A/N: Look, an update! Bet you thought I'd never update. But here's one, in which Giles makes use of handcuffs and Ethan, uh, bitches about soap.
Rupert Giles drove like a man preoccupied; in other words, like a maniac.
As the rented Jeep sped along the drenched roads towards the airport that would get Giles and his new charge out of South America and back towards the States, the librarian wondered not for the first time how he was going to excuse this to the Slayer and company … or if there was a way the confrontation could be avoided completely.
One thing that was absolutely necessary, though, before they reached the airport, would be to find Ethan some … trousers.
Anything he bought here would be disgustingly overpriced, but then again, it would be difficult to smuggle a half-naked man into or out of anywhere without attracting unwanted questions. And he'd guessed from the beginning that this little excursion was going to be less than cheap. It was burning a hole into his bank account, but it would be worth it.
Assuming Giles managed to get Ethan out of the country without strangling him first …
"Would you stop that confounded humming?" Giles snapped, glancing at the irritating man in the passenger's seat.
"Ah, good," said Ethan Rayne, too cheerfully. "You're still with me. I was beginning to wonder."
Giles glared at him for a moment, and then narrowly avoided rear-ending a semi.
"Whoops," said Ethan.
The librarian gritted his teeth and passed the enormous truck, ignoring the fact that had there been oncoming traffic in the lane designated for it, he and his companion would have been roadkill.
"What are you doing?" Ethan asked, as though it were only a matter of casual interest.
"Looking for an …" Giles peered out into the darkness, trying to see past the limits of his headlights.
Ethan waited, and when it was an apparent that the end of the sentence wasn't forthcoming, he snorted derisively and said, "Ah, suspense."
"What?" Giles said, not really paying attention as he turned onto a side road and bumped toward what looked like the lights of a very small city.
Ethan rolled his eyes and looked out the window.
Giles wondered aloud what the speed limit was supposed to be around here as he sent waves from either side of the car.
Ethan didn't comment. Possibly, it was just as well.
"I thought I asked you to stop humming," Giles growled as the signs of civilization hurtled toward them.
"Was I humming?" Ethan asked, all innocence.
"It certainly sounded like you," Giles said.
"Hmm," Ethan said. "Funny."
Giles pulled into the parking lot of a tiny, seedy-looking little inn.
Ethan looked out the window at it with distaste. "What's that?" he said.
"I thought you would be able to identify a motel, a worldly fellow like you," Giles answered.
"Can't you find anything a little classier?" Ethan asked plaintively.
Instead of answering, Giles reached across Ethan and began rummaging around in the glove compartment. Having found what he was looking for, he quickly snatched the other man's wrist and handcuffed him to the inside door of the rented Jeep.
Ethan flashed him a grin, alight with mischief and pleased surprise. "Why, Ripper …" he said, his voice a caress of sensuality. "You came prepared …"
Giles smiled tightly. "Stay right there." As though Ethan had much choice in the matter, but that was beside the point. "I'll be right back," he said.
"I'm aquiver with anticipation," Ethan called after him as he slammed the door behind him and stalked toward the front entrance of the little motel.
"What is that from?" he wondered to himself as he entered the shabby lobby.
The boy behind the front desk was thin and gangly with a shock of tight black curls and very dark skin. He smiled in flash of pure white as Giles approached the desk and was only too happy to run an authorization on Giles's trusty Visa-card and check him into "the finest room in the house". He also gave directions, to be followed in the morning, to the nearest department store – some ten miles down the road in a patch of modernity surrounded by thick, lush South American forestry.
Nor did he bat an eyelash when Giles stopped halfway through the lobby and exclaimed, "Rocky Horror Picture Show."
The boy made no particular comment when Giles returned a few minutes later with the partially-dressed Ethan in tow, nor did he seem bothered by the glint of metal around Ethan's wrist that was visible despite Giles's attempts to keep it surreptitious … clearly, working in a cheap motel in the middle of nowhere was a job that taught the young the kind of discretion that Giles had found somewhat wanting throughout his time in America.
The room was only marginally less vile than Giles was expecting. There was only one bed in it, but it couldn't be helped. There were probably rats and the sheets probably hadn't been changed in awhile, but there was at least a bed. The toilet didn't work, but there was nothing wrong with the shower, and there were functional lavatories in the lobby – or so it looked. In any event, Rupert Giles was in no state to be picky.
Ethan professed distaste with everything with the exception of the company. As if he hadn't stayed in worse ratholes than this in his life; Giles suspected that he was just being difficult on general principles, and did his best to ignore him.
"There's a hair on this soap," Ethan said plaintively, reappearing from the bathroom clad only a towel. "Rupert, I'll put up with a lot of things for you but someone else's hair is on this soap."
"What?"
"The soap," Ethan said. "I would show it to you, but that would require my touching it."
"When did you get so squeamish?" Giles asked.
"Blood, I'll grant you," Ethan said dryly. "Etchings in skin, patterns made of human guts, desiccated corpses, arcane rituals of demon-summoning ... Rupert, for you I'll even eat Indian food. But I draw the line at bits of complete strangers' pubic hair on my soap."
"Open a new bar," Giles said, trying not to laugh.
Ethan rolled his eyes as though supplicating the heavens for patience, which was much higher than he usually tended to aim, and said, "If there was a new bar, I wouldn't have given the used, disgusting bar a second's thought …"
"Would you like to go back to your cell?"
Ethan looked a little hurt. "No," he said.
"Then stop complaining and let me sleep. I've got things to do in the morning," said Giles.
Ethan looked at the bed with distaste. "I think that mattress may be older than I am," he said. "Are you really going to sleep on it?"
"Ethan!"
"What?"
Giles sighed and put one of the bed's two pillows over his head. "Never mind," he said into it.
He had just dropped off when Ethan, still damp and hot from a scalding shower, climbed into bed with him. He could almost remember a time when this would have been the most natural thing in the world; the next steps would have been deliciously welcome, if only they hadn't progressed so far beyond that kind of trust.
Well, Giles had. Ethan was exhibiting insane amounts of trust in him, although Giles wasn't sure if it was only the appearance of trust, expertly counterfeited in order to put him off his guard …
"The television doesn't work," Ethan said, jarring Giles out of his thoughts and quite spoiling the moment.
"I'm sleeping," Giles said to the pillow on the end of a sigh.
"No, you're not," Ethan said. "And the television doesn't work."
"Spanish-language television, Ethan."
"I haven't watched television in a very long time. I don't think it'll matter what language it's in," Ethan said.
"You're right. It will be the same mindless drek you remember," Giles said. "Ethan, I'm trying to sleep."
"All right, all right," Ethan said, a touch grumpily. But he was mercifully silent for the rest of the night.
When Giles awoke in the morning, Ethan Rayne was curled up in the bed next to him sleeping like a baby. He was clutching the pillow instead of resting his head on it and he looked as though it was the first real sleep he'd had in a very, very long time.
Giles didn't wake him, although he did handcuff him to the bedpost. No matter his feelings – past or present – for Ethan, there was no reason to trust him … and he could imagine the grin on Ethan's face when he awoke and noticed the feel of metal against his skin …
Giles splashed tepid water on his face in the bathroom, wishing it was cold. But evidently cold water was too much to ask for. He didn't trust it enough to drink. Instead, he left the room, leaving Ethan sleeping inside.