Xander hangs up and forgets to take his hand off the receiver. He doesn't know how long he stands there, chewing the corner of his lip, staring blankly.
"Walk. Now." Oz is halfway out the door and Xander's about to trip over his own feet trying to catch up. He moves pretty fast for a little guy, when he decides to.
"Where should we go?" Xander asks when they hit the sidewalk.
"You tell me."
Xander considers this, weighs options, checks his watch. "Guess we could swing by the drugstore and get Dawnie's new inhaler, and that would take us by Willy's. Maybe he's got some extra blood for Spike -- if we get a cooler or just really book it, it shouldn't be too gummy by the time we get home."
Oz takes his elbow. Firm grip, almost a pinch but not quite. "Close your eyes." He turns Xander gently around, sets him spinning. "Keep 'em shut." Xander keeps turning, sagging a little, thinking about piņatas and pin the tail on the donkey and his engrained inability to ever find the target. "Okay," Oz says. "Stop whenever you want."
Xander blinks and sways for a second. Oz nudges him forward at the shoulder. "Walk, Xander."
"Where?"
"Wherever," Oz says. "Kind of the whole point of a walk, isn't it?"
Xander takes a couple steps down the alley and stops. "This way'll just take us down to the tracks."
"So it will." Oz passes him, ambling easily, like this isn't weird.
"Why?"
"And that, my friend," Oz says as he pauses for Xander to join him, "is why you need to take more walks."
Xander's not so sure about this. But he follows Oz, scrambling up the embankment, slipping like a fool on his knees and pushing himself harder, onto the tracks themselves. He's got to ask himself why he seems to care so much about not being sure. Besides the obvious reasons, that is, the usual lack of sureness that he wears as carefully as old ladies tie those plastic rain bonnets over their hair. It's a nice day, after all, and it's fun in a goony kind of way to jump from one rotten old tie to the next.
Oz meanders along the gravelly skirt on the other side, stepping around the spiky weeds. He looks intent, like always, and squats every so often to run his fingers through the gravel, picking up, then discarding the odd stone.
The sun's nearly right over them and its light fuzzes out the orange tips in his hair, making a crooked halo. Xander has to laugh at that: Saint Oz, patron of were-puppies and dopeheads.
"What's so funny?" Oz straightens up, brushing his palms on the back of his shorts.
"You."
"I amuse you? I'm funny how?"
Xander grins. He picks up the reference immediately. "Yeah. Funny like a clown." His Pesci-voice pretty much sucks, but Oz gives him a lopsided grin anyway. "You talking to me? Wait. That's not right."
Oz shrugs. "Montage, then."
Xander likes that word: all slidey, like collage but when the glue's still wet and you can move the pieces around. He bobs his head, watching Oz step backward down the center of the tracks, still wearing his straight-edged grin. Suddenly he feels the sun very hot, almost blazing, on his shoulders.
"Yeah, he's a nice kid, pretty kid," Oz says. "Don't know whether to fuck him or fight him."
"Huh?" Xander's physically following, but mentally? Whole other story. Oz has got this serious look on his face, mouth all thin, eyes watching Xander carefully. Despite the heat, he shivers for a second and stumbles on a rotten tie. Oz grabs his elbow. "Thanks."
"Raging Bull, man. You're scared," Oz says, turning Xander around so they start back down the tracks. Oz takes one side, Xander the other, and despite the weird Scorsese thing going on, this is all very Stand By Me. Just to complete the picture, he sticks out both arms for balance. "But that's okay. I want you to savor that fear."
"Um, okay?" Xander stops and turns his head a little, finds Oz next to him again, looking back. Oz's serious face, he's starting to think, is kind of impish. Not that he's going to tell him that, but it is. The cartoon version of Oz would have little stars rotating like sparklers in the center of his eyes. Plus, there's a bit of dandelion fluff caught on the side of his nose.
"Cape Fear," Oz says. He frowns, and the fluff tugs down his nose, almost tickling one nostril. "Geez."
"Right."
Xander purses his lips to blow the fluff away and Oz just cocks his head, eyebrow going up. Shit. All of a sudden, Xander can see himself from the outside, leaning in slightly, lips together, and that's really not what he meant to look like. Not that anyone would believe him; he's having trouble now remembering what he meant.
Right, fluff. Oz takes his elbow again -- his palm's very hot but not sweaty, which Xander's definitely are. Sweaty and sticky. He doesn't even have to close his eyes because they're blurry and anyway all he feels is the heat of Oz's hand and the weird humidity radiating from his own.
He knows he's tall, he knows he's not even a teenager anymore, but his sweaty palms and the bleary face shining right there, right in front of him, send Xander right back into the kid he never was. Or never stopped being, one of the two. Where he was smaller than anything, didn't know what to say or how to stop crying, and loud voices just made it worse.
His stomach flips, then clenches. Wooziness, thick and warm, creeps through his gut up his neck and down his arm, except that's where Oz's hand is, so no wooziness there, just sharp flat heat.
"Yo," Oz says quietly. Of course quietly, because it's Oz and this moment or whatever it is is tense and weird enough that no one would be shouting. "You okay there?"
Xander blinks and Oz sharpens a little; not much, but it's better, even if he's still swaying on faraway feet and his shinbones seem to have melted down to cartilage. He can't tell if Oz is smiling or not, and he'd like to know. He needs to know.
So he leans in, hand leading the way, palm and fingers curved to cup Oz's cheek, and sees everything speckly and mottled through his lashes. Cheek cool and dry under sticky palm. Oz's hand slips under his sleeve, up his arm almost to his shoulder. Xander can almost see a smile that's long and thin like a pencil slowly twirling. He feels Oz's fingers dig into his muscle, hold him still and steady, and he's scared, almost weepy, until his lips brush lips and noses bump gently.
That piece of fluff gets caught between them, half-stuck to a trickle of sweat on Xander's cheek, half-clinging to Oz's flushed, dry skin. Kissing tastes like pebbles and wind, mown grass and salt. The chapped skin on Oz's lips rubs and tickles and Xander's about to drop if it wasn't for that hand creeping up to his shoulder.
He's sinking in place as he kisses Oz. As Oz lets him. As his fingers go through stiff, crinkly hair to hot scalp and his tongue traces teeth. Oz holds him up, leans against him, chest to chest, returns the kiss with his slow, steady confident tongue and wide lips. He even sighs a little into Xander's mouth, barely audible, when the kiss slows down and they part for breath.
The breeze picks up between them, blowing hot dry air, whistling in Xander's ears, and he's going to fall any minute now.
Xander grabs Oz by the waist, pulls him back with both hands, mashing their lips together kind of painfully. Warmth, different from the sun outside, is blooming up his chest and throat, and every new inch of Oz-skin he touches stokes him higher. Oz has him by the shoulders, tilting his head, pulling Xander down until the angle's better. Kissing back hard and serious, stubble scraping over Xander's chin, tongue deep and strong, kind of undulating over Xander's, just like their hips are starting to rock: circular, wavery, dizzy but good.
The fire in his gut is closing up his throat, sending sparks across the back of his eyelids, and Xander stumbles in place, breaking the kiss with a groan.
Oz is looking at him, mouth open, eyes searching Xander's face. He tries not to look away, tries not to duck his head, but he does. He's got stubble-burn and swollen lips and severe oxygen deprivation. His chest heaves.
"Nice kid," Oz says, rubbing his hand down the length of Xander's arm as Xander bends over, gripping his knees, trying to breathe. Oz's voice is calm, which is normal, and almost sweet, which is new. "Pretty kid."
Xander straightens back up, gripping Oz's wrist. Better. Still hot, but not going to faint any time soon. He grins as he twines his fingers through Oz's. "I don't wanna fight, though."
"Good to hear." Oz nods like that's a confirmation of something.
Xander looks around, rubbing the pad of his thumb over Oz's bracelets, sucking his lip into his mouth. Ooh. Oz-taste, all salty and herby. "So, where to?"
He gets a slap on the arm for that.