Warm, and caring, and maybe just a little unsure of himself. Human, like everyone else.
Oz was too weak to refuse the offer. He didn’t want Seth to feel as though he needed to baby him, but right now, he wanted to be taken care of.
“Unless there’s stuff you need to do? It’s okay if you have to go. I’ll forgive you this one time.”
“No,” Oz said, looking down at where Seth’s hands were resting on the front of his shirt. “There’s nothing useful I can do until Monday morning, anyway. You’ve got me for the weekend.”
“Good.” Seth reached up, opening the first button of Oz’s shirt with nimble fingers and immediately moving to the next, quick and efficient. “You should sit,” he added when he was halfway through, tugging Oz’s shirt out of where he had it tucked into his jeans.
Oz obeyed, sitting heavily on the end of the bed so that the mattress bounced under him. He watched Seth kneel in front of him as he finished with his shirt, starting on his boots instead.
“Why are you doing this?” Oz asked, unsure what he’d done to earn this amount of affection from a man who clearly didn’t give it out for nothing.
“You made me breakfast.” Seth looked up at him. “And you don’t make me feel cheap or easy. Or taken for granted. I think you’re the only person in my life who believes I have feelings.”
“Of course you have feelings,” Oz said, although he understood what Seth was getting at. He was starting to get Seth. See all the invisible scars he was covered in.
None of them changed his mind about him. If it wasn’t a terrible idea, Oz could see himself falling in love with Seth. Maybe he already was.
Hell, maybe he already had.
“Lust and boredom, mostly.” Seth smiled wryly.
Oz could finally see that for the joke it was. A lot of Seth’s jokes were at his own expense, but he really didn’t mean them. He was repeating what he thought other people saw.
Other people might have thought that. But Seth had remembered the first conversation they had, and he was doing his best to ease the sting of losing a friend right now. Oz knew there was a lot more to him than that.
“Nah. You’re way more complicated than that.”
“Are you saying I have hidden depths?” Seth looked up, unbuckling Oz’s belt.
“You’d need to if you can get that dildo inside you.” Oz managed to grin, thinking back to their first encounter.
He’d known there was something about Seth back then, too. He was just still working out exactly what that was.
Seth burst into laughter, grinning up at Oz. “I thought you might’ve forgotten about that.”
“I bet you wish you brought it now, huh? Since I’m gonna be useless to you.”
“If I’ve gone without for almost two whole weeks, I can last another day.”
“You… there hasn’t been…?”
Seth shook his head, standing. “I know we’re not… dating, or anything, but it didn’t feel right to go out and fuck someone else.”
“Didn’t feel right to me, either.”
Oz wasn’t exactly sure what to do with that information, but he knew it meant something.
Seth paused for just a moment too long before he spoke up again. “Do you have pajamas?”
“I usually sleep naked.” Oz shrugged. “Figured you wouldn’t mind.”
“I really don’t mind,” Seth said. “It’s too hot for clothes, anyway.”
“Put the AC on like a normal person,” Oz responded. “Unless you don’t know how to use one, since you’re practically from Canada.”
“Firstly, I do know how to use one,” Seth said, grabbing the remote from the wall holder and throwing it over to Oz.
