Snowbound

Chapter Five

Wesley caught his breath at Angel’s quiet words, meeting Spike’s eyes for one last second, before moving to position himself as Spike had lain.

Angel touched him lightly, smiling as Wesley’s backside clenched and then relaxed at the mere brush of a fingertip. “I find myself curious, Wesley.”

“Curious?”

Wesley’s voice was faltering as the indignity of his position set his face burning. Angel laid the palm of his hand flat on the small of Wesley’s back and watched his reaction.

“Why you ask for what you dread.”

“I don’t! I – I want this, I swear. You will hurt me, I know, but -”

“Hurt you?”

Angel’s voice held such genuine surprise that Wesley risked twisting around to look at him. “I did not mean –”

Spike came to them and lifted Wesley from Angel’s lap, assisted by Angel moving back, so that all three knelt in a circle. “Angel doesn’t hurt me, Wesley, not in the way you mean. I can feel how frightened you are. I don’t understand why you’re forcing yourself to do this.”

“Nor I,” said Angel, his face troubled. “You have seen me do this with Spike; not often but enough to see that he comes to no harm, that after there is a heat to our lovemaking -”

“In my arse, to be sure,” Spike muttered.

Angel glared at him and then smiled. “As you can see, Spike does not fear me, or my hand.”

“Neither do I!” Wesley proteste
“A
“Aye, you do,” Angel said bluntly. “You can’t hide it.”

Wesley didn’t even bother to glance down. The arousal brought on by Spike and Angel’s ministrations had been quenches by apprehension and he could see that the other two were in a similar state. “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Here we are, in a bed supposed to guarantee a night of passion and none of us are in any state to take advantage of that.”

Angel shook his head. “Wesley, we can fuck anytime. What we’re being given is a chance few men get; the chance to know that words are truth, the chance to share ...”

“And the night’s yet young,” Spike said with a hopeful air. Angel rolled his eyes. “You were thinking it too,” Spike said.

“Enough,” Angel said firmly. “I want to sift the truth from this. Wesley; we’ve been lovers for long enough that I know you feel no inclination to getting your arse as red as your cheeks are now. It doesn’t matter. Spike and I...well, it’s complicated.”

“Only if you make it so,” Spike said.

Wesley looked at them. “How did it begin? It must have been before I joined you.”

Angel raised an eyebrow and Spike shrugged agreeably. “You can tell him.” He smiled at Wesley. “We have no secrets from you, no matter what you seem to think.”

“Lie down again,” Angel said. He put Wesley between them, feeling Wesley tremble and then relax as he was held and touched by them both.

“My father was kind enough,” Angel said, “but I never knew him well. I tried to become what he expected in a son and failed in some things, succeeded in others. He died before I ever had chance to know him as anything other than my father. I miss him more than I thought I would.”

Wesley nodded. “He was well respected,” he ventured.

“He was. Now, Spike here...his father died young. His mother –”

“Angel!”

“Spoiled hindulndulged him and adored him,” Angel said, grinning at Spike’s attempts to place a hand over his mouth, “until he needed taking in hand for his own sake.”

“You love me just the way I am,” Spike said with an air of insufferable complacency. “You, on the other hand, have many character flaws which you would do well to address for the sake of those who are forced to spend time in your company.”

Wesley slanted his eyes up to Angel’s face and began to slide down the bed. Angel looked as if he was about to pounce on Spike...

“Where are you going, Wes?” Angel said. “Come back here.”

Wesley rolled onto his stomach and propped his chin on his hands. “Not if I am to be in the way when you wrestle.”

“No wrestling,” Angel promised. “As I was saying...”

“I was feeling playful one day, when we were fishing,” Spike interrupted, “and somehow Angel ended up in the river, his fine clothes ruined.”

“My new coat from Weston. My valet cried tears of anguish when he saw it.”

“You should not have been wearing it to fish in, you great dandy. So when he got out – and I helped him; you cannot say I did not help you.”

“He was laughing so hard, he could barely stand,” Angel said to Wesley, who fought to keep his face solemn.

“So when Angel finally got to dry land again, the first thing he did – after removing the duckweed from his cravat –”

“Was to take a switch from a nearby tree –”

“And use it on my bare arse until I cried for mercy.”

Angel saw Wesley’s eyes darken, the laughter flown, and frowned. “Spike – enough tales.”

Spike glanced down and smiled at Wes. “I was penitent, properly so, after three strokes, Wesley, and through breeches I scarcely felt the sting. It was enough that I knew Angel was angry in truth to make me realise that I’d been foolish.”

Angel leaned over and kissed Spike softly. “And yet you still continue to plague me.”

“You should not have followed uur pur punishment by removing my breeches to see if my backside truly was on fire as I complained. It set a precedent.”

Angel smiled. “I think, looking back, ‘twas worth the loss of a coat. It never set right across the shoulders anyway.” He turned back to Wesley. “So, as you see, I think perhaps you have made something out of nothing here, Wesley. Spike and I ...it is not perhaps as you believe it to be. I school him at times and he allows it because it pleases him. It pleases us both.”

“I didn’t – I –” Wesley found it difficult to voice his feelings and stumbled to a halt.

“You wanted to be part of what we have?” Wesley nodded. “You are. You are at the heart of it, Wesley. Never doubt that.”

“I will – I will try.” Wesley looked at them both. “I love you and I would not have there be anything withheld from – you must think me a coward to fear so little, but –”

“You don’t fear that,” Spike said bluntly. “You feared Angel would use you as your father did.”

Wesley scrambled to his knees. “You – no!”

Angel’s face was stern and cold but Wesley knew his anger was directed at one who lay far out of reach. “Your back is scarred, Wesley. Faint marks but they are there. You rarely got flogged at school and old Meltcher would not have had the strength of arm or will to mark you like that.”

“If the bastard wasn’t dead, I’d send him to hell myself,” Spike muttered.

Wesley turned away from them. “I wasn’t – it matters not. He is dead, as you say. My shortcomings no longer trouble him.”

“’Shortcomings’? Wesley, he should have been proud of you! My own father praised you so much! At times I quite disliked you when you were younger.”

“Yes; you always were a precocious brat, Wes, speaking Latin in your cradle and Greek to your nanny,” Spike said, ignoring Wesley’s indignant splutter at his exaggeration. “M’mother thought you quite the polite little gentleman, too. Perfect manners and all that rot.”

Wesley made a sound between a sob and a laugh, still kneeling with his back turned to them, refusing to turn until he had control of his expression. “I wonder that either of you could bear to have my company inflicted upon you.”

Warm hands rested on his shoulders. “We got to know you, Wesley,” Angel said.

“Wasn’t hard falling in love with you after that,” Spike agreed. “Hardest part was waiting for you to be old enough that we could do, well, this –”

His hand slid over Wesley’s stomach and came to rest on his thigh.

“I think you might have been permitted to do that somewhat earlier,” Wesley managed to say.

Spike chuckled and squirmed around so that he could reach Wesley’s cock, lying on his side and reaching out with his right hand. “And this?” His tongue lapped gently at what he held and Wesley gasped as he grew hard again. He felt Angel move away and wondered vaguely what he was doing but Spike mouth was compelling him to pay attention to him alone. Wesley spread his knees wider and let his hands rest on Spike’s head, lightly enough that Spike could do as he wished, encouraging him wordlessly. Spike lifted his head enough to smile up at Wes and then took him in as deeply as he could, in a swift movement that forced a moan from Wesley. So much pleasure concentrated into one place on his body...One of Spike’s hands was resting on Wesley’s thigh, kneading it in time with the movements of his head as it dipped and rose in a maddeningly unpredictable pattern; the other was wrapped around the base of Wesley’s cock, holding it in place, sometimes slipping up the moistened shaft in hard, demanding strokes, sometimes slipping lower to cup and gently squeeze his balls.

“Or this?” Angel whispered and Wesley arched his back, driving his cock to the back of Spike’s throat, making him choke for a moment, because Angel’s oiled, slippery fingers were easing into Wesley, and as soon as he judged him ready, his cock replaced them.

Wesley had to bend forward after that first, shallow thrust, longing for Angel to fill him until no inch of Angel’s cock was left outside, joined, completely, with him, Angel’s thighs pressing against the back of his legs, his large hands on Weslehipships, holding him and moving him...

That didn’t seem to bother Spike, who simply adjusted his position slightly and continued to suck and lick Wesley’s cock, slowing down slightly, as if he knew that Wesley wouldn’t want to come until Angel had.

Wesley would not have thought himself capable of words but he managed to say, “Spike stop – let me –”

Angel paused, waiting, the head of his cock, buried a bare inch inside Wesley. “I think Wesley wants you to stop, Spike,” he said.

Wesley whimpered, Angel’s hands refusing to let him push backwards “Not you, Angel,” he said through gritted teeth, “please don’t stop.”

Angel began to move slowly, never going deeper than a finger’s breadth, his hands gripping Wesley so tightly that Wesley knew he would be bruised by ing.ing. Somehow he couldn’t seem to care. “I won’t stop, Wesley, but this is all you get until Spike is equally obedient.” He glared at Spike who began to move slowly to his knees.

Wesley threw his head back as Angel gave the lie to his own words and thrust inside Wesley in one lightening fast stroke, pulling back before Wesley had time to do more than gasp in delighted satisfaction. The abrupt withdrawal edged his words with desperation as he joined Angel in looking daggers at Spike.

“Spike...if you don’t want to fuck my mouth and feel my tongue on you, then return to where you were but I swear, if you make me wait a moment longer, I’ll whip you myself.”

Spike pursed his lips. “I feel you still haven’t quite grasped –”

“Spike.” Angel’s low growl sounded dangerous enough to make Wesley cease his attempts to both command Spike’s cooperation and to subtly shift position so that he got more of Angel’s cock inside him. Spike looked over Wesley’s shoulder at Angel and what he saw must have been enough to convince him to stop playacting. In a fluid shift of his lithe body, he rose to his knees and then sank back on his heels, mirroring Wesley’s pose, his cock hard and full.

Then Angel’s hand moved up Wesley’s back to his neck, held it for a second, just long enough for Wesley to feel each finger against his skin, and pushed down, so that Wesley fell forward onto his hands and knees and Angel slid into him as he fell and Spike took advantage of the soundless cry that parted his lips and took his mouth at the same instant.

At first, Wesley was too taken with the bliss of having Angel finally fucking him, with long, deep, fast strokes that told him how much Angel wanted him through their very urgency, to do more than provide Spike with open lips but after Spike made a sound of protest, clearly thinking that Wesley was paying him back in his own coin, he gave Spike his best efforts. In a little while, they all three fell into a rhythm of action and reaction, stoking the fires that burned within so that each time Angel sank inside Wesley, Wesley moaned and each time Wesley moaned his tongue curled and licked around Spike’s length and each time Wesley’s teeth and tongue caressed his cock, Spike’s face twisted in unselfconscious pleasure before Angel’s eyes, spurring him on to thrust within Wesley’s eager, welcoming body one more time...

Wesley held them all together, his body linking Angel and Spike as they moved, control beginning to slip from them in their quest for release. Finally, Angel bent low, curving over Wesley’s back, and threw out his hand, pulling Spike towards him, kissing him hard, his teeth cutting into Spike’s lip as his tongue slipped between his lips. His other hand left Wesley’s hip and sought his cock, hard to the point of aching and at that first touch Wesley came and took the others with him so that all three were lost in each other, hands blindly seeking flesh to hold as they found their release.

Wesley was never quite sure how they moved so that all three were in a tight, tangled embrace but it was scarcely relevant. All that mattered was the certainty that glowed within him as brightly as the mystical runes had earlier, the certainty that he was loved as much as he loved in return.

In the long hours that followed, as they spoke on matters from the trivial to the serious until conversation gave way to kisses and kisses to an unquenchable ardour, he never lost sight of that truth.

Sleep overtook them all eventually and Wesley snuggled down between them, claiming the place with a confidence he’d never shown before. He lay on his stomach and sighed with contentment as they brushed fingers softly over his back and never saw their faces as the final magic manifested.

Angel and Spike’s eyes met as Wesley’s back began to glow faintly from dozens of silver lines overlapping until his back seemed to be coated in metal from shoulders to hips.

As Wesley’s breath steadied and slowed in sleep, Spike said softly, “The marks from his father?”

Angel nodded. “Invisible for the most part ...”

Spike’s mouth twisted in a savage grimace and Angel laid a warning hand on his arm. “You will disturb him.”

Spike’s lips tightened in frustration but he sighed and the tension left him. The marks continued to burn against Wesley’s back and he frowned. “Why do they remain?”

“Perhaps it is for us to deal with their removal,” Angel replied. He bent his head and kissed a knot of silver high on Wesley’s shoulder, where the strokes were so thickly overlaid that it was nigh impossible to separate the individual marks. The silver flared even brighter and Wesley murmured drowsily as he lay dreaming.

“Sshh...” Spike said. “Lie still. It’s only us. Only us loving you...”

He bent to kiss Wesley and flinched as he in turn was bathed in silver fire, his eyes going to Angel’s in a startled question. Angel nodded. “It hurts, but only for a moment. The pain...it has to go somewhere.”

Spike’s face went hard and cold. “Then let it come to those with shoulders broad enough to bear it.”

“Wesley can bear it, Spike. He has done for years. Do not think him weak.”

Spike’s eyes blazed fiercely. “I don’t. But I swear he’ll not bear it a single hour longer by himself.”

Angel stroked his arm gently. “He won’t have to,” he said.

***

Wesley stirred and woke, feeling rested and with no space of time in which he did not remember that he was happy. He stretched, expecting his body to protest the hours of lovemaking and lack of sleep, but he had no worse to deal with than pins and needles from sleeping with his hand tucked under his chest. Spike and Angel were still asleep, alone in their dreams ... but possibly not. Wesley saw that they were both hard, their erections visible under the thin sheet which was their only covering, and grinned. A glance at the window told him that the sun had just risen and he heard the inn stir to life.

Hise ree returned to his lovers. They lay sprawled on their backs, separated by the width of his body. He wanted to wake them the best way he knew how, but he could not choose between them.

Carefully lifting the sheet and baring their bodies, he smiled as they instinctively moved together, seeking the warmth of which he had deprived them. Angel’s arm went over Spike’s shoulder and Spike responded by snuggling closer, his cock brushing against Angel’s.

Wesley studied them, trying to work out how best to accomplish his purpose and then abandoned the scientific method for a more direct approach. Moving the tangle of legs before him so that he had space to kneel was simple enough and though the two men began to wake they were still clearly not fully aware of their surroundings. One hand was needed to brace himself but the other he used to take hold of their cocks, already lying against each other. His fingers would not quite meet but that did not concern him. Knowing that they would wake in bumomemoment, he moved quickly, dipping his head and running his tongue across the captured flesh, kissing and licking and trying to take as much inside his mouth as he could.

He could tell when they awoke and smiled when Spike yelped with surprise before relaxing and making a contented hum as Wesley greeted him with a few seconds of his undivided attention. Angel woke next, his hand going to Wesley’s shoulder and squeezing it lightly until Wesley’s teeth dug into his cock just hard enough and his grip tightened.

“Wes ...,” Spike groaned as Wesley flickered his tongue against sensitised flesh over and over. “Choose one of us and let the other wait. Choose me.”

“Never,” Wesley said, raising his head briefly.

Angel stopped Spike’s protest with a swift kiss. “Make him stop to talk again and ‘tis you who will wait,” he threatened.

“No,” Wesley said firmly. “Both or neither.”

Spike gave Angel a complacent smile and then yelped again, his hips jerking forward, as Angel’s hand came down hard across his backside.

“Angel ...you’re really not helping,” Wesley murmured, this time without lifting his head so that his lips moved against their cocks in a soft caressing kiss.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Spike. “It might if he did it again.”

****

They left the inn shortly after ten, the landlord beaming with the size of the tip slipped discreetly into his palm, the maid pouting prettily after receiving a kiss on her full lips from Spike and a pinch on her round cheek from Wesley. Angel, his eyes cool and distant as they ever were in public stared out at the wintry landscape and nodded at the clear, pale blue sky.

“The storm has passed. Summershaven is near but the snow will make the journey a long one.”

Wesley shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun on the snow and said nothing.

“Come,” Angel said quietly. “I know not what we will find but –”

Wesley let his hand rest against a saddlebag. “I have a tracing of the carvings and as much as I could recall of the strange silver letters.” He frowned. As soon as he had tried to copy them, they had appeared before his eyes, making his task far easier than he had feared.

“Giles will know what they mean,” Spike said easily, spurring his horse forward.

Wesley and Angel exchanged glances and followed suit, neither voicing their fears that it might be too late for Giles to offer, or benefit from, assistance.

Across roads scoured clear of snow in some places, near impassable in others, where the drifts were yielding but slowly to the efforts of the farmers with their shovels, they rode.

To Summershaven...