Author Notes: I have never written a Die Hard fic before. In fact, I usually write for manga/anime series. But I must confess that this plot has been eating away at my brain for the last week or so, since I rewatched the movie not so long ago. I've read/love quite a few in this category and didn't think I would have the courage to post on my own. I let a good friend of mine read what I had so far and they were delighted with it, so I'm going to give it a go on here.
While I love the Hans rescues girl from dangerous situation (believe me, I'm addicted) stories, I wanted to offer up a fairly unique scenario for your reading pleasure. I realize this probably isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, so I ask that if you do not like it for the idea, please don't leave a review flaming it.
But for those of you who like things of a darker nature, I would like to explain. No, I did not get the idea from Twilight. In fact, I've been reading a lot of Kelley Armstrong books (her Women of Otherworld series has me addicted) and it sort of got me to thinking. While I like vampires (trust me on this - the majority of my current reading is vampires and such) I have always liked werewolves too. When I heard Florence + The Machine's song Howl, I felt inspired (even if the song isn't directly about werewolves).
But what to use it for?
It was late one night and I was watching Die Hard for around what seems like the millionth time when it dawned on me. Hans is my favorite character (Alan Rickman could read the phone book and I would so be drooling on myself - mmm that voice!) and the ending always makes me mad (naturally!). So what if he survived the fall? This led me to thinking of possibilities to make it work. He would have to be less than human right? Well, one theory anyway.
And so this fic was born.
I haven't worked so hard on a story in a long time. School usually gobbles up all my time. Anyway, I'm rambling and you're probably wondering if there is a story here or just a bunch of notes. I will admit now that I've changed some of the rules of werewolves (reinvented them so to say...). I have a plan for this. The journal entries also have a point and plan later. Since much isn't known about him (I'm even reading the book the movie was based on) I've taken some liberties with his life before the Nakatomi building.
So please enjoy. Positive reviews please!
Summary: Hans Gruber should have been a dead man. Instead, he finds that he is not only alive, but very much improved. There is just one tiny problem. He's not quite human. Now he has to figure out how to control the raging beast within, while tracking down the only person who can help, before the next full moon or else he might destroy more innocent lives. Hans/OC
Set just after the end of the movie.
Rating: M due to slight violence, sexual situations, some disturbing imagery, and slight gore. Reader discretion is advised. Under 17, you have been warned. Particular senstive parts are marked with (*) if you would like to skip.
Disclaimer: I do not own Die Hard or its associated characters. I do own characters that will appear later and will be marked within the disclaimer and author's note as such. I give credit for the title of the story and the two lines of lyrics mentioned at the beginning to Florence + The Machine. The plot is from my own twisted and sinister mind.
Howl
Chapter One: Solitary
***
If you could only see the beast you've made of me
I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free
-Howl by Florence + The Machine
***
Redell's Guidebook:
I'm not what you would call an average girl during any decade. Trust me, I have lived through several more than I should have.
But it just isn't fair! I am outcast, even without my little problem.
People are afraid of my youthful appearance!
I really fail to see it though. I feel decades older than I look. Twenty-somethings in this age are supposed to fail, believe it or not! Or at least not know as much as I do.
Once again, I didn't think before I opened my mouth. I said too much and gave myself away.
So I've had to leave this section of London for now. I'll head for my native Germany for a visit perhaps.
Ever since the first change many moons ago, instinct takes over. I never was able to control my tongue well…
Exactly what landed me with this disease eating me alive slowly, over vast decades?
Sometimes instinct takes over before I realize it and I found I have spread the disease even further, to someone new, some unsuspecting lover no matter how attached I get to them since they're so few and far between…
Then I have to run again. Running running running, always running. Always hiding.
But alas, I find myself rambling once more.
Should this prove important to anyone I have left behind, I am one of the many afflicted with lycanthropy. I make it sound like a cancer. But for all it's worth, it might as well be.
Once a month I am forced by the polluted blood to change into a no-holds-barred beast of eternal suffering and pain, unable to control myself when I run all over, chasing prey that my brain insists my body needs.
Pros: I keep my twenty-something appearance well. It's like my skin was tattooed this way, tattooed over the wolf within. I have incredible strength outside of wolf form, speed in wolf form. I never get cold; in fact it's like summer all the time. My eyesight is beyond perfect, even in the dark. Sex is excellent by the way. Wounds heal quickly, like within seconds, though gross. Nothing changes.
Cons: Nothing about me changes. I kill things and can do nothing about I, though there might be something to help. I live forever; unable to take my life, not that I haven't tried over the decades… That whole silver bullet thing, yeah, such a lie, let me tell you… But that's only because no one has found anything different to try. I infect people and cannot stop myself. I have to be away from everyone I love, not that they're alive now anyway…
And if you are reading this, you've been thrown into my world…
***
Hans Gruber was a dead man.
Well he should have been.
He had fallen x number of stories hadn't he?
But he could hear sirens close by, even without the super sensitive hearing he had found was developing over the last month. It was just like his vision. He found he was able to see much further away and in the dark. The slightest cuts healed quickly, like magic.
He felt invincible. But he didn't believe in magic. He believed in logic.
Every bone in his body had to have been broken right? But he found his hand reaching for his face, checking for damage. His mind screamed impossibility and yet, it was easy to believe he could have survived after all.
It was easy because he could think of no other explanation, like a child accepting simple truths.
So he sat up.
No pain trickled through, even when he stood and began walking away. There was so much chaos on the ground, with the police milling around other places. It would take them a few minutes to realize what was going on up top.
And Hans disappeared.
It just seemed like a good idea at the time, but it must have been his body in shock. Ever in control it seemed. His mind slowly shutting down…
***
The faint prickling of palms tickled his nose, the flesh wrinkling against its intrusion. He could smell a hundred other things he couldn't identify right away. Instinct told him they were not important, but his human mind clicked on and he sat up.
Hans found himself in a remote location, probably miles from where the Nakatomi building was supposed to be. But he did not feel tired, or at least as tired as he should have felt walking all that way.
In fact, he wasn't sure exactly where he had ended up.
The air was cool, but not freezing, reminding him that he was probably still at least on the West Coast, presumably California. It was just cold enough for a light coat. He was sitting on a quaint bench located in an abandoned shopping center. Palm trees lined the road nearby, with a residential area just beyond it.
So where the hell did that put him?
The suit he had taken such care to pick out was ruined beyond repair. He recalled that it had been rather pricey, something he would have rather not travelled in; His shoes, the comfortable Italian leather ones, missing.
One hand mussed his hair while he tried to survey the damage done; Nothing broken, just shredded clothing.
But what did that mean?
He remembered the building, John McClane, and walking away. His vision was sharp and his hearing sensitive. He spotted a group of teenagers walking further away than the average human being should have been able to see.
Should he ask them for help?
His Anglo-German accent could be lost for a decent American one at the drop of a hat. While he contemplated, he rubbed his face with his hands, only to find them covered in flakes of dried blood.
Hans began to check more furiously, like a man possessed, trying to figure out exactly where the source was so that he could stop it. Much to his horror however, he found it to be mostly around his mouth. A cursory search with his tongue proved all his teeth inside of his head.
He glanced up at the full moon.
Clips and flashes of his last few nights came back to him, burning through his brain like wildfire. The sharp, tang of blood, the stench of the city, nature intertwined all mingled with a lower eye level; Teeth tearing soft flesh, delighting in the exhilaration of the kill.
Was he finally going mad?
He held his head, a violent wave of nausea consuming him. He was quietly sick on the other side of the bench.
Something was horribly wrong. Something more wrong than surviving a multiple story fall.
Hans Gruber was a changed man.
His hands shook with a fury he didn't know he possessed, as he felt his bones crunch, the muscles tearing away. His simple human flesh took on patterns as it stretched tighter than a drum. He wondered vaguely who was screaming, then remembered he was all alone.
It was like a raging fire spreading under his skin. His fingers tried to tear at his body, trying to find purchase as they changed shape. He had to be hallucinating, a sure sign of impending madness. But the pain felt real enough as he writhed on the harsh asphalt.
The little bits of ragged clothing he had been swathed in lay scattered around him as his face changed shape, the bones stretching and becoming a muzzle. His flesh itched as soft fur rose to the surface.
Everything seemed slightly larger as his arms melted to front and hind legs. Thumbs became dew claws and rough pads. His spine lengthened to form a rather large tail, the impulse to wag it harder to control.
Organs finished their shifting and melding while he fought to remain conscious. Had the changes before been this painful? This surreal?
No wonder his mind had shut off several days in row.
Everything was so inviting. He could smell blood and meat not so far away. It was still fresh, still moving. His gums were already salivating with the thought of the hunt.
But Hans did not want to surrender his will to the wishes of the beast.
He could feel its instincts tugging, shaping his own. He snarled helplessly, his paws moving on their own. He wondered where the beast could smell meat from. There had been nothing in sight before his body began morphing, just a bunch of teens.
The teenagers.
His mind balked with horror, his control slipping. The beast leaped for the chance and began running in leaps and bounds, eager for the meal. Its powerful muscles rippled under the black fur, power gathering in the foreign limbs as it neared its destination.
(*)
Hans watched, powerless as the first teenager, a young woman was grasped in his jaws, her blood covering his muzzle. The beast howled with delight from the sharp tang but Hans wished he could throw up.
The other teenagers were screaming, two more girls, and three guys. The beast snarled, already knowing the girl was dead. He would come back for her later. There was so much to taste already, while the hunt was still fresh.
He tried to control the urges, to make the beast stop, or at least redirect its attention back to the dead girl, spare the rest a most certainly violent death. But there was nothing he could do. No matter how hard he tried, the beast would not relent.
He wished he were able to shut off his mind, like he had before, so that he wouldn't see the resulting carnage he was creating. It was a veritable blood bath, the beast not stopping until all of the teenagers were in pieces. This explained the blood around his mouth from earlier.
Hans had never felt so powerless before. It frustrated him, his fury mixing with that off the animal. He just wanted to throw it all back up, to stop this monster within him. The horrible images continued to blaze behind his eyes, the stench of death and murder.
(*)
He had killed people before naturally, in fact, just a few nights ago. It was a way of eliminating enemies, but only as a last option. He did not revel in the pleasure gained from taking another life though, not like this animal.
Things killed to survive, that was how the world worked. There was always someone higher up on the food chain. But this wolf, this thing, had killed six teenagers, mostly because it enjoyed it.
Hans fought for control once more. He had some when the change first happened, because he stopped the tail from working, at least for a moment. He was able to force the paws to change slight direction, so the blood wasn't quite as strong here.
He knew he should be getting away; the cops or someone was bound to be along any minute. He had fallen from a building several nights ago; getting shot would just be too much.
The wolf glanced at the sky, noting the changing color he headed for a clump of bushes on the outskirts of the park to begin the excruciatingly painful morphing.
He wasn't sure he would ever get used to this process as his body became his own again. The scraps of his suit had completely disappeared, leaving him completely exposed. Hans knew he should feel the chilly air, but steam was pouring off his skin.
He couldn't control his breathing right away, lying chest heaving on the freezing grass, trying to decide what to do.
He knew he was going to have to find some clothing first, from somewhere. He wasn't against stealing some out of a nearby store. Nothing would be open for hours yet. But he would have to clean off some of the blood. There was no point in stealing clean clothes if he was going to get them dirty right away.
He figured there wasn't much point in eating, sure that some of the mutilated teenagers hadn't digested. Hans couldn't bring himself to throw up, no matter how hard he tried. His body refused to fall for it a second time that day.
But what was he going to do after that?
He sure as hell couldn't return to the Nakatomi building, though he figured most of the trouble had blown over. Did Theo get away or was he behind bars? Hans knew if anyone survived, it would probably be him. Before he made the great fall, he knew Theo was alive, as it seemed just about everyone else had died.
More people dead on his account, this time his own men. He felt a slight pang of regret. All of that work, those valuable lives, the money, wasted because the off duty cop somehow managed to get the upper hand.
If everyone had just cooperated, no one would have had to die. He didn't understand exactly what made people rebel, though he knew pride and such played an important part with a number of other factors.
Trying to compose himself as much as his situation allowed, Hans rose from the ground and headed as far away from the carnage. There was little he could do, though he felt terrible, except to flee the scene and hope their families were spared the awful sight.
***
He was able to pick a lock on a secondhand shop in a nearby strip mall. It had been years since he had actually opened a door that way. In a reminiscent way, it felt good to be doing his own dirty work after all this time.
He was careful to stick to the few shadows and make do with the available materials. He found some pieces of metal to bend around to work the door open. It had a poor lock anyway, just as he had figured.
Using the staff bathroom, he quickly freshened up, trying to leave no trace of blood on any of the surfaces. Not that it probably would have mattered in this bathroom, covered in rust with its dingy porcelain, with bare peeling walls.
Venturing forth into the rest of the store, he was able to find suitable casual clothes; jeans, a dark sweater, shoes, etc. He would have to worry about changing his face later along with money. He wouldn't normally wear clothes like these, especially secondhand, but he had no alternative for the time being. He tried not to feel too disgusted.
He snuck out the back before the owners showed up, but not before he discovered just exactly where he was and what had been going on the last few days. Whoever worked behind the counter read the paper daily and couldn't be bothered with recycling.
John McClane was a hero naturally. Hans felt bile rise in his throat, but he held it back and continued flipping. The Nakatomi building would be closed for some time, naturally of course, though it looked like his wife would be taking over temporarily.
It listed his dead comrades, or the one or two that had been caught and placed behind bars. Theo was listed as being arrested and awaiting court. They had not found his body, well because he was still using it, but figured it had been buried beneath some debris.
That would work in his favor. No one would believe that he survived. They were not looking for him alive. Excellent. Getting out of the country would be slightly easier, because that was his next step. Hans knew he would have had to leave anyway, had it ended any other way.
But he couldn't do it without money at least, and Theo's help. He was going to have to spring Theo from jail. Hans knew he would have to come up with some clever plan for that, testing the limits of his newfound abilities.
He skimmed through the rest of the papers. Four days had passed since his fall. New Years would be arriving soon and the moon cycle was almost complete. How long would his changes last? He figured the four days he couldn't exactly account for were due to the Change.
He also deduced from the newspapers reporting the horrible mutilations discovered around the general area of the Nakatomi building. The paper, mercifully spared the pictures of the damage, but he knew it was carefully recorded somewhere in his brain.
He wished he knew more about his condition, like where it had come from for starters.
He tried to recall anything he knew about werewolves as a boy, staying up watching monster movies or reading comics. Even later in life going to the cinemas. There was the definite moon connection and the craving for human flesh. But what about the indestructible framework that allowed him to survive?
How had lycanthropy been passed to him? Through a cut? Through a bite? Through sex? Or was it possible that he just possessed the right genes? Or was he slipping further into madness?
No, the change had been too painful, too real for it to be a product of his own designing.
The changes had been showing for a month now, before he left Germany to come to LA. He had just chalked them up to confidence in his ability to teach the corporation a lesson. As he detailed a list of his activities over the last month, he walked casually down the sidewalk, back towards where it all began.
He was halfway there before he realized someone who would know what was going on. Someone he had not considered initially, because of everything that happened. A woman.
Suddenly getting out of the country, back home, was deemed more important than anything else. It was a burning need so to say.
***
Author End Note: Like it? Please tell me if you would like more. I already have chapter two ready to go.