Title:  Grief Too Deep For Tears
Author:  Sottovoce
Rating:  * Adults Only *
Pairing:  Giles/Wesley
Setting:  England, set in cross-over AtS season 4, in the period after Wesley takes Connor and the period in BtVS season 6 when Giles had gone back to England. Disclaimer:  All credit goes to Joss Whedon who owns the characters, and provides the inspiration.

Grief Too Deep For Tears

The knock at the door was so soft that Giles wasn’t sure whether he’d imagined it. He raised his head distractedly and then went back to his notations. He hadn’t managed to get round to the rare early translation of Avistak u Zand that he’d given himself for his birthday weeks ago, but finally he had a quiet night. What bliss.

But there it was again. A discreet tap, tap, tap as if someone was of two minds whether to be heard. Giles sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose. All he wanted was a few uninterrupted hours to get some work done. Apparently it was too much to ask.

When he opened his front door, he couldn’t quite register what he was seeing.

“Wesley?”

The man standing in front of him was barely recognizable as the young Watcher he’d last seen being carried away from the scene of carnage outside Sunnydale High. Giles was aware that his shocked gaze had been visible before he regained composure, but he could hardly credit the transformation. Thin, unshaven, grim. Grim to the point of death.

“Wesley. What a surprise. I didn’t know you were in England.” But his words died on his lips as Wesley raised his eyes. My God, what had happened to the man to put such a look there? Giles rigorously disciplined his face and waited.

Wesley stared back, face immobile, eyes expressionless. And then, after a long moment of absolute stillness, reached out and took Giles’ hand, raising it between them. He held it for a moment, still silent, and finally placed his own, palm up in Giles’ loose grip. It lay there, open and vulnerable, the fine boned fingers curled upward in Broken Lotus position. Hand code. Perio. I am lost.

“Oh.” That was all Giles could manage. “Of course. Come in.” He’d never done this before, but the ancient response came unbidden. “I will serve.”

Wesley walked slowly into the living room and stood as if waiting for instruction.

“Please, sit down.” Giles gestured toward the chesterfield and then noticed it was cluttered with his notes. “Sorry, I’ve been working. Here, let me...” Wesley stood quietly watching as Giles moved books and papers from the cushions and sat finally when space had been cleared. He still had the erect posture of the Academy trained officer, but now it seemed sustained only through a supreme effort of will. His hands hung between his knees as though unconnected to the rest of his body.

Everything was incredibly awkward and Giles didn’t know how to begin. All Watchers were taught the procedures of Recovery, but in reality it had only been one lecture in the last year of his undergraduate degree. Mind, body, soul. It was essential to proceed slowly, only as much as the seeker could bear.

Giles sat down and then stood again quickly. “Forgive me. I’ve forgotten my manners. Will you have a drink?”

Wesley’s eyes came up from their fixed stare at Giles’ carpet and looked confused for a moment as though he was trying to register the question. Finally he nodded.

Giles took his time in the kitchen, pouring amber whiskey into glasses. He needed to gather his focus, find a calm centre from which to begin the ritual designed over a thousand years ago to reclaim Watchers who had fallen over the brink into despair. Accidie. The desert of the soul. Too much responsibility; too much experience; too much suffering. Sometimes the procedure worked, sometimes not. Whatever the result--a Watcher restored or a soul sick man taking the final steps into oblivion, it had to be attempted. Wesley was, strictly speaking, no longer a Watcher, but he was still due the ancient ceremony. When he had committed his life in the small chapel of the Academy, undertaken the vigil, the submission and the oath, he belonged to them forever. And, Giles noted wryly, he wasn’t even a Watcher himself any more. Strictly speaking. But the Order was older by millennia than the fusty bureaucrats of the Watchers Council.

Giles had to nudge Wesley’s hand with the whisky glass to get his attention, but when the nerveless fingers took the offering, they tightened until the knuckles shone white. The man was barely holding it together. What on earth could have brought him to this state? It had been only a few short years since he was the callow replacement Watcher on his first assignment, but he no longer had the terrible responsibility of a Slayer.

“Just drink slowly, Wes. It’ll do you good.”

Giles raised his own glass and spoke over the rim. “Drink, Wesley.” He kept his voice low and soothing. It was his role to be a deep pool of awareness, ego extinguished, all senses tuned to the other.

Wesley took a deep breath and swallowed his drink, Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively under skin marred by an angry cicatrice, gnarled and livid against pale skin. Giles felt the nerves at the base of his spine twinge as he realized what he was looking at. Wesley ought to be dead. It seemed inconceivable he could have survived a wound like that. Evidently the body had healing powers that were not sufficient for the mind. And that was where he came in.

“I see. When you’re ready, Wesley. Tell me about it.”

So began the first stage. Recollection and report. The seeker had to re-enter the place that had finally broken him, re-enter, recall and report what had happened, what he had done. The recollection part was usually hard to begin, the mind unwilling to allow itself to relive the awful truths.

“What do you remember? Any point in the narrative will do.” Giles’ words were gentle, but his tone gave no permission to evade. The story must be told.

“I betrayed my friend.” Wesley’s voice when he spoke was husky, a dry torture of syllables.

“Yes. We all do. Sooner or later,” Giles replied flatly. “Go on. Tell me about it.”

The chimes of the mantel clock had struck three times before the tale was told. Giles had risen to light a few lamps and built a fire to drive away the shadows threatening to swallow them as Wesley unfolded the events that had brought him to this room. His arrival in LA, the slow building of friendships with Angel, Gunn and one name surprising to Giles. Cordelia evidently had unsuspected depths. But Giles knew nothing if not how the millstones of life ground hard.

Once started, Wesley had spoken uninterrupted except for murmurs of assent and on one or two occasions, sympathy falling unconsciously from Giles’ lips. When he finally stopped, a deep silence fell over the room, broken only by the crackling of wood and the ticking of the clock. Wesley’s face was shadowed, the edges of his cheekbones and the grim outline of his mouth catching the flares of light from the fireplace. He was leaning forward now, elbows resting on his knees, his hands twisting in each other. Giles had never noticed before how sculpted they were, long fingered and beautifully formed. But thin and somehow fragile for a man so tall.

“Thank you. I think I understand.”

It was essential for the listener to be absolutely non-judgmental. All Watchers knew, the accumulated wisdom of the Order dictated, that the work was essentially impossible, beyond the strength of any man. Being guide to the generations of Slayers was the specific role, but the ultimate goal was the fight for the Good. Only a few Watchers were needed in any generation; all the rest toiled at the bulwarks, maintaining the line against the total triumph of evil. Wesley had fled the scene of his failure in Sunnydale, but true to his oath, had continued the battle on a different front. And now he was back in England where he started, full circle, defeated even more profoundly than before.

“What do you need, Wesley?” The necessary question opened up the next phase of recovery. Review.

Wesley looked up from his twisting hands, eyes haunted.

“The translation. Was I correct?”

Giles sat back and rubbed his brow slowly, mustering all the skills he had honed over years of linguistic research.

The words Wesley had written for him were deeply problematic. They had characteristics of Merallian though the verb ending didn’t follow Merallian irregularity patterns. Even what in English would have been called a noun, represented in the script as a metaphoric symbol, appeared to be perhaps from one of the cognate languages belonging to that hell dimension. But there had been a demon migration in the Fifth Epoch when the back blow from the sudden appearance of a new demi-dimension had caused a power surge through all of Hell. Several million tribes had been extinguished in a nanosecond, and the few survivors had eventually found their way through temporary portals to safety. But Wesley knew all that and had taken into account the resulting changes in Merallian that were fairly well accounted for.

“Did you consult the Jonquian tablets? As far as I know they are the most up-to-date sources we have.”

Wesley had become more animated during his account of the anxious research he had undertaken to translate the text, and now he stood, running his fingers through his hair distractedly.

“Yes, of course. And I cross-referenced from there back to Io’s dissertation on the linguistic effects of the Great Dispersal. She triangulated through contemporary observer accounts, standard Magus documentary records and Imhoten’s analysis of cave graffiti from the time. They all suggest the changes in New Merallian had stabilized by that point.”

Wesley began to pace back and forth in front of the chesterfield. “I’m sure I’m right. Oh God, but what if I’m not. Connor is gone and I’m the one that put him in Hell. And Angel...” His voice, little more than a hoarse whisper, became thicker as though tears had clogged his throat though none showed on his anguished face.

“Wesley, come and sit down.” Giles rose to his feet and touched Wesley on the shoulder to stop him in his agitated movement. “Sit,” he ordered when the other man appeared too wrought up to cease his fevered motion.

“Stay there. I’m going to make us something to eat.” Giles paused long enough to see that Wesley had dropped onto the chesterfield, the picture of dejection. “Here, I’m going to put some music on. I want you to just try and relax. Focus on the music.”

Giles quickly scanned his CDs and selected one that he turned to time and time again, when he needed solace. Samuel Barber’s “Adagio For Strings.” He’d heard it first at the funeral of president Kennedy when the world paused to watch. Wesley’s grief must be called out, his baffled heart opened to the depths of its sorrow, and the guilt expiated through beauty so powerful it is painful. But pain with a difference. Only then might the healing begin.

As the first rich deep tones began their sinous winding ascension, Giles left the living room. Wesley had slumped into the cushions of the chesterfield, head back, eyes closed, giving himself up to the sound filling the room. He looked so utterly broken that Giles felt a lump rising in his throat. It was the music, of course, but it was also Wesley himself. His lean, harrowed face and the long, elegant proportions of his form. Extraordinary once he’d been stripped of the absurd persona he’d adopted in Sunnydale. And, everything in Giles’ life, his own journey from naive, rebellious teenager to the veteran he had become, tuned his soul to Wesley’s. This was why the ritual of Recovery could only be done by another Watcher. To see what I have seen. To know what I have known. Requisite for empathy. And empathy was the ground spring for what had to follow. Without, it would only be sadism.

As he assembled a meal from the contents of his fridge, Giles mulled over the linguistic puzzle presented by the prophecy. The father will kill the son. He could see no fault with Wesley’s process in arriving at the translation. And the corollary evidence, Angel’s changed behaviour. Try as he might to find any flaw in the horrific conclusion Wesley had come to, Giles knew he would have arrived at the same place. But oh, how terrible the consequences for everyone. The Greeks understood this so well. The best in human kind becomes the means of man’s destruction. Pitiless fate.

Lost in his meditations, Giles startled when Wesley spoke from the doorway of the kitchen.

“You haven’t answered my question.” He stood, a gaunt figure of grief, arms loose by his sides. His eyes were dark, purple shadows underneath turning the sockets into caves from which he looked out at Giles with an unwavering gaze.

“You must eat. I’ll answer you when you’ve got some of this down you.”

Giles gestured toward the kitchen table where he had laid out a simple meal. A round loaf of crusty bread, fragrant and chewy in its centre. Ripe tomatoes still attached to the vine. Creamery sweet butter and aged cheddar bought from the farmer down the road. Pickles made by bustling, sensible women who kept the local Anglican church going by their monthly church bazaars. A bowl of Cox’s Orange Pippins for afters. And two bottles of strong Somerset cider. Giles’ life was almost ascetic, but he loved good food.

But this was for Wesley. All of the senses and faculties must be roused when a Watcher was nearing psychic death. Mind, body, soul. Each must be called out and ministered to. I will serve. Everything Giles did was bent toward Wesley’s needs. And if he was beginning to lose the detachment he felt was necessary in such a ritual, then perhaps it was inevitable. It struck him now, Wesley was himself, but younger. Giles too had been brought back from the brink when he had lost his way in the labyrinths of magic, following the chimera of Ethan’s superior gift. When he’d been given the assignment of a young slayer in California, he was barely recovered. And time had consolidated his strength. Wesley might yet survive to fight other battles.

Wesley pulled out a chair, its wooden legs scraping against the slate tile. A plain white plate had been put at each side of the table, a small sharp knife by the side and a clean cotton napkin.

Wesley lifted the knife and stroked its blade meditatively with his thumb. He seemed mesmerized by the glints of light reflected from candles in the wrought iron chandelier overhead. Giles had kept the electric lights off, thinking the softer light more conducive to the mood. It was important to make the transition from stage to stage as smooth as possible.

“Try some of the cheese, Wesley,” Giles said as he cut into the loaf, carving out rough chunks of bread. He placed one on the plate opposite him. “How long has it been since you last ate?”

“What?” Wesley’s eyes came up from their brooding contemplation of the knife in his hand. “Oh....What day is it?”

“Thursday. Are you telling me you haven’t eaten for days?”

“I had some peanuts on the plane. I’m not hungry.” Wes put the knife down carefully on his plate, aligning it precisely perpendicular to the edge of the table with the tips of his fingers.

“Well, I’m not playing high chair games with you. You have to eat.”

This was going to be slow going, Giles realized. Wesley seemed to be hidden behind opaque layers of indifference. “Here, start on this.” He laid a chunk of cheese and a tomato on Wesley’s plate. And then grinned. “If you don’t finish your meal, you’re not going to get dessert.”

Wesley looked up and for a brief moment his mouth loosened as if he might smile. And then it passed.

But clearly he wouldn’t or couldn’t begin to eat until he had an answer.

Giles drew in a long breath. “As far as I can determine, the translation is correct. Your process and reference texts were appropriate, your method was impeccable. The only thing that remains in question is provenance. And whether the document has been preserved intact.”

Wesley had gone painfully still when Giles started to speak, the blue of his eyes darkening to gray when he heard his greatest fear allayed. Finally, he reached for the chunk of bread on his plate, broke off a corner and raised it to his mouth.

“The scroll came from the Wolfram & Hart document vault. They’re originals. Nothing gets in there, human or mystical.”

“Angel did.” The words fell into the quiet of the kitchen like dropping stones.

The bread paused in its trajectory and then Wesley placed it gently on the plate.

“I’m not hungry.” The voice was a whisper, barely audible, as if whatever strength he’d been able to muster for this journey was finally gone.

Giles rose and began to clear things away. There was no point in going any further in this phase. He put dishes in the sink and turned on the taps, then cleared his throat uneasily.

“You know what’s coming next, don’t you?”

He probably did. Recovery was part of every Watcher’s training.

“I’m here.”

That was all. Just a flat statement, but it would have to do.

“My bedroom’s upstairs. The bathroom is just beyond at the end of the corridor. Feel free to have a shower or whatever preparations you’d like to make.

The final phase was re-occupation. The militaristic names for the stages had caused Giles to roll his eyes when the Psych prof had written them on the black board in the musty lecture hall all those years ago. Giles had been leaning back in his usual insolent sprawl, taking cursory notes, but mostly the yellow legal pad was covered in doodles and fragments of song lyrics. Plus a few scatological comments on Professor Harkness’ sexual predilections. It had sounded to Giles like some bureaucrat’s notion of how a battle plan might be written. Silly men in pin striped suits and tightly rolled brollies who didn’t know a basilard from a falchion.

But whatever it was called, the next part was essential. Wesley’s body had to be roused, entered and taken in the last attempt to bring him back from the barren wastes where his mind wandered. If that failed, then it was Giles’ job to provide him with the means to end it all. And if he faltered at the last moment, to deliver the coup de grace. But Giles knew Wesley would not falter. He might already be too far gone to bring back. Death was the easier way.

As he climbed the stairs, he sifted his own mental readiness. Balance was everything, balance and discipline. The allure of the abyss was deeply seductive, especially for experienced Watchers. To fight evil, it was necessary to know it well, to travel the domains of despair and hopelessness and return with its knowledge. But the darkness was embedded after that, held in check, but always there under the skin. Wesley’s soul was infused with the dark luster of despair, and he was all the more fascinating for it. But deadly. Hellishly deadly unless Giles was ready.

He entered the bedroom to find Wesley standing there, naked except for a towel around his hips.

Giles was taken aback. It was one thing to know what was to be done, but quite another to see him in the flesh, waiting for the process to begin. He swallowed hard, completely unnerved. He’d never particularly thought about what it would mean to engage in sex with another Watcher in this kind of circumstance. In his youthful arrogance in the lecture hall, he’d merely assumed he’d get on with the job. After all, his sexual appetite was insatiable back then, erection assured in the presence of a naked man. And Wesley was certainly not unattractive. In fact, never more than now. Suffering had burned and purified him. He was slim, refined and utterly beautiful.

But that was then. Giles had long had the arrogance knocked out of him

He turned away to calm himself. Anxiety now would prevent him from performing. He took his time undressing, folding each article of clothing and laying it on the bench at the foot of the bed. Wesley remained where he was, too uninterested even to watch.

When he turned, his mind was made up. He crossed over to Wesley in three rapid strides and slashed the back of his fist across his jaw, grunting as his knuckles hit hard bone. Wesley staggered and fell backwards, sprawling on the ground with shock etched on his face. He got to his feet slowly, easing the towel from his waist to let it slip to the floor. His ribs stood out under the skin as he dragged in ragged breaths. When he finally looked directly at Giles, his eyes shadowed under a lowered brow, the hair at the base of Giles’ skull prickled. He’d seen cold rage before, but this was like looking into the heart of a deadly machine, icy steel and razor edges.

“Well, that got your attention. What are you going to do about it?” He made his tone deliberately sneering.

Wesley didn’t answer. He launched himself through the air, hands grasping at the vacant air where Giles had stood a second before and crashed heavily into the wardrobe next to the door. There was a tinkle of broken glass from inside the door.

“You’ll have to do better than that. I thought you’d become a fighter.” Giles had turned as Wesley’s body brushed past him and stood waiting, sizing up his chances of staying on his feet against the younger man. He was heavier and more experienced, but rage was on Wesley’s side.

Wesley leaned against the wardrobe for a moment, steadying himself. His voice, when he spoke, was eerily light, as though he were announcing drinks on the terrace.

“I can’t imagine why you think, ‘getting my attention’ as you quaintly call it might be a good thing.” He straightened up and looked at Giles, one eyebrow arched in polite inquiry.

And then he was on top of Giles in a movement so fast Giles didn’t see the shift in muscle tension. Both men went down in a crash of arms and legs hitting the wooden floorboards, Wesley’s hands round Giles’ throat in a death grip. Giles could feel the small bones cracking under the pressure. Above him, Wesley’s face grew large as his vision narrowed with lack of oxygen. A fist drew back and smashed into his jaw, snapping his head sideways. And then another blow, and another, until the fist was sliding in hot blood from a cut in Giles’ eyebrow.

Giles felt himself begin to slide into darkness.

I will serve.

He wasn’t sure whether he said it or thought it in the glimmering place before everything disappeared, but the assault stopped. He lay there for a long, long pulsing moment as his heartbeat overwhelmed his body, thundering in his ears. The pain in his temple crescendoed and then faded to a dull pounding.

When he opened his eyes and looked up, squinting against the brightness of the overhead light, Wesley was standing, looking down at him. His arms were hanging limply by his sides, bloodied hands fisted, chest heaving in the aftermath of adrenaline. Their gaze met and a tremor seemed to pass over the other man.

“I’m sorry. So sorry, Giles.” Wesley leaned down and offered a hand.

“That wasn’t quite how it was supposed to go, I hope you realize,” Giles grinned ruefully as he accepted the offer and pulled himself up. He’d planned to rouse Wesley, provoke him into a reaction that would break his body and mind out of the torpor permeating his spirit. But there was a limit. That was just a bit too close for comfort.

“Here, let me help.”

Wesley had followed him into the bathroom, leaning over his shoulder to take the damp cloth out of his hand.

“Sit on the toilet seat and I’ll get you fixed up.”

Wesley’s voice was different now than it had been since he arrived, warmer, more like himself. Giles relaxed into the comforting sensation of someone else taking over. The warm facecloth gently dabbed blood away from the cut on his brow. He couldn’t help himself wincing as even the gentle pressure sent a wave of pain from the swollen wound.

“Sorry. I’m being as careful as I can, but I need to get it cleaned up so I can see whether it need stitches.”

“You’re in trouble, lad, if you’ve marred my looks” Giles remarked. “My face is my fortune.” They both gave small grunts of amusement.

“Won’t be visible on a medium shot. No worry.” Wesley’s hands were quick and proficient, applying thin strips of adhesive across the cut to hold it together. Ministrations finished, he moistened the cloth and handed it to Giles to clean off the drying blood smeared on his chest.

“Was it entirely necessary hit me?” Wesley asked as he washed blood from his hands under the running water. “Haven’t got the notion of ‘helper’ quite down, have you?”

There was a smile in the voice, a light touch of irony Giles had never heard from the Watcher he’d known in Sunnydale. He’d been far too full of himself for irony back then.

“Well, there was clearly no fucking to be had with you in your former limp state,” Giles replied, rising to look at himself in the bathroom mirror. He fingered the bandaged cut gingerly.

“Nice job, Wesley. I think the scar will only add to my rakish appeal, don’t you think?”

He was talking to empty air.

“Wesley?”

By the time he got to the bedroom, Wesley was lying on the bed, eyes closed.

“Oh, all right then. You just have a bit of a lie down,” Giles said to the unresponsive man. After the exhausting battering you got from my face, he thought to himself.

He got in beside Wesley and pulled the folded duvet up from the bottom of the bed, covering them both. Wesley had apparently fallen instantly to sleep. Just as well, Giles thought. Probably been awake for days and running on pure stubborn will. He had been in a morbid state, but some deep instinct had kept him going until he found help.

When Giles woke in the middle of the night, warm in the nest of eiderdown, he found that they had drifted together. Wesley’s buttocks were pressed firmly against his thighs and his arm was round Wesley’s body, hand held in the grasp of the other man’s. It felt comfortable, warm and...arousing evidently. His cock lay upright in the crease of Wesley’s arse. Not now you idiot, he thought to himself. And moved his hips back to decrease the disturbing contact. But the buttocks pressed back into place and wriggled slightly, causing new reaction in the distinctly interested member. Giles began a series of slow, upward thrusts, enjoying the teasing slide of the tip against the tender flesh. He kissed the shoulder in front of him, savoring the feel of the smooth skin under his lips. A flash of piercing desire for the man hardened his cock even more.

The hand still holding his, began to move down, across Wesley’s stomach and into the rough curls below. Wesley’s cock was standing up flat against his belly, head already moist.

That was it. Giles arched as his whole body reacted to the stimulus, pushing hard into the crease. He gripped the cock and began to stroke, feeling the swollen tip bulge out at the top of each upward movement. Wesley’s hips began to move in time with his, and suddenly they were in full heat, thrusting and shuddering against each other.

“Wait,” Giles muttered urgently. “Hold off a moment.”

He leaned over Wesley’s shoulder to the bedside table and extracted a lubed condom from the drawer. Overwhelmed with the need for speed, Giles ripped the foil open with his teeth and backed away long enough to get the condom on, fumbling in haste.

Wesley turned to look at Giles. His eyes were intense with need.

“Now.”

The dam of control in Giles broke. This was supposed to be part of the last phase of recovery, entering the body to bring it back to the fullness of life. But he needed it now as much for himself as for Wesley.

Positioning himself behind Wesley’s arse, he nudged against the entrance, slowly opening him. Wesley arched his back and pushed, aiding the process, panting slightly with his rising need to be filled up and surrounded. They both groaned finally, as Giles’ cock slid inside and began the increasing tempo of thrusts that would carry them to completion.

They fell asleep, Giles arms wrapped around Wesley, still deep in his body. Wesley stirred just before dreams claimed him to murmur something indistinct, but affectionate and grateful.

When Giles woke again, it was full morning, light streaming in the casement window. Stray beams glanced off a crystal bowl on the table and scattered prisms across the ceiling. He was alone, the bed beside him empty and the sheets cold.

He rose and pulled on a robe against the morning chill. Faint sounds of music drifted up the stairs below. He paused and listened. Adagio for Strings.

As he descended the staircase, the violins were carrying the beautiful melody higher and higher, the deep tones of cellos speaking their rich dark undertone of swelling grief. Wesley was sitting fully dressed on the chesterfield, head back, eyes closed, the high arch of his graceful neck exposing the awful wound that had brought him here. But the face now was peaceful.

The strings spiraled ever upward to that last heartbreaking high note and then the hushed lower chords, returned the melody to the slow, tranquil movements of the ending.

As he watched Wesley, his heart beating in sympathy, moved by the music as much as the sight before him, he saw that the dark curls by Wesley’s temple were damp with moisture.

Suddenly it was unbearably intimate to be witnessing the other man’s pain releasing itself into ordinary human tears. Wesley been far away, but at least for now, he was back. Giles slipped silently down the remaining stairs and busied himself with breakfast.

He was deep in concentration for the exact moment to flip the omelet onto the plate with its centre still soft, so when Wesley spoke, he was startled.

“God, I’m starving. What have you got there?”

Giles watched as Wesley tucked away a considerable amount of food for a man so thin, but then he needed it all the more.

“Have you got more toast?” Wesley’s voice paused after the question as though momentarily caught in a memory, but then he cleared his throat. “That is brilliant bread. Can’t get anything like it in LA.” His voice became thick again for some reason Giles couldn’t guess, but Wesley seemed to put whatever it was in the background and resumed eating.

When the time came to part, Wesley stood at the door looking at Giles. He lifted his hand and placed it inside Giles’ own, fingers curled up, thumb and forefinger meeting. Closed lotus. The recovery was over.

Wesley smiled and turned to go. And then he turned back and gripped Giles in a hard embrace which Giles found himself returning warmly.

That was all. There were no words. Everything had been done as it should be. Giles closed the door and walked over to the window to watch but Wesley had disappeared down the lane to the main road where he could catch a bus.

By this time the sun had risen full. Morning dew sparkled on the tips of the wild grasses and hedgerow birds chuckled and squabbled in the hidden recesses of the foliage. Giles stretched and yawned. It had been a long night in more ways than one, but he was feeling amazingly good. He walked into the kitchen, humming the lovely refrain from the Adagio. Was there ever a more perfect piece of music? Simple and brief. But so complex in its emotional resonance. Much like life.

The End