Alternative Sin
by Sadja
PG rating
Summary- The 8th Doctor and Chris C'wej get to know each other.
****
"Wow," said Chris yet again. He had said little else in the four hours he and Roz had been in the TARDIS.
The Doctor hadn't intended to leave immediately, but Benny had dragged Roz in with alacrity, as if afraid the Doctor would leave her behind. Either that or salacious curiousity, but the Doctor didn't want to think such a thing of his companion. The console room had been Chris' first "wow", the corridor his second, the medical labs his third and fourth, and the kitchen his fifth.
Roz had managed to look as if she were the one he'd been following around like a puppy dog barking "wow" - that is, incredibly annoyed. Although really the Doctor wasn't finding Chris annoying - young, sweet and incredibly good looking, not that he was prepared to admit that to himself! No, instead he pretended that like Roz, he found Chris a trifle annoying, rather than distracting in an entirely different, more basic way. Benny had laughed at Roz's caustic comment and made tea, pouring a liberal helping of brandy into her own. Earl Grey was not to thirtieth century tastes, and instead Roz had asked to be shown her new room. Benny had volunteered, so now he and Chris were alone again.
"So - er - how big is this ship of yours?"
"TARDIS," murmured the Doctor, watching over the rim of his tea cup as Chris paced up and down like a caged lion. The Doctor wanted nothing more than to be left alone to have a soak in the bath and a quiet sob. He'd told no-one of his own separate adventures yet. "And its interior is infinite - in a manner of speaking."
"I can't believe it! Do all Time Lords have one? I mean - Wow! Can I see some more?"
"What in particular would you like to see, Christopher? Bernice is rather fond of the Rose Garden, then there is a beach somewhere that Ace used to go to when she needed to be alone. I prefer the Cloister." He smiled. "That's the heart of the TARDIS, in a manner of speaking. I forget what there is, to be honest..." he tailed off, uncertain if he understood Chris' stare correctly. He frowned into his tea cup, his forehead creasing with worry.
Chris had been watching the Doctor intently, attracted by his animated features, they way he moved as he spoke, enjoying the gentle burr of the unfamiliar accent. He'd hardly got to know this man yet, their rescuer. Benny he'd got to like, to respect - he almost blushed at the memory of her kiss. The Doctor was a mystery, and an attractive one at that. Why didn't he say something? He smiled expectantly, but the Doctor looked away again. Eventually he looked up again and spoke gently, hesitant to meet Chris' forthright stare.
"We could just take a walk and see what we find? Would you like that?" He ached from a thousand tortured injuries, but the poor boy had just been dragged out of his time and space, fleeing for his life, but... The Doctor felt dreadful. He had had so many young companions barely past childhood, but never before had any walked into his TARDIS from their Mother's front room.
Chris hadn't had an unhappy childhood, didn't want to leave, but he'd had no choice. From what he'd gathered from Benny and Roz, it had been Chris' insistent intelligence and fierce desire for justice that had endangered him and Roz, Chris was the one who single-handed had dared to challenge almost a millennia of Adjudicator tradition. The boy was worthy of any amount of discomfort. He wished Chris would stop looking at him like that though, as if he were... well, as if he we attractive!
Chris was smiling down at him. "Yeah, I'd like that." He offered a hand, the Doctor ignored it and stood unaided, but awkwardly, nerve endings still smarting from recent misery. He wasn't going to think of that. It was done. Enough. They ended up at the library.
"Wow!"
"Do you have such a small vocabulary?" the Doctor snapped.
"I'm sorry, Doctor - but, hey, this is the place to expand it, right? You okay? You look a bit pale?"
"Fine, Chris, just a little tired."
"Events catching up with you, I guess. Let me take you to your room?"
"Hah!"
"What?" Chris blushed furiously. "I didn't mean - that is to say..." The Doctor stared up at him, smiling at the blushing. It gave much away. "Oh, Goddess, I've offended you."
"No, you haven't, Chris. Let me show you the Cloister." He linked his arm with Chris' and gently propelled him back out the way they'd come. "Tell me," he said brightly, "what to you think of Benny?"
"She's - um? A bit full on. Does she always drink so much?"
"I'm afraid so."
"She kissed me, you know?"
"No, I didn't."
"Didn't what?"
"Know Benny had kissed you," the Doctor laughed. "Did you want her to?"
"Don't know, I mean, we were in the middle of a fire-fight. I don't fancy her, if that's what you - Oh, wow! It's like sims of ancient cities, churches and universities and - Oh, wow, Doctor!"
"This is the Cloister Room." The Doctor sat down on a stone bench by one of the ornamental ponds and started picking at some ivy.
"I think Roz would have too, you know. But I'm squired to her, so it's not on really." Chris smiled. "Besides, it's supposed to be the squire who falls in love."
"You're not subject to Adjudicator lore here." The Doctor carefully avoided looking anywhere near Chris' direction as he came to sit in front of him on the ground.
"Roz wouldn't really, she's too... I don't know what she is. I'd barely known her five minutes when all this happened. I did the right thing, didn't I, Doctor?"
"Uncovering conspiracies in the highest echelons of Empire and Lodge, preventing an invasion, not to mention saving Benny and my lives - which I must thank you for. I should say so, Chris. Absolutely the right thing. Whoever said doing the right thing was easy?"
"Oh, you can thank me like Benny," Chris said with carefully contrived flippancy, holding his breath.
The Doctor was confused, did the boy want reassuring about the past few days, was he home sick or was he just after... just... Oh, God! Chris had knelt up in front of the Doctor and put his hands to his shoulders. The Doctor was looking down.
"Don't you like men?" asked Chris, sensing the Doctor's confusion.
"Well, it isn't that, but..."
"Or me?"
The Doctor swallowed. Oh, Gods! The boy was beautiful, sweet, kind, intelligent and good, physically a living, breathing Adonis. Of course he liked him, was attracted to him...
"I'm sorry, Doctor. Maybe Time Lords just don't do it." Good lie, worked many, many times before.
"No, I..." The Doctor gave up words and looking up, leaned forward and pressed his lips very gently to Chris'.
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