Lives are for living 34/40
Jun. 2nd, 2014 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silver_sunTitle Lives Are For Living. (34/40)
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 3700 (Total posted 100,350/115,000)
Rating This part teen (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
Torchwood’s big rangerover thing was definitely the newest, most hi-tech car he’d ever been in, Tom decided, as he sat in the back between Martha and Mickey. Moonrise was little more than an hour away as they left the farm, and Tom could feel the first twinges of pain that would build until he transformed. For now he could ignore them, concentrate on making sure they all knew what they were getting themselves into.
It felt odd getting ready to go out hunting vampires. Part of him wanted it over and done with, was eager for it, the other and he was sure it never used to be there, was scared. Scared that things would go wrong, that whatever happened things with Andy would never go back to how they were. He knew his dad would have said he’d gone soft, but worrying about people didn’t make you less of a fighter; Annie and George had shown him that. What you could do for love was far greater than for hate. The results though could be just as devastating for those left behind.
“Are you okay?" Martha asked, when Tom had been silent for a while. “I mean you don’t get car sick or anything?”
Tom stared at her, certain now he looked every bit as stupid as he felt. “No, no, just thinking about last time I were killing vampires.”
“So you do it a lot then?” Mickey asked, apparently unfazed by the idea of fighting vampires. He'd told Tom earlier that it couldn't be any stranger than fighting aliens robots on a parallel Earth. Tom hadn't had an answer for that, he'd never a normal human who's life was weirder than his was.
He didn't really have an answer Mickey's question now either, at least not one he wanted to give, as going out and finding vampires to stake hadn't been part of his life for what felt like a long time. Not since what happened with Mr Snow and Cutler, and with losing Annie and Eve and Alex becoming a ghost. Tom looked out the window at the nearly dark countryside. “Not any more,” he said hoping they’d leave it at that.
“Here we are,” Ianto said, a moment later before anybody could ask Tom anymore questions. He pulled the SUV off the road and parked it in a gateway just out of sight of the farm. "This is as close as we can safely get without being seen."
Jack got out of the SUV first and looked around. "Looks like were good go. We take only what we need. Ianto, have you got the weevil repellant and the stun gun?"
"As if I would have forgotten," Ianto said, holding up the objects for Jack to see.
"Just like old times," Jack said with a grin. "Mickey and me will take the big guns, and a few of the stakes. Martha, what do you want to take?"
"Knowing all of you a first aid kit is sensible," Martha replied, taking a small backpack out of the SUV. "Other than that I put together a few tranquilliser darts, for this." Martha took small air pistol type gun from a holster inside her coat. "These will knock out a hoix inside a minute and keep it down for about an hour, so it should take down anything they can throw at us."
"I thought we were just gonna stake the vamps and finish it?" Tom said, worried now that Torchwood might take vampires alive, that they might want to do stuff with them. As much as he didn't like vampires the idea of people keeping them locked up, looking into what they were, maybe experimenting on them or something made him uncomfortable.
"It's for the weevil and for the other werewolf, if they've got one," Martha said, putting it back into it holster. "You said they'd probably have another werewolf there, we're not only going in to rescue humans, Tom, we're going to try to help anybody the vampires took."
"Oh right," Tom replied, trying not to think about whether she would have to use it on him before the night was out. Leaning into the SUV, he retrieved the bag of stakes from under the back seat. He was about to start handing them out when something somewhere deep inside twisted, pain sparking up his spine. Dropping the bag of stakes, Tom sagged against the side of the SUV and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on breathing and staying on his feet.
"What's the matter, mate?" Mickey asked, taking hold of his arm, helping him stay on his feet. "You don't look too good."
“Nothing's wrong, it's just changing hurts a bit.” Tom swallowed hard, the pain receding, but not entirely disappearing. “It'll get worse, but that's how it is. So don't worry, it ain't like I'm ill or anything, this is just how it always is."
"How much worse?" Ianto asked, sounding less than sure about having Tom with them now.
There really wasn't point lying, they'd see it soon enough, and Tom said, "A lot. So when I end up on the floor screaming or whatever, just keep out of my way 'cause I don't wanna end up hurting any of you by mistake, and go and kill a few vampires or something. It's just how it is, you can't help me, but I'll be alright."
Even Jack looked unnerved by the bluntness of it, but it was Martha who said, “And you do this every month?”
"Every full moon," Tom corrected, as he picked up the bag of stakes again. Every month would be better, that would only be twelve times a year rather than thirteen. One less time he would have to hide from normal people or risk hurting them.
“Can you take anything for it?” Martha asked, concerned, but curious too.
“What? So I don’t change?” Tom stared at her, not quite able to comprehend what she was asking him. “You think I’d go through having to hide from everybody and feeling all my bones break every few weeks if there were a pill or something to stop doing this?”
“I mean so it doesn’t hurt as much,” Martha said, not put out in the least that he'd been annoyed.
It was a pretty good question really, and one he didn’t have an answer to. That was the problem with being around smart people, he felt even stupider than he normally thought himself to be. “I just don’t,” he mumbled. “I dunno why. I ‘spose it’s because my dad never did.” There hadn't been the money for it, and honestly his dad would have likely seen it as weakness.
“But they do work for you?”
Tom closed his eyes as another flash of pain spiked though him, leaving a dull, bone deep ache in its wake. "Yeah.”
“Right, then,” Martha said then got a bag out from under the back seat of the SUV. “You don’t have to take this, but this will help a bit. It shouldn’t make you drowsy.”
The not falling asleep part was good; you needed your wits sharp when you were fighting. But what if he stayed conscious through the whole transformation? Tom wondered, would he keep his own mind when he was the wolf? If he could control the wolf he could take down all the vampires by himself and keep all the rest of them safe. Even if it didn’t work like that they hadn’t lost anything. "Might as well have a go," Tom said taking them from her and taking two of the tablets inside.
"Give them a few minutes to work," Martha said taking the bottle back. "And if it works for you, I can make sure you always have some when you need it. Nobody should have to be in pain if they have to be."
Tom nodded, and sat down to wait. It didn't work completely, as he could still feel the transformation aching beneath his skin. Only the sharpest edges were dulled and he held out little hope that as it got worse whether it would do anything at all. It would have to do, Tom thought as they got into position. Anything that helped them stop Audrey's dog fights had to be a good thing.
“I’d better get undressed now,” Tom said as the reached the edge of the farmyard.
"He's as bad as Jack," Mickey said, more amused than anything else.
"Hey," Jack replied, pretending to sound offended and failing entirely. "It was only once, and it was the robot women who'd taken my clothes. And I still looked good."
There was probably a lot more to the story, Tom decided, but there wasn't time to hear it, and in a way he was glad that there wasn't, as he really wasn't sure that it was going to end up as anything other than embarrassing. Not that tonight wasn't bad enough. Walking into a building full of vampires completely naked really wasn't something he wanted to do, so he left his underwear on. Although it was mainly because it didn’t feel right being totally naked in front of people he barely knew, especially as one of them was a lady.
The night air was cold against his skin, but Tom knew he'd be warm enough gain soon. It never mattered how cold it was when you were fighting, you still got hot. He'd have fur to keep him warm soon enough as well, he told himself as the tried to ignore the damp chill of the grass against his knees, as he knelt with the rest of them out of the sight of the farm.
"We should go in in a minute," Tom said, when none of the rest of them had made a move to get nearer to the barn. "It's not going to be long until I change, maybe ten minutes or so. We don't want to leave it too late."
"Too late?" Mickey asked. "I thought we have a good few minutes between when the moon came up and the vampires starting to kill people."
"I mean me," Tom said, grateful that whatever Martha had given him meant he wasn't yet at the point where he was curled in a ball on the ground. “Once I’m a werewolf you all need to keep out of my way as I won’t be able to tell who’s a vampire or not. So even if it looks like it’s going wrong for me with the vampires, I’m gonna be more dangerous than them, so you've gotta keep out of my way, 'cause I don’t want Andy getting here and finding I’ve killed one of his friends because the wolf don't know who they are.”
“You can’t control it at all?” Ianto asked, sounding worried. He looked at Jack and then sighed. “You knew that, didn’t you?"
Jack shrugged, the apology barely there. "Tom is our best chance at taking them down tonight, and he wanted to do it. I don't remember you saying no to him coming along?"
"Don't you dare make this my fault," Ianto said, anger controlled or else he'd have been shouting. "How do you expect me to help plan things if you only give me part of the information? Does Gwen know? Have you any idea how annoyed she's going to be that you didn't say anything? and don't you think I'm going to back you up on this."
"Ianto..."
"Don't, we'll talk about this later," Ianto said irritably, holding up a hand. "That is assuming we are all here later and not turned into vampires, ripped up by weevils or eaten by a werewolf."
"I might just turn you into one," Tom said, wondering if he should add 'at least it isn't as a bad as being dead' but somehow it didn't feel right to say so. "Not that I'd want to, I mean."
"I know," Ianto said, not angry with him. "Honestly, Jack, what did you really think was to be gained by not telling this? Really? Haven't we got to the point where we've realised secrets like don't help anybody?"
"You'd know about that."
Ianto glared at Jack. "I am not going to dignify that with an answer."
"I swear they only butt heads like this because it means they get to make up sex later," Martha said, took the pistol out and loaded it with one of the darts.
"Now there is something I really didn't want to know," Mickey said. "I suppose he wasn't going to have changed though, he was just the same with the Doctor, the old Doctor I mean, with the leather jacket."
"Have they fallen out about something?" Tom asked, as the mood between Jack and Ianto seemed all to familiar too him - it was like when he and Andy had fallen out over secrets that it would have been better if they'd been out in the open.
"I don't know," Martha said. "Gwen might. Actually where have her and Andy got to? They should be here by now.”
Ianto took his mobile out of his suit jacket and accessed the tracking program. "They've stopped about a mile from here. There doesn't seem to be anything there. It's just countryside. Do you think they might have run into trouble?"
"That might be the Landrover, there were a bit of problem with it the other week, Andy reckoned that it were something electrical," Tom said, relieved that it looked like Andy wasn’t going to be a part of tonight slaughter. Because that’s what it would be. If they were lucky there would only be dead, well deader, vampires left at the end of the night. Tom wasn't sure he believed in luck anymore, well not the good kind at least. Bad luck never seemed to be in short supply.
"Should we wait for them?" Martha asked, looking over at the farm. There was a single figure by the door, but there was the faint sound of music and voices from inside the barn, enough to suggest that they would be heavily out numbered.
"If we wait Tom will have changed and we'll lose our advantage," Jack said taking his Webley revolver from its holster on his belt. "No, we go in. Me and Tom first, through the main door. You, Mickey and Ianto take the side door, and wait for our signal."
"Well good luck," Martha said, giving Jack a brief hug. "And you too Tom."
Once Martha, Mickey and Ianto had disappeared into the darkness at the side of the barn, Jack nodded towards the main door, and with an answering nod, Tom followed him.
"I'll take the vampire on the door," Tom said, quietly as they kept low using the wall to the edge of the barn as cover. Jack nodded and let him move ahead of him.
It was a relatively young vampire, probably dead for less than two years, Tom thought as he put one hand on its shoulder and the other over its mouth and twisted.
The vampire's neck snapped with a crack that for a moment Tom wondered if had been loud enough to alert those inside to their presence. It hadn't and he let the vampire slump to the ground before staking it. The vampire died without a sound; his mouth open in a silent scream as he turned to dust and floated away on the night breeze blowing down from the hills rising steeply to the west of the farm.
"Remind me never to piss you off," Jack said as he join him at the door. "At least Ianto will be pleased."
"About what?" Tom pressed an ear to the door, trying to gauge how many were inside. The scent of vampire and weevil was too strong to be an accurate measure this close up.
"Vampires die tidily. It'll be a nice easy clean up. Kill them all and set fire to the barn. No awkward bodies to dispose of." Jack smiled humourlessly in the darkness. "He'll get to keep the illegal rave's tragic electrical fire accident for another day."
Tom decided it probably wasn't a good idea to ask just how many bodies Ianto normally had to dispose of: He doubted he'd have liked the answer.
"Time to make an entrance," Jack said and then kicking open the door stepped inside.
The barn was as Tom remembered it from the previous month: The circus atmosphere, the loud music, the tiered seating full of vampires eager to see blood spilt, and Audrey on the stage working the crowd, as if they needed any encouragement to be baying for blood. While in the ring and cages were a couple of terrified looking people, a middle aged woman and young man still in his teens, and in the furthest cage was the weevil, snarling and beating again the bars in an attempt to reach what it clearly thought of as food.
A hush fell over the barn as all the vampires turned to look at them. Too angry to be afraid, Tom walked forwards, stopping just in front of the stage, where Audrey stood in her ring master get up once more.
"It's a little lost puppy. Come back for more, have you?" Audrey said, jumping down from the stage and walking over to them. "And you brought a snack, how good of you. Or is he to be a replacement for Bill? He'll be better looking at least."
"Don't you ever get tired of being horrible to people?" Tom said, tightening his grip on his stake.
Audrey laughed, cruel and mocking. "You're a person now are you?" She looked at Jack. "Well you're better looking than I thought you'd be, I mean why'd you want a dog like that? Or do you get something out of?" She circled round them. "Do you tell him to fetch and beg and he does it? Do you like to order him around? Is that it? Does he like it? He seems too snappy for me."
"Who says I don't like snappy?" Jack replied with a grin.
"Jack is not my boyfriend," Tom said angrily, uncertain of who he was actually more irritated by at that particular moment. "And he's not a snack or a replacement. We've come to stop you."
"The two of you are going to stop all of us?" Audrey shook her head and laughed. "I don't know what he'd told you, good looking," she said to Jack, looking at the gun he'd drawn. "But that's not going to help. Tonight both of you are going to die."
"Plenty have tried," Jack said carelessly, amused rather than worried.
Audrey stalked round behind Jack and trailed a hand down his cheek. "It's a waste really, you'd have made such a pretty servant, I'd have got you a uniform and everything," she said as in one lightning fast move she broke his neck and Jack dropped to the floor.
"No!" Tom made a dive for her, wanting to wipe the cold look of triumph off her face.
"Bad dog, sit." Audrey lashed out with her ring masters whip, hitting him across the face. "Has nobody taught you any manners?"
Eyes watering from the stinging blow, Tom reeled back, tasting blood in his mouth from where it had caught his lip. Around him the vampires in the crowd laughed and jeered.
"Ben, Huey, get this dog in the cage before he transforms," she called out, heading back to the stage. "If he won't go, well, you know what to do."
"Like I said: Tried."
Audrey spun back round, her eyes widened as Jack got back to his feet. "What are you?"
Jack moved his head from side to side, the bones making a cracking and popping noise. "One of a kind."
What Jack was Tom had no idea, he was just glad that Jack was on their side. There was no time to think about it though, as the the rest of the vampires, seeing that things were about to go very badly wrong for them, decided to fight back.
This was it, Tom thought, as he saw Martha, Mickey and Ianto run in through the side door of the barn heading for the cages. It might have been a while since he had last fought, but every muscle remembered, no thought was required as he tripped one vampire and drove the stake into it heart, while already turning to punch another and drive it back, buying him the time to pull the stake free.
There was a wild, fierce joy in it, the wolf so close to the surface now, revelling in the feel of his fist connecting with a vampire's face, with the heat of blood spattering onto his skin. The world narrowed to one of movement and death. Duck, roll, drive the stake in hard and clean, and then wrench it loose, ready for the next kill.
Tom could feel his teeth lengthening, his jaw elongating to accommodate them as he fought, and when he looked down at his hands the nails had already changed. Claws replaced them as thick, wiry hair sprouted across the back of his hands. He couldn't hold the stake anymore, but there was a terrible satisfaction in the look of fear the vampire gave him as lashed out with his claws, bloody gouges opening up on the vampire's shirt.
He'd never managed it before, he'd seen his dad do it though and there was a sense of pride that he'd had finally done it too. With a snarl he grabbed another fleeing vampire by the neck and slammed it hard against the side of one of the cages, the vampires's glasses, an affectation, nothing more, fell from its face.
The glass glinted in the bright lights from the stage, and Tom looked down to see reflected in the broken lenses is own face. There was nothing human left in fierce yellow eyes and snarling jaws that stared back at him. Part of him was appalled, the other celebrated the raw power and capacity for destruction contain in the feral gaze.
A second later searing pain cut through the dulling effects of what Martha had given him, driving Tom to his knees. He gasped, trying to fight it, but it built until awareness finally tumbled away, and the wolf's desire to fight, to bite and rend and kill, and its lust for blood eclipsed everything else.
With a snarl of triumph that it was free at last, the werewolf rose to its feet and launched itself at the nearest vampire, teeth bared and ready for the kill.
Part 35 http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/236910.html
Apologies for the delay, got distracted writing original werewolf fic.
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 3700 (Total posted 100,350/115,000)
Rating This part teen (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
Torchwood’s big rangerover thing was definitely the newest, most hi-tech car he’d ever been in, Tom decided, as he sat in the back between Martha and Mickey. Moonrise was little more than an hour away as they left the farm, and Tom could feel the first twinges of pain that would build until he transformed. For now he could ignore them, concentrate on making sure they all knew what they were getting themselves into.
It felt odd getting ready to go out hunting vampires. Part of him wanted it over and done with, was eager for it, the other and he was sure it never used to be there, was scared. Scared that things would go wrong, that whatever happened things with Andy would never go back to how they were. He knew his dad would have said he’d gone soft, but worrying about people didn’t make you less of a fighter; Annie and George had shown him that. What you could do for love was far greater than for hate. The results though could be just as devastating for those left behind.
“Are you okay?" Martha asked, when Tom had been silent for a while. “I mean you don’t get car sick or anything?”
Tom stared at her, certain now he looked every bit as stupid as he felt. “No, no, just thinking about last time I were killing vampires.”
“So you do it a lot then?” Mickey asked, apparently unfazed by the idea of fighting vampires. He'd told Tom earlier that it couldn't be any stranger than fighting aliens robots on a parallel Earth. Tom hadn't had an answer for that, he'd never a normal human who's life was weirder than his was.
He didn't really have an answer Mickey's question now either, at least not one he wanted to give, as going out and finding vampires to stake hadn't been part of his life for what felt like a long time. Not since what happened with Mr Snow and Cutler, and with losing Annie and Eve and Alex becoming a ghost. Tom looked out the window at the nearly dark countryside. “Not any more,” he said hoping they’d leave it at that.
“Here we are,” Ianto said, a moment later before anybody could ask Tom anymore questions. He pulled the SUV off the road and parked it in a gateway just out of sight of the farm. "This is as close as we can safely get without being seen."
Jack got out of the SUV first and looked around. "Looks like were good go. We take only what we need. Ianto, have you got the weevil repellant and the stun gun?"
"As if I would have forgotten," Ianto said, holding up the objects for Jack to see.
"Just like old times," Jack said with a grin. "Mickey and me will take the big guns, and a few of the stakes. Martha, what do you want to take?"
"Knowing all of you a first aid kit is sensible," Martha replied, taking a small backpack out of the SUV. "Other than that I put together a few tranquilliser darts, for this." Martha took small air pistol type gun from a holster inside her coat. "These will knock out a hoix inside a minute and keep it down for about an hour, so it should take down anything they can throw at us."
"I thought we were just gonna stake the vamps and finish it?" Tom said, worried now that Torchwood might take vampires alive, that they might want to do stuff with them. As much as he didn't like vampires the idea of people keeping them locked up, looking into what they were, maybe experimenting on them or something made him uncomfortable.
"It's for the weevil and for the other werewolf, if they've got one," Martha said, putting it back into it holster. "You said they'd probably have another werewolf there, we're not only going in to rescue humans, Tom, we're going to try to help anybody the vampires took."
"Oh right," Tom replied, trying not to think about whether she would have to use it on him before the night was out. Leaning into the SUV, he retrieved the bag of stakes from under the back seat. He was about to start handing them out when something somewhere deep inside twisted, pain sparking up his spine. Dropping the bag of stakes, Tom sagged against the side of the SUV and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on breathing and staying on his feet.
"What's the matter, mate?" Mickey asked, taking hold of his arm, helping him stay on his feet. "You don't look too good."
“Nothing's wrong, it's just changing hurts a bit.” Tom swallowed hard, the pain receding, but not entirely disappearing. “It'll get worse, but that's how it is. So don't worry, it ain't like I'm ill or anything, this is just how it always is."
"How much worse?" Ianto asked, sounding less than sure about having Tom with them now.
There really wasn't point lying, they'd see it soon enough, and Tom said, "A lot. So when I end up on the floor screaming or whatever, just keep out of my way 'cause I don't wanna end up hurting any of you by mistake, and go and kill a few vampires or something. It's just how it is, you can't help me, but I'll be alright."
Even Jack looked unnerved by the bluntness of it, but it was Martha who said, “And you do this every month?”
"Every full moon," Tom corrected, as he picked up the bag of stakes again. Every month would be better, that would only be twelve times a year rather than thirteen. One less time he would have to hide from normal people or risk hurting them.
“Can you take anything for it?” Martha asked, concerned, but curious too.
“What? So I don’t change?” Tom stared at her, not quite able to comprehend what she was asking him. “You think I’d go through having to hide from everybody and feeling all my bones break every few weeks if there were a pill or something to stop doing this?”
“I mean so it doesn’t hurt as much,” Martha said, not put out in the least that he'd been annoyed.
It was a pretty good question really, and one he didn’t have an answer to. That was the problem with being around smart people, he felt even stupider than he normally thought himself to be. “I just don’t,” he mumbled. “I dunno why. I ‘spose it’s because my dad never did.” There hadn't been the money for it, and honestly his dad would have likely seen it as weakness.
“But they do work for you?”
Tom closed his eyes as another flash of pain spiked though him, leaving a dull, bone deep ache in its wake. "Yeah.”
“Right, then,” Martha said then got a bag out from under the back seat of the SUV. “You don’t have to take this, but this will help a bit. It shouldn’t make you drowsy.”
The not falling asleep part was good; you needed your wits sharp when you were fighting. But what if he stayed conscious through the whole transformation? Tom wondered, would he keep his own mind when he was the wolf? If he could control the wolf he could take down all the vampires by himself and keep all the rest of them safe. Even if it didn’t work like that they hadn’t lost anything. "Might as well have a go," Tom said taking them from her and taking two of the tablets inside.
"Give them a few minutes to work," Martha said taking the bottle back. "And if it works for you, I can make sure you always have some when you need it. Nobody should have to be in pain if they have to be."
Tom nodded, and sat down to wait. It didn't work completely, as he could still feel the transformation aching beneath his skin. Only the sharpest edges were dulled and he held out little hope that as it got worse whether it would do anything at all. It would have to do, Tom thought as they got into position. Anything that helped them stop Audrey's dog fights had to be a good thing.
“I’d better get undressed now,” Tom said as the reached the edge of the farmyard.
"He's as bad as Jack," Mickey said, more amused than anything else.
"Hey," Jack replied, pretending to sound offended and failing entirely. "It was only once, and it was the robot women who'd taken my clothes. And I still looked good."
There was probably a lot more to the story, Tom decided, but there wasn't time to hear it, and in a way he was glad that there wasn't, as he really wasn't sure that it was going to end up as anything other than embarrassing. Not that tonight wasn't bad enough. Walking into a building full of vampires completely naked really wasn't something he wanted to do, so he left his underwear on. Although it was mainly because it didn’t feel right being totally naked in front of people he barely knew, especially as one of them was a lady.
The night air was cold against his skin, but Tom knew he'd be warm enough gain soon. It never mattered how cold it was when you were fighting, you still got hot. He'd have fur to keep him warm soon enough as well, he told himself as the tried to ignore the damp chill of the grass against his knees, as he knelt with the rest of them out of the sight of the farm.
"We should go in in a minute," Tom said, when none of the rest of them had made a move to get nearer to the barn. "It's not going to be long until I change, maybe ten minutes or so. We don't want to leave it too late."
"Too late?" Mickey asked. "I thought we have a good few minutes between when the moon came up and the vampires starting to kill people."
"I mean me," Tom said, grateful that whatever Martha had given him meant he wasn't yet at the point where he was curled in a ball on the ground. “Once I’m a werewolf you all need to keep out of my way as I won’t be able to tell who’s a vampire or not. So even if it looks like it’s going wrong for me with the vampires, I’m gonna be more dangerous than them, so you've gotta keep out of my way, 'cause I don’t want Andy getting here and finding I’ve killed one of his friends because the wolf don't know who they are.”
“You can’t control it at all?” Ianto asked, sounding worried. He looked at Jack and then sighed. “You knew that, didn’t you?"
Jack shrugged, the apology barely there. "Tom is our best chance at taking them down tonight, and he wanted to do it. I don't remember you saying no to him coming along?"
"Don't you dare make this my fault," Ianto said, anger controlled or else he'd have been shouting. "How do you expect me to help plan things if you only give me part of the information? Does Gwen know? Have you any idea how annoyed she's going to be that you didn't say anything? and don't you think I'm going to back you up on this."
"Ianto..."
"Don't, we'll talk about this later," Ianto said irritably, holding up a hand. "That is assuming we are all here later and not turned into vampires, ripped up by weevils or eaten by a werewolf."
"I might just turn you into one," Tom said, wondering if he should add 'at least it isn't as a bad as being dead' but somehow it didn't feel right to say so. "Not that I'd want to, I mean."
"I know," Ianto said, not angry with him. "Honestly, Jack, what did you really think was to be gained by not telling this? Really? Haven't we got to the point where we've realised secrets like don't help anybody?"
"You'd know about that."
Ianto glared at Jack. "I am not going to dignify that with an answer."
"I swear they only butt heads like this because it means they get to make up sex later," Martha said, took the pistol out and loaded it with one of the darts.
"Now there is something I really didn't want to know," Mickey said. "I suppose he wasn't going to have changed though, he was just the same with the Doctor, the old Doctor I mean, with the leather jacket."
"Have they fallen out about something?" Tom asked, as the mood between Jack and Ianto seemed all to familiar too him - it was like when he and Andy had fallen out over secrets that it would have been better if they'd been out in the open.
"I don't know," Martha said. "Gwen might. Actually where have her and Andy got to? They should be here by now.”
Ianto took his mobile out of his suit jacket and accessed the tracking program. "They've stopped about a mile from here. There doesn't seem to be anything there. It's just countryside. Do you think they might have run into trouble?"
"That might be the Landrover, there were a bit of problem with it the other week, Andy reckoned that it were something electrical," Tom said, relieved that it looked like Andy wasn’t going to be a part of tonight slaughter. Because that’s what it would be. If they were lucky there would only be dead, well deader, vampires left at the end of the night. Tom wasn't sure he believed in luck anymore, well not the good kind at least. Bad luck never seemed to be in short supply.
"Should we wait for them?" Martha asked, looking over at the farm. There was a single figure by the door, but there was the faint sound of music and voices from inside the barn, enough to suggest that they would be heavily out numbered.
"If we wait Tom will have changed and we'll lose our advantage," Jack said taking his Webley revolver from its holster on his belt. "No, we go in. Me and Tom first, through the main door. You, Mickey and Ianto take the side door, and wait for our signal."
"Well good luck," Martha said, giving Jack a brief hug. "And you too Tom."
Once Martha, Mickey and Ianto had disappeared into the darkness at the side of the barn, Jack nodded towards the main door, and with an answering nod, Tom followed him.
"I'll take the vampire on the door," Tom said, quietly as they kept low using the wall to the edge of the barn as cover. Jack nodded and let him move ahead of him.
It was a relatively young vampire, probably dead for less than two years, Tom thought as he put one hand on its shoulder and the other over its mouth and twisted.
The vampire's neck snapped with a crack that for a moment Tom wondered if had been loud enough to alert those inside to their presence. It hadn't and he let the vampire slump to the ground before staking it. The vampire died without a sound; his mouth open in a silent scream as he turned to dust and floated away on the night breeze blowing down from the hills rising steeply to the west of the farm.
"Remind me never to piss you off," Jack said as he join him at the door. "At least Ianto will be pleased."
"About what?" Tom pressed an ear to the door, trying to gauge how many were inside. The scent of vampire and weevil was too strong to be an accurate measure this close up.
"Vampires die tidily. It'll be a nice easy clean up. Kill them all and set fire to the barn. No awkward bodies to dispose of." Jack smiled humourlessly in the darkness. "He'll get to keep the illegal rave's tragic electrical fire accident for another day."
Tom decided it probably wasn't a good idea to ask just how many bodies Ianto normally had to dispose of: He doubted he'd have liked the answer.
"Time to make an entrance," Jack said and then kicking open the door stepped inside.
The barn was as Tom remembered it from the previous month: The circus atmosphere, the loud music, the tiered seating full of vampires eager to see blood spilt, and Audrey on the stage working the crowd, as if they needed any encouragement to be baying for blood. While in the ring and cages were a couple of terrified looking people, a middle aged woman and young man still in his teens, and in the furthest cage was the weevil, snarling and beating again the bars in an attempt to reach what it clearly thought of as food.
A hush fell over the barn as all the vampires turned to look at them. Too angry to be afraid, Tom walked forwards, stopping just in front of the stage, where Audrey stood in her ring master get up once more.
"It's a little lost puppy. Come back for more, have you?" Audrey said, jumping down from the stage and walking over to them. "And you brought a snack, how good of you. Or is he to be a replacement for Bill? He'll be better looking at least."
"Don't you ever get tired of being horrible to people?" Tom said, tightening his grip on his stake.
Audrey laughed, cruel and mocking. "You're a person now are you?" She looked at Jack. "Well you're better looking than I thought you'd be, I mean why'd you want a dog like that? Or do you get something out of?" She circled round them. "Do you tell him to fetch and beg and he does it? Do you like to order him around? Is that it? Does he like it? He seems too snappy for me."
"Who says I don't like snappy?" Jack replied with a grin.
"Jack is not my boyfriend," Tom said angrily, uncertain of who he was actually more irritated by at that particular moment. "And he's not a snack or a replacement. We've come to stop you."
"The two of you are going to stop all of us?" Audrey shook her head and laughed. "I don't know what he'd told you, good looking," she said to Jack, looking at the gun he'd drawn. "But that's not going to help. Tonight both of you are going to die."
"Plenty have tried," Jack said carelessly, amused rather than worried.
Audrey stalked round behind Jack and trailed a hand down his cheek. "It's a waste really, you'd have made such a pretty servant, I'd have got you a uniform and everything," she said as in one lightning fast move she broke his neck and Jack dropped to the floor.
"No!" Tom made a dive for her, wanting to wipe the cold look of triumph off her face.
"Bad dog, sit." Audrey lashed out with her ring masters whip, hitting him across the face. "Has nobody taught you any manners?"
Eyes watering from the stinging blow, Tom reeled back, tasting blood in his mouth from where it had caught his lip. Around him the vampires in the crowd laughed and jeered.
"Ben, Huey, get this dog in the cage before he transforms," she called out, heading back to the stage. "If he won't go, well, you know what to do."
"Like I said: Tried."
Audrey spun back round, her eyes widened as Jack got back to his feet. "What are you?"
Jack moved his head from side to side, the bones making a cracking and popping noise. "One of a kind."
What Jack was Tom had no idea, he was just glad that Jack was on their side. There was no time to think about it though, as the the rest of the vampires, seeing that things were about to go very badly wrong for them, decided to fight back.
This was it, Tom thought, as he saw Martha, Mickey and Ianto run in through the side door of the barn heading for the cages. It might have been a while since he had last fought, but every muscle remembered, no thought was required as he tripped one vampire and drove the stake into it heart, while already turning to punch another and drive it back, buying him the time to pull the stake free.
There was a wild, fierce joy in it, the wolf so close to the surface now, revelling in the feel of his fist connecting with a vampire's face, with the heat of blood spattering onto his skin. The world narrowed to one of movement and death. Duck, roll, drive the stake in hard and clean, and then wrench it loose, ready for the next kill.
Tom could feel his teeth lengthening, his jaw elongating to accommodate them as he fought, and when he looked down at his hands the nails had already changed. Claws replaced them as thick, wiry hair sprouted across the back of his hands. He couldn't hold the stake anymore, but there was a terrible satisfaction in the look of fear the vampire gave him as lashed out with his claws, bloody gouges opening up on the vampire's shirt.
He'd never managed it before, he'd seen his dad do it though and there was a sense of pride that he'd had finally done it too. With a snarl he grabbed another fleeing vampire by the neck and slammed it hard against the side of one of the cages, the vampires's glasses, an affectation, nothing more, fell from its face.
The glass glinted in the bright lights from the stage, and Tom looked down to see reflected in the broken lenses is own face. There was nothing human left in fierce yellow eyes and snarling jaws that stared back at him. Part of him was appalled, the other celebrated the raw power and capacity for destruction contain in the feral gaze.
A second later searing pain cut through the dulling effects of what Martha had given him, driving Tom to his knees. He gasped, trying to fight it, but it built until awareness finally tumbled away, and the wolf's desire to fight, to bite and rend and kill, and its lust for blood eclipsed everything else.
With a snarl of triumph that it was free at last, the werewolf rose to its feet and launched itself at the nearest vampire, teeth bared and ready for the kill.
Part 35 http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/236910.html
Apologies for the delay, got distracted writing original werewolf fic.
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Date: 2014-06-03 05:12 pm (UTC)Although it was mainly because it didn’t feel right being totally naked in front of people he barely knew, especially as one of them was a lady.
Hee! How very Tom.
Werewolves are just cool, that's all there is to it.
But where's Andy... Eep!