SLASH FIC: Off to See the Wizard pt 10 [Buffy/Anita]

[feygan]

Title: Off to See the Wizard
Author: Feygan
Fandom: Buffy/Anita Blake
Rating: FR-15
Pairing: Oz/Jason, Jean-Claude/Asher, Anita/Micah/Nathaniel, Xander/Andrew, Willow/Kennedy
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the Anita Blake universe or its characters.
Livejournal: http://feygan.livejournal.com

CHAPTER TEN

It felt strange to find himself fitting semi-comfortably into this new world. It was just that Jason was so entirely welcoming that it made him feel like he was part of something again, something bigger than himself.

The last time he had really felt part of a group was with the Scooby Gang back when they were in high school, before they all started growing up and reality just made everything harder to deal with.

He quirked his lips a little at the thought that slaying vampires and running around the Hellmouth felt like such a kid thing to do. Like becoming an adult had made all that supernatural stuff too hard to deal with.

Oz sighed and turned his head to look at Jason, who was sleeping really rather close to him. So close their faces could have touched. So close he could feel the other man's breath sweeping across his cheek.

They had fallen asleep in Jason's bed, and though it shouldn't have felt so absolutely comfortable, it was. Just a relaxing nap with someone that was quickly becoming a real friend.

He thought about Devon and the times they used to lie together like this, back before the band had broken up. The only other real male friends he had had other than Devon were Xander and Giles, and he'd never been all that close to either of them. They were good to slay beside, but it wasn't like they would have had anything to do with each other if it wasn't for Willow.

Willow.

It had taken him a cool minute to recognize why the magical energies imbuing that strange rift in time-space had felt so familiar, but now he knew. It had felt like Willow, that odd mix of hot and cold that had always left his skin tingling with pure Want.

Even during all the Veruca madness, he had still known that Willow was always and forever going to be under his skin. He'd just needed a little while to sort his head out. He'd always known he was going to come back to her, because in the end, Willow was his world.

He had never imagined that she would ever move on without him, that she would find someone else to love as much as she loved him, if not more.

He could still feel the shock of seeing her with Tara, the rush of primal rage and the urge to destroy the interloper. But after the whole Initiative, tortured in a little cage thing... he'd been forced to let the anger go, to recognize that he really wasn't as in control of himself as he'd fooled himself into thinking.

He was always and forever going to love Willow, there was no doubt about that. But he couldn't allow himself to be in love with her. Because that route ended with madness. They were different people now on different paths, and his love for her had always been way beyond his means to control.

But here in the quiet stillness of this bedroom with this guy he barely even knew... he felt more comfortable in his own skin than he had in a long time.

Oz traced his eyes over Jason's face, sweeping across the smooth pale skin, the delicate curve of cheek with a glint of new beard growing, the curve of his neck. And he felt peaceful inside.

There was no raging beast tearing to escape his skin. There was no restless wanderer craving to taste whatever the world had to offer. There was only Oz.

And for the first time in his entire life, he thought that maybe that was enough.

A little smile quirked his lips and he settled deeper into his pillow and let himself drift back to sleep, Jason's every breath a sighing lullaby.

* * *

"Okay, what the fuck?"

Those were not the words Nathaniel had expected to wake up to. In fact, he hadn't really expected to wake up at all, yet here he was.

He slowly opened his eyes, blinking rapidly to clear away the strange lassitude that wanted to drown him. They had obviously given him the good pain meds.

His gaze was inexorably drawn to where Anita stood, her hands crossed tight over her chest in that weird self-hug she liked to do, a dark frown curving her lips. Her eyebrows were drawn together so tight that it looked like that little line furrowing into her brow was never going to go away.

He was only glad that she was glaring angrily at Dr. Lillian and not at him. In his current state, he didn't know if he would have been able to deal with her anger.

As it was, her barely bridled rage was like a furnace blasting way too hot, way too close to his already scorched skin. He couldn't handle the burn.

"He was tortured by some incredibly sick individuals, Anita," Dr. Lillian said. "The necklaces of silver they hung off of him severely weakened his ability to heal and even now you can see that he's still got burns on over seventy percent of his body."

"Silver necklaces? Why would they use those instead of chains?" Anita asked, the even tone she used obviously taking a lot of her self-control.

Dr. Lillian sighed. "You know as well as I do just how expensive silver is. Regular silver necklace chains though... They used them to keep him weak and malleable so they could transport him from where they captured him to the warehouse where he was found."

Anita's lips were drawn tight. "I want to know why no one called me to help in the rescue."

Dr. Lillian shrugged. "You just called me in as a favor to check him over. You need to ask your own people why they didn't feel the need to come to you. And maybe you should think on some of the recent behavior you've been displaying."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" The scent of Anita's anger spiked.

Dr. Lillian stood firm in front of Nathaniel's Nimir-ra, her expression refusing to change. "You may need to see Marianne again, Anita. You have definitely not been displaying very good self control of late."

Anita's face twisted so fast into something ugly and back again that Nathaniel almost wouldn't have believed he'd seen it, except that that image was burned into his brain forever.

Dr. Lilliian took a quick step back to the door. "I think that I'm going to take my leave now," she said, her voice admirably even. "I really need to get back to the clinic."

Nathaniel felt Anita's attention turning toward him and hurriedly clicked his eyes closed, praying that she wouldn't know he had been awake.

"Fine, I'll walk you out and you can tell me what I can do to help him heal," Anita said. There was the sound of two sets of footsteps walking away from the bed, then a door opening and closing.

Nathaniel drew in a deep sobbing breath and opened his eyes to peer around and make sure that he was really alone. He could still smell the sudden whiff of Dr. Lillian's fear, but like Anita's anger it was already fading without them being in the room.

He pressed his cheek tight against his pillow for a moment, then forced himself to relax.

He couldn't really explain why his heart was pounding so loudly in his ears or why his breath was coming so fast, but he was only glad that Anita didn't have the advanced senses necessary to realize how terrified he had suddenly been.

Because in those seconds when her rage had taken her over, another face had peered out of hers. It was like something out of a movie, just a quick morphing affect that he wanted to believe hadn't been real, but that he was never going to be able to forget.

For a second, her face had been thinner, smaller, her lips a little less full. Her hair had been blond then too, a pretty shimmery gold that didn't lessen the impact of her snarling mouth and the glaring red hate of her eyes.

He knew that something was terribly wrong with Anita and that he was going to have to tell Jean-Claude about it. He was going to have to pretend that he hadn't seen what he'd seen and heal up enough to get out of the house without her knowing that he had seen what had been inside her.

Because he knew more than anything that whatever had worn Anita's body in that moment wouldn't hesitate to put him in the ground in the most painful way possible.

Nathaniel clenched his hands into tight fists of impotent fear, because for the first time in his life he had seen the face of pure evil. And when Dr. Lillian left, he was going to be alone in the house with it.

He had never been so frightened in his entire life.

* * *

Richard opened his eyes to find that he was lying on Jean-Claude's bed, surrounded by a mass of blankets and overstuffed pillows.

"Wha... what happened?" he asked, forcing himself to sit up.

The cool presence at his side was thankfully a fully dressed Jean-Claude. "You fell asleep after we strengthened your mental shields. How do you feel?"

Richard thought about it for a long moment, then felt a large smile spread across his face. For the first time in what felt like years there wasn't a simmering pot of rage bubbling just beneath the surface of his psyche. When he felt around with his mind it was to feel the joy of being the only one in his own mind.

"I can't feel her," he said. "She's finally quiet."

"With your shields strengthened she should no longer be able to overwhelm you," Jean-Claude said, reaching out slowly to brush Richard's hair off his forehead. He moved carefully, giving Richard a chance to slap him away if he wanted. Grateful for the quiet in his own mind, Richard let him have the little gesture. He knew it would make Jean-Claude happy, though the vampire would never say anything about it.

"How come she was able to overwhelm the Marks like that?" Richard asked.

Jean-Claude sighed. "It seems that we have allowed her too much freedom," he said. "Because there were no limits set on her, she did not feel the need to control her thoughts and emotions. But now that we've strengthened your shields, from now on she will have to ask permission before being able to enter your mind."

"I'm just glad that she's not in here with me right now," Richard said. "I know that if I reach out I would be able to touch her, but she's not constantly in my brain. I feel like I can be a real person again."

"I am glad," Jean-Claude said, "and I'm sorry that I never realized what was going on. I suppose that I listened so much to her version of events that I just took it as fact that you had lost yourself completely to your anger."

"More like lost myself to her anger. Though I don't know how she can be so angry all the time and still manage to function."

Jean-Claude's shoulders hunched a little bit, just for a moment. "Somehow she managed to control the Marks to such a degree that she was using your mind as a kind of dumping ground."

Richard raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Huh?"

Jean-Claude looked straight at him. "Whatever emotions she did not wish to feel, she siphoned off into your mind. All of her fear, anger, hate, guilt, love, everything that she did not wish to experience herself. She has been pouring herself into you for the last few years and it is only by a miracle that you have not completely lost your mind. Because the feelings were alien to your psyche, they latched on and began to grow within you, poisoning you from the inside out."

"Cancer," Richard said slowly. "She gave me mental cancer. That's what you're saying, aren't you?"

Jean-Claude's eyes were sad. "In a sense, yes. But now that we've fixed your shields, it was an easy thing to excise the foreign emotions and free you from the... the cancer."

Richard drew in a shuddering breath, wondering if he was going to cry, then deciding that maybe he would hold that option for later. "So I'm going to be all right from now on, right?"

Jean-Claude laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Mon ami, you will once again be the man we have all been missing."

Richard smiled a little. It had been a long time since anyone had called him their friend. "I'm glad. I've been kind of missing me too."

Jean-Claude rose to his feet. "Is there anything else that I can do for you? Do you need anything?"

Richard shook his head. "No. I'm good. Better than I've been for a very long time."

"Then I shall go attend to other business and give you a chance to rest," Jean Claude said.

"You know I'm not ever going to really like you, right?" Richard asked. "I mean, I'll always be grateful, but we're not going to be best friends forever or anything."

A slight smile quirked Jean-Claude's lips. "Of course not."

"And I'm not ever going to turn gay for you or anything," Richard went on. "But... thank you anyway. Of all the vampires I had to be tied to for the rest of my life, I guess you're not the worst one out there."

"I am truly honored," Jean-Claude said, but there was a smile in his eyes.

Richard sighed and laid back down on the mass of pillows. "I'm going to nap for awhile longer," he said. "I haven't really had a full night's sleep for the last few years and I really think I need it. It might probably make me be a little less cranky. Then everyone won't be calling me a dick behind my back."

"Ah, you too have heard the whispers about you," Jean-Claude laughed.

Richard rolled his eyes. "Please. I didn't really need preternatural hearing to be able to hear what everyone was saying about me."

"Well, mon ami, I suppose that I should leave you to your rest." Jean-Claude gracefully rose to his feet and fairly glided across the floor toward the bedroom door.

Richard sighed and closed his eyes. "Thank you," he said again.

The only answer was the gentle click of the door closing, but that was all right.

For the first time in a long time he felt like himself again. Richard Zeeman, non-psychotic werewolf.

It was a truly great feeling.

* * *

She felt terrible.

Something had happened that she couldn't really explain. It felt as though someone had stuck a blade made out of ice directly into her chest and never bothered to pull it back out again.

It was after closing the door behind Dr. Lillian that it had happened, just WHAM! Heart full of cold pain.

She had tried calling for Jean-Claude, and then for Richard, but there had been no answer. No warm rush of beastly energy or cold wave of strength. It was just her alone to face whatever had happened to her.

She clutched her chest and fought the pain-tears that wanted to fill her eyes. She was too strong to let herself cry. She just kind of squatted down on the floor, pressing her back hard against the door to keep from screaming and tried to push the pain away.

"You know what happened, don't you?"

Anita opened one eye to squint at Buffy. She couldn't even talk to demand what the hell she was talking about.

Buffy laughed, a surprisingly cheerful sound. "Oz has poisoned Richard and Jean-Claude against you. They've blocked the Marks. You're all alone now."

"Damian," she ground out, "pard."

Buffy shook her head, still smiling. "Please. Having them is the only thing keeping you from shattering like an old china plate. But Jean-Claude and Richard... they were the seat of your power. They were the only thing holding you together, and now they've closed themselves off from you. You're all alone. Worthless and all alone."

"No!" Anita ground out.

"Well then. If you want to prove that you're still as tough as you think you are... maybe you should put a leash on Oz before he takes everyone away from you all together."

"Oz," Anita growled. "Oz."

Buffy just smiled.

* * *

"Where the hell is Oz?" Willow asked herself, peering into the mirror that was gradually showing a clearer and clearer image.

Right now it was showing the blurred image of a strange dark set of buildings. It would eventually become crystal clear then hone in directly on where he was, but for now she would just have to wonder what kind of world he had landed on.

She sighed and sat back on her haunches. It would be several hours before the image was clear enough for her to be able to really get an idea of what was going on.

She stood up. She might as well go get herself one of the strawberry-blueberry-kiwi-banana smoothies Xander was making a mess out of down in the kitchen.

There was nothing like smoothie goodness to be able to settle her down for whatever was going to happen.

Either Oz was going to be coming home later tonight... or she was going to have to say goodbye to him for the last time, with no chance of meeting him on some dusty street in some sun-melted country somewhere.

It made her kind of sad, since she knew there was no real letting go of a first love. But things would happen the way they were meant to happen.

"What will be, will be," she murmured, then laughed at her own foolishness. "I think I have way too many issues for a single smoothie to handle. Guess I'll just have to have two then."