Fic: Lives Are For Living. (10/35)

Sep 05, 2013 08:27

Title Lives Are For Living. (10/35)
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 2100. (Total posted 19200 /65,000)
Rating This part PG (adult over all)
Contains Mentions of depression/anxiety. Mentions of past canon character death. 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



Waking up in a house was different from waking up outside or even in a tent. The light was different, muted or extinguished through the curtains and the smells were different too, wet earth and woodlands replaced by food and the scent of human life. You probably had to be a werewolf to appreciate the last one, Tom thought, lying on the sofa and looking up at the ancient wooden beams running across the ceiling. Houses were, unless you were really unlucky, also a lot less damp and itchy than the woods.

It was the first time he'd slept inside since leaving Honolulu Heights. He looked at the clock on the wall, it was still early, but he knew that back in Barry Island, Hal would already be up and, if he was sticking to his routine, he'd be making toast which had to be cut into precise triangles and listening to Radio 4. Alex would probably be watching the telly or reading a magazine. He felt sorry for Alex, being a ghost had to harder than being a wolf or vampire. His was only one night a month and vampires had choice whether or not to bite somebody, even if it wasn't an easy choice. She couldn't be seen by normal humans, couldn't eat or drink or sleep, and it would only end when she moved on to whatever was on the otherside, and even with that she didn't get a choice about when it would happen. Nope, given a choice between being a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost, Tom thought, he'd pick werewolf every time. Obviously if normal human was an option he'd go for that.

Next time they were in Rhayader he'd have to get a postcard to send them and let them know where he was and that he was alright, something funny. It wasn't like he could phone, he thought, getting up and wandering over to the door. He could try, but as ghosts and vamps didn't show up on things like photos, videos or answering machines, he wasn't all that sure he'd be able to hear them on the phone. It wasn't something that had ever come up before, although after living together for a few months he wasn't sure why.

The drizzly grey rain falling across the valley helped wake him up and clear his head as he made the short trip to and from the outside toilet. Then after a quick wash using the old water pump at the side of the farm yard, Tom went back inside.

Andy still wasn't up, so trying to make as little noise as possible he lit the fire in the range and put on the kettle and a pot of porridge, before getting a book and heading back to the sofa.

The book was rather more sci-fi than he generally read and he soon found his mind wandering, thinking about what had happened the previous night. The fight outside the pub hadn't been much, the men had more than a little drunk. He hope that the women were alright. They'd certainly been holding their own in the argument beforehand, but he'd sill not felt able to just walk by without saying anything. He knew people saw him as old fashioned regards swearing and things, but that was how his dad had taught him to be. Always be polite, give up your seat or open a door for a lady or old person, unless they were a vampire in which has just stake them before they had a chance to rip your throat out or stab you.

The fight seemed to have shaken Andy more than Tom thought it should, given that he'd not done anything other than watch. It was odd, Tom thought as he got the now hot kettle off the range and made himself some tea. It had been at least a couple hours after the fight and with a few beers in him that he'd had final felt him stop shaking. Part of him wanted to put it down to Andy being a normal human, that they weren't used to the everyday violence that seemed to come with being not quite human.

That didn't make sense though, Andy had been in the police, a little scuffle like that surely would have just been part of normal policing on a Friday or Saturday night if were he'd been stationed had been like just about any town Tom had been to. He had to have seen worse than that. He glanced towards the bedroom door a frown on his face. He liked Andy and because of that he worried about him.

Retreating back to the sofa again, this time with his tea, he wondered what it was that had happened to Andy to make him leave the police force. Being a police officer was one of those jobs that people tended to have until they retired and there was no way that Andy was that old. So that must have meant he'd quit or been sacked over something. He really couldn't see anybody sacking him, he was too nice. So that only really left him having quit.

He looked back at the bedroom door again. Andy didn't seem like the kind of person who quit easily. If he had been he wouldn't have taken on a place that needed so much work. Maybe something really, really awful had happened to him, he thought with a sinking feeling, and that was why he'd been so shaken up by the fight. What if somebody had died? He knew how much losing somebody could hurt, how the guilt could eat you up, unless you found a way to think about something else. He'd been lucky, after losing his dad he'd had George and Nina, and after them Annie and Eve, and then Hal and Alex. He'd never had to really be properly alone, unless he'd wanted to be.

Losing people took everybody differently though, he remembered George both before and after Nina's death, how there had in the end been nothing left but overwhelming grief and guilt, that none of them could ease. The idea that Andy could have suffered like that, maybe alone, with nobody to turn to, upset him more than he could say.

He was still worrying about it when Andy finally emerged from his bedroom, looking tired and a little bleary eyed. Whether it was because he was a bit hungover, hadn't slept well or a combination of the two Tom wasn't sure. Getting up, he said, "Kettle ain't long boiled, do you want a cuppa."

"Thanks," Andy said gratefully, sitting down heavily on the sofa. "How's your face this morning?"

"It's fine. It don't hurt," Tom said, dumping a teabag in a mug pouring and hot water on it. When you went through the bone breaking agony of a werewolf transformation every four weeks the occasional bump or bruise pretty much stopped registering. “So what we doin' today?”

Andy leant back on the sofa and closed his eyes.“I should probably take a look at the other barn, see whether it'll be easier to fix it or knock it down and start again.”

“I can take a look with you, if you want,” Tom said handing over the mug of tea and then sitting down next to him.

Later that morning, with Andy looking rather better after more tea and some of the just about edible porridge, they went to look at the other outbuilding.

Situated on the opposite side of the farmhouse from the barn which Andy had been working on when Tom first arrived at Cwm Elan farm, it was in a far worse state of repair. Although clearly newer in places than the barn the corrugated metal roof was rusted through in numerous places and had fallen in at one end where the wall had partially collapsed, while the whole of the structure was over run with waist high weeds.

“So what was this place for?” Tom said, climbing over the rubble in the collapsed corner towards where some copper piping was sticking out of the floor.

“According to the farm records,” Andy said carefully picking his way through the waist high weeds and tumbles of stone to join him. “This was used for milking cows during the forties, apparently they made a lot of the sheep farms go over to cows during the war so there was enough milk. I think they gave up on cows in the fifties. I suppose Edith must have used it for storage for a while, but I guess she just let it fall into this state when the farm started getting too much for her.”

“Who's Edith?” Tom asked, looking at the piping. It seemed to run under the floor of the building and if it was all intact it could be worth quite a bit. It was the sort of scrap haul that used to have his dad smiling and planning what they were going to do with the money.

“She's my aunt,” he replied distractedly, mind clearly else where again.

“She must have liked you a lot to leave you a place like this.” Tom stood back up. He knew that they'd be able to strip the copper out over the course of a few days if they worked hard on it. The corrugated metal roof was a lost cause, it was so rusted that he knew that no scrap dealer would give you anything for it. The rest of the building probably could be fixed up, but it would be a lot of work, far more than with the barn or the walls and paths around the farmyard.

“She hardly knew me,”Andy said slowly shaking his head. “She just wanted the farm to stay in the family, and I was the only one who wanted it. It came at the right time, if hadn't...” He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets before turning away.

“There's a fair bit of copper piping in here, I 'spose it must've bin from the milking machines,” Tom said, wanting to distract him, certain now that Andy's reason for choosing to live out in the arse end of nowhere was because something horrible had happened. “I reckon you could sell it for a right tidy bit of cash if you wanted to.”

There's a brief pause as Andy sought to push down whatever it was that had been trying to consume him. “You think so?”

“Yeah. Me and me dad used to do a fair bit of scrap collecting,” Tom said hoping that it wasn't so vague that Andy would ask any more questions about just where they got their scrap from. He doubted an ex-policeman would hold with breaking into old factories and nicking stuff, even if nobody had used the place for years. “Copper is about three pound fifty a kilo, so I reckon there's gotta at least fifty quids worth in here, might be more. It'll be a lot of work though, getting it all out and fixing the place up.”

If Andy had any questions about just where him and his dad used to get their scrap he chose not to voice them. Instead he smiled and said, “I guess you'll working in here a bit longer than I first planned. Well if you want to.”

“Course I want to,” Tom said quickly. In the short time he'd been at Cwm Elan farm it had rapidly started to feel like home, a place he could see himself in months or even years to come. It was stupid to think like that, he knew, once the farm was fixed up he'd have to be off. Even with everything going well it would be early autumn before the place ready for campers, and generally nobody much went camping that late in the year, so it wasn't like Andy would need him to help with guests.

Looking and sounding happier than he had since before the fight, Andy said, “Right then, I think I'd better get on with fixing the generator and finally get round to ordering a fridge. We can make a start on this tomorrow.”

Part 11 http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/219653.html

pairing: andy davidson/tom mcnair

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