Morning After

[angelic_liam]

Who: Angel, Cordelia, Gunn, and Wes
Where: The Hotel in New Orleans Where They Are Staying
When: The Morning After Gunn and Cordy's Drunken Bar Crawl
What: Angel being a butt and waking up Cordy and Gunn
Status: Complete :)

Comments

[misschase]

Cordelia had been in the deepest sleep until there was a very prominent banging on her door. Her mouth felt like cotton balls and her head pounded almost as loud as whoever the hell had the nerve to wake her up. And what was with that voice?

She moaned a "Go away" into her pillow, but knew it had no effect as the obnoxious fake southern accent still came through loud and clear. She pushed herself up from the bed, hair askew and still in the clothes she had on the night before. Luckily, she had managed to get her heels off so her feet didn't suffer throughout her sleep.

She swung open the door with the most fearsome glare she had ever glared. At Angel. "Angel, what the hell are you doing? It's daytime. Go back to sleep and be a normal vampire for god's sake," she grumbled, ready to slam the door when she saw the other two boys coming up behind him, Wesley equipped with a stake.

She sighed loudly, reaching up to smooth the dead animal that used to be her nice hairstyle, "Goddammit, I am so not in the mood to deal with evil Angelus right now. Can you please go bite some other innocent hungover lady?"

[angelic_liam]

Angel looked over at Wes when he came out. "I'm trying to wake up Cordelia so we can get some work done today," Angel said innocently to Wes. "Got lots and lots of work to do, right?" Even though he had taken pains to hide it, Angel could still see the stake right away. OK, so he kind of got why Wes and the others might be a little paranoid as to why he was in a good mood. He just wished that he could be a slightly happy, but still with plenty on his mind, vampire and not immediately get staked for it.

"I'm not evil, *please* put away the stake, Wes," Angel said to him. "If I was evil, you'd all be dead...or at least tied up or something at this point." Like Angelus would do something as nice as *knock* on a door. Hmmph. Actually, dead or tied up would be the nicer things that Angelus would do, now that Angel *really* thought about it.

"And you two are only hung over because you drank WAY too many expensive drinks at all of the bars on Bourbon Street. Not my fault that you guys can't hold your liquor." OK, so he was still in a teasing mood. He wasn't sure why he was the only one who happened to wake up on the right side of his bed this morning, but that seemed the case.

"I'm not here to bite anyone," Angel told them as everyone seemed so ready to just stake now and ask questions later. At least Wes was asking questions. The other two were ready to just stake him so that they could go back to bed. "We *did* come to New Orleans to do more than just party."

[watcher_pryce]

Huh. Wesley wearily looked from one to the other and then down to himself. So... Either Angel really was Angelus and the other two *exceptionally* hung over... Or they were used to see him prancing about in his nothing but a towel. And here he had been worried about that! Well, second to Angel being Angelus, what with the vampire's happy mood. Which he still was very weary about.

Wesley glanced over at Gunn, who urged him to take Angel or do... other things with the vampire Wesley really hadn't thought of. Not in a long time anyway. Not to mention he hadn't seen Gunn clutching his head like this in quite a long time either. Certainly not from having drank to much. ...and where did this image of *himself* sitting hungover and morose in his apartment come from? Huh.

Shaking his head to clear it, Wesley glanced at Cordelia who, par de course of her old self, urged the vampire to go bother some other innocent human.
"Because you are the unblemished holiness herself," Wesley couldn't help but mutter. Though, he might as well have said it out loud for all the listening his two headache having friends weren't doing.

While the other two bemoaned their fate, Wesley had already established that his wasn't Angelus having fun. But rather Angel in an eerily good mood, which quite frankly, didn't do much to ease his mind entirely. Enough, though, for him to pop back into his room to grab a robe to pull on before anyone would notice he'd been turning as red as a tomato and make him the next focus of mockery.

He'd been the focus or mockery enough during his life, thank you very much.

Still barefooted and tying his robe he shuffled out of his room on the other side of Cordelia. A yawn broke loose while Wesley leaned his shoulder against the doorpost and watched the show. It was like a very slow tennis match. Where Angel threw the balls and his other two friends failed to properly catch them because they were so hung-over. Wesley couldn't recall the last time he were hung-over.

That- was actually disturbing. He *really* could not remember the last time he'd been hung-over.

"Angel," Wesley tried, mildly amused at the vampire's attempted to lecture two people who were in no state to listen anyway, "why are you lecturing this early in the morning? Even I know, the master at lecturing, that it's not going to sink in. Especially with these two," he added, pointing a finger at Cordelia and Gunn, "who, obviously cannot hold their liquor... and furthermore, how is it they get to have fun while I get put to work straight upon arrival?" The former watcher couldn't help but ask from where he was leaning casually against the doorpost.

And all the while his tone of voice may have been... *slightly* louder then they were used to hear him talk. Only a little bit. Really slightly. Indeed.

[g_charles]

Gunn had not noticed that his friend had been in nothing but a towel. Actually, Gunn probably wouldn't have noticed if Wes's hair was on fire. Well, he might have noticed the screaming, but he just would have complained about it and tried to go back to bed. Gunn wasn't sure WHAT was in those drinks, or if they had any more after going to the voodoo shop, but it was giving him a splitting headache of epic proportions and he was pretty sure that he wanted to crawl back into his bed and sleep for another two days.

"Work?" Gunn shot a glare in Angel's direction. "You want us to WORK like this? After saying that it was perfectly OK for us to go out and get hammered last night like we did." OK, so that wasn't exactly what the vampire had said, but whatever. "Go and take Wes out to have some fun. Like a nice sunny park or something." Grumpy Gunn was grumpy, apparently.

"And yeah, lecturing is useless. Besides, you aren't anywhere as good at it as Wes here," Gunn pointed out to him. "Go with Wes and order room service or something. Watch movies. Get out of our hair." Well, metaphoric hair in Gunn's case. Really, at this point, he was all but ready to throw lamps in Angel's general direction.

Besides, why WAS the vampire up at this godawful hour? Weren't they supposed to be asleep in the daytime? Or was he just being an ass and enjoying waking them up after a night of having fun (which they had kind of needed after...well, whatever happened the last year or so, it had been bad. Why DIDN'T he remember what happened?)

[misschase]

"Hey!" Cordelia protested, too loud even for her own head. She lowered her voice, though her tone was the same, "Coma girl cannot help it if her body has been without alcohol for nearly a year and then suddenly gets hit hard with it. Not my fault, buddy," she said, emphasizing the 'buddy' with a poke of her finger in Angel's chest.

She rolled her eyes at his words, "Oh, please. We've been here for barely two days. Gunn has never been anywhere except Los Angeles. And remember? Coma girl, here! Excuuuse me if the two of us wanted to go enjoy one good time before the next apocalypse comes and ruins all of our lives again." She wanted to laugh at Gunn's suggestion to go somewhere sunny, but her head hurt too much. Where were her post-vision pills when she needed them?

And her tired, annoyed brain suddenly turned towards confusion as Wesley seemed to be defending them, but just barely. "No one said you had to go party with your books the moment we got here, so don't complain. We tried to invite you, but you were all way into your researching," she argued, though she couldn't remember if they actually had invited him. All events from the previous evening seemed to be currently wiped from her mind. At least they had made it back to the hotel.

As Gunn took over the protesting, she padded to her bathroom and filled a glass of water, draining the first one in an instant and refilling it before coming back to her doorway. "Honestly, Angel, what is so damn important that you had to bother us this early?"

[angelic_liam]

"So, on one hand I get scolded for letting the two of them have fun, but, when I want them to get to work, I'm asked why you can't have fun?" Angel asked Wes, shooting him a grin. "You are a sender of mixed signals, my friend." OK, he was also actively trying to remember that no one but possibly Cordelia remembered anything about last year, which meant that he shouldn't be an occasional grouch to some like Wes.

So maybe now he was heading in the complete other direction and trying to be shiny and happy? Sue him.

"I will *not* play in the sun, thank you, Gunn," he said back to his friend, who, along with Cordelia, still looked hilarious in the fact that they apparently couldn't hold their liquor at all. Then again, they still reeked of it, so maybe they had a lot more than they probably remember. He could smell the toxic smell of it coming out of their pores. Not exactly pleasant.

"I thought we had a hellmouth opening up, Cordy," Angel said to her. "You know, big apocalypse like stuff and all that?" That's what she had told him, anyway. "Hope it doesn't open while the two of you are nursing away headaches and stuff. That would probably be bad."

"Fine...we'll go have popcorn and watch movies and order lots of yummy room service while the two of you nurse your hangovers then." Obviously the two of them weren't going to listen to him at all. They wanted to go to sleep and sleep off their hangovers. Maybe they'd be more in the mood to work by tomorrow morning.

Angel looked over at Wes. "So, want to go and watch movies while these two try to get in a better mood?" They had to do something while they waited on those two. Might as well be at least a little bit of fun, right?

[watcher_pryce]

"Why should he take me out anywhere?" Wesley asked, looking at Gunn perplexed. The former watcher could recall many a nights where Gunn had crashed on his sofa... or he had crashed on whatever Gunn at that time would call a sofa. But his friend hadn't ever been this grumpy. Of course they had both been nursing somewhat of a hang-over so it could be Wesley had missed the grumpy part.

Why Gunn was pushing Angel to take Wes and go 'do something' was beyond Wesley himself however. Gunn certainly made a point to mention it often enough to be noticeable. Probably only by Wesley himself, but nevertheless...

Not that he had time to protest this some more, because Cordelia made a rather unpleasant faux pass. "For one," Wesley said, "you did not in any way invite me. For another, you have both been here two days already. I only arrived *yesterday* afternoon with Spike and Fred. There was no research involved since you and Gunn were both already gone by the time we got here," he told her coldly.

Honestly, if she was going to come up with some sort of excuse... She could at least get it right and not lie right into his face. Wesley huffed, gave her a small glare and turned back to watch Angel and his side show of loudness.

God, he just thought 'loudness'. He'd been in the States far to long.

Wesley had been so in thought that he looked up startled as Angel actually did address him. He blinked at his friend, pushed away from the door he was leaning against and tried to focus on the conversation at hand.

"I was actually hoping to do the research Cordelia mentioned I ought to do but haven't done," he suggested meekly, "and possibly go over those contracts we made last night with that demon clan?" he offered tentatively, as though he was bracing himself to be mocked as some sort of workaholic dullard once again. Which, if Gunn and Cordelia hadn't been so hungover, he probably would have been.

"No one told me that this was supposed to be a fun-sort of travel as well. I would have packed some lighter reading material," Wesley mumbled under his breath, quite put out that he had not been aware or this fact.

[g_charles]

"I ain't exactly been doing a lot of drinking myself," Gunn pointed out when Cordy mentioned that her body wasn't used to alcohol. "Plus, it was the first time in a long time where we got to have fun. You guys even remember how to have fun?" Gunn was ready to just slam the door and try to go back to sleep, but he doubted that would deter Angel at all. For all he knew, Angel was wanting something to do during the day, like researching or something, but right now all Gunn wanted to do was sleep the next ten hours and get rid of the hangover he was nursing.

"And if you're not going to go play in the sun, then go into your room and do...something that doesn't involve waking me up when I've only had a couple of hours of sleep." When Angel mentioned something about watching movies and ordering room service, Gunn nodded, which he immediately regretted doing, because it caused the pain in his head to increase tenfold. "Yeah, do that, then."

And Wes had to immediately start talking about doing work again. "If you're worried about not having anything decently fun to read, they have bookstores here, Wes," Gunn said, rubbing his head with his hand for a moment. "I'm sure they got plenty of Agatha Cristie there for you to read." Oh yeah, he remembered what Wes read, even if it had been a little while since he had seen Wes do any sort of recreational reading.

"You guys could probably send out a personal shopper guy to pick up books while you do research or watch movies or do anything else but have me talking to you two out in the hallway at this unholy hour." He lifted his head up and looked at the both of them for a moment. "Now go and read or watch something and let us nurse our hangovers in peace." And, with that, Gunn shut the door, washing his hands of the both of them. Angel would be met with a cross upside his head if he knocked again.

[misschase]

Cordelia shrugged to Wesley's words, "Whatever, I am not claiming to be the knowledge woman over here. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast every day, let alone if I invited you to come hang out with us." She figured the fuzzier parts of the evening would eventually come back, but she was kind of enjoying the blissful ignorance, even if some people were still trying to fault her for it.

She felt herself glare at Angel, whether it was intentional or just the default expression on her face, "Exactly! Hellmouth opening! But, not last night, so I kind of wanted to see the sighs of New Orleans before it got all swallowed up by mouths of hell and stuff."

She took another long drink of her water, "Plus, when it's going to open, I'm sure they'll just drop some warning vision in my head. The Powers That Be just know how much I love them," she said, rolling her eyes, "To be really funny, they'll probably give me one today."

As both Wesley and Angel discussed going to do other things, Angel wanting something more recreational, while Wesley clearly wanted to do research. Her ears pricked up at something he said, "Demon clan? What are you talking about?"

She was all for passing right back out as Gunn had mentioned, but she was also curious as to what she and Gunn had missed during their fun drinking times. And no, she was not regretting it because it was always just work, work, work with all of them. Fun times were rare.

[angelic_liam]

Angel just grinned at Cordy when she glared at him. He couldn't help it. Maybe it was because he finally had all of his friends back again, none of them estranged or in a coma or whatever, but he was in a good mood for a change. Not a worrisome good mood, because there were still inklings of stuff bugging him at his thoughts, like a new Hellmouth opening and the possibility that his friends would discover that he had wiped their memories of Connor and basically the last year, etc, but he was doing almost OK at the moment. Enough to crack a joke or two or smile at a situation on occasion.

Of course, Gunn and Cordy being miserably hung over just happened to be REALLY funny to him as well.

"Would you even feel it through the hangover pain right now?" Angel joked. He knew that her half-demoness prevented most of the pain, but it still didn't seem to get rid of all of it. At least they didn't have to worry about the back of her head blowing off now, even if she had been turned half-demon for nefarious circumstances.

He looked over at Wes. "If I had known that there would be fun times, I'd have told you. You can always buy more books, Wes," he pointed out to him. "I know they got big book stores and small ones around here. This is a big city. Not Los Angeles big, but plenty enough to have book stores." He shrugged. "Maybe we could send someone out to pick up books." It actually wasn't a completely ridiculous option to take.

He looked at Cordy when she asked about the demon clan. "We made some contact with a local demon clan last night after Wes got in," he told her. "Can't rely on Los Angeles contacts when we're in New Orleans, you know?" he asked her. He glanced at Gunn's door when the man had slammed it and, Angel assumed, gone back to bed. "So, should we be mean and smear his doornob with chapstick or leave him alone?"

OK, maybe Angel was feeling a tiny bit evil today. At least it wasn't the 'eat your entrails' type of evil, OK?

[watcher_pryce]

Well, wasn't that nice. She didn't even remember if she invited one of her best friends to come hang out? Which would have been impossible, since he hasn't been here before yesterday. For a brief moment Wesley wondered if this blasted town was hexed all over, including now his friends. Who, while hungover, were rather absent minded.

And then there was Angel. Angel who was acting... bizarre. As if he'd just downed a whole crate of vodka - which is what he'd need to get even tipsy, being a vampire and all - and was now making fun of everyone. Not that this was new to Wesley, he was quite used to be made fun of after all.

He frowned at Angel when the chap mentioned books. "Books? How-- stereo typical of you, Angel," Wesley pointed out meekly. Just because he mentioned the books he brought and could have brought, didn't mean he *needed* books to have fun, did it? Or was that all they thought of him?

Leaning against the doorway of his own room, Wesley nodded at the explanation of what they had been doing in concern to the demonic clan. But Angel's next words confused him to no end. Why would anyone want to do that?

"What would be the so called 'fun' purpose of smearing his doorknob with a chapstick? Whatever that may be?"

[misschase]

Rolling her eyes, Cordelia said, "Yes, I would feel it. And it would probably make my brain explode. Half-demon or no."

She blinked her eyes several times, while sipping on her water as she listened to Angel explain about the demon clan. It was all she could do to stay awake. A few more hours sleep and some more headache medicine and she'd be right as rain. At least she didn't work a 9-5 job and had mostly understandable bosses. Mostly being the key word since a certain vampire boss had woken her up in the first place.

She flinched at Gunn's door slamming since the noise seemed to stab right into her temple before she responded to Angel. "So, we should go meet with this demon clan, I'm guessing?" Unless they already had, she had no idea. "Unless they're the ones who are going to open the Hellmouth here," she said, before shrugging, "Anything's possible at this point."

She raised a brow at Angel's playfulness, looking at Wesley wearily, "I'm still convinced he's evil. Now he wants to play pranks on Gunn. What's next? Are you gonna stick his hand in a bucket of warm water?"

[angelic_liam]

He looked at Cordy when she said they should all go and meet with the demon clan. "Well, you can stay here and sleep off the rest of your hangover if you want." She looked, well, like hell, although he knew way better than to say that she looked that way. He wasn't sure what all her and Gunn had drank last night, but it must have been something that packed a whallop. They both looked like they had been left in a ditch for dead at the moment.

"A guy can't be in a good, playful mood these days without everyone thinking that he's evil," he said with a slight sigh when Cordy protested once again that he was probably evil because he wanted to play a prank. "And putting someone's hand in a bucket of warm water doesn't work." He didn't know that for certain, but he was fairly sure that something that wonky wouldn't work.

"It's called a prank, Wes," he pointed out to his friend. "If Gunn was feeling better he'd probably do one to us before this trip was over, anyway." Knowing Gunn, he probably would, but Gunn had a playful side that he rarely got to show people these days. Kind of unfortunate, actually.

Angel didn't show his off that much, either, which was probably why everyone was thinking that he was evil when he was. "Alright fine, no pranks," Angel said with a faux huff. "We probably should get to work on dealing with that demon clan and figuring out where that Hellmouth is going to open up."

It was jut that, between Cordy being awake and being away from Wolfram & Hart, it had put him in a pretty decent mood for a change. They probably *should* get to work, though. Before the world ended or something.

[watcher_pryce]

"But we already met with the demon clan," Wesley pointed out, by now utterly confused by how this conversation was going. Driving over here with Spike and Fred, and then getting straight to work and having had little sleep overnight? Must really be starting to work its wonder with him. Or rather none wonder.

"We met with them today, right after I arrived. We even made a deal," Wesley said, looking at Angel as he did so since by now he wasn't certain they had actually done that. No, that wasn't true. He had been rather certain they'd gone to see that demon clan until this conversation.

Wesley kept glancing from Cordy to Angel, muttering 'putting his hand in a bucket of water', under his breath. By now he knew better then to ask however. It was painfully obvious the Brit was not at all versed in the world of pranking. And while they may have been played on him in the past, most certainly, he had never taken the time to figure *how* it was done. Or even why.

"But we already talked to the demon clan," Wesley once again tried meekly, by now having given up on the whole prank thing... explanation, something or other. It was no doubt an American thing at any rate so he wasn't going to bother. He'd falling into *that* trap far too many times in the past.

"I'm getting a headache," he sighed, rubbing his temple as he leaned against the door-jamb. "And I didn't even get the pleasure of getting utterly drunk. Like some," he added, pointedly not looking at Cordy, but instead staring at Gunn's by now closed door.

"I'll be in my room going over these contracts again if anyone needs me," he decided, more for himself then anyone else really. Angel could keep on teasing Cordelia if he wanted. And while it was amusing and rare to witness, it was reminding him of days and feelings which had long passed. Long in the past. Or so he had thought.