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scripsiTitle: Sliding Down the Razorblades of Life
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from Doctor Who, I just play with them for fun.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: River Song, The Master (Delgado)
Rating: R
Complete: 3/4
Summary: River Song's last term at UniversityAN: Many of my stories get a “soundtrack” when I write them, a certain song that I hear in my head. This fic has “Mastermind” by The Divine Comedy, fittingly enough from an album called Regeneration.
So tell me what the hell is normal and who the hell is sane?
And why the hell care anyway?
All the dreams that we have had are gonna prove that we're all mad and that's OK
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The Still Centre
It was in the early afternoon and the sun slanted through the windows, landing on River who sat curled up in an armchair. She hadn’t bothered to find her clothes yet, but was wrapped in a sheet. All in all this had proved to be a very satisfying arrangement; she wriggled her shoulders and enjoyed the lingering glow the afternoon’s activities had provided. Her tutor, on the other hand, was not much for lounging around undressed, he always got up and got dressed within minutes, but he hadn’t told her to leave yet. He was standing in the window smoking and River watched him. He was smoking cigarillos from Earth and she wondered if he was unaware that they and a number of other small things revealed that he must have spent a lot of time there. He must be, she thought, but if he did it on purpose or just didn’t care if she noticed, that she couldn’t tell.
She had developed a sense about him, she would always know hon now and though he lied easily and affably she was quite sure she could tell when he did so. Perhaps. She had also named him, in the privacy of her mind, but didn’t want to ask him if she was right. His neat appearance and polite manners, that was just surface and underneath something else lurked, a raging chaos that his demeanor only thinly veiled. Yes, there was only one man he could be, but she didn’t want to know. Not so much an oncoming storm as a furious whirlwind, unpredictable and destructive, but still, somehow she had stepped right into the eye of the tornado were it was calm and safe.
“To that still centre where the spinning world. Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.” he suddenly said, making her wonder how much he could pick up from her thoughts. “That’s a quote from one of your human authors. It fits; I have found my time here unexpectedly peaceful. Almost silent.”
“Why did you come here?”
He turned to look at her. “You already know why; because you asked me.”
“No, that’s not reason enough. I know I’m gorgeous and terrific in bed, but you,” River pointed a finger at him. “You could just walk into a room and snap your finger to get who you wanted.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her, but didn’t deny it. For a few minutes he just continued smoking and she thought he wasn’t going to answer her at all, but eventually he spoke.
“A sense of affinity, I suppose. I don’t know why, I ought to hate you because you will get what I can never have, but I think you understand what I feel better than anyone could ever do. How it feels to hate and love someone in equal amounts and at the same time and how it tears you apart. Don’t you, River?”
She nodded mutely, suddenly feeling like she was choking on tears. The room fell silent again, but eventually she spoke.
“Will I be happy?”
“You know better than to ask me that,” he told her mildly. “But I think you have an extraordinary ability to take your happiness were you find it.”
“You think. I don’t know if I dare to hope. I can manage even that. I was damaged so badly when I was a child, I don’t think I can ever escape it.”
“I know. You don’t escape it. You just have to shape your life to try to make it bearable.”
She looked at him intently, her brown eyes boring into his. “Is that what you do?”
“Yes.” He stubbed out his cigarillo and threw it out of the window, before he pulled River up from the armchair, his grip on her arms so hard that she knew it would leave bruises, and kissed her. “No more talking today.”
AN: If you wonder what the Master quoted I can tell you that it comes from one of my favourite books, Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. Here is the full sonnet:
Here, then, at home, by no more storms distrest,
Folding laborious hands we sit, wings furled;
Here in close perfume lies the rose-leaf curled,
Here the sun stands and knows not east nor west,
Here no tide runs; we have come, last and best,
From the wide zone through dizzying circles hurled,
To that still centre where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.
Lay on thy whips, O Love, that we upright,
Poised on the perilous point, in no lax bed
May sleep, as tension at the verberant core
Of music sleeps; for, if thou spare to smite,
Staggering, we stoop, stooping, fall dumb and dead,
And, dying, so, sleep our sweet sleep no more.
In the book the first verse is written by a young woman who returns to Oxford after having had a rather chaotic life and the second is written by the man who is in love with her.
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from Doctor Who, I just play with them for fun.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: River Song, The Master (Delgado)
Rating: R
Complete: 3/4
Summary: River Song's last term at UniversityAN: Many of my stories get a “soundtrack” when I write them, a certain song that I hear in my head. This fic has “Mastermind” by The Divine Comedy, fittingly enough from an album called Regeneration.
So tell me what the hell is normal and who the hell is sane?
And why the hell care anyway?
All the dreams that we have had are gonna prove that we're all mad and that's OK
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The Still Centre
It was in the early afternoon and the sun slanted through the windows, landing on River who sat curled up in an armchair. She hadn’t bothered to find her clothes yet, but was wrapped in a sheet. All in all this had proved to be a very satisfying arrangement; she wriggled her shoulders and enjoyed the lingering glow the afternoon’s activities had provided. Her tutor, on the other hand, was not much for lounging around undressed, he always got up and got dressed within minutes, but he hadn’t told her to leave yet. He was standing in the window smoking and River watched him. He was smoking cigarillos from Earth and she wondered if he was unaware that they and a number of other small things revealed that he must have spent a lot of time there. He must be, she thought, but if he did it on purpose or just didn’t care if she noticed, that she couldn’t tell.
She had developed a sense about him, she would always know hon now and though he lied easily and affably she was quite sure she could tell when he did so. Perhaps. She had also named him, in the privacy of her mind, but didn’t want to ask him if she was right. His neat appearance and polite manners, that was just surface and underneath something else lurked, a raging chaos that his demeanor only thinly veiled. Yes, there was only one man he could be, but she didn’t want to know. Not so much an oncoming storm as a furious whirlwind, unpredictable and destructive, but still, somehow she had stepped right into the eye of the tornado were it was calm and safe.
“To that still centre where the spinning world. Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.” he suddenly said, making her wonder how much he could pick up from her thoughts. “That’s a quote from one of your human authors. It fits; I have found my time here unexpectedly peaceful. Almost silent.”
“Why did you come here?”
He turned to look at her. “You already know why; because you asked me.”
“No, that’s not reason enough. I know I’m gorgeous and terrific in bed, but you,” River pointed a finger at him. “You could just walk into a room and snap your finger to get who you wanted.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her, but didn’t deny it. For a few minutes he just continued smoking and she thought he wasn’t going to answer her at all, but eventually he spoke.
“A sense of affinity, I suppose. I don’t know why, I ought to hate you because you will get what I can never have, but I think you understand what I feel better than anyone could ever do. How it feels to hate and love someone in equal amounts and at the same time and how it tears you apart. Don’t you, River?”
She nodded mutely, suddenly feeling like she was choking on tears. The room fell silent again, but eventually she spoke.
“Will I be happy?”
“You know better than to ask me that,” he told her mildly. “But I think you have an extraordinary ability to take your happiness were you find it.”
“You think. I don’t know if I dare to hope. I can manage even that. I was damaged so badly when I was a child, I don’t think I can ever escape it.”
“I know. You don’t escape it. You just have to shape your life to try to make it bearable.”
She looked at him intently, her brown eyes boring into his. “Is that what you do?”
“Yes.” He stubbed out his cigarillo and threw it out of the window, before he pulled River up from the armchair, his grip on her arms so hard that she knew it would leave bruises, and kissed her. “No more talking today.”
AN: If you wonder what the Master quoted I can tell you that it comes from one of my favourite books, Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. Here is the full sonnet:
Here, then, at home, by no more storms distrest,
Folding laborious hands we sit, wings furled;
Here in close perfume lies the rose-leaf curled,
Here the sun stands and knows not east nor west,
Here no tide runs; we have come, last and best,
From the wide zone through dizzying circles hurled,
To that still centre where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.
Lay on thy whips, O Love, that we upright,
Poised on the perilous point, in no lax bed
May sleep, as tension at the verberant core
Of music sleeps; for, if thou spare to smite,
Staggering, we stoop, stooping, fall dumb and dead,
And, dying, so, sleep our sweet sleep no more.
In the book the first verse is written by a young woman who returns to Oxford after having had a rather chaotic life and the second is written by the man who is in love with her.
