Ficlet - On the Way Home
Being Human - shockingly 100% Torchwood free fic.
Title: On the Way Home
Author: szm
Characters: George, Lauren
Rating: PG
Summary: George runs into Lauren the morning after...
Betaed by the lovely vipersweb who hasn't seen the show but betaed his anyway - because she loves me. *g*
George really wants to giggle. He’s aware that’s not an appropriate response when cornered by a vampire. It’s just… she’s threatening him, threatening to hurt him.
Hurt him? Silly little girl doesn’t even know what hurt is. Every month his body breaks and reforms around him. All his organs fail; his bones break and re-knit; and he can feel it in the back of his mind - the wolf. And the wolf hates George. It sniggers at his pain, and claws its way through his mind. Every time George is sure - completely sure - that this is the time he won’t be able to get back.
After all that, a beating is pretty easy to take.
Now Lauren has his throat, and has him pined against the wall. It’s the morning after the transformation. Lauren smells like dead things and fear. He can smell a man’s aftershave on her and blood on her breath. She just fed. George wonders who he was, if he’s left anyone behind. If he had children. If Lauren even bothered to find out.
This hurts, because he knew Lauren before. He’d like to say that this thing has nothing of the girl he knew in it, but it does. It’s Lauren, Lauren’s passion, and her joy, and her love of excitement - just twisted into something so wrong.
It makes him wonder what Mitchell was like, before. That really hurts, in some deep and indefinable way. The smell of the blood makes the wolf snarl too, and this close to a full moon, George can almost hear it.
Lauren keeps on and on about Mitchell turning her, then leaving her. George can hear it in her voice. The little wobble on certain stresses. Lauren is lost and alone, caught up in a world she doesn’t understand. It would make George feel sorry for her; he understands what it’s like after all. But there’s the blood on her breath. And the fear in her voice, and her body, and her smell just makes the wolf hungry.
George can’t hold it in anymore. He laughs out loud.
The hand on his throat tightens. He can feel things crushing under the pressure and he knows that if he gets out of this alive, he’ll have some spectacular bruises. But last night he'd screamed his throat raw. His vocal chords were snapped and regrown. This is almost pleasant in comparison. If Lauren had left it a few days, when the memories had faded, he would be terrified. But right now, he has the awful knowledge that nothing could be worse than what he’s already gone through.
“I could kill you, puppy,” sneers Lauren.
“And you still wouldn’t get Mitchell back,” replies George, his voice coming rough and broken from his abused throat. “Not that you ever really had him.”
Lauren snarls and kicks him hard in the ribs. He hears one break, but still, all he can do is chuckle - because there was Tully looking for a son, and here’s Lauren looking for a father, and George has Annie and Mitchell. What the hell is family anyway?
Lauren turns and stalks off into the grey dawn light. George drags himself home. Mitchell asks about the bruises round his neck and the broken rib. George lies, and says he doesn’t remember. Mitchell doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t ask again.
They all have truths they hide from.
Title: On the Way Home
Author: szm
Characters: George, Lauren
Rating: PG
Summary: George runs into Lauren the morning after...
Betaed by the lovely vipersweb who hasn't seen the show but betaed his anyway - because she loves me. *g*
George really wants to giggle. He’s aware that’s not an appropriate response when cornered by a vampire. It’s just… she’s threatening him, threatening to hurt him.
Hurt him? Silly little girl doesn’t even know what hurt is. Every month his body breaks and reforms around him. All his organs fail; his bones break and re-knit; and he can feel it in the back of his mind - the wolf. And the wolf hates George. It sniggers at his pain, and claws its way through his mind. Every time George is sure - completely sure - that this is the time he won’t be able to get back.
After all that, a beating is pretty easy to take.
Now Lauren has his throat, and has him pined against the wall. It’s the morning after the transformation. Lauren smells like dead things and fear. He can smell a man’s aftershave on her and blood on her breath. She just fed. George wonders who he was, if he’s left anyone behind. If he had children. If Lauren even bothered to find out.
This hurts, because he knew Lauren before. He’d like to say that this thing has nothing of the girl he knew in it, but it does. It’s Lauren, Lauren’s passion, and her joy, and her love of excitement - just twisted into something so wrong.
It makes him wonder what Mitchell was like, before. That really hurts, in some deep and indefinable way. The smell of the blood makes the wolf snarl too, and this close to a full moon, George can almost hear it.
Lauren keeps on and on about Mitchell turning her, then leaving her. George can hear it in her voice. The little wobble on certain stresses. Lauren is lost and alone, caught up in a world she doesn’t understand. It would make George feel sorry for her; he understands what it’s like after all. But there’s the blood on her breath. And the fear in her voice, and her body, and her smell just makes the wolf hungry.
George can’t hold it in anymore. He laughs out loud.
The hand on his throat tightens. He can feel things crushing under the pressure and he knows that if he gets out of this alive, he’ll have some spectacular bruises. But last night he'd screamed his throat raw. His vocal chords were snapped and regrown. This is almost pleasant in comparison. If Lauren had left it a few days, when the memories had faded, he would be terrified. But right now, he has the awful knowledge that nothing could be worse than what he’s already gone through.
“I could kill you, puppy,” sneers Lauren.
“And you still wouldn’t get Mitchell back,” replies George, his voice coming rough and broken from his abused throat. “Not that you ever really had him.”
Lauren snarls and kicks him hard in the ribs. He hears one break, but still, all he can do is chuckle - because there was Tully looking for a son, and here’s Lauren looking for a father, and George has Annie and Mitchell. What the hell is family anyway?
Lauren turns and stalks off into the grey dawn light. George drags himself home. Mitchell asks about the bruises round his neck and the broken rib. George lies, and says he doesn’t remember. Mitchell doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t ask again.
They all have truths they hide from.