FIC: Wasteland [DR WHO]
I’m so happy to be back with something other than memes! It’s so funny that this would be inspired by the “Dry” drabble contest at who_contest considering the fact that that’s how I’ve felt - dry of ideas, dry of inspiration - yet thirsting to write.
title Wasteland
author charlottetrips
genre & rating character study, PG
character The Doctor (Eleven or future)
word count 409
author’s note Written for the “Dry” drabble contest at who_contest. I’d already been mulling this particular aspect of the Doctor by the time “A Town Called Mercy” aired, but that episode just cinched it.
summary There was a reason why the Doctor rarely traveled without his companions.
He was left gasping on the floor of his console room, his mouth drinking nothing in but the cold bare air of his ship. His life had turned into a wasteland. What was it about being surrounded by other people, other bodies that helped keep that vital fluid of life running through his veins?
His last companion, his last friend had left. Just like the rest of them eventually had to leave. His hand made useless motions at his side, straining for the sonic screwdriver. He’d already tried moving his legs and found them unresponsive. His head could only tilt slightly to the side. He felt frustration and pain and anger well up in him.
Recriminations scorched with heat, their tears flooded his lungs, the disappointment pierced his hearts.
There was only so much he could take with each coming and going of these dear dear people.
He’d always known that one day it would come to this. That he’d once again be alone, left behind just as he’d abandoned everyone else. He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. He hadn’t thought that he’d be left dehydrated, like a man left to die in the middle of the desert.
For that’s what he felt like each time he found the TARDIS empty of all but his voice and his footsteps, his lonely rounds in the night. The drought of companionship wasn’t something he suffered easily and each time they left, whether of their own accord or not, the moisture of love and warmth was sucked out of him.
He became harsher, rougher, more like the bleak dunes of the Sahara rather than the rolling hills of the English countryside. Each time he found himself wanting to punish instead of help, wanting to hurt instead of heal, wanting to kill instead of save - each time, he knew that the thick skin he’d thought he’d developed, that shield of insouciance was just some flimsy rag to be incinerated in the flame of regret and sorrow and just a touch of hate.
His respiratory bypass failed. Blackness began to cloud his vision as he stopped fighting for his next breath.
And then through the suffocating darkness that slowly enfolded him, a single sound touched his ears, like balm upon flesh that burned.
“Doctor?”
And he smiled as his parched soul once more filled with the healing flow of affection, the warm touch of human, the cooling sweetness of a friend.
title Wasteland
author charlottetrips
genre & rating character study, PG
character The Doctor (Eleven or future)
word count 409
author’s note Written for the “Dry” drabble contest at who_contest. I’d already been mulling this particular aspect of the Doctor by the time “A Town Called Mercy” aired, but that episode just cinched it.
summary There was a reason why the Doctor rarely traveled without his companions.
He was left gasping on the floor of his console room, his mouth drinking nothing in but the cold bare air of his ship. His life had turned into a wasteland. What was it about being surrounded by other people, other bodies that helped keep that vital fluid of life running through his veins?
His last companion, his last friend had left. Just like the rest of them eventually had to leave. His hand made useless motions at his side, straining for the sonic screwdriver. He’d already tried moving his legs and found them unresponsive. His head could only tilt slightly to the side. He felt frustration and pain and anger well up in him.
Recriminations scorched with heat, their tears flooded his lungs, the disappointment pierced his hearts.
There was only so much he could take with each coming and going of these dear dear people.
He’d always known that one day it would come to this. That he’d once again be alone, left behind just as he’d abandoned everyone else. He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. He hadn’t thought that he’d be left dehydrated, like a man left to die in the middle of the desert.
For that’s what he felt like each time he found the TARDIS empty of all but his voice and his footsteps, his lonely rounds in the night. The drought of companionship wasn’t something he suffered easily and each time they left, whether of their own accord or not, the moisture of love and warmth was sucked out of him.
He became harsher, rougher, more like the bleak dunes of the Sahara rather than the rolling hills of the English countryside. Each time he found himself wanting to punish instead of help, wanting to hurt instead of heal, wanting to kill instead of save - each time, he knew that the thick skin he’d thought he’d developed, that shield of insouciance was just some flimsy rag to be incinerated in the flame of regret and sorrow and just a touch of hate.
His respiratory bypass failed. Blackness began to cloud his vision as he stopped fighting for his next breath.
And then through the suffocating darkness that slowly enfolded him, a single sound touched his ears, like balm upon flesh that burned.
“Doctor?”
And he smiled as his parched soul once more filled with the healing flow of affection, the warm touch of human, the cooling sweetness of a friend.