Searching the cupboard for a wearable jumper, Giles says, "Delivery? At -" he cranes his head to see the clock "-nine in the morning? Even if we were in California, I shouldn't think that would be likely." Under a mound of balled-up, dirty woolens he finally locates an old black jumper, not one he especially likes, but clean, and pulls it on over his t-shirt.
Oz is cross-legged on the bed, shirtless and tousled, watching him through bright, smile-narrowed eyes. Three-and-a-half years of desperate fantasies come true, and if Oz's bones weren't quite so starkly visible, Giles would be happy to forget about eating for another day. "It's not that I especially want you dressed." Giles rearranges his damp hair with one hand, and picks up Oz's earrings and string of beads from the bedside table. The leather collar, which is rather ugly, he leaves. "But there are things we need. Groceries, for one."
He sits down beside Oz, who's shivering again, and puts an arm around his waist. "And condoms. And lube." Oz makes a happy sound, half laugh and half murmur, and snuggles in closer. "And, to be honest, it would do me some good to get out of the flat for a few hours." Oz frowns up worriedly at him and squeezes his ribs. "I'm all right," Giles says. He is all right, mostly, but it feels as though the walls of the flat have soaked up his grief, like concrete absorbing the summer heat, and now they're radiating it back. His skin prickles with it, twitching uneasily over a happiness he still doesn't entirely trust.
"You're right, you know," he says, unclasping a tiny silver hoop and threading it through Oz's ear. "I shall be a terrible bully and trample all over your free will." He works a second earring in, and a third. "I'll make you eat breakfast, and other meals too. Perhaps as many as five a day, thin as you are." Oz grins and turns his head so Giles can reach the other ear. "I'll make you wear a scarf when it's cold and sleep eight hours every night. I might even make you shave." Giles draws the backs of his nails lightly up Oz's stubbled cheek until he squirms. "But today I'll make you eat first and shave later."
One earring left. Giles opens it, looks at it for a moment, and then asks, "May I?" He points towards his own ear. Oz blinks and says nothing, and Giles feels himself blushing. Stupid, sentimental thing to have asked. By now he ought to be wary of gestures, wary of too much, too soon. He looks down, but before he can apologize, Oz takes the earring out of his hand and kisses him.
It's been more than a year since he's worn an earring, and it takes a couple of painful tries for Oz to work it through the hole, but once it's in Giles likes the feel of it. Something that was in Oz's body is now in his.
Grinning stupidly, he watches Oz wind the beads around his wrist. Mala beads, for meditation; they're not really jewellery. Oz closes his eyes as he runs the beads through his fingers, and mutters something rhythmic, chant or prayer, under his breath.
Not until after Oz left for the last time did Giles learn, from Willow via Buffy, what the beads meant. That Oz had learned to do the impossible.
When Oz opens his eyes again, Giles lays a hand over his wrist, then slides it up to clasp his fingers. "Oz," he says, hesitantly, and he detests himself for asking. "At the full moon, will . . . will we need a cage for you? Or can you still control the change?"
Oz learned to do the impossible. And then came Willow and Tara, and the Initiative. The memory of it, waiting for hours while the others went to free him, hearing afterwards about the beating and the electrical shocks, makes Giles shudder and press Oz's hand so hard he feels the bones shift.
Oz squeezes Giles's hand in return, running the pad of his thumb up and over Giles's index finger, and breathes out the last cycle of his sutra. He can't quite look at Giles, so he studies the thread of metal through Giles's earlobe, watches it catch the light and glint dully.
"I can do it," he says and the words feel for a moment like the Sanskrit he'd just been murmuring, foreign and hard on his lips. "I - I haven't changed for over a year." Giles tilts his head and Oz has to meet his eyes, and he's glad that Giles hasn't put his glasses back on yet. If he's going to talk to Giles, he doesn't want anything between them. "Kind of had a setback in, in Sunnydale, but since then? I'm safe."
More than anything, Oz hears himself like he's a bug on the windowsill, eavesdropping on the big mammals, but then Giles's lips twitch a little and Oz tries to smile back. "Sound like an addict, don't I? Too bad they don't pass out chips." Giles tightens his arm around Oz and while there's all of the old fear, that tension of teetering on the edge of a skyscraper, cold and battered by winds, Oz feels the warmth of Giles's hold and makes himself see the patience and care in his eyes. This is different; he can help to make this entirely different. "Wanted to tell you about it last time -"
Oz laces his fingers through Giles's and stands up; too much fear is clotting around him, slowing his thoughts and souring his happiness, and it's all memory. He doesn't have to be afraid *now*, not here. "I, um -" He pulls Giles up and leads him into the living room. The presents he brought are still on top of his knapsack, and without releasing Giles's hand, Oz squats down, picking up the prayer bowl first.
"Brought this back for you -" he says and hands the bowl to Giles, then pulls himself tight and snug against Giles's side, resting his head on Giles's shoulder. "The last time. They gave it to me the first day I was in Tibet. And it's old, too. Wanted you to have it."
Giles stares blindly at the hammer-chased designs in the copper, and thinks, at some detached and distant level, that it does indeed look rather old. But the bowl could be solid gold and date back to the Buddha himself, and it still wouldn't matter. What matters is that Oz brought this back for him from Tibet. And wanted -
"Beautiful," he says, finally managing to look down into Oz's worried face. "It's beautiful. Thank you."
Oz meant to give this to him in Sunnydale. A year and a half ago.
Giles has never understood why Oz came to his flat, that day. It wasn't, surely, the most sensible place to look for Willow.
If he'd come an hour earlier, or an hour later, when Giles was there alone. . . . Come to bring him a gift, to talk to him . . .
It could . . . everything could . . .
If onlys race through Giles' blood like poison. Acidic, corrosive, burning his flesh and eating at his bones.
Oz turns and hugs Giles' waist, kisses his shoulder. Warm and real, and here now.
"Thank you," Giles says again. "This . . . that you would want to give me this. It means so much." He kisses Oz's forehead and his hair and holds him tightly, breathing in the smell of shampoo and skin. Smell and touch, real things, and whatever chance they missed before doesn't change this.
Oz knows what Giles is thinking, see the forks and splits of mights and maybes, then feels him shake off the thoughts, feels it in the pressure of his kiss and the tightness of the hug.
"Welcome," Oz says and breathes in as much reassurance as his lungs can bear. All those forks and possibilities still cling like cobwebs, tickling the back of his mind, but right now he needs to think and feel on the simpler things. He can let himself believe now that there's time to talk the older, harder things over. Later.
His stomach growls again and he shivers, still shirtless, despite the scratchy heat of Giles's sweater. Starting at the beginning, he thinks again; he's not sure how many times he's thought it since ringing the buzzer yesterday, but that feels like weeks ago and the number of thoughts since is impossible to calculate.
"Have a Mapuche thing for you, too," he says, sliding from Giles's embrace and retrieving the kuldrun and his heavy sweater from the bag. Draping the sweater over his shoulders, he passes the drum to Giles. "It's pretty cool. Their cosmos is a quadrant, right? And the drum's the whole world, heaven and human and lower regions."
While Giles studies the taut leather and turns it in his hands, Oz pulls his last clean shirt on, then the sweater. His skin is still prickly, chilled and goosebumped, but as Oz passes his hand through his damp hair, pushing it back from his eyes, he decides that's nerves and excitement more than anything physiological.
"The machi blessed it for me, too," Oz offers, and Giles looks back at him, eyes soft at the edges, almost sad. He kisses the side of Giles's mouth and rubs his forehead against Giles's shoulder before pulling back and patting his stomach. "Breakfast, maybe?"
Giles nods and looks back at the drum. The world, contained in a circle of skin. Microcosm, and Giles shivers, remembering poetry copied slowly, lovingly, into a book. Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one. The verse and the book, both Giles himself in essence, both microcosms. And now Oz, deliberately or not, has given him one in return.
Where Oz is concerned, Giles has always believed in omens.
Smiling, he lays a hand on Oz's cheek and thanks him one more time. Then he says, "Breakfast. Yes." Memories, might-have-beens, omens: they have their place, but so does food. Oz is right to remind him.
Oz looks much more comfortable now, swaddled in a ratty blue sweater that's much too big for him. It might not be warm enough for outdoors, though. Giles is about to suggest Oz put on a coat when he realizes, finally, that the knapsack contains everything Oz owns. He has no coat.
And-Christ, he should have noticed this before now--no guitar. Oz has carried presents for Giles from halfway around the world, but not the guitar that he's treasured since he was twelve years old. Giles can't imagine him willingly parting with it. He must have been desperate. Hungry, maybe. Or perhaps he sold it to buy a ticket to London.
If he starts to cry, Oz is bound to misunderstand, so Giles blinks and tightens his jaw and makes himself smile. "There's a café not far from here that does a very good breakfast," he says, putting the bowl and the drum on one of the empty shelves that line the walls. Once he's properly unpacked, he can find a good place for them. "Used to, anyway. I haven't been there in years, but it might be worth a try. And they have vegetarian breakfasts too, I remember that much."
Giles's face always was more mobile than clouds on a windy day, thoughts and feelings blowing over his skin, pausing, illuminated and silver for half a moment, then vanishing. Oz holds his breath and crooks up a smile in return. If Giles can be this brave, this determined to live now and set aside pain for the moment, Oz can, too.
He waits until Giles has pulled on his coat and patted his pocket for his keys before joining him at the door; then there is the flutter of Giles locking up that Oz has remembered perfectly, the way he tests the knob and double-checks the locks before stowing his keys and turning for the stairs.
"Does trampling all my free will include ordering my breakfast?" Oz asks, following him down the stairs, and Giles laughs, the sound bright and rich, bouncing against the narrow walls. "What're you going to do? Order me some tofurkey sausage and a kelp omelet?"
Still chuckling, Giles pauses on the next landing and Oz wraps his arm around Giles's waist, pushing his hand under the jacket and digging his fingers into his hip. Giles kisses the top of his head and pushes him on ahead.
Outside, it smells like rain, like turned earth and wet grass, and feels damp and cold, but there's no actual rain falling. Oz wonders if it's always like this as he follows Giles down a short block, across another, longer one, into the nearly empty cafe. He curls his fingers in the back pocket of his jeans against the urge to touch, but when Giles takes a table by a window, Oz steps too close and helps Giles off with his jacket. He gets to brush his knuckles over Giles's arm and waist, and it's not nearly enough but it's better than nothing.
Ducking his head, smiling against the heat in his face, Oz sits down across from Giles and rubs the arms of his sweater over his chilled skin.
"Think I'll have the bacon, actually," he says and waits for Giles to hear. He keeps his expression neutral and taps his chin like he's thinking. "Maybe steak? Do you eat steak and eggs in England?" Giles just *stares* at him, lips slightly parted, no sound coming out. Oz picks up the menu and scans it before glancing back up. "What? Pampas. Meat capital of the world."
"Right," Giles says blandly, eyes never leaving Oz's face. "A kelp omelette it is, then. Perhaps with a nice side of hay?"
Oz has been just managing to keep that exaggeratedly deadpan expression plastered across his face. It cracks now, a grin twisting up through it, and then shatters and slides away. He's smiling hugely at Giles, flushed and pleased with the success of his joke, and Giles wants to pull him into his lap and kiss him even redder and sillier.
He doesn't, because it's no way to behave in public. But--and the realization crackles electrically down Giles' body--there's no reason they can't touch like any other couple. He reaches across the small table, smiling as Oz's eyes widen, and cups Oz's cheek. Oz freezes, then smiles again, the large uninhibited smile that means he's really happy, and kisses the end of Giles' thumb.
It's a shock, a revelation, fierce and brilliant as sunlight. Everything will be different, he told Oz, and he's only just realized that it's literally true. Everything will be different now.
Oz will be different, is different. He was barely eighteen, a boy still, when they split up, and now he's a man of--Giles has to think about it--twenty-one. He's studied in Tibet and lived in Patagonia. He's not even a vegetarian anymore, although Giles has a flash of doubt when Oz orders a broccoli and cheese omelette, which to Giles sounds perilously close to kelp.
"You know," Giles says, pouring himself a cup of tea from the little metal pot (Oz ordered coffee, another surprise), "I used to imagine showing you the world. And now you've seen far more of it than I have." His voice sounds wistful, even regretful, and when Oz frowns thoughtfully, Giles isn't quite sure how to explain. It's not, he's sure (he hopes), that he dislikes Oz growing up and experiencing things for himself. It's only the lost time he regrets, and the experiences that went unshared. He strokes the back of Oz's hand and adds, "So you'll be showing it to me instead, someday."
While they wait for breakfast, they talk about Oz's trip out from Patagonia, a complicated saga of buses, ferries, long-distance lorries, a five-day wait for a courier flight, and the occasional twenty-kilometer walk. "You'll be getting a call from Michael Palin any day now, wanting to turn it into a television program," Giles says, and Oz scowls laughingly at him.
They touch almost incessantly, fingers and feet brushing, hands laid on wrists and forearms to emphasize every point. They touch, and smile, and a faint high flush builds on Oz's cheekbones. Giles has hardly ever seen him so brightly happy.
When the food arrives, Oz sniffs the bacon-scented steam deeply, then looks embarrassed. Perhaps it's a wolfish reaction, or simply hunger. Giles thinks about pretending not to notice, but that seems wrong, somehow. So he says, "Smells lovely. I'm absolutely starving--I suppose you must be too." All too literally, perhaps. Under the café's fluorescent lights, Oz looks worn down to nothing.
Oz's food disappears in moments, but he shakes his head when Giles asks if he wants more. He filches a piece of Giles' bacon, though, and eats the baked beans and toast that Giles can't finish.
"What should we do today?" Giles asks, sipping the last cold dregs of his tea. "We could see a bit of the city, if you like. Stroll about a bit. And we can pick up a copy of Time Out and see what's on." Oz may have seen half the world, but he hasn't seen London yet.
The food was hot and good and Oz feels out of it, half-drunk and all the way woozy. The coffee was stronger in Argentina, but it's hit his system along with all the sugar and fat of the omelette and the rest of the food like he just cooked up a big batch of crystal. He's flushed and sweaty and only the constant, unpredictable brush of Giles's fingers is keeping him centered and somewhat alert.
"Want to see your London," Oz says when the bill arrives. He reaches into his pocket for his last few pounds, but Giles gives him a classic Stern Face and Oz withdraws his hand with exaggerated care. As they stand and Giles shrugs on his jacket, he adds, "And, like, supplies were mentioned? Food, too?"
He's back to asking questions like a little kid - Can we? Why? How come? - and Oz supposes he should be embarrassed. But there's the sugar and caffeine rush on top of the sheer bizarre awesomeness of unrestricted proximity to Giles and Giles is smiling, sweet and shy, at him as they make their way out of the cafe. Outside, the air is somehow wetter *and* colder than it was when they came in; it slaps Oz across the face and curls his hands into the cuffs of his sweater.
On the bright side, his head's clearing fast. He follows Giles and tries not to shiver, but they're only several paces past the cafe when Giles stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder. "No -" Oz says as Giles slips out of his jacket, a really nice one, too, all soft caramels and desert browns and holds it out for Oz to put on. "Man. I'm really okay." Giles won't move; he's not wearing Stern Face, but something much more persuasive. Quiet intensity, squinting eyes and sad mouth. Oz shakes his head and turns around to put on the jacket. "You'll get cold -"
He has no idea where he is. This is nothing new for Oz; in a weird way, he's gotten more used to being lost than feeling at home. But it's different now. He's not only *seeing* Giles's neighborhood, he's with Giles, hearing about the pub that preceded the ratty used--furniture store and the various cousins who have owned the Bombay Curry House over the years and how local legend has it that a witch's ghost haunts the upper floors of the house on the corner. He might not have any idea where he is, but he's not passing through. That's the difference. Giles has every idea where they are, and he's sharing them, and he really does want Oz to stay.
"Giles?" he asks as they wait to cross another street. "Would it be really weird if we held hands? Want to. Don't want to freak you out. Or the neighbors, or -"
Giles has to reach under the coat sleeve for Oz's fingers, which feel small and cold against his palm. Oz pushes the sleeve up, slides his fingers between Giles' and squeezes hard.
"It's not weird at all," Giles says, although in fact it feels rather strange. He's not sure if the people they pass as they cross the street are staring or if he's just imagining it. It's not that unusual in London to see two men holding hands. But he's so much older than Oz, and they've been mistaken before for father and son. It probably does look odd.
At the opposite corner Giles steers Oz right, towards the river. They're gripping each other's hands tightly, elbows and trouser legs brushing as they move, and Giles remembers them walking back to his flat that first night, aching to touch and not quite daring to. It was a moment full of more weight than they knew, the beginning of a year spent avoiding each other's eyes in the school hallways and making sure they were never in the men's room at the same time.
That night was the only time, in Sunnydale, that they walked down the street together.
"It's . . . normal, us holding hands. It's what people do." Oz smiles over at him and rubs his thumb along Giles' knuckle. Someday this will feel normal, not bold or foolish, and not miraculous either. Someday they'll hold hands because it's what they do. Which will itself be miraculous, and more than Giles ever had the courage to hope for. "Good lord. We're normal. Utterly, banally normal. Well, apart from a twenty-five-year age difference and a touch of lycanthropy." It's possible, Giles realizes, that he's a bit giddy. Looking at Oz, talking to him, holding his hand, like this, where anyone can see. Oz and normality, Oz and London and home.
"There is that," Oz says and squeezes Giles's hand. "Guess normal's pretty relative when you get right down to it."
Oz always liked how their strides pretty much matched; you wouldn't think so, not given how long Giles's legs are and how gracefully he moves, like one of those 19th-century wind-up toys he used to keep on his desk, but Giles doesn't have to slow down and Oz doesn't have to hurry. They just *mosey*, and Oz's head keeps turning like a bird's, back and forth, eyes burning and wide, trying to follow everything that Giles is showing him.
The streets are narrower here than he'd expected, crowded with awkwardly looming buildings. He remembers reading a fat paperback book about London. Back in high school, the summer they were together, learning about a place as mythic as Narnia or Camazotz, somewhere he'd never get to go. He never read the book in front of Giles, but saved it for times when he was alone, stocking up on weird historical factoids to slide into their next conversation. Boudica was from East Anglia, too, he'd say and wait for Giles to blink and smile. She burned London, though. Not so cool.
Now, Oz is quiet, listening to the rhythm of Giles's voice and feeling their palms rub together, and he's simultaneously overwhelmed and perfectly comfortable. He doesn't know about normal, what it might mean; Giles suggests it's just what people do, but Oz has been away from people for so long, and before that, in Sunnydale, everything -- Giles, slaying, wolf -- was secret and dark, that he wonders if he'll ever know what people do.
Whether this is normal or not, it feels right. Giles's coat is wrapped around him, Giles's hand is in his, and even though they're walking, seeing a place Oz never thought he'd see, he feels as if he's finally come to rest.
His nose tells him they're nearing the river and it makes him think of an engraving in one of Giles's books. Not a research book, but one from his beloved, battered set of Dickens: a man poling a boat down the Thames, looking for treasure and sustenance. Oz swims through memory and representation and the present, drawn forward by Giles's hand and voice, through traffic noise and the brush of the crowd, and he thinks that he's never felt so much at home.
At the next corner, across the street, Oz spies a small red neon sign -- everything's red here, buses and phone booths and signs -- for Men's Hair, No Fuss No Muss. He tugs on Giles's hand, feeling like a kid again, and points. "Ever been there? Should I give it a try?" he asks. "How much does a big-city haircut cost, anyway?"
About to run out of interesting, or even tedious, things to say about his small corner of Pimlico, Giles is relieved when Oz's question breaks his monologue. It's impossible, really, to talk about home. He chose this place, more than twenty years ago now, because it was quiet, fairly cheap, and not too close to the tempting new gay pubs and clubs of Soho. A quick trip on the tube or in a cab, but not right in the midst, and perfect for the man he was then: serious and discreet, with his two lives locked into airtight compartments. Pragmatism, not love, led him to buy the flat, and although he's learned to love the area since, it's not a love that's easily transmissible.
If Oz comes to know and care for this place, it'll have to be the same way Giles did. Over time.
"I've never been there," Giles says, drawing Oz a couple of steps back so that people can get past them. "I used to go to a salon over near the café. But it's an estate agent's now. We could give this one a try." It's been so long since he's had a haircut that he's almost embarrassed to get one now, afraid of the barber's scorn. If he could have known, somehow, that Oz was coming, he'd never have let himself get in this state.
Letting Oz lead him across the street, through the doors and up a flight of narrow, unlighted stairs, he wonders why Oz is so eager for such a trivial thing as a haircut. It must mean something to him, some tidying and restoration of the self. Bringing back the city-dwelling man, the civilized man; bidding farewell to empty places, to the stones and solitude and starvation of Patagonia. Or perhaps, like Giles, he just feels unkempt and out of sorts. Even today, with the air full of omens, with miracles crowding one another's heels, not everything has to be meaningful.
The shop, or salon (the place is bare in a way that could be no-frills economy or stylish minimalism) is empty except for two stylists (entirely too camp to be called barbers) chatting in a far corner. Haircuts, a sign announces, are £25. Salon prices, certainly. Oz stares blankly at the rows of shampoos and hair gels behind the counter, with the peculiar expression that only ever appears on the face of someone trying to mentally calculate exchange rates. Giles tightens his hand over Oz's and says, quietly, "You don't need to worry about money, you know." Oz looks up at him, a frown-crease between his brows, but before he can answer, one of the stylists breaks off his conversation and meanders over to them.
Salon, Giles decides finally, after the stylist (who's called David) shampoos his hair and hands him a stack of men's fashion magazines. Oz, in the next chair, is earnestly explaining that he really does want his hair cut just the way he said, and no, he doesn't want something sleeker and more modern. Instead of looking at the magazines, Giles watches, as best he can with his glasses off, while Oz's hair is combed, snipped, and sheared with a razor in a way that looks disturbingly random. Oz seems happy enough, though, and he smiles over at Giles whenever the stylist tilts his head in the right direction.
This is better, much better, than the plan Giles had been vaguely formulating of following the river and showing Oz the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Staying near home, getting haircuts and shopping for everyday necessities: Giles wants to do ordinary things. Take the first steps towards making this Oz's home as well as his own.
Oz is cross-legged on the bed, shirtless and tousled, watching him through bright, smile-narrowed eyes. Three-and-a-half years of desperate fantasies come true, and if Oz's bones weren't quite so starkly visible, Giles would be happy to forget about eating for another day. "It's not that I especially want you dressed." Giles rearranges his damp hair with one hand, and picks up Oz's earrings and string of beads from the bedside table. The leather collar, which is rather ugly, he leaves. "But there are things we need. Groceries, for one."
He sits down beside Oz, who's shivering again, and puts an arm around his waist. "And condoms. And lube." Oz makes a happy sound, half laugh and half murmur, and snuggles in closer. "And, to be honest, it would do me some good to get out of the flat for a few hours." Oz frowns up worriedly at him and squeezes his ribs. "I'm all right," Giles says. He is all right, mostly, but it feels as though the walls of the flat have soaked up his grief, like concrete absorbing the summer heat, and now they're radiating it back. His skin prickles with it, twitching uneasily over a happiness he still doesn't entirely trust.
"You're right, you know," he says, unclasping a tiny silver hoop and threading it through Oz's ear. "I shall be a terrible bully and trample all over your free will." He works a second earring in, and a third. "I'll make you eat breakfast, and other meals too. Perhaps as many as five a day, thin as you are." Oz grins and turns his head so Giles can reach the other ear. "I'll make you wear a scarf when it's cold and sleep eight hours every night. I might even make you shave." Giles draws the backs of his nails lightly up Oz's stubbled cheek until he squirms. "But today I'll make you eat first and shave later."
One earring left. Giles opens it, looks at it for a moment, and then asks, "May I?" He points towards his own ear. Oz blinks and says nothing, and Giles feels himself blushing. Stupid, sentimental thing to have asked. By now he ought to be wary of gestures, wary of too much, too soon. He looks down, but before he can apologize, Oz takes the earring out of his hand and kisses him.
It's been more than a year since he's worn an earring, and it takes a couple of painful tries for Oz to work it through the hole, but once it's in Giles likes the feel of it. Something that was in Oz's body is now in his.
Grinning stupidly, he watches Oz wind the beads around his wrist. Mala beads, for meditation; they're not really jewellery. Oz closes his eyes as he runs the beads through his fingers, and mutters something rhythmic, chant or prayer, under his breath.
Not until after Oz left for the last time did Giles learn, from Willow via Buffy, what the beads meant. That Oz had learned to do the impossible.
When Oz opens his eyes again, Giles lays a hand over his wrist, then slides it up to clasp his fingers. "Oz," he says, hesitantly, and he detests himself for asking. "At the full moon, will . . . will we need a cage for you? Or can you still control the change?"
Oz learned to do the impossible. And then came Willow and Tara, and the Initiative. The memory of it, waiting for hours while the others went to free him, hearing afterwards about the beating and the electrical shocks, makes Giles shudder and press Oz's hand so hard he feels the bones shift.
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"I can do it," he says and the words feel for a moment like the Sanskrit he'd just been murmuring, foreign and hard on his lips. "I - I haven't changed for over a year." Giles tilts his head and Oz has to meet his eyes, and he's glad that Giles hasn't put his glasses back on yet. If he's going to talk to Giles, he doesn't want anything between them. "Kind of had a setback in, in Sunnydale, but since then? I'm safe."
More than anything, Oz hears himself like he's a bug on the windowsill, eavesdropping on the big mammals, but then Giles's lips twitch a little and Oz tries to smile back. "Sound like an addict, don't I? Too bad they don't pass out chips." Giles tightens his arm around Oz and while there's all of the old fear, that tension of teetering on the edge of a skyscraper, cold and battered by winds, Oz feels the warmth of Giles's hold and makes himself see the patience and care in his eyes. This is different; he can help to make this entirely different. "Wanted to tell you about it last time -"
Oz laces his fingers through Giles's and stands up; too much fear is clotting around him, slowing his thoughts and souring his happiness, and it's all memory. He doesn't have to be afraid *now*, not here. "I, um -" He pulls Giles up and leads him into the living room. The presents he brought are still on top of his knapsack, and without releasing Giles's hand, Oz squats down, picking up the prayer bowl first.
"Brought this back for you -" he says and hands the bowl to Giles, then pulls himself tight and snug against Giles's side, resting his head on Giles's shoulder. "The last time. They gave it to me the first day I was in Tibet. And it's old, too. Wanted you to have it."
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"Beautiful," he says, finally managing to look down into Oz's worried face. "It's beautiful. Thank you."
Oz meant to give this to him in Sunnydale. A year and a half ago.
Giles has never understood why Oz came to his flat, that day. It wasn't, surely, the most sensible place to look for Willow.
If he'd come an hour earlier, or an hour later, when Giles was there alone. . . . Come to bring him a gift, to talk to him . . .
It could . . . everything could . . .
If onlys race through Giles' blood like poison. Acidic, corrosive, burning his flesh and eating at his bones.
Oz turns and hugs Giles' waist, kisses his shoulder. Warm and real, and here now.
"Thank you," Giles says again. "This . . . that you would want to give me this. It means so much." He kisses Oz's forehead and his hair and holds him tightly, breathing in the smell of shampoo and skin. Smell and touch, real things, and whatever chance they missed before doesn't change this.
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"Welcome," Oz says and breathes in as much reassurance as his lungs can bear. All those forks and possibilities still cling like cobwebs, tickling the back of his mind, but right now he needs to think and feel on the simpler things. He can let himself believe now that there's time to talk the older, harder things over. Later.
His stomach growls again and he shivers, still shirtless, despite the scratchy heat of Giles's sweater. Starting at the beginning, he thinks again; he's not sure how many times he's thought it since ringing the buzzer yesterday, but that feels like weeks ago and the number of thoughts since is impossible to calculate.
"Have a Mapuche thing for you, too," he says, sliding from Giles's embrace and retrieving the kuldrun and his heavy sweater from the bag. Draping the sweater over his shoulders, he passes the drum to Giles. "It's pretty cool. Their cosmos is a quadrant, right? And the drum's the whole world, heaven and human and lower regions."
While Giles studies the taut leather and turns it in his hands, Oz pulls his last clean shirt on, then the sweater. His skin is still prickly, chilled and goosebumped, but as Oz passes his hand through his damp hair, pushing it back from his eyes, he decides that's nerves and excitement more than anything physiological.
"The machi blessed it for me, too," Oz offers, and Giles looks back at him, eyes soft at the edges, almost sad. He kisses the side of Giles's mouth and rubs his forehead against Giles's shoulder before pulling back and patting his stomach. "Breakfast, maybe?"
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Where Oz is concerned, Giles has always believed in omens.
Smiling, he lays a hand on Oz's cheek and thanks him one more time. Then he says, "Breakfast. Yes." Memories, might-have-beens, omens: they have their place, but so does food. Oz is right to remind him.
Oz looks much more comfortable now, swaddled in a ratty blue sweater that's much too big for him. It might not be warm enough for outdoors, though. Giles is about to suggest Oz put on a coat when he realizes, finally, that the knapsack contains everything Oz owns. He has no coat.
And-Christ, he should have noticed this before now--no guitar. Oz has carried presents for Giles from halfway around the world, but not the guitar that he's treasured since he was twelve years old. Giles can't imagine him willingly parting with it. He must have been desperate. Hungry, maybe. Or perhaps he sold it to buy a ticket to London.
If he starts to cry, Oz is bound to misunderstand, so Giles blinks and tightens his jaw and makes himself smile. "There's a café not far from here that does a very good breakfast," he says, putting the bowl and the drum on one of the empty shelves that line the walls. Once he's properly unpacked, he can find a good place for them. "Used to, anyway. I haven't been there in years, but it might be worth a try. And they have vegetarian breakfasts too, I remember that much."
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He waits until Giles has pulled on his coat and patted his pocket for his keys before joining him at the door; then there is the flutter of Giles locking up that Oz has remembered perfectly, the way he tests the knob and double-checks the locks before stowing his keys and turning for the stairs.
"Does trampling all my free will include ordering my breakfast?" Oz asks, following him down the stairs, and Giles laughs, the sound bright and rich, bouncing against the narrow walls. "What're you going to do? Order me some tofurkey sausage and a kelp omelet?"
Still chuckling, Giles pauses on the next landing and Oz wraps his arm around Giles's waist, pushing his hand under the jacket and digging his fingers into his hip. Giles kisses the top of his head and pushes him on ahead.
Outside, it smells like rain, like turned earth and wet grass, and feels damp and cold, but there's no actual rain falling. Oz wonders if it's always like this as he follows Giles down a short block, across another, longer one, into the nearly empty cafe. He curls his fingers in the back pocket of his jeans against the urge to touch, but when Giles takes a table by a window, Oz steps too close and helps Giles off with his jacket. He gets to brush his knuckles over Giles's arm and waist, and it's not nearly enough but it's better than nothing.
Ducking his head, smiling against the heat in his face, Oz sits down across from Giles and rubs the arms of his sweater over his chilled skin.
"Think I'll have the bacon, actually," he says and waits for Giles to hear. He keeps his expression neutral and taps his chin like he's thinking. "Maybe steak? Do you eat steak and eggs in England?" Giles just *stares* at him, lips slightly parted, no sound coming out. Oz picks up the menu and scans it before glancing back up. "What? Pampas. Meat capital of the world."
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Oz has been just managing to keep that exaggeratedly deadpan expression plastered across his face. It cracks now, a grin twisting up through it, and then shatters and slides away. He's smiling hugely at Giles, flushed and pleased with the success of his joke, and Giles wants to pull him into his lap and kiss him even redder and sillier.
He doesn't, because it's no way to behave in public. But--and the realization crackles electrically down Giles' body--there's no reason they can't touch like any other couple. He reaches across the small table, smiling as Oz's eyes widen, and cups Oz's cheek. Oz freezes, then smiles again, the large uninhibited smile that means he's really happy, and kisses the end of Giles' thumb.
It's a shock, a revelation, fierce and brilliant as sunlight. Everything will be different, he told Oz, and he's only just realized that it's literally true. Everything will be different now.
Oz will be different, is different. He was barely eighteen, a boy still, when they split up, and now he's a man of--Giles has to think about it--twenty-one. He's studied in Tibet and lived in Patagonia. He's not even a vegetarian anymore, although Giles has a flash of doubt when Oz orders a broccoli and cheese omelette, which to Giles sounds perilously close to kelp.
"You know," Giles says, pouring himself a cup of tea from the little metal pot (Oz ordered coffee, another surprise), "I used to imagine showing you the world. And now you've seen far more of it than I have." His voice sounds wistful, even regretful, and when Oz frowns thoughtfully, Giles isn't quite sure how to explain. It's not, he's sure (he hopes), that he dislikes Oz growing up and experiencing things for himself. It's only the lost time he regrets, and the experiences that went unshared. He strokes the back of Oz's hand and adds, "So you'll be showing it to me instead, someday."
While they wait for breakfast, they talk about Oz's trip out from Patagonia, a complicated saga of buses, ferries, long-distance lorries, a five-day wait for a courier flight, and the occasional twenty-kilometer walk. "You'll be getting a call from Michael Palin any day now, wanting to turn it into a television program," Giles says, and Oz scowls laughingly at him.
They touch almost incessantly, fingers and feet brushing, hands laid on wrists and forearms to emphasize every point. They touch, and smile, and a faint high flush builds on Oz's cheekbones. Giles has hardly ever seen him so brightly happy.
When the food arrives, Oz sniffs the bacon-scented steam deeply, then looks embarrassed. Perhaps it's a wolfish reaction, or simply hunger. Giles thinks about pretending not to notice, but that seems wrong, somehow. So he says, "Smells lovely. I'm absolutely starving--I suppose you must be too." All too literally, perhaps. Under the café's fluorescent lights, Oz looks worn down to nothing.
Oz's food disappears in moments, but he shakes his head when Giles asks if he wants more. He filches a piece of Giles' bacon, though, and eats the baked beans and toast that Giles can't finish.
"What should we do today?" Giles asks, sipping the last cold dregs of his tea. "We could see a bit of the city, if you like. Stroll about a bit. And we can pick up a copy of Time Out and see what's on." Oz may have seen half the world, but he hasn't seen London yet.
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"Want to see your London," Oz says when the bill arrives. He reaches into his pocket for his last few pounds, but Giles gives him a classic Stern Face and Oz withdraws his hand with exaggerated care. As they stand and Giles shrugs on his jacket, he adds, "And, like, supplies were mentioned? Food, too?"
He's back to asking questions like a little kid - Can we? Why? How come? - and Oz supposes he should be embarrassed. But there's the sugar and caffeine rush on top of the sheer bizarre awesomeness of unrestricted proximity to Giles and Giles is smiling, sweet and shy, at him as they make their way out of the cafe. Outside, the air is somehow wetter *and* colder than it was when they came in; it slaps Oz across the face and curls his hands into the cuffs of his sweater.
On the bright side, his head's clearing fast. He follows Giles and tries not to shiver, but they're only several paces past the cafe when Giles stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder. "No -" Oz says as Giles slips out of his jacket, a really nice one, too, all soft caramels and desert browns and holds it out for Oz to put on. "Man. I'm really okay." Giles won't move; he's not wearing Stern Face, but something much more persuasive. Quiet intensity, squinting eyes and sad mouth. Oz shakes his head and turns around to put on the jacket. "You'll get cold -"
He has no idea where he is. This is nothing new for Oz; in a weird way, he's gotten more used to being lost than feeling at home. But it's different now. He's not only *seeing* Giles's neighborhood, he's with Giles, hearing about the pub that preceded the ratty used--furniture store and the various cousins who have owned the Bombay Curry House over the years and how local legend has it that a witch's ghost haunts the upper floors of the house on the corner. He might not have any idea where he is, but he's not passing through. That's the difference. Giles has every idea where they are, and he's sharing them, and he really does want Oz to stay.
"Giles?" he asks as they wait to cross another street. "Would it be really weird if we held hands? Want to. Don't want to freak you out. Or the neighbors, or -"
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"It's not weird at all," Giles says, although in fact it feels rather strange. He's not sure if the people they pass as they cross the street are staring or if he's just imagining it. It's not that unusual in London to see two men holding hands. But he's so much older than Oz, and they've been mistaken before for father and son. It probably does look odd.
At the opposite corner Giles steers Oz right, towards the river. They're gripping each other's hands tightly, elbows and trouser legs brushing as they move, and Giles remembers them walking back to his flat that first night, aching to touch and not quite daring to. It was a moment full of more weight than they knew, the beginning of a year spent avoiding each other's eyes in the school hallways and making sure they were never in the men's room at the same time.
That night was the only time, in Sunnydale, that they walked down the street together.
"It's . . . normal, us holding hands. It's what people do." Oz smiles over at him and rubs his thumb along Giles' knuckle. Someday this will feel normal, not bold or foolish, and not miraculous either. Someday they'll hold hands because it's what they do. Which will itself be miraculous, and more than Giles ever had the courage to hope for. "Good lord. We're normal. Utterly, banally normal. Well, apart from a twenty-five-year age difference and a touch of lycanthropy." It's possible, Giles realizes, that he's a bit giddy. Looking at Oz, talking to him, holding his hand, like this, where anyone can see. Oz and normality, Oz and London and home.
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Oz always liked how their strides pretty much matched; you wouldn't think so, not given how long Giles's legs are and how gracefully he moves, like one of those 19th-century wind-up toys he used to keep on his desk, but Giles doesn't have to slow down and Oz doesn't have to hurry. They just *mosey*, and Oz's head keeps turning like a bird's, back and forth, eyes burning and wide, trying to follow everything that Giles is showing him.
The streets are narrower here than he'd expected, crowded with awkwardly looming buildings. He remembers reading a fat paperback book about London. Back in high school, the summer they were together, learning about a place as mythic as Narnia or Camazotz, somewhere he'd never get to go. He never read the book in front of Giles, but saved it for times when he was alone, stocking up on weird historical factoids to slide into their next conversation. Boudica was from East Anglia, too, he'd say and wait for Giles to blink and smile. She burned London, though. Not so cool.
Now, Oz is quiet, listening to the rhythm of Giles's voice and feeling their palms rub together, and he's simultaneously overwhelmed and perfectly comfortable. He doesn't know about normal, what it might mean; Giles suggests it's just what people do, but Oz has been away from people for so long, and before that, in Sunnydale, everything -- Giles, slaying, wolf -- was secret and dark, that he wonders if he'll ever know what people do.
Whether this is normal or not, it feels right. Giles's coat is wrapped around him, Giles's hand is in his, and even though they're walking, seeing a place Oz never thought he'd see, he feels as if he's finally come to rest.
His nose tells him they're nearing the river and it makes him think of an engraving in one of Giles's books. Not a research book, but one from his beloved, battered set of Dickens: a man poling a boat down the Thames, looking for treasure and sustenance. Oz swims through memory and representation and the present, drawn forward by Giles's hand and voice, through traffic noise and the brush of the crowd, and he thinks that he's never felt so much at home.
At the next corner, across the street, Oz spies a small red neon sign -- everything's red here, buses and phone booths and signs -- for Men's Hair, No Fuss No Muss. He tugs on Giles's hand, feeling like a kid again, and points. "Ever been there? Should I give it a try?" he asks. "How much does a big-city haircut cost, anyway?"
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If Oz comes to know and care for this place, it'll have to be the same way Giles did. Over time.
"I've never been there," Giles says, drawing Oz a couple of steps back so that people can get past them. "I used to go to a salon over near the café. But it's an estate agent's now. We could give this one a try." It's been so long since he's had a haircut that he's almost embarrassed to get one now, afraid of the barber's scorn. If he could have known, somehow, that Oz was coming, he'd never have let himself get in this state.
Letting Oz lead him across the street, through the doors and up a flight of narrow, unlighted stairs, he wonders why Oz is so eager for such a trivial thing as a haircut. It must mean something to him, some tidying and restoration of the self. Bringing back the city-dwelling man, the civilized man; bidding farewell to empty places, to the stones and solitude and starvation of Patagonia. Or perhaps, like Giles, he just feels unkempt and out of sorts. Even today, with the air full of omens, with miracles crowding one another's heels, not everything has to be meaningful.
The shop, or salon (the place is bare in a way that could be no-frills economy or stylish minimalism) is empty except for two stylists (entirely too camp to be called barbers) chatting in a far corner. Haircuts, a sign announces, are £25. Salon prices, certainly. Oz stares blankly at the rows of shampoos and hair gels behind the counter, with the peculiar expression that only ever appears on the face of someone trying to mentally calculate exchange rates. Giles tightens his hand over Oz's and says, quietly, "You don't need to worry about money, you know." Oz looks up at him, a frown-crease between his brows, but before he can answer, one of the stylists breaks off his conversation and meanders over to them.
Salon, Giles decides finally, after the stylist (who's called David) shampoos his hair and hands him a stack of men's fashion magazines. Oz, in the next chair, is earnestly explaining that he really does want his hair cut just the way he said, and no, he doesn't want something sleeker and more modern. Instead of looking at the magazines, Giles watches, as best he can with his glasses off, while Oz's hair is combed, snipped, and sheared with a razor in a way that looks disturbingly random. Oz seems happy enough, though, and he smiles over at Giles whenever the stylist tilts his head in the right direction.
This is better, much better, than the plan Giles had been vaguely formulating of following the river and showing Oz the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Staying near home, getting haircuts and shopping for everyday necessities: Giles wants to do ordinary things. Take the first steps towards making this Oz's home as well as his own.
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