orange_crushed | IT'S LIKE TRUTH OR DARE, WITH FIC.

It's gotten kind of weird over in that Eleven/Jack thread at

thunderemerald's place. And by weird, I mean awesomely weird. It's made me want to write again. Because every challenge she hands me, I have done, and oh my God she made me do Ten/Jackie and I did it and I'm not sorry and now I have to share it or explode.

So here are a handful of drabbly short-fic thingies that I have done for her. They are all slightly naughty, though nothing more than a PG-13. No real spoilers for anything.

ACCIDENTAL TEN/DONNA.

"Spaceman," Donna said, in a tone of voice that could strip grease from pans and dignity off his soul. "We talked about this."

"About what ?" He looked up and around, dizzily. The room was uncooperative, so he shut his eyes briefly and thought of gravity. Better. "Did we talk ? When did we talk ?" He found her face again and smiled at it. "I was just having the most wonderful dream."

"Oh, were you ?" Her voice was painfully sweet, and almost instantly brutal again. She's like, thought the Doctor, blearily, a lady rollercoaster. "That's nice. Now get your skinny Martian hand off my tits !"

He looked to the side. His hand- not the fighting one, the regular one- was splayed across Donna's chest triumphantly. Funny, he thought, I could have sworn I had my hands on Ro-

-and with that thought, the last of the sedative wore off.

"Yes. Right. Correcto. Klap-nok." He jumped to his feet and held the offending hand slightly out to the side. "That last one means right, too." She glared at him. "I am very, very sorry. In my defense, I'm particularly vulnerable to tranquilizers made from tarquin leaves. I respect your womanly dignity. And." He shifted guiltily on two feet, and her eyebrows raised.

"And what ?"

"They're very nice-" he began, and caught a shoe in the face for his trouble.

MASTER/JACK.

"And somehow, still, you get off on this." The Master rocks backwards against him, nudging his leg between Jack's knees. Jack's breath hitches. "Didn't I have you electrocuted ?"

"It didn't stick," says Jack. He reaches forward, wraps his hand around the Master's tie, and pulls him even closer.

"You're a masochist," says the shorter man. He grins, not a little madly, and licks his lips with a pleased expression. There's something almost innocent about his lack of decency. "Unavoidable side-effect of traveling with Saint Tightass and his chav lady friend." He lowers his lids. "Or maybe-"

"Stop writing your psych thesis," Jack says, "and focus."

"Mm." The Master smiles wickedly and grinds down. "Do remember who's who in this situation."

AWKWARD TEN/JACKIE.

"Did you really meet Shakespeare ?"

He glances across the couch at Jackie, in her best leopard-print robe; she is holding her wine glass at an odd angle that suggests she's refilled it one too many times. She's staring at him intently. "Was he like the painting ?"

"Nobody's like a painting," he says, off-handedly. "Except maybe Charles the First." He smiles at her and she tips sideways for a second in his vision. Obviously he's kept a level and sober head so far, though she seems to be slipping. He hiccups. "Shakespeare was a lot better, and a lot sadder. Very romantic fellow."

"Romantic." Jackie leans in. "Tell me all about it."

"Well," he drawls. "The sonnets, obviously. Beautiful language. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day-"

"Please do," Jackie suggests.

"You're both yellow on top," the Doctor says, stupidly. "That's all I've got at the moment." Jackie looks absurdly pleased. "And sometimes you smell like flowers. Big inexpensive bunches of flowers. That's just like summer." He looks down, and there is a hand creeping up his thigh. "Is that my hand ?"

"No, you lump," Jackie says.

"Where did Rose go for take-away ?" he asks, in a suddenly breathless and girlish voice. "The moon ?"

"Bitar's," says Jackie, in what sounds like her best imitation of a Scarlett O'Hara robot winding down. Her eyes are already half-shut. She leans forward and the Doctor pours his own wine down the front of his trousers as a defense mechanism; Jackie tips over and clunks her head on the table, where she falls almost instantly asleep.

When Rose gets back, the Doctor is wearing a new suit and sitting behind the television set. She doesn't ask. She never asks.

"Did you have fun catching up ?" Rose asks.

"Loads," says the Doctor.

TEN/LUCY SAXON.

She is still there, in the hospital that overlooks the river. For a long time she didn't talk, just let herself be bathed and fed and set in front of the window for long afternoons. Seven months, she didn't talk; and then she screamed. The nurses covered their ears and upped the dose and talked about how they missed the old Lucy.

"I don't," she says, when the screaming is done.

He takes a long time to turn up; a year and twenty-seven days. They stand at opposite ends of the room, her in a white robe and bare feet, him in a three-piece suit. His eyes are full of pity and she hates him and his kind so much she might faint.

"How are you ?" he asks.

"Try the jello," she says, holding out a paper cup. He takes it. "It's poisoned." He looks at her for a long minute and then grins with only one side of his mouth. He crumples the cup and tosses it into the wastebasket.

"I keep forgetting," he says, "you were beside him the whole time."

"That's your mistake," says Lucy. He shrugs. He points to her left hand, the one she held the cup out with.

"You've kept his ring."

"We kept a lot of things," she says. "Mine can be worn."

TEN/MASTER.

They are all gone, eventually; they live in the light and they only live so long. They go back to their lovers and their gardens and their supermarkets. They pick a fight and stay to win it; they have responsibilities at home; they're frightened by the danger. They live.

They die.

"They leave you because you're meant to be left," he says, sprawled on the floor of his cell, against the wall, with his hands folded over one knee. "You're a gap-year pleasure. With just a dash of genocide." He smiles at the Doctor, watches his eyes go utterly black. Lovely. "Careful," he says. "Lose your temper and you'll be all alone again."

"Think I'd prefer that," the Doctor snaps back. It's so hollow. The Master leans his head back, wondering what buttons to push in what order.

"You'd never do it," he says. "Your decency is a cover for your cowardice." The Doctor's jaw clenches. "I'd have killed you. In your place. I'd have killed you and taken your lives and ruled this system like a god," he says. He waits for the Oncoming Overcompensator to babble something about morality. Goodness. About love and babies and sunshine.

But the Doctor laughs. "Is that funny ?"

"You had me at your feet, all the world bleeding, and you kept me." The Doctor folds his arms across his chest. "You could have done it with the press of a button. You could've done it with a knife."

"I was waiting-"

"You're pathetic," says the Doctor, coldly. The Master's hands drop to his sides. "And you know it." The Master stands up, jerkily, trembling with anger and confused rage. This isn't how this goes. This isn't at all how this goes.

"Let me out," he snarls, "and you'll see what I'm capable of."

"Oh, would I ?" The Doctor grins. "Would you dangle me over a shark tank and describe your plans for world domination in excruciating detail ?" He paces forward, tense and not a little manic. "Age me ? Torture me ?" He's within inches. "We're the only ones left." The Master snaps and shoves him backwards against the wall, shaking him with fury. The Doctor doesn't fight it, just wraps his hands around the other man's wrists and breathes in short, angry little gasps.

"We're the only ones left because you killed them all," he screams. "You burned the world down !"

"And you ran," says the Doctor. His eyes are depthless. He doesn't smile; the absence is like the void, the silence. The Master stares back. "And now you're left with me."

...and there may be more later. Probably. Almost definitely. What have I gotten myself into ?