On Giles And Oz

Trying to write about Giles and Oz is like trying to paint scents — they're there, you know they're there, but they don't translate well into one form.

You can't force yourself to like Giles/Oz. It doesn't happen that way. Either you're automatically going "Oh. Yes. Please." or you're not. You can't leap in expecting to learn to love it, and you can't write it without loving it.

When I originally tried to write this essay, all I could come up with was this haiku:

That's all I can say. That's all there is. The lo-fi mellow thrum of the bass soundtracking their understated ways. Two cups of tea — one english breakfast, one green with jasmine. Sushi and wasabi mingling together in your mouth before you wash it all down with the stinging tang of pickled ginger.

It's a zen romance. You just hit it, and you can't back away from it. The perfect enlightenment, the perfect state of being.

It's hard to come up with a rational step-by-step plan as to why Giles and Oz works. Instead, quoting choice bits from various stories might be the only way.

This by Amz

"So what brings you here?" Oz asked again, forehead wrinkled in mock confusion, his arms firmly wrapped around his lover's waist.
Hands continued to comb through cherished hair. "This." Giles said, smiling. "This will always bring me here."

Across The Universe by Dolores Labouchere

Giles shifted on the log, his gaze back at the fire. "And moving in with me? That would be another means?"
Oz leaned back to fetch Giles' guitar from where it lay behind them. "No, it would be an end in itself. Whether it's the end, I don't know." He ran his fingers down the strings, and notes floated out into the dark.

Moonlight And Van Helsing by Hth

He was tired of this lump in his throat, of the way that he never seemed to be able to say anything during those moments when he had the brunt of their intimacy filling up his rib cage. Giles wished he knew what needed saying so desperately, but his own mind sometimes seemed dark and impenetrable. He only knew that after a month of Oz in his bed almost every afternoon, of mapping Oz's body with lips and fingers and being meditated upon like a koan in return, there was something. Something between them. Something Oz had a right to know.
Something in Giles that was lost every time Oz got up to dress and disappear, born again in the flesh every time he came back.

Silver Rocket by Ins

Hours of meditation felt exactly the same as Giles' hands over his, stretching for a moment both transient and carefully constructed. . . exactly like E-flat, diminished ninth. He couldn't explain, he could only hope that Giles would someday notice that certain things were felt most strongly in their own absence; talk wasn't cheap.

Less Than Temporary by Juniper

And Giles was happy. Because it was a little bit of everything, with absolutely nothing involved, and Oz's hand felt so right against his belly that for once, for one strangely euphoric moment, he could actually let go and just be.
The hand did it, really, more than the music had. Not that the music hadn't, but this was a different sort of completion. It was braced against muscle and the slightest bit of middle-age pudge, because it had been years since his body had been perfectly trim, but not so many years that he'd been okay with that fact, and usually, yes usually that self-conscious mess of thoughts came back when someone looked or touched or just got near like this, but with Oz — with Oz it all boiled down to a rightness that made him feel good all over.

Life During Wartime by Kate Bolin

He remembers that, once, he was just a boy with a guitar.
When he mentions this to his lover, in a brief respite they have from the ongoing war, sitting next to each other on the small couch in the back office — a shelter against the storm battering outside — his lover smiles, and replies back, in the softest voice possible:
"So was I."
And they laugh at that, just a little, because despite everything that has happened, despite everything that shouldn't be happening, there's still that faint taste of normality. Two boys, two guitars, and the twenty-five years difference seems like nothing at all.

Messengers Of Grey by Sarah T.

Oz felt something wrench in him towards tenderness. Giles didn't have to be alone with it. He didn't have to be alone with it. It wasn't right to be alone. Clearing his throat, he moved to him and nuzzled his shoulder.

Daylight Fading by Sheila Perez

Oz sat up and studied Giles' still-sleeping form, running his hands lightly over the other man's chest. He reveled in the feel of warm flesh beneath his fingers, the slight tickle of hair against his palm as he moved his hand lower. Giles' body was firm, not overly muscled, but not soft either. Aesthetically pleasing.
Incredibly so.

A Homecoming by Vera

"Once upon a time there was a middle age librarian." Oz murmured. Giles smiled, recognizing a familiar Oz ritual. "Who sat around and thought all the time about lots of different and important things. Until he met a quiet boy who taught him that sometimes it's better to just sit around. And even better to sit on each other. They lived happily ever after."