So, Buffy was being slightly insensitive about the whole situation. She just hoped that she wasn’t as annoying as Willow when she was moping about her and Angel. She cringed inwardly, realizing that she probably had been. It didn’t help that ever since last week, Buffy had come to the conclusion that the reason for Willow and Oz’s break-up was, in the long run, all Willow’s fault. Willow had been the center of Oz’s universe. Oz had just been her boyfriend. Oz needed someone who would respect the kind of love that he could give and was capable of loving him the same. Buffy hated to admit it, but Willow was just too immature for that kind of love.

Of course, she was majorly biased. Oz had kissed her a week ago, she had liked it and she had been unable to get it out of her head since she had walked out of his front door and away from him. For good. The truth of the matter was, she was scum. She’d fallen for her best friend’s first love in a major way and she was now trying to find some kind of way to pin it all on the victim in the situation. Buffy lowered her head, feeling the strong urge to crawl under a dark rock.

"When I called to talk to him last night, Devon laughed like a maniac before he hung up on me," she heard Willow say. Buffy raised her head to look at Willow for a minute, picturing that funny look that Willow gets when she’s getting indignant, practically hearing Devon’s laughter resounding in her head. And she tried, successfully, to repress the strong urge to laugh herself. She saw the angry look on Willow’s face and had to turn away to keep herself from laughing. "I just know that he’s loving this. Devon has always had some personal vendetta against me. In fact, Oz would probably talk to me if he didn’t have Devon there at his side, making up evil bitch stories about me."

Buffy rolled her eyes again.

"Rosenberg!" The two heard a male voice crying. They both looked around to find out who was calling Willow’s last name. Finally, Buffy spotted Percy jogging across the grass towards them and tapped Willow to alert her to him. Percy was a complete idiot, but he was definitely fun to look at, Buffy thought.

"Hey, Rosenberg," Percy said, stopping before them.

Willow’s features automatically transformed from sullen and morose to excited and honestly happy. "Percy, hey! What are you doing here?" Willow asked, smiling broader than Buffy had seen her in months.

"I go here!" Percy explained, puffing his chest out proudly.

"I didn’t know that!" Willow said, her voice becoming decidedly chipper.

"I got a basketball scholarship," Percy told her, seeming to grow even bulgier by the second. Buffy dropped her head to the side and studied the exchange between the two carefully. "But I couldn’t have done it without your help. That tutoring really helped me bring my grades up."

"I’m glad I could help," Willow said, beaming proudly.

"Hey, there’s a game tonight. We’re playing Nixon University. Will you come?" Percy asked Willow.

This was when Buffy saw the delighted expression on Willow’s face drop, her smile falling until just the corners of her mouth barely quirked up. Buffy realized that the small smile that Willow was holding was really more for appearance’s sake than anything. "Um, I don’t think I can make it, Percy. I have a lot of homework to do."

"Oh," Percy said, his smile also falling, his eyes showing his disappointment. "Well, if you get finished early, it’d be really cool if you came to watch me play," he added with a nod. "If you can," he clarified again.

"Maybe. If I can," Willow said. "Bye, Percy. I’ll see you later, Buffy," Willow told them before walking away, her posture slouched in that familiar depressed fashion.

After she was gone Buffy realized that Percy was looking at her for the first time since he’d shown up. "Oh, hey, Buffy!" he said. "I didn’t even recognize you with your hair that color. It looks really nice, by the way."

"Really?" Buffy said happily, touching her hair lightly. She’d felt utterly Felicity for the last week, having people she didn’t even know stop to compliment her on the change in her hair.

"So, what’s wrong with her?" Percy asked her, nodding in the direction that Willow had headed.

"Oh, Willow? She’s just a little down since she and Oz broke up," Buffy explained.

"They broke up?!" Percy exclaimed. "And I always thought that Oz guy was smart." Buffy quirked an eyebrow when he started to smile a bit. Casually slapping the back of his right hand into his open palm, Percy asked, "In that case, do you think you could talk her into coming to my game?"

Buffy’s eyes widened when the realization hit her. "Percy, you like Willow?"

Percy smiled and tried to hide it shyly before shrugging his shoulders. Buffy’s smile widened, the perfect opportunity to pull Willow out of the doldrums and back into the real world. Where she was way less annoying. "Don’t worry, Percy. She’ll be there," she assured him.

"Cool," he said in a happy sigh before waving and taking his leave of her. Buffy watched as he went. So, Percy liked Willow, huh? Buffy nodded to herself. Yep, a complete idiot.

Buffy had managed to get Willow to the game. It took lots of begging then, finally, pouting. When they got to the game, Willow moped for a while, until Percy scored his first two points. After that, Willow was smiling the whole time and loudly rooting Percy on. SU ended up beating Nixon eighty-four to sixty-two. After the game, Percy took the time to pick Willow out of the crowd of screaming girls and waved, with a small, stupid smile on his face.

As Willow and Buffy started pulling on their jackets, a perky-looking blond in a cheerleader’s uniform approached them. "Um, Willow?" the girl directed at Buffy.

"Yeah?" Willow said, making the fact known that she was Willow.

"Oh, um, hi! I’m Terry. Percy asked me to tell you about the victory party being held at Phi Kappa Zeta. He wants you to come," the vacuous girl told her.

"Oh," Willow said. "That’s nice of him, but-"

"Tell him we’ll see him there," Buffy quickly broke in.

"Great! See ya there!" the girl said and bounced away before Willow could protest.

Buffy hooked her arm through Willow’s. "Now, we are going to go to that party. And you, we, are going to have a bunch of fun. Are we clear?"

Willow huffed as Buffy dragged her out of the packed gym.

"I’m going to go see if I can find the bathroom," Willow yelled in her ear over the loud music before taking her leave of Buffy. Buffy sat comfortably in an out of the way loveseat which she had been sharing with Willow. She toyed with the idea of finding a dance partner and getting down with her bad self, but she decided that she was fine where she was for the moment. Besides, if she vacated her seat it would have been stolen by the couple that was making out pressed against the wall next to her.

Buffy scanned the party. She didn’t see anyone she knew until her gaze ran over the front door, people still streaming through it. Her eyes caught the short, familiar figure and her eyes widened. Though he stood between two more conventionally attractive men, he was very much the more appealing of the three. His "black raspberry" hair was spikey and mussed, as usual. Her eyebrows scrunched up a bit when she noticed that he was dressed in a black t-shirt and baggy blue jeans, not a formally attractive outfit and yet he made it seem slicker than even the great amounts of leather that Angel wore.

Her eyes snapped back up to his face, noticing the passive and guarded way that he scanned the party-goers. His eyes weren’t exactly the window to his soul, like most people, but she knew him well enough to be able to tell that he felt slightly uncomfortable.

With a start, Buffy realized that Willow would be back soon. If she saw Oz right now, everything would go to hell. Willow would forget completely about the dumb jock that was utterly smitten for her and then there would be ugliness. Buffy could see it now. Oz with a pained look on his face as Willow begged him to go somewhere to talk, Devon trying to pull Oz as far away from her as possible and her standing there, like a complete idiot. She’d be too terrified to try and step in.

Quickly jumping up from her seat, Buffy didn’t seem to notice as the couple jacked her seat as soon as she moved. She didn’t think of what she was going to say, all she knew was that she had to get Oz out of there as soon as possible. And by any means necessary.

She’d finally pushed her way through all of the people and was suddenly too close to Oz. She shook her head, realizing that the emotions he exuded from him made her head all swimmy. She wondered at that moment, what it would be like to have him kiss her again. But to kiss him without worrying about other people, to just be a couple of kids who liked each other and didn’t have any baggage between them. To be the way he and Willow had been when they’d first gotten together. But that couldn’t happen and her thought train was off course.

"Oz! What are you doing here?" she questioned, carefully avoiding his eyes. She was sure she was blushing, her cheeks felt hot. She ignored the little tingle she got in the pit of her stomach as she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away from Devon and his other friend, whose name escaped her at the moment.

"Well, Devon says that I’m getting out of the house to have a little fun. I tend to think of it more as being kidnapped," Oz said dryly.

Buffy snapped her head to the side, meeting his eyes dead on. A shock went through her, but she ignored it. Or tried to. "Willow’s here," she told him.

"And? I’ll have to face her sooner of later, won’t I?" Oz asked sadly.

"Yeah, well, face her sometime when there isn’t a cute, dumb jock trying to face her," she said.

"Cute and dumb. This is the kind of guy that you want to replace me?" Oz asked her.

"At this point I’m thinking Mayor Wilkins in demon form would be better for her than you are," Buffy said before she could stop herself. She winced when she heard the tone of voice she was using with him.

"Well, I’m convinced," Oz said harshly, obviously holding back his anger. Odd, Oz had never been this easy for her to read, even when she could read his thoughts.

Buffy jumped when Oz grabbed her by the arm and quickly dragged her out of the front door. He pulled her off to the side on the large wrap-around porch, stopping them at a good distance from any of the other college students. Buffy ripped herself out of his grasp, rubbing the spot of skin that his contact had left a zinging sensation on. "I saw her," Oz explained to her.

"You want to see her even less than I want you to," Buffy said, nodding to herself.

Oz avoided her gaze for a short moment, before settling his eyes on hers again. "Maybe so, but if I’m leaving, you’re coming with me."

"Oz, you know I can’t do that," Buffy said in a small voice.

Oz shrugged. "Fine then," he said and moved to enter the frat house again. Buffy quickly put herself in his way, stopping him with her hands on his chest. She looked down at her hands with surprise as her fingers moved slightly over the tight expanse of flesh that felt warm beneath the thin material of his t-shirt. She swallowed, her throat feeling like it was about to close up as she slowly extracted her hands. When she glanced up at Oz, she noticed that he was looking down at the space her hands had just recently vacated.

"All right, if that’s what it will take, I’ll go with you," she said, remembering her "any means necessary" resolution.

Buffy made a squeaky sound of surprise when Oz grabbed her again and started dragging her away from the house. They walked quietly together for a few minutes, Oz’s hand tightly grasping her arm, as though he was afraid she’d turn tail and run at any moment. She allowed him to do this since she wasn’t exactly positive that she wouldn’t. She even considered it a few minutes later when Oz finally released her. Yet, his stopping and turning to face her made her incapable of movement. "Here’s good," he said.

"For what?" she asked, turning to study their location. She realized that they were standing in a small alcove of trees. To their left was a broken bench and she remembered smashing it the last and only time Oz had gone on patrol with her. She was surprised that no one had cleaned it up or fixed it yet.

"To talk," Oz answered. Her eyes widened into two saucer like orbs when he reached up to touch her hair with the tips of his fingers. "It really does suit you well," he said quietly.

"No," Buffy said, stepping away from him. "No touching, Oz. That’s the first rule not to be broken here."

"What are the other rules?"

Buffy stuttered for a minute. "Okay, so it’s the only rule. But it’s a rule not to be broken."

"I kissed you. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did. At that point, it was the only thing in the world I wanted to do. Men have a tendency to act without thought sometimes and despite what some people believe, I am a man."

"Yeah, but that’s the point. You kissed me when you shouldn’t have. If you weren’t my best friend’s first love and things were different, it would have been perfectly okay, but you are so it’s not. And it was wrong for me to let you kiss me," Buffy argued.

"Yeah, well I’m thinking now," Oz said, taking a small step towards her, but being careful to keep a good distance between them, so as not to startle her. "And I’m thinking that I want to kiss you again. And that there really isn’t any good reason why I shouldn’t. Unless you don’t like me. If that’s the case then tell me."

"I do!" Buffy cried. "But there *is* a good reason why you shouldn’t kiss me again. Willow-"

But it was hopeless to argue any further since Oz’s lips were covering hers and she felt heat running all through her body. All she could think was that Oz’s callused fingers running over her cheeks and down to her neck were the most delicious thing she’d felt in a long, long time. The heady scent of his shampoo and deodorant rose in her nostrils as she sucked a deep breath of his essence in. She vaguely realized that her arms had moved to encircle his neck and pull him flush against her. His palm flattening itself between her shoulder blades was maddening.

The sweeping of Oz’s tongue against hers ceased and he pulled out of the kiss. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not. Of course, she was still clinging to him with her forehead pressed against his so she couldn’t have been too relieved about it. "Come home with me, Buffy," Oz whispered, his voice harsh as he moved his face down to nuzzle against her neck, swiping his tongue over the pulsing vein in her neck.

"I can’t," she said feebly, unable to get her body to comply to her minds wishes. He was just so warm and firm beneath her touch. She clung to him like a lifeline and for all she knew, he was.

Oz chuckled against her skin sending a vibration throughout her whole body. "You can," he told her, looking her straight into the eye.

He was right. She could. She could do anything that she wanted to do and right now she really wanted to go home with Oz. She wanted to feel his naked skin against hers. She had an almost painful need to feel him between her legs, moving inside of her, filling the emptiness inside of her. But....

Oz’s hands moved to the side of her head, forcing her to look him in the eye. He stared for a moment, then dropped one hand to catch hers with it. "Let’s go."

Buffy bit down on her lower lip and nodded before she could give herself the chance to back out. She needed this. Badly.

The End

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