[identity profile] templeremus.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] who_contest
Title: Colours Changing Hue
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst/Missing Scene
Word Count: 430
Pairings or Characters: Vincent, Amy, Eleventh Doctor
Spoilers: for ‘Vincent and the Doctor’
Warnings: Grief, loss and hints at clinical depression.
Summary: The day is won, but Vincent knows there are other monsters waiting. Title is from Don Mclean’s ‘Vincent (Starry Starry Night)’.

They walked back to the cottage while the moon was still in decline, feeling their way through the streets as though blindfolded. The Doctor’s arm grasped at the doorframe for support, and Vincent thought of the helpless force with which the creature had struck him, mere hours - or perhaps it was a lifetime - ago.

His new friend caught him looking, and flashed that peculiar half-collapsed smile. “Don’t worry. Fine by morning.”

 Morning seemed an eternity away tonight, more distant even than the stars. The idea of it twisted at something hard and unforgiving in Vincent's stomach, like the dread of a child upon glimpsing the surgeon's bag.

 Sometimes action was the remedy for this cruel sorrow that threatened to cloud the present moment. He busied himself with the embers in the grate, and reheated the coffee dregs for Amy to finish. Newly stoked, the fire made the copper elements in her hair glow bright as centimes. Vincent longed suddenly for a way to capture all its colours at once, by moonlight and lamplight and the pale greygold brilliance of the dawn. His fingers ached with the impossibility of the task.

“Why did you lie to me, Amy, when we met? You said you weren’t from Holland.”

She gave a slight start, as if alarmed by the question. The Doctor watched them both from the far corner, and Vincent wondered, fleetingly, whether the omissions in her reply were for his sake alone.

 “Me and him – we’ve been travelling for so long. I don’t think I’m from anywhere anymore.”

“But your accent-”

“It doesn’t matter.”

There was that grief again, so utterly entrenched that Vincent doubted she could sense it. He remembered one of his subjects, the brusque carpenter from his time in The Hague, trying to explain how a good labourer could tell at a glance whether a plank was liable to split under the hammer. His own soul and hers were shot through with such invisible flaws, always in dread of the fatal blow.

“I think it does,” he said at last. The Doctor’s hand was on his shoulder; his expression, when Vincent turned to meet it, was both kinder and older than any he could recall.

“Time you got to bed, eh?”

Vincent nodded. The night’s magic had left him reeling. “If I don’t stir before noon, wake me for the goodbye.” Somebody reached for him again, but he shrugged them off. Parting was hard enough done once.

Back in his room, he drifted to the murmur of their voices, and slept too deeply even for dreams.

(no subject)

Date: 2014-10-13 04:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com
Ohhh, honey...this was...this was vivid and beautiful and deep and lovely and haunting.

Thank you...

*HUGS*

(no subject)

Date: 2014-10-14 12:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gallif-migrant.livejournal.com
Beautiful, and sad.

(no subject)

Date: 2014-10-15 12:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] flowsoffire.livejournal.com
This is so stunning. You showed Vincent's mind so beautifully, shadowed and complex and poignant—his every thought and perception, every detail was spot-on. The beauty of the colours, the memory of a past subject, the action to divert him from the fears and emptiness, Amy and the Doctor… it's all so deeply moving. The image of the plank with its invisible flaws was beautiful. There are so many lines that are so meaningful, I could quote half the fic back at you.

Thank you for this ♥ Your fics always leave me catching my breath.

(no subject)

Date: 2014-10-15 06:37 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] flowsoffire.livejournal.com
I entirely agree with this. It's such a layered and emotionally impactful portrait.

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