Infinite Haystacks (2/?)
Title: Infinite Haystacks (2/?)
Author: cehlainz
Pairing: Rose/TenII
Rating: M
Spoilers/warnings: Post JE
Characters: Rose Tyler, Jimmy Stone
Word count: 1,537
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters and names all belong to their respective parties. Purely written for fun and personal entertainment.
Summary: There are some people the Doctor doesn't expect to see again. Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, the Meta-crisis clone of himself, to name a few. He expected them all to go on living their brilliant lives without him. He never thought he'd be called on when one of them goes missing.
A/N: This chapter is a bit more adult. There is language, reference to drug usage, and some physical violence. Read with foreknowledge.
With a long string of expletives muttered under his breath, he lashed out at the tire of the refrigeration truck before climbing back into the cab. Selling frozen food out of the back of a truck to people who didn’t really want it was not how Jimmy Stone has envisioned his life nearly a decade ago. In between bouts of rock star behavior, without the actual accolades, he’d envisioned dry, bitter white powder lined up neatly on a different girls’ stomach every night. He’d imagined the bright pops and high pitched heating noises of thousands of camera lights. He’d imagined his life would skyrocket into stardom, with women thrusting their chests and permanent markers into his hands. He’d never, ever imagined that most of the breasts he handled would be frozen from a chicken.
He’d also, on some of his more drug-fueled day-dreaming, never imaged that the devil looked quite like this. He’d heard about the American blues singer, Robert Johnson, who was supposed to have sold his soul for the ability to play the guitar. He’d decided, after the liberal use a hot spoon and some deep introspection, that if the devil ever offered him a chance to ride that rocket into fame and fortune, he’d take it in a heartbeat. In anticipation to fame and fortune, Jimmy’d thought it would seem very poetic, very tortured-sexy- rock god, for him to get a tattoo of some of the Yanks’ lyrics. He could almost feel the future interviewer’s fingers as she touched his forearm, asking about the tattoo.
“What does it mean?” she’d ask. And he’d look into her eyes, and sing a few bars of Cross Road Blues, and shake his head with a sigh.
“Rising sun going down,” he’d quote, brushing the letters, “isn’t that what rock and roll means?” He'd gotten the ink, paid 800 quid for it, but the fame hadn't followed.
So he wasn’t as startled as some people would be when a tall man in a black robe appeared in the passenger seat of his delivery truck. Simply there, from one second, one breath, one heartbeat, one blink to the next. Not there, there. Just like that.
“Fuck!” Jimmy shouted, hitting the driver’s side door and wincing as the window lever gouged into his back. “Who the fuck are you?” But his mind filled in the blanks when the figure turned its head and he saw the empty expanse of featureless skin covering its face, only breaking to reveal sharp teeth.
“Jimmy Stone,” it spoke in an odd, double echo. “I have a proposition. You help me, and I’ll help you.”
“What do you want?” Jimmy asked, his fear gone in the span of time it took the creature to speak.
“Chaos,” it hissed, “and all you have to do for me is help to cause it.”
Jimmy smirked. “Easy as all that?”
“Oh yes. And I think you’ll enjoy its creation.”
~~~~~
Jimmy, for all his bluster, was a little nervous. The creature in the black robe had told him all he had to do was "catch". Then it had simply placed a gloved hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, and they’d been standing somewhere else. It was a bizarre looking room, bathed in a sickly green color. The floors were nothing but metal grating that rattled loudly as Jimmy landed in a heap. He retched and tried not to vomit as he pushed himself to his feet. His eyes took in the weird machine in the center of the room, covered in mis-matched bits, with a glass tube that ran up to the ceiling. He got the creepy feeling he was inside a plant you’d find in the ocean, as though he’d been eaten and was seeing its insides. Columns of rocky looking branches seemed to trace the bumpy walls. Jimmy wasn’t sure where he was, but he wasn’t happy.
“Oi!” he shouted, hearing nothing but his own voice echo back to him. Shakily he paced around the round machine and spotted a worn chair against the surrounding railing. He dropped heavily into it, putting his head into his hands. What exactly had he gotten himself into? He didn’t have time to answer his own question before he heard a shuddering gasp ricochet around the room. Feeling no steadier he lurched around the machine, ignoring all the buttons and screens (and trying very hard not to wonder what a bicycle pump and a rubber mallet might have to do with anything).
Rose Tyler was standing in nothing but her knickers on the other side of the machine, her arm held tightly in the grip of the featureless figure. Her mouth was gaping, her eyes darting so quickly that Jimmy couldn't track what she was seeing. He felt something in his stomach twist. He’d thought about her, for years, dwelling on this one woman who’d wrecked everything. It was her fault he’d failed at his music. Her fault that he’d ended up in prison. The second she’d walked into his life everything had gone downhill. He’d managed to pin it all down, writing pages and pages of notes and drawing diagrams that showed him how it all lead back to her. He was sure she’d been the one to set him up to buy that shitty product that had landed him in prison. She’d probably been the one to call the cops, too. She’d probably been a narc the whole damn time. Here was the bitch who’d ruined his life, looking ruffled and naked.
“The TARDIS,” she breathed, her eyes glittering. The robed figure pushed her violently away, into Jimmy’s arms.
“Just hold her,” it hissed and reached its hands up, grasping for something. Jimmy hadn’t even noticed that things were hanging from the domed ceiling, suspended on cables above their heads. He had his hands on Rose Tyler for the first time in years. She looked older, but then, hell, so did he.
“I’d worry less about the room,” he growled, shaking her until her eyes snapped to his face, “and more about yourself.” He saw the shift in her face from wondering to disgust, felt her try and pull away, and he brought the back of his hand across her face without thinking.
“Jimmy,” she spat. He gripped her harder, expecting her to try and pull away, unprepared for her to lean in close and push her face only inches from his. “You’ve just made a huge mistake.”
She didn’t get a chance to say more, her head suddenly surrounded by metal. She flinched and started to whip her head around. To Jimmy, it looked like a set of ill-fitting headphones, sitting at the temples instead of the ears, and an extra band that hit at the forehead.
“Wha-“ she began.
“Hold her,” the black robed figure commanded. “This is going to hurt.”
And with a push of a button the device began to spark a bright blue and Rose’s eyes rolled back into her head. Her head fell back as she arched, her nails clawing at the metal, her toes flexed downward as her body bowed backward in a graceful parenthesis of agony. Jimmy expected her to scream, to flail, but she didn’t. Her teeth were bared and she began to stagger.
“Hold her up,” the faceless creature commanded. “She isn’t done.”
“What’s it doing?” he shouted, eyes wide, almost gleeful, as they drank in her pain.
“Rewriting her.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he complained.
“I will give you this woman, this Rose Tyler, and in return you will make her miserable.”
Jimmy bared his teeth in a grin. But anything else that was going to be said was lost in a rush, as Rose opened her eyes. Out of them poured a light that made Jimmy wince. It cast shadows around the sickly colored room, gold clashing with and drowning out the sallow green, and Rose cocked her head to look at him.
“I have scattered myself in time and space," she spoke in a voice belying the spasms wracking her body, "and there is more to me than ever you imagined." Jimmy flinched, noticing her words having a similar double echo as those spoken by the robed figure.
“No!” the creature hissed and reached to pull the machine from her head. Its gloved fingers had barely brushed it when she raised her hand. The light reached a blinding level and Jimmy dropped whatever hold he had on her and backed away, heart in his throat. As fast as the light appeared, it disappeared. Blinking, he tried to clear the spots from his vision.
“You should find everything in order,” the creature said, double voices sounding disinterested, despite their worry only moments before. When Jimmy finally looked around, it was nowhere to be found. All he saw was Rose, lying face-up on the concrete, fresh tattoos spattered across her skin. His ears and nose told him they’d made it back to London. Didn’t seem far from his flat, in fact. He dropped his coat across her, last thing he needed was the coppers stopping him for hauling around a naked girl, and picked her up roughly.
“Time to see how much my soul was worth.”
Author: cehlainz
Pairing: Rose/TenII
Rating: M
Spoilers/warnings: Post JE
Characters: Rose Tyler, Jimmy Stone
Word count: 1,537
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters and names all belong to their respective parties. Purely written for fun and personal entertainment.
Summary: There are some people the Doctor doesn't expect to see again. Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, the Meta-crisis clone of himself, to name a few. He expected them all to go on living their brilliant lives without him. He never thought he'd be called on when one of them goes missing.
A/N: This chapter is a bit more adult. There is language, reference to drug usage, and some physical violence. Read with foreknowledge.
With a long string of expletives muttered under his breath, he lashed out at the tire of the refrigeration truck before climbing back into the cab. Selling frozen food out of the back of a truck to people who didn’t really want it was not how Jimmy Stone has envisioned his life nearly a decade ago. In between bouts of rock star behavior, without the actual accolades, he’d envisioned dry, bitter white powder lined up neatly on a different girls’ stomach every night. He’d imagined the bright pops and high pitched heating noises of thousands of camera lights. He’d imagined his life would skyrocket into stardom, with women thrusting their chests and permanent markers into his hands. He’d never, ever imagined that most of the breasts he handled would be frozen from a chicken.
He’d also, on some of his more drug-fueled day-dreaming, never imaged that the devil looked quite like this. He’d heard about the American blues singer, Robert Johnson, who was supposed to have sold his soul for the ability to play the guitar. He’d decided, after the liberal use a hot spoon and some deep introspection, that if the devil ever offered him a chance to ride that rocket into fame and fortune, he’d take it in a heartbeat. In anticipation to fame and fortune, Jimmy’d thought it would seem very poetic, very tortured-sexy- rock god, for him to get a tattoo of some of the Yanks’ lyrics. He could almost feel the future interviewer’s fingers as she touched his forearm, asking about the tattoo.
“What does it mean?” she’d ask. And he’d look into her eyes, and sing a few bars of Cross Road Blues, and shake his head with a sigh.
“Rising sun going down,” he’d quote, brushing the letters, “isn’t that what rock and roll means?” He'd gotten the ink, paid 800 quid for it, but the fame hadn't followed.
So he wasn’t as startled as some people would be when a tall man in a black robe appeared in the passenger seat of his delivery truck. Simply there, from one second, one breath, one heartbeat, one blink to the next. Not there, there. Just like that.
“Fuck!” Jimmy shouted, hitting the driver’s side door and wincing as the window lever gouged into his back. “Who the fuck are you?” But his mind filled in the blanks when the figure turned its head and he saw the empty expanse of featureless skin covering its face, only breaking to reveal sharp teeth.
“Jimmy Stone,” it spoke in an odd, double echo. “I have a proposition. You help me, and I’ll help you.”
“What do you want?” Jimmy asked, his fear gone in the span of time it took the creature to speak.
“Chaos,” it hissed, “and all you have to do for me is help to cause it.”
Jimmy smirked. “Easy as all that?”
“Oh yes. And I think you’ll enjoy its creation.”
~~~~~
Jimmy, for all his bluster, was a little nervous. The creature in the black robe had told him all he had to do was "catch". Then it had simply placed a gloved hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, and they’d been standing somewhere else. It was a bizarre looking room, bathed in a sickly green color. The floors were nothing but metal grating that rattled loudly as Jimmy landed in a heap. He retched and tried not to vomit as he pushed himself to his feet. His eyes took in the weird machine in the center of the room, covered in mis-matched bits, with a glass tube that ran up to the ceiling. He got the creepy feeling he was inside a plant you’d find in the ocean, as though he’d been eaten and was seeing its insides. Columns of rocky looking branches seemed to trace the bumpy walls. Jimmy wasn’t sure where he was, but he wasn’t happy.
“Oi!” he shouted, hearing nothing but his own voice echo back to him. Shakily he paced around the round machine and spotted a worn chair against the surrounding railing. He dropped heavily into it, putting his head into his hands. What exactly had he gotten himself into? He didn’t have time to answer his own question before he heard a shuddering gasp ricochet around the room. Feeling no steadier he lurched around the machine, ignoring all the buttons and screens (and trying very hard not to wonder what a bicycle pump and a rubber mallet might have to do with anything).
Rose Tyler was standing in nothing but her knickers on the other side of the machine, her arm held tightly in the grip of the featureless figure. Her mouth was gaping, her eyes darting so quickly that Jimmy couldn't track what she was seeing. He felt something in his stomach twist. He’d thought about her, for years, dwelling on this one woman who’d wrecked everything. It was her fault he’d failed at his music. Her fault that he’d ended up in prison. The second she’d walked into his life everything had gone downhill. He’d managed to pin it all down, writing pages and pages of notes and drawing diagrams that showed him how it all lead back to her. He was sure she’d been the one to set him up to buy that shitty product that had landed him in prison. She’d probably been the one to call the cops, too. She’d probably been a narc the whole damn time. Here was the bitch who’d ruined his life, looking ruffled and naked.
“The TARDIS,” she breathed, her eyes glittering. The robed figure pushed her violently away, into Jimmy’s arms.
“Just hold her,” it hissed and reached its hands up, grasping for something. Jimmy hadn’t even noticed that things were hanging from the domed ceiling, suspended on cables above their heads. He had his hands on Rose Tyler for the first time in years. She looked older, but then, hell, so did he.
“I’d worry less about the room,” he growled, shaking her until her eyes snapped to his face, “and more about yourself.” He saw the shift in her face from wondering to disgust, felt her try and pull away, and he brought the back of his hand across her face without thinking.
“Jimmy,” she spat. He gripped her harder, expecting her to try and pull away, unprepared for her to lean in close and push her face only inches from his. “You’ve just made a huge mistake.”
She didn’t get a chance to say more, her head suddenly surrounded by metal. She flinched and started to whip her head around. To Jimmy, it looked like a set of ill-fitting headphones, sitting at the temples instead of the ears, and an extra band that hit at the forehead.
“Wha-“ she began.
“Hold her,” the black robed figure commanded. “This is going to hurt.”
And with a push of a button the device began to spark a bright blue and Rose’s eyes rolled back into her head. Her head fell back as she arched, her nails clawing at the metal, her toes flexed downward as her body bowed backward in a graceful parenthesis of agony. Jimmy expected her to scream, to flail, but she didn’t. Her teeth were bared and she began to stagger.
“Hold her up,” the faceless creature commanded. “She isn’t done.”
“What’s it doing?” he shouted, eyes wide, almost gleeful, as they drank in her pain.
“Rewriting her.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he complained.
“I will give you this woman, this Rose Tyler, and in return you will make her miserable.”
Jimmy bared his teeth in a grin. But anything else that was going to be said was lost in a rush, as Rose opened her eyes. Out of them poured a light that made Jimmy wince. It cast shadows around the sickly colored room, gold clashing with and drowning out the sallow green, and Rose cocked her head to look at him.
“I have scattered myself in time and space," she spoke in a voice belying the spasms wracking her body, "and there is more to me than ever you imagined." Jimmy flinched, noticing her words having a similar double echo as those spoken by the robed figure.
“No!” the creature hissed and reached to pull the machine from her head. Its gloved fingers had barely brushed it when she raised her hand. The light reached a blinding level and Jimmy dropped whatever hold he had on her and backed away, heart in his throat. As fast as the light appeared, it disappeared. Blinking, he tried to clear the spots from his vision.
“You should find everything in order,” the creature said, double voices sounding disinterested, despite their worry only moments before. When Jimmy finally looked around, it was nowhere to be found. All he saw was Rose, lying face-up on the concrete, fresh tattoos spattered across her skin. His ears and nose told him they’d made it back to London. Didn’t seem far from his flat, in fact. He dropped his coat across her, last thing he needed was the coppers stopping him for hauling around a naked girl, and picked her up roughly.
“Time to see how much my soul was worth.”