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He could tell that Xander was apprehensive from his heightened colour and uneven breathing, and from the more or less constant fidgeting. It was distracting.
“Sit still,” he said coolly, without looking up; Xander's movements ceased for perhaps half a minute. He risked a glance; Xander's gaze was fixed on the thin, flexible cane which Giles had laid out on the desk between them, ahead of time.
He turned a page.
“Your handwriting is abominable,” he observed dispassionately. “I know mine is nothing to celebrate but at least it’s legible. Yours looks like a heart trace. You might try to bear in mind how cross you used to get when you had the seventeenth and eighteenth century Watcher Diaries to work from; the language shifts were hard enough without adding in script like something produced by a spider in an inkwell. Another hundred years and some Watcher will be cursing your name and asking why you couldn’t write a little larger.”
“If you’d let me type it up and email it to you...”
Giles shuddered. They both knew that he was going to have to give in on that subject as soon as their straightened circumstances would allow, but he had no idea of going down without a fight.
“Fetch down the dictionary, please.”
“English or American?” That was impudence, and he raised his eyes slowly enough to allow the threat to show.
“American.” It surprised Xander and Giles hid a smile. “I’m trying to give you every excuse.”
Xander swallowed, and went to the bookshelf.
“Look up ‘alright’, spelled as one word and with one L, please.”
“Um... adjective, adverb... just good enough... also ‘all right’ as two words.”
“I’ll give you that one, then. American variation.”
Xander huffed. “Maybe yours is the variation.”
“Maybe it is, but the language is still called English. I’m not trying to stop you writing in American English; it’s your mother tongue, after all. I’m trying to correct” and he laid heavy emphasis on the word, just to watch Xander's intake of breath, “your spelling. Which is a disgrace.”
He returned his attention to the book in front of him, and added placidly, “When we’ve mastered spelling, we might have a flirtation with the apostrophe. Oh, and the comma splice. And I give you fair warning that the next time I see you write ‘would of’ or ‘could of’ for ‘would have’ and ‘could have’, I will make something truly horrible happen to you. That is just plain wrong in both languages.”
Xander swallowed.
“‘Alot’ please. One L, all one word.”
Xander turned the pages. “Um... not here.”
“That,” Giles informed him kindly, “is because the word does not exist. ‘Allot’, two Ls, exists; you may look it up and tell me if it was what you meant to write.”
They both knew it wasn’t, but Xander looked it up obediently. “That’s to do with sharing things out... I wanted,” and he waved expressively, “many.”
“‘A lot’. Two separate words. Mistake, Xander?”
Xander's mouth twisted, but he nodded.
“Make a note of it, please.”
When he had realised – with hastily concealed amusement – that Xander was serious about improving the entries in his Watcher’s Diary, and – with no amusement at all and with a mixture of guilt and sympathy – that Xander was genuinely uncomfortable about the thought of anyone, even Giles, reading them, Giles had given up the purchase of a book of his own to pay for a second handsomely bound notebook (because it couldn’t possibly be considered a Watcher expense) in which Xander could write reminders, definitions and, in fact, the information with which, in Giles’ opinion, he should have left school. Xander’s pen whispered as he copied the definition of ‘allot’ and then of ‘lot’ and noted the difference; then he pushed the book across the desk and Giles read the note, and initialled it neatly, adding the date, before returning to the text on his desk.
One eyebrow began to climb; Xander quivered.
“‘Loose’, please, and then ‘lose’.
He didn’t even need to explain that one: Xander read one definition and then another, returned to the first, reached across the desk to turn and inspect the page in front of Giles, made a face and picked up his pen. It took him a moment to put down the difference between the words; Giles in turn initialled the sentence, and pretended not to notice Xander's downcast expression.
He read on.
“Which ‘discreet’ do you want here?”
“Huh?”
“‘Discreet’ e-e-t meaning inconspicuous, or avoiding suspicion, or ‘discrete’ e‑t‑e meaning separate, or distinct?”
Xander twisted his neck to read what he had written.
“The other one,” he admitted dolefully; Giles smiled at his expression.
“Look them up and make your note, then.”
It took only a moment; Giles closed the diary and pushed it across the desk to Xander.
“It’s much better,” he observed encouragingly; Xander looked up hopefully, but Giles shook his head. “You know the rules, Xander. You set them. Two strokes per mistake.”
Xander... really, that was a pout, there was no other word for it. Giles hid another smile.
“Please?”
Giles shook his head again. “I’m not changing the rules mid way through. We agreed right at the beginning: two strokes per mistake, maximum three mistakes. You can just count yourself lucky that I don’t carry any extras forward to next time or you would be...”
“I know, I know.” Xander sighed. “I’d be overdrawn up to the middle of next year. Yeah. O.K., I know, those are the rules. I just... I just hoped that this time...”
“No.”
“You’re mean.”
“I think I’m actually rather generous.”
Xander huffed. “You know quite well that wasn’t what I meant.”
“And you know how much I dislike ‘mean’ for ‘unpleasant’: nearly as much as I dislike ‘mad’ for ‘annoyed’.”
Xander stuck his tongue out. “Yeah. It’s just... I’m disappointed, O.K.?”
Giles stood up and held out his hand, tugging Xander up too and into his arms. “I know,” he comforted. “But honestly, love, it is better. I’m sure that next time...”
Xander pouted again, more theatrically. “Yeah, but then you’ll want to do apostrophes and you know I don’t get how they work. And something to do with commas?”
“Comma splices. I’m not making the rules here; you don’t have to agree to it at all, or we can make it one stroke per mistake if you want, and allow six mistakes instead of three. And anyway, we’ll want at least three or four times when you win on the spelling before we start on something else.”
“But not this time.” Xander made a disappointed face, and then sighed. “Oh well.” He picked up the cane, and opened a tall glass fronted bookcase; the cane slid into its hiding place behind a row of particularly impenetrable demonologies, and Xander closed the glass door again.
Giles smiled. “Never mind. I’m not totally unreasonable, you know. You may not have earned your caning – I honestly do think it will be soon, though, love – but it really was much improved.” He leaned close and pressed a kiss to the nape of Xander's neck, allowing his hands to drift over the beloved body. “I could be persuaded that you deserved a spanking.”
Xander turned in the circle of his arms, his expression wicked. “Yeah?”
“Oh yes,” confirmed Giles. “You might even be able to convince me that you’d done well enough for the slipper.” He watched the spike of arousal show in Xander's eye, and nuzzled in to nip at his earlobe.
“Bare?”
“Certainly.”
“Why are we here instead of in your room?”
“I can’t think.” Not that there was anything out of the ordinary in that: the combination of Xander and more (and better) sex than he had experienced in years regularly rendered him incapable of coherent thought.
“It’s a fiendish plot,” observed Xander darkly, “to do me out of my due reward for finally learning to spell.”
“I’m almost certain that we’re doing it wrong,” confessed Giles, opening the door and ushering Xander up the stairs.
Xander turned a shocked face on him. “You don’t think I deserve to be spanked?”
“I’m damn sure you do,” agreed Giles. “Hard and often. And there’s a fine and long-standing tradition of a spanking being used as a teaching aid. I’m just not sure that it’s usually seen as the prize.”