tarnished -- part three -- trekker |
Chapter Six | |
The Calm Before... |
Buffy's party was the last to return, not shuffling past the guards and up the entrace ramp until the sun was nearly down, but they did return, and with all members alive, so their first day in LA was causualty-less if not bloodless. Giles went off to join her and the other official-types and well into the night they huddled around in the light of a truck's headlamps discussing strategy, sketching maps and arguing.
Ethan wandered aimlessly, tried to read, watched the stars, and found that it was true that war did indeed seem to be 90% boredom. So far, the punctuatution with sheer terror hadn't happened yet...
At night, the city seemed even more foreboding, especially the red glow of fires off to the east.
When the meeting finally broke up, Giles gathered his team together, which included Ethan, Katie, Lisa and a handful of about seven other girls. In essence, the plan was to push into the city at dawn the next day. They would go on foot. Their goal was an old hotel somewhere downtown, which was apparently where the portal was. Once there, they'd have to determine what the portal was and hopefully how to seal it.
It sounded so simple.
***
Two days later, they'd hardly made any progress at all. They'd hit resistance after half a day's walk and like holiday traffic, it hadn't let up since. It wasn't anything the Slayers couldn't handle, but it was slow and tiring and that day they'd had their first death. The rest of the Slayers were quite and pale, which was appropriate, Ethan thought, given that they'd holed up for the night in a huge corporate building, in a large room filled with cubicles.
Giles hadn't bothered to try and secure them an office for the night, something about some of the others needing the quiet more than they did, so Ethan and he were settled now in a tiny room made of padded walls (another thing Ethan felt was very poetically apt, given he was beginning to suspect they were all crazy people), with the photos of someone else's smiling, not-too-attractive family pinned to the wall, and one of those sets of supposedly perpertual motion balls, that you set in motion by raising one and letting it swing into the others, thus knocking the last ball on the other side up, then down, to start the whole process over again.
It lost its novelty almost instantaneously.
Ethan leaned back in the office chair and turned his attention to the computer. The screen was dark, so Ethan reached for the power button. Yes, he knew it was futile, but this level of boredom called for desperate means. Sure enough, though, the computer failed to turn on. No power. The only light came from the flickering, dying emergancy lights, and the glow of Giles' flashlight, coming from behind Ethan where Giles sat on the floor paging through one of his far-too-heavy, highly-annoying-to-lug-about books. Around the room, the girls chatted softly amongst themselves, but otherwise, it was very quiet. A building like this ought to hum with electricity, with computers and climate control. The deep purr of modern day was missing.
He turned the chair around and tried to ignore the deep unease this quiet provoked.
For a while, he watched Giles work, sitting crosslegged on the floor, holding the flashlight over the book tucked in his lap,. The light caught on his glasses and he looked like a small boy, secretly reading after bedtime, except for the graveness of his expression.
"Discovering the secrets of the universe?" Ethan said, once the lack of attention focused on him became too much to bear.
"Hmm?" Giles said, not quite looking up from the book.
Ethan slid out of the chair to the floor and tugged the volume out of Giles' lap and out of the way. Giles gave him one of those looks over his glasses.
"You know," Ethan said, "This *is* actually a semi-private--"
"Ethan."
"Oh, come on."
"We are in a cubicle, Ethan. Not a-- no."
"Well, I *did* try to talk you into an office..."
Giles reached for his book again. Ethan leaned forward and caught his arm, stopping him in midmotion, and conveniently bringing most of their upper bodies in contact. Giles said his name again, but didn't move. Actually, he held carefully still. Ethan waited just long enough to be sure Giles wasn't going to suddenly pull away, then gripped Giles' captive wrist a little tighter and leaned in to nuzzle his neck, get a breath of his scent.
It hit him harder than he'd expected it would. The hint of smoke and sweat and Ripper sparked something old and primal, an array of half-remembrances of youth and freedom and love and sex. Giles breathed softly against his cheek and his hand slid up Ethan's back. Ethan smiled victory and burrowed in closer to get more of that enticing scent. Released his death grip on Rupert's wrist and ran his fingers up to Rupert's shoulder.
But he reveled in his own pleasure only a moment. Had Rupert's interest, but only precariously. Had to keep it. Kissed up Rupert's throat, teasing tongue over his veins, a pleasure point for him, maybe because of the taboo of it. Giles had well-established stubble, after a few days of not shaving. Felt good under Ethan's lips, against his cheek as Giles turned his face towards Ethan's, brushed their cheeks close together, breathed in soft puffs against Ethan's throat, moved his hand in a small circle against Ethan's back.
"We shouldn't be doing this," Giles murmured.
Which would have been more convincing if Giles wasn't pushing into his touch, and making that soft hum that meant he was enjoying himself.
"That's the fun of it," Ethan whispered.
Giles pulled back then, and Ethan worried for a moment that he'd driven him away. But he didn't go far. Only far enough to look into Ethan's eyes, actually. The flashlight had fallen between them, lighting them with a soft, ambient glow that caught on the edges of Giles dark, deep eyes. Ethan's heart fluttered, and there was still a part of him that wanted to pull away from this.
He shut his eyes instead, as Giles' hand touched his cheek.
"God, what you do to me," Giles whispered.
Warmth, and a hint of pain, pulsed through him, and his grip tightened on Giles' shoulder.
Still, when he tried to slide his hand up Giles' thigh, Giles caught it. Ethan opened his eyes to Giles' now wryly amused eyes.
"No," he said, good-naturedly, but sadly much more convincingly.
"Can't blame me for trying," Ethan said, lightly.
"No more than one could blame the wind for blowing," Giles agreed drily, then kissed him.
The next day, however, things got bad.
tarnished -- part three -- trekker |