Title: Friday Night at the Hyperion
Author: Tonya (tigerlily1998@hotmail.com)
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don’t own anything, but I can dream, can’t I?
Feedback: Hello, my name is Tonya, and I am a feedback-aholic!
Summary: A response to Jayme’s challenge where the gang (pre-Fred and Connor) has a little fun as a family. Pure fluff, which I needed.

**********

Angel was sitting at his desk, reading peacefully from his book, when the brunette stepped into the doorway of his office. She leaned seductively against the doorframe, a slight smile on her face. Angel looked up at her, and her smile only brightened as he turned his eyes in her direction.

“Angel,” she said in a singsong voice.

Angel simply raised an eyebrow at her. He couldn’t stop the smirk that formed on his face as he asked, “What is it, Cordy?”

Cordelia shrugged slightly as she removed herself from the doorway. She slowly approached his desk, her hands behind her back. “Well, it’s Friday night…”

“Yes, it is.”

Cordelia placed her hands on the edge of his desk and leaned forward as she continued, “And you know what that means…”

“Yes, I do,” Angel replied, a slight grin on his face.

“Pictionary!!” the brunette squealed and tossed the erasable marker that she had had behind her back at Angel.

“Pictionary,” Angel smiled.

“Come on, teammate,” Cordelia smiled. “We need to reclaim our crown from Wes and Gunn. We can’t let them beat us two Fridays in a row. That’s just wrong.”

Cordelia raised her eyebrows happily at Angel who sighed in response.

If someone would have told him years ago, that one day he would be sitting at home on a Friday night playing Pictionary and Charades, he would have laughed in their face. Then he would have stopped, asked them if they were insane, and laugh in their face again. Leave it to Cordelia, his seer and best friend, to make Angel more human than he ever thought possible.

“Hey,” Gunn called into the office from the lobby. “Are you going to come out of there so we can kick your asses properly, or are ya going to hide like little scared babies?”

“Are you going to let him talk to us like that?” Cordelia asked Angel.

Angel got to his feet with a smile. “Let’s kick some ass, teammate.”

“Yeah!” Cordelia cheered him on as they walked out of the office.

**********

The dry erase board was set up in the middle of the lobby, and Gunn and Wes had already pulled four chairs around the board in a semi-circle. They had pulled one of the small tables into the center of the semi-circle, covering it with pretzels, chips, and wine coolers.

Wes and Gunn were eagerly awaiting them as Cordelia and Angel made their entrance.

“Well, glad to see the losers have decided to grace us with their presence,” Wesley said as he munched from a handful of popcorn.

“Look, pal,” Cordelia warned with a smirk. “We’re going to kick your asses so bad, you won’t even be able to draw a stick figure after we’re done with you.”

“Oooh, scary,” Gunn cooed as he and Wesley pretended to shake in fear.

In response, Cordelia grabbed a handful of pretzels and threw them at them. The two men just laughed as they were pummeled with the food.

“As the defending losers,” Wesley grinned, “you all get to go first.”

“Fine,” Cordelia huffed as Angel took a seat.

Cordelia selected a card from the deck of options and grabbed a marker from the board. She cleared her throat as she glanced at her card and up at Angel. “Okay, this is a television show,” she announced.

Wesley picked up the egg timer and set it. He smiled as he said, “You have a minute. Starting… now.”

Cordelia began to feverishly draw on the board as Angel scrutinized her drawing.

An eye. A little man with a cloud above his head and drawings within the cloud. A bottle with smoke coming out of it.

“Okay, that’s definitely an eye. So I… um… I think?” Angel guessed, leaning forward in his chair.

Cordelia shook her head in frustration. She drew little Z’s coming from the man.

“I sleep…”

“Gah!!” Cordelia groaned as she pecked at the little cloud with her marker.

“Oh, I dream… um…”

“Ten seconds,” Wesley declared and began to countdown gradually.

“Oh! OH!” Angel cried, jumping to his feet. “I got it! I dream of Jeanie!!”

“Yes!!” Cordelia yelled, running up to him and jumping into his open arms. She hugged him tightly and kissed him on the cheek, ecstatic.

“Whatever, man,” Gunn huffed with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’ve seen better drawings from a blind man with no hands. That was just too easy.”

“I beg your pardon,” Cordelia grinned. “I am the next Picasso in action.”

“Yes, and we all know what happened to Picasso,” Wesley mumbled with a devious grin as he tugged at his right ear lobe.

“Why don’t you guys put your markers where your mouths are,” Cordelia replied with a smirk.

“What the hell does that even mean?” Gunn smiled.

“Oh, you know what it means,” Cordelia replied and sat down next to Angel.

Gunn rolled his eyes as he got to his feet. “Okay, children, let me show you how a real team works.” He rubbed his hands together, grabbed a card, studied it, and smiled at Wesley triumphantly. “Buddy, we so have this one.”

Cordelia rolled her eyes and snatched the timer from Wesley’s hands. She handed the timer to Angel as she said, “Oh, stop yakking and start drawing.”

“Anything to show up you amateurs.” He turned to Wes as he said, “It’s a movie.”

Angel set the timer. “You have a minute starting… now.”

Gunn began his drawing—A moon. A smiling stickman. A tombstone.

Wesley stared at the picture for a moment, not sure where to start. “Moon? Moonman?”

Gunn groaned in frustration as he added stars around the moon.

“Oh, night! Nightman? The dead nightman?” Wesley asked with a slight shrug.

“What?!” Gunn asked, exasperated. He turned back to the board, making the stickman’s smile wider.

After a moment, Wesley shrugged again. “The happy dead nightman?”

“You have ten seconds,” Angel declared happily.

Gunn looked at the board and began to frantically draw a hand coming up out of the ground in front of the tombstone. He had just finished when Angel called, “Time!!”

“Night of the Living Dead!!!” Gunn turned to Wesley with a loud groan. “The happy dead nightman? What the hell is that? Is that a British thing?”

“I’m sorry,” Wesley replied with an exasperated sigh. “The inanimate stick figure with a smile didn’t scream living to me. Must be that British thing.”

“Children,” Cordelia smiled, watching Gunn wipe down the board. “No fighting. So, my dear sweet Angel, what does that make the score?”

“Well, sweet little Cordy, it appears we’re winning one to nothing,” Angel grinned.

“Well, so it does. So it does, my bestest partner in the whole wide world.”

“Oh, shut up,” Gunn grumbled as he flopped down in his chair.

“I think we struck a nerve,” Angel smirked.

Cordy smiled triumphantly, and cupped a hand over her ear. “Listen, do you hear that? Oh, could it be? I think that’s the sound of a couple of losers coming our way!”

“Oh, hush up and draw,” Wesley said with a smirk, tossing a handful of popcorn at Cordelia.

Angel tossed the timer to them as he grabbed his card. He grabbed his marker and smiled at Cordelia who gave him a wink and a thumbs up.

“Okay, Cordy, we got a song.”

“You can do it. Put those years of stalker sketching to good use!” she cheered on.

“You have a minute starting… now.”

Angel began to draw. A dollar sign with an “x” through it. A heart.

“Oh, that’s easy!” Cordelia replied, sitting back in her chair triumphantly. “Can’t buy me love by the Beatles.”

“And you would be exactly right, partner,” Angel grinned.

“And that, boys, is how it’s done,” Cordelia replied as Angel sat down beside her. She gave him another quick hug as Wesley and Gunn mumbled amongst themselves.

“Teamwork is such a beautiful thing, isn’t it,” Cordelia grinned, nudging Angel playfully.

“But not as beautiful as my partner,” Angel replied, earnestly.

Cordelia smiled back in response.

“Well, if you two are done celebrating the nauseous display that is your relationship, can we play a game here or not?” Gunn grumped.

“Oh, the game is just beginning,” Cordelia smirked as she munched on a pretzel.

**********

“And it all comes down to this crucial moment, ladies and gentleman,” Cordelia said from her chair, holding her empty bottle like a microphone, as Wesley approached the board. “The game is tied—11 to 11. If Wyndam-Price can successfully accomplish this drawing, he and his teammate will remain the Pictionary champions for the second consecutive week. If he fails, the astonishingly beautiful and intelligent team of the seer and the vampire will regain their rightful title. It all rests on the tiny shoulders of the British man.”

“Shut up!!” Gunn and Wesley replied in unison.

“And a hush falls over the crowd,” Cordelia stage-whispered as Angel chuckled beside her.

“No pressure, man,” Gunn said.

“Nope, none at all. Do you feel pressure?” Cordelia replied, turning to Angel.

“Oddly, I’m feeling quite pressureless lately. Kinda free and triumphant.”

“You too?!” she asked giddily.

“Shut up!!” Gunn and Wesley yelled again.

Wesley sighed as he declared, “It’s a song.”

“Gotcha, man,” Gunn replied with a nod.

Angel set the timer. “Start… now.”

Wesley drew frantically. A stick man. A stick figure wearing a skirt surrounded by a box. Arrows pointing from the man figure to the skirt figure and back again.

Gunn stared at the picture, completely dumbfounded. “Um… man? Man in the mirror?”

Wesley shook his head, drawing a line under the first stick figure and a second line under the boxed stick figure.

“I don’t… um… Man meets woman? Man meets woman in jail?”

Wesley gave Gunn a “huh?” look as he circled the two arrows in the center of the picture.

“Ten seconds,” Angel declared.

“Uh… Man… Woman…”

“Five seconds…”

“The man and the woman in the box!” Gunn exclaimed in desperation as Angel called time.

Cordelia made a buzzer sound as Gunn fell back into his chair with a groan.

“The man and the woman in the box?” Wesley asked his teammate. “It is clearly… dude…”

Wesley underlined the male stick figure again.

“…looks like…”

He circled the arrows again.

“…a lady…”

He underlined the female figure in the box again.

“You know, by Aerosmith,” Cordelia offered from her seat.

“Exactly!” Wesley cried, throwing his hands up in the air.

“How is that ‘Dude Looks like a Lady’?”

“The man is obviously looking in a mirror at his female reflection,” Wesley fumed, tossing his marker onto the table.

“Well, obviously,” Gunn replied with a roll of his eyes.

Cordelia stood with a smile. She took Angel’s hand and pulled him to his feet as she said, “And the champions regain their title as the best Pictionary players of all time! And now the champions will sing and dance and mock the losers.”

Cordelia began to sing “We are the Champions” as she made Angel slow-dance with her. Wesley and Gunn booed even as they smiled at the scene before them. Angel dipped Cordelia in front of the two men, and she stuck her tongue out at them as she and Angel finished off the chorus with a heartfelt “of the world!!!”

As soon as she was back on her feet, Cordelia took a bow. She smiled at Wesley and Gunn as she said, “So, let’s see. Looks like the losers are going to be treating the champions to dinner tomorrow night.”

“I swear you guys cheat,” Gunn moaned.

“Oh, don’t be a sore loser,” Cordelia replied, giving Gunn’s shoe a gentle kick.

“As long as you’re not a sore winner,” Wesley smirked.

“There’s no such thing as a sore winner, Wes,” Angel smiled.

“Yeah, winners can’t be sore because they’re… what’s the word I’m looking for… winners,” Cordelia laughed.

Cordelia and Angel turned to each other, laughing together. They started off towards his office, humming their victory tune.

Alone in the lobby, Gunn and Wesley began to clean up their mess.

As Gunn gathered the empty wine cooler bottles, he looked at Wes and sighed, “The happy dead nightman?”

Wesley raised an eyebrow at him as he replied, “The man and the woman in the box?”

Gunn laughed quietly in response as he said, “We really need to work on our Pictionary skills.”

“Definitely,” Wesley smirked.