Oz hums a little, keeping tune with the slick whisk-whisk of Giles' hands in the lather, moving over him. He sticks his wet fingers into the jar of olive stuff and paints a Rorschach over Giles' chest.
As he works it in, cleaning up the curves and spattering Giles' shoulder with goopy, misshapen stars, the humming gives way to words, just like he hoped they would.
"Before, it was -- just worse. Painful, and freak-making," he says, drawing a tic-tac-toe board over Giles' left nipple, grinning when X wins and Giles gasps at Oz crossing it out. "Which is like 'difficult to cope with', only scarier. Like every month wasn't anything, just a countdown?"
Coating both palms with the stuff, Oz then works his hands into Giles' armpits, leaning forward and rolling his forehead against Giles' chest. His face is sticky now, but he needs to get closer. Physically, he remembers the old silence, how he needed to tell Giles what it felt like, how there were no words and Giles' face was turned away *anyway*, but right now, silence seems silly.
Not to mention dangerous.
"Now, it's more...all the time. Not so much scary dread any more, just this kind of -- like, strung-out feeling. The bad with the good parts, the achiness and the strength, all twisted up together and permanent. Does that make sense?"
Before Giles can say anything, Oz pulls back a little, but tightens his slippery hold.
"I want to make sense. Never *talked* about this. I might just sound like an acidfreak or something."
Watching Oz's face, which is flushed pink and boyish but strained around the mouth, white at the corners of his eyes, Giles says, "You are making sense. And it can't be easy to put that sort of experience into words." He rinses a bit of oil from Oz's chin and hands him the soap. Washing off the green doodles he's left all over Giles' torso will give Oz something to do with his hands while they talk.
Perhaps that's why so many of their best conversations have happened while they cook or eat, or while they're touching and playing in bed. Oz needs to be a bit distracted or he'll get self-conscious.
Giles leans back a little to let Oz reach more of his chest. "Is there anything-" A corner of the soap digs into the ticklish spot on Giles' ribs, and he gasps and twists in reflex. "Anything I can do to make it easier for you?" There are a couple of good occult herbalists Giles knows, and a decent chap on the Council who specializes in Tibetan mysticism. Or maybe the coven down in Devon could suggest some meditations. And now that he knows where to begin, surely there are things Giles himself could find out, in his own books or the Council's archives.
Surely he can do more for Oz than just stand by. Giles pulls Oz into a slippery, awkward hug and whispers, "I want to help you, the way I should have done before."
Oz's palm slides down Giles' back, under the waterline, and he digs his fingers in so he doesn't have to let go. He clutches the soap in his other hand, up against the nape of Giles' neck, and squeezes.
"It's okay," he says and scoots forward, his ass adhering to the bottom of the tub and squelching in complaint as it moves. "It's okay now. Before was before. It's not like that now."
Nothing's like it used to be; they have the same bodies, though Oz's is different inside now, all the way down and through his cells, but they talk differently. Touch differently, feel more deeply, think things through.
"Just keep putting up with me when the moon gets fat," he adds, drawing back enough to see Giles' face and reassure himself that everything's okay. Warm, pink skin and a slight smile that's part worry and all patience. Oz kisses the side of Giles' mouth and shrugs. "If anything comes up, I'll say something, promise. I just need to keep drinking my stinky herbs and doing my empty-mind stuff and acknowledging the void. You know."
Tightly as he's holding on, Oz seems calm enough, unworried. It's nothing like before, in the wretched month before their split, when Oz got so tense he seemed stony and untouchable yet also house-of-cards fragile. "All right," Giles says. "I'll hold you to that promise to tell me, though." It's pointless to think about whether, if Giles had given Oz this kind of time and attention before, got him talking like this, he could have changed everything. So after a moment, Giles stops thinking about it.
The start of a cramp tightens threateningly in Giles' calf, and he has to pulls back from Oz and stretch his leg to ease it. "Let's rearrange a bit, shall we?" With some slipping and shoving and a bit of water splashed on the floor, Giles sets his back to the tub wall and Oz's back to his chest, and he can wrap both arms around Oz's waist. Encircling him like this always feels good, right on some level too deep for analysis, and Giles rests his cheek on Oz's hair and sighs, happily.
"You know, I've almost come to like the smell of those herbs." Oz brews them up every evening into a tea that smells like burning grass, rancid oil, and pungent, bitter, unnameable things. It almost got them chucked out of the motel their second night in Sunnydale, and after that Oz prepared his tea at Buffy's house. "Because it's, well, routine. And there's something awfully comforting in that." It means that Oz is still there with him, that another day is fading into another night, another morning. Giles kisses the nape of Oz's neck and holds him closer.
Oz rolls his head slowly against Giles' shoulder and crosses his arms over Giles'. "I like routine, too," he says, and *that* sounds so weird coming out of his mouth that he laughs a little, their arms rising out of the water before sinking back. Sitting like this, surrounded by Giles, almost cradled, is something Oz hopes never changes, never goes away. "Wish I could drink jasmine tea or rooibos instead, but I like it."
Routine *is* good. Routine means waking up at four and doing an hour's worth of meditation, then crawling back into bed with Giles and refolding himself into the warmth and solidity of Giles' body.
"What about you?" he asks, sliding down a little so he can look backward and up at Giles. "Does it still gross you out? I mean, obviously not a lot, 'cause I'm here and stuff, but --. Yeah. What about you?"
Giles would like to deny having been "grossed out," but he can't. Not and keep this clean, necessary honesty. "I'm . . . I forget sometimes, actually. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but I do." With Oz's face upside-down, it's harder than usual to read his expressions, but he doesn't seem to think it's terrible. "And then you smell or hear something I can't, and I remember."
At the full moon Oz is charged and strange, far more intensely other than he is from day to day. Giles can't forget, then. Everything's heightened, and he can almost feel the wolf under Oz's skin, almost smell it. But then, they've only been through two full moons since Oz came back. With time, that too will be familiar. Never routine, maybe, but familiar.
Giles slides back a little, pulling Oz with him until Oz's body is almost floating, anchored only by Giles' arms. He feels Oz's deep breath and slow relaxation. "It's easier for me now that you don't change. It always used to be quite . . . disturbing, seeing the wolf. Knowing that it was you." Luckily, he never saw Oz transform. Changing back was bad enough. Giles only saw it once, but he can remember ever second, every slide and contortion of the flesh.
As he works it in, cleaning up the curves and spattering Giles' shoulder with goopy, misshapen stars, the humming gives way to words, just like he hoped they would.
"Before, it was -- just worse. Painful, and freak-making," he says, drawing a tic-tac-toe board over Giles' left nipple, grinning when X wins and Giles gasps at Oz crossing it out. "Which is like 'difficult to cope with', only scarier. Like every month wasn't anything, just a countdown?"
Coating both palms with the stuff, Oz then works his hands into Giles' armpits, leaning forward and rolling his forehead against Giles' chest. His face is sticky now, but he needs to get closer. Physically, he remembers the old silence, how he needed to tell Giles what it felt like, how there were no words and Giles' face was turned away *anyway*, but right now, silence seems silly.
Not to mention dangerous.
"Now, it's more...all the time. Not so much scary dread any more, just this kind of -- like, strung-out feeling. The bad with the good parts, the achiness and the strength, all twisted up together and permanent. Does that make sense?"
Before Giles can say anything, Oz pulls back a little, but tightens his slippery hold.
"I want to make sense. Never *talked* about this. I might just sound like an acidfreak or something."
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Perhaps that's why so many of their best conversations have happened while they cook or eat, or while they're touching and playing in bed. Oz needs to be a bit distracted or he'll get self-conscious.
Giles leans back a little to let Oz reach more of his chest. "Is there anything-" A corner of the soap digs into the ticklish spot on Giles' ribs, and he gasps and twists in reflex. "Anything I can do to make it easier for you?" There are a couple of good occult herbalists Giles knows, and a decent chap on the Council who specializes in Tibetan mysticism. Or maybe the coven down in Devon could suggest some meditations. And now that he knows where to begin, surely there are things Giles himself could find out, in his own books or the Council's archives.
Surely he can do more for Oz than just stand by. Giles pulls Oz into a slippery, awkward hug and whispers, "I want to help you, the way I should have done before."
Reply
"It's okay," he says and scoots forward, his ass adhering to the bottom of the tub and squelching in complaint as it moves. "It's okay now. Before was before. It's not like that now."
Nothing's like it used to be; they have the same bodies, though Oz's is different inside now, all the way down and through his cells, but they talk differently. Touch differently, feel more deeply, think things through.
"Just keep putting up with me when the moon gets fat," he adds, drawing back enough to see Giles' face and reassure himself that everything's okay. Warm, pink skin and a slight smile that's part worry and all patience. Oz kisses the side of Giles' mouth and shrugs. "If anything comes up, I'll say something, promise. I just need to keep drinking my stinky herbs and doing my empty-mind stuff and acknowledging the void. You know."
He rushes through the tasks and takes a breath.
"Thank you."
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The start of a cramp tightens threateningly in Giles' calf, and he has to pulls back from Oz and stretch his leg to ease it. "Let's rearrange a bit, shall we?" With some slipping and shoving and a bit of water splashed on the floor, Giles sets his back to the tub wall and Oz's back to his chest, and he can wrap both arms around Oz's waist. Encircling him like this always feels good, right on some level too deep for analysis, and Giles rests his cheek on Oz's hair and sighs, happily.
"You know, I've almost come to like the smell of those herbs." Oz brews them up every evening into a tea that smells like burning grass, rancid oil, and pungent, bitter, unnameable things. It almost got them chucked out of the motel their second night in Sunnydale, and after that Oz prepared his tea at Buffy's house. "Because it's, well, routine. And there's something awfully comforting in that." It means that Oz is still there with him, that another day is fading into another night, another morning. Giles kisses the nape of Oz's neck and holds him closer.
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Routine *is* good. Routine means waking up at four and doing an hour's worth of meditation, then crawling back into bed with Giles and refolding himself into the warmth and solidity of Giles' body.
"What about you?" he asks, sliding down a little so he can look backward and up at Giles. "Does it still gross you out? I mean, obviously not a lot, 'cause I'm here and stuff, but --. Yeah. What about you?"
Reply
At the full moon Oz is charged and strange, far more intensely other than he is from day to day. Giles can't forget, then. Everything's heightened, and he can almost feel the wolf under Oz's skin, almost smell it. But then, they've only been through two full moons since Oz came back. With time, that too will be familiar. Never routine, maybe, but familiar.
Giles slides back a little, pulling Oz with him until Oz's body is almost floating, anchored only by Giles' arms. He feels Oz's deep breath and slow relaxation. "It's easier for me now that you don't change. It always used to be quite . . . disturbing, seeing the wolf. Knowing that it was you." Luckily, he never saw Oz transform. Changing back was bad enough. Giles only saw it once, but he can remember ever second, every slide and contortion of the flesh.
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