Title: Strange Magic
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Mick St. John
Fandom: Doctor Who/Moonlight
Rating: R
Table: DIY, 100_situations
Prompt: 88, Hallucinate
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Tenth Doctor or Mick St. John, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

The Doctor blinked, raising himself from the ground where he'd been thrown to the side when the two men he'd just seen fighting had gone at each other. He must have gotten a good bang on the head; surely he hadn't seen what he'd thought he had.

There was no such thing as vampires, he told himself, shaking his head to clear it. No, he'd just gotten a good crack to the skull, and it had made him hallucinate for a few moments. Maybe he'd even lost his hold on consciousness, though he didn't think so.

Surely he hadn't seen .... fangs. That wasn't possible -- not in this world, anyway. There were interstellar species that had fangs, but they wouldn't have made their way to Earth. Not in this time period, and certainly not here in Los Angeles.

He might expect to see something like that in Cardiff; it was always possible that creatures from other planets could have dropped into twenty-first century Earth via the Rift. But here? No, he couldn't have seen that. His mind was playing tricks on him.

Still, he wasn't given to having hallucinations, the Time Lord thought, frowning as he ran his hands over his suit, smoothing out the wrinkles. Straightening himself up to his full height, he ran a hand through his hair, then took a deep breath.

All right. Whatever had happened here was more than likely just a figment of his imagination, a strange hallucination caused by a blow to the head. Cautiously, he raised a hand to the back of his head, feeling for where he could have been struck ....

.... And found nothing. No lump, no blood, nothing. The Doctor frowned, his brow furrowed in perplexity as another thought formed in his mind. No, that wasn't possible. He refused to believe it -- unless he saw some absolute proof as to the truth of that idea.

There were no vampires. Not here on twenty-first century Earth. They only existed in bad novels written to appease the libidos of teenage girls with stars in their eyes and a skewered idea of how "real" relationships worked. Vampires weren't real.

The Time Lord sighed, running a hand over his face and closing his eyes. He didn't want to believe what his stubborn mind was telling him, but he was running out of other options. If vampires didn't exist here, then what the hell had he just seen?

He could have sworn that the man who'd come at him with outstretched hands and a strange gleam in his eyes had fangs. He'd only gotten one startled glimpse of his would-be attacker before he'd been tossed aside, flung to the ground like a rag doll.

And if he hadn't been mistaken, his rescuer had also sported fangs. He'd only gotten a quick glance at the man's face before they had both seemed to disappear, not in a flash of light, but in a chase so quick, so blindingly fast that his line of vision couldn't follow them.

Where had the two of them gone? And would either of them return? The Doctor highly doubted it; if they were enemies, which they had seemed to be, considering that one man had literally attacked the other, then they would more than likely take their battle to a more private hunting ground.

Their fight didn't involve him, the Doctor told himself, shoving his hands into his pockets and making his way out of the alley on shaky legs. He'd left the Tardis only a few streets away, and he would be glad to get back to her and get out of here.

Well, all right, so maybe the fight did involve him, in a way, he corrected himself. After all, the second fanged man had shown up to rescue him -- though he'd been pushed aside in a way that might have meant that the battle lines had already been drawn.

Maybe he had simply been used as bait by the first man, to make the second one come to him for a fight. The Time Lord shook his head again, wondering where these thoughts were coming from. They were far too fanciful, even for him.

He looked cautiously around him before he emerged from the alley, hoping that there weren't other people on the dimly lit street. There didn't seem to be anyone around; it was fortunate that the Tardis was close. He wouldn't have far to go before he reached the safety of his ship.

A soft moan from the alley next to the one that he'd just emerged from made him pause; a frown crossed his features as he took one hesitant step toward the sound. Would he just be getting himself into more trouble than he'd just narrowly escaped from if he investigated?

No, he had to go and look -- if only to satisfy his curiosity. There could possibly be someone lying there hurt, just as he might have been if that strange man who he could have sworn had fangs hadn't thrown him out of the way -- and then disappeared.

Slowly, cautiously, the Doctor made his way into the alley, wishing that the streetlights cast more illumination. He reached into the voluminous pocket of his coat, pulling out the sonic screwdriver and using it to light his way.

What the light revealed, only a few feet away from him, made him gasp in horror.

The man who had saved him from could have been a vicious attack lay on his back on the ground, gasping for breath -- and there was what appeared to be a large stake protruding from his chest. A stake that would have killed any human on the spot.

But .... this man wasn't dead. His hands were clasped around the stake, obviously trying to pull it from his chest -- a chest that was covered in blood. This man should, for all intents and purposes, have been dead from the moment that stake had been thrust into his body.

The Doctor ran forward, sinking to his knees beside the man. He wasn't sure of what he should do; it was incredible that this man was still alive, that his eyes were open and he was gasping for breath. How could he be human and still be alive?

The Time Lord's dark eyes widened in shock when the man's eyes focused on his face; was he going to hear the last words of a dying man, witness a human's last breath? It wouldn't be the first time, but somehow, he didn't think that was going to happen.

"Pull it out," the man gasped, his gaze seeming to burn into the Doctor's. "Pull it out!"

Closing his eyes, the Doctor took a deep breath and put both hands on the stake. He didn't have time to think if what he was doing was right; he jerked at the stake with all his strength, hoping that he could pull it free of the man's chest quickly.

The stake slid free much more easily than he'd expected it to; he'd overbalanced by preparing for it to be much more difficult to remove, falling over onto his side as he let go of the wooden stake and let it clatter to the concrete.

The Doctor's eyes met the strange man's again -- and what he saw made him want to scramble to his feet and run as fast as he could. The hole in the man's chest was closing as if it had never existed -- and he was sitting up and focusing his entire attention on the Doctor.

This was no hallucination. This was real -- or some kind of strange magic. And the man who was sitting on the ground in front of him, regarding him with a calm gaze, definitely did have fangs. Fangs that looked as though they could be dangerous.

The Time Lord looked around frantically, searching for a way out. There was none. This man was between him and the front of the alley -- and he was sure that he wasn't going to be allowed to simply walk out of here after what he'd seen.

***