William Fic, Part 8
Jan. 29th, 2005 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedeadlyhookAngel decides to take matters into his own hands. Previous parts here.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile His work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
William Blake, The Tyger
The Center, Part 8
The door to the tiny office room slams open. There's a cracking sound as the solid panel hits some crates stacked behind it and wood splinters.
"Nice going," Angel says. "You're not even Spike yet, and you've still managed to get her really upset."
William eyes him guardedly. There's an insolent look on his face, disdainful. "I don't see how I owe you any explanations, villain."
"Oh, good. I'm the villain of the piece. That's perfect. Well, you know what, William. Believe it or not, all of this is actually for your own good." Angel steps into the room, his dark shape nearly filling the small space.
William's face contorts, his chin thrusting out, and suddenly there's nothing at all in his expression to distinguish him from Spike. "You seriously expect me to believe that."
"It's the truth. We're trying to help you."
"So say you. Is it in the cause of helping me that you've kept me shut up in a room for three days?"
"In this case, yes."
"How so? The only advantage I can see is to protect you from prosecution for your kidnapping ring."
"Oh, knock it off with your conspiracy theories." Angel presses forward menacingly; William reflexively backs away. "Besides, wouldn't you rather hear what I've really been up to for the last two days?"
"I'm sure I have no idea how criminals spend their time." William's lip curls in distaste, he folds his arms around himself, protective.
"I've been trying to find out more about that spell you're under." Angel says. "Kind of a waste of time, because the witch who did this to you wouldn't even talk to me, but I did find out one interesting thing. Wanna hear it?"
"Spells and witches. So you share that woman's madness."
"Oh, she's not mad. You don't know from madwomen. Yet."
William stabs a finger at the open door, indicating Buffy in absentia. "That... woman thinks I am a vampire. Like something out of a stage play or one of those turgid Gothic novels. Polidori and Byron's fantasies about monsters. And you dare to suggest to me that she is not mad?"
"Well, if she is then we all are, because you are a vampire."
William laughs harshly. "Oh, wonderful. Criminals aren't bad enough. I have to fall in with lunatics."
"Save it. It's not 1895 anymore, William. It's 2005. You've been a monster for over a hundred years."
The second half of Angel's sentence doesn't even register. William simply gapes. "Eighteen-ninety--do I look like a 48-year-old man?"
"Maybe you should try finding a mirror and see for yourself."
Angel advances further. Unwittingly, William backs himself into a corner.
"You've lost your mind y-you..." William's eyes dart around the room, looking for escape routes. "For the last time, leave me alone!"
"You're the one that's lost your mind," Angel says, and leans forward suddenly, his hands slapping the wall on either side of William's head, trapping him. "You're not alive, William. You've been dead for a century. You're nothing but a ghost," he whispers, lips nearly touching William's ear.
William's forced calm finally breaks. He feints to one side, then ducks under Angel's outstretched arms and bolts for the door. He nearly reaches it before Angel grabs him by the collar of his coat and yanks him back.
"Help!" William begins to scream out the open door, fingers clawing at the doorframe. "Help! Hel--"
His scream is abruptly cut off by a big hand wrapped around his neck.
"You're not really a Victorian gentleman," Angel continues. Pleasantly, as if there were nothing strange in holding a conversation with someone you happen to be choking. "You haven't been shifted in time. You're just an old memory inside the head of a notorious vampire. Which is, don't get me wrong, a good thing for us all. Because time paradoxes? Not so fun."
William makes wheezing noises, unable to speak.
"Oh, cut the drama. You think you really need to breathe?" Angel's gives William's body a mild shake. "Don't tell me you haven't felt how different you are now. That's not the sort of thing you miss." There is a tearing sound then, and his face ripples and shifts, becomes a terrifying mask of ridges and razor-sharp fangs. William's eyes widen, and he lets out a strangled cry.
"What the hell are you doing?" Buffy's voice cuts across the tense air in the room like a descending knife.
Then it's as if gust of wind moves between the two men. Buffy slams a hand into Angel's chest, knocking him back, and he rockets across the room to land hard against a box-lined wall. William, deprived of support, staggers backward in the opposite direction, collapsing into an ungainly heap.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Buffy demands again. Her eyes are red and puffy from recent crying. She places her hands on William's shoulders and hovers over him protectively, glaring at Angel.
"Shock treatment." Angel stands, broken lumber falling all around him. His face is still vampire-ridged, fearsome.
"Shock treatment? You figured he wasn't freaked out enough that you had to add some trauma on top of it?"
"At least now he knows we're not lying. He's got no choice but to face up to the truth." Angel eyes the smaller man on the floor, holding his throat and coughing. "We're getting nowhere with him, Buffy. He's got to help us or we're never going to figure this out."
"And you thought choking him would put him in the mood to help?"
"I know Spike. And there's nothing he's ever wanted that he didn't fight for."
Buffy sets her jaw in a hard line. Her entire body trembles with restrained anger. "Get out," she says tightly. Angel opens his mouth to say something. "No, just get out. I don't want to hear it. You've done enough. Let me handle this."
Angel considers her for a moment, as if about to say more, then thinks the better of it, and without another comment, he leaves.
__________
"I'm so sorry that had to happen to you. I didn't want you to find out about it that way."
The woman is there with him, her hands making soothing motions on his shoulders. She's talking in a soft, quiet voice, comforting.
He's still on the floor. Rocking on his heels, arms wrapped around his knees, curled into a tight ball of misery. His throat hurts from the dark man's attempt to choke him, but it's a dim echo compared to the pain in his mind.
The man's face. Bestial and monstrous.
You're not really William. Don't tell me you haven't felt how different you are now.
"Oh, Jesus. Oh, sweet Jesus." He keeps muttering this to himself, over and over again. Even though he knows it won't help.
Because he has felt it. Of course he has. He can't not notice it now, how different his body feels, the conspicuous lack of internal motions, the hidden store of strength. Three days, and no urges from his body other than simple hunger--and he'd thought it had been his captivity, the limited diet of drink, but...
Blood. They'd been feeding him blood. Those draughts the woman gave him, that she watched him drink down so intently as if it were important that she see him drain every drop...
Medicine indeed. Like meat to a savage dog.
"You are a vampire," the woman is saying now, "but you're not a monster. I don't know what exactly he told you, but you're not. You've changed. You fought to get your soul back, Spike. You saved the world. You're not a monster. Not anymore."
Everything in him is absolutely still. Dead.
His heart doesn't beat.
"What," he rasps hoarsely, "what did you just call me?"
She pauses. "Spike. It's... it's your name. Now."
There are pictures in his mind. Vivid and color-drenched, like waking dreams. He is in an elegant house, and there is blood spattered on the carpet. The carpet looks familiar, as does the man on the floor, begging and pleading on his hands and knees.
There's something heavy and pointed in his hand. Rusty metal that he sets to the whimpering man's temple and just... pushes.
He knows what the name means.
"Oh, Jesus. Oh, sweet Jesus," he says again.
Then he leans over, hands hitting the floor with a hard slap, and throws up.
__________
After his humiliating display, the woman leaves for a short interval, returns with a glass of water. He accepts it gratefully and drinks it down without question, after which he feels quite a bit calmer.
It occurs to him then that it's probable she has dosed him with some tincture to still his nerves, just like he'd assumed she'd been doing earlier with the blood.
Ironic, that.
He wonders why such things would still have an effect on him now. On this still and unworking body.
Behind the closed door, during the time she had been missing, there had been shouting. Bitter arguing between the woman and the dark man. He'd discovered that if he concentrated hard enough, he could hear every word. Oaths and accusations. Fierce debate about what is to be done with him.
He stops listening, uncaring.
He is a monster, it's true. His eyes, when he focuses them just so, can see details even in the dark. He hadn't noticed until exactly that moment that he'd not been wearing his spectacles.
He can smell his captors in the next room. The woman's scent is delicate yet strong. Familiar somehow. Her body's perfume is as sharp in his mind as the memory of a color. Burned into his memory like the sun in his eyes.
Silence had fallen after the argument that lasted for some time. The man had apparently left, his footfalls fading into the distance, the roar of his machine sounding as he sped away. Only the woman remained behind.
An hour or more passed--he had no real idea of the time anymore--before she stepped again inside his cell, this time carrying a large tray.
"I thought you might like... something else to eat," she says meekly, padding softly to his side.
He looks up, blearily. She is still wearing the thick dressing gown to shield her body from his eyes. A concession to his sense of modesty--all false. His sense memory tells him things his conscious mind cannot--that he knows this woman, knows every inch of her in the most intimate and carnal sense. She has no mysteries to hide from him. Her clothing makes no difference.
She sets down the tray on a crate. It holds a plate of food, a glass of water, a fork. The dish is thick gravy over white rice, wafting a strong scent of spices.
"A curry," he says tiredly. "Very kind of you. I have had small occasion to sample such things. Very few dinner parties in my circle of acquaintances have been fortunate enough to have a chef trained in the Raj."
"I thought... well, you like spicy hot things, so..."
"Can I even eat? Like this? As what I am?" His voice is quiet and hoarse. It is almost an effort simply to talk.
"Yes," she says immediately. "Yes. You love to eat. You're the only vampire I know who really does."
"Why?" In truth, he doesn't actually much care. It's just something to ask.
"You... enjoy it," she says. Her face has that earnest look again, a little desperate. "You like greasy fried stuff and spicy things. A-And you love hot chocolate." She picks up the fork and hands it to him.
He takes it. He can't gather up the strength necessary to disappoint her. Easier just to comply. He samples a forkful of the food.
"Good?" Her face is expectant. Worried, like a bride nervous about her cooking.
He nods. "It's fine." The rice is tasteless. Texture only. The sauce, though, he can taste, and its fire is somewhat of a comfort, an assurance that not everything has been lost. He continues to eat, aware of her eyes on him, until all the food on the plate has gone.
"You kill vampires," he says then, staring at the empty plate. "Isn't that what you said? That you kill them?"
He can hear the soft sound of her swallowing, her heartbeat speeding up. "Yes. But you remember what I told you before, right? Why I couldn't kill you?"
"Because I'm different," he says dully. "Because you love me."
"Yes. I do."
He pauses, taking in the messages of his senses, her elevated heartbeat, her nervous scent. The sound of her voice.
There is another memory-picture, just beyond the reach of his mind. Hovering there, like a faded photograph, left out too long in the sun. A memory of brilliant light, of heat and flame.
He toys with the fork. "No," he says then, sadly. "No. You don't."
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile His work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
William Blake, The Tyger
The Center, Part 8
The door to the tiny office room slams open. There's a cracking sound as the solid panel hits some crates stacked behind it and wood splinters.
"Nice going," Angel says. "You're not even Spike yet, and you've still managed to get her really upset."
William eyes him guardedly. There's an insolent look on his face, disdainful. "I don't see how I owe you any explanations, villain."
"Oh, good. I'm the villain of the piece. That's perfect. Well, you know what, William. Believe it or not, all of this is actually for your own good." Angel steps into the room, his dark shape nearly filling the small space.
William's face contorts, his chin thrusting out, and suddenly there's nothing at all in his expression to distinguish him from Spike. "You seriously expect me to believe that."
"It's the truth. We're trying to help you."
"So say you. Is it in the cause of helping me that you've kept me shut up in a room for three days?"
"In this case, yes."
"How so? The only advantage I can see is to protect you from prosecution for your kidnapping ring."
"Oh, knock it off with your conspiracy theories." Angel presses forward menacingly; William reflexively backs away. "Besides, wouldn't you rather hear what I've really been up to for the last two days?"
"I'm sure I have no idea how criminals spend their time." William's lip curls in distaste, he folds his arms around himself, protective.
"I've been trying to find out more about that spell you're under." Angel says. "Kind of a waste of time, because the witch who did this to you wouldn't even talk to me, but I did find out one interesting thing. Wanna hear it?"
"Spells and witches. So you share that woman's madness."
"Oh, she's not mad. You don't know from madwomen. Yet."
William stabs a finger at the open door, indicating Buffy in absentia. "That... woman thinks I am a vampire. Like something out of a stage play or one of those turgid Gothic novels. Polidori and Byron's fantasies about monsters. And you dare to suggest to me that she is not mad?"
"Well, if she is then we all are, because you are a vampire."
William laughs harshly. "Oh, wonderful. Criminals aren't bad enough. I have to fall in with lunatics."
"Save it. It's not 1895 anymore, William. It's 2005. You've been a monster for over a hundred years."
The second half of Angel's sentence doesn't even register. William simply gapes. "Eighteen-ninety--do I look like a 48-year-old man?"
"Maybe you should try finding a mirror and see for yourself."
Angel advances further. Unwittingly, William backs himself into a corner.
"You've lost your mind y-you..." William's eyes dart around the room, looking for escape routes. "For the last time, leave me alone!"
"You're the one that's lost your mind," Angel says, and leans forward suddenly, his hands slapping the wall on either side of William's head, trapping him. "You're not alive, William. You've been dead for a century. You're nothing but a ghost," he whispers, lips nearly touching William's ear.
William's forced calm finally breaks. He feints to one side, then ducks under Angel's outstretched arms and bolts for the door. He nearly reaches it before Angel grabs him by the collar of his coat and yanks him back.
"Help!" William begins to scream out the open door, fingers clawing at the doorframe. "Help! Hel--"
His scream is abruptly cut off by a big hand wrapped around his neck.
"You're not really a Victorian gentleman," Angel continues. Pleasantly, as if there were nothing strange in holding a conversation with someone you happen to be choking. "You haven't been shifted in time. You're just an old memory inside the head of a notorious vampire. Which is, don't get me wrong, a good thing for us all. Because time paradoxes? Not so fun."
William makes wheezing noises, unable to speak.
"Oh, cut the drama. You think you really need to breathe?" Angel's gives William's body a mild shake. "Don't tell me you haven't felt how different you are now. That's not the sort of thing you miss." There is a tearing sound then, and his face ripples and shifts, becomes a terrifying mask of ridges and razor-sharp fangs. William's eyes widen, and he lets out a strangled cry.
"What the hell are you doing?" Buffy's voice cuts across the tense air in the room like a descending knife.
Then it's as if gust of wind moves between the two men. Buffy slams a hand into Angel's chest, knocking him back, and he rockets across the room to land hard against a box-lined wall. William, deprived of support, staggers backward in the opposite direction, collapsing into an ungainly heap.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Buffy demands again. Her eyes are red and puffy from recent crying. She places her hands on William's shoulders and hovers over him protectively, glaring at Angel.
"Shock treatment." Angel stands, broken lumber falling all around him. His face is still vampire-ridged, fearsome.
"Shock treatment? You figured he wasn't freaked out enough that you had to add some trauma on top of it?"
"At least now he knows we're not lying. He's got no choice but to face up to the truth." Angel eyes the smaller man on the floor, holding his throat and coughing. "We're getting nowhere with him, Buffy. He's got to help us or we're never going to figure this out."
"And you thought choking him would put him in the mood to help?"
"I know Spike. And there's nothing he's ever wanted that he didn't fight for."
Buffy sets her jaw in a hard line. Her entire body trembles with restrained anger. "Get out," she says tightly. Angel opens his mouth to say something. "No, just get out. I don't want to hear it. You've done enough. Let me handle this."
Angel considers her for a moment, as if about to say more, then thinks the better of it, and without another comment, he leaves.
__________
"I'm so sorry that had to happen to you. I didn't want you to find out about it that way."
The woman is there with him, her hands making soothing motions on his shoulders. She's talking in a soft, quiet voice, comforting.
He's still on the floor. Rocking on his heels, arms wrapped around his knees, curled into a tight ball of misery. His throat hurts from the dark man's attempt to choke him, but it's a dim echo compared to the pain in his mind.
The man's face. Bestial and monstrous.
You're not really William. Don't tell me you haven't felt how different you are now.
"Oh, Jesus. Oh, sweet Jesus." He keeps muttering this to himself, over and over again. Even though he knows it won't help.
Because he has felt it. Of course he has. He can't not notice it now, how different his body feels, the conspicuous lack of internal motions, the hidden store of strength. Three days, and no urges from his body other than simple hunger--and he'd thought it had been his captivity, the limited diet of drink, but...
Blood. They'd been feeding him blood. Those draughts the woman gave him, that she watched him drink down so intently as if it were important that she see him drain every drop...
Medicine indeed. Like meat to a savage dog.
"You are a vampire," the woman is saying now, "but you're not a monster. I don't know what exactly he told you, but you're not. You've changed. You fought to get your soul back, Spike. You saved the world. You're not a monster. Not anymore."
Everything in him is absolutely still. Dead.
His heart doesn't beat.
"What," he rasps hoarsely, "what did you just call me?"
She pauses. "Spike. It's... it's your name. Now."
There are pictures in his mind. Vivid and color-drenched, like waking dreams. He is in an elegant house, and there is blood spattered on the carpet. The carpet looks familiar, as does the man on the floor, begging and pleading on his hands and knees.
There's something heavy and pointed in his hand. Rusty metal that he sets to the whimpering man's temple and just... pushes.
He knows what the name means.
"Oh, Jesus. Oh, sweet Jesus," he says again.
Then he leans over, hands hitting the floor with a hard slap, and throws up.
__________
After his humiliating display, the woman leaves for a short interval, returns with a glass of water. He accepts it gratefully and drinks it down without question, after which he feels quite a bit calmer.
It occurs to him then that it's probable she has dosed him with some tincture to still his nerves, just like he'd assumed she'd been doing earlier with the blood.
Ironic, that.
He wonders why such things would still have an effect on him now. On this still and unworking body.
Behind the closed door, during the time she had been missing, there had been shouting. Bitter arguing between the woman and the dark man. He'd discovered that if he concentrated hard enough, he could hear every word. Oaths and accusations. Fierce debate about what is to be done with him.
He stops listening, uncaring.
He is a monster, it's true. His eyes, when he focuses them just so, can see details even in the dark. He hadn't noticed until exactly that moment that he'd not been wearing his spectacles.
He can smell his captors in the next room. The woman's scent is delicate yet strong. Familiar somehow. Her body's perfume is as sharp in his mind as the memory of a color. Burned into his memory like the sun in his eyes.
Silence had fallen after the argument that lasted for some time. The man had apparently left, his footfalls fading into the distance, the roar of his machine sounding as he sped away. Only the woman remained behind.
An hour or more passed--he had no real idea of the time anymore--before she stepped again inside his cell, this time carrying a large tray.
"I thought you might like... something else to eat," she says meekly, padding softly to his side.
He looks up, blearily. She is still wearing the thick dressing gown to shield her body from his eyes. A concession to his sense of modesty--all false. His sense memory tells him things his conscious mind cannot--that he knows this woman, knows every inch of her in the most intimate and carnal sense. She has no mysteries to hide from him. Her clothing makes no difference.
She sets down the tray on a crate. It holds a plate of food, a glass of water, a fork. The dish is thick gravy over white rice, wafting a strong scent of spices.
"A curry," he says tiredly. "Very kind of you. I have had small occasion to sample such things. Very few dinner parties in my circle of acquaintances have been fortunate enough to have a chef trained in the Raj."
"I thought... well, you like spicy hot things, so..."
"Can I even eat? Like this? As what I am?" His voice is quiet and hoarse. It is almost an effort simply to talk.
"Yes," she says immediately. "Yes. You love to eat. You're the only vampire I know who really does."
"Why?" In truth, he doesn't actually much care. It's just something to ask.
"You... enjoy it," she says. Her face has that earnest look again, a little desperate. "You like greasy fried stuff and spicy things. A-And you love hot chocolate." She picks up the fork and hands it to him.
He takes it. He can't gather up the strength necessary to disappoint her. Easier just to comply. He samples a forkful of the food.
"Good?" Her face is expectant. Worried, like a bride nervous about her cooking.
He nods. "It's fine." The rice is tasteless. Texture only. The sauce, though, he can taste, and its fire is somewhat of a comfort, an assurance that not everything has been lost. He continues to eat, aware of her eyes on him, until all the food on the plate has gone.
"You kill vampires," he says then, staring at the empty plate. "Isn't that what you said? That you kill them?"
He can hear the soft sound of her swallowing, her heartbeat speeding up. "Yes. But you remember what I told you before, right? Why I couldn't kill you?"
"Because I'm different," he says dully. "Because you love me."
"Yes. I do."
He pauses, taking in the messages of his senses, her elevated heartbeat, her nervous scent. The sound of her voice.
There is another memory-picture, just beyond the reach of his mind. Hovering there, like a faded photograph, left out too long in the sun. A memory of brilliant light, of heat and flame.
He toys with the fork. "No," he says then, sadly. "No. You don't."