fic: All the Things I've Become (2/3)
Title: All the Things I've Become (2/3)
Characters: Willow Rosenberg, Daniel "Oz" Osbourne, Buffy Summers, Xander Harris, Rupert Giles
Relationship: Oz/Willow
Rating: PG-13
Words: 4,515
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this unofficial fanwork, nor do I claim to or profit in any way. I also don't own IHOP.
Summary: After Season 3, Oz accidentally infects Willow with lycanthropy. Divided into 3 chapters, each depicting one night of Willow's first full moon as a werewolf.
A/N: The first part of my entry for werewolfbigbang! This was my first Big Bang ever, and a lot of fun to participate in! Thanks so much to my wonderful artist (and beta) bluefire986 who did a lovely job with the art and who was a genuine pleasure to work with! Check out her entire art post here.
Buffy had walked up the stairs a few minutes ago, promising to come back down as soon as she heard the first howl. In the wake of her absence, the crypt was filled with a stale silence and fear-sour air.
“Does it hurt?” Willow asked quietly, eyes wide and field green. “The change? Last night it was sorta sudden, but, does it hurt when you know it’s coming?”
Oz considered for a moment, folding her hands in his and looking thoughtful, as if he were determining just how much he ought to spoil. “Not really. It’s weird, though. You feel like you’re stretching too far, like taffy or something.” Willow didn’t look reassured, so Oz squeezed her hands in his and smiled, just a little. “It’s scary, but you’ll get through it. Promise.”
“Alright,” Willow nodded, stepping closer to slip her arms around Oz and to tuck her head against his shoulder. They stood together, arms twined around each other like vines, quietly for minutes.
Oz could hear Willow breathing, steady but shallow against his neck. The last sunbeams of the day were filtering through the high, decorative window of the crypt to dance against their feet, and he could feel the moon rising, sense night drawing closer in some deep, primal part of him.
“It’s time,” he whispered, and his voice was like a growl. Every change, he worried that he grew a little closer to the wolf, but this time, all he could worry about was Willow. He stepped away to pull off his shirt, gaze not moving from her, and he watched her eyes grow round. “C’mon, Will,” he soothed, taking her by the wrist and leading her across the cage. She didn’t make any move to undress, so Oz slowly began to unfasten the buttons on her shirt, one after the other.
“It’s gonna be fine,” he soothed, tucking loose hair behind her ear. He couldn’t help but appreciate the irony in this; just this morning, Willow had been the one soothing him, but now, she was just as scared as he had been. The wolf had that affect on people.
“I know,” Willow answered quietly, wearing her Resolve Face. “We’re gonna be alright.” They finished undressing quietly, before tossing their discarded human clothes through the iron bars. Oz rattled the door, checking the lock one last time, and reality set in again. He wasn’t alone back here, not anymore, because he’d changed Willow. She was cursed now, like him, and no matter what she said, it was all his fault.
“I’m sorry.”
Willow stepped toward him and, with one hand, raised his chin so he looked at her instead of the cracked, stone floor. “I love you,” she answered, and then she kissed him.
It was hard and fierce and possessive, not one of her usual sweet kisses. She rarely kissed him like this, like an animal, but with the moon rising, making their blood churn, he couldn’t imagine another way to kiss. He grabbed her hips and pulled her against him, a low growl of approval welling up from the back of his throat.
The change started, sudden and breathless, and Willow cried out. “I love you,” Oz promised, getting a quick smile before Willow collapsed on all fours, panting. He was there beside her in a moment, doing his best to hold on to his humanity for a while longer, just long enough to be with Willow until she lost hers. Fur was sprouting and he growled beside her as he felt bones and muscles shifting and growing. After a long terrible moment, it was over, and Willow and Oz were gone. In their place, two ferocious wolves rose, howling.
The morning after was far more awkward than anything Willow had ever experienced. Buffy’s blushing and question evading and refusal to look at either of them straight was setting Willow on edge. Something had made Buffy uncomfortable, and Willow was just praying that it wasn’t her new wolfyness. She needed her best friend, now more than ever.
“Buffy,” Willow called once she and Oz had pulled on the clean clothes that Buffy had slipped through the bars just before they’d changed back.
“Willow! You were right- you’re a werewolf!” Buffy grinned at the wall just above Willow’s shoulder, grinning widely as she walked back into the crypt. “And, Oz. You’re both werewolves, together...”
“Buffy, can you let us out?” Willow cut her off sheepishly, sure that Buffy was about to go off on another embarrassed ramble. Buffy nodded, fumbling with the lock on the cage and smiling so wide the whole time that Willow kept waiting for the skin around her grin to start to crack and chip away.
“Buffy. Are you okay?” Willow asked, taking a tentative step towards Buffy. Buffy flinched away from her outstretched hand, and Willow’s heart sunk a little in her chest. Her best friend was afraid of her, and it hurt so badly that Willow was afraid she’d throw up. “No, you’re not okay, are you? You’re totally freaked.”
“No way!” Buffy exclaimed in surprise, eyes wide and waving her hands like she would while playing traffic controller. “I’m not freaked, really. I promise, I have no problem with you, either of you, going fuzzy.”
“Seems to me something’s got you spooked,” Oz remarked calmly, coming up behind Willow, placing both hands on her shoulders and leaning down to press a kiss to the base of her neck. Buffy cringed upon seeing the kiss, and all of a sudden, Willow knew what had her so wigged.
“Buffy, last night, did we, uh..y’know, well, y’know?” Willow asked tentatively, a blush lighting up her face like a lantern.
“Uh, little bit,” Buffy returned, making solid eye contact with a smudge on the floor. Willow had never seen her best friend look so awkward and uncomfortable, but Buffy had never seen her and Oz doing things before now, so it kind of made sense. The idea of Buffy seeing it was even worse than the time Snyder had given her and Oz a public telling of for kissing quickly in the hallway between classes, which had been absolutely nightmarish at the time, and Willow almost wished that she was still a wolf, just so she could avoid this conversation.
“Buffy, I’m so sorry, we--”
“It’s okay, Will,” Buffy cut her off, laughing uncomfortably. “Call of the Wild, nature, all that. I get, really. No need for further discussion. Really.”
“Buffy...”
“I’ve really gotta go. Promised Mom I’d be home for breakfast, for waffly goodness and all, and I know you two like to head to IHOP, so I say we all head out and breakfast. Not that it’s really breaking my fast, y’know, since I was snacking away all night, but it’s all the same really.”
“Bye, Buffy,” Oz called, the tiniest hint of amusement detectable to Willow’s ears, watching the flustered Slayer inch towards the doorway as she continued to talk, seemingly unable to quit.
“Bye,” she gasped, shocked out of her babble, turned tail and fled.
“Well, that really couldn’t have been any more horrific,” Willow sighed, turning to bury her face in Oz’s shoulder.
“Nah, could’ve been Xander.”
“Oh man,” Willow moaned. “He’s going to wig.”
“We could not tell him. He starts road tripping next week.”
“We can’t not tell him! He’s our friend and a Scooby and he’ll find out anyways and, ohhh, we have to tell Giles, too! They’re going to be cross and Giles will make his clucking noise and give us disappointed face and Xander’s probably gonna hit you, and it’s going to be so, so bad!”
“This is between you and me. What they think doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Oz shrugged, completely unconcerned. Willow was baffled by his nonchalance (but then again, she’d always been awestruck by his complete disregard as to what others thought of him), but she really, really, very strongly did not want to think more about what Xander and Giles would say when they found out, so she grabbed both of Oz’s hands in hers and squeezed.
“IHOP?” she grinned hopefully, absolutely starving after a night as a wolf.
“IHOP,” Oz agreed, and they crossed the crypt and walked out into the morning together.
Willow couldn’t remember a time when she felt more in touch with nature. Despite everything she’d been reading about Wicca, about the importance of the earth and the Goddess, how every living thing was part of the same system of energy, this was the first time she could feel that connection. Lying flat in her sunlit backyard with her head on Oz’s chest, she felt like a part of the whole. In just a tank top and her shortest shorts, Willow could feel hundreds of blades of grass press against her elbows and calves and her lower back, where her tank top started to rise up. She smelled the rich dirt and freshly mown grass and something indelible, earthy and warm and alive, like the smell of summer itself. She could hear, as if for the first time, all the songs of all the birds she’d never stopped to listen to, and, steady beneath her ear, she could hear and she could feel Oz’s heart keeping perfect time with her own.
“Is it always like this?” Willow whispered, voice hushed. Oz could hear her whisper, probably could’ve heard her if she just breathed the words, even over the sounds of birds and insects and what sounded like every car and bus and train in the world blaring down her quiet little residential street. “Like you can sense everything?”
“Little bit. It comes and goes with the moon.” Willow could feel his words rumble from deep within his chest, each one careful and deliberate. It smelled like Oz, too, she decided, the comforting, earthy smell of Oz, tinged around the edges by something animal, something other, blending perfectly with the million smells of nature. He was just as natural as any of the hundreds of blades of grass tickling her back, she realized, and now, so was she.
“I like it,” she smiled lazily, feeling sunbeams dance across her face with a new clarity. “It’s like we’re one with nature,” she giggled. “Like we’re finally home.”
“I get that.”
“I feel different too.” Willow pulled one hand out of the grass, pulling it to Oz’s head and combing her fingers through his hair. It was orange this week, just like hers. “All energetic and restless, but I don’t know what to do with all that energy.” She rolled over onto her side, bringing her face frustratingly close to her boyfriend’s, cupping his cheek with the hand that had been in his hair.
“I know the feeling,” Oz smirked, meeting Willow’s eyes and finding a mirror image of his own restlessness in them. He leaned up just an inch to kiss her and felt her immediately respond. Every moon since the change, he’d felt this same clawing, aching need for Willow, from somewhere in that murky part of him where he wasn’t just Oz or just the Wolf. Now, rolling her onto her back and holding himself over her, the Wolf crowed in pleasure. He finally got to learn what Willow tasted like when the moon was in his blood, now that she needed it like he did. Before, Oz had shied away from her during the wolf moon, worried about going too fast or too far, terrified of hurting her, of changing her like the Wolf wanted. Now, he didn’t have to.
“Oh, wow,” Willow panted, flipping them over again and straddling the other werewolf. “Is this why you never wanted to snuggle on full moons? Because, wow. Lots of lusty feelings right now.”
Oz grinned up at her, capturing her face in his hands and meeting her for a kiss. Still kissing, they rutted against each other like wolves in heat, which Willow supposed was a rather accurate comparison, before remembering the layers of clothes separating them. Willow yanked off his shirt in a flash and seconds later he had her tank top off as well.
Grinning wildly, Willow whispered against the skin of his neck, “I want you,” before she bit down, hard, on the junction between his shoulder and neck. She heard Oz’s throaty growl and pulled her lips away from her teeth in a savage predator’s grin. He was hers, and she was going to make sure everyone knew it. She kissed a path up his throat, settling above his carotid artery. She nipped and sucked at his pale skin, intent on leaving a mark, a symbol of her possession.
Willow felt wild and utterly wanton, her pupils blown so wide with arousal that she looked animal, and she’d never been more turned on in her life. As he pulled out of her kiss, she let Oz push her onto her back again, holding him pressed against her. He lowered his face to her neck, biting down in the exact place she’d bitten him. Inside her, the wolf growled in pleasure. He was her mate, and now he knew it just as well as she did.
“Mmm, Oz,” she groaned loudly, drowning out the noise of the rest of the world. Oz moved on, leaving behind a perfect crescent imprint of him against her skin, scraping her moon-pale flesh with his teeth and biting down softly every so often. She couldn’t hear anything but their mingled moans and ragged breaths and Oz’s occasional soft growls, couldn’t see, couldn’t smell anything but him. He was her everything, always, but when they were together like this, the cliché took on a more literal meaning.
Out of nowhere, Oz was suddenly yanked off of Willow, forced to his feet then soundly decked in the jaw. “Xander!” Willow shrieked, noticing Oz’s assailant. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Xander didn’t hear her. He was busy yelling at a slightly stunned Oz, who was still puzzling over the usually noisy Xander’s appearance. “You bastard!” Xander yelled, looking dangerously close to hitting Oz again. “What the hell are you doing to her?!”
“I don’t suppose kissing my girlfriend is an acceptable answer?”
“You looked like you were about to bite her! Bite her! How could you put her at risk like that?”
“We’re careful,” Willow hissed. “Now, please tell me what on earth you’re doing in my backyard right now?”
“Oh my God, Willow,” Xander gaped, finally turning to look at her. He quickly turned away and tossed her tank top at her, awkwardly glaring at the bush behind him. “Shirt, please!”
“Xander!” Willow growled, unbelievably angry at Xander for intruding on them. “Why are you here?”
“I can’t believe that’s really the only problem you’re seeing right now, Will! Did you not notice Wolf-boy chewing on your neck back there?”
“Leave him alone!”
“Only if he’ll leave you alone too!” Xander shouted, and he smelled afraid, seriously worried that Oz would hurt her. Willow wasn’t sure whether she should be more concerned with Xander’s feelings or with the fact that she could identify them by smell now, but neither option was particularly appealing.
“What we do is our own business, Xander Harris, and none of yours!”
“Will, he could turn you!” Xander pled, and his fear was starting to bleed onto his face, eyes wide and showing too much white. “Oh my God, Will, your neck!”
Willow slapped a hand up to cover her neck, feeling his eyes on the bite Oz had left behind. She could feel a sticky warmth seeping against her fingers and, with a sudden clarity, she scented a tangy, irony smell-blood. She hadn’t realized Oz had broken the skin, so lost in the rush of skin on skin, each touch seeming as if she had been feeling him for the first time. One glance at his neck told her she had been just as oblivious when she tore his skin, as well.
“You bastard!” Xander shouted, stinking of fear and rage and other heady, powerful emotions, wheeling on Oz and punching him once more. “You bit her, you freak!”
“Xander!”
“You goddamn monster!” Xander shoved Oz to the ground before Willow’s eyes, and Oz let him. Oz didn’t fight back at all, he just lay limply on the ground, just waiting for Xander to hit him again and again and again.
He wanted Xander to punish him, Willow realized. He wasn’t going to fight back, because he believed he deserved it. He still blamed himself for the impulsive accident that had transformed her, and he wanted to atone. Willow knew him better than anyone, she could tell just what he was feeling, but she wouldn’t let him suffer for this.
“Alexander Lavelle Harris!” Willow shouted, coming to her feet and stalking towards Xander. “Don’t touch him again.”
Willow pushed Xander back, snarl on the tip of her tongue. She was furious, raging like a wild animal, so like the beast she’d become. “Don’t you dare.”
Xander backed up a few steps, hands up and eyes wide, and she could tell that realization hadn’t sunken in yet. She could see his eyes jumping from the bite on her neck to the twin on Oz’s, see his forehead furrow, but it took a few moments before he realized, “He’d already turned you, hadn’t he? Before today?”
Willow nodded rebelliously, head high and gaze not drifting from his.
“And you’re a, you’re a-a, a wolf? A werewolf?”
“Yes,” Willow growled, eyes harsh as she glared at her best friend. Rationally, she knew that it was a lot to take in, she knew that she had struggled with the knowledge of her transformation, but she couldn’t help but be enraged by his reaction. He’d attacked Oz, called him a monster, and now he couldn’t even stand near her. Part of her wanted to spring towards him, rip and tear at him until he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t look at her like she was a something other. She wanted his blood smeared across her face and hands, staining the grass and soaking into the earth. It was terrifying, but she could feel the wolf scratching and howling inside of her, wearing away at her self control and dying to be let free. “I think you should go.”
“You know, I really think you’re right,” Xander responded feebly, backing out of her yard and down her driveway, not taking his eyes off of Oz and her, terrified that they’d attack the moment his back was turned.
Willow turned away from Xander’s retreating form, dropping to her knees next to Oz, who hadn’t done anything more than sit up since Xander had thrown him to the ground.
“I don’t blame you,” Willow murmured, tracing fingertips against the crescent bite mark she’d left behind. The small amount of blood the bite had shed had clotted and dried already, so she licked her fingertips and began wiping the blood off his neck. “It takes two people to have sex, you know.”
“Will...”
“No way, Oz,” Willow admonished gently, voice soft as fur, “no more guilt, okay?
“Okay?” Willow demanded again, poking him in the chest when he didn’t answer. Oz nodded and Willow relaxed, wrapping her arms around him again. “I don’t want to think about that or about Xander or about anything anymore. I just want you, none of that extra baggage you don’t really need to be carrying around.”
Instead of arguing about guilt and consequences, Oz kissed her again and, within seconds, they were lost to the world, dizzy with need and drowning in each other.
Giles needed to know about her newfound lycanthropy, really should’ve been the first person Willow told, but she’d spent the day before pretending that this encounter would never happen. She very literally couldn’t imagine anything more awkward that explaining to Giles that not only were she and Oz having sex when they were supposed to be stopping the apocalypse, but that they hadn’t taken appropriate precautions and, because of this, they had also discovered lycanthropy could be sexually transmitted.
So, it was with great trepidation that she walked with Oz to Giles’s door and knocked, praying for no answer. Her prayers went unheeded, as was always the case in Sunnydale, and Giles came to the door with a quickness, looking so excited to see them that Willow immediately felt bad for dreading this visit. Then, she remembered just what she had to tell him, and the dread came back, along with a new, funny vomiting feeling.
“Willow! Oz! I certainly wasn’t expecting you at all!”
“Hey, Giles,” Oz nodded, crossing the threshold and tugging at her hand. Oz looked totally calm and not at all awkward and uncomfortable, and Willow hated him for it. She squeezed his hand so tightly that she imagined she could hear bones grinding, and stepped behind him into the metaphorical belly of the beast. Which was ironic, really, seeing as the only beasts in the room were her and Oz.
“Hi, Giles,” Willow mumbled, premature blush staining her cheeks.
“What seems to be-- Dear God, are you alright?” Giles’s eyes were locked on her neck, staring at the red crescent of Oz’s bite on her neck as if it were a fatal wound. “Were you attacked? Vampires?”
“Not quite,” Oz answered blankly, drawing Giles’s eyes. Willow could practically see the gears turning in Giles’s head, spinning like waterwheels as his eyes caught on the bite Willow had left on Oz’s neck and then jumped between the two matching bites.
The moment Giles came to a realization, he turned to Oz and the fury in his eyes made Willow’s wolf stand up and howl in defense.
“Damn it, Oz! How could you be so bloody irresponsible? You...”
“Giles!” Willow shouted, eyes narrowed in rage. “Stop it! It’s not his fault, okay?”
“Not his fault?! He knew the risks yet he still infected you! That’s entirely his fault!”
“Neither of us knew, okay? Oz didn’t bite me, or, or scratch me, or do anything that we knew passed on the virus.
“It’s just, we didn’t think we were going to live through graduation. Maybe we should’ve been careful and used protection, but we didn’t. That’s on both of us. And, besides! We didn’t even know that you could pass the virus on through, well, y’know, sex. And, and we both made a choice, Giles. It’s not all Oz’s fault. He didn’t know, any more than I did, or any more than you did. We didn’t know, okay?”
“Oh,” Giles deflated, sliding his glasses off the bridge of his nose and raising both hands to rub tiredly at his temples. “I suppose you couldn’t have known at all. There’s never been a recorded case of lycanthropy being transferred through sexual contact. It simply hadn’t occurred to me to contemplate before now, but that absence seems peculiar, now that I think of it.”
“We just thought you should know,” Willow continued a little weakly, worried by the tired look on Giles’s face.
“It’s always something in this town,” Giles sighed as an aside, polishing his glasses. Willow couldn’t tell if he was talking to them or not, so she continued on as if he wasn’t, intent on getting as much information as possible.
“And, now that you know, I wanted to know if you could help us. Because there’s a lot about werewolves that we still don’t know, even though Oz has been one for a while. And it’s important that we know, don’t you think?
“Like, do werewolves typically form packs?” Willow asked excitedly, forgetting about the very real fear her new condition caused her in the face of new information. “And how do they choose mates? Is it a mate for life situation or are they more typically human in their romantic interactions? Is it possible to control the wolf, so that you could transform whenever you wanted? Oh, does lycanthropy change your diet, or make you crave meat or anything like that?”
“Willow!” Giles finally cut off her avalanche of questions after numerous failed attempts to halt her flow. “Pack forming habits vary depending on the disposition of each individual lycanthrope. As I understand it, werewolves mate for life with their first sexual partner after their first transformation.” Willow and Oz both blushed, Willow more dramatically than her boyfriend, and Giles interrupted himself with a protracted sigh. “Which, judging from your previous revelation and the sudden colouring of both of your faces, I would assume is the case with the two of you?” Both werewolves gave mute nods and Giles sighed again, slipping his glasses down the bridge of his nose and rubbing his temples.
“The rest of you questions, Willow,” he continued, making his way into his kitchen and looking over his counter at the two blushing teenagers as he calmly poured himself a glass of Scotch, “I’m simply unable to answer. The Watchers Council, as you may imagine, did not look too terribly favourably upon werewolves, and, as such, I lack a wealth of veritable information on them. Now that I’m largely estranged from the Council I should be able to collect some books that you both might find informative.”
“As for now, Willow, I have a few volumes that touch upon the subject of lycanthropy,” Giles continued walking towards the large bookshelf against his living room wall. “I believe you’ve read the lot of them already, Oz, but they should still serve useful.”
Giles motioned Willow and Oz towards his couch with his glass of Scotch before he set it down and began to pull books at random from his shelf. After a few minutes he deposited a small stack of volumes on the coffee table in front of the couple and disappeared into another room as they began to open the books one by one. Before long, Giles returned with another armful of books, which he placed just behind the first stack.
“These have less to do with werewolves in specific,” Giles sat in the armchair beside the couch, ignoring the pile of books in favor of taking another sip. “But, still, they have some content.”
The trio researched quietly for a while, the silence only broken by the turning of pages and by the occasional clearing of a throat or the muffled chime of glass when Giles picked up and put down his glass. Finally, after, to Willow’s mind, the silence had grown unbearable, she put down her book with a muffled thud and cleared her throat.
“Giles,” she asked tentatively, “are you angry?”
“Angry?” he asked, in a tone of slight bewilderment. Willow thought that was completely unfair, considering how utterly furious at Oz he’d been not thirty minutes before, but his confusion seemed genuine. “No, Willow, I’m not angry. I’m simply sad that you, both of you, must endure this. Life is tragically unfair, isn’t it?”
“Oh,” Willow responded quietly, leaning into Oz’s side. “I guess it really is.”
Chapter One. Chapter Three.
Master Post.