Some Sacred Place : O/W
Title: Some Sacred Place
Series: Birthday fics, willowmina
Pairing: Oz/Willow
Rating: PG
Setting: post-Season 4 and onward
Word Count: 2,529 words
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. All characters, places, and events are the property of the aforementioned and Twentieth Century Fox.
Summary: He thinks about her a lot. He wonders if she thinks about him, too.
The first time he saw her after the last time he saw her, there had been an Indian involved. Well, Native American, actually, the voice in his head that didn’t sound like his own reminded him.
So a Native American. And a fire burning some plant he couldn’t name in an enclosed space, but that was more of a push in the right direction than anything else.
Plus, Oz had a sensitive nose.
Willow had liked that he wasn’t a smoker. And while she hadn’t exactly embraced his habits pertaining to what he may or may not have been inhaling at times-as long as it didn’t smell like old ashtrays, she didn’t say much one way or another-this had been a little more vivid than that.
A vision quest. A quest, involving visions. Visions occurring during a questial endeavor.
The man stoking the fire had relayed his own experiences. Something about a deer speaking in the old language, giving him guidance.
Oz had just gotten a pretty redhead.
“Huh,” he said.
“I knew you were gonna do that,” she replied, smiling that little smile that made him think, as awkward and clumsy as she could be, she always had her head in the right place. Always knew what he was thinking, even if he did a whole lot more thinking than he did talking.
This wasn’t Willow. Not real-Willow, in the very least. Real-Willow’s smell was all over another girl-how weird was it that that wasn’t really weird at all?-and this hallucinatory version didn’t really have a smell. Or if she did, it was overpowered by the smoke pouring off the blurry flames.
This Willow was his Willow, though. The Willow that didn’t have flippy hair, but hair that fell straight down around her ears. The Willow that wore an overlarge, blue hat and with a smile that was all teeth and no inhibition. Bright colors and layers and life.
“So, yeah,” he said, surprised there wasn’t a lump in his throat. His Willow meant hurt, because his Willow had stopped being his Willow after a little while.
“Are you high?” she asked, quirking one eyebrow. She’d asked him that before, and he had very honestly, very truthfully answered her the same way then as he did now.
“Sort of.”
Not so much with the disapproving glare this time, but more of an amused smile and a shake of her head. So maybe it was the Willow he’d left back at the college inside his Willow’s body. Wise and knowing and warm and sometimes almost cruelly clever, but still smiling with dimples and making him wonder how there could be horrible people in the same world that had someone so innocent.
“No one’s innocent,” she pointed out, and the prayer beads felt a little heavy around his wrist. “I think we’ve all got our monsters inside.”
“Not you,” he replied without having to think about it. It was automatic-and maybe someday it was the kind of thing he’d look back on and wonder why he would be so narrow-minded when it came to Willow. He loved her-every time he’d said it, he had meant it. And he was a man for whom love didn’t exactly stroll by whenever it felt like. It was something he almost had to goad-which was odd, because with Willow, it had been the most natural thing in the world.
“Even me,” she said. “Maybe not-you know, mean and furry monsters. But, hey, I bet I could pull a scary goth look. Ya think?”
“Not really.”
It was easier to be reactive. A word here, a word there, and she may have been his spirit guide, but it wasn’t like he’d ever gone to her looking for anything. Just that first time, the very first time he had asked for some of her time. And then all of it had been like riding a bus. Maybe he knew where he was going, but he wasn’t necessarily the one driving.
“You’re not really here,” he pointed out, not the unfortunate realization of a man missing a woman, but the careful declarative of a man not sure if his spirit guide is aware that she’s a spirit guide.
“Catch 22,” she said. “Either I’m not really here, and even your crazy is crazy, or I’m really here and I’m just not really Willow.”
Oz didn’t point out that he thought this whole deal was more stupid than anything else. Part of it was not wanting to insult the man who’d arranged for this experience, sitting right across the fire that his hallucinating mind had turned into a big, flaming smiley face while he wasn’t paying attention. Part of it was the fact that this wasn’t really Willow, and he had never been the type to accept substitutes.
It was nice to pretend, though.
“I love you,” he said, the words somehow unfamiliar in his throat. He said it carefully, like he was petting a big dog that could turn and snap at him at any moment.
She didn’t snap at him. Just sighed and smiled a sad little smile before shaking her head.
“You ever think that’s why you’re seeing me?” she asked, and then she was gone.
He didn’t talk to the man on the other side of the fire before standing and leaving the tent.
He saw her again over a year later. In Prague, of all places. And considering he knew a baddie or two that had made camp in Prague until the weather turned foul, he was as surprised as anyone could have been when he saw the flash of red on the crowded street.
It wasn’t something he thought about just then. He didn’t consider the possibility that there was more than a single redhead in the world. Hell, he spent the majority of his time among people of low ethnic diversity just to get away from that possibility. Not a lot of redheads among Native American tribes or in the Himalayas.
Oz wasn’t a large man, so he slipped through the crowd easily enough. One hand in front of him to catch anyone moving too quickly for him to slide past, the other close to his side so he didn’t go elbowing any strangers, he made his way with few enough excuse mes so as not to violate his low level of speech.
She turned a corner ahead of him. He was right behind her.
She was on her cell phone when he finally caught up to her. His heart was thudding in his chest, his mind racing-what was she doing here?
He cautiously circled her, to see her face, and he realized what she was doing here.
Nothing. She wasn’t doing anything here, because she wasn’t here.
The redheaded woman who, from behind, could be have been Willow to even Willow’s own-well, her parents weren’t exactly common company, but Buffy and Xander would have made the same mistake, most likely-gave him a quizzical look, followed by a kind smile that wasn’t exactly far off from Willow’s own, either.
She said something in a language he didn’t understand, and he checked his translation dictionary to see if there was a Sorry, I was hoping you were my lost love come to see me in the Czech Republic.
When he saw her again, it was only a few months on, right after he killed her.
Well, not her. On the rare occasions that he couldn’t find peace in the meditation techniques that had been taught to him, he liked to patrol. The fact that the wolf was now so much a part of him that he could freely change shape-could easily control himself while in that form-made patrol much less dangerous than it had been even when he had several people patrolling alongside him.
The demon he came across, he didn’t know the name of. He just knew that it could change shape. And the shape it had pulled from his mind was the most effective one it could have used.
It wasn’t effective enough, and he wondered a little at the dark thrill of satisfaction he felt when he tore out its throat. It was easier to blame the wolf, because even when he was completely in control, it was crouched at the door, scratching, reminding him that it was there.
The demon didn’t change shape afterward, so he buried it like that. It was surprisingly liberating.
The next time, he didn’t really see her. But he felt her. He imagined that, in a way, everyone in the world could feel her. Her fingers in his head, stroking the lobes, her voice in his ear, saying things he couldn’t quite catch.
It wasn’t a good feeling. It wasn’t really a bad feeling, either, though, because there was a part of him that would always be hers, if she showed up and asked him for it. The part of him that was pretty much all of him.
Whatever she was doing, it wouldn’t end well for the rest of the world. The fact that he was watching it from where he stood? Probably not so good.
He’d always wanted to come back. Or maybe he’d always expected to come back, whether he wanted to or not. It was beyond being a choice now-sometimes he found himself halfway across the U.S. before he even knew what he was doing. Before now, he’d always turned back.
But this wasn’t his Willow. Maybe Willow had never been his Willow, but whatever stood at the center of that swirling mass of darkness couldn’t be the girl he loved. And if this was something she was doing to the world-he was part of that world.
He was surprised later when the world didn’t end.
It was a long time before he saw her again. He thought about her sometimes-wondered what had driven her to try to end the world. It never occurred to him again to visit Sunnydale, subconsciously or otherwise, and it was far from an option to ever call. Eventually, the city sank, but he knew she wasn’t dead. Sometimes he came across unbelievably strong girls in his travels, and it was too frequent for them all to be the Slayer.
And he had felt her again. Not like she was probing his mind, but like she was touching his heart.
But when he saw her, it was in a dream. Or maybe it was something she had become magically powerful enough to do. Maybe she’d been carrying her own baggage around about the two of them. Maybe she’d taken opportunities to track him down, only to stop somewhere on the cusp of vision, turn around and walk away.
But she hadn’t stopped this time.
“Huh,” he said.
“You’ve always been so eloquent,” she said with a smile. She looked older. Not old older, but she didn’t look like a kid anymore. Her hair was almost like it had been when she’d been his Willow. Straight and down past her ears.
But she looked a little sadder than she’d been then. Maybe she felt guilty about trying to destroy the same world he was a part of.
“You look good,” she said. “I mean-well, in an I’m totally gay way.”
“Thanks,” he said. He didn’t return the compliment. He wasn’t sure he was allowed to return the compliment.
“How’s the werewolf thing going?”
“It’s good,” he said. “I stay busy. Witch thing?”
“Also good,” she said. “I stay way too busy. I’m a boss now, you know?”
He cracked a smile-a small one. She knew how to be a boss, and she had back then, too. It was easy to follow her lead, because even when she wasn’t confident, she made everyone else feel like they were.
He didn’t feel very confident just then. Even if it was just a dream.
“That’s good,” he said. “Progressive.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t the same giggle he knew. It was an older laugh, like laughing was a happy departure from normal agonies.
“So, um,” she said, “this isn’t a dream. You know that, right?”
“I figured,” he said. “I don’t really dream a lot.”
“I just-I wanted-” she shook her head. “I don’t even know, now. Would it sound stupid if I said I wanted to see you?”
“Not really,” he said. “I know the feeling.”
Not exactly the smartest thing to have said, but her smile was just enough like her old one that it made it worth it. The several feet between them still felt like a gorge, though. Maybe not terribly deep, but crossing it could result in a never-ending fall.
She was silent after that. He spent a long time just watching her, trying to figure out what all was different and what all was the same. The lines from her smile were a little deeper, which he found odd with this new sadness around her. And her hair was a little darker than he remembered it being.
Eyes were the same. Skin tone? Same. It really was like she’d only gotten older in the past few years.
He knew better, though. Maybe that was why he didn’t cross the space between them.
“This was a bad idea,” she said softly, and he shrugged.
“Most ideas are,” he said. “We can salvage.” That got him an even more familiar smile, even more like the Willow that may have never really been his.
He realized, then, that he wasn’t a kid anymore. That the girl he had known had been just that-a girl, not a woman, and he’d just been a boy when he’d known her. You can do a lot of growing up in just a few years, particularly if there’s globetrotting involved. And the fact that there was a part of him holding out for her when he wasn’t even sure that part of him was still the same, that that girl even existed anymore?
She wasn’t the only one with the bad idea.
He chuckled, smiled genuinely at her.
“I’m really glad to see you,” he said. He wondered if he looked different to her. “Sincerely.”
She blushed a little. Was it possible to blush in a dream? Maybe, but she definitely did it, and it only made him smile more.
Maybe he was dreaming, even if she said he wasn’t. Maybe she had magically projected herself into his sleeping brain, like she implied she had. Maybe he was crazy, maybe she was powerful, maybe he was just deluding himself.
But she was serene just then. Like a goddess, really.
Then she clapped her hands, crossed the space between them like the gorge had been a pothole, and threw her arms around his neck.
“It’s so good to see you!” she squealed, and he was surprised that she wasn’t wearing a big, blue hat.
For the first time, he was involuntarily speechless. She pulled back, held onto his shoulders, and looked him in the eye.
Her smile would have made the wolf wag its tail.
“So?” she said. “What’s new?”
Hmm. Don't know how I feel about this pairing. Oz was under-utilized in the show, so we never got to see what he'd be like independent of Willow, unless you count his unseen walkabouts.
The title's a reference this lovely song.
Happy late birthday, willowmina. Sorry it took so long.
Really, really hope you liked it.
All the best.
Until we begin to die, we don't begin to really live.
-Unknown
Series: Birthday fics, willowmina
Pairing: Oz/Willow
Rating: PG
Setting: post-Season 4 and onward
Word Count: 2,529 words
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. All characters, places, and events are the property of the aforementioned and Twentieth Century Fox.
Summary: He thinks about her a lot. He wonders if she thinks about him, too.
The first time he saw her after the last time he saw her, there had been an Indian involved. Well, Native American, actually, the voice in his head that didn’t sound like his own reminded him.
So a Native American. And a fire burning some plant he couldn’t name in an enclosed space, but that was more of a push in the right direction than anything else.
Plus, Oz had a sensitive nose.
Willow had liked that he wasn’t a smoker. And while she hadn’t exactly embraced his habits pertaining to what he may or may not have been inhaling at times-as long as it didn’t smell like old ashtrays, she didn’t say much one way or another-this had been a little more vivid than that.
A vision quest. A quest, involving visions. Visions occurring during a questial endeavor.
The man stoking the fire had relayed his own experiences. Something about a deer speaking in the old language, giving him guidance.
Oz had just gotten a pretty redhead.
“Huh,” he said.
“I knew you were gonna do that,” she replied, smiling that little smile that made him think, as awkward and clumsy as she could be, she always had her head in the right place. Always knew what he was thinking, even if he did a whole lot more thinking than he did talking.
This wasn’t Willow. Not real-Willow, in the very least. Real-Willow’s smell was all over another girl-how weird was it that that wasn’t really weird at all?-and this hallucinatory version didn’t really have a smell. Or if she did, it was overpowered by the smoke pouring off the blurry flames.
This Willow was his Willow, though. The Willow that didn’t have flippy hair, but hair that fell straight down around her ears. The Willow that wore an overlarge, blue hat and with a smile that was all teeth and no inhibition. Bright colors and layers and life.
“So, yeah,” he said, surprised there wasn’t a lump in his throat. His Willow meant hurt, because his Willow had stopped being his Willow after a little while.
“Are you high?” she asked, quirking one eyebrow. She’d asked him that before, and he had very honestly, very truthfully answered her the same way then as he did now.
“Sort of.”
Not so much with the disapproving glare this time, but more of an amused smile and a shake of her head. So maybe it was the Willow he’d left back at the college inside his Willow’s body. Wise and knowing and warm and sometimes almost cruelly clever, but still smiling with dimples and making him wonder how there could be horrible people in the same world that had someone so innocent.
“No one’s innocent,” she pointed out, and the prayer beads felt a little heavy around his wrist. “I think we’ve all got our monsters inside.”
“Not you,” he replied without having to think about it. It was automatic-and maybe someday it was the kind of thing he’d look back on and wonder why he would be so narrow-minded when it came to Willow. He loved her-every time he’d said it, he had meant it. And he was a man for whom love didn’t exactly stroll by whenever it felt like. It was something he almost had to goad-which was odd, because with Willow, it had been the most natural thing in the world.
“Even me,” she said. “Maybe not-you know, mean and furry monsters. But, hey, I bet I could pull a scary goth look. Ya think?”
“Not really.”
It was easier to be reactive. A word here, a word there, and she may have been his spirit guide, but it wasn’t like he’d ever gone to her looking for anything. Just that first time, the very first time he had asked for some of her time. And then all of it had been like riding a bus. Maybe he knew where he was going, but he wasn’t necessarily the one driving.
“You’re not really here,” he pointed out, not the unfortunate realization of a man missing a woman, but the careful declarative of a man not sure if his spirit guide is aware that she’s a spirit guide.
“Catch 22,” she said. “Either I’m not really here, and even your crazy is crazy, or I’m really here and I’m just not really Willow.”
Oz didn’t point out that he thought this whole deal was more stupid than anything else. Part of it was not wanting to insult the man who’d arranged for this experience, sitting right across the fire that his hallucinating mind had turned into a big, flaming smiley face while he wasn’t paying attention. Part of it was the fact that this wasn’t really Willow, and he had never been the type to accept substitutes.
It was nice to pretend, though.
“I love you,” he said, the words somehow unfamiliar in his throat. He said it carefully, like he was petting a big dog that could turn and snap at him at any moment.
She didn’t snap at him. Just sighed and smiled a sad little smile before shaking her head.
“You ever think that’s why you’re seeing me?” she asked, and then she was gone.
He didn’t talk to the man on the other side of the fire before standing and leaving the tent.
He saw her again over a year later. In Prague, of all places. And considering he knew a baddie or two that had made camp in Prague until the weather turned foul, he was as surprised as anyone could have been when he saw the flash of red on the crowded street.
It wasn’t something he thought about just then. He didn’t consider the possibility that there was more than a single redhead in the world. Hell, he spent the majority of his time among people of low ethnic diversity just to get away from that possibility. Not a lot of redheads among Native American tribes or in the Himalayas.
Oz wasn’t a large man, so he slipped through the crowd easily enough. One hand in front of him to catch anyone moving too quickly for him to slide past, the other close to his side so he didn’t go elbowing any strangers, he made his way with few enough excuse mes so as not to violate his low level of speech.
She turned a corner ahead of him. He was right behind her.
She was on her cell phone when he finally caught up to her. His heart was thudding in his chest, his mind racing-what was she doing here?
He cautiously circled her, to see her face, and he realized what she was doing here.
Nothing. She wasn’t doing anything here, because she wasn’t here.
The redheaded woman who, from behind, could be have been Willow to even Willow’s own-well, her parents weren’t exactly common company, but Buffy and Xander would have made the same mistake, most likely-gave him a quizzical look, followed by a kind smile that wasn’t exactly far off from Willow’s own, either.
She said something in a language he didn’t understand, and he checked his translation dictionary to see if there was a Sorry, I was hoping you were my lost love come to see me in the Czech Republic.
When he saw her again, it was only a few months on, right after he killed her.
Well, not her. On the rare occasions that he couldn’t find peace in the meditation techniques that had been taught to him, he liked to patrol. The fact that the wolf was now so much a part of him that he could freely change shape-could easily control himself while in that form-made patrol much less dangerous than it had been even when he had several people patrolling alongside him.
The demon he came across, he didn’t know the name of. He just knew that it could change shape. And the shape it had pulled from his mind was the most effective one it could have used.
It wasn’t effective enough, and he wondered a little at the dark thrill of satisfaction he felt when he tore out its throat. It was easier to blame the wolf, because even when he was completely in control, it was crouched at the door, scratching, reminding him that it was there.
The demon didn’t change shape afterward, so he buried it like that. It was surprisingly liberating.
The next time, he didn’t really see her. But he felt her. He imagined that, in a way, everyone in the world could feel her. Her fingers in his head, stroking the lobes, her voice in his ear, saying things he couldn’t quite catch.
It wasn’t a good feeling. It wasn’t really a bad feeling, either, though, because there was a part of him that would always be hers, if she showed up and asked him for it. The part of him that was pretty much all of him.
Whatever she was doing, it wouldn’t end well for the rest of the world. The fact that he was watching it from where he stood? Probably not so good.
He’d always wanted to come back. Or maybe he’d always expected to come back, whether he wanted to or not. It was beyond being a choice now-sometimes he found himself halfway across the U.S. before he even knew what he was doing. Before now, he’d always turned back.
But this wasn’t his Willow. Maybe Willow had never been his Willow, but whatever stood at the center of that swirling mass of darkness couldn’t be the girl he loved. And if this was something she was doing to the world-he was part of that world.
He was surprised later when the world didn’t end.
It was a long time before he saw her again. He thought about her sometimes-wondered what had driven her to try to end the world. It never occurred to him again to visit Sunnydale, subconsciously or otherwise, and it was far from an option to ever call. Eventually, the city sank, but he knew she wasn’t dead. Sometimes he came across unbelievably strong girls in his travels, and it was too frequent for them all to be the Slayer.
And he had felt her again. Not like she was probing his mind, but like she was touching his heart.
But when he saw her, it was in a dream. Or maybe it was something she had become magically powerful enough to do. Maybe she’d been carrying her own baggage around about the two of them. Maybe she’d taken opportunities to track him down, only to stop somewhere on the cusp of vision, turn around and walk away.
But she hadn’t stopped this time.
“Huh,” he said.
“You’ve always been so eloquent,” she said with a smile. She looked older. Not old older, but she didn’t look like a kid anymore. Her hair was almost like it had been when she’d been his Willow. Straight and down past her ears.
But she looked a little sadder than she’d been then. Maybe she felt guilty about trying to destroy the same world he was a part of.
“You look good,” she said. “I mean-well, in an I’m totally gay way.”
“Thanks,” he said. He didn’t return the compliment. He wasn’t sure he was allowed to return the compliment.
“How’s the werewolf thing going?”
“It’s good,” he said. “I stay busy. Witch thing?”
“Also good,” she said. “I stay way too busy. I’m a boss now, you know?”
He cracked a smile-a small one. She knew how to be a boss, and she had back then, too. It was easy to follow her lead, because even when she wasn’t confident, she made everyone else feel like they were.
He didn’t feel very confident just then. Even if it was just a dream.
“That’s good,” he said. “Progressive.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t the same giggle he knew. It was an older laugh, like laughing was a happy departure from normal agonies.
“So, um,” she said, “this isn’t a dream. You know that, right?”
“I figured,” he said. “I don’t really dream a lot.”
“I just-I wanted-” she shook her head. “I don’t even know, now. Would it sound stupid if I said I wanted to see you?”
“Not really,” he said. “I know the feeling.”
Not exactly the smartest thing to have said, but her smile was just enough like her old one that it made it worth it. The several feet between them still felt like a gorge, though. Maybe not terribly deep, but crossing it could result in a never-ending fall.
She was silent after that. He spent a long time just watching her, trying to figure out what all was different and what all was the same. The lines from her smile were a little deeper, which he found odd with this new sadness around her. And her hair was a little darker than he remembered it being.
Eyes were the same. Skin tone? Same. It really was like she’d only gotten older in the past few years.
He knew better, though. Maybe that was why he didn’t cross the space between them.
“This was a bad idea,” she said softly, and he shrugged.
“Most ideas are,” he said. “We can salvage.” That got him an even more familiar smile, even more like the Willow that may have never really been his.
He realized, then, that he wasn’t a kid anymore. That the girl he had known had been just that-a girl, not a woman, and he’d just been a boy when he’d known her. You can do a lot of growing up in just a few years, particularly if there’s globetrotting involved. And the fact that there was a part of him holding out for her when he wasn’t even sure that part of him was still the same, that that girl even existed anymore?
She wasn’t the only one with the bad idea.
He chuckled, smiled genuinely at her.
“I’m really glad to see you,” he said. He wondered if he looked different to her. “Sincerely.”
She blushed a little. Was it possible to blush in a dream? Maybe, but she definitely did it, and it only made him smile more.
Maybe he was dreaming, even if she said he wasn’t. Maybe she had magically projected herself into his sleeping brain, like she implied she had. Maybe he was crazy, maybe she was powerful, maybe he was just deluding himself.
But she was serene just then. Like a goddess, really.
Then she clapped her hands, crossed the space between them like the gorge had been a pothole, and threw her arms around his neck.
“It’s so good to see you!” she squealed, and he was surprised that she wasn’t wearing a big, blue hat.
For the first time, he was involuntarily speechless. She pulled back, held onto his shoulders, and looked him in the eye.
Her smile would have made the wolf wag its tail.
“So?” she said. “What’s new?”
Hmm. Don't know how I feel about this pairing. Oz was under-utilized in the show, so we never got to see what he'd be like independent of Willow, unless you count his unseen walkabouts.
The title's a reference this lovely song.
Happy late birthday, willowmina. Sorry it took so long.
Really, really hope you liked it.
All the best.
Until we begin to die, we don't begin to really live.
-Unknown