Over and Out
by Te
December 1999

BtVS, Oz, PG-13

Spoilers: Vague refs for things up through Wild At Heart

Warning: Possible disturbing imagery

Note: Sheila requested Oz fic on UCSL, this is what I came up with.

Thanks: To Laura for fine audiencing, complete with the best 
questions and information and stuff.

*

Nothing could interfere with poetry like the world.

At least, that's what the natural flow of ideas suggested. An 
opportunity had presented itself, a crossroads of life and passion. 
A choice had been made, with body if not necessarily soul, life had 
been lost, love had been forsaken, and exile had become necessary.

The road beckoned like any of a million metaphors for love and Oz 
followed, off into a future free of all the entanglements he'd lost 
himself to over --

Except that didn't really happen.

Not all of the entanglements, after all, could be blamed on a 
fateful night's fascination with red hair and a harpoon. The wolf 
issue remained, and his mother had refused from the get-go to chain 
him up when the full moon came. 

As it happened, the Osbourne family had something of a Policy 
concerning its more feral members, which essentially boiled down to 
'no victims in the living room.'

And while Oz could certainly appreciate that school of thought, the 
whole nature thing, survival, embrace of racial memory, the pack uber 
alles... all these things had their own logic, this was true. But as 
thrilling as the kill had been (and oh, the taste lingered, and in 
unguarded moments he could still scent Veruca's sex, her blood on the 
air), he wasn't eager to repeat the experience.

At the very least, killing had to be a conscious act... was that 
what he wanted? The thought made him cold, but not quite cold enough. 
There was an element of fantasy to this life that was terrifyingly 
appropriate -- each time he changed, each time blood was spilled it 
all got just that much easier.

Harder, he supposed, for the rest of him... it was difficult to hold 
onto thoughts like these, the images they brought were of the dreams 
he'd told no one about, that only Veruca -- and perhaps Xander, in 
the days when possession of Willow had seemed both possible and 
necessary -- had guessed the nature of. His humanity, when all was 
peeled away, was in question.

Genetically speaking, it was possible that he'd never been human... 
and yet there had been nearly two decades of training and experience. 
There were rules he had learned, and learned to break. There were 
thoughts and emotions that had always seemed so *real*... Of course 
he'd always been the strange one, and he'd known it, but up until 
recently Oz had always had reason to believe that his difference was 
mainly in the way he chose to think, and that the difference would 
fade, lessen as he got older and moved into more specified circles.

However, by the time he'd finally allowed himself to think anything 
at all -- under a pierced velvet sky somewhere east of Baja -- Oz 
honestly had not been sure how many of what he'd quietly thought of 
as his principles had been based in the things he'd picked up from 
television, and well-meaning teachers.

His parents... well, he'd always assumed they would disapprove of a 
son who ate people, but he'd clearly been all wrong there. Oz made a 
mental note to read something, somewhere, on the nature of learned 
and 'natural' morality. He had a sneaking suspicion that it would all 
boil down to socioeconomic concerns growing out of pack mentality, 
but there was always hope.

So long as there was time, there was hope. A direct proportion, a 
simple chart that would please Willow immensely, and make Oz feel 
vaguely guilty (again) that he'd never quite been able to work up an 
enthusiasm for the sciences. He'd done well enough, to be sure, but 
there had forever been an essential dryness to the work, despite all 
the shiny new texts and glassware guaranteed to make Devon's eyes 
shine with unabashed lust...

And quietly now, helplessly, he had to admit to himself that the labs 
and classrooms had always smelled wrong to him. Flesh drained of life 
and preserved in a perpetual state of half-rot... carrion was edible, 
of course, but never preferred. Dead flesh was something to be left 
to the birds and all the things that skittered on hard little legs.

Oz wished he could remember if that was a new thought or old, and 
feared the answer, and needed the answer desperately to escape the 
loop of terrified ignorance and ignorant terror. 

"Soon, I think." Giles. 

And oh, he could thank his capricious moon goddess that he was still 
man enough to feel this gratitude, and still himself enough to be 
able to express it with only an open look and a nod. 

Giles had wordlessly stepped aside to let Oz enter his home, looked 
at his watch, made them both some obscure variety of tea with a 
blessedly large number of flavors Oz could not identify. And then 
drove them here, back to the crypt where Oz could spend the last few 
moments of day memorizing every inch of his naked, human flesh in 
peace.

When the morning came, the battered, shrinking core of himself 
would seize upon the memory and reconstruct his consciousness while 
his body rested. It was a fantasy, an act of faith allowing Oz some 
semblance of control over his life and he treasured it above 
everything else. 

Oz could smell sundown in rich ozone and the acridity of his own 
sweat -- the world was burning again, blackening to soft ash and 
darkness --

"Should I be here in the morning?"

"Don't tell anyone." Bone beginning to creak and the first scream 
gathering itself in his throat and no, he needed more time, more 
time, more --

"All right... but should I...?"

"Please. Yes, please."

Oz offered the last moments in a prayer for oblivion, but heard 
nothing but the rumble of his own hunger.

end.