Title: Four Hearts, Three Tongues, Two Brown Suits and One Love.
Author: Iby.
Rating: PG.15.
Genre: Romance, humour, romance, fluff and a little more romance. Variety is the spice of life, after all.
Characters and Pairings: The Tenth Doctor, Rose; Rose/Ten.
Spoilers: Journey's End.
Author's Note: A non-cracky take on a cracky idea.
Summary: They both want to be the chief-pilot of the TARDIS. They both want to wear the brown pinstripes. They both love her. It is this truth that lets them live out their lives, together, even if she can't always tell them apart.



“You cannot be serious,” Rose grumbled around her cup of tea, her tone laced through with anger, amusement and exasperation. She poked a finger in the direction of both Doctors, who were stood beside each other and framed in the doorway to the kitchen. “You can’t do this to me.”

The Doctor closest to her shrugged his brown pinstriped shoulders and bounced into the room, pouncing on the teapot in a flurry. “I told him to take it off, but he simply refuses!” He turned in a huff and began to prepare the tea. Although his back was to her, Rose heard him mumble, “stubborn gitty-git,” under his breath.

The Doctor still stood in the doorway squared his brown pinstriped shoulders, which might have been impressive were they somewhat broader. “Why don’t you take it off?! We all know that brown looks better on me anyway.” He ran a hand seductively down his chest, delighting in the material and twirled in a little circle, hoping to catch sight of his own bum.

The Doctor who was making tea whirled around to face his counterpart, and the mugs rattled a little on the bench. Rose sprung up from her chair to settle them further away from the edge. Honestly.

“That,” the Doctor griped whilst waving a partially-opened tin of tea-leaves around, “is the most ridiculous thing you have said since you got here. We look exactly the same. Don’t we, Rose? You can’t even tell us apart!”

When a particularly violent sweep of his arm dislodged the lid and launched a handful of tea right at Rose’s head, she felt any shreds of patience she’d had left dissipate. However, instead of finding herself angry with them and their impossible antics, she just felt a deep melancholy spread through her. “No. No, I can’t.”

With that, she left the room.

. . . .

Glumly, both Doctors sat at the kitchen table, their tea warming their noses as they stared into the contents of their cups in search of answers.

“You should wear the brown,” the Doctor offered softly, finding and flicking a few stray tea leaves from his shirt cuff. He really had gotten a bit too carried away.

“No,” the Doctor, much cleaner than his other self, objected, “we were in the brown when we found her, back on that street. We were still completely Time-Lord then. That was before me.” Standing, he made his way over to the teapot. He poured himself another cup and perched on the edge of the bench, swinging his legs gently to and fro.

“You deserve the brown.”

Somewhat violently, the Doctor kicked his Converse-clad heels against the cupboard beneath his feet. “You deserve the brown too!”

The Doctor swivelled in his chair to face himself. “Between you and me, or…me and me, we both know that I’m the Time Lord and that you’re the Human.”

“Part-human, ta,” the Doctor interjected as he resumed swinging his legs, a slight tapping as his feet hit wood the only other noise in the room.

“Part-human,” the Doctor parroted, slightly mocking. “You’re the one that can say everything that needs to be said. You’re the one that can do everything that people who are in love are supposed to do.”

“Piffle! Besides, you slept with her last week, so you’re capable of doing those things." His tone held no animosity and more surprisingly, no jealousy.

The Doctor stilled in his chair. “How did you…? Did she, erm, did she say something?” He trailed off at a decibel that would have done even a soprano proud.

“Nope. You got a little enthusiastic up here,” the Doctor tapped his temple, smiling at the way his haughty, completely Time Lord self blushed a deep red. “Besides, she could barely look at me the next day.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. I think she was feeling guilty. Shied away from me when…well,” for the first time in the conversation, the slightly human Doctor felt awkward. “Well, you know that I’ve been – that is to say that I’ve been…”

The Doctor rolled his now empty mug back and forth on the kitchen table, in the hopes of distracting himself from his thoughts, which was quite difficult when they were being aired by a version of himself that he couldn’t control. “You’ve been sleeping with her too. I know.” He tapped his own temple. “Do you think…do you think that she regretted it? Regrets it?”

“No,” the Doctor said, stilling his feet with one final thud against the wooden cupboards. “I don’t think she regrets any of it. You know, it occurs to me that we’re both-”

“Idiots? Gits? Daft? Even more dense than a Shrubbery from Ni?”

“Yup,” the Doctor popped the P as he slid down from the bench to stand. “We’ve both been gifted this wonderful pink and yellow thing, this incredible woman whose head doesn’t explode at the thought of loving and making love to two of the same person and we’ve acted like idiots. We’ve been trying to outdo each other, even though she told us…”

They both stilled for a moment, caught up in shared memory.

Rose pressed her left hand to the chest covered in blue and her right hand to the chest covered in brown. Different thuppathuppathuppa rhythms beat against her palms, but they both sped up as a result of her touch in a surprisingly similar, endearing way.

She radiated nervousness, but her brave words were spoken nonetheless; “I can love you both, if you’ll let me.”

“Let’s go,” the Doctor said as he sprung up from his chair. It skittered backwards along the wooden floor.

With resolute nods at each other, they both left the kitchen.

. . . .

The fog of sleep slowly thinning, Rose heard, “will you bloody stop touching her breasts? You’ll wake her up,” spoken from somewhere near her nose.

“Oh, right,” floated passed her ear from behind her, “I’m not allowed to touch her breasts, but you can talk directly into her face. That won’t wake her up at all.”

“You’re the one that chose to sleep behind her, which I think only goes to show how daft you really are. Everybody knows that the front is the prime cuddle spot. She’s all soft and squishy on the front.”

Rose snuffled softly and if, when she stretched a little, she accidentally knocked the chin of the body in front of her with her knuckles, nobody could possibly have proven that it was done deliberately.

“Ssssssshhhhhhh,” the both indignantly whispered to each other before going very, very, very still. It was all Rose could do not to giggle at their antics; part human or completely Time Lord, they were both just big kids.

“Ok,” said the voice behind her, “this is supposed to be the hour of our reconciliation. Because we both love Rose, we’re not going to fight anymore.”

Rose nearly gasped when she realized that she could feel two hearts beating against her back, but she managed to stop herself at the last minute. She thought about it for a second before deciding that it hardly mattered who said what when they were both snuggled against her.

The Doctor was cuddled up against her back. The Doctor was cuddled up against her front. The Doctor had his arm curled around her side. The Doctor had his arm curled around her shoulders. The Doctor had his fingers gently cupping her breast. The Doctor had his fingers threaded through her hair. The Doctor was hard, pressed against her bum. The Doctor was hard, pressed against her belly.

Rose blinked her eyes open and was met by two sets of chocolate brown orbs. One gazing at her from the pillow beside her head, the other gazing at her from above as he leaned up and over her.

“Hello,” she whispered to them both before a flash of black caught her eye. “Your tux. You’re…you’re wearing your tuxedo,” she said breathlessly.

The Doctor nodded and wiggled closer to her, shifting his hand from her hair to her shoulder. “Yup. In deference to the more elderly amongst us,” he jutted his chin at the two hearted, pinstriped Doctor propped up over her, “I have decided to forgo both the brown and the blue, in favour of this; the tuxedo, the height of suave. It’s as flexible as anything else I’ve got and it’s seen me through many dangers.”

“Don’t mind him,” ghosted over her ear, “he’s just an idiot. We both know that I’m all about being chocolatey and ruffled, not silky and suave.”

Rose squeaked.

“Yes, well. If you’re quite done trying to outdo me like the absolute child that you are. I” he poked his chest, inside which only one heart beat, “am the bigger person, and I am here to say that we’re sorry.”

“Yes, we’re sorry,” was whispered against the skin of her neck. “One of us should have changed before going into the kitchen. It wasn’t funny, making you unsure which of us was which. I know you’ve said that it doesn’t matter. I know you’ve said that you…that you…” he trailed off, visibly distressed by his inability to say what he wanted to say. Rose could feel both of his hearts speed up against her back as he panicked a little.

“Love us both,” the man in silk said softly for him, without a trace of teasing.

“Yes,” the Doctor said breathlessly as he smiled at himself in thanks. “I know you’ve said that. But…well, we just wanted you to know that even though we’re always going to drive each other ‘round the bend, we don’t take your lo…”

“Love,” Rose whispered for him as she rested her hand over his on her cotton-covered breast .

“Yes. We don’t take it lightly. You’re a beautiful, squishy, little human being and you've got a beautiful, squishy, little human brain and you’ve taken on two fully grown Time Lords. Yes, one heart or no, his mind is still that of a Time Lord’s, I have to admit.”

The Doctor in front of her moved and the silk piping of his trousers rubbed against her thigh. “We…we can live a life based loosely on days of the week and taking it in turns, but…we just wanted you to know that whenever you kiss one of us, whenever you make love to one of us, whenever you hug one of us…well, you’re kissing and loving and hugging the Doctor. The Doctor. No matter which one we might be.”

Even if Rose had known what to say in reply, she couldn’t have said it for fear of crying. She relaxed her body fully against them both instead, let them feel the tension and anxiety escape her.

“That being said, we’re not quite up for, you know…doing anything at the same time. Together. At least not quite yet. It’s kind of…masturbatory, and not in a good way.”

“You can’t say love, but you can say masturbatory?” the Doctor quipped, but his tone was light.

“We’ll get better at this,” Rose promised when she found that she could speak. “I love you.” She spoke to the shadows of her dimly lit room, so as to surround them all by the sentiment. “But…”

They stilled against her, and their three hearts sped up nervously.

“Sweet, daft, geniuses though you both might be, you clearly didn’t think through the idea that was getting into bed with me at the same time.” Rolling onto her back, they both wiggled closer to her and nuzzled her cheeks. For a moment, she had to focus on her breathing to stop herself from gasping at the feel of one erection pressing against her right hip and another pressing against her left.

She was slightly stunned at finding herself in such a situation; cuddled up in bed with two blokes who both very obviously wanted to make love to her, and very soon at that. She was entirely at a loss as to what she should do next. “So,” she said brightly, as if she was about to propose that they should all go for coffee and cake. “I hate to sound crass, but one of us has to be practical and of the three of us that's usually me: who exactly is going first?"

. . . .

. . . .

Very dialogue heavy. Writing this was a bit of a nightmare; it can be a little hard to distinguish between the two Doctors sometimes, but if you read with your glasses on the clues are all there. As long I haven't made too many mistakes, which is more than possible...in which case, Rose is confused, so let's all be confused with her! *g*

Also, yes, I admit, my imagination might have run away from me a little bit with this. Is there a girl or boy this side of the galaxy who wouldn't like to have two ruffled Doctors cuddled up against them?