I've Been Roaming Around, Always Looking Down At All I See.
Who: Cordelia Chase knowmypurpose and Daniel "Oz" Osbourne usuallylaconic
What: What if Oz ended up in L.A. after Doyle died instead of Wesley?
Where: Los Angeles :| Angel Investigations Office to be exact.
When: Circa 1x10: Parting Gifts of Angel and post 4x19: New Moon Rising of Buffy. We're playing fast and loose with timelines here. Because we can ( Read more... )
What: What if Oz ended up in L.A. after Doyle died instead of Wesley?
Where: Los Angeles :| Angel Investigations Office to be exact.
When: Circa 1x10: Parting Gifts of Angel and post 4x19: New Moon Rising of Buffy. We're playing fast and loose with timelines here. Because we can ( Read more... )
It turned out though that they had yet another thing in common--their expendability in the eyes of the Sunnydale crew. He thought he'd become pretty good friends with Buffy, Giles, and even Xander, (though he really couldn't stand the guy if Willow wasn't around) but as soon as Willow moved on from him, they weren't really his friends anymore. He was just the Ex-Boyfriend, and there was no place for him in their lives.
When Cordy stood up and started walking towards him without saying a word, he watched her silently, wondering what on Earth she was up to. Then she kissed him, completely out of nowhere. It surprised him so much that he just stood there, not reacting at all, while she did that. Of all the people he expected a kiss from, Cordelia was one of the lowest on the list.
Then she was backing off, muttering something that he couldn't quite hear, and he wondered if she'd gone crazy working for Angel--he'd have to advocate shorter working hours for her if that was the case. With that in mind, he decided to go for the dry humor angle in this situation, rather than the wtf one.
"I know it's been a while, but that might've been a little over the top as far as greetings go." He watched her carefully, to make sure that she wasn't going to suddenly attack him with kisses again. It wasn't a bad one as far as kisses went, and he didn't have a problem with Cordy in particular, but he didn't really want to be doing that with anyone at the moment.
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It was right about then that she remembered Oz was even there at all. Not that she explained the context of what she was talking about. To do so would include using the words "When Doyle died" and saying them out loud still made her choke up. It made things so much more real. Like they weren't real enough. Like her life wasn't a complete mess. The closest thing she had to a friend (and more) was dead, and now she had crappy visions. Oh, and she totally blew her last audition between the crying and the drooling over herself from said visions. Sure, she had Angel, but he wasn't exactly the most comforting of people, even when he tried really hard.
"Why are you here?" She asked, suddenly, trying to stop her own line of thinking. "You don't have another gift from Buffy for Angel, do you? Because I really don't think he or myself could deal with that right now, we have enough on our plates without bringing up the whole Angel and Buffy mess to light again."
She had a feeling that wasn't the case anyways. Oz had seemed..definitely more despondent than usual. Something in her gut told her this visit wasn't business.
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When she finally spoke directly to him, rather than ranting at herself, he realized that he should probably come up with a reason for her to not just kick him out so she could be alone with her feelings, as most people seemed to do. Sadly, he couldn't think of anything, but he figured he should still respond to her question.
"No, no gifts this time." He wished there were gifts involved--he wished he was just being a messenger and that soon he'd be going home to Willow, but that wish was a waste of time. "I'm not sure why I'm here, to be honest. I just..." If she was paying attention, she'd probably finish that sentence as 'I just didn't have anywhere else to go' and it was completely true. He really didn't have anywhere else to go.
Sure, the people he'd been training with to get his werewolf self in check would gladly take him back, but that would be admitting defeat, and they'd know that he'd failed. Well, he didn't really fail. It wasn't like he would wolf out around anyone else--he just... couldn't be around Willow, and even though that was the whole point of going there in the first place, he couldn't bring himself to be completely disappointed in himself. There wasn't a point in going back there though--it wasn't somewhere where he felt he could make a permanent home--it was just a place that had no meaning to it anymore. Just like Sunnydale. Besides, if he'd shown up here without even meaning to, maybe he wasn't meant to go anywhere else, and this was just fate's way of telling him that.
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Still, even if Willow had cheated on him again (it wouldn't surprise her, they say patterns tend to repeat themselves) why would he come here of all places? He wasn't friends with her or Angel. The three of them had only one thing in common from their time in Sunnydale, they had been the significant others of the core three of the Scoobies, but they had never really been part of that special club. She had been surprised Angel had even remembered who she was when she ran into him at that party. Just a few nights before he saved her from Russell Winters. Before she came to work for him and met Doyle-
She tried to stop her thoughts right there. The last thing she needed to think of him anymore. How well had she known Doyle anyways? He had thought of her as so shallow he had hidden who he really was from her until it was too late. He had given her these visions without even asking her. In the long run, she wasn't sure she had really known him at all.
And somehow, that hurt even more.
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"Not technically, no." He and Willow had been broken up... sort of, and she really had no obligation to wait for him to come back, but it really did sting that she'd moved on so quickly. It did feel like she'd cheated on him, especially since he'd left to protect her and he pushed himself so hard to get it under control as quickly as he did.
What he accomplished should've taken a year, at least, but instead it just took a few months. He'd worked night and day to take back control, and what did he get from it? A broken heart and so many lost friendships that he couldn't even think about it.
But, there was still room for hope, he supposed. After all, didn't Cordy make a new life here? Sure, she didn't look much better off than he did, but at least she wasn't being shoved out like an old toy that no one wanted anymore.
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A what exactly? A friend? It wasn't quite the right word. Doyle, he had been more of a friend. Or he would have been, if she had ever given him a decent chance. Of course, right when she was finally about to he had to go and die and leave her with these stupid visions. It sucked. People she had known had died in Sunnydale, some of which were people she knew (like Jenny, or one of her short term boyfriends) but it never felt so personal before. This loss was different from anything else she had ever experienced.
"How does she not technically cheat on you?" Cordelia asked sharply. At least if she focused on Oz's problems, she wouldn't have to think of her own. It was a welcome distraction, at the very least. "She either did or she didn't." And that's how Cordelia generally saw things: in black and whites. Things either were or they weren't. It was simple. It was easy. It was something she could make sense of.
As much as anything in her life made sense these days.
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"I left, came back, and she was dating someone else." He shrugged, as if that explanation reflected just how complicated it was, and continued. "I guess she thought I was leaving for good." He hoped she wouldn't ask for more than that, because he wasn't going to go into it right at that moment. "Now I have."
That was it, wasn't it. He'd really left for good. He was never going back to the town he'd grown up in. "What's up with you." He was done talking about himself. Really, really done. It was time to put Cordy in the position of being questioned about her hard life.
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At Oz's question, she inwardly tensed up a little. Cordelia had never been one to talk about what was bothering her. Her instinct was to deflect, act like nothing happened. Act like she was untouchable, even though she was far from it.
"You know, the usual. Helping Angel, going to auditions, oh and now I get to have painful visions on the side as well. Lucky me!"
She didn't mention how she got the visions, though she wouldn't lie if he asked.
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He did wonder how she got those, but not enough to pry deeper and actually ask. It was her business, and he was sure it would come up sooner or later, but for now it was probably time to move on to another topic. "I'm assuming Angel's off saving someone right now."
No, he didn't need to ask that--if Angel was chilling out downstairs they'd both be able to smell each other and Angel would've come up to see what was going on by now, so the only other viable option was that he was doing his protector of the innocent thing around town. Probably along with that Irish guy, though his scent was fading significantly, so maybe he'd moved on... or something. He hoped the guy had just moved on to another city.
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And to think, she had been bemoaning that he hadn't left her behind anything. Little had she known then, he had left her with something much bigger than just a coffee mug.
She was glad that so far, Oz hadn't pried about the visions. Discussing Doyle, reliving his death (she could still see it whenever she closed her eyes anyways) it sounded like taking a knife and slicing her skin open. It hurt too much.
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The fact that they'd let him live just because he was their friend, and how they let Angel live just because he was Buffy's boyfriend, really amplified the tone of hypocrisy there. What if he hadn't been their friend? Would they have put him down in just as uncaring a fashion as they did any other creature of the night? Oh, all demons/werewolves/vampires are evil, except the ones we like. Maybe he was better off away from their influence--he'd figured out that it was their attitudes that really got to him about all this--he was perfectly fine with being a werewolf until he started hanging out with them more and more, and then the guilt started eating away at him.
Sunnydale was the land of black and white and the rest of the world worked in shades of grey. He could get used to that idea--somehow it didn't surprise him in the slightest.
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She caught herself and fell silent, realizing she had said more than she had planned. For not the first time in the past couple of days, she felt her eyes filling with tears.
Doyle was dead, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Angel had went to the powers, tried to get things undone and it didn't matter. As long as Angel had his connection to the powers, which was apparently her now, that was all that mattered. Who cared that she'd never know if she could have loved him. What might have been.
She grabbed a tissue and wiped at her eyes furiously before looking up at Oz. "Did you come here for a reason or what?" She asked, her voice coming out harsher than she meant it to. The last thing she needed was someone else seeing her so vunerable. So breakable.
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He really hadn't meant to make her feel bad--now what was he supposed to do, give her a hug? A pat on the back? What? He ended up just looking awkward and worried, which wasn't comforting at all but at least it had the chance of being somewhat amusing.
"I think... I'm supposed to be here." It probably wasn't a good time to mention that when he'd accidentally offended her by not saying all of his thoughts out loud, but it was true, he'd decided, and it needed to be said so that he could get it out of the way and either sit down or get kicked out so that he didn't have to stand halfway in and out of the doorway anymore.
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She wasn't really offended by Oz's lack of comfort or whatever. After all, she worked for Angel, Mr. Socially Awkward in Every and All Situations himself. She was kind of used to it. She didn't want his pity anyways.
"Could be. I mean, we're out a member of our little team now, and hey, I'm vision girl now, so why not bring in another freak to replace Doyle completely." She didn't mean it, not really. She just hurt. And she didn't know how to deal with it.
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"If you say so." That was his way of saying that he was letting the comment go. That he understood why she said it. "I don't really fit in the freak category so much anymore though, so that might be difficult."
He guessed he didn't, anyway. He was never going to turn into a werewolf again--the only thing left was his enhanced senses and that was so insignificant in the line of work they were in that it hardly counted as being freakish in any way.
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But she wasn't really focusing on that because she was too busy being way too confused by his comment. "What do you mean? Did they come up with a cure for werewolves or something? Is it like a special bracelet or something?"
After all, Angel had had that ring that had made him immune from the sun and all, but he had still been a vampire. How could you just...not be something like that anymore. Cordelia wasn't any sort of expert or anything, but she was pretty sure things didn't work that way.
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