Fic: In Search of Beauty for deborahmm
Dissertations, trips back and forth to London (::wags finger at self::) have delayed this a bit but here is something that's been brewing for quite some time. The lovely frimfram and I (well, mainly frimfram, I just oohed and aaahed when she suggested) came up with the idea to write a fic for deborahmm. As Deborah is the Queen of.....being one of the nicest people out there, this is dedicated to her. Those of you that know of deborahmm's comedic talents will know what's coming next ;)
Title: In Search of Beauty
Authors: frimfram and lillianmorgan
Setting: NFA-ish
Rating: R on the side of Mild
Genre: Comedy featuring Spike, Wesley and Angel
Disclaimer: We don’t own Joss’ and ME’s toys.
A/N: There will be a longish one at the end, so hold you horses, like.
In Search of Beauty
“Listen. Spike. I know you don’t really have ADHD, so if you would stop acting like you did for ten minutes I’d be very much obliged.”
The miscreant turned, huge eyes wide with wronged innocence, holding the two-thousand-year-old urn casually in one hand. “And I know you aren’t really a patronising bastard, Wesley, so if you’d stop talking down to me for ten minutes I would be eternally grateful!” He feinted to drop the urn, watching with a grin as Wesley’s eyes bulged in momentary horror, but then sat down obediently and began prodding the less ancient miscellany on the table.
Wes stared at him over the open spellbook, feeling Angel bristle with irritation at his side. He could almost hear the vampire grinding his teeth. He leaned closer to Angel’s side, never taking his eyes off Spike, and whispered: “Do you think he’s alright? He seems...rather...in denial.”
Angel snorted. “You don’t need to go into denial when you’re as slow on the uptake as he is.”
“Sitting right here, having vampire hearing,” chipped in Spike, irritably. “And I’m not in denial. This is just kind of old hat for me. Being dead. ‘S Percy here you should be worrying about. First timer.”
Wes swallowed very hard. There were some things he simply wasn’t prepared to think about just now. Which sounded rather like denial, in fact, if you considered it. He felt Spike’s measuring stare drilling into him, and looked up uncertainly into the vampire’s blue eyes. Spike was wearing that expression that told you quite clearly that he had your number. “Could be worse, mate,” he told him. “Least you’ve got company.”
“We’re not dead,” said Angel. Sarcastically, Spike raised his forefingers to the pulse point in his throat and pursed his lips, pretending to count. Angel’s eyes narrowed.
“At least as dead as usual,” Spike reported. “Peaches, last thing I remember, that bloody great dragon was swooping in and looking to get very friendly with us indeed, then blackness. Then...this. Way I see it, we’ve got to be toast.”
“Then why are we all here? Together? Wes wasn’t even -” Angel turned and looked at him cautiously, and Wes screwed his eyes shut and massaged his forehead.
“I - I just don’t know. I don’t have any answers now. All I know is that I...found myself here.” And that the list of things he absolutely wasn’t prepared to think about just now was really rather extensive. “In this...room, with these books and objects, and then the two of you appeared.” He looked up around the dimly lit space. ‘Room’ was a rather euphemistic description of the place. The walls were rough-hewn stone, smudged with shadow from the guttering candles that lit the place. The great pools and stalactites of wax around the candles suggested they had been burning for a very long time. It reminded Wes disconcertingly of a burial chamber.
Angel looked at him with concern. “And...does any of this mean anything to you?”
“The urn,” Wes said, quietly. “I’ve seen one before, a long time ago. It’s a very ancient mystical object. This text seems to be contemporaneous. It’s a Germanic dialect, spoken by the, ah, Marcomanni in the first century BC.” He traced a finger lightly over the crabbed lines of writing, and read aloud. “The urn brings light in dark times. It can reveal your path when the way is obscured, and find order amidst chaos.”
“Earthenware equivalent of Lorne,” observed Spike, brightly, but he failed to raise a smile.
“The point,” Wes continued, “is that it should show us a lot more about the state of the world as it is now-”
“Assuming we’re in the world,” Spike pointed out, helpfully. “My money’s on hell. A non-fiery hell.”
Angel snorted. “Trapped in a small space with you - yep, it’s a good theory.”
“Well, either way,” said Wes, firmly, “whatever has happened, this spell is perhaps our only opportunity to understand where we are, and how we came to be here.”
“And what exciting new way to be dead we’ve discovered,” added Spike. “I’m collecting the whole set, you know. Vampire. Ghost. Dusted by a god king. I was shooting for zombie next, but the skin tone’s better this way.” He examined the back of his hand, golden and inexplicably solid in the flickering light.
“We could throw him out to cope on his own,” Angel suggested to Wesley. “If it’s hell on earth out there, I bet he’d survive minutes longer than you’re giving him credit for.”
Wes gave him a reproachful look, and Angel sighed, shoulders taut with tension. “How does it work?” he asked, indicating the urn.
“Well, the method’s very simple, really. The ingredients we need are all laid out here alongside the book, and the incantation is straightforward - it’s an older language, but the pronunciation looks simple. When the components combine they’ll produce a...dushageist, a kind of...light-energy guide, which will flow into the urn.”
“And then?”
Wes grimaced. “I don’t really know. Without my books, I’m having trouble remembering the spells. I’m afraid I took the resources at Wolfram and Hart for granted...” He shook himself, reaching the peripheries of that great swath of things he didn’t wish to discuss. “I mean to say that I’m hazy about the details. All I recall is that the urn will be illuminated, it will, ah -" he pointed to a paragraph in the spell book - “ ‘glow with the light of truth and beauty.’”
“It’s an effulgent, Bohemian urn!” exclaimed Spike, looking at the ornament on the table in front of him with a new respect.
“Precisely, as it happens. It was manufactured in what is now Prague.”
Angel frowned. “Wait a minute. Its power comes from beauty?” He strode to the table, took the urn from in front of Spike, and brought it back to Wes, who reached out cautiously and stroked the urn’s sinuous wall. He’d only seen one in the museum at the Academy before. It truly was a thing of beauty. A full, rounded base, faintly suggestive of curves of a more anatomical variety, tapered up into a slender neck topped with a teardrop-shaped stopper. It was painted pacific blue, its opalescent glaze picking up rainbows from the low light.
“Indeed,” he told Angel. “It’s the urn’s beauty that attracts the guiding spirit. The guide’s an aesthetophilic entity.” He looked up. “It means -”
“It’s attracted to beauty,” interjected Spike, directing a glance at Angel. “Remedial Boy was out the day they taught Greek in Bluffing School.”
“Dispensable, Spike. Know what that one means?” snapped Angel.
“Trapped together in hell, Angel. Try that one out for size. Look, you made Wes pout, the old coquette.”
“I do not pout,” said Wes, peevishly. He shook his head, determined not to get co-opted into the latest bout of a century-old pissing contest. “Angel, we need to do this now. We could be anywhere, time could be important, and I don’t want to sit around sniping when there’s valuable information to be gathered.”
Angel nodded, giving Spike one of the playground-bully looks he reserved for the blond vampire alone. “What do you need me to do?” he asked Wes.
“Hold the urn. When I begin the incantation, the spirit guide will be drawn to the most attractive object in the room. Ah - ” he looked down and once again read straight from the book, translating as he went: “The vessel will become illuminated, glowing with an...irresistible beauty in which there lies truth, and by following it will we be set back on our path. Somehow or other,” he finished, uncertainly, looking up from the pages of the book.
“And I provide a running commentary?” asked Spike.
“You can scatter the spell ingredients. Any way you like.”
Spike nodded agreeably, took up the bowl in which Wes had ground together an evil-smelling mixture of herbs and reductions, and poured its contents in an ‘S’ shape on the floor. Angel rolled his eyes, and Wesley began to chant. The words sounded grave and thick, though none of them understood the meaning of the ancient words. They wove a mood of weighty portent around the three men in the ill-lit chamber. Angel stared seriously at the urn, waiting. Even Spike was obviously struggling to keep the glimmer of anticipation out of his eyes.
Wes stopped chanting. The three of them stared at the urn. Nothing.
“I don’t understand.” Wes crinkled his brow and bent over the spellbook, mouthing the words, searching for clues. “It clearly states that the dushageist will be drawn to the most beautiful -”
“Wait a minute. Something’s -” Spike’s voice, cutting in, was low with suspicion and confusion. The other two men turned to look at him as his eyes widened and he reached down gingerly, cupping his backside with both hands. “I feel - oh God - “ He choked, tilting his head back, as a brilliant light suddenly illumined the room. It appeared to originate somewhere behind the vampire.
“What is it, Spike?” Angel’s voice was tinged with something like concern, as well as the requisite helping of irritation.
“I - my - gahhh!” Spike gasped as the light grew brighter all around him. Wes flinched at the intensity of the glare, dimly aware that beside him Angel had thrown up his hands to shield his eyes. He felt his jaw working uselessly, mind racing in search of the faintest idea of what was going on. The light reached a dazzling peak and then stopped brightening, and an ecstatic smile spread slowly across Spike’s closed-eyed face.
Wes approached the glowing vampire cautiously. “Spike? Are you … alright?”
Spike didn’t react. The expression on his face was rapturous; almost - orgasmic...
With a sudden disbelieving compulsion, Wes placed a hand on Spike’s arm, and moved round behind him. He looked up at Angel, over Spike’s shoulder, and gulped. “The spell worked,” he said, in hushed tones.
“No it didn’t!” protested Angel, waving the urn lamely, looking every inch the water-carrier.
“The spirit guide was drawn to the most beautiful thing in the room,” continued Wes.
“But the urn - ”
Grimly, Wes turned the barely-animate Spike around, so he stood with his back to Angel.
“Oh,” said Angel, very slowly. “Oh.”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” screamed Spike, rapturous in the agony, his knees buckling underneath him.
Wes cast a beseeching glance at Angel. “Ah, perhaps casting the spell not knowing the full implications was a bit hasty. This is rather not what I expected. I mean, look at him,” he said, pausing to sweep his arm over Spike, now lying prostrate on the floor, shifting his hips rhythmically. “I think...that is to say...I mean..Well, bloody hell, it looks like he’s enjoying himself.”
“Jealous?” questioned Angel, near impervious to Wes’ distress.
Wes gritted his teeth. “Now would not be the best time to compare experiences on the delicacy that is-”
He was interrupted by Spike letting out an ear-piercingly joyous scream. The vampire slithered toward Wes, scrabbling along the ground, before grasping his foot. “If I’m going, you’re bloody well comin’ with me,” he muttered, before with a hiss and a very large popping noise, it appeared as though Spike disappeared up his own bum.
His grip on Wes’ foot stayed strong and true so that, before Wes could do much else, he was sliding through the vortex created by Spike’s arse. It was a beautiful place - pure light and weightlessness and a feeling of peace pervaded his being. He was only slightly jarred by a firm hand gripping his collar, indicating, through the serene haze his mind was engulfed in, that Angel had come along for the ride too.
Time had no meaning to him so with a rather rude awakening, Wes landed on what appeared to be a forest floor, the trees above them casting a heavy, caustic shadow over the brightness of the day. His return to reality was exponentially sped up by Angel’s immense form crashing down on top of him.
“Careful!” Angel cautioned as Wes tried to buck him off, “The urn.” He waved the pristine vessel before Wes’ nose, smirking ever so slightly.
Wes slithered his way out from under Angel and leapt to his feet, brushing off the floral detritus decorating his trousers. “Well done on the urn, but shouldn’t we be rather more concerned with Spike?”
Both of them turned to look at the prone vampire, his face caught in rapture, his legs and arms splayed out like a star, his torso suffering through aftershocks of pleasure.
Angel coughed hesitatingly and Spike cast glittering eyes upon him. Bending down, Angel caught his chin between firm fingers, “And where exactly have you brought us to Spike? Any idea? Or are you too devoid of any brain function to work it out?”
Spike simply nodded, though, minutes later, reliably recovered his voice. “It was just so good, Angel. So bloody earth shatteringly, mind asphyxiatingly good.” Angel’s tense stance shifted imperceptibly as Spike spoke, and he ran his fingers across Spike’s chin.
Wes nodded in affirmation behind them, and before he could catch himself, said, “It seems that we may have become a bit blasé about the delights that Spike’s….you know….affords us. Clearly, it’s a mindblowing place to be. And for Spike he’s only just now had first hand knowledge of this wonderful thing.”
Angel stiffened at Wes’ words, tenderness wiped from his face. “Fine. Good. We’re enraptured. That really doesn’t explain where we are now and what we’re doing here.”
Wes could only mutter a small, “That’s right,” and Spike, well, he was still pretty enraptured.
Wes began pacing back and forth between the shadows created by the overbearing trees, muttering to himself and striking ideas off of his fingers decisively. Angel stood at the edge of one of the shadows, trying to figure out where exactly they had landed now and whether an escape was the best of ideas. The forest seemed to stretch on in an endless arboreal blanket, as if to suggest that even if they were to attempt a walking trip it may be long and laborious. Spike managed to heft himself up onto his elbows and tuned his attention first on Angel, then on Wes. He watched the two of them carefully before a full-blown leer fixed itself on his face and he started giggling.
“Whatever’s the matter now, Spike?” questioned Wes, halting his pacing in irritation.
“Just realised my market value, like. When ‘m bending over and the other person,” he said, looking pointedly at the other two, “is moaning in pleasure, now I know what that’s like. Got me some bargainin’ power now, yeah? The source of all beauty appears to be, precisely, my arse.”
Angel clenched his teeth but, as if realising the sincerity of the statement, chose to answer with silence. Wes, on the other hand, suggested, “That’s it!”
Angel and Spike both turned to him, opposing expressions of glee and grim determination on their faces. Wes smiled happily and pointed at the urn. “Spike’s posterior is the most delightful place in the entire universe. We cannot for one moment underestimate its power to bring truth and beauty to our lives.”
As he spoke the words, the urn began whirring and spinning, possessed by a spirit refreshed with zest and joie de vivre. Slowly the penny dropped and...
“Light in dark times,” Spike whispered reverentially.
“Truth and beauty,” Angel concurred.
“And we just need to know the magic words in order to set us back on our path,” completed Wes.
“Do you think that means..?” offered Angel, beginning to undo his belt buckle and looking hopefully at Spike.
“Perhaps,” nodded Spike and smiling handsomely. “Well, we’ve got to keep all options open, haven’t we? Besides, Angelus, you know all you’ve to do is ask nicely, right?”
Wes coughed and glared at the two of them. “I believe you’re both forgetting a certain apocalypse taking place? Come now, we need to combine efforts and find our way back.”
“Weren’t talking about leaving you out, Percy,” said Spike, standing up and moving toward him, an expression of intense delight on his face. “After all, I’m sure I can accommodate both of you.”
A rather tell-tale, boyish blush painted Wes’ cheeks before his eyes bulged and he looked sheepishly at his boots. “That’s ever so kind of you,” he replied, before checking Spike’s reaction with a shy smile. Spike smirked in return, running his tongue along his bottom lip, and Angel laughed low and rather sexily, before Wes snapped out of his timidity and barked, “Apocalypse. Now!”
Angel continued his low, throaty chortle, “What do we need to do?”
“That isn’t shaggin’?” cut in Spike, not hiding his unhappiness.
“Speak the words. All of us. So far only I have acknowledged what needs to be done.”
On the count of three, Wes, Angel and Spike spoke the words of truth and beauty, of light and knowledge. That Spike’s bum was the centre of the universe.
The blue urn began spinning across the floor of the forest, concentrated and intense, and the three of them felt as if their essences were sliding down water, twisting and turning through light and fire and atmosphere. A cascading light show of colour sped across their eyes and into their beings and seconds, maybe hours, later they landed with very large oompf back in the alley, the dragon swooping down from the clouds, the demon hordes advancing on them. Gunn and Illyria were standing beside them as if no time had passed.
Gunn, his face grim and resolved, turned toward the three of him. “On your count, Angel.”
As Angel turned to gauge what stood before them, assaulted by returning memories of the first battle, before they were spirited away by the urn, Illyria cocked her head at Wesley, insect-like. She observed, “My guide. You are not dead. This pleases me. You have shown fealty and courage to learn the secrets of the dushageist. When this battle is completed, and the minions of the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart have been subjugated before me, I will reward you with honours.”
Wes gulped, nodding, no, he most certainly wasn’t dead. Instead of that he was standing in an alley facing down hordes of demons and…a dragon. He turned to look at Gunn. He showed no shock at seeing Wes in the alley. How did Illyria know? What had she done? Dimly a gentle memory from his Academy days tapped at his brain. Wasn’t the urn of the Marcomanni? If his Germanic history served him, and it sporadically did, he seemed to remember that the Marcomanni had been saved from the Romans by...Illyria?
The flat growling of the demon army and the beating of the dragon’s scaly wings cut into Wes’ reflections. Exposition could wait; for now, his thoughts were halted by Angel. “I’ll take the dragon, go for the demons as you can,” shouted Angel, grinning at them all. “Because I finally know something.” He placed a protective hand on Wes’ shoulder, and drew the others into a huddle. “We’ve got truth and beauty on our side. And we’re gonna win.”
“Too bloody right,” agreed Spike, wiggling his bum for good measure.
Finis
A/N: So Wes is, of course, quite the research stud: The urn was manufactured in Bohemia (today part of the Czech Republic) two thousand years ago, when the region was settled by a Germanic tribe called the Marcomanni. The kingdom they founded in the Vltava basin was so powerful that it was perceived as a threat to Rome, and, in AD19, Emperor Augustus prepared to wage war against it. The kingdom was spared because Augustus became distracted - by a war with Illyria! Of course, history records this as the Balkan principality Illyria, now part of Croatia, and it has been widely assumed that the God King was sleeping in the Deeper Well at the time. But the girl in blue is an enigma, and there's a sparkle in her eye...
The word 'dushageist' combines the modern Croatian and German words for 'soul.'
Hope you like it Deborah.
Title: In Search of Beauty
Authors: frimfram and lillianmorgan
Setting: NFA-ish
Rating: R on the side of Mild
Genre: Comedy featuring Spike, Wesley and Angel
Disclaimer: We don’t own Joss’ and ME’s toys.
A/N: There will be a longish one at the end, so hold you horses, like.
In Search of Beauty
“Listen. Spike. I know you don’t really have ADHD, so if you would stop acting like you did for ten minutes I’d be very much obliged.”
The miscreant turned, huge eyes wide with wronged innocence, holding the two-thousand-year-old urn casually in one hand. “And I know you aren’t really a patronising bastard, Wesley, so if you’d stop talking down to me for ten minutes I would be eternally grateful!” He feinted to drop the urn, watching with a grin as Wesley’s eyes bulged in momentary horror, but then sat down obediently and began prodding the less ancient miscellany on the table.
Wes stared at him over the open spellbook, feeling Angel bristle with irritation at his side. He could almost hear the vampire grinding his teeth. He leaned closer to Angel’s side, never taking his eyes off Spike, and whispered: “Do you think he’s alright? He seems...rather...in denial.”
Angel snorted. “You don’t need to go into denial when you’re as slow on the uptake as he is.”
“Sitting right here, having vampire hearing,” chipped in Spike, irritably. “And I’m not in denial. This is just kind of old hat for me. Being dead. ‘S Percy here you should be worrying about. First timer.”
Wes swallowed very hard. There were some things he simply wasn’t prepared to think about just now. Which sounded rather like denial, in fact, if you considered it. He felt Spike’s measuring stare drilling into him, and looked up uncertainly into the vampire’s blue eyes. Spike was wearing that expression that told you quite clearly that he had your number. “Could be worse, mate,” he told him. “Least you’ve got company.”
“We’re not dead,” said Angel. Sarcastically, Spike raised his forefingers to the pulse point in his throat and pursed his lips, pretending to count. Angel’s eyes narrowed.
“At least as dead as usual,” Spike reported. “Peaches, last thing I remember, that bloody great dragon was swooping in and looking to get very friendly with us indeed, then blackness. Then...this. Way I see it, we’ve got to be toast.”
“Then why are we all here? Together? Wes wasn’t even -” Angel turned and looked at him cautiously, and Wes screwed his eyes shut and massaged his forehead.
“I - I just don’t know. I don’t have any answers now. All I know is that I...found myself here.” And that the list of things he absolutely wasn’t prepared to think about just now was really rather extensive. “In this...room, with these books and objects, and then the two of you appeared.” He looked up around the dimly lit space. ‘Room’ was a rather euphemistic description of the place. The walls were rough-hewn stone, smudged with shadow from the guttering candles that lit the place. The great pools and stalactites of wax around the candles suggested they had been burning for a very long time. It reminded Wes disconcertingly of a burial chamber.
Angel looked at him with concern. “And...does any of this mean anything to you?”
“The urn,” Wes said, quietly. “I’ve seen one before, a long time ago. It’s a very ancient mystical object. This text seems to be contemporaneous. It’s a Germanic dialect, spoken by the, ah, Marcomanni in the first century BC.” He traced a finger lightly over the crabbed lines of writing, and read aloud. “The urn brings light in dark times. It can reveal your path when the way is obscured, and find order amidst chaos.”
“Earthenware equivalent of Lorne,” observed Spike, brightly, but he failed to raise a smile.
“The point,” Wes continued, “is that it should show us a lot more about the state of the world as it is now-”
“Assuming we’re in the world,” Spike pointed out, helpfully. “My money’s on hell. A non-fiery hell.”
Angel snorted. “Trapped in a small space with you - yep, it’s a good theory.”
“Well, either way,” said Wes, firmly, “whatever has happened, this spell is perhaps our only opportunity to understand where we are, and how we came to be here.”
“And what exciting new way to be dead we’ve discovered,” added Spike. “I’m collecting the whole set, you know. Vampire. Ghost. Dusted by a god king. I was shooting for zombie next, but the skin tone’s better this way.” He examined the back of his hand, golden and inexplicably solid in the flickering light.
“We could throw him out to cope on his own,” Angel suggested to Wesley. “If it’s hell on earth out there, I bet he’d survive minutes longer than you’re giving him credit for.”
Wes gave him a reproachful look, and Angel sighed, shoulders taut with tension. “How does it work?” he asked, indicating the urn.
“Well, the method’s very simple, really. The ingredients we need are all laid out here alongside the book, and the incantation is straightforward - it’s an older language, but the pronunciation looks simple. When the components combine they’ll produce a...dushageist, a kind of...light-energy guide, which will flow into the urn.”
“And then?”
Wes grimaced. “I don’t really know. Without my books, I’m having trouble remembering the spells. I’m afraid I took the resources at Wolfram and Hart for granted...” He shook himself, reaching the peripheries of that great swath of things he didn’t wish to discuss. “I mean to say that I’m hazy about the details. All I recall is that the urn will be illuminated, it will, ah -" he pointed to a paragraph in the spell book - “ ‘glow with the light of truth and beauty.’”
“It’s an effulgent, Bohemian urn!” exclaimed Spike, looking at the ornament on the table in front of him with a new respect.
“Precisely, as it happens. It was manufactured in what is now Prague.”
Angel frowned. “Wait a minute. Its power comes from beauty?” He strode to the table, took the urn from in front of Spike, and brought it back to Wes, who reached out cautiously and stroked the urn’s sinuous wall. He’d only seen one in the museum at the Academy before. It truly was a thing of beauty. A full, rounded base, faintly suggestive of curves of a more anatomical variety, tapered up into a slender neck topped with a teardrop-shaped stopper. It was painted pacific blue, its opalescent glaze picking up rainbows from the low light.
“Indeed,” he told Angel. “It’s the urn’s beauty that attracts the guiding spirit. The guide’s an aesthetophilic entity.” He looked up. “It means -”
“It’s attracted to beauty,” interjected Spike, directing a glance at Angel. “Remedial Boy was out the day they taught Greek in Bluffing School.”
“Dispensable, Spike. Know what that one means?” snapped Angel.
“Trapped together in hell, Angel. Try that one out for size. Look, you made Wes pout, the old coquette.”
“I do not pout,” said Wes, peevishly. He shook his head, determined not to get co-opted into the latest bout of a century-old pissing contest. “Angel, we need to do this now. We could be anywhere, time could be important, and I don’t want to sit around sniping when there’s valuable information to be gathered.”
Angel nodded, giving Spike one of the playground-bully looks he reserved for the blond vampire alone. “What do you need me to do?” he asked Wes.
“Hold the urn. When I begin the incantation, the spirit guide will be drawn to the most attractive object in the room. Ah - ” he looked down and once again read straight from the book, translating as he went: “The vessel will become illuminated, glowing with an...irresistible beauty in which there lies truth, and by following it will we be set back on our path. Somehow or other,” he finished, uncertainly, looking up from the pages of the book.
“And I provide a running commentary?” asked Spike.
“You can scatter the spell ingredients. Any way you like.”
Spike nodded agreeably, took up the bowl in which Wes had ground together an evil-smelling mixture of herbs and reductions, and poured its contents in an ‘S’ shape on the floor. Angel rolled his eyes, and Wesley began to chant. The words sounded grave and thick, though none of them understood the meaning of the ancient words. They wove a mood of weighty portent around the three men in the ill-lit chamber. Angel stared seriously at the urn, waiting. Even Spike was obviously struggling to keep the glimmer of anticipation out of his eyes.
Wes stopped chanting. The three of them stared at the urn. Nothing.
“I don’t understand.” Wes crinkled his brow and bent over the spellbook, mouthing the words, searching for clues. “It clearly states that the dushageist will be drawn to the most beautiful -”
“Wait a minute. Something’s -” Spike’s voice, cutting in, was low with suspicion and confusion. The other two men turned to look at him as his eyes widened and he reached down gingerly, cupping his backside with both hands. “I feel - oh God - “ He choked, tilting his head back, as a brilliant light suddenly illumined the room. It appeared to originate somewhere behind the vampire.
“What is it, Spike?” Angel’s voice was tinged with something like concern, as well as the requisite helping of irritation.
“I - my - gahhh!” Spike gasped as the light grew brighter all around him. Wes flinched at the intensity of the glare, dimly aware that beside him Angel had thrown up his hands to shield his eyes. He felt his jaw working uselessly, mind racing in search of the faintest idea of what was going on. The light reached a dazzling peak and then stopped brightening, and an ecstatic smile spread slowly across Spike’s closed-eyed face.
Wes approached the glowing vampire cautiously. “Spike? Are you … alright?”
Spike didn’t react. The expression on his face was rapturous; almost - orgasmic...
With a sudden disbelieving compulsion, Wes placed a hand on Spike’s arm, and moved round behind him. He looked up at Angel, over Spike’s shoulder, and gulped. “The spell worked,” he said, in hushed tones.
“No it didn’t!” protested Angel, waving the urn lamely, looking every inch the water-carrier.
“The spirit guide was drawn to the most beautiful thing in the room,” continued Wes.
“But the urn - ”
Grimly, Wes turned the barely-animate Spike around, so he stood with his back to Angel.
“Oh,” said Angel, very slowly. “Oh.”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” screamed Spike, rapturous in the agony, his knees buckling underneath him.
Wes cast a beseeching glance at Angel. “Ah, perhaps casting the spell not knowing the full implications was a bit hasty. This is rather not what I expected. I mean, look at him,” he said, pausing to sweep his arm over Spike, now lying prostrate on the floor, shifting his hips rhythmically. “I think...that is to say...I mean..Well, bloody hell, it looks like he’s enjoying himself.”
“Jealous?” questioned Angel, near impervious to Wes’ distress.
Wes gritted his teeth. “Now would not be the best time to compare experiences on the delicacy that is-”
He was interrupted by Spike letting out an ear-piercingly joyous scream. The vampire slithered toward Wes, scrabbling along the ground, before grasping his foot. “If I’m going, you’re bloody well comin’ with me,” he muttered, before with a hiss and a very large popping noise, it appeared as though Spike disappeared up his own bum.
His grip on Wes’ foot stayed strong and true so that, before Wes could do much else, he was sliding through the vortex created by Spike’s arse. It was a beautiful place - pure light and weightlessness and a feeling of peace pervaded his being. He was only slightly jarred by a firm hand gripping his collar, indicating, through the serene haze his mind was engulfed in, that Angel had come along for the ride too.
Time had no meaning to him so with a rather rude awakening, Wes landed on what appeared to be a forest floor, the trees above them casting a heavy, caustic shadow over the brightness of the day. His return to reality was exponentially sped up by Angel’s immense form crashing down on top of him.
“Careful!” Angel cautioned as Wes tried to buck him off, “The urn.” He waved the pristine vessel before Wes’ nose, smirking ever so slightly.
Wes slithered his way out from under Angel and leapt to his feet, brushing off the floral detritus decorating his trousers. “Well done on the urn, but shouldn’t we be rather more concerned with Spike?”
Both of them turned to look at the prone vampire, his face caught in rapture, his legs and arms splayed out like a star, his torso suffering through aftershocks of pleasure.
Angel coughed hesitatingly and Spike cast glittering eyes upon him. Bending down, Angel caught his chin between firm fingers, “And where exactly have you brought us to Spike? Any idea? Or are you too devoid of any brain function to work it out?”
Spike simply nodded, though, minutes later, reliably recovered his voice. “It was just so good, Angel. So bloody earth shatteringly, mind asphyxiatingly good.” Angel’s tense stance shifted imperceptibly as Spike spoke, and he ran his fingers across Spike’s chin.
Wes nodded in affirmation behind them, and before he could catch himself, said, “It seems that we may have become a bit blasé about the delights that Spike’s….you know….affords us. Clearly, it’s a mindblowing place to be. And for Spike he’s only just now had first hand knowledge of this wonderful thing.”
Angel stiffened at Wes’ words, tenderness wiped from his face. “Fine. Good. We’re enraptured. That really doesn’t explain where we are now and what we’re doing here.”
Wes could only mutter a small, “That’s right,” and Spike, well, he was still pretty enraptured.
Wes began pacing back and forth between the shadows created by the overbearing trees, muttering to himself and striking ideas off of his fingers decisively. Angel stood at the edge of one of the shadows, trying to figure out where exactly they had landed now and whether an escape was the best of ideas. The forest seemed to stretch on in an endless arboreal blanket, as if to suggest that even if they were to attempt a walking trip it may be long and laborious. Spike managed to heft himself up onto his elbows and tuned his attention first on Angel, then on Wes. He watched the two of them carefully before a full-blown leer fixed itself on his face and he started giggling.
“Whatever’s the matter now, Spike?” questioned Wes, halting his pacing in irritation.
“Just realised my market value, like. When ‘m bending over and the other person,” he said, looking pointedly at the other two, “is moaning in pleasure, now I know what that’s like. Got me some bargainin’ power now, yeah? The source of all beauty appears to be, precisely, my arse.”
Angel clenched his teeth but, as if realising the sincerity of the statement, chose to answer with silence. Wes, on the other hand, suggested, “That’s it!”
Angel and Spike both turned to him, opposing expressions of glee and grim determination on their faces. Wes smiled happily and pointed at the urn. “Spike’s posterior is the most delightful place in the entire universe. We cannot for one moment underestimate its power to bring truth and beauty to our lives.”
As he spoke the words, the urn began whirring and spinning, possessed by a spirit refreshed with zest and joie de vivre. Slowly the penny dropped and...
“Light in dark times,” Spike whispered reverentially.
“Truth and beauty,” Angel concurred.
“And we just need to know the magic words in order to set us back on our path,” completed Wes.
“Do you think that means..?” offered Angel, beginning to undo his belt buckle and looking hopefully at Spike.
“Perhaps,” nodded Spike and smiling handsomely. “Well, we’ve got to keep all options open, haven’t we? Besides, Angelus, you know all you’ve to do is ask nicely, right?”
Wes coughed and glared at the two of them. “I believe you’re both forgetting a certain apocalypse taking place? Come now, we need to combine efforts and find our way back.”
“Weren’t talking about leaving you out, Percy,” said Spike, standing up and moving toward him, an expression of intense delight on his face. “After all, I’m sure I can accommodate both of you.”
A rather tell-tale, boyish blush painted Wes’ cheeks before his eyes bulged and he looked sheepishly at his boots. “That’s ever so kind of you,” he replied, before checking Spike’s reaction with a shy smile. Spike smirked in return, running his tongue along his bottom lip, and Angel laughed low and rather sexily, before Wes snapped out of his timidity and barked, “Apocalypse. Now!”
Angel continued his low, throaty chortle, “What do we need to do?”
“That isn’t shaggin’?” cut in Spike, not hiding his unhappiness.
“Speak the words. All of us. So far only I have acknowledged what needs to be done.”
On the count of three, Wes, Angel and Spike spoke the words of truth and beauty, of light and knowledge. That Spike’s bum was the centre of the universe.
The blue urn began spinning across the floor of the forest, concentrated and intense, and the three of them felt as if their essences were sliding down water, twisting and turning through light and fire and atmosphere. A cascading light show of colour sped across their eyes and into their beings and seconds, maybe hours, later they landed with very large oompf back in the alley, the dragon swooping down from the clouds, the demon hordes advancing on them. Gunn and Illyria were standing beside them as if no time had passed.
Gunn, his face grim and resolved, turned toward the three of him. “On your count, Angel.”
As Angel turned to gauge what stood before them, assaulted by returning memories of the first battle, before they were spirited away by the urn, Illyria cocked her head at Wesley, insect-like. She observed, “My guide. You are not dead. This pleases me. You have shown fealty and courage to learn the secrets of the dushageist. When this battle is completed, and the minions of the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart have been subjugated before me, I will reward you with honours.”
Wes gulped, nodding, no, he most certainly wasn’t dead. Instead of that he was standing in an alley facing down hordes of demons and…a dragon. He turned to look at Gunn. He showed no shock at seeing Wes in the alley. How did Illyria know? What had she done? Dimly a gentle memory from his Academy days tapped at his brain. Wasn’t the urn of the Marcomanni? If his Germanic history served him, and it sporadically did, he seemed to remember that the Marcomanni had been saved from the Romans by...Illyria?
The flat growling of the demon army and the beating of the dragon’s scaly wings cut into Wes’ reflections. Exposition could wait; for now, his thoughts were halted by Angel. “I’ll take the dragon, go for the demons as you can,” shouted Angel, grinning at them all. “Because I finally know something.” He placed a protective hand on Wes’ shoulder, and drew the others into a huddle. “We’ve got truth and beauty on our side. And we’re gonna win.”
“Too bloody right,” agreed Spike, wiggling his bum for good measure.
Finis
A/N: So Wes is, of course, quite the research stud: The urn was manufactured in Bohemia (today part of the Czech Republic) two thousand years ago, when the region was settled by a Germanic tribe called the Marcomanni. The kingdom they founded in the Vltava basin was so powerful that it was perceived as a threat to Rome, and, in AD19, Emperor Augustus prepared to wage war against it. The kingdom was spared because Augustus became distracted - by a war with Illyria! Of course, history records this as the Balkan principality Illyria, now part of Croatia, and it has been widely assumed that the God King was sleeping in the Deeper Well at the time. But the girl in blue is an enigma, and there's a sparkle in her eye...
The word 'dushageist' combines the modern Croatian and German words for 'soul.'
Hope you like it Deborah.