Giles glances at Willow, who looks innocent, unaware, as though she meant nothing by sending Oz to face a dead demon and a vampire. Her eyes meet his, calmly, and as he starts to feel himself scowling, he looks away. There's no objection he can rationally make, and he can't, he realizes, protect Oz from Sunnydale except by excluding him. Oz, on his way to the basement stairs, touches Giles' arm, but Giles isn't sure if he's offering reassurance or seeking it
( ... )
"Wow," Oz says, stopping halfway down the stairs. Xander bumps into him with an oof and rapid pull away, followed by an apologetic pat on the shoulder. "Check this out. Like the Captain Nemo ride at Disneyworld
( ... )
Hoovering makes Giles feel more at ease than anything has so far. At home, he or Oz hoovers the rugs every day, since they both like things clean. He's come to love the daily chores, dusting and washing-up, that keep the flat pleasant and welcoming. Home
( ... )
"I'm fine." Oz's trousers and shirt are spattered with demon blood, and there's a smear of it on his cheek, which he must have rubbed with a gory hand. "Are you?" Oz nods and absently wipes his palms on the hem of his shirt
( ... )
Giles is using his careful Sunnydale voice, and Oz knows why - he's distracted, he's thinking about Buffy and money and everything - but it's still kind of a shock. "Yeah, okay," Oz says, turning, catching Xander's eye before he opens the basement door. They gallop down the stairs and find the demon's legs piled like grotesque firewood on the last step. They each haul one upstairs and out the back again, and then lean against the dumpster, catching their breath
( ... )
Oz is gone and Willow is irritatedly mopping the floor again by the time Giles realizes how he must have sounded. As though Oz were an outsider, an obstacle to be removed, and Giles remembers the momentary blank look on Oz's face before he agreed to go. He doesn't know how to talk to Oz in front of other people. Especially here, especially these people. He'll have to apologize to Oz later, and try to explain
( ... )
Oz had figured he would drop Xander and Anya off at wherever Xander's kicking new apartment is, then continue on to the motel to shower and change. Anya, however, thinks otherwise; after she's poked his shoulder repeatedly in the guise of giving accurate, efficient directions, she pats Xander's head and says, "You wait here. I'll go get you some jeans and you and Oz can go off and do whatever it is that longlost best friends do
( ... )
"-and that's when Buffy found us, in the warehouse," Willow says. Most of her story is new, since she hadn't mentioned the demons when she rang, or the interruption of the spell. Giles had been wondering about the boarded-up storefronts and damaged houses he saw this morning. If the resurrection had failed, there'd be nothing left of Sunnydale. "She was pretty out of it, but then she sort of . . . came back, and she saved all our lives
( ... )
Oz comes out the bathroom half-dressed, just needing a clean shirt, and he finds Xander still on the bed, carefully *not* looking away while Oz digs through the open suitcase. "Hey. The Ranch still open
( ... )
Her eyes look darker, and Giles can feel magic build around her, around himself, insectile crawling blotches under his skin and a thickening of the air.
You can't fuck me about anymore, Ripper. You're not leaving this time. Ethan's face unrecognizable, twisted ugly with Chaos and painted with blood-sigils, and then a word and the magic winding around Giles' mind, strangling his will
( ... )
Xander's stubborn; he's not going to let this drop. Weirder still, though, Oz wants to answer. Four years on, and no one knows the story except Giles. "Grrr," he says. "Big bad wolf
( ... )
"Willow," he says again. Names her again, as though he can turn her back to the Willow he remembers, back to a charming, brilliant girl whom he'd never be afraid of. Who would never speak to him so brutally, never lay her finger so roughly and precisely on the festering sore. "I - we didn't mean to hurt you
( ... )
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You can't fuck me about anymore, Ripper. You're not leaving this time. Ethan's face unrecognizable, twisted ugly with Chaos and painted with blood-sigils, and then a word and the magic winding around Giles' mind, strangling his will ( ... )
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