King of the Weevils

Snail mail goes here.

Owen's been dreading the day more than most others.

And no, it's got nothing to do with the fact that it's Valentine's Day. The red and pink decorated stores with their giant paper hearts and candy displays have been an afterthought for him, these days.

His birthday, however, isn't. Owen's perfectly aware that he shouldn't get another one of these. It's the third one he's gotten so far, in Darrow and every year, it's a reminder of that night he was shot, of waking up on an exam table with the glove pressed to his head and Jack standing over him.

Loads of them shouldn't be here, but Owen more than most.

He should be grateful for it. Most of the time, he is. But other times, times like today, the last thing he wants is to even think about it.

Lucky for him, he's got something to keep his mind off it.

He's buried himself in work at The Station, in tests he likely doesn't need to do on the Weevils. He knows they're not from Darrow, that they've traces from somewhere else he won't be able to pinpoint— at least not until someone else from his own dimension turns up, and he's pretty sure he's always going to be shit out of luck when it comes to that— but there's still more to work out.

And he's been thinking about running tests on them, on the KIRIN pill Faye slipped him a while back.

But it's all busy work. He's not out, saving lives. Not today. Today, he's keeping his head down.

That is, at least, until he heads out for coffee mid-day. He's out of grounds for the coffeemaker at The Station, and thinks it's probably easier to just go out for a cup. He's always hated making the coffee anyway.

But what happens at the coffeeshop, he hates even more. It's his own fault for signing up for one of their membership cards on a whim months back. He's handed it over and is pulling a few dollars out of his wallet when the woman behind the till speaks up.

"Hey! it's your birthday? Why didn't you say so? It's on the house," she says, and Owen pauses, for a moment considering paying for the cup anyway before he sighs and puts the bill away.

"Yeah. Right. Cheers," Owen says, wishing he'd just stayed in.

Another year of bollocks. Happy fucking birthday.

For someone looking to be alone for a while, the disappearance of most of the residents of the city would seem like a bit of a godsend. But truthfully, Owen never feels more alone than when he's in a crowd of strangers, and the quiet of the city a week and a half ago had done nothing but leave Owen with thoughts he'd been trying to drown out.

It isn't that he's surprised that Tosh is gone. He's seen enough people come and go between Cardiff, the island and Darrow that he's come to expect it, these days. There's no telling how long someone's going to be around, before the whims of the dimension or some other inconsequential bollocks. It happens, and there's not a thing any of them can do about it.

Owen's already had it out with this city over the past few weeks. He's shouted, he's thrown things, he's spent an entire afternoon trying to understand Tosh's security system so he can revoke security codes. Newt's, Faye's, even Tosh's. If she ever turns up again, it won't be the same. That much, he's almost certain of.

Funny, what you can count on and what you can't in this dimension, isn't it?

He's spent much of the day in his flat with a bottle of scotch, and only leaves it when the bottle's gone empty, his vision not quite blurred as much as he'd like. A few years ago, and this would be about the time he'd find a bar and a woman to bring home, but instead, just the bottle will do.

Owen's stumbling back home with a new bottle now, intent on not speaking to another person for another few weeks if he can manage it, when he passes an alley-- it's always the fucking alleys, isn't it?-- and a man, surrounded by a pool of what looks like blood.

Owen's got his own problems, his own bollocks to deal with, but he doesn't have to think before he's rushing in, dropping his bottle to shatter in its bag on the asphalt as he goes to check that the man's alive. It's... more blood than it looked like from further away. The man's throat's been torn out in a way that's more familiar to Owen than it ought to be, and there's steam rising from the wound, warmth from a rapidly cooling body meeting the cold air of the night.

He checks anyway, the man's pulse in his wrist, for signs of breath.

It's too late.

"Shit," Owen swears. It's not the sort of thing he blames himself for anymore, but he still can't help but think what might've happened if he'd been a few minutes earlier. The man hasn't been dead long, by the looks of him, whatever creature's torn his throat out probably isn't too long gone. But he wouldn't have had his gun on him so what good would that have done?

He's trying to work out what to do next, whether to call the police or head back to The Station and call the police from there— he'll have to work out how to check CCTV for himself, how to go in and delete the saved recordings, that used to be Tosh's job— when he notices a glint of metal just at the end of the alley. It's out of place, polished, like it's been set there purposely.

There's no way Owen wouldn't recognize it, the box. It's the one they locked it away in before Suzie came back, before Jack had to destroy the glove to save Gwen's life. It shouldn't be here, and yet, there it is, as if it belongs there.

None of them belong there. Darrow shouldn't fucking exist in the first place.

It's a stupid idea, Owen knows, but he's already coming to his feet before he thinks not to, walking over to the box, where he finds the key on top. He opens it, lifts the metal glove out. It's the right one, which is probably for the best considering what happened when Jack used the left. He shouldn't be doing this in the first place, but it's a plus that Death isn't going to claw its way to Darrow.

But maybe it won't work on him at all. Last time, it didn't. Jack, Suzie and Gwen could manage it, but he never got so much as a twinge. Maybe this time... maybe this time, it'll be different. Maybe he's an idiot. Both are possibilities.

Owen's kneeling over the body, pulling the metal glove over one hand, and he doesn't hear approaching footsteps.

Christ, this was a bad idea.

He has to remind himself that it isn't human. It's a hostile creature, no matter how much it tries to convince him otherwise, or how long it takes Owen to get that fact to stick in his head. If he and Faye hadn't caught it, it would have killed a girl. One of these things wiped Tosh's memory and drank her blood.

With as many times over the past twenty-four hours as Owen has had the fleeting thought that what he's doing is no better than what they did at the Pharm, he's had to remind himself that this is different. Those were non-hostiles, for the most part, aliens who'd been kept alive and suffering for god knows how long.

This, however, is going to be quick.

He's already spent the last twenty-four hours with it in what will eventually be their new base of operations-- the shop's still a shop, so he can't risk the noise, even though the vampire's been mostly sedated-- and he's knackered. The past few hours, he's felt like he's been seeing double, and he's not entirely certain if it's adrenaline or exhaustion. But he's learned more than he thought he would from this. What they're capable of doing, their weaknesses, and something about an herb.

After the tenth hour, it'd broken, promising to give Owen all the information it needed just as long as he let it go, just as long as he let it feed. He'd agreed to it, even as he pushed the plunger on the syringe of sedative, right into its neck. He'd thought briefly about keeping it awake for this, but he does have his limits. It's been tortured enough and needs to be put out of its misery, but not before Owen figures out a few more things.

That first time, with Faye, there hadn't been time, and they hadn't been prepared for more than just killing it. They'd ended up cornered, and they'd been lucky. But now, Owen needs to know how these things work. It's not as if he can study a dead one, as in his experience, they don't tend to stay together very well once they've been staked through the heart or decapitated. But if he's going to find the one who did what it did to Tosh, he needs to be as informed as he can.

It's an autopsy, that's all. He's done hundreds of those.

Though usually, there's a lot less blood when he dissects corpses, a lot less movement of muscles and veins, contracting and retracting involuntarily. Christ, it's fascinating. Hours later, his gloves are covered in it, sticky and crimson, and there's a buzzing in his veins. The vampire's splayed out on the exam table still, ribs cracked open, insides laid bare, and it's still alive.

At least, until Owen finds the stake.

He walks up from the lower level of the station, pulling off his gloves, and collapses into a chair. This'll all be worth it in the end, he's sure. It has to be.

It's the third weevil they've found in Darrow. Not that three weevils is a lot-- not for them, not after Cardiff and Copley it's not-- but considering what they've got to work with, their equipment, their space... catching and trapping them creatures is a less than ideal situation. As it is, they'll have to double this one up with June or Agatha until they've completely moved everything to the station.

And Owen doesn't even want to think about how they're going to move them once it comes to it.

It's not until they've already subdued the creature with an improved version of Weevil spray that Owen stops to take a breath, frowning as he looks over at Tosh.

"We really need to get an SUV," he says, and even though he knows why they don't have one, it doesn't stop him being aggravated about it.

Getting the Weevil from the alley they're in and back to the shop is going to be a real bitch.

Owen doesn't head straight home from Semele's. The truth is, he never knows what to do when he's there these days. He doesn't watch television, and he hasn't brought any work home with him recently to look over. From either of his jobs, so there's not much for him to do other than sleep and he's not tired yet.

So he walks for a bit, enjoying the night air on the way home, and even when he gets there, he grabs a beer from the fridge and sits on his balcony. Not that he had any expectations for tonight, but it hasn't turned out remotely like he thought it might.

[Continued from here]

For a moment, he's struck by how bold Tosh seems compared to the last time— the only time, really— that they've done this. Not that they were fumbling teenagers on New Year's Eve, but it wasn't like this in the least. Not that Owen thinks it's a bad thing. Besides, Tosh has got good tits.

One hand against her hip, he brings up the other to her breast as she kisses him. He thinks that he might still have a condom somewhere in his wallet, but is torn between wanting to check and wanting to stay right where he is for now.

It's late and Owen can't sleep.

That's not exactly unusual for him— he hasn't been able to manage more than a few hours a night since Copley and since the darkness— but somehow he suspects it's for a different reason tonight. They're all feeling frayed at the edges here, and every day that goes by without any progress toward getting back home or getting back to Darrow at the very least leaves them more and more frustrated.

Well, he can't really speak for Jack, but he knows he's fucking angry at this whole thing, and after today and the public shelter, he's sure Tosh has got to be as well. It's why he's found himself at the door to her room after they've all supposedly turned in for the night, though he's not sure if she's still awake.

"Tosh?" he says, a bit quiet, and he knocks on the door.

"Which way?" he asks, instead of giving her an actual answer. But it's the best idea she's had in ages, and that's really saying something.

It'd be a lie for him to say he's wanted this for some time now; while casually considering sex with your coworkers may as well be a national pastime, this isn't something he ever seriously considered until he was already dead. Until there wasn't really much chance of it at all.

Seems somewhat ridiculous now that he never considered someone that'd been right in front of him for years.

[Continued from here.]

It's not exactly a well-known fact, much like just about everything that he and Tosh do in the basement of the shop, but they've been keeping track of the city's residents. Really, it's been Tosh, since she's the one who's good with computers, but from time to time, Owen checks in on the numbers. Mostly, he's concerned with how many of them there are: the ones who think they've lived in the city their entire lives.

Lately, however, it's been because people have started to go missing. If they were in Cardiff, this sort of thing would be easier to track, but Owen's noticed that Darrow works a lot like the island did: shifts in dimensions without much of an origin to speak of.

In short, it's fucking frustrating.

"Another one today," Owen says, and frowns, looking at his screen. And it's not even their own numbers he's looking at, it's a missing person's report.