Author: MegL42
Site: Dramatic Gesture
Rating: Mm, NC-17.
Disclaimers: Joss owns all. I just make them do naughty things to each other. No that they're complaining about it.
Distribution: Dramatic Gesture, the Warren, Loaded. If you want, just ask.
Feedback: Please sir, I want some more. megl42[at]aol.com
Spoilers: through Season 3, nothing recent
Notes: Oz POV piece right before Graduation. The second person voice worked well for my last fic, so I wanted to attempt one for Oz. Wrote this one listening to U2, and once again, not surprisingly, "The First Time."

The library's changed since he took his books out: although Dickinson and Twain and Homer remain, silent testimonies to years already passed, but the empty shelves only confirm what you already knew: your time here is finished. The office is dark, the door locked, the glass cool. Your breath fogs the window when you lean against the door. Would it be silly of you to smudge your initials in with his on what used to be his door? You suppose not, as you trail your finger across. D.O. + R.G. Dorg. Hm. Not exactly the key to unlocking all the secrets between you and him, but it will have to do. Daniel Osbourne-Giles. D.O.G. That's only slightly ironic.

You turn away from the door now, and head up the stairs to the stacks. Your first kiss was here, while dust motes danced around you and settled forever on ignored volumes as your hands found the heat in his neck, as your movements disturbed the quiet air. He had resisted, but you had planned ahead for that, a prepared speech of responsibility and the nature of love and what exactly you felt for him. Of course, it was thrown out the window once you had tasted him: tea, apple, the faintest hint of toothpaste clinging to his teeth. You had to use other means to convince him.

He asked you about Willow. What you felt about her. What you feel about her. You struggled to explain. You still can't, not precisely, but then again, when is love precise? You wished you could use Venn diagrams, equations of attraction to tell him you love them both. You need them both, because Giles and Willow complete different parts of you. She'll be gone for the summer though, and you'll miss her, but he's not taking her place. But you can't ignore the fact that he's here.

You had kissed among these stacks countless times after the first, and while these shelves are still full, the same volumes covered by the same dust that you had watched filter in the still air as you kissed him, the nostalgia has overwhelmed the actual memories. The library won't be here forever though, you know that it will be lost along with the rest of the school in the battle against the Mayor. So you're here to savor the last few moments you can.

You should have expected him. He knows you better than you know yourself sometimes, and that's saying something. Because it's hard enough being expected to think like a teenager once, let alone again because he happens to be dating one. At that, you smile. You're going out with your librarian. That's one to write home about. But he's here, and thoughts like that are slightly pointless when you could be capitalizing on other thoughts, such as the ones that involve kissing.

You decide that's a good plan of action. You are Oz, man of action. Perhaps Giles can be man of reaction, because the way he's kissing you back certainly leaves nothing else to be desired. You make a mental note to examine the chemistry of your lips together later, but right now, there's too much to be enjoyed. His heat especially. He's solid while Willow is soft. There's a thousand other differences: short hair versus long hair, laugh lines versus smooth skin, and on and on. You love them both in your own understated way. But while she finds you quiet and aloof at times, he understands. He knows how it is to be in love with more than one person at the same time, to be so filled with love that one person won't suffice. So you kiss him harder to show everything you're thinking, and god, he knows.

When you finally separate, you know your time is up here. It's time to graduate. It's time to make a choice. You smile at him, and walk over to the door again. This time you purposely fog up the glass, and around the initials that appear, you draw a heart. Sometimes it's the little things that show the most. When he walks up behind you, you know it's going to happen now. You've been waiting for it, and this might be it, the last chance you have together. The summer will be here soon, everything's unsure. You might die, he might die in the upcoming battle. It has to be now.

He's gentle as he leads you to the table. The wood table that you studied on, and read countless prophecies and demon descriptions on will also be the place you make love with him for the first time. You nuzzle into his neck as he lays you across the table, and he smells of cologne and tweed, he smells old-fashioned. You never thought you'd fall for an old-fashioned man. Not that he's old - well, he is old, but you're all old here, life on a Hellmouth will do that to you - but he's been aged, like fine wine. He was on a roll with the asinine metaphors. His Willow: love makes you do the wacky. He asks why you're smiling, and you kiss his ear as you tell him its because he's perfect in his own way. His answering look is all the reminder you needed of why you kissed him the first time.

The library is dark, the double doors leak small traces of the fluorescent lights down the hall through their gridded windows. There's no danger of being caught tonight, despite it only being a few days before graduation. And this is where it should be done, this was your space together: the only place where a middle-aged British watcher and a teenaged musician on the cusp of enlightenment could find each other.

You're both pale, which amuses you slightly. And he has hair where you're smooth, so you trail your fingers across his chest, and write D.O + R.G over his heart. He kisses you as he enters for the first time, and you twitch, adjusting. It's painful. He told you it would be painful. But then he moves again, and the pain melts into something else. You catch his eyes, and the dance begins. There's a sad beauty in it that only the two of you could share.

He's holding back for fear of hurting you, you're holding back for fear of hurting yourself. You cant give all of yourself to him. It wouldn't be fair. He has his Buffy, you have your Willow. Life isn't meant to work out this way. But damned if being wrong didn't feel so good.

You thought the table would be uncomfortable, you were expecting it actually. Instead, you barely even notice. All your attention is focused on the man above you, the man inside you, to use a cliché that you always hated, he's surrounding you. Outside, there's a world of vampires, demons… werewolves. Vampire slayers, watchers. In here, there's only two men who have found sense in the ordinary act of love.

When he comes inside you, something deep inside you breaks and you're shuddering and trembling, and you're his. You can't breathe underneath him without breathing only him, and you flatten your nose against his neck and neither of you can breathe when this is happening, when the pleasure overwhelms you both and all rational thought and the way your nerve endings are supposed to work.

When you reconstruct each other in kisses and touches, you understand what being an adult is. Compromise is not a part of childhood, or even a part of being a teenager. But you can compromise on this. There might not be a happy ending for the two of you, in fact, you're almost sure there won't be one, but there's the time in the middle that you get to have. The time where he's yours, and you're his, and there's more of this making the nerve endings explode.

When he takes you hand, and the double doors swing behind you for the last time, there might be no hope left. Why have hope in a place like this? It's a foolish notion, but one that you'll rely on until the end. You hope. You hope that you can live up to their expectations: his Daniel, her Oz.

When you leave the library together, the darkness wraps around you, almost separating you from him, if not for the final gesture of your entwined hands. Painted fingernails against his clean and neatly trimmed ones. Both callused: one from band practice, one from battle training. Can anyone train you for this? And there's a battle to live through, a summer of uncertainty ahead, but on this night, you're Oz, man of action. And for the first time, you understand love.