Giles, naked, is the realest, truest thing Oz knows. Strong and angular, he lives inside his skin like no one Oz has ever known, and he moves just like he's using his voice now, low and steady and sure, just like he's staring at Oz, urgent and confident and almost imperious.
Oz sways, heat crawling on prickling feet all over him, swarming and stinging. Giles' eyes are dark, his lips nearly white with tension. Oz couldn't stop looking at him if he tried.
"Touch me, please," he says, kind of croaks, and swallows dry rocksalt. He can see the tremble of muscles along Giles' jaw and takes a deep breath. "Please, Giles. Want you to touch me, want to suck you off and taste you, want you to flip me over. Put me on my hands and knees and fuck me. *Please*, want to feel you inside me and -"
His balance slides back and forth like he's on the deck of a clipper ship, caught in a gale, and he *is*, and Giles is mast and storm all at once, stock-still but raging. Heat half-smothers Oz, but the rest of him, random patches, is ice-cold and tense. Throat swollen, pores prickling, and it's like the air around him is shaking and jagged.
Flash, deep inside, whirling outside, of those wrenching shivers when he first turned, and Oz bites the inside of his cheek, stares back at Giles and tightens his hands into fists at his side. Tastes the last trace of Giles' sweat on his lips, salty and herbal and addictive.
He can do this. He's just saying everything he always feels anyway, just putting it outside. Like stripping, like fucking, it's just making it literal, just letting Giles *know*.
"Want to come for you, want to make you come. Please? Please, just - fuck me hard and deep, let me take you inside?"
It shakes the breath out of Giles, shakes him stunned and gasping. He knows it, he feels it in Oz's mouth and hands and body every time, but now it's in words. It's in Oz's voice, shaky and hesitant and yet urgent, in the widening of his eyes and the trembling of his lips as he lets the words trickle out into the air. It's all there, now, in the words--the flush of Oz's skin and the aching of his body, all his wanting and pleasure and love, everything Giles makes him feel. It's in the words, in the air, and Giles knows, and he's flushed and aching and he needs Oz, wants him, loves him.
"Yes," he says, and he's touching Oz now, kissing him as he pulls him towards the cupboard. "I'm going to fuck you. Going to be inside you, and you'll feel it so much, feel me, feel how much I want you. But first I'm going to tie your wrists." Oz closes his eyes, mouth open and not a sound coming out, and Giles wants to turn him to the wall and fuck him right there. "Next time," Giles says, reaching into the cupboard for a necktie, "I'll have proper cuffs to put you in." Proper cuffs for wrists and ankles, and some rings on the headboard to fasten them to. Everything Oz wants. Giles winds the tie around Oz's wrists and knots it, and then Oz opens his eyes again and makes a little, breathy sound.
Backing Oz onto the bed, Giles says, "I want you so much. Think about you all the time." Oz is on his knees and elbows now, bound wrists extended before him, waiting. Giles can hear the rattle of his breathing. "Every time I see you in the library, I just . . . " Cool slick of lube, a few quick wet strokes over himself, and then he slides a finger down the crack of Oz's arse, plays with his hole until he moans. "I just want to bend you over and fuck you, right there." Slow thrust in, Oz arching and groaning and so hot inside, so beautiful. "Do you think about that? About me fucking you in the middle of the library, in the middle of a school day?" He moves hard and fast, the way Oz wants. Clutches Oz's hips bruising-hard and fucks him so the whole bed is shaking. "I want to. Want to make it so good for you that you scream, and the whole fucking school hears and everybody knows. Want everybody to hear you scream for me."
Head hanging, swinging, heavy as a bowling ball, brushing his arms and the quilt, Oz sees just smears of color -- white-gold light from the window at every thrust Giles makes in, then blue and red quilt and white skin as he pulls out. His wrists burn, chafe on the silk of the tie, the heat sparking in patches to match the gut-deep burn and overwhelming *presence* of Giles' cock, moving inside him.
He can't move. He's tied. Nothing to hold onto, everything in Giles' hands, caught on Giles' voice and skin.
Breath comes out in little puffs, nearly visible, round and white like a winter's morning, and his tongue's thick, dry, impossible to speak with. But he wants to speak, can't seem to stop, needs to keep replying, keep telling Giles everything, all that he's felt since the beginning and never thought he could say.
"Yes - all the time. Think about. You and school, library. Stacks, office, bathroom -" And Giles twists his hips, hauls Oz back, his useless hands dragging pointlessly down the quilt and he tries to keep speaking but all that comes out is a long wet gasp and Giles drives in again, faster, and Oz can't breathe.
Drowning in red light, helpless, drinking in Giles' need, every muscle shaking with effort and reaction until he's just a collection of millions of trembles and stutters, black-red carnations wheeling before his eyes, and Oz's mouth hangs open, pressed into the quilt now, spit wetting fabric, threads on his tongue.
"Want you, need you -"
Chewing fabric, shaking, blinking blind, and he's so deep, so warm, that it's too long, too many clattering heartbeats before he realizes, names the shudders twisting through his skin, the sudden drop of color from his vision.
Oz shouts, bites into the mattress. Prays to a God he doesn't even believe in to keep the wolf away.
Everything's slipping-Giles' sweaty hands skid over Oz's hips, his vision tunnels down towards darkness, his lungs stutter and jerk and he's barely holding on, barely in control. And Oz talks and the words tug at Giles, pull him onward, pull him to bits. He's broken, fragments tumbling and spinning, and only the center's whole and stable and safe. The center, where his body joins Oz's, fills it, where they're one and it's the most perfect thing, the truest.
And then Oz shouts, loud and raw and Oz is coming, his whole body in shakes and spasms and Giles hasn't even touched his cock. No breath, no sight, no control, nothing, just the lightning that flashes from Oz's body to his, crackling whiteness and sparks and melting, and Giles isn't sure which body he's in, whose orgasm he feels, whose voice he hears shouting now.
Fear does not clench, or grip, or shake, or slide. It is a switch. From color to monochrome, from human to wolf, from love to disgust.
Giles collapses on top of him, sweat and heat and love, holding Oz, breath huge and loud in Oz's ear, fingers fumbling to undo the tie. His cock still pulses, hot and slick, inside Oz, matches the spread of sticky heat on Oz's belly, rubbed into the quilt. Giles is murmuring, panting, kissing Oz's neck, head, shoulder.
Oz knows his own body is shaking, knows pleasure, knows love.
He knows, just as thoroughly and well, that he's wrong, disgusting, dangerous, evil. Words like blinds, like switches, dropping and flipped, changing everything. He loves this man, loves his touch and his mind, his mouth and his words, and can't hurt him.
Giles rolls them over, gathers Oz against his chest, and Oz keeps his eyes closed.
Fear changes everything. Even as he holds onto Giles, kisses his collarbone and trembles, released and freed and cared for, he's different.
Giles wants to find words for all of it.. There's something wrong with language; it's full of useless words like aglet, frenum, centigrade, but there's no word for the feeling in his belly when he sees Oz across the school parking lot, or for the other feeling when he hears Oz laugh. He needs a hundred words for love, a thousand. Inuit has dozens of words for snow; English has them for rain, for all its qualities and conditions-drizzle, shower, downpour, mist, cloudburst. And yet there's just one little word for all the qualities and conditions of love.
"I know," he says. "I can feel it. The way you touch me, look at me, everything." Giles is stroking Oz's neck and back, and every touch echoes on his own skin. As though they're finally together, finally as close as they can be. "But I like it when you tell me." If Giles could only find the right words for love, the words fit to hold and share it, maybe they really could be that close. Maybe it wouldn't hurt so much that they're trapped in their separate bodies, that they can only touch like prisoners through the bars.
He kisses Oz, deep and slow and searching, and if kisses were words there might be words enough. "I love you so much."
He wants to put it all into words, and it hurts to know he shouldn't. Not everything. Giles shouldn't say that he can't bear the thought of Oz going away to university. Or that he wants Oz to come to England with him, when Buffy . . . when Giles leaves Sunnydale.
But some things should have been in words long ago. "Listen, Oz. I want to tell you something." Giles pulls back a little, kisses Oz's closed eyelids, waits until they open and Oz is looking at him. "As difficult as this is sometimes, as much as I hate all the secrecy, as much as I miss you all the bloody time, I've . . . I've never been this happy before. Not ever. Not with anyone."
Sometimes, when Giles talks about his life, he can feel Oz not asking questions. Not mentioning Ethan's name. Oz needs to know he's not in second place. Needs to be told it; needs the words.
Not with Ethan, Giles means, and for a moment, Oz can't breathe. He's different now, worse than Ethan, and if he fucks up, he won't merit the sort of aching, sorrowful memory Giles accords Ethan. Won't ever even get the beatings, the constant circling arena, Colosseum, of their history and love.
Ethan and Giles killed because they had to, out of fear, to save themselves. Oz will kill because that's what he has become, a beast.
He tightens his arms around Giles and can't close his eyes. Giles is - is open. Eyes, mouth, face, everything a window, a countless series of windows thrown open to bright sun, fresh air. Beautiful, open.
And Oz is small, dark, filthy.
"Want you to be happy," he says. "So much. More than anything."
When he finally blinks, he can see what might (will) happen. Giles naked and butchered, bleeding, torn open from throat to belly. Oz sees it like someone else did it, then feels the skittering slide of his old fear, fear of losing Giles.
Then he understands, knows how much worse it is.
He's brought the dark between them. Everything Giles works himself to the bone to stop, to prevent, to protect Oz from, that's what Oz is now.
Something's wrong. Oz's body has gone from warm and loose to tense and shivery, and he's almost squeezing Giles' breath away. Giles slides his palm up and down Oz's unyielding spine, works his other hand gently over clenched shoulder muscles.
Maybe it was a bad idea to bring up the past, and Ethan. More than ever Giles wishes he could erase it all, wishes he could have come to Oz with clean hands. Without the stink of the past on him, without Ethan's living ghost bound to him, haunting and clinging and never really going away.
Then Oz says need you safe, and Giles understands. It's not the past Oz fears; it's the present.
"I know. I'll do everything I can to stay safe." Small comfort that must be.
In the string of crises that make up Giles' life, in the hours of training, planning, research, there's some relief from fear. Usually he can't give it more than a small corner of his mind, a tiny locked cupboard stuffed with everything that could hurt Oz, every monster that could take him away.
Oz's fear has much more room, and Oz has less practice at locking it away. "I wish I could make it easier for you," Giles says, looking into eyes that don't look back. They look through him instead. Oz is seeing Giles' death.
Giles kisses his forehead, rubs his cheek against Oz's hair. "Oz. It won't always be like this. Someday," and he knows it's wrong to say this, wrong to plan for the life he'll have when Buffy is dead, "we can go away from here. Anywhere you want. And we can be safe."
He's taking so much for granted-that he'll live, that the world won't end, that Oz will still want him when someday comes. But it's the best he can do, the only comfort he can have or offer
They don't talk like this. Oz isn't sure why, beyond the overwhelming fact that Giles is only here for Buffy and slayers aren't exactly long-lived. But Giles thinks about it, clearly.
He shouldn't be surprised. Giles thinks about everything.
When Oz used to think about the future, before this week, it was hazy; he knew more clearly what he didn't want -- job, college, losing Giles -- than what he *did*. All he thought he needed was his guitar, a working vehicle, hopefully Giles.
Now he can't see anything other than cages and bloodlust.
His head is tucked under Giles' chin, and he's safe, for the moment, fully human, pressed against Giles from cheek to shin. He thought he had at least another month of this, long enough to say his goodbyes and store his memories. Long enough to get to his birthday and their anniversary. And he's not going right now, but he could hurt Giles any time. He has to be careful. He doesn't know how.
"Away's good," he says when he realizes he ought to say something. And that's almost as bad as lying; he's never felt the need with Giles to fill up the quiet with stupid words. "Someday."
He kisses Giles' breastbone and it's apology and the first farewell and his temples are throbbing with black pain.
There's sadness in Oz's voice when he says someday. Disbelief, even, and Giles knows that it's not much to believe in. Especially not at Oz's age, when a week spreads out to the horizon and beyond, when a year's an eternity. And it's true that Giles knows a thousand things that could go wrong, and there must be another thousand he can't imagine.
Oz is covering his chest with slow kisses; Giles strokes his face, or what he can reach of it. Ear, temple, a bit of cheekbone. "Let's have a lazy evening, hmm? It's been such a difficult few days. We could drink cocoa and watch videos. Perhaps Life of Brian one more time? I don't think we quite have it memorized yet."
This is a future he can give Oz now. Solid and real, not a dreamlike someday when they'll share Giles' London flat, when they'll be able to go out and have friends and not have secrets. When they'll go travelling from Ireland to India, from France to Fuji, and then come home again, back to their ordinary life together. When they'll be safe.
Oz tips back his head, cupping Giles' jaw and breathing slowly through his mouth. Hot chocolate and lazing in the armchair, sprawled over Giles, feeling his laughter shake right through Oz's body, hearing his whispered recitation like wind in his ear: It's better than a thousand conversations, stills the fear, lets him close his eyes and kiss Giles softly and deeply.
Giles tastes the same. Feels the same under his fingertips, against his body. Sounds the same. Is the same, will always be Giles, hopeful and brilliant, tender and anxious.
Oz opens his eyes as he breaks the kiss and massages his thumb over the hinge of Giles' jaw.
"Perfect," he says, and that is not a lie. "I can bake something if you want. Or popcorn. Won't set off the smoke detector this time, either."
Giles grins, remembering the billowing smoke from the scorched pot, Oz's panicked towel-flapping in front of the smoke detector, and hauling the fan up from storage to try and clear the smell of burnt metal and blackened corn from the air. "That was my fault for kissing you. No kisses this time--not while the cooker's lit, anyway. Which means I'll have to get my kissing in now."
Oz smiles a little at that, and kisses him again, and it's a pity kisses aren't really saveable. Giles wants a stockpile of kisses, a warehouse of them, for the times when he has work or Oz has band practice or a gig. Days still go by when they don't see each other; nights alone come much too often. And the memory of a kiss just isn't enough.
But a saved kiss would probably lose its goodness, like dried basil or tinned peas. Giles nibbles on Oz's tongue, tasting the kiss while it's warm and fresh.
There's a whole evening ahead of them, with cocoa and Monty Python and maybe those ginger biscuits Oz makes. Oz is right. It'll be perfect.
Oz sways, heat crawling on prickling feet all over him, swarming and stinging. Giles' eyes are dark, his lips nearly white with tension. Oz couldn't stop looking at him if he tried.
"Touch me, please," he says, kind of croaks, and swallows dry rocksalt. He can see the tremble of muscles along Giles' jaw and takes a deep breath. "Please, Giles. Want you to touch me, want to suck you off and taste you, want you to flip me over. Put me on my hands and knees and fuck me. *Please*, want to feel you inside me and -"
His balance slides back and forth like he's on the deck of a clipper ship, caught in a gale, and he *is*, and Giles is mast and storm all at once, stock-still but raging. Heat half-smothers Oz, but the rest of him, random patches, is ice-cold and tense. Throat swollen, pores prickling, and it's like the air around him is shaking and jagged.
Flash, deep inside, whirling outside, of those wrenching shivers when he first turned, and Oz bites the inside of his cheek, stares back at Giles and tightens his hands into fists at his side. Tastes the last trace of Giles' sweat on his lips, salty and herbal and addictive.
He can do this. He's just saying everything he always feels anyway, just putting it outside. Like stripping, like fucking, it's just making it literal, just letting Giles *know*.
"Want to come for you, want to make you come. Please? Please, just - fuck me hard and deep, let me take you inside?"
Reply
"Yes," he says, and he's touching Oz now, kissing him as he pulls him towards the cupboard. "I'm going to fuck you. Going to be inside you, and you'll feel it so much, feel me, feel how much I want you. But first I'm going to tie your wrists." Oz closes his eyes, mouth open and not a sound coming out, and Giles wants to turn him to the wall and fuck him right there. "Next time," Giles says, reaching into the cupboard for a necktie, "I'll have proper cuffs to put you in." Proper cuffs for wrists and ankles, and some rings on the headboard to fasten them to. Everything Oz wants. Giles winds the tie around Oz's wrists and knots it, and then Oz opens his eyes again and makes a little, breathy sound.
Backing Oz onto the bed, Giles says, "I want you so much. Think about you all the time." Oz is on his knees and elbows now, bound wrists extended before him, waiting. Giles can hear the rattle of his breathing. "Every time I see you in the library, I just . . . " Cool slick of lube, a few quick wet strokes over himself, and then he slides a finger down the crack of Oz's arse, plays with his hole until he moans. "I just want to bend you over and fuck you, right there." Slow thrust in, Oz arching and groaning and so hot inside, so beautiful. "Do you think about that? About me fucking you in the middle of the library, in the middle of a school day?" He moves hard and fast, the way Oz wants. Clutches Oz's hips bruising-hard and fucks him so the whole bed is shaking. "I want to. Want to make it so good for you that you scream, and the whole fucking school hears and everybody knows. Want everybody to hear you scream for me."
Reply
He can't move. He's tied. Nothing to hold onto, everything in Giles' hands, caught on Giles' voice and skin.
Breath comes out in little puffs, nearly visible, round and white like a winter's morning, and his tongue's thick, dry, impossible to speak with. But he wants to speak, can't seem to stop, needs to keep replying, keep telling Giles everything, all that he's felt since the beginning and never thought he could say.
"Yes - all the time. Think about. You and school, library. Stacks, office, bathroom -" And Giles twists his hips, hauls Oz back, his useless hands dragging pointlessly down the quilt and he tries to keep speaking but all that comes out is a long wet gasp and Giles drives in again, faster, and Oz can't breathe.
Drowning in red light, helpless, drinking in Giles' need, every muscle shaking with effort and reaction until he's just a collection of millions of trembles and stutters, black-red carnations wheeling before his eyes, and Oz's mouth hangs open, pressed into the quilt now, spit wetting fabric, threads on his tongue.
"Want you, need you -"
Chewing fabric, shaking, blinking blind, and he's so deep, so warm, that it's too long, too many clattering heartbeats before he realizes, names the shudders twisting through his skin, the sudden drop of color from his vision.
Oz shouts, bites into the mattress. Prays to a God he doesn't even believe in to keep the wolf away.
Reply
And then Oz shouts, loud and raw and Oz is coming, his whole body in shakes and spasms and Giles hasn't even touched his cock. No breath, no sight, no control, nothing, just the lightning that flashes from Oz's body to his, crackling whiteness and sparks and melting, and Giles isn't sure which body he's in, whose orgasm he feels, whose voice he hears shouting now.
Reply
Fear does not clench, or grip, or shake, or slide. It is a switch. From color to monochrome, from human to wolf, from love to disgust.
Giles collapses on top of him, sweat and heat and love, holding Oz, breath huge and loud in Oz's ear, fingers fumbling to undo the tie. His cock still pulses, hot and slick, inside Oz, matches the spread of sticky heat on Oz's belly, rubbed into the quilt. Giles is murmuring, panting, kissing Oz's neck, head, shoulder.
Oz knows his own body is shaking, knows pleasure, knows love.
He knows, just as thoroughly and well, that he's wrong, disgusting, dangerous, evil. Words like blinds, like switches, dropping and flipped, changing everything. He loves this man, loves his touch and his mind, his mouth and his words, and can't hurt him.
Giles rolls them over, gathers Oz against his chest, and Oz keeps his eyes closed.
Fear changes everything. Even as he holds onto Giles, kisses his collarbone and trembles, released and freed and cared for, he's different.
"I love you."
Reply
"I know," he says. "I can feel it. The way you touch me, look at me, everything." Giles is stroking Oz's neck and back, and every touch echoes on his own skin. As though they're finally together, finally as close as they can be. "But I like it when you tell me." If Giles could only find the right words for love, the words fit to hold and share it, maybe they really could be that close. Maybe it wouldn't hurt so much that they're trapped in their separate bodies, that they can only touch like prisoners through the bars.
He kisses Oz, deep and slow and searching, and if kisses were words there might be words enough. "I love you so much."
He wants to put it all into words, and it hurts to know he shouldn't. Not everything. Giles shouldn't say that he can't bear the thought of Oz going away to university. Or that he wants Oz to come to England with him, when Buffy . . . when Giles leaves Sunnydale.
But some things should have been in words long ago. "Listen, Oz. I want to tell you something." Giles pulls back a little, kisses Oz's closed eyelids, waits until they open and Oz is looking at him. "As difficult as this is sometimes, as much as I hate all the secrecy, as much as I miss you all the bloody time, I've . . . I've never been this happy before. Not ever. Not with anyone."
Sometimes, when Giles talks about his life, he can feel Oz not asking questions. Not mentioning Ethan's name. Oz needs to know he's not in second place. Needs to be told it; needs the words.
Reply
Not with Ethan, Giles means, and for a moment, Oz can't breathe. He's different now, worse than Ethan, and if he fucks up, he won't merit the sort of aching, sorrowful memory Giles accords Ethan. Won't ever even get the beatings, the constant circling arena, Colosseum, of their history and love.
Ethan and Giles killed because they had to, out of fear, to save themselves. Oz will kill because that's what he has become, a beast.
He tightens his arms around Giles and can't close his eyes. Giles is - is open. Eyes, mouth, face, everything a window, a countless series of windows thrown open to bright sun, fresh air. Beautiful, open.
And Oz is small, dark, filthy.
"Want you to be happy," he says. "So much. More than anything."
When he finally blinks, he can see what might (will) happen. Giles naked and butchered, bleeding, torn open from throat to belly. Oz sees it like someone else did it, then feels the skittering slide of his old fear, fear of losing Giles.
Then he understands, knows how much worse it is.
He's brought the dark between them. Everything Giles works himself to the bone to stop, to prevent, to protect Oz from, that's what Oz is now.
"Need you happy. Safe."
Reply
Maybe it was a bad idea to bring up the past, and Ethan. More than ever Giles wishes he could erase it all, wishes he could have come to Oz with clean hands. Without the stink of the past on him, without Ethan's living ghost bound to him, haunting and clinging and never really going away.
Then Oz says need you safe, and Giles understands. It's not the past Oz fears; it's the present.
"I know. I'll do everything I can to stay safe." Small comfort that must be.
In the string of crises that make up Giles' life, in the hours of training, planning, research, there's some relief from fear. Usually he can't give it more than a small corner of his mind, a tiny locked cupboard stuffed with everything that could hurt Oz, every monster that could take him away.
Oz's fear has much more room, and Oz has less practice at locking it away. "I wish I could make it easier for you," Giles says, looking into eyes that don't look back. They look through him instead. Oz is seeing Giles' death.
Giles kisses his forehead, rubs his cheek against Oz's hair. "Oz. It won't always be like this. Someday," and he knows it's wrong to say this, wrong to plan for the life he'll have when Buffy is dead, "we can go away from here. Anywhere you want. And we can be safe."
He's taking so much for granted-that he'll live, that the world won't end, that Oz will still want him when someday comes. But it's the best he can do, the only comfort he can have or offer
Reply
He shouldn't be surprised. Giles thinks about everything.
When Oz used to think about the future, before this week, it was hazy; he knew more clearly what he didn't want -- job, college, losing Giles -- than what he *did*. All he thought he needed was his guitar, a working vehicle, hopefully Giles.
Now he can't see anything other than cages and bloodlust.
His head is tucked under Giles' chin, and he's safe, for the moment, fully human, pressed against Giles from cheek to shin. He thought he had at least another month of this, long enough to say his goodbyes and store his memories. Long enough to get to his birthday and their anniversary. And he's not going right now, but he could hurt Giles any time. He has to be careful. He doesn't know how.
"Away's good," he says when he realizes he ought to say something. And that's almost as bad as lying; he's never felt the need with Giles to fill up the quiet with stupid words. "Someday."
He kisses Giles' breastbone and it's apology and the first farewell and his temples are throbbing with black pain.
Reply
Oz is covering his chest with slow kisses; Giles strokes his face, or what he can reach of it. Ear, temple, a bit of cheekbone. "Let's have a lazy evening, hmm? It's been such a difficult few days. We could drink cocoa and watch videos. Perhaps Life of Brian one more time? I don't think we quite have it memorized yet."
This is a future he can give Oz now. Solid and real, not a dreamlike someday when they'll share Giles' London flat, when they'll be able to go out and have friends and not have secrets. When they'll go travelling from Ireland to India, from France to Fuji, and then come home again, back to their ordinary life together. When they'll be safe.
Reply
Giles tastes the same. Feels the same under his fingertips, against his body. Sounds the same. Is the same, will always be Giles, hopeful and brilliant, tender and anxious.
Oz opens his eyes as he breaks the kiss and massages his thumb over the hinge of Giles' jaw.
"Perfect," he says, and that is not a lie. "I can bake something if you want. Or popcorn. Won't set off the smoke detector this time, either."
Reply
Oz smiles a little at that, and kisses him again, and it's a pity kisses aren't really saveable. Giles wants a stockpile of kisses, a warehouse of them, for the times when he has work or Oz has band practice or a gig. Days still go by when they don't see each other; nights alone come much too often. And the memory of a kiss just isn't enough.
But a saved kiss would probably lose its goodness, like dried basil or tinned peas. Giles nibbles on Oz's tongue, tasting the kiss while it's warm and fresh.
There's a whole evening ahead of them, with cocoa and Monty Python and maybe those ginger biscuits Oz makes. Oz is right. It'll be perfect.
Reply
Leave a comment