******
Unlikely, was what it was.

He could wake up any moment -- if not for the fact that  he
was *not* home in bed. No way around that. But
maybe...maybe a way through it.

The thought occurred to him on the interstate -- literally. He
was sprawled against a concrete barrier, blood trickling down
the back of his neck and eating its way around the ribbed
cotton neckline of his t-shirt. The brief inkling of being a
pancake under the semi that had just passed southbound
served as a...mild jolt, he supposed. A reminder that had he
gone through *that*, he'd be mighty disappointed indeed.

The blood distracted him from following through on that
notion as fully as he would have liked. Blood could do that,
in a funny way. Not so funny, the way statistics would seem
to have Buffy already flattened by several cars by now. But
there she went, weaving in and out of the mercifully
somewhat-less-than-heavy traffic and delivering blow after
blow to the latest vampire out for the ultimate trophy of being
able to claim a Slayer's death. She was doing it rather nicely,
quite probably driven on by wishing she were somewhere
else; so well, in fact, that the throbbing pain digging in from
the back of his skull took precedence over his interest in
actually bearing witness to her triumph.

Crazy, was what it also was.

To be bleeding on the highway and thinking of more private
moments, locked in the confines of a certain librarian's home,
as a means of blocking out excruciating fire in his head.

Crazy, but a viable alternative to Percocet or any other drug.
And a necessary one, as well, given his current
circumstances.

It was different, that was for sure. The days of slinking back
into the stacks with the increasingly difficult homework
assignments, where no one could see him alternate between
chewing his lip and mumbling the readings to himself...

Not a regret, not exactly. More a condition of longing, of
wanting to get those days before the explosion back without
giving up...without giving up what had come after.

Not that Giles' apartment wasn't nice; hell, with all the books
being there now, and the soft lighting and the soft furniture
and...well, there was softness. All around, the comfortable
feeling he could get being there was superb, but it was
*different*.

>From the days when Giles would merely glance up from
whatever he was perusing in the bookcage and observe as
Xander headed back into the stacks. He always understood,
then, the right way to handle it; he only disrupted Xander's
studying the once, that very first time when he wandered back
and nearly stumbled over a leg, and quietly hurried away.

Like he knew the feeling. Or something like that. Kindred: of
similar character.

>From then on, it was just *there*, between them; it always
seemed Giles should be nodding wisely or something
similar. But the comforting part was really that he didn't. He
just backed off and let Xander be as Xander was, and
somehow managed to convey silently that help didn't have to
be asked for to be requested.

Xander wasn't so sure he wanted the ball so deeply in his
court, not back then at least. Senior year was enough of a
hardship on its own; the hot mugs of tea and lazy afternoon
conversations would have been the proverbial straw.

And *that* was even before the sex.

*****

It felt nice, to slump forward and cradle his forehead in his
palms. May have felt nicer to lean back, but he suspected
pressure was not what he needed against twelve stitches. So
forward it was, simultaneously trying to will the headache
away and figure out what time he would be able to go to
sleep, going by the ER doctor's standing orders for
concussion treatment.

Buffy's defensive explanations of running out of gas and
getting ambushed had long since faded into the background;
he suspected she and Giles had moved on to other topics by
now, but didn't feel like pulling the support of his hands
away from his ears enough to make out the words.

Too little energy left for muscle control *or* syllable
comprehension.

The sound of the front door closing made it through the
walls of deafening flesh, and he most certainly felt the
sinking of sofa cushions next to him as Giles sat down.

And the fingers, too; one set gently kneading his shoulder as
the other grazed over the freshly-shaved patch of hair
surrounding what he imagined to be garish black sutures.

He let his arms drop, finally, and he practically curled into his
own lap, groaning at the exquisite release of tension in his
back under Giles' manipulations. "You're angry," he
whispered.

"I'm not," Giles denied. "What makes you think I'm angry?"

"Because smart people get angry at stupid people when they
do stupid things."

"Forgive me, but I fail to see that anyone has been stupid
here. Human, perhaps, and graced with bad luck...I'm not
angry, Xander, I promise. Weren't you listening to me and
Buffy?"

Xander shook his head, groaning with more deeply felt
agony at the movement. "No. What makes you think I was
listening?"

He was being lifted, carefully lifted, pulled from his
protective curl and drawn into the even safer heat of Giles'
arms. Giles may not be able to make the headache go away,
but he could keep it from getting worse. With just a touch,
and a breathy sigh, he could do damn near anything.

"Just the fact that you usually have such a knack for the art,"
he murmered, kissing Xander's forehead lightly. "They've
gone and denied you painkillers, haven't they? Of all the
medievel..."

"Hey, wanna do that again?" Xander cut in.

"Pardon?"

"Can't you just say excuse me like everyone else in this
country?" Mocking wit, again and again, veering from the
proposition he himself had brought up.

"Fine, then. Excuse me?" Giles nearly purred the words, his
voice silky against Xander's flushed skin. "What was it you
were asking?"

"You know...that little kiss thing? Just one more?"

Xander felt a bit like a child begging for ten more minutes
before going to bed, but what did glimmers of his exceptional
relative youth matter when Giles was caving in, and pressing
his lips to the exact same spot on Xander's forehead. "Is that
what you wanted?"

"Yeah, but...Giles? You missed."

"Did I?"

There was stroking pressure on his upper arm, a subtle
tightening of grip. Xander hazarded a nod, wondering just
when he would slip up and cry; for all the things gone wrong
that evening, and for the crushing weight of having
disappointed Giles yet again. So forgetting to fill the gas tank
was...common. But he seemed to always do the common
things at all the wrong times.

And so Giles insisted he wasn't angry. These days, that didn't
mean much. Giles rarely admitted to being angry, and Xander
*knew* he pissed people off far more often than that. Yet
another little fact that had been drilled deeply into his head
early in life, with far too many timeouts in the dark of a
closet.

Loneliness had always been a powerful catalyst for him, a
deep and chilling ache that struck most often in the dead of
the night. Puberty, the curse of inherited instinctual
knowledge blended with the awkwardness of a developing
body, had shown him exactly how the world worked. Guys
who figured out some magical secret to that period of their
lives had their egos fueled and stroked, and it became a cycle.
To the victor go the spoils, and to the holder of the spoils go
the future victories. And the others...the others, the guys who
maybe missed a few crucial father-son talks along the way,
for some reason or another, got to lie in bed and wonder if
maybe someday they would have someone there with them.

It fit, it really did. Xander Harris, always a little behind in
figuring things out.

Xander's rich fantasy life was fully developed by age 14, and
chugged easily along until Faith, with a brief vacation during
Cordelia. Even with her, the longing would be there in the
latest hours of the night. He was happy with her,
but...something was lacking. It was fine; he was used to it.
Not until Faith were the fantasies shattered for a good long
time; his two main thoughts when there was no longer any
doubt *it* would happen were of the awkward little dance
he'd been doing around whatever it was going on with his
feelings for Giles, and then that no matter what those feelings
were, *this* was still the fantasy.

To have a beautiful girl want *him*, and to sleep peacefully
with her in his arms.

One thing about Faith: she sure liked to break things. Every
once in a while Xander wondered if she ever knew that he
was one of the things she had plowed through and partially
destroyed.

The thing with Giles really shouldn't have been such a
surprise to him. Senior year and he'd managed to have more
intimacy than he'd experienced in his life. Not that it was a
huge feat, seeing as how pretty much *any* intimacy would
be an epic accomplishment for him. But the three different
girls factor -- now that was a shocker.

And each of them a disaster. No, Xander wasn't ready to
swear off females forever, but he was going to think twice
about the next one.

If there was a next one. Now, he couldn't imagine having
anyone but Giles spread teasing, moist kisses across his face,
each time asking if he'd hit the mark yet. And he kept
shaking his head, forgetting about the headache in the midst
of literally *needing* to feel Giles' lips against his.

And when it finally happened, when Giles gave in at last and
traced his tongue along the the very slightly blurred line of
changing pigment along the edge of Xander's lips, Xander
couldn't imagine anyone but Giles at all. Doing anything,
anywhere, at any time. His eyes squeezed shut and his mind
focused entirely on the brush of stubble against his face, and
on the sweeping mix of honey and cloves on Giles' tongue.

He still couldn't understand what a man who oozed elegance
as thoroughly as Giles was doing with a fumbling kid like
himself. But times like this, he couldn't bring himself to care.

Until he opened his eyes and jerked away, startled by the
clear, penetrating eyes that were watching him even in the
midst of that deep of a kiss. "What are you doing?"

Giles smiled slightly. "Watching you. Isn't that my job?"

"Used to be. And it was Buffy you were supposed to...watch
-- Do you always do that?"

"Not always." He brushed Xander's temple with his fingers, a
graze of flesh that was gentle but still made Xander wince.
"You're getting a bruise."

"I must've gotten hit there -- You're watching my bruise
form?"

Giles actually laughed. "Among other things, yes."

"Why?" Xander hated the way his voice wavered and
betrayed just how desperately he was struggling to catch up.

"I don't know, Xander. Because you're nice to look at."

"But when we're..."

Giles pressed a finger to Xander's lips; a thumb, to be exact,
perfectly placed and very deliberate in its attempt to press
into his mouth. "Xander. If it bothers you, love, I won't do it."

"It...it doesn't bother me. It just...confuses me, I guess."
Xander pressed the heel of his hand into his forehead and
gritted his teeth. "I want to go to sleep."

"Then let's get you tucked into bed, and you can sleep."

"I can't. The doctor said I should --"

"You'll be fine." Giles shrugged. "I'll stay awake and watch
you, make sure you're okay...trust me, Xander. I've had my
fair share of bumps on the head. Spoken to plenty of doctors
on the subject, too."

"Oh. Okay, then."

The stairs had never seemed so steep before; of course, he
was usually going up them for a different reason. This
time...sinking into bed felt just as good as always, and he
curled up on his side with Giles pressed against his back.
"Giles?" he murmered absently.

"Hmm?"

"Do you mind that I call you Giles?"

"Not at all, love. Not at all."

"Why not?"

Giles kissed the back of his neck, sending a shiver through
the muscles. "It's better than G-man, I suppose."

"That's all? Because it's not as annoying as I usually am?"

"You're not annoying. And no. It...it's complicated, Xander.
I've come to enjoy being referred to as Giles. I'd rather not go
into the reasons."

"Okay." Xander pressed back against him, careful to keep his
head positioned right, and closed his eyes. "I like that you
call me love," he whispered a few minutes later. "I like that."

Giles kissed his neck again. "I'm glad."

Dreams rolled over him sympathetically; one moment he
decided it was time to be asleep, and the next he was just that.

Sleep was good at times like these. Good, indeed.

**end**