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The American Stranger
by nwhepcat
Summary: For the past couple of weeks, Oz has been hearing about
another American asking questions about the local stories.
Rating: PG-13
Author Notes: Since I read "Seeing Africa," it's felt
to me that Huzzlewhat owns Africa Xander -- I'm sure my vision of
him owes a debt to hers. This fic was written at the request of Marcus
L. Rowland, as a kind of literary version of the PBS totebag with
donation -- in exchange for his donation to tsunami relief.
Story Notes: Takes place about 2 1/2 years after
"Chosen."
Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy and Fox own 'em, I'm
just borrowing, and no money crossed my palm, including the
donation.
For the past couple of weeks, Oz has been hearing about another American asking
questions about the local stories.
This isn't the first time. He'd heard that in Durban, too.
There are more details this time around, from a woman who sells him coffee and
roasted sweet potato. This other stranger isn't asking about men that take the
shape of animals, as Oz has been, but about girls of extraordinary strength.
Oz isn't sure how he feels about that.
Could mean that another Slayer's been called. Could just mean that the Council's
on the move, tracking down some future Slayer. The way he understands it,
there's a pool of girls. Seems pretty hit or miss, he recalls, whether they get
found and trained before they're called.
"Could he have been British?"
She shakes her head emphatically. "American."
That could mean any number of things. Could be that someone's out there looking
for proto-Slayers for less than benign reasons (not that he finds the Council
all that benign, after Wes). It might be that the inquiries are of a completely
human nature, but still fairly creepy in intent. Oz's urge is to steer clear of
this -- he tends to avoid other Americans in general, and made no attempt in
Durban to look up this stranger, but now --
"Did he happen to say which way he was headed?"
East, she says. She's pretty sure of it. And on up the coast. Those people, she
says, they believe that the indri are their ancestors, so maybe Oz'll find what
he's looking for there, too.
It doesn't sound like it, but he thanks her anyway, finishes his coffee and
prepares to go.
"Do you remember how long ago he came through?"
Weeks, is the answer. Trying to pin it down further gets him a shrug. Oz nods
and slings his backpack over a shoulder.
As he turns away, the woman asks in a rush, "Tell me, did the
zazavavindrano get you?"
"Come again?"
Giggling, she repeats it, but in Malagasy, and she and the serving girl and the
other customers laugh. Oz offers a smile and leaves, squinting in the bright
African light. He fumbles for a pen and scrawls on his wrist. ZAZAVA is
all he can remember. It'll probably sweat off before he can find someone to ask,
but it doesn't matter much.
East. Up the coast. It's a direction as good as any other, but he's not
sure he wants to head there. Whoever -- whatever -- this stranger is, Oz isn't
sure he's the man to confront him. The problem, though, is one Oz picked up in
Sunnydale. Once you know a thing, you can't unknow it. If there's something you
think you can do about it, you can't not do it.
He can find out who this guy is, what he's after.
He can do that much.
It's harder than he thinks, tracking this other American. The bars seem like the
most natural place for a guy looking for stories to go, but Oz turns up no
information.
Odd thing is, relatively new structures seem to be popping up on the trail.
Simple sheds, well coverings, an animal pen. It takes a while before he thinks
of asking, and it turns out yeah, it's the American who's built these things.
Not for money, and he's not a missionary. He does it for stories.
Well, if the guy's on the other side, he's some kind of volunteer for Habitat
for Demonity or something.
This must make sense in some way, but Oz isn't seeing it.
It's difficult to make sense of anything, with the eerie shrills of the indri in
the trees above him. Some of the songs go on for several minutes at a stretch,
and at times a whole chorus will rise up from the treetops. The sound fucks with
his head, makes his wolf struggle to rise to the surface, even in the light of
day.
Oz knows now that Madagascar was a stab in the dark, a last-ditch effort. The
island doesn't seem that isolated when you look at a map, not like Australia,
but weird evolutionary shit happened here just the same. There are creatures --
like those lemurs making their high-pitched almost-whalesong -- that don't exist
anywhere else. He was hoping for -- well, for answers that don't seem to exist
anywhere else. A story that will help him conquer this thing once and for all.
Not much of a chance, in a place without wolves, but you never know. In his
travels he'd discovered everything he could about other were-beasts -- the
huse-bjorn, wampus cats, werefoxes in China and tigers in Malaysia and
India -- but none of them had held more than a nugget of what he needed.
The story that would help him is either lost to time, or it never existed in the
first place.
Once he really admits this to himself -- he hasn't fully taken it in, but he's
moving in that direction -- then what? What kind of life does he make for
himself? It's not like he can go back to Sunnydale.
For now, though, he's got a distraction. Prey to track. As he draws closer to
the American stranger, he finds himself slowing his pace, drawing out the hunt.
The only thing that keeps him on the move at all is his discomfort with settling
in one spot for too long.
When Oz catches up to the other American, it's sheer accident. He's accepted a
ride into the next town, and as the jeep careens around the bend and into the
center of the village, it scatters a handful of chickens and a knot of children
who'd been gathered in what passes for the center of town, where a white guy is
working on some sort of carpentry project. Oz twists in his seat as the jeep
speeds by, thinking there's something about this guy --
"This is good," Oz tells the driver.
He hops down from the jeep, slinging his pack over his shoulder and slowly
approaching the crowd, now gathering again around the white guy. He's got a
helluva tan, and his dark hair glints reddish, lightened by the sun. Oz watches
the stranger for a while, his economical movements, his casual confidence in his
work. He can't get over the feeling that there's something familiar about this
guy.
Oz draws closer, listening to him banter in Malagasy with the brashest of the
kids. Most of their conversation is lost on him, but it doesn't matter, since
the dawning realization blooming in his mind takes up all the space he has for
processing things.
The American stranger is actually someone he knows. It's Xander Harris.
Oz angles around toward his left, waiting to see how long it takes before Xander
notices him. It takes a long damn time. It's not until one of the kids spots him
and points that Xander casts him so much as a glance.
Now kids are crowding toward him -- in a village too small and poor to have a
surplus white guy, now they've got two, and Oz is an instant sensation. Not only
that, but he's still, considering all his travels, pretty uncommonly white.
The look on Xander's face makes Oz grin. "Dr. Livingston, I presume?"
"Oz? Holy -- Oz, is that you?"
"Yeah, man. What are you doing in Africa?"
Xander moves through the swarm of kids -- not easy -- and engulfs him in a hug.
"Dude!"
Dude! the kids echo gleefully.
"Oz, what are you doing here?"
"Still, uh, researching my heritage."
Xander laughs. "Your heritage? Yeah, sure -- Oh. Oh."
"Yeah, that. But hey, I asked first."
"So you did." Xander fires off instructions in Malagasy, and the kids rush off
to do his bidding. Still, he lowers his voice. "I'm searching for Slayers."
That sentence might as well be in another language too, for all the sense it
makes. "What happened? Was it Buffy or Faith? Or someone who came after?" And
why you? But there's no polite way to ask that one.
"Buffy? Oh. No no, Buffy's fine. Faith too. The rules have changed. We
remade them -- well, Willow did. There are hundreds of Slayers now. The trick is
rounding them all up."
"Hundreds? That's nuts."
Xander grins, white teeth flashing in his tan face. "It is, isn't it? That's the
beauty of it."
There are too many questions crowding in on him. "There has to be an apocalypse
somewhere in this story."
"There's always an apocalypse." He claps Oz on the shoulder. "Come on, I'll buy
you lunch." Xander leads him to a shack much like the one where Oz picked up his
trail, and they each get some stew and the local beer. Oz is briefly introduced
and welcomed, then the two Americans are left to themselves in a murky corner.
"Willow, you said. She's okay, then?"
"She's fine. Like I said, she did this spell that awakened all the potential
slayers. We had a go-round with the First Evil. I think you were around for the
first time with the First. Back in high school."
"I remember, yeah. She's still -- still with that girl? Tara?"
A shadow passes across Xander's face. "No. Tara was murdered a couple of years
back."
He thinks of her now, how she reminded him of a doe. It wasn't just the long
neck and her eyes, so big and soft. It was the way she held herself, too: She
seemed shy and cautious and ready to bolt at the first hint of a threat. "Wow,"
he says, a wholly inadequate response. "Who would want to hurt her?" Other than
him, of course, and the wolf inside.
"She was an innocent bystander. Stray bullet, meant for Buffy."
"Wow," he says again, which isn't any more adequate the second time around. "I'm
sorry to hear that."
"Yeah," Xander says softly. "So was I."
Oz hears worlds of history in those few words and wonders if he'll ever learn
the full story. Something makes him unsure that he wants to. "I heard about
Sunnydale," he says abruptly. "I didn't know all this time if you all made it
out okay." He takes a few deep drinks of beer. Pretty potent stuff. "I kind of
assumed not."
"That would be your smart money," Xander says. "Most of us made it, though. A
few didn't."
"Who didn't?"
"Some of the new Slayers." He toys with his beer glass. "Anya."
"Anya." He meets Xander's gaze. "Were you two still together?"
A flicker of a smile. "Yes and no. I think we were working our way back. I
forget how much you missed. We almost got married, and I backed out." He swipes
at his left eye with two fingertips. "Actually, I left her at the altar. Saving
us both from a horrendous mistake, but it never made me feel that noble."
Oz nods. Not really much you can say, but he knows what it's like to break the
heart of someone you love.
"Spike too."
This doesn't compute. Spike two what? "Say again?"
"Spike died too, when Sunnydale collapsed."
A short burst of laughter escapes him. "That's the goal, isn't it?"
"Ah hell. That's another thing you weren't around for. Spike was on our side. He
died closing the hellmouth."
There is just not enough holy shit to cover those last two sentences.
"You're shitting me."
"I'm not. It was a long, rocky road, but he ended up doing a lot for us. He even
got his soul. Somewhere here in Africa, I think, but I never got all the
details."
"The hellmouth is closed?"
Xander nods. "It pulled all of Sunnydale in after it, but it's closed."
Oz shakes his head. "Well, I knew it wasn't just a sinkhole."
"What was it like for you?" Xander asks. "Hearing about it, being -- I presume -
- thousands of miles away?"
What was it like for Oz?
Xander signals to the serving girl to bring more beer. "Where were you when you
heard?"
"Iceland. I thought I'd try controlling the wolf by spending the summer where it
was day almost all the time. I'm in this internet cafe, and they've got the
radio on. The news comes on and it's all in Icelandic, but then I hear
California, and Sunnydale, then the people in the place all start
talking at once." He'd found himself on his feet, without remembering rising.
Said he was from Sunnydale. He'll never forget their faces, when the other
people realized this was his home. Whenever he's confronted with the shittiness
people are capable of -- which is just about any of the rare times he looks at a
newspaper -- he stops and thinks of those people and their kindness. "I spent
most of the next week there -- the owners gave me free access to the internet,
and I don't think I had to pay for a meal the entire time. People brought me
news clippings, took me home for dinner, gave me their guest room. I looked for
your names in the reports, on either side, but I didn't find anything."
"We didn't exactly stick around for the CNN crews. We were in London within the
week," Xander says.
"I thought about going back, but --"
"There was nothing to go back to. I can't imagine that. Being so far away from
home when something like that happens."
The girl comes with their beer, and Oz smiles his thanks. "I can't imagine being
there. What was that like?"
"Like looking at a banquet table, covered in crystal and fancy china and
silverware, and then someone at the very end of the table starts tugging on the
tablecloth, sending the whole thing crashing, one piece after the other. Very
fast, but in slo-mo, if that makes any sense. There was nothing we could do,
just watch block after block, building after building, all of it sucked into
this vast hole."
"Jesus," Oz breathes. "Where were you when this was happening?"
"In a bus, trying to outrun it."
Oz has pretty much established the inadequacy of wow, but it seems to be
all that he can say.
"So how'd the Iceland thing work? Land of the midnight sun?"
"Not like I'd hoped. The nights were short -- three hours on the longest day of
the summer, and even then it never got totally dark -- but so much more intense
than I'd known anywhere else. Savage. It's like the wolf won't be cheated. I
didn't stay the summer."
"Yeah," Xander says softly. "Some things aren't open to negotiation. So what
brought you to Africa?"
"Still looking for wise men and witch doctors, anyone who can tell me how to
live with this. I think that's about run its course, though. I've pretty much
been around the world now."
"What's next?"
"Haven't gotten that far. What's your plan?"
"Like I said, I've been tracking down Slayers. I've found a couple, taken them
back to Giles. I've got six more weeks here, then I go back to the States to get
the ol' bionic eye checked over. After that, a few weeks of r & r in London
and Rome."
There are so many directions this conversation could go in, Oz feels like he's
standing in front of one of those signposts bristling with arrows pointing
toward destinations. "Bionic eye?" They both look like Xander eyes.
"Long story. Kind of a boy-meets-thumb thing."
Oz thinks of the motormouthed kid Xander was in high school, begging him for
advice on how to be cool. He can't even think how many years ago that was. Feels
like a hundred.
"So listen," Xander says. "I realize you might come up with a plan on your own,
but if you're looking for something to do with yourself, the Council can use
you."
Oz laughs. "Okay, the one about Spike dying a hero I can almost believe, but now
you're just playing with me."
"Yeah, I know you didn't have such great experience with the Council's true
believers. It got even worse in the next year or two. Things are different now."
"Yeah? How?"
Xander smiles, and again there seems to be whole libraries of history in it.
"We're the Council."
"Oh."
"Yeah. So think about it. No big hurry. If you want to travel with me the next
few weeks while you work it over, I'd welcome the company."
Oz is trying to determine if he would. This feels like more talking than he's
done in the past year. It goes against the grain of who he's become -- who he'd
always been, to some degree. But he can't deny that it's good to be around
someone who understands him. Who knows his history, has met his wolf.
Xander finishes his beer. "So. I've got a well covering to finish. Feel free to
come, if you want to watch or help."
Oz gets to his feet as Xander does. "Oh, listen. There's something I've been
wanting to ask someone who might know. A woman asked me a few weeks ago if
someone had 'gotten me.' Zsa Zsa something. Not Gabor."
Xander's laughter rings off the corrugated metal walls of the shack. He waits
until they've stepped outside, blinking in the sudden light, before he says,
"Zazavavindrano."
"Yeah, that."
"It's a local vampire legend. They're mermaids. In December they lure good-
looking men into the river and suck their blood, and the cold, white bodies
float to the surface."
Oz flicks a glance down at his own skin. "Well, hey. She thought I was good-
looking."
He follows the sound of Xander's soft laughter back to his carpentry project,
and soon they're surrounded again by a flock of darting children.
End
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