Slashed Sonnet Sequence

Title: "Shape in Mind" (Slashed Sonnet Sequence #9)
Pairing: Xander/Oz
Rating: Hard R
Setting: Post- "Dirty Girls", BtVS Season 7
Disclaimer: I own not a bit of these beautiful characters, but wish
I did.
Feedback: Oh yes - pretty please?
Warning: Spoilers up to and through "Dirty Girls"
A/N: This is part #9 of a series of slashy ficlets written with
inspiration from Shakespeare's sonnets. If you enjoy this, other
parts can be found in the memories section at
http://www.livejournal.com/users/willshenillshe, or at aff.net
under "Slashed Sonnet Sequence".

* * *

From Sonnet #9:


Oz likes contradiction. Not being 'contradictory'. There's a
difference between the two words.

See, he looks like a punk. Rainbow hair. Chunky earrings in both
lobes. Inexhaustible supply of T-shirts (he who dies with the most
T's wins) and ratty jeans. The van. A few tattoos he picked up along
the way.

But the hair's for playing chameleon, blending in with his moods. The
earrings are talismans. The T's are practical; he lives rough. Van
just makes sense. He can live out of it need be. The tats are for
controlling the wolf.

He doesn't act like a punk. Doesn't use many words. Keeps what he
does say down to the important things, stuff you can't let slide.
When he talks, people listen. Mostly out of surprise, but still.

So. Contradiction.

Once in high school, back when he and Willow occasionally hung with
Xander, they'd watched "Clerks". Oz enjoyed that. He appreciated
Silent Bob. Man knew what he was doing. Xander rooted for Jay. That
made sense.

Together, the two of them *were* Jay and Silent Bob. With Willow
floating back and forth, will o' the wisp bright.

Times long past.

He doesn't like thinking about when he came back and met Tara. Word
came down through the grapevine, later, that she'd died. He hadn't
thought about going back then. Too rude, in every meaning of the
word. Crass. Going to the funeral of your ex's lover would feel like
gloating. Not his style.

Didn't waste much time thinking about it. A pang of regret, a shot of
something stronger than herbal tea, and he was done. Door shut, bang,
mostly-painless on a piece of his life his wolf had tried to kill for.

See? Contradictions.

He hasn't figured on going back to Sunnydale. Ever, really. But he
travels on a whim these days. Half a year in Duluth, a couple of
weeks in Maine, plan on a weekend in Tijuana and end up staying in a
mexical haze for he doesn't know how long. It's good. Suits him. No
ties.

So when he gets this feeling – sort of a tug – to go back, it ruffles
his fur. Metaphorically speaking.

But he goes anyway.

Might as well.

*

He pulls up to the sight of many changed things. No Summers or
Rosenbergs listed in the dorms, and Xander's basement window shows it
empty of life. So he goes looking for Joyce. See if she knows where
they are.

The Revello yard is packed with girls. Really girls, like not older
than eighteen. At the most. Not milling around. This isn't a party.
They're standing military-formation. Neat ranks. They move as one
person: kick. Punch. Kick. Punch. Stake gesture. Kick. Repeat.

He rolls down his window and peers out. Interesting.

There's a girl on the front steps. Shiny brown hair. Even younger
than the others. She's laughing at something. He knows that
expression... teasing. He frowns. Kid looks familiar somehow.

She turns around; he gets a profile look at her face. A brief wave of
vertigo warbles through his guts and he recognizes her: of course,
Dawn. Older, growing into her arms and legs, but Dawn. Huh. Buffy's
kid sister. Used to chase her around the yard pretending to growl,
until Buffy and Willow got creeped out and Xander almost pissed
himself laughing. So he'd stopped; she'd pouted. Yeah. Dawn. How'd he
forget about her?

She's been talking to someone. The sun's in his eyes now; harder to
see. He leans forward a little, squinting.

It's a man. Age – kind of hard to tell. He's got the haggard look of
someone who's dropped a lot of weight lately and not for good
reasons. Half his face is covered in bandages. Must be one of Buffy's
gang. Replacement for someone?

It takes the sight of hair, shaggy and seal-glossy dark, for
realization to kick in. Xander.

Oz feels a twinge of something. Not pity. Can't pity Xander, he won't
let you. Sorrow? Maybe? Got hurt, hurt bad. He can smell it now –
sorrow, grief, age beyond his years – drifting across the acrid tang
of girls sweating in the yard. He lifts his nose into the air and
breathes in. Yeah, not just girls, either. They've got power. Maybe
untapped, but still there. There's a hint of Faith on the breeze. And
bad stuff's happened. Is happening.

So. Maybe this is why he's here. Should he stay or -

What the hell. One more apocalypse before Tijuana.

*

They're not that happy to see him. Lots of stuff going on. More
guests, not so much welcome. Some chick named Kennedy almost growls
at him when he says hi to Willow, who stumbles back as if he'd hit
her. Bad. But Kennedy's proto-alpha protective act makes him grin, or
turn up the corners of his mouth as close as he comes. If she only
knew. He figures she doesn't.

Faith's around. He'd guessed. And Spike, which is interesting. He'd
known a vamp was there. Nothing else smells like that. Thought maybe
Angel, but nope – William the Bloody, duster and all.

There are some interesting shackles in the basement. Maybe later
he'll ask.

Changes dog the wind.

No one seems to like Buffy that much anymore. A boy – Andrew,
Tucker's brother? - too nervous and too campy for his age, pulls him
aside to explain too much about what they call the First. First what?

When he asks why the Buffy problems, Andrew winces and says that
he'll see why later. Something about an after-dinner speech.

Speeches and Oz don't mix. He figures he'll give this one a miss.

He'd rather catch up with Xander, who didn't come in to the chow-time
chaos. Something about his slumped posture, still on the steps, tells
Oz he wants silence. Maybe a beer.

He can do that.

Spike stops him on the way to the fridge. "None of what you're
looking for in there, wolf." Takes him down to the basement, to a
hidden microfridge, and offers him a cold, longnecked Bud.

Oz raises an eyebrow at that, but takes it. Fills a travel canteen
with water for himself on the way out. It'll do.

Nice and quiet outside. Heavy evening air – maybe a thunderstorm
later. The door shuts with barely a snick. Good craftsmanship.

Silence reigns as he sits across from Xander, toying with both heavy
containers of liquid. One quick twitch is all that lets him know the
darker man's registered his presence.

Wordlessly, he offers the beer. Significant pause – probably knows
where it came from – butder der takes it. Pops the cap off on the
edge of a step, lifts it to his mouth, swallows. Lets out a ragged
breath when his mouth's free.

They don't say anything. He can see Xander starting to shift. Seems
to have gotten pretty good at brooding, but not around people who
don't look like they're planning to leave him alone. Old habits go
out fighting.

So, "Thanks," he says at last. Voice is a bit hoarse. Rough-edged.

Oz nods. Unscrews his canteen and takes a drink. Ugh. City water.
Sunnydale sulfur flavor. Wishes he'd thought of bottled.

He can tell Xander wishes he'd go away. Nerves translate into words
and spill out in awkward jerks, like a boy having his first,
terrified orgasm. "Nice night."

Oz cranes his neck to look at the sky, smell the rising
breez"Gon"Gonna rain."

The move sets his ear hoops to clanking against smaller studs in the
lobes. Xander turns around, narrowing his eye. "Are those new? I
don't remember you going in for the pierced look in high school."

"There were piercings."

"Where? I never saw – oh." Xander grimaces. "And really sorry I asked
now, thanks."

"I was in a band. Body art happens."

"Yeah." Xander bites at his lip. "They look – good, though. They're
you. They fit youre."e."

Which they did. Meilin, the too-young, still pretty damn sexy
sorceress he'd earned those from, liked both style and practicality
in her charms. "Asian," though, is all Oz comments.

"And you've still got Kool-Aid head going on," Xander jokes without a
smile. "I always used to ask Willow if you used Jell-O or Kool-Aid.
She said it was Manic Panic, and I asked her what flavor that was."
He laughs without humor. "Pretty stupid kid, huh?"

Oz smiles. "Just plain dye."

"Oh." Shift, shift, twitch. "Anything else? You still have the van.
Cool bracelets."

Oz glances at the charms he wears wound around his wrists, then looks
up at the full moon shrouded in clouds. His lip twitches. How easily
they forget.

"Tibetian," is all he says.

"Still a man of little to no words." Xander fiddles with the neck of
his beer bottle. "I shouldn't be drinking this. Buffy says it sets a
bad example. If they see me, all the little Potentials are going to
want one, Willow will give me the frowny face, and I'm in for a night
of hell, aren't I?"

"So don't let them see you."

Xander's startled into a laugh. "You really don't get how it works
around here. What one woman knows, All Women Know. I think it's all
the estrogen. Or something."

This is true enough. Oz has seen it before. The commune in Nebraska,
almost all women, had this eerie connection going. Even bled at the
same time, every one of them. He nods.

Xander's still looking at him. Searching for more changes, Oz
realizes. Reasons to push him away, since he's no longer the guy they
once knew. "Nice tattoos," he says, a little desperate. "Where's left
for you to have gotten those? Moscow?"

He's noticing a lot of things about Oz. It's... warming.

"Close. An ink shop in North Carolina."

It'd be nice just to let him babble, get his comfort that way. But
no. Gotta hurt to heal. He tips his canteen at Xander. "Interesting
lack of eye."

Xander rears back as if he's been slapped. His face goes milk-white.
Knocked speechless.

Oz lifts one shoulder and settles back with his water. Cards on the
table now. Let him draw.

"They told you?"

"Andrew."

Xander hisses something under his breath.

Impressed, Oz checks to see if the paint on the steps
blistered. "He's not that bad a kid."

"You try living with him for a while," Xander snaps. "Andrew could
drive a monk screaming into the night. Star Trek, Quantum Leap,
Highlander, Pokemon, Neopets—"

"He's got a crush on you."

Xander's mouth flops open and shut like a catfish. "How – what – you –
did he -?"

"Nah. Too obvious." Oz jerks his head at the kitchen window. Xander's
panicked stare follows. Andrew is busily washing dishes, face turned
to the sink, cheeks stained telltale red. He's heard them. And he
looks nice, but wrong for Xander.

"You're shitting me."

"Nope."

"Holy Judas Priest."

"Calm down."

"Easy for the Zen-master to say! Andrew?" Xander shivers as if he's
been dipped in spiders.

Protesting a little too much there, Oz thinks. He can see how
Xander's eye lingers on the top of Andrew's blond head.

That's cool. But it's not what he came out here for. Oz the laconic
is actively seeking answers to questions unasked.

Witness it. Contradiction.

"Didn't tell me how it happened."

Xander jumps. "How what happened?"

Oz points. Xander deflates. "Oh."

"Said it was your story to tell."

"Probably the only thing he didn't blab." Xander rubs at the back of
his neck. "He – the guy who did – this – he's hooked up with the
First. You know about the -?" At Oz's nod, he goes on, words rush-
tumbling over each other. "He's in deep. Maybe behind a lot of it. I
got stupid and told Dawn that maybe even if I didn't have
superpowers, at least I could see people and love them for what they
were. So this guy – Caleb – he caught us in a trap, and he took his
thumb, and I was just frozen, man, and—"

He stops. "Doesn't matter. It's just... that's how. It's completely
gone. They couldn't do surgery on pulp."

OK, so that's bad, worse than Oz had thought.

"I hate that name," Xander says suddenly, picking at the label on his
bottle. "I used to like it. It was good, old-fashioned, you know? Now
trust me, if I ever run across a man, woman or child even named
Caleb, I'm not gonna be responsible for my actions."

Oz can't so much blame him. It felt like that for him before he
learned to control the wolf. You get hurt, there's all this anger.
It's got to go somewhere. If you're like Xander, you probably try
goofing it off with dumb jokes. That doesn't work. But this is
working. He's opening up. Crack by crack.

Xander jumps as one of the girls inside breaks a dish. "Kids," he
says bitterly. "I used to like them, too."

Oz shrugs. He's got nothing against the breed.

"You ever think you'll have kids?"

Gazing at some indefinable spot in the distance, Oz weighs that
question with due gravity before responding: "Doubt it."

"I sometimes think about you and Willow, if you'd stayed together."
Xander swirls the last swigs of beer in his bottle, making little
whirlpools that go round and round. "Maybe by now I'd have been Uncle
Xander. I'd like that, you know?"

Oz runs his finger around the lip of his canteen. "You and Cordy.
Could deal with being Uncle Oz."

"As if she'd wreck her figure being pregnant."

Oz frowns as a rush of not-quite deja vu rushes over him. "Ever get a
feeling you just missed something?"

"Or me and Anya." Xander goes on, oblivious. "We were serious, really
serious, we almost got married. But... Anya. She's so mad at me now.
I had to go and get myself 'dangerously deformed and nearly killed'!"
he mocks. "She didn't even come to the hospital. Willow was the one
holding my hand. Well, from what Andrew says. I was kinda out of it."

"She's upset because you scared her."

"A complete sentence out of Oz?" Xander cranes his neck at an awkward
angle, peering up at the sky. "What, the apocalypse is early this
year?"

That earns him a soft chuckle. "No more than usual."

"So?" Xander takes the last swallow and thunks the bottle down. "Why
no kids? No time for them in your free-wheeling life?"

"Not so much."

"No, really." Xander's latched onto the topic, safely distanced from
himself, and is running with it gripped in both hands. "Why no kids?
No little Oz-cubs?"

"Not so much into women."

Xander's shocked. Into silence. That's okay. Oz doesn't mind. He's
himself. No excuses. No apologies. Besides, if Willow can do it...

"I didn't know you were... that you liked..." Xander is red and
fidgeting.

"Just got an open mind. Had to. Survival of the fittest is about
going with what works to make it."

Looks like Xander's mouth has gone dry; he has to lick his lips,
dampen them a bit to speak. "Open?"

"Pretty open, yeah."

"Oh." Xander digests that, then looks up in alarm. "Oh? Oh!"

That makes him laugh. Softens him enough to take pity. "C'mon." Oz
lifts lightly up from the steps. "Follow me."

Xander's still dazed. "Huh? What? Where?"

"Park, I think." Oz scents the air. "Yeah. Park. C'mon. Night's
wasting."

As expected, Xander hangs back. He's safe on the steps. "You've got
to be kidding me, man. This is Sunnydale. Hell does know what's loose
out there."

"Nothing much. A vamp. Maybe two."

"And you want me to what, play bait so you can hunt? Dangle a little
Xander-snack out there as a lure?"

"Xander." Oz lets a bit of the wolf bleed into his eyes. "I'm worse
than they are."

Xander swallows hard. "Oh."

"Yeah." Oz extends a hand to help him up. "C'mon."

*

The walk to the park is mostly quiet. "It's not that bad," Oz says to
throw him off his stride. Works, too; Xander stumbles. "The eye," he
goes on, calm as talking about the coming rain. "Could be a hand. A
leg."

"No, it's just half my vision." Xander kicks savagely at a loose
crumble of pavement. And here it comes, what was really bothering
him: "I wasn't any good to them before, Oz. What use could they
possibly have for me now?"

Oz glances back over their shoulders. "Interesting."

"What?"

He jerks a thumb behind them. "Vampire at six o'clock."

Xander's stake is out of his belt loop too fast to follow. He doesn't
even look. The sharpened wood slams home. Dust scatters, glittering
in streetlamp-light.

They stop. Oz cocks an eyebrow at him. Xander's breathing quickly.
The stake trembles in his hand. "Did I do that?"

"Looked like it."

"Yeah." Xander's hand tightens. "I did."

"Pretty nice. Messy, though."

"That usually is, in case you don't remember."

Oz grins again. How many times in one night? It's a record. "I mean
you got some on you," he says softly. Without asking, without
permission, he brushes dust smuts off Xander's cheek and chin.

Sharp intake of breath. Xander shivers finely. Oz wonders how long
it's been since someone touched him like that, gentle, without pity.

Probably way too long.

He makes a decision.

Has to lift up on the tips of his toes – Xander's too tall – but Oz
does it, catches the shocked man's head in both his hands, and tilts
it to his to press his lips against the others's.

Once there, he wants to linger, so he does. It's soft. Sweet. Tastes
of beer and dust and salty sweat. Of Xander.

He wants more.

Not sure if this'll get his ass kicked. But why not? He opens his
mouth slightly, slipping his tongue out to lap at the seam of
Xander's lips. With a soft gasp, Xander lets him in. The kiss
deepens. He can taste Xander's confusion, but fast rising over that
is a tsunami of pheromones.

Oz drags it out long as he can, but eventually his strength gives
out. He pulls back.

Xander follows. Takes him back, holding on tight, hanging on for life
and strength and the heat of the blood in their veins. Kissing back
now, ravaging Oz's mouth with a brutal strength he appreciates. Warm,
dry hands are under his shirt, roaming over skin, finding the body
art mentioned earlier. Oz flexes his arms and takes Xander by the
waist, giving better than he gets. Tongues get involved. It's messy.
But hot. And good.

But they have to breathe sometime. When they do, Xander's staring at
him, eye dark and dilat"Yo"You..."

"Yeah. Me." Oz puts his hand over Xander's own and squeezes. "You
interested?"

"God," Xander chokes. He pulls Oz closer, blushing, shy, but heated,
and lets him feel for himself. "What do you think?"

That feels better than good. It's been a while, either side of the
fence. Oz rolls his hips against Xander's and gets a nicely nasty
thrill out of his gasp.

But – "Not unless you mean it," he warns. "I don't play."

Xander looks unbearably lonely, but he's smiling. "Me neither."

"So?"

"Yeah," Xander says, husky now, and pulls Oz in for another soul-
consuming kiss. Doesn't even care about the other vamp out there
somewhere, doesn't mind if anyone sees.

"You ever...?"

He can feel the blood roll into Xander's cheeks. He whispers
something into the werewolf's ear that has him smiling.

He pulls at Xander's hand. "C'mon, then."

"Where?"

"Park."

"The other vampire?"

"Can watch for free."

Xander laughs, though it sounds like crying. He grabs Oz, makes him
stop. Tucks his chin into the narrow shoulder and holds him
close. "Why are you doing this to me? Willow—"

"Has Kennedy." Oz pulls back enough to take Xander's face in his
hands. He kisses him – nose, cheeks, eyelid.

He can tell Xander's almost gone. Still, he's holding back a
little. "But you're leaving," he murmurs. "Soon. Aren't you?"

Oz thinks of Tijuana. For a microsecond. He travels at his own whim,
after all. Stays at his leisure. Where he wants. When he wants. And
why. "I could be persuaded to stay."

Now Xander's really shaking. "You mean that?"

Oz touches that sweet mouth with his fingertips. "Yeah."

Pause. Then:

"OK." Xander nods roughly. "OK."

"Trust me?"

"Yeah." He strokes the ball of his thumb over Oz's lips. His voice
holds a trace of wonder. "I can see you now."

"Good." Strangely content, nicely eager, he takes Xander's hand and
twines the fingers in his own. "C'mon. The park."

The ghost of a real smile breaks over the darker man's
face. "Outside?"

"Wolves do it in the great outdoors."

"That sounds more like an National Geographic bumper sticker than
sexual innuendo."

"I can do that too."

"Laconically?"

"Getting to the point works for me."

"Yeah." Xander's fingers press down on his own. "It does." He
laughs. "You and me. Never would have thought it."

"I would." Oz tugs lightly. "C'mon. Night's wasting."

So they find the park, and the shady side of a tree, with massive
roots that seem built to cradle them tight. Oz takes Xander's hand
again, this time teaching it what to do. He's a quick study. Have to
give him points for that. Clothes fall away like autumn leaves,
fluttering down for a makeshift blanket. And when they're rocking and
arching against each other, cocks slick and straining, it takes them
both far enough out of themselves that there's no more room for pain
and doubt.

Afterwards he discovers that Xander's a cuddler. Bonus.

They have nowhere else to be until morning. They can rest.

So they laze together, sated, worn out, content. Safe. As he muses,
Oz plays with Xander's arm flung possessiveler her his middle.

Funny. He'd never meant to come back home. Not even when he traveled
there.

But it looks like he is home after all.

See? Contradiction.

At its finest.


* * *

For those interested...

Sonnet # 9

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.