Title: Ghost of A Former Self
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Brendan Block
Fandom: Doctor Who/Secret Smile
Rating: PG-13
Table: slash_me_twice
Prompt: 64, Ghost
Warning: past non-con.
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 Brendan Block, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

***

Brendan stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, searching for something different that he could see on the outside, some mark that was written on his face, engraved in stone. Something that was indelibly etched into his skin, his features, even his eyes.

But he could see nothing. There were no outward marks that matched the way he felt inside so much of the time, nothing that was a constant physical reminder of what he'd been through. There was nothing but the memory of what had been done to him.

It felt as though their should be something that showed on his face, some reminder of the experience he'd been through. But then, there was nothing that showed in the Doctor's countenance of all the times that the Master had violated him, either.

Was it so different for the Doctor? Brendan didn't think so; he went through the same emotional upheaval, the same physical violation. He wasn't used to it; no one could ever get used to something like that. And no one should have to.

That was what the Doctor would tell him, Brendan thought, a small smile curving his lips. The Time Lord would say that he was obsessing too much about the outside, and not concentrating on how he felt on the inside. And maybe his lover was right.

The problem was that his inner feelings were in such a jumble that he was still having a hard time sorting them out. Even weeks after it had taken place, that last encounter with the Master was still at the forefront of his mind, refusing to fade away into the mists of memory.

As much as he wanted those memories to dissipate, they wouldn't. And he was starting to feel as though he was a ghost of himself, not half of the man who he used to be before the Master had touched him. He almost felt like a completely different person.

He wanted to ask the Doctor how he dealt with these feelings, but he didn't dare. The last thing he wanted was for his lover to know that he was having a hard time coping with this; it seemed to have happened so long ago that Brendan felt he should be past the trauma by now.

Maybe that wasn't true, he thought with a sigh, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against the cold surface of the mirror. Maybe he shouldn't expect himself to simply get past what had happened to him without some sort of therapy, or at least a great deal more time.

Was he expecting too much of himself? He didn't think so. He wanted to be strong, someone who the Doctor could lean on when he needed to. And in that respect, he felt that he was failing miserably on the very first time he'd really been put to the test.

He should have been able to protect the Doctor -- and himself. It didn't matter that the Master was a Time Lord and he was only human; he was here to watch the Doctor's back, and to keep him safe. He couldn't help but feel inadequate in the face of that expectation.

Would he ever be able to live up to what he expected of himself? Brendan thought, taking a deep breath. He didn't think so, not if he kept feeling like this. He felt as though he was a ghost of himself, a shadow of the man who he wanted to be -- and who he expected himself to be, as well.

He almost felt as if he was drifting through life as a ghost of his former self; the Master had taken some intrinsic part of him that he could never get back. A part of him that he had planned to give to the Doctor, something precious that could never be recovered.

That was probably why he was feeling so old and tired and .... violated. Brendan heaved a sigh, wanting to hit his head against the mirror as hard as he possibly could. Maybe the pain would bring him back to himself, make him feel somehow alive again.

But it wouldn't, and he knew it. All it would accomplish was to bloody his face and shatter the mirror, and he wanted to do neither of those things. There were already enough scars on his body inwardly; he didn't want to add any outward ones to that array.

Really, what he needed to do was talk to the Doctor about how he was feeling. Had the Time Lord ever felt like this after one of his encounters with the Master, as though he was a shadow of his former self, a ghost wandering the corridors of the ship that he called home?

Brendan was fairly certain that the Doctor had never done that; he couldn't imagine his lover ever having had that sort of self-doubt. But there was really no telling, was there? The Doctor had dark depths to him that Brendan couldn't even begin to guess at.

For all he knew, the man he loved had been stricken with exactly the same feeling that he himself had been experiencing for a while now. He could have felt like a pale shadow, a ghost, someone who didn't belong in the world that he was living in.

The only way to know if the man he loved had felt like this was to ask him. The problem was that Brendan felt it would be prying; he didn't want to make the Doctor feel as though he was trying to look into a part of the past that, for the Time Lord, was over and done with.

Still, he would have to understand why Brendan was asking, wouldn't he? The Doctor wasn't the sort of man to just brush off whatever questions he might have; he was kind and understanding, especially when someone he cared about was having a difficult time.

The Doctor would more than likely hold him and whisper soft, comforting words to him, and want to know why he was feeling like this. He would come up with all kinds of reasons why Brendan shouldn't feel this way, but he would understand.

At the moment, Brendan needed that understanding. He needed to stop feeling like a ghost in his own skin, as though he was a stranger to himself. He needed to feel as though he wasn't simply wandering through the world as a ghost of who he really was.

What would the Doctor say if Brendan sat down and spilled out how he was feeling? He knew that his lover would be sympathetic -- but would the Doctor really understand what it was to feel like this? Had he ever felt this way himself? Was it possible?

Brendan sighed again, pushing himself away from the mirror. The only way to know that was to talk to the Doctor, to ask if he was familiar with feeling this way. If he wasn't, then there was nothing that Brendan could do but try to get past the feeling, to put it behind him.

And if the Doctor did know what this was like -- Brendan felt a slight lifting of his spirits as hope surged through him. If the Doctor could commiserate with him, if the other man knew what this was like, then he would have someone to talk to about it. He wouldn't be so alone.

He wasn't alone, at any rate, he told himself firmly. The Doctor would never want him to feel that he was. The Doctor loved him; he would do his best to comfort Brendan and help him to put the horrible experience he'd endured into the past.

As long as he was with the Doctor, he would never have to feel alone. It was one of the reasons why he was here, after all -- to assuage the Doctor's loneliness. It hadn't occurred to him that he had been a very lonely man himself before he'd met the Time Lord.

They had both made that mutual loneliness disappear when they'd found each other. The Doctor was the first person who Brendan had ever been truly happy with -- the first person he'd ever really loved. The first person who had ever really loved him.

If anyone could take away this feeling of being nothing more than a ghost of himself, it was the Doctor. Even if the Time Lord had never felt this way, Brendan knew that just talking to his lover and being with him could lift his spirits to the skies.

Brendan turned and went to the bathroom door, pushing it open and heading down the corridor in search of the Doctor. Just having made the decision to talk to his lover made him feel like less of a ghost -- and the sooner that feeling was gone for good, the better off he would be.

***