It's nearly midnight; Giles ought to go home. Instead he pours himself another cup of tea and turns back to the stack of Watchers' diaries before him. Each one, so far, has told him what he already knows: the normal procedure for an out-of-control Slayer is to kill her. But surely Faith's life is worth more than that. She can be saved, if only Giles can discover how.
There's a soft, hesitant throat-clearing, and Giles looks up to see Wesley hovering in the doorway. "What do you want?" Wesley's never been welcome in his office, and especially not now.
Wesley shifts his weight and puts his hands in his pockets. He looks about fourteen. "I came to apologize." Even his voice is different. Shyer, softer, less crisply certain.
"All right," Giles says, turning back to his book. "Now go away."
Instead Wesley comes in and stands by his desk. "Gi- Rupert, please. I thought it was for the best, taking Faith to England. How was I to know she'd escape?"
If Giles had gone home an hour ago like a sensible man, he wouldn't have to listen to this prat's self-justification. He'd have a glass of scotch in his hand and blessed quiet around him. "If you had managed to get her to England, you do know that the Council would likely have ordered her killed?"
"Surely not," Wesley says, as primly as ever. Giles stirs his tea and waits, and in a moment Wesley's shoulders sag. "You're right. They would have done."
It's too belated to be satisfying. If the stupid boy ever bothered to think, if he cared to be something other than the Council's puppet . . . but he doesn't. Thinking is too hard, too risky; it might rub some of the shine off him. Wesley would rather be Quentin Travers' golden boy, the perfect by-the-book Watcher, than protect his Slayers' lives. "Piss off now, will you? There's a good boy." Giles takes a new book off the pile. This one's older, from before the Council was quite so rigid. Maybe there are some ideas here to help Faith.
"I'm sorry." Wesley hasn't gone away; he hasn't moved at all, except to bow his head and drop his eyes. "I've been a fool. I've let everyone down." His hands clutch and slide at the edge of Giles' desk.
"Are you expecting me to disagree?" Giles asks. Wesley ducks his head a little lower; it's almost a flinch. "Wesley, I'm trying to find a way to salvage this mess. Will you kindly go away and let me do your job?"
At that Wesley looks up. His eyes are wetly gleaming and very blue in this light. Until now his good looks have only annoyed Giles, like his accent and his expensive suits. But now, blinking back tears, his hair rumpled, his tie askew, his thin body in a forlorn slump, Wesley is breathtaking. Shame turns him from a pretty boy to a beautiful one. "I can't. I'll never . . . I've done wrong. I'm sorry. I need to . . . "
In the silence, in the way Wesley's eyes drop again, the way he shivers and wraps his arms around himself, Giles knows. Knowledge flares bright and inescapable, and Giles wants to shut his eyes against it, linger in the dark. And he wants to turn his face to the incandescent truth, bare himself to it and be scorched. "Wesley-"
"I need to pay." His voice has dropped to the whisper of velvet trailing over stones.
Giles stands, reaches over, tips Wesley's chin up with one finger so they're eye to eye across the desk. "You want me to make you pay." Maybe this is what Wesley's wanted all along. To be put in his place.
A downward jerk of the chin, barely a nod, and Wesley's eyes close again.
From the first sight of Wesley, Giles has wanted to hit him. But this is something else, something dark and lush, and the memory of old, abandoned pleasures dims Giles' vision and weakens his knees. "Take your trousers down," Giles says, and his voice sounds far too calm for the blood pounding in his head. "Then bend over and wait."
Hands won't be enough; this has got to hurt. A rummage in the desk drawer turns up a classroom pointer and a bottle of hand cream Giles sets on the desk; there's no use denying how this will end. Giles tries the pointer on the edge of the desk first, and when Wesley trembles at the loud snap, Giles' hands clench into fists.
Already he can imagine welts on that fair skin, darkening slowly to bruises. Wesley's got a tempting arse, too, high and smooth, and Giles is getting hard as he runs the edge of the pointer lightly over it. And if Wesley's fast, harsh breathing is any sign, Giles isn't the only one.
The first blow makes Wesley gasp; the second makes him cry out. He's clinging white-knuckled to the edge of the desk, head hanging, taking everything. At five Wesley starts to whimper and shake; at seven his elbows collapse and he slumps forward, half-lying on the desk. Giles wants to go on and on, wants to beat him until he breaks, but at ten he stops.
Red lines score Wesley's skin, swelling almost visibly, and his whole backside is as pink as a blush and hot against Giles' palms. Wesley's moan isn't entirely pain, and the sound urges Giles' cock even harder. "Good," Giles says as he undoes his trousers one-handed. The other hand slips into Wesley's crack, fingers stroking and teasing, and Wesley's shaking even harder now. Hot and trembling, arse in the air, open for the taking, and Giles hastily slicks himself and pushes in.
It's not entirely pleasure, that cry and tense shudder, but Giles grasps Wesley's narrow hips and thrusts. The heat of him, burning skin and then scalding friction inside, hotter and hotter. Melting at the center, full of boiling iron like the earth itself, so much heat under Wesley's ice and Giles pushes deeper for it. It bubbles into Giles, spreads through his cock, his belly, sends fires licking up his spine.
Every thrust drags a moan from Wesley, hoarse and choked, and there's no cool scorn now, none of his contempt. He's under Giles, marked by him and fucked by him and pressing his arse back for more.
Wesley's head still rests on the desk, lips shaping consonants and vowels against the polished oak. And thank god, thank Christ the word Wesley's repeating over and over sinks into the wood. Thank Christ it fades, distorts, half vanishes, because then Giles doesn't have to hear it. Doesn't have to comprehend the word, the name Wesley's sobbing out with death-rattle gasps.
Giles doesn't have to hear, and it's only a coincidence, the things he's saying back. "Good boy," as Wesley arches and groans. "Such a good boy, my good boy, my lovely boy," and it means nothing, none of these words means anything. "Good boy, so good" and he takes Wesley's cock in his hand, rubs and pulls and Wesley comes in a flood hot as tears, and a few more thrusts into him and Giles comes too, mouth forming hot urgent words that dissolve, that signify nothing at all.
Wesley's trembling feels different now, his sobbing isn't the same at all. No pleasure in it. Giles wraps the boy in his arms, makes soothing noises that he won't let turn into words, kisses his shoulders and back through heavy, expensive cotton.
He's met Roger Wyndam-Pryce a couple of times. Although he'd like to believe, now, that he detested the man on sight, in truth he rather liked him.
It doesn't take long for Wesley to stop crying. When Giles lets him go he straightens carefully, wipes his face on his sleeve, and does up his clothes without turning around.
"Wesley," Giles says, laying a hand on his shoulder. Wesley shrugs it off, adjusts his tie, squares his shoulders. The face he finally shows Giles is blotched red, composed, still as stone.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Giles." There are no tears in his voice, and he leaves the office without waiting for an answer.
Giles is exhausted, a headache throbs in his left temple, and he wants to go home and sleep. But he waits a few minutes, drinking his cold tea, until he's sure he won't meet Wesley in the parking lot.
Date: 1/9/2004
Notes: Spanking fic isn't normally my thing, but Jane Davitt's "Favour Returned" got me thinking about Wes and his history.
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