Rating: PG-13
Author: Trekker
Pairing: Giles/Xander
Fandom: Buffy
Xander looked when Giles screamed a warning, so he saw the blow that killed Andrew. One sweep of a huge axe cut halfway through him, and then Giles reached the demon and slammed his sword through its back. Xander turned just in time to stop a blow aimed for his own skull, and by the time he worked himself free, Giles was on his knees with Andrew in his lap, and Andrew was dead.
After the battle, they stood in a loose circle--all of them: Buffy, Willow, Dawn, Faith, Wood, Angel, Spike, that blue demon girl, himself, and Giles--apart from the surviving Slayers and the other Watchers, and Giles pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, started to reach for his glasses, and then froze. On the field of pristine white cloth, there was one tiny dot of red. One dot. It was nothing, next to the ruin Giles' clothes had been before Buffy'd kicked in the window of an empty, abandoned clothing store. His jeans had been stained black with Andrew's blood, his shirt a mess that would have taken a forensics team to sort out. But he froze. Then, paling, he said, "Excuse me," and walked off. Only Xander knew to follow. He stopped, ten feet back as Giles dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around his stomach and vomited on the pavement in the relative solitude of an alley.
Xander waited, quiet, looking around to give Giles some privacy. When Giles stood, leaving the handkerchief behind, and walked towards the mouth of the alley, with the weaving gait of a drunk, Xander silently handed him a bottle of water. He stood by as Giles rolled the water in his mouth and spat, and then, softly, said, "Sorry." Xander shrugged, then touched his shoulder. They didn't speak as they walked back to the others.
***
Giles' dream of torture ended with gentle, cool hands on his pain-hot skin, a segue to blue from fire red. Consciousness came with a jolt and he sucked in a breath and gripped, sure for a moment he was falling. Then he breathed out and felt a hand on his shoulder. Fingers, dry and cool, brushed the back of his neck, then the hand was gone and Xander said, "Hey. You ok?"
Still half-blind with sleep, the ambient noise more than his eyes that told him they were still in the airport, still waiting. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed away the unsolicited catnap, but couldn't quite push back the low throb of headache that seemed buried too deep to reach behind his eyeballs.
"Fine," he said. "How long--"
"About twenty minutes," Xander said. "No sign of the plane yet, so I'm thinking we've got another thirty at least."
Giles slipped his glasses back on and looked out to the tarmac, where the end of their loading gate still hung uselessly unattached to any aircraft. He sighed. It seemed a foolish fantasy that England's rolling fields and trees could possibly share a world with this blank, dusty asphalt. Giles turned his eyes away from the view and swept his gaze instead over the seats at the gate. The girls sat huddled all in the same row of seats, shoulders hunched, eyes downcast. Quiet, exhausted, some of them read, some of them talked softly, some dozed.
He couldn't look at them for long, couldn't bear seeing that *look* on them, that look of defeat, even though they'd won. That look was the one Buffy had worn in those days after she'd clawed her way out of her grave. Shell-shock. Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Fancy phrases for such a simple, awful thing.
Instead, he found the sign for the loo, muttered something to Xander, and stood, making his way around their bags and escaping the hell that still reflected in their eyes.
The men's room was empty. There weren't many travelers this weekday midmorning. He splashed a handful of water on his face and welcomed the chilled shock and the sparks it sent through his sluggish nerves. His head still throbbed, dully and slowly like a failing heartbeat. Then the door opened, and he watched Xander approach in the mirror. Their eyes met through the reflection. Only, not their eyes. His eyes met Xander's eye, and the ever-present black patch.
He turned his gaze away.
God, he was tired.
Then Xander touched him again. One hand, long fingers, curled around the back of his upper arm, gripping slightly. The tiles and the stillness amplified sounds, so he could hear Xander breathing, even fancied he could hear his heartbeat.
"You're not fine," Xander said.
"No," Giles agreed, too tired to argue against the truth. "But who among us is?"
Xander's grip trapped the heat of Giles' own skin and pressed the fabric of his shirt against his arm. He didn't let go. Pure exhaustion, emotional and physical, made Giles shut his eyes, shudder, and lean, press, fall into that simple human contact.
He heard Xander inhale, soft and sharp. Xander's hand loosened and then slid from his arm to the center of his back, between his shoulder-blades. There, Xander hesitated.
Giles didn't speak. Didn't move, but to breathe.
Then Xander completed the gesture, moved his arm around him, stepped closer, and Giles finally moved, turned into him, and they hugged, tight and close and long. He could feel Xander's heartbeat, and the stiff fabric of his eye-patch against his cheek. Xander was warm and solid, and the scent of his hair was familiar, was safe.
It suddenly occurred to Giles how much he'd come to associate Xander's touch with pain.
No.
With the cessation of pain.
***
Xander watched Giles on the plane.
A few minutes after takeoff, Giles got out his notepad. He laid it on the tray table. The top page contained the death toll of the battle in LA, inscribed in black ink in neat block letters in two orderly columns. Names of Slayers and a handful of Watchers, and at the bottom, the last name on the list: Andrew Welles. Giles flipped to the next page, and wrote: "Dear Mrs. Adams." He paused, then scratched out the "Dear." On the next line, he added, "The Watcher's Council regrets to inform you--" then he stopped. His pen hovered at the end of the unfinished sentence. Then he drew a line through it and wrote, "I deeply regret to inform you--" Again, he stopped. He stared down at what he had written. Then he drew a line through that, as well. He wrote, "I am so sorry."
For a long time, he held his hand poised to write the next sentence. Then, quietly, he folded the pad shut, leaned forward, and tucked it and his pen away.
After that, he moved only enough to reach up for the reading light and pull the in-flight magazine from the seat pocket. He stared at the crossword puzzle without a pencil in his hand. When the concession cart came, he reached across Xander with a folded five tucked between two fingers, and said, 'Wild Turkey,' just loud enough to be heard over the engines. He didn't pour it over the ice. When it was empty, a few swallows later, he folded away the tray table, tucked the bottle between the seats, and turned his body towards the window . He gazed out at the Atlantic stretching beneath them.
***
As he unlocked the door of his flat, Giles had no idea what time it was. It was dark, he knew that much, and quiet, so it was some wee hour. Beyond that, Giles' world was timeless. He tossed his keys into their accustomed basket by the door, flicked on the lights, dropped his small carryon bag. He heard Xander's footsteps on the hardwood behind him, heard the door close.
"Bathroom's down the hall, first door on your left," he said. "I'll get the couch made up for you in a moment. Are you tired?"
"Tired, yes," Xander said. "Able to sleep? Possibly not."
"We should," Giles said. "Best to get reacquainted with the local time zone as quickly as possible."
"Yeah, well, I'm just dashing off to another one in a couple days anyway," Xander said. "Not sure it's worth the energy at this point."
Giles, though he was going to remain in this time zone, felt the same. Tired to his bones, but sleep seemed unlikely. His nerves still jittered from the circus of customs and airports and taxis and trains.
"Can I get you anything? I have-- er, water, I suppose. Possibly beer."
"Water would be good," Xander said. "And I think I'll check out the bathroom."
Giles nodded, and didn't watch as Xander headed down the hall. The kitchen was dark and quiet, dim enough to see a bit out the window: a lone street lamp across the way, shedding a pool of illumination on nothingness. Giles flicked on the light and the outside world vanished completely, leaving only a reflection of himself. He turned away. Took down two glasses, filled one with tap water, and then opened the cabinet above the sink, pulled out a bottle of Glenlivit. He'd just tilted it to pour, when a warm hand covered his own on the neck of the bottle and stopped the movement.
He looked back over his shoulder at Xander, whose arm was all but wrapped around him, again, his hand still holding his own and the cool green glass.
Xander let go, and stepped back, his expression devoid of anything readable.
"My dad poured a lot of that stuff on his problems. Never made them go away," he said.
Arguments surged in Giles for a moment, that he wasn't like that, that he only needed to unwind, but the hardness in Xander's stance seemed formidable, so he corked the bottle and set it aside, not up to a fight. He filled his own glass with water as well, and handed Xander's to him. The young man took it with a small twist of the lips that resembled a smile only in shape, and then walked back out to the living room.
Giles joined him on the couch, sitting hunched with his elbows on his knees, his glass dangling between his hands. The clock ticked on the mantel, but he didn't raise his eyes to check the time.
***
Giles pulled off his glasses and tossed them onto the coffee table, then returned both hands to his glass. Xander swallowed down his own drink in two gulps, but Giles never even raised his to his lips. He stared across at the fireplace. Finally, Xander said, "What are you thinking?"
At that, Giles blinked once and raised his head slightly. Half-aware again, but his eyes were still unfocused, staring. Then, once more, he blinked, and turned his head toward Xander, his eyes looking not quite at him, but past him, over his shoulder.
"When is the price too high?" he said, finally.
Xander pressed his lips together, gathered his thoughts. Then he leaned forward, set his empty glass aside, and turned towards Giles, curling one leg up onto the couch to better face him.
"We saved the world," Xander said.
Giles didn't answer. His eyes were on the fireplace again. The water in his glass slanted, a few centimeters from spilling, but he didn't seem to notice. He'd pushed his sleeves up a bit, and against his dark watchband, the skin on the inside of his arm seemed incredibly pale.
"Giles, the price can't be too high." Xander paused, for a second, feeling the weight of all of them on him--Ms. Calendar, Cordy, Anya, Andrew, so many Slayers--then he said, "Maybe they would have lived a little longer, in the short run, but in the end, they'd still be dead. We'd all be dead. Everyone. You, me, Buffy, Willow. Our families, our friends. The guys down at the bank, the teachers at the academy. Everyone. We saved the world. And every single one of us went into it knowing that could be the price. Andrew knew, Giles. Those girls knew. And they wouldn't have been anywhere else but there."
Giles shut his eyes, his lashes tangling together. His elbows pulled back a few inches further back along his thighs, as he leaned in, curled in on himself. Xander watched the muscle in his jaw move as he clenched his teeth. The room was silent. The world felt silent, felt empty, felt timeless.
And there was nothing he could tell Giles that Giles didn't already know, and all he could do was reach out, again, across the gulf between them, and slide his hand across Giles' shoulders, and every time he did that, it got easier, every time he felt Giles loosen under his touch, he got surer, and this time, he didn't stop.
He closed the gap between them, and his arm curled naturally around Giles' back, around the curve of his slouched shoulders, and now, he finally had Giles' attention. When Giles sat up and turned his face towards Xander, catching Xander's arm lightly between his broad, warm back and the couch, locking his bloodshot gaze with Xander's own, the last tingle of doubt faded.
It was with a kind of clarity he'd rarely felt before in his life that Xander let his one good eye fall shut, and then leaned in and kissed Giles.
***
If he was surprised that Xander kissed him, the feeling was lost entirely under a rush of others. Relief. Desperation. Desire. A kind of love. Soft, warm lips on his own, first one small, light brush, one last hesitation, and then gentle, persistent pressure. Giles shuddered and found his arm was trapped between them, his hands still looped around his water glass. He let out a breath, and Xander's hand ran up his back, tangled in his hair, held him in place as Xander's tongue flickered against the seam of his lips.
The electric tingle of desire, forking and branching like lightning through his gut, should have been disproportionate to a single kiss, to the entire situation, but it was as though his whole body had suddenly relaxed, as though when his lips parted slightly under the kiss, and Xander breathed a soft moan between them, his whole self had been rent open, and something that he hadn't even realized he'd been holding inside had finally spilled out and away. He found himself shaking. The water glass slipped from his hands.
Xander gripped his face with both hands now, his nose bumped Giles'. "God, Giles," he said, his voice husky. "Oh, god. Let me-- Please-- Just let me--"
Giles shuddered, hard. Couldn't open his eyes when he said, "Please."
Xander pulled back, and it was all Giles could do not to follow him, to cling to him. He caught the pleading words on the back of his tongue, didn't open his eyes, and in a moment, it was clear Xander had only moved away long enough to grip the hem of Giles' shirts, pull them off over his head. Bare-chested now, Giles caught the smell of himself, of a long day of travel, sweat and dust. But Xander didn't seem to care. Leaned in again, and then his soft mouth was on Giles' shoulder, his hands on Giles' skin.
His hair tickled Giles' jaw, and Giles turned his head, pressed his face into it, breathing deep that scent, that safety. His own hands finally seemed to obey him again, and he spread them across Xander's back. He gasped softly, at the too-long forgotten feeling of a male body under his hands like this. Xander was broad and strong, entirely different than anyone Giles had touched in years. Good. Just good.
Giles didn't open his eyes until Xander had pressed him back across the couch cushions, spread them out and plastered his body over Giles'. Then Giles did open his eyes, and found Xander looking down at him, wide-eyed, ruffled, almost startled, as though wondering how exactly he'd come to be there.
"Giles," Xander said, soft as love-talk, but belied by a furrowed brow, "I don't know what I'm--"
"Shh," Giles said, slipping his fingers into Xander's hair. "Yes. You do."
Xander blinked, but his brow relaxed a bit. Giles closed his eyes again and let his head relax back against the cushions. Xander was still for all of a moment, then he leaned in and kissed him. Giles shivered, moaned softly, and lost himself in the feelings.
Languid minutes slipped by, marked only by the tick of the clock, the huff of their breath, the sounds of their kiss. The space between each second seemed to stretch longer each time, the movements of their bodies against each other slowed gradually from restless hitches to slow pulsing to heavy stillness.
Xander sighed across his damp lips, and tucked his head into the crook of Giles' shoulder, and Giles lifted one heavy arm, just enough to drape around his shoulders, and then they both lay, still and together.
The warmth, the quiet, the slowing beat of their breaths, all curled around them, and, unthinking, they slipped off to sleep.
***
They woke again at some point. In the glow of the floor lamp, there was no telling if it was close to dawn or not. Xander shifted and managed to get off of Giles without elbowing him anywhere vital, and then got out of the way to let Giles stand as well. They stood, silently, then, Xander blinking at the sleep that was still heavy in his eyes. Giles' hair was ruffled, and he was still shirtless. It made Xander want to touch him, but he wasn't sure if he was allowed to.
Then Giles ran a hand through his hair, looked around, and said, "We should move to the bed."
And so Xander reached out, trailed his fingers down Giles' chest.
Giles smiled.
"Yeah," Xander said. "Bed would be good."
So he followed Giles a few steps down the short hall. He paused, in the doorway, looking in as Giles went to the edge of his bed. Giles' bedroom. Giles' bed.
The oddness of the whole situation blended well with the feeling of deep night, and that made it easier to shrug it off, to walk in as Giles unbuttoned his pants and pushed them off, stripped down now to nothing but boxers.
Giles pulled back the covers then stopped, stood, and looked at him, still fully dressed and standing back with his arms wrapped around his stomach. "This all right?" Giles asked, suddenly looking concerned.
"Yeah," Xander said, quickly. Weird, yeah. But all right. More than all right. Scary, exciting, unexpected. Very all right.
He didn't say any of that. He just slipped off his shirt and his pants and went to Giles, next to the bed.
"Good," Giles said, quietly, then he reached for him. Xander stepped into his arms, met the kiss halfway. Before, Giles' skin had been tight as a drum skin under his hands, vibrating with tension. Now he was soft, relaxed, finally warm again where his body had been cool to the touch. Xander swayed towards him, just to feel the lengths of their bodies close together, skin to skin. Giles leaned into him, clutched him closer, and it was like the first time Faith had yanked him into her arms. Revelatory, amazing.
They parted, then, just long enough to slide under the covers, and then they were in each other's arms again.
There was so much to think about, so much going on, but for the moment, Giles was sliding off to sleep again beside him, nestled in the crook of his arm, and it was late, and quiet, and all the questions could wait until morning.
The End