Improv #6/73: -- belief -- desire -- mercy -- courage
Zealots' belief is physical and dense, an ichor that flows into them, fills their skin, overruns its boundaries. Pentecostals catching the Holy Ghost, writhing and spitting nonsense, Lubavitchers dancing madly, alight with love for the Torah, Sufis whirling like bicycle wheels. In the monastery, Oz saw another kind. Belief as a crystalline veil. Not a flaming liquid to drink and fill yourself on, nothing so separate as that. Simply an acceptance of duality that resolves away into nothing. A way of existence; it disappears as soon as you stop acting.
He doesn't know what Lindsey believes.
He suspects nothing, yet that nothing feels different from the monks'. Lindsey believes in things, in what he can touch and buy, stroke and wrestle. Taste and smell.
Oz doesn't think that counts as belief so much as common sense. Or animal sense, really.
"What're you doing?"
Lindsey glances up, shakes a lock of hair from his eye. His tongue's peeking out like a cat's, then he licks the corner of his mouth. "Looking." Wide blue eyes, dark although the light in the room is making Oz squint.
Oz shifts, rolls away, and shakes his head. "Don't."
"Quite a collection of bruises you've got, boy." Knuckles brush the small of Oz's back, send him farther away, off the bed and onto his feet.
He finds a shirt -- his, Lindsey's, it doesn't matter -- and pulls it on. Little yellow-green sparks, the color of snakeskin, flicker and catch in the corner of his eyes. Lindsey rolls onto his back, bad hand covering his eyes as he laughs.
"Touchy, too."
Oz shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut against the panic-sparkles, willing his hands to obey him long enough to button the shirt. "Don't know what you want."
Lindsey's laughter dies down, ebbing away into murmurs, then silence. Oz opens his eyes, looking at him. He's sitting up in bed now, running his good hand through his hair, forehead puckered in thought despite the smirk twisting his mouth.
"I've been fairly clear," he says. Gestures at the rumpled bed, his nakedness, the box of rubbers at his side. "Should I use smaller words?"
"Maybe you should." Oz finishes buttoning the shirt and knuckles at the strain in his eyes. He's tired and trembly, and Lindsey tracing the scar on his thigh with the tip of his tongue has done nothing to let him calm down.
"Poor kid," Lindsey murmurs. "Naptime?"
"Fuck you."
Lindsey's up on his knees, good hand slipping under Oz's shirttails, faux-innocent eyes peering up at him. "Again? Already? You *do* have stamina, don't you?"
Oz touches Lindsey's shoulder, damp with sweat, and traces a hickey with the side of his thumb. He's never bitten Lindsey; as much as he wants to, as good as Lindsey would taste -- salty, alcoholic, too sweet, like molasses or pecan pie -- he won't. Can't. Wants to grab soft rich skin in his teeth and shake, sink his teeth hard enough to taste a trickle of blood and hear Lindsey beg.
He pinches the hickey and pushes Lindsey back. Watches him fall as liquidly, gracefully, as his voice drawls. Gets one knee on the edge of the bed and plants his hands on Lindsey's wrists, holding him down. Lindsey stares back at him and Oz nods. He grinds down hard, twisting his hips until Lindsey opens his mouth. Oz claps one hand over Lindsey's lips before any sound can escape, squeezing his cheeks in time with his thrusts.
He's sore and exhausted, but Lindsey hooks a leg around his thigh and pulls him closer and it's the heat. Always the heat that holds him here, glues him right up against Lindsey and ratchets up his heartbeat, drags skin over skin, clouds his eyes and fogs his brain. Oz pulls Lindsey's arm, the one with the fake hand, over his head and leans in, dragging his hand off Lindsey's mouth, kissing him so fast there's still no sound.
Hates sound. Hates how Lindsey's voice snakes into his head, twines and spins like heavy gold syrup, confuses him and makes him wonder what he's doing. Loves heat, loves the broad, hot expanse of Lindsey's tongue beneath his, lips that nip and suck, getting fatter and softer the longer Oz kisses him.
Lindsey's tilting up his hips, rubbing himself lazily, slowly, against Oz's thighs, and when Oz closes his eyes, all he sees is red, heavy dark red shades piled on each other, barely moving. Yanks his head back to keep from biting down on Lindsey's slippery tongue; covers teeth with lips like he's giving a blow job and tugs on Lindsey's bottom lip until the moan comes and Lindsey rubs faster, jerkier.
*
He's too much of a coward to bite down. He lacks courage, conviction. He used to kiss girls like this, shallowly, softly, because they were pretty and smelled good and he liked getting close. He loathes getting close to Lindsey, loathes what his voice and skin do to his mind, but he can't resist it. Doesn't think he should.
"Shower," Lindsey tells him later. "Need it almost as much as food."
Everything he says, he sneers out.
Oz has seen him asleep, has seen his face relax past the sneer, globes of eyes turning slowly back and forth beneath his lids, lips parting like a little kid's. The sneer's easier to take.
"Yes, Dad. I shower, you cook. Cozy."
Lindsey flips him off and Oz shrugs, turns for the bathroom. It's all mimicry and mime, kissing someone, using his shower, eating his food; him kissing back, handing you clothes to wear, cooking you dinner. Nothing behind it, all surface, wet and pretty like Lindsey's eyes. No depth to it, or feelings beyond constant irritation, sneaking suspicions that he's wasting his time, spinning his wheels, grinding gears because it's easier than just - leaving. He fucks, Lindsey cooks with one hand like he was born that way, they piss each other off, and probably fuck again.
Maybe it is the warmth. How his good hand can slip around Oz's waist and yank him close, bring his head up right to Lindsey's shoulder, hot mouth on Oz's ear. Talking to him like he is right now, accent getting so strong that Oz has to strain to make out the words.
Skinny little boy smells good, Daddy wants to taste.
"Don't -" Oz says and it's all a game, he's lying just like Lindsey's lying, making it dirtier, wronger, hotter.
Because Daddy can taste all he likes, shove him up against the kitchen counter so hard the dishes rattle in the drainer and the oil spits from the pan, hisses on his skin and Lindsey's on his knees, licking stripes over Oz's thighs and talking dirty and his mouth's hotter than the oil could ever be. Oz locks his knees, hits his head on the cabinet behind him, closing his eyes, but Lindsey slaps him.
Hard. With the fake hand.
"Told you. Don't fucking close your eyes."
Oz shakes his head. Not apologizing, not at all. Widens his eyes, stares down so hard his vision unfocuses a little and Lindsey sneers at him, mouth twisting, one eyebrow lifting, and swallows down half of Oz's dick. Cowardly again, and his eyes drift close, and Lindsey bites down. Softly, warningly, and what is Oz doing here when he can get bitten at home?
Looks again, sharply, looks just at Lindsey's eyes as he fucks his mouth, and the eyes are nothing. Nothing there, wild blue yonder of empty air and less conviction. Hot, though, gas-burner hot, just as mesmerizing as his curling tongue and the sucking tension of his throat. Lindsey knows how to use those eyes as well as he uses his mouth, talking or sucking, and Oz blinks fast, so fast Lindsey blurs.
Plastic hand around his back, holding him as he bucks, driving down Lindsey's throat, real hand gripping and twisting his balls, and his eyes are plastered open as he shakes past coming, sliding down to his knees, eye to eye with Lindsey.
*
Lindsey blinks first, lashes sweeping like mercy - unexpected, unsought, frightening - over his cheeks. Opens his eyes and Oz peers at them, all surface, all sky, empty but hot.
One corner of Lindsey's mouth curves up. Oz is still staring as he leans in, runs the tip of his tongue over the bottom lip, then into the ghost of a sneer. Tastes himself, sharp and earthy, and then just Lindsey. He knocks their foreheads together, breath coming fast and shallow. Kisses him, and for a moment forgets who he is or what he's doing.
No excuse for that, no reason that he'll be able to identify, however much he analyzes it later. Nothing's different than it has been before or will be next time. Everything tastes and smells the same; Lindsey's hair, running through his fingers, is still as soft and fine as a woman's, his scalp hot and neck taut as he twists his head. And Oz feels the same as he ever will, empty, strung out with the last trembles of coming, aching in all the right places, skin prickly-cold from the shower.
No reason, so it's irrational and inexcusable and wrong and everything else that he's been feeling since he left Sunnydale the second time, but it's there all the same. Desire liberated from punishment, ignorance, pain -- just itself, just a wanting that gathers and grows. That thick, dark red haze lifting a bit, like curtains blown in the breeze, nudged into motion, and Oz wants to keep on kissing Lindsey, bend him back to the floor, let him stretch and moan. Taste him, make him feel as crazy-certain as Oz feels right now. Forget the rest of it: How much he dislikes Lindsey, all the digs and cuts and jabs they offer each other instead of conversation, how Lindsey pities the skinny boy and taunts him in equal measure.
Lindsey pulls back. Leaves Oz gaping like a fish.
"Why, sir. I do believe you're trying to seduce me."
"Don't think so." Pulls away and swipes the heel of his hand over his mouth.
Lindsey snorts and Oz hears him pulling himself to his feet. "Keep telling yourself that."
"Don't have to," Oz says and stands.
"Don't, don't, don't," Lindsey mimics. Turns the fish in the pan with the spatula and glances over his shoulder. "Hell of a lot of nots for a kid."
"Not a kid."
"Sure," Lindsey says. "Whatever you say."
Oz scratches his stomach. "Want I should phrase it more positively?"
Lindsey turns, leaning against the counter, bad hand behind him, good hand tapping his thigh. He looks Oz over, tilting his head just like Oz does when he listens to music. "Might be polite."
Oz flattens his lips and shrugs. "Can't. Won't. Don't want to be polite. See? Impossible."
"Yet you keep coming back."
"And you keep letting me in." If this is how he argues in court, Oz can't figure out how Lindsey keeps his job. Stating the obvious, arguing what they agree on, believing surfaces tell the whole story.
"Be rude to turn away a young man in need."
Oz nods. "Right. Doing charity work now?"
Lindsey turns, jabs at the fish and switches off the burner. "That's the big lug's job. I'm in here for myself. All of which -" He turns around and tips up his chin. "You know. So why the interrogation?"
"You started it."
"Actually," Lindsey says, pulling out a chair at the table for Oz and lifting himself onto the table, "You did."
Oz sits down. It ought to surprise him, how he can spend so much time in such proximity to someone - to Lindsey - how he can touch and talk to him and eat with him, all without liking the man. He brushes spilled salt off one knee of Lindsey's jeans, watches it fall to the floor, glittering. Past Lindsey's bare feet, tan and elegant.
"Don't know anything about you," Oz says, curling his palm over the flat kneebone, feeling muscle and tendon flex and tighten as Lindsey swings his legs.
"Open book."
"Yeah. 'Cept there's not much I want to know."
Lindsey runs his fingers through Oz's damp hair, sorting, arranging it, nails scraping lightly over his scalp. "'Nother thing we have in common."
"Don't want to know about me?" Oz asks. "Or yourself?"
"Not too bright, are you?"
Oz shakes his head. Knowledge is like belief, heavy and dense. Too much of it drags you down, stills you in your tracks. Begets confusion and doubt. "Do all right."
Lindsey leans over, kisses his forehead with open mouth, and Oz lets his eyes close. Savors the kiss for all it is, a parody of kindness, wishes for a moment he wasn't so much of a coward, that he could start pretending it wasn't fake.
Oz scratches the chair back, standing up shakily, one hand on his nose like he's trying to pinch away an incipient migraine. Blinking slow and rough over dry eyes, running his tongue over blunt teeth, sucking in both his cheeks.
"Don't want to keep you," he says, moving back, back into the living room, hand dropping away from his face as he looks around for his pants.
He can hear Lindsey laughing at him. Still in the kitchen, sound bouncing off walls and tile, doubling, filling up empty space.
"Flattering yourself again," Lindsey calls, noise and syllables warping through sneering lips. "Don't bother."
And there are so many negatives, so many ways of saying no and acknowledging every meaningless thing, that Oz is dizzy for a second. Overcome, sagging, and he grabs the doorknob before he falls.
The moment passes, he blinks into clarity, and feels his bones harden and straighten him back up. He gets his pants, helps himself to a twenty from the bureau -- he comes cheap, he really does -- and when he's got his shoes on and he's tugging on his jacket, he finds Lindsey leaning against the front door.
"Running away," he says, no trace of a question in his voice.
Oz kisses him, hating noise, loathing conversation. Licks his way around Lindsey's mouth, tasting fresh whiskey, pepper, sugar-syrup. "No," he says, pulling back. A safer kiss than the last one, because it was rougher and deeper and he didn't feel anything besides a tingle in his dick and creeping numbness in his jaw. "Can't stay away long."
Lindsey smirks as Oz slides past him and out the door. The shittiest thing is that for once he told the truth.