Current mood:	confused
Current music:	Jethro Tull - Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day

The Present Tense (1/?)
Title: The Present Tense (1/?)
Author: windout
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: R for language mostly. Soft R
Word Count: 1984
Genre: Het
Pairing/Characters: Harry/Lucy
Warnings: Gore (nothing really that you wouldn't expect from the Saxon's though), spoilers for Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, and eventual spoilers for Human Nature/Family of Blood.
Summary: Seems that Harry's grip on sanity's just as tenuous as ever.



Sometimes, when he’s really quiet, he can hear the universe moving. He lets his eyes drift closed as he stretches out in the pilot’s chair; it’s relaxing to simply watch as the back of his eyelids replay his memories of the Vortex.

However, more often than not, the sweet sound of time and space meandering along on on its predetermined path is muddied, crushed and ground up into ugly, sharp bits. He can see the discordant sounds when he shuts his eyes, as though someone’s taken a sledgehammer to a pane of end-of-the-day glass. He often thinks that those shards might prick out his eyes if he’s not careful, but he’s a Time Lord, and what sort of a Time Lord would he be if he were afraid of what he was rightfully master of?

The worst part though, isn’t the noise with its jagged, pointed edges. Beneath the grinding, snarling, ugly noise is a sound so inconceivably old, that the only way he can describe it, is as a sort of primitive drumbeat. Oh, the drumbeat in his head, a chorus of tympanis, and toms, and great bass drums. He has a hard time trying to separate this sound from that of his own two hearts beating sickly in his chest.

Between the shattered universe and the hideous drums, he’s almost positive that they’re all gone. Every last Time Lord, Lady, Lad and Lass, extinguished. (But how could that be?) If there were still Time Lords roaming the galaxy, the noise in his head would sound as it ought: a proper symphony of infinite power and beauty. (Someone must have escaped.) He hasn’t heard that sound in ages, and certainly not since he regenerated. (I ran…why couldn’t others have done the same?) Logically…and he absolutely detests logic…he really is on his own now.

When he lies awake at night, trying to hear himself think over the agonized shriek of a universe out of tune, The Master shoves his hands over his ears, squeezes his eyelids shut as tight as he can, and tries not to vomit.

***

The bed was empty as it often was when Lucy woke up from whatever constituted her Circadian rhythm these days. However, that wasn’t the worrying part. The black silk sheets were slick and sticky beside her, and when she ran her fingers over the moist patch of cloth, they came away stained a bright, glistening red.

“Harry,” she whispered. Lucy jumped out of bed and jogged to the console room. Small blessing, she was pretty sure that none of the blood was hers—she would have stabbed him in the belly if it was—but the fact that her husband was missing did much less to ease her mind. Then, she arrived at the main console in time to see Harold Saxon standing inches from the wide open doorway of the TARDIS looking out at the stars.

His arms were spread wide, braced on the door frame, holding himself just away from the door. He was wearing a starchy white shirt with a black vest and slacks, but the most vivid image in Lucy’s mind was his sleeves, the undersides dyed and plastered to his arms with the same bright red blood that now clung to her nightdress. It looked very fresh—what happened if a Time Lord bled out?

“Harry,” she ventured, taking care not to say his name as though it were a question. Questions led to opinion led to choice. It he was thinking about shuffling the mortal coil, Harry was definitely not allowed the luxury of free will.

He glanced backwards, eyebrow cocked curiously. He didn’t look unhappy exactly…Harry was curious or confused. “Lucy, darling, did you come to see me off?”

“I’ve done no such thing. I’ve come to fetch my husband and bring him back to bed.” After he changes the sheets.

A small smile quirked the corners of his mouth as though he’d heard her thought. Except, it wasn’t that dark smirk that sent shivers down her back, or even the goofy grin when he was up to no good. It was just this lonesome little smile that had a look of infinite pity about it just because she couldn’t understand what went on inside its owner’s head. Fuck that.

“Lucy, dear, do you know what’s out here? It’s space, my darling; huge, empty, glorious space.” He turned back to the door and leaned even closer to the opening. “It’s just so…simple. How easy it would be to let go, fall out, woopsidaisy!” He turned back to grin at her, flashing every last tooth at her, before looking back out at the cosmos. “It’s a peaceful end, I feel. A bit cold, perhaps. What do you think, Lucy? How hard would it be to take that definitive step?”

A dark, heavy dread settled at the bottom of her stomach. Oh Harry… "Harry, you’re being an absolute git. What are you talking about, definitive step?”

The name calling, though childish, had an effect. Harry—the Master now, she supposed—turned around fully and arched a brow at her. She could see now how he must have clutched at the side of his head and his ears: his temples and his ears, cheeks and chin were also marked with streaks of smeared blood. “Lucy…how unbelievably rude and uncouth.”

“Well you’re being an ass, so it’s only fair. Shut the door and come away from there.” She may have only been dressed in a simple nightdress (now coated in her husband’s blood), but she never let up on the authority in her voice. She watched as the expressions—pleasure, rage, confusion, lust—flickered across his pale face.

“Do you think the drums would punish you if you disobeyed them?” Lucy continued. “Because I most certainly would punish you if you decided you didn’t want to listen to my wise guidance. The Master may give into his weakness like a great nancy boy, but my Harry does not. Where is Harold Saxon?”

His eyes narrowed, and for a moment, she wondered if she’d taken it too far. But if she didn’t press on, the idea of losing Harry to his insanity became instantly more tangible and real. Lucy wouldn’t let that happen.

“Where is Harold Saxon?” she thundered.

“My dear…sweet Lucy. Don’t you recognize your husband—”

“I do, and you’re not him. You’re the man who I had to share a year with upon the Valiant, and you would do well to consider who it is that I am.”

He bounded away from the door, leaving the gaping expanse of space framed beyond the TARDIS. He skidded to a stop without thought to personal space--stood chest to chest with her and used his height for intimidation. Up close, Lucy could spot how the blood slicked his hair into short spikes and one of his lips was covered in the same bright red. “Poor little Lucy, so very confused. Can’t even recognize the man she married.” He bared his teeth in a snarl. “I am your husband, you stupid twa—”

She backhanded him across the cheek. Times like these, it was nice to have a husband who didn’t really mind physical violence as a means to an end. Of course, it’d be even better if she didn’t have to really resort to that mean, especially when her husband was contemplating nipping out the door into empty space without a suit.

The Master looked dazed. “You slapped me.”

“I told you I would. And trust me; I can be quite creative with my punishments.”

Those dark eyes, at first so blank, were now just hurt and full of loneliness. Lucy wondered how she could ever find her clever, wonderful Harry buried under all that emotional baggage. “Lucy, I can’t hear them.”

Hear what? Lucy thought. “Harry?”

“The Time Lords. I can’t…the universe just sounds so hideous and ugly. And underneath it all, there are all these damn drums and they won’t stop! If they were still here, still alive…” The end of his frenzied answer hung in the air like some black hole that sucked the light and warmth out of the room. If they were here, I wouldn’t be crazy…

Right before the year that never was, a woman had come bearing information about Harry—the real Harry—and had nearly scared Lucy out of her skin. Despite the embarrassment of the whole ordeal, there had been Harry, holding her until she no longer trembled. Lucy used their proximity to fold Harry—her Harry—in her arms and lay her head on his shoulder.

“They’re so loud…” he whispered.

“Harry,” Lucy murmured, “you’re covered in blood. Perhaps we have the wrong priorities here.”

There, there it was! He’d scoffed into her neck. A weak, and frankly lame scoff, but it was an optimistic sign if ever there was one. “I always did say that red was your best colour, darling.”

“I do wear it well, don’t I?” Lucy pulled away for a moment, lifting one of his hands to inspect the cuts. There were no straight razor lines on his wrists, but numerous half-moon marks up and down his palm where he must have clenched his hands into fists. He probably hadn’t even noticed them. “Let’s not make a habit of coating me in your blood on a regular basis though. It stains clothes.” She bent down and planted gentle kisses up the raw skin of his hand, pausing occasionally to lap up some of the drying blood.

“Must we?” Harry asked softly, inspecting his wife with great interest.

“Yes, my dear. At least until I no longer fear getting lost forever in your TARDIS on my way to the coatroom.”

“I would never let that happen to you. Besides…if you were covered in my blood, all you’d need do is mark your trail and I would come find you.”

“Like Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf?”

“Quite!” Harry grinned, a real, giddy sort of smile that showcased his now blood-stained teeth. He licked at them with his tongue before probing at his split lip. “You had to hit me, didn’t you, you stupid bitch?”

“You were going to call me a twat,” Lucy replied darkly.

“I was? Gosh, won’t I just learn?”

“Harry. I am going to change the sheets and then my clothes. I expect the TARDIS to be locked, you to be changed, and there to be some proper music when I return. Then I am going to fuck you out of your pretty skull and then do it again.”

She watched as a devilish and evil smirk crossed his face, and that just about made her wet just looking into those dark and mischievous eyes. “Must you change? There’s just something so…wonderfully erotic about watching you ride me covered in my blood…”

He would ask that. Lucy sent him a thoroughly unimpressed look. “Oh really?”

“Of course. It’s like watching a fair maiden marked and dripping in her master’s blood. Her glorious blonde hair unbound and streaked with red like fire. Like he’s marked her as his for all eternity, as it ought to be. Tell me that doesn’t tickle you in some small part of your mind.”

Such a smooth talker, her Harry. Lucy nodded curtly. "On the bed. Five minutes. And I expect good music.”

“TARDIS! Mix number 3, if you please.”

“Harry, we’ve heard that the last five times we’ve fucked, can you be any less original?”

“What do you suggest, my wife?”

“…TARDIS, ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing.’”

“Now, Lucy, you do not get my hopes up—”

“Shut your mouth, Harold Saxon.” She darted forward, claiming his mouth in a long, deep kiss, while her husband’s favourite disco band belted out lyrics in the background. The cosmos spun slowly on behind them, stars shining like molten glass in the night.