Author’s Note: Written for Sweet Charity, for Natascha. Spoilers: BtVS—”Chosen,”; Torchwood—”End of Days.” To Fleta and Jaime for the last-minute betas and Medie for the title: thanks! 🙂
“Name?” The blonde with the clipboard in her hands looked bored, and who could blame her? She was sitting at a white reception desk in what appeared to be a hospital lobby, also decorated in white by someone with very little imagination and a fascination with clouds. Clouds covered the walls, apparently intended to create the illusion of standing in the sky, but failing miserably. Clouds covered the carpet, probably with the same failed intent. Every item of furniture was a perfect, pristine shade of white that would have been scandalized by a speck of dirt, but there was no such audacious speck to be seen.
Her interviewee smiled, displaying equally bright white teeth in a smile designed to charm the pants off anyone within range—male, female, otherwise, both or undecided. “Captain Jack Harkness.”
She frowned and flipped up a couple of pages on her clipboard. “That’s not the name we have on file.”
“It’s not the name I was born with,” he admitted with a little shrug, “but it’s mine now.”
His interviewer nodded. “Yes, of course. I prefer Anya myself, although Anyanka served me well too. Much better than Aud.” She jotted something down and moved on. “Killed in battle with the demon, Abaddon, I see—he never did have any manners. Age at time of death?”
“Which one?”
She looked up at him with one slender eyebrow raised and frowned. “Which age or which death?”
“Either.” Jack smiled at her again, just in case she hadn’t seen all of his perfect teeth the first time.
She flipped through a few more pages and let out an audible sigh of relief. “Oh, good, you’re a repeat customer. That means we can skip all the initial boring formalities and go straight to the intermediate boring formalities.”
“And what boring formalities would those be?” Jack asked, seating himself on her desk, well within her personal space. “What is this place?”
“Heaven, of course. You’re dead—at least for the time being.”
He laughed shortly, a hollow, bitter sound and a stark contrast with his flirtatious manner of a moment before. “Right. Because I’ve been dead before, and I know I’ve never been here.”
His guide or whoever she was shook her head. “Of course you have. You just weren’t allowed to remember—not surprising, really. I suspect that being good would be far less popular if we knew what our ‘reward’ would be, and there would be a lot more deals with the devil in exchange for immortality.” She squinted at him. “I don’t suppose you’d care to share what particular deal you worked out?”
He shook his head. “Still working on that one myself.”
“*Censored*,” Anya swore, then got an even more displeased expression on her face. “I really wish they wouldn’t do that. I’m used to my language being PG-13 rated at least. But around here we’re not allowed to talk about the other place. Not that I’d really want to go there either—boredom versus torture, it’s a tough call.”
“That bad, huh?” Jack flashed her a sly look, blue eyes dancing with mischief.
“Well, it’s not as bad as things were before Cordelia started really shaking up the Powers That Be—they had a lot to answer for after the Jasmine incident and Cordy was just the one to make them,” Anya admitted. “Still, you wouldn’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve had sex.”
Jack winced. “My sympathies. How long?”
Anya let out a melodramatic sigh. “Forever. Too many people here—even men—are convinced that being dead puts them ‘above’ such base behavior.”
Sensing an opportunity, Jack leaned in close to her, a broad smile spreading over his face. “Lucky for you, you’re talking to an expert in base behavior. How do you feel about necrophilia?”
She shot him a smile that went straight to his groin. “I was dating dead men while I was still alive. Ever *censored* a vampire?”
Jack laughed. He screwed his face up in a look of mock concentration. “Let’s see…human, cat, tree, Argolin, Centauri, Tythonian, Pakhar, Menoptra, Thal, Rill, Cryon, Mogarian, Time Lord, too many others to name…nope, no vampires. Guess I need to add them to my ‘to do’ list.” He winked at her.
Anya smirked. “What about a retired vengeance demon?”
“I certainly wouldn’t say no to one,” he answered so close to her ear that she could feel the words as easily as hear them, his breath caressing her neck even as his hands teased at the hemline of her blouse. “Tell you what. Since I’ve got some time to kill before I leave—maybe even a bit more than usual since I seem to remember dying pretty thoroughly this time—what do you say you and I liven up the place a little?”
Anya leaned in and kissed him, reaching eagerly for his belt. “I say heaven’s looking better already.”