Oz awakes to the sound of heavy, raspy breathing. He dares not to open his eyes; instead he clutches the covers to his chin like a child. He knows that it cannot hurt him, and that if he would just open his eyes it would be gone, but the barrier of mind-numbing fear is too strong.
He lies in bed, every muscle tense with fear, and thinks to himself that he wishes he knew what it was. Why it haunted him. Why, night after night, he awoke to the sound of harsh, aggressive breathing over deadly silence.
He knows better than this, he tells himself. If it's a monster, it would kill him. And besides, a mere monster shouldn't be able to terrify him so utterly and completely. He lives in Sunnydale, after all.
After about a half-hour, he thinks he has a better grip on the fear. This is the way it always goes, and he doesn't regret wishing that his mother was there. He shifts slowly and his limbs are so stiff from holding still for so long, and now he needs to pee. He cracks his eyes open, and the reassuring numbers on the clock next to him tell him that he's gotten almost seven hours of sleep. That means he's only got two to go before the sun rises. He quickly closes his eyes again, because the breathing seems closer in the constricting darkness when he can see it with his own eyes.
Colors dance on the back of his eyelids, and for a while, he tries to focus on them and distract himself. The breathing is close, maybe in the room, but when he tries, he can never pinpoint the exact location. He tries to tell himself that it isn't real, but deep down he knows it is, knows with the same bone-deep sense that tells him when the sun is rising and when the full moon is.
The breathing stops just before morning, and when Oz opens his eyes, finally, all he can see is the organized mess of his room and the slight paling of the night on the edge of the world that is the horizon.
He breathes himself, and his lungs ache like he has not used them in hours.
***
Near the full moon, it gets worse. The breathing is louder somehow, more menacing. It makes Oz scrunch himself into the corner of the bed and pray to anything he can think of for some kind of salvation from this fear. For the thought of death doesn't bother him much anymore. It's the fear that gets to him, irrationally enough. The paralyzing, torturous fear that makes him wish that he was dead just so he could escape it.
This night, he can almost swear the breathing is coming from right next to his bed. He wants to scream, wants to be anywhere but here, but he literally cannot move a muscle. It strikes him in his panic that he should have told someone, told anyone about what has been happening to him, but it is too late now and oh god what if he dies here with no one to save him and that awful, awful noise rasping in his ears...
The rest of the night passes in a blur of debilitating panic.
***
Oz is relieved beyond relief when he looks at the calendar and realizes that tonight is the night before the full moon. Tonight he can give himself up to another beast and let it protect him as it would. Tonight he will be gone, and so will the fear. He nearly sobs with relief.
***
Oz can tell that Willow suspects that something is wrong. There are bags under his eyes constantly, and when he looks in the mirror, his face is gaunt with the stress of terror and sleeplessness. Willow is a good girlfriend and he thinks he should tell her but then he rules it out as stupidity. It doesn't seem as scary in the daytime.
Willow locks him up in the cage for the night, and he relaxes against the wall. The familiar tightening of his skin is coming on now, something that should be feared, but now, something he embraces. The wolf, he can trust. The wolf is predictable and courteous enough to only come once a month. The wolf is punctual.
He falls to the ground and doubles over, and when he opens his eyes, Oz is no more.
***
When Oz meets Veruca, the attraction is there, instantly. His heart pounds faster and his palms sweat and he aches to be near her. There is a soft pounding in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like growling, but he ignores it because the moon's a waning gibbous right now and he doesn't need to worry about the wolf for a few weeks yet.
He knows that something's wrong, but he can't quite place it. Veruca's hair is not red and her eyes are not green but all the same he finds her irresistible, and perhaps that's it.
***
The breathing is so loud...Oz finds the courage to bring his hands up to his ears in an attempt to block it out, but the motion has no impact. The noise continues, and when Oz listens long enough, he can hear the sound of straining of inhuman vocal chords intermixed with the breathing. He wants it to end. He wants it over so badly. He'll tell someone tomorrow, he thinks. Not Willow; she wouldn't be able to help him in the long-term. Giles? Yes, he should tell Giles. Giles will know what to do, will have some sort of magickal remedy that at the very least will knock him out and make him oblivious to the terror lurking somewhere in the room.
***
In the morning he checks every square inch of the room. There's nothing here, no way for anything to get in. His dorm is messy and sloppy but there are no signs of an unknown entity spending the night. The window is closed and latched, as is the door.
This doesn't really puzzle Oz, as everything is as he expected it to be. He just wishes it weren't.
***
Daylight makes the whole situation so trivial and childish. Oz is almost embarrassed to make the journey to Giles's apartment. But he knows he cannot endure much more of this, and after his afternoon nap, he drives his van over to the ex-librarian's apartment.
"Why, hello Oz. What brings you to my end of town? Not trouble, I hope?" Giles is puttering about with some books, which is on par for the Watcher. Oz shifts awkwardly.
"Not trouble. At least, I don't think so." Oz proceeded to explain the situation to Giles, using as few adjectives as possible. No need to elaborate on more than the bare bones of the issue.
Giles looks at him like he's really listening. Oz appreciates that, and a glimmer of hope begins to form inside him. He nods sympathetically. "Well, Oz, the only thing I can think is that it might be stress related. You and Willow have been having a few problems, right? You might want to talk to her, straighten some things out. This Veruca person seems to have put quite a strain on your relationship, and indeed, she might be the root of it all."
Oz nods patiently and smiles appropriately, and does not bother to mention that this has been going on since before he met Veruca. Since before he can remember, actually. Perhaps sleep loss has addled his brains, but Oz can't seem to remember a time when he has not woken terrified in the night.
He leaves the apartment and hopes feebly that tonight he will not wake.
***
Wrong. The wolf is in you, all the time.
Oz closes his eyes and tries to shake Veruca from his memory. She clings on with all her considerable strength, and he is unable to rid himself of her.
Perhaps it's for the best, he thinks. Willow is better than he is, and she deserves more. The worst part is that he knows Veruca is right. He is afraid to do so, but he knows that if he reaches for it, he'll find the wolf's carnal instincts waiting just beneath the surface, eager to be unleashed.
***
It's too much. Willow has gone. She has left him, and he is alone and hurting and desperate for anything to take the pain away. He hasn't slept in days and his body aches all over. There is no room for terror.
He doesn't even get to sleep that night when the breathing starts. And now, it's not so much breathing as it his growling. The familiar scent of fear comes over Oz, and he is just. So. Fucking. Tired. He just wants to rest, to sleep. Willow is gone and Veruca is dead and he killed her and it felt good. Something is seriously wrong with him, and he is too tired to doubt it anymore.
The breathing moves closer. So close he can almost smell the scent of freshly consumed meat. And blood. His nostrils flare slightly as he takes it in, and the copper taste of shiny new pennies is still in his own mouth. He licks his lips, and his hand reaches for the light.
His eyes bore into the darkness straight ahead, and he is filled with morbid curiosity. He has to know.
And so he turns on the light.
Above him looms a beast more terrible than Oz could imagine. It looks exactly like him in every way, but for the vicious yellow eyes and sharp, ripping teeth. It is a killer.
The breathing has stopped now, and all Oz can hear is the silence.