There, Wolf [4/13]

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

Title: There, Wolf
Rating: teen
Characters: Gwen, Ianto, Jack, PC Andy
Spoilers: post-Exit Wounds
Advisories: 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: ...Argh. At least I have an idea how long this will be now...



**********

Andy wasn't that bad as a trainee agent. Okay, the mainframe seemed to have some sort of grudge against him and he couldn't aim a gun for beans, but he had a copper's head on his shoulders, after all, patient and thorough and, well, dogged in his pursuit of the facts of a situation. Just look at how he'd approached his own problem, drilling deep through a pile of truly awful films and books in some hope of scenting out glimmers of real folk memories behind the folklore. (Even that one with Jason Bateman that nobody ever admitted to sitting all the way through voluntarily.) If he was here as much to be subject as actor, well, easy enough to overlook that for the sake of having the help...

And so twenty-eight days went by, one after the other, crescent to dark to crescent until the afternoon when Gwen's mobile woke her from a kip with Creedence Clearwater Revival to remind her of the time. As if any of them really needed Ianto's tongue-in-cheek prompts of what day this was. Or what night.

They'd arranged one of the more conveniently-located cells for Andy's comfort, fitted out as best any of them could think of to contain a large, clever, and not entirely sane animal in style; Second month I chewed up my iPod, he'd explained sheepishly when Gwen had held up one of the more colourful rubber objects from a shopping expedition curiously. Well, she reckoned he'd know better what the wolf-mind would consider entertaining. And it would probably be dreadfully tedious, to be a natural hunter penned up in a space only a few metres square for the whole of that night. Couldn't really begrudge him the squeaky lobster.

He stood in the doorway of that cell now, surveying his home for the next few hours as a mobile in Ianto's pocket tootled the same few bars of Blue Moon over and over until Jack slipped a hand in to pat it into quiet. "Better than spending the night trying to stay out of the way of Animal Welfare. Not that I should be thinking about ever having kids, now, but... you know."

From the politely frozen expressions on Jack and Ianto, they were certainly following. "Yeah. So. You want us to hang around for this, or should we just let you get on with it and come get you in the morning?"

Andy turned back as the cell door closed behind him, blushing, as if he'd not really thought this bit through. "Well, erm, I mean, if you'd want to watch, I wouldn't... Since it's for science."

"We can go over the tapes later if you'd rather," Ianto offered diplomatically, looking as if he were desperately hoping to hear a sure, later. "Unless you'd like the company."

"Dunno, I've never... changed in front of anyone before. Dunno if it would be better or worse if someone were there with me. It might. I think."

"I'll stay," Gwen said, laying her hand against the plastic window.

Andy gave her a pathetically grateful smile. And blushed deeper: "Erm, I need to have my kit off for it."

"We'll leave you kids to it," Jack said with a smirk. Ianto was already halfway to the stairs, hard even to tell if he was running from or towards --

"They're going up for a shag," Andy said, muffled as he pulled off his shirt.

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd noticed," Gwen teased, leaning against the doorway and trying not to watch as Andy unbuttoned his trousers.

"Hard to miss when you have the nose of a wolf." He looked a bit doleful about his own plans for the evening. "Jack's scent is, I dunno, I'm glad it's only a few days out of the month, he's very distracting to be around. Not sure if I want to jump him or sick up."

Gwen had to laugh; "I don't think he gets that second one very often. Leave it to a werewolf to be allergic to the charms of the great Captain Harkness."

And Jack would probably have had a regret or two about what he was missing, she thought as Andy finished his striptease and settled down to wait for the moonrise. Life as a part-time wolf seemed to have its benefits, he'd been fit enough as a copper but those legs had been running down some real rabbits lately. His arms, too. He had an impressive pelt on him as it was, dirty-blond curls as thick on his chest as his head. Gwen wondered what the first sign of the transformation beginning was; so far he was just standing there, covering himself with his hands and actually looking more bored than embarrassed, as if any moment now he was going to forget and check the watch he wasn't even wearing --

The films had it wrong. It wasn't sudden, it was subtle, deeper and deeper breaths until Andy was trembling in every muscle, heaving as if his lungs could never again bring in enough air to fuel the fire sparking within. But they'd been right about one thing. The pain. Being reshaped cell by cell would hurt, enough to drive one down to hands and knees with a whimper on every exhale, each sharper than the one before as bones melted and warped beneath skin shrouding itself demurely in a blanket of coarsening down -- Gwen pressed her palms flat to the glass and watched, just watched, witnessed, for him, until gasping screams became full-throated howls, and, finally, lying exhausted upon the heavy rag-rug...

Not quite a wolf, as Gwen's recollection of nature programmes went; Andy might have passed for a very, very large dog, to people who'd see only what they expected to see, some unholy mix of deerhound and alsatian and the slightest mad touch of golden retriever somewhere in it all. The eyes, though. The eyes were far too intelligent for an ordinary animal. And there was something wrong about the front feet, just a little too long and slender of digit to be entirely convincing as paws...

The werewolf rose shakily to all fours and a wet black nose snuffled into an airhole in the plastic, scenting for her. Gwen squatted down on her haunches to look into those strange eyes, startling grey of fine Welsh slate against the dirty-blond fur -- "No, erm, you'll have to stay in there, I'm afraid. Good... Good boy."

With a loud sigh Andy flopped down with his chin on his paws and started gnawing at a nylon bone, looking every bit as sulky as his human self. And the bottom teeth just that little bit crooked, the same as -- Gwen pressed a hand to her mouth and realised that she was weeping.