Highlander Trespass

**Trespass**

Sometimes, Giles feels like he's suffocating. The long, silent halls of the British Museum seem as if they might close around him, trapping him forever like a fly in amber. Worst of all, he thinks he could become accustomed to it. Those are the good days.

The students are the second-worst part of the job. Most of them are day-trippers from Oxford or Cambridge; a few are up from Durham. They're bright and hopeful and fascinated by their work, and they make him feel grey and old and boring, especially when he has to chase them out of the museum's various restricted areas. Fortunately, their tastes seem to run more towards Victorian pornography than towards the occult. Giles doesn't mind the giggling nearly as much as he would mind cleaning up innards.

Generally, he knows right away when someone's trespassing in the restricted sections. Generations of Watcher-curators have set wards to alert themselves to any intruder, the spells layering one on top of the other until there was barely any need for Giles to set his own. The memory of the magic has soaked into the stones themselves.

As a result, when he sees what looks like a young man seated halfway down one of the rows of shelves that hold the Museum's collection of medieval French death spells, dark head bent over a grimoire with studious interest, he approaches with caution -- and with a blessed dagger made of a special steel and silver mixture hidden in the files under his left arm. The wards haven't been triggered all day.

The maybe-a-young man looks up as Giles approaches, eyebrows lifting in mild inquiry.

"Yes?" he asks, not bothering to close the book. The earnest innocence in the green-hazel eyes would certainly fool anyone who doesn't know Ethan Rayne. As it is, there's a genuine quality in that gaze that makes his impression of harmlessness even more convincing than Ethan's best. Giles shifts the files under his arm so that he has easier access to his dagger. There's still the very real possibility that he's not dealing with a human being, but with something doing a pitch-perfect impression of one.

"This area is restricted," Giles informs him; then, because he still can't help _pushing_, he adds, "and how the devil did you get in here without tripping the alarms?"

"Oh." The young man looks embarrassed. "You're Rupert Giles, aren't you?" He closes the book, keeping one long finger in it to mark his place, and scrambles to his feet. "I'm Adam Pierson. Don Salzer sent me?" His voice rises uncertainly at the end, and he's digging in his jeans pocket as he speaks, coming up with a folded piece of paper that he dutifully hands over.

Giles unfolds it and glances briefly at it; long enough to see Pierson's name in Don Salzer's familiar scrawl, and to feel the magical signature of the man's stamp floating off of it. Salzer's mentioned his new protege, actually, and often enough that it might well be considered gloating; still, faced with a skinny, sharp-featured grad student in a vaguely sarcastic t-shirt, Giles can't help but be surprised.

"That still doesn't explain how you got in here," he says after handing Pierson his note back. "These areas are heavily warded."

"I don't know anything about magic; sorry," Pierson says. Giles half-expects him to add 'dude' to the end of the sentence. "Maybe the wards are down?"

"Why don't you come with me?" Giles says dryly. So far, Pierson hasn't offered anything but vaguely embarrassed confusion; he doesn't seem like a threat, despite his presence in the restricted area.

As expected, the young man scrambles awkwardly to his feet. He pauses to put the grimoire carefully back on its shelf, which earns him a few points; no one who takes the time to care properly for books can be entirely evil. He follows Giles obediently down to the latter's office, occasionally treading slightly too close, like an over-anxious puppy. By the time Giles has sat him down and offered him tea, the slight prickle of unease that Pierson's presence provoked has faded almost completely. When the man offers no objections to a telephone call to Don Salzer, Giles lets himself relax a little more.

Salzer picks up almost immediately. When asked to describe his grad student, he chuckles.

"Turned up somewhere he wasn't supposed to, did he?"

"You might say that," Giles says, eying Pierson, who has the grace to look embarrassed. "He was investigating the medieval French death spells."

"That's Adam," Don says, amusement audible in his voice. "He probably saw a reference to it somewhere." He sighs. "He's skinny and dark-haired, with a big nose and a sharp tongue. Don't let him fool you with that wide-eyed kid crap; he's brilliant, and doesn't mind asserting himself in a truly offensive fashion."

"How did he get past the wards?"

"No idea," Don admits. "He's been caught in our Restricted sections half a dozen times. Won't tell anyone how he does it."

After a few pleasantries, Giles hangs up the phone and fixes Pierson with his best gimlet eye. For his part, Pierson appears to be engaged in the contemplation of the scuffed toes of his combat boots.

"The restricted sections," Giles begins, taking off his glasses to wipe them clean, "are restricted for a reason."

It's the same speech he's been giving since he took the position, albeit tailored to include a few references to badly-summoned demons and the like, because Pierson hadn't been anywhere near the Victorian pornography. Pierson listens more politely than most of his peers, and afterwards accepts Giles' offer of biscuits. For courtesy's sake, Giles asks him his thesis subject, and is delighted to find that Pierson is studying linguistic shifts and migratory patterns in the second millennium BC. By the time he realizes that it's getting late, they've been talking for nearly two hours.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Because people asked to see more of this, here it is. It's still pretty snippet-y, but there's the possibility of a second chapter already in progress._

_As always, feedback is love._


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Highlander