Randy and His Dad Part 2 of 5
The lovely story of Giles and his son Randy continues!
First part here
Chapter Two: Disturbing Developments
Maybe it was the night of engagement to the vivacious Anya, or it was simply having to say “Randy” all the time, but Rupert Giles was feeling very keenly the need for physical companionship. After a quiet night reading books on magic -- which felt like jumping in to a doctoral thesis without having done any undergraduate work in the area - Rupert and Randy had retired. But Rupert could not get to sleep and woke up in the middle of the night, painfully hard.
He’d already taken himself in hand when he heard a quiet creak on the floorboards outside his door. His breath caught and he held perfectly still, wishing fervently for the boy to go back downstairs and get to sleep. What was he doing wandering around, anyway?
Rupert watched two shadows move in the crack of his door, coming together, and then sliding back the way they had come - Randy’s feet. He strained his hearing until he heard a stair creak, and then heard the sofa springs in the front room squeak as Randy settled back down.
Giles relaxed, hand sliding down his length, setting up for a nice, lazy wank. He closed his eyes and conjured up a suitably motivating scene. Soft, pliant flesh against his own, adoring, beautiful blue eyes, pink lips opening against the head of his cock, a mischievous lick…
He was getting into the fantasy, hand speeding up. He imagined a saucy wink, a daring glance as he was swallowed down and…
Just as he was reaching his peak, he realized he was imagining Randy’s face. He tried to stop, to pull back from the abyss at the last moment, but momentum carried him over, and come spurted over his hand as a cold shame settled in his chest, leaving him exhausted, sweaty, and unfulfilled.
Worse, he couldn’t bring himself to go down to the bathroom and pass Randy. He cleaned himself up as best as he could using tissues and lay back, wondering and worrying and not sleeping.
In the morning, he had to peel himself from bed like a scab from a wound. Bleary-eyed and in no way in danger of thinking sexy thoughts, he shuffled into the kitchen.
Only to stop short at the sight of an equally sleep-bedraggled Randy leaning against the counter, coffee mug in both hands, shirtless.
Randy looked up from his mug and, after a pause, gave him a knowing smirk.
Rupert turned his full attention to the coffee maker - of course Randy was drinking blood, and hadn’t even considered starting a pot. Rupert set the coffee brewing in record time and fled to the bathroom.
Starring at his haggard face in the mirror, he recalled Randy’s uncanny ability to smell things - tears, month-old whisky in an empty glass. He turned the water on as hot as it would go and washed thoroughly.
When he came back out the flat was redolent of freshly brewed coffee and Randy had slicked his hair back into a severe shell, making him less dangerously attractive.
“You know, pops,” he came up behind Giles as he was pouring the coffee. “You don’t have to blush like a virgin and go take a penitential shower every time you squeeze one out.”
Rupert turned, sputtering, “There are things such as privacy, Randy. Just because you can smell something doesn’t mean you should comment on it.”
Randy’s grin only broadened. “Right. Let’s be properly British about it and pretend nobody wanks.”
“Yes, let’s.” Rupert’s teeth ached with clenching. He raised the coffee to his lips and forced himself to calm down and inhale the pleasant aroma.
Randy draped himself across the counter in front of him, running a hand down his bare (and extremely well-formed) abdomen. “Been living in a middle-aged porno for two days. I’m surprised it took you that long to succumb, after putting it to your fake fiancé for hours on end, you stallion, you.”
His fingers grazed the edge of his blue jeans, teasingly. There was a shadow of space between the rough fabric and his lively flesh. A fingertip slipped into it.
Rupert saw red. He didn’t even know what he was doing before he had both of Randy’s wrists pinned to the backsplash over the sink. There was a red mark on Randy’s cheek and his eyes were wide with shock and hurt. The violence of the moment made Rupert’s head spin.
“You’re hurting me,” Randy said, like he couldn’t believe it.
Rupert wanted rather strongly to slam the insolent brat harder into the counter, but some saner part of his mind prevailed and he let go, stepping back. As soon as he had some distance between them, he felt ashamed and foolish. Coffee ran down Randy’s chest. He’d smashed the cup into his face. It lay, broken, on the floor by Randy’s bare feet.
Rupert ran a shaking hand over his face. “I… I don’t know what’s come over me, I…” Looking up to see Randy still staring at him, he took the coward’s way out and fled back to his room.
He was, inexplicably, hard again. He wasn’t that sort of man. He was sure of it. The very idea! It was just that, without the proper memories, his subconscious didn’t recognize his son as family. Which, he was sure, he’d never be able to sufficiently explain.
Rupert dressed and sat down with a heavy magic text he’d been reading the night before. Going over his notes on possible memory-altering spells calmed him a bit, though he still felt - rightfully - like a coward in hiding.
A soft knock drew him from his studies. The door swung open gently, as if only slightly pushed, and Randy peered through the narrow opening. “Your ex is here. Says it’s urgent.”
“My ex?”
“We’re in the living room,” Randy said, and departed as quietly as he’d arrived.
With her usual forthrightness, Anya did not waste any time, standing up as soon as Rupert came down the stairs. “I’ve found a book on memory spells. It was in the shop’s inventory records.”
Rupert paused at the newel post, unsure how familiar he should be in congratulating her. “Why, that’s wonderful news. Excellent work.”
Anya flexed her fingers together nervously. “It would be good news, except the book is missing. It’s marked in the inventory as ‘checked out for research’. It’s not my hand-writing, or yours. I checked against other records.”
“I see.” Rupert frowned. “Well, perhaps we can find a record of our borrowing procedures, names of customers…”
“No you don’t see,” Randy said. His arms were crossed and he looked positively furious. “Written in a ledger behind the counter? This wasn’t a stranger. One of US cast the spell.”
***
Randy didn’t know a lot of things. How had he become a vampire? How old was he? Why was blood still kind of disgusting, even though he liked the taste of it? And what was UP with his dad? Something had crawled up his ass during the night.
But there was one thing Randy did know - he knew that when he found out which one of them had robbed him of his memories - even if it turned out to be himself - he was going to tear their arms off and beat them to death with them. (Which would be difficult, admittedly, if the culprit were himself. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t.)
In short order they were all seated around the large table in the magic shop, holding pencils and paper like participants in a grade-school exam. Anya stood over them like the proctor, holding the shop ledger. In the center of the table, printed out in 30-point bold, was the sentence “borrowed for research - back Friday”.
Randy had dashed his version off quickly and was pleased to see that his penmanship was excellent. Some of the others were being slow about it, and Anya was refusing to reveal the incriminating entry until everyone had finished.
“Don’t think about it,” Joan - correction, Buffy - said to Willow, who was frowning intently at her paper like it might bite her. “If you think about it, your writing will get all crampy and the test won’t work.”
Willow bit her lip and slumped. “Now I’m thinking about thinking about it.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Randy groaned, and leaned back in his chair. He caught his father’s eye. Rupert was standing by the wall, arms crossed, having been already eliminated from the running, like Anya.
Was Rupert looking at him like that because he was afraid Randy had done it? Or because he was concerned that Randy was concerned?
The whole thing was too much thinking and not enough doing something. Randy was fairly certain he was a man of action.
“Can we just look at the entry?” Willow asked, covering her paper with her hands.
“Of course not.” Anya looked at Rupert, presumably for backup. “That defeats the whole purpose of the test.”
“It’s just…”
Randy straightened in his chair, unable to repress a smile. It wasn’t him! “She knows something!”
Tara put her hand on Willow’s shoulder and leaned close. “Just write it out and we’ll check. We don’t know…”
“I found a note tucked into my day planner,” Willow said. She smiled. “I keep a day planner. Pretty regularly, it looks like. And… and there was this note.”
“You lot are going to kill me with suspense.” Randy snatched the book from Anya and held it up. “Five seconds, Red, and I open. So get scrawling. Five… Four…”
“Randy!” Giles cried out, and Anya started squawking about usurping her command, but Willow finally set pencil to paper.
Randy dropped the ledger down and they all looked at it. The air pressure seemed to go out of the room as everyone drew in a deep breath.
“It’s me,” Willow said. “G-g-god darn it. I knew it would be me.” She dropped into her chair, looking stunned.
Tara gave Randy a decidedly dirty look before turning to comfort her. “W-we don’t know w-why. It could have been to save us from something. Or- or…”
Randy leaned over the book, glaring at Willow. “So un-do it.”
“How? I’m not… well, I guess I am some kind of magic-spell-caster, but I don’t remember how!”
“If we can believe you.” Randy’s voice deepened to a growl.
Hard fingers dug into his arm, jerking him off the table. Randy was startled to see his father’s anger. “That’s quite enough,” he said. “We’re all in this together, Randy. Willow included.”
Randy was mortified, and felt an unreasonable urge to whine like a caught-out toddler. “But, Dad…”
Giles turned to the rest of the group. “We’re going to concentrate on what we can do to solve this. The first order of business is to find the spell Willow cast. It should be some place she has access to.”
“Tara and I searched all over our dorm room,” Willow said.
Randy suspected Tara’s blush implied a less-than-thorough search, but he didn’t want his father any angrier at him. He pulled his arm from Giles’ grip. “I can smell it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If it’s not in her room, or any obvious place, she’ll have hidden it somewhere she doesn’t normally go. So, if I smell her scent somewhere it shouldn’t be, we’ll know to look for the book there.”
Randy didn’t like the mixture of fascination and disgust on people’s faces. “It’s a vampire thing, apparently.”
Grumbling and arguments started, but Giles cut them off. “It’s a good idea. Randy and I will scout around town. Everyone else - search your personal areas. Any of us could be a collaborator in this.”
That quieted everyone down. Randy smiled. Finally, some action. Then he saw Giles waiting for him by the door with a face that would quiet a World Cup victory celebration.
“Right. Let’s do this,” Randy said, as coolly and professionally as he could muster.
***
Giles walked behind his son, letting him take the lead, stopping now and then, his head back, breathing in a complex story of scent known only to him. It was a reminder how alien they were to each other, and a little beautiful.
Mostly, however, he was seething with how embarrassingly childish his son could be. Had he not raised him properly? Or was it just that Randy couldn’t remember learning his manners?
Suddenly, Randy stopped, one hand raised. “Hang on a tic…” He broke into a jog through the gates of a cemetery.
“Randy!” Giles did not feel much like running at all. He sighed and gave pursuit. “Is it Willow? Do you smell the book?”
But Randy didn’t answer, only picking up speed. He stopped in front of a stone mausoleum, but only for a moment before ducking inside.
Giles caught his breath against the entryway and found, to his surprise, the interior of the tomb was kitted out with cast-off furniture like a vagrant had been living there. Randy stood in the center, holding a piece of black fabric up to his nose. “What is it? For god’s sake, Randy…”
Randy lowered the fabric; his expression was unreadable. “I live here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re in a cemetery crypt.”
Randy tossed the cloth, which appeared to be a t-shirt, onto one of the room’s two sarcophaguses and dashed into the space behind. In short order he had a bottle of whisky next to the shirt, and a pair of jeans and a belt. “It’s mine. Everything here smells like me.”
Giles was aghast - his son, living like a tramp in another person’s grave. “We… we don’t have time for this. We’re supposed to be searching for -”
Giles breath left him as Randy tore the shirt he was wearing off over his head, exposing his exquisitely formed torso. He then unceremoniously unzipped his trousers.
“Randy!” Giles turned his back. “You’re wasting time.”
Randy responded with a pornographic sigh of contentment. Despite telling himself that there was nothing but trouble involved in doing so, Giles turned to see. Randy stroked the waistline of the jeans affectionately. “Soft as butter,” he said. Giles, for a moment, assumed his words were referring to the gentle shadows dipping below the denim.
What was wrong with him? This was his SON. He should feel some instinct, some paternal fondness, sure, but he should not be imagining sliding his hand down that smooth flesh, nor should he be getting wicked ideas from the way Randy’s hands appeared bound for a moment as he turned the black t-shirt around to put on.
It took him far longer than it should have to realize Randy had spoken again and was looking expectantly at him. “I said,” Randy repeated, “Maybe I should come back here, tonight, instead of going home with you. Give you some privacy.”
“No!” Giles said, and coughed. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. This place is filthy and… and unsafe.”
“Dad,” Randy said, rolling his eyes, and Giles was grateful for the brattiness that hit him like a much-needed splash of cold water. “Nothing killed me in my sleep the last thousand times I must have slept here. And there’s all this cool stuff!” He brandished a half-empty whisky bottle as evidence.
“We don’t know… we don’t know enough about vampires and their weaknesses. You could have enemies.”
Randy’s expression softened. He stepped closer. “I- it means a lot, that you care. I… look, I know you’ve been pent up the past few days with me. I mean, let’s be honest, I’ve smelled it. You can’t very well bring a bird home with…”
Randy had come close enough now that they were just a few feet apart. His voice trailed off and his head tilted, a wondering expression on his face melting into a dawning realization.
Giles turned and ran. Not his brightest move, he realized as he stopped to catch his breath against the cemetery fence, but he still hadn’t come up with a better plan by the time he reached home, alone, and went straight to the shower.
Continued -->
First part here
Chapter Two: Disturbing Developments
Maybe it was the night of engagement to the vivacious Anya, or it was simply having to say “Randy” all the time, but Rupert Giles was feeling very keenly the need for physical companionship. After a quiet night reading books on magic -- which felt like jumping in to a doctoral thesis without having done any undergraduate work in the area - Rupert and Randy had retired. But Rupert could not get to sleep and woke up in the middle of the night, painfully hard.
He’d already taken himself in hand when he heard a quiet creak on the floorboards outside his door. His breath caught and he held perfectly still, wishing fervently for the boy to go back downstairs and get to sleep. What was he doing wandering around, anyway?
Rupert watched two shadows move in the crack of his door, coming together, and then sliding back the way they had come - Randy’s feet. He strained his hearing until he heard a stair creak, and then heard the sofa springs in the front room squeak as Randy settled back down.
Giles relaxed, hand sliding down his length, setting up for a nice, lazy wank. He closed his eyes and conjured up a suitably motivating scene. Soft, pliant flesh against his own, adoring, beautiful blue eyes, pink lips opening against the head of his cock, a mischievous lick…
He was getting into the fantasy, hand speeding up. He imagined a saucy wink, a daring glance as he was swallowed down and…
Just as he was reaching his peak, he realized he was imagining Randy’s face. He tried to stop, to pull back from the abyss at the last moment, but momentum carried him over, and come spurted over his hand as a cold shame settled in his chest, leaving him exhausted, sweaty, and unfulfilled.
Worse, he couldn’t bring himself to go down to the bathroom and pass Randy. He cleaned himself up as best as he could using tissues and lay back, wondering and worrying and not sleeping.
In the morning, he had to peel himself from bed like a scab from a wound. Bleary-eyed and in no way in danger of thinking sexy thoughts, he shuffled into the kitchen.
Only to stop short at the sight of an equally sleep-bedraggled Randy leaning against the counter, coffee mug in both hands, shirtless.
Randy looked up from his mug and, after a pause, gave him a knowing smirk.
Rupert turned his full attention to the coffee maker - of course Randy was drinking blood, and hadn’t even considered starting a pot. Rupert set the coffee brewing in record time and fled to the bathroom.
Starring at his haggard face in the mirror, he recalled Randy’s uncanny ability to smell things - tears, month-old whisky in an empty glass. He turned the water on as hot as it would go and washed thoroughly.
When he came back out the flat was redolent of freshly brewed coffee and Randy had slicked his hair back into a severe shell, making him less dangerously attractive.
“You know, pops,” he came up behind Giles as he was pouring the coffee. “You don’t have to blush like a virgin and go take a penitential shower every time you squeeze one out.”
Rupert turned, sputtering, “There are things such as privacy, Randy. Just because you can smell something doesn’t mean you should comment on it.”
Randy’s grin only broadened. “Right. Let’s be properly British about it and pretend nobody wanks.”
“Yes, let’s.” Rupert’s teeth ached with clenching. He raised the coffee to his lips and forced himself to calm down and inhale the pleasant aroma.
Randy draped himself across the counter in front of him, running a hand down his bare (and extremely well-formed) abdomen. “Been living in a middle-aged porno for two days. I’m surprised it took you that long to succumb, after putting it to your fake fiancé for hours on end, you stallion, you.”
His fingers grazed the edge of his blue jeans, teasingly. There was a shadow of space between the rough fabric and his lively flesh. A fingertip slipped into it.
Rupert saw red. He didn’t even know what he was doing before he had both of Randy’s wrists pinned to the backsplash over the sink. There was a red mark on Randy’s cheek and his eyes were wide with shock and hurt. The violence of the moment made Rupert’s head spin.
“You’re hurting me,” Randy said, like he couldn’t believe it.
Rupert wanted rather strongly to slam the insolent brat harder into the counter, but some saner part of his mind prevailed and he let go, stepping back. As soon as he had some distance between them, he felt ashamed and foolish. Coffee ran down Randy’s chest. He’d smashed the cup into his face. It lay, broken, on the floor by Randy’s bare feet.
Rupert ran a shaking hand over his face. “I… I don’t know what’s come over me, I…” Looking up to see Randy still staring at him, he took the coward’s way out and fled back to his room.
He was, inexplicably, hard again. He wasn’t that sort of man. He was sure of it. The very idea! It was just that, without the proper memories, his subconscious didn’t recognize his son as family. Which, he was sure, he’d never be able to sufficiently explain.
Rupert dressed and sat down with a heavy magic text he’d been reading the night before. Going over his notes on possible memory-altering spells calmed him a bit, though he still felt - rightfully - like a coward in hiding.
A soft knock drew him from his studies. The door swung open gently, as if only slightly pushed, and Randy peered through the narrow opening. “Your ex is here. Says it’s urgent.”
“My ex?”
“We’re in the living room,” Randy said, and departed as quietly as he’d arrived.
With her usual forthrightness, Anya did not waste any time, standing up as soon as Rupert came down the stairs. “I’ve found a book on memory spells. It was in the shop’s inventory records.”
Rupert paused at the newel post, unsure how familiar he should be in congratulating her. “Why, that’s wonderful news. Excellent work.”
Anya flexed her fingers together nervously. “It would be good news, except the book is missing. It’s marked in the inventory as ‘checked out for research’. It’s not my hand-writing, or yours. I checked against other records.”
“I see.” Rupert frowned. “Well, perhaps we can find a record of our borrowing procedures, names of customers…”
“No you don’t see,” Randy said. His arms were crossed and he looked positively furious. “Written in a ledger behind the counter? This wasn’t a stranger. One of US cast the spell.”
***
Randy didn’t know a lot of things. How had he become a vampire? How old was he? Why was blood still kind of disgusting, even though he liked the taste of it? And what was UP with his dad? Something had crawled up his ass during the night.
But there was one thing Randy did know - he knew that when he found out which one of them had robbed him of his memories - even if it turned out to be himself - he was going to tear their arms off and beat them to death with them. (Which would be difficult, admittedly, if the culprit were himself. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t.)
In short order they were all seated around the large table in the magic shop, holding pencils and paper like participants in a grade-school exam. Anya stood over them like the proctor, holding the shop ledger. In the center of the table, printed out in 30-point bold, was the sentence “borrowed for research - back Friday”.
Randy had dashed his version off quickly and was pleased to see that his penmanship was excellent. Some of the others were being slow about it, and Anya was refusing to reveal the incriminating entry until everyone had finished.
“Don’t think about it,” Joan - correction, Buffy - said to Willow, who was frowning intently at her paper like it might bite her. “If you think about it, your writing will get all crampy and the test won’t work.”
Willow bit her lip and slumped. “Now I’m thinking about thinking about it.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Randy groaned, and leaned back in his chair. He caught his father’s eye. Rupert was standing by the wall, arms crossed, having been already eliminated from the running, like Anya.
Was Rupert looking at him like that because he was afraid Randy had done it? Or because he was concerned that Randy was concerned?
The whole thing was too much thinking and not enough doing something. Randy was fairly certain he was a man of action.
“Can we just look at the entry?” Willow asked, covering her paper with her hands.
“Of course not.” Anya looked at Rupert, presumably for backup. “That defeats the whole purpose of the test.”
“It’s just…”
Randy straightened in his chair, unable to repress a smile. It wasn’t him! “She knows something!”
Tara put her hand on Willow’s shoulder and leaned close. “Just write it out and we’ll check. We don’t know…”
“I found a note tucked into my day planner,” Willow said. She smiled. “I keep a day planner. Pretty regularly, it looks like. And… and there was this note.”
“You lot are going to kill me with suspense.” Randy snatched the book from Anya and held it up. “Five seconds, Red, and I open. So get scrawling. Five… Four…”
“Randy!” Giles cried out, and Anya started squawking about usurping her command, but Willow finally set pencil to paper.
Randy dropped the ledger down and they all looked at it. The air pressure seemed to go out of the room as everyone drew in a deep breath.
“It’s me,” Willow said. “G-g-god darn it. I knew it would be me.” She dropped into her chair, looking stunned.
Tara gave Randy a decidedly dirty look before turning to comfort her. “W-we don’t know w-why. It could have been to save us from something. Or- or…”
Randy leaned over the book, glaring at Willow. “So un-do it.”
“How? I’m not… well, I guess I am some kind of magic-spell-caster, but I don’t remember how!”
“If we can believe you.” Randy’s voice deepened to a growl.
Hard fingers dug into his arm, jerking him off the table. Randy was startled to see his father’s anger. “That’s quite enough,” he said. “We’re all in this together, Randy. Willow included.”
Randy was mortified, and felt an unreasonable urge to whine like a caught-out toddler. “But, Dad…”
Giles turned to the rest of the group. “We’re going to concentrate on what we can do to solve this. The first order of business is to find the spell Willow cast. It should be some place she has access to.”
“Tara and I searched all over our dorm room,” Willow said.
Randy suspected Tara’s blush implied a less-than-thorough search, but he didn’t want his father any angrier at him. He pulled his arm from Giles’ grip. “I can smell it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If it’s not in her room, or any obvious place, she’ll have hidden it somewhere she doesn’t normally go. So, if I smell her scent somewhere it shouldn’t be, we’ll know to look for the book there.”
Randy didn’t like the mixture of fascination and disgust on people’s faces. “It’s a vampire thing, apparently.”
Grumbling and arguments started, but Giles cut them off. “It’s a good idea. Randy and I will scout around town. Everyone else - search your personal areas. Any of us could be a collaborator in this.”
That quieted everyone down. Randy smiled. Finally, some action. Then he saw Giles waiting for him by the door with a face that would quiet a World Cup victory celebration.
“Right. Let’s do this,” Randy said, as coolly and professionally as he could muster.
***
Giles walked behind his son, letting him take the lead, stopping now and then, his head back, breathing in a complex story of scent known only to him. It was a reminder how alien they were to each other, and a little beautiful.
Mostly, however, he was seething with how embarrassingly childish his son could be. Had he not raised him properly? Or was it just that Randy couldn’t remember learning his manners?
Suddenly, Randy stopped, one hand raised. “Hang on a tic…” He broke into a jog through the gates of a cemetery.
“Randy!” Giles did not feel much like running at all. He sighed and gave pursuit. “Is it Willow? Do you smell the book?”
But Randy didn’t answer, only picking up speed. He stopped in front of a stone mausoleum, but only for a moment before ducking inside.
Giles caught his breath against the entryway and found, to his surprise, the interior of the tomb was kitted out with cast-off furniture like a vagrant had been living there. Randy stood in the center, holding a piece of black fabric up to his nose. “What is it? For god’s sake, Randy…”
Randy lowered the fabric; his expression was unreadable. “I live here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re in a cemetery crypt.”
Randy tossed the cloth, which appeared to be a t-shirt, onto one of the room’s two sarcophaguses and dashed into the space behind. In short order he had a bottle of whisky next to the shirt, and a pair of jeans and a belt. “It’s mine. Everything here smells like me.”
Giles was aghast - his son, living like a tramp in another person’s grave. “We… we don’t have time for this. We’re supposed to be searching for -”
Giles breath left him as Randy tore the shirt he was wearing off over his head, exposing his exquisitely formed torso. He then unceremoniously unzipped his trousers.
“Randy!” Giles turned his back. “You’re wasting time.”
Randy responded with a pornographic sigh of contentment. Despite telling himself that there was nothing but trouble involved in doing so, Giles turned to see. Randy stroked the waistline of the jeans affectionately. “Soft as butter,” he said. Giles, for a moment, assumed his words were referring to the gentle shadows dipping below the denim.
What was wrong with him? This was his SON. He should feel some instinct, some paternal fondness, sure, but he should not be imagining sliding his hand down that smooth flesh, nor should he be getting wicked ideas from the way Randy’s hands appeared bound for a moment as he turned the black t-shirt around to put on.
It took him far longer than it should have to realize Randy had spoken again and was looking expectantly at him. “I said,” Randy repeated, “Maybe I should come back here, tonight, instead of going home with you. Give you some privacy.”
“No!” Giles said, and coughed. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. This place is filthy and… and unsafe.”
“Dad,” Randy said, rolling his eyes, and Giles was grateful for the brattiness that hit him like a much-needed splash of cold water. “Nothing killed me in my sleep the last thousand times I must have slept here. And there’s all this cool stuff!” He brandished a half-empty whisky bottle as evidence.
“We don’t know… we don’t know enough about vampires and their weaknesses. You could have enemies.”
Randy’s expression softened. He stepped closer. “I- it means a lot, that you care. I… look, I know you’ve been pent up the past few days with me. I mean, let’s be honest, I’ve smelled it. You can’t very well bring a bird home with…”
Randy had come close enough now that they were just a few feet apart. His voice trailed off and his head tilted, a wondering expression on his face melting into a dawning realization.
Giles turned and ran. Not his brightest move, he realized as he stopped to catch his breath against the cemetery fence, but he still hadn’t come up with a better plan by the time he reached home, alone, and went straight to the shower.
Continued -->