savemandy | College AU

"Hi."

Great start. She heard Angel, sure that he would be able to hear her heart beating, even through the phone.

"Hi."

Eventually she would manage something else.

Just one word, and his throat was closing up and his heart was racing.

She has the loveliest voice in the whole world. He was sure of it.

"So. Where were we?"

"Think we were pretty much stuck on the 'hi' part of the conversation." Buffy looked at herself in the mirror as she paced up and down in her room, changing her expression to a frown when she caught herself smiling her Angel smile. Damn it.

"I asked you if Spike is a good kisser."

"Right."

Oh boy. Why was he even doing this to himself?

Because she was Buffy and he would do anything to talk to her, including causing himself intense emotional pain. Maybe Dru had a point about his relationship to pain...

"I guess I'd have to give him points for technique."

Why did he say that???

"Tastes a lot like cigarettes though so the fact that he lunged at me to prove that he doesn't taste bad was pretty much a bust and why am I still talking?"

"Huh."

No, that wasn't exactly fun to listen to.

"Don't worry about it. Frankly, I don't think there is anything you could have said that I'd have wanted to hear. But at least now I know I was right about never wanting to date a smoker."

She sighed, rustling as she shook her head. "He's obsessed with you."

"He was a good kid and I fucked him up, so I guess it kind of makes sense."

Angel scratched his head, mostly to have something to do with the hand that wasn't holding the phone.

"He was trying to prove something with the whole kissing thing, and for some reason he just really speaks to my inner asshole so I had to go and prove something right back. I know that doesn't make it better but... It really wasn't about preferring him over you. There is no comparison. Even if there is some sort of... I don't know, attraction..."

He had to pause after saying that just to shake off the intense feeling of discomfort that saying that brought him...

"You were always enough. I know I've blown it, I know you're with someone else and I really hope you're happy but I... I really need you to know that."

"You know, maybe you should deal with that. That. Attraction." Buffy sighed, then huffed to get a stray strand of her hair out of her face. "Although I really think you can do better than Spike. But what I mean is... I don't know. You could go to one of those meetings Willow goes to some time. Meet people you don't have a sordid history with and that aren't in a BDSM cult."

That just seemed like a smart thing to avoid, all things considered. "Thanks. You were enough too."

More than enough. "I'm with Riley." She knew he knew that.

"I know. I don't like him."

Hopefully she could hear the slight smile in his voice. He wasn't trying to be a dick, even if he was being very honest.

"And I don't need meetings to figure out that I'm not straight, if that's what you were trying to get at."

"I figured being part of a sex cult would take care of that. But that's what I'm saying. Not exactly the healthiest way of coming to terms with any part of you." Buffy still had trouble wrapping her mind around it at all, honestly, but that was beside the point.

"Making out with someone you don't like in a closet also isn't all that healthy." Especially not when it also meant cheating on her.

"If I ever gave you the impression that I think of myself as healthy, I really am very sorry."

You kind of had to be a bit nuts to wrap yourself around the "logic" that had governed his past, and he knew that Buffy was far too... well, good, to ever get it.

Buffy snorted before she could stop herself, then realised how that came across. "Sorry. Sorry, no. No worries there. You never gave me that."

Her poor, broken Angel. Well. Not hers anymore. "I'm just saying. It doesn't mean you can't start trying to cope healthily."

The snort was pretty much exactly the reaction he'd been after, which was why he actually laughed a little rather than feel offended.

"I know. It's nice of you to care. Still."

"I don't think I can make myself not do it. Care."

And wasn't that just the tragedy of it all?

"About you, I mean." Oh, Angel. She really had to find a way to get him out of her mind. Out of her heart. But he seemed to stay there, no matter whether she avoided him or sat up on the phone with him in the middle of the night.

All right, the latter seemed kind of an obvious way not to get over someone, but she was trying not to think about that.

"I'm..."

Sorry. It seemed pointless to say it again, so he stopped himself before he could finish the sentence.

"You know. Would it cheer you up to tell me about how good a kisser Riley is? I guarantee you I'll be super uncomfortable."

"He's at least as good at kissing as he is at throwing a punch." Riley. Right, right, she should be thinking about him. Why was it that when she talked to Angel, the rest of the world seemed to lose focus?

She'd blame hormones, that seemed safest. "Not sure if he measures up to Spike, mind."

Yep, that sure was a stab right in the heart, but he deserved that. He deserved to have to think about another guy kissing Buffy.

"You know, I'm starting to think you're a little curious about kissing Spike."

"Not really. He smells like an ashtray and dresses like a background extra in a movie about a tragic punk couple." Buffy's opinion might be clouded by how much she wanted to punch Spike in the face for so many reasons, but still. She didn't think she was entirely wrong. "Not exactly my type."

That actually got a pretty big laugh out of Angel, because for one he enjoyed making fun of Spike, and for another it was just a pretty damn accurate summary.

"You have a type?"

"M-hm." At this point, for better or worse, she couldn't really deny it any more. "I go for annoyingly gorgeous, very fit, earnest with some hidden secrets types. You might recognise them from your mirror." Well, there was really no need to pretend that Angel wasn't her type.

Angel probably helped define it.

"Whatever baggage your Riley has, I hope it's... you know, safe."

Not like all of his messed up shit that cut up everything around him.

"Safe enough." She supposed. It all depended on what one meant by that word and Buffy wasn't always sure any more what it meant at all. To be safe. To feel safe. She supposed she had last had it in Angel's arms.

Ah, well.

"Drusilla told me that love is pain. When I told her about you and Spike. She's not much of an optimist."

"I think her first love might have been me so. You know."

Maybe it really was just for the best that he'd managed to fuck things up with Buffy. Now she could move on and have the sort of love that she deserved.

He just couldn't stand the thought of not being a part of her life.

"Yeah, I figured." Unfortunately she knew a little too much about Drusilla by now. It had been easier when she just found her unsettling and felt jealous, now there was all that pity and other complex emotions. "I just think she's right. Don't you think she might be?"

This was so not the conversation she should have with Angel.

"No, I don't. I won't."

He was pretty sure that it could never be anything but pain for him now, but that was another matter.

"Because I refuse to believe that is what your future looks like. If you love Riley and..."

He had to swallow a few times, because his throat was suddenly starting to feel very tight.

"And he loves you, then embrace it. Don't be afraid of pain, because if you're with someone you love, you never have to be alone with it."

"...it's late. I have to go to bed."

Or else maybe she had to curl up in bed and keep from crying somehow, have a good snuggle with her stuffed toys, that might be quite likely to be in the books.

Buffy couldn't even blame him for this. It was just what happened when she talked to Angel. The Angel effect.

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