Pairing : A/Aus/W/C/F (NOT AS SICK AS IT SOUNDS)
Disclaimer: I don’t own any characters from Buffy. I’m also borrowing a little from the “Charmed” concept, so don’t sue me on that front, either.
Feedback: I’m definitely a praise-whore. Can’t help it.
Spoliery Advisory: Willow has moved to L.A. after “Wrecked” and the ego beatin’ she took. This is no way affiliated with the “Singing Fool” story.
Summary: Willow’s magic backfires (surprise, surprise!) when she tries to bind Angel’s soul and accidently unleashes Angelus… wackiness ensues
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~Part: 1~
“This is all YOUR fault,” Cordy cried as she and Fred and Willow threw themselves against Willow’s hotel door. “You! I blame you!”
“ME!?” Willow cried. “What about you?” She mimicked Cordy’s voice in a terribly unflattering fashion. “Oh, Willow, come on, make your last act of magic a dramatic gesture. Anchor Angel’s soul. It’s a statement. Besides, it’ll make a great Christmas gift!”
“What’s wrong with that?” Fred asked, inquisitive even as the door slammed against her face.
“HELLO!” Willow cried. “I’m JEWISH!”
“Well, can’t you hit a magical undo key or something?” Cordy yelled. Willow had used a “Power of Three” spell using the blood of the three who loved Angel best to bind his soul to the earthly plane. Unfortunately, the heady mix of their blood had brought Angel’s vampire self to the surface just as Willow was completing the spell. She’d fed him the precise blood at the moment the link between his soul and his body was the weakest, forcing Angel as they knew him into the ether and leaving…
“GIRLS!” Angelus yelled. “Let me in!”
“No!” they cried in unison.
“Giiiiirls,” he crooned. “Please, let me in. I just want to talk. I couldn’t possibly hurt you, I love you.... As much as I can love anybody.”
“No!” they cried again.
“LET ME IN!!!” he growled.
“No!” Fred shouted. “Now, Angel, you just aren’t feeling like yourself. Why don’t you just go lie down for a while and come back later.”
“Oh, that will work,” Cordy huffed.
“It’s better than just standing there and whining!” Fred muttered as the racket outside the door subsided. She pointed at the door. “See?”
Willow’s brow creased. She stepped closer. Cordy grabbed her arm. “No, it’s a trick.”
“Maybe not,” Willow said, murmuring something in Latin that made way too much sense to Cordy. The door swung open. Cordy scrambled to close it, but there was no one in the hall way. She tentatively stuck her head out the door.
“What the hell?”
“The old vampire uninvited spell,” Willow said, nodding. “That‘ll put the marzipan in his pie-plate, by jingo.”
The other girls gave her a questioning look. She shrugged.
“Uninvite,” Cordy gasped, grabbing the phone. She dialed Wes’ number.
Fred shivered, looking around the room. “do you guys feel somethin‘? Somethin’ not right?
“Danger,” Willow nodded.
“Hello, look at the situation,” Cordy said as Wes picked up the phone. “Wesley, remember that vampire uninvited spell I told you about, well, now would be a good time to try it out.”
“Cordy,” Fred whispered, her eyes growing large.
Cordy shushed her. “ I can’t explain now, just whatever you do, don’t invite Angelus in.”
“Cordy,” Willow said, more urgently.
“That’s right ANGELUS,” Cordy repeated.
“CORDY!” Fred and Willow chorused ad they shoved the Seer out of danger. Angelus came crashing through the window on a “vine” he’d created from knotted sheets. The girls scattered. He rolled to his feet and grinned, cornering Fred. He licked his lush lips and for a moment, Fred was entranced, until she remember that her suitor wanted to rip her throat out.
“We’re both going enjoy this, Fred, I promise.”
Fred almost cowered. But then she thought of all the times in Pilea she’d cowered and whimpered and cried and suddenly a burning, bubbling strength came welling up from inside.
“Fred!” Willow cried, just before Angelus went flying across the room and out the window.
As she and the redhead rushed to the window, Cordy squeezed Willow’s arm. “This is one time I’m not going to lecture you for magic abuse.”
“Wasn’t me,” Willow said as they watched Angelus stumble to his feet on the sidewalk, then collapse in a heap.
Cordy scowled. “Fred?”
The physicist shrugged. “I just thought about how much I wanted Angel to just go away and then he did.”
Cordy took a deep breath., not ready for Fred to pull a “Carrie” on them all. “I think we should all just-”
In a whorl of green light, they were suddenly standing in Cordy’s living room. “get back to my place.” Cordy finished, staring at her home, which suddenly seemed so alien.
“Again not me!” Willow cried.
“That was me,” Cordy said, frowning. “Willow, what the fuck is going on here?”
“I keep telling you, I don’t knoooooow!!!” she screamed, all three of them sank to their knees as a blinding pain ran through their heads. They writhed on the floor unison, screaming in pain. Cordy was transported to a vision like she had never known. Instead of dizzy, swirling images, she saw a steady vision of Gunn, going to the door. From the other side, she could see Angelus waiting, grinning, tasting Gunn’s blood on his lips. She could hear the clock ticking on the wall. Smell the popcorn Gunn was zapping in the kitchen and…. Eewww, Gunn’s sneakers.
Willow and Fred were there too, and the pain… it still hurt, but it was a dull ache compared to previous visions. As soon as it came on, it was finished, and they laid in a panting circle on the floor. Cordy weakly dialed Gunn’s number and handed Willow the phone. Willow gave Gunn instructions to keep out Angelus, who had not shown up yet. They made plans to meet at Cordy’s at dawn.
“What…. The ….. Fuck?” Fred panted. The other two laughed. Fred joined in. When they were through, Willow wiped her eyes.
“I think something good may have actually come out of this, guys,” she said, sniffing. “I think we inadvertently became Three as One.”
“Again, I have to go with, what the fuck?” Cordy said, pushing her limp body up on the couch.
“Witchcraft is rooted in threes. Covens are gathered in multiples of threes - nine and twelve. Commit a wrong, it comes back to you threefold. Cauldrons are kept on tripods.”
“All right, all right, we get it,” Cordy said.
“Well, I think that the joining of our blood may have triggered the Power of Three, unlocking whatever magic hidden inside of us and pouring into each other. Fred’s newly discovered telekinesis. You’re transporting us here, both elements of the magic I used to practice. Our shared vision experience, Cordy’s influence.”
“Oh come on, Willow, that‘s silly,” Fred grinned. “I don’t have any magical powers.”
“Quick, what’s the square root of 24,423.4384?” Willow asked.
“156.28.” Cordy said. “OH!” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Alright, but that could have been from either one of you!”
“It’s probably from Fred, I was never good with decimal points,” Willow shrugged. “Besides, I suddenly understand what a peplum is, and I know that’s not from Fred.”
“Now what?” Fred asked. “Do we want this?”
“Doesn’t suck,” Cordy shrugged. “Personally I don’t mind spreading that vision headache stuff between three people.”
“And I don’t mind moving stuff with my head,” Fred shrugged. “Well, except for hats, which I was always able to move with my head. And my glasses of course, except for when I lose which, is all the time now that I’ve taken to leaving them on top of the TV. I didn’t have a TV in Pilea, just a rock I used to stare at while I hummed the Brady Bunch theme and I‘m babbling again, aren’t I?”
“I’m suddenly very tired,” Willow said. The others nodded, and as if they had been doing so for years, changed into pjs and prepared for bed. They did things in unison with out even trying. Adjusting a strap here, rubbing in an errant dab of lotion there, braiding and brushing. They fell asleep in Cordy’s big bed, interwined. And outside, Angelus watched and smiled.
~Part: 2~
"Willow, how could you?" Wesley sighed.
Willow winced. "I'm sorry."
"Hey, it wasn't her fault," Cordy said. "How were we to know that he would go all grr at precisly the wrong moment. Besides, we're going to fix it. Fred's got a plan involving forcing his soul back into his body using a spectral transmographer. Hey, dig me, I said it right and I know what it means!"
Willow and Fred gave their Seer fond pats on the back.
"There's something else, isn't there?" Gunn asked, eying Willow. There was something about her. The way she was carrying herself, sitting. Her posture reminded him of .... Cordy. And Cordy spouting all that spectral trasnmographer stuff, she sounded exactly like Fred. What the hell was going on?
Willow nodded and explained about the Power of Three. Wesley turned three shades of red. He couldn't believe the girls had taken such risks with themselves. His poor Winnifred.
Gunn didn't seem surprised. "Well, it makes sense to me, what with Willow's witchy vibe, Cordy's seeing and Fred, well, Fred, all that mental energy makes your head like a shook up coke bottle."
Fred blushed. "Awww, thanks, Charles, you say the sweetest things.
"There's something else," Willow said. "We could feel, the inside of Angelus' head last night. See what he wanted to do to us... and it wasn't exactly unpleasant stuff-
"A little kinky sure," Fred added.
"But nothing you wouldn't see on the Spice Channel." Cordy shrugged.
"I think I might need a glass of water," Gunn gulped, suddenly flooded with carnal images of his favorite female coworkers.
"In my mind, Angelus said he couldn't leave us alone, wouldn't," Willow said.
"Well of course, he bloody can't, do you realize what you did?" Wesley demanded. "You've linked your souls to his for eternity. The lot of you. As long as the four of you live, you can never leave each other. If you seperate, you'll grow weak and eventually lose your will to live."
"Wuh-oh." Cordy said. "Willow, why didn't you tell us about that part of the spell."
Willow shrugged. "I thought it was typical spellbook melodrama."
"The spell read that there could be dire consequences to performing the ritual," Wes said.
"It says that about zit glammers," Willow said.
"Look!" Fred yelled. "Griping at each other will not help the situation. Willow, Cordy finish your protection spells. Wesley, Charles, weapons. I will finish the transmographer tonight, tomorrow we corner Angelus at the hotel and force his soul back into him."
"And how do you know he's still at the Hotel?" Wesley asked. "He could have dined on half of the greater Los Angeles area by now.
"We just know," the girls chorused.
"Y'all aren't going to do that creepy, three sisters, 'Mmmm Angel,' stuff are you?" Gunn asked.
Wesley scowled. "But-"
"Do you want to give me lip on this?" Fred asked. Wes sat back, recognizing Willow's resolved face on Fred's features.
"No."
~~~*~~~
"Willllllllllow."
The redhead sat up in Cordy's bed. She untangled herself from her thirds' embrace. Somewhere a silky voice called out to her. The warm voice undulated in her mind ,wrapping around her doubts and strength and squeezing them from her.
"Willllllow."
She moved from the bed. It was coming from the door. Cordy's front door. She padded through the apartment on silent feet.
"Wiilllllllow, let me in."
She gripped the doorknob and despite her better judgement, opened it. There was Angelus, leather pants, black shirt and all. Cold black eyes surveyed her with a strange sly glint. Warmth flooded between her thighs. She cursed her own traitorous body.
"Willow," he said, grinning. "Let me in."
She smiled back, having absolutely no clue why she would. "I can't."
"Awwww, why not?" he asked. "I don't want to hurt you, I couldn't." he said, pressing as close to the invisible barrier of Cordy's doorway as he could get. He absentmindedly ran his hand along the barrier and Willow could feel his touch running down her arm. "Never in a million years. I just want to touch you. all three of you. I want you in a way I can't even describe. My sweet Willow, it was always you. While Soulboy mooned over the Slayer I screamed for you. I threw myself against the cage of his heart, howling for your touch. You were always mine, Willow, my sorceress. And Cordy, my queen. And Fred, my wild child."
His hand glided over her breast, caressing and stroking the firm flesh, avoiding contact with the nipple. Teasing her. She exhaled sharply, letting her breath leave her body. She threw her head back and let herself enjoy his touch for a moment.
"I need you," he whispered softly. "I need you so much. Please let me in. I love you."
"Angelus, come-"
Willow felt a hand clap over her mouth. Fred and Cordy were at her sides.
"Scat, Angelus," Fred hissed, her hand clamped over Willow's lips.
"Locks have changed, Angelus," Cordy said.
Angelus pouted a little. "Oh, come on ladies, you used to have a good time with Angel, it can be like that with me, even better. I promise, you just have to invite me in."
"Well, in that case.... get the hell out of here!" Cordy screeched, slamming the door shut with the flick of her wrist. A second later, she opened the door again. Angelus was headed down the stairs. "Oh, Angelus."
The vampire turned. Cordy whipped up her tank top, mocking the vampire with the sigh of her pert bare breasts. Angelus' jaw dropped. Cordy laughed, Fred slammed the door shut.
"Cordy! We don't taunt the wild blood-craving animal!" she hissed.
"Oh, come on, it was worth the look on his face alone," Cordy said, still giggling. the others joined her. "Besides, I wasn't the one who almost let him in the apartment."
Willow winced. "I'm sorry, it's just for a second, he seemed to make sense, besides-"
"He has hands like a violinist?" Fred asked.
"How did you know?" Willow asked.
"We felt it," Cordy said. "What do you think woke us up?"