Pest Control. {FINISHED!}

[Jones]

Jones was a bit... concerned about the whole 'stabbed me through the chest with a sword' thing considering how nice, and polite this young lady was but he understood her life was at least as interesting as his own so he knew he probably should not be surprised what so ever... After all he knew the woman they were talking about had been brought back from the dead at least once... and she had been dead... very dead. Jones had seen the pictures. People who are alive aren't bent like that. All in all the fact she was standing there mentioning being stabbed... pretty routine. But the question...s... about the chain, well also routine but it was one that was more his routine then hers. Reaching into his coat pocket he pulled out the length of steel chain, each link decorated with something, some had religious icons hanging from them, some had various minerals, some had objects that hurt they eyes to study the details it even had a tea bag dangling from one link. He stretched it out on the table to it's full length and idly flicked a piece of green stone on the chain.

"We will say you just asked 'what is the story with that chain' shall we?"

The corner of Jones's mouth curled up in a quick grin as he gestured at the chain.

"Some of the men outside call it the 'chain of command' as in the chain that I will 'go and fetch to beat you with if you don't do as Jones says' but really, I just use it on what goes bump in the night. No magic, no hocus pocus in it. Just a length of chain and some logic. I figured out long ago that many of the monsters of the world have weaknesses so why spend hours researching them when I can hit them with a chain, find out what hurts them, and then hit them till with it till they stop moving. It's not... elegant but I am not exactly an elegant man. Hook on some silver, some gold, some crosses and stars, and you have a weapon that is good for just about anything... and for anything else you have three feet of chain to hit with which tends to get just about anything's attention."

Jones doesn't mention that something had been chewing on his arm at the time he thought about how useful something like that would have been to him as he yelled for his current teammate to stop crying and shoot his daughter which had been possessed with the soul of a werewolf Nazi that... yeah... Jones preferred not to think about that day. The kid was fine despite the fact he tended to scream at the sight of dogs. But some people could be so silly about being hit in the head with a flung claw hammer. He shook his head and looked back an Anya and hoped she could not read his mind of that horrible horrible day.

"So... question number two from me I suppose why a magic shop? Gotta admit nice place might have to drop in the next time I need supplies myself. The guys at supplies always trying to get me to take wands or rods or stuff like that when I just need some wire or some salt... maybe a little powdered mummy hand. But just wondering why you choose to open a magic shop in new york, as different from Sunnydale as you can get after all."

[Anya]

If she was getting this right, there was really nothing magical about the chain at all - in fact if anything, it was sort of anti-magic. Somehow, knowing that and having seen the damage it could do in spite of this made it a lot scarier than most of the mystical weapons she'd encountered. Anya almost could have pitied the vampires, but, well, they had it coming. Still, it was evident now: Jones really wasn't the kind of guy you wanted to mess with...and she couldn't say that about humans very often. Formidable as the chain was, after all, he'd just said it himself - it was him who'd put it together. Next to Buffy he was probably the best hunter of supernatural creatures she'd ever met, and that alone was reason enough to be wary of him. Wary, perhaps, but not afraid - or unfriendly.

"That is so badass. Buffy just uses a stupid stake! Or occasionally some sort of ax or sword or whatever, but that - that pretty much tops just about every weapon I've ever seen." She beamed a little, despite the fact that the chain did kind of put her on edge. Of course the blonde would manage to be enthusiastic about even something as dangerous as this - perhaps that was the demon in her. Just that touch of morbid fascination that didn't really go away, regardless of how long she spent in the company of humans. "It's kinda like a supernatural version of a swiss army knife, or something." she added as an after-thought. Well...it was! The chain seemed to have something useful for every...monster-killing occasion.

At Jones' next question, Anya looked mildly puzzled, as if she couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to be running a magic shop in the middle of New York City! But then, she reasoned, he was right. Compared to Sunnydale, there were a lot more...well, normal people running around New York. Kind of. "I'm good at retail. Like, really good at retail. I guess I could've opened up just...any old store," she agreed with a small shrug. "But I know the most about magic. That's where I can be the most helpful - and you'd be surprised. These days? There are a lot of...not-so-human beings running around New York. And then you have all your new age people - Wiccans, witches,...people who...think they're witches..." Trailing off with a slight smile, Anya left it at that. It was true, a magic shop wasn't exactly the most conventional thing to be running in this city. But all things considered, business had been pretty good. Giles would have been proud.

She considered what she might want to ask him next - again, having to keep all her thoughts from spilling out at once. Again one question in particular stuck out, but before speaking her mind Anya tried to stop and think a moment. She was getting better at that, really. At any rate, there was something that was potentially less of a touchy subject that she did want to know about, and she figured she might as well get that out of the way first. "That company you work for....where do they get their information? You said you had a file on me, but...how does someone keep files on demons and...and other things...surely that sort of information has to be kind of dangerous to get.." Vengeance demons were supposed to be discreet, after all! But then again, if the company Jones worked for really was anything like Wolfram and Hart...they probably had plenty of connections.

[Jones]

Jones coughed a little uncomfortable with this part of the job but it was a valid question and well... she more then deserved to know she should have been told a while ago in his opinion Jones himself had read his own file after two weeks of working and that had been ten minutes after finding out he HAD a file. Nine of those minutes had been spent yelling loudly and using words his grandmother would have wasted his mouth out with soap for using. Pursing his lips as he thought how to explain it he waved his hands airily in little circles in front of himself trying to gather those words.

"Well... from what I read on the file... which... was like half or less... less... pretty much the recent stuff..."

He looked at her a bit embarrassed at his lack of research.

"They gave me the file with the files of your friends and allies... Yours alone was thicker then my neck! So I skimmed it a bit. More then a bit... but I have to say your file might have impressed me the most. They gathered info on your with good old book reading, seers, oracles, sooth sayers, phychics, detectives... and this creepy little girl who sometimes is an old woman and sometimes a woman in her twenties that lives in the basement who makes your ears ooze black fluid when she speaks and I sound like I am tripping when I say that... Anyways they gathered the info on you and the... ummm scooby squad right?"

He looked a bit perplexed and for a few moments sat staring at the air questioning his own sanity for saying that. Before slowly regathering his thoughts before speaking again.

"Scooby Squad... that would have to be that Xander fellow... sounded like what my Grandmother would call an 'odd duck' anywho... you would giving a hard lot... fell in with about as bad a crowd as anyone could imagine and... you got out. Do you understand how incredible I find that? You choice redemption, you choice to fight and live and love over their side."

Jones smiled, it was a crooked smile that didn't see much light of day but it was as real as could be for a moment the years fell off him like snow as he smiled at her proudly as if her triumph was his own as well. But to him it was she could have so easily kept going the way she was but she choice not to, she fought the power as the kids said... and won her freedom. Raising up the cup of joe to his lips he took a sip and when it returned the not quite frown was back. He looked up in thought and found he was enjoying talking to demon he was not their to ventilate ballistically. This was the most relaxed he had been in a while.

"Okay... I know Sunnydale was a magnet for weird... but... was their REALLY a demon there that made you guys sing and dance? I have a hard time with that file."

[Anya]

Anya definitely wasn't one of those people who put up a wall; who hid away each and every thought and emotion from the world. In fact, most days you were lucky if she kept any passing thought to herself at all - but as Jones elaborated about the file that was evidently kept on her, her expression gradually became uncharacteristically guarded. From what she understood, this...file they had on her was very, very long. She wasn't sorry to hear that Jones hadn't read all of it; she would have paled to imagine what he might have thought of her if he had. People...anyone having that much information on her life, it was...disconcerting, to say the least. Especially because she wasn't particularly proud of a good many of the things she'd done.

However, her wary demeanor all at once brightened the moment Jones mentioned the Scoobies. It was odd, how a group of silly humans were able to do that to her - make her light up just by thinking of them. The warm, happy smile that had spread across her face faltered just a bit when he brought up Xander - normally any mention of her ex-fiance would have dampened the demon's mood somewhat - but Jones ended up actually choking a laugh out of Anya when he quite accurately referred to Xander as an 'odd duck'. She shook her head slowly. It was them, really, that deserved the credit. They were the ones who'd really taught her how to be human - and that was why the weight of importance Jones put on his words; the rare smile he shot her...almost made Anya feel a bit guilty. Like someone accepting an award for something they hadn't done.

Proud as she was, it didn't seem right to just let that go. She had to say something, and sure enough the words began pouring out before she could even think to stop them. "It wasn't really as noble as you make it sound." Anya told him after a moment, her gaze focusing back on the floor. "I'm not...I mean...I didn't choose anything. It just sort of happened. I was a demon, and then I wasn't...and being human, being around humans, it changes you. Makes you feel things. And I couldn't go back to what I was after that. Couldn't. Not wouldn't." ...Well. Okay. So she hadn't exactly intended to say that much. This wasn't the sort of thing that Anya typically told just anyone, and especially not someone she'd only met tonight. Why Jones kept getting her to 'fess up to these things, she wasn't really sure...maybe it was just because she hadn't really talked to someone in awhile? Talked about...these sorts of things, that was.

Anya shook her head. It wasn't really something she wanted to focus on, and anyway, Jones was waiting for the answer to his next question. She quickly attempted to refocus. The musical demon? Yeah - there was no forgetting that one. "It was horrible!" she replied, making a face. "My idiot boyfriend - ex boyfriend - summoned him because he thought the whole real-life musical thing sounded fun. But you know? When you're suddenly being forced to spout your deepest, darkest secrets, in song no less, it stops being fun very quickly. Ugh. ....And we never did catch that one, either...." Her statement was finished with a dismissive shrug. You couldn't catch every demon, despite whatever ridiculously unrealistic expectations Buffy had that told her otherwise. She didn't think she needed to tell Jones that - he most likely knew it well enough already.

Regarding him curiously as this thought struck her, Anya considered what her next question would be. As their conversation had gone on, Jones seemed to have become increasingly at ease. He wasn't quite so...intimidating now, and in light of the fact that only moments ago she'd told him a little bit more than she'd wanted to...she was all the more eager to find something else to think about. Now seemed as good a time as any to ask him what had really been on her mind. "Okay, the thing about vengeance demons is..." Anya tilted her head slightly to the side, her expression thoughtful and her words spoken...well, as carefully as someone as generally tactless as she was could speak. "Well, we wouldn't be very good at our jobs if we couldn't, you know, sense when someone wants vengeance. And I couldn't help but notice that you seem particularly vindictive." To say the least. It was probably one of the first things she'd noticed about him, even before he'd mentioned that some of his motivation was rooted in revenge. "So I guess my next question is...why? Who are you so angry at?"

Well, there. It was out in the open. And if it had been wrong to ask, if she'd just brushed a subject that...shouldn't have been brushed, Anya didn't seem to realize it. She just continued gazing at him with wide, vaguely concerned eyes. "If you don't want to tell me, I understand." she added after a moment, blinking. "But the thing is, I've just been wondering about it. And I hate it when people sit there, and wonder, and don't tell you what they're wondering about because they don't think it's right to ask, and then they start making all sorts of conclusions and judgments without even knowing the whole story. I didn't want to do that." Finally finished with her long-winded explanation, Anya gave him a small smile. Perhaps the whole thing hadn't been necessary - but it had been completely earnest, at least.

[Jones]

Jones was quiet for a bit. It wasn't that he hadn't understood the question it was just taking him a bit. He reached into his coat and pulled out a fresh cigarette and lit it and putting it to his lips took a deep hard drag on it half the cigarette turning to ash in that one inhalation. He looked up at the ceiling and slowly let out the breath he had been holding out his nostrils the smoke coming out as easily as it had gone in. Without looking at his questioner he reached down into his pants pocket and pulled out a wallet and flipped it open and placed it contents up on the table. Inside was ID, Cards... and most visible of all a laminated picture. There were three people in the photo one was a woman smiling happily at the camera, her brilliant green eyes shining like a pair of emerald and her ebony hair with a slight wave to it as the wind pushed it along her face. The shortest figure was much smaller then the other two and they were both obviously kneeling so should would better feet in the shot. She was missing a front tooth and she opened her mouth in a laugh and her brown hair was cut neck length as she proudly wore a shirt with Minnie Mouse on it. The third figure was obvious who he was. he was the very person who just took the picture out only this was obviously a while ago. His hair was brown the same shade as the young girl who was so happy in the pic and the huge smile on his face which would have looked so foreign on the face of the man now before Anya looked so natural. He was not only younger but where Jones was built like a street fighter this younger man was quite scrawny his adams apple stuck out like a knife from his neck and his eyes shone. It was a picture of a family in paradise or the nearest thing on Earth, happy and satisfied with life for eternity... at least that is the story the picture tried to tell.

The Jones sitting at the table through did not look happy as he looked down to the picture his thumb rubbing across the surface as it must have done a thousand times from how shiny the plastic cover was, polished by the attention the human had paid it over twelve years of nights oft times with drink in hand and revolver in lap. He thumbed the woman first. A man looking at a foreign land of happiness and joy that he could only look at through brochures.

"You hear it all the time... people talking about meeting the girl of their dreams, the one who completes them, that makes them whole. I had thought that love at first sight was a hallmark thing... then I saw her. She was a waitress at a cafe I was eating at, I was a rookie cop, I hadn't had my badge a week when I met her. I remember drinking coffee till my bladder was just about to burst, drawing out the meal as long as I could just so she would keep coming back to my table just so she would talk to me again. Finally I stood up before her and so nervous I thought I would burst I tried to ask her out... only it seemed I had forgotten how to speak langauges. I kept trying but it only seemed to make it worse. She just smiled at me as I turned more and more red and finally she laid a hand on my shoulder and told me she got off in thirty minutes and that we could go for a walk in the park.... I resisted the urge to yell my thanks to the heavens and instead sat and waited... that was the first time we met."

He looked down at the picture, a stranger looking at another strangers life a life that he had stepped through, could remember... but it was strange to the figure that sat down at the table now. It had all been a lie after all... the happily ever after was false after all.

"My life... was a thing of wonder. We weren't the perfect couple sure we argued and fought sometimes but underneath it all we truly loved each other. I remember how she pretended to be surprised when I asked her to marry her but still had cried with happiness when I put the ring on her finger. Her walking after her coworkers demanding they look at her ring. Her declaring to another that she had won the bet and for him to go home at get his collection of Cheers episodes for she had won them fair and square."

Happy moments strung together like chain links, one after another, a thousand moments of bliss that seemed so natural, so true, so right, so perfect... they flashed before his eyes. He looked at the demoness with cold dead eyes with a thin sheen of water in them.

"Then our daughter was born and as happy as we had been our happiness had just boomed. She was as healthy as a bear and had been born with a lovely head of red hair. We joked about that through it fell out and a brown head of hair grew in it's place. She grew fast, so smart, so kind. She wanted to be an artist. Always drawing things or reading things. So smart, so clever..."

There was no expression on his face as he kept speaking it was a dead pan expression all emotions shoved down as deep as it could go but occasionally as he spoke a surge would boil to the surface but he spoke as one describing walking to work as if it was an event less day.

"She was six when it happened.... a wonderful six year old girl, about a month after the picture was taken. I had gotten off early not a care in the world. A bouquet of flowers in my hand, I had arranged a bit of time off figured I would spend some time with my daughter, with my wife maybe spend some time making my daughter a little sister or brother. I remember the sun shining and how green the grass had been. The sky was cloudless and wonderful and then I stepped through the door of my house and into hell."

The corners of his mouth curled up in less a grin and more a grimace of pain and hate, of anger and despair a man who had walked over a field of a thousand blades so many times he had trouble feeling anything else. His voice cracked

"I remember this most of all... when I close my eyes I can see every detail... the red soaked room, the drops falling off the splattered lamp to fall on a hand drawn picture of a princess. The smell of copper and bitter smell of bile and stomach acid... A case of pencil fallen on the ground and each one broken... and then I turned and saw my wife. Laying there.. still... so still her eyes looking at nothing... then I saw it red all over it's face, it's teeth crimson as it held my daughter and her fingers twitched and she looked at me her eyes dulling, going gray..."

His face had gone slack, he was no longer in the shop in his head, he was back where he had been a thousand times, a thousand times to relive the worst moment of his life. His own personal Hell on Earth. His cold monotone resumed.

"I pulled my gun, standard issue pistol... I fired, emptied my clip at the monster while screaming tears running down my face. I screamed at it telling it it was a dream, a nightmare, none of this was real, I was going to wake up... It didn't even feel the shots through I hit it all eight times. It hit me, swatted me like fly and I hit the wall... and blessed blackness followed... the police investigated the murders. Said it was a lunatic with knives. Said I had a mental breakdown after coming home to a dead family... said a lot of things when I was in the asylum for three months for 'observation'"

Inside his mind he felt something peel back it's teeth in pure hate, in unadulterated rage towards those "Professionals" who had sought to help him. But outwardly he seemed to come back from where ever he had gone inside his head. He turned and looked at Anya as if seeing her for the first time.

"They thought I was mad. Seeing monsters, screaming about them. My repeated attempts to escape and find proof, find clues. They stuck me in a padded room. Tried to medicate me. In time I learned how to swallow the rage, I learned there how to push down the rage, to put it aside till I needed to let it go. To use it rather then let it use me. I suppose I owe them for that much... I also learned how to appear calm, to fake being 'cured' in time they released me declared me better... So I went to the bank, pulled some money out, took my car out of storage, bought a revolver... the biggest I could... drove out of the city, out to the forests.... to the top of a hill. Pulled over, got out and walked under a tree and put the barrel in my mouth. I pulled the trigger... and everything went black."

Jones's hand went up to the revolver's pommel and his thumb twitched the cheap plastic charm once. A bit of peace came to him, a bit of sanity.

"When I came to not only was I not dead but the gun had never fired and... this... was on my gun. A piece from my daughter's favorite bracelet. I had won it for her at a carnival and she wore it everywhere... I remember this piece lying in blood... and yet here it was on my revolver. I named it Regret... got in my car and kept driving."

He looked at Anya speaking slowly deliberately.

"I am angry because I live in a world with wonders and miracles my daughter and wife didn't get. I am angry because this is a world filled with monsters and everyone covers their ears and sings as loud as they can to cover the fact up."

He slowly stood up and glared at Anya his eyes pouring out his rage like a thousand suns but his voice was even and calm, the contrast just making things worse.

"I am angry because my wife and child laid dead and my friends 'helped' me by locking me up for 'my own safety', and most of all because for the past twelve years I have hunted and hunted and been unable to find the thing that took my life away from me...I made a promise on their graves... it took everything from me so I will leave it with nothing. When I find it I don't care who or what it works for or with. I don't care what it is or where it is from. I promised myself with my own two hands I will rip it from it's safety, take away every guard it might have, every hiding place it might possess, take away every shield it has... and then when all it has is it's own teeth, it's claws, and is alone and afraid... then I will come for it... and bring my hell with me."

Jones held Anya's gaze for a moments then slowly sat down and flicking his cigarette on the floor he put the last inch up to his lips and took a small puff before grinding it out on the table. He didn't speak for a while before he practically whispered his question.
"...Wanna go grab a drink?.. I need something stronger then coffee."

[Anya]

Silence. That was what had initially greeted her question, and Anya could do nothing but fidget uncomfortably, wondering just what sort of reaction she should have been preparing herself for. Had she made him angry? She really hoped she hadn't - studying his face anxiously, she tried to read his expression but was...mostly unsuccessful. It wasn't until Jones moved to take something out of his pocket - and that thing was revealed to be a picture in his wallet - that the vengeance demon allowed herself to exhale. Curiously, she leaned forward and surveyed it. Her gaze swept past the woman. The young girl. "Who...?" And then she stopped as her gaze came to rest on the third figure in the picture. He was different, younger and warmer and happier, than the man sitting across from her now - but there was still no mistaking him. Slowly, Anya looked back up to meet Jones' gaze. He had a family? And they looked...so happy...

Before she could ask about them, he began to speak. And with every word that came out of his mouth, the blonde's heart slowly sunk. It didn't take her very long, once he'd dove into his story, to figure out where this was going. There were very few things that could spark the kind of hunger for vengeance that she was sensing from Jones than loss - especially the loss of a loved one. From her centuries of work, Anya knew this all too well. Never the less, she wanted to pretend she didn't know. Wanted to hope that maybe she was wrong, because the way he spoke of this woman and how much he'd loved her...it reminded her of the things she'd felt for Xander. She'd never felt that way about anyone before, and when she'd lost him...well...Anya shook these thoughts away, still meeting Jones' gaze steadily. Even as he spoke of these things, these people that he'd loved, he looked so...empty. And cold. Why was he so cold? She wanted to smile as he spoke of his daughter, but looking at his expression? She couldn't quite bring herself to.

And then...oh God, she'd known this was coming. There were very, very few occasions in which the quirky vengeance demon was ever as silent or as still as she was now, but she didn't so much as blink as Jones went on. All she could do was keep her focus on him in a sort of horrified trance as he described the scene he'd come home to that day. His reaction. Everything he'd felt - and how no one had believed him afterward. Could people...could they really be so blind? She shook her head helplessly as he stood, fixing him with a glare that actually made her flinch as he concluded his tale. Angry. It was a wonder he wasn't incoherently insane after what had happened to his family. And Anya wanted to say something to make him feel better - anything. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but she knew she wasn't anywhere near as sorry as he was. She wanted to automatically know the right thing to say - the way Giles or Buffy sometimes did - but Anya...just wasn't any good at that. When she tried to make people feel better, she usually just ended up making them feel worse. Saying the wrong thing, something that was offensive or inappropriate...

...God, human emotions really sucked...

The moment he mentioned something about a drink, the vengeance demon sprung to her feet. "Y-yes! That is a very, very good idea. We'll go drink lots of alcohol, and then you'll feel better!" she told him bluntly, avoiding his gaze as she headed to the door. Anya, for her part, wasn't very good at hiding her own emotions - in fact she was really bad at it. It wasn't difficult to see the impact his story had made on her - but looking him in the eye felt like admitting it, allowing him to see some sort of weakness. And still there was that compulsion to say something, to reach out to him in some way. Of course, true to form, she ended up acting on it...by abruptly turning around to face him and blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

"It's just not fair," she choked out, "You loved them so much, and I...I don't understand why that had to happen to you. I think when you love someone that much, you should get to keep them forever. But that's never how it plays out..." Her words most likely weren't something most people would ever actually say - think, deep down, maybe - but not say out loud, for fear of it sounding silly. But then again, Anya had never really cared about sounding silly. And most of these 'human' sensations and thoughts were really entirely new experiences to her - so she called them like she saw them. "...And...and I just wanted to say...that whatever that thing was, that killed them...I don't know if you'll find it. And I don't know that it'll set things right if you do. But I really hope that....um....one day, even if it's a really long time from now, that you don't have to be angry anymore."

She blinked once. Was that wrong? Had she said the wrong thing? Immediately uncertain that expressing her innermost thoughts had been the right move in this particular situation, Anya swallowed painfully and stared down at the ground. "......Okay. Right. Let's go get those drinks."

[Jones]

Jones almost smiled at her. She was so eager to change the subject, help him out. She was a good person background not withstanding. If he had been in a better mood he might have laughed at her, might have chuckled which might have hurt her feelings but he settled for frowning a bit less. He found it funny through that he had found it appropriate to discuss his feelings of rage with a vengeance demon. Jones had long ago stopped counting irony points through so when she jumped up he got up at his own pace. He was an older man after all... well physically and while he could force his body to do the young man things he preferred not to unless he had to. The bill his body would present him with the next day wasn't always worth it.

He was surprised through when as he started to follow her she turned on him proclaiming how it wasn't fair. That love shouldn't work like that. That he should have been together forever and that she hoped someday he wouldn't have to be so angry. He smiled at her a bit sadly. He didn't tell her he knew that the day when he wouldn't be angry anymore was coming... it would come when he died. But for the rest he could respond.

"I have been on the planet a mere forty two years but in the long run I have found the only constants are death and unfairness. Even immortal creatures eventually die by somethings hand and eventually unfairness comes. But we have a fine coping mechanism for that."

Jones walked to the door and flicking off the lights for the demoness with the light coming through the door being the only source of illumination he looked back at her.

"Booze. Come on. I'll buy the first round."

Two figures walked into the night, both various degrees of broken but... maybe... maybe that was okay.