In Nomine PatrisBy Trekker
“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” his father had said, about thirteen years ago. He’d been tall then, like the town bell tower, which was pretty much the tallest thing Xander had known.His mother, she’d been holding Xander’s hand in one of hers and a tissue stained with tears and mascara in the other, and she’d looked around like a prairie dog, and tittered a little laugh, dabbed her eyes.
Xander didn’t think his grandma was a witch. He didn’t say anything, though. Nobody did, because everyone knew that you don’t tell Daddy when you think he’s wrong. Cause if you do, if you even do that bad look-at-him-funny thing, he’s going to say, “Don’t be an idiot. Everyone knows that old coot was nothing but a pain in the ass.”
But it was ok, ‘cause when the man in the suit tried to make them leave, Daddy talked him into letting them stay, so that Xander and Mom could say good-bye to grandma. Xander didn’t remember much more of it after that, except...
Blue sky, green grass and the smell of fresh earth. His suit made his arms itch, and there was a fly droning near his ear in concert with the preacher, and all these funerals, they were all the same.
When the preacher said “... beloved father, devoted husband...” Xander’s teeth began to ache and he realized that his jaw was clenched. Then Giles’s hand was on his arm, wrapped just above his elbow. Xander felt that hand, examined the dark wood grain on the coffin, and tuned out the preacher’s pretty, infuriating lies.
Couldn’t ignore his mother’s wet, gasping sob beside him, though, and he slipped his arm around her shoulder, moved by habit more than real compassion. Her shoulders felt tiny under his arms, shaking like a spindly aspen tree. The blotched tissue could have easily been the same scrap of fabric from all those years before.
He felt like a camera, seeing everything and feeling nothing. Like he’d been hollowed out like a halloween pumpkin and scraped clean, with all his messy, gooey insides safely disposed of somewhere else.
He was still trying to figure out where the tasty toasted seeds fit into his metaphor when Giles murmured, “Are you ready to go? We should see that your mother gets home safely,” and he realized that it was over, he could leave.
He nodded, and watched Giles walk across green grass and sunlight to touch his mother’s shoulder, draw her away from her small knot of... friends, if that’s what they were. Although his mother rarely had friends. Most likely they were his father’s coworkers.
It was an inane thought, and he knew it even as he had it, but he couldn’t help noting that Giles looked pretty sharp in his suit. Not that it was the first time he’d had such thoughts. When he’d come out a few months ago his conversation with Willow over a long-distance line had degenerated into a distressingly giggly conversation about, among other things, the hotness of Giles. Of course, that had been late at night and after consuming significant amounts of chocolate, and in the light of day, it was all still enough to make him blush.
And anyway, it seemed kinda inappropriate to be checking out Giles at his father’s funeral.
***
He did what he could. Saw to it that all the food was put away, gently ushered the small crowd of relatives and friends out of the house when it became clear that Xander’s mother needed some time alone.
Quietly and firmly kept a lid on his disgust.
The Harrises were a drunken, angry clan, with no aspirations beyond moving along to the next base pleasure, and their idea of sympathy seemed to be saying “the next round’s on me.” Or, sometimes, loudly insulting the deceased and all of his kin.
Giles thought, as he set aside another clean glass to dry, that it was indeed a miracle that Xander had turned out as well as he had. Aside from the obnoxious quips, the young man did have a deep humanity to him, something that seemed otherwise completely absent from his lineage.
Giles finished washing the last glass and looked around. Truly, the whole house could use a good, deep cleaning, but he really didn’t think he had the time. Nor the energy to spare, given that he would doubtless be needing it tonight.
Xander had shown up on his doorstep in England, soaked to the bone. When he’d asked why he was there, he’d simply said, “My dad died.”
Later, he’d explained about the cause of death--animal attack, neck wound--and said, softly, “I’m worried about mom.”
And so, here he was, in a tiny, dingy house in Cleveland.
Out the window, the sunlight was finally fading from the sky.
***
They were back in the graveyard, standing over the freshly covered grave. Giles handed him a thermos of hot coffee and he took a sip and handed it back, and in that moment, like looking in a kaleidoscope, he saw a thousand other moments so very much like it, sitting in graveyards in Sunnydale with Buffy and Willow, waiting on vamps to rise. He had to laugh a little at the nostalgia, because, overall, his life wasn’t bad now, and he knew that the youthful innocence his mind was casting over those days was as illusionary as a magician’s card tricks.
“Feels familiar, doesn’t it?” Giles commented.
“Yeah,” Xander said, and then they were silent again.
This graveyard was different than Sunnydale graveyards. Almost treeless, for one thing, and most of the markers were flat plates, not the fancy marble favored by Sunnydalers. And it was cold.
Xander he looked down at the marker at the head of this grave, read his father’s name, and then wondered how many more of their parents’ deaths Giles would see them through. How many, before it would be his name there. Rupert whatever-his-middle-name-was Giles, 1954-whenever.
No one would say “beloved father” over Giles’ grave, and that kinda sucked.
For the first time that day, he felt tears burning his eyes. He blinked. Tried not to wonder if they would have to do this then. Him and Buffy and Willow, standing in a graveyard in the dark, waiting for something to claw its way out of the earth, waiting to evict a monster from a familiar body.
He glanced briefly at Giles. He was standing still and silent, his head bowed a bit, his eyes aimed the ground from behind his glasses, his breath a soft white cloud, his hands wrapped around the thermos.
Xander’s throat felt tight, and he looked away again, and then a hand shot up out of the grave.
They both startled, and then they were reaching for stakes.
The thing crawled out and stood up, all demon ridges and inhuman yellow eyes, and it looked at him, and it looked at Giles, and then it said, “Hey, I know you. You’re that faggot librarian from Sunnydale. What the hell are you doing here?”
Xander couldn’t move. The stake was clenched so tight in his hand his knuckles were aching. His whole arm was aching. Couldn’t. Move.
The demon, his father, advanced one step toward Giles, all tall and threatening in that way he had. But Giles didn’t cower before it. Met its eyes calmly, in fact, and said, “I’m here because I care about Xander.”
The demon-father laughed, and the stake trembled in Xander’s grip.
“Care? Oh, you *care*. Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Giles didn’t even react. Just said, in a perfectly normal tone, “Xander.”
Xander managed one step closer, but that was all. And then, the demon lunged. Tackled Giles, and they both went down to the frozen hard ground.
“NOW!”
And if nothing else, that was the voice-that-must-be-obeyed, and Xander was running forward, falling to his knees, and slamming his arm down, and he felt the jolt as wood pounded through suit-coat and flesh and muscle.
A heartbeat later: an explosion, a hazy outline of a skeleton, and then just Giles, lying on his back and coughing on vamp dust.
He felt nothing.
Nothing except Giles’ hand in his as he helped him up, and then Giles squeezing his shoulder telling him he’d done well.
Nothing. It was like he just didn’t even care.
What could be good about that?
***
Xander was quiet on the way back to the hotel room, uncharacteristically so, and when they got inside, he only sat down on his bed. He didn’t even turn on the TV. Giles sat down as well, in a chair at the small table where he had a stack of texts that needed translating. He watched the young man stare at his own reflection in the TV screen for a few moments, and then reached for a book. But before his hand even touched the old leather binding, Xander spoke.
“All these paintings in hotel rooms, they’re all the same. Ever notice that?”
Giles stood up and walked silently over to sit on the end of his own bed, just across from Xander.
Who forced a small smirk onto his face.
“Wasn’t really the opening of a deep conversation. Just kind of a random comment,” he said. “You think they get it all from the same place? Like, Hotel Art Warehouse or something?”
Even by Xander’s standards, those were weak quips, but Giles still felt a small smile on his face, invoked more by sympathy than actual humor. Poor boy, struggling so hard to keep in-character even in the face of this horrid day. His constant wisecracking and playing the fool could be so tiresome, but right now it was so clearly a facade...
Giles ached for him. He wished he could tell Xander to drop the pretense. Wished Xander could have obeyed.
But he knew very well it was never that simple.
So instead, he silently reached across the space between them and touched his hand.
***
Giles was touching him. He could see their reflection in the dark TV screen. Giles on one bed, him on the other, and then the spot where Giles’s fingers were touching the back of his hand.
And it was kind of weird and kind of shocking, but... kind of not. Kind of like he’d almost... expected this. Maybe even...
Hoped for this.
Because honestly, after all these years, he really didn’t need help to slay one vampire.
“It’s not wrong to need a little comfort, Xander.”
His voice was so soft and smooth and... British. And so Giles. Soothing as a cup of tea, familiar as the scent of dust and old books.
But the problem was, Giles was on his bed and Xander was on *his* and getting across that gap seemed... impossible. Like trying to hop across the Grand Canyon. Because on *this* side of the gap was quipping and snarking and generally being safe and normal. On *that* side was, quite possibly, sex with Giles.
Because they’d finally gotten to the point where they could say they were all adults here without the old heaping dose of irony.
But he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t say it, couldn’t move. Wanted... just wanted... Hot tears stabbed at the corners of his eyes, and he ached in some unspecified sort of way. Was tired, and hurting, and part of him just wanted to be held.
Another part, though, wanted... something else. Wanted The Sex. Wanted it *bad.* Just wanted to be lost in it, in life and heat and pleasure.
Then Giles was getting up and moving across, sitting beside him, putting a warm, large hand on his shoulder.
“Whatever you need.”
And then Xander kind of wondered if maybe he was taking this all the wrong way. Because Giles had never shown a flicker of interest before, and he wasn’t quite sure if Giles was the type to just randomly sleep with someone in some hotel room in some Hellmouth-y city.
Only, now Giles was sitting close enough for him to feel his heat, close enough that the mattress was dipping under their mutual weight and nudging them together so that Xander’s hip was squished against Giles’s thigh, and Giles was leaning in enough that his chest was brushing against the back of Xander’s side, and Xander’s elbow was resting against his sternum.
So maybe he wasn’t so off-base.
He leaned back, just a little, resting a fraction of his weight against the solid body behind him. Giles’ hand slipped off his shoulder and down, and then around his waist, pulling him closer, fingers splayed across his stomach.
At that moment, it was still just a hug. For that moment, he let it be.
But Giles’ breath was tickling his ear, and his hand was rubbing his stomach. Slow, short, soothing strokes that... weren’t really *soothing* exactly...
All he had to do was lean his head back, turned ever so slightly to the side, baring his throat.
He was hard before Giles even finished ducking his head down to place that first hot kiss on the bare skin just above his collar. He could have sworn he was dying. He gulped air into his lungs, one sharp convulsive gasp, as Giles’ mouth opened wide, hot and wet on his skin, tongue sliding against him.
Then he pulled Xander’s suit coat off his shoulders. Then began to unbutton his shirt.
For some reason, Xander had a flash of a memory, of being younger, he wasn’t sure how young, lying in bed with a fever. His dad coming in to check on him, sliding one large, cool hand just under his T-shirt, feeling for a temperature. Voice gruff, but maybe not as much as usual, saying, “Buck up, kiddo.”
Then that memory was blown away as Giles’s hands--not cool, not at all--slid down his arms, pushing his shirt off and touching as much skin as they could along the way. Then Giles leaned in even closer.
“Oh god,” he said. Giles’ hand was sliding down his stomach, down and down, and--
Tongue gliding up in counterpoint, lips finding his ear just as that hand found his erection. Giles palmed his cock, licked his ear, the twinned sensations making him moan, making him push against that pressure...
***
Odd to think of Anya, now, or perhaps not so odd. Remembering her quick smiles and her innocently raunchy chatter as Xander’s hips pressed hard flesh into his hand. He slipped his tongue around the slim ring threaded through Xander’s right earlobe.
It had been too long since he’d done this, had another man’s body pressed against his own.
In truth, he was rather afraid to, back in England. Not because of any unease with his own sexuality. He’d worked out those issues long ago. It was Andrew that worried him: that bouncy ball of nervous teenaged energy, sending off waves of youthful besotted-ness.
Even the potential of giving Andrew the slightest hint of a chance with him was really not worth the risk. Andrew, who needed a father far more than he needed a lover.
Xander, in contrast to Andrew, had finally grown up sometime. Giles wasn’t sure when, but the boy had finally grown into his man’s body, and no longer trundled about like a puppy with too-large feet. Somewhere along the line, Xander had become wise. He handled the African division with grace, and his subordinates adored him. Perhaps it was inborn talent or perhaps it was a learned skill from years as a crew chief.
It wasn’t really relevant, now, of course, but somehow his mind could keep rambling on even while...
Xander rolled sensuously in his arms, his whole body flexing into Giles’ stroking hand, rippling all along Giles’ own body, sending echoing flares of heat to his cock, which was growing harder with each of Xander’s languorous thrusts.
But then Xander breathed a soft, very male groan against his cheek, and his attention was riveted, his cock was steel hard. He turned and kissed Xander’s ear, his cheekbone, his temple, anything he could reach until Xander finally got the message and turned his head, and kissed him, openmouthed and sloppy, his breath hot and fast.
They kissed for some time, and then Giles stood up and stripped quickly. Xander watched with wide eyes, and, although Giles had thought this would *not* be the first time Xander’d seen a naked man under these circumstances, he suddenly wasn’t sure, and that sparked a small alarm in his mind as he sat down on the side of his bed. Xander was still staring at him with something like shock.
“Is this all right?” Giles asked, finally, and Xander’s startled gaze jumped up to his face. For the first time in awhile, actually.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. It’s--”
He trailed off.
“Uh,” he added after a moment, and then he was again not looking Giles in the eye, exactly.
“Join me?” Giles asked, now feeling more amused than concerned.
“Oh. Uh. Right.”
Xander stood up. His hands hesitated again at his fly, but he unzipped and kicked off his slacks and boxers without waiting for a cue. Giles’ amusement melted into something lower and hotter and he reached for Xander’s wrist as the boy shifted from foot to foot.
He pulled him closer, until they both were lying along the bed, body to body. Xander’s breath was quick and nervous, still, but his hand was rubbing Giles’ side now with a quiet assurance that belied the youthful nerves in his eyes.
“Xander, have you ever--”
Xander looked away.
“Uh. Not so much.”
He didn’t let his “bloody hell” show in his eyes. He just kissed him, slow and deep, and rolled his body over top of Xander’s. And oh, yes, they were just the right height for this. He could feel the hard heat of Xander’s cock right up along his own, and he had to groan, push against it. Lightening trickled down his spine as Xander answered with a small thrust of his own.
***
Oh, god, this was good. This was everything he’d fantasized about. Everything he hadn’t quite gotten up the nerve to have yet. Sad as it was, sex in Africa made him nervous. It was hard to feel safe when half your staff went home on weekends to attend funerals.
But ok, the whole point of this exercise was *not* thinking about funerals. Of any kind. No death, no stupid lying preachers.
Just Giles. Big and *hard* and lying on top of him, kissing him, god. He gasped for breath suddenly, even as Giles continued to kiss him, lips and cheek and jaw. He pushed his hips up, felt his cock sliding against Giles’. *Giles’*. Oh *god*.
It wasn’t quite enough. Glancing contact, driving him higher, hotter, but not quite satisfying. He wanted more. Wanted...
Giles’ mouth was hot against his throat again, licking him, biting him. He rolled his head back and groaned.
Giles was saying something against his throat, but he couldn’t hear. Maybe he just couldn’t understand. Didn’t matter, cause he thought that what he had to say was more important, anyway.
“Fuck me,” he said, and it was startling, how strange it seemed out loud like that. He actually felt embarrassed for using such crude language in front of Giles.
Then Giles was up on his elbows over him, looking down, with concern in his eyes.
“Xander... are you--”
Wow. Giles was all dark-eyed and his lips were pink and swollen and he looked *debauched*. Looked *stunning*. Somehow, he looked like everything Xander had ever wanted. Like the reason he’d always goaded him, back in those days, was just to see a fraction of this abandon.
“Want to,” he said.
He immediately hated the small frown that touched Giles’ lips.
“Xander, if it’s your... first time... it... it should be someone, someone special.”
He jumped in before Giles could say anymore.
“Heh. Look, Giles, I hate to break it to you, but you kinda *are* someone special. I mean, this isn’t the beginning of the Great Romance, ok, I get that. But... I trust you. And, ok, I’m really, really horny right now, and I want you, like amazingly bad.”
“Badly,” Giles said.
“Giles? Are you gonna fix my grammar, or are you gonna fuck me?”
It wasn’t any easier to say the second time. It left him feeling a panicky urge to apologize, actually.
Giles was grinning.
“Both, most likely,” he said.
And then Giles got up and *left*. But only long enough to get a bottle of lube and a condom and then come back.
“They teach you to always be prepared in Watcher’s school?” Xander asked, secretly impressed. And a little confused.
Giles didn’t bother to answer. He just handed him a pillow and said, “Here, roll over. Put this under your hips. It should make this more comfortable.”
Now lying face-down, Xander was about to make a crack about whether this was a doctor’s appointment or sex when Giles moved over his back and began kissing him along his spine, a hot, wet trail, up, up, all the way to the nape of his neck, and when Giles’ lips reached there, his hips moved down against Xander and his cock slid along his ass.
Xander’s world shifted a bit.
He shut his eyes and saw stars, had to lift his hips, had to push back.
Against Giles. Who was going to be *inside* him in a minute.
And he wanted it. So. Bad.
His pleas died on his lips, nothing but airy exhalations, and he could feel so little, and so much. Nothing of the mundane world around him--the scratchy sheets, the dry hotel room heat--but everything of Giles--his weight pressing down on him, his chest hair tickling him, his mouth kissing him, and his cock, hot and hard against him. Giles’ hips were moving already. Xander wriggled and the pillow hugged his cock to his body, gave *him* something to push against.
Then one of Giles’ hands jolted off the the sheets, more of his weight dropped over Xander’s back, and the hand bumped against his waist and then slid back and around and between them, and then, somehow, there was a slippery finger, touching him.
Inside him.
All his air left him in one sharp gust and Giles murmured, “That’s it. Good boy.”
And a part of him thought maybe he should be offended because that was kind of patronizing but, dear *god* did it turn him on. He thought he maybe made a noise. Possibly an embarrassing noise. Like, maybe a whimper.
And apparently, Giles heard the noise, too.
Because he said, “So good. Just like that.”
There were more fingers in him now, he was pretty sure, and they were moving.
Fucking him.
Slowly moving in and out, pressing slightly against the unconscious resistance of his body. Now Giles’ face was tucked close to his, lips against his ear.
He wanted to hear more. Couldn’t stand to ask, but wanted, so desperately it was hot and achy inside him somewhere.
The words came even though he couldn’t ask, hot and low.
“Such a good boy. Always.”
***
Xander whimpered again, knees drawing up slightly, lifting into Giles’ hand.
Giles hadn’t played this game before, but he understood the rules. Could feel the need underlying the pleasure in Xander’s tense, trembling muscles.
“Perfect. Going to make you feel good. Going to take care of you.”
Xander drew a breath and Giles sensed the moment of doubt in the way his hands folded into fists, in the way his arse tightened down on Giles’ fingers. Giles spoke quickly, to stop the words that were swelling inside Xander.
“Hush. Hush now, don’t speak. Be quiet, let me.”
He kissed Xander’s shoulder. Strong, broad male shoulder. Xander supported Giles’ weight easily, comfortably.
He felt him relax and so said, “Good. Good, that’s my boy.”
Pressed his fingers deeper inside and found the small spot there. Xander breathed his name and relaxed.
He was ready.
“Be right back, love. Behave. Stay still, wait for me,” he said, then he crawled backwards and knelt for a moment, straddling Xander’s leg and looking down at him, lying face-down on the bed. He was perfectly still, hardly breathing. For a moment, Giles was captivated by his beauty.
Surprised by it.
Then he rolled on the condom, and slicked lube over himself with a few quick strokes.
He let himself back down over Xander’s back and the boy--the man--sighed softly. Pleased.
He reached between them again, held himself.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Please,” Xander said.
He leaned in, and slid inside of him.
They both froze, then Xander seemed to melt beneath him, opening up and relaxing.
Giles struggled to find words as he pressed in deeper. Knew Xander needed the words. Had to say them, for him.
“Feel so good. You make me feel so good. Such a good boy. My good boy,” he said, pulling out, pressing in. Xander took a long, shuddering breath. He was trembling.
It *was* good. So damn good. Been so long. He’d forgotten the way it was so tight it felt like being squeezed inside out, the way it narrowed your world down to nothing but your cock, your pleasure.
He’d forgotten the way it was indefinably amazing to feel another man beneath you, surrendering to your will, your desire.
“Love you,” he said, because, god, Xander needed to hear it, and because in that moment--and in some way, always--it was true. Loved this boy he’d watched become a man. He loved them all.
“Love you, my dear, sweet boy,” he said.
***
Xander wasn’t sure he was breathing. Was sure he couldn’t swallow. Everything was dark and bright and endless. Pressure and movement. Sparks in the corners of his eyes.
Giles saying these things to him, these things that were turning him inside out, that were ripping like claws in his gut, but good, so good. He wanted to cry whenever Giles’ voice stopped, wanted to beg.
Couldn’t. Couldn’t speak, or see, or breathe. Nothing but hearing, feeling. Something hard and big inside of him. So much that he couldn’t feel anything else, everything he was seemed to come down to that cock inside of him.
Those words that burned in his ears, burned in his eyes.
“Love giving you this. Making you feel good. You’ve been so good. Deserve this.”
He was lost, lost in Giles’ slow rhythm. Giles taking him. Fucking him. Owning him.
He realized he *was* breathing. Breathing hard. Knew he was sweating, because he felt damp, felt cool, even as he was fever-bright.
Nothing with Anya had ever felt like this. Nothing at all had ever felt like this. Pleasure had never overwhelmed him this way, never silenced his inner chatter and squeezed his mind.
*Say more,* he thought, but couldn’t say, *Say more, please, god, Giles, more, please, more.*
“My little boy,” Giles said, and Xander felt his climax swelling from somewhere deep inside, like water rising in some dark subterranean cavern.
His breathing had taken on a staggered rhythm. Then he understood that he was sobbing.
“Come for me. Come on.”
He wanted to. Could feel it, pressure building up, unbearable.
There was a word, though, trapped inside him, that was holding it all back.
“Know you can,” Giles was whispering, and his words were cold on Xander’s tears, hot on his throat. “I know it, you’re my good boy. Come for me. Come.”
Darkness lunged in around him as Giles pushed in deep, hard, finding that spot inside him that made fireworks explode in his brain, and it shook something loose in him, his whole body was wracked with it, and his shoulders, his cheek, were pressed hard into the pillow, and he opened his mouth, just to breathe, and the word came out against his will.
“Daddy.”
And then he came, and everything was dark, everything was pleasure.
***
Giles didn’t come. It wasn’t about him. Never had been.
Xander was shaking hard. Crying.
He pulled out, and rolled to his side next to him, pulled him into his arms. Xander curled into him. Giles could feel hot tears on his chest. He ached for him. Ached for all of them, all of these Sunnydale children, so hurt and so alone. In time, his erection faded. In time, Xander calmed and quieted. His violent, shuddering sobs settled down to soft sniffles.
Giles held him, silently, until he cried himself to sleep. Kept him safe in his arms.
~Fin~