"I'm not wearing it."
For the second time in the last two minutes Cordelia ignored Doyle and handed him back the cheerful paper cone with elastic band, streamers out the top and Barney the Dinosaur cavorting on it. "Yes, you are."
"He's one. He won't care."
"I care." She danced out of the way of the hat coming back to her and watched it fall to the floor. "Now you have a dirty dinosaur."
"Please, the image."
Cordelia rolled her eyes and gathered up the tray of party favors before heading out the door of the office.
"Delia," came his plaintive whine which she also ignored.
Angel stopped her before she was more than two steps into the lobby. In his hands was a slightly mangled hat. "Cordy..."
"No. You're wearing the damn hat!" she snapped.
"No self-respecting vampire..."
"Hat, NOW."
He dutifully put the hat on, then shuffled his feet and let his shoulders sag in defeat. "Thank god for once I can't see myself in a mirror," he muttered before wandering off.
Fred bounced into the room with the final balloon animal decorations, hat firmly on her head and a big smile on her face.
"Finally someone wearing their hat."
"I've never been to a baby's birthday party before. This is going to be so much fun. Connor and his little friends getting covered in cake and icing and playing with the boxes his toys come in."
Cordelia set down the tray and took some of the balloons. Both women started hanging them from tables and chair backs--anywhere the kids could reach. "Is he still napping?"
"Uh huh, looking like, well, an angel."
Wesley and Gunn strolled in the front door covered in demon goop and bearing big weapons across their shoulders. "Don't you dare drip any of that!"
"Honey, was it bad?" Fred asked, going to her boyfriend but refraining from touching him.
Wesley and Gunn grinned at each other and high-fived, sending goop flying.
"Piece of cake," Gunn crowed.
"Which you will get none of if you don't get cleaned up and oh my god is that guts on my clean floor?"
Both men edged away from the advancing Cordelia towards the stairs, then dashed up.
Fred smiled sweetly after the brave heros, then reached behind the counter for a rag. "Don't worry, I'll clean it up." As she crouched to do that, Cordelia tied off the last balloon. "Where's Doyle?"
"Cowering hatless in Angel's office," Cordelia sniped.
"No self-respecting demon..." came mumbled from the office.
"Do not go there!"
Fred giggled and tossed away the gore stained rag, leaving the floor once again spotless. "The hats are cute. Why guys have to get all macho about them, I don't know."
"Want to bet Gunn refuses?
"No bet. I know he'll refuse. On the other hand, I'll just tell him that he'll look like a chocolate ice cream cone and I'll want to eat him up and he'll have that hat on so fast."
Cordelia grinned at her compatriot. "Yeah, men may be stupidly macho but they're also so easily manipulated."
"I heard that and I'm not!"
More eye rolling as they ignored the whiner in the office and continued to arrange the room for a toddler's party. As they set out gaily wrapped presents, Angel shuffled back through and headed into the office, hat still on his head.
"Ah, no, boss, you didn't." Doyle gaped in horror at the Barney monstrosity smashing Angel's perfectly coifed hair.
"We'll get no peace until we wear them," Angel replied in a martyr's voice.
"She's not the boss of me," Doyle proclaimed staunchly.
Angel just looked at him until he sighed, slumped, and stuck the horrible hat on his head.
"I look like a dork."
"Solidarity. We'll all look like dorks." Angel clapped his friend on the back and practically shoved him out of the office.
Seeing Doyle wearing the hat, Cordelia gave him a brilliant smile, then walked over to kiss him lightly. "Thank you."
"Anything for my godson, but your lips ease my pain."
She laughed and smacked him lightly, then kissed him until gleeful gurgling sounded from the baby monitor. "There's our birthday boy."
"I'll fetch him," Fred volunteered, grabbing two hats from the stack on the counter, "and make sure the guys get their hats."
"What is it with you girls and these stupid paper hats?" Doyle asked as Fred bounced up the stairs, swinging the hats from one finger.
"Look, we live the most abnormal lives ever imagined. Wait, no one would actually imagine our lives. Anyway, this is a moment of normalcy. Okay, we have a big ass abandoned hotel for living quarters and our entertainment is a green demon making like Lola Falana, and the baby's mother poofed herself, but still, attempt at normalness. We have civilian guests coming and everything. Mommy and Me mommies and babies with real presents who expect real cake and not something spouting blood and..."
Doyle shut her up by kissing her again.
"I never had a cake spouting blood," Angel muttered as he watched them a bit enviously, not about either of them, but that they were so happy and in love, which made him feel a bit lonely.
His moment of melancholy and the lovers' kiss were broken by Fred returning with Connor, trailed by two grumbling yet clean men in matching purple hats. Angel took his son from Fred and swung him around, then hugged him close.
"Da da! Hat!" Connor reached and pulled on the streamers, further mussing his father's hair.
Angel laughed and gently removed his son's hand before the straining elastic snapped and took out an eye. As Connor laughed and patted the representations of his favorite dinosaur, Angel turned his attention to Cordelia and with a smile and nod of his head acknowledged that she'd been right about the hats.
When Cordelia carefully placed a string tied smaller version on Connor's head, all four men melted and there were no more complaints about the hats or the mess the bubbles made when half the kids spilled their little bottles or the cake that seemed to get everywhere. Connor's joy was completely infectious.
Later, in the privacy of Cordelia and Doyle's apartment, when she wore the hat and nothing else, he certainly had no more complaints.
End