(Advantage, Oz)
The lust constricts him. Like a child shoehorned by a thrifty mother
into last yearâs winter coat, he finds himself forced into behaviours
he thought long outgrown, embracing them with the fervour of the
newly-converted.
Watching; surreptitious, stolen, covert glances. He captures images to
finger and taste when heâs alone; the haloed conflagration when a beam
of sunlight catches Ozâs amber hair; the way a faded, silk-soft cotton
shirt pulls tightly across slender shoulders; a back bent bowed as Oz
ties his shoe lace. He can hold the picture in his mind and contemplate
odd, random details - the way the lace was twisted tightly between the
fingers will be the trigger that sends him spinning into release that
night, not the question-mark curve of backside and thigh - though that
had him wanting to answer it with a single word, if only he could
choose one (yes, yours, mine, want, need, please, please, please - now).
Talking; inventing questions, treasuring the monosyllabic mundanities
as though they were love notes, feeling the low, husky voice like a
touch inside. The customary stillness of the boy broken like a skipped
stone shimmers flat water when an impulse sets Oz talking, the slow,
careful words speeding up gradually, the hands framing and cupping each
word as it leaves the wide mouth to float on the air.... Xander
competes for conversational space with loud babbling, tuned out
indulgently - Ozâs words lie calligraphed against white silence always
in Gilesâ mind.
Touching; dangerous this, and indulged in only when need has his heart
hammering hard, and he fools himself into thinking that a brush of
fingers against bare arm will discharge the build-up of desire
harmlessly. It never does and he lies with sleep out of reach,
wondering if heâd imagined the amused gleam in the sea-clear eyes.
The power is out of his hands and thatâs galling and strange. Giles
doesnât know what will happen next, when he will need more than this is
giving him, and that uncertainty sours him. Giles has yet to find
anything Oz wants from him, anything he can offer up. Worship is
another word for trade. Gilesâ hands are empty and Ozâs are overflowing.
Giles knows he wonât kneel to his idol in shamed supplication, craving
a touch, a word. Not today. Heâs sure of that.
He never lets himself think of tomorrow.
***
(Advantage, Giles.)
Wolf. Demon. Monster. Less. Vulnerable. As Oz endures, waiting for the
full moon to rise for the second time since he was bitten, Giles feels
exultation rise in a dark swell. He hides it well; offers sympathy, his
talents at research - and a cage within his domain. He readies it,
checking locks, laying down blankets, his cock so hard as he realises
that in this space Oz will stand, naked, bare, waiting for his body to
shift, that his teeth grit and grind as he fights back the need to mark
this space as his, to spill onto the blankets and let the wolf lie
surrounded by his scent, alone, all night, as he has been alone.
He wonders if Oz will change, diminish - and he splits in two. Oz as
werewolf is prey. Off limits still but for different reasons. Giles
could kill him without outward consequence. It makes a difference. Yet
even as he feels himself regain control over a situation he isnât sure
exists beyond his mind, it slips from him in a wave of passionate
longing for Oz to retain everything that makes him Oz.
The first night Oz changes in the cage, Giles waits out of sight. As
soon as the boy is lost in his nightmare he walks in, thrusting the
swinging doors apart, arrogance and anticipation quickening his steps
and lengthening his stride.
He pauses, three steps in. His library is full of alien shapes; shadows
his mind cannot interpret. Alien sounds, forged in a supernatural
throat, slice the studious quiet like claws. He feels out of place and
for a moment, the new balance shifts uneasily.
Then he turns. Oz will never see this. He could stand in a room of
mirrors and never see himself with human, horrified eyes. Like a
vampire, heâs blind. Giles looks and canât look away. Last month, when
Oz was brought here unconscious, Willow and Buffy surrounding him with
concern, Giles was too bewildered to really see, but now -
Spittle drools from a mouth that should be curved in a gentle smile.
Green grape spring grass eyes full of innocent, knowing appeal are
smeared shit brown; savage, wild eyes now. Smooth skin, dappled with
freckles, is coated with coarse, matted hair. Giles has imagined Oz
naked more times than heâs said his name aloud. This is an obscenity as
those wanton wonderings were not.
If he prayed, heâd sink to his knees now to cry for mercy, but not for
himself. He stands, hot tears squeezing out of eyes squeezed shut,
fists clenched, his choked gasp of revulsion and fury lost in the howl
from the thing in the cage.
He leaves, feet stumbling, dragging, sickness twisting his gut. He
sends Xander to release him and avoids the boy the next day as
assiduously as he had sought him out. He has one look at him, walking
towards a class, his head bent, his walk uncertain - then a friendâs
greeting raises the drooping head and heâs reassured. Oz hasnât left,
isnât broken.
He returns the next night, the middle night.
Heâs calmer now. Prepared. Brought to that point where desperation lies
down with fear and gives birth to evanescent courage. He stays well
back and talks. The wolfâs howls ululate down the deserted corridors of
the school. Itâs maddened by his presence - delicious irony there! -
but Giles doesnât fear discovery. If screams brought help in
Sunnydale...well they donât. Never did. So he stands, paces, sits and
talks, the words calm, measured, as he details his love and dares to
call it that, spells out his lust in words so crude the air quivers and
parts, and admits his obsession to the cause of it. Telling Oz would be
unthinkable. Telling this changeling, this primal being, is easy.
Cleansed, he retreats, secure in the knowledge that Oz will remember
none of it, the resentment leached from him after weeks, the craving
controlled.
The next day, he comes to the library soon after dawn, laden with
coffee and donuts, hours of sleep buoying him up. Oz is dressed, pale
and tired. His eyes light up and Giles allows himself to think itâs for
more than the food. They sit, the table separating them, and eat. Oz
reaches out idly for a book and Giles tells him sharply not to read
when his fingers are sticky with sugar.
“You do,” Oz points out mildly.
Giles, who finds it nearly impossible to eat without reading, flicks
the page with a thumb, holding the book in one hand while the other is
occupied with a jelly donut. “Iâm older. Had more experience,” he says
smugly, glad to exercise control in such an innocuous, blameless
fashion.
The donut splits and jelly, red and glutinous, jelly thatâs never seen
a raspberry, a strawberry, or whatever itâs mimicking, slides down
Gilesâ palm and wrist. He curses, laying the book down, and glancing
around for a napkin. Oz stands, in silence, walks around and drags a
finger through the red glop, taking it to his mouth and sucking it
clean.
Time. Stops.
Giles doesnât think there can be room in his eyes for anything but
hunger but there must have been because Oz answers a question he never
voiced and brings Gilesâ world once again shuddering to a halt.
“I donât remember words. They donât mean anything to the wolf. But you
were talking to me all night.”
“I...donât understand. I left - I left quite early.”
Giles is vaguely proud that he can still speak coherently.
“You left. Your smell didnât. Itâs on you now. It has been for weeks
but I didnât know what it meant -” His eyes go distant and he speaks
slowly, thinking aloud. “Itâs like, you know, the time I found out that
foreign languages have words that donât translate into American. I
couldnât get my head around that for the longest time. And they have
words for concepts we take a paragraph to explain and they get it in a
word and people know the concept behind the word, just like that.”
He drifts off again and Giles says, “Schadenfreude,” and wins a
delighted smile as a reward for his comprehension and a nod.
“So now Iâve got a word for that scent, the way youâve been around me.”
“And that would be?”
Ozâs eyes lock onto his and thereâs something deep inside thatâs new.
Giles feels his neck prickle with atavistic alarm. Oz reaches out to
the stickiness on Gilesâ hand again and pauses, his finger hovering.
Then he scoops up a fingerful and moves it towards Gilesâ mouth instead
of his own.
Then the taste of sweetness is lying against his lips and heâs moaning
around Ozâs finger as it thrusts inside his mouth, his tongue laving
it, his teeth nipping at it and Oz is straddling his lap and theyâre
kissing, wild and rough kisses, panting against each other, falling to
the ground, rolling and ripping at clothes, until Giles stops, pushes
himself up and looks down at Oz.
The green eyes narrow and Giles shakes his head. It isnât fear of
discovery that halts him; the library might as well not exist for most
of the students. It isnât fear of consequences either.
No; as Giles stands, straightens clothing and walks over to swallow the
last of his lukewarm coffee, heâs thinking that now he knows heâs not
alone in this... trade, theyâll play it his way. Without looking at Oz,
he says, casually, “Last night of full moon tonight. Tomorrow night I
want you here again. Waiting for me. In the cage. Naked.”
Oz stands with a fluid, dangerous grace that was his before the wolf
and walks over to Giles. Heâs smiling and his lips are in that lovely
wide curve. His fingers reach, dance and slide over the hard length
outlined clearly and Giles feels his breath catch on a sob.
“Sure...” Oz says agreeably. “If youâre waiting outside it naked when
I wake up tomorrow morning.”
And their eyes meet and Giles begins to laugh.
Equals.
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