Fic: Lives Are For Living. (27/40)
Feb. 19th, 2014 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silver_sunTitle Lives Are For Living. (27/40)
Fandoms Torchwood/Being Human crossover fic.
Characters/pairings Andy Davidson/Tom McNair. Other Torchwood and Being Human characters will appear later on.
Word count: This part 3500 (Total posted 71000 /90,000)
Rating This part pg (adult over all) – see contains below.
Contains Mentions of depression/anxiety. Mentions of past canon major character death. Mention of minor character death – not canon. In later parts canon level violence, graphic sex, Andy's homophobic mother. Spoilers for Being Human (UK version) up to series 5 episode 3, and for Torchwood up to Children of Earth.
A/N: Crossover with Being Human. Technically a CoE fix it as it's set in the same 'verse as Finding Ways To Smile Again (although that isn't apparent until about 2/3 the way through the story). Follows on from Break and Breakaway from Tom McNair's POV – which is where it breaks from Being Human canon.
Summary
After being pushed out of the police force following the events of Children of Earth, Andy Davidson tries to build a new life for himself in the deep in the Welsh countryside.
Tom McNair walked out off his old life after realising it wasn't what he needed.
A chance meeting would take their lives in directions that they had never expected and bring them love that they'd not thought they'd find.
Starts here: http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/214504.html
Looking up from the plans, quotes and assorted other pieces of paper that were spread out over the kitchen table, Andy sighed. Getting the farm track tarmacked or gravelled from the main road up to the house was going to be a lot more expensive than he'd thought possible. Perhaps he could advertise it as the ultimate getaway from it all campsite – you have to have your own 4x4 to get to it, unless you wanted to walk carrying all your camping gear. Or perhaps he could arrange a collection service, with him picking up pre-booked campers from the nearest bus stop or station. He'd talk it over with Tom once he was feeling better.
Stretching, Andy looked around at where Tom was sleeping restlessly on the sofa, his face still not quite relaxed even in sleep. It worried him to see Tom sick and so unlike his usual full of energy self. Rationally he knew that he was young, fit and otherwise healthy, and that in a few days he'd bounce back to normal. Yet he still couldn't shake the fear that something was terribly wrong. The fact that he knew that once he wouldn't have felt such panic somehow made it worse, like he was failing Tom by being worried, that somehow the worry would hurt him more than being sick.
It was anxiety talking. Andy was sure of that. He'd talked to enough people and read enough of the self help information that they'd given him early on after leaving the force that half the battle was recognising the fears as being irrational. Then at least you had a starting point to try and break them down, deconstruct them. It wouldn't make them go away entirely, he'd still feel unsettled, but hopefully the simmering fear would drop back enough to where he was controlling it rather it controlling him.
Getting up, Andy went over to the window. It was snowing again. Fat, soft flakes falling thick and fast across the already heavily covered landscape. Better get some more wood in, Andy decided. Then pulling on a heavy coat, gloves and boots he went outside.
The snow was piled up in the farmyard, the wind having blown it into deep drifts. Including one, he noted dismally, that had formed around the landrover, meaning that they'd would have to dig it out if they wanted to use it any times soon. Not that it was too much of problem - they were well stocked up on the things they needed to wait out the weather for a week or so.
After getting one of the sacks of wood that Tom had chopped back when the weather had been better back in the summer, Andy went back inside. He had just put the sack of wood down by the range, when he heard Tom give as gasp of pain and fall off the sofa with a thump.
“Hey, you okay?” Andy said crouching down beside Tom, feeling the heat radiating off him. “You should really go back to bed.”
Tom looked at him bleary eyed and confused. “Think so." He looked at the darkened windows. "What's the time?”
“Nearly five,” Andy replied, hoping that Tom wouldn't claim it was too early to go back to bed. He'd hoped that letting him rest of the sofa would have helped, but if anything Tom looked worse than before.
Tom gave him a panicked looked before he all but jumped off the sofa, getting tangled in the duvet as he did. “I got to go out.”
“Out?" Andy said surprised. "Don't be daft. It's dark and snowing, and you're really aren't well.”
“I can't stay here. I gotta go. I..” Tom suddenly doubled over, a look of shock on his face.
“Tom?” Andy put out a hand towards him.
“No. It's too late,” Tom gasped, stumbling away from him and looking round wildly. “I gotta find...” He shuddered again, pain etched on his face as he grabbed at the back of the sofa for support.
Trying to push down the panic that Tom was now so feverish he was hallucinating, Andy reverted to what he hoped was his best 'I'm in charge' policeman's voice and said “I think you need to lie down for a minute and tell me what's wrong.”
“I can't, no time,” Tom said, all but crying now. “I'm sorry. I...” He stopped then dropped to his knees, snarling, “Ger away from me.” When he looked up his eyes were yellow, the pupil a vertical slit and when he opened his mouth Andy could swear his teeth were longer and more pointed.
Andy jumped back, nearly falling over a chair. Any pretence of calm or control gone he stared at Tom wide eyed and scared. Whatever was wrong with him it wasn't flu or at least that wasn't all that was wrong. Before he could say anything, Tom stumbled past him, heading for the old coal cellar.
“Lock it,” Tom called back to him, pleading he closed the door. “Don't let me out, please. Whatever happens, whatever you hear, don't open it, not 'til morning.”
Heart racing, mind refusing to think past carrying out what Tom had asked, Andy pushed an old, heavy wooden chest in front of the door, then piled a couple of bags of plaster and cement on top of it. There was no way to see what was happening inside the room. There was no gap in the door and even if there were the room was pitch dark as there was no light fitting in it. Tom's muffled gasps of pain rapidly gave way to agonising cries before he went silent. For a moment Andy could hear nothing but his own pounding heartbeat and the wind outside, and then there was a howl from inside that raised the hairs on the back of Andy's neck and sent a shiver down his spine.
Shaking, Andy backed away from the room. He'd left Cardiff and all of its weird alien crap to end up living with and falling in love with... a what, a werewolf? Maybe werewolves were actually a type of alien. There was something bitterly ironic in it somewhere, he supposed, and a harsh laugh caught in his throat, turning to a near hysterical sob before it was done.
Leaning back against the wall, Andy slowly let himself slip down it until he was sat on the floor, knees near his chin. It wasn't fair. Why the hell did his life have to be so full of weird shit? Why couldn't he just get to be happy?
Tom had known what was happening to him, that was clear, he thought angrily. This wasn't something that Tom hadn't known about. Tom had lied to him the whole time. All the times he'd slipped out late at night, supposedly to get back to nature, whatever that had meant, had this been what he was doing? Andy shivered as the creature snarled again and scratched at the bare stone.
He covered his ears with his hands trying to block out the noise. How could Tom who'd seemed so honest, even painfully so sometimes, have lied to him about something so important? He closed his eyes feeling tears burning behind them. Yet how could he have told him? Where do you even start to reveal something like that? He wondered. He hadn't been able to tell his family about his sexuality even after more than ten years of being certain, why should he expect Tom to have been able to tell him in just a few short months about something like this?
It hurt though that Tom hadn't been able to trust him. That, if he was honest, hurt more than the fact that he'd kept it a secret. They would definitely be having words about this later, and then, hopefully, eventually it would all be out in the open and then maybe they'd be alright.
Opening his eyes, Andy wiped them on his sleeve, surprised that he was actually considering continuing to have a relationship with a werewolf or whatever the hell it was that Tom had turned into. Yet what other choice was there? To give up on the one person who'd ever made him truly happy? That felt like no choice at all. It came down it to it the simple decision between Tom or no Tom, having Tom with him would win every time.
Part of his mind screamed at him, telling him he was mad to even contemplate it. The rest of it was already desperately trying to rationalise it. He'd seen odder things in Cardiff after all. Okay he'd not been sleeping with them and he hadn't been entertaining thoughts of proposals and lives together, but there were definitely odder things out there than a boyfriend who had one bad night a month, so in the grand scheme of things it was probably alright.
“What the fuck am I going to do?” Andy said aloud to the empty room. He looked at his phone lying on the table. Maybe he should call Gwen. And then what? Things that weren't human and who came to Torchwood's notice generally didn't get seen again. The fact that Torchwood used to be armed was no secret. He shivered and closed his eyes again. He couldn't let them know, couldn't let anyone know. What if they took Tom away or worse? He'd have to live with that forever, with the knowledge that he'd hurt somebody who'd been nothing but good to him.
No wonder Tom hadn't told him, Andy thought sadly. He must have lived his whole life terrified of discovery. It made his own fear of telling his family feel petty. It hadn't been, it had been genuine, but at that moment his own worries about his family not talking to him any more paled next to Tom probable fear of death or imprisonment.
Creature that was apparently Tom snarled chose that moment to howl, sounding as lost and frustrated as Andy felt. If anybody tried to keep Tom locked up it would destroy him. Tom who was always so much more at home outdoors, who knew so much of the surrounding area like he lived there all his life and who seemed to need the peace and quiet of it sometimes, just as he did, to help get his thoughts in order.
No, Andy told himself, whatever happened between them after this he'd never share Tom's secret with anyone, unless Tom had agreed to it first.
Unable to sleep, Andy had eventually got up off the floor and sat on the sofa, mind churning through all the things that should have alerted him to there being something odd with Tom.
There were too many questions to which he had no answers and would have none until Tom was in a position to hopefully given them to him.
Around two in the morning the noise in the cellar lessened and eventually stopped. Scared at what this new turn of events might mean and not wanting to have his hopes dashed that Tom was his old self once more, Andy waited another half hour before cautiously approaching the door to the coal cellar.
“Tom? Tom, are you you again?” Andy called quietly as first, not wanting to startle him, then again a little louder when he got no response. “Tom? please say something.”
The absence of any kind of sound from the room scared him, and after moving the things he'd piled in front of the door just enough to open crack, Andy got a torch and shone it through the narrow opening. Just visible against the back wall was Tom. Human once more, he was naked, filthy from all the coal dust, and shivering fitfully as he lay on the bitterly cold stone floor.
Hurrying through to the living room Andy grabbed the blanket that had been thrown over the back of the sofa. Shifting the things that had blocked the door so that he could get it fully open, Andy wondered at just how he'd thought he'd able to fend off werewolf with duvet. Only it wasn't a werewolf or whatever it was any more, he reminded himself. Tom was Tom again. Tom who made him cups of tea with too many sugars, who'd laugh too loud at old comedies and who seemed to love him more than anything else in his life.
The coal cellar was freezing cold compared to the rest of the farmhouse, and Tom's skin felt cold and clammy as he put a hand on his shoulder. “Tom, are you...” he stopped. Awake? Alright? Human? All seem equally valid.
Tom groaned and opened his eyes, although didn't move. “Yer still 'ere,” he said, voice hoarse and scratchy.
Relief that Tom was actually Tom again washed over him, and Andy put the blanket round him. “Where else would I go?”
“Away. Anywhere away from me,” Tom said miserably, making no effort to get up from the cold stone floor.
"We're just about snowed in," Andy pointed out, and then wished he hadn't as he really didn't want him to think that that was the only reason he'd stayed. Leaving Tom hadn't actually been amongst any of the options he'd give serious consideration to. When Tom didn't reply or even acknowledge what he'd said, Andy shook his shoulder gently. "You've got to get up, you're freezing."
"'M okay," Tom mumbled, curling in on himself.
“You're not. You'll make yourself ill, well more ill," he corrected himself, remembering how sick he'd been just a few hours before. "Where would you have changed?” Andy said mostly to himself, thinking of the thick snow covering the landscape outside.
Moving finally, Tom sat up and pulled the blanket around himself. Not meeting Andy's eyes, he said quietly, “Up on the moors somewhere.”
“You'd have frozen,” Andy said horrified. If Tom hadn't have got the flu he'd have been out the snow storm still raging across the hills. “You could have died.”
“Might have bin for the best,” Tom replied sounding dazed and miserable as he staggered to his feet. “'cause at least you'd never have known what I am. And you wouldn't hate me.”
“Don't be so bloody stupid,” Andy snapped. How could Tom think that? How could he put so little value on his life? "Of course I don't hate you."
“But I've ruined everythin'. I'm sorry. I should go.” Pulling away from him, Tom managed about half a dozen steps towards the door, before he tripped over the edge blanket and landed in a heap on the floor. Shivering and exhausted he tried to push himself up. Failing, arms trembling with the effort, Tom gave up and lay on the floor and wept.
As much as the fact that Tom had lied to him hurt, seeing him like this; sick, scared and believing he was worthless and unloved was, Andy decided, much, much worse. Crouching down, he pulled Tom against him, holding him close, hushing any protests that he wasn't worth it.
At the end of the day this was Tom. Tom who'd always been there for him, who'd helped him no matter what, who'd been kind and patient when things had got too much for him, and who had out of fear and some kind of desire to protect him had shouldered the burden of his terrible secret alone. He'd let it silently eat away at him and until he'd come to believe that his life was worthless if anyone knew what he was. Yet wouldn't that be true if the world in general found out? He wouldn't be allowed to live and love like he had, he be confined somewhere, prodded and poked in the name of science. There would be no such thing as basic human rights for him, no appeals for freedom, because they'd see him as less than human, something to be feared. Andy knew all too well how people could turn on you, but it would be nothing compare to what could happen to Tom if he were caught.
“Why'd you still care?” Tom said hoarsely, from where he was slumped against Andy.
“Because I love you,” Andy replied. Maybe at nearly thirty one he should be too old to believe that love solves everything, and perhaps he was, but at the very least, he thought, it gave him the strength and will to try. What he had with Tom these last few months, how he'd made him feel better and more alive than he'd done in years, well he wasn't going to give up with out a fight.
Tom looked up at him for the first time since he'd changed. His eyes were human again and filled with tears. “I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you. I lied. And I'm stupid, 'cause I thought I could be human an'...” He stopped as series of harsh coughs shook him.
Apparently transforming didn't cure the flu, Andy thought, and then decided that was definitely unfair. It had sounded like absolute agony to change, surely there should be at least a few upsides to it? It was only one of a number of questions that he knew that he had to ask, needed to ask before perhaps him and Tom would be alright again. Pushing for answers now though seemed cruel when Tom was obviously suffering.
Rubbing Tom's back, Andy asked the only question that he guessed really had to be asked right now. “You're not going to change again are you?”
Tom shook his head. “Not for another month.”
“Well then,” Andy said, helping Tom to his feet. “Let's get you warmed up. Then we can talk.”
A short while later Tom sat silently in the tin bath in front of the fire as Andy washed the grime from him, shivering worse now that he was starting to properly register the fact that he was cold. Andy was starting doubt that they would actually manage any kind conversation tonight, as Tom seemed in no fit state to do anything other that go to bed, when Tom finally spoke.
“I were a proper human once,” Tom said, as Andy wiped a warm cloth across his shoulders. “I don't remember it though, I was just a baby when I got scratched up by a werewolf. That's what them scars on me back and head are. It's why I didn't wanna talk about them.”
“Your dad stayed with you,” Andy said wonder in his voice. Dropping the flannel, he put an arm around him. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like to have your child attacked and then to find out it had become something not quite human. The love he must have had to stick by his son, to keep his secret from the world. Tom's strange childhood had been the product of a man's struggle to keep his son safe. It brought a lump to his throat to even think about the lonely, frightening life it must have been for them. For all that Tom had talked of McNair before this was the first time that Andy thought he'd like to have shook the man's hand.
“McNair weren't my dad, not like you mean,” Tom said picking at the edge of the flannel. “He were the one which clawed me when he... when my original mum and dad died. He didn't mean to do it, but when you've got the wolf on you can't control it, you can't even remember what you did.” Tom's shoulders started to shake, but he pushed on anyway. “So when he came to in the morning, an' found them and found me, and realised what he'd done, he took me in and looked after me.” He looked at Andy, tears in his eyes again. “I know it sounds all wrong, but he really did care about me. All we had were each other, and I really, really miss him.”
With his arm still around him, Andy helped Tom to stand and then held him tight. He could feel the water soaking into his own clothes and Tom shivering and shaking against him, and in all likelihood crying for all that he'd lost.
There was nothing he could say to make it better, so Andy held him, pressed kisses to the thick scars that ran across his head and tried not to listen to his own fears. Tom needed him to be the strong one, at least for a while. He didn't feel strong in the least, but he loved Tom and that, Andy hoped, would be enough.
Part 28 http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/227938.html
Fandoms Torchwood/Being Human crossover fic.
Characters/pairings Andy Davidson/Tom McNair. Other Torchwood and Being Human characters will appear later on.
Word count: This part 3500 (Total posted 71000 /90,000)
Rating This part pg (adult over all) – see contains below.
Contains Mentions of depression/anxiety. Mentions of past canon major character death. Mention of minor character death – not canon. In later parts canon level violence, graphic sex, Andy's homophobic mother. Spoilers for Being Human (UK version) up to series 5 episode 3, and for Torchwood up to Children of Earth.
A/N: Crossover with Being Human. Technically a CoE fix it as it's set in the same 'verse as Finding Ways To Smile Again (although that isn't apparent until about 2/3 the way through the story). Follows on from Break and Breakaway from Tom McNair's POV – which is where it breaks from Being Human canon.
Summary
After being pushed out of the police force following the events of Children of Earth, Andy Davidson tries to build a new life for himself in the deep in the Welsh countryside.
Tom McNair walked out off his old life after realising it wasn't what he needed.
A chance meeting would take their lives in directions that they had never expected and bring them love that they'd not thought they'd find.
Starts here: http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/214504.html
Looking up from the plans, quotes and assorted other pieces of paper that were spread out over the kitchen table, Andy sighed. Getting the farm track tarmacked or gravelled from the main road up to the house was going to be a lot more expensive than he'd thought possible. Perhaps he could advertise it as the ultimate getaway from it all campsite – you have to have your own 4x4 to get to it, unless you wanted to walk carrying all your camping gear. Or perhaps he could arrange a collection service, with him picking up pre-booked campers from the nearest bus stop or station. He'd talk it over with Tom once he was feeling better.
Stretching, Andy looked around at where Tom was sleeping restlessly on the sofa, his face still not quite relaxed even in sleep. It worried him to see Tom sick and so unlike his usual full of energy self. Rationally he knew that he was young, fit and otherwise healthy, and that in a few days he'd bounce back to normal. Yet he still couldn't shake the fear that something was terribly wrong. The fact that he knew that once he wouldn't have felt such panic somehow made it worse, like he was failing Tom by being worried, that somehow the worry would hurt him more than being sick.
It was anxiety talking. Andy was sure of that. He'd talked to enough people and read enough of the self help information that they'd given him early on after leaving the force that half the battle was recognising the fears as being irrational. Then at least you had a starting point to try and break them down, deconstruct them. It wouldn't make them go away entirely, he'd still feel unsettled, but hopefully the simmering fear would drop back enough to where he was controlling it rather it controlling him.
Getting up, Andy went over to the window. It was snowing again. Fat, soft flakes falling thick and fast across the already heavily covered landscape. Better get some more wood in, Andy decided. Then pulling on a heavy coat, gloves and boots he went outside.
The snow was piled up in the farmyard, the wind having blown it into deep drifts. Including one, he noted dismally, that had formed around the landrover, meaning that they'd would have to dig it out if they wanted to use it any times soon. Not that it was too much of problem - they were well stocked up on the things they needed to wait out the weather for a week or so.
After getting one of the sacks of wood that Tom had chopped back when the weather had been better back in the summer, Andy went back inside. He had just put the sack of wood down by the range, when he heard Tom give as gasp of pain and fall off the sofa with a thump.
“Hey, you okay?” Andy said crouching down beside Tom, feeling the heat radiating off him. “You should really go back to bed.”
Tom looked at him bleary eyed and confused. “Think so." He looked at the darkened windows. "What's the time?”
“Nearly five,” Andy replied, hoping that Tom wouldn't claim it was too early to go back to bed. He'd hoped that letting him rest of the sofa would have helped, but if anything Tom looked worse than before.
Tom gave him a panicked looked before he all but jumped off the sofa, getting tangled in the duvet as he did. “I got to go out.”
“Out?" Andy said surprised. "Don't be daft. It's dark and snowing, and you're really aren't well.”
“I can't stay here. I gotta go. I..” Tom suddenly doubled over, a look of shock on his face.
“Tom?” Andy put out a hand towards him.
“No. It's too late,” Tom gasped, stumbling away from him and looking round wildly. “I gotta find...” He shuddered again, pain etched on his face as he grabbed at the back of the sofa for support.
Trying to push down the panic that Tom was now so feverish he was hallucinating, Andy reverted to what he hoped was his best 'I'm in charge' policeman's voice and said “I think you need to lie down for a minute and tell me what's wrong.”
“I can't, no time,” Tom said, all but crying now. “I'm sorry. I...” He stopped then dropped to his knees, snarling, “Ger away from me.” When he looked up his eyes were yellow, the pupil a vertical slit and when he opened his mouth Andy could swear his teeth were longer and more pointed.
Andy jumped back, nearly falling over a chair. Any pretence of calm or control gone he stared at Tom wide eyed and scared. Whatever was wrong with him it wasn't flu or at least that wasn't all that was wrong. Before he could say anything, Tom stumbled past him, heading for the old coal cellar.
“Lock it,” Tom called back to him, pleading he closed the door. “Don't let me out, please. Whatever happens, whatever you hear, don't open it, not 'til morning.”
Heart racing, mind refusing to think past carrying out what Tom had asked, Andy pushed an old, heavy wooden chest in front of the door, then piled a couple of bags of plaster and cement on top of it. There was no way to see what was happening inside the room. There was no gap in the door and even if there were the room was pitch dark as there was no light fitting in it. Tom's muffled gasps of pain rapidly gave way to agonising cries before he went silent. For a moment Andy could hear nothing but his own pounding heartbeat and the wind outside, and then there was a howl from inside that raised the hairs on the back of Andy's neck and sent a shiver down his spine.
Shaking, Andy backed away from the room. He'd left Cardiff and all of its weird alien crap to end up living with and falling in love with... a what, a werewolf? Maybe werewolves were actually a type of alien. There was something bitterly ironic in it somewhere, he supposed, and a harsh laugh caught in his throat, turning to a near hysterical sob before it was done.
Leaning back against the wall, Andy slowly let himself slip down it until he was sat on the floor, knees near his chin. It wasn't fair. Why the hell did his life have to be so full of weird shit? Why couldn't he just get to be happy?
Tom had known what was happening to him, that was clear, he thought angrily. This wasn't something that Tom hadn't known about. Tom had lied to him the whole time. All the times he'd slipped out late at night, supposedly to get back to nature, whatever that had meant, had this been what he was doing? Andy shivered as the creature snarled again and scratched at the bare stone.
He covered his ears with his hands trying to block out the noise. How could Tom who'd seemed so honest, even painfully so sometimes, have lied to him about something so important? He closed his eyes feeling tears burning behind them. Yet how could he have told him? Where do you even start to reveal something like that? He wondered. He hadn't been able to tell his family about his sexuality even after more than ten years of being certain, why should he expect Tom to have been able to tell him in just a few short months about something like this?
It hurt though that Tom hadn't been able to trust him. That, if he was honest, hurt more than the fact that he'd kept it a secret. They would definitely be having words about this later, and then, hopefully, eventually it would all be out in the open and then maybe they'd be alright.
Opening his eyes, Andy wiped them on his sleeve, surprised that he was actually considering continuing to have a relationship with a werewolf or whatever the hell it was that Tom had turned into. Yet what other choice was there? To give up on the one person who'd ever made him truly happy? That felt like no choice at all. It came down it to it the simple decision between Tom or no Tom, having Tom with him would win every time.
Part of his mind screamed at him, telling him he was mad to even contemplate it. The rest of it was already desperately trying to rationalise it. He'd seen odder things in Cardiff after all. Okay he'd not been sleeping with them and he hadn't been entertaining thoughts of proposals and lives together, but there were definitely odder things out there than a boyfriend who had one bad night a month, so in the grand scheme of things it was probably alright.
“What the fuck am I going to do?” Andy said aloud to the empty room. He looked at his phone lying on the table. Maybe he should call Gwen. And then what? Things that weren't human and who came to Torchwood's notice generally didn't get seen again. The fact that Torchwood used to be armed was no secret. He shivered and closed his eyes again. He couldn't let them know, couldn't let anyone know. What if they took Tom away or worse? He'd have to live with that forever, with the knowledge that he'd hurt somebody who'd been nothing but good to him.
No wonder Tom hadn't told him, Andy thought sadly. He must have lived his whole life terrified of discovery. It made his own fear of telling his family feel petty. It hadn't been, it had been genuine, but at that moment his own worries about his family not talking to him any more paled next to Tom probable fear of death or imprisonment.
Creature that was apparently Tom snarled chose that moment to howl, sounding as lost and frustrated as Andy felt. If anybody tried to keep Tom locked up it would destroy him. Tom who was always so much more at home outdoors, who knew so much of the surrounding area like he lived there all his life and who seemed to need the peace and quiet of it sometimes, just as he did, to help get his thoughts in order.
No, Andy told himself, whatever happened between them after this he'd never share Tom's secret with anyone, unless Tom had agreed to it first.
Unable to sleep, Andy had eventually got up off the floor and sat on the sofa, mind churning through all the things that should have alerted him to there being something odd with Tom.
There were too many questions to which he had no answers and would have none until Tom was in a position to hopefully given them to him.
Around two in the morning the noise in the cellar lessened and eventually stopped. Scared at what this new turn of events might mean and not wanting to have his hopes dashed that Tom was his old self once more, Andy waited another half hour before cautiously approaching the door to the coal cellar.
“Tom? Tom, are you you again?” Andy called quietly as first, not wanting to startle him, then again a little louder when he got no response. “Tom? please say something.”
The absence of any kind of sound from the room scared him, and after moving the things he'd piled in front of the door just enough to open crack, Andy got a torch and shone it through the narrow opening. Just visible against the back wall was Tom. Human once more, he was naked, filthy from all the coal dust, and shivering fitfully as he lay on the bitterly cold stone floor.
Hurrying through to the living room Andy grabbed the blanket that had been thrown over the back of the sofa. Shifting the things that had blocked the door so that he could get it fully open, Andy wondered at just how he'd thought he'd able to fend off werewolf with duvet. Only it wasn't a werewolf or whatever it was any more, he reminded himself. Tom was Tom again. Tom who made him cups of tea with too many sugars, who'd laugh too loud at old comedies and who seemed to love him more than anything else in his life.
The coal cellar was freezing cold compared to the rest of the farmhouse, and Tom's skin felt cold and clammy as he put a hand on his shoulder. “Tom, are you...” he stopped. Awake? Alright? Human? All seem equally valid.
Tom groaned and opened his eyes, although didn't move. “Yer still 'ere,” he said, voice hoarse and scratchy.
Relief that Tom was actually Tom again washed over him, and Andy put the blanket round him. “Where else would I go?”
“Away. Anywhere away from me,” Tom said miserably, making no effort to get up from the cold stone floor.
"We're just about snowed in," Andy pointed out, and then wished he hadn't as he really didn't want him to think that that was the only reason he'd stayed. Leaving Tom hadn't actually been amongst any of the options he'd give serious consideration to. When Tom didn't reply or even acknowledge what he'd said, Andy shook his shoulder gently. "You've got to get up, you're freezing."
"'M okay," Tom mumbled, curling in on himself.
“You're not. You'll make yourself ill, well more ill," he corrected himself, remembering how sick he'd been just a few hours before. "Where would you have changed?” Andy said mostly to himself, thinking of the thick snow covering the landscape outside.
Moving finally, Tom sat up and pulled the blanket around himself. Not meeting Andy's eyes, he said quietly, “Up on the moors somewhere.”
“You'd have frozen,” Andy said horrified. If Tom hadn't have got the flu he'd have been out the snow storm still raging across the hills. “You could have died.”
“Might have bin for the best,” Tom replied sounding dazed and miserable as he staggered to his feet. “'cause at least you'd never have known what I am. And you wouldn't hate me.”
“Don't be so bloody stupid,” Andy snapped. How could Tom think that? How could he put so little value on his life? "Of course I don't hate you."
“But I've ruined everythin'. I'm sorry. I should go.” Pulling away from him, Tom managed about half a dozen steps towards the door, before he tripped over the edge blanket and landed in a heap on the floor. Shivering and exhausted he tried to push himself up. Failing, arms trembling with the effort, Tom gave up and lay on the floor and wept.
As much as the fact that Tom had lied to him hurt, seeing him like this; sick, scared and believing he was worthless and unloved was, Andy decided, much, much worse. Crouching down, he pulled Tom against him, holding him close, hushing any protests that he wasn't worth it.
At the end of the day this was Tom. Tom who'd always been there for him, who'd helped him no matter what, who'd been kind and patient when things had got too much for him, and who had out of fear and some kind of desire to protect him had shouldered the burden of his terrible secret alone. He'd let it silently eat away at him and until he'd come to believe that his life was worthless if anyone knew what he was. Yet wouldn't that be true if the world in general found out? He wouldn't be allowed to live and love like he had, he be confined somewhere, prodded and poked in the name of science. There would be no such thing as basic human rights for him, no appeals for freedom, because they'd see him as less than human, something to be feared. Andy knew all too well how people could turn on you, but it would be nothing compare to what could happen to Tom if he were caught.
“Why'd you still care?” Tom said hoarsely, from where he was slumped against Andy.
“Because I love you,” Andy replied. Maybe at nearly thirty one he should be too old to believe that love solves everything, and perhaps he was, but at the very least, he thought, it gave him the strength and will to try. What he had with Tom these last few months, how he'd made him feel better and more alive than he'd done in years, well he wasn't going to give up with out a fight.
Tom looked up at him for the first time since he'd changed. His eyes were human again and filled with tears. “I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you. I lied. And I'm stupid, 'cause I thought I could be human an'...” He stopped as series of harsh coughs shook him.
Apparently transforming didn't cure the flu, Andy thought, and then decided that was definitely unfair. It had sounded like absolute agony to change, surely there should be at least a few upsides to it? It was only one of a number of questions that he knew that he had to ask, needed to ask before perhaps him and Tom would be alright again. Pushing for answers now though seemed cruel when Tom was obviously suffering.
Rubbing Tom's back, Andy asked the only question that he guessed really had to be asked right now. “You're not going to change again are you?”
Tom shook his head. “Not for another month.”
“Well then,” Andy said, helping Tom to his feet. “Let's get you warmed up. Then we can talk.”
A short while later Tom sat silently in the tin bath in front of the fire as Andy washed the grime from him, shivering worse now that he was starting to properly register the fact that he was cold. Andy was starting doubt that they would actually manage any kind conversation tonight, as Tom seemed in no fit state to do anything other that go to bed, when Tom finally spoke.
“I were a proper human once,” Tom said, as Andy wiped a warm cloth across his shoulders. “I don't remember it though, I was just a baby when I got scratched up by a werewolf. That's what them scars on me back and head are. It's why I didn't wanna talk about them.”
“Your dad stayed with you,” Andy said wonder in his voice. Dropping the flannel, he put an arm around him. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like to have your child attacked and then to find out it had become something not quite human. The love he must have had to stick by his son, to keep his secret from the world. Tom's strange childhood had been the product of a man's struggle to keep his son safe. It brought a lump to his throat to even think about the lonely, frightening life it must have been for them. For all that Tom had talked of McNair before this was the first time that Andy thought he'd like to have shook the man's hand.
“McNair weren't my dad, not like you mean,” Tom said picking at the edge of the flannel. “He were the one which clawed me when he... when my original mum and dad died. He didn't mean to do it, but when you've got the wolf on you can't control it, you can't even remember what you did.” Tom's shoulders started to shake, but he pushed on anyway. “So when he came to in the morning, an' found them and found me, and realised what he'd done, he took me in and looked after me.” He looked at Andy, tears in his eyes again. “I know it sounds all wrong, but he really did care about me. All we had were each other, and I really, really miss him.”
With his arm still around him, Andy helped Tom to stand and then held him tight. He could feel the water soaking into his own clothes and Tom shivering and shaking against him, and in all likelihood crying for all that he'd lost.
There was nothing he could say to make it better, so Andy held him, pressed kisses to the thick scars that ran across his head and tried not to listen to his own fears. Tom needed him to be the strong one, at least for a while. He didn't feel strong in the least, but he loved Tom and that, Andy hoped, would be enough.
Part 28 http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/227938.html
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Date: 2014-02-20 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-23 12:32 pm (UTC)Wow. What a chapter! I thought the worst way in the world for Andy to find out would be this way, but he understood Tom so perfectly, cared for him so much, that perhaps this was the best way! Brilliant.
Absolutely gorgeous.