Title: You Got the Love
Author: Dolores Labouchere
E-mail: dolores_l@h...
Summary: Oz has made a difficult decision.
Spoilers: Nothing specific.
Rating: NC-17
Distribution: List archives, otherwise just ask.
Disclaimer: I don't own Angel and Oz.  Joss does, damn him.
Improv: number 10 - flow, rave, blue and fall.
Notes: Set in the summer between seasons 1 and 2 of 'Angel'.  The lyrics and 
title are from the song by The Source feat. Candi Staton which I just cannot 
get out of my head.  For all those who’ve said they like the new Incredibly 
Pale site, and especially for Faithtastic for betaing and her magnificent 
design.

***

Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air/
I know I can count on you/
Sometimes I feel like saying, "Lord, I just don’t care"/
But you got the love I need to see me through/

He watched as they danced, a throng of bodies in all manner of clothing, 
sparkling and shining under the lights above that twisted and turned across 
their forms and drenched them in a myriad of colours, illuminating the 
revellers in an otherwise darkened club.  Their hands raised high they paid 
homage to the throaty diva whose voice filled the room with song, her 
musical accompaniment throbbing, sending  little shockwaves rippling across 
the surface of his whisky as it sat on the bar.

As he reached for the tumbler, Angel brushed off the offer of a drink from 
another potential suitor with a hard look and a shake of the head.  Aside 
from the fact he was waiting for someone else, the vampire never liked 
anyone who wore flannel shirts.  The suitor, a beefy Muscle Mary whose veins 
pulsed invitingly on the thick neck and the huge biceps, grunted and turned 
his attention to his next prey.

Just as he drank the last of the amber liquid a figure emerged from the 
writhing mass on the dance floor.  Wrapped in black leather pants and a 
tight, dark blue t-shirt and topped with spiky black hair, the sight of the 
youth meant a heat in his loins suddenly provided a contrast to the burn in 
Angel’s throat.

Oz reached Angel in a few short steps, feeling the arm flow around his 
waist, pressing his small, warm body close to the cool bulk of the 
vampire's.  He offered up his lips for the sacrifice to the god of kissing, 
head titled back and eyes closed, and thrust into Angel when those cool, 
full lips took the offering and made it a holy experience.

Angel held tight to the smaller man, the delicious contradictions of their 
relationship cannon fodder in the constant battle raging in his head.  In a 
terrible, blessed way the fact that Oz was male helped the soul stay in 
place.  It was hard to have a moment of true happiness when whatever was 
left of Liam was aghast at this breach of the Catholic dogma that had taught 
him such things were absolutely wrong.  Archaic values perhaps, but it 
helped when the demon, forked tongue flicking, tried to persuade Angel to 
forget about it all and just concentrate on the kiss, lose himself in the 
joy.  Lose his soul in the sensation.

For his part, the werewolf tuned out the music and the lights, tried to 
clear his mind of all thoughts that did not focus on the emotion that was 
being with Angel.  To remember the taste of his lips, the scent of his 
aftershave, the sight of his handsome face, framed by the sleek black hair 
and so devoid of any sign of the traumas that the mind had seen.  Without 
any trace of what lay behind the ivory skin, that could so easily be 
released to contort the divine features to something altogether more 
demonic.

Oz wanted to remember it all, because tonight would be the last time he 
would get the chance.

***

The surf washes across the tangle of their lower limbs, and Oz silently 
wonders if Deborah Kerr knew what frottage meant.  It’s cold where the salt 
water touches his body, but Angel's 'From Here to Eternity' fantasy is 
fulfilled and tonight that is more important.  A cold and slippy hand 
clutches his erection, gripping tight and pulling hard, grains of sand a 
strange texture as they lie trapped between palm and penis.

He dips his head to suckle on a nipple, and the sand is there too.  It gets 
everywhere.  It's in his hair - in all the places where that applies - in 
his ears and between his toes and yet this is still easily one of the most 
erotic things he has ever done.  Part of Oz hopes Angel feels the same way.  
Part of Oz fears that Angel might.

Summer has moved nearly into Fall, and Oz knows he must leave.  He never 
expected to be in LA this long, and he never expected to be in any sort of 
relationship, let alone one with Angel.   If a relationship it was - more an 
initial meeting in that club which had somehow turned into regular trysts in 
the dilapidated apartment that Oz was calling home, or the back of the van, 
or the hood of the Plymouth, or today, on the beach.  It was mostly 
physical, neither willing nor able to commit much emotion.  Not at first.  
That was the point, perhaps.  That both understood the need to keep their 
feelings from interfering with the sweaty business of releasing tension.  
But Oz was beginning to yearn for Angel's touch when the vampire was not 
close, to miss the kisses and crave the feeling of cool muscle against his 
own.  To contemplate the thought of making Angel's bed his own.

And if this was what he, Oz, was thinking, then Angel might be too.  Which 
was altogether more dangerous.

Then his train of thought is swept away by a landslide of pleasure.  The 
orgasm forces a cry of pleasure that sends some startled seagulls flapping 
and squawking into the air.

They frolic in the waves after that, Angel delighting in hooking his foot 
behind Oz's leg to watch the smaller man fall, arms flailing, into the 
briny, washing the sand from all the places where it had found purchase.  
And he delights in the kisses that Oz rains upon him even so.

***

Night was clinging to the sky but morning was not far from arrival when 
Angel awoke from his doze in the Plymouth.  Oz was gone, but a letter 
fluttered on his windscreen, trapped by a wiper.  He reached over the glass 
and down to retrieve the note, already fearing what message it held.  The 
swish of the sea accompanied the grinding of his teeth as he read the words 
that made so little and yet so much sense.

Then he drives, because he needs to find shelter before the arrival of the 
sun, and because he doesn’t know what else to do.

And he mourns for Oz, another sacrifice on the altar of his soul.

***