![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
theotherbadwolf.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
who_contestHollow
Summary: He sometimes would like to forget who he is.
Characters: The Doctor (Eleven)
Rating: G
Warnings: Eleventh Doctor's POV. Angst. Post “The Angels Take Manhattan” but prior to “The Snowmen”.
Author's Notes: Betaed by my dear friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dreamflower02.
Inspired by the “Air” challenge at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
who_contest. 500 words exactly, or so my word processor says.
Alright, so... this is the first fanfiction I've posted in about six years. Please be gentle.
I've written plenty of Doctor Who fic (I would say 200,000 or more words of it in the last month or so) but this is definitely the first posted. Consider it the tip of a virtual iceberg. Of which I'm terrified to actually post anymore, ha.
Disclaimer: Not mine, I'm not claiming them.
He sometimes would like to forget who he is.
Not because there's anything particular he's running from that day; and not because he's done anything too terrible in recent memory and he probably hasn't even abandoned any loved ones to some terrible fate. Maybe that last one, but it's not like he hadn't tried.
Doesn't he always? He's always sorry, and he always tries.
The Doctor fixes things that are better left broken (or breaks them just so there's something he can fix) and the TARDIS hums in sympathy, a nonsensical sort of thing that stretches out and fills all the corners of the room, each room, a buzzing in the air that he can't escape. It fills everything and it makes him remember. He drops tools on the ground and casts his goggles to the side. He's tired and he's old and he's empty and he's alone – and if he could scoop himself out he'd do just that. Leave himself behind, maybe happier for the loss.
It's not easy, being a coward. The strain should ease with time.
Maybe he should sleep.
He's teased them before, humans, for their need for too much rest. But he feels like he could sleep a year, and he'd wake feeling as though he'd taken no rest.
Yes, maybe he should sleep.
He wanders her halls, not intent on any one destination. She offers him doors to explore, and those doors are memories, and he's running into himself to hide from just that. They're here, in a way – they're all of them here. The ones he's likely better off without, the ones who abandoned him, the ones who simply died, as well as the ones he left behind. Better off without him in their lives. Memory is tactile, after all, and if he let himself be drawn in, he'd feel and see things that weren't actually there but were no less real.
He ignores the doors. Better to not tempt himself.
It isn't quiet, inside his head. The TARDIS is a constant presence and he can't push her away. She's the one who's always been there – the one constant in his lives. Her song is spread thin, and the air seems heavier for it. He could wrap himself in it, and forget what it is to feel.
Because he's tired. So very tired of running and fighting and of saving the day. Because someone always dies – he always wins, and someone always dies.
She gives him one door he doesn't ignore – he flops down onto his neatly made bed, doesn't even crawl out of his clothes. If he closes his eyes now, he might sleep – and he's tempted, perhaps like the doors had tempted him. If he closes his eyes now, he'd very likely dream. Dreaming already, and such hollow occurrences, one and all.
He's done such terrible things. The Doctor closes his eyes, and the empty air seeks to sing him to sleep.
Still: it's no life worth living, not at all.
Summary: He sometimes would like to forget who he is.
Characters: The Doctor (Eleven)
Rating: G
Warnings: Eleventh Doctor's POV. Angst. Post “The Angels Take Manhattan” but prior to “The Snowmen”.
Author's Notes: Betaed by my dear friend
dreamflower02.Inspired by the “Air” challenge at
who_contest. 500 words exactly, or so my word processor says.Alright, so... this is the first fanfiction I've posted in about six years. Please be gentle.
I've written plenty of Doctor Who fic (I would say 200,000 or more words of it in the last month or so) but this is definitely the first posted. Consider it the tip of a virtual iceberg. Of which I'm terrified to actually post anymore, ha.
Disclaimer: Not mine, I'm not claiming them.
He sometimes would like to forget who he is.
Not because there's anything particular he's running from that day; and not because he's done anything too terrible in recent memory and he probably hasn't even abandoned any loved ones to some terrible fate. Maybe that last one, but it's not like he hadn't tried.
Doesn't he always? He's always sorry, and he always tries.
The Doctor fixes things that are better left broken (or breaks them just so there's something he can fix) and the TARDIS hums in sympathy, a nonsensical sort of thing that stretches out and fills all the corners of the room, each room, a buzzing in the air that he can't escape. It fills everything and it makes him remember. He drops tools on the ground and casts his goggles to the side. He's tired and he's old and he's empty and he's alone – and if he could scoop himself out he'd do just that. Leave himself behind, maybe happier for the loss.
It's not easy, being a coward. The strain should ease with time.
Maybe he should sleep.
He's teased them before, humans, for their need for too much rest. But he feels like he could sleep a year, and he'd wake feeling as though he'd taken no rest.
Yes, maybe he should sleep.
He wanders her halls, not intent on any one destination. She offers him doors to explore, and those doors are memories, and he's running into himself to hide from just that. They're here, in a way – they're all of them here. The ones he's likely better off without, the ones who abandoned him, the ones who simply died, as well as the ones he left behind. Better off without him in their lives. Memory is tactile, after all, and if he let himself be drawn in, he'd feel and see things that weren't actually there but were no less real.
He ignores the doors. Better to not tempt himself.
It isn't quiet, inside his head. The TARDIS is a constant presence and he can't push her away. She's the one who's always been there – the one constant in his lives. Her song is spread thin, and the air seems heavier for it. He could wrap himself in it, and forget what it is to feel.
Because he's tired. So very tired of running and fighting and of saving the day. Because someone always dies – he always wins, and someone always dies.
She gives him one door he doesn't ignore – he flops down onto his neatly made bed, doesn't even crawl out of his clothes. If he closes his eyes now, he might sleep – and he's tempted, perhaps like the doors had tempted him. If he closes his eyes now, he'd very likely dream. Dreaming already, and such hollow occurrences, one and all.
He's done such terrible things. The Doctor closes his eyes, and the empty air seeks to sing him to sleep.
Still: it's no life worth living, not at all.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-27 06:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-27 11:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-27 01:06 pm (UTC)*HUGS*
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-27 04:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-27 11:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-27 11:02 pm (UTC)Thank you again. :3
*hugs!*
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-28 02:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-30 02:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-28 09:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-30 02:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-02-01 06:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-02-02 04:44 am (UTC)And hello :) I hadn't written anything since 2006-ish when the December "Language" prompt here lured me back, so I understand the nerves. You should definitely keep going…your writing has a lovely introspective poetry to it <3
(no subject)
Date: 2014-02-02 05:09 am (UTC)And hello right back at you :) Doctor Who has been such a great thing for my writing, I'd be lying if I suggested anything else -- and thank you for the vote of confidence as well! This community will definitely be good for the both of us :3