The Longest
By Maude M. (mod@popslash.net)

Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Dirty Girls, Empty Places and Touched
Summary: Faced with seemingly unsolvable problems, Xander turns his
attention to a smaller one.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Love to Karen and Jen for the betas. Also, I couldn't figure out
where the heck Giles was staying for the last of season 7, so I gave the
Summers a den. They're very welcome.



-Day-

Xander didn't want to laugh, but he couldn't help himself. It made
everyone in the room uncomfortable—the doctor, Willow, the guy from the
lab—but in all fairness, it was the only safe reaction. The doctor had
said, "I have some bad news for you, but it is important that you try
not to cry." And then he had given them the final verdict about Xander's
eye.

Not being able to cry, Xander laughed until he coughed; he laughed so
hard that he could actually feel the vibrations in his eye socket, and
that made him laugh even harder. Xander appreciated irony, but not being
able to cry at the loss of his eye? Somebody up there was on his or her
game today.

The lab technician gathered his vials in a less-than-gentle way and
rushed out of the room; Willow grabbed onto Xander's arm as if the force
of the prognosis might have blown her away. He saw it: the dark cloud
that passed over her eyes as she contemplated the situation: what this
meant, what she could do, what the repercussions might be, what might go
wrong. But Willow had learned some hard lessons in the past year, and it
was gone in just a moment, like the shadow of a moving car.

He stopped laughing eventually, of course. There were things to discuss,
and as soon as Xander's laughter subsided, the doctor began firing
information at him like shotgun blasts (Wound care, ointment, gauze,
tape, exercise, light restrictions, movement restrictions, cosmetic
surgery, prosthesis, antibiotics, support groups, and on and on and on)
as if he knew Xander wouldn't remember all of it and hoped for a few
random hits. It wasn't hard to figure out the reason for the double-time
instructions: Xander saw the jammed highways on the way to the hospital.
Doctors were no different than all the other Sunnydale residents.

Maybe that's why Xander didn't listen; didn't even pretend to. The
heaviness that settled over him was like a dense fog enveloping a light;
the glow of his previous laughter winked slowly out and he closed his
good eye. He lay with his eye shut for several minutes as he sat
listening—to the rhythm of the doctor's voice harmonizing with the hum
of the machine monitoring his vital signs harmonizing with the buzz of
the dimmed florescent light protectively perched over his bed.

It turned out that by the time they released him, he had a new nominee
for the longest day of his life. The first recipient of the illustrious
award had been Christmas Eve, 1989, followed by the day of the SATs, and
most recently, his wedding day. He had thought that nothing could top
the dismal hours he'd spent at the motel watching rain slide hesitantly
down the window and listening to the ancient radiator click on and off
while he sat on the bed and mumbled apologies the way he once practiced
his times-tables.

But there was a new winner. This time he couldn't find the comforting
familiarity in blaming himself—this time he had to watch the expressions
on his friends' faces go from sympathetic to horrified as they heard the
bad news, and nothing, not even a much-rehearsed pirate joke from Xander
could cushion the blow.

By the time he'd left the hospital, the only thing on his mind was
getting into bed and diving into the bottle of Percocet they'd picked up
from the hospital pharmacy.


-Evening-

The last thing on earth he would have added to the longest day of his
life was a mutiny, but mutinies were of a more spontaneous nature, and
had to be followed up with action. If Xander didn't have candles to
light, maps to find, and plans to make, he might have allowed himself a
few moments of self-pity.

He might have taken a moment to enjoy the fuzzy wooziness that the
Percocet afforded him and wished for few days of sterile quietness at
Sunnydale Medical Center to cope with the loss of a major organ. He
might have reflected on his nanoseconds-long homecoming and the fact
that not once in all of the chaos, did anyone ask him if he needed to
rest rather than work.

But Xander was not self-indulgent, at least not in a self-pitying way,
and so when he found himself alone in the half-dark living room, waiting
for Faith and the girls to return, he allowed himself to pick up his
mental equivalent of a worry-stone. It was the one memory that no amount
of rubbing, recalling, or railing could ever scratch.

/Two Years Ago/

It had been almost two weeks since Buffy's funeral, and rather than
banding together, they engaged in an active effort to stay away from
each other. It was Anya who made him go that day. "Tell him that he
either comes in to take inventory, or I'm going to do it myself. I can't
handle this kind of indecision! Does he think that the deposits are
making themselves? I don't know what he's thinking..."

Rather than catch the end of *that* little tirade, Xander decided to
simply go and face the awkwardness of their shared grief.

The front door of Giles' apartment was shut, but when Xander knocked,
the hinges whispered a squeal and the door floated open. There was an
eerie feeling to the scene he walked into. He had always been used to a
comfortable mess at Giles'—he was used to the musty smell of books that
lined the walls in utilitarian stacks. He was used to the artifacts,
both holy and sentimental, that sat shoulder to shoulder on nicked
wooden shelves. He was used to the sound of urgent chatter
reverberating as they discussed the current bad or upcoming apocalypse.
This was what Xander was used to; what he found comforting about Giles'.

What he found that day unnerved him. Rather than the controlled chaos
that he had come to expect, he found order, pristine order that reminded
him of the model homes that he'd seen, with their perfectly-decorated
coldness, and the falseness of their dummy electronics and appliances.
This *was* Giles flat, these *were* his things, but it was wrong, it was
if it were done to show off, almost as if he were going to ...

"Giles!" he yelled, running up the stairs. He can't be leaving -- Xander
thought, his pulse quickening as his stomach clenched-- What are we
going to do without him?

Through the door at the top of the stairs, he heard a stirring: the
sound of paper rustling and the staggered hum and click of an electric
floor fan set to oscillate.

"Giles?" he asked, knocking timidly at the door, like a child afraid to
wake his parents. There was no answer. He twisted the knob and pushed
open the door to see a very awake, and very put-together Giles sitting
atop a freshly made bed surrounded on all sides by neat stacks of paper.
"What are you doing?"

Giles looked up from his paperwork with a distracted look in his eyes.
"Xander? I'm glad you're here. I could use your help."

Xander looked back and forth between the papers which stirred with each
sweep of the fan, and Giles, who had gone back to intently scribbling
notes. "What are you doing?" he repeated. This time it sounded more like
an accusation. "Are you selling this place... are you leaving?"

Giles looked at him sternly, almost glowering. "I'm simply preparing.
There is much work to be done. Without Buffy, we are going to have to be
as proactive as possible in detecting potential problems. We must check
and recheck our resources for any indications of impending danger."

"But that's not the way we operate," Xander answered gently. "We handle
things as they come."

"We are at a tremendous disadvantage. We don't have... We must be two
steps ahead of an apocalypse..."

"Hey, believe me. I am *all* for having a little more advanced notice
when it comes to the potential wholesale destruction of humankind. But
you need to take a step back. You're looking a little... possessed. You
aren't possessed, are you?"

Giles removed his glasses, laying them neatly onto a nightstand, and
brought a shaking hand over his eyes. He motioned to Xander. "Hand me
that bottle, will you?"

Xander picked up a decanter sitting on a shelf, along with a tumbler
that looked like it was from a different set. He handed them to Giles.
Carefully, Xander placed some of the paper stacks onto the floor,
clearing himself a place to sit on the bed.

Giles poured himself a drink and then another, blinking ferociously at
each swallow. Xander wanted something to break the tension; to say
something like, "Easy there, cowboy, leave some for the rest of us," or
"Well, I guess its noon somewhere," but the words reached his throat and
he swallowed them unspoken.

"To be honest..." Giles took a long moment before finishing his thought.
"To be honest, I'm afraid, Xander. I've never been so afraid."

"We're all afraid."

"Bollocks! You... *kids*..." he spat, "you don't know enough about life
to be afraid. You're twenty! You're all twenty, and don't have the
experience to know when to be properly afraid. You miss her, but you
aren't afraid. You walk into things assuming that you'll walk out!
Afraid!" He viciously gulped the liquor and mumbled, "Spike maybe..."

"You don't think we're afraid? What have we been doing for all these
years? My hero is dead. She was Indiana Jones and Wonder Woman and Anna
Kournakova all in one. She gave me hope..." Several moments later he
finished the thought. "And now she's gone."

Giles looked sorry, but didn't say so. "Why did you come here, Xander?"

To this day, Xander doesn't know why he lied—whether it was for Giles'
sake, or his own, but at the moment he said it, it felt like truth.
"We're not talking. We need each other. We especially need you."

Giles stared into his empty glass, looked as if he considered a refill,
then set it on the nightstand. Xander reached out to him, ready to
reaffirm their commitment to continue fighting with a hug, and Giles
embraced him back.

Try as he did after the fact to determine the exact cause of the
incident—the alcohol, relief, something more—Xander has not been able to
do so. But at the moment they hugged, Giles moaned, almost inaudibly: a
rough, needy sound that caught in Xander's ear and stood the hair of his
neck on end.

Instinctively, Xander turned his head. Not away from Giles, but towards,
and instead of separating, they pressed together. Giles' alcohol-flushed
skin was hot against Xander's fan-cooled cheek; it was rough, almost as
if there was a hint of stubble pressing *just* perceptibly against
Xander's own freshly-shaved skin. The uncommonness and impropriety of
the situation made it seem urgent, and the hot breath that breezed
lightly into his ear seemed to shoot down his spine, directly to the pit
of his stomach, turning it over and over so that he couldn't stop a
seditious, questioning moan from rumbling in his throat.

He heard Giles take a ragged breath, and felt his hands knead into
Xander's shoulders. Emboldened by reciprocation and acting with bravado
he didn't realize that he had possessed, Xander slid his cheek along
Giles'; flesh against flesh; jawbone against jawbone until they broke
apart, facing each other with only millimeters separating them. Xander
could smell the scotch; *taste* its acrid sting on Giles' breath.

Xander's mind raced. Every chemical reaction in his body was screaming
at him to just act, to take a chance and find out what kissing another
man might be like. The tiny part of his brain that was not completely
eclipsed by instinct was sending urgent messages to *stop*. Think about
what he was doing. Think about what was at stake.

He must have hesitated-- just a moment too long-- because before he was
fully aware of what was happening, Xander found himself not millimeters
apart from Giles, but feet and then yards. Giles stood with his back to
Xander, as if he was paying close attention to the arrangement of the
loose change resting in a tabletop valet. Xander struggled to find words
to ask what had happened. He got as far as "what" when Giles interrupted
him.

"I'm glad that you came, Xander," he said without turning around. "I
should have been the one to make sure that this tragedy did not divide
us, but I wasn't. We'll all meet tonight and decide what's to be done."

"Giles," Xander seemed to protest, even as he propelled himself towards
the door. He stopped, but only for a moment. "See you tonight."

/Present/

Xander wondered how many times in the subsequent years his thoughts had
wandered back to that day, to that moment—hundreds? Thousands? His
opinions shifted over time: Some days, he was relieved that he
hesitated, others, disappointed. It was on his mind as they planned
Buffy's resurrection, and, to his extreme dismay, it was on his mind on
the day he was to marry Anya. It wasn't the reason for his actions; his
explanation was sincere. It was simply there, shadowing the guilt and
doubts that besieged him.

It had, at one point, begun to anger him. If only he had just *done it*,
moved a split-second sooner, then it wouldn't be such a constant
question. However, lately, it had turned into something more, something
like a naughty secret, a fantasy which had first entered into his
masturbatory thoughts subconsciously and alarmingly, but which lately
had been summoned more than willingly.

It had become like a sensory memory—he could almost smell Giles' clean
linen, feel the curve of his jaw, taste the trace of Scotch. Even now,
amidst the chaotic actions and tense waiting and the haze of Percocet,
he felt himself grow hard at the very idea. It was only a moment before
he snapped back to reality, remembered his surroundings and the dozens
of young girls residing therein, before colored and covered himself with
a throw pillow from the floor next to him.


-Night-

Xander knew he should have been listening to Anya, who was across from
him, spooning ice cream into her mouth and attempting to get a point
across to him, but he was distracted by his earlier musings, the
information they had gotten from the Bringer, the way that Giles slipped
off so quickly at the end of the long evening. He was distracted by the
voice that was constantly wishing that he could remove a tiny slip-up
here, replace it with the right thing there, switch events around in
some cosmic game of Jenga.

His mind flipped backwards in time, to the point where Giles' presence
stopped being treated as welcomed, and started to be questioned. It
wasn't right, Xander knew. They were adults, with jobs and bills and the
continued responsibility of containing the Hellmouth, but somehow, since
Giles came back, Xander didn't find himself questioning the
manageability of all of it quite so much. Maybe Buffy was right, maybe
she had learned as much from him as she could, but Giles was more than
answers. They needed his strength and experience as much as ever and
possibly more.

Xander pondered this as he took a bite of ice cream from the communal
carton and looked at Anya. "What did you say?"

"I said they could show a little respect."

Xander had no idea to what she was referring, until he heard the sounds
coming from upstairs.

"I mean, they should at least acknowledge the fact that some people
might not want to listen to an a capella concert of people, you know,
moaning and groaning."

Xander laid his spoon down and smiled at her. "An—I'm so tired. I
just... I have to go take a painkiller and get some sleep."

She was clearly disappointed; she nodded and slipped the lid back onto
the ice cream carton, and Xander hugged her before leaving the kitchen.

"Tease," he heard her mumble as he walked away.

It seemed so little, just a white lie to get out of what was probably a
mistake they kept making over and over, but the guilt was as gnawing as
any other. He tried to shake it off as he passed up the staircase and
instead walked towards the den. He lightly knocked at the door and heard
Giles' muffled voice tell him to come in.

Xander didn't say anything for a moment. "Lucky bastard, getting the
soundproof room."

Giles turned around from the desk at which he sat, somewhat confused but
quickly turning the conversation. "Xander. I've been meaning to ask all
night, how do you feel?"

Xander waved a dismissive hand gesture. "Has Buffy come back yet?"

"Not yet."

"Do you think she'll come back?"

"*I* think she will; however I seem to have misjudged her a great deal
lately."

Xander flicked the corners of a stack of photos lying on a bookshelf as
if as if they were some sort of disjointed flip-book. "Maybe she's
misjudged you."

Giles looked as if he wanted to smile, wanted to thank him for the
support, but ultimately, he couldn't manage. "Well, maybe she's right.
Maybe I haven't anything left to impart on her. I just wish..."

"That it wasn't Spike she's leaning on?"

Giles nodded.

"Do you think that we made a mistake tonight?"

"I don't honestly know. Clearly, Buffy has been making some very
questionable decisions. But Faith... well, I'm sure that you understand
my concerns about putting her in charge of all of those lives."

"She does seem different."

"That she does." Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them with the
corner of his untucked shirt. Xander looked him over slowly, something
that, in all honesty, he had lately avoided out of embarrassment over
his current brand of naughty thoughts. Giles looked tired; the lines
around the corners of his eyes seemed to have multiplied, spreading out
from the dark circles and sunken cheeks. His hands were different,
calloused, but not on his guitarist-fingertips. He had large, tough
callouses on the pads of his palms from wielding all manner of weaponry
against the girls. His once impeccably starched shirts were now wrinkled
from living out of his suitcase. All in all, it painted a rather
depressing portrait of the toll that this fight was taking on him—on all
of them.

Xander's stare didn't go unnoticed. Giles cleared his throat, bringing
Xander back into the moment. "Seriously, Xander. Tell me how you're
doing."

"Well, you know me. I always wanted to sail the high seas, so really,
this is a dream come true."

"Enough with the pirate jokes. Tell me what you're going through."

Suddenly, Xander could no longer face him—he felt as if he'd be letting
Giles down if he allowed him to see how painful the loss had been. "I
don't know what to say. I don't know how I feel. I mean, I'm not blind,
so I feel like I should be thankful. But on the other hand, I don't know
how I'm going to work. How am I going to pound nails without any
freaking depth perception? I don't know how anyone is going to be able
to look at me with out pitying me, or thinking I'm a freak."

Giles crossed the space between them. "Xander," he said simply, taking
hold of his arm. He held him there for a moment, thumbing the skin and
not needing to say anything else. When Giles finally let him go, Xander
could feel where Giles' fingers had rested, as if his arm was clay and
Giles had made an imprint.

"Have you spoken with Anya?"

"A little."

"You know," Giles voice dropped to just above a whisper. "You know we
may not make it through this."

"Yeah."

"So, if you have any unfinished business..."

"I know."

There was a pause so long that Xander wondered if it was time for him to
go.

"I'm sorry I didn't come to your wedding," Giles finally said, looking
off at a point on the far side of the room.

"Don't be. From what I hear, it was the most disappointing social event
of the year." The bitterness in his own voice surprised Xander, and
instantly he regretted his tone.

"For what it's worth, I think you did the right thing. I know that the
path you took was much more difficult than going through with the
wedding."

"You are not wrong."

Giles absently picked up a book and flipped through as if he were going
to begin to read. His eyes, however, remained firmly fixed upon an empty
portion of the wall. "I wonder..." He cleared his throat. "I wonder. Do
you remember when you came to my flat, after Buffy died?"

Xander's stomach turned over. Was it possible that they were *finally*
going to discuss this? At once, he felt exactly the same as he had two
years earlier; excited, unsure, as if he were about to walk off a cliff,
and not knowing if there would be water, rocks or nothing, just more
freefall, below. "Yes... I think so."

Once again, it seemed that Xander hesitated a moment too long in
answering. Giles looked down. "I just... I have to wonder what would
have happened if you hadn't. We were all so distant after the funeral."

Xander was annoyed, and disappointed in himself for being annoyed. "Anya
made me go." He was sorry as soon as he'd said the words, but it was too
late to take them back. But it was as if Giles didn't even remember what
had almost happened. He certainly hadn't spent so much time agonizing
over what it meant, or feeling guilty for not telling Anya, or secretly
recalling it only to regret it afterwards.

"Yes. Well..." Giles shut the book definitively.

Ah, hesitation and regret, part deux. This time, Xander felt like he
handled it even worse than the first time. He was ashamed of snapping at
Giles, and he was fairly certain that in doing so, he had completely
betrayed the importance of the incident. More than that, he felt like he
owed it to Giles to stay strong—even without the end of the world, Giles
was being left behind, reduced to some shadow of the figure he had once
been.


-Early Morning-

Xander went to sleep, or at least he tried to. The distress that he felt
over Giles usurped the foreground of his mind, and even after swallowing
two painkillers, he found himself staring at the glowing red digits of
the bedside clock, completely unable to sleep.

After two hours of restlessly tangling and untangling himself from his
sheets, he got out of bed, threw his clothes back on and opened the door
as silently as possible, so as not to wake up any of the-- Jesus, how
many people can we cram in here, anyway? -- number of people sleeping
at the Summers' house. At once, he was stung with a pang of loss—he
missed his apartment: the close proximity of the bedroom to the kitchen,
the friendly creak of the floorboard on the way to the bathroom, the
days when he didn't have to share the space with half of the Western
world. He wondered when he'd be able to return.

Avoiding the real source of his insomnia, he padded carefully down the
staircase and into the kitchen to get a glass of water from the
refrigerator. It wasn't that he was snobby about drinking water; it was
just that God only knew what manner of demon was befouling the water
system this week, and, the rule was better safe than sorry. Xander
removed a pitcher of cool, filtered water from the refrigerator and
poured himself a glass. He drank the entire glass in a single swallow,
and upon finding the whole experience extremely pleasant despite the
brain-freeze, he repeated it.

Having had his fill of refreshment, Xander headed back towards the
stairs, but stopped as he saw a stream of flickering candlelight leaking
out from under the door to the den. Aside from his immediate thought
(which was a less-than-glowing review of whoever had hung the door in
question), he realized that Giles must still be awake.

He tapped the door softly, in case Giles had fallen asleep with the
light on, but heard a muffled call of "Come in."

Giles was still at the desk, paging through a leather-bound book much
bigger than those table-top atlases that Xander never could resist
thumbing through when he was at the bookstore. His glasses had crept
forward, sliding toward the end of his nose, and his sleeves were
unbuttoned at the cuff; rolled to the elbows. The hide-a-bed was still
neatly tucked into the cushioned sofa.

"You're still up," Xander stated, as if the fact were not obvious.

"Yes. It's... hard to sleep when there is so much left to do. What has
you awake?"

“Andrew’s talking in his sleep again and I really don’t need another
earful of his Princess Leia fantasies. I've got a mental picture of
Andrew wearing a metal bikini and chains that I'm probably going to need
a lobotomy to get rid of," Xander sat down on the couch and Giles
swiveled in his chair to face him. Giles' face was serious and Xander
let the pretense drop. "You really think that we're not going to win
this thing?"

"I didn't say that. It's always a possibility, but it's dangerous to
think that way."

"It feels kind of stupid to be scared of this, considering how many
times... it's just... these could be our last days on earth. The last
days *of* earth." The words hung in the air like smoke remnants. Xander
wished that they had simply disappeared with the sound.

"I suppose they could."

Xander stared at his hands for a long time. In light of the predicament
that was staring them squarely in the face, the topic on his mind seemed
utterly trivial. He debated whether he should even broach the subject,
but the fact that the world might end without him ever resolving
this—that somehow seemed important as well.

"Giles," he started very slowly, carefully, "you know that day? After
Buffy died, when I came to see you..."

Giles swallowed once and pushed the glasses from the tip of his nose
back up to the bridge. "Yes, we... earlier..."

"You remember what happened before... up in your room..."

Giles cut him off. "I've been trying to figure out a way to talk to you
about this for two years. I should have said something then. I've wanted
to speak with you about it on many occasions, but... I've been a
coward."

"You have? I mean, you have?" Xander bit down on his tongue, attempting
to keep himself from repeating the question yet again.

"Yes. It's just that everything that I've wanted to say has seemed
inadequate," Giles moved over to the couch and sat down next to Xander,
and placed his hand on Xander's shoulder tentatively. Xander consciously
attempted to slow his breathing, make it regular, so that Giles couldn't
see how nervous he was. Before he could get out a single word, Giles
continued. "It still seems inadequate. All that I can say is this: I'm
sorry. I'm terribly sorry. It was an utterly inappropriate moment, and I
would take it back if I could. I fear that I've violated your trust
irreparably."

It was, of course, exactly the way that Xander had imagined it. He had
known it had just been the alcohol; what was he expecting? That Giles
would reveal that he'd been fantasizing about Xander all these years?
That he wanted to continue where they'd left off? That Giles might reach
over, unzip his jeans and... That this could have *possibly* been
anything other than a gigantic, ridiculous, cosmic mistake? He wanted to
slap himself in the head, and throw a temper tantrum like he did when he
was five and so frequently disappointed. He wanted to go back in time to
ten minutes ago and stop himself from ever coming downstairs to
humiliate himself and Giles.

But instead of any of this, he said the one word that could slip out the
side of his tongue which wasn't pinned into place by his teeth: "Yeah."

Giles sighed. "I know, and I know that I've been kidding myself to think
that you forgave me. I should have known that it wasn't that easy."

Xander nodded. "It hasn't been easy."

"I'm very sorry."

They sat in silence for a number of seconds, it could have been ten, it
could have been ten thousand, but they sat, shoulder to shoulder, not
quite touching, and trying earnestly not to look at one another.

Xander felt... odd. Here he was, feeling stupid and ridiculous, but all
he wanted to do was make things better for Giles. To tell him that he
hadn't thought a thing of it, that what he wanted to talk about was
trivial; that he had borrowed a book on his way out and wanted to
confess to losing it—to make up some lie so that Giles wouldn't be
sitting there, looking tired and miserable and guilt-stricken. He wanted
to say all these things, but he was too slow.

"Whatever my personal feelings for you were, it was simply no excuse to
act..."

Xander was suddenly lost in a television commercial. It was the one for
that wireless phone company: a man walks along a city street, carrying a
suitcase—suddenly, he stops, realizing that he's at the café where he
and his wife first kissed. He pulls out his cell phone to call her and
ZIP: as if being slung through the fabric of the universe on a
bungee-cord, the blur that is his wife is zipped over mountains, city
streets, country roads and forests across the country until she lands
directly next to her husband at the coffee shop with a plunk.

And this is how he feels as Giles says these words: as if he has been
shot back to reality like an elastic band and all of the scenery has
changed.

"What do you mean?" Xander asked quickly. "What did you mean, personal
feelings?"

"It's not an excuse. There's no excuse."

Nonono. Was Giles being intentionally evasive? Xander grabbed Giles' arm
and shook his head dismissively. "Giles. Listen. First of all, nothing
actually happened. It's not like we actually kissed or anything. Second,
I was twenty years old, so it's not like you molested me. Third? Jesus
Giles..."

Giles cocked his head and leaned closer, as if he wasn't quite catching
all of what Xander was saying. "Third?" he murmured.

Xander felt as if he were jumping into the deep end of a pool: he took a
deep breath and closed his eyes. "Third..." He opened his eyes again and
looked at Giles and for the first time, it was not as a confused
teenager but as an adult. As a man. As a man facing the end of the
world, and with all the gravity that it entailed. "Giles, I have been
thinking about that moment since it happened. I've been running it over
and over in my head, and I just can't stop thinking about it. I think...
It meant something to me."

Xander stared at him, hoping that Giles would be merciful and will
himself to comprehend what he was saying. Instead of speaking, Giles did
something completely unexpected: he blushed. His cheeks flushed
sunburn-red and he suddenly looked away, staring down at the corner of
his untucked shirt, as if it had become something more interesting than
a two-inch square of blue cotton. Xander couldn't help but allow a
half-smile to wash across his face as he grabbed Giles' shoulder softly.


Giles finally found his tongue. "You have had some very poor timing in
the past, but honestly. This is the worst. We are facing an unstoppable
evil, and now there's this to consider..."

Giles reached for his glasses, as if to clean them, and Xander caught
his hand midway. "Don't," was all he said. He placed his hand on Giles'
burning cheek, ran his hand along his stubbled jawline until Giles faced
him. Free from doubt, he leaned in, pressing his lips to Giles' and
gasping unexpectedly as he felt Giles sigh and his lips part.

It was dark; Xander's eyes were shut and all he could do was taste. It
was the bitterness of tea and the sting of mouthwash and bite of
something alcoholic, and it should have been harsh, discordant, but it
was Giles, and it was soothing and intoxicating and enticing. His tongue
met with Giles', and he was tasting and slipping and sweeping and
moaning, though all of this blurred together in the kind of kiss that
eventually required a break or else he would have just...

And it sunk in, really. This was Giles' taste in his mouth, this was
Giles' hand winding its way through his hair, and this was Giles'
breath, fast and ragged, ebbing and flowing over the back of his neck.
And it wasn't as if he *wanted* to run his hands and his fingertips down
Giles neck, over his chest and under his shirt until he felt the warmth
of Giles skin, no, he *had* to, he had to catalog this for every single
jerking-off left to come, be it one or one million, because he couldn't
ever imagine anything as good as this.

And he said his name, "Oh, Xander," and it wasn't the "Oh, Xander," he
had gotten when Xander had spilled Windex on his only copy of The
Prophecy of En'fet, or the "Oh, Xander," he had gotten when he told
Giles about his disasterous wedding; no, Giles said this as if he had
been wandering through the desert, looking for water, and realizing upon
finding it that it was called Xander. He said it, and then he wrapped an
arm around Xander's waist, pulling him in to him, crushing himself
against Xander with a sort of deft brutishness.

And he said it again, like he could just say it, any time he wanted to
without the universe collapsing in on itself: "Oh, Xander," and this
time it was like a wonderful dirty word, like he had just lost
everything, and he could only swear and accept it. It prickled in
Xander's ear and soared down his blood vessels and shot into his cock
which was standing, straining against the fabric of his underwear.

"God." Xander repeated, "I want this. I want this..."

"Tell me what you want," Giles breathed in his ear.

"I want this..." Xander repeated as he felt Giles' lips make their way
down the curve of his neck and into the nook that joined his neck to his
shoulder.

"Tell me what you want."

Before, he had words. He and Anya had an extensive vocabulary when it
came to expressing what they wanted sexually. But now, it was as if
Giles had asked him to define irony, he didn't have the words, he just
knew *want*. "I don't know..." he moaned, thinking that if Giles didn't
knock this off he might just grind his leg like some sort of gigantic
puppy.

“I want to taste you. Do you want that? Would you like to feel my
lips…here?" Giles fingers ghosted the swell of Xander's cock, asking
permission, and Xander could think of anything more articulate than
leaning into it, groaning.

"Or do you want more?" Giles continued, his hands moving away from
Xander's cock (fuck) and resting on Xander's ass. "Tell me you want
this…tell me you want me.”

"Yes," he answered before Giles even finished speaking. "All of that."

"Turn around, yes, here like that." Giles voice was so low and deep, it
seemed to be coming from the inside of his head. Giles slid off the
couch, kneeling in front of him, lifting up Xander's shirt and running
his tongue down the center of his chest, down to his stomach and navel,
and down the thin line of hair that dipped under the waist of Xander's
jeans.

It seemed evil, Giles tongue languishing at the top of his jeans while
Xander's cock was just below, straining for release. But then there was
the merciful act, the sliding of Xander's button through the button hole
and the unzipping of his jeans as if he were punctuating a sentence. It
was surreal, Giles' hand on his cock, grasping him through the fabric of
his underwear, and *knowing* that he was about to be in Giles' mouth.

Then it happened. In an attempt to steady himself for what was to come,
Xander made a gesture that was like second nature to him— he covered his
face with his hands and slid his fingers through his hair. Except that
he didn't. Xander's hands got no farther than his face when reality came
crashing back down upon him. He felt the gauze covering his eye, and
remembered all that had happened in the last few days—he was half-blind,
disfigured, and was suddenly questioning everything.

"Wait," he murmured, still breathless from the spidery touch of Giles
lips on the outside of his boxers. But he gathered his wits. "Wait.
Giles, wait."

He twisted away from Giles, flinging himself unsteadily off of the sofa
bed, and teetering to his feet. He took two uncertain steps, crashing
unevenly into the desk chair and then the desk. Giles stoop up quickly,
and grabbed onto Xander's arm. "Are you all right? Xander, what's
wrong?"

"No, I just..." Xander mumbled as he attempted to steady himself.

"Does your eye hurt?"

And he could: he could just end it this way. He could become
self-conscious about his eye, and pretend like it was what mattered and
not this contact, this longing that had been in check for so long and
could finally be released. He could walk back upstairs and pretend it
never happened for the sake of his pride and his vanity.

"I'm just being stupid," Xander said breathlessly, turning back and
crushing his lips against Giles' greedily; running his fingers through
Giles' hair and licking a trail around his ear and down his clavicle.

"You're not stupid," Giles whispered, smoothing his hands over Xander's
chest and moaning as Xander mouthed his way down his neck. "This," Giles
gingerly touched the bandage over his eye, "is not something to be
ashamed of. Don't let him do that to you."

Giles pushed him backwards into the one section of bookless study wall,
and slid down to his knees, ready to finish what had begun on the couch.
Flattened against the wall, Xander felt his jeans and his boxers being
tugged down and then the hot, slick warmth of Giles tongue tracing the
tip of his cock like he was asking a question. Xander answered with the
thrust of his hips, bucking forward to be swallowed.

Message received: he felt Giles tongue slide down his shaft, licking the
vein that ran his length and mumbling something, not to be heard but to
be felt; Xander had been the recipient of some above-average blow jobs,
but this. He had the distinct impression that this was not new territory
to Giles, and rather than becoming intimidated or worried, that little
fact seemed to make Xander all the more aroused—maybe Buffy had learned
all she could from Giles, but Xander was feeling more and more
blissfully ignorant by the moment.

He couldn't look down, knowing that Giles wouldn't be looking up; it
seemed too... submissive, so Xander closed his eyes, plastered one hand
against the wall and snaked the other through Giles hair, not pushing
(he wouldn't dare), but simply experiencing. Giles tightened the grip
that he had on Xander's hip and the one he had on the base of his cock
and swallowed him until Xander felt himself... dissolving into the heat
that was spreading from the pit of his stomach and moaning meaningless
words that in his mind should have meant, "now" and "yes" and "more".

"Giles," he moaned, trying hard not to pull his hair, but twisting it
because that was all he could do. "I'm going to come..."

And rather than pull away, Giles licked and sucked and moved until there
was no possible option for Xander other than to come in his mouth, and
he did, with a curse and a rough moan as if he was squeezing the last of
himself out of toothpaste tube and even though he wanted everything out,
there was always something left behind.

There he was, Xander, fuck-dumb and hazing against the wall, while Giles
rose to his feet, kissed Xander with his own taste and then he was gone,
pulling cushions off of the sofa and pulling out the bed. Before he
could restart that part of his brain that filtered out the stupid,
Xander found himself saying, "That's not all," (and it was really more
of a question because even as good as he felt, ending this now seemed
scarier than going on).

Giles laughed without edges. "No, that's not all. I just think we might
be more comfortable..."

Xander looked at the bed warily. "I don't know, Giles. I've slept on
that thing, and I have to say that I find this wall much more comfy." He
reached down, about to pull up his boxers and his jeans, but was stopped
by a hand on his arm.

"Xander, that would be counter-productive, don't you think?" Giles
asked, not looking him over as much as sizing him up, and as if it were
a *recent* development, Xander suddenly felt acutely naked.

He cleared his throat. "So, I'm way more naked than you." It came out
sounding way more five-year-oldish than he wanted, but Giles only
laughed.

"I have to go get something, and then I'll get as naked as you like.
Wait here."

Giles slipped out of the study and Xander used the opportunity to
undress completely and slide onto the hide-a-bed and under the
protection of the thin cotton guest sheets. Giles returned very quickly,
laying something on the shelf next to the bed and unbuttoning his shirt
as if they had all the time in the world. Xander sat up, pulled Giles
towards him by the hips and unbuckled his belt. It occurred to him with
a rush of heat that he hadn't spent *nearly* enough time touching Giles,
tasting him, making him feel as good as he had felt.

Before he could even finish guilting himself, Giles was undressed,
slipping into bed beside him and Xander was mapping him, the curves and
surfaces that his fingertips that glossed, the area above the hip that,
when licked just so, made Giles swear (and God, was he never going to be
able to listen to Giles swear around other people ever again), the
weight of Giles' leg against his own, and the curve of Giles' cock as it
pressed into Xander's belly as they kissed and kissed and kissed.

Xander was brave. He guessed that Giles would want the same thing that
he'd given, so he slid down to taste Giles' straining cock, tongued it
the way Xander knew felt good, and he got for his efforts a moan that
was unmistakably favorable. But seconds later he heard, "Let's do that
later," and (oh God, there was still more later), "I want to be inside
you."

And Xander's never been a sprinter before, but damned if he didn't feel
his cock stirring when he heard *that*, and he so very much wanted the
same thing. Xander slithered back up, asked with his suddenly dry mouth,
"What should I..."

"Just turn over," Giles said, retrieving whatever he had gone to get
earlier, and Xander was a little sorry that he wasn't going to be able
to see his face as he got... oh, God. Fucked. But maybe it was easier
that way, for just now, for both of them. Maybe there would be more and
more laters...

He felt it, Giles sucking at his neck and licking down his back as he
felt Giles' slicked finger find its way into him. And fuck, it was
uncomfortable and good all at the same time. Xander gasped, startled as
Giles' other hand wrapped around his cock which was hard all over again.
And then there was another finger, and he was choking with something
between pain and pleasure, but then Giles stroked him *there* (the place
that Anya had braved on a few occasions, and Xander was too embarrassed
to ask for more) and the pain was forgotten and there was the only
wanting of more.

And Xander said it over and over again, "More, more, more," even though
he was still not entirely certain of what that might mean, but when he
felt Giles withdraw his fingers, to replace them with his slick, hard
cock, he began to get the picture. He didn't even care that Giles' hand
withdrew from him in favor of the better leverage of Xander's hip.

They moved like a wave, back and forth, and Giles whispered things into
his ear in a voice that sounded so different from the one he knew. It
was rough and desperate and said things like, "fuck" and "come inside
you" and it sounded so dirty that Xander knew he should probably forget
that he heard it but it was so hot he had to touch himself, and he knew
he could never forget.

And still they fucked like waves crashing at the shore, Giles pushing
back and forth into him, each time hitting that place that made him want
to just come and come and come, and Giles' agreed: "Come for me, Xander,
come for me again." And it wasn't as if that was a big thing to ask,
because as soon as Giles said the words he came like waves, like he was
moved by a force that would never let him stop, but he did, and then
Giles pulled his hair and bit his shoulder as he came and he said it
again, Xander's name like a curse word and he wondered why they hadn't
been doing this since the day they met.


-Dawn-

The tide went out as it went in and eventually Giles had to pull out;
they had to face each other, and Xander couldn't manage anything more
respectable than a complacent grin to meet Giles' returned gravity.
There wasn't anything to say in this situation, but that had never
stopped Xander. He said "Thanks," and it was enough to soften Giles'
worry and make him pull close like Xander might actually leave, or
something.

The sun began to flood through the cracks in the curtains, and it was
Xander that remarked, "We didn't sleep."

Giles nodded, gave Xander the impression that maybe he wanted to get up,
but didn't. "Then I guess it's going to be a very long day."