Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/319502.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer
  Relationship:
      Oz/Xander
  Character:
      Xander_Harris, Oz_Osbourne, Willow_Rosenberg
  Additional Tags:
      Cheating, awkward_teen_boys_being_stupid
  Series:
      Part 3 of Nice_Shirt
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-01-13 Words: 6522
****** Nice Shirt: Loaned ******
by gloss
Summary
     Xander drags Oz home and loans him the shirt. Things happen in
     between.
*
[s3 before "Anne" (3x1)]
 *
By the time they gave up and quit patrol, it was raining pretty heavily. Just
the three of them, like it had been all summer. Two vamps killed, but three got
away, and none of this was getting any easier. Willow held her right wrist and
her eyes were big with unacknowledged pain, while Xander limped to the van on
an untrustworthy gimpy ankle. Oz probably had it worst; the girl vamp had some
seriously impressive acrylic nails, long as talons, painted in the SHS maroon
and gold, and she'd gone for his throat when she tackled him, then raked open
his arm, snarling, when Xander hauled her off.
"Rain," Willow says. "That's good, it's been way too dry this summer."
"Plenty wet now." Using his injured arm, he yanks open the van door so Xander
can get in. He grimaces and Xander puts his hand on Oz's shoulder.
"You okay?"
"Never better," Oz says. "Bleeding's stopped. Almost."
"Good sign." Xander thinks he should say more, but Oz has this *effect* on him,
something linguistic, where he can't really talk as much as he wants to, as
much as he usually does. It might be something to do with kissing Oz, almost a
year ago now, like silence is a virus. But if that's true, then Willow should
be similarly infected; more so, since she's probably done more with Oz than
Xander ever did. Not that Xander wants to think along those lines.
"One night of rain doesn't fix everything," she says, settling into the
passenger seat and yanking on the seatbelt. "That's a common mistake in logic,
taking the specific as evidence of a general trend, but drought, it's a matter
of the long term patterns --"
No, Willow's not affected at all.
The rain isn't just drumming on the roof of the van; it's symphonic, both
beating and flowing, and he dozes a little when they stop at Willow's house. Oz
walks her to the door, like they're in a production of _Our Town_, but rushed.
Hurrying through the rain, Oz holding his long-sleeved shirt over their heads,
they're a single shape, blurred in the mist, moving away from him fast.
Sometimes, watching how they talk, how they touch, it makes Xander miss Cordy.
Not right now, though; if he ever tried to take her arm and walk her to her
door, Cordy would slap him away, remind him for the millionth time she's not
Willow, thank God, cast some aspersions on his masculinity, and then take off,
heels clicking angrily.
Okay, *now* he misses her.
He tries not to watch Willow and Oz on her porch, their heads bent together,
lips brushing, and, probably, megahigh IQ points getting passed back and forth
as they kiss. He tries not to watch, tries not to feel left out, left behind,
like he's missing out.
Maybe what he's missing is the opportunity. A chance *for* something, but
Xander's not sure what. It's not like he has a prior claim or anything; Oz
isn't some patch of prairie available for homesteading, a patch that Xander
grabbed, or could have grabbed, months before Willow. It's not like that, not
that *tacky*.
The way Oz and Willow touch, it's so gentle, like sleepy cats, winding around
each other, nuzzling and nudging, affectionately grooming. It's acquaintance,
intimacy, kinship. Kinship's a weird word to use for them, since it'd be pretty
incestuous if it was true, but Xander can't think of a better one. They look so
much alike, almost the same size and both so pale, wrapped in baby-fine skin.
There's not that much to see, actually. Willow and Oz remind Xander of kids, of
old movies and two straws in one malted and putting on a show in Grampa's barn.
He hasn't felt that, he doesn't think. Even with Oz, that one time, there were
flickers of it, but only flickers. Hints. Mostly, even through all the alien
strange upsettingness, or what should have been upsettingness, of doing all
that with a *boy*, he felt like other times. Like with Cordelia, the huge rush
of warmth and excitement, confidence and tingles overwhelming him.
Willow and Oz are innocent together, and it makes this -- *thing* -- this Oz-
thing of history easier.
A lot easier to put it all aside, all that beer-soaked groping and hard, boy-
body pressure against his chest, and those sharp, deep kisses. Blowjob,
handjob. That thing is history, well-remembered but past and different.
Past, passed.
That Oz, the one he fooled around with, was a stranger, and fierce, and *sexy*,
and not at all like this Oz, the gentle and quiet and Willow's.
Xander believes, almost to the point of dogma and mantra, that history's best
kept in books. Big old unread books, yes. The kind that are locked away in
Giles's office.
"So, what? I'm Morgan Freeman now?" Oz, sharp-voiced, sliding into the driver's
seat.
Xander starts and knocks his head against the window. "Huh?"
Tapping the back of the passenger seat, Oz glances over his shoulder. "Yes, Miz
Daisy. You just stay back there, and I'll drive."
Against the black vinyl seat, Oz's hand is shaking a little. Hard to tell from
back here, and it moves away as Xander pulls himself into the front, his ankle
protesting. Up close, Oz's face is paler than usual, his eyes a little too big
and bright.
"I can drive," Xander says. "You don't look so hot."
"Dead body," Oz says, turning the key. Xander's about to let loose another
scintillatingly intelligent *huh?* when Oz looks over and smiles. "Over my."
"Hey, I'm not *that* bad a driver --"
"Yeah. Not you, it's just --"
"I get the it's not you, it's me speech?" Xander asks.
Oz's hands are small and white as he grips the steering wheel, backing up. He's
shivering a little. "Yeah."
"Cold?"
"A little," Oz admits, peeling the collar of his soaked shirt from his neck. As
they drive, everything's lit random and sharp, streetlights and oncoming cars,
and Oz looks sick and small in the crashing angles of light.
"Come onna my house," Xander says when Oz turns onto his block. "Warm up, and
I'll find you something dry."
Oz exhales and Xander knows he's about to say no.
"Oz. You're wet as a dog and hurt."
"Yeah, okay."
Xander's pretty sure that Oz doesn't like being alone with him; or maybe
Xander's just projecting. Apparently, he projects a lot. Maybe it's both, and
that double load of discomfort *ought* to be enough to break Oz's twiggy little
shoulders. But Oz is way stronger than he looks. Even a year ago, his invisible
ropy muscles were enough to wrestle Xander down. Now with the wolf inside him,
he's probably like Buffy-strong.
The van's idling in front of Xander's house and they're just sitting here, not
talking, not even really looking at each other. What are they waiting for?
There are things that Xander knows he should say, things he *wants* to say, but
Oz makes words feel extravagant and messy. Like big dripping ugly things up for
dissection in science class, dead and stinking. Like roadkill, so a raccoon,
spread across the highway, is four times as big as it ever was alive. Xander's
mouth is working, but he can't think of what to say, how to say, *sorry I never
returned those messages you left, sorry it took me three weeks to look you in
the eye when you started hanging around, sorry sorry sorry.*
"You know," he starts and rubs his palms together. *I am sorry*, he thinks, and
looks at Oz out of the corner of his eye, Oz slumped slightly in his seat, two
fingers almost meditatively rubbing the scratch on his face. "I'm --. It's
probably nicer inside."
Oz looks at *him* sideways, the corner of his mouth twitching, then curving up.
"You're right." He reaches over and Xander wills himself to be still, not to
jump at contact, because Oz is his *friend*, it's all right. More than all
right, he really actually *wants* Oz to touch him. Oz flips open the glove
compartment and pulls out an old Sucrets tin. Okay, so no touching.
"My folks are in Reno," Xander says at the front door as he fumbles for his
keys. "Gun show, family reunion, casino-trawling."
"Fun," Oz says and Xander shrugs, stepping aside so Oz can go in first.
"Something like that." Xander loves having the house to himself, even if he's
supposedly grounded and staying here alone, missing the extended-family
gambling and drinking is supposed to be a punishment. He clatters up the
stairs, then stops short at the top, realizing he's a sucky host. Oz bumps into
him softly. "Sorry. Just occurred to me -- are you hungry? I've got a freezer
full of Swanson's, and there's lasagna that's still good, I think. And soda.
Maybe you're thirsty?"
Oz shakes his head, his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. His silence
reminds Xander all over to again to take it easy on the words.
"Right, okay. Shower." He rustles in the linen closet for the good guest
towels, long and fluffy and midnight blue, the ones he's not allowed to use. He
hands three to Oz. "They won't be back until Monday, so, you know. You can make
all the racket you want."
Smiling, Oz pats the towels. "I'll keep that in mind."
Xander's still got his arm out, though the towels are safe with Oz, and the
polite thing, the smart thing to do, is pretty simple. Drop his hand and step
back, get out of the way, let the guy take his shower.
So of course Xander steps a little closer, hand on Oz's shoulder. The rain is
weighing down Oz's hair, making each spike droop and curl over the puzzled
twist of his brows as he looks up at Xander. There's a fine layer of mist,
maybe sweat, along Oz's hairline, down his nose, across the cuts on his cheeks.
His eyes are green, the cuts angry red, and Xander *wants*. Wants something,
someone, *Oz*. He feels history uncoil, rear up like a dragon, ready to repeat
itself. All he needs now is to put his big, clumsy hand on Oz's cheek, like
this, and --.
Oz closes his eyes, his mouth thinning, stretching, into a frown. "Xander."
"Yeah, right, sorry." Xander pulls back, turning for his room, scrubbing both
hands through his hair. "Use my parents' shower, down through there. It's --"
Pressure on his hip, Oz slipping two fingers through his belt loop, and Xander
stumbles, turning back around. Full pressure of Oz now, all the way down his
chest, and Oz tilts, leans in more, brushes his lips over Xander's.
"-- bigger. It's bigger, and --"
It's too close to tell, but he thinks Oz smiles, kisses him again, wide dry
lips a little sweet-salty, before he pulls back. "Got a lot to talk about."
That's not good. That's what guidance counselors and moms say when you've
screwed up. That's what Giles says when he takes you aside and suggests that
maybe you're not cut out for assistant-slayage. Not good.
Then again, kissing. Kissing *is* good.
The skin down his chest is damp and cold now that Oz isn't pressed up against
him, but underneath, all through his body, he feels flushed and prickly like
he's wrapped in a malfunctioning and ancient electric blanket. Xander bobs his
head. "Sure, sure," he says. "You go shower, and I'll --. Don't know. Find you
something dry."
Oz glances over his shoulder. "Down there?"
"Yeah, through their room, at the back. It's bigger, and, you know. Cleaner."
He sees Oz's weird little smile, like he's both amused and touched by the ways
of this strange world, like he's an anthropologist from a better, more evolved
society, all the way back to his own room. It's still twisting, teasing and
knowing, across the back of Xander's lids every time he blinks. Still there,
and this low-level burn on his lips from the kiss to boot, as he digs through
his dresser for something, anything, that'll fit Oz. Rubbing the back of his
hand across his mouth doesn't help, it's like frostbite, like hints and
promises. He can do this. Even if he's not quite sure what *this* is, he can do
it. He's pretty sure he can.
Soon as he finds something that won't fall off Oz's tiny frame. In the bottom
drawer, he finds his track pants from eighth grade, before a growth spurt, that
might do. At the back of his army-surplus foot-locker, hiding a couple
_Playboy_s and his two precious issues of _Blue Boy_, bought in Oceanside when
his mom made him accompany Rory on one of his nebulous, open-ended errands, he
finds *that* shirt.
The peep-show one, the one that kept him up all night after Oz drove him and
his bandmates home from the party, the one that despite -- or maybe because of
-- spritzing with bleach *and* Downy and washing alone in a hot rinse, came out
faded and shrunken, little spots of pink among the red. Spots that accuse
Xander of dirty, regrettable, wronger-than-wrong deeds.
Good deeds, too. Very good, with the warmth and the closeness and sweet depths
of Oz's mouth.
Rubbing his mouth again, he brings the clothes and his first-aid kit into his
parents' room and sits on the edge of their bed. King-sized, big enough so they
don't have to touch while they sleep, it's way comfier and wider than his own.
The sound of the shower contends with the rain drumming against the windows and
when Xander closes his eyes, it's like a concert in his head. Rushing water,
beating and ticking. Lulling.
"Hey," Oz says, and Xander opens his eyes. Oz is in the doorway to the
bathroom, steam behind him, one towel wrapped around his waist - so long it
looks like a skirt, like that thing Cordy wears to the pool. A sarong. - the
other draped around his neck. He moves carefully, gracefully, and Xander
wonders whether maybe Oz has worn a skirt before. Guys in the locker-room, they
struggle with towels, grip the fold at their waists, yank them off as soon as
they can.
Locker-rooms, guys, Larry. Xander shakes his head as he stands up.
"Sit down, sit down," he says, switching places, and Oz smells like pine and
Ivory soap as he passes. He gives Oz the bed and sinks down to the floor,
first-aid kit in his lap.
The cut on Oz's arm opened up again in the shower and the water on his hand is
pink. Little drops, like carnations or the things in bridesmaids' bouquets.
"Water all right?" Xander remembers to ask, looking up.
Oz ought to look small. Fragile, even, after tonight, after the summer they've
had. But he doesn't. Now Xander thinks maybe Oz *never* looked all that small,
maybe it was just his own mind and memory playing their usual unfunny tricks on
him. Or maybe Oz *is* different. Everything else has changed, so much is
different (wolf, Willow), that Xander might as well be on his knees in front of
a stranger.
"Hot, yeah," Oz says, touching the cuts on his face. His skinny chest is
flushed in random patterns like the shadows of leaves on Xander's ceiling when
cars pass late at night. Except pink.
"Cool. Or, not cool, but good," Xander says, fumbling with the rusty latch on
the first-aid kit. "It's kind of wrong, isn't it? Having your own first-aid
kit? Like, isn't that for, I don't know. Parents? Nursery school teachers?"
Nodding, Oz just smiles a little. His eyes are red around the rims, and for a
second Xander thinks he got soap in them. Maybe he was crying? Oz doesn't cry.
It just seems impossible.
Xander scoots forward, close enough that Oz's breath was on his face while he
painted antibiotic into the cut down Oz's cheek. And Oz's breath smells like
the smoke off Willow's burning sage.
"Are you *baked*?" Xander asks.
Oz's eyes close, and the blink lasts three beats too long before they open
again. "A little, yeah."
"So that's how come you're always so calm. I get it now." Xander taps his
forehead and nods as sagely as he can. "It all comes together, my dear Watson."
"No, Holmes was the cokehead."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Actually, I'm pretty sparing with it. Blue moon sort of thing."
"So why now?"
Oz's eyes flicker as he tilts his head. The light from the bathroom catches the
water on the tips of his red lashes and Xander holds his breath. Something
tells him to - Oz's quiet, which is different from his usual quiet, which is
kind of sad, kind of reflective - and then Oz says, "Nervous, I guess."
Oz doesn't get nervous; why would Oz get nervous? He kissed Xander first, last
time *and* tonight, and Xander just kissed him. If Xander was Oz, he'd be
reclining into his own utter coolness.
"Shaking my foundations here," Xander says. Oz smiles and his fingers relax
from their grip on his knees, so the towel smoothes out.
"Sorry about that."
"Oz, I --" *I'm sorry*, Xander's head says again, but the words still won't
come. He makes himself look up and meet Oz's eyes. He touches his own lower
lip, then Oz's. "Can I?"
"Why?"
*Because your hair's wet, and your face is cut. Because you're too quiet and
I'm too loud, but when we're kissing it all evens out.* The thoughts, though,
they're coming in a language Xander's mouth doesn't know how to form. He shrugs
and his tongue feels thick. Floppy. "Dunno. Feel like it."
"Why?" Oz asks again, and the first time it was a fair question. Second time,
though, it's a habit. And strangely, quietly, *Ozly* obnoxious.
"I need a reason?"
"I guess not." Biting his lip, Oz glances away, over toward the bathroom, and
his face is white as marble, slashed with the scabbing-over cuts.
"Forget it. Sorry. Clearly I don't know what I was thinking." He wants to sound
angry, but it's not quite coming. More than anything, to his own ears Xander
sounds pretty whiney. "Just want to."
"That's --" Oz looks down at his palms. "Well, that's *a* reason, anyway. Not
sure if it's a good one."
"Didn't say it had to be *good*," Xander says.
Oz smiles, and it's not a tease. He looks genuinely, if vaguely, happy. Maybe
pleased. "True."
Oz always does that. Whether they're in the library or the van or picking out
toppings for Make Your Own Pizza and Distract Giles Night, he'll do that, come
in sideways to a conversation, confuse the hell out of Xander and fluster him,
then bring it back down to a mellow, friendly groove.
Xander scrubs his palms up and down his thighs, working off excess energy and
the antibiotic cream, and tries to smile back. "Can I have some of your demon
weed? Think I need it."
"Don't know."
Okay, obnoxious again. Xander straightens his back and looks Oz square in the
eye. "Why not?"
"'cause then --" Oz's hand inside Xander's collar, tickling, drawing him in -
- "you'd be under the influence both times. Starts looking like a good excuse."
"Both --? *Oh*."
Xander can do this. It's tonight's mantra, and he can show Oz. He rises onto
his knees, puts his arm around Oz's clammy waist, right over the edge of the
towel, and presses in. Kisses Oz, not just a brush that can be forgotten, but
hand on Oz's shoulder, mouth open, a real kiss. A kiss that means business. And
Oz is *there*, hand up the back of Xander's skull, fingers in his hair, pulling
him in. The bed creaks as Oz shifts back, opening his legs and leaning down
slightly. A cascade of *sparkles*, fast and rushing like bubbles in cheap
champagne, showers down Xander's back, into the pits of his palms and the root
of his cock, and his hands rove over Oz's back and sides before he pulls back.
Oz's mouth is still open for half a second as Xander tilts his head the other
way. "Sober, see?"
Oz yanks at his hair. "I see."
"Yeah," Xander says, and it's a kind of triumph. Vamps might escape, Buffy
might leave them all in her dust, Cordy might abandon him for summer resort
fun, Willow might find her soulmate, but Xander? Xander can kiss and he doesn't
need to be under the influence. He can kiss and leave Oz -- *Oz* -- wanting
more, tilting in and running his tongue over his lips.
He can want, full-stop. He wants, and it's okay to want. He doesn't know *what*
he wants, but it's something like the fog out there, shifting and blurry, and
it's inside Oz. Or maybe it's around Oz, clinging to him, and if Xander's hands
just figure out where to touch, and when, like right now, it'll come off Oz and
pass into Xander. So he braces one foot on the floor, pulling Oz in again, then
nudging him back, and the towel's coming loose and Xander's lying on top of Oz,
and kissing him. The sparkles are a gang of comets now, blazing through him,
burning him up in their wake, and Oz's mouth is open and his hands are open,
and he's staring up at Xander with wide eyes and wonder and a red rim, paper-
thin, of fear.
"Feel like it," Xander says, his breath coming fast, making the words light as
paper flowers. "You?"
Oz's eyes widen more, whites around the green-black, and he nods. Reaches, neck
stretching, mouth open, and kisses Xander again, teeth in his lip, pulling him
down. Fingers wrapped in Xander's hair still, pulling in time with the rise and
fall of his chest, the rattle of his heartbeat, and Xander reaches back,
grabbing Oz's wrist, pushing his arm over his head.
"Not too hard," Xander says, harsh and a little too loud. He runs his finger
over Oz's mouth, taps his teeth.
"Not too hard," Oz echoes, and gets his mouth around Xander's finger, pulls it
in over soft tongue, along sharp teeth. Sucks it in and out, hot and wet, sharp
and soft, and Xander's balanced on one elbow, hips riding towel and *Oz*,
watching his finger move. And this could go so many ways, Oz's pink lips and
green eyes and the brown of Xander's finger, the concentrated, spiralling heat
of his dick, this could repeat history, write it anew, this could go to hell.
Under him, Oz's body is hard and small, smooth skin but hard, jutting bones -
- shoulder, ribs, pelvis -- and Xander's been here before, but that was Cordy
there. Cordy underneath him, her legs tangled in his, soft and firm and
*curved*. No dick pushing up under the towel, no sharp elbows and burr of
stubble down her throat, and Xander's mouth sweeps down over Oz's Adam's apple,
suckles hard and Oz twists, sighing into a whine, tightening his leg around the
back of Xander's thigh.
When you get right down to it, though, it's all nerve-endings and skin, right?
Right? Electricity and twitches, sensation and more sensation, and he can make
Oz sigh like that again, louder, and higher.
"Bed," Oz says, "Xander, the bed --"
Xander looks up, bleary, mouth burning and gums aching for *more*, hand down
Oz's side, squeezing his hip hard enough that the bone down there slides like a
dull knife over his hand. "Huh?"
"Parents' bed," Oz says. "Should probably --"
"Like it in here. Bigger," Xander says. "Won't mess it up."
Oz touches Xander's forehead, his hair again, and his mouth curves. "Perv."
"Well, *yeah*," Xander says, turning his head, letting his tongue trace the
tangle of veins in Oz's wrist. Sweet, soft skin inside, and rough red hair
outside, Xander tastes it all and Oz writhes. "It's, like, just incentive. To,
you know. *Not* mess it up. Get it?" Thumb across the top of Oz's crotch, the
towel totally open now, brushing hair and hot skin, and Oz shivers with his
whole body, so Xander does it again. "Not spill a drop, I mean."
"Got it," Oz says and Xander grins. Fourth of July *and* a laser-light show
inside his skin, brightness piercing through his pores and he doesn't know how
Oz isn't blinded by the glare. He's got history to make right and apologies to
perform. Skin to taste, sounds to coax out of Oz.
"Want to, want to --."
"Yeah," Oz says, wriggling back, taking Xander's shirt over his head, then
pulling him back in. Skinny fingers up and down Xander's back, murmurs in his
ear, and Oz is thrusting against Xander's stomach, and the last thing on his
mind, Xander's sure, is the whole talking thing. No talking, not about anything
other than *this*, with the shudders and hot slide of skin and Xander going
back on his knees. He can only look in long, quick glances, because it's too
much, long white body of Oz and all that skin and his dark red cock up against
his concave stomach. Nothing like post-wolf Oz, curled up and tiny; the
opposite, so much, and Oz's mouth a tight line, his hands around Xander's
elbows, trying to pull him back.
He owes Oz. For not returning calls, and ignoring him, and more than that, he
wants. He wants to make this right, because sooner or later, they *are* going
to talk, and it's going to be girls, Willow, over Xander, because that's the
much better choice. If Xander was in Oz's shoes, he'd choose Willow, too. He's
already chosen Cordy. He might even love her, *does* love her, but right now,
all year, he's also wanted Oz. Wanted him like this, with a hard dick and
whistling, panting breaths and tiny nipples that rise against the flat of
Xander's tongue and taste like boy and wolf and soap. With little hairs around
them that tickle Xander's chin and nose and when Xander bites a little harder,
Oz pushes up, crushing Xander's face against his chest. Wraps both legs around
Xander's thighs and thrusts and thrusts, rolling his hips, and this is not a
girl, this is different but it feels the same, so hot inside Xander's skin,
packed with light and gunpowder. Xander grinds back against Oz's leg, sliding
down, going mouth and teeth down the center of Oz's chest, to his stomach, to
his cock.
With one breath, his mouth is parched, and then the next, with Oz's cock
slapping against Xander's cheek, his mouth fills with spit and he slobbers a
little, hungry and half-bestial, but Oz is a wolf, he must get that, and Xander
wraps his hand around the base of Oz's dick as he tastes the sweat caught in
the rough hair down here, sweat and shower-water reheated by Oz's skin, tangy
and clean.
In his palm -- he remembered this part just right, he's so proud, he remembered
the heat and the slidey-silk hardness of it, the fat curve of the head and the
lacey twist of the vein -- Oz's dick jumps and Xander crooks his thumb over the
head as he jerks it. Too slowly, he can hear the whines building up in Oz's
throat, his name stuttered out. Bracing his other hand on Oz's knee, rough and
sharp as a seashell, he pushes the leg up and hears Oz's breath catch.
Xander won't stop, can't stop, tasting the sweat and water and *skin* that's
getting hotter, tangier, softer the deeper he goes, over the crevice of balls
and behind. Oz isn't breathing and his joints seem locked in place, but when
Xander bites the curve of skin, he tastes salt and hears Oz sigh out all the
air in his lungs in a great whooshing rush.
"Don't have to, it's okay --" Oz, far away, far above Xander, and Xander's
mouth is aching and needy. Empty.
"Want to. Told you." He presses his face into where the skin is slick and
secret, corkscrewing his tongue deeper yet. The sigh releases something in Oz,
makes him ripple and thrust, twist his hips and open his legs wider. And
Xander's all mouth and hands, heat filling his throat and spinning up his arm
as he's hunched here, licking Oz open.
"C'mere," Oz is saying, again, and then again, his voice breaking. "Xander --"
Hands in his pits, pulling him up -- Oz *is* strong, really strong -- and
Xander's cock slips up Oz's leg as Oz's dick rides down Xander's chest. Arm
around Oz's neck, and Xander's hunching his shoulders, straddling Oz's thighs,
burying his face in Oz's neck. "Sorry," he's saying, mouthing over Oz's
shoulder, "sorry, sorry."
"Not sorry --" Oz is twisting, wrapping one leg around Xander's waist, so their
dicks are lined up, underside to underside, and he's turning Xander's face.
"Just want you up here." Kissing his eyes, his cheeks, drawing patterns like
flowers and rain over Xander, and pushing, sliding, setting up a burn.
Shame sizzles away, apologies fray and lift, and when Oz kisses him, they're
both *there*, not mouth-fucking, not wrestling for dominance, but thrusting in
time and together, like the kiss spread out over their bodies. Envelopes,
Xander thinks, and sleeping bags. Warm, tight things, secrets and honesty. The
quiet he thought was *in* Oz isn't, it's all around them, even if they're
breathing hard and it's so loud with the rain and the rub-part-slap of skin.
He's touching all of Oz he can, palms up the back of his thighs, through soft
curling hair, down hard ribs and sharp elbows, feeling it all echoed back,
traced deeper on his own skin as they rub faster and the kiss deepens and
widens. That familiar tension is prickling out over his back and up his legs,
the tightness that comes when he jerks off or Cordy blows him, but Xander
*doesn't* feel the need to push in and deep. He rubs faster, pulling Oz up
against him, their balls nudging and swinging, and Oz is close, too. Xander
feels it all throughout this skinny, sharp little body, the way his skin's
heating up and his muscles are going tense and the kiss is shallow because
they're both panting and falling and when he starts to come, Oz locks his arm
around Xander's neck. Hard to breathe, he's seeing black and gold filigrees and
rubbing, rubbing hard enough to lose skin, lose self.
Say goodnight Gracie, goodbye Xander. They're locked together, and after the
first shuddering shoot, he doesn't know who's shooting. Warm and *open*, his
whole body flying open, collapsing, come all over their stomachs and chests.
Exhausted kissing, more like pecks, and he can't see, can't think, can't let
go.
He holds onto Oz, rolls over so Oz is blanketing him, all prickly hair and
clammy skin, kissing his neck and sucking on his collarbone. Oz pats Xander's
head like he's a good, friendly dog, pushes the sweaty hair back, and lies
still, sighing and wheezing.
The rain pings the window, the wind rattles the glass, and Xander's gone.
Stardust for brains, water in his lungs, eyes burning like acid.
Oz rolls off him, then up close again, leg over Xander's splayed ones, finger
playing over Xander's chest.
When the time comes, it's way too soon. Like the reverse of the kiss, it's
sharp and small and gets him right in the chest.
Oz, hoarse and shy: "Probably shouldn't do this again."
"Yeah," Xander says, tongue thick. He feels so good, despite the dagger, that
he'd probably agree to anything right about now. Always was slow on the uptake.
"It's -- wrong."
Rolling onto his side, Oz rests his head on Xander's shoulder. Addresses his
nipple. "Not sure about *that*."
"But --"
"Felt good. Pretty sure there was mutual consent."
His laughter twists around the cold dagger, making him choke and splutter. "Ow.
Yeah. But -- cheating. And --" He stops himself before he says *gay*. No way is
Oz narrow-minded enough to think wrong equals gay; that's Xander's own sad
pitiful little issue, his own fucked-up truth.
Oz seems to know what Xander didn't say. It's obvious in the way his eyebrows
lift slightly, pucker together, how he purses his lips and shakes his head.
Disagreement in one little shake, and Xander feels heat -- the bad kind, the
embarrassed kind -- prickle over his face and down his neck. Same as when he
says something *really* stupid in the library and Giles blinks at him,
astonished all over again at just how thick-headed and *stupid* Xander can be.
He disappoints Oz; the only time he was ever incapable of disappointing Oz was
the first night. Even then, he screwed up, but it didn't seem possible that
such a thing was possible. Let alone that he'd feel so ill, pit-of-the-stomach
and burning-face sick.
"But you *hit* me," Xander says and rubs his jaw. "During the, Amy's spell.
Because Will --"
There. That actually makes sense and Oz has to admit, he *has* to, that he hit
Xander. Some things are better than the truth; some things are facts.
"'cause you hurt her feelings." Oz touches two sticky fingertips to Xander's
jaw, then runs them over his mouth and chin.
"Because she wanted me, and --" Xander stops when Oz taps his jaw and he feels
lost again. "Really?"
"Really."
"So why'd you hit me?"
Smiling, eyelids dropping, Oz looks for a second like a kid, like a flirt. "You
still upset?"
"No," Xander says. "Don't think so. It's just -- wait. What's the question?
Where were we?"
Looking around, Oz keeps smiling, and it keeps getting wider. His hand's still
on Xander's jaw. "In bed?"
"You know what I meant."
"We're in bed. You're mad. I punched you. Six months ago."
Xander's nodding along when he finally remembers, when the haze clears in his
head. "It's *wrong*, that's where."
Oz presses his lips to Xander's temple. "Yes. Violence is wrong."
"Teasing me."
"A little, yeah."
He'd like to shove Oz away. In jest, mostly, roll over him and kiss him again.
Stop having to *talk* and just wrestle until they pass out. Instead, Xander
wriggles his arm under Oz's neck and pulls him closer, flush against his side,
and with his other hand loosens the comforter, yanking it over them.
"Consequences," Oz says a little later. Like, um. Emotional ripples.
Reverberations."
"That's sound."
"Yeah."
"Before, it was motion. Mixing up your metaphors there."
Oz blinks up at him. "Sorry?"
"Yeah," Xander says, feeling good. Flush, not quite so *stabbed*. "Never mix
your metaphors. Little word to the wise."
In the dark, Oz's voice is slower, a little rougher, like a sandpaper with
lower grit number. "Like crossing the streams?"
"Used to think that was about light sabres," Xander says and stretches, then
wiggles further into the sheets.
"What?"
"You know. That crack they make when they hit. Bad thing."
"Part of fighting, though. Got to make contact."
"I *know*," Xander says. "Still."
If his voice is rougher, Oz's lips are softer in the dark, tickling over
Xander's ear. "Yeah. Ugly sound."
"Kind of phallic. Kind of, what's the word. Exacerbating."
"What is?"
Xander coughs into his free hand. "Fighting your dad with your penis-
substitute. Losing your *hand*. It's all really Freudian."
"Emasculating, you mean?"
"What I said, yeah."
Oz tucks his head under Xander's ear and tightens his hold on his chest. "Never
thought of it like that."
"I'm good like that," Xander says. "Insightful. Ought to keep me around."
"I'll say."
Talking in the dark like this is better. He gets odd angles of sight, can hear
without looking if he wants, can think and doze and it's okay. Oz isn't linear,
but neither is Xander. But they're nonlinear in different ways, and Xander's
thinking about maps and lines. Which leads him to roads, and he thinks Oz is
like some winding country road, up in wine country or on the poster for that
Robert Frost poem in his English classroom. A neat, curvy dirt road through
trees and terraced pastures. Xander himself is a traffic snarl, one of those
spaghetti loops of freeway, jammed with angry people and honking horns and
random acts of frustrated violence.
"Consequences," Oz says again. Later. "Effects on other people."
*Willow*, Xander thinks, then gets the familiar spike of nausea that gushes up
whenever 'Willow' comes near 'sex' in his tangled head. "Okay," he says
carefully.
"Like, say --" Oz wriggles slightly, his hair brushing Xander's cheek, then
looks up. "I mean, how would you feel if I hooked up with Cordy?"
Xander sucks in a breath and tries to let it out slowly. No such luck. "That
doesn't count. Cordy's not -- and I'm not, and we aren't --. Doesn't count."
"Say you are, both of you. How would you feel?"
"I'd feel --" Xander closes his eyes. Cordy's strong, and tanned like gold, and
*curvy*. She tastes like powder and leather upholstery, and Oz tastes like
forests and rain. She'd look beautiful against Oz, he all short white angles,
she all luscious curves and hair. Pretty. They're both amazing kissers; they
could probably make each other feel awesome. "Weird. Kind of interested,
actually."
Oz pinches him, laughing low in his throat; Xander feels the little shakes
against his ribcage. "Making this really hard, you know."
"Am I?" Xander's throat hurts, kind of ragged and tight. The knife in his
chest, deep and cold, twists again.
Oz's eyes flicker over him, shining despite the cave of quilts and the sliding
shadows of the rainy night. Softly, he says, "Yeah."
"Oh." He should probably apologize, but it's not just that he doesn't want to.
He can't, not with his chest like this, and his mouth drying out. "You know,
Cordy said you'd be an interesting challenge."
"Talked about it?"
"Yeah."
"Really." Oz's voice doesn't curl up. It's not a question.
"Yeah. Said she'd heard -- wait, let me get this right. Intriguing reports of
your various talents."
"Huh."
"Of course, she also thinks I'm in --" He can't say it. He can hear it, can
hear Cordy's voice, but he can't say it. *In love with Willow*. Love and Willow
is white on rice; of course he loves Willow. It's what he feels for other
people -- Cordy, Buffy, *Oz* -- that's all mixed and swirly and frequently
sickening. "Thinks I'm a loser."
"Soy un perdador," Oz says and hums.
"Pretty much."
In the dark, they're already agreeing. It occurs to Xander that they've always
agreed, that the static between them had nothing to do with conflicting goals
or crossing the streams, and everything to do with agreeing. He presses his
face against the crown of Oz's skull, inhaling shampoo-scent and Ozness, and
rests there.
"Not any more," Xander says. When Oz nods, the motion carries Xander's head
with it, so they're together inside it. Agreeing and resting here. "How're
those cuts?"
"Healing," Oz says, mouth on Xander's collarbone, warm and reverberating.
It's dark and the rain's letting up. He didn't notice before, but it's quieting
down as the sky is lightening, bit by bit.
"Good."
"Yeah."
"Got a shirt and stuff for you --" Xander says, later, struggling out of sleep
when he remembers.
"In the morning."
"Yeah."
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