TITLE: Ashes, Ashes
AUTHOR: Mari
EMAIL:
RATING: R
DISCLAIMER: The various characters within belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Stephen King. No profit is being made.
SPOILERS: Through Season 1 of Angel and Season 4 of Buffy.
PAIRINGS: C/A with smidgens of L/A, C/L, and subtext for various others.
FEEDBACK: The good, the bad, the ugly. I'll take it all.
SUMMARY: A super virus wipes out most of the human race, leaving the survivors to face a supernatural foe that few are prepared for. Crossover with Stephen King's 'The Stand'.
Part One
"Destruction leads to a very rough road
But it also breeds creation."
-Red Hot Chile Peppers, "Californication"
It was such a silly, stupid illness. A tickle in the back of the throat, an ache behind the eyes. There were rumors, of course, but this was Hollywood. The city thrived on rumors, stories, and if there were none to be had legitimately then the people would begin to invent them.
"Captain Trips," they whispered in the gyms and the restaurants, the bars and the boutiques. By then the hospitals were the most happening places in town and the morgues could not keep up with the dead. "It's called Captain Trips, and there's no cure."
The proper authorities denied that there was any sort of crisis. They always did. Bland assurances did not quiet the whispers.
"Captain Trips is coming to town," they murmured. "Captain Trips, and you had better brace yourself, man, 'cause it's going to be one hell of a ride."
---
It was standing. It had taken two hours, one smashed thumb (Wesley), three broken nails (Cordelia), and a small handful of extra pieces that neither of them knew quite what to do with, but the new case board was up, bright and clean and just waiting for helpless to be helped.
Cordelia tucked a few strands of hair back into her ponytail and grinned. "Ta-da!" She turned to Wesley. "I told you 'Some assembly required' didn't mean the end of the world. Between the two of us, we ought to be qualified to tell the difference."
Wesley paused from nursing his injured thumb long enough to answer, "You came through without injury." But his mouth was twitching as he said it.
Cordelia held up her hand, displaying her ragged nails. "Hey. These are going to take at least three weeks to grow back. Mock not my pain." She turned to gaze in the direction of her bedroom with drawn brows. "I wonder if the racket woke Angel up." After a few seconds of silence seemed to prove her wrong, she turned back, asking, "Do you think we should be louder?"
"You're actually endeavoring to disturb him?"
"You make it sound like such a terrible thing. I'm as giving as the next girl-" A snort from Wesley, to which she replied, "Oh, shut up. You know I am. But I have an audition at three, and I'll die before I show up all sweaty and gross. Besides, when I offered to let Angel crash in my bedroom during the day, I didn't think he was planning on using it for, you know, the whole day."
"Hard to sleep through the day with the noise you two were making out here." Cordelia didn't jump when she heard Angel's voice behind her, and she was proud of herself for that. She offered up a sheepish grin and Angel returned it with one of his rare half-smiles as he walked around her. "A dead man couldn't have slept through it." Cordelia and Wesley restrained themselves from pointing out the obvious-barely-as Angel paused to survey the case board. "Wow," he said. "This looks good."
"You don't have to sound so surprised," Wesley said, his expression turning offended for a moment. "Between Cordelia and myself, we do possess some practical ability."
"We possess the practical ability of a retarded gopher," Cordelia corrected. "But you're right. We done good. Now all we have to do is fill it up with helpless to be helped and Angel can get on with the Shashuing."
"Because that's going to be so much easier than putting together a dry erase board," Angel replied.
"You weren't the one putting it together," was Cordelia's parting shot before disappearing into her room.
Angel raised his eyebrows at Wesley as soon as she was out of sight. "Has she been like that all day?"
"Compared to her earlier mood, what you saw was solemn," Wesley said. "I believe it's her audition. She's decided that nerves are her personal enemy and therefore must be vanquished accordingly."
"So it's a tough one?"
"National broadcast." Wesley smiled slightly. "Be thankful that you weren't awake earlier, or you would have been recruited into helping her rehearse her lines right along with me." Angel's expression changed and Wesley's jaw dropped. "I hate you."
"Can't blame a guy for exercising a little self-protection."
---
Cordelia could hear the guys as they continued to talk in the living room, but with the door closed it was relegated to a distant background hum. She sang under her breath as she searched her closet for the perfect outfit with which to knock the casting people on their collective asses, snatches of a song that she had heard earlier on the radio.
"Baby, can you dig your man? He's a righteous man…baby, can you dig your man?"
At long last she settled on a strappy red number that showed some curves and hinted at a lot more. Cordelia grinned as she shucked her work clothes and pulled the silken fabric over her head, feeling it mold to her body in all the right places. Baby, this one was in the bag.
---
Forty-five minutes until the next pill. The next three-quarters of an hour stretched endlessly before him, a highway disappearing into the horizon and glittering with broken glass; he had no choice but to walk it.
Lindsey lifted his head off the back of the couch long enough to stare at the clock before dropping back with a groan. Forty-four minutes now. His arm throbbed from his elbow to the fingers that that he could almost imagine were still there.
Lindsey swore finally and heaved himself off the couch, carrying his right arm close to his chest. The bandages where his hand used to be were pristine and white, not a speck of blood to be found. Lindsey tried not to look at them too much.
The doctor at the hospital had told Lindsey not to mix his medication with alcohol. He had also told Lindsey that he needed to stay in the hospital for another week when Lindsey had been on the verge of chewing his other arm off to get away. Lindsey found a glass and had a brief and ultimately victorious struggle with the whiskey bottle before he was able to get the lid unscrewed. Panting, he stared at the bottle and debated between the satisfaction of hurling it against the wall and the impossibility of cleaning up such a mess one-handed, not to mention the torture of sitting through the next forty minutes unaided. In the end, alcohol won. Lindsey poured two generous fingers worth of amber liquid into the glass, swearing as his hand shook and slopped it over the rim, and downed it in one go. He scarcely felt the burn.
"We'll have you up and at 'em again in no time, Mr. McDonald," the perky nurse who had come to change his bandages earlier in the day had said. Lindsey didn't know her name; he assumed that Wolfram and Hart hired her and let her do her job without comment. "The bone has to knit and scar tissue has to form before you can be fitted with a prosthetic, but by the end of the summer you should be as good as new."
'As good as new.' Lindsey had clenched his fist very hard to avoid striking the woman in the face. The marks were still visible on his palm.
Lindsey considered pouring himself another drink, but ultimately set the glass in the sink instead. "Doctor's orders," Lindsey said, and laughed. There was an edge of hysteria in his voice. He didn't laugh again.
Lindsey sank back onto the couch and passed a shaking hand over his eyes. His lids felt as if they had been pried open and burning sand forced beneath them. Lindsey couldn't be sure, but he thought the feeling might be encroaching tears.
Thirty-two minutes.
---
The casting office was packed with women of every race and description: blonde, redhead, brunette, curvy and dancer-thin. Cordelia saw several pairs of breasts that hadn't come from good genetics and home cooking. The only common denominator among the women was their overwhelming beauty.
Cordelia faltered at the sight of so many manicures and masses of shining hair. Her smile slipped for only a second before she caught herself, making sure that her lapse in confidence didn't show on her face. Frowning causes wrinkles.
Botox before she was thirty. There was a thought more chilling than any of the women there.
Cordelia ran her hands over her hips, smoothing a few nonexistent wrinkles out of her dress and highlighting the fact that a pretty nice body laid beneath it. The movement earned poisonous glares and not a few interested looks from around the room. Cordelia made a mental note to use it during her audition.
She ambled past the throng in her best Queen C strut, taking the first available seat, which happened to be next to a buxom blonde with legs that could make a supermodel look stumpy. The blonde was ruining her glamorous indifference by shaking so badly that it was a wonder she kept her seat.
"Hi," the blonde whispered to Cordelia as she sat down. Her voice had a whispery, kittenish quality that would have made her sound like Marilyn Monroe if she had not also sounded as if she were coming down with a cold.
'Fresh off the bus,' Cordelia catalogued. 'Small town girl dreaming of making it big.' She felt bad when her next thought was, 'I am so going to kick her ass.' But only a little; this was business.
"Hi," Cordelia said, flashing the magnetic smile that had kept her in free coffee and muffins for years. "I'm Cordelia Chase."
"Alice Lacey." Alice was worrying her script through her fingers so fiercely that it was a wonder she could still read it. She gave the room at large a wary glance, like a soldier who found herself deep in enemy territory without warning. "I didn't think there was going to be so many people here."
"First audition?"
Alice nodded and Cordelia bit the inside of her cheek to keep her smile from growing too large. Okay, now she really couldn't help feeling bad. "It gets easier," Cordelia said. "Never less chaotic, but after a while it's a chaos you'll like."
Relief lit up Alice's face. "Oh, good." She leaned forward. "To be honest, you're the first person I've seen who doesn't look like an outrageous bitch."
Cordelia fought to swallow her startled giggle before it could become a guffaw, and in the end had to settle for an unladylike snort. Alice grinned. "You'll get used to that, too," Cordelia said. "Get most of us away from the casting office and we turn into human beings. I promise."
Alice smiled and looked much more at ease than she had when Cordelia first walked through the door. She had even stopped mangling her poor script. Alice opened her mouth to say more, but her words were overwhelmed by a thundering sneeze. Cordelia leaned back, turning her head quickly to the side. Alice fished through her purse for a tissue and found one just in time to muffle two more sneezes, each as powerful as the first. "Oh, man," she said, wiping at her nose. "I hate summer colds."
Cordelia made sure to look sympathetic without leaning in too close. "I'm afraid we have the same germs in LA as the rest of the world." Alice's nose was looking blotchy, so Cordelia said, "You might want to touch up your makeup before you go in."
"Thanks." Alice swiped at her nose again. There was a pained expression on her face as she passed her hand over her forehead, as if she were battling a headache.
"Cordelia Chase," a smart-looking woman in a suit that shouted of ambition called out. Cordelia stood and smoothed out her dress with much less fanfare than she had the first time.
"Good luck," Alice said. Her voice had begun to take on a foghorn quality.
"Thanks. You, too." If Cordelia wanted to be perfectly honest, Alice was going to need it. Her face had grown more blotchy during the course of their conversation, not less, and sometime during the past few minutes her eyes had begun to water. If Cordelia squinted, she thought she could make out faint swellings rising beneath Alice's jaw.
'Geez, did she look that bad when I sat down?'
Cordelia followed the suited woman into a medium-sized, softly lit room. The woman nodded towards an X marked out on the floor in electrical tape and went to stand against the wall, fiddling absently with her clipboard.
Cordelia took a deep breath, smoothed out her skirt one last time, and mentally congratulated herself on how well she had chosen the outfit. There were two people sitting behind the table on the other side of the room, one male and one female. The woman, who looked as if she could have been an actress herself at some point, gave Cordelia a knowing look.
At the man's nod, Cordelia struck an assertive pose, one leg extended forward slightly to show off its length. She leaned in as if she were about to have an intimate conversation with an invisible partner. "Do I look like the average girl?" Cordelia asked, tilting her head as if she honestly expected an answer before she laughed and flapped her hand. Whoever the person on the other end of the camera was, Cordelia wanted them to feel like they were old friends. "Of course not. None of us are. So why should we settle for average make-up?" Cordelia rolled her eyes; clearly, the audience should see that the answer was obvious. "Luckily, we don't have to. Platinum Cosmetics always uses the finest ingredients, so it goes on smooth and flawless, revealing the better you. After all, who wants to settle for average?"
The grin that Cordelia was using for the imaginary camera grew even wider as she wound down. She had been perfect, even better than when she had been going over the lines with Wesley. There was no way that the casting directors could fail to be impressed.
Except that they were somehow defying the laws of nature and doing exactly that. The man was all but leering at her. The maybe-actress was already peering at the next name on her list. She made a small notation. "Yes, thank you," she said, looking up. "We'll give you a call if we want to see you again. Clarice?"
Clarice, she of the well-tailored and ambitious suit, moved from her position by the wall and held the door open for Cordelia. Cordelia held her head high and resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest.
"You weren't bad," Clarice said, scanning her clipboard for the next name. "They liked you."
"Thanks," Cordelia said dejectedly. She looked for Alice as she walked towards the exit, but the blonde was nowhere to be seen. 'Probably decided that the whole thing wasn't worth it,' Cordelia thought. 'Good for her.'
Her eyes stung as she stepped outside and she tried to tell herself that it was the sun in her eyes. Cordelia pulled a pair of sunglasses out of her purse and slid behind the wheel of Angel's convertible. It took three tries to get the key into the ignition. By the time she pulled out of the parking space there was a steady stream of moisture running down her cheeks. A horn blared at her. Cordelia stuck her hand out the window and made a gesture that definitely would not have acceptable inside.
"I was good," Cordelia muttered as she maneuvered into to the flow of traffic. "Damnit, I was Igood/I." She swiped at her tears, furious with herself for them. There was mascara on her fingers and Cordelia swore, leaning into the rearview mirror to examine the damage. It placed her in the unlikely position of watching her own face react in shock and pain as the vision hit.
Cordelia arched back into the seat as if her spine had been fused with lightning. Her foot convulsed beyond her control, pressing the gas pedal down to the floor. The GTX's engine roared as it shot through traffic. Car horns and squealing brakes filled the air.
'The worms, the worms, the worms, so much death, the worms were the only winners here.'
Cordelia gasped. Her foot eased off the gas pedal; a pickup truck missed her by inches.
'"If you worship me," the dark man whispered, reaching out to cradle her cheek. His skin slid across his bones like taffy.'
Cordelia jerked back in her seat and screamed.
'People dying, bodies rotting, human race just a slip-slip-sliding right off the face of the planet. Children staggered and clawed at black tubes that had risen on their necks, struggling for air and spitting up phlegm and blood. Their eyes stared into Cordelia's with a hideous dejection that was beyond pleading. Crow feathers twisted on the breeze and the smell of rotting corn was as thick as musk.'
Cordelia shrieked as the Powers finally released her mind. "Oh, God," she whispered. "Oh, God, oh, God."
She didn't see the sports car, didn't heard the scream of brakes. A short second later, the pain and the horror of the vision was compressed into a very small corner of her mind.