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doyleTitle: Something Wicked This Way Comes
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Ethan/Jenny
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wisdomeagle for the Ethan ficathon; request was for a love triangle, tea with milk and seduction.
Summary: It’s charmingly domestic. He can’t remember the last time someone made him tea after he almost got them killed. Wishverse.
It’s almost the stereotype, almost the small town Americana he’s pieced together in his head from years of TV and films; tidy lawns, those cylindrical mailboxes on poles, nice cars that no doubt guzzle far too much fuel and pump out more than their share of pollution. You could spend a day walking around this town, he thinks, and if you stayed away from the streets around the Master’s club, if you didn’t venture out after dark, you’d never know there was anything wrong.
He also thinks that anybody with the intelligence of a four-year-old should be able to add two and two together to make something rotten in Denmark, but Ethan doesn’t credit most people with that level of awareness.
Across the street, a curtain twitches, the only movement in the static backdrop of drawn blinds and estate agent boards. Some concerned neighbour’s been keeping an eye on him since he’s arrived, but nobody’s come out. Nobody would risk the great outdoors this close to sunset. Safer to stay in their nice, cosy houses with the TV turned up and pretend not to know what’s going on outside.
**
He’s watching the darkening sky, beginning to wonder if she’s gone home with Rupert after all, when she gets back – walking, click of her heels on the pavement making him suddenly aware of how quiet it is, and he’s glad he’s just passing through because while he could cope with vampires on his doorstep, that sort of silence would drive him up the walls.
She swans past him with hardly a sideways look. “Rupert’ll kick your ass if he knows you’re still in town.”
“Hiding behind a big, strong man? Doesn’t seem like you.”
“You have no idea what I’m like.” She fumbles with the lock – nervous, are we? he thinks. Demonic possession will do that to first-timers.
“I know what he’s like,” he says, almost handling the words as badly as she’s doing with the key, almost saying ‘I know what he likes’.
She looks at him – shrewd, this one, but he does know what Rupert likes, after all, so he’d already guessed that – and unlocks the door. “I’m assuming you don’t need to be invited in.”
**
She’s pretty enough, no denying that, all pale skin and dark eyes, the bruise across her cheekbone an interesting botch of her face’s symmetry. He dumps a pile of magazines off one of the kitchen chairs and watches as she tears through the cupboards, chucking tins and cereal boxes onto the counter, standing on tiptoes to pull down a box of teabags.
It’s charmingly domestic. He can’t remember the last time someone made him tea after he almost got them killed.
“Owen died,” she says. “The tall kid. Light brown hair. He was seventeen.” There’s a pause, as if she expects something from him, and then she says “Eyghon killed him,” doing a good job at the cold fury bit until her voice cracks on ‘killed’.
He drums his fingertips on the table, rhythmless noise that turns into something like the theme from Newsnight. Behind him, the hum of the fridge seems to fill the room.
“You met Owen. At the library. God, do you even remember him?”
All he remembers is Rupert, looking tired and angry and old; his neck would probably still hurt where he grabbed it, if it wasn’t for the bitch of a pain in his arm where his tattoo used to be. “No, not really.”
He waits for her to ask if he cares, but she just jams the kettle beneath the tap, turns on the water.
**
She doesn’t have a faux-antique cauldron in the corner, horseshoes above the door or pumpkin fridge magnets; he’s grudgingly prepared to admit that on the basis of her kitchen, she’s not the fluffy, let’s-pretend witch he assumed.
Seems like he keeps getting her wrong. He thought she was the Slayer, first of all – bit too old, bit too independent, but why else would Rupert be hanging around this excuse for a town?
She sits opposite him at the table, hands curled around the tea that she doesn’t drink, and tells him that the Slayer never turned up.
“Where is she, then?”
“Cleveland. When they can keep track of her, anyway.”
Ethan watches the pattern the milk makes as it seeps through the tea. He’s known people who claim that tea leaves are a load of bollocks, that it’s the milk you look at. Fluid, unpredictable. Essence of chaos.
He’s never believed it, himself.
“If she’s there,” he says, not sure where Cleveland is, not bothered enough to ask, “why is Ripper still here? Your company’s not that scintillating.”
“Sorry, you caught me on a bad day. I just saw one of my students murdered and got possessed by a demon.”
“There’s not a lot of point trying to make me feel guilty.” He sips the tea. It’s weak, starting to cool. “Better people than you have tried.”
“I don’t care how you feel,” she says, sounding as if she means it.
**
“Why do you call him Ripper?”
“Old joke. Private thing,” he says, because it’s easier than admitting that it was a long time ago and he doesn’t remember any more.
She’s curled on the sofa, feet tucked beneath her, propping her chin on her hand; he looks back at her from his spot by the window and it takes a second to work out why she looks familiar. Different girl, different continent and twenty-five years between them, but she tilts her head and it’s Deidre looking at him.
That was in another country; and besides, the wench is dead.
Jenny says, “The Council told him to go to Ohio. He wouldn’t leave Sunnydale. The kids, the White Hats, he won’t abandon them.” There’s only the light from the computer screen, the streetlights outside, but he can see her hands tightening to fists. Maybe he imagines it. “Stupid.”
“Very noble. Responsible. Sounds like him.”
“If you asked him to,” she says, “would he go with you?”
Outside the window, he thinks he sees a shadow move across the road, by the curtain-twitching neighbour’s house, but he watches and there’s nothing more. Just a cat. Just his imagination. Vampires don’t lurk about in the shadows in Sunnydale, he realizes. They don’t need to.
“He won’t leave,” he says. “He’ll stick it out here till it kills him.”
“That probably won’t take long.”
He hears her get up, doesn’t turn till she’s right behind him, and it feels like he’s back in the playground. What time is it, Mister Wolf? One o’clock, two o’clock, dinner time…
The touch on his arm’s light, but it’s where the acid burned away Eyghon’s mark, and it feels like a blowtorch held in place.
“Why don’t you ask him to get out?” he says, when the pain’s lessened enough to talk.
Her face is perfectly blank as she says, “I have.”
**
After, he doesn't sleep, doesn't shower. Finds his clothes in the dark, doesn't look at her more through lack of interest than any sort of shame.
He leaves town while it’s still dark. She doesn’t tell him to play it safe, hang around another few hours, wait till dawn.
He didn’t expect her to. He knows what she’s like. They're not so different.
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Ethan/Jenny
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For
wisdomeagle for the Ethan ficathon; request was for a love triangle, tea with milk and seduction.Summary: It’s charmingly domestic. He can’t remember the last time someone made him tea after he almost got them killed. Wishverse.
It’s almost the stereotype, almost the small town Americana he’s pieced together in his head from years of TV and films; tidy lawns, those cylindrical mailboxes on poles, nice cars that no doubt guzzle far too much fuel and pump out more than their share of pollution. You could spend a day walking around this town, he thinks, and if you stayed away from the streets around the Master’s club, if you didn’t venture out after dark, you’d never know there was anything wrong.
He also thinks that anybody with the intelligence of a four-year-old should be able to add two and two together to make something rotten in Denmark, but Ethan doesn’t credit most people with that level of awareness.
Across the street, a curtain twitches, the only movement in the static backdrop of drawn blinds and estate agent boards. Some concerned neighbour’s been keeping an eye on him since he’s arrived, but nobody’s come out. Nobody would risk the great outdoors this close to sunset. Safer to stay in their nice, cosy houses with the TV turned up and pretend not to know what’s going on outside.
**
He’s watching the darkening sky, beginning to wonder if she’s gone home with Rupert after all, when she gets back – walking, click of her heels on the pavement making him suddenly aware of how quiet it is, and he’s glad he’s just passing through because while he could cope with vampires on his doorstep, that sort of silence would drive him up the walls.
She swans past him with hardly a sideways look. “Rupert’ll kick your ass if he knows you’re still in town.”
“Hiding behind a big, strong man? Doesn’t seem like you.”
“You have no idea what I’m like.” She fumbles with the lock – nervous, are we? he thinks. Demonic possession will do that to first-timers.
“I know what he’s like,” he says, almost handling the words as badly as she’s doing with the key, almost saying ‘I know what he likes’.
She looks at him – shrewd, this one, but he does know what Rupert likes, after all, so he’d already guessed that – and unlocks the door. “I’m assuming you don’t need to be invited in.”
**
She’s pretty enough, no denying that, all pale skin and dark eyes, the bruise across her cheekbone an interesting botch of her face’s symmetry. He dumps a pile of magazines off one of the kitchen chairs and watches as she tears through the cupboards, chucking tins and cereal boxes onto the counter, standing on tiptoes to pull down a box of teabags.
It’s charmingly domestic. He can’t remember the last time someone made him tea after he almost got them killed.
“Owen died,” she says. “The tall kid. Light brown hair. He was seventeen.” There’s a pause, as if she expects something from him, and then she says “Eyghon killed him,” doing a good job at the cold fury bit until her voice cracks on ‘killed’.
He drums his fingertips on the table, rhythmless noise that turns into something like the theme from Newsnight. Behind him, the hum of the fridge seems to fill the room.
“You met Owen. At the library. God, do you even remember him?”
All he remembers is Rupert, looking tired and angry and old; his neck would probably still hurt where he grabbed it, if it wasn’t for the bitch of a pain in his arm where his tattoo used to be. “No, not really.”
He waits for her to ask if he cares, but she just jams the kettle beneath the tap, turns on the water.
**
She doesn’t have a faux-antique cauldron in the corner, horseshoes above the door or pumpkin fridge magnets; he’s grudgingly prepared to admit that on the basis of her kitchen, she’s not the fluffy, let’s-pretend witch he assumed.
Seems like he keeps getting her wrong. He thought she was the Slayer, first of all – bit too old, bit too independent, but why else would Rupert be hanging around this excuse for a town?
She sits opposite him at the table, hands curled around the tea that she doesn’t drink, and tells him that the Slayer never turned up.
“Where is she, then?”
“Cleveland. When they can keep track of her, anyway.”
Ethan watches the pattern the milk makes as it seeps through the tea. He’s known people who claim that tea leaves are a load of bollocks, that it’s the milk you look at. Fluid, unpredictable. Essence of chaos.
He’s never believed it, himself.
“If she’s there,” he says, not sure where Cleveland is, not bothered enough to ask, “why is Ripper still here? Your company’s not that scintillating.”
“Sorry, you caught me on a bad day. I just saw one of my students murdered and got possessed by a demon.”
“There’s not a lot of point trying to make me feel guilty.” He sips the tea. It’s weak, starting to cool. “Better people than you have tried.”
“I don’t care how you feel,” she says, sounding as if she means it.
**
“Why do you call him Ripper?”
“Old joke. Private thing,” he says, because it’s easier than admitting that it was a long time ago and he doesn’t remember any more.
She’s curled on the sofa, feet tucked beneath her, propping her chin on her hand; he looks back at her from his spot by the window and it takes a second to work out why she looks familiar. Different girl, different continent and twenty-five years between them, but she tilts her head and it’s Deidre looking at him.
That was in another country; and besides, the wench is dead.
Jenny says, “The Council told him to go to Ohio. He wouldn’t leave Sunnydale. The kids, the White Hats, he won’t abandon them.” There’s only the light from the computer screen, the streetlights outside, but he can see her hands tightening to fists. Maybe he imagines it. “Stupid.”
“Very noble. Responsible. Sounds like him.”
“If you asked him to,” she says, “would he go with you?”
Outside the window, he thinks he sees a shadow move across the road, by the curtain-twitching neighbour’s house, but he watches and there’s nothing more. Just a cat. Just his imagination. Vampires don’t lurk about in the shadows in Sunnydale, he realizes. They don’t need to.
“He won’t leave,” he says. “He’ll stick it out here till it kills him.”
“That probably won’t take long.”
He hears her get up, doesn’t turn till she’s right behind him, and it feels like he’s back in the playground. What time is it, Mister Wolf? One o’clock, two o’clock, dinner time…
The touch on his arm’s light, but it’s where the acid burned away Eyghon’s mark, and it feels like a blowtorch held in place.
“Why don’t you ask him to get out?” he says, when the pain’s lessened enough to talk.
Her face is perfectly blank as she says, “I have.”
**
After, he doesn't sleep, doesn't shower. Finds his clothes in the dark, doesn't look at her more through lack of interest than any sort of shame.
He leaves town while it’s still dark. She doesn’t tell him to play it safe, hang around another few hours, wait till dawn.
He didn’t expect her to. He knows what she’s like. They're not so different.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2005-04-25 04:10 am (UTC)“Old joke. Private thing,” he says, because it’s easier than admitting that it was a long time ago and he doesn’t remember any more.
Oooh.
“Very noble. Responsible. Sounds like him.”
Ahhh, I like it a lot! Lovely subtext seeping through every word, three wonderful pairings, and Wishverse! And Owen! *g*
Thank you so much.
no subject
on 2005-04-25 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-04-25 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-04-25 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-04-25 11:55 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-04-25 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-04-25 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-04-25 07:13 pm (UTC)I love the image about the silence. Dead silence is creepy, and it's so Ethan, to not be scared of what goes bump in the night but rather creeped out by the lack of anythingness.
I also like the bit about reading the milk.
no subject
on 2005-04-25 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-04-29 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-04-30 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-05-02 05:53 pm (UTC)Gina
no subject
on 2005-05-07 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-02-16 07:08 pm (UTC)“Old joke. Private thing,” he says, because it’s easier than admitting that it was a long time ago and he doesn’t remember any more.
I love that passage. It just strikes me as being so real.
That whole fic was amazing. You did an excellent job writing these characters in the Wishverse. And each word you wrote carries such meaning.
I'm saving this to my memories so I can read it again later.