FIC: Broken English - Part 3 (Giles/Ethan) - R (eventually)
My Ethan-ficathon story continues...
Masterlist: http://antennapedia.livejournal.com/275193.html?view=2076409#t2076409
TITLE: Broken English Part 3
PAIRING: Giles/Ethan
RATING: I'm aiming for a slashy R, but the characters might chicken out
SPOILERS: Set after 8x04 The Long Way Home (comics); set in Germany, btw
PROMPT: a vacation or roadtrip, magic, slash
WRITTEN FOR: spikendru
PREVIOUS PARTS: Part 1, Part 2
Many thanks to
jmchau for betaing this. Cheers!
Part 3
For a few minutes Ethan allows himself to be entranced by the snowflakes that drift from the night-time sky. It’s been a long time since he’s seen any. Quite likely they’re the last he’ll ever see.
They’re only water, albeit frozen around a core of dust, a heart of dirt, if you will. Little crystalline stars, some more symmetrical than others. Similar but not identical. Each shaped by its own individual history of atmospheric conditions. No two alike.
One of the more endearing qualities of snowflakes is the fact that it’s impossible to predict their exact path. Every gust of wind changes their route, hurls them upwards or sideways, to and fro. Chaos resplendent. It’s true, gravity always wins in the end, dragging them down, but until then they dance.
By the time the car’s headlights hit them, they are already at destiny’s mercy, fated to land on the sludge slick road or maybe on the windscreen, where the windscreen wipers will crush their fragile structure. Eventually, they will melt until nothing remains but a sheet of cold water on a pane of glass, their uniqueness lost forever.
Ethan swallows. His mouth feels dry. Fear, he diagnoses absently.
Time is running out and he hasn’t even touched on the big question. But the longer Rupert’s silence lasts, the more certain Ethan becomes that this roadtrip has been doomed from the start.
Some things cannot be mended.
There’s no way in hell that Rupert will vouch for him. Why should he? Not for old times’ sake, that much is certain. Whatever nostalgia and residual attraction Giles may have felt towards him, Ethan knows he pissed it away back in Sunnydale, when he dropped a little magic pellet into Rupert’s beer.
Why did it seem like a good idea at the time?
Because even after two decades, Ethan still couldn’t shake that tiny, niggling stab of disappointment every time he woke up next to his latest one-night-stand.
No one should have that much power over him and expect to go unpunished.
His neck tingles. Ethan turns away from the window. Rupert is staring at him. No heat flickers in his gaze. Not even hatred. It’s the kind of stare a Watcher gives his enemy: cold and calculating.
A cold, lonely puritan, that’s what Ripper has turned into.
Ethan dredges up a smile. What else can he do?
*
Giles used to love that smile, the mischievous curve of that wicked mouth. It used to make him hard. Once upon a time.
Actually, it still does. But now it also raises his hackles.
Ethan is up to something. But Ethan being Ethan he can’t just spill the beans. Oh no, it has to be the roundabout way, the scenic route....
“I met a bunch of bona fide spies once,” Ethan says, proving him right. “East Berlin, late Seventies. Straight out of a John Le Carré novel. MI6, wanted me to turn a KGB officer. For Queen and country.” His smile looks strained. “My finest hour.”
Before Giles can voice his disbelief, Ethan raises his hands. “It’s possible I was swayed by their offer to pay handsomely, but still, you could say I saved the world from communism.”
“Single-handedly, no doubt,” Giles mutters absently. He has no interest in Ethan’s fabrications. Besides, the traffic requires his attention.
“Of course.” Ethan affects a small bow. “And how fares the formidable Miss Summers? I trust our little dreamspace stroll gave her what she needed to defeat the dark witch and save her friend?”
Finally, here it comes. It sounds like a change of subject, but Giles senses that it isn’t. “Buffy is well, thank you.” He steps on the gas to overtake a coach full of celebrating football players. The BMW lurches forward with alacrity.
“Ah, I’m gratified to hear it.”
Giles listens for a false note. Detects none, but that doesn’t mean a thing. Ethan has always been an accomplished liar. He’ll never change his spots. His only reason for helping Buffy was his own gain. And now he’s here to name his price/cash in on his good deed.
Alright, Giles will hear Ethan out. Doesn’t mean he’ll make it easy for him.
“Well?” Ethan prompts.
“Well, what?” Giles stays in the left lane. Overtakes an Audi Quattro. The speedometer passes 160.
Maybe it’s true: the faster you move, the more your higher brain functions shut down and hand over the reins to older, more primitive lobes where reflexes are sharp because good or evil and right or wrong don’t matter.
Giles knows he should slow down, after all the road is slippery and visibility is getting poorer by the minute, but all he can think is that he wants to go faster and faster...
“Come now, Ripper, aren’t you going to ask me why I’m not dead? How I cheated death?”
“Actually, no. But since you’re obviously dying to tell me...” Giles keeps his eyes on the road. Overtakes a black Mercedes with a CD sticker. Watches the car’s headlights disappear in the rearview mirror. “So tell me, Ethan, how did you cheat death?”
“I didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Faster.
“I didn’t. Cheat. Death.” The words come out like pistol shots. “Your Slayer was too late. I took a bullet to the head. I died Rupert.”
Giles would have sworn that his hands are rock-steady, but with a violent swerve the BMW proves him wrong.
TBC
Masterlist: http://antennapedia.livejournal.com/275193.html?view=2076409#t2076409
TITLE: Broken English Part 3
PAIRING: Giles/Ethan
RATING: I'm aiming for a slashy R, but the characters might chicken out
SPOILERS: Set after 8x04 The Long Way Home (comics); set in Germany, btw
PROMPT: a vacation or roadtrip, magic, slash
WRITTEN FOR: spikendru
PREVIOUS PARTS: Part 1, Part 2
Many thanks to
jmchau for betaing this. Cheers!
Part 3
For a few minutes Ethan allows himself to be entranced by the snowflakes that drift from the night-time sky. It’s been a long time since he’s seen any. Quite likely they’re the last he’ll ever see.
They’re only water, albeit frozen around a core of dust, a heart of dirt, if you will. Little crystalline stars, some more symmetrical than others. Similar but not identical. Each shaped by its own individual history of atmospheric conditions. No two alike.
One of the more endearing qualities of snowflakes is the fact that it’s impossible to predict their exact path. Every gust of wind changes their route, hurls them upwards or sideways, to and fro. Chaos resplendent. It’s true, gravity always wins in the end, dragging them down, but until then they dance.
By the time the car’s headlights hit them, they are already at destiny’s mercy, fated to land on the sludge slick road or maybe on the windscreen, where the windscreen wipers will crush their fragile structure. Eventually, they will melt until nothing remains but a sheet of cold water on a pane of glass, their uniqueness lost forever.
Ethan swallows. His mouth feels dry. Fear, he diagnoses absently.
Time is running out and he hasn’t even touched on the big question. But the longer Rupert’s silence lasts, the more certain Ethan becomes that this roadtrip has been doomed from the start.
Some things cannot be mended.
There’s no way in hell that Rupert will vouch for him. Why should he? Not for old times’ sake, that much is certain. Whatever nostalgia and residual attraction Giles may have felt towards him, Ethan knows he pissed it away back in Sunnydale, when he dropped a little magic pellet into Rupert’s beer.
Why did it seem like a good idea at the time?
Because even after two decades, Ethan still couldn’t shake that tiny, niggling stab of disappointment every time he woke up next to his latest one-night-stand.
No one should have that much power over him and expect to go unpunished.
His neck tingles. Ethan turns away from the window. Rupert is staring at him. No heat flickers in his gaze. Not even hatred. It’s the kind of stare a Watcher gives his enemy: cold and calculating.
A cold, lonely puritan, that’s what Ripper has turned into.
Ethan dredges up a smile. What else can he do?
*
Giles used to love that smile, the mischievous curve of that wicked mouth. It used to make him hard. Once upon a time.
Actually, it still does. But now it also raises his hackles.
Ethan is up to something. But Ethan being Ethan he can’t just spill the beans. Oh no, it has to be the roundabout way, the scenic route....
“I met a bunch of bona fide spies once,” Ethan says, proving him right. “East Berlin, late Seventies. Straight out of a John Le Carré novel. MI6, wanted me to turn a KGB officer. For Queen and country.” His smile looks strained. “My finest hour.”
Before Giles can voice his disbelief, Ethan raises his hands. “It’s possible I was swayed by their offer to pay handsomely, but still, you could say I saved the world from communism.”
“Single-handedly, no doubt,” Giles mutters absently. He has no interest in Ethan’s fabrications. Besides, the traffic requires his attention.
“Of course.” Ethan affects a small bow. “And how fares the formidable Miss Summers? I trust our little dreamspace stroll gave her what she needed to defeat the dark witch and save her friend?”
Finally, here it comes. It sounds like a change of subject, but Giles senses that it isn’t. “Buffy is well, thank you.” He steps on the gas to overtake a coach full of celebrating football players. The BMW lurches forward with alacrity.
“Ah, I’m gratified to hear it.”
Giles listens for a false note. Detects none, but that doesn’t mean a thing. Ethan has always been an accomplished liar. He’ll never change his spots. His only reason for helping Buffy was his own gain. And now he’s here to name his price/cash in on his good deed.
Alright, Giles will hear Ethan out. Doesn’t mean he’ll make it easy for him.
“Well?” Ethan prompts.
“Well, what?” Giles stays in the left lane. Overtakes an Audi Quattro. The speedometer passes 160.
Maybe it’s true: the faster you move, the more your higher brain functions shut down and hand over the reins to older, more primitive lobes where reflexes are sharp because good or evil and right or wrong don’t matter.
Giles knows he should slow down, after all the road is slippery and visibility is getting poorer by the minute, but all he can think is that he wants to go faster and faster...
“Come now, Ripper, aren’t you going to ask me why I’m not dead? How I cheated death?”
“Actually, no. But since you’re obviously dying to tell me...” Giles keeps his eyes on the road. Overtakes a black Mercedes with a CD sticker. Watches the car’s headlights disappear in the rearview mirror. “So tell me, Ethan, how did you cheat death?”
“I didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Faster.
“I didn’t. Cheat. Death.” The words come out like pistol shots. “Your Slayer was too late. I took a bullet to the head. I died Rupert.”
Giles would have sworn that his hands are rock-steady, but with a violent swerve the BMW proves him wrong.
TBC