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 next afternoon. Family dinner, apparently, and then band rehearsal, although he suspects "rehearsal" is code for something a bit more intimate.

Giles opens the door and finds Daniel bouncing in place, hands buried in his pockets, blinking slowly as a lizard up at him, wearing a strange, thin smile.

"Come in," Giles says after a moment during which Daniel just bounces on his heels.

Daniel shrugs off his overshirt and hangs it with exaggerated care on the coat rack. The bouncing makes Giles slightly dizzy. "Could I have some water?"

"Of course."

When Giles hands him the glass, Daniel gulps half of it. His cheeks are darkly flushed, and beads of sweat snake along his hairline.

Giles retrieves his own drink from the table and sits on the couch, closing his eyes as he sips it. Trying to keep his tone light, he looks at Daniel. "Are you feeling all right?"

Daniel looks up from the book on the table. "Pretty good," he says. He perches on the arm of the couch, his dangling leg twitching into a near-blur. "Kind of speedy, actually, but--. Yeah, good."

"You're not sober, are you?"

Daniel laughs, twisting at the waist and collapsing into Giles's lap. Gasping, he rights himself until he straddles Giles. "No."

Giles tries to breathe regularly, ignore the lapful of warm, giggling boy, and regain the ground of responsibility. He can do this. "What did you take? Do you know? Did someone make you?"

Daniel shrugs and squirms closer, steadying himself with a grip on Giles's shoulder. "Acid. Yes. No."

"What? You've been outside how long? Do you have any idea how dangerous--"
Visions of a tripping boy, torn limb from limb, giggling, whilst god knows how many vampires join the feast -- and --

"'Sokay," Daniel says, and somehow Giles has become the one being soothed.

"B-but--" The demons would probably rape him, repeatedly, before draining him, long before killing him outright.

"Sssh," Daniel says, rubbing his thumb over Giles's cheek, rasping the late-night stubble. "I dosed at home. Usually takes half an hour to kick all the way in. Walked over here, perfectly safe. Kept to major thorough--thoroughfares. And now--" He lifts off Giles's glasses and places them gently on the side table. Holding Giles's chin in the palm of one hand, he leans in and whispers the last. "Now, it's kicking in."

Daniel tilts his head and peers at Giles. His pupils are tiny, breath ragged. Giles can't feel any trace of the anxiety roiling through him a moment ago. Rather, he feels rooted to this spot, flushed and still.

"I really like your eyes," Daniel says.

"You'll have to stay here tonight," Giles says at the same time. "I'm not letting you outside again."

Daniel grins crookedly; Giles has never seen him this expressive. "I know. Because it's *safe* here." His arm slips around Giles's neck and he leans ever closer in.

Before he can close the gap fully, Giles lifts him off, hands under his arms. His feet dangle uselessly for a moment before his legs unfold. "Daniel, no."

"Came to see you. I want--"

"Not like this," Giles says. He hopes that's firmness he hears in his voice. "You're in no condition to make decisions."

Daniel wobbles a bit, his mouth working before he manages to speak. "But we already decided."

"Nevertheless."

He plucks at the pocket on his tee shirt--plain black, no printing, Giles notices, so dark against Daniel's pale skin that it must be new--and chews his bottom lip. "I brought you a tab," he says, working one finger into every millimeter of the pocket. "It's in here somewhere."

Giles touches Daniel's wrist, stilling his hand. "I don't want any."

"Really?" He sounds hurt, almost confused. "Really?"

"Yes," Giles says. "That is, yes, really. No, thank you."

"See, I thought we could--" Daniel bounces hesitantly on his heels, as if experimenting with a rhythm. Having rejected it, he scratches the back of his head and exhales slowly. "Sorry. Got distracted. I mean, I don't want you to have to take care of me."

"I'm going to, regardless."

Daniel's eyes close and for a flash, Giles sees his mother, offering an exaggerated prayer for patience to carry her through a young boy's misdeeds. "No, I mean I didn't come here for that. For babysitting."

"But you are here," Giles says. "And you need to stay." Reasoning with someone on drugs is only slightly less draining than reasoning with a toddler.

"Fuck!" Daniel spits out and Giles actually feels his head jerk back. "Stop being a grownup!"

Some cruel part of Giles understands why Daniel is usually so quiet and nonchalant: When he's expressive, he sounds exactly like any other cranky adolescent. The cruelty, however, is quickly replaced by a blush of comprehension, once he allows himself to listen to the words themselves.

"You're right," Giles says quietly. "I do understand." Daniel will not look at him, and Giles reaches forward, certain Daniel will flinch, but he remains still, allows Giles to take his hand. It feels terribly small and clammy in his own. "I'm sorry. Thank you, and please, stay here?"

"Oh." Daniel sags and Giles squeezes his hand gently. "Mad at me?"

Giles sighs. "No, of course not."

"Disappointed?"

"No, not disappointed." He is not disappointed; perhaps distantly panicking over losing more time, but hardly disappointed.

"It's okay? That I came to see you?"

"You're welcome here any time," Giles says. Marvels for a moment at how deeply engrained politesse is. "You know that."

"Tomorrow?" Apparently reassured, sagginess gone, Daniel bounces over to the bookcases and runs his fingertips over the spines, back and forth, as if strumming something.

"What about tomorrow?"

"When I'm--. After I crash. Tomorrow, we can talk?"

Giles watches the pale stretch of skin on the back of Daniel's neck as he bobs his head, accompanying some invisible tune. "Of course," he says.

He doesn't know if this is a promise, since he can't be certain Daniel will remember anything.

"You'll stay in here," he tells Daniel. "Drink your water. There's a jug in the fridge. Listen to some music, and enjoy yourself." It has been decades since he babysat for an acid trip, but the protocol is fairly straightforward. Common sense, really: Keep him calm, happy, and hydrated. Stay relatively close, but don't hover.

Daniel pulls a large portfolio off the bottom shelf and collapses bonelessly to the rug to look it over. Giles murmurs a simple binding charm, extending just to the walls of the flat, to ensure that Daniel cannot leave until the following morning. Just in case he falls asleep; the chemistry is surely stronger and longer-lasting these days than it had once been.

Meanwhile, he returns to his translation.

/

Oz wakes up several times the next day, head throbbing. There's a pillow under his cheek, soaked with drool, and a flannel blanket tucked in tight around him. It's quiet every time, and before he manages to sit up, his head will fuzz out again, and then it's later and he wakes up again.

The last time he wakes up, the room has gone all orangey, so he thinks it's probably sunset. He tries to sits up, and makes it this time before getting all breathless and resting his cheek against the cushion. Little dragon swirls are cavorting in front of his eyes, but he gets those sometimes. Not tripping anymore.

"Rejoining the living?" Giles sits on the far side of the couch and Oz nods, the upholstery scraping against his face. "Taking your time, then?"

"Yeah." Croaky. "I'm sorry. Again."

Giles, for once, is the one resting *his* head in his lap, and this is a weird angle to look at him from. His eyes are huge, and his chin a weird smudge. Nose kind of big. "I thought we covered that."

"We did?"

Giles closes his eyes and Oz pets his forehead. "We did. Don't apologize."

"Cool." There's something nagging at the back of his mind still, and he shifts a little, rolling Giles's head closer. "What time is it, anyway?"

"Nearly nine."

"Shit, my mom--" He knows he should be worried, but his eyes are really dry and his throat's all scratchy, so he says it with as much worry as he can scrounge up.

Giles slips his hand under Oz's shirt, doing that skin-rearrangement thing, and Oz slides down. "I called Devon," Giles says. "He agreed to, quote, cover for the fuckwit, end quote. I hope it will be all right. Berk."

He wishes he'd been able to hear *that* conversation. Either it was over in two seconds, or it got dragged out to hours and hours. Oz slides a little more, and now his face is practically over Giles's. He can feel the breath on his cheek. "So I can stay over?"

Giles kisses him then, tasting him softly, slowly working deeper, slipping his hand around Oz's waist. Never answers, just kind of pulses around and over him, Oz hanging on to one arm, flooding himself with Giles.

Score.

/

How could he have neglected the condoms? It's not as if he thought Daniel would ever stay over, but this is worse than embarrassing. Given his previous officious lecture, this is humiliating. Daniel had one in his wallet, but the foil was ripped and the exposed latex engrimed with more than one mysterious substance.

"We could--could improvise," Giles says.

Daniel looks over and shrugs off Giles's hand, roaming down his back. "I can't."

"Are you-- You're not ill, are you?"

Daniel half-smiles at that. "Nope."

"So what's wrong?" Giles ventures to stroke the soft hollow at the small of Daniel's back. So warm there, and the boy presses back in lieu of a reply. "Daniel?"

He twists around, folding up one leg between them. "I've never--" He shakes his head, and Giles realizes that his hair must have been much longer recently, because it looks as if he's trying to get bangs out of his eyes. Giles pats his back, and Daniel meets his eyes.

"You're experienced, surely?"

"Yeah, you know that. I've never-- Huh." He chews on the corner of his mouth. "I've never done anything without a rubber."

"Well, that's good. Commendable, even."

"Giles."

"What?"

"This isn't health class. Not looking for a gold star."

"No?"

"My mom gave me a box of Trojans when I was twelve."

"Really? That's, er, rather early, isn't it?"

Daniel gives him that faint smile again. "Not for sex, Giles. For jerking off. Said I'd be doing it anyway, should get used to it with the rubber."

"Oh. I see. So you've never--"

"Nope."

"My." Giles suddenly feels very large, hairy, and awful. Monstrous, ancient in front of someone so young, young enough to-- Dear Lord. The boy had grown up always using condoms? In a world so rife with dark bad things that he couldn't touch his own skin. He shouldn't be surprised, but he is. Surprised and rather sick to his stomach.

"Giles?"

He raises his hand, asking for a moment.

"It's not you," Daniel says, bitterly. "God. I get to give the 'it's not you' speech. Okay. Here goes--"

"Just--" Giles says. "Wait."

Daniel leans in, presses his forehead against Giles's. "No. It's *not* you."

"Ah, but it is."

/

He was sent to the shower and then downstairs. When is he going to stop fucking up?

Oz sits cross-legged in front of the shelves full of records, running his finger down each narrow spine. He'd rather not listen to music right now. Music is for moods--good, bad, angry, sad--and he doesn't feel a mood right now. He needs to give himself time to find one. Then the music will follow.

He sips the orange juice he's poured for himself and feels it slip coldly down to his belly.

He suspects Giles is reconsidering this whole thing. Can't really blame him, although he'd like to.

But it's just not in him--blame, that is. Oz closes his eyes, hoping maybe some kernel of emotion is inside him. It's possible; it could be buried deep enough. Deep enough, it's got to be there. He pictures his body from the inside out, the tube of throat-stomach-intestines, the slow inflation of lungs, the heart's insistent drum. Cage of ribs. It's dark in there, dark tinged with red and the glints of soft, silvery gray.

He probably got the colors from the dissection they made him watch in bio after he'd refused to do it on ethical grounds. He had to sit, hands folded in his lap, for two weeks while Jenny O'Neill sliced and dug and lifted organs away to the scale. Everyone else named their pigs--Wilbur, obviously, and Piglet; Hoo-ey, which led to Dewey and Louie; Trent, from some chick who hated NIN--but Jenny referred to their pig only as 'it'.

Snyder brought him in for another talking-to on the last day of pigs, said he hoped Oz had learned something 'from your little stunt'. Oz kept quiet; Snyder would tell him what he was supposed to have learned anyway. "It's going to happen," Snyder said. "Conscientious objection won't stop it." Oz nodded then. Snyder was almost right: Shit happens, and it's worse to have to watch it happen for credit and do nothing.

"Couldn't find anything?" Giles asks, behind him. "I find that difficult to believe."

"Nope. Just couldn't decide."

"Oh, well." Giles crouches beside him, pulling him in. Okay, so not reconsidering. Oz isn't going to ask why, just lean over and kiss his jaw. Limes again, and that ozone buzz Giles seems to give off whenever he shivers. "Frankly, I'm relieved. I didn't think my collection was that poor."

Oz tips his head against Giles's shoulder. Breathes in the faint, harsh smell of dryer sheets. Giles got dressed in fresh clothes: interesting. "Your call."

That's it. Let the smart guy choose the mood.

It's weird waking up in Giles's bed, just about fully naked, but not having any good reason for that. Except that there's no A/C, and it is California in the summer, and if you're going to talk all night and dance around the lack of rubbers, you're pretty much going to have to strip down and hope it doesn't turn the dance into more horizontal.

Asleep, Giles looks really small. Maybe it's the looseness of the white sheet, drawn up to his chin, but his face looks like it belongs to someone much smaller. It's slack and pale in the sun, hair kind of fuzzed out over his ear. Oz won't touch him, since they've only been asleep for about three hours, but he edges closer, thankful for the firm mattress so there's hardly any dip as he moves. Giles's lips are parted a tiny bit, and when Oz leans in, his shadow darkens them so they're the color of overblown carnations. The shadow of a shadow of stubble has broken out along Giles's jaw like someone dusted him with pencil shavings, and it's really hard not to reach out and test how scratchy it feels.

Oz balls up his fist and slips off the foot of the bed, dislodging the sheet so now Giles's blue pajama top is visible. Remembering the fear and revulsion of morning breath, he heads for the bathroom and scrubs his teeth and tongue with a smear of toothpaste on his finger. When he slips back into the room and lies down, Giles reaches for him.

"Awake?" Oz whispers. Giles slips his arm over his chest as Oz settles in. Not awake enough to talk, apparently, so Oz digs the back of his head into the pillow. The room is warm, but the weight of Giles's arm feels good, the way it's tucked under Oz's last rib and rises with his diaphragm.

He concentrates on the arm for a while, trying to memorize the sparse pattern of curls of hair on Giles's wrist, then switches to feeling the hint of weight against his side. The sheet's bunched up into a tiny range of peaks between them, so they're not actually touching, and Oz shifts, holding his breath, until he's covered the range and feels the warmth of Giles's leg against his.

Of course Oz woke up hard; he's seventeen, that's what his body does. But somehow it's surprising and kind of strange to realize, as he slides in closer, that Giles is, too. And why should that be strange? It's not like Giles is from another planet, or severely diabetic, or dead. He's got nerve endings like everyone else; he sleeps next to someone he likes, it's going to happen. And Oz feels terrible, feels stupid and selfish for letting this happen, because Giles has probably been hard for hours and it's his fault.

He turns onto his side, bringing Giles's arm with him, and licks his toothpaste-dried lips, trying to figure out how to do this.

"Hmm?" Giles mutters, eyes opening, flash of green tea, and Oz presses his lips against Giles's forehead. "Daniel." Giles tightens his hold around Oz's waist, and Oz props his head on his folded arm. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Oz says, rubbing slow circles over Giles's chest, fabric rasping over the hair, prickling his palm, sending tiny stabs up his arm that swarm together when they reach his face and chest until it feels like he's blushing. Giles smiles sleepily at him, and without his glasses, his eyes are so right there that Oz can't look at them, has to drop his gaze to watch the slow pulse in his throat. He kisses down the curve of Giles's cheek, inhaling the faint smell of laundry from the pillow, and his palm rises as Giles inhales and holds it. "Nothing's wrong," he whispers against Giles's ear.

He nudges Giles onto his back with the flat of his palm and keeps rubbing, can't think of stopping except he has to get the buttons open, needs to feel that warm, well-packed strength for himself. Giles turns his head, kissing Oz full-on. His brain sputters and flusters and drops at the contact.

Giles tastes--strong is the only thing Oz can think of, and his fingers are digging and scrambling over Oz's hip as his other hand goes into Oz's hair, and their tongues are doing that rearing back, twisting mating dance like antelopes do, so Oz just pushes the pajama top up and holds onto Giles's skin for all he's worth.

His fingertips skid over the incredibly smooth skin like he's almost too clumsy to appreciate something this fine, then he's reached the hipbone and the skin is hotter here, stretched so tight and so hot and his fingertips are tangling in the curls and he can't help it, he's nipping at Giles's tongue and whimpering like a lost puppy.

Giles catches his hand at the wrist and pulls away. "Daniel, you don't--" Voice harsh and scared.

"Want to." Oz hears himself exhale the words, hand twisting out of Giles's grip, palm going flat over the thickest hair, just above the root of his cock so it's twitching against his pinky. "Want to--" His mouth drops to Giles's shoulder, down to the rucked-up shirt, licking the stubble on Giles's throat, kissing the pulse in the center of his collarbone.

Giles is tugging himself up, letting Oz slide down, chin running over skin and bunched shirt, trying to remember to breathe, and when he does, trying to remember not to pant. As he circles his hand around Giles's cock, praying for smoothness, not clumsiness, hoping this is right, Giles draws one knee up and rests his cheek there, watching down as Oz tongues the folds in his skin, nuzzling soft hairs. He hears Giles breathing above him, every exhale trailing off into a whining little wheeze. His fingers goose-step up the back of Giles's thigh, and they're suction cups leeching out the fine, elegant silver warmth trapped beneath the skin.

He looks up at Giles and it's like a mirror: head-tilt, eyelids at half-staff, mouth open and almost panting. So he decides this must be okay, and looks back down at the cock in his hand, notices the extra skin, and, duh, foreskin, so he pinches at it and moves it up down experimentally, testing its resiliency, and Giles seems to like that. He hitches in a breath and a tremor skitters down his legs against Oz's cheek, then he exhales and it's the name-song again, so he's Daniel now, and his mouth is way too empty and dry. Giles's fingers stray and wander over Oz's scalp and there's pressure there, and then his tongue is running over the distance between cockhead and lips, closing it, bringing them together, and he's up on his knees in this surreal yoga stance, back stretched out, supporting himself with a kung-fu grip on Giles's calf and his tongue. When he breathes in, it's all Giles, light salty sweat more like tears than sweat, it's so light, and limes, the tang of fabric softener, all so strong and clean and his spit's mixing with precum so neither one's not so sticky nor so runny, somewhere in between, sweet and plain wet.

And this he knows how to do, hollow cheeks then crazy-manic tongue dance and lots of swallowing, which he'd do anyway because this tastes good and he was born to do this and it's his fault that Giles is hard, but he's making it better, and the warmth is jumping around his mouth, scraping his teeth, like a downed power line, *writhing* now, Giles's fingers closing around the nape of his neck, Oz humping the bed, no more breath, his nose butting hair, hair scraping nostrils, Giles's hips shaking back and forth, up and down, and he's swallowing and sucking, Giles's cock taking off, doing a runner past his lips but Oz clamps down till teeth scrape skin and there's a lot more to swallow, hot and thick and he's not going to stop until it's all better.

Oz sniffs in air through his nose in tiny, pointless puffs until Giles softens and the hand on his neck slips away. As he lifts his face, he feels the layer of sweat on his forehead, trickling into his eyes, burning so all he sees is a haze. He blinks hard as he licks his lips clean, and that makes Giles chuckle slowly, like it hurts but he can't help it. His arm comes up around Oz's back as he stretches out his leg, and Oz just lies there, ear over heart, getting his breath back as Giles pets his hair.

/

Monstrous and wheezing, Giles clutches the boy against him. If he lets him go, this may all be a dream, but if it's real, he needs the delay.

"Need air conditioning," Daniel murmurs.

Breath comes raggedly to Giles, painful and new, and thoughts even more slowly. He is amazed that the boy can speak; he can hear him only distantly, and thinks momentarily of the thud of fish against the glass in an aquarium.

He hugs Daniel more tightly against him as the tremors shooting through his body slow their pace fraction by fraction, leaving in their wake a weakening buzz insinuated between skin and muscle.

"I'm serious," Daniel says, propping his chin up to look at Giles. "Sweating like a pig here."

Giles smoothes the damp hair on Daniel's brow and wipes away the sweat clustering in his temple with his thumb. "Thank you." Which is a horribly trivial thing to say, but the best that he can manage at the moment. He is a monster, new to the air, slow and stupid and greedy, but manners never fail.

Daniel rubs his face against the sheet. "Welcome. Better?"

"Much." Giles knows that something *is* better, just not what, not yet.

"Good."

Giles tucks Daniel under his arm and shuts his eyes. He has plenty of time to think about this later, and he knows he's going to need it all.

/

When he wakes up again, Oz's face is shoved into Giles's armpit and he's lying in a sticky puddle. Context again, he thinks. At home, this'd be humiliating. But here, it's okay. Just temporarily uncomfortable.

Oz wants to get out. Then again, he also wants to stay in. It's summer! his conscience keeps screaming, and it's having a dirty little spat with basically the rest of him, led by his whole body, which would like nothing more than lounge here for several weeks. After he cleans up from the wet dream and the A/C's installed, that is.

/

Over a breakfast so late it nearly qualifies as lunch, Daniel advocates for a long drive to a flea market he likes. Giles feels himself nodding along, finding all of this, the boy's energy, his own smug calm, the skittering pace of their conversation, strangely amusing.

"There'll be books," Daniel says. "I can guarantee lots of books."

Giles steels himself for the inevitable jibe, some variation on the rather doltish observation that he likes books, and that this is somehow odd and worthy of jest. Daniel, however, folds his sandwich in half and nibbles at the crust, looking back Giles. There is no jibe, just a patient wait for a reply.

"You don't have to convince me," Giles says. "I've already agreed to go."

Daniel grins. "I know. Just psyched."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Daniel rolls a shred of crust in his fingers before eating it. "Hey, are you going to buy anything big?"

Giles pushes back his chair and brings his plate to the sink. From the door of the refrigerator, he asks, "How big?"

"Um, bigger'n a breadbox?"

"It is possible."

"Okay. Maybe we should take the van."

Giles returns to the table, handing Daniel a glass of water and sipping his own. "I don't think we're going to find anything that large."

"You never know." Daniel scrapes his chair closer and slings a fraternal arm around Giles. "You can drive."

"I'm sure you're an excellent driver." Giles shivers under Daniel's touch, marveling for a moment at how his fingers find frayed nerves Giles has long forgotten and pluck at them, tease them back to life and make them sing.

"Oh, yeah, I'm an excellent driver," Daniel says, pausing to press his lips on Giles's neck as his fingers massage a slow, keening lilt on his ribs. "Dad lets me drive slow on the driveway."

/

He's feeling better now. Quick walk home to change clothes, clean out and pick up the van, stop by the drugstore for rubbers and lube, and then back to pick up Giles and switch over to the passenger seat.

Now they're on the road and his conscience and his body have come to some kind of compromise, because he's out, but he still gets to touch Giles. Oz has his head leaning against the window, one foot up on the dash, and his arm flung out onto Giles's shoulder. He's careful not to move much, because Giles is a pretty intense driver, but this is good.

He tends to bliss out when he doesn't have to drive, so he's careful to keep talking. He doesn't want Giles to think he's just the chauffeur or anything.

"You know how in India they get reincarnated?"

"Hinduism is founded on a belief in reincarnation, yes," Giles says.

"Yeah. Now, it happens in stages, right?"

"Yes. The balance of karma and one's fulfillment of the present stage's dharma, or duty--"

"Right. Sorry to interrupt, but I didn't mean that. I mean, there's only one, um, incarnation-- That's the right word?"

Giles nods, keeping his eyes on the road.

"So there's only one incarnation at any one moment?"

Giles just drives. Oz waits.

"Sorry," Giles says after they pass a huge old brown station wagon that's wobbling in a not very reassuring way. "That was a question?"

"Uh-huh."

"Oh, well. Yes, of course."

"So it's not like there are various incarnations just kind of hanging around, depending on where you are?"

Giles shakes his head. "Might get a little crowded, don't you think?"

"Guess so." Oz reaches for his water bottle. It made sense to him; something about context and calling on the appropriate personality.

"Are you all right?" Giles asks.

Oz shakes his head; he seems to be picking up many of Giles's gestures lately. They're good and economical, and he thinks he'll probably keep them. "Yeah. I just thought it'd be kind of neat, is all."

/

Daniel insists on taking the highway, although they're only headed fifteen miles past Oxnard. Giles's palms were clenched and numb around the steering wheel with anxiety at the prospect of highway driving until Daniel observed softly that traffic was fairly light, and offered to take over. Giles still doesn't know, with only twenty miles left to go, why he refused, but it calmed him, somehow, knowing that Daniel trusted him. The reassurance returned him to the near-haze of bodily satisfaction with which he had gotten out of bed.

"That's so disgusting." Daniel points toward a row of smokestacks near the horizon. "Check it out."

"Mmm?" Giles glances at the sight, and then at Daniel, who is shaking his head. "What of them?"

"It's like a filmstrip, or an ad for the Sierra Club. Every time I see those I picture mobs of swirling carcinogens and sediments dispersing through the air. Gross."

"I see," Giles says. "Interesting."

"What?"

"What?"

"You said interesting." Daniel noisily drains his large cup of soda through the straw. "That usually means you disagree but you're too polite to say why. So. What?"

"Just interesting," Giles says. "When I see smokestacks I think of energy and prosperity and all that postwar propaganda."

"Really? But-- smoke. Particles. Gross."

"Of course, and I know that. But whereas your ingrained reaction is to see it as disgusting, the small boy in me cheers and claps."

"Interesting," Daniel says. He drums his fingers on the nape of Giles's neck. This is what teasing is like, when you're comfortable enough; no jibes, simply shared experiences.

"As I said." Giles smiles at the traffic and Daniel squeezes his neck.

Silence; companionable and easy, and Giles wonders how the quiet can be so comfortable when there's another body touching his, when it is so acrid and anxious when he's alone.

"I like water towers, though," Daniel says, as if it might help. "You?"

"Hmm?" Giles glances over again. Daniel points at the tower coming up on the right. A wide cartoon smile is painted on its sides, and above that, a shaky, feeble attempt at a marijuana leaf that more closely resembles a decapitated bouquet. "They're all right."

"I like 'em. Like a big spider mating with a barn." Daniel shifts away, stretching his arms over his head, then drops his hand back to Giles's shoulder.

"Yes, rather."

/

The flea market is just like Oz remembers it, the parking in an old overgrown field, and down behind the hill all the tents spread out in meandering aisles, looking from up here like a crossword puzzle drawn by a drunk. He's itching to get down there, lose his way and stumble across the bizarre remnants that shouldn't have been for sale when they were new. Giles seems to sense his impatience, and lets him lead the way. Oz thunders down the hill, not steep enough to get up much steam, but he's still breathless and flushed when he hits the flats.

Giles steps carefully through the long, matted grass, and when he reaches the bottom, he stops. Oz feels him looking at him, and that's much itchier than the urge to browse, so he curls his toes inside his sneakers and tries not to fidget. Giles looks a little stern and a lot intent. The sun's beating down and the air smells like souvlaki and grease, and everything's gone kind of bleached-out, but Giles's eyes are dark and gleaming, and it hits Oz, sideways and hard, that he blew this guy a couple hours ago.

He takes a step back before he realizes what he's doing; then he stops. There's a rushing in his ears, and he's instantly hard but also really embarrassed. There's just the two of them here, just him and Giles, but everything feels doubled and superimposed and out of focus.

Oz swallows but he can't look away.

"Ready?" Giles steps past him, patting his back as he passes. "Where to first?"

/

He has never been anywhere quite like this. Giles is jostled and set adrift in a crowd of obese, mouth-breathing Americans, shining with sweat, yanking their dirty-faced toddlers along hard enough to dislocate a shoulder, crowding at booths displaying earrings made from crow feathers, discount shampoos, miracle fungus creams, dilapidated furniture with creaking joints and peeling varnish, military memorabilia, dusty insignia and rusted swords, Confederate flags and POW bumperstickers, squat porcelain animals with dead, glittering eyes and trays heaped with plastic costume jewelry.

He loses Daniel around corner after corner, and they meet up again, exchange commiserations, and part, and meet again. When the initial shock and near-revulsion has faded away to a manageable level of irritation, Giles finds he can linger in the less crowded corners and start to see the range of oddities for sale.

The woman behind the table in this particular tent is rail-thin and so deeply tanned she resembles the scuffed suede on the club chairs in the anteroom to Travers's office. She barely looks at him while he politely browses the card tables of junk, waiting for the family at the entrance to move on and allow him to escape. On the top of one pile towards the back, he finds a charm bracelet. It looks like the kind girls wore to the matinees of his youth, and he brings it to the proprietress.

"Seven," she rasps, then looks up, taking him in. "Sorry. Ten."

He has no wish to argue, so he hands her the bill and puts the bracelet in his pocket.

He wanders down to the next corner and turns, spotting Daniel three booths away, tucking a paper bag under his arm. The boy starts when Giles touches his shoulder, steps back, then forward again, smiling shyly.

"Hey. Got you something." Head dropped against his shoulder, Daniel watches as he unfolds the bag, fingers brushing the soft cotton inside. Giles shakes it out: a white undershirt, stencilled across the front with the words Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men.

"Thank you."

"You get it, right?"

Giles nods. "Bowie?"

Daniel hunches his shoulders, then relaxes them, slipping his hands into the back pockets of his pants. "Bowie, yeah. They looked at me weird when I told them what I wanted."

"And for you," Giles says, holding out his fist with the bracelet inside. Daniel taps the back of his hand, and he turns his wrist, opening his fingers.

"Hey, cool."

The charms are odd and jumbled, whatever meaning they had long ago lost: a poodle, a rooster, a crucifix, a tinsel Christmas-tree ball, and a tiny vial of red-orange liquid. Daniel holds the vial up to the sun, squinting through it, turning it to catch the light.

"Awesome." He hands it to Giles. "Check it out."

Giles tilts it, watching the stuff slip sluggishly back and forth. "A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass," he says, handing it back to Daniel. "Sonnet five, Shakespeare."

Daniel shakes his head, lips twitching upward. "Noma Bubble Light."

Giles wants to ask, then decides not to as Daniel goes down on one knee to fasten the bracelet around his ankle. His shirt hitches up as he bends over, and Giles remembers touching the skin there, feeling the invisible fur and the heat.

He is never entirely certain how much Daniel hears, how much is lost to the boy's serene inattention and in the jumble of topics and references and quotations that comprise the bulk of his conversation.

Yet Daniel does listen; words and concepts go through him in some indefinable process of filtration. Around the next corner, in a dim red tent with a labyrinth of cheap white metal racks, such as hold postcards and non-prescription spectacles at the supermarket, Daniel peers across row after row of ancient paperbacks. When he makes his selection at last, he shows the books to Giles with something resembling pride: a back issue of _Life_ from 1951; a Moorcock omnibus; a tale of computer-generated dystopia; and, yes, a fat student's compendium of the complete Shakespeare.

"Couldn't find anything?" Daniel asks.

Giles would like to tell him how much he loathes paperbacks of any kind, how dangerous a single case of mildew or spine-rot can be to a collection, but he cannot. Instead, he watches Daniel stow the stack carefully into his knapsack, patting the top book before zipping the bag shut. He holds and cares for his books as dearly and affectionately as Giles does his own, and no matter that Daniel's books have lurid covers and piss-yellow pages. "You poached the Moorcock," Giles says. "So I'm empty-handed."

"'Sokay," Daniel says, leading them out through the crowd again. "Borrow it any time."

/

The mosquitoes and chiggers are starting to get a little crazy, especially around the food tables, and while it's not getting dark, it is getting duskier, so Oz tries to finish eating so they can get going.

But he's distracted by the ads in his new old copy of _Life_, especially this one for viyella robes with a happy husband bearing an overloaded tray for breakfast in bed. He's the conquering hero approaching his deserving bride, and, even better, viyella rhymes with hi-fella, which is just so cool.

"What are you laughing at?" Giles asks, dropping his fork. At least he's stopped pushing his fries around suspiciously.

"He's hot, huh?" Oz says, handing over the magazine. "Goony, but try to get past that."

Giles looks it over, taking enough time to read the copy, and he does smile. Oz hopes it's at the hi-fella. Or the goony hot guy; whichever's good. "Like a young James Mason. Leaner through the cheeks, and I've never seen Mason grin, but--. Yes."

Oz closes his eyes, knowing he knows who James Mason is, he just needs to review without distraction. Not no wine before it's time or making money the old-fashioned way: earning it, but a little later than those guys. Same sort of deep gravel sex voice, though. "North by Northwest, right?"

"Among others." When he opens his eyes, Giles is folding up his paper napkin. "Shall we think about getting going?"

Oz nods and looks down at the picture again. Guys just don't look like that any more, and it's a shame, and kind of confusing, too, because beyond hair-style and clothes, how is it that someone's face can go extinct?

/

Daniel drives them back to Sunnydale far more quickly and casually than Giles could ever dream of doing. So casually that they pass the exit and Daniel does not even flinch.

"Erm--?"

"You'll see." Daniel's lip twists into what Giles is coming to consider his secretive smile.

Giles does not inquire why they take the next exit, nor several lefts, then a right, but when the van rattles and shivers its way up a dirt road choked with ruts and overhung with untrimmed shrubbery, he does turn to Daniel. He is hunched over the steering wheel, brows drawn tight, as he threads around the holes and bumps. And, just as suddenly as they ascended onto the trail, it ends, opening into a wide clearing.

Daniel switches off the ignition, swiping his hand over his brow, and grins. "Breaker's Woods," he tells Giles. "Ever been?"

"No."

"Didn't think so." Daniel twists in his seat and rises, slipping into the back of the van. "Coming?"

"Yes?" Giles unlatches the seat belt and takes another look out the window. Short, wiry grass, spiked with shadows, and a ring of smooth rocks. He cannot make out the trees circling the clearing, except for the way their volume disperses lacily against the sky. "Yes."

He cannot navigate the passage between the seats nearly as well as Daniel, and slips, barking his knee on the parking brake, grasping at Daniel's hand, pulling him forward until he spills out into the open.

"Okay?" Daniel asks, propping his back against the wall, one foot up on the opposite thigh. Giles rubs his knee and smiles, he thinks, ruefully. He doesn't quite know where to settle down: against the back of a seat? the opposite wall? stretched out on his back? Daniel's head is cocked slightly, watching him, and Giles focuses on the boy's hands, laid out over his thighs, fingers loosely spread and almost glowing in the near-dark.

"Yes, of course." Giles kneels on his uninjured knee, gripping the side of the passenger seat for balance, studying the interior of the van as well as he can. He cannot make out very much at all beyond the shag carpet beneath him, the various sacks and a rolled sleeping bag beside him, and the wan light coming from the windows on the back doors.

"C'mere," Daniel says, pushing off from the wall, dragging a plastic sack behind him as he moves towards Giles. At the touch of his warm, pale hand, Giles sinks down and leans in. Daniel rubs his thumb over his eyelids and against the nap of his eyebrows, around his temple and down his neck. "Better?"

Giles nods as he opens his eyes. His body is unwinding, going slack and warm at Daniel's touch, and he struggles to focus, and not to drown. Daniel kisses him softly, almost shyly, ignoring the tilt of Giles's head, the insistence of his lips, and squeezes his neck as he pulls back.

"Good. So--" Daniel raises the plastic sack and upends it. "It's like Halloween. Check the loot."

Boxes and ribbons of condoms and several containers of lubricant spill over the floor between them.

"Good Lord." Giles picks through the pile, examining one tube of medicinal jelly, hefting a large bottle of Astroglide, shaking a box of condoms. "It's a veritable smorgasbord. Host a variety of tastes back here, do you?"

"Wasn't sure what you liked, actually." Daniel twists away, and Giles imagines his face falling, mouth tightening and eyes hooding defensively. His voice is quiet, illegible, but it might very well be pained.

"I didn't mean--" Of course the paraphernalia is new; the caps on the lubricants are wrapped in plastic, and the receipt is trapped under one box. The boy had only called himself a slut in jest, hadn't he? "Really, I--"

"Forget it." Daniel shrugs, and, no, he has not turned away in anger or pain. He is simply tugging off his shirt and leaning to untie his shoes. Giles reaches over, throat thickening with shame, and strokes the rise of vertebrae on his lower back, prominent and hard as rocks. Emboldened when Daniel sighs deeply at the touch, he leans further and mouths the pebble-like rise of spine at the boy's neck.

"It's okay," Daniel whispers as Giles's hands shake over his skin. He covers one with his own and presses it firmly down. "Just do it, okay?"

Daniel tilts his head back against Giles's shoulder as Giles wraps his arms around his waist, pressing flat palms against his warm, nearly hairless skin, suckling on the nape of his neck, pulling him back against him.

It is as if the boy has loosened fully, gone completely liquid in his arms. Giles brushes his knuckles along the length of Daniel's erection, trapped in his shorts, and gets a slow roll of the hips in response. Daniel attempts to undo the fastener and groans when he cannot. Giles holds him more tightly, working his thumb into the gap at the top of the zipper, kissing the stretch of freckles slung between the knobs of his shoulders. He tastes like rain, cool-silver-glow, and sweat, salt-flesh-sun, and trembles under Giles's hands. A sweet low growl builds deep in his throat as Giles strokes upward over his sternum, pressing down, Daniel's heart beating against his palm, his breath hitching then releasing in a fluid sigh as he brushes his thumb over the nipples, flicking at them with his nails as they harden.

Flashing eyes, mouth a rough dark gash, as Daniel twists back to look at him, fingers fluttering down to touch his wrist. Giles goes still. "I can stop."

Daniel's head shakes violently and he presses back against Giles as he pushes his wrist down and further inside. He drops his head and his breath starts coming out shallow and brief.

Untouched, no one ever, never before: keening, disembodied chant in his ears, counterpoint to Daniel's breathing as Giles reaches inside the shorts. He strokes up and down the tensile heat of Daniel's cock, gripping it loosely, worrying the knuckle of his index finger around the head, and Daniel twitches several times in his embrace, leaning back, head lolling as Giles strokes across the rapidly tightening testicles. He gazes down at the body stretched out in his arms, watching hips lift and wiggle free of shorts as he closes his mouth over the boy's shoulder, nibbling with his lips and teeth as he slides knuckles down the underside of cock, around the balls, and Daniel brings one knee up and out so the touch continues down into the cleft of his ass, so narrow and tight Giles can manage only two fingers stroking the impossibly soft skin swirling into the pucker.

Daniel's head turns and his mouth finds Giles's as the hand slips back higher and circles the base of his cock, tongue sweeping lazily inside, across Giles's teeth and then burrowing into the pocket of his cheek as Giles tightens his hold and Daniel starts to thrust against the palm, his low moans felt more as vibrations across and into skin than sound. Giles's own hips rock with the motion, working his trapped hard-on against Daniel's ass as he twists the nipple in his fingers and tugs at the boy's cock. Daniel's eyes widen, showing the whites all around his irises, as his back arches in Giles's grasp, air whinnying out his nose and teeth scraping teeth as he corkscrews around beneath Giles's fist, hips jerking as he shoots. Giles lets him rise, then drop, as he kisses back deeply, pistoning his tongue into Daniel's mouth, squeezing out the last small jet.

Dipping Daniel bonelessly back, Giles brings his hand up, grazing Daniel's lips with his own as he pulls away and snakes his hand between them. Daniel watches, lips open, as Giles laps the tip of his tongue in the cum, then lifts his mouth to lick the other side of the palm. The feel of Daniel's tongue on his skin, hesitancy evaporating before eagerness, dries out Giles's mouth and rocks his hips against the boy's bare legs. Daniel sucks his pinky down to the root, and Giles's tongue sweeps across his palm to press at the corner of the Daniel's mouth and work its way inside.

His finger slides out with a soft smack and he cradles Daniel's cheek in his palm as they kiss. Daniel is breathing more normally now, grasping at the fabric of his shirt, hauling himself up to his knees. His other arm goes around Giles's waist as his hand runs down Giles's arm, then back up, down his chest, and around his stomach. He loosens the shirttails from the waist and touches the exposed skin lightly, using just the tips of his fingers, tracing the hairs. His tongue pulses slowly against Giles's own, and Giles feels a moan trembling up his chest at the touch as Daniel traces a slow dizzy dance of sensation over his stomach and down into the crease of his thigh.

Giles breaks the kiss as Daniel starts to unbutton his shirt from the bottom up. The two halves of the shirt fall open as Giles spreads his shoulders, and Daniel brings both hands up to his chest, covering the nipples with the shallow hollow of his palms, pressing lightly. As he leans in, one hand drops back to Giles's crotch and the other twists the nipple, and his tongue flickers agonizingly slowly and lightly over the other nipple.

Shards of sensation skitter across the surface of Giles, noise and song concatenated at the end of the radio dial into harmonious static, and he bites down hard on his lip to keep from moaning when Daniel presses the flat of his tongue against his nipple and squeezes his cock. But then he is moaning, and Daniel is moving away, retreating into the dark, his mouth working.

More static, Daniel's voice, slowly resolving itself to sense, sounding flat, nearly bored. "Gonna fuck me now?"

Shaking, his tongue gone thick and useless in his mouth, Giles nods, and Daniel is looming over him, grabbing at the sleeping bag, shaking it out, and Giles goes up on one knee to make room. Daniel is very naked, and distantly Giles knows that saying such a thing is incorrect, like deeming a woman very pregnant, or a collectible very unique. Yet he is very naked, appallingly so, white and skinny against the dark tartan of the sleeping bag, one long arm reaching out, handing Giles a box and lube.

"Don't forget them this time." Flat, fuzzing out at the edges into noise that mixes with the roar in Giles's ears.

Giles nods and fumbles with the preparations.

His pants down around his thighs, cock jutting out, angry red at the base gone waxy-purple under the latex, he shuffles forward on his knees, stroking Daniel's white thigh with sticky fingers. The boy's smile is crooked as he pecks Giles's cheek and rolls over onto his stomach. He lets Giles slip an arm under his waist and haul him back onto his hands and knees, and their breathing is thick and pained in the silence. Giles strokes one finger down Daniel's spine and into his cleft, eliciting a sigh and push back. He spreads his thighs, angling his head down, and starts kissing the hollow of the back until he feels the wiggle against his chest, and licks down to the cleft, tasting tears and sun and the camphor-sting of mothballs. Daniel jumps in his embrace when he kisses the pucker, and starts moaning as if in pain.

Giles's head jerks up and Daniel is looking over his shoulder. "Don't stop. Just--"

Just do it: Giles completes the phrase silently, and obeys, fingertips digging into the boy's waist as he screws his tongue into the hole and pushes until he's breathless and Daniel is gasping, collapsed onto useless arms, hips rolling back against Giles's mouth.

His free hand scrabbles for the bottle of lube, lost in the folds of sleeping bag and clothes, and finally locates it behind his foot. Daniel cries out again when Giles's mouth lifts, and he hears himself soothing him, murmuring nonsense, soft rhyming sounds, as he coats his hand. Daniel quiets, and reaches around, grasping one cheek and tugging it open for the soaked fingers stroking the back of his balls.

"Good boy," Giles hears himself say, and some kernel, tiny and useless at the front of his brain screams at that in pain and outrage, screams itself hoarse and dead as he starts painting long strokes up and down and across the hole. Daniel's moans sound vaguely like weeping, the way they catch on his breath and sweep up the scale, and they go higher and faster as Giles works his finger in. "Sweet Christ, oh--"

The sound and heat of the slick thin skin crash over Giles, sweep him out inside a dull roar and over currents of sensation. When three fingers have corkscrewed their way inside, and he's noted dully that Daniel knows to push back and jut his hips just so, he removes his arm from Daniel's waist and lines up his cock against the hole.

The last thing that happens breaks the roar and shakes him back to himself. Daniel goes still and looks over his shoulder again. Their eyes meet, and there is a hulking form mirrored and doubled in Daniel's pupils. Then he blinks, and erases the sight. "Not going to make love to me, are you?" he asks, smiling twistily, licking his lips, voice hoarse and full of need.

"Wouldn't dream of it." And then he's sunk inside, and the moment has become the past as Daniel rocks forward, dragging him deeper, pulsing around his cock, fucking himself hard and fast on it.

They pant together as Giles drives in, twitches his hips, and pulls the boy back, moans and epithets drowning out the slap of skin on skin, wet senseless noise, and Giles lifts Daniel up off his arms, yanking his head to the side, crushing their mouths together.

He lost a while ago any sense of discrimination, any ability to distinguish his need from Daniel's, and as he stops fucking and settles instead for pushing ever more deeply, something there in the van knows with a sharp and still clarity that such an ability is going to be very difficult indeed to recover.

Giles, however, understands later, never now, only that some horrible succession of folly and desire brought him here, set him rutting, and will not release him.

/

Oz wakes up for the third time that day in a soggy heap on top of Giles. His ass is burning and throbbing in that perfect-awful way, and his legs are still trembling, like when he used to run track. Before he figured out he just wasn't going to grow any more.

An owl screams outside, the noise frightening and primeval, and he rouses himself, rolling as gently off Giles as possible. He stirs anyway, stroking the side of his hand down Oz's ribs and swallowing a couple times before he clears his throat.

"Should get going," Oz says. "You drive."

Oz has questions. He is full to brimming and overflowing with questions. Giles says so, too. Just now, in fact: "You're full of questions, aren't you?"

Beyond the usual polite and/or amused inquiry like that, Giles doesn't seem to have many questions. He knows too much to have to ask anything.

But not Oz. He wants to know what Giles is thinking about, wants to know why kaleidoscopes work, how a single guy can survive for decades on his own without knowing how to cook anything other than a "fairly passable curry", whether _Rope_ was filmed in real-time, too, or if they just made it look like that. If Leopold and Loeb could have sued Hitchcock for libel even though they were child-killers.

Also, what's going on behind Giles's face? What does Oz look like to another set of eyes?

"Huh? Full of questions? Yeah." He takes Giles's plate and his own to the sink and returns to fetch the wine glasses. "You done?"

"Am I finished? Yes. A roast is done, a person is--"

"Finished. Got it." And there's another question right there. Who made up grammar? Did someone sit down and say, all right, this word goes here and only applies to people, otherwise it's wrong, but this other word can go there, and apply to meat and other inanimate things. Of course, meat *used* to be animate, so that might not be the best example. Still, though. Who decided?

Giles smoothes his napkin after putting it on the table in front of him and sighs. "I am sorry. I seem to channel my father more and more these days."

"It's okay," Oz says from the kitchen, scraping plates into the compost bin. "Learn something new every day, right?"

Giles meets him halfway between the fridge and the dining room, relieving him of the scummy plates, setting them aside without taking his eyes from Oz's. He's wearing the Bowie shirt and old khakis gone fuzzy at the stitching, and it's pretty cool how he can go casual and still look this intense all the time.

Oz wonders all over again what he's thinking. He doesn't ask, because there seems to be a limit to how many questions are socially acceptable within a certain time period, and any more than that? Weird and rude.

"You look tired," Giles says.

"Really? I feel okay." Oz sidles into him just so, hip leading shoulder, and gets what he was looking for: loose arm around his waist, fingers barely tucked into his waistband. Long cool fingers that send shudders right through him like he's tissue paper.

"Thank you," Giles says, tightening the hold and bending a little so his torso moves back but his chin comes to rest on Oz's head. "For dinner. For--"

Oz shifts his stance, parting his legs, bending at the knee a little, the way you do when taking a sharp curve while skating, bringing himself back up alongside Giles. "Welcome. It was just moussaka. Well, TVP moussaka."

"A miracle in and of itself, yes."

"What, TVP? It's good. Once you get used to it." Oz slips both hands under Giles's shirt, spreading his fingers and just kind of hanging on, feeling muscles move, stomach do its thing, heart beat.

"What are you doing?"

Hah. Got a question out of him. Oz tilts back his head and considers, sliding his palms upward as he leans back against Giles's arm. "Ogling," he says. "But with my hands. Tactile ogling."

The chuckle starts deep in Giles's chest and rises up against Oz's skin at the same time it goes up Giles's throat and out his mouth. It's this heady mix of touch and sound, and Oz leans closer. "Do that again."

"What?" Giles asks.

"Laugh." He pushes the shirt further up, remembering all of a sudden that he's never seen Giles totally naked. Giles just looks down at him, smile kind of vague on his lips as Oz moves in. When he rakes a fingertip over the left nipple, Giles sighs and bites his lip. The nipple's shaped different from the right one, kind of splayed out in the middle, wider.

"Pierced?"

"At one time, yes."

"Hmm." Oz runs his finger back over it, getting another little sigh. "Your misspent youth?"

Giles laughs again, and it's harder to feel this time, but the rumble's there all the same. "My misspent youth?"

"Your words, not mine." Giles had said that at some point, he's sure of it. It's just not something Oz could have come up with on his own. Oz circles the pad of his thumb over the right nipple, not wanting it to feel left out. "Left one means top, right?"

"Usually it does." Giles's voice is a little higher, which means he's nervous or turned on, or maybe both. Oz is getting pretty good at figuring stuff out from tone. It's like music, where the words in the lyrics don't matter nearly as much how they sound. He's still got a long way to go, but he's learning.

He wonders how that answer would go over in a leather bar. Not the joke kind, not The Blue Oyster, but a real one. Probably not so well. From what Oz can tell, the rules are pretty rigid out there. He remembers he's gone quiet again, so he nods a little. "Mm-hmm. Misspent youth."

Back to words again, he thinks. Youth means a kid, like him, but also a period of time that's not really very well-defined since it depends on time passing. Like "the youth of America" is a group of kids, but "America's youth" could be the Revolution. For Giles, his youth probably went all the way near thirty, and Oz thinks that just because you don't usually get your tits pierced when you're a teenager. Maybe you do, but that would be unusual. Even for Giles.

Oz skims the scarred nipple with his tongue. "Feel that?"

"Mmmm."

He loves it when even Giles can't figure out what to say. "Cool."

Giles's fingers stroke the back of his hair and down the nape of his neck. Getting touched there always sends jagged, buzzing little shivers into the center of his skull, and down, forking into his legs before doubling back up. Sweet.

/

"Got another question for you," Daniel murmurs.

Giles knows he stiffens at that, but he cannot help it. All he can do is close his hand around the back of the boy's neck and squeeze, hoping Daniel will not notice. He has felt himself dropping out like this increasingly over the past week, finding himself absent and stiff. It takes more effort to return to the moment each time.

"Hmm?" Giles says, his hand dropping to the small of Daniel's back, bunching the fabric of his shirt. Vague polite noises seem to have become his stock in trade.

Daniel leans back, bracing himself against Giles's arm, wide and shadowed eyes gazing up. "How come we never manage to get all your clothes off?"

Slow, serpentine smile on Daniel's face while Giles considers this. Daniel's hands have slipped around his sides, kneading slightly.

"We've screwed around twelve, thirteen, times," Daniel says, fingers slipping into the waistband and sweeping slowly back and forth. Giles rocks against him, and then they are rocking together, onto their toes then back to the heels. "But I still haven't seen like all of you."

"You've kept count?" Giles is surprised, to put it mildly. Rather like when Daniel inquired about his youth just now. Numbers and time generally seem to slip past Daniel, quietly, without notice.

There must be some term for this sort of--Giles is hesitant to think of it as a learning disability, since the phrase smacks so much the American demonization of difference and the tendency to medicalize everything under the sun--this sort of cognitive capacity. Daniel is far more carefully attuned to the presence of, the sound and weight of, words and things. Whatever is discrete and individual, that is what snags his attention. He likes to sound words out, poke apart their constituent phonics, inquire after their various meanings and their derivation.

He does not count, nor does he pass the time.

Daniel nudges his groin against Giles's leg and speeds up their rocking, sending the red wine straight to Giles's head in flushed haze. Unsteadily, he steps back. Daniel follows bonelessly, and thrusts slowly, liquidly against him. "Sure. I'm counting the couch that time the phone rang, just so you know. Hey, duck."

Giles obeys as the boy sweeps his shirt up and over his head, trailing and catenating deep electric shivers down Giles's back. Daniel ducks his own head under the fabric, and it slides down Giles's arm. He releases the boy briefly and they step backward into the dining room as Daniel presses his lips to Giles's chest. He taps Giles back up against the dining table with a press of his forehead and thrust of his hips.

"Daniel--" and he breaks off, feeling a humming noise tremor run up his throat as Daniel runs lips and tongue over his navel, small pale hands undoing his fly. Giles lifts his hips as much against Daniel's mouth as to free his trousers to be tugged off.

Daniel glances up sharply when Giles's cock bounces up. "Hanging loose, Giles?" he asks, grinning widely. He braces his arms against the edge of the table and leans over Giles. Giles has gone back on his elbows without quite being aware of it. He hums again as the boy's corduroys rasp over his bare skin.

Giles feels he could bear this strange scrutiny that Daniel subjects him to for as long as necessary. He would willingly lie back on his elbows, skin aching for the touches that fall lightly and randomly, nearly as light as the spread of the boy's breath, moving over his nipples and under his arms, for years. If that is what it takes, he thinks nonsensically, so be it. He had dimmed the lights to eat by, so Daniel's head hovers very dark over his own dully glowing skin. He is a strange albino bird in sunny California, but Daniel matches him for paleness, and sometimes, as Giles drifts under him, the only way to distinguish between Daniel's hand and Giles's skin is a watery silver shadow. They certainly cannot be distinguished in Giles's mind via touch. He is too far gone to do that.

He does not know how long he lies there, thighs parted, thoroughly naked, open for inspection. He does know that there have been other times in his life when he lay like this, but they never felt like this. The way Daniel looks at him is gentle and curious; generally in such situations there is a sharp gleam in the other's eye, slightly feral and certainly possessive.

Daniel moves over him slowly and with care, never giving any of the strong hints of potential and future cruelty and violence that Giles's nerves, crackling with tension, have been trained to expect.

Daniel is certainly strong; Giles watches the narrow muscles shift and contract in the boy's arms for minutes on end. Yet while he is strong, there is no aggression in his touch.

Giles feels all this. His thoughts do not move in such clean, complex and well-ordered phrases, however, especially as Daniel takes hold of his hips and pushes him farther up the table. He hears the protesting squeak of skin on varnish as the boy pulls himself up, straddling one thigh, drawing his thumbs down Giles's ribs till they brush the table, and move back up.

Not aggressive but neither is Daniel passive. He simply is *there*, touching and lulling Giles into this trembling equilibrium that swings back and forth as his face comes in closer, kissing Giles deeply and languidly. In a slow seep of thought, under this touch and inside this kiss, Giles learns that there exist touches other than those of the seductive and the seduced.

Daniel rocks his thigh against the bottom of Giles's cock, his pants left behind on the floor, so that warm taut skin touches his own. Giles is very hard, and the slow friction welcome, but there is no urgency in his reactions, lulled as he is by this careful, endless scrutiny.

His arms give out and he comes to rest on the table when Daniel pulls away and slides off, out of sight. Staring up, Giles blinks rapidly enough for the candelabra's light to seem to quiver in tune with the blood pounding through his dick and up the back of his skull. He loses track--of time, of sensation--in the slow, insistent regularity of the rhythm, until his head jerks up at the sudden grip on the base of his cock and the pinch of the condom as it is unrolled. Daniel smiles absently at him and scrapes over a chair to brace Giles's foot. He swings himself back up and over Giles's chest, looking for all the world like the men in the extreme skateboarding videos he watches over breakfast. Giles almost expects him to grab his ankle with a flourish.

He arches under Daniel's grip, visuals forgotten, receding rapidly, as Daniel captures his wrist and brings it up to his chest between them. Cold lube poured into the cup of his palm, and Daniel is sliding over him, lowering his mouth to Giles's, fists in Giles's hair, his thighs opening wider to Giles's touch.

/

Oz figures he's nearly humping Giles at this point, messy tongue against Giles's tonsils, ass trembling under the pressure of Giles's fingers. Not that he can bring himself to complain, or even feel that embarrassed. He moans into Giles when two fingertips breach him, and he tenses for a second to keep from shaking like a leaf and flying apart.

In the past week, he's had to revise upwards his estimation of Giles's inherent strength several times. He's up to cathedral-strong, centuries built, peasants humbled and awed, buttresses flying, as the burn subsides to a blush, then starts up as sharp, jazzy tingle and he rocks backward and squeezes down on the fingers halfway in. Giles chuckles under him and Oz nips at his tongue to get at the sound. He's doing these little rocks forward, a couple per heartbeat, when he hears the slap of hand on cock and feels Giles pulling his hips back.

Oz's thighs tighten for an instant, and he exhales down Giles's cheek as he relaxes. There's no way to figure out what this feels like, opening barely enough, taking in something hard and pulsing, but it's a burn with sweet expectation, he knows that much, and he forgets to breathe as he bobs in place and feels Giles work himself inside, somehow more solid and firm than Oz has ever felt himself to be or will ever feel again. Like he's running in place, one of those mall waterfalls that suck the water back up and send it down again, his mouth going dry even as the flush shuddering from his ass outward gets stronger and stronger and Giles starts squeezing his hips so Oz struggles to rise a fraction, barely anything, and sink back again. Giles's face is so close, gone indistinct and broken up into these Cubic fragments, except where his skin scrapes on Oz's mouth. He feels smaller than ever, hardly more than bone and ass, light as a bird in Giles's grasp except for that one thick, burning tension aching and rumbling up inside him like stormy red-velvet sunset sky.

Oz rides like this for longer than he thought he could ever hold up, motion deep and regular as the metronome on his guitar teacher's mantle. Metronomes just gradually slow down, but instead he's smoothly picking up speed, slobbering against Giles's mouth so much that the spit is cold on his chin, burning cold like Giles's fingers dug into his hips, and suddenly out of the clear blue sky barrels in that overwhelming need to push and buck, and Giles is urging him on, thundering breeze rising up the scale in his ear, and Oz grabs both hands onto the edge of the table and jerks backward, pulling Giles's cock deeper into him, twisting his hips around like a desperate virgin, and Giles is yanking him back down, grinding up, the flame and pulse of his coming burning hot-then-cold as Oz grinds down, white noise building in an avalanche in his ass and behind his balls, and he collapses before the shooting's over, feels spurts against his chest as Giles clutches him.

Giles is grasping at his cheeks, maneuvering him until Oz is kissing him back, shallow little pecks, his lips are so dry he's worried they'll crack open. Leftover bleeps and zigzags of sensation skitter around under his skin, and he feels a bone-deep shudder start in his legs, wonders where that came from. "God," he breathes into Giles's mouth, hands sliding squeakily from the edge of the table to pillow under Giles's head. "Mmmm."

Inarticulate, but that's to be expected.

/

Daniel looks worried, frowning, brows beetling over narrow eyes, when Giles answers the door a few afternoons later. Before he can ask what's wrong, however, Daniel hands him a sandwich wrapped in white butcher paper and another sack of garden vegetables. The boy will brook no protests when it comes to the vegetables, so Giles stows them in the crisper without comment.

"How was practice?" Giles asks when he returns to the living room. Daniel squats in front of the television, fiddling with the wires in back, glancing anxiously at the snow that persists on the screen.

"Usual crap," Daniel says, giving up on coaxing better reception out of the relic. He turns and sits cross-legged, facing Giles on the couch. Giles does not know whether to rest his ultimate interpretation of that comment on Daniel's previous scowl and the words themselves, or on the contrasting lightness of his tone and the sudden jump of a smile. "You remembered?"

Giles nods as he unwraps his sandwich. He cannot tell the boy just how precisely, with a bookkeeper's concern for the neatness of the ledger, he has remembered that he had band rehearsal that morning. Nor how for the same past few days, blessedly Devon-free days during which Daniel lounged with him from breakfast until moonset, he has also tried to push away all thoughts of the impending rehearsal with something that edges close to hysteria.

He knows just how easily, with little if any effort, slip into this hysteria that is threatening. He could start recording the minutes spent in silence with Daniel, the hours in bed, chart with delirious care the rapidly dwindling time that fades in inverse proportion to this blossoming, jealous panic. He has so far resisted slipping, for the most part. Last night when the bed dipped sharply, he opened his eyes to the slice of pale back turned to him, shimmying shorts up its hips, head bent into the dark.

"You're not staying?" he had heard himself whisper like some tiresome mistress, wheedling yet resigned. Shoulders shrugged, then Daniel pulled his shirt over his head. "Can't," he had said simply, and Giles had swallowed back hard on the sorrow creeping up his throat.

He could have slipped then; he could still slip now.

Daniel flicks his thumb absently at the charms on the bracelet around his ankle, and Giles realizes how foolish he must look, smiling like this into the empty middle distance.

"Don't get mad," Daniel says as he strokes the red vial charm. "But can I ask you something?"

Giles digs nails into his palm and lets his smile slide away. "Of course." There's that odd wheedling note in his voice again; he can't seem to help it. He clears his throat. "Please."

Daniel's lips twitch as he fondles his bracelet. Giles wants very much to run his hand through the spikey hair, feel it prickle his palm before he finds the heat of the boy's skull. "Did you get fired?"

"What?"

Daniel ducks his head again, chin brushing the hem of his shirt.

"Daniel," Giles says, relieved to hear himself sounding somewhat normal. "Why would you ask me that?"

"Well," Daniel says, rising to his knees and shuffling across the rug. His instinct for closeness is not only triggered by stress, Giles has learned, but it is at its strongest then. "Got to wondering, see--"

Giles laughs and grasps his elbow, hauling the boy up to the couch beside him, remembering the first time they sat like this. Already the memory of Daniel sleeping that first night has become strong and familiar, its details rubbed away through frequent reflection, until all that remains is the simultaneous sense of miraculous wonder and stomach-twisting doubt that the sight brought. "That kind of thing can be dangerous, you understand. Wondering and such."

Daniel laughs until he starts to cough into his fist and squints, wrinkles closing off his eyes. "Good point."

"Dear boy." Daniel nuzzles a bit, hearing that, and Giles lowers his mouth to Daniel's ear. "Are you busy this afternoon?" Giles asks, stroking the cool small hollow of Daniel's neck. "I thought we might do something."

Daniel sinks against him with a sigh. "That's what I'm talking about."

"Which is what?" Giles thinks that by now, he should be able to ask for clarification without feeling surprised at the need. Daniel's statements are scattershot at best, and make Giles wonder at the logic that should connect them. There should be some current amongst these disparate thoughts, else Daniel would be mad, but it is perceptible only infrequently.

"Are you ever going back to work?"

Daniel stares at him so directly and plainly, with such clarity gracing his features, that it is hard to believe Giles could ever doubt his logic.

"It's summer," Giles says, swallowing. "Summer holiday."

"Met you at the library," Daniel reminds him gently.

Giles nods, swallowing again. No argument there. The longer he remains silent, the closer the panic hovers, drawn nearer than ever. He tries to clear his throat but Daniel stares at him again. Giles meets his gaze.

Lowering his eyes, Daniel murmurs, "I worried you got fired and didn't want to tell me."

"I still fail to see the reason," Giles says. He tries to pull Daniel closer, but for once the boy resists and remains where he is. Giles cannot trace the source of his sudden anger. It flares up, he thinks brokenly that he hates this, and then it vanishes. What is he angry at? What could he possibly hate? Impertinence, or finding that he is the object of worry? Perhaps those are the same thing.

"Just--" Daniel spreads out the fingers on both hands and cocks his head, considering, it appears, the amount of chipping in his nail polish. "Not mad?"

"Bewildered, perhaps. Not mad."

Daniel sighs and starts to pick at the polish on his thumb. "You've got so much free time. Made me worry."

That was unexpected. Giles tilts against the boy strongly enough for Daniel to catch him and tuck his head against Giles's forehead. "I certainly didn't mean to worry you," he says, drinking in the sharp tang of smoke, tobacco and marijuana, on the boy. "I had actually cleared my schedule for the foreseeable future. I thought you knew that."

Daniel kisses his ear gently and slides down into a slump. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Giles says, automatically. He clears his throat again. "I should have been clearer."

Daniel is quiet for several long moments, barely stirring with breath against Giles. His neck smells like salt and the varieties of smoke, and he sighs when Giles kisses him there. "You sound weird lately, you know."

Giles looks up. "How do you mean?"

"Weird?" Daniel's eyes squeeze shut. When he does this, searching for the best word, he resembles a small child caught in the spotlight of a spelling bee. "Off? Like an old Chevy engine. Shutting down."

/

Okay, pretend he doesn't hear Giles shutting down. He can do that. But: How do you clear a schedule? Like clearing a desk, one sweep of the arm into the circular file? He wants to know what that means.

Instead, Giles reassures him in the best possible way, several times over, with firm hands and straining hard cock and that kiss that burns out his last neuron, leaving Oz all stupid and dizzy and desperate. He lets himself get lost.

Someone really should try to market this particular sexcapade for overworked executives. They'd make a killing, Oz is sure of that, and it feels so good he can laugh at the weird porno-infomercial trend of his thoughts and Giles won't ask what's so funny. Because it's normal to crack up like this when it's a couple hours later and he's pressed up against the slick wall of the shower, tiles imprinting his back, tickling fingers running up his thighs as Giles sucks him off.

/

He should probably inquire after Daniel's vague, hesitant solicitousness. He is always so careful to reassure himself that Giles is not cross with him. As if Giles were violent and unpredictable, prepared to lash out at the least infraction. It may be something in his background, poor educational system and absent parents, but, upon reflection, he is simply overreacting. The sensitivity seminars the school board requires of all its new employees seem to have affected Giles more than he knew. He does not need to be this aware of "warning signs" and hints of trouble, not when it comes to Daniel.

It never would have occurred to him that Daniel was capable of worry, especially over him. The boy is normally so placid and yet so attuned to his surroundings, attuned to an almost psychic degree, that Giles had assumed all thoughts concerning him evaporated as soon as Daniel steps out his door. Place Daniel somewhere new, and he will adjust instantaneously, take on the shape and hue of wherever he finds himself.

He has his friends, after all, that shifting, motley crew, and random appointments to meet them for inexplicable reasons. Lack of any reason, actually, is usually behind those appointments as far as Giles can tell. Hanging in the park, hanging at the Bronze, hanging in someone's basement. The term makes them sound like monkeys chattering the forest, dangling betwixt the branches, de-licing each other's fur, and although he has trouble picturing Daniel, so quiet and serene, as any kind of monkey, the overall impression persists. He has his friends, and hanging, and band rehearsal; Daniel moves among various situations with such gentle leisure that Giles cannot understand how he might summon enough energy to worry, nor when.

When Daniel is absent at these empty appointments, Giles works desultorily on translations and updates to both his official and unofficial journals. He puts in enough time that the Council should not notice anything awry, but no more. He stays home for this work, loathe to return to the library until he absolutely must. Daniel has mentioned this once or twice, and Giles assumes he is merely being polite. It is, again, inconceivable that the boy would rather be there than here. More inconceivable, in fact, than the regularity with which the boy turns up on his doorstep, or lets himself in, makes himself at home, all of which are impossible despite the fact that they continue to happen.

Giles accomplishes little when he is working, and often, picking up his pen after an hour-long break, the American expression "goldbricking" comes to mind. He cannot feel very guilty, however. August is already underway. Once term starts, he will have more than enough time to make up for his wandering attention.

/

"Don't know what you see in him, man." Devon shifts Nonie off his lap and slaps her ass, propelling her toward Oz. They're in the storage space she got her father to rent them at the employee discount for rehearsals. He promised to play nice, but she's already starting to wear on him.

Devon straddles an amp, shaking his head at Oz, who's leaning against the wall. "Seriously, you going to cruise Sunset Towers next?"

"You know it," Oz says. Nonie crouches in front of the cooler at his feet, and hands up cans to him. He balances them in his palm, he's getting good at this. Last time he made six balance before the stack started to sway menacingly. He gives up at three this time. "Blue hair and support hose get me every time."

"Exactly, man!" Devon guzzles the soda as Nonie slides back onto his thigh. They've been together, what, a couple weeks? And she's already got the hanging girlfriend-slash-groupie posture down perfect. Still nodding vigorously, Devon pauses to kiss her, sliding his hand up under her shirt. "I keep telling you you've got the pick of the litter and what do you do? Go for the mangy old tom who lives behind the dumpsters at Shanghai Garden."

"I think he's hot." Nonie smiles at Oz with such deliberate kindness he feels kind of sick. Devon snorts. "I *do*. All kinda, I don't know, *British*. And grizzled."

"Ben Cartwright's grizzled," Oz says. "Willie Nelson. Not sure about Giles."

"You going to fuck Willie next?" And because Devon's never heard about understatement, because he likes his exclamation points and italics in bulk economy packs, he thrusts a couple times and retches for emphasis. "Huh?
Pound away at that geriatric ass?"

Oz sips his Hawaiian Punch and glances away. Then he studies the mutant tropical guy on the can very carefully.

"Oh, fuck *me*." Devon's practically spitting.

Nonie looks back and forth between Devon and Oz, forehead wrinkling pretty deep for a kid her age. "What?" she asks Devon. "What's wrong?"

"That's just-- Shit." Devon stands, holding Nonie around the waist so she doesn't fall. "That's so fucking wrong, Oz. Just so-- *Fuck*."

Oz sticks out his tongue, crossing his eyes so he can check how stained red it is. Berry, berry red.

Nonie trails after Dev, throwing pissed-off glances back at Oz. Yay. Now he's in trouble with some chick he barely knows for annoying the great and powerful Devon.

"So fucking *obvious*!" Devon's apparently found that perfect word he was sputtering after, and shouts it again as he wheels around. "Obvious!"

If their positions were reversed, Oz-now-Devon would tell him that Giles fucks him way better than the original Dev ever did. Or will, whatever. That would require some kind of personality graft, though, where Oz keeps his memories but gains Devon's mega-frankness. His head throbs when he tries to work through how that would work, since Devon-now-Oz would never go for Giles in the first place. Basically, he just doesn't have anything to say, although anyone else would be able to come up with some type of retort, so he distracts himself with impossible sci-fi scenarios.

"I don't get it," Nonie pleads, and any minute now, she's probably going to start tugging at Devon's sleeve.

Devon tears away from her grip and in no time at all he's looming over Oz, grabbing him by the neck. He kisses Oz roughly, nearly missing his mouth, harsh suction and angry tongue. He swipes his hand across his lips as he pulls back and Nonie squeals.

"Like that?" Devon whispers harshly, and Oz can't back up any farther since he's already against the wall. And he's shaking too hard to think about moving anyway. Devon smiles slowly, and the only thing Oz can think of is a cat, some kind of lazy predator who has all the time in the world to play with his food. Arrogant fuck.

Best just to go along. "Yeah. Like that."

Dev grabs his ass a little too hard. Oz is nearly always slightly sore these days, since Giles fucks like it's going out of style. The hand wrenching his cheeks apart is sharp and mean, but he wiggles against it anyway.

"'Kay, now that's just *gross*," Nonie says. Oz can't see her, but she's probably backing away, shaking her head. Wrinkling her nose like the sight smells bad. He slides his hands up to Devon's neck and pulls him back down for more kissing, trapping one thigh between his own, grinding back against the hand on his ass. Dev's kissing like a drowning man, gripping his shoulder hard enough to bruise really deep.

Devon moans into the kiss when Oz scrapes his teeth over the root of his tongue, and starts thrusting, bracing one hand on the ringing metal wall as he rubs his cock roughly over Oz's shorts.

"Dev?" Nonie asks, softly, uncertainly. "Devon?"

Devon rips his mouth away, a little trickle of blood worming over his lower lip from Oz's teeth, but doesn't slow his thrusting. "Yeah?"

"I don't--" Nonie says. She's persistent; Oz has to give her that. Nothing more though, because his dick is hurting, and Dev's pressed too hard against him for Oz to do more than wiggle and bite back his breath at the friction. And she's an unnecessary distraction at this point. "Devon? What are you doing?"

"The fuck does it *look* like he's doing?" Oz nearly growls, and Devon rakes his fingers up the split of his ass. His eyes go electric at that, exploding with white sparks, and he twists just right so he's almost riding Devon's pelvis.

Nonie shakes her head, and now she's backing up, getting close to the door. "You said he liked to watch." Talking to Devon, shading her eyes, voice going thin as a wire. "Not--. Join in."

"That what you said?" Oz asks, catching the tendon in Devon's neck between his front teeth and sucking. He grinds awkwardly forward, shoves his hand down Devon's ass, scrapes his nails the whole way until Devon can't not moan. "Did you lie to the nice girl?"

Devon kind of sags against him, dragging his cock against Oz's, groaning like a Neanderthal. "What got into you, man?" he manages before Oz hooks his fingers deep into the crease between ass and thigh.

"He lies a lot," Oz says. Something like pity in his voice. Nonie's even further away now, out the door. "Kind of an asshole that way, huh, Dev?"

/

Giles will not allow himself to panic. It is unseemly, not to mention a waste of energy.

He is more than aware that Daniel's mind wanders as easily as his body seems to do: One small twig in a stream swollen with the spring melt, rushing, bobbing past, no will to speak of. Despite himself, he can nearly forgive the boy's restless attention and this unexpected absence.

Hadn't it been only a day or so ago that he tried to convince himself that Daniel's regular presence was the impossibility?

Moreover, he reminds himself, he has no claim on Daniel, nothing that says anything about rights and privileges to his company. He also knows, because he is young enough to have studied with a pupil of Thompson's, that time-as-commodity is a modern invention. That the new urban bourgeoisie's attempt to control and parcel it out was deeply offensive and inscrutable to the traditional rural laborer. He frequently calms himself these days by reviewing the extraneous trivia he has picked up along the way. It distracts him long enough from whatever immediate stimulus of anxiety has pricked him this time. Tiny thorns of anxiety have the power to set him off into quick slide into worry and hurt. When this happens, he retrieves the odd fact and turns it around, scrutinizes it, until he feels better. Calmer.

Prompted, it seemed, by yet another useless fact Giles offered him, Daniel told him the other day that he has a Velcro mind. Giles would prefer a hook-and-eye mind, or a waistcoat mind, but Daniel insisted.

He's thinking now about Daniel, and when this happens, it is difficult, nearly impossible, to return to the meditative fugue he had been trying to foster. Time need not be commodified, but Giles knows, despite the tweed and his general ignorance of computers and other contraptions, that he is a resolutely modern creature. He cannot help himself from thinking like this. From worrying and feeling the seconds slide past him, unused, gone to rot.

So time is wasting. He is nervous, close to a shuddering panic, and he is jealous.

/

"Why--why--why--why?"

Oz can't get away. That's not really the kind of thing you can answer.

"Why?" Giles asks him over and over, panting, and Oz can't figure out what the hell he's talking about.

He stayed over at Devon's after rehearsal, but couldn't sleep, and let himself into Giles's place just after sunrise. So, granted, the poor guy just got roused out sleep. He probably can't be expected to make sense. Just not fair to think he'd be his usual self, all clear and smart, when he just woke up. But usually when people talk as they wake they mutter about muffins on fire or warning the seagulls. Nonsense that's cute and surreal, that they'll deny ever having said. That's what sleepers do. They don't clutch your shoulders like this, shake you with every syllable.

Giles pulls him onto his lap, combing his hair back with rough fingers, and he can't stop babbling that one word. His other hand closes around the lump in Oz's pants. That lump that he carried over here, the just-about-permanent, aching one.

Oz tries to quiet him. He tries shushing and soothing and murmuring and, finally, kissing. Giles's tongue works against his, lips closing around Oz's, still talking for a bit. He keeps squeezing and releasing Oz's dick and shifting him around until Oz is sitting sideways between his legs, Giles's cock digging into the top of his hip, and he can't really breathe that well anymore, smashed up against Giles like this.

Giles pulls away, blinking at him for a second like he has no clue who he just dragged between his legs. "Daniel," he says at last, and starts to work open his fly.

"That's me," Oz says. Giles nods and grabs his dick.

Giles's skin is hot from sleep, and when Oz brushes his fingertips across his chest, a little sweat, more humid than actually wet, comes off. He pinches the long-healed but still lumpy nipple as he nuzzles the sweat caught between Giles's neck and shoulder. Giles shakes against him, still panting, almost bending Oz's dick between his knuckles in his hurry.

"Tell me what you were doing," Giles pleads, burying his face in Oz's shoulder when Oz snakes his hand in between them and shifts so he can hold on to his cock. He can't quite remember when Giles started going commando, but it's cool at the same time that it's totally confusing. "Tonight. What were you doing with your degenerate friends?"

His dick jumps in Oz's grasp when Giles breathes out that last question, and Oz knows that this is one he can answer, since it seems like an answer is more than welcome. Degenerate friends? That's new.

"Fucking around," Oz tells him, rocking his hand up and down as Giles's panting twists off into a moan. "Me and Dev freaked out his girlfriend--"

He doesn't know why he's telling Giles this, but he seems to be the only one unsure here since Giles's arm goes around his back and his mouth drags its way slowly down Oz's throat, little moans left behind that shiver, maybe shimmer?, on his skin. He thrusts hard into Oz's hand and starts up that long chain of "Why" again.

Oz tries to kiss him and Giles's head lurches back. "Tell me," he says, voice all rough and tight. "Tell what you did. Touch me."

Oz shakes his head but doesn't let go. "Can't--" He can't, or he won't, or something, but that's something Giles wouldn't like, he does know that, remembering Nonie's something's-smelly-face, and Devon would kick his ass if he ever found out.

"Why?" Strung out like beads, long and separate sounds.

"Why what?" Oz repeats, tightening his grip as Giles slackens his own, letting his dick slap up against his belly. "Why can't I tell you? Or why did we fuck around? Or why'd we freak her out?"

Giles shakes his head, eyes closing. There are little sparkles of sweat or tears on his lashes as his mouth twists open. The next why gets lost in a groan when Oz pushes him back against the pillows and slides the trembling, weeping head of Giles's cock into his mouth. He laps up the precum and reaches up to cup the balls with three fingers, hooking them around the sac just like Giles likes it.

/

Why do I want you?

Why does he desire Daniel? Why does he get to have him?

He will never be able to speak those sentences, never, not even in the hushed, shades-drawn privacy of his own mind.

But now, writhing and desperate, he can groan them out in fragments, broken beyond sense, let broken, jumbled noises loose past his lips just as he begins to shoot, deep into that terribly expert mouth.

/

Round and round we go, where we stop, nobody knows: Wheel of Fortune of the Damned, the way Oz's brain keeps spinning back to the same topics again and again. You'd think he'd have more to think about than the same old questions. You'd be sorely mistaken.

Oz knows he asks too many questions. It's just one of those things he never got a handle on controlling. He's like a toddler with the constant who, what, why, where, how, and again with the why, and he's surprised no one slaps him when he gets going.

Not that he gets going a lot, but when he does, it's like once he admits not understanding one thing, everything else gets doubted, every stupid little thing becomes somehow hideously suspicious, and the questions just come. It's like looking at a little gap in someone's wallpaper. Once you admit it's there, that there's one thing that he doesn't get, that one tiny gap in meaning, he can't look away. Like those guys with OCD, he starts digging at the gap until it widens and comes off under his nail, and he just keeps clawing. Keeps asking. Keeps trying to fill in meaning as it keeps sliding away, peeling off into the dark.

The questions never seem to be quite the right ones, either. Always off-topic or mixed-up in some glaringly obvious way only he misses. Teacher after teacher drilled that fact into him until he learned to shut up in class. Until he taught himself to daydream.

It's not like the questions ever went away. They just went underground, like Harriet Tubman. Or the French Resistance. Except not as important or brave. Just running scared.

Brave would be asking and damn the torpedoes. Brave would be admitting he just doesn't know what to say most of the time, that he can't understand, that he needs help with figuring shit out.

He'd like to know some things, like how he can miss Giles when he's lying right here in the man's bed with a sore jaw and bleary eyes. When the guy himself is right there, back to him, knees drawn up like a scared baby, breathing long shuddering sighs as he sleeps.

How come if this feels so fucking sweet in all its many and confusing ways, how come sometimes he also wants to go back to the library? Just read his books and check out Giles from under the safe dark blur of his lashes?

How come he misses his pathetic fumbling shyness when he's buck naked, exhausted, and ribboned with cum?

'Cause he does, sometimes.

At least until Giles wakes up.

As he wakes, Giles knows immediately that he is alone in bed, indeed, alone in the bedroom. The air feels off, far too still and close, for Daniel to be here. He never doubts his sensory knowledge, whether it is tingles up the nape of his neck, an ache in his knees, or this immobile atmosphere. He does not doubt that he is correct, but he is still intrigued by how quickly his senses appear to have adapted to the boy's presence.

As well as his absence.

The scratches across his torso and the incongruously gentle twinges running through his cock remind him, as if he could forget, precisely why he is alone. He would prefer to forget the previous night entirely, but knows, again with the full weight of experience and atmosphere, that he cannot.

Rather, the problem is what to do in the next moment: How to rise. And then in the next: How to start making his way through the rest of the summer. How to do all of this alone, and deservedly so.

Routine can forestall panic, but never guilt. As he washes away the worst of sleep's detritus, Giles avoids his own eyes in the mirror. He actually finds himself perching on the edge of the tub while brushing his teeth to duck any accidental glance at himself. It is yet another ridiculous stunt, the latest in god knows how many he has pulled since meeting Daniel. He would snort with laughter at himself if he saw this from the outside, in a film or onstage.

But that is precisely the problem here, isn't it? He is very much inside, and appears to have lost the ability to find the exit. He is inside his skin and responsible to it, for what it has done, for what it longs and aches to do again. Raked with fingernails and throbbing sorely, his skin persists in this longing; it is rather like Daniel in that sense, entirely innocent of any larger, more abstract consequences.

And like Daniel, his skin knows fear and knows when to flee, far better than Giles himself.

Washed and dressed, as presentable as ever, Giles descends the stairs slowly. He is reluctant, nearly afraid, to leave the ominous pressure in the bedroom. He belongs there, alone on his back, breathing in the staleness of his guilt. He does not belong here. Not here in the bright, clean light of morning that wavers liquidly in the breeze through the French doors.

The doors should not be open. He realizes this as slowly as is humanly possible, before reasoning backwards, checking his logic. This should not be.

When he reaches the last step, Giles sees why.

Daniel sits in the doorway to the garden, leaning against the sill, shirtless. A smoldering joint dangles from his finger.

He ought to be the one marked with bruises and scratches; he is the one hurt and broken last night. Yet there is no trace of how terribly Giles treated him. His skin is alive in the sunlight, nearly glowing. His hair, raked through and unruly, glows as well, shades of tangerine and pumpkin battling for preeminence. He is present, and in this moment far more beautiful than Giles remembers.

Giles grips the railing at the sight before him. He memorizes the way frayed cuffs spill over Daniel's feet, the tendons flexing as he wiggles his toes; the spray of fine hairs, caught nearly scarlet in the light, along his forearm; the blue stream of smoke rising from his broad, strong hand, dissipating into the thin gray fog hovering over his head; the sharp horizontal cord of his clavicle and the long vertical dip of his nose.

"Hey." Daniel keeps his head turned out the door as he speaks. How long has he known he was being watched? Anyone else would have let slip some gesture, some stiffening of the spine, some sigh. Anyone else would be too self-conscious to remain so still.

Tugged by the sound of Daniel's voice, managing to ignore for the moment every other impulse, Giles moves quickly across the room. He stops short just inside the doorway, suddenly conscious of himself towering over the boy, looming, unable to join him in his ease on the floor.

Daniel looks up at him, nose wrinkling, and inhales sharply on the joint. The wheeze is wet and harsh. Giles swallows rapidly. He must instruct himself to meet the boy's gaze. He cannot look at himself; how he can he do this? He has no right to look at him, take in dark nap along his hair line and the wiggly line of his upper lip. Daniel's mouth opens and the smoke seeps out.

"Is that what I think it is?" Giles asks.

"Come on," Daniel says. With his free hand he tugs at the knee of Giles's trousers, urging him down. Giles lowers himself slowly to the floor, expecting to hear the creaks and protests of every joint. "Don't tell me you've never done a wake and bake."

He hears something in Daniel's voice, an amused and perhaps hopeful note, before he forces himself to stop the process of interpretation he invariably engages in during awkward moments like this. Giles leans forward and, finally, much too late, meets Daniel's eyes. They are hooded: against the smoke, the light, Giles himself.

"Is that what we call it now?" he asks.

Daniel smiles narrowly at that and hands the scrap of the joint to Giles. He inhales deeply, grateful for the distraction from the warm weight of Daniel's hand, still resting on his arm.

"What did I do?"

Surprised by Daniel's quiet, toneless question, Giles tips his head back to exhale, much more quickly than he had intended. "Pardon?" He chokes and coughs once as Daniel thumps him on the back. "What did *you* do?"

Daniel takes back the joint and considers it, pinched between thumb and forefinger, before he speaks. "Yeah."

Having apparently made up his mind, he hands the joint back to Giles. His hand comes to rest back on Giles's arm.

"Nothing," Giles says, wincing at the heat on his lips as he sucks in the last of the smoke. He raises the roach, offering it, but Daniel shrugs.

"I'm good."

"Nothing," Giles says again when the smoke starts to leak out through his nostrils. He thinks of dragons. He wishes this were the kind of moment in which he could grin and tell Daniel that. He lost that chance, relegated it to the status of vain wish, last night. Instead, he buries the roach into the dirt at the edge of the flower bed and claps the dust off his hands. "You've done absolutely nothing."

Daniel lets loose a sound too soft to qualify as a snort and rolls his head around, gazing back out over the grass. Giles feels his heartbeat pause and hang for a moment. He blinks against the light that is suddenly too bright to bear.

"I can't see why you would think you had done anything," Giles says. "Truly. I am the one who--." He hears his own voice, thick and so bloody stuffy he would like to wince, and stops. Daniel's palm travels up his back and rubs lightly while he continues to peer away. "I don't think I can--"

"It's okay," Daniel says. For all he lets on, they could be discussing the possibility of ordering in for dinner. Perhaps that is all they are doing, and Giles is teetering on hysteria again. "Forget it."

"Well, that I can't do," Giles says. The strangest feeling of laughter twines up through his chest, trembling as it branches and forks and rises. "Much as I'd like to, this is one of those things you carry to your grave."

"One of what things?"

Giles is certain that he is not interpreting too much when he thinks that he hears Daniel's familiar relaxed curiosity in the question. He can't be, because Daniel is rolling his head back, gaze sweeping over Giles as his hand comes to rest on the nape of Giles's neck and squeezes. He is partially smiling.

"I-I simply meant," Giles says, watching the ruddy lashes descend in a near parody of a blink, "that--that experience, what I did to you last night, is unforgettable in the worst sense of the word. In the sense of guilt, and regret."

"The grave?" Daniel asks. He shifts back so his spine meets most of the door jamb. "Wait. What did you do to *me*?"

Tendrils of laughter grip Giles harshly, latching in with their suckers. He has to sniff air in through his nose to manage a semblance of calm. "You're not serious."

"Perfectly serious," Daniel says. And he does sound serious, although with Daniel, the tones of serious and utterly uninterested tend to verge on each other.

Giles forgets momentarily everything else he has deemed inconceivable over the past few months, because the sobriety in Daniel's expression, the perfect innocence of his question are, when compared to the grotesqueries he has been put through, truly, remarkably, inconceivable.

He starts to shake slightly under Daniel's hand and manages to draw himself up straighter.

"I mean," Daniel says, "wasn't I the one fucking around?" He has stopped apologizing for the occasional curses, yet Giles still feels the impulse to cringe when he hears Daniel swear. There is something slightly too fine and austere about the boy for those words not to sound odd.

"As if I had any claim on you." Giles rolls his shoulders, suddenly aware of the tension gathering there at the base of his neck, as if Daniel's statement had lodged right there. He hears himself slip into what he has come to think of as the voice of a lecturer at a second-rate university in the Midlands, eager to prove how much better he is than his student audience. "No, Daniel. You are your own person. Responsible for your own actions."

"Never said I wasn't." Daniel's mouth twitches up at one side and he tilts his head slightly, as if Giles had just suggested that he was purple.

"Let me finish, please?" Giles knows he has too little time to explain this, and he resents having to explain it at all. It would have been so much easier for both of them if Daniel *had* slipped away in the night. He squeezes his eyes shut against that thought, regretting it as soon as it forms, wishing physical gesture was capable of clearing his mind. Of course he does not wish Daniel had disappeared; he wants him here, wants him for as long as he can have him.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Giles says. Weariness starts to creep along the spaces left behind the vanished laughter. "Please, whatever you do, just don't--"

Daniel grips Giles by the neck and wrenches his head over until their faces are nearly touching. His eyes are narrow, his cheeks flushed pink. "What if I am sorry? What then?"

Giles licks his lips and feels his face tighten into a mask far too small for him. "B-but--"

"Seriously?" Daniel says harshly and drops his hand. "I don't know what happened. Last night, whenever. Nothing new there. But then you start talking about regrets and graves and shit, and what am I supposed to do?"

He wonders for a flash, less than a moment, if this is how those crisis negotiators feel just before the suicide falls or the hostage is shot. His body is tingling sharply, painfully, bathed in pure alcohol and dipped in dry ice. Giles fumbles for Daniel's arm, any part of him, overcome with the urge to find contact and hang on.

"Do you know?" Daniel demands. "Because I don't. I don't know shit."

"Daniel--" Giles manages before finding a hold on his bare shoulder and pulling him against him. "No."

The boy shakes in his arms as Giles finds himself trying to comfort him. He does not know what to do. He does not know what he is trying to do, what broke inside Daniel and made him seek this comfort. He questions the length and pressure of every touch, evaluating their usefulness and judging their efficacy. Confronted by collapse, he suddenly doubts his own ability to feel. Everything, all sensation and emotion, seems to have flooded away from him, leaving him empty and brittle as worm-burrowed driftwood. Daniel trembles beneath his touch but is silent.

"What did I do?" Giles whispers, stroking the sun-warmed skin on Daniel's back, fingers skidding through the damp sheen of sweat. The question is just another ridiculous stunt, it occurs to him, just as bad as the literal inability to look into his own eyes. He doesn't want an answer, he simply wants to have said it and have it done with. If he wanted an answer, he would have spoken so Daniel could hear.

One of Daniel's arms creeps around Giles's waist and he feels the fingers latch into the muscle in the small of his back. Giles's palm slips around Daniel's rib cage; the bones and muscle there are delicate and fine. If he squeezes too tightly, he can imagine Daniel shattering like porcelain.

"You--" Giles tries again, and swallows whatever he meant to say. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing," Daniel whispers, the breath of it spreading hotly over Giles's chest. "Not sorry. Don't be sorry."

Giles feels certain of something at last. "I am sorry."

Daniel tightens his hold and rubs his forehead against the buttons of Giles's shirt before tipping back his head and looking up. His expression is twisted, beseeching. "Don't, okay? Sex is just--. It goes weird sometimes."

In an instant, weak, nonsensical laughter blooms again within Giles, just under the pressure of Daniel's chin, spreading fast and feverish through his chest, up his throat. This time he fails to stiffen against it.

"Weird?" he manages to get out before the laughter flutters into full hysteria. This is the extent of his boy's wisdom and accumulated experience? The full content of his knowledge of human relationships is that sex gets weird.

Daniel's grip on him slackens as his eyes close. Giles knows he should not be laughing, and he does not intend to be cruel, but the sheer absurdity of it keeps striking him again and again. Weird, eh?

Weird.

"Yeah, weird," Daniel says. "What I said. Mr. Fucking Eloquent."

The laughter wracking his chest and throat slows for a moment and Giles takes the chance to hug Daniel against him again. "Please," he chokes out, "I'm sorry. Can't help laughing. Not at you--"

Daniel's head swivels and he nods shortly. "Don't see anyone else."

"I'm sorry," Giles says, hearing himself wheedling again. "Truly. I'm *not* laughing at you. I know how much that hurts. I--" His throat tightens, his voice going higher than it has since he had to leave the choir's alto section. He blinks rapidly as he tries to breathe. Whatever hysteria and weariness had colonized his chest like kudzu, they have died and withered, and he simply feels tight and panicked.

"It's okay," Daniel says. "Just overreacted. Sorry." Before Giles can say a word, Daniel shakes his head and shuts his eyes briefly. "And I'm sorry I said sorry. You know." He pats Giles on the back softly and presses dry lips against his throat.

The conversation is not over, Giles can at least be sure of that. All the same it feels as if a moment has passed, become irrevocably lost. He simply does not know whether to mourn its passing or to feel relieved.

/

Oz doesn't know what he expected the morning after he came to Giles straight from Devon's. It's been a week now, and he still can't figure it out.

Maybe he figured they'd just wake up and hang out like always, and it wouldn't be a big deal. Maybe that's all he expected, and it's not like that was too much to imagine.

He definitely wasn't expecting Giles freaking out and laughing at him, then crying. And the freakiness only grew afterward, after they both calmed down. The mood turned into this kind of tortured gentleness with each other. Like they are twin bruises, barely swollen but dark as night and incredibly tender. And they don't really seem to be healing.

Giles is the grown-up, though, and Oz guesses that he expected something more typical. Less weepy-hysterical, painfully awkward, and overly apologetic. More of a talking to. A 'where the hell were you' speech, with maybe a tangent on 'what the fuck were you thinking' thrown in for good measure. Except he doesn't want that, not from his stepdad, and definitely not from Giles. He never would have liked Giles in the first place if he was any good at aping that grown-up shit.

He likes Giles, among many other reasons that don't really have names yet, because his record collection kicks some serious ass. He can lie down here on the floor and listen for the rest of his natural life.

He has his arms crossed in front of him, his head resting on them, turned towards Giles, watching him read. The man reads like-- well, nothing he can come up with sounds right. It's like he's doing chemistry experiments, giving head, playing the piano, and a couple other things all at once, things that require passion and seriousness and a hell of a lot more concentration than most people can summon up. And he manages to do it while remaining totally still.

It'd be nice to hear his voice, though. And feel Giles looking at him; sometimes Oz gets the feeling that he's not really here unless Giles is looking at him. He doesn't know if that's anyone's fault, and it's not like he can ask. Probably he's just insecure, because when Giles *is* looking at him? Spotlights. Bat-signal strong spotlights.

"It's true, though. About villains blinking," Oz says, pushing himself up and sitting back on his haunches. The skin on his arm's gone all pebbly and weird from being pressed into the rug.

"Hmm?" Giles blinks but doesn't look up.

Oz shakes out the pins and needles in one hand, which just makes the tingling worse. He holds the dead weight in his other hand and squeezes more gently. "Sorry. Lyrics."

Giles smiles kind of vaguely as his eyes flicker up and he sees Oz. "Ah, yes."

"Don't worry," Oz says. He's embarrassed suddenly, nervous he might have flubbed this chance to get Giles talking. He thinks of the way kids think the TV's talking to them, or those girls who thought John and Paul were singing just to them, only to them. "I'm not finding the meaning of life or earth-shattering significance in the lines to a song."

"Not worried," Giles murmurs. He looks up again and the smile is a little stronger this time.

Oz wants to know what Giles sees when he smiles like that. It's almost sad at the edges, but mostly just affectionate. Maybe a little indulgent.

"Okay. It is true, though." The nerves are gone, thankfully, but now Oz just feels bad for bothering him.

Giles sets aside his book and rubs his chin.

"Sorry," Oz says as Giles removes his glasses and holds them up to the light from the window. They can't possibly be dirty, not with all the rubbings they get.

"Don't apologize," Giles says. He folds the glasses and puts them on top of the book. Okay, so maybe Oz isn't bothering him. "You feel like talking?"

"Yeah."

That gets a completely non-sad smile of Giles, and Oz feels all tingly for a second. Not pins and needles, either; it's the whooshing, falling-down-the-well tingle he gets when Giles is touching him. Except he's all the way over on the couch, so this is new.

But once he scoots back against the couch and Giles's leg, Oz doesn't want to talk. Not with Giles slowly rubbing his scalp like that, trailing his thumb down his neck, around his ear, back to the crown. He leans back into the touch, resting his cheek against the side of Giles's knee, trying to remember whatever bullshit topic he'd come up with this time. It's hard.

Blinking villains? Just that stereotypes or whatever aren't the same as what we do. Something like that. Labels versus action, he thinks, before bracing his hands against the floor and lifting himself up between Giles's legs and settling in.

/

Giles is on the edge of the bed, lacing up his shoe. The sun has nearly set, and he has not eaten since lunch. Daniel promised to accompany him to dinner, but he seems to be taking his time in the shower.

A warm cloud, fragrant with the herbsy shampoo Daniel favors, precedes the boy into the room.

"I'm on to you, Rupert Giles. If that is your real name." Daniel scrubs at his wet hair with a towel, smiling, speaking lightly.

"Pardon?" His fingers go still on the laces.

Daniel stands in front of him, hands on his hips. "You're not really a librarian, are you?"

"Excuse me?" He forces himself to finish tying the knot, to kick out his leg and adjust the fall of the fabric.

"Nah," Daniel says, stepping forward, forcing Giles to fall back on his elbow. "You're like this incredibly evolved being, here in disguise, working your mojo. Superhero."

Giles attempts a smile. It is difficult, to say the least, while Daniel's words reverberate in his mind and Daniel's body is pressed against his. "I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth."

Daniel's smile curves slowly over his face.

"I'm serious," Giles says.

"So'm I." With one hand, he pulls Giles up by the shoulder so that he straddles his lap.

And Giles knows as well as Daniel does the single sure way to change the subject. He links his hands around Daniel's back, nudging the towel off his waist, and tugs him closer.

"Like that, don't you?" he whispers, just over Daniel's ear, inhaling the heat radiating from the boy. "The way you always go for my lap?"

Daniel nods, running his palms up and over Giles's shoulder.

Giles closes his eyes, deciding to join the shivers wracking Daniel's torso, to ignore the black haze of guilt blooming within him. "Makes me feel like a dirty old man," he whispers.

"Yeah?" Daniel whispers. The room is quiet, their breathing barely audible, and darkening steadily. "Cool." His voice is thick and breathy, and it does not normally sound like this until he is a few moments away from orgasming.

Giles shifts back and attempts to frown.

"Come on," Daniel says. "Kidding. Well, kind of." He reaches out, running his fingertips over Giles's face more lightly than a breeze. Giles turns his head, following the touch until it slips down and behind his neck. Daniel brings him back up, kissing around, never actually on, his lips in quick little pecks.

Giles presses forward, running his tongue around Daniel's mouth until something drops or shifts, and he is inside, pulling himself up higher, straining, pressing Daniel's head farther back, sucking out every trace of mint and soap and salt in his mouth.

Daniel breaks away and runs the back of his wrist over his mouth. "Don't tell me you haven't pictured it," he says. "Library. Lunch period. That tiny little office. No, wait. The cage."

Giles lifts Daniel at the waist so he can move back into the center of the bed, legs outflung, Daniel kneeling between them. He trails his fingers over the lump of Giles's erection. "You do," he whispers.

Giles watches the arc made by Daniel's hand as it sweeps slowly to his own cock. "I--"

Daniel touches himself lightly. Giles knows how that feels, has been treated to precisely that teasing, glancing pressure, and it is all he can do not to grab the boy himself and relieve him. Save him from his own torture. He fancies himself falling, or floating, somewhere outside of gravity, eyes locked on the steady, hypnotic motion of Daniel's hand. He can half-hear what Daniel is saying, long phrases, exquisitely detailed and utterly crude. "Up against the cage, right...standing up, quick and fast, pants around my ankles, your fly open just enough to fuck..." His body certainly hears them as he rocks his hips, desperation building, yet he cannot seem to move his hands to do anything about it.

Daniel unzips Giles's fly with his free hand and reaches inside, never faltering in the rhythm of his voice or touch. "...hide in the stacks and suck me off after gym...like that, don't you?....drive me to school, Giles? Park at the end of the lot under the lemon trees, push my head down in your lap and start the day off right?..." Giles gasps as Daniel squeezes his testicles, tugging them away from his body, the knuckle on his thumb rasping against the veins in his dick. "Sounds good, huh..." He is nodding and watching and gasping and almost past coming when Daniel stops talking. Just stares at Giles, wide-eyed and shocked. His hand a blur on himself, faster on Giles, and then he's brought them both to the edge. His hands drop away and he whispers "coming?" just before they are both spasming and jerking, shooting hard and blind.

Daniel teeters on his knees as Giles lies there frozen, and manages with a groan to fall on his side, covering his eyes with his forearm.

"Shit," Daniel mutters, much sooner than Giles feels capable of speech. "Oh, fuck."

Long, aching moments pass. The room is completely dark.

Breaths scrape in and out of Giles's lungs as the blindness lessens, breaking apart at the edges until he can move and feel again. "Daniel?" he asks. The boy has not shifted, but grunts in reply.

"Yeah?" he says at last, rolling closer to Giles, wiping his wet hand on the already-ruined trousers. "Wow."

"How do you do that?" Giles asks the ceiling.

"What, jack off? It's easy."
Despite himself, despite everything, Giles laughs. Given how dry his mouth and throat are, however, it sounds more like rusty hinges than amusement. "Talk like that," he says. "So--"

"What?" Daniel props his head up on his elbow. "Dirty? Years of porn, my friend."

"Honestly," Giles says. "I was going to say honestly. As if there's nothing stopping you."

"There isn't." Even in the dark, Giles knows Daniel is shrugging; it is in his tone, in the small shy hitch to his breathing. "Not here, anyway."

"With the dirty old man?"

"Shut up." Daniel inches closer, aligning himself neatly and firmly against Giles. "Not *here*. You know. You."

"So you can talk at length about every twisted fantasy, but you can't tell me why? Or how?" He feels Daniel shiver against him, and manages to untangle his arm and slip it around his shoulders. Daniel allows himself to be drawn in, and gradually the shivers slow.

"Yeah, pretty much," he says at length. "Sex? Easy. Most of the time anyway."

Daniel's skin is cool to the touch, and Giles finds himself content just to touch, rather than continue talking. Daniel, however, rests his chin on Giles's chest and exhales noisily.

"Yeah, easy. Easier. The other stuff's not," Daniel says.

"I see," Giles replies. This moment is quiet and cool, and he feels absolutely no urge to disturb it with words or soil it with analysis. He smiles into the dark, at the ceiling, content just to be.

His stomach growls, and he realizes he's not going to eat until morning.

/

Oz wishes sometimes he could split Giles into two like Captain Kirk. That way he could have his Giles, the one whose fingers are stroking Oz's leg gently as he reads, and then another Giles who could tell him everything he needs to know. Wants to know, whatever.

But telling's not really Giles's style. He's more an ask lots of leading questions and then take you through your answers kind of guy. Okay, then, with Giles II, they could sit down at the big library table and figure out if Oz is okay. Maybe get one of those portable rolling chalkboards and use it for notes and flow charts, stuff like that. It might look as bizarre as geometry does at first, but they'll figure out a couple theorems and take it from there.

"Hey."

"Mm-hmmmmm?" Giles draws out the sound until he's finished the sentence, then closes the book. And Oz can't believe his patience; the guy's practically a saint, considering how much he's bothered and interrupted all the time. He shifts a bit and blinks tiredly at Oz. "Hello."

"Hi," Oz says. He's scrunched up in the opposite corner of the couch, legs stuck out, pushing against Giles's thigh. He digs his toes in against the fabric a couple times before Giles swats him lightly.

"Ticklish," Giles says. "What's on your mind?"

"Got a question for you."

"Fire away."

"How come there's so many rules? Like, laws and stuff. Jaywalking and shoplifting. Not the big stuff, murder and rape. I get why there are laws against that. But how come almost everything's defined all the way down to like what color your shingles can be and can't be?"

As the question goes on and on, Giles kind of slides down a bit until he's almost lying against Oz's leg, propped up on his elbow. Oz doesn't want to talk this much, but he wants to be clear. It's a stupid enough question he's working up to that he doesn't want Giles thinking he's any stupider than he actually is.

"So you're asking about civilization and social systems of order?" Giles asks. He rolls a little and brings his free hand up to rest on Oz's thigh. So, god, now with the touching; Oz is never going to get where he wants to go with this.

"Not really," Oz says. He tries to pull his legs up to his chest, but that just lands Giles's hand in his lap. Giles almost smirks at him and that's a definite improvement from being bruise boy. His eyes go all crinkly and dark green when he smirks. "Okay, I'll make this fast."

"Take your time," Giles says. "I'm not going anywhere."

No, he doesn't seem to be going much of anywhere. His hand's not even moving, but Oz can almost feel his pulse ratcheting up through his shorts.

He coughs, takes a deep breath, and says, "How come there's all those rules for stupid shit, but there's nothing that tells you how to name what you're feeling?"

Great, that's out of the way and Giles can think about it later. *Much* later, because right now Oz is bracing his hand behind him and launching himself forward into kissing and groping.

/

Giles owes all his gratitude to Daniel for allowing the oppressive tension to evaporate, simply by studiously ignoring it. He often wonders if Daniel even notices the emotional states of others, but for the moment, he is grateful. He owes the boy.

Gratitude or an enormous load of guilt.

He falls a bit behind Daniel as they walk toward the coffee house. He could be guilty right now, but he cannot be sure. Perhaps he does not want to embarrass the boy in front of passing acquaintances; perhaps he does not want to be embarrassed, although he has so few acquaintances himself that were they to pass, he would see them coming from a mile away. Something nasty and more than a little crass tells him that he is simply admiring the view back here. Tiny waist he could span with his hands with a little effort, and incongruously broad shoulders. A gentle rocking bounce in Daniel's step that is at odds with his flat and tattered trainers.

Daniel pauses at the door and holds it open for Giles. "You sit," he says. "I'll get the java."

Giles would like a secluded table, but the restaurant seems to have been designed by a professional hostess, one who knows exactly how to get strangers to mix and make nice with each other. He settles on the booth farthest from the door.

At the counter, Daniel appears to be deep in conversation with a tall, sharp-featured redhead. Giles occupies himself with trying to decipher the menu options scrawled in garish colors on the chalkboards over the counter. It is slow going, but fascinating; the lettering reveals influences of both the Arts and Crafts movement, particularly in the serifs, and Warhol's later Pop pieces, especially in regards to the squat spread of the lines and the blocky uprights.

Thanks to the squeaking of the wooden banquette, which rivals some of the worse church pews he has had the misfortune to occupy over the years, Giles finally registers Daniel's return. He looks down and finds, much to his relief, a simple mug of coffee in front of him.

Daniel, on the other hand, has set about preparing a huge cup of something that, beneath the froth and sprinkles and cinnamon sticks, may once have been coffee.

Daniel tilts his head as he stirs the concoction, his lips tight with concentration. "What?" he asks without looking up.

"That's quite a--" Giles begins. He does not want to hurt Daniel's feelings. "Quite a drink."

"Gross, huh? All I wanted was a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon, and look what she gave me."

Giles finds himself goggling while Daniel sets down the spoon and smiles at him.

"Kidding. Not about it being gross, 'cause it is." Yet he leans forward and sips it gingerly. A white scud adheres to his top lip and Giles schools himself into stillness. He is at least conscientious enough to remember where he is and keep his hands in his lap. Daniel licks the froth away, the tip of his tongue sharp, and peers at Giles. "Good boy."

"Ah?"

"Nothing," Daniel says. "You're really on your best behavior today, aren't you?"

Giles reaches for the jar of sugar and tips a short stream into his coffee. When he has stirred it sufficiently, sipped, and set it back in its saucer, he rests his hands on the table. "Have you received your class schedule for the fall?"

Daniel slurps at the now muddied froth. "Yeah. Why?" he asks, somewhat distractedly.

"Just like to be sure that you will be challenged," Giles says.

"Yes, Dad." Daniel pushes away the drink, grimacing, and picks up the dirty spoon, rapping it on the back of his hand. He nods along to the rhythm and looks back at Giles, smiling not a little beatifically. "I'll be challenged. Highly challenged. And I'll never go near the sweet jane again. And I promise to go to church every Sunday."

"I'm serious, Daniel." Giles wants to snap at him, or cuff him on the head. It occurs to him to demand that Daniel act his age, except for the fact that he *is* acting his age. Giles is the one misbehaving.

"So'm I. Completely--totally--crossing my heart, hoping to die--serious." Daniel sits back, drumming his palms on his stomach. "I am. Big time."

"You don't care for school, do you?"

Daniel turns his head to look around the nearly empty restaurant. He keeps up the beat on his belly as he starts to whistle under his breath. His attempt to avoid the subject rivals Giles's own stunts in its complete transparency, and Giles feels himself softening. So often these days he slips from anger and impatience to an almost overwhelming sense of indulgence and affection.

"Daniel?"

"Yeah, Giles?"

"Ready to go?"

Daniel looks back at him, and the smile with which he graces Giles is truly beatific. For an instant, that is, before it slides into a rather grotesque leer. "Got some plans?" Daniel asks hoarsely.

That is precisely the issue: Giles does have plans. But he finds himself increasingly unable to see them coming to fruition.

/

Oz is pretty flexible. Adaptable. It comes in handy in a town where kids sometimes just don't come back to school on Monday and stores close in the dead of night. To hear his mom tell it, though, he's always been this way. Calm baby, sweet toddler, pretty dreamy kid.

Okay, so the dreaminess probably isn't good when it comes to school, but that's just a little part of life. In the long run, anyway. In like a week or so, school's going to be a very big part of life for at least another year. He's getting the feeling, and this probably shouldn't surprise him, that Giles is going to be the ultimate hardass about him doing his homework.

So he's not about to waste any time. He heads for Building 4616 every chance he gets, skipping rehearsals, ditching Dev, leaving a mess of notes for his mom. He's gorging himself on this the way bears eat more salmon than they want and get so blubbery they can hardly move. Storing up for hibernation.

Sometimes when Giles is busy or asleep, Oz just wanders around the apartment, checking it out like he's visiting for the first time. He's not sure what he's looking for. He doesn't find it, anyway. He just wants to get a good sense of what the place is like, how it feels when it's cloudy versus sunny, whether things are different at midnight than they are right before dinner or after breakfast.

Maybe he's not looking for something so much as getting the feel of the place, storing it up inside his skin and behind his eyes. Giving himself enough material to use for the times he'll have to be in class before he can get back here.

There's sharing space, he gets that, but then there's spending time. How come space can be shared like food, but time is wasted like money?

Makes no damn sense.

/

Daniel is kissing him quite thoroughly. Giles has only been out for less than two hours, but the boy slipped quickly against him as soon as he opened the door. Tugging him inside, Daniel reached behind Giles and shut the door with the flat of his palm before pushing him back against it.

His shirt is open, and Daniel's, tossed on the floor, as Daniel grips him, one hand at his waist, the other on his shoulder, humming around Giles's tongue. He tastes like tomatoes, hot from the sun and almost unbearably sweet. When Giles captures one hand and brings it between them to his mouth, he tastes the sticky juice on Daniel's fingers, undercut with the tang of salt.

"Chopping," Daniel says simply as he nudges his finger between Giles's lips. "Last of the toma--"

Giles sucks the finger hard into the back of his throat and Daniel breaks off into a gravelly sigh, sagging alarmingly. Giles holds him up by the waist. Daniel tightens his arm around Giles, rocking back on his heels, then forward onto the balls of his feet, bringing his lips up against Giles's chest. A low, heady thrum builds around Giles's spine as Daniel presses closer, and he worries at the finger with his teeth until Daniel nips at his clavicle and pulls away.

"Get that?" Daniel asks.

Giles hears the phone ringing for the first time.

Daniel crosses his arms over his chest. "'Course, I *could*, but maybe you--"

It is an idle threat, Giles knows this, yet panic spangles his vision and he races to pick up the receiver.

It is worse than even his guilt-soaked imagination could have predicted.

"Rupert? Travers."

Giles collapses onto the nearest surface; the side table, it turns out, which creaks ominously beneath him. "Yes, sir, of course--" He realizes he is trying to tug his shirt closed and smooth his hair as if suddenly exposed to the glare of police torches.

"I wonder, Rupert, how long you thought you might prolong this charade."

Daniel wanders over to the steps and sits, leaning back on his elbows, knees knocking open and closed.

"You may be very far away," Travers continues. Giles closes his eyes. Strange that when the moment comes, he is this calm. Shouldn't his chest be heaving with something other than the remnants of lust?

"But, really, Rupert. Do you think us utter fools? Falsifying documentation, defrauding the Council on numerous occasions: These are serious offenses. Offenses that require severe consequences." Travers is savoring this, Giles can tell. He lingers on the final syllables of "consequences" as if testing wine, rolling them on his fat pink tongue.

"I understand that, sir," Giles says. When he opens his eyes, Daniel is out of sight. He twists around, tracking the boy's movement, finding him in the kitchen, filling a glass of water.

"And they pale in comparison to the real problem," Travers says with utter satisfaction. He is nearly breathless with it.

"What is that?" Giles sounds bored to his own ears, and wonders if he feels it, or if it is for Travers's benefit. Or Daniel's.

"Where is she, Rupert?"

"Who?" Giles stands from the wavering table and moves towards the dining area. Daniel slips past him and Giles trails his knuckles down the boy's back.

"Droll. I can see you haven't lost your charm. The girl. Where is she?"

"Buffy?" Giles says. He nearly whispers her name, as if it is a curse or a charm, laden with power. He clears his throat. "She's currently in Los Angeles. Due to return any day now."

"How can you be sure of that?"

"I can't, you're right. But I am. Buffy will return shortly. And then--" He falters as he catches sight of Daniel. The boy wraps an arm around his narrow waist and twists in the opposite direction, his head lolling. The movement is entirely innocent; he is, most likely, just working out a kink in his back. Yet Giles suppresses a gasp at the seductive twist of muscles, the way the motion lifts Daniel's small, pale nipples and drops his saggy waistband, revealing for a moment the thatch of hair below his navel. Daniel shakes out his arms and moves on; Giles squeezes shut his eyes and licks his lips. "Then all will return to normal, I assure you."

"Odd, isn't it?" Travers says. "How you can assure me so blithely, as if your word meant anything."

"Buffy is coming back, sir." Giles opens his eyes to see Daniel's bare feet disappear up the stairs. "When she does, I will be myself again."

"You're speaking of the boy." Travers exhales raggedly. Giles hears, beneath the croupy sound, a squeak and sigh of leather, and he knows that Travers is tipping back in his chair, a smug little grin widening on his face.

"I-I don't know what you mean."

/

Oz wants to be around Giles. Wants to be touched--although he can get that anywhere; wants to talk--although his voice works elsewhere; wants to hang.

He's having trouble finding the space between himself and Giles. He doesn't think they're the same person or anything. He wouldn't want that, first of all, and anyway that whole soulmate thing is pretty creepy. He's not thinking like that. It's more about whether he can find where he is just Oz, outside of the space he shares with Giles. This problem of space, what it's like being with Giles--hell, what it's like when he's alone, *thinking* about Giles. It's all wavery and unfolding, this sense of constant development without any end.

And he knows how stupid he is, because that's how he pictures time, too. He probably got it from _A Wrinkle in Time_, this idea that time's a stretch of fabric or string. He always kind of pictured the tassel that hung off his grandma's good drapes; it was twisted and braided, the color of old brass. Anyway, time's this unending undulating cord, and it can be bunched up, wrinkled, bringing distant events together. So the picture in his head? Not even his own. He could lie to himself and pretend he's just recycling the image, that it's some kind of mental-imaginative conservation thing, good for the soul. But maybe, more likely, he's just dumb.

So Giles has a girlfriend, name of Buffy. That's something right there that shows how dumb Oz can be. And she's been away for the summer. But she's coming back, probably from something for smart people in the city, like at the Getty, where you learn how to read those inscriptions in stone that Giles is always poring over in his books. Or maybe she's an actress, and she's been away on a shoot.

Oz can see that, easy. Bit younger than Giles because, hey, he seems to like 'em young. Smarter than your average actress. Stage training, not just commercials and shit; and how does he know the hierarchy of acting anyway?

He's running to the end of the cord, and wasn't the whole point of it the fact that there *wasn't* an end? That it could get twisted or wrinkled or whatever, but it would keep going on and on? Except it seems Giles has a big old pair of pruning shears, and he's about to snap it off.

Nice of him to share.

/

*About the boy*, Travers had said. He is not so stupid after all. Or, perhaps, Giles is not nearly as intelligent as he would like to think. He truly is as transparent and easily-read as anyone else. He may be better at inventing circuitous routes of logic, justification, and self-loathing, but when all is said and done, he is no better than, just as bad as, everyone else.

He cannot, however, say the same of Daniel. The boy *is* unique. Giles's first mistake was believing that being able to see that made him special, too.

He wants very much to look forward to September, past the next several days, through the last long weekend. Toward the first sight of Buffy's upturned, laughing face, just after her first joke at his expense.

It is safe to love her: That is his job, and, more than that, his vocation. In her presence, he may fade to the status of cultural cliche, but he can, at least, be certain of his permanence. He would never go so far as to maintain that she is nothing without him; that would be utterly absurd and foolishly arrogant. But he is something with her.

Perhaps he is simply too old to tolerate willingly the possibility of impermanence. Perhaps he has grown to the point of knowing with what level of dependence and responsibility he is comfortable, beyond which he cannot pass. Perhaps he is simply too scared to try.

"So, grand hurrah," Daniel says, pulling the van up to the curb. "Plans for Labor Day?"

He has no plans, or he has too many. Even Giles is confused at this point. He lingers in his seat, hand on the latch, waiting for Daniel to take the key from the ignition.

"No," Giles says. "What do you normally do?"

"Feel bad for Jerry's kids," Daniel says mysteriously. "Get stoned. Fuck around like a degenerate."

He has been making comments like that, harsh and bilious, for several days now. Giles had originally thought he was simply nervous about school starting, or that there were problems with the band. As they accumulate, however, like pebbles in Giles's shoes, they become more and more difficult to ignore.

"Is something on your mind, Daniel?"

Daniel shakes his head and shrugs. "You going in?" He lifts his chin at the sidewalk.

"I thought you might join me," Giles says.

"Sure you have time?"

Giles does not press the issue. He simply unlatches the door, slides out to the ground, and leans back in. "I'd like it," he says, "if you joined me."

Daniel follows. The tilt of his head and shoulders is meek.

It is only after the dinner plates are washed and dried and a second bottle of wine opened that Giles notices the tremors in Daniel's hands, the relative quickness to his pace as he wanders the living room, the rapidity of his breathing.

"Something is on your mind," Giles says, pushing his chair back from his desk.

Daniel stops in front of the window to the garden. He puffs out a breath to fog it and draws looping spirals on the glass. "So you staked out the summer, huh?" he asks quietly, addressing the patterns he has drawn. "Surveyed with your little tripod and binoculars, got the lay of the land, and found yourself something to play with?"

Giles's fists clench. Words will not form on his tongue.

"That's great," Daniel continues. "The new conquistador, huh? Laying claim, moving on when it's exhausted."

"That's just not true," Giles says.

"No?" Daniel turns suddenly and advances on Giles until he reaches the desk. It is his turn to loom, and he does it well: arms stiff at his sides, eyes narrowed to points. "What, you think I'm lying?"

"I'll be here, you see. I'm not moving on." Giles does not bother to ask how Daniel knows any of this, where the clues were dropped, how badly his lies were taken. It is enough to hold still and make it through this conversation. "But you are."

"*Oh, Daniel, you have so much to learn, so much to see--*" Daniel mimics fairly well Giles's own accent, but his quiet, characteristically vague anger torques it into something sing-songy and effeminate.

Even Daniel, it seems, can find the cruelty everyone harbors somewhere in their heart. Some twisted paternal part of Giles is proud of him for that, even as the rest of him winces.

There is knife-sharp cruelty and more than a little deliberation in their argument. Giles finds that he can argue best with something resembling complete detachment.

"Got news for you, Giles. It's not just you. Not your summer, either."

"Since when do *you* care about your time?"

"Didn't have any, didn't care about it. Never thought about it."

"I know."

"Shut up, Giles. Never thought about it, 'til you decided to mortgage it and go for Park Place."

"You've lost me there."

Daniel inhales sharply enough that Giles shakes himself away from the cool embrace of detachment and checks his face. He is looking away, hugging his arms around his chest and completely still. "Never had you."

"That's not what I meant." Giles slides back into monitoring mode, knowing that if he does not, they will find themselves in a conversation that begins with semantics and slips into honesty. Better to argue now.

"Whatever."

They argue. Then Daniel shoves him upstairs to bed.

/

Oz could give a flying fuck about some chick who's coming back. That's not the problem, and Giles is smart enough to get that and not offer any stupid apologies or explanations.

"Hey, here's something," Oz says, stripping off his tee shirt and throwing it on the bed. Giles is so tense and quiet it's almost funny, like if he makes too much noise he'll crack. He's got himself backed up against the headboard, posture just as perfect as it always is, but his jaw's tight and his eyes are little slits like he's afraid he's going to start crying. "How come I've never fucked you?"

Giles glares at him but licks his lips all the same. It's kind of hot. Creepy as hell, but hot. "Well, you see, when a pederast takes a catamite--"

"Fuck you, Giles."

"No, you're not listening," Giles says sadly. "Such a thing would be inconceivable."

Oz hasn't felt this hot and flushed, soaked with sharp little feverish pinpricks, in a hell of a long time. When he climbs up over Giles, bracing his arms on either side of his head and looking down, Giles's eyes are glittery and black, his mouth all thin and snaky. "Rules, right? All those rules in your head."

Maybe this is where he's separate from Giles. Right here, a couple inches above him, their cocks rasping against each other, so close he can feel Giles's breath like wind on his face. That would be ironic.

The thing of it is, Oz hates irony. Loathes it. It's probably easy to make the mistake of thinking he's big on it, what with the wry monosyllabism and all. Irony is about knowing something someone else doesn't know, and finding that amusing. He picked that up in English class somehow, and the whole concept bothers him. Why not just tell the other person? Laughing at them because you know something is just wrong.

It's also making him really fucking hard. Combined with the little squeals Giles is making, little moans and whimpering pleas. Jagged thrusts against Oz's stomach, nails raking his sides as one legs comes up and wraps around the back of Oz's thigh.

He'd rather not be separate right now, thanks all the same. Oz pushes away and sits back on the bed.

"Nope," he says when Giles reaches for him. "Sorry, man."

/

Daniel left Giles in bed and slept on the couch that night.

When Giles finds him in the morning, he kisses him chastely and hands him his orange juice. "Drink up," Daniel says. "Don't want scurvy."

If his first mistake was thinking he was special, Giles had plenty of time last night to work through the mistakes succeeding that one. Taken together, they all point to his reluctance to acknowledge the boy's inherent kindness. He is young, and more prone to anger than Giles originally thought, but he is more gentle and kind than Giles, monstrous and greedy as he is, ever deserved.

"Eat," Daniel says and hands him a bowl of Weetabix decorated with peach slices. "Milk's on the table."

Giles wants to ask why he is being subjected to this, but at the same time he knows that it is the best possible, most well-deserved torture anyone could conceive. He carries his bowl to the dining table and sits like a good boy.

"There's a carnival today," Daniel says when he joins him. He pats Giles's shoulder. "Eat, would you?"

Giles obeys mechanically. Twigs and slugs would taste better.

"There's rides. Dorky little midway and horse shows or something. Wanna go?"

He looks up to find Daniel smiling at him, brows raised. Giles swallows the mess in his mouth and attempts to remember what he should say in this situation. There are hundreds of words from which to choose, yet he would like nothing more than to retreat upstairs and hide under his duvet like the coward he is.

"Not going all repentant again, are you?" Daniel asks. "'Cause, you know? Already did that."

Giles swallows and keeps his gaze steady on Daniel's face. "Be quiet for a moment, will you?"

"Sorry," Daniel says. Giles holds up his hand. "Right. Not sorry."

"I've said this before," Giles says. "But be patient with a doddering old fool, will you?"

Daniel nods. "Not old," he observes. "What? It's true."

Giles cannot speak and see Daniel at the same time, much less have to endure his kneejerk kindness. He stirs the remnants of cereal and watches the threads of peach flesh waver in the milk. "The parts we have to play, roles to be assumed. You recall that? I was wrong--deeply, terribly wrong."

Daniel pushes away his bowl and places the spoon next to it. "I don't know, it kind of made sense."

"It's sensible, to be sure," Giles says. He feels words align themselves in his mind, subdued and obedient as pauper children awaiting gruel. "That does not make it any less wrong, or pig-headed, or hideously arrogant."

"Thing is--" Daniel rises from the table and rearranges the bangles on his wrist. "It's really easy to say that now. Apologizing later? Always easy."

"You like easy," Giles hears himself say. "Don't you? You have no taste for the complex."

Daniel is at the door, sweatshirt in his hand, when Giles looks up. "I'm out of here."

/

Days pass, and Oz sleeps a lot.

He's been keeping bad hours in addition to all his other bad habits this summer, and he's going to need all the rest in the world when school starts on Tuesday.

He'd like to pretend that this is the way the end of summer always feels. Like you woke up from a coma and everyone's gone, everyone you ever loved and trusted. He pretends pretty well for his mom, even for Dev, the one time he calls.

But he's never figured out endings. Sure, there's graduation. Funerals. But they're all made up, you know? They tell you what to do, tell you how to feel, and when. That's why they're called ceremonies. You don't even have to be there, and they'd still be held.

He's right here, though. Not going anywhere.

/

Giles knows now that is too easy to believe in the myth of multiple selves, in his old vision of the wardrobe. As if he could separate experiences and decisions out into virtual people, shrug on Ripper when he felt frisky, button up the librarian when circumstances called for restraint and analysis, exchange any of them at will. It is so easy to believe that it can't possibly be true. It is a tale cleaned up for children, tidied to the point of habit and cravenness, and he has to be better than this.

And it is habitual and craven to blame Ripper for every revolting action and stupid decision. But it's also easy. He would like to believe that when he touched Daniel, every single time, that he had entered a fugue state, had given way to someone stronger and crueler, to Ripper. And even if that were not true, he wishes to God that it *had* been Ripper at the breakfast table the last time he saw the boy.

He remembers sitting on the edge of his bed that evening before the concert, wearing only old chinos and his undershirt, never dreaming that he had arrived at some sort of fork in the road. He would have thought he was well past such moments. They belonged to young men, antsy with possibility and brimming with doubt. Sitting hunched there, however, he was more naked and unformed than any infant.

He should have listened to the doubt, and poured himself a drink. Settled onto the chesterfield for a good long read, dozed off, and woken to the early morning, glasses twisted up his forehead.

He should not have risen, pulled on a shirt, and left the house.

As he does now, holding a scrap of recycled paper on which Daniel had scrawled the address of the band's new rehearsal pace. There is no chance in the world that he will find Daniel there, but he goes anyway.

The storage spaces are arrayed in a bewildering maze of outbuildings and former warehouses, and Giles wanders for nearly an hour before he finds the right one.

Of course, only Devon is there.

Giles pauses in the entrance and clears his throat. Devon looks up from the pad in his hand.

"The hell you doing here?" he asks.

Giles raises his hand in a gesture that is part supplication, part greeting. "Hello, Devon. Have you seen Oz?"

"Lost your boy toy, huh? That's rough." Devon shakes his head, smirking, and goes back to his notebook. Giles leans against the wall, hands in his pockets, knowing that he can outlast any of this child's obnoxious behavior.

"You still here?" Devon says without lifting his eyes from the page. He has spoken far more quickly than Giles was expecting.

"Yes. I believe I asked you a question."

Devon rakes back his hair and tosses aside the notebook. Bracing his hands on his knees, he rocks back and forth, still smirking, eyes narrowing as he takes Giles in. "No, haven't seen him. That all?"

"I suppose so," Giles says, but he makes no move to go.

Devon licks his lips so slowly that Giles knows the gesture is deliberate. He just cannot tell whether the deliberation is supposed to be seductive or rude, or some combination thereof. Giles shifts until he is more comfortable, crossing one ankle over the other.

"You didn't fucking listen," Devon says.

"Pardon?"

"You're really smart," Devon says. "But that's your problem. No one's as smart as they think they are. Not Oz. Not you."

Giles crosses his arms, pretending to give this due consideration. "I'm afraid you're going to have to explain. I'm not quite following you."

"So smart, think you don't have to listen," Devon says, standing up and starting to pace. "That clear enough?"

"Nearly."

"I told you not to fuck with him."

"You have a point," Giles says. "But I don't recall ever being told--especially by *you*--anything about what and what not to do with Daniel."

Devon blinks and runs his thumb over his lower lip. "Didn't I?" he asks. He actually looks a bit concerned and confused. "I must have."

Giles starts to think that his former panic was misplaced, a simple matter of overreaction. It's going to be all right. He starts to believe this ridiculous interview is drawing to a close, that Devon is calming down after his initial, obnoxious jitteriness. That any moment now he will learn where to find Daniel.

"But I always have that talk," Devon protests. "Whenever Oz hooks up."

"Hooks up?" Giles cannot resist the snideness.

Devon shrugs, and Giles does admire his stubbornness, even if it is truly exasperating. "Yeah. The talk. Goes a little like this: Don't fuck with him. Don't hurt him. Have fun. Anyway, it must've slipped my mind--"

Giles nods and even smiles politely as Devon resumes pacing, shaking his head, disappointed and contrite.

"I've been smoking a hella lot of weed. Maybe that's it."

Giles continues nodding and smiling as patiently as he can manage.

"Or maybe--" Devon says, turning towards Giles and grinning widely. "Maybe it's because it never would have occurred to me that a nice smart old guy like you would, you know, molest my best friend."

Giles is on him instantly, hand on his chest, driving Devon back into the metal wall. Devon's head bounces back, and the metal thumps and rings, but he never stops grinning.

"Dude," he says, grasping Giles's wrist. "Personal space, okay?"

Giles pushes him back again, sliding his hand up to the boy's throat. "Don't you ever say that word again."

"I'm sorry. I'm not on NAMBLA's mailing list. Is there a better term for molesting someone?"

Two fingers laid against Devon's windpipe; pressed gently, they make the boy's eyes widen and dim the worst of the grin. "What did I just tell you?"

Devon's pupils are dilated, his cheeks flushed in his otherwise rapidly paling face, and his breathing jagged and harsh. For a flash, Giles remembers with his entire body just how good this feels, having someone under your hands, wriggling, about to start pleading. The border between sex and violence cannot be discerned with the body.

He eases the pressure of his fingers slightly. "Do you understand?"

Devon nods, his eyes darting everywhere. Giles shakes his head and knocks him back again. "I didn't hear you. Do you--"

"Giles. Stop it."

At the sound of Daniel's voice, Giles wheels around, off-balance, releasing Devon as he turns. He hears him slide down the wall but does not take his eyes off Daniel. He stands slumped, hands deep in his pockets, in the entrance. A skinny silhouette against the white glare.

"Dev? You okay?"

Devon coughs and sputters behind Giles, but Giles cannot move.

"Yeah," Devon says. "Wind knocked out, is all."

Daniel nods shortly and turns away. Unmoving, cemented and more shamed than he ever thought possible, Giles watches him fade into the glare of the sun.

When he is gone, Giles turns, offering a hand to Devon.

The boy flinches. "Don't fucking touch me, man."

/

Oz waits by Giles's car. It was pretty obvious he was here, since it's not like anyone else drives anything remotely resembling this thing. He's been waiting for a while now, starting to wonder.

He doesn't know what he's doing. Definitely doesn't know what he did that made Giles jump Dev like that. To be fair, though, Dev probably pushed him into it; he's talented like that.

But mostly Oz is just wondering. He doesn't know what he's doing. Let alone feeling. *If* he's feeling anything. Days in bed kind of tend to numb you out like that, so you have to wonder if you're even awake. Everything's just majorly out of whack. Just all shoved around and out of order, except he never noticed there was an order to things before. Now it's different and he's so mixed up it's not even funny.

The worst part? Can't ask Giles about it because he's obviously a hell of a lot more mixed up than Oz. And isn't that just so beautifully ironic.

When Giles finally appears, Oz meets him and takes his hand. Feels grateful that Giles lets him and doesn't even look around first or anything. They walk past the end of the parking lot into the weeds and down the hill to the where a stream used to run. It's cemented over now, thanks to flood warnings and LA's need for water and all that Chinatown stuff. When he was a kid, he used to lie on top of the hot cement with his ear pressed up against it. If you could hear the ocean in shells, he figured, it should be cake to hear the stream under the cement.

This time, though, he takes Giles just to the edge of the streambed and sits down across from him.

"May I ask you something?" Giles says. So polite it hurts.

"Told you already."

"What?"

Oz pulls one knee up to his chest and puts his chin on it. "Ask me anything. That's not going to change." Giles looks pale, even with the sun starting to lower and go all rusty.

"Can you try to tell me what's bothering you?" Giles asks. "I know, you can't. I just--"

"'Sokay," Oz says. He'd much rather just sit here for a while, but Giles is fond of the words and the talking, and this is the least he can do for him. "Um, see, it's weird."

"Weird." Giles is gentle again, but this is different from their super-bruise days. It's like he's being gentle with himself, like he broke all his ribs and has to move--speak, whatever--without straining anything. "All right."

Oz runs his fingers up and down his shin bone for a while, trying to figure out what to say. "I'm not upset that you thought it had to end, you know," he says. Giles's eyes go a little wide at that. "That makes me sad, but it's not what's bothering me."

"No?"

"Yeah," Oz says. "I mean, yeah, you could have told me. That would have been polite."

Giles nods. "Fair enough. So what is it?"

Oz wants to take this carefully. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that doesn't mean he can't try. "I'm starting to see why people hook up sex to love. Starting to get the point of the whole tunnel-vision thing. It's not like it's natural or anything. But it's safer. It's what you do in the dark when you don't know what's going to happen next. I get that now. Way easier to focus on one body and forget about the others. If you screw that up, well, fine. Tunnel's already dug. Just look for another light."

Giles brushes his hand over Oz's and squeezes. "I don't think you actually believe that."

"Prob'ly not. But it's better in the long run. Maybe I'll luck out. Stumble across someone magnificent. Maybe not. Probably not. Doesn't matter."

Giles drops his hand at the same time his head kind of tips forward until he's looking down into his lap. "You're shutting down."

"Yeah," Oz says. "Learned a lot from you, haven't I?"

"It would appear so."

He can see all the crinkly lines around Giles's eyes, and all of a sudden Oz gets scared. Really scared, not afraid like when Dev was dangling against the wall, or when Giles was glaring at him, daring him to fuck him, not even as scared as he felt the time he invited Giles to the concert. But really scared. Because, god help him, if Giles cries, he doesn't know what he's going to do.

He hisses out a breath, trying to stop whatever's about to happen. Which is really helpful, isn't it? Like whistling in a hurricane or whatever. "Giles?"

Giles looks back at him, eyes not so crinkly, but his face is all pale and tight, and that's even worse. "I can understand that, you know."

"I know," Oz says. His heart's skipping around like a gerbil on crack and he tries to smile, tries to get a smile or little look from Giles, some tiny thing he can hold onto, just for a second, while he calms down.

Giles, though, isn't giving anything away. Just gazing steadily over Oz's shoulder. Voice all quiet and librarian-y. "But you're going to need to remember a few thi

After he calls the paramedics, Oz waits around. Not long, but a decent amount. Someone has to; Willow's crying and Xander's doing the trembly bottom-lip, why-me?-look he does so well. Even though he's down in the hole with Cordy, he can't seem look at her.

So Oz gets down on his stomach, drops his head through the hole, and talks to her. More than he's ever talked to her in his life. He tells her stupid stories about Devon and the latest girls, about Jordy's first month in third grade, about Snuffy, the dog he brought home the summer he was eleven. God, he even tells her she's beautiful, just to keep her eyes open.

He just wants to be alone.

Finally EMS comes and they hoist her out on a truly scary-looking stretcher, something right out of a mental hospital with straps and braces. Oz calls Willow's mom and asks her to come pick them up.

Aftermaths bring out the best in people. He's learned that much in the last year, and tonight only confirms it. Willow is red-faced, shiny with tears and leaking snot, so beautiful it hurts to look at her almost as much as the spike must have hurt Cordy. Even Xander, hunched and holding himself in something close to a death-grip, is bloodless and dark, almost haunting.

Oz knows he has to get out of here.

He doesn't know where to go, but he knows it has to be somewhere quiet. Not creepy-Sunnydale quiet, but real quiet. Open skies and soft breeze in the trees quiet.

Devon disagrees. He lets Oz in by the side door, puffy-faced from sleep, the gray predawn shimmer in the sky reflected in his eyes. He hugs Oz, as if he knows what's going on, but it feels off and he stinks from sleep and all Oz can do is wait it out, wait until Dev's arms drop and he shuffles back to the couch.

Oz uses his shower and borrows a quarter ounce of weed from the stash; Devon presses a sweater, hairy and sickly green, and a bag of shrooms into his hands. Won't take no for an answer, so Oz tugs the sweater over his damp head and sticks the baggie into his side pocket.

"Getting out," Oz says before Devon can hug him again. "Need some me time."

"Crap idea." Devon's more awake now, and lights another cigarette. He hacks a little, wheezing and grimacing, before his eyes turn back to Oz. "What, you pulling a little Unabomber thing? Retire to the woods and plot our violent downfalls?"

Oz nods and picks at the sweater's hem. "How'd you know?"

"Fuck. Look at me, man."

Oz glances up. Dev's leaning forward, arms braced on his knees, head tilted.

"Go home. Get some sleep before you do anything stupid."

He feels his lips twitch at that, spastically, and has to close his eyes for a second before he gets too dizzy. "Not doing anything stupid."

"Yeah?"

"Want to be alone, Dev. Jesus." He has no energy for the argument. Droplets of water roll down the back of his neck, and he hasn't felt this cold since the sophomore-year ski trip to Tahoe (snowboarding, wrong turn, snow bank). "That's all."

"Right." Dev leans to the side and grinds out the smoke. "So. Can I come with?"

"No. I said. Alone."

In the mess of last night, or this morning, or whenever the hell things flew apart, Oz figured something out. He doesn't feel the weight of it, though, until Devon stares back at him, about to say something, before his eyes darken and he slumps back down.

The weight of it is light as plaster, and just as crumbly. He doesn't have to do this. Any of this. He got sucked in, willingly, head-first, eyes open and a grin on his face, into this little secret society for saving the world. Even the presence of Giles, with all the fucking *weirdness* that that entailed, didn't stop him.

But he hasn't been alone since Buffy's birthday last winter. Not really, not the way he thought he'd always be, quiet on the outside with the thoughts and silly questions shifting around in his head like a radio getting tuned.

So Oz drives out to the woods.

Getting light out, silver brightening around the tops of the trees and around the edges of clouds. He parks off to the side of the clearing and sits for a while, arms folded on the steering wheel, watching a flock of starlings wheel and unfurl in the sky.

It is quiet out here. He crunches along one of the paths, hands in his pockets, kicking leaves so he can smell the dampness of the dirt and the dying grass.

He finds Giles in the next clearing, sitting on a log, drinking from a canteen.

Neither of them is very surprised.

"Forgot you were here," Oz says as he hunches down on the nearest rock.

Giles hands him the canteen. "Oh?"

He takes a pull from the canteen and swishes the metallic water around in his mouth. "Buffy said something about you pulling an Iron John, yeah."

Giles smiles faintly at that as he screws the top back on the canteen. "Indeed."

Oz slides off the rock until he's sitting on the ground and pulls out Devon's bag of weed. He sets it down before digging in another pocket for this week's book. _Desolation Angels_: great title, damn fine book.

Giles chuckles as Oz brings out the papers. "Rather early, isn't it?"

"Or late, really," Oz says. "Kind of the same thing."

Giles's face is taut and clean, almost shiny, in the morning light. Oz realizes all over again -- since it's something he thinks about every day, several times over -- that he hasn't had a chance to look at Giles the way he'd like to. Not so much *chance*, though, as reason. Or right. He hasn't had the right to look at Giles and meet his eyes for a while now. He's pretty sure, on the other hand, that Giles looks at him, when he can, when he needs to. But Oz hasn't.

Seeing him now, Oz doesn't know if he's allowed to look. He probably lost that right a long time ago.

"So how's it going?" he asks, sparking up, then handing the joint over. Giles's fingers are still long, elegant and strong, and Oz really is a sad case, thinking that someone's fingers would change. "Your inner caveman, I mean. Find him yet?"

Giles tilts his head, listening to the screech of a very pissed-off bird back in the woods, but nodding at Oz at the same time. Sun glints off the corner of his glasses. He exhales slowly as he rubs his palm up and down his thigh. "Haven't seen him, actually. Expect he's around here somewhere."

"Maybe he's back home. At Stonehenge or something." Oz hands the joint back over, cutting his eyes away from the fondness and, jesus, pure *sweetness* of Giles's smile. Giles's fingers brush Oz's wrist and linger, resting there, cool and dry, before moving away.

"That would be just my luck, wouldn't it?" Giles asks quietly.

Oz pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his head on his arms. From this angle, Giles looks big -- not looming, but solid, face bright, the rest of him still shadowed by the trees. Like he belongs here. Solid, but flexible. Oz closes his eyes; he can't even work up a good description of fucking *Giles*.

He knows that Giles wants to know what he's doing here. He saw the alarm flash over his face as Oz approached, saw Giles pull himself up out of his slouch, stiffening in anticipation of this week's apocalyptic news.

He wonders if any of the others have seen Giles's slouch. The way his spine bends like a branch, and he loops his arms around one knee. The relaxation in his face, not really smiling, but peaceful and intent. Maybe Buffy has, but Oz doubts it. He's not even sure if poor Ms. Calendar ever had a chance to see it. He hopes she did.

Giles is relaxing again. Oz can't exactly see it so much as feel it. The way you feel the air relaxing after a good hard storm, clouds loosening and slipping apart. He's not about to tell Giles what's going on; this week, at least, the apocalypse doesn't need Giles. They did just fine fucking it up all on their own.

When the roach is hot and burning Oz's fingers, he buries it in the dirt beside him and reaches out to touch Giles's hand.

Giles glances at him, slightly startled, almost as if he forgot Oz was even here.

"Hungry?" Oz asks as he rubs Giles's knuckles -- broken, reset, always going to be crooked and ache before it rains now -- with his thumb. Giles's face is downturned, watching Oz's hand.

He nods slowly and Oz pushes up to his feet. He holds out his hand to help Giles up. Giles rises stiffly, in tortuous stages, gripping Oz almost painfully. When he's finally standing, he stumbles and looks away, apologizing.

"One night sleeping on the ground, and I'm ready for my pension. I am sorry." He massages his side and tries to move away.

Oz holds Giles's elbow and steers him down the path, back towards the van. "Don't worry about it," he says. "Just take it slow."

Giles leans against him, maybe more than he absolutely needs to, and Oz squeezes his arm. This close, he can smell the detergent in Giles's shirt; only Giles would wear a freshly-laundered shirt to sleep in while camping.

At the van, Oz throws open the back doors and feels a stab of gratitude towards Eric that there's no equipment to rearrange. He helps Giles up and positions him right at the edge so his legs dangle, and slides behind him.

"Where's it hurt?" he asks, resting his hands on Giles's shoulders.

"Really, Oz. I'm fine."

"Bullshit. Where's it hurt?" Oz runs his fingers down over Giles's shoulder-blades. "Here?" Giles shakes his head and Oz probes outward, carefully, until he hits a knot just under the ribcage and Giles gasps. "Here. Okay."

Oz shifts back until he's got a better angle, and sets to stroking out the knot, smoothing the blood back into the twisted muscle. Giles leans forward, protests gradually dying away as Oz works. His breathing slows and Oz concentrates on timing the strokes to the faint pulse he can feel beneath Giles's skin. The muscle is as hard and flat as a seaworn rock, and he winces every time he presses too hard and hears Giles swallow. Oz knows he will never complain; he will try and outlast anything. The thin flannel of Giles's shirt keeps getting caught under Oz's fingers, friction heating up the skin, but when he tries to slip his hand under the fabric, Giles jerks and gasps.

"Sorry. Just--" Oz says, pulling back as Giles turns around. "Friction." He holds up his palm like it's evidence.

Giles nods and adjusts his glasses. His voice is soft, a little hoarse, when he speaks. "This isn't a good idea."

Oz touches Giles's side, right over the knot, and looks down at the sand glittering in the carpet on the van's floor. His fingers won't move; they just want to rest there, and it's not like he has anything to say. "Just trying to help."

Giles shifts into the curve of Oz's palm as he reaches over and tips up Oz's chin. His fingers are as cool and dry as they ever were.

It's an invitation of some sort, or an acknowledgement, something like that, and Oz lets the sensation work its way under his skin. Hoping that it's like erosion, slow and steady, wearing him away. Giles's thumb sweeps over the morning stubble and fits itself into the hollow below Oz's lip.

They both know they've been here before. These woods, this van.

Oz removes Giles's glasses and sets them aside. He watches lights shift over and within the green-soaked shadows of his eyes. The longer he watches, the closer he draws, until Giles's hand slips down his arm and covers Oz's own. His eyes slide from smoky to luminous and back again, seasonal, unpredictable. The brush of lips is less the start of a kiss than a progression of the look, and Oz hears himself sigh when Giles's mouth opens.

Neither of them is going to say anything about the last time they were here. Too quiet to disturb what's going to end soon enough anyway.

Oz feels something coming off of Giles, slipping through him, enfolding him, the way a filthy grocery bag inflates with wind and travels far along the currents and shoals of air. It can't last.

He won't say anything because he is here, just now, and that's enough.

Giles won't say anything because, Oz knows in a way he could never verbalize, he has learned that anything he says will be heard as a reproach, a protest, a rejection. Oz has seen it happen more times than he can count, seen his face shut down, all feeling flood out of him, when someone cracks a joke at his expense, needles him about tweed and age and accent. Oz himself has laughed and then stopped short, choking on it.

They each came here to be alone, for however short a time, and talking would ruin that. Neither needs to be reminded just now of everything pressing in on them, everything that's more important, and stronger, and clearer.

Giles pulls him closer until Oz is draped over him, kissing him, stroking his hair, the skin of his palm remembering all over again the slight coarseness of Giles's hair, the springy feel of it over the heat of his scalp. Giles holds him, kissing deeply and insistently, pouring something out through his tongue and the grip of his fingers around Oz's waist.

When Giles groans again, his eyelids fluttering open and closed, Oz goes still until his eyes open fully.

Giles peers myopically at Oz, tongue running back and forth from one corner of his mouth to the other.

Oz cups Giles's cheek, thumb smoothing away the frown threatening to pucker between his brows, and leans back, pulling Devon's sweater and his stinky shirt over his head. Giles runs his hand up Oz's chest and Oz shivers at the lightness, the concern, everything in that touch.

He doesn't trust himself to give anything like that back.

He stays still. Giles touches him the way he peers at his old and baffling books: Never entirely sure he understands adequately, but confident and patient enough to keep trying until it takes.

Feeling returns to Oz painfully, in jagged waves of sharp tingles that pierce and tug at him. His throat starts to close up as if he's about to cry or vomit. Giles just pulls him all the closer, impossibly so, almost rocking him as Oz kisses harder, sucking almost desperately at Giles's tongue. He feels Giles's hand move up and down his chest, swiftly and firmly, before it slips around and nails scratch lightly up Oz's spine.

Oz grips Giles's head, fingers digging deep into hair and hooking over his jawbone, answering a long, throbbing moan with one of his own when his palm slips over Giles's stomach, then downward, and he feels Giles's hand push under the waistband of his pants.

He slides his tongue, aching, almost raw, along Giles's lips and down over his jawbone, pushing against the fingers making short, hasty circles around one ass cheek, curling his own palm around Giles's cock, rubbing the soft khaki and the zipper's rough metal up and down and around.

Sporadic, anxious birdsong sweeps in and out of Oz's hearing, jittery and high-pitched, an odd counterpoint to the longer, drawn-out sounds of their breathing and sighs and the slow rasp of corduroys on khaki. Giles is rising up onto his knees, bringing Oz down with him, sliding him up the shaggy carpet. Oz wriggles, trying to help, scared to let go and get dropped.

Giles kneels there between Oz's splayed legs, studying him, hands on Oz's knees, for a long time. Oz returns his gaze, making as much eye contact as he can, as if it's a saving account and he has all this interest accrued and he *owes* Giles.

And he does, in a way, he thinks as he fumbles open his fly, not daring to look down, sinking into the gaze.

He reaches for Giles, just managing to brush his fingertips over his knee while his other hand fumbles for the first-aid kit. He grazes the metal box and rolls a little to grab it fully and bring it to his chest.

"I hardly think I need that," Giles says. He's hoarse, not stammering, but his words are halting and thick.

Oz smiles slightly as he flips open the top. "Funny." He hopes Devon and Eric have left him something to work with; yeah, couple Trojans and a nearly full lube. "You're a funny, funny man."

He tosses the lube to Giles and sits up on his knees, running his hands down over his chest. "Can I take off the shirt now, or--?"

"You may."

Oz can't hope for touch, the kind Giles gives, gentle and serious and passionate; he can't trust that Giles can understand his intent, his feelings, any longer, but he can try. He does try. He slips the shirt over Giles's head without unbuttoning it, undoes his fly slowly enough to get another gasp and sigh from Giles. Giles's mouth is warm, his lips light, ghosting over Oz's hairline as Oz strokes his cock out of his boxers and unrolls the condom.

They kiss again, up on their knees, Oz's arms around Giles's neck, fingers tangling in his hair. Giles squeezes him tightly, teeth closing on Oz's tongue as he runs slick fingers down his ass; Oz bucks, clutching blindly, knees spreading, burning. He tries to pull away, certain that's enough, ready to go, but Giles holds on, scraping teeth as roughly down his tongue as gently as he slicks and teases his ass, until Oz is shuddering uncontrollably, clawing down Giles's back, pleading like a brat, and he can't help it.

So when Giles presses him back again, touches his cock with the side of his hand and nudges open his legs, Oz goes still, embarrassed and confused. He watches Giles, watches his face as he brings his leg back, relaxing at the mixture of serious lust and kindness there. And when Giles starts to enter him, Oz hooks one arm around his neck, craning up, mouth gone dry with gratitude. He's almost sleepy, thick-limbed and hazy.

But when Giles fucks him, Oz falls back, remembering all over again the strength in those hands, gripping at his hips, and he has to fight to keep his eyes open, locked on that fierce face. There's the pain again, concentrated and dense, shifting up and flying apart into shards and bone-deep pulses of pleasure. Giles grabs Oz's hand from its grasp in the carpet and brings it to his dick, and Oz's back is arching, his skull almost bouncing on the floor, he's losing sight of Giles, there's just this furious blur of tight, expanding glory and his raw throat and he must be yelling because he hasn't felt this good ever, and then Giles is coming, he can feel the pulse, the sudden swell, and hear the sharp whistle as he inhales before it spills out into a groan. He's back on the floor and there's another hand, smoother, larger, covering his, and when he comes he doesn't know if he should cry or laugh or what so he just keeps coming and then Giles is on top of him, covering him, clutching his face and kissing it. And he thinks he might have really fucked up this time but there's nothing to compare it to, not really, and he can't seem to bring himself to care as they roll on their sides and the kiss slows down again, still intense but so slow it's hypnotic.

Oz can't account for the past year and he wouldn't know where to start. He doesn't need an excuse, and that's not what's bothering him anyway. There aren't any regrets, nothing he would cut out for the video release. But, if he gets to be greedy for a second, there's a lot he'd *add*. Or one thing, with lots of qualities: Giles. He'd add Giles.

He's lying on his side, head on Giles's arm, which must be going numb but neither of them seems ready to move just yet. He's lying here, thinking and sated and wondering.

"So what's wrong?" Giles asks. Oz kind of knew he would; doesn't mean he hoped he wouldn't.

"Nothing."

"Let me rephrase, then. What happened?"

Oz glances up, not trusting the softness of Giles's tone. But all he sees, this close anyway, is swollen lips and heavy-lidded eyes. "Oh. See, that's different."

"Yes," Giles says. "It is."

Oz puts his head back down. It's a fairly simple question, all things considered. He'd prefer a bigger one, more open-ended, with lots of inherent complexity he could get lost in. He traces the curls on Giles's chest with one finger, swirling them into new patterns.

"Daniel?"

"Mm?" It doesn't register for a couple seconds that Giles used the other name. Then it does. "Oh. What happened? Will kissed Xander. Other stuff."

"So you're here." It's quiet, that statement, quiet and flat. Bad edge to it, though.

Oz struggles up onto his elbow. "What? No. God, no. Not like that--"

Giles nods. Oz knows he doesn't believe him, any of it.

"I forgot--" He's about to repeat that he forgot Giles was even *here*, but that's truer than he'd like to admit. He fakes a cough instead. "Um. Missed you? I did. Didn't really know I did, but--"

Giles touches his cheek, and Oz thinks of the priest at his first communion, after he swallowed the cracker and choked down the wine. He runs his finger softly down Oz's throat.

"Sorry," Oz says. "Sorry. Stupid and selfish of me. Didn't mean--"

There's no possible way to reconcile the hot, jittery worry clawing away inside him with the coolness and god-awful *tenderness* of Giles's touch. The two things are more than opposites, they're impossible, they can't coexist.

"Not stupid," Giles finally says and taps the hollow of Oz's throat. "Very far from stupid. Nor selfish."

Oz sighs. "Did miss you. Do."

Giles kisses the top of his head, pressing his lips there, right in that spot that's open and spongy on baby's skulls. He stays like that, gathering Oz close, for a long time.

[October, 1997]

"Hey."

Giles hears the soft, hoarse voice as he rounds the corner, volumes of _Introduction to Geology_ and _Minerals: Your Friends in the Earth_ under his arms. The middle of the day, and no impending apocalypse: perfect for a spot of reshelving. He sees the small figure sitting against the wall, hugging his knees to his chest, bright afternoon sun licking his hair into lurid spikes.

"Dan--. Pardon. Oz."

Oz ducks his head and looks back up at him under those ruddy lashes. "Daniel's fine, Giles."

Giles shuffles his feet until he's leaning against the bookshelves. Reassured that he will not be falling over any time soon, he sets the books down and takes his glasses off, folding them into his shirt pocket. "How are things? Your term, and such?"

Oz scratches his ankle, the charm bracelet catching on the sparse hairs. "Pretty much the same as it ever was. Classes. Homework. School."

"I see."

Oz squints at him. "Yeah, guess you do."

Giles doesn't know what to say, but the shelf just below eye level is distressingly dusty, and he swipes at it with the back of his tie. That is, he knows what he wants to say, but not what he ought to say. How to respond. He wants to know what the boy is doing here, why he's looking at him with such a mixture of hostility and sadness in his eyes, why he's not in class.

"Free period?" he manages at last.

"Skipping."

"Are you sure that's a--"

"Stuff it, Giles, okay?" Oz's legs shoot out in front of him and he cracks his neck, just once, with a quick yank of the head. "Thought you'd be glad I wasn't out in the van. Degenerate friends, getting up to no good."

"I simply meant--"

With a small push against the wall, Oz has risen and stands in front of him, far closer than anyone would find appropriate. Giles can smell him all over again, herby, damp, and smoky, and he feels his spine sagging automatically, trying to bring himself eye to eye with the boy. "Yeah?" Oz asks. "What did you mean?"

Oz's hand presses against Giles's hip, just as it had that first day, slipping into his pocket and resting there. Giles takes a step backwards, and Oz's arm stretches across the gap, hand snug in the pocket. Face impassive as ever, eyes dark under his plucked brows, he studies Giles like a specimen. Slowly, his elbow bends as he follows his hand, and he has Giles backed up against the shelves.

"Oz," Giles whispers. "Oz, please."

"Hmm?" His hand rolls in Giles's pocket, and a slow smile snakes across his lips as it brushes Giles's erection. "What?"

Giles claps his hand on Oz's shoulder, gripping, ready to shove him away, but Oz pushes back, folding Giles's hand back between their chests. "N-n-not here, Oz. Please."

Oz butts his chest gently against Giles and wiggles his fingers. "But we never did it here, did we? Kinda regret that. Always thought we would." His fingers hook over Giles's cock as he mouths at the buttons on his shirt, and the heat of his mouth, the tickling brush of fabric-wrapped fingertips, all becomes too much. Giles drops his face into Oz's hair, the spikes brushing his cheek, and he breathes in the strong chemical smell of whatever holds those spikes up.

"That a yes?" Mouthed on his chest, two buttons opened, tie flung over his shoulder.

Giles thrusts against the hand and feels the rumble of Oz's chuckle against his chest. With his free hand, Oz slides Giles's trapped hand down between them, and Giles's fingers curl reflexively against the boy's erection. He rubs his palm quickly over the bulge and Oz's head drops back, eyes on his.

"Gonna start humping your leg any minute now," he says. Smirks as he frees his hand from the pocket, leaving just fingers hooked into the entrance. One sharp tug, and Giles is on his knees, head nudging back the books behind him, watching Oz flick open his pants and unzip the fly. He closes his eyes as the soft warmth of Oz's cock brushes his cheek, realizing dimly that there had been no underwear.

He looks up, sees the cock held in a loose fist, up, Oz smirking down, one eyebrow raised. "Hey," Oz says. "I did learn a couple things with you. 'm not totally retarded."

Giles shakes his head, tears burning at the back of his eyes, and Oz sighs. Strokes his cheek with his free hand.

"Jesus, Giles, get over it, okay?"

Giles nods, willing away thoughts, remembering that if this is going to happen, it needs to be over with as quickly as possible. He cranes his neck forward, managing to brush the glistening crown with dry lips before Oz leans back a fraction, guiding the cock in his fist over Giles's face. Giles turns, mouth gaping, following its path, never managing more than a momentary contact. He can hear the chuckle again, doesn't need to look upwards to see the smirk, and tips back his head again. He leaves his mouth open, feeling the air drying his lips, thickening his tongue, as Oz paints his cockhead over his jawline, down his nose, around his cheeks.

His own erection throbs painfully against his trousers, and he knows that this can hardly get any worse. He drops his hand to his fly, fumbling open the zipper, scraping his knuckles on its teeth to tug out his cock. As if that were some signal, Oz leans forward again, running the crown over Giles's dry lips. As he starts to stroke himself with hard, jerky motions, he hollows his cheeks around Oz's cock, rolling his tongue against the underside. He hears the boy whisper a moan, and snakes his free hand around the back of his knees. Pulls him closer, swallowing as his mouth fills with saliva and the cock burns against the back of his throat.

Oz's hand skates over his ear, and Giles glances up, sees him looking down into Giles's lap. Giles gives himself a good hard pull, and Oz's eyes close as he thrusts into Giles's mouth. Braces himself by gripping the bookshelf until the metal rattles, and their eyes are locked as Oz spreads his knees, lowering his hips, thrusting again. Giles wrenches at his foreskin, tilting his chin to rub as best he can against Oz's balls and watches as the boy's eyes widen.

The way they always do, always did, brows leaping and eyes flashing for a moment, jaw dropping. Oz shoves into Giles's mouth, and he can only see a flash of white skin and gleam of zipper before the boy is coming, filling his mouth, soaking his cheek when his cock jerks free of Giles's lips.

Oz sinks, sighing, to the floor, eyes closed, shaking his head. Giles is so close now, swallowing and running his tongue around his lips. His balls shrink up against him, and he's about to turn on his side to come when Oz touches him. Just a fingertip pressed against the slit, and his hips jerk as he shoots into his hand.

He freezes there, sticky cum gluing his hand to his softening cock, and waits for Oz to leave.

"Fuck," Oz whispers, stripping off his tee shirt. He hands it to Giles, who smiles weakly, and tries to wipe himself off. He watches the boy stretch out his arms and shake his hands before tucking himself back in. "Told you it would be good here."

Giles nods and hands back the balled-up shirt. Oz stuffs it into one back pocket and pulls on his overshirt. The blue flannel that Giles has left behind the encyclopedias. What does he say here? Thank you? Get out?

"Oh, hey," Oz says in a more normal tone as he pulls himself up. "You ever see this girl? Redhead, dresses like an Eskimo?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Giles?" Oz whispers.

"Hmm?"

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

"Which would involve what, exactly?"

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

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

"Taking that as a yes?"

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

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

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

"Do anything I don't want?"

Giles nods.

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

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

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

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

/

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

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

First time was right before they left Catalina.

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

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

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

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

"What are you laughing at?" he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe he had.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

/

It's going to be better than that tonight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yeah, see -"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oz, *fuck*, coming -"

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

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

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

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

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

"Thank you," Giles says hoarsely.

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

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

"For everything, you see -"

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

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

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

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

Coming out of the girls' locker room, Buffy's wobbly. Wobbly in that overheated, rubber-cement-for-muscles kind of way. That *good* way.

She probably overdid it -- three miles on the track, another two in the pool, and God knows how many flights on the Stairmaster -- but Buffy needed it. She's needed it for weeks now, something to burn off, however temporarily, this crazy itch under her skin. Restlessness, and if her friends want to call it "Parker Abramsitis", that's their call.

Plus, if she doesn't work out here on campus, Giles is sure to make good on his threat to make her jog with him before the sun's even up.

She stumbles a little, damp hair whipping her cheek, and a firm hand grabs her elbow and holds.

"Oz?" she asks, blinking away the smear in her eyes. "What are you doing here?" Her vision clears and she sees that not only is it Oz, it's Oz with a flowery, quilted bag over one shoulder and an overnight case in the other hand. "With luggage?"

"Kidnapping you, actually," he says, releasing her elbow and reaching for her hand. "You game?"

His hand is dry and cool in hers, and she'd always noticed how touchy-feely he is. It's just weird to be the one touched and felt.

"All yours," she says after a moment of studying him. In the Athletics Center, he looks very small. Underfed, almost, and desperately pale.

"Coolness." He squeezes her hand and will not answer when she asks where they're going. She asks twice on the way to the parking lot, another three times when they're in the van, and Oz just smiles to himself.

He cleared it with Giles and Joyce, though, he'll tell her that. And that Xander, Willow, and Veruca are meeting them later.

"That's okay with you?" she asks, stretching out the tremors still running through her arms. Without taking his eyes off the road, Oz reaches into the back and gets her a pillow. "Thanks."

"Fine by me," he says a little later, when she's sure he's ignoring this question, too. "Sucks Giles couldn't come, though."

"You invited *Giles*?"

His eyes tick over to her and he almost-shrugs. All his gestures are small and easy to miss, but she dated Angel, after all. She can read the tiniest of changes in expression and posture.

"Sure," he says, merging onto the freeway. They're going north, but Buffy not only doesn't drive; her sense of direction goes totally into suspension as soon as she gets into a car. She's not even going to try to figure out where they're headed. "Man could use a party."

"True. Just don't want to be at the same one, that's all." She yawns hugely, her jaw cracking, and punches the pillow to get comfortable. "Parties with Giles tend to involve demons and bloodshed, from what I've heard."

Oz moves his hand from the gearshift to her thigh, then to her arm, patting gently. When she yawns again, he says, "Sleep."

So she does.

*

"Buffy...Buffy...wake up. You're gonna miss the bus." Sing-song in her ear, breath tickling her cheek, and she throws out an arm to ward off the distraction. "Bu-uffff-y."

Warm, dry kiss on her temple and gradually she realizes she's sleeping sitting up. And Oz is talking to her. *Kissing* her.

She smacks her lips and tries to open her eyes. "Time is it?"

"Dunno," Oz says, brushing the hair back from her face. "But we're here."

"Oh." She struggles to sit up, wiping away the drool on her cheek with a quick swipe of her hand. She sees trees, and blue sky. Not much else. "Where?"

"Here," he says, leaning over her to open the door. At her look, rolled eyes and pursed lips, he shrugs. "Uncle's cabin. Outside Tahoe. Better?"

"Much," she says, sliding off the seat onto the gravel driveway. The house is behind them, a little fake-chalet, peaked roof and silvery pine siding. "Nice."

Inside, it's tiny, just a living room, bathroom, and kitchen on the first floor, and a huge sleeping loft and second bathroom on the second. But there's a deck out back looking into the mountains, and a hot tub.

Best of all, it's *quiet*. Real country quiet, chattering birds and wind in the pines. Buffy stands at the railing, the setting sun warm on her face, while Oz drags in the bags and a cooler.

"You want some help?"

"No," he grunts, loaded down like a sherpa, kicking the cooler toward the kitchen. "Got it."

Coming back inside, she says, "Don't be stupid."

"That's all of it," Oz says, dropping the last bag on the couch and pushing the cooler into the kitchen.

"You pack for an apocalypse?" she asks as he starts unpacking cuts of meat, vegetables, pasta boxes, and six-packs of soda and beer.

Oz straightens up and rubs his neck. "I might've overdone it, yeah."

"We could eat for a month on that."

He looks away, into the fridge, then out the window. "Didn't know what you liked."

"Could've asked, you know."

"Yeah, but then the whole element of surprise would be blown out of the water."

He's weird. That's the best Buffy's been able to come up with, and it's been almost two months now.

Oz is weird. He's loose and ignorant of most social niceties, but then there are others that he takes way too seriously, like always opening the van door for her and buying out the grocery store just in case.

Last week over breakfast, she tried to explain it to Willow, but flubbed it, because Will just clapped her hands and said, "I *know*! And it's like now we're *both* lesbians!" Then her nose wrinkled up and she brushed the hair out of her eyes. "Except you're not dating Oz. Are you *dating* Oz?"

"I don't know." Buffy poked at her fruit salad and the plastic fork bent alarmingly. "I really don't."

She doesn't know how this started. She doesn't even really know what *this* is. She knows that Oz started running into her on her patrols more and more. That he brought her coffee like he knew he'd run into her. That once, when he slept over in the dorm room, she woke up early and found him sitting on the edge of Willow's bed, looking at her with something like curiosity on his face.

She does know that he felt sorry for her. Or that he wanted to help. Either way, it annoyed her, because she doesn't need *anyone's* help, and being pitied is almost as bad as being ignored. But she couldn't seem to find the right way to push him away.

She kind of liked having him around.

And then everything went to hell twice-over, he fucked Veruca-the-stalker and Veruca almost killed Willow and Buffy tranq'd both wolves. When the dust settled and everybody woke up, Will and Veruca had teamed up after lots of tear-soaked conversations with Oz, and he was alone and Buffy was still alone.

So now they're hanging out. She doesn't think they're dating, per se, but they're definitely hanging out.

*

Dark now, and the steam from the hot tub curls up off the restless water, disappearing against the black sky.

Buffy rubs her arms against the slight chill and hesitates while Oz steps out of his pants. He tosses his t-shirt at her and it's warm. Smells like boy and tomato sauce.

She doesn't know where to look, so she folds the shirt and asks, "Shouldn't we wait an hour?" He packed *lasagna*, and warmed it up in the oven, and she had three helpings.

"Just enjoy," Oz says, sinking back into the bubbles and raising his mug toward Buffy in an abbreviated toast.

Only Oz, she thinks, would drink tea in a hot tub.

"Okay," she says, because she's found it's easier to agree. Oz is usually right, weirdly enough. She pulls off her jeans and takes a deep breath before unbuttoning her shirt. Stupid to be nervous; it's *Oz*, who she's seen naked every month, practically, and they've already kissed and he's taped up her ribs a couple times and she's being stupid.

And she's restless, and Oz is leaning back, arms folded over his chest, his body floating in the bright water. Out here, alone, he doesn't look underfed or anything. His skin's going pink in the heat and his hair's drooping. He looks perfectly comfortable, a little smile on his lips and a faraway look in his sleepy eyes.

He kind of looks like those snow monkeys steaming and going zen in Japan.

Buffy unhooks her bra and slides into the water, bumping Oz's legs, and his eyes open at the contact, a real smile widening across his face.

"Hey," he says and it's hard to hear him over the water. But his free hand closes around her arm and pulls her closer. They're both buoyant and they bump and float as they get comfortable, Buffy between his legs, his chin planted on her shoulder. He lifts the mug to her mouth. "Tea?"

"I'm good," she murmurs. Weird how restless can flip so suddenly over into sleepy, but she's sleepy now, all the tension and aches loosening and vanishing. Above them, past the steam, the sky's picked out with stars.

"Haven't seen stars for years," she says and Oz says something below words in agreement. His arm's crossed over her belly, holding her against the water, and she's got both her arms hooked around his bent knees. They fit like this, folded in together.

Guys, she always thought, are bigger than you. It's not necessarily right or fair, but that's just how it works. Billy Ford, Angel, Scott Hope. Even Parker. Mostly Angel, though. In heels, sometimes, she'd be their height, but there was something simultaneously comforting and sexy about being smaller.

"Just enjoy," he says again, mouth on her neck, hard to distinguish from the water, the flat of his palm working a slow arc over her stomach.

If Oz has anything as official as a motto, Buffy thinks, that's it. *Just enjoy*. Life, music, school, sex: It all comes down for him to whether he enjoys it.

That was what prompted their first and only fight. She was skipping psych because Walsh was bugging her and she'd just seen Parker with a busty girl, like Cordelia- or Faith-busty, on his lap and she couldn't deal. Oz passed through the cafeteria patio, saw her, and dropped his bag. Went for a big cup of tea and returned, sitting across from her and smiling his weird smile.

"What?" she asked, knowing she sounded like a bitch. But his silence got to her and his smile said he had thoughts too good to share.

"Way I see it," he said, putting down his cup and slumping a little so the sun hit him full in the face, almost blanking out all his features, "you're batting 500 on personal relationships. Not so bad. Better'n most people."

"That sounds good, but isn't 500 only fifty percent?"

He nodded, just once. "Still better than most."

She briefly considered tossing her pencil at him. He wasn't far, and she could probably do some damage with it since it was freshly sharpened. But he wasn't smiling any more and his eyes opened, dark and wet in the light, and for a second, she couldn't move. "So I should be, what? Happy that the second guy I -- that I, you know --"

"Slept with."

"Slept with *didn't* turn into a raving psycho and murderer?"

Oz sat up and leaned over the table. Buffy grabbed back her hand, but he just lifted an eyebrow and stole a piece of lettuce from her plate. "Not saying it doesn't suck. Just that it could suck more."

"It could always suck more," she said and Oz nodded.

"Exactly."

"It's a stupid way of looking at things."

His mouth curled into another smile, but this one, she thought, was nicer. Kinder. "Never said I wasn't."

"Jeez, Oz." She didn't know what else to say and felt, vaguely, like she'd insulted him.

"Think of it as an upward swing," he said. "Where the next guy's going to be even better."

"So he'll call me the next morning? Maybe even treat me like a human being?"

"Yeah. Something like that," Oz said. Frowning, he looked down at the lettuce leaf in his hand like he didn't know what it was doing there.

"Not going to be a next guy." She'd thought a lot about it, and the whole nun thing was starting to seem really appealing.

"Sure there will." Munching on the lettuce, he wasn't quite looking at her.

"How do you know?"

Brushing off the front of his shirt, Oz shrugged. "Know you. Sort of, anyway. You're not built for --"

"Celibacy?"

"That, too. Meant bitterness, but, sure. Celibacy."

Random pep talks were Xander's specialty. Apparently, though, he'd been tutoring Oz.

"Seen you on patrol," Oz continued. This was a huge amount of words for him and even in her pissy mood, Buffy knew to let it happen. "How you fight, how you move. You and your body, you're --. Inseparable."

"That's how it works, yeah."

Squinting at her, Oz waited, shadows of clouds moving over his face. "Know what I mean. You -- enjoy it. Can't help it." He cocked his head. "It's cool."

As fights went, it wasn't that bad. Oz is hard to argue with, since he just kind of smiles to himself and changes the subject.

He sounded like Faith, actually, she thinks now, floating against him. Like a non-crazy, not-so-lewd Faith, making sure she knew the connection between slaying and sex. Or bodies and their needs, something like that. Faith understood because she felt the same way; she's not sure how Oz knows, though. How can he make the connection between how she fights, or works out, all of that, with sex, how he knows how much she enjoyed the night with Parker.

Opening her eyes, she wiggles in the water so she's lying crosswise against Oz. He's just looking at her, wide green eyes in his flushed face, and when she kisses him, he makes a soft, gurgling sound deep in his throat.

Green tea, and steam, and other bright, strong things -- that's what Oz tastes like, and he kisses hungrily, all wolf jokes aside, with his whole body tilting into hers, hands tightening on her hips, in her hair, and when she breaks for a breath, he's gasping, too.

"Upstairs?" he asks.

Buffy looks at her hand, fingertips gone wrinkly. "Yeah, probably. Prune city."

"Sultanas," Oz says mysteriously before kissing her thumb. Sucking it into his mouth, letting it curl against the back of his teeth, and the sensation's hotter than the water, moving twice as fast through the center of her. His tongue's wide and hot, wrapping around the knuckle, pulling her deeper, and Buffy suddenly feels the night air, cold as glass, on her back.

"Oz, *God* --"

He releases her thumb with a pop and smiles slow and sleepy as he helps her out of the tub.

Her underpants cling to her hips and Oz holds her steady as she tugs them off. Then, tipping her head against his shoulder, kissing the spray of freckles there that's light as stars, she does the same for him. His little gray briefs are waterlogged and he looks away, covering his hard-on with one hand while he grabs for the towels.

"I can still see it," she says, pushing his hand away and wrapping her arms around his waist to dry his back. Her own nipples are hard and achey in the cold air, twanging like country music whenever they brush against Oz's skin. "Not like I haven't seen it before, anyway."

His cheeks are bright red, heat and embarrassment blooming together, when he meets her eyes and kisses her again as he wraps the towel around her.

It's a soft kiss, wide and open, and she can feel the sweat at the roots of his hair when she pushes her hand around the back of his head. It's *nice* to kiss in bare feet, not to have to stretch her neck and go up on her toes, just press against each other and kiss without acrobatics. Oz nips down on her lower lip when she pulls back.

"Shame to cover you up," he says, plucking at the top of her towel.

"Deal," she says, breaking for the house, racing him to the stairs.

"You're going to win," he calls after her, but chases anyway. Their feet squelch over the tile and sink into the carpet and she slows down a little.

"What're sultanas?" she asks when they're halfway up the stairs and Oz is picking at her towel and making her trip. "*Oz*."

"Sorry," he says but doesn't stop. Blindly, she reaches back and swats him and he laughs. "What? Oh. Raisins. Like, golden ones."

"You're so weird," she says when she reaches the top of the stairs and stumbles into the loft. Three steps and the bed's right there, wide and welcoming, so she jumps on it, landing in the middle.

"Not weird," Oz says, fake-tripping and landing on top of her. "Appropriate, because prunes are big and black. Ugly. Sultanas, though. Golden and little. Plump."

"You're babbling."

"Am I?" He's tugging at her towel, mouth on her collarbone, and Buffy wriggles up the bed.

"You are."

"Must be catching, then."

He tugs one more time on the end of her towel and it comes free, and Buffy arches against the sudden warm air. Oz makes a soft noise, kind of hoarse, and licks his lips as he splays his hands over her hips to hold her still.

"I don't --" She sucks in a breath when Oz starts skating his mouth over the tops of her breasts, her nipples rubbing against his throat. "I don't babble. *Oz* --"

Smiling lopsidedly, he cups one breast and kisses the underside of the other, swiping his tongue and scraping his teeth.

This is the farthest they've ever gone, and Buffy thinks vaguely that maybe she should think about that. Slow them down, at least, take a breath. But Oz's mouth is doing things to her skin, like it's following the pattern of veins and sucking them full and plump, wrapping her in a red net of heat, drawing her tight. He flicks his tongue over her nipple, sucks it hard, then releases her, moves away as she groans. His weight is pressing her back into the mattress and his hands are roving up and down her sides, over her thighs, then up into her hair, and Buffy's soaked with the heat, an ache building between her legs.

She doesn't know how long Oz lies on top of her like that. She drags her nails up and down his back, over his arms, pulls at his hair, and he just murmurs and works a little lower.

"Sit up for me?" he asks later, hoarsely, his face red and wet.

That's me, she thinks, I make him look like that. And she can't think of the grimace on Parker's face or the rapture contorting Angel's, because this is different. *Oz* is different, and he's not rushing her, but he's asking, lifting her up and turning her around to face the headboard. On her knees, and Oz's strong hands are on the insides of her thighs, pulling her wider, and she *needs* him to touch her.

"Oz, please --" She grinds down and all he does is chuckle. Wraps an arm around her waist and presses against her, kissing the top of her spine and kneading one breast. She can feel his cock against her thigh, and there's a hollow ache inside her. Oz keeps pressing her forward, mouthing down her spine and muttering. Telling her she tastes good, her skin is soft, and she moans. That's all well and good, but she wants more and he chuckles every time she tells him so. Finally, she's canted against the wall, forehead pressed against one bar of the headboard, and he's licking swirls over the base of her backbone, making her grunt and shiver.

His mouth is a brush and Buffy's coated in heat that clings and seeps like oil, and when he kisses the top of her crack, she yells and tries to pull away.

"Ssshh, ssshh," he says, moving higher, petting her belly. "It's all right. Want to. It feels good, promise."

"Oz, *no*, I can't --"

He's against her again, both arms around her waist, mouth on her ear, his breath thunderous. Buffy's shaking and she wishes she could stop. "Showered at the gym, right?"

"Yes."

"And sat in the hot tub?"

"Yes."

"Clean," he whispers, the breath going right through her with the sound, twisting inside her, making her push her ass back against him. "It'll feel good. Promise, Buffy."

He says her name like it means something. "I -- I *can't*."

"You can do anything," he says and he sounds grave and so serious, like he's talking about much more than sex, much more than just this. But *this* feels like everything, like the whole world, his fingernails scraping her nipples and his teeth closing on her shoulder.

When she inhales, the air is cold, sharp as broken glass, but when she exhales, she feels her chest expand against his arm, and it's going to be okay. "Okay. Okay."

"Good," he whispers, and kisses his way down again, another track, another filigree of heat that sinks into the rest and makes her twist and moan. All too soon, his mouth is at the top of her crack again, tongue in a sharp little point, and he licks her gently as his hands spread her open. She's never felt anything like this, never been touched there, not on purpose, and she can only imagine what she looks like, rolling her head against the bars and gripping them until they rattle as Oz moves his tongue deeper, farther. She can't control it, the pressure of his *face*, his tongue dipping and delving. Her hips are moving back and forth, the hollow burn ratcheting up, and Oz just keeps going, one hand braced on her hip, mouth twisting and pushing deeper. His tongue is *inside* her, like a mile wide and warm, and Buffy's head falls back as she shakes the bed and shrieks. All this heat inside her, conducted directly from his mouth up her spine and out her throat, and she's not past begging now. She tries to drop her hips and grind her clit against the pillow -- she can feel her clit throbbing, swelling, untouched and needful -- but Oz holds her firmly, easing up a little to let her catch her breath.

"Do you like that?" he asks, heel of his hand pressing against her mound, fingers tickling the hair. Buffy shoves forward and he unfolds his fingers, lets her grind.

"Yes," she says, and that's not enough. She's past liking it, and when Oz chuckles again, she could slap him. "Fuck, *yes*."

"Good, because you taste so good. So good," he says, drawing two fingers lightly over her lips and brushing her clit. "Making you so wet, *God*, Buffy."

All she feels is the burn, this spreading-but-contracting burn, and when he knuckles her clit back and forth as he licks over her asshole again, she clenches her pussy and bears down, pushing back against his face.

She's going to come. She's trembling on the verge of it, the muscles in her legs and arms tightening and the heat pulling her in and down, against Oz's mouth, and forward over his fingers. She's going to come, but the orgasm is this wide, encompassing horizon. Not the usual peak, but something broad and enveloping, and his tongue thrusts inside her hole as he strokes her clit, and she's been coming for half an eon, gasping at the white light and the bright heat, spreading out and rubbing herself in it, never stopping. Oz's stubble rasps against the skin of her ass, his tongue torques and pushes, and Buffy feels sweat or tears or both soaking her face as she goes blind and falls.

Falls on her face, spread-eagled on the bed, and whimpering. Oz's hands on her back scrape and hurt as her pussy clenches and releases, again and again, pushing out her breath. He lowers himself onto her, kissing her shoulder, holding her tight, and Buffy floats as he whispers.

"So good, you taste so good," he's saying, fingercombing her hair and kissing the edge of her jaw. "So beautiful, Buffy, you're --" His voice breaks and Buffy starts to come back to herself. Feels his weight, the poke and pressure of his cock, and she tries to turn over.

"Oz --"

"Ssshhh," he says, kissing her dry, swollen mouth, moving his hips against her ass.

"I want --" She can't think of the words. She wants to go again, wants to feel him inside her, wants him to feel half as good as she does right now. "I want you."

Her voice sounds like a wind-up toy, tinny and thin, and Oz keeps kissing her. One arm under her chest, the other around her waist, he eases her back up onto her knees. "I want *you*," he echoes, and pulls away. She's cold and shaky without him, but he's just reaching for the knapsack on the far edge of the bed. "Want to feel you. Do you want that?"

She can only nod. Words and breath are difficult things, and she twitches as he touches her, plays gently with her clit again until she's moving again. She hears the rip of foil and squish of lube, feels his fingers press inside her, two or three, and she clenches on them until Oz grunts.

"So wet, pretty girl," he's saying, and pulling out his fingers and she whines. "Ssshh, right here."

He's not lying. Oz never lies, the head of his cock pressing against her pussy, his thumb on her clit and his other hand, wet and hot from being *inside* her, pushing against the cold, wet skin of her ass. Of her hole, her other one, and his cock's halfway inside her, pushing the moans out her mouth with each careful thrust, when he rotates one finger against her ass and pushes *that* inside, too.

Oz stills, and she knows he's letting her get used to it, but Buffy keeps moving, wants more, feels the heat prickling back into being all over her skin, pore by pore, thrusting her back onto him, finger and cock. Oz grunts again and plays his finger over her clit. Guitarist, she thinks stupidly, and moves against him, and he's *in*. Filling her front and back, talking to her but the words burn away like scraps of paper, and all she can hear is her own heartbeat and the squeak of the bed, rattle of the headboard, and he's *inside*. All the way, and they're pushing and pulling at each other, twisting their hips, and Buffy's grabbing onto the edge of the bed for leverage, thrusting herself back, looking over her shoulder.

Oz's face has gone red, twisted and intense, his eyes glittering and lips drawn back over his teeth. When he sees her, he tries to smile, but it's a grimace and she bites her bottom lip as he thrusts fast and deep. The pressure of it, slick and clenching, red coals billowing in the fire, is enough to blind her again, and she drops her head into the pillow.

"Fuck, fuck, *fuck*," he says, she can hear him now, and Buffy pushes herself up onto her hands, then all the way upright. The angle of everything changes, goes deeper and sharper, heat crushing her chest and closing her throat. She reaches back, grabbing his sharp hipbone, and hangs on.

"Harder," she says and he groans long and high, pushing and twisting inside her, mouth on her shoulder, balls clapping like an ecstatic audience. "Fuck me, *Oz*, so close --"

Teeth in her skin and something like a growl in his throat, Oz shoves her down, hocks and spits and adds another twisting, teasing finger as his cock fills her entirely. Other hand on her shoulder, he pushes himself all the way in, freezes as she shudders, and then cries out -- her name, God, Sanskrit, she doesn't know -- as he comes, thrusting jerky and fast. His fingers are still inside her hole and his cock is hot and swollen in her other hole and Buffy rotates her hips against his hand, rubs her clit against palm and nails until she's blind and gasping and Oz is holding her tight, biting her ear and begging her to come.

The heat pulls away in long shreds, slowly, and she should feel raw and cold as Oz pulls out and hugs her, rolls her onto her side to face him. But she just feels limp and warm, full and happy. She cranes forward, half-blindly, to kiss his stubbly cheek that smells like *her*, broken grass and dark moisture, and puts her arm around him.

"Cold?" she whispers.

Oz's face looks like a mask. Or like its true self, slack and flushed, and he struggles to open his eyes. "Nah, I'm good."

She bites the tip of his nose, then kisses the corner of his mouth. "That was crazy."

"Crazy insane or crazy --?"

"What other kind of crazy is there?"

He smiles crookedly and his eyes drift closed again. "Good point."

"Crazy amazing," Buffy says, reaching behind her for the quilt and dragging it over their bodies. She has goosebumps everywhere, and the brush of fabric sets her to tingling all over again.

"All you," he murmurs and smiles again when she plays with his hair. "*All* you."

Buffy tucks her head into the crook of Oz's arm, sleepiness stealing over her, and nudges her knee between his. Pulling her closer, Oz kisses her hair, and it's dark and smells like sex under the quilt and Buffy doesn't think she ever needs to move again.

*

She must sleep because the dark is different, lighter and pearlier, when her eyes open and she hears voices downstairs.

"Lasagna? All hail Oz, King of the Kitchen!" Xander is saying as the door to the patio scrapes open.

"There are underwear and a bra out here," Anya announces. "Pay up."

"Excuse me?" That's Willow, sounding offended and impatient. "What are you talking about?"

"They *are* dating," Anya says. "Clear as day."

Against her cheek, Buffy feels Oz's smile. He opens his eyes and regards her. This close, it's all Cubist, planes and curves and deep, mysterious green.

"Go, Oz," Veruca says. "King of the Bedroom, too."

"Hey," Buffy says softly. The skin between Oz's eyes is puckered up and she kisses it. "Morning. Your Highness."

"Morning," he says, and holds her more tightly.

[end]

There wasn't an ending. Not for a long time.

She waited a couple days after the end of the full moon but Veruca never returned to their room. Silence and the gathering, thickening, gloaming of dust.

So for an ending, Tara has to go back to the last time she saw Veruca. Second day of the full moon, the height of it, and she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, reading Marge Piercy for Intro to Women's Lit. Veruca came barreling into the room. She always bounded and clattered, wherever she went, the air around her fragmented and syncopated, faster-moving. Her own climate.

Tackled Tara, pushing her back onto her pillow, head banging against the wall and she smelled like everything Tara is supposed to be afraid of.

Blood, soil, men, water, lymph, grass. Everything elemental, sperm and spit and more blood. Always more blood.

Veruca was laughing, squirming above Tara, one knee pushing Tara's legs apart. Laughing like water, like coming, her hair scratching, rasping, over Tara's face.

"You're okay," Tara said, because she worried.

"Better than that." She kissed Tara's neck, licked the veins there, drew the tip of her tongue like a scalp over the hollow of Tara's throat. "Fanfuckingtastic, baby."

"Tell me --" *Where you were, what you did, why you smell like men, like sex, why you left me alone.*

She used to go watch Veruca sing. She'd stand in the back, arms wrapped around her waist as she swayed. Like that, listening to Veruca then, the last time, wrapped up in Veruca's hot breath on her face, her fingers climbing like kitten's claws up under Tara's skirt, over her thigh, as Veruca panted and gasped and told her, told her everything. Told her about hunting and fucking, dark of night and light of the moon, and *you know what it's like, don't you, baby? Letting the monster go, going with the demon, finding a friend? You know just what it's like.*

Tara did know. Does.

It's why she loved Veruca, why she listened and watched and kissed back. Why she'd crawl on her knees to bite and lick her way up Veruca's long thin leg, soft golden hair on the calf, sparser on her thigh, why she'd use her extra inches and pounds to push Veruca over onto her face and spread her legs.

Why she wasn't allowed to be jealous.

Because she was, she is, a demon herself. Only a matter of time.

"You'll like him --" Veruca wrapped her fingers in a lock of Tara's hair and tugged. "You'll love him. Small and beautiful and *fuck* if he doesn't know how to work his tongue --"

Tara wanted to cry. All this gritty heat clogged her chest, crawled like lice and maggots up the back of her throat, but Veruca kept rocking and whispering and when she kissed Tara and Tara tasted blood and love and milk, spicy-sweet, Tara forgot to cry. Kissed back, let Veruca pull her head back, let the heat build and thicken, past tears, toward then into desire.

She'd do anything.

Veruca was the first woman who looked at her like her mom had, with love and interest. She was a monster, just like Tara, and impetuous and foolish and loud, jangly as cheap bracelets and Tara watched out for her, guarded her, cared for her the best she could. She was a clutch of nerves under that sharp beautiful face, tangle of hair and small hands that told secrets inside Tara's body.

That was the last time.

It wasn't an ending.

Veruca wanted to get outside before sunset, go find her wolfboy, and Tara had class and when she got back to the dorm room, it was already dark. She thought she'd see Veruca in the morning, with the man in tow.

Veruca never came back. Her stuff stayed on her side of the room and Tara slept in her bed under the ruby-red quilt. She knew better than to call the police. She wanted to, though.

By the time Willow first came to visit, Tara had rearranged the room. It was after Christmas break, and she cried as she pulled the beds together, dragged the extra desk into the hall, hung new tapestries. When Willow stepped inside, the room looked like a single, like a refuge, like a place to hide and to heal. Willow needed that as much as Tara did. She was small as Veruca, quiet and sad, and Tara thought of a robin with a broken wing.

Willow wasn't Veruca. Too quiet, too scared, but she crackled with power when they did spells. The air around her then was burnt, flashing with yellow light, and that was almost enough. Never the same, but the power around them was almost like Veruca's feral climate.

Willow kissed like a girl, shy and soft. Veruca kissed like a woman, like a demon. Tara had to hold back with Willow, touch her with stuttering fingers, care for her, never scare her.

Willow wasn't the end, either. She was an interval, a lovely soft scared little thing who barely knew her own power.

The end only came when Oz's nostrils flared, white and mean, and he started to leap. Air pushed before him, fast and rich, blood-sperm-spit-passion, and Tara couldn't, wouldn't, run. She closed her eyes and it was the last scent of Veruca, it was knowledge full of pulsing blood and cruelty, it was knowing what he'd done to Veruca. Ripped her throat open, and Tara's head fell back, offering.

It was the end.

It should have been.

Someone dragged Joyce to the book club, one of the well-meaning neighborhood ladies who'd begun appearing a few days after Buffy's disappearance. She hadn't wanted to go, but it seemed easier to attend than to come up with a reason why she wouldn't. So she went, her copy of _She's Come Undone_ going damp in her sweaty hand.

They were a nice group. Mostly women around her own age, looking to stretch their minds and interact outside of their children's lives; a few divorced men with eyes constantly skimming the group, who'd clearly heard that this was the kind of place to pick up women; and a lone teenaged boy in a bright yellow shirt that washed out his already pale skin and auburn hair.

Joyce didn't talk much at that meeting. The book was hackneyed, but she found hers was a minority opinion, shared only with the teenager and one of the men; everyone else enthused at length over its drama and poignancy. The rosé that the hostess served went down easily, however. She remembered that much.

Afterward, she found herself buying a copy of _Father of Frankenstein_ for the next meeting, and surprised herself further by reading it attentively in the coming days. She hadn't read much fiction since the divorce -- since college, really, preferring _Art in America_ and biographies (though Huffington's biography of Picasso made her want to scream). But she read now with a mechanical pencil in one hand (pink, one of Buffy's, left scattered on her desk upstairs) and a glass of wine in the other. She read, and for a time, an hour or so, she managed not to think about Buffy, about herself.

The next meeting was more lively. Talkative, even argumentative. Gary, one of the cruising divorcés, with white in his beard and a splotchy sunburn across his nose, objected to how "queer" the book was.

"Well, I just read past that," Stacy, this meeting's hostess, said. "If you think of Boone as a woman, then it's easier."

Secret identities and shame, and bloodstains she soaked out without thinking. "You can't do that," Joyce heard herself say, and she kept her gaze fixed on the rug in front of her. "You can't ignore, can't change, what you don't like or don't understand about someone."

"Agreed. Plus, he's kinda hot," a quiet voice said across the circle from her. "Pictured him like a young Burt Reynolds."

It was the teenaged boy who spoke, slumping in a wing chair so overstuffed that it made him look even smaller than she remembered. He gave her a minuscule smile and Joyce nodded. Perhaps the wine -- actually, it was sangria this time -- was going to her head, but she felt flushed suddenly, with gratitude and something like fellowship. "Exactly!" she said. "The frustrated love story only makes sense if he's a man. A very attractive one."

"So all you want is an attractive man?" Gary spluttered and his friend, in a madras camp shirt a size too small, joined the argument.

"Of course not!" Stacy said and passed around the pitcher of sangria.

Joyce let them argue.

*

She was pulling out of the drugstore's parking lot a week or so later when she saw the young man loping down the sidewalk. Joyce stopped the car and tooted the horn, and he and his companion turned.

*Willow*.

Joyce thought, 'I don't know whether to laugh or cry', but that wasn't entirely true. She gripped the steering wheel more tightly and smiled her best mother's smile -- good for talking to Hank with on the phone and attending parent-teacher nights.

"Mrs. Summers!" Willow called and hurried over. Her friend hung a little back, rubbing his chin and almost-smiling. "How are you doing? I'm so sorry I haven't come over, I feel *so* bad, but --"

Joyce nodded and smiled and let Willow speak. This was why she preferred meeting new people to dealing with familiar ones. Anyone who knew her before, before Buffy left, could only talk about that.

"-- and Giles is in Chicago, or somewhere near Chicago, I think, he knows someone there who might know something and could maybe help --"

*Oz*, that was the boy's name. A lovely kid, a little shorter, even, than Willow. Just about as tall as Buffy.

"-- my *boyfriend*," Willow said when she remembered to introduce him. She spoke the word with pride and a strange note of formality, the way people pronounce foreign words in ordinary conversation.

Joyce swallowed before widening her smile. "Hello."

"Hey," Oz said.

She decided she must be hungry, or maybe in need of a nap; her head throbbed dully and she made her goodbyes.

She wanted, she thought, to keep her lives separate. It was every parent's fantasy, after all, to be an individual as well as someone's mother.

Not that she *was* a mother these days. She was, Joyce thought in her lowest moments, a relic, an ossified failure, what was left behind when her child fled rather than spend another minute in Joyce's home. Somewhere out there Buffy was alone in the world, small and fearless as she always had been. Joyce's nightmares -- which came in the day, in the night, whenever they could -- devised new and horrible ends for her baby as more time passed. If her mind could do that -- rape, torture, sex-slavery, mutilation after mutilation -- and she *loved* Buffy, who knew what disgusting things real monsters could dream up?

Buffy was right. There were terrible things out there, and inside us, darkness that Joyce had never let herself contemplate.

"It's a, a calling," Mr. Giles had told her, that first week of Buffy's disappearance, when Joyce was hysterical and demanding to know what a Slayer *was*, who her baby was. He never quite looked her in the eye. "A sacred duty, generation after generation. She's the chosen one."

He made it sound as if Joyce was Mary and Iscariot both, and after that, she didn't bother him any more.

Joyce tried to keep busy. She kept the gallery open and signed up for Elementary French classes and dreamt of Buffy and read for book club. The distractions only went so far. So much evil in the world, and it all wanted her little girl. And *she* had shoved Buffy out the door into the dark's embrace and there were entire days when Joyce honestly wasn't sure if she could go on.

The afternoon when the doorbell rang and roused her from an impromptu nap on the couch was not one of those days. It was, simply (as if there was anything simple about her life any more), an ordinary day, horrible and lonely. Automatically, she ran her fingers through her flattened hair and straightened her shirt before opening the door.

Oz stood on the porch, two plastic grocery sacks in one hand. "Hey, Joyce," he said, calm as could be. "Busy?"

"No, of course not," she said and tried not to grimace. "Please, come in."

He called her 'Joyce', not 'Mrs. Summers', and she appreciated that far more than he could know. He didn't fidget, either, not like Xander and Willow did on their infrequent courtesy calls. He simply strolled inside, took a seat when she offered, and set down his bags.

"Would you like something to drink?"

"No, thanks. Brought you something, actually --" Oz leaned over and extracted a large Mason jar, filled with a pale, honey-colored liquid and beaded with condensation. "Cantaloupe vodka. Noticed you really liked the sangria at Mrs. Lefkowitz's, so. Fruity."

"Thank you," Joyce said, accepting the jar. "But you're not old enough, are you? To be drinking?"

"I didn't *buy* it, don't worry. Made it for you, though."

If he was a child, Willow's boyfriend no less, she should thank him and send him on his way. But he was also -- and Joyce wanted to laugh, or snicker, to realize this -- something like her friend. An acquaintance, at least, oddly serene and self-composed whatever his chronological age, and very kind. She poured them each a glass, on the rocks, and stowed the jar in the freezer as he suggested.

When she returned to the living room, Oz had moved to the couch and was folding the chenille throw she'd napped under.

"Does Willow --" Joyce started to ask, but Oz raised his glass and interrupted her.

"To, uh. New friends."

"New friends," she echoed and tasted the vodka. Sweet, with an intense burn, and as the alcohol evaporated, just the strong flavor of spring mornings and rainshowers. She took another, less hesitant sip. "Oz, this is delicious. Thank you."

"Welcome. Does Willow what?"

"Excuse me?"

"You asked, just now. Does Willow what?"

"Know?"

Oz blinked and a smile stirred in the corners of his mouth. "Know what?"

He was flirting with her: The idea struck Joyce firmly. Soundly. The alcohol brought up a flush on his cheeks and he studied her wearing his constant, slight smile.

"That you're here?" she asked.

"Negative."

"What about book club? Does she know about that?"

"First rule of book club," he said, paused, and drained his drink before continuing, "is don't talk about book club. Speaking of which, brought you some videos. Want to watch?"

_Smokey & the Bandit_, its sequel, and _Gods & Monsters_: his taste in movies was as eccentric as the rest of Oz. Joyce had nothing else to do that day, and, she realized as Oz went to freshen their drinks, she wanted the company. Recently, she couldn't stand to be the focus of anyone's attention for longer than five or ten minutes. But she wanted this, his, company. Real company, not anxious, solicitous visitors who treated her like an invalid and abject failure, and real company was exactly what Oz offered. The idea sounded strange, even within the confines of her own mind, because what kind of company could an eighteen-year-old boy possibly offer a mother in her forties?

Perhaps she'd become one of those desperate housewives with negligee under their housecoats, the kind who starred in the pornography Hank used to hide in his tackle-box. A low-rent Mrs. Robinson, maybe.

She was laughing, already slightly stoned on the alcohol, when Oz returned. He carried not only fresh drinks but the jar itself in a champagne bucket she'd forgotten she owned and two large ham sandwiches.

"What's the joke?" he asked, setting down the tray and opening one of the videos. He slid it into the machine and settled next to Joyce on the couch.

"Nothing, nothing," Joyce said, still giggling.

"'kay." He handed her her drink and smiled. "Skol."

Oz was, Joyce thought as the movie began, unflappable and thoroughly *casual*. She couldn't imagine anyone else his age sitting next to her, chuckling at the movie and sipping his drink between hungry bites of his sandwich. Everything he did was eminently comfortable.

"Fine-looking man," Oz said at one point as the camera tracked lovingly up the Bandit's lean torso, hairy chest, and, finally, handsome, wickedly-grinning face.

"He is, isn't he? Used to have *such* a crush on him. My friend Jackie and I drove to another town to buy the _Playgirl_ with his centerfold."

"Yeah? Cool. Always wanted to see that."

Through the fruity haze in her head and the warm comfort of his small, neat body against hers -- and she wasn't going to let herself think about cuddling with Buffy right here, because if she could pretend to be *Joyce*, it was only fair to let Oz be Oz, not a Buffy-substitute -- facts and inferences began to arrange themselves, to clarify and make sense. Oz liked Burt Reynolds; Oz was not at all uncomfortable around an older woman; Oz was kind and thoughtful.

Oz brought her, he said, making her close her eyes, another present. Something light and tubular in her palm; when she opened her eyes, she saw a black-and-gold tube of MAC lipstick. 'Pure Pomegranate'.

"Slightly, *very* slightly used," he said as she turned the tube in her hands. "Didn't go with my friend's skin tone. Which I could've told him. But it'll look really good on you."

"Thank you," Joyce said eventually.

"I can put it on you if you --" Oz bit his lip and started to pull back his hand.

"I'd like that," she said and closed her eyes and pursed her lips.

She felt, first, the warm pressure of Oz's breath on her face and the weight of him leaning over her. The touch of the brush was almost an afterthought, drawn around her upper lip, then back across the lower lip quickly and confidently.

"There," he said quietly. "Looks -- Wow. Beautiful."

Joyce didn't want to open her eyes. Oz didn't draw back. They remained like that, suspended like the lacquer on her lips, for a long moment.

"Oz," she said and let her eyes open as she slipped an arm around his shoulders. "Oz, are you gay?"

He tilted his head to one side, looking up at her, and his smile was all in his eyes. "Yes," he said. "And no."

"I don't understand --" She didn't; it had all made sense, just a moment ago, but now that clarity was trembling and frosting over as Oz looked at her and touched her cheek.

He kissed her very gently, just cool lips on hers, as if he was afraid of mussing the lipstick, and slipped his hand into her hair and murmured something inaudible.

*

That afternoon, in all its hesitancy and gentleness, characterized their summer together. 'Nothing but good friends', Oz called it, and Joyce was happy to agree.

He was a sweet boy, a dear friend who cupped her face in his hands and kissed her lingeringly. Who squirmed, breathless and flushed and adorable, when she straddled his narrow hips and drew patterns in the sweat on his chest with fingernails he'd painted earlier. Who drove thirty miles each way to find her Torta del Miko, the Spanish cheese she'd mentioned in passing, and who woke her up one morning with muesli and fresh raspberries. Who put in hours, unpaid, at the gallery, cleaning and unloading shipments and manning the desk.

Who molded himself to her body as if he'd known her for years and moved inside her with a slow rhythm well beyond his age.

Joyce had *read* about relationships like this, but that was in novels, and they tended to be set on university campuses or in New York and London, places where people were intelligent and sophisticated and lonely. And even then, such stories seemed to end in subtle despair and pointless misunderstandings.

When she was apart from Oz -- as she was, more often than not, with the gallery and his band (and his girlfriend: but she wouldn't think about Willow, except to joke to herself that perhaps Oz was storing up experience with an older woman for Willow's benefit) -- she did not miss him, did not long for his company. And there was Buffy, always Buffy, to think about and miss.

When they were together, however, Joyce often wondered why she didn't miss him more. He was kind, and bright, and funny. In bed, he liked to kiss, to stroke her hair and kiss her mouth, her breasts, between her legs, for what seemed like hours.

"I don't think you're gay," she said one evening when she'd trembled back into reality from the heights of her orgasm and Oz had pulled himself up alongside her, head on her breast. She ran one finger over his sticky lips as they both smiled. "No gay man would be nearly so good at that as you already are."

Oz kissed her fingertip. "I'm pretty oral," he said. "And, like. Indiscriminate in what I do. Not indiscriminate. Um. Liberal?"

"Catholic with a small c," she suggested.

He nodded. "Yeah. Little c, none of the guilt. I like it."

*

He never mentioned Buffy to her; he never mentioned anything to do with Buffy, whether that was Willow, Mr. Giles, or Xander. They talked about books, and movies, and Burt Reynolds compared to Ewan MacGregor. About his music, and the songs he wrote for his guitar and never managed to finish.

She came out of the shower one evening and found Oz sitting cross-legged on the bed, guitar in his lap, the late sun painting his hair a vivid orange. Oz was bare-chested, a little hunched through the shoulders, and he looked at her in the doorway and smiled.

'I have a very young lover,' Joyce thought and began to laugh.

Oz squinted, looking puzzled, but kept smiling. He looked terribly young there, unlined and fresh, and so glad to see her.

Her laughter twisted, knotted, into tears and then weeping, and he set aside the guitar and held out his hand, pulling her onto the bed and wrapping himself around her.

"I-I'm *soggy*," she said, and meant the shower, but the tears, too.

"Beautiful," Oz said and tightened his arms around her. "So beautiful."

It was the kind of thing he said in bed, caressing her and tonguing her, and Joyce cried harder, the sound ripping out of her chest and she was helpless before it.

She wasn't a sensual, knowledgeable older woman then. Oz kissed her ear and neck and temple and did not say anything more, and she shook so hard with sobs and apologies she thought she would break apart at the seams.

She shook, and missing Buffy was a hole in her chest, in her gut, all the way through her, and Oz held on as best he could.

*
CODA

It's early enough in the morning that the school buses aren't running yet and Joyce is cleaning, pushing the broom around the entryway and alternating it with sips of strong, black coffee.

When the doorbell rings, she jumps; she's been slightly on edge ever since Faith stole Buffy's body -- and that's *nothing* she can explain to her friends.

She checks through the glass in the door before reaching for the deadbolt, and doesn't quite believe who she sees.

"Oz! Come in, please --"

He looks much smaller than he used to, his shoulders drawn in tight, and he moves awkwardly. Buffy had told her after Thanksgiving that Oz and Willow broke up -- something about another girl and Oz running away, and Joyce was surprised. If Oz were ever to leave Willow, she had always thought it would be for a man.

She'd missed him occasionally; when Buffy came back after that horrible summer, Oz dropped by infrequently for tea or dinner, but they'd never so much as kissed, not after that summer. 'Better that way,' he'd said, when he and Xander came by to fix the house after Buffy's disastrous homecoming party was overrun by zombies. He squeezed her hand and she nodded. Of course he was right.

"Hey, Joyce," he says now, hands in his pockets, his face drawn. "How've you been?"

She makes him sit in the kitchen, presses coffee and two eggs, with lots of buttered toast, on him. He's ill, that much is clear, and her instinct is always to feed the sick. "Your friends will be wondering about you," she says as she turns the eggs, and she's surprised at how light and normal her tone sounds.

"Saw 'em already," he says. "Did the reunion thing. On my way out of town, actually."

"So soon?"

"Not the greatest reunion," Oz says. He reaches for the carafe of coffee and winces at the effort.

"Are you hurt?"

"Wanted to see how you're doing," he says, ignoring her and reaching, then wincing, again. "Picked up some jewelry I thought you might like. For the gallery."

He manages to heft the carafe -- it's only half-full -- and the strain is evident all over his face and posture. Joyce takes his arm, liberating the carafe from his death grip, and his skin is damp with chilly sweat.

"Oz. You're hurt, aren't you?"

His mouth twists a little, a ghost and sick parody of his old, sweet smile. "All taped up, not to worry."

"Let me see."

"I'm okay."

"Oz." She can't help but use the Mother voice. He smiles again, effortfully, and lifts his shirt.

So many bandages, yards of them, nearly mummifying his chest, and bruises beyond the bandages, precise black burn marks and inchoate, blooming bruises. Joyce hears herself gasp.

Oz yanks down his shirt. "I'm okay."

"You need to lie down."

He looks up at her, his wide green eyes darker, stormier, than she ever remembers them being, and his cheeks are hollow, the circles under his eyes taut and dark as coal.

"Brought some jewelry," he says. "Nice stuff. For the --"

He wants to sell her some trinkets. He's sitting in her kitchen, five minutes from exhausted collapse, and he's talking about *jewelry*.

"Upstairs," Joyce says and when Oz stands, he tilts alarmingly against her. She wraps her arm around his bony shoulders and kisses the top of his head. His hair is dirty, almost sticky, with sweat and panic, and this close, she can make out the vague, silvery tear-tracks down his face.

She helps him up the stairs, to her bed, and he settles gingerly on his back. She slides off his sneakers -- he has no socks on -- and, holding her breath, clinically opens the button on his pants. Exhaling softly, she unfolds her wedding quilt over him, its garish late-1970s colors, burgundy and mauve and cornsilk yellow, clashing badly with his ill pallor.

Joyce kisses him again, one knee on the bed, her hands smoothing and tucking in the quilt, and Oz turns his head as he sighs. His lips are dry and rough against her own.

"Joyce --"

"Sleep," she says, and lies down next to him.

She is neither mother nor lover right now. She's everything, and something else, and there will be time later to find out what happened, where he's been, and she will pay him too much for his Tibetan necklaces and kiss him again before saying goodbye.

But that is later. Now, she holds him close as a friend should, and wills him to sleep.

[end]