Title: I'm No Hero
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Peter Carlisle
Fandom: Doctor Who/Blackpool
Rating: PG-13
Table: 4
Prompt: 100, Hero
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Peter Carlisle. Please do not sue.

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Peter sighed, resting his head against one of the walls of the Tardis. Funny how he hardly even noticed any more that it wasn't like a wall at all; he didn't really have a word for what it was like. It was a living entity, which should bother him, but didn't.

So many things that he thought should probably bother him didn't have an effect now. The fact that he was traveling through space and time with an alien. The fact that he spent all of his nights -- and also a great deal of his days -- making love to said alien. The fact that he'd fallen arse over tincups in love with this alien. And that was just for starters.

It still felt strange to realize that he was in love with someone who, no matter how "normal" he looked, wasn't human. If anyone had told him even a few weeks ago that he would find himself shagging an alien -- and an absolutely gorgeous alien at that -- he'd have told them they were crazy and put a safe distance between himself and them.

Yet here he was -- not only having it off with an alien, but more deeply in love than he'd ever thought he could possibly be. People had touched his heart before, but never like this. The Doctor hadn't simply touched his heart -- the Time Lord had stolen it away. And he didn't want it back. Ever.

There was so much about him that had made Peter do a double take. The two hearts. His way of looking at time, and at the universe. The fact that he'd been to so many places, met so many people. Long-dead people that were just names in history books to Peter.

But all of those things only made Peter want to know more. Instead of making him pull away from the Doctor, they'd piqued his curiosity, and brought them closer together in so many ways. He still had a lot to accustom himself to, but Peter was sure that he would, in time.

Was he ever going to get used to being with a man like the Doctor? Peter couldn't help but smile at his own inner words. A man. Of course the Doctor was a man. It didn't matter that he wasn't human. In Peter's eyes, the Time Lord was a damn sight better than most humans he'd had to come into contact with.

The Doctor wasn't like anyone he'd ever met. Not only because he wasn't human -- but because of his self-sacrificing nature. Peter had heard of humans who were like that, but he'd yet to meet one. He'd stopped believing that such people existed anywhere in the world.

And now his own lover was proving him wrong. There was a being in the universe who put others before himsef -- others that he'd never even met, who would never know his name or what he'd done for them, others who would never thank him or even care that they owed everything about their continued safe existence to him.

Peter hated that thought. He hated to know that the world would always take the Doctor for granted, that the Time Lord would more than likely end up forfeiting his life one day in the future to save a world full of people who would never know what he'd done for them. He hated to know that the man he loved so fiercely would never be acknowledged as the shining knight that he was.

But that was what the Doctor wanted, Peter told himself with an inward sigh. He didn't want the acclaim, didn't want people to worship him. He just wanted to .... be. To be happy, to have someone by his side to love him and stay with him. That was it, that was all.

And this man had chosen him. Peter closed his eyes, running a hand through his hair and over his face. It was a lot for him to live up to -- well, at least he thought so. To him, the Doctor was a hero. An unsung one, obviously, but that didn't matter.

How could he possibly be good enough for a man like the Doctor? He didn't want to feel inferior, didn't want to see himself as being nothing more than a footnote in the Time Lord's life. But there were times when that little voice in the back of his head that had been telling him all his life that he would never measure up to others was damned hard to ignore.

Oh, he tried to ignore it. He'd been trying to do that since he was an overachieving child who went into a blue funk when he didn't get a perfect score in a class. But that voice was persistent. And it never went away, no matter how hard he tried to block it out.

Even now, when he should be curled up in bed with the Doctor in his arms, it was taunting him. He shouldn't be standing here with his head resting against a wall, wondering if he should go back to bed and slip under the covers with the man he loved. He should be there with the Doctor, listening to his lover's soft breathing, letting the beating of those dual hearts lull him into sleep.

But was he? No. He was standing here, feeling that he wasn't worthy to touch the Doctor and be with him, much less love him with all his heart and soul. He knew that he shouldn't let that voice get to him, that he should be able to push it firmly aside. But he couldn't.

Why couldn't he put these feelings of inferiority into the back of his mind, where they belonged? Peter wanted to bang his head against the wall in frustration, though he knew that it wouldn't solve his problem. All it would do was give him a headache -- which he didn't need on top of the way he was feeling at the moment.

And he definitely didn't need the Doctor to sense his feelings of unrest. He'd been startled to find out that his lover was a telepath, but he put it down to being just one more thing he had to get used to. And at least the Time Lord didn't intrude into his private thoughts.

But it was so easy for him to sense how Peter felt. It was almost as though they'd forged a mental connection along with their emotional one; and Peter had the eerie feeling that each time they made love, those connections grew stronger and the Doctor was more able to divine his feelings without him saying a word, or even looking at the other man.

He heaved another sigh, pushing himself away from the wall. He couldn't stand here depressing himself with thoughts of his own inferiority complex. He had to pull himself out of this before he went back to their bed and made physical contact with the Doctor. He had to.

Peter squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath. What did it matter that he didn't consider himself some sort of conquering hero? That wasn't what the Doctor expected him to be. The Time Lord had chosen him, after all -- so he saw something in Peter that had made him want to reach out, to bring Peter into his life.

From what he could tell, the Doctor didn't consider him inferior in any way. No, the Time Lord seemed to look on their relationship as being one of two equals -- so there was absolutely no need for him to let that little voice keep taunting him with his own failings.

He'd left those failings behind, on Earth, in his own time. When he was with the Doctor, he wasn't the same Peter Carlisle who'd had so many relationships -- and so many of his cases on the force -- end in frustration. He was a different man entirely.

He was a man in love, a man who had given himself over completely to the person he wanted to be with. There were no considerations of his job, what society would think, or anything else that had colored any of his relationships in the past. There was nothing to keep him from being anything he wanted to be -- anything that the Doctor needed.

So he wasn't a hero. He didn't need to be; the Doctor didn't want that. The Doctor wanted someone who loved him with all their heart and soul, someone who would stand by him and never leave him. He didn't want anyone else. He wanted Peter.

Peter's lips curved in a small, satisfied smile as he pushed himself away from the wall and made his way down the corridor back to the bedroom he shared with the Doctor. He was going to keep those doubts locked away from now on, and not let them out to plague him again.

There was no need to think that he wasn't worthy of this man. The Doctor had seen something in him even before they'd talked; the Time Lord had known that there was a spark between them. That had to mean something. That had to signify that they were meant to be together, that the Doctor was making the right choice.

All right, so his lover wasn't infallible. Peter didn't expect him to be; he was sure that the Doctor had made some bad choices in his life. He knew about some of them, but there were probably others that he kept buried inside and didn't want to talk about, much the same as some of Peter's past that he'd prefer not to bring up.

They both had pasts; neither of them had come into this relationship with a clean slate. But in spite of all his failings, in spite of all the things that Peter saw as weaknesses, the Doctor wanted to be with him. And in the end, that was the only important thing.

He entered their bedroom and moved towards the bed, slowly pulling back the curtains and sliding beneath them, behind the Doctor. Slowly, cautiously, he slid his arms around the Time Lord's slender waist, pulling the other man back against him and burying his face in that soft hair, molding the other man's slim body to his.

This was where he belonged. This was the only place he wanted to be, the only person he wanted to be with. He was meant to be here; the Doctor wanted him here, and there had to be some cosmic reason that he'd been the one chosen for this, the one who the Doctor had given his heart -- no, hearts -- to.

Closing his eyes, he settled beneath the blankets, entwining his long legs with the Doctor's and pressing one palm against the Gallifreyan's chest. He smiled as he felt those dual heartbeats thudding beneath his hand; those hearts were beating for him. The Doctor had told him so, and Peter didn't think that the Time Lord would lie about that.

No, he didn't need to be a hero. The Doctor was hero enough for both of them -- hell, he was hero enough for an entire world of men, Peter thought to himself, smiling as he pulled his lover closer against him. And to be chosen out of a universe full of people to be with such a hero -- well, to him, that was about as good as it could get.

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