Rating: NC-17
Warnings: voyeurism
Author: Trekker
Pairing: Ripper/Joyce, Ethan
Fandom: Buffy
Awards: Runner-Up for Best PWP at the Wanton Folly Awards
Sure enough--after Trick had released him and paid him--Ethan found Ripper in the backyard of the Summers' house. Ethan ducked into the shadow of the fence and watched Ripper leaning back against a tree, one foot propped up on the trunk, his eyes fixed on the one lighted window, desultorily smoking a cigarette. Ethan leaned back against the rough wood of the fence. He had no intention of being caught by Ripper. Not tonight, not in this state. Ripper wasn't the man he'd known, he was a distorted reflection of that man, warped through Giles' memories and regrets. He was the youth Giles believed he had been, and therefore more dangerous and a great deal less bright than the man Ethan had known. So instead of approaching him, Ethan watched from the shadows.
After a moment, there was movement at the window. Ethan saw Ripper's eyes widen a tad and his brow rise in something like shock. Then, quickly, his expression changed to something more... intrigued. Ethan glanced up at the window and bit back a bark of laughter. Buffy peered out into the night in nothing more than a skimpy brassier. Ethan looked back to Ripper, who was squinting up at the view, no doubt regretting his vain decision to ditch his glasses for the night.
*Oh, Ripper,* Ethan thought, gleefully, *My, how you're going to regret that in the morning.*
Sometimes, Ethan was so brilliant he astounded himself.
Then Buffy shut her window with a thump and pulled the blinds. A moment later, her room went dark. Ethan pressed himself a bit closer to the sheltering darkness of the fence, watching as Ripper hopped away from the tree and bounced on the balls of his feet. All that energy. Ethan remembered *that* perfectly well. Not much could slow Ripper down, not even a long night of dancing, fighting, and general mayhem. Obnoxious though it could be, at times, it had always been quite nice in bed... those memories made Ethan regret the untouchableness of this version of Ripper.
Ah well, if he couldn't be with Ripper himself, there was always the next best thing...
Ripper stooped swiftly and scooped something up off the lawn, then headed in Ethan's direction with a rolling, light gait, grinning broadly. He paused now and then to pluck something else off the ground. Only a few feet away from Ethan, he stopped and stationed himself under the window at the end of the house. His right hand was weighted with the things he'd picked up on the way around. He took one in his right hand, bounced the small shape lightly on his palm, then hauled back and tossed it up at the dark window a story above him.
Two more stones thrown, and then the light went on and Ripper's girl--woman, the Slayer's mother--appeared at the window. She was still dressed. Ethan suspected this little subterfuge had been plotted from the start. He chuckled silently over the beautiful irony of a mother sneaking out past her teenaged daughter. Ripper grinned and bounced again. The woman--Joyce, if he wasn't mistaken--glanced over her shoulder, towards the Slayer's room. When she looked back, Ripper beckoned with a wave of his hand. She smiled a smile wicked enough to rival Ethan's own, then vanished from the window. A moment later, her light went off. Ripper turned and trotted around the end of the house and headed towards the front. Ethan waited. Then, when Ripper vanished around the corner, he followed him quietly. He parked himself near the neighbors' bushes as Ripper stopped and waited near the porch. A minute after that, Joyce slipped out the front door and closed it quietly behind her.
She scurried straight to Ripper, who scooped her under his arm and tugged them both towards the sidewalk. Joyce giggled.
"You think she'll catch us?" she said, as they swept past Ethan. She threw a quick, nervous glance over her shoulder back at the house.
"No way," Ripper said, in a voice that indicated he really didn't care.
Ethan let them get a ten meter head start then trailed behind them. He caught only snatches of Joyce's chatter and Ripper's one or two syllable replies. He didn't mind. He wasn't there for the conversation, he was there for the moment Ripper's quick gaze finally settled on a small, shadowy bench in the park they had wandered to. Perfect. Perfect for all of them, actually, as it meant there were plenty of dark trees around for Ethan to disappear amongst as Ripper steered Joyce towards the bench and sat them both down.
"Huh," Ethan heard her say, with a hint of nerves in her voice, "Dark here."
She looked around at the shadowy path, the burnt-out lamppost, the handful of stars that peeked through the interstices in the dark leaves above them.
"'S Private," Ripper purred. It wasn't directed at him, but it still caused a small shiver to run down Ethan's back. He murmured a small charm to increase his night vision and a moment later he could clearly see the way Ripper stroked her hair with the arm he had wrapped around her back and the way he turned towards her, leaning in just a bit, his eyes boring into hers. Even as Ethan's breath quickened a bit, he found it interesting what a smooth bastard Giles apparently believed he had been at that age.
Historically accurate or not, Joyce clearly thought he was one now. Ethan leaned in a bit to watch her eyes droop to half-lidded, watch her slim fingers spread out across Ripper's side. He exhaled softly as they kissed and her eyes drifted shut and her hand slid up to curl around Ripper's shoulder. God, Ripper still knew how to pick them.
And he knew what to do with them once he had them, too. As they kissed, his hand dropped down to her knee. Now it began to slide up and in. The very tips of his fingers disappeared into the deep shadow of her short skirt. Her hand curled to a loose fist against his back. His T-shirt, slightly damp for reasons unknown to Ethan, clung sharply to the musculature he'd apparently never lost. Joyce's other hand appeared from around his far side and moved up a bit, curled around those muscles. Ethan, for a moment, ached to be that hand.
He reached out and laid his own hand against the trunk of the tree, grounding himself in the rough bark.
They continued to kiss. Ethan could hear them, faintly, from across the path. Their mouths met and parted with wet clicks and Joyce made a soft mewling sound as Ripper's hand slipped a bit deeper into the shadow and splayed around the inside of her thigh. Slipped deeper still. Moved. Ethan's eyes felt suddenly dry, but he couldn't blink.
"Oh," Joyce said. A real word, sharp and abrupt next to the soft passion noises.
"Yeah, that's it," Ripper said. His arm shifted and kept moving, rhythmically and obscenely. Sense memories surged up Ethan's spine, of that hand and what it had done to him, to his cock, to his arse. Ethan shuddered, bit his lip to keep quiet, and pressed his own hand--a poor substitute--over his cock through his slacks, grinding the ball of his palm slowly against his shaft. Finally, he managed to pull his gaze up and he found Joyce had rolled her head back. Ripper had taken advantage and leaned in, licking and biting her throat. God, she really was incredible. He'd thought he'd only be in it for Ripper, but this woman--
Her hand had fallen away from Ripper's side and gripped the edge of the wooden bench, knuckles white with the strain. She rolled her hips up into Ripper's ministrations.
"Oh, god, Ripper, I'm--"
"Yeah," Ripper said, "Yeah. Come on, love." His voice rumbled with the adopted street accent. His hand worked her, urged her on.
*Yes, darling,* Ethan thought, his own hand moving, though he tried to restrain himself from quite matching Ripper's pace, *Come for us. Let us hear you.*
He'd created this Ripper. He'd created this Joyce. They were his and his hand was in all of this, no matter how far away he stood, no matter that he would never touch them. So when Joyce came--her cry echoing in the darkness, her hips rocking up into Ripper's hand, her body going limp and tense all over at once--that was him. His doing.
He had to grip himself hard to keep from following her over. Wouldn't want to miss the next part, after all. The part where Ripper did what he was doing now, leaning over her saying, "Gonna fuck you."
Where she said, "Yes, Ripper, yes..."
Ethan took advantage of the rustling of their clothing as they moved around to unzip his fly and pull his cock out. Cool night air and his own hot hand curled around his flesh. He never took his eyes off the pair over on the bench, as Ripper murmured to his partner, coaxed her to stand and bend over, bracing herself against the back of the bench.
"Good girl," Ripper said, standing behind her, reaching around her, running rough hands over her breasts. She moaned and pushed back against him and it forced a small, matching groan out of Ethan. So needy. So wanton. God, he wanted to fuck her almost as much as he wanted to be her. Ripper's rough hands rushed down and pushed her coat aside, then found the hem of her skirt and rucked it up around her waist. Ethan strained forward, trying to get a glimpse, but Ripper's body blocked the view.
"Fuck," Ripper growled, "You've got the most perfect arse."
"Oh, yeah?" Joyce said, breathless. He had one hand between them, again, on her, or probably in her.
"Yeah." He swatted it with his free hand. Snap of flesh on flesh. Ethan jumped when Joyce did.
"Ooo," she said, and wriggled.
"Like that, eh?"
"Maybe I did," she said, looking over her shoulder, "Better try again and see."
Ethan thought he could possibly fall in love with that grin.
Ripper slapped her again. Once, then twice more, quickly. Ethan didn't realize he'd been biting his lip until he tasted blood, too wrapped up in Joyce's hard, harsh breaths.
"I wanna fuck it," Ripper said.
When she didn't answer, Ripper said, "Yeah?" His hand was still moving inside her.
She nodded frantically. "Oh, god. Oh-- Ok."
Oh, bloody hell. Ethan yanked his free hand away from the tree and bit down on it to stop the groan. His hand tightened almost subconsciously on his own prick and he realized he'd been so distracted by the tableau before him he'd been neglecting himself. He pulled himself: one slow, tight stroke. Felt so good it made him dizzy. A hot drizzle of precome leaked down over his knuckles.
"Christ, you're tight," Ripper groaned, and that arm movement just had to be him sliding his fingers into her arse.
"Oh, that's-- that's-- don't stop--"
"Wouldn't dream of it, darlin'," Ripper murmured, finger-fucking her slowly. Ethan's teeth sank a little deeper into his hand and he jacked himself, slowly. So carefully slowly. Any faster and this would bloody well be over.
"Ready for more?" Ripper asked.
"Oh, god," she said again. "I mean, yes, yesyesyes. Please, Ripper."
Ethan held his breath, staring at Ripper's back as though he could suddenly develop X-ray vision and see Ripper grabbing his own prick, guiding it into her wet quim. Really, he could only see Ripper's back muscles tense, see his hips shove forward; could only hear her gasp and hear Ripper groan.
She said, "I thought--"
Ripper cut her off, "Just getting myself ready for you, love. Good and slick."
She moaned again, as his hips pulled back. Ethan could hear the wet sound of Ripper sliding out of her. His own cock was wet, slippery with his own precome. His hand raced over it easily, more quickly now. His heart pounded.
Then her head dropped back and she cried out. Her back arched.
"Oh, fuck," Ripper grated, "Oh, fuck, Joyce. God, yes."
She said his name, said 'Ripper,' said it over and over, a quiet litany of want. Ethan knew it was want, by the way she pushed back, by the speed of her breath, by the death-grip of her hands on the bench. Ripper reached around her, as he pushed in deep, and Ethan heard the moment he found her clit in the way her litany broke, shattered, faded away to nothing but sharp, sobbing breaths. Then Ripper fucked her, really fucked her, starting slow but speeding up fast. She never once said stop, never once said anything but 'More, harder, yes.'
Ethan finished well before either of them, coming in a frantic rush, his hand working himself fast and hard. His bicuspid broke his skin as he came but, thank the gods, he didn't make a sound. He just spilled his seed on the ground of this anonymous park in this evil town, watching his old lover bugger a beautiful woman. He leaned heavily against his tree for a time, trying to catch his breath, trying to do it quietly. Didn't matter, really, though. They wouldn't have heard a freight train, not with the way they were going at it now.
He would have loved to stay to watch them finish. He would have liked to track Joyce down the next day or maybe the next week, see just how much of this persona was truth and how much was a lie. He knew he couldn't. Not now. Maybe someday, when this Ripper was well and truly gone, when this night was behind all of them.
For now, he spared them one last lingering glance, tucked himself away and zipped his trousers, then slipped away into the safety of the dark.
The End