i can't help but wonder, what would jimmy buffet do?

[undoing.livejournal.com]

Who: undoing & quippable
What: More drinking shenanigans.
When: November 19th, early evening.
Where: CH6 R38, and then to some bar later on.
Summary: Said shenanigans are Cordy's bad idea this time around.
Rating: PGish to start off with, I assume?

Only a few hours until sunset. Normally, this would be about the time he was rolling out of bed and starting to go through his morning routine, but there was nothing normal about Angel right now. Not that there ever was, and there's something to be said for him considering his vampirism to be normal while the humanity the Malnosso has bestowed upon him is regarded as an unwanted affliction rather than a return to a state that he was robbed of when Darla killed and turned him all those years ago. Days are spent mostly indoors, partly out of habit, and partly because there's nothing he wants to engage in beyond the sanctity of the apartment walls; so, unless there's some errand to be ran, the former vampire can be found indoors, either with a book, some sketch he's working on, or going through some training exercise.

The latter usually requires all the furniture be pushed back to one corner of the room to give him enough space to do so without breaking something, but this evening, everything's where it should be. Training's off the table, and the man's instead stretched out on the couch with a book in hand - something Machiavellian - content to be lost in its pages before he needs to pick up a sword and see to his nightly patrol. While the patrolling isn't necessarily needed, what with other parties taking up that mantle as well, it's routine at this point. Gives him something to do and contributes to some sense of structure where there otherwise is none.

Comments

[quip]

She smiled, grateful for his understanding. It meant way too much to her for him to just get it. And he did, which didn't really surprise her. He'd morphed from someone she worked for to someone she could tell anything to without the fear of being judged as harshly as Harmony and her fellow Cordettes would've.

She always felt bad every time she thought about wanting her mind to be hers and not belong to a thousand faceless people. She had felt grateful when she'd gone a month without a single hit. Despite the good feelings that came with being visionless, she felt as though something was missing. Couldn't live with them, couldn't live without them.

Cordelia lifted her ale up. "We should toast to it." She wasn't exactly sure what. The silence? The break? All she knew was that the idea behind this night was being deterred constantly by things she labelled Too Serious for a fun evening. "Hopefully this place isn't littered with helpless people waiting to be helped, because you kind of need hobbies, Angel," she said, teasing, giving him a lopsided grin.

[undoing.livejournal.com]

"I have hobbies," he protested, reaching for his glass all the same. "You just don't approve of any of them. And I won't let you keep my sketchbook."

That gave him an idea, though - her interest in his drawings. It was a skill he'd used back home, but mostly for case purposes. Interpreting visions and sketching likenesses of people, demons, places, and things based on her descriptions, and so on. He only used it for recreational purposes within the privacy of his own room, and those drawings were either kept in a place no-one would dare to look, or burned and thrown away once he'd gotten the urge to sketch whatever it was out of his system. Maybe in lieu of something more classy, or that bonus she constantly hounded him for, come the holidays he'd give her something he'd drawn to keep. An image from home. He made a mental note of it.

Angel held his glass up. "To much needed breaks for the overworked Champions of the Powers That Be."

[quip]

Cordelia's tapped her glass against his, grinning, "You could say that again." She took a drink of her ale, making less of a face as she did so, and placed the glass back down onto the table.

"Your hobbies aren't hobbies, for the record. Besides the sketching." She gestured to him, "I'll give you that one." She liked his sketches. Cordelia had plans of having another peak at his sketchbook when he wasn't around, despite anything he said otherwise. "I like that hobby of yours."

She didn't like it because it was what she classified as 'normal', but because it was him. One hundred percent Angel - or Liam, really.

"Tearing bad guys into tiny pieces isn't a hobby. Neither is brooding." It was, unofficially, Pick-On-Angel-Night.

[undoing.livejournal.com]

"My hobbies don't fit your definition of a hobby," he corrected. "Brooding is a habit - a bad one, I'll admit, and one I try to break when not brooding is more difficult than brooding. And tearing bad guys into tiny pieces is my job. My destiny. My purpose. Don't exactly have a choice in that matter."

He'd tried to fight it before and look what happened. Veering off his selected path was a bad idea and he knew it. The more he'd come to think in line with what the Powers wanted him to fight for, the easier it got to just go with it. Do what they wanted him to accomplish. It was sure a hell of a lot better doing their 'bidding' than it was following the supposed path Wolfram & Hart wanted him to be on. No, thank you. He'd take the Champion who beats the bad guys over that any day.

[quip]

"You always have a choice, Angel," Cordelia said. She chose to act on her visions and thereby pass them onto her Champion. As difficult as she imagined ignoring the searing pain would be, she could easily carry on with her day and not help the helpless. "It might not be a big choice, but everything is something we choose to do. You choose to fight and be a Champion. Just like you choose to brood as though it's a hobby." She gave him a smile. If he ever stopped brooding, she'd really believe the apocalypse was finally coming.

Cordelia knew that Angel got a bit touchy when people encroached on his territory. She liked that about him, how he was protective over his Champion title even if he absolutely hated it on most days. She was like that with her position as the seer. Despite it bleeding into her desire to be needed, she knew she wouldn't want anyone else to have it. But hearing that he thought he didn't have a choice made her wonder what exactly happens down the line in three years time.