Title: Curtain's Fall 20/?
Section: II Dress Rehearsal (9/10)
Author: Magpie and Wolfling
Email: magpie@moracle.co.uk and wolfling@sympatico.ca
Show: Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Category: angst, hurt/comfort
Warnings: spoilers up to the end of Chosen
Pairings: Giles/Ethan
Series: Of Old Mystics, sequel to Charades
Summary: The roles have all been filled and the players move into place.

Author Notes: This is the last story of the Old Mystics Series, sequel to Charades. We expect this to be rather long -- long enough that we've developed it into subsections: I Casting Call, II Dress Rehearsal, III Opening Night, IV Grand Finale, and V Encore. Many thanks to Mad Poetess and Wesleysgirl for betaing :) Previous stories in the series can be found http://www.myarseisnotpansy.co.uk/piedm/mystics.html. Thanks to all the people who have sent us feedback.

Giles found Pamela in the drawing room with Matthew. He knew she'd arrived at the Estate, as he'd felt her pass through the wards earlier and then of course spotted her car as he'd returned from the ritual in the woods with Ethan and Ian. The other two had gone off to see what they could manage to achieve with the captive Slayer -- Madiha, her name was -- but Giles wanted to talk to his assistant right away.

He hadn't quite expected to find her crushed tightly against the chest of his cousin however. Let alone kissing Matthew as if he'd just got back from the war.

The pair sprung apart as Giles coughed politely. Pamela appeared a little horrified. "Oh, sir. Um..."

Matthew just looked smugly good-humoured. "Poor timing, old man. But I'll forgive you."

Giles allowed himself a ghost of a smile. "I've learnt that locks on doors are excellent precautions against being interrupted," he offered in the way of friendly advice. "Not that Ethan and I remember them half the time, but..."

"Privacy should never be taken for granted," Pamela agreed, a twinkle in her eye despite the blush persisting on her face. She brushed down the front of her skirt. "You never know who might be watching... or listening."

"Especially if one's partner has very little if any shame," Giles added, remembering the fiasco with the intercom button and shagging Ethan on the top of his desk. "At the very least, don't get an intercom system."

"Do I want to know?" Matthew asked with an amused expression, looking between the two of them.

"Quite probably not. Although," Giles added thoughtfully, "Ethan will happily tell you if asked. Which, actually, is a good barometer to use when judging it to be something you'd not want to know."

Matthew laughed, but then his expression sobered and he looked carefully at Giles. "How are you, Rupert? This feels like the first time in days that I've clapped eyes on you."

"Been neck deep in research," Giles replied, noting with unease that he really had been retreating a bit too much if even Matthew had noticed the difference. "But we've a lead now, and Ethan and I are going to be heading into London to retrieve an item." He glanced at Pamela. "A briefing of what we could expect might be helpful."

Matthew nodded and put his hand -- just a little possessively -- onto Pamela's back. "Right ho. You two sit yourselves down and share notes. I'll be back with some refreshment in the quickest of jiffies." He started to leave, seemed to think better of it, pulled Pamela to him, and kissed her soundly. Then he left her blushing scarlet as he strode from the room, laughing benevolently.

Giles looked at his assistant and raised an eyebrow. "I see I have no need to ask how you're getting on liaising with my cousin."

She gave him a look that seemed lost at sea somewhere between happiness and sheer embarrassment. "He's, um, very forthright."

"Indeed. Matthew is a good man. Not that you need my opinion or approval, but you have them regardless."

"I don't, it's true." She smiled openly. "But I'm glad of them nonetheless. Shall we sit, sir? I've got quite a bit to go through."

Giles nodded and sat down in one of the two armchairs that were close enough together for them to comfortably share information.

Pamela recovered her briefcase from near the window and then joined him. Her engaging blush had faded, and she was his efficient assistant again. "I presume you've been keeping up with the news, sir?"

"Yes. It's becoming rather grim out there, isn't it?"

"The information that reaches the public is the tip of the iceberg, I'm afraid. There's a selective news blackout in effect that the press are forbidden to acknowledge. The fabric of reality, England's reality, is being ripped and torn. Barbrak Mojadidi has set up a really rather clever map on the wall of Conference Room 2, which highlights all the Chaos-afflicted areas in real time." Pamela's look seemed apologetic. "They grow almost visibly fast, sir."

"Bugger." They really were on the verge of being out of time, weren't they? And he still hadn't found a way to spare Dawn.

"No one knows -- although everyone has a theory -- what happens to the people caught in the rips. Are they dead, sir? Or just... changed. Changing." Was that a tremor in his resolute assistant's voice?

Or perhaps they were past the verge. Giles felt the weight of what they had to do pressing down on him heavier than ever. "We'll stop it, Pamela," he said softly, beginning to accept that they weren't going to be able to save Dawn. It made him feel... horrible. "The object we're going after, once we have that, well, we'll have a course of action to take."

Pamela released a breath Giles hadn't been aware she'd been holding. "Oh, that's such a relief to know, sir. Is there anything you need from me or the rest of the Council? We have our hands full, of course, dealing with hysterical officials and government ministers, and investigating the rips and incidents where we can, but your needs take precedence, obviously."

"We need to go into London, to Holborn thereabouts. Any help with plotting the safest route around what's going on in that area?"

After opening her briefcase, Pamela handed him a folder from within it. "That's a copy of the entire case-file on the Chaos rips up until when I left HQ. I'll call Barbrak before you go for the latest. Most of the city centre is untouched, but the suburbs are becoming increasingly afflicted. It's been hypothesised that the enemy is trying to form a ring around London."

"Interesting," Giles said, turning his mind around the puzzle; it allowed him to push the question of Dawn to the side yet again. "It sounds like charting these may lead us to the focal point. Excellent work." He looked up at Pamela. "This is going to be of great assistance."

She smiled at him, but her eyes looked tired. "Actually, sir, we may possibly already have the focal point. The directions Ethan was able to provide after your scrying have led us to a strange... manifestation."

"Oh?"

"There's a small Chaos blackspot there, but it's not like the others. It seems... stable. It's located in a basement of an old and abandoned department store. It appears to be a door. Literally, I mean -- a freestanding door in the middle of a damp cellar. Maybe it's nothing, but..."

"No," Giles broke in. "I think that is certainly something. Perhaps the crucial something. No one must touch it until we've had a chance to investigate."

"We've had the local police cordon off the building, and there's a Watcher and two Slayers there all the time. The Watcher has authority over the civilians and police. Whitehall's been very good about that sort of thing. I suppose they don't have much choice."

There was a clink of crockery from outside in the corridor, and then Matthew reappeared carrying a loaded tea tray. "Can go again once I've put this down," he offered. "If you're still deep in the hush-hush."

Giles shook his head. "I think, at this point, you're in as deep as any of us."

Matthew put the tray on the small table near Giles and deftly poured them a cup of tea each, already knowing how they took them. "So things are direr even than they seem, I take it?" he asked, as he handed Giles his cup and saucer.

"They always are," Giles sighed.

After handing Pamela her cup, Matthew crouched comfortably beside her chair with his own. "Anything I need to know, or help I can offer?"

"Ethan and I, like I said, will be heading to London first thing in the morning. I don't anticipate another physical attack so soon, but Kat and Megan will continue to patrol, and Ian will still be here to deal with any magical attacks while we're gone."

Matthew frowned. "Seems to me, you two leaving the warded estate together will be just the opportunity the enemy's been looking for."

His cousin was quite probably right, but what choice did they have? "Nonetheless, we have to go. We'll do what we can to shield and cloak ourselves; Ethan's quite talented with that type of spell."

"Hmm," Matthew seemed dissatisfied with that answer. He sipped his tea thoughtfully then said, "Take my Range Rover. I've been out several times with no problems."

"Maybe," Pamela started, a little hesitantly, "an illusion too? To make it look as if the car contains Matthew and no-one else."

"Good thinking, that girl!" Matthew patted Pamela's leg and beamed up at her.

"Woman," she corrected primly, but the twinkle in her eye was back.

That kind of illusion would certainly be easier to maintain for the length of the journey than the full cloak he and Ethan had been planning. "Thank you," Giles said. "We'll take you up on that offer."

"Good." Matthew nodded. "Now about this poor Arab girl all drugged up in one of my bedrooms..."

"Hopefully, after Ethan and Ian are finished, we'll be able to ease up on the drugs some," Giles said. "The plan is, once we're certain it's safe, to send her to Devon and have the Coven finish undoing any damage that's been done to her."

Matthew nodded, his expression grim. "Know it's necessary, Slayer-strength and all that, but can't say as I like having a young girl kept drugged and locked up in my house against her will."

"Neither do I. But sometimes it's necessary for the greater good to do things that are distasteful." And how well had that belief been tested in Giles time and again?

Matthew snorted and stood, walking around behind Giles' chair and patting him on the shoulder. "That, cousin, is why you're the head of the Council of Watchers and I'm a lowly country squire. Blasting demons, that I can do and with pleasure, but the kind of decisions you have to make all the damn time... well, that's the true heroics, isn't it?"

Was it? It certainly didn't feel that way most of the time. "Someone has to do it," Giles finally replied softly.

With another amused snort, Matthew tussled Giles' hair as if he, and not Giles, were the older man. "Going to clean out the double-R then. You don't want to travel with my junk underfoot. What time are you planning on leaving in the A.M.?"

Without thinking, Giles glanced at the clock then blinked at what he saw. When did it get to be so late? "First thing," he answered distractedly. "As early as we can get ourselves up."

"Right you are." Matthew's voice took on a softer tone as he addressed Pamela. "I'll be in the big garage, Pam. Come and find me when you're done here." Giles saw Pamela smile and then Matthew was gone from the room again.

Giles took a deep breath. "Right. I suppose now would be a good time to go over whatever Council business needs my immediate attention."

After all, someone had to do it, didn't they?

***

They arose early the next morning to the news that the government had -- at last -- declared a State of Emergency. The media was now being strongly censored, but Pamela had been able to find out the truth of what was going on by ringing the Council.

Heathrow, Heddon and Stoke Newington were under dark swirling clouds, it seemed, and the black miasma over Barking had spread to a three-mile radius. More towns and boroughs were being evacuated, and last night a protest march through the heart of London had turned into a violent riot with looting and at least five dead.

Ethan had watched the effect that the news had on Rupert with dismay; the weight of responsibility was like a cancer inside his husband, sucking him dry. Ethan couldn't stand it; it made him furious, but he was impotent in the face of it.

There had been near silence over their rushed breakfast, the young and female members of the household not yet up and about much to Ethan's relief. Then they'd said goodbye to their dogs and sat in Matthew's Range Rover within the garage while Ethan pulled the patterns into a convincing illusion. Or so he hoped.

Then they'd got on their way.

Ethan had been imagining without really thinking about it that they'd hit rush hour going into London, but the M4 eastbound was, it turned out, almost deserted. Westbound was another matter -- long jams of traffic stretched as far as they could see. Regardless of government pleas for the public to stay put unless told otherwise, people, it seemed, were not stupid. They'd worked out that London was the danger zone, and they were evacuating themselves.

Never had the apocalypse felt so close to Ethan.

It was only as they saw with their own eyes the billowing, writhing darkness over what had once been Heathrow that Ethan realised that soon the M4 would be impassable. "Christ," he muttered, "Pamela was right. They're circling London, cutting it off."

"Yes." Rupert had glanced at the cloud, but quickly looked away again. "We're out of time. When we get back, we'll have to act."

"Yes, we will." Ethan couldn't argue -- had no desire to argue -- but he felt like he was agreeing to send Rupert to the guillotine. Rupert didn't reply, just reached over to take Ethan's hand, squeezing it.

Ethan stared bleakly at the cloud. He could feel it, pulling at him -- raw, dark Chaos. The people in Heathrow -- both the airport and the community -- were they alive? If so, they must be mad by now. What mind could withstand the total disintegration of what was naively called 'reality'?

"I've never felt the urge to run more strongly," he said quietly. "And never would it achieve less to give in to it."

"There's nowhere to run to," Rupert replied in an equally quiet voice. "There never is, not really. Not from ourselves."

Ethan didn't answer; what was there to say? He closed his eyes to the swirling cloud and pressed his head back into the headrest. He stayed that way until they were deep in Central London, when the car suddenly slowed.

Oh brilliant. Military road blocks in the heart of the capital. Ethan banged his head back into the soft rest a few times, and Rupert flicked the switch to roll down his window.

Rupert handed over a small rectangle of plastic to the soldier -- ID, or a pass, or a get out of jail free card, Ethan didn't know which, but whatever it was, the soldier looked at it, handed it back, saluted and then waved them through. Rupert glanced over at Ethan with the faintest ghost of a smile as he started them moving again. "Rank does occasionally have its privileges."

"They didn't even care who I was, being as I was with you." Ethan laughed wryly. "Now to get up to some mischief then. Or no, not anymore. I'm a force for law and order." His second bark of laughter had more than a hint of hysteria to it, and he cut it off short, looking away from Rupert.

"We just direct your mischief in a different direction," Rupert said, reaching over and squeezing Ethan's hand briefly once more.

They parked just off Fleet Street. As Rupert slid pound coins into the meter, Ethan wondered why the hell he was bothering; there were surely no traffic wardens working today. The streets were deserted, and although there were lights on in the offices, that didn't mean anyone was in them... of course, the newspapers were still being printed, and not every tabloid or broadsheet had moved away from this historical ghetto of hacks and newshounds, so maybe there were people in the buildings, after all.

"Ready?" Rupert asked, coming over to where Ethan was standing. He rested a hand against Ethan's lower back, guiding him with a touch. "The entrance is this way."

Rupert was being very gentle with him, Ethan noticed. Easier, he supposed, to look after a loved one than deal with the true horror of what faced them both. He wished he could put his fear to one side too, but he didn't have Rupert's practice at doing so.

His healing shoulder was aching for some reason.

Ethan had, of course, courted fear and Chaos both for most of his life, so there was something deeply ironic about all this for him, but if this were the universe's idea of mockery, he considered it a little too over-done and obvious to be a joke of quality.

Staying silent as he had nothing to say, he let Rupert guide him through the narrower backstreets to stand in front of some tall wrought iron railings. Beyond them lay one of the small historical graveyards that London was still dotted with even now. The churches were bulldozed down and the land 'developed', but often the graveyards remained -- small havens of ancient peace in the bustle of the city.

Not that there was any bustle today.

"Somehow, I've never been able to get away from graveyards," Giles murmured, as he opened the gate and they went inside.

"With a plot in Buckham churchyard already laid out with your name on it, you're never going to either," Ethan said sourly. He hugged his arms around himself as he looked about. Old lichen-covered gravestones piled together against the wall that the graveyard backed onto, bindweed and wallflowers had pushed through the cracked marble of memorial plinths, and few headstones were readable, so worn were they by time, weather and pollution. The whole place was a tomb, a memorial to London's past.

"So far I've always managed to exit the same way I entered, if occasionally a bit worse for wear, so I suppose I shouldn't complain." Rupert led Ethan to the back of the little cemetery where a crypt was standing, looking as old and dilapidated as the rest of the place.

"So we reach this underworld of yours through a tomb?" Ethan asked. "I should have brought my lyre."

"Not quite that mythic an underworld," Rupert replied, his voice and manner staying reasonable despite the increasing nastiness Ethan knew was creeping into his own. "But yes, the entrance is in here."

Rupert's calmness was starting to grate on Ethan's fractured nerves. He knew rationally that Rupert was as upset as he was about it all, more so probably, knowing how much more heavily every single life lost would weigh on Rupert, yet Ethan perversely wanted his husband to show it.

Maybe so he too could use comforting his partner as a way of avoiding the nightmare until they had to face it directly. Or maybe just so they could have a knockdown fight and get this unbearable tension out of their systems.

As Rupert opened the mausoleum door, Ethan stared dourly at his back and asked, "Did it ever strike you that we might fail? That the cosmic prats who selected us for this task might be the equivalent of the Hollywood team who brought us Heaven's Gate, or God forbid, Waterworld?"

Rupert glanced back over his shoulder at Ethan. "Failure isn't an option."

"Oh, and it's just exactly as simple as that, isn't it?"

"Nothing is simple about it. It's the hardest thing in the world actually."

Ethan's arms slipped into a folded position. "But of course, despite that, you never fail, do you? How many times have you saved the world so far? Shame you have to work with me now. I'm your weak link, Ripper dear; not so much an Achilles heel as a huge, signposted target marked 'hit here'."

"I've failed," Rupert said softly. "And every time I have, someone has died. Even when I've succeeded the price has been... well." He trailed off, his eyes full of ghosts. But then they focused with sharp clarity on Ethan. "You're not my weak link so much as my hidden strength. If I had to face this alone..."

And of course, having won what he wanted -- a glimpse of Rupert's true feelings about it all -- Ethan immediately felt guilty. "Sorry," he muttered, and moved past Rupert to enter the dank stone chamber. "I'm being a git."

Rupert followed him, pulling out a torch and turning it on. "You're trying to deal with something that is impossible to deal with. That's not being a git."

Ethan moved out of the way of the torch beam. "All my years on the other side, I never had a desire to bring on the end times. In fact, I was very far from being an Armageddon merchant. But now... now, I'm meant to be a hero, but I'm going to... if I balls up -- and let's face it, if anyone's going to balls up it'll be me -- so if and when I do, the world..." He couldn't actually say it. He couldn't force the words from his mouth.

"You're not going to balls it up." Rupert's voice was sharp as he moved past Ethan and played his light over the far wall. Then he stepped closer and pressed several bricks in a seemingly random pattern.

Ethan clenched his eyes shut and leant against the cold plastered wall. He heard the grating of stone on stone and felt the vibration of something moving. "Remember the last time we stood in a crypt together?"

"Sunnydale. I was going to thrash you; you convinced me having a drink together would be more fun."

"You were so very keen to hit me." Ethan chuckled darkly. "And after I'd been so kind as to get rid of the Demon Prince Barvain for you too."

"I had wondered about that. You do realise that by doing so, you just made me look even more like an old has-been, making things up in order to pretend I had a purpose? Willow and Xander were polite, but they quite clearly thought I was losing it."

A hand fell on Ethan's shoulder, and he opened his eyes to see Rupert, and behind him, a gaping hold in the wall that hadn't been there before. "Well, I hardly did it on purpose to spite you." No, spite had come later.

Rupert contemplated him for a long moment. "Looking back now, it's difficult for me to remember why the idea of thrashing you was so bloody attractive all the times you showed up to pester me over the years. I should've just fucked you up against the nearest convenient wall."

"I always rather thought that was what the thrashing was about actually. Well, hoped. I never quite gave up that hope that one day you'd realise what you really wanted... so of course, when you did, I promptly turned you into a demon." Ethan sighed. "I don't suppose you feel like throwing me against this wall now, do you?"

Rupert leant in and kissed him quite thoroughly. "Part of me always wants to throw you up against the wall and fuck you," he replied conversationally afterwards. "But I fear we really don't have the time for it right now."

The answer was disappointing, but hardly surprising, and it wasn't as if shagging would be anything more than a temporary respite from the knife-sharp anxiety currently tormenting Ethan. "Let's get this done then," he said, pushing away from Rupert.

Rupert caught his hand however before he could get out of reach. "Together," he said simply.

The hand in his, the echo of lips upon his own, just seemed like salt in Ethan's non-existent wounds... or perhaps they were wounds in posse. He didn't let go of Rupert's hand however, as they carefully descended crumbling stone steps into a tunnel below.

It was dark, obviously, and the moving torch beam really did little more than emphasise that. It was also cold and damp. Ethan could hear water dripping and other noises that were quite possibly rats. He wasn't bothered by rats, had even considered making himself a familiar out of one once, but somehow the noise of them down here was chilling. He drew his jacket around himself with his free hand and missed his Barbour coat fiercely.

"Cold?"

"No," he lied pointlessly. "Which way?"

"This way," Rupert said, leading him with assurance down the tunnel. "It gets a little less... clichéd creepy as we go on," he added after a moment.

He was right, as quickly became obvious when they turned into a dryer, brick-lined tunnel, which was strangely free of cobwebs. Ethan walked silently, listening to their footfalls echo

"I've wanted to bring you here, show you this place, for quite some time now," Rupert said after a few minutes. "It's... special. It was my own discovery and had nothing to do with the Council or anything. It was just... mine."

"Another hidey-hole." Ethan tried to speak gently and keep the sarcastic tone out of his voice; he'd been using it rather too much today already.

"I guess so. I do seem to have acquired rather a lot of them through my life."

"I prefer the cottage," Ethan told him, as Rupert opened a metal grating, and they passed through. "Never have been all that keen on being underground."

"You were always more one to want to fly than go spelunking," Rupert agreed easily.

"Yeah... not all that likely that a mystical item is going to be stored in, hmm, the Tree-hut of Destiny though, is it?" Ethan chuckled a little.

Rupert gave him a small smile. "Perhaps we can see about building one of those when all of this is over."

They stopped in front of a heavy looking oaken door. An interesting grid of symbols was carved into it, which Ethan was just starting to figure out as Rupert pressed some of them quickly and the door opened. "This it then?" Ethan asked.

"This is it," Rupert confirmed, holding the door open for Ethan then following him inside.

As they stepped within, the chamber they were entering filled with light. Ethan gave Rupert a sharp look; he hadn't sensed his husband using magic. "Enchanted effect?"

"Yes." Rupert ran a hand fondly over the nearest wall. "When I found this place it almost seemed to have been waiting for me. It's silly, but the lights... it seemed like a welcome."

Sometimes, Ethan thought that it wasn't so much that he and Rupert had a destiny, as it was that Rupert had a destiny and Ethan was merely a part of it. "What's in all the crates and boxes?" he asked, looking around.

"Artefacts, books, the usual sort of mystical mishmash. Most of it was here when I first came, but those boxes over there," Rupert pointed to a neatly stacked set of large boxes in the far corner, "I added myself. Most of the stuff I expect is little more than junk, but you never know when something will come in handy."

"So you've never gone through them all? There could be anything here." Ethan started to feel a little covetous.

Rupert shrugged. "There just hasn't been the time to go through everything. Especially since a good deal of the intervening years between when I found this place and now I've been out of the country."

The grin Ethan directed at Rupert now only felt a little forced. "Got a crow bar?"

"I left it in my other trousers," Rupert replied deadpan, although there was a hint of humour shining in his eyes.

"And the Bachian crystal is where? Any idea?"

Rupert looked around, obviously thinking. "The more valuable pieces seemed to have been grouped inside the cage," he said, gesturing at the closed off area. "We probably should start there."

Ethan peered through the bars. "Are those crates already opened then? Otherwise, we're still going to need that crowbar... or magic."

"Most of those I have looked through, and the others, well, I doubt a crate is going to stymie us, crowbar or no crowbar." Rupert squeaked open the door, and they went in.

"Is this where that bastard's bag o' badness is?" Ethan asked, suddenly aware of a familiar prickling sensation.

"Up there," Rupert nodded toward an upper shelf at the far end of the space.

Ethan stared uneasily at the Mallon's chest that contained the Chaos artefact, remembering how the bag had been used to almost annihilate Rupert. He wished briefly that they'd been able to destroy it, but destroying such powerful items was more easily thought of than achieved. Moving closer to Rupert, Ethan reached out with his magic, just reassuring himself that Rupert's pattern remained tight and coherent still.

Rupert must have felt the magic touch because he took and briefly squeezed Ethan's hand, giving him a reassuring smile. "We're all right," he said softly.

Ethan gave him a weak smile back before turning to look at the crates and other containers. "I suppose we better start then." He moved around the other side of them and slid the lid off the nearest crate. "Shout if anything looks even vaguely crystalline."

"Right." Rupert started with the crates on his side.

Pulling out handfuls of sawdust and old newspaper, Ethan felt for the items inside his crate. "It's like one of those lucky dips from my old school fairs," he said. "Ah look, I seem to have won a, hmm, a pack of Victorian erotica playing cards." He didn't have time to investigate them further, but they had the slightest of magic auras only.

Rupert chuckled. "That *would* be the sort of thing you pull out first." He was searching through his own crate, picking up and discarding several interesting looking items.

"When we're done with all this bollocks, Ripper," Ethan told him firmly, as he reluctantly placed a very intriguing statue of a multi-armed woman to one side, "we're coming back here and spending many long lovely days going through this treasure trove."

"I thought you might feel that way." The grin Rupert shot him then was bright and boyish.

And infectious -- Ethan found himself grinning back. He finished emptying his first crate -- there was a growing pile of interesting things beside him, but none of them remotely crystalline. "We need that homing ant of yours," he told Rupert, as he moved on to another crate. "Or sniffer dogs. We should've brought them, dearheart."

"I'm not sure how they would have coped underground," Rupert said; he'd expressed as much earlier before they'd set out. "But perhaps we can do some kind of locator spell between us?"

"I'll never refuse an opportunity to do magic with you, husband mine." Ethan gladly left off his search and walked back around to stand by Rupert, only to immediately have a pertinent thought and return to the items he'd unpacked. He grabbed one and returned to Rupert. "This should help," he said, holding up the brass pendulum on a chain.

"A replacement for the homing ant?" Rupert teased.

"It's just an ordinary pendulum, far as I can tell, but what better to dowse with?" Freeform improvisation still didn't come as easily to Ethan as it did to Ian, but he had always been capable of appropriate substitution.

"An excellent exchange. Much better than, say, a homing rat."

They really *should* have brought the dogs, Ethan thought with a small sigh. He lifted the pendulum and looked at it, then handed it to Rupert. "We should do this like we did the scrying, I think. I'll make the patterns palpable, you hold the, er, steering wheel."

Rupert nodded. "Should we be standing in the same position? Me behind you? Or perhaps reverse that as that might make it easier to follow the... wheel."

Nodding, Ethan moved behind Rupert and wrapped his arms around him. The contact felt so nice he couldn't resist a friendly rub into his husband's arse.

Chuckling, Rupert said, "I don't remember that being part of the spell." Nonetheless, he pushed back against Ethan in a way that wasn't exactly discouraging.

Ethan made a small noise in his throat and tightened his arms. "Maybe I should be the one doing the throwing against walls..."

"Christ. Say things like that, and I'll start to forget what we're supposed to be doing."

Suddenly, Ethan was hard and getting harder. He pressed close, moving his lips to Rupert's ear to nibble and murmur, "Want to go for third time lucky, dearheart?"

Rupert groaned in reaction to that. "God, Ethan..."

Ethan had a pretty good idea that what was happening here was that release of tension he'd wanted earlier, but he had no intention of stopping it; it actually felt good to feel in control of a situation. He ground his erection against Rupert's arse and moved his hands down to Rupert's thighs, slipping a little between them and persuading Rupert to part his legs more.

"Want me to take you, Ripper?" he asked, his voice low. He felt a little silly saying it, as if he were wearing a costume not his, but he was too turned on to really care.

"I... would not be adverse to the idea," Rupert replied, the polite words belied by the husky, breathless quality of his voice.

Ethan's balls tightened a little even at the thought of what he was about to do, and he couldn't stop himself thrusting forward once. A little feverish, he looked around the cage for somewhere to fuck Rupert on or against, and his gaze fell on the cage bars themselves. Oh yes, how deliciously kinky.

He let his hands spark with his magic and ran them quickly up and down Rupert's front, including over Rupert's straining erection, which felt impossibly large trapped under the smart trousers. When the magic had Rupert to the point of gasping, Ethan instructed gruffly, "Move and put your hands on the bars, Ripper."

It took a few seconds, but Rupert finally obeyed without protest.

God, this was heady stuff. Ethan followed, fairly ruthlessly crushing worry that he couldn't do this. He'd taken Rupert before, and while, yes, the first time was not a good thing to think about, the second time had been a great deal more successful. And it wasn't as if he hadn't topped hundreds of other men... faceless men who didn't matter and who didn't have the power to turn his resolve to jelly just by looking at him a certain way.

Ah, bugger that. No, bugger *this*. Ethan ran a hand over Rupert's arse and squeezed, digging his fingers in, then moved his hands round to the front of Rupert's trousers to quickly undo them, letting them fall. "You have a bloody lovely arse, Ripper." Ethan looked appreciatively at it as the boxers followed the trousers. "Strong and sturdy."

Rupert chuckled, the sound wonderfully husky with arousal. "That is a compliment I haven't had before."

Ethan put his hands to Rupert's hips and pulled him back a bit, so the lovely arse in question was sticking out. He ran a finger potent with magic between the cheeks, lightly touching the sensitive skin there.

Rupert gasped, bucking first away, then into the touch.

Judging by his reaction to Rupert's reaction, Ethan realised there wasn't going to be much in the way of foreplay here; his cock was feeling very demanding. With a groan, he pressed his finger into Rupert.

"Yes," Rupert grunted, pushing back into the touch, a not quite mute demand for more.

"God," Ethan muttered, pressing a second finger in and then finger-fucking Rupert hard, imagining it was his cock and getting off a little on that alone.

Rupert was moving with Ethan's fingers, making small sounds in the back of his throat, seeming half lost to everything but the fingers moving in and out of him. Ethan glanced up and saw that Rupert's grip on the bars was white-knuckled.

"Christ, Ripper, Christ. You look so fucking beautiful." Ethan felt overwhelmed. He watched his own fingers disappearing, felt Rupert's muscles move around them, and moaned deeply. He couldn't wait. Promising himself that when they found peace again he was going to take his husband in a long, luxurious process lasting half a day at least, Ethan pulled his fingers out and undid his own trousers in a fumbling hurry.

Rupert made a small sound of protest at the sudden absence, looking over his shoulder at Ethan with eyes dark with arousal and need.

Ethan knew all too well what Rupert was feeling. "Won't be empty long, dearheart," he promised, as he finally got free of his clothing and lined himself up. "Not long at all. There, feel my cock touching you? Feel it pressing?" He was babbling a little, he knew. He gripped Rupert's hip with his free hand. "Feel me pushing in now."

"God, Ethan..." Rupert moaned, holding still as Ethan slid into him, save for a quiet, involuntary tremor that Ethan could feel going through Rupert's muscles.

Ethan was using plenty of magic to ensure he slid in easily, and he could imagine what that was doing to Rupert as he knew what it did to him. He pressed slowly but steadily as deep as he could go in this position. "Ah, Jesus. Ripper. Have you any idea how good you feel? So tight around me, so very tight..."

"Love you," Rupert gasped. "Ethan..."

"Yes, dearest-to-my-heart?" Ethan asked breathlessly as he began to move. The pull on his cock from Rupert's muscles was enough to make him dizzy.

"More." The one word was all but growled.

Ethan heard himself make a noise not unlike a growl himself, and he gripped Rupert's hips and began to fuck him hard. It felt so easy, so right to do this. The second time had been good, but it had still felt odd, a little wrong. This just felt natural. He leant his top half back and looked down, watching himself slamming into Rupert's arse, and he nearly came in reaction. "Fuck, Ripper!" He laughed between his gasps for breath. "I'm fucking you, Ripper. You feel me? Feel me fucking you?"

"I feel you." Rupert gave a breathless chuckle. "Rather hard to miss..."

Ethan laughed again. "Thank you... for your patience... with my... sudden need... to talk like... a porn movie. But Christ, Ripper... oh, so good."

"Yes," Rupert agreed, in his husky, sex-roughened voice. "It's -- God! -- overwhelmingly good."

Groaning from what felt like the base of his spine, Ethan thrust rapidly, but not even his own -- admittedly loose and fracturing -- pattern control over his arousal was going to stop him coming soon. He adjusted his posture just enough to reach his hand around to grip Rupert's cock. It felt awkward, but he knew a good rhythm was still possible; Rupert managed just fine like this, after all.

The first touch of his hand on Rupert's cock drew a deep and needy groan from his husband. Rupert shifted a little, making it a bit easier for Ethan to wrap his fingers around Rupert's erection and stroke.

Although what Ethan was doing could hardly be called stroking. He was too far gone; his touch was rough and fast, matching the thrusts of his cock. "My Ripper," he muttered, hardly knowing what he was saying. "My Ripper, my Pan, my husband. Mine."

He felt Rupert's reaction to those words go through his body. "Yours," he gasped. "As much as... you're mine, I'm yours."

"Fuck, oh fuck. Going to come, Rupert. Deep inside you. Bugger!" Ethan's vision narrowed to almost nothing as the relentless upsurge of pleasure and tightening carried him towards orgasm. "Come with me?" he asked desperately. "Please?"

Rupert groaned again, the sound rough and desperate. Ethan could no more stop now than stop loving Rupert. He thrust like a mad thing and then froze as his cock started to pulse and acute pleasure made him almost sob.

A split second later, he felt Rupert's climax sweep through him.

As his tensed muscles loosened, becoming trembling and weak, Ethan sank to his knees, moaning as the action pulled him out of Rupert. He sat back, leaning heavily on one hand and wincing slightly as his shoulder, forgotten about during their passion, complained.

Rupert leaned heavier on the bars for a moment then slowly sank to the floor, turning enough to reach out for Ethan, who moved sluggishly to wrap his arms around him.

"...love..." he muttered against Rupert's shoulder.

Rupert wrapped his arms around Ethan in return. "Love you."

They sat like that for a few minutes, recovering their wits, but Ethan quickly became cold. He shivered and stirred, looking around.

It was then that his gaze fell on the little brass pendulum, which must have fallen from Rupert's hand at some point during the shagging. It had rolled against a small casket on the floor. As he reached out to reclaim it, Ethan suddenly froze, laughing.

"Found it!" he said smugly, turning to grin at Rupert.

The casket had three symbols on the side -- that of the Pilantine cult who had created the Bachian Matrix in the first place, a perfectly symmetrical hexagonal design that Ethan suspected meant the crystal itself, and perhaps not surprisingly, the symbol Dawn had drawn for him after her dream, the symbol they suspected meant 'Order'.

Rupert looked at the casket for a moment then threw his head back and laughed. "That wasn't exactly the location spell I was expecting, but whatever works..."

"Can't knock the pendulum," Ethan said, tossing it in the air and catching it, then tossing it again to Rupert. He reached out for the casket and drew it close. "Led us right to the prize." As he looked down at the box, however, the glee at finding it and the post-orgasm euphoria rapidly frosted over. Now they had this, there was no way out.

He had to kill Dawn.

NEXT