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."

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, he 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.

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.

/

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.

He 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.

/

"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.

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 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--ow."

"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.

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 elbows 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 omething 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.

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 n