Apocalypse Nowish

Part One

'No.'

'Why?'

'No.'

'Why?'

'I said no!' Angel told Cordelia, his tone conveying that he was brooking no argument on this. But he was talking to Cordelia - who could pick a fight in an empty room - this was an argument she wanted to have, and she wasn't backing down. 'And I said 'why?'. Angel - I'm not giving up on this unless you give me an explanation. So - why are you saying 'no'?'

She had chased him all the way down the stairs, having this argument, and - now he had reached the lobby - he had no place left to run; unless he went into his office and slammed the door in her face, shutting her out. But he probably shouldn't do that. She was sort of - not quite - his girlfriend, now. He couldn't do the moody, broody, taciturn act with her anymore, she wouldn't stand for it.

'I just don't think now is the right time to…'

Cordelia cut him off by blowing a raspberry. His argument was silly and she wasn't going to waste time listening to it. 'Now is the exact right time! Angel - I get that, during my whole amnesiac trauma drama, you had bigger - more personal - things to concentrate on. But I'm fixed now. I'm me again. And we need to sort this. Evil is coming our way, buster; big, stinky evil and if we don't nip it in the bud …'

'The world will end - I know,' he sounded sullen.

'Right! And that would be bad! We don't know anything about this big bad that's coming, except that it's somehow linked to the demon chick that Doyle found. So - if we wanna deal with this evil - then we need to deal with her. We need her here - where we can keep her safe. Keep an eye on her - make sure she isn't doing anything - you know - evil!'

'Doyle's keeping her safe.'

Cordelia blew another raspberry. Angel looked annoyed., 'oh come on!' she said, 'you can't think for a moment that Doyle - the teeny tiniest man who ever lived - can do a better job of protecting her than you. A champion.'

'There's Wesley and the Groosalug as well.'

'Yeah - but - you're the real deal, Angel. The champion to the Powers. If they want this girl protecting, then it's you they want to protect her. Otherwise it wouldn't have been Doyle - your PTB appointed messenger service - who found her. We need to know as much as we can. We need to keep her close, if we have any hope of defeating this thing.'

'It's just …' he shrugged his shoulder, 'if Kalimania comes to stay here, then you know she's going to bring Doyle with her.'

'So?'

'I'm just …' he wasn't making eye contact now. He gazed up and around the lobby, looking anywhere but her, his fingers traced the surface of the front desk and he kept his voice casual, 'I'm surprised you'd be happy to have him around is all … it's not that long ago you couldn't stand to be in the same room as him.'

'It's not that long ago that I couldn't remember my own name. Times change.'

'So you're OK with him being around, now?' He still wasn't looking at her. His voice was still overly casual - but she didn't notice, she was thinking about his question. It was her turn to shrug. 'I dunno - when I didn't remember anything, he was a huge comfort to me. But at the same time … he refused to take advantage. That meant …' she suddenly trailed off and narrowed her eyes at the shifty vampire stood in front of her. 'Hang on a minute - are you jealous?'

'What?' he forced out a chuckle of derision, 'no.'

'You are! You don't want Kalimania here because you're jealous of Doyle! Angel!' She looked disbelieving, 'Doyle is of the past.' Definitely of the past. 'I'm moving on now -' absolutely, she was one hundred percent moving on, 'to you. But that doesn't mean he ceases to exist. And if we need him, we need him. That doesn't change how I feel about … you know … us.'

Angel relaxed a little. He actually looked back at her, 'really?'

'Really. Doofus.'

He smiled, 'well - maybe we can see about reaching out to them - later, when things are less, you know … hectic.'

Cordelia glanced around the empty lobby, 'hectic?'

Just then Fred and Gunn came in and headed straight for the weapons cabinet. Angel made an 'I told you so' expression at Cordelia and then scurried over to their side, 'is there a case? Is it bad? Do you need help?'

'Nah,' Gunn told him, 'woman out in Hancock Park's hearing spookies in her pipes. I don't know whether to bring my axe or a plunger.'

'See?' Angel said to Cordelia.

'It's a haunted toilet,' she sounded unimpressed.

'Exactly - exciting and new - but clearly not the end of the world. We'll reach out to them later. End of discussion.'

Cordelia opened her mouth to argue.

'End of discussion,' he repeated and headed to his office.

'Yeah - uhuh - well, to be honest with y' it's not my usual but … uhuh … how many? Came shootin' out the airing cupboard? And down the chimney? Huh … OK OK - I'll be right along, what's the address?' Doyle grabbed a paper and pen and scribbled his new client's address down. He hung up his phone and looked at Groo and Kali. 'we got a case,' he told them.

'Do you require the blade of the Groosalug?' Groo asked him. But Doyle shook his head - it wasn't some big scary monster he'd been called in to fight, it was a swarm of insects. And a sword wasn't going to be a whole lot of use against them. He'd call Wesley and they'd go take a look - see what they could do. 'I want you to stay here with Kali, protect her.'

'From what?' Kali asked, 'a swarm of insects half way across town? That's dire.' She fluttered her eyelashes at the half demon, 'I could come with you.'

'No,' he said shortly, 'this is the third call in two days that have been - swarm related. This is … ten plagues of Egypt kinda stuff. I think this might be the beginning.'

'The beginning?' Groo looked puzzled.

'Of the end,' Doyle nodded, 'and I want Kali far away from it. Understood?' He wriggled into his jacket, grabbed the bug spray from the motel bathroom and headed out of the door; casting a backward glance at the demon woman, whose destiny was at the centre of all this, as he left.

Lorne sat at the front desk - he was on phone duty. Ever since Fred and Gunn had run off to deal with their haunted toilet, the phone had been ringing off the hook. Cordelia had left to go and investigate someone's fish tank, where the water had inexplicably turned to blood and all the fish had died. She had since rung back in to tell them that hundreds upon hundreds of toads had suddenly swarmed out of the Hollywood reservoir and were hopping around the streets. She was trying to find somebody official to talk to - ask what their explanation was … but the whole place was teeming with onlookers.

Angel - however - was sat in the middle of the lobby playing with Connor, completely oblivious to the various swarms, plagues and infestations that were cropping up all over the city. Lorne frowned; it was OK for some. He listened to what the man on the other end of the phone was telling him. 'Snakes? Uhuh - and they came out of your what? OK OK - well, did they get up there themselves or is part of a - you know - a thing,' he laughed nervously and listened to the angry voice of the man at the other end of the line. 'No. I'm not judging.'

He held the phone to is chest, for a moment, and spoke to Angel, 'do we fight snakes?'

'Only if they're giant,' Angel replied, absentmindedly. He and Connor were busy building a tower out of duplo - it took a lot of concentration. 'Or demons,' he glanced over his shoulder, 'or giant demons.' The thought excited him and he twisted himself around to look at Lorne - knocking the tower over in the process, 'are they giant demon snakes?'

'Well, unless this guy is 30 feet tall I think they're of the garden variety.'

'Oh,' Angel was disappointed and he turned back to start rebuilding the tower. But then another thought hit him and he jumped to his feet. 'They might still be demonic. Are they making any kind of weird demony sounds?' Lorne just stared at him.

Fred and Gunn listened patiently, as their client explained what was going on. There were just horrible - terrible - thumping and groaning noises coming from the pipes. It made it impossible to sleep and had been going on for about a week now.

But Fred assured her that was good news. 'The longer a spectre inhabits an area, the harder it is to convince them to leave.'

Gunn hefted his axe, 'yeah, Casper's playing with the big boys now. We can be very persuasive.'

The woman nodded thankfully - just, anything they could do about that awful awful room and she would be grateful. She turned and hurried away to the kitchen - and Fred and Gunn advanced on the bathroom door. 'You ready?' Gunn asked, reaching out for the handle.

'Is 'no' an acceptable answer?'

'In this job - always.' He pushed the door open and they stepped inside. The room was quiet and still - and massive. Luxurious, too - with a whirlpool tub and marble counter tops. It really didn't match their clients description as a bathroom of horrors. Gunn whistled appreciatively. 'Man look at this place!'

Fred stared around at it, 'a family of four could live in here!'

'With room for Uncle Laurel! Man! Marble counter tops, whirlpool tubs, bidet…' he smiled across at his girlfriend, 'it's the kind of place I imagine us moving into one day.'

Fred crinkled up her nose, 'following that lottery win we expect at any moment?'

'Well - OK - maybe it might take a bit of time but… a man can dream. '

'I guess…' she heard a groaning sound coming from inside the walls and whipped her head around to look for the source of the disturbance. 'That's not the bidet,' she said.

'Where's it coming from?' Gunn was staring, his head turning in every direction - but every time he looked one place he heard a noise start up elsewhere.

'Everywhere! Maybe we should have brought a priest.'

Gunn went over to the sink and tilted his head, listening to the plughole, 'or some consecrated Drano… I think it stopped...'

The mirrored cabinet right beside his head suddenly burst open - revealing rats teeming inside. They fell out of the cabinet and down onto the floor. Gunn jumped back in alarm. But there were more - coming up through the drains; the sinks, the tub, the drain in the floor. The whole floor was alive with them as they swarmed over each other - wriggling and running, their fur all matted and greasy.

'These aren't ghosts,' Fred cried, staring at down at them in disgust - backing up and trying desperately to stop them from touching her, 'these definitely aren't ghosts.'

'They're gonna be,' Gunn raised his axe ready to start smushing the vermin but - just above his head - the bowl lampshade suddenly fell to the floor and a rat dropped from the light fitting and down Gunn's neck. He screamed. 'Get it off me! Get it off me!'

Fred ran for the door but she couldn't get it open. Gunn fought his way through the teeming rats to her side, and shoulder barged the bathroom door open. They both fell out, screaming, into the quiet of the landing. Fred slammed the door shut. Gunn was ragging his jacket off- trying to get rid of that last rat. 'Get it off me!'

'You're OK, you're OK,' Fred checked him over - and, rat free, they both hotfooted it down the hallway. Their client was stood by the stairs - looking alarmed at their screams. 'You may wanna call an exterminator,' Fred told her as they passed, not even slowing down to talk.

'Or just burn the place to the ground,' Gunn suggested.

'Either way…'

Wesley walked into his apartment and came to a stop. Lilah was sat on his desk, just under his window. 'Hard day at the office?' she asked him.

'I've had worse.'

'What happened?'

'Bugs.'

'Giant?'

'Swarm. Why are you dressed like that?'

Lilah was wearing a little skirt, a white oxford shirt and a blue cardigan. She sat on the desk, swinging her feet like a schoolgirl. She had on a pair of glasses and her hair was tied in two pigtails, with ribbons at the end. 'Isn't this what you like?' She spoke in a soft southern drawl, and ducked her head low - looking up at him, all coy and flirtatious. 'Big brain and a tight little…'

Wesley rolled his eyes, 'Lilah -'

'Oh forget about that evil witch,' she said - still in her Texan accent, 'let's talk about me. I'm good and I'm pure and science turns me on and one day …' she put her hands together as if in prayer, 'if I pray hard enough and eat all my vegetables, I just might have hips.'

Wesley had begun to smile, a slight laugh at her impression. 'Are you finished?' She got off the desk and walked towards him - her voice hard and normal now. 'Did it turn you on? Watching her up there in front of all those brainiacs and knowing she was the smartest one in the room?'

'Her theories deserve attention.'

'Just her theories?' she stepped closer to him and lowered her voice. 'I saw the way you looked at her,' then she smirked as she saw his slightly guilty reaction. 'Oh, come on. Do you think I care about your little crush? Moon all you want over the Texas twig - 'cause I know whose bed you'll be crawling into at the end of the day.' She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, 'or the middle of it.'

'You think you know me?'

'Better than she ever will.'

He drew her over to the couch, pushed her short skirt up and then sat down, pulling her into his lap so she was facing him. Slowly, she unbuttoned her shirt to reveal the red lacy bra beneath. Then she took the glasses off.

'Leave them on!' Wesley commanded - his voice was harsh. She looked hurt - annoyed - for a moment. But she did as he asked, wearing the glasses for him, as he made love to her.

Fred and Gunn arrived back at the courtyard, headed for the lobby. They were still grossed out by their encounter with the rats - their skin twitching and crawling at the memory of the greasy-furred vermin swarming all over them. Fred was planning a long, hot bath - to try and soak out the feeling of the rats on her flesh.

But it was not to be. As they entered into the lobby, they found the rest of the gang in there - whilst the phones rang off the hook. 'Hi,' Angel said to them as they came in, 'how did it go?'

The young couple glanced at each other. 'Bad,' they said, in unison.

'Well - it's good you're here. The phones are going crazy.'

'No no - that certainly doesn't sound normal for a boy his age,' Lorne was saying into the phone. 'Look - we'll send someone out just as soon as we can, just - uhm - don't poke it.' He hung up - just as the other phone line rang. Cordelia grabbed it, 'Angel Investigations how can we … uhuh - yeah - what is the nature of your manifestation?'

Gunn pulled the phone log over to have a look and raised an eyebrow, 'this has all gone down whilst we've been out?' He looked at all the phone calls they'd taken - all the cases seemed to be similar to the disaster zone with the rats he and Fred had just faced.

'And this is only half of it,' Lorne told him, 'from what some of our clients have said - some of them have rung elsewhere before they ring here - but they've been too overloaded to help.'

'Elsewhere?'

'Wes and Doyle,' Angel clarified, 'we reckon they must be dealing with a similar number of cases all over the city. Whatever's happening …'

'Yep,' Cordelia hung up the phone - and glared at it, as it immediately began to ring again. 'It's the end all right. Blood, frogs, bugs; I'm expected the death of the first born any minute. Talk about a bad time to try and build something new.' She picked up the phone 'yes?'

'What's she on about?' Gunn asked, 'what's she building?'

Angel suddenly became very interested in Connor's duplo tower. It was Lorne that answered. He cleared his throat and then lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Cordy and the stud muffin are supposed to be going on a first date - but she can't make reservations because the phone keeps ringing off the hook. It's starting to look like their little romance is doomed before it's even got off the ground - hence the cranky.'

Fred looked between Cordelia and Angel - and then at the phone which had started ringing again. 'Maybe now isn't the best time to be thinking about dating?' she said.

'But the if the end is nigh - Freddikins - what other chance do they have?'

Doyle arrived back at the motel. He had been stung, burned and bitten by the swarms of insects that he'd tried to exterminate. He was weary and he wanted a drink. Groo and Kali were waiting for him, expectantly. 'So?' Kali asked as he limped through the door.

'It's bad out there,' he told her. He sank down on the bed and poured himself a drink. 'And it's all over town.'

'So … this is it - the bad thing we've been waiting for?'

'It's a start.' He pulled himself up again and went over to the window - staring out. 'The people out there - they don't know what they're up against. What's comin' - and what it's capable of. They're in danger.'

'What is coming?' Kali sounded frightened. He turned to look at her. 'Death,' he said, simply.

'You had a vision, Noble Majesty?'

'I don't need the visions … to see what's in front of me. We need to be out there. Making sure everything turns out…' he shook his head, 'the way it's supposed to, I guess.'

'We must protect the people,' the Groosalug said.

'You can try.'

'Will it be enough?'

But Doyle didn't answer him - he just continued to stare out of the window. He drained the last of his drink. 'Well - you're a champion Groo and this is the end. You should go out fightin' - helpin' people. Get the endin' a champion like you deserves. We should go on patrol. But - hell is breaking out all over - it isn't safe for Kali to stay here all alone,' he turned to look at her, 'you'll have to come with us, Princess.'