Winter wraps his bones, cold like stars in the night sky, making them ache. Wet felt lines his lungs. Oz shivers all the time, even as he sweats, but he doesn't stop, doesn't stumble from his path, doesn't cry. Stays close to the rail, the straw in the boxcar a poor den. He can't get caught, brought to a small town jail, or even pay a small town fee. He must make it to a city, somewhere with a free clinic, where blood samples aren't required and doctors are too harried and hassled to ask too many questions or pay attention to half-truths and he can stay under the wire out of the trap, keep to his own cage.
After thirty-two hours of travel he finally gets to where he needs to go. Doesn't know the name of the town but recognizes the dirt in the air--too many humans and factories and houses and automobiles crowded together, not enough mountain winds twisting and scouring everything clean. Walks slowly into town, sitting down on the side of the road when darkness creeps into the edges of his vision. He thought it would be better here, at a lower altitude. He was wrong.
Almost wishes he could always be this warm, but even in his current condition knows with Hellmouth-acuity that you don't make wishes. Ever.
The clinic is easy to find after half-a-dozen enquiries. It stinks worse than it looks. Accumulated sickness mingles with the grout in the dirty floor tile, fills the holes of the stained and spongy drop ceiling, coats the plastic and faded posters hanging on the walls. Oz waits the required hours for his turn, imagining he can see the hair growing on the backs of his hands. Knows that it's a dangerous game--to picture only human hair below his knuckles, on his forearm. The rattle of bars deep inside him tell him when he's gone too far and he has to back up. It keeps him upright, conscious.
He rises slowly when he's called, not because of the bone-deep weariness he can't seem to shake, but because he momentarily doesn't remember giving them his real name.
Thermometer confirms the 104 degree fever. Cold stethoscope on his burning skin reports his drowning lungs.
He wants to take the drugs and go. Tries to push the thoughts and words through his swaddled limbs. Can't convince anyone though, even his own traitorous feet.
Dreams fill him in his thin bed, start with a thick night sky dropping down, then wrapping and cooling his skin, dark and soft with tickling pinpricks where the stars have slipped away to go dancing. The campfire escapes its ring and weaves between the pines just beyond the granite and lichen rocks. He has to circle around a bottomless seaweed-green lake to get to a child's cutout of a pink heart that rests on its point, wide and free, with black rents clawed down its right side.
Oz throws stones and dirt and water at the heart, trying to fill the holes, but to no avail. It isn't until he steps closer that he realizes that while they're gouges, they're also furrows, not to be covered over, but maybe used for growing something new.
The fire music takes him over and he goes to dance. A star puts its hands in his, and he swings it into one of the long streaks in the heart, where it settles after shifting and turning a few times.
He doesn't really notice that the star only has one eye.
#
Oz feels good enough after two days of solid bed-rest to talk the clinic workers into releasing him on his own recognizance. The antibiotics upset his stomach, turn his stool green, and his vision still darkens when he stands up after tying his shoes, but he cannot stay in this place. The winds sing to him as they bounce off the corners of the buildings. Slivers of clear blue sky peaking between fingers of clouds echo his calm. He is going back to the wilds. This time he has the start of a plan, not a treasure map, but the key to a box that has instructions on where he might find one.
He thinks he wants to look for a farm or a croft, some place where he can rest. Get well. Live with the seasons, both inside and out, instead of migrating and moving, surge and recede, all the time. Grow strong. Stronger.
Plant some stars.
#
Xander doesn't arrive at the clinic until after Oz has been gone for more than four hours, only his name left behind.
#
Oz remembers being sick, remembers the almost-wish about being warm and sweaty all the time.
Finds that even without actually saying the words, he has made it come true, at least while he's at work.
The smithy isn't always dark, with the metal-melting fire the only light. The forge itself isn't even that big--it only takes up a corner of the workshop. Oz still pictures it that way though, particularly as fall approaches and mountain winds try to bluster their way into any cracks they can find in the old wooden building. Less day, more night, and Oz finds himself turning toward any brilliance he can find, like a morning glory twisting on a string.
Oz spends hours trimming and deburing finishings when he first arrives, watching the master smith shape iron, weld metal and wheedle contracts. The bellows on the forge are automated, as is the coal chute, killing that Dickensian stereotype as well. Oz has a good eye though, measures accurately, isn't afraid when electric balls of sparks roll down his pants and stick in his shoes. The fit press and automated hammer do much of the physical labor. Still, the blacksmith is old fashioned, and has a few Internet customers who pay good money for "all handmade." He learns that Oz is much stronger than he looks when there's a problem with the leg vice and he steps in to hold a piece.
Moonrise isn't closer up in the mountains--but the thin air makes it seem that way sometimes. Oz works late at the forge, pounding iron when it becomes too much. Other nights, he marvels at the swath the Milkyway cuts across the sky when he stands, shivering, fighting, unable to sleep or escape or trust in cages.
Curses abound as the holidays approach. The master smith hates the popular curved Elvin blades that a distributor has talked him into trying. He isn't a bladesmith, but he teaches himself, and Oz, and soon learns that his apprentice has an affinity for weapons as well.
The cities and towns clustered in the valleys between the mountains hold craft shows during the holidays. Normally the smith goes alone, but this year, he brings Oz with him.
Culture shock wraps thick fingers around Oz and shakes him at odd times. The press of so many people and choices overload his senses, fill eyes and ears and nose until he's over stimulated and exhausted at the same time. Realizes how quiet the forge isn't, even without a radio, with the hissing and hammering and banging, when the traffic noise doesn't bother him. Hears music not of his own making for the first time in months: It makes his calloused and hardened hands itch. Passes phone booths every day and thinks about calling someone. Who, he doesn't know. Or even if he might have an idea, doesn't know how to reach Xander.
Spends time as the dark winter nights close in planning a blade. Learns old weaving techniques for wrapping the pommel. Envisions the stones he needs, then barters for them, in the spring.
Oz hasn't stayed in one place for more than a single season for a very, very long time. Has watched birds hatch their chicks, or make their nests, or empty them, but not the whole process, from beginning to end. It completes him, more than finishing a project.
Wild irises mingle with the long grass in the yard. They add wild onions to their stews. Spring also means human nesting time, and house finishings take up most of their trade for a while.
Nights are sometimes harder, sometimes easier, with the promise of softer winds and warmer sun in the morning. He watches the stars so often that he knows the steps of their dance, how they circle and wheel.
Summer time, and the forge seems to be going constantly. More stock for winter. More fireplace implements and knickknacks and artsy holders for magazines or wood.
Oz trades with others online for the meteorite ingots he needs to melt for his blade. It's to be handmade, hammered out on the weighted anvil. He adds a piece of drop-metal to the end of the pommel, tear-shaped with a sharp point, hardened edges.
The master smith teases Oz about the finished product. How it's too long for someone his height.
Oz never said he made it for himself.
Fall and the season is slow. There is time for polishing and braiding the pommel and collaborating with a leather worker for the sheath.
Cold creeps in without warning, the winds dropping in temperature without changing intensity or frequency. Water has to be broken if left outside. The path from the farmhouse to the smithy stays clear of snow as the grasses brown and grow brittle. Skies remain that impossible blue, with only a few clouds dangling on the bones of the trees.
Craft fairs are boring. Oz brings his guitar this time, busks between customers.
Finally, the scent that he's been waiting for arrives. The one he must follow. He takes the blade, fills his backpack. Leaves his guitar.
Different hotel, different time--earlier in the evening--when Oz runs the trail to the ground.
Same Xander. Dressed this time when he answers the door, shirt as blue as mid-morning sky, eye properly concealed. Same non-formal invite into the room before Xander pulls Oz into a hug. Long. Warm. Encasing.
"Missed you."
Oz stiffens, pulls back, unsure how to respond. He's no longer the earth in a drought, needing rain.
"At the clinic. Last year. When you were sick."
"Ah." Understanding. No disappointment. No relief. Or maybe a combination of both.
"Wait, how did you know I was there?"
Xander grins. "Watchers. You know. They watch. Particularly hospitals and clinics with all the potential slayers around."
"Ah." There doesn't seem to be anything else to say. Did Xander set them watching? Or did they do that on their own?
"You hungry?" Xander asks.
"Always," Oz replies, the litany comforting and repetitive, sliding easily along old grooves.
Their late night dinner is more appetizers and desserts, spiked coffees and straight port. Oz listens to Xander's travels, his rambling days oddly synchronous with his babble now. Oz's tales are of listening to the trees talk at sunrise, watching tiny pink blossoms clutch wind-scoured rock, measuring how iron sings when quenched after heating.
Back at the hotel, Oz presents Xander with the blade. The edge is sharp, the runnels practical, cut deep. The smith may have laughed, but Oz knows the blade will see use.
Two stones are wrapped into the pommel, jade and obsidian--like a single eye from each of them, green and black. They don't have any power. The "witches" who live near the smithy are new-age, not real, and Oz would never insult her by having them bless anything for him.
Oz still hopes that the blade will keep Xander safe, be an extra eye when he needs one.
A thank-you kiss turns into three, a dozen, more. Oz traces the new scars on Xander's torso, mainly on his blind side. Doesn't say anything. Xander doesn't speak of Oz's health, skin still pale but thicker, covering bones better. Joy bubbles up in them simultaneously, not as a chaser. Rolling and tumbling like rocks in a wave they twist and wrestle, up and down, and kiss and laugh and lick and tickle and nibble.
There's a pause, a stillness in the sea, after clothes are gone and erections grasped and both are panting, when Oz is on his back and Xander is leaning on his side next to him, and the question hangs between them like Xander's hand. And Oz finds that though he's, well, more grounded, he's still no field to be plowed and pushes Xander who falls on his back lightly and open, easy and free. Oz follows him over and kisses him hard, tongue questing for dominance, forgiveness, friendship, lust. Then he's seeking more heat, more tightness, more comfort and is riding again in that place where the cold night stars can't find him and the sparks behind his eyes flash with warmth and cyclone winds spin the bed around and laughter changes to shouting as they both come out of the heavens and back down to earth.
Lazy slow kisses and now Oz strips Xander all the way, removes the patch and stares into the hole that pebbles and bars and steel won't fill and Xander lets him look and the abyss doesn't stare back.
Oz has no words. Neither does Xander.
After silent minutes Xander pulls Oz into the shower, where they worship skin and hot water and the laughter comes back with soapy tickling and hugs and sighs. They pile together on the bed as usual, no tears between them, just warmth and skin and quilted sleep that's worn and patched in places, unfinished edges and iron cages and endless maps with untranslatable directions to treasure in others.
In the morning, Oz remains.
Xander and the blade are gone.