He can see doubt and etiquette twisting over Giles' face, and Oz squeezes his arm through the tweed jacket. Anya's grinning like she just won the lottery and Xander -- Xander's looking a lot like Giles right now, with some extra happiness mixed in with the doubt
( ... )
It's automatic, with Oz standing this close, for Giles to put an arm around his waist; only afterwards does he notice how Buffy looks at them. It's not her "You're very old and it's gross," look. He's used to that. He'd rather see that than the terrible pinched impassivity of her face and her eyes gone dark as bruised flowers. Thinking about everything (everyone) Buffy has lost in the last few years is almost unbearable. What it must be like for Buffy, Giles would just as soon not imagine. There are times when he wishes that Angel had stayed in Sunnydale, that they'd found a way around the curse. Almost any man in the world, he believes, would be better for Buffy than Angel, but she seems not to agree. And it is, after all, her life. Her heart
( ... )
Oz has taken to holding his breath at the end of work days and research sessions; when it comes time to split up for the drive(s) home(s). Six times out of ten, he drives Dawn back to Revello, especially if Buffy's not around, which tends to happen more often than not. He grooves on Dawn, but when the day is over, he just wants to slide into the driver's seat and take Giles as far away as he can; they had dinner on the other side of Santa Barbara last night because Oz couldn't get far enough away
( ... )
Trying to ignore the blatant stares of a group of teenage boys lounging against the wall outside the shop, Giles holds Oz's hand and rubs his tight-hunched shoulder. Oz looks shaken, misery twisting his mouth and brows into anxious curls, and if Giles were just a little braver he'd undo the seatbelt and hold him. But the boys are muttering and glaring, voices getting a little louder with each comment, words like "faggots" and "goddamn homos" carrying even over the traffic noise and the hum of the giant ice machine.
They won't try anything here, Giles tells himself, in this lighted parking lot on a well-travelled street. "Oz, what's the matter?" He should know; he would know if he'd been paying attention, if he hadn't spent the last five minutes trying to find a way to make Xander and Anya think twice without making them hate him. Going over subtle and not-so-subtle phrases, this is a surprise and you're both very young and perhaps you might be rushing things, and not noticing Oz, not noticing whatever has him almost hyperventilating
( ... )
This morning, when Oz was already dressed, he dug the liner pencil out of the bag from the pharmacy and joined Giles at the mirror in the bathroom. You know Hebrew, right? he asked, and Giles, absorbed in his shaving, murmured agreeably. After practicing 'emeth a few times on the motel pad, he sat on the edge of the bed and drew Oz in between his knees and cupped his cheek with his right hand while he *drew*, more than wrote, the letters on Oz's forehead.
Oz wants to be there again now, can feel the shivers of that ease and comfort hovering around them, would love it if Giles *could* read his mind and stroke the back of his head and remind him he doesn't need anything to numb out. But he's swallowing fast against the rush of spit that came up at the thought of whiskey, and there are losers outside the car doing the standard threatening-guy pose, preening and leering, and this is not the time.
"Off-balance," he says before Giles has to repeat himself. "Just kind of weirded out by marriage. And especially *Xander* and marriage. Plus,
( ... )
Watching the teenagers, who strain forward like hunting dogs when Oz opens the door, Giles says, "I expect so." At the moment Xander and Anya are as vague as people he met once in an airport, and Giles doesn't care if they live happily ever after or spend the next fifty years throwing crockery and shouting the walls down. All that matters are the boys between Oz and the shop door and how small Oz looks next to them. Tiny, childlike, frail, and he could be on the ground and kicked half to death before Giles could stop it, and if one of those bastards has a knife or a gun Giles might see Oz die right now
( ... )
Out of the corner of Oz's eye, Giles' jaw is tight, painted by the oncoming headlights into something steely and flat, and his voice is just as bad. Oz slows the car for the left onto Revello and shrugs one shoulder.
"Dunno." He can't glance over at Giles, won't let himself. If they're going to argue, which would be *new*, at least then Giles won't ask about the liquor store, won't remember the stupid bottle of Scotch in his old desk, won't drag out Oz's various, ridiculous so-called coping mechanisms. "Always felt like marriage was stupid. Seeing Terry, all that, didn't exactly make me all rah-rah romance."
Just like your father, she said, because he left and Oz left and Giles heard that. It's been swimming around the back of Oz's brain for over a week now, those facts and the whiskey-thirst, and he feels it all tightening, inexorably as Giles' jaw. Just don't leave, Giles said so many times right after Oz came to London, because apologies don't mean anything, only staying is proof
( ... )
Giles feels hollowed-out, a bare frame of twigs and skin almost collapsing under its own weight. It's a feeling of disaster barely avoided, of braking just in time not to rear-end the car in front. He reaches for Oz's hand and squeezes it tight as they sit silent for a moment, looking straight ahead. "I love you," he says. "And I'll be glad when we're away from all this. Home. Sunnydale is . . . not a good place." They're leaving in eight days, and he still hasn't told Buffy
( ... )
Giles' fist loosens fractionally on the back of Oz's collar, but Oz butts in closer, hiding his face against Giles' neck like a sleepy, fretful baby. He's been so freaked out by drinking, by imagining Giles saddled with a drunk for a lover, that his past flexible sexuality has caught him completely by surprise
( ... )
Hearing Oz stammer out promises, reassurances, Giles wants to hide his hot face in Oz's neck, flinch from his own fear and shame. "You're right," he says, forcing a laugh. "No taking chances. No wishing, no betting, no bloody costumes." He licks his thumb and quickly rubs the lettering off Oz's forehead, strips the tweed jacket (he's dressed as a Watcher, and he remembers that it seemed funny at the time) from his shoulders and yanks roughly at the sleeves until he's free of it. His movements feel jerky, and at the end he's agitated and breathing hard, like a small boy in a tantrum
( ... )
"Don't apologize --" Oz catches Giles' arm and squeezes. Under the ugly blazer, he's wearing a nice lambswool v-neck, dark-blue pre-dawn sky, one that's already elicited at least three comments from Xander on how Oz is affecting his sense of fashion.
Giles wasn't like this in London, and Oz *wants* to blame Sunnydale. It would help if it was only this town that made Giles tighten his shoulders and talk through gritted teeth, just like he did after Oz left him, whenever Oz tried to apologize. He can't blame Sunnydale, though, any more than he can blame Giles, or let Giles take the blame on himself. "Really, 'cause you're *not* hypersensitive. You're just --"
He can't think of the words, and Giles is opening his door, so Oz follows, locking the car and rubbing the traces of 'emeth from his forehead. Giles took it off, just like he took off the blazer; it's proof, small and solid, that Giles isn't irretrievably angry, that he's still thinking of Oz. So even if Giles is hugging the grocery bag up against his chest and striding toward
( ... )
"I do," Giles says, and smiles at Oz's startled look. "I've hosted countless research sessions, all of which required soda and junk food. So I also know that Xander likes Canadian bacon on his pizza and that Buffy harbors a secret addiction to Pringles." He squeezes Oz's shoulder, briefly kisses the top of his head-Oz lets out a slow breath and his whole body seems to loosen under Giles' hand-and starts unpacking the bags
( ... )
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They won't try anything here, Giles tells himself, in this lighted parking lot on a well-travelled street. "Oz, what's the matter?" He should know; he would know if he'd been paying attention, if he hadn't spent the last five minutes trying to find a way to make Xander and Anya think twice without making them hate him. Going over subtle and not-so-subtle phrases, this is a surprise and you're both very young and perhaps you might be rushing things, and not noticing Oz, not noticing whatever has him almost hyperventilating ( ... )
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Oz wants to be there again now, can feel the shivers of that ease and comfort hovering around them, would love it if Giles *could* read his mind and stroke the back of his head and remind him he doesn't need anything to numb out. But he's swallowing fast against the rush of spit that came up at the thought of whiskey, and there are losers outside the car doing the standard threatening-guy pose, preening and leering, and this is not the time.
"Off-balance," he says before Giles has to repeat himself. "Just kind of weirded out by marriage. And especially *Xander* and marriage. Plus, ( ... )
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"Dunno." He can't glance over at Giles, won't let himself. If they're going to argue, which would be *new*, at least then Giles won't ask about the liquor store, won't remember the stupid bottle of Scotch in his old desk, won't drag out Oz's various, ridiculous so-called coping mechanisms. "Always felt like marriage was stupid. Seeing Terry, all that, didn't exactly make me all rah-rah romance."
Just like your father, she said, because he left and Oz left and Giles heard that. It's been swimming around the back of Oz's brain for over a week now, those facts and the whiskey-thirst, and he feels it all tightening, inexorably as Giles' jaw. Just don't leave, Giles said so many times right after Oz came to London, because apologies don't mean anything, only staying is proof ( ... )
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Giles wasn't like this in London, and Oz *wants* to blame Sunnydale. It would help if it was only this town that made Giles tighten his shoulders and talk through gritted teeth, just like he did after Oz left him, whenever Oz tried to apologize. He can't blame Sunnydale, though, any more than he can blame Giles, or let Giles take the blame on himself. "Really, 'cause you're *not* hypersensitive. You're just --"
He can't think of the words, and Giles is opening his door, so Oz follows, locking the car and rubbing the traces of 'emeth from his forehead. Giles took it off, just like he took off the blazer; it's proof, small and solid, that Giles isn't irretrievably angry, that he's still thinking of Oz. So even if Giles is hugging the grocery bag up against his chest and striding toward ( ... )
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