Title: Don't Forget What's Right
Character(s): Oz Osbourne, Charles Cornick
Rating: FR-13/PG
Summary: Charles and Oz catch up to each other on the road.
Length: ~1030
Notes: written for the August 2016 Twisted Shorts ficathon. If you read this in August, it was originally entitled "Lawgiver".

Oz had never met anyone who spoke less than he did until Charles Cornick found him outside LA. He finally understood how other people could find it unnerving. Or maybe there was something a little terrifying about the first dominant werewolf he met being second only to the leader of all the werewolves in North America. It was like finding himself on the wrong side of Buffy's fists, without the reassuring knowledge that she was his friend and would do all she could not to hurt him.

On the plus side, Charles was extremely handy in a fight...just like Buffy.

"Huh."

Charles spared Oz a glance from behind the wheel of the rental car they were using, but didn't say anything.

Oz dipped his head and brought his eyes back to the road. He'd long ago given up the struggle between how he thought he should act around the older man...wolf...person, and what his instincts told him he should do. Tomorrow he could let the fear that he was becoming more animal than man circle each other infinitum. Assuming he lived that long. Tonight he was happy-content to...

Tonight he was alive, and that was enough.

Oz felt Charles' attention directed his way again, this time for longer than a glance, but it was turned away before instinct forced Oz to react. Well, react beyond the hairs that were standing up on his arms and the back of his neck. More than Charles' size – both height and muscle mass – he had a presence that was...a lot like Buffy's. Oz would have grinned if the man/wolf/person next to him weren't so comfortingly terrifying. Of all the things to remind him of home, he wouldn't have guessed it would be another werewolf.

There had been a brown-skinned kid, not much younger than himself, Oz would have guessed. And there had been a demon, a livid purple and gray that was unlike anything Oz had seen before. It had reminded him of a giant wound on a corpse. And behind the demon, a pale woman in a dirty glass cage. Oz hadn't wanted to think about why the cage was dirty, or why the woman was in it. It had been enough that she was trying desperately to get out of it – one whole arm was a bright burning red edging into black from where she'd probably been banging it repeatedly against the walls – while this kid, maybe her kid, maybe a stranger, was baiting the walking corpse-wound demon. Baiting it and losing to it.

Luckily, they'd been on the backside of the full moon. Oz had little trouble slipping his human skin. He would have rathered helped the kid as a man, but he hadn't been planning on demon-hunting when he fled Sunnydale. The only supplies he'd had on hand were the requisite stake and holy water. It hadn't looked like the stake-and-holy-water kind of demon.

Instinct and experience had told him to go for the throat. Oz had speed on his side, but the demon had a longer reach and was much stronger. And he had been tired. He hadn't slept well since his last full moon in Sunnydale. He couldn't remember what happened with Veruca, but his body remembered and at night his muscles tried to relive the story his mind had chosen to forget.

Soon Oz had found himself being batted around just as badly as the kid. If he could have, he would have told the kid to run, get help. Whether he would have left the women, Oz couldn't have guessed but there would be no one to spread the word about the corpse-wound demon if all three of them fell to it. And it was always easier to fight with one less person to worry about. But Oz hadn't been able to talk. He'd been lucky (unlucky?) that the kid hadn't decided that he was an enemy, too. Or maybe he had and just couldn't deal with two monsters at once.

It hadn't mattered. Oz had barely been able to keep up with the demon when he jumped in. Maybe if he'd made the killing blow the first time. But he hadn't. They had all been going to die.

Then a snarling mass of muscle and fur had flown over Oz, neatly using him as a springboard without hurting him. Even with his enhanced senses, Oz had barely been able to follow along. Quickly giving up, he'd first herded the kid away from the corpse-wound demon. Then he'd gone back to harry the monster's heels. The horrible taste in his mouth had spurred him on.

The other wolf had managed to get the demon by the throat, and had just hung on. Oz went for the Achilles tendon. And between them they'd brought the demon down.

They had utterly destroyed the demon. They had freaked out the humans, but that was okay because they were alive to be freaked.

Then had come the moment when the other wolf had gone human again. Fully clothed. While Oz had fought against his wolf's bloodlust.

Rough hands had gripped him about the head. Oz's fur and claws had receded. His bones had reshaped himself. His human mind had, mostly, returned.

But he was still naked. Not that it had mattered. With the other werewolf's hands buried deeply in his hair, Oz hadn't had the strength of mind to stand. Crouched over, almost kneeling, felt…right.

"What's your name?"

Oz had taken a shuddering breath before answering.

"I've been looking for you."

"Who are you?"

"Charles Cornick. The Marrok sent me." He'd stood.

Oz really had shuddered then.

"Get up. Let's go."

So they were going. To meet the Marrok. According to Charles it would take them more than half a day of non-stop driving, a full day if they did stop. Although it had been said without inflection, Oz had no intention of asking for a stop. To be honest, he wasn't sure what to do with himself for the next…thirteen hours.

He kind of wished Charles would say something.

Fin[ite]

Notes2: Do you actually read my notes?