justprompts: Confession is good for the soul.
They speak of Death as though it were a seductress; a warm kiss, elicited effortlessly, and the soul is led gently away from its harbor. In reality, the soul is purged violently, wrenched away, clinging to the ribs, hiding against the lungs, begging the heart to cull its strength and pulse once more. Just once. Remember the sound, the symphony, the cacophony of rhythms in tandem, all working together to sustain life, lingering when the last voice has been hushed. When it retreats, Death leaves behind an abominable chill, tainting perception.
Cold means an absence of warmth, of life. His body temperature is so much lower than a human's, it would be expected that these things could happen occasionally. The Doctor simply wishes it might have happened some other time. Not now, not when ghosts manifest in corporeal form, alongside the living who are soon to be dead.
The man is a regrettable casualty, one of the few lost to the alien virus before he had time to stop its spread. He'd been able to reverse the effects in the newly infected, but this man was one of the first. The first to contract it, the last to die. The Doctor hovers uncertainly above the man's body, internally wincing at the green tint of his skin, his struggle to breathe. He has but one small measure of comfort left to give, so he reaches his hand out, his fingers resting on the man's temples to ease him into unconsciousness until the unseen thief of breath, familiar to every species, decides to mercifully remove his self from his body.
The man swats the Doctor's hand away violently.
“You're him. You're going to take me away!”
“Him?” The Doctor questions.
“Death.”
“No, no, you're mistaken--”
“You're cold.”
If he hadn't just seen his old friend-enemy, a mere few days ago, he would have been far calmer. But whenever he meets the Master, no matter the time between encounters, he smothers his very existence, for worse or better. He sees the Master, and his hearts tremble for days, caught between right and wrong, impossibility and reality. He forgets he shouldn't use his hearts when it comes to that man, shouldn't allow them to be touched. There are still some things beyond his own control. He shouldn't worry about Death brushing near him.
If we fight like animals, we die like animals. His words echo between other images, blemishing, manipulating, steadying, and destroying, briefly, all strength in certainties.
When they were just boys--
“I'm not him,” the Doctor says, suddenly. He could mean Death, he could mean--
“But you feel like him, you look like you could...couldn't you be him?”
The Doctor pauses too long for comfort before replying quietly, laconically, “No.”
The man shakes with chill, his body anticipating what's to come. “Then who are you?”
They were boys, very young, and he might have believed anything then. He might have been afraid, once, when Koschei was ill, that he wouldn't live. That was before he knew things, when his mind was so new, untainted by loss. He realizes he hasn't stopped worrying, even--
No, of course he doesn't. It's absurd.
But he does.
Perhaps?
“I'm the Doctor. I'm very sorry I couldn't make your acquaintance earlier,” the Doctor finally redirects his attention, eyes ever doleful.
“Who're you thinking about?”
That a dying man should ask such a thing causes him untold grief, but he attempts a smile. Koschei (Master...) once held his hand, their palms pressed together to line up the creases in their skin; a childhood game, a silly wish, a thing that would never last. He knows the folly in promises now, but he was so much warmer, then, so much lighter.
Like that, like that. Just like that. Can you feel it?
What?
I can feel it. I can feel your heartsbeat.
“Perhaps you ought to rest,” the Doctor says, trying to press his fingers to the man's temples again.
“I'm dying, aren't I?”
Can you feel it?
The Doctor's fingers pause in mid-air, contemplating how he should answer. Death is imminent, it would be unfair to lie. And he's told so many lies now, it's harder to siphon through and remember who he really is.
“Yes.”
“Then who're you thinking about?”
The Doctor almost sighs, almost remarks that it's an unnecessary question, that it's personal and involved. But the man is dying, and perhaps he can take the words with him, tuck them in a velvet pocket between a nebula and a lonely cluster of stars, and somehow make them known. Even if only the universe hears, and not the one person within it who, perhaps, should, it will mean something.
“An old friend,” the Doctor says.
“Why?”
“I saw him recently.”
“You miss him?”
“Not particularly,” the Doctor breathes out.
A lie? It must be, because the one thing he shouldn't feel, he does. He shouldn't worry about him, even just a slight bit. Shouldn't wonder about him, think about him, or even ponder memories long past. But he does.
“But he's...do you love him?”
“No,” the Doctor answers quickly.
“You...hate him?”
“No,” he responds, with equal ferocity.
Can you feel it?
The man looks confused, and in his weakened state, sinks against his pillows. For the second time in less than ten minutes, the Doctor thinks how odd it is that a dying man should trouble himself with understanding an enigmatic alien and his complicated friendship with a man as equally doomed by Time as himself.
“Why're you thinking about him?” The man finally asks, quietly, as he shuts his eyes in pain.
Can you feel it?
No.
“Because I lied,” the Doctor confesses, brushing his thumb across the man's forehead and easing him into unconsciousness.
There is an extra set of pulses, not his own, like a phantom touch against his hand, an echo in his hearts, and the day they disappear, something essential in him ceases.
Muse: Seventh Doctor
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 1,065
Notes: Meant to take place almost immediately after Survival; the Doctor/Master relationship fascinates me, and I haven't written anything about it in a while, so this is my attempt at examining it a bit.