Devon And The Pompatus Of Love
It's a weird, wired winter, Oz thought. Every day was just weirder and weirder. They were supposed to have a Dingoes practice, but the guys were all scattered. Oz can't find Devon anywhere, so he went home.
Almost as soon as Oz shrugged his backpack off, he saw the blinking light of his parents' answering machine. The usual---the demonstrations in Toronto were rad, they'd put more money in his checking account and bye. Then, there was Devon.
"Hey, dude, I'm gonna go out and see if your vampire friend wants to smoke some weed. Play some cds, update his music. Can't believe he hasn't listened to anything else but Manilow since 1960. Hang out. Come with?"
Holy shit. Devon was going to hang with Angel?
Could be very interesting.
Oz picked up his van keys, and went back outside into the late afternoon sunlight, shaking his head in admiration at the very Devonness of wanting to hang out with a vampire, just because his lack of pop music culture bugged him.
When Oz pushed open the mansion door, he could hear Devon in Explainer Mode:
"---I know that Steve Miller is an oldy, but dude. Excellent tokin' music, when you feel like it. And, dude! Black panties and an angel's face? Cool lyrics. No offense, man."
"None taken," Angel replied, sounding a little dazed.
Or possibly already stoned, Oz decided, rounding the corner into the great room and seeing Devon sprawled on the sofa, bright-pink-socked feet on the armrest, his miniature boom box playing. He had a fattie in his hand, but it was unlit and he was waving it for emphasis. "Dude," he said to Oz. "About time."
Angel was sitting on the hearth, his back to the fire, bare feet on a cotton towel. His hair was sticking up even more spikily than usual, so Oz thought that Devon must have interrupted him post-shower and pre-gel. He lifted his eyes to Oz, palpably relieved.
The air only faintly smelled of weed, so they hadn't really gotten to the smoking.
Maybe it wasn't that Angel was unfriendly or solitary---maybe no one had just never bothered to show up at his place with music and marijuana before. Not lately.
Oz took off his jacket. "We were supposed to have band practice," he said mildly. "Hey, Angel."
"Hey, Oz," Angel said. His expression was bemused. Funny that he hadn't thrown Devon out---but then, Devon could be oblivious. It was hard to resist him; Oz was pleased that even the undead couldn't follow the linear non-linear Devonness.
He sat down on the hearth next to Angel, and pulled his Zippo out of his pocket.
"Some people call me the space cowboy. / Yeah! Some call me the gangster of love. / Some people call me Maurice, / Cause I speak of the Pompatus of love."
"That's from a fifties song," Angel said carefully. He had apparently remembered his toking lesson, because he looked all sleepy-eyed and baked.
Oz blinked owlishly up at him. He moved his head from its resting place on Devon's thigh. "The Joker? It's 1973."
Devon was eating Oz's snack bar, and dropping granola flakes in Oz' hair. "Yeah, but the dead dude is right. There was this thing about how the lyrics are taken from a couple of fifties groups."
"Really love your peaches/Wanna shake your tree," sang the CD player.
"The Clovers," Angel said, stretching his arm out and handing Oz the doobie. He sounded as authoritative as he did when he name-checked demons. "The pompatus of love is from a Medallions song."
"Don't bring up the dead stuff, man," Oz said lazily. He inhaled deeply, feeling the good smoke coat his sinuses and palate and tongue.
"The Unchained Melody guys?" Devon asked intelligently.
"No, the Medallions. You're thinking of the Swinging Medallions," Angel said. He got up, not stumbling any more than was reasonable, and went off to the side. When he came back, he had a mug...of blood, Oz could smell.
Seemed like even vampires got the munchies.
Oz sat up, stretching, and caught a smirk on Devon's face. "Have you eaten all my Power Bars?" Oz asked.
"Nah, there's a couple more." Devon nipped the doobie from Oz's fingers and took a long toke. Then he leaned forward, and Oz raised his chin, and Devon shotgunned the smoke into Oz's mouth.
When Oz came back to himself, Devon was talking. "The pompatus of love---it's the love stuff you say to someone when you're trying to get some, man."
"Can't be," Angel argued. "Like the properties of love. The stuff of love."
"What I said."
"No, the, the intangibles of love," Angel said.
Devon handed the doobie to Oz, and nodded at Angel. Oz took it, and crawled over to the hearth. He sat down, one hand on Angel's corduroy knee, and took a long toke, before leaning over and fitting his mouth onto Angel's.
Angel's mouth was chilly and tasted of blood, but Oz didn't mind blood. Actually, it tasted like smoke, and Oz's tongue inched into Angel's mouth, trying to define the tastes. His hands were on Angel's knees, and Angel's hands on his shoulders, and it seemed that weed affected vampires the same way it affected regular guys, too.
"C'mere," Oz breathed, and felt Devon taking the doob from his hand, felt Angel tilt over to him just as if he wasn't man-handling an ageless vampire, felt Devon's hands on his waist and they were in some kind of tangle of hands and mouths, Angel between the two guys.
"Jesus, it's warm," Angel sighed, and stretched his legs out like a cat, leaning into Devon behind him, and pulling Oz astride him. Devon's long arms came around Angel's, and he was stroking Oz's arms as Oz kissed Angel.
Devon's wrist watch beeped. Which startled Oz, because he didn't know that Devon had a wrist watch, much less knew how to set the alarm.
Devon disentangled himself, leaving Angel and Oz still entwined and blinking up at him from the floor. "Got a date," Devon explained. "With twins. Should be intense." He pulled on his boots. "Hey, can I take your van? It's dark, and you keep telling me not to wander around in the---"
Angel bent his head to explore Oz's throat with tongue and teeth, and Oz croaked, "Sure, dude, keys're right there." And didn't even hear Devon leave, chuckling like Santa Claus, until his memory replayed it much later.
Because vampires didn't have to breathe, but this one was, breathing hard and his breath was blowing over the wet on Oz's neck, and Jesus, Oz was hard, and Angel's huge hand was snaking down into Oz's jeans. Oz pulled them both back on the floor, so he could have access, and Angel's back arched when he felt Oz's hand.
Angel's eyes were almost all black. "What's your name?" he asked suddenly.
Oz's hand stilled in unzipping Angel's corduroys. "Oz, dude," he said carefully.
Angel gave him an unsmiling stare.
"Daniel," Oz said reluctantly. "What's yours? Know it's not Angel, or Angelus."
Angel blinked, and Oz thought he wasn't going to answer. "Liam," he said, finally.
"Oh," Oz said, and then, "oh, " because Angel had pulled him on top of him, off the chilly floor, and was kissing him, hard, not like the playful stoner kisses they'd all been exchanging, but real tongue-fucking with the harshness of teeth and the scrape of an unshaven chin. And Oz footnoted the thought of vampires shaving and why and how for another time, because the kissing was just as tight and hot as the feeling in his balls, in his vertebrae, in his scalp and fingernails. Hot and bright as blood, and he was with someone he couldn't hurt, who wouldn't get hurt even if Oz turned into the wolf right then.
Thought he could do it, too, but it was all a hot warm haze. They had their hands on each others' hips and waists and Oz purposely ground down hard. He bent his head to Angel's neck and wanted to bite him, but contented himself with just closing his teeth, gently, on the meaty join of Angel's neck and shoulder. Angel exhaled, and shoved a hand back into Oz's jeans, unsnapping and unzipping until he got his hand wrapped around Oz's cock, pulling hard.
Oz pushed hard into Angel's hand, his own hands shoving down Angel's trousers and Angel was going to say it, going to say it, and Oz said, breathlessly, "Going to come....Liam" and Angel's eyes were huge and stoned and he groaned and they were both coming.
They lay there for a while, until the log fell apart in the fireplace with a pop and a shower of sparks. Oz sat up and pulled the bath towel over and began wiping them both off with shaking hands.
Angel lay like a felled tree on the stone floor, his face open and soft. He swallowed and said, "So, is this what Devon means when he says he wants to party?"
Oz grinned. "Pretty much."
Angel rubbed his face. "Good to know."
Later, much later, when they were dressed and walking to the Bronze in the chilly darkness, Oz heard Angel humming.
"Some people call me the space cowboy. / Yeah! Some call me the gangster of love. / Some people call me Maurice, / Cause I speak of the Pompatus of love."