Oz remembers to stand up as he takes Olivia's hand, and he's pretty sure he manages to say something polite. He also *doesn't* use the old I've heard a lot about you, because that always makes him feel like a museum exhibit. She's beautiful and she smiles like she actually means what she's saying, and her hand is warm and strong in his
( ... )
Giles knows he really ought to have told her. But by the time he mentioned Oz to her, they'd already split up, and Oz's age seemed like an unnecessary detail. Or, truthfully, like a detail she might find sordid. He did say Oz was younger, but Olivia naturally would have taken that to mean a ten- or fifteen-year difference, not a full generation. From the quick sideways look she gives him, Giles thinks she's halfway between surprised and outright shocked.
None of it shows on her face, though. "I haven't, unfortunately," she answers Oz. "I grew up in Liverpool, which is rather grim and industrial. But my desperate prayers for release were answered--I went to the University of London, which is where I met Rupert one boozy night at the student union."
"The University of London is where I took my Ph.D.," Giles says, answering Oz's uncertain look. "And as I recall it, Olivia, I was perfect sober. Well, mostly. I wasn't the one standing on a chair and making a speech about the iniquities of Margaret Thatcher
( ... )
There are looks and smiles passing between Giles and Olivia and Oz knows he ought to be unnerved by it, by the sense that there's another conversation as well as an entire lifetime's worth of history there. He's not, though; maybe he's too busy watching his posture and keeping half an eye on Giles to make sure everything's all right. Besides, there's comfort and ease between them, and if he's not surprised to see Giles comfortable, he is relieved about it
( ... )
"Daniel," Olivia says slowly, as though she's testing the name out and comparing it to the young man in front of her. "That's a very nice name."
Clearly she prefers it to Oz, and her voice has taken on that bright tone she gets when she's about to suggest minor alterations, all for the best of course, in someone else's life. Giles scowls briefly at her while Oz is taking a sip of water, and she clears her throat and asks how Oz got his nickname.
Giles half-listens as Oz explains about his friend Devon's third-grade obsession with both nicknames and Ozzy Osbourne. It's a story he told Giles on their first morning together, as they ate eggs and toast and tried to pretend they felt much more comfortable than they actually did. Like Olivia, Giles said Daniel once, slowly, and commented on how lovely it was.
He's never used it since, although he really does think it's a nice name. And Oz has never once called him Rupert. It's unimaginable. If he heard that name in Oz's mouth, Giles thinks he'd probably burst out laughing. Giles didn't
( ... )
He doesn't want to, but Oz releases Giles' hand and lifts his own glass before taking a sip. The last time he had a drink was in Mexico City, when his ribs were still bandaged from the Initiative's experiments and his eyes were bleary from the straight-on driving he'd done since Sunnydale. Seven shots of clear tequila, lots of beer that tasted faintly of orange juice, unnumbered sangritas, and he was wondering when he'd start to feel anything besides headachey when he stood up, fell to his knees, and woke up two days later unbandaged and naked in the back of his van
( ... )
If Olivia weren't here, Giles would follow Oz to the toilet and ask him what's wrong. Something, fear or bad memories or one of Oz's moments of inexplicable shame, flashed across his face and lingered around his eyes like a bruise. It happens sometimes; Giles is getting used to it. Oz won't always talk about it, but when Giles holds him and kisses the tense places along his neck and jaw, it goes away eventually. But Olivia's here, watching Giles thoughtfully over the rim of her wineglass, and it would be rude to leave her alone. Anyway, when they came back Oz would only feel exposed and even more uncomfortable
( ... )
They're always shared everything. But this is different. What's between Oz and him, Giles wants to keep close, private. Occult, he thinks. Hidden, arcane, mysteries and magic.
It feels a little like betrayal. Oz, he realizes, is the first person he's ever loved more than he loves Olivia.
Carefully, Giles says, "Olivia, it's not like that. Oz isn't . . . a conquest, or an amusement. I love him."
"I know," she says, laying a hand on his arm.
Oz comes back then, and the waiter arrives with their meals, and Giles doesn't know whether she meant to say anything more.
"Sorry," Oz says, sitting back down and retrieving his napkin. "Hey, food. Awesome."
As Oz approached the table, rubbing his hands dry and trying to warm them from the cold water he'd washed up with, Giles and Olivia stopped talking. They turned toward him, Olivia's hand on Giles's wrist, and Oz got a flash of a family dinner, mother and father smiling at him, celebrating something important, a graduation or a birthday or perfect attendance. The image was inaccurate, out of focus, because Olivia was looking at Giles, watching him, but Giles's eyes were on Oz. Not as father or librarian, not fond pride or the guarded gaze Giles used to turn on him, but Giles, expression loosening, eyes narrowing into joyful half-moons. It's the look he gives Oz when Oz glances up from a book or Giles reenters a room: Recognition, and welcome, and a tinge of lucky surprise
( ... )
This is the first time Giles has ever heard Oz lie. Well, not lie exactly; he doubts Oz has ever told a direct lie in his life. Everything Oz tells Olivia, in a sudden outpouring of words like rain from a blue-white, arid desert sky, is factually true: their long disagreement over what constitutes a neutral color; paint that dried to a grim yellow-beige and had to be redone; a collapsed shelf; and the complications of Giles' preferred book-organizing system. It all happened, but none of it is the reason why there are still a dozen heavy boxes in the sitting room and they've barely begun trying to arrange the kitchen to suit them both.
As Oz talks, he glances sideways at Giles every so often, as though making sure this wall of half-truths is thick enough for Giles to feel safe. I'm all right, he wants to say. Ten minutes ago I was worrying about you. Instead he rubs Oz's shoulder for a moment and goes back to his half-eaten grouse. But the flavor's gone out of it now, leaving only a chewy blandness like a mouthful of rubber. Giles is
( ... )
"I used to have a jacket made out of a couch," Oz says, drawing his thumb slowly back and forth over Giles's knuckles. Patterns and rings, slow steady things to keep him here and relatively happy
( ... )
"We all should," Giles answers her. If she knew why Oz was so thin, she wouldn't joke about it. "Olivia, you're entirely too beautiful, and too intelligent, to worry about getting fat
( ... )
Oz can nearly feel the effort Giles is taking to look relaxed and keep his voice light and natural. He figures Olivia must know, too, since she's known him so long and left all those messages on the answering machine that Oz woke up early one morning to erase so Giles didn't have to hear them. Everyone is smiling and teasing, and he can play along, too; it seems to be helping
( ... )
"I was not paranoid," Giles says, reluctantly letting Oz's hand go so that they can both eat. "I was cautious. As anyone would be after the kelp burger incident and the shepherd's pie with the-what's it called?-textured vegetable protein." Oz laughs and mutters something about how it tasted just fine. Only Giles' knowledge that he's getting very silly, that his mood has swung from numb anxiety to a giddiness that makes him laugh a little too loudly, stops him from kissing Oz again. "In any case, I think the fact that tofu pups taste like tofu and nothing at all like sausages would have been a clue
( ... )
The pudding sits in his belly, warm and sweet, and Oz feels cuddled from the inside while outside, his skin is hot and sore from laughing and grasping Giles's hand
( ... )
Giles leans in a little closer, almost dragging his sleeve in the coffee, and says, "I love you too." Whispered words, secrets, and after Sunnydale he'd never have imagined that secrets could be a good thing. But everything has changed now, clocks have gone back to midnight and calendars to the year one, and they're beginning again. In Sunnydale their secrets turned to walls, razor wire, claustrophobic cells, both fortress and prison. Here secrets are no more than curtains, thin and fluid, letting in the breeze. Privacy, not concealment
( ... )
After several minutes of banter over the bill and the tip and Giles's propensity for ingratitude, Olivia catches Oz's arm as they rise from the table and tugs him close. Giles walks on ahead, his brown suede jacket almost glowing under the soft lights of the dining room, his back straight and head held high. Oz watches him, stumbling a little against Olivia and inhaling her crisp perfume
( ... )
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None of it shows on her face, though. "I haven't, unfortunately," she answers Oz. "I grew up in Liverpool, which is rather grim and industrial. But my desperate prayers for release were answered--I went to the University of London, which is where I met Rupert one boozy night at the student union."
"The University of London is where I took my Ph.D.," Giles says, answering Oz's uncertain look. "And as I recall it, Olivia, I was perfect sober. Well, mostly. I wasn't the one standing on a chair and making a speech about the iniquities of Margaret Thatcher ( ... )
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Clearly she prefers it to Oz, and her voice has taken on that bright tone she gets when she's about to suggest minor alterations, all for the best of course, in someone else's life. Giles scowls briefly at her while Oz is taking a sip of water, and she clears her throat and asks how Oz got his nickname.
Giles half-listens as Oz explains about his friend Devon's third-grade obsession with both nicknames and Ozzy Osbourne. It's a story he told Giles on their first morning together, as they ate eggs and toast and tried to pretend they felt much more comfortable than they actually did. Like Olivia, Giles said Daniel once, slowly, and commented on how lovely it was.
He's never used it since, although he really does think it's a nice name. And Oz has never once called him Rupert. It's unimaginable. If he heard that name in Oz's mouth, Giles thinks he'd probably burst out laughing. Giles didn't ( ... )
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It feels a little like betrayal. Oz, he realizes, is the first person he's ever loved more than he loves Olivia.
Carefully, Giles says, "Olivia, it's not like that. Oz isn't . . . a conquest, or an amusement. I love him."
"I know," she says, laying a hand on his arm.
Oz comes back then, and the waiter arrives with their meals, and Giles doesn't know whether she meant to say anything more.
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As Oz approached the table, rubbing his hands dry and trying to warm them from the cold water he'd washed up with, Giles and Olivia stopped talking. They turned toward him, Olivia's hand on Giles's wrist, and Oz got a flash of a family dinner, mother and father smiling at him, celebrating something important, a graduation or a birthday or perfect attendance. The image was inaccurate, out of focus, because Olivia was looking at Giles, watching him, but Giles's eyes were on Oz. Not as father or librarian, not fond pride or the guarded gaze Giles used to turn on him, but Giles, expression loosening, eyes narrowing into joyful half-moons. It's the look he gives Oz when Oz glances up from a book or Giles reenters a room: Recognition, and welcome, and a tinge of lucky surprise ( ... )
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As Oz talks, he glances sideways at Giles every so often, as though making sure this wall of half-truths is thick enough for Giles to feel safe. I'm all right, he wants to say. Ten minutes ago I was worrying about you. Instead he rubs Oz's shoulder for a moment and goes back to his half-eaten grouse. But the flavor's gone out of it now, leaving only a chewy blandness like a mouthful of rubber. Giles is ( ... )
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