FIC: Broken English - Part 5 - (Giles/Ethan) - R
Ethan-ficathon Masterlist
Here it is, the promised longer chapter. :-)
TITLE: Broken English Part 5
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
PREVIOUS PARTS: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Ethan jerks up his arms to shield his face. Hears the staccato of splintering timber, feels a small stab of pain as the bright spark of a nearby life force is snuffed out, and then...
Silence.
Broken English - Part 5
Giles wakes to a crushing weight on his chest and an overwhelming graveyard stench. He gropes around in the dark, until his fingers touch something: soft fabric. The satin lining of a coffin lid. Dear God! For a second, Giles is trapped in his worst, guilt-ridden nightmare: like Buffy he got buried alive, and now he’s forced to claw his way out of his own dank and moldy grave; or worse: he died in the crash and now he’s coming back wrong and hideous...
Then the realization sinks in: the limp fabric that’s smothering him is the deflated airbag. He’s still in the car. Still alive. But upside down.
The engine is dead, making tiny clicking sounds as it cools in the frigid air, but on the driver’s side the headlight is still working. Diffuse light spills into the car, enough to make out a few details.
Not a single straight line or smooth curve remains. Everything is crooked and jagged. Down is up and up is down, and there's something wrong with the proportions of the car. It seems smaller, more cramped. Like it shrank in the wash. A total write-off.
An icy chill crawls into the wreck.
The windshield is gone, exploded into small blunt shards, that twinkle all over the floor and in every nook and cranny. Through the deformed opening a dark mass of damp earth and rotting leaves has spilled into the car, with branches protruding in all directions. A few more inches and one of the jagged sticks would have stabbed him. At least now he knows where the stench of decay is coming from. Wet earth, that’s all. Nothing to worry about. Then why can’t he stop shaking?
When the car came to rest on its back, it left Giles slumped in an untidy heap: half braced against the former roof, half propped against the dented door. Legs still caught somewhere between seat-belt and steering wheel. A vague fear of internal injuries or possible damage to his spine keeps him from shifting to a more comfortable position.
Instead, Giles fumbles around for his glasses. Did he even wear them? He can’t remember.
He feels lightheaded. His heart is hammering like mad, and his hands are trembling. It’s ridiculous! For more than twenty years he’s fought all sorts of demons; he’s faced countless apocalypses without losing his nerve; got tortured by one of the most vicious vampires ever to walk the earth, without breaking. And now a bloody car accident sends him into shock?
Sod it!
Giles takes a deep breath. And another one. Takes control. Of his breathing, his erratic pulse, and the overpowering urge to get out of the wreck as fast as possible.
Control is the key to survival. Mind over matter. With the help of magic, it only takes a few seconds until his hands are steady. As the symptoms of shock recede, pain spreads through his body. His chest feels as though he got kicked by a horse. And his right leg is throbbing. He doesn’t fight it, yet. He needs the information the pain can provide.
Giles starts at the top: methodically turns his head, left and right, tries different angles. No pain. Just discomfort. He goes through the quick Xander routine: moves his arms, hands, fingers - all present and accounted for - his legs, feet...
He bites his lips as pain stabs through his right foot. The intensity of the pain leaves little room for doubt: his ankle is broken.
Bugger.
Fortunately, pain is something he has learnt to deal with, ever since Angelus boke his fingers, one by one. Mind over matter. Giles pushes the pain back until it heels. All that remains is a vague discomfort.
Why is his shirt soaking wet? Is that blood? Nothing so dramatic. Just coffee. Right. The coffee he didn’t drink. The coffee Ethan gave him.
Ethan!
The memory is like a slap in the face.
Giles twists and bends to look at the passenger seat, half expecting the old rogue to say: ‘I was wondering when you’d remember me.’
But Ethan is silent, a limp motionless shape with unsettling angles. More like a puppet entangled in its strings than like a breathing human being. It’s too dark to make out blood. Too dark to see if Ethan’s chest is rising and falling.
Giles looks away, stares at his hands. They’re shaking again. His chest feels like it is being crushed. Breathing has never been harder.
Maybe that's why Giles doesn't call out for help, when car doors are slammed shut within earshot, maybe thirty or forty meters away.
Voices ring through the night, voices that speak English...
“See, I told you it would work.” A male voice, young and eager. Speaking with an American accent.
“SILENCE, YOU WORM!” a second voice hisses. Clearly, the speaker’s tongue is not meant to utter human words. The sheer sound is enough to make Giles’s skin crawl, carrying images of wriggling worms and putrid flesh. “MAKE SURE HE’S DEAD.”
“Yes, Master,” the first speaker grovels.
“AND BRING ME THE BRIEFCASE.”
“Yes, Master.”
Frozen earth crunches softly as three pairs of feet approach.
Giles can’t remember ever feeling less in control.
TBC