[Fic] Fuzz In Time part 3
Here it is, part three. Enjoy!
Part one
Fuzz In Time - part three
Fandom: Doctor Who/Hot Fuzz
Pairings: Doctor Ten/Nicholas Angel
Rating: R (this chapter)
Warnings: AU, slash, crossover, slight humor, some drama, and some violence
Notes: My muse wanted to write this ever since I saw Hot Fuzz. I’m just starting in the Doctor Who fandom also, so please let me know if I got anything wrong.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to those people at the BBC and Hot Fuzz belongs to Working Title and the lovely, hot, and creative Simon Pegg and friend Edgar Wright.
.-.
Before entering the cell, a worker at the castle-a Groundtoiler-took some of the Doctor’s blood. Once done, they strapped the Doctor onto a metal table.
He looked around the cell; it was mostly made of metal. The straps going around his wrists and ankles were metal as well. He wasn’t sure what they had planned for him, but whatever it was it couldn’t be good. No matter what they did they wouldn’t be able to learn how to regenerate like a Time Lord.
A stone guard came in once the Doctor was finished being wired up to an electronic machine. The stone guards were huge, but pretty dumb. They were mostly made of stone, hence their name, and their heads were square shaped, unlike the roundness of their chiseled bodies. The top halves of them were much larger than their bottoms.
“What’s going on?” the Doctor asked.
“We only do as we’re told,” the stone guard said.
“There is no way your people can get a Time Lord’s power of regeneration; it’s not your people’s expertise-you couldn’t handle it.”
The king entered the cell and smacked the Doctor across the face with his stone hard hand. A purple bruise blossomed instantly on the Doctor’s cheek. The Doctor grit his teeth, but otherwise didn’t cry out. With a wave of the king’s hand, the guard left.
“You know, Doctor, I am not fooled by your feigned ignorance. I know there’s a way for me to learn this regeneration power.”
“If you have the right genetic make-up and knowledge, maybe,” the Doctor said in a rasping voice. “But you don’t. Never in a million years will you learn.”
“We shall see about that, Doctor.” King Jasper moved to the other side of the room and placed on rocky hand onto a switch. “Maybe a few thousand volts of electricity will loosen your tongue!”
“I already told you-“ the Doctor was cut off as shock after shock pierced his body. After a minute of horrible pain, the king shut the current off. The Doctor panted, his fingers and toes twitching.
“Relent, Doctor, or I’ll feed more volts into your puny flesh.”
The Doctor wasn’t sure if they knew about his two hearts, but he didn’t want to give them the knowledge either. No matter how many times they shocked him he won’t give in.
He can scarcely think of what they were doing to poor Sergeant Angel in his cell.
.-.
“Ahh! Stop! Stop! This is torture! I can’t take it any more!” Angel screamed, his face beat red as his bare foot was being tickled with a feather.
“You will tell us why you were traveling with a Time Lord!” snarled the stone guard.
“It just happened!” cried Angel. “I swear!”
“Stop it, please!” Danny shouted. “I can’t stand watching you tickle my best friend to death any longer!”
“Silence, or we’ll string you up a hundred feet into the air by your ears!”
Danny froze. That was one of his worst fears: heights.
“Please, stop!” Doris pleaded, looking on the verge of tears. “I’ll do anything, please! Can’t you see he can’t breath? Just stop torturing him!”
Surprisingly, the guard did stop. Angel panted with relief.
“You will tell me what you’re doing with a Time Lord!” the guard bellowed, pointing the chicken feather at Doris. “Or you will be thrown into a pit of snakes!”
Doris gasped, face going white with fear.
“He just appeared,” said Angel softly, as he leaned his head back in the chair he was strapped to. “We were minding our own business… when he just suddenly appeared in our town…”
There was silence for a moment. The guard seemed to be thinking, if they do indeed think of their own will.
“Do you care at all for this Time Lord?” the guard asked suddenly, an indescribable look on his stony face. Angel tried his best to calm down enough to think. He hated being tickled, especially on the soles of his feet.
“Maybe,” said Angel. “What’s it to you?”
The guard didn’t reply to Angel’s question. He turned, opened the cell door, and called for another guard. The second guard arrived almost at once.
“Tell the king that phase two of the interrogation is ready.”
“Of course,” said the second guard. He left, leaving an air of dread among the three police officers.
“Now what are they going to do to us?” Doris said, voice cracking in her whisper.
“Don’t let them see you breaking, Doris,” said Angel gently. “We’ll get through this.”
“I wonder what they’re doing to the Doctor,” said Danny.
“Probably torturing him with his fears as well.”
“What could someone like him possibly fear, I wonder,” said Doris.
The king came into the cell, along with the other two stone guards, and pointed at Angel.
“Take him,” he commanded.
Doris and Danny stared in shock for a bit while they watched the guards take Angel off the chair he was tied to and hauled him out. Danny tried charging the guards, but the was knocked to the floor.
“Sergeant!” Doris cried.
The door to the cell slammed shut; Danny stood and grabbed the window’s bars, sneering heatedly at them.
“Leave him alone! What’re you gonna do to him?”
The guards ignored him.
“Be strong, Danny,” Angel called back as he was dragged away.
.-.
The metal door opened, and the Doctor cracked his eyes open to see who entered. The guard that took over for the king had just finished shocking him and stood at attention, much like the Doctor’s hair. Upon seeing Nicholas, the Doctor tried to smile.
The stone guard pushed Angel closer to where the Doctor was lying. When Angel noticed what they had done, he felt his stomach drop.
“If we don’t get any straight answers, then you shall witness the suffering of the Time Lord before we take his powers.”
“Told you…” the Doctor said weakly, “…can’t…”
“We shall see,” the king said. He turned to the second guard who stood by the electrical switch and motioned for him to pull it. The guard obeyed, and the Doctor screamed as he was shocked worse than before.
“NO! Stop it!” Angel found himself shouting. One of the other things he hated was seeing others suffer, especially on his behalf. He became a police officer to help others in need and make sure the world was safe from maniacs, because he knew that not everyone was as strong as him.
“Do you confess?” the king said, as the Doctor continued to be electrocuted.
“Confess to what?” Angel shouted hysterically. “We’re innocent!”
The king motioned for the power to be cut off, so the guard obeyed. The Doctor, surprisingly to Angel, was still alive-albeit panting heavily and sweating, but still alive. When he noticed that no one was holding him back, he was at the Doctor’s side in an instant. Without worry of being zapped, he placed his hands on either side of the Doctor’s face to try getting the Doctor to look at him. He wasn’t zapped, of course.
“Doctor? It’s Sergeant Nicholas Angel, can you hear me?”
The Doctor nodded, eyes opening a bit at a time.
“I’m sorry, Doctor, I don’t know what to do. I’m out of my league,” Angel said, laying his head onto the Doctor’s chest. For a minute he thought he was going mad; he raised his head to look into the Doctor’s eyes and placed his hands over the Doctor’s chest. “Am I feeling this correctly? Two heartbeats?”
“Yeah,” the Doctor whispered.
“But how?”
“Time Lord,” said the Doctor simply.
“Right,” said Angel. “Forgot.”
The king stepped forward, a painful look on his stony features as if he were having a private battle of wills in his head.
“I will allow you two to talk alone, but you only get twenty minutes.”
“Is that all?” said Angel.
“It is enough.”
The guards undid the metal bands around the Doctor’s wrists and ankles before leaving the cell. Once they were gone, Angel checked the cell door.
“Locked,” he sighed.
Slowly, the Doctor sat up. Angel tried to stop him.
“Wait, shouldn’t you rest?”
“I’ve had worse,” the Doctor panted. He pounded the right side of his chest a few times. “Electricity gave one of my hearts a slight flutter. You wouldn’t mind helping me out, would you?” He carefully got to his feet.
“How?”
The Doctor turned around and bent over the metal table slightly. “Pound me.”
Angel gaped. “Er… sorry?”
“The right side of my back, hit it.”
“Oh!”
Angel clasped his hands together and hit the right side of the Doctor’s back as hard as he could.
“AAH, yes!” the Doctor exclaimed loudly. “Yes, much better! Human males are typically stronger than females, so one good solid whack…” he turned around, stretching his back. “…Does the trick every time.”
“Doctor, what should we do?” said Angel, trying to stay calm. “They think we have secrets to share with them, but we don’t.”
“That’s the trouble with their species,” said the Doctor as he began to walk around the cell and examine the cell door. “They’re always looking for ways to make themselves more invincible.”
Angel followed the Doctor closely, watching him search the cell for… something. “What stops them? I thought you had read about them on your home planet.”
“They do have one weakness, but it’s going to take a trip to the other side of the planet to get it easily.”
“What?”
The Doctor looked up from the electrical machine he was examining. “Water.”
Angel’s eyebrows rose.
“Water?”
“Yup!” the Doctor said, bounding over to the other side of the cell as if he hadn’t just been electrocuted. “It’s what breaks down rocks and clay. That’s why it is controlled in their land.”
“What about that forest?” said Angel. “Surely they need rain for that, and their gardens.”
“Regulated, controlled,” explained the Doctor. “Most of the color-wood don’t need water, though; that’s one of the reasons the king’s so protective of it. The peasants don’t water their own gardens, it’s controlled by an underwater irrigation… ah, that’s it!” the Doctor said suddenly, startling Angel. “The shockwave regulator!”
“The what?”
The Doctor produced something long and slender from his pocket. He pointed it at the panel, opening it, and then at the inside of the machine; it popped and fizzled.
“What is that?” Angel asked, kneeling beside the Doctor.
“My sonic screwdriver,” answered the Doctor. “They were so overwhelmed that they had a Time Lord that they forgot to check my pockets for weapons.”
“Wait, that’s a weapon?”
“You saw what it did to the Electroshocker, right?”
“Oh, right,” said Angel, smirking lightly. “Alien.”
“Precisely. Now, why did they give us time to talk, I wonder,” the Doctor thought aloud as he paced the cell. “What do they expect us to talk about?” He continued to search the cell, this time more frantically. “They must have this cell bugged.”
“They’re listening in on us?” said Angel, somewhat exasperated.
“Wouldn’t you have done the same?”
“Yes, well…”
The Doctor looked out of the small, barred window of the cell door to see if anyone was nearby.
“What are they expecting?” the Doctor thought aloud again. “What are they hoping to accomplish, besides getting secrets and becoming invincible?”
Angel leaned against the other side of the cell door and stared at the Doctor.
“Possibly their way of getting information without some kind of torture?”
“Possibly… or possibly they’re waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“I dunno,” the Doctor’s gaze cut over to Angel’s face; their eyes locked. “A certain word, perhaps. A certain reaction. Maybe a certain confirmation.”
“About you being a Time Lord?”
“Possibly.”
Angel moved away from the door and paced. “They should just ask us.”
“They think we’ll lie if they did that.”
“Well, if they’ve bugged the cell and they know that we know, then why play this game?”
“They enjoy it; it’s like entertainment. Well, for the rich and royal it’s entertainment, but not for those living off the land.”
“Can they see us?” Angel asked, searching the ceiling for cameras. “Or just hear us?”
“Possibly both,” said the Doctor. He examined the outside of the cell again, checking for others. There was only one stone guard in the hall, but he was a few feet away. “If they can see and hear everything we’re doing, then they know that I have a sonic screwdriver, so know they know I’m armed.”
Angel turned to him. “Do they want us to try escaping?”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t sound like them.” The Doctor moved away from the door.
“Things might have changed,” Angel pointed out.
“You’re right,” said the Doctor, smiling. “I like you, Nicholas Angel.”
Angel smiled, and it ended up kind of a smirk. “Likewise, Doctor.”
The Doctor resumed the pacing that Angel stopped doing; he twirled his sonic screwdriver in his hands, brow furrowed in thought.
“The right words…” the Doctor mumbled to himself. “What do they want to hear?” Then he spoke louder. “Time Lord… two hearts… armed… time traveler… regeneration… TARDIS…”
The cell door banged open and two large stone guards stormed in, followed by the king. One guard had a fat pistol in its hand and the other guard had a whip. The one with the gun grabbed Angel and secured him tightly with one stone arm and pointed the pistol to his head with the other.
“Hand over your weapon now, Doctor,” said the king. “Nice and slow, or your friend dies.”
The Doctor reluctantly handed over his sonic screwdriver, and the moment he did, the guard with the whip grabbed his arms and handcuffed them.
“What now?” the Doctor demanded. “What is it that you want?”
“You know what I want,” said the king. “But now you’ve handed me a better way of receiving it.”
“What are you talking about?”
The king grinned wickedly. “Your TARDIS. I knew that blue box was more than it first appeared.”
Surprising Angel and the king, the Doctor laughed. “The TARDIS won’t obey you anyway! It’s only sensitive to my touch.”
“Is that so? Well then, either you help me in running your ship, or we’ll find an alternative persuasion.”
The king nodded at the guard with the whip. The stone guard tore away the Doctor’s clothes. Angel’s eyes widened as the Doctor’s skin was exposed bit by bit. He wanted to close his eyes, but he found he couldn’t; the Doctor was rather… fetching.
“Let’s see how long you last,” said the king, and with a simple nod the guard began to whip the Doctor’s back.
The Doctor fell to his knees, gritting his teeth. His body was still sore from the electric shocks he’d received, no matter what front the Doctor put on. Thankfully, his body had healed the majority of the damage that had been done.
The whipping lasted for ten minutes non-stop. Angel couldn’t look away no matter how many times he tried; every time he closed his eyes he felt the urge to open them again. The sounds the Doctor made while being whipped was worse, somehow, if he wasn’t looking. At least with them open he could assess the damage the whip was doing to the Doctor’s body.
Finally, Angel couldn’t take it any more; eyes prickling and wet from anger and agony, he shouted, “Stop it! Just STOP whipping him already!”
The king made a halt gesture with his hand and the guard immediately stopped. The Doctor was hunched over on the floor, on his knees, shaking and panting.
“Let him go,” the king said to the guard holding Angel. The guard obeyed, and Angel went to the Doctor like a shot. He didn’t care if he was showing a form of weakness, and he didn’t care if the Doctor was nude as he wrapped his arms around him. He wished momentarily that he still had his gun on him, because he felt like blasting the lot of them to bits; never mind that they were made of stone. Angel pressed his face against the Doctor’s and apologized over and over to him. What he was apologizing for, he wasn’t sure, but he felt he needed to say it.
“My guards will retrieve your time traveling box and when they do, you WILL cooperate. If not, your human friend there will be nothing more than ash in my fireplace.”
The king left, followed by the stone guards. The cell door was locked.
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Angel whispered against the Doctor’s cheek.
“I’ll be fine, in a few minutes,” the Doctor panted. “I’m a quick healer.”
“And then what? How will we get out?”
“We must get to the TARDIS when they bring it.” The Doctor stood up shakily, holding up his ripped trousers. “Did they have to destroy my favorite pair?”
Obviously the Doctor didn’t seem to care that Angel was still there and that he was staring at his naked behind. He coughed when he noticed himself staring and looked away. The Doctor turned, holding his torn trousers in front of him. He saw Angel’s pink cheeks right away.
“Problem, Sergeant?” the Doctor smiled.
“Oh, uh, no. No problem.”
Instead of backing off like he thought the Doctor would, he stepped closer. Angel looked into the Doctor’s face.
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” said the Doctor. “The moment I saw what planet we landed on I should have brought everyone back.”
Angel shook his head. “It’s all right. I shouldn’t have tried to arrest you so quickly. We probably would be at the station right now, laughing and partying. Well, the others would be partying.”
“But not you, eh?” the Doctor smiled, getting closer. “Don’t tell me you’re that stiff.”
Angel looked away; the innuendo wasn’t lost on him, but it might’ve been to the Doctor.
“I’ve loosened up, thanks to Danny.”
“He must be some friend.”
“Yeah…” Angel sighed. “It would have been better if he or Doris hadn’t tagged along. For all we know, they might be dead.”
“Don’t say that,” said the Doctor, dropping his trousers on the floor to take hold of Angel’s face. “You’ll only worry yourself sick.”
Angel couldn’t stop thinking about what they were doing to his friends; they might be tortured more with their fears or whipped to death.
“What am I going to do, Doctor? I feel so helpless. I hate it! My partners need me, and I can’t do anything…”
The Doctor did what he thought Angel needed at the moment, given the situation: he held Angel close, cheek against his forehead and rubbed his back. He was surprised by how well Angel was holding up, considering. He figured a normal human would be suffering from culture shock by now.
“You’re still naked,” Angel said into the Doctor’s neck. He took great care in not touching the red whip marks across the Doctor’s back.
“Yes, I know.”
“Aren’t you cold?” Angel asked, feeling the goosebumps on the Doctor’s thighs.
“Nah, I’m fine.”
He looked up into the Doctor’s face, and the Doctor gazed down.
Maybe it was the fear of possibly not getting out alive, and maybe it was the nearness, he couldn’t tell you, but something made Angel reach up, grab the sides of the Doctor’s head, and kiss him.
The Doctor kissed back.
TBC
Part one
Fuzz In Time - part three
Fandom: Doctor Who/Hot Fuzz
Pairings: Doctor Ten/Nicholas Angel
Rating: R (this chapter)
Warnings: AU, slash, crossover, slight humor, some drama, and some violence
Notes: My muse wanted to write this ever since I saw Hot Fuzz. I’m just starting in the Doctor Who fandom also, so please let me know if I got anything wrong.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to those people at the BBC and Hot Fuzz belongs to Working Title and the lovely, hot, and creative Simon Pegg and friend Edgar Wright.
.-.
Before entering the cell, a worker at the castle-a Groundtoiler-took some of the Doctor’s blood. Once done, they strapped the Doctor onto a metal table.
He looked around the cell; it was mostly made of metal. The straps going around his wrists and ankles were metal as well. He wasn’t sure what they had planned for him, but whatever it was it couldn’t be good. No matter what they did they wouldn’t be able to learn how to regenerate like a Time Lord.
A stone guard came in once the Doctor was finished being wired up to an electronic machine. The stone guards were huge, but pretty dumb. They were mostly made of stone, hence their name, and their heads were square shaped, unlike the roundness of their chiseled bodies. The top halves of them were much larger than their bottoms.
“What’s going on?” the Doctor asked.
“We only do as we’re told,” the stone guard said.
“There is no way your people can get a Time Lord’s power of regeneration; it’s not your people’s expertise-you couldn’t handle it.”
The king entered the cell and smacked the Doctor across the face with his stone hard hand. A purple bruise blossomed instantly on the Doctor’s cheek. The Doctor grit his teeth, but otherwise didn’t cry out. With a wave of the king’s hand, the guard left.
“You know, Doctor, I am not fooled by your feigned ignorance. I know there’s a way for me to learn this regeneration power.”
“If you have the right genetic make-up and knowledge, maybe,” the Doctor said in a rasping voice. “But you don’t. Never in a million years will you learn.”
“We shall see about that, Doctor.” King Jasper moved to the other side of the room and placed on rocky hand onto a switch. “Maybe a few thousand volts of electricity will loosen your tongue!”
“I already told you-“ the Doctor was cut off as shock after shock pierced his body. After a minute of horrible pain, the king shut the current off. The Doctor panted, his fingers and toes twitching.
“Relent, Doctor, or I’ll feed more volts into your puny flesh.”
The Doctor wasn’t sure if they knew about his two hearts, but he didn’t want to give them the knowledge either. No matter how many times they shocked him he won’t give in.
He can scarcely think of what they were doing to poor Sergeant Angel in his cell.
.-.
“Ahh! Stop! Stop! This is torture! I can’t take it any more!” Angel screamed, his face beat red as his bare foot was being tickled with a feather.
“You will tell us why you were traveling with a Time Lord!” snarled the stone guard.
“It just happened!” cried Angel. “I swear!”
“Stop it, please!” Danny shouted. “I can’t stand watching you tickle my best friend to death any longer!”
“Silence, or we’ll string you up a hundred feet into the air by your ears!”
Danny froze. That was one of his worst fears: heights.
“Please, stop!” Doris pleaded, looking on the verge of tears. “I’ll do anything, please! Can’t you see he can’t breath? Just stop torturing him!”
Surprisingly, the guard did stop. Angel panted with relief.
“You will tell me what you’re doing with a Time Lord!” the guard bellowed, pointing the chicken feather at Doris. “Or you will be thrown into a pit of snakes!”
Doris gasped, face going white with fear.
“He just appeared,” said Angel softly, as he leaned his head back in the chair he was strapped to. “We were minding our own business… when he just suddenly appeared in our town…”
There was silence for a moment. The guard seemed to be thinking, if they do indeed think of their own will.
“Do you care at all for this Time Lord?” the guard asked suddenly, an indescribable look on his stony face. Angel tried his best to calm down enough to think. He hated being tickled, especially on the soles of his feet.
“Maybe,” said Angel. “What’s it to you?”
The guard didn’t reply to Angel’s question. He turned, opened the cell door, and called for another guard. The second guard arrived almost at once.
“Tell the king that phase two of the interrogation is ready.”
“Of course,” said the second guard. He left, leaving an air of dread among the three police officers.
“Now what are they going to do to us?” Doris said, voice cracking in her whisper.
“Don’t let them see you breaking, Doris,” said Angel gently. “We’ll get through this.”
“I wonder what they’re doing to the Doctor,” said Danny.
“Probably torturing him with his fears as well.”
“What could someone like him possibly fear, I wonder,” said Doris.
The king came into the cell, along with the other two stone guards, and pointed at Angel.
“Take him,” he commanded.
Doris and Danny stared in shock for a bit while they watched the guards take Angel off the chair he was tied to and hauled him out. Danny tried charging the guards, but the was knocked to the floor.
“Sergeant!” Doris cried.
The door to the cell slammed shut; Danny stood and grabbed the window’s bars, sneering heatedly at them.
“Leave him alone! What’re you gonna do to him?”
The guards ignored him.
“Be strong, Danny,” Angel called back as he was dragged away.
.-.
The metal door opened, and the Doctor cracked his eyes open to see who entered. The guard that took over for the king had just finished shocking him and stood at attention, much like the Doctor’s hair. Upon seeing Nicholas, the Doctor tried to smile.
The stone guard pushed Angel closer to where the Doctor was lying. When Angel noticed what they had done, he felt his stomach drop.
“If we don’t get any straight answers, then you shall witness the suffering of the Time Lord before we take his powers.”
“Told you…” the Doctor said weakly, “…can’t…”
“We shall see,” the king said. He turned to the second guard who stood by the electrical switch and motioned for him to pull it. The guard obeyed, and the Doctor screamed as he was shocked worse than before.
“NO! Stop it!” Angel found himself shouting. One of the other things he hated was seeing others suffer, especially on his behalf. He became a police officer to help others in need and make sure the world was safe from maniacs, because he knew that not everyone was as strong as him.
“Do you confess?” the king said, as the Doctor continued to be electrocuted.
“Confess to what?” Angel shouted hysterically. “We’re innocent!”
The king motioned for the power to be cut off, so the guard obeyed. The Doctor, surprisingly to Angel, was still alive-albeit panting heavily and sweating, but still alive. When he noticed that no one was holding him back, he was at the Doctor’s side in an instant. Without worry of being zapped, he placed his hands on either side of the Doctor’s face to try getting the Doctor to look at him. He wasn’t zapped, of course.
“Doctor? It’s Sergeant Nicholas Angel, can you hear me?”
The Doctor nodded, eyes opening a bit at a time.
“I’m sorry, Doctor, I don’t know what to do. I’m out of my league,” Angel said, laying his head onto the Doctor’s chest. For a minute he thought he was going mad; he raised his head to look into the Doctor’s eyes and placed his hands over the Doctor’s chest. “Am I feeling this correctly? Two heartbeats?”
“Yeah,” the Doctor whispered.
“But how?”
“Time Lord,” said the Doctor simply.
“Right,” said Angel. “Forgot.”
The king stepped forward, a painful look on his stony features as if he were having a private battle of wills in his head.
“I will allow you two to talk alone, but you only get twenty minutes.”
“Is that all?” said Angel.
“It is enough.”
The guards undid the metal bands around the Doctor’s wrists and ankles before leaving the cell. Once they were gone, Angel checked the cell door.
“Locked,” he sighed.
Slowly, the Doctor sat up. Angel tried to stop him.
“Wait, shouldn’t you rest?”
“I’ve had worse,” the Doctor panted. He pounded the right side of his chest a few times. “Electricity gave one of my hearts a slight flutter. You wouldn’t mind helping me out, would you?” He carefully got to his feet.
“How?”
The Doctor turned around and bent over the metal table slightly. “Pound me.”
Angel gaped. “Er… sorry?”
“The right side of my back, hit it.”
“Oh!”
Angel clasped his hands together and hit the right side of the Doctor’s back as hard as he could.
“AAH, yes!” the Doctor exclaimed loudly. “Yes, much better! Human males are typically stronger than females, so one good solid whack…” he turned around, stretching his back. “…Does the trick every time.”
“Doctor, what should we do?” said Angel, trying to stay calm. “They think we have secrets to share with them, but we don’t.”
“That’s the trouble with their species,” said the Doctor as he began to walk around the cell and examine the cell door. “They’re always looking for ways to make themselves more invincible.”
Angel followed the Doctor closely, watching him search the cell for… something. “What stops them? I thought you had read about them on your home planet.”
“They do have one weakness, but it’s going to take a trip to the other side of the planet to get it easily.”
“What?”
The Doctor looked up from the electrical machine he was examining. “Water.”
Angel’s eyebrows rose.
“Water?”
“Yup!” the Doctor said, bounding over to the other side of the cell as if he hadn’t just been electrocuted. “It’s what breaks down rocks and clay. That’s why it is controlled in their land.”
“What about that forest?” said Angel. “Surely they need rain for that, and their gardens.”
“Regulated, controlled,” explained the Doctor. “Most of the color-wood don’t need water, though; that’s one of the reasons the king’s so protective of it. The peasants don’t water their own gardens, it’s controlled by an underwater irrigation… ah, that’s it!” the Doctor said suddenly, startling Angel. “The shockwave regulator!”
“The what?”
The Doctor produced something long and slender from his pocket. He pointed it at the panel, opening it, and then at the inside of the machine; it popped and fizzled.
“What is that?” Angel asked, kneeling beside the Doctor.
“My sonic screwdriver,” answered the Doctor. “They were so overwhelmed that they had a Time Lord that they forgot to check my pockets for weapons.”
“Wait, that’s a weapon?”
“You saw what it did to the Electroshocker, right?”
“Oh, right,” said Angel, smirking lightly. “Alien.”
“Precisely. Now, why did they give us time to talk, I wonder,” the Doctor thought aloud as he paced the cell. “What do they expect us to talk about?” He continued to search the cell, this time more frantically. “They must have this cell bugged.”
“They’re listening in on us?” said Angel, somewhat exasperated.
“Wouldn’t you have done the same?”
“Yes, well…”
The Doctor looked out of the small, barred window of the cell door to see if anyone was nearby.
“What are they expecting?” the Doctor thought aloud again. “What are they hoping to accomplish, besides getting secrets and becoming invincible?”
Angel leaned against the other side of the cell door and stared at the Doctor.
“Possibly their way of getting information without some kind of torture?”
“Possibly… or possibly they’re waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“I dunno,” the Doctor’s gaze cut over to Angel’s face; their eyes locked. “A certain word, perhaps. A certain reaction. Maybe a certain confirmation.”
“About you being a Time Lord?”
“Possibly.”
Angel moved away from the door and paced. “They should just ask us.”
“They think we’ll lie if they did that.”
“Well, if they’ve bugged the cell and they know that we know, then why play this game?”
“They enjoy it; it’s like entertainment. Well, for the rich and royal it’s entertainment, but not for those living off the land.”
“Can they see us?” Angel asked, searching the ceiling for cameras. “Or just hear us?”
“Possibly both,” said the Doctor. He examined the outside of the cell again, checking for others. There was only one stone guard in the hall, but he was a few feet away. “If they can see and hear everything we’re doing, then they know that I have a sonic screwdriver, so know they know I’m armed.”
Angel turned to him. “Do they want us to try escaping?”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t sound like them.” The Doctor moved away from the door.
“Things might have changed,” Angel pointed out.
“You’re right,” said the Doctor, smiling. “I like you, Nicholas Angel.”
Angel smiled, and it ended up kind of a smirk. “Likewise, Doctor.”
The Doctor resumed the pacing that Angel stopped doing; he twirled his sonic screwdriver in his hands, brow furrowed in thought.
“The right words…” the Doctor mumbled to himself. “What do they want to hear?” Then he spoke louder. “Time Lord… two hearts… armed… time traveler… regeneration… TARDIS…”
The cell door banged open and two large stone guards stormed in, followed by the king. One guard had a fat pistol in its hand and the other guard had a whip. The one with the gun grabbed Angel and secured him tightly with one stone arm and pointed the pistol to his head with the other.
“Hand over your weapon now, Doctor,” said the king. “Nice and slow, or your friend dies.”
The Doctor reluctantly handed over his sonic screwdriver, and the moment he did, the guard with the whip grabbed his arms and handcuffed them.
“What now?” the Doctor demanded. “What is it that you want?”
“You know what I want,” said the king. “But now you’ve handed me a better way of receiving it.”
“What are you talking about?”
The king grinned wickedly. “Your TARDIS. I knew that blue box was more than it first appeared.”
Surprising Angel and the king, the Doctor laughed. “The TARDIS won’t obey you anyway! It’s only sensitive to my touch.”
“Is that so? Well then, either you help me in running your ship, or we’ll find an alternative persuasion.”
The king nodded at the guard with the whip. The stone guard tore away the Doctor’s clothes. Angel’s eyes widened as the Doctor’s skin was exposed bit by bit. He wanted to close his eyes, but he found he couldn’t; the Doctor was rather… fetching.
“Let’s see how long you last,” said the king, and with a simple nod the guard began to whip the Doctor’s back.
The Doctor fell to his knees, gritting his teeth. His body was still sore from the electric shocks he’d received, no matter what front the Doctor put on. Thankfully, his body had healed the majority of the damage that had been done.
The whipping lasted for ten minutes non-stop. Angel couldn’t look away no matter how many times he tried; every time he closed his eyes he felt the urge to open them again. The sounds the Doctor made while being whipped was worse, somehow, if he wasn’t looking. At least with them open he could assess the damage the whip was doing to the Doctor’s body.
Finally, Angel couldn’t take it any more; eyes prickling and wet from anger and agony, he shouted, “Stop it! Just STOP whipping him already!”
The king made a halt gesture with his hand and the guard immediately stopped. The Doctor was hunched over on the floor, on his knees, shaking and panting.
“Let him go,” the king said to the guard holding Angel. The guard obeyed, and Angel went to the Doctor like a shot. He didn’t care if he was showing a form of weakness, and he didn’t care if the Doctor was nude as he wrapped his arms around him. He wished momentarily that he still had his gun on him, because he felt like blasting the lot of them to bits; never mind that they were made of stone. Angel pressed his face against the Doctor’s and apologized over and over to him. What he was apologizing for, he wasn’t sure, but he felt he needed to say it.
“My guards will retrieve your time traveling box and when they do, you WILL cooperate. If not, your human friend there will be nothing more than ash in my fireplace.”
The king left, followed by the stone guards. The cell door was locked.
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Angel whispered against the Doctor’s cheek.
“I’ll be fine, in a few minutes,” the Doctor panted. “I’m a quick healer.”
“And then what? How will we get out?”
“We must get to the TARDIS when they bring it.” The Doctor stood up shakily, holding up his ripped trousers. “Did they have to destroy my favorite pair?”
Obviously the Doctor didn’t seem to care that Angel was still there and that he was staring at his naked behind. He coughed when he noticed himself staring and looked away. The Doctor turned, holding his torn trousers in front of him. He saw Angel’s pink cheeks right away.
“Problem, Sergeant?” the Doctor smiled.
“Oh, uh, no. No problem.”
Instead of backing off like he thought the Doctor would, he stepped closer. Angel looked into the Doctor’s face.
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” said the Doctor. “The moment I saw what planet we landed on I should have brought everyone back.”
Angel shook his head. “It’s all right. I shouldn’t have tried to arrest you so quickly. We probably would be at the station right now, laughing and partying. Well, the others would be partying.”
“But not you, eh?” the Doctor smiled, getting closer. “Don’t tell me you’re that stiff.”
Angel looked away; the innuendo wasn’t lost on him, but it might’ve been to the Doctor.
“I’ve loosened up, thanks to Danny.”
“He must be some friend.”
“Yeah…” Angel sighed. “It would have been better if he or Doris hadn’t tagged along. For all we know, they might be dead.”
“Don’t say that,” said the Doctor, dropping his trousers on the floor to take hold of Angel’s face. “You’ll only worry yourself sick.”
Angel couldn’t stop thinking about what they were doing to his friends; they might be tortured more with their fears or whipped to death.
“What am I going to do, Doctor? I feel so helpless. I hate it! My partners need me, and I can’t do anything…”
The Doctor did what he thought Angel needed at the moment, given the situation: he held Angel close, cheek against his forehead and rubbed his back. He was surprised by how well Angel was holding up, considering. He figured a normal human would be suffering from culture shock by now.
“You’re still naked,” Angel said into the Doctor’s neck. He took great care in not touching the red whip marks across the Doctor’s back.
“Yes, I know.”
“Aren’t you cold?” Angel asked, feeling the goosebumps on the Doctor’s thighs.
“Nah, I’m fine.”
He looked up into the Doctor’s face, and the Doctor gazed down.
Maybe it was the fear of possibly not getting out alive, and maybe it was the nearness, he couldn’t tell you, but something made Angel reach up, grab the sides of the Doctor’s head, and kiss him.
The Doctor kissed back.
TBC