September 2007
530 words
Written for 3daychallenge's "International I think I'm chafing" Day.
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"What in the bloody hell are you doing?" It would have sounded
a lot angrier and annoyed if Giles had been able to yell instead of muttering
under his breath. As it were, they were both huddled close in what appeared
to be half of a crypt, while trying to escape the Rythuic
demon -- six foot tall with hands like claws the size of a full grown cat
-- relentlessly running after them. And Xander was wriggling against him
in the most distracting manner possible, as if something had crawled up
his pants.
"...soaked through!" Xander whispered so low Giles could only make out the last part of his response.
"Yes, well, so am I!" The rain hadn't let out in three days, which made patrolling complete and utter hell. The resulting flood had driven the underground demons out of their hiding place, and made the habitants of Sunnydale even more of a target as they were too distracted by the water to notice that half of the people running around in the streets weren't actual people in the first place. "Would you stop moving before we're found out!"
"In a second!" Xander grunted, but his wriggling only increased. "I'm taking off my pants."
Giles glared at him.
"What? I'm chafing. It hurts. If we have to run again, I'd at least like to be semi-comfortable doing it. I'll run faster that way." He shrugged and Giles saw him managed to free his left foot from his soaked jeans. At least Giles had the presence of mind not to wear jeans during a flood. "Besides," Xander added with a sly smile, "you like it when I'm half naked."
Giles let his gaze fall on Xander's legs, remembering how the skin and hair felt under his palms, and he felt himself flush as the memory evoqued far more pleasant things than being stuck in a crypt with missing walls while wearing rain soaked clothing. "Point taken," he whispered. "Although I'd rather we were safely home for it to happen, instead of in a cemetery, hiding. You're distracting enough as it is."
Xander smirked, pants discarded somewhere in the shadows behind them. "Be thankful I'm not taking off my shirt... yet."
Giles gulped at the images that sprung into his mind at the idea, and rearranged his clothing to hide the resulting erection. Not that Xander would mind at all, but Giles felt this relationship was turning him back into a teenage boy more than enough already. A teenage boy with a not-so-hopeless crush, as he'd come to find out over the past couple of weeks. "Perhaps we should be finding a way to make it home, then, where we can, erm, dry off."
"Yeah," Xander readily agreed. "Maybe we could use your fireplace too, you know, it'd dry us off quicker."
"Yes, excellent idea; and bodyheat to stave off hypothermia." Not that it was a possibility, since this was the middle of the summer; but the thought of touching Xander's naked skin under the firelight was enough to send Giles into yet another daydream. Which he quickly shook off when he heard a noise in the bushes close by. "Right, let's go."