Fandom: BtVS
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: not really.  Takes place post-"New Moon Rising"
Archive: only with permission
Feedback: makes me howl at the moon: janestclair15@hotmail.com
Webpage: http://www.ravenswing.com/~mirrorgirl/door.html

Disclaimer: Of Joss.

Sex disclaimer: Never ever have I ever done it between the tight-packed
shelves of extraneous Christmas saleables in Wal-Mart.

Notes:
Title from The Smashing Pumpkins' "17"

Love to Nonie, who gave the circle quote, and Te, who audienced.
 

*
 

The desert's as big as he remembers it being.  He doesn't come out here
very often, not since he was old enough to get his own place and didn't
have to wrestle warm bodies in cars anymore. Not that it didn't have
its moments.

But the naked tag games are pretty rocking, too.

The van's like he remembers it, though some part of him gets that it
isn't the same van.  It has that sharp little Oz-edge to it, though.
Enough that it's not important that there are different clothes stuffed
into the box in the corner.  More hemp-and-Phish, less glam-and-Bowie.
Warm, faint body-smell replacing the cologne that used to get up inside
his nose when he slept.

Cheap-booze taste of it in his mouth, the first time he licked Oz's
neck.  He got used to it, though, and eventually Oz got over his taste
for the stuff, and just started smelling like himself again.

Morning now.  Devon's had most of the night to sleep and smoke,
sprawled in the pile of blankets and clothes that're collected in the
back.  Futon underneath.

He found a box of old nail polish colours last night.  Did his own in
black, anally careful like he never quite forgets to be.

Rolls over eventually and looks out the van door.  He kept it rolled
back all night, waiting. Desert air and the vodka edge of his drunk
hanging around, making him miss details.  Waiting to see when Oz is
going to come back.

Yesterday afternoon Oz showed up at the club.  Leaned in the door and
listened while Devon crooned a capella for the middle aged hippy chick
and two old drunks.  Just killing time before the show, watching for
the club owner, who'd bitch him out for playing before the advertised
show.

Just that no-smile-wide-smile, "Hey."

He stayed for the show.  Devon scrawled something on the back of a bar
napkin for him, and then tracked down the bouncer and explained exactly
how important it was that Oz come back.

Jumped down from the stage after the first set and picked Oz up and
*hugged* him.  Hauled him off his feet.  Oz is thinner.  The bits of
baby fat are all gone, and there's enough muscle on him to make Devon
think he's taken up long distance running.

Second set, drinking after.  Or Devon drinking.  Oz watching him.  It's
not the Oz he took swimming lessons with.  But it's Oz.

Oz took him into the desert, sometime around three in the morning.
While Devon was still blind drunk.  Stood out in the middle of the
scrub, and stripped.

Minute of him moon-white in the dark.  Naked and barefoot and
*comfortable*.  Just Oz, no clothes.

Sometime after that, he changed.  Kind of thing that makes Devon wonder
how much he's had to drink, and whether somebody slipped him something.
Except that it was somehow still just Oz. Furry, fanged Oz, crouched
down in the gravel and dry grass, watching him.  Big dog with this
intense focus-thing going on.  Second where it stood up and looked at
Devon, shook itself all over before it ran off.

Easy to just curl up, after that, and go to sleep.  Wasted from the
night, tired from cleaning up after, impossibly weirded in a way that
he didn't want to deal with.

The sun's up, just barely, but up, when Oz comes back.  Dog padding
towards him that sort of blurs and turns into a person in mid-step.
Then naked Oz, walking like he's got thicker skin on the soles of his
feet than most people do.

He comes and crawls into the van next to Devon, and sits cross-legged
on top of the blankets. Looks at him in exactly the way that always
makes him want to get Oz very, very high.

Devon kisses him.

Oz tastes different and the same.  Same spicy, bright, vaguely cold Oz,
but harder, clearer, bloodier.  He pushes back when Devon pushes.  His
weight against Devon's mouth, against his chest.  Pushing him down.
Crawls on top of him, but only after he's horizontal.  Still in his
jeans, held down by this new, nakeder Oz.

Tongue in his mouth's way too long.  Fingers are sharp.

Devon's not hung over yet; he won't be until after he sleeps it all
off.  At the moment, he's still mostly drunk, just close enough to
sober that he can actually get it up.  Almost too drunk to get his
jeans off, but Oz helps him.  They fly into the mess in the back like
clothes should.

If he thought making out was something he left behind with high school.
Well, he thought for a while maybe Oz was too, and here they both are
back.  Sloppy, happy kissing, warming body on his chest.  The kind of
comfortable hip-lock it takes a while to get into.  Oz's legs keep
seriously tangling around his.

Cock along his belly.  This is how he learned about sex.  Not exactly
better than any of the girls he's dated, but utterly different-planet
different.  Feels suddenly like he's fifteen.

It makes him hiss and pant when he comes.  Slick between Oz's thighs,
semen he can catch on the tips of his fingers, rub into the skin there.
Sticky later, but they can go back to his place, shower maybe.  Get
breakfast.

Weirdly adult thought, and it doesn't works on this version of Oz
anyway.  He's been out *hunting* things all night.  There's edges of
something on him that're probably blood, but look like a good makeup
job.  Early heavy metal.  More Iggy than Ozzy.

God, those bats.

Devon pushes himself up on one arm, leans in close enough to wrap his
mouth around Oz's cock. He's decided he doesn't really want to be high.
Too much detail in this that he needs to hang onto, and even the booze
in his system's keeping him from doing it.

Slick, warm, hard in his mouth.  Oz's fingers in his hair keep combing
towards his ears.  Hand that finds his and laces into it.

Spurt in his mouth that comes with this little sigh.

Kissing him after.  On their sides, Devon turned towards the sun and
the door.  Oz is boneless, stretched in his very own clubhouse cave.
It's not Devon's space anymore, except in the way that the couch
cushion caves that Oz used to build at home were open to Devon too,
when he showed up.

Thoughts that swallow him until it's really morning, and he can see the
fading henna tattoo that goes all the way around Oz's waist.  Oz is
heavy against his arm, most of the way to asleep. Making tiny noises
into Devon's shoulder.

Oz is restless, even when he's sleepy.  He never shifts completely
away, and he never stops being heavy, but it's like he's still moving.
He's got the gypsy thing going on in some kind of serious way that
Devon can't connect with.  This need to get loose that Oz has and he
doesn't.

It's a harder thought than he wants to have right now.  He needs to
sleep.

Whole desert out there.  Oz up close.  This need he keeps having to
hang on to him.  It's crawling through his brain like incense, dry air,
acoustic music.
 
 

end
 

Circle quote:

Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life;
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky.
   - from Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Creation of Ea"
 

Title quote:

17 seconds of compassion
17 seconds of peace
17 seconds to remember love is the energy
         behind which all is created
17 seconds to remember all that is good
17 seconds to forget all your hurt and pain
17 seconds of faith
17 seconds to trust you again
17 seconds of radiance
17 seconds to send a prayer up
17 seconds is all you really need
   - Billy Corgan, "17"