Title: Nicomachean Ethics
Author: Raleigh....Analytic Spike
E-Mail: ephesian@buffymail.com
Feedback: Please do!
Rating: PG
Content: Season 4 implied. Spike/Buffy but w/respect to Dru
Distribution: just ask and put my name on it
Disclaimer: Joss, blah, blah.
Story Summary: Spike helps Buffy study for college exams.
Authors Note: I am sick and studying for big exams. Big big exams.
Gained relaxation through writing this story tonight, but no exam help.
Learned Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics though, so don't say fanfic
isn't educational.
“The four causes of Aristotle were the…okay, I can get this…” Buffy
sneezed into a tissue, then threw it into an ever-growing pile of used
Kleenex in the center of the library desk. “…the material cause, the
formal cause, the…,” Buffy’s throat itched, and her persisting cough
finally caught up with her. Her small frame tensed and shook with each
hacking blow. After the fit subsided, her head collapsed to the table,
her textbooks becoming a makeshift pillow.
Her drifting eye found a overly cheerful poster hung over the doorway,
with the words “School is Fun!” scrawled on it in big bright yellow
letters. Her eyes narrowed as she threw a pencil at the smiling
cartoon character from her prostrate position at the table.
The door below cracked open just before the pencil embedded itself in
the wood of the upper part of the door. She looked up, worried.
The door slowly swung open.
“Careful there, ducks,” Spike said mockingly. “You could take out a
vamp with that thing.” He stopped and eyed the pencil. “Correction,
maybe a little vamp that flies. And if you were aiming for the poster,
you were way off. A lazy aim equals a lazy slayer, and we all know
what happens to…” He trailed off when he saw her face. “What wrong,
pet? You look like you need to spend a couple of days at Betty Ford
for hell’s sake. Don’t mean to Cordy you, but really.”
“Spike…” Buffy began.
Spike reclined against the counter, a smirk on his face, waiting for a
witty rebuttal.
“Just shut the hell up.”
His smirk faded into confusion.
“Do you know what I am going through? No, you can’t possibly. Because
you haven’t been in the position to attend college for a couple of
hundred years. Let me clue you in on something, since you were
obviously not paying attention during our meeting this week. This
is…,” she paused for dramatic effect and enunciated each syllable,
“finals week.” Spike raised an eyebrow, as if to say ‘so what?’, which
only infuriated her further. “I have five exams in two days. Five big
exams. These exams will determine my college career so far. I have to
study for these exams, hardcore. I have one night in which to do this,
because I spent last week saving the world. Again. And might I add,
you could have been a little more helpful in that department.”
“Slayer-“
“But no…you wouldn’t understand. How can I put this in vamp terms for
you? It’s like…failing at killing a slayer when you had a perfect
opportunity to do so, and then you have to go home to your mom with
this big sheet of paper that says, ‘I failed to kill the slayer and I’m
a horrible person’ on it, and your mom looks at you with those big
disappointed eyes she gets and-“
“Pet-“
“Well, maybe I didn’t explain it well, but you know what I mean. And
to top it all off, I’m all sniffly.”
“Sniffly?” Spike questioned, looking as he could hardly believe the
word had come out of his mouth.
“I’m coughing and my nose is running and I’m in no shape for an
all-nighter. So much for supa-dupa Slayer powers, huh?” she asked, her
eyes filling up with tears.
“Ducks, calm down,” he said irritably. He looked at her again. She
was crying. “Oh, bloody hell, you’re crying now? Well, damn it to
hell, I’m no good at all if anybody…” he stopped as she started
sobbing, “…cries.”
He walked over, kneeling at her side and put his arm around her,
handing her a Kleenex. She put her head on his shoulder, and cried for
awhile, in between coughs. Soon her tears dried up and she wiped her
nose on his duster as she sat up in her chair.
“Thanks, Spike”
“Yeah,” he said ruefully, looking at his duster, "you're welcome."
“I needed a good cry, you know. I mean, not only have I got all that
other stuff I was talking about, but I’m PMSing too, big time.” she
said, conspiratorially.
Spike stood up quickly and jumped back, knocking over several chairs in
the process. “That’s bloody enough, Slayer! Since when did I become
just one of the girls? Yell at me. That’s fine. Taunt me, stake me.
Even better. Cry on my shoulder. Well, that’s pushing it. But
telling me about your bloody menstrual cycle? We’re not that close!”
“Men,” Buffy chuckled, not paying the slightest attention to anything
he had said. “So will you help me with my philosophy?”
Spike sat back down gingerly, looking as tough as possible. “Maybe,”
he said menacingly, “if it doesn’t involve female hygiene products and
the like.”
“I’m reviewing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. I’m especially stuck on
the four causes. I’m going to kind of play the facts off of you, see
if I can get the stuff to stick in my head. Sound good?”
“Go ahead,” Spike said.
“All right the four causes are the four different ways in which a thing
comes into being. Like, the different ways to look at…coming into
beingness. So let’s take…you, for example. And we’ll examine how you
came into being, looking at this process from four different
directions.”
“I don’t have an objection to be examined by a nubile young woman like
your-“ he was cut off by an airborne book.
“No more jokes from the peanut gallery, please. Now, the first cause
would be the material cause. Like, the material out of which a thing
is made. So, to take you…” she paused, “…vampire you…you would be made
out of…” she looked away, not wanting to offend him, “maybe we should
take something else for an example.”
“No, this is fine,” Spike said, forcing her to look at him. “I was
made out of my human self’s body, the blood of my sire, and a demon.”
Buffy looked at him, expecting something else.
“What? That’s all, pet. No bloody soul floating around here, like
your great poof, Angelus.”
She looked away, then back at her textbook. “Then there’s the formal
cause, the essence of the thing or creation.” She looked at him
expectantly.
“An example?”
“Well, if you created a statue, then the formal cause of the statue
would be the man whom you created it to look like.”
“Well…I’m me. I’m Spike. That’s my essence.”
Buffy leaned forward, forgetting herself in her curiosity. “But is
Spike…your essence, is it, at heart, the demon or the person you once
were?
Spike arched backwards in his chair, deep in thought. “Well, if you
believe what the Watcher’s Council and all them say about vampires,
then the demon is my essence. Because the soul should rightfully carry
the essence of a person. And, as I said, my soul is floating around in
la-la land. But…” he trailed off, a frown flitting across his face.
“What?” Buffy asked, entranced.
His words broke through his obvious reluctance to speak. “I still feel
like the man I was.” He looked at her meaningfully. “Before. It’s
just that, something else is here now…the demon. It’s like…my soul
left such a deep imprint on me that, well, it’s still partly here.
Because my demon makes me kill, it makes me want blood, it makes me
enjoy doing all the things I do. No, correct that, I don’t know that
it’s the demon that makes me enjoy it. I think that the demon plants
the lust to kill, maim, whatever, into me. The impulse for evil. And
the imprint of my soul, of my human…ness, it leads me to take the same
joy in the evil stuff as I took in just…living, when I was alive. Do
you understand?”
“Yes.” He looked at her. She smiled. “Well, sort of. Enough.”
He laughed quickly, breaking up some of the tension in the room. “I
swear, Slayer, was one of those rascally teenagers smoking something in
here before we came in? Because we’re waning a little too
philosophical for our own good.”
Buffy laughed with him. “Blame my professor.” She stopped laughing
and looked at him. “Do you want to go on?”
He got serious again and looked at her. “Sure.”
“All right, the next cause is the efficient cause. This is the ‘maker’
or ‘doer’ of the creation.”
“Well, that one’s simple enough. That would be Angel, I suppose. He
created me.
“But we’ve already figured out that you, as a product, are more than
just what happened after you were changed. The human you were is
involved in this, too. So your efficient cause would have been your
father and Angel.”
“My father,” he said, shaking his head.
“What?”
“I would just rather not add him to any list that I was also on.
Though he and Angel do seem rather soul-mated, in my opinion. No
offense to you, pet.”
“None taken,” she said dryly.
“So what’s the last cause?”
“The last cause is the end cause.”
“The end cause?” he asked.
“The purpose to which the product was created.”
“Well to wreak havoc, I suppose. To do…you know. Evil stuff.”
“You’ve got to have another purpose rather than just going around being
evil.” Buffy said exasperatingly.
“Why?” he said loudly, standing up. “Why has anybody got to have a
purpose? Why do we have to go around loaded up with all these
destinies? Look at you, one girl in all the world. At least you’ve
been able to handle it. God knows you can complain about it. But look
at where that destiny lead Kendra and Faith? And Angel? The man
doesn’t really need another person feeling sorry for him besides
himself, but still, look at where destiny’s lead him. You can take
your destiny,pet. I’ll leave it,” he finished, in angry tears.
Buffy was shocked. She hadn’t seen him like this since Drusilla had
first dumped him. The time he had come back to Sunnydale, drunk. When
he had found out that Drusilla didn’t want him anymore, even after he
had tortured her, and poured his heart out before her, he hadn’t
whined. He had gone back to Sunnydale, gotten into some trouble and
had been effectively blackmailed by the gang. Never once had he
been…this emotional. She realized now how much he hid it.
“Spike…this is about Drusilla, isn’t it?” she asked, as gently as she
knew how.
He had already wiped the tears off his face and composed himself. “She
and I were destined for each other,” he said simply. “But I was
mistaken. I thought destiny lasted for life. Or…unlife, whatever. I
guess sometimes destiny comes and goes. And in my case, destiny went.
Out the window. And landed ungracefully…with a distinct thud on the
ground,” he said, mustering a smirk.
“Well, I’m sure Drusilla isn’t your only purpose-“
“I don’t care. No more purposes for me. I’m living only for myself,
not some end purpose.”
“But-“
“I don’t care what some Greek philosopher says…I’m not waiting around
for some end purpose…I’ll go back in time and snap the guy’s neck
before I embrace that theory.”
“Spike-“
He shot his hand across the table, catching her mouth roughly in
midsentence and pulled her face in front of his. “No end purpose,” he
said slowly, glaring into her startled eyes with his cold blue orbs.
“Got it?” he said, letting go.
She stayed where she was, breathing heavily, inches away from his face.
Then she kissed him. Spike’s mind resisted for a second, until an
overwhelming force made him give in.
As they broke apart, Buffy asked slyly, “And what were you saying about
destiny?”
Spike looked into her eyes for a minute, and then smirked. “Slayer,
I’d say your destiny is to wipe your nose before I vomit all over this
desk..”
“And I’d say your destiny is to be staked before the light of day.”
“And I’d say-“
The library doors slammed as the two walked out into the night,
arguing, Buffy’s philoposophy books lying forgotten on the table behind
them.
The End.
