The beginning of this was written by the beautiful and talented circe tigana, and can be found here. I can’t hope to compete with her wonderful beginning, but she so inspired me with this idea that I simply had to write it down. Rough, unbeta-ed, from my head to yours. NC-17.

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Every knock at the door heralded dread in Xander’s heart. Most times it was just UPS with another package of late night movies to nurse him through the lonely night. Occasionally there was the Jehovah’s witness who gave him a Watchtower and the promise of salvation and forgiveness if only asked Jehovah into his heart.

He wished it were that easy.

Every knock at the door was a reminder of what he had left behind, and it wasn’t hard to imagine Buffy out there with a sword, Dawn with huge eyes and a swollen belly. Most nights, the movies he bought online were the only thing that kept him from his nightmares. He’d watched a lot of movies in the past few months.

Dawn in that horrid satin green gown, brighter green eyes wide with fear and excitement. She’d probably thought it was like a fairy tale, her first crush casting off the woman he was supposed to marry and running to Dawn’s waiting arms. He’d peeled that dress from her with trembling hands and a guilty heart, and he’d stripped her innocence with it.

So tender and sweet, full lips that questioned and sought to meet his every kiss, his every desire. She’d wanted so badly to make it right, and he had lain his hands upon her naïve, blossoming body, touched firm, tight breasts, had kissed away sweet salt from between her thighs. And there had been part of him that enjoyed it, oh yes. That was the worst. Her breathless sighs, skin like virgin snow begging to be explored. He had taken each kiss and breath and held them like tiny treasures, their faux, sinful gold warming the cold places deep inside. For a little while she had been a gift, a young goddess who let him forget for a moment the pain he’d been carrying like a knife blade in his heart. She had pulled the sharp edge free, and he had taken it from her and sliced her open. Long, tearing cuts like furrows through her soul. Some wounds could never heal.

Xander Harris; pedophile and destroyer of lives. Christ, is that what I am now?

The sharp rap came at the door again and he willed the thoughts away, pushing himself from his arm chair with a sigh, arming himself with a charming smile and quick word to dispatch whoever might be waiting. He might be a failure at everything else in his life, but his ability to chase people away never seemed to suffer a bit.

“Xander,” the woman on the doorstep said, and her eyes were not the cold, hate-filled sea green of Buffy, or the sad, emerald pools of Dawn. They were brown like coffee with just a touch of cream, and he knew them almost as well as he knew his own.

“Anya?” he breathed in disbelief, adrenaline racing off through every nerve like hounds set after a fox. “Oh my God. What are you…? How did you--?”

“I had to see you,” she said simply, and her big brown eyes were filled with a sadness he was less familiar with, one that filled him with ghosts of regret and the burn of self-loathing.

“You… I…” He ran a hand through his hair, panicking. He was always afraid when a knock came at the door, but he never truly expected… He couldn’t decide if he wished it had been Buffy or not. At least then he would have known if he should run.

“Look, Xander.” She sighed, and there was a touch of familiar impatience that he recognized behind her tone. The idea that that could soothe him a bit seemed ridiculous, but somehow it did. “I’ve waited months. You’d think you’d have some ludicrous, hero-movie inspired speech prepared by now.”

He hadn’t thought it could get any worse, living day by day immersed in guilt and horror at his own cowardly actions. Each memory wailed at him like a banshee, and though he knew what ghosts were, he had never known what it meant to be haunted.

He took a deep breath, pulled himself together. “Come in.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

She hadn’t been back to Sunnydale long enough to find out what had happened. She’d run off after he left her, traveled for a while, and then gone back looking for him. No one had told her what happened—at least, she hadn’t said anything, and he had a feeling that if she’d known it would have been at the top of her list of discussion topics. And really, he supposed that didn’t surprise him much. Who would have said anything? Buffy? He knew more about how the Bermuda Triangle was formed than he did about how Buffy worked, and she kept secrets like the Pharaoh’s had kept slaves. No, not really surprising that Buffy hadn’t said anything. And maybe… just maybe, Dawn hadn’t told her.

Anya was staring down at her untouched mug of instant coffee, staring into it like it might hold the secrets of the universe, fingers fiddling with the rim.

“So you tracked me down.” He leaned back in his chair, relaxing a bit. “Why?”

She raised her eyes to him, doe eyes wide, frightened and hopeful at the same time. “Because… I had to see you,” she said, hesitated, bit down on her lower lip. “Xander… I still love you.”

He felt a thrill rush through him at her words, one that was equal parts fear and hope. He’d had nothing to do but think since he’d left Sunnydale, and while a good deal of his brain power had been focused on denial and repression, the thoughts that had gotten through that weren’t about Dawn, or Buffy, or how much they both probably wanted to kill him, were filled with images of Anya, and the regret that he might never see her again.

“You—you still?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “And I’ve gone over it and over it and you can’t even imagine how much I hated myself for it--”

“Oh, I can imagine,” he mumbled.

“But I do still love you and… and I still want us to be together.”

“Y-you do?” He was stunned. He was beyond stunned. He felt like he’d been hit by Fyarl demon and sent spinning into a gravestone headfirst.

He shook his head and turned away. “Anya, I—I love you too, but I can’t—I just…” He paused, took a hitching breath. “You don’t know what’s happened. The… things that I’ve done.”

“Pshaw,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I know everything about you. If I was going to run, I would have done it right after I saw your Star Wars toy collection.”

“No, An. You really don’t. I’ve done things since you went away… terrible things.”

“Xander,” her voice cut into his automatic descent into guilt. “Don’t you understand? I don’t care. I’ve done terrible things, too. I used to be a vengeance demon. I told you the stories. Nothing you’ve done could be worse than what I’ve done.”

“It might,” he murmured. Crumpled gown on the floor of his mind, staring at him with baleful eyes.

“I don’t care,” she said fervently. “Xander, you’re the best thing I ever had. The world doesn’t make sense without you and your strange, yet humorless anecdotes.” He tried to fight a smile, lost. “Whatever you’ve done, I’ll always love you.”

He reached across the table and took her hand, still struggling to make sense of the world. But it was coming into focus now, and for the first time in a long time, he could see the shape of a future. He’d have to deal with what had happened—he’d have to tell Anya—but for the first time, in forever it seemed, it didn’t feel impossible. Maybe he could go back, face the music, put things right. Anya would stand by him through it, and if he had her for support then maybe he could finally, for once, do something right in his life.

“Anya, I have to tell you. I--”

She leaned across the table, grabbed him, pulled him to her and kissed him. She was pulling at his clothes, tugging at his heart and doing things to him that drove every coherent thought right out of his head.

She swept everything off the table in a scattering crash, pulled herself up on to it, pulled him on top of her. “Make love to me Xander,” she whispered and stroked his face. “I’ve missed you so much.”

He pressed his lips to hers, buried his hands in her hair. Kissed her mouth, her neck, her earlobes; each inch of her soft, flowery-perfumed skin like discovering an old friend. And yes, this was good, this was what he needed. Love, and touch and sweetness to fill up the empty places inside him, to make him a whole man again instead of a broken creature that hid in his home like rabbit terrified of its own shadow.

He kissed lifted her hair and kissed the soft skin near the back of her neck. The smell of her hair was like rain and wildflowers, her skin tasted like heaven and felt like home. She urged him breathlessly, and he slid inside her, and oh—she was hot, slick and tight as she gripped him, fingers tangling in the shirt she hadn’t quite ripped off, breath coming in tiny, panting moans. The world went away and for a moment she was all that existed, all that he wanted. She filled his senses and opened his heart, and already he could feel himself begin to heal, months of sadness falling away like the clothing they’d scattered to the floor. He buried his face in her shoulder and thrust harder against her, and the rhythm of their hips was a cadence that brought him peace. Relief flooded through him, and tears slipped from his eyes, shimmering strands upon her skin.

“Anya,” he whispered into her ear. “I promise I’ll never hurt you again.”

“I know,” she whispered back.

He leaned up to look at her, and she smiled.

“Was this how you did it with her, Xander? Did you tell her she was beautiful, and special and perfect? Did she think you really cared about her?”

His heart thudded in his chest, and his blood went ice-cold. His body thrust against hers and stopped, shock thrumming through him and holding him still. The world seemed to slow down, and time moved like molasses around him.

“What?”

Anya laughed and wrapped her arms around him, holding him to her with incredible strength. More strength than he’d ever known she possessed.

“You know, when you fucked Dawn. Show me how you did it, Xander. Show me how you sweet-talked her and kissed her and told her she was goddess before you threw her in the gutter to rot.”

“No!” He couldn’t think--his brain was yammering at him, and he was scrambling, arms and legs fighting to get away from her, heart like a trip hammer in his ears.

Anya held him with ease, threw back her head and laughed like the clown who had chased him through all the nightmares of his childhood. His skin prickled and his cock began to shrivel inside her, and his brain went to some dim, far away place where conscious thought feared never tread.

Anya began to rock her hips against him, holding him tight. “But Xander, I thought you wanted this?” she said with mock innocence. “After all, isn’t this what you love? Fucking some soft sweet girl who believes that you love her before you throw her away?”

Anya’s face morphed, and Xander felt his bladder trying to come loose.

“Oh my God,” he gasped the words automatically, not even realizing they had left his mouth.

“I wanted vengeance for what you did to me Xander, and it was so easy to get her to wish after what you did to her. At first I was infuriated, but really, you made my job so easy.” She laughed again, and the veins in her face pulsed.

He made one last desperate effort, but it was like being stuck in his nightmares. He couldn’t move, couldn’t get away, paralyzed by fear and held in place by the monster who had finally caught up with him.

“Fifteen year olds always come up with the best vengeance scenarios,” Anyanka said.

Inside her body, sharp points bit into his cock like tiny hungry teeth, and he began to scream.