excerpt 002

working title:penance

It is too intimate and activity for the sun to see. The stars, the suns of solar systems and galaxies millions of miles away - they were too far away to bear witness and, even then, he only permits his hands to work and eyes to search while shielded by walls and roof and dark windows. Sometimes it feels so spectacular that he feels he should close his eyes. He would close his eyes if he did not have to see everything.

The night gets too long sometimes. That is no surprise, it is nothing new - the night is long and the darkness is terrifying to someone who has died so many times already. He never knows if he will wake up. Sometimes he hardly even knows if he is awake to start, if he is not dreaming everything already.

This man - this one man - convinced him that this is no dream. He does not know when or how it happened, but somewhere along the way, when this man appeared, he knew he was not in any dream. With him, he could not even be in hell. He began seeking his company and, strangely, it seemed almost as if this strange and wonderful man was returning the gesture.

How ironic that it would be that man, the man who fixed people, the very Doctor he had intended to kill. He was never looking to be fixed and here was this man who, if he was not fixing anything, was at least giving him a reason to look forward to the nighttime.

He actually begins to look forward to the evening. It is the only time he feels comfortable actively pursuing the Doctor's company, now that that connection has been officially established.

The daytime takes a long time to pass, even if he lays there with his eyes open and tries to rest. He starts trying to find ways to occupy his mind when all else fails, and he gradually finds that if he can keep his hands busy, his eyes will follow.

He begins to find that he likes the white of paper and the way it reflects even the barest traces of light. He likes the way it is unassuming, blank, ready to be made into something beautiful or ugly or profound - anything that he wills it to be. He begins to pretend that he is like paper. That he can rewrite himself into something that is not all good, maybe even ugly, but something that someone could look at and marvel at. He likes the idea. He learns to draw and paint almost everything, from furniture to landscapes to still life. During the night when he does not see anyone, he sits there in the dark with his hands on the canvas, and he swirls colors in the way he can best imagine the sunrise. He paints the dawn until it touches the horizon, and he does not have to be so afraid anymore.

He and the Doctor visit more, gradually, and they progress from stunted quiet to gentle conversation. At some point - he is not sure when - he tells the Doctor how afraid he is of the neverending dark. The man is so kind about the matter that, that evening, he slips the best of his sunrise paintings under the door and the next time he dares to approach his room, he is rendered momentarily speechless by the presence of that painting on the wall.

It is hard to say exactly when he began sketching the Doctor, himself. The first time it was such a quiet affair; he had brought up candles and placed them in a way that it would not be so obvious that he was shedding light upon the paper. Light-colored eyes had been distracted, by words, by a book, by paintings - and he had taken the moment to sketch and observe the details of his face. It was so easy and natural to do that he thought nothing of it, when he began sketching him from memory.

In all honesty, it did not seem a fuss until a kiss became more than a kiss, more than even words. They had kissed before, few times with tender inclinations. It had even come to mean something. A kiss to the cheek was a thank you, to the lips was a silent, unspoken something that he would never repeat, not out loud, not after the first time he said it. He never expected to say it again, except with a gentle moment to touch lips together.

One strange night, it changes. Lips touch and touch again, and somehow a kiss against lips turns not to a kiss against cheek but wanders toward the edge of jaw. The words in his mind are not thank you nor I love you, but are strange and he does not know what to put to it. On this occasion, he had stopped, pulled away. He had smiled in that quiet, crooked way.

"May I sketch you, Doctor?"

So it is no longer a secret who he sketches, sometimes, but that is not the part that he must hide, anyway. He does not know what the kisses not-to-lips and not-to-cheek say, but putting words to the feeling was not high on his list of priorities. When he is alone, now, sometimes he closes his eyes to re-imagine it.

Sometimes he begins to sketch and it rolls into such a fervor of charcoal and flying hands that he parts the paper panting and exhausted. Sometimes he struggles with the detail. Sometimes he watches the page and watches the formation of the curve of neck, of the tilt of head or the pose of hand and he becomes so focused on touching the paper, making the shapes tangible, that he puts the paper away feeling quivering and spent.

It takes him no time at all to realize how erotic it is, really. The realization that he is watching the details form under his hand as though he could touch the very model is no surprise to him. He hides it from the stars and suns themselves because the activity is truly too intimate. He thinks he might never touch the Doctor the way he did that once, like he could simply touch him all over.

He has no idea what he is trying to say. He begins to realize that kisses say nothing, but the way he touches skin on paper says the world over.


after-rant (notes): AU concept. Taken shortly post!1996 movie, featuring Eighth Doctor and Roberts!Master, resurrected as a Time Lord but out of context from the Time War. Not yet sure why he would be resurrected, outside of the context of the Time War.

I am thinking that this excerpt shall turn up being a section from a three-parter. Something like sin:confession:penance or something. Or absolution for the last part. Not entirely sure yet. ...could be the aftermath of sin? Sin as a prologue? confession:penance:absolution? ...It needs to sound catchier. :\

Unfortunately, "the aftermath of sin in three parts" sounds like a tap dance routine with smiling Gene Kelly's and musical extravaganza. Which this is kind of... not.

Random aside. Enjoy the rant and drabble, lovies. <3