Turlough, Turlough (SWF edit)

Chapter 4: Five against two plus Ten

The Doctor's hands slid in and out of his pockets as he walked down the shaded alley to the TARDIS. Something was jangling at his nerves. He paused with his key in the door and looked back the way he'd come. Nothing. Scowling in contemplation, he stepped inside.

The scanner was on, and Turlough was leaning on the console, playing with the databank. He looked up. "Any luck with Tegan?"

"I found her," the Doctor said, sighing, walking up to the console and resting his fingertips on it. "But..."

"You didn't want to interrupt."

He looked down. "Mmm."

Turlough smirked. "Something for me to look forward to, then."

The Doctor's eyes went very cool. "You shouldn't treat it so lightly, you know."

Turlough's eyebrows shot up. "Shouldn't I? She's my bit of fun, Doctor. We get catty with each other and then we fuck."

He scowled as if in pain. "I do wish you wouldn't speak like that. And I wish you would respect Tegan!"

"Don't go defending her honour, Doctor. She's a grown woman, and she's using me right back."

Kiss Turlough, indeed. Just now he'd rather thump him. "She was crying over you!"

"Are you sure she wasn't crying because you said something brutal? Because you do that, you know. You're such an ox."

"I would never do anything to hurt her," the Doctor said with finality.

"...On purpose."

"Stop trying to provoke me, Turlough," he warned.

"Oh, but it's working so well!"

He hit the console hard, and it bleeped in protest. "Turlough!"

"Yes?" responded a second Turlough, walking through the interior door.

The Doctor stared in complete shock at the older - much older - Turlough, in a military uniform as dark and well cut as any totalitarian state's, except for the accents and the huge pink stripe across the chest. This wasn't the one he'd seen with Tegan. Which meant -

Which meant -

What did it mean? He'd come with that other Doctor? On his own? With the Sontarans? With Turlough, who knew?

"Oh yes," his Turlough was saying, "there's someone here to see you."

This new Turlough walked up to him, brushed a hand through his soft blond hair and with no hesitation at all kissed him madly, full of nostalgic passion. Arousal slammed into the Doctor, his hearts pounding, pumping a heady wash of hormones and adrenaline through him, deepening his inarticulate shock. Overwhelmed, angry, he pushed Turlough away and stared at him in near rage, his breaths harsh, a pink blush high on his pale cheeks.

"What are you doing in my TARDIS?" he demanded.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Turlough drawled.

"It looks like you are walking all over causality to satisfy some selfish fantasy," he snapped. "Honestly, Turlough, I thought I would have taught you better."

The man's eyebrows shot up. "A scolding? Is that what I get?" he said in amused offense, "'Hello, Turlough, good lord, made officer have you Turlough...' I haven't seen you in years. I miss you, Doctor." He stepped closer again, well into the Time Lord's personal space, his eyes darting down to scan all the little once-familiar details. "I miss you terribly." He moved in for another kiss.

"No," the Doctor insisted, dodging him.

"Why not?" he looked at him imploringly. "Doctor, really, why not?"

"Because... Well... It's complicated!"

"Is that the best you can do?" Turlough asked, stepping forward again.

The Doctor turned away from the intruder and came up short, face to face with his own Turlough. Ice blue eyes, unusually unshuttered, looked into his.

"He wants you, Doctor," said the boy in the Brendon School tie, his voice only a little performative. "So do I."

"Ah, now for you I have reasons! Tegan's trust-"

"Tegan is cheating on me, right now," Turlough begged.

"Well, technically-"

"I want you. I have wanted you for ages. We both have! And when am I going to get another chance? When is he going to get another chance?" he gestured angrily at his future self.

"It's not that simple, Turlough," the Doctor said, desperate as a fox trapped between two dogs.

The boy's pale eyes bored into him. "Then explain it to us. Explain why we can't do this," he demanded, his hands slipping gently onto the Doctor's waist. He pulled the Time Lord's hips against his, with a ragged intake of breath at the transgression, the contact.

"I won't... Won't be a part..." The Doctor gasped, a fresh wave of arousal rising up under him. He put his hands on Turlough's wrists to push them away, and forgot to actually do it.

"Won't you?" the older Turlough queried, moving up behind the Doctor. He snuggled in close, boldly licking one of the good bits of the Time Lord's neck before catching his ear between wicked teeth. A tremor ran through the body in the fawn coat. "You see," Turlough smiled into his hair as the Doctor's head lolled back, "I have you at a spectacular disadvantage, Doctor."

The Doctor tried to lift his head off of this dangerously knowledgeable stranger's shoulder, and squeaked embarrassingly.

His own Turlough leaned forward and kissed his throat. Tentative fingers trailed down its line, chin to collar, and set to work on the first button they came to.

The Time Lord realised he was leaning heavily on the man behind him. His hearts were pounding. He felt lightheaded. His Turlough had pulled his jumper's collar out of shape and was kissing his freshly revealed collarbones. "Stop," the Doctor begged, perhaps with some lack of conviction, feeling lips pull at his skin.

The boy gave him that cool look again. "Do you mean that, Doctor?"

"I... No. No," he admitted, finally finding his feet, surging forward and grabbing his Turlough's shoulders, kissing him as hard as he'd been wanting to for so, so long.

If Turlough was surprised, he didn't show it. He bit at him in retaliation, growling.

The Time Lord continued his aggression, his hands sliding down from Turlough's arms to his waist. He ground his hips against his companion's in guilty satisfaction, pulling back from the kiss to stare, to watch Turlough gasp.

The man behind him worked an expert hand through his gauntlet of garments; under his jumper, inside his shirt, to press a distinctly possessive palm to his chest.

"Touch him," the officer commanded.

The air itself felt thick in the Doctor's throat. His hand drifted over Turlough's stomach, thin and hard through his shirt; fingertips skimmed over tight trousers.

Turlough's well-kissed mouth gasped prettily.

The Doctor sank to his knees.

Turlough's heart leapt wildly at the sight, the mere thought, a filthy groan escaping him. He screwed his eyes shut, gasping and swallowing, looked again, and the dream was still there.

The Black Guardian had punished him for imagining something like this once, laughed at his fantasy, shown him cruel visions and gloated over the task to which he was inevitably bound. Now he was paralysed by victory, victory, vindication and triumph. Take that, supreme personification of evil. Bastard.

A slim, angry man in a pinstriped suit and a billowing trenchcoat flashed across the scanner. He stormed in through the open doors, stopping short and making a face of supreme offense at the scene before him. "You didn't even close the door!?" he shouted, mainly at the less occupied Turlough, who smirked a little despite himself at the way the Doctor shot to his feet in matching outrage, leaving the younger Turlough comically bereft.

"What- what in hell are you doing here?" the interrupted Doctor yelled back.

"I came to collect him," the Doctor replied, stabbing a finger towards the man in the officer's uniform. "Turlough, what is this? I thought I could trust you!"

Turlough just shrugged, unconcerned, and proceeded to ignore him, edging around the younger Doctor to his younger self's side, temporarily out of the line of sight of the newly arrived Doctor. The Time Lords could argue over his head. "You all right?" he asked himself.

The boy nodded, kicking off his shoes. "That's him, then? Well, I mean. Obviously." He threw his trousers underneath the console.

"And you!" the Doctor in pinstripes had gone on, rounding on the one in fawn, "Really!! You know better than this!"

"I'm sorry, I got caught up! I'm only flesh and blood, you know!"

"Caught up? Caught up? If those two so much as touch while grace is on the blink-"

"They are in no danger," he shot back, furious. "Do you think I would gamble like that with Turlough's life?"

"No," he conceded, apologetic. "No, of course you wouldn't."

The Turloughs were looking very sour. "Do you think I would?" the half-naked one interjected, peeling off his socks. He knew full well the Doctor had finally repaired the temporal grace circuits for Tegan's sake after some kind of snake attack. Since getting out from under the Black Guardian's thumb, he'd been helping with their careful maintenance, in unspoken apology for all the times he'd tried to disable them.

This new Doctor reflected that sour look back at him. "You never had half the temporal engineering gen you thought you ha--what's happened to your pants?!"

The older Turlough barged between them, close to the Time Lord, stealing his attention. "Fine then! Enjoy your moral posturing. I'd like to know what's not all right about it, though, beyond the obvious temporal lawbreaking. Which has already occurred. Which you will win all possible hypocrisy awards for trying to enforce at this point."

The Doctor looked pained. "Hypocrisy aside. You can't go dipping into your own timeline for shagfests! Or for anything else. It's far too dangerous to change your own history."

"I'm not."

"What?"

Turlough's voice dropped down low. "This has always happened, Doctor."

"What? But I-"

"'A Time Lord's memory treads carefully,' I think you told me once?"

Neither of them had noticed the other Doctor's rapt attention to their conversation, and nobody at all had noticed the other Turlough's gaze flicking between all three of them, considering his next move. Now they heard a constricted sort of cry and turned to see the fawn Doctor backed up to the console, his hands gripping its edge. The boy in the Brendon School tie was disrespecting the entire concept of personal space.

Conflicted, the older Doctor's heart went out to himself. He had meshed so well with Turlough, and had had so little time with him. His eyes met the older Turlough's angrily pleading gaze and then broke contact, looking down. It was clear how strong his feelings were; and yet the boy had never tried to own him.

Sensing the Doctor's wavering resolve, Turlough leaned forward and spoke softly. "He was just opening up to his own Turlough when you came in shouting bloody murder. Now apologise to yourself. Tell him it's all right."

The Doctor nodded, and the Trion stood aside to let him past. He cleared his throat.

The Doctor with a boy glued to him unclenched his eyes and gave himself an openly pleading look.

He shuffled a little, not really able to meet his own eyes. "I'm sorry. I take it back. I just... got a little excited. Turlough ran off on his own, and..." he shrugged.

"I don't n... need moral guidance from you," Fawn said defiantly. "I can swing my own compass, thank you."

"Well, I am apologising."

The Doctor nodded through another gasp. "Accepted," he said breathlessly.

The older Doctor stepped back, watched them, feeling disconnected and out of sorts. It must have showed, because another Turlough's arm found its way around him.

"There's no velvet rope," his Turlough murmured to him. "You were invited to this little party of mine. Or did you think I left the note just to stop you tearing up Trion looking for me?"

"Did you honestly think it wouldn't send me off imagining you disappearing in a puff of Blinovons?"

"Ugh, must you make up words? You must know I'm not stupid enough to annihilate myself."

The Doctor closed his eyes. He felt a little guilty about how easily his resolve had buckled, about the mental trick he was using to stop himself imagining what would happen when Tegan finally did return. It was all too easy to lose himself in this moment, in this desire, especially with Turlough trying so desperately to move things further along. Why had the boy ever chosen Tegan over him?

Well, all right, he knew why, and he hated that his friends' candles had to burn so fast. But that didn't make it any easier to empathise with their impatience. After all, he spent so much time in denial, forever ignoring the looming specter of time, of change, here inside his trusty timeship. To accept their urgent, mercurial nature was to see death biting at their heels, and he simply couldn't bear that.

He wondered again how long-lived Turlough's people were. He would never ask.

Sighing, he shuffled those thoughts, too, into the temporary blind spot he'd created in his mind. He suspected it was going to be very, very full by the time all this was over, and he did not look forward to dealing with the mess he was creating.

But there was no question that it was worth it. This was worth it. Turlough was worth it. Something about the boy was wrapped around his hearts like barbed wire, snug, painful, inextricable.

"You broke one of my hearts, you know," the Doctor murmured. "It's been a little bit of hell for me, watching and wanting you while you've been flaunting your relationship up and down these corridors, and you always standing so close to me, close enough to feel your heat, Turlough... Though I don't suppose you've felt mine."

The other Turlough stood with an arm around the spurned and pouting Time Lord next to him, enjoying the spectacular reactions of his younger self. At the time, he hadn't fully appreciated the way the Doctor played him, or realised just how much of a kink he had for guilt, for punishment. Even now, he shivered at those damning words. He'd been selfish, irresponsible, but pridefully so, and it was an amazing guilty thrill to hear the Doctor, his Doctor, list his crimes and mistakes, disapproving, but only that, and with the unspoken promise that it didn't matter, that he was forgiven. With the very unspoken knowledge that he, the Doctor, was scuppering his own moral ideals for this. For him.

He glanced at the pinstriped Doctor, wondering how many of those ideals had been sacrificed in the Time War.

The Doctor glanced back. "Pretty, aren't they," he said with distant eyes and a smile small enough to believe.

"You couldn't remember this. It's my fault. I crossed up your timelines."

But the Time Lord just shrugged. "It's all right. It's a pleasant surprise." His fingertips wandered up and down Turlough's neck. "I'm definitely not tired of pleasant surprises. Could do with more of them, in fact."

The pinstriped Doctor watched the one in the fawn coat.

He never meant to be such a narcissist. Usually, normally, any other incarnation was an annoying intrusion, a screaming illustration of faults he would never countenance. But here he was, ostensibly to enjoy Turlough, watching this colt of a Time Lord dance. The body was so young - a little younger than his, even. Young and reactive, hungry, dangerous, ravenous under its skin.

His fifth incarnation had been his first experience as a full-blooded Time Lord in such a youthful body, and its lack of control had blindsided him. Mentally, emotionally, physically, it had dragged him down. Attractive chemistry with Nyssa, with Turlough... With Susan for fuck's sake! Not to mention that the entire time he'd worn that body, the Master could turn him on enough to completely unnerve him just by showing up, and the Master, of course, had noticed. He had become so used to his body having a 'take it or leave it' attitude towards sex, he'd been unprepared, undisciplined in the art of denial.

But that was a cloud with one hell of a silver lining.

He glanced over at the Turlough he'd brought with him, and they shared a knowing grin. Turlough smirked and kissed him fondly, sliding a hand up into his hair.

(A bunch of incredibly raunchy things happen.)

The older Doctor's eyes wandered over his own younger form, pondering. The blond had got his breath and his footing under control and was nonchalantly pushing fine hair back into place, doing his best to look collected.

The Doctor reached out and stroked the back of his younger self's neck, getting his attention. He looked into dark blue eyes for a moment before throwing caution to the wind and kissing him, gently, openly. To his surprise, the blond kissed back like he'd been expecting it, waiting for it. Faintly he remembered lamenting how harmless he'd looked in that incarnation.

Cool mouths opened together, sensitive Gallifreyan tongues slipping past one another, tasting every nuance of self, and under that the scintillating tang of their innate temporal grace, the tiny moment that must forever remain between them, preventing annihilation.

Then the older Doctor found himself being shoved several quite athletic steps backward, until he came up against the inner door with a thump. He put his hands up, a reflexive surrender at this surprise. Had he really been this outgoing? Gaining a little control, he brought his hands down to his other self's hips and pulled them against him.

Someone was laughing - the Turloughs - then the door opened and they were being led, or maybe pulled, a short distance down the corridor. There was no time to pause and reflect or to protest. They stepped into a room as another door was opened for them, and fell sprawling onto a brass-framed bed, coats and jackets finally thrown aside, buttons lost, threatening to become tiny paradoxes for the TARDIS to take care of.

Dimly the younger Doctor registered that though they were in Turlough's room, this was Nyssa's bed. Adric's was gone, along with most of his things. Always changing. He put that thought away as well.

The Doctor helped himself wrestle his jumper off and pushed himself down onto the bed. Other people - four hands, Turlough's hands, so many clever Trion fingers - were taking care of the rest of their buttons now, thank goodness.

(A few more incredibly raunchy things happen.)

Meanwhile, the older Turlough and younger Doctor kissed like they were drowning. The Time Lord crushed the shoulders of the man's once-crisp officer's jacket in his fists, trying to hang on, trying to get some purchase there. All of Turlough's urgency was starting to feel like regret to the ever-observant Doctor, and that human-like desperation was coiling around his chest again. The boy would leave him too soon. He had to make it his mission to soak up that love, to put it in his bones, in his soul, before it was gone.

He kissed ever harder, trying to stop thinking about the unseen future, to stop... to stop thinking, but this older Turlough pulled back, pushing his shoulders down into pillows that still smelled like Nyssa, stared searchingly into his eyes, turned away for just a moment to check the other two weren't watching, returned to stare again.

"Are you all right?" Turlough asked softly, like a secret.

"I love you," the Doctor answered.

Turlough's heart leapt into his throat and for a few long, heart-pounding seconds he literally could not breathe, his fingers going numb.

The Doctor closed his eyes, but it was too late. "I never told you, did I?"

"...Well. I did hope."

"I'll always want to tell you. Someday."

"You just have," Turlough smiled.

"You'll leave before I ever tell you. You'll leave because I don't tell you. Won't you."

He knew there could be no details, knew the Doctor didn't expect any. "I'll leave."

"For home?"

He swallowed. "For a while."

Dark, shining blue eyes looked up in guilty hope. "Will you miss me?"

"Yes." He smirked a little, refraining from complaining that he'd already said so, hopelessly endeared by the Doctor's rare display of actual vulnerability. "When I have the time."

The Doctor nodded, closing his eyes again and looking much more peaceful. When he opened them again he seemed refreshed, vibrant.

(A bunch of incredibly raunchy things happen.)