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indriSUMMARY: Giles and Ethan, the electric Kool-Aid funky Satan groove year, in the early seventies. Rated M. Spoilers to Band Candy. Acknowledgements and disclaimers.
64.
Rupert thought he should try sleeping alone for once. Besides, Adrienne had said she just wanted sleep tonight and Ethan was still hungover. Really, this was an excellent opportunity to take a break and to work out what he should do.
He put his sheets back on the mattress. He realised he didn't have a lamp, so he lit a candle before lying down. He was tired but a lot less drunk than he usually was after a Grins rehearsal. Seeing Ethan paralytic had rather put him off his beer.
There was a faint sway of spidersilk from the ceiling, he noticed. He stood up, found he wasn't able to reach it himself, and so picked up a chair to bring it down. Then he lay back down on the bed.
He was going to have to talk with Ethan, he thought, just to make sure they were both on the same page. They had certainly started on the same page, but Rupert was now a little worried, from certain looks Ethan had given him, that Ethan might well have turned a page or two, or, God forbid, thought he was nearing the end of a chapter. And yet in other ways Ethan had given no sign. He was quite prone, for example, to wandering off whenever he felt like it, sometimes without waiting to finish a conversation. And he wasn't exchanging the sort of personal information that usually suggested a deepening friendship or romantic interest; in some ways, Ethan was one of the least confiding people Rupert had ever met. There were shopkeepers in Oxford whom Rupert felt he knew rather better.
So, there would have to be a talk.
The mattress was quite comfy, really, better than Ethan's or Adrienne's and certainly better than the sofa back at Jim and Alison's. He wondered how Jim and Alison were doing. He should really give them a ring.
There were a lot of people he should ring: his family, his friends back at Oxford, other Watchers. He missed many of them, but he was too embarrassed to ring most. He wanted to know how they were but he didn't want to know what they thought of him, for dropping his studies and for abandoning his training. He'd run away. He was a failure and a coward and all those people he cared for knew it.
He got out of bed and took a sip from his gin bottle. Then he checked that his sheet music and LPs were all arranged alphabetically, as filing and sorting always calmed him down. The whole world could be going to hell, but he should still be able to find his Disraeli Gears.
He went downstairs for a glass, because it was uncouth to drink straight from the bottle.
In the kitchen he paused outside Adrienne's door, wondering whether he should just walk in on her anyway. Then he remembered her story from last night and felt such a bloody heel.
Back in his room, he leant against the wall, alternately drinking and playing air guitar. He was learning a new song for The Grins. Eventually, he fell asleep.
He woke once in the night, thinking that he heard a scream. But when he staggered to the window, it was only the sound of cats fighting.
This time he managed to fall asleep on the actual bed.
65.
Ethan still felt rubbish the next morning but he no longer felt as if he were going to die. He managed some sort of breakfast and was rewarded with the sight of Ripper looking as bad as he felt. Which meant that it must be a Monday morning after a rehearsal.
After he'd eaten, he cast a couple of small spells just to reassure himself that he could. This was clearly not a day for doing anything complicated. Instead he should do all the things that were annoying on other days, like laundry and shopping. And he should pick out whatever paperback looked least demanding. He'd tried reading the next chapter of a Le Carre over breakfast and it hadn't made any sense at all.
So he was reading a Wodehouse when Ripper arrived at the laundrette. It had possibly been a poor choice.
"Feeling better?" asked Rupert.
"Ambulatory," said Ethan. "Look, would you mind looking after my lot while I go to the shops? I'll be back in ten. Anything you want?"
"Something to eat," said Rupert. "A pie or a sausage roll?"
Ethan also had to stop by the post office for a package from Mr Grey. It was something he was supposed to scatter around a churchyard. He wedged open a corner while he was in the queue at the supermarket and found it to be full of dried beetles.
It was closer to twenty minutes than ten by the time he got back but if Rupert had noticed, he didn't say anything. He'd picked up the Wodehouse since Ethan had left and was now frowning at it.
"What happened to you at Diedre's party?" Rupert asked him.
"Could this wait until after I'm no longer hungover?"
Rupert shrugged, then asked him for some chalk. Ethan put his clothes into a dryer and came back to find Rupert drawing circles on top of the washing machine.
"Not today," said Ethan. "But we could get together to look at it tomorrow if you like."
The woman who ran the laundrette came over to see what they were doing, so Rupert quickly erased it with a wet sock.
After they got home, Ethan went out again, this time to Terry's for some supplies. Since meeting Mr Grey, Ethan had become certain that Terry was a demon, if somehow less demonish. Part demon? A different kind? He wondered if he'd ever know Terry well enough to ask.
He didn't have enough money yet for another book, but he would do soon, what with all the odd jobs for Mr Grey.
Back at the house, he bought a couple of joints from Stan as a present for Randall. Most of the household had gone out to watch the cricket, so Ethan sat and read in his room all afternoon and into the early evening. When he heard Randall going into the room next door, he got up.
He found Randall sitting on his favourite beanbag, looking through a gorgeous library book of art deco stained glass. He looked a little sunburnt. "I need some background details for a poster I'm doing," Randall said.
Ethan held out the joints. "Thank you for helping the other night," he said. "It was very, very much appreciated."
"You should thank Louise and Ripper too," Randall said. He took the joints. "Want to share one?"
It wasn't Ethan's preferred method to get high, but it seemed churlish to refuse under the circumstances. "Sure."
"And the next time you feel like that," said Randall, lighting up, "you come to me first, OK? Because that wasn't fun for anyone."
"All right," said Ethan.
66.
There was a lot of laughter coming from Randall's room that evening, as well as a strong scent of marijuana. Rupert thought they were being quite antisocial, shutting themselves off like that.
Not that he was any better. He was back in his room, pretending to himself that he was trying to go to sleep. Tonight he'd put the bottle of gin downstairs so he couldn't get to it without deliberate effort.
He still hadn't had the talk with Ethan. He'd considered it at breakfast, but he'd been too tired. He'd thought about it a great deal at the laundrette, but that wasn't really a good venue for a private chat. And then, on the walk home, he'd become suddenly certain that the absolutely right thing to do was to kiss Ethan there and then. But it was a public street and there were other people nearby and it was clearly impossible. And when they got back, Tom was in the kitchen and Ethan had dropped off his stuff and then headed out straight away. Besides, what sort of thought was that, when Rupert was wanting to shut this whole thing down?
Perhaps there was no need for an actual talk though. He could just turn Ethan down the next time he came by. After a few refusals, Ethan would understand and go back to Evelyn or whatever other arrangements he'd had before Ripper had moved in.
He was still thinking this through when Ethan knocked on the door and then opened it. He was looking particularly rakish, if that was the word, unshaved and with his shirt buttoned wrong, as it had been all day. He smelt strongly of weed. Dishevelled, perhaps that was a better word. He looked dishevelled.
"You look a sight," said Rupert, more affectionately than he'd intended.
"I'm quite stoned," said Ethan. "I came to see if you wanted some." He held out the stub of a joint. "As a thank you-- As a partial thank you for--" He waved his hand.
Rupert took a toke. He did deserve it, after that bloody car ride. It was stronger than he'd expected and very quickly went to his head. So five minutes later he was taking Ethan's clothes off and, half an hour after that, he realised that they'd forgotten to shut the door, which Ethan thought was very, very funny.
In the morning Rupert woke at-- well, it was a Tuesday, so it didn't really matter what time he woke at. He woke in the morning, of that he was pretty sure.
He got up and washed, went down to the kitchen and was happy to find a pint of milk and some sausage rolls he could take up to his room for breakfast. Upstairs, he sat barefoot on the mattress and leant over the wooden floor, with a cigarette between his lips, and a piece of chalk in his hand. He started again to sketch the pentagram he thought they needed.
Ethan woke then and watched him sleepily for a while before reaching out to grab a different colour of chalk from his own trouser pocket. He wiped away some of Rupert's work with his hand to make some corrections.
"I don't think we're going to go ahead with this though," said Ethan. "I've found the catch." He sketched a symbol out on the floor. "A tattoo. We'd all have to have these tattoos."
"Draw that here?" Rupert said, handing him a piece of paper. Then he went to look for Randall, hoping he hadn't yet left for the cricket.
Randall was in the drawing room, going through The News of the World with a pair of scissors. "Flying saucers over Newcastle," he said, conversationally.
Rupert waved the piece of paper in front of Randall. "Do you know how to do tattoos? Could you do this?"
"I've seen it being done," said Randall. "But you'd really be better off going to a professional. I could find out who--"
"It's a magical symbol," said Rupert. "We'd need it for a spell."
"I could do it," Randall said. "Sure."
Rupert ran back upstairs to his room, where he found Ethan finishing off the milk and the sausage rolls. He'd managed to streak blue chalk dust all up one side of his face. This struck Rupert as enticingly, unknowingly cute. He kissed him, hard. Ethan looked up at him in some surprise and confusion.
"We can do it," said Rupert, still clutching the piece of paper. "We should do it."
Ethan looked a little forlornly at his own arm. "If you really want to," he said.
"How soon could we do it?"
"You're always in such a hurry," said Ethan.
"When?"
"As soon as we have at least three tattooed people."
"Right. Right then," said Rupert. "I'll round them up." He paused at the doorway. "What's this thing called?"
"The Mark of Eyghon," Ethan said.
64.
Rupert thought he should try sleeping alone for once. Besides, Adrienne had said she just wanted sleep tonight and Ethan was still hungover. Really, this was an excellent opportunity to take a break and to work out what he should do.
He put his sheets back on the mattress. He realised he didn't have a lamp, so he lit a candle before lying down. He was tired but a lot less drunk than he usually was after a Grins rehearsal. Seeing Ethan paralytic had rather put him off his beer.
There was a faint sway of spidersilk from the ceiling, he noticed. He stood up, found he wasn't able to reach it himself, and so picked up a chair to bring it down. Then he lay back down on the bed.
He was going to have to talk with Ethan, he thought, just to make sure they were both on the same page. They had certainly started on the same page, but Rupert was now a little worried, from certain looks Ethan had given him, that Ethan might well have turned a page or two, or, God forbid, thought he was nearing the end of a chapter. And yet in other ways Ethan had given no sign. He was quite prone, for example, to wandering off whenever he felt like it, sometimes without waiting to finish a conversation. And he wasn't exchanging the sort of personal information that usually suggested a deepening friendship or romantic interest; in some ways, Ethan was one of the least confiding people Rupert had ever met. There were shopkeepers in Oxford whom Rupert felt he knew rather better.
So, there would have to be a talk.
The mattress was quite comfy, really, better than Ethan's or Adrienne's and certainly better than the sofa back at Jim and Alison's. He wondered how Jim and Alison were doing. He should really give them a ring.
There were a lot of people he should ring: his family, his friends back at Oxford, other Watchers. He missed many of them, but he was too embarrassed to ring most. He wanted to know how they were but he didn't want to know what they thought of him, for dropping his studies and for abandoning his training. He'd run away. He was a failure and a coward and all those people he cared for knew it.
He got out of bed and took a sip from his gin bottle. Then he checked that his sheet music and LPs were all arranged alphabetically, as filing and sorting always calmed him down. The whole world could be going to hell, but he should still be able to find his Disraeli Gears.
He went downstairs for a glass, because it was uncouth to drink straight from the bottle.
In the kitchen he paused outside Adrienne's door, wondering whether he should just walk in on her anyway. Then he remembered her story from last night and felt such a bloody heel.
Back in his room, he leant against the wall, alternately drinking and playing air guitar. He was learning a new song for The Grins. Eventually, he fell asleep.
He woke once in the night, thinking that he heard a scream. But when he staggered to the window, it was only the sound of cats fighting.
This time he managed to fall asleep on the actual bed.
65.
Ethan still felt rubbish the next morning but he no longer felt as if he were going to die. He managed some sort of breakfast and was rewarded with the sight of Ripper looking as bad as he felt. Which meant that it must be a Monday morning after a rehearsal.
After he'd eaten, he cast a couple of small spells just to reassure himself that he could. This was clearly not a day for doing anything complicated. Instead he should do all the things that were annoying on other days, like laundry and shopping. And he should pick out whatever paperback looked least demanding. He'd tried reading the next chapter of a Le Carre over breakfast and it hadn't made any sense at all.
So he was reading a Wodehouse when Ripper arrived at the laundrette. It had possibly been a poor choice.
"Feeling better?" asked Rupert.
"Ambulatory," said Ethan. "Look, would you mind looking after my lot while I go to the shops? I'll be back in ten. Anything you want?"
"Something to eat," said Rupert. "A pie or a sausage roll?"
Ethan also had to stop by the post office for a package from Mr Grey. It was something he was supposed to scatter around a churchyard. He wedged open a corner while he was in the queue at the supermarket and found it to be full of dried beetles.
It was closer to twenty minutes than ten by the time he got back but if Rupert had noticed, he didn't say anything. He'd picked up the Wodehouse since Ethan had left and was now frowning at it.
"What happened to you at Diedre's party?" Rupert asked him.
"Could this wait until after I'm no longer hungover?"
Rupert shrugged, then asked him for some chalk. Ethan put his clothes into a dryer and came back to find Rupert drawing circles on top of the washing machine.
"Not today," said Ethan. "But we could get together to look at it tomorrow if you like."
The woman who ran the laundrette came over to see what they were doing, so Rupert quickly erased it with a wet sock.
After they got home, Ethan went out again, this time to Terry's for some supplies. Since meeting Mr Grey, Ethan had become certain that Terry was a demon, if somehow less demonish. Part demon? A different kind? He wondered if he'd ever know Terry well enough to ask.
He didn't have enough money yet for another book, but he would do soon, what with all the odd jobs for Mr Grey.
Back at the house, he bought a couple of joints from Stan as a present for Randall. Most of the household had gone out to watch the cricket, so Ethan sat and read in his room all afternoon and into the early evening. When he heard Randall going into the room next door, he got up.
He found Randall sitting on his favourite beanbag, looking through a gorgeous library book of art deco stained glass. He looked a little sunburnt. "I need some background details for a poster I'm doing," Randall said.
Ethan held out the joints. "Thank you for helping the other night," he said. "It was very, very much appreciated."
"You should thank Louise and Ripper too," Randall said. He took the joints. "Want to share one?"
It wasn't Ethan's preferred method to get high, but it seemed churlish to refuse under the circumstances. "Sure."
"And the next time you feel like that," said Randall, lighting up, "you come to me first, OK? Because that wasn't fun for anyone."
"All right," said Ethan.
66.
There was a lot of laughter coming from Randall's room that evening, as well as a strong scent of marijuana. Rupert thought they were being quite antisocial, shutting themselves off like that.
Not that he was any better. He was back in his room, pretending to himself that he was trying to go to sleep. Tonight he'd put the bottle of gin downstairs so he couldn't get to it without deliberate effort.
He still hadn't had the talk with Ethan. He'd considered it at breakfast, but he'd been too tired. He'd thought about it a great deal at the laundrette, but that wasn't really a good venue for a private chat. And then, on the walk home, he'd become suddenly certain that the absolutely right thing to do was to kiss Ethan there and then. But it was a public street and there were other people nearby and it was clearly impossible. And when they got back, Tom was in the kitchen and Ethan had dropped off his stuff and then headed out straight away. Besides, what sort of thought was that, when Rupert was wanting to shut this whole thing down?
Perhaps there was no need for an actual talk though. He could just turn Ethan down the next time he came by. After a few refusals, Ethan would understand and go back to Evelyn or whatever other arrangements he'd had before Ripper had moved in.
He was still thinking this through when Ethan knocked on the door and then opened it. He was looking particularly rakish, if that was the word, unshaved and with his shirt buttoned wrong, as it had been all day. He smelt strongly of weed. Dishevelled, perhaps that was a better word. He looked dishevelled.
"You look a sight," said Rupert, more affectionately than he'd intended.
"I'm quite stoned," said Ethan. "I came to see if you wanted some." He held out the stub of a joint. "As a thank you-- As a partial thank you for--" He waved his hand.
Rupert took a toke. He did deserve it, after that bloody car ride. It was stronger than he'd expected and very quickly went to his head. So five minutes later he was taking Ethan's clothes off and, half an hour after that, he realised that they'd forgotten to shut the door, which Ethan thought was very, very funny.
In the morning Rupert woke at-- well, it was a Tuesday, so it didn't really matter what time he woke at. He woke in the morning, of that he was pretty sure.
He got up and washed, went down to the kitchen and was happy to find a pint of milk and some sausage rolls he could take up to his room for breakfast. Upstairs, he sat barefoot on the mattress and leant over the wooden floor, with a cigarette between his lips, and a piece of chalk in his hand. He started again to sketch the pentagram he thought they needed.
Ethan woke then and watched him sleepily for a while before reaching out to grab a different colour of chalk from his own trouser pocket. He wiped away some of Rupert's work with his hand to make some corrections.
"I don't think we're going to go ahead with this though," said Ethan. "I've found the catch." He sketched a symbol out on the floor. "A tattoo. We'd all have to have these tattoos."
"Draw that here?" Rupert said, handing him a piece of paper. Then he went to look for Randall, hoping he hadn't yet left for the cricket.
Randall was in the drawing room, going through The News of the World with a pair of scissors. "Flying saucers over Newcastle," he said, conversationally.
Rupert waved the piece of paper in front of Randall. "Do you know how to do tattoos? Could you do this?"
"I've seen it being done," said Randall. "But you'd really be better off going to a professional. I could find out who--"
"It's a magical symbol," said Rupert. "We'd need it for a spell."
"I could do it," Randall said. "Sure."
Rupert ran back upstairs to his room, where he found Ethan finishing off the milk and the sausage rolls. He'd managed to streak blue chalk dust all up one side of his face. This struck Rupert as enticingly, unknowingly cute. He kissed him, hard. Ethan looked up at him in some surprise and confusion.
"We can do it," said Rupert, still clutching the piece of paper. "We should do it."
Ethan looked a little forlornly at his own arm. "If you really want to," he said.
"How soon could we do it?"
"You're always in such a hurry," said Ethan.
"When?"
"As soon as we have at least three tattooed people."
"Right. Right then," said Rupert. "I'll round them up." He paused at the doorway. "What's this thing called?"
"The Mark of Eyghon," Ethan said.
