Title: Charades 18/24
Author: Magpie and Wolfling
Email: magpie@moracle.co.uk and wolfling@sympatico.ca
Show: Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Category: angst, hurt/comfort
Warnings: spoilers up to the end of Chosen
Pairings: Giles/Ethan
Series: Of Old Mystics, sequel to Sleight of Hand
Summary: Searching for meaning in the signs and symbols of life.

Author Notes: Charades is done now; I'll be posting three chapers today and the last four tomorrow. Many thanks to Mad Poetess and Wesleysgirl for betaing :) This is the fourth story in the Of Old Mystics series; previous stories in the series can be found http://www.myarseisnotpansy.co.uk/piedm/mystics.html. We're working on the next story, Curtain's Fall, and it's looking like it will be even longer. It's also the concluding story of the series, so hopefully we'll manage to tie up all loose ends. :)

Note: This chapter follows directly the Christmas story, Five Gold Rings.

It was the calm before what Ethan hoped would be a very pleasant storm. It was late afternoon, Christmas Eve, and any moment now, Megan would be home. Later on, Xander would arrive with Kat, back from Devon, and tomorrow would bring Buffy and Dawn to their door as well.

Downstairs, there was a plump goose taking up far too much of the fridge, considering the silly amount of other food also fighting for chilled space. Masses of mince pies that he and Megan had made together without setting fire to *anything* were in a tin on the kitchen counter. The tree was shiny and surrounded by far too many gifts, and there was half an off-licence's worth of good wine and beer hidden around the house. Everything was as close to perfect as Ethan could actually imagine.

Especially his husband, lying naked beside him in the bed and still asleep after Ethan had given him, hopefully, one of the best sexual experiences of his life. Rupert was beautiful, and Rupert was his. Ethan leant over and kissed the sleeping man softly. He didn't really want to wake him, but thought he ought to before Megan made it home.

Rupert stirred slightly under the attention, sleepily kissing Ethan back before his eyes flickered open.

"It's getting late, dearheart," Ethan told him softly. "And on Christmas Eve, we shouldn't really let Megan come home to an apparently empty house."

"Mmm..." Rupert lifted a hand and lazily combed his fingers through Ethan's hair. "You're right." He yawned. "Guess that will have to do for a nap."

Despite sincerely wanting to be downstairs for Megan's return, Ethan found he couldn't actually resist Rupert's lips. He kissed them again, with small nips and longer presses, and he darted the tip of his tongue across where they parted.

Rupert chuckled and pulled back. "Keep that up and we won't be going anywhere."

Ethan smiled. "Do try not to be so devastatingly attractive then, my dear." He pressed more kisses across Rupert's face. "It's hardly my fault when you look so provocative now, is it?" He licked and nibbled gently up the side of Rupert's neck. "No court in the land would convict me." And finally, he took a tempting earlobe into his mouth and began to suck on it.

"This isn't exactly encouraging me to get up," Rupert pointed out. "At least not in any way that would lead to us being downstairs when Megan gets back."

Ethan was still wearing trousers under the covers, having been so concentrated on Rupert's pleasure earlier that his own hadn't mattered. Now however he was beginning to feel the lack. He wriggled down in the bed and pressed himself against Rupert's hip, while still sucking on the earlobe, poking the tip of his tongue into the old piercing there.

"Ethan..." Rupert sighed, skimming his hands down Ethan's torso. "Am I supposed to be talking you into or out of this?"

Ethan groaned in frustration. He released Rupert's earlobe. "Sorry. You're right. Perhaps in many hours from now when we go to bed I could maybe, um, get me some?" He ran a finger over Rupert's ear as he asked, and then frowned. "I think this piercing is still open, dearheart."

"It is. At least it was four years ago. I... uh... tried playing guitar in a coffeehouse and thought an earring would go with the image I was trying to project."

That brightened Ethan's mood right up. He rolled back and raised himself on his elbow, grinning. "I don't suppose you still have the earring, do you? It would go smashing with a certain leather jacket." The image his imagination dutifully provided certainly wasn't helping quell Ethan's arousal levels of course.

"As a matter of fact, I do." Rupert smiled. "And I suppose you want me to go find it and put it on right now."

Ethan felt his grin stretch wider still. "Oh, yes please."

"All right. But don't think you can talk me into everything this easily." Rupert got up and crossed to the chest of drawers on the other side of the room. Ethan was distracted by watching his husband's naked form as Rupert rummaged in the top drawer for a moment, before turning back to the bed with a small box in his hand.

Sitting up, Ethan welcomed Rupert back into bed beside him. Looking at the box, he asked, "Is it a posh earring then? Gold?"

"Silver actually," Rupert replied, opening the box. "Believe it or not, my grandmother left it to me."

"In her will?" Ethan asked, curious. There was a heavy silver hoop in the box about half an inch in diameter. He held his hand out, hoping he would be allowed to put it into Rupert's ear himself.

"Not exactly. There was a letter left for me with her barrister together with her will, but not part of it. The earring was in the envelope with it." Obligingly he held the box out to Ethan.

"What did the letter say?" Ethan asked, as he picked up the hoop and turned it over in his fingers. There were strange -- and strangely familiar -- markings etched into the metal...

Suddenly, he threw the earring down on the covers and scooted back across the bed. He felt like he had seen a ghost.

"Ethan?" Rupert frowned in concern, reaching out to him. "What--?"

"What did the letter say?" he asked again, a lot more urgently. He allowed himself to be gathered close and reached out some very tentative fingers towards where he'd thrown the earring. Had he made a mistake? Was he misremembering?

Rupert looked at him in a combination of worry and puzzlement, but answered the question easily enough. "That she'd been holding onto the earring to give me when the time was right, and that she was sorry that she wouldn't be around when that happened. That there was a story behind it, and she hoped with all her heart that I would some day learn it. I tried to research it, but beyond finding out that the markings on it are Romany in origin I wasn't able to find out anything."

Ethan turned the retrieved hoop over in shaking fingers. "It's a vitality charm."

"You've seen this kind of thing before?"

Ethan laughed softly, his gaze still affixed to the earring. "I've seen *it* before. It was my Nan's. Probably her grandmother's before her."

"Yours? Then how did my..." Rupert looked at him, eyebrow slightly raised. "Why do I have the feeling that I'm about to learn the story that my grandmother talked about?"

Ethan moved closer, badly needing skin to skin contact before starting this particular retelling. "Randall died in early December, and you left." He sighed heavily, knowing now what a huge ballsed up misunderstanding that had been. "I'm sure neither of us had a very good Christmas that year. But do you remember the one after that? A year on from it all?"

Rupert wrapped his arms around him as he answered. "I spent it in the city, with my family. At my grandmother's townhouse. It was... better than spending it alone."

"You looked happy enough when I saw you."

"Yes, well, I'd always been rather adept at playing the dutiful..." Rupert trailed off with a frown. "You saw me?"

It hurt a surprising amount to remember this, considering how long past it was and how different things were now. "I was lost, losing it, without you. Deirdre told me you were in London. I made her cut my hair cut short, and I threw out all my make up and put on the dullest clothes I could force myself to wear, and then I came to see you. The earring was to be a Christmas present." He snorted softly. "Last sincere gift I ever tried to give until Megan's owl pendant."

"My grandmother stopped you." It wasn't a question.

Ethan nodded, looking up at Rupert and knowing that his pain must show. "She... she was almost kind really. But adamant that I would hurt you, were you to see me. " He frowned. "Do you think she knew?"

"With my grandmother, it wouldn't surprise me at all. She seemed to have all sorts of strange bits of knowledge. She was the one who introduced me to the coven at Devon actually." Rupert sighed and leant his forehead against Ethan's. "If I had seen you... I was lonely all the time, even when surrounded by my family. The magic and what happened to Randall still scared me, but I missed you. If I'd seen you that Christmas... I wouldn't have turned you away."

Ethan clasped his empty hand tightly over his mouth. He blinked furiously and looked beseechingly at Rupert.

Rupert pulled him tight against him. "I kept the earring because it felt special somehow. I thought that was just because it came from my grandmother, but..." He sighed again. "Maybe, some part of me recognised it was from you."

Skin to skin with Rupert, Ethan forced himself to take some deep breaths. Then he asked, "Will you wear it for me tonight?"

Slowly, making a production of it, Rupert leant in and kissed him. "I'll wear it whenever you want me to."

Ethan relished every moment of the kiss. When their lips slipped apart, he moved, shifting so that he could get easily to Rupert's ear. With fingers that weren't actually shaking too much, he pushed the stalk through the piercing and closed the hoop on the other side. Then he just looked at his husband. "Baxt hay sastimos tirry patraggy," he murmured, not sure what it meant or even if he was remembering it correctly, only knowing that Nan had frequently said it to him as some kind of blessing.

Rupert smiled at him, one hand lifting to touch the earring. "It's a few years late, but thank you for the gift," he said solemnly. They gazed at each other.

Ethan only realised that he'd been losing himself in Rupert's eyes when Gwydion barked downstairs, causing them both to jump slightly. Then there was the noise of the front door opening. "Bugger."

Regretfully, Rupert let go of him and stood up, reaching for his trousers and quickly beginning to dress. "I'll go down and meet her," he told Ethan quickly. "You clean up in here and then join us?"

Ethan nodded, grateful for a few moments alone to calm down in. "I'll hide all the incriminating evidence away."

"Thank you. Some presents I really don't want to have to explain to Megan or the others." Rupert finished dressing and headed off downstairs.

Ethan pulled his shirt on and set about tidying up the bed, restoring the handcuffs to the box of delights Rupert had given him and returning that and the silk scarf to their warded drawer. After straightening up the covers, he picked up the cuddly fox and badger from the side unit and sat on the bed, smiling at them.

Resisting the impulse to make the toys act out something obscene, he instead just held them as he thought about the earring and that day a lifetime ago. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that Rupert's grandmother had known at least something about the destiny he and Rupert now knew they shared. Perhaps his own Nan had known something too; she'd been a witch, after all. At least according to his Dad's choice line in insults.

Every time the events of the last few months had forced him to reassess his view of the past, it had left him shaken, and he should perhaps have been used to it by now. But there was something powerfully numinous about this particular history, something that felt almost like the stuff of folktales.

As Ethan straightened up the bedding, he decided he wanted Rupert to wear the earring all the time to help keep him safe and well. He also decided that come the new year he was going to find out once and for all what had really happened to his nan and where she had been taken away to.

Nodding to himself, he stood and put the two toys between the pillows, side by side. Then, changing his mind at the last moment, he lifted the badger and made it look like it was humping the fox. Sniggering, he turned and headed downstairs.

He found Megan and Rupert hovering near the slightly open door of the study. Both of them turned around when they heard his approach, the door being pulled shut behind them. There was no sign of Giddy, so presumably they'd shut the wolfhound in the other room. "Did the monster offend somehow?" he asked, bemused.

Megan was smiling broadly at him and almost bouncing on her heels. Rupert was more sedate, but Ethan knew his husband well enough to know when he was hiding something. Before he could ask, Rupert came forward, smiling at him. "Ethan, I want you to sit on the sofa and close your eyes."

Another present? Ethan rubbed at his face and felt strangely nervous; it was obviously something to be considered a 'big deal', judging by the way that the two of them were behaving. Obediently, he went to sit down, but he couldn't quite make himself close his eyes. He turned in his seat and stared at the person most likely to betray the secret -- Megan. "What's going on?"

But it was Rupert who answered before their Slayer could. "You'll find out as soon as you close your eyes. Trust me, love." And so of course, he had to. Straightening back up on the seat, Ethan closed his eyes and tried to be patient.

He heard the study door open again, and his husband's footsteps crossing the room over to him a few seconds later. Then something soft, warm and squirmy was placed in his arms. "You can open your eyes now," Rupert told him.

Ethan stared down in amazement at the black and white bundle of fur with a Christmas bow attached to its collar. "You got me a skunk!"

"Unfortunately, they were all out of skunks," Rupert said with a smile. "I'm afraid you'll have to settle for a puppy instead."

The amazement started to settle down into, well, more embarrassingly strong emotions. Rupert had got him a puppy. Because his one and only pet as a child had been run over and because he'd refused to admit he'd wanted a dog of his own, but Rupert knew better. The dog, *his* dog, had beautiful golden eyes full of intelligence, and it -- no, she, his pattern senses told him -- was staring at him as if waiting for something.

"Hello, Skunk," he said weakly and patted her head.

Skunk yipped as if answering him, wagging her tail so hard, her entire body wriggled.

"She knows her name," he pointed out, aware there was a big stupid grin on his face and completely unable to modify it at all.

"Actually her name's--" Megan began, but was cut off by Rupert.

"Of course she does," he said, sitting down beside Ethan. "She's quite an intelligent animal. I wouldn't get you anything less."

Ethan moved his hands through the puppy's coat. "This is where the three of you went that day, isn't it? Where did you find her? Does Giddy like her? Oh..." The 'oh' was because he'd just allowed his vision to slip completely into the pattern sense mode. Skunk was linked to him, the way Gwydion was linked to Rupert.

"She was one of the dogs that passed the magic sensitivity tests Battersea does for the Council. And even among those dogs, she stood out. She and Gwydion seemed to become fast friends from the second they saw each other -- and she seemed to be taking direction from Gwydion during the test I administered." Rupert smiled. "So yes, I did have an inkling that she was a bit out of the ordinary. Like you."

Every time Ethan felt like it was impossible to love Rupert more than he did, that he'd reached the limit of his capacity for the emotion, his husband would do or say something that would reveal uncharted depths of feeling still to be plundered. And Ethan would dive further down, of course, willing and eager.

After staring at Rupert for a few moments, trying to convey with his eyes just how very grateful and in love he felt, he grinned. "I have a puppy! I need to start teaching her mischief immediately. There's so much she has to learn."

"Just be aware that you will be cleaning up any mischief she gets into," Rupert told him dryly, reaching out a hand to scratch behind Gwydion's ears; the dog was sitting quietly beside him.

Ethan looked back at Skunk, who was still staring at him avidly with her golden eyes. "You're going to be a proper little hellion, aren't you, dear," he said approvingly, and heard Megan giggle. Skunk barked and scrabbled up his chest to lick his face. He didn't stop her, but he did turn to one side, facing Rupert. "An indoor dog, I think," he said seriously.

Rupert looked back at him, complete understanding in his eyes; however his answer wasn't exactly what Ethan wanted to hear. "She's going to grow a bit big for that," he told Ethan regretfully. "But we'll keep her on a lead anytime we're going anywhere close to a road."

While Ethan knew Rupert was right, he didn't like it.

Rupert's silver earring caught Ethan's eye. The Christmas he had spent after handing it over to Grandmother Giles had been one of the worst of Ethan's life. He'd deliberately set fire to their old bedsit in a fit of self-destructive rage and despair, and he'd spent Christmas Eve going from house to house, systematically destroying every friendship he'd had left, ensuring none of the old gang would ever speak to him again. Christmas day and several days afterwards had been spent huddled in a stupor of drink, drugs and hypothermia with the tramps under the Embankment.

He'd finally emerged, born anew, on New Year's Day -- the festival of Janus, the Ancient Roman numen of doorways and decisions, of new beginnings. And in an intense private ceremony, he'd dedicated himself to the Trickster spirit and the worship of Chaos. Because nothing else had mattered anymore.

The memories were ice shards in his soul.

But now, after all this time, here he was. The gas fire crackling in the hearth warmed his body as his family round him melted even the memory of ice inside. With his hands in Skunk's fur, Ethan shut his eyes and let himself see again the reassuring cords that bound him to Rupert, his other half. Not just a trite phrase in this case, but a fundamental truth.

Ethan gathered together all the warmth, love and adoration he was feeling for Rupert and held tightly onto it for a few seconds, thanking whatever benign deity or forces existed for giving him this day. Then he fed it in a stream through their bond for Rupert to share, and he sent into his husband's mind, 'You are my sun returned. I love you. Happy Christmas.'

***

Giles came awake slowly, and for the first few minutes just lay there, relishing his life. Curled up against his side and half-sprawled over him lay his lover, who still seemed deeply asleep. No wonder, Giles thought a bit smugly, given the thorough loving he'd given Ethan the night before.

Just the thought of how Ethan had gasped and whimpered, trying to keep quiet while Giles did his best to drive him crazy, was enough to make Giles want to do it all again. And not seeing any reason why he shouldn't, he began running his hands, lightly dusted with his magic, over Ethan's skin, seeking out those places he knew were the most sensitive.

Ethan whimpered softly in his sleep, starting to twitch and stir. Giles smiled and ran his fingers down between Ethan's buttocks.

With a tiny gasp, Ethan tensed and woke, raising his head to look at Giles, at first reproachfully, but then with a familiar naughty little smile starting to form. He blinked sleepy eyes and wiggled back against the touch of Giles' fingers. "Morning seems to have broken."

"It does indeed," Giles agreed, one finger brushing against Ethan's opening before pushing just a little way in.

Ethan took a shuddering in-breath, his eyes flickering shut again. "Oh. Oh, this is nice," he said dreamily.

"It gets better." He added another finger.

A soft moan was followed by Ethan moving, pulling up under him the leg that was on the bed so that his arse was raised. "You're right. General improvement there."

"I usually am right," Giles observed, sending a bit more magic through his fingers. "At least when it comes to you."

"Ahh..." Ethan's neck arched back as he gasped. "Yes... yes, you're very astute. Perceptive even." He wriggled some more, squirming against and half over Giles' body in a manner Giles found almost irresistible. "Are you by any chance planning on a spot of pleasant buggery this Christmas morn?"

"The thought had crossed my mind, yes. What do you think?"

"I think I can't imagine a better way to start the proceedings."

Giles let more magic trail from his fingers as he added another to Ethan's body, loving the way he could make his lover shudder and gasp with the slightest movement. "It was an excellent way of ending the proceedings last night."

Ethan was still well lubed from said proceedings, Giles' fingers slipping slickly through the tight muscle. Moaning and writhing, Ethan rubbed himself against Giles and then pushed back into the fingers again. "Please. Take me."

"That is the general plan." With his free hand, he nudged Ethan, encouraging him to straddle him.

It took no more encouragement than that. Ethan lifted himself and surged sideways, slipping from Giles' fingers in order to move above Giles' waiting cock, where he paused, waiting. The dark eyes gazing into Giles' were filled with lust and love.

Giles held Ethan's gaze as he tightened his grip around Ethan's hips and pulled him down on his cock, his breath catching as he slid into his lover.

Ethan bared his teeth in reaction, tipping his head back, then slowly straightening up until he was sitting upright, Giles' length as deeply imbedded as it could be within Ethan's body. "You're right," Ethan acknowledged with a grin, his heavy breathing belying the casual tone he was trying to assume. "This is decidedly pleasant."

"Only pleasant?" Giles braced his legs against the mattress and thrust his hips upward.

The movement almost knocked Ethan forward again, and he gasped despite his attempt at nonchalance. He put his hands on Giles' chest to balance himself, but then began to caress it with broad strokes. "I'd need more to be able to judge, I think."

Giles pushed up again. "Greedy," he accused.

"Appreciative," Ethan corrected, and squeezed his muscles while letting magic sparkle from his finger tips as he dragged his hands back down Giles' chest and straightened again. "Want to see how appreciative?"

Nerves still tingling from Ethan's magic, Giles nodded. "I think you should definitely show me how appreciative," he said, voice taking on that deeper tone it always did when there was sex involved.

Ethan grinned evilly and bent his head down. After lifting his hands from Giles' body, he slowly dragged them up his own thighs, while gazing at Giles from below his brow. He squeezed his arse muscles again before asking, "This illustrative enough?" as he took his cock into both hands.

Giles felt a low growl rumble up from deep in his chest as he watched Ethan, and he levered himself up enough to be able to kiss his lover roughly. "Wanton."

Ethan giggled a little as their lips parted. "This wanton wants more."

Running his hand down Ethan's chest and stomach, Giles closed his own hand around both of Ethan's where they were stroking his cock. "You always do."

Apparently too impatient to wait for Giles to start moving again, Ethan began to rock his own hips. Giles could feel Ethan's hands squeezing under his. "Please, Rupert," he said, really quite earnestly. "I don't want slow."

"Maybe I do," Giles said, straining up to kiss Ethan again. "Maybe I want to watch you... be appreciative for as long as I can."

"Tell me what you see?" Ethan asked, increasing his rocking, although it was still a relatively gentle motion.

Giles looked up at Ethan, trying to find the words to describe him like this. What he finally ended up answering with was, "My heart."

Ethan's eyes closed and he smiled. "Not quite the erotic word picture I was expecting, but--" he paused in reaction to something, his breath held for a few seconds. "But lovely to hear nonetheless. Please?"

"What do you see?" Giles asked, suddenly curious, even as he tightened his grip around Ethan's hands on his cock, providing more friction as they slowly moved in concert.

"Ohh..." Ethan's eyes were still closed as he moaned and rocked. He pulled one of his hands out from under Giles' and placed it on top instead. "See for yourself, dearest," he murmured, and then Giles' world changed around him as he was gifted the pattern sight once more.

"Oh," Giles breathed, unconsciously echoing Ethan as he saw the reality of their bond flare into visual life around them. The colours were the same as the last time Ethan had shared his vision with him, but where before they had been restricted to strong bands between them, now they were flaring out all around, like an aura or inner glow.

Every movement either of them made caused fluxes and surges, and when magic was involved the colours deepened. "It's getting better all the time," Ethan said with a little awed laugh. "Before our agreement to... ohh... stop fighting the bond, it was hardly there. Now... God, Ripper... everything we do seems to strengthen it."

"I suspect especially if I do something like... this," Giles said, thrusting his hips upwards at the same time he sent sparks of magic through his fingertips and along the length of Ethan's cock.

Giles' suspicion proved true enough, although Ethan didn't seem to be in the right frame of mind for scientific experimentation. "More. Ripper, please. I need more."

"Greedy," Giles accused again, before pulling Ethan down and taking his mouth once more in a possessive kiss that bordered on the brutal. 'Mine,' he sent with his thoughts, the word a growl even there as he rocked upwards into Ethan once more.

Ethan had had to let go of his cock to balance himself on the bed while Giles ravaged his mouth, but he left his other hand on Giles' and the pattern sight remained. Ethan moaned and writhed. 'Yes, yours. Always. Please, more,' he sent barely coherently. 'Need more. Need you. Please.'

'You'd let me do anything, wouldn't you?' Giles slid his free hand up over Ethan's chest. His fingers brushed against a nipple then pinched it hard. 'Beg me for anything?'

Ethan tensed at the pain, moaning into the kiss. 'Yes, anything. Anything. Please.'

Giles made a sudden move and rolled them over until Ethan was lying on his back. He then started fucking him, hard and rough, adding a burst of magic with every thrust. And as somehow Ethan's hand had still remained on his, he was able to watch how each movement now made their bond flare brightly.

Ethan's legs wrapped tightly around Giles' back as he groaned and whimpered under the onslaught. "Yours, yours, yours, yours," he muttered, his head tossing from side to side. He seemed almost delirious.

'Always,' Giles sent, claiming Ethan's mouth again. 'I'll not give you up. You're mine. Forever.'

A rumble built rapidly from deep in Ethan's chest, quickly turning into a wail against Giles' mouth. Giles felt Ethan's cock, trapped between their sweat-slicked bodies, twitch as Ethan himself tensed and shuddered, and then there was a wash of warmth across his belly. The colours of the bond glowed red-gold and flared so brightly that the image threatened to burn into Giles' retina.

It was such an intense experience that his own climax, when it came a moment later, was almost an afterthought.

It was many minutes later that Ethan's legs finally fell the to bed, and Giles lost the pattern sight as his lover raised a shaky hand to push his hair back from his brow. Ethan's voice also held more than a slight tremble as he said, "Have to say I'm liking Christmas so far."

Giles chuckled and kissed him once more, before regretfully pulling out and rolling over onto his back beside Ethan. "We'll have to make that a new tradition."

"Well, one thing's for sure -- you'll have no trouble keeping me out of the kitchen. I don't think I can walk."

Reaching out, Giles ran a hand lightly down Ethan's chest. "Does that mean I'm going to have to carry you downstairs?" he teased.

Ethan giggled. "Well, perhaps to the shower."

"Which, I fear, would only lead to more... activity of the kind we've already experienced this morning." Smiling, he rolled over onto his side and kissed Ethan again. "Happy Christmas," he said softly, propping himself up on one elbow and looking down at his lover's face.

Ethan smiled contentedly up at him. "Happy Christmas." His expression changed suddenly as he obviously remembered something. "Oh... Skunk. I want my puppy!"

Giles chuckled again, loving the eager, open expression on Ethan's face. "She was a good gift choice, I take it." He already knew the answer, but he couldn't resist asking anyway.

Surprisingly perhaps, Ethan answered seriously. "She's a huge gamble, or seems it to me. But she's a delight and I'm very grateful, Rupert. Thank you."

"I promise I'll do everything in my power to help keep her safe," he vowed, knowing the fears Ethan had of history repeating itself.

Ethan kissed him softly, but then drew back and grinned. "Puppy! Now!"

"Dear lord, you're going to be a terror today, aren't you?"

Trying unsuccessfully to repress his laughter, Ethan kicked his heels on the bed and wailed, "Puppy!" From the other side of the closed bedroom door came an answering bark. "Skunk!" Ethan announced, and rolled over, more or less slithering from the bed, then crawling across the floor to the door.

"Oh for..." Giles got up and quickly overtook his lover, leaning down to pull him up.

Ethan stood up, but slumped limply on Giles, giggling. "Am I being bad?" he said in a voice that clearly already knew the answer.

"What is the old saying? If you have to ask..."

"It's entirely your fault," Ethan told him, his hand stretching out for the door handle. "You did this to me."

"I turned you into a demanding child?" Giles wasn't able to keep the laughter out of his voice.

Ethan's grin was broad and not a little wicked. "Shagged all the sense out of me, dearheart." He pushed down the handle and open the door just wide enough for the two puppies to come bounding in.

And they kept bounding and bouncing around until Giles ordered Gwydion to sit. Skunk continued for a few seconds, until Gwydion barked at her and then she dropped back on her haunches beside the larger dog.

Ethan scowled. "You don't have to do what the big monster tells you, dear," he told his dog. Skunk seemed to look at Ethan uncertainly, for all the world, thought Giles, like she was processing what he was saying. "Unless it's to do with roads. Then you do," Ethan went on. "Or railways lines... or anything electrical... or... well, actually do what he says most of the time unless he's just being a Watcher's pet." Which very stupid pun put Ethan into fits of laughter again. Giles was beginning to wonder if his lover was high.

Now Gwydion was looking at Ethan uncertainly as well, although less like he was trying to understand what he was saying and more like he was trying to figure out when Ethan had lost his sanity.

"Do I need to go dunk your head a few times to sober you up?" Giles asked, torn between amusement and exasperation.

Ethan forced a deep breath in, pulling back from Giles, and attempted a penitent look. "Sorry. I'm possibly a little over-excited," he said meekly, head down so Giles couldn't actually see his expression. "I'll go to the shower now and--" There was a noise that Giles strongly suspected of being a badly repressed giggle. "And clean up my act."

Ethan grabbed his bathrobe from the hook on the door, threw it on, then marched down the landing to the bathroom, Skunk at his heels.

Giles watched him go, then sighed. "I have the feeling this is going to be quite the interesting day," he said to his dog. Gwydion looked up at him and seemed to agree.

NEXT