*****

In his mind it all makes perfect sense. Xander is in danger. Xander is in over his head. Xander is a young man so desperate for love, so low in self esteem that he's mistaken Ethan's brand of suffocating... and the word he wants to refute is 'possession' but it insistently fills the space that he would rather fill with 'lust' or 'need'.

But then he really doesn't want to use those either, does he? Because just thinking 'lust' and 'Xander' in the same sentence gives him that same sick twist of thrill that Ethan's finger slipping into him once gave. Be honest, Rupert. That even the thought once gave.

==Even -- if we're playing at being honest -- now.== He winces, leans back on the sofa, spreads his legs a little wider and doesn't pretend it's not to feel the heavy wool scrape across his heat. Finishes the finger of Glenmorangie ==finger in his mouth, down his throat, too smooth to ever cough you up== lets it burn. He isn't drunk. Not by a long shot.

What he is, is... again words he doesn't want rush in: 'Confused'. 'Torn'. 'Aroused'. And yes, all right. Yes. That. He's never claimed to be immune to... this. That. Not even the other. But is it too much hubris to actually practice a modicum of self control? Is it all hypocrisy *not* to fuck a boy -- a *boy*, a *child*, a *student* -- just because your cock sits up and begs?

And he can just hear Ethan's voice, hungry and goading at his ear: '*Tell* me, Ripper. There's no harm in the *fantasy* is there...?"

Momentary drift to the fantasy, which now has him reaching out with the arm Xander is not holding and running his finger along the lower loop of the 'frias' rune to get the shiver he knew it made. Then over the jagged peak of 'fuego' to bring the blush of heat. Just brush the gathered plait of 'suffocare' for the gasp and let his fingers rest on 'nunc'. Nothing. Need me. Xander would fall so easily.

And it's a struggle to pull out of the fantasy. And he only gets maybe halfway, before Ethan's voice is back. 'At least get it out of your system, Ripper-my-love. It's not like you can think when your cock is hard."

But that was a lie then. Is a lie now. His cock is nothing but the excuse for what he'd *really* wanted.

The gutter.

Which is certainly more than Xander deserves (and what else could it be but tabloid headlines, exile, pariahhood, prison and for God's sake why can't you ever put this first -- morally *wrong*.) And that, not hypocritical prudishness is why he doesn't. Didn't. Won't Can't. Shouldn't. Setting the words around it =it it it= like the bars of a cage. Which had certainly kept him safe enough over the years. And if it had locked Xander out, well, that was the *point* wasn't it?

Only how useful is caging one tiger when all the rest of the tigers are out there walking around free. Hunting boys like Xander. Because men like Giles wouldn't play.

=You flatter yourself= And.. ah, yes. There was that.

And truthfully Xander was over 19, out of school.. A young man now, legally able to make all manner of stupid, careless choices and =truthfully= there actually had been other options besides pederasty. He might have simply been Xander's friend. Teacher. Mentor, if he presumed. There certainly had been openings in the boy's life. Nothing but.

Which he had never dared fill and yes, thank you very much St. Freud and all your disciples. I may be in denial but I'm not quite blind enough. And laugh all he wants -- really just one, low note in his chest which breaks on silence -- it makes another picture.

And fuck Ethan's mockery of his penchant for French *art* films there *is* dappled sunlight in this, and thick Irish linen and the lingering scent of coffee and wet grass warming. And he'd have Xander on his hands and knees on the bed. Long thighs spread wide enough to tremble from the strain and he'd have tasted the sweat on them. The sweat in the well of Xander's back. The spice just at the indentation where spine becomes tail becomes crease.

And this time the groan gets out before he can even think to stop it =whatever you say, Ripper= and he strokes himself. Rough wool under his hand, sliding over cool satin. Wet cotton. Thin glove of his own foreskin flesh. So many layers and it still feels too sharp, too real to bear.

=I've wanted you, you know. I've *always* wanted you...=

=Oh really? And to think I thought you always wanted *me*=

I...

oh and he can imagine Ethan *here*. Right here between his legs. Head lowered, looking up at him through mascaraed lashes, linered eyes like some Egyptian slaveboy, insolent and utterly pliable. Such a game. You be the master and I'll pretend to let you rape me. Come on, rape me. You know you want to, Rupert. Don't be tiresome and he really wants to cry now, and perhaps find a spare stake and put out one of his eyes. The would be more pleasant, wouldn't it?

Although, once again, if truth be told he's harder now than he was a minute ago. And Ethan never needed more than his voice to make *him* submit.

So angry that night he'd taken Ethan by the hair and thrown him against the wall, right onto the little illegal coal-oil heater that never produced enough heat to keep them out of sweaters but amazingly turned out to be hot enough to sear the flesh of anyone unlucky enough to get fucked against it. He'd thought Dierdre was cooking chops for Christ sake.

*Why didn't you say something. Scream. *Anything*

*You seemed to be enjoying yourself. I didn't want to spoil it.*

*Sick.... goddamned... Fuck...*

*Well, *I* enjoyed it too. In case you hadn't noticed.*

Well, no, actually. He hadn't. It had been so very very good that time.

He'd left that night. Thrown up in the alley behind the flat. Ridden his bike to Chelsea and been unable to get it up for Annika Fenrig of Bonn and ended up actually *calling* his father.

Yes, hello Father. I just shagged a bloke while he cooked, may I come home now?

Had hung up without saying a word and ridden back to the flat and Ethan's waiting arms.

And his hand trembles in his lap, fingers dancing along sensitized flesh. He's close to the excuse point. Weakening his own resolve, like a schoolboy at the beach, too impatient to wait for the waves to demolish his sandcastle, running buckets up and down the strand. Easier with every pass and there really is nothing *safe* in his head, is there? Nothing that does this to him at any rate. And it feels as though there's something he's missing there. Something that with twisting could make a bit of sense. Like factoring an equation down to little bracket-y things and superscript twos. Pity he'd never been any good at maths.

And Ethan had played schoolboy for him sometimes too -- morphing terrifyingly on the instroke of a thrust into some dark-eyed, wild little demon of a ten-year-old Ethan. Uneasy flash that always made Giles' scream. Changes lasting no more than a second or two but *real*. The feel of that paper flesh, those fragile bones. The knowledge of that, unbearable.

//And that god *that* --bucking up into his hand. Unbearable? Liar. *Liar*. What's unbearable is --

moaning softly, steadily, another stroke, another...

//is knowing Ethan after the change, just for a second, so soft around the mouth, the eyes. before-- oh, one slim second before he's all tendon, bones and nails and that bloody *grin*

oh *god* and moan and hand slipping in, sliding under, finding himself, he's seen that grin

//bolt upright, pulling raw and hard

//seen it on Xan--

//*Don't you dare stop..."

//on Xander's face

//on Xander's *face* and that's all he can see as it hits him so hard and fast he yells, writhes, wanting the sofa to be something hard and *oh*

//oh, he hadn't stopped.

He never never could.

And shuddering and panting on the sofa, he pulls his slick hand out of his ruined pants and wishes it made him sick enough to scream again, or vomit or... even to feel anything but a dull relief and satisfaction as he licks the lonely taste of just himself off his fingers. Nothing so much warm as the imagined heat of a fire he'd never even *known* was there and bloody... hell.

What a piece of work he and Ethan have made of one another over the years. Still life with pathetic old fruits. And *no*, it's not just a matter of propriety. Of right and wrong. Even of his own fear. He can see what Ethan is doing and it doesn't matter what Xander thinks he deserves, or even what Ethan thinks he deserves.

"You don't do this again, Ethan," he says aloud. "Not to anyone but me."

*end*