Professional Life (Chapter Three: Deja Vu Just Isn't What It Used to Be)

[protoneoromantic]

Sequel to Private Life (SoG2017)
Author:protoneoromantic
beta:gilescandy
Giles/Wesley
Rating:T
Word Count: 1549

“Get in the right-hand lane, you fool!” Giles shouted. “Are you trying to get us killed or arrested!”...  But it was too late. A police car pulled out of the alley and in behind them, sirens blaring and lights flashing.... “So, here we are again,” Stern crowed with cruel amusement ...

 

“On the right,” Giles admonished Wesley tiredly as he pulled out of the parking lot and into the wrong lane. Wesley must have genuinely failed to hear him this time. He had no reason to ignore such an important reminder. Either he was hard of hearing, or easily distracted. Probably the latter, since he was peering intently at the street signs and totally ignoring an oncoming car only three blocks away.

“Get in the right-hand lane, you fool!” Giles shouted. “Are you trying to get us killed or arrested!”

The other car was perhaps a block away now. It had slowed to nearly a stop and was honking loudly. Wesley slammed on the breaks and swerved into the right-hand lane so quickly that he swung too wide and clipped a mailbox, denting the car door and leaving the box lilting at an odd angle.

Half a block on, Wesley pulled over to the curb and stopped completely. He sat there a moment, regaining his composure. “I say,” he managed at last, almost by way of apology, “They really do drive on the right here, don't they?” Giles ignored his statement of the obvious, glaring at him in stony silence.

“Well,” Wesley tried again, putting the car back in gear. “Now we've corrected our course we can get on—” But it was too late. A police car pulled out of the alley and in behind them, sirens blaring and lights flashing. Both officers got out and approached the Watchers' vehicle. They were Gary Stern and Terry Wiggins. Of course they were. Who else would they be?

Giles barely had time to take Balthazar's amulet out of his coat pocket and conceal it in the tiny secret compartment beneath the glove box. Wesley looked at him aghast, but it wasn't as though he had a better solution. Certainly it was less than ideal. The police stood a reasonable chance of finding and confiscating the amulet, which was, in point of fact, stolen. But if he'd kept it on him and they were arrested, it would certainly have been found.

“So, here we are again,” Stern crowed with cruel amusement as he strolled up to the driver's side window. He deflated a little when he saw that the person behind the wheel was not Rupert Giles, but he made the best of it. “Another one, eh?” he guessed with a mean little smile, still addressing the passenger rather than the driver.

“No, no,” Giles assured him, sounding put-upon but polite about it. “This is the same one. This is the chap who was good enough to drive you home Friday night,” he explained for Wesley's benefit.

Wesley looked acutely uncomfortable, as if the temperature inside the car had suddenly shot up to a hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit. “Well.... I...” he groped for a suitable response for this situation but came up empty handed. Worst of all, Giles was looking at him again. This time with what seemed very much like genuine compassion, which Wesley most certainly did not need from him.

The officers had made it crystal clear what they thought of his companion. He could well imagine what they must be thinking about him right now. God, it was humiliating to have his private life, even in rough outline, revealed to these petty, ignorant Americans. Worse still, if their unsupported yet accurate suspicions wound up in an official document that later came to the attention of the Council, both his engagement and his hopes to one day hold a seat on the Council himself would be in grave jeopardy.

“License and registration,” Stern demanded impatiently when several minutes had passed and the driver still had not produced a coherent sentence. Mainly though, he was just disappointed that he wasn't going to get to arrest Mr. Giles again tonight. He put the other one through a few field sobriety tests but his heart wasn't in it.

Finally, he wrote the young Englishman a ticked for careless driving and sent him on his way with a few words of advice deliberately uttered just loud enough for his unsavory passenger to hear. “Look,” he said, “far be it from me to tell one of you guys where to get your kicks, I mean maybe you want to get hurt, who knows. But if you don't, stay away from that guy. I mean, I know you people like a little walk on the wild side, but you're playing with your life getting in a car with someone like that.”

“Yes, thank you,” Wesley said bruskly, snatching his driver's license and Giles's registration out of the officer's hand. “I'll be sure to keep that in mind.” There was a sharper edge to his voice than he'd intended, and for one dangerous moment, Stern's expression hardened. Thankfully, he let it go. He walked away shaking his head and signaled for his partner to follow.

“Two to one those two pulled into that alley to have a little snog,” Mr. Giles joked, trying to lighten the mood. Still giving him that look of pity or empathy or support or whatever it was, eyes twinkling in amusement just the same. Wesley handed him his registration papers with a frosty glare. Giles heaved a heavy sigh. “You know it sometimes helps to have a sense of humor about these things,” he chided Wesley gently.

“Hmph,” Wesley sniffed, still bristling from the indignity of it all. Without another word, he put the car in gear and headed back towards their apartment complex. Unfortunately, upon arrival he found he had to say something more to the man after all.

“I don't know where the parking is,” he admitted grudgingly. “Since I haven't a car, I didn't think to ask.”

“There's a slew of Garages round back of the second row of buildings,” Giles inform him helpfully. Politely even. “Pull in just there and round to the left.” God, it was infuriating to be politely helped by someone you truly hated. Especially if that someone looked like everything you hated longing to have wrapped around your naked body every minute of every day.

“Are you all right?” Giles asked, brows knitting together.

“Erm, what? No. Yes. Yes, of course,” Wesley stammered.

“I was just saying,” Mr. Giles continued patiently, “that it is a good thirty yards back to my front door and twice that to yours. “I assume you have a cross or something handy? I'd hate to think of you walking me safely home only to have to go on defenseless.”

Was there something hopeful in his voice or was Wesley only imaging it? A kind of gentle imploring tone, feeling out the possibility of suggesting that they stay together for strength in numbers at this late hour, or some equally coy approach to winding up naked in each other's arms.

He was probably imaging it Wesley decided. Still... they were just pulling into the garage that Giles had opened with a wand he kept in the glove box. Inside, the light was mercifully dim. Dim enough that they could not quite see one another's eyes, which made Wesley feel calmer, braver somehow. Less exposed.

And it had been five long days since he had kissed his last lover good bye back in London. For some people, apparently, that wasn't a long time. But for Wesley, it was. “I could,” he ventured, his voice involuntarily dropping to a husky whisper, “stop over at your flat.” He ventured so far as to law a hand on the other man's thigh, heart hammering madly, almost as terrified of acceptance as rejection. “Just until sunrise?”

“Mmmmm,” Giles breathed out slow and raggedly. The pretense that either of them was contemplating the mere expediency of avoiding walking alone at night was paper thin. He was sure he would regret the decision he was contemplating. Probably they both would. But fifty days was a very long time, and at that moment, fifty-one seemed infinitely longer.

Impulsively, he leaned in, took Wesley's face in both hand and kissed him full on the lips. Wesley kissed him back at least as fiercely. Making a small noise of desperate need, something between a whine and a groan, Wesley made a fumbling grab for Rupert's belt.

The Ex-Watcher pulled back just a little and took Wesley's hands in his. His eyes twinkled. He was laughing softly. Not in a cruel way, but still.... Wesley stiffened a bit, suddenly fearing rejection much, much more than acceptance, bracing for the humiliation.

Rupert's laugh grew softer and gentler still. “I'm not keen on stopping either,” he clarified. “I just think we're both a bit old to be... carrying on in a parked car.”

Wesley felt about equal parts relieved and embarrassed. “I suppose I was rather, well, a bit...” he began sheepishly. Suddenly, Giles kissed him again before turning and opening his door to get out.

“One rule,” Wesley stated as firmly as he could manage, opening the door on his own side, “We cannot let anything... personal between us affect our professional life in any way.”

“Two,” Rupert corrected, still laughing but also quite serious, “neither of us speaks a word for the next hour.”