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Best Souvenir 10
A/N: Everything funny, atmospheric, authentic and accurate is ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
a2zmom's. This woman did on site research for me. Twice. And she uh, wrote like half of this. Twice. So, much thanks, &tc.
Chapter 10
The sidewalk was still packed with people, even at 8:30 at night. A few street vendors were hawking “authentic Swiss” watches, and traffic was just as heavy as during the evening rush.
“I still don’t like it,” Angel said, looking at the sign across the street. It was five stories high, and read in big letters, “MACY’S World’s Largest Store”.
“I don’t care what you like,” Buffy replied, crossing the street with a crowd of twenty others. Having to trust Angel enough to do this with her was annoying in and of itself; she still didn’t like having to go outside with him without the manacles—not to mention that his jumpy behavior on the streets made her that much more nervous. But it was necessary, obviously, to meet the EEK executive without Angel chained to her, and so she had to forgo the cuffs.
It was also necessary to make him a little more presentable, and that’s when the trouble had started. He was instantly an authoritative connoisseur who thought he knew everything there was to know about where to buy clothes. He insisted on Barney’s. She suggested JC Penny’s. They’d argued. It hadn’t been pretty.
She walked down toward the entrance, reminding him of their compromise. “Plus, Macys is the only department store open until ten p.m., and we might just need that kind of time.”
“Why did it have to be a department store at all?” he grumbled, following her through the exterior door of the entrance. He looked at the interior revolving door warily, as if it threatened him. Or confused him.
“Because you need lots of different stuff,” she answered irritably. She stepped inside the revolving door, Angel slipping in behind her just as she started pushing, making her suddenly catch her breath. Didn’t he know it was polite to go one at a time? But of course, he wouldn’t be polite. He was a vampire. She could feel him there, behind her; she could feel her hair brushing his chest. Him and all his vampireyness. And hard chestness. And broad shoulders and—and she didn’t really have to continue this train of thought.
She pushed hard on the revolving door and half stumbled into the store, turning to snap something at Angel about personal space, thank you very much, and—that was a nice purse over there in the counter. It was a little black number with gold trim and two thin straps, and it would totally kick ass with that new dress she had bought a while back. Dawn had said she’d needed to accessorize the outfit. With this purse and—shoes. Ah, shoes. Buffy finally lifted her gaze from the purse and looked around her.
On either side of the wide, chandelier-lit aisle were counters of pocketbooks. One nook was devoted to Ralph Lauren, another to Coach, another to Louis Vuittion and on and on, stretching further than she could see. There was more where this came from. A whole city block of it. There was probably a whole floor for shoes.
She couldn’t seem to remember there being this much Gucci in Heaven.
A shopper impatiently brushed past her and Buffy suddenly felt cold. “Come on,” she said to Angel, scowling. She was never going to get to do anything fun in New York; that was becoming obvious.
She asked for a map at the information desk, looked at it for a moment, then began making her way expertly through the crowded aisles. After the handbags came the jewelry counters, and she suppressed a sigh when she caught a glimpse of a fifty percent off sign. By the time she got to the make-up and perfume counters, she realized she’d lost Angel already.
“What’s your deal?” she asked irritably, when he’d finally caught up to her at the Clinique counter. A woman hurried by them and Angel pressed himself up against the counter so her shopping bags wouldn’t brush him as she passed. He’d been skittish on the street, overly anxious, looking all around them as if something was going to jump out at them. It had been worse on the subway—the growl had grown to a rumble Buffy had been sure the whole car could hear. Luckily, no one seemed fazed by his animalistic noises or murderous glares. Maybe New Yorkers were used to that kind of thing.
Angel was looking away. “It’s crowded,” was all he said.
Buffy stared up at him. “Are you hungry?” she asked abruptly.
His eyes snapped to hers. For what seemed like a long time, he said nothing, then, “Yes. And I can hear their heartbeats.”
Well, that was gross. She hadn’t known vampires could hear heartbeats. Could he distinguish between different beats? Could he hear hers? Was it speeding up? Was it fear, or something—She turned her head to watch the people going by with Angel for a moment. Clueless, happy shoppers, and he was listening to their heartbeats and thinking about eating them. How he could even hear the workings of internal organs—again, gross—above the dull roar of people talking, she could hardly fathom.
Buffy glanced at Angel to point this out and noticed that in the close light of the fluorescent lamps his milky, too-pale skin was looking downright greenish. It dawned on her suddenly that he might be hungry—starving, as she had first suspected—but that he seemed more nauseated by the crowd than attracted to it. She wondered if it was humanly possible (vampirically possible? she mentally corrected) for the undead to toss their cookies, because if looked as if Angel was planning on going that route.
Aside from the obvious facts that vampires drank blood and poofed when you stuck a piece of wood in their hearts, Buffy had never considered vampire physiology. Intellectually, she knew they had vastly superior night vision, hearing and sense of smell, but she’d never thought about what that meant in the real world. The high ceilings and polished marble floors in here must be making the murmur of people moving and talking unbearable for him. Even to her it was harsh and echoey, and she could barely discern the loud thump of a techno beat in the background. And he hadn’t even mentioned the smells. The smell of people times hundreds, plus the perfumes and make-up—she looked at him again and jeez, he was in actual pain. A sudden stab of sympathy shot through her and she said softly, “I think it will be quieter in the other part of the store. Let’s just hurry.”
They quickly made their way to the men’s section—though she had to tug on him when they got to the aisle which seemed to be mostly colognes and various grooming products for men. He could be in agony and ready to retch, but apparently it didn’t distract him from his grooming fetish.
When they got to the men’s section, Angel looked a little better—or at least not green any more. All the clothes deadened the noise here. Unfortunately, here appeared to be tieland. She had never seen so many ties in all of her life, and along the walls were dress shirts to go with them. She surveyed the area, quickly mapping out a plan. “We’ll start here, since you need a suit.”
“No.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. “What?”
“I mean, no suit,” he hastily amended. “Leather.”
Buffy turned on her heel to face him in the hallway of the store. “Leather?” she repeated, her voice dripping sarcasm. “You think this is a joke? Do I look like your sugar mama? I’m not here to buy—”
“I just meant that’s what Angelus would wear. I didn’t really . . . do suits. I might now, but that’s not the point. I wore only . . .”
“Leather?” Buffy choked. The mental image was physically harming her.
“No—” A salesman pushed by him, and Angel again jumped out of the way, farther than was necessary. “I just . . . A blazer, maybe. Not a business suit.”
“Okay. Whatever.” Maybe he wasn’t being ornery. If a suit really wasn’t something he would wear, then he shouldn’t be wearing a suit while trying to convince someone who knew him that he was who he is. Or was. The Angel/Angelus thing was confusing. He’d said he might wear a suit now. Did he mean now that he had a chip? Did it make him more conservative? Darla hadn’t seemed keen on giving up leather just because she’d had a chip.
Buffy sighed and took out her store directory again. This whole shopping expedition was wearing her out and they still hadn’t bought anything. She wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to want to leave a clothing store, but she was getting there.
Lower level—men’s seasonal clothing, men’s . . . Huh. Underwear, she translated, and then remembered Angel wasn’t wearing any. She should take him to the “men’s furnishings” section just to teach him a lesson. But he wouldn’t be trying things on there, she realized, and she really wanted to see him in— . . . First floor, she read on. First floor and a half . . .
“Come on,” she said, turning them toward the elevator. “Third floor.” She pressed the button.
The doors opened and they were immediately surrounded by a sea of shoes. Dress shoes, casual shoes, work boots, ankle boots, black shoes, brown shoes, tan shoes, funky colored shoes. They weren’t even female shoes, and it was still happy-land. Buffy glanced over at Angel and his eyes appeared glazed. Even during those few, ill-fated trips to the mall back in high school, Xander had never looked so clueless. He’d merely looked . . . annoyed. And Xander’s mother dressed him in those stripy sweaters.
This was not a case of the Y-shaped anti-shopping chromosome. Angel was not disgusted; he just seriously didn’t know what he was doing. What had happened to the consumer aficionado? If she had to venture a guess, she would say that he had shopped some time in his life time, but never in a place like this. Perhaps that explained his aversion to Macy’s.
She should have known that shopping would be a bit of a shock to him. She’d found him on the street, looking as if he hadn’t a place to call home or a cent to his name in years. It was unfair of her, she supposed, to expect him to take it all in right away. Macy’s might be a simple, straight-forward place, but she was used to it, used to living like a human being in the human world. Maybe a two hundred and some vampire would feel a little out of the loop. Maybe she ought to cut him a little slack, see things from his point of view. They were working together, for the time being, and . . . .
And she was being stupid again. He was a vampire; she shouldn’t care about his feelings or what kind of experiences he had behind him. She felt like she was sixteen again, wanting to give everyone a chance . . . And something in her loved that he could make her feel so young and untarnished.
“Sit,” she commanded, pointing to a chair. She almost felt guilty, he looked so completely out of his element. She quickly buttonholed a salesman who seemed like he might be willing to go the extra mile. “He needs black dress shoes.” She stood on tiptoes and whispered, conspiratorially, into the salesman’s ear, “he’s very nervous about shopping. He’s from a very small town. Very, very small.” She turned to Angel and gave him a wide, cheery smile. He was scowling. “The nice salesmen is going to help you find shoes. I’ll be right back.” She sounded as if she was speaking to a two year old instead of a two hundred year old, but Buffy hoped that it would help Angel behave.
Suits, pants and jackets were along the left side of the store, again arranged in small boutiques. Boss, Calvin Klein, Joseph Abud, Michael Korrs. Luckily, she had shopped for Riley on several occasions, so she had a starting point regarding size. The first few pair of slacks she looked at gave her an acute case of sticker shock, and she wondered why she hadn’t insisted on JC Penny’s. She decided to stick to the sales racks at that point and found a few likely candidates. She was especially fond of a charcoal gray in a lightweight wool and was lucky enough to find it in a range of sizes.
Hurrying back to the shoe department, she found Angel sitting, clutching a box to his chest. “You found a pair that fit? Good. While I pay for them, you go try on these pants,” she said, shoving a mound of clothes in his face. He stood up, reminding her of Forrest Gump minus the chocolate fixation.
Sighing, she walked him over to the dressing rooms. “Here you go. Try on the pants until you find a pair that fits you that you like.” She quickly walked back to the shoe department and paid for the shoes. Shirt next. She passed by a rack of brightly colored Hawaiian prints and snorted. She imagined she’d give Angel a heart attack if she suggested one of those.
Feeling someone come up behind her, Buffy sighed and said, “I thought I told you to—”
“May I help you?” the salesman said at the same time.
“Oh. Oops. I thought you were someone else,” Buffy apologized.
The salesman, a neatly groomed young black man, flashed a giga-watt smile. “You thought I was tall, dark, and wearing the worst boots I ever saw, didn’t you,” he teased.
“Well . . .” Buffy trailed off, smiling a little. It was, after all, a pretty good description of Angel. She’d seen the salesman over by the dressing rooms, arranging the hangers.
The salesman, whose name pin said “Jake,” glanced at the dress shirts, then back at Buffy. “Got something you might be interested in,” he said, and gestured for Buffy to follow. He rounded the corner, rifled for a moment, checked a size, and drew out a silky shirt with a smart, sharp collar and concealed buttons. It was blood red.
“It’s good,” Buffy said, nodding. She tilted her head suspiciously. “How did you know it would be his thing?”
Jake shrugged fluidly. “I have an intuition about these things. Your . . . ah . . . boyfriend?”
“Cousin,” Buffy supplied quickly.
“I see,” Jake said, flashing another smile. “Your cousin has a very nice build.”
“I’ll say,” Buffy replied, and took the folded shirt from the salesman. The fabric was soft, rich. Angel would be tickled. She checked the price. It wasn’t too bad, considering the silk. Most guys probably wouldn’t be able to pull off a shirt like that without looking at least a little . . . effeminate, but somehow she doubted anything would look very effeminate on Angel. She nodded and turned away from the salesman.
“Your cousin,” Jake said hastily from behind her, taking a few long strides to catch up with her. “He doesn’t get out much, does he? I could tell. He didn’t want to tell me how many items.”
Buffy kept walking, annoyed. Was this a come on? Just because she and Angel were . . . cousins didn’t mean she wanted to pick up the clerk at the local Macy's. Not tonight, anyway, she thought, giving Jake a sneaking glance. He was rather cute, in a lean, cultured kind of way. “No,” Buffy said, not thinking much about it. “I guess not.”
Jake nodded. “Now is a good time to practice.”
Buffy stopped. “Huh?”
“It’s late,” Jake explained. “A good time to acclimate himself to public places.” At her look of confusion, he said, “My brother had it.”
His brother was a vampire? A tremor of warning pulsed through her, invisible, but there. She was the Slayer, and nothing was ever as it seemed. She’d been foolish and not a little full of herself to think that this cute salesman with his gorgeous smile was interested in her, only her, for herself, and not in something deeper, darker—more demonic. For all she knew, he could be one of the Immortal’s spies. Casually, Buffy continued walking down the aisle, running her hand along a shelf. “What are you talking about?” she asked nonchalantly. “What did your brother have?”
“You know,” Jake said, gesturing. “Fear of being out in public. They call it agoraphobia.”
“Oh,” Buffy said, suddenly pausing beside a rack of pin-stripe suits. Relief tugged at her, but she remained wary. “No, I don’t think he has that.”
“Ah,” Jake said, laughing a little nervously and clicking his teeth. “He’s just shy.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Jake was silent for a moment. “Hard to get?”
Buffy looked at Jake, startled, and then saw several things that she had neglected to notice before. He hadn’t checked her out, not once; he kept glancing at the dressing rooms with a small ray of hope in his eyes; and he was very, very well dressed. Too well dressed. Buffy couldn’t hide her smile. “No,” she said. “But I don’t think he’d be interested. I’m sorry.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Just my luck. All the good ones are—”
“Taken,” Buffy supplied.
“Straight,” Jake replied, matching her smile with his. “You’re not really his cousin, are you?”
Buffy laughed then, a rippling sound Angel could hear from where he was making his way to her through the racks and shelves. “No, I’m afraid not. How’d you guess?” she teased.
Jake tapped his forehead. “It’s that intuition.”
“Sure,” Buffy said, and giggled again.
Angel had quickened his pace, and had to physically restrain himself from grabbing Buffy. She was still smiling at the handsome sales clerk, and the clerk was smiling back. He was more Buffy’s size, his expression and manner more approachable, his smile more accessible. And there she was, in that delectably skimpy dress, showing too much leg and too much bust and too much Buffy—smiling and tossing her shining hair. Angel didn’t want to taste the salesman’s blood.
He wanted to break his neck.
There was something very satisfying in taking a life that way; accessing the proper arteries took a while and could really draw out a death. Simply snapping the spinal chord was, in fact, his preferred way of murder. The simple crack of the vertebrae had seemed to almost sing to him at one time: “this one was nothing; his life was nothing; his death was barely worth the effort.” He had never tired of doing it.
Angel glowered down at Buffy and Jake with a dark expression, but it was as much as disgust for his own almost irresistible impulses as it was jealousy. The fact that the desire to feel bones break beneath his bare hands still coursed through him sickened him. And why? Because Buffy was talking to the salesman? He was probably only helping her; she held a shirt in her hand that looked like the kind he had been asking for. But Angel could not contain his instant hatred of him, or curb the territorial, primal instinct that demanded he drag Buffy away and show her that she was his, only his, completely and emphatically. The need frightened and surprised him and made him glower that much more darkly down at the two of them.
“Do you like your pants, honey?” Buffy asked, and laughed, grinning over at Jake, who, chuckling, put up his hands in surrender. Angel was standing close to Buffy—too close, his stance aggressive—but he did not touch her. She could feel the growl before it started. “Now don’t get all growly,” she said dismissively, as if she said it every day. “Jake here picked out a shirt for you.”
“Jake?” Angel bit out, his eyes never leaving Buffy’s.
Buffy opened her mouth with a smile, and then closed it. Angel was acting like a jealous alpha male, something with which she might normally have had a lot of fun. But Angel was a vampire. Even though he couldn’t do harm to humans, it probably wasn’t a good idea to exacerbate his already edgy behavior. Her expression flattened and she plucked Angel’s sleeve. “Let’s go,” she said. She glanced apologetically at Jake and turned to leave.
After glaring daggers and possibly machetes at Jake, Angel finally turned and followed her. “What was that all about?” he asked tightly, when they were out of Jake’s ear shot.
Buffy stopped so abruptly that Angel almost ran into her. “I was talking to the sales clerk,” she said, without turning around. “I may be your little toy for Banque EEK tonight, but never, ever think that you have any right to censure who I choose to talk to or what I choose to do with myself.” She turned around and crossed her arms. “Do I make myself clear?”
He looked down at her, a hurt in his eyes she couldn’t fathom. “Buffy, I . . .”
“Yes?”
“Yes. You’re clear,” he said softly, and turned away from her.
Buffy’s eyes gentled. He had a way of disarming her that made her regret it every time she snapped at him. It was obvious he hadn’t meant to go all grr. It had just happened, and he was as surprised by it as she was disturbed. Besides, despite the fact that it sucked, it was kind of nice for a guy to get jealous from time to time. She hadn’t been above trying to make guys she liked envious, in the past. She knew it was wrong, but jealousy also meant feelings. And this meant Angel must feel something, right?
She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the insidious question. There was more to it than that. Angel wasn’t just jealous; he was on edge. She hadn’t known him long, but she had seen enough of him to know that something was eating at him. He’d been even-tempered all day back in her room, except for two notable exceptions—when she’d asked whether he was worthy of Acathla and when EEK told him over the phone that they wanted a personal meeting. The first time, he’d done everything short of chain himself up to hide whatever internal hell he’d been experiencing. The second time, his anger had been exposed—but cool, contained, a weapon, not a liability.
“Can I put it on?” Angel was asking.
Buffy blinked down at the shirt in her hand. He was so broad, it might not even fit. “Okay,” she answered, swallowing a sigh. “But be quick about it. You don’t need to show me. If it fits, take it back off again and put your old shirt on. And you’ll have to take off your pants.”
“Uh. What?”
“Don’t be so dim. I meant in the dressing room. I have to be able to give everything to the cashier so I can pay.”
“Oh.” Angel looked down at his slacks. “But I like these.”
Buffy liked them too. They were the same gray pants she had picked out earlier. At least he had good taste.
He tried on the shirt (which luckily fit) and put on his old clothes again, and Buffy paid. She had to ask the cashier if he could wear the new clothes out, which gained them both a funny look, but Angel seemed pleased. Buffy kept thinking about what Jake had said.
Agoraphobia. Fear of public places.
She was pretty sure Angel wasn’t afraid, but it was obvious that he wasn’t used to being in public. Of course, vampires didn’t exactly sunbathe in Central Park or take afternoon luncheons al fresco, but most of them did participate quite frequently in living human nightlife. After all, most vampires dined out every night.
But it was obvious Angel hadn’t been participating in anything remotely social. He’d been out on the streets, but he wasn’t of the streets. He was cut off from the rest of the world, which explained his skittishness, his wariness upon entering the department store, his unreasonable jealousy. When Buffy had seen just how hopeless he was after they entered the store, she almost began to pity him. Something had happened. True, it could just be the chip, but maybe it also had to do with his turning, or maybe why Darla and his little vampire family had dropped him. Something.
He was completely alone in the world, and had no idea what the hell was going on.
Go to: Chapter Eleven
a2zmom's. This woman did on site research for me. Twice. And she uh, wrote like half of this. Twice. So, much thanks, &tc.Chapter 10
The sidewalk was still packed with people, even at 8:30 at night. A few street vendors were hawking “authentic Swiss” watches, and traffic was just as heavy as during the evening rush.
“I still don’t like it,” Angel said, looking at the sign across the street. It was five stories high, and read in big letters, “MACY’S World’s Largest Store”.
“I don’t care what you like,” Buffy replied, crossing the street with a crowd of twenty others. Having to trust Angel enough to do this with her was annoying in and of itself; she still didn’t like having to go outside with him without the manacles—not to mention that his jumpy behavior on the streets made her that much more nervous. But it was necessary, obviously, to meet the EEK executive without Angel chained to her, and so she had to forgo the cuffs.
It was also necessary to make him a little more presentable, and that’s when the trouble had started. He was instantly an authoritative connoisseur who thought he knew everything there was to know about where to buy clothes. He insisted on Barney’s. She suggested JC Penny’s. They’d argued. It hadn’t been pretty.
She walked down toward the entrance, reminding him of their compromise. “Plus, Macys is the only department store open until ten p.m., and we might just need that kind of time.”
“Why did it have to be a department store at all?” he grumbled, following her through the exterior door of the entrance. He looked at the interior revolving door warily, as if it threatened him. Or confused him.
“Because you need lots of different stuff,” she answered irritably. She stepped inside the revolving door, Angel slipping in behind her just as she started pushing, making her suddenly catch her breath. Didn’t he know it was polite to go one at a time? But of course, he wouldn’t be polite. He was a vampire. She could feel him there, behind her; she could feel her hair brushing his chest. Him and all his vampireyness. And hard chestness. And broad shoulders and—and she didn’t really have to continue this train of thought.
She pushed hard on the revolving door and half stumbled into the store, turning to snap something at Angel about personal space, thank you very much, and—that was a nice purse over there in the counter. It was a little black number with gold trim and two thin straps, and it would totally kick ass with that new dress she had bought a while back. Dawn had said she’d needed to accessorize the outfit. With this purse and—shoes. Ah, shoes. Buffy finally lifted her gaze from the purse and looked around her.
On either side of the wide, chandelier-lit aisle were counters of pocketbooks. One nook was devoted to Ralph Lauren, another to Coach, another to Louis Vuittion and on and on, stretching further than she could see. There was more where this came from. A whole city block of it. There was probably a whole floor for shoes.
She couldn’t seem to remember there being this much Gucci in Heaven.
A shopper impatiently brushed past her and Buffy suddenly felt cold. “Come on,” she said to Angel, scowling. She was never going to get to do anything fun in New York; that was becoming obvious.
She asked for a map at the information desk, looked at it for a moment, then began making her way expertly through the crowded aisles. After the handbags came the jewelry counters, and she suppressed a sigh when she caught a glimpse of a fifty percent off sign. By the time she got to the make-up and perfume counters, she realized she’d lost Angel already.
“What’s your deal?” she asked irritably, when he’d finally caught up to her at the Clinique counter. A woman hurried by them and Angel pressed himself up against the counter so her shopping bags wouldn’t brush him as she passed. He’d been skittish on the street, overly anxious, looking all around them as if something was going to jump out at them. It had been worse on the subway—the growl had grown to a rumble Buffy had been sure the whole car could hear. Luckily, no one seemed fazed by his animalistic noises or murderous glares. Maybe New Yorkers were used to that kind of thing.
Angel was looking away. “It’s crowded,” was all he said.
Buffy stared up at him. “Are you hungry?” she asked abruptly.
His eyes snapped to hers. For what seemed like a long time, he said nothing, then, “Yes. And I can hear their heartbeats.”
Well, that was gross. She hadn’t known vampires could hear heartbeats. Could he distinguish between different beats? Could he hear hers? Was it speeding up? Was it fear, or something—She turned her head to watch the people going by with Angel for a moment. Clueless, happy shoppers, and he was listening to their heartbeats and thinking about eating them. How he could even hear the workings of internal organs—again, gross—above the dull roar of people talking, she could hardly fathom.
Buffy glanced at Angel to point this out and noticed that in the close light of the fluorescent lamps his milky, too-pale skin was looking downright greenish. It dawned on her suddenly that he might be hungry—starving, as she had first suspected—but that he seemed more nauseated by the crowd than attracted to it. She wondered if it was humanly possible (vampirically possible? she mentally corrected) for the undead to toss their cookies, because if looked as if Angel was planning on going that route.
Aside from the obvious facts that vampires drank blood and poofed when you stuck a piece of wood in their hearts, Buffy had never considered vampire physiology. Intellectually, she knew they had vastly superior night vision, hearing and sense of smell, but she’d never thought about what that meant in the real world. The high ceilings and polished marble floors in here must be making the murmur of people moving and talking unbearable for him. Even to her it was harsh and echoey, and she could barely discern the loud thump of a techno beat in the background. And he hadn’t even mentioned the smells. The smell of people times hundreds, plus the perfumes and make-up—she looked at him again and jeez, he was in actual pain. A sudden stab of sympathy shot through her and she said softly, “I think it will be quieter in the other part of the store. Let’s just hurry.”
They quickly made their way to the men’s section—though she had to tug on him when they got to the aisle which seemed to be mostly colognes and various grooming products for men. He could be in agony and ready to retch, but apparently it didn’t distract him from his grooming fetish.
When they got to the men’s section, Angel looked a little better—or at least not green any more. All the clothes deadened the noise here. Unfortunately, here appeared to be tieland. She had never seen so many ties in all of her life, and along the walls were dress shirts to go with them. She surveyed the area, quickly mapping out a plan. “We’ll start here, since you need a suit.”
“No.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. “What?”
“I mean, no suit,” he hastily amended. “Leather.”
Buffy turned on her heel to face him in the hallway of the store. “Leather?” she repeated, her voice dripping sarcasm. “You think this is a joke? Do I look like your sugar mama? I’m not here to buy—”
“I just meant that’s what Angelus would wear. I didn’t really . . . do suits. I might now, but that’s not the point. I wore only . . .”
“Leather?” Buffy choked. The mental image was physically harming her.
“No—” A salesman pushed by him, and Angel again jumped out of the way, farther than was necessary. “I just . . . A blazer, maybe. Not a business suit.”
“Okay. Whatever.” Maybe he wasn’t being ornery. If a suit really wasn’t something he would wear, then he shouldn’t be wearing a suit while trying to convince someone who knew him that he was who he is. Or was. The Angel/Angelus thing was confusing. He’d said he might wear a suit now. Did he mean now that he had a chip? Did it make him more conservative? Darla hadn’t seemed keen on giving up leather just because she’d had a chip.
Buffy sighed and took out her store directory again. This whole shopping expedition was wearing her out and they still hadn’t bought anything. She wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to want to leave a clothing store, but she was getting there.
Lower level—men’s seasonal clothing, men’s . . . Huh. Underwear, she translated, and then remembered Angel wasn’t wearing any. She should take him to the “men’s furnishings” section just to teach him a lesson. But he wouldn’t be trying things on there, she realized, and she really wanted to see him in— . . . First floor, she read on. First floor and a half . . .
“Come on,” she said, turning them toward the elevator. “Third floor.” She pressed the button.
The doors opened and they were immediately surrounded by a sea of shoes. Dress shoes, casual shoes, work boots, ankle boots, black shoes, brown shoes, tan shoes, funky colored shoes. They weren’t even female shoes, and it was still happy-land. Buffy glanced over at Angel and his eyes appeared glazed. Even during those few, ill-fated trips to the mall back in high school, Xander had never looked so clueless. He’d merely looked . . . annoyed. And Xander’s mother dressed him in those stripy sweaters.
This was not a case of the Y-shaped anti-shopping chromosome. Angel was not disgusted; he just seriously didn’t know what he was doing. What had happened to the consumer aficionado? If she had to venture a guess, she would say that he had shopped some time in his life time, but never in a place like this. Perhaps that explained his aversion to Macy’s.
She should have known that shopping would be a bit of a shock to him. She’d found him on the street, looking as if he hadn’t a place to call home or a cent to his name in years. It was unfair of her, she supposed, to expect him to take it all in right away. Macy’s might be a simple, straight-forward place, but she was used to it, used to living like a human being in the human world. Maybe a two hundred and some vampire would feel a little out of the loop. Maybe she ought to cut him a little slack, see things from his point of view. They were working together, for the time being, and . . . .
And she was being stupid again. He was a vampire; she shouldn’t care about his feelings or what kind of experiences he had behind him. She felt like she was sixteen again, wanting to give everyone a chance . . . And something in her loved that he could make her feel so young and untarnished.
“Sit,” she commanded, pointing to a chair. She almost felt guilty, he looked so completely out of his element. She quickly buttonholed a salesman who seemed like he might be willing to go the extra mile. “He needs black dress shoes.” She stood on tiptoes and whispered, conspiratorially, into the salesman’s ear, “he’s very nervous about shopping. He’s from a very small town. Very, very small.” She turned to Angel and gave him a wide, cheery smile. He was scowling. “The nice salesmen is going to help you find shoes. I’ll be right back.” She sounded as if she was speaking to a two year old instead of a two hundred year old, but Buffy hoped that it would help Angel behave.
Suits, pants and jackets were along the left side of the store, again arranged in small boutiques. Boss, Calvin Klein, Joseph Abud, Michael Korrs. Luckily, she had shopped for Riley on several occasions, so she had a starting point regarding size. The first few pair of slacks she looked at gave her an acute case of sticker shock, and she wondered why she hadn’t insisted on JC Penny’s. She decided to stick to the sales racks at that point and found a few likely candidates. She was especially fond of a charcoal gray in a lightweight wool and was lucky enough to find it in a range of sizes.
Hurrying back to the shoe department, she found Angel sitting, clutching a box to his chest. “You found a pair that fit? Good. While I pay for them, you go try on these pants,” she said, shoving a mound of clothes in his face. He stood up, reminding her of Forrest Gump minus the chocolate fixation.
Sighing, she walked him over to the dressing rooms. “Here you go. Try on the pants until you find a pair that fits you that you like.” She quickly walked back to the shoe department and paid for the shoes. Shirt next. She passed by a rack of brightly colored Hawaiian prints and snorted. She imagined she’d give Angel a heart attack if she suggested one of those.
Feeling someone come up behind her, Buffy sighed and said, “I thought I told you to—”
“May I help you?” the salesman said at the same time.
“Oh. Oops. I thought you were someone else,” Buffy apologized.
The salesman, a neatly groomed young black man, flashed a giga-watt smile. “You thought I was tall, dark, and wearing the worst boots I ever saw, didn’t you,” he teased.
“Well . . .” Buffy trailed off, smiling a little. It was, after all, a pretty good description of Angel. She’d seen the salesman over by the dressing rooms, arranging the hangers.
The salesman, whose name pin said “Jake,” glanced at the dress shirts, then back at Buffy. “Got something you might be interested in,” he said, and gestured for Buffy to follow. He rounded the corner, rifled for a moment, checked a size, and drew out a silky shirt with a smart, sharp collar and concealed buttons. It was blood red.
“It’s good,” Buffy said, nodding. She tilted her head suspiciously. “How did you know it would be his thing?”
Jake shrugged fluidly. “I have an intuition about these things. Your . . . ah . . . boyfriend?”
“Cousin,” Buffy supplied quickly.
“I see,” Jake said, flashing another smile. “Your cousin has a very nice build.”
“I’ll say,” Buffy replied, and took the folded shirt from the salesman. The fabric was soft, rich. Angel would be tickled. She checked the price. It wasn’t too bad, considering the silk. Most guys probably wouldn’t be able to pull off a shirt like that without looking at least a little . . . effeminate, but somehow she doubted anything would look very effeminate on Angel. She nodded and turned away from the salesman.
“Your cousin,” Jake said hastily from behind her, taking a few long strides to catch up with her. “He doesn’t get out much, does he? I could tell. He didn’t want to tell me how many items.”
Buffy kept walking, annoyed. Was this a come on? Just because she and Angel were . . . cousins didn’t mean she wanted to pick up the clerk at the local Macy's. Not tonight, anyway, she thought, giving Jake a sneaking glance. He was rather cute, in a lean, cultured kind of way. “No,” Buffy said, not thinking much about it. “I guess not.”
Jake nodded. “Now is a good time to practice.”
Buffy stopped. “Huh?”
“It’s late,” Jake explained. “A good time to acclimate himself to public places.” At her look of confusion, he said, “My brother had it.”
His brother was a vampire? A tremor of warning pulsed through her, invisible, but there. She was the Slayer, and nothing was ever as it seemed. She’d been foolish and not a little full of herself to think that this cute salesman with his gorgeous smile was interested in her, only her, for herself, and not in something deeper, darker—more demonic. For all she knew, he could be one of the Immortal’s spies. Casually, Buffy continued walking down the aisle, running her hand along a shelf. “What are you talking about?” she asked nonchalantly. “What did your brother have?”
“You know,” Jake said, gesturing. “Fear of being out in public. They call it agoraphobia.”
“Oh,” Buffy said, suddenly pausing beside a rack of pin-stripe suits. Relief tugged at her, but she remained wary. “No, I don’t think he has that.”
“Ah,” Jake said, laughing a little nervously and clicking his teeth. “He’s just shy.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Jake was silent for a moment. “Hard to get?”
Buffy looked at Jake, startled, and then saw several things that she had neglected to notice before. He hadn’t checked her out, not once; he kept glancing at the dressing rooms with a small ray of hope in his eyes; and he was very, very well dressed. Too well dressed. Buffy couldn’t hide her smile. “No,” she said. “But I don’t think he’d be interested. I’m sorry.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Just my luck. All the good ones are—”
“Taken,” Buffy supplied.
“Straight,” Jake replied, matching her smile with his. “You’re not really his cousin, are you?”
Buffy laughed then, a rippling sound Angel could hear from where he was making his way to her through the racks and shelves. “No, I’m afraid not. How’d you guess?” she teased.
Jake tapped his forehead. “It’s that intuition.”
“Sure,” Buffy said, and giggled again.
Angel had quickened his pace, and had to physically restrain himself from grabbing Buffy. She was still smiling at the handsome sales clerk, and the clerk was smiling back. He was more Buffy’s size, his expression and manner more approachable, his smile more accessible. And there she was, in that delectably skimpy dress, showing too much leg and too much bust and too much Buffy—smiling and tossing her shining hair. Angel didn’t want to taste the salesman’s blood.
He wanted to break his neck.
There was something very satisfying in taking a life that way; accessing the proper arteries took a while and could really draw out a death. Simply snapping the spinal chord was, in fact, his preferred way of murder. The simple crack of the vertebrae had seemed to almost sing to him at one time: “this one was nothing; his life was nothing; his death was barely worth the effort.” He had never tired of doing it.
Angel glowered down at Buffy and Jake with a dark expression, but it was as much as disgust for his own almost irresistible impulses as it was jealousy. The fact that the desire to feel bones break beneath his bare hands still coursed through him sickened him. And why? Because Buffy was talking to the salesman? He was probably only helping her; she held a shirt in her hand that looked like the kind he had been asking for. But Angel could not contain his instant hatred of him, or curb the territorial, primal instinct that demanded he drag Buffy away and show her that she was his, only his, completely and emphatically. The need frightened and surprised him and made him glower that much more darkly down at the two of them.
“Do you like your pants, honey?” Buffy asked, and laughed, grinning over at Jake, who, chuckling, put up his hands in surrender. Angel was standing close to Buffy—too close, his stance aggressive—but he did not touch her. She could feel the growl before it started. “Now don’t get all growly,” she said dismissively, as if she said it every day. “Jake here picked out a shirt for you.”
“Jake?” Angel bit out, his eyes never leaving Buffy’s.
Buffy opened her mouth with a smile, and then closed it. Angel was acting like a jealous alpha male, something with which she might normally have had a lot of fun. But Angel was a vampire. Even though he couldn’t do harm to humans, it probably wasn’t a good idea to exacerbate his already edgy behavior. Her expression flattened and she plucked Angel’s sleeve. “Let’s go,” she said. She glanced apologetically at Jake and turned to leave.
After glaring daggers and possibly machetes at Jake, Angel finally turned and followed her. “What was that all about?” he asked tightly, when they were out of Jake’s ear shot.
Buffy stopped so abruptly that Angel almost ran into her. “I was talking to the sales clerk,” she said, without turning around. “I may be your little toy for Banque EEK tonight, but never, ever think that you have any right to censure who I choose to talk to or what I choose to do with myself.” She turned around and crossed her arms. “Do I make myself clear?”
He looked down at her, a hurt in his eyes she couldn’t fathom. “Buffy, I . . .”
“Yes?”
“Yes. You’re clear,” he said softly, and turned away from her.
Buffy’s eyes gentled. He had a way of disarming her that made her regret it every time she snapped at him. It was obvious he hadn’t meant to go all grr. It had just happened, and he was as surprised by it as she was disturbed. Besides, despite the fact that it sucked, it was kind of nice for a guy to get jealous from time to time. She hadn’t been above trying to make guys she liked envious, in the past. She knew it was wrong, but jealousy also meant feelings. And this meant Angel must feel something, right?
She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the insidious question. There was more to it than that. Angel wasn’t just jealous; he was on edge. She hadn’t known him long, but she had seen enough of him to know that something was eating at him. He’d been even-tempered all day back in her room, except for two notable exceptions—when she’d asked whether he was worthy of Acathla and when EEK told him over the phone that they wanted a personal meeting. The first time, he’d done everything short of chain himself up to hide whatever internal hell he’d been experiencing. The second time, his anger had been exposed—but cool, contained, a weapon, not a liability.
“Can I put it on?” Angel was asking.
Buffy blinked down at the shirt in her hand. He was so broad, it might not even fit. “Okay,” she answered, swallowing a sigh. “But be quick about it. You don’t need to show me. If it fits, take it back off again and put your old shirt on. And you’ll have to take off your pants.”
“Uh. What?”
“Don’t be so dim. I meant in the dressing room. I have to be able to give everything to the cashier so I can pay.”
“Oh.” Angel looked down at his slacks. “But I like these.”
Buffy liked them too. They were the same gray pants she had picked out earlier. At least he had good taste.
He tried on the shirt (which luckily fit) and put on his old clothes again, and Buffy paid. She had to ask the cashier if he could wear the new clothes out, which gained them both a funny look, but Angel seemed pleased. Buffy kept thinking about what Jake had said.
Agoraphobia. Fear of public places.
She was pretty sure Angel wasn’t afraid, but it was obvious that he wasn’t used to being in public. Of course, vampires didn’t exactly sunbathe in Central Park or take afternoon luncheons al fresco, but most of them did participate quite frequently in living human nightlife. After all, most vampires dined out every night.
But it was obvious Angel hadn’t been participating in anything remotely social. He’d been out on the streets, but he wasn’t of the streets. He was cut off from the rest of the world, which explained his skittishness, his wariness upon entering the department store, his unreasonable jealousy. When Buffy had seen just how hopeless he was after they entered the store, she almost began to pity him. Something had happened. True, it could just be the chip, but maybe it also had to do with his turning, or maybe why Darla and his little vampire family had dropped him. Something.
He was completely alone in the world, and had no idea what the hell was going on.
Go to: Chapter Eleven