a picture and not quite 1000 words
This is a little Giles/Oz ficlet, set in the universe of It's Like Jazz. All you need to know is that it's the summer after S1, Giles and Oz have been together since Giles arrived in Sunnydale, and earlier in the summer they went on holiday in the mountains.
The ficlet was inspired, in part, by a lovely photograph here. It's of Seth, but I say it' ( Read more... )
The ficlet was inspired, in part, by a lovely photograph here. It's of Seth, but I say it' ( Read more... )
Comments 17
There are none of the tourist photos he might ordinarily have taken, picturesque uninhabited landscapes.
This is so Jazz. This is what they've done to each other, this slow, inexorable shifting of every habit until they find themselves together and new and...God.
solidly peaceful
Oz! With the quiet and the love and the peace.
Everything between them is hidden, secret as some Dionysiac cult, secret as magic itself. Kept safe, hidden from the vulgar, from prying eyes and quotidian minds.
Consolatory lies, all of it, making the best of a bad and sordid lot. It's not mystery, not sacredness that even now in the relative freedom of summer, he and Oz spend every evening in the flat with the curtains drawn. It's constraint, deception, skulking.I think it's everything in there, and more. It is sordid, ( ... )
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Oh, wow. I confess I was mostly just thinking about the rather pathetic photos that a person takes when traveling alone (not that I know this by experience, uh-uh, nope). Cliffs or cathedrals or whatever, but no people, so that the photos ultimately are about aloneness (and Giles has been alone for years). But now everything's changed, and as you say, they and their habits change with it.
It is sordid, and alight with grace, and everything in between. It's the profane shining through divinity and the silence of the mornings they woke up in the van, before Oz yawned and Giles started stretching his creaking back, the sour smell of slept-in air mixing with balsam needles and old firewood, and it's them. It's Oz bringing along the flaking old Penguin copy of The Metaphysical Poets to read as well as extra Benadryl in case Giles' allergies acted up, and it's also him kicking river water at Giles ( ... )
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And the pout's so cute, too. Hmm...
Yes, will write. It might not be a story so much as a vignette or something, but it will be finished, I promise.
OTP
Yay!
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Heh. I just had this weird flash of Oz reading George Herbert and not getting the Christian references at all (somehow I doubt his mother ever sent him to church), so Giles tries to explain them and gets all theologically muddled, because of course he hasn't been to church since he left school, or considered himself a Christian for even longer . . . and somehow it all ends in kissing.
I think Compassing Wonders has utterly corrupted me. Theology, in my brain, is now a direct route to smut.
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Although I'm not sure if I should really give up reading Giles/Oz for a month, while I write my own Giles (back)story. Because I worry that it will influence me too much
It's wrong, but it's right because it's them. And that comes across particularly well in this ficlet.
Gina
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Yes, exactly. I think they're very good for each other, despite the age difference and that pesky age-of-consent law.
Although I'm not sure if I should really give up reading Giles/Oz for a month, while I write my own Giles (back)story.
Oh, a Giles story to look forward to! With Oz? In any case, yay!
Thanks so much; I'm glad you liked this.
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Anyway, I'll Friend you and you can read the intro bit I posted earlier, and let me know what you think if you feel like it. If it's finished and beta'd by the end of July I'm submitting it to a zine, but in that case I'll post the whole thing Friends Locked on LJ and keep it off my website until the zine rights expire.
One day I may also get around to writing a big essay on why I love Gile/Oz but get horribly squicked by most student/responsible-adult things in eg Harry Potter fandom.
Gina
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One day I may also get around to writing a big essay on why I love Gile/Oz but get horribly squicked by most student/responsible-adult things in eg Harry Potter fandom.
I hope you do; it sounds interesting. I find that the kids in Harry Potter just seem a lot more childish than the kids in Buffy. Partly because they're younger, of course, and partly because JKR isn't really that good at character development.
But even in the Buffyverse, other Giles/Scooby pairings don't work for me. They don't squick me and I'm not morally bothered by them, but I just don't find them believable (as long-term relationships, anyway). Giles/Oz, to me, is very much a special case. Oz seems more adult than the other Scoobies, for one thing.
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So very, very lovely. Understated, but just right for the relationship.
I think Giles needs a hug though.
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I suppose it's a bit silly that Giles is fretting about not being able to show off the photos, but . . . I think that's the sort of think a person would fret about in that situation. The big things (like the risk of going to prison) would be just too big to think about very much, but the little everyday constraints would grate one's nerves to bits.
I think Giles needs a hug though.
Well, Oz will be there as soon as he's done at work (he's scarcely seen his mother in weeks, but she doesn't seem concerned). And there will be much looking at the photos, and reminiscing, and hugs and kissing and . . . mmmmm.
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I like what Giles thinks about the pictures, about them being more precious if he doesn't see them all the time but...
That's just to make himself feel better.
:)
Nice.
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That's why they need photographs, slivers of freedom that they can hold until there's opportunity for it again.
I love this line. The photographs are tangible proof that there's more than hiding and fear and are a tiny but far from insignificant way to revisit that easier time.
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