Fic - The Eyes of the Wolf (Spoilers DOTD, rating Gen)
More fic - the muse seems to be waking up after DOTD.
“And how am I gonna react when I see this? A great, big, threatening button. A great, big, threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances, am I right?”
It’s there, right under his nose. A big red button. And he’s got to get a grip. In his line of work, it’s not the first and it won’t be the last. He can’t afford to freeze every time he happens to come up against one.
But oh, it would help if he’d had time to find out what kind of a man he was. He still feels woozy but, at the same time, kind of stoked that he’s managed to wake up in his jim-jams and walk straight into a huge space filled with humans waiting for him to save the day. And he knows he’s got a gob on him this time around….so if he just keeps talking….
It’s working. It’s doing the trick. Oh, but he’s good! He’s so good he can even change his own reality. He can push it away, lock it away, that Big Red Button he once pressed. Oh, he’s the expert, the last word on Big Red Buttons. Load of cheep voodoo, most of them. There for effect. Scare the pants off you but it’s not as if they actually do anything. Only if they have to. Only if there’s no other way.
Just for a nanosecond, there’s something that feels like a cold sweat on the back of his neck. Quick, look at their eyes. Say something funny. Talk big. Wave a sword around. Intone It. Is. Defended in a big, fierce, ooh-so-Time-Lordy voice
He can do it. He can bring this off. Has to, because she’s watching. Just behind him. Trusting him. Thinking - no, knowing, that he can do anything. Well, anything that’s good, obviously. Saving the day. Everybody lives, except for the ones that don’t deserve to and brought their troubles on themselves.
They did. Yes, even the children. All’s fair in war. They’d had enough chances and still they kept on, locked in their hatred, untold millions of innocent people dying.
But you can’t let just anyone make these big decisions. You have to be a Time Lord. You have to know what all the possible outcomes might be. And make sure you take the moral high ground, all the time, even - especially - when it’s crumbling beneath your own feet.
Don’t let anybody else make your mistakes. No big gestures. No genocide. They don’t have the right. They’re children compared to him. Need protecting. Need scolding. Need keeping an eye on, even though he loves ‘em to bits. Such a simple, optimistic species. Not like him. He knows when to allow a second chance, and when not to.
No second chances. He’s that kind of man. Ooh, that’s good. He likes the sound of that.
Keep talking. Wave a sword around. Be the life and soul of the party. Don’t think. Rose Tyler, you’re like a drug, I can just drink you up, smack my lips, dull the pain. As long as you love me. As long as you go on believing in me. How brilliant I am.
As long as you don’t ask questions. About Jack. About the singing in your head. About the times my eyes turn dark. About why I took you to the end of your world. About why my world ended.
You were the Bad Wolf. You saw it all, but I took it out of you. Nothing’s left. It’s not like you were there with me. Nobody was. Just me and the big red button. Maybe, just once in a while, I’ll see a little flash of gold in your eyes, but if we keep running, if I keep talking, you’ll never think to ask about it. I can keep you blind. I’ve a nice, sexy body now. You won’t be able to resist.
In the end, you’re only human after all. You’ll go on looking into my eyes and trusting me, and that's all I need to dull the pain, to forget, to make myself the person I know I should be.
Not such a bad old day, this, after all. He wishes every day could be like this. Well, maybe that’s a bit ambitious. He’ll settle for every other day. As in alternate day. Yeah, he wishes today could be like every other day. That’ll do nicely.
As long as there are no more days like that day. He’ll settle for that.
She’s still looking at him. He can feel it.
He wishes she would stop.