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Eastward
(sequel to "Keepsakes")
by Abi Z.
Spoilers: Not many for Angel, since I'm basically ignoring everything
that happened after "Blind Date" (and some things that happened during
it). In the Buffyverse, spoilers for "New Moon Rising" and general
late season four (US). In both worlds, consider this an AU: I've
played fast and loose with timing, not to mention characterization.
This story will make a lot more sense if you read "Keepsakes," which
has been (re)posted immediately prior.
Warning: This one's got booty, baby! And it's Y-chromosome booty, so
if you don't dig that, you don't know what you're missing. Oh yeah,
and always practice safe sex when sleeping with werewolves or lawyers.
Rating: NC-17 (see above "Warning")
Archive: yeah, baby, yeah!
Contact: Praise and constructive criticism to crescentia@yahoo.com.
Flames to jesse_helms@helms.senate.gov.
Disclaimer: There once was a girl named A.Z. / Who when she wrote
slash wasn't lazy. / Joss Whedon didn't sue / Over what she made his
characters do / Even though she made them boink like crazy.
Summary: On his way to a new life, Lindsey meets someone else looking
for the same thing.
-----
He drove like he was possessed, not crazily, but compulsively,
unable to stop. He passed cities and towns, crossed rivers, wound
through mountains, and it was nearly a day later, in a national forest
in Colorado, when finally his body made one last, insistent demand that
he stop. He pulled over at a rest stop which was, as far as he could
determine, located just west of nowhere, and he went into the men's
room and wet his hair and stared at his bloodshot eyes echoed under
gray bathroom light in the mirror.
Outside, the Western sun was having one last hurrah before
setting, and the sky was red from horizon to horizon. He took his road
atlas out of the Jag's glove compartment to check the next part of his
route. At some point he would have to sleep, but not now.
"Mind if I have a look at that?" a quiet, gravelly voice asked,
and Lindsey looked up to see himself regarded by a small, pale man with
spiky red hair. Lindsey handed over the atlas and watched as the young
man traced an eastward path with a long, callused index finger.
"Where you headed?" Lindsey asked.
"Vermont. You?"
"Boston."
"Long way from here. Been on the road a while?"
"Just under a day."
A glance from the red-haired man. "You look tired."
"Haven't slept in a few days."
"Eaten?"
"No."
The man flipped the atlas closed. "I was about to eat. Join me?"
He was laconic, his eyes intense, but he looked harmless. "Sure,"
Lindsey said.
"Oz," the man introduced himself.
"Lindsey."
Neither commented on the strangeness of the other's name.
Oz was driving an enormous brown van, and he opened the back doors
to reveal a spacious and remarkably clean interior. Some musician's
paraphernalia--a guitar, the case to what looked like some kind of
large woodwind instrument--was stored inside, along with Oz's
belongings. Oz climbed inside the van and opened up a backpack,
removing several items from within. "Come in. Have a seat."
A high school friend had had a van somewhat like this, only
dirtier; it had been large enough to keep Robbie and Lindsey warm
during their weekend drinking bouts from driving age until graduation.
Then Lindsey had gone to Hastings, and Robbie--now Bob--had traded the
van for a used Bronco after he'd joined the Navy and moved to
Portsmouth.
Dried fruit, thick brown bread, some kind of jarred fruit spread,
two apples, some bananas, tangerines, a tomato, and a large jug of
water. "I-- I don't have any food," Lindsey started, "but I can pay
you--"
Oz waved him off. "No need. I offered."
The fruit spread turned out to be tart cherry preserves, clearly
homemade, and the bread crunched with the husks of grains. "Been
living on an organic farm," Oz said. "Got enough food to get me across
two continents." Oz took off his leather jacket and threw it into the
front seat; underneath he was wearing a T-shirt with a worn Jane's
Addiction logo. His faded jeans were several times patched, and his
work boots were battered. Lindsey started to relax, and he sat back
against the van wall and divided a tangerine into sections. Oz picked
up the tomato and took a bite out of it.
"Never seen anyone eat a tomato like that," Lindsey observed.
"My favorite way. They're better fresh off the vine, but this is
almost as good." He held it out for Lindsey to taste. "Try it."
Lindsey did, and the flesh of the tomato was spicy and succulent.
He wasn't sure he'd ever really tasted one before; usually they were
dismembered in sauces or coated with salad dressing. "Tomatoes are
actually a fruit, right?"
"Right." Oz took a drink of water and offered it to Lindsey. It
went against his Wolfram and Hart training, where nothing was so
casually shared. But who was he kidding? The worst he could catch
from this man--this boy--was a cold; the worst he could have gotten at
the firm was dead. He drank. The water was warm but pure.
"You coming from L.A.?" Oz asked.
"Yeah."
"Going back or leaving for good?"
"Leaving for good."
"What made you decide?"
"I made a lot of mistakes in L.A. You coming from there, too?"
"I come from a lot of places. I was in L.A. yesterday. Last week
I went back home to Sunnydale, where I grew up. Thought I would stay.
I didn't."
"Didn't miss it as much as you thought?"
"Missed it more. But I made mistakes, too, and they caught up
with me."
"Sunnydale. I hear some crazy shit about that place."
"It's all true."
The sun had gone down, and the red sky was fading into the dark
sapphire blue of oncoming night. Oz took another item out of his
backpack. He unwrapped it, broke off a chunk, and handed it to
Lindsey.
"What is it?" Lindsey asked.
"Chocolate."
It was dark and on the bitter edge of semisweet, just enough sugar
to make it palatable. "It's from South America," Oz said. "Don't have
much of it left. It's almost pure cacao. You won't find it in this
country."
Oz pulled his jacket from the front seat, folded it over a few
times, and leaned back, resting his head on it. He was not, Lindsey
saw, as small as he looked; compact was perhaps a better term. His
T-shirt was loose, but gravity draped it to reveal a leanly muscled
torso; the man's hands and arms were clearly strong. He was young,
Lindsey could tell, but it was hard to tell how young; Oz would spend
his life as a person whose age could not be easily determined.
Oz handed him another piece of chocolate and Lindsey lay back,
too. His brain, no longer forced for safety's sake to keep his body
frenetically awake, had started to slow, and he realized how tired he
was. The evening was cooling off, and it seemed like a fine thing to
lie here in this van like he had not since he was a teenager and eat
farm-grown food with this amiable, succinct stranger.
He felt Oz looking at him again. "You think you can clean up your
mistakes in Boston?"
"I think it's too late for that. But I think I might be able to
try again."
"I thought I cleaned up my mistakes, but I got back home and they
just came back again. Maybe it's a hometown thing; you can't be
anything other than what you were."
"That's why I've never gone back to mine."
Oz shook his head. "Can't do that. I love too many people
there."
Did he love anyone in Johnstown, Lindsey wondered? His siblings,
but not enough to go back forever. His father was dead; his mother was
smoking her way there. Boston was almost a hometown; he'd spent good
years there, once he'd learned to forget where he was from. He'd heard
from Hunter that Therica was back East, teaching dance at a day school
in Brookline. She should have her own studio, her own company; she
deserved better. He realized after a moment that he'd said it out
loud.
"She?" from the stretched-out lump that was Oz.
"The woman who moved to California with me."
"She still there?"
"She left me years ago. Last I heard she was back in Boston."
Silence from the red-haired boy. After a moment, "Boston's big
but not so big as to hide an ex-lover forever."
"Few cities are that big."
A small laugh from Oz. "True that. Even in L.A. you can't hide
forever."
Some people did. Angel seemed to be trying to. "So you left
Sunnydale. Are you going to try to clean up your mistakes again?" he
asked Oz.
"I don't know. Seems like that route didn't work. Maybe I should
just stay away--settle somewhere else, try to forget."
"What's in Vermont?"
"Commune of people in the northern part of the state. They're all
like me."
"How are they like you?"
"They're… strange… like me."
"You're quiet. Solitary. But you seem pretty normal."
In the semidarkness Lindsey could see that Oz's smile was
charmingly crooked. "The strangeness doesn't manifest itself most of
the time."
Lindsey was led to wonder what kind of strangeness the boy might
be talking about, but these days who knew; there were communities for
more cultures and subcultures and sub-subcultures than Lindsey could
possibly name. Perhaps the boy would be happy in Vermont with the
people who were supposedly like him. Perhaps they all had angular
bodies and beautiful hands. But that did not bear thinking about.
"So you got other friends in Boston besides the ex-lover?"
"She's hardly a friend. But yes. My best friend from college
lives there with his wife, and a buddy of mine from law school is in
Worcester."
"That's not Boston."
"It's not L.A., either."
"The woman I love is in Sunnydale," Oz said; his voice was so
quiet that Lindsey wondered if he was talking to himself.
After a moment, Lindsey ventured, "Why aren't you there with her?"
"I left the first time, and she moved on. Found someone else.
Still loves me, but found someone else."
"And you didn't want to stay if you couldn't have her?"
"I would have… killed the other person."
Oz didn't seem the type to kill anyone. "She ran around on you
while you were gone?"
Another laugh, harsher this time. "No. I left. Didn't stay in
touch, didn't say where I was going. She grieved. Then she recovered.
The other person is good for her. But there's a side of me that needs
to be away from them both."
The sun had set completely; the part of the sky that was not deep
sunset blue was now black. The air had gotten colder, and Lindsey felt
the chill eating through his sweater. Oz sat up and pulled a blanket
from some cranny of the van. He shook it out to its full size and
offered part to Lindsey.
It was a thick wool, scratchy but comforting, like some of his
father’s old camping blankets. Sharing it meant moving slightly closer
to Oz, though by no means close enough to touch; it was a strange, easy
closeness born of convenience and exhaustion.
"Got the blanket up in Manitoba. Traded lunch and a Nepalese
beaded necklace for it."
"Nepalese?"
"I was in Tibet for a while last year. Passed through Katmandu on
my way out."
"You been everywhere?"
"Nearabouts."
"How long have you been on the road?"
"Little over a year. I expect I'll stay on it for a couple more."
"You don't think you'll stay in Vermont?"
"Maybe for a while. It's just hard to imagine calling anything
home right now."
"I know that feeling."
"Hey," Oz said, turning over. Part of the blanket came with him.
"I almost forgot I had this." He sat up and reached back into the
backpack, but in the darkness Lindsey couldn't see what he took out.
Whatever it was, it rustled. "Peppermint candy," Oz said. "A little
gooey from the heat. Open your mouth."
Some non-rational part of Lindsey's tired brain took over, and he
did. There was the bright tang of peppermint and then the low salt of
Oz's fingers, which Lindsey might or might not have intentionally
licked in taking the peppermint. It was sharper than anything he'd
ever tasted, nothing more than a bit of sugar and essence of peppermint
and something to hold the confection together.
Lindsey swallowed and looked up. Oz was still leaning close,
watching him. And then Oz was leaning closer, and his mouth tasted
like peppermint and chocolate.
The last man Lindsey had kissed was someone he'd met at the gym, a
broad-shouldered man, clean-shaven, his black hair cut sleekly. They
had kissed for perhaps a minute before the man had pinned Lindsey's
hands above his head, nudged his legs apart, and fucked him in a way
he never argued with. Kissing Oz was what Lindsey should have done at
age twenty, instead of jerking Therica around; he should have found a
boy his age, someone in his political theory class, or maybe a closeted
Catholic boy from B.C., or a dark-eyed medical student from Brandeis.
They should have done this on a back sofa in a teahouse in Harvard
Square, or maybe sitting on the floor of a friend's apartment late at
night, or even at a fraternity party, against a wall, too drunk and too
horny to care who saw.
Oz's hair was soft underneath Lindsey's fingers, and Oz's hand was
warm as it rested lightly on the side of Lindsey's face. He couldn't
remember what that last anonymous man had tasted like, but the skin of
Oz's neck was spicy, and kisses to it made him moan. Oz pushed them
over gently, and Lindsey did what he always did, which was to move onto
his back to let the other person do what he wanted.
But Oz stopped. "You do that like it's some kind of habit."
"It is."
"It's-- strange. It's like… a beta surrendering to an alpha."
It was bizarrely phrased, but it was not, Lindsey thought, an
inaccurate way to put it.
In the dark, Oz was looking intently down at him. "You're older,
stronger, wealthier."
"Not anymore."
"Older and stronger, at least. Seems like you ought to be the
top."
"I like it this way."
Oz rolled down to Lindsey's side. "No, I don't think you do. I
think it's just a habit." He hooked a leg over Lindsey's hip and
suddenly Lindsey was looking down at him. He felt Oz's body move
underneath him and it was like being with a woman but it wasn't,
because the body under his was strong and hard and male and absolutely
what he wanted right now.
"Close the doors," Oz whispered, and Lindsey did. Three days ago,
he would have thought that Oz meant to take him and sacrifice him to
some demon god, but tonight Lindsey was pretty sure that Oz had other,
much simpler things in mind.
Lindsey had changed into jeans at his apartment, but he was still
wearing his blue oxford lawyer's shirt, and Oz was working at the
buttons, and when he had them undone he pushed the garment off
Lindsey's shoulders. The Jane's Addiction shirt came off quickly, and
Lindsey bent down to lick the hard nubs of Oz's nipples--and was
surprised when his mouth touched cold metal. "How long have you had
those?"
"Got them in London."
"Are they OK to be touched?"
"Hell yes."
Lindsey pulled at the steel circle with his tongue, and Oz arched
up against him, whimpering. Lindsey cupped the younger man's erection
through the soft denim of his jeans, and Oz moaned a quiet, "Please."
"Please what?" seemed like a good response.
Lindsey suspected that, just as he wasn't used to being on top,
neither was Oz used to being on the bottom. "Please… please touch me."
"I am touching you."
A laugh, nothing like the ironic ones of earlier, burst out of Oz.
"Oh God… what are you, a lawyer?"
"Litigator."
"Jesus."
Lindsey rubbed softly, and Oz tried again, shuddering. "Please…
please take off my clothes and touch me."
Lindsey kissed Oz's temple. "OK."
The button fly opened easily, and then Oz remembered that he was
still wearing shoes. He sat up for a moment and removed them, and
Lindsey rid himself of his, and then Oz guided Lindsey's hands back to
his hips. So maybe Oz wasn't technically on top, but he was still in
charge.
Lindsey found Oz's cock and began to stroke, and Oz's fingers dug
into his back. His jeans came off easily, and then Lindsey's, and
suddenly they were naked and wrapped around each other and writhing in
the cool air. Lindsey kissed his way down Oz's chest, licked the
crease of his hip, and gently bit the inside of Oz's thigh, listening
to the other man's breathing become ragged. And then Lindsey took Oz's
cock in his mouth, and Oz howled.
Even for the most submissive of men, Lindsey had to think, there
was an incredible power trip in this act, holding someone completely
helpless with nothing more than well-timed suction and motion. He
wrapped his hand around the base of the shaft and tongued the head,
listening as Oz descended into wordless pleas. Hands that had stroked
his hair began to tug and pull and Oz moaned "ohgodohgodohgod" and then
there was his come, salty and tasting slightly of apples.
Oz sank back and surprised Lindsey by pulling him into a kiss,
licking the last traces of semen out of his mouth. They lay still as
Oz's heartbeat slowed. "The backpack should be next to you. Take the
plastic bottle out of it, please."
Lindsey did. "What is it?"
"Massage oil." A leg snaked around Lindsey's hips, pulling him
hip to hip with Oz. "I want you to fuck me."
"I--"
"Probably haven't done it before," Oz finished. "It's OK. I
have."
Oz took the bottle from Lindsey and poured out a bit of something
that smelled like almonds. And then there were marvelously slick hands
on his cock, stroking up and down and around, and Lindsey did not want
to fuck; he wanted to lie there and let the slickness dissolve him into
orgasm. But Oz turned over, pulling a bundle of something under his
hips. "Push in gently," he said. "It'll be more intuitive than you
think."
Any number of men--more than he cared to think about--had done
this to Lindsey, and he had never attempted turnabout. He covered Oz's
body with his own, his chest to Oz's back, and lay there for a moment.
Then he moved up on his knees, found Oz's opening, and started to enter
the other man's body. Oz pushed back up against him. "That's it… oh
God… yeah, like that."
"Does that feel good?" To Lindsey it always had, but on someone
else he had no idea.
"Oh yeah. More. Come on. Deeper."
And then he was all the way inside and it was hot and tight and oh
God. He started to move, slowly, and then Oz bucked up against him and
there was no need to go slow. Fast and faster and the moans couldn't
be his own but they were and oh God why hadn't he tried this when he
was twenty? This was it, this was perfect, just two bodies in sync
with each other. Oz moved to brace himself on his forearms and yes
that was exactly it, that was right, and Lindsey came with his head
thrown back and a hoarse, delighted cry. And then he collapsed
bonelessly next to Oz. The van smelled like almond and sex.
Oz pulled blankets back around them and wrapped strong arms around
Lindsey. "Thank you," Lindsey murmured, so softly he hoped Oz wouldn't
hear.
But Oz did. "Thank you," he answered.
Lindsey's mind wandered--to the first man he'd slept with, the
first time he'd kissed Therica (who, actually, had kissed him--he'd
been too shy to try), to the precise onyx quality of the vampire
Angel's eyes.
A gentle kiss on his neck. "You're not awake," Oz observed.
"I'm not asleep."
"You will be soon."
Lindsey tried to remember the last time he'd slept next to another
human being. Since Therica, yes, but not for a while. He was naked
and sticky and in a van that probably dated back to the Reagan
administration. But that was OK. Oz's hand had settled gently at the
small of Lindsey's back. Lindsey fell into sleep easily, and didn't
wake for fourteen hours.
When he did come to, Oz was awake, picking out a melody on his
guitar, shirtless and barefoot but with jeans on. His skin was pale
and creamy, and in the light of the morning, Lindsey could see the
piercings--ears and nipples, as far as he could tell--as well as
tattoos, intricate lines around Oz's wrists and ankles. Oz looked at
him but kept going with the tune. He smiled his crooked smile. "Hi."
Lindsey smiled back. He felt no regret. "Good morning."
"If you want to put some clothes on, there's a family making
breakfast not too far away. I told their kids stories this morning and
they talked their parents into feeding us."
"How long have you been up?"
"Couple hours. Sleep well?"
"Better than I have in a long time."
Oz reached for a shirt and started to put it on. Lindsey realized
that it was his, the oxford which was now almost unrecognizably
wrinkled. He tossed a bundle of cloth to Lindsey; it was a thermal
shirt which was probably loose-fitting on Oz but which settled with
little room to spare around Lindsey’s gym-built muscles.
"Good," Oz said. He watched Lindsey dress with a small, satisfied
smile on his face.
The family had built a grill fire and put a frying pan on top of
it. They made blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, and they handed out
plastic cups of orange juice to everyone seated at their picnic table.
There were two parents, fairly close in age to Lindsey, and three
children, two boys and a girl, the oldest of whom was maybe eight. Oz
told another story--about a girl who had been cursed to live her life
as a nightingale, who could only be human for an hour every year, and
how she tricked the wizard who cursed her into not only revoking the
hex but accidentally placing it on himself as well. When Oz finished
the story, he bowed with a flourish, and both children and parents
clapped.
After breakfast, the family, whose had Kentucky license plates,
went on their way--they had plans to visit family in Fort Collins--and
Lindsey and Oz took out the atlas again. They traced the route east:
76 to 80, loop around Chicago. Lindsey was going to take 90 through
New York State, but Oz vetoed it: "Thankless stretch of road." They
decided on 80 through Pennsylvania to 81 to 88, and then 90 out of
Albany. Oz would pick up 91 in Springfield, up north to Vermont, and
Lindsey would continue east to Boston.
Oz looked at Lindsey in the bright late morning sun. "So I'll
meet you in Omaha tonight."
And Lindsey knew he would.
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If you wanna be with me, baby, there's a price to pay; you gotta give
me some feedback; you gotta give it right away: crescentia@yahoo.com
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