
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/28084.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer
  Relationship:
      Rupert_Giles/Oz_Osbourne
  Character:
      Rupert_Giles, Oz_Osbourne, Devon_MacLeish, Angel
  Additional Tags:
      vinyl_records, the_chronic, inappopriate_longing, Bibliophilia,
      companionable_silence, Love_on_a_Hellmouth, Indie_Music, 16+
  Stats:
      Published: 2009-12-11 Chapters: 8/8 Words: 48799
****** Book of Daniel ******
by gloss
Summary
     You know, just your typical Watcher-librarian and pre-werewolf,
     underaged teen love story.
***** Carded *****
Buffy is gone. Giles is certain that the Slayer does not usually receive
holiday, but equally sure that, usually, the Slayer isn't a girl quite like
Buffy. He had briefly contemplated vetting her absence through the council, and
almost as quickly reconsidered. He could hear the contemptuous chill in
Travers's tone: *You allowed her to -what-, Rupert?*
In her absence, he busied himself with interring the Master, and all the
research that accompanied the act. But here it is, only the third week of June,
and he has nothing but time on his hands.
He had had a hell of a time explaining the library-cum-disaster-area to Snyder,
and clean-up necessitated a great deal of time spent there. Giles discovered
then the sheer joy of air conditioning. Funny, but he had never realized just
quite how wonderful it felt to exit the muggy, constant sun and enter the dim
cold of the empty school.
So on his summer holiday, Rupert Giles attempts to be a high-school librarian.
/
Summertime is Oztime: open, warm, unstructured. Nowhere to be, except
rehearsal, and that doesn't really rank high on a scale of obligation. The
occasional barbecue or party, and even those are tapering off as July nears.
Otherwise, he's free and unscheduled. Time is his bitch, as Devon would say.
His own to fritter away, as his grandma would say.
/
Giles is busy adjusting the stack of books and notes in his arms, and starts -
- nearly dropping everything -- when he hears someone speak.
"Pardon?"
A small boy leans against the library doors. His hair is vibrant green, a shade
of green Giles hasn't seen anywhere except on the backs of rocks on the beach
at Bristol. "Want me to get that?" Slight incline of the chin.
"The door, yes, of course. It's locked," Giles says. "The keys are in the side
pocket--" Giles raises an elbow and juts his hip. Watches a small pale hand
pick at the pocket's flap; feels the slight pressure of fingers against his
side.
The boy holds the key ring between them, eyebrows raised. "I meant the books,
actually."
"Oh-oh, yes. Of course." Giles smiles tightly. "Well, no harm done. It's the
large key--there. With the red spot." Buffy's nail lacquer, dabbed on after her
impatience waiting as he fumbled the keys for the tenth, hundredth, time got
the better of her.
The boy unlocks the door, pushing it open and standing aside for Giles to
enter. Stack deposited safely on the counter, handkerchief rubbed uselessly
over his face, Giles turns back. High-school librarian? He can do this. I *am*
a high-school librarian, even just nominally. "May I help you?"
The boy is bent over the author index of the catalog, flipping through the
cards rapidly. Without turning, he asks, "Do you have anything by James
Baldwin?"
"Most of the novels, yes," Giles says.
Finally the boy turns around. "This doesn't have entries for collections,
right? Like, if there were a piece by Baldwin in some collection, it wouldn't
show up under his name?"
Giles runs his hand back and forth across the counter. Blinks. The boy just
looks at him patiently. "N-no, it wouldn't. You'd need the title of the book,
or the editor's name." The gaze steadily on him. "It's not the best system, I
admit."
The boy nods and straightens up. He really is quite small, perhaps a little
taller than Willow, and lean in a way that Giles has assumed until now doesn't
happen in a land of three square meals and Dairy Queens. "I'll just check the
stacks."
Giles clears his throat. "We *are* on term holiday," he says, loathing the
officious tone, wondering just how he can mimic Snyder, Travers, and his own
father so perfectly in a single phrase. "Perhaps the public library--?"
The not-quite-a child smiles. Gracefully and brightly, and Giles starts to
smile back, but then it's gone and he finds himself gaping stupidly at the
grave face before him.
"T-that is," Giles continues, trying to frown, "the school is closed for the
summer. Perhaps you were mis-misinformed. As an incoming pupil, you can't be
expected to know the, the, rules. And the regulations."
"I'm a senior." He holds up his hand as Giles tries to stammer his apology.
"It's okay. But, man, have you *seen* the public library?"
"No, I haven't."
He shakes his head, smile faint. "Poor old Tony Panizzi'd spin in his grave.
It's all videos and CDs and a couple crappy computers someone donated for the
tax break. I want a book, I figure I'll come here."
Giles hears his mouth open -- small pop of the jaw -- and close -- whisper of
dry lips. Senior? Panizzi? How can a small California child with hair that
color and telltale bloodshot eyes possibly know who Panizzi was? The boy lopes
up the steps into the stacks, evidently satisfied of his right to be here.
"810s," Giles calls after him. "American literature."
"Got it," the boy answers, out of sight. And: "Thank you."
/
Oz has never gotten over his childhood habit of overloading himself in
libraries and he can't imagine ever wanting to. Who would want to search
deliberately and leave with only what you came for? Choosing far more books
than he can possibly read in two weeks' time is just what he does in libraries.
The calm, content mood of choosing, following little threads of associations of
name, word in title, memory, some connections that just pop into his mind
without prompting: this mood? He'd like to lose himself in this mood
indefinitely.
When he emerges from the stacks, the pile of books in his arms is as long as
his arms, stretches from palm to his chin, which he's stuck out over the top
book to keep balance. He steps carefully toward the counter and tilts the stack
to slide it on top. The odd, incredibly English librarian is nowhere to be
seen. Oz considers ringing the little bell, but it seems rude. Like saying
"garçon to a waiter or something. He wanders along the counter towards the
cage. Sunnydale High has books rare enough to need caging? Again, odd, if not
intriguing.
The librarian has his back to him, hunched over a book that looks bigger than
most atlases. Oz clears his throat gently; he doesn't want to freak the poor
guy out *again*. But the librarian jumps anyway, whirling around, knocking his
glasses to the floor with the back of his hand.
"Sorry," Oz says.
"Quite all right, quite--" Glasses retrieved, the librarian swipes them on his
tie and hooks the stems over his ears. "I thought you'd gone."
"Just have to check the books out."
Nodding, the librarian rises. "You can just fill out the cards in the pockets
at the back. Er, I suppose I ought to check your ID? Just to confirm-- to be
sure, of course."
The guy really needs something to calm him down. Sauna? Ludes? Oz tugs on the
chain to his wallet, reaching into his back pocket for it. He flips it open and
shows the librarian his SHS ID card.
"Right, right," the librarian murmurs, leaning over and squinting. He glances
back. His eyes--Christ, his eyes. They're all hazel and blue and faintly
glittery. And there are flecks in there the exact color of green tea ice cream.
"Everything seems to be in order, Mr. Osbourne. Daniel."
"Who are you?" Oz asks.
The librarian straightens up and Oz sees suddenly how strong he is. Not that
he'll ever figure out how he can see that or know that, but sometimes he gets
these flashes. It's best just to ride them out, since they tend to be right
anyway, and this way there's minimum fuss. So: Strong, not just physically, but
like architecture, designed and poured and weathered.
"Giles," he says.
"I'll go fill out the cards then." Oz turns away.
At first he thinks that the strength he's seen is hidden underneath the neat
clothes, kind of peeking out but mostly hidden. But as he scrawls his name on
each card, Oz knows that's not right. The strength isn't hidden; it's
everywhere, elemental, belongs somewhere low in the corner of the periodic
table. Rarely used but essential for everything to work right.
By the time he's finished, Oz has a stack of books to read, the flash of green-
brown eyes to smile over, and the prospect of strength to ponder. His summer's
looking up already.
/
After the library door closes with the nearly inaudible click he has trained
himself to hear, Giles gives in. Slumps at his desk and holds his head in his
hands. Funny how easy it is to forget that high school librarians need to deal
with, oh, students? Human beings? He's probably the only one on the continent
more comfortable confronting vampires than teenagers.
He busies himself with the mangled neo-Latin of a Watcher in Tours, 1689,
willing away all thoughts of teenagers and vampires and other disturbing
creatures.
It is not until much later, after the evening's fourth whisky has poured him
into bed, that such thoughts return. Thoughts such as the fact that he wasn't
unnerved by teenagers in general, although they do irritate and fluster him.
Thoughts such as the suspicion that at least for the moment he was far more
unnerved by the sight of the pale rise of the boy's hipbone, jutting into sight
between low-slung pants and the frayed hem of a t-shirt when he reached for his
wallet.
The truly unnerving thought he saves for dreams. That's the one about how he'd
very much like to run a finger along that hollow of skin, through invisible
down and over scattered freckles. Then his mouth.
/
A long golden-tan finger snakes along the top of the book Oz is holding, then
dips down the valley of the spine. It rises and dips, rises and dips. Oz
resolutely keeps his eyes on the page. "Quit it, Dev."
Devon's finger speeds up, twisting back and forth as it lowers and pulls back
up. Faster and jerkier the longer Oz ignores him. Finally the nail scrapes down
the page, scoring the paper, and Oz slams the book shut.
"Fuck, man!" Devon sucks on his finger. "That fucking *hurt*."
"What were you doing?"
Devon flips him off and crawls toward the front of the van. He digs around in
the cooler and extracts a can of beer, rolling it over his finger. "Leave me
alone, Dev," he whines. "Fucking reading here, Dev. All you do lately is read."
Oz just looks at him, figuring this mood can go one of many ways.
"Yeah," Devon continues, squaring his shoulders. "You and your fucking *books*.
So I, y'know, fucked your book." He opens the beer and chugs it, finally
handing it off to Oz. He's grinning, obviously proud of the stunt and the pun.
"Get it? Fucking book."
Oz nods and sips the beer. "It's a library book. Can't molest library books,
Dev."
"Good thing I didn't use my dick, then."
Oz lobs the empty can at him, dregs spraying. Devon pouts, and, Jesus, he's
pretty when he pouts. Even if he knows that, and that's why he does it.
"Fucking violent today, man." Devon tosses the empty over the back of the
passenger seat and slides down onto his back. "Need to relax."
Oz crawls across the van floor until he's over Devon, hands on either side of
Dev's head, one leg trapped between his own. "Yeah? Relax, huh?"
Devon turns his head, still pouting. "Yeah. Fucking bookworm." His heart's gone
out of whatever spat he was trying to provoke, voice gone a little huskier.
Oz nuzzles the long, salty expanse of Devon's neck. Licks the straining tendon
there as he lowers himself. Trusts the shortness of Devon's attention span, and
is rewarded with a sloppy kiss on the side of his mouth.
"You don't have to be such a brat."
Devon grins, pushing his hand under Oz's shirt. "But it's so much *fun*."
/
Head aching from too much translation of too many spurious pamphlets on demon
births and the dangers of witchcraft, Giles turns to the latest catalogue from
the book jobber. Might as well play the librarian, since it is proving
difficult to be a Watcher without one's Slayer. He studies the glossy pages
absently, unable to concentrate.
His tea has gone cold when he sips it.
Willow has gone off to a maths camp, and the Harris boy is apparently employed
by some relative for the summer, doing Lord knows what kind of manual labor.
When they had completed the ritual, and the Master's skeleton was safely
interred, Xander had clapped him on the shoulder with a muddy hand, shook
Giles's hand with the other, equally muddy, and bobbed his head. "See you in
September, G."
As if he did not exist until school reopened.
And is it really possible that he misses the children?
Miss Calendar left shortly after the interment in a convertible VW beetle for
destinations unknown; Angel has melted back into the darkness, and Giles is
sure he will not be seen until Buffy returns. Giles ran into Buffy's mother at
the grocery store a few days ago. The hoarseness of his own voice when he
greeted her surprised him, reminding him that he hasn't spoken to another
living soul in weeks.
This sort of expectant solitude is precisely what he has been trained for, and
he should be grateful for the quiet and absence of impending crisis. Instead,
he is far too alone with far too many thoughts.
He realizes that he has been ticking off titles on the order form without
knowing what they are, based simply on the patterns made by the length of the
words.
A bang, then a long creak, as the door opens sends Giles to his feet and out of
his office. Daniel is backing into the library, the door propped open with one
elbow, his arms full of books.
"Here, let me--" Giles says, crossing quickly to relieve the boy. Daniel grunts
and pauses as Giles grabs the top four books, revealing the boy's face.
His hair is lavender today, a sort of washed-out violet that sharpens his wide
green eyes. "Thanks."
"Not at all," Giles says, leaving the books on the counter. He takes the rest
from the boy and gets out the box of circulation cards.
/
When Oz likes someone, he gets this feeling. It's like chamois, warm and softly
napped--slightly fuzzy but not too much--only it's in his chest: hung from his
collarbone, the feeling covers his ribcage, tucks him in for the night, and
whispers in the breeze from his lungs.
He's feeling pretty damn chamois-y right now.
"You probably think this is silly," he says, hoping Giles will meet his eye.
But he just keeps plucking cards out of the box and tucking them into the
books' pockets. "All these books about poverty, and pain. Anger and
oppression."
Giles looks up, his glasses slipping down. "I don't understand what you mean."
"Just, you know. Silly. Like some suburban honky kid could possibly get them."
Giles licks the corner of his mouth. "Very far from silly," he says.
"Anything's possible."
Oz nods and snuggles back into the feeling. "Cool."
Yesterday's paper is on the counter, and he pulls it over, scanning the movie
listings. He needs something to distract him, otherwise he's just going to keep
gaping at Giles like some retarded toddler.
"You read at an astonishing rate, you know."
"Do I?" Oz glances up from the paper.
Giles waves his hand at the stack. "Yes, I'd say you do."
"Oh," Oz says. "See, I've got a really short attention span. Like, miniscule,
like a bee or something. So I have to pack in as much as I can while it lasts."
Giles's lips disappear as he frowns, considering this. He looks serious and
concerned, like Oz has just told him some huge, obvious, three-ring-circus lie.
"It's true. Other people can concentrate for way longer. I can't, but I like to
make it count."
Giles just shakes his head and goes back to checking the books back in. Oz
isn't going to push it; if he gets to hang around long enough, Giles is sure to
see his ADD in action sooner or later. He crosses his arms and leans on the
counter, watching the precision in Giles's fingers, plucking, tucking,
restacking. Measure twice, cut once: Giles seems to apply that equally to words
and gestures. He wonders what it would be like to have that kind of confidence,
that strength that makes you certain of everything you do and say. If Oz knew
the jargon of copywriting, he'd apply that to Giles, too. He makes a mental
note to look up that jargon; it might be useful. Because it's as if he's faster
and smarter than anyone else, so he has time to edit and correct words,
gestures, before performing them. Everyone else has to hand in the rough draft,
but not Giles.
Giles is saying something. Damn, and he missed it, wondering how those fingers
would move, so strong and precise, over his body. Shivers. "Hmm?"
As he looks up, Giles is looking at him, glasses off, smiling. "I asked if you
needed anything else."
"I'm good." The lights aren't on over the circulation counter, so Giles's eyes
are darker, green like ocean water. "Oh? Like I should leave? Right."
"I meant the books. I see you found the Black Panther history, and it occurred
to me I have some at home you might like."
"Really?"
Giles nods. "I'll bring them tomorrow, then."
"So it's cool if I hang here?" Oz can't believe his luck. There has to be a
catch somewhere.
"Hang all you like."
***** 7'23" *****
Hanging is welcome.
So Oz has taken to asking Giles whatever questions occur to him. Giles doesn't
seem to mind, and as for Oz, he's picking up a whole load of weird info.
It's not a casual process, at least not for Oz. He wants to know, whatever the
question is, he wants to hear Giles answer. They're sitting at the big table,
lunch (tea? it is kind of late for lunch, since Oz overslept something fierce
today) nearly gone.
"What do you do for fun, anyway?"
Giles glances at him; his face is hard to read, but Oz sees a kind of amusement
there. Weirded out, Oz drops his gaze to the table. To Giles's hands, resting
lightly there around his tea cup. Long fingers, strong and wide, big enough to
cover just about all of Oz's face. Weathered, not into rough callouses, but
like cedar, the way it softens and goes silvery after a couple years under the
sun and rain.
Weathered, like the muslin curtains in his dad's apartment after the divorce.
Cheap and unlined, they bleached in the sun, and his dad never washed them, so
they went more and more golden and threadbare. What would that skin feel like
on his? Soft, weathered. Strong.
Giles clears his throat.
"Sorry." Oz scrapes back his chair, making to rise. "Sure I'm not bothering
you?"
"Certainly," Giles says. it sounds like the beginning of a question, like a
hint passed on a game show, but Oz knows he's probably making all this up. It
must be a trick of the accent or something. He'd never make it past the first
round of the $100,000 Pyramid if Giles was his partner. That accent makes
everything sound smart and obscure and really fucking sexy. He wants to ask
questions until his throat closes up.
/
Giles knows, but does not want to admit just yet, that some sort of routine is
establishing itself. When he arrives at the library in the late mornings,
Daniel is waiting for him more often than not. When he's not, he comes in the
afternoon, hair mussed and eyes hooded. Either way, he appears almost every
day.
Giles works at the long main table now, telling himself it is for the light
that never manages to reach his office. Daniel sits nearby, reading whatever
has caught his eye that day. Sometimes he rises, silent as ever, and looks up a
word at the dictionary on its spindly lectern. Satisfied, he returns, sliding
back into his chair and taking his book back up.
Giles finds it surprisingly easy to work with the company. His concentration is
sharper, and when his mind does wander, he can inquire after Daniel's reading.
He has caught up on the purchasing for the next school year and has returned
without guilt to the usual open-ended research.
Professional guilt, that is; he usually manages to wrestle off the personal
guilt until the dead of night. It can't be right, a man of his age enjoying a
teenaged boy's company to this extent. And it certainly isn't right, the
tension that has started to spool around his spine, weaving its way through his
nervous system. It has not been so long that he can't remember what desire
feels like, this low thrum of need threading through his skull, his hands, his
groin.
/
Oz likes these afternoons; he could do without the arctic air conditioning, and
has stowed an old blue plaid shirt in the reference section for when he gets
too cold, but otherwise he can't imagine a better summer. Giles gets so
absorbed in his old books and files of notes that Oz can look at him for
minutes on end and not get caught. His current record is seven minutes and 23
seconds, but if he ever remembers to wear his sunglasses, he's sure to make ten
minutes, easy.
Giles does this thing when he's reading, where his eyebrows knit together and
his lips flatten and disappear. He'll stay like that for a while, eyes not
moving, and then sigh through his nose and extend his fingers, wiggle them
briefly, and go back to reading. Other times he'll go so still that it occurs
to Oz he's about to do the wrinkle-purse-sigh thing, so he'll peek, only to
find Giles staring at the opposite wall, mouth moving, no sound coming out.
Oz doesn't get the research thing. That's okay; he doesn't get Devon's rock-god
thing, or Uncle Ken's bonsai thing, either. He just likes being around people
who do have a thing. That might be *his* thing, come to think of it.
Accompaniment.
/
"My Spanish isn't as strong as it once was," Giles says. He's peering pretty
intensely at Oz's chest. "But I'm fairly certain that doesn't make much sense.
I hold the feminine-gendered-thing?"
Oz glances down at his shirt and back to Giles. His glasses are off, eyes
crinkled up, lips working silently.
"I hold--not *her*, although that would be a pretty phrase for a shirt. I
suppose the problem is lack of context, really."
"Yo La Tengo."
"Yes, yes," Giles says absently, frowning a little, like Oz corrected his
grammar and he's trying not to show how offended he is.
"Yo La Tengo," Oz says more distinctly.
Giles glances at him, frowning still, and then it's like his eyes focus finally
on Oz's smile. When that happens, Giles relaxes. A little.
"It's a band. Guess that's the context."
"Oh," Giles says. "I beg your pardon. It's just, you see, I read something and
t-the librarian in me kicks in."
"Nah, the librarian wouldn't care." Whoever Giles is would care, but Oz can't
see a librarian giving it a second thought.
Giles apparently can't figure out how to respond to that, so he puts his
glasses back on. "A band? Pop music. Lots of synthesizers, then?"
Oz shrugs. "No, Giles. A *good* band. Guitars and bass. Drums. Normal human
voices."
"I see." He sounds pretty doubtful.
And with that, Oz resolves to show Giles that there's more than insipid pop
(not that there's anything wrong with that) out there.
The next day, Wednesday, he wears a Half Japanese shirt and drops off his back-
up copy of _Painful_.
Thursday: His good Nation of Ulysses long-sleeve and a Jad Fair mix.
Friday: He'd stayed over at Devon's, and has to settle for a Blur shirt and
remix of "Parklife". He would have gone home first, but he's running late and
doesn't want to miss Giles before the weekend.
/
The library is far too bright and clean for the thoughts that occupy him. As
such, it is the perfect refuge.
At night, in the safety of his own double-bolted home, Giles can indulge
himself. Not often, never on consecutive days, but enough to relieve the
tension that tugs at and wraps around the base of his spine, pooling and
pulling in his brainstem. Momentary relief, split seconds during which his
vision clears, his chest lightens, and his thoughts untangle. Seconds succeeded
by the increasingly familiar gathering tension, slipping, curling, wrapping
itself around him and inside him, stronger now than it had been a moment ago.
Always stronger.
He would like to be able to tell himself that nothing is wrong with him. That
he is entirely blameless in this situation, an ordinary man in yet another set
of extraordinary circumstances. He would like to be able to believe that these
circumstances do not touch him, that, rather, they have everything to do with
Daniel. He would like to believe that there is something extraordinary about
the boy, capable of pulling blameless, ordinary Rupert Giles into an unexpected
web.
If he could believe all that, liberation would soon follow. Giles would then be
able to exempt himself from responsibility. He would be free of this dreadful
certainty that he is nothing more than a dirty old man with designs on an
innocent, affectionate, preternaturally kind boy. Thus free, he could enjoy his
transformation into, his accession as, Rupert Rupert. Free to revel in his own
solipsism and what he is sure is the sweet, herby tang of the boy's skin.
Instead, he suffers through another weekend locked in his house, failing to
resist himself and the flashing, pornographic current of his own mind. His
palms ache with emptiness, with the absence of all that he longs to touch, and
his eyes tear up with need. Glimmers of Daniel, reaching for him, kissing him,
pulling up his shirt: nothing so substantial as images, just glints spun off
from the current, fading fast under scrutiny.
/
On Monday, Oz can tell that all this is amusing Giles, but probably starting to
piss him off, too. He pushes his glasses up his forehead to read the small
print on the back of the K-Records compilation. He squints at it but the
muscles around his mouth look tight. When he does look at Oz, his eyes are
darker; the glasses are back on like shields. It seems like the most suitable
thing for Oz to do is just shrug and move slowly away.
Oz heads for the stacks, seeking a little solitude and that other word that
sounds the same. Solace. He can't get a read on Giles, and he'd rather figure
that part out first before fucking this up. Whatever this is.
As much as he loves the stacks, the way they smell a little like old paper and
a lot like lemon floor polish, how they tower over him so reassuringly, maybe
the library is the problem here. It could be making Giles feel way too much
like a librarian and not enough like Giles, whoever that is. Oz sits back under
one of the windows, holding _The Strawberry Statement_ open against his updrawn
knees, not looking at it.
Still, there has to be some way to get at Giles. The temptation to chuck it all
in and just pull a Devon-stunt is strong: just sidle up to Giles, invade
several layers of personal space, and ask if he'd like to fuck.
Great idea, if he wants to spend the rest of the summer alone in his room.
Giles had probably been right last week: the context is what's important here.
He hadn't known Yo La Tengo was a band, so the shirt's meaning got garbled.
Meaning happens, but in the wrong context, it's not going to be the meaning you
wanted. Oz doesn't think he's arrogant enough to believe that the right context
will guarantee better results than the library's currently producing. But it
can't hurt. It's not like he knows what the right context is--the library's
probably not a great one, but what's the opposite of a library?
Not that he wants the opposite, exactly, not really. Just something a little
more neutral.
"Daniel?" Giles calls. No one calls him Daniel, not even his mom, but it sounds
good, and it's not like he can imagine Giles taking someone named Oz very
seriously at all. "Are you still here?"
"Here." Oz memorizes the number of the page he's on and stands up stiffly,
moves out of the stacks.
"I'm making some tea. I thought--. Would you like to join me?" Giles leans
against his office doorway, a jug of water in his hand.
"No, thanks," Oz says. "Should probably get going, actually."
"Really?"
Oz can't tell if Giles sounds sad. Probably, definitely, not. Just polite. He
shrugs. "Yeah. But, hey, listen--" He digs around in his pocket, finally
finding the folded flyer. Bright purple paper, once, now a little more creased
and gritty with crumbs than he'd like. "Here. You want to go to this?"
Giles unfolds the paper and smoothes it over his palm. Scans it. "This is a
band, yes?" He glances at Oz, smiling, and Oz feels relief in a weird way,
since he hadn't known he was stressed. But there's the relief, lifting away the
stress the way a good detergent gets at stains. All because of a little,
awkward joke.
"Yeah." He smiles back. "No pressure. I mean, we really suck. Hardcore suckage-
-"
"Your band?" Giles isn't smiling any more. It's not like he suddenly looks
unhappy or anything, not exactly, just that he's kind of calmly befuddled. Oz
wants to blush, because that's what you do in this kind of situation. 'Calmly
befuddled' doesn't just sound kind of cool; it's also a really good look on
Giles.
"Yeah." Oz shoves his hands deep in his pockets, wondering just how long he's
been silent for. He loses track all the time. "Like I said, no pressure 'cause
we really do, uh. Suck." And if he says *suck* one more time with Giles looking
at him like that, blushing is going to be the least of his problems.
"I think it could be interesting," Giles says. "Thank you." He refolds the
flyer carefully and slips it into his shirt pocket.
"Welcome." It would be really nice to have a rock to kick around right now.
"I've got some shit--. Sorry. Stuff to do before. I'll catch up with you later.
Tonight."
Giles nods a couple of times. "Tonight, then."
Oz concentrates very hard on his feet and their threadbare checkerboard Vans as
they carry him forward out of the library. That way, he doesn't have the brain
space to over-interpret whether Giles had said that last part softly, or
gently, or distantly, or whatever. Damn adverbs.
/
Giles wants to go.
He knows he should not, of course. He is nothing if not fully aware of every
reason not to attend.
Ripper would go.
/
"Here." Devon tosses something round and spiked at Oz. "Put that on, slob."
Oz turns it in his hands. It looks like a belt for a very thin baby. "Why would
a baby need a belt? Scratch that. Why do *I* need a baby's belt?"
Devon is leaning into the little mirror over the sink, so close Oz is surprised
he hasn't knocked himself out yet. "It's a present, asshole. Put it on."
"Where? My wrist?"
Devon likes to dress up, and he does, Oz will admit, clean up real nice: tight
black pants, tighter blue shirt unbuttoned to about the level of his spleen.
Couple of little sparkly hoops in one ear.
"You're such a spaz--" Devon says, wrestling the belt from Oz. He unsnaps it
and wraps it around Oz's neck, snapping it back closed with a quick jab of the
thumb that makes Oz choke. The collar feels mighty weird. Snug and weird in a
good way. "Better," Devon says, stepping back. "Still a slob, but that's like a
long-term project."
"I'm not wearing this." Oz runs his finger underneath the collar, feeling the
tingles spread around his throat.
"Yeah, you are." Devon smacks him on the ass and returns to the mirror. He
adjusts a few short curls on one side of his head, tilts it in the other
direction, and nods at himself.
"It looks stupid."
"You look stupid. The collar looks good."
"Granted. I'm still not wearing it."
Devon's doing something kind of medieval to one eyebrow with a pair of tweezers
he's produced from god knows where. Oz wants to wince, but it's fascinating at
the same time. He moves a little closer. "It's a present. Ow! Fuck!" It sounds
like Devon ripped out an entire follicle that time. "It's only polite to say
thank you--"
"Thank you. But I'm not--"
"--And wear it."
Oz is never going to Stubborn-Ass MacLeish, whether in a spat, skirmish, or
all-out war. And it does feel weird-good. "Okay. Thanks."
"Welcome. Hey--" Devon holds up a can of silver-glitter hairspray. "Would this
be over the top?"
"Depends." Oz checks the mirror once, just to see the collar. Yeah, kind of
cool. "Are you putting it on your hair or sticking the can down your pants?"
The sad thing is, Devon looks like he's trying to decide.
/
Who the hell did he think he was?
Later, at home, Giles is never alone.
There are so many versions of himself, half-inhabited, waiting for him to
return to them. Priggish schoolboy, anxiety-ridden son, demonic lover, piss-
poor Watcher, easily-flustered librarian: Wraiths of various selves, all
wearing his face, crowded into a wardrobe and howling to get out.
For now, however, Giles has turned his back on them.
After all, he can hardly wear any of them to a garage band's concert.
***** The Garage Sound *****
From the stage, Oz can see Giles. He can see everything, actually, every nook
and smoky cranny of the Bronze, every face lifted up hoping for Dev's gaze to
meet theirs, every lonely face counting bubbles in their drink, every
sputtering light hanging from the grid above.
He strums into the downbeat; from the corner of his eye, he can see Devon
raising his hand over his head. He knows from experience, from countless
practices, that his hand is open, fingers spread wide, counting the beats down
to the end of the song. It's a nice visual, good corollary to the shift into
minor, dwindling chords. It's also a trick, because when they get to the last
two fingers--right...*here*--Eric slams down on the drums, Devon pumps his
fist, and the song careens back full-force.
Oz watches Giles. He's toward the back, tucked under the stairs. Oz allows
himself a smile at the sight. Wearing a short-sleeve button-down shirt,
marginally more casual than his usual gear. The librarian looks--not out of
place, not really, not even like he's slumming. Just separate from the rest, a
little squiggly glowing line around him. It's a good separate. He grips a pint
of something dark--Guinness? It's the darkest beer Oz knows of--and sips every
so often. He looks relaxed, and this makes Oz smile again.
Devon dances over, jostles him with a quick slam of the hip. He grabs Oz around
the neck, whirls him into a rough noogie, scrubbing at his hair. Oz
concentrates on playing, and when he's released, he looks back over to the
stairs.
Giles isn't alone any more. He's turned in profile, backed up against the
stairs, and appears deep in conversation with--Jesus.
"The fuck's *that*?" Devon asks, sweeping his fingers wide, but Oz knows he's
pointing exactly where he's been looking. "Holy hottie, Batman."
Oz can't answer, just looks: Tall guy, beautiful sad face, carefully rakish
hair. Damn.
/
Giles has steeled himself to run into Xander or Cordelia, to wince his way
politely through some jangling discordant noise, to meet curious stares from
students who half-recognize him, but he didn't expect, first, to enjoy the
music, nor, second, to meet up with Angel of all people. In his inimitable way,
he simply appears next to Giles, a little too close for comfort. Giles turns
against the columns of the stairs to make some space.
"Evening," Angel says.
"How are you?"
Angel shrugs. "You? Your summer?"
"Markedly improving." Giles raises his glass slightly. Angel nods, not smiling
exactly but his expression does relax a fraction.
They stand together for a long while, and Giles knows there must be a reason
Angel is here. The man doesn't seem to enjoy the nightlife for its own charms,
to put it mildly. But some stubborn bit of him doesn't feel like making it any
easier for Angel by asking him.
"What brings you out?" Angel finally asks.
"A friend." Giles likes the sound of that, likes even more the faint surprise
it brings to Angel's face.
Angel takes his elbow. "Can we go somewhere quieter?"
And while the grip on his bare skin and the closeness of the vampire thrill
Giles in a way he would prefer not to explore, he finds himself shaking his
head. "I'm afraid not. I'd like to stay and hear the rest of the set."
Angel releases his arm. "Right. Look, I'm sorry. I was just wondering--"
"If I'd heard from her?" Giles sips his beer while Angel nods. "No. I take it
you haven't, then?"
"She just left so quickly."
"Yes. But she will come back." At Angel's blank, rather desperate expression,
Giles feels himself soften. "Of course she'll come back, Angel. You don't
really think--?"
Angel shrugs again and squints at the stage. Daniel bounces there, slowly,
looking down at his guitar with something like concern. Giles would like to
contemplate the odd position he finds himself in, a Watcher attempting to
comfort and reassure a rather stricken, lovelorn vampire, but he is struck
instead by the firmness in his own tone, the sense that he actually believes
what he is saying. "She's an unusual girl, admittedly. But she will come back."
He believes it now, and realizes he had not, not fully, not until now.
When he looks back over at Angel, the vampire has disappeared.
Daniel, however, still bobs up there. His face is shadowed, but some trick of
the light makes it seem that he is peering directly at Giles.
/
Afterwards, Oz finds Giles at the bar, patting a small napkin across his
forehead. At least the big hot guy's nowhere in sight.
"Warm in here." He climbs onto a rickety stool beside Giles
Giles balls the napkin up. "To be expected."
"Glad you guys came," Oz says and leans over the bar to get Marly the
bartender's attention. "Can I get a drink?"
"Right," Marly snorts. "Nice try."
"A water, then? Ice?"
He's not usually very thirsty after playing; hungry, sure, but tonight his lips
feel crackly dry. That should be a sign to keep his mouth closed, but he's not
so good with omens and hints.
"Interesting music," Giles tells him as Oz crunches ice cubes. "But--Who guys?
What you guys?" Aware he's making no sense, and still pushing on; Oz can admire
that.
Nice icecube. Good icecube melting its super-chilliness down the back of Oz's
throat. When it's a little sliver on the tip of his tongue, Oz fakes a cough
and swallows. "He your boyfriend?"
Giles blinks, and blinks some more. Oz realizes he must have turned his head to
look at him, and that Giles has too, because a second ago they were next to
each other, facing forward. But now he's looking at Giles blink. Ergo,
something.
"Tall, dark--?" Oz supplies.
The blinking is getting out of control, until something breaks on Giles's face
and he's laughing: a good deep belly laugh, something not to be expected from
his previous tight-lipped chuckles.
"Good lord," Giles finally manages to say, and wipes his eyes with another
napkin. "Dear, dear lord, no."
Oz smiles and slumps a bit. "Good."
Giles's upper lip twitches at that, but before he can say anything more, Oz
feels strong arms wrap around his chest, hauling him back.
"Baby boy!" Devon shouts and presses a kiss on the top of Oz's skull. "I think
I'm gonna fly--"
"Dev, this is Giles," Oz says. "Giles, meet Devon."
Giles straightens up and offers his hand. It hovers there, level with Oz's
eyes, and finally, Devon slaps it, hard. "Dude," Devon says. "The book guy?"
Giles nods, lips tightening, that awesome laugh long gone, and looks away. "I-
it's been interesting, Daniel," he says. He stands up and swipes a napkin
across the counter, erasing any trace of his presence. "Thank you."
Oz winces and feels the ache all over his face. He struggles out of Devon's
arms, reaching for Giles. Manages to brush his shoulder, imagining himself
holding on to some piece of flotsam or something. "Wait a minute, okay?"
Devon grabs Oz by the bicep; his hand hot and damp. "Gotta clear the stage,
man."
Giles nods. Oz nods back, and gets dragged away.
/
And what, precisely, is he doing here in the parking lot? The most accurate
term is *loitering*. But Daniel asked him to wait, and Giles would like to
think he's merely being polite. He leans against the wall of the Bronze, head
tipped back, listening to tinny music leaking out the door, mixed in with the
whispers and shouts of young people. He is occasionally jostled but maintains
his balance.
"Hey," Daniel says. He slips in beside Giles; from the corner of his eye, Giles
sees him lean against the wall, perfectly mimic his posture. "What're we
looking at?"
The sky is dirty-dark, clouded and faintly shimmery with lights. "Not much."
"Got it."
Giles wonders briefly whether he ought to feel unnerved by the silence that
always seems to settle between them. He should not feel this unnerved by the
quiet. Hadn't he longed for it all term? He is uncertain (as if uncertainty is
new to him) whether it is the silence that unnerves him, or the expectation
that it will be broken.
He likes to think that American teenagers belong to a different species from
other people, possibly even a different genus. Keeping them safely alien and
untouchable. They are excitable and wriggly as puppies, with none of a puppy's
instinct for training and obedience. Instincts you had in spades, Ripper--at
the very least, a distinct taste for the *leash*: A sneering Ethan in his mind,
taking any opportunity to comment.
He is wrong, of course, he knows that, wrong about this particular teenager.
This grave child. Who happens tonight to be wearing a leather collar, but
that's--
A coincidence.
"Where you headed?" Daniel nudges Giles's hip with his own and Giles considers
nudging back, then thinks better of it. "After this?"
There aren't any options, but Giles sifts through them anyway. "Home, I
expect."
"Can I get a ride with you? I wasn't thinking. Gave the van keys to Dev. I
don't like walking home this late. It's--"
Daniel breaks off and looks up, biting that full lower lip, so utterly
guileless that Giles feels something crumple inside of him.
"Of course," he says softly.
He stands there a bit too long, hearing the moments pass with his heartbeat,
looking back into those wide eyes, nearly certain that some unspoken agreement
is forming between them, until a small, dark shape disengages from the shadows
and moves toward them. Giles straightens, his hand moving to the stake in his
waistband, as the figure -- moon-pale face and planed shadows -- comes up
behind Daniel, reaching out.
"Hi," the figure says. Fear drops through Giles's feet and vanishes as Daniel
turns and bobs his head in greeting.
She is a slight girl, eyelids heavy with red glitter. Giles wonders how she can
keep them open. "I liked your show?"
"Yeah," Daniel says. "We pretty much kept in tune tonight."
Smiling, she looks downward.
"You work at the drugstore, right?" Daniel asks.
"Margaret," she whispers. "I met you at Tanya's?" The breeze whips open her
short trench-coat and before she tugs it back closed, Giles sees her spindly
legs, wrapped in fishnet tights. She is as small as a prepubescent, dressed up
like a Halloween whore.
"Giles?" Daniel asks. "Can we give Margaret a ride home?"
The girl steals a look at him from below her lids, and it is clear that this is
the first time she noticed anyone else is there. So this is what it's like to
be a parent: an unseen, unheard chauffeur. "Of course," Giles says.
At the car, Giles unlocks his door first. Judging from the grip Margaret has on
Daniel's arm and slow flash of glitter when she looks up at him, he knows they
will take the back. He pushes the driver's seat forward and steps aside.
"Margaret?" he asks, checking the mirror as he backs out. She has one leg over
Daniel's and his hand rests on her exposed thigh, fingers drumming slowly.
"Margaret? Where do you live?"
The girl frowns and exhales through short lips. He has been around teenagers
enough to know she is communicating that unique combination of exasperation and
boredom.
"What's your address?" Daniel asks. "Man needs to know."
His eyes meet Giles's in the mirror. Giles would like to think he sees
amusement in the boy's gaze. Or at least some variety of consolation. Sympathy.
But it is dark, and he is growing more tired by the second, so he concentrates
on driving, following the directions mumbled half-coherently behind him.
Giles stops in front of the girl's large house, pushes up the passenger seat,
and resists the urge to give them a fare. He fiddles with the radio, searching
through stations, so as not to seem to hear the whispered conversation and soft
sound of kisses goodbye. He does, however, and catches a glimpse of Daniel
kissing her forehead. They are nearly the same size, Daniel in his too-large
pants, Margaret bound in corset and skirt: Children playing dress-up. Playing
grown-ups.
He is staring out at the street ahead when he hears the knock on the passenger-
side window. Daniel waves at him and Giles unlocks the door and shoves the seat
back.
"Where to, kemosabe?" Daniel asks, sliding into the seat.
"Where do you live?" Giles keeps his tone low and measured, ignoring the rush
of warmth through his chest set off as soon as they were alone.
He expects another drive silent save for murmured directions and the odd radio
tuning, yet feels disappointed when this is precisely what happens. Daniel
settles on staticky public radio. A choice thrown like a bone to the stuffy old
man.
Daniel's house is lit up, the only one on the block that gave any sense of
human occupancy. Giles shifts into neutral. Daniel remains in his seat. He is
just--looking at him, with such studied nonchalance that Giles's brain freezes.
He cannot quite remember how to say goodnight.
"Driveway's around back," Daniel says.
"Eh?" is all Giles can manage.
"Tree's blocking it, but just pull in behind the van." Daniel's eyebrows raise,
and Giles thinks it is not nonchalance the boy is studying, since he seems to
have that down pat, so much as it is Giles himself. "You are coming in, right?"
Giles swallows dryly. "If you'd like--"
"Around the tree."
"All right."
/
Having Giles in his house? Bizarre. In a good way. Oz doesn't much like being
surprised, himself, since it tends to lead to the panic and the confusion.
Sweaty palms, dry mouth: uncomfortable. But surprising other people is amusing,
and the guys *are* surprised.
Even if only Devon shows signs of it, gulping, scraping, backing up in mock-
fear, Oz can still tell. Eric fixes his posture and tries to hide the spliff
under the table. Lissa ducks into the pantry with half a six-pack hanging off
her fingers, and emerges empty-handed, shirt tugged down. He could swear she's
reapplied her lipstick, too.
Devon hoists himself up onto the edge of the sink. "Hey, book guy! Welcome.
Didn't know you were coming."
Giles gives Devon a tight smile. From where Oz is standing, it looks, in
profile, more like a grimace than anything else. Then Giles nods. Oz isn't
sure, but "curt" comes to mind. Giles nods curtly. "Hello, Devon."
"Want a drink?"
"Water?"
Devon tosses him a glass, and Giles catches it easily, holding it in one hand
and looking back at Dev. Calmly befuddled again, but starting to verge on
irritation.
"Fresh from the tap," Devon says. "Come and get it."
Oz watches as Giles edges around the table, between Eric and Lissa, making his
careful way to the sink. Devon doesn't move, just swings his feet, banging them
against the cabinets, so poor Giles has to reach past him, brushing his arm, to
flip up the tap and fill his glass. Devon grins across the room at Oz, looking
about as innocent as a tomcat. "So, book guy--"
"He's got a name, Dev."
"Sorry. What's your name again, book guy?"
Giles sips his water slowly, glancing at Oz over the rim of the glass. His eyes
are dark and narrowed, and Oz is suddenly glad he's never pissed Giles off this
much; he couldn't stand that look for very long at all. "Rupert Giles."
"Not here to bust us, are you, Rupert Giles?" Devon asks, and Eric chokes back
a laugh. Lissa smacks him on the shoulder for that.
"Certainly not." Glass empty, Giles sets in back in the sink and wipes his hand
on his thigh. His voice is about as tight and strained as the muscles in his
face, and Oz wants to look away, he really does. But he can't.
Giles starts to move back towards Oz, but then pauses in front of Lissa.
"Hello. I'm Giles."
She smiles, the metal of her retainer flashing. "Hey. Lissa." She points at
Eric. "That's Eric." Eric twists in his seat, and Giles shakes his hand. At
least some of his friends know their manners.
"You were at the show, right?" Lissa asks.
"You're quite the dervish on that tambourine."
Lissa ducks her head. "Lame, I know. Can't get much girlier than tambourine,
huh?"
Maybe because he likes to pretend to be nice around Lissa, or just because he's
lost interest in annoying Giles, but Devon jumps off the counter, tackling
Eric, wrestling him for the spliff. Giles takes Lissa's elbow and maneuvers
them gently out of the way. Oz can't make out their conversation any more, so
he just leans in the doorway and takes it all in: Eric getting Devon in a
headlock; Lissa miming the chord changes Oz is trying to teach her while Giles
tilts his head, watching; Devon thumping Eric's chest weakly, refusing to cry
uncle; Giles adjusting Lissa's fingers.
Oz is liking this, the loud chaos and quiet tutorial, everyone absorbed in
their own thing.
He skirts around Devon, ducking flailing arms and Eric's kicks, and digs into
Eric's shirt pocket, liberating the dime bag. The boys are going to be
wrestling for a while. They're always hyped up after playing. And it looks like
Lissa's not letting Giles go any time soon; she'd never say so, but anyone
could teach her better than Oz can. He elbows chips bags and magazines off the
counter, clearing a good space, and starts rolling a joint. It gives him
something to focus on, something for his hands to do, because he's scared of
that whole idle hands curse. Without something to do, he might just start
ogling Giles again, and he's not up to handling Devon's comments about that
just yet. Or ever.
He taps the roach three times against his palm and twists off the top as he
looks back up. Lissa's gone, probably to pee, because the girl's got a bladder
the size of a chestnut, and Eric and Dev are arguing over the countdown to
their imminent thumb war. Giles leans against the pantry door, arms crossed
loosely, looking at Oz, and Oz can tell somehow that he's been standing there
like that for a while now. Looking at him.
He gives Giles a smile, feeling suddenly really overwhelmingly shy, and shows
him the joint. Look what I made, Mom! He asks Giles something; he hopes it's
clear from his eyes, because his voice isn't working just now. He thinks Giles
nods, getting it. Maybe not, but he chooses to believe he did, and pushes off
toward the back door, hoping Giles follows him into the garage.
/
Daniel sits on the edge of the work bench in the glare of a bare bulb when
Giles finds him, his nose wrinkling at the dampness of the garage. Motor oil,
and wood shavings, and something else, light and spicy. Daniel. The boy is
looking down at his lap, flicking a disposable lighter on and off. As Giles
threads his way toward him, stepping around amps and instrument cases and a
large hulking machine that might be a miter saw, Daniel looks up. "Hey."
"Evening," Giles says, like a fool. He stops at the arm of a threadbare couch,
squeezed in between a tower of packing boxes and the workbench and strokes the
upholstery, looking for something to steady him. He wishes he were intelligent
enough to work out how he made his way here, to this garage, beside this boy,
but the riddle has no solution. Daniel's face is stark under the light, half-
glowing, half-shadowed. Untouchable. "Your friends--"
"Devon's an asshole. I'm sorry." Daniel flicks the lighter again, holding his
palm over the flame.
"Lissa seems like a sweet girl."
"Yeah. She's great." He purses his lips and looks away, and Giles wants very
much to take his hand, or stroke his hair. Some innocent gesture to soothe him,
ease away the tension tightening his face into a cheap mask and drawing his
shoulders in towards his neck. "You know, I'm not--"
Giles steps forward as Daniel pauses, watches his hand reach out tentatively
for the boy's leg, then drop back, empty and ridiculous. "What?"
"I don't know," Daniel says. "Forget it. I'm going to smoke this." He leans
over, cupping one hand around the joint, protecting it from a phantom breeze,
and inhales slowly. The paper crackles, then goes silent as he removes it from
his lips, holding it between two fingers. He tips his head back, his eyes
closing, and stretches out both hands to grasp his knees. The entire sequence
looks less pleasurable than almost medicinal. Necessary, but not quite
enjoyable.
As Daniel exhales, the sweet, heavy smoke swirls briefly between them, and
Giles has to look away from the boy's lips, gleaming moistly in the light. He
considers Daniel's arm, the depths at which the freckles float, some faded,
deeper, obscured by the darker ones closer to the surface. Leather cords and
woven wool and small glinting beads wrapped around the wrists: oddments of
decoration, their original purpose probably forgotten. They persevere, though,
preserved for the constant soft rub on the skin.
And the collar, snug around his pale, thin neck, its metal spikes shining under
the light.
/
It's nice and quiet in the garage, just him and Giles, and Oz is starting to
feel better. He offers the joint to Giles, and watches as Giles pinches it
between thumb and forefinger, inhaling gingerly. He turns his head to exhale,
passing it back.
"Why do they call you Oz?"
"Nickname. Why?" He accepts the joint back and sucks in again. "It has nothing
to do with the Emerald City. Present circumstances notwithstanding."
Giles shakes his head, and that was supposed to make him smile, but he's not
playing along. "I never really thought of you having a nickname, I suppose."
"People can be surprising."
"Yes." Giles sounds very tired, and Oz needs to distract him. He balances the
joint on the edge of the bench and slides off the workbench. Flopping onto the
couch, Oz steeples his fingers, trying to decide what to do, peering at Giles
like pictures he's seen of Freud. Tell me all your dreams, Mr. Giles.
"It's all right," Giles continues, fingering the pegboard over the workbench.
"My calling you Daniel?"
"Huh? Yeah, course it is." Oz shifts over and pats the cushion next to him.
Giles sits with a sigh and reaches to retrieve the joint. He inhales much
deeper this time, and holds it in his lungs for an ungodly long time. Oz hasn't
seen him this tense since the first day in the library. He twists around so
he's lying down, head resting against Giles's leg. "Why would I mind?"
"It's not--" Giles stops and looks down at him. Yeah, Oz thinks, I'm lying in
your lap, big guy. "Your friends call you Oz."
"And you call me Daniel." Oz honestly doesn't get what the problem is here. He
can feel the warm skin under Giles's trousers, radiant against his cheek. If he
wasn't stoned, he'd probably be able to resist the urge to rub his head against
it like a kitten. But he is, so he can't. "What do your friends call you?"
Giles swallows, muscles in his throat working, and shifts so he's sitting up
straighter, dislodging Oz.
Oz tries again, because something important's going on, even if he's too dense
to get it. Twisting his neck, he squints upward. "It's okay if I call you
Giles?"
"Most people do."
So that's not it. Oz tucks his elbow under his side and sits up, leaning
against Giles. "What's wrong?"
Giles squeezes his hand into a fist. His knuckles redden, then pale. "I'm
embarrassed."
"Oh, okay." Oz rests his cheek against Giles's chest. He waits for a couple
seconds, sure that Giles is going to stand up and let him fall, but they both
remain still, and the warmth of Giles's skin is even stronger up here. He
smells like limes. Not lime *flavor*, but real limes, freshly sliced. "I
thought it was something important."
Giles laughs. Oz can hear it, kind of gurgly, from inside.
"Embarrassment's *not* important," Oz says. "I mean, in the grand scheme of
things, it's not even going to be an extra in the crowd scene."
/
Much later, well past the arrival of his second wind, as well as its eventual
departure, they are back in the kitchen. Giles reaches across the table for the
last bottle of beer, realizing too late, just as Daniel takes hold of his
bicep, that the tattoo is showing.
His friend traces the mark of Eyghon with one finger and looks up, eyes
narrowed. "You've seen a lot of shit." It's not a question, but Giles says yes
anyway. Or mouths it; he cannot hear himself just now. Whether supernatural or
natural, Daniel's touch drew sparks in its wake, reforming the mark.
"Whoa!" Devon leans over the table, grabbing Giles's wrist. "Awesome tat--wow."
"Leave him alone, Dev."
"Just looking. Jesus."
Giles frees his wrist from Devon's grip and tugs the sleeve down. "I have some
books," he says. "At home. There are some rather nice d-designs in them, if
you'd like to take a look." He glances at Daniel, who smiles. "Much nicer than
this."
Devon nods eagerly, slumped back in his chair, hands wrapped around his beer
like a microphone. Daniel looks back and forth between him and Devon, that
small half-smile on his lips, though his eyes remain serious. The gaze settles
on Giles, and somehow it is nearly as warm and substantial as the feeling of
Daniel leaning against him earlier.
***** Analogs *****
Giles allows himself the luxury of sleeping late the next morning. By the time
he finally rises, the sun fills his living room and he has to narrow his eyes
against the glare as he fumbles with the coffeemaker. The contraption is
recalcitrant enough under his hands; attempting to work the curtain's mechanism
would be worse than foolhardy.
He did not dream last night, yet he feels as if he had. Wisps of sensation and
perception cling to him like the remnants of dreams, hovering around the edges
of his eyes and mind: the lean weight of Daniel against him; tang of marijuana
on the back of his tongue; Angel's cool, hard grip on his elbow; scent of the
boy, sweaty and smoky and still fresh; the intricate curve of his lips,
twisting and slipping as he spoke. Disappointment creeping like sorrow over
him, then eroding, washing away: the night moving with tidal certainty, alone
and then not alone.
Not dreams, for once, but experience.
When he reaches the bottom of the second coffee, his thoughts are clearer. He
is more in control, less prone to wander through his sense memory, and this can
only be an improvement. Less fleshy, more cerebral: This is his training coming
through.
By turning that tide with a few simple words for a vampire, he had swung
momentarily alone and shiftless; when the water rushes out, the sand sucks
wetly at the air. But it cools, then, under the moon.
It must the aftereffects of THC that are driving him from the cerebral headlong
into that twisty, spit-soaked realm of imagination and fantasy. Likening
himself to sand and Daniel to the moon? That is not his training.
More coffee.
This, however, *is* his training. She will return: He had assured Angel of
this, and it is true. When she does, everything will revert to normal. Normal
is a Watcher and a Slayer. It is supposed to be an exclusive pair, drawn
together and set against the rest of the world. And although Giles has always
been put off by the cloying, inherent paternalism of the arrangement, he can
appreciate its simplicity. Knowledge and strength, experience and youth.
It is that very simplicity that has fallen apart in Sunnydale. Almost
immediately, the simple arithmetic collapsed, became complicated into various
non-Euclidean dimensions. First, friends in the know, determined to accompany,
assist, and learn. Then a vampire with a soul. All those complications,
however, revolved around Buffy. If she cannot be said to have instigated them,
nonetheless they referred to, affected, her. And Giles remained as far as
possible the traditional Watcher, hide-bound, bookish, and resourceful.
The Manichean simplicity of the traditional arrangement, light versus dark,
pair versus world, cannot easily hold, not permanently. He just isn't simple
enough to persist like this indefinitely. Giles is very, very good at playing
his father; years of creating disappointment and fostering recrimination taught
him everything he needs to know about that. He is not, however, his father. Nor
is it a simple case of his own reversal and return, of a short, straight path
from good to, well, Eyghon, then back to good, back to the fold. It was never
that simple, and never can be.
He knows that it is much more complicated than a turn and return. For the
children, and Miss Calendar, even for the deliberate, stubborn enigma that
Angel is, he can and will remain traditional. That is who and what they need:
At least one clear example of the simple version of the world. For all the
others know, he has always been a middle-aged, sexless librarian. Crows' feet
and nary a pinch of skin between his legs.
For all he pretends, he has lapsed and returned, consigning all hint of
transgression to the past.
Daniel disrupts that clean, linear progression. Well before he ever touched the
ink on his skin, he swerved gracefully into Giles's path. It took a single
swerve, puff of warm, smoky breath, and everything rearranged itself.
He sees now the rearrangement, sees how without her, he has been a fool. In a
grotesque parody of mourning, he has been clinging to all the old roles,
reenacting all the old familiar patterns out of desperation. Like the worst
kind of spurned lover, unable to accept that it is over, he has been faithfully
donning his Havisham-tweeds.
It is not over. Paused, perhaps, but she will return. And when she does, he
will know who to be. Where simplicity cannot be taken for granted, it can
certainly be constructed. This is precisely how he has always handled his past.
Consignment and construction, invoking every familiar narrative of fall and
redemption to shape his actions.
Daniel's presence is proportional to the time Giles has left: nothing so
overwhelming as wizardry and orgies, simply one small boy with a twisty lips
and wide, shadowed eyes. His presence is thus all the easier to contain and
construct in the space of the summer. And isn't that the thrill of repression?
When you wrap up your shame tight and small, it tastes all the better for
having been hidden.
She will return.
In the meantime, he has all he needs: a fresh cup of coffee, toasted-cheese
sandwich, and an afternoon to think about Daniel.
He moves in contented calm around the flat, tending to all the household things
he has let slip lately. Straightens the books, dusts the trinkets, folds the
laundry.
/
Oz wakes up happy and horny. Pretty hard to distinguish one from the other,
actually, so not really "and", more like a dash. Or a run-on word: happyhorny.
He just sort of drifts up from sleep, feeling his body coalesce and thicken
back into reality, dick and tongue a little thicker than the rest of him.
Edging up on one elbow to survey the room. Devon sleeps next to him, on his
stomach; looks like he was dropped out of a plane without a parachute, and this
is where he landed. Lissa sits on the windowseat, paging through an old _MRnR_,
licking the ink off her fingers, not that it'll help. She lifts her head and
observes, obviously amused, as he struggles to climb off the bed without waking
Dev, to find the floor without landing on Eric, wrapped up tight in the
sleeping bag. Sleeping on his back like Dracula.
He joins her on the low seat, curling his legs back behind him and leaning his
head on her shoulder. Her hair tickles his nose: damp, and it smells like
raspberries.
"Already showered?" Whispered and croaky. God, he sounds like he has emphysema
or something.
She grins. "I've been up forever, little man." She's whispering, too, but it
sounds better than his. Low and sweet.
"Why?"
Lissa leans back against him. "Cause I went to bed at a relatively civilized
hour. Unlike some people."
"Oh." He raises his head. He wants to kiss her; she smells good, and she's
pretty.
She pokes him in the ribs with a very sharp elbow. "You stink, Oz."
"I do?" He sniffs one pit. "Yeah, I do. Sorry."
Bracing her hand on his thigh, and that just jacks up the whole happy-horny
thing, Lissa leans over and retrieves another magazine from the floor.
_National Geographic_: it's got a whole history of woolly mammoths. "It's
okay," she says. "Just-- morning breath."
"Got it." Oz rests his chin on her shoulder, watching her turn the pages. It's
annoying to watch tv when someone else has the remote, but watching someone
else read is incredibly calming.
"You gonna do something about that?" Lissa asks, running her thumb down the
fold-out map of Borneo.
"Huh?" What can he do about Borneo? He's not even sure where Borneo is; he used
to think it was imaginary and sunken, like Atlantis. But if it's in the
Geographic, it's probably real. Should ask Giles about that.
"Chubby little Oz, Jr. there." Lissa turns to the crappy watercolor painting of
mammoths shuffling across the tundra.
"Yeah," Oz says. "Probably should, huh?"
"I'm no doctor, but it would seem like a good idea."
Oz unfolds his legs and leans over his knees, pressing his belly against his
hard-on. It hurts, like chewing off a hangnail.
"I could go downstairs," Lissa says, closing the magazine. She obviously
doesn't like mammoths as much as he does. "If you and Dev want some privacy. Or
is the librarian stopping by?" Wicked smile she's got there.
He glances sideways at her and slips his arm around her waist. He sucks at
this, knows the expression he's trying to make right now will be way more
Groucho Marx waggle than Steve McQueen smirk, but he tries anyway.
Lissa shoves him away with one small hand. Yeah, Groucho strikes out again.
"Hit the showers, kiddo." She stands up and rolls her neck. "I'll go get some
grub, okay?"
Devon always claims he gets the best ideas in the shower; maybe Oz is doing
something wrong, but he tends to zone out in here. And, yeah, he tends to zone
out everywhere, so it's not like that's news or anything. He doesn't know who
he wants. Is he allowed to want Lissa and Dev and Giles? And also that tall
Scottish girl at the coffee place who's so used to him she just pockets his
change now? His math seems off; he's pretty sure there are way too many
integers here, but it's not like this is a situation where he can show his work
for partial credit.
Showered and shivering, he helps Lissa make mac and cheese and realizes, as he
stirs in an extra half-packet of cheese powder and she wrinkles her nose, that
he doesn't want her, not really. Because all he's thinking about as he stirs
the neon glop is how Giles was right here. In his kitchen, only a couple hours
ago. Drinking beer and smoking up and not really caring how hard Oz was looking
at him.
"You sticking around today?" He hands Lissa her half of the macaroni.
She picks at it, delicately shaking as much sauce off the noodles as she can
before tasting it with pursed lips. "Thought I might," she says. "There's that
_21 Jump Street_ marathon on F/X."
Oz nods and swallows. "Forgot about that."
"You're going to the library, aren't you?"
"Probably."
"Probably definitely." Smiling, almost smirking, Lissa pushes her bowl away.
"Take this, I can't deal with it."
"Cool." He gobbles it up, feeling it congeal into this huge, warm lump in the
pit of his stomach. "Tell my mom I'll be back for dinner, 'kay?"
"If you still have a stomach, sure."
He walks all the way to school, but the library's closed. Just Dave pushing a
broom lazily down the hall. Shit.
He stops by the coffee place, but the Scot's not working. Shit.
When he gets home, Lissa and his mom are drinking iced tea and talking about
menstrual cups at the kitchen table. Effectively erasing any good Giles-
related-memories associated with it. He retreats upstairs, but there's no sign
of Devon beyond the earring he finds in the covers when the hook pokes into his
arm. Shit squared.
He dozes off, and when he wakes up again, it's almost dark. Still horny,
though.
He wants to talk to Giles. Grasshopper must learn patience, however, so he
flops back on the bed and takes up a book. If he's going to deny himself Giles,
at least he can do something Giles-y. Other options -- basically that Jump
Street marathon or old Hanna-Barbera shorts -- are so not Giles-y. Giles-esque?
Gilesian?
Besides, he's probably seen them all anyway.
Patience is overrated.
/
The phone rings as Giles stands in front of the open refrigerator. He could do
all the house-tending in the world, and he would still forget the groceries. He
answers, tucking the phone between neck and shoulder, returning to contemplate
the distinct lack of food in his possession.
"Hey." Daniel? It is Daniel, and were he a teenaged girl, he's sure he would
squeal. "Thought you'd be at the library."
"It's nearly 8:30 at night."
"Yeah, but still."
"What is it, Daniel?"
"I was all set to leave a message."
"Shall I ring off, then?"
"Nah."
Silence. He cannot fathom how young people spend their waking lives on the
phone, although giggles and squeals do seem to fill the time. "How are you?"
Giles asks finally.
"Good."
"Sleep well?"
"Yeah."
The telephone is not, perhaps, the best vehicle for communicating with Daniel.
If he were here, Giles could see his eyes, conjecture his mood and guess his
intent from a lift of the brow or quirk of the lips. He closes his eyes at the
thought of those lips, and grips the counter until his fingers ache.
"What are you doing?" Daniel asks. "Right now, I mean."
"I'm making dinner, actually."
"Yeah? What's on?"
"That's the question, isn't it?"
Daniel laughs, and transferred through wires and plastic and whatever computer
chips make up telephones these days, the sound is staticky and quite pleasant.
"What've you got on hand?"
"Er--. Hmm." Giles scans the cupboards. "Tinned tomatoes. Tuna, and--" He
checks the refrigerator again. "One rather limp stalk of celery."
"House is overrun with vegetables. I could bring you some zucchini," Daniel
says. The pause before he speaks again, if he will speak again, is a long one.
Giles thinks he can hear the boy swallow. He really must be extraordinarily
shy. "If that's okay."
Giles leans against the wall, transferring the phone, hot and sticky now with
sweat, to the other ear. "Feed the lonely bachelor, is it?"
"Yeah. Good deed for the day. Gimme like half an hour."
"All right." And the connection breaks.
He cannot imagine, and he does try, inviting Daniel into his house.
Construction of normalcy is one thing, but that requires a great deal of
restraint and dedication. Both are rather difficult to summon when the subject
itself is in your home.
In all likelihood, the boy will never arrive. Once distracted, his purpose
dropped like a loose thread, he'll find himself tuning his guitar or staring
glassy-eyed at cartoons.
Still, it is nice to be thought of.
/
Oz takes another shower; he *was* asleep, hence he needs a shower. This time he
doesn't zone out. He's pretty hyper. Definitely jittery. This makes dressing
difficult, since he's actually putting something on with buttons, and his
fingers are all slippy and jumpy. But it's Giles's *house*, and that calls for
some kind of attention and care. Like the last of Dev's good pomade and a pair
of fairly clean cords.
His mom might be onto something with her whole cleaning hang-up. His closet is
pretty much an extension of his room, so crammed with crap he's surprised he's
managed to dress himself lately. And he can't find his tie. Last time he wore
it was someone's funeral, and it bothered him like hell, so why does he want to
wear it now?
Fuck it.
He grabs enough squash to fill a grocery sack and leaves a note on the kitchen
table, and it doesn't matter any more that the Giles-memories are gone from it.
Because he gets to see Giles's kitchen. In his house.
And his house is where?
/
"Hey, Giles." Daniel sounds strange, almost insistent. This is hardly his usual
drawl, and it is cut through with strange rattling sounds. "Um, where do you
live?"
"Where are you?" Giles reaches for the decanter of whisky, suddenly needing to
steady his hands.
"Van. Driving."
That would explain the screeching rattle. Giles sips his drink and closes his
eyes briefly.
"So, address?" Daniel asks, and hadn't Giles replied? He takes another sip.
So it appears that he will be hosting Daniel tonight.
Wonders not ceasing, and such.
/
Giles is a mess in the kitchen, just incredibly hopeless. He gets in the way,
trips over his own feet, and chops weirdly, like he's more used to hacking at
things with an axe than slicing zucchini.
"How long have you lived alone, anyway?"
Oz has positioned Giles in the doorway, because this is going to take twice as
long if he insists on staying underfoot. And the whole point of pasta
puttanesca is how *quick* it is. Just dump veggies and tuna in the tomatoes and
pour over pasta. The Frugal Gourmet talked for almost half a show about that.
Also something about prostitutes.
Giles sips his stinky brown drink and wrinkles his brows.
"That long, huh?"
He gets a smile for that, and Oz pauses for a second, cocking his head to get a
better view of the grooves the smile draws in Giles's cheeks. The sauce spits
at him, landing right on his hand, and he turns back to stirring the tuna into
the tomatoes.
No ogling during cooking. He should write The Frugal Gourmet about that rule.
/
Daniel insists, fairly sternly, on clearing the table and filling the
dishwasher after dinner, leaving Giles to circulate uncomfortably around his
own living room. The boy is distinctly different this evening: dressed in
trousers only a size too big and a button-down shirt just a size too small, as
if for his confirmation, despite the dark purple lacquer on his short nails,
stern in the kitchen, almost talkative over dinner.
"Done," Daniel says, emerging from the kitchen. "Hey, music."
Giles flips idly through his records, looking over his shoulder at Daniel. He
perches on the edge of the couch and rattles the ice cubes in his glass.
Slowly, Giles realizes Daniel is trying to get his attention.
"Sorry," he mumbles. "I thought you might enjoy this."
"You're not going to give me that vinyl is superior to digital speech, are
you?"
Giles looks down at the record in his hands. "It's a speech?"
"Yeah. Analog is truer to the performance. The sound is richer. Fuller. You
know." Daniel sits back, arms loosely crossed. He appears to be studying
Giles's face again, and Giles would like to know just how he manages to look
simultaneously intent and serene.
"I had no idea I was so predictable."
"Not you. The speech." Daniel drums his fingers on the couch's arm, but his
expression has not changed. Giles thinks that he knows him well enough to
understand that the gesture is a parody of impatience, and not the real thing
at all.
"I fail to see the difference."
Daniel smiles slowly enough to make Giles's throat ache. "Big difference,
Giles."
"Oh? Enlighten me, then." Harsher than he had intended, and he shakes his head
in apology.
"Snarky much?"
Giles sits on the armchair, leaning forward, towards Daniel. "No. I'm curious."
"Oh. Okay." Daniel leans forward, tilting his head and squinting into the far
corner of the room, well behind Giles. "You listen to music when you drive?"
"On occasion."
"All right. So, radio's playing. Or tape. Doesn't matter. Windows down, wind
blowing in. Cars passing. Maybe sirens somewhere across town. Little snatches
of conversation from pedestrians when you're stopped at a light."
Giles closes his eyes. "Yes."
"Sounds good, huh?" Daniel's voice is soft, nearly coaxing. Giles feels the
Scotch at last, tentative warmth slipping around his belly, through his chest.
Touching his cheeks.
"Yes."
"Or, okay, get this. Someone else's party. CDs on shuffle. Bug zapper going
off, frying 'em dead. Girl laughing. You don't know anyone. Dark and a little
smoky. Bonfire, maybe? Stale chips that stick to the roof of your mouth and
make that damp squeaky noise when you chew."
"Yes."
"Sounds good?"
"It does."
Daniel touches his wrist and Giles opens his eyes. "Right," Daniel says.
"That's all I'm getting at."
"Which is what, precisely?" The boy's gaze is back on him, and Giles knows he
should straighten his posture, perhaps cross his legs, as it occurs to him,
rather vaguely, that he is flushed and half-hard.
"You listen other times. Not just when you're alone. Brandy in hand, lights
dimmed low." Daniel sits back, apparently satisfied that he has made his point.
"Although that's nice," Giles says, and the protest sounds weak, even to him.
"Sure it is. But the speech? Those guys *only* listen then."
Giles likes the sound of that. He's not one of *those guys*. It's a start.
/
Oz isn't drinking tonight. He wants to stay alert, wants to be able to remember
everything. Maybe Giles will teach him how to catalogue details, cross-
reference according to each of the five senses. That way, when he's old, or
drunk, whatever, he'll be able to summon up the memories with a quick flip
through the long box of cards.
He'd have to use the cards, because the memories would be about Giles, and it
only seems appropriate that he should have to write out each memory by hand on
the 3x5 rectangle. He can see himself hunched over that long table in the
library, Giles standing above him with a big book in his hands, reading out
arcane rules. In his fantasy, Oz understands the rules, and nods quickly.
Impatient with himself, somehow embarrassed that Giles needs to remind him, but
then Giles will pat his shoulder, once, gently, and he'll understand that it's
not lack of trust or anything. Just help. Then Giles will crouch beside him,
arm around the back of Oz's chair, and chuckle at whatever memory Oz is
currently crafting. Draw him close, ruffle his hair as he kisses Oz's cheek and
suggests another memory.
Like this one: that slack, blissed-out look on Giles's face when Oz was
babbling about music.
Or this one: the warmth of Giles's skin, warm just like anyone else's, but
memorable because it's still flaming away on Oz's fingertips.
Or this: the heady, thick scent of Giles's whisky, the way it lightens and
disperses, mixes with the smell of limes, when it's on Giles's breath.
Or: Giles rising to flip the record, the cords of the muscles in his back
twisting into his waist, so strong it radiates from him and socks Oz right in
the gut.
He's going to kiss Giles.
/
"Daniel? What--"
/
*Fuck*.
/
Daniel gazes at the floor with knitted brows, his lip almost trembling,
shoulders hunched around his ears. Giles knows the feeling, because he is
trembling, too. The brush of lips on his own, the clutch of a small hand on his
shoulder, then the shove away, far harder than he'd intended: It had all barely
lasted a moment, yet the shivers wracking him are worthy of some cataclysm.
"Please?"
Giles shakes his head and Daniel's sigh is harsh, like fabric ripping. "Not
that," Daniel says. "Just--. Just sit down, okay?"
He is hovering, he knows this, nearly looming, but he can hardly sit back down.
Daniel scrubs a fist against one eye and falls back against the couch. His eyes
are dark and wet. "Sit, please? I promise not to attack you again."
Giles perches gingerly on the couch, keeping a full cushion-length between
them. "I-I don't know quite what to say."
"Don't say anything."
He has to say something, has to seem to have the situation in hand. "There are
all sorts of masks and roles we must use," Giles says. The clichés taste bitter
on his tongue, but he finds himself incapable of thinking clearly enough to
find an original way of expressing it. "That we're expected to play. That we
need to play."
"For ages 13 and above." Daniel will not look at him, but at least he is
responding.
"Pardon?"
"Oh. Jigsaw puzzles," he says. "They're sorted by how hard they are, who can
handle them. Ages 3 to 103, age 8 and up. And for some reason, the difficulty
is only a matter of how many pieces there are. See, the really hard ones?
They're usually more than a thousand pieces, and they're always marked ages 13
and above."
It is the longest speech he has ever heard the boy utter. Giles's stomach
clenches at the thought that it was spoken here and now, with such an empty
tone that Daniel could have been reading the phone book aloud for all the
emotion he is showing. Patently unfair that it took a fumbled kiss and rough
shove to shake loose the boy's voice. "Puzzles."
"Yeah, I dunno," Daniel says, giving that faint half-shrug he seems to use when
convinced of his own foolishness. Giles knows that shrug, too. He uses it
often. "Maybe you get a secret solution book at your bar mitzvah or something."
"Age 13?" Giles asks. Puzzled, but they are talking again, which is more than
he should have hoped for. Perhaps it is his tone, reedy from the tension
closing his throat, or perhaps Daniel feels he has nothing left to lose after
Giles's violent rejection, but he shifts closer to Giles. He keeps his hands in
his lap, and eyes downcast, but the distance is thinning between them.
"Right. Makes me think that we're all sort of constantly jigged and cut around,
the older we get. More pieces, more edges."
Giles tries to picture this, sees little puzzle people traipsing around a
child's green landscape, their unjoined edges flapping in the breeze. He smiles
at Daniel and believes that he can actually see the relief flashing in the
boy's eyes at the kindness. Daniel smiles back at him, hesitantly, then more
broadly. His emotions are, Giles thinks, more changeable than the proverbial
weather.
"Yeah," Daniel says, smile narrowing, clearly thinking. "Emptier, the more
edges there are. But, like, more opportunities, too."
After that smile, it must be safe now to touch him. Kindly, paternally, slip an
arm around his shoulders. Daniel collapses against him as quickly as spilled
paint: one moment safe and contained, the next soaking him with his boneless
body. "You're an unusual boy."
Daniel blinks up at him, cocking his head. "Oh, I'm pretty usual. Believe me."
Crisis not-so-deftly averted, but nonetheless averted, Giles tilts his head
back and listens to the music Daniel had chosen. Red Rodney with Bird, because,
Daniel says, of redhead solidarity. Giles does not point out that Daniel is
only genotypically, not phenomenally, a redhead. He is not interested in
arguing, or, indeed, in saying very much at all. The soft pressure of Daniel
against his side, barely heavier than a blanket, and the eerily high notes off
the trombone reassure him.
When the record finishes, Daniel rises and holds out his hand for Giles to
shake. He issues an invitation to a barbecue on Saturday, and then he is gone,
head bobbing away into the darkness before Giles can rouse himself and closes
the door.
That wasn't so hard. He appears to have improved markedly at constructing the
normal.
/
Thinking with his dick? Oz is never going to learn what a stupid idea that is.
Of course, he's never going to forget the shock and loathing contorting Giles's
face when he leaned in for the kiss, either.
Cross-reference shock and loathing with disgust and disappointment. Oh, and
humiliation. Can't forget humiliation.
And why the fuck did he invite him to Devon's birthday party, anyway? Suave:
Sorry I jumped you, thanks for not punching me, and, hey, come to my party.
/
Giles finds Daniel in the back yard, behind the squat old barbecue, mulberry-
shaded hair barely peeking over the billowing smoke. He holds a pair of tongs
and turns them carefully back and forth. As Giles moves closer, he sees that
the tongs hold half an eggplant. Its burgundy skin sizzles over the flames and
weeps condensation as it cracks opens. Daniel flicks his wrist, and the
eggplant's pale flesh darkens in the flames.
"Babaghanoush," Daniel says, lifting the tongs slightly. He is not meeting
Giles's eyes, but, of course, he is busy with the roasting.
"Of course."
"Better when you roast it first. There's tofu pups, too."
Giles raises the six-pack in his hand. "Where should I--?" he asks just as
Daniel turns, dropping the now-charred eggplant into a shallow bowl.
"Glad you came," he says quietly. "Oh, beer. Good." He wipes his hands on the
seat of his shorts and straightens up. "Follow me."
/
He's not going to deal with Giles right now. He's going to concentrate on
passing out the food, emptying ash trays, and tending to Devon. It's Devon's
birthday, it's only right.
Not that Dev needs tending. He's standing on the patio railing, Burger King
crown askew on his head, and declaiming song lyrics to an appreciative
audience. How is that narcissism can be so hot?
Later, when the party's in gear and he's run out of things to distract himself
with, then he'll deal with Giles.
Or not.
/
He is flattered that Daniel apparently sees little reason not to include him
among his other friends, that he is trusted to move among their company. He is
flattered and more than a little confused. He supposes he half-expected Daniel
to play gracious host, set up conversations for him, circulate expertly, save
him from any potential discomfort. The party is smaller than he had imagined;
of course, not every teenage American party will be a raucous, debauched mob
scene, despite what television and films seem to believe. The party, if
something so mellow can be called a party, is not like that at all. In fact,
it's much more like the parties of his own youth, whose energy pulsed along
slow, twisting paths.
/
Oz replenishes the ice in the cooler on the patio and dumps abandoned drinks,
gritty with dunked cigarette ash, down the sink. He's always refill-cleanup guy
at these things, and he enjoys it. This way, he can be present without
necessarily participating, and gets first dibs on food: the whole two birds-one
stone thing.
He shakes powdery parmesan and oregano over the slices of pita, sprays on his
mom's good olive oil, and slides the tray under the broiler. Eric and Lissa are
already hovering and he shoos them out of the kitchen, feeling very
territorial. When the cheese starts to bubble and brown, he wraps his hand in
the hem of his shirt and tugs the tray out onto the counter. He's never gotten
the hang of dumping them off the tray into the bowl without losing half, so he
settles for the safe method and worries each piece loose with the spatula.
Eric and Lissa descend on him as soon as he's out the door, and he lets them
grab their pieces, smirking when they shriek, dropping them like, well, hot
potatoes. Hugging the bowl to his chest, he stops in the doorway, considering.
The party's going pretty well: There seems to be a good mix of people, someone
finally took the Offspring off the stereo and slotted in Syd Barrett, and, hey,
the girl next to Devon just took her shirt off, complaining about the heat.
Oz pushes off from the wall, setting himself adrift on the party's current of
babble, music, and bodies.
He finds Giles half-sitting on the arm of the patio bench, arms loosely
crossed, trying to explain something to a sophomore whose name Oz thinks, but
wouldn't swear, is Nonie. Oz leans against Giles's side, trying to catch up on
the conversation. That's all, just trying to hear better over the music.
"But it's not like that," Nonie says. "Hippies were everywhere."
Giles glances down at Oz, and this is nice, the way their eyes meet and a smile
goes between them before Giles returns his attention to Nonie.
"Of course," he says. "There's no arguing that hippies could be found anywhere
in the West at that time. B-but we can't let that obscure the fact that a great
deal of fervent activity a-a-and revolutionary results were accomplished
outside of the, er, hippie milieu." At some point, his arm has slipped around
Oz's back. Nice. He forgot how good this feels, kind of gathered in and held
close.
"Like Woodstock?"
"I was thinking more of Prague Spring, the Langlois riots in Paris, or
Stonewall, because Woodstock might--"
Nonie shakes her head, blonde hair whipping across her face. "It was way
important!"
Oz has also forgotten how much he likes Giles's patience, how he tilts his head
just a bit and listens, face impassive. He doesn't agree with her at all, but
he's not going to make her feel bad about it.
"Pita chip?" Oz lifts the bowl. "Anyone?"
/
Giles has not seen Daniel for a good while now, and it is starting to get late.
Late in the party, late in the summer. Nearly a week without his presence, and
he thinks he may be going mad, or at the very least, lonely.
When the shadows have lengthened nearly across the entire yard and the first
fireflies flicker into evidence, the guests start to rise, gathering clothes
and partners, moving almost as one inside. The barbecue is doused and the patio
doors slide shut and are latched. The children rearrange themselves in the den
and kitchen, conversations smoothly continued. They are clearly used to getting
out of the dark; at this age, it must be a long-standing habit, so familiar as
to be unconscious.
"Washroom?" Giles asks a vaguely familiar female face that emerges from the
dark. She shrugs. "Toilet?"
"Around there." She points in the general direction from which Giles has come.
"Thank you," he says, although he's already alone again. He pushes forward,
into the kitchen, into the harsh glare of fluorescent light. Everything goes
sharp but insubstantial.
As his eyes adjust, and the door cuts off the worst of the booming music, he
hears a moan, then that faint, moist slipping sound that can only be lips on
skin. Patches of purple and white, scarlet and pale blue resolve themselves
into figures.
He sees Daniel on the counter, thin legs wrapped around someone's red-clad
waist, ankles locked. Watches the worn trainers flex and push against Devon's--
it is Devon, those molded jeans and shiny red shirt can only mean Devon--ass.
Sees the taller boy's head slide down Daniel's throat, Daniel's fingers
tangling white and bony in the short curls. Watches as Daniel tips back his
head against the cabinets, as his eyes, heavy-lidded, nearly closed, open for a
moment and then flutter shut as he moans again. Almost keening now as Devon's
sharp elbow moves back and forth, hand working Daniel's cock.
Giles watches; backs out the door; turns blindly in the dark noise; escapes out
of the house; stumbles across the yard. Into his car. His eyes glued open,
breath long gone from his chest, he drives as if in a nightmare, effortlessly
but terrified. Only at home does he realize he still bites his lip. Blood has
begun to congeal around his teeth, at the back of his throat.
***** Banging into Floats *****
Oz won't listen to himself. He knows that the party hadn't been that bad. Kind
of small, maybe too many seniors who made the kids nervous, and there was the
fight in the bathroom, but nothing out of the ordinary. The party wasn't to
blame. All the same, he tells himself that the party sucked, and that's why
Giles has disappeared.
Oz knows he can blame the sucky party all he wants, and it's not going to be
true. He's been trying for a week now, and it just won't take. No amount of
superglue and duct tape is going to let him stick the party with the blame. The
party was fine.
He is such an asshole. Stayed out of sight and across rooms and holed up in the
pantry, leaving Giles to wander around like some poor lost dog begging for
scraps. Not that it makes any sense that Giles came in the first place. It
didn't seem like he'd come when Oz invited him. Except for the whole politeness
thing. Man probably thanks the sun for coming up in the morning.
Jesus, he's hungover these days. Cranky, too.
/
Daniel appears to operate within his own slip of space, more porous and
flexible than others'. So when he was close, Giles never felt crowded or
irritated, simply somehow enlarged. And Daniel likes to be close. Giles doesn't
know if it's his age, although none of Buffy's friends, especially not Buffy,
ever stray, let alone linger, so close to him. At seventeen, Giles himself was
constantly jittery, a moment away from kicking in a wall. He could barely stand
his *own* skin. It could be Daniel's height, an effect of being smaller, such
that he likes sharing space: It gives him a leg up, as it were.
Whatever the reason, he does know that this is simply how Daniel *is*, that he
likes to be close. He liked to lean against Giles, sprawl on Devon's lap, give
backrubs to the girls, braid hair.
That closeness, that affection, could have been his, almost was his, to enjoy,
but for his own obstinacy and blindness.
And yet Giles suspects in darker moods that no one should be quite such a fount
of physical affection, so freely given. That it must be a mark of some failing
or flaw to exist so porously, with so few boundaries. He can't help but think
that Daniel's affection loses something for being so casually offered. Much
like the sprinklers that have been in the news lately: In the interests of
water conservation, the state outlawed those whirling spigots that hurl water
across most of the sidewalk and up the hedges. Clearly, he had been spending a
little too much time with Daniel, if he is still thinking in these surreal
similes. Affection that soaks bystanders.
That doesn't mean that he doesn't miss it.
While Eric Blair would be less than impressed with the sequence of negatives in
that particular phrase, Giles finds it far easier to state it that way, rather
than plainly. Positively. To admit that he does miss Daniel is to admit his own
failure, yet again, to act in anything resembling a decisive manner. He cannot
help but feel relegated to the sidelines once more, stuffed with regret.
Starting to choke on it.
/
Every summer Oz forgets how wonky time gets, all stretchy and empty. A week
lasts much, much longer when you don't have anything to do. He's been sleeping
a lot, then staying up late, waiting for something, anything, to happen. All
that happens is this deepening sense of certainty that he really is an asshole.
He's been playing a hell of a lot of Megaman, too, regressing to this happy
little place where he's twelve again and the SNES is his whole world. He plays
til the pad of his thumb feels raw and blistered and his hands are curved into
freaky claws. No more Zelda, though, not after that nightmare where Giles
morphed into Ganon, complete with the tower looming behind him and the blue bat
face.
In Giles's absence, he's reduced all feeling to something rote, this boring,
shuffled-through routine: the kind of thing he hates, action and thought boiled
down to the simplest catchphrases. Studying for tests is like this, like he's
barely here, just enough to string along until the bell rings. Playing the same
game every day from the first level through is like this, his fingers better at
it than his head.
He stops by school every afternoon. Sometimes he bums a smoke from Dave the
janitor and they talk cars and the Clippers. At 6:30 every night, he calls
Giles and leaves a message. *The* message. Hey. Hope you're okay. Call me? It's
Oz. Daniel. Every night, the beeps on the machine last the same amount of time,
so he knows Giles is checking messages. Or someone is, housesitter, whatever.
Giles is checking them, just not calling back.
Maybe Oz is going single-white-female here, maybe he's turning into some kind
of bored, shuffly, fairly inept stalker. But the routine of it is all he has,
and definitely all he can handle. Going all Buffalo Bill with the night-vision
goggles, staking out Giles's apartment? Not his style. He just doesn't have the
energy.
/
Once Giles realized, however belatedly, that Buffy would come back, it was as
if the next several weeks became his own. He could see the calendar in his
mind's eye, just as in old films, the pages flipping off until September
appeared. Xander had been right after all; he really ought to give the boy more
credit. He is not needed until September, does not exist until then. And that
had been a relief.
There is nothing wrong with Daniel; he is a child. Nothing wrong with him, nor
with his affection. Certainly it is liberally-granted, catholic in its range of
objects and effects. The fault, however, lies with Giles, with his choice to
believe such affection meant something when it happened to hit him, however
glancingly. He confused his own desire for the boy with a few innocent,
affectionate touches, converted them into fuel for his own fantasies, conflated
an arcing, silver spray with his need to be touched.
Still, the boy *had* kissed him, or tried to do so.
/
He's the kid, right? He gets to be impetuous and stupid.
So he gets another shove--maybe a black eye this time!--for his efforts. It's
not like he has any dignity left anyway.
And, yeah, stupid. He mentioned stupid already, right?
/
Giles is resting on the bed, suffering through another bout with lassitude,
when he hears the knocking at the door. He fumbles for his glasses on the
bedside table, managing to smear the lenses with the heel of his hand as he
grabs at them, struggling to sit up. He honestly has no idea who it could be;
the sun will not set for hours, yet Angel is the only, er, soul he can think
of. Perhaps Willow has returned from camp?
He doesn't know what day it is, which, considering the cinematic calendar in
his head, is decidedly pathetic.
Glasses fairly clean and shirt tucked back in, he takes the stairs two at a
time. The knocking has not lessened, and has in fact begun to sound almost
mechanical in its steady repetitiveness. He remembers a beat too late to check
the spyhole, hand scrabbling instead with the heavy latch.
Daniel leans against the trellis, chewing on a thumbnail, looking for all the
world as if he has been there for hours. Someone else must have come along and
knocked for him, because he looks like he has not moved in a good while.
"Daniel?"
"Yeah." The boy pulls back, although Giles doesn't think he has moved. He leans
a little against the door. "Sorry to bother you. But I just wanted--"
"Are you coming inside?"
Daniel narrows his eyes at that and shrugs. "Okay?"
Giles steps aside as Daniel shuffles past him, stopping just inside the door.
He turns, crossing his arms around his waist. The gesture tightens the fabric
of his shirt across his chest and waist, setting off the lean musculature of
his arms and torso, but also making him look all of five years old. A scolded
and abashed toddler. Giles motions weakly at the living room, inviting him to
sit. He reminds himself to keep his gaze in motion, but fails as Daniel shrugs
again. The hem of his shirt jumps an inch, revealing a thin stripe of
parchment-pale skin and the ruffle of elastic on his boxers peeking over the
sagging waistband of his pants.
"Giles?" Daniel is almost whispering, his voice hoarse and faint. The toe of
one trainer scuffs at the floor, then slips around the other ankle. Daniel
sways for a moment, and Giles clenches a fist in his pocket to keep from
reaching out and steadying him.
"What is it?" He sounds so strained and impatient in his own ears, and swallows
a few times, succeeding only in drying his mouth further.
"I didn't want to bother you, okay?" He pauses, and Giles reminds himself to
nod. "That was the first thing. Second thing was I'm sorry. And that sounds
really stupid, but I am. Sorry."
"What time is it?" That sounds better, somewhat crisper. Daniel blinks at him
as Giles crosses to the kitchen.
"Um, four? Four-thirty?"
"Nearly cocktail hour, then." Giles takes down two highball glasses and carries
them back to the dining table. "Will you join me?"
"Yeah." Daniel shuffles over, hands in his pockets, head held downward at what
must be an uncomfortable angle. "You heard me, right?"
Giles concentrates on pouring the vermouth without shaking so much that it
spills and spoils the table's finish. "I heard you," he says, setting down the
decanter, handing Daniel his glass. He raises his own and, without quite
knowing why, winks at the boy.
Daniel lifts his glass and sips it tentatively. Grimacing, he sets it back down
on a coaster. "Sweet. You heard?" He lets out his breath. "Okay. Right. That's
good."
Giles swallows half his drink and clears his throat. "But what are you
apologizing for?"
Daniel runs his finger around the rim of his glass, hitches in a breath, and
takes another sip. More boldly, this time. His upper lip twitches as he
swallows. "For the party. For being an asshole."
"Please don't. There's no need to apologize, especially not to me." Giles
finishes off his drink and pours another. "With whom you sleep is entirely your
own business."
With a harsh, wet noise, Daniel sucks in his lip against his teeth. A small,
fleshy wrinkle forms between his eyebrows. With his head at that angle, Giles
cannot see where his eyes are looking. He presses on.
"That is, of course, I'd hope you were, uh, protecting yourself. Being careful.
As for your choice of partners, Daniel--"
"Giles?" Daniel sits down on the nearest chair, wrapping his arms around his
waist again, bending slightly as if cramping up. "I don't--"
"I don't comprehend why you'd feel the need to apologize, I really don't,"
Giles says. "To me, of all people."
"Giles? What are you talking about?" Daniel picks up his glass, peering
intently as he swishes the liquor around.
"Er, what?" Yes, perhaps he had fumbled, but the situation could not have been
more clear. After all, he's been replaying the scene like a scratchy stag film
for over a week now.
"What are you talking about? 'Cause I'm trying to apologize and you're -
- What?" Daniel sloshes the vermouth with a jerk of his hand; it spills over
his thumb and he licks it off. It must be a mixture of his tone, genuinely
puzzled, and the sight of the tip of his tongue, but Giles feels his balance
draining away, grips the back of the sofa, lowering himself into it.
"I don't quite know," Giles admits. "I thought you were--. Good Lord." He
understands now; perhaps not fully, but better. Why, indeed, should Daniel
apologize for what he witnessed in the kitchen? Sine there is no need for an
apology, outside of the crevices of his own jealous heart, what is the boy
sorry for? Surely not the kiss; its end was his fault, all his. "Oh, Daniel, I-
-"
"Tell me," Daniel says.
Giles cannot read his tone; he has no idea if he is angry, or stricken with
boredom. He decides for the moment to trust the words themselves. Shaking his
head slightly, Giles hears himself speak. "I was--. Surprised. To say the
least. Surprised when-- when--"
"When what?" Daniel does sound a bit gentler now, and quite puzzled.
Giles knows that he is a fool. "Surprised when I saw you. In the kitchen, with
Devon."
/
"Me and Dev," Oz says. "Okay." This is not what he's expecting to hear. Giles
is a cool guy; he can't really be freaking about him fucking around with Devon?
"But you like girls, yes? That Japanese girl, at the concert--"
"Margaret? She's Filipino." He *is* freaking. Oh, God. He knows now he should
have paid a lot more attention to his mom's parenting books and pamphlets.
Giles frowns, and his hand twitches upwards. Any minute now, he's going to
polish his glasses. Does he really have to say this? "I like girls, Giles. I
like guys, I like girls."
"Oh," Giles says. His hand's back in his lap: present threat defused. "T-that's
very, ah, open-minded of you."
"You could say that. Some'd say I'm a slut."
Giles apparently doesn't hear that, or chooses not to hear it. Impossible to
tell, most of the time. "And if you don't mind my asking--"
"Don't mind," Oz says. Giles smiles at that; barely, but it's something.
After a moment, Giles starts to speak, seems to think better of it, and closes
his mouth.
"I had a girlfriend once," Oz says. He needs to take this slow, because he's
pretty sure Giles needs to be led by the hand through this one. "And she was
great. Really great. But it's sad."
He can see the muscles working along Giles's jaw when he swallows, and watches
the bump in his throat go up and down.
"Sometimes I think," Oz says and stops. Giles is looking in the vague direction
of his chest, flexing his writing hand. "Girls are like trained to believe in
this love thing. It's not their fault, it's not like they're stupid. It's just
that there's this ideology? I think that's the right word. Where they're
supposed to match up and never stray. And it's a pretty good way to keep them
in line, if you think about it." He pauses, hoping Giles is still with him.
Little nod, and Oz is reassured. "I don't like it, and it sucks, hardcore."
"So you don't believe in love?" Giles asks softly.
"No, it's not that." Oz sighs. "'Course I do. I just don't think it happens all
the time, is all. If I met someone who *did*, it might be worth giving it a
shot, but--"
"You just need to meet the right girl." Giles sounds like he's quoting someone.
A not particularly nice someone.
"Or guy. Look, it's not like I'm Cynic Boy, out on a mission to rid the world
of love and happiness." Giles chuckles, and Oz feels his throat tighten. "Don't
laugh at me."
Giles glances at him. He looks serious again. "I'm sorry."
Oz isn't sure he means it. "All I asked is you listen. You don't have to."
Giles reaches for his hand. Oz lets him touch his wrist and run his index
finger over his knuckles. "I am sorry. I'm not laughing at you."
Oz exhales. "Thanks. All I mean is, there's love, right? Okay, but it's not as
big as everyone pretends it is. Everyone pretends like it's this huge fucking
blimp--. Sorry."
Giles stares at him.
"For swearing. Sorry."
"Go on." He taps on the back of Oz's hand, and, geez, that sends a silvery
swoosh down his back.
"Okay, blimp? And it blocks out everything else. And I -- I --" Great. Now he's
stuttering. Way to make a point. Oz opens his hand, turning it over so he's
holding Giles's hand. "It blocks off a lot of other good stuff. Stuff that
doesn't get to rank. Like friendship, or whatever."
Oz breaks off, sucking at the filling in the back of his mouth, trying to
figure out where this is going. Tries to ignore the swoosh rushing faster down
his body when Giles squeezes his hand. "Remember Sesame Street?"
Giles shakes his head, but rubs his thumb over Oz's knuckles.
"'Course you don't. Anyway, they go to Hawaii, and Big Bird insists that
Snuffleupagus comes with them, even though he's imaginary. This is when he was
still imaginary, okay? So he comes on the trip. Has to travel in this huge net
underneath the helicopter? I think it was a helicopter. So sex is like the
copter, right, and love is this giant imaginary thing that gets dragged along.
Or something. It's not meaningless, I mean it--"
Giles works his thumb slowly over Oz's palm, not soft enough to tickle, just
gently. Oz checks Giles's face, sees him looking back at him steadily, and he
grins, wishing those glasses weren't in the way, but still. This isn't so bad.
"I never said I was articulate."
Giles returns the smile. Smiles at him so gently it makes Oz think of crying.
Not that he wants to cry just now; just now he's okay and swooshy. More like
some time later, he thinks he'll remember that smile, and miss it. And then he
might cry. Later.
"I don't love you or anything," Oz finally says. He listens to himself, can't
really hear it right. It's like watching cartoons, trying to place where you've
heard that voice before, but you always get distracted by the different faces.
So distracted it gets impossible to believe that the same guy acts Chief Wiggum
as Moe, even though it's true. Maybe because it's true. "But I like you a lot.
And it would be cool if. You know. You liked me."
/
Giles cannot compliment Daniel on his maturity, because that would suggest that
he ought to be immature. Oughts, averages, and expectations do not hold for
Daniel. Or for anyone, really; he's starting to see that now, and if it took a
tiny skatepunk talking about comics, blimps and Big Bird to help him see that,
then so be it.
He closes his free hand over their hands, patting, then runs his palm up
Daniel's arm into the hollow between chest and armpit. Daniel rises from his
seat, pushing forward so he has one knee between Giles's legs, plastering
himself over Giles's chest. His mouth is quick and fierce, opening wide, tongue
darting over Giles's teeth. Pressed back against the cushions, practically
immobilized, Giles kisses back, tilting his head, sucking that full, twisty
lower lip between his teeth. He pricks and worries at it with his tongue,
bringing his hands to Daniel's waist, pulling him closer.
So this is necking, he thinks, as if he had never been a teenager. He's
surprised that the rate of teen pregnancy isn't constantly through the roof,
given how good this feels. Daniel kneads the nape of his neck, making small
growling noises as his tongue pushes deeper. Giles's hips meet Daniel's,
rolling, nearly undulating in counterpoint as he pants heavily through his
nose, nipping and suckling at Daniel's mouth.
Daniel twitches backward, holding on to Giles's shoulder, his mouth dark, wet
and open. He bounces gently against Giles's leg, rubbing their crotches
together. Giles tightens his grip on the boy's slim waist.
"Um-- Okay?" Husky and shy.
Giles laughs and Daniel grins so widely his eyes disappear. The laughter burns
in Giles's chest because he is so breathless, and Daniel shifts to a slightly
less precarious position.
"So we're okay?" Daniel asks.
Giles runs his palms up over the boy's ribs and down his arms, pausing to
squeeze his biceps, the long cords of his forearms, and grips his wrists.
"Yes," he says, bending forward, holding Daniel steady, kissing that dent below
his lip. Just over his chin. "I would say-- Yes."
/
Fuck, this is good.
Giles tastes like the alcohol and Oz's own grape Hubba-Bubba'd spit, and his
tongue is wide and long and so hot that he's melting inside, gone swooshy-
melty, and Giles is *holding* him, kissing him back hard and sloppy.
And the best part of it is, he gets to touch Giles, feel how his skin slips
smooth and silvery under his fingertips, how his chest rises with a gasp,
filling out, and Oz rising with it, then they deflate together, and he doesn't
think he's ever been so hard as he gets when he starts sucking on the hinge of
Giles's jaw, and it's hard and flat under his tongue, with tiny barely-there
stubble that cuts against his lips and Giles is mouthing at his ear, biting the
lobe and whispering his name again and again, breaking it up into these
impossible syllables,
 
nyul-d-ann-yil-dannn-ill-yiiiiill-dddd-awww-nyuh-l-daaaaan-yul
 
and no one ever calls him Daniel so it's like for a second he's this whole new
person, someone hungry and desperate, a long silver swoosh with an earlobe at
one end and then rock-hard cock and aching ass held in Giles's palm.
Ribs aching, wet spot widening on his shorts, his eyes are glazed but stuck
open unseeingly as Giles twists him by the waist, sliding him off, propping him
up against the cushions, kissing him lightly.
"Better get that," Giles whispers and Oz realizes the phone is ringing. He
clutches at Giles's arm but it slides out from under his fingers. Giles smiles
down at him and cups his cheek. "I'll be right back."
Oz shifts uncomfortably, using just the butt of his hand to cut down on any
accidental extra-stimulation, tries the lefthand-hang, then the right, and
checks Giles. He's at the table, pulling a pad of yellow paper toward him,
speaking quietly. Now's so not the time to whip it out, but he's dying here. He
shifts again, opens the button on his cords, and that's a little better.
"Yes, sir. I understand. Of course." Giles on the phone sounds clipped and
professional. He keeps his head down, pencil moving rapidly across the page.
Oz feels his jaw pop when he yawns, and he stands up shakily, holding his pants
up with one hand. Thinks about kicking off the Vans, then reconsiders when he
hears Giles clear his throat and murmur heatedly. He reaches around Giles for
the nearly empty glass and Giles flinches, twisting away.
"I understand perfectly, sir," Giles says.
There's something in his tone that makes Oz go back to the sofa, stat. And stay
still.
"I'm sorry," Giles says when he's hung up the phone, tidied his notes and filed
them away in the cabinet set into the bookshelves. He bends over the couch and
kisses Oz's forehead, trailing the side of his hand down Oz's neck. "My
superior can be fairly long-winded."
"Snyder?"
Giles cups his cheek and straightens up, hand resting there for a second before
he turns away. "Can you stay for dinner?"
"Yeah. Practice at eight, though."
/
Better than he could have ever hoped, and far, far better than he knows he
deserves: Giles considers Daniel, curled around him on the sofa, one knee drawn
up to his chest, fast asleep.
It's almost seven-thirty, and he nudges the boy awake.
At the door, Daniel hugs him around the waist, pulling him down for another
kiss. Giles tightens his hold as Daniel lazily works his tongue over his mouth.
"Tomorrow?" he asks as he pulls away.
Daniel nods. "Um, should I call, or is it cool--"
"Come by here," Giles says, salvaging a last remnant of sanity. "It's a bit--"
/
"Safer?" Oz asks. "I get that."
So this is how it goes, and he's swinging back into a good summer. Four days so
far, and he hasn't had to make a call or visit Dave once.
Giles can kiss like nobody's business and then there's the way his hands spread
over Oz's stomach so he's kind of pushing but also tugging, like his fingers
can slip under his skin with electricity, just rearrange the matter and empty
space and make themselves at home.
He's starting to think those fingers, that mouth, could probably make him rob a
bank if they wanted him to. He'd settle, though, for getting past first base.
That, plus a good long look at Giles's eyes. But the glasses are always there,
and when they're not, his own eyes tend to be closed, and he forgets. He knows
it's superficial to expect that you'd know someone based on what they look
like. He's not Cordelia Chase or anything; he's not constantly classifying
everyone around him according to the labels in their shirts and the shade of
their lip gloss. But he can't help thinking there might be something to this
whole surface-appearance thing. If it's considered so wrong to judge by
appearances, maybe something else is going on. Social morality's a pretty
fragile system, after all. Most rules seem designed to keep you away from doing
what might make you happy. Or help you learn something.
So he likes Giles's eyes. He'd kill to get a good look at them, a good long
look. And he's prepared to judge Giles pretty favorably. He just doesn't see
what's so wrong about liking the whole surface of Giles. Especially those eyes.
/
Quick, insistent rapping on his door, verging on midnight, and Giles wasn't
expecting Daniel until the next afternoon. Family dinner, apparently, and then
band rehearsal, although he suspects "rehearsal" is code for something a bit
more intimate.
Giles opens the door and finds Daniel bouncing in place, hands buried in his
pockets, blinking slowly as a lizard up at him, wearing a strange, thin smile.
"Come in," Giles says after a moment during which Daniel just bounces on his
heels.
Daniel shrugs off his overshirt and hangs it with exaggerated care on the coat
rack. The bouncing makes Giles slightly dizzy. "Could I have some water?"
"Of course."
When Giles hands him the glass, Daniel gulps half of it. His cheeks are darkly
flushed, and beads of sweat snake along his hairline.
Giles retrieves his own drink from the table and sits on the couch, closing his
eyes as he sips it. Trying to keep his tone light, he looks at Daniel. "Are you
feeling all right?"
Daniel looks up from the book on the table. "Pretty good," he says. He perches
on the arm of the couch, his dangling leg twitching into a near-blur. "Kind of
speedy, actually, but--. Yeah, good."
"You're not sober, are you?"
Daniel laughs, twisting at the waist and collapsing into Giles's lap. Gasping,
he rights himself until he straddles Giles. "No."
Giles tries to breathe regularly, ignore the lapful of warm, giggling boy, and
regain the ground of responsibility. He can do this. "What did you take? Do you
know? Did someone make you?"
Daniel shrugs and squirms closer, steadying himself with a grip on Giles's
shoulder. "Acid. Yes. No."
"What? You've been outside how long? Do you have any idea how dangerous--?"
Visions of a tripping boy, torn limb from limb, giggling, whilst god knows how
many vampires join the feast -- and --
"'Sokay," Daniel says, and somehow Giles has become the one being soothed.
"B-but--" The demons would probably rape him, repeatedly, before draining him,
long before killing him outright.
"Sssh," Daniel says, rubbing his thumb over Giles's cheek, rasping the late-
night stubble. "I dosed at home. Usually takes half an hour to kick all the way
in. Walked over here, perfectly safe. Kept to major thorough--thoroughfares.
And now--" He lifts off Giles's glasses and places them gently on the side
table. Holding Giles's chin in the palm of one hand, he leans in and whispers
the last. "Now, it's kicking in."
Daniel tilts his head and peers at Giles. His pupils are tiny, breath ragged.
Giles can't feel any trace of the anxiety roiling through him a moment ago.
Rather, he feels rooted to this spot, flushed and still.
"I really like your eyes," Daniel says.
"You'll have to stay here tonight," Giles says at the same time. "I'm not
letting you outside again."
Daniel grins crookedly; Giles has never seen him this expressive. "I know.
Because it's *safe* here." His arm slips around Giles's neck and he leans ever
closer in.
Before he can close the gap fully, Giles lifts him off, hands under his arms.
His feet dangle uselessly for a moment before his legs unfold. "Daniel, no."
"Came to see you. I want--"
"Not like this," Giles says. He hopes that's firmness he hears in his voice.
"You're in no condition to make decisions."
Daniel wobbles a bit, his mouth working before he manages to speak. "But we
already decided."
"Nevertheless."
He plucks at the pocket on his tee shirt--plain black, no printing, Giles
notices, so dark against Daniel's pale skin that it must be new--and chews his
bottom lip. "I brought you a tab," he says, working one finger into every
millimeter of the pocket. "It's in here somewhere."
Giles touches Daniel's wrist, stilling his hand. "I don't want any."
"Really?" He sounds hurt, almost confused. "Really?"
"Yes," Giles says. "That is, yes, really. No, thank you."
"See, I thought we could--" Daniel bounces hesitantly on his heels, as if
experimenting with a rhythm. Having rejected it, he scratches the back of his
head and exhales slowly. "Sorry. Got distracted. I mean, I don't want you to
have to take care of me."
"I'm going to, regardless."
Daniel's eyes close and for a flash, Giles sees his mother, offering an
exaggerated prayer for patience to carry her through a young boy's misdeeds.
"No, I mean I didn't come here for that. For babysitting."
"But you are here," Giles says. "And you need to stay." Reasoning with someone
on drugs is only slightly less draining than reasoning with a toddler.
"Fuck!" Daniel spits out and Giles actually feels his head jerk back. "Stop
being a grownup!"
Some cruel part of Giles understands why Daniel is usually so quiet and
nonchalant: When he's expressive, he sounds exactly like any other cranky
adolescent. The cruelty, however, is quickly replaced by a blush of
comprehension, once he allows himself to listen to the words themselves.
"You're right," Giles says quietly. "I do understand." Daniel will not look at
him, and Giles reaches forward, certain Daniel will flinch, but he remains
still, allows Giles to take his hand. It feels terribly small and clammy in his
own. "I'm sorry. Thank you, and please, stay here?"
"Oh." Daniel sags and Giles squeezes his hand gently. "Mad at me?"
Giles sighs. "No, of course not."
"Disappointed?"
"No, not disappointed." He is not disappointed; perhaps distantly panicking
over losing more time, but hardly disappointed.
"It's okay? That I came to see you?"
"You're welcome here any time," Giles says. Marvels for a moment at how deeply
engrained politesse is. "You know that."
"Tomorrow?" Apparently reassured, sagginess gone, Daniel bounces over to the
bookcases and runs his fingertips over the spines, back and forth, as if
strumming something.
"What about tomorrow?"
"When I'm--. After I crash. Tomorrow, we can talk?"
Giles watches the pale stretch of skin on the back of Daniel's neck as he bobs
his head, accompanying some invisible tune. "Of course," he says.
He doesn't know if this is a promise, since he can't be certain Daniel will
remember anything.
"You'll stay in here," he tells Daniel. "Drink your water. There's a jug in the
fridge. Listen to some music, and enjoy yourself." It has been decades since he
babysat for an acid trip, but the protocol is fairly straightforward. Common
sense, really: Keep him calm, happy, and hydrated. Stay relatively close, but
don't hover.
Daniel pulls a large portfolio off the bottom shelf and collapses bonelessly to
the rug to look it over. Giles murmurs a simple binding charm, extending just
to the walls of the flat, to ensure that Daniel cannot leave until the
following morning. Just in case he falls asleep; the chemistry is surely
stronger and longer-lasting these days than it had once been.
Meanwhile, he returns to his translation.
/
Oz wakes up several times the next day, head throbbing. There's a pillow under
his cheek, soaked with drool, and a flannel blanket tucked in tight around him.
It's quiet every time, and before he manages to sit up, his head will fuzz out
again, and then it's later and he wakes up again.
The last time he wakes up, the room has gone all orangey, so he thinks it's
probably sunset. He tries to sits up, and makes it this time before getting all
breathless and resting his cheek against the cushion. Little dragon swirls are
cavorting in front of his eyes, but he gets those sometimes. Not tripping
anymore.
"Rejoining the living?" Giles sits on the far side of the couch and Oz nods,
the upholstery scraping against his face. "Taking your time, then?"
"Yeah." Croaky. "I'm sorry. Again."
Giles, for once, is the one resting *his* head in his lap, and this is a weird
angle to look at him from. His eyes are huge, and his chin a weird smudge. Nose
kind of big. "I thought we covered that."
"We did?"
Giles closes his eyes and Oz pets his forehead. "We did. Don't apologize."
"Cool." There's something nagging at the back of his mind still, and he shifts
a little, rolling Giles's head closer. "What time is it, anyway?"
"Nearly nine."
"Shit, my mom--" He knows he should be worried, but his eyes are really dry and
his throat's all scratchy, so he says it with as much worry as he can scrounge
up.
Giles slips his hand under Oz's shirt, doing that skin-rearrangement thing, and
Oz slides down. "I called Devon," Giles says. "He agreed to, quote, cover for
the fuckwit, end quote. I hope it will be all right. Berk."
He wishes he'd been able to hear *that* conversation. Either it was over in two
seconds, or it got dragged out to hours and hours. Oz slides a little more, and
now his face is practically over Giles's. He can feel the breath on his cheek.
"So I can stay over?"
Giles kisses him then, tasting him softly, slowly working deeper, slipping his
hand around Oz's waist. Never answers, just kind of pulses around and over him,
Oz hanging on to one arm, flooding himself with Giles.
Score.
/
How could he have neglected the condoms? It's not as if he thought Daniel would
ever stay over, but this is worse than embarrassing. Given his previous
officious lecture, this is humiliating. Daniel had one in his wallet, but the
foil was ripped and the exposed latex engrimed with more than one mysterious
substance.
"We could--could improvise," Giles says.
Daniel looks over and shrugs off Giles's hand, roaming down his back. "I
can't."
"Are you-- You're not ill, are you?"
Daniel half-smiles at that. "Nope."
"So what's wrong?" Giles ventures to stroke the soft hollow at the small of
Daniel's back. So warm there, and the boy presses back in lieu of a reply.
"Daniel?"
He twists around, folding up one leg between them. "I've never--" He shakes his
head, and Giles realizes that his hair must have been much longer recently,
because it looks as if he's trying to get bangs out of his eyes. Giles pats his
back, and Daniel meets his eyes.
"You're experienced, surely?"
"Yeah, you know that. I've never-- Huh." He chews on the corner of his mouth.
"I've never done anything without a rubber."
"Well, that's good. Commendable, even."
"Giles."
"What?"
"This isn't health class. Not looking for a gold star."
"No?"
"My mom gave me a box of Trojans when I was twelve."
"Really? That's, er, rather early, isn't it?"
Daniel gives him that faint smile again. "Not for sex, Giles. For jerking off.
Said I'd be doing it anyway, should get used to it with the rubber."
"Oh. I see. So you've never--"
"Nope."
"My." Giles suddenly feels very large, hairy, and awful. Monstrous, ancient in
front of someone so young, young enough to-- Dear Lord. The boy had grown up
always using condoms? In a world so rife with dark bad things that he couldn't
touch his own skin. He shouldn't be surprised, but he is. Surprised and rather
sick to his stomach.
"Giles?"
He raises his hand, asking for a moment.
"It's not you," Daniel says, bitterly. "God. I get to give the 'it's not you'
speech. Okay. Here goes--"
"Just--" Giles says. "Wait."
Daniel leans in, presses his forehead against Giles's. "No. It's *not* you."
"Ah, but it is."
/
He was sent to the shower and then downstairs. When is he going to stop fucking
up?
Oz sits cross-legged in front of the shelves full of records, running his
finger down each narrow spine. He'd rather not listen to music right now. Music
is for moods--good, bad, angry, sad--and he doesn't feel a mood right now. He
needs to give himself time to find one. Then the music will follow.
He sips the orange juice he's poured for himself and feels it slip coldly down
to his belly.
He suspects Giles is reconsidering this whole thing. Can't really blame him,
although he'd like to.
But it's just not in him--blame, that is. Oz closes his eyes, hoping maybe some
kernel of emotion is inside him. It's possible; it could be buried deep enough.
Deep enough, it's got to be there. He pictures his body from the inside out,
the tube of throat-stomach-intestines, the slow inflation of lungs, the heart's
insistent drum. Cage of ribs. It's dark in there, dark tinged with red and the
glints of soft, silvery gray.
He probably got the colors from the dissection they made him watch in bio after
he'd refused to do it on ethical grounds. He had to sit, hands folded in his
lap, for two weeks while Jenny O'Neill sliced and dug and lifted organs away to
the scale. Everyone else named their pigs--Wilbur, obviously, and Piglet; Hoo-
ey, which led to Dewey and Louie; Trent, from some chick who hated NIN--but
Jenny referred to their pig only as 'it'.
Snyder brought him in for another talking-to on the last day of pigs, said he
hoped Oz had learned something 'from your little stunt'. Oz kept quiet; Snyder
would tell him what he was supposed to have learned anyway. "It's going to
happen," Snyder said. "Conscientious objection won't stop it." Oz nodded then.
Snyder was almost right: Shit happens, and it's worse to have to watch it
happen for credit and do nothing.
"Couldn't find anything?" Giles asks, behind him. "I find that difficult to
believe."
"Nope. Just couldn't decide."
"Oh, well." Giles crouches beside him, pulling him in. Okay, so not
reconsidering. Oz isn't going to ask why, just lean over and kiss his jaw.
Limes again, and that ozone buzz Giles seems to give off whenever he shivers.
"Frankly, I'm relieved. I didn't think my collection was that poor."
Oz tips his head against Giles's shoulder. Breathes in the faint, harsh smell
of dryer sheets. Giles got dressed in fresh clothes: interesting. "Your call."
That's it. Let the smart guy choose the mood.
***** Coelacanths and Camphor *****
It's weird waking up in Giles's bed, just about fully naked, but not having any
good reason for that. Except that there's no A/C, and it is California in the
summer, and if you're going to talk all night and dance around the lack of
rubbers, you're pretty much going to have to strip down and hope it doesn't
turn the dance into more horizontal.
Asleep, Giles looks really small. Maybe it's the looseness of the white sheet,
drawn up to his chin, but his face looks like it belongs to someone much
smaller. It's slack and pale in the sun, hair kind of fuzzed out over his ear.
Oz won't touch him, since they've only been asleep for about three hours, but
he edges closer, thankful for the firm mattress so there's hardly any dip as he
moves. Giles's lips are parted a tiny bit, and when Oz leans in, his shadow
darkens them so they're the color of overblown carnations. The shadow of a
shadow of stubble has broken out along Giles's jaw like someone dusted him with
pencil shavings, and it's really hard not to reach out and test how scratchy it
feels.
Oz balls up his fist and slips off the foot of the bed, dislodging the sheet so
now Giles's blue pajama top is visible. Remembering the fear and revulsion of
morning breath, he heads for the bathroom and scrubs his teeth and tongue with
a smear of toothpaste on his finger. When he slips back into the room and lies
down, Giles reaches for him.
"Awake?" Oz whispers. Giles slips his arm over his chest as Oz settles in. Not
awake enough to talk, apparently, so Oz digs the back of his head into the
pillow. The room is warm, but the weight of Giles's arm feels good, the way
it's tucked under Oz's last rib and rises with his diaphragm.
He concentrates on the arm for a while, trying to memorize the sparse pattern
of curls of hair on Giles's wrist, then switches to feeling the hint of weight
against his side. The sheet's bunched up into a tiny range of peaks between
them, so they're not actually touching, and Oz shifts, holding his breath,
until he's covered the range and feels the warmth of Giles's leg against his.
Of course Oz woke up hard; he's seventeen, that's what his body does. But
somehow it's surprising and kind of strange to realize, as he slides in closer,
that Giles is, too. And why should that be strange? It's not like Giles is from
another planet, or severely diabetic, or dead. He's got nerve endings like
everyone else; he sleeps next to someone he likes, it's going to happen. And Oz
feels terrible, feels stupid and selfish for letting this happen, because Giles
has probably been hard for hours and it's his fault.
He turns onto his side, bringing Giles's arm with him, and licks his
toothpaste-dried lips, trying to figure out how to do this.
"Hmm?" Giles mutters, eyes opening, flash of green tea, and Oz presses his lips
against Giles's forehead. "Daniel." Giles tightens his hold around Oz's waist,
and Oz props his head on his folded arm. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Oz says, rubbing slow circles over Giles's chest, fabric rasping
over the hair, prickling his palm, sending tiny stabs up his arm that swarm
together when they reach his face and chest until it feels like he's blushing.
Giles smiles sleepily at him, and without his glasses, his eyes are so right
there that Oz can't look at them, has to drop his gaze to watch the slow pulse
in his throat. He kisses down the curve of Giles's cheek, inhaling the faint
smell of laundry from the pillow, and his palm rises as Giles inhales and holds
it. "Nothing's wrong," he whispers against Giles's ear.
He nudges Giles onto his back with the flat of his palm and keeps rubbing,
can't think of stopping except he has to get the buttons open, needs to feel
that warm, well-packed strength for himself. Giles turns his head, kissing Oz
full-on. His brain sputters and flusters and drops at the contact.
Giles tastes--strong is the only thing Oz can think of, and his fingers are
digging and scrambling over Oz's hip as his other hand goes into Oz's hair, and
their tongues are doing that rearing back, twisting mating dance like antelopes
do, so Oz just pushes the pajama top up and holds onto Giles's skin for all
he's worth.
His fingertips skid over the incredibly smooth skin like he's almost too clumsy
to appreciate something this fine, then he's reached the hipbone and the skin
is hotter here, stretched so tight and so hot and his fingertips are tangling
in the curls and he can't help it, he's nipping at Giles's tongue and
whimpering like a lost puppy.
Giles catches his hand at the wrist and pulls away. "Daniel, you don't--" Voice
harsh and scared.
"Want to." Oz hears himself exhale the words, hand twisting out of Giles's
grip, palm going flat over the thickest hair, just above the root of his cock
so it's twitching against his pinky. "Want to--" His mouth drops to Giles's
shoulder, down to the rucked-up shirt, licking the stubble on Giles's throat,
kissing the pulse in the center of his collarbone.
Giles is tugging himself up, letting Oz slide down, chin running over skin and
bunched shirt, trying to remember to breathe, and when he does, trying to
remember not to pant. As he circles his hand around Giles's cock, praying for
smoothness, not clumsiness, hoping this is right, Giles draws one knee up and
rests his cheek there, watching down as Oz tongues the folds in his skin,
nuzzling soft hairs. He hears Giles breathing above him, every exhale trailing
off into a whining little wheeze. His fingers goose-step up the back of Giles's
thigh, and they're suction cups leeching out the fine, elegant silver warmth
trapped beneath the skin.
He looks up at Giles and it's like a mirror: head-tilt, eyelids at half-staff,
mouth open and almost panting. So he decides this must be okay, and looks back
down at the cock in his hand, notices the extra skin, and, duh, foreskin, so he
pinches at it and moves it up down experimentally, testing its resiliency, and
Giles seems to like that. He hitches in a breath and a tremor skitters down his
legs against Oz's cheek, then he exhales and it's the name-song again, so he's
Daniel now, and his mouth is way too empty and dry. Giles's fingers stray and
wander over Oz's scalp and there's pressure there, and then his tongue is
running over the distance between cockhead and lips, closing it, bringing them
together, and he's up on his knees in this surreal yoga stance, back stretched
out, supporting himself with a kung-fu grip on Giles's calf and his tongue.
When he breathes in, it's all Giles, light salty sweat more like tears than
sweat, it's so light, and limes, the tang of fabric softener, all so strong and
clean and his spit's mixing with precum so neither one's not so sticky nor so
runny, somewhere in between, sweet and plain wet.
And this he knows how to do, hollow cheeks then crazy-manic tongue dance and
lots of swallowing, which he'd do anyway because this tastes good and he was
born to do this and it's his fault that Giles is hard, but he's making it
better, and the warmth is jumping around his mouth, scraping his teeth, like a
downed power line, *writhing* now, Giles's fingers closing around the nape of
his neck, Oz humping the bed, no more breath, his nose butting hair, hair
scraping nostrils, Giles's hips shaking back and forth, up and down, and he's
swallowing and sucking, Giles's cock taking off, doing a runner past his lips
but Oz clamps down till teeth scrape skin and there's a lot more to swallow,
hot and thick and he's not going to stop until it's all better.
Oz sniffs in air through his nose in tiny, pointless puffs until Giles softens
and the hand on his neck slips away. As he lifts his face, he feels the layer
of sweat on his forehead, trickling into his eyes, burning so all he sees is a
haze. He blinks hard as he licks his lips clean, and that makes Giles chuckle
slowly, like it hurts but he can't help it. His arm comes up around Oz's back
as he stretches out his leg, and Oz just lies there, ear over heart, getting
his breath back as Giles pets his hair.
/
Monstrous and wheezing, Giles clutches the boy against him. If he lets him go,
this may all be a dream, but if it's real, he needs the delay.
"Need air conditioning," Daniel murmurs.
Breath comes raggedly to Giles, painful and new, and thoughts even more slowly.
He is amazed that the boy can speak; he can hear him only distantly, and thinks
momentarily of the thud of fish against the glass in an aquarium.
He hugs Daniel more tightly against him as the tremors shooting through his
body slow their pace fraction by fraction, leaving in their wake a weakening
buzz insinuated between skin and muscle.
"I'm serious," Daniel says, propping his chin up to look at Giles. "Sweating
like a pig here."
Giles smoothes the damp hair on Daniel's brow and wipes away the sweat
clustering in his temple with his thumb. "Thank you." Which is a horribly
trivial thing to say, but the best that he can manage at the moment. He is a
monster, new to the air, slow and stupid and greedy, but manners never fail.
Daniel rubs his face against the sheet. "Welcome. Better?"
"Much." Giles knows that something *is* better, just not what, not yet.
"Good."
Giles tucks Daniel under his arm and shuts his eyes. He has plenty of time to
think about this later, and he knows he's going to need it all.
/
When he wakes up again, Oz's face is shoved into Giles's armpit and he's lying
in a sticky puddle. Context again, he thinks. At home, this'd be humiliating.
But here, it's okay. Just temporarily uncomfortable.
Oz wants to get out. Then again, he also wants to stay in. It's summer! his
conscience keeps screaming, and it's having a dirty little spat with basically
the rest of him, led by his whole body, which would like nothing more than
lounge here for several weeks. After he cleans up from the wet dream and the A/
C's installed, that is.
/
Over a breakfast so late it nearly qualifies as lunch, Daniel advocates for a
long drive to a flea market he likes. Giles feels himself nodding along,
finding all of this, the boy's energy, his own smug calm, the skittering pace
of their conversation, strangely amusing.
"There'll be books," Daniel says. "I can guarantee lots of books."
Giles steels himself for the inevitable jibe, some variation on the rather
doltish observation that he likes books, and that this is somehow odd and
worthy of jest. Daniel, however, folds his sandwich in half and nibbles at the
crust, looking back Giles. There is no jibe, just a patient wait for a reply.
"You don't have to convince me," Giles says. "I've already agreed to go."
Daniel grins. "I know. Just psyched."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Daniel rolls a shred of crust in his fingers before eating it. "Hey,
are you going to buy anything big?"
Giles pushes back his chair and brings his plate to the sink. From the door of
the refrigerator, he asks, "How big?"
"Um, bigger'n a breadbox?"
"It is possible."
"Okay. Maybe we should take the van."
Giles returns to the table, handing Daniel a glass of water and sipping his
own. "I don't think we're going to find anything that large."
"You never know." Daniel scrapes his chair closer and slings a fraternal arm
around Giles. "You can drive."
"I'm sure you're an excellent driver." Giles shivers under Daniel's touch,
marveling for a moment at how his fingers find frayed nerves Giles has long
forgotten and pluck at them, tease them back to life and make them sing.
"Oh, yeah, I'm an excellent driver," Daniel says, pausing to press his lips on
Giles's neck as his fingers massage a slow, keening lilt on his ribs. "Dad lets
me drive slow on the driveway."
/
He's feeling better now. Quick walk home to change clothes, clean out and pick
up the van, stop by the drugstore for rubbers and lube, and then back to pick
up Giles and switch over to the passenger seat.
Now they're on the road and his conscience and his body have come to some kind
of compromise, because he's out, but he still gets to touch Giles. Oz has his
head leaning against the window, one foot up on the dash, and his arm flung out
onto Giles's shoulder. He's careful not to move much, because Giles is a pretty
intense driver, but this is good.
He tends to bliss out when he doesn't have to drive, so he's careful to keep
talking. He doesn't want Giles to think he's just the chauffeur or anything.
"You know how in India they get reincarnated?"
"Hinduism is founded on a belief in reincarnation, yes," Giles says.
"Yeah. Now, it happens in stages, right?"
"Yes. The balance of karma and one's fulfillment of the present stage's dharma,
or duty--"
"Right. Sorry to interrupt, but I didn't mean that. I mean, there's only one,
um, incarnation-- That's the right word?"
Giles nods, keeping his eyes on the road.
"So there's only one incarnation at any one moment?"
Giles just drives. Oz waits.
"Sorry," Giles says after they pass a huge old brown station wagon that's
wobbling in a not very reassuring way. "That was a question?"
"Uh-huh."
"Oh, well. Yes, of course."
"So it's not like there are various incarnations just kind of hanging around,
depending on where you are?"
Giles shakes his head. "Might get a little crowded, don't you think?"
"Guess so." Oz reaches for his water bottle. It made sense to him; something
about context and calling on the appropriate personality.
"Are you all right?" Giles asks.
Oz shakes his head; he seems to be picking up many of Giles's gestures lately.
They're good and economical, and he thinks he'll probably keep them. "Yeah. I
just thought it'd be kind of neat, is all."
/
Daniel insists on taking the highway, although they're only headed fifteen
miles past Oxnard. Giles's palms were clenched and numb around the steering
wheel with anxiety at the prospect of highway driving until Daniel observed
softly that traffic was fairly light, and offered to take over. Giles still
doesn't know, with only twenty miles left to go, why he refused, but it calmed
him, somehow, knowing that Daniel trusted him. The reassurance returned him to
the near-haze of bodily satisfaction with which he had gotten out of bed.
"That's so disgusting." Daniel points toward a row of smokestacks near the
horizon. "Check it out."
"Mmm?" Giles glances at the sight, and then at Daniel, who is shaking his head.
"What of them?"
"It's like a filmstrip, or an ad for the Sierra Club. Every time I see those I
picture mobs of swirling carcinogens and sediments dispersing through the air.
Gross."
"I see," Giles says. "Interesting."
"What?"
"What?"
"You said interesting." Daniel noisily drains his large cup of soda through the
straw. "That usually means you disagree but you're too polite to say why. So.
What?"
"Just interesting," Giles says. "When I see smokestacks I think of energy and
prosperity and all that postwar propaganda."
"Really? But-- smoke. Particles. Gross."
"Of course, and I know that. But whereas your ingrained reaction is to see it
as disgusting, the small boy in me cheers and claps."
"Interesting," Daniel says. He drums his fingers on the nape of Giles's neck.
This is what teasing is like, when you're comfortable enough; no jibes, simply
shared experiences.
"As I said." Giles smiles at the traffic and Daniel squeezes his neck.
Silence; companionable and easy, and Giles wonders how the quiet can be so
comfortable when there's another body touching his, when it is so acrid and
anxious when he's alone.
"I like water towers, though," Daniel says, as if it might help. "You?"
"Hmm?" Giles glances over again. Daniel points at the tower coming up on the
right. A wide cartoon smile is painted on its sides, and above that, a shaky,
feeble attempt at a marijuana leaf that more closely resembles a decapitated
bouquet. "They're all right."
"I like 'em. Like a big spider mating with a barn." Daniel shifts away,
stretching his arms over his head, then drops his hand back to Giles's
shoulder.
"Yes, rather."
/
The flea market is just like Oz remembers it, the parking in an old overgrown
field, and down behind the hill all the tents spread out in meandering aisles,
looking from up here like a crossword puzzle drawn by a drunk. He's itching to
get down there, lose his way and stumble across the bizarre remnants that
shouldn't have been for sale when they were new. Giles seems to sense his
impatience, and lets him lead the way. Oz thunders down the hill, not steep
enough to get up much steam, but he's still breathless and flushed when he hits
the flats.
Giles steps carefully through the long, matted grass, and when he reaches the
bottom, he stops. Oz feels him looking at him, and that's much itchier than the
urge to browse, so he curls his toes inside his sneakers and tries not to
fidget. Giles looks a little stern and a lot intent. The sun's beating down and
the air smells like souvlaki and grease, and everything's gone kind of
bleached-out, but Giles's eyes are dark and gleaming, and it hits Oz, sideways
and hard, that he blew this guy a couple hours ago.
He takes a step back before he realizes what he's doing; then he stops. There's
a rushing in his ears, and he's instantly hard but also really embarrassed.
There's just the two of them here, just him and Giles, but everything feels
doubled and superimposed and out of focus.
Oz swallows but he can't look away.
"Ready?" Giles steps past him, patting his back as he passes. "Where to first?"
/
He has never been anywhere quite like this. Giles is jostled and set adrift in
a crowd of obese, mouth-breathing Americans, shining with sweat, yanking their
dirty-faced toddlers along hard enough to dislocate a shoulder, crowding at
booths displaying earrings made from crow feathers, discount shampoos, miracle
fungus creams, dilapidated furniture with creaking joints and peeling varnish,
military memorabilia, dusty insignia and rusted swords, Confederate flags and
POW bumperstickers, squat porcelain animals with dead, glittering eyes and
trays heaped with plastic costume jewelry.
He loses Daniel around corner after corner, and they meet up again, exchange
commiserations, and part, and meet again. When the initial shock and near-
revulsion has faded away to a manageable level of irritation, Giles finds he
can linger in the less crowded corners and start to see the range of oddities
for sale.
The woman behind the table in this particular tent is rail-thin and so deeply
tanned she resembles the scuffed suede on the club chairs in the anteroom to
Travers's office. She barely looks at him while he politely browses the card
tables of junk, waiting for the family at the entrance to move on and allow him
to escape. On the top of one pile towards the back, he finds a charm bracelet.
It looks like the kind girls wore to the matinees of his youth, and he brings
it to the proprietress.
"Seven," she rasps, then looks up, taking him in. "Sorry. Ten."
He has no wish to argue, so he hands her the bill and puts the bracelet in his
pocket.
He wanders down to the next corner and turns, spotting Daniel three booths
away, tucking a paper bag under his arm. The boy starts when Giles touches his
shoulder, steps back, then forward again, smiling shyly.
"Hey. Got you something." Head dropped against his shoulder, Daniel watches as
he unfolds the bag, fingers brushing the soft cotton inside. Giles shakes it
out: a white undershirt, stencilled across the front with the words Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men.
"Thank you."
"You get it, right?"
Giles nods. "Bowie?"
Daniel hunches his shoulders, then relaxes them, slipping his hands into the
back pockets of his pants. "Bowie, yeah. They looked at me weird when I told
them what I wanted."
"And for you," Giles says, holding out his fist with the bracelet inside.
Daniel taps the back of his hand, and he turns his wrist, opening his fingers.
"Hey, cool."
The charms are odd and jumbled, whatever meaning they had long ago lost: a
poodle, a rooster, a crucifix, a tinsel Christmas-tree ball, and a tiny vial of
red-orange liquid. Daniel holds the vial up to the sun, squinting through it,
turning it to catch the light.
"Awesome." He hands it to Giles. "Check it out."
Giles tilts it, watching the stuff slip sluggishly back and forth. "A liquid
prisoner pent in walls of glass," he says, handing it back to Daniel. "Sonnet
five, Shakespeare."
Daniel shakes his head, lips twitching upward. "Noma Bubble Light."
Giles wants to ask, then decides not to as Daniel goes down on one knee to
fasten the bracelet around his ankle. His shirt hitches up as he bends over,
and Giles remembers touching the skin there, feeling the invisible fur and the
heat.
He is never entirely certain how much Daniel hears, how much is lost to the
boy's serene inattention and in the jumble of topics and references and
quotations that comprise the bulk of his conversation.
Yet Daniel does listen; words and concepts go through him in some indefinable
process of filtration. Around the next corner, in a dim red tent with a
labyrinth of cheap white metal racks, such as hold postcards and non-
prescription spectacles at the supermarket, Daniel peers across row after row
of ancient paperbacks. When he makes his selection at last, he shows the books
to Giles with something resembling pride: a back issue of _Life_ from 1951; a
Moorcock omnibus; a tale of computer-generated dystopia; and, yes, a fat
student's compendium of the complete Shakespeare.
"Couldn't find anything?" Daniel asks.
Giles would like to tell him how much he loathes paperbacks of any kind, how
dangerous a single case of mildew or spine-rot can be to a collection, but he
cannot. Instead, he watches Daniel stow the stack carefully into his knapsack,
patting the top book before zipping the bag shut. He holds and cares for his
books as dearly and affectionately as Giles does his own, and no matter that
Daniel's books have lurid covers and piss-yellow pages. "You poached the
Moorcock," Giles says. "So I'm empty-handed."
"'Sokay," Daniel says, leading them out through the crowd again. "Borrow it any
time."
/
The mosquitoes and chiggers are starting to get a little crazy, especially
around the food tables, and while it's not getting dark, it is getting duskier,
so Oz tries to finish eating so they can get going.
But he's distracted by the ads in his new old copy of _Life_, especially this
one for viyella robes with a happy husband bearing an overloaded tray for
breakfast in bed. He's the conquering hero approaching his deserving bride,
and, even better, viyella rhymes with hi-fella, which is just so cool.
"What are you laughing at?" Giles asks, dropping his fork. At least he's
stopped pushing his fries around suspiciously.
"He's hot, huh?" Oz says, handing over the magazine. "Goony, but try to get
past that."
Giles looks it over, taking enough time to read the copy, and he does smile. Oz
hopes it's at the hi-fella. Or the goony hot guy; whichever's good. "Like a
young James Mason. Leaner through the cheeks, and I've never seen Mason grin,
but--. Yes."
Oz closes his eyes, knowing he knows who James Mason is, he just needs to
review without distraction. Not no wine before it's time or making money the
old-fashioned way: earning it, but a little later than those guys. Same sort of
deep gravel sex voice, though. "North by Northwest, right?"
"Among others." When he opens his eyes, Giles is folding up his paper napkin.
"Shall we think about getting going?"
Oz nods and looks down at the picture again. Guys just don't look like that any
more, and it's a shame, and kind of confusing, too, because beyond hair-style
and clothes, how is it that someone's face can go extinct?
/
Daniel drives them back to Sunnydale far more quickly and casually than Giles
could ever dream of doing. So casually that they pass the exit and Daniel does
not even flinch.
"Erm--?"
"You'll see." Daniel's lip twists into what Giles is coming to consider his
secretive smile.
Giles does not inquire why they take the next exit, nor several lefts, then a
right, but when the van rattles and shivers its way up a dirt road choked with
ruts and overhung with untrimmed shrubbery, he does turn to Daniel. He is
hunched over the steering wheel, brows drawn tight, as he threads around the
holes and bumps. And, just as suddenly as they ascended onto the trail, it
ends, opening into a wide clearing.
Daniel switches off the ignition, swiping his hand over his brow, and grins.
"Breaker's Woods," he tells Giles. "Ever been?"
"No."
"Didn't think so." Daniel twists in his seat and rises, slipping into the back
of the van. "Coming?"
"Yes?" Giles unlatches the seat belt and takes another look out the window.
Short, wiry grass, spiked with shadows, and a ring of smooth rocks. He cannot
make out the trees circling the clearing, except for the way their volume
disperses lacily against the sky. "Yes."
He cannot navigate the passage between the seats nearly as well as Daniel, and
slips, barking his knee on the parking brake, grasping at Daniel's hand,
pulling him forward until he spills out into the open.
"Okay?" Daniel asks, propping his back against the wall, one foot up on the
opposite thigh. Giles rubs his knee and smiles, he thinks, ruefully. He doesn't
quite know where to settle down: against the back of a seat? the opposite wall?
stretched out on his back? Daniel's head is cocked slightly, watching him, and
Giles focuses on the boy's hands, laid out over his thighs, fingers loosely
spread and almost glowing in the near-dark.
"Yes, of course." Giles kneels on his uninjured knee, gripping the side of the
passenger seat for balance, studying the interior of the van as well as he can.
He cannot make out very much at all beyond the shag carpet beneath him, the
various sacks and a rolled sleeping bag beside him, and the wan light coming
from the windows on the back doors.
"C'mere," Daniel says, pushing off from the wall, dragging a plastic sack
behind him as he moves towards Giles. At the touch of his warm, pale hand,
Giles sinks down and leans in. Daniel rubs his thumb over his eyelids and
against the nap of his eyebrows, around his temple and down his neck. "Better?"
Giles nods as he opens his eyes. His body is unwinding, going slack and warm at
Daniel's touch, and he struggles to focus, and not to drown. Daniel kisses him
softly, almost shyly, ignoring the tilt of Giles's head, the insistence of his
lips, and squeezes his neck as he pulls back.
"Good. So--" Daniel raises the plastic sack and upends it. "It's like
Halloween. Check the loot."
Boxes and ribbons of condoms and several containers of lubricant spill over the
floor between them.
"Good Lord." Giles picks through the pile, examining one tube of medicinal
jelly, hefting a large bottle of Astroglide, shaking a box of condoms. "It's a
veritable smorgasbord. Host a variety of tastes back here, do you?"
"Wasn't sure what you liked, actually." Daniel twists away, and Giles imagines
his face falling, mouth tightening and eyes hooding defensively. His voice is
quiet, illegible, but it might very well be pained.
"I didn't mean--" Of course the paraphernalia is new; the caps on the
lubricants are wrapped in plastic, and the receipt is trapped under one box.
The boy had only called himself a slut in jest, hadn't he? "Really, I--"
"Forget it." Daniel shrugs, and, no, he has not turned away in anger or pain.
He is simply tugging off his shirt and leaning to untie his shoes. Giles
reaches over, throat thickening with shame, and strokes the rise of vertebrae
on his lower back, prominent and hard as rocks. Emboldened when Daniel sighs
deeply at the touch, he leans further and mouths the pebble-like rise of spine
at the boy's neck.
"It's okay," Daniel whispers as Giles's hands shake over his skin. He covers
one with his own and presses it firmly down. "Just do it, okay?"
Daniel tilts his head back against Giles's shoulder as Giles wraps his arms
around his waist, pressing flat palms against his warm, nearly hairless skin,
suckling on the nape of his neck, pulling him back against him.
It is as if the boy has loosened fully, gone completely liquid in his arms.
Giles brushes his knuckles along the length of Daniel's erection, trapped in
his shorts, and gets a slow roll of the hips in response. Daniel attempts to
undo the fastener and groans when he cannot. Giles holds him more tightly,
working his thumb into the gap at the top of the zipper, kissing the stretch of
freckles slung between the knobs of his shoulders. He tastes like rain, cool-
silver-glow, and sweat, salt-flesh-sun, and trembles under Giles's hands. A
sweet low growl builds deep in his throat as Giles strokes upward over his
sternum, pressing down, Daniel's heart beating against his palm, his breath
hitching then releasing in a fluid sigh as he brushes his thumb over the
nipples, flicking at them with his nails as they harden.
Flashing eyes, mouth a rough dark gash, as Daniel twists back to look at him,
fingers fluttering down to touch his wrist. Giles goes still. "I can stop."
Daniel's head shakes violently and he presses back against Giles as he pushes
his wrist down and further inside. He drops his head and his breath starts
coming out shallow and brief.
Untouched, no one ever, never before: keening, disembodied chant in his ears,
counterpoint to Daniel's breathing as Giles reaches inside the shorts. He
strokes up and down the tensile heat of Daniel's cock, gripping it loosely,
worrying the knuckle of his index finger around the head, and Daniel twitches
several times in his embrace, leaning back, head lolling as Giles strokes
across the rapidly tightening testicles. He gazes down at the body stretched
out in his arms, watching hips lift and wiggle free of shorts as he closes his
mouth over the boy's shoulder, nibbling with his lips and teeth as he slides
knuckles down the underside of cock, around the balls, and Daniel brings one
knee up and out so the touch continues down into the cleft of his ass, so
narrow and tight Giles can manage only two fingers stroking the impossibly soft
skin swirling into the pucker.
Daniel's head turns and his mouth finds Giles's as the hand slips back higher
and circles the base of his cock, tongue sweeping lazily inside, across Giles's
teeth and then burrowing into the pocket of his cheek as Giles tightens his
hold and Daniel starts to thrust against the palm, his low moans felt more as
vibrations across and into skin than sound. Giles's own hips rock with the
motion, working his trapped hard-on against Daniel's ass as he twists the
nipple in his fingers and tugs at the boy's cock. Daniel's eyes widen, showing
the whites all around his irises, as his back arches in Giles's grasp, air
whinnying out his nose and teeth scraping teeth as he corkscrews around beneath
Giles's fist, hips jerking as he shoots. Giles lets him rise, then drop, as he
kisses back deeply, pistoning his tongue into Daniel's mouth, squeezing out the
last small jet.
Dipping Daniel bonelessly back, Giles brings his hand up, grazing Daniel's lips
with his own as he pulls away and snakes his hand between them. Daniel watches,
lips open, as Giles laps the tip of his tongue in the cum, then lifts his mouth
to lick the other side of the palm. The feel of Daniel's tongue on his skin,
hesitancy evaporating before eagerness, dries out Giles's mouth and rocks his
hips against the boy's bare legs. Daniel sucks his pinky down to the root, and
Giles's tongue sweeps across his palm to press at the corner of the Daniel's
mouth and work its way inside.
His finger slides out with a soft smack and he cradles Daniel's cheek in his
palm as they kiss. Daniel is breathing more normally now, grasping at the
fabric of his shirt, hauling himself up to his knees. His other arm goes around
Giles's waist as his hand runs down Giles's arm, then back up, down his chest,
and around his stomach. He loosens the shirttails from the waist and touches
the exposed skin lightly, using just the tips of his fingers, tracing the
hairs. His tongue pulses slowly against Giles's own, and Giles feels a moan
trembling up his chest at the touch as Daniel traces a slow dizzy dance of
sensation over his stomach and down into the crease of his thigh.
Giles breaks the kiss as Daniel starts to unbutton his shirt from the bottom
up. The two halves of the shirt fall open as Giles spreads his shoulders, and
Daniel brings both hands up to his chest, covering the nipples with the shallow
hollow of his palms, pressing lightly. As he leans in, one hand drops back to
Giles's crotch and the other twists the nipple, and his tongue flickers
agonizingly slowly and lightly over the other nipple.
Shards of sensation skitter across the surface of Giles, noise and song
concatenated at the end of the radio dial into harmonious static, and he bites
down hard on his lip to keep from moaning when Daniel presses the flat of his
tongue against his nipple and squeezes his cock. But then he is moaning, and
Daniel is moving away, retreating into the dark, his mouth working.
More static, Daniel's voice, slowly resolving itself to sense, sounding flat,
nearly bored. "Gonna fuck me now?"
Shaking, his tongue gone thick and useless in his mouth, Giles nods, and Daniel
is looming over him, grabbing at the sleeping bag, shaking it out, and Giles
goes up on one knee to make room. Daniel is very naked, and distantly Giles
knows that saying such a thing is incorrect, like deeming a woman very
pregnant, or a collectible very unique. Yet he is very naked, appallingly so,
white and skinny against the dark tartan of the sleeping bag, one long arm
reaching out, handing Giles a box and lube.
"Don't forget them this time." Flat, fuzzing out at the edges into noise that
mixes with the roar in Giles's ears.
Giles nods and fumbles with the preparations.
His pants down around his thighs, cock jutting out, angry red at the base gone
waxy-purple under the latex, he shuffles forward on his knees, stroking
Daniel's white thigh with sticky fingers. The boy's smile is crooked as he
pecks Giles's cheek and rolls over onto his stomach. He lets Giles slip an arm
under his waist and haul him back onto his hands and knees, and their breathing
is thick and pained in the silence. Giles strokes one finger down Daniel's
spine and into his cleft, eliciting a sigh and push back. He spreads his
thighs, angling his head down, and starts kissing the hollow of the back until
he feels the wiggle against his chest, and licks down to the cleft, tasting
tears and sun and the camphor-sting of mothballs. Daniel jumps in his embrace
when he kisses the pucker, and starts moaning as if in pain.
Giles's head jerks up and Daniel is looking over his shoulder. "Don't stop.
Just--"
Just do it: Giles completes the phrase silently, and obeys, fingertips digging
into the boy's waist as he screws his tongue into the hole and pushes until
he's breathless and Daniel is gasping, collapsed onto useless arms, hips
rolling back against Giles's mouth.
His free hand scrabbles for the bottle of lube, lost in the folds of sleeping
bag and clothes, and finally locates it behind his foot. Daniel cries out again
when Giles's mouth lifts, and he hears himself soothing him, murmuring
nonsense, soft rhyming sounds, as he coats his hand. Daniel quiets, and reaches
around, grasping one cheek and tugging it open for the soaked fingers stroking
the back of his balls.
"Good boy," Giles hears himself say, and some kernel, tiny and useless at the
front of his brain screams at that in pain and outrage, screams itself hoarse
and dead as he starts painting long strokes up and down and across the hole.
Daniel's moans sound vaguely like weeping, the way they catch on his breath and
sweep up the scale, and they go higher and faster as Giles works his finger in.
"Sweet Christ, oh--"
The sound and heat of the slick thin skin crash over Giles, sweep him out
inside a dull roar and over currents of sensation. When three fingers have
corkscrewed their way inside, and he's noted dully that Daniel knows to push
back and jut his hips just so, he removes his arm from Daniel's waist and lines
up his cock against the hole.
The last thing that happens breaks the roar and shakes him back to himself.
Daniel goes still and looks over his shoulder again. Their eyes meet, and there
is a hulking form mirrored and doubled in Daniel's pupils. Then he blinks, and
erases the sight. "Not going to make love to me, are you?" he asks, smiling
twistily, licking his lips, voice hoarse and full of need.
"Wouldn't dream of it." And then he's sunk inside, and the moment has become
the past as Daniel rocks forward, dragging him deeper, pulsing around his cock,
fucking himself hard and fast on it.
They pant together as Giles drives in, twitches his hips, and pulls the boy
back, moans and epithets drowning out the slap of skin on skin, wet senseless
noise, and Giles lifts Daniel up off his arms, yanking his head to the side,
crushing their mouths together.
He lost a while ago any sense of discrimination, any ability to distinguish his
need from Daniel's, and as he stops fucking and settles instead for pushing
ever more deeply, something there in the van knows with a sharp and still
clarity that such an ability is going to be very difficult indeed to recover.
Giles, however, understands later, never now, only that some horrible
succession of folly and desire brought him here, set him rutting, and will not
release him.
/
Oz wakes up for the third time that day in a soggy heap on top of Giles. His
ass is burning and throbbing in that perfect-awful way, and his legs are still
trembling, like when he used to run track. Before he figured out he just wasn't
going to grow any more.
An owl screams outside, the noise frightening and primeval, and he rouses
himself, rolling as gently off Giles as possible. He stirs anyway, stroking the
side of his hand down Oz's ribs and swallowing a couple times before he clears
his throat.
"Should get going," Oz says. "You drive."
***** Something That Means Something *****
Oz has questions. He is full to brimming and overflowing with questions. Giles
says so, too. Just now, in fact: "You're full of questions, aren't you?"
Beyond the usual polite and/or amused inquiry like that, Giles doesn't seem to
have many questions. He knows too much to have to ask anything.
But not Oz. He wants to know what Giles is thinking about, wants to know why
kaleidoscopes work, how a single guy can survive for decades on his own without
knowing how to cook anything other than a "fairly passable curry", whether Rope
was filmed in real-time, too, or if they just made it look like that. If
Leopold and Loeb could have sued Hitchcock for libel even though they were
child-killers.
Also, what's going on behind Giles's face? What does Oz look like to another
set of eyes?
"Huh? Full of questions? Yeah." He takes Giles's plate and his own to the sink
and returns to fetch the wine glasses. "You done?"
"Am I finished? Yes. A roast is done, a person is--"
"Finished. Got it." And there's another question right there. Who made up
grammar? Did someone sit down and say, all right, this word goes here and only
applies to people, otherwise it's wrong, but this other word can go there, and
apply to meat and other inanimate things. Of course, meat *used* to be animate,
so that might not be the best example. Still, though. Who decided?
Giles smoothes his napkin after putting it on the table in front of him and
sighs. "I am sorry. I seem to channel my father more and more these days."
"It's okay," Oz says from the kitchen, scraping plates into the compost bin.
"Learn something new every day, right?"
Giles meets him halfway between the fridge and the dining room, relieving him
of the scummy plates, setting them aside without taking his eyes from Oz's.
He's wearing the Bowie shirt and old khakis gone fuzzy at the stitching, and
it's pretty cool how he can go casual and still look this intense all the time.
Oz wonders all over again what he's thinking. He doesn't ask, because there
seems to be a limit to how many questions are socially acceptable within a
certain time period, and any more than that? Weird and rude.
"You look tired," Giles says.
"Really? I feel okay." Oz sidles into him just so, hip leading shoulder, and
gets what he was looking for: loose arm around his waist, fingers barely tucked
into his waistband. Long cool fingers that send shudders right through him like
he's tissue paper.
"Thank you," Giles says, tightening the hold and bending a little so his torso
moves back but his chin comes to rest on Oz's head. "For dinner. For--"
Oz shifts his stance, parting his legs, bending at the knee a little, the way
you do when taking a sharp curve while skating, bringing himself back up
alongside Giles. "Welcome. It was just moussaka. Well, TVP moussaka."
"A miracle in and of itself, yes."
"What, TVP? It's good. Once you get used to it." Oz slips both hands under
Giles's shirt, spreading his fingers and just kind of hanging on, feeling
muscles move, stomach do its thing, heart beat.
"What are you doing?"
Hah. Got a question out of him. Oz tilts back his head and considers, sliding
his palms upward as he leans back against Giles's arm. "Ogling," he says. "But
with my hands. Tactile ogling."
The chuckle starts deep in Giles's chest and rises up against Oz's skin at the
same time it goes up Giles's throat and out his mouth. It's this heady mix of
touch and sound, and Oz leans closer. "Do that again."
"What?" Giles asks.
"Laugh." He pushes the shirt further up, remembering all of a sudden that he's
never seen Giles totally naked. Giles just looks down at him, smile kind of
vague on his lips as Oz moves in. When he rakes a fingertip over the left
nipple, Giles sighs and bites his lip. The nipple's shaped different from the
right one, kind of splayed out in the middle, wider. "Pierced?"
"At one time, yes."
"Hmm." Oz runs his finger back over it, getting another little sigh. "Your
misspent youth?"
Giles laughs again, and it's harder to feel this time, but the rumble's there
all the same. "My misspent youth?"
"Your words, not mine." Giles had said that at some point, he's sure of it.
It's just not something Oz could have come up with on his own. Oz circles the
pad of his thumb over the right nipple, not wanting it to feel left out. "Left
one means top, right?"
"Usually it does." Giles's voice is a little higher, which means he's nervous
or turned on, or maybe both. Oz is getting pretty good at figuring stuff out
from tone. It's like music, where the words in the lyrics don't matter nearly
as much how they sound. He's still got a long way to go, but he's learning.
He wonders how that answer would go over in a leather bar. Not the joke kind,
not The Blue Oyster, but a real one. Probably not so well. From what Oz can
tell, the rules are pretty rigid out there. He remembers he's gone quiet again,
so he nods a little. "Mm-hmm. Misspent youth."
Back to words again, he thinks. Youth means a kid, like him, but also a period
of time that's not really very well-defined since it depends on time passing.
Like "the youth of America" is a group of kids, but "America's youth" could be
the Revolution. For Giles, his youth probably went all the way near thirty, and
Oz thinks that just because you don't usually get your tits pierced when you're
a teenager. Maybe you do, but that would be unusual. Even for Giles.
Oz skims the scarred nipple with his tongue. "Feel that?"
"Mmmm."
He loves it when even Giles can't figure out what to say. "Cool."
Giles's fingers stroke the back of his hair and down the nape of his neck.
Getting touched there always sends jagged, buzzing little shivers into the
center of his skull, and down, forking into his legs before doubling back up.
Sweet.
/
"Got another question for you," Daniel murmurs.
Giles knows he stiffens at that, but he cannot help it. All he can do is close
his hand around the back of the boy's neck and squeeze, hoping Daniel will not
notice. He has felt himself dropping out like this increasingly over the past
week, finding himself absent and stiff. It takes more effort to return to the
moment each time.
"Hmm?" Giles says, his hand dropping to the small of Daniel's back, bunching
the fabric of his shirt. Vague polite noises seem to have become his stock in
trade.
Daniel leans back, bracing himself against Giles's arm, wide and shadowed eyes
gazing up. "How come we never manage to get all your clothes off?"
Slow, serpentine smile on Daniel's face while Giles considers this. Daniel's
hands have slipped around his sides, kneading slightly.
"We've screwed around twelve, thirteen, times," Daniel says, fingers slipping
into the waistband and sweeping slowly back and forth. Giles rocks against him,
and then they are rocking together, onto their toes then back to the heels.
"But I still haven't seen like all of you."
"You've kept count?" Giles is surprised, to put it mildly. Rather like when
Daniel inquired about his youth just now. Numbers and time generally seem to
slip past Daniel, quietly, without notice.
There must be some term for this sort of--Giles is hesitant to think of it as a
learning disability, since the phrase smacks so much the American demonization
of difference and the tendency to medicalize everything under the sun--this
sort of cognitive capacity. Daniel is far more carefully attuned to the
presence of, the sound and weight of, words and things. Whatever is discrete
and individual, that is what snags his attention. He likes to sound words out,
poke apart their constituent phonics, inquire after their various meanings and
their derivation.
He does not count, nor does he pass the time.
Daniel nudges his groin against Giles's leg and speeds up their rocking,
sending the red wine straight to Giles's head in flushed haze. Unsteadily, he
steps back. Daniel follows bonelessly, and thrusts slowly, liquidly against
him. "Sure. I'm counting the couch that time the phone rang, just so you know.
Hey, duck."
Giles obeys as the boy sweeps his shirt up and over his head, trailing and
catenating deep electric shivers down Giles's back. Daniel ducks his own head
under the fabric, and it slides down Giles's arm. He releases the boy briefly
and they step backward into the dining room as Daniel presses his lips to
Giles's chest. He taps Giles back up against the dining table with a press of
his forehead and thrust of his hips.
"Daniel--" and he breaks off, feeling a humming noise tremor run up his throat
as Daniel runs lips and tongue over his navel, small pale hands undoing his
fly. Giles lifts his hips as much against Daniel's mouth as to free his
trousers to be tugged off.
Daniel glances up sharply when Giles's cock bounces up. "Hanging loose, Giles?"
he asks, grinning widely. He braces his arms against the edge of the table and
leans over Giles. Giles has gone back on his elbows without quite being aware
of it. He hums again as the boy's corduroys rasp over his bare skin.
Giles feels he could bear this strange scrutiny that Daniel subjects him to for
as long as necessary. He would willingly lie back on his elbows, skin aching
for the touches that fall lightly and randomly, nearly as light as the spread
of the boy's breath, moving over his nipples and under his arms, for years. If
that is what it takes, he thinks nonsensically, so be it. He had dimmed the
lights to eat by, so Daniel's head hovers very dark over his own dully glowing
skin. He is a strange albino bird in sunny California, but Daniel matches him
for paleness, and sometimes, as Giles drifts under him, the only way to
distinguish between Daniel's hand and Giles's skin is a watery silver shadow.
They certainly cannot be distinguished in Giles's mind via touch. He is too far
gone to do that.
He does not know how long he lies there, thighs parted, thoroughly naked, open
for inspection. He does know that there have been other times in his life when
he lay like this, but they never felt like this. The way Daniel looks at him is
gentle and curious; generally in such situations there is a sharp gleam in the
other's eye, slightly feral and certainly possessive.
Daniel moves over him slowly and with care, never giving any of the strong
hints of potential and future cruelty and violence that Giles's nerves,
crackling with tension, have been trained to expect.
Daniel is certainly strong; Giles watches the narrow muscles shift and contract
in the boy's arms for minutes on end. Yet while he is strong, there is no
aggression in his touch.
Giles feels all this. His thoughts do not move in such clean, complex and well-
ordered phrases, however, especially as Daniel takes hold of his hips and
pushes him farther up the table. He hears the protesting squeak of skin on
varnish as the boy pulls himself up, straddling one thigh, drawing his thumbs
down Giles's ribs till they brush the table, and move back up.
Not aggressive but neither is Daniel passive. He simply is *there*, touching
and lulling Giles into this trembling equilibrium that swings back and forth as
his face comes in closer, kissing Giles deeply and languidly. In a slow seep of
thought, under this touch and inside this kiss, Giles learns that there exist
touches other than those of the seductive and the seduced.
Daniel rocks his thigh against the bottom of Giles's cock, his pants left
behind on the floor, so that warm taut skin touches his own. Giles is very
hard, and the slow friction welcome, but there is no urgency in his reactions,
lulled as he is by this careful, endless scrutiny.
His arms give out and he comes to rest on the table when Daniel pulls away and
slides off, out of sight. Staring up, Giles blinks rapidly enough for the
candelabra's light to seem to quiver in tune with the blood pounding through
his dick and up the back of his skull. He loses track--of time, of sensation--
in the slow, insistent regularity of the rhythm, until his head jerks up at the
sudden grip on the base of his cock and the pinch of the condom as it is
unrolled. Daniel smiles absently at him and scrapes over a chair to brace
Giles's foot. He swings himself back up and over Giles's chest, looking for all
the world like the men in the extreme skateboarding videos he watches over
breakfast. Giles almost expects him to grab his ankle with a flourish.
He arches under Daniel's grip, visuals forgotten, receding rapidly, as Daniel
captures his wrist and brings it up to his chest between them. Cold lube poured
into the cup of his palm, and Daniel is sliding over him, lowering his mouth to
Giles's, fists in Giles's hair, his thighs opening wider to Giles's touch.
/
Oz figures he's nearly humping Giles at this point, messy tongue against
Giles's tonsils, ass trembling under the pressure of Giles's fingers. Not that
he can bring himself to complain, or even feel that embarrassed. He moans into
Giles when two fingertips breach him, and he tenses for a second to keep from
shaking like a leaf and flying apart.
In the past week, he's had to revise upwards his estimation of Giles's inherent
strength several times. He's up to cathedral-strong, centuries built, peasants
humbled and awed, buttresses flying, as the burn subsides to a blush, then
starts up as sharp, jazzy tingle and he rocks backward and squeezes down on the
fingers halfway in. Giles chuckles under him and Oz nips at his tongue to get
at the sound. He's doing these little rocks forward, a couple per heartbeat,
when he hears the slap of hand on cock and feels Giles pulling his hips back.
Oz's thighs tighten for an instant, and he exhales down Giles's cheek as he
relaxes. There's no way to figure out what this feels like, opening barely
enough, taking in something hard and pulsing, but it's a burn with sweet
expectation, he knows that much, and he forgets to breathe as he bobs in place
and feels Giles work himself inside, somehow more solid and firm than Oz has
ever felt himself to be or will ever feel again. Like he's running in place,
one of those mall waterfalls that suck the water back up and send it down
again, his mouth going dry even as the flush shuddering from his ass outward
gets stronger and stronger and Giles starts squeezing his hips so Oz struggles
to rise a fraction, barely anything, and sink back again. Giles's face is so
close, gone indistinct and broken up into these Cubic fragments, except where
his skin scrapes on Oz's mouth. He feels smaller than ever, hardly more than
bone and ass, light as a bird in Giles's grasp except for that one thick,
burning tension aching and rumbling up inside him like stormy red-velvet sunset
sky.
Oz rides like this for longer than he thought he could ever hold up, motion
deep and regular as the metronome on his guitar teacher's mantle. Metronomes
just gradually slow down, but instead he's smoothly picking up speed,
slobbering against Giles's mouth so much that the spit is cold on his chin,
burning cold like Giles's fingers dug into his hips, and suddenly out of the
clear blue sky barrels in that overwhelming need to push and buck, and Giles is
urging him on, thundering breeze rising up the scale in his ear, and Oz grabs
both hands onto the edge of the table and jerks backward, pulling Giles's cock
deeper into him, twisting his hips around like a desperate virgin, and Giles is
yanking him back down, grinding up, the flame and pulse of his coming burning
hot-then-cold as Oz grinds down, white noise building in an avalanche in his
ass and behind his balls, and he collapses before the shooting's over, feels
spurts against his chest as Giles clutches him.
Giles is grasping at his cheeks, maneuvering him until Oz is kissing him back,
shallow little pecks, his lips are so dry he's worried they'll crack open.
Leftover bleeps and zigzags of sensation skitter around under his skin, and he
feels a bone-deep shudder start in his legs, wonders where that came from.
"God," he breathes into Giles's mouth, hands sliding squeakily from the edge of
the table to pillow under Giles's head. "Mmmm."
Inarticulate, but that's to be expected.
/
Daniel looks worried, frowning, brows beetling over narrow eyes, when Giles
answers the door a few afternoons later. Before he can ask what's wrong,
however, Daniel hands him a sandwich wrapped in white butcher paper and another
sack of garden vegetables. The boy will brook no protests when it comes to the
vegetables, so Giles stows them in the crisper without comment.
"How was practice?" Giles asks when he returns to the living room. Daniel
squats in front of the television, fiddling with the wires in back, glancing
anxiously at the snow that persists on the screen.
"Usual crap," Daniel says, giving up on coaxing better reception out of the
relic. He turns and sits cross-legged, facing Giles on the couch. Giles does
not know whether to rest his ultimate interpretation of that comment on
Daniel's previous scowl and the words themselves, or on the contrasting
lightness of his tone and the sudden jump of a smile. "You remembered?"
Giles nods as he unwraps his sandwich. He cannot tell the boy just how
precisely, with a bookkeeper's concern for the neatness of the ledger, he has
remembered that he had band rehearsal that morning. Nor how for the same past
few days, blessedly Devon-free days during which Daniel lounged with him from
breakfast until moonset, he has also tried to push away all thoughts of the
impending rehearsal with something that edges close to hysteria.
He knows just how easily, with little if any effort, slip into this hysteria
that is threatening. He could start recording the minutes spent in silence with
Daniel, the hours in bed, chart with delirious care the rapidly dwindling time
that fades in inverse proportion to this blossoming, jealous panic. He has so
far resisted slipping, for the most part. Last night when the bed dipped
sharply, he opened his eyes to the slice of pale back turned to him, shimmying
shorts up its hips, head bent into the dark.
"You're not staying?" he had heard himself whisper like some tiresome mistress,
wheedling yet resigned. Shoulders shrugged, then Daniel pulled his shirt over
his head. "Can't," he had said simply, and Giles had swallowed back hard on the
sorrow creeping up his throat.
He could have slipped then; he could still slip now.
Daniel flicks his thumb absently at the charms on the bracelet around his
ankle, and Giles realizes how foolish he must look, smiling like this into the
empty middle distance.
"Don't get mad," Daniel says as he strokes the red vial charm. "But can I ask
you something?"
Giles digs nails into his palm and lets his smile slide away. "Of course."
There's that odd wheedling note in his voice again; he can't seem to help it.
He clears his throat. "Please."
Daniel's lips twitch as he fondles his bracelet. Giles wants very much to run
his hand through the spikey hair, feel it prickle his palm before he finds the
heat of the boy's skull. "Did you get fired?"
"What?"
Daniel ducks his head again, chin brushing the hem of his shirt.
"Daniel," Giles says, relieved to hear himself sounding somewhat normal. "Why
would you ask me that?"
"Well," Daniel says, rising to his knees and shuffling across the rug. His
instinct for closeness is not only triggered by stress, Giles has learned, but
it is at its strongest then. "Got to wondering, see--"
Giles laughs and grasps his elbow, hauling the boy up to the couch beside him,
remembering the first time they sat like this. Already the memory of Daniel
sleeping that first night has become strong and familiar, its details rubbed
away through frequent reflection, until all that remains is the simultaneous
sense of miraculous wonder and stomach-twisting doubt that the sight brought.
"That kind of thing can be dangerous, you understand. Wondering and such."
Daniel laughs until he starts to cough into his fist and squints, wrinkles
closing off his eyes. "Good point."
"Dear boy." Daniel nuzzles a bit, hearing that, and Giles lowers his mouth to
Daniel's ear. "Are you busy this afternoon?" Giles asks, stroking the cool
small hollow of Daniel's neck. "I thought we might do something."
Daniel sinks against him with a sigh. "That's what I'm talking about."
"Which is what?" Giles thinks that by now, he should be able to ask for
clarification without feeling surprised at the need. Daniel's statements are
scattershot at best, and make Giles wonder at the logic that should connect
them. There should be some current amongst these disparate thoughts, else
Daniel would be mad, but it is perceptible only infrequently.
"Are you ever going back to work?"
Daniel stares at him so directly and plainly, with such clarity gracing his
features, that it is hard to believe Giles could ever doubt his logic.
"It's summer," Giles says, swallowing. "Summer holiday."
"Met you at the library," Daniel reminds him gently.
Giles nods, swallowing again. No argument there. The longer he remains silent,
the closer the panic hovers, drawn nearer than ever. He tries to clear his
throat but Daniel stares at him again. Giles meets his gaze.
Lowering his eyes, Daniel murmurs, "I worried you got fired and didn't want to
tell me."
"I still fail to see the reason," Giles says. He tries to pull Daniel closer,
but for once the boy resists and remains where he is. Giles cannot trace the
source of his sudden anger. It flares up, he thinks brokenly that he hates
this, and then it vanishes. What is he angry at? What could he possibly hate?
Impertinence, or finding that he is the object of worry? Perhaps those are the
same thing.
"Just--" Daniel spreads out the fingers on both hands and cocks his head,
considering, it appears, the amount of chipping in his nail polish. "Not mad?"
"Bewildered, perhaps. Not mad."
Daniel sighs and starts to pick at the polish on his thumb. "You've got so much
free time. Made me worry."
That was unexpected. Giles tilts against the boy strongly enough for Daniel to
catch him and tuck his head against Giles's forehead. "I certainly didn't mean
to worry you," he says, drinking in the sharp tang of smoke, tobacco and
marijuana, on the boy. "I had actually cleared my schedule for the foreseeable
future. I thought you knew that."
Daniel kisses his ear gently and slides down into a slump. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize," Giles says, automatically. He clears his throat again. "I
should have been clearer."
Daniel is quiet for several long moments, barely stirring with breath against
Giles. His neck smells like salt and the varieties of smoke, and he sighs when
Giles kisses him there. "You sound weird lately, you know."
Giles looks up. "How do you mean?"
"Weird?" Daniel's eyes squeeze shut. When he does this, searching for the best
word, he resembles a small child caught in the spotlight of a spelling bee.
"Off? Like an old Chevy engine. Shutting down."
/
Okay, pretend he doesn't hear Giles shutting down. He can do that. But: How do
you clear a schedule? Like clearing a desk, one sweep of the arm into the
circular file? He wants to know what that means.
Instead, Giles reassures him in the best possible way, several times over, with
firm hands and straining hard cock and that kiss that burns out his last
neuron, leaving Oz all stupid and dizzy and desperate. He lets himself get
lost.
Someone really should try to market this particular sexcapade for overworked
executives. They'd make a killing, Oz is sure of that, and it feels so good he
can laugh at the weird porno-infomercial trend of his thoughts and Giles won't
ask what's so funny. Because it's normal to crack up like this when it's a
couple hours later and he's pressed up against the slick wall of the shower,
tiles imprinting his back, tickling fingers running up his thighs as Giles
sucks him off.
/
He should probably inquire after Daniel's vague, hesitant solicitousness. He is
always so careful to reassure himself that Giles is not cross with him. As if
Giles were violent and unpredictable, prepared to lash out at the least
infraction. It may be something in his background, poor educational system and
absent parents, but, upon reflection, he is simply overreacting. The
sensitivity seminars the school board requires of all its new employees seem to
have affected Giles more than he knew. He does not need to be this aware of
"warning signs" and hints of trouble, not when it comes to Daniel.
It never would have occurred to him that Daniel was capable of worry,
especially over him. The boy is normally so placid and yet so attuned to his
surroundings, attuned to an almost psychic degree, that Giles had assumed all
thoughts concerning him evaporated as soon as Daniel steps out his door. Place
Daniel somewhere new, and he will adjust instantaneously, take on the shape and
hue of wherever he finds himself.
He has his friends, after all, that shifting, motley crew, and random
appointments to meet them for inexplicable reasons. Lack of any reason,
actually, is usually behind those appointments as far as Giles can tell.
Hanging in the park, hanging at the Bronze, hanging in someone's basement. The
term makes them sound like monkeys chattering the forest, dangling betwixt the
branches, de-licing each other's fur, and although he has trouble picturing
Daniel, so quiet and serene, as any kind of monkey, the overall impression
persists. He has his friends, and hanging, and band rehearsal; Daniel moves
among various situations with such gentle leisure that Giles cannot understand
how he might summon enough energy to worry, nor when.
When Daniel is absent, away at these empty appointments, Giles works
desultorily on translations and updates to both his official and unofficial
journals. He puts in enough time that the Council should not notice anything
awry, but no more. He stays home for this work, loathe to return to the library
until he absolutely must. Daniel has mentioned this once or twice, and Giles
assumes he is merely being polite. It is, again, inconceivable that the boy
would rather be there than here. More inconceivable, in fact, than the
regularity with which the boy turns up on his doorstep, or lets himself in,
makes himself at home, all of which are impossible despite the fact that they
continue to happen.
Giles accomplishes little when he is working, and often, picking up his pen
after an hour-long break, the American expression "goldbricking" comes to mind.
He cannot feel very guilty, however. August is already underway. Once term
starts, he will have more than enough time to make up for his wandering
attention.
/
"Don't know what you see in him, man." Devon shifts Nonie off his lap and slaps
her ass, propelling her toward Oz. They're in the storage space she got her
father to rent them at the employee discount for rehearsals. He promised to
play nice, but she's already starting to wear on him.
Devon straddles an amp, shaking his head at Oz, who's leaning against the wall.
"Seriously, you going to cruise Sunset Towers next?"
"You know it," Oz says. Nonie crouches in front of the cooler at his feet, and
hands up cans to him. He balances them in his palm, he's getting good at this.
Last time he made six balance before the stack started to sway menacingly. He
gives up at three this time. "Blue hair and support hose get me every time."
"Exactly, man!" Devon guzzles the soda as Nonie slides back onto his thigh.
They've been together, what, a couple weeks? And she's already got the hanging
girlfriend-slash-groupie posture down perfect. Still nodding vigorously, Devon
pauses to kiss her, sliding his hand up under her shirt. "I keep telling you
you've got the pick of the litter and what do you do? Go for the mangy old tom
who lives behind the dumpsters at Shanghai Garden."
"I think he's hot." Nonie smiles at Oz with such deliberate kindness he feels
kind of sick. Devon snorts. "I *do*. All kinda, I don't know, *British*. And
grizzled."
"Ben Cartwright's grizzled," Oz says. "Willie Nelson. Not sure about Giles."
"You going to fuck Willie next?" And because Devon's never heard about
understatement, because he likes his exclamation points and italics in bulk
economy packs, he thrusts a couple times and retches for emphasis. "Huh? Pound
away at that geriatric ass?"
Oz sips his Hawaiian Punch and glances away. Then he studies the mutant
tropical guy on the can very carefully.
"Oh, fuck *me*." Devon's practically spitting.
Nonie looks back and forth between Devon and Oz, forehead wrinkling pretty deep
for a kid her age. "What?" she asks Devon. "What's wrong?"
"That's just-- Shit." Devon stands, holding Nonie around the waist so she
doesn't fall. "That's so fucking wrong, Oz. Just so-- *Fuck*."
Oz sticks out his tongue, crossing his eyes so he can check how stained red it
is. Berry, berry red.
Nonie trails after Dev, throwing pissed-off glances back at Oz. Yay. Now he's
in trouble with some chick he barely knows for annoying the great and powerful
Devon.
"So fucking *obvious*!" Devon's apparently found that perfect word he was
sputtering after, and shouts it again as he wheels around. "Obvious!"
If their positions were reversed, Oz-now-Devon would tell him that Giles fucks
him way better than the original Dev ever did. Or will, whatever. That would
require some kind of personality graft, though, where Oz keeps his memories but
gains Devon's mega-frankness. His head throbs when he tries to work through how
that would work, since Devon-now-Oz would never go for Giles in the first
place. Basically, he just doesn't have anything to say, although anyone else
would be able to come up with some type of retort, so he distracts himself with
impossible sci-fi scenarios.
"I don't get it," Nonie pleads, and any minute now, she's probably going to
start tugging at Devon's sleeve.
Devon tears away from her grip and in no time at all he's looming over Oz,
grabbing him by the neck. He kisses Oz roughly, nearly missing his mouth, harsh
suction and angry tongue. He swipes his hand across his lips as he pulls back
and Nonie squeals.
"Like that?" Devon whispers harshly, and Oz can't back up any farther since
he's already against the wall. And he's shaking too hard to think about moving
anyway. Devon smiles slowly, and the only thing Oz can think of is a cat, some
kind of lazy predator who has all the time in the world to play with his food.
Arrogant fuck.
Best just to go along. "Yeah. Like that."
Dev grabs his ass a little too hard. Oz is nearly always slightly sore these
days, since Giles fucks like it's going out of style. The hand wrenching his
cheeks apart is sharp and mean, but he wiggles against it anyway.
"'Kay, now that's just *gross*," Nonie says. Oz can't see her, but she's
probably backing away, shaking her head. Wrinkling her nose like the sight
smells bad. He slides his hands up to Devon's neck and pulls him back down for
more kissing, trapping one thigh between his own, grinding back against the
hand on his ass. Dev's kissing like a drowning man, gripping his shoulder hard
enough to bruise really deep.
Devon moans into the kiss when Oz scrapes his teeth over the root of his
tongue, and starts thrusting, bracing one hand on the ringing metal wall as he
rubs his cock roughly over Oz's shorts.
"Dev?" Nonie asks, softly, uncertainly. "Devon?"
Devon rips his mouth away, a little trickle of blood worming over his lower lip
from Oz's teeth, but doesn't slow his thrusting. "Yeah?"
"I don't--" Nonie says. She's persistent; Oz has to give her that. Nothing more
though, because his dick is hurting, and Dev's pressed too hard against him for
Oz to do more than wiggle and bite back his breath at the friction. And she's
an unnecessary distraction at this point. "Devon? What are you doing?"
"The fuck does it *look* like he's doing?" Oz nearly growls, and Devon rakes
his fingers up the split of his ass. His eyes go electric at that, exploding
with white sparks, and he twists just right so he's almost riding Devon's
pelvis.
Nonie shakes her head, and now she's backing up, getting close to the door.
"You said he liked to watch." Talking to Devon, shading her eyes, voice going
thin as a wire. "Not--. Join in."
"That what you said?" Oz asks, catching the tendon in Devon's neck between his
front teeth and sucking. He grinds awkwardly forward, shoves his hand down
Devon's ass, scrapes his nails the whole way until Devon can't not moan. "Did
you lie to the nice girl?"
Devon kind of sags against him, dragging his cock against Oz's, groaning like a
Neanderthal. "What got into you, man?" he manages before Oz hooks his fingers
deep into the crease between ass and thigh.
"He lies a lot," Oz says. Something like pity in his voice. Nonie's even
further away now, out the door. "Kind of an asshole that way, huh, Dev?"
/
Giles will not allow himself to panic. It is unseemly, not to mention a waste
of energy.
He is more than aware that Daniel's mind wanders as easily as his body seems to
do: One small twig in a stream swollen with the spring melt, rushing, bobbing
past, no will to speak of. Despite himself, he can nearly forgive the boy's
restless attention and this unexpected absence.
Hadn't it been only a day or so ago that he tried to convince himself that
Daniel's regular presence was the impossibility?
Moreover, he reminds himself, he has no claim on Daniel, nothing that says
anything about rights and privileges to his company. He also knows, because he
is young enough to have studied with a pupil of Thompson's, that time-as-
commodity is a modern invention. That the new urban bourgeoisie's attempt to
control and parcel it out was deeply offensive and inscrutable to the
traditional rural laborer. He frequently calms himself these days by reviewing
the extraneous trivia he has picked up along the way. It distracts him long
enough from whatever immediate stimulus of anxiety has pricked him this time.
Tiny thorns of anxiety have the power to set him off into quick slide into
worry and hurt. When this happens, he retrieves the odd fact and turns it
around, scrutinizes it, until he feels better. Calmer.
Prompted, it seemed, by yet another useless fact Giles offered him, Daniel told
him the other day that he has a Velcro mind. Giles would prefer a hook-and-eye
mind, or a waistcoat mind, but Daniel insisted.
He's thinking now about Daniel, and when this happens, it is difficult, nearly
impossible, to return to the meditative fugue he had been trying to foster.
Time need not be commodified, but Giles knows, despite the tweed and his
general ignorance of computers and other contraptions, that he is a resolutely
modern creature. He cannot help himself from thinking like this. From worrying
and feeling the seconds slide past him, unused, gone to rot.
So time is wasting. He is nervous, close to a shuddering panic, and he is
jealous.
/
"Why--why--why--why?"
Oz can't get away. That's not really the kind of thing you can answer.
"Why?" Giles asks him over and over, panting, and Oz can't figure out what the
hell he's talking about.
He stayed over at Devon's after rehearsal, but couldn't sleep, and let himself
into Giles's place just after sunrise. So, granted, the poor guy just got
roused out sleep. He probably can't be expected to make sense. Just not fair to
think he'd be his usual self, all clear and smart, when he just woke up. But
usually when people talk as they wake they mutter about muffins on fire or
warning the seagulls. Nonsense that's cute and surreal, that they'll deny ever
having said. That's what sleepers do. They don't clutch your shoulders like
this, shake you with every syllable.
Giles pulls him onto his lap, combing his hair back with rough fingers, and he
can't stop babbling that one word. His other hand closes around the lump in
Oz's pants. That lump that he carried over here, the just-about- permanent,
aching one.
Oz tries to quiet him. He tries shushing and soothing and murmuring and,
finally, kissing. Giles's tongue works against his, lips closing around Oz's,
still talking for a bit. He keeps squeezing and releasing Oz's dick and
shifting him around until Oz is sitting sideways between his legs, Giles's cock
digging into the top of his hip, and he can't really breathe that well anymore,
smashed up against Giles like this.
Giles pulls away, blinking at him for a second like he has no clue who he just
dragged between his legs. "Daniel," he says at last, and starts to work open
his fly.
"That's me," Oz says. Giles nods and grabs his dick.
Giles's skin is hot from sleep, and when Oz brushes his fingertips across his
chest, a little sweat, more humid than actually wet, comes off. He pinches the
long-healed but still lumpy nipple as he nuzzles the sweat caught between
Giles's neck and shoulder. Giles shakes against him, still panting, almost
bending Oz's dick between his knuckles in his hurry.
"Tell me what you were doing," Giles pleads, burying his face in Oz's shoulder
when Oz snakes his hand in between them and shifts so he can hold on to his
cock. He can't quite remember when Giles started going commando, but it's cool
at the same time that it's totally confusing. "Tonight. What were you doing
with your degenerate friends?"
His dick jumps in Oz's grasp when Giles breathes out that last question, and Oz
knows that this is one he can answer, since it seems like an answer is more
than welcome. Degenerate friends? That's new.
"Fucking around," Oz tells him, rocking his hand up and down as Giles's panting
twists off into a moan. "Me and Dev freaked out his girlfriend--"
He doesn't know why he's telling Giles this, but he seems to be the only one
unsure here since Giles's arm goes around his back and his mouth drags its way
slowly down Oz's throat, little moans left behind that shiver, maybe shimmer?,
on his skin. He thrusts hard into Oz's hand and starts up that long chain of
"Why" again.
Oz tries to kiss him and Giles's head lurches back. "Tell me," he says, voice
all rough and tight. "Tell what you did. Touch me."
Oz shakes his head but doesn't let go. "Can't--" He can't, or he won't, or
something, but that's something Giles wouldn't like, he does know that,
remembering Nonie's something's-smelly-face, and Devon would kick his ass if he
ever found out.
"Why?" Strung out like beads, long and separate sounds.
"Why what?" Oz repeats, tightening his grip as Giles slackens his own, letting
his dick slap up against his belly. "Why can't I tell you? Or why did we fuck
around? Or why'd we freak her out?"
Giles shakes his head, eyes closing. There are little sparkles of sweat or
tears on his lashes as his mouth twists open. The next why gets lost in a groan
when Oz pushes him back against the pillows and slides the trembling, weeping
head of Giles's cock into his mouth. He laps up the precum and reaches up to
cup the balls with three fingers, hooking them around the sac just like Giles
likes it.
/
Why do I want you?
Why does he desire Daniel? Why does he get to have him?
He will never be able to speak those sentences, never, not even in the hushed,
shades-drawn privacy of his own mind.
But now, writhing and desperate, he can groan them out in fragments, broken
beyond sense, let broken, jumbled noises loose past his lips just as he begins
to shoot, deep into that terribly expert mouth.
/
Round and round we go, where we stop, nobody knows: Wheel of Fortune of the
Damned, the way Oz's brain keeps spinning back to the same topics again and
again. You'd think he'd have more to think about than the same old questions.
You'd be sorely mistaken.
Oz knows he asks too many questions. It's just one of those things he never got
a handle on controlling. He's like a toddler with the constant who, what, why,
where, how, and again with the why, and he's surprised no one slaps him when he
gets going.
Not that he gets going a lot, but when he does, it's like once he admits not
understanding one thing, everything else gets doubted, every stupid little
thing becomes somehow hideously suspicious, and the questions just come. It's
like looking at a little gap in someone's wallpaper. Once you admit it's there,
that there's one thing that he doesn't get, that one tiny gap in meaning, he
can't look away. Like those guys with OCD, he starts digging at the gap until
it widens and comes off under his nail, and he just keeps clawing. Keeps
asking. Keeps trying to fill in meaning as it keeps sliding away, peeling off
into the dark.
The questions never seem to be quite the right ones, either. Always off-topic
or mixed-up in some glaringly obvious way only he misses. Teacher after teacher
drilled that fact into him until he learned to shut up in class. Until he
taught himself to daydream.
It's not like the questions ever went away. They just went underground, like
Harriet Tubman. Or the French Resistance. Except not as important or brave.
Just running scared.
Brave would be asking and damn the torpedoes. Brave would be admitting he just
doesn't know what to say most of the time, that he can't understand, that he
needs help with figuring shit out.
He'd like to know some things, like how he can miss Giles when he's lying right
here in the man's bed with a sore jaw and bleary eyes. When the guy himself is
right there, back to him, knees drawn up like a scared baby, breathing long
shuddering sighs as he sleeps.
How come if this feels so fucking sweet in all its many and confusing ways, how
come sometimes he also wants to go back to the library? Just read his books and
check out Giles from under the safe dark blur of his lashes?
How come he misses his pathetic fumbling shyness when he's buck naked,
exhausted, and ribboned with cum?
'Cause he does, sometimes.
At least until Giles wakes up.
***** Slouching Towards Labor Day *****
As he wakes, Giles knows immediately that he is alone in bed, indeed, alone in
the bedroom. The air feels off, far too still and close, for Daniel to be here.
He never doubts his sensory knowledge, whether it is tingles up the nape of his
neck, an ache in his knees, or this immobile atmosphere. He does not doubt that
he is correct, but he is still intrigued by how quickly his senses appear to
have adapted to the boy's presence.
As well as his absence.
The scratches across his torso and the incongruously gentle twinges running
through his cock remind him, as if he could forget, precisely why he is alone.
He would prefer to forget the previous night entirely, but knows, again with
the full weight of experience and atmosphere, that he cannot.
Rather, the problem is what to do in the next moment: How to rise. And then in
the next: How to start making his way through the rest of the summer. How to do
all of this alone, and deservedly so.
Routine can forestall panic, but never guilt. As he washes away the worst of
sleep's detritus, Giles avoids his own eyes in the mirror. He actually finds
himself perching on the edge of the tub while brushing his teeth to duck any
accidental glance at himself. It is yet another ridiculous stunt, the latest in
god knows how many he has pulled since meeting Daniel. He would snort with
laughter at himself if he saw this from the outside, in a film or onstage.
But that is precisely the problem here, isn't it? He is very much inside, and
appears to have lost the ability to find the exit. He is inside his skin and
responsible to it, for what it has done, for what it longs and aches to do
again. Raked with fingernails and throbbing sorely, his skin persists in this
longing; it is rather like Daniel in that sense, entirely innocent of any
larger, more abstract consequences.
And like Daniel, his skin knows fear and knows when to flee, far better than
Giles himself.
Washed and dressed, as presentable as ever, Giles descends the stairs slowly.
He is reluctant, nearly afraid, to leave the ominous pressure in the bedroom.
He belongs there, alone on his back, breathing in the staleness of his guilt.
He does not belong here. Not here in the bright, clean light of morning that
wavers liquidly in the breeze through the French doors.
The doors should not be open. He realizes this as slowly as is humanly
possible, before reasoning backwards, checking his logic. This should not be.
When he reaches the last step, Giles sees why.
Daniel sits in the doorway to the garden, leaning against the sill, shirtless.
A smoldering joint dangles from his finger.
He ought to be the one marked with bruises and scratches; he is the one hurt
and broken last night. Yet there is no trace of how terribly Giles treated him.
His skin is alive in the sunlight, nearly glowing. His hair, raked through and
unruly, glows as well, shades of tangerine and pumpkin battling for
preeminence. He is present, and in this moment far more beautiful than Giles
remembers.
Giles grips the railing at the sight before him. He memorizes the way frayed
cuffs spill over Daniel's feet, the tendons flexing as he wiggles his toes; the
spray of fine hairs, caught nearly scarlet in the light, along his forearm; the
blue stream of smoke rising from his broad, strong hand, dissipating into the
thin gray fog hovering over his head; the sharp horizontal cord of his clavicle
and the long vertical dip of his nose.
"Hey." Daniel keeps his head turned out the door as he speaks. How long has he
known he was being watched? Anyone else would have let slip some gesture, some
stiffening of the spine, some sigh. Anyone else would be too self-conscious to
remain so still.
Tugged by the sound of Daniel's voice, managing to ignore for the moment every
other impulse, Giles moves quickly across the room. He stops short just inside
the doorway, suddenly conscious of himself towering over the boy, looming,
unable to join him in his ease on the floor.
Daniel looks up at him, nose wrinkling, and inhales sharply on the joint. The
wheeze is wet and harsh. Giles swallows rapidly. He must instruct himself to
meet the boy's gaze. He cannot look at himself; how he can he do this? He has
no right to look at him, take in dark nap along his hair line and the wiggly
line of his upper lip. Daniel's mouth opens and the smoke seeps out.
"Is that what I think it is?" Giles asks.
"Come on," Daniel says. With his free hand he tugs at the knee of Giles's
trousers, urging him down. Giles lowers himself slowly to the floor, expecting
to hear the creaks and protests of every joint. "Don't tell me you've never
done a wake and bake."
He hears something in Daniel's voice, an amused and perhaps hopeful note,
before he forces himself to stop the process of interpretation he invariably
engages in during awkward moments like this. Giles leans forward and, finally,
much too late, meets Daniel's eyes. They are hooded: against the smoke, the
light, Giles himself.
"Is that what we call it now?" he asks.
Daniel smiles narrowly at that and hands the scrap of the joint to Giles. He
inhales deeply, grateful for the distraction from the warm weight of Daniel's
hand, still resting on his arm.
"What did I do?"
Surprised by Daniel's quiet, toneless question, Giles tips his head back to
exhale, much more quickly than he had intended. "Pardon?" He chokes and coughs
once as Daniel thumps him on the back. "What did *you* do?"
Daniel takes back the joint and considers it, pinched between thumb and
forefinger, before he speaks. "Yeah."
Having apparently made up his mind, he hands the joint back to Giles. His hand
comes to rest back on Giles's arm.
"Nothing," Giles says, wincing at the heat on his lips as he sucks in the last
of the smoke. He raises the roach, offering it, but Daniel shrugs.
"I'm good."
"Nothing," Giles says again when the smoke starts to leak out through his
nostrils. He thinks of dragons. He wishes this were the kind of moment in which
he could grin and tell Daniel that. He lost that chance, relegated it to the
status of vain wish, last night. Instead, he buries the roach into the dirt at
the edge of the flower bed and claps the dust off his hands. "You've done
absolutely nothing."
Daniel lets loose a sound too soft to qualify as a snort and rolls his head
around, gazing back out over the grass. Giles feels his heartbeat pause and
hang for a moment. He blinks against the light that is suddenly too bright to
bear.
"I can't see why you would think you had done anything," Giles says. "Truly. I
am the one who--." He hears his own voice, thick and so bloody stuffy he would
like to wince, and stops. Daniel's palm travels up his back and rubs lightly
while he continues to peer away. "I don't think I can--"
"It's okay," Daniel says. For all he lets on, they could be discussing the
possibility of ordering in for dinner. Perhaps that is all they are doing, and
Giles is teetering on hysteria again. "Forget it."
"Well, that I can't do," Giles says. The strangest feeling of laughter twines
up through his chest, trembling as it branches and forks and rises. "Much as
I'd like to, this is one of those things you carry to your grave."
"One of what things?"
Giles is certain that he is not interpreting too much when he thinks that he
hears Daniel's familiar relaxed curiosity in the question. He can't be, because
Daniel is rolling his head back, gaze sweeping over Giles as his hand comes to
rest on the nape of Giles's neck and squeezes. He is partially smiling.
"I-I simply meant," Giles says, watching the ruddy lashes descend in a near
parody of a blink, "that--that experience, what I did to you last night, is
unforgettable in the worst sense of the word. In the sense of guilt, and
regret."
"The grave?" Daniel asks. He shifts back so his spine meets most of the door
jamb. "Wait. What did you do to *me*?"
Tendrils of laughter grip Giles harshly, latching in with their suckers. He has
to sniff air in through his nose to manage a semblance of calm. "You're not
serious."
"Perfectly serious," Daniel says. And he does sound serious, although with
Daniel, the tones of serious and utterly uninterested tend to verge on each
other.
Giles forgets momentarily everything else he has deemed inconceivable over the
past few months, because the sobriety in Daniel's expression, the perfect
innocence of his question are, when compared to the grotesqueries he has been
put through, truly, remarkably, inconceivable.
He starts to shake slightly under Daniel's hand and manages to draw himself up
straighter.
"I mean," Daniel says, "wasn't I the one fucking around?" He has stopped
apologizing for the occasional curses, yet Giles still feels the impulse to
cringe when he hears Daniel swear. There is something slightly too fine and
austere about the boy for those words not to sound odd.
"As if I had any claim on you." Giles rolls his shoulders, suddenly aware of
the tension gathering there at the base of his neck, as if Daniel's statement
had lodged right there. He hears himself slip into what he has come to think of
as the voice of a lecturer at a second-rate university in the Midlands, eager
to prove how much better he is than his student audience. "No, Daniel. You are
your own person. Responsible for your own actions."
"Never said I wasn't." Daniel's mouth twitches up at one side and he tilts his
head slightly, as if Giles had just suggested that he was purple.
"Let me finish, please?" Giles knows he has too little time to explain this,
and he resents having to explain it at all. It would have been so much easier
for both of them if Daniel *had* slipped away in the night. He squeezes his
eyes shut against that thought, regretting it as soon as it forms, wishing
physical gesture was capable of clearing his mind. Of course he does not wish
Daniel had disappeared; he wants him here, wants him for as long as he can have
him.
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize," Giles says. Weariness starts to creep along the spaces left
behind the vanished laughter. "Please, whatever you do, just don't--"
Daniel grips Giles by the neck and wrenches his head over until their faces are
nearly touching. His eyes are narrow, his cheeks flushed pink. "What if I am
sorry? What then?"
Giles licks his lips and feels his face tighten into a mask far too small for
him. "B-but--"
"Seriously?" Daniel says harshly and drops his hand. "I don't know what
happened. Last night, whenever. Nothing new there. But then you start talking
about regrets and graves and shit, and what am I supposed to do?"
He wonders for a flash, less than a moment, if this is how those crisis
negotiators feel just before the suicide falls or the hostage is shot. His body
is tingling sharply, painfully, bathed in pure alcohol and dipped in dry ice.
Giles fumbles for Daniel's arm, any part of him, overcome with the urge to find
contact and hang on.
"Do you know?" Daniel demands. "Because I don't. I don't know shit."
"Daniel--" Giles manages before finding a hold on his bare shoulder and pulling
him against him. "No."
The boy shakes in his arms as Giles finds himself trying to comfort him. He
does not know what to do. He does not know what he is trying to do, what broke
inside Daniel and made him seek this comfort. He questions the length and
pressure of every touch, evaluating their usefulness and judging their
efficacy. Confronted by collapse, he suddenly doubts his own ability to feel.
Everything, all sensation and emotion, seems to have flooded away from him,
leaving him empty and brittle as worm-burrowed driftwood. Daniel trembles
beneath his touch but is silent.
"What did I do?" Giles whispers, stroking the sun-warmed skin on Daniel's back,
fingers skidding through the damp sheen of sweat. The question is just another
ridiculous stunt, it occurs to him, just as bad as the literal inability to
look into his own eyes. He doesn't want an answer, he simply wants to have said
it and have it done with. If he wanted an answer, he would have spoken so
Daniel could hear.
One of Daniel's arms creeps around Giles's waist and he feels the fingers latch
into the muscle in the small of his back. Giles's palm slips around Daniel's
rib cage; the bones and muscle there are delicate and fine. If he squeezes too
tightly, he can imagine Daniel shattering like porcelain.
"You--" Giles tries again, and swallows whatever he meant to say. "I'm sorry."
"Nothing," Daniel whispers, the breath of it spreading hotly over Giles's
chest. "Not sorry. Don't be sorry."
Giles feels certain of something at last. "I am sorry."
Daniel tightens his hold and rubs his forehead against the buttons of Giles's
shirt before tipping back his head and looking up. His expression is twisted,
beseeching. "Don't, okay? Sex is just--. It goes weird sometimes."
In an instant, weak, nonsensical laughter blooms again within Giles, just under
the pressure of Daniel's chin, spreading fast and feverish through his chest,
up his throat. This time he fails to stiffen against it.
"Weird?" he manages to get out before the laughter flutters into full hysteria.
This is the extent of his boy's wisdom and accumulated experience? The full
content of his knowledge of human relationships is that sex gets weird.
Daniel's grip on him slackens as his eyes close. Giles knows he should not be
laughing, and he does not intend to be cruel, but the sheer absurdity of it
keeps striking him again and again. Weird, eh?
Weird.
"Yeah, weird," Daniel says. "What I said. Mr. Fucking Eloquent."
The laughter wracking his chest and throat slows for a moment and Giles takes
the chance to hug Daniel against him again. "Please," he chokes out, "I'm
sorry. Can't help laughing. Not at you--"
Daniel's head swivels and he nods shortly. "Don't see anyone else."
"I'm sorry," Giles says, hearing himself wheedling again. "Truly. I'm *not*
laughing at you. I know how much that hurts. I--" His throat tightens, his
voice going higher than it has since he had to leave the choir's alto section.
He blinks rapidly as he tries to breathe. Whatever hysteria and weariness had
colonized his chest like kudzu, they have died and withered, and he simply
feels tight and panicked.
"It's okay," Daniel says. "Just overreacted. Sorry." Before Giles can say a
word, Daniel shakes his head and shuts his eyes briefly. "And I'm sorry I said
sorry. You know." He pats Giles on the back softly and presses dry lips against
his throat.
The conversation is not over, Giles can at least be sure of that. All the same
it feels as if a moment has passed, become irrevocably lost. He simply does not
know whether to mourn its passing or to feel relieved.
/
Oz doesn't know what he expected the morning after he came to Giles straight
from Devon's. It's been a week now, and he still can't figure it out.
Maybe he figured they'd just wake up and hang out like always, and it wouldn't
be a big deal. Maybe that's all he expected, and it's not like that was too
much to imagine.
He definitely wasn't expecting Giles freaking out and laughing at him, then
crying. And the freakiness only grew afterward, after they both calmed down.
The mood turned into this kind of tortured gentleness with each other. Like
they are twin bruises, barely swollen but dark as night and incredibly tender.
And they don't really seem to be healing.
Giles is the grown-up, though, and Oz guesses that he expected something more
typical. Less weepy-hysterical, painfully awkward, and overly apologetic. More
of a talking to. A 'where the hell were you' speech, with maybe a tangent on
'what the fuck were you thinking' thrown in for good measure. Except he doesn't
want that, not from his stepdad, and definitely not from Giles. He never would
have liked Giles in the first place if he was any good at aping that grown-up
shit.
He likes Giles, among many other reasons that don't really have names yet,
because his record collection kicks some serious ass. He can lie down here on
the floor and listen for the rest of his natural life.
He has his arms crossed in front of him, his head resting on them, turned
towards Giles, watching him read. The man reads like-- well, nothing he can
come up with sounds right. It's like he's doing chemistry experiments, giving
head, playing the piano, and a couple other things all at once, things that
require passion and seriousness and a hell of a lot more concentration than
most people can summon up. And he manages to do it while remaining totally
still.
It'd be nice to hear his voice, though. And feel Giles looking at him;
sometimes Oz gets the feeling that he's not really here unless Giles is looking
at him. He doesn't know if that's anyone's fault, and it's not like he can ask.
Probably he's just insecure, because when Giles *is* looking at him?
Spotlights. Bat-signal strong spotlights.
"It's true, though. About villains blinking," Oz says, pushing himself up and
sitting back on his haunches. The skin on his arm's gone all pebbly and weird
from being pressed into the rug.
"Hmm?" Giles blinks but doesn't look up.
Oz shakes out the pins and needles in one hand, which just makes the tingling
worse. He holds the dead weight in his other hand and squeezes more gently.
"Sorry. Lyrics."
Giles smiles kind of vaguely as his eyes flicker up and he sees Oz. "Ah, yes."
"Don't worry," Oz says. He's embarrassed suddenly, nervous he might have
flubbed this chance to get Giles talking. He thinks of the way kids think the
TV's talking to them, or those girls who thought John and Paul were singing
just to them, only to them. "I'm not finding the meaning of life or earth-
shattering significance in the lines to a song."
"Not worried," Giles murmurs. He looks up again and the smile is a little
stronger this time.
Oz wants to know what Giles sees when he smiles like that. It's almost sad at
the edges, but mostly just affectionate. Maybe a little indulgent.
"Okay. It is true, though." The nerves are gone, thankfully, but now Oz just
feels bad for bothering him.
Giles sets aside his book and rubs his chin.
"Sorry," Oz says as Giles removes his glasses and holds them up to the light
from the window. They can't possibly be dirty, not with all the rubbings they
get.
"Don't apologize," Giles says. He folds the glasses and puts them on top of the
book. Okay, so maybe Oz isn't bothering him. "You feel like talking?"
"Yeah."
That gets a completely non-sad smile of Giles, and Oz feels all tingly for a
second. Not pins and needles, either; it's the whooshing, falling-down-the-well
tingle he gets when Giles is touching him. Except he's all the way over on the
couch, so this is new.
But once he scoots back against the couch and Giles's leg, Oz doesn't want to
talk. Not with Giles slowly rubbing his scalp like that, trailing his thumb
down his neck, around his ear, back to the crown. He leans back into the touch,
resting his cheek against the side of Giles's knee, trying to remember whatever
bullshit topic he'd come up with this time. It's hard.
Blinking villains? Just that stereotypes or whatever aren't the same as what we
do. Something like that. Labels versus action, he thinks, before bracing his
hands against the floor and lifting himself up between Giles's legs and
settling in.
/
Giles is on the edge of the bed, lacing up his shoe. The sun has nearly set,
and he has not eaten since lunch. Daniel promised to accompany him to dinner,
but he seems to be taking his time in the shower.
A warm cloud, fragrant with the herbsy shampoo Daniel favors, precedes the boy
into the room.
"I'm on to you, Rupert Giles. If that is your real name." Daniel scrubs at his
wet hair with a towel, smiling, speaking lightly.
"Pardon?" His fingers go still on the laces.
Daniel stands in front of him, hands on his hips. "You're not really a
librarian, are you?"
"Excuse me?" He forces himself to finish tying the knot, to kick out his leg
and adjust the fall of the fabric.
"Nah," Daniel says, stepping forward, forcing Giles to fall back on his elbow.
"You're like this incredibly evolved being, here in disguise, working your
mojo. Superhero."
Giles attempts a smile. It is difficult, to say the least, while Daniel's words
reverberate in his mind and Daniel's body is pressed against his. "I assure
you, nothing could be further from the truth."
Daniel's smile curves slowly over his face.
"I'm serious," Giles says.
"So'm I." With one hand, he pulls Giles up by the shoulder so that he straddles
his lap.
And Giles knows as well as Daniel does the single sure way to change the
subject. He links his hands around Daniel's back, nudging the towel off his
waist, and tugs him closer.
"Like that, don't you?" he whispers, just over Daniel's ear, inhaling the heat
radiating from the boy. "The way you always go for my lap?"
Daniel nods, running his palms up and over Giles's shoulder.
Giles closes his eyes, deciding to join the shivers wracking Daniel's torso, to
ignore the black haze of guilt blooming within him. "Makes me feel like a dirty
old man," he whispers.
"Yeah?" Daniel whispers. The room is quiet, their breathing barely audible, and
darkening steadily. "Cool." His voice is thick and breathy, and it does not
normally sound like this until he is a few moments away from orgasming.
Giles shifts back and attempts to frown.
"Come on," Daniel says. "Kidding. Well, kind of." He reaches out, running his
fingertips over Giles's face more lightly than a breeze. Giles turns his head,
following the touch until it slips down and behind his neck. Daniel brings him
back up, kissing around, never actually on, his lips in quick little pecks.
Giles presses forward, running his tongue around Daniel's mouth until something
drops or shifts, and he is inside, pulling himself up higher, straining,
pressing Daniel's head farther back, sucking out every trace of mint and soap
and salt in his mouth.
Daniel breaks away and runs the back of his wrist over his mouth. "Don't tell
me you haven't pictured it," he says. "Library. Lunch period. That tiny little
office. No, wait. The cage."
Giles lifts Daniel at the waist so he can move back into the center of the bed,
legs outflung, Daniel kneeling between them. He trails his fingers over the
lump of Giles's erection. "You do," he whispers.
Giles watches the arc made by Daniel's hand as it sweeps slowly to his own
cock. "I--"
Daniel touches himself lightly. Giles knows how that feels, has been treated to
precisely that teasing, glancing pressure, and it is all he can do not to grab
the boy himself and relieve him. Save him from his own torture. He fancies
himself falling, or floating, somewhere outside of gravity, eyes locked on the
steady, hypnotic motion of Daniel's hand. He can half-hear what Daniel is
saying, long phrases, exquisitely detailed and utterly crude. "Up against the
cage, right...standing up, quick and fast, pants around my ankles, your fly
open just enough to fuck..." His body certainly hears them as he rocks his
hips, desperation building, yet he cannot seem to move his hands to do anything
about it.
Daniel unzips Giles's fly with his free hand and reaches inside, never
faltering in the rhythm of his voice or touch. "...hide in the stacks and suck
me off after gym...like that, don't you?....drive me to school, Giles? Park at
the end of the lot under the lemon trees, push my head down in your lap and
start the day off right?..." Giles gasps as Daniel squeezes his testicles,
tugging them away from his body, the knuckle on his thumb rasping against the
veins in his dick. "Sounds good, huh..." He is nodding and watching and gasping
and almost past coming when Daniel stops talking. Just stares at Giles, wide-
eyed and shocked. His hand a blur on himself, faster on Giles, and then he's
brought them both to the edge. His hands drop away and he whispers "coming?"
just before they are both spasming and jerking, shooting hard and blind.
Daniel teeters on his knees as Giles lies there frozen, and manages with a
groan to fall on his side, covering his eyes with his forearm.
"Shit," Daniel mutters, much sooner than Giles feels capable of speech. "Oh,
fuck."
Long, aching moments pass. The room is completely dark.
Breaths scrape in and out of Giles's lungs as the blindness lessens, breaking
apart at the edges until he can move and feel again. "Daniel?" he asks. The boy
has not shifted, but grunts in reply.
"Yeah?" he says at last, rolling closer to Giles, wiping his wet hand on the
already-ruined trousers. "Wow."
"How do you do that?" Giles asks the ceiling.
"What, jack off? It's easy."
Despite himself, despite everything, Giles laughs. Given how dry his mouth and
throat are, however, it sounds more like rusty hinges than amusement. "Talk
like that," he says. "So--"
"What?" Daniel props his head up on his elbow. "Dirty? Years of porn, my
friend."
"Honestly," Giles says. "I was going to say honestly. As if there's nothing
stopping you."
"There isn't." Even in the dark, Giles knows Daniel is shrugging; it is in his
tone, in the small shy hitch to his breathing. "Not here, anyway."
"With the dirty old man?"
"Shut up." Daniel inches closer, aligning himself neatly and firmly against
Giles. "Not *here*. You know. You."
"So you can talk at length about every twisted fantasy, but you can't tell me
why? Or how?" He feels Daniel shiver against him, and manages to untangle his
arm and slip it around his shoulders. Daniel allows himself to be drawn in, and
gradually the shivers slow.
"Yeah, pretty much," he says at length. "Sex? Easy. Most of the time anyway."
Daniel's skin is cool to the touch, and Giles finds himself content just to
touch, rather than continue talking. Daniel, however, rests his chin on Giles's
chest and exhales noisily.
"Yeah, easy. Easier. The other stuff's not," Daniel says.
"I see," Giles replies. This moment is quiet and cool, and he feels absolutely
no urge to disturb it with words or soil it with analysis. He smiles into the
dark, at the ceiling, content just to be.
His stomach growls, and he realizes he's not going to eat until morning.
/
Oz wishes sometimes he could split Giles into two like Captain Kirk. That way
he could have his Giles, the one whose fingers are stroking Oz's leg gently as
he reads, and then another Giles who could tell him everything he needs to
know. Wants to know, whatever.
But telling's not really Giles's style. He's more an ask lots of leading
questions and then take you through your answers kind of guy. Okay, then, with
Giles II, they could sit down at the big library table and figure out if Oz is
okay. Maybe get one of those portable rolling chalkboards and use it for notes
and flow charts, stuff like that. It might look as bizarre as geometry does at
first, but they'll figure out a couple theorems and take it from there.
"Hey."
"Mm-hmmmmm?" Giles draws out the sound until he's finished the sentence, then
closes the book. And Oz can't believe his patience; the guy's practically a
saint, considering how much he's bothered and interrupted all the time. He
shifts a bit and blinks tiredly at Oz. "Hello."
"Hi," Oz says. He's scrunched up in the opposite corner of the couch, legs
stuck out, pushing against Giles's thigh. He digs his toes in against the
fabric a couple times before Giles swats him lightly.
"Ticklish," Giles says. "What's on your mind?"
"Got a question for you."
"Fire away."
"How come there's so many rules? Like, laws and stuff. Jaywalking and
shoplifting. Not the big stuff, murder and rape. I get why there are laws
against that. But how come almost everything's defined all the way down to like
what color your shingles can be and can't be?"
As the question goes on and on, Giles kind of slides down a bit until he's
almost lying against Oz's leg, propped up on his elbow. Oz doesn't want to talk
this much, but he wants to be clear. It's a stupid enough question he's working
up to that he doesn't want Giles thinking he's any stupider than he actually
is.
"So you're asking about civilization and social systems of order?" Giles asks.
He rolls a little and brings his free hand up to rest on Oz's thigh. So, god,
now with the touching; Oz is never going to get where he wants to go with this.
"Not really," Oz says. He tries to pull his legs up to his chest, but that just
lands Giles's hand in his lap. Giles almost smirks at him and that's a definite
improvement from being bruise boy. His eyes go all crinkly and dark green when
he smirks. "Okay, I'll make this fast."
"Take your time," Giles says. "I'm not going anywhere."
No, he doesn't seem to be going much of anywhere. His hand's not even moving,
but Oz can almost feel his pulse ratcheting up through his shorts.
He coughs, takes a deep breath, and says, "How come there's all those rules for
stupid shit, but there's nothing that tells you how to name what you're
feeling?"
Great, that's out of the way and Giles can think about it later. *Much* later,
because right now Oz is bracing his hand behind him and launching himself
forward into kissing and groping.
/
Giles owes all his gratitude to Daniel for allowing the oppressive tension to
evaporate, simply by studiously ignoring it. He often wonders if Daniel even
notices the emotional states of others, but for the moment, he is grateful. He
owes the boy.
Gratitude or an enormous load of guilt.
He falls a bit behind Daniel as they walk toward the coffee house. He could be
guilty right now, but he cannot be sure. Perhaps he does not want to embarrass
the boy in front of passing acquaintances; perhaps he does not want to be
embarrassed, although he has so few acquaintances himself that were they to
pass, he would see them coming from a mile away. Something nasty and more than
a little crass tells him that he is simply admiring the view back here. Tiny
waist he could span with his hands with a little effort, and incongruously
broad shoulders. A gentle rocking bounce in Daniel's step that is at odds with
his flat and tattered trainers.
Daniel pauses at the door and holds it open for Giles. "You sit," he says.
"I'll get the java."
Giles would like a secluded table, but the restaurant seems to have been
designed by a professional hostess, one who knows exactly how to get strangers
to mix and make nice with each other. He settles on the booth farthest from the
door.
At the counter, Daniel appears to be deep in conversation with a tall, sharp-
featured redhead. Giles occupies himself with trying to decipher the menu
options scrawled in garish colors on the chalkboards over the counter. It is
slow going, but fascinating; the lettering reveals influences of both the Arts
and Crafts movement, particularly in the serifs, and Warhol's later Pop pieces,
especially in regards to the squat spread of the lines and the blocky uprights.
Thanks to the squeaking of the wooden banquette, which rivals some of the worse
church pews he has had the misfortune to occupy over the years, Giles finally
registers Daniel's return. He looks down and finds, much to his relief, a
simple mug of coffee in front of him.
Daniel, on the other hand, has set about preparing a huge cup of something
that, beneath the froth and sprinkles and cinnamon sticks, may once have been
coffee.
Daniel tilts his head as he stirs the concoction, his lips tight with
concentration. "What?" he asks without looking up.
"That's quite a--" Giles begins. He does not want to hurt Daniel's feelings.
"Quite a drink."
"Gross, huh? All I wanted was a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a
twist of lemon, and look what she gave me."
Giles finds himself goggling while Daniel sets down the spoon and smiles at
him.
"Kidding. Not about it being gross, 'cause it is." Yet he leans forward and
sips it gingerly. A white scud adheres to his top lip and Giles schools himself
into stillness. He is at least conscientious enough to remember where he is and
keep his hands in his lap. Daniel licks the froth away, the tip of his tongue
sharp, and peers at Giles. "Good boy."
"Ah?"
"Nothing," Daniel says. "You're really on your best behavior today, aren't
you?"
Giles reaches for the jar of sugar and tips a short stream into his coffee.
When he has stirred it sufficiently, sipped, and set it back in its saucer, he
rests his hands on the table. "Have you received your class schedule for the
fall?"
Daniel slurps at the now muddied froth. "Yeah. Why?" he asks, somewhat
distractedly.
"Just like to be sure that you will be challenged," Giles says.
"Yes, Dad." Daniel pushes away the drink, grimacing, and picks up the dirty
spoon, rapping it on the back of his hand. He nods along to the rhythm and
looks back at Giles, smiling not a little beatifically. "I'll be challenged.
Highly challenged. And I'll never go near the sweet jane again. And I promise
to go to church every Sunday."
"I'm serious, Daniel." Giles wants to snap at him, or cuff him on the head. It
occurs to him to demand that Daniel act his age, except for the fact that he
*is* acting his age. Giles is the one misbehaving.
"So'm I. Completely--totally--crossing my heart, hoping to die--serious."
Daniel sits back, drumming his palms on his stomach. "I am. Big time."
"You don't care for school, do you?"
Daniel turns his head to look around the nearly empty restaurant. He keeps up
the beat on his belly as he starts to whistle under his breath. His attempt to
avoid the subject rivals Giles's own stunts in its complete transparency, and
Giles feels himself softening. So often these days he slips from anger and
impatience to an almost overwhelming sense of indulgence and affection.
"Daniel?"
"Yeah, Giles?"
"Ready to go?"
Daniel looks back at him, and the smile with which he graces Giles is truly
beatific. For an instant, that is, before it slides into a rather grotesque
leer. "Got some plans?" Daniel asks hoarsely.
That is precisely the issue: Giles does have plans. But he finds himself
increasingly unable to see them coming to fruition.
/
Oz is pretty flexible. Adaptable. It comes in handy in a town where kids
sometimes just don't come back to school on Monday and stores close in the dead
of night. To hear his mom tell it, though, he's always been this way. Calm
baby, sweet toddler, pretty dreamy kid.
Okay, so the dreaminess probably isn't good when it comes to school, but that's
just a little part of life. In the long run, anyway. In like a week or so,
school's going to be a very big part of life for at least another year. He's
getting the feeling, and this probably shouldn't surprise him, that Giles is
going to be the ultimate hardass about him doing his homework.
So he's not about to waste any time. He heads for Building 4616 every chance he
gets, skipping rehearsals, ditching Dev, leaving a mess of notes for his mom.
He's gorging himself on this the way bears eat more salmon than they want and
get so blubbery they can hardly move. Storing up for hibernation.
Sometimes when Giles is busy or asleep, Oz just wanders around the apartment,
checking it out like he's visiting for the first time. He's not sure what he's
looking for. He doesn't find it, anyway. He just wants to get a good sense of
what the place is like, how it feels when it's cloudy versus sunny, whether
things are different at midnight than they are right before dinner or after
breakfast.
Maybe he's not looking for something so much as getting the feel of the place,
storing it up inside his skin and behind his eyes. Giving himself enough
material to use for the times he'll have to be in class before he can get back
here.
There's sharing space, he gets that, but then there's spending time. How come
space can be shared like food, but time is wasted like money?
Makes no damn sense.
/
Daniel is kissing him quite thoroughly. Giles has only been out for less than
two hours, but the boy slipped quickly against him as soon as he opened the
door. Tugging him inside, Daniel reached behind Giles and shut the door with
the flat of his palm before pushing him back against it.
His shirt is open, and Daniel's, tossed on the floor, as Daniel grips him, one
hand at his waist, the other on his shoulder, humming around Giles's tongue. He
tastes like tomatoes, hot from the sun and almost unbearably sweet. When Giles
captures one hand and brings it between them to his mouth, he tastes the sticky
juice on Daniel's fingers, undercut with the tang of salt.
"Chopping," Daniel says simply as he nudges his finger between Giles's lips.
"Last of the toma--"
Giles sucks the finger hard into the back of his throat and Daniel breaks off
into a gravelly sigh, sagging alarmingly. Giles holds him up by the waist.
Daniel tightens his arm around Giles, rocking back on his heels, then forward
onto the balls of his feet, bringing his lips up against Giles's chest. A low,
heady thrum builds around Giles's spine as Daniel presses closer, and he
worries at the finger with his teeth until Daniel nips at his clavicle and
pulls away.
"Get that?" Daniel asks.
Giles hears the phone ringing for the first time.
Daniel crosses his arms over his chest. "'Course, I *could*, but maybe you--"
It is an idle threat, Giles knows this, yet panic spangles his vision and he
races to pick up the receiver.
It is worse than even his guilt-soaked imagination could have predicted.
"Rupert? Travers."
Giles collapses onto the nearest surface; the side table, it turns out, which
creaks ominously beneath him. "Yes, sir, of course--" He realizes he is trying
to tug his shirt closed and smooth his hair as if suddenly exposed to the glare
of police torches.
"I wonder, Rupert, how long you thought you might prolong this charade."
Daniel wanders over to the steps and sits, leaning back on his elbows, knees
knocking open and closed.
"You may be very far away," Travers continues. Giles closes his eyes. Strange
that when the moment comes, he is this calm. Shouldn't his chest be heaving
with something other than the remnants of lust?
"But, really, Rupert. Do you think us utter fools? Falsifying documentation,
defrauding the Council on numerous occasions: These are serious offenses.
Offenses that require severe consequences." Travers is savoring this, Giles can
tell. He lingers on the final syllables of "consequences" as if testing wine,
rolling them on his fat pink tongue.
"I understand that, sir," Giles says. When he opens his eyes, Daniel is out of
sight. He twists around, tracking the boy's movement, finding him in the
kitchen, filling a glass of water.
"And they pale in comparison to the real problem," Travers says with utter
satisfaction. He is nearly breathless with it.
"What is that?" Giles sounds bored to his own ears, and wonders if he feels it,
or if it is for Travers's benefit. Or Daniel's.
"Where is she, Rupert?"
"Who?" Giles stands from the wavering table and moves towards the dining area.
Daniel slips past him and Giles trails his knuckles down the boy's back.
"Droll. I can see you haven't lost your charm. The girl. Where is she?"
"Buffy?" Giles says. He nearly whispers her name, as if it is a curse or a
charm, laden with power. He clears his throat. "She's currently in Los Angeles.
Due to return any day now."
"How can you be sure of that?"
"I can't, you're right. But I am. Buffy will return shortly. And then--" He
falters as he catches sight of Daniel. The boy wraps an arm around his narrow
waist and twists in the opposite direction, his head lolling. The movement is
entirely innocent; he is, most likely, just working out a kink in his back. Yet
Giles suppresses a gasp at the seductive twist of muscles, the way the motion
lifts Daniel's small, pale nipples and drops his saggy waistband, revealing for
a moment the thatch of hair below his navel. Daniel shakes out his arms and
moves on; Giles squeezes shut his eyes and licks his lips. "Then all will
return to normal, I assure you."
"Odd, isn't it?" Travers says. "How you can assure me so blithely, as if your
word meant anything."
"Buffy is coming back, sir." Giles opens his eyes to see Daniel's bare feet
disappear up the stairs. "When she does, I will be myself again."
"You're speaking of the boy." Travers exhales raggedly. Giles hears, beneath
the croupy sound, a squeak and sigh of leather, and he knows that Travers is
tipping back in his chair, a smug little grin widening on his face.
"I-I don't know what you mean."
/
Oz wants to be around Giles. Wants to be touched--although he can get that
anywhere; wants to talk--although his voice works elsewhere; wants to hang.
He's having trouble finding the space between himself and Giles. He doesn't
think they're the same person or anything. He wouldn't want that, first of all,
and anyway that whole soulmate thing is pretty creepy. He's not thinking like
that. It's more about whether he can find where he is just Oz, outside of the
space he shares with Giles. This problem of space, what it's like being with
Giles--hell, what it's like when he's alone, *thinking* about Giles. It's all
wavery and unfolding, this sense of constant development without any end.
And he knows how stupid he is, because that's how he pictures time, too. He
probably got it from _A Wrinkle in Time_, this idea that time's a stretch of
fabric or string. He always kind of pictured the tassel that hung off his
grandma's good drapes; it was twisted and braided, the color of old brass.
Anyway, time's this unending undulating cord, and it can be bunched up,
wrinkled, bringing distant events together. So the picture in his head? Not
even his own. He could lie to himself and pretend he's just recycling the
image, that it's some kind of mental-imaginative conservation thing, good for
the soul. But maybe, more likely, he's just dumb.
So Giles has a girlfriend, name of Buffy. That's something right there that
shows how dumb Oz can be. And she's been away for the summer. But she's coming
back, probably from something for smart people in the city, like at the Getty,
where you learn how to read those inscriptions in stone that Giles is always
poring over in his books. Or maybe she's an actress, and she's been away on a
shoot.
Oz can see that, easy. Bit younger than Giles because, hey, he seems to like
'em young. Smarter than your average actress. Stage training, not just
commercials and shit; and how does he know the hierarchy of acting anyway?
He's running to the end of the cord, and wasn't the whole point of it the fact
that there *wasn't* an end? That it could get twisted or wrinkled or whatever,
but it would keep going on and on? Except it seems Giles has a big old pair of
pruning shears, and he's about to snap it off.
Nice of him to share.
/
*About the boy*, Travers had said. He is not so stupid after all. Or, perhaps,
Giles is not nearly as intelligent as he would like to think. He truly is as
transparent and easily-read as anyone else. He may be better at inventing
circuitous routes of logic, justification, and self-loathing, but when all is
said and done, he is no better than, just as bad as, everyone else.
He cannot, however, say the same of Daniel. The boy *is* unique. Giles's first
mistake was believing that being able to see that made him special, too.
He wants very much to look forward to September, past the next several days,
through the last long weekend. Toward the first sight of Buffy's upturned,
laughing face, just after her first joke at his expense.
It is safe to love her: That is his job, and, more than that, his vocation. In
her presence, he may fade to the status of cultural cliche, but he can, at
least, be certain of his permanence. He would never go so far as to maintain
that she is nothing without him; that would be utterly absurd and foolishly
arrogant. But he is something with her.
Perhaps he is simply too old to tolerate willingly the possibility of
impermanence. Perhaps he has grown to the point of knowing with what level of
dependence and responsibility he is comfortable, beyond which he cannot pass.
Perhaps he is simply too scared to try.
"So, grand hurrah," Daniel says, pulling the van up to the curb. "Plans for
Labor Day?"
He has no plans, or he has too many. Even Giles is confused at this point. He
lingers in his seat, hand on the latch, waiting for Daniel to take the key from
the ignition.
"No," Giles says. "What do you normally do?"
"Feel bad for Jerry's kids," Daniel says mysteriously. "Get stoned. Fuck around
like a degenerate."
He has been making comments like that, harsh and bilious, for several days now.
Giles had originally thought he was simply nervous about school starting, or
that there were problems with the band. As they accumulate, however, like
pebbles in Giles's shoes, they become more and more difficult to ignore.
"Is something on your mind, Daniel?"
Daniel shakes his head and shrugs. "You going in?" He lifts his chin at the
sidewalk.
"I thought you might join me," Giles says.
"Sure you have time?"
Giles does not press the issue. He simply unlatches the door, slides out to the
ground, and leans back in. "I'd like it," he says, "if you joined me."
Daniel follows. The tilt of his head and shoulders is meek.
It is only after the dinner plates are washed and dried and a second bottle of
wine opened that Giles notices the tremors in Daniel's hands, the relative
quickness to his pace as he wanders the living room, the rapidity of his
breathing.
"Something is on your mind," Giles says, pushing his chair back from his desk.
Daniel stops in front of the window to the garden. He puffs out a breath to fog
it and draws looping spirals on the glass. "So you staked out the summer, huh?"
he asks quietly, addressing the patterns he has drawn. "Surveyed with your
little tripod and binoculars, got the lay of the land, and found yourself
something to play with?"
Giles's fists clench. Words will not form on his tongue.
"That's great," Daniel continues. "The new conquistador, huh? Laying claim,
moving on when it's exhausted."
"That's just not true," Giles says.
"No?" Daniel turns suddenly and advances on Giles until he reaches the desk. It
is his turn to loom, and he does it well: arms stiff at his sides, eyes
narrowed to points. "What, you think I'm lying?"
"I'll be here, you see. I'm not moving on." Giles does not bother to ask how
Daniel knows any of this, where the clues were dropped, how badly his lies were
taken. It is enough to hold still and make it through this conversation. "But
you are."
"*Oh, Daniel, you have so much to learn, so much to see--*" Daniel mimics
fairly well Giles's own accent, but his quiet, characteristically vague anger
torques it into something sing-songy and effeminate.
Even Daniel, it seems, can find the cruelty everyone harbors somewhere in their
heart. Some twisted paternal part of Giles is proud of him for that, even as
the rest of him winces.
There is knife-sharp cruelty and more than a little deliberation in their
argument. Giles finds that he can argue best with something resembling complete
detachment.
"Got news for you, Giles. It's not just you. Not your summer, either."
"Since when do *you* care about your time?"
"Didn't have any, didn't care about it. Never thought about it."
"I know."
"Shut up, Giles. Never thought about it, 'til you decided to mortgage it and go
for Park Place."
"You've lost me there."
Daniel inhales sharply enough that Giles shakes himself away from the cool
embrace of detachment and checks his face. He is looking away, hugging his arms
around his chest and completely still. "Never had you."
"That's not what I meant." Giles slides back into monitoring mode, knowing that
if he does not, they will find themselves in a conversation that begins with
semantics and slips into honesty. Better to argue now.
"Whatever."
They argue. Then Daniel shoves him upstairs to bed.
/
Oz could give a flying fuck about some chick who's coming back. That's not the
problem, and Giles is smart enough to get that and not offer any stupid
apologies or explanations.
"Hey, here's something," Oz says, stripping off his tee shirt and throwing it
on the bed. Giles is so tense and quiet it's almost funny, like if he makes too
much noise he'll crack. He's got himself backed up against the headboard,
posture just as perfect as it always is, but his jaw's tight and his eyes are
little slits like he's afraid he's going to start crying. "How come I've never
fucked you?"
Giles glares at him but licks his lips all the same. It's kind of hot. Creepy
as hell, but hot. "Well, you see, when a pederast takes a catamite--"
"Fuck you, Giles."
"No, you're not listening," Giles says sadly. "Such a thing would be
inconceivable."
Oz hasn't felt this hot and flushed, soaked with sharp little feverish
pinpricks, in a hell of a long time. When he climbs up over Giles, bracing his
arms on either side of his head and looking down, Giles's eyes are glittery and
black, his mouth all thin and snaky. "Rules, right? All those rules in your
head."
Maybe this is where he's separate from Giles. Right here, a couple inches above
him, their cocks rasping against each other, so close he can feel Giles's
breath like wind on his face. That would be ironic.
The thing of it is, Oz hates irony. Loathes it. It's probably easy to make the
mistake of thinking he's big on it, what with the wry monosyllabism and all.
Irony is about knowing something someone else doesn't know, and finding that
amusing. He picked that up in English class somehow, and the whole concept
bothers him. Why not just tell the other person? Laughing at them because you
know something is just wrong.
It's also making him really fucking hard. Combined with the little squeals
Giles is making, little moans and whimpering pleas. Jagged thrusts against Oz's
stomach, nails raking his sides as one legs comes up and wraps around the back
of Oz's thigh.
He'd rather not be separate right now, thanks all the same. Oz pushes away and
sits back on the bed.
"Nope," he says when Giles reaches for him. "Sorry, man."
/
Daniel left Giles in bed and slept on the couch that night.
When Giles finds him in the morning, he kisses him chastely and hands him his
orange juice. "Drink up," Daniel says. "Don't want scurvy."
If his first mistake was thinking he was special, Giles had plenty of time last
night to work through the mistakes succeeding that one. Taken together, they
all point to his reluctance to acknowledge the boy's inherent kindness. He is
young, and more prone to anger than Giles originally thought, but he is more
gentle and kind than Giles, monstrous and greedy as he is, ever deserved.
"Eat," Daniel says and hands him a bowl of Weetabix decorated with peach
slices. "Milk's on the table."
Giles wants to ask why he is being subjected to this, but at the same time he
knows that it is the best possible, most well-deserved torture anyone could
conceive. He carries his bowl to the dining table and sits like a good boy.
"There's a carnival today," Daniel says when he joins him. He pats Giles's
shoulder. "Eat, would you?"
Giles obeys mechanically. Twigs and slugs would taste better.
"There's rides. Dorky little midway and horse shows or something. Wanna go?"
He looks up to find Daniel smiling at him, brows raised. Giles swallows the
mess in his mouth and attempts to remember what he should say in this
situation. There are hundreds of words from which to choose, yet he would like
nothing more than to retreat upstairs and hide under his duvet like the coward
he is.
"Not going all repentant again, are you?" Daniel asks. "'Cause, you know?
Already did that."
Giles swallows and keeps his gaze steady on Daniel's face. "Be quiet for a
moment, will you?"
"Sorry," Daniel says. Giles holds up his hand. "Right. Not sorry."
"I've said this before," Giles says. "But be patient with a doddering old fool,
will you?"
Daniel nods. "Not old," he observes. "What? It's true."
Giles cannot speak and see Daniel at the same time, much less have to endure
his kneejerk kindness. He stirs the remnants of cereal and watches the threads
of peach flesh waver in the milk. "The parts we have to play, roles to be
assumed. You recall that? I was wrong--deeply, terribly wrong."
Daniel pushes away his bowl and places the spoon next to it. "I don't know, it
kind of made sense."
"It's sensible, to be sure," Giles says. He feels words align themselves in his
mind, subdued and obedient as pauper children awaiting gruel. "That does not
make it any less wrong, or pig-headed, or hideously arrogant."
"Thing is--" Daniel rises from the table and rearranges the bangles on his
wrist. "It's really easy to say that now. Apologizing later? Always easy."
"You like easy," Giles hears himself say. "Don't you? You have no taste for the
complex."
Daniel is at the door, sweatshirt in his hand, when Giles looks up. "I'm out of
here."
/
Days pass, and Oz sleeps a lot.
He's been keeping bad hours in addition to all his other bad habits this
summer, and he's going to need all the rest in the world when school starts on
Tuesday.
He'd like to pretend that this is the way the end of summer always feels. Like
you woke up from a coma and everyone's gone, everyone you ever loved and
trusted. He pretends pretty well for his mom, even for Dev, the one time he
calls.
But he's never figured out endings. Sure, there's graduation. Funerals. But
they're all made up, you know? They tell you what to do, tell you how to feel,
and when. That's why they're called ceremonies. You don't even have to be
there, and they'd still be held.
He's right here, though. Not going anywhere.
/
Giles knows now that is too easy to believe in the myth of multiple selves, in
his old vision of the wardrobe. As if he could separate experiences and
decisions out into virtual people, shrug on Ripper when he felt frisky, button
up the librarian when circumstances called for restraint and analysis, exchange
any of them at will. It is so easy to believe that it can't possibly be true.
It is a tale cleaned up for children, tidied to the point of habit and
cravenness, and he has to be better than this.
And it is habitual and craven to blame Ripper for every revolting action and
stupid decision. But it's also easy. He would like to believe that when he
touched Daniel, every single time, that he had entered a fugue state, had given
way to someone stronger and crueler, to Ripper. And even if that were not true,
he wishes to God that it *had* been Ripper at the breakfast table the last time
he saw the boy.
He remembers sitting on the edge of his bed that evening before the concert,
wearing only old chinos and his undershirt, never dreaming that he had arrived
at some sort of fork in the road. He would have thought he was well past such
moments. They belonged to young men, antsy with possibility and brimming with
doubt. Sitting hunched there, however, he was more naked and unformed than any
infant.
He should have listened to the doubt, and poured himself a drink. Settled onto
the chesterfield for a good long read, dozed off, and woken to the early
morning, glasses twisted up his forehead.
He should not have risen, pulled on a shirt, and left the house.
As he does now, holding a scrap of recycled paper on which Daniel had scrawled
the address of the band's new rehearsal pace. There is no chance in the world
that he will find Daniel there, but he goes anyway.
The storage spaces are arrayed in a bewildering maze of outbuildings and former
warehouses, and Giles wanders for nearly an hour before he finds the right one.
Of course, only Devon is there.
Giles pauses in the entrance and clears his throat. Devon looks up from the pad
in his hand.
"The hell you doing here?" he asks.
Giles raises his hand in a gesture that is part supplication, part greeting.
"Hello, Devon. Have you seen Oz?"
"Lost your boy toy, huh? That's rough." Devon shakes his head, smirking, and
goes back to his notebook. Giles leans against the wall, hands in his pockets,
knowing that he can outlast any of this child's obnoxious behavior.
"You still here?" Devon says without lifting his eyes from the page. He has
spoken far more quickly than Giles was expecting.
"Yes. I believe I asked you a question."
Devon rakes back his hair and tosses aside the notebook. Bracing his hands on
his knees, he rocks back and forth, still smirking, eyes narrowing as he takes
Giles in. "No, haven't seen him. That all?"
"I suppose so," Giles says, but he makes no move to go.
Devon licks his lips so slowly that Giles knows the gesture is deliberate. He
just cannot tell whether the deliberation is supposed to be seductive or rude,
or some combination thereof. Giles shifts until he is more comfortable,
crossing one ankle over the other.
"You didn't fucking listen," Devon says.
"Pardon?"
"You're really smart," Devon says. "But that's your problem. No one's as smart
as they think they are. Not Oz. Not you."
Giles crosses his arms, pretending to give this due consideration. "I'm afraid
you're going to have to explain. I'm not quite following you."
"So smart, think you don't have to listen," Devon says, standing up and
starting to pace. "That clear enough?"
"Nearly."
"I told you not to fuck with him."
"You have a point," Giles says. "But I don't recall ever being told--especially
by *you*--anything about what and what not to do with Daniel."
Devon blinks and runs his thumb over his lower lip. "Didn't I?" he asks. He
actually looks a bit concerned and confused. "I must have."
Giles starts to think that his former panic was misplaced, a simple matter of
overreaction. It's going to be all right. He starts to believe this ridiculous
interview is drawing to a close, that Devon is calming down after his initial,
obnoxious jitteriness. That any moment now he will learn where to find Daniel.
"But I always have that talk," Devon protests. "Whenever Oz hooks up."
"Hooks up?" Giles cannot resist the snideness.
Devon shrugs, and Giles does admire his stubbornness, even if it is truly
exasperating. "Yeah. The talk. Goes a little like this: Don't fuck with him.
Don't hurt him. Have fun. Anyway, it must've slipped my mind--"
Giles nods and even smiles politely as Devon resumes pacing, shaking his head,
disappointed and contrite.
"I've been smoking a hella lot of weed. Maybe that's it."
Giles continues nodding and smiling as patiently as he can manage.
"Or maybe--" Devon says, turning towards Giles and grinning widely. "Maybe it's
because it never would have occurred to me that a nice smart old guy like you
would, you know, molest my best friend."
Giles is on him instantly, hand on his chest, driving Devon back into the metal
wall. Devon's head bounces back, and the metal thumps and rings, but he never
stops grinning.
"Dude," he says, grasping Giles's wrist. "Personal space, okay?"
Giles pushes him back again, sliding his hand up to the boy's throat. "Don't
you ever say that word again."
"I'm sorry. I'm not on NAMBLA's mailing list. Is there a better term for
molesting someone?"
Two fingers laid against Devon's windpipe; pressed gently, they make the boy's
eyes widen and dim the worst of the grin. "What did I just tell you?"
Devon's pupils are dilated, his cheeks flushed in his otherwise rapidly paling
face, and his breathing jagged and harsh. For a flash, Giles remembers with his
entire body just how good this feels, having someone under your hands,
wriggling, about to start pleading. The border between sex and violence cannot
be discerned with the body.
He eases the pressure of his fingers slightly. "Do you understand?"
Devon nods, his eyes darting everywhere. Giles shakes his head and knocks him
back again. "I didn't hear you. Do you--"
"Giles. Stop it."
At the sound of Daniel's voice, Giles wheels around, off-balance, releasing
Devon as he turns. He hears him slide down the wall but does not take his eyes
off Daniel. He stands slumped, hands deep in his pockets, in the entrance. A
skinny silhouette against the white glare.
"Dev? You okay?"
Devon coughs and sputters behind Giles, but Giles cannot move.
"Yeah," Devon says. "Wind knocked out, is all."
Daniel nods shortly and turns away. Unmoving, cemented and more shamed than he
ever thought possible, Giles watches him fade into the glare of the sun.
When he is gone, Giles turns, offering a hand to Devon.
The boy flinches. "Don't fucking touch me, man."
/
Oz waits by Giles's car. It was pretty obvious he was here, since it's not like
anyone else drives anything remotely resembling this thing. He's been waiting
for a while now, starting to wonder.
He doesn't know what he's doing. Definitely doesn't know what he did that made
Giles jump Dev like that. To be fair, though, Dev probably pushed him into it;
he's talented like that.
But mostly Oz is just wondering. He doesn't know what he's doing. Let alone
feeling. *If* he's feeling anything. Days in bed kind of tend to numb you out
like that, so you have to wonder if you're even awake. Everything's just
majorly out of whack. Just all shoved around and out of order, except he never
noticed there was an order to things before. Now it's different and he's so
mixed up it's not even funny.
The worst part? Can't ask Giles about it because he's obviously a hell of a lot
more mixed up than Oz. And isn't that just so beautifully ironic.
When Giles finally appears, Oz meets him and takes his hand. Feels grateful
that Giles lets him and doesn't even look around first or anything. They walk
past the end of the parking lot into the weeds and down the hill to the where a
stream used to run. It's cemented over now, thanks to flood warnings and LA's
need for water and all that Chinatown stuff. When he was a kid, he used to lie
on top of the hot cement with his ear pressed up against it. If you could hear
the ocean in shells, he figured, it should be cake to hear the stream under the
cement.
This time, though, he takes Giles just to the edge of the streambed and sits
down across from him.
"May I ask you something?" Giles says. So polite it hurts.
"Told you already."
"What?"
Oz pulls one knee up to his chest and puts his chin on it. "Ask me anything.
That's not going to change." Giles looks pale, even with the sun starting to
lower and go all rusty.
"Can you try to tell me what's bothering you?" Giles asks. "I know, you can't.
I just--"
"'Sokay," Oz says. He'd much rather just sit here for a while, but Giles is
fond of the words and the talking, and this is the least he can do for him.
"Um, see, it's weird."
"Weird." Giles is gentle again, but this is different from their super-bruise
days. It's like he's being gentle with himself, like he broke all his ribs and
has to move--speak, whatever--without straining anything. "All right."
Oz runs his fingers up and down his shin bone for a while, trying to figure out
what to say. "I'm not upset that you thought it had to end, you know," he says.
Giles's eyes go a little wide at that. "That makes me sad, but it's not what's
bothering me."
"No?"
"Yeah," Oz says. "I mean, yeah, you could have told me. That would have been
polite."
Giles nods. "Fair enough. So what is it?"
Oz wants to take this carefully. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but
that doesn't mean he can't try. "I'm starting to see why people hook up sex to
love. Starting to get the point of the whole tunnel-vision thing. It's not like
it's natural or anything. But it's safer. It's what you do in the dark when you
don't know what's going to happen next. I get that now. Way easier to focus on
one body and forget about the others. If you screw that up, well, fine.
Tunnel's already dug. Just look for another light."
Giles brushes his hand over Oz's and squeezes. "I don't think you actually
believe that."
"Prob'ly not. But it's better in the long run. Maybe I'll luck out. Stumble
across someone magnificent. Maybe not. Probably not. Doesn't matter."
Giles drops his hand at the same time his head kind of tips forward until he's
looking down into his lap. "You're shutting down."
"Yeah," Oz says. "Learned a lot from you, haven't I?"
"It would appear so."
He can see all the crinkly lines around Giles's eyes, and all of a sudden Oz
gets scared. Really scared, not afraid like when Dev was dangling against the
wall, or when Giles was glaring at him, daring him to fuck him, not even as
scared as he felt the time he invited Giles to the concert. But really scared.
Because, god help him, if Giles cries, he doesn't know what he's going to do.
He hisses out a breath, trying to stop whatever's about to happen. Which is
really helpful, isn't it? Like whistling in a hurricane or whatever. "Giles?"
Giles looks back at him, eyes not so crinkly, but his face is all pale and
tight, and that's even worse. "I can understand that, you know."
"I know," Oz says. His heart's skipping around like a gerbil on crack and he
tries to smile, tries to get a smile or little look from Giles, some tiny thing
he can hold onto, just for a second, while he calms down.
Giles, though, isn't giving anything away. Just gazing steadily over Oz's
shoulder. Voice all quiet and librarian-y. "But you're going to need to
remember a few things. Can you do that?"
Oz wraps his hand around his shin and leans forward. "I can try."
"I mean for me," Giles says. Then he shakes his head like he's made some
horrible mistake. "You don't owe me anything, I know that. But I'm going to ask
anyway. Indulge the old man one more time?"
"Not old," Oz says. "But go ahead." Giles needs to talk because he's afraid; he
gets that, and that's okay. He can talk as much as he wants.
"Don't forget that you're choosing to shut down. That it's a move you can
change later. If, when, you need to."
Oz has to smirk at that. Like moods were like hats or something, and they can
be changed if you just wanted it hard enough. "Sure."
"I'm serious. The worst thing you can do to yourself is forget that."
Oz nods slowly as he runs his palms up and down his forearms, shivering
slightly in the twilight chill. "Okay."
"One more thing," Giles says. "Is that all right?"
"Yeah. Of course." Only one more? He's kind of hoping Giles had some huge list
of demands, all sorts of stuff, big and small, that it would take weeks to work
through.
Giles reaches out and strokes Oz's cheek. It feels really nice, warm and soft.
"The next time you feel like this--"
Oz jerks back. "Not gonna happen."
"Believe me," Giles says. "It will. Just do me this favor, all right?"
"Yeah." He sighs. Sometimes Giles can be almost as dense as Oz. Like he's ever
going to put himself in this kind of place again.
"The next time, call it love. Even if you don't think it is, try to call it
that. At the very least, it will make him or her very happy."
"Fuck, no. Not love."
Giles shakes his head and removes his glasses. "As you wish."
He can't take this much longer. Just-- No. He's shivering and his lips feel
chapped, and the ache in his knuckles is kind of throbbing and jerking around
like he's suddenly come down with arthritis. Oz leans forward.
"My turn?"
Giles cups his cheek, and maybe this is the last time Oz gets to wonder what he
sees when he looks at him like that, and that sucks more than anything, because
it's getting dark so he can't make out all the green lights and flecks and
little spangles in the eyes.
"It wasn't like Dev said. Like toying with someone," Oz says. "Getting your
rocks off with a warm toy or something." He's embarrassed now, which he
probably should've been earlier; maybe that would have kept him from opening
his mouth. "Fuck buddies, or whatever."
"No," Giles says. "Not that." And that's bizarre, because Oz wasn't asking
anything. He was trying to *tell* Giles something. Giles thinks he's a slut,
and that's okay. But the point of it was that he let Giles know that's not what
was going on. That's all. But here Giles is, agreeing with Oz like they're
trying to answer a problem set and checking their work against each other's.
Like Oz was asking him something yet again.
Oz takes Giles's hand. It just kind of lies there like something dead. A fish
or a slab of meat. He trails his fingertips over the back of the hand. He can't
look up. "But I could do that, you know," Oz says. If he has to spell it out,
he will, but it's not going to be pretty. "If you wanted."
Giles chuckles dryly. Not laughing. Just rocks moving around against each
other. "I can, as well. In fact, I will. Whenever you might want me."
"Huh?" That can't make the sense Oz thinks it does.
"As I said. Whenever you want," Giles says. "But you? You deserve better than
that."
"All or nothing, right?"
Giles nods.
Oz holds his breath, but nothing else happens.
They stop talking.
/
Giles will promise Daniel anything. He will do anything the boy asks of him.
He is certain that Daniel knows this.
Hence the silence.
/
It's quiet now.
And *now* goes on for a good long time. Lasts longer than Oz ever thought it
could.
The dark seeps around them. Couple of locusts trill. A frog hoots and burps in
the weeds. Chilly, getting chillier, as they walk back to the parking lot,
their fingers, hands, arms entwined.
Against the side of the van: One deep, rapid kiss, totally wanton and wet that
sets them both grinning and moaning, liquifying hands and limbs, liberating
zippers and hems until their hands are twined around rigid cocks, fingers
interlaced, thrusting together in this long fluid rhythm while they stare at
each other, beaming, almost singing as they come.
Then one dry hard kiss, all stubble and teeth, a swipe of sticky palm on crappy
paint-job, and Oz moves to the van's door. Giles stands there, smiling back at
him.
"Should get going," Oz says. Giles nods as Oz scratches the back of his head
and squints. "Later, huh?"
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