tarnished -- trekker

Tarnished

Part 1

Chapter One: Home Again

Deep red sky, like a smear of blood behind the black of the distant windbreak trees edging the field. The sun settled just below the horizon, the last tinge of light still coloring the underside of the clouds.

Rupert Giles sat alone on the pale brick patio outside of his family home, an estate a few miles outside of Bath. They had a small plot of land. The house was old and stately, and now, behind him, the light through the windows cast a soft yellow glow out across the fields.

He looked out across the fields, a forgotten mug of tea gone long cold in his hand, resting on his knee. He thought of nothing. Nothing important, that is. He thought instead of clouds, and of the scent of this place, so different than the scent of Sunnydale. Even breathing was a reminder.

But then, that was what he wasn't supposed to be thinking, wasn't it?

Sunnydale. Thousands of miles away, and no longer his concern. No one there his concern.

He moved his head, shaking off those thoughts, and lifted the mug to his lips. The cold touched his lips and he grimaced, then stood and walked to the end of the patio, tossing the dregs out onto the grass. The mug he set aside on the low brick wall and then he tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

A night breeze picked up and swirled around him and he shivered. California never seemed to get quite so chilled. His blood had thinned.

Behind him, the patio door clicked shut and footsteps approached.

"Still here?" his mother said, coming up alongside him.

He smiled slightly, his eyes still fixed on the black trees that shifted in the cold breeze.

The smile did not hold for long.

"Watching the sun set," he said. "And thinking, I suppose."

He looked at her, then, and again was startled. She looked... old, for want of a better word. Straight grey hair and crinkles around her eyes and mouth. Lines that deepened as she smiled and touched his arm. A hint of melancholy in her eyes.

"How are you doing?" she asked, and he had to look away again, the weight of that question too heavy to bear straight on.

"How should I be doing?" he asked. "I-- I don't even know if I've done the right thing."

"Perhaps you didn't. Or perhaps you did. Only time will tell."

"Sounds remarkably simple when you put it like that," he said. "But it isn't. Nothing ever is."

He looked down at his feet now, standing on that pale brick, possibly several thousand miles from where they should be.

"Ah, yes. Of course. But it's a mother's job to make it seem simple."

He smiled again, more easily and more genuinely. But that moment of ease, too, did not last for long. He turned and sat down on the wall and from that angle his mother looked taller and brought back memories of a long-ago youth that, for a split-second, he yearned for with a passion unlike any he'd felt in months.

"That was all Buffy wanted, I suppose," he said. "For it to be simple."

His mother sat as well, and put her hand on his knee.

"You were never meant to be her father, Rupert."

"I know."

"So don't feel you should have been. She's a Slayer and you are her Watcher. I know how these things work, love. Don't think I haven't been watching you, and your father, and your brother. I may not be one of you, but I know."

"I'm not sure anyone knows. I certainly know that I don't know. I--"

The wind picked up again, whipping around them both, pulling strands of his mother's silver hair about her face. He couldn't miss her shiver and her small wince. He stood up again and offered her a hand.

"Let's get inside, shall we? Chilly tonight."

She looked grateful as she took his hand and she struggled, for a moment, when she stood. A part of him, a horrible part that he shied away from, cringed.

Edwin was in Africa, and Margaret had children and a Potential Slayer to deal with, and god knew Paul wouldn't know responsibility if it up and introduced itself. All of which meant that someday, though likely not soon, per se, his parents would need somewhere to stay, and there'd be no one but him there to take up that--

The word that came to mind was burden, and he briefly hated himself for his diction.

She leaned on his arm only slightly as they walked to the door.

Just inside the door, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders--so much thinner--and pulled her into his side, kissed the top of her head and said, "I should head home. Love you, mum."

Her eyes glowed as she returned the words, then she headed off towards the kitchen at a slow amble. He watched her go, wondering just how much of a hypocrite he truly was, then he turned and headed for the den.

His father was embroiled in books; barely seemed to hear him come in. Giles had an odd moment of understanding, thinking perhaps this was how he seemed to the Scooby gang when he himself was deep in research. Closed off to the world, focused, distant.

"I'm... heading home," he said.

"Hmm?" His father said.

"Goodnight."

Only then did his father look up.

"Leaving?"

"Driving back to Bath."

"Right, yes." His father turned in his chair. "Goodnight."

And then he paid Giles no more mind. Not that Giles had been expecting anything more. He knew that no matter what his mother said, or even what gestures towards politeness his father may make, what he'd done was completely unprecedented.

Past experience told him his father was not overly fond of anything unprecedented.

The house was silent as he walked back out into the cold night air.

***

Bath was a nice town. Small and old and heavy with history. Bath gave the impression of something long there and long-lasting. Sunnydale only ever gave the impression of lurking evil and consumerism.

Outside his own apartment, there were people on the streets and cars passing but, as soon as the scuffed old oak door shut behind him, that silence returned in force. The only sound was the hollow clomp of his feet on worn wooden steps, echoing about the stairwell and far too loud. Every time he climbed these stairs, he expected to be shouted at by a neighbor but so far it hadn't been an issue and he'd never had a problem with the noise of others.

This old worry should have inspired a sensation of being home, he thought. After all, he'd lived in this building longer than he'd lived in Sunnydale. He knew its personality and its quirks and his neighbors, all of whom had welcomed him back with the usual detachment of distant acquaintances. Friendly but empty, in a way that normally would have been warming.

Nothing, now, seemed warming.

He reached the third floor and the door to his flat and stepped inside. For a moment, before he could set his keys aside and flip on the lights, it seemed perfectly dark and still inside. He almost wanted to simply turn around and leave.

Having the lights on did not do much to improve things.

His possessions, for the most part, were still stacked in boxes in the disarrayed living room and in the hall. Bookshelves stood empty, waiting for him to summon the energy to unpack and re-alphabetize his collection. It simply seemed insurmountable at the moment.

He'd intended to make something for dinner, settle in for a night of light reading, but suddenly, all he really wanted was to lie down, to not-deal with the massive project of getting his life, such as it was--if he even had one--back on track.

So he told himself he could get started trying to get his bedroom back in order and that was enough of an excuse to get him down the hall and into his bedroom and once he was there, he dropped the pretense. Dropped everything, in fact, and flipped the lights back off and settled down on his back on the bed with his hands knotted behind his head and his shoes still on, staring up at the single band of light on the ceiling.

As far as he knew, no one even knew where he was. What he was doing. No one would knock on his door. No one would need his attention.

Eventually, he fell asleep.

***

Chapter 2: Old Friends Or Something To That Effect

The Royal Watcher's Council branch office in Bath was down a set of stairs, tucked up underneath a building. Some oh-so-clever child had at some point spray-painted over the "R" in the RWC on the sign at the head of the stairs, and apparently, no one had bothered to fix it in the month or so Giles had been back in Sunnydale.

There were four offices here, a reception area, and a small library, which mostly consisted of duplicates or reprintings of the books housed at the main office in London.

Giles' office was still in the process of being reverted back into an office. During the years he'd been gone, it had become something of a storage / filing room for the others, and just a general catchall. So now, much like in his flat, he had to navigate around stacked boxes and scattered junk to reach his desk, which cowered in the corner of the small room like a chastised puppy.

Currently, Giles was sitting at it and sorting through huge stacks of files, trying to recall which were his own, and which were just general files. It was really quite dull, and the florescent light seemed to be flickering, and his eyes ached.

He tossed aside the file he'd been working through and pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. When he opened them, he was struck, suddenly, by the dreariness of this room. Four bare white walls, one flickering florescent lamp, loads of grey filing cabinets, and the ever-present cardboard boxes.

It actually made him miss the Sunnydale library.

Demons aside, it had been a beautiful place, full of sunlight and dark, polished wood. And books, of course.

Books were, without a doubt, a thousand times more exciting than files. A million times more exciting than files. Books were too good, in fact, to even be used in an analogy with files.

He grunted in listless disgust, nudged the file folder a bit further away and decided, 10:45 AM or not, that it was absolutely time for lunch.

So he stepped carefully over boxes and books and around filing cabinets out into the dim hallway between the four offices that smelled of plaster and dust and a bit of mildew. He nodded at John, the receptionist, and stepped out into the morning.

Sweet air. As he climbed the steps to the street, his mind made some maudlin allusion to escaping from Hades, and he had to laugh at himself. Though, truly, it was a relief. Butter-yellow sunlight slanted across the stone fronts of the buildings, and the whole city seemed to glow. The sunlight also mellowed the tang of chill in the air, and he found himself relaxing and breathing easier than he had in... he really wasn't sure how long. Possibly since Buffy had taken her... well, yes. Or even before then. Heaven only knew.

And that... that was simply a terrible phrase to use now, it seemed.

He shook off those thoughts, and bought a paper from a corner vendor. During the rest of the walk to the cafe he favored, he deliberately thought of nothing more weighty than pigeons.

Which worked well until the jangle of the bell over the door brought back in sudden and perfect clarity his abandoned shop back home. Back in Sunnydale.

And, damn it, he'd gone and called Sunnydale "home" again.

He sighed and made his way to the counter.

"Good morning, Mr. Giles," the young man at the counter said. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes," Giles said, distractedly. Small talk came easy. "How are you this morning, Ron?"

"Doing just grand. What'll it be?"

He realized then that, though he'd desperately wanted his lunch break, food itself was not quite so appealing at this early hour. He'd eaten breakfast at his desk only about an hour ago. He scanned the menu, and then went with, "Just a medium coffee and a turkey sandwich."

Oddly, he had a brief craving for peanut butter and jelly. He mentally rolled his eyes and blamed Xander entirely.

"All right. It'll be out in a moment, sir."

"Thanks, Ron," Giles said, and went to sit down at his usual table near the window in the back. He skimmed the paper until the food came.

It seemed so quiet here. No homicides at all, where in Sunnydale, they got their own page, as did missing persons. In general, vampires preferred large cities, where they could simply blend in. Bath rarely got anything more than small gangs passing through on their way somewhere else, usually Bristol.

So why the hell was he here? Why had he left a handful of children alone to face god knew what?

But they weren't children. Not children. And they needed to figure that out. As did he, apparently.

He turned the page and focused instead on figuring out how the rugby season was playing out this year, sports being one of the many things he'd lost touch with while off in that other world. He lost himself in scores and stats until Ron brought out his lunch. Then, just as the boy was heading back behind the counter, the bell jingled again, and habit drew Giles' eye to the door, and he froze, napkin still in hand.

The man at the door was similarly motionless, still holding the door open, practically in mid-step.

Ethan.

Still tall and lank, but not completely the same. Goatee'd, now, and with his hair grown out just long enough to curl. Ethan's eyes widened, looking at Giles over dark glasses. Then he cursed and turned and left the shop in a swirl of grey overcoat and a clamor of the bell.

And some primal chase instinct kicked in and Giles was up out of his chair and to the door almost before he knew what he'd done. He pounded out into the street, and caught a glimpse of grey vanishing around a corner. Followed, heart pounding, with some kind of rage heating in his chest. Wasn't even sure quite *why* he was so angry, but he didn't spare it a thought.

Didn't run, just walked, a long stride.

He couldn't deny there was a powerful, primal thrill in catching the shoulder of Ethan's coat, yanking him back, turning him and knocking him into the nearest wall.

"You," he growled.

"Yes. Me," Ethan said, one hand raised up in a placating manner between them. He turned his eyes down to Giles' hand, still knotted in his coat.

"What are you doing here?"

Rather than looking cowed, Ethan merely looked annoyed, and said, "What business is it of yours?"

Giles unhanded him roughly, but didn't step back, letting his body and nearness maintain the threat. Feeling Ethan's presence through the scant space between them.

"You're supposed to be locked away somewhere. Being 'rehabilitated.'"

There was another flicker of something in Ethan's eyes, then he purred, "Well, perhaps I have been."

Nothing was intrinsically sexual about the words, but the way they were spoken sent a small unwelcome tingle through Giles' groin nonetheless. He grabbed Ethan's coat and knocked him back against the wall again.

"Ah, well, then perhaps I should just give the Initiative a call, hmm? Thank them for their hard work," Giles said, pleasantly.

"Not necessary, I'm sure," Ethan said, with the same mock-cheer. "Now, I'm as much an exhibitionist as the next rather kinky man, but we are drawing stares, love. Shall we perhaps move this to a less public venue?"

"You haven't answered my question yet."

"Ah, yes. That. Well, you see, I actually live here."

Giles released him abruptly.

"Hell."

***

So, they ended up back in the cafe. Giles picked up his things and relocated them to a small nook in the nearly-empty second floor area. He couldn't help but think how badly sharing a table with Ethan had ended up going the last time around. With that in mind, he kept an uneasy eye on him, and kept his drink well away from him.

"How did you get away?"

Ethan just leaned back in his chair and said, dismissively, "Oh, you know me. Always someone who owes me a favor or two."

"Of course," Giles said. Ethan wasn't going to tell him and he really was most likely better off not knowing anyhow.

Ethan had taken off his coat and draped it over the back of his chair, and was dressed in his usual red silk shirt and charcoal slacks. In spite of everything, in spite of himself, Giles couldn't help flicking his gaze over him, taking in those long legs crossed at the ankles, the sensual ease of Ethan's pose. He only looked for a fraction of a second, but it was more than enough. Enough, that was, to send his pulse skittering a little faster, and enough, unfortunately, for Ethan to catch that glance.

He saw the other man's eyes narrow just a bit in speculation, and possibly in interest, and that, too, was enough to nudge his heart rate up a tad more.

Giles forced his gaze down to his sandwich, cursing himself and his idiotic body, and said, "So you just happened to end up here, then? In Bath."

The 'in *my* town' he left unspoken.

"I like the quiet," Ethan said.

The only response Giles could think of for that was a rather indelicate snort.

His turkey sandwich was not doing an adequate job of pushing away that lingering buzz of arousal.

"And what brings you out here? Slayer problems?"

Anger, on the other hand, did a bit to lessen that buzz. He glared, but Ethan merely smiled mildly and said, "Just making conversation. No need to get glowery."

"Why?" Giles said, and now he was truly wondering, why the hell they were here. Why he'd all but invited Ethan to join him. What had he been thinking? Had he had any sensible reason for this?

"Why what?" Ethan said.

"Why make conversation?"

Ethan seemed confused by the question, as though it were perfectly natural for an almost-evil Chaos sorcerer and a Watcher to be chatting over tea. "Why not? We are old friends. Or possibly mortal enemies. Depending on the day, apparently. Perhaps we should work out a schedule. Just for the edification of all involved, you know."

It occurred to Giles then, though it wasn't precisely a revelation, just one of those moments when something known becomes obvious again, that he did not like Ethan. Everything about the man grated on him, from that devil-may-care sprawl, to that earring catching the overhead lights, to that smarmy smile. His clothes, his hair, his attitude.

And his insistence that they had some sort of relationship.

"What makes you think we're anything at all?" Giles said.

Ethan blinked, and sat up. He even leaned forward a bit and for the first time his eyes lost that casual disinterest and gain some focus.

"Because we are, Rupert."

But they weren't. They hadn't been anything for ages, not for years.

"You know, that's where you've always been wrong," Giles said, his voice cool.

Ethan settled back again, as though to hear a good joke. "Oh? Well, then what is this, then? Enlighten me."

Giles gathered his sandwich and coffee and stood, tired of this already.

"You... are my ex--" He paused over the word, then spat, "my ex-*boyfriend* who still hasn't figured out that I haven't given a damn about you in twenty years. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a life to get back to and I'd prefer you stay out of it."

He stalked out without another word. Anger still echoed through him as he shut his office door behind him, alone again with the filing cabinets.

***

Chapter Three: What We Are?

An hour and a half on the train to London. One hour waiting. Three hours being berated and interrogated by Quentin Travers. Another hour and a half on the train.

Suffice it to say, Giles was in a mood. Not a good mood. Quite the opposite. He was, to make the understatement of the year, bloody tired of Travers questioning his methods. Even if he himself was, rather, well, questioning his methods.

The fact still remained that Buffy was one of the longest-lived Slayers on record, and one of the most effective. And, of course, much of that was due to her, but he didn't think he was completely out of line giving himself at least a bit of credit.

He paused at the center of the bridge and looked down into the dark, slow river below. Lights rolled sluggishly over the surface, and it was silent in its course. The night air was still colder than he was adapted to, but it was better than being confined in his small apartment, and it was still far safer to wander here at night than it was in Sunnydale.

Though he still had a stake and a vial of holy water in his pocket simply due to habit.

There was still a slight chance of attack from a less supernatural source, of course, but that chance was also slim, and Giles felt that he'd been fighting the undead long enough that a simple human opponent would be a welcome respite. In fact, were he entirely honest with himself, after the day he'd had, he'd almost welcome a scuffle.

He finished crossing the bridge and wandered down the grassy bank towards the river itself.

The park was quiet tonight, and as he walked across the soft grass towards the deeper darkness of the water, he saw the first other people he'd seen in the past ten minutes. A couple strolled along the footpath, wrapped around each other and moving slowly. Giles found his eyes following them for a moment. They were young, university-aged most likely. The girl leaned in closer and tilted her head back, gazing up at her paramour with adoration, and for a moment they reminded Giles painfully of Xander and Anya.

He looked away, giving them their privacy, and finished the short walk down to the edge of the bank, as close as it seemed wise to stand.

Everything seemed so quiet. Darkness wreathed about him, and nothing seemed to move but for the water and the breeze. Of course, that stillness and aloneness was an illusion. The whole town was around him, though the trees and the bridge, which reared up off to his right, sheilded it from his view.

Even then, as though to prove his point, a car passed by over the bridge, throwing a sweep of headlights across the grass around him.

And then, even more damning evidence for the existence of the rest of the world, a voice came from behind his shoulder.

"You're wrong, you know."

Instantly, any relaxation he may have gleaned from the quiet vanished as a trembly tension raked up his spine.

He didn't turn. In fact, he tried his best not to show any of his reaction, keeping his voice low and level as he said, simply, "Go away, Ethan."

But of course, that had never worked before and didn't work now.

"About us."

"There is no us."

"Of course there is."

And he was not about to allow himself to be dragged into this ridiculousness.

"All right, then. Whatever you say."

He turned and walked up towards the path, anger buzzing through his mind at the intrusion on his aloneness. He didn't need this. Not tonight, not ever. He was willing to coexist with Ethan, truly, if it spared him the effort of constantly needing to watch his back, but if this was how it was going to be, then this would never work.

Ethan, of course, caught up and matched pace as Giles stalked up the path trying to wish him out of existence.

"You haven't gotten rid of me yet."

"Clearly not for lack of trying," Giles snapped.

"And, contrary to your obvious opinion, I was not in this town looking for you."

Giles stopped and wheeled towards him, fist clenching almost unconsciously in his pockets. "But now you are, which begs the questions of why, and of how I can make you stop."

Ethan just smirked.

"Most likely, you can't. And I don't think you'd really want to, either."

He couldn't answer that until he'd drawn a long slow breath. He looked Ethan directly in the eye, with one fist slipping out of his pocket, as he said, "My entire life, you've caused me nothing but trouble, Ethan. Believe me when I say I'd be ecstatic to be rid of you."

"You know, Rupert, all that repression really can't be good for your health."

"Sod. Off. Ethan."

And saying that was an honest warning, because the last time he'd been this angry was in the kitchen with Willow. He was so angry, he felt himself breaking into a sweat.

But Ethan just smiled a little wider and shook his head a tiny bit, and even as Giles' mind was screaming *just walk away,* his fist was already connecting with Ethan's jaw, and it felt far, far too good, in far too many ways. It always did, with Ethan.

Ethan, who was just laughing and touching his lip.

"Oh, go on, hit me again, Ripper. I know where this leads."

That voice was still telling him to walk away, but he'd been wanting to hit Ethan since yesterday, and he'd been wanting to hit *someone* all day, and it was simply too easy to bury his fist in Ethan's gut, catch his chin with his knee when he doubled over, and slam him backwards until they both hit the rough stone of the bridge with a bone-jarring thud.

It felt good.

He knew it shouldn't, but it did. That body under his own, that breath rushing pain-fast against his jaw. Felt good to see something other than superior amusement in those eyes, even if it was less like fear and awe and more like fierceness and arousal.

They were both breathing hard, and Giles hadn't pulled away, he stayed plastered over Ethan as heavily as he might be lying over him on a bed, held there by gravity. They were chest-to-chest and hip-to-hip, and Ethan slowly let his arms down and spread them across the brick, relaxation and surrender running through him.

Giles could hear the soft click in Ethan's throat as he swallowed. Smell him, his cologne and his body.

"So what now? Seeing as you rather have me at the disadvantage," Ethan said.

His lips felt dry, and something drove a spike of heat through his gut, so intense it hurt. They were both still breathing fast, and god, they were in public, though deep in shadow, and this... And he wanted something different now.

Or perhaps not different. The feeling in him, the aching urge, was no less violent, merely redirected.

He stepped back, quickly, too quickly to let Ethan know what he was doing. Threw one cautious glance over his shoulder, and then hissed, "You think we still have something? Fine then. Get on your knees."

Ethan chuckled, dark and deep, and he dropped gracefully to a kneel. Giles could have sworn he could feel that laugh against his skin, in his gut. He didn't care--or at least told himself he didn't care--that this played into Ethan's hand. What the hell did that matter? Ethan was the one on the ground.

Giles eased his feet apart and stepped forward, straddling Ethan, feeling his body pressed between his calves and his hands coming up to rest at Giles' knees. Giles pressed in close enough to make it awkward for Ethan, trapping him against the wall.

Giles splayed his hand against the bridge for support and said, "Go on, then."

And then Ethan's hands moved against him, unbuttoned him, unzipped, and were almost better than sex. Better than anything he'd felt in years. Hard, strangling heat rushed through him, along with a tingle of humiliation, of oh-god-we're-in-public.

But then Ethan pulled him out of his slacks, and Ethan's hand slipped down to grip the base of his cock, and then Ethan's lips folded around the head of his cock, and nothing mattered but that. Nothing in the world. He sighed, and pushed his hips forward, and that wet warmth surrounded him, and...

Yes. God, yes.

Ethan, slut that he was, was good at this. So good. Always had been, it seemed liked, as though he'd somehow been born with this knowledge. His tongue moved just right, and he allowed only a hint of teeth, tingling pleasure-pain.

His other hand curled around behind Giles' knee and then slid up the back of his thigh to settle in the crease between buttock and leg. The sharp tingle of pleasure was enough to make Giles thrust forward, to curse at the sensation. Too long since he'd done this.

He gasped when Ethan's breath cooled his wet skin, and pushed in again, this time beginning to find a rhythm: stroking, shallowly.

Ethan's fingers tightened on the back of his thigh, and he caught the rhythm, moved with it. This wouldn't last long. Shouldn't last long. Someone could notice them anytime now, the sooner the better, so Giles didn't bother trying to draw it out. Fast, inelegant, he let the wave build and then dug his fingers into Ethan's hair as it crested.

Release shuddered through him, freeing and so very strong, a feeling like no other, a relief on some profound instinctual level.

Then he pulled away, zipped up, and swallowed against his dry throat.

Ethan sat back on his heels and looked up at him, and Giles couldn't help a small, joyless smile when he said, "You wanted to know what you are to me? That is what you are, Ethan."

Then he walked back up the hill to the path without glancing back.

Chapter Four: IOU

He woke the next morning with an empty bottle of scotch, a pounding headache, and a bloodstain on the knee of his khaki trousers. He groaned and kicked at the sheet that was tangled around his leg, and when he sat up, it felt as though someone twisted the vice around his head tighter and his stomach rolled in protest. The light around the corners of the blinds seemed hot as a stove's heating element.

He ducked his head and his gaze fell to his knee again. A bright, accusing smear of red laid across pale, wrinkled fabric; a shock of color. His stomach murmured again, and he abruptly stood and wrestled his trousers open and down. He kicked them aside and stumbled to the bathroom in his pants and shirt.

Cold water and aspirin and then a hot shower rendered him, if not exactly human, then at least functional, and so, when he came back out and picked up the discarded trousers, the bloodstain caught his eye again and his higher functions finally began to process it.

What had he done?

Hitting Ethan was nothing new, of course. It had been the pattern of their relationship (though he still denied that was the appropriate word) for at least five years. But in Sunnydale, Ethan had been a threat. He'd been a threat to Buffy, and he had been a threat to the world, since he was on a Hellmouth with the potential to access so much power.

Here, last night, he had been no threat at all. He'd been nothing but an annoyance, and Giles was easily annoyed. Xander had annoyed him almost constantly for at least four years, and yet, he'd never hit him, of course. He never hit anyone, these days, who wasn't a threat to the world or his Slayer.

So what made Ethan different? What on earth had possessed him to think he had the right to...

Do what he'd done.

It weighed on his mind for the rest of the day, and he kept watching for Ethan, but as it turned out, he wouldn't see him again for three weeks.

***

Work dragged on. Endless translations of books of prophecies, most of which turned out to be hundreds of years out of date or frauds or just plain pointless. It wasn't all that different than what he'd done in Sunnydale, really, except that in Sunnydale, it had always been about accomplishing something. It had been about finding answers to real questions.

This translating felt far more like Council busywork designed to keep him occupied and to justify his paycheck, and it was dreary. Boring. Useless.

His daily routine was likewise unexciting.

He stopped by his parents' house again, but his father's stony, polite disregard continued, and he got the feeling that it bothered his mother, having to deal with the two of them, so he'd let them alone for the most part, restricting his contact to the occasional phone call.

His office-mates, once friendly, were likewise reserved now, regarding him with attitudes ranging from uncertainty to outright dislike.

He'd never liked being so alone in Sunnydale, but it had at least been temporary, in a way. He'd known that one day he'd come back home. What he hadn't bargained for, though he should have, was the reception he may receive once he got back, and now, spending his evenings alone seemed more unbearable than it ever had before.

He missed Buffy, and Willow, and Xander, Anya, Tara and Dawn. He worried about them, but he didn't call. He didn't let himself call. They needed this. Independence. He'd never asked nor claimed to be their father, but he knew that as long as he was there, that was, to a certain extent, what he would be. So he couldn't stay. Children needed to leave the nest, to make their own way. It was the way of things, and it was for the best.

But he still missed them.

By the time he walked into his usual pub and found Ethan at a table, sipping a drink and watching the patrons as though he'd never vanished into thin air, it was almost a relief.

***

"Ripper. Well, isn't this a surprise. I thought we didn't have a relationship."

There didn't seem to be any particular ill-will in Ethan's expression as Giles came up to his table.

"We don't," he said, by reflex, "But I... I owe you an apology."

Ethan raised his brows.

"My, my. I think that may be a first. Please, join me. This should be good."

"You don't have to be such an insufferable prat, you know," Giles said, as he sat down. There wasn't very much real heat in the words. In fact, he was almost feeling friendly.

"But I'm so good at it," Ethan said, then sipped his drink again. Giles was momentarily captivated by the muscles moving in his throat as he swallowed, then he shook himself away.

"Well, yes. I suppose one should work with what one has."

Ethan's eyes lingered for a moment on Giles' double scotch, then he looked up and said, "So, I believe you were about to beg forgiveness?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Giles said, drily, then sipped his scotch for fortification. "I-- What I did the other night... I'm sorry. I had no right. I shouldn't have--"

"You're apologizing for *that*?" Ethan said, "Oh, please, Ripper. You think for a second you did anything I didn't want? Come now, there are plenty of things you could be apologizing for that actually warrant an apology."

He was taken aback by this, but he supposed he shouldn't have been. After all, sex had, most likely, been what Ethan had been angling for, and sex had, technically, been what he'd got.

"Apologize for what?"

Oddly, Ethan's eyes flickered away for a moment, and then he said, blithely, "Oh, your abominable taste in clothing for one. I mean, really, Ripper, tweed?"

"I haven't worn tweed in-- well, yes, at the office, but only--"

That was *not* what Ethan had really been going for, either, but he wasn't sure what it was.

"Where were you?"

Ethan quirked a brow again. "Does it matter?"

"No."

"Business," Ethan said.

"Ah."

Giles didn't want to know anymore than that. They'd all be better off if he didn't.

***

Many rounds later, Giles said, "My father hates me."

"Makes me glad I never met mine," Ethan said.

"No, he... he doesn't really hate me, I suppose, but they all look at me as though I'm some sort of... harmful mutant."

"Well, maybe you are," Ethan said.

"You're not helping," Giles said.

"Oh, sorry."

"You're supposed to... pretend to be sympathetic and nod and say 'there, there.'"

Ethan nodded and said, "There, there."

"Why am I here?" Giles said, suddenly, sharply. Why was he here, in this pub, getting plastered with Ethan, again? Had he no shame? No ability to learn from his mistakes?

"Most likely because you want to get laid," Ethan said.

"I do not," Giles said. Well, ok, that wasn't true. "Not with you," he added, to clarify.

"Of course you do."

Giles felt righteously indignant as he said, "You keep bloody putting words in my mouth. What makes you so sodding sure of yourself, anyway?"

And wouldn't it be nice? To have that kind of self-esteem? That thought came unbidden, and Giles didn't like it.

"Why shouldn't I be? You honestly think there's the slightest chance we won't end up in bed by the end of the night?"

"Of course we're not going to-- no!"

Well, there was at least a chance they'd both be too drunk for such things. He could cling to that.

"Besides," Ethan said, leaning forward, his voice dropping low and intimate in a way that flickered through Giles' nervous system, "I believe you said you owe me."

"An apology," Giles said, "I owed you an apology. Which I gave. And you failed to accept."

Ethan settled back in his chair.

"You owe me a bit more than that, Giles."

"Keeping tabs now, are we?"

"Well, you did rather leave me hanging, so to speak. I'd say it's only fair."

"Since when have you cared about fair?"

"Generally, I care about fair when it's me getting the short end of the stick."

"Ah. Of course."

***

A slow drizzle was falling when they left the pub, the kind that hazed out distances and cushioned sounds and cast pale halos around street lamps. Beside Giles, Ethan pulled his coat closer around himself and knotted the belt. Giles tucked his hands in his pockets and looked up, letting the cool settle against his face, chilling away the warmth of the alcohol. They walked silently and slowly, neither speaking.

He felt oddly at peace with Ethan's presence. Maybe because this brought back memories of the streets of London, late at night, damp and mostly empty, where sometimes they'd wander for hours, intruding on the alley cats' nightly rounds. Those memories were the ones that didn't hurt, and it seemed that sometimes he forgot he had them. That there had been good times before the bad, quiet moments that needed no regrets but for the one regret that they had ended and ended so badly.

Still, when he reached his building, the loud steps made him even more paranoid than before, with the echo of two sets of footsteps in the stairwell. Ethan, though, remained eerily quiet even after Giles had unlocked the door to his flat and they'd walked inside.

"Sorry about the mess," Giles said, reflexively, only realizing that Ethan probably couldn't care less about a mess after he'd already said it.

He'd managed to unpack some of the boxes, but most of them were still in residence in his living room. He glanced back and found Ethan eyeing the place like a detective entering a crime scene. Their eyes met, then, and Ethan shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the ledge of the window into the kitchen, then toed off his shoes, not once looking away.

His eyes were dark and intent, and when he walked towards Giles it was less like he was walking and more like stalking.

Then he went right past Giles, six inches away without stopping, and Giles let out a soft breath, held in anticipation of being touched. Ethan didn't touch him, he only felt the soft breeze of his passing. Ethan himself headed down the hall.

There was nothing for Giles to do but take off his shoes and coat, lock the door, and follow him.

When he reached the bedroom, Ethan was not, as he'd suspected he may be, already naked. He stood before the bed, with his back to the door, apparently lost in quiet contemplation. Though, when Giles walked into the room and shut the door behind him, Ethan looked back over his shoulder and smiled.

The unfamiliarity of the goatee struck Giles again, yet another change to the face he remembered from his youth.

Ethan turned then, with only a small hint of the smile remaining at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were still dark and intense. Serious. He flicked his gaze down and then up, taking in Giles, who hung back by the door. Giles wasn't afraid, of course, but Ethan was different now than he usually was. Not clowning or flirting or any of his usual activities.

When Ethan stepped up close and unbuttoned the top button of Giles' shirt, Giles flinched. But as Ethan's fingers continued down, opening each button with a flick of a finger, his gaze never releasing Giles' own, Giles couldn't deny the attraction. Couldn't deny that the single-minded determination in Ethan's eyes was fascinating, or that he liked the way Ethan roughly undid his trousers.

That he sodding loved the way Ethan's hand shoved into his open fly and gripped his cock, and those eyes narrowed, and that smile widened just a bit, and that grip very nearly hurt, but still made Giles' knees go a bit watery, his breath go fast and staggered.

Then Ethan jerked his hand away, and Giles' whole body seemed to groan in disappointment.

"But this isn't about you, is it?" Ethan said, then, not smirking, except perhaps in a small twinkle in his eye. Though that twinkle seemed too dark and too hard-edged for glee. It more closely resembled the diamond tip of a saw blade.

And yet, that was even more fascinating.

"No," Giles said. Another ping of guilt echoed through his gut.

And perhaps a little fear, because giving Ethan free reign was about the most idiotic thing anyone, particularly him, could do. Still, he mostly felt certain he could handle anything Ethan threw at him. It was only Ethan, after all.

Though, "only Ethan," at this point, didn't seem as comforting as it usually did.

"How do you want to do this, then?" Ethan said, "Mouth or arse? Really I'm happy either way."

Such crudeness should not turn him on this much. None of this should be turning him on.

He pulled his thoughts back up to his brain and tried to consider the question. Much as there was the instinctual first kick of "Like hell am I going to let you fuck me," he hadn't actually even touched another man's cock in decades, and it would be easier to just lie there and let Ethan do what he would...

It had nothing to do, of course, with the fact that some part of him had been aching for Ethan to fuck him since he'd first stalked towards Giles back at the front door. Nothing at all.

Giles didn't answer verbally. He shrugged off his shirt and went to the bed, pushed off his trousers, pants and socks and then lay down on his stomach. Trying not to think. Humiliation pulsing through him in time with the arousal. He shut his eyes, but he could still hear the rustle of Ethan's clothing being shed and hitting the floor, and then the bed sagged and the springs creaked, and a warm hand settled at the nape of his neck, then ran down his back.

One finger teased at the dimple just above his arse-crack, and his muscles tensed. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and just breathed.

"Oh, Ripper, come now. It's not that bad."

Feather-light fingers traced downwards, not delving in yet. Giles grit his teeth, and his cock throbbed with want.

"Just bloody do it," he grated.

Then Ethan leaned in, his hand leaving Giles' arse to brace himself over Giles back. His lips brushed against Giles' ear.

"You know me better than that, love," he said, and then he kissed down Giles' jaw, down his throat, to where his neck join his shoulder. Then bit down there, hard enough to force a small cry out of Giles. Not enjoying this, he was bloody well not enjoying this.

And then Ethan nuzzled his shoulder, a wire-brush new sensation of beard against his skin. Giles' breath left him, abandoned him completely, and left his mind dizzy with want and desire. Excitement. Ethan.

Strong male hand ran roughly down his side, scrape of that goatee against his skin.

He wanted. Wanted Ethan, wanted this. Wanted Ethan's cock, Ethan's teeth.

His hand curled into a fist, and then Ethan reached his waist and climbed over his leg and settled on the bed. His lips grazed that same dimple he'd touched earlier. Giles knew suddenly what he was doing and, with that knowledge, felt a rush of hot precome, spread his legs and groaned. He turned his face into the pillow and crushed it there, breathing the heat of his own breath as Ethan spread his cheeks, and that smooth hot wet tongue slid down.

Lack of air and the probing touch of that tongue made him dizzy. He spread his legs wider, felt the ache in his groin muscles, turned his head to the side again and gasped for cool air.

Dizzy heat, sweat, his heart hammered tangibly, he could feel his pulse in his throat, in his gut, in his cock. Ethan's tongue circled and pressed inside, just enough to touch soft, supersensitive skin. Ethan's chin brushed against his balls, tickled, felt good. So good.

"I thought... this wasn't about me," Giles said.

Ethan kissed along the curve of one arse cheek and murmured, "So you are enjoying this, then?"

"No," Giles snapped, disregarding any evidence to the contrary.

Ethan just chuckled again, and then licked patterns up Giles' perineum. Matching patterns of heat etched themselves in Giles' brain.

The next time Ethan pulled away--god knew how much later--Giles couldn't stop a small whimper of protest, then a hot blush at the sound. Ethan was only gone for a moment, and then his fingers touched Giles again, slick and pressing. He couldn't find it in him to tense up, so his body allowed the intrusion without protest. He shifted his hips, and his cock dragged against the covers, and he groaned again.

Fingers pulled and stretched and then slipped away, then the bed moved as Ethan resettled himself.

Then he turned his face back into the pillow and groaned a different kind of groan. His body and mind finally caught onto the same wavelength and the tension he'd been unable to summon before reported in, full force.

"Oh, relax, Rupert," Ethan said, the patience and amusement gone from his voice, the tenor more of a growl than a purr now.

Ethan dropped down, heavy heat over his back, like a thick, living winter blanket. His breath ruffled the fringe of hair at the nape of Giles' neck, and his hand burrowed between them, down between their legs. Then, a moment later, the guardian ring of muscle in his arse burned at a pressing intrusion.

Contradictory impulses of *fuck, that hurts* and *relax and it won't, you idiot,* curled through his mind and a fresh sweat broke out across his forehead. He forced the air out of his lungs and tried to tell half-involuntary muscles to obey his will.

"Oh, gods, Rupert," Ethan gasped, a strangled choke.

He wanted to say 'slow down,' but couldn't find the words in the vertigo of the pain. Wave of nausea after Ethan pulled back for a moment and then pressed in again, harder, deeper, Giles' muscles still clenched far too tight, still fought for every centimeter.

Everything seemed sharper, more real in that moment, as though he could count the threads in the sheet, feel each drop of sweat roll down his flanks.

"Ethan," he managed to say, but Ethan either didn't hear, or was ignoring him, or didn't get the message.

At the very least, he could honestly say his own erection was as absent as he'd been wishing for it to be all night. Somehow, though, that was a very cold comfort now.

But then, Ethan nuzzled his ear, then caught the lobe gently between his teeth, teased at it with his tongue, and the pain was beginning to abate, and Ethan wasn't pushing him, was just barely penetrating him. Small shallow strokes pushed against reluctant muscles that were finally, blessedly, beginning to unlock.

Giles sighed in relief, and with that exhalation, Ethan pressed in a bit deeper, and there was only a small spike of pain to mark the transition.

In fact, a few moments later, it was beginning to feel good, and Ethan was beginning to move with a more regular rhythm.

"Oh, yes," Ethan sighed.

He'd forgotten how this felt. It overwhelmed him, and rushed through him, left no part of his body untouched. It made him feel filled and possessed. Wanted. So deep now, that rhythm so impossible to ignore. The thought of being fucked was almost as intense as the sensation itself.

He gasped and pushed back, and now welcomed the shock of pain and the sensation of being pressed and forced and reshaped. He panted through flared nostrils, his chin tucked to his chest, body braced and lifted up on his elbows and knees, pressed into Ethan, his nose filled with the scent of his own sweat and arousal.

An arm wrapped tight around his chest, another hand sunk into the mattress, just within his limited line of sight. Ethan was up on his knees and fucking him hard now, every thrust redefining the world, Giles could still hardly breathe, but now it was with pleasure, pain seemed to be a distant memory, something that happened to other people, something meaningless and theoretical and far away, and god, now he was hard again. Leaking, wanting. Wanted to reach beneath himself and take himself in hand, but couldn't change position under Ethan's relentless rhythm.

Above him, Ethan rambled something meaningless and then slammed into him, one hard lunge, that pushed Giles' shoulders down to the mattress, that sparked one more flare of pain, and then--

Ethan collapsed over him, on hands and knees, his chest a presence just above but not touching Giles' back. Still inside of Giles, for a moment, and then he pulled out, pulled away.

Giles dropped to the bed on his side, trembling all over, and looked down his body to see Ethan just as the other man stood up, calmly picked up his trousers and shirt and headed for the bathroom. Giles stared after him, his befuddled mind trying to process this sudden abandonment.

He'd just begun to figure it out when Ethan emerged from the bathroom, dressed as impeccably as if he hadn't just buggered Giles' brains out.

"Debt repaid, then?" Ethan said, with a self-satisfied smirk.

And then he left.

Giles flopped onto his back on the bed. A part of him actually admired the man's capacity for evil.

"You bloody bastard," he said to the ceiling, as he heard his front door shut.

***

Chapter 5: Where the Heart Is

His mother invited him to dinner a few days later, and he couldn't exactly say no, so he went. The meal itself went well, but afterwards, as they settled in the living room with brandy, his father casually inquired, "When are you returning?"

"I'm sorry?" Giles said.

"To Sunnydale? How long are you planning to stay away?"

He'd been hoping that wasn't what his father was talking about. "I'm... I'm here indefinitely. I'm not sure I will be going back."

His father's voice remained level and matter-of-fact as he said, "But you must. It's your calling. Your responsibility."

"She doesn't need me, now."

Giles looked down and swirled his brandy. This was the last thing he wanted to be discussing.

"All Slayers need Watchers."

"She didn't want me to be her Watcher," Giles said, trying to match his father's calm tone, "She wanted me to be her mother. I couldn't stay."

"So, you left because she needed you?"

"I left because she *didn't,*" Giles said, losing the battle to remain cool and collected. "She believed she did, and it was destroying her, letting her believe that. She has never needed me, as anything more than, than a walking encyclopedia. She was ordering me around when she was barely sixteen."

"Then go back and be her bloody encyclopedia, Rupert."

"I can't. She wouldn't *let* me. Not the way she was."

"For God's sake, don't you see this is ridiculous? A Watcher simply abandoning his Slayer? Leaving her alone to face the Hellmouth? It's not done. It's completely irresponsible. It's not like you."

His father paused then, and it was all Giles could do not to cringe, knowing what his next words would be. "Or perhaps it is."

"This isn't the same," he said, softly.

Although he was apparently taking up with Ethan again.

No, he wasn't.

"You've abandoned your destiny before."

"I love her, Dad. She's the number one priority in my life. I would never-- I was bloody well sacked for it, and I didn't leave then."

"Well, perhaps you should have. Wyndam-Pryce would have--"

*That* was going too far.

"That berk would have got her killed," he snapped, standing up.

"Rupert!" his mother objected.

He walked to the window, but mostly only saw his own reflection frowning at him.

"Sorry, mother."

Then that silence fell over all of them again, and eventually, he said he should be getting home.

***

Halfway back to Bath, he pulled off on the side of the road and got out of the car. A shock of cold air and a sharp scent of cow manure did something at least to clear his head. Cattle stood a few yards off behind a wooden fence, large dark living masses in the almost equally dark field.

Giles tucked his hands in his pockets and walked down to the fence. Long grass brushed around his knees and rustled underfoot, the sound mingling with the distant sigh of the breeze. Somewhere, an owl called. It was cold and the world seemed empty of humanity.

He stopped at the fence and leaned his head back, looking up at the stars that peered through the dark rifts in cottony grey clouds. His breath rose in a white puff and dispersed away.

He had to wonder.

Was his father right? He'd felt so sure it had been a selfless act, leaving Sunnydale. He hadn't *wanted* to leave her. He'd wanted to help. Hell, he would have even been willing to play the role of mother. But it wouldn't have been good for her. She needed the independence, her own life, the way she'd always craved.

But then... it had been misery, being there. He'd been so sure he was quit of Sunnydale with its demons and death. And Buffy was suffering so much, it hurt him desperately to watch, and to feel so utterly helpless.

So perhaps there had been an element of selfishness to it. He had the ability to get out, and he had. None of the others had that option.

He hung his head and walked back to his car, with nothing at all worked out in his mind.

***

Chapter Six: Altered Perceptions

He awoke, once again, to a pounding headache and a disturbing lack of memory of the events of the night prior. Sick and dizzy, and yet, the first thing his hand encountered as he groped for his glasses was a plastic water bottle.

Mana from the gods.

Although, if he'd been as drunk last night as it felt like he had been, how had he had the foresight to put the water there? Not to mention how had he had the foresight to strip down to his boxers and to set his glasses safely aside?

He finished the water off quickly, feeling, if not better, then at least relieved to know that it was helping, and then he slipped on his glasses. Then he froze, a moment before looking at the mirror, suddenly quite sure he remembered that Ethan had played some role in the previous night's events.

Oh, god. He was a demon. Wasn't he?

He steeled himself, and looked.

No. Not a demon. Quite human, in fact, except for the blood-shot and shadowed eyes and the rampant five o' clock shadow. Then he noticed a slip of paper, tucked in the frame of the mirror.

He heaved himself up and staggered over, and plucked it out to read it.

"I do hope you remember the part where you were staggering down the streets singing Baktar demon sea shanties. Truly a memory to be cherished for a lifetime.

"Be seeing you."

Oh, dear lord.

He all but prayed that this was merely a representation of Ethan's horrid sense of humor.

But he had a sneaking suspicion it was not.

He crumpled the note and tossed it in the rubbish bin, then headed to the bathroom.

It wasn't until the hot water of the shower began to clear his head that he felt the first real twinge of fear. It wasn't fear of Ethan or anything Ethan may have done. It was fear of himself.

This was the third time since he'd got back to England that he'd drank enough to black out.

Not good. Also not wise and not safe, especially with Ethan hanging about like that stray cat you foolishly decided to feed once.

He told himself it wouldn't happen again.

***

Ethan leaned against the frame of his front door and smiled as he crested the stairs.

"Giles. Hope you've recovered."

"I'll live," Giles said, drily. "Why are you here?"

"Ah. I come bearing gifts," Ethan said. "Well, a gift, in any case."

He slipped his hand slightly out of his pocket to display a small ziplock bag half-filled with something shredded and plant-like. Giles raised one brow skeptically.

"Just how idiotic, exactly, do you think I am?"

"Oh, relax," Ethan said, standing up away from the wall, his 'gift' tucked away again, "It's not mystical in any way, I promise."

Giles stepped around him to unlock his door.

"And why should I trust you?"

"Well, I haven't lied to you lately. Or even tried to kill you."

"Ah, of course. How could I have even dreamed of doubting your intentions?"

Sarcasm still felt good. Ethan just huffed.

"Oh, come on. I'm just offering you a chance to relax for the night. Honestly."

He raised his hands as though to indicate he was unarmed, and, foolish though it was, Giles gave in as he pushed the door open and said, "Fine, fine. Come in."

"Wonderful," Ethan said, with cheer that sounded genuine.

***

A few hours later, Giles was sprawled on the floor of his living room, feeling the vibrations of The Who's greatest hits shivering through his floorboards. He tilted his head back and saw Ethan was still on the couch, arms stretched out, body melted over the back like one of Dali's watches. Upside-down to Giles' eyes, he looked rather amusing. Also, with the way his legs were spread, Giles had a perfect view of his crotch. Which was actually quite a good thing.

Giles smiled and took another drag. This was damn good stuff. Good enough that he actually didn't care if Ethan had enchanted it in some way. He felt good. Better than he had in ages.

"Y'know," he said, "This, this is real music. You heard the crap they call music these days? It's crap."

"I dunno," Ethan said. "Some of it's not bad."

Giles sat part way up and twisted around to look at Ethan right-side-up.

"Are you daft? That stuff isn't music. It's... it's a bunch of idiots banging on percussion instruments. Or occasionally some shallow git whining. This is real music, music that *means* something."

"I rather like modern dance music, actually," Ethan said, "Good beat."

Giles dropped painfully heavily down on his back again.

"Ow," he said, then giggled, then recaptured his train of thought and said, "Men do not dance, Ethan."

There was a thump and then Ethan crawled over and sat down by his shoulder.

"Are you implying I'm less than a man?" Ethan asked, looking down at him with an expression hard to decipher from the odd angle.

"Quite possibly," Giles said, forcing himself to sound serious.

Which didn't hold water for long, given that he couldn't help but giggle when Ethan said, "Would you like me to prove just how much a man I am?"

"No," he said.

But Ethan was already slithering down to the floor beside him, nuzzling at the open V of Giles' half-unbuttoned shirt. Then sliding down lower, 'til his face was buried in Giles' crotch, his mouth moving along Giles' cock through his slacks.

"Oh, fuck," Giles said, "Your mouth is bloody amazing."

"Well, your prick is inspiring," Ethan answered. This time, they both broke down in giggles.

And Ethan's laughter against his cock was even better than his tongue had been, and somehow, now, acknowledging that with a hearty, appreciative groan really didn't seem so bad, after all.

Especially not since it seemed to inspire Ethan to go back to his ministrations.

Though now Giles wanted something a bit different.

"Get up here, you bastard," he growled, and Ethan looked up and then climbed up his body, dropping down over him when they were eye to eye. Eye to pretty eye. God, Ethan had gorgeous eyes. Dark and deep. Giles lifted one hand and buried it in Ethan's longish hair, flicked his gaze up and down, taking in the changes in his old lover's face.

Deeper lines around his mouth and eyes, and that goatee were the obvious differences. Still, the sameness now seemed more captivating. That same gleefully wicked sparkle in his eyes, those same smooth pink lips, those same high-cheekbones that had so captivated him when he was younger.

That still did captivate him now.

He didn't mind. Felt light and free and... happy.

"You *did* do something to this stuff," he said, then, gesturing with the joint.

"I most certainly did not," Ethan said, still weighing Giles down, still close enough that his breath caressed Giles' cheek. "It's nothing more magical than damn good hash."

"It's not like I don't have grounds for suspicion. Wouldn't be the first time you've put a spell on me."

And for some reason, that set Ethan off giggling again, which was actually quite a pleasant sensation on Giles' end, what with the nice warm body wriggling against his own. Ethan looked up again, still grinning, and sang, badly, "I put a spell on you."

"Oh, dear god," Giles gasped, "You can't sing. Please, stop."

Once that fit of amusement had finally managed to pass, the album had quit playing (possibly because even the recording was so horrified by Ethan's attempt at musicality that it simply gave up), and Giles said, "I'm hungry."

"Yes, well, that'd be the drugs," Ethan said, knowingly.

"Yes, I know, thank you, Ethan."

Then they were both quiet, lying there together in the middle of his living room floor, amongst the boxes shoved aside for the occasion.

After a moment, Ethan wet his lips and leaned down.

And kissed him.

Giles clenched his hand in Ethan's hair and pulled him closer.

***

Sometime later, Giles grimaced and shifted his hips, his bare arse catching tackily on the polished wood floor, his ankles tangled in his slacks, his shirt open, and his stomach sticky with semen.

"This is disgusting," he said.

Ethan just rolled his eyes and then rolled another joint.

"You're entirely too prim these days, Ripper."

"I'm going to have bruises all over the place tomorrow," he muttered. "And my back is probably ruined for life."

Ethan handed over the now-lit joint and Giles accepted it without protest, hoisting himself up on one elbow and taking a drag. He was far too sober at the moment. He handed it back.

Ethan had pulled his trousers up, but hadn't bothered to button or zip them, and his shirt was gone, shoved halfway under the couch, leaving him completely bare from the waist up. Somehow, this looked perfectly normal on him, as if being dressed was not his natural state of being. Looking him over, Giles noticed for the first time the ugly scar above the crook of his elbow. Besides that, though, Ethan didn't just look natural as he leaned back against the coffee table, one arm bent up to hold the joint to his lips, the other braced on the floor, his legs loosely folded, he looked amazingly good, like some debauched creature from Greek mythology.

Suddenly their hurried frottage seemed deeply unsatisfying, and Giles found himself reaching out, touching the closest bit of flesh he could reach, the smooth skin of Ethan's flank.

Ethan looked down at Giles' fingers, took another drag, then set it aside and got down again, bracing himself over Giles on hands and knees. Giles leaned up and Ethan leaned down and their lips met in the middle, parted, and Ethan let the mouthful of sweet smoke trickle from him to Giles. Intimate... Giles shut his eyes and breathed it in and let his head drop back as Ethan kissed down his throat, his chest, then began to lick their come off Giles' stomach.

Giles moaned, and ached for a dizzying variety of things.

"Ethan..." he said, and the name tasted like fine wine as it rolled across his tongue.

Ethan just hummed distractedly and then, having finished with Giles' stomach, took Giles' cock in hand and began lapping at the head.

"Ethan," Giles gasped, "Bed. Bed now."

Chapter Seven: Storm Signals

"Tardy again, Giles?" Bernstein said.

He bit back the 'Piss off,' that was on the tip of his tongue and restrained himself to simply saying, "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware I *had* a supervisor. Nor set hours for that matter."

He skirted around Bernstein and ducked into his office before the other Watcher could get another word in edgewise. He didn't need that simpleton's attitude today. Or any day, for that matter. But particularly not today.

He sat down at his desk and rubbed his forehead, which wasn't hurting, but was threatening to hurt. Preemptively, he dug out two aspirin and swallowed them dry, then pulled out that days' files.

In the hopes of maintaining his sanity, he now balanced the translation work with monitoring world news for signs of paranormal events.

Usually, the Watcher's Council had enough operatives in place to catch most of the events first hand, but occasionally one or two would slip between the cracks, and only be reported by the non-paranormal press, or heard through demon channels. All in all, it was a much less tedious assignment than the translation, and between his demon contacts in Bristol and Ethan, who seemed to simply know everything that ever happened simply by osmosis, he was good at it.

Of course, he hadn't *seen* Ethan in nearly two weeks.

Which had nothing to do with why he was feeling off today. Nothing at all.

He rubbed his forehead again and flipped open the first paper, which covered local events throughout most of Montana.

Immediately, his blood ran cold.

"Five Infants Vanish From Hospital During Freak Storm"

"Five infants went missing from the neonate unit Tuesday after a powerful and highly localized storm sprang up and dumped several feet of snow and ice around the facility. Officials say the high winds and other weather conditions caused a panic and knocked out power lines to the hospital.

"'We were all so caught up in the storm, security was compromised. This is truly a tragedy, and we will do whatever it takes to assist the police in locating these babies,' the hospital's chief of security said."

Giles' throat went dry, as he recalled Ethan saying, "They said they needed something big. People had to be out of it. So that later, they'd blame themselves."

Good god, it had been infants, then, too. And Ethan wasn't here, was he? He'd been gone.

It seemed to fit. What could be more chaotic than a storm?

He flipped through the pages with numb fingers until he found a phone number for the editorial staff. His heart was pounding as he picked up the phone and dialed. He had no idea what he would do if it was Ethan.

He navigated the menus for a few minutes, and hung on hold for fifteen more minutes, while he stared across the room at the blank white wall. Even if Ethan hadn't done this, he had done this sort of this before. What the hell had Giles been *doing* these past few weeks?

Then the phone picked up, and the journalist answered.

"Uh, yes, hello," Giles said, "I'm with the USA Today and I was wondering if I could get some follow-up information on the infant kidnappings?"

"Oh, those. Hey, man, no story there, really."

"No?" He felt a glimmer of hope.

"Yeah. Turns out, some of the staff had the babies taken to another wing. Nursery had a big window, they thought it might break. Only problem was lack of communication."

Giles couldn't help a shaky sigh of relief.

"I'm... I'm glad to hear that," he said. "Thank you for your time."

"Sure thing, bud."

He hung up, shaking. Not Ethan. No infant sacrifices to demons. Nothing but a freak storm and a disorganized staff.

Which didn't make him any less of an idiot.

Chapter Eight: Sacrifice

He couldn't bear the thought of an entire afternoon cloistered away in that dreary office, so he gathered up his things and headed for the riverside park after lunch. It was a cool day, but sunny, with a hint of warm in the breeze. The park was fairly crowded, with mothers and small children, mostly, but just as Giles was heading for an empty table, a figure sitting off alone a few yards away caught his eye.

Ethan.

Sitting, leaning back on his elbows, in his sunglasses, his face tilted back as though to catch the sun like a flower might. The way his shirt hung over his torso he look almost frail. He seemed completely lost in the sunlight, a million miles away.

Giles stopped and was about to turn and walk away, but Ethan must have seen him. In a heartbeat he went from perfect stillness to his usual frenetic energy, rolling to his feet and ambling towards Giles with all the innocent goodwill of a puppy.

Giles tensed all over, felt the leather handle of his briefcase creak under the strain of his grip.

He took a small step back before Ethan reached him, and said, "Get away from me, Ethan."

Ethan just smiled and said, "Oh, hang on, I think I know this one."

Giles didn't change his expression, though inside, he was seething, remembering now everything Ethan had done. The chocolate, the Halloween costumes, the Fyarl... and throwing Buffy to Eyghon. And god knew what else he'd done in twenty years.

"I mean it. Stay away from me."

Looking almost bemused, Ethan cocked his head and furrowed his brow. Giles' heart pounded as he clamped down on the temper that was threatening to well up. There were too many people here for him to lose his cool now.

"You're a monster, Ethan. And I want nothing to do with you. I don't care what I may have said or done, I'm through with this."

He backed another step away, said, "Don't follow me, don't try to find me, don't come to my flat, this is over," then he turned heel and fled.

***

He got back to his flat and set his things out on the coffee table, and found himself trying not to think about the fact that three weeks ago he'd been companionably smoking with Ethan right where his feet were now.

He'd been better than this once. He knew he had. There had been a time, he was sure, not so long ago, when he'd been useful. He'd been, maybe, even happy. Or perhaps he was deluding himself.

But if he hadn't been happy, he'd at least been useful those first few years with Buffy. He'd been doing what he'd very nearly been born to do, what he'd been trained to do his entire life. Being assigned a Slayer was an opportunity he'd been despairing of ever being awarded, after the council had not given him a Potential Slayer after he finally graduated from Oxford.

Still, he'd had a life before Buffy. Had a job that he'd enjoyed, when he was a museum curator. He'd had friends at the Council. Somehow, now, all that seemed lost. He'd given it up, for her, because it was what he was meant for.

But one thing they rarely talked about was what happened to Watchers after their Slayers were gone.

***

They were in their old flat, where the windows rattled every time the trains passed, and they were moving together with the tidal rhythm of loving-making. Ethan was thin, not lean, all smooth skin and long hair, and Giles wondered why he'd ever thought that Ethan had aged. He was still young, still beautiful.

Still hot and slick and clenched around Giles' cock, his hand as solid and real as anything against Giles' side.

He looked up at Giles with eyes dark with sex, no, with magic, and spoke Latin words that Giles didn't know. All he knew was the sudden surge of magic sparking around them, and he buried his hands in long curls...

No, in straight, short hair. Willow, not Ethan at all, and they were in the Magic Box. Dressed, and standing across from each other.

Willow smiled and said, "It's just magic, Rupert. Nothing to be afraid of. Just a bit of fun. It's perfectly safe."

And then she laughed as horns and scales torn her skin to shreds and made her something else. Made her not-Willow, and he staggered backwards, away, saying, "She's lost control," but when he looked, Buffy was just standing by the ladder, looking lost and tired.

She said, "I can't. I can't do it, Giles." Then she wandered away.

Willow-Eyghon laughed again, deep and booming, and they were back in London, and Ethan, older now, was pressed back against the bricks of an alley with the demon bearing down on him.

It wasn't Willow anymore. She was gone, he'd let it take her. Ethan could be saved, someone had to be saved, he hated this, hated that he could grab her and slam her down and that suddenly they were on a flimsy tower shaking in the wind as he pressed his hand over her mouth and felt her teeth gnash against his palm until she died.

But when he looked up, Ethan was shaking his head.

"I never asked you to save me," he sneered, and then walked off the edge.

***

Giles jolted awake on the couch, covered in sweat.

Chapter Nine: Power

He'd spent the evening too unsettled to read, too depressed to compound it by watching TV, and constantly trying to talk himself out of a drink. On the bright side, he had ended up getting a bit more unpacking done, in the midst of his wandering about the apartment.

And then his door--which he had, in fact, locked--flew open and an incredibly irate Ethan stormed into his apartment, saying, "You righteous, hypocritical bastard."

Which was, at least, more entertaining than mindless television. Still, it was embarrassing the way it made him yelp and dive for a fireplace poker before he realized who it was. Then he just segued directly into annoyance and tossed the poker aside with a clatter loud enough to make him cringe.

"Get out," he snapped. "I told you to stay the hell away."

Ethan just kicked the door shut and stomped across the room.

"Fuck you, Rupert."

"Me? You--"

Before he could finish that sentence, though, Ethan threw his arms open wide, and Giles saw but couldn't react as a rippled wave of clear energy flashed through the air. He didn't even have time to cry out before he slammed into the wall beside the window and found himself pinned there. It took a moment for the pain of the impact to sink in, and when it did, it momentarily shocked tears into his eyes.

"Shut. Up," Ethan said. Then, "You. You always go on and on about what's good and what's right. Then you turn around and treat me like I'm some inferior form of demon or something. Not that I mind that so much, it's just the utter hypocrisy of it that kills me, you know?"

Giles breathed in sharply, tugged helplessly against the magical bonds, and wondered if Ethan had gone insane.

"You were honest when I knew you, Ripper. Honest and free."

"No, I wasn't. I was lying to everyone back then, damn it. Especially myself."

"No. You weren't. But you desperately wish you were, now, don't you? It's sad, really, how much you hate yourself."

Ethan flicked his hand and the bonds let Giles loose, and he barely managed to catch himself from falling flat on his face.

"You're a murderer, Ethan. How many people have died because of you? You would have killed Buffy more than once. Would have had me kill her. Why should I treat you like a human? You've never shown that you are one."

"Oh, please. Just because I don't snivel and whine at every opportunity, just because I don't break down and sob when someone gets hurt."

"You *cause* that hurt, Ethan. You're a sociopath, for god's sake."

Ethan rolled his eyes and stalked forward again, and Giles found himself glancing down to locate the poker he'd dropped.

"You've been spending too much time in California, Rupert, with their psycho-babble. I'm a sorcerer and a damn good one and I do what I have to to make a living."

"Bollocks, Ethan. There are plenty of things you could do that don't involve anyone dying."

"Magic is who I am, Giles, and quite frankly, you good guys just don't pay well enough for a man make a living. All about the charity work and the doing it for the good of humanity bit. The good of humanity really doesn't pay the rent, I'm afraid."

"Work in a bloody magic shop, then, Ethan," Giles growled.

"Oh, of course. And I suppose you'd have been content if you'd just been a grocer, then?"

They'd been slowly advancing on each other through this, and finally reached arm's length.

Giles threw the first punch, but to his surprise, Ethan blocked the blow rather handily, and returned it with one of his own that sent Giles reeling into the molding of the fireplace. The sharp edge of the mantel caught him in the side and made hot pain-sparks dance in his eyes, pain enough to make him snarl, and charge back at Ethan.

This time he landed a blow to Ethan's ribs, a knee to Ethan's hip, but Ethan grabbed him and threw them both to the side and down and they hit the floor in the hallway in a clatter of limbs and a pair of shouts, and then Giles surged up and rolled them over, pinning Ethan and managing to land another sound blow on his jaw.

Drew blood, and his heart was pounding, and his body didn't seem to care that this was a fight, not some other reason to be rolling on the floor, and when Ethan flipped them both over and drove his knee into Giles' stomach, that wasn't the only reason he was gasping for air. Hated that it wasn't the only reason, snarled dark imprecations and tried to catch his breath.

Then Ethan gestured again, and the binding magic kicked up and pinned him in place.

Ethan slipped down, straddled his knee and cupped his hand around Giles' erection. Giles' muscles twitched, but it was the only protest he could manage.

"And yet, you want me. You love this. You *lie*, Rupert."

"I can't control my bloody adrenal glands, you berk."

"Still lying," Ethan growled, as he unzipped Giles' trousers and pushed his hand inside and around Giles' cock. "You love this, Ripper."

Stroking him, now, and it was still good, in spite of everything. In spite of all of it. And Giles suddenly realized that there was nothing he could do to stop Ethan, not with the spell in place, and with the realization, relaxed completely. Almost completely. Muscles in his lower back still strained slightly to push up into the touch.

He swallowed hard, and felt his heart race.

"Good," Ethan murmured.

Then he pulled his hand away and released the spell.

The rush of disappointment shocked Giles. Why on earth would he be--

Then Ethan reached down and began stroking him again. Giles' breath slowed down, to a careful, slow beat, and he didn't want to pull away. God, he knew he should. But he could hardly stand the thought. Loved that touch, loved the way Ethan's eyes were glittering as they pinned his gaze in place as strongly as any binding spell.

It was so easy to lie there, and would be so hard to get up, fight Ethan off.

So hard to spend another night alone.

He didn't want to think. He was so bloody tired of thinking. He'd been thinking for the past six years, he just wanted to stop.

"Do you still have those handcuffs?" Ethan asked, as easily and naturally as though asking for a cup of sugar.

Giles said, softly, "I don't trust you."

Ethan leaned closer. "You don't have to. That's the thrill of it."

His hand had gone nearly still, was just moving slightly, listlessly against Giles cock. Giles breathed in, let it out, was trembling from the discomfort of being awkwardly splayed on the hard floor.

"Yes," he said. "Box, under the bed."

Standing up was sobering. Too much so, perhaps. It made him wonder why he was doing this, made him think again. It made the guilt and self-loathing spring back up, hot and searing as he stopped in the doorway of his bedroom and Ethan pulled the old pair of steel cuffs out of the junk box he kept under his bed. This was ridiculous, he hadn't even managed to go a day--

A battering, clumsy force of magic swept him onto the bed with all the grace of a child abandoning a rag doll. This meant Ethan's power was running low. It meant that if he fought back now, he'd win. He rolled over onto his back and Ethan straddled his hips.

All Giles did was put his arms over his head, and all he felt when the cuffs locked was relieved.

He barely had to move at all as Ethan unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it up around his wrists, then undid his trousers and pulled them and his pants off. He felt starkly naked next to Ethan, who hadn't even unbuttoned his shirt, but the feeling wasn't a bad one.

He closed his eyes as Ethan began to run his hands over his body. At first, they moved with surprising gentleness, touching each inch of skin, and seeking out Giles' hidden, private places. That spot just below his ear that never failed to make his breath quicken, that soft patch of skin just between his ribs and stomach, the pulse points in the crooks of his elbows and the hollow of his throat.

Then one of Ethan's thumbs found the bruise from the mantle, circled it once, and then homed in and jammed into the center. Radiating sparks of heat and pain, and Giles groaned and pushed his hips up. Pain, but good.

Ethan sought out each bruise and then, he leaned in and set his teeth against the softer parts of Giles' flesh, bit down, hard enough that Giles knew there would be bruises in the morning. Each bite a slow progression of pain, from nothing but a sensation of pressure to a blossoming awareness of too-much, to a squeezing ache that made him grunt and made his muscles contract in a subconscious desire to get away.

By the time Ethan shoved him over onto his stomach, he was sweating and hard.

Giles pushed his legs apart and groaned, "Fuck me. Please, Ethan--"

Needn't have asked. Ethan's fingers appeared moments later, slick and urgent, preparing him far too fast, there would be pain, he knew, but this time he didn't care.

He met Ethan's penetration with a string of obscenities and shoved his hips up, glorying in the stabbing pressure, the strain. Ethan still moved slower than he would have liked, but by the time they'd worked up to the real pace, by the time the bed was groaning under their fucking, he'd long forgotten that. Forgot everything, but the perfect burn of Ethan inside of him, and the flame of the cuffs around his wrists.

Ethan raked his nails around the curve of Giles' shoulder. The superficial pain was a stark, fascinating contrast to the deeper burn. It lit up nerves Giles seemed to have forgotten he had.

Giles had bent his elbows up under his chest for support, and the position pulled his wrists against the cuffs, reminded him constantly that they were there, that he was handicapped if he wanted--needed--to fight back. He had his forehead tucked against the sheets, his eyes shut, seeing nothing but the sparks in his mind.

"Ripper," Ethan breathed between his shoulder blades, and for once, it didn't sound like an insult.

Ethan had slowed his pace, and their movement together became more languid, more sensual. It was easier, in a way that let his mind wander just enough to notice smaller things, like the heat of Ethan's body against his back, and the way their legs were pressed together, parallel, heat and sweat and friction where their skin met, where coils of their body hair caught together.

He could hear the harsh rhythm of Ethan's breath echoed in his own, feel it in tropical gusts against his spine, and then Ethan's lips, dry and chapped, touching each of his vertebra from the middle of his back to his neck, then mouthing just below the hair at the nape of his neck, finding skin not accustomed to handling, where just the faintest touch sent delicate shivers of sensation to his nipples and his balls and the head of his cock.

Then Ethan's hand reaching up under him to palm the base of his shaft, then to grip him and stroke him, slow but firm. He felt his balls draw up against his body, felt the dizzying shift of impending orgasm, felt Ethan inside him, pressure and pleasure. The cuffs still digging into his wrists. The darkness before his eyes hazed red and he surged forward as he came, distantly felt Ethan all but clinging to him, and then Giles was flat on his chest on the bed, panting, and Ethan had let his weight down over him, still inside him, still moving.

He expected Ethan to rush, then, to end it, but he didn't. He took his time and pulled them over onto their sides and moved slow, with a patience and an appreciation for savoring Giles hadn't thought Ethan could possess.

By the time Ethan did come, with an understated cry, the slow sensuality and the relaxation of his own climax had lulled Giles into a near-meditative state. He was quiescent and drowsy as Ethan pulled out and away, and before Ethan had even returned from the bathroom, Giles was asleep.

Chapter Ten: Family

He tugged the sleeves of his sweater down one more time before he opened the door and stepped out of the car. His body apparently deemed this one of those overly-athletic activities, and he hissed a breath at the sharp pains from... well, various places, the major one being somewhere he was trying not to acknowledge at the moment, just as he was hoping that his sleeves managed to stay low enough to hide the angry red marks from the handcuffs and his collar high enough to hide the dark, tell-tale horseshoe of pinpoint bruises at the base of his neck.

And today probably wasn't really the best day to be visiting his younger nephew and niece, really, but he hadn't seen them since the time he'd gone home to try to talk the Council into giving them information on Glory, which was nearly a year ago, and then only for a part of a day.

His sister and Robson hadn't invited him back since he'd been rehired by the Council, and he didn't think that was a coincidence, so this apparent olive branch was not something he wanted to turn down. Even if he really rather wanted to curl up in bed and mutter dark imprecations about Ethan.

Instead, though, he was walking up the stairs to the door of his sister's rowhouse in London.

He knocked on the door, and a moment later, it burst open and he found himself staggering under an armful of nine-year-old.

"Uncle Ru!"

He proudly managed not to scream in pain as Brianna's knee knocked firmly against the mantle bruise on his ribs.

"Ow," he said, instead of screaming, then covered for it with the expected, "My you're getting big."

He settled her a little less precariously in his arms and she said, "Will you play football with me?"

Inwardly, he cringed at the very notion in his condition, but what could he say, really, but, "Certainly. If there's time."

"Yes!" she said, and bounced a bit.

"Bri-ee," her older brother said, coming to the door, "Mum told you not to do that."

"Hello, Morgan," Giles said, smiling as he shifted Bri over a bit. He had to admit a certain extra fondness for the boy. Bri was wonderful, as well, of course, but she had boundless energy and an apparently inability to sit still for more than a moment, and a deep fondness for all things sport-like. Morgan, on the other hand, was, well, bookish.

Morgan smiled for a moment, and pushed his glasses up his nose, then stepped back and held the door open.

He glanced up at the sky, then down at Giles, then nodded, and said, "Come in."

"Good show," Giles said, glad to see the children were well-conditioned to not give out invitations willy-nilly, even if it was perhaps a bit paranoid to worry about such things in broad daylight.

Better safe than sorry, of course.

He stepped into the darker front hall just as his sister, Maureen, stepped out of the kitchen.

"Rupert! Come in. I see my offspring have already attached themselves to you like the leeches they are."

"Hey!" Bri said. "I'm not a leech. I'm a remora."

"Nature programs," Maureen said, with a smile.

Giles returned the smile, trying to tell himself that pain was entirely in the eye of the beholder.

"Come on," Maureen continued, "Dinner's ready."

He followed her to the dining room, carrying Bri and trailed by Morgan, and gratefully let Bri down at the table. Bri scampered around the table, taking obvious pains to accidentally collide with her slower-moving brother along the way, and then took her seat with a clatter of barely-restrained momentum. Morgan just glared and rubbed his arm, then pointedly took his seat quietly and sedately.

"Children, really," Maureen said.

But before she could continue, a voice came from behind them, "Giles, old chap! Good to see you."

Giles turned and caught the offered hand in a firm handshake, smiling.

"Robson."

"So, still inciting discord and riots in the Council, then?"

"Ah, well, you know me," Giles said, though his smile slipped a bit at the hint of an edge in his old flatmate's inquiry.

"Right, of course. My doing, I suppose. Failed spectacularly at rehabilitating you."

A joke, but not a joke, really. Robson had been his flatmate during his last term at Oxford, the term after the London debacle. He'd been an upstanding student and promising rising Watcher, and there had been no doubt in either of their minds why the two of them had been put together.

Though the Council probably hadn't planned on them hitting it off.

"Oh, yes," Giles said, trying to pretend they were just joking, "I blame my surviving rebel spirit entirely on that time you coaxed me off to the campus pub during finals."

Robson chuckled, as they both turned to take their seats at the table. His voice stayed light as he said, "Little did I know I was creating a monster."

Fortunately, they spent the rest of the meal talking about much more neutral subjects, and then Giles took the children out to the zoo and then to a park. He kicked around a football with Bri while debating vampire lore with Morgan.

It was enjoyable. They were good kids, and he liked them. Wished he could have seen them more often. There was just one thing nagging on his mind that he didn't ask about until later, when Maureen was tucking the kids in bed, and he and Robson had settled in Robson's study.

"Where's Nora?" Robson's Potential Slayer.

"Ah, she's off for the week. Little training mission in the Alps."

Giles smile was tight as he said, "Ah, safely away from my dangerous influence, then, I see."

Robson laughed, but only for a moment, then he said, "Look, Giles, I like you, you know that. It's just your methods I disagree with."

"Right. Of course. My methods. My methods which are what, exactly? Treating the Slayer like the human being she is? Keeping her alive? Letting her have loved ones and a life of her own?"

"Oh, well, it sounds so nobel when you put it like that. But is it? Really, Rupert?"

"Of course it--"

"All I'm saying is... she's a Slayer. Her duty, her destiny, her life is all about the kill. About killing."

"Killing demons--"

"Yes, demons, but still, it's about the hunt and the slaughter. Just how human do you think one can be, and live that life? Day in, day out, every night?"

Giles had a flash of Buffy saying, 'I don't like what it's doing to me.'

"So, what are you saying?" he said, carefully, "That it's *right* to take a young girl who never asked for this life and to strip away all she is and all she could be? To forge a life into nothing but a weapon?"

"We're not in the business of being humane, Giles. You certainly used to know that."

Giles was quiet for a moment, then said, "It was what she wanted, Robson."

"But she was a child, Rupert. They don't know what they need."

"No. No, I was willing to believe that for awhile, but you weren't there. You didn't see her, before she faced the Master. She was a girl, a person, and I couldn't let her-- It wouldn't have been right. Maybe, *maybe* it would have hurt less, but it wouldn't have been right."

"A Slayer with a family, with friends, is nothing but a Slayer with a weakness. A massive weakness."

Giles stared.

"Listen to yourself, Jethro. Listen to yourself! How would you feel if, if Bri were called? If someone demanded that she give you up, your whole family, and become some automaton doomed to die?"

"That's why they don't live as long, Rupert, the ones who were called untrained. You know that."

Giles stood and walked away, fingered the spines of the books on Robson's shelves.

"You're wrong. Buffy drew her strength from her family, she fought harder for her friends. She's probably the greatest Slayer the world will ever know."

"Every Watcher--"

"She met every challenge she faced. She defeated a god."

"Did she? Or did she give up?"

Then Giles' own voice echoed in his head, 'No, she couldn't.'

***

He was tired by the time he got home to his flat, but he went straight to his boxes and began rooting through the Watcher's Dairies, pulling out a few volumes as he went, then he sat down on the couch and pulled the nearest he'd set aside into his lap.

It was Bernard Crowley's last Dairy, covering the six months up until his Slayer Nikki Wood's death. Wood, who was one of the few Slayers who rivaled Buffy for living the longest after being called. Wood, who was one of only two Slayers on record to have a child.

Giles opened to the first page, and the first line he saw was, "She has been melancholic, lately, and distressed. She confided to me that she feels overwhelmed. God knows she has a right to, between her boy and her Calling.

"It isn't right, a Slayer having this burden, but there is no one else to take the child, and she refuses to give him up. I don't blame her for that, either, I believe it's a strength, but still I worry. The weight of the world is a heavy enough burden for any one person to carry, regardless of strength or speed or skill. A Slayer should be free to focus her energies on that alone.

"This extra responsibility that she has to carry is a cruel twist of fate."

Giles gently closed the journal and set it aside again.

Then stood quietly, and went to the kitchen to make tea.

Crowley was wrong. Could have been wrong. He was toeing the Council line, at least. It didn't mean that all Slayers with families were under pressure, or even that Wood had been...

Although, from what he'd heard murmured half-audibly at Headquarters, Crowley was ranked right up there with he himself for unorthodoxy. Nikki Wood had been a Potential Slayer, raised by Crowley since she was thirteen. They had assumed after she turned eighteen that she wouldn't be called and Crowley had sent her off to college in New York, letting her live the rest of her life the way she wished to.

She'd been twenty-one when she had been called, the oldest any Slayer had ever been by over two years.

She had been involved with a college classmate, became pregnant two months after she was Called, and the boy left her, unable to deal with her powers and her destiny. She'd refused to give the child up, in spite of the Council's vehement protests. Crowley had traveled back to England to plead her case, and there was still talk of that meeting, which had apparently ended in incredibly dramatic fireworks, the likes of which the hallowed halls of the Council had never seen before (though Giles suspected that was an exaggeration, really).

So, somehow, Wood had continued Slaying, survived pregnancy (it gave Giles a headache just *contemplating* what it might be like trying to protect a pregnant Slayer) and had a child.

The water boiled and he dealt with it distractedly, thinking about Buffy and Dawn and house payments and jobs. Then thinking about vampires and demons and Hellmouths and apocalypses. About how his father had simply left them for two years to Watch his Slayer. No phone calls, no letters. Any news of him they'd received had been through the Council, because even Watchers, supposedly, didn't need distractions.

What if they were right? What if it wasn't fair? What if he had been making things harder on her? How much easier could it be on her if he had simply taken that responsibility away?

Never mind the fact that doing so would have been incredibly difficult, would it have made a difference for the better?

He'd always assumed the answer was no, but in that past year, as she'd dealt with college and her mother's illness and tried to mother her sister and not lose her boyfriend, all the while fighting a *god*... how much better off would she have been without all of that on her mind? Even before she'd died, she'd been run down, she'd been so tired.

After she'd died, Dawn had told him something, that he hadn't understood before. Odd that it had taken him so long to think of it.

She'd said Buffy understood, before she died, what her vision quest had meant.

"Death is your gift."

He'd thought about that a great deal over that summer. He'd assumed, finally, that she meant her death was her gift, that she had given to save her sister and save the world.

But what if that hadn't been her meaning? What if death had been not a gift she'd given, but one she received? Rest. Heaven.

What if she meant that her life had become so hard she'd wanted out?

God, that would certainly fit with her behavior after being resurrected...

And was that his fault? He'd allowed her to overwhelm herself, left her in a position where everything was so difficult that death seemed the attractive alternative?

He forgot about his intent to avoid alcohol, and laced his tea liberally with scotch before heading back to the pile of diaries waiting for him in the living room.

Chapter Eleven: Chemistry

A few weeks later, Giles had scoured the phone book and finally found that Ethan had chosen Thomas's name as his alias. Giles had assumed it would be one of them, but he'd half-suspected Ethan would have chosen Randall simply out of impertinence. Thomas, however, was the least offensive of the lot, and thus, had been the last name Giles had checked.

Bad as it was, though, that during Ethan's last disappearing act--during which, Giles assumed, he was off wreaking relatively quiet havoc for pay--Giles had actually broken down and looked up his address, what was worse was that now, at ten-thirty on a week night, he was standing at the door to Ethan's building. Even worse than all that was when he walked inside, down the stairs, up the hall and knocked on the door of apartment five.

He could feel tingling wards nuzzle against his knuckles, and it made him tuck his hand away in his pocket as quickly as he could after knocking, though he wasn't sure whether that was a specific compulsion built into the ward, or simply his own distaste for the intimate tickle of the magic. He waited a few moments, his mind playing through various scenarios... Ethan could be out somewhere, or this may not actually be his flat at all, just some chap who happened to have the name Thomas Sutcliffe...

But then the locks rattled and the old door opened and it was definitely Ethan.

"Giles," he said, sounding surprised.

And then Giles wondered what the hell he was doing there, what had made him think this was ok. And he shook his head and started to walk back toward the the exit.

Ethan didn't say anything. Giles had expected him to argue, or cajole. He'd expected him to even run after and catch him, stop him. But he didn't.

Giles stopped at the exterior door.

He couldn't leave.

He could, actually. He didn't want to.

Every day seemed to be a long one, recently, today seemed especially so. His mind hadn't stopped chasing itself in circles since that morning. Xander and Anya were getting married today. He could have gone. He had been planning to go. But when it came time to book the plane tickets, he found he couldn't bear the thought of returning to Sunnydale. He didn't want to see Buffy in pain, or worry over Willow and her magic, or spend the day wondering if Xander was really ready to be in a commitment like this.

No matter how often he told himself they were no longer his responsibility, he couldn't seem to believe it.

He turned and walked back up the hall. Ethan merely stepped back and let him in without a word.

The basement apartment was small, not much more than one room and a bathroom, but it was neatly kept, with fresh paint on the walls, and screens to partition off an area to serve as a bedroom, with a table boxing in the kitchen area. The most notable trait of the place was the small shrine against the back wall. Giles glanced at that briefly, then looked away.

"So," Ethan said, as he shut the door, "Why are you here?"

"Why do you think I'm here?" Giles said, looking around the apartment, still, but not at Ethan.

"You tell me," Ethan said, conversationally. Giles heard his footsteps approaching and tensed, but Ethan stopped and didn't touch him.

Why was he here? He was here because he was a fool and a weakling, that was why.

He knew why, in actuality, he was there. Putting it into words, however, was proving more difficult than he would have anticipated.

Finally, he shut his eyes and said, "Please, don't make me say it."

Then Ethan's hand cupped the back of his neck, shockingly warm after the chilled drizzle outside, and Ethan said, "That will do for now."

Giles pulled off his coat and let it fall to the floor, unheeded, and Ethan's hands were unbuttoning Giles shirt even as Giles was still turning around to face him. The shirt was gone a moment later in a rushed flurry of both of their hands, and then Giles reached for the button of his trousers.

"No," Ethan said. "Leave them for now."

Giles only reacted to this with a slight furrowing of his brow, then he pulled his hands away. Ethan curled his hands around Giles' arms, just above his elbow, and walked him back across the room, to stand against the closed bathroom door. Lightly, Ethan pushed his arms up and spread them across the wall, drifting his fingers along the sensitive skin all the way out to Giles' wrists, then pulling his hands away. Giles felt a gentle force holding him in place, and sighed softly.

But then, Ethan laid one hand softly over the center of his chest, and he tensed again.

"Ethan--"

"Hush," Ethan said. "I won't hurt you."

Still, Giles tensed as the first probing tendrils of magic trickled through him.

This was too much. Going too far.

But as Ethan's magic swelled to a crest in him, and Ethan coaxed Giles' own neglected powers to the surface, it felt good, like it always had. Giles rolled his head back against the wall and took a deep breath, and felt it beginning to pull him in, pull him down. Or was it up? Didn't matter a moment later.

He didn't hear or see Ethan's reaction, but he could feel it, like an echo, feel the pleasure and the power.

He opened his eyes and the room looked different. Amazing. He could see the eddies of power moving in the air, the wards around the doors and the window, the electricity pulsing in its metal veins in the walls. It was a staggering wealth of information, too much for the human mind to process on its own, but between his magic and Ethan's it wasn't destroying him, it was lifting him out of the normal bounds of human existence.

He breathed out, and saw his breath in the air, saw the trace of life force in that breath, that would be absent from any air a vampire moved.

He turned his head to the side, slowly, and the shrine was a bright halo of magic, that his mind called red, though such distinctions truly didn't apply. He could feel everything. Molecules of air, the tremors of the rain drops hitting the windows and the walls. He could taste Ethan's scent in the air.

Could *definitely* feel as Ethan sent a frission of power to him and his trousers fell apart at the seams and fell away along with his pants, socks, shoes, leaving him bare against the door. He pushed his feet further apart, and felt the force pull his legs against the wall as sure as gravity.

"Beautiful," Ethan purred, the vibrations of his voice sending a disrupted scurry through the energies of the air.

Giles rolled his head around to face front again, feeling lethargic and heavy.

Ethan was the most amazing thing in the room. Blazing with life, with power. Blood moving through veins, heart pulsing in his chest, lungs pulling air in and pressing it out. The electrical impulses of his nerves chasing up and down his body, hot yellow energy that concentrated in his spine and in his skull. A glow in his eyes was his soul.

As he stalked forward, he grew hotter, brighter with each step. Desire, too hot to name a color for, was amazing to see, even if it had been there when they'd done this when they were younger, even if Ethan's desire for him was plainly obvious given all they'd done...

"Oh, my Ripper," Ethan said, as he touched Giles again.

He slid his hands, palms flat, a little ways up Giles' stomach, so that they lay on either side of his sternum at the base of his ribs, then Ethan said, "You may not control your bloody adrenal glands... but I can."

And immediately Giles felt the push of magic, then the rush of adrenaline, kicking up his heart rate, sending trembles through his muscles. Ethan slid on hand around and then between Giles' lower back and the wall, tendrils of magic reaching in for a cluster of nerves there in his spine. A jolt of pure pleasure, and then Giles' cock swelled harder, enough to ache in that good, desperate way.

"Oh, god," he breathed, as Ethan moved his fingers in a small circular massage over that spot on his spine and smiled dark and dangerous.

After he pulled his hand out from behind Giles, he flicked it quickly between Giles' legs, a momentary contact with Giles' balls, a tickle of magic and a rush of desire. Giles closed his eyes and leaned his head back, groaning. His body burned as it might after hours of teasing foreplay.

Then both of Ethan's hands cupped around his skull, one on either side. Warm, strong fingers under his hair. Another push of magic, directed, Giles could only muzzily guess, towards his hypothalamus or something of that nature, and the rush only strengthened.

Giles lips felt dry and parted, and he licked at them, then turned his head to the side, ducked down, until he could nuzzle at Ethan's wrist, and could just barely reach it with the tip of his tongue, get a hint of the taste of Ethan's skin. He strained to get more, until Ethan obliged and moved one hand around, let Giles catch the tips of his fingers between his lips and suck and lick.

"Oh, yes," Ethan murmured, and even his voice felt good, vibrating against Giles' skin. Ethan rubbed Giles' chest slowly with his free hand.

"What do you want?" Ethan said.

There were a lot of answers to that question. He wanted peace of mind, he wanted Buffy to be happy, he wanted Ethan to touch his cock already, but for some reason the most pressing desire of all at that moment was...

"Kiss me."

He saw and felt the shimmer of magic as his bonds released him at the same moment Ethan slipped his arms around his back and complied with his request, kissed him deeply, his bread tickling Giles' face. Giles kissed him back, hungrier for him than he'd been in as long as he could remember clearly. He raked his hands up Ethan's back, desperate to pull that clothed, lean body against his own.

"Good, good, good," Ethan rambled, heated praise as Giles propelled them both across the room, hand still moving almost frantically over Ethan's body, reveling in the smooth planes and hard angles. Still kissing, loving the taste of Ethan's tongue and lips.

He pushed Ethan down to sit on the edge of his bed, and went to his knees, nuzzling swiftly down his body as he went. His hands fumbled, shaking too badly for skill, as he opened Ethan's trousers, but Ethan certainly didn't seem to mind.

He only hesitated a moment, once he had the hard heat of Ethan's cock in his hand. Then he leaned in and took it in his mouth, moved his tongue gently against the head. Ethan grunted and shifted, and Giles realized he wasn't entirely sure if that was a good sound or a bad sound, and now he was beginning to remember that this was actually a rather complex operation, and he was currently nearly out of his mind on hormones and having trouble remembering to keep his teeth out of the way and remembering whether or not the slit at the head of Ethan's penis was or was not too sensitive to be touched...

Fellatio was clearly *not* like riding a bicycle.

Still, Ethan buried his hand in Giles' hair, and groaned a 'yes,' so he must have been doing something right.

Besides, another thing he'd forgotten was how much he actually *liked* doing this.

He allowed Ethan to slip in a bit deeper, holding off enough to stay well away from any danger of inciting his own gag reflex, because god knew that wasn't sexy, and worked his tongue against the smooth, loose foreskin.

Swallowed and took a shaky breath through his nose, and loved Ethan's soft babble of pleasure.

Sense memory and old habits slowly coming back to him as he went, he drew it out, made it take as long as he could, pulling away whenever Ethan neared orgasm, letting him cool down and ignoring his curses, until finally Ethan said, "Dammit, Giles, get me off. Now."

Then Giles smiled and let him come.

"You bastard," Ethan said, after he'd caught his breath. There was a gruff affection in his voice. Giles sat back on his heels and smiled up at him, and then Ethan gestured and was naked. A moment later, he slid down off the bed to kneel in front of Giles, then reached down and began to stroke Giles' cock with a somehow slick hand.

Giles realized then that his ability to see the power in the room had faded a great deal during his ministrations, but Ethan still seemed to be commanding it. Giles didn't care, though, really. He just shut his eyes and enjoyed Ethan's hand on him, coaxing him back to full hardness where his erection had flagged a bit.

Then Ethan pushed him backwards down on the floor, straddled him, gripped his cock, and sank down onto him with a soft cry.

Giles whimpered and pushed up, sinking deep, so good. Ethan's hands slid up his arms, grabbed his wrists and pulled Giles' hands up over his head, pinning them to the floor at the wrists. He looked down as he began to move. Move slowly. So slowly. Undulating gently, moving only small centimeters at a time on Giles' cock. Payback, no doubt, for Giles' teasing.

Giles loved it.

His heart raced as he looked up into Ethan's eyes, kept his hips firmly down against the floor, resisting the urge to thrust, letting Ethan run this.

His gaze wandered, taking in the sheen of sweat that highlighted the geography of Ethan. The smooth hollow at the base of his throat, the lump of his Adam's apple that moved as he swallowed hard. His pecs, better developed than they had been that last time they'd seen each other in Sunnydale, still covered in a thin coat of shiny, curled hairs, which looked fascinating, catching the half-light in the flat.

Ethan's stomach, moving with his breath and with his slow rhythm. His muscles were tensed, and caught the light and threw shadows, not at all unnaturally body-builder-like, in fact, showing the signs of middle-age, but still sharply defined in that light. Fascinating and alive and male. Just like Ethan's quiescent cock, down in the shadow of their bodies. And behind that, Giles' own cock, stiff and shining with lubricant, and disappearing into Ethan's body.

Giles breath left him in a hard rush, and he couldn't look away.

Then Ethan rocked back, hard, abruptly taking him in all the way, and he dropped his head back and they both cried out at the feeling, and after that, there seemed no more reason for restraint, and he shoved up each time Ethan dropped down. Fast and hard and good.

A few minutes later, he came, and a few moments after that, he gasped, "God. Love you."

Then Ethan dropped down beside him on the floor, and they were both quiet for awhile.

Every moment after that, a bit more of the magic ebbed away, until the world had gone back to its normal state of being, dark and dull and quiet, and the flat was once again nothing but a run-down one-room. The hormones, too, cleared from his bloodstream gradually, and as they did, something became more and more apparent.

His mind slowly worked over the feeling of something's-wrong, until it all made sense and he brought his knee up, kicked Ethan off him and lunged to his feet.

"You fucking-- You-- Dammit, Ethan. You can't--"

"Can't what?" Ethan inquired, casually propping himself up on his elbow. "Mess with your mind a bit? So sorry. Wasn't aware there were limits." He smirked and shook his head. "The tragedy of bad communication skills. Besides, all I did was tweak a few neurochemicals. Nothing all that major."

"You made me-- You-- Stay the hell away from me."

*Made me think I *loved* you.*

Giles shuddered and stalked away, remembering only at the last moment that Ethan had destroyed his trousers. Angrily, without a word, he raided Ethan's dresser for a pair of sweatpants, then threw on his own shirt and stormed towards the door.

Ethan stopped him, saying, "Rupert."

He glared over his shoulder. Ethan was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, smirk still firmly in place, and apparently unconcerned with his nudity.

"Love you, too, dear," Ethan said.

Giles slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame on the way out.

Chapter 12: Worst Case Scenario

Ethan caught the door before he could close it in his face.

"No, wait."

In the past few weeks, avoiding Ethan had been a great deal easier than it had before. He'd suspected Ethan would eventually get tired of waiting and track him down again.

"Why should I? I've told you a thousand times to stay away from me."

"This isn't about that."

"No? Strangely, I find that hard to believe."

"Don't you feel that?"

Giles frowned.

"Feel what?"

Then he noticed that Ethan looked genuinely concerned. He let go of the door.

"It's like all the birds the world have gone quiet all at once. A storm is coming. The Hellmouth. Something... Someone. Powerful. Very, very powerful." Ethan paused, then said, "And incredibly angry."

Giles froze inside. Oh, no.

"It isn't the Slayer."

"No, I didn't think it was."

"Then who?"

"No one." Willow.

He never should have left. Oh, god, he never should have left. He'd known, Tara had known, he just hadn't wanted to believe it and now...

"Well?" Ethan said, impatiently shifting about at the threshold like an uninvited vampire, "What are you going to do about it?"

Giles grabbed his coat and his address book as he called back to the door, "Nothing that concerns you."

"The continued existence of the world does, in fact, concern me," Ethan said, falling into step with Giles after he locked the door and began heading downstairs.

"No one's ending the world," Giles snapped.

"Perhaps not *yet*," Ethan said as they stepped out into the dreary grey rain.

"Go away, Ethan."

Giles unlocked his car and got in, but Ethan dashed around the hood and got into the passenger's side before he could drive away.

"No."

He had no time to argue.

"Fine. Then shut up."

Of course, that didn't last even until they reached the city limits. Ethan twitched and fidgeted for about three minutes, then finally said, "So, where are we going?"

Giles just sighed.

***

The rain was coming down in serious sheets by the time they reached the gates of the Devon coven. Giles wasn't entirely surprised to find a small contingent of three waiting at the gates when he pulled up. He and Ethan jumped out of the car and ran up to join the three women, one of whom immediately split from the group and held up her hand in a restraining gesture aimed in Ethan's direction.

"You. You cannot cross our threshold."

Giles glanced over at Ethan who opened his mouth, then shut it, then said, "Fine."

Giles was surprised by the lack of a fight, but shrugged it off as Ethan headed back to the car.

"He's the one who told me something was wrong," he said.

"Be that as it may, his kind is not welcome here," Marianne said, then said, "Come to the house, we need to talk."

***

They stopped on the covered porch, no time to worry over trivialities such as keeping the carpets dry, and the youngest girl in the group, whom Giles didn't recognize, looked up at him, and said, "I had a vision."

"Tell me," Giles said. He could feel fear, cold as the rain water trickling down his back, but what was worse was the aching, useless hope that perhaps he was wrong. He knew he wasn't.

"I-- I woke up, and I saw this girl, standing in front of me. And then... then she was just shot. Just like that... I looked down and there was blood on my shirt--"

Dear god.

"Describe her," Giles said, urgently, disregarding her distress, though later he would regret it, and Maryanne's eyes widen in surprise.

"Um, she, she was blond. Pretty? I-- I don't know how tall, I was seeing her as someone else?"

Buffy?

"What-- what was she wearing?"

"Um. Long skirt? Her hair was long and straight, past her shoulders. She, uh, she had a nice figure, not too skinny."

Then it clicked.

"Tara," he said.

The hope vanished in a small, painful implosion. So it was Willow. No doubt about that, now.

Yet another person he loved whom he had failed.

It only took him an hour to decide what he had to do.

***

"You think you can stop her?" Ethan shouted above the wind, incredulously, as Giles slogged back to the car.

They both got in, and the windshield fogged up immediately from the rainwater they brought with them.

"No."

"Then what the hell are you doing?"

"I don't have to fight her. Or at least, I don't have to win."

"That's the insanity talking, Giles. Take me with you. I could help."

"No!"

"Why the hell not? For god's sake Giles, she's dangerous, I felt her thousands of miles away. You can't take her on alone... at least together we'd have the advantage of numbers."

"I said no. In fact," Giles said, leaning forward and squinting through the deluge on his windshield, "If you come anywhere within a hundred miles of Sunnydale, I'll kill you."

"Dammit, Giles, someone has to do something. Together we could, we could bind her, send her to another dimension, something!"


"No one will beat her in a fight."

"Then why'd you go to the trouble of getting loaded down with magic?"

Giles didn't answer. A few miles passed in silence, then Ethan suddenly said, "You're insane."

Giles still did not reply. Instead, he pulled over and got out, deeming himself far enough away from the coven to do what he had to. He got out and Ethan did too, following him to the edge of the rain-soaked field.

"Dammit, Giles, it'll kill you."

"She's worth it," Giles said, closing his eyes and summoning the forces.

"No. Wait," Ethan said, and Giles stopped and opened his eyes. Ethan's tone had changed from angry to something quieter.

"What?"

"Let me help. I don't care what any stuck-up Wiccas say, my power is as pure as anyone's."

Ethan held up his hand. The rain poured down around them.

"Come on," he said, after Giles stood for a moment, silent and indecisive. "You need all the bloody help you can get, Giles. Do you want to save her, or not?"

His personal feelings on the matter aside, Ethan was right, though Giles wasn't entirely sure what was provoking this act of generosity. But the situation was severe, and there was no time, and he *did* need all the help he could get.

He crossed the space between them in two paces and clasped hand