Title: Truly There (1/1)
Author: Queena
E-mail: thessulah@aol.com
Rating: R for gore
Summary: After leaving Buffy, Oz reunites with his friends.
Disclaimer: Joss owns the characters, I am merely borrowing them. No infringement intended.
Author’s Note: I don’t know why, but for some reason I thought that “To Say I Missed You” needed a sequel. I was probably wrong, but oh well, it’s already written. To late to protest.
Dedication: To Matthew Lillard and the incredibly large vein on his forehead.
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The taxi pulled to a grinding halt in front of a small, rundown house, on the bad side of Sunnydale. Coincidentally, the bad side of town was only three blocks away from the good side, but still, it was bad. This was where all of the poor people, welfare charges and college students lived.

This house, was where Mike lived and Oz knew that Devon would be here. Of course. Because, you see, Mike’s house was the “party house”. Not that there weren’t parties thrown in Devon’s domain, but they just weren’t what you would call raging parties. Devon’s parties usually followed Mike’s parties directly. Devon would go to Mike’s, drink his beer, pick up the hottest chicks at his party, then he and a few select friends would steal a case of Mike’s beer and adjourn to Devon’s house, three blocks away on the good side of town, and have quiet private parties, that some like to refer to as orgies. Oz had always been invited to these parties, but he was the one guy there who didn’t spend his time trying to taste every appendage on his date’s body, if he actually *had* a date. He was the background guy that his friends would always come to and have a good chat with while they were smoking their after-fuck cigarettes, leaving their dates either trying to reclaim their dignity or passed out on the floor, whichever happened first.

It had been a long time and Oz was suddenly surprised to find that he missed being the background guy. He missed his perverse band friends and he felt like he was about to reclaim a missing body part, like his torso maybe.

Oz dug into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. It was the money that he had managed to save over the last year and ten months, only a little over two thousand dollars, but it was a large amount of money for a guy like him to carry in his pocket. Unfortunately, Oz had never understood the purpose of banks and had just hoarded his money in an old sock in the back of his underwear drawer. Which would explain why the tens and twenties were crumpled into tight little balls.

Picking quickly through the wad, he smoothed out the rather large cab fare. He’d gone straight to Buffy’s from the airport, leaving the meter running the entire time he had been talking to her. Needless to say, he had managed to accumulate a rather large fare. It didn’t matter though, now that he was home he wouldn’t need the money. So, he paid the man, giving him ten as a tip, because he had always believed in being a large tipper. Then he opened the door and stepped onto the silver pavement of the street, dragging his large duffel bag out with him.

“Thanks, man!” the cab driver hollered after him. “You have a good night!”

Oz only nodded his good-bye before shutting the door and walked up the cracked walk of Mike’s battered one story, two bedroom house. From the interior of the cab, he had been able to hear the sounds of loud music pouring out into the street. Now the music was even more audible, especially to his finely tuned hearing. Slinging his heavy load up on his shoulder, Oz raised his fist and banged loudly on the door.

It was only a second before K, one of the band guys, answered the door. Now, K wasn’t actually *in* the band, but he was called a “band guy” because he was one of those guys that was always just around the band. And not just the Dingoes, but all of the cool and popular bands in Sunnydale. The cool irony of it was that K didn’t have a lick of musical talent in his whole body. The fucker couldn’t even figure out how to play the spoons. And the man had mystery to him, because for as long as everybody had known him (and Oz had known him for seven years) no one had ever found out what K stood for. They didn’t even know if his name *started* with a K.

“Holy shit! Hey, Dev! Get your narrow ass over here! The cat just dragged in something grizzly!” K yelled before slapping Oz on the shoulder and tugging him into the small living room which was brimming with people and littered with beer cans. “Ozman! Where the hell have you been?! Goddamnit, Devon, I told you to move your ass!” K was also rather obnoxious. Even when he wasn’t drunk as monkey.

Through the narrow entryway that separated the kitchen from the living room, Devon traipsed in drunkenly, his arm draped around the shoulders of a dark complected girl with black hair and eyes. He was nuzzling this exotic beauty’s neck when he entered the room, but when he saw Oz in his peripheral vision, he tore himself away from the girl, nearly knocking her over in his haste.

“Oz?” he said with surprise before pushing his way roughly passed the people that stood between him and Oz, gracefully stepping over littered beer bottles on the floor. Even when he was drunk, the man moved with such ability, like a large cat slinking across the room. It *was* a pleasant sight to behold and something that confirmed to Oz that he really was *home*. Home is where you hang your Devon.

Oz chuckled as Devon pulled him into what most men thinks of as a “manly hug”, slapping him on the back loudly. The manliness of the moment ebbed away when Devon cupped his face and kissed him smack dab on the lips, pulling away quickly and pressing his forehead against Oz’s. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were comin’ back?” he asked, pushing Oz’s face away roughly. “You fuck! I would have met you at the airport.”

“It was a spur of the moment decision,” Oz explained, unable to repress the large smile that wound itself onto his face.

“Fuck spur of the moment, man!” Devon cried, bouncing excitedly. “Damn, you’re really here!” Then he grabbed Oz by the shoulder and pulled him close to speak quietly in his ear. “And you had better not be leaving again. Clint is really a mediocre guitarist at best.”

Oz watched with his eyebrows raised, two browned fingers with long black fingernails tap Devon roughly on the shoulder. Devon turned and Oz was able to see the sharp, dark beauty that Devon had entered the room with. “Dev-on!” she said disapprovingly, her voice heavy with a thick accent.

“Oh, baby,” Devon said with a foolish smile on his face as he crouched down to place a soft kiss on her pouty lips. “I didn’t forget you, it’s just that-” Devon turned and motioned to Oz. “My best friend is back in town.”

Devon placed himself behind the girl, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Baby, this is Oz. Oz,” he raised his eyebrows, “*this* is Samira.” Behind the girl’s back, Devon motioned to his mouth with his thumb, pressing his tongue into the side of his cheek before rolling his eyes dramatically. This was Devon sign language for ‘the head is the bomb, my friend’.

Oz gave her a small wave, smiling pleasantly. Devon wrapped his arm around her shoulders again and that smile spread over her lovely features again. Blocking Samira’s view of his face with his hand, Devon said conspiratorially to Oz, “The best part is that she’s Arabic and only knows like three words of English.”

Oz chuckled and lowered his head while shaking it. Yes, he was most definitely home.

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He could feel the hard cement of the floor pounding under his feet as he ran through the dark twisting corridors of a place he never knew. But it was familiar to him now, no longer a maze and he knew exactly where he was going because he had been there many times before. The stone walls around him made him feel as if he were in a time long before his own, archaic in a scary and chaotic way. Something eerie, making his flesh crawl.

Finally, he came upon the large wooden door that was his destination and pushed it in as he twisted the knob frantically. Pushing crazily at the locked door as he felt the tears of frustration streaking down his face. Damn this door! He gave up on the knob, drawing deeply inside himself for the strength he knew he possessed. It scared him because to do this, he also had to let out the unrestrained, animalistic part of himself that he had only just allowed himself to discover. But it had to be done. And that screaming! He pressed his palms tightly to his ears. God, he had to stop that tortured, shrill scream.

It was there now, the hungry, angry part of himself and he slammed himself against the hard mahogany door. It didn’t give way but he heard the hinges rattling. He stepped back a few feet, this time giving himself a running start and threw himself against the door again, this time feeling it crack under his weight.

He fell along with the door, rolling quickly to his knees. The sight before him stunning the scared boy further into himself and freeing more of the suppressed rage forward. The tall deformed vampire held in a vise-like grip a throat that was hidden from Oz’s view by long blond strands of hair. The hair was clumped together and dripping with blood, streaming down the back of the long pink gown. Heeled pumps dangled just above the floor, just under a hideously twisted ankle, the swelling going down before his very eyes.

For a split second his attention was taken away, over to a fallen body laying in the corner. The head was lolled to the side, disguising the face from Oz’s view, but the upper torso clad in a wool sweater vest, white shirt sleeves rolled up revealing to him muscular forearms, sprinkled with light hair.

Then he was staring, frozen, in horror, as the vampire laughed and twisted his victim’s body so her back pressed against his chest. “Isn’t so pretty anymore, is she?” he cackled to Oz.

But Oz was paying him no mind, his gaze fixed to the face before him. One pain filled hazel eye stared directly back at him and a dark socket. He thought his stomach may empty itself when he saw the string trailing from that deep canvern, connected to an eyeball hanging limply against a golden cheek, streaked with blood. The whole face, covered in blood and completely innocent in it’s fear and pain. The one eye imploring him, “Please, just let me die.”

He wanted to weep, but he could not. No, the fire raging through his veins wouldn’t allow it. The pain cracking his bones and causing him to double over. He panted harshly, his eyes fixed to the fang-filled mouth hovering in eternal laughter just to the right of a bloodied ear, slashed where two hoop earrings had been ripped out, another hanging on a slim thread.

He didn’t hear the laughter as a growl resounded through his head and with a spring, he pounced at his prey, canines aimed at the throat.

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The force of hitting the floor jarred Oz awake with a cry of panic, his eyes snapping open. He lay there for a moment, panting breathlessly as he stared up at the spackled, white ceiling.

“Man, that must have been one wicked dream,” a voice to his left spoke.

He gasped, snapping his head to the side and looked up to see Devon lounged in the recliner with his Arabic darling draped over his lap. Oz groaned and pulled his left Converse out from under his back with a grimace of discomfort. Devon was staring at him around Samira’s rounded cheek -who was paying no attention at all to Oz- worry etched in his lovely features. “You okay, Oz?” Devon questioned.

The question made Oz realize that he was out of the dream. Only a dream. He bolted upright and started to tug the Converse on. He stumbled clumsily, but was on his feet quickly, ignoring the shaking of his limbs. It was until he was to the front door that he heard Devon call after him. “Hey, where ya going?” But he was already gone.
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The End