Oz leaves Snyder's office and heads home feeling lighter, freer, than he has in weeks. Maybe months. So he has to repeat a year; it's not as if he hates school or being with his friends or anything.
Homework and tests, yes. Oz doesn't care for those. Hence flunking regular school, then summer school.
It's still bright later than he's used to, so he takes the long way home. Loops around City Hall and cuts through one of the minor cemeteries, dumping himself out on Fremantle.
He lived on Fremantle until a couple years ago when the parents finally split for good and his mom took over the smaller house on Dixon. His dad moved to La Jolla into a one-bedroom.
Johnny still lives at 291 Fremantle, though. Oz has driven by him countless times walking home alone. Usually toots the horn, occasionally gets a shrug or scared shake of the head. This time, though, they're both on foot. The street's empty and quiet, and they're approaching from opposite directions.
Jonathan's got his head down, though, so when Oz is about four paces away, he says softly, "Johnny."
Head yanks up and Johnny looks at him with wide, startled eyes. "Danny! Jeez."
Oz takes a step back. "Sorry. Didn't want to scare you."
"You did. You did scare me."
"I'm sorry."
"What're you doing here?" Johnny shifts his bag of groceries to the other arm.
Should have just crossed the street, Oz thinks. Or thought this through a little better. "Walking home. You?"
"Live here," Johnny says, tilting his head up the walk to his house. "You don't. Haven't for awhile."
Oz bobs his head and takes a breath. "I know. Look, I'm sorry. Saw you, thought I'd say -"
Johnny opens his mouth, closes it, and squints at Oz. "Come on inside. My parents are out."
This conversation is already longer than the whole of the words they've spoken to each other since they were eleven years old and Oz can only nod. "'Kay."
Johnny's house is just the same, and Oz doesn't know why he's surprised at that. Barring divorce and/or cross-country moves, parents don't usually change their decorations all that much. Same heavy mahogany furniture, scent of cigar smoke and floral carpet cleaner. Cabbage roses on the wallpaper, dog hair on everything.
Dog on his leg, scrabbling at his jeans, whining and begging.
Oz squats down, rubbing the dog's ears and skull. Liver-spotted spaniel, eyes as big and sweet as Johnny's. "This isn't -?"
Johnny sets the bag down on the hallway table and kneels to rub the dog's sides. He still won't look at Oz. Oz can tell he just got his hair cut recently, within the last week, because there's a little stripe of pale skin just under his hairline that used to be protected from the sun. When Johnny turns to scratch the dog's stomach, his neck is pale, too, shaved hair like dark pencil-pricks on white skin.
"Abner, Jr.," Johnny says, glancing at Oz. "Not Abner. He -"
"Died?"
"Ran away."
Abner, Jr. snuffles into Oz's hand, tail thumping Johnny's leg. "Dogs do that," Oz says.
"Yeah." Johnny stands up and hefts the paper sack. "Come into the kitchen. I'll get you a soda or something."
The kitchen, too, is unchanged. Oz used to bake in here, once Mrs. Levinson found out he'd been using the oven alone at home. He liked cookies, Johnny liked his red-hot sugar cookies, and his mom got to stop worrying and supervise.
"Don't have any beer or anything," Johnny says at the fridge. "Sorry."
Oz sticks his hands in his pockets so his fidgeting is somewhat out of sight. "Why sorry?"
"Not very cool."
The way he says that word, like he's in confession, like he's got leprosy or cancer or something, pushes the air out of Oz's gut. "Pop's good," he says. Hears his voice tighten. "Still got that swing on the back porch?"
"Yeah. Why?" Jonathan turns, three cans of Pepsi in his arms. "Oh, you want to smoke?"
Oz takes a can and rolls it across his forehead, then the back of his neck. Wishes it really was capable of freezing his jitters and calming him down.
"Don't smoke cigarettes," he says and yanks open the back door. "Thought it might be nice to hang out there. After you."
Still not dark, but the sky's a heavier silver, less bright, the shadows across the yard longer. Abner Jr. whines to be let up and turns in circles between them, snuffling and sniffing, until he collapses, fluffy tail over Oz's lap, head on Johnny's thigh.
"That was cool, how you like qualified it," Johnny says after they've been sitting in silence for a while. "Don't smoke - *cigarettes*."
"Don't," Oz says. "Not since we had one of your dad's cigars. Big-time trauma."
Johnny smiles, almost like he's telling himself to smile, it's so tight and brave. "Right, Danny. Okay."
"Truth." Oz wants to smile, hearing his old nickname again, but Johnny would probably think he was being rude or something. "Hey, talked to Snyder today."
Johnny sips his soda and fake-shudders. Doesn't matter who you hang out with at school, the Snyder-shudder is universal. Unites them all more than vampires and sudden, inexplicable losses of friends, enemies, loved ones.
"Yeah," Oz continues. "Flunked senior year, so I have to repeat. And I thought that was kind of cool."
"Think repeating's cool?"
"No. Mean it's cool 'cause we get to graduate together."
"Unless you flunk again."
"Well, sure. Meant -"
Johnny leans over and sets down his can. He twists so he's leaning against the arm of the swing and pulls one knee up to his chest. "You think this is funny, Oz?"
"No." Oz rolls his can between his palms. Johnny didn't even blink when he called him 'Oz' and his stomach hurts. Feels twisted and empty, tied in a thin tight knot, like Danny's gone permanently. Which of course makes him think of Giles, so it just hurts a little more. "Not funny. I thought I'd tell you, thought we could talk again -"
"Haven't talked to me for six years."
Oz nods. "You haven't talked to me for six years, either."
Johnny shakes his head. "Different."
Oz combs out a tangle in the dog's tail. "How so?"
Johnny sighs. "Different because you're cool now and I'm the school geek. Sight gag. Dork."
"You stopped talking to me."
"You broke it. Didn't tell me." Johnny's voice is flat, almost like he's had this conversation countless times. Oz just happens to be here for this performance.
"Was trying to fix it," Oz says. Remembers arranging the shards that used to be the Erector Set's Lunar Rover, his hands shaking, nose twitching at the stink of the model-set glue he had to get an older kid to buy for him, worry and panic at what Johnny would do, would say, would throw when he found out shaking him like a sick kitten. "Told you that."
Johnny dips his head and rubs his chin. "I know."
"Said I was sorry like a gazillion times," Oz says. When he closes his eyes, he can see Johnny's face when he found the pieces in Oz's drawer, his eyes big as saucers, lips almost white with tension. "Really am."
"I know."
"Keep saying that," Oz says. "But I don't believe you."
Johnny looks up. In the light from the house, his eyes are shadowed, but his face is still pale. "Graduating together, huh?"
Awkward dodge, but Oz is grateful for it. "Yeah. Finally came through for you."
"No, you didn't."
"Did so," Oz says. "Kind of, anyway. Maybe not entirely on purpose, but I always said -"
"Said you'd be back for me," Johnny finishes for him. Oz nods. This time of year, third grade, when they found out Johnny had to stay behind and Danny was moving on to fourth. They were too old to cry, so they ate enough cookies to get sick on and walked the original Abner halfway to the town limits before turning back around. Danny didn't sleep over that night because Mrs. Levinson said they needed some family time.
He's gotten used to thinking of himself as different people. Since well before the wolf, but the wolf only strengthened what he's almost always done. Daniel, Danny, Oz, Wolfy, bassist. He hasn't thought of himself as Danny since Johnny scooped up those broken pieces and left his house.
"Yeah." Oz chugs the rest of his pop and smiles. "Here I am."
Johnny scratches his neck, then slaps himself hard enough that Oz twitches. "Mosquito."
"Oh. Sorry. Jumpy."
"You're jumpy?" Johnny laughs shortly and it occurs to Oz that he's having a Giles moment all of a sudden, because he's thinking no one their age should have such a bitter laugh. "I'm the one sitting in a porch swing with like one of the coolest kids in school and *you're* jumpy?"
The knot in his gut's unravelling slightly, but Oz feels impatience spiralling up under his skin, hot and itchy. He has to bite his lip to keep from snapping. "Okay, this is like the eighteenth time you've accused me of being cool. Let's work through that."
Johnny's eyebrows wrinkle as he nods slowly. "Okay?"
"Okay." Oz rubs his hands over his arms, trying to calm the itch. He's not sure where to go from here. "Um. What's with that?"
A bird cries and shrieks somewhere down the street and Abner Jr. perks right up, ears lifting, then jumps off the swing and bounds around the yard.
"Johnny?" Oz tries again. "Since when are you a dork?"
A quiet shrug. "Since forever. Since you -"
Oz can finish the sentence for him. Moved away. Stopped talking. He can't, though, or won't. "Don't think you're a dork."
Johnny shakes his head and Oz can't take too many more words, so he reaches over, tugging on Johnny's sleeve like a child until Johnny looks at him again.
"Serious, man."
"Brave to be nice when we're alone, Danny," Johnny says.
"What're you talking about?"
"Seen you with that stud. The singer. Would you be that nice if he was around?"
Oz wonders just when he wandered into a 1980s teen movie, Some Kind of Wonderful or Pretty in Pink, where he's supposed to be straddling two worlds on an inevitable collision course. "Who, Dev? He's more of a dork than you and put me together."
At least Johnny smiles at that. Oz realizes he's still pinching his sleeve, so he releases his grip, tries to smooth down the wrinkles in the fabric. Ends up touching Johnny's elbow, but Johnny relaxes even more, slowly and slightly, but enough to keep Oz's hand where it is.
"If I got on your shoulders, we'd be as tall as him, too," Johnny says.
"Ass. That's just hormones."
"Just?" Johnny bites his lip. "Makes all the difference most days."
Oz keeps rubbing Johnny's arm, feeling sparse hairs and cool skin. "True enough," he says. "But what about Willow? You know her, right?"
"Went to Hebrew school with her."
"Thought so. What about her? She's little."
Johnny looks at Oz for longer than ever, looking carefully and calmly until Oz starts to wonder if he has something on his face. "She's smart and does magic," Johnny finally says.
"So? You do magic."
Johnny tries to fend off the pinch Oz is giving him and finally laughs a real laugh. Short, but not bitter; it's a start. "Not the same. Card tricks."
Oz leans in further. "Jesus, Johnny. Killing me here." He starts to tickle Johnny until he catches sight of his expression -- big eyes, white lips -- and he drops his hands. Stays where he is, leaning over one knee, the swing creaking as it sways, as Johnny shifts until he's sitting up better, although his legs are on the seat now.
Johnny blinks and his lashes are really long. His head's tipped back so he can look at Oz, and Oz sees the tiny stripe of unsunned skin on his forehead again. "Did do one thing -"
"Yeah?" Oz asks.
"With Michael? Hangs out with Amy?"
"Oh, he's cool."
Johnny smiles. "He is, yeah."
They're whispering. Oz doesn't know why, or who started it, but it seems right. "What'd you guys do?"
"Couple spells," Johnny says. He closes his eyes, his lips moving silently. Then he shivers and looks at Oz again. "Simple stuff. Moving plates. Levitated Abner, but he didn't like that. Alittlelustspell."
Oz's lips twitch at that and Johnny smiles. Oz leans in, bracing his hand on the arm of the swing. Whispers, right over Johnny's face, "Sorry? What was that?"
"Lust spell," Johnny breathes.
"It work?"
"Don't know. We -" Johnny glances everywhere but Oz, chewing the corner of his lip. Oz nudges Johnny's knee with his own, makes him meet his eyes again. He inhales sharply and blinks once. "Kissed."
"Now, *that*'s cool," Oz says. Matches Johnny's unguarded smile with one of his own. Pale untouched skin, barely touched lips that plump and stretch as Johnny breathes and smiles. He brushes his knuckles over Johnny's forehead, willing calm and mellowness into Johnny's mind.
Soft skin, cool under his fingers, and when he kisses Johnny, his lips are even softer, parting barely under Oz's, and he hasn't kissed anyone like this like, ever. Even the first several times with Willow, it was more insistent, needier. This isn't full of need; it's gentle and simple. Easier than talking. Too much history and too much disappointment, regret, for talking to be easy for a while.
Johnny tastes like Pepsi and tortilla chips. And sugar. Oz lowers himself so he can reach the soft stubble on the nape of Johnny's neck. Strokes it, settling down as the kiss continues, shallow and quiet, until finally Johnny touches Oz's arm, then his shoulder. Oz breaks the kiss, nodding and pushing his arm against Johnny's hand.
Finally, Johnny's hand rests on Oz's arm, then slips onto his back, pulling them closer, and his mouth opens as Oz breathes in, taste of orange juice and sugar again, flickering, hesitant tongue against his own.
Johnny opens his eyes, blinking a couple times when he finds Oz looking at him. Glances down, aside, then straight back to Oz.
Wide eyes, deep as anything, crinkling at the side as Johnny smiles and Oz does, too.
It's dark now, kind of chilly, but Johnny's trembling underneath him and Oz keeps on kissing. Coming back for someone: He hopes he doesn't have to do that again. Somehow he doubts it'll work out as well as it did this time.