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kindkit September 25 2004, 00:31:01 UTC
Giles tugs up an end of the heavy, slippery duvet and folds it over Oz, tries to wrap himself around Oz more completely, but of course it's not cold that's making Oz shake bone-deep like this. Oz says so little, usually, shows so little on his face, but his body speaks everything he feels.

"Don't be-" Don't be scared, Giles starts to say, but that's a reflex, and he stops for a minute, thinks, chin pressed tight to the crown of Oz's head. Oz shifts and nudges against him, shivers slowing a little under Giles' stroking hand, and he exhales shakily when Giles says, "I know. I think they go together, being happy-being this happy--and being scared. It's so much, so big." Oz's mouth is moving slowly on Giles' throat, gentle wet suckling, counterpoint to his trembling, and Giles sighs and tilts his head back a little. "Sometimes it feels like my skin's too small to hold everything."

Now is one of those times, and he's catching Oz's shivers, skin drum-tight and vibrating. It's always been like this, immoderate, frightening, and Giles remembers trying to explain love to Oz and finding no definition but pain. "My Oz, sweetheart, love you," he whispers, bruised with it, closed eyes tearful and stinging. Perhaps someday it'll be different, all calm sweetness, all ordinary happy days. Perhaps they'll get used to love, but Giles doesn't really believe it.

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glossing September 25 2004, 01:00:14 UTC
"So big," Oz echoes. Love for Giles, happiness at finally being with him, they are huge as whales, heavy as the sea a mile down, crushing pressure and perfect dark. Giles' voice is scratchy, warbling nearly physically down the center of Oz's bones and across the back of his throat. Like he sounded the first few weeks after Oz got to London; even when Giles was laughing, his voice was scored with old tears.

Oz rolls onto his back, pulling Giles with him through the intricate knots of their limbs, and kisses the edge of his chin. Old tears, salty and too familiar, and love and happiness flash inside-out, whales going as flat and insubstantial as clouds, bright and weightless. That's the scariest thing, how quickly things can change, how all these *feelings* depend on the two of them.

"Giles -" He cranes up, lifting off Giles' glasses and kissing his damp eyelids, sliding his palms down Giles' cheeks. So big, so scary and contingent. He wants to wash Giles' face clean of tears, make everything all right, and at the same time he wants to stay here, looking up, letting Giles feel as much as he always does, but visibly. Wants to taste tears and feel Giles' chest heave and let it all soak into himself. "Don't want to fuck up. Love you, don't want to fuck up. Just. Just. Don't know how not to."

Giles' mouth opens, a dark line swallowing the shadows of the room, but Oz shakes his head. He doesn't want instruction, or advice, or heavy-handed guidance; he's not Buffy, he doesn't need that.

Whales, and clouds, water and air, and Oz wraps his arms around Giles' neck, wiggling until he's more firmly underneath Giles.

"Never did this before," he whispers, and wonders a moment later what kind of secret he's telling. "Feeling like this. Not even, not, you know. The first time."

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kindkit September 25 2004, 23:16:41 UTC
Giles presses his face into Oz's shoulder, leaving faint damp tear-marks on the t-shirt, and breathes in until he feels his ribs push against Oz's. "Sorry." In the last six weeks he's cried more than in the previous twenty years; at first he was embarrassed, then not, and lately he's beginning to be embarrassed again. "I'm - it's just these big emotions, you see. They start to leak out round the edges." He smiles, and Oz smiles back and touches his face, softly, fingertips and then palm. His hand is shaking a little, and Giles steadies it with his own, turns his head to kiss Oz's wrist and the warm hollow of his palm.

Without his glasses, Giles' vision has gone soft, gauzy, but with stronger colors; Oz looks younger and his eyes are deeply blue-green, oceanic. All expression is blurred out of him, but Giles can feel it in the quickness of his breathing, the shivers that rattle him even under the weight and warmth of Giles' body. "It's all new, isn't it?" he says, whispering as Oz whispered, as people whisper in cathedrals or under the night sky, small in the face of the grand and terrible. "When I used to imagine you coming back, I thought it would all be like it was before. But we're not the same."

Strange, how not the same always sounds like a lament, even when it's not. Giles leans down closer, slides a hand under Oz's neck, and adds, "It's not that I love you more now. That sounds as though I didn't -. Not more. But differently. I . . . I understand you better now, I think. It's, it's . . . something like the difference between hearing a song and playing it." Kissing along the outside of Oz's ear, letting his breathing fall into time with Oz's, Giles wonders how much of the change is simply that he's paying more attention now. It's astonishing that they lasted as long as a year, preoccupied and distant as he often was.

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glossing September 25 2004, 23:47:26 UTC
When he came back to Sunnydale the first time, went to Giles' house and found Willow there, Oz thought then that everything could be the same. Same, but better, tamped-down wolf fears and a steadier Oz. He learned just how wrong, how ridiculous, it was to hope for the same. Nothing stays still, and everything shreds to hell under claws and tasers. He went to the mountains and didn't let himself think about what lay behind.

"Not the same at all," he says, still in that low voice, barely more than a whisper. Giles' face is as big as the moon above Oz's own, his kisses like whispers, trailing and looping, and Oz turns into the kiss, tastes Giles' lips and the dispersed salt of tears. One hand on the back of Giles' skull, fingers in soft hair, and he adds, "I - I, like. I'm pretty glad it's different. Glad you let me in."

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kindkit September 26 2004, 00:13:13 UTC
Sometimes, in the first couple of weeks after Oz came back, Giles fretted himself into sleeplessness thinking about how he might not have answered the doorbell, how he might have missed the second chance that he certainly didn't deserve. But now he knows that if he hadn't answered, Oz would've waited, would've kept trying, however long it took.

"I'm glad you came to find me," he says. "Glad that you hiked down the mountain and took slow, overcrowded buses and hitchhiked and flew fourteen hours and took more buses and a ferry and the underground and rang my doorbell." He kisses Oz's cheekbone, the hollow under it that's still a little too pronounced, and adds, "I wish you hadn't starved on the way, but I'm glad you came. Glad -" His voice drops back into an almost-whisper, suddenly hoarse and scratchy in his aching throat, and he shifts as though he can get even closer to Oz's warmth. "Glad you thought I was worth it."

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glossing September 26 2004, 00:26:19 UTC
They've discovered so many new ways to lie this close, arms wound each other, chins tucked into the hollows of shoulders, cheeks rasping and lips brushing. But it's never quite enough; there's always one more restless squirm closer, one tighter grip of a hand in hair or shirtcollar. Oz opens his legs wider, until his thighs burn, and shifts downward, sliding his hands up to Giles' elbows.

"Worth it," he says, and bites off the always. He didn't let himself think about Sunnydale, about the same changing while he was away, but Giles was different. Giles he knew down to his skin and ache of muscle; he didn't think about Giles because Giles was already there. "Always were there. Just like being within reaching distance instead of halfway around the world." Giles sighs raggedly and Oz drags his lips up Giles' cheek and across one eyebrow. "It's okay. It's - it's big stuff. Too big for my teeny brain."

He tightens his hold on Giles, trusting body far more than brain.

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kindkit September 26 2004, 01:34:09 UTC
With a huge stretch that makes Oz oof and grunt under his shifting weight, Giles reaches to switch off the lamp. He wants everything to disappear-Sunnydale, the ugly motel room, the bed that isn't theirs-and this gray semidarkness is the best he can manage.

Oz feels closer now that touch has to take the place of vision, and for a few moments Giles lies silent, concentrating on the topographies of Oz's body mapped through his own skin and nerves. He can't quite believe what Oz does, that they were always, in some way, together. Memory and longing don't make connection, don't make gold to airy thinness beat, they just make loneliness. Donne knew almost everything about love, but that's one thing he got wrong.

Such big things, too much for either of them to understand, really.

"You know," he says lightly, kissing Oz on the forehead, "if you keep calling yourself stupid, we're going to have a row." It took Giles a long time to understand that Oz really meant it, that it wasn't a joke or a boy's embarrassed attempt at modesty.

There's . . . something, a catch in Oz's breath or a quiver of his muscles, and Giles runs his hands along Oz's sides to soothe it away. Within reaching distance is so much better than being apart. "Trust me. I can't abide stupid people. They bore me, and you have never bored me, not for a moment."

Giles rolls onto his side to stroke Oz's belly and chest, kisses a wet, wandering trail along his neck, and wonders if any amount of reassurance can ever undo all of Oz's lonely self-disdain.

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glossing September 26 2004, 02:16:25 UTC
There's no point in arguing with Giles, even if he is, Oz knows, truly wrong. Giles knows logic *and* fencing, and Oz would never win. He doesn't even want to think about things like winning and losing where Giles is concerned.

"Do trust you," Oz says, and turns a little, worming his arm under Giles' head, closing his eyes. He's alone here under his lids, even with Giles pressed up against him, and he's lost. Looking up at whales and clouds again, not understanding a thing beyond the fact that Giles doesn't lie. Doesn't *ever* lie.

When Oz opens his eyes, Giles is kissing the base of his neck, looking up at him through dark lashes, and Oz can't help but smile. He feels Giles smile back, feels it in a stretch of lips and crinkling-up of eyes.

"You're not just saying that." It isn't a question, but Oz adds, "You're - Jesus, Giles."

The shivers have receded and he's warm and still now, but under Giles' hands and mouth, he's starting to shiver for entirely different reasons. "Love you. God."

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kindkit September 26 2004, 03:01:14 UTC
Giles can hear the strained afterecho of thought and doubt in Oz's voice, the effort of it, the leap of faith. It was easier for Oz to trust Giles with his body, with the wolf, easier to cross oceans and hemispheres for him, than to believe what Giles has said. Or even believe that Giles believes it.

Bodies, he knows, are easier for Oz; touch is solider for him, more reliable. Giles works them closer, leg over Oz's thighs and arm across his back. "Love you," he says, and tilts Oz's chin up, draws his thumb over Oz's lips until he opens them, sucks the thumb-tip into his mouth. "All of you. Your big clever brain and your ginger hair and your-" He swallows hard as Oz licks the pad of his thumb, then suddenly pulls the length of it into wet soft heat. "Your mouth, and your lovely skin, and your backbone . . . " Giles traces softly down it with his free hand, one slow fingertip after another, then over the jut of Oz's hip, matching movement to words. "And the little hollow here under the bone, and your navel, and your ribs, and your . . . nipple." A flick of the fingernail and Oz takes a sharp breath, and Giles kisses him, deep and breathless.

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glossing September 26 2004, 03:17:48 UTC
Words twining around touch, and the pressure of Giles' mouth draws Oz upward, wraps his arm tighter around Giles' neck, and kisses him back with all the words he can't figure out how to say. He tugs at the neck of Giles' shirt, plucks and pulls until Giles rears up, breathing hard through an open mouth, as Oz yanks shirt and sweater over his head in one motion.

Balancing on one hand, then the other, Giles hangs over him, and Oz twists at the waist and pushes upward, up and farther up, even as he pulls Giles back down. "All of you," he repeats into the whorls of Giles' ear, making it words and a kiss simultaneously. "You. Your brain and heart and *skin* and -" They're rolling their hips, and Oz isn't sure who started it.

He pulls back, a little, smoothing down Giles' hair. "Trust you. Believe you. Like nothing, no one, else. *Want* you, too. All of that."

Giles' eyes are dark, hooded, intense, and Oz studies him for several long moments before the pressure in his chest, the one that tells you to rise to the pool surface, hauls him forward, returns him to the kiss.

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kindkit September 27 2004, 23:43:23 UTC
Oz is pitched fiercely upward, kissing him as intently, mindfully, as he does everything-reading, observing, even washing the crockery. Zen, one could say, but Oz was like this long before Tibet; it's some quality of his own, this focus that's also flow and surrender. Giles pulls him up tighter, closer, and sinks down into the kiss, the slow thrust of tongues and sudden light nips, both their bodies pushing for more contact. Sinks down into Oz, because Oz kisses like himself, unmistakable and perfect, and touching him is always deeper than skin.

When he breaks away, breathing hard, Giles can feel Oz's body imprinted on his own, down to the whorls of the seashell around his neck. "Want," he says, laughs, because he's pulling Oz's t-shirt up around his neck, grasping hard for skin, licking Oz's chest and rubbing half-stiff against his thigh, and want hardly needs a word right now. "God, yes." He raises his head and looks into the pale blur of Oz's face, the watchful shadows of his eyes. "So beautiful," he says, slowly, because this is another thing he can't bear to let Oz doubt. "Beautiful and fucking sexy." Dark as it is, he knows when Oz smiles, feels it, feels himself smiling back. "Even when we're not fucking. But especially-" - he drags the flat of his tongue suddenly down Oz's chest, flicks around the shallow dip of his navel - "when we are."

Shushing away Oz's protesting noise, Giles slips further down the bed and takes off Oz's boots and socks. His feet are warm, a little sweaty, but Giles kisses them anyway, toes and arch and bony ankles, gripping tightly when Oz tries to pull away. He pushes the loose legs of Oz's jeans above his knees and works his way up, finally wriggling his tongue into the sensitive crevice behind Oz's bent knee. "Beautiful," he says again, and buries his face in the inside of Oz's thigh, tasting denim and the faint, alluring closeness of Oz's skin.

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glossing September 28 2004, 00:21:18 UTC
Dizziness inside, twirling slowly where his bones used to be, just under skin half a size too small, and Oz draws breath like he's still getting used to the mechanism of it. He could flounder and sink in Giles' words, start worrying and wondering how Giles believes what he does about Oz, how and why, but then Giles will slide the flat of his palm over Oz's stomach, like he's doing now, and there's no worry, just heat and safety, and Oz spins up again, hooking his hands under Giles' arms and tugging him up.

In the shadows, Giles looks haunted for a moment, breathing heavily, and Oz slides downward, kissing a chain around his neck, sucking hard on his Adam's apple, rocking and twisting his hips until they're rubbing against each other on every move.

"Glorious, man," Oz breathes, reaching between them and fumbling at Giles' fly. Giles takes compliments about as well as Oz does, but he's got the upper hand in giving them, in the size of his vocabulary and the breadth of his confidence. Oz breathes in the sweaty air off Giles' chest and looks back up. "Like, like - handsome and the whole world and *you*."

The button pops and he works the fly down and grins at Giles. "But your pants are kind of in the way."

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kindkit September 28 2004, 01:08:19 UTC
Such clever fingers, agile, insinuating into Giles' flies, skimming over the cloth of his pants, brushing his cock and then suddenly tightening, and Giles' "Are they?" comes out breathy and faint. Oz laughs soundlessly, a heave of shoulders and chest, and delves down for Giles' balls, fondling through cotton. All of him small and nimble, moving in Giles' arms, under his frantic tongue and his hands that can't quite catch and hold.

Giles tips himself forward and straddles Oz flat on the bed, untangles their arms long enough to pull Oz's t-shirt the rest of the way off, and kisses him. A little rougher than before but still slow, and Giles' hands travel Oz's trapped body, tugging his hair and circling his wrists, sliding down the insides of his raised arms, finding their way to the waistband of Oz's jeans and then under, nail-flats and knuckles teasing on thin fabric.

"You know," he says, starting to crawl down Oz's body, licking and gently biting, "in the way . . . isn't . . . necessarily . . . bad." Oz's cock is a high ridge in the denim, and Giles lowers his face to it as Oz bucks up, pleading. Open mouth to the cloth, drawing a wet outline of the shaft, and Giles murmurs in echo as Oz groans.

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glossing September 28 2004, 01:29:37 UTC
It's nothing as concrete and literal as an order - stay still, do what I say - nor any particular gesture that Giles gives that holds Oz here, hovering inside his own skin, breath raking rustily through his chest, hips' rocking freezing painfully. It's Giles, and the need and want flowing over his face, through his hands and out his mouth. Scrape of lips rasping on denim and the fierce glint in his eye, and it's nothing like an order.

It's more like asking for *permission*. Let me, please, let me feel this and help you feel this. Just like the first night, when he smothered Oz with his mouth and hands and taught him, almost secondarily, what it can feel like to accept pleasure, that it's okay, welcome, desired. It's how Giles changed Oz from the very first.

So Oz listens to himself moan and brings his knees up and raises his head and watches Giles nibble a track down the side of his fly, and the sensation is sharp but muffled, a carnival staining the sky with lights and noise, but it's around the corner and Oz can't stop it when his hips rise again and his hand pushes through Giles' hair.

"Giles, please, *god* -" Long, drawn-out suck on the head of his cock, too much and not nearly enough and Oz's head falls back and the ceiling swings into view. "Giles, amazing -"

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