FIC: Broken English - Part 6 - (Giles/Ethan) - R
Ethan-ficathon Masterlist
After a long wait, here it is, the next part. Expect the next update on Friday or Saturday.
TITLE: Broken English Part 6
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, Part 5
“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 under approaching feet.
Giles can’t remember ever feeling less in control.
Part 6
Who are these people? And what do they want, besides seeing one - or both - of them dead?
It’s probably grossly unfair, because Giles helped avert many evil plots that didn’t involve Ethan, but all his instincts insist that this entire mess is Ethan’s fault. Has to be. Occupational hazard. With a chaos mage’s propensity for stirring up trouble, Ethan must be accumulating enemies like other people collect beer mats or Mesopotamian fertility symbols.
But there’s no point in looking at Ethan for answers. Ethan, who still hasn’t moved. Who hasn’t made a sound. Damn him! Giles stifles the urge to shake his erstwhile friend until his teeth rattle.
Giles knows he has only a few seconds, until the demon’s henchmen search the car and find him still alive. Even without a broken ankle, he’d never make it out of the wreck in time. And even if he could, Ethan still owes him some answers...
Given time and a lit candle to induce a deeper trance, a practiced sorcerer can easily slow down his pulse to a single beat per minute. He can control his breathing so that a mirror placed on his lips won’t mist over. He can even ignore pinpricks without flinching.
Giles has no candle, and very little time, but his heartbeat is already under his control: the same control that allowed him to push the pain into the background. All he has to do is go ... a little bit... deeper...
Da-dum, his heart beats. Pauses. Again: Da-dum. Pauses.
When the bright glare of a flashlight darts through the wreck and comes to rest on his face, Giles does not even bat an eyelid. He does not flinch when a warm, sweaty hand grabs his wrist. Fingertips flutter over his skin, nervous and unskilled. They rest briefly on the hollow between tendons and bone, where the pulse should be, then touch Giles’s throat, to double-check, before they quickly pull back.
"No pulse," the voice with the American accent pronounces. A Californian accent, if Giles is not mistaken.
Da-dum.
“Damn! I think I just ruined my shoes,” a third voice speaks up. Female. Also American. East coast. Educated. “Try the oculocephalic reflex.”
“Huh?”
An exasperated sigh. “Shake his head. Quickly. See if his pupils move.”
Giles is ready for the doll’s head treatment, but it seems the young man is reluctant to touch him again. Instead, he aims his flashlight directly at Giles’s eyes. A white glare stabs into Giles’s brain, blotting out the image of Ethan’s dark, motionless form.
Giles drifts down another layer. Deeper into the trance, where voices sound hollow and strangely distorted, as though travelling through a long dark tunnel...
Snowflakes drift into the wreck. Some land on his skin. Gentle specks of coldness. Soothing...
“Nope. No ocu-whatsit reflex. Dead as a dodo.”
“I AM GROWING TIRED OF YOUR DAWDLING!” Judging by the dircection of the voice, its obscene owner must be standing right next to the women.
The young man jerks back, banging his head in his haste. “I-I’m sorry, Master. Forgive me.” Naked terror taints his voice.
In Giles’s chest, his heart beats. Da-dum. Just once.
“FIND THE BRIEFCASE.”
“Step aside, Michael.” The female sounds almost bored. She snaps her fingers and issues a command. Power lies in her words. Magic.
The wreck shudders. Metal creaks and groans as though to protest. The sounds are strangely distorted, but it’s not difficult to guess what is happening. The lid of the trunk is torn from its hinges and hurled away like a jagged, dented frisbee. Sounds of hammering follow, as the upside-down trunk is patted down for a secret storage place.
“Well? Come on, I’m freezing my butt off.”
“It’s not in the trunk.”
The voices, too, sound faint, drawn out. Like a record played at half speed. Giles realizes he’s still sinking. With these deep trances there’s always the danger that the sorcerer’s mind is cast adrift and that the thin silver cord that ties his mind to his body will fray and eventually snap, leaving his body an empty, mindless husk.
He tries to fight it. Tries to concentrate and hold on to the sounds. To use them as a lifeline.
Giles hears the woman rummage around in her purse. “Check the backseat. And Michael? Hurry up! Don’t keep the Master waiting.” A moment later a cigarette lighter’s metallic chink-chink and a greedy intake of breath indicate that she’s found what she was looking for.
Da-dum.
Another heartbeat. And a slow steady intake of breath. As air is softly drawn into every recess of his lungs, a potpourri of molecules travels through Giles’s nose and translates into a pastiche of distinctive smells: damp leaves, spilled coffee, blood, the young man’s cold sweat, cigarette smoke, the woman’s expensive, slightly peppery perfume, and the sharp tang of sulphur.
Meanwhile, a hand reaches through the trashed backseat window into the car and gropes around among the glass shards and Giles’s overnight bag.
In the distance, several cars pass the crash site, without stopping. A glamour, cast by the demon? Indifference?
“Got it!”
The briefcase is yanked through the window. 100.000 Euros in cash, and a loaded gun. Gone.
“About time. Give me the case. I’ll open it in the car.”
Da-dum.
Luckily, this isn't one of those frightful American movies where cars explode at the drop of a hat. As soon as the the demon and its followers are gone, Giles will dig out his new cell phone, the one Andrew insisted on, and call 112.
“Oh, and, Michael?” A half-smoked cigarette is flicked into Giles’s field of vision. It lands on his legs and slowly starts to smolder its way through the wool of his suit.
“Yes?”
“Torch the car.”
TBC