This is the first time Giles has ever been afraid to fly. Every midair bump seems to knock the breath out of him, and he looks up and down the aisles with a little too much attention.
He didn't feel this way when they flew to Sunnydale, and he ought to feel even securer now, with the attacks a few weeks farther in the past. But what he's afraid of, he realizes after the poor chap with bag hides his red face in a book, is not terrorism. It's irony
( ... )
Giles draws the question out as his glasses slip slightly down his nose and he has to squint. He's fiercely competitive, which Oz supposes he should have already known - ticklefights and various trivia games in the mountains and on the road and that *long*, distressing argument they once had about the Boston Tea Party - but there's something about seeing Giles' competitiveness up close that makes Oz want to smile.
And beat him.
"Ummm," he says, closing his eyes and pretending to concentrate. "Nope, sorry. Not Peter the Great." He opens his eyes and frowns apologetically. "Not even close, actually."
"I should've known that was too easy." Oz's attempts at keeping a straight face don't quite hide a certain gleeful relish. It's one of the first, best signs of leaving Sunnydale--Oz is letting himself have expressions again, even if they're subtle ones that only Giles can read. Oz is always understated, but when he's uncomfortable he turns into a plank of wood. "I'd hoped they covered Peter the Great on one of the days you skipped school." Of course, it's entirely possible that they did, and Oz read about him anyway.
"How about this: are you a theologian who wrote that it's the cause and not that suffering that creates martyrs?" Last round, Oz asked him about a voiceover actor on The Simpsons; this seems only fair in return.
Now he's frowning for real; Oz read about Peter the Great when he was on his Russia-kick, the summer after eighth grade, but he never really had a theology-kick. Unless Tibet counts, but there are relatively few Buddhist martyrs.
Which Giles, of all people, knows. "Bastard," Oz says lightly, shifting in his seat and recrossing his legs so he can hold Giles' hand in both of his. "Fine. Ask me a yes or no question."
"Twelve hours?" Oz asks. It feels like a hell of a lot more, but when he tries to count backward, then adjust for time differences and distance travelled, he comes up with half an hour, and that can't be right. Giles' hand loosens on his shoulder, drifting up the back of Oz's neck, nails in the short hairs there, and the shivers return. A little slower, but just as warm
( ... )
Giles remembers. His whole body remembers in a flooding, drowning instant. Oz's mouth tasted of the mango sorbet he'd been eating, his skin was sunburn-hot, and he lay splayed out on the steps as Giles explored him. "I remember. Everything. The smell of your clothes. The creak of the bannister because you were pushing at it while I sucked you. You had a line of bruises up your back afterwards from the edges of the stairs."
In Giles' memory, that summer (the only summer, not the first, although he's not going to bring that up now) is the essence of all summers, heat and desire and joy, Oz wading in soaked jeans or naked and trembling under Giles' body. He scarcely remembers any unhappiness, except for the ends of their two trips away, the sharp bereavement that came with seeing the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign. "I could almost be nostalgic for that summer," he says. Everything, then, was the first time. Everything was the bliss of discovery. And Oz was younger then, more easily happy, not yet touched by lycanthropy or guilt
( ... )
Oz's backbone twists and knocks him against Giles before he knows what's happening; his hand claws at Giles' knee, clenching hard, before he can take a breath
( ... )
Oz has a beautiful mouth, soft and generous and somehow expressive. Giles loves to watch him eating, hungrily or slowly, nibbling and tasting. There's something about Oz's mouth that yearns after pleasure, that hints at the sensualist under his stillness.
And inside . . . inside it's more than hints. Inside, Oz's mouth is slippery and hot, welcoming to Giles' kisses, eager and yielding to his cock. Inside there's a cushiony sliding tongue, a swirling flexible experimental tongue, a tormenting delicate knowing tongue. So fluid, and then the delicious shock of the hard places, the ridged roof of Oz's mouth, his sharp gentle teeth
( ... )
It's all too good to keep track of - the soft, curled edge of his pillowcase, the warm weight of Giles against him, the lingering buzz of kissing that melted into sleep - and Oz slides into dreams. Flying, and sailing in a birch-bark canoe down the river of Main Street past the Espresso Pump, paddling slowly through soupy clouds and crystalline, tinkling wind, the canoe becoming Giles' chest, broad and warm, rising and falling with breathing waves
( ... )
Bright. They must have slept very . . . Giles rolls over, arm already bent to curve around Oz, but Oz isn't there.
Oz isn't . . .
Oh.
There's a rich, butter-and-cooked-sugar smell in the air, a smell that adds warmth to the sunlight. Oz has only gone as far as the kitchen. He's baking, which is the opposite of leaving.
In fact, he looks cozily settled in at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the Guardian, with the Independent and a copy of Time Out at his elbow. He looks more completely, comfortably at home than he ever has here before, as though it took traveling and coming back to let the truth of it appear.
"Morning," Giles says, hugging him from behind and kissing the top of his head. Oz folds his arms over Giles', his fingers stroking the velvet sleeve of Giles' dressing gown, and tilts his head back and smiles.
"Morning," Oz replies. Giles is unshaven, the folds of his pajama top still smelling like sleep, and his glasses have slid all the way down to the tip of his nose. Times like this, mornings and late nights, Oz gets a sense of what Giles must have looked like as a kid. Rumpled, soft-faced, his eyes crinkling up in a smile as he bends over and kisses Oz again. Closed-mouthed, because he's just up, and he chuckles slightly when Oz runs his hands up under the sleeves of the robe and squeezes his elbows to hold him in place.
"Muffins and bread should be coming out soon," Oz says, twisting around as he stands up. He can never stop touching Giles' robe; it's soft, and made of a thousand rich colors, and somehow simultaneously perfectly *Giles* and perfectly *not*. "Want some tea? They need to cool, so if you want a shower -"
Giles nods, kissing him again.
"Had to run back for milk," Oz says, plugging in the kettle and checking the oven, "I would've left a note, but you were *out*. Smells better in here, right?"
"It smells wonderful," Giles says. It reminds him of their happier moments in Sunnydale, and, more distantly, of childhood Sundays. His mother baked currant scones and sometimes a cake for after dinner, all in the early hours before the morning service. He'd wake up to the smell, usually late, and eat a scone while running to church in his choir robes. "Thank you." Oz's childhood must have been very different, and yet he seems to imagine home the same way Giles does. Perhaps a happy childhood and an unhappy one create the same longings.
Giles hurries through his shower, wanting tea and a muffin that hasn't cooled as much as Oz says they're supposed to. Wanting, mostly, to see Oz again at the table, chin in his palm as he reads and one foot hooked around the leg of his chair. It's the way he always sits, the way he will always sit for each of however many thousand mornings add up to forever. The future echoes out from today, almost visibly close and yet extending far past sight and knowledge, and Giles wants to get started
( ... )
"Here," Oz says. Giles' eyes are on every inch of him, gaze sinking into him like the warmth of sunlight, churning and glowing inside him. Inside, it's the rich softness of Giles' voice, of his robe, but outside, along his skin, it's tension and heat, hard things. His palm's sticky with sweat and his cock feels, for half a second, alien to his own touch. Too hard, so hard and warm, and then his hand curves and fits into the most familiar thing. He strokes once, upward, crooking his thumb, and then again, downward, squeezing lighter than he'd like
( ... )
Pleasure, pushed out to its edges, starts to look like other things--fear, loneliness, pain. Pushed farther, it can become those things. Oz's face is contorted, the tendons in his neck and arms stretched rigid, and it could be misery or the approach of orgasm.
Either way, Giles wants to stop it. He grasps Oz's wrists, pushes his hands to the floor, and Oz freezes, not even breathing for a few moments. "Anything you want," Giles says, and repeats it when Oz opens his eyes. "Anything." There's no telling, from Oz's narrow-eyed stare and shallow, staccato breaths, if he's really heard. Still holding Oz's hands, Giles sinks down on top of him, trying to make himself a stone, an anchor, solid and trustworthy.
"You could fuck me," he says, dragging their interlocked hands up to either side of Oz's head. "You could hold me down and fuck me so hard." Imagining it, imagining Oz using all of that strength on him, taking him, Giles shivers at the knotted heat that crawls up his spine. He groans, low and rough, when Oz trembles too and
( ... )
There has to be a happy medium. Oz feels like a little kid, so worked up he's almost teary, but each breath that Giles takes presses him down further, reassures him more
( ... )
Oz's mouth warm and slippery on Giles' neck, Oz's fingers slipping down from his lapel to curl in his chest hair, and Giles wants his pyjamas off as badly as Oz does. The flannel, soft but absolutely unlike the satin and fuzz, scratchiness and smoothness and pebbliness of Oz's body, frustrates Giles' skin. "Of course," he says, kneeling back and fighting the buttons. Oz watches him, sometimes swirling a fingertip along Giles' leg or his wrist, as he works his arms out of the top and struggles awkwardly free of the bottoms. Tables turned, and Giles feels himself reddening with arousal and an unexpected shyness. It's easier, though, after he takes off his kiss-smeared glasses and Oz goes a little blurry around the edges
( ... )
Comments 49
He didn't feel this way when they flew to Sunnydale, and he ought to feel even securer now, with the attacks a few weeks farther in the past. But what he's afraid of, he realizes after the poor chap with bag hides his red face in a book, is not terrorism. It's irony ( ... )
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And beat him.
"Ummm," he says, closing his eyes and pretending to concentrate. "Nope, sorry. Not Peter the Great." He opens his eyes and frowns apologetically. "Not even close, actually."
Reply
"How about this: are you a theologian who wrote that it's the cause and not that suffering that creates martyrs?" Last round, Oz asked him about a voiceover actor on The Simpsons; this seems only fair in return.
Reply
Which Giles, of all people, knows. "Bastard," Oz says lightly, shifting in his seat and recrossing his legs so he can hold Giles' hand in both of his. "Fine. Ask me a yes or no question."
Reply
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In Giles' memory, that summer (the only summer, not the first, although he's not going to bring that up now) is the essence of all summers, heat and desire and joy, Oz wading in soaked jeans or naked and trembling under Giles' body. He scarcely remembers any unhappiness, except for the ends of their two trips away, the sharp bereavement that came with seeing the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign. "I could almost be nostalgic for that summer," he says. Everything, then, was the first time. Everything was the bliss of discovery. And Oz was younger then, more easily happy, not yet touched by lycanthropy or guilt ( ... )
Reply
Reply
And inside . . . inside it's more than hints. Inside, Oz's mouth is slippery and hot, welcoming to Giles' kisses, eager and yielding to his cock. Inside there's a cushiony sliding tongue, a swirling flexible experimental tongue, a tormenting delicate knowing tongue. So fluid, and then the delicious shock of the hard places, the ridged roof of Oz's mouth, his sharp gentle teeth ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Oz isn't . . .
Oh.
There's a rich, butter-and-cooked-sugar smell in the air, a smell that adds warmth to the sunlight. Oz has only gone as far as the kitchen. He's baking, which is the opposite of leaving.
In fact, he looks cozily settled in at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the Guardian, with the Independent and a copy of Time Out at his elbow. He looks more completely, comfortably at home than he ever has here before, as though it took traveling and coming back to let the truth of it appear.
"Morning," Giles says, hugging him from behind and kissing the top of his head. Oz folds his arms over Giles', his fingers stroking the velvet sleeve of Giles' dressing gown, and tilts his head back and smiles.
Reply
"Muffins and bread should be coming out soon," Oz says, twisting around as he stands up. He can never stop touching Giles' robe; it's soft, and made of a thousand rich colors, and somehow simultaneously perfectly *Giles* and perfectly *not*. "Want some tea? They need to cool, so if you want a shower -"
Giles nods, kissing him again.
"Had to run back for milk," Oz says, plugging in the kettle and checking the oven, "I would've left a note, but you were *out*. Smells better in here, right?"
Reply
Giles hurries through his shower, wanting tea and a muffin that hasn't cooled as much as Oz says they're supposed to. Wanting, mostly, to see Oz again at the table, chin in his palm as he reads and one foot hooked around the leg of his chair. It's the way he always sits, the way he will always sit for each of however many thousand mornings add up to forever. The future echoes out from today, almost visibly close and yet extending far past sight and knowledge, and Giles wants to get started ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Either way, Giles wants to stop it. He grasps Oz's wrists, pushes his hands to the floor, and Oz freezes, not even breathing for a few moments. "Anything you want," Giles says, and repeats it when Oz opens his eyes. "Anything." There's no telling, from Oz's narrow-eyed stare and shallow, staccato breaths, if he's really heard. Still holding Oz's hands, Giles sinks down on top of him, trying to make himself a stone, an anchor, solid and trustworthy.
"You could fuck me," he says, dragging their interlocked hands up to either side of Oz's head. "You could hold me down and fuck me so hard." Imagining it, imagining Oz using all of that strength on him, taking him, Giles shivers at the knotted heat that crawls up his spine. He groans, low and rough, when Oz trembles too and ( ... )
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