Trying - Part One
SUMMARY: Yet another end-of-season-6 vision-quest story, in Spike'sPOV; written before "Seeing Red" aired.
Spike narrowed his eyes in order to scan the night sky. It was dark here away from cities and power grids, certainly darker than in his patch of southern California, and the constellations weren't right. He couldn't steer by them, at any rate. But if he looked at the stars, he wouldn't have to look at the imposing, motionless figure of the shaman just visible between leaps of the flames separating them.
The bonfire crackled. A hyena nearby chortled. Again. And bugger it, he couldn't wait any longer. "So, what am I supposed to do here? Get with the chanting? Do a bit of interpretive dance? Or find that bloody hyena and tell it to SHUT it--"
"You are doing it." The spirit-caller's voice sounded preternaturally deep, and Spike knew a thing or two about the preternatural. He shook off any thoughts of consequences and payments, and waited. The voice came again, even deeper. "Look here. At me."
Why he was swamped with sudden reluctance, he didn't know. Wouldn't ask himself. He'd chosen this, damn it. He lifted his head and fixed his gaze on the spirit-caller's face. The shaman's eyes locked on his, sharpened, and pinned him. Spike couldn't move. He could only stare into darkness illuminated by flashes of fire and listen.
"Who are you?" the voice demanded.
Who was he? What kind of sodding idiocy was -- but before he could pour out the rest of the question and with it all the rage and heartache he'd been carrying since Sunnydale, his chest contracted. His own voice replied, "I seek who I am."
"Who have you been?"
"I was once William Bennet. I was once William the Bloody. I call myself Spike."
"Those are names, only names."
"I was once a love-sick, bookish fool at heart, but a good man. I was once a Slayer of Slayers, a bad-ass vampire." A low chuckle wafted over the fire at the phrasing. "I have betrayed the man. I have betrayed the vampire. I am both and neither." He caught himself in a gasp as if drowning, but his voice evenly intoned the ritual sentence he hadn't thought he knew. "I seek who I am."
A large hand suddenly threw a fistful of powder into the fire. "Then seek."
The fire leapt, and suddenly the shaman was gone. Spike could move again, thank whoever or whatever was running this little show, and he jumped to his feet--only to jolt back. A leopard paced where the shaman had sat, its impatience strangely familiar from his own hours circling the crypt. Waiting for nightfall, waiting for blood, waiting for Buffy. Waiting for purpose.
He choked at even the thought of her, and the leopard stopped its pacing. It cocked its head, and involuntarily Spike did the same, surveying the beast. The two powerful creatures mirrored each other for a long beat of time measured only by fire and wind.
Then the leopard sprung over the fire at Spike's throat. "Bloody hell!" he said, staggering back out of range, tripping into--
Darkness. And he felt the big cat put its paw on his boot and he thought "Oh bloody buggery bollocks" and he fell back further, into--
A bar. He was standing in a perfectly lovely, upscale city bar, with mirrors behind the liquor shelves, the tinkling sound of ice and liquid in good crystal, pretty people and a few nasty demons mingling and drinking. The paw on his boot got heavier, and Spike looked down at the leopard which had curled up and made itself comfortable. Yes, he was standing in a bar and he had a leopard on his feet. Right. And what the bloody hell was that noise? Was a moose dying or some such, accompanied by an orchestra?
"I feel the change coming, I feel the wind blow," crooned a truly horrible, awful, weirdly recognizable baritone. Spike refused to turnaround. Really, he didn't want to know. "I feel brave and daring, I feel my blood flo-uh-ow..."
Oh balls. Well, he'd chosen to seek. He'd have to face the unthinkable. The 'singer' continued, "With you I could bring out all the love that I have..." and Spike forced himself to turn toward the horror. Ah. The shaman had apparently sent him straight to hell, do not pass Go, do not collect any sodding money, mate, and did you forget your earplugs, ha ha ha FOR ETERNITY.
"With you there's a heaven, so earth ain't so bad..." Angel gargled out the terrifying easy-listening cacophony to Buffy, who glowed up at him from a table in front of the stage.
The leopard growled, and Spike absently leaned down to rub its head. He felt like doing a spot of growling himself. Or, more likely, wailing and rending of garments. However, he was on a quest, and this wasn't exactly surprising, was it. He'd always known he wasn't her real choice.
The big cat rubbed up against his hand, sending soothing vibrations up his arm. "Pax, eh? So you weren't attacking me back there?" Spike said to the leopard. The cat tilted its head at him, and if Spike believed in anthropomorphizing animals, which he didn't, he'd have said it smirked. "Oh fine. We're companions, then."
Angel was inquiring of Buffy through the miracle of song, "When will this strong yearning end? And when will I hold you again?" Spike turned to inquire of the bartender if seekers after Truth and Identity could be spotted some tequila for the road, when his face collided with a satin waistcoat.
He looked up a few inches, and saw a merry, green, red-horned countenance beaming down at him. "Sweet honey-ale, I've been waiting for you forever," the demon said. "I have so MANY messages for you."
"Messages for me," Spike said slowly. "And do you know who I am?"
"I know who both of you are, barley-sugar," the green one said, leaning his hand down to rub the leopard's head much as Spike had done. When he straightened, his eyes were oddly sad in the cheerful face. "And I wish you nothing but the best."
"Much obliged," Spike said, feeling nothing of the sort. "And these messages would be--?"
"Undeliverable until you get back." The demon pointed to a door cut into the back wall of the bar. "Private exit, just for you."
Spike looked at the door. He looked at the leopard, who rolled to its feet and started to pad toward the door. He looked at the demon, who smiled encouragingly. Then he shrugged his leather-clad shoulders.
"And it's ho! for the sodding quest," he said, and followed the leopard, whose lashing tail indicated that a certain vampire needed to move it along. Behind him, but unfortunately not out of earshot, Angel was massacring the refrain: "When will this strong yearning end? And when will I hold you again?"
Spike paused at the doorway. He glanced back at Buffy--so unattainable, so golden, her heart not his--and swallowed hard. Then he summoned a jaunty smile for the demon, who held the door open for him and his leopard. Only darkness lay beyond the sill. "If I were you, mate, I'd change the entertainment. That noise'll only drive people away."
"Oh, rock-candy, there will be some changes when you get back, I promise you."
Spike nodded. And with one hand on the leopard's neck, he stepped off into nothingness.
[Yes, Angel is singing that Barry Manilow classic "Weekend in New England." Eek.]