Giles pulls Oz tight to his shoulder, kisses the side of his mouth and slides the kiss up to his ear. "So beautiful," he whispers. "So beautiful when you come, and you taste so good. Did I make you feel good?" Oz is loose-limbed and slack against him, his breath still coming in rough gasps, and that's answer enough.
It's too dark to really see the flush, but Giles can feel the heat-shimmer of Oz's skin. He drags a twisted end of blanket up over Oz to keep the heat in, and rests his lips on the pulse point of Oz's throat. Drops of sweat have gathered here, and Giles licks them up. It's sharper than come, saltier, almost prickly on his tongue. Suddenly Giles remembers the taste of Oz's tears the day he left, brine and bitterness, but he closes his eyes and mind against the thought. Oz is here, and there's no crying now. There's sweat, and come, and moans, and the only sobs are from pleasure.
He kisses over Oz's collarbone and neck, wandering, tasting the salt that's drying on his skin. Oz is beginning to come back from his daze, drawing his fingers down Giles' spine and along his side, a light touch that makes Giles shiver and thrust against Oz's leg. With the taste of Oz's orgasm in his mouth and the sounds of it still echoing in his head, Giles had almost forgotten he hadn't come. But now, as Oz works a hand between their bodies, Giles' cock aches, his whole body aches for more, for Oz. "Please," Giles says. "Oz, please."
Oz cups one hand around the back of Giles's neck, sliding the heel of the other up and down the bump his erection makes under his trousers. "Got you," he says, more roughly than he meant, words and breath still catching and snagging in his throat, and digs his nails into the hollow at the bottom of Giles's scalp. "Got you, don't worry -" Salt and tides and old unwashed blankets: It smells more like the Dingoes boardinghouse in here than anything he knew with Giles, unless it was camping over the summer, the thick heavy heat in the back of the van and the sleeping bags ripe with sweat. Pleasure and exhilaration are still shaking through Oz, plucking at his skin and twanging over his muscles, but when he kisses Giles, tastes himself and the sharp, flat need on Giles's tongue, he calms a little, emerges from foggy confusion and memory and pulls Giles closer.
Words are frail, and small, and however much he means them - wholly, deeply, with everything he has - they're not enough on their own for Giles to believe him. To trust him again. Oz means with his mouth and his hands. Means everything - got you and here now and the unspoken love you - and hopes like hell Giles can hear and feel and understand. His thumb and index finger work open Giles's fly in short little spurts and Giles moans again. Not solid, never indomitable, he's shaking like a tree, like a trapped bird, against Oz, and Oz pulls closed the kiss as he slips his hand inside, sideways, knuckles grazing Giles's prick and the clouds of heat. "Feel good," Oz whispers, dropping light kisses over Giles's face and neck, "hard and needy and so hot, Giles, it's amazing -"
Giles shivers and clutches at his waist and Oz feels the heat travelling up his palm paint his face, stretch into a smile. "Lie back for me, Giles. Got you, don't worry." Giles sags and shuffles backward until he's propped up against the headboard and Oz never lets go. Flushed, shining with sweat, eyes dark and glittering: This is one version of Giles he hasn't let himself remember, one who trusted him, who twisted toward his touch and asked for more. He kneels between Giles's legs, and if this is a kind of supplication, with Giles's fingers trailing through his hair and over his shoulders, Oz is cool with that; he just wants to touch, wants to see the pleasure and joy breaking out over Giles's body, his face, wants to make it happen and speed it up and taste it all, see it all. Feel it. Make his words true with action and gesture.
He grips the base of Giles's cock and kisses his chest; Giles grunts and thrusts a little, and Oz glances up. "Lie still. Promise it'll be okay -" and Giles nods, short and desperate, and Oz can feel the effort trembling over Giles's body as he works his mouth over one nipple and then the other, back and forth and lower, slowly enough that Giles is grunting deep in his throat but remaining still, and as Oz's mouth reaches his hand, starts to inhale the scent of Giles, concentrated and so thick, Giles's fingers claw over his scalp and his hips buck. "Oz, *fuck* -" and Oz plunges his lips over the shining head of his cock, tugging the foreskin up and down as he swirls his tongue tightly over the ridge.
Breaking and meaning, and whatever thoughts Oz had are sweeping away on currents of sensation, Giles's face-words-taste-everything, and Oz is thrusting, wriggling, against the quilt, hard all over again at getting to have this again. The heaviness of Giles's balls, the sweaty slick skin between his legs, crisp but soft hair, and his legs opening, hips lifting, pushing deeper into Oz's mouth, and Oz, kneeling, splayed, taking and hoping.
Such gentle words, soft as featherbeds and flannel sheets, and Oz's voice is low and soothing. Giles remembers talking to Oz like this in the early days, easing his shy fears, coaxing him into readiness and trust. Whispered words with kisses in between, Giles' hands finding the places that made Oz sigh and tremble and tip his head back into the pillows.
And now it's Giles who's shaking, fear and need twining in him, loops of razor wire and ribbons of white-hot steel. He's gasping under Oz's hands and the slow wandering of his mouth, and Oz talks to him like he's a nervous virgin. Safe, he's safe and Oz has him, soft wet tongue and hands that know everything, hands that stroke and twist like the heat inside Giles' own body.
Oz has him now, mouth swallowing Giles' cock, tongue swirling patterns over the head, hands pressing Giles' hips back so he can't move, can't thrust, can only wait. Crosscurrents batter at Giles, gusts of terror and the slow spiraling thermal rising in him, and it's shaking him to pieces, tumbling him wild and helpless in the empty air. "Oz, Oz, please, oh fuck, please," he says, the words torn loose and falling around him, and he's pleading for help, for safety, for Oz not to let him go.
Long repeating rise and fall of Oz's head as he drags lips and deep wet mouth and flexing tongue along Giles cock, and it's slow, melting agony. Giles' fingers twist and clench in Oz's hair, and he wants to pull Oz's head down, arch up and fuck him. But Oz has him, and Giles shudders and whines and hopes, breathes out fear with every gasp, and he wonders if it was like this for Oz, the first time Giles fucked him. When he gave his body over, let Giles open him, penetrate him, give pleasure that Oz couldn't control.
Giles has no control left now, nothing of his own. Oz has it all, has hands and mouth and Giles' whole self between them. Giles needs to see him, it's not enough to feel his touch, hear his moans and the wet sounds of sucking. Needs to see Oz there, see Oz guiding him, taking him. He grips Oz's hand, and then he can open his eyes. Oz: ragged hair, thin hunched shoulders, the high smooth arch of his spine and the double curve of buttocks. Beautiful as architecture, as dome or pyramid, and he's on his knees with his mouth around Giles' cock.
"Oz," Giles says, or tries, but it's a wet rough hiss, air and lust. And it means everything, everything. It means Oz has him, and maybe Oz knows, because he moves faster now, rougher, and Giles' back arches and his balls tighten but his eyes don't leave Oz's half-hidden face. A flicker of lashes and he knows Oz is watching him, and he comes, sobbing, shaking, letting Oz see everything.
Eyes closed now, terrified, he slides down to the mattresss, but Oz is there, holding him and whispering things that are probably words. Giles hides his face in Oz's shoulder, mouth open on skin and the leather braid around his neck. He can't stop shaking, and if Oz lets him go he thinks he might shatter down to dust.
Oz keeps his eyes closed, holding Giles, sweeping his hands up and down his shaking, sweaty back while he watches and rewatches the rapid shuffle of images and sensations. Giles's long, curved ivory body, arching and trembling - the swollen, almost-scarlet heat off his cock - the twisting, swallowed sobs and long breathy shout he gave at the end - and his eyes. Eyes distant, like twin stars, rising and brightening, pulling Oz in, tugging at the top of his spine, root of his tongue, and Oz was pushing, pushing, pouring over and around Giles. Twin stars, burned on the back of Oz's lids.
"So nice - gorgeous and you, and so beautiful," he's whispering now, kissing Giles's neck, palming off the sweat and combing back his hair. "Thank you. More than I can say."
Giles is melting and twisting against him; more than sweat, nearly feverbreak, and Oz kisses him lightly, lets him taste himself on Oz's mouth, and Giles's eyes are still closed, but he digs his fingers into Oz's arm and kisses back. Suckles, almost, and his eyes are moving REM-fast under his lids. Kittens and puppies, blind at birth and helpless and hungry. He holds Giles more tightly.
Oz pulls himself up a little, cradling Giles against his shoulder, and tugs the quilt back over them. His arm supports Giles's neck and his fingers play with the short, wet hair curling behind Giles's ear. His skin tightens and sizzles, from relief, from the pressure of Giles against him, the shattering beauty of his orgasm, and Oz takes a deep breath. Giles's head rises with his chest, and the sight makes him smile, then laugh.
Giles's eyes flutter open, his brows starting to draw together. "S'okay," Oz whispers, still petting the wet hair, craning down and kissing the top of Giles's head. "Just - happy, I guess. Weird." Giles's mouth curves a little and his eyes close again. "Rest. I'm here."
Giles can hear Oz's heartbeat, still a little fast, and feel the swell and fall of his chest as he breathes. Steady, simple, primal-the rhythms that lull the child sleeping in the womb, before there's such a thing as loneliness. Cradled on Oz's chest, his breath falling into the same slow pace, fear streaming away with every exhalation, Giles lies quiet in amniotic darkness.
Rebirth, relearning. It's as though his heart has forgotten how to beat, his lungs how to breathe, and Oz is teaching him. Everything is different. New. Giles' body is not the one he had a day ago, before Oz came back. He's been remade since Oz touched him and found pleasure in it. New skin, new self; he makes Oz happy.
After a while, Giles learns to move. He runs his fingers over the fine, taut skin of Oz's neck and the thickened scar on his shoulder. If he touches very lightly, soft hairs tickle his fingertips and Oz shivers a little. Giles presses his face against Oz's chest, kissing random patterns around his nipple. There's much more of him to kiss-lips and ears and chin, fingers and toes, kneecaps and elbows-but even the tiny patch Giles can reach without moving seems infinitely good. He kisses it until his lips tingle, and he thinks he could keep kissing for hours, learning with his mouth the way babies do.
Oz laughs when Giles' fingers brush a ticklish spot along his ribs, and Giles lifts his head and smiles. "I'm happy, too." Recognizing the fierce, bright burn in his stomach and throat has taken him some time. It's the feeling whiskey almost approximates, the one that makes him take another swallow, and another, hoping to find it.
Oz kisses his forehead, and Giles reaches up to stroke his rough cheek. "I've been very unhappy, since . . . since Buffy died." It's still hard to say her name. "No, that's not true. I haven't even been unhappy. I've been nothing." Oz's arms tighten around him, and Giles is grateful for the pressure, the reminder.
"Oz, how did you know? That she died, I mean." Before this moment Giles hasn't thought to wonder. It's too easy to take Oz as a miracle, coming in response to Giles' need. But he's a person, with a life Giles doesn't know and needs to learn.
Against Oz's cheek, Giles's hair is soft and bristly and smells like shampoo and sweat. Oz works his finger in an unwinding spiral down Giles's arm as he says, "Made friends with the shaman. Machi, shaman, you know. Kind of a priestess, kind of a witchdoctor, all-around busybody." He smiles at the memory of Lilin barging in, taking what she needed from his stores, or, other times, forcing him to eat when he swore he was fine, toting potfuls of blood stew and manioc biscuits and sitting on his bed, glaring and knitting, until he gave in.
"She saw Buffy. Saw her flying and came to tell me." Giles doesn't move, but Oz feels him shudder beneath his skin. Oz presses his face against Giles's forehead and breathes slowly. "So off I went." He hears how that sounds, like there was a logical tie, cause and effect, Giles loses Buffy, finds Oz on his doorstep. "But not like that, not like -"
He doesn't want to sound cruel, and he doesn't want Giles to think that it took something as horrible as Buffy dying to make Oz seem to care again. But the words, as ever, don't seem to be coming. Oz wiggles downward slightly and tucks the quilt more snugly around Giles's shoulder. "Synchonicity, I guess. I - I haven't, *hadn't* been doing very well, not for a while. Long, long while, and I think-." Giles's face is tilted up and Oz breathes out the nervousness. Came to touch and talk, stop hiding, and love. He can do this. He draws the tip of his index finger down Giles's oddly-delicate nose, fluted like something crystal, and over his upper lip. Touch, damp and fragrant and soft with stubble, nerves, life, calms him. This is Giles, quiet, listening, watching him carefully and gently.
"Don't think I used Buffy as an excuse," he says. "Please don't think that. I couldn't live with that. Just, just - always thought about you, always worried and missed you. So much, Giles. And then Buffy -. Had to come. Couldn't hide. Not any more."
It's the best he can do, and Oz tightens his arms around Giles's shoulder. Presses their foreheads together, just like they used to do when one or both of them got too nervous, upset, carried away, and couldn't say anything. If he really concentrates, his regret and apology might work their way upward, through nerve endings and the little bulbs at the end of his capillaries, spring through his pores, and travel into Giles. Something cold slides a little inside him, not enough to make him shiver, but just enough to smell like snow off the mountain, more than enough to remind where he came from and what he's asking for now.
"Shh," Giles says, although Oz has already stopped trying to talk in that strained voice, fast and a little creaky, untuned. It's a voice that hasn't been used in a long time, that's gone as slack as the strings of a neglected guitar. Giles trails kisses from Oz's ear to his eyebrow and tries to picture him in the mountains of Patagonia. Thin air and rocks, all the bones of the landscape visible. Relentless weather and poor, sparse soil. No softness anywhere. A little village, scratching out a bare living, puzzled by the strange American boy who walked up the mountain one day and never left.
Exile. Oz must have gone days without speaking. Weeks, perhaps. Giles has never been to Patagonia and only vaguely remembers reading about it, but he imagines silence and cold winds, and Oz growing as stark and lonely as the place itself. If the world were flat, Patagonia would be the edge, with nothing but void beyond.
Oz went there, Giles is certain, not meaning to come back.
Giles tucks the quilt up over the last bare inch of Oz's shoulder. He wants to cocoon him in goosedown, bring him hot water bottles and bowls of soup. "It's all right, Oz. I believe you." Oz came back from the end of the world for him. Seven thousand miles, god knows how much time and difficulty. He must have spent every last penny to get here, with no certainty that Giles would even talk to him. He stood in the rain, weak with hunger, waiting for Giles to answer the buzzer, and he must have been terrified.
After almost four years, after Willow, after leaving and leaving and leaving again, Oz has come back. "There's a lot I don't understand, though. I hope you'll tell me. When you're ready." Giles rests a hand on the back of Oz's neck, fingers curling in his hair. It's a touch Oz always liked; he tilts his head back against Giles' fingers, sighs, and Giles feels him relax. "You don't have to hide. Not from me."
They've both been hiding. They've been too alone, too silent. But Oz found his courage, travelled halfway around the world when Giles hasn't even been able to get out of bed. Giles wants to tell him how brave he is, but it would sound patronizing, so he kisses him instead.
Oz winds one arm around Giles's neck and lets the kiss, warm-soft-shy, block out thoughts and the last remnants of sparking, guttering nerves that talking set alight. It's warm and almost humid here, under the blanket, pressed against Giles. Part of Oz would very much like to stay, swaddled and safe, for as long as he possibly can.
His thumb rubs its way across Giles's cheekbone, then down the valley below his earlobe. "Thanks," Oz whispers against Giles's skin. "Don't want to. Hide from you, I mean."
He never did; he wanted, and for a while he thought he *could*, to give Giles everything. He was never entirely sure *why* Giles wanted him or loved him, but Oz took him at his word and figured - if Giles felt half as close and trusting of Oz as Oz did of him, then he deserved whatever Oz could give him. Until the wolf, and after that, Oz had to think about boundaries. About cages, and putting your life into compartments. Classifying it, like Giles did the books, sorting out what was public, private, trustworthy and not.
"Missed you," Oz says, his thumb running down Giles's neck now, along the tendon, toward where it disappears under his collarbone. "Anything you don't understand, though, just - ask. Please."
Appearing on Giles's doorstep is one thing; Oz is doing everything he can, but the one thing that makes this different from past attempts is that he *can't* do it all by himself. He decided to leave by himself, he hid the wolf by himself, he went off and lived by himself; he can't any more, not if he wants to try and let this work.
"Also, I might need a shower at some point," he says, kissing Giles's skin, tasting himself and sweat and old saliva, and shivering at the intensity of it all. Like laughter, like the happiness he's finally beginning to name, things - tastes and touches and thoughts - are brighter, sharper, realer than they have been for a long time. "And some of that chocolate you bought. If you're sharing."
He smiles and Giles's cheek curves as he smiles back. When Oz next exhales, he can feel his heart beating in the soles of his feet and tips of his fingers. Everywhere, not numb.
"I will ask," Giles says, although he doesn't want to. He wants to know without asking, wants his doubts soothed away without the need to name them. But that's cowardly. And it's unfair to Oz, who's taken so many risks already.
He tilts his head back to let Oz's thumb rub lightly over his adam's apple. "There's rather a lot to talk about. But not just yet." Oz's thumb stills and his half-closed eyes flicker up. In this light they look dark and secret, but Giles knows that's just an illusion. "Right now I just want to . . . to enjoy this. Being with you." Oz smiles, spreads his fingers along Giles' neck, and Giles adds, "Feeding you chocolate at seven o'clock in the morning."
Stroking his hand across Oz's back, feeling the slopes and projections of his bones, Giles thinks that he'd like to feed Oz seven-course meals dripping butter and cream. Pasta and cheese and all the chocolate he can eat. "I don't want to get up," he says, and draws his lips over the heavy stubble on Oz's cheek. "But I don't suppose either the chocolate or the shower will come to us."
Just under Oz's fingertips, Giles's pulse leaps and bounds; when Giles leans in, Oz's hand slips down to cup his ear, and Giles's breath warms both his cheek and his thumb. So close, and he thinks, abstractly and coldly, that this ought to bother him. This feels, though, nothing like a thought, nothing abstract and definitely not cold.
Maybe his freakout will come later; maybe his mom was right and he really is adaptable. He hopes for the latter.
"Probably not," Oz whispers back. Secrets and teases; they're practicing, almost, for what comes later. He's so close that his lips brush Giles's stubble when he speaks. "Don't want to move, either."
He pulls the quilt over their heads and kisses Giles. Quick and light, and it feels like the kind of kiss he used to daydream about, where he'd corner Giles in the men's restroom and kiss him suddenly, secretly. Giles chuckles and Oz shivers at the memory. Weird, that a stupid daydream can feel so *bad*, especially now, after everything. Before everything else.
Under here, it's dark, hot, and it's hard to imagine lifting the quilt again, let alone standing up. His stomach twists, empty and aching, though, and Giles is still chuckling. "Maybe I should make a dash for it?" Oz asks. "Get the candy and jump back in?"
"I'll go." Under the blanket the air is damp from their breathing, and Giles can smell Oz's sweat and his own. It ought to be disgusting, it probably is disgusting, but it's miraculous too. Giles shifts a little closer to Oz and kisses him, searching out the last faint taste of his own come in Oz's mouth.
He keeps leaning back in for kisses as he unwinds himself from Oz, stands, pulls up his open trousers and refastens them. It would make more sense to take them off, but the thought of stripping naked while Oz looks at him is a little embarrassing. Oz catches his hand and pulls him down for another kiss, as long and yearning as kisses in airports and railway stations. Goodbye kisses. "Won't be a moment," Giles says. "But I ought to ring my friend Olivia before she leaves for work. I - I haven't been answering the phone, and she's been worried."
He doesn't want to see how Oz reacts to that, so he turns and goes into the sitting room. The light on his answering machine is flashing, but he dials Olivia's number without playing her message back. "Olivia, it's Rupert," he says when she answers, sounding hurried.
"Rupert, thank god. Why the hell can't you bother to pick up the phone? Christ, I was starting to think you might be dead."
"I know. I'm sorry. It's been difficult."
"Are you . . . are you all right? I mean, I was picturing you in the bathtub with your wrists slit."
"I'm sorry," he says again. She means well, but guilt is starting to make itself felt again under his happiness, like ugly old wallpaper showing through paint. "I wouldn't do that."
"No, you'd just drink yourself to death."
"I won't. I'm not." She's known him for more than twenty years, and Giles isn't sure why he thought she wouldn't guess that he was drinking too much. "Olivia, I can't really talk now. An American friend of mine arrived last night, unexpectedly. Someone I've - well, it's a long story."
"A long story you've been keeping to yourself, apparently. Wait, hang on. This isn't the bloke who pissed off without a word, is it? The one you were so upset about?"
"Er, it is, actually." Giles tries to remember what he told her about Oz. Not much, thankfully. "A long story, as I said."
"All right, I can take a hint," Olivia says. "Well, at least you're capable of picking up the telephone now. And you're sober. I think I might like him, provided he doesn't break your heart again."
After they say goodbye, Giles picks up the whiskey bottle and takes it into the kitchen. He doesn't want to drink any; the thought sickens him a little. But that could change, will change, and Giles doesn't want the bottle there waiting for him when it does. Too easy to crawl back into it, the first time things are difficult with Oz. Although it feels rather melodramatic, he pours the whiskey into the sink, turns on the tap to rinse the smell away, and puts the bottle into the rubbish bin in the corner. There are three empty bottles there already. He wonders if Oz saw them last night when he was tidying the kitchen.
Giles piles a plate with bread, cheese, several chocolate bars and the packet of Hob Nobs, fill two glasses with water, and carries it all back to the bedroom. Oz is lying in Giles' space, but when Giles comes in he moves over, sits up, and smiles.
"Breakfast is served, such as it is," Giles says, handing Oz the plate and sitting down beside him, back against the headboard. "I think a trip to the supermarket might be in order, later."
Oz balances the plate on his knee as he takes a long drink of water. He knew he was hungry; apparently he was thirsty, too. But now, with Giles back, half-dressed and squirming a little to get comfortable, he can't think of eating. Not with Giles's elbow brushing his own as he reaches for what looks like an oatmeal cookie, not with the return of Giles's warmth slowly heating up his side.
Oz realizes he's staring, half-twisted at the waist, like he's never seen Giles before. Which is more than weird, considering that as he stares, he's looking for all the familiar details, everything he's kept in his memory and tried to preserve like flies in amber. The little shadow in the hollow under Giles's cheekbone, and the half-moon scar on the side of his nose that's barely as big as a baby's pinky finger, and curl of hair just behind his ear.
Giles stops chewing when Oz darts in and kisses the little scar, then his cheekbone, and after that, Oz can't move back again. So he remains where he is, leaning awkwardly over, one hand cradling the plate, the other poking at a chunk of chocolate. Giles kisses the top of his head and Oz exhales. He didn't know he'd been holding his breath, but the kiss releases something tight and sour at the back of his throat and everything loosens. He tilts back his head and kisses the bottom of Giles's jaw as he feels Giles's hand settle onto the nape of his neck.
"This is good," Oz says quietly and drops his eyes. He breathes in Giles's scent, musk and sweat and chocolate now, and the relaxation keeps rippling down through him. "Really good. Thank you." Giles murmurs something about eating and its necessity and Oz nods. "Thinking about it. Don't know where to start."
He feels Giles shiver a little before he hears the chuckle, and Oz squints upward again, his face hot from the inside out as he smiles. "Chocolate for breakfast. Want to make the most of it, you know?"
He kisses Giles before he can answer, getting crumbs on his chin and his tongue, and knocks his forehead lightly against Giles's before reaching for the nearest piece of chocolate. "Eating. See?" he says as he pops it into his mouth.
"I see," Giles says. There are biscuit crumbs clinging to the short hairs on Oz's chin and smears of melting chocolate in both corners of his mouth. Giles thinks of little children at fun fairs, hands grubby and faces pink and sticky with candy floss. He can't remember ever seeing Oz look quite so boyish. Strange that it should be now, when he's not a boy anymore.
Giles opens up a Flake bar and hands half of it to Oz. "See, I'll even share my favorite with you." Oz looks down at the chocolate in his hand, then up at Giles with a strange half-smile. Memory rolls and peaks in Giles like fever, and he can feel himself blushing. He hasn't thought of it in years, hasn't let himself remember that picnic. He's learned to duck away from the memory of Oz with flowers in his pocket. Oz with a cooler full of English food and English chocolate bars. Laughter and sugary kisses, and the condoms and lube that Oz produced from the bottom of his knapsack. Being inside Oz's body for the first time. Putting love into words for the first time.
Giles wants to close his eyes, look aside, but he can't. He wipes the chocolate off Oz's lip with a fingertip, licks the finger clean, and wonders what Oz can see in his face. If Oz can see that Giles has never stopped loving him. Or that's he's been ashamed of it, sometimes, ashamed of his own helplessness.
It's too dark to really see the flush, but Giles can feel the heat-shimmer of Oz's skin. He drags a twisted end of blanket up over Oz to keep the heat in, and rests his lips on the pulse point of Oz's throat. Drops of sweat have gathered here, and Giles licks them up. It's sharper than come, saltier, almost prickly on his tongue. Suddenly Giles remembers the taste of Oz's tears the day he left, brine and bitterness, but he closes his eyes and mind against the thought. Oz is here, and there's no crying now. There's sweat, and come, and moans, and the only sobs are from pleasure.
He kisses over Oz's collarbone and neck, wandering, tasting the salt that's drying on his skin. Oz is beginning to come back from his daze, drawing his fingers down Giles' spine and along his side, a light touch that makes Giles shiver and thrust against Oz's leg. With the taste of Oz's orgasm in his mouth and the sounds of it still echoing in his head, Giles had almost forgotten he hadn't come. But now, as Oz works a hand between their bodies, Giles' cock aches, his whole body aches for more, for Oz. "Please," Giles says. "Oz, please."
Reply
Words are frail, and small, and however much he means them - wholly, deeply, with everything he has - they're not enough on their own for Giles to believe him. To trust him again. Oz means with his mouth and his hands. Means everything - got you and here now and the unspoken love you - and hopes like hell Giles can hear and feel and understand. His thumb and index finger work open Giles's fly in short little spurts and Giles moans again. Not solid, never indomitable, he's shaking like a tree, like a trapped bird, against Oz, and Oz pulls closed the kiss as he slips his hand inside, sideways, knuckles grazing Giles's prick and the clouds of heat. "Feel good," Oz whispers, dropping light kisses over Giles's face and neck, "hard and needy and so hot, Giles, it's amazing -"
Giles shivers and clutches at his waist and Oz feels the heat travelling up his palm paint his face, stretch into a smile. "Lie back for me, Giles. Got you, don't worry." Giles sags and shuffles backward until he's propped up against the headboard and Oz never lets go. Flushed, shining with sweat, eyes dark and glittering: This is one version of Giles he hasn't let himself remember, one who trusted him, who twisted toward his touch and asked for more. He kneels between Giles's legs, and if this is a kind of supplication, with Giles's fingers trailing through his hair and over his shoulders, Oz is cool with that; he just wants to touch, wants to see the pleasure and joy breaking out over Giles's body, his face, wants to make it happen and speed it up and taste it all, see it all. Feel it. Make his words true with action and gesture.
He grips the base of Giles's cock and kisses his chest; Giles grunts and thrusts a little, and Oz glances up. "Lie still. Promise it'll be okay -" and Giles nods, short and desperate, and Oz can feel the effort trembling over Giles's body as he works his mouth over one nipple and then the other, back and forth and lower, slowly enough that Giles is grunting deep in his throat but remaining still, and as Oz's mouth reaches his hand, starts to inhale the scent of Giles, concentrated and so thick, Giles's fingers claw over his scalp and his hips buck. "Oz, *fuck* -" and Oz plunges his lips over the shining head of his cock, tugging the foreskin up and down as he swirls his tongue tightly over the ridge.
Breaking and meaning, and whatever thoughts Oz had are sweeping away on currents of sensation, Giles's face-words-taste-everything, and Oz is thrusting, wriggling, against the quilt, hard all over again at getting to have this again. The heaviness of Giles's balls, the sweaty slick skin between his legs, crisp but soft hair, and his legs opening, hips lifting, pushing deeper into Oz's mouth, and Oz, kneeling, splayed, taking and hoping.
Got you?
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And now it's Giles who's shaking, fear and need twining in him, loops of razor wire and ribbons of white-hot steel. He's gasping under Oz's hands and the slow wandering of his mouth, and Oz talks to him like he's a nervous virgin. Safe, he's safe and Oz has him, soft wet tongue and hands that know everything, hands that stroke and twist like the heat inside Giles' own body.
Oz has him now, mouth swallowing Giles' cock, tongue swirling patterns over the head, hands pressing Giles' hips back so he can't move, can't thrust, can only wait. Crosscurrents batter at Giles, gusts of terror and the slow spiraling thermal rising in him, and it's shaking him to pieces, tumbling him wild and helpless in the empty air. "Oz, Oz, please, oh fuck, please," he says, the words torn loose and falling around him, and he's pleading for help, for safety, for Oz not to let him go.
Long repeating rise and fall of Oz's head as he drags lips and deep wet mouth and flexing tongue along Giles cock, and it's slow, melting agony. Giles' fingers twist and clench in Oz's hair, and he wants to pull Oz's head down, arch up and fuck him. But Oz has him, and Giles shudders and whines and hopes, breathes out fear with every gasp, and he wonders if it was like this for Oz, the first time Giles fucked him. When he gave his body over, let Giles open him, penetrate him, give pleasure that Oz couldn't control.
Giles has no control left now, nothing of his own. Oz has it all, has hands and mouth and Giles' whole self between them. Giles needs to see him, it's not enough to feel his touch, hear his moans and the wet sounds of sucking. Needs to see Oz there, see Oz guiding him, taking him. He grips Oz's hand, and then he can open his eyes. Oz: ragged hair, thin hunched shoulders, the high smooth arch of his spine and the double curve of buttocks. Beautiful as architecture, as dome or pyramid, and he's on his knees with his mouth around Giles' cock.
"Oz," Giles says, or tries, but it's a wet rough hiss, air and lust. And it means everything, everything. It means Oz has him, and maybe Oz knows, because he moves faster now, rougher, and Giles' back arches and his balls tighten but his eyes don't leave Oz's half-hidden face. A flicker of lashes and he knows Oz is watching him, and he comes, sobbing, shaking, letting Oz see everything.
Eyes closed now, terrified, he slides down to the mattresss, but Oz is there, holding him and whispering things that are probably words. Giles hides his face in Oz's shoulder, mouth open on skin and the leather braid around his neck. He can't stop shaking, and if Oz lets him go he thinks he might shatter down to dust.
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"So nice - gorgeous and you, and so beautiful," he's whispering now, kissing Giles's neck, palming off the sweat and combing back his hair. "Thank you. More than I can say."
Giles is melting and twisting against him; more than sweat, nearly feverbreak, and Oz kisses him lightly, lets him taste himself on Oz's mouth, and Giles's eyes are still closed, but he digs his fingers into Oz's arm and kisses back. Suckles, almost, and his eyes are moving REM-fast under his lids. Kittens and puppies, blind at birth and helpless and hungry. He holds Giles more tightly.
Oz pulls himself up a little, cradling Giles against his shoulder, and tugs the quilt back over them. His arm supports Giles's neck and his fingers play with the short, wet hair curling behind Giles's ear. His skin tightens and sizzles, from relief, from the pressure of Giles against him, the shattering beauty of his orgasm, and Oz takes a deep breath. Giles's head rises with his chest, and the sight makes him smile, then laugh.
Giles's eyes flutter open, his brows starting to draw together. "S'okay," Oz whispers, still petting the wet hair, craning down and kissing the top of Giles's head. "Just - happy, I guess. Weird." Giles's mouth curves a little and his eyes close again. "Rest. I'm here."
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Rebirth, relearning. It's as though his heart has forgotten how to beat, his lungs how to breathe, and Oz is teaching him. Everything is different. New. Giles' body is not the one he had a day ago, before Oz came back. He's been remade since Oz touched him and found pleasure in it. New skin, new self; he makes Oz happy.
After a while, Giles learns to move. He runs his fingers over the fine, taut skin of Oz's neck and the thickened scar on his shoulder. If he touches very lightly, soft hairs tickle his fingertips and Oz shivers a little. Giles presses his face against Oz's chest, kissing random patterns around his nipple. There's much more of him to kiss-lips and ears and chin, fingers and toes, kneecaps and elbows-but even the tiny patch Giles can reach without moving seems infinitely good. He kisses it until his lips tingle, and he thinks he could keep kissing for hours, learning with his mouth the way babies do.
Oz laughs when Giles' fingers brush a ticklish spot along his ribs, and Giles lifts his head and smiles. "I'm happy, too." Recognizing the fierce, bright burn in his stomach and throat has taken him some time. It's the feeling whiskey almost approximates, the one that makes him take another swallow, and another, hoping to find it.
Oz kisses his forehead, and Giles reaches up to stroke his rough cheek. "I've been very unhappy, since . . . since Buffy died." It's still hard to say her name. "No, that's not true. I haven't even been unhappy. I've been nothing." Oz's arms tighten around him, and Giles is grateful for the pressure, the reminder.
"Oz, how did you know? That she died, I mean." Before this moment Giles hasn't thought to wonder. It's too easy to take Oz as a miracle, coming in response to Giles' need. But he's a person, with a life Giles doesn't know and needs to learn.
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"She saw Buffy. Saw her flying and came to tell me." Giles doesn't move, but Oz feels him shudder beneath his skin. Oz presses his face against Giles's forehead and breathes slowly. "So off I went." He hears how that sounds, like there was a logical tie, cause and effect, Giles loses Buffy, finds Oz on his doorstep. "But not like that, not like -"
He doesn't want to sound cruel, and he doesn't want Giles to think that it took something as horrible as Buffy dying to make Oz seem to care again. But the words, as ever, don't seem to be coming. Oz wiggles downward slightly and tucks the quilt more snugly around Giles's shoulder. "Synchonicity, I guess. I - I haven't, *hadn't* been doing very well, not for a while. Long, long while, and I think-." Giles's face is tilted up and Oz breathes out the nervousness. Came to touch and talk, stop hiding, and love. He can do this. He draws the tip of his index finger down Giles's oddly-delicate nose, fluted like something crystal, and over his upper lip. Touch, damp and fragrant and soft with stubble, nerves, life, calms him. This is Giles, quiet, listening, watching him carefully and gently.
"Don't think I used Buffy as an excuse," he says. "Please don't think that. I couldn't live with that. Just, just - always thought about you, always worried and missed you. So much, Giles. And then Buffy -. Had to come. Couldn't hide. Not any more."
It's the best he can do, and Oz tightens his arms around Giles's shoulder. Presses their foreheads together, just like they used to do when one or both of them got too nervous, upset, carried away, and couldn't say anything. If he really concentrates, his regret and apology might work their way upward, through nerve endings and the little bulbs at the end of his capillaries, spring through his pores, and travel into Giles. Something cold slides a little inside him, not enough to make him shiver, but just enough to smell like snow off the mountain, more than enough to remind where he came from and what he's asking for now.
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Exile. Oz must have gone days without speaking. Weeks, perhaps. Giles has never been to Patagonia and only vaguely remembers reading about it, but he imagines silence and cold winds, and Oz growing as stark and lonely as the place itself. If the world were flat, Patagonia would be the edge, with nothing but void beyond.
Oz went there, Giles is certain, not meaning to come back.
Giles tucks the quilt up over the last bare inch of Oz's shoulder. He wants to cocoon him in goosedown, bring him hot water bottles and bowls of soup. "It's all right, Oz. I believe you." Oz came back from the end of the world for him. Seven thousand miles, god knows how much time and difficulty. He must have spent every last penny to get here, with no certainty that Giles would even talk to him. He stood in the rain, weak with hunger, waiting for Giles to answer the buzzer, and he must have been terrified.
After almost four years, after Willow, after leaving and leaving and leaving again, Oz has come back. "There's a lot I don't understand, though. I hope you'll tell me. When you're ready." Giles rests a hand on the back of Oz's neck, fingers curling in his hair. It's a touch Oz always liked; he tilts his head back against Giles' fingers, sighs, and Giles feels him relax. "You don't have to hide. Not from me."
They've both been hiding. They've been too alone, too silent. But Oz found his courage, travelled halfway around the world when Giles hasn't even been able to get out of bed. Giles wants to tell him how brave he is, but it would sound patronizing, so he kisses him instead.
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His thumb rubs its way across Giles's cheekbone, then down the valley below his earlobe. "Thanks," Oz whispers against Giles's skin. "Don't want to. Hide from you, I mean."
He never did; he wanted, and for a while he thought he *could*, to give Giles everything. He was never entirely sure *why* Giles wanted him or loved him, but Oz took him at his word and figured - if Giles felt half as close and trusting of Oz as Oz did of him, then he deserved whatever Oz could give him. Until the wolf, and after that, Oz had to think about boundaries. About cages, and putting your life into compartments. Classifying it, like Giles did the books, sorting out what was public, private, trustworthy and not.
"Missed you," Oz says, his thumb running down Giles's neck now, along the tendon, toward where it disappears under his collarbone. "Anything you don't understand, though, just - ask. Please."
Appearing on Giles's doorstep is one thing; Oz is doing everything he can, but the one thing that makes this different from past attempts is that he *can't* do it all by himself. He decided to leave by himself, he hid the wolf by himself, he went off and lived by himself; he can't any more, not if he wants to try and let this work.
"Also, I might need a shower at some point," he says, kissing Giles's skin, tasting himself and sweat and old saliva, and shivering at the intensity of it all. Like laughter, like the happiness he's finally beginning to name, things - tastes and touches and thoughts - are brighter, sharper, realer than they have been for a long time. "And some of that chocolate you bought. If you're sharing."
He smiles and Giles's cheek curves as he smiles back. When Oz next exhales, he can feel his heart beating in the soles of his feet and tips of his fingers. Everywhere, not numb.
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He tilts his head back to let Oz's thumb rub lightly over his adam's apple. "There's rather a lot to talk about. But not just yet." Oz's thumb stills and his half-closed eyes flicker up. In this light they look dark and secret, but Giles knows that's just an illusion. "Right now I just want to . . . to enjoy this. Being with you." Oz smiles, spreads his fingers along Giles' neck, and Giles adds, "Feeding you chocolate at seven o'clock in the morning."
Stroking his hand across Oz's back, feeling the slopes and projections of his bones, Giles thinks that he'd like to feed Oz seven-course meals dripping butter and cream. Pasta and cheese and all the chocolate he can eat. "I don't want to get up," he says, and draws his lips over the heavy stubble on Oz's cheek. "But I don't suppose either the chocolate or the shower will come to us."
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Maybe his freakout will come later; maybe his mom was right and he really is adaptable. He hopes for the latter.
"Probably not," Oz whispers back. Secrets and teases; they're practicing, almost, for what comes later. He's so close that his lips brush Giles's stubble when he speaks. "Don't want to move, either."
He pulls the quilt over their heads and kisses Giles. Quick and light, and it feels like the kind of kiss he used to daydream about, where he'd corner Giles in the men's restroom and kiss him suddenly, secretly. Giles chuckles and Oz shivers at the memory. Weird, that a stupid daydream can feel so *bad*, especially now, after everything. Before everything else.
Under here, it's dark, hot, and it's hard to imagine lifting the quilt again, let alone standing up. His stomach twists, empty and aching, though, and Giles is still chuckling. "Maybe I should make a dash for it?" Oz asks. "Get the candy and jump back in?"
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He keeps leaning back in for kisses as he unwinds himself from Oz, stands, pulls up his open trousers and refastens them. It would make more sense to take them off, but the thought of stripping naked while Oz looks at him is a little embarrassing. Oz catches his hand and pulls him down for another kiss, as long and yearning as kisses in airports and railway stations. Goodbye kisses. "Won't be a moment," Giles says. "But I ought to ring my friend Olivia before she leaves for work. I - I haven't been answering the phone, and she's been worried."
He doesn't want to see how Oz reacts to that, so he turns and goes into the sitting room. The light on his answering machine is flashing, but he dials Olivia's number without playing her message back. "Olivia, it's Rupert," he says when she answers, sounding hurried.
"Rupert, thank god. Why the hell can't you bother to pick up the phone? Christ, I was starting to think you might be dead."
"I know. I'm sorry. It's been difficult."
"Are you . . . are you all right? I mean, I was picturing you in the bathtub with your wrists slit."
"I'm sorry," he says again. She means well, but guilt is starting to make itself felt again under his happiness, like ugly old wallpaper showing through paint. "I wouldn't do that."
"No, you'd just drink yourself to death."
"I won't. I'm not." She's known him for more than twenty years, and Giles isn't sure why he thought she wouldn't guess that he was drinking too much. "Olivia, I can't really talk now. An American friend of mine arrived last night, unexpectedly. Someone I've - well, it's a long story."
"A long story you've been keeping to yourself, apparently. Wait, hang on. This isn't the bloke who pissed off without a word, is it? The one you were so upset about?"
"Er, it is, actually." Giles tries to remember what he told her about Oz. Not much, thankfully. "A long story, as I said."
"All right, I can take a hint," Olivia says. "Well, at least you're capable of picking up the telephone now. And you're sober. I think I might like him, provided he doesn't break your heart again."
After they say goodbye, Giles picks up the whiskey bottle and takes it into the kitchen. He doesn't want to drink any; the thought sickens him a little. But that could change, will change, and Giles doesn't want the bottle there waiting for him when it does. Too easy to crawl back into it, the first time things are difficult with Oz. Although it feels rather melodramatic, he pours the whiskey into the sink, turns on the tap to rinse the smell away, and puts the bottle into the rubbish bin in the corner. There are three empty bottles there already. He wonders if Oz saw them last night when he was tidying the kitchen.
Giles piles a plate with bread, cheese, several chocolate bars and the packet of Hob Nobs, fill two glasses with water, and carries it all back to the bedroom. Oz is lying in Giles' space, but when Giles comes in he moves over, sits up, and smiles.
"Breakfast is served, such as it is," Giles says, handing Oz the plate and sitting down beside him, back against the headboard. "I think a trip to the supermarket might be in order, later."
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Oz realizes he's staring, half-twisted at the waist, like he's never seen Giles before. Which is more than weird, considering that as he stares, he's looking for all the familiar details, everything he's kept in his memory and tried to preserve like flies in amber. The little shadow in the hollow under Giles's cheekbone, and the half-moon scar on the side of his nose that's barely as big as a baby's pinky finger, and curl of hair just behind his ear.
Giles stops chewing when Oz darts in and kisses the little scar, then his cheekbone, and after that, Oz can't move back again. So he remains where he is, leaning awkwardly over, one hand cradling the plate, the other poking at a chunk of chocolate. Giles kisses the top of his head and Oz exhales. He didn't know he'd been holding his breath, but the kiss releases something tight and sour at the back of his throat and everything loosens. He tilts back his head and kisses the bottom of Giles's jaw as he feels Giles's hand settle onto the nape of his neck.
"This is good," Oz says quietly and drops his eyes. He breathes in Giles's scent, musk and sweat and chocolate now, and the relaxation keeps rippling down through him. "Really good. Thank you." Giles murmurs something about eating and its necessity and Oz nods. "Thinking about it. Don't know where to start."
He feels Giles shiver a little before he hears the chuckle, and Oz squints upward again, his face hot from the inside out as he smiles. "Chocolate for breakfast. Want to make the most of it, you know?"
He kisses Giles before he can answer, getting crumbs on his chin and his tongue, and knocks his forehead lightly against Giles's before reaching for the nearest piece of chocolate. "Eating. See?" he says as he pops it into his mouth.
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Giles opens up a Flake bar and hands half of it to Oz. "See, I'll even share my favorite with you." Oz looks down at the chocolate in his hand, then up at Giles with a strange half-smile. Memory rolls and peaks in Giles like fever, and he can feel himself blushing. He hasn't thought of it in years, hasn't let himself remember that picnic. He's learned to duck away from the memory of Oz with flowers in his pocket. Oz with a cooler full of English food and English chocolate bars. Laughter and sugary kisses, and the condoms and lube that Oz produced from the bottom of his knapsack. Being inside Oz's body for the first time. Putting love into words for the first time.
Giles wants to close his eyes, look aside, but he can't. He wipes the chocolate off Oz's lip with a fingertip, licks the finger clean, and wonders what Oz can see in his face. If Oz can see that Giles has never stopped loving him. Or that's he's been ashamed of it, sometimes, ashamed of his own helplessness.
"It's going to melt," Giles says finally. "You'd better eat it."
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