Work Text:
Chapter 1
The sky was overcast, clouds so cold and winds thick they rustled the palm trees outside the college library. It was 9 PM on November 22nd, and Willow sat at a Macintosh computer, staring out the window at the moon.
"Hey Will? What you doing here?" Buffy asked, walking into the empty library.
"Oh, you know. Just worried about stuff..." Willow looked up at the moon above.
Buffy nodded. "Well, it's not his first rodeo. Oz is practically a professional at this by now."
*This being: your soul being torn from your body as a wolf invades it in an agonizing transformation for three days out of the month. And truth be told, oddly cagey for two of them. Oz could get that dark shift in his eye a bit before and after. Like a migraine that leaves an ill.*
"Why are you here?" Willow asked, closing the Macintosh.
"Well—I'm bored. Too tired to sleep, so I went on patrol. I always check here out of habit. Always like to check the quiet grounds." Buffy put her hands in her purple leather jacket, then heard a clatter outside. "Alright, love you." She kissed Willow's cheek and took off faster than most cars can start.
---
Across campus in an abandoned security basement, Oz thrashed and snarled at the bars of his cage in full wolf form.
He ran his head along the floor, dragging his momentum, then pounced onto the cage, rattling it. Teeth gnashing at the bars, claws scraping the beams. He dropped down, lapped around the cage, and did it all again.
This time the bolts rattled loose.
Again. Looser.
Again. They snapped apart at the side.
On the left of the cage, the beast jutted across the roof, then snapped its knee out of socket with a sickening crack.
Wolf-Oz landed on the floor snarling, sniffing. The smell of strawberries and popcorn butter hung in the air.
Willow's bag sat in the corner with Oz's clothes inside.
The wolf ran for the door.
---
Willow walked across campus the long way. She didn't want to go home. She didn't sleep on the second moon usually anyway—the moon was always at its peak and he just lost his head.
She remembered the old library back in Sunnydale. A noisy nightmare. Every morning it needed a new coat of paint. Giles started duct-taping the holes instead of plastering them. *"What's the bloody point—"*
Then she heard a dog barking in an old residence home by the store. Something in the garden, whining.
"Hey?" Willow walked up to the green fence. "Hey, little fella?"
She looked down and screamed. "Puppy!" A poor puppy had been torn apart. "Oh no..."
---
Across the rooftop, Wolf-Oz sat with a blood-stained mouth, lapping his paws, happy. *Master found his present.*
But then—she ran? She screamed?
He dropped and snarled, running after her. *He must protect her.*
Then she threw a rock at him. At *him*.
*Oh. She's the threat?*
**MASTER IS THE THREAT.**
---
Willow ran across the street, panting and crying. She skidded into a wall, hoping to have lost him.
Wolf-Oz ran up the wall to catch his master and lunged.
He held her down and snarled, biting her shoulder until she wasn't the threat anymore. Once master was down, he licked her chin affectionately.
She didn't move. Only looked up into his chalk-yellow eyes, the irises an orange so dark they were almost black.
"Oz..." she whispered.
Then she slept.
*Master sleep. Master needs to be safe.*
So he bit her wrist and dragged her into the bushes.
---
"Hello! Ew! You hoodlums!" An old lady jabbed at something in her bushes with a stick.
"Ouch!" Willow looked up groggily. The sky was orange with dawn. The ground below was pebbles?
Oz looked up at her, then down at the ground, confused. "Huh?"
The old lady slapped Oz on the shoulder. "Get out of here, the both of you! Naked on my yard! Nice folks live here!"
They were both naked, covered in dirt and blood, utterly confused.
***CUE THEME SONG***
---
## Scene 2: The Morning After
Oz had a small bruise on his knee. He flexed it as they both stood in a campus laundromat, testing the joint.
Willow sat in the corner wearing a stranger's tank top that hung to her belly. Oz was still naked, searching through a lost-and-found bin for clothes. The cage was too far away to retrieve his bag.
"Hey... we'll get Giles to check it," he said.
She held her shoulder. "There's cuts, Oz. They're deep..." She lay back on the bench, staring at a locker across from her. A slug crawled up the metal door.
He sat down beside her. "Buffy's not turned and I bit her—I mean, sure, she's the slayer. And I nipped Xander once? He was fine."
Willow looked into his eyes. Her bangs caught on her lashes, damp from crying so much, yet so silently.
Oz stroked her chin. "Hey, it's okay. Even if I turned you, I promise—I'm not going anywhere."
She pulled back sharply. The memory of the growl and hot breath flooded back onto her tongue, making her flinch. "Leave me alone—please, I—" She winced and stood, pulling up some borrowed underwear. "I need to go to Giles and you've got band, so."
She couldn't look at him.
"Oz, your baby cousin bit your finger. You bit me and now I'm changed, I'm a wolf" willow can't breathe.
Oz nodded, then passed her a skirt.
The silence hung heavy between them. The comparison didn't hold—a toddler's nibble versus a wolf's mauling—and they both knew it. But neither of them said it out loud.
---
## Scene 3: Lunch
Buffy and Willow met at the campus cafeteria.
"Buffy!" Willow hugged her close, holding tight—clamping her right arm over Buffy's back, then the left, like an iron maiden.
Buffy smirked. "Woah, touchy handsy ma'am." She hugged back, then waited for Willow to let go.
Willow sniffed into Buffy's throat. "Aww, you're wearing the shampoo I got you for Christmas?"
Buffy pulled back, bemused. "Have we been drinking?" She looked at Willow in the pink thin tank and skirt. "What are you wearing?"
Willow walked past her toward the cafeteria entrance.
"Will. Shoes. Where are your shoes?"
Willow looked down at her bare feet on the concrete, like she'd only just noticed them. "I... forgot them."
She grabbed a plate of sandwiches, then another, and another.
The dinner lady smirked, looking at Willow's thin frame. "Hey, you're paying for 'em."
Then Willow grabbed two bowls of mac and cheese. Bacon bits.
Buffy quickly pulled Willow aside. "Hello! Kosher?"
Willow stared at the bacon bits like she'd forgotten what they were. Then her face crumpled slightly, confused and scared. "I—OH—"
Willow ran away.
Everyone in the hall watched for a second, then kept talking once she was gone.
Buffy gave chase. "Willow!"
"Giles, Buffy—I need Giles. I u—" Willow leaned on the wall, her stomach keeling over.
Then Buffy smelled something metallic. "Are you bleeding?"
"Oz... he bit my shoulder. He got out..."
Buffy swooped Willow into her arms and ran across the hall. "Out of my way!"