Ya know, the culture always changes. When you’re immortal, it tumbles by at warp speed. So fast it practically makes your ears pop. You get comfortable in your solitude. Super deep, totally tortured, extra black-on-black. Before you know it, you’ve lost yourself somewhere in the din of past decades and you emerge… only to find that girls no longer find stalking a big turn on. Although, he seems to remember having that explained to him, once. Painfully.
Angel’s not stalking, though. He’s just following a vaguely familiar whip of blonde curls through a crowd, trying to keep up. Did that sound creepy? It is. It’s fucking creepy, but he doesn’t know what else to do. If every sense he has, down to her scent, weren’t telling him – screaming at him – that the woman crossing the street in front of him is the love of his life, he wouldn’t believe it.
Buffy Summers is dead, so the shoulder Angel is reaching for can’t belong to… “Buffy?”
Well, there you have it, people. Years may change but Angel never does. And no, we’re not just talking about his timely appearance here. I mean, just how much longer was he planning on playing Mr righteous here, anyway? More importantly, how long until he stops making her the swoony schoolgirl 😍 interest for a movie she doesn’t want to be involved in.
Her youth was long gone, and so was he. In her universe at least, so why every time she sees him does Buffy feel like some poor victim caught in the crossfire of their freak-show romance? His words, not hers. “We both know that’s not the reason.” Because of Angel trying to do good by her, that’s why. But instead he ends up damaging her, every damn time.
Causing Buffy’s gaze to rest somewhere other than him for a moment, the sinking feeling in her stomach starting to turn to 🔥 as she tries choosing her words more carefully now. “I’m a big girl now, Angel. With a lot of new stuff in my life. Believe it or not.. I don’t need you calculating minimum safe distance every time you think i’m damaged goods.”
“And, that’s good. That you have… new stuff.” he’s trying so hard to be supportive but even an exclamation point sounds weird at the end of one of his sentences, he’s spent so damn much time being broody and quiet. Angel manages to keep it together, usually. Keep up the veneer of cool, calm and above it all but put him in a room with Buffy Summers and it all comes tumbling down. Still, he’s got to keep moving forward, “That’s the whole point. You have this new life and I’m not a part of it. But I’m fighting evil, here.” pointed, asshat-y, “We still fight evil, ya know. I don’t wanna intrude on that every time we’re in the same zip code.”
It’s mostly true. Angel’s in town on a job, as the fancy-pants hunters Faith hangs out with call it. They think they’re so tall.
Of course, there’s the bit he’s leaving out. Where he’s been watching her. From a distance, of course, like that makes it any less creepy. Angel rests his hands in his coat pockets, one of his lesser known nervous habits, “I thought it would be… better.” he repeats and, again, also, mostly true. Angel sighs, closes his eyes for a moment, “I just want things to be better.”
“Awhile?” She doesn’t know why that feels like a kick to the gut, but it does. Angel hasn’t existed in her world for sometime now so why does Buffy feel like a rerun of Miss insecure ex is about to air?
“How long is awhile?” The pause that comes after is even longer, uncomfortable. Her body language mimics that while her voice so desperately tries for casual. “Did you know I was here?”
Angel knows the question is coming, he does. He knew that once Buffy caught wind of him, he’d be saddled with that low, deep guilt he so often finds himself wallowing in. He’s got guilt enough for decades – guilt from now until eternity, plus some to share. This sort, though, the kind he deserves is so often rooted up by random encounters with people he’s hurt that it never sits long enough for the paint to dry, the wound to heal.
Emotions not giving him a choice, he averts his eyes, gaze hitting the damp concrete rather than look in her eyes right now. She’s got a way about her that guts you. When she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad… it’s not something Angel likes to think about.
He almost speaks up, chokes her name out of his lungs but all he can manage to get out is something that resembles, “I…” and that’s when he finally looks up at her. She hasn’t changed, much. Not on the outside, anyway, but she’s bruised and torn just beneath her skin. He has to find his voice, force it out, “Few weeks.” drowned into a long pause and then his eyes flick up, catching and holding her gaze, “Not at first but then… I thought it would be better if I just. You have enough on your plate.”
There’s flashbacks every time she says his name like that. Some good, others painful. But his return? Although inevitable by nature, it still managed to surprise her all the same. New big bad promising impending doom and neither of them were one to sit by the sidelines. “When did you get into town?”
“Buffy…” there’s a little twitch in Angel’s muscles, a little extra bite to the night when Buffy’s around. Maybe it’s her perfume, cutting the air with that special sort of green, happy citrus he so associates with seventeen, orange bubble gum and strawberry lip gloss. The damp and cold of Restfield Cemetery, long since gone. Maybe he’s got some kind of weird vampire spidey senses, who knows? Still, he’s always surprised to find himself in her company. Especially on nights like this.
He’s been in town for weeks, circling someone special – a blue-eyed werewolf, the only white one Angel’s ever come across, who doesn’t have the common sense to not cause a ruckus in the Slayer’s backyard. Not just one Slayer, either. He’s heard rumblings that Faith’s in town, too, with her over-grown hunter but he’d bet his life that Buffy’s the one to be worried about.
There’s no telling her, though, he knows that and so he goes for vague and cryptic. Something he used to be good at, “Awhile. It’s good to see you.”
RP Blog 