#614: Hound - Marked - Oz/Willow - BtVS
Title: Marked
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Oz/Willow, Willow/Tara
Rating: PG-13/T
Challenge: #614: Hound
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 991
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, not the author, and are used without permission.
She still dreams about him even after all this time. Sometimes he's the wolf, sometimes just a hound, and sometimes he's cured and only the man she loved. She can always feel him beside him, within her in her dreams. It's as though they share one body, one soul still, and when she wakes, she feels stripped of that other half. She can not explain the tears that cling to her lashes, so she leaves her lover in bed and pads over to their window where she watches the night and wonders.
Where is he tonight? Is he wolf or man? How much has the boy with whom she first fell in love changed? Does he ever think of her? She was his first, but despite the rumor that wolves mate for life, she wasn't his only. She's kept tabs on him online. She knows he's doing well, but she wonders if he misses her and the life they almost had together.
She closes her eyes and pictures him. She pictures him singing to her, for her only. She hears his crooning voice caressing her ears. It's a wonder she ever met the lead singer of a band, let alone that he fell for her as hard as she fell for him, but they were meant to be for a time, for only a time.
She wonders if all loves are meant to last only a time and never a lifetime. She doesn't have much experience from which to draw, only Oz, Tara, and Xander. She hopes her girlfriend won't come again and find her at the window. She doesn't understand the bond Willow still feels, and she can not blame her.
She remembers the first time she tried talking to Tara when she found her watching the full moon with reminiscing in her green eyes. She said she understood why Willow was still thinking of Oz, why a part of her would always think of her first love, but she could see the hurt in her eyes and the unspoken questions. Tara was more than enough -- she had become almost her all --, but she couldn't help sometimes thinking of the past.
She turns away from the window with a sigh and wraps her arms around herself. She knows that is where she should leave Oz. She no longer loves him, nor him her. Their love was meant to only last for the time it did. But still, she thinks about him and turns swiftly back around to her window when she hears a howl somewhere out in the streets of the city.
It isn't him. It's never him, and it never will be again. She will never see him again except for the clips she sometimes watches online of the Dingoes Ate My Baby playing and the smiling pictures she still has of him. Tara says she doesn't mind the parts of Willow's past that the redhead keeps, but she keeps them hidden in her strongest magic books, the ones she knows Tara won't touch, just in case.
She should be out there helping Buffy, but she rather prefers to stay home on full moons now. Her memories are too strong. She's too apt to lose herself in them again if she doesn't stay busy, and there are so many memories when she's researching with the others rather than being here at her room with Tara where she belongs. She walks by the old school some nights when she's alone just so she can give in to the memories and let them play. She remembers his shy smiles, his sweet words, his tender hands. She remembers the bad times, too, and the long nights spent watching over him in wolf form to make sure he didn't any one, but they're never enough to keep the good times at bay for long.
Oz will always be a part of her, she knows, but she no longer belongs at his side. He is her past; she no longer loves him. She has a new love now, and if she had to make the same decision all over again, she would still choose Tara. She goes back to her now, slips back into bed where she has not been missed, and softly kisses her long, blonde hair. She watches as she smiles and knows, in her heart, she didn't make any mistakes that she wouldn't make again to be led here beside the woman she loves. She'll always choose Tara, but she knows, too, she'll always dream of the past and the wolf who still waits therein.
Across the city, unheard this time by Willow, the wolf howls again. Every full moon, he finds himself here, but come morning's light, he'll run again from the past and Willow and back to the bigger cities, his band, and his new mate, back to his future where he belongs. Still, a part of him will always belong to her. She lingers on him as his scent still lingers on her, forever marking her, body and soul, as his.
That is why she thinks of him, why he runs to her every time he loses conscious thought, and why, too, on that last full moon under which Willow ventured out with Buffy and the gang, the Werewolf who came across her when she parted from the group didn't touch her. It took one whiff of her, and of him, and ran, because it wasn't looking to tangle with another wolf. She'll always belong to another, but she'll always take the path, and the soul mate, who takes her from him. Still, she'll always be marked by him, always be a part of him, and will always dream, when she closes her eyes under the moon at night, of another lover beside the one who shares her bed and takes her hand and of precious moments gone by forever but relived by each every night.
The End
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Oz/Willow, Willow/Tara
Rating: PG-13/T
Challenge: #614: Hound
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 991
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, not the author, and are used without permission.
She still dreams about him even after all this time. Sometimes he's the wolf, sometimes just a hound, and sometimes he's cured and only the man she loved. She can always feel him beside him, within her in her dreams. It's as though they share one body, one soul still, and when she wakes, she feels stripped of that other half. She can not explain the tears that cling to her lashes, so she leaves her lover in bed and pads over to their window where she watches the night and wonders.
Where is he tonight? Is he wolf or man? How much has the boy with whom she first fell in love changed? Does he ever think of her? She was his first, but despite the rumor that wolves mate for life, she wasn't his only. She's kept tabs on him online. She knows he's doing well, but she wonders if he misses her and the life they almost had together.
She closes her eyes and pictures him. She pictures him singing to her, for her only. She hears his crooning voice caressing her ears. It's a wonder she ever met the lead singer of a band, let alone that he fell for her as hard as she fell for him, but they were meant to be for a time, for only a time.
She wonders if all loves are meant to last only a time and never a lifetime. She doesn't have much experience from which to draw, only Oz, Tara, and Xander. She hopes her girlfriend won't come again and find her at the window. She doesn't understand the bond Willow still feels, and she can not blame her.
She remembers the first time she tried talking to Tara when she found her watching the full moon with reminiscing in her green eyes. She said she understood why Willow was still thinking of Oz, why a part of her would always think of her first love, but she could see the hurt in her eyes and the unspoken questions. Tara was more than enough -- she had become almost her all --, but she couldn't help sometimes thinking of the past.
She turns away from the window with a sigh and wraps her arms around herself. She knows that is where she should leave Oz. She no longer loves him, nor him her. Their love was meant to only last for the time it did. But still, she thinks about him and turns swiftly back around to her window when she hears a howl somewhere out in the streets of the city.
It isn't him. It's never him, and it never will be again. She will never see him again except for the clips she sometimes watches online of the Dingoes Ate My Baby playing and the smiling pictures she still has of him. Tara says she doesn't mind the parts of Willow's past that the redhead keeps, but she keeps them hidden in her strongest magic books, the ones she knows Tara won't touch, just in case.
She should be out there helping Buffy, but she rather prefers to stay home on full moons now. Her memories are too strong. She's too apt to lose herself in them again if she doesn't stay busy, and there are so many memories when she's researching with the others rather than being here at her room with Tara where she belongs. She walks by the old school some nights when she's alone just so she can give in to the memories and let them play. She remembers his shy smiles, his sweet words, his tender hands. She remembers the bad times, too, and the long nights spent watching over him in wolf form to make sure he didn't any one, but they're never enough to keep the good times at bay for long.
Oz will always be a part of her, she knows, but she no longer belongs at his side. He is her past; she no longer loves him. She has a new love now, and if she had to make the same decision all over again, she would still choose Tara. She goes back to her now, slips back into bed where she has not been missed, and softly kisses her long, blonde hair. She watches as she smiles and knows, in her heart, she didn't make any mistakes that she wouldn't make again to be led here beside the woman she loves. She'll always choose Tara, but she knows, too, she'll always dream of the past and the wolf who still waits therein.
Across the city, unheard this time by Willow, the wolf howls again. Every full moon, he finds himself here, but come morning's light, he'll run again from the past and Willow and back to the bigger cities, his band, and his new mate, back to his future where he belongs. Still, a part of him will always belong to her. She lingers on him as his scent still lingers on her, forever marking her, body and soul, as his.
That is why she thinks of him, why he runs to her every time he loses conscious thought, and why, too, on that last full moon under which Willow ventured out with Buffy and the gang, the Werewolf who came across her when she parted from the group didn't touch her. It took one whiff of her, and of him, and ran, because it wasn't looking to tangle with another wolf. She'll always belong to another, but she'll always take the path, and the soul mate, who takes her from him. Still, she'll always be marked by him, always be a part of him, and will always dream, when she closes her eyes under the moon at night, of another lover beside the one who shares her bed and takes her hand and of precious moments gone by forever but relived by each every night.
The End