Sunnydale, 10/01: An Oz only a mother (and Giles) could love

[glossing]

When Oz takes a right out of the Magic Box's alley, instead of the usual left, Giles looks surprised. Oz bites his lip and keeps his eye on the road, weaving up Main Street, then cutting across Calendula, and Giles' brows are lifting and he's about to open his mouth and ask where they're going as Oz slows to nab a parking space

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[glossing]

Terry actually set the table, which is something new and just as strange as the thought of her cooking. Mismatched plates, which Oz would never have known to notice before Giles, and his dead grandmother's Irish linen napkins with the little shamrock embroidery

[kindkit]

Giles reads the wine label, manages not to sigh, and reluctantly opens the bottle. It's one of those watery merlots that are so popular in America-wine for people who don't actually like wine. It won't go with the food, either

[glossing]

Oz rattles through his mindfulness prayer, which Giles knows to wait for, but his mom digs in. Widening her eyes at the mala he's turning over his fingers and wrist, she says around a big mouthful of eggplant, "Are you still doing that Zen thing, Danny?"

Oz cracks pepper liberally over his brown rice and hands the shaker to Giles. "Nope. Tibetan."

"I thought you went to Argentina?"

And so it goes, Giles kind of glaring at Terry out of the corner of his eye like he used to do with Xander, but staring openly, widely, at Oz when their eyes meet, and Terry chattering about the job prospects for hypnotherapists just as soon as she gets her degree, and Oz swings back and forth between them until he's dizzy. Giles is ground and turned earth, solid and warm in the sun, and Terry's always been one of those high, high bridges made out of balsa and matchsticks over rocky rivers at the bottom of canyons, and Oz can barely eat

[kindkit]

Teresa looks . . . betrayed. Not just hurt or disappointed, but righteously angry. She's tight-lipped, still, and something in her rigid posture makes Giles think of the cinema, of every wronged wife who's ever wept enormous tears on a forty-foot screen. She takes her hand out of Oz's and says, very quietly, "I see

[glossing]

Giles' hand covers Oz's own, and it's warm and big, like someone cupping a candle or a chip of ice. Ice, definitely, and Oz stares down at his glass of wine

[kindkit]

Oz says it as though he's admitting to an obscure, Kafkaesque crime, as though happiness is something only obtained through robbery or fraud. It's a kind of guilt Giles knows very well, but that he's always thought Oz was immune to. But then, he only knows what Oz is like, what Oz feels, with him. Since they've been in Sunnydale, he's learned that he's got a specialist's knowledge of Oz, deep but narrow. Now he's putting Oz into context, learning his history and provenance, and it's surprising what a difference it makes

[glossing]

"I burn pretty easy," Oz says and takes a sip of wine. His right hand is still curled like a snail underneath Giles', still and sticky, and it's the only patch of his skin that feels halfway real. The wine burns dully down to his gut and he takes another big swallow, enough to nearly empty the glass, before he remembers, with a twist in his stomach and a clawing up his throat, the old borrowed warmth of whiskey and tequila drunk like water. He puts the glass down as far away from himself as possible and scrubs his fist over his mouth, trying to remove the taste. "So LA was never really a possibility

[kindkit]

Giles has never liked scenes, but for the second time this evening he wants to make one. Polite evasion and polite rebuke don't seem to work with Teresa, and she's even ignored how sharply Oz contradicted her (which, for Oz, is making a scene). There's something about her that reminds him, strangely, of Quentin Travers or even Principal Snyder-that absolute assurance of rightness and truth, that inability to imagine that any rational person might disagree. It's moral bullying, and he's never liked bullies. After all, he's been one

[glossing]

Terry offers Giles some feverfew, just a few pinch, but Giles is doing a really convincing job, shading his eyes and shaking his head slowly and thanking her but no, he should just lie down

[kindkit]

It feels almost like a first kiss, Oz's lips cool and slow, nearly still, against his own, and clumsy, shy maneuvering as the kiss deepens. Giles drops his glasses on the bonnet of the car and pushes in closer, one hand cupping the back of Oz's head and the other clutching his jumper, and this feels more like their real first kiss now, messy and fiercer than either of them expected. There's a low creak of metal as Oz sits back, wrapping his legs around Giles' hips, that reminds Giles of chocolate and spells and badly mistaken sex, but this is something else. This is Oz, and this is a first kiss, really. The first kiss afterwards, the first kiss with an Oz he knows better than he did two hours ago

[glossing]

Oz slides into the driver's seat and drums his fingers on the steering wheel. Right now he wants ice cream, and milkshakes, and to drive at high speeds down cold, dead-of-night desert highways. He wants crazy teenaged things, scenes from Aerosmith videos, girls dancing on the hoods of cars

[kindkit]

Following the waitress to a red vinyl booth, Giles feels as though he's walking through a film set. This is the America he imagined as a young boy--the place that made rock and roll, where the Beatles went to become superstars, where life was fuller and freer than it ever could be in England. It's an America that never existed, one that even Americans mythologize into the source of dreams. And myths turn sour with such terrible ease. When he was nineteen and cynical, he saw American Graffiti with Ethan, and they laughed and shouted rude comments at the screen

[glossing]

"Me, too," Oz says and turns his hand so his palm presses up against Giles' before sliding it free and lacing their fingers together and squeezing. His eyes are adjusting to the glare, and now he can really *see* Giles again, the real Giles - or as close as anyone gets to being real. Relaxed, eyes nearly disappearing in the width of his smile, glasses slipping halfway down his nose and glinting