((Um. This collection? It's really a kind of run-off for my creepy rambling days. So this is kind of creepy, and rambling, and I didn't really know how to end it, and it's also a little AU because it was actually Tara who suggested getting Miss Kitty Fantastico, but I wrote this a few months ago, before I saw the episode. I recall being somewhat delirious with lack of sleep while writing this… Comments are appreciated still. If I haven't scared you off.))

Stray Dog Strut

They had talked about it together for a while before deciding to bring home the cat; a house pet to make the dorm room feel more like home for two new lovers. Surprisingly, it had been Tara who had wanted to consider getting a dog instead. She had grown up between two farm dogs, still remembered how their fur had felt twisted between her tiny fingers. Dogs were strong and gentle and protection in a place where both gentleness and protection had been in short supply. Willow had smiled convincingly as she considered it, but then wrinkled her brow in apparent distress as she considered aloud the practicality of a dog into their small home.

"Where will it have room to run?"

"Won't its claws scratch up the floor?"

"Dogs are, you know, kind of loud. I-in a nice, friendly way, but maybe for the neighbors- no so nice. They'd tell on us."

In the end, Tara reluctantly agreed, and the next day Miss Kitty Fantastico found a new home.

Willow was very careful not to show her relief. She had never liked dogs, for some reason.

xxxx

Wild dogs had always been a problem in Sunnydale, or at least for as long as Willow could remember. Every so often a child would disappear from school in the middle of a term, and when Willow asked the teacher where they'd gone, the teachers would make strange tight faces and not answer. This meant, all the children knew, that the missing one had been eaten by the wild dogs. The grownups wouldn't talk about it, but the knowledge had trickled down; somebody's brother told somebody's sister, told…

Willow's mother always told her to stay away from strange dogs, especially if she was out after dark. Jesse and Xander's mothers did not, so Willow had passed on this piece of wisdom over cups of imaginary tea while the trio was playing "humor the girl".

"'Cause the dogs will eat you up, and de-vower you," Willow warned gravely, "just like what happened to Amanda." Xander's eyes had widened with awe and fear like only a six-year-old's can, but Jesse had laughed. This caused Willow to throw her cup at him in a fit of pique, and the afternoon ended with two boys baying like giggling wolves under a tree from which a stranded Willow angrily assured Jesse that he'd be the first one to get ate, just wait and see!

Willow had strange, cold dreams that night, dreams of wild wolves with the faces of people who darted out of the deepest shadows to spear passers-by with ivory forks and knives. They pulled Jesse into the shadows, and soon the Jesse-wolf emerged in his place. It stalked her until she woke up screaming, though all that lingered of the dream by morning was the prickling fear of being prey.

Sometimes, she met people that reminded her of dogs in some strange way she couldn't pinpoint- of the dream dogs from her childhood nightmare, creeping, stalking. Xander could sense them better than she, and Jesse knew enough by then to trust their instincts. A woman on the street would linger a second too long, and the prey fear would spark up her spine. Xander would jerk away as if burned, and for the rest of the evening they sat inside at the Rosenberg's house drinking sugarless soda and watching edu-tainment television under her mother's watchful eyes.

Eventually the three of them grew up, and grew wiser. Xander remained the youngest at heart, still jumping at shadows and the predatory people that Willow had learned to ignore. She learned too that it wasn't right for girls to cringe from cuddy puppies and cute little dogs, so she cooed loud enough to drown out the faint hum of panic in the pit of her stomach. Don't remember the whispers, Wills, the rumors of the teeth-marks on little Amanda's throat, little puppy teeth that nip and nibble and tear…Jesse laughed at all their fears, just like he always had- he was the one who jogged through Sunnydale after dark and walked on the shadowy side of the street, things no one else born in this town was brave enough to do. Bright, fearless Jesse dared them to grow up. Grown-ups didn't worry about wild dogs or strange bite-marks, at least not in Sunnydale. Memories of long-ago dreams faded, leaving only a faint sense of unease that nearly disappeared with the passing of puberty.

But some things run deeper than memories, and on warm autumn nights when the window was just a little open, and the neighbor's dog was howling with the edge of a wildness almost forgotten in its cries, Willow would shiver, just a little. She would close the window, and remember for a moment that as a kid, she'd never really liked dogs… for some reason.