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Ripper took his time once he'd got inside the disco, standing near the door for long enough to see and be seen. The dance floor was crowded, but not with people he recognised. Not that he knew many people in London yet.
He spotted the one who'd recommended this place at a table by himself, lounging back and looking over the crowd. At first glance he looked casual, but as he walked over Ripper decided he'd actually put a lot of work into looking that relaxed. He smirked as he shrugged more comfortably into his leathers. One thing he'd learned about London- they were all faking it here. Just some were faking it successfully.
Ethan... was probably a success in his own mind. His clothes were so tight they looked painted on, and his make up more perfect than anyone else here. The fact that even a provincial boy like Giles knew that it was last year's look didn't bother him at all. It was his look. Therefore it was the best. It was an attitude Giles rather admired. Ripper, of course, let nothing of that admiration show.
"Rayne." he said, somewhat dismissively, when he walked up to the table.
Ethan acted like he'd only just noticed him. "Ripper," he replied, with what could be taken for a smile on his face. "I didn't expect to see you here." he flicked his gaze over Ripper's outfit, then out over the crowd. Reflexively Ripper looked too. Okay, so he didn't quite fit in. Leather and denim stood out in a sea of shiny polyester.
Ripper grabbed a seat, turned it to face the dance floor, and sprawled back into it, legs wide and arm across the table. He owned the space. He owned the world, if he wanted it. He was Ripper.
"Yeah, well. You said it was worth seeing. Not sure if I agree yet." he grinned challenge across at Rayne, that slightly dangerous grin he'd never admit he'd spent hours practicing before he tried it out on anyone.
Rayne smirked back. "There's ways to make it more interesting, if you're up for it."
Plain challenge. Or, considering the source, flirtation. One had to be accepted as a matter of honour. The other...
"Up for what?"
Ethan fished a small bottle out from somewhere, and held it under the table in a way that clearly spoke of something illicit. "A touch of alchemy."
"Drugs?" Outward scepticism masked inner apprehension. Aside from a couple of joints at university, that was an area Ripper had no experience with. On the other hand it was on his to do list somewhere, with all the other things he'd heard about only in warnings.
"Magic. Real magic." Ethan's reply held that hint of scorn, that Ripper could ever have doubted.
Now magic was something he did know. "What's it do then?"
"Improve the view immensely." Ethan smirked, then uncorked the vial and raised it to his own lips. One quick swallow then down again, hiding it from general view. He ran his tongue over his lips as if to catch a stray drop. Then he offered it to Ripper. "Want some?"
He shrugged and took the proffered concoction. "Sod it. Why not? How much then?"
"Just a sip. It takes a couple of minutes to kick in, but it is worth it."
That one sip, of course, tasted foul. Salty and soapy, with hints of assorted minerals. He handed the container back and tried not to grimace. Thought about going to get a drink to get rid of the taste, worried how that might interact with the 'magic' he'd just taken, realised he could ask Ethan, decided he wouldn't want to look anything less than blasé about the whole thing. Settled back in his chair and waited.
The first hint of effect made him reach absently to clean the glasses he still forgot he didn't wear any more. Things looked softer around the edges, not so much blurred as somehow insubstantial. But people were still sharp and clear, so it wasn't his eyes failing. As the effect progressed, it started to look like everyone was wearing gauze.
Ripper grinned. Ethan, watching him, grinned too.
"It isn't..?"
"It is."
"X-ray vision!" Ripper exclaimed almost reverently. "Now that's magic!"
"Told you it improves the view. Or as the spell said, 'gives much deeper insight than available to the common eye'."
By now that 'insight' had completely erased the top layer of everyone's clothing. Most people were reduced to their underwear. Some girls, Ripper noted with delight, were not actually wearing bras.
"Insight into women. Oh I can definitely live with that." By now grinning hugely he settled in to appreciate the view. "Now this is worth seeing."
"So glad you approve. Want a pint?"
That answered that then. "Yeah, please." He answered absently, most of his attention elsewhere.
Ethan got up to head to the bar, and of course walked past Ripper to do so. He was no more immune to the effect than anyone else there. Ripper found himself absently watching him walk away. Not that the clothes left much to the imagination most of the time, but this way he could tell for sure - Rayne didn't bother with underwear.
Then he noticed a twist in his back, and looked up to find himself regarded in turn. When their eyes met, Rayne turned around and started walking backwards. Ripper snapped his eyes back to the dance floor, and most definitely did not check out the other view.
Though he was somehow more aware now that there were about as many men out there as women.
On no conscious level did he compare any of them to anyone. Especially not unfavourably.
The prospect of drink helped him ignore the way Ethan was definitely checking him out as he walked back to the table. So the man was looking. Ripper had a lot to look at, so it was only natural. Mostly he didn't give it much mind. The view gave him much better things to think about.
Somewhere back where he didn't let it show, Giles was sitting wide eyed, staring at the now naked room and realising that the whole three girls he'd actually seen naked did not, in fact, cover very much of the spectrum of human variety. For a start they'd all been natural brunettes. The number of bottle blondes that were currently obvious to him was... something of a revelation. They'd also all been white. Here there were more shades and colours than he'd ever even met before leaving home. And he could see every inch of all of them. His inner middle class prude was telling him seriously he should avert his eyes.
Everything that showed, and everything he had any intention of listening to, was telling another story entirely. He looked at the dance floor like a wolf at a herd, intent on singling out his prey.
Ethan had a more democratic attitude. After about half a pint of leisurely voyeurism, he headed out to mingle with the crowd.
Ripper watched him move among the dancers like a shark through fish, smoothly going where he willed and taking what he wanted. Ethan danced pressed close to bodies that had no idea they seemed naked to him. He'd look them over and they probably just imagined him admiring their outfits. It was outrageous, audacious, and Ripper had to join him. He downed the rest of his pint and took to the floor, all worries about his rhythm or lack thereof entirely irrelevant.
Within moments he was surrounded by naked people. Everywhere he looked there was flesh. His hands told a different story, of course. He'd touch a bare back and feel cotton or silk slide under his fingertips. But sometimes, the best times, he would touch skin, and be able to imagine that this beauty dancing with him was as naked as she seemed, undressed for him.
He, of course, looked clothed to everyone else. Almost everyone, anyway. Every now and then he'd catch Ethan's eye and they'd share a knowing smirk. Ethan would run his gaze over whoever Ripper was dancing with, then back over Ripper. And he'd smile. After a while Ripper smiled back unselfconsciously. Let him look. He'd shared this way of seeing, let him see.
Still, it was strange to feel the weight of the leather on his shoulders but to look down and see only his own skin. Stranger still to see himself naked and excited, among so many people. He'd stopped feeling like he should hide that quite quickly though. Yeah, even in clothes, that could be seen. And yeah, some women looked at him and turned away. But others pulled him closer and pushed their hands up under his jacket. That... that was just glorious. He'd never had a night like it.
The first sign that anything was wrong came when he started seeing red.
He'd been busy, focused on the near at hand, but that girl stepped away from him at the end of the song and excused herself with a grin. When he looked around the crowd for his next conquest, he realised it seemed to have lost all that variety. Instead of shades of white and brown, everyone was red. Everywhere. And when he looked at his own skin it looked the same.
Disturbed, he pushed and stepped around until he got out of the crush, then looked around for Ethan.
He looked quite strange in ever stronger shades of scarlet. He also looked rather sick.
"Rayne. What's going on?" Ripper practically growled as he reached his side. The journey there had been uncomfortable- assorted impacts suggested the presence of tables or chairs in the way, but he hadn't seen a one of them.
"I'm not sure I take your meaning." Ethan attempted, but instead of staring at the dance floor he was avoiding it, his eyes cast down.
He was also leaned up against a wall, not quite casually. Ripper was willing to bet he couldn't see the chairs either.
He turned and put his back against the wall too. It was taking on that same disturbing soft visual quality the clothes had, earlier in the evening. But the people didn't make a better view. A lot of the red now had a very wet look to it.
"Your bloody X-Ray potion. It doesn't stop at skin, does it?"
Ethan seemed about to try and lie again, but then looked over at Ripper and gulped. Ripper decided to keep his eyes on the floor instead. Ethan had taken the potion earlier than Rupert. He'd be further along.
"I thought I'd fixed it." Ethan mumbled, eventually.
"You mean it did this before? And you still took it again?"
"I told you, I fixed it. Or I thought I had. It worked for much longer this time."
Ripper shook his head in disgust. "You bloody idiot."
"Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?" Ethan said absently, looking around in jerky glances, trying to see without seeing what was left of people. "Speaking of following, I think we need to get out of here. Can you see the door?"
Ripper looked up- and wished he hadn't. He couldn't see people any more. Skinless people did not register as people at all. He had the sick thought that technically, it was all still flesh. But it looked more like meat. Meat that moved. Shining and fluid and very, very wrong. He closed his eyes tightly and tried not to be sick.
Which led to a very useful discovery.
He briefly considered not sharing it with Ethan, but figured the other man would find out in a minute, and he still needed him around to learn if a counter spell was necessary.
"Close your eyes. It helps. They've got skin again."
A pause. Then a suggestion. "If you put your hand over your eyes, you should be able to see things again. Tables and that." He could also see Ethan, apparently clothed now, stepping past him to head rapidly for the door. He followed his suggestion and followed him out into the street. Where their problems would not be ended, but would at lest be a little less concentrated.
The problem of what a pair of prats they looked practically running for the door with their hands over their eyes was not, right now, particularly pressing.
Outside, for now at least, the walls blocked most bodies from view. But there were still some on the street, and the x-ray vision was getting worse.
"Do you have enough for a cab?" Rayne asked, trying to count his own money with one hand over his eyes.
Ripper dropped his hand to reach in a pocket, and then wished he hadn't. Even with his eyes closed the view became far too anatomical. "We better. If we stop being able to see cars we can't bloody walk anywhere."
Rayne swore in probable agreement. Then he looked back at the disco, reluctantly. "Wait here. I'll be right back."
Ripper didn't take kindly to orders, but Rayne was gone before he could muster any objection. Which left Ripper standing on the street alone with one hand pressed firmly over his eyes. Somehow this was worse than being part of a pair of prats. And it was also increasingly less useful.
Still, he didn't betray his anxiety any way that would show. Impatience, on the other hand...
"Rayne, hurry up!" He almost barked as the other man came back into view. He could tell it was him- who else would have both arms pressed in front of their face? Aside from that, he didn't make a very distinctive skeleton. It was unsettling, watching someone stripped of identity like that.
"I got us a lift. Come on. And more layers work better- try your arms, and wrap something round your face if you've got anything."
All Ripper could think of was lifting his t-shirt over his head. Which would look really appallingly stupid, but on the other hand if anything else disappeared he'd be stranded out here effectively blind. Bugger dignity.
The guy with the car made no specific comment on the current appearance of his passengers, which was lucky because Ripper really couldn't afford to do violence to anyone right now, however much he might want to. Actually the man's remarks held more of a slightly resigned amusement than anything else. He also didn't need directions to Ethan's flat. Which was good, because with the landmarks getting ever harder to perceive, Giles couldn't have told them how to get to his place if his life depended on it.
Ethan didn't introduce the driver, nor did the man volunteer his name. That meant Giles was left aware that someone had seen him and Rayne like this, but he didn't know who. Which was going to make it so easy to look anyone in the eye once this wore off.
If it wore off.
Magic was a bastard like that, sometimes.
While they travelled, Giles concentrated on believing that the car was perfectly safe despite the way it seemed to be rapidly disappearing. Ethan, on the other hand, kept up a conversation the whole time, and Giles was somewhere between disturbed and impressed that the man could flirt so well despite the object of his attentions presumably looking just as skeletal to Ethan as he did to Giles. Well, maybe it helped if he knew what he should look like.
Or maybe Ethan just flirted on reflex, like Ripper fought.
Once out of the car, the pair of them hit a snag. It was going to be a bit tricky finding the door when the nearest clearly visible wall was about half way into the house. The car pulled away before they could ask whoever it was to play seeing eye dog, so instead they had to arrange themselves so at least one of them could see things.
This ended up involving Ripper wrapping both arms and his jacket around Ethan's head, and walking rather close behind him up the path.
"You know, Ripper, if I knew the night would end like this, I'd have asked you out before." Ethan purred, and put a little more sway in his walk.
"Rayne, the only reason I'm not strangling you yet is you know which spell you used." Ripper whispered tightly in his ear.
Ethan lost most of the sway and reached the door quickly.
The outer door pushed open fairly easily, but the door to Ethan's flat proved more of a problem. Either they could put enough layers on to see, or have a hand free for the key.
"Get a move on, Rayne." Right now Ripper appeared to have his arms wrapped around a free floating set of eyeballs and a brain, and he was running out of ways not to think about that.
"I'm doing my best." Another failed try. "We could always try using your leg too."
"Good idea." Ripper agreed, and unwrapped himself from Ethan. He promptly faded from sight entirely, but that was rather a relief. Ripper checked by touch where the offending door was, then leaned back and booted it, hard.
It gave way almost immediately.
"That wasn't actually what I had in mind." Ethan said in a slightly pained voice, no doubt tallying up repair bills.
"Tough. I'm tired of playing around. How are you going to fix this?"
Ripper started to try walking in to the flat, and caught his foot on something almost right away. Ethan grabbed hold of him and started steering him.
"Well, I thought we'd lie down somewhere harmless, and wait." He said, pushing Ripper until he met something soft. "Not quite the way I usually get people into bed, but..." he left off and let go of Ripper, who then heard the bed springs creaking.
"That's your whole plan?" Ripper growled.
"Unless you can think of some way to read magic books when we can't actually see them."
Ripper tried, but had to surrender to the logic. With an explosive sigh he fell forward onto the bed, and rested his head on his arms.
A moment later he said, conversationally, "You know, your downstairs neighbour is really appallingly ugly, naked." Then rolled over onto his back. That brought his left side into contact with Ethan. Ripper moved away a bit, but not quite enough to lose touch. By now his eyes were telling him he was floating in the middle of an ever expanding zone of emptiness. Only feeling told him he was not alone.
About a minute passed.
"This is going to be bloody boring."
"I can think of ways to pass the time." Ethan purred.
"Not that boring."
"Come on, you don't even know what I meant."
"What you always mean, Ethan. Something to do with sex."
"Sometimes it's something to do with magic."
"Which we have quite enough of already, unless you can think of a counter spell."
"You know your accent slips when you get wound up?"
"It bloody does not!" Ripper replied, quickly correcting his slide into the academic.
"Of course not." Ethan assured him. You could hear the grin. After a moment's pause he asked "So, where did you go to school then?"
"Why ask about school? Why not just where I come from?"
"Because I'm sure you have an answer to that. You've either picked some part of London, which you've been away from of course so nobody remembers you, or you'll say somewhere nice and neutral. Maybe even tell the truth. Somewhere in the Midlands maybe. Just leave out the part where you had your own estate."
Ripper shifted uncomfortably. It was one thing to sit secure in the knowledge you could see everyone else was a fake, but quite another to realise they could see you too. Somehow he couldn't muster the required conviction for a denial.
"Why's it matter anyway?" He asked instead, his accent getting more common than ever.
"Because I'm lying here in the dark, effectively blind, with someone I only know is handy in a fight and claims to know about magic."
"I know magic."
"Yeah, of course. Not the point. Point is it's difficult to get a handle on you. Every time I think you're just another yob you come up with some reference to Fijeraff's Arcanum or the Cortisden Codex. But as soon as you start looking like some overeducated pretender I'll see you just casually bash some bloke's head in and go get another pint. You're a puzzle, Ripper. And a very pretty puzzle. Yet whenever I make a move you start growling at me, even though you've been flirting with me all night."
"I bloody have not!" Ripper objected, and jumped up off the bed. Which proved to be a mistake. It turned out coordination was rather difficult when you could see neither floor nor feet, nor any other part of you. He ended up in a heap up against a wall, on top of something that had made some fairly fragile noises on the way down. "Bloody, fucking, bastard stupid..."
"Yeah, that was. Get back up here, Ripper, before you trash something dangerous. If you upset the potions there's no knowing what will happen."
Which was, again, logical. But Ripper didn't much feel like being logical. He kept swearing. Now in Latin, for variety.
"And you wonder why I wonder about your schooling. Nothing says public school boy quite like fluent classical profanity. Come on, confess, was it Eton or Harrow?"
A short silence, then a sigh. "None of the above. You won't have heard of it. You pretty much have to be related to a graduate before they'll consider you." That said in the natural Giles accent. And then, with Ripper's chosen voice, "And if I bloody wanted people to know I'd... well, not talk like this, for a start. Keep it to yourself."
"Of course." Ethan purred, and Ripper got the sinking feeling he meant anything but. "Incidentally, adding 'bloody' to a sentence doesn't really do much for the hard man image. And it does get rather repetitive."
The bastard was laughing at him. And as of right now there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn't even sure he could get back to the bed from here without doing himself an injury. But he set about trying. Once there, in arm's reach of Ethan... well, there was a lot he could do from there.
"So the magic was, what, out of the family library? Ancient tomes handed down through the generations?"
"Something like that." Ripper allowed warily, old training setting off warning bells. Keep the secret. Even if you want nothing to do with it any more.
"It runs in the blood with me, too. Got my power from my father. He tries to keep his name out of the papers, but you'd know some of the things he's done."
"Diedre said you told her you were adopted, with two wicked stepsisters." Ripper remarked absently as he found his feet and started to shuffle forwards again. "And Randall reckons everything you know you got from sucking up to the right people. Or was it sucking them off?" Ripper hit the bed again as Ethan sniggered.
"Well, you know, there's a lot of facets to the truth. Calling a story true or false is so limiting."
"So you don't just make stuff up to suit the audience then?"
"Never said that." Ethan grinned.
Ripper flopped back onto the bed and struck out in Ethan's direction, on general principles. His fist met something fleshy with an idle thud. Ethan just giggled.
"So is public school really like they say?" he asked.
"What, you mean cold, bare and miserable? Yeah, only more so."
"I meant the fun stuff. Like all the fagging."
And again, on general principles, Ripper tried to hit him. With better success this time. Ethan actually said "Ouch! Oh come on, I'm only asking." And both the smirk and the pout were clearly audible, partly because they were Ethan's default modes anyway.
"For the record- I am not queer. I do not fuck boys. Or men. The fact that I didn't get to see a girl in term time for a large part of my life just left me with a deep and lasting appreciation of them once I got out of school. And anyway, fagging isn't about that, it's just some kid who has to do what you tell them to."
"I knew that. It's you who keeps on bringing up sex."
This time Ripper's fist met only bed, which was probably lucky for Ethan, because the attempt was a lot more heartfelt. Still, he heard the thump, and Ripper could hear him sniggering. Bloody annoying bastard.
"This is stupid." Ripper sighed, and decided to ignore Ethan. Trouble was there wasn't much else to concentrate on. The walls, floors and neighbours had receded to such a distance he'd have needed a telescope to see anything clearly anyway. He wondered idly if that would even work, considering that they wouldn't be able to see the lenses. Would they still bend light? Probably not. Or, then again, magic not being physics, they might.
That little thought detour took up all of a minute.
"Wish we had some music."
"Your wish, in this case, is my command." Ethan replied, and various shiftings on the bed suggested he was moving around. A moment later there was the familiar empty hissing of a record before the song begins, and then the equally familiar opening bars. "Dark side of the moon good for you?"
It was, in fact, something Ripper had spent a lot of nights listening to, until it became part of the dream that brought him to London. But he said only "S'alright."
"Heathen." Ethan sighed dramatically, flopping down on the bed again.
"It's good, alright? Just, not what I'd expect from you."
"Well I do have an album that's a guaranteed aphrodisiac, but I wouldn't want to scare you off."
Once again, Ethan was pressed lightly against him down their whole length, and again Ripper didn't quite pull away. London had receded into the dark around them, and even their own bodies were invisible. It was getting harder to think of himself as solid, or real. Rayne wasn't exactly a reassuring presence, but he was better than nothing.
"Or don't you scare that easily?" Ethan pressed, in more than one sense.
Ripper sighed. Mostly better than nothing. "Rayne, just let it alone. Listen to the music and let it alone."
Now Ethan sighed, and moved back fractionally. "You don't know what you're missing, mate." he assured him, then settled in. With his head on Ripper's shoulder, his curls brushing against his face. Ripper didn't push him away. Didn't feel like it.
As the music progressed and the two of them stared up into the dark the stars began to look more strange. Strange, initially, to even see the stars, in London where the night sky tended to be orange. But stranger still as the familiar twinkling stopped, and then the icy points of light above started to change.
"Ethan?"
"Hmmm?"
"Do the stars look odd to you?"
"I'm a city boy, Ripper. Of course they look strange."
"Not what I meant. The patterns... they seem odd."
"Maybe there's some missing. Maybe we're seeing past the stars."
Ripper brought his arm up to cover his eyes- his left arm, from habit, which meant dislodging Ethan for a moment. The view did change, but when he took his arm away again stars didn't just disappear. "Past is right." he said in quiet wonder. "There are new stars up there. Past the bright ones, ones we don't usually see."
There was some shifting beside him as Ethan tried experiments of his own. "Stars beyond the stars we know. Past the heroes everyone else is looking at. New patterns. Now that is deeper insight."
Ethan shared the wonder, the jaded mockery for a moment gone from his voice.
Somehow, when they rearranged themselves, Ripper had one arm round Ethan Rayne, who was resting up against him. Somehow, for right now, he didn't mind.
They lay there together, listening to the music, floating among strange stars.