Trying - Part Two
DISCLAIMER: Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Grieg are probably shaking their heads in dismay.
SUMMARY/NOTES: When we last left our hero, he had begun his vision/identity-quest by acquiring a leopard companion and falling into Caritas, where his first trial was listening to Angel sing "Weekend in New England" to Buffy. The Host then sent him through a doorway into nothingness. In this installment, William backstory is created with reckless abandon. Also, higgledy-piggledy. NOTE: No Oxford colleges were harmed in the writing of this fic.Completely unfairly, nothingness was jolt after jolt of electricity in the pitch-black void. Spike bit back a yowl of anguish; his leopard did not.
Panicked, his leopard sunk its claws deep into his calf muscle and dug in. Sparks of pain, tiny compared to the flashes which coursed through his body, danced before his eyes. Pain and more pain and--
He was sitting at a library table in a huge, oddly familiar room. The big cat fastidiously pulled the claws out of Spike's bleeding leg, spun around, then leapt onto the table beside him. It settled into a ball of fur and gazed unblinkingly at him.
Spike looked at the library table in front of him, which had a collection of odd objects. He put his hands down flat, as if to frame the artistic installation: a red onion, a knife, an uncapped fountain pen, and a pad of paper. On the paper was written 'Fable. Truth. Love. Fable. Truth. Love.' over and over.
The words sputtered sparks off the page, blinding him. He closed his eyes against the flash. When he opened them, he looked away from the page at his surroundings. And he groaned. Oh, the jokes that would have been made if any Sunnydale resident--alright, only Giles--had known that William had once craved the right to sit in this room. He'd gotten his First in Greats at Jesus College and on the strength of that had tried for a law fellowship at All Souls. Really, how arrogant he'd been.
Who had he thought he was, anyway? Was he really good enough for such a position? Spike sighed. By the quality of the light pouring through the windows of the Codrington Library, it was time for Schools again.
Damn, damn, damn. He needed to know the law if he were to get a living, pass the test. Be invited. He looked again at the assortment in front of him. Where were Blackstone's Commentaries when he needed them? Law was a tricky thing, and one needed to know chapter and verse. No, that was the Bible. Er, he should know word and deed. Brain and blood. Spirit and imagination...
And 'spirit and imagination' scrolled onto the pad without aid of pen, without Spike's cooperation. A female hand, with long fingers tipped in crimson, reached over Spike's shoulder and underlined the words in blood.
"Dru?" he said, without turning. But no one was behind him. The big cat rolled over on the table, his tail catching the pad and smearing the writing and the blood. "Careful now, the inks are still wet," Spike snapped, and the leopard growled at him.
Spike growled back. At which point a librarian-demon walked up and thumped a waste-bin on the table. "I'd thank you to be quiet, sir. And please keep your peelings in the container. We keep our library tidy."
The leopard hissed first, but Spike followed with "In the immortal words of John Lydon, you poncy git, 'I am an anarchist, I am an anti- christ'...I bloody well don't do 'tidy'."
"I think you'll find, sir, that you delude yourself. And that isn't like you, is it?" The librarian-demon held Spike's gaze in a manner uncannily like that of the shaman, then out of his mouth came that preternaturally deep voice. "Who are you?"
"I must remember who I was. I must feel and think who I was."
"Not to be bound by it."
"To be freed by it." Spike snapped out of his trance to find the librarian gone. The onion was in his hand, and the leopard sniffed at it. Then the cat sneezed in a violently cat-like fit and backed away.
Spike examined the onion, then sighed. He began to peel the onion, explaining to the cat, "You'd think whoever or whatever considered me an ill-read wanker, knowing sweet fuck-all about culture. It's bloody *Peer Gynt,* right?" He used his long, talented fingers to strip away almost transparent layer after layer, which he then threw into the bin. "The self is like an onion, that lying git Peer said, but it's a horrible image. Y'see, Peer thought--feared--he might get to the center and there'd be nothing there...."
Pain, worse that what had seared him in the journey through the void, ripped through his gut, his throat. He managed to gasp, "But what would be worse, cat, is if all I found was blood." Red viscous liquid dripped from the onion through his fingers, and Spike lunged for the waste-bin. He managed to collect the spill in the bottom of the container, then squeezed hard to get the rest of the blood out. He put the remaining kernel of onion on the pad of paper.
Only a few drops remained on his hands, and Spike offered one hand to the cat and raised the other to his own lips. The two powerful creatures solemnly licked the blood away, then exchanged looks. It just wasn't very satisfying, somehow.
Spike sank back into his chair. He curled his now clean fingers together and looked at them. "So, what d'you think, cat? Was that the first test?" He lounged further in the chair and swung his booted feet onto the table. The leopard made a comfy sound and rolled onto its back, paws waving in the air. "Oh sure, mate, YOU can kip if you want. I'm the one doing the seeking. However, I'm sodding sure that most blokes trying to find themselves are set more exciting tasks than 'ooh, keep the library tidy.' Is it some prejudice against the English?" He raised his voice so it echoed through the cold empty hall. "Hello, what about Malory and the Arthurian quests? What about rescuing people and killing things, then?"
The library doors crashed shut. The light outside dimmed, and lamps flickered on in corners of the room. An orchestral tune, heavy on percussion, began. Spike cocked his head to listen, then smacked his hand on his forehead. "'In the Hall of the Mountain King'?! This is because I mentioned *Peer Gynt*, isn't it." He turned to the cat. "The next time I open my mouth for one of my famous soliloquies, please remind me that I'm a stupid bugger and I should just shut the hell up!"
The music continued, light yet threatening, always increasing in intensity and force. From behind him came plaintive cries in familiar voices. "Help! Spike!" He stood and turned. Giles and Tara, dressed in academic robes, were roped together on a table; inexorably a trio of game-faced vamps advanced toward them.
Spike and the leopard let out happy growls and rushed toward the group. In unison they jumped onto the long table just behind the vampires, Spike's boots thudding against the oak. The vamps turned. "You don't imagine you're going to mess up my library, do you, children?" Spike snarled, and he and the leopard came down like thunder upon two of the hapless villains. It was only a matter of seconds before necks were snapped and dust scattered.
The last vampire, however, had reached Tara, and his fangs descended toward her neck as the music swelled to a crescendo. Spike jumped again, ripping off the vamp's head in time to the final notes of the horns. Dust settled in the once again silent room.
"Excuse me, sir." Spike looked over his shoulder to see the librarian- demon holding out a dustpan and a broom to him. The demon mouthed "Tidy" then stood, looking apologetic.
A part of Spike wanted to shriek bloody murder then commit it, to rip and claw and tear. But without more than these passing thoughts to mayhem, he took the implements and swept up all the vampire dust. When he finished, he politely poured the dust into the proffered waste-bin, and he watched it soak into the blood at the bottom of the container. It disappeared almost at once.
"Thank you, sir. And don't forget these," the librarian-demon said, giving him the onion, the knife, the fountain pen (now capped), and the pad of paper. Bemusedly Spike started to stow them away in various pockets of his duster.
When he got to the knife, however, Giles coughed. "And if you'd be so kind as to cut us loose?"
"Oh right, right, sorry," Spike said, and he quickly severed the twine which had locked Giles and Tara together. The two got off the table, smoothed their robes, then nodded their thanks. He inclined his head in response.
Tara put her hand on his arm, and he automatically crooked it so she could take a firmer grasp. She did so, then smiled at him. "Come along, sweetie, it's time."
Giles shoved his glasses further up his nose. "Yes, indeed. Examination. This way please."
Spike swallowed hard, but with Tara on his arm and the leopard padding at his heels, he followed Giles to a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Giles spoke something--Sumerian, possibly--and the door shuddered open to reveal a void of darkness. In the void howled Angel's voice, "I feel the change coming, I feel the wind blow...."
Giles motioned for Spike to go first, and Tara stepped away from him. The leopard bumped into Spike's legs. Spike nodded, then with one hand on the leopard's neck, stepped off into nothingness.