taxonomites | 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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"Good," Cordelia tells him, removing her hand and crossing her arms in front of her.

It's her turn to look at the space between their feet, then. "You know... it's funny," she starts. "I feel like I know so much about you, Angel - but then some stuff like this pop up and... well. Only then do I realize that there's still some parts of you that I'm not familiar with." Cordelia pauses, then looks up at him again and smiles. "And I'm really, really glad you're giving me first-hand info on these things. Even if... even if some of them must be painful for you to recall."

"A good portion of my life, living and non, is painful, Cordelia. But, that doesn't mean I can't talk about it. A lot of it, this... It's not necessarily that I don't want to talk about it, especially to you, but that...it never comes up. If you want to know things, ask. Chances are, I'll answer. There's not much I'm not willing to talk about."

Which wasn't really a matter of not willing so much as it was knowing that people wouldn't like what he had to say, especially when it came to detailing points in life when he'd been soulless. His brutality as Angelus, the things that he did...there were things that made him nauseous when he thought of them, even with the demon in him who relished the screams and the sounds broken and breaking bodies made.