Disclaimer: If they were mine, they probably wouldn't get as much sun. Killing rays!
Spoilers: Deb's story.
Summary: Oz thinks, therefore etc.
Authors' Note: Read "Plans" first.
Feedback: Please. teland793@sbcglobal.net

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The sun is different here. More orange, or maybe more itself.

Probably just a reflection of mood, but still -- air currents, pollution... all sorts of things that could change the way the sun looks overshimmering ocean, sand crawling with humans and others.

Oz shifts a bit on the blanket -- it's the huge one he used to wind himself up in when he was little, scaring his parents. They were probably thinking the word "shroud." It's old, and worn. Soft and warm between his body and the sand, which he's never much cared for.

Sand is a creeping thing, half-glitter, half-grit. These clothes will have sand in the seams for perhaps as long as he owns them. It happens. Then again, the sand could be seen as just an extremely forceful memento.Take of my being, and remember. He makes a note to ask Ethan about the religious/magickal properties of sand.

Ethan is an intensely useful source of information, taking Oz's small, small questions and giving large. Always meanings buried within, always something to tease apart later within the safety of his own head as Ethan watches him, or kisses him, or simply *is*.

As he is now, stretched out, far leg bent upward. He tans, rare for a British man, but Ethan has never elaborated about his heritage, which is fair. He's surprisingly well-muscled, toned and languid and graceful and little like the descriptions Oz had gotten from the gang.

Queeny. Cowardly. Fluttery.

Maybe he's different around Giles, but to Oz, Ethan strikes as practical. Sensibly hedonistic. Efficiently sensual. Oz is trying to live life that way, a little. Ethan is in touch with his inner evil sorceror, and seemingly at peace. More at peace than Oz, at any rate, and that has always been something to strive for.

Oz's inner wolf dozes in the sun, leaving him to it. Always easier during the day to pretend the wolf isn't there, and for all intents and purposes unbound. Ethan's acceptance has been too quiet and natural for Oz to be able to forget lately, though. Ethan *saw* the wolf. Saw Oz, and everything he'd become over the years on the Hellmouth and beyond. And didn't care.

Or liked.

Casually. Maybe. Oz isn't sure, but he doesn't push, just in case.

A part of him desperately needs this time, this acceptance and care, and he will take it.

Oz grabs the small, hot bottle of sunblock and pours a large dollop in and around Ethan's somewhat largish navel, earning a twitch and chuckle. A more purposeful settling back. Oz lets his hands play, over and around all the skin he can get to without breaking any local laws, losing himself in the blunted end of a toe, the dusting of hair leading into the smooth expanse of inner thigh.

Over a hard, hard brown nipple and a heavy pulse that makes the wolf stir. That makes himself stir. He will take Ethan tonight, in the small, old wooden house a mile or so down the road.

He will live.

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