taxonomites | xiii [ location: hyperion hotel, basement ].

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xiii [ location: hyperion hotel, basement ].

[ ooc | backdated to after this thread, handwaving dawn's performance of the ritual. sarah, if you'd like faith in on this, jump right on in-- same for anyone else who feels their character would be present. :> also, we can treat this like a party post with jumping around/threadjacking, etc. whatever works best for y'all. ]

Everything's foggy at first and there's shapes that, while still somewhat caught in the tail-end of the ritual's affects on him, he mistakes for others, relying on what little of his sight is working and unable to access the other senses that would give him a surer sense of who's around him. He doesn't remember Taxon. Not yet. What he thinks is happening is an echo of the past for him, of another time when his soul was ripped from him the 'wrong way'-- but then it had been of his own consenting, where here it had been a game, something out of his hands and entirely in someone else's control. To the blurry figure in the cage with him (Godric) he ventures, "Connor?" Then, turning his head towards the equally blurry figure outside the bars (Cordelia), he commands in a tone that isn't as loud or commanding as he thinks it is, "Faith. Stop. He's just--"

But then his sense of smell flares back to life with an intensity that makes him shut his eyes, shallow hard and slam his head back against the stone he's chained to with a sickening crack that would've damaged him, had he been human. It won't even cause a bump; it'll just hurt for a while, but the pain is tangible. Pain is always tangible. He understands pain, especially the self-inflicted. Right now, it's all he understands.

The scents are wrong. It doesn't fit the picture of what's supposed to be happening in his head. Connor. Where is Connor? He wants to ask, but his lips won't move and instead, the unvoiced question receives an answer in the form of a memory of a woman he can barely stand; light brown hair, twinkling hazel eyes and a smirk he would have liked to-- quite literally-- rip right off her face.

"Hits you where you live, don't it?"

"..."

"Of course I know. You lost your son. Well, gave him up."

"To save him."

"Which you did. He's happy and well adjusted now that he has no memory of you-- and the rest of the world, including your best friends, never even heard of Connor."

But, he'd spoke of him. He remembers now. Sitting in his office at Wolfram & Hart, smirking and laughing as he told Buffy of the son whose existence he'd hidden from the world. ...yet, he doesn't know why he did it. What should be an obvious answer is just a big, gaping blank in his memory; the reasoning that it wasn't him, but Angelus, not within his grasp. He hadn't done that when he was Angelus last. He'd killed a bunch of people, terrorized Fred (Fred, he smells Fred in the room and his eyes snap open as he turns his head and looks at where she's sitting on the stairs, vision still not fully back yet), gave Wes a run for his money and bit Faith, but he hadn't spoke so...callously of his son. And Connor had still been his then and not the family the Senior Partners had reassigned him to. It didn't match up like trying to fit two pieces from different puzzles together to form a picture he didn't even have the box art to.

"I-- I don't--" He tries to stand, but finds he can't. Yes, he'd been shackled then, but he hadn't been bound to anything. "Why am I chained to the wall?"

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"Don't," he says instantly, voice firm despite his tears. And more gently, "Don't be sorry. Please. This isn't your fault. This isn't anyone's fault." He doesn't believe that, but he needs to say it for her sake and maybe if he says it enough, he'll start to feel inclined to believe it, too. "This... Is a mess. One I don't know how to clean up."

Angel draws his head back, dropping his hands onto her shoulders as he turns his head just enough to see out the open veranda and the Taxon landscape that lies beyond it. "They won't understand."

Cordelia crosses her arms in front of her, the very picture of defiance. "I'll make them," she says quite adamantly. And she's serious about that, too. The people out there will just have to get the fact that Angel shouldn't be blamed for Angelus' antics - and she'll make damn sure they will.

Angel turns back to her and gives her the tiniest hint of a smile -- all he can manage at the moment -- and looks down at her crossed arms, then back up, pausing his gaze at her neck. He drags a hand across her shoulder to her neck, brushing his fingertips over where he -- no, Angelus bit her. If it were possible for vampires to pale, he would be doing so about now.

She has almost forgotten about that wound. Cordelia's eyes widen and she pulls away, hating the fact that Angel can see the very first damage that Angelus was able to inflict on her. "Not your fault," she stresses, because dear god he doesn't need this right now. "Okay? Don't beat yourself up over this. I mean, hey - still alive here, all right? Two little puncture wounds? Pfft, over it. Not your fault."

He retracts his hand as if he's been burned when she steps away, curling his fingers into his palm in a tight fist he holds close to his unbeating heart. Angel swallows once, twice. Angelus had bitten her when he was trying to-- The whole thing made him stick to his stomach. What possessed their alien overlords to do that then was beyond him. That night was supposed to be special for her and not in the way it had turned out to be.

"Then why does it feel like it?" Angel asks of her then, voice small. "What did you do to deserve this from them? What did Buffy do? Or Dawn? Or your friend, Max? ...what did I do to give them a reason to let him out?" Here's where his fears start seeping out from the corners he's stuffed them into. "Is it because of Wolfram & Hart? Giving up Connor? Hell, Acathla? I am trying to atone, but it is never going to be good enough for the Powers or anyone if things like this keep happening."

Cordelia realizes her mistake immediately; maybe she shouldn't have pulled away from him. She steps closer to place a hand on his arm.

"I wish I have the answer for you, tiger," she says softly. "The truth is, I... I don't know. I'm just... lost right now. And I really, really wish I wasn't, because this, this is just..." Unfair. Annoying. Did she mention unfair?

"You know I've never been a fan of the Powers, but..." Cordelia bites her lip. "I owe them one. They gave me a vision, Angel. Of you coming back. If they didn't give a damn about you - about us - then why would they send me that vision in the first place? If they didn't in some weird way or form actually care about us... I don't think they would've bothered. But they did. Maybe they just have plans for us, and it's just too soon to tell what they are."

"I think it's more the other way around."

The Powers had asked so much of her and allowed terrible things to happen to her with Skip and Jasmine... In his opinion, they owed her more than one. Dozens, if he had his say. But, they weren't listening to him. They might be keeping some sort of an eye out for him as long as he was working for their cause, but what he wanted didn't matter. Who he wanted didn't matter, not to them.

His eyes fell upon the bite mark once more. This place was supposed to be their chance, that silver lining that allowed for them to make up for that missed moment. And to think Angelus could've destroyed that so easily if her demon powers hadn't kicked in. Good to know Skip's toying was good for something; it'd saved her from him.

Stepping back up to her, Angel took her face in his hands again, first pressing a chaste kiss to her lips he was certain they both needed, then touching his forehead to hers. "Whatever the reason, whoever... I'm back and I want to make things right with everyone, just... Not now. I can't-- Not right away. In time, maybe, but... I need to--" Brood. "--sort all this out first."

She closes her eyes when he kisses her, and only opens them when he has rested his forehead against hers. For the first time in a long, long while - Cordelia actually smiles. She's missed him so much that sometimes she ached with it. But he's right; he's back now. Eventually, everything will be okay.

"Take your time," Cordelia says. "Just remember that I'm here for you, okay? Same goes for Fred. Anything you need... anything at all. Just tell me." She chuckles and says, "And don't think I can't tell that you have a burning desire to brood, buster. I can smell it a mile away."

For a moment, he tries to look innocent so that he can properly deny these allegations of brooding, but who is he kidding? Of course he's going to brood. It's his favorite pastime and he's got a lot of brooding to catch up on in the two months he's been MIA and evil.

"I'm not going to brood, I'm...going to deliberate. Gloomily. Deliberate with some gloomy themes."

"And that's different from brooding how, exactly?" she asks, with one eyebrow raised.

"It's less brood and more gloom?" Angel tries in vain, shaking his head at himself. "I think this is the one time I deserve to be left alone to brood." As to not give her the wrong impression with those words, he dropped his hands away from her face to take hers in his. "Not right this moment. Stay?"

She snorts at the answer - but her heart is glad that he was at least trying to humor her, despite himself. Cordelia squeezes his hands with hers, before disentangling one and placing it on his cheek. There's nowhere else she'd rather be, at this point in time. "You know I will," she says. "I still have to take care of you, remember? Get you cleaned up. I think we need to restore a bit of your dignity as to not make it obvious that a tiny girl kicked your ass."

...she may not let you forget about this fact for a long, long time, Angel.

Edited 2010-04-13 13:37 (UTC)

Angel would like nothing more than to retreat to a dark corner and brood until the end of time, but he can't and he won't, for her and for Faith and Fred and that small shred of hope that lies in seeing his son again, whether it be here or back home. He has to get through this, for them if not for himself.

The vampire frowns at her, knowing well she's going to wield this knowledge like a sword and use it to cut down his ego whenever it gets too large. "Yeah. I should... Go get out of this." There's another frown, because he's still got on the leather pants and silk shirt of the Angelus-favoring variety.

"Oh, I agree with the shirt," Cordelia says, lowering her hand so she can run it across his silk-covered chest. "However... I do like you in leather pants, though. You think you can keep wearing them just a bit longer?"

Angel looks down, eyes following her hand's path. His mind jumps elsewhere and he looks up, consenting to the request with a nod. "A bit longer," he agrees, letting go of the hand he was still holding to reach up with both of his to start undoing buttons so she can tend to the damage River inflicted upon him.

Cordelia, if this is a way of distracting him from his brooding, it's working. For the moment.

She grins at him. "Good," Cordelia says, patting him twice on the chest. "Now go sit on the bed, 'kay? I'll get my supplies." Which she still has to hatch, but it won't take her too long anyhow since there's a convenient hatch down the hall. The trip lasts all of five minutes or so.

On her way back to the bed, she turns the lights on. The mess he's made is more visible now, and she bites her lip as she surveys it. Cordelia contemplates on asking him if he wants to move to her room, but quickly disregards it. Baby steps. He may need the sanctuary that his room provides, after all.

"Been a long while since we did this," she says instead, dropping her medicine kit on the bed to look at Angel. "I kinda missed it."

That shirt is dropped carelessly on the floor to mingle with the mess that he's made. For a vampire who was so OCD about keeping things clean and neat and even when he was 'okay,' a trashed room contrasted greatly against the norm, especially with how comfortable he felt among the rubble where it would have otherwise driven him insane. He sits down on the bed as instructed, wincing and making a distinctly vampire noise at the lights being turned on.

Angel blinks at her, squinting as his eyes adjust to the brightness now filling the room. "I'll make a note to get my ass kicked more often."

She rolls her eyes at him and crosses her arms. "Yeah. I'll tell River to always be on standby just in case I get another hankering." The pose only lasts a second or so, for now she's busy with taking what she needed from the kit: some cleaning solution, gauze, and tape.

With these in hand, Cordelia goes to sit beside him again. She frowns at the marks and wounds that River has left on him - and makes a mental note to never piss Ant Lady off. She gently traces the skin next to the worst ones before quietly starting the task of playing Nurse Cordy.

Angel doesn't wince or tense or show any signs of if what she's doing is hurting him. This is normal, after all. He gets hurt, she patches him up. He's missed this during his days at Wolfram & Hart before coming here-- hell, the days before her ascension before she came back possessed by Jasmine, even. In those days, he'd either patch himself up or Fred or Lorne would see to assisting him. What he would do to make everything in LA go back to the way it was, the way it was supposed to be...

"I'm sorry you didn't get your night," he says quietly after a few moments of silence.

Cordelia looks at him, hands stilling just as she was about to tape down the gauze on the right side of his chest. That night had been a night of extremes - from them professing their love for each other to Angelus coming out - that she can't think of one without immediately jumping to the other. It had hurt, so so much, that the aliens chose that night out of the many others to unleash hell on them all - with her being its first victim.

She can't offer that they do it again, not this soon. Instead, she reaches up to gently kiss him, then says, "It's okay. I have now with you - and that's much, much better in my book."

He hates that, too. Of all the moments the aliens could've chosen to turn him into Angelus, they'd chosen that night and then, when he had been about to test the waters when it came to working around the curse. How horribly ironic it was to be engaging in something in order to avoid letting Angelus out only to have the aliens do it anyway. And now, he knew what her blood tasted like and that bothered him more than he cared to admit, for the demon in him kept reminding him that he did and he knew that side wouldn't let him forget it any time soon.

One would think he'd be used to being screwed over by now. Nothing ever went his way. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered, but it was like he'd told Spike once: What else was he going to do with his immortality?

Angel smiles weakly, but genuinely at her. "Just having you here means more to me than you'll ever know." He means that in both her sticking by him after this mess and her being in Taxon in general.

"I'm glad that you finally appreciate my presence," she teases him. In truth what he said to her just now meant a hell lot to her, too, considering just how worthless and useless she'd felt the entire time Angelus was running loose in Taxon.

She tapes gauze down, then says, "There. All done."

Even though he knows that she's just teasing, he draws a leg up on to the bed, bent at the knee so that he can turn and face her. He takes hold of one her hands and cups her cheek with his other. "I always appreciate your presence. Never think otherwise."

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xiii [ location: hyperion hotel, basement ].

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]

[ location: hyperion hotel, angel's room ]