"She's late." Ethan could feel a headache forming from how tightly he was holding his jaw muscles. He set his lips in a hard line and began to pace around the front room.

Rupert was frowning at him; Ethan wasn't sure why. Perhaps having talked Ethan into this meeting, Rupert was now having second thoughts himself about insisting that this was something they needed to deal with – 'this' being the person claiming to be Molly Lovall, Ethan's grandmother. She had apparently been somewhat reticent with information sharing so far; it seemed she 'needed to talk with her grandson' first. Well, there was no grandson of hers here, so Ethan couldn't see why she didn't just sod off.

Maybe she had. The thought made him smile meanly, but no, why would such an obvious trap leave before delivering its payload? "We could've been finished with this stupidity by now if she'd been on time. After all, how long can it take for me to read her pattern and tell her to bugger off before I kick her halfway across London?"

"Have you considered that she might be who she says she is?" Rupert asked with aggravating calm.

"Not possible."

"I've learnt that that phrase is rarely true."

Oh, sometimes even now Rupert was infuriating. Ethan turned abruptly towards his husband to answer with what he considered was appropriate sharpness, but accidentally kicked Skunk in doing so. She yelped and whined and looked at him with big accusing eyes.

She'd been following his steps too closely. Skunk had been a little clingy since Ethan had woken from days of unconsciousness, which had been preceded, of course, by him dropping her to the floor as the maze had captured him. He couldn't blame his dog for the clinginess and didn't mind it, but now he'd hurt her in his frustration.

Crouching, he set about soothing his most loyal of hounds. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm a bad human."

"Why don't you come and sit down?" Rupert bade. "I'll see if I can't distract you."

After a brief hesitation, Ethan obeyed, sitting close to Rupert on the couch. Skunk jumped up to the other side, obviously feeling she hadn't had enough in the way of apologies. He petted her some more. "What are you proposing?" he asked Rupert.

"Well, there's this for starters." Rupert took Ethan's hand and began feeding him magic, something he'd been doing at the slightest opportunity ever since Ethan had awakened, and Ethan certainly wasn't objecting.

He let himself lean against Rupert, saying softly, "That's nice. If she's not coming, we could go to bed."

Rupert chuckled. "That might be a bit more distraction than I had planned currently."

"Plans can be rewritten," Ethan said, smirking. He ran his hand up Rupert's leg and urged, "Give in to impulse." Giddy lifted his head in his basket and barked as if in agreement, and Ethan grinned at the dog, but then his spirits fell as there was a knock on the door.

"Perhaps later," Rupert said, removing Ethan's hand from his leg as he stood.

Rupert disappeared into the lobby, and Ethan heard the door opening and voices conversing. He stood up again, wanting very much to disappear into the study... and then out into the back garden, over the fence and away. But he stood still and waited. Of course, he did.

A moment later Rupert came back, escorting an old woman in a blue coat whom Ethan didn't want to look at too closely... which became difficult when she came forward, reaching for him, a smile on her all too familiar face. "Now, would you look at you? Mi yokki chavo, all grown up." Ethan backed off in a hurry until the back of his legs hit the coffee table, and he nearly fell over.

Skunk barked nervously, looking between Ethan and the woman in obvious confusion. Ethan couldn't take the time to soothe her; he was too busy not looking at the stranger's face. Her voice was bad enough; it hit him with a force that winded. "Don't you dare use words you have no right to use," he managed to wheeze.

"It's a sad thing when evil turns us all to suspicion," the woman continued implacably, in the same painfully familiar affectionate voice with its hint of humour.

Ethan had forgotten that humour, or rather had not really been aware of it when young, but yet somehow now remembered it... no. Bugger that. "It's a typical thing when evil uses vulnerabilities to manipulate."

The woman stopped where she was and put her hands on her hips. "You have ways to allay your fears, camo, if you will just look."

"No. Rupert, make her go." His courage failed; Ethan whirled around, more or less running for the study.

He wanted to keep going, out the door and into the night, but he forced himself to stop when he reached the safety of the other room. A moment later, there were footsteps behind him, and he turned into Rupert's embrace. Without thought, Ethan clung, burying his face in his favourite place for comfort.

"I can't do this."

"You can." Rupert rubbed Ethan's back soothingly, adding just a bit of magic to his touch. "What are you afraid of, love? That it isn't her? Or that it is?"

"Both," Ethan finally admitted to himself. "She... you don't... You couldn't understand."

"It's about family," Rupert said softly. "Connection. I understand."

"She was all I had, and she left me."

"And now she's come back." He gently nuzzled Ethan. "Just like I did."

Ethan looked up, searching Rupert's eyes for... something. He could feel himself trembling as he asked, "How am I meant to stay strong in the face of this?"

"You've got me," Rupert answered simply, and Ethan had a sudden incongruous flash of memory from their youth, of resting his head on Ripper's thigh while gentle fingers stroked his hair.

He moved into the ghost fingers. "I can't... I can't afford to be that child again. Not now. Not ever."

"Doesn't mean you can't be with your family when you need to." Rupert touched Ethan's cheek then leant in for a brief kiss. "As you keep telling me."

Ethan screwed up his face and turned away. He didn't know how to explain. How could he let this woman in if she were his nan? How could he do that without becoming the hurt, deserted child again? How could he accept that she'd been alive all this time enduring God knows what in a Chaos dimension? He just couldn't afford to let it be her.

"Talk to me, Ethan," Rupert encouraged gently.

He looked helplessly back, shaking his head slightly. Taking Rupert's hands, Ethan lifted them and held them to either side of his own head. "I'm not sure I've ever needed total telepathy more."

Rupert leant in and kissed him again, letting more magic flow from his fingers. 'This better?' His voice sounded in Ethan's head, not as clearly as it usually did, but definitely 'audible'.

Ethan closed his eyes. It was obvious there was no running away from this. "Would you... Would you leave while I talk to her?"

There was a bare second's hesitation before Rupert said, "If you want me to."

"I..." Ethan smiled wanly. "I don't know how to be your Ethan and hers at the same time."

Rupert smiled back, eyes bright with affection. "You're always my Ethan, but if it will be easier for you, I'll stay in here. Or would you rather I take Gwydion for a walk...?"

"Take Giddy." Ethan nodded. "And a Slayer."

Rupert opened his mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything. He kissed Ethan again. "All right. I'll take my cell phone as well; call if you need me."

Nodding again, Ethan managed a tight smile. "I will."

One more kiss and Rupert was moving away, back into the living room, calling Gwydion to him, and Ethan had to stop himself staggering. Christ, he needed to pull himself together. After all this, it wouldn't be her, and he'd be alone with the trap he'd originally suspected. He waited until he heard the front door close and then walked slowly back out into the living room, every step feeling heavily weighted.

The old woman was kneeling with an unexpected flexibility beside Skunk, scratching behind the dog's ears. Skunk's tail was wagging so hard her whole hindquarters moved. The woman had unruly thick grey hair and a slight stoop. Silently, and knowing somewhere deep just what he would find, Ethan reached out with his wounded pattern senses and touched her. He hadn't known how to do this as a small child, but somehow he knew exactly what his grandmother's patterns would feel like, so like his own.

It was her.

It was her, and he had no idea now what to do or say.

"You can come closer," she said without looking up, although Ethan could tell she was smiling. "I still only bite those who deserve it."

He did as he was bid; it was easier than thinking. "I didn't know. I wouldn't have... have left you there in that... prison, not if I'd known."

She did look up now, her smile bright and full of affection as she reached out a hand to him; her skin was dark and old, like aging parchment. "How could you have known, mi camo? You were such a slight thing then, little more than skinny limbs and a pair of eyes so big they could draw down the moon." Her fingers closed around his, and her smile grew warmer still.

Her words, the sound of her voice, were as familiar and evocative as, oh Christmas carols in the street or the smell of roasting meat. "I dreamt of you over the years," Ethan admitted. "Not all that often, but whenever I really needed to, each dream... each dream a blessing. Oh Nan, Nana...."

She stood up and hugged him, all in one graceful motion. She only came up to his shoulder. "I always said you'd grow as tall as a tree," she said with a chuckle that seemed to hold more than just humour. "You had to grow into your power, learn yourself, let the destiny settle around you as the costume you were always meant to wear. And you have. It looks good on you, my boy."

He kissed the top of her head, the brief experience feeling somehow more unreal than the whole of the time spent in the maze taken together. "I don't know what to say." He didn't know what to think. "What did... all that time imprisoned in Chaos. How did you...?"

"It suited the devil to keep me alive and well. Gypsy luck, eh?"

"Why?" Much as Ethan didn't want to know, he knew he had to.

"Because he needed me. You're not the only one with powers, camo. Happens he found me more than useful."

"Oh." So he'd used her? For what? Later, that could wait. There was something else he had to know now. "Did Dad... was it him who gave you...?"

"Oh no," Molly assured him. "My son would never have even admitted such a thing as Vaurtain was possible, so determined he was to see with only his eyes. No, it was mostly my own fault. To speak of Wafodu Guero is to conjure him, no? I'd been pondering on an interesting dukkipen I'd spread for you and drew attention unwisely."

Well, that was something at least. His father had been a bastard, but not so much a one as would sell his own mother into slavery, it seemed. "I don't have the faintest idea what those Rom phrases mean, you know," Ethan admitted sheepishly. "What's a duckie-pen?"

"A foreseeing, a reading. I was looking at what fortune had in store for my canny little grandson." She smiled a bit ruefully. "Even after all these years the old tongue still comes easier sometimes than English."

"Do you want to sit down?" Ethan asked, finally remembering he was playing host to an elderly woman, albeit nowhere near as elderly as she should be. "A cup of tea maybe?"

"Tea would be lovely, especially tea with company. There's much I want to hear. I've watched you, when allowed, but it's not the same as being there."

"That must have been... diverting," Ethan said dryly, rapidly shutting down multiple avenues of thought concerning what she would have witnessed.

"It was better than Coronation Street," Molly replied, deadpan.

Laughing, as he'd never been able to maintain embarrassment long, Ethan headed for the kitchen. "Supplies are limited until London returns to something approaching normal, but tea we have. I can probably manage something in the sandwich line too, if you dare risk it." Try as he might, he couldn't dredge up a single memory about what she liked to eat.

"Don't set anything on fire," Molly bade him, making it clear that she'd witnessed certain kitchen related disasters if nothing else. "Just tea is fine... unless you want something? You're still weak, I suspect. It was a brave thing you did for that girl."

"I, er, have no idea what I want currently." Except maybe Rupert back home, now that Ethan was over the initial block.

"Ah, but you don't say you're not hungry." She followed him into the kitchen. "Why don't you let me make you tea like I did when you were small? It was the small things like that which I missed the most of all, curse the bear's boneless darkness. You can keep me company as I do by telling me the stories of your life."

What, all of them? "Not much to tell," Ethan prevaricated, feeling a little nonplussed as Molly busied herself around him, opening cupboards and examining the contents. "Not much that makes good hearing anyway."

She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Are you telling me that you have nothing to say about that handsome man you're living with?" she asked archly.

"That's Rupert." Ethan found himself grinning stupidly and tried to stop by adding, "I suppose there's some unpleasant name for us in Rom."

"I would call you pirenos, sweethearts," Molly replied as she began making sandwiches of some sort. "Of course, your Rupert is a gorgio, not of the blood, but that is easily forgiven in someone who gazes at you the way he does."

"Well, I'm hardly purebred myself," Ethan pointed out, trying not to blush. This was silly. He was a getting-closer-to-fifty-year-old man and shouldn't be beaming with pleasure at his nan's approval.

"Your heart has always been of the people. That's one of the reasons you had so hard a time following the rules of gorgio society." She smiled at him. "So tell me about your Rupert."

"He's..." Ethan searched for a way of putting it that could make sense to Molly. "He's my road, my reason."

"I can see that. Even as a child there was always a restlessness in you, a yearning. It's not there anymore. You found your path to travel."

"Yes." Ethan smiled, his gaze on the plate Molly was putting together. "I remember you making me sardine sarnies when I was little. And there was orange squash to go with them, or if I were really lucky, that apple cordial stuff I loved so much. I wonder if they still make that." He snorted softly. "Rupert and I are matching halves. How much do you know about the Prophecy? You are a part of it, I think."

Molly smiled and set a plate full of sandwiches and biscuits in front of him. "There's the Ethan I remember. Chattering on, changing subject every other line."

Ethan chuckled, suddenly feeling very much like the small boy he'd once been. "You haven't changed at all, you know."

"Chaos can be wonderful medicine for the twelve visible signs of ageing," she replied cheekily. She'd clearly been watching some television next door.

"Well, I know it's good for the figure, at least." He looked down. "I... How much do you know about what I...?"

"I know what Vaurtain knew; when he wanted to see you, I saw you too." Molly touched his face, urging him to look up. "I know how you broke free from his influence." He felt a sudden desperate urge to make excuses for himself and shut his mouth tightly to prevent blame spilling anywhere but where it belonged, with him. Molly squeezed his shoulder. "I know, mi chavo. It's all right. Whatever missteps you've taken, they also led the Devil's eye astray. You've made amends."

"Not yet." Ethan wasn't sure how he knew that, but it felt true. "But the mortgage is getting smaller. Nana, it's wonderful to have you back."

She smiled at him. "Eat your tea."

"Yes, Nana."

***

Some time later, Ethan was very comfortable indeed. He was sitting in his armchair with a blanket tucked neatly over his legs, which were resting on a cushion on the coffee table. He had a glass of perfectly mixed apple cordial in one hand, which he was drinking through no less than three plastic drinking straws, one of each primary colour – a fact that pleased him enormously.

He wasn't at all sure how Molly had managed to obtain apple cordial from their crummy corner shop. Mind you, its appearance was no more inexplicable than that of the large slice of chocolate cake he was holding in his other hand. This wasn't Mr Kipling's grotty 'finest'; it was real gateau. Ethan strongly suspected Molly had used more than ordinary means of procurement.

She had gone back next door now, claiming she didn't want to overdo things so early in their reunion, and anyway, she'd promised 'the boys and girls a lesson in yokki fake', a term for which Ethan had conscientiously not requested a translation. This had left him alone bar a cake-begging Skunk, and he was beginning to wonder where Rupert had got to as this seemed a very long time for just a dog walk.

Ah. Hadn't there been something said about Ethan calling Rupert when he was ready for him to come back? Oops.

The thought seemed enough to conjure Rupert, however. Ethan hadn't even had time to finish his cake before making the requisite phone call before he heard the front door open. Rupert appeared in the living room doorway, looking ready to leave again if his presence wasn't welcome. Ethan grinned at him guiltily, not unaware of how cosseted he looked.

"I take it then that Molly passed muster and is indeed your nan?" Rupert asked dryly, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorjamb. Giddy padded over and began to sniff around Ethan's chair for cake crumbs.

Ethan nodded happily. "I have apple cordial. She managed to magic some out of thin air. Well, the corner shop. She won't tell me what spell she used."

"That is possibly a good thing. And the straws? And cake?"

"Corner shop also, so she claims." Ethan filled his mouth with the last of his cake, dropping crumbs that were immediately hoovered up by the dogs. "There's more," he said with his mouth full. "If you want some."

"Perhaps later." Rupert took a seat on the couch, looking vaguely put out. "So you had her prove her identity by feeding you?"

Ethan gave him a sharp look. "No, I used my pattern sense, although I didn't really need to. I already knew inside. She volunteered to feed me, you know. Go next door and ask her if you don't believe me."

"Why wouldn't I believe you?" Rupert asked a little sharply. "I just wasn't expecting to come home to you..." He trailed off.

Ethan paused, wondering just what had pissed Rupert off as something seemed to have done. Agreed, there was the small matter of not calling Rupert home when he should have, but... Then suddenly Ethan knew. He released a bark of laughter. "You don't like someone else looking after me, do you?"

"You didn't like anyone else looking after me," Rupert pointed out with his reasonable voice, ignoring the actual question.

Smirking, Ethan slipped out from under his blanket, and after letting Skunk lick his fingers clean, he sat down close to Rupert, snuggling up to whisper in his ear. "She thinks you're all right... for a gorgio."

"How gracious," Rupert said dryly, although he still put an arm around Ethan's shoulders.

"Well, she said you were handsome too." Ethan used his tongue to scoop Rupert's pierced earlobe into his mouth and suck on it playfully. He knew how to get around a slightly put out husband.

"So she doesn't mind that you gave her earring to a gorgio to wear?"

Ethan released his small mouthful. "She said it suited you and seemed to imply it was somehow the equivalent of me scent-marking you. I didn't ask for details." He kissed up Rupert's neck. "I told her you were my 'road', and she agreed. She said I was complete now."

"I think we both are," Rupert replied softly.

Ah good, he was coming round. Ethan put his hand on Rupert's thigh and squeezed. "Sometimes more 'complete' than others."

Rupert covered Ethan's hand with his own. "Isn't this where we were when Molly showed up in the first place?"

"Pretty much. Let's jump ahead before, say, Xander can turn up." Ethan twisted up on the sofa and moved one of his legs over so that he was sitting astride Rupert's lap. "I think the cake and cordial was good for me."

"So good that you forgot to call me?"

Ouch. "She only left five minutes ago." He kissed Rupert's left temple. "And I maybe forgot that I was meant to." And then the right.

"Too caught up by your straws and chocolate cake?" Rupert asked, obviously not quite ready to let this lie just yet.

"Did you like my straws?" Ethan pulled back enough to beam at Rupert. "I had one of each colour!"

Rupert stared at him in that way he had when he wasn't quite sure of someone's sanity. "You really shouldn't be able to go from trying to seduce me, to indulging your inner child, quite that quickly."

"Why not?" Ethan was unabashed. "The two things aren't all that different, you know." He wiggled happily on Rupert's lap.

"I don't want to be picturing you as a big-eyed waif coveting pretty coloured straws when you're trying to seduce me."

"What about pretty coloured butt-plugs?" Ethan asked, looking as big-eyed as he could manage.

"Brat," Rupert accused, his hands sliding down to grab Ethan's arse.

"Just the way you like me." Ethan grinned and bent to lick around Rupert's lips.

"I like you pretty much any way," Rupert admitted, adding with a mock world weary air, "More fool I."

"You don't mean that," Ethan said, pulling back and pouting a little. "You're not a fool. By the way, Nana says she thinks we'll be hearing something soon about where Vaurtain's got to."

"Considering the entire resource network of the Council is being focused on finding him, we damn well better."

Ethan looked down. "I haven't really asked for specifics yet. I haven't wanted to, but I suppose now I'm getting better I should show an interest." He met Rupert's eyes again. "So what's the extent of the damage then? In places like Barking?"

Rupert grimaced. "It could have been far worse, but it's bad enough. There's physical damage to property, and injuries and fatalities in the resident population, but it's the psychological repercussions that are going to be the hardest to recover from."

Ethan grimaced. He could well imagine. Even he, with so much experience of Chaos, couldn't have kept his sanity long under such conditions. "We'll be feeling the aftershocks for years." He couldn't help but think of Ian when he said that.

"Indeed." Rupert leant his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes with a sigh. "Almost enough to make one long for that sheer power of denial once possessed by Sunnydale residents."

Ethan stroked Rupert's face, which still looked so drawn and weary. He hated seeing that. "We stopped it being so very much worse. Try to remember what we achieved, dearheart, please?"

"I do," Rupert said softly. He opened his eyes and met Ethan's gaze. "Including saving Dawn. That means a lot."

"Yes." A surprising amount actually. "I thought that I did it mainly for you, but... Well, it was very good to see her alive and healthy."

"It was," Rupert agreed softly. "It is. More than I could–"

Ethan kissed Rupert softly before continuing. "I think she'll always feel a little like part of me now. Not the way you do, of course –we're joined at the soul. But I know her pattern so well now that I wouldn't have to think about how to twist it in an emergency, as a for instance."

"She was mentioning something about having to buy you a tie for Father's Day."

Ethan found he was wearing a stupid grin again, and he looked down. "At least she didn't mention Mothering Sunday. Nana was telling me there's quite a crowd of Scoobies and Council types installed along our old street here. We're not going to be popular with the neighbours."

"Given everything else that's happened in London this last month, I'd think they were rather glad to be provided with... incentive to evacuate to those luxury hotel rooms out of town."

Ethan nodded. "You, er, may want to watch Nana with the girls. I think her motherly instincts may be overly strong after years of having to deny them."

Rupert raised an eyebrow. "So I should be prepared for an overabundance of apple cordial and coloured straws?"

"Quite possibly." Ethan chuckled. "It'll do her good to cosset the girls, I'm sure, but you may want to make sure it doesn't go too far. Remember whose grandmother she is, eh? She's a law unto herself." He laughed. "Better make that a nation state."

"You've proven yourself quite good with the girls," Rupert pointed out.

"Yes, and also rather... unconventional in my methods of looking after them." Ethan grinned. "Just don't say I didn't warn you. Oh, and what's this I hear about our Megan and some dark-haired American lovely?"

Rupert blinked. "Megan's been training with Faith, but I don't think–"

"Faith?" Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Faith was the loudmouthed slapper in your illusion, no?"

"Faith is the second most experienced Slayer next to Buffy," Rupert explained. "She's had a bit of a... shall we say, a rocky past?"

"Then she stays right away from Megan!" Ethan frowned heavily, but Rupert just raised an eyebrow at him again. "It's not the same as with us," Ethan objected, understanding exactly what the eyebrow was communicating. "You can look after yourself, but Megan... Well, she's young, inexperienced..."

"And Faith is not the same girl she was when she stumbled," Rupert replied smoothly. "Any more than we are the same men who summoned Eyghon."

"Hmm." Ethan remained unconvinced. "I'll have to check her out. Well, if Nana was right anyway."

"Bit ironic if Faith and Megan are..." Rupert mused. "Considering that she and Xander... and then Xander and Kat."

"She and Xander what?" Ethan looked sharply down at Rupert.

"Ah..." Rupert belatedly looked embarrassed, one hand reaching for his glasses, but stopping before he could touch them. "It... uh... Xander, he... It seems Faith took his virginity."

Ethan felt his eyebrow slowly rise. "Took? That's rather, uh, forceful."

"Xander was quite willing," Rupert hastened to clarify. "It's just that Faith was rather... uh...."

Ethan stared down at Rupert for a few seconds and then clambered off him without a word. He looked around for a coat, but anything he owned that fitted the bill was either back at the estate or ruined beyond repair. The blanket he'd had over his legs would do.

"What are you doing?" Rupert asked, half-rising himself.

"Going to have a serious talk with Megan," Ethan answered distractedly, while wrapping the blanket around himself.

Rupert was instantly at his side, taking the blanket away from him. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"On the contrary, I think it's essential!" Ethan tried to take the blanket back.

Rupert held it behind his back, out of Ethan's reach. "One, we don't even know if there is anything to have a serious talk about. Two, even if there is, don't you think you should at least meet Faith before you start imagining the worst?"

"I met her," Ethan said sullenly. "She was a bitch. I was virtually having a breakdown in front of her, and she–" He turned away.

"Ethan." Rupert touched his shoulder. "That wasn't real."

He didn't answer; there really wasn't anything to say. Turning back into the warm arms, he rested his head on Rupert's shoulder. He was suddenly feeling rather tired. Rupert's arms tightened around him, and there was a sudden steady flow of magic pouring into Ethan.

"Maybe I've had enough being up and about for today," he admitted, mumbling.

Rupert led him back over to the couch and sat down, pulling Ethan down into his lap. "You're still recovering. You have to be careful not to overdo it."

Sighing, Ethan made himself comfortable and closed his eyes. "I still want to see Megan though. And Kat. I have to thank them, you see." There was a soft thump into the sofa cushions as Skunk arrived. She curled up by his legs. "But tomorrow will do."

Rupert dropped a kiss at his temple. "They'll be more than happy to see you. Everyone was worried when you were–"

"I'm back now," Ethan said firmly. "And I'm staying. Even if I do have to take it easy for a while."

"I'm probably being a bit selfish, keeping you to myself as much as I have."

"I'm not complaining, dearheart. Really, I'm not. We've both been through a hell of a lot, and I think we need a break before it starts again." Still talking with his eyes shut, Ethan went on more reluctantly. "I keep remembering Ian is dead. I... That's going to take a lot of getting used to."

"I know," Rupert said softly, stroking over Ethan's back with gentle hands.

"When this is truly all over, we will go to Devon for a week or so, just like you suggested. Try and time for a storm and do some sort of letting go ritual." That was hard to say; he really didn't want to let go. It was far, far too soon.

"Letting go doesn't mean forgetting," Rupert pointed out, seeming to sense his thoughts. "I think he'd like some kind of storm for a memorial. Very fitting."

Ethan was quiet for a while, imagining a storm that would do Ian credit, but he found his thoughts were fragmenting into soft darkness and forced himself to open his eyes. "Rupert, if I sit cuddled on you much longer, I will fall asleep, and then you'll be trapped under me. You should eat. At least have a slice of the cake. It's wonderful."

"I'm all right," Rupert replied, sounding completely contented just to sit there with Ethan.

"I love you," Ethan said softly, kissing Rupert's cheek. "You never know, I may even love you still when you're skin and bones, but it's a bit of a longshot."

Rupert kissed Ethan's cheek in response. "Some things are more important than eating chocolate cake."

"Oh come. Now you've gone too far." Ethan grinned and kissed Rupert again, this time on the lips.

Rupert kissed him back, long and lingeringly, sliding a hand to the nape of Ethan's neck to hold him in place. "That, for instance," he murmured as they parted.

"This may," Ethan said, between several short kisses, "be a little... better than chocolate cake... I'll admit."

"And multicoloured straws?"

Ethan laughed. "And multicoloured straws, my naughty husband."