Buffy rubbed her eyes with grimy hands, staring into the cracked mirror of a public restroom on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Her rumpled Chinese silk top had come untied on the Greyhound and she had stepped in a puddle of motor oil in her suede boots. And I thought I would be able to manage a come-hither look. She tried her best to give a convincing grin in the mirror, but failed miserably. Instead, the Slayer took out a tube of sultry red lipstick and worked on her pout. That's better than looking like trailer trash. Buffy slung her leather duster over her shoulders and slipped out o the bathroom.
I can walk from here.
Buffy left the neon glow surrounding the bathrooms and began to hike across an empty parking lot. She didn't bother to take out the map she had with her. She knew her way well enough in the day. The sun had cast everything gold, hanging low on the horizon. It would take a good hour, calculating pit stop time at a fast food place on the way. Buffy's shoulders visibly relaxed as she set her pace. As far as anyone in Sunnydale was concerned, she was lying on a beach somewhere for the weekend. A vacation for the Slayer. That's something she didn't get often enough. Naturally everyone treated her with kid gloves, and Xander insisted that she keep in touch. That reminded her. Buffy dig into a deep pocket of her jacket and pulled out the cell Xander had loaned her. She launched it as far as she could across the parking lot as it skittered and blew apart quite satisfyingly on the pavement. Buffy kept walking, feeling better with every step away from Sunnydale.
----------Angel put his feet up on the oak table in his office. He looked at his socks with distaste. His big toe was poking out of his left sock, and the other sock has some weird sort of slime on it. He'd have to ask Cordy to get him some new socks. Angel glanced at the pile of papers scattered about on his desk, and sighed. He didn't have any particular motivation to read these now. He had spent all night (or day, rather) working on restoring order to the place after yet another demon sent by another evil god trashed the place. The rest of the troop had headed out to experience real life for one night, leaving Angel alone and lost in his thoughts.
Angel took his feet of the desk and leaned forward, massaging his temples with his fingers, as if it helped any. He opened the unlocked top drawer of his desk and riffled around to check everything of his was still there. His fingers struck something metallic and warm in the very back of the drawer. Ah. Slowly he grasped the small metal object and pulled it out into the light of the desk lamp. He sighed again, not remembering the last time he felt so melancholy. A melancholic vampire.
Someone softly rapped on the broken doorframe of his office. Instantly, Angel was transported back a lifetime and a half of a vampire, several short years for a human. Vanilla. You've begun to imagine things, Angel. He looked up, halfheartedly putting this all up to his imagination running way with him. It wasn't.
Mercy, it wasn't.
Buffy smiled softly, the veil covering the pain in her eyes fluttered for a moment, and then returned. The lines of her neck stood out against the soft waves of her hair rolling down her back, pulsing with life.
"Hello, Angel."