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Torment
By Taleya
The Doctor misses Tegan. Even a blind idiot would be able to see that. He
mopes about the TARDIS like a lost puppy, fiddling with unimportant components,
effecting tiny, imperceptible repairs that are abandoned mid-work. Her image
seems to haunt the corridors of the TARDIS at times, the ghostly clack of
impractical high heels skirting on the periphery of hearing.
She was loud, opinionated and argumentative...and Turlough misses her too. More
than he would care to admit. She was, at the end, something approaching a
friend. Something he had precious little of, something he had convinced himself
he didn't need until chance and dark machinations had thrown them together and
he'd found his jealously guarded barriers crumbling despite his efforts.
He needs his barriers now, more than ever. Shadows creep at the edges of his
vision, slipping past his defences, crawling through his psyche. Confusion mixes
with fear, and bleeds into anger at times, driving him to fist his hands
viciously, nails digging into his palms. He was fine until they had come.
Closed. Defended. Reliant only on himself, no chance for hurt, emotions dead and
sleeping under a superior air and vicious sneer. But now those defences are
gone, now he is wide open, no chance to kill the feelings rearing their head
inside him, no defence against this sudden taste for comfort, for companionship.
He had fallen into a stupid, childish trap on Earth because of it, abused and
violated and on Frontios his own memories had driven him near-insane.
He can't bottle it up any more. He needs someone to talk to. Someone who won't
listen. Someone who won't look at him with guilty blue eyes, or offer a comfort
he's unfamiliar with, cannot handle. But there's no-one there, and his jaw aches
from teeth grinding against emotions too huge to hold back.
So the anger turns inwards. Turns vicious. Mental confusion to physical
punishment, something he can understand, something he can see. Closed fists
striking against his thigh when it all becomes too much, leaving mottled bruises
and an overwhelming sense of relief. The promise in a glittering blade, marks
hidden neatly like the criminal's brand under the long sleeves of his shirt.
The Doctor mopes, and Turlough tries to help. He doesn't know why, but the pain
in the other man's eyes triggers something inside him, something he'd long
thought dead. He knows the Doctor still gets headaches from the Dalek's mind
probe - he won't admit to them, but they're evident in the strain of his eyes,
in cautious movements at times, twisted and lurking under the lingering sadness
of an unexpected goodbye.
So Turlough fills the void in small, quiet ways, not even sure why. He plays
teaboy, and indulges in idle, mindless chatter about human things he vaguely
understands and has no interest in whatsoever. Maintaining a false sense of
normality, no matter how fragile, pushing his own feelings down, pushing them
away with long-practised ease. Playing the part of the dutiful companion in a
faux simulacrum of a relationship, keeping to the shallows, avoiding anything
meaningful.
And when he wakes at night he uses a pillow to muffle his screams.
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