A trust thing. Everything is a trust thing, all their history, all the failures that skitter and claw, unmentioned, in the corners and shadows. "I know you were kidding," Giles says, although for a terrible half-second he wasn't sure. "It's just . . ." His throat wants to close around the words. Oz looks up at him, copper-bright lashes catching the light and casting a dark line over his eyes, and Giles runs a fingertip over one delicate eyelid. "It's just that it took me a long time to convince myself that I wasn't actually a child molester."
Oz doesn't breathe for a moment, face blank and eyes narrowed. Giles looks away, at the pale line of Oz's shoulder and arm, and realizes he's made himself a liar. But it was true that he didn't, even then, think of Oz as a child like Xander. And it was true too, simultaneously, that in those first months he often felt like a criminal and a monster.
"It's all right." Oz is watching him, and rubbing his shoulders in that same gentle way. "It was a long time ago. I love you." He kisses Oz's forehead, smooth bone and thin, tight skin, and inhales the familiar scents of his hair. Deep calming breaths that match Oz's, because this is a dead pain, deservedly buried, and Giles wants to let it rest.
"Long time ago," Oz echoes, tilting into Giles' mouth, breathing his air, warm from his lungs and simple. He hasn't been sure, these last few days, just how long it has been. The solid weight of Giles' grief felt like it was decades' worth of emotion, but his face and clinging hands were new, bright as a baby's, shining with tears. Old, old pain and brand-new feeling, and Oz loosens his hold on Giles now. He was squeezing so hard he felt the shoulder-joints shift and creak in his grip. "I'm sorry anyway. However long ago."
He slides off Giles' lap - straddling is for grinning and laughing, sex and teases - and curls up against him, head on Giles' arm, sighing when Giles folds that arm around his back. This is a better position for talking, and remembering, and comforting. There are lines etched down Giles' cheeks, around his eyes and in his forehead, that deepen when he thinks, flash some clue of pain. Oz kisses each one, apologizing and comforting at the same time.
"Love you," he says. "Never thought of you as anything but Giles. Awesome, mind-blowing Giles." Giles frowns still and Oz rubs his fingertips up the top of his spine, circling each bumpy bone before moving on. "Happy birthday. Thanks for -" Heat prickles up his face and he swallows a dry lump. "Thanks for letting me, you know. You're amazing."
This is shyness, and maybe Oz won't ever shake it completely. But Giles is smiling a little, at the corners of his mouth, and Oz kisses him gratefully.
"You feel amazing inside, you know," he whispers. "Just incredible."
There's a hint of a blush high on Oz's cheeks, goldpale skin reddening like the center of a peach, or perhaps Giles just imagines it, imagines the awkward lovely boy that this man used to be. Newness and memory, just-met stranger and much-missed lover: Oz is always both at once, always theme and variation played together. Giles presses his lips to the blush, swirls his tongue over it, not sure if he wants to kiss it away or raise it brighter.
"I wouldn't say I let you, exactly." Rolling onto his side, he drapes a leg over Oz's thighs, feeling his muscles pull and complain. He's going to be sore tomorrow. Welcome soreness, a reminder of knees drawn up to his chest and the feeling of Oz inside him. "I'd say I wanted you to, very badly." Exactly what he wanted-some swirling combination of pain and gentleness, safety and helpless pleasure and the full strength of Oz's body-Giles can't quite put into words even to himself, but Oz recognized and gave it. "And it felt, well, amazing, as you say." Oz smiles at that, the worry mostly gone from his eyes for the first time in days. Smiling back, watching Oz's face open into one of its private expressions of thoughtful contentment, Giles says, "You always amaze me. My Oz."
His Oz again, still, despite everything. Giles kisses him, wraps him in a tight knot of arms and legs, and holds on.
He'd just as soon never leave the bed again, but the room's getting cold, and despite their late lunch, he's feeling hungry. After a few minutes, when they've twined themselves as closely together as they can, he says as much to Oz, who stretches and mutters something about risotto and whether the mushrooms are still good. "We'll manage something," Giles says, moving his legs experimentally. "And after dinner, I thought, seeing as it's my birthday and I'm allowed to be greedy, that we might go back to bed. Since there's still so much to learn." He nips Oz's ear, getting a mouthful of metal and a pleased sigh.
"Food's good," Oz says vaguely and tightens his arms back around Giles. His stomach rolls and wobbles emptily, though, and he ought to do something about that. So he stretches again and stands and helps Giles find his pants.
Giles always spoke to him like he was an equal, so Oz doesn't know why he still gets surprised. But he does: You always amaze me. Words like that, my Oz, and thoughtful characterizations of how Oz makes him feel, and just little one-syllable words, us and we, they all add up. Pierce right through the haze of guilt and regret that Oz usually shuffles around in and yank him back into the present.
Giles is determined to live now and *here*, and that's a gift and a kind of miracle that Oz doesn't dare look at too closely. He's left so many times already, and he knows, given all the grief that Giles has sobbed and puked out in the last few days, that if he hadn't come back when he did, if he'd been delayed a couple weeks, there might not have been anyone here to answer the buzzer.
"I'll do the rice," he finally says when they're cleaned up and half-dressed and standing like lost tourists in the middle of the kitchen, blinking and hoping that the food will serve itself. "You sit. It's your birthday."
Giles frowns, mumbling some protest, and Oz slaps him with a handy dishtowel. Living in the present is, he thinks, a matter of taking care of the necessities and hoping that time sloughs away the worst of the pain. Believing that the Oz in Giles' head is someone he has a hope of becoming. Making it up to Giles, one moment and one tiny grain of rice at a time.
He's always been patient and Giles, Giles deserves the best he can do.
Oz doesn't breathe for a moment, face blank and eyes narrowed. Giles looks away, at the pale line of Oz's shoulder and arm, and realizes he's made himself a liar. But it was true that he didn't, even then, think of Oz as a child like Xander. And it was true too, simultaneously, that in those first months he often felt like a criminal and a monster.
"It's all right." Oz is watching him, and rubbing his shoulders in that same gentle way. "It was a long time ago. I love you." He kisses Oz's forehead, smooth bone and thin, tight skin, and inhales the familiar scents of his hair. Deep calming breaths that match Oz's, because this is a dead pain, deservedly buried, and Giles wants to let it rest.
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He slides off Giles' lap - straddling is for grinning and laughing, sex and teases - and curls up against him, head on Giles' arm, sighing when Giles folds that arm around his back. This is a better position for talking, and remembering, and comforting. There are lines etched down Giles' cheeks, around his eyes and in his forehead, that deepen when he thinks, flash some clue of pain. Oz kisses each one, apologizing and comforting at the same time.
"Love you," he says. "Never thought of you as anything but Giles. Awesome, mind-blowing Giles." Giles frowns still and Oz rubs his fingertips up the top of his spine, circling each bumpy bone before moving on. "Happy birthday. Thanks for -" Heat prickles up his face and he swallows a dry lump. "Thanks for letting me, you know. You're amazing."
This is shyness, and maybe Oz won't ever shake it completely. But Giles is smiling a little, at the corners of his mouth, and Oz kisses him gratefully.
"You feel amazing inside, you know," he whispers. "Just incredible."
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"I wouldn't say I let you, exactly." Rolling onto his side, he drapes a leg over Oz's thighs, feeling his muscles pull and complain. He's going to be sore tomorrow. Welcome soreness, a reminder of knees drawn up to his chest and the feeling of Oz inside him. "I'd say I wanted you to, very badly." Exactly what he wanted-some swirling combination of pain and gentleness, safety and helpless pleasure and the full strength of Oz's body-Giles can't quite put into words even to himself, but Oz recognized and gave it. "And it felt, well, amazing, as you say." Oz smiles at that, the worry mostly gone from his eyes for the first time in days. Smiling back, watching Oz's face open into one of its private expressions of thoughtful contentment, Giles says, "You always amaze me. My Oz."
His Oz again, still, despite everything. Giles kisses him, wraps him in a tight knot of arms and legs, and holds on.
He'd just as soon never leave the bed again, but the room's getting cold, and despite their late lunch, he's feeling hungry. After a few minutes, when they've twined themselves as closely together as they can, he says as much to Oz, who stretches and mutters something about risotto and whether the mushrooms are still good. "We'll manage something," Giles says, moving his legs experimentally. "And after dinner, I thought, seeing as it's my birthday and I'm allowed to be greedy, that we might go back to bed. Since there's still so much to learn." He nips Oz's ear, getting a mouthful of metal and a pleased sigh.
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Giles always spoke to him like he was an equal, so Oz doesn't know why he still gets surprised. But he does: You always amaze me. Words like that, my Oz, and thoughtful characterizations of how Oz makes him feel, and just little one-syllable words, us and we, they all add up. Pierce right through the haze of guilt and regret that Oz usually shuffles around in and yank him back into the present.
Giles is determined to live now and *here*, and that's a gift and a kind of miracle that Oz doesn't dare look at too closely. He's left so many times already, and he knows, given all the grief that Giles has sobbed and puked out in the last few days, that if he hadn't come back when he did, if he'd been delayed a couple weeks, there might not have been anyone here to answer the buzzer.
"I'll do the rice," he finally says when they're cleaned up and half-dressed and standing like lost tourists in the middle of the kitchen, blinking and hoping that the food will serve itself. "You sit. It's your birthday."
Giles frowns, mumbling some protest, and Oz slaps him with a handy dishtowel. Living in the present is, he thinks, a matter of taking care of the necessities and hoping that time sloughs away the worst of the pain. Believing that the Oz in Giles' head is someone he has a hope of becoming. Making it up to Giles, one moment and one tiny grain of rice at a time.
He's always been patient and Giles, Giles deserves the best he can do.
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