Dance With the Dead (BTVS, Book Six)

chapter 12- Doublemeat Palace

Xander, Anya, Willow and I were meeting up with Buffy at her house.

Xander walked in from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of popcorn. "Now I get Warren being the supervillainy type, but I thought Jonathan completely learned that lesson. I never even heard of this other guy."

Xander sat on the sofa beside Anya, putting the popcorn on the coffee table.

Willow was sitting in a chair opposite the sofa. "You should have seen their headquarters. It was like the nerd natural habitat."

"Well, if we know where they are, shouldn't we do something?" Anya asked.

"We tried," I told them. "Buffy and I were gonna go in there and bust them on the spot."

"I'm sensing a 'not so completely'," Xander told me.

I nodded. "Yeah, well, we went in, and then--"

"Speaking of Buffy, isn't she ready?" Anya asked. "She's gonna be late for her first day."

"Hey, respect of narrative flow much?" I asked.

"Please continue the story of failure," Anya told me.

I rolled my eyes, sighing. "So, Buffy and I went in, but they'd cleared out. And we brought back the stuff that they left. Spell books, some parchments." Xander was eating popcorn while he listened. Willow was smiling. "A couple of rare things, charmed objects, and a conjurer's harp." We noticed that Willow looked wistful at the mention of all this magic talk, looking at her in concern. Willow snapped out of it, nodding for me to continue. "A--and they had other stuff, you know. Razor scooters, and pictures of the Vulcan woman on 'Enterprise'."

Xander smiled. "Ooh!" He chuckled, rubbing his hands together. Anya gave him a look. "I mean... nerds."

"Okay, see, this is why demons are better than people," Anya told us.

"Interesting turn," Willow told her.

"When I was a vengeance demon, I caused pain and mayhem," Anya told us. "Certainly. But I put in a full day's work doing it, and I got compensated appropriately."

"Welcome to today's episode of 'Go Money Go!'" Xander told us. "I hear it daily."

"Yep, for the rest of your life," Willow told him.

Xander looked dismayed, continuing to contemplate that.

I smirked slightly.

Anya went on with what she was saying. "But supervillains... want reward without labor, to make things come easy. It's wrong. Without labor, there can be no payment, and vice versa. The country cannot progress. The workers are the tools that shape America."

We heard Buffy. "Good to know." We looked over to see Buffy standing in the doorway, wearing red pants, a red and white striped shirt, and a hat with a stuffed animal head on top. "I was kinda feeling like a tool. And now I know why."

   ~~~~~~ 

Buffy was working at the Doublemeat Palace for a job, and Willow, Xander, Anya and I took Dawn there to see Buffy while she was working.

Dawn smiled. "Hey, Buffy."

"We're here to support your subsistence-level employment," Anya told her. "Bravo."

Buffy smiled. "Thank you. This is cool of you guys."

"So, Buff, how's it going?" Xander asked.

"I don't know," Buffy told us. "I--I've waitressed, before, but... this is different."