It's raining again. Giles can tell by the indistinct, smudgy way the light falls, as though it's grown weary on its long journey from the sun. The light limps in from behind the draperies and settles drowsily over the room, not so much illuminating as covering
( ... )
Shading his eyes from the drizzle, drawing his shoulders up to his ears, Oz leans forward when the buzzer squawks. It might be Giles, but it's hard to tell. Giles does have a friend named Olivia, but maybe Olivia is like the Brit version of "Jennifer". Someone with bronchitis, muttering into an obsolete speaker, definitely pissed off. The noise kind of hangs in the air like clouds of gnats at twilight, slow-moving swarms of them.
"Giles?" he asks, then realizes he probably needs to press the smeary button under the speaker's grille. Oz coughs even though he knows it's impossible to catch anything through the mechanism and tries again.
"Giles? Is, um. Rupert Giles there?"
He exhales slowly, but coughs anyway. It really is rainy here.
The voice is flat and distorted, as though it's a copy of a copy, and Giles isn't sure if that's the fault of the intercom or his aching head. Whoever's outside the door says his name, his full name, so it's someone who knows him. Or perhaps not, perhaps it's someone from the council come about his rates or something, although he thinks he's kept up the payments. Or someone from the other Council, the Watchers' Council, come about the final report he never filed and the post-assignment interview he never reported for.
Someone with an American accent.
And then he knows the voice. He's got to be wrong, it's impossible. But he knows.
"Oz?" It comes out as a whisper. Giles clears his throat, waits until his lungs remember how to work, breathes in. "Oz, is that you?"
At this point, Oz practically has his ear against the speaker. Giles's voice, rough and sketchy as it is, drifts right through his skull, meets his memories, matches up and resonates.
His thumb skids off the speaker button when he jabs it. Second, third try. He can't really feel his hands and his chest feels about three inches thick, and hollow to boot.
"Giles. It's me -" Dork. He knocks his palm against the damp bricks and tries again. "Oz. Can I -. Can I come up?"
It's Oz. Oz is standing out there in the rain, asking to come in.
Giles hasn't heard his voice in almost a year and a half. Hasn't seen him. No one's seen him. No one's heard from him. Giles used to ask the children if they had, and when Buffy gave him an odd look after the third or fourth time, he said he was concerned that the Initiative might have retaken Oz.
It was true, too. Giles used to have nightmares about it. But not since Buffy died. He hasn't dreamed at all since then.
"Yes," he tries to say, but his lips go slack around the word. His whole body feels weak, limp, as though his bones have softened. Leaning against the wall, he slides his hand up the cracking paint and presses a rubbery fingertip to the entry button.
Midway up the second flight of stairs, Oz isn't sure if it's the rain clinging to his face or if he's actually sweating. He can't be sweating; it's chilly here, just like England's supposed to be, only a little warmer than it was in Esquel when he left
( ... )
One breath. Two. Three. They're coming faster than they should. But perhaps that's just the effort of standing. Giles seldom does, these days. He lies on the bed, or sits in the armchair drinking his scotch. He never drinks in bed. It's a rule, of sorts, although hardly a logical one
( ... )
When Giles used to daydream about Oz coming back to Sunnydale, turning up on his doorstep, he never pictured it like this. There were always words, explanations. Oz never just walked in as calmly as if he'd only gone out for a pint of milk. He never stood in the middle of the sitting room, cool as you like, and asked whether Giles happened to have any juice"Kitchen," Giles says, gesturing to the doorway. "There's water. Glasses are in . . . one of the cupboards." For a few seconds Oz stands looking at Giles and doesn't move. Oz's face seems stiller and blanker than ever, or maybe Giles has just forgotten how to read it. It's a relief when he turns and goes into the other room
( ... )
For a moment, while he lets his eyes adjust to the dimness in the kitchen, darker even than the rest of the apartment, Oz just stands still. He'd turned to the right, his body expecting the sink to be right where it was in Sunnydale. His hand closed around empty air
( ... )
"How I'm holding up?" Giles lifts the pint glass Oz has put in his hands. When his lip touches the rim, he remembers he's thirsty. The water is lukewarm, and it tastes of algae and chlorine, but in three swallows the glass is empty
( ... )
Giles wanted words, and now there are words. Too many, jostling for space like people on the tube. So many words that they crowd the air out of the room, that their sounds catch and tangle into meaningless noise. SorryBuffysorrysorryussorry. Just a hiss and rumble, something you'd hear walking past the door of a busy pub.
Making meaning out of it would be as difficult as translating Sumerian. As difficult as everything is, these days, and Giles is so tired. His head aches so badly. But Oz is waiting, perched awkwardly on the arm of the settee, fingering the beads on his wrist. He's stopped looking at Giles.
It seems important to try and answer, so Giles closes his eyes and sifts through the floating noises, lets them filter down into words. Buffy. Sorry. "Thank you," he says. "About Buffy, I mean."
The rest, the word us that hangs in the air like another bad smell, Giles doesn't have an answer for. Oz has tried this before, has wanted to take Giles' forgiveness like he's taken everything else, but Giles has never given it. Oz
( ... )
Pretend. Play dress-up, cops and robbers, be who you'd like to be even though you know you'll never be that cool or good.
Giles's anger fills Oz's head, arthropods and turds, exoskeletons and stagnant water. He keeps his head down, can't look at Giles, because he deserves this, the flat knives of Giles's voice and disgust on his face, all of it. He deserves much, much worse.
"The mountains," Oz says. Closes his eyes and looks at the map his capillaries make on his eyelids. Old maps had Jerusalem at the center. London is the center of Giles's map. Oz still doesn't have a center to his own. "Argentina. Patagonia, actually."
He's still dizzy. He's sitting down, but he's still dizzy. And Giles is in front of the Scotch, blocking it, and Oz has to do this, take this.
"Sorry," he says again. "About worrying you. Everyone. Just -"
That afternoon, standing on Giles's doorstep, everyone was there. Everyone, like they'd sold tickets, and he needed to see Giles first and needed to tell him about Tibet but everyone -. And Willow. And her
( ... )
Too much. Too many words, too much light, too many shadows crawling down Oz's half-averted face. Too much of everything except air. Giles' lungs are empty and laboring, and his heart pounds fiercely, struggling to live. The stupidity of the body, which never gives up.
He'd like to go and lie down. It's dark in the bedroom. He could take the bottle with him, lie down and drink himself to sleep. Drink himself out of this confusion. Drink until he can breathe again, or until he stops needing to.
But Oz is waiting, yet again, for an answer. Waiting for something. The words he's thrown at Giles--sorry and just you--are terrible, full of gelignite and shrapnel. Perhaps he's waiting for the explosion and the blood. Perhaps he's come back to kill. It's one of the things Giles used to dream about-fangs at his throat, claws at his belly. Or a simpler, cleaner death, a knife or a gun and Oz's patient explanation. It has to be this way.Oz is standing almost close enough to touch. If Giles reached out, what would his skin feel like? Would it be
( ... )
Giles is asking him questions and Oz sways a little. Questions are cracks, trickles of water over granite, tiny, but if the water keeps running, canyons form, spaces open, air comes in.
Because I love you. Oz has enough of a sense of self-preservation to close his teeth around the real answer, the simple and true one, but it takes too much effort and black swings across his eyes, pushes under his feet. He grabs at air and something rushes up, smacks his knees.
When he can see again, he's clutching Giles's wrist and he's on his knees. Giles's mouth is opening, dark and wet, and Oz shakes his head. Hard enough that black flies across his vision in spots, but he has to answer.
"Yeah," he says. "To tell you I'm sorry."
In his grip, Giles's wrist is familiar, as familiar as the plane on the top of Bill's skull, as the roof of his own mouth, the scent of his own skin.
Giles's mouth is still open. Frozen around why"Because I am sorry and because you hate me. Because, because -" He slept alone and climbed the bottom of the world but the
( ... )
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"Giles?" he asks, then realizes he probably needs to press the smeary button under the speaker's grille. Oz coughs even though he knows it's impossible to catch anything through the mechanism and tries again.
"Giles? Is, um. Rupert Giles there?"
He exhales slowly, but coughs anyway. It really is rainy here.
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Someone with an American accent.
And then he knows the voice. He's got to be wrong, it's impossible. But he knows.
"Oz?" It comes out as a whisper. Giles clears his throat, waits until his lungs remember how to work, breathes in. "Oz, is that you?"
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His thumb skids off the speaker button when he jabs it. Second, third try. He can't really feel his hands and his chest feels about three inches thick, and hollow to boot.
"Giles. It's me -" Dork. He knocks his palm against the damp bricks and tries again. "Oz. Can I -. Can I come up?"
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Giles hasn't heard his voice in almost a year and a half. Hasn't seen him. No one's seen him. No one's heard from him. Giles used to ask the children if they had, and when Buffy gave him an odd look after the third or fourth time, he said he was concerned that the Initiative might have retaken Oz.
It was true, too. Giles used to have nightmares about it. But not since Buffy died. He hasn't dreamed at all since then.
"Yes," he tries to say, but his lips go slack around the word. His whole body feels weak, limp, as though his bones have softened. Leaning against the wall, he slides his hand up the cracking paint and presses a rubbery fingertip to the entry button.
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Making meaning out of it would be as difficult as translating Sumerian. As difficult as everything is, these days, and Giles is so tired. His head aches so badly. But Oz is waiting, perched awkwardly on the arm of the settee, fingering the beads on his wrist. He's stopped looking at Giles.
It seems important to try and answer, so Giles closes his eyes and sifts through the floating noises, lets them filter down into words. Buffy. Sorry. "Thank you," he says. "About Buffy, I mean."
The rest, the word us that hangs in the air like another bad smell, Giles doesn't have an answer for. Oz has tried this before, has wanted to take Giles' forgiveness like he's taken everything else, but Giles has never given it. Oz ( ... )
Reply
Giles's anger fills Oz's head, arthropods and turds, exoskeletons and stagnant water. He keeps his head down, can't look at Giles, because he deserves this, the flat knives of Giles's voice and disgust on his face, all of it. He deserves much, much worse.
"The mountains," Oz says. Closes his eyes and looks at the map his capillaries make on his eyelids. Old maps had Jerusalem at the center. London is the center of Giles's map. Oz still doesn't have a center to his own. "Argentina. Patagonia, actually."
He's still dizzy. He's sitting down, but he's still dizzy. And Giles is in front of the Scotch, blocking it, and Oz has to do this, take this.
"Sorry," he says again. "About worrying you. Everyone. Just -"
That afternoon, standing on Giles's doorstep, everyone was there. Everyone, like they'd sold tickets, and he needed to see Giles first and needed to tell him about Tibet but everyone -. And Willow. And her ( ... )
Reply
He'd like to go and lie down. It's dark in the bedroom. He could take the bottle with him, lie down and drink himself to sleep. Drink himself out of this confusion. Drink until he can breathe again, or until he stops needing to.
But Oz is waiting, yet again, for an answer. Waiting for something. The words he's thrown at Giles--sorry and just you--are terrible, full of gelignite and shrapnel. Perhaps he's waiting for the explosion and the blood. Perhaps he's come back to kill. It's one of the things Giles used to dream about-fangs at his throat, claws at his belly. Or a simpler, cleaner death, a knife or a gun and Oz's patient explanation. It has to be this way.Oz is standing almost close enough to touch. If Giles reached out, what would his skin feel like? Would it be ( ... )
Reply
Because I love you. Oz has enough of a sense of self-preservation to close his teeth around the real answer, the simple and true one, but it takes too much effort and black swings across his eyes, pushes under his feet. He grabs at air and something rushes up, smacks his knees.
When he can see again, he's clutching Giles's wrist and he's on his knees. Giles's mouth is opening, dark and wet, and Oz shakes his head. Hard enough that black flies across his vision in spots, but he has to answer.
"Yeah," he says. "To tell you I'm sorry."
In his grip, Giles's wrist is familiar, as familiar as the plane on the top of Bill's skull, as the roof of his own mouth, the scent of his own skin.
Giles's mouth is still open. Frozen around why"Because I am sorry and because you hate me. Because, because -" He slept alone and climbed the bottom of the world but the ( ... )
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