One thing Angel will never tell Buffy is that he does go Christmas shopping, every year. Not when he was alive – there were other uses for money then, like wine and women and being a complete bastard disappointment of a son, man, human – but every year since.
Granted, while he was evil that was more about picking the customer most full of the seasonal spirit and then torturing it out of them over the remnant of the advent. Then, in his own grandly demonic act of festive mercy, he would release them, blinking and shuddering and insane, into the snowy Christmas dawn…
He doesn't like to think about those times, so he makes himself, even at Christmas. Especially at Christmas. Season of forgiveness, or the absence thereof.
Nowadays, though, it's one of those few, precious times he can revel guiltily in being seen as just another human. Some nights, when neither the sweeps of Tai Chi nor the crushing of a punching bag can put a dent in his endless, aimless frustration, he dresses down and flattens his hair. He walks up by the neon straggle of shops and bars that Sunnydale calls downtown, and passes chattering teenagers out past curfew and rowdy groups of men on bar crawls and tries to see himself as he hopes they see him: just another guy on the street, just another human, and for a while he feels a little calmer.
It never works for long. Monumentally stupid though Sunnydale's long-time residents must be, they inevitably sense him for what he is, or rather what he isn't. They may not run from him as a vampire, but even in jeans and a t-shirt they know that he is different. Inhuman. Other. They avoid eye contact. They shy away. The space between himself and passers-by widens until he is as good as alone again.
He has never told Buffy any of this.
He tries not to think about it himself. He torments himself daily over the sins of his past; there is no need to waste valuable brooding time acknowledging the fact that he is occasionally the most pathetic being to walk the earth.
But it is a fact. Another, connected fact: every year, Angel goes Christmas shopping. Night falls early; shops close late. In a crush of panicked consumerism fewer people subconsciously inch from an over-cool hand, a too-long lapse of breath.
This year, he picks up knick-knacks, examines price-tags and lets himself feel like a regular boyfriend worrying over his regular girlfriend's Christmas present. He considers gifts for the rest of the Scooby gang too, picks them out: a couple of cute sweaters for Willow (he's not sure what passes for female fashion these days, but they look warm and colourful and very fuzzy, so he's probably good,) for Xander, a set of martial arts instruction tapes. He carries them to the check-out with Buffy's gift, not needing to find anything for Giles; to that end Angel has already unearthed several books from his collection that are probably not carried by even the most specialist of malls.
It is all another fantasy. Buffy aside, he knows he will never give those gifts. Not this year, at least. Too soon. He buys them anyway. When the cashier hands him his change, she does so flinchingly.
"Merry Christmas," he says, gathering the bags up in his arms and trying for a friendly grin. There is no response.