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Slow Like Honey
by Dana Woods
EMAIL: danawoods@earthlink.net
SITE: www.brokensymmetry.net
Rating: R
Pairing: Lindsey/Oz
Timeline: Post-Dead End.
Disclaimer: Characters/Concepts of Buffy and Angel belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al.
*
They drive in silence for the most part, and that's the way they both like it. Thick and quiet, with words unspoken getting pulled out through the open windows of Lindsey's truck. Lindsey's had a dozen years or so of words, made a lot of money with how good he was with them, got a lot of really bad people off the hook with them. So silence is welcome, just like everything that's different is.
The quiet has to be disturbed less often than it used to. They've fallen into habits and routines, gotten to know the subtle language of head nods and eyebrows and small grins. Weeks have gone by without words as they traded off following random lines on the map.
Sound is a different story. They rarely get a room unless the weather demands it. Spend the evenings in the bed of the truck, one or the other playing music. Joints trading hands, and there's sporadic coughing to add to the silence. When the music's gone, they lie on their backs and stare up. Sometimes at the sky, other times at the things that make them quiet, hoping the answer will come to them.
Tonight, Lindsey's staring at both and it's doing nothing but making his stomach lose its bearings and bounce around inside his body, making him all sorts of unsettled. More so than usual, even. Sets the roach in the empty tuna can they keep on hand, shifts to his side and stares at something else.
Oz has a delicate frown on his face, his wide mouth set in its usual neutral line. His lips tilt up when Lindsey reaches out and slides his fingers across the pale skin exposed where his shirt is riding up. Oz has the softest skin Lindsey's ever touched. Smooth and baby soft, and it makes Lindsey think of innocent things, new things. Fresh things.
The muscles in Oz's abdomen go taut under his touch, and he tangles a hand in Lindsey's hair.
This isn't new, this touching. It's grounding and weighty and it reminds Lindsey of where he is, who he no longer is. He slips his hand under the hem of Oz's t-shirt, flattens his palm and watches his hand rise and fall as Oz breathes, dips his head against the fingers in his hair.
And there are times when Lindsey thinks this is all wrong and inappropriate, lying back here with someone so much younger than he is. But then he looks in Oz's eyes, and there's something ancient there, something far older than anything Lindsey's ever conceived of. And a fracture, too, all too visible if you look for it.
Oz's hand drifts down the back of Lindsey's neck, slides around and settles on his thigh, the fingers finding the patch of scars through the denim of Lindsey's jeans through nothing but memory, and Oz's eyes darken until they're as deeply green as moss. Although, in all reality, most of that thigh is scar tissue, so it doesn't take all that much tactile memory. But there's this otherness about Oz that makes Lindsey think the scar could be the size of a quarter, and Oz would find it without thought.
Lindsey shakes his head at what he knows is on Oz's mind. Smiles. Tickles Oz's skin with his callused fingers. But Oz still has it on his mind, Lindsey can tell, and that's every trick Lindsey knows, really. Which makes him want to speak words, but not. He wouldn't know the words for this, has never known the words when it comes to anything important.
It wasn't Oz's fault. Lindsey has never thought it was. There was a Shaman in Utah, and they both needed something from him. He burned some herbs, tossed small bones at them each, made them stare at a crystal in the center of a fire. None of them, not Oz or Lindsey or the Shaman, thought that Oz's control would slip like that. It wasn't Oz's fault that Lindsey didn't follow the Shaman when Oz--muscles shifting and sliding under his skin--growled at them to go.
Lindsey guesses that it's not about fault for Oz. It's about a myriad of other things that Oz has always feared would happen, and one that actually did.
They've been on the road together for four months now, after meeting up in New York City, of all places. Now that he knows Oz, Lindsey thinks it should have been a truck stop. Or some out-of-the-way almost-town with a population of ninety and plenty of open land. Someplace that smelled like earth and growing things. But it was New York City. Bryant Part, which wasn't so much a park as a big lawn. And it was a Friday night in the summer, so they were showing a movie.
There were blankets out, people laughing and cuddling. There was Lindsey skirting all the shiny happy folk to get a drink from one of the vendors, the only reason he stepped foot on the lawn to begin with. There was a young, pale man standing all the way beyond the back of the lawn, on the small patio area, watching the movie with a wry smile. And when Oz felt Lindsey's stare, he turned around, and Lindsey found all the open space he'd been craving in his two weeks in the City.
Who the hell knows how it happened, how they ended up in Lindsey's truck driving through Pennsylvania six hours later. Lindsey vaguely remembers that Oz smelled Angel on the sign Lindsey was carrying, that goddamn "Cops Suck" one that he'd tossed on the passenger seat and forgotten about, only to finally remember to take it with him to throw out on that particular day. And the comment from Lindsey that Oz was a long way from home, Oz's quiet, "So are you."
Maybe there was a, "Might as well head out of town together, since we're both leaving tonight", and it was probably only supposed to be until they got to Ohio. But any plan Lindsey's involved in never goes off quite right, so it's four months later and he's lying next to Oz in Omaha, wondering if this is helping either of them, wondering what it will take to get that look out of Oz's eyes right now.
Oz turns his head away, mouth tightening, and they've spent enough time alone together in silence that Lindsey knows what it means. Not anger, not annoyance, nothing outward at all. Just tension in Oz that he can't keep behind the calm anymore.
And Lindsey doesn't think, just acts. Leans down and nuzzles Oz's exposed neck, sighs against his skin. Opens his mouth and sets his lips there, not licking or sucking or moving. Just breathing, while his hand drifts along Oz's stomach, moving in lazy circles. Oz lets out a breath that's like a whisper, sinks further into his own muscles, then turns his head all slow and steady, and Lindsey has to move his mouth away.
Looks down into Oz's eyes, and Lindsey blinks at what he sees there. Oz is slight of form, but Lindsey has never thought him weak or fragile, even before he found out about the wolf side. Doesn't think of himself that way, either, even though sometimes he is. Guesses Oz is too, sometimes.
The air is thick, and it's like the world is moving slow, like honey, weighed down and heavy with mood. But it's not a mood Lindsey was expecting tonight, or ever. Least not with Oz. Goes with it anyway, because anything that's different is welcome, and anything that includes Oz has never been bad. Not even Utah. And because Lindsey knows what he himself always needs when he's feeling like Oz is right now.
Brings his hands to the sides of Oz's face, cradles it as he dips his head, brings their lips together. Kisses him slow and heavy, for a long time. Forever, it feels like, in the honey thickness of the air. Takes Oz's shirt off, touches and kisses that fresh skin, scarless and hairless. Smooth and silky. Slides Oz's pants down, shoves them aside, takes Oz in his mouth.
Oz's sharp cries cut through the thick air, and they're needy and lost, and pleased and scared, and at the end, they're full of relief as Lindsey lays next to him again, pulling him in close.
*
Four months later, to the day, and Lindsey knows what's coming. Oz likes to bring things 'round again. He picked the highway that took them back to Nebraska, and Lindsey followed through and chose the road to Omaha. Oz drives them to the same edge of wilderness they parked at the last time.
Lindsey's tattoos are still itchy and sore, and Oz sits him on the truck's tailgate, unbuttons his flannel and applies lotion. He got the tattoos in Baja, and Oz read the incantation over and over for two hours while the needle drummed into Lindsey's skin. Lindsey tried to convince him to get one, too, but Oz wasn't going for it. Said he wasn't sure what would happen to it when he shifted.
It was a talking weekend, that time in Baja. Days huddled in the dimness of a hotel room, late afternoons spent sweaty and spent, evenings on the beach talking, those hours in that little hut out in the middle of nowhere, Oz's voice getting raspy after the twenty-fifth incantation.
Lindsey isn't sure if the talking was a sign that this was coming, or if this has come because of the talking. Either way, it's here, and he doesn't want it to be. Neither does Oz, he can tell. But few things are about what anyone wants, least of all Lindsey and Oz.
It's comfortable in Omaha this time of year, not as close as before. Warm, compared to that time they spent in Minnesota in the dead of winter, which is Lindsey's new definition of cold. He had to traipse through the woods with a tranq gun, tracking Oz after he broke through the chains Lindsey hurriedly shucked on him when he changed unexpectedly.
Lindsey had to tranq a little girl to get her out of Oz's line of sight, draw his attention. The dose was high enough that there was some neurological damage. Angie Payton's never going to walk again, but she'll have every amenity available, because Lindsey wrote a check for ninety-percent of the amount of his Cayman Island account and sent it to her parents. Minnesota is also Lindsey's new definition of regret.
Oz drove for thirty-five hours straight after they found out about Angie's condition. Took them down to New Mexico and held Lindsey's head while he threw up and dry heaved after sucking down an entire bottle of low-grade Tequila. Bandaged Lindsey's hand after he punched an adobe wall. Santa Fe reminds Lindsey of Tequila, which makes bile climb up the back of his throat, so he doesn't much think of it.
But they're back in Omaha now, and when Lindsey wakes up in the morning, Oz is going to be gone. Won't leave a note. Won't give a hint about where he's going. Might leave his stash, and he'll definitely take the tent.
They bought the tent in New Orleans, because it was warm enough to sleep outside like they both preferred, but it rained every couple of hours. They were there for Jazz Fest, and the days are a blur of weed and heat and rain and music for Lindsey. And powdered sugar, because Oz got stoned cravings for beignets at all hours of the night, and Lindsey ate enough fried dough that it started to sit like lead in his stomach.
Oz doesn't pull out the stash tonight, which is a good thing. Lindsey doesn't want his head clouded for this, especially because he thinks he might ask Oz to stay if he's not in full control of himself. Stay with Lindsey, in the truck, roaming the country without settling down anywhere. Maybe heading out of the country and finding that high priestess in Ghana who might be able to get Lindsey a better protection from the Senior Partners, and Oz the level of control he wants.
Lindsey's got a lapful of guitar suddenly. He blinks at a smiling Oz and automatically sets his fingers on the strings and starts playing. Hums along, instead of singing, because singing has words and Baja was a mighty big exception to the state of talking between them.
And Lindsey has to wonder if there was a point to any of this, to him and Oz and the truck and the guitars and the silence. Wonders if they would have been better off never meeting up, because maybe they just enabled each other. Wonders if they will be better off for having met up, because maybe they just needed time to exist without pressure.
Considers that maybe things are going to get worse than ever for each of them, and the past eight months have been a well-deserved respite from it all. Figures that's probably the case, because that's just how their luck goes, to different degrees of course.
Oz's head is tilted to the side, brows drawn in a thoughtful frown. He lifts a shoulder in a tired shrug, like he's heard what Lindsey's thinking and acknowledges there might be credence in it. Then his eyes get tired and old, and Lindsey knows he's thinking about the fact that the past eight months have had bad times as well.
They stare at each other, and they decide that there probably wasn't a point at all to this, it just happened and it's been...it's been good, and sometimes that's all a person can ask for, really. Things not sucking quite so badly as one's used to. Neither of them think there *has* to be cosmic intent in all things, even if they both like to ferret one out whenever they can.
Then Oz's eyes clear, and he smiles quietly, and Lindsey's fingers slow down by increments until they come to a stop and he smiles back before setting the guitar aside. And it's a crook of Oz's finger, accompanied by a teasing grin, which sends Lindsey across the bed of the truck.
And this, this is more than good. This is all encompassing and if there's been no point to this all, then Lindsey will take this away. This quiet intensity and this air that settles around them whenever they're together, that makes things slow, that gives things weight and purpose.
*
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