Man Wonder 1/1 Giles/Xander
Man Wonder
by Dr Squidlove
drsquidlove@livejournal.com
No archiving, please. This is just Octoberfest gratuitousness.
Xander has been dressed up for Halloween. Giles is more turned on than he'd prefer.
Giles/Xander. Mild kink, romance
A few years post-Chosen
Rated R. Contains sex. No violence, no one underage.
Wordcount: 3042
Giles, Xander et. al. are property of Mr Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Thanks to postsecret for the inspiration.
w00t! I managed to come up with a Halloween-themed idea.
I'm posting drunk - but on time! - so please excuse any errors.
(Edited to update the archive version of the end, April 2013.)
Man Wonder
by Dr Squidlove
Giles smiled as he as came in the gate. The Halloween decorations had been upgraded since this morning. Their life-size vampire now had a stake through him, and there were three more carved pumpkins. The crooked one was Kayla's, he was quite sure, and the stunning abstract pattern had to be Asiki's. And the other... the pirate? Most definitely Xander.
He couldn't wait to tell Xander they had the planning permission they needed. Most days, Giles walked up this path excited to tell Xander one thing or another about his day, from a new slayer found to his irritation with the queue at the bank. Every day, he arrived home quite simply happy to see Xander. He wasn't entirely sure he liked what it implied about him, how much Xander had captured his attention these last few months, but it remained that he had. Barely twenty-four and tied in Giles' mind with all sorts of memories of someone far younger.
It had been far easier when Xander was entirely out of the realms of possibility, before Vi announced to everyone last month that she'd seen Xander kissing a boy, and Giles had gone from simply noticing Xander to a quiet kind of yearning. Still. It hurt noone else that he indulged the fizzing his his stomach every evening as he walked up this path.
A fluorescent pink ghost at his feet howled as he opened the door, and then it was drowned out by the girls laughing at the top of the stairs.
"No way. No way!" Xander's dark head was at the centre of a mass of girls, all of them dressed in costume for the Halloween dance tonight. He seemed to be holding on to the banister for his life as they pulled him towards the stairs. Slayers - Xander didn't have a chance. "I'm not going out like this!"
"Xaaaaaaanderrrrr!"
"Come on, Xander!"
"You look great!"
Mina solved it all, pulling Xander's hands free and then picking him up and carrying him down. She dumped him on the floor at Giles' feet, and Giles finally saw the reason for the fuss, and every drop of moisture left his mouth. Oh.
Yellow cape. Red and green shirt. Very small shorts. Green, thigh-hugging tights. Giles stared.
"Giles, tell them I don't have to wear this."
Giles opened his mouth and closed it again. Xander's hair was tousled, and he was putting on a pout for the girls that made him look desperately young. Calf-hugging tights.
"He says you have to wear it!" crowed Kat.
"No he didn't!"
"No help from Giles!" added Vi.
"Whooo, Xander!"
"Great butt, Xander!"
Xander pulled his cape around himself as he stood, which of course only helped to highlight everything. "This is why I didn't want to dress up."
"Thought it was because you were afraid of being turned into your costume."
"That's a secondary and also important reason. It was this or Genghis Kahn. Help me, Giles."
Giles sought for something intelligent to say, and finally managed "Didn't Robin wear an eyemask?"
The girls squealed, and Xander glared. "Now you decide to be a pop culture expert?"
One of the girls waved a strip of black cloth. "He won't wear it." They started arguing, and Giles sat down, but not because it gave him a better view of Xander's legs. Xander hadn't had legs like this at sixteen. Yet Giles was imagining him back then, Xander sixteen and Buffy and Willow trying to drag him out of the library to some humilating fate.
Giles wished he wasn't so very turned on.
It really was a ridiculous costume. Even Giles, with his official house role of representing all that was not cool, knew that Robin was a superhero with very little dignity. And yet.
That costume looked a size too small.
"What's Robin without a Batman?" Xander pleaded. "Will you be my Batman, Giles?"
"I'm afraid I'm-"
"Giles isn't Batman!" laughed Aysha. "He's Alfred!"
"Yeah! You've got a suit! You could be Alfred!"
"I am most certainly not-"
"He needs a bow tie!"
Xander grinned at him. "Alfred's still cooler than Robin."
Just wonderful. Old Alfred Pennyworth to Xander's Dick Grayson. It was utterly perverse.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Giles wasn't entirely sure how they'd got him here. Once they found out he owned a tuxedo, he was given the same treatment as Xander, bundled upstairs and forced to change. At least they hadn't pulled his clothes off him. He was sure they'd relished the chance with Xander. His arguments that he could best portray Alfred by staying home and polishing the silver were ignored, and now here he was, playing an accessory to Xander's costume, in a club where the noise and teenaged crowd portrayed his own definition of hell far better than the ghoulish Halloween decorations. As soon as they'd arrived, the girls had abandoned them to enjoy themselves.
Xander climbed up on the stool next to him, frowning and wiggling about when he realised he'd sat on his cape, until finally he had to get up and tug his shorts about, before he dragged his cape aside and sat down again. He pressed close to yell in Giles' ear. "You'd think, after all the effort to drag us here, they'd want us around!"
Giles shivered, skin singing along his leg and up his arm where their bodies touched, ear tingling. His lips brushed Xander's ear, hair tickling his cheek as he yelled back, "Welcome to being old!"
Xander laughed, grin spreading wide, eyes lifting behind the mask, looking dreadfully young, and Giles' cock twitched. Small mercy that he hadn't been packed into an outfit as unforgiving as Xander's, or this night would be truly humiliating.
"Can I buy you a drink?"
"Sure. I gotta try one of those blue 'Back from the dead' things." He pointed up at the Halloween mocktails specials board. It was a dance for young people, and consequently there wasn't a drop of alcohol in the place. Giles hadn't yet decided if that was for the best or the worst, tonight.
He gestured to the bartender, and ordered two.
He'd almost spoken of his feelings once or twice, moments of whim swallowed by fear. Last week, working late at the office, they'd got talking and lingered long after all the others had left. Xander had told him stories of Africa, and there had been a thread of loneliness he'd never noticed before. Soon Giles found himself talking about his time in Greece, when he had the run of the Byzantine museum's freshest finds and not a friend to speak of. He'd thought 'This is the night,' and promised himself he'd kiss Xander when they stood to leave, but by then Xander was in the midst of talking about a friend he lost in Darfur, so it wasn't the time. He put it off to the lobby, bracing himself as the elevator doors opened, but there was Gerry, passing through on his security sweep. So perhaps when they got home, he'd chance it that no one was looking out the window, but the taxi pulled up and a group of girls were sitting on the steps of the house. And then Xander was swept away to mediate a fight upstairs, and Giles had the evening alone to talk himself out of trying again.
There were days when Giles was sure it was worth the risk - if nothing else, he wanted Xander to know there was someone who thought he was special. There were days when Giles could only see the potential for awkwardness. Most days it was easiest to put the decision off another day.
"You should find excuses to tux up more often."
Giles tried to read him, what he meant by that. Xander tended not to be so open with compliments - certainly not with Giles.
Perhaps this was a day to-
"Xander!" They were swamped again by girls. "Look who's here!"
They turned, and there was... Batman. Xander's face lit up, and Giles' stomach dropped like a carnival ride.
"Hey Xan," came a voice entirely wrong for Batman's rasp.
"Jack!" Xander laughed. "You're Batman! Suddenly the girls' machinations come to light."
His comment slid right by the crowd of unrepentant faces.
"You look so cute together!" gushed Aysha, and all the girls giggled.
Xander pulled Jack closer, to speak in his ear, with a wave towards Giles, and Jack smiled, offering his hand. "Hey, Mr Charles."
"Giles," Giles muttered, but bulky young Batman was already dragging Xander towards the dance floor.
To his dismay, they looked good together. They moved as though they'd danced before. And Xander just looked plain wonderful, like he didn't have a care in the world. Giles wanted to be the one up there with him, hands sliding over Xander's hips, making him grin like that. The girls dancing around them kept sneaking glances and giggling, and sometimes Xander wiggled his hips at them. One of the girls yanked his cape and he stole her witch's hat, and then they scuffled for it, Batman aiding Xander all the way.
Batman and Robin, partners in crimefighting and flirting. Giles didn't even know what Xander's friend looked like behind the mask, though spandex left little of the rest of his very young, muscular body to imagination.
Dance after dance, until Giles saw Xander make a motion to get a drink, but Batman caught him and gestured for one more, and when Xander relented Batman pulled him closer. Giles could see Xander's colour ripen from here. A hand curled in Xander's hair, and then they kissed, and Giles went numb.
The pair of them were clinging and still in a sea of bouncing strangers, and Giles's lungs locked down. It was one thing to wish Xander well, quite another to watch someone else snap him up. Dragging his eyes away was a monumental effort, but it made it easier to turn back to the bar, and belt down the rest of his pointless blue drink. It seemed he'd held out more hope than he'd thought. A thousand opportunities wasted, and now it was likely too late.
It was a good while before Giles found the courage to check the floor again, and by then the pair of them were gone.
When Giles was a little younger than Xander now, he used to love this scene. Find some stranger and grind on the dance floor, drag him out into some rank alley where no one expected anything of anyone beyond the moment. Xander and that boy were probably pressed up against a wall right now, barely separated by their flimsy costumes. Batman and Robin necking in an alley. He never saw that in the comics.
"Did you see, did you see?" The girls descended on him once more.
"They were so cute together!"
"They were perfect!"
"They kissed right in front of us!"
"We should set you up, Giles!"
"I think not."
"Come on, Giles! Don't you want to meet a nice woman?"
"Or man!" They laughed.
"I think I want to meet a nice cup of tea. You girls have a lovely evening. Home by one."
Giles headed out with most of his dignity intact, hoping desperately that Xander and his friend had found a place well out of sight of the exit.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It seemed he wasn't going to sleep. Lying in the dark hadn't helped. Mentally listing every stupid thing Xander had done in high school hadn't helped. Imagining he'd interrupted them on the dance floor, escorting Xander out, dragging him by his cape to the alley and bending him over the waiting Batmobile, of all things, simply left him with sticky fingers and the haunting feeling that he was a helpless pervert.
And so Giles pulled on his robe and made his way back downstairs to the kitchen. He'd only just filled the kettle when the front door crashed open and the herd thundered in, giggling.
"Quiet!" called Xander. "Alfred's probably sleeping." They laughed as they headed upstairs on lighter feet.
Xander appeared in the doorway, barely contained by the stretched red vest and shorts of his costume. Giles' memory hadn't been doing justice to the outfit, and his mouth dried. At least it looked intact. "Oh. You're up."
"I was just boiling the kettle."
"Sign me up." He looked confident now, like he'd forgotten he was a man in tights. Like he'd had a particularly good evening, so far. He flicked his cape out of the way as he climbed up on a stool, the movement casual like he'd been wearing a superhero cape all his life. "You left early."
"Much as I enjoy sitting alone on the edge of a dance floor-"
Xander's eyes widened. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-"
"No, you don't- I was glad of an excuse."
"I didn't mean to dump you, it's just, I was kind of set up, and Jack's kind of...."
"I'm not- I'm glad were- You deserve to have a friend." He really did, and it was never going to be Giles, so Giles ought to shut up and be happy for Xander. He was going to start working on that tomorrow, when Xander was no longer dressed for some sort of fantasy role play. Xander's hand was skimming up and down his stocking-clad thigh, and it was all Giles could do not to stare. "You lost the mask?"
Xander pulled it out from the back of his shorts. "These things are probably tough enough to see out of with two eyes. This was not nearly enough vision to watch out for demons and guys getting fresh with the girls."
"I'll make a note for the files, in case we ever make a slayer uniform. No eyemasks."
"Cape's kind of impractical, too." Xander took the edges in his hands, and stretched it wide. "It's cool, though." He grinned, easily, and his eyes lifted, and his hair was tousled, and Giles' heart did a little flip flop. Xander would suspect something, if he didn't get a hold of himself.
Saved by the kettle. Giles moved to stand, but Xander beat him to it, putting a hand on Giles' shoulder to keep him there. "I'll get it."
Giles was treated to the sight of Xander shuffling around, cape swinging. It barely covered his arse, didn't obscure any of his long, stockinged thighs. Xander was talking about the night, and the girls and their mating rituals, and Giles wasn't listening to the words at all, until he noticed the other man's name hadn't come up. Xander served up the tea.
"What happened with Batm- Jack?" The question popped out before he could catch it, and they both looked away. Giles hoped Xander wouldn't take that as a request for graphic details.
Xander shrugged. "He's a nice guy, but a pack of teenaged girls aren't really the best people in the world to be setting me up."
"Oh. You looked rather... I'm sorry, it's none of my business."
Xander smiled, sitting down with that easy cape-flick. "If I can't talk to you, who else can I talk to? Yeah, that was... It's been a long time, you know? And he really digs me. Me, the half-blind, geeky guy with fifty little sisters."
"Why wouldn't he?"
Xander gave Giles a look. "Half-blind, geeky, fifty little sisters."
"And here I was, thinking he was lucky to have you."
Xander did a double-take, and Giles kicked himself. "Well, he wasn't. Or he didn't. We went outside and we talked. He's a great guy, but he's not what I'm after, you know?"
Giles didn't know. He had no idea what Xander was after. He reached out and squeezed Xander's hand. "I'm sure you'll find the one."
Xander stared at their hands. "I don't think finding him's gonna be the hard part."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A crack of light widened at the door, and Giles screwed up his eyes, trying to make out the shape. "Hello?"
Darkness again, and then the edge of the mattress sank, and someone leaned in to whisper, "Please tell me I read this right."
"Xander?"
A hand fell on Giles' chest, and skimmed up to his shoulder. "Yeah. It's me."
Giles didn't understand. He flailed a hand about until he found the lamp, and then he was blinded, except not so much that he didn't see Xander was still in his costume. Superhero Xander, on his bed.
"If I've got it all wrong, just tell me to go and I'll be gone and we'll pretend this was some sort of really disturbing nightmare." He was whispering still, and Giles was five minutes behind.
"Wrong?"
"God, don't make me say it." The hand on Giles' shoulder squeezed, and then fingers drifted down his arm. Oh.
Oh.
Giles didn't know what to say.
Xander ducked his head. "Sorry. Big stupid mistake. I'll-"
He moved to stand, and Giles grabbed his arm to keep him. Slowly, he laid his other hand on Xander's thigh, skimming his fingers over green stockings.
"Oh," said Xander. "Good."
Giles pulled his arm, until he landed on top, and Xander was squirming to get the blankets out of the way. Suddenly Xander's entire weight was on Giles, solid and strong, with one muscular stockinged thigh sliding between Giles' legs, pressing his cock.
Xander grinned. "Oh, good."
Giles reached down to Xander's legs, sliding his hands up until he found the edge of those tiny shorts, and deliciously round arse. "How much was the deposit on this thing."
"A lot."
"Blow it."
"Huh?"
Giles pulled Xander in and kissed him. At last. Lord, he was eager, pressing his tongue deep and scrabbling with every limb to get closer. Giles slipped his fingers under the shorts and dug into Xander's soft cheeks, wiggling deeper until only the crotch of those ridiculous green tights was between him and Xander's furred balls. "Blow the deposit. You're not taking this outfit back."
Xander gasped a laugh against his cheek. "Why, Giles, got a touch of kink?"
Giles pushed him off onto his stomach and rolled on top, pushing the cape out of the way to press his cock into the zip of Xander's shorts. "Just wait until I get my hands on a Batmobile."
Xander laughed aloud and then slapped a hand over his mouth. "Sorry," he whispered.
Giles didn't care right now. He'd be horrified later, worry about the girls later, recall all those concerns he'd compiled, later. Now... He ran his hand down the red vest to the absurd utility belt, down lower to palm the deliciously proud erection pressing at those tiny green shorts. Xander bucked against him with a soft cry. Giles burrowed in, lips against Xander's throat as he squeezed again. "This doesn't disguise very much at all."
"That was a problem. You and your tux. No wonder Jack thought he was gonna get lucky."
Giles didn't need to hear about how this cock was rubbing up against someone else tonight, even if that someone else went home alone. "Shut up."
Xander grinned. "Spent half the night planning ways to make you come."
Giles shook his head. "Not tonight. I already came tonight." What a terrible waste.
Xander stopped, and looked him in the eye. "You came tonight?"
Giles felt his cheeks heat. Perhaps Xander had the stamina of a twenty-four year-old, but Giles wasn't up for another round this soon. "I was hardly anticipating a midnight visitor."
Xander's ever-hopeful hand drifted down to press Giles' half-hard cock. "You were thinking about me?"
"Of course I was thinking of you. Prancing around in this, what the hell else would I be thinking of?"
And of course the waspish tone slid right off Xander. "If I'd known that... I mean, if you'd given me the slightest clue, I would have come home sooner." He tugged at the hem of Giles' t-shirt, hauling it up. "Tell me you were still wearing the suit." He waited until Giles had pulled his shirt over his head to run his hands through the fur on his chest, looking pleased.
"You can imagine it any way you like. Right now I'm going to imagine we just vanquished a few terrible villains together, and have driven home to our luxurious and incredibly private Batcave."
"With a luxurious and incredibly private bedroom?"
Giles shook his head. "With a shiny Batmobile to spread you over." He pressed Xander's hands back against an imaginary car bonnet, and slid down to rub his face against straining shorts.
Xander gasped and laughed. "Best Halloween costume ever."
by Dr Squidlove
drsquidlove@livejournal.com
No archiving, please. This is just Octoberfest gratuitousness.
Xander has been dressed up for Halloween. Giles is more turned on than he'd prefer.
Giles/Xander. Mild kink, romance
A few years post-Chosen
Rated R. Contains sex. No violence, no one underage.
Wordcount: 3042
Giles, Xander et. al. are property of Mr Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Thanks to postsecret for the inspiration.
w00t! I managed to come up with a Halloween-themed idea.
I'm posting drunk - but on time! - so please excuse any errors.
(Edited to update the archive version of the end, April 2013.)
Man Wonder
by Dr Squidlove
Giles smiled as he as came in the gate. The Halloween decorations had been upgraded since this morning. Their life-size vampire now had a stake through him, and there were three more carved pumpkins. The crooked one was Kayla's, he was quite sure, and the stunning abstract pattern had to be Asiki's. And the other... the pirate? Most definitely Xander.
He couldn't wait to tell Xander they had the planning permission they needed. Most days, Giles walked up this path excited to tell Xander one thing or another about his day, from a new slayer found to his irritation with the queue at the bank. Every day, he arrived home quite simply happy to see Xander. He wasn't entirely sure he liked what it implied about him, how much Xander had captured his attention these last few months, but it remained that he had. Barely twenty-four and tied in Giles' mind with all sorts of memories of someone far younger.
It had been far easier when Xander was entirely out of the realms of possibility, before Vi announced to everyone last month that she'd seen Xander kissing a boy, and Giles had gone from simply noticing Xander to a quiet kind of yearning. Still. It hurt noone else that he indulged the fizzing his his stomach every evening as he walked up this path.
A fluorescent pink ghost at his feet howled as he opened the door, and then it was drowned out by the girls laughing at the top of the stairs.
"No way. No way!" Xander's dark head was at the centre of a mass of girls, all of them dressed in costume for the Halloween dance tonight. He seemed to be holding on to the banister for his life as they pulled him towards the stairs. Slayers - Xander didn't have a chance. "I'm not going out like this!"
"Xaaaaaaanderrrrr!"
"Come on, Xander!"
"You look great!"
Mina solved it all, pulling Xander's hands free and then picking him up and carrying him down. She dumped him on the floor at Giles' feet, and Giles finally saw the reason for the fuss, and every drop of moisture left his mouth. Oh.
Yellow cape. Red and green shirt. Very small shorts. Green, thigh-hugging tights. Giles stared.
"Giles, tell them I don't have to wear this."
Giles opened his mouth and closed it again. Xander's hair was tousled, and he was putting on a pout for the girls that made him look desperately young. Calf-hugging tights.
"He says you have to wear it!" crowed Kat.
"No he didn't!"
"No help from Giles!" added Vi.
"Whooo, Xander!"
"Great butt, Xander!"
Xander pulled his cape around himself as he stood, which of course only helped to highlight everything. "This is why I didn't want to dress up."
"Thought it was because you were afraid of being turned into your costume."
"That's a secondary and also important reason. It was this or Genghis Kahn. Help me, Giles."
Giles sought for something intelligent to say, and finally managed "Didn't Robin wear an eyemask?"
The girls squealed, and Xander glared. "Now you decide to be a pop culture expert?"
One of the girls waved a strip of black cloth. "He won't wear it." They started arguing, and Giles sat down, but not because it gave him a better view of Xander's legs. Xander hadn't had legs like this at sixteen. Yet Giles was imagining him back then, Xander sixteen and Buffy and Willow trying to drag him out of the library to some humilating fate.
Giles wished he wasn't so very turned on.
It really was a ridiculous costume. Even Giles, with his official house role of representing all that was not cool, knew that Robin was a superhero with very little dignity. And yet.
That costume looked a size too small.
"What's Robin without a Batman?" Xander pleaded. "Will you be my Batman, Giles?"
"I'm afraid I'm-"
"Giles isn't Batman!" laughed Aysha. "He's Alfred!"
"Yeah! You've got a suit! You could be Alfred!"
"I am most certainly not-"
"He needs a bow tie!"
Xander grinned at him. "Alfred's still cooler than Robin."
Just wonderful. Old Alfred Pennyworth to Xander's Dick Grayson. It was utterly perverse.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Giles wasn't entirely sure how they'd got him here. Once they found out he owned a tuxedo, he was given the same treatment as Xander, bundled upstairs and forced to change. At least they hadn't pulled his clothes off him. He was sure they'd relished the chance with Xander. His arguments that he could best portray Alfred by staying home and polishing the silver were ignored, and now here he was, playing an accessory to Xander's costume, in a club where the noise and teenaged crowd portrayed his own definition of hell far better than the ghoulish Halloween decorations. As soon as they'd arrived, the girls had abandoned them to enjoy themselves.
Xander climbed up on the stool next to him, frowning and wiggling about when he realised he'd sat on his cape, until finally he had to get up and tug his shorts about, before he dragged his cape aside and sat down again. He pressed close to yell in Giles' ear. "You'd think, after all the effort to drag us here, they'd want us around!"
Giles shivered, skin singing along his leg and up his arm where their bodies touched, ear tingling. His lips brushed Xander's ear, hair tickling his cheek as he yelled back, "Welcome to being old!"
Xander laughed, grin spreading wide, eyes lifting behind the mask, looking dreadfully young, and Giles' cock twitched. Small mercy that he hadn't been packed into an outfit as unforgiving as Xander's, or this night would be truly humiliating.
"Can I buy you a drink?"
"Sure. I gotta try one of those blue 'Back from the dead' things." He pointed up at the Halloween mocktails specials board. It was a dance for young people, and consequently there wasn't a drop of alcohol in the place. Giles hadn't yet decided if that was for the best or the worst, tonight.
He gestured to the bartender, and ordered two.
He'd almost spoken of his feelings once or twice, moments of whim swallowed by fear. Last week, working late at the office, they'd got talking and lingered long after all the others had left. Xander had told him stories of Africa, and there had been a thread of loneliness he'd never noticed before. Soon Giles found himself talking about his time in Greece, when he had the run of the Byzantine museum's freshest finds and not a friend to speak of. He'd thought 'This is the night,' and promised himself he'd kiss Xander when they stood to leave, but by then Xander was in the midst of talking about a friend he lost in Darfur, so it wasn't the time. He put it off to the lobby, bracing himself as the elevator doors opened, but there was Gerry, passing through on his security sweep. So perhaps when they got home, he'd chance it that no one was looking out the window, but the taxi pulled up and a group of girls were sitting on the steps of the house. And then Xander was swept away to mediate a fight upstairs, and Giles had the evening alone to talk himself out of trying again.
There were days when Giles was sure it was worth the risk - if nothing else, he wanted Xander to know there was someone who thought he was special. There were days when Giles could only see the potential for awkwardness. Most days it was easiest to put the decision off another day.
"You should find excuses to tux up more often."
Giles tried to read him, what he meant by that. Xander tended not to be so open with compliments - certainly not with Giles.
Perhaps this was a day to-
"Xander!" They were swamped again by girls. "Look who's here!"
They turned, and there was... Batman. Xander's face lit up, and Giles' stomach dropped like a carnival ride.
"Hey Xan," came a voice entirely wrong for Batman's rasp.
"Jack!" Xander laughed. "You're Batman! Suddenly the girls' machinations come to light."
His comment slid right by the crowd of unrepentant faces.
"You look so cute together!" gushed Aysha, and all the girls giggled.
Xander pulled Jack closer, to speak in his ear, with a wave towards Giles, and Jack smiled, offering his hand. "Hey, Mr Charles."
"Giles," Giles muttered, but bulky young Batman was already dragging Xander towards the dance floor.
To his dismay, they looked good together. They moved as though they'd danced before. And Xander just looked plain wonderful, like he didn't have a care in the world. Giles wanted to be the one up there with him, hands sliding over Xander's hips, making him grin like that. The girls dancing around them kept sneaking glances and giggling, and sometimes Xander wiggled his hips at them. One of the girls yanked his cape and he stole her witch's hat, and then they scuffled for it, Batman aiding Xander all the way.
Batman and Robin, partners in crimefighting and flirting. Giles didn't even know what Xander's friend looked like behind the mask, though spandex left little of the rest of his very young, muscular body to imagination.
Dance after dance, until Giles saw Xander make a motion to get a drink, but Batman caught him and gestured for one more, and when Xander relented Batman pulled him closer. Giles could see Xander's colour ripen from here. A hand curled in Xander's hair, and then they kissed, and Giles went numb.
The pair of them were clinging and still in a sea of bouncing strangers, and Giles's lungs locked down. It was one thing to wish Xander well, quite another to watch someone else snap him up. Dragging his eyes away was a monumental effort, but it made it easier to turn back to the bar, and belt down the rest of his pointless blue drink. It seemed he'd held out more hope than he'd thought. A thousand opportunities wasted, and now it was likely too late.
It was a good while before Giles found the courage to check the floor again, and by then the pair of them were gone.
When Giles was a little younger than Xander now, he used to love this scene. Find some stranger and grind on the dance floor, drag him out into some rank alley where no one expected anything of anyone beyond the moment. Xander and that boy were probably pressed up against a wall right now, barely separated by their flimsy costumes. Batman and Robin necking in an alley. He never saw that in the comics.
"Did you see, did you see?" The girls descended on him once more.
"They were so cute together!"
"They were perfect!"
"They kissed right in front of us!"
"We should set you up, Giles!"
"I think not."
"Come on, Giles! Don't you want to meet a nice woman?"
"Or man!" They laughed.
"I think I want to meet a nice cup of tea. You girls have a lovely evening. Home by one."
Giles headed out with most of his dignity intact, hoping desperately that Xander and his friend had found a place well out of sight of the exit.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It seemed he wasn't going to sleep. Lying in the dark hadn't helped. Mentally listing every stupid thing Xander had done in high school hadn't helped. Imagining he'd interrupted them on the dance floor, escorting Xander out, dragging him by his cape to the alley and bending him over the waiting Batmobile, of all things, simply left him with sticky fingers and the haunting feeling that he was a helpless pervert.
And so Giles pulled on his robe and made his way back downstairs to the kitchen. He'd only just filled the kettle when the front door crashed open and the herd thundered in, giggling.
"Quiet!" called Xander. "Alfred's probably sleeping." They laughed as they headed upstairs on lighter feet.
Xander appeared in the doorway, barely contained by the stretched red vest and shorts of his costume. Giles' memory hadn't been doing justice to the outfit, and his mouth dried. At least it looked intact. "Oh. You're up."
"I was just boiling the kettle."
"Sign me up." He looked confident now, like he'd forgotten he was a man in tights. Like he'd had a particularly good evening, so far. He flicked his cape out of the way as he climbed up on a stool, the movement casual like he'd been wearing a superhero cape all his life. "You left early."
"Much as I enjoy sitting alone on the edge of a dance floor-"
Xander's eyes widened. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-"
"No, you don't- I was glad of an excuse."
"I didn't mean to dump you, it's just, I was kind of set up, and Jack's kind of...."
"I'm not- I'm glad were- You deserve to have a friend." He really did, and it was never going to be Giles, so Giles ought to shut up and be happy for Xander. He was going to start working on that tomorrow, when Xander was no longer dressed for some sort of fantasy role play. Xander's hand was skimming up and down his stocking-clad thigh, and it was all Giles could do not to stare. "You lost the mask?"
Xander pulled it out from the back of his shorts. "These things are probably tough enough to see out of with two eyes. This was not nearly enough vision to watch out for demons and guys getting fresh with the girls."
"I'll make a note for the files, in case we ever make a slayer uniform. No eyemasks."
"Cape's kind of impractical, too." Xander took the edges in his hands, and stretched it wide. "It's cool, though." He grinned, easily, and his eyes lifted, and his hair was tousled, and Giles' heart did a little flip flop. Xander would suspect something, if he didn't get a hold of himself.
Saved by the kettle. Giles moved to stand, but Xander beat him to it, putting a hand on Giles' shoulder to keep him there. "I'll get it."
Giles was treated to the sight of Xander shuffling around, cape swinging. It barely covered his arse, didn't obscure any of his long, stockinged thighs. Xander was talking about the night, and the girls and their mating rituals, and Giles wasn't listening to the words at all, until he noticed the other man's name hadn't come up. Xander served up the tea.
"What happened with Batm- Jack?" The question popped out before he could catch it, and they both looked away. Giles hoped Xander wouldn't take that as a request for graphic details.
Xander shrugged. "He's a nice guy, but a pack of teenaged girls aren't really the best people in the world to be setting me up."
"Oh. You looked rather... I'm sorry, it's none of my business."
Xander smiled, sitting down with that easy cape-flick. "If I can't talk to you, who else can I talk to? Yeah, that was... It's been a long time, you know? And he really digs me. Me, the half-blind, geeky guy with fifty little sisters."
"Why wouldn't he?"
Xander gave Giles a look. "Half-blind, geeky, fifty little sisters."
"And here I was, thinking he was lucky to have you."
Xander did a double-take, and Giles kicked himself. "Well, he wasn't. Or he didn't. We went outside and we talked. He's a great guy, but he's not what I'm after, you know?"
Giles didn't know. He had no idea what Xander was after. He reached out and squeezed Xander's hand. "I'm sure you'll find the one."
Xander stared at their hands. "I don't think finding him's gonna be the hard part."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A crack of light widened at the door, and Giles screwed up his eyes, trying to make out the shape. "Hello?"
Darkness again, and then the edge of the mattress sank, and someone leaned in to whisper, "Please tell me I read this right."
"Xander?"
A hand fell on Giles' chest, and skimmed up to his shoulder. "Yeah. It's me."
Giles didn't understand. He flailed a hand about until he found the lamp, and then he was blinded, except not so much that he didn't see Xander was still in his costume. Superhero Xander, on his bed.
"If I've got it all wrong, just tell me to go and I'll be gone and we'll pretend this was some sort of really disturbing nightmare." He was whispering still, and Giles was five minutes behind.
"Wrong?"
"God, don't make me say it." The hand on Giles' shoulder squeezed, and then fingers drifted down his arm. Oh.
Oh.
Giles didn't know what to say.
Xander ducked his head. "Sorry. Big stupid mistake. I'll-"
He moved to stand, and Giles grabbed his arm to keep him. Slowly, he laid his other hand on Xander's thigh, skimming his fingers over green stockings.
"Oh," said Xander. "Good."
Giles pulled his arm, until he landed on top, and Xander was squirming to get the blankets out of the way. Suddenly Xander's entire weight was on Giles, solid and strong, with one muscular stockinged thigh sliding between Giles' legs, pressing his cock.
Xander grinned. "Oh, good."
Giles reached down to Xander's legs, sliding his hands up until he found the edge of those tiny shorts, and deliciously round arse. "How much was the deposit on this thing."
"A lot."
"Blow it."
"Huh?"
Giles pulled Xander in and kissed him. At last. Lord, he was eager, pressing his tongue deep and scrabbling with every limb to get closer. Giles slipped his fingers under the shorts and dug into Xander's soft cheeks, wiggling deeper until only the crotch of those ridiculous green tights was between him and Xander's furred balls. "Blow the deposit. You're not taking this outfit back."
Xander gasped a laugh against his cheek. "Why, Giles, got a touch of kink?"
Giles pushed him off onto his stomach and rolled on top, pushing the cape out of the way to press his cock into the zip of Xander's shorts. "Just wait until I get my hands on a Batmobile."
Xander laughed aloud and then slapped a hand over his mouth. "Sorry," he whispered.
Giles didn't care right now. He'd be horrified later, worry about the girls later, recall all those concerns he'd compiled, later. Now... He ran his hand down the red vest to the absurd utility belt, down lower to palm the deliciously proud erection pressing at those tiny green shorts. Xander bucked against him with a soft cry. Giles burrowed in, lips against Xander's throat as he squeezed again. "This doesn't disguise very much at all."
"That was a problem. You and your tux. No wonder Jack thought he was gonna get lucky."
Giles didn't need to hear about how this cock was rubbing up against someone else tonight, even if that someone else went home alone. "Shut up."
Xander grinned. "Spent half the night planning ways to make you come."
Giles shook his head. "Not tonight. I already came tonight." What a terrible waste.
Xander stopped, and looked him in the eye. "You came tonight?"
Giles felt his cheeks heat. Perhaps Xander had the stamina of a twenty-four year-old, but Giles wasn't up for another round this soon. "I was hardly anticipating a midnight visitor."
Xander's ever-hopeful hand drifted down to press Giles' half-hard cock. "You were thinking about me?"
"Of course I was thinking of you. Prancing around in this, what the hell else would I be thinking of?"
And of course the waspish tone slid right off Xander. "If I'd known that... I mean, if you'd given me the slightest clue, I would have come home sooner." He tugged at the hem of Giles' t-shirt, hauling it up. "Tell me you were still wearing the suit." He waited until Giles had pulled his shirt over his head to run his hands through the fur on his chest, looking pleased.
"You can imagine it any way you like. Right now I'm going to imagine we just vanquished a few terrible villains together, and have driven home to our luxurious and incredibly private Batcave."
"With a luxurious and incredibly private bedroom?"
Giles shook his head. "With a shiny Batmobile to spread you over." He pressed Xander's hands back against an imaginary car bonnet, and slid down to rub his face against straining shorts.
Xander gasped and laughed. "Best Halloween costume ever."