FIC: Broken English - Part 12 - (Giles/Ethan) - R
Finally. A new chapter.
TITLE: Broken English Part 12
PAIRING: Giles/Ethan
RATING: will eventually be R
SPOILERS: Set after 8x04 The Long Way Home (comics); set in Germany, btw
PROMPT: a vacation or roadtrip, magic, slash
WRITTEN FOR: spikendru
Sorry, unbeta'd.
PREVIOUS PARTS: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11
“I’ll do the talking,” Giles interrupts his musings, his tone stern, as though bracing himself for a long and tiring argument.
"Be my guest. The less I have to do with Mr. Rockbrain, the better." Ethan would shrug but he's too busy shivering and stomping his feet. “You better let me do the legwork, though. You’ll need all your strength, if you’re going to haggle with an elemental.”
Giles nods, his relief almost palpable.
***
After a moment of deliberation Ethan picks up the box of matches, upends its contents into his palm and ties the matches together with a thread yanked from the lining of his waistcoat. “Hello fellas, how do you feel about a promotion?”
Then he starts to whisper to them - with the same sultry voice that he always used to cajole Giles into doing something illicit, like hotwiring a car for a joyride. He whispers words of awakening, one part magic, and nine parts persuasion. Ethan flatters them, strokes - and stokes - their egos, tells the matches what they already know: that the tiniest spark may set whole forests ablaze, but also telling them what they long to hear: that they could have been, no, that they were always meant to be something greater, a wand of dragonbreath, able to turn even rock into molten slag. That’s what they are, a tall proud staff, brimming with destructive power…
Giles listens to him with the guilty-yet-liberating satisfaction of someone who has just decided to give up dieting for good.
Maybe it’s true, maybe they belong together, the same way that the two sides of a coin can never be apart.
“Ta-daa! Here’s your magic wand. Careful, Rupert, you’ll have to hold it right here.”
Giles nods and holds out his left. Ethan’s fingers brush against his, as he presses a long curved staff of polished wood into his hand.
It feels solid and heavy, a lot heavier than a handful of matches, and it seems to crackle with power. It’s only trickster magic, the kind that fairies use, so it won’t last very long, but while it lasts it glows true from within, fuelled by conviction and desire. Hopefully, true enough to fool an elemental.
Giles shakes his head an pushes the thought away. For this to work, he, too, has to forget what he knows.
Giles realizes that Ethan is watching him, as though he’s waiting for something. Like a puppy, waiting for a treat.
“Excellent”, he says. “Now the coins.”
Ethan nods and picks up their loose change. Giles watches him, thinking that the metal must be as cold as ice. Still, the coins should be easy to fool. They represent earth's riches, anyway; always remembering deep down in their alloyed hearts where they slept before the forge woke them.
As for the element of air, well, it shouldn’t take long to convince Ethan's pocket knife that it was always meant to be a sword. Coaxing the flask into thinking it was a chalice? Should be just as easy. That's the beauty of the plan: it doesn't require a lot of power, only persuasion. And persuasion is right in Ethan's ballpark.
An alarming numbness is spreading from Giles’s fingers and he can’t stop shivering. Blasted cold! And the pounding in his ankle isn’t helping, either. Unfortunately, there's no point in telling Ethan to hurry. Clearly, he is working as fast as he can.
Besides, Giles has his own preparations to make. He has to push pain and cold into the background and gather every smidgeon of power left to him. When the earth elemental appears, he can’t just look the part of a powerful mage, he has to feel like one…
“I’m done,” Ethan's voice finally worms itself into Giles’s half-trance, softly, so as not to startle him.
“The table?”
Ethan points at the ground, where he has spread out a handkerchief. On it he’s arranged the shimmering gold coins, the chalice-that-once-was-a-flask and the two knives-turned-into-swords.
“Then let’s not waste any more time,” Giles says. “Help me up.”
Ethan offers his hand. For two or three heartbeats they just hold hands, then Ethan is all business again, hoisting him to his feet and brushing off soggy leaves that stick to Giles’s trousers.
“How do I look?” Giles asks, straightening and clutching his staff like a scepter. For a fleeting moment he’s self-conscious, remembering the purple wizard’s hat and cloak he wore at the opening of the Magic Box. Back then, the look on Buffy’s face said it all: grownups dressing up like wizards? Silly!
“Like one hell of a sorcerer,” Ethan states, smiling, as he steps out of the protective circle towards a small makeshift altar that he has built from stones and branches. With their last remaining match he sets fire to a pile of crumpled cigarettes. While it’s not incense, tobacco smoke carries more flavor than ordinary wood smoke.
Then he returns to the protective circle.
“Very well. Give me your hands.”
Without hesitation, Ethan places both hands in Giles’s. At once, the soft green glow of shared magic lights up between them.
+++
Ethan runs his thumb over the fingertips of Giles’s left hand and finds them marked by guitar strings. “You’re still playing!” he states.
“Aren’t you?”
“The Initiative weren’t in the habit of handing out pianos to the guinea pigs, or should I say hostiles?”
Giles meets his gaze evenly. “Before that. When was the last time you played?”
“Centuries ago. I don’t remember.” Ethan shrugs, remembering clearly how he incinerated his keyboard with a lightning bolt the day Rupert left.
Giles shakes his head. “Are you ready?” he asks.
“To do magic?” Ethan smiles. Suddenly he's no longer feeling the cold. “Always.”
Another headshake from Giles, and then a shimmering curtain of power springs up around them, a soft and silky circle, like a razor-thin waterfall defying all laws of nature.
When Giles starts to chants the incantation, Ethan stifles a sigh. He could listen all night to Giles's singing voice, even if his accent leaves a lot to be desired.
“All hands brace for impact,” Ethan quips.
Nothing happens.
“Or not.” Ethan purses his lips.
Giles clears his throat, takes a deep breath, then tries again, carefully enunciating each Middle High German syllable. The effort etches a frown into his features.
This time the power drain on Ethan is more severe. He can feel his mouth go dry, and he suddenly feels twice as cold.
Nothing happens.
“Maybe the old b-boy needs a t-taste of something stronger,” Ethan chokes out, teeth chattering. Before Giles has a chance to stop him, he steps out of the circle, even though it means breaking their precious connection.
“Wakey, wakey!” One swift slash with the fake sword and blood is dripping from Ethan’s no longer glowing palm, creating a unique Rorschach pattern on the snow. Funny how his blood looks almost black in the moonlight.
A tremor travels through the thin soles of his shoes, almost like a tickle. The ground rumbles.
“S-sorcerer’s blood,” Ethan grins and gropes around for a handkerchief to staunch the blood flow. “Always works a treat.”
"You bloody fool!" Giles grabs him by the collar and yanks him backwards, back into the protective circle. Not a moment too soon.
Where Ethan’s blood touched the earth, the ground practically explodes. Pebbles, fist-sized stones and thick, soggy lumps of half-frozen earth and wet foliage are hurled into the air. A large slab of rock crashes against the energy barrier of Giles’s circle and ricochets away, chipping a noticeable chunk out of the trunk of a nearby tree.
In the midst of this shockwave, a towering, solid mass of earth and stone, vaguely shaped like an enormous bear, bursts from the ground, surrounded by pebbles and lumps of earth that should by rights follow gravity and scatter to the ground. Yet, the debris does not settle. Instead, it swirls and spins around the dark, solid creature in its center, like an asteroid belt gone mad.
The stench of rot and wet earth is overpowering.
Ethan is hit by a wave of nausea, only it is quickly overtaken by panic. The entity they have just woken isn’t just a plain old earth elemental. They’ve woken a ‘Galdrar’, an elemental lord. Infinitely more powerful, and apparently pretty pissed off.
Brilliant!
TBC
TITLE: Broken English Part 12
PAIRING: Giles/Ethan
RATING: will eventually be R
SPOILERS: Set after 8x04 The Long Way Home (comics); set in Germany, btw
PROMPT: a vacation or roadtrip, magic, slash
WRITTEN FOR: spikendru
Sorry, unbeta'd.
PREVIOUS PARTS: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11
“I’ll do the talking,” Giles interrupts his musings, his tone stern, as though bracing himself for a long and tiring argument.
"Be my guest. The less I have to do with Mr. Rockbrain, the better." Ethan would shrug but he's too busy shivering and stomping his feet. “You better let me do the legwork, though. You’ll need all your strength, if you’re going to haggle with an elemental.”
Giles nods, his relief almost palpable.
***
After a moment of deliberation Ethan picks up the box of matches, upends its contents into his palm and ties the matches together with a thread yanked from the lining of his waistcoat. “Hello fellas, how do you feel about a promotion?”
Then he starts to whisper to them - with the same sultry voice that he always used to cajole Giles into doing something illicit, like hotwiring a car for a joyride. He whispers words of awakening, one part magic, and nine parts persuasion. Ethan flatters them, strokes - and stokes - their egos, tells the matches what they already know: that the tiniest spark may set whole forests ablaze, but also telling them what they long to hear: that they could have been, no, that they were always meant to be something greater, a wand of dragonbreath, able to turn even rock into molten slag. That’s what they are, a tall proud staff, brimming with destructive power…
Giles listens to him with the guilty-yet-liberating satisfaction of someone who has just decided to give up dieting for good.
Maybe it’s true, maybe they belong together, the same way that the two sides of a coin can never be apart.
“Ta-daa! Here’s your magic wand. Careful, Rupert, you’ll have to hold it right here.”
Giles nods and holds out his left. Ethan’s fingers brush against his, as he presses a long curved staff of polished wood into his hand.
It feels solid and heavy, a lot heavier than a handful of matches, and it seems to crackle with power. It’s only trickster magic, the kind that fairies use, so it won’t last very long, but while it lasts it glows true from within, fuelled by conviction and desire. Hopefully, true enough to fool an elemental.
Giles shakes his head an pushes the thought away. For this to work, he, too, has to forget what he knows.
Giles realizes that Ethan is watching him, as though he’s waiting for something. Like a puppy, waiting for a treat.
“Excellent”, he says. “Now the coins.”
Ethan nods and picks up their loose change. Giles watches him, thinking that the metal must be as cold as ice. Still, the coins should be easy to fool. They represent earth's riches, anyway; always remembering deep down in their alloyed hearts where they slept before the forge woke them.
As for the element of air, well, it shouldn’t take long to convince Ethan's pocket knife that it was always meant to be a sword. Coaxing the flask into thinking it was a chalice? Should be just as easy. That's the beauty of the plan: it doesn't require a lot of power, only persuasion. And persuasion is right in Ethan's ballpark.
An alarming numbness is spreading from Giles’s fingers and he can’t stop shivering. Blasted cold! And the pounding in his ankle isn’t helping, either. Unfortunately, there's no point in telling Ethan to hurry. Clearly, he is working as fast as he can.
Besides, Giles has his own preparations to make. He has to push pain and cold into the background and gather every smidgeon of power left to him. When the earth elemental appears, he can’t just look the part of a powerful mage, he has to feel like one…
“I’m done,” Ethan's voice finally worms itself into Giles’s half-trance, softly, so as not to startle him.
“The table?”
Ethan points at the ground, where he has spread out a handkerchief. On it he’s arranged the shimmering gold coins, the chalice-that-once-was-a-flask and the two knives-turned-into-swords.
“Then let’s not waste any more time,” Giles says. “Help me up.”
Ethan offers his hand. For two or three heartbeats they just hold hands, then Ethan is all business again, hoisting him to his feet and brushing off soggy leaves that stick to Giles’s trousers.
“How do I look?” Giles asks, straightening and clutching his staff like a scepter. For a fleeting moment he’s self-conscious, remembering the purple wizard’s hat and cloak he wore at the opening of the Magic Box. Back then, the look on Buffy’s face said it all: grownups dressing up like wizards? Silly!
“Like one hell of a sorcerer,” Ethan states, smiling, as he steps out of the protective circle towards a small makeshift altar that he has built from stones and branches. With their last remaining match he sets fire to a pile of crumpled cigarettes. While it’s not incense, tobacco smoke carries more flavor than ordinary wood smoke.
Then he returns to the protective circle.
“Very well. Give me your hands.”
Without hesitation, Ethan places both hands in Giles’s. At once, the soft green glow of shared magic lights up between them.
+++
Ethan runs his thumb over the fingertips of Giles’s left hand and finds them marked by guitar strings. “You’re still playing!” he states.
“Aren’t you?”
“The Initiative weren’t in the habit of handing out pianos to the guinea pigs, or should I say hostiles?”
Giles meets his gaze evenly. “Before that. When was the last time you played?”
“Centuries ago. I don’t remember.” Ethan shrugs, remembering clearly how he incinerated his keyboard with a lightning bolt the day Rupert left.
Giles shakes his head. “Are you ready?” he asks.
“To do magic?” Ethan smiles. Suddenly he's no longer feeling the cold. “Always.”
Another headshake from Giles, and then a shimmering curtain of power springs up around them, a soft and silky circle, like a razor-thin waterfall defying all laws of nature.
When Giles starts to chants the incantation, Ethan stifles a sigh. He could listen all night to Giles's singing voice, even if his accent leaves a lot to be desired.
“All hands brace for impact,” Ethan quips.
Nothing happens.
“Or not.” Ethan purses his lips.
Giles clears his throat, takes a deep breath, then tries again, carefully enunciating each Middle High German syllable. The effort etches a frown into his features.
This time the power drain on Ethan is more severe. He can feel his mouth go dry, and he suddenly feels twice as cold.
Nothing happens.
“Maybe the old b-boy needs a t-taste of something stronger,” Ethan chokes out, teeth chattering. Before Giles has a chance to stop him, he steps out of the circle, even though it means breaking their precious connection.
“Wakey, wakey!” One swift slash with the fake sword and blood is dripping from Ethan’s no longer glowing palm, creating a unique Rorschach pattern on the snow. Funny how his blood looks almost black in the moonlight.
A tremor travels through the thin soles of his shoes, almost like a tickle. The ground rumbles.
“S-sorcerer’s blood,” Ethan grins and gropes around for a handkerchief to staunch the blood flow. “Always works a treat.”
"You bloody fool!" Giles grabs him by the collar and yanks him backwards, back into the protective circle. Not a moment too soon.
Where Ethan’s blood touched the earth, the ground practically explodes. Pebbles, fist-sized stones and thick, soggy lumps of half-frozen earth and wet foliage are hurled into the air. A large slab of rock crashes against the energy barrier of Giles’s circle and ricochets away, chipping a noticeable chunk out of the trunk of a nearby tree.
In the midst of this shockwave, a towering, solid mass of earth and stone, vaguely shaped like an enormous bear, bursts from the ground, surrounded by pebbles and lumps of earth that should by rights follow gravity and scatter to the ground. Yet, the debris does not settle. Instead, it swirls and spins around the dark, solid creature in its center, like an asteroid belt gone mad.
The stench of rot and wet earth is overpowering.
Ethan is hit by a wave of nausea, only it is quickly overtaken by panic. The entity they have just woken isn’t just a plain old earth elemental. They’ve woken a ‘Galdrar’, an elemental lord. Infinitely more powerful, and apparently pretty pissed off.
Brilliant!
TBC