Face to Face: Day 2 - Running With the Wolf
by MattK
Once again, the furniture had been pushed to the walls of the Hyperion’s lobby, and a pentacle had been chalked on the floor. Angel was seriously considering just painting one on permanently. But that wouldn’t work. There tended to be differences for each spell and ritual. This one, for example, had required certain extra symbols beyond the pentacle, chalked hand prints, and other marks that looked like claw-gouges. Besides, if a line got scraped away while the furniture was being moved, that would be a Bad Thing.

Faith and Gunn had been the last to return to the Hyperion, bearing the good news that "They’ll be there." That had been 11:30. Everyone else had been almost done preparing. It was fortunate that their preparations were simple, and even so, it was a near thing.

Spike, refusing to "play" had returned to his room with a fifth of bourbon.

Angel, Buffy, Riley, Faith, and Gunn stood at the outer points of the star. They were the ‘tribe’s’ warriors, and it was their duty to protect the sanctity of the circle—and the other participants, if something went wrong. Each wore war-paint and carried their favored weapon: Angel and Gunn carried axes, Faith her knife, Buffy a simple stake, and Riley a tranquilizer gun. He would actually have preferred his M-16, but this was good enough for symbolic purposes, and it was better for the situation. A crack shot with a tranquilizer gun could prove very valuable if an emergency arose.

Wesley, Giles, Anya, Joyce, and Cordelia stood on the inner five points. Joyce and Giles were the tribal elders (a position Joyce didn’t particularly appreciate), so they wore the closest things to crowns available. Joyce sported Cordelia’s old May Queen tiara, while Giles (spared a Burger King crown by the fact that a foolish appearance on the part of the Elders might disrupt the spell) wore a simple metal band that Angel had fished out of his ‘souvenir chest’. Wesley, as an elder-in-training, wore a simple cloth headband. Cordelia had a crescent moon painted on her forehead, symbolizing her role as a Seer, while Anya wore the shawl of the Wise Woman ("She knows all about magic and demons and stuff—it works, doesn’t it?").

Xander had been deemed the tribe’s Trickster, and now had half his face and one hand painted many bright colors. He moved freely between the outer and the inner circle and, indeed, was not to stop moving at any point during the ceremony.

Tara, Oz, and Willow stood in the center of the circle. The two women wore white robes, while Oz wore only his pants. Wolf-paws had been painted on his hands and feet, and a symbolic wolf-mask had been painted on his face.

The grandfather clock in Angel’s office struck twelve.

"It is time," Tara intoned.

"Midnight, the time of change," Willow said.

"We bring before the tribe one with two spirits: Man and Beast," Tara said. "What must be done?"

"Make him whole," the outer circle pronounced. Angel, whose education had taken place in an era when "passing a test" meant being able to recite one’s lessons back by rote, was best at remembering lines like this. Everyone followed his lead.

"Make him One," the inner circle added.

"Let the Two-Souled One speak," Xander said, making sure to keep walking as he read from his note card. "What does he choose?"

"I would be One," Oz replied. "I would be whole."

"Beware," Willow said. "For the One you will become is not the One you once were, and what is done cannot be undone."

"So it is with all things:" Oz replied. "A choice made cannot be unmade, and often there is no choice at all. I choose now: let me be One."

"He has chosen to be One!" The witches declared.

"Into the forge-fire then, to be made into One," Xander declared. "And to see how many pieces he breaks into before the forging’s done."

"Do you accept the strength of the Beast?" The outer circle demanded, holding up their weapons.

"I accept," Oz declared.

"Do you accept the wisdom of the Man?" The inner circle asked.

"I accept."

"Do you accept the guile of the Man?" The inner circle cautioned.

"I accept."

"Do you accept the rage of the Beast?"

Oz swallowed hard. The rage of the Beast was actually what he was trying to get away from. It was what he’d been fighting since the day Jordy bit him. Still, if the Beast’s rage was brought to the surface, where he could feel it and control it himself, that was better than how things currently stood. He took a deep breath: "I accept."

"Then let him drink!" Xander shouted. He dashed out of the circle—dropping his index card with a sigh of relief once he left its confines—and grabbed a wine glass that sat on an end table just outside the circle. He rushed the glass back to the center of the circle and handed it to Oz. "Let him drink the blood of the Beast!"

"We call upon Cernunnos, the Stag King, Lord of the Hunt," Tara invoked.

"We call upon Luna, Mother of all who Change," Willow added.

The chanting faded into the background as Oz raised the wine glass to his lips. It was filled with red wine and "special ingredients" that Willow had refused to elaborate on. Last chance. This wasn’t safe.

But it was worth anything to be able to choose who he was dangerous to.

He drank. And the world went away.

*

Oz’s eyes faded into the distance and the wineglass dropped from his nerveless fingers, shattering on the floor.

Angel suddenly manifested his demon face and roared, striking the butt of his axe on the floor. Then he began to beat it on the floor in the rhythm of a heartbeat.

"Angel!" Buffy shout-whispered. "What are you—"

*Keep doing that!* Willow’s voice shouted in their minds. *The rest of the Warriors—join him! I don’t know why, but it’s helping!*

The other four Warriors shouted, and Gunn began to pound the butt of his axe on the ground, while the other three stomped.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Then they felt what Angel felt: they felt the Beast moving in their own blood, and they shouted again.

*

The full moon shone down on the night forest that Oz walked through. Massive, grasping things that might have been trees in the daylight loomed on either side of the trail, and the occasional rotted log appeared like swells in the ocean. He couldn’t see very well, but that didn’t matter. This place was as familiar as any bedroom he’d ever had. Sticks and dead leaves crackled under his feet as he walked, but that didn’t matter either. He wasn’t trying to hide his approach.

He didn’t have to walk far. It was only a minute or two before he entered the clearing where the Wolf was waiting.

Funny. After all this time, he’d expected it to be some sort of hellhound, the size of a VW Beetle, with glowing red eyes and flaming foam dripping from its mouth. But it was just a wolf.

It began to snarl and bristle the moment he stepped into the clearing. He stopped walking, but he refused to lower his eyes or look aside. That would be submission. That wasn’t what he was here for. "Do you know who I am?" He asked.

The Wolf snarled, but he was able to hear its answer in his head: *The Man*.

"Then you know why I’m here."

*To eat me.*

Oz shrugged. "Close enough."

The Wolf crouched back on its haunches, ready to spring.

*Kill you first.*

Oz crouched, too, his feet spread and his arms out in a wrestler’s stance.

"That’s one possibility," He growled.

The Wolf lunged, launching itself for his throat. In the physical world, it would have knocked him down, maybe killed him before he had any chance to fight back. In the physical world, it would have been faster, stronger. This wasn’t the physical world. They were inside his spirit. Here, the Man’s arms were as strong as the Wolf’s jaws.

For a moment, Oz struggled just to keep the Wolf’s teeth away from his throat. Slowly, he gained the advantage, wrapping one arm around the Wolf’s neck and forcing the other up under its chin.

*I could kill it!* He thought, wild exultation whipping through him. *I could break its neck and then I could be me again! No bonding, just free!*

The Wolf snarled wildly and raked at him with its claws.

*No! Won’t let you abandon the Mate again!*

"You’re the reason I had to abandon her," Oz snarled. "You tried to kill her!"

*Confused! Blood-frenzied! You hurt her more.*

Rage surged in Oz’s shoulders and arms and he wanted—oh, how he wanted—to kill it. Instead, he flung it across the clearing. He was acting like it—like the Beast. Responding to everything with violence. Was he here to become it? That wasn’t the kind of bonding he wanted.

Time to act like the Man. There were things that the Beast could never do: compromise. Share. Understand. The last was the key, the Man’s highest strength and advantage. The Beast could never understand anything but its own narrow perspective. But if he could understand the Beast…

"Made you just about crazy, didn’t it?"

*What?*

"Being trapped inside me except when the Moon was full. When the Mother’s call was the strongest. Unable to run, unable to hunt. Then, when you do come out, it’s to a place where the Earth itself is rotten, and everything is a threat."

The Wolf was calming. It stopped snarling and allowed its hackles to settle.

"Then when you do get out, we have you chained up and trapped in a cage. It must have been terrifying. If any of the Bad Things came, you wouldn’t have been able to defend yourself."

*It was.*

The Wolf sat down.

"Then…Veruca…happened."

The Wolf whimpered and tucked its tail.

"And I tried to lock you up forever." He took a deep breath. Was there any actual air to breathe in a place like this? "No wonder you went just about rabid. Look, I’ll make a deal with you:"

The Wolf’s ears perked up.

"I’ll let you out to run. But you have to run with me."

*

Oz’s eyes fluttered open.

He’d never left his feet. He’d just stood, rigid and blind, through his entire vision. How long had it been. Seconds? Hours? He had no idea.

The Mate and the Mate’s Mate (how was such a thing possible? The Man understood perfectly, but the Wolf was confused) closed in tight around him. "Oz? Are you okay?" The Mate/Willow asked.

"It worked," he answered, the words making strange shapes out of his tongue. Apparently, the part of him that was wolf needed practice talking.

Willow threw her arms around his neck with a squeal of joy, while Tara let out a long-held puff of breath. "Praise Luna," she said.

Oz nodded his agreement. Then something occurred to him, and he held Willow out away from him. "Question," he said. "If I had killed the Wolf while I was inside, what would have happened?"

"You would have died," she answered. "You might not have been fully bonded, but the Wolf was already enough of a part of you so you couldn’t survive without it."

"Huh. Why wasn’t I told that was a risk?"

"We didn’t know it was," Willow answered. "The people who never came back from the trance never got a chance to say why, so we didn’t know you killing the Wolf was a possibility."

"Huh."

"So now what happens?" Tara asked softly.

"What do you mean?" Willow asked.

Tara nodded at the two of them, where they stood embracing. "You have him back. He can choose who he’s dangerous to, now. We’re in the same place as Buffy, Angel, and Riley. Who do you choose, Willow?"

Willow released Oz and turned to the other witch. "What are you saying, honey? You know I love you."

"And you never stopped loving him," Tara said. "Just like Buffy. So now what happens?"

Willow’s mouth worked helplessly, utterly lost.

"Um, if I can say something before the angst really gets rolling?" Oz interjected, holding up his hand.

The two witches turned to look at him.

"I know I’m just one out of three, here, but if it’s my call, neither of us leaves."

"I don’t understand," Willow said, her voice just as lost as her expression. She’d been here before. Twice. It wasn’t a place she’d wanted to come back to.

"Yesterday morning, when you submitted to me," Oz said to Tara. "I ‘accepted’ you. There’s no other word for it. As far as the Wolf—I—am concerned, we’re a pack now. I need you almost as much as I need Willow. Though not quite in the same way, of course."

The two witches were staring at him incredulously now. So was the rest of the circle, but right now, the rest of the world didn’t exist.

"I like you," he continued, to Tara. "What’s more, I need you. A packmate is more than family. A packmate is part of yourself. Do you like me?"

Struck dumb, Tara nodded silently.

"So you like me, I like you, and we both love Willow. We either have a really big problem here, or an interesting solution." He held out both of his hands "What do you say?"

Slowly, tentatively Tara took his left hand, and held out her other to Willow.

Willow had gone beyond confused to genuinely frightened. But as she saw both of her lovers holding out their hands to her, hope blossomed within the confusion and fear. Taking a deep breath, as she once did before plunging into water that she knew was cold. She reached out and took their hands before she could talk herself out of it. It wasn’t the smart or the sensible thing to do, she knew. But it was the right one.

They stood there for a moment, holding each other’s hands and smiling into each other’s faces before Willow took both of them into her arms and hugged them close.

The rest of the circle couldn’t help but stare. Faith summed up the general opinion when she said "I guess I’m happy for them. But, dude! This is fucked up."


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