taxonomites | xvii [ visual ] / [ location: hyperion hotel ].

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xvii [ visual ] / [ location: hyperion hotel ].

Good at talking about his feelings, Angel is not. He's bad with words as it is and that, coupled with his penchant for bottling, means that talking isn't so much not good as it's non-existent. He's more of a man of action and boy do his actions give away hints towards all that he's keeping inside under lock and key. Especially to those who know him well. There are three things Angel does when stress is starting to get the better of him: cook, tai-chi and draw. The former seems to be the most preferred, as people get free food out of it and the man's a damn good cook for someone who doesn't have the taste buds for the things he knows how to make. Right now, however, he's indulging the latter.

Angel sits on one of the red couches in the lobby of the hotel which, while still sporting signs of the damage he and Spike did to it during their duet earlier that month (namely the body-shaped holes through two walls as the desk wreckage had been cleaned up and cleared out), is actually pretty spotless. This may or may not be due to a certain brunette Slayer having not been around lately to trash it. His feet are propped up and there's a sketch book on his lap and a pencil in his hand.

He's good. He's really good, as is shown by the dragon he's currently sketching as he alternates between moving the pencil against the page and blending lines together with his thumb and fingers that are already covered in graphite in a telltale sign that he's been at this for a while now.

Several things are eating away at him and this is his way of trying to ignore that gnawing and focus on something else.

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She's feeling better, these days. It certainly helped that her friends were around, seemingly waiting on her hand and foot - but Cordelia had never been one to stay idle for so long, so she ventures out of her room and goes down to the lobby, intending to make herself a cup of coffee.

Apparently, someone forgot that they are currently coffee pot-less, at the moment.

She spots Angel at the lobby, and slowly makes her way towards him, in the meantime. "Hey," Cordelia greets him. "Whatcha doing?"

"Drawing," is his answer, eyes still glued to the paper as he sketches away.

Angel probably should've looked into replacing the coffee pot and the other items that had been taken from the hotel during the rescue, but the thought hasn't crossed his mind, yet. Which may or may not be due to his blood diet and lack of need to use said taken objects.

She takes a peek over his shoulder - and shudders. "Yeeee. Scary," Cordelia says, wondering why he's drawing a dragon, of all thi--

And then she remembers.

"Hey, is that your adopted pet dragon?"

Edited 2010-05-30 13:00 (UTC)

"Friend." Angel pauses to turn his head towards hers. "He was my friend. If anyone was a pet, I was his." And then he's looking back down at the paper, pencil moving against the paper again as he darkens the lines of the dragon's scales.

It struck him then that there was yet another similarity between himself and Spike here. They'd both been (or still were, where Spike was concerned) 'pets' to larger, more powerful beings who could've squashed them if they wanted to. He to the dragon and Spike to Illyria. He'd never noticed that before and it makes him grin a little and shake his head.

Edited 2010-05-30 13:20 (UTC)

She moves towards her table-- sorry, to the place where her desk had been, and sighs. Cordelia walks over to the counter and finally remembers that their coffee supply is pretty much non-existent at the moment. She's about to ask him just when he's planning to restock when she catches the vampire smiling and shaking his head, as if indulging a private joke.

"What? What's so funny?"

Edited 2010-05-30 13:40 (UTC)

"It's nothing," Angel assures her. It's something, yes, but that would be letting hints of that friendship between himself and Spike that he's not going to admit to anytime soon out of the bag. Best everyone continue to think they can barely stand one another and bicker whenever an opportunity to do so presents itself. Nevermind that he still does that anyway, just without the urge to drive a stake through the other man's heart.

"Oookay," she mutters under her breath. Cordelia places her hands on the counter and drums her fingers on top of it several times before opening her mouth.

"So... listen. I've been thinking. You think we can resume those fighting lessons we had before?"

Angel drops his feet from the table to the floor and stands, carrying the drawing the pencil along with him until he's at the counter, standing opposite of her. He sets the items aside. "Of course. Why would continuing them even be a question? If you're willing to learn, I'm willing to teach."

Cordelia shrugs, then takes his drawing and brings it closer to her so she can study it. "I don't know. I mean... not like we resumed our training here in Taxon, you know? Seems like we were too busy with 'other stuff' that I... kinda forgot about it."

Until it was too late, of course.

There's a part of him that wants to seize the drawing back and hide it, turn it over so that the dragon's image is face down and not up for him to look at. It's a bit weird for him, seeing the sketch next to the face of the woman he named the beast after. At least it was just a drawing and not Cordelia himself. That...would be weird. Very weird. And confusing, for the dragon would respond to her name and all variations of.

"I kinda forgot about it, too. 'Other stuff' got in the way of a lot of things."

She looks up at him. "Not that I'm complaining. Much." And then Cordelia smiles at him, because some of those 'other stuff' were, in fact, enjoyable other stuff.

Glancing down at the drawing again, Cordelia moves her hand and runs it near the edge of the paper. "Wow. You're really, really good at this. Have I ever told you that?" She then pushes the drawing closer to him. "...and I'm assuming that's... well. Cordelia the dragon?"

Angel grins at her in a suggestive sort of way, but that melts in favor of a slight grimace after she compliments his natural talent for drawing. It's not that he doesn't appreciate the comment or believe he's good (he knows he's good), but more his unresolved and that are more those that will never be resolved with his father in regards to the man shooting down every endeavor he ever had. Pursuing his artistic abilities was one of them and one of the things that drove him to drink and disobey in a misguided attempt to exert some control over a life he had no control over.

"Always have been," he says, after a moment. "I just never... Uh, yeah. That's him."

"You just never... what?" she prompts him, especially when she notices that he was frowning. People usually beam over praises - lord knows she does, always - but Angel has always been... well, special. In many ways, including the 'kinda retarded' way, too.

As for Cordelia the dragon... seeing him on paper is freaky enough as it is. Him appearing in Taxon? Definitely not something she wants to witness.

"Never indulged it, that's all," is his answer, accompanied with a shrug. That frown's still in place, though. "Wasn't ever a viable option."

Again with that little voice in the back of his head telling him that he could've done something with this particular skill of his if he hadn't been turned into a vampire.

"Well, it is now," she says. Cordelia reaches over the counter to slap his arm. "Hey, maybe we can even earn something from this. You know, have a sign out front that says, 'Handsome Vampire Willing to Draw You, For a Price!' Might prove to be more profitable than the detective agency, don't you think?"

...she's mostly kidding. Or not, if Angel will agree to the idea.

"No," he says firmly and emphatically, pushing off against the counter as he turns around and walks over to the weapon's cabinet.

It's not you, Cordy, it's issues that have been a brewing since the 1700s. Angel's father is one of the touchiest subjects of all and being good at drawing is one of those ties that binds one thing to another.

She blinks at him in confusion, before moving around the counter and following him to the weapon's cabinet.

"Why not?" Cordelia insists. "I mean... okay, so it was a pretty lameass joke, but my point is that we could use your talent for something, Angel! I mean, what's the point of having a talent if you're not gonna use it?"

The point of having a talent if you're not going to use it? That, he found very bitterly amusing - something he would've held back, if not for the already touchy mood he's been in since the kidnappings. Angel laughed and shook his head. "You know, I asked myself that a lot growing up. Why not try? Why not just go for it, despite what he says? I didn't--"

He waves it off. He doesn't want to talk about this. ...too bad, Angel, for you already pretty much spelled out this is a Liam thing.

Really too bad for you, Angel. You've already spilled the beans and she won't stop until she's gotten to the very bottom of things.

"...he," Cordelia repeats, raising a brow at him. "Who's he?" And, softly now, "Your father?"

Angel turns around and rests his back against the weapon's cabinet, crossing his arms over his chest. "Yeah. My father. I've always been at the whole...drawing thing - always as in before I was turned. He didn't like me doing it. An artist among my family was laughable. That's the profession of a lower class citizen or a younger son, not a first born son from a higher class. I was forbidden from trying to do anything useful with it."

They never get to talk about his life as Liam all that much. He touched on the topic once when the aliens glitched him to his pre-vampire days, but after than that? There were too many 'other stuff' that happened that it was almost impossible to make Angel open up about his past. Not that Cordelia spent a great number of days asking him to, of course.

She steps closer to him and places a hand over his arm. "Oh, honey. That must have been hard for you."

"It's just the way the world worked back then. Father's word was law. Not that I listened to it much, later on. You saw me when I was glitched. I wasn't that great of a person. I drank all the time, slept with any girl who was up for a romp in the hay or two..." He sighed. "Sometimes, I wonder if I could've done something with that--" Angel gestures over at the drawing on the counter. "--if I hadn't traded in breathing for fangs. Too later for that now. Doesn't feel right."

"Why not?" she asks. "Angel - your drawing and your skills with it are still a part of you. I mean... you seem like you're enjoying it. Why deny yourself that?"

"Because that's not who I am anymore, Cordy!" Angel steps away from the weapons cabinet and around her as he goes back over to the counter.

He picks up the sketchpad and holds it up...albeit upside down, but he doesn't seem notice. "Yes, I enjoy this! But it's more something that helps me take my mind off other things than anything I'd consider worth pursuing. I'm good, but that doesn't mean I should."

Cordelia sighs, and then raises her hands up as if surrendering. "All right, all right. Jeez," she says. "Sorry. I didn't know it was such a touchy subject with you. It's just that--"

And then she bites her lip, swallowing the rest of her argument. "Forget it."