Chapter Text
"Adam's coming over next week." Ethan cast the words out as an angler would his line. He felt that way sometimes – that he and Giles were both trying to land the legendary 'catch that got away' without being dragged in themselves.
On the whole Ethan considered it a good sign that neither of them were dead and gutted yet.
Giles glanced up from his toast and the paper he was browsing while Ethan monopolised the computer. "Over here – here? Or over here – London?"
Ethan gave him a look which he hoped conveyed the total stupidity of that question.
"The latter – definitely. The former – probably... unless you have a problem with that?"
"Just checking if we needed to tidy." Giles defended.
Ethan decided that he could, if he tried hard, get a little bit more derision in his expression. He had had years of practice after all. There was only so much stupidity that he could deal with before his second cup of tea.
"Tidy is a four letter word!" he declared flatly.
Giles smirked. "You don't seem adverse to any other four letter words." He shook his head slightly. "You know, I don't remember you being this bad when we were younger."
"When we were younger we were squatting with the rejects from London Zoo in a condemned warehouse. The rats next door only came around to complain about the smell."
Ethan caught the slightly wistful smile of reminiscence before Giles managed to hide it among the news print and English Breakfast.
"Fine," Giles conceded, "I accepted a chaos mage into my life – I accepted the chaos he brought with him. I just hadn't expected that to apply to the housework."
Ethan laughed. "You thought I would do housework? How sweet. Although I do know one interesting spell... the furniture does tend to start talking back though..?"
"So when is Adam arriving?" Giles wisely changed the subject.
Ethan needlessly consulted the e-mail he had open in front of him. It had been sent late the night before. Probably, Ethan guessed, after another difference of opinion between Adam and Duncan. Ethan didn't normally check his e-mail before the sun was well past the yardarm but he was waiting for a paper he was supposed to review for New Mage. Adam's response in their latest exchange was just a welcome bonus.
"The 31st. Eurostar, getting in late afternoon."
"Duncan and Joe?" Giles asked hopefully.
Ethan shook his head.
"Joe has the bar to see to. And Adam says no e-mailing him about his visit – he'll tell Duncan."
"And the problem with that is?" Giles sighed. Ethan knew his feelings about Adam's little games with Duncan, he even agreed with Giles to a certain extent, but he respected Adam's choice in the matter. And he and Giles weren't really in a position to point fingers.
"So you have told Xander I am here then?" Ethan teased.
Much to Ethan's delight Giles flushed slightly. Still, Ethan didn't want Giles to think about his fellow Watchers too much. It made him... gloomy. And a gloomy Giles wasn't a fun Giles. It was something of an effort for Ethan to accept that his Ripper was now Giles. Ethan didn't like effort so life was just easier, and safer, all around when Giles wasn't being what Ethan thought of as too Giles-y. Luckily there were a few things that were guaranteed to remind Giles just how much of Ripper was still lurking around in his subconscious. Coincidently they happened to be things that Ethan rather enjoyed doing as well.
Exiting the mail program, Ethan slipped out of the chair. Crossing over to where Giles was sitting Ethan lent over the back of the chair and wrapped his arms around Giles's neck. Resting his head on the top of Giles' Ethan pretended to read the paper. Giles looked up, head tilting under Ethan until they ended up brow to brow.
"Are you planning on strangling me or is this some strange sex thing." Giles asked bemused.
Ethan smiled and tightened his arms slightly. "It can't be both?"
Giles chuckled. "With you anything is possible."
"Getting sappy again." Ethan warned. He kissed Giles anyway, it wasn't that he didn't like Giles' random bursts of affection or compliments – they just made him uncomfortable. What they had was wonderful, but it was a temporary aberration. It had to be. The implications were just too scary to contemplate if Giles actually meant the things he said.
Giles squinted up at him, trying to focus on the man above him. "You are very upside down you know?"
Ethan allowed the features of Giles' face to merge and reform freely as his own vision struggled with the distance. "You say the nicest things" he told the one eyed deformation.
Giles broke the contact as he turned in his chair and pulled Ethan around and to him. Strong, knowing hands gripped Ethan with possession and promise. And, Ethan hoped, the promise of possession.
"You sometimes do them as well..." Ethan hinted.
Giles kneaded the taut muscle of Ethan's buttocks meditatively and drew the standing man closer. It hadn't escaped Ethan's notice that with Giles still seated he was at the perfect height for Ethan to lean forwards that little bit more and...
"Just sometimes?" Giles whispered, lips almost brushing the tightening cloth at Ethan's groin.
"If you don't do what you are about to do" Ethan told him seriously "I'm downgrading that 'sometimes'!"
Giles gave a final squeeze and turned his attention to the front of Ethan's body. With slow deliberation he slid open the button of Ethan's waistband.
"And what do I have to do to get an upgrade?" Giles murmured.
Ethan sucked in a breath as Giles began to play with the tab of his flies. Giles' teasing fingers occasionally straying to encourage the hardening flesh beneath his hands.
"I'd say you were going the right way about it," Ethan assured him, "but keep going and we will see."
Giles tugged the zip down slowly.
"So if I do this..?" Giles brushed a thumb over the bright opening that gaped between the gasping metal teeth. "Mmm – silk."
Ethan laughed breathlessly. "You saw me put them on earlier."
"And now I am going to watch you take them off." Giles released Ethan with a small nudged and Ethan backed up a pace.
They eyed each other with fake indifference.
"Oh you are, are you?" Ethan sniffed. "What do I get out of it?"
"Well first you get out of those clothes..." Giles' appreciative gaze power-walked over Ethan's body. "And then you get to find out."
"Ooh, a surprise!" Ethan only allowed the smallest hint of sarcasm to creep into his voice. Their teasing seductions had become more common as they had both regained some ease in each other's presence. When they had first returned from Paris every word had had to be weighed and measured before it could be spoken. The fragile peace they had found in Joe's bar repeatedly shaken and shattered by misunderstandings and recriminations, some unintentional and some deliberate.
Even Ethan had to admit they were learning to avoid the danger zones, or at least spot them and think twice before charging straight into them. Ethan wasn't sure if avoidance was necessarily the best policy but whatever it was that he and Giles were currently in, it certainly wouldn't survive too much contact with reality. Or possibly any. Ethan still wasn't totally convinced that the entire thing wasn't just a very tactile LSD flashback, whether his or Giles' he wasn't sure. Drugs or magic made much more sense than he and Giles actually finding a compromise they could both live with. Not that Ethan was going to object while the sex was good – some of his best times had involved some combination of magic and drugs.
Leaving his trousers hanging open on his hips Ethan undid the top button of his shirt and posed provocatively. "So what do I get?"
Giles leered. "To undo more buttons!"
Ethan slipped open the next two fastens.
"And now?"
A sharp knock on the door forestalled Giles' reply. Disgruntled Ethan pulled his clothing together and headed for the back room.
"If that is Scrappy-doo I am zapping him to Canal Street and his clothes to the nearest canal." Ethan warned as he retreated. "And I mean the canal nearest to me not him."
The one blemish on their otherwise spotless charade about Ethan's lack of presence had come when the youngest, blondest and yappiest of the Scoobies had turned up unexpectedly in Giles' doorstep. Expecting Pizza Ethan had opened the door and found a new definition of curiosity. Much to Giles' public chagrin and private amusement Ethan had immediately christened Andrew 'Scrappy-Doo', and occasionally Scrappy-Don't.
To Ethan's dismay, but as Giles had predicted, Andrew had decided to worship the ground Ethan walked on. The only comment that Ethan had allowed himself on the matter was to note that at least Andrew's dress sense had improved because of it. Keeping Andrew quiet had taken an interesting mix of threats and bribes, some to Andrew and some to Ethan not to go through with any of the threats. It also resulted in him continuing to drop around on too frequent and inconvenient occasions.
"I don't think he would see that as a punishment." Giles objected mildly.
Ethan smiled maliciously over his shoulder. "He will when you send Xander to collect him."
Sure he had had the last word Ethan closed the door behind him and left Giles to deal with whatever horror waited on the threshold.