Santa hitting the open road: Making a list, checking it twice against the bags.
Xander checks over his bags one more time. He's got a duffel, a knapsack, and a freaky little carry-all mottled with cabbage roses that his grandma left here one time. That one's definitely going in the trunk.
He'd never admit it to anyone, but he packed with a list. He's checking the list again. It just made sense when he thought about it, because when you set out on the open road, you're going to thank yourself for noting how many pairs of briefs you packed.
The phone rings several times, but his mom is apparently, well, not picking up. She went on strike last night, just after dinner, when he announced that he was leaving today. For parts unknown, a phrase she repeated until he almost believed her when she said he probably wouldn't even make it to Oxnard.
Xander grabs the phone. Never know; could be for him. "Yello--"
He wedges the receiver between cheek and shoulder, and holds the list in his other hand, counting the shirts left in his closet, trying to decipher his own scrawl, when he hears the dry chuckle on the other end.
The list drifts out of his hand as Xander sits down hard on the nearest surface. Ow, tailbone. Ooh, Giles. Giles, the great master of kiss the boys and leave 'em wondering.
"Hey," he tries. "Giles, right?"
"Yes, Xander. This is Giles." He doesn't sound happy.
"Well, it's not like you said anything--" He shifts around, not sure whether to rub his ass or his bottom lip, both of which seem to be throbbing fairly strongly.
"Xander, I've just received some distressing news--"
"Alistair Cooke wants his tweed back?"
"Pardon?"
"Alistair--"
"I know who he is, Xander." He's saying Xander's name a lot now. That's never a good sign.
"Oh, okay. Figured not, because--"
"Xander?"
"Um, yeah?"
"I'm actually trying to communicate some rather urgent news--"
"Right. Distressing, even."
"Precise--. Are you making fun of me?"
"What? No."
"Strangely enough, I believe you."
"You should."
"Yes. But still."
"Giles. Bad news."
"Hmm? Yes. It seems Wesley's been, hm, released from the Council, and he has now disappeared."
Xander stands up, lines his bags up in ascending order of size and waits. Sits again, gingerly, trying to get comfortable, figuring this has to be going somewhere. He can wait, because just hearing Giles's voice, hesitant, sort of chuckley, is making him feel warm. Nervous. More nervous than usual; different kind of nervous. New kind.
"Xander?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you still there?"
That's one of those weird questions, like 'are you asleep?', that people ask when they already know the answer. "Yeah. So, what's the bad news?"
Giles sighs heavily. Nice try, Xander thinks. Can't pull the aggrieved librarian act again on *me*. Not going to work anymore.
"Sorry," he says anyway, swallowing all the bravado he just felt. "So. Wesley's gone. This is bad how?"
"I'm afraid--. Oh, bloody hell!"
"What?"
"Look, Xander. Could you just come over here? I'm not entirely comfortable discussing this over the telephone--"
"Well, okay." Xander glances at his bags, neatly lined up right against his closet door. Road trip vs. Giles visit. It's actually a pretty impossible choice. "I *could*, but--"
"What is it?" Giles sounds seriously pissed now, and Xander can't suppress his grin. He just hopes Giles can't hear it.
"Almost out the door for my trip."
"And?"
He coughs and lowers his voice. "Just, y'know, are you going to make it worth my while?"
Silence.
Shit. He probably pushed too far. It's one thing to push when you've got Giles right here on your bed, but probably something else entirely to come off like a crazy lech over the phone.
"Sor--" he starts to say.
"That's open to negotiation," Giles says at the same time.
Xander sits up straight. Holy sexy Ripper voice, G-man: low and throaty and seriously fucking *hot*. Like good alcohol poured over gravel.
"Right. I'll be--. Yeah. Coming. Coming *over*. Yeah. Right, um, now."
*
Forget the list. He's got better things to do now.
Xander loads up the trunk with his bags and drives to Giles' house, tapping his knee against the bottom of the wheel nervously. Whole new landscape of nerves here, archetypal nerves, like he's going to pick up his prom date or something. A real prom date, that is, not the scary but admittedly really pretty demon girl who talked his ear off *and* scared his pants off.
Turning onto Giles' street, scoping out a spot big enough to park this boat of Lincoln, he hears the toot of a horn and looks up, startled. Sees Oz lifting his fingers off the van's steering wheel in what counts for Oz as an emphatic wave. Honking back distracts Xander long enough that he passes the best spot and he has to circle the block a second time before he can park and haul ass to Giles' door.
Pleasantries exchanged, a whole hell of a lot of awkward shuffles made, and several (declined) offers of tea later, they finally get down to business.
"Wesley has simply vanished. Neither the Council nor his family have any idea as to his whereabouts."
"And again I ask why I'm delaying my life-altering roadtrip because some English dork got lost in the wild blue yonder." Xander wants to cross his arms, look upset about this, but he's sitting across from Giles, so he can't. He feels warm in the face, loose-limbed, and he needs his hands to keep tugging down his shirt in case it rides up over the fly of his pants.
Giles pinches the bridge of his nose and shifts on the couch. "Some compassion, Xander."
"Right. Okay." Xander leans forward, marvelling for a second at how naturally he assumes the planning-and-research posture in the midst of this serious Giles-buzz he's worked up. "Um, did you try his friends? A guy takes off, he's going to tell them. Not his boss or his parents." Unless, of course, that guy's Xander, but that's different. Somehow.
Giles clears his throat and looks at his hands clasped between his knees.
"Giles? Wesley's friends?"
More memorizing of the palms, then Giles brings them together and rubs them slowly.
"I daresay that would be us."
Xander laughs so hard that Giles' old chair creaks. Good, deep laughter that just ramps up his already jittery-jiggly buzz. Giles looks down at his hands again and gradually -- too slowly, of course, as usual -- Xander starts to catch on. He swallows the last couple gulps of laughter and coughs to cover them up. "You're not kidding, are you?"
"I'm afraid not." Giles looks worn-out by the admission, like he finally told Xander about his childhood spent torturing puppies or killing distant relatives.
"Damn. And here I thought *I* was a loser."
"Do try to stay on topic, Xander."
Xander waves his hand like Giles is just a mosquito. "I *am*. Just saying -- *damn*. That's gotta suck for him."
"None of us treated the man very well, it's true."
"Kind of hard --"
"Yes." Giles nods as he massages his neck. "It was. Still. Despite that --"
"You want to hijack my great Kerouacian quest to track the guy down."
Giles is at least nice enough to smile sadly. "Not in so many words, but, yes."
Wesley's a dork among dorks and pretty much of a jerk, but it's not like he's Angel or anything. Or, like, Spike. He's a good guy. Just unlikable. Incredibly prissy, totally unlikable, but he counts as a good guy. "We'll find him," Xander says. "Never leave a man behind, that kind of thing."
Giles rolls one shoulder, then the other, glancing at the front door for some reason. "I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that."
"You just did."
"Yes, technically, I --"
Xander runs his hand through his hair, feeling the driving itch return to his palms, join the normal itch of horny that's been working overtime since he got within three feet of Giles. "Should get going." Closes his eyes for courage and maybe a sexy look and says, "Unless I get to claim my end of the deal early?"
Giles is already on his feet, gathering his own suitcase and -- dear gottinhimmel, that's not a fanny pack, is it? Thank god, no. Just a shaving kit. -- and he turns, distracted, and says, "Pardon?"
Xander looks at him, tall and strong, glasses halfway down his nose, one hand on a slim khaki'd hip, and swallows. Tastes tea, citrus, a faint smokiness -- tastes *Giles*, all over again for the umpteenth time -- and shrugs. "Never mi --"
"Really," Giles starts at the same time. "I hardly think --" He's using the careful voice, his tense, be-serious-children library voice even though there's no more library.
"Said never mind." Xander claps his hands on his knees and stands up, heading for the door. All business, helpful sidekick Jimmy Olsen; he can do this in his freaking *sleep*. "Need me to get anything? No? I'm down the block. Meet you there."
*
Xander's still shaking, hiding it well, when he pulls into a gas station on the far side of the Sunnydale city limits. He leaves Giles in the car -- Giles is the one who insisted on seatbelts, so he can fiddle with his all he wants. Xander needs junk food.
Something about fluorescent lights, stink of gasoline, and lots of crisp, shiny packages promising salt, sugar, and millions of empty calories that can calm him down faster and surer than any of Oz's pot or Willow's backrubs.
Giles appears at the end of the last aisle and Xander has to smile at how uncomfortable he looks, confronted with so much dreck and the worst excesses of obese American culture.
"What are you doing?" Giles asks.
Xander tucks his chin against the bag of Fritos on top of the pile in his arms. "Stocking up. What's it look like?" He's not going to apologize. That's his new rule. No apologizing.
Even if Giles is looking pretty distressed, a little green around the gills.
"Road trip, Giles. Big tradition, gotta eat the junk."
Giles leans against the rack of snack-size chips and slips his hands into his pockets. "I could ask how this differs from your usual diet."
So they're going to act like normal. Xander thinks he can do that -- not for long, but maybe long enough. "You could, but you really want to hear the explanation? I've got one."
"Perhaps later."
"Cool." Xander starts to turn for the cashier, then realizes that Giles' hands were empty. "What about you? Need anything?"
Giles opens his mouth, apparently thinks better of it, and shakes his head.
"C'mon," Xander says. "Got to have water at least. Don't want you drying up and withering away."
He tosses the Fritos and a can of mesquite Pringles, which Giles catches very gracefully, lightening his load enough to fit a big bottle of fancy water in the crook of his elbow.
*
Giles keeps winking in and out, like a star on a cloudy night with lots of wind, and Xander's having a lot of trouble keeping track of the moods. He was all business back at the house, crisp and curt, like Giles 1.0. Not very nice. Xander doesn't know *how* he ever managed to develop a crush on that Giles in the first place; clearly, he had some father-issues to work out. *Something*.
And then just now, backing out of the c-store lot, Xander stretches his arm across Giles' headrest so he can twist around and check behind the car. Giles ducks and shrinks against the window like a bee just stung him.
That's why getting Giles to kiss him last week had been so awesome. Generally, Giles regards Xander with faint dislike, exaggerated confusion, or a kind of distant, superior amusement. Then seeing him up close -- not exactly open, but at least slightly *more* open, more relaxed -- had spun Xander's head like a carnie wedding.
There's been no trace, not one, not since that single sexy growl on the phone, of that Giles.
And Xander thought *he* was good at compartmentalizing his personalities. Maybe not *good*, exactly, since he flubs them fairly regularly, but however good or bad he is, he's still utterly bush-league compared to Giles, who's like the Satahara Oh or 1990s Yanks of compartmentalization and control.
"Should head north," Giles says when they're on the road again. Dusk already, and Xander worries abstractly how it is that the good guys seem to keep vampire hours. "He was seen on the PCH. Daniel has a friend in Monterey who --"
"Who? Oz?"
"Yes, Oz. He has a friend, o-or an acquaintance --. A *colleague* in Monterey who sold some leather goods to an Englishman a few days back."
Xander scratches his chest and switches lanes. "You call Oz *Daniel*? And he doesn't slap you?"
"No. Why should he?"
"Tried it once," Xander says and takes a good long draw on the Mountain Dew he's been gripping between his knees. Ignores Giles' sudden intake of breath at the maneuver. "He slapped me. Hurt, too. Said he'd bite me if I ever tried it again."
"I hope you took him seriously. *Two* werewolves --"
Xander sighs, heavy and full, he hopes, of obvious martyrdom. "*Yes*, Giles, I took the little man at his word."
"Good."
"Yeah. Good." Oz -- Daniel -- whatever the hell you call him -- was helping Giles? Passing him good leads on the Wild Wes Chase '99? Oz who tooted blithely at him this very afternoon -- "Hold up," Xander says suddenly. "Why aren't you hunting Wesley with *Daniel*, then?"
Giles' lips twitch a little before he smiles. "Daniel already had plans for the summer. With Willow."
"I'm your second choice? That's really nice."
"I didn't say that."
"Didn't have to --" Xander rocks the car over onto the shoulder, cuts the lights, and puts it in park. "Figured it out all on my lonesome." He twists in his seat, elbow up on the steering wheel, trying to ignore the flush that he knows is -- ridiculously, embarrassedly, *stupidly* -- rising over his face and down his neck. "When were you going to tell me?"
Giles looks back at Xander, his expression as mild and unreadable as ever, probably more so, in the harsh light of passing cars.
The seatbelt's cutting into Xander's neck, he's so jittery, and he twists some more, fumbling to unlatch it, cursing and twitching the longer he spends looking like even more of the usual klutzy idiot in front of Giles' stone-still face.
Finally Giles reaches over and Xander freezes. He presses the button and the belt slithers off Xander. Giles withdraws his hand. He's still regarding, hasn't stopped regarding, Xander with that embarrassing, infuriating patience.
Xander slumps, knocking his skull slowly against the back of his seat as he tries to calm down.
"You seem upset," Giles says. Same quiet, flat tone he uses -- used -- with regular students. 'You need Langston Hughes. 810, American Lit' and 'Perhaps local beach erosion would be a good science fair project'. "Jealous, even."
"Shut up, Giles."
"Pardon?"
"Shut up."
Xander scrubs his fist against his face, over his eyes, then leans toward Giles. Dares him, silently and unmistakably, to flinch again. To say anything.
Nothing happens.
Closer up, Giles' face isn't really patient at all. He looks -- not *scared*, because Xander's seen him scared, but a couple beats away from scared. Careful, tense, *wary*. Definitely wary.
"What's up with you --" *and Oz*, Xander was going to finish, but he's right up against Giles now, and Giles can't move because he's still in his seatbelt and his breath is warm like night air on Xander's face. Xander is silent and Giles is silent and their mouths brush past one another.
Xander gets his arm around Giles' neck, pinning him even more, and sees intelligent green-brown-gray eyes widen and flicker. Has an Oz moment where he imagines it's sunlight through foliage, then holds Giles down as he lifts off the glasses and drops them somewhere on the dash.
Giles tries to clear his throat, but Xander touches his cheek and kisses him, muffling the sound, and even though the parking brake's digging into his knee and his calves are cramping from half-kneeling like this, he can't believe how good this feels. A thousand times better than the last time. Giles tastes richer, Gilesier, and he kisses back faster, opening his mouth and tugging on Xander's upper lip with his tongue until Xander moves his head back and kisses him harder, deeper, pushing and rolling his tongue against Giles in tune with the sizzles and sparkles that are zipping around his crotch and hips. One or both of them is whimpering; Xander can't tell, suspects it's probably him, hopes it's both.
A car shrieks past, must be going fifty over the limit, and the stripe of its headlights throws Giles' face into bright monochrome relief. His hand's suddenly on Xander's bicep, squeezing, then pushing, and as the speed-demon's roar dies down, he says, deep and gravelly, "Get in the back."
*
He half-tosses, half-pours, half-drags himself through the all-too-narrow space between the seats, and Xander knows his math is off but he's got bigger things to deal with right now, like how he seems to have dislocated every significant joint in his body. Arms akimbo, legs splayed, he turns and shimmies and wriggles back. Finally lands face down on the backseat, one knee under him, his other leg on the floor, foot tangled with the parking brake and one hand flattened against the back window.
"Oof --"
"The door might have been easier."
The overhead light clicks on and a puff of fresh air bruises his forehead as Giles opens his door.
"Giles? Where --?"
He's still trying to right himself but over the slip and squeak of body-skin-clothes on the old naugahyde upholstery, Giles' voice cuts loud and echoey.
"Stay."
Like a tether, old and fraying whiskers but still strong right to the core, Giles' voice tugs Xander out of the worried confusion nipping and buzzing at him, devouring and swamping him. The door slams shut, he cranes up his head, flipping onto his back, sees Giles cross in front of the car.
Giles glances just once over his shoulder as he settles into the driver's seat. The look is quick, sliding right over Xander like he's just making sure his groceries didn't spill when he had to brake suddenly.
"Warm night," Giles says as flicks the key and eases the car forward, off the shoulder over soft dirt and long weeds. Xander's head bounces gently against the cushion. "Pleasant. A little close."
"Yeah?" Xander sucks in the corner of his mouth. Not panicky now, not with Giles talking, but he's so far from calm he'd have to dial 011 to talk to it. Thick, faintly buzzy syrup fills, overbrimming, his head and coats his nerves, a swamp again but dozey and sweet. Oompa-Loompa swamp, steam curling off the surface, making his mouth water.
"Quite warm. You might want to take your shirt off, in fact."
The car sighs to a stop and Xander almost rolls off. His hands, fingers thick and hot-numb, are working his shirt up over his head; when it pops free, the highway's just a stripe of red and white movement, a twisting candy cane in the distance.
Shirtless, trying to breathe through the chocolate fog, Xander realizes that this - this *feeling*, whatever its name is, is how he feels before the nasties come out. Slow, oozey, he's caught somewhere he never dreamed he'd be. Giles opens the door, and stops, one knee on the backseat, watching Xander. Watching him scoot back on his elbows, fear-gasps doing their bellows-thing to his chest. Highway lights paint haloes around Giles' head and across his shoulders.
"Giles, I --"
Giles is there, right there, so fast he's above Xander before the slam of the door is audible. The light's off and one cool hand presses Xander's chest. Broken fingers, pale and gnarled like driftwood.
Why would they make you see me? Xander thinks.
"Calm down," Giles says. Quiet, almost hushed voice and it makes Xander nod before he knows what he's doing. "Not second choice."
He believes Giles. Different from believing *in* Giles, which felt dry and safe like a tornado shelter underground. He hasn't believed in Giles since Buffy's birthday. But believing Giles is letting or making this slow sweet fog unroll over and through him, wetting his mouth, soothing jangly aches and old sore spots, rolling his hips like he's kelp caught in the tide.
"Okay."
Giles' palms, then his mouth, then his full weight -- dense but liquid, like Angel's bags of blood -- lower onto Xander before he's finished the second syllable. Pull, arrange, position him until he's rocking and bobbing under-over-in this swamp, his skull pressed against the door handle, foot braced on the floor.
Kissing Giles again. More than that, though, holding him, wrapping arms loose and hot as taffy around his back, pressing him as close as he can, listening to distant horns and upclose breathing like thunder, weather, climate, goddamn *erosion* roaring over him.
Giles twists, slides, lets Xander get his hands under his shirt, into the hollow of his back. Sucks out Xander's lip between his teeth as Xander's skin tries like hell to suck out whatever slick heat is coating Giles' skin from the inside out. Giles scrapes his nails over Xander's chest, then his nipple, and Xander bucks up, slamming his head back into the window at the bright red cinders flying across his eyes and through his cock.
Giles chuckles and Xander tries to look at him, squeezes his lean hips, digs fingers into the pattern of muscles there, but he's so close he doesn't look like Giles. Sounds like Giles, but looks like a jumble of human features, the mess at the bottom of a Mr. Potato Head box, nose-eye-curving lips. The sound's like juggling pebbles, low in his throat, as he does it again and Xander jerks and twists and Giles bites his lip.
Xander tries again. "Giles, I --" Don't know what I'm doing. But Giles' thumb is rubbing over his nipple, halfway soothing it, halfway really not soothing so much as making him jerk again, just less violently, and his other hand is pressing and rearranging Xander's ribs, stomach, poking under his waistband, just at the hip where it's looser.
"Ssshhh." And maybe the sound's supposed to be reassuring like a lullaby but if it is, it's one by Prince, the really dirty one they don't play on the radio but Devon's got a live bootleg. So this isn't a villa on the Riviera, it's the backseat of a car in SoCal. Feels the same. Mouth on his ear, then his neck, fastwetslick slurpy sounds that shower tingles down Xander's back and his fingers are shoving under Giles' belt as he twists his head back and forth, trying to find Giles' mouth but he can't open his eyes.
Too busy picturing Giles and *Daniel*, and it's sick and dirty, because he's seen Oz naked, seen how little he is, little and pale and bony and Giles is old, and somehow, no, it's not the same that said old man's rubbing the heel of his hand up and down Xander's fly, because Xander's larger and wants this and he can't imagine Oz --.
Or he can, since he is, all those skinny limbs wrapped around Giles, making him groan, and Xander doesn't know how to do that, he feels like he's just hanging on for the ride, doing what he's told by Giles' words and hands and whole body. Chipped nail polish and that secret smile around Giles' dick and blowjobs and he's undoing his own fly now, then Giles', rolling so he's right in the crack of the seat, trying to bring them face to face.
"Calm down," Giles says, because Xander's horny and clumsy and anxious, he knows this, but he wants to try, needs to try, but Giles can stop him with a look and a couple words, and he does now.
Giles sits up, kneeling there, reaching between Xander's leg and the seat, tugging out the seatbelt. Lifts his chin and Xander's arms come up between them, fingers curling and closing on empty air.
The belt's fabric is scratchy and unforgiving and ties awkwardly. Cuts into Xander's wrists and he can't breathe. Seriously. He's drowning.
"Need this," Giles tells him and Xander believes him, can't help it, doesn't want not to, even if right now he's blinking, seeing his own wrists and then Oz's, red hair and black fabric and then Giles', silvery hair and black fabric. "Need to calm down, Xander."
He kisses Xander like the prom date he really, really isn't, softly, shallowly, teaches Xander how to breathe again, melts his muscles back down to soup as he works Xander's pants down his thighs to his knees. Giles' tongue and teeth are familiar and alien all at once, but his hand inside Xander's briefs is more than alien, sure and dry and Giles sucks the moan into his mouth as Xander clenches every muscle in his body to keep from thrusting up, but he is thrusting.
"Please, please, please." Noise and moans and words coming out his mouth, dragged up from his gut with every soft brush of Giles' fingers over his dick, cupping his balls, and the word means something different every time. He squeezes his eyes shut.
Like that'll help.
Hand on his cheek, stroking his hair, sponging sweat from his forehead and Xander moans again. Strong and sure hand in his crotch, sweet and gentle on one his head and he can't keep track, just wants to melt and die but Giles is talking to him, like he knows Xander's giving up.
"Look at me." Sweet, hushed, coaxing and Xander does. Thumb rubbing his lips against his teeth until they part and he kisses Giles' broken hand, sucks in one finger, then another. He's practiced blowjobs on his own hands plenty enough times. Always thought, though, that they'd be in Giles' bedroom, clean white sheets and something old and jangly on the stereo -- Bach or Joplin -- or, honestly, in Oz's van, heavy with beerfumes and secondhand smoke, with Pink Floyd blaring. Too much to keep track of, hand and dick, fingers miming cock, in a vehicle with the wrong guy. No music except his pulse skittering and humming and his breathing going wet his spit as he sucks and looks emptily at Giles. Giles, so far away that all he can see is the halo. "Just like that. Good job, Xander. Such a good job --"
Giles groans.
He got Giles to groan.
Xander lets his front teeth scrape the underside of his swollen knuckles again and Giles closes his fist around Xander's dick as he pushes his fingers in and out, riding the groove of Xander's tongue until Xander knows he's never going to taste anything else again.
Never had anyone jerk him off before and his hands are trying to get into it, rubbing against the belt, turning, twisting, finding nothing but his stomach as his hips jerk and fall under Giles' hand.
Giles empties his mouth and Xander gasps in breath he'd forgotten, working his sore jaw, squinting into the dark as Giles disappears. Wet touch over the inside of his thigh and Xander's babbling again, good old "Please-please-please --", throwing his legs open until his knee smashes against the front seat and Giles' fingers plus his own spit are stroking his crack and there's wet heat around the head of his cock and he has no more hope of keeping track of anything.
In the redblack light behind his lids, he sees Oz again, naked in the cage, doing this to Giles, Giles tied up and begging like Xander is, and that helps a little, helps him enjoy, dams up panic and worry against the sweet, ripening fog doubling-tripling through his body as he slides squeakily on the naugahyde, Giles closes his mouth around the head of Xander's dick and then he's just - *gone*.
Making cake batter from scratch with Willow, melting chunks of chocolate in a double boiler, the boiler being Giles' mouth and the chunks are Xander, chopped up harshly and softening and thickening into ropes running together, and *holy* *shit* fingers in his ass. On, over, in him, rotating like the spoon in the chocolate, constantly stirred against lumps, and his head's thrown so far back that he can see trees and stars out the window.
Sliver off the moon, a couple days past full. He wonders where the wolf spent the night now that the library's gone and when Xander comes, squeezing Giles' fingers so hard they might break again, bucking and shooting so wild that his dickhead bumps and scrapes Giles' palate, he sees: Flames.
Explosion, aftermath, sirens and flames. Oz's hair, undyed. Giles' cheeks when he's angry.
Everything red and hot and Xander shakes from something like fear.
Giles slides his hands over Xander's thighs, his arms and shoulders, cradles his head, and it feels good, like a doctor or something, careful and kind, and he's babbling out sighs and moans and Giles hushes him with touch and sound. Kisses his forehead, tip of his nose, and Xander smiles shakily. Smells bleach and mown grass -- *cum*, he tells himself, that's what it is -- around Giles' mouth and he kisses him back, closed-mouthed and shy, then licks hesitantly like a kitten across stubble and the dent in Giles' chin and the little dip in his upper lip.
His hands are still tied.
Giles is hard against his thigh.
"Giles?"
"Sshhh. Quiet now."
"But --" Hands. You.
"Xander. Quiet."
He rolls on his side, back into the crack of the seat, and bumps his hands against Giles' crotch.
"But --"
"Later." Giles rubs his back in slow, shallow arcs, then down his arm. "Just quiet now. Need you calm."
"Okay."
He can't argue, he'll never win, but he can get closer to Giles. Xander buries his face in the curve of Giles' shoulder, kisses the sweat off his neck. Hears Giles sigh.
Someday soon, he figures, he'll be able to ask what Giles is thinking about. But he's still shuddery and dozey and confused, haze settling over his eyes, and besides, it's quiet time.
He's not sure he wants to know, not yet anyway.