Ten Hours, Part 1
Rating: NC-17
Prompt: #006 - Hours
Claim: The Time War
Table: Here
Spoilers: Voyage of the Damned
Warnings: Non-Con (or at least extemely shady consent, depending on who you ask)
Characters/Pairings: Rickston Slade/Doctor (10), Jack
Summary: There are very few things money can't buy. One of them is a conscience, but that isn't something Rickston Slade wants anyway.
Note: Dedicated to sarkywoman. Split into two parts due to lenght. First part = 6 pages pseudo-plot, second part = 8 pages sex. Do not expect anything from it.
The display of fireworks was over. Well, the first anyway. There would be another later at night, and hopefully until then the clouds would clear away so they would be able to admire the expensive spectacle before the background of the stars. For now the guests all took their drinks and scuffled back inside. There was no particular reason for that, since it wasn’t cold and wasn’t raining. Maybe they just felt better in the artificial light of the chandeliers from Earth - and why not? They had been expensive enough.
Not that money was an issue, these days.
Rickston Slade considered himself blessed by the gods. He did not actually believe in any gods, neither those of planet Sto nor any of the other countless deities out there, but it sounded good: Blessed by the gods. The words said that a higher power was watching over him, working for his benefit, and what would prove them wrong? He’d inherited a fortune, been in the right place at the right time, survived a catastrophe in a space-ship as one of four passengers when thousands died and it made him even richer than before. So rich that he could import chandeliers and furniture from Earth - he had developed a liking for that planet after nearly dying in its atmosphere. So rich that he cursed himself for not bribing the people at the Weather Control Centre into giving him a clear sky for his fireworks.
Oh well. This would hardly be the last party this year. In fact it was the first, since it was past midnight. Another custom he’d copied from Earth: greeting the new year with a big party and fireworks. Interesting planet, that. One day he’d actually have to visit it.
He was the only one on Sto to celebrate the beginning of the year this way and so his party was well attended. Hundreds of people were laughing and dancing in the halls of his mansion: celebrities, politicians and quite a few he had never seen or heard of but surely were important in any way. They had to be. Otherwise they wouldn’t be here.
Not that anyone would have declined his invitation even if there had been thousands of parties going on. He was the richest man on the planet after all, he was charming, he was gracious and he was very influential. In other words, his money got him everything he’d ever dreamed of. And that was incredibly shallow, some might say, but they didn’t dare to say it in his face and that was perfectly fine with him.
Rickston smiled into his glass of champagne and let his eyes wander over the guests and the servants and the luxury that was only one of his homes. Looking back, having been on the Titanic when it was hit by a meteor shower had been the best thing that ever happened to him. Of course he hadn’t quite thought so when he’d held on for dear life to an old man while the ship was falling toward the planet’s surface. Thankfully they’d had their gods watching over them. One god, at least.
The Time Lord. Rickston smirked a little, putting down his empty glass and getting himself a full one. He’d looked it up once he’d been back home and safe and had at little time at his hands. Of course that period of his life had been a particularly busy one, thanks to the fact that he’d just become incredibly rich, and more than two months had passed before he’d found the time, but he was excellent at taking mental notes. All he’d bothered to remember were the words Time Lord, Gallifrey and Kasterborous. Okay, he’d written them down on the way back home, just to make sure. He wouldn’t have needed the note to remember - this he knew for sure since he couldn’t find it by the time he actually decided to do some research.
The main problem had been that he didn’t really know how ‘Kasterborous’ was spelled.
The planet Gallifrey was not listed in the Galactic Encyclopaedia. No-one he asked had ever heard of the Time Lords. The history archives of the cyber-net had no entry concerning a race of that name.
It was a forum about legends that gave him his answers.
An old myth, about a race of powerful, godlike beings that lived outside of the known cosmos and had space and time bending to their will. Beings that could do things no-one else could do, that had ships that were bigger inside than out. One legend told of a war, and that the Lords of Time were defeated and forever banned from this universe. Another legend said that they simply got bored with this cosmos and left to play somewhere else. Either way, what Rickston Slade had learned from it was that the planet of Gallifrey, with its twin suns and its orange sky, had never existed and neither had the Time Lords. He’d felt a little annoyed with himself at that time, because, seen from a distance, the way the stranger had introduced himself had been a little too pompous to be taken seriously, and he had taken it seriously, back then. They all had, he could tell. They had been scared and desperate and lost and when there had been a man who said I’m a god and I can save you they’d believed him.
They’d believed him. And Rickston was still alive, so as far as he was concerned that guy had done a good job.
The title he’d chosen for himself might have been pompous but after seeing what he could do Rickston decided that he deserved it. He’d wanted to be one of the Time Lords from the myths? Well, he was a Time Lord. Except that he couldn’t turn back time and undo what should never have happened. They’d all seen that he couldn’t.
In the end he’d been simply powerless. Defeated. Human.
And Rickston had found himself crying at the sight of that waitress turning to dust, for the first and only time ever sharing another person’s grief. He blamed it, later, on the exhaustion and the emotional stress of nearly dying.
He had avoided situations such as that in the seven years that had passed since. The most exiting moments of his life nowadays were checking his financial status once a week, and that was exiting enough. At least it was satisfying.
His glass was empty again. If he continued drinking at his rate he’d be drunk by the time of the second fireworks. He considered the idea for a moment, then decided to find another way to pass the time.
A young and beautiful actress smiled at him across the room. He’d gone out with her once, a nice evening that had ended in an even nicer night. He smiled back and started moving toward her, to ask for the next dance, but after two steps he was pulled into a political discussion by a few friends and business partners. Something about fugitives from another planet and that war going on there. He didn’t really pay attention.
Wealth did not spare him all of the necessary courtesies and so he needed a few minutes to escape. When he looked for the lady in the crowd he couldn’t find her. Instead his eyes met those of a dark-harried, handsome man who raised his glass and winked at him. Rickston had no idea who he was but didn’t care much - the man was attractive, obviously interested and it wasn’t like the society of Sto wasn’t accepting of sexual flexibility. Not if one had that much money.
He wondered if he could find the actress and leave the party for a quick threesome in his bedroom.
But the man’s eyes wandered elsewhere, just briefly, and he smiled at whatever he saw, not flirty like before but full of affection. Rickston followed his gaze and the only thing that saved his glass from slipping from his fingers and shattering on the floor was the fact that he had put it on the table a few minutes ago. Leaning against the wooden counter in front of the windows, surrounded by a group of laughing men and women, was the Time Lord. The man Rickston owed his life - and his wealth.
He hadn’t thought he’d ever see him again. Only briefly did he wonder how the man had gotten in here, since he would surely have remembered inviting him - but then he didn’t even know his real name and the guest list was full of people he’d never met.
A smile of genuine delight spread over Rickston’s face; he could feel the movement of muscles he hadn’t used in a long time. Over there the man laughed at something that had been said, answered and the people around him laughed even harder. Then he looked up, spotted Rickston, and the smile vanished from his face in an instant.
The expression that replaced it was one of disapproval and dislike. Rickston didn’t care (much). He was the richest man on the planet. No-one disapproved of him for long.
Thanks to various other people wanting to steal his time he needed a few minutes to get over to him. His patience, however, had disintegrated and his amount of civilities for this evening had already been spent.
By the time he reached his old acquaintance the group surrounding him had scattered and he was leaning against the counter alone, watching the crowd. When Rickston took the place beside him he didn’t bother to acknowledge his presence and his expression didn’t lighten.
“Doctor,” he greeted him with a broad smile. “It’s been a while.”
The Doctor still didn’t look at him.
“So this is your party,” he said darkly. “I should have guessed.”
Had this been anyone else Rickston would have asked how they could possibly not have known. Here he didn’t even wonder.
“So you didn’t come to see me, I understand?”
“You understand correctly.”
His voice was cold but Slade would not be discouraged.
“Anyway. Since you’re here, I would like to thank you for saving my life on the Titanic. Properly.” He smiled his most charming smile. “I can give you anything you want.”
“There is nothing I’d want from you.”
“Anything,” Rickston repeated. “I used my money wisely. Now am richer than anyone else in this system.”
“And I haven’t got a penny.” The Doctor said it as if that would somehow make him better than Slade.
He still looked the same: still thin, his hair still ruffled, his eyes still dark and full of pain. Rickston watched the profile of a face that wouldn’t turn to him.
“You haven’t changed at all.”
Now the Doctor did look at him. Looked him up and down, briefly, and said:
“Neither have you.”
Without another word he disappeared into the crowd.
-
It wasn’t hard finding him again since he seemed to attract the attention of the people wherever he showed up. For the time being, though, Rickston was perfectly content with just watching him from a distance.
The Doctor chatted with a handful of men - important men, he noticed. Politicians, mainly. It didn’t seem random. Rickston made a mental note of talking to them later, to find out what he’d wanted. Maybe he could find something to rouse the Doctor’s interest after all.
It wasn’t like the obvious rejection had hurt his feelings. Rickston Slade had never cared much for what others thought of him, but in this case the Doctor’s dislike could make things difficult.
Because Rickston wanted him.
Many women and men had caught his fancy in his life, but it had seldom been more than a mild interest or purely sexual attraction and it had never been strong enough to distract him from business. This was different. Maybe, he mused, it was some kind of hero-worship - the mystery surrounding that man, the fascination or the fact that Rickston had spend the past seven years wondering about him. He’d fantasized about those slender hands, that long neck, kept thinking of the skinny limbs hidden inside a narrow tuxedo, whenever he’d found the time for thoughts like that. Distant thoughts of a man he’d been sure he’d never see again. The moment he’d spotted him across the hall he hadn’t been able to think much at all, but his groin had reacted all the same, and now, watching the Doctor talk and laugh with others or move his angular body through the crowd he felt a warm feeling spreading through his body.
He wanted him in his bed. Wanted him squirming and moaning and begging beneath him, wanted him helpless and at his mercy. It was more that just physical attraction - it was desire, almost overwhelming, the urge to just go over there and claim that man who so stubbornly refused to be impressed by him. He wouldn’t do it, of course - not his style. The Doctor would come with him, in the end, but he would do it of his own free will. Rickston only had to lure him with something he couldn’t resist.
Everyone wanted something. And there was nothing Rickston Slade’s wealth and influence couldn’t offer.
Okay, maybe that disapproval had stung a little. He was powerful now, and important. And of all people the man who’d made it all possible, the one man he wanted to acknowledge him refused to care.
The dark-harried stranger he’d seen earlier appeared in his field of vision but this time he failed to capture Slade’s attention. Until he went up to the Doctor, touched his arm and whispered something in his ear. The Doctor nodded once and said something in return. They seemed to know each other well.
Then the man’s eyes met Rickston’s again, and he smiled, but this time there was no playfulness in it. One second later he dragged the Doctor to the dance floor, pulled him into a dance with steps Rickston had never seen before. They went along with the music, though, and the stranger was leading, his hand resting low on the Doctor’s back without ever slipping down to grab his arse. The Doctor looked confused for a moment, then slightly annoyed. They exchanged a few words and the Doctor grinned, and allowed himself to be lead a little longer before he slipped out of the man’s grasp and returned to the couple he’d been talking to. All the time he seemed completely oblivious to Rickston’s attention, but the other man wasn’t - once during their dancing he looked at him with a half-grin and eyes that said: Do not touch! Mine! Rickston nearly snorted at that. He hadn’t failed to notice that Doctor had seemed impressively unaffected by the other man practically grinding their groins together, and that the stranger had never let the hand on the Doctor’s back wander lower though he clearly wanted to. Slade might not have been the sharpest observer ever when it came to people and relationships, but he wasn’t blind.
Not that it mattered, in the end.
It wasn’t long after that that the man approached Rickston. He was carrying a glass of champagne and a flirty grin on his face. No sign of the former warning in his eyes, and Slade found it hard to assess him.
“Captain Jack Harkness,” he introduced himself and offered his hand to shake. An Earth custom, which meant he’d either studied Rickston and his affectations quite well or was a lot more interesting than he had thought.
“Rickston Slade,” he smiled back, a little calculating. No point in avoiding the topic, he decided, since the Captain had seen him watching them. “You came here with him? The ‘Time Lord’” He did not move his fingers to indicate the quotation marks, but made sure they were audible in his voice. Audible quotation marks were a speciality of his.
Harkness raised his eyebrows at him.
“True,” he said. “But I didn’t come to talk about him.”
“A pity, since he’s such an interesting topic to talk about.”
The other man laughed but Rickston couldn’t fail to notice the way he was watching him, and suddenly he found it hard to estimate his age, for his eyes seemed so much older than his face. “You know him well?” he added.
“I know he doesn’t like you,” Harkness said openly.
Rickston decided not to go the subtle way - it didn’t suit him.
“Is there any way to make him like me a little more?” he asked outright. The Captain smirked.
“Do good. Be selfless and brilliant. Impress him.”
“I am the richest man on Sto. I could give him anything. He doesn’t want it.”
“If money is all you have to offer, you’re not getting anywhere with him. A decent personality is all it usually needs. From his reaction I wouldn’t say you’ve got too much of that.”
Now Rickston was getting annoyed.
“You said you didn’t want to talk about him. What exactly did you come here for?”
Harkness leaned closer. His voice was playful. His words were not:
“I’ve come to not talk about him. When the Doctor dislikes someone there’s usually a reason for it, and I’ve seen the way you watched him. Leave him alone!”
“Are you threatening me?” Rickston leaned back and stared at him in a mixture of shock, surprise and a hint of delight.
“I’m warning you,” the man said reasonably. Rickston frowned.
“What are you, his keeper?”
“If I have to be,” Harkness nodded seriously. He raised his glass at him, emptied it and walked away. Rickston watched him with one raised eyebrow. This man was dangerous, he could tell. If Slade hurt the Doctor in any way he could very well guess what the Captain would do to him. If possible that only strengthened his determination to drag the Time Lord into his bed. He was a gambler, after all, and for years there had been no risk of losing in any of his games. Maybe that was what he had missed for so long.
Anyway. A member of the cabinet of Sto neared the counter to get a re-fill of his glass. Rickston’d seen the Doctor talk to him earlier. Time to find out what about.
-
It was still more than an hour to the second fireworks and the garden was deserted. It was dark out here, only a few lights up in the trees giving some illumination. The Doctor was standing on the narrow, cobbled path leading to the pond, looking pale and ghost-like in the scarce light.
The noise of the party seemed to fall behind the moment Rickston left the house through the open gates. He didn’t know why the Doctor had come out here and didn’t really care - important was that he was here, all alone, with his self-proclaimed protector still in the house.
The Doctor’s expression was one of some distrust and a lot of annoyance. Rickston almost expected him to roll his eyes but he didn’t.
“What do you want?” he asked darkly.
Rickston didn’t say: ‘You.’ He had opted for the direct approach, but that seemed a little too direct.
“I’d rather like to hear what you want.”
“Nothing you could give me, I assure you,” the Doctor said and turned to walk away. Rickston followed.
“Did I mention that I am incredibly rich?”
“It might have slipped your tongue, yeah.”
Slade refused to be discouraged by his disinterest.
“Being rich means having a lot of influence,” he continued. “I have friends in the government. In fact, I more or less own the government.”
The Doctor stopped.
“Your point being?” He still sounded dismissive, but Rickston could tell he was listening now.
“One word from me and they’d do anything. There isn’t one of them who doesn’t owe me quite a lot of favours.”
Now the Doctor looked at him, for the first time ever giving him his full attention. In his eyes there was a strange mixture of hope and suspicion. His gaze made Rickston feel uncomfortable, but also told him he was finally getting somewhere.
“For example the fugitives from the Geltarinan War,” Rickston said when the Doctor refused to speak. “A ship was caught trespassing in our system. A thousand fugitives aboard. The authorities had them all arrested for espionage and want to execute them without a trial in three days. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? I spoke to the minister.” Now he smiled, and the Doctor still didn’t say anything. “I’d only have to make a phone call, and they’d be freed. But if you think you can find another way to save them, go ahead. After all that worked perfectly last time we met, didn’t it?”
The Doctor’s expression seemed to be set in stone.
“Why?” he wanted to know. “I can’t see you offering this out of pure generosity.”
“I did say I wanted to thank you for saving me,” Rickston said, stepping closer until he they were nearly touching. “But you’re right: I do expect another favour in return. After all you saved only three lives, and I will save a thousand.” Okay, there had been the billions of people on the planet below, but those were just faceless strangers.
“What do you want?” The Doctor sounded weary, yet he did not move when Rickston leaned closer.
“You,” the businessman finally said, breathing the word into the Doctor’s face. He was so close that his lips brushed against the other’s when he spoke. “In my bed.” He leaned back a little, but not much, and the Doctor stood perfectly still. Rickston could feel his bony figure through the layers of clothing separating them, and his breath on his face as he spoke:
“What would you get out of that?” If not for the tone in the Doctor’s voice Rickston would have laughed. He couldn’t believe he’d just heard that question. If the Doctor needed to ask there would be little point in explaining his motivation, so he didn’t.
“For one night you will be mine, doing anything I say,” he clarified his proposal. “There are just about one thousand prisoners and for every hour you stay with me one hundred will be released. It’s a perfectly safe way to free them.” His fingers trailed down the Doctor’s fine-boned face. “What do you say?”
The Time Lord still didn’t move back, and his gaze was still calm - yet full of contempt. Rickston probably couldn’t sink any lower in his regard, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want his heart, he waned his body. He wanted him!
If Captain Harkness had heard their conversation he’d probably have strangled Rickston on the spot. But the only people around were him and the Doctor, and the Doctor stared at him with his dark, angry gaze and said:
“How do I know you’ll keep your promise?”
“I will organize the release of a hundred prisoners after every hour. If I don’t you can leave anytime.”
The Doctor glared at him.
“You will find that indeed I can,” he said, then offered Rickston his hand to shake. “We have a deal,” he added. “Don’t break it.”
Something in his voice made him shudder.
Part 2
Prompt: #006 - Hours
Claim: The Time War
Table: Here
Spoilers: Voyage of the Damned
Warnings: Non-Con (or at least extemely shady consent, depending on who you ask)
Characters/Pairings: Rickston Slade/Doctor (10), Jack
Summary: There are very few things money can't buy. One of them is a conscience, but that isn't something Rickston Slade wants anyway.
Note: Dedicated to sarkywoman. Split into two parts due to lenght. First part = 6 pages pseudo-plot, second part = 8 pages sex. Do not expect anything from it.
The display of fireworks was over. Well, the first anyway. There would be another later at night, and hopefully until then the clouds would clear away so they would be able to admire the expensive spectacle before the background of the stars. For now the guests all took their drinks and scuffled back inside. There was no particular reason for that, since it wasn’t cold and wasn’t raining. Maybe they just felt better in the artificial light of the chandeliers from Earth - and why not? They had been expensive enough.
Not that money was an issue, these days.
Rickston Slade considered himself blessed by the gods. He did not actually believe in any gods, neither those of planet Sto nor any of the other countless deities out there, but it sounded good: Blessed by the gods. The words said that a higher power was watching over him, working for his benefit, and what would prove them wrong? He’d inherited a fortune, been in the right place at the right time, survived a catastrophe in a space-ship as one of four passengers when thousands died and it made him even richer than before. So rich that he could import chandeliers and furniture from Earth - he had developed a liking for that planet after nearly dying in its atmosphere. So rich that he cursed himself for not bribing the people at the Weather Control Centre into giving him a clear sky for his fireworks.
Oh well. This would hardly be the last party this year. In fact it was the first, since it was past midnight. Another custom he’d copied from Earth: greeting the new year with a big party and fireworks. Interesting planet, that. One day he’d actually have to visit it.
He was the only one on Sto to celebrate the beginning of the year this way and so his party was well attended. Hundreds of people were laughing and dancing in the halls of his mansion: celebrities, politicians and quite a few he had never seen or heard of but surely were important in any way. They had to be. Otherwise they wouldn’t be here.
Not that anyone would have declined his invitation even if there had been thousands of parties going on. He was the richest man on the planet after all, he was charming, he was gracious and he was very influential. In other words, his money got him everything he’d ever dreamed of. And that was incredibly shallow, some might say, but they didn’t dare to say it in his face and that was perfectly fine with him.
Rickston smiled into his glass of champagne and let his eyes wander over the guests and the servants and the luxury that was only one of his homes. Looking back, having been on the Titanic when it was hit by a meteor shower had been the best thing that ever happened to him. Of course he hadn’t quite thought so when he’d held on for dear life to an old man while the ship was falling toward the planet’s surface. Thankfully they’d had their gods watching over them. One god, at least.
The Time Lord. Rickston smirked a little, putting down his empty glass and getting himself a full one. He’d looked it up once he’d been back home and safe and had at little time at his hands. Of course that period of his life had been a particularly busy one, thanks to the fact that he’d just become incredibly rich, and more than two months had passed before he’d found the time, but he was excellent at taking mental notes. All he’d bothered to remember were the words Time Lord, Gallifrey and Kasterborous. Okay, he’d written them down on the way back home, just to make sure. He wouldn’t have needed the note to remember - this he knew for sure since he couldn’t find it by the time he actually decided to do some research.
The main problem had been that he didn’t really know how ‘Kasterborous’ was spelled.
The planet Gallifrey was not listed in the Galactic Encyclopaedia. No-one he asked had ever heard of the Time Lords. The history archives of the cyber-net had no entry concerning a race of that name.
It was a forum about legends that gave him his answers.
An old myth, about a race of powerful, godlike beings that lived outside of the known cosmos and had space and time bending to their will. Beings that could do things no-one else could do, that had ships that were bigger inside than out. One legend told of a war, and that the Lords of Time were defeated and forever banned from this universe. Another legend said that they simply got bored with this cosmos and left to play somewhere else. Either way, what Rickston Slade had learned from it was that the planet of Gallifrey, with its twin suns and its orange sky, had never existed and neither had the Time Lords. He’d felt a little annoyed with himself at that time, because, seen from a distance, the way the stranger had introduced himself had been a little too pompous to be taken seriously, and he had taken it seriously, back then. They all had, he could tell. They had been scared and desperate and lost and when there had been a man who said I’m a god and I can save you they’d believed him.
They’d believed him. And Rickston was still alive, so as far as he was concerned that guy had done a good job.
The title he’d chosen for himself might have been pompous but after seeing what he could do Rickston decided that he deserved it. He’d wanted to be one of the Time Lords from the myths? Well, he was a Time Lord. Except that he couldn’t turn back time and undo what should never have happened. They’d all seen that he couldn’t.
In the end he’d been simply powerless. Defeated. Human.
And Rickston had found himself crying at the sight of that waitress turning to dust, for the first and only time ever sharing another person’s grief. He blamed it, later, on the exhaustion and the emotional stress of nearly dying.
He had avoided situations such as that in the seven years that had passed since. The most exiting moments of his life nowadays were checking his financial status once a week, and that was exiting enough. At least it was satisfying.
His glass was empty again. If he continued drinking at his rate he’d be drunk by the time of the second fireworks. He considered the idea for a moment, then decided to find another way to pass the time.
A young and beautiful actress smiled at him across the room. He’d gone out with her once, a nice evening that had ended in an even nicer night. He smiled back and started moving toward her, to ask for the next dance, but after two steps he was pulled into a political discussion by a few friends and business partners. Something about fugitives from another planet and that war going on there. He didn’t really pay attention.
Wealth did not spare him all of the necessary courtesies and so he needed a few minutes to escape. When he looked for the lady in the crowd he couldn’t find her. Instead his eyes met those of a dark-harried, handsome man who raised his glass and winked at him. Rickston had no idea who he was but didn’t care much - the man was attractive, obviously interested and it wasn’t like the society of Sto wasn’t accepting of sexual flexibility. Not if one had that much money.
He wondered if he could find the actress and leave the party for a quick threesome in his bedroom.
But the man’s eyes wandered elsewhere, just briefly, and he smiled at whatever he saw, not flirty like before but full of affection. Rickston followed his gaze and the only thing that saved his glass from slipping from his fingers and shattering on the floor was the fact that he had put it on the table a few minutes ago. Leaning against the wooden counter in front of the windows, surrounded by a group of laughing men and women, was the Time Lord. The man Rickston owed his life - and his wealth.
He hadn’t thought he’d ever see him again. Only briefly did he wonder how the man had gotten in here, since he would surely have remembered inviting him - but then he didn’t even know his real name and the guest list was full of people he’d never met.
A smile of genuine delight spread over Rickston’s face; he could feel the movement of muscles he hadn’t used in a long time. Over there the man laughed at something that had been said, answered and the people around him laughed even harder. Then he looked up, spotted Rickston, and the smile vanished from his face in an instant.
The expression that replaced it was one of disapproval and dislike. Rickston didn’t care (much). He was the richest man on the planet. No-one disapproved of him for long.
Thanks to various other people wanting to steal his time he needed a few minutes to get over to him. His patience, however, had disintegrated and his amount of civilities for this evening had already been spent.
By the time he reached his old acquaintance the group surrounding him had scattered and he was leaning against the counter alone, watching the crowd. When Rickston took the place beside him he didn’t bother to acknowledge his presence and his expression didn’t lighten.
“Doctor,” he greeted him with a broad smile. “It’s been a while.”
The Doctor still didn’t look at him.
“So this is your party,” he said darkly. “I should have guessed.”
Had this been anyone else Rickston would have asked how they could possibly not have known. Here he didn’t even wonder.
“So you didn’t come to see me, I understand?”
“You understand correctly.”
His voice was cold but Slade would not be discouraged.
“Anyway. Since you’re here, I would like to thank you for saving my life on the Titanic. Properly.” He smiled his most charming smile. “I can give you anything you want.”
“There is nothing I’d want from you.”
“Anything,” Rickston repeated. “I used my money wisely. Now am richer than anyone else in this system.”
“And I haven’t got a penny.” The Doctor said it as if that would somehow make him better than Slade.
He still looked the same: still thin, his hair still ruffled, his eyes still dark and full of pain. Rickston watched the profile of a face that wouldn’t turn to him.
“You haven’t changed at all.”
Now the Doctor did look at him. Looked him up and down, briefly, and said:
“Neither have you.”
Without another word he disappeared into the crowd.
-
It wasn’t hard finding him again since he seemed to attract the attention of the people wherever he showed up. For the time being, though, Rickston was perfectly content with just watching him from a distance.
The Doctor chatted with a handful of men - important men, he noticed. Politicians, mainly. It didn’t seem random. Rickston made a mental note of talking to them later, to find out what he’d wanted. Maybe he could find something to rouse the Doctor’s interest after all.
It wasn’t like the obvious rejection had hurt his feelings. Rickston Slade had never cared much for what others thought of him, but in this case the Doctor’s dislike could make things difficult.
Because Rickston wanted him.
Many women and men had caught his fancy in his life, but it had seldom been more than a mild interest or purely sexual attraction and it had never been strong enough to distract him from business. This was different. Maybe, he mused, it was some kind of hero-worship - the mystery surrounding that man, the fascination or the fact that Rickston had spend the past seven years wondering about him. He’d fantasized about those slender hands, that long neck, kept thinking of the skinny limbs hidden inside a narrow tuxedo, whenever he’d found the time for thoughts like that. Distant thoughts of a man he’d been sure he’d never see again. The moment he’d spotted him across the hall he hadn’t been able to think much at all, but his groin had reacted all the same, and now, watching the Doctor talk and laugh with others or move his angular body through the crowd he felt a warm feeling spreading through his body.
He wanted him in his bed. Wanted him squirming and moaning and begging beneath him, wanted him helpless and at his mercy. It was more that just physical attraction - it was desire, almost overwhelming, the urge to just go over there and claim that man who so stubbornly refused to be impressed by him. He wouldn’t do it, of course - not his style. The Doctor would come with him, in the end, but he would do it of his own free will. Rickston only had to lure him with something he couldn’t resist.
Everyone wanted something. And there was nothing Rickston Slade’s wealth and influence couldn’t offer.
Okay, maybe that disapproval had stung a little. He was powerful now, and important. And of all people the man who’d made it all possible, the one man he wanted to acknowledge him refused to care.
The dark-harried stranger he’d seen earlier appeared in his field of vision but this time he failed to capture Slade’s attention. Until he went up to the Doctor, touched his arm and whispered something in his ear. The Doctor nodded once and said something in return. They seemed to know each other well.
Then the man’s eyes met Rickston’s again, and he smiled, but this time there was no playfulness in it. One second later he dragged the Doctor to the dance floor, pulled him into a dance with steps Rickston had never seen before. They went along with the music, though, and the stranger was leading, his hand resting low on the Doctor’s back without ever slipping down to grab his arse. The Doctor looked confused for a moment, then slightly annoyed. They exchanged a few words and the Doctor grinned, and allowed himself to be lead a little longer before he slipped out of the man’s grasp and returned to the couple he’d been talking to. All the time he seemed completely oblivious to Rickston’s attention, but the other man wasn’t - once during their dancing he looked at him with a half-grin and eyes that said: Do not touch! Mine! Rickston nearly snorted at that. He hadn’t failed to notice that Doctor had seemed impressively unaffected by the other man practically grinding their groins together, and that the stranger had never let the hand on the Doctor’s back wander lower though he clearly wanted to. Slade might not have been the sharpest observer ever when it came to people and relationships, but he wasn’t blind.
Not that it mattered, in the end.
It wasn’t long after that that the man approached Rickston. He was carrying a glass of champagne and a flirty grin on his face. No sign of the former warning in his eyes, and Slade found it hard to assess him.
“Captain Jack Harkness,” he introduced himself and offered his hand to shake. An Earth custom, which meant he’d either studied Rickston and his affectations quite well or was a lot more interesting than he had thought.
“Rickston Slade,” he smiled back, a little calculating. No point in avoiding the topic, he decided, since the Captain had seen him watching them. “You came here with him? The ‘Time Lord’” He did not move his fingers to indicate the quotation marks, but made sure they were audible in his voice. Audible quotation marks were a speciality of his.
Harkness raised his eyebrows at him.
“True,” he said. “But I didn’t come to talk about him.”
“A pity, since he’s such an interesting topic to talk about.”
The other man laughed but Rickston couldn’t fail to notice the way he was watching him, and suddenly he found it hard to estimate his age, for his eyes seemed so much older than his face. “You know him well?” he added.
“I know he doesn’t like you,” Harkness said openly.
Rickston decided not to go the subtle way - it didn’t suit him.
“Is there any way to make him like me a little more?” he asked outright. The Captain smirked.
“Do good. Be selfless and brilliant. Impress him.”
“I am the richest man on Sto. I could give him anything. He doesn’t want it.”
“If money is all you have to offer, you’re not getting anywhere with him. A decent personality is all it usually needs. From his reaction I wouldn’t say you’ve got too much of that.”
Now Rickston was getting annoyed.
“You said you didn’t want to talk about him. What exactly did you come here for?”
Harkness leaned closer. His voice was playful. His words were not:
“I’ve come to not talk about him. When the Doctor dislikes someone there’s usually a reason for it, and I’ve seen the way you watched him. Leave him alone!”
“Are you threatening me?” Rickston leaned back and stared at him in a mixture of shock, surprise and a hint of delight.
“I’m warning you,” the man said reasonably. Rickston frowned.
“What are you, his keeper?”
“If I have to be,” Harkness nodded seriously. He raised his glass at him, emptied it and walked away. Rickston watched him with one raised eyebrow. This man was dangerous, he could tell. If Slade hurt the Doctor in any way he could very well guess what the Captain would do to him. If possible that only strengthened his determination to drag the Time Lord into his bed. He was a gambler, after all, and for years there had been no risk of losing in any of his games. Maybe that was what he had missed for so long.
Anyway. A member of the cabinet of Sto neared the counter to get a re-fill of his glass. Rickston’d seen the Doctor talk to him earlier. Time to find out what about.
-
It was still more than an hour to the second fireworks and the garden was deserted. It was dark out here, only a few lights up in the trees giving some illumination. The Doctor was standing on the narrow, cobbled path leading to the pond, looking pale and ghost-like in the scarce light.
The noise of the party seemed to fall behind the moment Rickston left the house through the open gates. He didn’t know why the Doctor had come out here and didn’t really care - important was that he was here, all alone, with his self-proclaimed protector still in the house.
The Doctor’s expression was one of some distrust and a lot of annoyance. Rickston almost expected him to roll his eyes but he didn’t.
“What do you want?” he asked darkly.
Rickston didn’t say: ‘You.’ He had opted for the direct approach, but that seemed a little too direct.
“I’d rather like to hear what you want.”
“Nothing you could give me, I assure you,” the Doctor said and turned to walk away. Rickston followed.
“Did I mention that I am incredibly rich?”
“It might have slipped your tongue, yeah.”
Slade refused to be discouraged by his disinterest.
“Being rich means having a lot of influence,” he continued. “I have friends in the government. In fact, I more or less own the government.”
The Doctor stopped.
“Your point being?” He still sounded dismissive, but Rickston could tell he was listening now.
“One word from me and they’d do anything. There isn’t one of them who doesn’t owe me quite a lot of favours.”
Now the Doctor looked at him, for the first time ever giving him his full attention. In his eyes there was a strange mixture of hope and suspicion. His gaze made Rickston feel uncomfortable, but also told him he was finally getting somewhere.
“For example the fugitives from the Geltarinan War,” Rickston said when the Doctor refused to speak. “A ship was caught trespassing in our system. A thousand fugitives aboard. The authorities had them all arrested for espionage and want to execute them without a trial in three days. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? I spoke to the minister.” Now he smiled, and the Doctor still didn’t say anything. “I’d only have to make a phone call, and they’d be freed. But if you think you can find another way to save them, go ahead. After all that worked perfectly last time we met, didn’t it?”
The Doctor’s expression seemed to be set in stone.
“Why?” he wanted to know. “I can’t see you offering this out of pure generosity.”
“I did say I wanted to thank you for saving me,” Rickston said, stepping closer until he they were nearly touching. “But you’re right: I do expect another favour in return. After all you saved only three lives, and I will save a thousand.” Okay, there had been the billions of people on the planet below, but those were just faceless strangers.
“What do you want?” The Doctor sounded weary, yet he did not move when Rickston leaned closer.
“You,” the businessman finally said, breathing the word into the Doctor’s face. He was so close that his lips brushed against the other’s when he spoke. “In my bed.” He leaned back a little, but not much, and the Doctor stood perfectly still. Rickston could feel his bony figure through the layers of clothing separating them, and his breath on his face as he spoke:
“What would you get out of that?” If not for the tone in the Doctor’s voice Rickston would have laughed. He couldn’t believe he’d just heard that question. If the Doctor needed to ask there would be little point in explaining his motivation, so he didn’t.
“For one night you will be mine, doing anything I say,” he clarified his proposal. “There are just about one thousand prisoners and for every hour you stay with me one hundred will be released. It’s a perfectly safe way to free them.” His fingers trailed down the Doctor’s fine-boned face. “What do you say?”
The Time Lord still didn’t move back, and his gaze was still calm - yet full of contempt. Rickston probably couldn’t sink any lower in his regard, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want his heart, he waned his body. He wanted him!
If Captain Harkness had heard their conversation he’d probably have strangled Rickston on the spot. But the only people around were him and the Doctor, and the Doctor stared at him with his dark, angry gaze and said:
“How do I know you’ll keep your promise?”
“I will organize the release of a hundred prisoners after every hour. If I don’t you can leave anytime.”
The Doctor glared at him.
“You will find that indeed I can,” he said, then offered Rickston his hand to shake. “We have a deal,” he added. “Don’t break it.”
Something in his voice made him shudder.
Part 2