Disclaimer: Of Joss.

Sex disclaimer: Never ever have I ever done it between the tight-packed shelves of extraneous Christmas saleables in Wal-Mart.

Notes:
Title from The Smashing Pumpkins' "17"

Love to Nonie, who gave the circle quote, and Te, who audienced.
  

The desert's as big as he remembers it being. He doesn't come out here very often, not since he was old enough to get his own place and didn't have to wrestle warm bodies in cars anymore. Not that it didn't have its moments.

But the naked tag games are pretty rocking, too.

The van's like he remembers it, though some part of him gets that it isn't the same van. It has that sharp little Oz-edge to it, though. Enough that it's not important that there are different clothes stuffed into the box in the corner. More hemp-and-Phish, less glam-and-Bowie. Warm, faint body-smell replacing the cologne that used to get up inside his nose when he slept.

Cheap-booze taste of it in his mouth, the first time he licked Oz's neck. He got used to it, though, and eventually Oz got over his taste for the stuff, and just started smelling like himself again.

Morning now. Devon's had most of the night to sleep and smoke, sprawled in the pile of blankets and clothes that're collected in the back. Futon underneath.

He found a box of old nail polish colours last night. Did his own in black, anally careful like he never quite forgets to be.

Rolls over eventually and looks out the van door. He kept it rolled back all night, waiting. Desert air and the vodka edge of his drunk hanging around, making him miss details. Waiting to see when Oz is going to come back.

Yesterday afternoon Oz showed up at the club. Leaned in the door and listened while Devon crooned a capella for the middle aged hippy chick and two old drunks. Just killing time before the show, watching for the club owner, who'd bitch him out for playing before the advertised show.

Just that no-smile-wide-smile, "Hey."

He stayed for the show. Devon scrawled something on the back of a bar napkin for him, and then tracked down the bouncer and explained exactly how important it was that Oz come back.

Jumped down from the stage after the first set and picked Oz up and hugged him. Hauled him off his feet. Oz is thinner. The bits of baby fat are all gone, and there's enough muscle on him to make Devon think he's taken up long distance running.

Second set, drinking after. Or Devon drinking. Oz watching him. It's not the Oz he took swimming lessons with. But it's Oz.

Oz took him into the desert, sometime around three in the morning. While Devon was still blind drunk. Stood out in the middle of the scrub, and stripped.

Minute of him moon-white in the dark. Naked and barefoot and comfortable. Just Oz, no clothes.

Sometime after that, he changed. Kind of thing that makes Devon wonder how much he's had to drink, and whether somebody slipped him something. Except that it was somehow still just Oz. Furry, fanged Oz, crouched down in the gravel and dry grass, watching him. Big dog with this intense focus-thing going on. Second where it stood up and looked at Devon, shook itself all over before it ran off.

Easy to just curl up, after that, and go to sleep. Wasted from the night, tired from cleaning up after, impossibly weirded in a way that he didn't want to deal with.

The sun's up, just barely, but up, when Oz comes back. Dog padding towards him that sort of blurs and turns into a person in mid-step. Then naked Oz, walking like he's got thicker skin on the soles of his feet than most people do.

He comes and crawls into the van next to Devon, and sits cross-legged on top of the blankets. Looks at him in exactly the way that always makes him want to get Oz very, very high.

Devon kisses him.

Oz tastes different and the same. Same spicy, bright, vaguely cold Oz, but harder, clearer, bloodier. He pushes back when Devon pushes. His weight against Devon's mouth, against his chest. Pushing him down. Crawls on top of him, but only after he's horizontal. Still in his jeans, held down by this new, nakeder Oz.

Tongue in his mouth's way too long. Fingers are sharp.

Devon's not hung over yet; he won't be until after he sleeps it all off. At the moment, he's still mostly drunk, just close enough to sober that he can actually get it up. Almost too drunk to get his jeans off, but Oz helps him. They fly into the mess in the back like clothes should.

If he thought making out was something he left behind with high school. Well, he thought for a while maybe Oz was too, and here they both are back. Sloppy, happy kissing, warming body on his chest. The kind of comfortable hip-lock it takes a while to get into. Oz's legs keep seriously tangling around his.

Cock along his belly. This is how he learned about sex. Not exactly better than any of the girls he's dated, but utterly different-planet different. Feels suddenly like he's fifteen.

It makes him hiss and pant when he comes. Slick between Oz's thighs, semen he can catch on the tips of his fingers, rub into the skin there. Sticky later, but they can go back to his place, shower maybe. Get breakfast.

Weirdly adult thought, and it doesn't works on this version of Oz anyway. He's been out hunting things all night. There's edges of something on him that're probably blood, but look like a good makeup job. Early heavy metal. More Iggy than Ozzy.

God, those bats.

Devon pushes himself up on one arm, leans in close enough to wrap his mouth around Oz's cock. He's decided he doesn't really want to be high. Too much detail in this that he needs to hang onto, and even the booze in his system's keeping him from doing it.

Slick, warm, hard in his mouth. Oz's fingers in his hair keep combing towards his ears. Hand that finds his and laces into it.

Spurt in his mouth that comes with this little sigh.

Kissing him after. On their sides, Devon turned towards the sun and the door. Oz is boneless, stretched in his very own clubhouse cave. It's not Devon's space anymore, except in the way that the couch cushion caves that Oz used to build at home were open to Devon too, when he showed up.

Thoughts that swallow him until it's really morning, and he can see the fading henna tattoo that goes all the way around Oz's waist. Oz is heavy against his arm, most of the way to asleep. Making tiny noises into Devon's shoulder.

Oz is restless, even when he's sleepy. He never shifts completely away, and he never stops being heavy, but it's like he's still moving. He's got the gypsy thing going on in some kind of serious way that Devon can't connect with. This need to get loose that Oz has and he doesn't.

It's a harder thought than he wants to have right now. He needs to sleep.

Whole desert out there. Oz up close. This need he keeps having to hang on to him. It's crawling through his brain like incense, dry air, acoustic music.
 
 

Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life;
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky.

- from Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Creation of Ea"