archive: .: hdp: lotrips archive :.
pairing: dom/oz (lotrips/btvs crossover)

The first time Oz saw Dom, he was crossing the street in front of Oz's van, a brown paper sack of groceries in one hand and a pair of black wings in the other. Oz watched him cross, watched him glance - left right left - then jog across to the far side.

Oz wondered why he had checked for traffic backwards, who he was, where he had come from, why he was merely carrying the wings when he was so clearly born to fly.

The driver behind him leaned on the horn, and Oz drove back to himself, his own life.

.:.

The first time Dom saw Oz, he was sitting two rows ahead at the midnight movie, blue and silver light flickering across his skin. Dom clenched and unclenched his fists and fought the desire to fold him up and take him home. He looked small, like a strong wind would blow him away, and yet he shone so brightly Dom wondered how anyone could have left him behind. Or let him fly away.

He was certain that they could not have thrown him away, dropped him here without regard to be swept away.

And yet, the glowing boy was alone.

.:.

The coffee shop was jammed between a cheap hair salon and a tattoo parlor. Dom slipped in, winced as the bells on the door rang and jangled, announcing his entrance.

"Hey," Oz said, standing up behind the counter. Silver flashed in his mouth and Dom tilted forward after it. "What can I get you?"

Twenty seven inappropriate answers flashed through Dom's mind. "Er. Just coffee."

Oz completed the transaction, then watched him carefully as he sat near the window, flipping through the free weeklies.

"This is going to sound weird," he said. "But weren't you the boy with the wings?"

.:.

In the end, Dom had told Orlando about the dreams. He had thought Orlando would understand, at least a little, because Orlando threw himself from great heights on a regular basis. Orlando on the ground was a chum of sorts but none too deep, while Orlando flying made Dom's chest ache.

Billy always refused to jump, except in the dreams. Billy hurt Dom even on the ground, and when Billy jumped Dom jumped with him, unfettered, and flew.

Orlando bought him the pair of black wings. He had misunderstood entirely, or understood more than Dom himself. Either could be possible.

.:.

Dom took so long to answer that Oz thought he had not heard him.

"Yeah," he said, gravel in his throat. "That's me." He slid out of the chair and reached for the handle of the door.

"It's just," Oz paused. "I saw you. And." Dom waited. "I wondered how they look on you."

Dom frowned. "They broke. I had them fixed. But they don't work anymore." He looked up, ensnared again by serious green eyes. "See you," he said, shaking free, and trudged back to his apartment, where not even the idea of light dared come in the windows.

.:.

On the eighth day that Dom came, Oz took a quarter from the till and flipped it to him across the counter. "C'mon," he said, and led Dom back to the washroom. Dom palmed and revealed the quarter over and over in an attempt to distract himself. "Here," and Oz took it, slipped it into a machine as the door closed behind them. A disco ball began to spin, and Dom was unsure how to react. Oz reached for his hand, "Because you like shiny things, right?"

"I do." And Dom leaned in and captured the glint on Oz's tongue.

.:.

Oz glimmered in Dom's shadow filled apartment, reflecting all the little things that filled Dom's nest, that made his corner of the world sparkle. Oz always appeared at the end of his shift, a giant take away cup in each hand. He ran his fingertips reverently through Dom's music collection, shuffled clicking jewel cases, picked one, and asked for the story.

It would spin and Dom would remember. They'd sink into a mattress that held the history of the building and they'd write their own history through confession and skin and sweat. They'd write to the rhyme and the meter.

.:.

Old ladies pursed their lips when they saw them walking down the street, bleached streaks or blue spikes in their hair, the delicate tattoos, Dom's leather wrist bands and Oz's piercings.

"Riffraff," they muttered. And Dom pulled Oz in close for a moment, wiry frame under the thin t-shirt and marveled at how well they fit. Pulled him in, then let him go.

"Beautiful," he said, and Oz's eyes smiled. They walked and discovered and stood outside a ramshackle apartment building listening to a boy and his mournful guitar. They drew strength from the light before returning to the shadows.

.:.

Oz spread his fingers wide in the air. "I'm going now. I've kind of done this thing." And as he said it, it became true.

Dom stood very still, a trap about to spring. He tapped fingertips against thumb, then smiled slowly, crooked grin crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Room for one more?"

"That's sort of where I was heading with that, yeah." Oz ducked his head and smiled.

And so they went. And so they are, even now, pulled along by the airstream off the semis, drifting down quiet roads, stopping, writing, when shiny things catch the eye.