There, Wolf [5/13]

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

Title: There, Wolf
Rating: teen [language and sexual situations]
Characters: Gwen, Ianto, Jack, PC Andy
Spoilers: post-Exit Wounds
Advisories: crossover with Being Human; also if you think about the werewolf thing a little too hard, um... yeah, but not on-screen
Disclaimer: I am apparently a very silly person at this hour

Summary: Torchwood has adopted a stray...

Note: Muse is apparently much more in the mood to chew on the furniture ATM, but at least it means this might be over sooner rather than later...



**********

The truly horrible part of it all was how quickly it came to seem almost normal that time was now measured out by that one night every fourth week, how they could have become accustomed enough themselves to the cycles of the moon even to disable most of Ianto's rubbish alarms. The wolf pitched the occasional tantrum, managing to destroy nearly everything in his cell one month when Gwen had taken off ill for that evening, but on the whole Andy's condition wasn't any more trouble than the average Torchwood employee could manage to be when one of them put their mind to it. Less bother than Owen had been, at times.

Although the bit where this one-sided conversation didn't seem to be taking place into an earpiece was... new, even for here. "So you're a twat and a rubbish poltergeist, last time you made her cry she locked me out of my email for a week... I'm not your bloody relationship counsellor --"

"Andy?" He looked up at Gwen as if she'd caught him out chewing on an old shoe. "You can't be losing it already, I was next in the queue for a breakdown. Ianto's got me down in his diary for next Thursday."

He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in mad spikes like the wolf's shaggy coat. "Oh, ah, erm... Did I mention that the Hub seems to be haunted?"

Gwen considered this. "Actually I'd be more surprised if it weren't, I think. Who by, are you seeing anyone in particular?"

He looked really uncomfortable now, as if he'd rather have been dismissed outright. "Lots of people. Most of them just ignore me, but this one keeps wanting his desk back."

"...Owen?"

It couldn't, they'd never even met, but Andy was looking straight at the spot where the medic's face would have been if he'd been leaning in to harass whoever had usurped his chair, like she'd seen him do to Jack or Ianto or herself a thousand times before... Mam always did say that dogs could see ghosts. "Right, mate, you are a tosser," the constable said to the stretch of empty air with a sour face. "No, but I can, and that's just bloody -- Oi!"

"I don't want to know, do I."

Andy shook his head, plain from his look that he was certainly experiencing something that had her late colleague down well enough to do a convincing impression, if nothing else. "No, it's because, unlike you, I have some consideration for her feelings," he addressed the phantasm sternly, and then glanced back at the monitor he'd apparently been trying to get some work done on, which had just broken up into blittering static; "Shit, and there's her messing this about again, I'll have to sort it from home later."

Well, and it only made sense that Tosh would be haunting the mainframe. Or... whatever. "My boss-sense is tingling with the sound of people not working and not getting frisky with each other either, guys," Jack said from the doorway of his office.

"Oh, it's nothing, really, Andy's just been sat here talking to Owen's ghost for the last half hour."

Ianto had worked at Torchwood far too long, Gwen sometimes thought. He'd barely even looked up from his clipboard. "Is this a talent we could use out in the field, or just something rubbish like detect annoying bastards, three-metre radius?"

There was a pause as Andy appeared to be listening. "He says he used to watch you and Jack shagging but he got bored of it because you're both crap anyway."

"Detect bastards, then. Well, it was worth a thought --"

Jack's expression was that of the rational man who'd just been hit with the dawning realisation that his entire staff was Welsh enough to really clap for Tinkerbell. "Not to interrupt fairy-story night, but why is he even still up here?"

"Moonrise isn't till quarter to nine --"

Ianto looked to his watch, shaking his head. "It's half eight now. Summer time started Sunday."

Leave it to Owen to get the rest of them killed being a distracting prat from beyond the grave. Andy pushed back from the workstation in a panic, chair spinning wildly and crashing down the steps of the old autopsy room. Bolting for the safety of the cells, stumbling to the concrete as shifting bones began to betray him --

"Don't you dare, Jack Harkness!" Gwen gasped, catching at Jack's arm as he sighted along the barrel of his Webley.

"He had me put it into his contract, Gwen. If he endangers anyone, including us --"

She couldn't doubt it, it was exactly the chillingly sensible thing that Andy would ask and Jack would see the logic in, but, this was Andy -- Gwen winced at a strangled gasp of Don't let me hurt her! Ianto had obviously leapt ahead to the conclusion that this counted him expendable, his own gun trained on the shuddering form. "Wait. Please."

"Get out of the way, Gwen."

"No. I can't, I can't let you..."

The wolf yipped and stood up in the pile of torn-off clothes, shaking a sock off his hind foot. Andy cocked his head at them, sniffing the air. A long pink tongue lolled from his mouth, considering Gwen --

And then he -- well, bounced over to knock her down with enormous paws on her shoulders, slobbering in her face like any silly old dog happy to see his...

Okay, she'd been sitting with him, talking to him, giving him chips through the airholes, but... all right, he did know them. Or at least he knew her. And from the way he was whuffling happily into her hair instead of, say, tearing her throat out, she was glad enough of it... But, oh, poor Andy.

Someone was sniggering. "It's not funny! Get him off!"

"I thought he was actually gonna start humping your leg." Jack had relaxed all in a rush, returning the Webley to its holster. "I mean, you can see he wants to even when he's --" Andy growled at the outreaching hand and Jack pulled back hastily. "Whoa, big guy. Looks like he's imprinted on you pretty good."

"I could have told you that before he was a werewolf." Gwen sighed, shoving at the furry bulk pinning her to the floor. Andy didn't seem to lose any mass at all in the transformation, which would explain a few things but wasn't much fun to find out by having the subject suddenly plop onto your torso. "Oi, could you -- Yeah, that's it, be a good Andy and --"

With a suspiciously doggy whuff the werewolf suffered himself to be parted from his prey. "So long as he hasn't already killed us all, maybe we should see how well he does out for a change," Ianto said speculatively as Gwen staggered to her feet. "Unless you want to be the one to try to get him downstairs now."

"No, I think that wolf's out of its pen for good." Gwen sat down heavily on the settee, trying to catch her breath. Andy hopped up and sprawled into her lap, fourteen stone of smelly fur wriggling to expose his belly for a good scratching. She grimaced and complied, trying not to think too hard about the fact that he still only had two nipples.

And that was how Gwen woke a few hours later, stiff-necked where her head had been drooping without support, although now it was fourteen stone of naked copper stretched out across her lap, snoring away blissfully. Emphatically naked copper, at that. Gwen felt her cheeks flaming. (Although that was... erm. A grower, then.) "Morning," Ianto remarked, venturing out from the safety of Jack's office with a slyly lifted eyebrow for the scene on the settee. "Good one, too, looks like."

Gwen made a rude gesture and Ianto beat a diplomatic retreat in the direction of coffee. Andy's snores had hitched as she shifted herself; now he opened his eyes with a sleepy murmur, hesitated, and pointed an inquiring finger in the general direction of his crotch as if he were rather afraid to look. Gwen nodded mutely. The oh-so-human face screwed up into an embarrassed wince. "Bugger. Sorry. This is really not how I'd... Never mind. I didn't disembowel you," he added wonderingly.

"No, you were a good dog." He snorted and sat up, dragging the blanket someone had draped round Gwen's shoulders in the night into his lap to cover himself. "Maybe... Maybe you have enough control over this now that you don't need to stay the whole night locked up once you've changed. So long as you're still somewhere you can feel safe?"

"Or with someone safe to look after me." Tentative grin growing brighter as she didn't say him no --

"You really seemed to like Gwen," Jack contributed, strolling out of his office looking a hell of a lot fresher than Gwen felt. "I thought we might have to start worrying about finding homes for the puppies."

Comic and awful, to hear a lupine whine escaping human lips. "I think sometimes it's meant as a blessing not to be able to remember what I do when I'm the wolf. Don't necessarily need to be reminded of it after."

"He's just being a bastard before coffee." Gwen glared over at Jack. He only grinned and tossed her Andy's change of clothes.