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Family Waking up is a brief, passionate series of revelations. Lucidity, need, and a rage so large that it should be terrifying. It isn't. It is, in fact, the most beautiful thing Oz has ever seen... until he opens his eyes to find Giles looking down on him, smiling that perfect mathematical curve of a smile, tracing its opposite number on Oz's own mouth. Sire. Giles. Giles who chose him. Oz closes his eyes again, and sucks gently and steadily on Giles' finger.
The first slap follows on the heels of Oz's first "no." No, he would not leave off his slow, careful destruction of Tara's body, not before he had tasted her heart, not before he had howled through the gore streaked tube of her esophagus. Not before he had read the auspices in the loop and knot of her entrails. Tara is beautiful, knowable in this state. He lives, while she does not. Doesn't he deserve to be able to do what he wishes? The first slap is followed by many others, as well as being tossed over the edge of the loft to land on the somehow grasping surface of a grimoire, snapping and snarling, but offering his belly just the same. The wolf and the demon agree on the nature of his relationship to Giles. On his place. The part of Oz that had lived long before either power entered his life is ruefully amused and enraged and desperately horny. Giles grasps Oz's naked cock, squeezes just enough to make Oz whine, once. Short and high. And then he is left, the orders unspoken but clear -- clean up his mess, dispose of the body. Deduction: Buffy and the rest know nothing about Tara's death or Giles'... paradigm shift.
Oz's first kill is a nameless older man who happened to be walking near to his old home. There had been no question that he would look to Giles for permission before attacking. With consent his hunger has purpose. With command, the kill is more true. He tears the man apart, and leaves the eyeless head on his mother's porch. Pisses all over the stairs, to the sound of Giles' low chuckle. Later, in the curiously bland shadow of a hedge, Giles feeds from him with a slow sort of viciousness that makes his knees weak, makes his head pound at the suddenly circling skies. Afterward he needs to feed again, and Giles lets him have his head, sniffing for trails of... something. It's a little like standing in front of a stuffed refrigerator, wanting everything just enough to be able to settle on nothing. Like those days when he'd wanted to just play every CD he had at the same time, near scratching at the walls in the need for music. Music. Does the soul need art? Will he still need art? In the end, a touch of satisfaction from a Greek sailor at the docks who'd smiled at him. On top of him in a dank alley smelling of old fish, desperately humping at his crotch while bleeding him dry. While the sailor moans and prays, staring only at Giles. Oz understands it. Giles feeds from him again, gently this time, and only a short drink. Oz wants to whine. Wants to be -- in perfect pornographic tradition -- shown his place, in the way he had once talked about women with Devon, alone together in Oz's room and jerking off with desperate embarrassment.
Home again at dawn, a careless comment and Oz now knows that the Scoobies all believe Giles to be on a two week long buying trip for his magic shop. They keep the shades closed, they light candles. Oz both wonders at and chafes at the circumspection. There is a Slayer out there. Buffy. He wants to have gotten to know her better, because at the moment he doesn't feel like he can predict her actions. His demon has been killed by a Slayer once before, and so Oz fears and hates in equal measure. The wolf can't quite see beyond her being hardly worth a meal. There is an interesting amount of contempt between wolf and demon. Self and self, more fragmented than before, yet still so much more powerful and sure. Oz wonders if there are chants for this, runes to carve on his flesh. What magic to use to make it permanent. Could he be man and vampire and wolf? Is he now? Would his soul return, and allow him to weep at this touch? Giles behind him, now beside. The blindfold is next to meaningless with Oz's senses. Giles is daubing him with something cool and slick. It feels no more special than cheap lubrication, save in brief flashes of... something. Oz can't quite define it. It's a smell with color, a loud touch. It's something between an acid trip and a film director showing off. Oz is on his knees, facing Giles' headboard, cuffed to either post. His knees are spread, his body aches for sleep and completion. His mind will not, will not stop and the flashes are growing more frequent, more real until Oz is barely more than straddling the wall between his real and another's. By the last tracing Oz is nowhere and everywhere at once, splintering, crumbling, tumbling into what could be a singularity of meaning. Thought repeating countless times, through countless selves and Oz wonders if this is the eternity Giles has chosen for him. And settles into it. The breach comes suddenly, dwarfing a universe of self that had seemed absolutely endless, shuddering Oz back to himself one shocking break of sanity at a time. Back and back until the world coalesces into the hard shoulder under his head, the teeth in his throat, the claws at his hips, the cock in ass. Blood bubbling from his mouth as he chews his own lip helplessly. Sense blind to everything but Giles. Fucked by a God.
The second time he wakes it's as a terrified starveling. Giles has left him drained, and Oz remembers everything. Just thinking about it narrows his vision, leaves him to shake. He hadn't noticed any rebellion within him before, but is now absolutely sure that it's utterly gone. Giles is practical, and has seen child turn against Sire. Oz knows this will not happen. Other vampires coming, and when the door opens it's Drusilla and Spike. Spike smirks and leers at Giles, who returns the amused lust in kind, but Drusilla stares straight at him. Into him. "Little puppy in the manger..." And she barks at him, smiling. Raising his hackles and making him wish for a world without sorcery. Drusilla sways just below the loft, trails her fingers over the book that took Tara's blood, laughs when they begin to smoke. "Good witches go straight to heaven, puppy, and choke and choke on cakes and sweets," she assures him. The wolf awakes, shocks a barking growl out of him and he can feel his bones try to crack, his skin try to stretch, but it won't. Willow. His now, his, rival bested in battle, even if not by him, and Willow is his. Willow is out there, red and pale and bright. Willow has no mate, Willow needs him, and the howl rips free even if nothing else does and now he can feel it. All of their eyes on him. "Did you have to turn the bloody werewolf, Rupert?" "Well, he was housebroken. Did Dru...?" "Princess?" "Roo roo roo, oh, Spike, listen to how the puppy sings!" "Yes, love, it's beautiful, but did you... do anything?" "Puppy misses his mistressss..." And Dru whirls, dipping low to let the feathered edge of her coat hiss across the floor and closing her eyes. "Right. Just between you and me, Rupes, a man can get used to sanity. Come on down... woss his name again?" "Oz." "Oz, right. Come down, Oz. Come on, boy, Spikey's got nummies for you..." One pounce to the rail, a second and he's rolling with Spike, game face on and weirdly devoid of fur. He hadn't noticed last night. Spike has a massive, looping scar from eye to well into his scalp. The eye smells oddly... fresh. Oz snaps at it and earns a punch in the jaw that stuns him for just long enough that Spike can wriggle out from under. One kick, then another, then Giles' voice. "That will be quite enough, Spike." "Is that right?" Oz takes the opportunity to get up, back away, look to Giles. Who is smiling. His smile, knowing and cold. "Yes, it is." "You may be his sire, Rupert, but you're my boy." Closing the space between them. "That's not the way it's going to be, Spike." And Spike's answering smile is sunny, somehow calling Drusilla back from wherever she was. She stands behind Oz now, spidery-pale hands on his shoulders, cheek brushing his. "Watch," she says, and Spike closes the last inch between himself and Giles. "'ere, you wanna do this, then?" Giles shows his teeth, carefully removes his jacket, and leans in close enough to kiss. "Yes." And immediately tears into Spike's face with his teeth. Spike roars, rears back. Throws a punch Giles dodges, another that he doesn't and Oz needs to has to -- "Only bad puppies interfere," and Drusilla's claws slip much too far into the muscle of his shoulders and Spike's kick takes a chunk out of the mantle and Giles buries a dagger in Spike's side and misses with another. Sudden, odd interstice where Giles and Spike square off neatly, trading and dodging punches like something out of a silent film on boxing before Spike lands a blow that sends Giles over the couch. Drusilla drags him backward quickly, giggling and tugging at his hair with her teeth and rubbing her breasts against his back and Spike leaps over the couch, but Giles catches him in the stomach with both feet and manages to scramble up and they're circling. Eyeing each other and grinning. Giles' eyes aren't cold anymore -- wild and glittering and... joyful. Oz struggles helplessly until Dru suddenly lifts him, squeezes him to her chest and drinks and there's not enough left and his veins are screaming and his demon is weeping and snarling and the sounds of the fight follow him into blackness.
The third time he wakes it's slow. Easy, familiar and warm, with a slight hint of the ominous beneath. He burrows into the softness beside him, breathes deep of sweetness. Anise, cinnamon lip gloss, and... honey. Oz opens his eyes to a sleeping Willow, bleeding sluggishly from a blow to the head. Her brow is furrowed and he smooths it, wonderingly. "She's really become quite powerful in your absence, Oz. With Tara's help her magic was improving daily." Giles' voice from downstairs and Oz sits up. He's sitting on his large, distinctly British desk chair, sipping tea. Legs crossed. Profoundly bruised and battered. His cheek is misshapen. Drusilla becomes, entering his perception with a sickening abruptness. She's been at the foot of the bed all along, tearing Willow's skirt into long, thin strips. Spike is on the couch, flipping through the channels. He's nowhere near as bruised, though his scent is strangely... singed. It is day outside, and his family surrounds him with quiet surety. Oz's hunger is a part of him now, Willow is there. Oz stares down into the living room again, and finds himself the focus of Giles' smile. |
