fic: Stranger Than Friction, 1/?. (Broadchurch; Hardy/Miller)

Broadchurch, post-series one, Hardy/Miller

The moving-in together fic I didn’t even know I wanted to write. 

Teen, 4,956 words, this section. 

Also on AO3.

The first time he sees her again, she smells different.

Sitting at the bar in the hotel, surrounded by the stench of lager and smothered by the omnipresent sea air, he shouldn’t even notice, but he does. Because Ellie Miller is sliding on to the stool next to him, and she smells like oranges.

His copper’s brain flips through details, memories, a case file assembled during two months of long nights and close, rumpled quarters. There, scrawled in the margins between the shirts she wears most often and the way she takes her tea, is the generic shampoo and washing powder smell of her, and it’s nothing like this.

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fic: Stepford, 3/?. (Ten/Rose)

This follows on from Part One and Part Two. This is another one for my Trope Bingo card, the Fake Relationship square. 

Adult; 3,810 words, this section. 

Really it’s just more fluffy smut. 

As it turns out, it’s not only children that go to bed eventually, it’s all humans, and Rose falls asleep only a few minutes after Caleb does.

He’d been trying for safety, to make sure the boy was really out for the night, before restarting whatever it was he and Rose had been playing at.

Destroying their friendship, strengthening their friendship, shagging, it didn’t matter what he called it, he wanted to get back to it.

Except now he’s sleeping with Rose in a more literal sense, trying not to stare at her as she breathes deep and even next to him.

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fic: Educated Guesses.

Written for Challenge 007 over at Then There’s Us. (It’s here over there, if you prefer livejournal.) 

TenToo/Rose

r, 1,038 words, + drug use.

prompt:

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He gets in this mood sometimes, in this body, in this universe.

Skin too tight and blood singing and every part of him screaming out to run, run, run. Not from Rose, not from their life, but run to enjoy it, to feel it, to live it, bright and loud and electric.

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fic: Stepford, 2/?. (Ten/Rose)

This follows on from Part One. This is another one for my Trope Bingo card, the Fake Relationship square. 

Adult; 6,340 words, this section.

He should’ve expected that there would be a proper dessert prepared. Apple pie and ice cream after four other courses, and he’s so full that he spares a thought for whatever fumbling evolution gave him a second heart and not a second stomach.  

Stomachs are harder to break anyway, and as he follows Rose back up the stairs to the guest room, he wonders at the fragility of the organ he does have in duplicate. 

It had been easy conversation at the table, but then, they’ve always been good at easy conversation, even when the subject matter is a series of increasingly outlandish lies about their brand new (but years old) romantic relationship. 

He was delighted to learn that Rose apparently proposed to him, and not just for the way it seemed to scandalize Catie and her family. There was thought behind it, the proposal story, a picnic of chips on a field of apple grass, and a Dickens novel, carved out to hold the ring. 

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fic: Stepford, 1/?. (Ten/Rose)

This is another one for my Trope Bingo card, the Fake Relationship square. It’s in two parts right now, but I might end up with three. It’s also supposed to fulfill this week’s Then There’s Us challenge, but we’ll see how that goes.

Adult, 4,955 words, this section.

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“You know, I always expected something like this to happen.” Rose is grinning, wide and toothy, as her voice bounces with laughter. “I just thought it’d be, well, me, that got us into it.”

The last bit brings him up short. “Oh?”

Rose shrugs. “Yeah, one too many gossipy women on the Estate, an old school friend, a party, and — poof! — fake relationship. Just to keep a cover, you understand.”

He nods, oh, right, when she says it like that, of course — “Wait, what?”

She waves a hand dismissively in the air. “Oh, come on, you know what I mean, that sort of thing is always happening on the telly. Take two attractive people, mix in a little tension, stick ‘em in a single bedroom for ratings, stir and repeat.”

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fic: Mark Up.

Allison wrote two sets of separate tags, and my brain spit them out as this.

It’s a schedule they find on accident and a routine they develop deliberately.

They’re easy targets, the both of them, planet-threatening danger and it’s hardly even a question — one of them will go, one of them will always help.

Torchwood’s most wayward consultants, flipping a coin to see who stays home with their daughter, and who adds another thousand frequent flier points to the bucket.

They have more than they could ever spend, and they’d both trade them all to stay home, to stay together, but together’s no good if the Earth comes apart.

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fic: Good, Brilliant, Spectacular. (TenToo/Rose)

Written for Ania’s birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANIA!
adult, 1,456 words.

It’s months and months and months after Norway that it strikes him.

Months filled with beds and kitchen tables, storage cupboards and balconies, every sofa they’ve ever occupied alone for more than an hour. 

Shouts to the ceiling and filthy words, bit-back gasps and teeth sunk into shoulders to muffle groans.

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Just go with me on this for a second: Clara actually as Jack’s daughter, Aaron Tveit as a Jack’s son character, and an entire episode where it’s just: THE HARKNESS FAMILY RUNNING GAME IN BARS And it’s just all of their plays, like the one where Clara is Aaron’s crazy ex-girlfriend and please, just, please, let me just sit at your table, you have to hide me until she goes away, please Or the one where Jack followed his kids here, and I’ve really lost control of them since their mother died, and I don’t even see the appeal of places like this, and, oh gosh, I just don’t know if I can do this on my own, it’s so hard And the one where Clara’s yelling at both of them, I said leave me alone! I’m actually here with — this bloke, yeah! We’re on a date! Right honey (…play along, stranger…), weren’t you just about to get me a drink? Don’t forget, anything less than top shelf gives me a headache! JUST GO WITH ME, GO WITH ME TO THIS PLACE. 

Just go with me on this for a second:

Clara actually as Jack’s daughter, Aaron Tveit as a Jack’s son character, and an entire episode where it’s just:

THE HARKNESS FAMILY RUNNING GAME IN BARS

And it’s just all of their plays, like the one where Clara is Aaron’s crazy ex-girlfriend and please, just, please, let me just sit at your table, you have to hide me until she goes away, please

Or the one where Jack followed his kids here, and I’ve really lost control of them since their mother died, and I don’t even see the appeal of places like this, and, oh gosh, I just don’t know if I can do this on my own, it’s so hard

And the one where Clara’s yelling at both of them, I said leave me alone! I’m actually here with — this bloke, yeah! We’re on a date! Right honey (…play along, stranger…), weren’t you just about to get me a drink? Don’t forget, anything less than top shelf gives me a headache!

JUST GO WITH ME, GO WITH ME TO THIS PLACE. 

I don’t have a real answer that I feel in my bones or anything, so instead here is something I sometimes think about: Timey-wimey-ness being what it is, and the meta-crisis Doctor being who he is, what if it’s like — he’s already bound for that universe, for Pete’s World, and those events are already in motion, those events have already happened, those events are always happening. And it’s there, in him, a sloppily-knotted bundle of timelines lurking, waiting to be lived. And maybe he has the faculties to untie them himself, or maybe he doesn’t, but it’s a messy gift he is definitely able to give, to share, a copy-paste he can achieve in a brief moment still on-board the TARDIS, while everyone else is looking away. And so he shoves them over, a casual thing that’s not casual at all, and the Time Lord tucks them aside, the way you do with something, emotions, maybe, that you don’t have time to deal with right now, because you know if you do, if you stop to dwell at all, it’s going to wreck you, and you’re not going to be able to get anything done, and so you soldier on, until it’s a better time. From there, the meta-crisis Doctor goes to Pete’s World, and he, the half-human he, never peeks, never even tries to see if he’s able, sure, he’s tempted sometimes, a threat from Jackie Tyler that if he ruins her vow renewal ceremony, she’ll string him up by his pants, and wouldn’t it be nice to know going into that? Maybe skip the pants if he’s at risk? But he doesn’t look, and he doesn’t try, and he peels each scrap of paper from the gift in order, finding out each new thing at the exact same time Rose does. Because really, that was a gift to them, and they should open it together. But back on the TARDIS, the gift-giver with a gift received, and he circles it for days, weeks, months, light years and miles and a universe of planets, and he’ll poke it at sometimes, looking at it sideways. When he does, there are out-of-order bits, he gets a flash of Rose with a little blonde girl and he doesn’t know who she is. He gets a snapshot of Rose in anger, fizzing rage suddenly materializing in his own veins. There’s a still frame of Rose beneath him, naked and resting on dark sheets, and that one he can guess at, and that one, too, sets something sparking through his blood. Eventually though, he breaks. He puts the TARDIS into the Vortex, and he sits on the sofa, and he rips the whole thing open, all in one go. A novel consumed in quadruple time, but it’s a work of non-fiction, this book, and he knows the author. There’s everything laid out before him, nervous kisses and sloppy kisses, first times and frantic times, hands held in affection and hands clenched in frustration, all of it, all of it, all of it, and it’s too much and it’s not enough, because he can feel it and he can see it, but he’ll never be able to live it. Those planets where the air is toxic to Time Lords, and flippant and smug, and why would he even want to go there anyway? But he does want to, every single time, and he wants to this time, more than he ever has before. But he can’t and he won’t and his song is ending soon. Instead he goes back to his book, illustrated with photos that he’ll never get to take, and he comforts himself that, at least, it has a happy ending.

I don’t have a real answer that I feel in my bones or anything, so instead here is something I sometimes think about:

Timey-wimey-ness being what it is, and the meta-crisis Doctor being who he is, what if it’s like — he’s already bound for that universe, for Pete’s World, and those events are already in motion, those events have already happened, those events are always happening.

And it’s there, in him, a sloppily-knotted bundle of timelines lurking, waiting to be lived. And maybe he has the faculties to untie them himself, or maybe he doesn’t, but it’s a messy gift he is definitely able to give, to share, a copy-paste he can achieve in a brief moment still on-board the TARDIS, while everyone else is looking away.

And so he shoves them over, a casual thing that’s not casual at all, and the Time Lord tucks them aside, the way you do with something, emotions, maybe, that you don’t have time to deal with right now, because you know if you do, if you stop to dwell at all, it’s going to wreck you, and you’re not going to be able to get anything done, and so you soldier on, until it’s a better time.

From there, the meta-crisis Doctor goes to Pete’s World, and he, the half-human he, never peeks, never even tries to see if he’s able, sure, he’s tempted sometimes, a threat from Jackie Tyler that if he ruins her vow renewal ceremony, she’ll string him up by his pants, and wouldn’t it be nice to know going into that? Maybe skip the pants if he’s at risk? But he doesn’t look, and he doesn’t try, and he peels each scrap of paper from the gift in order, finding out each new thing at the exact same time Rose does. Because really, that was a gift to them, and they should open it together.

But back on the TARDIS, the gift-giver with a gift received, and he circles it for days, weeks, months, light years and miles and a universe of planets, and he’ll poke it at sometimes, looking at it sideways. When he does, there are out-of-order bits, he gets a flash of Rose with a little blonde girl and he doesn’t know who she is. He gets a snapshot of Rose in anger, fizzing rage suddenly materializing in his own veins. There’s a still frame of Rose beneath him, naked and resting on dark sheets, and that one he can guess at, and that one, too, sets something sparking through his blood.

Eventually though, he breaks. He puts the TARDIS into the Vortex, and he sits on the sofa, and he rips the whole thing open, all in one go. A novel consumed in quadruple time, but it’s a work of non-fiction, this book, and he knows the author. There’s everything laid out before him, nervous kisses and sloppy kisses, first times and frantic times, hands held in affection and hands clenched in frustration, all of it, all of it, all of it, and it’s too much and it’s not enough, because he can feel it and he can see it, but he’ll never be able to live it. Those planets where the air is toxic to Time Lords, and flippant and smug, and why would he even want to go there anyway? But he does want to, every single time, and he wants to this time, more than he ever has before.

But he can’t and he won’t and his song is ending soon.

Instead he goes back to his book, illustrated with photos that he’ll never get to take, and he comforts himself that, at least, it has a happy ending.

fic: Peel Slowly and See.

Written for Challenge 003 over at Then There’s Us. (It’s here over there, if you prefer livejournal.)

The Doctor/Rose record shop AU I’ve been talking about writing for a long time, made real!

This is the Billie Piper we’re working off of here, if that interests you.

adult, 10,022 words.

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He barely even looks up when the bells above the door jingle anymore. It’s hardly ever a customer for him, always One Direction this and Adele that, today’s pop music, all firmly in Donna’s wheelhouse.

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