tarnished -- part two -- trekker |
Chapter Seven | |
Relief |
Ethan had been trapped in China for nearly a week before he decided the power drain of teleportation was better than wrangling with the customs officials another day. The First had offered to give him the power to teleport out, but making deals with it at this point seemed unwise, and allowing it free reign to fill him with its own power seemed even more of a bad idea.
So, he'd teleported with his own power, which of course meant that he landed in an alley somewhere in the middle of London, and now he had a hell of a headache, a nosebleed, and was staggering around like a drunk, or possibly a diabetic having an attack of low blood sugar. In any case, he was glad he had not encountered any police between his alley and the hotel.
The strange look that the desk clerk gave him, he could handle.
He was used to getting odd looks from desk clerks.
Once he reached the room, he found it dark and quiet. Rupert was on the bed furthest from the door, fully clothed on top of the covers, but curled up with his back to the door and apparently asleep, lit only by the flicker of the TV that murmured quietly, urgently, about things the reporters desperately wanted you to care about.
Ethan switched the TV off, and frowned at the collection of liquor bottles gathered on top of the minibar. It was not comforting to know that all that stood between the world and the invading forces of evil was a passed-out drunk. Although, given that he still hadn't entirely made up his mind which side of this nonsense he intended to be on, perhaps this was a good thing.
He sat down on the bed beside Giles' and toed off his shoes, watching the other man breathe.
A year ago, he would have scoffed if someone suggested he would be here, now. The thought that he could be sitting peaceably with Ripper, halfway to fighting evil by his side, would have seemed ludicrous.
It would have seemed too good to be true if he were being honest, and sitting here in the dark, alone but for his sleeping companion, there seemed no reason to be dishonest. He'd missed Ripper. Ever since the man had left, more than twenty damn years ago, there had been a part of him that had never quite felt whole again. In his cynical moments, he liked to blame that on some of the more intense magics they'd worked together, but it was much less supernatural than that. He'd lost his best friend. In truth, he'd lost nearly his only friend, when Ripper became Giles again and left Ethan behind, like a child abandons his toys for other things, for grownup things.
And yet, here they were. Together again, in a very different way, but together. No longer Ethan and Ripper, now Ethan and Giles. He was useful to Giles, at the moment, anyway. Whether there was anything more to it, he wasn't at all sure. He didn't want it to matter, it seemed a weakness, caring.
Especially since a part of him, a less optimistic part, knew perfectly well that Giles didn't care. This was business, nothing more.
The First was right. Ethan was a pathetic fool. He was no better than a teenaged girl with a crush, hanging about the one he idolized. His animus, his ideal mate. But all he was to Giles was his shadow, his dark half. Perhaps, as Giles had often said, Ethan was merely a narcissist, in love with the reflection of himself he occasionally glimpsed in the old violence in Ripper's eyes.
But could that really explain why his heart beat faster just watching the man sleep? Or why, sometimes, he missed their younger days with a pang as sharp as a stitch in his side?
When they'd been young, they'd bandied about words like 'forever.' For Ethan, it had been the simple faith of youthful naivety. He hadn't seen beyond the next day, much less on to eternity. He'd never expected anything in the world to change. For Ripper, Ethan understood now, it had been semantics, it had been what one said to one's lovers. Once, Ethan had once found a spell that would bind them together and link their souls and their minds. Ripper had looked at him as though he were nuts and had laughed. Ripper hadn't meant to be cruel, Ethan knew, even at the time, he'd just never expected it to last.
Ironic now, to remember that Ethan had always believed that he himself was the worldly one.
Suddenly, he decided that he'd had quite enough quiet alone time to think.
"Giles," he said, raising his voice, but not moving from the bed.
Giles didn't respond, so he said his name again, louder.
This time, Giles shifted and mumbled.
"Get up, you lazy git," Ethan said, "We need to eat something, other than alcoholic beverages. And you owe me dinner."
"Piss off," Giles grumbled.
Nasty bastard. Ethan frowned, and wondered why, exactly, he actually did put up with this man. "Seeing as I'm paying for half of this room, no."
"You're not Ethan. Shut up."
Not--?
"I certainly am, and I'll shut up when and if I happen to feel like it."
Giles rolled over with apparent great effort and glared at him blearily. "You bloody well *killed* Ethan, and you have no right to, to--" Then he seemed to run out of energy, curled back up and muttered, again, "piss off."
Ah. It all made sense. Which was nice. Ethan liked it when things made sense. So much easier than the alternative. "Ah. So you've been talking to the Big Bad, too, then? I'm not it, actually." He kicked Giles' bed to prove his corporeality. "It said it killed me?"
That was quite possibly a very bad omen for his continued existence.
This time Giles rolled over quickly, and stared at him.
"You're alive?"
"For the moment," Ethan said, wondering how long that was going to last.
"But how-- I saw it. As you."
"So have I. What's your point?"
Giles sat up, slowly, still looking at him oddly. "I didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"The First... it can only take on the appearance of those who have died."
"Ah," Ethan said, as his mind flashed off briefly in shock. So, then, he really had-- Well, he'd suspected, but it was unsettling to have confirmation. He heard the hiss of Giles' jeans sliding across the hotel comforter, and the creak as Giles stood, but he didn't pay attention until he snapped out of his brief reverie and realized Giles was just standing, silently, in front of him.
Ethan looked up, intending to question him, but the odd, indecipherable look on Giles' face stopped him, and for a moment, they regarded each other wordlessly.
Then Giles lifted his hand and reached out, stopping about three inches from Ethan's cheek. For some reason, Ethan found he couldn't breathe as he waited the seemingly endless interval of time before Giles finally completed that gesture and cupped his hand lightly around Ethan's cheek.
Then Ethan let his breath out in a soft gust and found he still couldn't quite move as Giles' thumb swept gently across his cheekbone. The oddness of this struck him before the tenderness. Both mixed together and clenched his gut in a sensation both pleasurable and uncomfortable and he reached up, not quite sure what he was doing. His fingers ended up loosely looped around Giles' wrist and then stayed there, as he was torn by indecision over what he wanted to do with them. Hold him closer? Pull him away? Ethan honestly had no idea.
"I thought--" Giles said, and his voice was rough and broken. Then, with surprising grace, he folded down to his knees between Ethan's, his hand still pressed to Ethan's cheek. His hand slipped away, his arms resting now on Ethan's thighs. "It's destroying everything, Ethan."
Ethan was still trying to work out the significance of that statement as it might apply to him, when Giles turned his head and nuzzled his lips against the inseam of Ethan's jeans, at the knee. All thoughts of anything but that left on a rush of breath and Giles steadily worked inwards.
"Fuck," Ethan said, as Giles' lips outlined his hardening cock.
They hadn't touched each other since that last time, with the spell.
"Giles--"
Then Giles surged up, gripped his hair with both hands and hauled him down. Kissed him like a mountain lion mauling unsuspecting prey. Hard, painful pleasure that shocked Ethan's nervous system as strongly as the realization that he had died. But in a much, much better way. Though in some ways, no less unsettling.
It would have been better, no doubt, for them to both end up on the bed, but one of them over-balanced somewhere, and instead, they tumbled to the floor. If he'd hurt Giles in the fall, Giles certainly didn't show it. It didn't matter anyway, they were clawing at each other, kissing like they were trying to kill each other. Nothing mattered but the hot wet of Giles' mouth, the heavy, solid body beneath him.
Nothing mattered but the way Giles gasped Ethan's name when the kiss broke, and then they stared at each other, wide eyed and panting and this was the moment when Giles would curse and hit him and pretend it never happened.
But Ethan kept waiting and it didn't happen. Their breathing slowed and Giles' eyes went from wild to calm. Ethan's heart was hammering again. Something hurt, something not physical. He waited.
Giles hands moved. They began wandering up and down Ethan's back. Slow and calm as that quiet look in Giles' eyes. Gentle.
Ethan couldn't bring himself to ask what this was.
Then both hands were in his hair again, pulling his head down into a kiss far less violent. Light touches of lips along his own, gentle grip holding him in place, stopping him when he tried to deepen it, turning his face to the side just enough to let Giles' lips trace along the trimmed line of his goatee, tongue flicking out for just a moment to define a line.
*It's sex,* said a familiar voice in the back of Ethan's mind. *Relax and enjoy it.*
He tried to obey it. That voice had rarely steered him wrong, after all.
But sex, all of his proclivities aside, was not usually this painful.
He pulled away and sat up beside Giles. Giles blinked at him and his hand, as though a magnet to metal, found its way to Ethan's knee and rested there as though it belonged. To Ethan's discomfort, after a moment, Giles' fingers twitched in a small caress. This wasn't their usual style. Ethan liked their usual style. Rough and fast, or at least drugged and silly. This all seemed... unsettling.
***
It had been a long while since Giles had seen Ethan look genuinely unsettled. Long enough that seeing that look on him now made him look incredibly young, simply because the last time he'd seen the look, Ethan *had* been incredibly young.
And he wasn't dead. Giles was still marveling over Ethan not being dead. How the First had pulled that off was something he was obviously going to have to look into, but at the moment, all he wanted was to keep touching Ethan. With all the people he'd lost today, this year, he'd never expected to get one back. Still, he wouldn't have expected to feel like this. Grateful and relieved. Ethan had never looked quite so good.
And he was alive, which was what Giles kept coming back to.
He wanted to kiss him again. He wanted to feel those warm, familiar lips under his own, feel Ethan's clever tongue in his mouth and his long fingers on his back. That wasn't going to happen, though, as long as Ethan continued to hang back and look at him as though he'd finally completely lost his mind.
"I thought I'd lost you," he said, finally.
Ethan shifted a bit, notable, just enough for Giles' hand to lose contact with his knee, and he said, "Generally, I would have thought your reaction to that would be 'good riddance.'"
"You would have been wrong," Giles said. "I would have been wrong."
Ethan's brow tensed, but he said nothing. Giles let his hand down to the carpet beside Ethan's knee, not touching him. After a moment, he spoke again.
"When did you die?"
Ethan looked away as he said, "The Initiative, I suppose. I remember waking up at some point to someone saying they had a heartbeat. Very medical-drama."
Giles felt suddenly cold. He'd always, always assumed Ethan had escaped, most likely before he even hit the Nevada border. That had been the only reason he hadn't gone looking for him, after realizing what they'd done to Oz. No one human deserved their depravities.
His throat was dry as he said, "My god. I never thought--"
Ethan's face was now twisted in a familiar sneer. "Oh, relax. I was only at their tender mercies for three days. Managed to slip away when they were transferring me to somewhere in Texas."
Three days? Three days and he'd bloody well *died* at their hands? Giles sat up, an old anger stirred up again, that had been somewhere inside him ever since they'd rescued Oz... or possibly even since he'd seen what they'd done to Spike.
"What the hell did they--"
"Do you really care, Giles? You obviously didn't at the time."
He hadn't. But then, he hadn't known. He'd foolishly assumed that they'd make a distinction between human prisoners and demons. He should have known better.
"I didn't know," he said. "If I had--"
"You what? Would have mounted a dramatic rescue? Don't make me laugh, Giles. I know you. You would have called it justice and done nothing."
"That's not fair." Though it was, possibly, true.
Ethan stood and paced to the other end of the room, standing near the sinks outside the bathroom.
Giles stood and walked halfway to him, then stopped. Ethan, with his back turned, watched him in the mirror.
"I'm glad you're alive, Ethan," Giles said, because it seemed the only thing that could fix this was honesty. "And I'm grateful that you're here."
Ethan turned back towards him.
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. Just that."
Ethan was silent for a moment, standing in three-quarters profile against the mirror, his eyes distant, and pinched slightly. He looked good, although maybe that was still a result of lingering relief that he was alive, clouding Giles' judgment.
Finally, he said, "You still owe me dinner, you know."
And the ice, for the moment at least, seemed to be broken.
tarnished -- part two -- trekker |