Fic: Six Scenes in the Lives of (the Soon-to-Be) Willow Danielle and Daniel James Rosenberg-Osbourne
I got a new dog this week, and it's very exciting. I named him Watson (although certain individuals thought that we should name him Jack, because he's a Daschund/Jack Russell Terrier mix. This was a poor idea.)
We found him wandering around my neighborhood, homeless but with an unmarked collar on, and took him in until we could find his owner. We called animal control and other animal services, but nobody had announced a missing dog, so we took him to the vet to see if he was safe to own and to find out if he had a tracking chip, so his owner could find him. Watson was perfectly healthy and only 2 years old, unchipped, and, after three days, nobody in the area was looking for a dog, so we adopted him! He's getting along very well with my other dog, Sam, and he's adapted to his new environment very well.
To celebrate, I thought I'd post a piece of fic. It's pretty much just an overwhelming amount of fluff, so if you're not looking for fluff, I'd probably steer clear of this. It's only fluff, but it involves a puppy, so I judged it appropriate. I wrote it because, recently, I've been having a slew of bad weeks, and I thought happy fluff would cheer me up (which it did). I hope it makes you smile!
Title: Six Scenes in the Lives of (the Soon-to-Be) Willow Danielle and Daniel James Rosenberg-Osbourne
Characters: Willow Rosenberg, Daniel "Oz" Osbourne
Pairings: Oz/Willow
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,508
Disclaimer: I don't own anything mentioned in this unofficial fanwork. All characters are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.
Summary: Six snapshots of Willow and Oz's life together, after they reunite in Istanbul. Post-Chosen AU.
A/N: There is a lot of fluff here. And it's non-linear storytelling. I've been wanting to try that. Let me know how it works out, please!
five.
“Yes,” Willow whispered, and Oz felt so dizzy with joy that he was sure he would’ve fallen to his knees if he hadn’t already been kneeling in front of her, ring in his hand and heart in his mouth. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Oz!”
She smiled at him and her grin shone brighter than the glowing crescent moon, her eyes brighter than the early evening stars. She dropped to the floor beside him when he didn’t stand, too weak in the knees to do anything but kneel by her feet and thank every deity he’d ever heard of.
She pulled him into her arms, leaning her forehead against his, and hugged him like she’d never let go. Oz smiled into her bright, watery eyes and knew, with no uncertainty, that he was damn lucky. He was going to spend the rest of his life with Willow Rosenberg and just knowing that felt better than knowing he’d controlled his wolf.
“I love you, Willow,” Oz whispered, not even caring that his eyes were watering and his grin stretched from ear to ear.
“And I’ve always loved you, Oz,” Willow smiled, and kissed him with all of the happiness she felt.
*
four.
Oz tilted his head in consideration, sizing up his tiny rival. On the floor in front of him sat Willow, cooing and awing at a tiny ball of fur curled up in her arms. She had a dopey grin on her face, and he knew, given the look in her eyes, that she’d already fallen in love with the tiny ginger kitten.
“Oz! Isn’t she the cutest?” Willow looked up at him earnestly, nodding fervently like a bobble head doll. In her arms, the kitten had seemingly fallen asleep. “Do you want to hold her?”
“Sure,” he acquiesced, just for the bright smile she gave him. She scooted across the floor towards him, moving with the gait of a limping turtle, and deposited the tiny scrap of orangey fur in his waiting arms.
The second Oz took hold of the kitten, she blinked open her giant jade green eyes with a sleepy yawn and stared balefully at him, giving a watery mewl of protest. The kitten sneezed, rather adorably, Oz had to admit, before she suddenly bristled, fur standing on end, sank her claws into Oz, and burst from his arms in absolute terror. The kitten cowered in the far corner of the pet store’s petting pen and hissed at Oz, bristling fur making her look twice as big.
“See?” Willow smiled weakly. “Cute.”
At Oz’s raised eyebrow, she continued on. “Okay, so maybe this kitten’s a little bit nutty-crazy-psycho. But not all cats are like this one! I promise! I’m firmly in the pro-cat camp for a reason, you know!”
“I’m thinking that cats might be firmly in the anti-werewolf camp,” Oz sighed. Willow looked crushed, like he’d been stomping on the tiny ginger kitten, not just squashing the idea.
“Maybe…” She stared into space, her face screwed up in concentration, forehead furrowing like a dried apricot. Without warning, her face lit up with a giant grin and she threw her arms around him. “A puppy! We could get a puppy! A puppy would be perfect! We’re in the middle of the country, and, since we’re right next door to the castle, if our puppy gets loose, we could get the Slayers to track him! There’s no downside!”
Oz didn’t respond, so Willow dropped into his lap and pressed a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Just look at a couple puppies?” Willow smiled, twisting the longer hairs at the nape of his neck around her index finger. “In the spirit of thorough research, of course.”
“Sure,” Oz sighed and, within minutes, there was a tiny, shaggy collie puppy sniffing his kneecaps with enthusiasm. Oz held out a tentative hand for the puppy to sniff and, the moment the puppy began enthusiastically washing his hand by tongue, he was hopelessly attached.
Two hours later, after buying appropriate puppy care products, driving all the way back out to their charming patch of the middle of nowhere, and a heated debate over what to name him, Oz and Willow were happy new dog owners. They happily sprawled together on their living room carpet and watched the newly christened Trotsky snuffle in the corners of the living room and sniff excitedly at their hair, and didn’t regret their decision one bit.
*
one.
Willow came to Istanbul to find someone. She told Buffy, Xander and Dawn that she was looking for a Slayer, didn’t tell a still furious Kennedy anything at all, and, in the diary she kept that was dedicated to Tara, she told Tara that she was going to find Oz.
It was time, Willow had decided, to stop holding on to memories like safety rails and to start living her life again. She knew, deep down, in all of those cliché body parts (her heart, her soul, her bones) that people always used when trying to describe the guttural feeling of simply knowing with no doubt, that Tara wanted nothing else for her. It wasn’t a betrayal to her memory or some invalidation of their relationship, it was just living life, and Willow just knew, that somewhere in heaven, Tara was smiling for her.
Istanbul was big, but Willow had all the time in the world. She’d found the Slayer, a tiny girl named Yasmin, who was even shorter than she, her first day in the city, flew her back to Scotland, and teleported right back to Istanbul. She wasn’t done looking.
Finding Oz took significantly more time, but she could wait. She’d always been waiting for him, after all, and a few more days would be nothing compared to years and months without him. She had lots of practice by now.
Finally, Tuesday morning, a week and a half after she returned to Turkey, Willow turned a corner and found him. Oz was standing by a fountain, birds scrambling around him for seeds and scraps, and his hair was dyed such a deep black it shone blue in the early sun.
“Finally!” Willow grinned, absently tightening the cerulean scarf holding back her hair, and she broke into a run, long sage skirt swirling around her ankles like river water and shoulder bag flying behind her. “Oz!”
He turned to see her racing towards her and he didn’t look surprised at all. A small, delighted smile spread across his face, as if it he had been expecting to meet her right at this very fountain at this moment in time. Willow wrapped her arms around Oz the second she reached his side, and his smile only grew.
“I turned a corner, and there you were,” Willow laughed, nestling her head on the crook of Oz’s shoulder.
“You’re not surprised,” Oz commented and the feeling of hugging him and him hugging back was so wonderful and familiar. It felt like a perfect childhood memory brought to life again, and Willow wanted to shout and dance and cry, but maybe not all at once.
“Not at all,” Willow grinned at him and impulsively kissed him, praying that he would kiss her back. He did, and it felt like starting over, right at the very beginning. “Not at all, because you’re here.”
*
three.
Oz could have been a mask, he was so practiced at hiding his feelings and worries behind blank detachment. Willow knew better than to fall for it; after these years, she knew him better than anyone ever had.
Oz wore the same calm face on nights when the moon was full and nights when it was a skeletal, hollowed crescent. Nobody else ever saw a thing, convinced that now that Oz could control his change he no longer feared the moon, but Willow could read the angry resentment and sharp, biting fear that hid behind his blue glass eyes when the moon was round and full, like an overripe fruit waiting to burst. Oz was terrified of himself on full moons, terrified that the wolf would break free once more, and Willow knew. Nobody else could tell, but she always could.
"Hey," Willow whispered, laying her head just above his heart. It was beating slowly now, pumping calm, unhurried blood to his drowsy limbs. Full moons were rough on both of them, three nights of constant, restless worry, so they had taken to napping together in the early afternoons. Willow called them after-lunch siestas and Oz smirked and calls them lazy. It was summer in Scotland and they lived next to an army of Slayers, so they had all the minutes in the world to waste by holding each other under sheets that smelled like them.
"Hey," Oz murmured, cracking one eye to take a quick glance at her face and closing it again, pulling her right against him. "Sleep more?"
"We can't," Willow sighed, not wanting to wake Oz all the way up, see the brooding fear and self-loathing cloud up his beautiful blue eyes again. "It's almost sunset. Giles wants us to spend the night at the castle." Willow didn't say it, but the reminder of the wolf shaped cage in the castle's basement hung in the air between them.
"Oh," Oz replied, shaking himself into wakefulness, and, just like that, he had become cold and shut-off and detached. Willow hated it when he closed off like this, when he felt a million miles away from her. He wouldn't let her in when he started brooding about the wolf, and it burnt the way dry ice did, subtle until the pain is so bad it becomes hard to breathe.
"Oz, talk to me?" Willow asked, propping herself up on an elbow to meet his eyes. "Please?"
"About?"
"Anything, Oz! You get so upset and you shut me out every full moon, and I don't like it," Willow sighed, brushing her hand against his cheek. "I want to know what's going on inside your head.
"Just talk to me, Oz," Willow smiled weakly at her boyfriend. "I want to help you."
"I love you," Oz said seriously, making eye contact for the first time since he woke up. "That's what's always going on inside my head."
"I love you too, sweetie," Willow grinned and kissed Oz quickly.
"And, you're right, I don't like full moons. I can feel the wolf, and it wants out. But I get by. Thanks for that." Oz leaned in to brush a kiss against Willow's nose, and she smiled again.
"What do you mean?"
"I think about you on full moons, and that helps. Keeps out the bad thoughts."
"Really?" Willow asked shyly, blushing slightly in pleasure. Oz nodded, and her smile shone like a searchlight. "I think about you too, Oz. You make me smile."
Oz gave her a rare grin, sitting up, and tugging Willow to sit against his chest. "That's what I was gonna say," Oz whispered into her hair, making Willow giggle, and she thought that maybe full moons could be okay. They had each other, and that was something worth smiling about, even under the light of a full moon.
*
six.
Oz had just gotten in from walking Trotsky when Willow grabbed him by the arm and whisked him away. He had managed to unhook Trotsky's leash and toe off one shoe before she had grabbed him, and, within moments, she had him seated on their bed, still trying to remove his right sneaker.
“Hi, sweetie!” she smiled and pressed a kiss to his cheek, dropping onto the bed beside him and visibly fighting to keep a giant grin of her face.
“Hey,” Oz chuckled, bemused at his soon-to-be-wife’s enthusiasm.
“I’ve got something for you,” Willow beamed, and delicately pushed a neatly wrapped box into his hands, as gently as if the box were spun glass. “Consider it our first wedding present, just a week early.”
Oz unwrapped the box slowly, amused by the growing look of frustration on Willow’s face as he took his time to peel back the gold paper without tearing it. He found a rectangular blue box.
“Aren’t you gonna open it?” Willow urged quietly, shifting excitedly back and forth on her seat on the edge of their bed.
Oz lifted the lid off the box and pulled out the box’s contents. It was a thin, white pregnancy test, nestled in a lining of tissue paper. Oz held it up and broke into an involuntary grin.
The test was positive.
“I’m pregnant,” Willow announced, tears prickling at the edges of her eyes, and, when Oz turned to meet her eyes, she could see the same moistness in his own. “Oz, I’m pregnant.”
Oz didn’t say anything, didn’t know what it was possible to say, so he just grabbed Willow in a kiss, before dropping feather light kiss after kiss after kiss on her cheeks and forehead and eyelids and mouth. He’d been so sure that they would never be able to have kids, that children would be just one more thing the wolf stole from him, and now, looking at the positive pregnancy test in his hand, he was completely overcome. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t been trying and that they hadn’t been expecting this, because a baby, no matter when it was born, was more than he had ever hoped for.
Oz leaned his forehead against Willow’s, silly grin still making his face glow, feeling impossibly happy. His happiness was nearly overwhelming, so potent that he lost his tight emotional control, and his smile grew so bright that it dazzled his fiancée.
“We’re going to be parents, Will! I’m going to be a dad!”
Willow smiled warmly and kissed him, then whispered in his ear, “I know.” And she met his eyes and smiled with the same mix of joy and disbelief, and Oz knew that she knew exactly what he meant. She always did.
*
two.
“As nice as your castle is,” Oz murmured, laying sprawled beside Willow, naked between her sheets, “I’ll miss Turkey.”
“I will too,” Willow sighed, a fond smile gracing her features. “Turkey was…
“Wait,” she exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. Oz watched her in fond amusement, reaching a hand up to stroke through her hair. “Does that mean you’re staying?”
Oz nodded, sitting up to press a kiss against her lips, then tugging her back down to the pillows with him. “I’m with you, Will. Wherever that is.”
“I’d miss you if you were anywhere else. I just found you again,” Willow smiled hopefully at Oz, lying across from her on the pillow. “I don’t want to lose you for a third time.”
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be than with you, Will.”
“Good,” Willow sighed happily and brushed a brief kiss across Oz’s lips. “I love you, Oz,” she whispered, confessing it to him for the first time since they had renewed their relationship.
Oz’s face lit up with a rare, shining smile, one he’d been saving for her, all these months apart. “And I’ve always loved you, Willow.”
fin.
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.