Notes: Thanks to Di and Kit for cheerleading and saintly patience with me.
1.
Oz eases the van through the dark. Pitch black, darker than any night he's ever seen in Sunnydale -- dark like the nights on the road -- Wyoming, Poland, India.
The whole town is blacked-out. For him, to help him. Like a present, but turned inside-out. Within the dimness of the van, his hands lit by the glow of instruments on the dash, Oz feels just this much *separate* from it all. Like he's just inside an event horizon. The trembly, mixed-up zone just outside a black hole; he paid attention to the trippier parts in high-school physics.
He didn't do this, but the darkness is his fault.
His ribs hurt from their hasty bandaging and Willow's hug. The pale, fish-underwater glow of his hands doesn't hide their shaking. His skin is stretched too tight over too many aches, his eyes water and sting, and he can't pretend this is like the last time he drove away. The hug, the tears, those are the same. But the antiseptic glare burns behind his lids and each breath he takes spreads his bruises and grinds his ribs.
He's not going towards anything, not this time. He's going, full-stop. Away, through the dark.
After he gets his crap from Devon's, that is.
2.
Almost -- no, fully -- a cliche to think it feels just like yesterday, but it's true. It does feel like yesterday, but it was actually yesterday's yesterday. One of those words that only make sense in context. You have to know when today is to know when yesterday was, and time is folding and wrinkling in on itself worse than a kid's book lately.
Yesterday, the day before yesterday, the sun was full and warm and Sunnydale lived up to its name as Oz set out from Devon's. He'd stowed his duffel bag on top of Devon's red zebra-striped flip and fuck, scrubbed his face, and told Dev he'd back later. Sheila the platinum bombshell was visiting, so Devon was cool with that, and Oz needed to move. Four days he'd been on the road, bus and plane and another bus to Tijuana and then the van that smelled like lemons and chiles from sitting in Lupe's yard all winter.
Sunny, more than sunny -- this town, he'd never quite known until he left and saw the ashy light of Warsaw and Prague, the hypersaturated bleeding light of Bombay, the odd angles of Mexico City, this town was different. All the trees filtering the sun, the white clapboard and stucco houses grabbing the light, holding it close.
This town was beautiful.
Creepy as hell, overrun with vampires and seamed through with evil, but he could see now, maybe, a little better, why people -- his parents, Devon -- stayed here despite everything.
Oz moseyed down the residential streets, away from the university, back towards the center of town. His hands were in his pockets and the eucalyptus breeze in his hair, and for the first time in months, Oz was neither thinking nor trying very hard *not* to think.
No drift of memories, no deliberate meditation. Just feeling the warm air on his bare arms and remembering all over again how small and neatly drawn the town was.
Five blocks down, and he'd been hearing the ring-a-ding-ding of an ice cream truck for at least a block now. Weird rumble of the engine drawing closer, and the bell was ringing faster, but there weren't any kids around. School, Oz remembered, and finally stopped halfway down the block and looked over his shoulder.
Just your standard ice-cream truck, boxy, garishly-painted, on wheels that looked too small for it.
Not totally standard, though. Xander leaned out the window, waving furiously and tooting the horn.
"Cold creamy treat, little boy?" he asked as Oz jogged over and offered his hand for Oz to slap.
"Got any Raspberry Rockets?" Oz was surprised he remembered what they were called, his favorite secret treat from childhood. Hard to keep them a secret, actually, given how they stained his lips and tongue bright blue, but he wasn't allowed sugar except under controlled circumstances. "Big mofos, two sticks?"
Nodding, Xander drew back into the truck. "Hop in, and you can have as many of the big blue meanies as you want."
Oz perched on the narrow passenger seat, one hand gripping the empty window frame, the other braced on the dash, as Xander gunned the engine and took off at a speed Oz was pretty sure *no one* was allowed to use on these streets, but especially not a vehicle designed to delight and feed the kiddies.
"Not on til five," Xander explained, taking the turn onto Main hard enough that Oz's hip slammed into metal door.
That made a little more sense, Oz figured, at least as to why Xander was wearing the same clothes he'd had on at Giles' apartment that morning. It didn't explain what Xander was doing tearing through town in this candy-coated deathtrap, though.
"My car's not approved for city or highway driving," Xander said.
"What, got a Canyonero now?"
"Something like that." Xander grinned over at him and Oz relaxed his hold on the dash. "Anyway. Wanted to find you and Anya wouldn't let me take her wheels."
"Smart lady," Oz said. Xander had turned off Main now and he was heading out of town, parallel to the beach along the old rural highway that Oz's father had taught him to drive on the summer after freshman year. No shoulder here, just soft sand and tall weedy grass, and the air smelled like salt and coconut suntan lotion; people elsewhere, even in LA, didn't believe Oz when he told them that, but it was true.
"Here's good," Xander said and Oz realized he'd never driven with Xander before; that he was a talk-aloud driver shouldn't surprise him, but it did. Xander eased the truck off into the overgrown parking lot around the abandoned rest stop and cut the motor. "Quiet out here. Figured you could use that."
"Quiet's one thing --" Oz started to say. *One thing I've got to spare*, but Xander was twisting out of his seat and slipping into the back. Oz followed him into the narrow space between the freezers and overhanging signs and squatted down, rocking on the balls of his feet, while Xander struggled to unlatch the back doors. "Yeah. Thanks."
Xander threw open the doors, letting the afternoon sun stream in.
At the far freezer, Xander dug around, muttering under his breath. Oz knew he was nervous, but it felt strange, that thought. Like it was something borrowed, a sweater on an unexpectedly cold morning, the thought sat outside Oz, necessary but hardly his own.
"Xander --" he said, and Xander whirled around, like he was surprised, but as soon as he saw Oz, he was grinning again, sliding down the freezer compartment and patting the floor next to him.
"It's cool," Xander said. When Oz crawled over, tucking himself between Xander and the jutting corner of another freezer, Xander handed him a Raspberry Rocket and cocked his head. "You look -- like, really different but just the same, too."
"Got a contradiction there," Oz said, unwrapping the pop, contemplating just how phallic it was. He'd never noticed that before. Then again, if he had noticed at the age of eight, that might have been more worrisome.
"Think it's the hair." Xander touched the top of Oz's head and bounced his palm slightly on his hair. "Short."
Oz licked the neon blue pop and nodded. "Growing in."
"Really? How short was it?"
"Like, gone short. None."
"Shaved?"
Catching Xander's eye, noting his struggle to keep the surprise in check, Oz smiled. "Monks, yeah."
Xander pushed his fingers up against the grain of Oz's hair, from the nape of his neck to the top of his skull, and Oz shivered. The touch, combined with the frigid sweetness in his mouth, made him shake inside. Not unpleasantly, but the sensation was new, feeling someone else, wanting more.
Xander curled his fingers around Oz's head and shook him a little, "Wow. Would kill to see *that*."
"Looked like an albino elf apparently. Frightened small children."
Snorting, Xander dragged his nails down Oz's scalp. "Bullshit."
"Truth."
"Bullshit. Monastery, man." Xander rapped Oz's head before pulling him into something between a headlock and a hug. The Raspberry Rocket fulfilled the destiny of its name and went flying, breaking apart when it hit the soft-serve dispenser. "Shit. Sorry. Want another?"
"Nah," Oz said. "They used to taste better."
Xander wasn't letting him go any time soon, and Oz was sort of draped against Xander's shoulder, so he pulled himself closer and let himself enjoy the feeling. The familiar panic -- proximity, distrust, fear -- was prickling over him. Too long on the road, alone, locked in the cell at the monastery. He wasn't sure he'd ever been much good at this in the first place.
But Xander was great at this, at touching and pulling close and staying closer, and just then, Oz was trying to figure out how to thank Xander for that. It needed acknowledgment, gratitude, and he needed to say it. But then Xander laughed and said, "Don't think I've forgotten about your bullshit."
"What?" The category of Oz's bullshit was huge. Cavernous, Oz sometimes thought, and the only person he'd less like to have twig onto its existence than Xander was Willow. Xander might be able to deal; Willow, never.
Oz tried to sit up, but Xander crushed him closer and gently noogied his head.
"Couldn't have frightened small children. No little kids in a *monastery*."
That was all? Oz smiled, his lips still a little numb from the popsicle. "You'd be surprised."
They lapsed into quiet. That was another cliche, and another truth, and Oz couldn't quite differentiate the two. Xander loosened his hold slightly, letting his palm drift up and down Oz's arm. The light filled the back of the truck, painting the signs into glaring slabs, and it was quiet.
Not for long; this was Xander, after all.
"Working with kids myself these days," Xander said, wiggling slightly and cracking his neck. This close, it sounded like twigs exploding in a fire.
Oz toyed with the rip in the knee of Xander's jeans, the hair on Xander's legs tickling his fingertips, stroking them against the grain. Gratitude, maybe, was something better shown than spoken. "Oh, yeah? Like, what? Little League?"
"No." Xander pinched Oz's arm. "Dude, that's -- don't --"
"That tickle?"
"Yeah."
"Kids, huh?" Oz rolled his head against Xander's shoulder, looking upward. Xander looked back from under heavy lashes tipped with gold by the sun. "Where? Day care? Zany Mr. Xander coming in to tell wacky tall tales at story time?"
"Smart ass," Xander said and pinched harder, just above the elbow, and Oz bit back a protesting yelp. Kicking the sign for double-dips and ribbon cones, Xander said, "Peddling ice cream. Small-time for now, but it's a growth industry."
"Oh. Fattening 'em up, huh?"
"Exactly. First cone's free, then I've got 'em hooked."
"Good old capitalism," Oz said, rubbing the sore spot on his arm. "Works every time."
"Money begets money, yup. And kids have ton of it. *I* don't remember having that much. You?"
"How much are we talking?"
Shaking his head, Xander threw open his arms. "Quarters! Tons of quarters."
"Maybe if I'd ever done my chores," Oz said, "but, no. Not really."
"Yeah." Xander slumped back, bringing Oz with him, and jiggled his knee. "It's really weird."
This was almost too easy, hanging out with Xander, just bullshitting and chilling.
It felt like they were resuming. Not where they'd left off, since they were talking about different hair and new jobs, but more like they were intersecting again. Ever since Xander had hurried over to shake Oz's hand, it felt like this. Just picking up, falling into place together.
3.
Driving down Devon's street is like entering a carnival ride, one of those Tunnels of Love, a tube of darkness yawning open. But the street is just one dark ribbon of many stretching before Oz.
Fat white candles burn in the front window, perilously close to the tapestries and flags hung as curtains, finger-small bright flames flickering and winking.
No one's home. Oz stands in the living room, duffel at his feet. He blows out the candles and breathes in the dark. The living room is heavy with old weed smoke and the fresher, sharper traces of wax and candle wicks, traces and history.
He would have liked to say goodbye.
Somehow, though, Devon's not the kind of person Oz *needs* to say goodbye to. Not like Willow. Devon will always be there, like he was the day before yesterday, answering the door in his underwear, kissing Oz hello like he'd been gone for the long weekend, pulling him upstairs to introduce him to Sheila the platinum blonde.
Devon's like air that way, like light. Always there, no matter how long Oz might be gone.
The lights are out all over town, though, and Oz squints as he turns the van's key again. He should learn something from that, right? Can't assume things, can't depend on light or Devon or anyone.
He yanks out the key and heads back inside. There has to be something in this empty house, some paper he can use to leave a note on. Pure dark in here, thick-textured, different from the night outside. Redder in here, softer somehow, and he scrawls a note on last year's calendar that's still hanging on the wall.
*I'll call you. For real. Love you.*
It's not much of a promise, let alone any kind of goodbye, but Oz can forgive himself. It's the best he's got and he better forgive himself, if only on the basis of several busted ribs and lesions from the tasers and the constant, icicle-sharp flashbacks to the floor of that cell.
In smaller letters, he adds a comma and *man* after *love you*, because Devon might not look too kindly on such bald sentiment.
He needs to get out of this place. House, town, all of it, and right now, he's sure that he never should have come back, not like this.
He gets back in the van and nearly floods the engine in his haste. He'd thought -- what? He hadn't expected it would all be the same, but he'd been acting like that. Like an idiot.
Unprepared, thinking he could just pick up where he left off. With Willow, with everything.
This is his fault. The dark, everything.
4.
Xander didn't need to know everything Oz had done since leaving; Xander barely even mentioned that Oz had gone. They could be talking about summer vacation; what seemed to matter to Xander was that Oz was back. Not that he'd left, but that he'd come back.
Resuming, like a jam in jazz, long solos while the rest spin backup, then they all come back together, their rhythm slipping easily around them, catching them up.
Back of the truck, the sun heavy as honey, painting the hairs on Xander's forearm. His body was loose against Oz's, their legs tangled up and Xander's hand was pushed up under Oz's shirt, drawing slow absent-minded circles.
"So you're back."
"In the flesh." Oz pressed his face into Xander's neck, harder than a kiss, lighter than a nip, and felt Xander shiver behind him.
Mouth on the back of Oz's shoulder, Xander said, "Feels good," and it sent trembling waves, half-sound, half-sensation, all the way through Oz's body.
Oz wiggled a little into Xander's crotch, warmth and hardness against the small of his back. "Yeah, I can tell."
"Ass. Meant --"
"Yeah, I got it."
"Good," Xander said. "Good, better, best. Maybe even great."
Oz did nip down now, on Xander's arm where it crossed his chest, and said, "Don't get too enthusiastic. Might cramp up, strain something."
This was something Oz had thought about -- not in the monastery, he tried to be holy and pure there, but everywhere else -- this *proximity* to Xander, arms and legs longer than his own, drawing him in, wrestling him around and goofing off. The way Xander's lips always quivered for a quarter of a second at the start of a kiss before firming up, then opening. The taste of him, coated today with chemical raspberry sweetness, his hand flexing up and down Oz's back.
This was natural, easing into each other, lapsing not into silence but something quieter than talking, something that was still conversation, just -- wordless.
Little grunts as they moved around, turning Oz to face Xander, adjusting to the height and the hard floor of the truck, So much warmth, friction of palms on skin, pressure of lips on lips, and it all just built and bloomed and blossomed until Oz wasn't thinking any more, just feeling it all over again. Raspberry-bright red light through his lids, citrus-sharp hunger in his throat, Xander. Kissing Xander, like coming home, for real.
5.
Outside, the dark is sharp and shadowed with blue, great swathes of night piling up on each other, angled and heavy. The purest ice is black ice, Oz remembers that from somewhere. Midnight and cold.
He can see just fine. He can pick out shapes and details from the black on black. Silvered charcoal, old photographs; he can see. Would be nice, though, to have regular human vision. Then things could blur away, get swallowed up in vast easy categories like Dark and Invisible.
He's cold, a constant, high-frequency chill pinching at every pore, and he wishes briefly he hadn't given that hoodie back to Riley.
Ten miles outside town, the lights are on. Strung out over the next rise, gaudy and garish, iceberg-white and -blue and neon-ketchup blood-red. Burning so brightly Oz needs to look away. They shone pinprick lights into his eyes, measured the change with beeping machines, induced it with sparking tasers and precise laser scalpels. Too much, so much glare and attention.
Nowhere to look, except behind him, back into the dark.
Beyond the event horizon, he remembers, there's no going back. Once it's crossed, you just slip inexorably into the black hole.
On the floor of the cell they locked him in, Oz held himself and brushed the little hickey Xander left on his neck, and thought about how Xander was the first person to touch him. In town, in months.
Tasers and scalpels and needles and rough, strong hands have touched him since, erased Xander, pushed him far away, but Oz is driving now, slowing, turning around.
He belongs in the dark.
6.
The kiss eased, went deeper and wider, Oz pitching forward in slow motion into, against, Xander, honey pouring sticky-bright.
Xander's hand closed hard on Oz's shoulder and pushed him back to arms-length.
They always stopped. In Oz's memory, stopping like this, then slowly starting up again, had acquired a sort of embarrassed sweetness. Like they knew going in they couldn't stop, but they still pretended to try.
"It's okay," Oz said and worked his lips together. Halting, then offering reassurance: both were key melodic lines in *this*, for them. Couldn't play without them. "I mean, I want --"
With the back of his fingers, Xander touched Oz's cheek, lightly as a mosquito or cloud of gnats. In the light coming through the doors, Xander's face acquired more detail, greater weight. Light was supposed to blanch things out, reduce and bleach them, but here, then, Xander's skin glowed and each fine hair stood out. The creases running down from his nose deepened and Oz realized, slowly, that Xander was frowning.
"Yeah, I want to, too," Xander said. Leaving his hand curled around Oz's cheek, Xander drew back, his eyes down-turned and voice gone husky. "Should probably stop, though."
"Yeah," Oz said. He nodded, trying to figure out if he agreed. He *should* agree, but that wasn't the point. "Yeah, you're right."
"Things are, they're different now. I mean, Anya --"
"She looks good."
Xander grinned tightly. "Yeah. And, see, Willow. She --" He bit his lip and looked off to the right, like the signs advertising caramel and chocolate dips would help him say what he wanted to say. "Things're different."
"Same but different?" Oz asked and palmed the back of his hair, right where Xander first touched him. "You said -- Something like that."
"Yup. Amen." Xander laced his fingers together and wiggled them, church-steeple-people. "Amen."
"Amen?"
"Not, like, hallelujah or anything. Just -- amen. Something like that. Nice finishing off word like that."
There was always more between them than this, than kissing. Not that *this* was ever a bad thing, and it definitely wasn't ever inconsequential, but there was more. Oz could count on one hand the number of times they had fooled around, but he couldn't begin to remember just how many conversations they'd had. Conversations with Xander wove in and out of memories of fooling around, like friendship and sex weren't the separate countries they were supposed to be, hidden behind razor-wire and walls and patrolled borders, but the part of the same place.
"Was sorry to see you go," Xander said, then stopped and smoothed his shirt down his chest where Oz's hands had tugged at it. "Wait. I didn't *see* you go, did I?"
"Pretty much just left."
"Skipped town --"
"Under cover of high noon," Oz said. "Basically."
He should have apologized. Maybe Xander was looking for an apology, some kind of explanation for why Oz left like he did.
If Oz ever found that explanation, Xander would get it.
In the mountains, Oz got better at things. Better at breathing, better at waiting things out. Better at dealing. So he knelt here, helping Xander straighten his shirt, and he kept nodding.
He saw Xander in amber. In the simple patterns of light -- orange shadows, bright sun -- he *saw* Xander. Still for just a moment, tanned skin, strands of black hair glowing almost pumpkin in the light.
Xander kept looking away. The rest of his body was still, hands on Oz's shoulders resting easy and warm, but his eyes darted around. This was the newest, strangest thing, Xander thinking without moving around, the thoughts moving only in his eyes like fish scattering. Oz waited, reminded himself he could wait, but Xander didn't say anything.
*I'm sorry,* Oz thought of saying. *Don't be mad.* They were stupid things, though, and they weren't what he meant. He wanted to kiss Xander again, but fully, honestly, without other feelings, other loyalties, coming into play.
Some chances, maybe, eventually just expire. They don't rot and die and kick up a stink, they just dwindle away, and as Oz knelt there, it started to make a rough kind of sense. The chance with Xander, whatever it was, the chance to be something more, to try a little harder -- that chance had expired. It was gone, and it wouldn't come back, not like a vampire did.
He saw it in Xander's anxious-fish eyes, he felt it in the center of his chest right under his breastbone. It wasn't anyone's fault, it was just one of those things. Leaving town, choosing Willow again and again: None of that *helped*, but as Oz pulled back, palms sliding down Xander's arms, he didn't feel that familiar sliding weight of guilt and regret.
He just felt kind of sad, and he wondered what Xander was feeling. What he was thinking.
Xander caught Oz's hands as they passed over his own, fingers circling Oz's wrists easily, turning them palms-up. His thumbs moved back and forth like windshield wipers and Oz held his breath.
He released it in a slow whistle as Xander leaned in, folding Oz's arms up against his chest, and kissed the center of his forehead.
"What about the cats?" Xander asked.
Oz didn't know what he was thinking about -- mountains, and expired chances, and what he was ever going to say to Willow, and Xander, but not that. "Cats?"
"Yeah. Don't the monks keep cats? Teaches them about patience and stuff." Xander's voice was a little strained, tight around the edges. Oz understood that they were going to cross back over into friendship come hell or high water.
"Didn't see any cats, Xander."
"No, but they *do*. Discovery channel, whole program on monks and cats. The eternal friendship? Celestial friendship? Something. Cats keep mice from eating the manuscripts and monks teach them to jump through hoops."
"Seriously?" Oz tried to picture the head monk, sour old Brother Dropen, with a cat -- black and silver tabby, poofy white Persian -- twining around his bony shins. It didn't work. "You sure about that?"
"TV doesn't lie. It occasionally stretches the truth, yes. It might even sometimes embroider facts, but one thing's for sure. It never lies."
"So the TV told you about monks and cats."
"They're like best friends. Symbolic, even."
"Symbiotic?"
"That, too."
Oz leaned against the freezer opposite Xander and slid his hands up and down his thighs. He could do friendship, of course he could. He just needed the practice. "Can't say I've seen much TV for a while."
"Not missing anything," Xander said, kicking out one leg, letting it push against Oz's boot. "Honestly? It kind of sucks lately."
Oz rubbed his jaw and felt himself smile. "But it doesn't lie."
"Nope, never. Like Johnny Appleseed that way."
Apple seeds, fruit trees, orchards, cherry trees, George Washington: Oz followed the logic, condensed and folded-up as it was, and smiled when he figured it out.
Later they would split up. Xander had work, and Oz needed to see Willow. He thought they'd catch up again, probably tomorrow, soon, and things between them were -- not better, they were just as good, but different. Still friends, though, and that mattered more than anything. No matter how well Xander kissed, how Oz's hands wanted to rove over tan skin and coax out little breathy grasps, how the chance to try for more and better had evaporated, the friendship was more important.
Later, they had to get going. Xander would drop Oz at campus and slap him on the back to wish him luck. Oz would set off for the second floor of Stevenson and hear the truck's bell jingling behind him.
And seeing Willow would not be the beginning of anything Oz expected, of anything but the end.
"Missed you," Oz said before any of that ever happened. "Hell of a lot."
Xander smiled, skin bright as gold and brass and copper and other precious metals, and his eyes nearly closed, the grin was so wide. He ducked his head, shrugging, and just grinned.