Rating: PG
Spoilers: Everything up to Tomorrow, my own speculation for what could happen in Season 4, could be spoilers...
Summary: Cordelia and the gang play charades which leads to a world of weirdness for poor Angel...
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed in this fiction belong to Joss Whedon, David Greenwalt, Mutant Enemy etc. Don't sue, I'm a student. Hence, no money. Dedication: To Tonya, my beloved new beta for doing a wonderful job and also? Feeding, petting and stroking my ego - okay, that sounds weird, she's just great - okay?!
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No matter which way he turned his head, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce could not figure out what he was seeing. Tilt it to the left? It looked the same. Right? The same. He glanced over to the other members of his team and shook his head, puzzled.
"A... Letterbox?" He offered, tentatively.
"A what?!" Gunn glanced at Wesley, "This some kinda freaky thing y'all got back in England?"
Fred reached over and poked him in the side, "Be nice! It's like... A post-box but on someone's front door. It's kinda square shaped..." She explained.
"Oh..." Said Gunn, but that still didn't explain what it was Angel was trying to portray. "Sorry, but I don't think that's a letterbox, Wes."
The ex-watcher frowned and shook his head, "Well what IS it then? I haven't heard you make a suggestion yet and our time's almost up!"
"I already said," Said Gunn, puffing out his chest proudly, "It's a claw."
"It's not a bloody claw," Retorted Wesley, watching as Fred crammed a fistful of popcorn in her mouth, "If it'd been a claw then Angel would have moved on to the NEXT word, which he clearly hasn't." The sight of his friend, moving about the lobby of the hotel in what could be described as a... Chicken-like fashion, was only serving to puzzle Wesley more. At least HE'D made an educated guess though. Angel's hand was curved, almost into a square shape - it could have been a letterbox! They weren't getting any where else with this game.
"I am SO glad his time's almost up..." Cordelia Chase, demon-seer extraordinaire sat close to Connor, arms folded across her chest. Angel, unable to speak during his turn in this game of charades could only shoot her a glare. "Ooh, I know!" Said the blonde, dryly, "It's Broody Boy, the Return!"
Gunn chuckled, "Someone's got sour grapes!"
"Sour grapes?!" She asked, incredulously. "Are you kidding me? I have sour apples. I have sour watermelons!!! Did you happen to see the team I'm on?"
"Hey!" Said Angel, breaking his required silence, "What's the matter with your team?"
"Hello," Said Cordelia, gesturing first to Angel, "Mr 'I Was Born In the Powdered Wig Days and Never Developed Even A Slight Library of Pop Culture References'. And..." She turned, gesturing to Connor, "Mister 'I Grew Up In A Hell Dimension Where The Closest Thing We Had To Entertainment Was Cutting Off People's EARS For Fun'... Not exactly going to win Charades champion, am I?"
Father and Son tag team both pouted, causing Cordelia to throw her hands up in the air, "The only reason we're losing really badly and not extraordinarily, Angel, is because nobody can figure out what your Charades 'air quote' skills are trying to tell them..."
BUZZ!!!
"Well... Wes thought my Pelican was a letterbox!" Said Angel, indignantly. "How dumb is he?"
"I resent that remark." Said Wesley, frowning, "Besides-"
"Wait a minute," Interrupted Gunn, receiving a glare from Wesley, "That was a Pelican?!"
Angel felt five hot gazes swivel to him and the vampire approximation of a blush slid to his cheeks. "Uh, yeah..."
"A pelican?" Said Fred, "A... Pelican? But... But how?!"
Angel curved his hand over and made a 'squawking' motion, "Y'know, pelican... Sort of... Chicken-like?"
Gunn laughed, slapping a hand against his thigh, "Since when are pelicans like chickens?!"
"Isn't that a riddle?" Asked Fred, pensively, thinking for a moment, "When is a pelican like a chicken?"
Wesley smiled, "It's raven..."
"What?"
"Raven. 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' It's from Alice in Wonderland..." Explained Wesley.
Gunn smirked, "And didn't we lose some of our masculinity knowing that?"
The ex-watcher blushed and shook his head, "Back to the case at hand, how was that a pelican?"
"Because... Because I'm the boss of this agency and I say it was like a pelican!" Said Angel, smugly. On his face, the mother of all grins - finally, he had them outclassed, outwitted and...
"Huh?!"
Of course it would be his Seer who rained on his parade. Betrayed by the woman he loved! Even Darla hitting him over the head with a shovel wasn't as bad as this and he could've DIED then!
"I say again: Huh?!"
Angel looked at her, "It looked like a Pelican!"
"Okay, my first point?" Said Cordelia, eyebrow raised, "No. It didn't. Second point? Since when are you the boss of this agency? I thought we agreed that it was a joint-run organisation..."
"It is." Said Angel, "But I'm still boss."
"Uh, HOW?!"
"Because... I'm older and therefore wiser!"
The laughter rang throughout the hotel, not just from Cordelia - no. But from Fred, Wesley, Gunn and...
"Connor?!" Angel looked at his son, his eyes wide, incredulous. The son was supposed to back the father up through thick and thin, no exceptions. Now, he was siding with the enemy. If the enemy happened to be an extremely beautiful blonde and her witless accomplices.
In an attempt to justify himself, Connor grinned sheepishly, "Well, Cordelia told me about the time you dressed up as a... Rat Pack vampire?"
"We were on a case! Gunn, back me up here..." Said Angel, desperately.
"You mean the time we almost tore each other apart and you fed your little bloodlust habit from rent-a-cop? Yeah, let's discuss that..."
Angel scowled at his associate and looked at his friends, waving his arms in the air to get attention, "Okay, time out. If anyone actually knows the answer to my shot - they get five bonus points."
Cordelia let out an expanse of air, completely sure that no one, not even herself - Master of Charades (and yes, she was aware she had no life) knew what Angel was 'charading'...
"The Pelican Brief."
Angel's own eyebrows shot up in surprise as Wesley spoke, how could he possibly have known what he meant? Angel wasn't even sure that what he'd portrayed was what he meant. "How did you know that?"
Wesley grinned, "Clever deduction... A keen eye for detail. And having a pillock of a friend who dropped his bit of paper when he was waving his arms angrily at his Seer..." With extra flourish, Wesley stood, decorating the Score Board with another five bonus points.
"That's NOT fair!" Said Cordelia, "You saw his bit of paper."
"Angel's the boss," Replied Wesley, smugly, "He offered the bonus points, take it up with him."
Cordelia shot Angel a look, one that clearly said 'You are SOOO going to die...'
"I want a rematch." She demanded.
* * * * *
It was with immeasurable luck that Angel caught his Seer as she stumbled down the steps into the lobby, armed with a heavy box. He managed to get her upright again, before taking the box from her arms. "What's all this?"
"Practice." She replied with a bright smile. "We are NOT losing to Gunn, Fred and Wesley again, so - my culturally retarded boyfriend slash manpire, YOU are going to practice, along with your culturally retarded son."
"But..."
"No buts, Angel." Said Cordelia, firmly, lifting the lid from the box, "In this box, we have every movie you can imagine. From John Travolta strutting his stuff in Grease to Jamie Lee Curtis perfecting her scream in the Halloween movies, you WILL practice - want to know why?"
Angel gulped, "Why?"
"Because if you don't? I'll be pissed and believe me, you don't LIKE me when I'm pissed."
* * * * *
"So, what's this one?" Connor looked mournfully over at his father. Having just watched Old Yeller, the boy was just a little more than traumatised. Of course, both men had insisted that when the film ended, they'd both got dust in their eye. Living in a hotel as old as the Hyperion, there was bound to be dust somewhere, no matter how much Cordelia claimed she dusted.
Angel glanced down at the video box, slightly reluctant, "Dirty Dancing... Uhm, perhaps we should leave that one for later?"
Connor nodded, he'd already experienced what Gunn had referred to as a 'stiffener' when he'd seen a really pretty girl walking down the street in what could only be described as animal skins. Then, it was embarrassing - in front of his father, it would be a fate worse than death.
"Angel?" Fred's quiet voice drifted through to the ensouled vampire's bedroom, making him stand and order his son not to touch the videos, before walking to the door. "What is it?"
"A demon. I'm under strict instructions to get you and leave Connor to his 'studies'..." She smiled slightly, meeting Angel's eyes. The brunette knew fine well that Angel would do anything for Cordelia. When he sighed, Fred suppressed a giggle, watching as he ordered his son to look only at movies strictly in the name of Disney to appease his Aunt Cordelia, before grabbing his jacket and leaving his son with no small amount of grumbles...
Later that night...
"Ugh, God... I don't think any amount of honey and vinegar is going to shift this." Said Cordelia, looking down at her clothes distastefully. She was covered from head to foot in demon goop. Her poor clothes, though not expensive, could not be salvaged. All she wanted right now was a hot shower and a bed, perhaps a couple of painkillers to soothe her aching back. "Ow, ow, ow..."
Angel was immediately at her side, helping her sit down, a worried look on his face, "I knew we should have taken Connor." He said softly. "He wasn't too pleased anyway at the thought of staying in to watch Disney movies..."
Cordelia laughed, despite herself, "Disney? Angel, there are NO Disney movies in my collection..."
"Old Yeller - Old Yeller was Disney!" Angel was mightily pleased with himself - if he knew that, it showed he was getting better at his pop culture references. Surely Cordelia would be pleased with that...
"Ohhh, Fred sneaked that in the box from her personal collection." Said Cordelia, "My stuff's all... Well, older."
A very worried feeling seemed to grow in the pit of Angel's stomach, "Older? As in... What?"
"Ewww, Angel! Not porn... If that's what you're thinking. About as risqué as I get is... Cruel Intentions..."
Now, to Angel? That kind of video did NOT sound like fun, especially for an impressionable teen like Connor. "What's it about?" He asked, worried.
"Oh... A girl. Bitchy, looks kinda like Buffy with brown hair," Said Cordelia, absent-mindedly before noticing the 'glare' - it was not good apparently to talk about the ex in the presence of the current - even if the one doing the talking was the current. The Seer continued, unabashed, "She and her stepbrother make a bet... If her stepbrother can bed a girl with morals, then he gets HER. If he can't, she gets his car." Simple, really.
So, deducted Angel, In one film, you have a girl that looks like my ex, making a bet with her stepbrother that if he can get groiny with a 'good' girl, he gets her. Presumably to do with as he pleases. If not, she gets his car. Let's see. Loose morals, check. Incest, check. Young, pretty people in passionate clinches. Check. Sounds like me back in the-
"And this movie is upstairs?!" Angel was back on his feet, running up the stairs before Cordelia could blink. Some days, she just thought he was really weird, in love with him or not.
"Connor!" Angel burst into the room, totally oblivious to the fact that he could have burst in on his son in a very compromising position. As it were, Connor was sitting there on the chair in his father's room, staring into space, a look of disgust on his face. It was the moment Angel had been dreading. The birds and the bees talk. "I-is everything alright?"
"No." Connor shook his head, "I-I think I stumbled across what Wesley referred to as a blue movie..."
This very comment made Angel wonder what was in this movie - and also made him decide that maybe he'd watch it when Connor was tucked up in bed and he'd finished torturing Cordelia. A quick check on the rating later and Angel shook his head, "That was... Tame, compared to some. Uh, what did you *see*?" He was going to KILL Cordelia.
* * * * *
"Do you know how much my feet are killing me?" She asked, as she heard his footsteps behind her. She'd deliberately left the door open, contemplating Angel being gone for a while. He'd been gone precisely 100 minutes. That meant that he'd watched the film with Connor, hopefully explained all about the birds and the bees (yeah, a cheap shot, she knew) and still had five minutes to spare in which he could plot his revenge.
"Do you know how much I'm going to kill you?" He watched as she propped herself up on one elbow, giving him a bright smile. "Ohhh, no. The smiling is NOT going to work this time."
Cordelia grinned, "But did it work? Does Connor now know about the Birds and the Bees?"
Angel's mouth fell open, "Wait a minute - you KNEW that was going to happen? How?"
"Simple," She smiled, "Connor is a) a boy... b) His hormones are raging right now and c) I knew you'd tell him only to watch Disney videos. Every child rebels Angel, even you know that. Besides, I figured you were desperate when you wrote to Dr. Bethany to ask how to explain the 'circle of life' to your son."
The vampire sputtered, VERY ungracefully, "I... I... What?"
"For our technically UNminded friends who've just tuned in, it's called 'history' Angel - I can see every website you've accessed on our computer. And besides, getting her to e-mail back to the business address? Not exactly the best undercover assignment you've done, Stealth Guy..."
"Oh..." If Angel could blush at that point, he would have - he stared at her a moment, before suddenly realising something, "Hey, I'm MAD at you!"
"At me? For what?" She asked, batting her eyelids, seductively.
Angel frowned, "For making me have to explain everything in one night. I was going to start slow..."
"Let's see," Said Cordelia, "The year 2002, 'Connor, this is what we call kissing...' The year 2003? Connor, this is what we call groping... The year 2013, Connor, this is what contraception looks like - when I eventually tell you what full on sex is, you'll be too old to USE it..."
"Hey!" Said Angel, indignantly.
"Admit it," She laughed, "I did you a favour."
"A favour?" Angel looked at her, petulantly, "Tell me how me explaining to my son that girls kissing girls isn't disgusting when he's only seen boys kissing girls is a favour. Tell me how explaining to my son that when a girl says 'you can put it everywhere' she doesn't really mean that he can put it 'everywhere' - is a favour..."
Cordelia giggled hysterically, pausing between breaths to admit that she'd have loved to be a fly on the wall in THAT conversation.
Angel dove forwards on the bed, strategically placing his fingers right next to her ribs and poking lightly as she giggled and gasped and writhed in his arms, "Angel, ANGEL!!! Nooo!!!" She giggled, trying to writhe away from him, her breathing becoming laboured.
When finally he stopped the tickle torture, Angel glanced down, pushing a lock of hair from her face, "Okay, you did me a LITTLE favour but... Do we have to have a rematch?"
"Are you kidding me?" She laughed, "I wanna see you do your pelican thing again."
Angel scowled, playfully, "I hate it when things don't go my way. It makes me so horny..." Quoting a line directly from the film, he leaned down and nuzzled her neck, delighting in the laughter that rang in his ears.
"I didn't know it was asshole day at the Hyperion." She teased, grinning up at him.
* * * * *
Days Later...
"Okay, it's your turn to pick from the hat." Cordelia looked at Angel, perfecting her eye roll, "And remember, we actually want to win today..."
He unravelled the piece of paper, not catching on the grins that spread throughout the downstairs of the lobby. His 'movie'?
Cruel Intentions...
"Ha ha, very funny..." He said dryly, shooting a glance at Cordelia, "I take it this was your doing?"
Cordelia grinned, "Would I do a thing like that?"
*End*