Summary: Oz's presence has... repercussions. S2 E27

Disclaimer: I own whatever OC's I create, and not much more.

Feedback: Unlike most sound setups, I like positive feedback. Like most amps, a little bit of negative feedback can help as well.

Pre-fic Comments:

Van Helsing is a pretty good movie, all told. Don't go expecting too much plot, though. It's kinda like Dracula 2000, but with more depth to it. We're given a few hints in it as to something way bigger than what the movie actually shows.

I tried to write the dream scene as best I could, according to what I could find on the web.

Xander looked around the Bronze, fiddling with a small velvet box. He'd wanted to go help Giles patrol, but the Watcher had given him the brushoff in no uncertain terms. He spotted Cordelia, sitting alone at a table. She was staring disconsolately towards a door, so he decided to cheer her up.

"Hey," he said, nearing her. Suave, Harris, very suave.

"Your clothes... you look so good," Cordelia said, looking him up and down. Her gaze remained on his hair. "But... what did you do to your hair?"

"Oh, I let Buffy dress me. Not physically," he hastened to add, spotting a confused look on Cordelia's face. "The hair happened on it's own, though. It's kinda a long story, wanna hear it?"

"Perfect," Queen C said, only getting more upset. "You /had/ to make this harder, didn't you?"

"Okay, clearly the fact that I please you visually has gotten us off on the wrong foot," Xander frowned. "Is it the hair?"

"Xander," the socialite began. Xander cut her off.

"Let me finish. I've been thinking a lot about us lately... the why and the wherefore. You know, once, twice, a kissy here, a kissy there," Xander explained. He really had been thinking lately. Willow had even teased him about smoke rising from his ears. "And you can chalk it all up to hormones. A-and maybe that's all we have here. Tawdry teen lust. But maybe not. Maybe something in you sees something special inside me. And vice versa. I mean, I think I do. See something. So..."

He handed her the small box, looking hopeful. He wanted more from a relationship than pure physical love -- he had seen the results of that all his life, and wanted more.

"Xander, thank you," Cordelia said wistfully, examining the necklace and pendant in the box. She held it up to the light. "It's beautiful... I wanna break up."

"Okay," Xander said, disbelief liberally splashed across his face. "Not /quite/ the reaction I was hoping for."

A small, cynical corner of his heart curled it's lip at her cold, mercenary reaction, admiring the blingbling while scorning the giver.

"I know. I'm sorry," Cordelia said, shaking her head. "It's just... Who are we kidding? Even if parts of us do see specialness, we don't fit."

"Yeah! Okay...," Xander scowled. His face crinkled into an expression normally foreign to it. "Do you know what's a good day to break up with somebody? Any day besides Valentine's Day! I mean, what, were you running low on dramatic irony?"

"I know. I didn't mean to do it this way. I," Cordelia tried desperately to explain.

Xander didn't believe this. Didn't mean to do it this way? She could have had a private word with him at school, asked to talk to him outside, anything rather than in the /middle/ of the Bronze, surrounded by everyone. Discretion was probably a dirty word to her.

"Well, you did," Xander interrupted.

The cheerleader and the teenage male stared at each other for a long moment.

Xander turned, intent on getting out before any more of his life went downhill.

He slunk quietly along the stone ledge, claws retracted so as to minimize sound that might spook his quarry. His ears pricked up as he heard the sound of hooves stop, and crouched low to the ground. As the hooves started moving again, nearing his position, he waited... waited...

The sound of hooves passed directly underneath. He couldn't hope for a better place.

He chuffed slightly as he leapt down from his ledge, all claws drawn as he landed twenty feet down on the back of a mountain goat. The rest of the small herd scattered, panicking, as he stayed agilely on the back of the frenzied animal. Blood ran from where his claws dug into the skin of the goat as he reached around it's neck, jaws firmly grasping it's throat and closing. He didn't break the neck of the goat. He closed it's air passage, so it slowly choked to death. He lacked the raw power to break it's neck so easily.

Eventually, the throes of the animal ceased, and he started dragging the corpse back to his lair through the grey twilight for consumption over the next few days.

Xander gasped as he woke up, eyes flicking wide open. That had to be one of the most vivid dreams he had ever had. He could still taste the tang of the blood from the throat of the ungulate, and was surprised when his fingers were not bloody from the scratches drawn with his claws.

He got out of bed, pulling on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt as he made his way to the door, and picked up the phone, dialling a number.

"Hey, G-man."

"I dunno. I just had a really, really, really freaky dream. I'm talking stranger and realler than after an Evil Dead marathon."

"Can I come around? That might be quicker."

He hung up, staring at his hand. Where had the blood gone?

Brown eyes with round pupils flashed a slitted grey as he pulled on his sneakers.