Title: Insinuation
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Mick St. John
Fandom: Doctor Who/Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, fanfic50
Prompt: 10, Annoy
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, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

The Doctor's brow furrowed in annoyance as he looked up at Mick, wondering why the other man felt that it was so necessary to hum a tune. "Mick, what are you doing?" he asked, not wanting to simply come out and say that he found the sound .... well, irritating.

Mick glanced up, flashing the Doctor a grin. That smile almost made the Time Lord want to forgive his lover anything -- what was a little humming, when he could see a gorgeous smile like that one? -- but he let his frown deepen, then raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Mick looked genuinely confused for a moment, then two hot spots of color blossoming in his cheeks. "Oh, you mean the humming. Sorry about that. Sometimes I do that when I'm happy. It's just .... some kind of involuntary thing. I'll try not to."

The Doctor immediately felt embarrassed for having pointed it out; after all, what did he care if Mick wanted to hum when he was happy? He wanted his boyfriend to be happy. It seemed churlish and rude to complain about a bit of sound.

Wasn't part of loving someone learning to put up with little things that could be annoying? The Doctor knew that there were probably things about him that annoyed Mick, as well, but so far, his boyfriend had never said a thing about them.

That realization only made him feel all the more guilty. He wanted to apologize for being annoyed, but he found that he couldn't. The words stuck in his throat; they didn't want to come out, even though he tried to will them to his tongue, tried to make them come forth.

What was wrong with him? Why was he getting annoyed at some little thing that didn't really matter? He wasn't getting tired to being with Mick; it wasn't that he didn't want his boyfriend here. No, the last thing he wanted was for Mick to leave, for him to be alone again.

And he wasn't simply holding on to Mick because he didn't want to be alone, either. He loved this man, despite the fact that Mick was a vampire. Mick was a good person; he had a good heart, and he was the sort of man who the Doctor was proud to be with.

Maybe this happened with all lovers, the Doctor mused as he leaned on the Tardis' console. It wasn't that he was tired of being with Mick, but more that the two of them were always together, and little things could start to grate on the nerves because of that.

Actually, he didn't mind the humming so much. It was the fact that he was simply used to quiet while he was working on the Tardis; quiet helped him to commune better with her, to feel that he was doing the right thing, to instinctively know that he was succeeding.

Of course, the Tardis could tell him that without it having to be quiet around them. He was being silly, he thought, with another soft sigh. He was letting little things get to him in ways that they shouldn't, and he was going to stop that right now.

Mick was looking at him oddly, a slight frown between his brows, the intense blue of his eyes clouded with worry. The Doctor hated seeing him look like that; he didn't want his boyfriend to feel that he had done anything wrong, when really, he hadn't.

"I'm sorry, Mick," he said softly, reaching out to take his lover's hand and twine their fingers together. "I'm irritable today, for some reason. I don't know why. Little things seem to be getting to me more than they should be. Perhaps we should take a vacation."

"Well, it isn't as though we can't go anywhere we want to," Mick said with a soft smile, squeezing the Time Lord's hand gently. "Doctor, whatever's wrong, I wish you'd tell me right off the bat, and not wait until you get annoyed by something I do. I want to know things like that."

The Doctor nodded, sighing again and leaning against his boyfriend. Why had he been so annoyed? That wasn't like him; it was as though someone else's feelings, someone else's moods, were starting to creep into him, starting to take him over at times ....

His dark eyes flew wide at that thought, then narrowed again. Could the Master somehow he forcing his own thoughts into the Doctor's mind? Was he even now somewhere near, somehow watching this scenario and laughing, thinking that he had the upper hand?

Well, he most definitely did not, the Doctor told himself firmly. If the Master was trying to get inside his head in some way, trying to sow seeds of dissent between himself and Mick, that wasn't going to be allowed to happen. It would be stopped posthaste.

He couldn't tell Mick what he feared; he didn't want his boyfriend to be on edge, as he was. He wanted Mick to be comfortable and relaxed -- though he also needed for his lover to be prepared, just in case the Master decided to launch some kind of attack against them.

He would put a lid on his annoyance, and not let little things get to him. That would only play right into the Master's plan -- if indeed he was the cause of this. He would make sure that he didn't do anything to further anything that the Master might want.

Mick was still looking at him with that faint frown etched between his eyes; the Doctor knew that he had to say something reassuring, something that would take Mick's mind off the little bump in the road that they had just encountered.

He wasn't going to let anything come between him and the man he'd chosen to be with. Mick wasn't the cause of his annoyance; he was sure of that. Somehow, the Master had managed to find a chink in his armor, to insinuate himself into the Doctor's mind.

And he was using Mick's little habits to cause problems between them, which was the way he worked. The Time Lord gritted his teeth, pushing that annoyance to the back of his mind, refusing to let it take him over. The Master was not going to win this round.

In all fairness, he would have to tell Mick what was going on. He couldn't let his boyfriend wonder what was happening, not when he was such an integral part of the Master's apparent plan of insinuation. It wasn't fair to keep Mick in the dark about this.

How to tell him? The Doctor went through a few scenarios in his mind in a matter of seconds, but none of them seemed quite right. He just needed to tell Mick directly what he thought was going on, and then the two of them could decide what they should do.

That was one of the best things about having someone with him, someone he could trust and count on, and not being alone, the Doctor thought with a soft smile as he returned the gentle squeeze of his hand. There was someone by his side, someone he could turn to.

He didn't have to plan for things on his own. He didn't have to fight his battles alone. He had someone who cared about him, someone who would stand by him. It was the greatest gift he could possibly have, and something that he would never take for granted.

"There's something more to this than just you being annoyed and distracted by me doing a little humming, isn't there?" Mick asked, his voice very soft. "Something that you're worried about telling me, because you don't want anything to come between us."

The Doctor's dark eyes widened in surprise; he had known that he and Mick shared a special bond, but it almost seemed that his lover was reading his mind. Slowly, he nodded, taking a deep breath and squeezing Mick's hand gently once more before letting it go.

"Yes, there is," he said, his voice very soft, the words coming out slowly when he spoke. "I think this might have something to do with the Master, and him trying to get inside my head, to use my little annoyances to work at driving a wedge between us."

Mick nodded, sitting down and reaching for the Doctor's hand again, giving the Time Lord one of the smiles that made him melt. That smile erased any annoyance that the Doctor could have possibly felt, and let him know that all between the two of them would stay the same.

***