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Monday, December 15th, 2003
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12:41 pm - Sunnydale. Still.
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glossing
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from here
It occurs to Oz that his thing about vans could be some kind of premonition or sign that he'd eventually hook up with a vampire. Good, safe transport, as long as the curtain's drawn tight between the two front seats.
He's sitting in the passenger seat, though, sideways, leaning against the door with his knees up and - not thinking. Ghosts and witches and beautiful unreal young girls and zombie Slayers: Where the hell would he start thinking?
Just waiting, turning a cassette over and over in his hands. Sun's about to come up.
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(46 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, December 13th, 2003
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10:59 pm - Sunnydale, ca. "After Life"
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| Friday, December 12th, 2003
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10:20 am - bad dreams - LA, fall 2001
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glossing
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Night, and the wolf is dreaming. Monochrome, blood running like oil over white snow, thrashing in the distance. Running like water, chasing, hunting. Yelping, answers, and the hunt is endless.
Good dreams, familiar ones.
When color starts to bleed in, it's sick, bileyellow, bruisepurple. The distant beat of prey in the underbrush rises until it's a howl, bigger than any animal, huger than the wolf. Louder than wind and thunder.
The wolf's not here. Oz isn't here.
The earth is shrieking, loud and ragged, and wind is blowing in sharp, piercing gusts from every direction. Weeping, wailing, like a woman being gutted. Smell tosses from gust to gust, sickness and death, rotting and heaving.
Like a hand reaching into steaming viscera, pulling them out in a long, swinging strand, whipping blood and bile like a lasso. Yanking out the kernel of life, tossing bladders like marbles, reversing and killing.
Thrashing, Oz falls off the bed. He wakes on the floor, still tasting and smelling the dream, clutching at him, stuffing his senses. He shakes against the heat of the wind, holds himself curled up there for a moment until his head starts to clear.
"Oz?" Angel, on the bed, leaning over, reaching for him. Just a face, flat as paper and far away.
Oz shivers harder. What kind of nightmare is it that he starts to shrink back from the contact?
"Something's wrong," Oz says.
Angel just peers at him. Oz can't stop shaking and his mouth's filling with spit like he's about to vomit. He swallows, coughs, swallows again.
"Call Cordy. Something's wrong. See if she's seen anything."
Black and yellow lights, hornets and bees, cascade in front of his eyes. He grabs the blanket Angel wants to wrap around him and tells him again to call. He can't move off the floor, just keeps feeling a weight heavier than lead pressing him down, crushing his head and his chest, mustardhot stink crammed into his nose and mouth.
Oz holds his knees against his chest and rocks. Can't stop shivering, can't stop tasting and feeling fear hovering around him. Like bats, flapping, catching in his hair.
"Something's really *wrong*, Angel."
Later, he's sure, he'll feel embarrassed as fuck for making a big deal out of nothing. Probably something like that thing Vietnam vets got, flashbacks, adjustment problems to regular life. Not like he's been back in civilization all that long. Bound to happen.
Somehow, he just doesn't believe himself.
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, December 6th, 2003
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8:11 pm - LA, autumn 2001
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| Tuesday, December 2nd, 2003
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11:16 pm - neverending shmoop
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| Tuesday, November 25th, 2003
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9:30 pm - shmoopy interval
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| Thursday, November 20th, 2003
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3:25 am - LA
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glossing
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Silent, empty afternoon: Brassy shadows barely cutting through the dark of the lobby and a hush that brings back the summer full-force. As if it weren't still technically summer, as if what he's thinking of as the summer hadn't ended only three days, four nights, ago.
Wes knocks on the door to Angel's office and opens it a crack.
"Angel? A word, if I may?"
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(30 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, November 17th, 2003
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7:56 pm - Los Angeles, 2001
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glossing
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Oz doesn't like taking the hotel's main stairs. Makes him think of Gone With the Wind and other old movies full of sweeping orchestral soundtracks, and those images and sounds jar against the gloom and hush of the hotel.
But after he leaves Wes's office, the stairs are the closest option. Cordy's at lunch, but she could have come back in when he was exchanging weird scraps that didn't really count as conversation with Wes.
Coast is clear and he can breathe again.
In the kitchen, he snags a sack of blood from the fridge and an orange for himself, then slides around the kitchen doorway like it's Mission Impossible. Oz dashes across the lobby and takes the stairs two at a time. Feels like he's seven again and playing ghost-tag, so he's laughing a little by the time he hits the third floor and he's got a stitch forming in his side.
Something about how big and empty and dark this place is. Makes him feel like he's trespassing again in the old Sanders place. He slows down in the hall, swallowing laughter and trying to catch his breath. Early yet, and Angel's probably not awake.
Stuffing the orange into his pocket, he twists the doorknob and slips inside. Dark in here, too, but not disturbing or sillymaking. Dark like behind his eyelids just before he sleeps.
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(41 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, November 5th, 2003
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10:45 pm - curses and issues aplenty
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glossing
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from here.
*
"Not insulted," Angel says, backing off slowly. Oz's change so much more drastic physically than Angel's own, but when it's done it's done and Angel is looking down into green eyes and smooth cheeks. The smell of threat is gone.
Angel takes longer to come down. To put his fists away. To find speech.
"Had to," Angel repeats. "Why."
*
Half-language, but Oz can hear the question in the thick underbrush of the growl. He shakes his head, touches his nose. His skin aches, his hands hurt like razors just cut them open.
"Felt too good," he says finally. Still smells sharp and sweet things and keeps rubbing his nose as if that'll help. "You were having a flashback or something."
*
"Felt too good," Angel repeats again. Nods.
Oz is - pawing himself. Scratching at his nose and face like a wounded pup. Angel reaches for his hand, waits for claws, gets soft skin instead. Oz stills, looks at him.
"No. I wasn't. I was...I was here. With you, when it felt good. And you don't have to....It's my problem to work out, not yours."
*
With you.
Oz looks down at his hand in Angel's, twiggy little wrist in man-sized grip, and then back. Sits up and swallows, touching the edge of Angel's jaw, soft as a boy's. Oz squints, feeling his face pucker, half-expecting that Angel's going to wink out, shrink and fade again.
So many questions swirling and this is the eye of the storm. Warmer and silent. "I don't have to," he says, tugging words out of the air, tasting them like shreds of clouds. "Want to."
He knows that's not enough, but it's what he has. Strokes Angel's hair back over his ear and rubs his thumb across Angel's palm. "Not just your problem."
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(32 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, October 25th, 2003
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1:45 am - 2001. Feeling done, feeling new
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glossing
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from here
*
Oz upends two crates and shakes out the pillowcase to cover them before unpacking the food.
It's a good question. He's just glad Angel is willing to wait him out, because it's not something he can put into words.
"Came here with pretty good reasons," he says. Unwraps his scarf and hangs up his jacket as the fire catches and sits crosslegged beside the crates. "Which kind of -" He rubs his palms together. "Evaporated. I've *been* here, but just physically. Know a couple people, but I'm handing out mistletoe like it's Halloween candy and -"
Maybe it is something he *can* put into words. Doesn't mean he's comfortable with that.
"Look back on it and I've just been doing time."
*
"Penance," Angel says, nodding. "Or Indulgence." Tosses some more wood into the fire, watches it leap toward the sky, sparks of blue and gold. Stares it down for a while.
Turns to Oz and blinks, slowly. "Feel done?"
*
Firelight painting half of Angel's face red, fingers of color in constant motion, and Oz rubs his neck.
"Feel like I'm getting started. So something's done if something else is starting."
He has a lot to be penitential for; he knows that. It'd be nice if he could bargain his way out.
"Must be done," he adds. Takes down two chipped porcelain mugs and sets them on the crates. "Wine?"
Angel's entire face is licked by red and gold now.
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(52 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, October 5th, 2003
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10:33 pm - Tibet '01. Wolfboy's inadequate wardrobe
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glossing
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from here.
*
"Warmer weather, lotta sunshine, lotta pollution, expensive- well, everything, and Cordelia pretty much 24-7. The rest is easy," Angel smiles.
Oz, calm and steady on the edge of the bed, and Angel feels himself uncoil in automatic response. Unfolds his legs, arms, stretches out on the floor by the fire again, rests his head on his arm. If the safety here is an illusion, it's still a seductive one.
"You're probably gonna need to get some things before we go?" he asks.
*
Oz finally feels like moving. He adds more kindling to the fire, breathing over the twigs and twists of paper, letting it catch before placing a log in the center.
He turns, watching Angel stretch and relax, and knows they're going to be okay. Isn't sure how he got to the plural form just now, and shakes his head a little.
"You mean I've got to arrive bearing gifts, too?" he asks, settling down next to Angel, drawing one knee up to his chest. "And I'll definitely hang with Wes if that'll get Cordy off my back."
*
Angel laughs.
"No, I'll get gifts enough. Just wasn't sure if you had LA clothes- uhm, stuff. I don't know, I basically require a black pair of pants and shirt and a steady supply of blood. I seem to recall humans requiring a bit more."
Reaches out a hand and touches Oz's knee, lets it linger there. Strokes the bones with gentle fingertips. "Thank you," he says, before he's aware he even thought it.
*
"You're welcome," Oz says. Watches the big, delicately-carved hand curve around his kneecap. Bright, now, in the revived fire, less autumn moon than it is being washed of blood. One more rinse, and there will just be skin. But right now, firelight quivering, Angel's skin has a watery pink sheen.
He glances over. "I've got pants. I'll smooch off your blood. Think I'm set til we actually hit LA."
He smiles at Angel, waiting for him to smile back. "Unless you've got some weird plans for Paris."
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(48 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, October 3rd, 2003
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12:50 pm - Tibet '01. What's humanity, anyway?
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glossing
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from here.
*
Angel grinds down against the body underneath his, warm and wriggling and insistent. Oz's hands are everywhere on him, pulling at his hair, his ears, his shoulders.
Has to hold Oz still to get his clothes off, to get his mouth on all the places that make his back arch. Angel keeps his eyes open, watches Oz's face as he trails his tongue down his stomach and across his thighs. Grasps his cock in a tight fist. Licks a single swipe across the head.
Noises and panting. Desperate and needful. Still human.
Angel swallows him down. Hears his name.
*
Arching and falling and back again.
Oz sees thing in bright, long swipes of images: ceiling-fire-wall, white hand, his hand, in black hair, shine of tongue and spit down his cock. Can't see and breathe at the same time, feels shaky and quivering like the heat's coming from the outside, divebombing his skin.
His palm skates and scrabbles over Angel's shoulder as he sucks in air like water, wanting and needing but unable to settle on any one object for the want or the need. Just - Angel. Mouth. More.
*
Angel's nose pressed to Oz's belly, cock deep in his throat, and Oz is quivering, making high, pleading sounds every time Angel pulls back.
Pale orange hair on the pillows, white skin almost translucent blue in the fire's light, and green eyes, sightless and fixed on the ceiling. No wolf, no monster, just a boy, a pretty boy, ready to beg for more.
Angel's cock jumps.
Wolf or human or something in between, Oz tastes just the same.
*
Underwater, currents pulsing over and through him. Oz is long past breathing, just rocking and murmuring with the slick pressure of Angel's mouth.
Sees his hands float like scraps of paper in the air before falling to his sides.
He struggles up onto his elbow, blinking, searching for Angel's face. He feels tension and heat of pleasure unfurl and suffuse tight human skin, says Angel's name, knows that will help him stay here, stay himself.
That Angel doesn't mind he can't understand right now. His hips buck and roll and his mouth stays open, wordless.
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(50 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, September 29th, 2003
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9:21 pm - Tibet. '01
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glossing
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from here.
*
Angel lets his head bow, fall onto his folded arms. Groans long and low, limbs trembling, face flickering in and out of ridges and shadows.
Can't help the thoughts of Dru again, wolves and thorns and fairytales. Magical, powerful things that most humans don't believe in, not really.
Tongue majik, flesh majik, blood majik.
Animal majik.
Mouth on his cock and his balls, and he lets his fangs stay this time. Snaps at the carpeting, tears into his own wrist as he thrusts back onto a long, warm tongue.
*
Licks harder, smelling new blood, hearing teeth in flesh. Laps at wet cock and small, irising hole until the smell's too strong and he -
Wants.
Wants blood, and rutting, and pleasure he doesn't have a word for but feels like hunting-fucking-howling. Mounts the trembling body, drops his muzzle into the crook of an arm, lapping blood alongside the other's tongue, offering his neck.
Keens as he thrusts, spasming. So tight he whimpers into the blood, begs for to be bitten.
*
Howls himself when Oz fucks him, riding only on spit and sweat and blood.
Over a hundred years since he's been in this position. It had been the Master then, and Angelus tolerated it once, out of necessity.
Now Angel is giving into the crude pleasure of it, the tearing of flesh and the harsh rutting, the smell of matted fur and damp earth, the taste of his own blood and saliva.
Drools on the thick neck in front of him, tastes nighttime and death when he tears it open. Digs his claws into the ground and the wolf and drinks until warm, red life runs down his chin.
*
Panting, harsh, open-mouthed, redshock of pain in his neck and redglow of pleasure in his cock.
Thrusting, always thrusting, claws slipping on carpet and dirt. Jabbing and screwing, riding hard and breathless.
As his throat drains, his howls die down into whines and the body he rides shakes like wind. Shoving, panting, drool and blood gluing fur to skin until he can't breathe. Soundless whimpers, shorter thrusts full of need and pressure and want.
Starts to shoot, feels cum jetting up, bites at arm - hand - shoulder. Fur melting out, claws rusting away, as he fucks Angel.
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(48 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, September 26th, 2003
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10:06 pm - Tibet
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glossing
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continues from here
*
"I was just thinking about how easy it would be to just- not leave," Angel says.
Everything moving so slowly, his thoughts, his limbs, Oz. Time. Easy to pretend that time has just stopped, that he could stay here weeksmonthsyears and when he returned to LA, everything would be ever the same.
Thinks about Cordelia's hair and Wes' smile. Wonders if they've already changed, in the short time he's been gone.
Wonders how wolves age.
*
Oz shakes his head. Pulls a blanket from the foot of the mattress and smoothes it over his lap.
"Not kicking you out," he says. "But you've got people to go back to." Tries to picture Angel here all the time. Never changing, moving patiently like the monks used to do. Skinning rabbits with his hands. Sees again him stirring the soup like he was born to it.
"Whenever," Oz adds, feeling the smile dim.
*
Angel swallows the flavor of sadness in the smoke.
"You're always welcome in LA," he says, knowing the answer.
*
"Yeah."
Oz leans over, retrieves his shirt from the floor, and tugs it on over his head. Slicks his hair back with both palms.
"Kind of another planet at this point."
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(46 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, September 24th, 2003
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9:15 pm - Tibet, summer 2001. continued
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glossing
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continued from here.
*
Angel listens to Oz's heart thump as he holds his thumb over the pulse in his neck. Beat in his ears, under his fingers. Pulls him closer to feel it in his own chest.
Arms around his back until Oz is in his lap, warm from fire and living blood and kisses.
He can't find the animal here, or the monster, and he doesn't want to now. Just wants to keep kissing, listening to fire crackles and heart thumps and quiet moans.
*
Midst, limbo, limen: Oz knows Angel lives on borrowed heat, that he himself isn't one thing or the other, but just now there isn't anywhere else he'd rather be. Which is good, because he's not going anywhere and can't ever change.
He folds and unfolds in Angel's lap, draping himself over chest-shoulder-arms, kissing in time with the pop of kindling, watching orange-scarlet-smoke shadows pass over Angel's face as slowly as clouds.
Everything passes. Sometimes, though, he gets to pause.
*
Angel wants to pull Oz down to the floor, see the smoke twist around his hair, the shadows cover his face when he throws back his head. He'd be warm and liquid, limbs flung wide like stars.
Wants to paint his skin in kisses and the barest hint of notsohuman bites. See if he still tastes the same. Everywhere.
So he does.
*
Oz sinks against the mismatched rugs and tarps he's covered the floor with, drifting and twisting under Angel's hands. Feels the momentary pause stretch and ripple, gone slow and liquid like his skin.
He's lost his shirt.
His fingers brush their way up Angel's cheek, over the back of one hand, down the length of his chest.
Not so much borrowed warmth now. More like shared. He tips his head back, watches the fire upside-down. Murmurs to Angel in some older language he'd forgotten he spoke.
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(51 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, September 21st, 2003
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9:58 pm - Tibet. Late summer, 2001.
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glossing
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By the time he reached Derge, Oz had lost what little tan he managed to get in California. Nights and weeks of airplanes, sick fluorescent flicker of bus, ferry, train stations, little to eat and less to sleep, seasick and dehydrated, he was drained to the bone. He looked like bone, too, from what he can see of himself in puddles and the smeary curves of bowls. He trespassed over the border, skirting first the Indian, then the Chinese watch stations, bent low, nearly doubled by his rucksack.
Hiked through the frostbitten forest for several days, avoiding what counted as the 'main' roads. Memorized the shape of granite peaks, winced at the crackle of feet on iced-over snow. Lived in black and white like a dog, bare black trunks, harsh gray sky, luminous white snow. Pricked his finger on his penknife just to remember color. Missed Angel like a howl when he sucked the blood off.
He found the monastery compound converted to the People's Glorious Recreation Centre and the monks scattered to the wind. He slept outside on the grounds - for a week? longer? - until a couple Tibetans found him when they came to scavenge.
He lives outside one of the small villages now. Bartered his Converse One-Stars, six copies of Hustler and four of Honcho, a Hilfiger sweater Lindsey gave him to wear home one chilly night, and his Timex to the local authorities for his one-room hut.
On the outskirts, he tutors Chinese kids in English and learns Tibetan at night. Arranges with the few tourists who still come through the sale of cheap local handicrafts.
It's like the Peace Corps, except he has no plans to go back.
He's wind-burned, not tanned. Occasionally his stomach growls, but he's not starving.
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(48 comments | comment on this)
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9:52 pm - Extra-narrative transition
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glossing
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Oz leaves L.A. in the fall of 2000; once he's recovered sufficiently and decides not to join up with A.I., he heads circuitously back to Tibet and the monastery he left so abruptly.
Angel remains in L.A., increasingly haunted by Darla and W&H's shenanigans.
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, September 20th, 2003
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5:47 pm
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kitanotjames
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"Yeah," Oz lies. Looks up at Angel. "No, feel - dunno. Not." He tries to stretch, but he's lost the strength and his arms are heavy. Waterlogged, almost, same as his chest. He squirms a little on the cold chair seat and shades his eyes. His face is hot but the rest of him is still chilled to the bone and sticky. Rank, too. He braces both hands on the table and stands up. Runs warm water in the sink and splashes his face until the water runs clear. He turns, faces Angel. "It's an after thing," he tries to explain. "Never thought I'd like wolf-time better but there you go. It's endless. No worries. Fear, sure, but no worries."
"It's simpler," Angel says. "Cleaner." Oz is leaning on the sink and shaking, water droplets beading down his chest and arms. Still naked. Angel hands him his pants, watches him put them on slowly, methodically. Like coming back into his own skin. Like it hurts. "Need to lie down for a while?"
Oz smiles a little, swabs off the last of the blood and cum from his neck. "Interesting take on cleanliness." The pants are huge and alien but still warm, which means he hasn't been out of them nearly as long as he thought. Angel's studying him again, unwavering eyes and thin, thin lips. Blood and bruises on his neck half-glowing in the orange light. "Could use a lie-down," he admits. "But - don't want you to oversleep. Miss your friends." "I'm done sleeping," Angel says, walking to the fridge and pulling out another round of blood. Finds a fresh mug, goes through the routine. Stays out of game face when he drains it down. "Still haven't figured out when I'm going back," he says.
Oz holds the pants up with one hand and takes the empty mug from Angel with the other. Rinses it out, leaves it standing with suds. Repeats with the other mugs before shuffling back to the table. His head pounds, right at his temples, yellow finger-prints of pain banging, getting deeper and brighter. Little black spots swim like fruit flies before his eyes. "I'll turn in, then," he says, moving toward the living room first, scanning the gloom for his beads.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oz doesn't ask, and Angel is silently grateful. He's missed that almost as much as the blood. The silences. No questions, no small talk, nothing at all that isn't necessary. Important. Basic: Feed. Sleep. Fuck.
And he's going back, of course he's going back. Can still feel his soul, moaning and gnashing its own blunt teeth, still feels the pull of Cordy and Wes, of skin more untouched and eyes more innocent. Tells himself he needs to find a bit stronger balance, a bit more control. Tells himself too that he can find it here, laying next to Oz while the wolf tosses and rumbles in half sleep.
Angel holds his sketchpad in one hand and covers the page in black and gray and wishes he had red.
current mood: melancholy
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(31 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, September 18th, 2003
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8:32 pm - What did she taste like to you?
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glossing
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from here.
*
Oz is drunk. Angel's had a lot of practice with *not* smiling, but Oz's bright eyes and slightly slurred voice are making it difficult just now. Answering his question, however, is going to make it easier. Quickly.
"Ok, going with the simpler terminology, the pronouns that we know aren't accurate?" Angel says, "He- Angelus- respected Buffy. Wanted to kill her, yea. Wanted to do a lot of other things first." No smile now, just monster and truth.
"But that respect made the difference between her just dying fast and her getting to kill me first. Wouldn't have happened otherwise."
*
"Got it," Oz says. Heavy musk and grapefruit smell of Veruca, the hunger for her that wasn't anything more, not even close to, what he felt when he smelled, saw, thought about Willow. Not all of which was bright and daisy-strewn. Not by half.
Angel's looking at him, probably expecting more. Oz stretches his arms over his head, savoring the buzz.
"Hence the hanging around like world's best stalker," he says. Doesn't mention the couple days he crashed in Devon's attic after leaving the first time and skulked around campus, trailing scents and wanting to slap himself silly.
He runs his finger around the inside of the mug and sucks off the last of the blood. Wonders what Tara's blood would taste like and gags til his eyes burn.
*
Angel remembers that too. First thing he did after he got the soul, before he went back to Darla, before even the ghosts came, was retch.
Threw up everything (everyone) he'd consumed in the past daysweeksmonthsyears.
He didn't know his dead body could work that way, in reverse. Didn't know he could become sick. He was sick for hours.
He hands Oz a paper towel. "It gets easier," he says.
*
Eyes stinging, tongue thick and sour, Oz nods.
Blinks fast, as if he can get through unbidden thoughts faster that way. Veruca's blood tasted like she smelled, with soil and girl mixed in, wet and vaginal and earthy. Angel's blood was bitter and dead but still delicious. His dreams had always said Willow's blood would taste like *Willow*, just richer. Stronger. And she always tasted like pepper and orange peel, sharper and zestier the longer she writhed under his tongue and -.
"Shit," he says. Looks at the crumpled towel in his hands and wipes the sweat off his face. Glances at the mug. "Fuck of it all is it still tastes good."
Monsters, he thinks, and lets the word shift from the realm of jokes and jabs down into somewhere closer to him. Closer, darker, way more than honest than he'd been planning on being.
"Makes me feel better, too. Shit."
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(43 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, September 17th, 2003
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6:29 pm - Awakening
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glossing
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Oz dreams terror.
Three indigo heads, bloody mouths opening with groans of lust, four arms reaching for him, drawing him forward even as Oz shrinks to a blind and hairless squirming puppy.
Shakes himself awake, eyes open long before his mind's back and he knows where he is. Finds his beads and gasps against the dark.
Still trembling, attempting to slow his breathing, Oz hobbles out of the bedroom; his back is bowed against pain and he can't put much weight on his bad leg. But he can slide his hand slowly ahead of him down the wall, and eventually he reaches the living room. Then his bag and a warmer shirt.
All he can do is lower himself to the floor beneath the nearest window, and start his chanting. No light in the sky yet, but the air feels thinner, less like night, closer to morning.
Slow, rough, as if he's out of practice, as if he didn't do this less than a day ago. Runs the beads through his fingers and speaks.
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(50 comments | comment on this)
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