At her insistence to borrow the watch, his lips curve into a secret smile. True, it’s a silly little fashion statement that suggests a certain childlike quality, equal parts whimsical and innocently artless. But the truth is that it’s a token of memory, something to remind him that in another life, there’s a cute girl with a black-haired bob cheering him on and ready to punch out anyone who ever doubted him.
For the moment, all this is better left unsaid, and so he simply smiles at Liz in response, and when she leads, he follows. There’s a brief thought to take in his surroundings, to admire the magnificence of it all and comment on an opulence that’s distantly familiar in an uncomfortable sort of way ( cue the endless chorus of a life not lived, forever ago. ) Instead, he beelines to the window, and the city’s lights come through as though seen through a blurry film, hazy but present. The office’s atmosphere altogether is dimmed in comparison to the hustle inside Gotham Hall and the bustle immediately outside it, but more than this: Liz is an easy air around which to breathe, and his relief voices itself as a long, low exhale of a sigh.
Lost in the first real moment of relaxation he’s had all evening, Ziggy takes too long to crack open the window, and so the brunette does so for him — for them both, really, given the very reason they’ve entered the office. True to artistic form, another grand idea’s seemingly taken hold of her, as evidenced by her newfound paper and pencil. “Something tells me you’re not gonna let be escaping quite so easily,” he chuckles lightly, the corners of his smile marked by an unsure curiosity. Dark eyes drift from her well-practiced hand to her countenance, now illuminated quite prettily even in the yellow-grey haze of the outside world. There’s another short laugh when he realizes he’s looked at her for perhaps a little too long, and Zig pulls himself away to the fireplace. Jokingly, he explains, “Draw me like your French girls all you want, but you are not gonna immortalize how ashy I must look from that window light.”
With that, the fireplace is lit, and before long, the end of the blunt is, as well. Under another circumstance, she would have been offered the first inhale, but his own artistic mind dictates that he’s in need of a little extra if he’s to be her subject tonight. “Coulda just told me you were in need of a new muse, you know. We could’ve…” The words he wants to say here fail, and instead he only offers, joint extended out to her, “I don’t know, gotten into some good trouble for the sake of art, like, way sooner.”
Too deep in her almost furious scribbling of lines to catch his stance, Liz didn’t realize he had moved away from the window and towards the fireplace until he spoke. Head tilted up, eyes scanned the room and finally she spun around to face him again. There’s a large armchair Liz claimed as her own by draping her blazer over its back and allowing her full weight to collapse onto the carefully organized cushions. “Yeah, actually-- you just ruined it.” She was joking, not evident in her tone but in the way her hand kept woking the graphite over the paper. Knees bended, she rested her canvas of choice against her thighs for support -- and to keep Zig from seeing her progress.
Peeking over her knees, with the excuse of needing to remember his exact proportions for his likeness to translate well to the paper, Liz caught herself staring a little too intensely, as well. The smoke blew around him seemed to almost stop time on its tracks. The cloud soon dissipated but, in her mind, she could still see it. With a very light pressure, she added a curved line around his figure to remind herself where it should be positioned on a larger canvas.
Back in reality, she unfolded her legs and leaned over to take the joint from his grasp and place it securely between her own lips. With a chuckle, she took a drag and kept the smoke in for a moment before blowing it out in his general direction. “I think we got in our fair share of trouble-- maybe not in the name of art, though, that’s true.” She’d give him that. After a second drag, she gave it back and resumed her sketching process. “So what are you doing here? Not donating, right?” The mere thought made her laugh. “Or did you just want an excuse to wear that? You look good, by the way.” A pause. “A checkered blazer at a black-tie event. You’re quite the rule-breaker, Ziggy Hawthorne, aren’t ya?”
