Fic: Lives Are For Living. (8/35)
Yes, I know this is a couple of days late. Got sidetracked reading the new Rivers of London book.
Title Lives Are For Living. (8/35)
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 2200. (Total posted 14850 /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
Andy had been a bit weird when he'd found him getting cleaned up after spending the night as a wolf, Tom thought as he picked a likely looking piece of wood out of the pile he'd stacked at the side of his tent. Jumpy was probably the best description. It had almost been like he didn't want to be around him, which was odd, as most of the time since Andy seemed like he wanted to spend as much time with him as possible.
Sitting down with the piece of wood across his knees, Tom got out his penknife. It hadn't been fear, he was sure of that, so he doubted Andy had guessed he was a werewolf; he doubted normal people would even consider something like that in the first place. Since he'd been alright with him both before that and in the days that followed, Tom eventually come to the conclusion that it must have been something to do with him not be properly dressed and his scars. He didn't really think about them much himself, they been part of him since before he was old enough to remember, but people could be funny about things like that.
He was just glad that Andy hadn't asked anything about where he'd got them, thinking up a reason why he'd been so dirty had been hard enough. Andy seemed to have accepted the idea he went out to watch wildlife without any difficulty. He just hoped that he wouldn't ask to see pictures or anything.
Things were about as good as they got, Tom thought as he striped the bark from the piece of wood and then got to work on whittling a point on one end. His dad had always said that single branch stakes were better than pieces made from bits of old plank and the like. You could use things like that if you had to, if you'd been foolish enough to go out with anything to defend yourself with, but nothing killed vamps a good, well made stake. Not that he was planning on killing any vampires any time soon.
The odd scent in Rhayader had been more unsettling in a way than the vampire. He'd lived all his life with the senses of a werewolf and travelling around a lot of the UK; there wasn't much that he didn't recognise the scent of. A single vamp wasn't much of a threat, he been able to take down more than that by himself in a single fight for years, but the unknown thing that travelled with vamps, that smelt so wrong, that he didn't know the fighting capabilities of, worried him.
He'd walked back into Rhayader late the following night and hung about to see if the vampire and its stinky friend would appear, but there had been nothing and the old scent trail was all but gone, drown out by the movement of too many people and brief spring shower. The chances were they'd probably just been travelling through and he'd never smell or see them again, but it never hurt to be prepared, Tom thought as he put the finishing touches to the stake. He'd got the start of a new life here, a normal life, and he wasn't about to let vampires ruin it or his growing friendship with Andy.
Andy had been as good as his word providing food for him and they ate together more often than not. Lighting the range had seemed to have become his job, while Andy more often than not did all the washing up, with cooking was split equally between them. It wouldn't win any prizes, with most things coming out of packets, tins and jars, but it was filling, which was just as well as fixing up the farm was hard, physical work.
They had far more enthusiasm than skill for the jobs that they were doing, but it was fun. It was also what his dad would have called an honest days work. There was something satisfying in that and in seeing the difference they were making to the buildings, how at the end of each day the place looked just that little bit better.
Putting the newly finished stake into the tent behind him, Tom turned his attention to another piece of wood. A small, twisted piece this time, which he'd been working on arriving in the Elan Valley.
It had been a while since he'd done any carving that wasn't stakes, the wooden animals he'd made for Eve, months before having been the last of them. It felt good to get back into making them again, although tore him up inside to think too much about Eve. She'd just been a baby, she should have had her whole life ahead of her. Bloody vampires and their stupid prophecies and mind games they played on each other. Vampires had cost him his dad and George and Nina and Eve and Annie.
Hal had been the exception. Hal had been Hal first and vampire second. He'd been odd, but in a nice way. And there'd a very good reason for odd things he did, all the routines, like stacking up dominoes or doing having to listen to a particular old radio program at a certain time of day - it was try and keep himself from going out and biting people. But without Leo and Pearl, Tom had seen that Hal's control had started slipping, and he'd made it worse taking Hal to work with him in the cafe. They'd needed the money though. And then the Old Ones had turned up and everything had fallen apart again and he'd lost pretty much everybody he'd been friends with for the second time in less than a year.
Caught in memories both good and bad, Tom didn't notice Andy approaching him, until he was standing just at the edge of the hollow where he'd pitched his tent.
“Nothin's wrong, is it?” he said, standing up suddenly, trying not altogether successfully to hide his surprise, the wooden animal he'd been working falling to the ground..
“No. I just wanted to see what you wanted for tea tonight.” Andy bent down and picked it up. “There's a tinned chicken and veg pie or we can try and do something with corned beef again.”
“Pie'll do,” Tom replied. “I'll sort out some bits of wood for the fire and get it lit in a while.”
“Did you make this?” Andy asked, looking with interest at the newly finished wolf.
“Yeah, I know it ain't very good,” Tom said, wishing that it had been the stake he'd been making. At least then he could have said it was just really big tent peg. Nobody would be interested in those.
“I wouldn't say that,” Andy tuned the wolf over a few times. “It's better than some of the stuff they've got in souvenir shops. There's something...I don't know...real about it.”
Part of Tom wanted to believe him, the other the part, the one that had grown wary after Kirby and Larry, refused to take him seriously. “Nah, you just saying that to be polite, aren't you?”
“Maybe a bit,” Andy admitted, handing it back to him. “It's still good though. You really did all this with just a penknife?”
“Yeah.” Tom looked at where Andy's hand still lingered against his. It was nice in a confusing kind of way.
Seeming to realise what he was doing, Andy pulled his hand back. “If you had some proper tools I think you'd be really good.”
“Me good at something?” Tom laughed, trying to pretend both to Andy and to himself that it didn't matter to him what people thought. “Now I know you're jokin'.”
“I'm not. Everybody's good at something.”
It made sense, he thought. Everybody he'd met had had something that they could do well, so he decided Andy was just telling the truth and wasn’t trying to trick him. “So what are you good at?” Tom asked, curious as to what the answer would be.
“I don’t know. I'd always thought it was being decent copper, but...” Andy's eyes met Tom's for a moment and then he sighed turned away.
The raw hurt that had been clear in eyes surprised Tom. He'd not given too much thought to why Andy was living out here or why in the week or so he'd been there he'd not mentioned anybody as a friend or talked about his past apart from to say he'd not lived on a farm before he got Cwm Elan farm. It was a little bit odd now he thought about it.
Changing the subject before Tom could ask any more questions, Andy said, “I'm going into Rhayader in a couple of days. I need to do some shopping and collecting some new parts for the old generator.” He looked at the wooden wolf again. “We can take them to a few of the souvenir and craft shops and see if they're interested in selling a few for you.”
“You're not just winding me up are yer?” Tom said, still cautious about allowing himself to get his hopes up. “'Cause I don't wanna get laughed at when they see them.”
“I wouldn't do that.” Andy looked genuinely hurt at the idea that he'd deliberately set Tom up for failure and ridicule.
Feeling suddenly self-conscious and a little bit silly, Tom mumbled, “Well I jus' wanted to make sure.”
An awkward silence followed, as Tom scuffed his shoes in the ash at the edge of the camp fire and Andy looked at everywhere where Tom wasn't. “I should go,” Andy said eventually, pointed back at the farmhouse. “Things I should do. I’ll find you some sandpaper if you like for the wood.”
“Yeah, that'd be great,” he replied, “I'll be up in a couple of hours and get the fire lit. Okay?”
“Okay, see you then.”
Tom watched him go, unable to work out if he was disappointed or relieved to be alone again. Andy confused him sometimes, just like Hal and Allison had, made him feel weird and protective, although he doubted either of them would have wanted or appreciated it if he'd told them. He knew that feelings and dealing with people definitely weren't things he was good at, but he was sure he was getting better at it.
The idea that somebody might have used Andy like Kirby or Larry had done with himself still made Tom angry, made him want to tell them that should apologise. Andy seemed like the nicest bloke you could hope to meet, he’d given him a place to stay, a job, food, he’d always been nice to him and he didn't call him stupid when he totally missed the point or hadn't heard of something. The fact that all Andy seemed to want in return was someone to help on the farm and somebody to talk to was both somehow reassuringly normal and, now he that thought about it, a little bit sad. Andy didn't seem to have a life outside of the farm at all.
As far as Tom could tell Andy only left the farm to buy food or things needed to fix the buildings. He didn't seem to have any friends or know anybody in the village. Nor did he mention any family or have any pictures. It felt like he was deliberately cutting himself off from the world or at least from whatever his life had been before he moved to the Cwm Elan.
It was sad, Tom thought, picking up the wooden wolf. Even when it had just been him and his dad they'd still done stuff that was fun. Like sneaking each other into cinemas when they'd only got enough money for one ticket or finding work down on the coast in the summer when he’d been a kid so he'd been able to join in the free stuff that the local councils put on in the school holidays.
You needed time alone sometimes, it let you have chance to think about things, but being alone all the time was hard. But never having anybody to talk to, to ask for advice or to make you a cup of tea if you’d had a really horrible day or felt rotten, was hard. If things went really badly wrong Tom knew he could always go back to Alex and Hal, the question of whether Andy had anybody to turn to all bothered him, mainly because there was the nagging doubt that perhaps there wasn’t anybody or at least anybody he could trust.
It was an awful situation to be in if it were true, Tom thought sadly, especially as he’d got the suspicion that Andy had only chosen to cut himself off because somebody had done something to hurt him.
After one last look at the farm, Tom sat back down to work on another wooden animal. He’d have to be extra nice to him from now on, he decided. Now that he'd been paid he could suggest they go to the pub or see a film or something one evening. It would be nice, Tom thought happily, wood shavings starting to fall again. He just hoped Andy would say yes.
Part 9 http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/219055.html
NOTE.
I know that in the previous part what Tom appeared to say was that he was a naturist ie he takes his clothes off, rather than a naturalist. This was him using the wrong word.
Title Lives Are For Living. (8/35)
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 2200. (Total posted 14850 /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
Andy had been a bit weird when he'd found him getting cleaned up after spending the night as a wolf, Tom thought as he picked a likely looking piece of wood out of the pile he'd stacked at the side of his tent. Jumpy was probably the best description. It had almost been like he didn't want to be around him, which was odd, as most of the time since Andy seemed like he wanted to spend as much time with him as possible.
Sitting down with the piece of wood across his knees, Tom got out his penknife. It hadn't been fear, he was sure of that, so he doubted Andy had guessed he was a werewolf; he doubted normal people would even consider something like that in the first place. Since he'd been alright with him both before that and in the days that followed, Tom eventually come to the conclusion that it must have been something to do with him not be properly dressed and his scars. He didn't really think about them much himself, they been part of him since before he was old enough to remember, but people could be funny about things like that.
He was just glad that Andy hadn't asked anything about where he'd got them, thinking up a reason why he'd been so dirty had been hard enough. Andy seemed to have accepted the idea he went out to watch wildlife without any difficulty. He just hoped that he wouldn't ask to see pictures or anything.
Things were about as good as they got, Tom thought as he striped the bark from the piece of wood and then got to work on whittling a point on one end. His dad had always said that single branch stakes were better than pieces made from bits of old plank and the like. You could use things like that if you had to, if you'd been foolish enough to go out with anything to defend yourself with, but nothing killed vamps a good, well made stake. Not that he was planning on killing any vampires any time soon.
The odd scent in Rhayader had been more unsettling in a way than the vampire. He'd lived all his life with the senses of a werewolf and travelling around a lot of the UK; there wasn't much that he didn't recognise the scent of. A single vamp wasn't much of a threat, he been able to take down more than that by himself in a single fight for years, but the unknown thing that travelled with vamps, that smelt so wrong, that he didn't know the fighting capabilities of, worried him.
He'd walked back into Rhayader late the following night and hung about to see if the vampire and its stinky friend would appear, but there had been nothing and the old scent trail was all but gone, drown out by the movement of too many people and brief spring shower. The chances were they'd probably just been travelling through and he'd never smell or see them again, but it never hurt to be prepared, Tom thought as he put the finishing touches to the stake. He'd got the start of a new life here, a normal life, and he wasn't about to let vampires ruin it or his growing friendship with Andy.
Andy had been as good as his word providing food for him and they ate together more often than not. Lighting the range had seemed to have become his job, while Andy more often than not did all the washing up, with cooking was split equally between them. It wouldn't win any prizes, with most things coming out of packets, tins and jars, but it was filling, which was just as well as fixing up the farm was hard, physical work.
They had far more enthusiasm than skill for the jobs that they were doing, but it was fun. It was also what his dad would have called an honest days work. There was something satisfying in that and in seeing the difference they were making to the buildings, how at the end of each day the place looked just that little bit better.
Putting the newly finished stake into the tent behind him, Tom turned his attention to another piece of wood. A small, twisted piece this time, which he'd been working on arriving in the Elan Valley.
It had been a while since he'd done any carving that wasn't stakes, the wooden animals he'd made for Eve, months before having been the last of them. It felt good to get back into making them again, although tore him up inside to think too much about Eve. She'd just been a baby, she should have had her whole life ahead of her. Bloody vampires and their stupid prophecies and mind games they played on each other. Vampires had cost him his dad and George and Nina and Eve and Annie.
Hal had been the exception. Hal had been Hal first and vampire second. He'd been odd, but in a nice way. And there'd a very good reason for odd things he did, all the routines, like stacking up dominoes or doing having to listen to a particular old radio program at a certain time of day - it was try and keep himself from going out and biting people. But without Leo and Pearl, Tom had seen that Hal's control had started slipping, and he'd made it worse taking Hal to work with him in the cafe. They'd needed the money though. And then the Old Ones had turned up and everything had fallen apart again and he'd lost pretty much everybody he'd been friends with for the second time in less than a year.
Caught in memories both good and bad, Tom didn't notice Andy approaching him, until he was standing just at the edge of the hollow where he'd pitched his tent.
“Nothin's wrong, is it?” he said, standing up suddenly, trying not altogether successfully to hide his surprise, the wooden animal he'd been working falling to the ground..
“No. I just wanted to see what you wanted for tea tonight.” Andy bent down and picked it up. “There's a tinned chicken and veg pie or we can try and do something with corned beef again.”
“Pie'll do,” Tom replied. “I'll sort out some bits of wood for the fire and get it lit in a while.”
“Did you make this?” Andy asked, looking with interest at the newly finished wolf.
“Yeah, I know it ain't very good,” Tom said, wishing that it had been the stake he'd been making. At least then he could have said it was just really big tent peg. Nobody would be interested in those.
“I wouldn't say that,” Andy tuned the wolf over a few times. “It's better than some of the stuff they've got in souvenir shops. There's something...I don't know...real about it.”
Part of Tom wanted to believe him, the other the part, the one that had grown wary after Kirby and Larry, refused to take him seriously. “Nah, you just saying that to be polite, aren't you?”
“Maybe a bit,” Andy admitted, handing it back to him. “It's still good though. You really did all this with just a penknife?”
“Yeah.” Tom looked at where Andy's hand still lingered against his. It was nice in a confusing kind of way.
Seeming to realise what he was doing, Andy pulled his hand back. “If you had some proper tools I think you'd be really good.”
“Me good at something?” Tom laughed, trying to pretend both to Andy and to himself that it didn't matter to him what people thought. “Now I know you're jokin'.”
“I'm not. Everybody's good at something.”
It made sense, he thought. Everybody he'd met had had something that they could do well, so he decided Andy was just telling the truth and wasn’t trying to trick him. “So what are you good at?” Tom asked, curious as to what the answer would be.
“I don’t know. I'd always thought it was being decent copper, but...” Andy's eyes met Tom's for a moment and then he sighed turned away.
The raw hurt that had been clear in eyes surprised Tom. He'd not given too much thought to why Andy was living out here or why in the week or so he'd been there he'd not mentioned anybody as a friend or talked about his past apart from to say he'd not lived on a farm before he got Cwm Elan farm. It was a little bit odd now he thought about it.
Changing the subject before Tom could ask any more questions, Andy said, “I'm going into Rhayader in a couple of days. I need to do some shopping and collecting some new parts for the old generator.” He looked at the wooden wolf again. “We can take them to a few of the souvenir and craft shops and see if they're interested in selling a few for you.”
“You're not just winding me up are yer?” Tom said, still cautious about allowing himself to get his hopes up. “'Cause I don't wanna get laughed at when they see them.”
“I wouldn't do that.” Andy looked genuinely hurt at the idea that he'd deliberately set Tom up for failure and ridicule.
Feeling suddenly self-conscious and a little bit silly, Tom mumbled, “Well I jus' wanted to make sure.”
An awkward silence followed, as Tom scuffed his shoes in the ash at the edge of the camp fire and Andy looked at everywhere where Tom wasn't. “I should go,” Andy said eventually, pointed back at the farmhouse. “Things I should do. I’ll find you some sandpaper if you like for the wood.”
“Yeah, that'd be great,” he replied, “I'll be up in a couple of hours and get the fire lit. Okay?”
“Okay, see you then.”
Tom watched him go, unable to work out if he was disappointed or relieved to be alone again. Andy confused him sometimes, just like Hal and Allison had, made him feel weird and protective, although he doubted either of them would have wanted or appreciated it if he'd told them. He knew that feelings and dealing with people definitely weren't things he was good at, but he was sure he was getting better at it.
The idea that somebody might have used Andy like Kirby or Larry had done with himself still made Tom angry, made him want to tell them that should apologise. Andy seemed like the nicest bloke you could hope to meet, he’d given him a place to stay, a job, food, he’d always been nice to him and he didn't call him stupid when he totally missed the point or hadn't heard of something. The fact that all Andy seemed to want in return was someone to help on the farm and somebody to talk to was both somehow reassuringly normal and, now he that thought about it, a little bit sad. Andy didn't seem to have a life outside of the farm at all.
As far as Tom could tell Andy only left the farm to buy food or things needed to fix the buildings. He didn't seem to have any friends or know anybody in the village. Nor did he mention any family or have any pictures. It felt like he was deliberately cutting himself off from the world or at least from whatever his life had been before he moved to the Cwm Elan.
It was sad, Tom thought, picking up the wooden wolf. Even when it had just been him and his dad they'd still done stuff that was fun. Like sneaking each other into cinemas when they'd only got enough money for one ticket or finding work down on the coast in the summer when he’d been a kid so he'd been able to join in the free stuff that the local councils put on in the school holidays.
You needed time alone sometimes, it let you have chance to think about things, but being alone all the time was hard. But never having anybody to talk to, to ask for advice or to make you a cup of tea if you’d had a really horrible day or felt rotten, was hard. If things went really badly wrong Tom knew he could always go back to Alex and Hal, the question of whether Andy had anybody to turn to all bothered him, mainly because there was the nagging doubt that perhaps there wasn’t anybody or at least anybody he could trust.
It was an awful situation to be in if it were true, Tom thought sadly, especially as he’d got the suspicion that Andy had only chosen to cut himself off because somebody had done something to hurt him.
After one last look at the farm, Tom sat back down to work on another wooden animal. He’d have to be extra nice to him from now on, he decided. Now that he'd been paid he could suggest they go to the pub or see a film or something one evening. It would be nice, Tom thought happily, wood shavings starting to fall again. He just hoped Andy would say yes.
Part 9 http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/219055.html
NOTE.
I know that in the previous part what Tom appeared to say was that he was a naturist ie he takes his clothes off, rather than a naturalist. This was him using the wrong word.