Fic, Dancing Lesson, 21/33: Hustle

[loveslashangst]

Story: Dancing Lessons
Author: Love! Slash! Angst! melindakitty
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Captain Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler;
Rated: oh, so Adult for slash, bisexuality, mature content, language, violence, and lots and lots of sex (multiple pairings/groupings)
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, 'cause if I did there would have been no parting of the ways, Rose would be happy and walking funny, and a love of tech isn't the only thing Nine and Jack would be sharing.
Spoilers: AU. If you haven't seen the first three series of Doctor Who, you may be spoilered. I like to mess with canon.
Summary: By popular request: OT3 Nine/Jack/Rose. One of Jack's exes is out for a bit of revenge. Can the Doctor and Rose figure a way to rescue him before he has to pay the piper? Watch for fancy footwork, a bit of intrigue, occasional plot, and a large excuse for love and smut.

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS NIFTY PSEUDO-SCIENCE. If you have delicate sensibilities, or pseudo-science makes you twitch violently, PLEASE STOP READING NOW.

On with the show:

Hustle: A final evolution of “Disco” noted for its strange blend of the theatrics and dance-floor-devouring drama of Disco with the quick moves and sexy style of the Mambo. Can be performed as a partner dance, a three-partner dance, or a line dance. Fast steps. Lots of twirling. Attention-seeking. That’s the Hustle.

(Major Tom and Nine execute a complicated lift. Nine plans a really fancy move.)



The street corner is hot and sultry, even though Tom’s chronometer indicates it’s a bit past midnight local time. This era reeks of horse manure, petrol fumes, tobacco smoke, and alcohol. Truly unpleasant. He engages his nasal filters and scans the mostly-empty streets. One couple loiters in the shadows half a block up. (Distracted with each other’s charms, near as he can tell.)

He hugs the shadows (fortunately, there are many of those; the lighting is sporadic at best.) Follows his proverbial nose (or, more accurately, the readings from his subdermals) to the light of a streetlamp. And something just feels strange. Tension in the air. The trace of an odd smell he can’t quite identify.

A flash of gold out of the corner of his eye. But when he looks, there’s nothing. He’s been an Agent long enough to know when to be patient, however. He stays still. Looks forward. Opens up his peripheral vision and senses that he doesn’t quite have words for. (Even temporal officers of the law know when to trust the “hunch”.)

Another flash of gold. Light that’s not light. But when he turns his head, there’s only shadow and the weird need to look elsewhere. It’s as if that shadow in particular doesn’t want to be seen.

He draws his pulse-pistol. Anything that doesn’t want to be seen is almost always up to no good. (Or at the very least cornered, frightened, or potentially dangerous.) Engages the quantum shielding. (God only knows what kind of weapon the thing has.) Keeps his voice low and calm. “I see you. Who are you?”

A faint noise. Another flash of gold.

Carefully. Slowly. One foot after the other. Aim for the centre of the shadow. Don’t let the damn thing surprise him.

He passes what must be the threshold of the cloaking device, a stomach-churning sense of disorientation. A man in a leather coat lays sprawled on the ground. Hard to tell if he’s conscious. Tom keeps the pistol trained on him. (This reeks of “trap”.) “Where’s Marilyn?”

A faint moan. Then the man explodes in a burst of golden energy.

Startled, Tom falls back. Outside the cloak. He’s staring at darkness again. He regroups. (Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The alien’s injured, not hostile.) It’s a damn good thing he had the shields, though. Quantum energy crackles and sizzles across the edges of his shielding. If he hadn’t been prepared, that burst might well have shorted out every piece of equipment he’s carrying.

He trains the pistol forward and down. Moves through the cloak again.

The man’s turned over since he last saw him. Looks up at him with desperation and a little real fear in those expressive eyes.

Tom edges forward. “Who are you? Can you speak?”

The form explodes in a burst of golden energy. Quantum energy sizzles across his shields. His subdermals go mad, processing a flood of genuinely unique readings. He gives the symbiont a mental prod. It filters and refines the data into comprehensible form.

The energy coalesces into a material form. The man in the leather jacket. Desperate eyes again, a nonverbal “help me”.

Tom stares. (This is a new one.) Whatever the thing is, he’s definitely alien. Quantum animal of some kind. Possibly...

That almost makes him lower his pulse-pistol. “Are you... Time Lord?”

“Yes.” The voice is so faint he can’t be sure at first if he actually heard it.

Another explosion. (That must not only hurt, but be damned annoying. And surprisingly effective -- whatever firearm was used to incapacitate this particular being, the Time Agency could do with a couple dozen of them, just in case.)

He approaches carefully. Waits for the being to coalesce again. “Are you alone?”

A low, harsh sound that might be laughter. “Always.” Another explosion.

Tom waits for the process to cycle again. This is no way to conduct an interrogation. Need to buy the alien more time so they can have a discussion that involves more than one word responses.

Think. Think. Think. Alien. Quantum. Someone’s thoroughly disrupted the creature’s ability to keep material form. If the symbiont’s analyses are correct, every explosion bleeds off just a little more energy, like haemorrhaging in a solid. (The alien’s bleeding to death a drop at a time.) Okay. Assume that metaphor is accurate. The Time Lord needs energy. Not just any energy, but compatible energy. A transfusion of sorts.

And this is by far and away the strangest day Tom’s had in a very long time. In what is either a stroke of genius or the final folly of his life, he adjusts the settings on the Vortex Manipulator. Watches the Time Lord. Should be any moment now.

A burst of golden energy. He waits for the worst of it to pass. Lowers the shields just enough. Triggers the Vortex Manipulator. The little flash of energy isn’t enough.

No effect. Not strong enough. He’s still too far away. (Not going to run into the middle of that cloud of energy, though. No telling what might happen to him.) He needs to be closer. If only he could...

He smiles. Reaches into his pocket. Pulls out Marilyn’s Vortex Manipulator. Resets it. The thing is a little fried and amnesiac, but still mostly functional. He re-programs it. Thinks happy thoughts. Waits for the next cycle of energy. Hits the button. Tosses the thing in.

For a tense moment, the cloud seems to hover, frozen in the moment. Then with an almost audible snap, it coalesces into bipedal form.

“Thank you,” says the Time Lord. “Get me inside. Quickly.”

Tom keeps his distance. “Inside what?”

“The TARDIS.” The Time Lord tosses something to him.

He catches it. A key. Rudimentary in appearance, though his sensors are firmly convinced the thing has quantum signatures up the yingy.

“Can’t walk.” The Time Lord reaches out a hand to him, then pulls it back. “Damn!”

The burst of energy is faster this time. It ends more quickly too. According to Tom’s chronometer, they’ll have about five good seconds between bursts. “Where’s Marilyn?”

“TARDIS first,” says the Time Lord. “Then I’ll answer every question I can.”

A devil’s bargain, but it could be worth it. (Last he checked, TARDISes were the stuff of legends and textbooks.)

Wait a second. He can’t be a Time Lord. There are no more Time Lords. They were all killed in the last great Time War. The symbiont is all but vibrating with excitement at the thought of which alien is in front of him right now. The only known survivor.

“You’re the Doctor.”

“And you’re a Time Agent,” he says. “Please?”

Another explosion. Another cycle. Another quandary. “You’re the Most Wanted Alien in the universe, Doctor.”

“Good to be loved.” The harsh planes of his face show signs of intense strain. “Can we please continue this inside?”

Tom wavers. Central’s pissed at him now, but what would they do if he single-handedly brought in the Doctor himself? “When did you last see Marilyn?”

He waits out another cycle. “Listen, Agent,” says the Doctor.

“Major,” Tom corrects.

“Major Agent,” says the Doctor. “You’re looking for the girl. I’m looking for the alien who took her and two other people I care very deeply about. We’re on the same side. Return me to the TARDIS and you’ll get what you want. DAMMIT!”

Another explosive cycle. This is getting old. Time to choose. Tom waits for the Doctor to coalesce. Grabs him by the hands. Moves him several hurried paces.

“Stop.” He releases the hands. Backs off to allow another explosive cycle to pass. The key in his hand begins to glow. He uses it like a detector to locate the TARDIS.

It’s a police box. He gets a shiver of excitement. He has the key to the ship of the most wanted alien in the universe. (Some days are just better than others.) He unlocks the door. Steps inside.

No matter how many times they told him a TARDIS is “bigger on the inside” it just can’t prepare him for the shock and disorientation. He steps outside. Small blue box. Steps inside. Large Gallifreyan spaceship. Outside: small blue box. Inside: large Gallifreyan spaceship. Outside: small. Inside: large.

Fascinating.

“Are you quite done?” says the Doctor, annoyed. Tom glances over. The Time Lord’s half-sitting, out of breath. “I could use a hand,” he says.

Tom pulls him inside. Shuts the twin doors behind them. “Now what?”

The Doctor gets unsteadily to his feet. Staggers the half-dozen steps to the console. Triggers something. “Shield your eyes!”

He hides his eyes in his arms. (When a Time Lord says “don’t look”, you don’t look.)

The sweet, all-engrossing sense of the Vortex overwhelms him. The symbiont goes rapturous at the influx of sensory information. Every one of his sensor subdermals shorts out at once. His shield fails. And he doesn’t give a damn, because he’s now one of the few humans who have ever been in the presence of the unshielded Heart of a TARDIS. Every ache and pain vanishes in a sense of absolute completeness.

A kiss of eternity.

Then it’s over.

“You can look now,” says the Doctor.

He lowers his arms slowly. The Doctor, smiling, takes the key from his hand. Pockets it. Lays Marilyn’s Vortex Manipulator in his hand.

He blinks, stunned and at peace. “Thank you.”

A slight nod. “And thank you.” The Time Lord skips back up to the console, remarkable light on his feet for a man of his height and mass. “You already know I’m the Doctor. And you are?”

Only years of training make it possible for him to answer coherently at all. “Major Tom... of the Time Agency.”

“You’re having me on,” says the Doctor.

“I’m not,” says Tom.

“Your name is ‘Major Tom’?” Apparently, there’s some kind of joke or reference attached to the name.

It’s his turn to be annoyed. “My name is Tom and I’m a Major. So yes: Major Tom.”

The Doctor laughs, delighted. “Welcome to the TARDIS, Major Tom of the Time Agency.” He sobers, his look intense. (Didn’t know Time Lords had blue eyes.) “Fancy a ride?”

He recovers himself. Ignores the various internal alarms as his subdermals die one at a time from the burst of Vortex energy. “You know where to find Marilyn?”

“I do.” The Doctor has a gaze Tom swears is capable of seeing straight into a man’s soul. “And if I help you find her, do you forget you met me?”

He approaches the console. Keeps it very carefully between himself and the Time Lord. “If I bring you in, all my sins are forgotten.”

“If you bring me in,” says the Doctor, “I escape and remember the Major who betrayed me.”

The thought of being hunted by an angry Time Lord admittedly does not have much appeal.

“What is Marilyn to you?” The Doctor’s eyes are surprisingly sympathetic. “How much have you risked to find her?”

“Everything.” (What IS it about this alien that makes him want to confess all his secrets?) “And everything.”

“Thought as much.” The Doctor sets a few controls. Focuses, all magnetic (almost hypnotic) intensity. “Then let’s find the people we love, shall we?”

He’s starting to understand why for hundreds of years of elapsed time, people have abandoned everything to follow this rogue element through the universe. “Was she alive when you saw her last?”

The Doctor nods. “They cut off her arm. It grew back. Now they have her on board, though I have a feeling that if she doesn’t resist, they’ll leave her alone.” He pulls a lever. “They’re distracted by a bigger fish.”

Major Tom has the unsettling sense of the decking moving underneath him. Even without sensors, he can feel the Vortex outside. “What are you going to do?”

The Doctor grins. (With a face like that, no wonder his enemies claim he’s insane.) “I’m going to break a few rules.”

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Crossposted to: time_and_chips, better_with_3