Currency: Oz and Devon

It's probably fair to say that without Oz, Devon wouldn't have existed. Oz was brought in to be a love interest to Willow, but he needed to have a certain level of cool to make his courtship of the little computer geek that much more sweet and so he became a guitarist in the Dingoes - with Devon as the lead singer.

Devon was also required beyond this: to ensure that Oz, like Cordelia, was never truly fully part of the Scooby core. He always had one foot outside of the circle with his band and his other friends, just as Cordelia maintained her social clique. Devon was Oz's connection to his old life.

Therefore, despite his canon romances with Cordelia and Harmony, Devon's most important relationship was always that with Oz. And, after Willow, the reverse was probably true for Oz. We know he kept in contact with Devon after leaving Sunnydale when he did not with any of the other Scoobies and It's no surprise that the largest single fanfic pairing involving the Devon - possibly more than all the rest put together - is Oz/Devon.

Their relationship can probably be split into three main time periods for the purposes of writing - life prior to the events of Phases, the time between that and Wild at Heart, and then everything afterwards.

We don't actually know where and when Oz and Devon met or how long they have known each other. The general consensus seems to be that it had been for quite some time. Certainly, they'd been friends long enough to have formed a reasonably successful band which apparently wrote its own songs and had gotten something of a reputation. This would indicate they had known each other for quite a few years - and many authors say grade school or even earlier. Either way they seemed to have a fairly close and easy-going friendship.

When Oz began to date Willow and then became a werewolf, there is a change both in his life and the perception of his relationship with Devon. It's practically mandatory when writing Oz/Devon fics in this era to mention Oz missing some band practise either because he was locked in the cage or because he had some other Scooby duty to attend to. Devon is often written as resenting this and Oz's romance with Willow - usually because it alters the way he and Oz are as friends (or more). Oz is more distant, more secretive and his girlfriend takes precedence over the band.

In the show however there is no obvious conflict or bad feeling - but then Devon hardly has the screentime to display any such emotion. Regardless of any problems Oz and Devon do remain friends and bandmates right up until Oz leaves Sunnydale for pastures new.

When this does happen, as has already been mentioned, the one inhabitant of Sunnydale we know to have remained in contact with Oz is Devon. We do not know how Devon officially felt about this departure but in fic there is an understandable element of anger and upset and occasionally bad feeling toward Willow.

After that there has been some interesting future fic - everything from Devon and Oz meeting up years later and trying to repair their friendship to the two of them starting out together after New Moon Rising to go explore the world.

Perhaps the key to this all is loyalty. Whether platonically or romantically, Devon is shown to be loyal to Oz in a way that he is not with anyone else - even if the reverse isn't always as true. They are also more comfortable with each other than anyone else, simply because of the length of their friendship.

As sexual partners, the relationship can often be depicted as quite casual - at least to an outside observer. Even where Devon and Oz are depicted as having a sexual relationship whilst Oz dates Willow (with or without her knowledge), this is just as often because they have fooled around for years - and it's almost as if the Oz/Devon dynamic is entirely separate from the rest of the world around them, and is deeper and stronger than any other relationship either has.

The combination of the shallow lead singer and deep guitarist seems to bring out an interesting relationship with more levels than is first apparent. Which is why it is so interesting to explore.