AUTHOR: Glossolalia
E-MAIL: glossolalia_01[at]yahoo.com
SUMMARY: It's Giles's birthday. Oz is stoked. Part of the G/O Jazzverse; start of s2, they've been together since Giles arrived in Sunnydale.
FEEDBACK: Is lovely.
WEBSITE: Glossings
RATING: NC-17
PAIRING: Giles/Oz
DATE: February 14, 2004
DISCLAIMERS: Not my characters. My words, though.
Note: For the rescuing romance challenge. Title from Sonic Youth's "In the Mind of the Bourgeois Reader". For kindkit in gratitude and love.

It's Giles's birthday. Oz is stoked.

They cooked dinner together, like they always do when Oz comes over. Giles said no fuss, but Oz smuggled in the good rice vinegar to dress the buckwheat noodles with and just happened to have a bunch of scallions and a sack of mussels, too.

That it's *oysters* that are supposed to be the aphrodisiac, not mussels, doesn't bother him much, not after Giles says that the rule really should apply to all shellfish. A couple times.

He's stuffed and slightly woozy on wine as he presses Giles's shoulder down so he can clear the table by himself.

"Oz, really. I'm not yet entirely decrepit."

Balancing the plates on his forearm, the way he learned to do at the Pump, Oz leans over and kisses the top of Giles's head. "Maybe. Don't want to risk it, though."

Giles tries to swat him but the wine's making Oz even quicker on his feet than usual.

"Sit tight," Oz says as he deposits the dishes in the sink and washes his hands. "Still have cake to do."

He wasn't sure what kind of cake Giles would like; other than the occasional Cadbury bar, he's never even seen Giles eat sweets. He was going to fall back on the good old chocolate cake with orange-juice frosting, but eventually it occurred to him that while that might be *his* favorite, ever since his Gram baked cupcakes like that for Halloween the year he lived with her, it wasn't necessarily something Giles would like.

Then he was walking home from Giles's apartment one night last week, hugging his arms across his chest against the frigid tension that always seems to settle over him when he has to go, and he bit his lip. Thought of cold things that manage to be comforting: Leaving Giles, but knowing he'll see him the next day. Ice-skating. And lemonade.

Hence, lemon layer cake with a lemon glaze. Just one regular layer, because there's only the two of them. Candied orange and lemon peel sprinkled on top and in the dark of the kitchen, it kind of glitters like fireflies.

The candles were the trickiest part. Most fun, too. Oz withdraws the blueprint from his pocket and unfolds it. He spent most of calc for the last couple weeks sketching out potential candle-arrays.

43's not the easiest number to arrange on a small surface.

Seven rows of six candles, the fourth and middle row bulging with seven candles? Six rows of seven candles, topped by an extra one?

It was the nautilus that made up his mind - the one he wears on a chain around his neck, the one he picked up just before stepping on it in the sand at Catalina. He checked with Glick the calc teacher, read up a little on topology at the UC Sunnydale library, and eventually worked it out. He'd swirl the candles, put the tallest in the center of the cake, then work outward in something like the Fibonacci sequence until he'd covered the entire surface.

Mr. Glick gave him ten extra points toward the midterm for solving the problem so elegantly.

Now it's just a matter of lighting them all and carrying the cake out to the table.

Giles twists in his seat, all the lights dimmed, and Oz can't see his eyes because the candles are glowing against his glasses. But he's smiling and Oz is actually *singing*. He doesn't ever sing, not even if Giles asks him to; if he's playing Giles a new song (most recently "In the Mind of the Bourgeois Reader", because he's started collecting songs about books for Giles), he'll talksing the lyrics if he has to.

Anyone can sing "Happy Birthday", though, and it's making Giles smile even more widely, changing his entire face. Oz places the cake in front of Giles and slides onto his lap, arm around his neck, as he reaches the end of the song.

Giles turns his head as Oz is about to kiss his cheek, so they kiss instead, silent and soft. Then Giles slips his arm around Oz's waist, tipping their foreheads together.

The candles glow and waver out of the corner of his eye like sunset on moving water.

"Happy birthday," Oz says for the thousandth time tonight. "Make a wish."

Giles glances at the cake. "You didn't -"

"All 43." Giles tries to frown but Oz kisses him again, grinning. "I did. Make a wish before we have to eat like wax cake."

They blow them out together, and get them all on the first try. Giles is still shaking his head, baffled and disbelieving, as Oz slices and serves the cake.

He's not sure what to call times like these, where they're so close he can hear his t-shirt whispering against the buttons on Giles's shirt, his cords whicking against Giles's khakis. When they eat off the same plate because neither seems capable of letting go of the other. He wants to have a name for this, but instead he has sensations, memories, the warm solidity of Giles and the softness of his hair brushing Oz's cheek as he leans over to take another bite.

He could ask Giles, and no doubt Giles will have the answer. He'll squint and press his lips together, considering the best way to phrase it. Then he'll smile at Oz, one of those fleeting smiles that's better than any words.

It's closeness, proximity that makes Oz feel naked like he does after a really long, really hot bath, all his pores open to the air, flushed and safe. It's comfort, too, even if he didn't know he *needed* comforting. It's exciting, and relaxing, and he wants to slide up under Giles's skin and rest there until the end of the world. It's quiet but full of constant conversation, spoken and silent. It's time when you don't have to worry about the clock, when time slows down to the thump of Giles's heartbeat and the heat of his breath on Oz's face, when time passes as naturally as wind.

Giles is kissing his neck, wrapping his other arm around Oz's waist, the cake long-forgotten, and Oz picks up one of Giles's hands, kisses the knuckles and sparse spray of hair on the backs of his fingers. Silky, like cat whiskers, tickly against his lips. Shimmers and heat ripple over Oz's skin from the pressure of Giles's mouth, and he turns Giles's hand, kisses the palm, licks along the lifeline until Giles shudders beneath him and scrapes his teeth down the nape of Oz's neck.

"Giles?" Oz whispers.

"Hmm?"

Oz swallows, takes another breath, and reminds himself he can do this. He wants to do this, so much. "Ready for the next part?"

"Which would involve what, exactly?"

"Want to -" Oz starts. Giles. Birthday. He wants to give Giles everything, make this the best birthday he's ever had. "Want to take you to bed."

Giles squeezes his hand and blows cool air on his neck, over the dampness, and Oz shivers as Giles pushes his hips up against him, just once, and he's hard already.

"Taking that as a yes?"

Nip on his earlobe, then the familiar rumble of Giles's soft laughter. "Answer's always yes. Anytime, you know that."

"Yeah," Oz breathes. Slides off Giles's lap but won't let go of his hand. "C'mon."

Giles must sense his nervousness or something, because he catches Oz by the shoulder and makes him turn around. "Oz, you don't have to -"

"Do anything I don't want?"

Giles nods.

Oz circles his arms around Giles's waist and kisses down the row of small pearly buttons. "Want to," he says when he reaches Giles's belt and looks back up. Bathflush, naked and open, and his breathing suddenly fixes itself, his nerves draining away. Soon as he sees the dark intensity of Giles's eyes, the small amused curve to his mouth, Oz believes he can do anything. "Want to so much. Want you -"

Hands in his hair as Giles cradles his skull, kisses him deeply. Heat of his mouth, taste of him, bittersweet, dark, rich, and Oz moves against him a couple times, can't stop himself, before he finally breaks away.

"Want to," he says again. "Come on."

He can't possibly name everything he wants, but Oz knows that it all boils down to one thing, one word: Giles. As they climb the stairs, pause to kiss and untuck shirts, slip hands up backs and down chests, it's all Oz needs to know.

/

It usually takes getting past Sunnydale's city limits for Oz to feel like he can do this. Something about escape, a slight lessening in atmospheric pressure; Giles might say removal from the hellmouth's strongest vibrations.

Maybe it's just getting to be alone with Giles. Seeing the horizon instead of his mantelpiece, feeling the breeze through open windows, watching asphalt streak past under the hood of the van.

First time was right before they left Catalina.

Late afternoon, Oz was sunburned and the image of Giles - windblown, laughing, loose and easy - was solarized onto the back of his eyelids. Sand in his shorts, his hair, stuck to the sweat on his chest. Gritty, half-heatstroked, about to get cranky because they had to go back and he just.didn't.want.to, he dragged Giles into the back of the van.

Dark back there, the air hot and thick from being closed up all day long, and he pushed against Giles half-blindly, tugging at his shirthem, his hair, kissing him hard, feeling him shake with laughter.

Palms, whole body, slick with suntan lotion, scratchy with sand, Oz twisting around Giles, one knee in his crotch, yanking at clothes and kissing Giles's sweaty face. At first, he smelled and tasted like coconut lotion and mustard from the hot dogs and cold spring water from Oz's cooler, but as Oz straddled him, jumpy solar flares bursting out under his skin, prickle and tension of sunburn rippling over him, then pushed him back and dragged tongue and teeth down his chest, he started tasting just like Oz, like Oz's spit and weed and plain heat.

Against Oz's hip, Giles was getting harder, hotter, rubbing as he chuckled, and Oz grunted, opening Giles's fly, then tugging his own shorts off without unbuttoning, kissed him harder. Hands on Giles's shoulders, he rose up, grinding their cocks together, staring through half-lowered lids.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked.

Giles shook his head, grinning so widely Oz dipped down and bit his cheek. Giles just laughed harder. "I feel like a teenager -"

"Nah," Oz said. Drew his shaking hands down Giles's arms, squeezed his wrists, and pushed himself back on his knees. Green neon outlines of everything when he blinked, confusion of the dark of the van, the dark of the blind. "You feel better."

Giles stopped laughing then. Bit his lip and when Oz next ground down, he spread his legs. Sweat stung Oz's eyes, heat just kept building and climbing like ivy over him, and Oz started choking on it.

Stammering, like he'd caught a little of Giles's characteristic nervousness. Not that Giles needed it now, all loose and happy, smiling kindly, so kindly, up at Oz.

"Y-yeah, see, c-c-could I -" Oz stopped, shook his head, and Giles sat up a little, wrapped his arms around him, palming his ass.

*Could I fuck you?* Simple enough question, and just *thinking* it was making Oz shake with need, peeling at his sunburn, grinding his hips harder. He just couldn't seem to get it out.

Giles kissed his chest, just as fast and slick as Oz had kissed him, and looked up. "Of course," he said, like he'd heard, like he'd read it in the sweat and heat pouring off Oz.

Maybe he had.

Gulping stagnant air, burning and stinging, Oz nodded, and Giles lay down, pulling Oz with him, fingers in his hair, tangling and sparking, kissing him so hard Oz started to feel like he was going to come right there.

Spread out in the dark, Giles was the color of one of his old ivory figurines, the ones carved in minuscule scripts, powerful incantations in calligraphy so small and delicate it might as well be art. Sinewy, and big, so long, arms over his head, and that smile on his face. Oz hadn't breathed, he was sure, in years, not as he looked down, studying every detail, as Giles rolled and thrust back, the rims of his eyes shining silver in the dark.

Over the last couple months, Oz had stripped layers and layers of skin from his cock picturing what it would be like to fuck Giles. He'd make it long and slow, more tortuous than anything Giles could come up with, do it so slow that Giles would shake apart into a million and one pieces and there'd only be Oz there to put him back together again. He'd tie Giles's arms together, he'd spend an hour on his nipples, another on his cock and balls, Giles would lose his voice from the moaning before Oz even pushed inside.

And then Oz was shaking with cold, sheets of it, glaciers and icebergs, as he knelt and pressed his mouth against Giles's thigh, bit his way up the tensing skin, ran his lips over cock, balls, then lower, and Giles just kept spreading. For him, and everything so hot and gritty and sweaty, and Oz was *nothing*, cold and small, as he licked downward and when his lips circled the tight muscle at the center of Giles, the center of everything, Giles's moan was sharp and loud enough to shatter crystal. To shatter Oz.

He froze until Giles helped him up, helped him slick himself, wrapping his hand around Oz's dick the other way, helping, Oz had no time. He was the one shaking apart, he was scared and burned and the hourglass had rolled off the table and broken. And then Giles was helping Oz lube his own hole, and his legs were pulled up, and it was better than porn, watching those long intelligent fingers touching himself, spreading wide, dark rosette irising open like Devon's face under stagelights, and then Giles was pulling him close again.

"Do it," Giles said, almost harshly, and maybe that's what Oz needed to hear, maybe those were the magic words, or permission, something, because he was pushing in before he knew it and grunting already and Giles was lying back down, one long leg wrapped loosely around Oz's legs, resting behind his knees, the other still drawn up, and Oz clutched at it, pushing into heat, into tension so tight you *know* nothing's supposed to go there, except he was, and Giles was matching every strangled grunt with one of his own.

Oz wanted to make it good, make it better than anything, the best Giles had ever felt, but he was shaking out of his skin and it felt like Giles was drawing him in, sucking him in deeper and deeper, and then he was just thrusting madly and Giles was grunting slow and urgent, rocking against him and swivelling his hips until Oz *knew* he'd hit the spot because Giles froze for a second, eyes widening, white in the dark, and then he was tilting up his hips and moaning and Oz kept thrusting against the tension.

His face twisted, contorting like smears of fingerpaint, and a single fiery length of twine replaced his backbone as he collapsed over Giles, shuddering and coming, and Giles just held him tight, groaning in his ear, encouraging him, until Oz was turned inside out and there was only the pressure of Giles's arms and legs against his skin to remind him where he was.

"Who's the teenager now, huh?" he asked later.

/

It's going to be better than that tonight.

"Oz, it was wonderful -" Giles says when they've reached the bed and Oz is telling him - *again* - how sorry he is that he came so fast. "It was wonderful. You're -"

Oz shakes his head, pressing Giles back onto the bed and pulling his shirt off. "This time's going to be better."

Naked, Giles is all muscle, secret pressure of strength under smooth skin, rippling a little beneath the scars and soft, curling hair. Oz touches and kisses every inch he can reach, tasting, nibbling, until Giles is shuddering and clutching his fists against the bedspread.

Oz sits back on his knees, skimming his palms down Giles's chest, soothing him. Without his glasses, Giles is truly naked, squinting up at him, almost helpless, certainly beautiful.

"Promise," Oz says. "'Cause I figured it out -"

Giles's hands squeeze his hips; Oz still has his pants on and it feels weird, definitely sexy, to still be half-dressed while Giles is spread out all ivory and muscle.

"Did you now?" Giles's voice is rough, like cheap plaster, scratchy and bumpy, and the sound of it scrapes right down Oz's chest to his cock. "Enlighten me?"

"It's about, um -" He has to pause when Giles starts fumbling at his fly, take a shuddering breath that doesn't really help at all, and squeeze his eyes shut for a second. "Pacing. About pacing, and - *God*, Giles -"

Giles is leaning back on one elbow now, wrapping his hand around Oz's dick, pulling them close enough that he can hold both their cocks, and now he's stroking them slow and easy and redvelvet fireworks are exploding in front of Oz's eyes, all over his skin.

"Hmm? You were saying?" Giles is squinting again, but he's not helpless, not now, now he's teasing, and Oz squirms a little, clutching at Giles's shoulder to keep his balance. His pants are around his knees and Giles is thrusting up, his cock sliding hot and hard against Oz's own.

"Pacing," Oz gets out. "*Jesus* -"

"Love you," Giles mutters, still plaster-rough, and it's just as fucking sexy as when he curses and shouts when he comes. "Want to feel you, inside, want you -"

"Yeah, see -"

His knees are *goo* and Oz is just rubbery, his dick the only solid thing, and Giles is speeding his strokes, licking his lips as he looks up at Oz, and there's pleasure and challenge and teasing wheeling like dark lights in his eyes and Oz can't stop staring back.

"Oz, *fuck* -" Giles says, pulling harder as Oz's knees start to buckle and he starts to shake.

So it's some kind of miracle that he's able to grab Giles's wrist, yank his hand away and press it against the mattress. He feels his muscles heating and twisting with the need to come. The complaining grunts coming out of Giles's mouth as he thrusts a couple times against the empty air aren't helping.

"Don't come yet," Oz mutters, kneeling on the edge of the bed, pushing Giles's legs apart. "S'what I'm talking about. *Pacing*."

It was a problem almost as complex as the cake's candles: How to make sure he could make it good for Giles, fuck him for just as long as he wanted, drive him crazy with need.

Hell of a lot more fun to figure *this* one out, not that he doesn't like a good math problem.

"Going to come for you," Oz says, and he *sucks* at talking during sex, much as he can't get enough of how Giles talks, but he's trying, and, judging by the tension of Giles's face, the little shivers running randomly through him, he's doing all right. "Get that over with, right?" He starts stroking himself and watches Giles watching him, shudders when Giles actually *moans*.

It's that need that Oz wants to match, needs to give back, doubled and magnified, needs Giles to understand. How much Oz wants him, how much he loves him.

"Then I'll fuck you," Oz says and Giles grunts. "Love you, Giles, love you like this -"

*Like this*: Twisting around, jaw trembling with tension, his back arching a little, fingers scrabbling at the quilt. Watching him.

Oz doesn't know what Giles sees in him, but it doesn't matter, it really doesn't. All that matters is that he *does*, loves Oz for whatever reason, and lets Oz love him, and he can't talk any more, he's trembling and his brain's shutting down and he's going to come any second now.

"Fuck. Fuck, yes, Oz, do it -" Cement, chopped asphalt, shattered stones in Giles's voice as he reaches for Oz, pulls him down and over as Oz's hips jerk and he bites down on Giles's shoulder, shaking, coming, and Giles holds him tight and close, his cock riding the hot slick on Oz's thigh and stomach. "So beautiful. Just like that."

Oz lies still, limbs still twitching and jerking a little, as Giles kisses his hair, his cheek, his neck, rubbing his back soft and slow, whispering in his ear.

"Love you," Oz mutters, when he's slightly more conscious. He stretches, scrubbing the sweat off his face, and kisses the side of Giles's mouth. "So much, I -"

"I know," Giles says and smoothes down the side of Oz's hair. Kisses him and he tastes like sex, like salt and sweat and chlorinebleach need, sharper than a knife. "I know."

"Happy birthday?" Oz whispers because he can't think of anything else to say.

Giles laughs and rolls them over onto their sides, kissing him again, still laughing, and the feel of that, wet and hot and rumbly, reminds Oz of their picnic last spring. When he felt stronger than steel, molten with need and fear, when Giles held him and told him he loved him.

Giles is older - 43 candles - and Oz can never match the depth of his experience, can't even hope to understand what it's like to have lived that long, to have seen so much, done so many things. It's silly to even think he can *try* to make this the best Giles has ever had.

Still and all, he's willing, wanting, needing to try. Giles's cock is twitching pretty insistently against his leg, and the heat of their embrace, the taste of Giles and snagging slide of his sweaty skin against Oz's own, is more than enough to make Oz half-hard again.

"You're a wonder," Giles whispers, reaching between them, brushing fingertips over Oz's cock. "A miracle."

"Teasing me again," Oz says and tries to frown, but Giles is touching him more firmly and kissing his neck, doing that teeth-along-the-tendon thing that always gets Oz wiggling.

"Never," Giles says and smiles and he's lying and telling the truth all at once, Oz can tell. He has to close his eyes, feeling the heat of a blush that's only half sexual spill over his face and neck.

Giles licks the curve of his ear as Oz presses his face into his chest, working his mouth over one small, flat nipple, and then he's whispering again, rough and needy, as his hand speeds up. "My wonder, my Oz. So hard again, aren't you? Want you harder, want you inside -"

The moan that shakes Oz's chest apart is hot and loud and half-crazed. He pushes Giles onto his back and straddles his hips. He can't really talk, but he can do this, needs to do this *now*, and he can see the same need in Giles's eyes as he grinds down against Giles's cock, grips one shoulder and reaches with his other hand for the lube.

"Want you to help again -" he gets out between gritted teeth and Giles nods.

Sharp smile, flicker of his tongue over his upper lip. "Liked that, didn't you?"

Blush, blindness of the blink, but then Giles is taking the bottle, slicking both their hands, and Oz has to open his eyes, has to watch this, even if he's embarrassed as fuck right now.

"Don't be," Giles murmurs, reading his mind again, and his voice is, for just a moment, smooth and sweet as he guides Oz's hand between his legs. "Like learning what you like. What excites you."

"You do," Oz gasps, and can't say anything else, overwhelmed by the heat, the wet of the lube, the softness of the skin down there, the careful, hard squint to Giles's eyes.

Time without the clock is usually warm and slow as sleepy breathing. But right now it's faster than the beat of his heart, faster than the skitter of impulses between his nerves, and before he quite knows what's going on, Giles is ready and holding Oz's hip and tilting up his own hips to meet him and Oz's cock is brushing against that skin, that wet, and -.

"Yes," Giles gasps, gritty and rough again, and Oz isn't breathing, he's trying to remember to go slow. "Yes, fuck. Yes -"

So much, too much, and Oz has a flash of this being overwhelming all over again, even more this time. With the lights on, he can see every twist to Giles's mouth, every clench of his stomach and rock of his hips. But it's too good to rush, too beautiful - the light in Giles's eyes, locked on his own - the heat of him opening and drawing Oz inside, inside himself, inside his skin - and Oz feels his hips find a good slow rocking rhythm. Giles is moaning and trying to stay still, and the struggle, the effort of it, is almost more beautiful than anything.

He whimpers every time Oz pulls out, almost all the way, and Oz whimpers too, the tight ring squeezing almost unbearably strongly on the head of his cock, and he runs his palms up and down Giles's thighs, murmuring, muttering, whimpering. He's talking and not shy about it, barely even knows he's doing it.

"Nice and slow," he's saying. Rocking, twitching his hips side to side, pushing against that one spot that brings up a flush bright as sunburn on Giles's chest when it's hit. "Making it last, making it good -"

Giles's mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Nothing verbal, anyway, just a rush of breath that chokes off when he claps his lips shut and tosses his head.

Oz smiles. He's seen so many versions of Giles, from the confident, gorgeous stranger onstage at the Pump, to the stammering guy who took him home and then proceeded to freak out. From the shutdown, buttoned-up librarian who looks around wildly, nervously, whenever he catches sight of Oz on schoolgrounds, to the beachcomber with sand in his hair and pants rolled up to his calves. The quiet, brilliant man who holds Oz on his lap and reads for hours, lips whispering kisses and stories into Oz's ear.

And this one, thrashing now, gulping air, bearing down on Oz's cock and almost mewling, chin tipped up to the ceiling, fingers clutching Oz's ass bruisingly-hard, crashing their hips together.

"Oz, *fuck*, coming -"

Oz grabs both of Giles's wrists and thrusts harder, shorter, losing the rhythm, fire eating away his spine, his face, as he watches and feels Giles jerk to the side, moaning long and harsh and loud, so loud, and Oz fucks deeper, feeling his own orgasm racing toward him, teasing him, chasing him down like circling prey.

When Giles comes, as he shoots and shudders, he's shouting, and there's no sense there, no words, nothing intelligible, but Oz knows exactly what he means.

"Fucking *love* you -" he grunts as Giles flops back, shivering, sweat all over him shining like the candles. The rippling clenches of Giles's orgasm keep squeezing his cock, drawing him deeper, twisting him, until Oz is falling against Giles's chest and just thrusting blind and rough. When he comes, it's black lights and shining skin, so cold, then hot, his body dissolved in the heat of Giles.

Giles is usually the one who brings them back with gentle touches and slow kisses, but Giles is still trembling and breathing through his mouth when Oz opens his eyes and regains sensation in his hands. So Oz tugs him onto his side, slowly rubbing his palm down Giles's side, petting his sweaty hair, cupping his cheek and dropping dry kisses on his mouth.

"Hey," he whispers when Giles's eyes start to flutter, then stay open. He rubs Giles's back as he coughs and keeps rubbing as Giles blinks again. "Happy birthday."

"Thank you," Giles says hoarsely.

Oz opens his mouth - the usual response to gratitude would be a 'no big' or 'don't worry about it', but neither's right. He rubs his cheek against Giles's, late-evening stubble scratching him lightly, and holds him more tightly.

"Welcome -" he starts to say when Giles speaks again.

"For everything, you see -"

Oz combs back Giles's hair again, traces the hard ridge of his eye socket beneath crinkled, silky skin.

"I know," he says. He *does* know, finally, maybe not permanently, but finally and fully. Giles does love him, as much as he loves Giles, and there isn't any space between them. No gap, no misunderstanding, no swallowed words.

Everything's different now, completely different, and already it's hard to remember doubts and worries. Not this close, not this warm.

"Love you," he says into Giles's lips and feels the phrase spoken back, more texture and motion than sound, against his own. Shared, and way, way better than any fantasy.