| Date: 28 December 2007
Characters: The Tenth Doctor, Professor Yana Location: hotel dining room, hotel room Link to IJ: thread #20895 |
 He was trying to fix the TARDIS. Actually, he was pretending like he was trying to fix the TARDIS, just like he was pretending he minded being 'stuck' here, with all these people he'd lost in one way or another, then found again. It was rather nice, he thought, and as long as he had everyone in one place, he was saved the bother of having to try to collect them all up.
Still, trying to fix the TARDIS and the TARDIS had surprised him and actually dematerialized and went somewhere. Fortunately, it was a really short trip. He stepped out and onto the roof of the hotel. Right then. He locked her up and headed back inside and down, with no way of knowing how long he'd been gone here. No time here, not that he could measure, anyway. Inside and headed downstairs, and to the dining room where people tended to gather and looking around to see if he'd lost anyone. He didn't see anyone who'd been here before, but he saw someone new, and wonderful. "Professor!" |
 The Professor looked up from his food (and his book, naturally) and beamed. "Doctor!" He stood and gestured for the Doctor to come over. "Wonderful to see you!" |
| He didn't need much encouraging to go over, pull out a chair, sit down, and lean toward the Professor. "And you! What are you reading? Enjoying the food? How long have you been here?" |
| He sat back down, still smiling, and said, "Temporal mechanics, supposedly, although I'm getting the feeling they've dropped a dimension or two somewhere, yes, very much so, and...long enough to find the library." |
| He knew, obviously, that this was the Master, but it wasn't quite and he didn't care all that much just now, anyway. It was just another regeneration,and one he'd been rather fond of. And that had broken his heart, in the end.
"Oh? Dropped a dimension or two? Any ideas which ones or just a feeling?" |
| "It just seems a little bit off somehow. You know that feeling when you've got a word on the tip of your tongue and can't quite come up with it? It's like that."
"What about you? How long have you been here? How did you get here, do you know?" |
| "I know exactly," he agreed, and propped his head up in his chin to study the Professor.
"Oh, you know. Little while. Bit hard to judge." |
| "It is. I ran into Jack, by the way, only he didn't know me. Hadn't met me yet." |
| "Yes," he agreed, slowly. "There's a bit of that going on. What's the last thing you remember, by the way?" |
| "Jack dying--and not staying dead. The two of you were on your way down to the chamber to fix the couplings."
"Did it work? Was Jack all right?" He grinned, eager now, "Did we get the rocket launched?" |
| That grin beat just about everything for a sure fire way to making him grin.
"Oh yes, Professor. Jack was all right and everything went off. Not without a hitch, granted, but everything happened just the way it was meant to." What? It wasn't like he was honest. |
| There was something about that grin. He winced and closed his eyes for a moment as the drums got suddenly loud. He took a shaky breath and then steadied a little.
The drums weren't entirely back to normal, but he still sounded a bit amused when he said, "Why do I have a feeling that there's quite a story behind that hitch?" |
| He cocked his head, and looked legitimately concerned. When the Professor looked back his forehead was wrinkled a bit with that worry.
"Because you're a bright man, but it's not something you need to worry about right now. You all right?" |
| "Fine, I'm fine." he waved his hand dismissively. "So," he said wryly, "Wait and see? Is that what you're saying?" |
| "I'm saying wait and see," he agreed with a quick quirk of a grin. "I might be able to help, you know." |
| "I suppose I can wait." He gave the Doctor a quick grin in return, and then got more serious. "Those drums have been there for as long as I can remember. I don't know how you can help."
There was a part of him that wished the Doctor could help, and part that was just...really, really uneasy about the whole idea. |
| He still had his chin propped in his hand. "Well, I don't know, either," he lied, "but if you want help you know I can probably make them a little less distracting if nothing else."
He thought he knew the part that was uneasy with the idea. He tended to call it The Master. |
| The Professor studied him. "You're serious. You're really serious?" |
| He knew he was going to have to be careful, and therefore refrained from bouncing and shouting 'Yes!' at the top of his lungs.
"Really serious." |
| He took a deep breath. "All right. How do we do this?"
He was not going to panic. Really, he wasn't. |
| He took a deep breath himself, envied humans their faith system, wished he had something he believed in enough to pray to, stood up and held out of his hand. "We start with going somewhere a little more private, if that's all right with you. Fewer distractions." |
| "All right." He stood up, too, and if the hand he held out to the Doctor wasn't entirely steady, well, at least he was moving. |
| He curled his fingers around the Professors, slowly and steadily. He wanted to grab, but didn't. He kept his grip firm and his demeanor as confident as he could as he started walking.
"Been here long enough to have claimed a room?" he asked, casually, once he'd gotten them into the hall. |
| The Professor nodded. "Down this way, fourth, no, fifth door on the right." |
| He had to forcibly stop himself babbling and chattering as he led the professor to, and then into, his room.
He was nervous - excited, a little giddy, but also incredibly nervous. He'd wanted to try to do something for the past year and hadn't been allowed. That it involved going into the Professor's mind, and was either an exercise in screwing with time or futility wasn't lost on him. He wasn't entirely stupid. He was just too determined to let this opportunity go without at least trying. "Right," he said when the door closed behind them. "Nice room." He didn't let go of the Professor's hand while he went to the night-table and turned on a lamp. |
| The Professor let himself be led. His mind was racing with all the ways this could be a very bad idea, but he was settling down a little bit now as he'd made up his mind to go through with it.
"It is," he said, but he wasn't really listening to himself. "Jack found it for me." |
| "Jack's a lovely young man," he agreed. "Very helpful." He let go of the Professor's hand, when the light was on and casting a warm glow that illuminated the area immediately around it, including the bed. "Sit down for me." |
| The Professor did, and looked up at the Doctor expectantly. |
| The Doctor dropped down to crouch in front of him and tried to gather his brain. "Questions, concerns, comments, last minute urge to back out?" |
| The Professor laughed a little, uneasily. "All of the above? Just tell me what you're planning to do, and what you need me to do." |
| "I'm going to put my hand against the side of your face, go into your brain and try to make the drums quieter. I need you to try very, very hard not to resist me, because I think you could probably break me like a twig if you set your mind to it." |
| "Go into my brain. You're talking about telepathy." It wasn't quite a question. The idea intrigued him even as it made him feel panicky again.
Then that last sentence sunk in. "Just how dangerous is this for you? For both of us? You don't have to do this." |
| "I'm talking about telepathy." He stayed balanced on the balls of his feet, kept his eyes on the Professor's and flashed a smile. "Oh, not too bad, I think. Won't know unless we try, though." |
| 'Not too bad' sounded suspiciously like the hermit conversation, but... "All right, then," he said, "Let's find out." HIs smile was fond. |
| "Let's find out." He grinned, brilliantly. For just a second.
Then the grin faded, and his expression turned very serious and very steady. A couple of slow, careful breaths to center himself and think about what he was doing and his fingers lifted to lightly brush against Yana's temple. The cool brush of his fingers was accompanied by the warm, but still light brush of his mind against the Professor's. He really was being careful, and it wasn't for his sake. |
| The Professor grinned back, and he wasn't sure if it was drums he was hearing or his own heartbeat.
The touch of the Doctor's mind was both strange and oddly familiar. Which didn't really make it less scary. The Professor took a slow, deep breath and tried to relax. |
| He found himself unconsciously bracing against the drums, even as he eased himself into the Professor's mind with as much control as he could muster, his breathing falling into the (human) rhythm of Yana's. "there we go," he murmured. |
| He was trying really, really hard not to resist, not to push back, but it was going against his instincts. And as he fought those instincts, the drums got louder. |
| His fingers slid into the Professor's hand and curled, and his eyes closed. There was a rough breath and he took advantage of the Professor doing the fighting for him and got in.
Less control, less finess, sudden forward push and growl with it, but he got in. It got louder for him, more chaotic and disorienting, but he was there: solid and bright and present. What did they do to you? It was thought, not focused or directed, just rhetorical wonder and quiet horror, accompanied by silently entrenching himself for the shove back he was sure was going to come. |
| The light of the Doctor's presence gave Yana something to focus on in the storm, calming him a little even as it intensified. The storm was him, and yet not. It was rage and defensiveness and shame and things he couldn't identify, and he felt those things, but also the Doctor's concern and horror, his acceptance. The Doctor's presence steadied him even as it made the storm worse, made it somehow more angry. |
| The dichotomy would have sent him reeling had he been less prepared for it. It was still, for a moment, a near thing. Then he gathered himself, his focus and his purpose. Oriented and directed, hand tight in the Professor's hair, breathing hard and both his hearts beating in time with those infuriating, maddening, drums, and then just started... almost burning. Bright, steady, light against sound and fury and it wasn't the same but there was a determined, brutal and uncompromising push into and over and through and against. |
| Yana wasn't sure if he even was breathing, if he had one heart or two. If he was trying to hold back the storm or if he was part of it. If he hated the Doctor or loved him, if he wanted to help him or fight him. There were voices mixed in with the drums, and they were confusing him. The light was bright enough to hurt and he welcomed it and feared it at the same time. |
| He knew. He knew very well that pushing the drums back, pushing the Master back wasn't going to work. All he could do was try to stifle the drums, or lock them away with the memories of the Master. There wasn't any conscious thought, just warmth and affection and silent gratitude directly absently toward the Professor, and every bit of everything he had going into muffling those fucking war drums, drums calling to a war that was *over*, a call that could never be answered, and giving the Professor some room to exist, to be who the Master had chosen to be, had wanted to be, had needed to be, without their constant interference. They should have gone with the memories, dammit, and they *would* go, or he would burn them both out in the trying. |
| It became easier for the Professor to focus--the battle wasn't for or against the Doctor, it was against the drums. He tried to grasp what the Doctor was doing, tried to help, and hoped that his feelings of wanting to help would somehow make it easier for the Doctor the way the Doctor's warmth had helped him. |
| He took everything the Professor was giving him unapologetically, and put it with everything he had, and used it all.
There was no relenting, no retreat and once he had started no humanity or even mercy. There was just determination and fire and rage, all directed at those drums, pushing them down, pushing them back, the sound gradually fading as he locked them away - not with the memories of the Master, but somewhere altogether different. Somewhere dark, somewhere isolated. With all the dark and cold of space, buried them. He could have asked the Professor for that image of a door, or a wall, but he had neither the time nor the focus, entire body rigid against Yana's at the mental fight, teeth clenched together, breath hissing, heart pounding and unaware of everything but locking those things away. In the end the mental image of the door was his, and the extra walls, and locks and woven and muffling maze around them, and around the memories of the Master, were his. |
| Feeling the Doctor's fury and heat and will was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Feeling the drums being walled away, the constant drum beat fading...it was liberating and wonderful and...very unsettling. It had never been this quiet in his head in his life, and as many times as he'd wished them gone, the reality was something he was not entirely prepared for. Grateful for, oh, yes, immensely so, but it was going to take some getting used to. He was looking forward to getting used to it.
He became aware of his heart racing, his harsh breathing, his clenched hands, and the pressure of the Doctor's hand in his hair. |
| The Doctor took longer to rouse himself. There was a vague sense of giddy disbelief that he'd done it. He didn't know what the future held- would it change everything or nothing - but he'd done it.
When he pulled back, left the Professor to his own brain, it was a sort of fluid backslide and fall back into himself. He forced his fingers to uncurl, dropped from a crouch to kneeling with one knee down for balance, opened his eyes and flashed an extremely exhausted grin at the Professor. "Told you it'd work." |
| The Professor grinned back, dizzy and a little giddy himself. "That you did."
He offered the Doctor his hand to help him up. "Come up here and sit on the bed before you fall over. You might still fall over, but at least you'll land on something soft." He was babbling a little, yes. |
| The Doctor laughed and braced his hands against the Professor's thighs to push himself to his feet. "You're plenty soft, but I'm sure the bed will complain less when I topple onto it." He pivoted around and sat beside Yana - that entire motion looked half like a fall.
He rubbed his hand through his hair, sending it sticking up everywhere, and glanced over to the Professor. "How're you feeling?" |
| "Like I could sleep for a week. Like my head is too quiet." He grinned, then. "Fantastic, basically. There is no way I can thank you enough for what you've done." He reached out and put his hand on the side of the Doctor's face for a moment gently, affectionately, and resisted the urge to ruffle his hair, but it was a near thing. |
| The hand against his face made him smile. Made him want to lean, just for a second. "Oh, you don't have to thank me," he said, sincerely. "I should be thanking you for letting me try." Should be getting out and letting the Professor sleep, too. He was working up to that. Really. |
| "One day, when I'm awake enough to think of how to ask, I'm going to have questions about that. But not right now." |
| He laughed a little, and without sounding entirely amused. "Don't rush yourself," he said lightly. He patted the Professor on the shoulder and then used that grip for balance while he stood. "Toward anything but rest, anyway. Get some sleep." |
| "That is not going to be a problem. I think I'm asleep already." He hesitated for a moment, then said, "You look like you're about to pass out on your feet, and there's a perfectly good bed right here. You don't have to go, unless you just want to." |
| "You're remarkably vertical and articulate for someone who's asleep," he snarked, wearily. He was trying to process the rest. The truth was, he didn't want to leave.
Not right now, and certainly not with everything doing this had brought to the surface of his mind. Everything from Gallifrey to the Master burning, and John Smith and ravished humanity. That probably meant it was time to go. That definitely meant it was past time to go. "Budge over, then." |
| He made room, feeling relieved. He had been worried that the Doctor was going to fall flat on his face in the corridor, but he also hadn't particularly wanted to be by himself, with his half-formed questions and the unfamiliar quiet in his mind. |
| He felt like a real fool crawling into bed with the Professor, but there was no denying a sense of familiarity about it. He felt like a fool because he felt nine-years old.
It took him a bit to settle down, fussing and fidgeting about to fix his pillow and settle on his side facing the Professor. He paused before he reached for the light. "On or off?" |
| The Professor grinned sleepily at him. "Believe me, I'm not going to notice," he said. "Whatever you want." |
| He turned back without turning the light off.
He curled up beside the Professor, doing a good job of getting those lanky limbs out of the way. He didn't hold onto the Professor - wasn't going to let himself, no matter what. The result was him really folding in on himself. Not that he didn't allow himself some contact. He pressed his forehead down against the Professor's shoulder, before he closed his eyes. |
| The Professor shifted a little closer, and settled more deeply into sleep. |