Curiosity
"You want me to what?" Angel exclaimed loudly enough to draw Cordelia's attention away from the catalogue she was poring over.
"Change," Fred repeated. "I was wondering how it works when you do that."
"No," Angel replied.
"Why not?" Fred asked. "It's different here, it's just a face you make to scare people."
"I do not," Angel said immediately.
"Lawyer people who want to appraise the hotel?" Fred asked innocently.
"They're a special case," Angel muttered. "I want them to remember what I am."
"But it doesn't hurt you," Fred argued. "And I'm curious."
Cordelia shuttered but put down the catalogue. Fred's matter-of-fact-ness when it came to Angel being a vampire gave her the creeps. Sure she'd tried to deal rationally with the whole vampire thing once herself, and look what had happened. Really, the more human Angel acted the better, but still Fred's unique perspective did have its plus side. For instance, watching Angel react to Fred's declaration that fangs made no sense, evolutionarily speaking, for vampires and that logically they should have something more along the lines of a mosquito's beak.
Cordelia had never seen Angel look so totally put out, and it had only gotten better when the best argument in favor of fangs that Angel had been able to muster was the intimidation factor.
"It's not just 'making a face'," Angel was saying. "The demon's closer to the surface when I change."
"But you're always in control," Fred said.
"Barring drugs or perfect happiness," Cordelia qualified.
Fred gave Angel a look that clearly said he needed to answer her.
"Just changing doesn't threaten my control of the demon," Angel elaborated.
Fred smiled hopefully.
"But it's still bad," Angel added.
"Why?" Fred asked.
"Because caring about vampire stuff is bad," Cordelia said. "It leads to ickiness like obsessions about sires who should have just been staked and forgotten."
Fred glanced back at Angel in time to see his eyes flash golden. "Oh… you do it when you're mad," she said. "That's why it's a bad thing."
After a short pause, she asked. "What does it feel like?"
"It's a rush," Angel said quietly. "In demon-form, I'm stronger, my reflexes are better, and I'm harder to hurt."
Fred nodded. "Is it like tensing a muscle or relaxing one, or do you change altogether."
Angel thought about it for a moment. "A little of all three, it's hard to explain. At first maybe something like tensing a muscle, then everything cascades, my skin shifts, my vision is different, it's not just better night vision the colors are different, my teeth reform, and once it happens it feels natural. Vampires generally consider that to be our real form, but even before I got my soul back I always preferred to look human. Still it is harder to go back to human form."
"Do your toes change?" Fred asked. "You're fingernails get thicker sort of claw like."
Angel looked bemused. "My toes?" he asked.
"Uh-huh," Fred replied waiting hopefully.
"I've never actually thought about it, let alone checked," Angel said, his tone disbelieving.
"Why not?" Fred asked.
"Because… they're my toes, why would I think about my toes?" Angel stammered, as if he simply didn't know what to make of this topic. He looked like he wasn't sure if he should start laughing or get really embarrassed.
He looked really cute that way; Cordy decided then realized she wasn't the only one who was appreciating Angel at that moment.
"I honestly have no idea," Angel admitted. "It's pretty much the last thing on my mind when I change."
"Bet ya think about it next time," Fred said with a mischievous smile as she leaned over Angel's chair and kissed him on the tip of his nose then turned and sashayed out of the room.
Cordelia laughed, but when she saw Angel's expression she stopped abruptly.
As Angel's eyes followed Fred's progress the confusion evaporated from his expression, to be replaced with a warm intensity that excluded everything from his awareness except the slender girl they'd rescued from Pylea the year before.