Unlike his other, the Doctor in black is mortified by his breach of etiquette. True, his other volunteered to establish contact again, and they've already shared much of their minds with each other, but that was with implicit permission. What he just did, that was...taking advantage, turning a handshake into a caress, using the contact to satisfy his own need and curiosity.
When his other opens his mind further in response, the Doctor wavers. He can feel the relative peace of his other's mind, in the lingering impression from his mental trespass and in the bleed from their contact. Reaching out into his other's mind would be like stepping from a bunker in a shelled battlefield onto a distant beach, the impacts of the shells reduced to the soft hiss of the waves.
He wants that. He wants to take that, and that's what stops him.
Before he can lose his resolve and act on his desire—on a selfish hunger, edged with envy—he sinks down into his own mind, calling his TARDIS, making his understanding of this experiment, of what he wants her to do, her understanding.
She doubts. The two Time Lords are playing with forces and energy beyond, perhaps, their ability to control. Out of simple curiosity, they would risk themselves—risk her, because if she loses her Doctor, she does not believe she would be capable of surviving alone anymore, one half of a whole.
But they believe it is important. S/he knows that, feels it in the part of her that is her Doctor. He is afraid. He wants and doesn't want to know what he is now. What they are.
Oh, Doctor. Her Doctor. Does it matter? He has always been hers and now he is her, and they are only one more expression of sentience, of energy and matter, taking its turn in the universe, living and burning in brilliance before entropy tears them apart and pulls them back out of time and space.
They are forever and not at all, two and the same, and she wishes this, like the drums, were not too large a truth for him to contain.
She goes where his want and fear lead her, out along the pathways of his mind, taking them as her own, out into the mind of the other Doctor. She brushes a greeting to her sister, at the back of the other's mind—hello and I'm sorry because she knows the other's mind isn't her place and Why do they hurt themselves like this? and, not intentionally, but because it's part of her, carried along with her, the snap of fingers broken and the edge of hunger for this Doctor's silence.
She washes through his mind and then recedes, though like a wave, she will both leave and take, because part of her is the Doctor and the two merges in one day have made this second merge stronger, more balanced, the Doctor-TARDIS.
She takes silence and she leaves the drums. With the model of silence from the other, she mimics it in her Doctor, in his/herself, stifling the rhythm for a time; with the model of the drums from his/herself, she finds the potential for them in the other and touches that potential into life. Not for long and not loud. But there.
S/he does not mean to. They only need, and this is part of the need.
S/he slides back into his/her own mind, carrying the panacea of silence into him/herself, and redividing into his/her component parts, until the Doctor is only himself again, as much as he can be, the not-artron glowing thick in the air around him and the stolen peace relaxing the tension he always holds, in his body and his mind.
no subject
When his other opens his mind further in response, the Doctor wavers. He can feel the relative peace of his other's mind, in the lingering impression from his mental trespass and in the bleed from their contact. Reaching out into his other's mind would be like stepping from a bunker in a shelled battlefield onto a distant beach, the impacts of the shells reduced to the soft hiss of the waves.
He wants that. He wants to take that, and that's what stops him.
Before he can lose his resolve and act on his desire—on a selfish hunger, edged with envy—he sinks down into his own mind, calling his TARDIS, making his understanding of this experiment, of what he wants her to do, her understanding.
She doubts. The two Time Lords are playing with forces and energy beyond, perhaps, their ability to control. Out of simple curiosity, they would risk themselves—risk her, because if she loses her Doctor, she does not believe she would be capable of surviving alone anymore, one half of a whole.
But they believe it is important. S/he knows that, feels it in the part of her that is her Doctor. He is afraid. He wants and doesn't want to know what he is now. What they are.
Oh, Doctor. Her Doctor. Does it matter? He has always been hers and now he is her, and they are only one more expression of sentience, of energy and matter, taking its turn in the universe, living and burning in brilliance before entropy tears them apart and pulls them back out of time and space.
They are forever and not at all, two and the same, and she wishes this, like the drums, were not too large a truth for him to contain.
She goes where his want and fear lead her, out along the pathways of his mind, taking them as her own, out into the mind of the other Doctor. She brushes a greeting to her sister, at the back of the other's mind—hello and I'm sorry because she knows the other's mind isn't her place and Why do they hurt themselves like this? and, not intentionally, but because it's part of her, carried along with her, the snap of fingers broken and the edge of hunger for this Doctor's silence.
She washes through his mind and then recedes, though like a wave, she will both leave and take, because part of her is the Doctor and the two merges in one day have made this second merge stronger, more balanced, the Doctor-TARDIS.
She takes silence and she leaves the drums. With the model of silence from the other, she mimics it in her Doctor, in his/herself, stifling the rhythm for a time; with the model of the drums from his/herself, she finds the potential for them in the other and touches that potential into life. Not for long and not loud. But there.
S/he does not mean to. They only need, and this is part of the need.
S/he slides back into his/her own mind, carrying the panacea of silence into him/herself, and redividing into his/her component parts, until the Doctor is only himself again, as much as he can be, the not-artron glowing thick in the air around him and the stolen peace relaxing the tension he always holds, in his body and his mind.