best_enemies | Sep. 6th, 2011

Good Day, Boys, Girls and Transdimentional Demi-Gods! It is I, RF93, here for another Rec.

Today I want to talk about two of my personal favorite genres.

Relationship examination from a third person narrative.

And Long, Abusive, Psychological Breakdown, Metaphysical Epics.

Fandom is particularly good at supplying the second, though there is a sad lack of the first. Today's Rec, however, contains both.

Title: Hourglass

Pairings: Doctor/Master (10/Simm) and One-Sided Jack/Doctor

Length: 15,700 words

Summary: In LotTL AU's where the Doctor fulfills his plan to 'Keep' the Master, there are two extreme endings: There is Scream of the Shalka with its charming, snarky domesticity, and then there is this. As the Doctor tries to keep the Master out of trouble he stops running and begins to crack under the lack of stimulation and the company. On a brief visit to Cardiff, Jack realizes this and joins the merry crew to try to protect the Doctor from the Master, and more importantly, himself.

Warnings: Pretty Much Everything. Very dark fic, with self-inflected harm, psychological skewing, violence, non-con, hate!sex, a sad scene where the author assumed Torchwood would still be intact in 2011, and just every character involved breaking...

Author on LJ (or Teaspoon, or Prydonian): The massively prolific

vail_kagami on LJ or schildkroet on Teaspoon.

Why this must be read:

A sad, beautiful piece about the Doctor's Demons from the war, before the show really started to analyze them. While some aspects have been examined or joss'ed now, it still remains a beautiful and heartbreaking piece. The author is fabulous, creating a perfect image of the last two broken members of a species, and an immortal man, desperately trying to save them Aside from the occasional typo and minor grammatical mix-up, it's almost unbelievable that English is not the author's first language.

Excerpt:

The Doctor looked slightly ruffled this day, and there were new bruises on his face and a cut on his forehead. Jack hadn’t asked, because he didn’t want the Doctor to lie to him and didn’t want the Master to tell the truth.

Never had he felt so useless. He shouldn’t have stayed, but then, how could he have left?

Exhaustion was written all over the Doctor’s movements, but the haunted look in his eyes had lessened a little, for the moment. Jack refused to marvel about that too long, because the conclusion made him sick.

He felt his fists tighten when the Master walked over to the Doctor, with lazy strides like a cat, grabbed his wrists and pressed his lips the other Time Lord’s. He could see his jaw move as he shoved his tongue into the Doctor’s mouth. After a second the Doctor pulled back, calmly, composed. Accustomed.

“Don’t do that”, he said and got back to work as if nothing happened.

The Master’s eyes, the Master’s smile were on Jack.

I dare you, they said. Dare you to do the same.

See if he would let you.

Link to the story:
Found on LJ here: http://vail-kagami.livejournal.com/34680.html
And Teaspoon Here: http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=13948&warning=Adult