Heather Smith From: Adey Kelly [kelly.adey@accc.gov.au] Sent: 20 January 2000 04:48 To: MAILING -- sadwank (E-mail) Subject: [sadwank] FIC "Full Circle" by Viridian5 (1/3) -- SLASH From: Adey Kelly AHOY, mes wanky amis. This ain't by me, it's by a beautiful lass called Viridian5, who said I could whack it up here. Crossposted to Rareslash and Britslash. Note this is a slash story -- guy/guy, okay? Not a fetchingly draped mammary to be seen. Sorry guys All feedback to Viridian5@aol.com please, not me. I can take no credit whatsoever. If you like this, why not check out her X-Files stuff, too, eh? cheers kel ======================== "Full Circle" By Viridian5 1/12/00 RATING: NC-17; 4th Doctor/Turlough, 5th Doctor/Turlough. If m/m interaction bothers you, what are you doing here? SPOILERS: "Mawdryn Undead," "The Five Doctors," "The Awakening," and "Planet of Fire," with some vague stuff from other Turlough episodes and the early Tom Baker Doctor episodes. Don't worry; I explain as I go. SUMMARY: Turlough and the Doctor meet for the first time. Then Turlough and the Doctor meet for the first time.... ARCHIVING/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first. DISCLAIMERS: All things _Doctor Who_ are property of BBC Enterprises Ltd. No infringement intended, and anyone who thinks I'm making a cent from this is on drugs. Besides, it's their own fault for introducing a character who wore a tight boys school uniform most of the time. FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com NOTES: When the Doctor sees Turlough for the very first time, fiddling with the TARDIS controls no less, he just accepts him after a few basic questions, taking a very suspicious character in immediately on faith. Maybe there's more to the story that the viewers and Turlough aren't aware of. You could see this as taking place in the same universe as "Escape" or not; it could go either way. The view of Turlough from the outside could never match with one from inside. The place with the great onion rings and mozzarella sticks is Ryan's Irish Pub, the place where Te and I ended up chatting for hours the day we first met in RL. I imagine the Doctor and Turlough would be amused by the red phone booths in front of the Telephone Bar & Grill next door. My trickster brain started playing Sting's "Englishman in New York" for me during the pub scene--"I'm an alien / I'm a legal alien / I'm an Englishman in New York..."--so I've been drowning it out with Switchblade Symphony's _The Three Calamities_, without which the wall scene would never have occurred. Thanks to Zoe for inviting me to see the Village apartment she was housesitting. Small, adorable, with lovely ceiling carvings... and a rental price of $2300 a month. Once I started to breathe again.... Thanks to Te for ongoing support and the read-through. ===================== "Full Circle" By Viridian5 ===================== I really had no objective reason to talk to the lad sitting on the stoop nearby, no matter how angry and depressed he looked, but I'd found in my long life that objectivity and reason had only limited roles in existence. More importantly, I'd been in the hero business long enough to have a nose for trouble and for things out of joint, and this boy registered strongly for both. I tended to lead with that nose; it made life so much more interesting. Besides, it was rather too large not to follow. Maybe that boys school uniform he wore helped make my decision. I could tell myself that it caught my attention for being so utterly English against a New York City stoop, but I couldn't ignore how tight it was either. Ah, well. Sarah Jane had her ideas about what a vacation was, while I had mine. She'd also call me a dirty old man, but she was too busy shopping to be here to tease me now. Being very careful not to sit on my scarf, I settled down next to the lad and said, "You're far too young to put on such a sour look." Actually, he looked vaguely familiar. If I could coax him into an environment with better lighting, I would know for certain. The expression on his pale face hovered between incredulous and affronted, but with a tinge of dark amusement edging through both. "And that may well be the sickest pick-up line I've gotten so far." Sitting close to him, I suddenly realized that he was no more Terran than I was. He looked utterly human; so did I. He sounded English, and so did I. From his coloring, he could have been a lad of Irish or Scots descent. Yet I knew. That highly developed sense of mine again. "Have you gotten many?" "Plenty tonight." As he shook his head, orange-tinged from the streetlights shimmered through his pale hair, camouflaging its color. I wanted to see it in regular light. He had it cut in a short cap style that so many far younger Earth lads had to tolerate when their parents still determined such things for them. He asked, "Do you know that this barbaric country demands an identification card for almost everything that could provide a good time?" "No one ever asks me for ID, but I suppose that looking ancient helps." "Ancient. You're hardly there yet." "How kind of you, but I'm older than I look." "So am I." He appeared to be anywhere from 16 to 18 Terran years old, though his angular face was so utterly unchildlike that it actually made me want to revise the estimate down rather than up, as strange as that sounded. His wide eyes and that air of abuse he had about him helped make him look younger too. "What does any of this have to do with people picking you up?" I asked. "I tried a few more pubs, with every one telling me I was too young and needed an identification card. Finally I found this place that took me on my word. The doorman said he liked my accent and costume. I didn't know what he meant until I went inside and had a number of men trying to fill the role of headmaster for me. I had to decline." The lad looked more amused than annoyed. So... "And why was that?" "I've experienced an actual headmaster. It does nothing to fulfill any fantasies I have." "Are you making a pass at me?" "Are you accepting?" "I look old enough to be your father." "You do have that older, mad, dangerous eccentric look. Like you might take me home and lock me in your root cellar." "And that appeals to you?" "Sometimes. I have a mad passion for people with bulging eyes." "It's not my gorgeous mop of unruly curls you find fetching?" He just gave me an amused look. "Besides, I can take care of myself." "I'm sure you can, since you look like an utterly devious guttersnipe I could easily snap over my knee." "Words can be so hurtful. They cut." So did his smile. "I'm accepting." "Oh good. If you could get me a beer, you'll find I'm even more accommodating." "You'll whore yourself for that?" "I think you understand what I'm saying. Besides, how often does one run into a man of the galaxy such as yourself?" He looked even more sly. I grinned back. I did love a challenger. "Not very often. At least not under friendly circumstances." "You don't have to tell me about that." "May I ask what gave me away?" "You're so close I can feel your heart beating. Both of them. How did you guess about me?" "Long experience." I had a sudden thought about him. I didn't remember him traveling with any of my past selves, but that didn't mean he couldn't be traveling with a future one. "I know a great Irish pub on Second Avenue. They have some of the best onion rings and mozzarella sticks in the city. And I can sneak you some beer." ****************************************************** We sat at one of the sidewalk tables, dining al fresco as so many in this city did in warmer weather, even if that warmer weather was in December. He still hadn't given me his name, and he ate like he'd been starved. Since he looked like he hadn't ever gotten a decent meal, I didn't begrudge him it. In better lighting his hair proved to be a light ginger color, while his eyebrows and lashes were a far paler shade, nearly blond. He turned out to be all over pale: porcelain white skin, ice blue eyes. He should have looked washed out, even more insubstantial when such coloring was paired with how skinny he was, yet some inner fire prevented it. "He finally realized he'd been running us hard of late once Tegan just about clubbed him over the head about it, so he finally agreed to a vacation. I said, 'Please, not Earth *again*. Especially not England.' He said, 'Oh, not to worry.' So we end up in America. On Earth." I couldn't help feeling that he rarely spoke this much or this honestly. It warmed me. And made me feel smug as well, but any of my companions could tell you that almost everything made me feel smug, so take that as you would. Not that I had much cause to be smug over him talking so to me, a prefect stranger, because we weren't truly perfect strangers. He *did* know me, or rather he knew a future me. The slim, young- looking blond one that my past selves had met in the Death Zone. In fact, my past selves had also briefly met this lad. His name was Turlough. I would have met him and that future self myself if I hadn't been caught in a time eddy at the time. Well, I *will be* caught in a time eddy. That hasn't happened to me yet. Confusing? Try living it. It would be far worse if our memories of such things stayed sharp. Fortunately, they faded around the edges, especially when other selves are involved. I wouldn't even remember Turlough and the rest at all if he weren't sitting here right in front of me as a reminder. Self-protection is such a wondrous thing. Besides, it's frightfully boring to know too much about the future. "So this Doctor fellow then asked you not to split up, but you did anyway, as you always do." Companions always did. Unfortunately, *telling* them to split up didn't work as reverse psychology, since they split up then too. I could never figure it. "Why break with tradition? Besides, this is supposed to be a vacation. Why spend it with the people I work with?" "Why indeed?" "I'm surprised you haven't asked my name yet." "I could say the same." He smirked. "I'm Turlough." "John Smith." I could hardly call myself the Doctor around him, could I? He raised an eyebrow but said nothing of it. Even a fellow alien knew how suspicious that name sounded, but it *was* one of my favorite aliases. I doubted I could succeed in diverting that suspicious steel-trap mind, but I could try. "I will never become accustomed to the way Americans serve beer cold." A long, pale hand flew out and grabbed the mug. Turlough downed a healthy swallow before I had a chance to react. Yes, the lad certainly did have potential. "Mmm. It is cold. I think I like it that way." "Barbarian." "Oh, please. You're no more English than I am." "Part of it is genetic heritage, but the rest is soul." "Both of you... I'm trying to imagine a distant planet full of Anglophiles, and it terrifies me." "It's so dreadfully sad to speak to someone so terribly misguided." "What is it about the people of this miserable planet that fascinates you so?" "Well, they can be arrogant--" "Something you would know nothing about, of course." "Impudent puppy. Respect your elders enough not to interrupt, at least." "Sorry. I forgot how ancient you are." I liked this boy immensely. I briefly wondered if he and my successor were lovers but decided it really wouldn't change my plans for him either way. "They can be narrow-minded, intolerant, violent--" "Are those supposed to be positive traits?" "But they have such heart, such fire. Indomitable will and an inventive spirit that never fail to astound me. I wonder sometimes if their violence and their creativity are linked somehow, the urge to destroy and create intertwined in some kind of necessary balance." "I should have taken you for a philosopher." "Indeed." "I dare say you wouldn't be so rosy on them if you'd been brought up at a place like Brendon School." "How bad could it really be?" "I think its Latin motto says something like 'breaking bodies and spirits since the 1700s.'" "You exaggerate." "Sometimes." He suddenly looked so sad that I regretted that our conversation had arrived here. Something about him suggested the kind of creature who would gnaw his own foot off to escape a trap, and I got the sudden impression that he'd only narrowly avoided facing such self-mutilation. Then that saucy look returned to his face as he set the past aside and came out to play again. "In my experience, Earthlings are also loud, rude, and ignorant." I smiled and played back with him. "Are you describing anyone you know in particular?" "Tegan, for one." Another one my former selves had met. My first self remembered her as a small, snippy, highly opinionated woman wearing a ridiculous coat. However, my first self had been an exceedingly crotchety and set-in-his-ways old man, which rendered him far from objective. Turlough smiled. "She was very upset that the Doctor brought us to New York City in December of 1999 without at least getting us here at the end of the month for the millennial new year. It took her 15 minutes to wind down after I told her the millennium wouldn't really start until 2001." "You never do anything to set her off, of course." "Why no. I don't find her tirades entertaining at all. Your accusation is insulting." Turlough shook his head. "You're an evil man. I'm not certain I should continue to associate with you." "I'm a very good man. I just prefer to say evil things at times." Turlough tried to hide his grin behind another swallow from my beer. "She doesn't really need me for that anyway. If she ever stopped snapping, I think reality itself would come to a grinding halt." "You sound fond of her." "Only as far as it would be too much trouble to kill her and hide the body." "Admit it. You're not as much of a bastard as you portray yourself to be." "I admit nothing." He'd finished the mozzarella sticks and set to demolishing the onion rings as well. "Does no one ever feed you?" I had to ask in amusement. I regretted it as I saw the wall come up again, as my words made him remember himself. I tried to recover with, "I like to watch people enjoy their food." I succeeded. He answered, "I don't eat well, usually. My own doing. I expend too much energy for what I take in. Inefficient of me, I'm afraid." Then he grinned. "In fact, one of the men applying for the position of my headmaster said he'd make me eat better." "Then he'd already failed." "Oh?" "A true headmaster doesn't ask his student such things. He simply comes in and takes care of the student without saying a word." Turlough looked down at the empty plate and its nearly empty twin, then laughed. "Have you taken the position then?" (to be continued) - --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- Get great offers on top-notch products that match your interests! Sign up for eLerts at: Click Here ------------------------------------------------------------------------