"Like this," Spike growled, reaching down to cradle Giles' balls with the other hand. He squeezed, easy, but firm. Then a bit harder. Giles froze as the grip tightened, becoming absolutely still save for the movement of his chest as he panted for breath. "Yeah. Like that." Spike slid his cock-holding hand slowly up the shaft, and bent down to bring his lips a breath away from the head. A breath that he blew in a cool whisper across hot flesh -- then let go.

Both hands free, he listened to the sigh of disappointment, cut off at the end, as if Giles suddenly realized how desperate he sounded. Then Spike leaned over to the table and retrieved the other thing he'd brought back from the bureau. Giles followed his movements, half curious, half lost in want, and Spike held it up for him to see.

If possible, Giles' eyes turned a darker green when he caught sight of the lube. Without a word, he spread his legs wider, another blatant offer of himself, of control.

It took equal portions of fear and pride -- or stubbornness -- for Spike not to miss the point entirely, and lose himself in taking what was offered, without anything like control at all. He forced himself not to rip the cap off the tube, not to move with the speed that he *could*, that his undead body was made for.

Pride, that he'd calmed himself this much, that it was Giles, willing and wanton under him, and himself staring down, holding still. Fear that he'd cock it all up with one false move, and they'd never trust each other -- or themselves -- again, and then who would be left to count on? And stubborn. well, that part, he'd come into the world with.

He unscrewed the cap slow and easy. Slicked his fingers far more than he should need, than he remembered ever needing. But that was why he'd grabbed the full tube in the first place, instead of relying on the one in the bedside drawer. Taking enough chances as it was -- so they'd best be the *right* ones. Not the stupid ones.

Spike looked up to catch Giles watching him, and quirked his lip, as he held up slick, dripping fingers. The liquid slid down over his knuckles, reminding him of the scraped, stinging skin, and cooling it at the same time. "Look good, then?" he asked, almost amusedly. Pretended amusement, while inside, the animal part of him insisted that he didn't have time for teasing, no time for power games, just take, take, now now now.

"That depends. Are you planning on doing something with that?" It sounded like he wasn't the only one having trouble with patience. But that was good, wasn't it? He wanted Giles needy, wanting, even demanding if it meant the man was losing himself in the moment. And it seemed he was coming closer. That voice had been raspy, almost annoyed, emotion barely held in check.

Spike reached down and gently stroked the inside of one spread thigh. "Thought I might, yeah." He felt Giles' leg twitch, and moved his hand further down, slippery fingers sliding over hot flesh, to the place where his hands had last been. Smooth, teasing the skin behind Giles' balls, marveling at how hot it was, how it felt as if the tips of his fingers were melting.

"Yes," Giles breathed, then gave a heartfelt groan. "More." And *that* was most definitely a demand.

Spike acquiesced to it immediately, though slowly. Patiently. To outward appearances, at least. He trailed his fingers left, right, a meandering path downwards that had Giles quivering by the second not-quite-there-yet sweep across sensitive flesh -- and probably calling Spike all sorts of names that never passed his lips. Eventually, he stroked a finger lightly across Giles' opening. Just one, a swift, breath-light movement, then pulled it away, just as quickly.

Giles' swift intake of breath ended in a whimper when Spike pulled away. "Spike," he all but growled.

Spike showed teeth, in a grin or a growl or *something* that welled up in him at the sound Giles made, though he didn't let his own reply come grinding from his throat. He reached for the lube again, squeezing far too much. Dripping it down his finger, letting it fall on Giles' skin, just where his finger had so lately touched.

The moan that followed was everything he could've asked for, and made his hands want to tremble as he brought one finger back to Giles' body, and slid it across his entrance, once more. The chains creaked as Giles tried to push himself more firmly against the touch.

Nownownow warred with the desire to revel in the power he'd been granted, and neither quite won out. Spike pressed gently down, not hard enough to push in, but hard enough that the next unsatisfied movement from Giles did the work for him, swallowed the tip of his finger into heat and tightness.

Giles froze absolutely still for a second. Then, breath coming out in a low moan, he resumed his movements, obviously desperate for more. Spike gave it to him, little by little. Not so much care as cowardice, he admitted deep within himself. Too long, since he'd done this, and never since he'd had to worry about even the most incidental pain. No intent to harm was one thing, when it referred to blows he knew in advance he was going to pull, another when he knew it *could* happen, as quick as the lightning that could fry his brain at any second, yet he chased the edge of the storm, anyway.

But Giles wanted, Giles practically tugged at him, so, slow or not, he slid in up to the first knuckle, then the second. Easy and smooth, slippery finger surrounded by warmth. Giles moaned again, and when Spike looked up all he could see in the man's face was arousal and need. The second finger, then, if anything even slower, waiting as muscle stretched around him, tightened and relaxed. Sliding out, then in, feeling from the inside as Giles moved. Freezing, when he moved too fast, strained too aggressively to pull Spike in further.

"Easy," he warned, though he felt ridiculous for saying it, as if either one of them were any sort of new to this.

"Don't want easy," Giles snarled. He strained to move closer, to bring Spike in deeper.

"I get that," Spike ground out through teeth that he hadn't clenched in panic, no, not him. "But 'hurts me more that it hurts you' isn't a platitude here. Too much, and I'm on the floor, and you're chained to the bed without even an in-flight magazine to read while you wait for me to come to."

It wasn't that he didn't *want* to go on, push harder, play rougher. He did the best he could, moved his fingers slightly, then curved them in. Reached for and found the place that had Giles writhing. Moan and growl and all of it incoherent. Hips moving up, down, for leverage, to push and pull, and Spike turned and twisted his fingers, nervous and pleased at once, that he was able to do this. Make Giles lose it, and keep pace, himself, keep them both safe.

And Giles was losing it, head thrown back, mouth open as he panted for breath, eyes dark and glazed with pleasure. "More," he demanded again, obviously not thinking beyond what he was feeling, not worrying about what could go wrong. Trusting Spike.

More, Spike's animal self, his demon self agreed, was a good thing. More was his cock, hard and eager and long past ready. More was entering and claiming fully what had been offered to him. Power, control, something long lost but never forgotten. More, Spike firmly informed that instinct, was no such thing -- because power and control weren't the same thing at all, and never had been, even if it had taken him a century to learn it. He slipped another finger carefully, slowly, within.

Giles was moaning almost constantly now as Spike moved his fingers deftly, stretching him, carefully fucking him. Spike doubted the man was even aware of the sounds he was making, not with the way he seemed lost in what Spike was doing to him, hips moving roughly against Spike's hand, mutely encouraging a faster, rougher touch.

Nownownow, is now soon enough? Now? Voice of the monster at his core, voice of his hundred years gone self who wouldn't have known the difference, voice of his silent and waiting cock, Spike didn't know, but it was there. And perhaps now was soon enough, after all. Spike curved his fingers again, then straightened them, and began to slide them out.

"No!" Giles protested immediately, yanking on his chains so hard the headboard creaked. "No," he repeated, eyes dark with passion and desperate need seeking out Spike's. "Please...don't stop. I need..."

Spike paused, Giles' movements too erratic for him to risk moving right now even if he *hadn't* been asking Spike to stop. Which request made no sense, but the man could perhaps be forgiven for that, as far gone as he was. "Wasn't stopping -- just...trading places."

Giles shook his head. "No," he said again. "Spike, please...I need more."

For a moment, Spike honestly didn't know what he meant. Almost took insult, almost laughed, too puzzled and too tightly wound to do either. Then he understood, but was sure he had to be wrong, had to be hearing things, had to be crazy, or one of them was. 'You can't mean what I think you mean,' he meant to say, but it came out, "You don't know what you're asking."

"I know." Giles yanked on the chains, wrapping his hands around the links. He raised his head enough to meet Spike's gaze, sense and awareness in his own, along with the need and passion. "Do I need to say the words?"

The words? Fuck. How ludicrous was that? How ludicrous -- how surreal -- was it to be standing here with three fingers in the man's arse, frozen, staring at him, trying to form words to explain why what he was asking wasn't even possible?

The memory of fire and stars flared in his head. The first time he'd been in this bed. On the other side of the mirror, lying where Giles was now, on his back, legs spread wide, eyes no doubt as crazed with lust and that deeper need they seldom ever named. Giles as rock-steady and careful as Spike could only hope he was being now.

Even then, it had exploded within him, the sweetness of it, the pain. Something he'd needed, coasted through and over on a wave of feeling so right, so filled, so... He could understand. He could. But there was no way in hell that he could do the same for Giles. No way in hell that it wouldn't hurt. No way in hell that -- just no way in hell. Period.

"No. Giles, I *can't*. You know that."

"Yes you *can*." Giles' voice was fierce, uncompromising, as were his eyes. "I wouldn't ask if you couldn't. Trust me, Spike. Please. I need...need that intensity."

"Trust you?" It wasn't a matter of trusting *Giles*. There wasn't - and it rocked him a bit to realize it -- even a question of whether he did. He couldn't predict what the others, what the young ones, even what Dawn would do. Couldn't trust them any more than Giles could. Knew they meant well, but knew exactly which road was paved by people like them. Giles, though -- for all he didn't know about the man, each secret that hadn't been given on either side -- Giles, he could trust, to be fragile and stupid and stubborn in ways that Spike *understood*.

"It's not about trusting *you* -- I don't fucking well trust *me*."

"*I* trust you. You can do this." Giles gave him a look that was pure desperation and his voice cracked on the next question. "Do I need to beg?"

Another time, Spike would have said yes. Another time, maybe he would, that same no way in hell other time when Giles decided to get down on his knees again, hand Spike the leash, and heel. But this wasn't it. He didn't need begging to turn him on, to crank him up, to push him over the edge.

"No." He caught Giles' gaze. Held it, as steady as he was able. Steadier than he felt, behind his own eyes. "You don't need to beg." He slid his fingers out, almost all the way -- then silently added the fourth.

The groan that Giles let out at that had as much relief in it as desperate arousal. "Yes, just like that," he gasped between panting breaths, spreading his legs wider and moving his hips into the penetration.

There were things Spike didn't want to know about Rupert Giles. The sounds he might make while dying were, oddly, on that list. Yet, as he let Giles himself guide the movement of his fingers, the stretch and pull and burn of flesh around them an echo of what Giles must have felt once, a reflection of what he must be feeling now... Spike suspected he knew those sounds. Words interspersed with them, words like "Good," and "Please," and "More," and Giles' body was saying the same things just as loudly.

'Good' was good, and 'please' was something like music that shivered along Spike's nerve endings, but 'more'? More was huge and black and far more dangerous than one vampire with a silicon invader in his skull, and made him feel as helpless as he ever had. Helpless as he'd felt hours ago, hand plunged deep into the wall, pain throbbing in his knuckles like heat throbbed there now, biting his tongue to stop from saying anything worse than he already had.

He closed his eyes and listened to the ragged sound of Giles' breath. The heavy beat of a human heart sped up, moving to a rhythm that pulsed around his fingers, tried to draw him along, draw him in, drown out the fear that pounded in his own head.

Had he fallen so far, then? That helpless, that useless, that small? Sleeping with the enemy, in so many meanings of the phrase that he'd lost the sense of what the last word even meant -- that was nothing. It was doing what he had to. It was changing with the times. But this -- this fear of his own abilities, his own body, his own *hands* ... "Tell me you want it," he growled softly, at himself as much as Giles. That much of the words, at least, he needed. "Tell me you want my hand, inside you."

A shudder rippled the length of Giles' body at the question and he groaned ever louder. "Yes," he hissed. "Please. I want. I need. Spike...your hand, please."

"Yeah." Any meaningless sound from Spike's mouth would have done as well, but that was the one that came out. Less than poetic, but good enough for somebody who'd found better things to do with his hands than scribble. Good enough for Giles, who relaxed against his fingers as if they did this every night, as if there was nothing to be afraid of at all. Spike opened his eyes, and moved his thumb. Drizzled and slicked and folded and pushed, slow and simple and sure, and in.

Mouth open in a silent shout, Giles went completely still, not even seeming to breathe. It was as if he was so totally focused on what Spike was doing that everything else had just....stopped.

He couldn't *not* be in pain - even if it was that screaming, blissful pain that made everything right, made everything else not matter. Yet there was nothing in Spike's head to match it. Not even a buzz, not a flicker. Nothing but rushing warmth from his groin, and the echoing of a heartbeat that couldn't possibly be that loud, and quiet amazement as his hand slid even further in. Sore knuckles encased in soft, firm flesh. Bathed in fire. Like that, with no effort at all, he slipped in, past the flare of width at his palm, up to the wrist. Welcomed.

Giles gave a shuddering gasp, then another and another, until he was panting harshly, almost sobbing for air. Minute tremors shook his muscles and he seemed to be trembling on the edge something big, seemed to be on the verge of flying apart.

Here, now. Spike was absolutely still, realizing where he stood. Or knelt, rather. Here, now, he had the power to do this to Rupert Giles. Rupert "I lose control for nothing but death" Giles, who even when he cut loose with fists, with words, even when the glint of an old nickname shined through the civilized mask, always knew what he was doing. Meant every action, every reaction.

Where Spike was now, if he cared to, he could hurt, and judging by Giles' abandonment of sense, the thing that sparked in his brain wouldn't even hurt him back. But there was no urge to do so, to take advantage of that. There was only that silent amazement, even from the dead thing that lived in the gold of his eyes, the animal thing that roared behind his ribs in place of a heart. Amazement, and the need to take Giles wherever it was he was going. Carefully, smoothly, Spike bent his fingers and stroked.

Giles' whole body jerked like he was being hit with an electric current, and he cried out, the sound wild and desperate. Shaking almost violently, he shouted again, and Spike saw the last of the man's control shatter, catching a glimpse of the maelstrom in his soul as it did. Red and raw as an open wound, black as the place behind Spike's eyes , times he'd closed them and believed himself truly alone -- and it burned as bright as the electric fire in Spike's head. He might have mistaken it for such, if he hadn't been kneeling there still, open-eyed, staring at the man laid bare for him. Cracked open to the core.

In the center of all that, inside where it was still sweet and tight and burning, he cupped his hand -- almost expecting to be able to see it, as he could see everything else within Giles at this moment -- and stroked again. Stroked until the shudders reached a fever pitch, couldn't get any faster, any rougher, all the energy and violence Giles had been seeking, done by his own body, reacting to Spike's steady hand. Throwing his head back, mouth wide in another silent scream, Giles came.

Free hand braced on a hip gone rigid, Spike folded his fingers in and withdrew, smooth and sure. Now, when there was nothing of Giles that was free to notice the passage of wrist or knuckles. He didn't look down at his hand, though, as he pulled. Right at the end of his wrist where it always was, after all, and the next time he put it through a wall, he'd remember, and bloody well do it because he intended to.

Now, he watched the face of his lover, lost and found at once, and in the finding, saw something he hadn't seen for more than a hundred years, in the glassy depths of Giles' wide open eyes. Himself.

For a brief instant the glassiness left Giles' eyes and they focused on him, and there was so much in that gaze that Spike couldn't even begin to describe all that he saw. Then Giles' body went totally limp-- as he passed out.

Spike blinked for a second, listening for breathing and heartbeat, and when he was sure he heard both, he looked down at his hand, and laughed. It wasn't funny. Not funny at all. Hotter than he could have believed, to see Giles lying silent and still, wrung out and empty as a dead man, still fastened to the head of the bed.

Except somewhere in his head Spike could hear a female voice accusing him of killing her Watcher, and just see if she didn't come back and haunt him for the rest of his days -- and what wouldn't they both of them give, if she really would? So he laughed, as he placed his hand on his own untended erection, and brought himself off with a handful of rapid jerks, watching Giles all the while.

It wasn't long before Giles stirred, eyelids fluttering briefly before opening. He looked at Spike for a moment, then up at the chains that still were bound around his wrists. "Could you...?" he asked, voice hoarse from the earlier exertion.

"What, let you go?" Spike asked more lightly than he'd thought he could manage, even as he crawled to the head of the bed. His knees protested a workout he hadn't put them through, grumpy at having held so still, so long. "Now that I've got you at my mercy?" He shook his head in mock rue, as he undid one cuff, then the other. "Should be savouring the moment, here."

"You or I?" Giles' mouth curved up slightly in a sardonic smile, which disappeared into an involuntary wince as he lowered his arms, then lightly rubbed his wrists where the restraints had been fastened.

Spike rolled over to his side and fell against the pillows with a heavier thud than he was expecting. As if his whole body were as worn out as his knees were pretending to be. As knackered as Giles obviously was. In a way, it made sense - everything Giles had been holding in for ages, he'd let loose -- and Spike had been keeping still for both of them. No wonder he was suddenly exhausted. "I should. You in chains and all. But might just get some sleep, and let you savour for the both of us."

"Maybe in the morning," Giles murmured around a yawn. "Sounds far too energetic for me right now."

Spike spared the energy to raise an eyebrow at him. "Afterglow is too energetic for you?"

"At this point breathing is almost too energetic for me." The smile was back.

"You could always join the evil undead; breathing's entirely optional, and we get a free toaster for every past-it ex-good guy we recruit." He managed it with a straight face and no yawn, only because he'd closed his eyes and couldn't see Giles' reaction, and because breathing was, as advertised, optional.

"Spike." The quiet address was enough to make Spike open his eyes again. Giles had turned his head to look at him, gaze still far more unguarded than Spike was used to seeing. "Thank you," he said softly.

If he'd been awake enough, Spike would have frozen, then squirmed, then made some crack about just being in it for the toaster. At least he comforted himself with that thought. As it was, he simply blinked once, then didn't say the same thing back. Said nothing at all, but shifted towards a warm, sweat-slick shoulder that was as good a place to rest his head as any other.

As he closed his eyes again, a light breath stirred the damp hair on his forehead. "And I'll show you who's past it." Where Giles dug up the strength to imbue the whisper with a growl, Spike hadn't the slightest clue. He was already drifting away, though, and couldn't wake up enough to laugh when he heard the softer epilogue, "Tomorrow."

the end