Written for del_writes for the Forty Or Better Smut-a-thon. Probably the last fanfic I will write for some time. Also, my first ever BTVS fic.
Warnings: Spoilers for the first four issues of the Season 8 comic book by Joss Whedon, published by Dark Horse. Also, you probably should have watched the entire series, though this only makes reference to stuff from Seasons 2-4 mostly. Contains explicit male/male sex. Title suggested by Vehnu.
When Giles heard Buffy's report, he told himself he felt hardly anything at all. A little twinge of regret, maybe. A tiny twinge of relief. Mostly nothing. The important things to consider were that the monster-hunting division of the US government was no longer to be considered an ally--that they were, in fact, actively at war with the Slayers -- and that Amy was an active enemy and Warren was alive. These things were significant. Ethan's death -- Ethan helping Buffy and Willow, and then being murdered for it -- that was a footnote.
He was there because you put him there. You allowed the US army, some dodgy, secretive black ops subsection of it, to take him away. You knew they weren't to be trusted, and you still did it.
Well, yes. Idiotic to feel sentimental regret over that, though. Ethan had just turned him into a Fyarl demon, and he'd nearly been staked by Buffy before they could straighten it out. Hardly a harmless prank. He'd been quite within his rights to allow the Initiative to drag Ethan off -- it wasn't as if the Slayer could do anything to Ethan aside from beating him up, which, while fun, had never been particularly effective as a long-range strategy. Ethan was human, with a human soul. He'd needed jail, not killing, and the Initiative had been the closest thing the US had to a police force capable of handling supernatural threats. At home, he'd have called in the Watchers, and that wouldn't have been any improvement. Ethan would simply have died a year earlier, when Watcher headquarters and the few prisoners they'd been holding, human and otherwise, in the basement had been blown to bits by Caleb and his Bringers. Or, Ethan would have escaped, as he had the last time Giles had sicced the Watchers on him, and run about to spread more chaos. No, really, it was honestly best that he was dead. And the only reason Giles was headed to a pub for dinner tonight was that he was too tired to cook and didn't like the local options for take-out.
So he was very surprised with himself when he realized that he'd drunk five pints tonight, and three of them before his fish and chips had even arrived. Perhaps that was a trifle excessive, Giles thought to himself, and vowed to cut back. Just as soon as he finished his sixth pint. The chips were unusually salty tonight, almost as bad as American French fries, and he needed something to wash down all that salt with, didn't he?
"Pardon me for intruding," a man's voice said next to him, "but I couldn't help noticing how glum you look. I thought perhaps you'd like a sympathetic ear to pour your troubles in."
Giles blinked at the man. A businessman, perhaps; a bit stout in the middle, maybe even pudgy, with next to no hairline left and a smartly tailored suit rumpled from a day's wear. He had a friendly smile. And there was something about his eyes. Something familiar. "Have we met?" Giles asked, trying not to slur. "Because you're not the bartender."
"Well, no, I'm not, but I never pretended to be. I'm just offering a sympathetic ear, as I said."
Even drunk, Giles made a private resolution not to wish for anything. This conversation already made very little sense. "You sound perfectly British. Positively posh, in fact. But I jusht--I spent nearly seven years in the States. And that's what Americans do. They come to bars and ask total strangers why they're unhappy, and do they want to share, like some kind of nation of bloody therapists. Nobody in Britain does that. So you're not British. Or -- or you're trying to pull one over on me. Because no Englishman would sit down at another man's table in a pub and ashk him if he wants to talk about his troubles."
"Ah, but what if I were trying to pick you up, then? Then I might do it, right?"
"I'm hardly a pretty young thing. Neither are you, for that matter."
"Exactly!" The man's smile grew broader. His eyes had an electric sparkle to them. "Leave the pretty young things to the pretty young things. Who wants to feel like a creepy paedo uncle? Men with maturity and charm deserve one another."
The conversation was positively surreal. Giles was quite certain that older gay men -- or bi ones, for that matter -- did not go chatting up total strangers their same age in pubs for the general public. Had this become some sort of gay meeting place since he'd been gone? But he'd been to this pub several times since returning to England, and never had this kind of thing happen before.
"I'm not intereshted," he finally said.
"Oh, but it took you five minutes to come up with that. If you were really so uninterested don't you think you'd have managed to say so earlier?"
"I'm drunk. It slows me down." Giles put down his pint glass, which was mysteriously empty, and called out, "Barkeep! Another one, if you please?"
The man sat down next to Giles. "And one of what he's having for me, if you'd be so good."
"I said I wasn't interested."
"Well, you don't need to be belligerent about it. Tell you what. You tell me what's got you so down, and if it doesn't help to talk about it, I'll go. If it does, then we'll just talk. We needn't mention my second offer again -- not unless you change your mind and decide you are interested after all. So? How about it?"
"What makes you think I'm so down?" Giles asked. "Maybe I'm deliriously happy and I'm celebrating with a few pints. Did you think of that?"
"Then where're your mates?" the man asked. "I've never known a happy man to celebrate alone. A man like you, you must have acquired a number of friends in your life, mustn't you? So if you were happy you'd be drinking with them. Since they're not here, you must be unhappy, right?"
"They're all kids," Giles said. The new pint arrived, and he took a deep draught of it. "I can't go out drinking with them. I'm still their bloody teacher. Buffy could be thirty and I'd still be her teacher. Her and the lot of them."
"Well, haven't you got any friends your own age?"
Giles blinked, and thought about it. Between Eyghon killing his friends from his college days, and the destruction of the Watchers, he really didn't. "I did, but it turns out they're all dead. And -- just dead now. I just learned -- the last one, my best friend from my younger days -- he just died. He was alive, and, and helping one of my students -- former students, really -- and then they killed him. They just--" And he couldn't talk anymore, not without breaking down and he really wasn't going to do that in front of a complete stranger.
"I'm so sorry," the man said sympathetically, putting his hand on Giles' arm. "I know what it's like to lose friends."
"And the thing of it is, we weren't even friends anymore! He tried to, to sacrifice my student to save his own skin. He turned me--" Abruptly he realized he couldn't very well tell a stranger that Ethan had turned him into a demon. "He nearly got me killed. More than once. So I shouldn't be upset, should I? I shouldn't be getting drunk and pouring my heart out to total strangers just because -- I mean, he hasn't been the person I loved in maybe twenty years or more, and every time we met, he was trying to do something awful and I was punching him out. So I shouldn't be sad, should I?"
"Oh, it doesn't work that way," the man said. "It doesn't really matter how much your old friends disappoint you, how far you drift apart over time. Part of you always loves your first love, and always will."
"Ethan wasn't my firsht love."
"I'm sure he was in the first three, though. Given your age, and all."
"Wait a minute--" Abruptly Giles felt very, very sober, despite the six and a half pints of beer. "I never said how old I was when I met Ethan."
"You said your younger days."
"And that could mean when I was bloody thirty-five. So." He grabbed the man's shirt front. "You know me. You know who I'm talking about. You know my history. How? Who are you?"
The man smiled, and this time Giles recognized the smile, even before the man's next words gave him away. "Oh, Ripper. You still do so love the rough trade."
Without thinking, without reacting, Giles punched Ethan's new body in the nose.
"You bloody bastard, I thought you were dead!"
"I'm awfully glad to see you too, Ripper." The man who didn't look anything at all like Ethan Rayne, except for his eyes and his smile, got to his feet. "You know, you're making a scene. People are staring. Would you like to go somewhere and talk about this?"
"How? Buffy and Willow saw you, Ethan, you were dead. They said your brains'd been blown out of your skull. How are you--"
"Ripper, Ripper. We can't have this conversation here."
And abruptly Giles realized that the entire pub was staring at him. "You're right. Come on." He grabbed the arm that didn't look like Ethan's and dragged his dead friend and nemesis out of the pub, into the London night.
"So where shall we go? I've got an apartment--"
"We're going to mine. It's a short walk. And you're going to explain to me why you're not dead."
"In due time, old friend. It's not the sort of conversation you have on the street, is it?"
"I suppose not."
He kept glancing at Ethan's new form as they walked back to his flat. Literally a new body? Or some sort of glamour? It just didn't look like Ethan -- unless he was smiling that old bastard smile. Giles remembered that smile, remembered how, depending on the context, it could enrage him, or thrill him, make his heart leap in his chest or his cock harden without warning. God, they'd both been so young, then. So stupid, playing with fire. Summoning a bloody demon for sex fun, of all things. The whole thing had been Ethan's idea, of course, but Giles hadn't merely gone along with it -- he'd actually thought it was a good idea. Exciting and rebellious and a way to be someone he'd never been and always wanted to be.
Maybe Ethan enraged him so much because he couldn't very well take out his rage on young Ripper, could he. Ethan had never grown up; he was still the same kind of idiot Giles had been in his youth. And when Ethan looked at him, Giles knew, he didn't see the mature, sensible man Giles was now; he saw Ripper betrayed by age, youth fallen and corrupted, grown stodgy and stale, and that, Giles couldn't bear. Because no one wanted to be stodgy and stale in the eyes of their best friend and hottest bed partner ever. Because he didn't want to be Ripper, was frequently disgusted by his memories of his youthful idiocies, and yet seeing himself through Ethan's eyes could make him regret maturing and leaving that part of himself behind, and he hated that. Because Ethan had at least once been the kind of man who stood by his mates, and he'd grown up into a totally selfish bastard, and Giles couldn't stand that, either.
"A bit small," Ethan said, as they entered the tiny flat. "Come down in the world some, have you?"
"You've spent years in prison and the first thing you can do is criticize my flat? I got tired of maintaining large places to live. You can't actually find a small apartment in Sunnydale. Or anywhere in California outside of San Francisco. Or possibly anywhere in the States."
"Untrue. You can live in a roach-infested closet in New York City for the price of renting an entire ranch in Oklahoma if you're so inclined."
"I'm quite sure I don't want to know why you needed to rent an entire ranch in Oklahoma."
"Yes, I'm also quite sure you don't want to know." As the door shut behind him, Ethan whispered a word, and his image rippled and re-formed. And now he was the Ethan Giles remembered, with thick dark hair and a wiry body and laughing black eyes in a face weathered by time, but still Ethan. Still his own private demon, his own imago of lust, his own dark reflection.
"Why aren't you dead?" Giles demanded.
"Don't pretend to be disappointed, Ripper. I heard how depressed you sounded when you talked about my death, before you knew I was me." He grinned. "I always did want to be able to attend my own funeral."
"We didn't give you a funeral."
"What you said before was all the eulogy I need. You said you loved me."
"I said you weren't the person I loved twenty years ago."
"Twenty years ago you never actually admitted you loved me."
"Fuck this." Giles grabbed Ethan and shoved him up against the wall, taking a harsh delight in the moment of fear and uncertainty that crossed Ethan's dark eyes. Good. The bastard had let Giles think he was dead, had let Giles mourn him. Let him fear, for a moment, that Giles was going to beat the shit out of him again. For a moment Giles actually considered doing just that. But he couldn't -- not after being forced to admit the truth. Not after coming so close to breaking down and weeping in a public place because he thought Ethan was dead.
Instead he kissed Ethan, ferociously, with teeth. After a moment, Ethan responded, hands going around Giles' neck, pulling him down. Given that Ethan had tried to kill him more than once in recent memory, Giles didn't think that was entirely safe. He grabbed Ethan's hands and pulled them down to his sides, using his greater physical bulk to pin Ethan in place and pushing his hands against the wall. Ethan molded his body to Giles', biting his lip, sucking hard on Giles' tongue.
This was a bad idea. Giles disengaged, pushing himself away from the wall by shoving Ethan. He backed up.
"Getting cold feet, Ripper?" Ethan taunted. "I promise to be good this time. No turning anyone into demons. I'm a new man."
"Yes. About that. I believe you were going to tell me why you're not dead?"
"I'm surprised you've never heard of it, Giles. Such a bookworm you were, but you've never encountered the Ritual of Lachonis?"
"No.. no, I admit I've never heard of such a thing. What is it?"
"Well, I suppose it's just natural, after all. The Watchers were entirely too prim and proper a group to educate their scions in sex magic." He grinned. "The Ritual of Lachonis requires three components -- blood from both parties, sexual or menstrual fluids from the target, and the death of the source. I always suspected the Initiative might kill me eventually, so I made it a point to offer blow jobs to my captors as often as possible. I was hoping that by the time they got around to shooting me, I'd have the opportunity to trade places with some hot young 19-year-old soldier boy. Instead I end up with some colonel in information technologies who's obviously spent far too many late nights slaving over a computer with pizza and cola in hand."
Giles stared. "So you killed some poor fellow whose only crime was to fall for your seduction, to save your own skin?"
"To be absolutely fair, Ripper, he thought he was raping me. Most of them did. American soldiers aren't particularly kind to anyone they think is a queer. I mean, they knew I was going along with it, but they thought I was participating because they threatened to kill me or beat me or whatever the threat du jour was, not because I'd instigated the whole thing." Ethan shrugged. "I didn't mind control them into anything they didn't want to do; all I offered was a tiny bit of suggestion. If they weren't the kind of men who'd want to rape a helpless prisoner, then they were totally safe from me. Also, let's not forget they'd all have been completely safe and got away with it scot-free if they hadn't decided to kill me."
Well. That did change things. Giles still didn't approve of killing humans, but killing a rapist to save your own life seemed a bit different than killing an innocent. And as much as he personally had frequently wanted to beat Ethan senseless, the thought of people who would rape someone as physically helpless as Ethan was made him ill.
For the first time it occurred to him to wonder what sort of psychological trauma Ethan might have suffered while he was a prisoner. Even for someone with Ethan's bent for trickery and casual attitude toward sex, how desperate did you have to be to trick your enemies into raping you so you could steal one of their bodies in the event that they shot you? Ethan might sound excessively matter-of-fact about it now, and Giles was sure he wasn't going to open up and cry on Giles' shoulder about the torments he'd suffered, but it was Ethan's way to make everything sound after the fact as if it had been all part of the grand plan, and as if none of it had emotionally touched him at all. Giles knew for a fact this wasn't true. He imagined being in prison, surrounded by violent people who were disgusted by one, convinced they were going to kill one eventually, and desperate and terrified enough to conceive a plan that required being forced to have sex with them.
But he couldn't very well admit sympathy to Ethan any more than Ethan could ask for it. "I suppose it's a good thing for you that they kept you alive until after their torture scandals in Iraq, then. If they'd still been professional soldiers following the Geneva conventions for prisoners, you'd never have had the opportunity for your ritual."
Ethan smiled. "Your faith in the American military's humane treatment of prisoners is charmingly naive. I was always human enough to be safe to abuse and non-human enough to be worthy of it." He stepped forward, into Giles' personal space again, putting an arm around his waist. "Are we done with the burning issue of why I'm not dead? Because if I'm not mistaken, you seemed awfully interested in proving how non-dead I am, just a moment ago."
"This isn't really what you look like, then?"
"Would it matter to you? If I was that pudgy accountant-looking fellow I appeared as in the pub?"
"It would matter, because that isn't you. If you have to wear a glamour to be you--"
"You'll be pleased to know, then, that as soon as I was safely back on British soil I did a ritual to permanently change the form of this body back to my own, now that the one I originally have is safely mouldering in a grave and no one's likely to notice that now it looks like the man whose body I stole." He grinned again. "It's just easier to glamour it back into the form it originally had than a completely different form, and I couldn't very well come up to you in the pub looking like this."
"No, of course you had to trick me into admitting I was sorry you were dead."
"Well, given your penchant for slapping me around lately, I wasn't sure it was safe to reveal myself to you." Their faces were mere centimeters apart by now, so close Giles could feel the heat radiating from Ethan's skin.
"Ah, so I'm safe now?"
"I wouldn't say you're safe, Ripper. I never thought you were safe."
This time, Giles was fairly sure it was Ethan who started the kiss. Though he wasn't 100% certain of that. Ethan's hands were tearing at his clothes, pushing his coat off his shoulders and popping the buttons on his shirt. This was still a stupid idea and he should bind Ethan's hands or something, and the last time he'd let down his guard around Ethan he'd ended up turned into a demon, and yes, Ethan's mouth was probably too dangerous to leave near his neck. What if Ethan's real reason for survival was that he'd been turned into a vampire before he'd been shot? Absolutely he should be reasonable and sensible and put an end to this. Except that Ethan's hands were in his pants, caressing his cock, and his own hands were grasping Ethan's arse, still as firm and tight as twenty years ago, and fuck being reasonable and sensible anyway. Giles gasped, and moaned as Ethan's mouth sucked at the side of his neck. He'd definitely have to wear a high collar tomorrow. How long had it been, anyway? Not since Ethan, but since anyone? It had been a few years since he'd last seen Olivia. Had it really come to that? Years between sexual encounters, and he'd hardly noticed? When had he gotten that old?
"We're not teenagers anymore, Ethan," he managed. "My bones can't manage doing this on the carpet. Let's go to the bedroom."
"Speak for yourself, old friend. I'm used to a stone floor. Your carpet sounds magnificent to me."
"Then my bed should seem even more magnificent."
Ethan lifted his head enough so Giles could see his grin. "Make me."
It always came down to that, didn't it? Ethan loved chaos because he loved being totally out of control. He was the man with the plan, the trickster, the guy who managed all the angles, who could manipulate anyone into anything, and all he really wanted was for someone to push him around and make him forget himself. He had been the one who'd desperately wanted to be possessed by Eyghon, enough to talk everyone else into it. And the one who'd been looking out for his own skin enough to make sure that he wasn't the first one who they tried it on.
Well, Giles still remembered how to play this game. He pulled Ethan's own coat partway down his arms and then grabbed the sleeves, pulling them together, effectively binding Ethan's arms unless the other man wanted to squirm a great deal to get out of it. Then he grabbed Ethan bodily and swung him up into a fireman's carry, still holding tight to the coat sleeves. His back would hate him for this in the morning, but tonight he could be Ripper again. Ethan was scary thin again, like he'd been as a young man, without the small amount of bulk that time had managed to add to his wiry body the last few times Giles had seen him. Apparently when he'd changed the form of the pudgy colonel whose body he'd stolen back to his own, he'd had to use what he'd looked like immediately pre-death, and captivity hadn't been kind to him. He was light, almost breakable.
Ethan did squirm to get out of the coat, laughing, his legs wrapping around Giles' chest for leverage and his hips writhing against Giles' shoulder. By the time Giles threw him on the bed, he was loose, grinning an insolent grin up at Giles. "Well, now. This is comfy."
Giles half-fell on top of him, pinning him, pulling his pants down to just above his knees and leaving them there, so Ethan was exposed but partially bound by his own clothing. "Don't get too comfortable, Ethan. You've been far too much a pain in my arse lately. I intend to return the favor."
Ethan's dark eyes got darker, and his cock, already hard against Giles' stomach, jumped up, trying to spring to attention. "Oh, you like that idea?" Giles whispered roughly.
"You have no idea." Ethan's hands fumbled at the button on his slacks. "I hate these business suit things. Why do you need both a button and a clasp?"
"So my pants won't fall down. Not all of us still have the body for leather pants."
"These aren't leather. I've gone vegan. They're some kind of..." Giles interrupted him by reaching between his legs and fondling his balls. Ethan arched his back and moaned. "...oh, Janus, my god, I don't remember. Something."
"The word you're looking for is 'vinyl'."
"Yes, that. I can't--idiot design--there." Giles' own pants opened. "Oh, Ripper. Cotton boxers? What happened to the silk?"
"Too bloody cold."
"You got used to Sunnydale. Forgot where you came from."
"No, I just got too old to freeze my balls off." Ethan slid his hand up the bottom opening of the boxers. "Ah--"
"Well, if keeping your balls in cotton keeps them in this condition, I commend you for taking such good care of them." Ethan's hand was stroking and fondling him under his undershorts. It felt totally illicit and teenage, like making out upstairs in a bedroom with your parents watching telly in the den downstairs, and you couldn't divest your clothes fully in case they came upstairs suddenly to tell you to cover the couch so the dog wouldn't lie on it, or something.
But after all, they were grown middle-aged men. Giles used his free hand to pull down his boxers, kicking out of his pants. In response, Ethan contorted his body in a way Giles would have thought he'd need magic for if he hadn't remembered Ethan's flexibility from their youth, twisting around on the bed so he could get his mouth to Giles' cock.
For a moment Giles forgot to keep stroking Ethan, forgot to pin him down, forgot everything except how incredibly good Ethan's lips and tongue felt on him. Ethan licked his tip all over, drew him in and sucked on him, and Giles moaned.
He thought of the story Ethan had told him. "I'm... not planning... to kill you, you know."
Ethan released him. "Did you want me to stop?"
"Not if you're enjoying yourself."
"Oh, I am. Believe me." He grabbed Giles' hips and pulled Giles closer to his mouth. This time when his mouth closed around Giles' cock, he sucked harder, more rhythmically, his hands squeezing Giles' arse and spreading his cheeks.
Giles let Ethan make love to his cock for a few minutes before remembering who was supposed to be on top here. He pushed Ethan away, shrugged his shirt off, and reached into the drawer by the side of the bed. By the time he'd dug through receipts he had no good reason to save and over-the-counter medications he hadn't needed in months to find the condom and lube, Ethan had managed to get fully naked too, and was lying propped up on the pillows, gently touching himself as he watched Giles. He was grinning cheekily, his other arm flung back over his head, displaying himself.
"God," Giles whispered. Unbelievable how hot Ethan still was. His skin was weathered and abused by the sun, and scars cut across his body in some places it made Giles wince to think of, but he was still sex incarnate, still chaos and hedonism and the promise of sweet forgetfulness, delicious loss of control, in the avatar of a human man. Rather than jumping right into it as he'd initially thought he'd do, Giles took the opportunity to worship that body, to hold down Ethan's hands clasped in his own and kiss and lick him all over, sucking at his neck, his nipples, drawing circles with his tongue around Ethan's navel.
It was an old, old game between them -- could he make Ethan lose control? As badly as Ethan had always wanted that loss, he also resisted it, struggling to return the favor, to disrupt Giles' concentration and get the upper hand back. He writhed against Giles, trying to pull his hands free, pressing his cock up into nothing -- Giles was lying on top of him diagonally, leaving Ethan's groin exposed and untouched. He teased Ethan relentlessly, his mouth ignoring Ethan's cock and balls, circling around them to gently bite Ethan's hip and suck at his inner thighs. Ethan spread his legs wide, and Giles used the opportunity to start rubbing lube around and into his arsehole. Of course, that meant having to release one of Ethan's hands, but all Ethan could reach was Giles' head and shoulders. The fingers tracing his earlobes, stroking and running through his hair -- they felt good, but there was no way they could make Giles lose as much concentration as he intended to take from Ethan.
He kissed Ethan's balls, and moved up to take his cock in his mouth, sucking on it gently. His technique probably wasn't as good as Ethan's -- Ethan was nothing short of a master at cocksucking, in every sense of the word -- but it seemed to be good enough for Ethan, who arched into it and groaned, his legs and arse opening even wider. As Giles sucked on him, he penetrated Ethan with his fingers, spreading more of the lube. The tight muscle spasmed around his fingers, opening and shutting in time with the clenching of Ethan's hand in his.
"God, Ripper, just do it. Fuck me," Ethan breathed.
"How do you ask?" Giles released his cock long enough to ask, taunting him.
"I don't know. Fuck me, sir?"
Giles grinned. "I was just looking for please, but that'll do, I suppose." He sat up, letting Ethan's hands go. "Well?"
"I am flexible enough to do this on my back. Did my yoga in prison."
"But I want you on your stomach."
"Oh, well, if it's all about what you want..."
Giles lifted Ethan's hips up, and then twisted them hard, turning his lower body onto its side. With a small yelp, Ethan followed suit with the rest of his body, allowing Giles to finish pushing him down onto his stomach. Ethan tried to get his knees under him, but Giles simply sat on one leg and pushed the other one apart, spreading him out on the bed in the fully prone position. He rolled onto Ethan, lying between the wide spread legs, his weight keeping Ethan from changing position, and rubbed his cock against Ethan's buttocks. Since he no longer needed his hands to pin or move Ethan, he used them both to tear open the condom's wrapper, and rolled it on as he rubbed between Ethan's arsecheeks. "Is it all about what I want? Tell me you don't want this and I'll let you up."
Ethan was breathing hard. "Oh, but that would be a lie. And I prefer to save my lies for when they actually benefit me."
Giles laughed. "Tell me you want me to fuck you senseless, then. If that is what you want."
"You know what I want, Ripper."
"Yes, but I want to hear you say it. So there's no misunderstandings, you understand."
Ethan sighed. "You are a bastard."
"If I don't get to pretend I don't care if you're dead, then you don't get to pretend you'd really rather be on top. Tell me what you want, Ethan."
"Fine, then. I want you to fuck me until my arse is raw. I want to scream like a girl, and come twice in your arms, and forget my name, and remember I'm not a dead man after all. And I want you to get on with it, Ripper. Now."
"All right then," Giles said, and pushed into him.
Ethan made a strangled noise like he was biting the bed, and writhed under Giles. He felt so good, so tight, so hot. Giles took it slowly the first few strokes, going deep but carefully and slowly, making Ethan whimper. He could feel Ethan trying to press back against him, trying to make him fuck harder, but he used his own legs to pin Ethan's and keep him from getting the leverage against Giles' greater weight.
"Ripper, I didn't say tickle me, I said fuck me," Ethan finally groaned.
Almost without consciously willing it, he shoved hard, and pulled back fast, and moved into a pounding rhythm. He held Ethan's arms down, propped his weight on them, and fucked Ethan hard, almost brutally. There was still so much rage in him at Ethan -- trying to get Buffy killed, drugging him and every other adult in Sunnydale so demons could sacrifice babies, nearly getting him killed, and every other stunt Ethan had pulled. Eyghon itself, and Ethan's shining eyes and devil-may-care grin seducing him into something that stupid, and the friends who died as a result. Fucking Ethan like this was like beating him up, except it felt so damn good and Ethan himself loved it, moaning and screaming and wiggling against Giles' body, struggling to push back against him, to take him in harder, deeper.
And then Ethan came, howling, and Giles kept going, kept fucking him as he got unbelievably tight. It was almost impossible to keep going -- he'd hurt Ethan, and as much as he liked to hurt Ethan with his fists, he still loved him too goddamn much to hurt him with his cock. He slowed down, let Ethan readjust himself so his knees were pulled under some and his arse was slightly off the bed, and reached around to stroke Ethan's cock. Ethan whimpered, sounding half-caught between pleasure and pain. Giles knew that Ethan was perfectly capable of demanding Giles stop if he didn't want this to continue, so he kept going, slowly now, occasionally pulling out to add more lube, while he teased Ethan's cock and balls. He wanted to come so badly... but Ethan had said he wanted to come twice, and Ethan's magic was powerful enough that reality had a tendency to give him what he wanted when it was a minor thing, even if Ethan hadn't actually performed a ritual or summoned any energies.
It took several minutes before Ethan was hard again -- not exactly the instant refractory period he'd enjoyed when he and Ethan had been in their twenties, but not long enough for Giles to get bored with it, either. And then as soon as Ethan was stiff in his hand, he started moving hard and fast again, squeezing Ethan's cock in time with each thrust. This time Ethan was free to thrust back against him, and did.
Finally the sensation of Ethan's arse tight around him and his buttocks pressing back into Giles' body, their balls almost touching as Ethan arched himself higher, overwhelmed him. Giles cried out as his orgasm took him, blotting out thought for a moment.
When he came to himself, he realized that Ethan's cock in his hand was still hard, that Ethan was still pushing back against him and whimpering. He let Ethan go for a moment, disposed of the condom and toweled off, and then grabbed his shoulder and flipped Ethan over.
"It's all right," Ethan mumbled, his eyes glazed. "I've already had one -- you don't have to..."
"Do you want me to? Because I want to."
"Well. That's all right then."
Ethan was close. It didn't take much of Giles sucking his cock and playing with his arsehole and balls before he came in Giles' mouth, crying out.
For a few minutes they just lay there, Giles' head pillowed on Ethan's stomach and Ethan playing with his hair. Finally Giles said, "Now what?"
"Oh, does there need to be a now what? Can't we just enjoy the moment?"
"You know better than that. You know I have reason to mistrust you -- frankly, reason to hate you." Giles sat up.
"I thought we were past that, Ripper. I helped your girls out, didn't I?"
"You did, and I'm thankful for that." He stood and started pulling his pants back on. Ethan still lay on the bed naked, pouting. "But I know you too well, Ethan. You didn't do it out of the goodness of your heart. You did it because you thought they'd save your life."
"Not this time, Ripper. I had that covered, remember?" Ethan sat up. "I won't pretend I wouldn't rather have been rescued bloodlessly than to have to change bodies. Being shot hurts like all fuck. But I didn't help them because I wanted them to save me. I didn't need them to save me." This time his smile was very cold. "I did it because I want them to win. Because I want those Initiative bastards to go down."
"Revenge isn't usually your style."
"No one's ever held me prisoner for five years before."
Ethan looked away, then got to his feet and started looking for his clothes. But Giles knew what he'd seen in his eyes, for a moment. He'd been right -- not that Ethan would baldly admit to it, ever, but Ethan had been traumatized by his imprisonment.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault." Ethan put on his pants, still not looking at Giles. "Well, of course, technically it is your fault, but I can't hold it against you that you sent me to jail. I did turn you into a demon, after all. And I know how perfectly naive you are about trusting authority. I know if you'd known what they'd do to me, you wouldn't have done it."
Privately Giles wasn't so sure. He'd been furious over the demon thing. Ethan had played his friend again, had gotten under his guard and under his skin... and then nearly gotten Buffy to kill him. He wanted to ask why Ethan had done it, but in retrospect, no, he didn't want to know. "So what, you're a reformed man now? No more chaos? No more demons, and violence, and spells that drive an entire town mad?"
Ethan turned toward Giles and smiled bitterly, brightly. "I never said that, Ripper. But just as the dark side of chaos is random violence and lawlessness in the streets, the dark side of order is authoritarianism, military violence, black helicopters and secret police. The US government is going to war with your Slayers, and any mage they can't control. In that fight, I'm on your side." He shrugged into his shirt. "I'm not going to change my ways. And you're not going to want me to. Because you're going to need someone like me. Someone who's spent his whole life mistrusting and fighting authority, someone who's always seen the orderly, controlled, perfectly boxed up world they want as the enemy. And if you can recruit a vampire with a chip in his head, you can recruit a Chaos mage who hates your enemy more than you do, and knows them better than you do."
"You want to go to work for Buffy?"
"Work for? Not in the slightest. Work with? She and her friends have stopped my plans dead often enough that I know what excellent allies they'd make. And if we have the same enemy then I don't see any reason we have to be at each other's throats, Ripper. I won't be anyone's servant or soldier, but I'd be pleased to be Buffy's ally. And yours."
"You're not trustworthy."
"Neither was Spike and you put up with him."
"She put up with him. He loved her. She thought that meant she could control him."
"Well, I love you, but I suppose you know better than to think you can control me with it." Ethan said it casually, offhandedly, as if it weren't the first time he'd said it in twenty years and the only time he'd said it without being drunk or actively in the middle of sex.
"You're right. I know better."
"Well. Tell her I've made the offer. I'll be fighting them, whether she wants my help or not. She'd be better off if she could coordinate with me, but if she doesn't want it, that's up to her." Ethan shrugged, and picked up his coat.
"Wait. If she wants to work with you, how am I supposed to contact you again?"
Ethan grinned. "Ripper, I know where you live. Do you seriously think you're going to need to contact me to see me again?"
And with that he let himself out of the room.
Giles sat down heavily on the bed, feeling surprisingly sober despite the six-plus pints of beer. His body ached in unaccustomed ways. It had been too long.
He couldn't trust Ethan. No one could. But he'd seen the hate and pain in Ethan's eyes when he talked about the Initiative. Ethan didn't hold grudges. If he was holding one now, it had to be deadly serious. Giles decided he would, after all, take Ethan's message to Buffy -- Ethan would be better as an unreliable ally they could keep an eye on than a wild card.
And it would give him a perfectly rational and sensible reason to be seeing and talking to Ethan again.
He picked up the phone. It was late, but years of patrolling at night had made Buffy practically nocturnal. Time to see what she made of Ethan's offer.