"Well, actually, Buffy asked him along. Or dragged him, really. Beat him into it."

"Thank you, Anya. Buffy... dare I ask why?"

"I don't want him anywhere near where we live unless I can keep an eye on him."

"Knew you couldn't keep your eyes off me, Slayer."

"One word: Ew."

"Not history's most articulate Slayer, are you?"

Xander: "I don't know, Fangless. It's clear, concise. To the point. I like it. An?"

"Definitely conveys the prevailing emotions of disgust and revulsion."

"See? You're outvoted. The Buffster wins. Again."

Buffy's grinning at Xander. "Yay me!"

She always smells, Oz thinks, like a child.  It doesn't match a lot of what he knows about her -- the power of the Slayer, the crackling independence -- but he wonders how much it explains about the men she attracts. Warriors and guardians.  Not exactly alphas, but neither is she.  Not yet. If she were, she might not have needed to come after Giles.

Except that Giles has no real idea what to do with a pack of adults.

Oz watches them, and they settle into their pack life.  Dominants and guardians and mates.  In transition, but entirely *there*.  And not his.  Not since a long time ago.

It's easier to see, now that he has some sense of how much time's passed.  He's not particularly happy about it, but knowing somehow makes things a little less uncomfortable. 

And Nate's still there, crouched behind him with an arm around his neck, staring over Oz's shoulder.  Willow and Tara are across from them, watching Giles and the fire and the others, but every so often looking over at them.  Tara never quite meets Nate's eyes, just glances and ducks and looks out from under her hair.  Willow's staring back.

*Oh wow, Oz.  She going to be so powerful.*

*You're sure?*

Pause.  Little shuffle of human awareness while Nate looks down and Willow shakes herself and goes back to carrying her section of the battle-planning conversation.

*I'm not precognitive.  It's just *there*.  You can see it in her, just starting to get loose.*

Flash again of a truly adult Willow, in another, grey world, wrapped in all the layers of her clothes and the layers of her magic.  Fainter, softer awareness of Tara beside her that almost instantly snuffs.  Nate's touch, he thinks.  Because if he really concentrates, he can still feel her.  Not quite as powerful as Willow, not quite as brave, but steadier.  Grounded and watchful and protective.

Closes his eyes and leans back against Nate's shoulder.  Works on not crying.

Like there's a mass of water between them, Giles says, "Oz?"

Nate says, "We're not coming with you."

Willow startles, exactly like some small animal he could, in another life, have hunted. "What? But what about the road trip? We have snacks!"

"I-i-it's true. We even found that teriyaki turkey jerky Willow says you won't admit to loving." Tara, earnest and blushing. 

The rest are silent. Spike, idly flipping a lit cigarette in the air and catching it in his mouth. Anya confused, Giles serious, Xander...

*thinking very hard at me. I'm telling him he doesn't have to shout.*

Something that would be a blush in sunlight on Xander's cheeks, but he immediately goes back to staring at them, *searching* them somehow.

"It's cool. You guys don't need us, and we kinda need to motor."

"I... I was hoping you could stay for a while, maybe field a few embarrassing questions from Anya." Half-joking, but not the important half. 

Oz tries to settle himself, registering Nate's slow, steady stroke of his belly and chest. Possessive and worried. And yeah, there's a lot of sad here. A big decision he'd only thought he'd already made. He doesn't belong here, but to say that... 

Saying that would break some unspoken code, he knows that. Acknowledging the obvious impermanence of a co-Scooby, ruining a few illusions. He's not bitter enough for that. 

"Well, with everything Nate's been teaching me about the importance of having no shame whatsoever, I'm sure we'll be back in the 'dale sooner or later."

Anya beams. "Shame is illogical and stupid. Shame is the enemy."

Xander grins over his shoulder at her. "Fight the power, An. I guess if you gotta go, you gotta go. But hey -- don't forget where we live, 'kay?"

Nodding into the silence for another moment and then they all stand. Hugs from everyone, including Giles. Including Spike, who smirks at Oz for a few seconds until he notices Nate's glare, at which point he mutters and stalks off into the distance. 

Oz decides he doesn't want to know. Watches Nate again, shaking hands with Buffy in a kind of wary detente, getting pulled into a sudden hug from Xander and Anya, which looks awkward and warm. He stares at Willow for long moments, drinking in her power in a kind of awe, while Tara pets his arm and smiles.

Easy to imagine her friendliness is mostly based on her desire for Oz to be completely unavailable, but he gets that she's genuinely nice. He can go with that. 

Moment to wonder where Riley is, moment of pure *want* to get at other installations and let the wolf out for good and all. Or for bad. 

Oz shakes it off and heads for the van. He has good feelings for the van. It's taken them a long way and, unlike the old one, shows no signs of immediate vehicular suicide. A well-adjusted van. 

He really needs this goodbye to be over. 

Touch on the link and he shivers at it, a little. Nate's heard him.

Soon enough, long enough, and they're driving away from the coming dawn. No real destination in mind until he thinks that thought and realizes that he'd genuinely like to stop in with his parents. Maybe actually *tell* them where he's going. Not as though they'd be able to get there without a handy dimensional portal, but he thinks maybe knowing would be enough.

Or at least a nice change. 

*Wanna drive there or just, you know, go?* Nate leaning back in the passenger seat, bare feet out the window, idly tracing the edges of the tattoo.

*Well, I'd like to keep the van.*

*You really like it?*

*It's perfect, Nate.*

Warmth and pure-kid happiness of having found the right present from across the link. Joy and the deep, powerful responsibility for it, and it's really okay. He can be the one that needs to be made happy, at least for a while. 

Easy when his happiness ensures Nate's as well. 

Sudden image of the two of them walking into the magic shop some day in the future, setting off all the alarms and being a disgustingly cute couple, complete with Dev retching obnoxiously in the background. 

*I'd like that, Oz.*

*Yeah, me too.*

*I can try to bring the van with us.*

*Is that hideously dangerous and likely to kill us both messily?*

*Nah, but it's probably going to be weird.*

*I can do weird.*

*Okay, hold on...*

And the world shifts.  Subtly, silverly, and for a split second he's extremely nauseous.  After which they're in a garage.  There's a couple of stairs and a door that he supposes might go into a house.  There's a half-disassembled lawnmower, and really a lot of garden tools, some hung up neatly, most scattered on the floor. 

*Nate?*

*Yeah.*

*This isn't weird.*

*I was hoping for an 'are we there, yet?' before you started criticizing.*

*?*

*We're not finished the jump.  We're just back at House.  So look for things to get weird in half an hour or so.*

Nate gathers himself up, finds the shoes he kicked off earlier, and gets out.  Wonderful few minutes that Oz remembers, during which Nate had his bare feet hung out the window and his head more or less in Oz's lap.  Not even flirting, just quiet.  Eyes closed and this soft happy murmur at Oz's touch on his forehead.

Oz follows him.  He can't see anything out the small window, but there's something very comforting about it still being night.  Some kind of dimensional continuity.  And he's so tired he's almost staggering.  All of the day, and sex with Nate, and most of the night spent awake, and though he suspects Nate's propping him up a bit, he's exhausted. 

Behind him, the van makes a very soft rumble that he decides is just a settling kind of noise.

Nate pads up behind him.  Barefoot again, and there's probably something significant about it, but he's too tired to think what it is.  Lets Nate peel his t-shirt off over his head and hug him from behind.  Bends them both forward slightly and rocks Oz back and forth, kisses the back of his neck.

Eventually Nate takes Oz's hand and leads him into the house.  Careful and slow, like he's perfectly aware that Oz is about to fall down.  The garage door leads into the kitchen.  Oz notices in passing that the whiteboard is talking to itself, little doodles and what look vaguely like technical sketches.

Lets himself be led to Nate's bedroom.  Hand on his wrist very gentle, and for a minute just before he gets the door open, Nate turns and looks at him.  Pale and gently come-hither.  Arm extended like a welcome.  This layer of seductive normalcy about the whole thing.  Oz walks forward into the body facing him and wraps his arms around Nate's waist.  Pulls his head down and presses their foreheads together.

Nate strips him and hugs him.  Massages the small of his back and brushes kisses through his hair and just holds him.  Naked, but he doesn't, somehow, think this is leading to sex.  He pulls himself together enough to get Nate's jeans off, but he's not coordinated enough to do anything more. 

It leads to going to bed like that: him naked, Nate still dressed in his underwear and t-shirt.  Curled up behind him, far enough to let him twist and get comfortable, but still touching.  Soft murmur of Nate against his brain as he settles down.

Pieces of Nate's dreams in the night.  Greyness of the world.  Campfire and Forge trying to make him pay attention.  Visions of his real parents. Messy-haired, more delicate incarnation of Jean overshadowed by a man like a Viking warrior.  Halls full of books and what looks just vaguely like the Westchester house.  Leather chairs and the musty-smelling, decades-old collection of a private library.  Reading for hours with the steady concentration and frustration of somebody who's just barely literate.

Turning around and he's there.  Oz in the doorway.  Playing with something similar with this very familiar look of conversation on his face.  Silver thread like a cat's cradle, tangling and tangling.

Oz kneeling on the floor, watching a turtle.  Blues and greens swirling together iridescent in its shell.

Oz in bed, kneeling over him and biting, very deliberately.  The world spiral.  Madelyne encased in angry fire. 

Swimming in fresh water, somewhere dim and vividly coloured.  Like early morning.

Wakes up with blankets tangled around him and Nate's back and shoulders pressed against his chest.  Nate's sleeping with his face pressed into his arms, curled up and turned away.

The picture of someone who doesn't like his dreams and doesn't want to disturb anyone with them. Nate. His Nate, really, and no fear of hubris can keep him from that knowledge. His to hurt or love as he can. Oz curls over half on top of him. Brush of cool skin and a quiet flare of the link. Something to remind Oz of how quiet it was with Nate asleep. 

Kisses the back of Nate's neck gently and steadily, and his slow awakening is something Oz can feel... all over. Body and mind. Wolf, man, and spirit all in agreement that yep, Nate's waking up now. Time to batten down the surreality hatches and get ready to play. 

*I ought to take you on a road trip through a Dali retrospective.*

*Please don't.*

Nate laughs a little rustily and turns into his arms. Hard, lean body. Shorter hair and more scars. The ultimate proof that everyone is older in the morning. Except maybe Dev, who always reverted to cranky five year old. 

*want more sleeeeeeeeeeep*

Whine like a razor in Oz's mind. *Wow. Don't do that.*

Nate giggling, rolling them around on the bed for no apparent reason but to do it. Something like wallowing in Oz, like the rare but interesting fantasies of being with a genuinely fat woman. Getting lost in all the skin and soft. 

*You're just right, Oz* Kissing Oz and holding him loosely on top, legs wrapped around Oz's own, tickling hair back and forth, back and forth. 

*s'nice*

*love you*

And Oz holds on to the thought at last, really rolls it around in his brain. The feeling of it, like this little jolt of *bright* he hadn't known he needed. 

*I think. I think I love you, too.*

Nate holding tighter, clinging almost. Something that ought to make him feel claustrophobic, but is really just an extension of the feel of their warm, good room and the equally warm and good van. Surrounded by Nate and all he can and will give to him. 

*Anything*

Oz kisses Nate slowly, not leaning into it at first, just holding back and tasting. Slightly stale sleep-mouth and Nate. Opening himself to Oz at first request, despite Oz's need to study, learn him.

*This must be so hard, Nate...*

*I just need you   felt you and knew you were someone I needed to know. All those thoughts and philosophy and ease. wanted to kill the soldiers myself.*

*I'm glad you didn't*

*There's blood on my hands, anyway*

Pulls out of the kiss a little, Nate stroking his back, kneading at tense muscles and making him warm, making him needed. But Nate is a killer, and it should bother him, the way even the nature of the Slayer bothered him.  Something against the order of things to kill things that aren't prey, to pick and choose...

*It's like with Willow, Nate. You don't fear her power at all.*

*She's good, she won't hurt anybody...*

*But she's *done* things... sometimes she doesn't think things through.*

*And you think I'm like that, too. Fuck. That's what I have you for.*

*You don't want me for a conscience, just another limb to that brain of yours. Do you?*

*No, but.   Sometimes I wish I'd taken Jean and Scott up on that whole 'be a kid' thing, Oz.*

*You still can.*

*No. I want. I want to be a man, with you.*

*Nate... I'd stay with you anyway.*

*I know. I. I'll try not to mindwipe first, ask questions later, 'kay?*

*Yeah. Okay.* 

He thinks a bit about making this into lovemaking.  Such an easy slide. But mostly he just wants to stay close.  Touch Nate a lot.  Rub the little hollow of his ribs where he's ticklish and kiss him and rub his feet.

Wants to feel sunshine.  Air moving on him.  Brilliance.

*We could do both.*

*See, you're spoiling me.  I'm going to start demanding that you fix the weather whenever I don't like it.*

*I can't *do* that.  I don't know how.*  Pause.  *You could ask Storm.*

*Do I know Storm?*

*Not yet.  But there's a lot of family for you to meet.  Just meeting all the Summerses'll take a while, but mostly Scott and Jean think of everybody who lives with them as family.*

Uh-oh.  *How many?*

*Put it this way.  You know the Scoobies?*

*Yes.*

*You ain't seen nothin' yet.*

Oz gives some serious thought to rolling Nate under him and raspberrying his belly for a while.

*Give me a ballpark figure.  Am I going to freak?*

*I haven't seen you freak yet.  But, um, a lot.  If everybody shows up at once, we can play full-team football.  Both sides.  With people left over to watch.*

*Okay, on average, then?*

*Twenty, maybe.  Two teams, in-house people, visiting kids.*

*You?*

*I'm not in much.  It's noisy.*  Mental flash of oppressive layers of thought. *I have this place, and I live in New York sometimes.  Or I did.  Since the Shaman thing, mostly I live outside.  It's easier to sleep.*

He bends and kisses Oz's chest.  He's still mostly dressed, soft cloth all Nate-smelling from the night.  *You feel so good at night.  Your dreams are amazing -- they're all about animals and nights and things that I never even thought about smelling.*

Just nuzzles for a bit while Oz pets him.  Then this sudden twist upright while he laughs out loud.

*Oh god*

*What?*

*The van is...*

**What?**

*Thing is, if you leave things here long enough, they start to, you know *animate*.*

*So what's with the van?*

*It's...*  Crackling laughter.  Nate's almost boneless from it.

Oz pounces on him.  Holds him down and worries the looser skin of Nate's throat with his teeth.  *Tell me.*

*It's in love with House.*

Sits back.  Stares.

*No way.*

*It's true.  They've been writing love notes to each other on the dry-erase board all night.  It's this whole epic of inanimate love.*

He's off the bed and throwing clothes back over to Oz.  *This is... wow.  I've never had two things fall in love before.*

Oz picks up the clothes and sniffs them.  He wants a shower.

*True love among the machines?*

*Well, it's not that pure romantic kind.  The van's feeling a bit burnt out. The house wants to nurture it for a bit. And House isn't technically a machine.*

*You're a very strange boy.*

He gets caught sideways by a leaping Nate.  Nate sits on him and kisses very thoroughly for a minute or two.

*Oz, um, don't take this the wrong way, but you need a shower.*

*I can't just stay natural?*

*Water is natural.*

*You would've made a terrible hippie, Nate. I'm just going to walk until I find a bathroom.*

*You do that.*

*Blow me in the shower?*

*You're on.*

And the hallway is suspiciously short when Oz walks out the door, leading to just the one door. A Nate on a mission. 

The bathroom has an amateurish mural of jungle scenes. Eyes in the foliage and all that. Really kind of disturbing if you spent any time studying it, which gives it its own sort of charm.

Oz undresses Nate quickly, stopping once to dance his fingers over Nate's cock. Play it a little until Nate grabs his forearms and starts trying to push into Oz's fist. Nate's cock its own hot, real weight, hard and getting harder. Turns the water on and gives it time to get to the right temperature -- one of those one dial jobs that always seems to require nuclear-scientist level dexterity to adjust it properly. 

*I'll take care of that.*

*Good* 

Kissing Nate like diving into something deep and wild. Backing him up against a wall and licking the corners of his mouth, sucking his tongue and scraping human-short nails over a nipple, over and over, even when the kiss is over. Then just holding Nate against the wall and scratching, eye to eye for long moments and he knows Nate is searching him, learning him. Looking for intentions when Oz doesn't really have any beyond touch.

*not true you wanna make me scream*

*yeah, okay*

Nudges Nate's chin aside and mauls his throat, twisting the nipple now, pulling and occasionally digging his nails into Nate's chest, still holding Nate back.

*fuck fuck *fuck**

*you want this*

*love you Oz*

Oz shifts to just breathing against Nate's throat. Smelling sweat and spit and sex and *Nate*, right there, right against his mouth every time he inhales. Choppy little breaths, pained and enervated noises, and the steady writhe of slim hips against his own whenever he steps close. Could do it right here, up against the big disturbing wall.

Screw the shower, he *likes* the smells, likes the rawness and desert grime and tang of it, fresh sweat on both of them. Heating up for this. *Wanting* this. Pure tinder between them, just waiting for a match... 

Holds Nate hard against the wall for a long moment before moving his hand. 

*stay there*

*yeah*

*push your hips out*

*fuck yeah*

*get my finger wet*

*Oz*

Soft lips hard teeth *wet* around his finger, instant suction. Nate's eyes closed and expression close to beatific. Sucking hard and moaning, Nate's hands coming up to hold his wrist in place, then to shift it for Oz. Fucking Nate's mouth with his fingers. Rush of sensation, salt-sweat taste shared between them and Oz's mouth is watering.

Licks it all over Nate's throat and jaw and has to pull hard to free his hand, Nate's eyes flying open with that raw brand of accusation you only get with sex.

"Turn around and spread your legs for me."

Loud, echoing in the small room. Steam from the shower making things that much hotter, wetter. 

Pushes two fingers in hard and Nate rewards him with a scream, short and almost guttural.

*OZ!*

"Talk to me."

"Oh god Oz."

Angles his hand and finds the little, hard lump.  Rubs hard circles there for a minute while Nate leans forward against the wall and tells him in a lot of detail how it feels.  Then pulls back, pulls out and pushes in again and concentrates on just fucking him.  Hard in and out.  Water still running in the shower, hot enough that everything's steaming, just that much blurred, like soft focus.

"You are.  So gorgeous."

Oz bites Nate's shoulder.  Carefully.  Too easy to slide, sink animal-sharp teeth in, and he really doesn't *know* what'll happen after that.  Slides his arm around Nate's waist, slides his thumb into the navel and fucks it, not quite gently.  Both hands moving and Nate *writhing* from it.

"Oh fuck Oz.  Fuck me or I swear to god..."

Pushes up on his toes and breathes in Nate's ear.  "What?"

Faster than he can believe, and maybe the first time he's really understood how much the lightning-reflexes-deadly-combat thing is just *bred* into Nate.  Thinking about this dazedly while he's got his face pressed up against the shower tile and Nate's thigh between his legs.  Wild, wet kisses all over his shoulders, his neck, the back of his skull.  Hands sliding around to tug on his nipples.

"Or we can get to see how much you like it."

One hand pressing to his lips, one on his cock.  Fingers for him to suck on while Nate grips and just barely massages the root of his cock.  And yeah, he does like it.  Wants it.  Aching, aware along the link of the faint ache between Nate's legs where Oz was finger-fucking him until a second ago.  Arching into Nate and into the spray that's only half-hitting him.  Nate's body like a shield against the heat.

Tongue in his ear, Nate's steady, unusually vivid presence inside his head.  Fingers in.  Slick and long and hard-knuckled.  *Rubbing* inside him, hard and so *deep*.  Second where his knees give and he's suddenly down on Nate's thigh.  Pressure on his balls, on the hand whose fingers are up him.

Nate's other hand lets go of his cock and slides up Oz's chest.  Pulls him upright, then back.  Arched back against Nate, over the fingers, and by the time he's got his feet under him he just *wants* this.

"Come on, get your arms up."

"Nate, I don't think I..."

"Up around my neck.  Lift them."

Soft, handless pressure guiding them.  Long reach over his head and back.  Around Nate's neck.  It stretches his whole body up, arches him, pulls him so *close* against Nate.

Nate lets go of his chest.  Steady enough.  Hand back down onto his cock.  Jerking him ruthlessly.  Nudges his legs even farther apart with that thigh, works the fingers in deeper.  Hard enough to get a real serious yowl out of Oz the next time they twist.

"Steady, hang on a sec."

Hard grip on the root of him, little shift between his thighs, and another finger works in beside the other two.  Burning stretch of it.  Slicker than it should be, really, but he's not going to complain.  Can't even talk.  Just pants and whines and arches and bucks his hips and *wants*.

And Nate fucks him.

Ruthless and hard and *fierce* in a way that he doesn't quite associate with Nate.  Not part of that sweet, messy softness.  Perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

*Who am I, Oz?*

*You're Nate god feels so good just there yes please*

*What else?*  Twist and the fingers in him slide deeper.  Knuckles hard against him, rubbing his prostate from outside and he can just *feel* it, all the way up to his belly.

*Do you have any *idea* who I am?*

Wet kiss on his ear.  Oz moans.  Pushes his legs apart and gets a hard thrust with the fingers as response.  Brutal, very sweet hand on his cock.

Thinking desperately with a brain that's rapidly shredding itself.  "X-Man."  Strange shape of the word in his mouth.

"Oh fuck that."  Momentary boost of the telekinesis lifting his feet off the ground, taking the pressure off his arms long enough for the new pain in his shoulders to ease.  The hand in him following.  Steady when Nate drops him back onto his feet.  Pushes so *deep*, for a second he's sure it's going straight through to his heart.  Just held out by the little finger and thumb, neither one stopping a hard edge of knuckles from pushing against his hole.

In his head.  The voice huge and serious.  *I'm a mutant.  Shaman of earth.  I'm the guardian of mutants and monsters.*

Vivid blue eyes, one shooting gold fire, and he shouldn't even be able to *see* them from this angle.  Fucking him jerking him he's so *close*...

"I'm not scared of you."

Shaking open the universe for just that split-second, like white light behind his eyes.

*I love you Oz*

Fierce, bright being.  Crackle of phoenix-fire and all the water around him, clean bodies and soap and Nate's body and the ozone edge of his power. Fingers working in him just *right*.  Making him scream.  Dragging the climax out of him, kissing his shoulder and his arm and the side of his face while he trails off to gasping moans.

Strong, invisible hands on his chest brace him while Nate eases his arms down.  Kisses his hands and turns him into the spray.  Washes him and kisses him and rubs his belly.  Thrusts occasionally against his hip.  Still hard.

All of that, just for him.  Just hands and voice.  God.

Oz turns.  Kisses Nate's chest.  Down the centre line of him to his navel. Tongue in it, tasting hot, vaguely mineral-laced water and Nate's body.  Mouths down from there, burying his face in the pubic hair when he reaches it.  Nate's cock bumps against his chin. 

Shape of the head in his mouth.  Slick and very smooth, salt and smokiness of it.  Sucks just that for a while, long enough for Nate's fingers to knead his hair into spikes.  One knuckle pushed up against the perineum, and he can feel Nate's knees trembling.

"Ozzzzzz..."

*yeah, I know*

Starts the slide down.  Angles his head after the first aborted push that ends with him coughing.  Wants it, wants to give Nate this.

"Oh god Oz.  Thank you.  Thank you oh god yes please.  Oh god no you don't have to..."  Rough voice breaking up into a moan when Oz finally manages to swallow.  Fingers rubbing his jaw.

"Oh yes Oz I wish I could show you what you feel like.  I could see you from *space*, I could see you from the spiral.  I was just walking, and all of a sudden I could hear you.  All your thoughts everything you think is so *intense*.  This whole mass of things and you were hurting so bad you could hardly even remember your name and there were still all these pieces of the most interesting person I could imagine.  All this *stuff* in your head -- like bits of guitar riffs and your favourite sunglasses and the way things smell and the names of bands you like and books you like and the way it looked in India on this one particular morning when you woke up and there were these cormorant girls on stilts in the fields chasing the birds away and oh *GOD* OZ YES PLEASE!"

Howling and begging and thrusting down Oz's throat, and Oz knows his eyes are huge.  All of this registering on him suddenly, the extent of all of this.  Like somebody crawled down into him and pulled up the parts he'd been keeping, very quietly, for himself.  Wants to pull back, suddenly. Does.  Out of his throat and just holding the head and first couple of inches while his hand's around the rest, jerking and sliding in the slickness.  And yeah, it's satisfying when Nate gasps and comes.  Still stroking his hair.

But it's just.  It's been a *week*.  That's all.  Since he woke up curled in the soft warmth of a room that felt more like a den than a bedroom, aware of closeness and rain and this strange, new being touching his shoulder.

Who took him.  Made love to him and fell in love with him and messed with his *head* and fucked with his world-view.  And yeah, he does love him, but.

But.

Nate says, "Sorry.  That got out of hand."  He looks like he's been through a meat grinder.  Sweaty and the post-orgasmic kind of relaxed, but also utterly wired into Oz's thought process.

"Yeah.  Good time maybe to talk about limits."  Oz gets up and turns the water off.  Gets out of the shower, dries his hair, wraps himself in a towel.  "Think we could do this with clothes on?"

"God, you and *clothes*."

"We're going to visit my *mom*."

"I'd let you visit my mom naked."

"We should just get you a map of all the places we won't be going."

"Did anyone ever tell you how sexy mental stability is?"

"... you know, I don't think anyone has, Nate."

Nate's arms around him, Nate's feet sneaking under his own, cushion of air between, and they walk through the hall that way. The bathroom jungle is creeping along the walls. Definitely an odd moment in a week full of them, but Nate's laughing into his hair and they've got a kind of Frankenstein rhythm going on.

The hall seems very long. "You're having fun, aren't you?"

"Lots. You have games in your head. Let's play games while House tries to cheer up the van."

"Why is the van sad?"

"Well... as near as I can tell, the van isn't so much one living being as several vivid psionic echoes of people who maybe wanted the van, but couldn't have it."

"Wow. The van has become Desire. That's pretty interesting."

"Sort of. It's more like the van has become Sybil. And Sybil's trying to plan a road trip with all of her selves, and it's just not working. And then Sybil remembers that she doesn't get to choose the destination anyway."

"Does the van have a name?"

"Several."

"Hunh. We can maybe just call her Van, then."

"Uh..."

"She doesn't like Van?"

"Well, she isn't sure of 'she' Oz. And House -- who wants to be known as Nate, but I told him there were too many of us -- likes the ring of Mystery Machine."

"Way too many painful associations, Nate."

"Yeah, I figured. But there was poetry involved."

"Poetry?" The hall now stretches off into the distance, disappearing to a point on the horizon. There are doors, now, and Oz picks one at random to steer them towards.

"Well, yeah. 'Rolls through the night / like a wheeled dream / I'm really glad you're / my Mystery Machine.'"

"Wow. That's. That's pretty profoundly bad." Oz reaches for the door and promptly discovers that it's become more wall. "But hey, you could really get the *feeling* from it, House, and that's what's important." The door rematerializes. Kind of sulkily, actually. 

Into the room and it's... not a room. In fact, it's the least room-like thing he's ever seen. It's *North*, and everything it's come to mean. Forest in all directions. He and Nate are standing on the seemingly random end of a meandering dirt track that stretches back into... more forest. *Clean* scent. Green and cool and alive.

Absolutely necessary to open his senses and just breathe. Wonderful, all of it. Open and he can't smell anything human except Nate. But there's something almost familiar, too. Something that scratches at his backbrain and makes him want to run... east. 

Something the wolf wants, *he* wants east. 

*Nate?*

*Sure you don't want to just run and see for yourself?*

*There are werewolves out there, aren't there? A pack...* and God, he hasn't been with a pack since the Black Forest, and the rumor of the Lycanthropus Amulet that turned into weeks in the cold, cold emptiness. Snow hares and the she who'd rejected her name and her humanity for something that translated into the not-silence of snowfall and the emptiness far away from home, family, and anyone she could hurt. 

She'd wanted him, and, in the end, that was why he'd left. 

*Nate... wow. I've gotta admit, I'm starting to have gift anxiety.*

*No, no, this is nothing for me. Like breathing. It's not a gift if I just, you know, breathe.*

There was this depth and silence to the snow.  Once it got a certain number of feet deep, you could tear through it and never make a sound.  Powder flying through the air.  Except that it was so *small*.  All of Germany so tiny, and the forest just this small surviving part of it, one that he was drawn to by race-memory.  Restless at the edges of human life around him.

That's missing, here.  He can't smell anything but Nate and Pack.

*This isn't your Black Forest.  This one runs most of the way from what you'd think of as the Ukraine to France.*

It smells wild.  There are old, old powers here.

*Nate...*

"Oz, I took this on, and I was stupid, do you get that?  The Shaman whose role I took?  He took care of a tribe.  Maybe sixty people.  Just sort of guarded them, and meditated a lot, and kept the worst of the universe away from them.  And I thought, like, since I was the world-walker, that I could be the Shaman of Earths.  All of them.

"I'd been to maybe three or four Earths when I decided that.

"The multiverse is so *big* Oz.  I thought once I'd gone all the way to the top of the Spiral, and the people who lived on that Earth thought they were at the top.  Except that just one of them looked up and found out how far down they were.  Like being one strand of DNA in a living being.  That small.

"And I started to lose the details.  I couldn't remember what people or the insides of houses looked like, or what I used to buy at convenience stores."

*?*

*Grape slushies.*

*You're joking.*

*I have a sugar jones sometimes.  It's not pretty.* Out loud, "And I didn't even remember that.

"Except all of a sudden I could *hear* you.  Like you were standing next to me talking.  You were so hurt that you made all my nerves burn, but you were so *grounded*."

"I've been told I'm a pretty abstract guy."

"I needed you.  You made the difference between Shaman and Nate.  I figure I had maybe a couple more days before I would have decided it was a good idea to sacrifice myself to save the Spiral from the next big ugly who came for it."

Nate crouches down.  The ground under his feet's very black, and there's a lot of soft plant life ground into it.  The trees are huge and manage not to make it entirely dark at ground-level.  Dark stains on the soles of his feet.  He looks strangely normal in the middle of the forest with nothing on.  Like he shouldn't walk around wearing anything but a waist-tie and a couple of amulets.

"Oz, is this maybe what you want?  'Cause it's okay if it is."

"Sorry, what?"

"The Pack.  If you want it, it's okay."

"We did all the run-for-it stuff so you could turn me loose in the woods?"

Nate shakes his head.  Looks up very seriously, looking all of seventeen.  "Leave me and I'll kill you."

Not a serious threat, but he gets the feeling behind it.

"Ooookay.  So, what, then?"

"I go too."

Something about the tilt of Nate's head.  Sacrificial.

Fuck.

"Nate..."

"You want this, you bite me, we Run."

*Nate...*

Nate just looks at him.

And the thing is, he has to think about it.  Hard.  Every inch of the wolf in him wants to run.  This is the world he would have wished for.  Big, wild, safe in the sense that there isn't anyone human to hurt.  He could dig a den out somewhere, curl around Nate, line it with his own fur and the fur of whatever he can run down.  Sleep during the days.  Fuck Nate in the early twilight, get fucked himself.  Wolf-blood.  Find a Pack.  Hunt.

God, the trees smell so good.

Both of them wolfen, neither of them tied entirely to the moon.  Just wild.  Him and Nate.

Forever. But.

"See, the thing is, there's these parts of being human I like.  Like baths.  And animal crackers.  And my mom."

*Oz...*

*Oz...*

Oz watches him.  Crouches.

Jumps.

Lands on Nate and rolls him through the soft earth and plant life. Holds him down and kisses him, hard as he can.  And then rolls off and finds his feet and runs.

*Catch me*

*Bastard!*

Chasing him, human and rangy and half-angry, mostly laughing.

And Oz leaps into the change, hitting the ground with his front paws and skidding a little on the layers of dead leaves until he can find purchase, and then running full out. Sudden *awareness* of the tattoo on his leg, like some physical manifestation of the link, and he wonders if it goes both ways.

Reaches back with his mind and freezes at the images.

Nate is *flying* after him, up and over branches, around tree trunks, quickly rising into the sky when the foliage gets too thick, then diving in again. Shared image of Nate barreling into him and flying him up much, much too high if and when Oz is caught.

Heh. Not if Oz has anything to say about it.

Crashing through the underbrush faster now, legs gliding into a punishing lope straight into the thickest, darkest parts of the forest, where sunlight is a vague memory. Realizes he's headed for a deadfall only in the very last moments and leaps into freefall, behind and below him a slowly biodegrading trunk of what might as well have been the world tree, alive with tiny animals. Hits the ground rolling, laughing down and down the steep hill, scraped by branches and bruised by roots until he splashes down in a shockingly cold stream.

Shakes off and keeps running, veering west when the climb gets too steep for speed.

Nate cursing him and laughing through the link.

No chance whatsoever to get away, but Oz is *not* gonna make this easy.

Follows the water running until he sees what he needs. Another one of the ubertrees, roots half-bared to the not-light, leading up and up into another part of the wild. Oz leaps and scrabbles, climbing, fast as he can but suddenly Nate's right there

"Gotcha, you freak --"

one hand around his ankle and Oz kicks back and leaps again, up into the thicker forest again, four-footed and low to the ground, snaking like a bullet through the undergrowth, Nate at his heels.

Panting and shouting, "well, no one said I had to play *fair* --"

Air zooming in to hold Oz *still* for just long enough for Nate to pounce and then Oz is released. Rolling together, pulled punches and the flex and pull and *hold* of muscles, laughter dying for grunts and panting, bitten curses.

Nate's fists in his fur until one careless rake of Oz's claws makes him let go.

And then just staring. First down at the five distinct claw marks on Nate's chest, then into each other's eyes. Black and blue and red all over. Fire ants under his fur buzzing insects in his brain and Oz sends Nate flying with a backhand.

And stalks.

It's something even Nate understands, that they've turned this around. Nate had his chance, and he didn't take it, and Oz can *smell* him everywhere. Laughing and wounded.  Blood that occasionally touches the overgrowth, slips through the primitive lines of a fern to reach the ground.

Out in front of him, he feels Nate brush against his mind.  Sends images of hunting Nate down, naked, pale boy in the forest, of bowling him over and over into the plant life and Nate sends an image of himself suddenly freezing and becoming a tree.  Both hands over his head like branches and staring very hard out at the world.

He can't laugh in wolf form.  He howls.  Long, low sound that he didn't used to hear by daylight, except in the perpetual daylight of his cell. Different echoes here.  The sound catches trees and hills somewhere off, echoes and magnifies until it sounds like dozens instead of one.

And then it is dozens.  The Pack, miles off, baying answers that he only  half-joins.  Nate running along all his senses.  Memory of that skin against  his fur.

The ground electric with power.

Oz jumps.  It's not really a canyon, just a split in the rocks of the earth, but he has to stretch to cover it, and Nate's there on the other side. Crouched instead of flying, dirty and bright-eyed and he smells *good*. Like blood, like prey, like Nate.  His.

Nate takes off, and Oz has to twist in mid-air to catch him.  Snap of his hips and spine that turns him around the moment before he lands, lets him catch the edge of Nate's flight and knock him out of the air.

They land in separate heaps that somehow come together, rolling and bitching about the impact until they're buried in ferns and low, leafy plants, Oz on top in full fur and Nate underneath him staring.  Flinching the next time Oz shifts a paw.

*Ouch!  Think you could be a little careful of the *tracks* you left?*

Oz bends and licks Nate's chest.  Human blood, unfamiliar parts of the taste that he identifies as power and Nate.  Slick and bright and a little too hot on his tongue.

Baying all around him, echoing and amplified to the point that it's everywhere in his ears.

Still thinking about that life, that potential.  Denned and mated, the two of them curled up with soft fur and long tails, burrowed against each other in the silence of the winter.  Animal-fierce mating in that stillness.

God the *smell* of Nate.

Bends his head and lends his mouth to the unfamiliar shape of a human kiss. Wanting this.  All the electric power of the woods and the sounds of the Pack feeding it.

"Oz, tell me you're in there."

*I'm here. You taste good.*

*Let's clarify: My *blood* tastes good.*

*Oh, did you want to talk about boundaries *now*?* Laughing in his head and tasting the fear, mingling in it, touching and holding. *Just a part of me, Nate... tell me you want it*

Licks a long stripe over the claw marks and Nate shudders beneath him, struggling. Oz grabs his wrists and presses them down into the dark, rich earth. Holds them down hard and animal-humps, sending image after image. Blood and mating and the holy necessity of it.

*Would you have done this with Willow?*

*I would've wanted to.*

*But would you have *done* it?*

*No, I never could have. She wasn't ever really mine. You are, Nate, you're mine and I'm gonna fuck you hard, right here. Tell me you want it.*

Not really necessary to the wolf brain. Heat and hardness beneath him, slow jerk of slim hips. Body acceptance. But he, the man, can be here for this. Watch and make things easier.

*you *hurt* me, Oz*

*marked you*

*aw *fuck**

Eases off a little, fends off the perfunctory fight, taking the hits he receives as his own, anger and fear and hunger between them. Wolf and man and *taking*. Pinning Nate to the ground, on his belly. Dick already hard and thickening, lengthening out of the sheath and Oz pushes against Nate's ass, slips into the cleft and *exists* there for a while. Tight hot soft skin and Nate's moans. Fragile bones of his wrists closed in Oz's paws.

Oz moans and hears himself utter something like a cracking growl. Makes Nate quiver beneath him. Makes him struggle a little, but not to get away and

*hands and knees yes*

Frees Nate's wrists and kneels up just enough to give him room, spread out, arms and legs shaking, ass in the air.

*beautiful*

*oh fuck Oz the things we can do to each other*

*gonna fuck you Nate*/*don't wanna hurt you*

Both thoughts together, weird mixing of the human and the animal in him. Intense and startling enough to make him sit back a bit, onto his haunches and just breathe for a few seconds.  Calm down.

*You won't hurt me.  Remember telekinetic?*

*Remember you *dropping* us.  Your attention gives...*

Nate flips over under him.  Taking advantage of the currently slack in Oz's posture but also looking up at him.  Serious and dark.  The universe keeps whispering around him.

*could suck you   get you wet*

Curls onto his side and pulls Oz down.  Sudden cave of plant life, dark and warm and earth-smelling, Nate's body curled around his.  Mouth wrapped around his head and sucking him.  Careful and wet, not meant to get him off but oh *good*.  Nate's curiosity this thick, tangy *force* between them  while he explores this new state of Oz's body.  Cards his fingers through  the hair.  Works his mouth.

Never down his throat, something about the angle and his lack of experience that means he can't quite manage it.  But gentle and wet and he uses his hand to spread the slick layer around a bit.

Curled around him, knees pushed up between them to keep Oz from mirroring the gesture.

And then up on his knees, bent down.  Offering.  Still just that much open from the fingers Oz had in him earlier today.  Watching Oz roll to his feet and pad up behind, then turning his face away. Lets his head hang down between his shoulders. Oz watches the muscles in the lean back flex and tense, flex and tense. Leans down to taste the sweat, feel Nate's shudder against his face.

Seats his hands carefully on Nate's ass. Spreads him.

Then rams home in one long stroke, howling something like triumph at Nate's choked scream. The answering chorus from the pack something deeply needed. Celebration and curiosity and Oz knows they're moving closer now. They're going to want to know him, and see for themselves what he's taken for his own in these woods.

Nate, God, Nate all around him. Tight and hot and his and moving is imperative. Covering his back and just *grinding* in. Short, sharp thrusts and his teeth on the knob at the apex of spine. Not biting, never biting. Just. Holding him there. Holding him still for it and Nate's panting, half-sobbing with it.

Open to Oz and sharing the pain and intensity, the low, appalling desire for *just* this and nothing else. Fucked and used and *taken* this way, fingers digging through the leaves and into the soil. Knuckles white and tears at the corners of his eyes that Oz licks away with his long, long tongue.

Love fuck. Pure animal and real as anything Oz can taste, driving in and in, half-barking at the ripple of muscle along his length. Nate feels so *good*.

Long, tearing breaths.  He expects Nate's elbows to give, but the thing is, they don't.  The whole arm steady, long muscles showing and these long tendons like wires, like a human utterly created.  And it hurts.  Oz knows Nate's hurting.  He can *feel* it

*necessary pain*

running up his thighs.  Muscle and bone and fur and the wound on Nate's chest marking the whole wet growth of the forest with his scent.

Only vaguely aware of Nate talking to him.  Real, vocal words that just skate across his ears without leaving solid meaning.  Calling him on and begging him and telling him it hurts and finally just *screaming* while Oz howls.  Tangled voices rising.

And Nate doesn't so much give as ease down.  Lets his hands and elbows and knees all slide and drops his body into the plants.  Carries Oz down with him, still inside him, still wolfen.  Licking his face and neck and throat and not letting him cry.  Ferns and the smell of ferns around them, dark and filling the air with tiny spores.

Oz pulls out, eventually.  Curls open so that Nate can push in against him,  skin and soft belly fur, and dozes with his nostrils open.

Perfectly aware of it when the Pack comes.  Soft, dark human feet, earth pushing into the hard creases of them.  They're pale, still in skin.  Streaked with dirt and wearing skins and nothing else.  Bone jewelry.  Long, matted hair.  And their eyes are a little too wide.  Almost moon time.

He can feel the moon as just the faintest tug on his skin.

The big she comes over and sniffs him.  Pushes her nose through his dirty  hair, and then down his body to Nate.  Rubs a little at his fur.

"You're changed."

Oz nods.

"She isn't up yet."

Nod.

"What is this one?"

Long, chest-deep growl.  His.

*Mine*

*Oz?*

*Shhh.*

Oz slides his tail over Nate's leg.  And as much as he's not even on his feet, it's a claiming.  His mate.

"He isn't *like* us."

Oz just watches her.  Black/gold eyes on him.  Bone strung on sinew loose between her breasts.Thick, matted hair that smells as much like forest as it does like female.  And at any rate, not important.  Nate under him, still whimpering from the claiming, trying very hard to be still.

One broken-nailed hand reaches between them.  Rubs across Nate's belly, over his thigh, down and behind him.  And the she bends, sniffs him all over.  Nods.

"Yours.

"Are you coming?"

He hasn't shifted enough to be able to speak, but he thinks she gets most  of, *I have places I need to be.*

"If you ever want to come..."

He nods.

And they go.  No one else touches them, except for one very young male who stays sniffing the air until Oz growls at him as long and low as he can.

It's dark by the time they're really alone.  Long howls from miles off that he doesn't answer. Moon rise, long and steady and it runs over his skin like Nate's breath.

Nate against his thighs, sitting on the edge of the next fresh water.  Creek half a stride across, running over the rocks.  So shallow.  But he can catch it in half-human hands, splash it over himself and over Nate, and slide into  human form and kiss him.

Send his joy and satisfaction with lips and tongue, careful of the claw marks, which really should be taken back to a well-lit bathroom and thoroughly cleaned. Doesn't want to be responsible for such a casual scar.

*I don't know, I think it gets your point across.*

*So does the tattoo*

*I don't mind being redundant.*

Same humor and warmth through the link, but different, too. Quieter.

*Are you okay?*

*A large she-wolf sniffed my well-fucked ass, Oz.*

*Just getting to know you.*

*Yeah. All of me.*

*And all of me. Guess we can handle it.*

Rush of affection and deeper pull of Nate's love for him. Something like gravity to make Oz sink down into it all and never get up. First, though, antiseptic.

Scents rapidly exchanged, green for clean. They're on the floor in an entirely different bathroom, lined with painfully clean white tile. Bright fluorescents beating down on them like the sun in a really mean universe.

*Well, you wanted clean, Oz...*

*The bathroom of the anal retentive. Nothing ever, ever happens here.*

*Let's get it dirty.*

Another long, but relatively uneventful shower. Toweling each other off almost leads to battle when Nate reveals his desire to scrub Oz pink.

*But it's so wholesome!*

*It's so painful. And also disturbing.*

Finally getting him settled on the edge of the tub with the first-aid kit, but Oz can't really stop looking at the scratches, edges of skin starting to curl, away from muscle. His mark, his fault, only no one's laying blame.

Or running away.

*Boundaries, right.*

*So... there are none?*

*Works for me...*

Does it work for him? Thinks about it for long moments while carefully applying the antiseptic. Decides that it does, and yet. The past week has shown him just how many possibilities there are.

*Oz?*

*I'm having philosophical commitment issues. Don't mind me.*

Hand in his hair, pulling him in to rest his head just above the claw marks.  Holding him there.

*How about this for a boundary: Please don't scratch off my nipples.*

*I like your nipples.*

*So do I. So we're agreed.*

*I think I can commit to not removing any of your secondary sex characteristics. I'll throw in the primary ones, too.*

Nate tilts Oz's face up towards him and kisses it, then yowls in the middle as Oz splashes antiseptic into the scratch.  Jerks and scrabbles away half-comically, then wrinkles his noise at the smell from where he's pressed back against the wall.

*This is the part where I point out where you're not visiting my mom until  you have clothes on."

Nate stays where he is and looks injured.  The wound on his chest is actually healing, not T-1000 Terminator fast, but enough that Oz can see the flesh gently easing towards itself from across the torn edges.  Nate sniffs again.

*What?*

*That stuff smells awful.*

*Nate, it's peroxide.  It doesn't have a smell.*

Nate shakes his head again.  Loosely, with his overlong hair flapping like a puppy's ears. Eventually gets up and goes looking for clothes, bending to kiss Oz on the way out.  Quiet in the universe while Oz ducks into the showers and rinses for thirty seconds or so before following him.

Finds Nate fully dressed, in an oddly textless t-shirts and jeans, sitting in the breakfast nook with his feet pulled up under him, drinking tea. Something herbal and visceral, like magic in a cup.  It smells more like the contents of a magic shop than those of a kitchen.

Nate pushes a plate of pop tarts towards him.  Oz takes one and gnaws at it a little.

Nate says, *The labs in my world didn't have a smell.  Yours do -- ammonia and something, like a lot of soap.*

*Oh.  OK.*

Nate nods and sticks out a leg to rub his foot along Oz's thigh as he passes.

Oz catches the foot in his hand and squeezes it for a second.  The dry-erase board is covered in messy writing and elaborate diagrams and clouds of the not-quite-dust that those strange blue markers produce.

*I wanna paint your toenails.*

*I wanna visit your mom.*

*Glitter.*

**Food*.*

*What day is it?*

*Tuesday.  Today is Tuesday.*

*And no one ever leaves the Village.*

*?*

Oz gives that one up for lost, figuring that if Nate doesn't know Scooby-Doo, old British speculative TV is way beyond him.

Nate gives Oz the kind of look that makes Oz wish they were somewhere up north.  Not the north they just left, but like the Canadian North, or Alaska, or something.  Some town named Hope or Peace River, all full of guys who drive logging trucks and good diners and grey, shabby, utterly habitable motels.  Logging roads tearing up the country and still pretty in spite of that.  Mountain smell blowing down and both him and Nate wrapped in a lot of warm layers and hiking or hitch-hiking slowly towards the North Pole.

Nate supplies him with maybe twelve mental bars of U2 and gently pulls his foot away.

Oz gets dressed, and all the time Nate's raw and watchful, sometimes filling in missing notes or bars in whatever Oz is currently humming, sometimes just sitting cross-legged in this kind of inevitable hover, yogic flying without the concentration, staring out the window into the tangled chaos of this inter-universe.

He walks out to the garage without actually quite touching the ground. Lays his forehead against the van's front for a long minute, so serious that Oz expects him to exorcise it.  Cast out its demons and make it happy and road-worthy.  In fact all that happens is that Nate gets to drive, and the music the radio spews hasn't ever been broadcast.  Low, jazzy *funk* of it that just rolls Oz's brain into a kind of dark, almost alcoholic happiness.

Takes the van out and drives.

And sometime between one turn and the next, they're in Sunnydale. Lawns so immaculate you could conceive messiahs on them.  So enough to make you want to try, and Oz *knows* he isn't the only one who's ever considered violating local decency laws in the name of herbivorous sex.

He wonders a bit about Nate and the state of perpetual twilight.  They've somehow lost most of the day, and Oz isn't sure whether that's just the way time works, whether it's a deliberate choice or the natural product of hanging with a teenaged guy who's as likely as not to be nocturnal.

He gets nocturnal himself, he really does.  The quiet's that much too good to resist.  But his is mostly an indoor nightlife.  Something about the combination of horrors over the Hellmouth and his own moonlit changes. Nights off when he was a teenager belonged to various basements, to him and Devon and the huge boxes of vinyl that Devon unearthed at garage sales where everyone else only found polyester shirts and old, chipped dishes.  Some of it good and some of it obscure and some of it so obviously priceless that whoever sold it's trying to repress a youth that was better than the life they have now.  Big Brother and the Holding Company.  Country Joe and the Fish.

Experiments in nail polish and body art done with ballpoint pens and the one time that Devon started on the lyrics to some early Bowie or other with eyeliner on the aging plaster walls.

Night and piles of old books that belonged to their parents, cokes and vodka and chewed-out limes stored in a soft plastic produce bag and the wings of moths beating against the screens blocking every window and door.

This isn't even summer, but it's southern California, and most of the world  wouldn't really believe the things that go on here, or the heat that brings  them.

"You look really interesting like that, you know?"

Oz glances down at himself.  Jeans, shirt, sweater, shoes.  Chipped-nailed  hands in his lap, one of them beating a bass-rhythm on his thigh.

"The hair.  Black.  You look...  something about you being Oz that you should be ginger."

"Bothers you?"

"I guess not."  Drives.  Slow and careful, even though Oz can hear little mutters from Nate's brain about yes, he does like children, as long as they're properly cooked.  Baleful thoughts about making little bloody smears on the road as he slows down and waves the next rugrat across the street.  God help those who venture into suburbia.

Nate says, "Do you think Giles would have been happier if we'd let him go  alone?"

"I think he'd probably be dead.  Happier?  I don't know."  Oz thinks.  "Giles used to scare me. Because he looked like one thing and smelled like another.  For a while I thought he might be vamp, or a demon of some kind.  I think I was relieved when they told me about Ethan, because it meant that Giles was really a person."

All that china-fragile *stuff* around him, and weapons.

And this is his house.  His street.  Funny that he used to be able to find his way back here without paying any attention at all.  Just walk.  Or bike, or drive, or mutter directions to whoever was bringing him home.  He used to like to climb the back fence and drop into the garden's soft ground. Their yard has less lawn than the other houses on the street.  More flowers.  More fiercely organic vegetables -- monstrous, moon-birthed cousins to the sickly vegetables that other people grow.  The ground at the back thick with pumpkins.

The front lawn's been partly ripped out and replaced with tall, wild looking winter flowers and interesting rocks.

*Nate, how long...?*

*Just a couple of days.  You maybe weren't looking very hard last time.*

His dad's out, but Oz can smell him.  Lurking masculine presence around the house.  And he's sorry, maybe, that he's not better friends with his dad.  Wonders a bit about wolves and the matriarchy.

His mother's at the table.  Eating carrot sticks kind of absently and dipping them in something white and viscous that smells like dill and a few other garden plants with too much force behind them to be quite natural. Reading a trade paperback of something.

Pots of the herbs on a windowsill, spreading out like new lifeforms.

She looks up and says, "Hey baby."  Reaches out and rubs a hand through Oz's messy hair.

"Mom. Sorry about not letting you know I'd be gone."

She smiles in a rueful way that somehow, viciously highlights every small wrinkle. They didn't have Oz right away, after all. Mortality like a fist. "Oz, you were maybe the only teenager in the world who didn't want a van just so you could have sex."

Nate shifting a little beside him and Oz can only blink.

"In other words, it's... well, it's not okay, but it is what it is. We know  you'll always come back, if you can."

"I will."

"You're a good son. But in payment, you know have to admit out loud that Nate is your boyfriend, and tell me all about your coming out experiences."

Nate barks a laugh, but Oz can feel him blushing through the link.

"Do I get to sit down, Mom?"

"Hmmm. I should make you stand in a corner, but I'm too happy to see you. Sit. You too, Nate."

*Just please tell me she's not going to sniff my ass.*

*!*

*Sorry...*

*!*

*Breathe, Oz!*

"Well. You're both looking pleasantly shell-shocked. That part of me designed to inflict maternal guilt is pleased. Very pleased. Now talk."

"Um. Ah. Mom, this is Nate Grey, and we're dating."

"Good start. How did you meet?"

"Mom, have you always been this ruthless?"

"Yes, now answer the question."

"I... found him."

*That was weak, Nate.*

*I know. She's gonna eat us *alive*, isn't she?*

"You found him, Mr. Grey? That's an interesting choice of words. What were you looking for?"

"Er. Ah. Nothing, really. I'm. Well. I sorta heard him."

"Telepathically."

"Yes, ma'am."

And she's looking serious now, in a way that makes Oz miss her predatory  incarnation. *What's she thinking?*

*Wondering if she shouldn't hook you up with a nice pack somewhere.* Misery there.

*I'm not leaving you, Nate.*

*I know. It's just. She only wants to keep you safe.*

Oz nods to himself, reaches out to put a hand over his mother's own. "I'm  safe now, Mom. They're not going to catch me again."

Silence for a long moment. "Is it worth it, Oz? To be... separate from the  moon?"

"I thought it would be, but then I wasn't really doing it for the right reasons. I haven't really had a chance to see for myself, you know?"

She nods.  Oz watches her stand and walk to the fridge, dig around for milk. 

Watches her find and pour cereal and dig a spoon out of the dishwasher. She leans against the counter and chews on her Cheerios thoughtfully. Sniffs.

Nate turns to look at her.  Raw eyes and something that Oz doesn't quite  get.

He reaches for it.  Runs up against images of Jean Grey and the punked-out Jean that he understands is Nate's 'real' mother, and another red-haired woman that Nate briefly identifies as 'Madelyne' before hiding her in a pile of random thought patterns.

Both of them looking at each other.

"Oz, there's some stuff of yours downstairs.  You wanna tell me whether you want me to keep it?"

"I think I'd need to look at it first."

"That's the idea, hun."  She sets her bowl in the sink.  "I need to talk to Nate for a minute. The boxes are under the stairs."

Oz nods.  He's halfway onto his feet before Nate reaches for him.  And even then just catches the extended hand, kisses its knuckles -- once, carefully, with his body between Nate and his mother -- and goes.

He could hear her, if he wanted to.  Or Nate would tell him what she said.   He thinks Nate would.

The things in boxes aren't things that were still in his room when he left. He boxed a lot of these up himself, sometime in his early teens during one of his I-need-my-space-for-other-stuff phases. These are mostly toys.  Toy trucks with sandbox sand etched into their paint and plastic. A couple of still-intact GI-Joe dolls that his parents tried for more than a year to refuse to give him.  Boring stuff once he had it, but it was one of those things he just had to *know*.  And one of his first really serious library trips grew out of them.  What the hell were they and what were they supposed to teach him?  And learned a bit about Vietnam, though not quite enough to  explain the toy marketing.

In a pair of tied-closed garbage bags there are stuffed animals.  He had a lot of them, all in a pile on his bed, and later on the floor around him.  His first Pack, and his only serious one.  One of those kids who spends a lot of time talking to slightly dirty rabbits and bears, organizing them into expeditions and writing crayoned, textless books for them to read.

The thing is, part of him wants for Nate to have had that kind of a childhood.  One with armour around his tiny, serious universe and a lot of parental attention.  Something extremely disturbing in the idea that Nate maybe didn't get those formative years at all, though it might explain the psychological state of House.

*You think really wonderful thoughts when you're distracted, you know that?*

*Hey.  How's it going?*

*M'okay.  I really like your mom.  Everything you think about has these incredibly vivid visuals attached to it.  It's like something in extra-sharp focus, with no shadows.  Wow.*

Oz pulls out a three-foot-high stuffed frog with no eyes left and hugs it for a while.  Someone upstairs with light feet -- his mom, he guesses - goes off to the bathroom, and comes back. Soft talking that he tries not to  listen to.

There's a flare of pain from Nate, almost immediately followed by psychic  reassurance and a kind of soft, handless pet along the back of Oz's skull. Just a second where he reads the universe through Nate's senses instead of his own.  Sees his mother crouched in front of him, cleaning his chest with something that stings and holding him still with one hand on his wrist.

Back in his own body in the basement's dark.  *Oz come save me.  She's  bringing out the witch hazel.*

*I bruised you?*

*?*

*It's for bruises.*

*It sounds like it should come from a cauldron.*

*Nate.  Did I hurt you?*

*I landed hard a couple of times.*

*Sorry.*

*S'okay.*

*Am I allowed to come up yet?*

*Yeah, I think so.*

Oz brings the frog, figuring that Nate's gonna need moral support. Or maybe he will. His mom has Nate firmly settled in the chair, and is brandishing a witch hazel-soaked cloth.

"I take it you're keeping Jeremiah?"

"Well, he was a good friend of mine, Mom."

"Smartass."

*She's wondering if she was a good mother.*

Oz is really coming to appreciate having Nate for a personal spy. There are dangers to being too much in his own head, not least of which is not knowing what people are doing in their own mindworlds. Even when its his mother. Slips between them

"Oh, honestly, Oz, I know he's yours --"

and hugs her. Lets himself burrow in a little bit, smelling pleased surprise on her, as though he was four again, and showing her a crayon portrait of herself, all clouds of orange hair and stick limbs.

Mom.

Then letting go, and letting himself be searched thoroughly by powerful  Mom-eyes until she nods, satisfied.

"I got a tattoo."

"Did you check to make sure the place was clean?"

"Yes, mom."

"Is it likely to get you arrested if you show it?"

"No, mom."

"Okay, show me."

She studies it critically for long moments, and Oz has the impression that she's critiquing the art of it. Vague wondering if she and Mrs. Summers would get along, or if Buffy's mom would be too normal for her.

"... father always did wish you'd take more of an interest in the sciences." Moderately evil smile. "I think I prefer Nate's."

"I'll try to get something scarier next time I get inked, Mom."

"That's my boy. Now will you let me get this stuff on Nate before it evaporates? It's not as though you've *turned* him."

"Yeah, Oz, I need nurturing."

Which makes his mother show her teeth in a way that should make Nate behave, if anything will. Silence for a while, broken only with the crunch of carrots between his teeth, and his mother clucking her tongue. Something like the time Devon fell down the stairs during a truly epic game of tag, somehow winding up with nothing more serious than bruises and scrapes.

Devon cried unashamedly, and earned extra cookies from his mom for a reward.

He could've been more demonstrative, maybe. It had just never seemed like the thing to do. His parents had always been quiet people, and Oz had never even considered that they could've wanted anything different from their son. A child to coo over, instead of one to be left, confidently, to his own devices.

*Parents are weird, Oz. It's okay.*

*Yeah, I just. I'm getting the distinct feeling I grew up too fast for them,  you know?*

*Yeah, I know. I'm perfectly willing to be cooed over, though.*

*Slut.*

*Yep.*

Watches his mom rub the witch hazel onto Nate's skin.  Sharp smell in his nostrils, thick like iodine.  In some part of herself, his mother's a practitioner of turn-of-the-century medicine.   Elements and herbs and this *attraction* to brass that's frankly a bit disturbing.  He remembers being on a family vacation once and watching her contemplate a bowl of leeches in a bait shop, shudders a bit.

Nate's bruises are big, dark things that he'd have trouble covering with his palm.  Reminds him of some classmate's remnants of a skiing accident.

Frankly, it reminds him a bit of Xander, but it's a thought his brain shies away from.  Safe-child reaction to not-safe-child, the part of him that both vaguely wanted someone to rescue Xander and wanted Willow, the most obvious saviour, all for himself.

Nate turns to look at him.  Flat, steady eyes.

*Nate, much as I'd like to see it happen, I don't think biblical justice visited on Xander's parents is really the way to go.*

Nate shakes himself a bit.  *I wasn't going to.  Actually.  I think... it's not mine.  To do, I mean.*

Oz looks around for food and finds fruit.  Peels himself a tangerine with a  very small knife out of the drawer.  Looks over his shoulder at the boy in  the chair. *Yeah?*

*Yeah.  Anya's pretty scary you know.*

*Vengeance demon thing?*

*I think maybe.*

His mom finishes and goes to wring the cloth out in the sink.  She turns back and starts to say something, stops, and instead says, "Where are you  going?"

"I think we were going to visit Nate's family, actually."

Oz's mom looks at Nate like she's not really sure he has a family.  At the moment, Nate looks about seventeen, and vaguely homeless.  Just these little shifts.

"Stay until morning."

It's a request.  There's a nearly-audible "please" attached to it.

Oz nods.  Leans a bit against her shoulder when she hugs him.  It's a more grown-up hug than the last one, but he's surprised at how tight she's hanging on.  Her fingers in the mess of his hair for a minute.

He looks up over her shoulder and Nate's reflected in the window.  Very  palely, nearly translucent, and his hair looks almost bleached.

*Looks pretty cool, really*

*Body modification. It's a slippery slope.*

*No nipple rings 'til the fourth date.*

*Damn, you'd look hot with nipple rings, Oz...*

Tries to imagine repeated visits to his parents, each to show off some new piercing or tattoo. It's a little difficult to wrap his mind around showing off nipple rings to his mom, though, especially since she'd probably tug them and Oz nips that train of thought in the bud. Who knew Oedipal complexes were contagious?

Eases carefully out of his mother's grip. "Hey, do we have any peroxide? We need to bleach Nate's hair."

His mother rolls her eyes and points to the main bathroom. "If his hair falls out I don't want to hear any complaints."

"We'll just go back and get his scalp tattooed. Maybe a nice, big sun, or  some runes."

"Well, runes are at least *useful* for this town."

"No one said anything about me possibly going bald."

"Relax, Nate, it only happened to me once. And I burned all the pictures."

"You mean you *thought* you burned all the pictures. We gave one to your grandfather and told him you were thinking of joining the military when you got older."

"That would explain the subscription to Soldier of Fortune he got me..."

"You looked so cute trying to figure it out, we didn't have the heart to tell you the truth, Oz."

"You're strange, Mom."

She ruffles his hair and pushes him toward the bathroom. "In many, many ways, baby boy. Go. Experiment on your boyfriend. The news is coming on."

"Thanks for the witch hazel, Mrs. Osbourne."

"You're welcome, Nate. Next time, tell Oz to bite you first."

"I will!"

They wind up bringing the peroxide downstairs, where Oz has a selection of gaily coloured showercaps from previous dye jobs and privacy. Old, ratty clothes for them both, including magically appearing paint-spattered jeans for Nate. Working the peroxide in carefully, doing his best to avoid burning Nate's scalp.

Nate's arms wrapped around his waist while he works, warm and steady. Trusting Oz to know what he's doing, humming something vaguely familiar in their minds.

*You don't know what the song is, either. 's nice, though.*

*Yeah.*

Oz picks up a strand and looks at it.  *You're going to end up as white as  your bangs.*

*And everyone'll mistake me for Cable.  All your fault.*

Oz bends down and kisses him.  Edge of peroxide in their mouths, extra oxygens sparking the nerves in his tongue, vaguely.  Little massage on the back of his neck.

*love you*

Nate shimmies a bit in place to the unidentified mental music.  Rubs his forehead against Oz's enough that Oz wonders whether he's about to end up with bangs to match Nate's.

*We could bleach the ends of your hair.  With a brush or something.*

*And then I *would* be bald.*

*You'd look like the giant-robot-flying hero of one of those Japanese  cartoon shows.*  Nate cups Oz's ass and squeezes gently.

*You don't know Scooby Doo, but Neon Genesis Evangelion isn't a problem?*

*My cultural perspective is a damaged and swaying point in the universe.*

Oz kisses him hard.  Wraps his tongue around Nate's and stays there while  Nate's hair slowly strips to blond-white.

Nate sends him an image of them tangled up in a pile of Oz's stuffed animals.  Oz carefully doesn't think about that.

*What do you think would happen if we took Jeremiah back to House?*

*You always wanted him to talk?*

*Yeah, actually.*

Nate lays his head against Oz's chest for a minute.  It's going to make a pale spot on his t-shirt. *Ask you something?*

*Sure.*

*Is it something about them?  The animals, I mean, and the fact that you don't talk?*

*I don't think so.*

Then thinks about it.  About the silence of his life and the way his parents could go for hours without saying anything.  About Devon's cheerful acceptance of his wordlessness.  About how he eventually figured out that he didn't have to talk *out loud* to the stuffed animals to talk to them.

*Maybe.*  Runs his fingers through Nate's blonding mess of hair.  *Wanna  lean back?  I'm gonna rinse this.*

Warm water onto his scalp, and little purrs of satisfaction at it.  Nate spreads his knees. Rubs his leg against Oz's and arches.

*You're such a *slut*.*

*You wanna take me right here?*

*I wanna talk to my mom again before bed.*  Turns the water off.  *Come on, sit up.*

He ruffles Nate's hair with the towel.  White-blonde, just that gold edge to scream *peroxide* at anyone who looks.  Wet and dripping down his neck.

And upstairs, both of them still in grubby clothes, slightly damp.  His mom's in the living room, watching TV with her head on her arm.  Looks up and nods at them when they trample in and scoots over to make room for them on the couch.

This quiet steadiness.  Oz on the couch, Nate on the floor with his shoulders pillowed against Oz's legs.  Towel on his knees to keep them dry.  Carefully working the snarls out of Nate's hair with his fingers, smoothing it into an even part.  Pale scalp under his fingers.  Nate watches television with the fascination of someone who's basically media-starved. Entranced by the flicker, watching the ads more carefully than the shows. Barbara Walters on Afghan terrorists. Simpsons.  Eventually it gets dark, and the cars that slide past outside make luminous patterns on the living room wall through the curtains.

At some point his mom goes into the kitchen for a glass of water, and when she comes back she settles into the armchair.  Nate climbs up into her place and stretches out on his side.  Fixated on the TV like a cat with a moth.  Oz gets a vague urge to paint Nate's toenails.

Oz notices, absently, that his mother has taken to wearing aquamarine nail polish on her fingers. He digs between the couch cushions and comes up with the bottle.

So.  Carefully.  None on Nate's skin.  One foot in his lap, one tucked up under Nate's thigh while he curls into some kind of rest position.  Two layers and then quiet while they dry.  Scramble to shift so that Nate's other foot ends up in his lap.

Sometime towards eight his dad wanders in.  No suit, hands in his pockets.  Blue denim shirt that looks unnaturally comfortable.  Oz wonders what's happened to his dad's lifetime of dark suits.

Nate hums the first bars of the Accountancy Sea Shanty.

Oz glances over just far enough to catch his mother's face.  Glittering with something he doesn't recognize and that he's sure he's never seen in her before.

*Lust, Oz.*

*Do *not* say that.*

*You think she doesn't love him?  Oz, we *landed* on them.  I know what your parents' lust feels like.*

*I hate you so much.*

Nate rubs Oz's thigh with his heel.

And somehow, in spite of it, they eat.  At the table.  All four of them. Food that he didn't quite notice his mom cooking.  And it's not quite as formal and pretentious as he knows some people's dinners are, but there's absolutely no question that they're At Dinner.  Soft questions between his parents.  Soft questions from his father to Nate.  Nothing directed to him, but that's normal, too. If he wants to talk to his father, he'll do it later, in private, outside in the dark or down in his room.

Finally this quiet in which he can hear them all breathing.  Nate's attention gently focused on him.  Oz chews his green beans reflectively. *You ready to go?*

*Yeah.  We should, you know, clean up or something.*

*My mother might have a heart attack.*

*Is she ready for telekinesis?*

*I don't know.  She might want to know how you could have that and still end up so bruised.* Pause.  *Come to think of it, *I* want to know how you could have that and still end up that bruised.*

*You make me fall down.*

*That's not very romantic.*

*True, though.*

Oz wonders if Nate's nudging his parents, because at some point they just get up.  And all the dishes move into the kitchen in a way that's a lot more subtle than the Disney movies would have you believe.  Into the dishwasher with them.

Nate pulls him downstairs.  Oz drags Nate back up the stairs and takes him outside.  Pushes him up against the vinyl siding and kisses him. Long, slow, messy-wet-good as he can make it. Entirely surrounded by the dark and *wanting*, loving the faint, sharp smell of Nate's hair.

*so *blond**

*love you Oz*

*yes.  want you*

Soft, soft noise from the slightly open bedroom window above them.  One he's not quite incapable of identifying.

Nate giggles.

Oz smacks him.

Nate gets both arms around Oz's waist and drags him inside, and downstairs.

Tangled with him at the bottom of the stairs.  Nate's still barefoot, and more graceful for it than Oz is.  Kissing him and lifting him and pushing him against the wall and rubbing hard and slow against him.

Slides down onto his knees and licks Oz's belly.  The t-shirt pushed up around his forehead rustles softly every time he moves.  And not even going down on him, not even really threatening to.  Just licking him. Tongue in his navel, tongue tracing the small muscles there under his skin. Licking up his ribs, finding his nipples and working them both over, gently, and Oz starts to remember some of his more serious make-out-with-Nate fantasies.

*What?*

*I haven't ever just made out with you.*

*Sure we have.  Lots of times.*

*Without sex first.*

*Oh.  Huh.*  Nate's back on his feet, bent and licking towards Oz's armpit with his head almost under the t-shirt.

*Can we?*

*Wanna taste you, Oz.  All over.*

*That can be part of it too.*

*Okay.*

Tangled legs and arms around his waist and Nate sort of Frankenstein-walks Oz backwards over to the bed.  Lands on him and kisses him.  Then stands.

Oz gets a long moment to have a look as his -- god, *boyfriend*, and isn't that disturbing? -- pauses and looks back at him.  Little half-smile of the  I-know-what-you're-thinking-better-than-you-do variety.  Messy blond hair that wasn't two hours ago.  He smells clean, like peroxide and night time. One thumb hooked in the front of his jeans. Watching.

*What?*

*Do you want me to?*

*Yesssss.*

He strips.  Carefully, each article of clothing off.  Graceful in spite of the constant presence of his elbows.  He's lacking something fundamental, the *tease* function.  Just watching Oz and getting naked.  Shirt off, jeans off, shorts off.  Second of over-pale nudity in the centre of the room with one arm wrapped across his stomach, just staring at Oz.

Who reaches for him.  Still dressed, half-hard, watching Nate's translucence shimmer a bit while he pads forward, comes to kneel on the bed and leans over Oz to kiss him again. Settles between his legs and rubs himself carefully against Oz's jeans while they kiss.  Long, wet, sloppy and spreading outward.  Kissing his mouth and his lips and his chin and his throat. Fingers in his hair. And really, if they're serious about this, they should be sitting up.  Too close to the great, mysterious 'It' of childhood as long as they're prone.

He manages it.  Just.  Propped up on the mess of pillows with Nate's legs across his, petting and kissing gently.  Wanting, yeah, but if he counts the number of times they've had each other in the last twenty-four... feels good.  Nate spends a good, awkward minute peeling Oz's shirt off. Kisses on his belly and chest and shoulders.  Little touches.  Teasing him and just affectionate. Moment to play with his nipples after, tug and twist to remind Oz exactly how good that can feel.

Oz spends some time giving his attention to the tiny whorls of Nate's ear. Tongue in it and around it, long shivers down Nate's body and the absolute stillness in him.  Lick, kiss, arch.

He can just barely remember this.  Kissing as its own art form.  Heavy petting and this kind of *play* that was his sex-substitute for a long, long time.  Stoned afternoons kissing Devon in the back of the van, just because it was warm and Devon tasted good.  Anyone who ever sucked on his bottom lip called back to mind.

And in spite of that innocence, naked.  Naked Nate in his lap, sleek and pale and *hard*. Pushing towards the flesh-fold at his waist.  Long, clean, very pink, and Oz bends in and licks it.

Just once, right across the head.  Clean, bright, eyes-wide-sharp taste on  the end of his tongue. Nate's gasp and whimper in his ear.

*suck me yes, oh please do it*

Something about this.  Oz is still half-dressed, wide-eyed, there are hickeys all over his chest. Sore, red places where Nate's kissed him until the tiny blood vessels gave.  With a naked, snarky Nate sprawled back across his lap and begging for him.  Like the first blowjob in the universe, first time he did this.

Kisses Nate.  Lets the taste on his tongue rub into that mouth, rubs the tip of Nate's cock with his thumb until he moans.  Then brings the thumb up and slides it into the kiss.  Both of them sucking on it like an extra partner.

He has to get out, first. Struggle to get himself loose from Nate's mass laying on him, then wrestle that nearly-boneless body into his former place. 

Leaned up, naked, legs spread.  Oz kneeling between them and bending, then lying, down.  Closes his mouth around it carefully. Not ready to take him in seriously, just tasting.

*Teasing.*

Lips around the head, swirling and swirling and Nate makes these soft begging sounds that Oz decides he likes.  Not as far gone as a scream, but there's definite wanting.  Nate shivers every time Oz touches him.  Strokes his hair a lot.  Spreads his legs wider.

*Oz.*

*Shhh.*

*No.  Wanna touch you, Oz.  Please.*

Forceful enough to make Oz raise his head.  Wet all around his mouth even before Nate licks him.  Hand on the waist of his jeans.  In them, off him.  Naked and pulled in close against Nate's body for a minute, the mouth-wetness of Nate's cock brushing between them.  Fingers run down his back and between his legs and Nate lays him down.

Mouth on him so *good* and they eventually work out the choreography of it. Oz nuzzling Nate's thighs while Nate mouths him, licks him. Licking each other until the air is heavy with sex and every shift, every wet sound is wonderfully loud. Tasting each other and sending the sensations back and forth until Oz isn't sure of the differences between them. Wet and salt and hard.

Hands all over each other, sleek skin and the prickle of hair. Nate's tightening sac and soft moans and a sleepy kind of hunger for each other. Curling his toes against the pillow when Nate starts to bite, carefully but not soft.

*god*

*so good*

*love you*

*don't stop*

Breathing Nate in and finally just swallowing him. A move he probably couldn't duplicate if he tried, but he's going with it now. Sucking slow and hard, swallowing back spit and pre-come and *Nate*. On him now and wild with it, fucking his mouth on Oz's cock and there's nothing like a rhythm, nothing like control. Just having each other this way, hands locked together and squeezing, thrusting into each other.

Harsh breath and wet slick *in* and Oz can feel it building and he isn't  sure if it's his orgasm or Nate's, he just *needs* it.

Faster now and teeth and tongue and hot

*oh fuck*

can't keep his hips from grinding, trying for deeper and Nate's taking it God fucking Nate's *mouth* and Nate fucking his and sweat sex salt

*need you need this*

coming hard enough to shift and trying to put all of it into his suck, struggling not to bite and Nate screaming in his head and shooting down his throat so fucking good so fucking *good*.

Just rests there after, still burrowed as close to Nate as he can get and mouthing him gently. Doesn't stop until Nate whimpers a bit and shifts his hips away, and even then stays touching him as much as he can.  Shaggy hair brushing his thighs, making him shiver.

Oz props himself up on his hand, turns and looks, and there's Nate, still sprawled, grinning sleepily.  He looks so normal.  Like maybe they graduated together, or within a couple of years of each other, met at the Bronze some night.  Kissed for the first time outside in the dark, against one of the parked cars.  Went out for coffee, talked comics, watched movies, got high a couple of times.  Took each other to bed and somehow in there fell in love.  The way people do.  It's just a bit harder to work out, the combination of extreme mental trauma and Nate and this current, quiet happiness.

He scoots around and lays himself in against Nate's body.  Vaguely thinking that he wants to talk to his dad, but maybe not tonight.  Before he leaves, sometime when they're both calm, and dressed, and neither of them wrapped around their mates.

Nate falls asleep; Oz doesn't.  Lies awake and stares at the vague shapes and listens to Nate's pulse through the thin skin of his chest and wrist. Thinks possessive thoughts.  Props himself up on an elbow again and strokes Nate's face and hair.  Small dream thoughts brush him every so often, but Nate's gone.

And eventually Oz gets up.  Ducks into the shower and rinses off and finds clothes, goes outside. Barefoot in the slightly wet grass.  There's still some lawn back here, between the trees and the garden.  A couple of lawn chairs.  Quarter moon so low and fat he can see her whole shape behind the shadow.

He works on centering himself.  The meditational quiet is stronger than the occasional soft car sounds or the distant music, steadier than voices beyond the fence, walking home.  The moon on his skin electric.

He found a very still place, once, and he thought for a while that he could live in it.  He might have, if he'd stayed in Tibet.  Everyone around him cool and quiet, miles outside the nearest city, longer miles from Lhasa and the occupying Chinese army.  He woke up early a few times and saw the younger monks playing soccer on the courtyard stones.

He understands, though, so many of the younger monks were leaving. You come into this perfect, quiet world, and you're young enough that you don't feel like you know anything else. And the world outside is so huge.

He came down.  Hitch-hiked across the country and rode on the back of an army jeep with three boy soldiers who didn't look old enough to even understand the guns they were carrying.  All of them watching him curled up in a corner.

All his life he's been this tiny, intensely quiet being who startles people.

Eventually, he eases himself out of lotus and just sits with one knee up for his chin to rest on. Stares at the moon and remembers nights in the library cage.

"Are you alright, Danny?"

"Dad.  Hey."

Big man in spite of his desk job.  A bit soft around the waist, hair thinning just enough to give him a widow's peak.  He's Oz's hope, really, for middle age.  Standing now in sweats with his arms folded because he doesn't have any pockets.

Oz *knows* this isn't as easy for his dad as it is for his mom.  Even if he didn't lack some of her sense of humour, there's something so fundamentally gender-defining in what men want for their sons.  And even if he's calm, he's not *calm*.  Thinking a bit about what Oz and Nate were doing once the adult people disappeared, carefully not looking at the bite marks visible through Oz's open shirt.

His dad found him his first amp.  Helped him rewire the blown-out parts. He remembers his dad coming by him playing in the living room and correcting one of his chords.

And whatever else he is, he's the man Oz's mom chose to keep.

Fluttering half-gesture, and Oz wonders after if it was going to be a hug, and then his dad crouches down in front of him.

Long moments just to study each other, maybe find some place to start. Oz becomes aware that just staring at his Dad like he's maybe the representative of some planet he doesn't belong to isn't helping and opens his mouth to speak. Manages a "Dad."

Which doesn't seem helpful, but does break the stare. His father settles himself on the ground. Plucks idly at the grass.

Oz is about to try again when his father finally says something else.

"Did I ever tell you about that road trip to San Francisco your mother and I  went on?"

"No."

Little half-smile on his father's face, silvery moon-glint off his glasses. "No, I guess I really wouldn't. I'm surprised your mother hasn't told you all about it..."

Trails off, leaving everything half-comfortable unsaid about their relationship. Maybe his father wonders what would have happened if they'd played more catch or something. It seems like something a father would worry about. Oz nods, does his best to project I'm-Listening, as opposed to whatever it is that makes most people silent around him after a while.

"Well. Let's see. It was '75. Your mother and I were just finishing up at USC. She'd worked all four years, even though she had that scholarship, and had some money saved up. One night, right after finals, a bunch of us got together in Weebo's -- that's your Uncle Ted -- room. Hung out, played some tunes.

"Tried to ignore the disco nightmare that was next door, and seemingly taking over the entire universe. Finally, after an unsuccessful attempt to get the guys to stop playing "Love To Love You, Baby" on repeat, your mother came back in, pulled a wad of cash out of her pocket, and announced that we were going on a road trip.

"God, I'd been in love with her since freshman orientation, but we were just friends at that point. Your mother..." Another soft smile. "Your mother really knew how to party, and she didn't have time for a future CPA with marriage on his mind. Still, though, I was one of the gang, and I went on  that trip.

"Weebo had fixed up his old VW bus, his girlfriend Susan brought the tunes, your mom had the money, and I had my guitar and the ability to look legitimate, should we get pulled over by the cops.

"You should never underestimate what looking normal can do for you, Danny, but I'm guessing I lost that argument years ago, huh?"

Oz gets his hair ruffled and smiles.

"Anyway, the four of us made it up to San Francisco before the bus died and the money ran out. Weebo got a job down at the docks and the four of us shared a studio out there. Cramped and messy, more bongs than bathrooms -- I'm sure you can picture it, son."

"Yeah, I'm getting the idea."

"Your mother waitressed at a sailor bar, which just happened to become my absolute favorite place to unwind after a day on Weebo's floor with the bongs and the tunes. *Someone* had to keep an eye on her." Weirdly defensive tone, as if this is an argument he's had with Mom a large number of times.

Oz hides a smile and listens.

"So anyway. We somehow managed the rent. I was the only one who couldn't get hired. All the accountancy firms wanted someone with more experience -- and probably someone without perpetually bleary eyes. No one ever said I was bright at that age. Basically, I wound up hanging out with the surfers down on the beach whenever your mother worked days, or just decided to see the city without her own personal chaperone. God, I was so *young*..."

And suddenly his father is looking directly *at* him. Almost through him, and he's not speaking easily at all. Oz shifts a little, wishes he had a little of that Nately parent translation, but the link hums quietly. Nate's still asleep.

"His name was Tim something. I can't remember his name, but I remember how hard he used to try to get people to call him Beef. Why he wanted to be known as Beef was a mystery, but he was fun to hang out with, so I humored him. But I always *thought* of him as Tim.

"He taught me how to surf, I managed to convince him to save some of the money he earned dealing for the assorted beach bums, instead of just hiding it in this rotted place under the docks. He commiserated with me over your mother. I taught him some guitar chords, he tried to fix me up with some of the local girls.

"We were close, Oz. Good friends, and we stayed in touch for years, even after your mother and I got married and decided to move here...

"You know, there's no easy way to say, 'son, I had a gay affair when I was your age and got over it, maybe you might get over it, too.'"

"No, I'm guessing that's a tough one."

"You're a good son, Danny. We're always going to love you. You understand that, right?"

Nods, wondering what it is about the words 'always going to love you' that makes them sound so much like 'goodbye,' or 'stop what you're doing and shape up.'

"It's not that I don't like Nate, son, don't get me wrong. Your mother and  I will always be grateful for what he did for you."

"He rescued me from people who wanted to cut me open and see what made me tick, Dad."

Little motion and he can see his father squeeze his eyes shut, turn away a little. "Do you know how hard it is to know that you can't protect your only child, Danny? To know that even if you *could* keep him close to home it wouldn't help?"

"Dad..."

"What should we have done, Danny, tell me? You know your mother's family is full of werewolves and always has been. You seemed to be doing well with... caging yourself every month. You knew there was a pack waiting for you, should you ever want to be a part of it."

"I did, yeah, but... I didn't want to be a werewolf."

Unhappy laugh. "In retrospect, that seems like a perfectly reasonable desire. Your mother never took the bite, and so it was never offered to me... ah, Danny. Your mother says I shouldn't worry so much about you and your... boyfriend.

"Your mother's always been more than a little wild, of course. It's what I've always loved about her. One of the things, anyway. But you already know what the world can be like, Danny. We only... we want you to be safe."

And he can understand, edge of anger notwithstanding. He can see where his Dad is coming from, but there's just nothing to say to it. "Would you settle for happy and reasonably well-adjusted?"

"I *never* said I didn't want you to be happy --"

"Dad." Reaches out. Grabs his father by the shoulders and just holds him there. "I understand, okay? I do. But the world is never going to be safe, you know? I prefer happy right about now."

His dad nods.  Silence of a big man that Oz never grew up into.

"I don't know how you did this," Oz says finally.  "Came and stayed in one place like this."

"Los Angeles was enough to drive anyone to suburbia.  We lasted two years."

Oz nods.  Gets up, and gets a moment of the vertigo-inducing feeling of being taller than his father.  Remembers a lot of family reunion jokes on the subject of didn't his parents feed him?  Stands for a second and then his dad gets up too, and Oz gets the definite sense that whether or not they've quite managed to share a moment, it's over.

Just at the door, he's stopped by arms around his chest.  His dad hugs him from behind.  Big cheek against his hair, warm, soft body against his back. Soft breathing.  And he remembers this kind of hug from when he was little.  When his dad came home from work at night with haunted eyes and hugged Oz like he thought he'd been in danger.

"L.A. was that bad?"

His dad whispers, "Yeah.  It was."

Leaves him on the basement stairs.  Soft, heavy male feet padding back to the bedroom, and then the soft exchange of wordless voices that's his parents talking.

He goes downstairs.  Nate's sprawled belly-down on the bed, somehow free of all the pillows and most of the covers.  Shivering a bit.  Oz strips off his clothes and slides in behind him. Lays his cheek against the warm shoulder.  Dozes eventually.

Wakes up sometime after midnight with a wide-awake Nate hanging onto him and feet moving above them in the kitchen.

*Your mom's cooking.*

Oz nods.  Sleepy numbness.  *Yeah she does that.*

*It's the middle of the night.*

*She's probably making soup.  She does that.  When I was a kid, it was brownies or something like that.  She'd let me eat them with her and watch late-night TV.  Mom's kinda nocturnal.*

*Yeah, but *soup*?*

*It's its own art form.*  Tomatoes and a few winter herbs hanging in the air.  *I think it's getting there.  You wanna come?*  Already groping for his clothes.

Oz gets dressed, but Nate doesn't, exactly.  He finds boxers and a t-shirt and then just wraps himself in the blanket.  Shuffles after Oz with all his hair in his face, and when Oz turns back, he's struck by a momentary resemblance to this old Kurt Cobain poster Devon had.

Which is not the best association to make, as far as he's concerned.

*Mmph?*

*Rock suicide.*

*Not really my style, Oz.*

*That's a good thing.*

And Mom's humming when they get upstairs, something that sounds like it came from a musical, and Oz wonders if they get down to L.A. to see shows and things like that. Live *lives* in that disturbing parents shouldn't-*do*-that way that a healthy person learns to live with, sooner or later. He hopes they do, in that part of his brain that's beginning to think of his parents in a weirdly childlike "aww, that's cute" way, which would probably make his mother throw things at him.

Nate's smile in his head, and he wonders how blank they look when they do that. Freak boy pod people. We have come to dye our hair and eat your food and maybe steal your cool jewelry.

*Maybe you should go back to sleep, Oz.*

*Nah. Food.*

Mom, for the most part, ignores them, and continues stirring the pot. There is cooking wreckage all around. Dirty pans, crisp onion skins. The lingering smell of cooking meat, and all that's good and bad about that. Good that it's meat, bad that so much of his consciousness can ignore everything in the world except for the simple, savory fact *of* meat.

*I like it when you get primitive.*

*Don't make me take you back to the pack leader and declare you open  season.*

*Wow, that's really scary. Yet also erotic.*

**Slut*.*

*Hey, I'm not the one who brought it up.*

And his mother is still humming, half-dancing to the tune from the waist up, and the whole thing has the feel of a memory in the making. Homey, vague, and just a little weird with all the telepathic conversation.

*Your mother is remembering how much you used to talk as a baby, and wishing you'd just be quiet, and wondering if you subconsciously picked up the wish and took it for an order or something.*

*Now I feel like I have to come up with conversation.*

*Well, we are kinda just standing here, staring.*

"Is there enough for us to take some with us?"

"Mm-hmm. You boys headed far?"

"Yes and no," Nate says helpfully.

Oz can *feel* his mother raising an eyebrow in that concession she's made to the rest of the world: I will not rip your throat out if you explain yourself. Quickly.

"Nate's parents are out in New York."

"Yeah, Westchester."

She taps her spoon on the side of the pot. "Danny was a rolling stone?"

"Yeah, but I don't have a hat. We'll. Um. We'll be taking a short cut."

"Folding the fabric of spacetime?"

Oz blinks. "Well, actually. Yes."

*Your mom is *good*, Oz.*

"Uh, huh. I figured it had to be something like that, what with the  appearing and disappearing out of our bedroom."

"I was kinda hoping you'd take that for a weird, disturbing dream."

She clucks her tongue, shakes her head. "I could *smell* you, honey. I never  smell you in dreams."

The blush creeps up on him.  Red to the tips of his ears, and he's glad she  isn't currently looking at him.  Too much warm skin. And for all the Mom-wins-again going on around here, she smells a little. Freaked. Oz gets that. A person can get used to being the weirdest thing in any given situation, and then suddenly there's a Nate, and you're just not. 

"It's safe, Mrs. Osbourne."

"Far more likely to get in a car wreck than get lost between dimensions?"

"Something like that." Oz tries to project something reassuring. 

"Uh, huh. And you're both sure Nate isn't a demon?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She nods, focuses in on Oz with something like maternal lasers. "You will explain this all to me in the near future."

Oz nods, and gets a nod in return.

Nate's sitting in a kitchen chair with the blanket around his shoulders,  bare feet and legs showing. Fascinated by her.  Something that Oz is  starting to understand that Nate's missing.  Something like a father in  Nate's past, but nobody female.

*Maddie.*

*What?*

*I had Maddie.*

*I thought she...*

*Yeah.  But she was still my mom, you know?*

*Look, tell me about her sometime, okay?*  Because he doesn't know anything about it.  None of the details, not even the whole narrative line. Woman looks-like-Jean who somehow created this body-shift in Nate.  Made him the too-powerful being he currently is.  Hurt him in some way that's currently focused on Oz's mother for whatever she can give him.

Nate says, "I'm sorry."

"It's alright."

"No it's not.  It was stupid.  I was teasing Oz, and things got a bit more  real than I meant for them to.  And I'm sorry."

Very fast, and at the end of it he curls his head down into the cowl of the  blanket.

Sigh that says a lot of the fiercer incarnation of boys-will-be-boys, laced with Oz-someday-bring-something-home-that's-not-broken.  She just nods to Nate, goes back to stirring the soup.

It's not guilt, not exactly.  But she's mad about that one, and she'll forgive him in a couple of minutes, but not quite yet.  Crushes oregano into the soup instead, bright red-and-green smell of it mixing with the soup that sears through Oz's sinuses.  Makes him think about the ways she tracks him, about the way he occasionally expects her to hold him down and lick his hair into place.  And he does remember her getting him into a headlock when he was about eleven and combing his hair into some semblance of order before she'd let him out of the house.

Soft boiling noises and Nate broods and Oz finds an apple in the fridge and starts peeling it.

He's done this often enough to know when the soup's officially edible, even if he has to duck in behind her to get at it.  Bowl for himself, bowl for Nate, bowl for her.  Soda crackers that he's going to mash into pulp and leave to soak in the broth.

"You're not going to sleep if you eat like that before bed, Oz."

"Twenty-one, mom."

"I know."

Nate snickers, then goes back to hiding.  He's not eating, and Oz tries contemplating what that might mean.  It's his not really very careful observation that Nate has a refugee's attitude to food. More even than just starving, because that would just be his age.  He doesn't let it sit.  Bolts it like he expects someone to take away anything he can't defend.  Eats whenever it's in his hand.  And he's always hungry.

Oz's mom come over and hugs him from behind, careful of the bandages she covered him with earlier.  Kisses the top of his head and lets him lean  against her shoulder for a second.  His eyes tightly closed.

"You're a mother's dream, you know that, Nate?  You do your guilt all by  yourself."

Nate mutters something.

"Hmm?"

"I said, It's genetic."  Sends Oz a vision of Cable sitting in the dark, thinking up ways for everything in the universe to be his fault.  Image of another, younger man with dark glasses gradually arranging the universe so that he can protect it and bleed over everyone who dies.

*Nate, who is that?*

*Oz I love your mom so much.*

*Nate?*

*He's Scott.  My father.*

Oz nods.  He's trying not to be jealous of the attention his mother's giving Nate.  Something territorial that he hasn't actually surrendered.  Nate's his, but she's his too.

He eats his soup.  Thick dark redness of it, spicier than blood or hunting and almost solid from the handful of crackers he mashed into it.  And eventually his mom sits down and eats hers, and Nate comes out of his shell enough to find his spoon and resume demonstrating his lifer table manners.

*Jean must love it when you do that.*

*She makes me eat in the kitchen.*

*Really?*

*Really?  Everybody eats in the kitchen.  Those guys are *always* hungry. And if you eat in the dining room, you have to dress for dinner.  Formal.*

Oz tries picturing the slightly harried redhead he met trying to get a houseful of superheroes into evening wear.

*Even the blue guy with the football?*

*Hank has a couple of dinner jackets.  He does conferences.  But it's the Professor who's got the thing about sitting down and doing it the old fashioned way.*

Professor?  It'll keep, Oz decides. *Anybody join him?*

*Warren.  Betsy.*  Flash of delicate, graceful, mated beings in midnight water colours eating with the same careful detachment.  *Scott, because he was the first.*

One more image.  Boy like a mirror of Nate, maybe fourteen, alone with  q a balding man in a wheelchair in the dark of this utterly archetypal formal  dining room.  Careful, blind fingers.

Oz nods mentally.  Turns toward his mom and offers her a smile.

She says, "I'm trying to decide whether you're talking or just exchanging  meaningful looks."

"Bit of each."  He could spend a lot of time looking at sleepy, too-blond Nate.  Who's finished eating and who's obviously trying to decide if he's still hungry.

"Nate, honey, if I promise to feed you in the morning, will you believe me?"

Nate looks sheepish.  Oz offers him a slice of apple.

*I wanna take you to an all-you-can-eat place and just watch.*

Mental cloud of grimness that crosses their link.  *Sometime I'll tell you  about what it's like to starve.*

*Do, OK?*

The look he gets is a flat glare, but Oz thinks maybe he won't back down.   *Seriously.  Because I know about six things about you.*

It's something they're going to have to come back to.  Nate's edgy, and obviously tired, and Oz's mom's watching them with eyes he's not quite prepared to meet right now.  Over her shoulder while she pours the soup into sealer jars.

"Bed, you two."

"Mom."

"Oz."

*I think I'm asleep.*

Water in the pot.  Tomato smell in the air and on Oz's skin where he dripped onto the back of his hand.  Slide of Nate's blanket like a overlong cape across the linoleum, and soft, staggering feet on the stairs.  Oz is moving to follow when his mother stops him.

"Did you and your dad talk?"

Oz nods.

"He's trying.  In a week or so he'll be dealing better."

"He did OK.  We're gonna be cool, I think."

She nods, holds out her arms to him.  Leans into their hug.  And he wonders whether she was afraid of that, of him and his dad fighting. Saying something irrevocable.  Almost asks Nate before deciding that it's not really his business.  Hugs her around her waist and goes downstairs when she releases him.

Nate's curled up, sitting up, on the bed.  Blanket around him like a  chrysalis.  Red-edged eyes.

Oz crawls into bed and hugs him.  Full-body, legs tangled, pulling Nate's  head onto his shoulder. Kisses the side of his face.

Then more deeply.  His body's next to asleep, but there's this low-grade, almost overpowering unhappiness that Oz can't ignore.  Gentle kisses and fingers tracing his face, tongue softly in his mouth until Nate drops off.  Just a slight change on the end of the link, from muted emotions to static.

Oz wonders in a half-assed kind of way whether there's any insight into the human mind possible from this.  Professor Walsh aside and more Freud at the centre.

*Capes*

*Hmm?*

*Everybody's Id looks like Batman.*  Nate sends quietly, then settles deeper.

Oz stays up for a while and rubs Nate's belly under his t-shirt.  Feels the moon go down sometime around two, this little crackle of his skin.  Lays his head on Nate's shoulder and drifts on the wave-wakes of disconnected  thoughts, feeling Nate press closer unconsciously.

It's probably only evidence of the power of suggestion that most of his dreams have Batman in them.