Title: Party 3: Connections (1/?)

Author: Ivy Gort Ivygort@hotmail.com

Rating: PG. Buffy/Oz

Note: This story takes off of my story Party where Devon slips Buffy some acid in her drink.

Spoilers: Beer Bad

FeedBack: Please! Tell me what you liked and what you think needs work.

Disclaimer: Joss owns everything in the world of Buffyness, I am just playing with the characters and I promise to return them.

The Party 3: Connections

Part One


"A connection, huh?" The slayer said yawning. 'Yes, a connection." The wolf answered thinking sleepy thoughts at her. And he was rewarded when she drifted peacefully off to sleep-a sleep he soon joined her in.

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Oz was walking through a cavern; he could feel the cold dampness of the air on his face. The stench of rotting corpses hung thickly around him as he carefully made his way deeper. Everyone of his senses hyper aware, hyper alert fully attuned to the intensity of the hunt. This was what he was made for, it created a singing in his cells driving him--calling him-he couldn’t deny it, he had to answer. He wanted to answer the calling; it was fun, it was intoxicating-he was going to die.

He tried to push back the despair the thought caused, but he couldn’t, so he lost his focus for just a moment and in that moment it spoke.

“Welcome to my home.” The voice said. A pleasant voice. Oz felt the polished wood of the crossbow in his hands and was comforted by it.

“Thanks for having me.” A quick reply and smart retort, all the while trying to cover the terror the voice had invoked. Reaching for the strength of will to keep his head, to look for away, anyway to defeat the Master so that his friends could live, his death not be in vain.

The fight was quick, the crossbow useless, the Master used his fear of failure against him-he felt the Master slowly reaching into his mind stopping him from fleeing. He couldn’t move, 'oh, god please', he begged silently as panic gripped him; opening his mind further to the Master’s total dominance. He could now feel the Master behind him, his mental touch as complete of a rape as if he had done it physically and all Oz could do was stand there….

“You’re the one, you’re the one that sets me free,” the Vampire gloated as he gently removed Oz’s leather jacket his hands caressing Oz’s bare shoulders, sending a dark trill down his spine. Then the Vampire’s fangs were in his neck and thrall of the Master’s feeding overcame him-he blacked out in ecstatic pleasure-only to awaken to the feel of cold water closing over his face.

Oz woke suddenly and rolled away from the slayer faster than he thought possible. The werewolf was on his feet and out the door of the cage as the slayer woke. She jerked up, and swung blindly at the movement--still caught in the aftermath of the nightmare.

“Not again, I killed you!” She shouted, trying to hit something only she could see. The chain wrapped around her wrist clinking at each swing. Oz stood on the outside of the cage shaking with the emotion of the nightmare and the rush of his near escape. Buffy was tiring, calming down, again. Someone touched Oz’s shoulder and he, like the slayer, swung blindly at the person behind him. Only to have his arm grabbed and twisted behind his back as he was pushed face first into the cage bars. His assailant surprised him, still reeling as he was from the dream.

"May I release you?" A curt British voice asked in his ear. Oz nodded. Buffy's head had snapped around at the sound of Giles' voice and Oz knew it was safe to go back into the cage. Giles released him. But as Oz began to open the door Giles' put a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Let's give her a few more minutes shall we?"

"Yes, Oz give me a few minutes." The slayer said, sitting down on the blanket and pulling part of it up into her arms, quickly hiding the chain from Giles' view. Oz knew Giles' saw the chain from her earlier flare-up so he wasn't surprised when Giles' nodded to him to go outside.

The sun was high in the sky it was later than Oz thought it must be pushing towards noon. Giles stepped out the basement doorway behind him. The young werewolf turned to Giles searching his face as the watcher asked, "what happened? Willow called and said Buffy never returned from the party? She told me you were playing at it, so I stopped by to check to see if you had seen her and I find her chained?"

"Yeah," the werewolf was uncomfortable explaining the situation to Giles. Oz turned his back to Giles and away from those knowing green eyes. Giles' eyes looked so much like Buffy's that he could be her real father instead of the father of her heart. "Ah, someone…" Oz paused. "Devon spiked her drink with acid."

"The fool." OZ heard the anger in the Watcher's voice.

"Buffy was afraid she would freak so I brought her here." The werewolf continued, "I didn't think to call you. I'm sorry." Oz turned back to the watcher expecting to find condemnation on his face; instead he saw what he thought of as Giles' thinking expression.

"When was she drugged." Giles' asked softy.

"I don't know I guess about one or so, why?" The werewolf asked confused.

"Back in my Ripper days the trips would last a few hours at most, so it should be safe to release her." Giles explained. Then grabbed Oz's arm in a bruising hold pulling his sleeve up to look closely at it. The wolf saw a bloodstain, a rather large bloodstain. It took a moment to register and then Oz remembered.

"Buffy kind of freaked on the way over in the van." Giles' head snapped up. "I think she might have broken something in her hand, but I couldn't tell last night." Oz rushed to finished.

Giles' dropped his arm, "go release her and bring her up here." The watcher pulled out his car keys; "I'll take her to the hospital. With her accelerated healing capacity it could already be too late. If she indeed broke something, then it may require surgery to fix." Giles said turning to walk away from Oz. Oz could only shake his head, the stress from last night and the realization that Buffy could feel his emotions -- then the dream--everything was just too much for him; he was overloaded.

He turned walk back downstairs, trying to make sense of his emotions but when he got to the cage he found Buffy asleep. Curled up in the blanket on her side facing Oz, her face angelic in repose. Oz felt a turning in his stomach and a burning in his heart that he hadn't felt since he first saw Willow. He could not believe how truly beautiful Buffy was; even her swollen and bloody hand didn't mar her absolute perfection. She stirred, as if she still felt him, and opened her eyes slowly.

"Oz," she yawned. "Where did you and Giles go?" She stretched and stood up with true feline grace. "I'm pretty sure the drug has worn off." She held her chained wrist up for Oz to see. "Ah, the key would be nice. I sort of have to go to the bathroom." Oz snapped out of the stupor that Buffy's incredible beauty had caused.

"Oh, yeah," Oz said walking over to the bookcase placed next to the side of the cage. He watched as Buffy stretched again only this time it ended with hiss of pain as her injured hand brushed against the brick wall behind her. She seems surprised, and studied her hand as if it was new part.

"Well I really think I broke it." Buffy said resigned. "Where did Giles go? I think I need to have this look that before it heals weird, if it hasn't already." Oz pick the key up off of the shelf and walked back to the cage door, he hadn't locked it; didn't seem necessary last night and this morning it definitely wasn't needed. He walked into the cage and took Buffy's hand intending to unlock the cuff holding the chain -- but when they touched it was almost as if an electrical current shot through them. They both took a step back surprise.

"What was that," Buffy exclaimed. And she tentatively reached her hand forward to touch Oz again on his shoulder and again the current ran through them, though less intense. Oz discovered that after the initial shock of touching if they stayed in contact there were no other weird electrical type shocks, though he did continue to feel strange. He quickly released her, and turned to let Buffy walk out of the cage.

"Giles is waiting for you in the car. He thought you might need to go to the hospital." Buffy nodded to Oz and slowly made her way to the stairs. Before she started up to the street she turned, "thank you Oz." She sighed, " thank you for keeping me from hurting anyone." She looked down and away; "I have too many things to deal with, if I had hurt someone…." She didn't finish but instead she gave him her biggest smile and quickly fled up the stairs and out the door.

Oz could only shake his head as the werewolf in him demanded that he follow her. But the boy, the hurt boy, the young man still recovering from the Veruca werewolf episode, could only let her go. He reached down and picked up the blanket that they had shared gathering a close to his face and with his Wolf sense of smell took in the scent that was uniquely Buffy.

***************

In a deserted warehouse on the outskirts of Sunnydale the young man walked up to the vampire. The young man had a cast on his wrist and had deep purple bruises in a ring around his throat.

"You failed" the vampire stated calmly. "You were supposed to bring us the slayer, you said you could bring us the slayer. Now the ritual will have to be delayed until we capture the her." The vampire stood and walked over to the now terrified young musician. "How many of my followers must I now sacrifice to catch the little girl? Since you have so thoroughly disappointed me."

"I'm sorry, so sorry." Devon said falling to his knees before the vampire. "Please just give me one more chance I know I can do it." The vampire reached down and wrapped his hand around Devon's already bruised throat lifting him into the air. The Vamps grotesque face in Devon's -- gagging the young boy with his breath. The vampire set Devon back onto his feet, then pointed at the cage suspended in air fifty feet away.

"I know you will succeed, Devon, because if you do not she dies. After we have fun, and make her one of us. Then the first thing she will eat will be you." Devon looked over at his sister, the horror of her captivity clearly written on her face. "Enough of this" the vampire said. "You will take five of my best and bring the slayer to me tonight. You will succeed or you will not see tomorrow." With that the vampire waived his hand the five of his minions walked up to Devon and escorted him to the tunnel entrance below the warehouse.

*******************

The irritating ring of the phone woke Oz from a dreamless sleep. It took at least three rings for him to realize it was the phone and then another two to answer it.

"Hello?" He asked, noticing the clock by his bed said five p.m.-almost sundown.

" Oz?" a cultured British voice asked. "I thought you would like to be informed of Buffy's condition."

Oz used his palm to wipe his eyes, trying to wake-up. "Ah, yeah, I would Giles. I was thinking of going over to the dorm in a little while."

"The news is quite good actually," Giles answered. Oz could hear the relief in his voice. "Buffy broke two bones, but they were not displaced so no surgery was required. And the doctor was quite amazed at her rapid healing."

Oz breathed a huge sigh of relief. He was quite concerned about the slayer's hand. "That's great Giles, so she's back at the dorm?"

"Yes, I dropped her off there a few hours ago. But, the doctor thinks she's going to be asleep for quite while." Oz felt the amusement in Giles' pause. "I explained to the doctor how non-compliant Buffy tends to be with injuries, so I am afraid the doctor made sure my slayer will be asleep for several more hours." Oz was secretly pleased to hear that Buffy would not be patrolling tonight with a broken hand. And although he heard amusement in Giles' voice, he also heard pride that Buffy would put the safety of others before her own comfort. Then Oz remembered the acid.

"What about the LSD, Giles?"

"The doctor did blood work before he gave her the injection. The drug was completely out of her system." The watcher answered.

Relieved the werewolf stated, " so there is going to be a slayer waking up in a few hours starving to death." The slayer's huge appetite was a running joke among the Scooby Gang.

Over the phone Oz could hear Giles chuckling, "I believe there is a pizza parlor a few blocks from your apartment that tends to overload its pizzas with cheese." Oz caught the strong hint, remembering Buffy's propensity for eating any and all foods with cheese.

"You got it Giles, werewolf pizza delivery service at your slayer's pleasure." Oz quickly finished the conversation with Giles and an hour later he found himself outside of room 214 of Stevensons Hall. But before he could knock the door quietly opened and Willow stepped out placing her finger over her lips in a sshhing motion.

Oz couldn't stop smile forming on his lips. But, for the first time since their terrible breakup, he didn't feel pain when he saw Willow. He felt happiness that Willow had found someone in Riley.

"She's still asleep," Willow said after the door was securely closed. Then indicating the pizza boxes and the bag with two, two-liter cokes. "But I'm hungry too so why don't we go down to the lounge for little while. I've never known Buffy to sleep for more than four hours so she should be awake in a little while." Willow babbled as she led the way down the stairs and to a quiet section of the student lounge. Oz still loved it how she would babble -- actually Oz still loved her, period. Only his feelings had changed, he didn't remember when his feelings changed, but to his relief they had.

"Before she fell asleep Buffy told me the you took care of her last night?" Willow said sitting down.

"Yeah, I know what it's like to be worried that you are going to hurt someone." Oz put the extra, extra, cheese pizza under the table and opened Willow's extra pepperoni pizza for her. Oz could feel Willow eyes on him and could understand her scrutiny because Buffy was her best friend -- really the sister she never had -- and he had only been her lover.

"You're blushing behind your ears," Willow commented. Then said out of the blue surprising the young Wolf "You hurt her and I will come after you."

Oz smile up at Willow, " I understand." The tension broke, then, and Willow and Oz started talking like the friends they were before they were lovers. Finally, after about an hour they decided it was time to go back to the room and wake up Buffy.

Only when Willow opened the door they were met with a cold wind blowing through the window, through a broken window and Buffy was nowhere to be seen.

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