Sunnydale, 1998: It is an anniversary
There are times, even these days, when Oz manages to lose himself. Planning dinner and finding something - anything - that could possibly speak to Giles has absorbed him for the last several days. He spent what time he was in class figuring out recipes; his chem lab notebook alternates between sketches of bunsen burners and lists of ingredients.
Yesterday he went to the butcher's and thought of Angelus. Before he turned bad again, he used to come here and buy pig's blood to live on. Much as the place grosses Oz out, all gleaming steel and glass and dull, knife-scored formica, red red cuts of meat and white bones, he'd admit in an instant that animal blood was preferable to what Angelus is living these days.
Fear, stalking, humans like Theresa.
It always comes back to the dark.
He marinated the rack of lamb overnight with pepper and rosemary; it only took him a couple minutes of rubbing the spices and olive oil into the meat to get over the queasiness. Packed it carefully in a wine crate and drove the van well under the speed limit to bring it here.
And now, alone in Giles' apartment at two in the afternoon, he's losing himself again as he makes the lamb stock and lets the blueberry pie cool on the counter. Small things, these he can do. Chopping garlic until his eyes burn, stirring the bones and listening to them clatter against the side of the pan. He redyed his hair this morning, away from the black that took Giles aback for nearly ten minutes, back to the dark maroon it was this time last year, and the color shines against the brass of the pan like another essential ingredient.
By the time Giles gets home, the lamb will be ready for the quick roasting, the table set, the Velvets nattering on the stereo.
Giles is going to kill him for skipping school again.
But Oz is smiling, and prepping, and chilling, and it's been a couple months since he felt this relaxed.
Before Angelus, before the wolf, back when he thought his biggest problem was getting caught on the phone with Giles after midnight.