When the guy -- Martin -- turns the comb around and starts plucking at Oz's hair, Oz thinks again of the dredger in Giles's copy of Dickens, drifting along the banks, poking his stick into the sludge and water. Martin jabs and prods the end of the comb into Oz's damp hair, twisting and pulling it up until Oz's scalp is tingling and, he's sure, very red. Treasure and memories, garbage and forgotten things: Giles has been touching his hair all morning, studying it, capturing locks of it between his fingers and peering. Oz wonders what he's looking for, if he's simply doing what Oz himself is doing. Looking as hard and thoroughly as he can because he can.
When Martin finishes, Oz's skin buzzes from the electric razor and his scalp aches a little, but he looks better. He let his hair grow after graduation and trimmed it himself while he was on the road with safety scissors and a nail clipper. As long as it was out of his eyes, he didn't care what it looked like; now, with someone who wants to look, with Giles, whose study and eyes make
( ... )
Oz really does look more himself, with his hair spiked up on top and clipped short on the sides and back. Or at least, he looks more like Giles' memories of him. The jumper and coat hide the worst of his thinness, and now that he's had a couple of meals and a long night's sleep, he's lost that fragile, glasslike quality he had when Giles opened the door to him yesterday. There's color in his face, or what little Giles can see of it under his heavy stubble.
Giles can hardly stop looking at him, and his chest aches the way it used to when he'd see Oz opening his locker or walking to class. It shouldn't hurt like this; they can touch now. They are touching, clinging to each other's hands even though it makes them an obstacle on the narrow pavement and more than one person has pushed roughly past them. But it's not enough, really, not after so long. Giles needs to kiss him again, hold him, run his hands through Oz's hair and over his bare skin, confirm yet again that Oz is real and whole and here
( ... )
"Don't think God has much to do with those," Oz says and takes Giles's elbow, turning him gently away from the silicone monstrosities. It's narrow in here, and he wonders if every sex store in the Western world is built for lone browsers rather than the happy, well-adjusted couples they claim to serve. It takes a moment to find the plywood shelf, eye-level for Oz, packed with bottles and jars of lube.
Giles is standing very close by and Oz slides his hand into Giles's, tugging him even closer. "S'okay," he says. Nervous, he knows: Giles's darting eyes and the tightness around his jaw and throat. It's not just the store, but Oz suspects the red vinyl flogger brushing Giles's shoulder isn't helping. "What do we have in mind here? Chocolate flavor? Banana?"
While Giles's mouth opens, Oz drops to a squat and pokes through the bin of condom packages. He doesn't recognize any of the brands, and the colors are all strange.
"Um, also? I don't know what kind --" He waves a box and glances up. "It's like another planet. I like it."
Now that he's looking at boxes and bottles instead of 16-inch-long neon-colored penises and remote-controlled vibrating knickers, Giles feels much better. He bends down next to Oz, who's digging through baskets of single condoms with a sort of concentrated glee
( ... )
Darkened eyes and long, tight face, and ever since they entered the store, Giles has looked *exactly* like he used to. In public, in the library, hunched and faintly ashamed of merely existing. Oz pulls himself up against Giles's chest and kisses his cheek. "I love *you*," he says, but although Giles's expression lightens and lifts a little, he's nowhere near as happy and relaxed as he was half an hour ago
( ... )
Giles' bones turn crumbly and frail as sandcastle walls, the air sticks and burns in his lungs, and for a moment his relief feels worse than the fear did. "I'm so glad," he says, wrapping his arms around Oz and holding him, ignoring the stares whose heat he can feel on the back of his neck. Glad that Oz is safe, that he has protected himself, and gladder than he cares to admit that it was all, as Oz said, a long time ago. Not quite as good as never, but still reassuring. Oz hasn't come to him fresh from someone else's bed; Giles isn't revenge or solace or, he hopes, second best
( ... )
"Yes, please," Oz says, savoring what home tastes like, simple and heavy in his ears and on his tongue. Giles worried about him; he shouldn't be surprised, considering how characteristically Giles worried about *everything*, from humidity to the balance of good and evil, but Oz swallowed a sudden hot rush of embarrassment. He hadn't worried about Giles; he knew, wherever he was, that Giles was either alive or dead, and he had hoped, fervently and pointlessly, that he was alive. He should have worried more, more carefully, in greater detail, but he doesn't know how. "Home
( ... )
Giles has always been efficient in the supermarket. He makes a mental list beforehand and sticks to it; if the place isn't crowded, he can be in and out in half an hour, freeing up his time for better things
( ... )
Still smiling, but it's easier now, less nervous and more natural, Oz wraps his arms around Giles's waist and leans back so he can look up and see his face. "I'm good," he says but Giles keeps squinting, a little warily and very kindly. Oz straightens up slightly and takes a deep breath. He wants to say something about California and meeting Giles, because he's not sure Giles knows how much he helped *Oz* there, but the guilt is throbbing dully in his head. The phrases that run through his mind just don't sound right. They're about apologizing and regretting and, right now, his arms ache from the plastic sacks and he has Giles smiling down at him and he's happier, if quieter, than he's ever felt
( ... )
"That would be very nice, thanks," Giles says, although he's not really hungry. But Oz always hated to be the only one eating, and Giles doesn't want him to feel awkward
( ... )
This kitchen, as he learned last night, is bigger than the narrow little thing in Giles's old place, but Oz and Giles still manage to brush as they pass, to let a hand linger on the small of a back, to knock hips and smile in apology. When the food's ready and Oz has uncapped a bottle of water--gourmet water is something fairly new to London since Giles left, he says--he sits back down with something like relief. Close to Giles, right at the corner, their knees brushing, and Oz taps his glass against the lip of Giles's
( ... )
When Martin finishes, Oz's skin buzzes from the electric razor and his scalp aches a little, but he looks better. He let his hair grow after graduation and trimmed it himself while he was on the road with safety scissors and a nail clipper. As long as it was out of his eyes, he didn't care what it looked like; now, with someone who wants to look, with Giles, whose study and eyes make ( ... )
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Giles can hardly stop looking at him, and his chest aches the way it used to when he'd see Oz opening his locker or walking to class. It shouldn't hurt like this; they can touch now. They are touching, clinging to each other's hands even though it makes them an obstacle on the narrow pavement and more than one person has pushed roughly past them. But it's not enough, really, not after so long. Giles needs to kiss him again, hold him, run his hands through Oz's hair and over his bare skin, confirm yet again that Oz is real and whole and here ( ... )
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Giles is standing very close by and Oz slides his hand into Giles's, tugging him even closer. "S'okay," he says. Nervous, he knows: Giles's darting eyes and the tightness around his jaw and throat. It's not just the store, but Oz suspects the red vinyl flogger brushing Giles's shoulder isn't helping. "What do we have in mind here? Chocolate flavor? Banana?"
While Giles's mouth opens, Oz drops to a squat and pokes through the bin of condom packages. He doesn't recognize any of the brands, and the colors are all strange.
"Um, also? I don't know what kind --" He waves a box and glances up. "It's like another planet. I like it."
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