Fic: Masks (River, Rated G, Doctor Who)
Title: Masks
Author: darkbunnyrabbit
Rating: G
Spoilers: Theoretically S4-onward, but...only the concept of the character, really.
Pairings: Nothing specifically stated, but Doctor/River is there to be interpreted.
Characters: River, Doctor
Warnings: ...Nothing, really.
Genre: Character introspection
Summary: They played with mirrors and shadows, played roles and parts as the situation demanded, let on just enough to keep the other guessing and sometimes guessed just enough to keep the other shifting their guises, but never the whole.
Disclaimer: Not mine
AN: I...no really. Nothing for a month and I come back with River POV? I don't even know. I don't.
They played a game every time they met. Neither one ever had all the answers, and both always had their secrets, their promises of the past and of the future. They kept their masks, their cloaks, and their make-believe to play their parts in the sprawling game. Sometimes they held back knowledge that could help, because even though it'd been written, it hadn't happened, and sometimes it was because they hadn't yet been written. Sometimes they made things up and played coy just for fun, found amusement in a gravely dangerous balance of timelines and spinning plates.
They played with mirrors and shadows, played roles and parts as the situation demanded, let on just enough to keep the other guessing and sometimes guessed just enough to keep the other shifting their guises, but never the whole.
Sometimes, near the beginning, she would wonder if they would ever catch up. Later, she couldn't help but wondering-just on occasion-if there would ever be one brilliant moment where stars, fate, and blind chance aligned to synch them up just right, and they could be everything they were, not what they might be.
Eventually she thought it might be the day she died.
One day, they swept away without warning, and they were. The dancing and the play paused for that moment, the masks and secrets, for just that day, were laid aside. The words and their careful handwriting were left open and forgotten, and the place they landed was less important than the roles they no longer had to play.
For a moment, they could be who they were.
The stars shifted, there remained more, another plate left spinning in his hands. One last mask he could never remove, thin and translucent as it was. Yet, as ever, the question that could tear it down was never spoken.
The dancing ended only as the game began.
Author: darkbunnyrabbit
Rating: G
Spoilers: Theoretically S4-onward, but...only the concept of the character, really.
Pairings: Nothing specifically stated, but Doctor/River is there to be interpreted.
Characters: River, Doctor
Warnings: ...Nothing, really.
Genre: Character introspection
Summary: They played with mirrors and shadows, played roles and parts as the situation demanded, let on just enough to keep the other guessing and sometimes guessed just enough to keep the other shifting their guises, but never the whole.
Disclaimer: Not mine
AN: I...no really. Nothing for a month and I come back with River POV? I don't even know. I don't.
They played a game every time they met. Neither one ever had all the answers, and both always had their secrets, their promises of the past and of the future. They kept their masks, their cloaks, and their make-believe to play their parts in the sprawling game. Sometimes they held back knowledge that could help, because even though it'd been written, it hadn't happened, and sometimes it was because they hadn't yet been written. Sometimes they made things up and played coy just for fun, found amusement in a gravely dangerous balance of timelines and spinning plates.
They played with mirrors and shadows, played roles and parts as the situation demanded, let on just enough to keep the other guessing and sometimes guessed just enough to keep the other shifting their guises, but never the whole.
Sometimes, near the beginning, she would wonder if they would ever catch up. Later, she couldn't help but wondering-just on occasion-if there would ever be one brilliant moment where stars, fate, and blind chance aligned to synch them up just right, and they could be everything they were, not what they might be.
Eventually she thought it might be the day she died.
One day, they swept away without warning, and they were. The dancing and the play paused for that moment, the masks and secrets, for just that day, were laid aside. The words and their careful handwriting were left open and forgotten, and the place they landed was less important than the roles they no longer had to play.
For a moment, they could be who they were.
The stars shifted, there remained more, another plate left spinning in his hands. One last mask he could never remove, thin and translucent as it was. Yet, as ever, the question that could tear it down was never spoken.
The dancing ended only as the game began.