FIC: Broken English - Part 2 (Giles/Ethan) - aiming for R
Resigned, Giles puts the car into gear, and steps on the gas. Like a horse eager to race, the BMW lurches forward. Within seconds, they are on the motorway, heading east.
“Fasten your seat belt.”
“As you wish,” Ethan purrs.
Smug bastard!
*
For the next two minutes, neither of them speaks.
Giles keeps his eyes peeled, flicking between the road and the rear-view mirror, pretending that driving safely on the wrong side of the road requires his complete concentration.
A November chill seems to have crept into the car. Looking for a way to turn up the heating, Giles fiddles with the buttons in the BMW’s cockpit. He hates these modern cars. The sheer number of buttons and dials is quite intimidating. Of course, he hits the wrong button.
“...You just keep on pushing my looove over the boooorderliiiine...”
Giles hits it again, cutting Madonna off in mid-song. Stupid rentals. He misses his old Citroen, the one Spike trashed.
He can feel Ethan’s eyes on him, his scrutiny, his quizzical smile. It makes him self-conscious, uncomfortably aware of the weight he put on during his last trip to Rome, the grey in his hair, and the lines that the years have dug into his face.
It also makes him aware that, no matter how many years have passed since they last fucked each other, no matter how much Giles despises Janus and everything he stands for, his body still thrums in Ethan’s presence, like a time bomb steadily ticking the seconds and minutes away until its inevitable destruction.
Of course, Ethan must never know. He’ll only use it for leverage.
Giles shoots a glance at his unpredictable passenger. It’s too dark to make out many details, but it’s clear that the wily old sorcerer has seen some wear and tear. He is thinner than Giles remembers him. The lines around his mouth and eyes cut deeper now, and Ethan’s hair and beard shimmer in a strange mixture of black and silver, giving the old trickster an undeservedly distinguished look.
It’s not fair. A man of Ethan’s dissolute lifestyle should at least have the decency to look debauched, with sagging skin and tell-tale red veins. Instead, Ethan’s ash-grey three-piece suit makes him look like a high-ranking civil servant. Or like a marriage swindler of the first water...
It makes Giles wonder what kind of deal Ethan has struck.
“Coffee?” Ethan breaks the silence, raising his little tray.
“I’m afraid I have to decline. My tolerance for surprises is not what it used to be.”
“Beware of Janus worshippers bearing gifts?” Ethan manages to look offended. “My, my, you really do bear a grudge, my friend.” He makes a great show of drinking from both cups, then offers the tray again. His hand, Giles notices, is rock steady.
With a sigh, Giles picks one cup at random and slips it into his cup holder.
Ethan shrugs, and sips his hot beverage, savouring it as though he were sampling an exclusive wine. “German tea is frightful,” he smalltalks, “but the coffee’s good.”
Giles gives no answer. He’s a man at war, on his way to buy a grimoire that may well make a great deal of difference in the conflict Buffy and her Slayers are facing. He has no stomach for idle chit-chat.
A whole battalion of questions parades through his head: How did Ethan escape? Why did he choose to reappear when playing dead offered anonymity and safety? What does he want? How did he know Giles’s itinerary? And most of all: What’s Ethan’s role in the upcoming conflict?
“Hard to believe that there used to be a border here, isn’t it,” Ethan remarks, as they pass the small town ofHelmstedt.
It’s true. There are no barbed wire fences, no guard towers. No sign of the Iron Curtain that used to cut the mundane world in half. The “Todesstreifen”, the no man’s land between the two Germanys, is gone. There’s probably a lesson in this, somewhere, but Giles maintains his stony silence. In the cup holder, his coffee cools, untouched.
It’s Sunday night. Not a lot of traffic at this time of night. Lorries and trucks are banned from the motorways until 10pm. The largest vehicles Giles overtakes are cars with Polish license plates, dragging trailers loaded with even more dented and battered vehicles eastwards, where labour costs are low enough to make a repair profitable.
“You could go faster, you know,” Ethan remarks as he languidly gazes out of the window. “There’s no speed limit. Not anymore. But I remember taking the transit route to Berlin in the Eighties. 100 kmh all the way, the motorway dotted with all those candy colored two-stroke cars, and every few kilometres police cars would lurk in the bushes. If you exceeded 100, even a little, the VoPos fined you faster than you could say ‘fuck Lenin’. Westmarks, of course...”
“Is there any point to this?” Giles snaps.
When Ethan slowly turns his head to regard thim, Giles realizes that there is, indeed, a point to Ethan’s chit-chat. Has to be. Ethan is sending him coded messages. Only he seems to be using a different morse code than Giles, because for the life of him, Giles can’t figure it out. Not without some kind of ENIGMA-machine...
The question is, does he really want to know?
Outside, the first few snow-flakes dance in the BMW’s headlights.
TBC
“Fasten your seat belt.”
“As you wish,” Ethan purrs.
Smug bastard!
*
For the next two minutes, neither of them speaks.
Giles keeps his eyes peeled, flicking between the road and the rear-view mirror, pretending that driving safely on the wrong side of the road requires his complete concentration.
A November chill seems to have crept into the car. Looking for a way to turn up the heating, Giles fiddles with the buttons in the BMW’s cockpit. He hates these modern cars. The sheer number of buttons and dials is quite intimidating. Of course, he hits the wrong button.
“...You just keep on pushing my looove over the boooorderliiiine...”
Giles hits it again, cutting Madonna off in mid-song. Stupid rentals. He misses his old Citroen, the one Spike trashed.
He can feel Ethan’s eyes on him, his scrutiny, his quizzical smile. It makes him self-conscious, uncomfortably aware of the weight he put on during his last trip to Rome, the grey in his hair, and the lines that the years have dug into his face.
It also makes him aware that, no matter how many years have passed since they last fucked each other, no matter how much Giles despises Janus and everything he stands for, his body still thrums in Ethan’s presence, like a time bomb steadily ticking the seconds and minutes away until its inevitable destruction.
Of course, Ethan must never know. He’ll only use it for leverage.
Giles shoots a glance at his unpredictable passenger. It’s too dark to make out many details, but it’s clear that the wily old sorcerer has seen some wear and tear. He is thinner than Giles remembers him. The lines around his mouth and eyes cut deeper now, and Ethan’s hair and beard shimmer in a strange mixture of black and silver, giving the old trickster an undeservedly distinguished look.
It’s not fair. A man of Ethan’s dissolute lifestyle should at least have the decency to look debauched, with sagging skin and tell-tale red veins. Instead, Ethan’s ash-grey three-piece suit makes him look like a high-ranking civil servant. Or like a marriage swindler of the first water...
It makes Giles wonder what kind of deal Ethan has struck.
“Coffee?” Ethan breaks the silence, raising his little tray.
“I’m afraid I have to decline. My tolerance for surprises is not what it used to be.”
“Beware of Janus worshippers bearing gifts?” Ethan manages to look offended. “My, my, you really do bear a grudge, my friend.” He makes a great show of drinking from both cups, then offers the tray again. His hand, Giles notices, is rock steady.
With a sigh, Giles picks one cup at random and slips it into his cup holder.
Ethan shrugs, and sips his hot beverage, savouring it as though he were sampling an exclusive wine. “German tea is frightful,” he smalltalks, “but the coffee’s good.”
Giles gives no answer. He’s a man at war, on his way to buy a grimoire that may well make a great deal of difference in the conflict Buffy and her Slayers are facing. He has no stomach for idle chit-chat.
A whole battalion of questions parades through his head: How did Ethan escape? Why did he choose to reappear when playing dead offered anonymity and safety? What does he want? How did he know Giles’s itinerary? And most of all: What’s Ethan’s role in the upcoming conflict?
“Hard to believe that there used to be a border here, isn’t it,” Ethan remarks, as they pass the small town ofHelmstedt.
It’s true. There are no barbed wire fences, no guard towers. No sign of the Iron Curtain that used to cut the mundane world in half. The “Todesstreifen”, the no man’s land between the two Germanys, is gone. There’s probably a lesson in this, somewhere, but Giles maintains his stony silence. In the cup holder, his coffee cools, untouched.
It’s Sunday night. Not a lot of traffic at this time of night. Lorries and trucks are banned from the motorways until 10pm. The largest vehicles Giles overtakes are cars with Polish license plates, dragging trailers loaded with even more dented and battered vehicles eastwards, where labour costs are low enough to make a repair profitable.
“You could go faster, you know,” Ethan remarks as he languidly gazes out of the window. “There’s no speed limit. Not anymore. But I remember taking the transit route to Berlin in the Eighties. 100 kmh all the way, the motorway dotted with all those candy colored two-stroke cars, and every few kilometres police cars would lurk in the bushes. If you exceeded 100, even a little, the VoPos fined you faster than you could say ‘fuck Lenin’. Westmarks, of course...”
“Is there any point to this?” Giles snaps.
When Ethan slowly turns his head to regard thim, Giles realizes that there is, indeed, a point to Ethan’s chit-chat. Has to be. Ethan is sending him coded messages. Only he seems to be using a different morse code than Giles, because for the life of him, Giles can’t figure it out. Not without some kind of ENIGMA-machine...
The question is, does he really want to know?
Outside, the first few snow-flakes dance in the BMW’s headlights.
TBC