Drained: next bit

[fightinghand]

The Doctor didn't refuse to eat. He and Lyt had one thing in common: they both wanted him to live as long as possible. Lyt proved surprisingly good at foraging, bringing back mostly the Venatorian equivalent of bread, cheese, and fruit and occasionally a piece of something resembling cold chicken or a slice of ham. Today it was cheese and grapes. Lyt watched him eat. Every time the Doctor reached to take something from the plate, his chain clanked.

'Keeping your strength up,' Lyt observed drily. 'Enjoying this so much you want to stretch it out?'

'I like cheese,' said the Doctor with his mouth full.

Lyt noted that the gouge on the Doctor's face had closed up since yesterday. He was delighted with this extraordinary resilience. It was like having a toy that he could break one day and find all put back together the next. 'That's a good trick, how fast you heal.'

The Doctor ate a grape. 'Brand new body.'

'An unexpectedly good one. That's a plus for me. You wouldn't believe what most of my food looks like.' The Doctor ate a couple more grapes. 'Nothing on your friend the Captain, of course. There's a real beauty.' The Doctor squashed a grape and a bit of cheese together and popped it into his mouth. 'I really must drop in on him.'

The eyes that flicked up at him seemed huge, as if they'd swallowed the rest of the Doctor's face. 'No.'

Lyt leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, 'How can you stop me?' The Doctor had sat up very straight and still. In the twilight room, his eyes appeared to be nothing but pupil. 'You must have noticed that you're tethered to a wall. And even if you weren't, at your best you could never beat me, and,' - Lyt smiled his white, razory smile - 'you're not at your best.'

The Doctor squinted thoughtfully, as if Lyt were some abstruse problem on a blackboard. After a moment he said, 'There are things other than force.'

'Persuasion?' Lyt sneered. 'What could possibly tempt me? I want to die.'

'Not before I have.'

'I'm not following you.'

'It's quite simple, really. We've been through this before. If you leave Jack alone, I'll do whatever you want.'

Lyt blinked. 'What?'

'If you leave Jack alone,' the Doctor repeated very slowly and distinctly, as if talking to someone hard of hearing, ' I will do whatever you want.'

'You can't be serious.'

'Serious as drowning

'I'm waiting for the punchline.'

'I'm the punchline.' The Doctor gazed up at him innocently. He looked about twelve years old.

Lyt's laugh was half amused, half incredulous. 'You're full of surprises, aren't you?' The Doctor smiled noncommitedly. Lyt stared. 'I can't believe this. You're trying to seduce me.'

The Doctor just sat there, a slender, big-eyed Buddha, waiting. His face was as guileless as a schoolboy's. Lyt, who had seen that face twisted with fury and sharp and cold as a knife, understood suddenly why his people had spoken of the Time Lords with awe as well as hate. Shape-shifting selves, and who knew what was underneath them - if there was anything underneath - or which self could be called real. The Doctor's remote and empty stillness was suddenly uncanny. For a second, Lyt very nearly felt fear. Then he saw a flinch of tension run along the shoulders beneath the bloody jacket, and smiled..

'Get up,' he said.

A bit awkwardly, the Doctor got up.

'Come here.'

The Doctor crossed to him.

'Closer.'

The Doctor stepped closer.

'Put your arms around my neck.'

The Doctor lifted his chained wrists and hooked them over Lyt's head, so that his forearms rested on the vampire's shoulders. 'You'll do anything I ask?' The Doctor nodded. 'Say it.'

'I'll do anything you ask.'

'What if there are times I don't want you to... cooperate?'

'Fine with me.'

'Since our first date, you've been stubborn about screaming. What if I want you to scream?'

'Scream,' said the Doctor, 'yell, weep, sing show tunes. You ask for it, it's yours.'

Lyt gazed at him raptly. His teeth crept over his lower lip. 'Tell me you want me to take your blood.'

'I want you to.'

'The whole sentence.'

'I want you to take my blood.'

'Please.'

Something flashed at the back of the Doctor's eyes, but only for an instant. 'Please.'

'Well,' said Lyt, 'since you ask so nicely.'