Call Me Koufax

Title: Call Me Koufax
Author: glossolalia
Feedback: Is lovely.
E-mail address: glossolalia_01@yahoo.ca
Website: www.geocities.com/glossolalia_01/
Rating: NC-17
Date: 23 April 2003
Archive: List archives and www.geocities.com/glossolalia_01/fiction.html.
Disclaimers: As much as I hope & pray, I don't own these characters;
they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui, Sandollar, and
David Greenwalt Productions, 20th Century Fox, and whoever else may have a
hold upon them. The situation is wholly mine, and I do not mean to infringe
upon any copyrights.
Notes: Immense thanks to the lovely & talented Dolores Labouchere for the
marvelous beta, the other kind folks who offered to beta, and a whisper of
longstanding gratitude to Rob McQuillan, who first took me to Northport &
Gunther's.
Post-'Redefinition' (AtS 2x11), pre-'Epiphany' (AtS 2x16); i.e.,
super-broody loner Angel and the Oz who vanished after 'New Moon Rising'
(BtVS 4x19).
Summary: Who'd have thought conversation was foreplay for Oz?
Setting: A Los Angeles pier.

Call Me Koufax

The third time wasn't the charm, but maybe the fifth will be. Five's a good
number.

Oz comes here on every sweep through L.A., tries to get the same parking
spot and buy the same rubbery veggie dog from the vendor, tries to make it
the same every time. Except for the dark, because the first time he was
here, it was afternoon and blazing-bright.

He sits on the edge of the pier, arms crossed on the barrier fence, dull
little splinters digging into his skin. He'll wait till sunup, like always.

He is good at waiting. Just breathe and feel random sea spray hit the soles
of his feet. Breathing is far more dependable than hoping.

The vendor's been gone for hours, trundling the cart to wherever the hell
carts spend the night. The post-work sunbathers are long gone from the
beach, replaced by an assortment of vaguely moving shapes, heads and
hulking backs badly foreshortened from Oz's vantage point. He's read about
the homeless sleeping on the beaches; heard about them, too, of course. But
reading about it was different. Up in Portland, he'd fished out several
stapled photocopied articles from a bin outside a dorm at Reed. He'd been
doubtful at first, as if despair could be captured through footnotes and
careful analysis. There was some pretty interesting stuff in those
articles, though. Weird thinking about space and spatiality that seemed far
more intense than geography ever had, back in middle school.

Spatiality, and he closes his eyes to concentrate on trying to get the
definition right, is the condition of being in and producing space.

Space, it seems, is not empty, waiting to be filled. It's generated.

Oz likes cruising college campuses during exam time. People throw out some
of the most whacked shit he's ever read.

Sometime later, he turns and tilts his head up. There's that face,
shadowy-pale, mouth dark.

"Hey, Angel."

And it's weird, because this is what he's been waiting for, but nothing's
changed. Nothing feels any different.

"Oz?" Angel drops into an easy crouch, fingertips of one hand resting on
the pier, the other reaching to cup Oz's elbow.

"You've got a real nice Roy Campanella posture going there," Oz tells him.
Angel's fingers brush the ticklish patch on his elbow and he has to suck in
one cheek to keep from giggling.

"That makes you who? Koufax?"

"Nah. Koufax didn't play in the series." Watches as Angel bends, somehow,
elegantly, so he's sitting next to Oz. Thigh to thigh. "So actually, yeah.
Call me Koufax."

Angel settles in, and seems content to watch the waves.

This is just fine with Oz.

Oz considers his hand resting on Angel's thigh. It's been there for a while
now. Angel's thumb is hooked through Oz's pinky. Pale skin linked to paler,
except as he studies it, he starts to appreciate the variety of possible
palenesses. Angel is blue-pale, almost porcelainy, and Oz is pink-pale.

"I hate to utter a cliché," Angel starts and Oz wants to snort, because
Angel's nothing if not a walking cliché. Cliché amalgam, actually, Goth and
Barney's New York and a couple other looks. "What?"

"Nothing," Oz says. Closes his eyes, going into anti-hostility mode, where
he thinks about colors and forgets to feel. "Go on."

"What brings you here?" Angel covers Oz's hand with his own and it's almost
scary how his hand can disappear. Just like that. But it feels good, so
it's all right.

"Passing through?"

Angel chuckles, low in his throat, and the sound? That *is* scary. There's
no humor there, just something harsh like bile. Even without the wolf, Oz
knew his nostrils would want to flare and the muscles in his thighs tense
up. "I'm not in the business of saving souls any more. You probably didn't
get the memo."

"No," Oz says. "I didn't."

And this is the way it goes, the way Oz's thoughts move: staccato, maybe,
but there's a pattern and a rhythm in there, underneath apparent
disjunction. He hopes so, anyway.

"Hey, did you ever meet Kerouac?"

Angel cuts his eyes over to Oz. Blinks as the questions flow into each other.

"Beats? The road? Jazz poetry and melancholy pseudo-Buddhism? Drank himself
to death on Long Island?"

"I know who you're talking about."

"Figured you've been around, probably ran into a lot of characters."

"Not everyone was Cleopatra in a past life," Angel says. "And not everyone
who's been around for two centuries made sure to meet all the contemporary
celebrities."

Oz nods and draws one knee up against his chest to scratch his shin. A
scab's forming there, low, down by the ankle where the skin is tight. "I
went to Northport once. My second time cross country. It's a pretty town.
You can smell salt and suntan lotion all day long."

"You can smell that here."

"Yeah. But the water's different there. Darker, kind of harsher. Like it's
deeper over there."

"I know," Angel says. "Crossed the Atlantic, remember?"

Oz stretches out his legs. Pale skin suspended over dark, lapping waves.
Delicate and frangible limbs. "Pretty town. Flat, barely above sea-level.
Almost village-y with all these stone streets. I went to Gunther's. Where
Kerouac used to hang out. He was living with his mother by then, his looks
were gone, and he was well on the way to, you know--"

"Drinking himself to death."

"Right."

Oz turns. He thinks it would be nice to look at the shadows shift along
Angel's jawbone, but his face is there. Human face, thankfully. Silvery
lips slightly parted, darker tongue pressing against ivory teeth. Oz
rescues his hand and watches it rise until his index finger is running
along the bottom lip. It feels like silver, cool and kind of hard.

But Angel's tongue? That's like mercury, slipping and beading around the
fingertip and sucking it in. Oz closes his eyes, kicking in his sense
memory, trying to memorize this. Gives up and lets go, feels random ridges
and edges of teeth, fucking his finger lazily in and out.

And out. The flat of Angel's tongue, warmer than the rest of him, pushes
hard against the middle knuckle, propelling it out. "Open your eyes."

Oz does, and tells himself it's because he wants to. He *does*. Angel
trails a loose fist down the side of Oz's face, and smiles emptily. His
eyes gleam in the shadows. Knuckles rub down his neck, down his front, and
Oz leans back from the railing, propping himself on one hand, watching.
Hand runs down the center of his shirt, slight hollow between pectorals,
and absence may not make the heart grow fonder, but it does make Oz's
nipples ache. He hears himself exhale when Angel's knuckles flit over his
navel and he's aching all over now.

He sucks in his lower lip and looks up at Angel. The tip of each spike of
hair stands rigid against the sky, outlined in silver and orange and blue.

Knuckles brush that patch of skin. The one between stomach and groin,
stretched tight, slung between hipbones. Most everything has a name, but
not this place.

Oz thrusts his hips, once and hard. Hard enough to knock Angel's fist open.
Cold palm on his skin as Oz hitches up his tee shirt.

Except he hasn't come here for a handjob.

Oz sits up, pulling himself against Angel's arm. He can move quickly, too.
When he wants to. He twists around until he's kneeling, back pressed
against the railing. Angel's hand still pressed against that stretch of no
man's land.

Oz thinks: You're not so big.

Because, in the dark, Angel is insubstantial. Just a silvery face passing
in and out of veils of shadows, the rest of him dark enough to bleed out at
the edges, melt away.

Oz tilts his head and pushes the tip of one finger against Angel's chest.
Knocks him flat, and Oz swings one leg over Angel's waist. His finger
tangles around one shirt button and he shoves his hand in, gripping cold skin.

Angel's looking at him. Almost smiling, but not happy.

Cock thickens under Oz's ass, and he bounces on it, rolling his hips.

"What makes you think I can't chase you off?" Angel asks hoarsely. "Seem to
remember I had no trouble doing that before."

Ooh, alpha posturing. Oz smiles slowly and traces the figure of an aleph
along Angel's ribs. Fresh blood and the smell of fear would have drawn any
wolf; the wolf had no idea, back then, what he was up against.

"I'm not trying to take what's yours this time," Oz says. "It isn't about
that."

"Mind telling me what this is about?"

Humans? Which Oz is, at least right now, don't have to play games of
hierarchy. They usually do, but they don't *have* to.

Oz doesn't answer.

"You don't want to do this," Angel says. "Trust me."

"Really?" Oz reaches behind him, practiced fingers unbuttoning and
unzipping Angel's fly. "How do you know?"

As his hand slips inside and fingers close around Angel's cool cock,
half-hard and getting harder, Angel's head drops back.

"Because the way I look at it," Oz says, running his thumb under the
tightening foreskin, smearing pre-cum around the head. "You're not in love
with me. If that's what you're worried about. You barely even know me."

Oz tugs the heel of his hand against each button in turn until Angel's
shirt falls open. Platinum-silver-ivory skin, he doesn't know the names to
describe it right, so he just. Touches. He squeezes the cock behind him
gently, barely twisting it with each release. The sharp curve of Angel's
chin glows dully, a long way off.

"First time I came here," Oz tells Angel, "I saw you in the light."

Angel quietly groans. Whether from the words or the soft rocking of his
cock, it's not clear. Oz runs his thumbnail around one dark nipple, watches
the chest rise and glow under his hand.

"I wanted to ask you then what it was like. Being free."

Angel twists his head, shutting his eyes so the twin pinpoint lights wink
off into the dark. His mouth opens in a slit and the tip of his tongue runs
from corner to corner. Oz presses his thumb against the firm nipple and
drums the fingers of his other hand along the underside of Angel's cock.

"Second time, I wanted to tell you about lust."

Angel's pants are tugged down to his ankles, one foot up, braced against
the railing.

Oz lies on top of him, chin propped in the valley between Angel's
pectorals. Lying like this, molded against something so cool and firm, he
feels his thoughts slow and sputter. He tries to remember Veruca's face,
the sharp tilt to her chin and her deep, deep eyes; her body, so strong and
angular, so different from Willow's soft warmth, the both of them so
different from this.

This. He brushes his fingers up and down the curve of Angel's side, waiting
for the eyes to open.

He's willing to wait.

"The third time? I wanted to ask you about loss."

Angel's hips meet his as Oz rocks gently against him. Their cocks are
slotted along each other. Despite all the difference in their heights,
their sizes, this part feels right.

Angel nuzzles below Oz's jaw, up to the lobe of his ear, and down along his
throat. His eyes haven't opened yet.

At least he's still here.

"The fourth time, I thought I could warn you about grief."

Angel's arm is around Oz's waist, pushing him closer. Oz opens his mouth
around Angel's nipple, brushing his lips against the slightly rougher skin
at the base. His tongue twists and flicks hard.

He feels Angel's hand gripping the small of his back.

Grief was the least of it, actually. But the name was a convenient one. If
it didn't say just what Oz felt, it covered a lot of it. And it *was*
different from loss, which was like a shearing off. Grief was what it felt
like, after.

"But this time? I'm going to tell you about control."

Angel quirks a quarter of a smile at that.

Oz sits back, hauling Angel with him, over him, crowding him back until his
back is pressed against the railing. He devours Angel's mouth with his
tongue, seeking something, a quiver or tremble of sound that tells him he's
not the only one talking.

Angel kneads Oz's chest and back, really hard, not at all teasingly. Almost
professionally, it feels like, and Oz wants to go limp. Drape himself over
someone bigger and stronger and way older.

He finds himself thrusting against Angel instead, spasmodically. Like the
first times he jerked off, not really knowing what to do, but Dev promised
it would end up feeling good. Like that now, lost and a little scared,
waiting-hoping-praying for his body to take over.

Oz flings his arm wildly out of Angel's embrace, hand searching blindly for
his shorts. Angel's mouth remains locked on his, slipping a little, but his
tongue tugs against Oz's bottom teeth and the meaty root of his tongue.

His fingers graze over leather, dig through silk, and finally find his own
shorts, soft over-washed khaki. If he can just find the side pocket--.
Distracted by Angel's hand on the nape of his neck, the longlost sensation
of fingers brushing buzzed hair. Long shivers run down Oz's chest and legs,
just like when the barber applies the clippers there, and he turns his head
back, mashing his face against Angel's, inhaling his tongue.

Well-trained, his fingers still scrabble for the pocket and finally find
the lube bottle, unused since his second visit here but always within
reach, as he starts to smother in the kiss, loathe to break it.

Oz nudges Angel back onto one hand and presses the bottle of lube into his
free hand. Watches brows crease and eyes turn up to his. Whites of the eyes
gone brassy-golden in the dark.

Biting his lip, Oz reaches out and pours the bottle over Angel's open hand,
watching as the pale skin starts glowing as it is soaked, darkening as it
spills onto shadowed limbs.

Angel starts to lower his eyes and Oz clucks his tongue once; the gaze
turns back up and meets Oz's, dark and inscrutable.

Fetid surf pounds far below, smelling like garbage and sweat and the barest
hint of salt, as Angel slicks himself with a quick swipe of the palm from
balls to hole.

Oz watches. Angel's eyes are lowered slightly, staring into something far
behind Oz's collarbone. One long finger bends and his knuckle presses into
his hole.

The sensation of falling in place: too many rum-and-cokes can do this to
Oz, or some especially strong organic hydroponic BC weed. Angel can do
this. Gravity rushing down through his muscles, dragging currents and
undertows through his body as he kneels here perfectly still.

Oz feels flushed and wide-eyed. Understatement being the name of this
particular game.

Angel sucks his lower lip into his mouth and knits his eyebrows as a second
finger corkscrews inside. Oz holds his breath for Angel until the fingers
begin to move. Oz exhales. Blinks rapidly as Angel fucks himself on his hand.

Sticky-wet hand pulls on Oz's cock, rushes to his shoulder, and wrenches
him by the shoulder.

Fighting forward momentum, trying at least to enter slowly, Oz collapses,
feeling his hips twisting and thrusting.

Blazing white, all he can see before him is this fucking huge expanse of
looming blazing flaming white. And Angel's mouth breathing louder than the
Atlantic, roaring in his ear.

He nearly slides off the edge of the pier before the hand on his shoulder
tugs him back, and he is fucking as hard as he can.

Splinters in his knees, his back arched bizarrely--a chiropractor's wet
dream--and he knows he's growling. Knows gravity is going apeshit around
him as he pulls and pushes and heaves into something so tight and cold he
thinks it must be death.

Except he's still moving, hips still driving forward, and it's getting
harder to pull out as the stream of growls in Angel's throat gets louder
and choppier. So Oz just pushes, lets the rhythm of whatever this is do the
pulling, and closes his mouth around Angel's nipple. Holds it in his teeth
like the world's most pathetic ball-gag as he scrapes his nails down from
Angel's shoulder to the cock battering his belly. Squeezes and pushes like
a fucking virgin. Bites down as he comes, his hand choking the cum out of
Angel's cock.

And even when he closes his eyes, all he sees is the blazing cold white.

Floating on rough, surf-beaten cheap lumber is surprisingly comfortable.
Maybe only for the type, like Oz, who can bed down comfortably in the back
seat of a station wagon.

Swish and slither of leather and silk: Angel, dressed now, crouches down.
He smoothes Oz's sweaty hair back from his forehead, and then his palm
hovers there like the concerned moms on tv. His hand smells sweet from the
lube.

"So, control?" Angel asks.

Oz's spine seems to have lost most of its stiffness, and his head lolls
dangerously when he turns it. "Oh. That. Right, basically that--"

Cotton-wool mouth and glazed eyes. He scrubs his knuckles against his eyes.
The itch of shirt-hem on his throat, and he realizes that Angel has tried
to dress him, too. Which is nice, in a creepy kind of way.

"Basically that there's no such thing."

Angel nods. "I knew that."

"Course you did." Oz tries to sit up and flops back. Tries again, fails,
and finally grips the proffered hand, hauling himself upright. "Thanks."

Angel squints at him and lets the gratitude pass.

Oz leans against the railing, suddenly cold, and crosses his arms, holding
himself around the waist. "No, I mean the *thing* doesn't exist. Like
space? It's not out there, not some pie we can get a slice of when we're
hungry."

He thinks suddenly of the rotating displays of desserts, backlit and
gleaming, in diners.

Angel sighs, brow creasing as he checks the horizon, eyes narrowing, and Oz
gives up. "Never mind."

"I don't think," Angel starts. Oz wants to back away, except he's already
at the end of the pier. "I don't think I need lessons in self-care and
control from some dopehead slacker."

"Right," Oz says. No point in going into anti-hostility mode, because he
doesn't feel hostile anyway. "So? I'll catch you later, then."

See you around. Take care. Be well. Godspeed and all that shit.

Oz crawls into the van's passenger seat and tugs the afghan from the floor.
He wraps himself tightly, scrunches a bit up to rest between his cheek and
the window, and stares out at the empty parking lot.

A rap on the front window, driver's side, and he turns blearily to see.
Angel has the door open already and is sliding in.

"Key?"

Oz points at the ashtray and Angel gingerly retrieves the key ring, shaking
ash from sticky fingers.

They're on the access road before Angel glances over at him. "It's a loop,
right? Feeding back and forth like a circuit?"

"That's about it, yeah." Oz tips his head against the window.

Sometime later, as they pull up in front of some Art Deco pile in a part of
the city he's never seen, Angel touches the tip of Oz's nose. "You're it."

-end-