Bark and Bite
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Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: N/A
Fandom: Doctor Who
Ship: Gen (Simm!Master & OC - Even)
Additional Tags: Complicated Relationships, Major Original Character(s), Biting, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Teeth, The Master (Doctor Who) Being a Bastard, Post-Season/Series 04, Ambiguous Relationship, Alternate Universe, Nonbinary Character
Series: 11089/Even Fics <- 2
Wordcount: 943
Summary:
What happens later.
Self-preservation is the name of the game.
Self-preservation is the raw gum on the left side of their mouth that they canât keep their tongue away from. It still tastes like iron, but their blood isnât staining the teeth they still have anymore. It aches in the way all broken things do when they want attention and will never be satisfied by whatâs given. They wiggle their tongue in the hollow again.
âThere. Finished.â Whatâs between his fingers, bordered by nails kept immaculate and skin rough and peeling from the cold air thatâs leaking in, is a tooth.
Itâs also a suicide pill. Itâs a gift.
There are worse fates around them than death here. Self-preservation takes new forms. Itâs a choice theyâd rather have then avoid looking at until it was too late.
They donât take his gifts before asking how they work. Theyâre smarter than that. Or, at least, they know him better.
âAnd how do I keep that in my mouth without cracking it open on accident when Iâm eating?â He draws the tooth, passably natural but veined with gleaming technology, back into his palm and closes his fist around it.
âMaybe you put it in, and it injects a toxin into your bloodstream instantly,â he suggests. They trail their hand along the cold console. Poor defective thing. She struggles to carry them where they need to go, and she canât keep her own heart warm, let alone them.
âHow does it work, Master?â they ask again. He likes hearing his name follow a question. He likes his threats being ignored less so.
âYou clench your jaw,â he says, annoyed, âand push it. Itâll hurt, itâll pop, and thenâŚâ
âItâll hurt more?â they guess.
âYouâll be dead soon. Does it matter what happens in between?â It does. He could have made it painless. âIf you donât want itâŚâ His palm opens wide, and the delicate tooth rolls down like he will let it fall to the floor. They move faster than they think. They catch the tooth against his hand.
They donât like touching him. It always feels like thereâs something more moving under his skin, something that grasps at their curled fingers and reaches into their cells until they drag their hand back. His expression hasnât changed, but theyâre grimacing and they hate it. Their face melts back to something safe and blank. âI want it.â The tooth is warm where it sits in their fist, and they arenât thinking about that.
âPut it in, then.â Thereâs an awful smugness radiating from him. They almost want to try, but they donât want to die here. Not this frozen TARDIS, not with him, not on this moon so small it isnât named beyond numbers â none of that matters. They donât want to die here, inside of it all, where time echoes back and forth until even someone- something like him can barely stand it at the loudest places. They didnât come all this way to die in another cage.
They will die somewhere that death matters. Thatâs all they want.
So, they donât struggle with the tooth and put their own life in danger like a fool. They let him take it back, and if he takes the chance to kill them, then at least he is something that can change and live and escape. If he kills them, he takes them with him, whether he wants to or not. And if he is ever free-
He tries to touch their jaw, and they recoil.
âI have to hold your mouth open to get it in,â he lies. They bare their teeth, nothing special, nothing particularly sharp about them. Heâs hesitating all the same.
âTake your chances,â they say.
If they are crossing this channel together, then they want to be able to sting him.
They open their mouth for him. They reveal their missing canine, waiting for its replacement.
They feel his fingers against their lips and teeth. They hurt where they press against their gum. He tilts their head with a little pressure to see the empty space better. They stay still. Their breath fans out across his hand.
It hurts. They inhale sharply. Metal, not bone, digs into their gum. It pierces through and burrows until itâs secure. Their gum bleeds again.
His fingers rest against their lower set of teeth. Heâs surveying his handiwork.
They close their mouth around the tips of his fingers. He barely has time to react and yank them back. They still catch the skin at the edges, digging in until blood spills out and the rest of his fingers come out scraped pink and raw. They lick their lips. Their new tooth, battered by the sudden movement, doesnât break, doesnât kill them.
âYou bit me!â he snaps. They brace themselves against the console, but all he does is hiss and retreat.
âI did!â His blood doesnât taste like theirs, not exactly. They resist the urge to touch their new tooth. That feels too much like tempting fate. âHow does it look?â He glares at them, bloody fingers held to his chest. Really, it was only a nip. They barely tore the skin off. They could do worse.
He would know. He wouldâŚ
They donât want his blood in their mouth, suddenly. Thereâs too much of it. They spit, but the taste lingers.
Itâs futile. He made the tooth. Part of him, lodged in them, poisonous. Death preserved inside, like a bullet, or like a moment, the seconds wrapped around a shove from surprise to terrible impact to puddling blood below a still body. He made this.
Even asked for it.
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Drabble 118/366 - Supernatural
That's funny. Gabriel expected it to hurt.
Maybe it will, in a moment. It will go from a smooth stab to a maelstrom, power torn and tearing, nuclear fission with him at the center of each split. But in the moment, it feels like cut strings and an exhausted slump into his brother's arms. A long time coming.
He is small and new, and Lucifer's wings are guiding him into first flight.
He is older, growing to understand fear and bitterness, and Lucifer is his model.
He is learning how to die, and Lucifer is holding him until it ends.
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