Giles knows perfectly well that his hangover is his fault, the noise level is no more than slightly above normal, and that shouting is both exacerbating his headache and eroding his relationship with the Slayer and her friends.

He just doesn’t care.

He finishes by stabbing a righteous finger at a yellowed poster on the library wall exhorting students to be quiet, and watches them file out, reproachful, hurt glances, disgusted stares and all.

Then he makes tea, hot, scalding and strong, and goes to sit down in his small office, trying not to let his chair swivel, as it squeaks annoyingly.

The first reviving sips are still travelling down to mix with last night’s whiskey when the door opens.

“Hey.”

“Please go away,” Giles says, tiredness swamping the residual annoyance. “I’m not in the mood for -”

“I’d say you were in a mood. A bad one.”

Giles looks up at this, surprise distracting him from a myriad of bodily ills. “It’s scarcely your concern,” he points out, aware that he sounds unbearably stuffy.

“Wasn’t. Is now.”

“And why is that?” Giles says, temper flaring as he takes an unwisely large gulp of tea and is forced to swallow it or splutter tannin-tinted liquid over a book order.

“Willow’s crying.”

“Ah.”

Silence falls for a moment. Giles glances once more at his visitor, but he seems to feel he’s said all that is needed, and perhaps he has.

“I’m sorry for that,” Giles offers eventually. “I will...tender my apologies in person when I see her next.”

“She’d only get flustered.”

“Possibly,” Giles allows. Willow has a deeply ingrained sense of his elevated status and an apology might be disconcerting.

“So I was thinking I’d handle it for her.”

“I beg your pardon? Handle what?”

“What do you make to fit a crime?”

Giles finds his brain automatically locating the answer to the riddle and his mouth speaking it, while another part of him entirely is adrift on a sea of speculation.

Oz nods and Giles says, with some asperity, “Might I ask what you have in mind?”

There’s a sidelong look and a head tilt that could be interpreted as being as speculative as Giles’ own thoughts. “I think I’d like to see how good you are at keeping quiet.”

“It being a skill you’ve mastered?” Giles says, well aware that sarcasm is a blunt instrument to use against an opponent whose words are floating around the room like the first snowflakes of a blizzard, cool and light, impossible to grasp tightly and still retain. And he finds he wants to keep them, muse over them, lock them away deep and hidden.

The nod he gets in reply is accompanied by a smile so fleeting that Giles wonders if he imagined it. Yet he feels absurdly encouraged by it, real or not, and he pushes back his chair and walks over to the figure who waits, slouched and silent, against the door.

Their eyes meet; calm clashing with expectant to produce a pact.

Giles follows Oz out into the library and notes, in passing, that the doors are propped open. “Shouldn’t you -?”

Oz shakes his head, marmalade hair catching the light. He leads Giles up into the stacks, to a place where they are invisible to anyone on the library floor and stops beside a set of steps, three rungs high, designed to put the top shelves within reach of even the shortest student. Oz nods again, thoughtfully this time and Giles wonders when his covert study of this boy gave him the ability to decrypt his body language; after a week, a month? He’s not sure, but it scarcely matters. Oz pats the top of the steps, solid wood, scarred by heels, dull with dust and Giles perches on them, feeling awkward.

Oz studies him for a second and then reaches out, tugging at Giles’ legs, spreading them, making his feet lie flat against the carpet on either side of the steps. Giles feels a tremor of need as he is posed, exposed, feels his cock, hard since Oz appeared in the doorway, jerk under the additional stimulus of cloth stretched tight and imagination plucked by an expert finger.

He holds up his hands in silent appeal and Oz considers them, bird-like tilt of the head conveying the message that, yes, this is a good point, the hands have to be placed just so. Finally he takes them and puts them behind Giles’ back, his cool fingers turning them so that each hand grips the opposite wrist, so that Giles is cuffed by his own flesh. Being touched like this, looking down at crisp, curling hair, feeling the brush of Oz’s legs against his thighs...it’s enough to make Giles moan, a small sound, barely audible.

Oz steps back, frowning. His head shake is sorrowful and Giles feels panic, unreasoning and intense, claw at him. His eyes widen in appeal and Oz steps close enough to lay a long, calloused finger against Giles’ lips.

Oz speaks for the last time. “One sound, one word and it’s over. This is a library. Have to be quiet, remember?”

So many words...Giles watches the mobile lips, entranced by the shapes they form with each new sound, but most of all by the position they take when Oz is done talking; parted slightly, the full lower lip caught between white teeth for a moment. The teeth steal the colour away and leave fleeting dents. Giles watches the colour flood back and sees the indentations smooth out.

Oz is so close now, close enough for him to reach for the buckle of Giles’ belt, close enough to unfasten it, flick the button of his trousers free, ease down the zip...In a moment Giles’ backside is bare against the wood and his trousers and briefs are around his knees, stretched tightly because of where his feet are placed. His shirt cloaks him, barely, and he can feel precisely where his balls are open to the cool, dry air rather than shielded by cotton.

Oz’s fingers are busy again, delicately unbuttoning the shirt part way, folding it back, pinning it on either side between Giles’ arm and his body. Giles’ tie hangs down, incongruous against his bare chest and Oz’s lips quirk up in a grin. Giles finds himself flushing with hurt and Oz’s eyes catch his, hold them, the smile dissolving in a flash of warm concern. Giles smiles back, almost forgetting why he’s there, what they’re doing. He’s jolted out of complacency when Oz falls to his knees and on the way down takes Giles’ cock into his mouth. It’s a move so perfectly coordinated and unexpected that Giles cries out softly, unable to help it, his cock engulfed in hot darkness, blindly swelling, surging forward until the tip is against the roof of Oz’s mouth, rubbing against softly curved hardness, his hips lifting.

The sound, low and soft as it was, echoes in the small space and Giles shuts his eyes, chagrin wrapping him around like an itchy blanket, smothering and rough.

Oz sighs in disappointment, his mouth still around Giles’ cock, and seems to hesitate. Giles flounders, knowing that to plead his cause would be too flagrant a breach, yet desperately seeking for some way to placate. He settles on perhaps his only option and remains silent, sitting still on the steps so that his cock is pulled slightly back, swallowing the whimper caused by the drag of teeth against the sides of his erection.

Forgivingly, sternly, Oz dips his head and begins. Giles bites his lips, squeezes his fingers around his wrists, tenses every muscle, controls his breathing so that he is panting silently, screws his eyes shut, deprives himself of the sight of Oz’s lips against his cock because he knows his limits and that would be testing them to destruction...

He knows this will end if he makes a sound. He has no doubt of that. Oz will stand, turn and be gone, a flicker of unconcerned regret his only farewell. It will also end when he comes and he wants to make that moment as far in the future as possible...yet, can he endure this much longer? Oz is sucking, lapping, biting gently, one hand resting on his thigh, the other holding Giles in place, squeezing slightly, the fingers flexing in rhythm with his head as it moves swiftly up and down.

Giles has found an equilibrium of sorts and is even contemplating opening his eyes in hubristic optimism, when voices shatter the moment, voices of students, coming into the library, chattering away, sounding loud, coming closer. Panic seals Giles’ lips tighter than passion and his eyes fly open as he looks down. Oz raises his eyes and meets the frantic gaze serenely before bringing his idle hand up. He slips it inside his mouth and Giles feels sudden coolness against his hot, full flesh, tickling as it pushes in and pulls out. Then he arches back, his head striking leather bindings and wooden shelving as Oz tugs him forward just enough, so he’s barely on the narrow step, and inserts the damp finger inside his body, pushing firmly, sliding in just a little, crooking it and doing just enough to make Giles come in violent, silent spasms, his hips snapping forward, his head thrown back, mouth open on a soundless scream.

The students leave and the door closes behind them, quiet seeping out to coat the room once more.

Giles collapses back, his body loose now, all tension gone. His hands slip free and he brings one around to touch Oz’s face, a caress too brief to deserve the name. Oz turns his face so that his cheek is cupped by the grateful, chastised hand and then stands, nods, and walks away.

The door closes behind him and Giles is left to listen to himself say nothing.



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