"In Pocket" (Doctor Who: 8/5)
Sep. 12th, 2003 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
applecameronAnother entry in The Versaphile Birthday Project ™! Today is the day. The Birthday.
Author: Apple Cameron, September 2003
Title: In Pocket
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Eight/Five
Keywords: m/m, angst (more properly, panic)
Spoilers: The Resurrection of the Daleks (Fifth Doctor), & novel Sleeping I by Jon Blum/Kate Orman (Eighth Doctor)
"In Pocket"
The Fifth Doctor opened his eyes on utter blackness. "Tegan?"
There was a rustle in the dark. A voice sounded in his ear. "I'm afraid not."
The Fifth Doctor moved his left hand in front of his face and waggled his fingers. "I can't see." His right arm was immobilized in some fashion. It was cold. "Am I blind?"
"No. There's no light in here." The voice sounded familiar, yet not.
"Who are you?"
There was the distinct -- impossible, but with Time Lords, 'impossible' frequently changes from 'not possible' to something more like 'may not be done by tea-time' -- sound of someone smiling. "I'll give you a clue. What's your favorite book?"
They spoke in unison. "The Time Machine, of course!"
The Doctor's grin was audible. "Just so."
"I suppose you remember this already, then? What's going on?"
"Um." The Doctor hesitated for several seconds. "Not exactly."
The Fifth Doctor tried to sit up, and couldn't. His right arm was...encased...in something, fingers to shoulder. He felt carefully with his free hand. Ice, maybe. It didn't hurt. "Are we in the Death Zone?"
"I've really no idea." The Doctor's voice was mild but somehow strained.
There was absolutely no light of any kind. The Fifth Doctor began searching his pockets, left hand rummaging in that side and finding a few brass coins, and what was probably a postage stamp. The TARDIS key was missing, among other things.
He squirmed but the icy whatever locked around his right arm wouldn't budge. "Would you mind searching my right pocket? I can't."
A long-fingered hand touched his jaw and then walked its way down his chest, avoided the ticklish bit out of long habit, traced his belt, and dove into the right hand pocket. It pulled out a tiny souvenir plastic monkey from The Banana Bar on Gallix 18, 2263, free on every drink, and tucked that away for safety into the left pocket. Then came the calling card of the Prince of Triton in exile, embossed with the royal sigil, a glass bead, cricket ball, and a tiny wooden snuffbox that both knew immediately contained a wad of cat fur. Two pieces of some kind of shell, and that was it.
"I suppose you already took an inventory?"
"Um." The Doctor began patting his pockets noisily. "No, actually."
The Fifth Doctor levered himself 'up', which wasn't, reaching out with all of his available senses. Something was wrong in the state of Denmark. "Look, are you all right? All parts attached and all that? Not stuck to anything? Do you know what this is?" He touched the 'ice' surrounding his limb, then reached out to his other self, gripping a shoulder. It felt like one side of his body was slowly turning numb.
The Doctor's frame trembled slightly, at the touch.
The answer was a long time in coming. "I'm not injured, yes, no, and it feels like ice to me, but doesn't want to melt."
The Fifth Doctor nodded in the dark. "How long was I out?"
"Four hours. And a bit. I think I was only unconscious for a few minutes. I'm not sure."
"What happened?"
"I think..." the Doctor hesitated, choosing words carefully. "I think we both got caught by the same trap." He stood, voice moving away, and felt around the parameters of their cell. It was circular, and the ceiling was out of reach. The floor was cold, the ice-like substance on his other self's arm was even colder. "I'm not sure it was intended for us especially."
He walked the circle around his other self, pinned to the center. The walls had no apparent variation in temperature, and when he pressed on them they gave, just a hint. "What's the last thing you remember?" He couldn't see, not even a little bit. A chill breeze emanated from everywhere.
"Looking for Tegan."
"I was looking for Sam when it happened." He mused.
"What?"
"Ah? Nothing."
"Right." For a conversation limited to two disembodied voices speaking in complete darkness, it was immediately apparent someone was hiding something. Neither one could feel the other's mind very well.
"So. What's in your pockets?"
The Doctor rummaged: one ball of string, a set of jacks made of jade, half a bag of jellybabies, which he promptly shared, two ticket stubs he pronounced as being to the press preview showing of "The Great Escape", a small rock. His TARDIS key was also missing.
"There seems to be a conspicuous lack of sonic screwdrivers today." The Fifth Doctor commented.
There was silence for about 300 seconds.
Apropos of nothing, the Doctor said, "I really am not fond of the dark, these days."
"What do you remember?" the Fifth Doctor asked, tugging his arm in its prison.
"We were on a much-needed vacation. Mooloolaba, Key West in 1950, and a Mekti trading station. For the bubble gum."
"Mooloolaba is always nice."
"Yes, well, that's why we were going there." the Doctor sat cross-legged by the unrestrained arm of his earlier self, his knee barely touching the other's coat. "But we went to Key West first. Sa -- my companion walked out of the TARDIS, I walked out, but when I crossed the threshold I was here instead of there. She said something as I came through but I don't know what. Lightning, maybe."
"Really."
"You?"
"Same location. Not 1950. Wait -- " He made a noise. "Something's wrong with my arm. I remember! Something struck my arm! There was blood. And the weather was strange."
"I think someone set a trap." the Doctor rearranged his legs. "I think we both exited the TARDIS at the same moment, relatively speaking. That would account for both of us being caught."
Both Doctors made exactly the same 'hm' noise.
Silence. The Doctor's knee jigged constantly. The Fifth Doctor drummed his available fingers. "This is boring. I hate being imprisoned."
The Doctor did not respond, but the jigging knee jigged harder.
Something very heavy weighed against the inside of the Fifth Doctor's head, from his future self. It tasted a lot like panic.
"I would really like to sit up." he ventured.
"Ah!" The Doctor leapt up, moving around the trapped man. He gave the stuck arm a nudge with one foot. It was un-nudgeable. "Feel that? No?" A hand ran between the Fifth Doctor's body and his pinned arm. "Hm." He squeezed to his left, so that his arm now stuck out instead of lying at his side. That made it seem somehow colder and more trapped. The floor was spongy and chill.
"Still feels like ice. Maybe a lot of warmth?"
"Why 'The Great Escape'?" His future self was doing something that involved hair brushing against the Fifth Doctor's neck. It tickled. Warm breath blew on the edge of the ice, up at his shoulder, tickling more.
"No reason. Ow!" The Doctor jerked away.
"What is it?"
The Doctor grimaced and spoke through a mouthful of lower palm. "This stuff likes blood."
"I thought you weren't injured!"
"It's just a scrape on my hand. This ice stuff tried to leech it when I touched it to your arm."
The odd thing about the dark was that it wasn't that oppressive. Except when there was silence.
"I see."
The Doctor sighed. "While you were unconscious, I...explored. Cut my hand banging at the wall." his voice in the darkness perked and then fell again. "Should've healed by now but it hasn't."
"I'm beginning to think the laws of the universe don't apply here." The Fifth Doctor felt the chill in his arm spreading. Was the ice moving? Was he still bleeding?
"I wonder if that's not a joke after all." The Doctor kneeled and poked at the trapped arm with one hand. He took out his little bit of rock and began rummaging in The Fifth Doctor's pocket. "I think we may be in something alive."
That didn't make either of them feel much better.
#
The Doctor pulled an arm out of his coat, rolled up the sleeve, and removed his cravat. With the recently-sharpened piece of shell, he dug into his bare flesh, ignoring the pain. He dragged a line of fire across his arm, near the elbow, felt blood welling on his skin. He crouched and reached out with one hand to ensure he was over the right spot: the Fifth Doctor's trapped arm.
There was a quivering sensation in the ground, both of them could feel it. Something was aware of current events.
"I feel it shifting."
"Be ready."
The Doctor, gauging the distance as best he could, slowly waved his bloody forearm over his other incarnation's body, and away. First over the trapped shoulder, then the elbow, the wrist. Slowly, the living ice unrolled itself to follow the new source of nutrition.
"It's at my elbow now. Almost there!"
The ice sprang up from its source. "Up! Up! Quickly, now!" The tendril of ice brushed the Doctor's fingers as he heaved to a standing position, but it was unable to reach any higher. He danced away.
The Fifth Doctor sprang to his feet. In one movement, he whipped off his coat and wrapped it around his arm, to stop his blood from hitting the floor, if there was any. He kept his elbow bent, and touched the wall with the fingers of his other hand. His arm felt incredibly cold, but not damaged.
The Doctor retreated to a wall, careful not to touch it with his own fresh wound.
"Did it get you?"
The Doctor shook his head, realized that didn't help, and gasped, "No".
"Well, then." The Fifth Doctor felt a little dizzy from blood loss. "I must say it's nice to not be an hors d'ouevre any more." He massaged his arm and waited for feeling to return fully. "So, tell me about 'The Great Escape'."
As the Doctor spoke he bandaged his arm with his cravat. "It's a prison escape movie set during one of the first human world wars. Steve McQueen does this wonderful motorcycle chase."
They both began exploring the chamber, cautiously, shuffling their feet. The icy pseudopod that had been feeding on the Fifth Doctor's arm seemed to have melted back into the floor.
"Motorcycle chase."
"Yes."
There was a strange sound above them, and then all around. The sound of something almost like rock, sliding against itself. The Fifth Doctor put a hand on the wall, and found it pushing back against him.
"Hold it, hold it." He stayed perfectly still. "The wall's moving."
The Doctor put a palm against the wall. "No!" Then ran to the opposite side of the chamber and felt there. "It's contracting!"
"Did the air just change?" There was the queer sensation that the ceiling had somehow opened, fresh air coming from overhead. This sensation was somewhat validated when the Fifth Doctor looked up and saw what seemed almost a shadow high above, just the difference between no-light and almost-no-light.
There was the sound of running feet, as the Doctor threw himself across the chamber. He bounced off the wall at a good clip, slamming into the Fifth Doctor's shoulder. They both would have tumbled to the ground if not for superior reflexes.
The Fifth Doctor clung to his future self. The Doctor was shaking violently. His hearts were beating incredibly fast. Hands batted at him, trying to push away.
"I have to get out."
The Great Escape.
The Fifth Doctor didn't let go. "Tell me what hap--."
"Three years. Three years. Of nothing." The Doctor's voice was thin and tight. "I need Sa-- my companion. I need her. I NEED her. I NEED HER." the Doctor's voice rose up into a distinct tone of panic. "I will not be locked up like this again. No no no no no. Not again."
The Fifth Doctor held on tighter. "Stop it!"
"No no no."
"Look, I--"
"No no NO."
The Fifth Doctor gripped the Doctor's head with both hands and held it still, which mostly resulted in the involuntary vibration moving to the Doctor's arms and legs. "I need you to focus." He pressed their foreheads together. "As soon as the walls get close enough -- "
A throttled wail interrupted that sentence.
The Fifth Doctor shut him up via the only method that came to mind. Kissed him. If there were any light at all, he would of course never have dared it. But this darkness could hide a great many things.
"Close your eyes." He murmured, fingers on the other man's face to ensure compliance. The Doctor was still quite frantic, but he was definitely getting distracted now from the movement of the walls.
"Out out out."
"We will." As they kissed, the Fifth Doctor kept up a murmured counterpoint of reassurances. The weight of the panic in their minds began to ease.
It took seventeen seconds before the Doctor stopped talking entirely, wrapped his fingers around the other man's head, and took his breath away. After which, the Doctor's frantic movements took on a completely different tone.
The Fifth Doctor found himself pushed to the wall, which was still moving slowly inward just fast enough for a Time Lord to notice. He was crushed from the front by the Doctor's slender body, his demanding mouth, his fingers questing everywhere.
The Doctor attacked the side of his neck, pulling away his collar and gnawing at the junction of his shoulder, and it was so good, oh, oh so good, of course he knows what I like and the presence in his mind that was himself in the future frissioned with such energy and joy and tenderness that it was almost unbearable.
He was consumed by delight, dissolving in it, those lips devouring him and one hand at his groin and the other pulling them even closer together, as if they could melt into one another in this dark into a creature made up entirely of light. The dark that was soft lips against his and oh please their bodies moving together and oh please the smell of skin and the feel of velvet and their moving together and something was building, something enormous. Something of heat and the hair stroking his cheek, the fire running through them both, one set of nerve endings where the the other began, pleasure welling up until it had to flow ever-faster, a vast feedback loop, oh please.
Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease. He felt about to explode. Starbursts gathered behind his eyes, one after the other, each greater than the last until pleasure burst over them both and he cried out wordlessly, mindless, mindless in the middle of everything.
His hearts echoed the name of his lost companion between them both, like surf crashing against the edges of their minds, almost loud enough to be spoken.
When his awareness came properly back into his body, seeping in like it wasn't sure of a fit, the Fifth Doctor was still panting, his knees weak.
Their kisses slowed but never stopped, each one a little incandescent spike of pleasure punctuated by sound.
Slowly, hands on his chest, the Doctor built back up to the same frenetic pace. His head started whirling again under the onslaught.
Sometimes the only defence...was a good offence. The Fifth Doctor rolled to put his future self to the wall, pinning him with his hands on the other man's hips.
The response was not what he wanted. "Don't hold me down!" The protest was fully genuine, panic rising back up to meet in their minds. "No no no."
"Shhhh." The Fifth Doctor stepped back and dropped his arms. Only their lips touched. Both of them were trembling: fear, exaltation, need.
For a long while, there was just their mouths together in the dark.
Someone gasped, and neither one of them knew who.
The Doctor took a step forward, then another, until they touched.
The Fifth Doctor kissed the other man gently, pulling him into the center of the chamber. Worked with one hand at the
lower buttons of what seemed to be a waistcoat. After a few moments effort, his hand met soft flesh and the most enticing sound struck his ear.
That a mere sound, a moan, a sigh, could slide like butter on his skin, curl around him like smoke, make him feel so unutterably naked, inside and out, was not enough to make his hand stop. On the contrary.
"Give me more." He whispered, stroking tenderly.
The Doctor trembled, his slight frame canting forward until his counterpart took on all their weight. Long shudders moved up and down his body, and the buttery sighs only increased. They tangled, somehow still standing, arms and legs and body against body, and the Fifth Doctor's hand did not stop or even slow.
Pleasure beat its wings against both their minds. Moan built upon whispers of encouragement built upon murmured desires, the beginnings of ecstasy coiling about them until it was almost visible.
The Doctor gave a great cry, convulsing, and everything, inside, outside, within, without, dissolved into white.
The Doctor collapsed to his knees, pulling them both down. His chest was heaving, drawing in great gasping lungfuls of air.
There was silence, but it was a comfortable one. The dark was just dark.
After several minutes the Fifth Doctor regained the strength to say, "I have a little plan."
"Glad to hear it." The Doctor was still breathing heavily. "I do believe my panicking was getting tiresome."
The Fifth Doctor reached his hand to the other man's face, tracing the eyebrows, the cheekbones, the lips. The skin of his open throat. There was another long shudder and the Doctor gave a great boneless sigh. They leaned together, heartbeats almost synchronizing.
"We're going to walk up the walls." He linked an arm through the Doctor's. "Like so. With our backs together." They both looked up.
#
It was another few hours before the base of the chamber contracted enough to be useful. The diameter of the aperture above them did not seem to be shrinking.
They spent the time talking, not just with their voices. Lost companions and motorcycle chases.
Finally. Seated back to back, arms linked, the two Doctors began to walk in tandem, up the wall to freedom.
#
Tumbling down the outside left two dusty, bedraggled Doctors, panting, on the surface of --
"Oh."
They both looked up.
"We're in a pocket dimension!" The Doctor shaded his eyes unnecessarily. He pointed. "Look, there! I can see the radiation spill at the edge."
"Well, that explains a few things." the Fifth Doctor said, untangling his crude bandage now that he could see. The bleeding had probably stopped some time ago, but there was a fresh scrape on his other arm from their tumble. Their former prison looked like a gray stalagmite. There were odd little dark feelers, giant cilia, covering its outer surface. He gestured at a patch, and watched the cilia wave as his arm moved. Just like flowers following the sun. After a moment, the area under his blood's influence dimpled and looked like it was about to open a porthole back inside.
"Interesting." He stepped back, and the tegument slowly reformed itself. More interesting from the outside than the in. He pulled on his coat properly, rearranged his attire, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. Much better.
Two small piles of...one could only call it 'stuff' lay near one another at the base of the living stalagmite. The Fifth Doctor dragged a finger through one pile, then the other. Anything with circuitry, crystals, or an adaptive interface had been plucked out of their pockets when they were absorbed by the creature, alien pitcher-plant, whatever it was. He pocketed his things and handed the rest over to his future self.
The Doctor looked at both doors. "This one's mine." It had a fixed scratch that his earlier self hadn't gotten to yet. He looked at the TARDIS door, touched it with one finger. It was just the door, nothing behind it, not the TARDIS itself.
"Gateway back out, obviously."
"Obviously." the Doctor said. "Lightning plus two TARDIS gates opening onto Key West in relative synchronicity means -- ?"
"Insertion into a pocket dimension." The Fifth Doctor shrugged. "I've suppose we've heard stranger things."
They both turned around and looked at the landscape. Stalagmites rose, scattered evenly, to the horizon.
"Complete with Time Lord-eating monsters." The Doctor's voice sounded cheerful.
The Fifth Doctor looked at his later-era self. Curly brown hair, a very nice velvet frock coat, and a casually manic look accentuated by the open collar, waistcoat, and untucked shirt. The man's lips looked...well, like he'd been putting them to good use. Heat rose in his face at the thought.
"I wonder, once we leave, will we remember any of this?" On the whole, he preferred his cricket outfit. For the moment.
The Doctor shrugged, grinned.
They spoke in unison. "Only one way to find out!"
Two TARDIS doors opened. Two TARDIS doors shut and promptly disappeared in on themselves. The universe was still and quiet, save for an unusual being deprived of its lunch.
#
The Fifth Doctor stepped out of his TARDIS and paused. He turned around and looked at the door, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shrugged and continued on his way. His right arm ached, but he wasn't sure why.
#
"Did you see the lightning?"
The Doctor stepped out of his TARDIS and paused. He turned around and looked at the door, then himself.
"Hey." A tanned, blond presence was suddenly at his side. Sam looked at the door, then the Doctor. "Problem?"
The Doctor's hand flew to his neck. He fingered the cravat, then laid a hand on his arm, eyes still on the door.
Sam touched his elbow and he looked at her. There was a moment where they just stared at each other, the loss that had cut him so deeply three lifetimes ago suddenly fresh and new.
"Doctor?"
Then the Doctor gave a visible shake and grinned like a lunatic. "Come along, Sam. Places to go, people to see!"
He took off at a trot and she followed.
THE END
Author: Apple Cameron, September 2003
Title: In Pocket
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Eight/Five
Keywords: m/m, angst (more properly, panic)
Spoilers: The Resurrection of the Daleks (Fifth Doctor), & novel Sleeping I by Jon Blum/Kate Orman (Eighth Doctor)
"In Pocket"
The Fifth Doctor opened his eyes on utter blackness. "Tegan?"
There was a rustle in the dark. A voice sounded in his ear. "I'm afraid not."
The Fifth Doctor moved his left hand in front of his face and waggled his fingers. "I can't see." His right arm was immobilized in some fashion. It was cold. "Am I blind?"
"No. There's no light in here." The voice sounded familiar, yet not.
"Who are you?"
There was the distinct -- impossible, but with Time Lords, 'impossible' frequently changes from 'not possible' to something more like 'may not be done by tea-time' -- sound of someone smiling. "I'll give you a clue. What's your favorite book?"
They spoke in unison. "The Time Machine, of course!"
The Doctor's grin was audible. "Just so."
"I suppose you remember this already, then? What's going on?"
"Um." The Doctor hesitated for several seconds. "Not exactly."
The Fifth Doctor tried to sit up, and couldn't. His right arm was...encased...in something, fingers to shoulder. He felt carefully with his free hand. Ice, maybe. It didn't hurt. "Are we in the Death Zone?"
"I've really no idea." The Doctor's voice was mild but somehow strained.
There was absolutely no light of any kind. The Fifth Doctor began searching his pockets, left hand rummaging in that side and finding a few brass coins, and what was probably a postage stamp. The TARDIS key was missing, among other things.
He squirmed but the icy whatever locked around his right arm wouldn't budge. "Would you mind searching my right pocket? I can't."
A long-fingered hand touched his jaw and then walked its way down his chest, avoided the ticklish bit out of long habit, traced his belt, and dove into the right hand pocket. It pulled out a tiny souvenir plastic monkey from The Banana Bar on Gallix 18, 2263, free on every drink, and tucked that away for safety into the left pocket. Then came the calling card of the Prince of Triton in exile, embossed with the royal sigil, a glass bead, cricket ball, and a tiny wooden snuffbox that both knew immediately contained a wad of cat fur. Two pieces of some kind of shell, and that was it.
"I suppose you already took an inventory?"
"Um." The Doctor began patting his pockets noisily. "No, actually."
The Fifth Doctor levered himself 'up', which wasn't, reaching out with all of his available senses. Something was wrong in the state of Denmark. "Look, are you all right? All parts attached and all that? Not stuck to anything? Do you know what this is?" He touched the 'ice' surrounding his limb, then reached out to his other self, gripping a shoulder. It felt like one side of his body was slowly turning numb.
The Doctor's frame trembled slightly, at the touch.
The answer was a long time in coming. "I'm not injured, yes, no, and it feels like ice to me, but doesn't want to melt."
The Fifth Doctor nodded in the dark. "How long was I out?"
"Four hours. And a bit. I think I was only unconscious for a few minutes. I'm not sure."
"What happened?"
"I think..." the Doctor hesitated, choosing words carefully. "I think we both got caught by the same trap." He stood, voice moving away, and felt around the parameters of their cell. It was circular, and the ceiling was out of reach. The floor was cold, the ice-like substance on his other self's arm was even colder. "I'm not sure it was intended for us especially."
He walked the circle around his other self, pinned to the center. The walls had no apparent variation in temperature, and when he pressed on them they gave, just a hint. "What's the last thing you remember?" He couldn't see, not even a little bit. A chill breeze emanated from everywhere.
"Looking for Tegan."
"I was looking for Sam when it happened." He mused.
"What?"
"Ah? Nothing."
"Right." For a conversation limited to two disembodied voices speaking in complete darkness, it was immediately apparent someone was hiding something. Neither one could feel the other's mind very well.
"So. What's in your pockets?"
The Doctor rummaged: one ball of string, a set of jacks made of jade, half a bag of jellybabies, which he promptly shared, two ticket stubs he pronounced as being to the press preview showing of "The Great Escape", a small rock. His TARDIS key was also missing.
"There seems to be a conspicuous lack of sonic screwdrivers today." The Fifth Doctor commented.
There was silence for about 300 seconds.
Apropos of nothing, the Doctor said, "I really am not fond of the dark, these days."
"What do you remember?" the Fifth Doctor asked, tugging his arm in its prison.
"We were on a much-needed vacation. Mooloolaba, Key West in 1950, and a Mekti trading station. For the bubble gum."
"Mooloolaba is always nice."
"Yes, well, that's why we were going there." the Doctor sat cross-legged by the unrestrained arm of his earlier self, his knee barely touching the other's coat. "But we went to Key West first. Sa -- my companion walked out of the TARDIS, I walked out, but when I crossed the threshold I was here instead of there. She said something as I came through but I don't know what. Lightning, maybe."
"Really."
"You?"
"Same location. Not 1950. Wait -- " He made a noise. "Something's wrong with my arm. I remember! Something struck my arm! There was blood. And the weather was strange."
"I think someone set a trap." the Doctor rearranged his legs. "I think we both exited the TARDIS at the same moment, relatively speaking. That would account for both of us being caught."
Both Doctors made exactly the same 'hm' noise.
Silence. The Doctor's knee jigged constantly. The Fifth Doctor drummed his available fingers. "This is boring. I hate being imprisoned."
The Doctor did not respond, but the jigging knee jigged harder.
Something very heavy weighed against the inside of the Fifth Doctor's head, from his future self. It tasted a lot like panic.
"I would really like to sit up." he ventured.
"Ah!" The Doctor leapt up, moving around the trapped man. He gave the stuck arm a nudge with one foot. It was un-nudgeable. "Feel that? No?" A hand ran between the Fifth Doctor's body and his pinned arm. "Hm." He squeezed to his left, so that his arm now stuck out instead of lying at his side. That made it seem somehow colder and more trapped. The floor was spongy and chill.
"Still feels like ice. Maybe a lot of warmth?"
"Why 'The Great Escape'?" His future self was doing something that involved hair brushing against the Fifth Doctor's neck. It tickled. Warm breath blew on the edge of the ice, up at his shoulder, tickling more.
"No reason. Ow!" The Doctor jerked away.
"What is it?"
The Doctor grimaced and spoke through a mouthful of lower palm. "This stuff likes blood."
"I thought you weren't injured!"
"It's just a scrape on my hand. This ice stuff tried to leech it when I touched it to your arm."
The odd thing about the dark was that it wasn't that oppressive. Except when there was silence.
"I see."
The Doctor sighed. "While you were unconscious, I...explored. Cut my hand banging at the wall." his voice in the darkness perked and then fell again. "Should've healed by now but it hasn't."
"I'm beginning to think the laws of the universe don't apply here." The Fifth Doctor felt the chill in his arm spreading. Was the ice moving? Was he still bleeding?
"I wonder if that's not a joke after all." The Doctor kneeled and poked at the trapped arm with one hand. He took out his little bit of rock and began rummaging in The Fifth Doctor's pocket. "I think we may be in something alive."
That didn't make either of them feel much better.
#
The Doctor pulled an arm out of his coat, rolled up the sleeve, and removed his cravat. With the recently-sharpened piece of shell, he dug into his bare flesh, ignoring the pain. He dragged a line of fire across his arm, near the elbow, felt blood welling on his skin. He crouched and reached out with one hand to ensure he was over the right spot: the Fifth Doctor's trapped arm.
There was a quivering sensation in the ground, both of them could feel it. Something was aware of current events.
"I feel it shifting."
"Be ready."
The Doctor, gauging the distance as best he could, slowly waved his bloody forearm over his other incarnation's body, and away. First over the trapped shoulder, then the elbow, the wrist. Slowly, the living ice unrolled itself to follow the new source of nutrition.
"It's at my elbow now. Almost there!"
The ice sprang up from its source. "Up! Up! Quickly, now!" The tendril of ice brushed the Doctor's fingers as he heaved to a standing position, but it was unable to reach any higher. He danced away.
The Fifth Doctor sprang to his feet. In one movement, he whipped off his coat and wrapped it around his arm, to stop his blood from hitting the floor, if there was any. He kept his elbow bent, and touched the wall with the fingers of his other hand. His arm felt incredibly cold, but not damaged.
The Doctor retreated to a wall, careful not to touch it with his own fresh wound.
"Did it get you?"
The Doctor shook his head, realized that didn't help, and gasped, "No".
"Well, then." The Fifth Doctor felt a little dizzy from blood loss. "I must say it's nice to not be an hors d'ouevre any more." He massaged his arm and waited for feeling to return fully. "So, tell me about 'The Great Escape'."
As the Doctor spoke he bandaged his arm with his cravat. "It's a prison escape movie set during one of the first human world wars. Steve McQueen does this wonderful motorcycle chase."
They both began exploring the chamber, cautiously, shuffling their feet. The icy pseudopod that had been feeding on the Fifth Doctor's arm seemed to have melted back into the floor.
"Motorcycle chase."
"Yes."
There was a strange sound above them, and then all around. The sound of something almost like rock, sliding against itself. The Fifth Doctor put a hand on the wall, and found it pushing back against him.
"Hold it, hold it." He stayed perfectly still. "The wall's moving."
The Doctor put a palm against the wall. "No!" Then ran to the opposite side of the chamber and felt there. "It's contracting!"
"Did the air just change?" There was the queer sensation that the ceiling had somehow opened, fresh air coming from overhead. This sensation was somewhat validated when the Fifth Doctor looked up and saw what seemed almost a shadow high above, just the difference between no-light and almost-no-light.
There was the sound of running feet, as the Doctor threw himself across the chamber. He bounced off the wall at a good clip, slamming into the Fifth Doctor's shoulder. They both would have tumbled to the ground if not for superior reflexes.
The Fifth Doctor clung to his future self. The Doctor was shaking violently. His hearts were beating incredibly fast. Hands batted at him, trying to push away.
"I have to get out."
The Great Escape.
The Fifth Doctor didn't let go. "Tell me what hap--."
"Three years. Three years. Of nothing." The Doctor's voice was thin and tight. "I need Sa-- my companion. I need her. I NEED her. I NEED HER." the Doctor's voice rose up into a distinct tone of panic. "I will not be locked up like this again. No no no no no. Not again."
The Fifth Doctor held on tighter. "Stop it!"
"No no no."
"Look, I--"
"No no NO."
The Fifth Doctor gripped the Doctor's head with both hands and held it still, which mostly resulted in the involuntary vibration moving to the Doctor's arms and legs. "I need you to focus." He pressed their foreheads together. "As soon as the walls get close enough -- "
A throttled wail interrupted that sentence.
The Fifth Doctor shut him up via the only method that came to mind. Kissed him. If there were any light at all, he would of course never have dared it. But this darkness could hide a great many things.
"Close your eyes." He murmured, fingers on the other man's face to ensure compliance. The Doctor was still quite frantic, but he was definitely getting distracted now from the movement of the walls.
"Out out out."
"We will." As they kissed, the Fifth Doctor kept up a murmured counterpoint of reassurances. The weight of the panic in their minds began to ease.
It took seventeen seconds before the Doctor stopped talking entirely, wrapped his fingers around the other man's head, and took his breath away. After which, the Doctor's frantic movements took on a completely different tone.
The Fifth Doctor found himself pushed to the wall, which was still moving slowly inward just fast enough for a Time Lord to notice. He was crushed from the front by the Doctor's slender body, his demanding mouth, his fingers questing everywhere.
The Doctor attacked the side of his neck, pulling away his collar and gnawing at the junction of his shoulder, and it was so good, oh, oh so good, of course he knows what I like and the presence in his mind that was himself in the future frissioned with such energy and joy and tenderness that it was almost unbearable.
He was consumed by delight, dissolving in it, those lips devouring him and one hand at his groin and the other pulling them even closer together, as if they could melt into one another in this dark into a creature made up entirely of light. The dark that was soft lips against his and oh please their bodies moving together and oh please the smell of skin and the feel of velvet and their moving together and something was building, something enormous. Something of heat and the hair stroking his cheek, the fire running through them both, one set of nerve endings where the the other began, pleasure welling up until it had to flow ever-faster, a vast feedback loop, oh please.
Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease. He felt about to explode. Starbursts gathered behind his eyes, one after the other, each greater than the last until pleasure burst over them both and he cried out wordlessly, mindless, mindless in the middle of everything.
His hearts echoed the name of his lost companion between them both, like surf crashing against the edges of their minds, almost loud enough to be spoken.
When his awareness came properly back into his body, seeping in like it wasn't sure of a fit, the Fifth Doctor was still panting, his knees weak.
Their kisses slowed but never stopped, each one a little incandescent spike of pleasure punctuated by sound.
Slowly, hands on his chest, the Doctor built back up to the same frenetic pace. His head started whirling again under the onslaught.
Sometimes the only defence...was a good offence. The Fifth Doctor rolled to put his future self to the wall, pinning him with his hands on the other man's hips.
The response was not what he wanted. "Don't hold me down!" The protest was fully genuine, panic rising back up to meet in their minds. "No no no."
"Shhhh." The Fifth Doctor stepped back and dropped his arms. Only their lips touched. Both of them were trembling: fear, exaltation, need.
For a long while, there was just their mouths together in the dark.
Someone gasped, and neither one of them knew who.
The Doctor took a step forward, then another, until they touched.
The Fifth Doctor kissed the other man gently, pulling him into the center of the chamber. Worked with one hand at the
lower buttons of what seemed to be a waistcoat. After a few moments effort, his hand met soft flesh and the most enticing sound struck his ear.
That a mere sound, a moan, a sigh, could slide like butter on his skin, curl around him like smoke, make him feel so unutterably naked, inside and out, was not enough to make his hand stop. On the contrary.
"Give me more." He whispered, stroking tenderly.
The Doctor trembled, his slight frame canting forward until his counterpart took on all their weight. Long shudders moved up and down his body, and the buttery sighs only increased. They tangled, somehow still standing, arms and legs and body against body, and the Fifth Doctor's hand did not stop or even slow.
Pleasure beat its wings against both their minds. Moan built upon whispers of encouragement built upon murmured desires, the beginnings of ecstasy coiling about them until it was almost visible.
The Doctor gave a great cry, convulsing, and everything, inside, outside, within, without, dissolved into white.
The Doctor collapsed to his knees, pulling them both down. His chest was heaving, drawing in great gasping lungfuls of air.
There was silence, but it was a comfortable one. The dark was just dark.
After several minutes the Fifth Doctor regained the strength to say, "I have a little plan."
"Glad to hear it." The Doctor was still breathing heavily. "I do believe my panicking was getting tiresome."
The Fifth Doctor reached his hand to the other man's face, tracing the eyebrows, the cheekbones, the lips. The skin of his open throat. There was another long shudder and the Doctor gave a great boneless sigh. They leaned together, heartbeats almost synchronizing.
"We're going to walk up the walls." He linked an arm through the Doctor's. "Like so. With our backs together." They both looked up.
#
It was another few hours before the base of the chamber contracted enough to be useful. The diameter of the aperture above them did not seem to be shrinking.
They spent the time talking, not just with their voices. Lost companions and motorcycle chases.
Finally. Seated back to back, arms linked, the two Doctors began to walk in tandem, up the wall to freedom.
#
Tumbling down the outside left two dusty, bedraggled Doctors, panting, on the surface of --
"Oh."
They both looked up.
"We're in a pocket dimension!" The Doctor shaded his eyes unnecessarily. He pointed. "Look, there! I can see the radiation spill at the edge."
"Well, that explains a few things." the Fifth Doctor said, untangling his crude bandage now that he could see. The bleeding had probably stopped some time ago, but there was a fresh scrape on his other arm from their tumble. Their former prison looked like a gray stalagmite. There were odd little dark feelers, giant cilia, covering its outer surface. He gestured at a patch, and watched the cilia wave as his arm moved. Just like flowers following the sun. After a moment, the area under his blood's influence dimpled and looked like it was about to open a porthole back inside.
"Interesting." He stepped back, and the tegument slowly reformed itself. More interesting from the outside than the in. He pulled on his coat properly, rearranged his attire, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. Much better.
Two small piles of...one could only call it 'stuff' lay near one another at the base of the living stalagmite. The Fifth Doctor dragged a finger through one pile, then the other. Anything with circuitry, crystals, or an adaptive interface had been plucked out of their pockets when they were absorbed by the creature, alien pitcher-plant, whatever it was. He pocketed his things and handed the rest over to his future self.
The Doctor looked at both doors. "This one's mine." It had a fixed scratch that his earlier self hadn't gotten to yet. He looked at the TARDIS door, touched it with one finger. It was just the door, nothing behind it, not the TARDIS itself.
"Gateway back out, obviously."
"Obviously." the Doctor said. "Lightning plus two TARDIS gates opening onto Key West in relative synchronicity means -- ?"
"Insertion into a pocket dimension." The Fifth Doctor shrugged. "I've suppose we've heard stranger things."
They both turned around and looked at the landscape. Stalagmites rose, scattered evenly, to the horizon.
"Complete with Time Lord-eating monsters." The Doctor's voice sounded cheerful.
The Fifth Doctor looked at his later-era self. Curly brown hair, a very nice velvet frock coat, and a casually manic look accentuated by the open collar, waistcoat, and untucked shirt. The man's lips looked...well, like he'd been putting them to good use. Heat rose in his face at the thought.
"I wonder, once we leave, will we remember any of this?" On the whole, he preferred his cricket outfit. For the moment.
The Doctor shrugged, grinned.
They spoke in unison. "Only one way to find out!"
Two TARDIS doors opened. Two TARDIS doors shut and promptly disappeared in on themselves. The universe was still and quiet, save for an unusual being deprived of its lunch.
#
The Fifth Doctor stepped out of his TARDIS and paused. He turned around and looked at the door, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shrugged and continued on his way. His right arm ached, but he wasn't sure why.
#
"Did you see the lightning?"
The Doctor stepped out of his TARDIS and paused. He turned around and looked at the door, then himself.
"Hey." A tanned, blond presence was suddenly at his side. Sam looked at the door, then the Doctor. "Problem?"
The Doctor's hand flew to his neck. He fingered the cravat, then laid a hand on his arm, eyes still on the door.
Sam touched his elbow and he looked at her. There was a moment where they just stared at each other, the loss that had cut him so deeply three lifetimes ago suddenly fresh and new.
"Doctor?"
Then the Doctor gave a visible shake and grinned like a lunatic. "Come along, Sam. Places to go, people to see!"
He took off at a trot and she followed.
THE END