Title: Dying To Be Alive
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Mick St. John
Fandom: Doctor Who/Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Table: 100_tales
Prompt: 36, Death
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Tenth Doctor or Mick St. John, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***


"What the hell do you think you were doing?" Mick fumed as he stomped into the Tardis after the Doctor, glaring at the Time Lord as he took the three steps up from the ship's entrance in one giant leap. "You could have been killed!"

"I didn't think I was going to be captured -- and I definitely didn't count on them having those grisly plans for me," the Doctor protested, holding up both hands as he turned to his lover. He was startled by the look on Mick's face; he'd never seen the other man look so angry.

He'd expected Mick to relent at his words, expected to see the anger fade out of the other man's face. But Mick paced around the control room, his hands clenched into fists, every line of his body tense, as though he could explode at any moment.

The Doctor turned back to the console, pressing the buttons that would take them away from this planet and out into time and space. He would deal with Mick's anger once they were safely away; he didn't want to stay in this place for one moment longer than they had to.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the familiar displacement; Mick didn't stop his pacing, didn't so much as acknowledge that they'd left that place of horror behind them. He didn't speak, either; he just kept pacing, not even looking at the Doctor.

"All right, Mick, I know you're annoyed," the Time Lord began, taking a deep breath before he spoke again. "But what would you have had me do? Not answer what we both thought was a cry for help? I can't do that. I wouldn't be who or what I am if I'd just ignored that."

"I know," Mick admitted, his voice hoarse, still not looking at the Time Lord. "But you shouldn't have let them separate you from me, Doctor. I could have kept you safe. You saw how easy it was for me to get rid of those guys. I should have been able to do that from the start."

The Doctor sighed, shaking his head. "Mick, I've been traveling the galaxy for a long time," he said, trying to keep his words gentle. "You haven't. Yes, you might have been able to keep me safe -- but it's not my way to lean on the people I'm with."

"I'd rather have you leaning on me than see you die at the hands of people like that!" Mick shot back, his eyes seeming to blaze when his head jerked up and his gaze met the Time Lord's. Instinctively, the other man stepped back, away from those fiery eyes.

As quickly as the flames had ignited, they retreated; Mick sighed and turned away, raising a hand to run it through his hair, his voice thick with emotion when he spoke again. "I'm sorry. I'm letting myself get too worked up about this. Everything's good, right? We got out of there."

The Doctor nodded, letting out a breath that he'd hardly realized he was holding. He had been waiting for Mick's vampiric nature to assert itself; he'd never seen it happen unless his boyfriend was enraged by an enemy, but there was a first time for everything.

"I'm sorry," Mick murmured, his tone penitent. "I guess I'm just upset that you could have died. I feel like you were reckless with your safety -- but I shouldn't feel that way, I guess. You've been doing this kind of thing a lot longer than I have, in a lot more places."

"You've been a detective on Earth -- and that's helped me a great deal when I've needed someone to watch my back," the Doctor told him, not wanting to downplay Mick's role in some of the things they'd done since they had been together. "But you're not used to strange planets, Mick."

"Sometimes I don't think you realize just how hard it is to watch somebody you love throw themselves into the path of danger." Mick lifted his head, his blue eyes bleak as he gazed at the Doctor. "I die a little inside every time I know you're in trouble."

The Doctor sighed softly, wishing that he could explain to Mick how it felt to be directly in the path of danger, how intoxicating it could feel at times. But there was nothing for it but to try and explain without having the benefit of knowing just what to say.

"I don't expect you to understand, Mick," he began, taking a deep breath and hoping that he was saying the right thing. "But sometimes, when I'm in the middle of a bad situation, I feel more alive than I've ever been -- simply because I know that I could lose my life."

Mick nodded slowly, his blue gaze never wavering from the Doctor's. "I know exactly what you mean. There've been times when I knew I could die going into a fight -- I mean, die again -- and that just made it all the more exhilarating and exciting."

The Doctor was surprised to discover that Mick knew what he meant -- but maybe he shouldn't be shocked by that fact, he told himself. After all, Mick wasn't technically a living creature. He was undead -- not alive, in the strictest sense of the word.

So maybe he was in a better position than most to understand how it felt to face death and stare it down. Maybe he was exactly the person to relate to how he himself felt. Mick was one of only two people he'd ever met who could really grasp how it felt -- the other being Jack, of course.

He nodded, wishing that he had the words to explain more fully, but he didn't. All that he could do was hope that Mick did indeed understand what it felt like for him -- and that his lover wouldn't be angry at him for putting himself into the path of danger time and time again.

"It's not as though I want to lose my life," he said slowly, trying to put his feelings into words. "But that I appreciate my life much more for knowing that I have to risk it to keep it. Dying to be alive, I suppose you could call it. I think you know the feeling."

Mick nodded again, sighing as he did so. "Yeah, I do. I'm sorry, Doctor. I shouldn't have gotten to mad -- but I couldn't help it. Knowing that I could've lost you scared the hell out of me. If those guys had ripped one of your hearts out, there would have been no coming back."

"I was thinking that myself," the Doctor said with a wry smile. "That would have been a case of just dying, and not very pleasantly, either. I'm glad that didn't happen, Mick. And if you hadn't been there to rescue me, I'd have been doing just that."

He didn't know how it had happened so quickly -- but in the space between one breath and the next, he was in Mick's arms, the other man's cheek pressed against his hair, Mick's breath warm against his skin, their bodies pressed close to each other.

"I couldn't stand losing you," Mick whispered, his words so soft that the Doctor had to strain to hear them. "I don't even want to think about how that would feel, how much it would hurt. Don't go running into danger without me again, okay? One reason I'm here is to watch your back."

The Doctor nodded, his thin arms sliding around Mick's waist and holding onto him tightly. "I won't," he managed to whisper past the lump that had risen into his throat. "I'll make sure that you're by my side the next time we head into any kind of a dangerous situation."

"That's all I needed to hear." Mick sounded relieved, but he didn't let the Doctor go. Instead, he tightened his grip on the Time Lord, holding him closer, as though he didn't want to let him go. "Just let me do what I can to protect you, Doctor. That's all I ask."

The Doctor laughed softly, moving his hands up Mick's back. "You ask for much more than that, love," he objected, pulling back slightly to look into his boyfriend's face. "You ask for my hearts, my body, my soul, and my love. And I'll give them to you willingly, you know."

"As long as we're both alive for me to ask and you to give, then that's good enough for me," Mick replied, a smile playing around the corners of his lips. "I'll give you my heart, body and soul, too. And my love. You had that from the first time we met."

"There was a time when I thought that I had to face danger and consider dying just to feel alive," the Doctor said, his voice thick with emotion. "But since I've met you, I have all that I need to make me feel alive right here, in my arms and in my hearts."

"I'm glad you've changed your mind about dying to be alive," Mick murmured, his voice soft in the Doctor's ear. "And I'm sorry that I got so upset with you. Want to go to the bedroom and let me make it up to you, or should I wait until later to do that?"

"Oh, I think this is just as good a time as any," the Doctor told him, laughing as he spoke. He moved out of Mick's embrace, taking his boyfriend's hand and twining their fingers together as they headed towards the hallway that led to their bedroom, a spring in his step and a song in his hearts.

***