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Right as Rayne Chapter 2 3 4 5
By spikeNdru, July 2004
Note: This story is rated NC-17 and contains incidences of M/M slash and child molestation.
A/N: I’d always found the character of Ethan Rayne interesting and wondered what in his life had made him the Ethan Rayne we got to see on screen. What made Giles eventually turn to the orderliness of the Watchers’ Council, while Ethan embraced Chaos?
Many, many thanks to dodyskin. *Grazie Prego, kiss, kiss* I was overwhelmed by both your kindness and the extent of my ignorance regarding the English school system. I saved all your information in Word, for future reference, but the more I read, the more I became aware that I could not possibly do justice to describing the experience of a boy attending public school at this time. As a firm believer in the “know your weaknesses, play to your strengths” rules of writing, I have designed Chapter Two to carry the plot and narrative along, hopefully without the glaring errors that would be so evident to readers actually familiar with English schools.
Special thanks to makd for the wonderful beta work. Any remaining errors are mine.
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Chapter One
Virginia Rayne had working class roots and middle class aspirations. If not for herself, then for her only son. Ethan was special. Small and slight, he had been tormented unmercifully at the Council housing in which they lived. Virginia knew there would be no life for him here. She wanted more for him; he was the repository of all of her own unfulfilled dreams. It was too late for her—she felt old and tired and worn down. Her life was over before it even began. But not Ethan’s! Never Ethan’s. With the single-minded fierceness of a lioness looking out for her only cub, Virginia made her plans. . .
She felt the first small glimmer of possibility when she obtained the job; cleaning for Sir Reginald Smythe. Sir Reginald was a life-long bachelor, and when his previous cleaner got married and immigrated to Canada, Virginia was ready. With her heart in her throat, she carefully counted out bus fare and presented herself at his door before he could advertise the position. She now had her entrée (on Mondays and Thursdays), and Virginia just knew she’d find some way of bringing her remarkable son to Sir Reginald’s attention.
Virginia succeeded better than even she had hoped. After a month’s employment, she began bringing Ethan to work with her. Solemn and big-eyed, he was the perfect child. Most six year olds were rowdy and rambunctious, into everything, but not her Ethan. He’d sit quietly, off in his own little world, for hours at a time.
And then her prayers were answered; Sir Reginald began to take an interest in Ethan. He invited Ethan to join him for tea one day and professed himself very impressed with the six-year-old’s manners and reticence. A very bright child, Ethan merely watched Sir Reginald and mimicked his behavior at tea. Virginia was thrilled when Sir Reginald commented, “You’ve got a bright lad there, Mrs. Rayne. Minds his manners. Most children of his class stuff their faces with cakes and grab a teacup with both hands. That boy’ll bear watching.”
Virginia basked in the compliment, and thought her heart would burst with pride the first time Sir Reginald invited Ethan to join him for luncheon.
Within six months, Ethan was occasionally invited to luncheon or tea on a Tuesday or Wednesday when Virginia was not expected. Virginia took special care with his grooming on those days. In a freshly ironed shirt, with comb marks still visible in his damp hair, he looked the proper prince, he did!
Virginia initially rode the bus with him, returning for him several hours later. Eventually, he became known to the bus drivers on that particular route, and Virginia was able to walk him to the bus stop and allow him to board alone, secure in the knowledge that Hugh or Bill or Ian would get him safely to Sir Reginald’s and back.
Thus, over the next two years, Ethan learned appropriate table manners, the proper use of silverware and developed a fondness for good literature. He learned the difference between a Persian and an Abusson carpet, which wines should be chilled and which should be allowed to breathe at room temperature; he learned to speak properly, with an acceptable accent, and he also learned the finer points of cocksucking.
Virginia never questioned why a grown man in his late fifties chose to spend so much of his free time with a young child, and Ethan never told. Virginia knew with every fiber of her being that Ethan was wonderful. . . extraordinary. . . and assumed that others would also recognize the uniqueness of her child. Sir Reginald had no children or grandchildren of his own; why wouldn’t he indulge his longing for children with a paragon such as Ethan? And indulge his longing for children, he did.
After tea, he began reading great works of literature to young Ethan, and the boy soaked up knowledge like a desert cactus savors the infrequent rain, bursting into bloom. Sir Reginald, oh so gradually, relocated Ethan from the matching wing chair to an ottoman at his knee, and eventually, into his lap.
By nature an obedient child, Ethan never questioned the continuing affection shown him by Sir Reginald. He had been given so much, it was only natural that he be expected to give something in return; and if that entailed first stroking and caressing Sir Reginald’s soft, wrinkled, musty-smelling penis, and later taking it into his small mouth, Ethan didn’t really mind. When there were so many wonderful new things to see and taste and learn, showing affection to Sir Reginald was a minor part of the total experience.
Truthfully, he preferred stroking and being stroked by Sir Reginald to being enveloped in the smothering embrace of Aunt Violet, whose overpowering scent of cheap perfume and body odor made his eyes water, and whose sloppy kisses left bright red lipstick stains on his face that he had to scrub and scrub until his face hurt, to remove them. He was very glad Aunt Violet visited infrequently.
Sir Reginald smelled like pipe tobacco and port and musty books—a not unpleasant scent. Ethan sometimes found it comforting.
By the time he was eight, Ethan was comfortable in his existence, excepting school, of course.
Mondays and Thursdays, he would let himself into their flat and put the kettle on. He made sandwiches of fish paste, sliced ham or cucumber, in season, trimming the crusts and quartering them. He’d add a slice of cake or chocolate biscuits, and when Virginia came home from work her eyes would light up and her whole face would glow. Ethan would encourage her to sit down and put her feet up, and he’d serve her a lovely tea, fit for a Queen. Tears of gratitude would form in her eyes as she thanked God for giving her this wonderful boy. If she had one regret, it was that she had taught Ethan to call her “mother”, thinking it sounded more genteel than the causally affectionate “mum” she had called her own mother. She sometimes missed hearing “mum”, and then chided herself for silliness.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Ethan hurried to the bus stop for his visits with Sir Reginald; Fridays brought piano lessons with the curate, but Sundays were his favorite day of all.
He’d arise while it was still dark, wash and dress carefully, and slip from the house unnoticed. What he was doing wasn’t actually wrong, but he understood with the innate knowledge of children that his mother would be unhappy were she to discover his secret destination.
He’d quietly slip into the back of the RC church and attend six o’clock Mass. The pageantry, the incense, and especially the Latin enthralled him. The unfamiliar words and cadences reciting spells to transmogrify every-day bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ touched something deep within him.
Transfigured by the power of the Mass, he’d hurry home to make breakfast for his mother. He’d wake her with a tray, and as she drank her tea, she’d tell him over and over what a wonderful son he was and how grateful she was to have him.
She’d dress in her Sunday best and, together, they’d attend the eminently prosaic church she favored. The kind, but uninspired, curate would drone on and on and there was no exotic scent of incense, no Latin, no. . . magic.
The hours he was forced to attend school were a different story entirely. “Run, Spot, run” couldn’t hold a candle to William Shakespeare; he seemed incapable of learning his times tables and his teachers constantly chastised him for inattention and daydreaming. They assumed he was “slow”, when in actuality, he was utterly bored.
Recess was torture for him. Twice daily, the teachers shooed him outside where the other children were laughing and playing. If he approached a group in an attempt to join in, they’d band together, shutting him out, singing “Rayne, Rayne, go away. . .”; the teachers felt he just wasn’t trying to fit in and would shake their heads and sigh.
When he was twelve, his life irrevocably changed.
As school was dismissed on the first day of the new school year, Ethan hung back, allowing the other children to go on ahead. When he finally emerged, he saw his mother waiting for him, practically dancing with excitement. Sir Reginald had offered to send Ethan to public school! Application had been made, fees paid, uniforms purchased, and he was to begin Michaelmas Term next week!
Ethan packed his brand new uniforms in his battered steamer trunk and never looked back.
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Continued in Chapter Two
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