RP Log: "More Than an Echo," with laser_not_sonic

[watch_is_me]

Okay, this was a ridiculous Epic of Theoretical Projection chatplayed by laser_not_sonic and I, in which we explored what might happen if my Doctor Chameleon-Arched the Master for his own good and then took Harry Saxon on as his companion. It is ENORMOUSLY LONG. My writing in it's not the best, but Harry Saxon and the Doctor have some ridiculously cute moments in here; I've edited the transcript to remove about 98% of both lsn-mun and I's AWs ;)

I'd love feedback; I think I still have a lot of work to do on spontaneous dialogue and physical specificity.

NOTE: I'll probably be hiatusing, at least from AIM chatplay, for a week or so here. This log took a ludicrous amount of time, and, yeah, I think I should give myself some space after that. But, well, I think it's also worth reading?


But now I am distracted from my fic-writing as well, because my mind is full of Harry Saxon. And I have decided that at some point, we should come up with a plot that requires the Doctor to fobwatch the Master.
Because I heart Harry Saxon

XD
Mine might not be good for him.
Or, actually, it could give him someone to be completely, totally moral *for.*

It could.
All the implications of that kind of a situation intrigue me, really. And now I'm seeing Harry Saxon- having, you know, been plonked down in the middle of a human life that isn't his- meeting the Doctor. And the Doctor taking him somewhere and seeing just that huge, little boy smile that Simm gets absolutely light up his face. Because would you look at that, the universe is larger than he'd known.
And Harry Saxon loves stargazing. And Star Trek, but only the really cheesy old ones, so he can laugh at them and make snarky comments about fit men in lycra

Aw.
The Doctor would...probably be somewhere between really happy and enormously sad.
Because here's this good person, but...the Time Lord's gone and maybe the two are the same and maybe they never were.
And mine doesn't know what it was like being human, since he never repossessed John Smith, so he'll be curious and even more at a loss than most Doctors, likely.
Mine could probably actually fall in love with a human Master. As opposed to this weird thing they have as Time Lords.

Aww.

Or end up being horribly disgusted by him and go violent in the end, it's a toss-up.
Or both XD

Hah, yes. One never knows.
I just love all those little moments of disconcertment; Harry stepping into the TARDIS for the first time, and he doesn't run outside immediately to see that it's just a police box, and do that whole thing, just stares around himself and paces up to the console, runs a hand over it like it's familiar, like he's seen it before, before blinking and shaking his head, because what?
Or he closes his eyes and he thinks he can still see the room, but it's lit in red, and there's a cruel, wire cage around the console.
Hmmph, imagination

Aw.
And the Doctor, standing by and seeing those moments of recognition and they would make him feel for the other man, and want him to get more of that knowing back, but also know he loses him if he ever does.

And Harry just kind of laughing a little to himself and apologising, saying that he gets moments of weird deja vu like that sometimes.

And the Doctor would have that serious watching look he gets, when he knows something about someone that they don't know, suspects they're lying or hiding something or making a choice or when the Doctor realizes that he's going to have to tell them something or do something later that will hurt them a great deal.

And Harry doesn't really notice it at first, because he's idly fiddling with things on the console, his brow furrowed a bit like he might recognise them, but when he does look up and sees that look, his brow unfurrows and he cocks his head to the side. 'Doctor?' And he doesn't ask if he's alright, because he's only just met the man, after all, and Harry's a bit bad with that sort of thing, but it's implicit in his tone.

The Doctor catches himself and looks down at the controls, adjusting a few dials that he doesn't really have to adjust. "So! Where to, Harry Saxon? Past, present, future? There and back again? Oh, dragons, I know a good planet for dragons. No dinosaurs, you never did well with..." Damn, no Silurian references, stop it.

And Harry grinning. 'Future. Far as you can go.' Not even connecting that with the thought of Utopia, because the Master in him is too deeply buried. Sidling around the console and leaning into the Doctor a little, because Harry's a tactile, physical guy to begin with, but furthermore, he feels like the Doctor's familiar, somehow.

"Well, gets a bit...nippy out that far, how about the year two million and three, the Shivan Unity's celebrating it's septuacentennial that year, celebrations across ten galaxies. How's that?" And he's totally taken aback by the contact, because it's not weighted, loaded the way every move the Master makes usually is. It's really just familiarity, that assumed intimacy where personal space doesn't exist, it's shared space, and you never have to worry about what the touch might mean or might not because it's alright. There's understood permission.
That's something he hasn't had with anyone in centuries. Since they were boys.
And he finds he misses hearing the drums, from the other man--they're there, but not like they were. The physical contact doesn't carry the shock of mental resonance that it did when Harry was the Master.
So he moves away after a moment, not rude or abrupt, just reaching for another control, that's all.

And if there's something in him that feels hurt or irritated by the fact that the Doctor should lean away from his touch, it's so quiet that he barely even processes it. Because why would he care? He doesn't know this man. Not really. Except that somehow he does, but that's far too confusing, and Harry shakes it away in favour of another grin. 'Ten galaxies? Must be a hell of a party, that.' Leaning back against the console, legs out in front of him, palms propped up against the edge, he peers up at the distant ceiling. Shakes his head again, with a wry little laugh. 'Aliens. The year two million. I mean... we knew, of course. Hard to ignore it after the past few years, but still.' Throwing the Doctor a shrewd little look, eyes narrowed and lips twisted up into something undefinable. 'Thanks.'

One word, and the Doctor knows how deep the gap between Harry and the Master runs. The Master would never thank him, not like that, for such a small favor. Just a trip through time, a new horizon...a *scrap* really. Nothing at all. "Don't." The Doctor can't look at the human being across the console from him. "It's nothing. Well, it's *something,* but it's not Something something. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, 's just what the TARDIS does. Travel. It's nothing."
And he wants to touch Harry's mind, to see if it feels anything like the Time Lord he used to be, but he doesn't because he knows that it won't. Not really.

Oh, but it's not nothing. It's so much, to Harry. Because he had a good life, certainly; privileged, enjoyable, but it was always so small. So damnably small, and surely he could never be contented with something so small. But this? This is huge. An endless expanse, affording so much opportunity. But he shrugs, lips pursing and eyebrows going up. 'No gratitude, then. Shall I insult you instead? Or perhaps you'd prefer ambivalence, given that we've just met.'

The Doctor manages to look up from the console and slide Harry a subdued grin. "Oh, let's start with ambivalence. You can work up to insults, it shouldn't take long." And now for some special effects, so he doesn't have to explain that statement. "Two zero zero zero zero zero three. Biggest party in the universe for millennia either way. Fireworks the size of stars." He poises his hand over the dematerialization switch* "Ready?"

It is a strange sort of statement, and it's a good thing the Doctor follows it up with that next bit. As it is, all Harry manages in the way of a question is a raised eyebrow before the Doctor starts speaking again. He smirks. 'Oh, I'm always ready.' He gives the Doctor a little look that suggests that the Doctor will find that out soon enough.

The Doctor grins across the console at Harry, without thinking, because that's a good response, that's exactly the kind of response he looks for, in his friends. "Right, then! Allons-y!" And they are off.

When they arrive, the TARDIS shuddering to a stop, the Doctor reverts to his script, this is easy, this part, he knows how all of this goes. "Two million three. The artificial planet Refiel, jewel of the Unity, heart of the celebrations. Go on, take a look." And the Doctor's getting into the act now, enough in the swing of things that he's almost excited himself, one hand tapping out his rhythm on the console with restless energy.

The... well, he doesn't know what it's called, but the glowing pillar in the centre of the console starts to move with a terrific grinding noise, and Harry laughs aloud as the ship lurches around them. The Doctor doesn't seem to know entirely what he's doing, but they land where they intended to nonetheless, and Harry takes a few steps towards the doors- and maybe there's a slight swagger to his gait- to take in the noise and the colour and the crowds with a twisted grin on his face and awe in his eyes. For moment, he attributes the rhythm he's hearing to the one he's always heard, there in the back of his head, until he realises that the sound is external, and he turns, disbelieving, to look at the Doctor. One hand is on the console, tapping out the rhythm of his drums. Harry walks back up the ramp towards the console, and the Doctor. 'What's that?' He says, and though it's quiet, his voice is intense.

"What?" The Doctor catches himself tapping and stops instantly. Harry should be focusing on the bustle and noise outside, an entire world preparing to watch the sky for a display that would put Earth's northern lights to shame, to rejoice in a peace that's lasted for centuries, a unity across the stars. He shouldn't be reminded of this, the drums. "Nothing." That won't work, that never works. "Tic. Habit of mine, like biting your fingernails. Come on!" And he'll be trying to make for the door now. Party, y/y/mfy? : D ?

Harry's brow furrows, his lips pressed together for a moment. 'No... No, that's not; that's mine.' The drums he's heard all his life, something he's never spoken to anybody about, knowing they'd call him crazy if he did. He moves to place himself between the Doctor and the door, one hand up as if to grasp the Doctor's upper arm. 'Doctor...'

"Harry." He stops, because he doesn't want the other man touching him again, not quite this moment. "I'll explain. Later. It's fine." And then he changes his mind, reaches out and squeezes Harry's shoulder, a gesture meant to reassure, though he's not sure which of them, to ask Harry to put this aside for now, to let go. "You're not alone." He doesn't remember what those words mean, to his other self.

He doesn't know what that means, that the Doctor can hear his drums- You're not alone- Harry feels like he's stumbled on something huge, but he can't quite focus on it. It's as if he's looking at something that his eyes don't want to see, and it's frightening, whatever it is. It's easy enough to tell what the Doctor's little gesture means, though, and he gives him a small smile, guarded, and a curt nod. 'Later,' he says, and that means that they are talking about it later, because Harry has to know. But for now, he turns back to the doors, to the revelry and merriment outside. He's always dealt with the drums, after all; this is new and a far, far better thing to let occupy his thoughts.

The Doctor will try to avoid "Later" like an evasive, determined madman.
And he shouldn't be glad that Harry recognizes the drums, but he is

But Harry's all confused and weirdly hopeful and a bit adorably human about it. Because it must be good, mustn't it, if he's not the only one.

Of course it's good. Um. Yes! It's just... And the Doctor will realize he has no idea how the drums affect humans.
Maybe it's just a noise to Harry, and he should say that's all his is, too.

They don't drive Harry the way they do the Master, but they respond to the same things; anger and impatience and rashness. He gets headaches sometimes, because of them, sometimes they're so bad he can't even get out of bed. Like a more percussive migraine. Because he doesn't know how to sate them, after all, and even if he did, he's not exactly the sort to go and disembowel somebody with his bare hands just to get a bit of quiet

The Doctor will linger outside Harry's room when he's stuck in bed and wish he could help.
He may eventually see what he can do, mentally, even though that's a terrible idea, because Harry might be able to see into his mind, too, feel the drums and read his memories, and that would ruin all of this.
But maybe it's different for humans, the different brain structure, and the Doctor could make the drums go silent, for Harry. Without any side-effects or dependency. Maybe it's a simple fix.

But, aw, I'm having images now, of Harry just curled up in bed in his dark bedroom, just clutching at the sheets, the pillow beneath his cheeks wet with tears, because it hurts. And glaring at the chink of light when the Doctor opens the door, telling him to just go away, please, not now.

The Doctor would go away, the first few times, and then he'd offer to help.
Because this is his fault, leaving a human being with this thing that even Time Lords can't deal with.
And also? Hey, look, he can actually help the Master! Kind of. Maybe.
It sort of counts

Oh, Doctor. You're an idiot in the sweetest way possible.
But if he could help- either via mental fiddlage or just, I dunno, by distracting Harry, talking with him, comforting and keeping his mind on other things. Harry would be somewhere in between grateful and really embarrassed. Because it's stupid, the drums thing, it's a weakness he can't understand. But the Doctor seems to get it, and that just feels amazing.

I don't know where the Doctor would be with this. It would be like...like a cousin that you'd always hated but, you know, you loved them, too, because you grew up with them and you kinda *had* to, you were each other's only entertainment at family gatherings and stuff, if they suddenly got a terrible head injury or something, and the new, damaged person was like a kid, this sweet different personality, and that person needed you and you could love them, actually, but it'd be wrong because they were half-there, crippled, and it would also make you realize you'd loved them whole, too. And feel terrible because it was easier, now, when they weren't whole.

Gah! *cuddles the Doctor*

*is cuddled and goes B| He's an adult, he can hack this. Really. Responsibility, he's great at that. Ahem*

Though I like the idea that even though he's a bit sweet, Harry, he's still snarky in the same way that the Master was, and really, incredibly rubbish with personal stuff. And he's got that slightly twisted sense of humour.

Yeah XD
"Go away, Doctor, geez."
Doctor: D: But--
Doctor: But you're making me into canon!Ten

Harry: *smirk* Joke, Doctor. Feel free to linger.

And because he's still a bit touchy, he'll give Harry a Look and head off to repair something in the console room that needs repairing.
But he'll probably come back around later.

And Harry will so pester the Doctor (in a subtle sort of way) to teach him to fly the TARDIS. Because whilst he loves this, being here with the Doctor in the TARDIS, flying about the universe, he doesn't settle easily into the companion role

The Doctor won't take the pestering particularly well, because it's *his* TARDIS and explaining is all well and good, it's fun, explaining, but he is *not* teaching Harry to fly. That's opening so many cans of worms right there, no thanks.

And Harry will be a bit hurt by this, because the Doctor's the one who bloody well went and picked him up, not the other way 'round, but he won't say anything about it.

The Doctor will be astonished by how guilty Harry can make him feel about things.
And will either try to repair the gap or never apologize and start brushing Harry off because you know what? He doesn't have to feel for you, he has things to do, and you're not the Master.

Aww, no, but if he goes for that second option, Harry will glower and feel insulted and alienated, and then they'll be fucked even then when they don't have to be

Aw.
Yes, but mine has issues of his own.
So I dinna know how he'd go.
It would be hard to care as much as he needed to, because it would hurt and the drums make him tend to lash out when he's hurt.
Also, he would probably cry eventually
And he can't have that.

Aww. But if he did, Harry would go all awkward and hovery in that blokey sort of way of not knowing what to do with someone crying. Which would be adorable. And perhaps would lay a hand on his shoulder or something equally ineffectual. Maybe he'd kiss the Doctor, just really sweet and a bit hesitant, because er, please stop crying because I don't know why you are and it's all emotional and erk.

That's not helping, Harry. Because, dammit, he's going to just go into a full-on emotional collapse in front of this kid who used to be the Master and who doesn't understand half of the things the Doctor's crying about and doesn't remember Gallifrey or all of the times the Doctor saved the Earth from the Master and that last time the Doctor couldn't save it from himself. But Harry's all that's left. And that shouldn't be.

But Harry doesn't know what to doooooo. He r bad with emotional crap. And, the narration adds, that last bit is nobody's fault but the Doctor's.

Yes, but, it's all the Doctor's fault, this doesn't stop him angsting about it.
Also it's the Master's fault for being such a stubborn ass he had to go and Chameleon Arch him.

'Course it is.
But, ooh, Harry watching the Doctor crying, and getting a weird feeling somewhere in the back of his brain that says that he's seen the Doctor like this before, and he's always been the cause of it. Except that... whatever it is- feels pleased about that, if anything, and that's horrifying.
And kind of backing away from the Doctor a little and just saying that he'll be in the library or somewhere.
Because as much as he loves being here with the Doctor, he's made those occasional, strange attacks of deja vu that Harry's prone to much more frequent and insistent

The Doctor half thinks he should just leave Harry somewhere, to live his own life.
It would be better for both of them.

Probably would. But Harry would object. The Doctor can't just set him down, like he's a toy he's tired of playing with.

Oi, the man who was the Master saying something like that.

Quite. We enjoy our irony

That'll hurt. And make him think twice, the Doctor. Damn you and your guilt tripping, Harry

Or, ooh, they end up on a planet that the Master visited at some point during this regeneration, and suddenly, they've got a load of natives out for his blood, and Harry is just confused.

Ack, and now the Doctor has to keep him safe and try not to let him learn why everyone wants him dead, and, meanwhile, if they try too hard to kill Harry, the Doctor may kill some of them.

And I totally want Harry to kill one of them- you know, self defence that accidentally goes too far, and then getting back to the TARDIS and just saying, like he can't quite believe it- 'I killed a man.' Just sounding... surprised. Faintly shocked by it.

Oh, wonderful. He tries to help this new man who isn't the Master and all the Doctor can manage to do is introduce him to killing again.

No, but Harry isn't a killer, not at all. And him being faintly disturbed by the fact that he isn't more disturbed, and excusing himself, saying that he has to go take a shower.

And the Doctor will be humbled by that, and disturbed, because he should be the one shaken by killing here, and he's not.

Ack, and now I'm full of ideas of Harry after he takes his shower and tries to sort out his moral dilemmas, demanding that the Doctor tell him who they thought he was. And being all stubborn and a little angry, because he's not entirely sure how one deals with this kind of situation.

In the Doctor's case, one deals with it by trying like hell not to explain!
Until he gets angry and snaps and tells Harry to just be glad they got out alive, let him plot their new coordinates, go away.
And immediately regrets it.

And Harry bristling and snapping back that he isn't bloody well going away; something happened back there and he thinks he's entitled to know exactly what that was.
Because either he or they have got their stories massively mixed up.

The Doctor will tell him. With as few of the worst details as possible. You were a friend, you were like me, and that ended. Because you hurt too many people and you wouldn't be helped.
I'm sorry, he'll say, which isn't something he says often, anymore.

And Harry will scoff at that, refuse to believe it because it can't be true, can it? Of course it can't. 'What are you talking about, I was like you? I'm human; I've never seen them or their planet before in my life.' It's his truth, and Harry, like the Master, is very good at seeing his own truths when he needs to.

The Doctor will put a hand on Harry's temple and make the barest mental contact. Just enough to let him hear. The drums. He won't say anything.

And for the first time since coming onboard the TARDIS, Harry will shrink from the Doctor's touch. Just a quiver, as if he doesn't want the connection, doesn't want to know. But he hears, hears the drums, and hears the ones in his own head speed in response, and he lifts a hand to touch at the Doctor's, pulling it away from his head and staring at it for a moment or two, before looking up at the Doctor. And it's true. God, it's true, what he says. The deja vu and the drums and that strange, comfortable familiarity with the Doctor. It's all true. He swallows. 'Who am I?'

"You were the Master." And it's not much better, for the Doctor, sharing this, because he doesn't...want the Master back anymore. This new person could, maybe, be enough. But he deserves to know.

And Harry's face twists itself into something at once derisive and uncomfortable. 'I called myself that? What, conceited much?' Because that doesn't sound like him. He may recall bits and pieces of what he was, but hearing that name strikes no chord in him. It's easier to mock than to take it as truth.

"Yeah, well, you were." Delivered with a bit of a grin, because...the Master *was.* And maybe this'll work, maybe it can be just like talking about someone gone now but remembered. Old stories.
"He was."
"Not you. You're Harry Saxon."

And Harry can feel something threatening to catch, in his throat or his chest or somewhere, because yes, he's Harry Saxon. Harry Saxon is a human, and he's not a killer, and whilst yes, he's ambitious, he'd never go and call himself something as daft as 'the Master.' His hand, still on the Doctor's, tightens a little, as if to ground himself, and his voice is deceptively steady. 'Why am I not him anymore? You said I hurt too many people...'

"I did that. There's a device, the Chameleon Arch, it changes Gallifreyan biology into human. It rewrites the mind. The Master...he wouldn't let anyone help him. I thought maybe Harry Saxon would." And the Doctor's not done a very good job of it, has he? Helping. But Harry's still holding onto his hand, not drawing back, and...maybe, for once, the Doctor made the right choice, destroying one life but creating a new one.

This is insane, all of this. The Doctor telling him that he's not himself at all, that in truth, he's a Time Lord who calls himself the Master, someone who hurt so many people he had to be... changed into someone else. That's probably more disturbing than anything else he's felt since meeting the Doctor. But he knows know that that's the Master, that indifference to killing, the pleasure at seeing the Doctor in pain, in tears, those things the drums seem to spur him towards on those days when they're at their worst, and Harry's face twists again, and he looks down at their joined hands. 'If that's the kind of man he was... I'm glad I'm not him anymore. I wouldn't want to be that, that sick-' he breaks off, swallows, his jaw set in a hard line.

"That's it, though. He *was* sick. That's what he wouldn't let me change. He never trusted me to help him. He never *wanted* help. He believed that he was well."
The Doctor puts his other hand over their clasped hands. "What you hear, the drums, that's what's left of what drove him to become what he was. It's not something you're meant to have. It's not your sickness. It's his."
"He was a brilliant man. My best friend, centuries ago. We grew up together, but he never told me there was anything wrong."
"*You* know they're wrong." Half a question, and he watches for the answer carefully.

It's hard to take in, what the Doctor's telling him, that he was dangerous, sick, a madman, and something in Harry rebels against it. Most of him's just confused, though, unable to equate this image of the so-called Master with himself. And he thinks, furthermore, that he can see something in the Doctor's eyes that's disturbing, off-putting. Harry looks down at their hands, at the Doctor's over his, and feels the cool of his skin; was he like that once, too? Cool to the touch, with two beating hearts? He huffs out a little breath. 'I don't know about... wrong or right.' He doesn't want the Doctor to know what thoughts the drums bring to his mind, on those days when they're so bad he almost wants to kill something just to shut them up. 'But I've heard them all my life. And they hurt.' He ducks his head. 'They just... hurt, there's no point to them, no reason I should hear them.'
But then he shakes his head, runs his other hand through his hair, changing tack because all of this conversation hurts, but he'd rather not talk about the drums when he doesn't have to. 'What was he to you? You said he was your best friend, but the way you look at me sometimes...'
He's genuinely curious, but the tilt of his chin almost makes it a challenge.

The challenge has something of the Master to it, that constant defiance, but in Harry, the antagonism has a...well, he'd almost call it a charm, but that smacks of condescension. It's vibrant and living, a willingness to question, to assert himself, that doesn't carry the malicious, insidious probing for weakness, for reaction, that the Master's challenge always did. The Doctor likes it, in Harry. Very much.
But the question he throws at the Doctor is a complex one, and difficult to explain, to a man who only remembers what it is to be human, and the short length of human relationships. The Doctor presses Harry's hand between his own, a momentary pressure, the gesture of a parent preparing to tell a child about a loved one they were too young to know, properly, before that person died.
"I'm not sure I can explain. We grew up together, went to school together. We...well, it's not falling in love, human beings always simplify things. It didn't involve any falling, it wasn't like we tripped one day and oh, there we were. We were just together. Don't know if we cared about each other because we were always together or if we were always together because we cared about each other. Bit chicken or egg."
"And then we...grew apart. People do. Not just human beings. I think he still loved me. It's not my place to say.
"I cared for him, still. I always have." But maybe not the way the Master wanted. Maybe not with the single-minded want and need that the Master seemed to hold for the Doctor. Maybe there was too much pity in what the Doctor felt for the Master, too much of wanting to make him Koschei again, when the Master loved the Doctor as much as he had loved Theta.

They were in love, this Master and the Doctor? But not just that, Harry thinks. He can see in the Doctor's eyes that he's hiding something, but he can't tell what; what he can tell is what he knows about the Master, this madman that he was. And Harry tries to imagine how such a man feels love for someone like the Doctor; he can't quite do it, and that, together with the Doctor's words and the look in his eyes combines to feel like a punch in the stomach. He doesn't want to be that man, he doesn't, but he feels now almost as if he's broken up something that he had no business being involved in, and he pulls his hand away from the Doctor's, tucking them into his pockets. 'I could do with a cup of tea,' he says, looking up at the Doctor and pursing his lips. 'I'll make us one.' It's both an evasion and an invitation for the conversation to continue; anyway, if they are going to go on, Harry thinks he could do with somewhere to sit.

Talking about the Master to Harry like this...it's very strange. And the look in Harry's eyes when he pulls away, evades the issue but doesn't shut down the conversation, leaves the Doctor questioning himself. He feels almost ashamed, and he's not certain why. It's as though he's been caught lying.
"Tea. Right. Tea would be good. D'you want to take it to the Spring Arboretum? I think the cherry trees are peaking. It's been about a week since their last."

The kitchen would serve as well as any place, but if the Doctor wants to take tea in the arboretum, that's fine too. Harry shrugs. 'Sure.' But off to make the tea first; he gives the Doctor a little cock of the eyebrows, a twist of the lips that invites him to follow as Harry heads off to the kitchen. The TARDIS kitchen is equipped, oddly enough, with an Aga, and Harry sets a kettle to bubbling on the stove whilst he roots through the cabinets in search of tea. It doesn't take as long as it did when he first came onboard; they're much neater now, thanks to him.

They would be. One of those quirks that carry over from Time Lord to Human, apparently; and the Doctor's not sure if he approves. He's always finding things *put away,* when they were doing perfectly well out in the open, lying about where he'd remember he had them.
The Doctor...hovers. This is a conversation he knew would happen eventually, but now that it's happening, he's not quite sure how to have it. He doesn't know what to say, or what to talk about, or whether he should lead or let Harry question, so instead he just leans against the table and watches Harry go through the cabinets. "Try the tin at the back of the secretary. Afelben goldleaf tea. Tastes like a field of wheat looks, with rain on the horizon."
The Doctor taps his rhythm against the table edge, restless, uncertain of his place.

The box of gunpowder ceylon he'd been holding goes back on the shelf, and Harry pulls out the tin of Afelben goldleaf. He's in the process of fetching a pair of mugs when the rhythm the Doctor's drumming out hits his ears, and he stills for a moment. Hand still up on the shelf with the mugs, head bowed against the cabinet door, lips pursed tight. 'Doctor...' He's not sure if it's a warning or a plea or what, but he'd really rather not hear that particular sound at the moment.
\
"Hm? ...Oh." The Doctor stops, jamming his hands into his pockets self-consciously. The strain in Harry's voice and posture, the bow of his head, eat at him--this isn't going to work. Now that Harry knows, the Doctor will be a reminder, an irritant. He shouldn't have told him.
He looks away from Harry, feeling something that could fast become distance between them.

And now it would be Harry's turn to feel like an idiot. The drums lend themselves towards a short temper, towards wanting to just curl up somewhere away from the world; the Doctor's already got his own to deal with, he doesn't need Harry's too. He turns back to look at the other man, running hands over his face, smiling a strained sort of smile and sighing through his fingers. 'I'm sorry, I'm- it's just... this is new, that's all. One never does really prepare oneself for the eventuality of learning that one's entire life is a fiction.' A rueful little chuff of laughter, as Harry remembers university days he apparently never had. 'Descartes. Bloody... The Matrix.'

And that last makes the Doctor laugh, in spite of himself. "Oi, I'm not Morpheus. And you won't be waking up to the Desert of the Real. It's just as rich as it was before, your life. Even if the memories aren't real, they're still a part of you."
He looks up at the ceiling, considering. "We were a bit Neo and Smith, the Master and I. With better dialogue. Much better. At least, mine was."
"He did like suits. At the end."
He was dead once, for the Doctor. And now it's as though he's died again. He can talk about him and smile, and he's not sure what that means.

The Doctor's laugh is infectious, and Harry can feel his lips curve into a wry sort of smile. Descartes, he'd remembered, sitting in a Philosophy lecture and idly scribbling notes about dualism. He remembers objecting to something his lecturer had said, a simplification, and speaking up from his seat to correct him. It's not a real memory, but it's still him. Cogito, ergo sum. Yes. He hadn't really known the truth of that before; now he does, truly does. At the Doctor's comment about the Master's clothing tastes, Harry looks down at himself; he's in nice trousers and a cashmere jumper today- he likes things classy, comfortable and maybe just a little decadent- and shrugs. 'I like suits,' he comments, rather inconsequentially.

"Well, liking is one thing, larking about like a runaway color from Reservoir Dogs is another."
"Though he couldn't have gone with the nehru collars and the black in that regeneration, it wouldn't have gone." The Doctor scratches at a sideburn, the conversation having strayed into potentially odd territory again. "The suits were when he looked like you. Earlier...it was pantomime-villain beards and Phantom cloaks."

Whilst it's clear that the Doctor did care for this Master bloke very much indeed, Harry, quite frankly, is beginning not to care for him much at all. He snorts, turning to flick off the burner as the kettle begins to boil. 'Classy,' he says wryly over his shoulder. 'Points for originality.' Nudging the Doctor's cup across the counter so that he can fiddle with it as he will, Harry adds several heaping spoonfuls of sugar (Kh'trellian hibiscus sugar, says the label on the side of the jar) to his tea. Strong and sweet is how he likes it- just the same way this regeneration of the Master liked his, not that Harry would know that.

The Doctor knows, however, and watches Harry turn his tea into sugar-with-tea with the familiar amusement of a sibling watching another sibling do something that said sibling always does and the former sibling always finds amusing, because isn't the point of tea the *tea?*
The Doctor just takes his tea straight. "Subtlety was never his style." Uh-huh, and it *is* the Doctor's? Pfft. "You'll lose the nuances, piling on the sugar like that."

'Apparently.' His voice is arch with mild amusement. It's a strange thing, this, talking about the man he used to be as if he was no more than an old acquaintance. Someone to be fondly remembered. 'Brings out the flavour,' he defends against the Doctor's words, 'Otherwise it just tastes like vaguely floral water.' And what's the point of that? Tea should taste of tea, otherwise you might as well just drink hot water. It is delicious, though, as he takes the first sip. It's lighter, somehow, cooler than Harry usually likes his tea- the gunpowder ceylon he favours is dark and spicy and smoky- but it tastes just as the Doctor promised, and he inhales the steam off the top, his shoulders drooping in a little sigh.

The Doctor lets the steam from his tea curl up around his own face as well, holding the cup in both hands to take in its warmth before sipping, watching Harry across the table. The sigh and that relaxation of his shoulders earn Harry a look that is entirely fond, if edged with far-away sadness.

The thought, when it shoulders its way into Harry's brain, is entirely unwelcome, but once it settles itself, he can't shake it. Another sigh gusts against the lip of his teacup, but it's less contented now, and he looks up at the Doctor, weighing him across the distance of two mugs and a tabletop. 'He'd hate you, wouldn't he?' He says eventually. 'For turning him into me.' How exactly he knows that, he doesn't know, but he's quite sure of it, and he lets his teacup warm his hands as he watches the Doctor for his reaction.

The Doctor goes still, his expression sobering. He looks down into his tea for a long moment. "Yes. He would." He doesn't meet Harry's eyes again until after he says the words. The Master would laugh, dismiss this as all some pathetic game, the Doctor nursing his savior complex, trying to help, when what he's helping isn't the Master at all, only a human who happens to look extraordinarily similar. The palest reflection.
"You'd be nothing to him. A memory to be laughed at. Something more to taunt me with."

It's what he expected to hear, but it still stings somehow, and Harry bristles against this memory, this idea of the Master. 'Right.' His next sip of tea is a little more than a sip, and it burns his tongue, and he shakes his head, setting his jaw and taking another. There are words bubbling up inside him, angry and uncomfortable and still, somehow, feeling weirdly guilty for getting in between the Doctor and the Master. 'I am... so glad that I am not that man,' he says quietly, staring at the tabletop. His voice nearly quivers with intensity; it's the sort of deep feeling that makes him want to go somewhere, do something, fuck or fight or run or laugh, action to get rid of this uncomfortable heaviness.

The Doctor doesn't answer; he sips his tea and sits back in his chair, watching Harry closely. The choked intensity in the man's words, that sense of deep, targetless anger and frustration barely held back, the Doctor knows that feeling. It's the feeling of having an enemy you can't see, can never identify, and part of you fears that it might be *yourself.* Perhaps, for Harry, even more literally than for the Doctor. It's the drums, and Harry responds to them in a fashion much more like the Doctor than the Master did.
He sits his mug down on the table, with quiet precision. "...Feeling alright, Harry?"
And this is something he *does* miss--the way he could feel the Master, tap into his drums, without touch. The presence they held for each other.

Not particularly, no; he's had better days, as it happens. It's that same sense he had the first time he stepped out of the TARDIS onto a different world, of how utterly vast the universe was. Except that now it's reversed, and he's feeling intensely how very small he is. Harry offers the Doctor a crooked little smile. 'I feel like a complete twat asking,' he says lightly, 'but I could do with a hug.'

The Doctor smiles back, a half-smile that works up to his eyes, shades them with soft amusement at the absurdity of all of this, their conversation, and with the something beyond affection, beyond fondness, he's developing for Harry. "C'mon." He scritches his chair in next to Harry's, puts a hand on his shoulder, and pulls him into a hug.

His smiles straightens out a little at the one the Doctor gives him in return. Harry still can't understand the love that the Doctor and the Master apparently had, warped and twisted as it was, but he thinks he could understand how he might be able to fall in love himself. That's strange enough that his smile crooks again, and he lets himself be pulled into an embrace. His arms go around the Doctor's back, fingers spreading over the leather of his jacket, and he lets himself be held. It's good, and he exhales another small sigh, closing his eyes. He's Harry and that's fine with him, and it's fine with the Doctor, and the Master, who doesn't even exist anymore, can go fuck himself. 'Sorry,' he mutters after a moment, 'I'm being fucking emotional.'

He could never get this close to the Master, not without fear of what the contact might do, to both of them, of the Master reaching into his mind and twisting, of the touch escalating into angry, hungry violence or sex or both. It's good to be able to touch and have that mean comfort, the way it should, instead of competition and compulsion. The Doctor holds Harry against him, the soft cashmere of his jumper under his hands, and underneath that, the warm human heat of his body, blood moving to the pulse of a single heart.
"Nothing wrong with being emotional. 'S human." The Doctor closes his eyes, too, and rests the side of his head against Harry's, feels the echo of what the Master was in the drums in his mind. They're quiet now, and the Doctor establishes the barest connection, enough to let him draw on that quiet. And then it occurs to him what he's just said. *"Natural.* It's natural."

He can feel it, the connection that the Doctor makes to his mind, but it's strange, a sensation he can recognise but not name. The quiet's good, though, and Harry lets his chin rest on the Doctor's shoulder, soaking it up. When he hastily corrects himself, Harry exhales a wry laugh through his nose; it's obvious, the difference there, implicit in his words, the difference between Time Lord and human. He said it earlier, when he said that Harry would mean nothing to the Master, and Harry draws back. Not completely; his hands slide down from the Doctor's back to let one rest on his hip, the other on his leg. The contact is good, and Harry doesn't want to let that go quite so quickly, but enough for him to be able to look the Doctor in the face. He arches a wry eyebrow. 'Oh? Time Lords do the whole emotions thing as well, then? Not just us lowly humans.'

"Yeah, yeah, we do. Oi, and humans are *not* lowly." The Doctor takes his cue from Harry, not relinquishing either mental or physical contact yet, his hands on Harry's upper arms, a slight squeeze backing up his words. "That's something the Master would say."

It could be insulting, that, except that he knows the Doctor doesn't mean it like that, that he doesn't want to see Harry as the Master any more than Harry does. So harry flashes the Doctor a grin, rubbing the hand resting on his leg up to his thigh in a gesture somewhere between fond mockery and reassurance. 'Sarcasm, Doctor.'

"Just checking. Can't have you down on your own species." The Doctor appreciates Harry's grin, the speed with which he's accepting the difficult information the Doctor's just thrown at him--or, at least, making a show of having accepted it. He lets one of his hands rub down Harry's arm, come to rest naturally along his forearm. He won't mention that the Master was also very good at sarcasm.

Harry pulls a little 'nahhh,' face, something that easily denies that he'd ever do that. And it's true enough; he's not the sort to get down on himself- or, by extension of that, his species. As far as he's concerned, from what he's seen, humans have about the same capacity for idiocy as the rest of the universe, no better or worse than anybody else. Ok, well, there are some that just obviously operate on a different level, but, for the most part. 'Is that a Time Lord thing, then?' He asks after a moment, wriggling two fingers in the general direction of his temple to indicate the... connection the Doctor had established. 'What is that, telepathy, psychic power...?' It's not something the Doctor had ever done before today, naturally Harry should be curious.

"Oh." He forgets that he has to explain, occasionally. "Yeah, yep. Telepathy. We have limited natural ability, physical contact ups the intensity, makes it much easier. We can feel other Time Lords, sense telepathic communication from other species, like that. I'm not Charles Xavier, wouldn't want to be, but I'm not too bad."
"...If you ever want to see, you know, *him,* I can do that for you." Maybe it's something Harry will need, at some point. He'd rather Harry found out anything more he learns about the Master in mental rapport with him than on his own, where he could keep the learning secret, let it hurt him or change him without the Doctor knowing what was wrong.

'No,' he says almost immediately. 'No, I'd- no.' Knowing who he was is quite enough for Harry. At least for the moment. He knows who he was and has an idea of what he was to the Doctor, the sort of man he was to the rest of the universe, and Harry would rather spend his time being himself, and forget entirely about the Master. Because there's no way he can go on being himself, being happy with that, if he's got the shadow of this man hanging over him all the time. And besides... seeing himself- or rather, seeing this body belonging to someone else, someone cruel and pitiless and mad... Harry doesn't want to see that.

"Good." The Doctor raises one hand from where it rest on Harry's arm, hesitates for a moment, unsure of himself, and than lays the hand along one side of Harry's face. The Doctor has never had a problem treating human beings with an easy, unexamined condescension, as children as much as as friends; but he finds himself thinking first around Harry, not wanting a word or a touch to imply that he sees the other man as less than himself. Harry is human, but *different.* He cannot jibe at him or tease him about his humanity, because he was not born to it. Because it is the Doctor's fault.
"But if you ever change your mind. It's fine, there's nothing wrong with wanting to know. Remember that."
"I won't hide anything from you." Which is, almost certainly, a lie. The memories, even if he allows Harry full access, will be filtered through the Doctor's mind, his perspective. The Master will be unable to speak for himself, in anything the Doctor can give Harry.
And it now occurs to the Doctor that Harry doesn't, perhaps, know what *he's* done, the Doctor. To Gallifrey and to the species that Harry is now part of.

He's not entirely sure what to do when the Doctor cups one side of his face in a hand. It's an intimate gesture, and whilst Harry's always felt an effortless closeness with the other man (and he knows why now), this one requires figuring out what to do with his eyes. He settles on direct eye contact after a moment, nodding a little, vaguely, at his words. They do come off as faintly condescending, despite the Doctor's efforts to the contrary, but Harry's travelled with him for long enough now that it doesn't really bother him. It's still not an offer he ever anticipates wanting to take the Doctor up on; worse than seeing himself as some kind of a monster would be seeing who he was and wanting to go back to that. He's a better man than that, Harry's sure, but the possibility is a disturbing one. 'I'll keep that in mind,' he says lightly- it's the tone of someone dismissing something outright but not actually saying as much- and lifts his own hand, the one resting on the Doctor's hip, to briefly stroke over his cheek, curling his fingers around the back of his neck for the briefest of moments.

And, of course, whether unknowingly or through what remains of the Master's persona, Harry manages to trace his fingers over the nerve center at the base of the Doctor's neck, the light touch shivering a response out along the Doctor's skin, raising goosebumps. He closes his eyes at the sensation, sinking into it, despite its unexpectedness. His hand on Harry's face slips down, to rest against the join of throat to shoulder; and the pressure of his other hand, still on Harry's arm, increases, like a cat kneading.

The Doctor's reaction is entirely unexpected, and Harry blinks a little as he seems to practically melt into his touch. Unexpected it may be, but it's not at all unpleasant, and a little shock of sensation shivers out from where the Doctor's own hand slips down, thumb resting against the hollow of his throat with the rest of his hand a cool pressure through cashmere. Harry moves his hand, and it's deliberate this time, stroking down the sensitive skin on the back of the Doctor's neck, the fine, soft hair at the base of his skull to the collar of his jacket.

The thrill of sensation travels up and down his spine, from Harry's touch, tingling to fill up the space behind his eyes, moving away from the comfortable pleasure of contact towards the needier prickling of arousal. The Doctor rubs his thumb against the base of Harry's throat, at the same speed as Harry's own touch, and then slides his hand in under the neck of the cashmere jumper, long, colder-than-human fingers feeling their way down Harry's back, drawing him closer to the Doctor as his other hand slides to Harry's hip.

He can see it in the Doctor's face, the reaction to his touch, and it floods his veins with sudden heat. Maybe that was what the Doctor needed, he thinks, for Harry to know who he was, and choose himself despite that. Because before now, he's shied away from close touch, the casual intimacy that came so easily to Harry, but now... There's a low intake of breath as the Doctor's fingers slide under the collar of his jumper, tracing the bumps of his spine, skin against skin. Heat shivers down his spine following the Doctor's fingers. He lets the Doctor pull him closer, and indeed, the hand on the back of his neck tightens slightly, reciprocating the motion. He wants to kiss him. He's got very nice lips; it's not something Harry's ever noticed before, but he has.

The Doctor pulls Harry closer to him, his other hand slipping under the jumper to the small of Harry's back, fingers tracing, patterns of touch and pressure, dipping below his waistband and back up--no object, no goal, just touching, echoing the rhythm of Harry's touch, another push-pull to bring them closer together, as his other hand finds its way back to Harry's neck, to brush up along the same space of skin Harry is caressing, to the base of Harry's skull, to pull him forward. The hand kneading the small of Harry's back slides up the curve of his spine as the Doctor draws him into a kiss.

It's leisurely at the same time as it's needy, and Harry feels like a canvas under the Doctor's fingers. They sweep along skin, pressing and touching, figures and patterns left behind in their wake, and Harry finds his other hand- the one resting on the Doctor's leg- doing much the same thing. Fingers following the weave of his trousers, tracing from his knee all the way up to the join up his hip and back down again. When the Doctor pulls him up into a kiss, Harry smiles against it, that hand sliding up to rest against the Doctor's waist. He leans into the kiss, mouthing at the Doctor's lips, licking out once, quick, to trace along the lines of his teeth, and it occurs to him that he tastes of honey, as well as the tea they'd both been drinking. Funny, that.

The Doctor answers the inquisitive tasting of Harry's kiss with his own, the hand at the back of Harry's skull stroking, instinctively, up and down the nape of his neck, seeking to give the same pleasure that Harry's touch gives him. The warmth of him is new, and the taste of his breath, of him, is...similar but not the same. The scent, the pheromones of his body, they're close, the nearest approximations human biology can accommodate, but they aren't the *same.*
He leans further into the kiss, trying. Trying, because he's the one who initiated this--Harry didn't know what he was doing, what his touch meant, it was the Doctor who chose to accept the gesture as Gallifreyan, to respond to Harry as he once, very long ago, responded to the Master.
And he feels the drums at the back of his mind, seeking a response. In a mirror to his kisses, his mind slips in and out of Harry's, searching. Searching for the long-ago taste of a brilliant, shared youth, rebellious and full of broken rules and discoveries made together, full of hot impatience against a society that told them not to be what they were, clever, eccentric, questioning, terrible children, terrible men, always showing each other new ways to look at the universe, at its vastness, trying to show others and being snubbed, turned down, laughed at.
Nothing. He finds nothing but ghosts. Harry tastes of humanity, a taste the Doctor, no matter how he may pretend otherwise, has sampled many times over the centuries, and his mind tastes of shadows, false flavors, emptiness. Only the very recent memories stand out, whole and full and glittering, and they are beautiful, vibrant, wonderful memories, a personality that challenges life, a personality very like the boy-man that the Doctor--that Theta--once loved and still loves. But those memories are the memories the Doctor has given Harry, the memories he has formed in his travels as a companion-but-not, and they shame the Doctor. They are all that Harry has of his own, and they were all gifted to him by the Doctor.
And, then, at the very back of Harry's mind, he finds Harry's drums, and his drums leap up in response, feed on them, hungry. *Here.* Here is something of the Time Lord. Here is the imprint of Koschei, beating even in the different mind of a human man.

When the Doctor deepens the kiss, Harry opens to it easily, his hands slipping around, touching and petting, appreciative of the Doctor's body beneath his clothes, wanting him closer. There's something in him- the drums, the Master- that wants more than that, but it's easy to ignore that now, kissing the Doctor deep and lazy, his mind full of the taste of tea and honey and cool flesh. Except that then he feels something, that same feeling-not-feeling from when the Doctor showed him his drums, and later, gave him his silence. Something inside his mind- the Doctor- and Harry can feel some of that presence there. It doesn't match what he's feeling right now, not at all. Faint sensations of desperation, of shame and sorrow and pity that Harry can't catch enough of to properly understand. He kisses the Doctor harder, his other hand going up to join the first, carding through the Doctor's hair.
But then, very suddenly, the drums roar up in his mind; demanding, hungry- and lustful, too, taking the arousal in his body and making it something fierce. He can hear his drums and the Doctor's drums both, and they want too much. Far too much; Harry quails, pulling away from the Doctor with a shout, clutching at his head.

The Doctor makes a noise of his own, a wordless protest in his throat, like a growl, like an animal that's had prey ripped away from it just when it had found the opening for the neck-bite, for the kill. Hunger and need and frustration and violence very barely checked. He lunges after Harry--and he's not thinking Harry, he's thinking Koschei, the Master, the sound of the drums--an awkward movement without any thought behind it, trying to grab Harry back towards him. But he gets caught up by legs of the chairs and Harry's resistance, and succeeds only in tipping over his own chair and dragging Harry out of his own, toppling them both onto the floor. The Doctor falls against a table leg, and the tea rivulets down on both of them, as the jostling tips over the mugs.

He struggles thoughtlessly when the Doctor lunges after him- the drums, for once given the outlet they crave, the chance for blood and sex and for triumph- and Harry rips himself away from the other man, grabbing at the first thing he can to steady himself. It's the table leg, and he clings to it, knocking over their mugs and sending tea dribbling down disconsolately on them both. He's gripping so hard that his nails nearly dig into the wood, but he has to because if he lets go, he's terrified he's going to attack the Doctor. This has never happened before, ever. It's only been a faint impulse in the back of his mind on the days when they're bad, an impulse that's frightening, yes, but nothing that he's ever given into. But this time... He keeps his hold on the table leg, holding himself steady even as he looks over at the Doctor, jaw tight and eyes narrow. 'What the hell was that?'

The Doctor pushes himself up against his own table leg, angling himself back up to a sitting position. Tea puddles around him on the floor, drips from his hair. He--what--that was all *wrong.* And Harry's looking at him now with an expression that's almost the Master, that sharp, angry, *crossed* look, incredulous that the universe should vex *him.*
He runs his hands up over his face, both of them, back through his hair, horrified at himself. Without the Master's control of the drums, his resistance, that immensely strong telepathic will to back them up, the Doctor had lost control himself, let his drums take over, try to accomplish what they've always wanted--the molding of the Master's into their own image, their possession or their silencing.
"That--that was--me. You. Him. What's left of him, in you."
He crosses his arms across his chest, not in his usual relaxed Nine gesture, but as though he's hugging himself. "I'm sorry. What was wrong with him--it's wrong with me, too. I'm sorry. Harry."

Harry feels shaken, crouched there by the table leg, looking across at the Doctor- the Doctor!- as though he was a wild animal who might attack at any moment. But that tells him more yet about the Master. His own actions aside, the Master was a man who could turn the Doctor into that. And he knows more than ever that he never wants to be that man ever again. Here come the drums, he thinks, and grimaces, not knowing where the words came from. Slowly, he allows himself to relax, grimacing fastidiously as one leg stretches out into a puddle of tea. 'Was that because of- you said physical contact made the telepathy easier- did that happen because we were kissing?' He hopes not. He really hopes not.

The Doctor regards the tea puddling on the floor between them glumly. All of that, the conversation, Harry had been doing so *well,* and then he, the Doctor, ruined it by forgetting that Harry wasn't the Master. By forgetting that he wasn't Koschei, and what was like Koschei in Harry, what made him himself, could only exist because he was *not* the Master.
"Yeah. Yeah, it did."
"Physical contact sets up the potential for...mm, resonance. The drums encourage each other. The Master could...he'd had them since he was very young, he had better control, more experience. I...I came to them late. I wanted his help, I wanted to help *him.* So we could both be whole again. But I couldn't convince him. I never learned anything about how he lived with them. My control is...well, it's...it's poor. And so is yours."

'Oh.' Just oh, and an illogical disappointment at hearing that. It was just a snog, of course, and Harry knows the Doctor said that Time Lords 'do the whole emotions thing' too, but he can't help feeling that the experience of them still must be different for them somehow. Because Harry had felt so good, kissing him, his hands cool against his back. Perhaps the Doctor had only felt a lack of the Master. He was right about the resonance, though; the drums had never felt like that before, and he never wants to feel that again, that sensation of being out of his own control. Still, though. Harry heaves a little sigh, looking over at the Doctor, and in a moment, he makes something like a decision. The table is small, their legs are all but tangled at the moment, so it's not hard for Harry to lean across, to take the Doctor's jumper in his hand, and press a firm kiss to his lips. It's saying something, though he's not quite sure what, and that will have to do for the moment.

The Doctor slams up all of the mental barriers he possesses as Harry leans across to him, determined not to let their minds make contact again, no matter how great the temptation (and it still is, because he cares for Harry, he wants to be close to him, and the mind is so central to that, that connection clearer than words or even touch--and because the drums know his weakness now, know that they could make Harry theirs/his, make him into their image, even more than the Chameleon Arch has already allowed). And because he knows that what he is looking for is not *there.* Harry is Harry, and if he wants to care for him, he will have to learn to accept that.
But when Harry grabs him by the jumper, kisses him, they collapse, instantly, and he can feel him, again, this human man struggling against a burden even Time Lords cannot bear, struggling to be himself in spite of the drums.
Harry is not the danger here. The Master is. The Doctor is. But not this man.
The Doctor lets himself respond to the kiss, not deep, not risking any renewal of the brief surge of violence moments ago. He runs a hand through Harry's hair, up from the base of his neck to the crown of his head.
"I like you, Harry Saxon." He smiles, subdued, but sincere.

He doesn't really give a toss whether the Doctor kisses back. It's a statement more than anything else, after all; I'm not giving up that easily, I am not the Master, I am not going to be a slave to this thing. But he does kiss back, and Harry finds himself humming in the back of his throat as long fingers run through short hair, and when the kiss ends, he regards the Doctor with one brow raised and a smile twitching about his lips. He still feels shaken and scared, somewhere inside himself, and his nice trousers are getting soaked in cold tea, but right now... this isn't so terribly bad. Maybe. He smirks, and it's just as genuine as the Doctor's smile, even if it is a little crooked. 'You're strangely tolerable as well, thanks.'

"Oh, well, tolerable, I'm moving up in the world."
"What do you say we get out of this tea?"

'One of your more sensible ideas this month, Doctor.' He hoists himself to his feet, holding out a hand to help haul the Doctor up, and then plucking distastefully at his sodden trousers. 'I liked these, you know.'

"I thought rerouting the quantum reactivator through the triple-spheric liminal type-12 mark array was sensible. Oh, and running from the Qwark bats." The Doctor, having allowed himself to be hoisted up, shakes his feet like a cat that's stepped in water--somehow he's managed to get tea in his Converse.
"TARDIS'll have them right in no time, don't worry."
"So, clothing with fewer antioxidants and a new destination with fewer grudge-holding natives?"

'Probably a good idea, yeah.'
And then they went off into the sunset, and nearly got themselves killed on yet another planet, and it was all jolly good fun. The end. Because I'm tired and haven't slept in far too long.

Comments

[caelitus.livejournal.com]

So I... skimmed. I read some bits but I think I'd be here all night if I tried reading it all and I'm already exhausted. ANYWAY!

Oh, the possibilities! This AU is interesting, and there's so many places it can go. You two are fabo. :D

[laser-not-sonic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this just about ate my brain for a few days whilst we were in the middle of writing it. But there really are all sorts of questions that crop up there of identity and the genuineness of emotion and all sorts of stuff. It makes me happy.

And I'm glad someone's reading it!

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

XD If you think reading it takes a long time, don't, oh, please don't think how long writing it took >_> ...I think I kind of burned out my RP quota for the week on this ^_-;;

The Doctor *likes* Harry! Harry is all clever and defiant and quick on his feet and he has a sense of humor and all the good things about the Master, like when he was Koschei. Except, you know, he's not. Koschei.

So the Doctor is emo, because he likes Harry because Harry is like someone he had to erase to let Harry exist.

...It just sucks being a Time Lord.

And it is fun! It was all lsn-mun's suggestion. She initiated this madness XD