Title: Chords and Dissonance
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: Teen
Length: 231 words
Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn

Author Notes: Part of my Fairytales and Nightmares AU, set between Impulse and Shadow, Steel, and Storm. Family because Koschei and the Doctor are family of choice.

Summary: Veils of shadow drawn over red and silver, blinding light tearing apart orange to spill out ink. Chords and dissonance threading together in eerie melody.

Most important notes - Koschei has been fairly sane and stable, relatively speaking, since he was about a century old. The Doctor pretty much traded his own mind for his friend's, and since, Koschei has made a point of looking out for the Doctor. Then the Time Wars (yes, plural for this AU) happened, and Koschei went and did the self-sacrifice thing by searching for childhood nightmares that were real, and the Doctor went a little insane. Koschei came back, did what he thought would help, the Doctor eventually came back to himself. And then this happens.

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"You were gone." The Doctor's voice is muffled from where he's pressed his face into the hollow of Koschei's shoulder, but the words are echoes of what slides across the surface of the Doctor's mind. "Gone and silent."

"Hard to hear in the heart of the drums." Koschei strokes his fingers through the Doctor's hair, wordless reassurance that soothes the ragged edges of fear. Water over shards of glass, tumbling them among cold pebbles of rage. Turn it all to sand that can be washed away. "I'm here, Theta."

"I would have burned it all for you." The Doctor isn't moving, and Koschei smiles softly, sadly. Warm sunlight to turn storm-gray clouds to wisps of white that scud away on the least breeze. Loving and beloved. "Burned the universe for you."

"I know." Koschei rests his hand at the back of the Doctor's neck a moment. "Parts of it would have earned that fate." Veils of shadow drawn over red and silver, blinding light tearing apart orange to spill out ink. Chords and dissonance threading together in eerie melody.

"I'm not letting you go again." There's an edge to the Doctor's voice, a warning peal of thunder rolling ahead of black storms. Spikes of poison green that swirl and tumble among shards of matte-metal grey.

Koschei has no words to answer that, only stubborn warmth and deep wells of summer red.