After the fall of Sunnydale, Rupert Giles is with the new Slayers in Cleveland, fighting demons on the new hellmouth. They have no money, but they have each other. Most especially, Giles has Xander. But the year of fighting the First has scarred all of them.
It rained more in Cleveland than in Los Angeles. Giles had had this fact explained to him at great length by Xander and Buffy both. He merely smiled and said he was rather used to rain, thank you, though yes, he agreed the thundershowers were exciting. And he was even used to rainy stakeouts, waiting in a cramped car while rain drummed on the roof and his vocally suffering Slayer did the dirty work in the wet. On this night, in this particular rainstorm, Giles sat with Xander in the group's little Honda while Buffy and Rona chased a Polgara through the state park on the lake. They'd refused to let the two non-Slayers come with them, and Giles was forced to admit that Buffy's reasoning was sound. She had backup she could trust now.
It rained, the humidity was dreadful, and the house they'd bought with the last of his money was a wreck, but it hardly mattered. There were four people left in the world whom Giles loved, and so long as he was near them he was content. Though the waiting always tried his nerves.
Giles sat in the driver's seat, mostly dry and perhaps a trifle too warm, and drank tea from the thermos he'd provided himself with. He swatted Xander amiably when he attempted to turn on the radio. Xander seemed not to mind, but got his revenge by slouching far down in his seat and propping his feet on the dashboard. Giles glared, as expected.
"Xander. It may be battered, elderly, and frequently inoperative, but it is our only transport. And it is not improved by your bootprints on my windscreen."
"Relax, man. Have some more of that soothing tea stuff, and do what I do. I've got this wait in the car thing down to a science."
Giles had already given up. He joined Xander in the slouch, sliding down in the seat until his knees bumped the dash. "Oh?" he said.
"C'mon, sitting in cars for hours is a grand tradition. Long cross-country trips, drive-ins, make-out spots. It's where we all lose our virginities."
"Speak for yourself."
"I'm in truth not speaking for myself here. I lost mine in a rathole motel to an insane chick who is, these days, a poster child for the concept that sanity can be regained, debts to society paid, and all kinds of weird stuff forgotten. But Giles! The American dream! The little deuce coupe and the pink slip. Fast cars parked in secluded locations. Recline the seats, look at the stars through the fogged-up windshield, try for first base if not the full home run. Paradise by the dashboard light."
"I think I've been in the colonies far too long. I understood that."
"Teenagers are universal. Surely you lived in a car when you were young, dumb, and uh, hormonal."
"No, can't say I did. We had a little car, but I wasn't allowed to drive it. In London I didn't need it anyway. Didn't learn to drive until the Council taught me in my twenties."
"And taught you they did." Xander had more than once expressed admiration for Giles's skills with driving at speed and with emergency maneuvers.
"And anyway, I spent most of my teen years away at public school, quite an old-fashioned one. Boys only. My experience was different to yours in many, many ways."
"Pip-pip, cheerio, give us a kiss ducks, yo. So how did you lose your virginity, then, if not in the back seat of a car at a drive-in?"
"At university. Met someone at a party, snogged him frantically in the corner, then went back to his rooms. Where, ah, things proceeded as they are wont."
"College, huh? That's later than I expected for you. Hold it. Woah. Did you say he?"
"Oh, did I let that slip?" Giles's voice dry enough to burn away the fog on the inside of the windscreen.
"You said he, you so very much said he. I thought you were straight as the ruler you threatened me with that time I--" Xander broke off and collected himself. "All the evidence we had on you said you were a chick guy." Xander ticked off names on his fingers. "Miss Calendar, Olivia, Buffy's mom..."
"Ethan Rayne."
"Oh! Oh. Yeah. Right. Was he the guy at the party?" Giles shook his head. "So there's been more than one? Enough for a trend?"
"Yes, Xander, significantly more than one of each sort."
"So you're bisexual. 'Kay." Xander settled back into the passenger seat, seemingly content to have made this determination, and more than a trifle smug.
Giles rubbed at the fog on his window and peered out. No sign of Buffy and Rona, but he didn't expect them for another hour yet.
"That's another difference. You Americans are obsessed with putting everything into pigeonholes. I'd tick the box marked 'unsure and frankly indifferent to the question'."
"Hey, man, you can't blame me. I'm just stoked to learn one of your secrets. You play everything so close to your vest and always have. Wouldn't be surprised to find out you'd been married and had three kids and just forgot to mention them even once in the last seven years."
Giles shook his head. It wasn't so much an urge for secrecy as habitual reticence, simple good manners. And they hadn't often asked him for details, even as they broadcast their own secrets to all and sundry. Though Buffy had known this one for years; apparently she'd been discreet about it.
"Besides," Xander said, not noticing Giles's moment of sulk, "it gives me some company. If the army of women in the house with us tries those stereotypes on me one more darn time, I can just point to you and say, hey Giles is no good at interior design either, so just shut up."
Giles turned in the seat to see Xander better. "Did I miss a memo? Because your implication is, er, well, that you're, ah, um--"
"Gay now. Yup. Wait. You hadn't heard? I came out to Andrew by accident two weeks ago, and he talked about nothing but for a while. Dropping cryptic hints that he would explain at length if you stood still for more than ten seconds."
"I listen to Andrew as little as I can possibly manage."
"Good policy."
"But this must have been what he meant by that bewildering business about friends of Dorothy."
"Cuff me, gag me, mount me, that twee stuff drives me nuts. Anyway, it was a big secret and now it's not and I am, as you can observe, feeling comfortable about that. I'm not so big with the secrets, unlike some British guys I could name."
"I'm happy for you," Giles said, with as much conviction as he could put into the words. He did so want all of them to be happy with themselves and each other. "What, er, what led you to this realization? Because, forgive me, things with Anya seemed serious for quite some time."
"I slept with Spike, if you've gotta know."
Giles stared, reduced to stunned speechlessness for the first time ever in Xander's presence. Xander didn't seem to notice but rattled on.
"It was mind-blowing though unfortunately not that other kind of blowing. When I could think again, I realized I'd been waiting all my life for that. Not that I said so to Spike. The first time I could say was just an accident, too much of that horrifying Jim Beam stuff. The fifth time I had to admit I liked it liked it. I finally got that whole thing Willow did about 'gay now' and stuff. At the time I was thinking, what was Oz? Chopped liver? Now, okay, yeah, Anya was definitely not chopped liver, but what I really wanted all along was the spicy mustard for my sausage."
Giles snorted. He felt the giggle he'd been suppressing since he'd heard the name 'Spike' bubble up in his chest, and he put his hand over his mouth to keep it inside. Xander pouted.
"Shut up. Shut up. This is tender intimate confession time, not mock Xander's metaphors time. Though maybe I'll just stick with 'gay now.' Simple, classic, timeless, does not drag in disturbing food products all dripping with subtext."
Giles made a complicated gesture with the hand that was not clamped over his mouth. Xander either interpreted it correctly or decided not to worry about it, Giles wasn't sure which.
"That was Sunnydale, and I did some stealth dating in the last months there. Most of them were demons, as usual. Been trying to meet people here, but let me tell you, Ohio is not California. And turns out I kinda hate bars."
"Never liked them myself," Giles said, once again in control. He'd always been so shy, anyway. It took weeks before felt comfortable enough with someone to make a move. Unless he'd drunk enough beforehand, and he'd sworn off that. Sometimes he felt lonely, up there in his room at the top of the house, but he'd grown used to it. And there were compensations. He'd resigned himself to doing without and muddling through.
"Went through a bar phase anyway, despite the cheap calories. Making up for lost time, doing all the stuff I should have been doing all along. I thought I enjoyed sex before, and I guess I did, but it's a whole new thing now. Women just aren't into what I'm into."
Giles wondered what might make Xander say that. In his experience, women were into exactly what men were into. Perhaps it was just how recent the revelation was for Xander.
"It's all right if you come out the other end of that," he said, carefully. "Took me a few years before the penny dropped that I could enjoy women as well. No need to choose sides if I felt I didn't want to."
Xander shrugged, with the magnificent casualness that youth had. And Giles had to admit it didn't matter. Xander might feel that way and he might not, and so long as he was happy with himself Giles didn't care.
"Hey, are you okay? Normally you'd be glaring right about now and begging me to put a cork in the disturbing sex talk."
Giles's turn to shrug. He wasn't entirely sure himself. Perhaps it was just that Xander was one of his closest friends now. He'd lost everything else, but he still had those three, Buffy, Willow, and Xander. Giles watched Xander re-settle himself in the passenger seat and tug at the knees of his canvas trousers. He'd developed a habit, perhaps an unconscious one, of touching the corner of his left eye, the one that he'd lost. He had a convincing fake there now, and at times Giles forgot the loss, but Xander likely could not. But it hadn't damaged Xander's core, that cheerful heart, and that knowledge made Giles's own heart squeeze.
"Long night ahead of us waiting," was all he said.
"True dat."
There was silence between them for a few minutes. Just the rain on the roof and the windows, and a gust of wind rattling wet leaves outside the car. Giles was pleased to notice that the silence wasn't strained. At least not for him, and he doubted Xander was ever in danger of feeling awkward about the conversation. His feet were back on the dash, and he was thumping on his knees with his thumbs. Giles watched his forearms flex. He'd taken up weightlifting in the last few months. He had scavenged a set of free weights from somewhere and set them up in the basement, which was passing as their training space. Giles heard the sound of the weights clinking at all hours when he ventured down there, the Slayers spotting each other or assisting Xander. Xander's body was hard, thick with muscle where it had never before been thick, and slender in the waist. Giles wondered if this were his adaptation to his new identity. Had he made himself over as an object attractive to the men in those bars? The thought disturbed Giles even as he admitted that Xander's strong shoulders and biceps were indeed attractive.
That thought, once in his head, did not wish to leave. He found himself imagining Xander at those bars, going home with someone. What did Xander like? Was it at all near what Giles liked? The question made something flutter inside him that had not fluttered in years. He felt almost giddy and his hands were unsteady where they rested on the steering wheel.
"Hey. Just thought of something," Xander said, his voice cheerful. "This means Buffy's the only straight Scooby. The rest of us are bent like the Corkscrew at Cedar Point." Xander looped his hand through the air to illustrate.
Giles shook his head and entirely failed to suppress the giggle. "You might ask Faith about that. Though I don't think the incident's been repeated."
Xander slid his feet down from the dashboard and sat bolt upright. "Oh my God, my God, my God, my brain just melted. Good thing I didn't know this at the time. I might have spontaneously combusted."
"Both of you slept with Faith and with Spike. So you've slept with Buffy by proxy, as it were. Your dream come true."
"Oh, God, you're right."
Giles watched Xander writhing in mock pain in the passenger seat, hands in his hair, knees up to his chin, face alight with mischief.
He decided at that moment to take a risk. Later he wasn't sure what moved him to it. His personality until that day had been notable for his willingness to risk his skin for important causes while carefully shielding his heart from all danger. It had taken him days to work up the courage to speak to Jenny. Why, then, it was the work of a moment to decide to say what he did to Xander, he couldn't understand. Perhaps it was that he'd known Xander for so long, had fought alongside him for so long, had finally relaxed with him, already knew he loved him in one way. Perhaps he'd made the decision already, at the very moment he'd decided to confess his sexuality to Xander. Perhaps it was that giddy ache in his chest, the one that told him he'd been holding tight to strong emotions for far longer than he ought.
Whatever the reason, Giles said, "I'm curious. Which location would you prefer for sex in a auto? Front seat or back?"
"Huh, good question. There are arguments for both. And, hey. Hold it. Did you just make a pass at me?"
Giles raised his eyebrows at Xander and waited. Xander studied his face, trying to sort him out. Giles let the corner of his mouth curl up, and gave Xander a tiny nod. Xander's smile flashed out in return, and Giles's chest ached even as a wicked grin escaped his control.
Xander said, "Back seat. Definitely back seat. More room for making out."
He flung open his door and Giles did the same. Dove out into the rain, slammed the door, leapt over slippery tarmac and lunged, then they tumbled into the back seat, hair and shoulders soaked, laughing. Once there, presented with the reality of Xander's body inches from his, without the gear shift in the way, Giles nearly quailed. But Xander was already reaching out to him, already sliding an arm around his shoulders, already kissing him.
Someone had taught Xander how to kiss, or he'd taught himself, or he was a natural. He was relaxed, eager without being uncontrolled, easy to please and happy to please in turn. Giving and taking, pushing and backing off, nipping at Giles's throat and allowing his own throat to be explored in turn. His earlobes were ticklish, and he giggled when Giles sucked and licked behind his ears. And he was content simply to kiss. To be held close and breathed in and touched.
Giles was parched land soaking in Xander's sweet rain. The thought came to him and he laughed at himself. Over-emotional already. Was a kiss all it took to undo him, was he that starved? Cramped in the back set of a car, windows fogged over, snogging like the teenager he had never been, Giles confessed himself undone.
It had been years since he had been with another man. Ethan was the last, the night he'd pulled the demon prank; they'd wrested pleasure from each other in a few short hours of intense grappling, more battle than love-making. But Ethan's body was so light and lithe in comparison to Xander's solidity. There was more muscle than Giles had realized in that broad chest, moving against his. Strength against strength. It was exciting because it had been so long, so long that he'd forgotten the pleasures of another bearded chin rasping against his. He fumbled with the buttons of Xander's shirt and got them open. Found his target, a dark circle of nipple, and licked. Nuzzled his way back up to Xander's neck, and barely restrained himself from biting. He wanted to, though. Wanted to bite and be bitten, to push Xander down and cover him. Or be covered. It hardly mattered. He was almost frantic with need.
Xander slid his hand down and cupped Giles through his trousers. It had been long enough since anybody else had touched him that Giles had to bite his lip. He pulled away hard and tipped his head back against the car seat. He tried to catch his breath.
"Okay? Going too fast?"
"More than okay. Just, Lord, nearly embarrassed myself."
Xander knelt up on the seat next to him and rubbed a hand over the center of his chest. He kissed Giles on the temple, tenderly, Giles might have said, except the idea was absurd. They were two men making out in a car, not two lovers. But Xander said, "Wouldn't be embarrassing. Would be hot. To see you turned on that much."
"Don't want this over before it's begun," Giles said. His face burned red despite Xander's assurances.
"We can do it slow next time," Xander whispered, and that was tenderness in his voice, unmistakable. Next time, he'd said. Giles had heard it, and despite everything he was amazed. "Let me. I wanna do this for you. I wanna see you. You can do me later, any way you like."
"Please," Giles said, and he let himself relax against the car seat, let his head rest cupped in Xander's hand. Xander didn't lunge for him straight away, to Giles's surprise. He would have, when he was that age and that randy. Instead Xander kissed him again, in charge this time, patient, slow. Licking at Giles's lips, completely distracting him from his worries in one way, and reminding him how much he wanted it in another. He couldn't help but be aware of Xander's hand on his belt buckle, tugging it open, sliding his zip down, reaching in and taking him in hand.
"Sexy guy," Xander said in his ear, and Xander had to mean him because there was no one else in the car. "Let it happen. Let go."
And it was too fast, in some ways, and just right in others, to come like this, half-sprawled across Xander's lap in the back seat of a car with his boots braced against the window and his head on Xander's shoulder and his eyes closed.
Xander tugged Giles's handkerchief from his trouser pocket and put it to use. Giles couldn't bring himself to move yet. Post-coital melancholy, a little bit of wistfulness. He wished their first time hadn't been in the back seat of a car, wished it had been more mutual. It wanted something more sweet. He sat up at last and re-straightened his glasses on his face. He reached out and touched his fingers to Xander's lips. Xander kissed his fingers. He looked pleased with himself, and this made Giles flush again.
"I'd like to do something for you," he said. "Taste you, perhaps. Would you like that?"
"Home," Xander said, firmly. "I can wait, and we can't do what I want to do now in a car. Besides, they might be-- oh crap, here they come."
Xander shoved away from Giles and buttoned his shirt. Giles tugged his own down with shaking hands, then did up his trousers. Then Buffy and Rona were there, pulling open the front doors and pouring in, over-excited, loud, and wet.
"Hello, Buffy, Rona. Back so soon?" Giles was painfully aware that his voice was high and tense, and that his belt was still hanging undone. They couldn't help but notice-- the car smelled of sex and the windows were fogged and he'd left bootprints all over Xander's window.
But Buffy gripped her ponytail and wrung it out, right there in the car, and all Giles could smell now was wet grass and rain. "Soon? It's taken us two hours and we're soaked through. My underwear is wet."
"Killed it, though," Rona said. "Found its hideout and squish! Hey! There's tea left."
"Good, good, well-done." Giles tried to buckle his belt without obviously doing so, but Buffy leaned over the back of the seat to peer at him. Giles flattened his hands over his lap in a panic.
"Buffy!" Xander said, far too loudly for the enclosed space. "There is no way you are driving this thing."
"What? I got my license, fair and square without cheating even much at all."
Xander burst out of the back seat and ran around to the front, and pulled Buffy out of the car. She made a show of resisting him, but of course she wasn't truly, or Xander would have found himself face-first in the mud. They struggled and squabbled cheerfully, giving Giles time to set himself to rights. He nipped round and installed himself in the driver's seat before the rain-soaked pair could settle the question of which of them was to drive. Rona, a closet opportunist, had belted herself securely into what Xander called the shotgun seat. Xander and Buffy clambered into the back, still poking at each other.
"Jeez, Buffy, could you be any muddier?"
"Well, what did you expect? I was out demon-hunting while you guys were in here nice and dry, drinking tea with your knees crossed and a string quartet playing."
"Hardly," said Giles.
"I know you were up to something involving tea."
"Don't get mud on the seats," Giles said, glowering back at the pair of them. Rona had already put her feet on his dash and was guzzling his tea straight from the thermos bottle. Xander winked-- his fake eye, most alarming-- and Giles put the car in motion before his blushes gave him away. Home, he'd said. And that's where Giles drove.
Giles was coolly pleased: a routine fight, and no injuries to anybody. It was a good night on the Cleveland hellmouth. Aside from the slime the expiring demon showered over the lot of them, that was, and since it wasn't toxic, he was inclined to let that accident pass. The three Slayers who'd been with Xander on the run were taking turns in the shower. Xander dripped onto a tarp on the back step while he gave the mission report to Giles. Thanks to the vagaries of demonic chemistry the slime smelled faintly of bananas. No, not quite. Giles leaned close to Xander's hair and sniffed.
"Bread?"
"Definitely banana bread," Xander said, "the kind with nuts in it."
Giles agreed, and solemnly noted the fact in his logbook. He concluded the entry with the elapsed mission time, and then screwed the cap back onto his pen. They were developing into fine Slayers, every one of them. He allowed himself a moment of silly pride for them all, and even a little bit of pleasure that he hadn't been too much of a hand-wringing mess while they'd been out without him.
"Xan?" Buffy's voice, from just inside the back door. "Shower's free."
Xander grinned at Giles. "Scrub my back for me?"
Giles was happy to oblige. The relationship was still new enough that he felt giddy and eager for any excuse to touch Xander, so giddy that he suspected the late hour would be no impediment. And indeed, sleep was far from his mind as he soaped Xander's back and backside and let his fingers wander. Giles was still enjoying the muscles, and he suspected this pleasure would long be with him. Lats and traps, deltoids and those glutes. He'd always fallen for slimmer types, fey men and women both. Xander was a glorious aberration in his life, in so many ways. Giles was entirely happy to be here, in a run-down shower in a run-down house in a cheap corner of Cleveland, slaying vampires and learning home repair with Xander Harris.
Xander leaned forward and adjusted the taps. The water ran hotter. Xander braced his arm against the wall and let himself slump. More tired than Giles had thought, perhaps. He pulled back and let Xander enjoy the hot water without the distractions. The drain wasn't working properly again, and water lapped over Giles's toes. Xander would fix it tomorrow, or Giles would. Giles idly kicked at the water. And froze in place.
"Xander!" Giles's voice was louder than he'd meant it to be.
Xander startled and spun, and Giles felt a hot splash on his shin. He jerked backward and stumbled, was saved from toppling over only when Xander grabbed him by the arm.
"Oops! Sorry, man."
"What the bloody hell are you doing?"
"What's it look like? Taking a whiz."
"In the shower?"
"Yeah. What's the big deal?"
Giles stood on one foot, looking down at the stained water in horror. For a moment he contemplated climbing and standing on the edge of the tub. But it was deep and the enamel was slippery. He visualized falling, taking the shower curtain with him, and Buffy's face when she rushed in and found them naked, soapy, and tangled with each other. Her affection for the both of them, she'd explained, would not survive finding them with their pants down ever again. Giles was mostly certain she hadn't meant it. Mostly.
The water was clear again. He swapped feet and rubbed soap on the one he'd been standing on.
Xander put his arms around Giles's waist and helped him balance. "Hey, woah, don't freak. We've been in the men's room at the same time. Pissed in adjacent urinals, even.'
"Yes, but--"
"We even pissed on the same tree once. That time on that endless stupid stakeout, when it turned out the demon had already moved to Portland."
He blinked. "Lord, yes, I remember that night. Five hours waiting in the blind for the thing."
"Buffy ran off into the bushes, and we unzipped and painted our names on the same tree. How's that different from this?"
Giles spluttered. "We had no choice! You have a choice now. You can get out and use the toilet like a civilized man. Instead you chose to, to, to piss on me!"
Xander laughed, and Giles thought there was a disturbing note in it, almost hysterical. But his face looked just as it always did, open and good-humored, brown eye meeting his own gaze honestly. "I didn't hit you on purpose. I just whizzed near you. But Giles. What's the definition of a yuppie?"
"What? What the bloody hell does this have to do with--"
"Play along. What's the definition of a yuppie?"
Giles sighed. He might as well let Xander win now. "I give up. What's the definition of a yuppie?"
"A yuppie is a guy who gets out of the shower to piss. If there's anything I'm not, it's a yuppie."
Giles stared at the water running at the bottom of the bathtub. Soap bubbles and the faintest traces of yellow-orange, swirling over the cracked enamel, disappearing even as he watched. He ought to be horrified. Instead he felt an urge to giggle until he hiccuped. Only Xander could do this, he thought. Only Xander could do this, make him laugh, and get away with it.
"A question," he said.
"Shoot."
"What do you call a man who's never had the idea of pissing in the shower occur to him?"
"A stuffy English guy," Xander said, instantly. Then his face changed, and Giles quailed. He knew that wicked look. "Come on. Do it. Just so you can say you've done it. C'mere. Right here. Piss on me."
"On you?"
Giles was more shocked than he ought to be. He knew what men got up to with each other, after all. Perhaps it was just the idea of Xander wanting this. Sweet, innocent Xander, not so innocent. Though Giles ought not to be surprised by that, either, given what they'd already got up to together. Xander pulled him close and kissed him, then reached down and took Giles's prick in hand.
"Only fair, since I nailed your leg by accident. And I'm gonna show you it's no biggie. Washes right off."
"Dear Lord, Xander, other people use this shower. Fifteen of us in this house!"
"You've jerked off in the shower, right?"
"That's different! It's sexual, not, not--"
"This is too. C'mon. Do it. Studly not stuffy."
Xander's hand was moving on his prick, and it was already more than half awake.
"Keep that up and I won't be able to," Giles said, under his breath.
But as ever, he found himself unable to resist giving Xander whatever he wanted. Xander wanted this; Xander was a little bent and wanted this; and Giles could do it. Giles was bent in his own ways, after all. No right to throw stones. He visualized himself letting go, pissing against that tree, marking his territory, staking his claim, making Xander his, bloody infuriating man, his, his, his-- Lord help him, it was exciting. It felt strange, definitely good, confusing, erotic, like being tickled almost, inside and out. Pissing while Xander wanked him. He watched it run down Xander's leg and into the drain.
"There you go. Yeah. See? Washes right off. Squeaky clean."
Giles groaned, half in dismay and half because Xander's hand was still on him, still moving. "I feel as if I've been corrupted beyond hope of redemption."
Xander snorted, then said, "You're hard," as if that proved anything at all. Except it did.
"You're mine now," said Giles, and to cover up his surprise at having said it, he seized Xander and kissed him. Xander was ready for him, and Giles let himself go. Sliding against Xander's stomach, hot water and soap and hard muscle under soft skin, Xander pushing back just as hard, kissing him back just as sloppily, meeting him strength for strength. This turned him on more than anything, feeling Xander push him, struggle with him. Giles pulled back and finished it off with both hands. He watched himself spend against Xander's stomach, long deep pulses washing through him while his knees went weak and Xander held him up. He got his feet back under himself and breathed it down. Looked down, saw Xander's erection trapped between them, the white splatter all over both of them, and quirked up one side of his mouth. Xander splayed a hand over himself and rubbed. Giles reached down and grabbed his wrist.
"No. You can wait for it until I feel you deserve it," he said.
Xander's grin didn't falter. "Kinky guy after all, huh?"
Giles shook his head, denying what was perfectly obviously true. He turned around in the spray and gave his own chest and belly a quick scrub. He felt Xander's hands on his back, washing him. Giles turned for a rinse. Xander was now back to business in the shower, erection standing out stiff before him, scrubbing himself up with soap that smelled like an industrial accident.
"Gimme the water. There's banana goo in my hair."
Giles stepped out of the tub and left the shower to Xander, curtain open so he could watch, admire those muscles from another angle. He found a dry towel and swiped it across his face. "Any other confessions to make? Any other little quirks I should know about?"
Xander bent his head into the spray and lathered up his hair before he answered. "Well, um, yeah, that's uh, not one of my quirks. I kinda zoned out and forgot you were there, hadda go, and zoom. Oops. Then you were so outraged I had to run with it. Didn't expect you to dig it so much. But you can pee on me any time you want to. I'm flexible."
Now Giles's face did flame out red, but no sooner had he recovered himself enough to glare than Xander's eyes went wide. He yelped and danced in place in the tub. Giles laughed: the hot water had run out.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, I've still got soap in my hair."
"Serves you right," Giles said.
Giles sat on the bonnet of the battered Honda, once again taking the passive role in an evening's hunting. Buffy, Faith, Kennedy, and three other Slayers were infiltrating an abandoned block of flats where Buffy was sure a suck house was in operation. Giles's task was to guard an alleyway, on the lookout for escapees through the back entrance of the building. Giles was still uneasy with waiting while his Slayer fought out of his view, but it was purely his own nerves that were at fault. He reminded himself, for perhaps the thousandth time, that Buffy had better backup than mere humans now. She had other Slayers with her, and one of them was Faith. Giles's job was no longer to fight with her, but instead to train her companions, ensure they were skilled enough to keep her and each other alive.
He did enjoy the odd bit of vamp-staking himself, though. It was good to keep one's hand in. So he rolled the sliver of wood between his palms and studied the alleyway in hope. Nothing moved, and he could hear no noises from the windows of the building above him.
Footfalls on tarmac behind; Giles turned, but it was only Xander, his own stake in hand, coming around the corner. "They're in," he said. "Andrew and Vi have the other side of the building covered."
Giles nodded. Xander hopped up beside him onto the car, one knee bent and a trainer-clad foot tucked underneath him. "I hate the waiting," he said.
"Watchers always do," Giles said.
They gazed out at the alley together in silence. The night was quiet, still, or as quiet as nights ever were in an American city. Automobiles, traffic, horns honking in the distance, the sound of hip-hop playing in a house down the street, more music thudding from a car moving down the street behind them. But no sound of battle, yet. Buffy had wanted to creep in quietly and stake as many as she could without sounding an alarm. It would be possible, Giles thought, given the usual layout of a suck house. Each vampire would want its own nest, a private place to give its human client that painful ecstasy. Giles shuddered. The memory was sweet and horrific at once.
He understood why Buffy, who'd also felt fangs in her flesh, had wanted to burn it down.
Xander shifted next to him and nudged him gently. "Rona wants to get cable," he said.
Giles sighed and set aside his melancholic mood. The television was new. They'd spotted a working set at a yard sale, and he'd given up his weekly dinner out to acquire it for the house. It had been worth it, though he'd had to make some stern rules about homework coming first. At least for the Slayers still in school.
"Can we afford cable?" he said.
"Andrew says no. He says we can steal it from our neighbors. Splice the wires, boost the signal with a little gizmo he can make, and voila! Instant HBO."
"Did you disabuse him of this notion?"
"Yeah. Read him the riot act. We'll have to keep an eye out to make sure he doesn't do it anyway, just to make the girls happy."
Giles sighed again. Andrew meant well, but his instincts were all wrong. "That boy wants to be turned over my knee."
"Officially I'm not a fan of corporal punishment. Unofficially, yeah, might be just what the guy needs. Not enough consequences in his life. So you have my blessing: smack him next time he's a dork. Except..."
"Except what?"
"I think, speaking unofficially still, I'd be jealous."
Giles's eyes widened. He hadn't been serious. "Jealous?"
Xander made a slow swatting motion with a cupped hand. "I might want to be the exclusive recipient of Giles-spanking. The only guy who gets to be turned over your knee."
"Oh? Er. I hadn't realized you, ah, were interested in such things."
"Well, yeah, I mean, duh. When it's you."
"I see," said Giles, but he wasn't sure he did. The thought was appealing, but he hadn't suspected Xander of being bent in that particular way. "You've given this some thought, then."
"Thought, heh, yeah. If thought is the right word for quality time in the shower. I know exactly how it would go." Xander's voice turned dreamy. "You'd make me drop my pants first and wait over your lap with my ass in the air while you explain in detail every sin I've committed since the last time you spanked me."
"Sins?"
"My sins, yeah. You know 'em. Tell me."
Giles cleared his throat, which had gone all strange on him, to go with the odd feeling in his chest. His racing heart. "Sins. Yes. First, the sin of committing unspeakable acts in the shower, and luring me into doing the same. Five strokes for that. The sin of making me randy on patrol, when I should be on the alert, breaking our rule. Ten strokes, I think, yes?"
"Sounds fair." Xander's voice was strained.
"Sounds fair, what?"
Xander shuddered. "Sounds fair, sir."
Giles adjusted his trousers, which had become most uncomfortable. "But most of all, the sin of taunting me, egging me on into spanking you because you think it'll be pleasure. I explain to you how you'll regret that before I'm through, how exquisitely red and sore your arse will be. How you'll be refraining from sitting down, finding poor excuses to stand. As many strokes as I can deliver with my bare hand for that, don't you think?"
"Oh God, yes, Giles, sir."
"And then I ask if you're ready for me to begin."
"Yessir. Please spank me now, sir. I'm ready."
Giles was gratified to note that Xander did not spoil the effect by giggling.
"I think not. I think I begin by plugging you. A big plug, something you protest you can't bear it's so wide. Because I'm going to take you after I spank you, and I'm going to be impatient. Won't want to wait. And besides, you'll feel it move inside you with every blow. Every time my hand comes down on your arse, you'll flinch and clench around it."
"Holy cyberdildonics, Batman. I think I'm gonna come in my pants."
"Don't," Giles said, putting all the steel he had into his voice. He was gratified to hear Xander gulp, see his throat work and his tongue flick against his upper lip. His hair was edged with sweat at his temples. Giles imagined what his face would look like near the end of the spanking, wet with tears and sweat and strained with desire.
"Tonight? I mean, tonight, sir?"
Giles made himself look away from Xander's face, his wide eyes, his parted lips, and make at least a pretense of watching the alley. "Perhaps. If this ends well. If not tonight, the next chance we get."
"Promise?"
Giles allowed himself to stare full at Xander again, to drink in the longing on his face, and to make his sincerity clear. "I promise."
"Do you even own a plug?"
"Er, ah, not yet."
"Take care of that, would ya?"
Xander hopped up to stand on the car and scan around. Giles thought he saw motion in a corner, but too small and low to be a vampire. Rats, probably. There were times when he missed Sunnydale's small-town neatness. City filth was universal. Though so were rats, he supposed. He'd seen them in Sunnydale's alleyways and rubbish tips. He forced himself to admit that it was merely nostalgia that had him thinking of that town with any affection.
Xander popped down onto the pavement by way of the bumper, which made Giles wince. The car couldn't take much abuse. Then Xander stretched. His shirt rode up, exposing his flat stomach and the trail of hair leading down from his navel. Giles's turn to lick his lips.
"So, hey, kinky guy, you've been holding out on me. You didn't tell me you did this stuff."
Giles flushed, but hoped it was too dim in the alleyway for Xander to see it. "As with you, it's more fantasy than experience. But I have done a few things. And now that I know you're interested, I can suggest some other, ah, activities for us."
"Suggest away."
"Now? I mean, er--"
"Got anything better to do?"
Listen for sounds of his Slayers in trouble, Giles did not say. There were three of them in the building, the three most experienced and most skilled, and Buffy would probably refrain from arson this time. Probably. He made himself let go his urge to cut short the conversation and run in after them. Then he realized that Xander was likely doing it on purpose, to keep him distracted and calm.
"Bondage," he said, abruptly. "I'd like to tie you up and see if it drives you wild. Spank you when you're bound and helpless. Blindfold you and tantalize you. Give you more intense sensations than spanking. Turn you on while other people are watching and you have to control yourself. Mark you somehow, with my teeth or with bruises. Something other people can see and know I did to you."
Xander's hand rose to his neck, to the place where Giles liked to nibble on him. He'd thus far refrained from biting as hard as he wanted. "Oh, God. Really?"
"Yes."
"Just one problem."
"Oh?"
"I wanna do all that stuff to you, too."
Giles's breath came short. He hadn't anticipated this. "Yes?"
"Yeah. Plus I want to tie you up and tickle your feet and sides until you think you're gonna die from laughing. You're way ticklish and I know it and you're not gonna get away with it much longer, mister."
Giles's turn to groan. Xander knew all his weaknesses, from his rarely-indulged passion for chocolate to his preference for candle-lit love-making, and into far more embarrassing territory than even that.
"Was thinking about this when you pissed on me and got off on it. You like messes more than you admit."
Giles laughed despite himself, out of sheer nerves. This conversation had him on edge. "Don't have any desire to repeat that experiment."
"But see, that's the cool part. We did it, and now we know."
"I see your point. I'm not averse to experimentation."
"Good." Xander nodded, and said it again, with a poke at Giles's stomach. "Good. 'Cause I want to do all this stuff to you. I have a big long list. Ways I want to make Rupert Giles writhe and scream and come. And then I want you to do 'em all to me. We'll figure out who likes what and then do some more of those things."
"Is that a promise?"
This time Xander looked him full in the face. "I promise."
"Then--" Giles broke off and stood.
"I hear it," said Xander: the sound of fighting in the building above them, dim shouts and smashes. "Show time."
Just another Saturday night brawl, with demons. Giles felt his whole body tense in a new way, and a wave of guilt constrict his chest. Distractions were no good, when his Slayers were fighting. The door opened and someone ran out. A woman, half-dressed, with her hand pressed to the inside of her elbow. Blood ran down her arm and dripped from her wrist. Victim, then. Giles let her pass. He shifted to get a better view of the door, so he could intercept anything moving with demonic speed.
Sound overhead-- Giles looked up. A window burst outward, showering wood and glass and the body of a man down upon them. The body landed with a sickening crack and thud ten feet from the car. Giles and Xander gaped for a moment, then there came a shout from above: Buffy peering down at them from two stories up.
"Vampire delivery!" she said to them, cheerfully, then vanished.
Xander gaped up at the window. "Vampire? Oh!"
Giles was in motion, stake in the ready position, but the vampire was already on its feet. Swaying, but up and moving and aware of them and angry, its demon-face on display. Giles feinted and the vampire weaved and swore. It lashed out at him with an inhumanly fast fist. Giles dropped and executed a sweep-kick that brought it down. Xander pounced and had a stake in its chest before Giles had even regained his feet.
The pile of dust lay between them on the stained and filthy street. Xander returned the stake to one of the many pockets on his military fatigues. Giles cocked his head to listen, but the building over them was silent once again. The fight had moved deeper inside, perhaps, or was over already.
Giles breathed himself through the adrenaline rush. The taste of metal in his mouth, and the shakes, and then the strange joy he'd never been able to understand. Fight, live, and then fuck. Did Xander feel it? Giles paced the length of the building and back, willing himself to calm down.
"That was remarkably efficient of you," he said to Xander, when he thought his voice would be steady again.
"Lesson I learned a while back. Buffy can banter. If I try it, I'm dead."
"Rather. Plunge and move on." Giles made a staking gesture, deliberately ambiguous, and Xander snickered. Then he grabbed Giles by the shirt and pulled him close.
"That's what I'm going to do to you. Plunge. Plunge. Make sure you know your ass is mine."
Giles gripped Xander's hand where it was tangled in his jersey, at his neck. "Do you doubt it?"
"I know it's mine. Going to prove it, though. Want to put my hand up inside you, all the way up. You ever done that?"
Giles shook his head. Xander tugged him closer, until their foreheads were pressed together.
"You willing to try it?"
Giles nodded. There was fear mixed in with the anticipation in his chest. He'd heard of this before, had read about it. It could hurt. It could be profound. He had no idea what he'd make of it. But he would experience it, because Xander wanted him to.
"Good." Xander let go of his shirt. Giles smoothed out the twists, tugged it down over his belt. His hands were shaking, but he had to admit it was thrilling. He'd never have guessed this would happen.
"If you hate it, you'll tell me?" Xander seemed uncertain now.
"Yes, I'll tell you."
"You really want to?"
"Anything you want to do," Giles said, quietly. "Anything you want to do to me, anything you want me to do to you. I'm happy to try everything with you."
Xander kissed him, right there in the street, one hand tangled in his hair, the other gripping the collar of his shirt again. Giles kissed him back, let himself forget where he was again. Then he pulled away and touched his finger to Xander's mouth.
"Later. We should--"
"Yeah. Business first."
Giles perched himself on the car bonnet again. Xander sat alongside Giles, snugged up close. And there they waited, the pair of them, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, waiting for whatever happened next.
Friday night was the night Giles and Xander had off, from their jobs, from their vocations, from their friends. The Slayers went on a group patrol under the auspices of Buffy and Faith, and the house was mostly empty for the space of several hours. It was their night home alone. It was the night they played their games, when they were in the mood for games.
Giles had found that Xander usually was.
Dinner was its usual noisy self, with all fifteen of them eating at once, milling through the kitchen and the overloaded dining room. Xander handed him a bowl of the strange stuff Andrew had made, something he called Cincinnati chili. Giles sniffed suspiciously: chocolate? cinnamon? over pasta? Could something with that much orange cheese be edible? But in the end chose to trust Andrew's judgement. He followed Xander to a corner of the dining room. They sat on the floor together, for there were no empty chairs at the table. Giles surveyed his charges from the vantage of the floor and tried not to worry about them. They were safest en masse. He inched himself over until his knee brushed Xander's. Xander grinned at him.
"Looking forward to tonight?"
"Mmm. Yes."
"Is there anything in particular you wanna do?"
Giles glanced around the room. Kennedy was telling a raucous story about her adventures scaling the side of a tall building last night, and what she saw through the windows. The girls were giggling, and no one was paying the least attention to them. They, unlike he, weren't working themselves into a state over the evening's patrol. They professed to look forward to it. He couldn't imagine why. When he looked at each of them, he remembered when he found them, how he'd found them, what had happened to their Watchers. And the ones he hadn't brought home.
Giles shook himself and returned his gaze to his bowl of questionable chili.
"Whatever you want," he said. "Don't want to have any choice or control at all over what's happening. Bind me and do what you wish."
"In the mood for some intense stuff, then?"
Giles found himself flushing under Xander's calm regard. "I'm in the mood not to make decisions." Giles regretted the words once they were out of his mouth, because Xander would take them literally and quite seriously. But it was said, and Xander nodded solemnly.
"I can take charge. Not a problem. Starting now. Eat your dinner."
The chili was strange and not entirely to Giles's taste, and excitement suppressed his appetite. Giles made himself finish it anyway. Food should not be wasted, he'd said to one of the younger Slayers once, Meg, when she'd balked at the sight of broccoli. Giles emptied his bowl and didn't take a second helping. Not that there was any left; fifteen people ate their way through a great deal of food every day.
It was his night to wash dishes, and he distracted himself with some easy conversation with Vi about the night's upcoming patrol. Buffy had planned a circuit of one of the older cemeteries, more a scouting patrol than an assault on anything in particular. Vi was looking forward to some action. Giles hoped they saw none, though since it was the Hellmouth he had no such hope. Vi danced around the kitchen while she waited for him to hand her another dish to dry. She was taller than she'd been when he'd rescued her. When? Nine months ago? Less time than that. Her Watcher had been staked to the wall and the Bringers had-- Giles's recollection stopped there, as always or rather was stopped by iron will. There was no point, especially if it no longer troubled Vi.
He saw her off with the others with the nerves that always tweaked him when they patrolled without him. The trepidations were always with him when these girls left his sight, though he never spoke about his fears or allowed himself to think about their origin. Xander appeared even as he closed the door behind them, giving him not even a minute to work himself up into anxiety.
"Hey," Xander said, in his ear.
"Oh, ah. Where have you been?"
"Upstairs, getting some stuff ready. Go up now and take your shower."
The note of sure command in Xander's voice wasn't usual. It was more playful between them, most nights. Another of those waves of regret, almost panic, ran through him, but Giles made no outward sign of it. He wasn't going to be a coward in front of Xander. He merely inclined his head silently, then turned away to ascend three flights of stairs, there to scrub away his work day and his distractions. He took his time about it, to allow himself to slide into the mood. He was something approaching calm by the time he ascended to their room, warm, scrubbed, freshly shaven, wrapped in the robe Dawn had given him. A thrift-shop find, like everything else in the house.
Their attic bedroom was warm despite the autumn chill. Xander had been thoughtful, and left the little quartz heater running. Votive candles burned on the windowsills, on Giles's desk, on the nightstand, next to a stick of incense streaming sweet smoke into the air. There were other things laid out on the nightstand as well, but Giles made himself look away. He didn't want to know before it happened, though it was difficult.
Xander locked the door at the foot of the stairs and came up behind to sneak his arms around Giles's waist. Giles leaned back against him. He was solid, immovable, and he never seemed prey to these fits of nerves. In Xander did Giles live and move and have his being, if that were not sacrilege. Could love be sacrilege? Xander's hand fidgeted with the belt of Giles's dressing gown and undid the knot. The robe slipped down from his shoulders to the floor. Giles closed his eyes and let Xander hold him and pet his hair. He let himself lean back and be held up; Xander was strong enough not to mind. When had he last been able to relax like this? How many years had it been?
"You ready?"
"Of course."
"Just making sure. There are some things you always flinch away from. Things you say not now to when I ask you. You don't get to say that tonight. You still okay with this plan?"
"Yes. I'm okay with it. I'm not sure how to say it. I don't want to have to think or do anything. Just want to feel."
Xander kissed the back of his neck. "Stress monster. That's you. The responsibility gets to you, doesn't it."
Giles shrugged. "I'm not in charge any more."
"Yes, you are. Buffy decides what we're going to do, but it's you who makes it happen. You're the one sweating the details. You know it's true."
Giles shrugged again: it had always been that way with Buffy. She proposed and he disposed. He was an unworthy servant, and he did merely what it was his duty to do.
"What you need is a timeout, so that's what you get. Starting now. Kneel on the bed."
And so began he didn't know what. A timeout, whatever Xander meant by that. Giles took the three steps to their bed and knelt facing the head. Xander had folded the coverlet at the foot, so he knelt on clean cool sheets.
Apparently it began with a blindfold. Xander tied it at the back of his head and Giles let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Xander hated the blindfold, and Giles understood why. After the first experiment, it stayed in the drawer when Giles was in charge. Giles loved wearing it. Or perhaps love was the wrong word: was terrified and thrilled by it. Simple sex, nothing more than Xander's hands and mouth on him, was supercharged by the blindfold. The Watcher blinded. Relieved of his burdens for a night. It wasn't up to him any more.
Next, cuffs at wrists and ankles. Neoprene cuffs, crafted on the cheap by Xander from the remains of a wetsuit that hadn't survived a fight with a lake demon. The Slayer inside it had: Rona, who'd been disappointed that the slashes hadn't left scars. Giles had tutted at her and stitched her up. Xander had thriftily collected the remains of her gear for recycling in other projects. And here it was, recycled: Velcro and neoprene and webbing, modern bondage, unromantic but effective. Giles would be bound exactly as Xander wished.
Tugs at his ankles as Xander tested the cuffs. Giles held his wrists up, waiting. Xander tested them, then made a satisfied sound. Something nudged against his lips. The gag. Giles bit his lip. They'd bought it with the highest hopes, but neither one of them liked it. It made his jaw ache and he drooled. Humiliating.
"Last chance," Xander said.
Giles said nothing but merely opened his mouth to accept it. He wouldn't have asked for it, but then, it wasn't up to him. It was Xander's decision, and Xander had chosen to silence him. And so he was silenced.
"Can't see your face," Xander said. "Hate that part, but gotta be done. You need to know you're completely helpless. And you are, aren't you?"
Giles shuddered again and nodded.
"I could do anything with you. The things you like, the things you hate, the things you're scared of but secretly want. Oh, yeah, look at that. Can't hide it."
Xander's hand closed around his cock and Giles thrust into it.
"This turns you on more than anything else we do. You love spanking me, don't I know it, but you love this more."
God, yes, he did, he loved it, but he loved everything he did with Xander. Fighting, fucking, working, sleeping, coming, crying, all of it. Full-body tremors. Every time. It was impossible for Giles to distinguish this feeling from terror, save that he was hard, that Xander was stroking him and bringing him up, up.
"I'm right with you," Xander said. And he was, with one strong arm around Giles's waist, holding him close. At last Giles's trembling eased.
"Okay. Enough of that. On your face, please." Xander pushed him forward, gently.
Face down on the bed, arms spread wide, wrists and ankles anchored. Bless this ancient iron bedstead, so heavy and solid. Giles pulled, hard, reassuring himself that no matter how he struggled later, it would hold. It could be trusted. No choice now.
Xander's weight settled across his thighs. In jeans, to Giles's surprise. He'd half expected a rough fuck to start, or something equally intense and brutal. Though he might yet get that. Xander hadn't moved. His hands rested on Giles's buttocks. Giles felt himself growing tense, waiting for what might happen now. Pain? Pleasure? Anything Xander wanted. His weight shifted away and returned. Giles heard small sounds that he struggled to parse: a plastic cap, the sound of something being placed on the nightstand. Then Xander's hands spread him open and something cold pressed against him. A plug, slick and cold, pushed just inside him and held there. Lord, the big one, the one he tormented Xander with, the one that was thicker than either one of them. Xander teased him with it, sliding it in and then out again, opening him slowly. Giles writhed in impatience below him, pushing back in a vain attempt to entice Xander into going faster. Xander responded by pulling back and waiting until Giles subsided onto the bed again. Only then did he press the plug inside again, and this time he went all the way. Hard, heavy, so thick, rubbing against him the way a man inside him might. Giles writhed again, fruitlessly, seeking to rub himself against the bed. He was beyond aroused now.
"Yeah. That's got your attention, huh? Focus on that for a while, big guy."
Giles focused. Pleasure, pain, the sensation of being filled. Claimed? Held. Completed. With mouth stopped and hands fixed, Giles had no way to welcome Xander but this. So many men feared it. Giles himself had, until Ethan had shown him the way. So many things Ethan had shown him. It was like the magic had been for them: Giles was the conduit. Ethan gave, he received and redirected. On his own he'd been nothing. It was that way now. He was nothing and no one without his Slayer and her friends to fill him with meaning. Without his lover. Giles writhed again, seeking the limits of his bonds, rubbing himself against the sheets.
Xander stilled him by pressing a hand to the small of his back. Giles clenched his hands into fists then made himself relax. Xander let up, then rested his hands on Giles's back again. He stroked down, then again. spreading something over him. Massage oil. Warm oil, warm hands, sliding across his shoulders. Giles groaned behind the gag in pure pleasure. Scented oil, not his standard mixture at all, but he liked it. It was sweet and woody at once. Xander's hands moved on his back, strong and calm and sure, slick with the oil, touching him everywhere. Xander was a good masseur. Anya had taught him the basics, then Giles had given him the Council's secrets. Now they both knew how to massage a Slayer after a hard patrol. One must keep one's weapons in perfect working order, after all. Buffy'd never allowed him to do it, but the younger Slayers, the ones who'd grown up with Watchers, loved it. He should do it for them more often, assuming they returned alive--
"You're still worrying," Xander said. Giles startled. "I can feel it in your back. Biggest brain in the house, the one inside that big British noggin, and sometimes I think it takes being conked in the noggin to get it to stop spinning."
Giles shook his head and caught himself before he attempted speech through the gag.
"None of that," Xander said. "You're my toy tonight, and I say you lie here and mellow out. Listen to Xander. He's telling you that you need a vacation. Man, you're on the go all the time these days. Notice that? Work, training, patrolling, playing patriarch to a houseful of super-powered girls. No wonder you need this. Me, I got it easy. I repair whatever's stuck under my nose and otherwise just wander around the house making things better."
Giles shook his head again. Xander did far more than that. Though what was he doing now if not that? Fixing Giles, finding the knots in his shoulders and working them out with strong hands?
"I feel like I've just started living. It took losing an eye and my hometown to wake me up. Figured out what I wanna do and who I am. For you, though, it's same old same old. 'Cept for me. I'm new, huh? Never had one of me before."
No, and how much did Giles regret that? Though he couldn't have had Xander before now. Xander hadn't been until this year, not the Xander that knelt astride his thighs and ran his thumbs down the grooves alongside Giles's spine. It felt marvelous, each touch riding on the curling edge of pain but breaking to leave relaxation in its wake. Giles felt his mind begin to slow and drift, his awareness to close in on what Xander wanted him to feel. Held tight, penetrated and bound, safe.
Xander's weight was gone from his legs. He heard more sounds from the nightstand, but this time he didn't care what they were. It wasn't up to him any more.
Something brushed over his face. Soft, velvety, many-stranded. The flogger Xander had bought. Suede leather, soft, not a serious tool, but even so Giles had wanted to protest when Xander had shown it to him in the shop. It was too impersonal. Spanking with his hand on bare skin was intimate, Giles felt, and whips were not. But Xander wanted it, and Giles would do anything for him, and besides, how could he protest now? He'd already consented to everything. Xander tickled him with his, over his back and arms. Giles tensed, waiting for the pain.
"Gonna soften you. Gonna soften you until you melt."
And so let him melt, and make no noise, Giles thought, but could not say, and the first stroke fell across his shoulders. Softly, almost more caress than blow, but it was followed by another and another, infinitely gentle blows from that surprisingly gentle man who was his lover. Gentle, intense, loving, loyal, trustworthy, everything Giles might wish himself to be though he knew he was not. Xander would never flinch from what needed doing, as Giles wished to flinch. Firm, unflinching, making him just with every touch.
Not penance but arousal not pain but awakening, each of the hundred times the flogger kissed his skin. Warmth spreading everywhere it touched, from the soles of his feet up to his outstretched arms. Waves of bliss. Giles rose and fell with them. Up and down, over and over, never ending, waves of sensation, building in him, warmth flooding across him. Harder now. The leather snapped across his back and Xander grunted with the effort of each stroke. He would be begging now, if he could, for a touch, something, anything, permission, a word. He was close, so close, but it wasn't enough. How long could he endure? How long would he be asked to bear this? Giles was moving now, not even making an effort to control himself, whimpering behind the gag, begging for it never to end. And it didn't, mercifully, going on and on until at last the tears came. Silently, sightlessly. Xander couldn't know he was weeping now, but he did know.
Giles felt Xander's body once again near his, stretched alongside him on the bed. Bare chest and jeans, rough against his sensitive skin. A hand wiping sweat from his forehead, testing the gag, releasing his bonds, touching his hands and feet, rubbing circulation into the fingers Angelus had ruined so long ago. Always careful, his Xander. Careful with his work, with his tools, with his Slayers, with his friends. So patient, as he was now, holding Giles while the flood receded. Giles curled himself against Xander and let himself be held.
"Okay now?"
Giles nodded.
To his surprise, Xander removed the gag. He wiped Giles's chin dry quietly, matter-of-factly, and equally calmly blew his nose. Giles cleared his throat. His jaw ached and there was a foul taste in his mouth. Xander had anticipated that as well, and pressed a bottle into his hands. Giles drank and tasted cool water with lemon. Xander took it back and Giles heard him drink.
"Stretch," he said. Giles obeyed. His legs had begun to tighten up. He shook his limbs loose and wiggled fingers and toes. He knew it was a brief respite: the plug was inside him yet, and neither one of them had come. He wondered if Xander would grant him that. He felt curiously indifferent. Release came in many forms. Tears were what he'd needed tonight, perhaps.
Xander tugged him closer and leaned down and kissed him. A slow, searching kiss, that Giles gave himself over to. He had choice there, didn't he? He could have held himself back. But there was no question. He had no desire to hold back with Xander and hadn't since that first encounter in the back seat of his car. Xander's kisses were a marvel. Scratchy chin, sloppy and insistent one moment then delicate in the next, soft lips, the indefinable taste of Xander. Giles ran his fingers through Xander's hair. He loved Xander's hair, so long and shaggy now that he could wear it in a braid if he wished.
Xander pulled away. Giles protested, but Xander silenced him with fingers across his lips.
"Sleep for a while now. I'll wake you later."
He bound Giles again, wrists together, feet together and then to the foot of the bed. He'd sleep blindfolded and plugged, then. Giles pulled at his bonds: solid, enough play that he'd be able to sleep, tight enough that he'd know himself bound when he awoke. Xander spread the blankets over him. Giles sighed. It would be fine. Xander set everything right. Giles trusted him all the way down and had since-- since when? Years, now. Since Xander had pulled him out of Angelus's mansion, concussed and heartsick, with mangled fingers that would never be what they had been before. Xander couldn't set that right any more than Giles could restore Xander's eye.
Some game this was, that they played with their lives and bodies. That his Slayers played right now with their lives, even as he lay in bed wrapped in warm blankets. They none of them would die in bed.
Giles slept.
Giles knew he was dreaming. He knew it because he knew that Jenny was dead and Ethan was dead and the last time he'd talked to them it had turned out to be the First, and that was how he'd learned about Ethan. They were dead and he was dreaming and he didn't mind, because it was a gift rarely given: lucid dreams about two of his great loves. Lucid dreams, for a Watcher, were mystical and significant. Signs and portents, the way the Powers chose to speak with him. Giles dreamed of Ethan and Jenny and the flat in Sunnydale where he'd slept with each of them.
It felt real. It smelled of incense, the way his flat had, and he could hear the wind chimes in his window. Ethan's red satin shirt was bright, and Ethan's casual hand on his arse as impudent as it had ever been. Jenny was warm and solid in his arms. She wore silk and she smelled like honey. Gold glittered in her ears and navel and tongue. Giles licked his lips. Where else did she hide treasure?
"You escaped the fall, Snobby," she told him.
"With the shirt on my back and nothing more," Giles said, and kissed her. She tasted like honey too.
"That's more than we carried out of it," Ethan said. His voice was a silky whisper. He was behind Giles, arms around his waist, face poked over his shoulder. Giles felt safe held close between these two. Whatever had happened between them in the past, it was over now and he'd forgiven them, and they him.
Ethan continued. "Besides, you never looked back once you knew she was safe."
It was true. Once he'd known Buffy was on the bus, he'd stopped caring what the pit had eaten. He'd have abandoned it all for her.
"Not to mention the boy. He's grown into quite a man." Jenny's eyes were bright with mischief. She fiddled with his tie. "I might be tempted myself. Lovely dark eyes."
"All that delicious muscle, mmm, Ripper? And he's like you. A slave to destiny."
Jenny loosened the knot of his tie and pulled it free from his collar. Giles drew in a deep breath. He hadn't realized until the moment it was gone that it had been choking him. "Lose the tweed, Rupert. It isn't you. Did you ever wonder what made you who you are?"
"What?"
"What drew you to this place, these friends?" Ethan's voice husky in his ear, his fingers nimble on the fly of Giles's trousers. "I was a mere detour along the way. Never could dissuade you from being one of them, no matter how I tempted you."
"And you never hesitated when you chose her over me," Jenny said. She'd unbuttoned his shirt all the way. Giles felt the guilt well up in him, almost a reflexive reaction, but the accusation he'd seen in Jenny's face was not there in her dream self. "Pretty interesting, huh? You should look into it some time."
Ethan said, "Not right now, though. You've got a little time to play, Ripper, before you need to know. Janus, but I've missed this."
With those words Ethan slid Giles's trousers down. Jenny's dress fell away at the same moment. Giles picked her up and laid her down on the bed and rolled with her. She welcomed him with that wicked, wicked smile and hands that gripped his wrists and held them fast. Or were those Ethan's hands on him, pinning him down?
"It's good you're doing this again," Jenny told him. Ethan bit deep into his shoulder, and Giles cried out and rocked his hips forward.
He was inside Jenny now and Ethan inside him. The three of them moved as one, in and out together. Jenny was inside him and he inside Ethan. He was the conduit. Power rushed through him. He loved them both and they loved him. The pleasure built in him and built until he was on the edge and falling over and spilling himself into Jenny, crying out her name even as she and Ethan called his. Ripper, Rupert, names he never heard.
Giles woke. He opened his eyes to the perfect darkness of a blindfold. Dream? Someone was fucking him, draped over him, moving slowly inside him. Not Ethan; Jenny was not in his arms. He was bound hand and foot, as he'd been last night when Xander had told him to sleep. Hands and feet held fast, face down, sheets a mess below him, and his shoulders and backside were sore. It was Xander's weight on him, Xander's chin scratching his neck, Xander's cock deep inside him, as Ethan's had been. No Jenny wrapped around his body, no Jenny for him to be deep inside, no sweetness on his lips. They were both gone. Dream. They'd been a dream. He almost wept.
The sadness of his orgasm faded and he woke further. Xander. No tear-floods for his absent loves: he had Xander now. Xander, who was whispering in his ear, saying the most absurd and sweet things about the way his body felt. So like him, this obscene patter-song of affection and lust. Giles wished he could reach back and touch him, thank him. That feeling of utter safety and love in the dream had to have come from Xander, embracing him in reality while Giles was somewhere else in dream. Sweet foolish Xander.
He wasn't Ethan, oh no most definitely not, and not just because of that muscled chest. He was so straightforward in comparison with Ethan. And so open compared to Jenny, who'd held secrets inside that she'd carried to her grave. Three people he'd loved in his life. He'd taken more to his bed when he'd been young, most of them without caring tuppence for them, and how foolish that had been. Three of them he'd loved. Those two. The man embracing him now, gasping in his ear, words at last dissolved by the pleasure of impending orgasm.
Sweet to hear, sweet to feel, Xander in the throes. The slump of his spent body across Giles's back, then the inevitable obscenity.
"Fuck. Slow's good. You told me that, but I didn't believe you. Thought I was dead."
Giles smiled into the pillow. La petite mort. He would tell Xander later. "You lived."
"Mmm. Love you, big guy."
"You too."
Xander did something at the head of the bed, and Giles's wrists were released. He rolled his shoulders and touched his hand to the blindfold across his face. He had lost all sense of time. It didn't feel like morning yet, though. "What's the time?" he asked, cautiously.
"Two."
"Are they back yet?"
Xander didn't answer him, and Giles realized he'd violated the rules by asking. He was still blindfolded, so it wasn't over yet. He touched the blindfold again. Xander crawled down to the foot of the bed and released his feet. Giles stretched his legs and grunted. He didn't want it to end. He was floating in a bubble of unreality, where he had nothing to do and no one to worry about. The flesh was weak, though his spirit craved more. Giles said nothing. His wish had been granted fivefold and it would be impudent to ask for more. But perhaps he would get it: Xander fastened his wrists together again.
Xander helped him sit up then held the water bottle for him. Giles gulped it dry.
"You were dreaming," Xander said. "I was sure you'd wake up when I started fucking you, but instead you dreamed. You were calling out for Ethan. I thought maybe it was a nightmare, but you sounded like it felt good. Was it good?"
"Yes."
"What did you dream?"
Giles might in other circumstances have held his tongue, but that wasn't the rule. The rule was he had no choice. He answered without demur.
"I was in bed with Ethan and Jenny, making love with both of them at once. I thought at first it was mystically significant but now I'm not sure. Too, ah, carnal."
"Wet dreams aren't prophetic, huh?"
"I wouldn't say that. Sex magic can be profound. There was something--" He trailed off, trying to remember. Jenny had said he should look into something, something to do with being a Watcher. All that was left now was scent. Ethan's aftershave, Jenny's perfume. The oil Xander had rubbed into his back hours before. He shook his head.
Xander got out of bed. Giles listened to him moving around the room and tried to guess what he was about.
Then, a noise outside. A car, two cars, pulling into their driveway, engines cutting off. Giles sat up. Car doors slamming and voices, too loud for the hour. They were back. One of them slammed the door and the whole house shuddered. Giles went still and listened carefully, but they were too distant from the rest of the house. No sound of urgent feet pounding up to their door, however. That meant no injuries, even. Routine. He let himself relax. The blindfold came free from his face. Giles blinked.
A single candle burned on the nightstand. Xander's face in its light was ironic. "Well, I distracted you for most of it," he said.
Giles ducked his head. "Thank you."
"Ever think about talking to a shrink, Giles?"
"No."
"Me neither. They'd lock us up for all the wrong reasons."
Xander showed no signs of wanting to release his wrists. Giles didn't mind; it was almost comforting to feel the cuffs tight around him. He cradled his hands against his chest and let Xander pull the coverlet up over his shoulders. Xander blew out the candle, but the end of the wick glowed in the darkness for some time. Giles watched it glow while he listened to Xander breathe.
He remembered what Ethan had said now. One of them. What had he meant? He'd said that to Giles once before, when Giles had packed his things and left. One of the Watchers. But they were all dead, every one. Giles had seen their bodies. So what did it mean?
Giles was whittling stakes, seated on a stool with a box to catch the shavings between his feet. Xander was across the little attic room at the desk he'd made for Giles from an un-hung door. He was wading through the household mail, slogging through a three-week backlog. It had turned out that Andrew, so handy in the kitchen, had not been the right choice for secretarial duties. His method of coping with bills the household had no money to pay had been to hide them in the breadbox. Buffy had had to restrain Giles from strangling Andrew when he'd discovered this. His manicotti earned him forgiveness, she said, and so Giles had relented.
Use the right weapon for the job, Buffy'd said. Which did not satisfactorily answer the question of why it was Xander sorting mail and Giles whittling stakes. Xander had insisted he needed to learn these skills, and that it made a nice change from sanding wood. Giles, who could keep books and file records while half-asleep, consented, and took the wood-working tools into his own hands.
It was soothing, perhaps more soothing than keeping books would have been. The shavings smelled good, sharp and resinous. Xander had found pine scraps for this batch.
"Hey. Giles. This one's for you." Giles turned. Xander was holding a large manila envelope. "From your mother country. Financial, but without the shape and form of a bill or a desperate last notice."
Xander scraped his chair back and padded over the bare floorboards to him. He handed over the envelope; yes, from Bath, from his lawyer there. Giles extracted the packet of papers through the neat slit along the end. He sorted through and found the summary paper, read it. Then read it again. He let the packet rest on his knees and took his glasses off for a good polish until he could calm himself.
Xander hovered anxiously near Giles's stool. "Not a bill?"
Giles re-perched the glasses on his nose, once again serene. "Far from a bill. The insurance payout for the last of my property in England."
"Insurance? What happened?"
"It blew up," Giles said, simply. "A year ago. I was supposed to be at home at the time, I believe. Instead I was on a demon hunt that had run late, and so I lived. The Bringers killed my retriever, my horse, and the caretaker Markham, who was a perfectly decent fellow I'd known since I was a boy. And incidentally burned everything I owned."
"Man. I'm sorry. I didn't know." Xander fell silent, and let a hand rest on Giles's shoulder.
Dates, addresses, monetary values listed on the paper in front of him, a dry recitation of loss. Giles remembered a call coming in on his mobile, vibrating in his pocket, and his irritated fumble to turn the thing off so he could concentrate on setting up the demon-trap. He'd merely deferred by a few hours the beginning, for him, of the war against the First. The first shock, notable for that reason, but not the worst one. Not by a long chalk. The conversations with the dead that had followed had been worse. He looked up, and saw Xander contemplating him, his face entirely solemn. A rare sight. It made Giles uncomfortable.
"You seriously need to talk more about yourself, Giles."
Giles ignored that remark. Shows of emotion weren't his style, and they'd shared enough of the misery of the last year. No need to wallow, Giles felt. Let time wear the memories away.
"It's long over," he said. "One carries on. The point is, we have cash now."
"Enough to invest and live on?"
"No, but I believe... enough to start a small business. And a cushion in case of disasters, if I invest wisely."
Xander squeezed his shoulder and let go. "Magic Box Two, Electric Boogaloo!"
"Perhaps. I was thinking more of a martial arts studio. Specializing in exotic weaponry. And employing as its head instructor a lovely and deadly woman. I should think young men would pay extra for the privilege of learning saber from her, wouldn't you?"
"Aha, you are clever, sir, so very clever and fiendish! Because I too have seen the Buffster's work uniform. And something has to be done."
Giles sighed. He wanted Buffy back at university, but until this moment they'd been in straits too desperate to refuse any contribution. Most of the Slayers were still in school, and unable to assist with more than chores. Xander was odd-jobbing with construction firms, and Giles had taken office temp work himself. His degree and library accreditations were useless in a city that had cut funding to public libraries and public schools both. This check represented freedom to Giles. Or self-determination, at least. He could use his more esoteric skills again. Teach young women how to fight and, perhaps, how not to die. Teach other humans on the Hellmouth how to live.
He rose and carried the check back to the desk, where he signed it carefully. He folded it away in his wallet. Xander had returned to sorting out the bills, but he seemed far more relaxed. Giles couldn't blame him. He took up his half-finished stake and the whittling knife. Then he stopped and looked again at what Xander was doing.
"Xander? What are you using to open those?"
Xander held it up. "One of your knives. Your many, many knives." He turned it over in his hands, then held the metal grip gingerly. "This one's weird. Sexy swoopy and a really sharp point. But seems like it would hurt your hand to stab with it."
Giles glared at him. "That's a throwing knife. One of Buffy's good throwing knives, in fact. You oughtn't to use it to open envelopes. Disrespectful."
"Huh. Okay. I can see that. Grip it here, throw like that?"
Giles groaned. "No. Entirely wrong. My first class at the studio will have to be a knife-throwing class, I can see."
"I'd rather have you teach me about the knife you're holding now."
Xander's voice was husky. Giles went very still, then slowly raised his whittling knife to heart level. "This knife? What do you want to know about it?"
"Anything. Everything. How sharp it is. What you can do with it. How much I trust you."
Xander set the throwing knife down on the desk, carefully, then held his empty hands out to Giles. An invitation: bind him. Giles wondered what he was about. Distracting him, perhaps, from this pit of melancholic self-absorption he was teetering over. Xander had a habit of doing that to him, of noticing when he was working himself into a state over something foolish. Giles set aside his mood with an effort, and tried to think what he'd do with a knife. He'd played that way with Ethan, more than once. Xander was more bent than Ethan had been, far more bent than Giles had suspected. Far more bent than Giles himself, though he would never admit it. He'd risen to every challenge Xander had set him. At least this challenge was on ground Giles knew.
He knew what to do. Not quite what Xander wanted, not yet.
"Strip," he said. "And lie on your back on the bed."
Xander pulled his shirt over his head immediately. Giles left him to undress while he tidied away the wood shavings from the stakes and put away the knife he'd been using. It was unsuitable for what Xander wanted. He went to the closet. His bowie knife hung there, in its leather sheath, on a peg. The broadsword he'd carried with him from Sunnydale hung next to it. Giles took the knife down and shut the closet door. He nipped downstairs to the little washroom on the third floor and nicked the rubbing alcohol from the first aid supplies there. He locked their door behind him on his return.
Xander was nude, reclining on one elbow on the bed, head craned to watch Giles as he moved around the room. Giles came to light next to Xander. He removed his boots and socks, but nothing else. He wanted formality for this.
He turned to Xander and gently pushed him flat onto his back. "Do you want to be bound?"
It was an egalitarian relationship; they'd each spent time spread out helpless while the other took charge. The bed's metal frame, such a beastly nuisance to wrangle all the way up three flights of stairs, had proved itself strong enough to withstand the struggles of two grown men.
But Xander shook his head. No bondage tonight.
"Then I suggest you hold yourself quite still."
Xander lay quiet on his back, entirely compliant and relaxed. He rested his hands palm-up where Giles indicated, arms straight out from his sides, thighs together. He was erect already. Giles climbed onto the bed and knelt over Xander, straddling his thighs. He was hard as well, hidden away in loose trousers under a baggy jumper, but no doubt Xander could see it in him.
Giles unsnapped the sheath and drew the knife. He made a show of examining the blade before Xander, inspecting the sharp edge. He knew it was in good condition without needing the show, however. It was a lifetime's habit to keep this knife properly. Was this the only thing that had survived the loss of his family home? Perhaps. It was certainly the only reminder he had left of his father. Giles's chest felt strange as he realized this.
He held the blade where Xander could see it easily.
"This is my bowie knife. I've had it since I was fifteen, when my father gave it to me in honor of my first vampire kill. I carry it with me always, which is why I still have it when I've lost everything else."
"I'm sorry," Xander said again, but Giles shook his head. He didn't want Xander talking.
"I killed a man with it once. I won't tell you the story now, but I will tell you that he deserved to die. And I did it rather than make the girl who was the Slayer at the time take life."
Xander swallowed and nodded. It had been a long time since Giles had thought about that deed, about that Slayer. Not his Slayer, but he'd seen her fight. Had whittled stakes for her.
"It's let my blood as well. And Ethan's, in bed just like you and I are now. It's so sharp you won't feel it cut you. Not at first." Giles held the blade just over Xander's face. "Kiss it."
Xander lifted his head gracefully and kissed the blade. His eyes were open and fixed on Giles's. Giles stroked down Xander's chest with the flat of the blade, blunt edge leading.
"Trust," he said, in a cool voice. "It goes both ways in this encounter. You think you want to prove to me how much you trust me. I already know you do. You're aroused, after all. What you don't realize is how much you demand of me. The burden of your trust is on me now. Not to let my hand slip, or my attention waver. Your life is in the palm of my hand now. At the tip of my blade."
Stroking over Xander's stomach now, gliding the blade over tender flesh. Xander's stomach contracted as the knife traveled over it. The throat was an obvious vulnerability, but a blade into the gut would be agonizing for days before death came. Giles wondered if Xander knew that. Down, down, to his straining erection, oh so carefully over it, while Xander groaned in fear or desire or both. Then up again, to safer places, to Xander's chest again. Around and around.
Xander was not a hairy man. He didn't need to shave every day. His chest hair was scanty, just a dusting around his flat dark nipples. There was more on the stomach, a line leading the eye down to the dusting of hair above his sex.
"Look at this chest, this lovely lovely chest. It would look so much better bare."
Giles shifted his grip so he had a thumb braced against the knife blade. He flicked it at the hair around a nipple, taking care and breathing out before each flick. The blade scraped, and hairs fell free. Xander's nipples stood erect and his flesh was goose-bumped. His breathing slowed, and Giles synchronized his movements with it. Xander breathed out, and he breathed out with him. Flicked the knife, baring another patch of skin. Just a few minutes' work to shave it all clean, demonstrating how very sharp this blade was.
"And now you're ready."
The knife was set aside for a moment. Rubbing alcohol, cold on his fingers, cold on Xander's chest. He gasped and flinched as he hadn't under the blade. Giles took up the knife again and set it to Xander's throat once more. Xander swallowed.
"I'm not going to leave permanent marks."
"Would be okay if you did," Xander said.
"Next time," Giles said. Xander's cock twitched, and he choked off a groan. "Close your eyes." And Xander did so.
Giles turned the knife in his hands and set the blunt edge against Xander's breastbone. The blunt edge would feel sharp as it slid over skin. Giles knew that from experience. Lean into it, and it could break the skin. The tip would slide between ribs before Xander had time to open his eyes. Xander knew that, and let him do this anyway.
He stroked down and Xander sucked in a breath that he only let out when Giles lifted the knife. And again, following the track he'd left on the skin, pressing down a little harder this time. Again, Xander's gasp and slow exhale.
Simple sweeping lines, things Giles could repeat over and over. A straight line, down his chest. A curve joining that. A stroke curling around one dark nipple and sweeping across to the other. Giles drew each line again and again on Xander's skin until reddened welts appeared, until blood appeared until the back of the blade as it swept. Then he moved on to the next. Xander was silent throughout, silent and still and hard under him, just his harsh breathing audible.
Finally Giles saw what he wanted. He sat back and let the knife rest beside them on the bed.
"You may open your eyes."
Xander's eyes fluttered open. Eye. He'd lost part of himself during that long year. Pain and terror and screams. Was that why he sought this with Giles? No. Something in Xander was essentially whole, no matter what his body had suffered. Xander's heart was unharmed. Unlike Giles.
Xander looked down at his chest, at the red lines scored on his flesh, and he smiled up at the man pinning him to the bed.
"It's a knife. You drew your bowie knife on my chest."
He touched ginger fingers to the center of his chest, where the marks were darkest.
"You'll have white lines there for a few days. They'll fade. No scars."
"Unbelievable."
"Just the start. I didn't cut you at all."
"Will you?"
"If you want. If you trust me."
"I do."
"You shouldn't. I've killed five men. One with this knife, one with my bare hands, one with a sword. The other two were with guns. I cry when I remember Randall. The others I don't regret. I'm a killer."
"I trust you. I know you. I think I know you better than you do." Xander's voice was steady.
Giles leaned over Xander's body, the blade against his throat again, gripped in steady hand. "It's so easy to kill, Xander. A moment's work and a life is gone. A lifetime afterward of knowing that you're capable of it. A lifetime to bear it."
"I've never killed anyone."
"You will. I am sorry, but it is what we do. We take this burden on, you and I. It's part of what it means to be a Watcher. We're guilty from the start. Our fathers made them Slayers and condemned them to early deaths. It's the least we can do to atone."
Xander's face had changed now. Whatever it was he was feeling, it wasn't fear or arousal any more. Was it pity? Something like that. Giles looked back down at the knife. He eased it away from Xander's throat. His hands were wet with sweat. He was, he thought, more afraid than Xander was. Xander trusted him. Xander didn't know any better. And God help him, he didn't want Xander to learn the truth, save that he'd already confessed himself and Xander knew. Had he thought, earlier, that Xander knew everything important already? He was a fool.
Giles rolled off Xander and knelt on the floor by the bed. The knife was still in his dripping, trembling hands. He might be required to use it again. He would, to spare Buffy. Such a simple thing. Steel blade, blackened hilt. His father had given this to him and told him he was a Watcher now. Had his father known who made the Slayers? Giles hadn't, not until Buffy had told him. But he'd always known the guilt was his.
"We're weapons, too," he said. "That's what your chest means."
"I know. Give that to me." Xander's hands closed over the hilt and gently pried it away from him. He slid it into the sheath and snapped it closed again. Safe. Not dangerous any more. Unlike him. Xander was kneeling next to him and holding his shoulders.
"Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean it to turn so--" He gestured with his empty hands. He shouldn't have used that knife, should have stuck with the lifeless cheap thing he'd been using on the stakes.
"S'okay. We never know what's going to come out. It's always more emotional than we think it's going to be."
Giles shook his head. It was true, like so many of the things Xander said after these scenes, but uncomfortable. Why was he always the one shaking afterwards, and never Xander? Xander was fussing with his hair, rubbing at his temples. Giles studied his handiwork, the blood-red lines. He was still hard, despite his near-breakdown, though Xander was no longer.
"Your chest is stunning. Can't believe how sexy it is. Is it wrong for me to like it?"
"I think it's sexy, too, and it's my chest. You're going to do this to me again. But not for a while. Giles. I love you, you know that? But you seriously need to talk more about yourself. You're not getting away with distracting me any more."
Giles almost laughed. Whatever Xander wanted, whatever challenge he set.
"I'll try. I don't know how to do it."
Xander tugged him up onto the bed and helped him lie down. "Start by telling me about Randall," he said.
Giles and Xander were in their little room, the one at the very top of the house under the eaves. Late-autumn rain spattered on windows rattling loose in their frames. The wind seeped in and chilled them, though the sweat of lovemaking was still hot on Giles's face and chest.
The attic's only advantage, from Giles's point of view, was its isolation from the rest of the house. He and Xander could play their games together without disturbing anyone. And when he needed to read and think, he had a place to retreat to where he was not plagued by the noises of communal living. He'd been retreating often, these days, when not busy with building plans and city permits. Xander had been teaching him to how refinish floors as they worked on the space that would become their martial arts studio. Brute labor, sanding them smooth, even with the aid of machines. Giles sanded the boards smooth and clear, and tried to sort out the last year in Sunnydale in his mind. His whole time there. He'd written it all down, but the journals were lost. He had only the one he'd carried with him when they fled.
Giles rescued the coverlet from where it had fallen to the floor and spread it over them, up to their waists. Xander rolled to face him, with a wordless grunt of satisfaction. Giles resettled the pillows and arranged himself on his side. Xander reached out and brushed the hair from his forehead. He needed a haircut. Some would say that Xander did as well, but Giles had always liked him shaggy, dark hair falling over his eyes. Xander had looked like this when they'd first met, years ago now, before Xander had learned that vampires were real. It was strange to Giles that the innocence could still be visible in his face.
Xander smiled at him, for some reason Giles couldn't guess, but it was full of affection. He leaned forward and kissed Giles's forehead.
"That was good," he said.
Giles kissed him back, but didn't bother replying. It had been good. Nothing complicated, no games tonight. It was a night for coziness, for tea and kisses instead of whisky and fire. They'd been slow and tender with each other.
Xander caressed his face, then trailed a hand down Giles's chest, exploring idly. Xander liked Giles's scars, though Giles himself was less sanguine. Blots on his skin, reminders of times he'd slipped and nearly lost his life. He had fewer than he might have had, given how rough the years had been since he'd been sent to Buffy. Even the scars were blurrier now, smoothed down by the years.
Xander's hand found the inside of his elbow, where a faded tattoo hid marks from another needle. Giles had never told anyone about that, not even Xander yet.
"The mark of Eyghon," Xander said, resting his finger tips next to it. "You never got it removed, like Buffy did." And Ethan, more violently.
Xander's fingers traced around it, over it. Before Giles would have flinched away from the touch, which would have awakened unclean and uneasy feelings in him. But now that Eyghon was destroyed, the tattoo was inert, all its magic drained. The dark ink had faded down to an uneven greenish smear. It was merely another blot on his skin, a reminder that he still owed the world a debt of service. For the sake of the life Randall hadn't had, the children he hadn't fathered, the parents he'd left bereaved. He'd tried to explain Randall to Xander, but had found it all too complicated for words.
"It's memory," he said at last.
"Bad one, though."
Giles shrugged. "Even the bad memories are mine. My life, mistakes and triumphs and the boring stretches between."
Xander laid his hand across it. "I get it. Your journals are gone, but your skin is always yours. I've been thinking something like that. I wish I had a tattoo for everything big that's happened to me. One for every apocalypse. One for every person I've been to bed with. One for you and me. So I can remember this."
Giles had seen Xander lingering over photographs of tattoos, had heard him discussing them with Faith. And he had been delighted beyond words to have borne Giles's knife-marks on his chest for the few days they'd lasted. Giles said, "You should get one, then."
"Yeah, I know, I will, but, um, I meant would you get one with me?"
"Pardon?"
"If I got a tattoo to, you know, be the memory of you and me together, would you get it too? Same thing, on both of us." When Giles said nothing at first, Xander hastened on. "Unless you're squeamed out by the idea of tattoos after this thing."
His fingers brushed the inside of Giles's elbow again. Giles breathed out shakily and thought about it carefully. He was surprised by the answer that came to him.
"No, I don't mind the idea. Never occurred to me. It was always something other people did. Not me. The permanence... It does rather frighten one, doesn't it? There are things, though."
"Things?"
"Things I'd choose to remember that way. Good things. Momentous things. Being Buffy's Watcher. Giving power to all the Slayers." He paused and tried to think how to frame his worry. "Xander--"
"Yeah?"
"Forgive me for saying this, but we might not always be together."
Xander shook his head, and he seemed almost frustrated. Giles wondered what he'd missed.
"I might screw it up, yeah, I know that. There are a hundred stupid things that might happen, from one of us panicking to a vamp having a lucky day. Already I know I want to remember this, whatever happens. Never gonna regret it. It's momentous enough, for me. I want to carry something that reminds me of you for the rest of my life. However long that is."
Xander was silent for a while, watching him. Giles couldn't speak, could only watch Xander's face, where all his feelings showed. His eyes, the real one and the convincing replacement, the living and the dead. Life was fleeting and their line of work dangerous beyond words. But if their shared calling was merciful, Xander would outlive him. Twenty-five years between them, and even if Giles died a natural death, Xander would be left behind. He wondered if Xander had thought this through.
If the unthinkable happened-- Giles allowed himself to think it. Yes, Xander was something he wanted to remember. A joy and not a burden, written on his flesh, reminding him every time he looked at himself. Xander was the last relationship he'd ever have. Then he flinched at his own melodrama; he had no way to know it would be so. But he wanted it to be, wanted Xander's body next to his every night from now until the last night he drew breath. Such a strange thing to think, that the awkward chattering boy in his library would have grown in his heart like this.
He would have said, until the night he'd shown Xander the knife, that only Buffy knew him better. But now Xander had seen more. He'd told him so much in the days since then, things he'd told no one else.
"It's okay if you don't want to," Xander said, when Giles's silence had stretched through minutes.
"I, I, I do want to." His voice was thick, because his throat had closed up, and his stammer worse than it had been in years. "I'd be proud to wear your tattoo, and moved beyond words to see mine on you."
Xander's face lit up, then he grabbed Giles and was kissing him, hard and sloppy, all enthusiasm and teeth. Giles kissed back, but his mind was leaping ahead, thinking about specifics.
When Xander finally released him and he'd got his breath back, he asked Xander, diffidently, what he wanted the tattoo to be.
"Tribal, all black," Xander said, and Giles knew from the speed of the reply that he'd been thinking about it, wanting it, for a long time. "Got it all figured out. Our backs. A shoulder piece. All the way across. Something kinda organic but abstract."
Giles tried to imagine it. "All the way?"
Xander spread his hands to show Giles what he meant.
"Roll over."
Xander obediently wriggled himself over onto his stomach. He leaned on his elbows and craned his neck around to see what Giles was doing. Giles gathered up Xander's hair into a thick ponytail and lifted it away from his neck.
"Here," he said, stroking his fingers across Xander's shoulders.
"Yeah. And down." Giles drew his fingers halfway down Xander's spine. "To there, yeah."
Large, then. Giles tried to imagine ink there, patterns in black across Xander's skin. Inescapable, unlike his little blotch on the inside of his elbow. Inescapable. Whenever they had sex, whenever they showered together. Whenever Xander took off his shirt. Their tattoo. He almost demurred, then simply accepted. Whatever Xander asked him to do, he'd do. He traced curlicues across Xander's skin, over the place where it would go. Xander shivered and made a pleased sound.
"Maybe I can find a design on the web," he said, craning around to look at Giles again.
Giles shook his head. "I'll design it. You've seen my journals. And I know the symbology."
Giles's lost journals had been full of ink drawings. Of places he'd patrolled, of the demons he'd fought, of the artifacts he'd found. Of the people he'd known and loved. Buffy's face and form were there, many times. Willow. And often these days, Xander. He thought he could manage something abstract like what Xander wanted.
"Was hoping you'd say that."
"Give me some time to think."
"No rush. Better to do it right than do it fast."
Giles worked on it over the next weeks, during his retreat time. He went to the public library and researched what tattoo enthusiasts meant when they said "tribal". He consulted with Willow on the design: he wanted any magical resonance in the design to be pure. His fears burned him, and he nearly backed away entirely. Willow reassured him on several counts: The blade was a difficult symbol to pervert. Its use as a symbol of fidelity and dedication to each other made it doubly pure.
His first sketch of it turned out to be the one he developed into the final drawing. He rendered it in black ink in the size it would be on Xander's shoulders, on bristol. He was nervous when he presented it to Xander at last, worried that it was too stark, too abstract.
It was a blade, asymmetrical, curving. The hilt was a black sun, and complex intertwined rays of light ran down their spines to form the blade, and out along their shoulders to suggest the hilt. A cross, a sword, the sunlight, all the key symbols of their vocations as Watchers were there. Xander ran over the lines with his forefinger, tracing each one out and around and back. His eyebrows had come together, and Giles couldn't tell if he were pleased or puzzled. Then he tapped the black-patterned circle at the center of the hilt.
"Our initials. You snuck our initials in there. This stuff inside the sun."
"If you mind I could--"
"It's perfect," Xander said.
The artist Xander had found for them was a woman named Sharp. She had a shop in one of Cleveland's older neighborhoods, a place Giles had been to before only a night, armed. The outside of it nearly frightened him off-- a paint-peeled ancient storefront with equally ancient neon advertising tattoos-- but what he found inside made him feel better. It was cluttered. Every surface was covered with drawings and photographs. Flash on one wall; customers with finished work on another. Photographs of people with arms green with ink, of tiny animals on their ankles, of abstract whorls around their arms. Music played from the back, and Giles could hear the sound of a machine whirring. His younger self might have said it had a good vibe. His older self said nothing, but ceased its silent nosing around the shop to find his lover.
Xander was already deep in conversation with the artist. The pair were leaned over his drawing, discussing Xander's wishes. The artist's arms were bare, Giles saw, and covered with blackwork similar to what he'd drawn, similar to what he'd seen in photographs while researching.
"Nice work," Sharp said, and then pointed out some places where he'd been too fine with the detail. She agreed to do the work; Giles hadn't realized that her acceptance had been in question, but apparently they were on trial with her. She sent them away and told them to return tomorrow after lunch, when if they still wanted it done she'd do it.
Xander went first. Sharp smiled when she saw the magnificence of the back she would be decorating, and shared a few trenchant words with Giles about what a lucky man he was. Giles agreed privately, but said nothing in public, content to merely smile at Xander's deep blush. Sharp set aside the banter and bent seriously to her work after that. She'd made stencils from his designs, he saw, and transferred them to Xander's back with marker. Latex gloves and masks and antibiotics-- so much more planned and careful than when Ethan had done him with a steel needle and magical ink he'd mixed by hand.
Giles sat as near as he could and absorbed everything. The noise of the machine, the noise of the electronic music the artist worked to. Xander's face sliding into serene trance state as the needles drove into his flesh. Giles remembered how he'd looked when he'd cut designs into Xander's skin, how he looked when they played harsher games. Giles suspected he would seek out this experience again, as Faith had.
A few strokes of the needles, a swipe of the cloth to clear away blood and ink. Another stroke. The design slowly emerged on Xander's shoulders. The Eyghon tattoos had been nothing until the magic awakened them. It had been faint and blurred even when new. This tattoo lived without magic. Though perhaps any blood-ritual like this would be magic for people like them, who lived on the edge of the mystical world. Pain and blood and ink working themselves around into a symbol of who he and Xander were. Watchers, weapons, bound to their duty and to each other. And to life. By life. Giles was no longer sure what it meant, except that it was a good thing.
Xander bore it well, though there was sweat on his face by the time it was finally done. Sharp was exhausted as well. She hid Xander's back away under gauze and sent them home, where duty and chores snatched Giles away from Xander immediately. It wasn't until long after dinner that they were alone again. Xander sighed, locked the door of the attic behind them, and pulled his shirt over his head immediately. Giles raised an eyebrow at him.
"Time to take off the bandage, the pamphlet says. Gotta keep it moisturized and breathing. That's the job of the boyfriend. Which would be you."
Xander tossed Giles a bottle of lotion and stretched himself face-down on the bed. Giles eased the bandage away from his back. There was some blood and fluid, but less than he'd feared. He touched Xander's shoulder, just above where the tattoo began. Xander didn't seem to mind, so he squeezed lotion onto his fingers and gingerly spread it over the reddened skin.
Xander wriggled underneath his hand. "Yeah, that feels good. It's kinda started itching, almost. How does it look?"
"Simply amazing. So vivid, so intense."
"It'll mellow out a bit as it heals. In a few years it'll be calmer."
Calmer? Perhaps. Perhaps in thirty years it would be blurry and the blacks gone green, but it would still be there. Sun, sword, his initials and Xander's. Giles followed the lines radiating out from the center, rubbing the lotion in. He'd been worried that it would ruin Xander's lovely back, the lines of the muscle, but it didn't. It was lovelier than ever. Sexier than ever. Even more so because Xander was so obviously pleased to have ink at last. He imagined more tattoos on that muscled back. At the base of his spine, disappearing down below the waistband of his jeans. Over that lovely arse, that arse that Giles would, he realized, be taking now. Right this instant.
Giles gripped the back of Xander's neck and squeezed. "I'm going to take you now, Xander. To mark the occasion. Don't move."
"Not on your life."
Giles could hear the laughter in Xander's voice. He dove into the nightstand to find a condom and the bottle of slick. Xander moved anyway, despite his promise, but Giles could not fault him: he kicked off his jeans and was naked before Giles had managed to push his trousers halfway down his thighs. He was in too much of a hurry to take them off, almost in too much of a hurry to put the condom on properly. Giles knelt behind Xander and pushed his legs further apart with his knees. He leaned over Xander's back, Xander's tattooed back, and penetrated, faster and more roughly than he was ever wont to do. His urgency almost frightened him, and he faltered, went still.
But Xander said, "Fuck. Yeah. Don't stop. Feels-- yeah. Hard, man, do it hard. Tomorrow gonna do the same to you. Can't wait."
Giles laughed, and obeyed. Xander, this absurd man, was his. He'd get to look at that image every time he took Xander, every time, and be reminded that Xander was his. Living magic, or just life. Perhaps this was all he owed the world: love for the people around him. Every single day from now until he could open his eyes no longer. Giles kissed the back of Xander's neck and swore it to him, silently.
This weekend, it was Giles's turn to decide what happened, and Xander's turn to relax and be done to. "To enjoy the ride on the Giles-coaster," Xander said, before Giles could bring the glare to bear on him and silence him. Xander had treated them all to a weekend at Cedar Point, back in the autumn, and coaxed Giles into riding with him. Giles would never admit to a soul that he'd enjoyed it. Not that Xander had needed admissions from him to know.
Giles commandeered the upstairs bathroom for a fast shower. Xander had already taken his when he got home from this week's construction site. He would be waiting in their bedroom already, naked and wearing his cuffs if he'd followed instructions. He'd have lit candles and pulled the shades and hung the marker on the doorknob that meant the Slayers were not to interrupt them for anything short of a demon invasion. He would be half-aroused already, but refraining from touching himself out of good manners. The image of Xander, eager and happy, dancing around the room from sheer overabundance of energy, was an exciting one. Giles's nerves were tight with anticipation when he got out of the shower, merely from that vision. He pulled on worn jeans over bare skin and buttoned up carefully. He shouldered on one of Xander's t-shirts, a frayed thing with the logo of a bowling supply company, and he was ready. Time for Xander's surprise.
Giles entered their room and slid the bolt home before he let himself look at Xander. He was indeed naked, and the room was sweet with the smell of beeswax, but he hadn't yet cuffed himself. Giles advanced on him and took the collar from his hands.
"Allow me," he said, with grave courtesy, and Xander grinned.
"Sir," he said, and bowed to Giles with his head up and that silly look still on his face. Giles kissed him as he fastened the collar tight around his neck. Velcro and neoprene, Xander's own handiwork, and infinitely practical. Giles looked absurd in them, but Xander always looked wonderful. That powerful body, tamed for him. And his tattoo, across Xander's shoulders and down his spine, half-hidden under that fantastic mane of hair, hanging untamed down Xander's back. The same marks on Giles's own back, hidden under his shirt.
"Strip the bed, please. Pillows and blankets on the floor."
Xander leapt onto the bed and kicked the pillows off, then enthusiastically tugged the blankets away and mounded them over the pillows.
"I should make you do that properly," Giles said, but he didn't bother. He was starting to feel just as excited as Xander. Over-excited, possibly, and nervous. He didn't know if Xander would like this. "Never mind. On the bed, please, on your back."
The house had a good supply of climbing equipment: ropes and carabiners and spikes and hammers. The Slayers needed to scale buildings more often than they had in Sunnydale, where there was nothing over three stories, and so Giles had outfitted them to do so. And he'd thoughtfully added extras to their last order with the climbing shop, and scraped up the money for it by sacrificing his next bottle of single malt. He'd given up a host of vices so that he might afford this single weekly vice with Xander.
He put the ropes and carabiners to use now. Cuffs clipped to rings Xander had installed on the iron bedstead, splaying Xander's arms out. Rope looped around his chest and secured with carabiners on both sides of the bed, and another loop around his waist, tightened so that Xander was held down fast.
"Raise your knees," Giles said, and Xander obeyed. Leather straps for the knees, because the ropes would bite and leave marks, which Giles was uninterested in tonight. More ropes, pulling Xander's knees up and apart, until he was splayed out and exposed. Then folded towels slid under Xander's backside, to hold him and make the position more comfortable. Finally, a short line through the rings in the collar, to hold his head down.
"Try that."
Xander strained against his bonds, testing them. Giles did the same whenever Xander bound him. The goal was to find the weaknesses now, before they'd begun serious play, so that Giles could correct them, and later he could struggle all he wished to. Not that he would find one. The habits of a lifetime as a Watcher came in handy at the strangest times. Giles methodically checked each tie point and tightened the ropes so there was no slack in them. Xander was held fast. Giles watched his muscles bunch as he tested the ropes one last time.
"All right?" Giles said, when he'd relaxed again.
"Yeah. Good this way for a couple hours."
They exchanged nods.
"You're going to spend the evening bound tight, either like this or in another position if I choose to shift you. You may come as often as you like. But I do require one display of self-control from you."
"What?"
"Your silence. Do your best to contain any cries you might make. I don't wish to disturb the house with your racket. If you can't, I'll gag you."
Xander's eyes went wide then settled into anticipation. Everything he felt showed on his face immediately. That was the joy of Xander. Giles always knew where he stood. No mysteries, no insecurities other than what his own impoverished spirit brought to their partnership. He knew Xander was fond of him, and he knew Xander enjoyed his company in bed. And he knew Xander trusted him utterly. He wanted whatever Giles had chosen to give him.
Giles stroked over Xander's arse, so unprotected and exposed. This was a perfect position for penetration, if he chose it, or for harsher entertainments. Perhaps Xander expected him to choose one of those possibilities, to produce a whip or a vise. But Giles had no taste for games like those; he would endure them if Xander wished, but he would never choose them. He had something more subtle in mind.
He went to the far corner of the attic and picked up the tray he'd prepared earlier. The votive candle he'd lit an hour before was still burning under the little pot. Giles carried it over and set it carefully on the nightstand. The only freedom of movement Xander had was his head, and he turned it to peer curiously. Giles deliberately shifted himself so his body was between Xander and the pot of wax. He put on the latex gloves.
Buffy had given him instructions, but he hadn't ever done himself. He'd had it done once, by a professional, some years before, while in the grip of a short-lived mad affair. Well, if he couldn't manage it on the first go, Xander would have to lie still while he worked it out. Giles curled his lip just enough to show teeth.
Giles chose the trail of hair down Xander's belly, that line pointing downward to heaven. Dip the stick in and give a good stir. Spread the wax quickly, while it was still hot. Press the muslin strip over it. Let it harden for a moment.
Xander strained upward, but the collar kept his head back. "Wax? Isn't it supposed to be hotter? I--"
Giles pulled the ball gag out of the nightstand drawer, taking care to make sure Xander saw it on the way past.
"I hate that thing."
"Then I suggest you remain silent."
Giles took firm hold of the strip of muslin. A brisk pull, Buffy had said, against the direction of the growth of the hair, with his other hand keeping the skin taut. Giles braced and pulled.
"Shit!"
Xander struggled against the ropes in earnest now, but it was far too late. The bedstead creaked and held, as it always did. Giles watched him and fought to hide the fierce joy he felt. This was the sensation Xander sought, though not in the form he'd expected it. Pain, pleasure, helplessness, intensity. Xander had reached the top of the first hill of the rollercoaster, and was looking down at the first drop.
"Silence, please," Giles said, with patience, after Xander had come still again.
"You bastard. I'm going to get you for this. Next Friday you're gonna be tied up, and I'm gonna get my revenge."
Giles picked up the gag and dangled it over Xander's face. This was, as usual, enough incentive for Xander to shut up, but his face still spat defiance up at his captor. Giles turned away, back to the pot of wax, and hid his own smile. Provoking Xander had been half the point of this exercise. Giles could spend the week in happy anticipation of Xander's revenge. The other half was, of course, the result: the smooth bare skin revealed as he worked.
Giles stirred the wax and coated the stick well. Xander watched him. His face was sweaty. He chose a spot on Xander's chest. Xander flinched when the wax touched him.
"I want your chest bare," Giles said. "For the next time I use the knife on you. I want to cut patterns in your skin, and I don't want to have to shave you bare first."
Xander nodded, and he seemed to relax. He'd loved the knife-play, and Giles knew he'd be asking for it again soon. Giles watched his face closely as he pulled the next strip: a soundless contortion. This wasn't the most painful thing Giles had done to him, then, nor even close to the most painful thing Xander had done to Giles. It was more the shock of it.
"We're not done yet. I want you completely bare. You'll be naked under your clothes for me. Smooth."
He spread hot wax deftly across the top of the triangle of hair, pressed on a strip of cloth, waited a moment, and pulled. Xander jerked against the ropes and groaned through his gritted teeth. Again, and another patch of pubis revealed, another choked-back gasp. Xander had just enough self-control to manage his voice, not enough to control his body. Though he did not need to, which was the point of the bonds.
As Giles continued along the edges of his thighs, Xander settled. He tensed with every pull, but no longer struggled or made noise. The pubic thatch itself was the most painful, it seemed, or Xander had drifted far into endorphin haze. Giles worked his way back, to Xander's arse. Xander seemed to wake when the heat of the wax touched him there, near where Giles would enter him later.
"You're gonna, you're gonna--"
"Silence, please."
Giles pulled. Xander's whole body tensed, and the iron bedstead creaked. The straps held, and Xander relaxed again. Giles didn't give him any respite, but kept moving fast, not giving Xander time to think about it or coil himself against it. He was nearly done, however. Just the ballsack to go. Heavy, dark, sensitive to every touch, and bare after just a few goes. Xander made noise then, through clenched teeth.
Giles removed the gloves and blew out the candles under the pot of wax. Xander did not relax, but craned his head up as far as he could to watch Giles cautiously. Not that he'd would be able to help it if Giles had any further tricks up his sleeve tonight. Giles smiled at him blandly. The rollercoaster had slowed, though Giles would happily mislead Xander into thinking there were no hills left.
"We're done," he said. "You can talk now."
Xander sighed. "Man, that was... Buffy gets that done every month?"
"Some men do as well," Giles said.
"They're all more macho than I am."
Giles knelt on the bed again, between Xander's raised thighs, with the jar of moisturizer handy. Buffy had been insistent that he use it. He smoothed lotion over Xander's reddened outraged skin, his touch now as soothing as he could make it. Xander slowly relaxed under him and he came fully erect again. Giles liked the show it made over that bare belly. He was careful not to touch Xander's penis directly, to give him no help reaching the orgasms he was allowed to have. He wanted Xander coming later, much later, with Giles inside him.
Giles undid the ropes holding Xander's legs up. He groaned and stretched them out straight. "That was murder in at least three different ways," Xander said.
"I went easy on you by doing this instead of shaving you, you know."
The ropes around his waist next. Then his chest. Xander wriggled on the bed, still pinioned at neck and wrists.
"I'm having a hard time believing that. Shaving: buzz buzz, done. This: yank yank yow!"
"You've never shaved yourself, I take it."
"No."
Giles chuckled. "You'd have been cursing me two days from now instead of cursing me now. Then cursing me again in a week, because you'd have to re-do everything in just a few days. This way it'll be at least three weeks before I have to do this to you again."
"Assuming I agree to stay clean-shaven, an assumption bad boyfriends like you should not be making."
Xander pouted, but Giles could tell he didn't mean it. Giles released his wrists from the bed, only to fasten them to the collar at his neck. The ride was not yet over, though the rest of it would be familiar to Xander.
"Wait until we make love, then tell me what you think of it. In the meantime, I have no regrets. You look magnificent. Even sexier than you did before. That chest. Look at your chest, bare, muscles on display. Lord." Giles ran his hand over Xander's chest and down his smooth, clean stomach.
"Freakin' Watcher. Gets off by looking at people."
"Never denied it."
Xander's face went serious and thoughtful, and he nodded, more to himself than to Giles. A thrill of fear shot through Giles. His stomach dropped away. Xander was the one bound and helpless in their bed, Xander would be receiving him in whatever way Giles chose in another few minutes, but Giles was the one trembling in anticipation. He stood abruptly, to cover it.
"Up on your knees, turn and grip the headboard, my lad. Find a comfortable position, because you'll be in it for a while. You made quite a fuss. How many times did I need to tell you to be silent?"
Xander rolled himself over onto his face and pushed himself up onto knees and elbows, showing more grace than Giles had expected. Giles admired his arse as he moved. Smooth, bare. His.
"Three times," Xander said.
"I counted four."
"You big liar."
"Five."
"What do I have to do to get you to call it ten?"
"What makes you think I'm going to bother counting?"
Giles grinned, and brought his hand down hard.