One Thing, a Doctor Who fanfiction
Title: One Thing
Pairing: Eight/Master
Rating: PG-13 bordering on R
Warning: Amnesia and implications of dubious mindsex
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
Summary: The newly regenerated Doctor finds that he isn't all alone in his mind while in the hospital.
Author's Notes: After watching the movie I wondered what the Doctor and the Master were doing the entire night. Well this is my answer. Also, lots and lots of thanks to aralias for beta-reading!
One Thing
He lays shivering on the floor of the abandoned wing of the hospital. The shards of the broken mirror are digging into his skin, but not cutting him. He lays there and stares at his own broken reflection, but it might as well be the face of a stranger - for all he recognises it. He is exhausted, tired and terribly confused. There are memories, but they are as broken and shattered as the mirrors around him, and he doesn't know how the shards fit together, how to repair the image.
Then there suddenly is laughter in his ears, cruel, malicious, familiar laughter, and in panic he looks around.
“Who is there?” he asks and his voice sounds unusually high and alien to his own ears, almost as if it isn't his voice at all, but it must be, because it is him who is talking. The room is empty and he can't see anyone else around, except for his own reflections. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
His only answer is another chuckle and a dark voice inside his head. Which is odd, he thinks, there shouldn't be voices inside his head, voices should be outside his head connected to a living being, because otherwise something is very wrong with him. Considering that he doesn't remember anything about himself, maybe there is.
“Oh my poor, poor Doctor.” the voice mocks him and he thinks he knows it, or perhaps not it specifically, but the tone of it.
“Doctor? Is that what I am? What a curious thought, I thought I might be a patient here,” he says before realising what he is doing. “Especially considering that I'm talking to myself. Not a good thing to do. First sign of madness. Or so I've heard. At least, I think I've heard it somewhere...” He trails off, his head spinning with thoughts.
“Ah, but you are not talking to yourself, my dear.”
“Am I not?” he asks and looks around once more. “But, you see, I can't see anyone else. I can't see you, whoever you are. And if you're not here, that means you must be inside my head. And that means I must be mad.”
The voice outright laughs at him again. “Just because I'm not here, doesn't mean I am not real. Just because I am inside your head, doesn't mean you are mad.”
“Really?” He swallows. “Well, then, that leads to the question, why are you inside my head?”
“I just wanted to see how you are. To be honest, I wouldn't have thought I'd get this far in. Your regeneration sickness must be particularly bad if all your mental shields are open like this.”
“Mental shields? Regeneration sickness? What are you talking about? You're confusing me even more.” He sighs and closes his eyes just to open them immediately again, vanishing the yellow eyes staring back at him through the darkness. “Who are you? What are you?” he demands, afraid.
“Shh,” the voice soothes him. “Relax, close your eyes.”
He cannot help but obey the hypnotising tone and closes his eyes again. There they are: yellow, snake-like, cat-like eyes staring back at him, as hypnotising as the voice.
“Who are you?” he repeats his question.
“Don't you remember?”
“No, of course I...wait, wait, I do know you, don't I? I know you! You are, you are...”
“Yes, my dear?”
“I don't know,” he replies flatly. “I don't remember. I don't even remember who I am, so how could I remember you? But I do know you.”
“You always think that, but do you really?”
“I...of course, I do. No, no, wait. I don't. Oh, I don't know,” he says frustrated, but then another thought crosses his mind. “But you know me.”
The voice is suddenly closer, pressing into him, pinning him to the ground. “Better than you think, better than anyone else,” it whispers into his ear, into his mind. He exhales sharply, a sudden panic sweeping over him.
“Can you tell me then?” he squeaks, trying to steer whatever is going on into a direction more to his favour. Only there is none.
“No. I don't think I will,” the voice answers, sounding briefly hard and cold, before slipping back to the sensual tone it used before, stroking his mind in very suggestive ways. “Besides, I think we could use the little time we have before you regain your memory, for something better than talking.”
Suddenly, there are hands gliding over his body, touching him ever so lightly, ghost hands. “Stop!” he gasps. “Stop it!” The touch is not unpleasant, but neither is it real and he isn't sure if he wants this.
“Why? Don't you like it?” the voice purrs and the invisible hands wander lower. “Because that would be a lie. Because you do like it, I can tell. I am inside your head. I know.”
The eyes are staring hungrily at him from behind his own eyelids, ready to devour him and their intensity and the insistent hands on his body, touching him just right, make him shudder. The mirror shards scrape his skin, but he is only half aware of that now that his mind is flooded with all those other sensations.
“What a wonderful body you have,” the voice says admiringly. “I think I will make it mine,” it promises darkly before he can offer a word of protest. Something is filling him, making him writhe, making him groan. It is not unpleasant; on the contrary, it might be the most enjoyable thing that has ever happened to him, if only he could remember, if only the shards wouldn't cut him.
There is lust, but more so, there is blood and pain.
In a corner of his mind a memory stirs. He doesn't remember the man with those hypnotising eyes and voice, he doesn't even remember who he is - but he remembers this.
There is always pain involved with him.
END