Being Human: Tales of the Revolution [Hannah Smith]
Title: “Tales of the Revolution”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: R
Timeline: AU!future as shown in episodes 4.01, 4.07, 4.08.
Summary: In 2037, few people remember the house in Barry where the War Child was born and even fewer know what happened to it. The truth is, the house is still there, serving as a beacon of hope for those who oppose the revolution, be they vampires, werewolves, or ghosts, due to the efforts of one Adam Jacobs. These are their stories.
Warning: Attempted rape of a minor.
Disclaimer: Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.
A/N: This comes from my musings about what could happen to the characters of Becoming Human in the AU!future. I kind of like the idea that they moved into Honolulu Heights and started sort of a colony for those who aren’t fond of Mr Snow’s regime. These fics are mostly OC-centric, but Adam, Christa and Matt are also set to appear in later installments.
HANNAH SMITH
(2035)
People have stories. Because if they don’t, they are not people, not really. They are just line art in a colouring book, empty pictures waiting to be brought to life with a couple of pencils.
The pregnancy embargo was enforced shortly after the revolution that took place in 2012. Hannah Smith is fifteen and she was not born on a breeding farm, which makes her very existence kind of illegal. It’s pretty cool if you think about it. It makes her less of a line art.
They tell her her name means “gracious” in some foreign language. Her last name is generic and she only uses it because having a last name is one of those things that set a person apart from cattle.
She can shoot a gun and drive a stake into a vampire’s heart. Not that she has ever done it. She mostly writes stuff down and fixes the radio. She hides really well, too.
Most of the time she’s just waiting for something to happen.
Few people still remember what the old world was like and no one can tell her what it was like to be fifteen back then. It’s like people are born old. Or they’re born stupid, in the plastic comfort of the breeding farms, walking blood bags to feed the lords and masters of the world.
She’s alive. Sometimes she feels it so strongly, so passionately, and it fucking hurts. There are thoughts in her head and feelings in her heart, and there is this boy she really likes, a year older than she is, another illegal teen. And she tries to imagine what it would feel like if this boy pressed his lips against hers just for a second or maybe looked at her, really looked at her, taking in her dark-red hair and her high cheekbones, and told her she was beautiful.
That never happens.
Hannah leaps at every chance to leave the bunker so when they tell her the lookout has dropped with a fever and someone has to meet the team returning from a supply run, she agrees without a second thought. That’s, like, two hours outdoors.
The air is humid and it clings to her like second skin. The heatwave is coming. She wonders what the vampires think about climate changes. Apparently it used to be an issue before the fall. They had a lot of issues back then. Like human rights (ha-ha, what rights?) and global warming and financial crises.
Hannah shrugs off her quilted jacket strewn with crosses and climbs out of the crow’s-nest. The small of her back aches and there is an unpleasant sensation in her belly. Last month a vampire got Vicky Grace when she was on her period. Talk about a lousy death.
Hannah takes her bathroom break in the grove (no blood, check) and returns to the observation post. The crow’s-nest is hidden in the tree top of a large oak, masqueraded by leaves and branches. She is about to put her foot into a hollow they use as a step when a twig snaps underneath someone’s boot. Hannah freezes. It could be the supply team, but they are due back in an hour.
Sweat is dripping down her face but she feels cold without her jacket covered in crosses. They are never supposed to take the uniform off. Hannah pulls her last remaining cross from under her shirt and lets it rest against her chest on full display. She wraps her hand around the stake attached to her belt and wills herself to keep calm.
She scans the grove.
Nothing.
She moves slowly towards the oak-tree.
Someone grabs her from behind and pulls at the cord around her neck. She struggles and feels it break. The cross slips off and disappears in the shaggy grass.
She breaks loose and spins around. The man is wearing a black police coat and a red armband with the vampire symbol. These are the worst.
“Hey there, pretty bird,” he drawls. “Lost, are we?”
Rule number one: if you get caught by the bunker, you’re on your own. Vampires can never know where the entrance is. For a second Hannah considers breaking the rule because - because she wants to survive, damn it! But who knows how many more are there? Who knows if there are any Old Ones, the kind that is not spooked by religious items?
He advances. She darts to the tree, but he catches her ankle and pulls her down. She screams. He slams her against the tree and promises it won’t hurt… much. He pushes her legs apart with his knees, and his intentions become painfully clear to her. Terror overwhelms her. She kicks. He holds her down and unbuckles her belt (there goes the stake). She can feel his hand snaking past the waistband of her underwear. His touch is cold against her heated skin. It sends jolts of disgust through her. Tears stream down her face. When a fresh wave of panic floods her, she starts screaming again and thrashing between him and the tree trunk. He curses. She manages to rip a twig off the low-hanging branch behind the tree. She snaps it in two between her fingers and twists her hand loose. She shoves the two criss-cross pieces into his eyes. He staggers backwards with a shriek. Before he’s realized it’s not exactly a religious item, Hannah breaks out running.
Her heart pounds against her ribcage. Tears cloud her eyes, making it hard to see ahead.
He catches up, grabs her by the neck and throws her against another tree. The blow is too hard; blood crops up on her temple. She feels dizzy but she’s glad: blood will distract him. He will just kill her.
He presses full-length against her and sinks his teeth into her neck. She screeches and claws at his shoulder. She grabs a fistful of his hair and pulls as hard as she can. He hisses at her, black-eyed and terrifying, and presses her head hard against the tree, covering her mouth with his hand, and resumes drinking.
She unclenches her jaws and bites at his fingers. She tastes something coppery and salty. He bellows. She doesn’t stop, she can’t stop. The world fades around the edges, getting blurry and colourless, until even that is gone.
* * *
Hannah comes to with a start, the first intake of breath a little too sharp, like broken glass in her lungs. She is alone in the grove and it’s already dark. She staggers up to her feet and walks back to the crow’s-nest. Her knees buckle and she drops on the ground and lets out a scream when her palm presses against a small metallic object on the ground. Her cross.
She swings backwards and bumps into a tree. Dull ache shoots through her spine. She feels the unfamiliar, pointed shape of her teeth and dry heaves.
When voices come, she bolts. She isn’t sure what they would do to her if they found out, but she’d rather they thought she was dead. It’s not like anyone would actually mourn her.
She runs into town. Hunger gnaws at her insides, persistent like an underfed cat. She looks around wildly and freezes when a man approaches her. All she can see is the armband and a gun. She feels helpless, paralyzed with the acute awareness of being alone in an unfamiliar town and having no papers, no obligatory ‘H’ stripe on her clothes, no protection whatsoever.
He looks her up and down and says: “Sorry. Just thought you were…”
He smiles at her, a little awkwardly. She gives him a jerky nod and wanders off. Suddenly she belongs to a superior race. She is free to do whatever she wants; only it hasn’t hit her yet.
* * *
They told her that when things got too big, the resistance bombed several key cities of the United Kingdom, hoping it would purge the country of vampires. It didn’t help of course; it just made them angry.
She travels for a year, although “travel” is kind of a strong word. She drags herself across the country, even steals somebody’s travel pass to get past the checkpoints. Turns out life is pretty easy when you don’t register on video and no one wants a picture of you and the only ID they really need is your black eyes and your sharp fangs.
Wales is untouched by bombings. After what Hannah has seen, it looks picture perfect. There are few humans here. There used to be a resettlement camp in Carmarthen, but something went wrong and it was purged. The commissar that runs the district is rumoured to have moved his residence there from Cardiff and the town is now a restricted area. Hannah doesn’t really care; she’s not going there anyway.
Cardiff has very few humans. They walk around like shadows, having been given an astounding amount of freedom. Some of them come from the farms, and you can always tell those apart by their dull, cow-like eyes. They make Hannah mad. Once she catches a cow girl staring, and some kind of a fuse just goes off within her. She grabs the girl by the neck and spits at her:
“What are you looking at?”
She wants to dig her teeth into the girl’s throat. She keeps squeezing. The girl wheezes helplessly, and for once, there is a spark of some dim, underdeveloped intelligence in her. She knows what is going to happen.
Disgusted, Hannah releases her and runs away. She can’t stop trembling. She drops on the stairs in front of some fancy building and wraps her arms around herself. The weather is warm, but there is this internal chill she can’t quite sweat out. It’s part of being what she is now.
Hunger sears her. A few months ago she slept with some guy for a pint of his blood. The great vampiric revolution: business is booming for perverts.
She pulls her knees up to her face and rests her chin on them. She could use a new sweater; hers is all holey. She picks at a threadbare sleeve absent-mindedly.
Someone sets a little toy car on the stairs next to her.
She looks at it glumly.
“Hey,” she says. “You dropped your… thing.”
“No, I haven’t.”
She cocks her head. He is standing a few paces away. He is tall, lanky, wearing a long scarf and dark green mitts. His cheeks are covered with a day-old stubble and he’s looking at her with odd, languishing eyes.
“I figured you could use a smile.”
Hannah picks up the toy and twiddles it between her fingers. It’s a tiny mini-van with an outdated symbol for peace painted boldly on its side. She wonders if he always does that, gives away useless things to people he doesn’t even know.
“Love & peace?” she reads, and snorts. “Seriously?”
He shrugs. “Why not?”
Hannah stands up and holds the toy out to him. He smiles softly and turns away.
“Look, I appreciate the gesture, but it won’t fix my problems.”
He looks back at her. There is something sly about the way he narrows his eyes.
“Oh, you’ve got problems, haven’t you?” Like anyone doesn’t. “Maybe I can help.”
“Have you got any blood?”
“Nope.”
Hannah sighs. “Then you can’t.”
He shrugs. “Have you tried not drinking blood?”
That’s stupid. She wants to throw the toy car at his head.
“I’m a vampire,” she says pointedly.
“So am I,” he says, and starts walking away.
She realizes belatedly that it’s her first proper conversation in several months. Maybe even in a year.
“Wait,” she calls after him. “What am I supposed to do?”
He shrugs again, without turning around. “Live, baby, live.”
He holds out his hand, still looking and walking ahead. He wiggles his fingers like it’s all a big joke.
She catches up with him and takes his hand. It’s not like she has other plans.
June 7-8, 2012
A/N 2: The song Guy quotes is New Sensation by INXS.
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: R
Timeline: AU!future as shown in episodes 4.01, 4.07, 4.08.
Summary: In 2037, few people remember the house in Barry where the War Child was born and even fewer know what happened to it. The truth is, the house is still there, serving as a beacon of hope for those who oppose the revolution, be they vampires, werewolves, or ghosts, due to the efforts of one Adam Jacobs. These are their stories.
Warning: Attempted rape of a minor.
Disclaimer: Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.
A/N: This comes from my musings about what could happen to the characters of Becoming Human in the AU!future. I kind of like the idea that they moved into Honolulu Heights and started sort of a colony for those who aren’t fond of Mr Snow’s regime. These fics are mostly OC-centric, but Adam, Christa and Matt are also set to appear in later installments.
HANNAH SMITH
(2035)
People have stories. Because if they don’t, they are not people, not really. They are just line art in a colouring book, empty pictures waiting to be brought to life with a couple of pencils.
The pregnancy embargo was enforced shortly after the revolution that took place in 2012. Hannah Smith is fifteen and she was not born on a breeding farm, which makes her very existence kind of illegal. It’s pretty cool if you think about it. It makes her less of a line art.
They tell her her name means “gracious” in some foreign language. Her last name is generic and she only uses it because having a last name is one of those things that set a person apart from cattle.
She can shoot a gun and drive a stake into a vampire’s heart. Not that she has ever done it. She mostly writes stuff down and fixes the radio. She hides really well, too.
Most of the time she’s just waiting for something to happen.
Few people still remember what the old world was like and no one can tell her what it was like to be fifteen back then. It’s like people are born old. Or they’re born stupid, in the plastic comfort of the breeding farms, walking blood bags to feed the lords and masters of the world.
She’s alive. Sometimes she feels it so strongly, so passionately, and it fucking hurts. There are thoughts in her head and feelings in her heart, and there is this boy she really likes, a year older than she is, another illegal teen. And she tries to imagine what it would feel like if this boy pressed his lips against hers just for a second or maybe looked at her, really looked at her, taking in her dark-red hair and her high cheekbones, and told her she was beautiful.
That never happens.
Hannah leaps at every chance to leave the bunker so when they tell her the lookout has dropped with a fever and someone has to meet the team returning from a supply run, she agrees without a second thought. That’s, like, two hours outdoors.
The air is humid and it clings to her like second skin. The heatwave is coming. She wonders what the vampires think about climate changes. Apparently it used to be an issue before the fall. They had a lot of issues back then. Like human rights (ha-ha, what rights?) and global warming and financial crises.
Hannah shrugs off her quilted jacket strewn with crosses and climbs out of the crow’s-nest. The small of her back aches and there is an unpleasant sensation in her belly. Last month a vampire got Vicky Grace when she was on her period. Talk about a lousy death.
Hannah takes her bathroom break in the grove (no blood, check) and returns to the observation post. The crow’s-nest is hidden in the tree top of a large oak, masqueraded by leaves and branches. She is about to put her foot into a hollow they use as a step when a twig snaps underneath someone’s boot. Hannah freezes. It could be the supply team, but they are due back in an hour.
Sweat is dripping down her face but she feels cold without her jacket covered in crosses. They are never supposed to take the uniform off. Hannah pulls her last remaining cross from under her shirt and lets it rest against her chest on full display. She wraps her hand around the stake attached to her belt and wills herself to keep calm.
She scans the grove.
Nothing.
She moves slowly towards the oak-tree.
Someone grabs her from behind and pulls at the cord around her neck. She struggles and feels it break. The cross slips off and disappears in the shaggy grass.
She breaks loose and spins around. The man is wearing a black police coat and a red armband with the vampire symbol. These are the worst.
“Hey there, pretty bird,” he drawls. “Lost, are we?”
Rule number one: if you get caught by the bunker, you’re on your own. Vampires can never know where the entrance is. For a second Hannah considers breaking the rule because - because she wants to survive, damn it! But who knows how many more are there? Who knows if there are any Old Ones, the kind that is not spooked by religious items?
He advances. She darts to the tree, but he catches her ankle and pulls her down. She screams. He slams her against the tree and promises it won’t hurt… much. He pushes her legs apart with his knees, and his intentions become painfully clear to her. Terror overwhelms her. She kicks. He holds her down and unbuckles her belt (there goes the stake). She can feel his hand snaking past the waistband of her underwear. His touch is cold against her heated skin. It sends jolts of disgust through her. Tears stream down her face. When a fresh wave of panic floods her, she starts screaming again and thrashing between him and the tree trunk. He curses. She manages to rip a twig off the low-hanging branch behind the tree. She snaps it in two between her fingers and twists her hand loose. She shoves the two criss-cross pieces into his eyes. He staggers backwards with a shriek. Before he’s realized it’s not exactly a religious item, Hannah breaks out running.
Her heart pounds against her ribcage. Tears cloud her eyes, making it hard to see ahead.
He catches up, grabs her by the neck and throws her against another tree. The blow is too hard; blood crops up on her temple. She feels dizzy but she’s glad: blood will distract him. He will just kill her.
He presses full-length against her and sinks his teeth into her neck. She screeches and claws at his shoulder. She grabs a fistful of his hair and pulls as hard as she can. He hisses at her, black-eyed and terrifying, and presses her head hard against the tree, covering her mouth with his hand, and resumes drinking.
She unclenches her jaws and bites at his fingers. She tastes something coppery and salty. He bellows. She doesn’t stop, she can’t stop. The world fades around the edges, getting blurry and colourless, until even that is gone.
* * *
Hannah comes to with a start, the first intake of breath a little too sharp, like broken glass in her lungs. She is alone in the grove and it’s already dark. She staggers up to her feet and walks back to the crow’s-nest. Her knees buckle and she drops on the ground and lets out a scream when her palm presses against a small metallic object on the ground. Her cross.
She swings backwards and bumps into a tree. Dull ache shoots through her spine. She feels the unfamiliar, pointed shape of her teeth and dry heaves.
When voices come, she bolts. She isn’t sure what they would do to her if they found out, but she’d rather they thought she was dead. It’s not like anyone would actually mourn her.
She runs into town. Hunger gnaws at her insides, persistent like an underfed cat. She looks around wildly and freezes when a man approaches her. All she can see is the armband and a gun. She feels helpless, paralyzed with the acute awareness of being alone in an unfamiliar town and having no papers, no obligatory ‘H’ stripe on her clothes, no protection whatsoever.
He looks her up and down and says: “Sorry. Just thought you were…”
He smiles at her, a little awkwardly. She gives him a jerky nod and wanders off. Suddenly she belongs to a superior race. She is free to do whatever she wants; only it hasn’t hit her yet.
* * *
They told her that when things got too big, the resistance bombed several key cities of the United Kingdom, hoping it would purge the country of vampires. It didn’t help of course; it just made them angry.
She travels for a year, although “travel” is kind of a strong word. She drags herself across the country, even steals somebody’s travel pass to get past the checkpoints. Turns out life is pretty easy when you don’t register on video and no one wants a picture of you and the only ID they really need is your black eyes and your sharp fangs.
Wales is untouched by bombings. After what Hannah has seen, it looks picture perfect. There are few humans here. There used to be a resettlement camp in Carmarthen, but something went wrong and it was purged. The commissar that runs the district is rumoured to have moved his residence there from Cardiff and the town is now a restricted area. Hannah doesn’t really care; she’s not going there anyway.
Cardiff has very few humans. They walk around like shadows, having been given an astounding amount of freedom. Some of them come from the farms, and you can always tell those apart by their dull, cow-like eyes. They make Hannah mad. Once she catches a cow girl staring, and some kind of a fuse just goes off within her. She grabs the girl by the neck and spits at her:
“What are you looking at?”
She wants to dig her teeth into the girl’s throat. She keeps squeezing. The girl wheezes helplessly, and for once, there is a spark of some dim, underdeveloped intelligence in her. She knows what is going to happen.
Disgusted, Hannah releases her and runs away. She can’t stop trembling. She drops on the stairs in front of some fancy building and wraps her arms around herself. The weather is warm, but there is this internal chill she can’t quite sweat out. It’s part of being what she is now.
Hunger sears her. A few months ago she slept with some guy for a pint of his blood. The great vampiric revolution: business is booming for perverts.
She pulls her knees up to her face and rests her chin on them. She could use a new sweater; hers is all holey. She picks at a threadbare sleeve absent-mindedly.
Someone sets a little toy car on the stairs next to her.
She looks at it glumly.
“Hey,” she says. “You dropped your… thing.”
“No, I haven’t.”
She cocks her head. He is standing a few paces away. He is tall, lanky, wearing a long scarf and dark green mitts. His cheeks are covered with a day-old stubble and he’s looking at her with odd, languishing eyes.
“I figured you could use a smile.”
Hannah picks up the toy and twiddles it between her fingers. It’s a tiny mini-van with an outdated symbol for peace painted boldly on its side. She wonders if he always does that, gives away useless things to people he doesn’t even know.
“Love & peace?” she reads, and snorts. “Seriously?”
He shrugs. “Why not?”
Hannah stands up and holds the toy out to him. He smiles softly and turns away.
“Look, I appreciate the gesture, but it won’t fix my problems.”
He looks back at her. There is something sly about the way he narrows his eyes.
“Oh, you’ve got problems, haven’t you?” Like anyone doesn’t. “Maybe I can help.”
“Have you got any blood?”
“Nope.”
Hannah sighs. “Then you can’t.”
He shrugs. “Have you tried not drinking blood?”
That’s stupid. She wants to throw the toy car at his head.
“I’m a vampire,” she says pointedly.
“So am I,” he says, and starts walking away.
She realizes belatedly that it’s her first proper conversation in several months. Maybe even in a year.
“Wait,” she calls after him. “What am I supposed to do?”
He shrugs again, without turning around. “Live, baby, live.”
He holds out his hand, still looking and walking ahead. He wiggles his fingers like it’s all a big joke.
She catches up with him and takes his hand. It’s not like she has other plans.
June 7-8, 2012
A/N 2: The song Guy quotes is New Sensation by INXS.