Title: Untold Feelings
Chapter: 1 - Research
Author: Minnie-May
Distribution: Archive permission granted to: WNW, Bookish, Gifted. All others please ask.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Angel (not even Wesley ;_;) they are all owned by Joss Whedon and the fine folks of Mutant Enemy…..lucky….
Summary: A new demon forces the AI team to deal with their feelings for each other (W/F, C/A, slight G/F)
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes please! Send to: sweet_senshi@hotmail.com
Notes: This takes place sometime after Billy in Season three of Angel. The events with Darla and Connor have not taken place yet.

UNTOLD FEELINGS

Chapter One- RESEARCH

"Gah" Cordelia groaned, slamming shut the dusty volume sitting in front of her and glaring over at Wesley. "Since when am I research girl anyway? I thought that was your department" she commented, pushing the book towards Fred and pulling another one off the pile. "Well except for the girl part," Cordelia said. Then continued, arching an eyebrow, "Well as far as we know."

"Thank you Cordelia, feel free to challenge my masculinity whenever you feel like it" Wesley commented dryly, looking up briefly from his book and giving Cordelia a pointed glare. Behind the thick volume in front of her, Fred giggled.

"I think it's kinda fun actually, the research," Fred commented, leaning her elbows on the table. Both Cordelia and Gunn screwed up their faces and made groaning noises. "I mean look at all the cool things you can find. I just found a demon that can shrink stuff and another that can make stuff really big. And I think there's a dimension where tuna doesn't exist." Fred babbled. By this time everyone was staring at her, Wesley and Gunn looking amused and Cordelia shaking her head. "Well I thought it was interesting" she mumbled opening the book back up.

"Those are some very, um, interesting observations Fred", Wesley commented with a smile. "But we may want to keep on task here. We're looking for a demon that can warp the time space continuum."

"So Angel can go fight it and kill it?" Fred asked excitedly. Cordelia had never met anyone before that got excited when Angel was going off to kill something. Then again the whole "justice league" thing was new to Fred. She had never had to deal with all the unpleasant side effects of being in the business, of losing friends and giving up your whole life to the cause. Cordelia snorted, 'seriously' she thought, 'how long has it been since I've even had a good shopping trip?'

"Speaking of Angel, where is our resident brooding vampire?" Cordelia asked, trying to pass a page with head eating demons as fast as humanly possible. "I mean he's missing out on all the fun research."

"Didn't Angel say he was trying to find out what the word on the street was? See what the demons and vamps knew? Because I could have done that" Gunn said, sounding melancholy. "Ewww what is up with this demon's head?" he asked shoving the book away from him. Fred peered over at the page and made a face. Cordelia decided she didn't even want to go there.

"Yes you probably could have done that, except for the not being a vampire or demon part. Angel is best for that area of work... he blends in better" Wesley said, rearranging his glasses and looking onto the page that Gunn had pushed so quickly away from himself. Wesley made a disgusted face and quickly closed the book, handing Gunn another one. "Next book shall we?"

"Goody" Gunn muttered, opening the book and looking all the world like a sullen child.

"Kinda like a chameleon…with the blending. Although not the reptile part..." Fred trailed off and then looked around her. "Right?"

"Hmmm" Wesley asked, obviously having blocked the world out in his research.

"I think Fred just asked if Angel was a big 'ol lizard" Cordelia said, giving Fred a weird look. Strange, strange girl.

"Well the straight answer to that would be a no but there are other alternate dimensions in which..." Wesley trailed off when he noticed the rest were looking at him funny. "-In which all of you could care less," he finished off. "And we should get back to our work.... the task at hand." Wesley opened up another book and Cordelia sighed. She idly wondered what Angel was doing; it had to be more fun than this.

****

"Ow!" Angel ducked as the axe whizzed over his head, cleanly cutting the air just a fraction of an inch above his head. "Boys, boys, can't we talk this out?" Angel pleaded. His right arm was already bleeding where one of the two axe wielding demons had caught him by surprise. These things were tough, even when you were properly prepared to face one of them. Which Angel, clearly, wasn't.

He had spent most of the night in a fruitless chase of information about the newest creature that the Angel Investigations group had to face. About a week earlier a couple of kids from the nearby campus had gone missing without a trace. A few days later their bodies were recovered, little more than lifeless husks, zapped of all their life force. Wesley had guessed that it had something to do with a demon that took people into a time fold to feed off their life force. So while the rest of the group was checking out the sources back at the Hyperion Angel had decided that he would see what the word on the street about the incident was. Which was basically that there was no word.

Until now that is. Angel had just exited a demon bar on the seedier side of LA. The bar was populated by the worst kind of demons, the lowest of the low on the nasty food chain. He had figured if there was any information, one of these demons would be able to help him out. No one had seemed to know what he was talking about though, so he was just leaving the bar by the side exit that let out into an alley when he was attacked. He was hoping desperately that he had struck a nerve, maybe asked a question that one of these demons didn't want to hear. Which obviously brought him to the hard part of this whole battle: if he wanted any information he was going to have to keep one of them alive. Not looking all that promising when they were both holding giant axes and wielding razor sharp claws.

Angel moved quickly, morphing into his vampire visage and speeding quickly towards the first demon. It swung the axe at him but this time he was ready for it, grabbing it between the palms of his hands he wretched it from the demon's grasp. He was about to use it to finish the demon off when the first pile dived into him, narrowly missing impaling him on it's sharp claws. Although he doubted it would have minded impaling him. Angel rolled out from underneath the demon with amazing speed and used the axe he still gripped tightly to lopped off the demon's head.

He turned towards the second, now unarmed demon and pointed it's own weapon back in it's face. The demon glanced nervously down the alley as if considering escape when Angel took a closer step so that the pointy tip of the axe was right over the demon's throat.

"I think I have a few questions I need answering. I'm guessing you might be able to help me out with that?" Angel asked, less a question and more a statement. The demon let out a squeal and then nodded, never taking it's eyes off the axe pointed at it's neck.

"Ok," Angel said taking a deep, unneeded breath and letting it out in a low whoosh. "What do you know about the disappearance of those college kids?"

****

"Gunn snores loud" Fred commented, sitting beside Wesley and flipping through another mind numbing demonology book. How Wesley could look at these all day Fred didn't understand. The initial trill of finding out about a demon that could make your legs turn to jelly with a glare had worn off after the first, well three hours or so.

Wesley grinned and stared over at the prone forms of Cordelia and Gunn, both dead asleep on the books they had been using for research. Fred was right indeed, Gunn did snore loud. His friend kept on interrupting his thought threads just when he thought he was getting somewhere, but he didn't have the heart to wake the two of them up.

"Thank you very much for your help Fred, but you don't have to keep on researching. You've certainly done enough these past few hours" Wesley commented, glancing over at Fred. Not that he minded the fact that she was helping him work. Nor the fact that after Gunn and Cordelia had nodded off Fred had dragged her chair so that she was sitting next to him. He didn't mind at all.

"Ohh that's ok. I like helping" Fred commented, grinning up at Wesley. Wes had been skittish at best with her since what had happened with Billy and she felt for the first time she was getting somewhere with him. When their hands had brushed each other reaching for a book he hadn't even jerked back like he had become practiced at doing. Baby steps, Fred thought to herself. Like when I used to try to come out of my cave but I wasn't sure it was clear and so I used to have to just walk a little further each day. Or when I kept trying to remember what the words that I read were but I'd only be able to remember one or two and usually not in the right order.

The opening door snapped Fred out of her thoughts about Pylea and she turned to see Angel come trooping through the door, looking much the worse for wear. His duster was cut up on the right shoulder and blood was seeping through the thick fabric. He looked a bit beaten as well, a small bruise forming at the corner of his mouth. He lifted the axe he was carrying to show it to Wesley.

"Got an axe", he commented, walking over to the weapons cabinet and depositing it.

"Are you ok?" Fred asked worriedly, staring at the way he didn't seem to be walking with the usual Angel gait.

"Nothing that won't heal" Angel commented, staring down at the sleeping forms of Gunn and Cordelia. "What happened to those two?" he asked, indicating them with a sweep of his arm as he began to peel off the dirty duster.

"Ohhh well they found the research so enrapturing that they felt the need to take a nap in the middle of it. Fred has been a big help in assisting me though" Wesley put in, smiling at Fred.

Angel grinned, "I'm sure she has." Then with an evil grin he crept up behind Cordelia and put his mouth close to her ear. "CORDY!" he bellowed.

Cordy sat bolt upright with a loud squeak and turned around quickly, breathing rapidly.

"ANGEL! Oh my God what are you trying to do to me? I almost had a heart attack. Now I know you don't have to worry about those because of the whole 'heart doesn't beat' thing but some people do you-" Cordelia trailed off for a moment and then cut herself off. "You're hurt."

"I'll be fine" Angel shrugged off his injury and then made himself a mental note. Shrugging: not something you want to be doing. His right arm was blazing where the axe had made contact.

"No you won't, I'm wrapping that thing up right now" Cordelia said, getting up and strechting, then grabbing Angel by his good arm and dragging him off.

Gunn lifted his head and looked around in confusion. "Wassit?" he asked incoherently.

"Angel's back" Fred replied.

"Oh" Gunn said, lowering his head back on his arms and resuming sleep. A second passed before he lifted his head again. "Ohhh right. What'd he find out?" he asked sheepishly.

"Actually we haven't found out yet" Wesley said, staring in the direction Cordelia had pulled Angel. "Angel was wounded so Cordy took it upon herself to patch him up." At that moment the two of them reappeared, Cordy carrying more bandages than would be needed to care for an entire army.

"Ok sit" Cordelia commanded Angel who complacently dropped down on a chair near the rest of the group as Cordy broke out a pack of bandages and some gauze.

"So Angel, did you find any information that would be helpful to our....research" he asked, pointedly looking at Gunn and Cordy as he said the last word. Gunn rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish while Cordy just wrapped a bandage around Angel's arm as if nothing out of the ordinary had been implied. Heck, anyone would fall asleep after reading that, she was only human.

"Actually yea, I found some stuff out. But it doesn't really make sense," Angel commented, wincing as Cordy absently pulled the bandage a little too tight. "Well you see I was at a demon bar, trying to shake up some information but no on seemed to know anything. So I go to leave and I get attacked by these huge demons with axes. So I fight them" Angel moved one of his hands in a slashing movement, "they were really hardy. In fact I had to-" he begun, really getting into the story.

"I know how you love reliving the glory Angel but well, I don't care so could you skip the monster bashing part" Cordelia cut in, finishing the bandaging. She gave her work a quick once over and then gave it a proud pat.

"Fine" Angel muttered sullenly, then got back to the story. "So anyway I got one of the demons cornered...I killed the other one with their own axe and I had this one totally cornered" Cordelia glared at him. "Not that it matters" he put in.

"So did the demon tell you anything of interest?" Wesley asked, leaning forward in his seat.

"Yea like what this oggly boggly is doing around here and possibly how to kill it?" Gunn asked. "Because that would be really convenient."

"Well it wasn't that detailed but it did spill a few things" Angel commented, making himself more comfortable in the chair. "Apparently this thing feeds off love."

"You mean like 'love of evil' love?" Gunn asked, looking confused.

"No like the actual kind" Angel replied, stapling his fingers in front of him. "I thought it was pretty weird too. But Wes you were right about the dimensional thing, it turns out the thing pulls it's prey into some kind of universal cub hole and then sucks the life out of them."

"Ew" Fred and Gunn commented at once. Fred was looking a little worried, probably because alternate dimensions would remind her of what she went through in Pylea. Wesley felt the strong need to comfort her in some way but wasn't sure what to do.

"Does any of this mean something to you?" Angel directed at Wesley. "Did you see anything about this in the books? Because I've never heard of anything like this before."

"Well there are many different demons that feed off different emotions. I suppose it's safe to assume that there would be one that feeds off love as well, seeing as it's such a strong emotion" Wesley shrugged slightly, glancing quickly over to Fred. "But it does narrow down the research quite a bit. "

Cordelia and Gunn suddenly got looks on their faces as if they had seen a ghost. Cordelia quickly grabbed onto Angel's arm and Gunn hurried over, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder.

"But Angel needs us right? To help with the information gathering and umm stuff" Cordelia said, trying to pretend like she was sorry that she was missing out on research.

"Yea dog, there has to be some people need saving or thrashing. We can find more stuff out about this demon right?" Gunn put in hopefully.

"Well" Angel said, taking a small step back from Gunn and Cordelia. Cordy didn't take the hint however and stayed hanging on his arm. Weirder yet, Angel didn't really care all that much. "I was thinking we could get the police report on the victims of this thing, see if that give us any details."

"Well then, I'm your girl!" Cordelia said pleasantly, nodding her agreement. "Police here we come!"

"Yea same here, I've got your back" Gunn said, slapping Angel's back with a very 'we're all buddies here' expression. It's amazing the treatment you get when you can be an excuse to get out of research, Angel thought.

Gunn grinned like a fool. Thank God, he thought to himself, if he had to stare at any more demon books he thought he was going to go crazy. He turned and looked back at Wesley and Fred, sitting side by side by a pile of books. 'Poor suckers' he thought watching as Wesley patted Fred's hand and handed her another book. 'Or maybe I'm the sucker' he thought.

"Fred and I will be fine, hopefully we'll be able to find something on this demon" Wesley said, all smiles. 'I'm sure you will' Gunn thought bitterly, noticing for the first time how close the two were seated to each other.

"You know maybe I should stay here and help with the research" Gunn said, grabbing a book from in front of Wesley and sliding it down to his side of the table.

"I'm sure Fred and I will be able to manage fine on our own" Wesley commented, pulling the book back towards himself. Gunn pulled the book back across the table with a controlled smile.

"Well you know what they say, three heads better than one and all that English" Gunn commented, about to pull out a seat for himself.

"Better than one" Wesley said, pulling the book back over, "not two. As you can see we'll be fine."

Fred blinked as she watched the exchange, having a feeling they were talking about more than research but definitely missing out on the subtext. Angel and Cordelia, however, not so slow on the subtext. Cordelia turned and grinned at Angel, who was trying to hide his amusement.

"But I could help!" Gunn protested, continuing the tug of war with the book.

"By drooling all over my books? I doubt it" Wesley commented. Gunn turned bright red and was obviously searching for something cutting to say when Angel cut in.

"Gunn, maybe you should check with your old crew, see what they know about this whole thing." Usually Angel wouldn't cut in on something that was none of his business but he had the feeling that could have gone on all day.

"Fine" Gunn grumbled unhappily. Wesley flashed a triumphant smile, which he tried to hide behind a book. "You wanna come Fred?" Gunn offered feebly, already knowing the answer.

"Th-that's ok" Fred stuttered. She could still clearly remember the last time she had met Gunn's old friends, and she really didn't want to repeat the experience any time soon.

"Ok then we'll be off!" Cordy said, dragging Angel to the door. "Good luck with the research you two," Cordy commented, directing a wink at Wesley.

As the two left the building Wesley heard Angel ask if they could stop at Cordy's place so that she could 'get changed'. Wes wondered idly what that was all about but decided it was probably best he not dwell on it.

"Well I'll be off then..." Gunn trailed off, grabbing a weapon from the weapons cabinet. "But I'll be back soon" Gunn said, giving a seething look. "For the research" he added, opening the door and stepping out.

As the door closed Fred turned and looked at Wesley, smiling in that way that made his heart go all fluttery.

"Guess it's just the two of us" Fred said cheerily, picking up a book and flipping through it.

Wesley just flushed and nodded. "Guess so."

****

TBC