Four
Oz parked the van near the waterfront knowing that being stationary was the signal for 'rendezvous.'
If Connor enjoyed one thing more than pulling further from his 'made to order' life it was finishing a successful chase. He dropped to the ground beside Oz grinning like he'd solved a puzzle.
His clothes had been dirtied to broadcast youthful distaste for rules were normal enough. Plenty of kids tried to layer themselves in the most popular rebellions. But even that wasn't entirely true for Connor. With his hair hanging long down to his collar it was evident that he wasn't trying to fit the image of 'trendy.'
'Connor-the-good-almost-normal-boy' was just something to be put on so that he could get through certain doors. Nobody would move aside for him on the streets, but his father's son would have much less trouble. There were two ways of going through life and Connor was experimenting with those available to him. The confidence was did not bring peace of mind. Despite Connor's efforts to act as though he'd been everywhere twice, Oz couldn't forget how much he hadn't seen.
He could imagine Connor being pleased to shed everything related to responsibility and a boring controlled life. Not only that, but he liked the idea of going up against overwhelming odds. To pound on a wall and bloody his hands was meaningful because the right intention was behind his fists.
"Hey, Oz."
One of the nice things about Connor was the fact that he wasn't one for lengthy explanations. His imagination would add a level of intrigue and detail that reality couldn't aspire to.
"Found what you were looking for?"
"Sort of."
Of course, when aroused, youthful curiosity came with its own problems.
Connor shook his head like he'd caught a smell that was just beyond recognition.
"Is something the matter?" Poking at a locked and ominously rattling box wasn't very bright but he wanted to see exactly how memory twisted back on itself.
Oz found his attention caught by more than the hand that settled-clamped over his wrist.
Connor didn't have many scars but those visible were still more than could be explained by organized sports. Unless there were swords involved. He could see flecks of white on the backs of Connor's hands. Scars like sharp snowfall that were only obvious when one searched them out.
The boy didn't come out and say anything was wrong, exactly. What he did say was enough.
"You smell like a funeral." His tone was puzzled, just a bit more troubled than if Oz had gone to a concert without him.
"I wasn't hunting." Not the way Connor liked to.
Connor grinned. "No, you don't do that, and not well."
"I'm not that bad. Werewolf, you know." Some need to defend his species and tendencies.
"Yeah, but you might as well be against eating meat altogether."
The teasing was almost sweet. One had to let the subject fuzz out and enjoy the *feel* of familiar jibes.
"Says the kid who left candy wrappers all over the van. Any more and you could have made a nest."
"I was hungry." Connor squinted as if he were looking into intense light. "You've got to remember what that's like."
Mentioning that Oz saw starvation in Connor's handling of food would spoil the mood.
"It wasn't *that* long ago that I was your age."
"Really?"
That called for a not-so-human rumble and pouncing.
It wasn't surprising that Connor let himself be pinned for less than a breath. Oz might be the older, more experienced one, but he would have to *work* for dominance. Connor wasn't one to allow anyone to press him down for too long. With each passing hour, more of what he *had been* fitted with the present and he walked more assuredly.
On top for the time being, Oz rested his head on the boy's chest. The heat coming from Connor's body was a warmth like midday in August and Oz remembered how even as a kid it was hard to know when the sun was going to stop *heating* and burn. He'd never been the best judge of when it was time to get inside.
Connor moved in to press their mouths together, his tongue a testing swipe of wetness across closed lips. Only in his eyes was there any indication that Connor was unsure of Oz's reaction. He pressed upwards like he had to get a fix, but knew that need could break most people. Luckily Oz was neither human nor easily shattered.
The edge of near-panic and determination rising from Connor were better than cologne. Oz dropped his head to the base of Connor's neck and *breathed*. He waited until Connor felt stable enough that he wouldn't change his mind and buck Oz off before running away to pummel something.
Once sure of himself, Connor proved that whatever else he'd been taught growing up, he knew how to pursue what he wanted.
Whether Connor desired the abnormal or someone who saw his own strangeness seemed unimportant. The determination to *get inside* and be held there was never absent from his manner.
"I've seen movies. About you know, werewolves and stuff. But I never thought they were all that scary."
Again, that sense of recognition for what was real, even if it happened to be those elements of the world that were completely beyond most people.
"It's not like they can get advice for that," Oz pointed out.
"No, I guess not."
Connor peered at Oz's hands. "Does it hurt having claws?"
"When I change, yeah."
"It breaks the skin?"
"Reshapes it."
"I'd like to see that," Connor said, and licked Oz's fingertips as though he thought he could coax claws out with attention. Oz shivered and admitted that such straightforward strategies were more effective than he would have expected. Connor couldn't imagine having his own demon, and that was part of the reason he hadn't yet 'wolfed out' in front of Connor. Somehow it seemed more intimate than nudity.
For all the small clues that fit together into an idea of Connor's lineage, there was no real way to trace possible recessive or dominant traits.
He didn't know how much a part of the undead Connor truly was. It seemed that he aged normally enough, but Oz didn't know if he would reach a certain age and simply *stop*. Whatever gave him strength beyond that of an ordinary young man also had to have *changed* him deeper inside.
Connor claimed he was 'free of the past,' yet he continued to discount the fact that what he had been was ever more apparent.
"C'mon Oz, you don't have to change with the moon, and I want to see."
Over Connor's shoulder the moon squatted in the sky, its ripe look no closer to comforting than the *hunger* the boy didn't think to conceal. He wanted, and showing others how much was no problem. Much like the wild brunette that had threatened Willow.
'Give before it hurts, or wait, it's all the same' was almost past Connor's lips, and Oz heard the words in another's voice.
The temptation to grind assumptions and foolish bravado into fur until the boy gasped was at the forefront of his mind. It was not his style to be angry at a loved one. A threat called for aggression, but not usually inquiry.
In Connor's case, it was the unrelenting greed to take Oz in all ways. Even if he didn't drink blood, Connor had the instincts of a vampire.
Lupine wisdom advised several ways of handling Connor's pushiness. Almost all called for showing teeth.
Pushing past boyish demands and the experience in his bones, Oz shifted only enough for eyes and fur to change. Bone popped and reformed until he looked like something out of a 'safe for kinds and teen thrill seekers' special.
The changes only prompted Connor to continue familiarizing himself with Oz's different forms. Like a kid at the zoo who saw the bars as something to hang onto but not take notice of as a warning.
Frustration rasped in his throat and Connor frowned.
"I know what I'm doing Oz, I'm not stupid."
"Never said you were."
"No, but you might as well have."
There was no way to tell Connor that he *knew* and hid the truth for good reasons without sounding condescending. As though he thought that the boy wasn't good enough to be told what was really going on. In some ways it was protection, because Connor was still a kid, even though he was figuring it out and slowly shattering the present with the unfinished picture of what his life had been like before.
Connor shoved Oz off and rolled onto his knees.
"I killed a vampire last night."
The words dropped like boulders on what Oz mentally imagined was a small *fluffy* bunny. Why happiness was a rabbit he didn't know. It could have had something to do with hunger. He needed to go hunting more often.
"Oh."
Connor bounced in place like he wanted to take off and run until it hurt. Knowing him, he'd probably been endurance trained in just that way.
"It was too easy."
There was no denying that strength didn't frighten him. He was drawn to it, wanted to *know* it. The idea of something that could pin a werewolf or be enough of a challenge that he would have to work to beat it was interesting.
"You've staked a lot of vampires, right Oz?"
Often a look was more eloquent than a speech.
"Alright, so if you're used to this, then why do they scare you?"
"Most people would be scared by a monster, especially one that wants to drink their blood."
Oz always managed to sound logical when another might have said 'you moron.'
"But you're not. A person. And it's not as though you couldn't one on." He stared.
"Haven't you ever.."
"Fought with a vampire?" Oz finished for him. "No. The closest I ever came was facing off with one."
"What was it like?"
//The chunk of boots on pavement. How his eyes slowly took in the creature growling a threat-challenge.//
While it was the first time he'd ever seen a vampire with the eyes that a full moon gave him, he recognized danger.
"I knew that the vampire was something to avoid. Even for a werewolf."
"You should've attacked." Connor's answer to every situation.
"Right, on the night of my first full moon, I attack a vampire over a dead girl. I don't think I even knew what I was confronting, just that it was bad. How would I have defended myself?
"But you could handle one now."
Oh great, visions of them teaming up against the undead were filling Connor's vision. Such fantasies were only another mark on his mental list of what he had gotten into. There hadn't been a master plan to be the keeper of an inhuman teenager . And Connor wouldn't understand or admit why he kept trying to get Oz into the role.
'Be in charge, but only so long as I can challenge you. But not right now.' It didn't work when the 'dominant' didn't always see the need to be on top. Like now, he *should* spoil Connor's illusions about what they could do together, and he *should* explain that boredom was even more dangerous than a monster.
He settled on acknowledging that his chances were better now than they had been.
Connor frowned.
"But, what did you know? And how?"
//You got something out of the experience, share it.//
//Recognition. They might walk in different shadows, but both were most suited for 'after-dark.'//
"It's not easy to explain, Connor. I mean, vampires are usually just out of the ground, and the only thing to do with them is stake them."
He added, more softly, "Hopefully you don't know who they were before."
"Nobody I know has been vamped. But then, I don't know anybody real besides you."
"Could you become a vampire?"
"I don't know what would happen."
"Demons and werewolves don't mix?"
"Not usually." There were always exceptions.
"So your kind is meant to hunt vampires, too." He seemed to arrive at such a conclusion with the same gusto that one would exhibit upon winning a prize.
As the object of Connor's attention, Oz felt as though his good and bad habits were being tallied for a grand total.
"It's not a Calling, Connor. This isn't some destined path."
"It's what I feel like doing."
"Then that makes it a choice. I've met people who were born to do something, no matter if they wanted to or not. You're different." And not necessarily in a positive way.
Connor bit down on his lip and plainly expected to draw blood. He had the emerging instincts of a vampire, with no one to give him the final word on what conclusion he should leap to.
The boy had father issues and no one to inflict them on. Oz didn't want to assume the role by way of being available.
He wanted to explain without wondering if Connor understood.
"I had a-" Friend? Angel was someone he could have been closer to if either of them had taken the time.
"You had something?" Connor's confusion was almost a given, and it made a headache start to gather.
Oz shut his eyes against the ache.
"Someone, and I didn't *have* him so much as we knew each other."
Jealousy rose in the air like steam.
"How well?"
"We were dating girls who were best friends. We got to know each other a little that way."
He'd gotten a feel for the way the Slayer and her vampire shut everyone out with exclusive emotion. They had a world just big enough for the two of them, and nothing but a crisis could motivate them to think about separating. Even then it was only long enough to solve the problem.
Of course Angel had lost his soul almost immediately after Oz had the visual of 'true love.' After that, Angel wasn't the subject of anything but pained discussion and defensive planning.
"Where is he now?"
"Around."
A snarl twisted Connor's mouth.
"He's here. In this city."
"So what if he is? Are you going to hunt him down because we were *acquaintances*?"
"Maybe."
Petulance of not being so very special. "He does deserve it. He's a *vampire*."
"Look, Connor, you can't fight him."
"Why not?"
"Because he's not going to come after me or you, without good reason."
"He could track us down whenever he wants to? And that's okay?"
"You track me all the time."
"It's not the *same*."
Of course not. "Why is it different?"
Connor fumbled as he tried to verbalize what was probably only simple in his mind.
"We're..."
Friends was a bit broad, and most other possibilities were too limiting.
Connor settled on what he was sure of. "We know each other. I'm not following you because I'm some kind of werewolf hunter."
No, Connor followed him because certain personality traits evidently were passed down from father to son.
"He hasn't tried to hurt me, Connor." Not that the threat hadn't been present; it had just faded into something less immediate.
"That doesn't mean he won't." Connor leaned forward as though about to impart sudden insight. "It could be a ruse."
"A ruse?"
"You know, keep his distance, act harmless, make you let down your guard and before you knew it, you'd be stuffed and mounted on some trophy wall."
"I've heard that some consider werewolf meat to be a delicacy," Oz mused.
"This isn't funny."
"I'm not laughing."
"But you're not taking it seriously."
"This isn't something that you have to take care of for me."
If they were still 'an item' a ways down the road, then Oz hoped that he had purged Connor of the need to protect Oz from everything.
"Just let it be, Connor, for now. We'll talk about this later."
The boy ducked his head, and the grunt wasn't as good as understanding, but it would have to be enough for the moment.
As they moved in the subtle rhythms of sleep, Oz knew that such small peace wouldn't last.
-end