The Morning After - Chapter Three
Title: The Morning After - Chapter Three
Fandom: Doctor Who / Being Human (Crossover)
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/George
Rating: This Chapter - PG-13 (rated NC-17 overall)
Spoilers: Doctor Who - Tooth and Claw / Being Human - first two episodes of series one
Warning: This story will become darker in tone. It will eventually include m/m slash and will involve lycanthrophilia (sexual attraction to werewolves) and consensual violent sex, including biting, scratching and blood play.
Author's Note: Thanks again to adafrog and tescohatesme for beta'ing and input.
Didn't he realise that George wasn't George anymore when he was his wolfself? He could never remember what he did; he hardly had any grasp of his own mind or personality. Every time he woke up the day following a full moon, he had a hard, cold lump of dread in his stomach; a fear that last night might have been the night he finally killed a human being.
Chapter Three
It was early evening, and it was cold. The wind howled through the trees, almost as a foreshadowing of what would occur during that night's imminent full moon.
Two men walked through the otherwise desolate woods. One was tall, slim and handsome, wearing a brown suit and a long overcoat. The other was a slightly shorter, outwardly younger man. He had prominent ears and a less confident demeanour, but was still attractive in a sweet, unsure sort of way.
The men talked easily as they went, and anybody observing them might think they were old friends. In reality, they had spent very little time together; but there was something comfortable and reassuring about the taller man, that made his companion feel as though they had known each other for years.
The Doctor and George Sands walked deeper into the darkening tangle of trees than George would normally have done on a night like this. He was always mindful of travelling into the woods far enough so that when he was his wolfself he wouldn't wander back out into somewhere suburban, but not so deep that he wouldn't get horribly lost the following morning when he woke, feeling ill and disorientated.
They had talked comfortably throughout the journey. The Doctor had asked George, a little cagily, if he'd told his friend Mitchell about him.
George shook his head. "I thought it was better if I just kept this to myself. The last time, when I made friends with Tully… I took him home to meet Mitchell and Annie, and he ended up causing no end of trouble."
"Annie?" the Doctor said. George had never mentioned her. "Oh… she… lives with us too. Sort of. Well… when I say 'lives'…" He sighed. "Annie's a ghost. She haunts our house."
The Doctor nodded. "Ghosts don't exist," he said, matter-of-factly.
George smirked. "Don't let Annie hear you say that, she'll go all pre-menstrual poltergeist on you." He chuckled at the Doctor's bemused expression.
In for a penny… "Did I mention that Mitchell is a vampire?"
The Doctor looked a little disturbed about this revelation, until George convinced him that Mitchell wasn't like other vampires. "He doesn't like hurting people either," George affirmed. "Mitchell's a good guy. He takes care of me. Protects me."
The Doctor nodded, apparently satisfied, but George fancied that he was adding investigate vampires to his mental "to do" list. George didn't feel too worried. The Doctor liked him, trusted him; that much was obvious. He'd never hurt any of his friends.
It was rather satisfying to be able to tell the Doctor something he didn't know, if he was being honest. George was cleverer than he seemed, but the Doctor could be a bit of a smartarse at times.
Despite this, George felt completely at ease with the Time Lord. It was liberating to be able to talk about his condition, and about what his friends were, without being looked at as though he were insane. He felt as though he could tell the Doctor anything.
"We make a right set, don't we," George said with a smile. "A ghost, a werewolf, a vampire, and an alien! We should get together and make a new series of The Addams Family. Or what was that other one, the black and white one they used to repeat on telly when I was a kid; with the dad who looked like Frankenstein's monster?"
"The Munsters," said the Doctor, and they both laughed.
They carried on walking deeper into the woods. The trees here were thicker, the ground underfoot harsher and coarser. It was still light, but only just. Another half an hour, and they would have needed a torch to negotiate their way through the copse.
Even with the last vestiges of natural light to see by, it was still fairly hard going. George stumbled over a thick tree root at one point, and the Doctor, with lightning reflexes, managed to grab his arm and stop him from falling. George smiled gratefully at him.
They had both stopped in their tracks, the Doctor still holding on to his elbow, just staring at him, his eyes wide and glinting with something that looked like admiration... or perhaps something darker.
George blushed. There was something different about him when he was this close to transformation, he knew that. Something innately animalistic about him, that made usually uncaring women suddenly notice him, and made bigger, aggressive men back away, as though through some sort of primal instinct.
After a few seconds, the Doctor grinned and let him go. He straightened his tie, a little rattled. George smiled to himself.
"Not far now," the Doctor murmured. "It's just through those trees over there." He nodded towards a thick patch of foliage ahead of them. George nodded, and they continued to walk.
"I should warn you," said the Doctor, a little breathless. "Where I live, it's... not like anything you'll have seen before."
George nodded uncertainly. "You live in the middle of the woods?"
The Doctor frowned. "No. I travel. It's like... a mobile home."
"You live in a caravan in the middle of the woods?"
As they passed through and out of the thicket, they came upon a tall, blue, wooden box; about big enough for four people standing upright, and even then it was to be hoped that they all got on extremely well with each other.
"Okay. So you live in a Portaloo in the middle of the woods." George raised his eyebrows as he gazed at the box, and then back at the Doctor.
"It's a police box! Well, it's not. But it looks like one. It's a disguise! Tch, Portaloo..." The Doctor tutted as he produced a yale-type key from his pocket and unlocked the door on the front of the blue box. He pushed it open and looked at George expectantly. George was already gazing through the open doorway. Inside he could hear humming. He could see an incredibly large expanse of dark orange, and lights, and oh my God...
George stepped through the door, and into fantasyland.
On the inside of the small wooden box, there was an impossibly huge room. Far, far too big to fit inside. Inside a wooden box the size of a phone booth, it was bigger than George's whole house.
It was all coral-coloured curved struts, metal railings and grilled flooring. A ramp led from the doors up to a big mushroom-shaped structure in the middle of the room, with a central glass column. Around the column there was a dizzying array of buttons and levers, wires and twinkling lights.
It was some sort of... engine room... a control room. Like the bridge of a ship. And it was alien. It was an alien spaceship.
George clapped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from squeaking out loud in shock, as it finally sank in.
The Doctor really was an alien! He'd told himself he believed it, all this time. But even in his world of what normal people would regard as fantastical creatures, there had always been a small niggling doubt in the back of his mind. But it was true. It was real!
George, now standing halfway along the ramp, turned round and made to leave, looking pale and scared.
The Doctor stood in the doorway, blocking his exit. "I know. Culture shock, and all that. This is my ship. It's called the TARDIS. Which stands for Time And Relative... oh, well. Doesn't really matter. It's not like you're going to be..." the Doctor shook his head, a little sadly.
"I used to travel with... friends, you see. I used to love giving the whole 'yes, I know, it's bigger on the inside, isn't it brilliant' spiel, but... I can't. Not any more. It's just me, on my own, from now on. Better that way."
George made a little strangled sound in the back of his throat. The Doctor took a step forwards, his forehead creased. "Are you okay? Would you like some tea, from the flask? Although I should probably make some fresh, that's the same flask as the last time we met."
The Thermos flask in question was sitting on the floor, next to the central structure in the middle of the room. "I can see that," George said weakly.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, I mean it's the same tea." He smiled at George's blank expression. "Your last month was only about an hour ago, for me. Did I mention this ship also travels in time?"
The Doctor strode forward, ignoring George's dumbfounded expression, and took off his long coat. He threw it with practised ease over one of the coral-like curved struts that surrounded the main structure of the room. Then he clapped his hands and rubbed them together vigorously.
"Come on then, chop chop. Let's get you to the medical lab. How long do we have until you transform?"
"About an hour," said George distractedly. He was still staring around the huge room. His forehead creased. "Did you say 'medical lab'? There's more of this? More than just this room? How big is this thing?"
The Doctor beamed and clapped him on the back. "I've no idea. It might possibly be infinite. But don't worry, med lab's only about five minutes away. Or it was, last time I looked."
The Doctor put his arm around George's shoulders and led him over to a previously unnoticed door at the far end of the room. The Doctor pushed it open, and with one last questioning glance at the Doctor, George stepped over the threshold and even deeper into the unknown.
*****
The medical lab, compared to the rest of the ship that had a natural coral-coloured theme throughout, was blindingly white, clean and sterile. It didn't have that nasty disinfectant smell about it, though. George was glad of that; that smell was in his nose all day during his work as an orderly at the Bristol Royal, and he seemed to take it home with him at night.
The whole concept of being inside a space ship, with an alien he hardly knew, had become a little more palatable to George over the last few minutes. He had no idea why he trusted this man so easily and so fully, but somehow he knew he had nothing to fear. The only thing worrying him was the fact that the Doctor seemed so nonchalant about George's imminent transformation into a powerful, dangerous beast.
Didn't he realise that George wasn't George anymore when he was his wolfself? He could never remember what he did; he hardly had any grasp of his own mind or personality. Every time he woke up the day following a full moon, he had a hard, cold lump of dread in his stomach; a fear that last night might have been the night he finally killed a human being.
And no matter how much he liked and admired his current companion, there were no guarantees that once he lost his human self to the animal within him, he wouldn't attack the Doctor without a second thought. There wouldn't even be a first thought. Just a feral, predator's instinct.
But still. Maybe the Doctor could help him. Help him understand what he was, if nothing else.
The medical instrumentation in the room was a mixture of the past, present and future, he could see. Old brass microscopes, a rather rickety-looking modern-day medical examination table, and complicated, futuristic-looking machinery; scanners and scientific equipment that couldn't possibly be from this century.
The Doctor stood looking at George, with his hands in his pockets. He nodded towards the medical examination table. George hesitated, but then perched himself on the edge of it.
The Doctor reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a stethoscope. He cleared his throat. "Might be easier if you take your top off," he said. George swallowed and nodded. It wasn't as though the Doctor hadn't already seen him naked. More than once.
"So... what are you going to do?" asked George, his voice slightly muffled as he pulled off his t-shirt while he spoke.
The Doctor frowned. "Just some preliminary tests... check your heart rate, blood pressure, that kind of thing. See if it's the same as a normal human. And... I'd like to study your DNA, take a closer look at your blood. That alright?"
George nodded. He forced himself to relax as the Doctor pressed the business end of the stethoscope to his chest, and listened intently. "Heart rate sounds fairly normal. Slightly high, at 76 beats per minute, but that might be because you're a bit nervous. Are you nervous?"
George shrugged. The Doctor continued to babble. "Just the one heart, of course. Like a normal human."
George snorted. "Why, do you have more than one?"
"Yes, I have two," said the Doctor distractedly. He ignored George's look of confusion. "Pulmonary circulation sounds quite healthy; muscles seem a little thick, particularly at the left ventricle. Wonder why that is..." the Doctor mumbled to himself.
The sound of the Doctor's voice was beginning to drone in George's ears. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was feeling relaxed, but not sleepy. He felt calm and lithe.
"The human heart is effectively a syncytium, a meshwork of cardiac muscle cells interconnected by contiguous cytoplasmic bridges..." the Doctor said enthusiastically, waving his hands in the air for effect, like a teacher instructing a promising student. "But your cardiac muscles seem thicker than the average human's. Interesting..."
"Mitchell reckons I have a heart attack every time I transform," George said airily.
The Doctor winced. "Hmm. Makes sense, transformation must be a huge strain on your body. I wonder why you recover from it so easily. It's as though instead of weakening your organs, the process has steadily been making them stronger as you recover, like your internal system has a decent workout at a gym once a month. Can't be a bad thing, I suppose..."
The Doctor went on to take a painless blood sample from him, and then had him lay on the examination table, which was well-padded and actually rather comfortable, while he attached various sticky electrical pads to his chest and left arm. Whatever futuristic apparatus he was attached to seemed to do the work of ten different machines they would normally need to use at the hospital where he worked.
The Doctor dashed between three different monitors, trying to learn as much about George as he could. "Systolic range of blood pressure is at 135. That's very high. Are you feeling alright?"
George nodded and smiled, almost to himself. He felt amazing.
The soft humming sound of the Doctor's ship was permeating George's ears. It seemed louder than before. His hearing was becoming more acute, more finely tuned; he could hear tiny little changes in pitch of every single sound around him. The constant unearthly hum had been subtle half an hour ago; he could tune out and forget that the background sound existed. Now, it was so loud and insistent that he could almost feel his skull vibrating along with it.
George stretched out his limbs languorously, eyes shut, and purred softly in the back of his throat. As much as he hated being a Lyco, the rush he felt when he was so close to transformation was really rather stimulating. It was something that no ordinary human on Earth could ever experience.
Usually he felt anxious and stressed about it. But tonight, being here, in this amazing alien ship, he felt different. He felt like he could almost embrace it.
He gripped at the sides of the comfortable medical table he lay on, just to feel how hard he could squeeze the unfamiliar metal beneath his fingers.
He squeezed until he could feel the rigid surface begin to strain beneath his fingertips. Soon, his strength would be immense. He flexed the muscles of his arms and legs. They didn't look any bigger or stronger right now, but that would change soon, too.
Even with his eyes closed, he could sense every movement nearby. He could feel the air shifting against his skin; every nuance in the atmosphere around him making the short, fine hairs on his body vibrate. Soon, he'd be covered in hair; a thick, shiny pelt.
He opened his eyes again, and his vision was slightly blurred. He lifted his right arm, the one without wires and pads attached to it, and reached up to remove his glasses. He shoved them carelessly into his trouser pocket. His own eyesight was now keen and sharp. By the time he was back out into the night, he would be able to see in the dark, too.
The movement he'd sensed was the Doctor, of course, skipping between him and the monitors nearby, checking readings, busying himself with instruments. He hadn't noticed that George was moving. He couldn't see how strong and powerful George was growing, minute by minute.
The Doctor was wearing glasses, George could see now. Square glasses with dark frames. He snorted softly in derision. As if an alien as obviously powerful as the Doctor could be short-sighted like a weak, soft human.
He smiled to himself. He could feel that his teeth were beginning to feel a little sharper. If he wasn't careful, this close to transformation he could easily bite his own tongue or scrape the inside of his cheek, and draw blood. His teeth felt a little too big for his mouth. His tongue felt hot and a little swollen, too.
His mouth was too dry. He licked his lips, slowly. His saliva was too bland, too cool in his mouth. He needed to use those slowly sharpening teeth to rip, to tear... he needed to feel the hot spilling of lifeblood gushing into his mouth, feel it running down his throat, sating his hunger. He wanted to taste that sharp tang of metal and salt. He needed it.
But no...
No, no, no!
He shook his head, tried to come back to himself. "Doctor..." he murmured. His voice sounded low and gruff to his sensitive ears.
He opened his eyes and moved his head to look at the Doctor. The Time Lord was tapping furiously on a little keyboard, staring closely at the little monitor, his nose almost pressed up against it like an eager child.
George cleared his throat. "Doctor," he said a little louder. The Doctor responded with a distracted hum.
"I have to go."
The Doctor finally looked at him. "What, already?"
George closed his eyes, trying to keep a hold of his thoughts. When he opened them a moment later, they looked... sinister. He grinned, his slightly sharpened teeth glinting. He leaned his head back against the padded headrest of the medical examination table he lay on and regarded the Doctor through slitted eyes, almost lasciviously.
He reached out his free hand towards the Time Lord, who was just a few inches too far away for him to make contact. He saw the Doctor's eyes dart to his outstretched hand, and then back to his face.
George closed his eyes again, squeezed them shut tightly. "I mean it," he said, more strongly and forcefully, "I need to get out of here. I'm beginning to... lose myself..." He wanted to get up, but he was feeling dizzy, now.
The Doctor's forehead wrinkled. "Transformation?" He took off his spectacles and pushed them absent-mindedly back into his inside pocket.
George nodded, and opened his eyes. His eyes were shining with anxiety. "I shouldn't have stopped here this long."
The Doctor took a step closer, and George's still-outstretched arm now made contact, his hand brushing against the Doctor's stomach.
George's body suddenly spasmed. He cried out in pain, and the fingers of his hand curled around the fabric of one side of the Doctor's open jacket. He crumpled the cloth between his fingers as he grabbed it, and pulled. The Doctor was suddenly yanked towards George, tottering a few steps until he was only a foot or so away from him.
Without letting go of the Doctor's clothing, George sat up and swung his legs round, until he was sitting on the edge of the table. The sticky pads on his chest and arm were torn off with the momentum and fell onto the surface of the table, ignored. One of the machines started bleeping.
He let go of the Doctor's jacket, and grabbed his lapels with both hands instead. He straightened up and put his feet onto the floor. Now he was standing in front of the Doctor. He pulled on his lapels and dragged the Doctor towards him, until their faces were inches apart.
They seemed to be almost at the same level. George couldn't have grown taller over the past few minutes, surely? The Doctor's facial expression was a mixture of awe and confusion.
George smiled, baring his teeth. He breathed in through his nose, hard. Then he tilted his head to one side, pushed his nose into the side of the Doctor's neck, and took a long, deep, sniff.
"It's you..." George hissed, his voice low. "I knew it. I knew I remembered that scent!"
Hot air grazed the skin of the Doctor's neck, over his jugular, and the Time Lord shivered.
Suddenly George straightened his head and leaned forward even further. He growled, barely an inch or two from the Doctor's face. The Doctor could feel hot breath on his face. George's teeth were definitely sharper. He looked like a predator holding its prey.
The Doctor swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. He could slide his hand inside his jacket pocket and retrieve his sonic screwdriver, but George wasn't fully transformed yet. Maybe his hearing wasn't acute enough for the high frequency to affect him enough. Instead, he raised his trembling hands and placed them on George's hips and then ran them slowly, intimately, up and along George's sides.
George wasn't George anymore, not really. He was half-human, half-feral animal. He could attack him any moment, but the Doctor didn't care. He'd known the risks.
He'd embraced them.
The Doctor bared his own teeth, not as sharp or glinting as those of the man clutching at him, but he bared them and growled back, as though challenging him.
George blinked and shook his head. He didn't let go of the Doctor's jacket for fear of collapsing, but he stumbled backwards, the backs of his legs colliding hard with the edge of the table on which he'd been laid a few moments earlier.
"Doctor... I can't... I'm too close. It's dangerous, I need to leave!" Suddenly he spasmed again and let out a scream of agony.
"Stay here, with me," breathed the Doctor. "Transform here..."
George shook his head, his eyes wide in terror.
"You know my scent... don't you? You know me, George," the Doctor insisted. His eyes blazed.
He leaned into George, who was trapped between the Time Lord and the metal table. George was shaking his head, but he knew it was the truth. He could remember, now. A fleeting, animal-clouded memory of that scent. The smell of pheromones, of need, of uncontrollable wanting...
George remembered, and suddenly he was scared. He was about to transform into a wolf. He was the stronger of the two. He was the beast. He was the monster.
And yet somehow, with that familiar, stimulating scent of sex and hunger in his nostrils, the scent of this alien that he held in what would soon be his sharp and deadly claws, he realised that he didn't know whether he was the predator... or the prey.
To be continued
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Fandom: Doctor Who / Being Human (Crossover)
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/George
Rating: This Chapter - PG-13 (rated NC-17 overall)
Spoilers: Doctor Who - Tooth and Claw / Being Human - first two episodes of series one
Warning: This story will become darker in tone. It will eventually include m/m slash and will involve lycanthrophilia (sexual attraction to werewolves) and consensual violent sex, including biting, scratching and blood play.
Author's Note: Thanks again to adafrog and tescohatesme for beta'ing and input.
Didn't he realise that George wasn't George anymore when he was his wolfself? He could never remember what he did; he hardly had any grasp of his own mind or personality. Every time he woke up the day following a full moon, he had a hard, cold lump of dread in his stomach; a fear that last night might have been the night he finally killed a human being.
Chapter Three
It was early evening, and it was cold. The wind howled through the trees, almost as a foreshadowing of what would occur during that night's imminent full moon.
Two men walked through the otherwise desolate woods. One was tall, slim and handsome, wearing a brown suit and a long overcoat. The other was a slightly shorter, outwardly younger man. He had prominent ears and a less confident demeanour, but was still attractive in a sweet, unsure sort of way.
The men talked easily as they went, and anybody observing them might think they were old friends. In reality, they had spent very little time together; but there was something comfortable and reassuring about the taller man, that made his companion feel as though they had known each other for years.
The Doctor and George Sands walked deeper into the darkening tangle of trees than George would normally have done on a night like this. He was always mindful of travelling into the woods far enough so that when he was his wolfself he wouldn't wander back out into somewhere suburban, but not so deep that he wouldn't get horribly lost the following morning when he woke, feeling ill and disorientated.
They had talked comfortably throughout the journey. The Doctor had asked George, a little cagily, if he'd told his friend Mitchell about him.
George shook his head. "I thought it was better if I just kept this to myself. The last time, when I made friends with Tully… I took him home to meet Mitchell and Annie, and he ended up causing no end of trouble."
"Annie?" the Doctor said. George had never mentioned her. "Oh… she… lives with us too. Sort of. Well… when I say 'lives'…" He sighed. "Annie's a ghost. She haunts our house."
The Doctor nodded. "Ghosts don't exist," he said, matter-of-factly.
George smirked. "Don't let Annie hear you say that, she'll go all pre-menstrual poltergeist on you." He chuckled at the Doctor's bemused expression.
In for a penny… "Did I mention that Mitchell is a vampire?"
The Doctor looked a little disturbed about this revelation, until George convinced him that Mitchell wasn't like other vampires. "He doesn't like hurting people either," George affirmed. "Mitchell's a good guy. He takes care of me. Protects me."
The Doctor nodded, apparently satisfied, but George fancied that he was adding investigate vampires to his mental "to do" list. George didn't feel too worried. The Doctor liked him, trusted him; that much was obvious. He'd never hurt any of his friends.
It was rather satisfying to be able to tell the Doctor something he didn't know, if he was being honest. George was cleverer than he seemed, but the Doctor could be a bit of a smartarse at times.
Despite this, George felt completely at ease with the Time Lord. It was liberating to be able to talk about his condition, and about what his friends were, without being looked at as though he were insane. He felt as though he could tell the Doctor anything.
"We make a right set, don't we," George said with a smile. "A ghost, a werewolf, a vampire, and an alien! We should get together and make a new series of The Addams Family. Or what was that other one, the black and white one they used to repeat on telly when I was a kid; with the dad who looked like Frankenstein's monster?"
"The Munsters," said the Doctor, and they both laughed.
They carried on walking deeper into the woods. The trees here were thicker, the ground underfoot harsher and coarser. It was still light, but only just. Another half an hour, and they would have needed a torch to negotiate their way through the copse.
Even with the last vestiges of natural light to see by, it was still fairly hard going. George stumbled over a thick tree root at one point, and the Doctor, with lightning reflexes, managed to grab his arm and stop him from falling. George smiled gratefully at him.
They had both stopped in their tracks, the Doctor still holding on to his elbow, just staring at him, his eyes wide and glinting with something that looked like admiration... or perhaps something darker.
George blushed. There was something different about him when he was this close to transformation, he knew that. Something innately animalistic about him, that made usually uncaring women suddenly notice him, and made bigger, aggressive men back away, as though through some sort of primal instinct.
After a few seconds, the Doctor grinned and let him go. He straightened his tie, a little rattled. George smiled to himself.
"Not far now," the Doctor murmured. "It's just through those trees over there." He nodded towards a thick patch of foliage ahead of them. George nodded, and they continued to walk.
"I should warn you," said the Doctor, a little breathless. "Where I live, it's... not like anything you'll have seen before."
George nodded uncertainly. "You live in the middle of the woods?"
The Doctor frowned. "No. I travel. It's like... a mobile home."
"You live in a caravan in the middle of the woods?"
As they passed through and out of the thicket, they came upon a tall, blue, wooden box; about big enough for four people standing upright, and even then it was to be hoped that they all got on extremely well with each other.
"Okay. So you live in a Portaloo in the middle of the woods." George raised his eyebrows as he gazed at the box, and then back at the Doctor.
"It's a police box! Well, it's not. But it looks like one. It's a disguise! Tch, Portaloo..." The Doctor tutted as he produced a yale-type key from his pocket and unlocked the door on the front of the blue box. He pushed it open and looked at George expectantly. George was already gazing through the open doorway. Inside he could hear humming. He could see an incredibly large expanse of dark orange, and lights, and oh my God...
George stepped through the door, and into fantasyland.
On the inside of the small wooden box, there was an impossibly huge room. Far, far too big to fit inside. Inside a wooden box the size of a phone booth, it was bigger than George's whole house.
It was all coral-coloured curved struts, metal railings and grilled flooring. A ramp led from the doors up to a big mushroom-shaped structure in the middle of the room, with a central glass column. Around the column there was a dizzying array of buttons and levers, wires and twinkling lights.
It was some sort of... engine room... a control room. Like the bridge of a ship. And it was alien. It was an alien spaceship.
George clapped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from squeaking out loud in shock, as it finally sank in.
The Doctor really was an alien! He'd told himself he believed it, all this time. But even in his world of what normal people would regard as fantastical creatures, there had always been a small niggling doubt in the back of his mind. But it was true. It was real!
George, now standing halfway along the ramp, turned round and made to leave, looking pale and scared.
The Doctor stood in the doorway, blocking his exit. "I know. Culture shock, and all that. This is my ship. It's called the TARDIS. Which stands for Time And Relative... oh, well. Doesn't really matter. It's not like you're going to be..." the Doctor shook his head, a little sadly.
"I used to travel with... friends, you see. I used to love giving the whole 'yes, I know, it's bigger on the inside, isn't it brilliant' spiel, but... I can't. Not any more. It's just me, on my own, from now on. Better that way."
George made a little strangled sound in the back of his throat. The Doctor took a step forwards, his forehead creased. "Are you okay? Would you like some tea, from the flask? Although I should probably make some fresh, that's the same flask as the last time we met."
The Thermos flask in question was sitting on the floor, next to the central structure in the middle of the room. "I can see that," George said weakly.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, I mean it's the same tea." He smiled at George's blank expression. "Your last month was only about an hour ago, for me. Did I mention this ship also travels in time?"
The Doctor strode forward, ignoring George's dumbfounded expression, and took off his long coat. He threw it with practised ease over one of the coral-like curved struts that surrounded the main structure of the room. Then he clapped his hands and rubbed them together vigorously.
"Come on then, chop chop. Let's get you to the medical lab. How long do we have until you transform?"
"About an hour," said George distractedly. He was still staring around the huge room. His forehead creased. "Did you say 'medical lab'? There's more of this? More than just this room? How big is this thing?"
The Doctor beamed and clapped him on the back. "I've no idea. It might possibly be infinite. But don't worry, med lab's only about five minutes away. Or it was, last time I looked."
The Doctor put his arm around George's shoulders and led him over to a previously unnoticed door at the far end of the room. The Doctor pushed it open, and with one last questioning glance at the Doctor, George stepped over the threshold and even deeper into the unknown.
*****
The medical lab, compared to the rest of the ship that had a natural coral-coloured theme throughout, was blindingly white, clean and sterile. It didn't have that nasty disinfectant smell about it, though. George was glad of that; that smell was in his nose all day during his work as an orderly at the Bristol Royal, and he seemed to take it home with him at night.
The whole concept of being inside a space ship, with an alien he hardly knew, had become a little more palatable to George over the last few minutes. He had no idea why he trusted this man so easily and so fully, but somehow he knew he had nothing to fear. The only thing worrying him was the fact that the Doctor seemed so nonchalant about George's imminent transformation into a powerful, dangerous beast.
Didn't he realise that George wasn't George anymore when he was his wolfself? He could never remember what he did; he hardly had any grasp of his own mind or personality. Every time he woke up the day following a full moon, he had a hard, cold lump of dread in his stomach; a fear that last night might have been the night he finally killed a human being.
And no matter how much he liked and admired his current companion, there were no guarantees that once he lost his human self to the animal within him, he wouldn't attack the Doctor without a second thought. There wouldn't even be a first thought. Just a feral, predator's instinct.
But still. Maybe the Doctor could help him. Help him understand what he was, if nothing else.
The medical instrumentation in the room was a mixture of the past, present and future, he could see. Old brass microscopes, a rather rickety-looking modern-day medical examination table, and complicated, futuristic-looking machinery; scanners and scientific equipment that couldn't possibly be from this century.
The Doctor stood looking at George, with his hands in his pockets. He nodded towards the medical examination table. George hesitated, but then perched himself on the edge of it.
The Doctor reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a stethoscope. He cleared his throat. "Might be easier if you take your top off," he said. George swallowed and nodded. It wasn't as though the Doctor hadn't already seen him naked. More than once.
"So... what are you going to do?" asked George, his voice slightly muffled as he pulled off his t-shirt while he spoke.
The Doctor frowned. "Just some preliminary tests... check your heart rate, blood pressure, that kind of thing. See if it's the same as a normal human. And... I'd like to study your DNA, take a closer look at your blood. That alright?"
George nodded. He forced himself to relax as the Doctor pressed the business end of the stethoscope to his chest, and listened intently. "Heart rate sounds fairly normal. Slightly high, at 76 beats per minute, but that might be because you're a bit nervous. Are you nervous?"
George shrugged. The Doctor continued to babble. "Just the one heart, of course. Like a normal human."
George snorted. "Why, do you have more than one?"
"Yes, I have two," said the Doctor distractedly. He ignored George's look of confusion. "Pulmonary circulation sounds quite healthy; muscles seem a little thick, particularly at the left ventricle. Wonder why that is..." the Doctor mumbled to himself.
The sound of the Doctor's voice was beginning to drone in George's ears. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was feeling relaxed, but not sleepy. He felt calm and lithe.
"The human heart is effectively a syncytium, a meshwork of cardiac muscle cells interconnected by contiguous cytoplasmic bridges..." the Doctor said enthusiastically, waving his hands in the air for effect, like a teacher instructing a promising student. "But your cardiac muscles seem thicker than the average human's. Interesting..."
"Mitchell reckons I have a heart attack every time I transform," George said airily.
The Doctor winced. "Hmm. Makes sense, transformation must be a huge strain on your body. I wonder why you recover from it so easily. It's as though instead of weakening your organs, the process has steadily been making them stronger as you recover, like your internal system has a decent workout at a gym once a month. Can't be a bad thing, I suppose..."
The Doctor went on to take a painless blood sample from him, and then had him lay on the examination table, which was well-padded and actually rather comfortable, while he attached various sticky electrical pads to his chest and left arm. Whatever futuristic apparatus he was attached to seemed to do the work of ten different machines they would normally need to use at the hospital where he worked.
The Doctor dashed between three different monitors, trying to learn as much about George as he could. "Systolic range of blood pressure is at 135. That's very high. Are you feeling alright?"
George nodded and smiled, almost to himself. He felt amazing.
The soft humming sound of the Doctor's ship was permeating George's ears. It seemed louder than before. His hearing was becoming more acute, more finely tuned; he could hear tiny little changes in pitch of every single sound around him. The constant unearthly hum had been subtle half an hour ago; he could tune out and forget that the background sound existed. Now, it was so loud and insistent that he could almost feel his skull vibrating along with it.
George stretched out his limbs languorously, eyes shut, and purred softly in the back of his throat. As much as he hated being a Lyco, the rush he felt when he was so close to transformation was really rather stimulating. It was something that no ordinary human on Earth could ever experience.
Usually he felt anxious and stressed about it. But tonight, being here, in this amazing alien ship, he felt different. He felt like he could almost embrace it.
He gripped at the sides of the comfortable medical table he lay on, just to feel how hard he could squeeze the unfamiliar metal beneath his fingers.
He squeezed until he could feel the rigid surface begin to strain beneath his fingertips. Soon, his strength would be immense. He flexed the muscles of his arms and legs. They didn't look any bigger or stronger right now, but that would change soon, too.
Even with his eyes closed, he could sense every movement nearby. He could feel the air shifting against his skin; every nuance in the atmosphere around him making the short, fine hairs on his body vibrate. Soon, he'd be covered in hair; a thick, shiny pelt.
He opened his eyes again, and his vision was slightly blurred. He lifted his right arm, the one without wires and pads attached to it, and reached up to remove his glasses. He shoved them carelessly into his trouser pocket. His own eyesight was now keen and sharp. By the time he was back out into the night, he would be able to see in the dark, too.
The movement he'd sensed was the Doctor, of course, skipping between him and the monitors nearby, checking readings, busying himself with instruments. He hadn't noticed that George was moving. He couldn't see how strong and powerful George was growing, minute by minute.
The Doctor was wearing glasses, George could see now. Square glasses with dark frames. He snorted softly in derision. As if an alien as obviously powerful as the Doctor could be short-sighted like a weak, soft human.
He smiled to himself. He could feel that his teeth were beginning to feel a little sharper. If he wasn't careful, this close to transformation he could easily bite his own tongue or scrape the inside of his cheek, and draw blood. His teeth felt a little too big for his mouth. His tongue felt hot and a little swollen, too.
His mouth was too dry. He licked his lips, slowly. His saliva was too bland, too cool in his mouth. He needed to use those slowly sharpening teeth to rip, to tear... he needed to feel the hot spilling of lifeblood gushing into his mouth, feel it running down his throat, sating his hunger. He wanted to taste that sharp tang of metal and salt. He needed it.
But no...
No, no, no!
He shook his head, tried to come back to himself. "Doctor..." he murmured. His voice sounded low and gruff to his sensitive ears.
He opened his eyes and moved his head to look at the Doctor. The Time Lord was tapping furiously on a little keyboard, staring closely at the little monitor, his nose almost pressed up against it like an eager child.
George cleared his throat. "Doctor," he said a little louder. The Doctor responded with a distracted hum.
"I have to go."
The Doctor finally looked at him. "What, already?"
George closed his eyes, trying to keep a hold of his thoughts. When he opened them a moment later, they looked... sinister. He grinned, his slightly sharpened teeth glinting. He leaned his head back against the padded headrest of the medical examination table he lay on and regarded the Doctor through slitted eyes, almost lasciviously.
He reached out his free hand towards the Time Lord, who was just a few inches too far away for him to make contact. He saw the Doctor's eyes dart to his outstretched hand, and then back to his face.
George closed his eyes again, squeezed them shut tightly. "I mean it," he said, more strongly and forcefully, "I need to get out of here. I'm beginning to... lose myself..." He wanted to get up, but he was feeling dizzy, now.
The Doctor's forehead wrinkled. "Transformation?" He took off his spectacles and pushed them absent-mindedly back into his inside pocket.
George nodded, and opened his eyes. His eyes were shining with anxiety. "I shouldn't have stopped here this long."
The Doctor took a step closer, and George's still-outstretched arm now made contact, his hand brushing against the Doctor's stomach.
George's body suddenly spasmed. He cried out in pain, and the fingers of his hand curled around the fabric of one side of the Doctor's open jacket. He crumpled the cloth between his fingers as he grabbed it, and pulled. The Doctor was suddenly yanked towards George, tottering a few steps until he was only a foot or so away from him.
Without letting go of the Doctor's clothing, George sat up and swung his legs round, until he was sitting on the edge of the table. The sticky pads on his chest and arm were torn off with the momentum and fell onto the surface of the table, ignored. One of the machines started bleeping.
He let go of the Doctor's jacket, and grabbed his lapels with both hands instead. He straightened up and put his feet onto the floor. Now he was standing in front of the Doctor. He pulled on his lapels and dragged the Doctor towards him, until their faces were inches apart.
They seemed to be almost at the same level. George couldn't have grown taller over the past few minutes, surely? The Doctor's facial expression was a mixture of awe and confusion.
George smiled, baring his teeth. He breathed in through his nose, hard. Then he tilted his head to one side, pushed his nose into the side of the Doctor's neck, and took a long, deep, sniff.
"It's you..." George hissed, his voice low. "I knew it. I knew I remembered that scent!"
Hot air grazed the skin of the Doctor's neck, over his jugular, and the Time Lord shivered.
Suddenly George straightened his head and leaned forward even further. He growled, barely an inch or two from the Doctor's face. The Doctor could feel hot breath on his face. George's teeth were definitely sharper. He looked like a predator holding its prey.
The Doctor swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. He could slide his hand inside his jacket pocket and retrieve his sonic screwdriver, but George wasn't fully transformed yet. Maybe his hearing wasn't acute enough for the high frequency to affect him enough. Instead, he raised his trembling hands and placed them on George's hips and then ran them slowly, intimately, up and along George's sides.
George wasn't George anymore, not really. He was half-human, half-feral animal. He could attack him any moment, but the Doctor didn't care. He'd known the risks.
He'd embraced them.
The Doctor bared his own teeth, not as sharp or glinting as those of the man clutching at him, but he bared them and growled back, as though challenging him.
George blinked and shook his head. He didn't let go of the Doctor's jacket for fear of collapsing, but he stumbled backwards, the backs of his legs colliding hard with the edge of the table on which he'd been laid a few moments earlier.
"Doctor... I can't... I'm too close. It's dangerous, I need to leave!" Suddenly he spasmed again and let out a scream of agony.
"Stay here, with me," breathed the Doctor. "Transform here..."
George shook his head, his eyes wide in terror.
"You know my scent... don't you? You know me, George," the Doctor insisted. His eyes blazed.
He leaned into George, who was trapped between the Time Lord and the metal table. George was shaking his head, but he knew it was the truth. He could remember, now. A fleeting, animal-clouded memory of that scent. The smell of pheromones, of need, of uncontrollable wanting...
George remembered, and suddenly he was scared. He was about to transform into a wolf. He was the stronger of the two. He was the beast. He was the monster.
And yet somehow, with that familiar, stimulating scent of sex and hunger in his nostrils, the scent of this alien that he held in what would soon be his sharp and deadly claws, he realised that he didn't know whether he was the predator... or the prey.
To be continued
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six