybe not more than ani needs it, the way an addict needs a nicotine patch before they kick a habit for good; turns out one symptom of withdrawal from an old, fake life is how good it felt waking up to someone beside her. a warm place to hide away in the dark. someone who opened their eyes to her like she was morning sun tapping at their eyelids, soft and daylit and a welcome sight to start a day. it's nice — even if buffy never smiles first thing in the morning. in fact, she always looks like someone pissed in her cheerios, the grumpiness of a girl who's decided only caffeine can prepare her for suffering the world's bullshit.
still, ani stays, because buffy's cranky reign of terror is better than being alone (right back where she started, full circle). which leads her: here, sprawled out on top of buffy's sheets, rummaging through her makeup, cozied up in one of her shirts. maybe one of giles', on second thought, all the starchy collar and crisp-clean lines of an expensive button-up. she doesn't look remotely guilty when he pops his head in, the hellish audacity of a woman who grew up as a younger sister, and all the sweater-stealing and shared gifts and shameless snooping it entailed. )
Hey. ( the end vowels drawn out into a heyyy, bright and breezy as her smile — and shouted over a noisy bassline. ani drops a tube of sticky lip gloss, slides off the bed. pads over to the stereo, bare-legged and unbothered strides, to dial it down. ) Hey, Professor. Long time no talk.
( her eyebrows tip up, a question in their lift. )
Am I bothering you? I know you've probably got those sensitive librarian ears.
[ Buffy comes and goes from the crypt, the way she does. Without knocking, though Spike never knocks, either, once he's been invited into a place. Still strange not to have to run to and fro with a blanket catching fire overhead, but he's not complaining.
So Spike just opens her door. Knocking's for when it's locked, and it's not, on this sunshine-y morning. ]
Buffy! You left your—
[ Bra, leopard print with lacy trim, which dangles from Spike's thumb when his brain computes the dark hair that greets him instead. Girl he's seen around--talked to on the net, maybe, but they definitely haven't been properly introduced.
Doesn't faze him, anyway. He just hangs off the open door, looking around to see if Buffy's ducked under the bed or something. ]
( okay. so buffy is way more popular than ani thought.
no, that isn't right. she's exactly the type of popular ani would have expected. goody-two-shoes cheerleader type, with the boys drooling over her pleated skirts from the stands. as bubbly and warm as soapsuds, the kind you want to sink into for comfort after a long day. (long life, too.) it's why ani's here, after all — beyond the now defunct, incorrect theory that she'd get some fucking peace and quiet. case in point: spike's loud entrance, the instinctive coil of ani's muscles at the intrusion. a leg dangles off the bed, anchoring to the floor. the promise of being able to move, if he tries some stupid shit.
her eyes narrow, knife-slit pupils staring down spike's silhouette in the doorframe. making a threat-level assessment. flat affect, unimpressed: )
Dude. What the fuck.
( dangling from the coat rack of spike's fingers: a lacy-trimmed bra, at odds with ani's mental catalogue of what buffy's underwear drawer must look like (satiny bows and ribbony laces — sugarplum princess shit, not wildcat leopard print; huh, ani thinks, eyeing it with arced eyebrows — you really do learn something new every day.) resting in ani's balled-up fist: a porcelain ashtray, which may or may not be better suited to some rich fuck's fine china collection, rather than the collection of cigarette ashes sprinkled into its basin.
could have been better suited to braining his grey matter into the floor, if he met ani mikheeva on the wrong day, in the wrong mood. and she always is, these days, for guys who want to trample into her space. she lets the ashtray thunk onto the bed, within perfect reaching distance. the way she always keeps something heavy close by, in case embry moore ever comes to finish what he started. )
Look around. Is she home? ( slow, syrupy enunciation, like she's talking to someone a few colors short of a rainbow. she shrugs, careless; licks her index finger to flip through the glossy page of a magazine. ) Think she's out with that other guy. At least he brought us breakfast. You should probably step your game up, bro.
I recently encountered a spa on the second floor. I thought it might make for a well-earned reprieve [ from party aftermath and from the previous month, though he doesn't say as much ] if the idea appeals.
[ Does the message smack of someone who hasn't asked anyone out on a date in literal decades, yes; is he going to do anything about it, no. ]
( jesus fucking christ, that's a pathetic attempt. and admittedly an endearing novelty for ani to revisit, some fossilized memory of her youth, before boardwalk nights and boys with clammy hands became confident wall-street wallets and private penthouse suite visits. no guy has struggled with asking her out on the town since — not when the american dollar is a bottom-line guarantee of her company. when sex is as much of a pay-to-win industry as life itself, why would they ever bother with the fucking foreplay of wining and dining?
like everything she does, ani knows how to milk it for its worth. so, local woman who has never made anything simple for anyone caught in the chaotic blackhole pull of her orbit: )
damn straight it's well fucking earned thanks for thinking of me, smokestack 💋 you gonna warn them to take good care of me or else?
[ The day after the fire, sent with several pictures that make it clear that both the Hex Club and the Pink Slip are largely still intact apart from a scattering of ash and minor cosmetic fire damage (with Silco's reflection just barely caught, like a blur, in a few of the mirrors and reflective surfaces): ]
We were lucky. A shame it happened so soon after the party.
thx for the open casket pics i'll pour one out for our shit luck that coulda been shittier
( par the course — if she's wrong and god's will does exist, she has a vendetta against him for wasting his precious time fucking, personally, with her. )
can you get my stuff 🙏 i don't want some fuckin bozo thinking it's free game
Back home we have a holiday called Yhyakh, but I missed it. It's for the solstice, to welcome the sun. We're going to have it on the 20th of this month instead I don't care if it's late. I want to be grateful for the sun before it goes away again. And for not being burnt up
Will you come? I will make you food Maybe not the most traditional food. But I can cook something on the campfire!
( first shift ani ever took came with a working rule, a silent code of stripper conduct cooked up by the girls themselves: nobody respects a fucking door vulture. (and respect goes a long way in the biz; no need to give them another reason to conflate taking off your top with dumping your hard-kept dignity at the fucking door, too.)
naturally, ani always assumed it was meant to preserve the fragile nature of the male ego, as if that's ever been at jeopardy of becoming an endangered species. (she's no data analyst, but the correlation between a dude's pride, the generosity of his pockets, and a night's payout? the undeniable power of statistics leaves no room for argument.) now, she thinks they must've sensed it — the too-desperate reek of girls who hadn't hidden their hunger. girls who had circled too eagerly. girls who had been too keen to pick the meat of their bank account and the bones of their self-control clean. doing what's necessary to survive, when you're ranked bottom-tier on the ecosystem and have to scavenge for your next meal ticket.
there's an important life lesson ani took away from watching it, like it was all just national geographic in action, informative and educational: show how badly you want something, and you're guaranteeing it'll be snatched away. even ani's silence seems to buy into the idea — hesitates, like an immediate yes will jinx something as good as roza believing ani is someone you welcome into your family, your traditions. a full half-hour later: )
tight salespitch, zaza gotta say the bribery was a nice touch
counteroffer i'll come if you can find my favorite flower & bring it to me (this is extortion) (no hints allowed)
( fucking embarrassing, the amount of time ani has to commit to deciphering this shit, spun fever-sick and squinting at the screen. a return to the russian she carried from country to country, that survived a trip over the atlantic and braved american shores and four immigrants making dreams out of pennies and kopecks, that babushka baked into her bones with warm, kneading insistence until her rs were perfectly rolled. it takes a solid ten minutes to bleed slow sense out of something that's sat neglected and decomposing and disappointed in ani for so fucking long. to dig up childhood memories of cyrillic where she's buried them under years of survival, dealing in the only language that keeps the lights on: hard, brutal american dollars.
some of it shambles back to life, begrudgingly. progress that's helped along by jake strutting around with a tourist's guide on russian for dummies knocking around in his dense ass skull, filtered down into her brain. when the shape of the letters finally resembles the skeleton of her grandmother's handwriting, when she pieces together the bones of that language lost to her and put back together again, old and brittle but forever familiar: )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
✉️ text — un: silco.
Thank you for the other night.
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"thank you"? you're making it sound like i'm running a charity babe
next time, i'll be sure to charge you double :)
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→ 🎬
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🎀
📦 delivery.
text | @buck120
you awake yet?
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u know me
gettin in that beauty rest
u miss me already?
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a gift
For a belated happy birthday - RG
🎁 delivery.
Old book, pretty boy, lots of feelings no one wants to talk about.
I circled the parts where I think he deserved it.
And the ones where I didn't.
— A.
(PS: Lord Henry's a prick.)
( scribbled inside are a series of ani's annotations in glitter pen, beneath several lines:
text — un: BUFFY
still hiring? mr. money shot needs to make rent.
gambling addiction. it's really serious.
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tell mr. money shot to get good at hustling or stop blowing his load on blackjack so early 💸💸💸
got some follow-up questions for him before i try him out
1. does he look cute in a bowtie
2. can he pop it
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delivery; cw: nsfw as well
and of course, there's the review: single-spaced, typed, no emoji's or glitter pen, nothing overly fancy:]
Disclaimer: All opinions therein are the author's own and in no way reflect the official position of the Hex Club, Pink Slip or associated entities, this author is not being reimbursed for review and receives no monetary compensation for positive lubrication scoring, names have been changed to protect the innocent but you can probably guess who I'm talking about.
First and foremost, thank you for the time, attention to detail and dedication in your gifting, Ms. Ani, it was very much appreciated by myself and my partner(s). I hope my token of appreciation is to your standards, though please let me know your favorites so I can be better prepared moving forward. As promised, I've collected the following reflections on the supplies provided and come to the following conclusions:
[and then koby meticulously rates and reviews every single flavor of lube, from the cotton candy to the strawberry to the "bizarrely named, respectfully" bubblegum-raspberry-twist. the highest rated is by far:]
Pink Lemonade
TASTE: ★★★★★
CONSISTENCY: ★★★★☆
EFFECTIVENESS: ★★★★★ (+bonus)
LONGEVITY: ★★★★☆
OVERALL: ★★★★★ (+bonus)
COMMENTS: Slightly slicker than bubblegum, tasted much better, not too sweet with enough sourness that I said offhand "my mouth is already watering so much" and he did that thigh-shuddery ready-to-come thing he does and told me I needed to dirty talk more (hence the bonus). I'm not sure if this counts as my homework since it was sort of unintentional, but I did say other things when he was ready to go a second and third time.
[and so on and so forth, concluding with:] I hope this review is satisfactory, though please let me know if any edits are needed and what further homework might assist in my upward mobility as an employee. And I hope you like the nails. :)
--Koby (EOTM May '08)
— action
buffy doesn’t know why she does it, really. genuinely liking ani, genuinely disliking the thought she might be upset over some invisible enemy, something buffy will never understand and cannot defeat. she spins on her heels, to face her. ) Hey, Ani. ( a little unsure, she offers a smile, a small shrug. ) Buy you a drink?
( buy doing a lot of work in that sentence, because there’s no buying here, and they eventually take aim at the pink slip, as owned by ani, so really. it’s earlier in the day, the place vacant except for the pair of them. ani slips behind the bar and makes them two blowjob shots, and buffy watches her tongue while she laps up the whipped cream, grateful the low light hides her blush. anyway. it’s not just one blowjob for the both of them — it’s two, and then they switch to pink whitney cocktails but they take too long to drink, so then it’s tequila shots with lime and salt, presumably until one of them passes out. they’re both chasing away their troubles, not talking about it. happy to not talk about it, in fact. buffy had every intention of holing away for the foreseeable while, before potentially joining a convent or something equally as dramatic and full of change, but this? watching ani meanly laugh at her every time she struggles and cringes and makes bleh, yucky faces to every freshly poured shot? this is preferable.
she’s at that stage of drunk enough that she’s handsy, not grabby but eager to touch her, hands on ani’s cheeks and pulling her in just to look at her closely, worthy of every ounce of buffy’s drunken, hyperfixated attention. with a deserved amount of seriousness: )
Why are you so pretty? Ani, why? Who let that happen.
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she lets buffy take up at the bar like ani's a queen holding court in her private kingdom, and buffy's the lucky petitioner she's let through the gates. more access than she's allowed most, walls up, entry denied. maybe it's because there's no chance of buffy cupping her face between soft palms and seeing someone else, some lingering afterimage of another woman wearing her face like stolen skin, memories ani's still trying to shed like a snake stuck in molt.
there's a pinch of seriousness right between buffy's eyebrows. probably the first warning sign she's doing drunk girl math equations, reaching for an inpossible solution to an impossible question. ani laughs, a warm bite of a sound, in the face of it. doesn't flinch when buffy keeps looking, and looking — ani's too comfortable in the armor she's painted on: a full-beat of spiky falsies and glittery eyeshadow that screams i'm fine to anyone looking for a defect. instead, she smooths down the bridge of her nose, flattening out the wrinkles in buffy's expression. little, creased lines of interest in just how pretty ani knows she is, from little miss i'm straight, i swear. more like little miss ani made a liar out of me and shit, those shots went straight to my head. after that last pour, her bloodstream has to contain more alcohol than sense. )
I guess God made me this pretty as a punishment or something. Tragic for the rest of you, huh?
( — a tone that implies she's the punishment to mankind, obviously. all of it combined with an irreverent shrug that only playfully pretends at modesty, the kind of attitude from a girl who doesn't invest much faith in any higher power that isn't the dollar bill. lotion-smooth fingers fan across buffy's face in a teasing echo. it has the advantage of feathering away some of the honey-wheat strands blocking ani's view, best in the house, of buffy's face. cute, confused. those touchy-feely hands put her close enough to taste booze on her breath, to know the inside of buffy's mouth is glossed with lime rinds and tequila. a little burn of something sweet with her sour. )
Baby, you are a lightweight. It's embarrassing.
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also action 👀
Giles, having been warned of the room's new occupant thanks to Buffy's thoughtful note, has so far been polite and welcoming, if a little unsure as to how he should proceed. He doesn't want to intrude on any burgeoning friendship between her and Buffy, but his previous encounters with Ani feel like unanswered questions, and recent events have, if nothing else, taught him that his baser instincts are not to be trusted. So rather than go and ask her to turn it down, or doing something sensible like leaving and going to the library, he's stayed in his room, trying and failing to read his book, listening to someone sing boom boom boom and baby be my lover, I don't want no other and I'm dancing naked in the rain.
Eventually he forces himself to get up, tucking his book under his arm as he makes his way through the shared bathroom to knock on the adjoining door. When he doesn't get an answer -- probably because of the volume of the music -- he eases the door open and peers around it. ]
Ah, hello?
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buffy needs it, too. though maybe not more than ani needs it, the way an addict needs a nicotine patch before they kick a habit for good; turns out one symptom of withdrawal from an old, fake life is how good it felt waking up to someone beside her. a warm place to hide away in the dark. someone who opened their eyes to her like she was morning sun tapping at their eyelids, soft and daylit and a welcome sight to start a day. it's nice — even if buffy never smiles first thing in the morning. in fact, she always looks like someone pissed in her cheerios, the grumpiness of a girl who's decided only caffeine can prepare her for suffering the world's bullshit.
still, ani stays, because buffy's cranky reign of terror is better than being alone (right back where she started, full circle). which leads her: here, sprawled out on top of buffy's sheets, rummaging through her makeup, cozied up in one of her shirts. maybe one of giles', on second thought, all the starchy collar and crisp-clean lines of an expensive button-up. she doesn't look remotely guilty when he pops his head in, the hellish audacity of a woman who grew up as a younger sister, and all the sweater-stealing and shared gifts and shameless snooping it entailed. )
Hey. ( the end vowels drawn out into a heyyy, bright and breezy as her smile — and shouted over a noisy bassline. ani drops a tube of sticky lip gloss, slides off the bed. pads over to the stereo, bare-legged and unbothered strides, to dial it down. ) Hey, Professor. Long time no talk.
( her eyebrows tip up, a question in their lift. )
Am I bothering you? I know you've probably got those sensitive librarian ears.
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delivery (vampire-shaped)
So Spike just opens her door. Knocking's for when it's locked, and it's not, on this sunshine-y morning. ]
Buffy! You left your—
[ Bra, leopard print with lacy trim, which dangles from Spike's thumb when his brain computes the dark hair that greets him instead. Girl he's seen around--talked to on the net, maybe, but they definitely haven't been properly introduced.
Doesn't faze him, anyway. He just hangs off the open door, looking around to see if Buffy's ducked under the bed or something. ]
Hello, love. Blondie home?
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no, that isn't right. she's exactly the type of popular ani would have expected. goody-two-shoes cheerleader type, with the boys drooling over her pleated skirts from the stands. as bubbly and warm as soapsuds, the kind you want to sink into for comfort after a long day. (long life, too.) it's why ani's here, after all — beyond the now defunct, incorrect theory that she'd get some fucking peace and quiet. case in point: spike's loud entrance, the instinctive coil of ani's muscles at the intrusion. a leg dangles off the bed, anchoring to the floor. the promise of being able to move, if he tries some stupid shit.
her eyes narrow, knife-slit pupils staring down spike's silhouette in the doorframe. making a threat-level assessment. flat affect, unimpressed: )
Dude. What the fuck.
( dangling from the coat rack of spike's fingers: a lacy-trimmed bra, at odds with ani's mental catalogue of what buffy's underwear drawer must look like (satiny bows and ribbony laces — sugarplum princess shit, not wildcat leopard print; huh, ani thinks, eyeing it with arced eyebrows — you really do learn something new every day.) resting in ani's balled-up fist: a porcelain ashtray, which may or may not be better suited to some rich fuck's fine china collection, rather than the collection of cigarette ashes sprinkled into its basin.
could have been better suited to braining his grey matter into the floor, if he met ani mikheeva on the wrong day, in the wrong mood. and she always is, these days, for guys who want to trample into her space. she lets the ashtray thunk onto the bed, within perfect reaching distance. the way she always keeps something heavy close by, in case embry moore ever comes to finish what he started. )
Look around. Is she home? ( slow, syrupy enunciation, like she's talking to someone a few colors short of a rainbow. she shrugs, careless; licks her index finger to flip through the glossy page of a magazine. ) Think she's out with that other guy. At least he brought us breakfast. You should probably step your game up, bro.
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✉️ text — un: silco.
I thought it might make for a well-earned reprieve [ from party aftermath and from the previous month, though he doesn't say as much ] if the idea appeals.
[ Does the message smack of someone who hasn't asked anyone out on a date in literal decades, yes; is he going to do anything about it, no. ]
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like everything she does, ani knows how to milk it for its worth. so, local woman who has never made anything simple for anyone caught in the chaotic blackhole pull of her orbit: )
damn straight it's well fucking earned
thanks for thinking of me, smokestack 💋
you gonna warn them to take good care of me or else?
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✉️ text — un: silco.
We were lucky. A shame it happened so soon after the party.
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i'll pour one out for our shit luck that coulda been shittier
( par the course — if she's wrong and god's will does exist, she has a vendetta against him for wasting his precious time fucking, personally, with her. )
can you get my stuff 🙏
i don't want some fuckin bozo thinking it's free game
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@suor00
I don't care if it's late. I want to be grateful for the sun before it goes away again. And for not being burnt up
Will you come? I will make you food
Maybe not the most traditional food. But I can cook something on the campfire!
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naturally, ani always assumed it was meant to preserve the fragile nature of the male ego, as if that's ever been at jeopardy of becoming an endangered species. (she's no data analyst, but the correlation between a dude's pride, the generosity of his pockets, and a night's payout? the undeniable power of statistics leaves no room for argument.) now, she thinks they must've sensed it — the too-desperate reek of girls who hadn't hidden their hunger. girls who had circled too eagerly. girls who had been too keen to pick the meat of their bank account and the bones of their self-control clean. doing what's necessary to survive, when you're ranked bottom-tier on the ecosystem and have to scavenge for your next meal ticket.
there's an important life lesson ani took away from watching it, like it was all just national geographic in action, informative and educational: show how badly you want something, and you're guaranteeing it'll be snatched away. even ani's silence seems to buy into the idea — hesitates, like an immediate yes will jinx something as good as roza believing ani is someone you welcome into your family, your traditions. a full half-hour later: )
tight salespitch, zaza
gotta say the bribery was a nice touch
counteroffer
i'll come if you can find my favorite flower & bring it to me
(this is extortion) (no hints allowed)
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text | @buck120
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where you at? i'll find you
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text — un: BUFFY
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is this a booty call or a call to action
you want me to put nair in his shampoo?
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literally in the middle of the night | @koby
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some of it shambles back to life, begrudgingly. progress that's helped along by jake strutting around with a tourist's guide on russian for dummies knocking around in his dense ass skull, filtered down into her brain. when the shape of the letters finally resembles the skeleton of her grandmother's handwriting, when she pieces together the bones of that language lost to her and put back together again, old and brittle but forever familiar: )
yo
what the fuck, koby
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cw: references to choking
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