The bruise is definitely worrisome; Daniel wonders if any of the others have traces of their lives on them. Beyond driver's licenses and necklaces, that is, *really* on them. Rupert has a strange tattoo on one bicep that Daniel still hasn't got a good look at, but it's probably as meaningless as the one Daniel himself sports on *his* arm. The bruise is like the scars, like the ones Rupert has as well, traces of violence that will fade eventually but are still visible now. Like they contain entire unspeakable histories, chains and relationships he doesn't know now, maybe never did. All that history, absent and unremembered, but still present right there on his skin. Their skin.
"When I remember," Daniel starts to say as he opens his eyes, then bites his lip when he finds Rupert still looking at him, regarding and seeing him and tries to pull his thoughts into words he can say. "Thinking about scars. Yours, mine. And the bruise. When I remember, will I also remember this part? Like, it won't go away?"
Rupert shifts slightly onto his back, pulling Daniel with him, and Daniel really likes this thoughtful quality Rupert has. He takes his time, works things out, but when he speaks, it sounds right and just and sincere.
"I mean," Daniel adds, interrupting Rupert's thoughts and feeling helpless about that, "I mean, like, there are all these clues around, but I want to remember this, too." He watches Rupert's jaw work silently, his throat stretch as he swallows, and pulls himself up higher so he can watch Rupert's lashes as he blinks. "Need to remember this."
The scars and bruise, Daniel thinks, are like sex, how there wasn't a boundary -- or much of one, anyway -- between him and Rupert. Well before penetration, there were kisses and stroking, and neither of them was separate. The past is all over their bodies, just like they were all over each other. Still are all over each other, and there's nothing clear, no total amnesia or complete memory.
The mat is cold under Rupert's back and presses uncomfortably into places he's just realizing are sore. "I hope so," he says, and circles Daniel's legs with his own, locking Daniel against him as if that will ward off forgetting. "I wouldn't want to forget you. Not for anything." If the price of his memories is the loss of this, he's not sure he'd willingly pay. Right now he's got a treasure in hand, pure heavy gold, and he'd be a fool to exchange it for something unknown, for a lucky dip that'll probably come up worthless plastic trinkets and ten pence worth of candies.
He kisses Daniel again, both hands deep in his sticky hair, and he realizes that memory, any kind of memory, is the enemy. In the few minutes since they last kissed he's already half-forgotten how it feels, the taste of Daniel's mouth and the squiggles and darts of sensation that kissing him raises in Rupert's skin. Keeping the memory is well and good, but the best thing would be keeping Daniel.
Rupert's skin comes away from the mat with a sucking sound when he rolls onto his side again, and the dust smell comes up as strong as ever. They were far gone, both of them, not to have noticed all this discomfort and bareness. What would it be like, fucking Daniel in a warm, comfortable bed? Afterwards they could pull the covers up and talk, or just sleep.
Daniel, who must feel the cold more sharply than Rupert, is shivering a little. "We should get dressed," Rupert says. "I don't want to, but . . . anyway, the others might come back at any moment. And it would be a little embarrassing if they caught us bare-arsed."
All his clothes are in disarray, trousers inside-out and a button missing from his crumpled shirt, and putting them on seems much more laborious than taking them off. As he dresses, Rupert watches Daniel, who blushes and watches him too. "Well, you've something to remember me by," Rupert says, touching one of the love bites that are blooming all over Daniel's neck and torso. There are bruises coming up on Rupert's arms and chest too, fingermarks probably. He doesn't remember pain, only the desperate, exciting way Daniel pulled at him.
Daniel swipes the mat with his t-shirt, Rupert pockets the condom (he can't put it in the trash here where someone might find it), and the room looks as though nothing happened. It's over. Daniel looks at him silently, perhaps as reluctant to leave as Rupert is. But there's nothing to say. Rupert takes his hand and they go back into the shop.
Everything's still quiet, although a couple of the bunnies have got loose and are huddled under the table. "Must find a way to undo that spell." Rupert picks up his suit jacket, trying to decide how to mention the motel room key Daniel said he had, and whether they might both go back there tonight. As he shakes the jacket out, an envelope with the British Airways logo tumbles from an inside pocket.
"Daniel. Look at this." There are two tickets from Los Angeles to London, leaving--Rupert checks his watch for the date and time--tomorrow morning at eight. Two tickets, one for Rupert Giles, one for Daniel Osbourne. Rupert's hands are shaking and he can't quite catch his breath as he shows them to Daniel.
The tickets tremble and Daniel has to squint and lean in close, because it's all a blur. The printing on the tickets is small and stark, and they're shaped like gravestones, and for a moment he feels colder than ever. Despite the cardigan he zipped up to his chin, despite the reassuring warmth of Rupert's body against his, he shivers and has been shivering since they left the gym.
But he's shaking into warmth now, plucking the ticket with his name on it, and holding it up to his face. He's blushing, looking up at Rupert, watching that smile spread like light across Rupert's face until his eyes disappear and he leans down, brushing his smile against Daniel's forehead. The ticket crumples over Daniel's hand as they push together, and he feels warm.
Bruised, and sore, and very stinky, but warm.
"I'm going to London with you?" Daniel slides his arm around Rupert's waist and leans against him. "I'm going to London with you." Language is doing that funny, slippery thing again, skating from question to fact and back again. "Why am I --. We're --"
Rupert's nodding, still smiling, and he looks amazing, loosened tie and easy joy, his hand coming around Daniel's shoulder and squeezing him.
"I'm --" Daniel leans in, warmth suffusing him, tingling and cradling him. "We're -- We're already. So happy."
Rupert's seen Daniel smile a few times, now, but not like this. This is a complete smile, vivid in his mouth and the set of his head and his eyebrows that curve like baroque punctuation marks for happiness. This is the platonic essence of a smile. Rupert's own smile widens as he looks, and he's a lucky man if he gets to see that smile--inspire it--every day.
Carefully, he tucks the envelope into the deepest of his jacket pockets and then touches Daniel's face, needing to feel that delight in his own skin. "I suppose we are. That must be why . . . I don't remember you, but ever since I kissed you, I . . . You feel right." He kisses Daniel again, hugs him tight, and Rupert's laughing for no reason, foolish and amazed. "Now I do want my memories back."
There's a whole history, wondrous as Mayan codices or Sumerian epics, rich as buried Pompeii, waiting to be known again.
Daniel looks up, still smiling, and Rupert strokes his cheek again, fingers delicate over the bruise. Perhaps not all that history is beautiful; perhaps they've forgotten atrocities. "I hope that I - I wasn't -" Rupert doesn't think he's the kind of man to do that, but it's not as if he knows.
Rupert's hand is warm, gentle, the touch like aloe, and Daniel leans his head into it. He blinks once, and when his eyes open, he's looking up at Giles and he is Oz and the forgetfulness is washing away in great lacy swathes like the bubbles left behind by waves on the beach.
"You didn't," Oz says quietly, and Giles' face creases into his part-migraine, part-hard thinking expression. "It's me, Giles."
Giles nods, frowning, but doesn't move away. If anything, he tilts slightly into Oz, his hand slipping into Oz's hair, fingers curling for balance. Oz guides him to the nearest chair and pulls himself up onto the table next to Giles, arm around his shoulders. His legs and ass ache a little in protest, but that's nothing compared to the memories suffusing him. Names, and love, and contact shadowed with history: He doesn't want to forget how *good* and right this feels.
"And we're going home in --" He nudges aside Giles' cuff to check his watch. "In about eight hours." Slumping a little, Oz rests his cheek on top of Giles' head and sighs when Giles' arm slips around his waist.
Giles rubs his face against Oz's chest and sighs when Oz kisses his head again. He and Oz are always touching, but seldom like this, with Oz higher. Strangeness and not, familiarity turned inside out. "Do you know how odd that sounds?" he asks, spreading his fingers over the flexed muscles of Oz's waist. "Hearing you call me Rupert?"
He can remember everything, but he also remembers not remembering. Remembers touching Daniel for the first time, feeling everything for the first time. Losing his virginity with Daniel, everything so unexpected, new-made. Just a few minutes ago, and almost five years ago, and thirty years ago, too, when he first touched another boy's cock. Time has collapsed down to a moment, leaving all Giles' memories on a single plane. He feels like double-exposed film, disparate images overlapping, eerie and uncomfortably beautiful.
"I love you," he says, and reaches up to urge Oz onto his lap. Two familiar things, and he feels better for the words, for Oz's weight on him and Oz's breath warming his neck. "Daniel. Oz."
Past the confusion, Giles is starting to think. Memory spells. There are hundreds of them. But he knows the right books, now, and he can leave the references with Willow. Can't research it himself, because they're going home. They've got to pack, drive to Los Angeles, return the car and get to the airport by six . . .
It's the kind of thinking he can do without real engagement. Most of him is holding Oz, smelling him, remembering him. But that part must be thinking too, because something comes clear from the blurred mental collage that's starting to make Giles' head ache. "You chose me," he says. Whispers into Oz's ear; this can only be whispered. "Oz. You didn't remember me, but you chose me anyway." Out of everyone, Oz wanted him.
"When I remember," Daniel starts to say as he opens his eyes, then bites his lip when he finds Rupert still looking at him, regarding and seeing him and tries to pull his thoughts into words he can say. "Thinking about scars. Yours, mine. And the bruise. When I remember, will I also remember this part? Like, it won't go away?"
Rupert shifts slightly onto his back, pulling Daniel with him, and Daniel really likes this thoughtful quality Rupert has. He takes his time, works things out, but when he speaks, it sounds right and just and sincere.
"I mean," Daniel adds, interrupting Rupert's thoughts and feeling helpless about that, "I mean, like, there are all these clues around, but I want to remember this, too." He watches Rupert's jaw work silently, his throat stretch as he swallows, and pulls himself up higher so he can watch Rupert's lashes as he blinks. "Need to remember this."
The scars and bruise, Daniel thinks, are like sex, how there wasn't a boundary -- or much of one, anyway -- between him and Rupert. Well before penetration, there were kisses and stroking, and neither of them was separate. The past is all over their bodies, just like they were all over each other. Still are all over each other, and there's nothing clear, no total amnesia or complete memory.
"I'm going to," he says. "Remember you."
Reply
He kisses Daniel again, both hands deep in his sticky hair, and he realizes that memory, any kind of memory, is the enemy. In the few minutes since they last kissed he's already half-forgotten how it feels, the taste of Daniel's mouth and the squiggles and darts of sensation that kissing him raises in Rupert's skin. Keeping the memory is well and good, but the best thing would be keeping Daniel.
Rupert's skin comes away from the mat with a sucking sound when he rolls onto his side again, and the dust smell comes up as strong as ever. They were far gone, both of them, not to have noticed all this discomfort and bareness. What would it be like, fucking Daniel in a warm, comfortable bed? Afterwards they could pull the covers up and talk, or just sleep.
Daniel, who must feel the cold more sharply than Rupert, is shivering a little. "We should get dressed," Rupert says. "I don't want to, but . . . anyway, the others might come back at any moment. And it would be a little embarrassing if they caught us bare-arsed."
All his clothes are in disarray, trousers inside-out and a button missing from his crumpled shirt, and putting them on seems much more laborious than taking them off. As he dresses, Rupert watches Daniel, who blushes and watches him too. "Well, you've something to remember me by," Rupert says, touching one of the love bites that are blooming all over Daniel's neck and torso. There are bruises coming up on Rupert's arms and chest too, fingermarks probably. He doesn't remember pain, only the desperate, exciting way Daniel pulled at him.
Daniel swipes the mat with his t-shirt, Rupert pockets the condom (he can't put it in the trash here where someone might find it), and the room looks as though nothing happened. It's over. Daniel looks at him silently, perhaps as reluctant to leave as Rupert is. But there's nothing to say. Rupert takes his hand and they go back into the shop.
Everything's still quiet, although a couple of the bunnies have got loose and are huddled under the table. "Must find a way to undo that spell." Rupert picks up his suit jacket, trying to decide how to mention the motel room key Daniel said he had, and whether they might both go back there tonight. As he shakes the jacket out, an envelope with the British Airways logo tumbles from an inside pocket.
"Daniel. Look at this." There are two tickets from Los Angeles to London, leaving--Rupert checks his watch for the date and time--tomorrow morning at eight. Two tickets, one for Rupert Giles, one for Daniel Osbourne. Rupert's hands are shaking and he can't quite catch his breath as he shows them to Daniel.
Reply
But he's shaking into warmth now, plucking the ticket with his name on it, and holding it up to his face. He's blushing, looking up at Rupert, watching that smile spread like light across Rupert's face until his eyes disappear and he leans down, brushing his smile against Daniel's forehead. The ticket crumples over Daniel's hand as they push together, and he feels warm.
Bruised, and sore, and very stinky, but warm.
"I'm going to London with you?" Daniel slides his arm around Rupert's waist and leans against him. "I'm going to London with you." Language is doing that funny, slippery thing again, skating from question to fact and back again. "Why am I --. We're --"
Rupert's nodding, still smiling, and he looks amazing, loosened tie and easy joy, his hand coming around Daniel's shoulder and squeezing him.
"I'm --" Daniel leans in, warmth suffusing him, tingling and cradling him. "We're -- We're already. So happy."
Reply
Carefully, he tucks the envelope into the deepest of his jacket pockets and then touches Daniel's face, needing to feel that delight in his own skin. "I suppose we are. That must be why . . . I don't remember you, but ever since I kissed you, I . . . You feel right." He kisses Daniel again, hugs him tight, and Rupert's laughing for no reason, foolish and amazed. "Now I do want my memories back."
There's a whole history, wondrous as Mayan codices or Sumerian epics, rich as buried Pompeii, waiting to be known again.
Daniel looks up, still smiling, and Rupert strokes his cheek again, fingers delicate over the bruise. Perhaps not all that history is beautiful; perhaps they've forgotten atrocities. "I hope that I - I wasn't -" Rupert doesn't think he's the kind of man to do that, but it's not as if he knows.
Reply
"You didn't," Oz says quietly, and Giles' face creases into his part-migraine, part-hard thinking expression. "It's me, Giles."
Giles nods, frowning, but doesn't move away. If anything, he tilts slightly into Oz, his hand slipping into Oz's hair, fingers curling for balance. Oz guides him to the nearest chair and pulls himself up onto the table next to Giles, arm around his shoulders. His legs and ass ache a little in protest, but that's nothing compared to the memories suffusing him. Names, and love, and contact shadowed with history: He doesn't want to forget how *good* and right this feels.
"And we're going home in --" He nudges aside Giles' cuff to check his watch. "In about eight hours." Slumping a little, Oz rests his cheek on top of Giles' head and sighs when Giles' arm slips around his waist.
"Love you," Oz says, smiling again. "Rupert."
Reply
His Oz.
Giles rubs his face against Oz's chest and sighs when Oz kisses his head again. He and Oz are always touching, but seldom like this, with Oz higher. Strangeness and not, familiarity turned inside out. "Do you know how odd that sounds?" he asks, spreading his fingers over the flexed muscles of Oz's waist. "Hearing you call me Rupert?"
He can remember everything, but he also remembers not remembering. Remembers touching Daniel for the first time, feeling everything for the first time. Losing his virginity with Daniel, everything so unexpected, new-made. Just a few minutes ago, and almost five years ago, and thirty years ago, too, when he first touched another boy's cock. Time has collapsed down to a moment, leaving all Giles' memories on a single plane. He feels like double-exposed film, disparate images overlapping, eerie and uncomfortably beautiful.
"I love you," he says, and reaches up to urge Oz onto his lap. Two familiar things, and he feels better for the words, for Oz's weight on him and Oz's breath warming his neck. "Daniel. Oz."
Past the confusion, Giles is starting to think. Memory spells. There are hundreds of them. But he knows the right books, now, and he can leave the references with Willow. Can't research it himself, because they're going home. They've got to pack, drive to Los Angeles, return the car and get to the airport by six . . .
It's the kind of thinking he can do without real engagement. Most of him is holding Oz, smelling him, remembering him. But that part must be thinking too, because something comes clear from the blurred mental collage that's starting to make Giles' head ache. "You chose me," he says. Whispers into Oz's ear; this can only be whispered. "Oz. You didn't remember me, but you chose me anyway." Out of everyone, Oz wanted him.
His Oz. Always his.
Reply
Leave a comment