Archive of Our Own

It was winter again, the seasonal change making itself loudly known to Fitz Kreiner as he bounded up the steps to the old blue house. The chill was complimented by the natural cold of the deep night, and Fitz was reluctant to take his hands out of his coat pockets to unlock the door. But it was sure to be marginally warmer inside, so he swore under his breath, digging out his keys and fighting with the lock, his haste to get inside making his movements sloppy. "Buggering... ha, finally," he murmured, breath visible in front of him.

He hurried inside, locking up after himself. Most of the lights were off, typical of the late hour. Fitz made an effort to be quiet as he set his guitar case aside, peeled off his jacket, and unwound the scarf from around his neck. Out of the winter air, he could feel himself coming down from the evening's activities. The buzz of alcohol faded into a dreamy lull now that the prickly, cruel cold of his trek home was gone. He fancied he'd sleep well that night, throat somewhat sore from a long night of singing, fingers equally so from playing. A small roll of pound notes in his jean pocket reminding him he'd managed to be paid for something he'd often do just for the joy of performance.

Fitz hummed to himself as he toed off his boots and meandered into the house proper. He walked through the kitchen, noting a light had been left on there. On the counter was a full teacup. He frowned at it in confusion, looking around before dipping a finger into it. Cold. "Not like him to forget tea..." He dumped the tea into the sink and flicked off the light before moving on, now much more wary.

Moonlight lit the living room, shining in through the open curtains, dyeing the entire scene a dark blue. Fitz's footsteps were light as he padded across the rug.

There wasn't much chance he'd wake his landlord, he found. As he rounded on the staircase, Fitz saw his way was blocked by the Doctor, laying across the steps halfway down, limbs loose and eyes shut.

"Shit. Shit!" Fitz burst into motion, hitting the lightswitch and launching himself to the Doctor's side, kneeling by him. His hands cupped the man's neck, thumb finding the Doctor's pulse. He let out a shaky sigh of relief. He wasn't dead, that was a start. Fitz looked back downstairs and yelled, "COMPASSION! Compassion, get your arse out of bed, I need you! The Doctor, he-" Fitz stopped abruptly, remembering.

Compassion was gone. She'd left a few weeks ago, no warning, just packed her bags and went off with some engineering bloke. He'd been excited for her at the time, if sad to see her go. Now, he felt abandoned. He took a long breath, trying to keep calm. He was the only one around for the Doctor these days. He had to handle things.

Beneath him, the Doctor stirred, moaning softly. Fitz leaned over him. "Doctor? Hey, I'm here, it's Fitz, I'm right here." The Doctor mumbled something unintelligible, turning his face into Fitz's hand. "Just stay right here, I'm gonna go fetch the phone. Don't move or-or anything, all right?"

He stood swiftly, having to ignore the way the Doctor tried to feebly catch hold of his shirt as he went, jumping down the stairs and grabbing the phone off the cradle in the living room. He was already dialing the Doctor's psychiatrist when he returned to his friend's side. The Doctor's eyes were open, blurrily tracking Fitz's face.

"You're back..."

"Of course. Just had to grab the phone, calling your doctor." He brushed the messy golden brown curls out of the Doctor's face.

"You came back home," the Doctor murmured. He shook his head, eyes focusing somewhat. "Don't call. I just tripped. Medication made me dizzy."

Fitz lowered the phone from his ear. "So it wasn't another...?"

"Just hit my head." He gave Fitz a warm smile, offering some reassurance. "I couldn't get back up."

"All right. Okay." Fitz ended the call, setting the phone to the side slowly. "You want some help?"

"Yes, if you would, please." The Doctor struggled to sit up, aided by Fitz as he lifted him from the ground. It took some doing on the narrow stairs, but soon the Doctor was leaning against Fitz, clutching his shoulders tightly. He did look rather dizzy, shutting his eyes and laying his head on Fitz's chest. "I feel rather unbalanced..."

"Take your time. I've got you. You're not going anywhere." Fitz leaned against the railing, content to hold onto the Doctor as he fought off his disorientation. It gave Fitz the time to relax, banish the nightmare of finding the Doctor like that, sprawled and helpless.

"You aren't either. Are you?" The Doctor's breath was warm against Fitz's collarbone. "You always come back."

Fitz smiled softly. He knew the Doctor was upset by Compassion's departure even more than he was. He played his records louder and louder each day, complaining about the quiet. Fitz knew that Compassion hadn't contributed noise to the house, but he felt her absence just the same way. He knew they both wanted to fill the hole she left any way they could. They wanted to pretend no one left, that their lives would remain interconnected. Fitz knew the Doctor was afraid his tenants would leave him.

"You can't get rid me that easily," Fitz whispered, rubbing the Doctor's back soothingly.

Fitz called in sick at his job to stay with the Doctor, too shaken up by the near disaster of the prior evening to leave him alone all day. From there, he took it on himself to convince the Doctor to let Fitz walk them down to his doctor's office. Bundled up, they walked over the icy streets, Fitz's hand wrapped around the Doctor's arm, steadying him. He couldn't stop thinking about how pale and frail his friend looked sometimes, like one good gust could knock him over.

"I don't have an appointment," the Doctor said sullenly.

"What you're paying him, he can make room for you," Fitz replied curtly. "Tell him you almost got a concussion last night from the stuff he gave you and you can't keep taking it."

The Doctor looked down, watching their feet as they trudged along. He looked somewhat guilty, as if Fitz was blaming him. "You're exaggerating. It was just a little stumble."

"Don't give me that. How long did you wait for me to get home? What if it'd been just a little worse, and I'd gone out and gotten pissed, then where would we be?"

"You worry so much over me."

"Ta, I do," he admitted. He squeezed the Doctor's arm a little. "I'll worry less when you're off this prescription."

That seemed to be incentive enough. The argument was dropped and upon reaching the Georgian house, the Doctor disappeared into his psychiatrist's office. Fitz loitered around, lighting up a fag and tapping out a drumbeat on his thighs as he leaned against a wall. Without his charge to look after, he felt antsy.

His mind strayed to Compassion again. Fitz wondered if, wherever she was, she thought about them anymore. He wondered if she worried about the Doctor the way he did. He suspected not. If she had, how could she just leave like that? No, she'd gotten out and he tried not to think of it was a wise move. On some level, she was escaping the responsibility of dealing with the Doctor when things got bad. But really, Fitz didn't think he could follow her lead. He was getting dangerously close to his thirties and what did he have to show for it? Compassion was whip smart and younger than he was. She had potential.

Fuck, Fitz realized. I'm settling down. I'm settling down with my landlord who sometimes thinks he's an alien time-traveler who defends Earth from other aliens.

"Fitz! Are you smoking in a patient's lounge?" Fitz jumped, startled, as the Doctor approached him.

"What?" When the practice office was someone's home, what made this a lounge? Was it just the virtue of how it was used?

"You can't smoke in here. Really, Fitz, you should know better."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." He looked around dumbly, looking for an ashtray before just opening the door and throwing his cigarette out into the snow.

The Doctor watched him curiously, surprised at the lack of protest. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, I'm good. How was the, er." He snapped his fingers, collecting his thoughts. "What'd your guy say?"

"Back on an old regimen until he can find something better suited to what I need. He said he's sorry for the stress he's caused you as well." Fitz nodded mutely. "Are you sure you're fine?"

"Yeah. Just thinking about stuff. So, back home?"

The Doctor smiled. "I believe so." Before Fitz could react, he threaded his arm through Fitz's.

Fitz didn't pull away, but such casual intimacy following his minor revelation made him nervous. "What's that for then?"

"I thought you wanted to make sure I didn't fall, like before." The Doctor's face was the picture of innocence. If he had any inkling that he was invading Fitz's personal space, it didn't show on him at all. He lead Fitz out of the house and back into the winter day. "I wanted to talk to you about our home. We have a surplus of room. I was considering putting an advert in the paper..."

For the longest time, Fitz was certain no one would come calling about the spare room of the house. He only vaguely remembered when he himself walked in to his home for the first time, looking for board. That was before the Doctor's spells had gotten so frequent. Nowadays, everyone knew about the kind but unhinged man in big blue house. Fitz was sure the rumors would chase everyone away.

But that wasn't the case. Granted there had only been one caller, but Anji Kapoor didn't look like the type to be easily put off. Fitz showed her around the newly cleaned bottom floor that would be hers. She seemed keen on the large bedroom and adjacent rooms that she'd have mostly to herself. Telling her about the Doctor's brilliant cooking seemed to seal the deal as far as he could tell.

"Very spacious, considering the rent," she remarked, sitting on the bed in what would be her room, bouncing on it experimentally. "I feel like there's a catch to all this."

"The Doctor likes having people around him. Helps keep him grounded," Fitz said, dodging the issue. "It's quiet out here, but we're in walking distance of most of the important places in town, should you need."

Anji nodded along, looking intently around the room. He couldn't read her expression very well, but she seemed pleased at the prospects. "I read in the advertisement there was a garden?"

"Yeah, over here." He beckoned her along. He made an effort not to hunch up in his jumper, standing tall like he was proud of his home. And he was, he loved it, he just rarely showed it. "It's not very attractive right now with the winter and all, but we try to keep it going."

She peered out the windows at the rows of snow-dusted soil, interspersed with the occasional bit of decaying brown. "It looks like it'd be lovely in the summer."

"Yeah. Good to grab a book and just sit out there."

"I'll bet." Anji glanced sideways at him. The look on her face grew solemn and he could tell what was coming. "I think this is all perfect, but I have to ask... I've heard some things about the Doctor-"

Fitz cut her off before she could voice any of it. He spent enough time in town to have known what she'd heard. "Listen, he's... It's not something to really worry about. Everyone exaggerates about his spells. They're not common and he's perfectly harmless. The most he can do is confuse the hell out of you talking about spacey things."

"But he is a bit of an eccentric, isn't he?" Her voice was carefully lacking any judgement.

"Sure, but that's not a bad thing. He's the most interesting person you'll ever meet, and..." Fitz sighed, running a hand through his hair. He could be a smooth talker when he needed to be, but his words weren't coming so easily right now. Having to defend his landlord was aggravating. "Seriously, I've lived here for years and I love it. You don't need to worry about the Doctor much since I kind of watch out for him. He's not going to go mad and hurt you or anyone else. He mostly keeps to himself anyway." He was running out of steam and the anxiety made him itch for a cig. "So are you in or what?"

Anji looked back out at the garden, quiet and seemingly contemplating what Fitz had said. He folded his arms to stop his fidgeting. It seemed to him the people who showed up here had that annoying unreadable quality. He'd never figured out Compassion in particular, though Sam had been a little more open.

God, he had been here a long bloody time, hadn't he?

"I will be, yes." Anji nodded briskly. "It really is quite nice in here. I have another place to look at, but I'm not particularly hopeful about it." She finally smiled at him, soft but transforming her face into something pretty. Fitz smiled back instinctively, because what else did you do when a nice bird grinned at you. "I'll call you sometime early next week?"

"That's sounds great. If I'm not here, the Doc will be, he can set you up." Her smile faltered a little. "Honest, he's just an oddball. On my mother's grave, I promise you will like him. Everyone does once they get to know him."

"All right, all right, no need for oaths." She looked around the house for another moment, biting her lip. "I think I'd like it here."

"Well, that's good." He winced at his own lameness. "'M glad. So, we'll talk later then?"

She shook his hand, very businesslike. "I hope so." Was that flirting? It'd been so long since he'd pulled for a girl, he wasn't sure. Just in case, he was extra cordial, helping her into her coat as she left.

He tried out the name when she'd gone. "Anji Kapoor." He watched he shuffle back to her car across the front yard, watched her pull away into the road. He was almost certain she'd be back. The house had a way of catching people, Fitz thought, with its mix of peculiarity and comfort. He was a prime example of that.

His job as realtor done, he tapped out a woodbine, wandering back into the house. A sojourn to his room to read the new book he'd picked out of the attic sounded perfect to him. He headed for the stairs, stopping at the bottom when he saw the Doctor sitting on them. Sitting upright, curled up on one of the upper steps. He looked fine, but Fitz's stomach plummeted into his shoes anyway. Too soon, not again. "Doctor?"

"Don't look like that, Fitz. I'm fine. I was just watching," he explained gently. From where he sat, Fitz noted, he could watch the living room, peering through the guardrails like a child waiting for a glimpse of Santa.

Fitz walked up to join him on his step, folding up his lanky body next to the Doctor. "You could have come down to say hello."

"You were doing such a nice job, I couldn't." His eyes strayed over Fitz's face searchingly. "Did you mean it?"

Fitz blew out a long stream of smoke, lazily content now that he had some nicotine in him. "Hm?"

"All those things you said about me."

Oh. Fitz blinked, trying to recall all he'd said. He didn't remember spouting off anything bad about the Doctor. "Yeah, I guess. Just told her the truth of it. She had the right to know. Why?"

The Doctor ducked his head, resting his chin on his knee. "You do take care of me, don't you." It wasn't a question, but a soft and somewhat sad statement.

"I..." He looked at his cigarette, thinking. He wondered if he shouldn't have said that, but... "Does that bother you? That I said so, I mean."

"Don't you think it should bother you, Fitz?" The Doctor bent over, leaning forward to catch Fitz's eyes. Once he had, Fitz was caught staring at him. It always felt like the Doctor had some sort of weird power over him, able to if not bend Fitz to his will at least lean him towards it. Fitz used to mind that. "Do you know..." The Doctor seemed to be turning his words over carefully in his head. His gaze was unblinkingly fixed on Fitz's own. "Sometimes I wish you would leave. I don't know why you don't. Everyone else does. Seeing as they don't come back, it must be for the best."

Fitz really desperately wanted to look away but found he couldn't. "Best for who?"

"For you. You deal with so much, Fitz, it's... you shouldn't have to put up with my episodes."

As much as he didn't want to have this conversation, Fitz thought maybe they needed to. Clearly the Doctor thought so, for once not backing off at Fitz's plain discomfort. Fitz sighed and took a moment to smoke until he calmed somewhat. "D'you meet my mum before she died?" He shook his head. Fitz could have sworn they had met once... He shrugged one shoulder, going on. "Mum, she was crazy. Proper crazy. I grew up with her since my dad was gone. And..." He looked down at his hands.

"You don't talk about her," the Doctor noted quietly.

"I know. What I mean is, I know crazy and you are not it. You just... I think you just get lost in your head sometimes, like everyone does. Your head's just a lot more interesting than everyone else's, that's all."

"Do you really think so?"

Fitz grinned, not about to say how much he really sort of liked the Doctor's crazy mind. The spells he had were scary and the thought of them kept Fitz up some nights, but the Doctor was weird and Fitz preferred weird to normalcy any day of the week. Diverting, he just put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder and said, "Come on. Being so suave and charming to Anji made me hungry."

"He's in the kitchen," Anji stage whispered to Fitz when he finally rolled out of bed only a half hour before he had to be at the shop to make sure none of the flowers died from the cold until they were safely purchased and out the door. Spring could not come quickly enough.

"Okay," Fitz said evenly, sitting on the coffee table and tying his boot laces.

"He's making jewelry."

That one was new. Fitz paused, looking up at her. "He's what?" And dammit, he lost his place in the knot he was tying. He peered at it, waiting for his drowsy mind to catch up and let him know the next step.

"He found some paper craft things in the attic. He's been fiddling with them all morning. See." She rolled up her sleeve to show him. There was a tangle of brightly colored bracelets wound around her pale wrists. They looked like braided cloth, but upon closer inspection, he found it was paper, bent and formed to make some slightly gaudy but well-put together trinkets.

"Huh. That's new." He tore his gaze away. "I'm not sure fuchsia and cauliflower blue works for you though."

She blinked in surprise, like men weren't allowed to know color names more complicated than 'red' and 'yellow'. He winked at her, letting her know he'd caught her out. Eventually she'd figure out he was not a perpetually lazy musician who liked to drink too much. All right, not just a perpetually lazy et cetera, et cetera. "Later, Anji." He left her in the living room and went to find the Doctor.

"You're going to be late," the Doctor pointed out as he walked into the kitchen. His attention was wholly on his work, fingers tangled in strips of paper like confetti. With the safety scissors and the cut outs of stars and moons, all those matte hues and iridescent sparkles- the table looked like it'd been taken over by a child's art project.

"Alarm didn't go off on time."

"It did. You hit the snooze too much again."

"No one shows up before noon this time of year anyway." He leaned on the table, watching the Doctor's hands shape scraps and miscellanea into something that was a little beautiful. Even as he stood over him, observing how his hands worked, he couldn't catch the transition where the material stopped being junk and became a rainbow necklace. It was like the Doctor could morph matter with his fingers through the sheer force of his imagination. "Where'd you learn that?"

"I haven't the foggiest," the Doctor answered. "You're going to be even more late."

"Right." Fitz lingered a moment longer, taking in the way the Doctor's delicate fingers weaved together. It was hypnotic. He couldn't stay though, and headed for the coat closet to dig out his jacket. "I don't have a gig tonight, so I'll see you at dinner." He shrugged into his coat, turning towards the kitchen. The Doctor stood right in front of him, making him jump in shock. "M-make a sound, will ya?"

The Doctor smiled and took Fitz's hand, toying with his wrist for a moment before stepping back again. Left there was a curving bracelet, dark against his skin. The paper was lavender bleeding into red and back again. Fitz lifted his arm to look at it. It seemed to be one solid piece, but too snug against his skin to have fit over his hand. And the way it twisted in on itself... Fitz closed his eyes tightly for a second before looking again. Something about it puzzled him. It didn't seem possible.

"It's a Möbius strip," Fitz said quietly.

"Is that what it's called?" The Doctor retreated back to his table, slipping back into his work.

"No, see... you can't have made this. Where'd you cut it?"

"Cut it?"

"To make it bend like that."

The Doctor rested his hands on the table, glancing up disinterestedly at Fitz. "I didn't cut it." Fitz opened his mouth to protest and point out how completely impossible that was, but the Doctor chided him sternly, "Fitz, you have only twenty minutes to get to work. Off you go."

It was the average Sunday evening, a routine so constant it was as much a part of the house as the French doors or the creaky floorboards on the third floor landing. Anji sat on one of the armchairs on one side of the room, typing furiously on her laptop, dealing with shares or stocks or whatever it was that made her so fabulously on time with the rent. On the chaise lounge, Fitz sat with his guitar, playing something classic and universal, letting muscle memory pull him through the song as he mindlessly sang along. Next to him, the Doctor lay against the cushions with his eyes closed, half-asleep under a loudly colored but buttery soft blanket.

"And we'll bask in the shadow of yesterday's triumph, sail on the steel breeze," Fitz drawled. His voice was rough and tired from the long day of doing nothing. There was no urgency, no sense of time passing except from the segue from one set of lyrics and chords to the next. "Come on, you boychild, you winner and loser... Come on, you miner for truth and delusion, and shine."

The ticking of Anji's typing faded. For something that had been purely background noise to Fitz a moment ago, its absence was immediately obvious. Very softly, she asked, "Is that an appropriate song for you to play?"

Fitz blinked at her, not immediately replying. It felt like it'd been hours since he'd actually spoken instead of sung. For all he knew, it might have been. He had to remember just how it went, the whole talking thing. "What do you mean?"

Anji nodded pointedly at the Doctor's form, curled up and oblivious to the world. "Don't you think someone might find it upsetting?" Fitz snorted. "I'm serious. That's not very considerate of you, Fitz."

"He doesn't care if I play some Floyd." He grinned wickedly. "No, what really bothers him is..." He shifted his grip on the instrument, holding it more securely as he launched into the chorus of 'Please Please Me.'

As Fitz expected, the Doctor turned over, blurrily mumbling about metronomes and perhaps throwing one at Fitz's head. His feet ended up in Fitz's lap, pushing the guitar aside until Fitz had to quickly catch it before it fell. As soon as the playing stopped, the Doctor was out again. Fitz chuckled and shifted the Doctor's feet so he could hold his guitar again.

"He doesn't like the Beatles?" Anji asked incredulously. She wasn't much for music, but she sounded appropriately appalled. Fitz liked her all the more for recognizing Beatles hate for the heinous crime it was.

"No, only that song for whatever reason. Keeps saying my rhythm's off and demanding I play something else." It was like an in-joke that Fitz had forgotten the source of, not sure why he always used it to annoy the Doctor, but inexplicably certain that one song had a history with them.

"So what does he like then?" Anji shut her laptop and set it aside, looking at Fitz expectantly. As if he hadn't been playing for the two of them for god only knew how long already.

But Fitz could never resist an audience. He had Anji's full attention and when he checked, he saw the Doctor wasn't asleep again, but watching him from behind half-lids. "I think I may know something."

The eternal winter was finally giving way to spring, over a month late but still welcomed with open arms. The windows were open, airing out the stuffiness of the house, and the barely functioning heater was at long last taking a break. It felt like they were all coming out of hibernation.

Fitz dressed in his rattiest jeans and a The Who shirt that had worn and washed so many times, the band logo barely stood out against the soft cotton. He probably shouldn't wear his favorite clothes for gardening, but the Doctor said not to put on anything nice and these definitely weren't what he could call nice. Comfortable like his own skin, but not nice.

Fitz found the Doctor digging tools out of one of the closets. Some days, Fitz felt like raiding his landlord's room just to see if he even owned a tee shirt. The Doctor was noticeably dressed down, but for him that was still corduroys and a clean, white long sleeved shirt. How he didn't cook in the sudden warmth of the season, Fitz had no idea.

There was something else though.

"Oh god, take that off," Fitz groaned, looking around to see if Anji had seen him yet. "You look completely daft."

The Doctor pursed his lips severely at Fitz. "But it'll keep the sun out of my eyes."

"You look ridiculous. Please?" There were times when just saying 'please' would convince the Doctor to do almost anything, rewarding Fitz's rare bouts of politesse.

"No." The Doctor held his head up high and marched down the hall to the living room and garden patio. "Come on, Fitz."

Fitz rubbed his eyes, sighing as long-sufferingly as he could muster. "Stubborn git."

"Fitz." Anji was staring at the Doctor's back as he made his way among the slowly reviving plants and flowers in the back yard. "Is he wearing a bonnet?"

"Yes. Yes, he is." He put a hand on her shoulder, looking deep into her chocolate eyes. "Do me a favor, Anji, please tell him how silly it looks every chance you get. My masculinity cannot handle this."

Anji tilted her head, peering at the Doctor for a moment. "I don't know. On him, it almost works."

"I don't like you anymore," Fitz said loudly, stomping outside.

Luckily, Fitz didn't have much attention to spare to the Doctor's spring fashions. He was hardly the brawn of the household, but compared to Anji and the Doctor, he did have the labor-intensive job, so the Doctor set him to cleaning out the flower beds, digging out old dirt and pouring new, fresh mulch in its place. Within a half hour, he was wishing he had a hat of his own-- not a bonnet, mind. Sweat and sunlight made him squint through his tough work. He'd heard people say working made them feel alive and happy. Those people were either insane or stupid, Fitz decided, and when Anji brought them out some tall glasses of lemonade, he almost snogged her in relief.

"Looks good, Fitz," she said appreciatively.

"Ta," he saluted her with his glass, leaning on his garden hoe and enjoying his lemonade. He watched her wander back to the porch, where her laptop sat waiting for her. On the way, the Doctor caught her, bending his head to whisper something to her. His smile was warm and sweet, and apparently infectious, as soon Anji was smiling the same way. She laughed as the Doctor tucked a cluster of wildflowers into her hair, just behind her ear. She was flushing pink as she reteated to her seat.

Fitz walked over and collapsed loudly onto the ground next to his friend. "Pretty flowers for the pretty girl?"

"Hm, something like that," the Doctor murmured. "Can you pick up more carnations for me? I don't think last year's survived."

"Yeah, I'll bring 'em home tomorrow." Fitz sipped his drink, just watching the man methodically work through his beloved plants, assessing the winter's damage.

It was easing from morning to afternoon slowly, the temperature rising as the hours ticked on. Fitz's work was mostly done, and thus he ended up just laying down on the ground, feeling the first sprigs of grass tickling his ears. He could take a nap like that, though he'd probably pay for it later. Hecould get up and go find sunscreen first, but that would require effort and Fitz wasn't quite up for that yet.

Sometime later, the Doctor leaned over him, bemusedly smiling. "Asleep?"

"No. Just zen'ed out." He paused, looking up at the Doctor before laughing softly. "I just can't take you seriously wearing that thing."

"What? Oh, the bonnet... I see." Without any more fuss, he untied the silk ribbon around his neck and pulled the hat loose. His hand swept through his hair, taming the somewhat unruly curls back to what settled for normal with him. "Now you can take me seriously, correct?"

Fitz grinned. "Yeah, sure. As much as I take anything seriously."

"There is that." The Doctor agreed, smiling still curving his lips. His gaze was disquieting, just the weight of it making Fitz's face flush as Anji's had.

"What're you looking at?"

"You, of course," the Doctor said. If Fitz didn't know any better, he'd think the Doctor was toying with him, seeing how long he could stand being examined so closely. But the Doctor's fascination with everything up to and including Fitz was thoughtless and simplistic, whether Fitz found it disconcerting or not.

"Am I that interesting?" Fitz asked jokingly, hoping to deflect the attention.

With complete honesty, the Doctor answered, "Yes." 

Fitz swallowed loudly, turning his head against the earth to glance away. Anji had apparently gone inside. He wished she hadn't. Things were too private between the two of them without her presence, like an unknowing chaperone. Not that Fitz knew what he was so nervous about. Or if he did, he wasn't admitting it to anyone, including himself.

Before that train of thought could run him over, the Doctor derailed it with a light touch against his shoulder, drawing his gaze back. "Why does that bother you?"

"It doesn't." Fitz bristled, just a shade defensive.

"If you insist." The Doctor brushed the hair out of Fitz's eyes. For all Fitz could guess, the man was counting the freckles in his irises or something. What could he find so engrossing?

The Doctor said something then so startling, Fitz was certain he'd imagined it. The heat was getting to him or Anji had spiked the drinks. Something was making his hearing go wobbly, surely.

"Come again," Fitz asked faintly, sure he'd misheard.

Unconcerned and utterly demure, the Doctor repeated himself: "I think I'd like to kiss you."

He could have said, 'nice weather we're having' with the exact same tone and no one would bat an eye. How he remained so bloody casual while Fitz's breath was catching in his chest was anyone's guess. If he had the air for it, he would've made an embarrassing squeaky noise when the Doctor's fingers trailed down the side of his cheek, his nails catching lightly on the days-old stubble on Fitz's chin.

Eventually, Fitz managed to say, "Are you going to?"

"Hm." He tilted his head, considering carefully. "No, I don't believe so. I don't think it'd be very nice at the moment. You need a shave, for one." The Doctor patted Fitz's chest consolingly before pushing himself up to his feet and standing. As though nothing had happened, he strolled back to the house, calling back, "Don't lay out here too long. You'll burn in the sun."

Fitz sat up slowly, staring numbly at the man's back, waiting for the heavens to open up and let him know what the hell that was all about.

He reached up and rubbed the rough beginnings of a beard on his face, trying very hard not to think.

Another week, another long trudge home at some godawful hour in the morning. Fitz slouched deeply, his guitar on his back and a fag between his lips, nearly burned to the filter. He would toss it and set another one alight, but he was so tired, it was hard enough just to put one foot in front of the other. His progress owed more to inertia than anything.

By the time he arrived at home sweet home, all the lights in the house were off. He'd missed everyone again. Days like this, he resented Anji's cushy job. Sure, it was probably hard work and required more book learning than Fitz had the patience for, but she always had enough money to splurge on her little coffee mocha drinks week after week. How often had Fitz been late on the rent? Not that the Doctor ever said anything, and Fitz wasn't even sure he noticed when his addition to the till came a few days past the first. But Fitz noticed and it bothered him all the same. When had he stopped being an irresponsible young adult and started being... No, no, he was too tired to have a early on-set mid-life crisis.

He tossed his stuff haphazardly down on the kitchen table, resolving to clean up after a few hours of sleep. He rubbed his face tiredly, meandering toward the staircase.

He decided then he was getting a little tired of these sudden shocks in the living room.

Anji was sitting on the chaise lounge, still awake. She was mussed from bed, dressed in her jim-jams. Laying beside her, his head on her lap, was the Doctor. He looked similarly ragged despite appearing to be in a deep sleep. Her fingers were splayed over his head, stroking the frizzy hair like one would pet a cat. Her gaze was low, watching him with a faraway, estranged expression.

Fitz's heart sank, already steeling himself for the worst. "Anji?"

She stiffened, looking up at him sharply. "Oh. You're home. How was your gig?" Her voice was whisper-soft in the dark. He stepped quietly over to sit on the coffee table in front of her, lowering his voice as well.

"What happened?"

"I... I don't know." She glanced back down at the man snoozing in her lap. "I guess it was one of his spells."

Fuck, Fitz thought, his face burning with shame. He'd never taken her aside and told her about the Doctor's episodes. In the beginning, it was to avoid scaring her out of the house. Eventually, it didn't feel important. It'd been months since the Doctor had taken a sabbatical from reality. "Are you all right?"

"Me? Yeah, I'm... good. I'm fine." She offered a wan smile. "I was just taken a little off guard."

"What happened?"

"He was tending to the garden and suddenly went... weird." Her nose crinkled as she recounted, like she wasn't sure herself what happened. "He said the wasps were being controlled by this device, a biometric thing. They were going to take over the world if we didn't stop them." Suddenly, she giggled, then immediately looked contrite. "It shouldn't be funny, really. But he was so earnest about it and kept apologizing to me about letting the big head wasp kidnap me."

"How'd you get him to calm down? Usually I have to chase him down before he goes searching for his spaceship." Therein lied Fitz's biggest worry about the Doctor's episodes. If Fitz didn't catch up to him in time, he could walk forever looking for that police box that didn't exist outside his head, and then he'd be lost. More than half of Fitz's nightmares went along those lines, that mental path well tread.

"I pointed out I obviously hadn't been kidnapped and he seemed confused for a while. He stopped running around after that and I got him to take some of his pills." She rested her hand on his head gently. "He was out a little later. I think he tired himself out."

"Yeah, he does that..." Fitz let out a slow, shaking breath, leaning forward on his knees and putting his face in his hands. Anji was so calm about the incident, but Fitz felt himself shaking, adrenaline combating his exhaustion and making him nauseated. He'd been out. If Anji hadn't been there, if she hadn't kept such a level head...

"Hey." Anji's hand squeezed his shoulder. "It's all right. He's right here, he's fine."

"I-I know. I know. It's just..." He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, willing himself to chill the hell out. He'd die of shame if he went to pieces in front of Anji now. Blinking hard and recovering, he nodded to her. "Thank you. I'm sorry I never... you know."

"Well, I won't, you know, hold it against you," she said, imitating his candor. He chuckled hoarsely. "I have to get some sleep. You think you can finish up here?" Her expression was somber, the question candid. If he asked, he knew she'd keep watching over the Doctor for him while he went to his room and freaked out for a little while. He really, really loved her right then.

"No, I got him. We'll be fine." She nodded and beckoned him over. Carefully, they swapped places, Anji slipping away as Fitz clamored into her seat, the Doctor's head heavy and warm on his thigh. The man barely stirred through the exchange, in fact starting to snore softly by the time Fitz was settled.

"You need something to drink or anything? A blanket?" Fitz shook his head mutely, gaze down, watching over the Doctor's slumber. "Okay. Goodnight, Fitz." He felt her kiss his cheek before backing off. She snickered, whispering as she walked past him, "You really do need a shave."

Fitz at long last managed a grin, a little strained but genuine. "Goodnight, Anji."

So he did eventually shave off the beard he'd been working on. Not for Anji, mind, because she didn't like him that way so he wasn't trying to please anyone but himself. If anyone asked, he'd just say the beard felt weird on his face after almost thirty years of not having one.

But no one did ask. His boss wouldn't notice if he walked into work in a geisha's outfit. Anji just looked on approvingly before yelling at her boss on her mobile. And the Doctor...

Fitz was fairly sure the Doctor hadn't noticed. Which was fine, obviously, because as previously stated he hadn't done it for him. But given the Incident in the garden, Fitz had thought the Doctor would have said something or just showed some sign of noticing. Had the Doctor taken his growing out the stubble as an invitation to piss off? Fitz hoped not, then remembered he shouldn't have any opinion one way or the other.

All right, so he did have an opinion on the matter of kissing the Doctor and what's more the memory of the Incident in the garden-- when he mentally capitalized it like that, it sounded a bit scandalous-- wouldn't leave him alone. At the most inopportune moments, as he rang up people's purchases, when he was pouring out tea, while washing his hair, there was a little voice in the back of his head reminding him the Doctor wanted to kiss him. As a self-styled expert in crazy, Fitz found it very worrying. He wondered if insanity were contagious or hereditary. Either way, he was doomed.

He felt out of his depth. Fitz didn't generally like blokes and when he did, it wasn't like what he felt for the Doctor. Girls were for dating and making plans with, guys were for inebriated one-nighters and subsequent denial, and the Doctor was for everything else. They didn't date because they saw each other all the damn time. They didn't need to make plans because they already lived together and knew who would make dinner and whose turn it was to do the laundry. Fitz drank enough for the both of them; the Doctor mostly abstained from alcohol for reasons he didn't like to say aloud but Fitz could hazard a guess at.

That left the denial, which was fitting, with Fitz laying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the Doctor and hypothetical kisses. Things were easier when Sam was around, her crush on the Doctor blindingly obvious and fun to laugh at. Then again, it wasn't obvious to the Doctor himself. Her mooning over him had been funny and Sam had been just self-aware enough to be able to laugh at herself. Of course Fitz had to go and sort of accidentally on purpose slept with her twin sister and things got weird. Weirder. Whatever.

But Sam couldn't hold her liquor like Fitz could and he knew for a fact that the Doctor had never told her he'd like to kiss her. Bless Sam and her drunken ramblings. So where did that leave him?

On his bed, staring at ceiling, melancholic and introspective. Right. He was a well-read guitarist who treated birds as nice as you please and here he was, alone at night with his inner monologue running amuck.

And the worst of it was he wasn't sure if that wasn't his own fault. He was hardly shackled to the Doctor. He didn't have to do any of the things he was doing. Yet here he was.

Cards on the table, Fitz Kreiner, he thought to himself in the sort of tone he'd hoped was stern and intimidating. What is it that you really want?

Just then, the Doctor slammed open his bedroom door and shouted, "Fitz, Fitz, Fitz, wake up, there's a meteor storm! Oh, come and see!"

Fitz sighed and sat up, watching the Doctor rush downstairs, calling Anji's name as well. Paradigm altering epiphanies would have to wait.

The Doctor slammed shut the front door as he peeled off his jacket, muttering darkly under his breath. His cheeks were splashed with contrite pink, his eyes downcast. His hair was wet from the rain even though Fitz had tried to get him to take an umbrella when he left. Overall, he looked like his trip had gone phenomenally sour.

Fitz put on the kettle before fetching some towels from the linen closet. "I told you it was gonna rain."

"You never could resist a good 'I told you so'," the Doctor snapped. Fitz grimaced and tossed a towel over his friend's head, pushing the other into his hands. Without a word, the Doctor pulled off his shirt and wrapped the towel around himself, silently letting Fitz dry his hair with quick, brusque movements. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"Yeah, I know," Fitz muttered, lifting the terrycloth to see the Doctor's face. "D'you want to tell me about it?"

The Doctor frowned. "Not really. Just my mother being her old self, asking me questions I don't want to answer."

"That's what they're there for, mums. That and doing that thing where they lick their thumb and rub grit off your face right when you're about to hit it off with some girl." Fitz smiled fondly at the memory. His mother had been a bit out of her gourd most of the time, but in her lucid periods, she'd done her solid best for him, even after his father had gone. "Until you hit twenty-five, anyway. Then it's all 'why haven't you found a nice girl, don't you think it's time for grandkids, Fitzie?'"

The Doctor slowly smiled. "Did she really call you that?"

"Don't get any ideas, Doctor." Fitz tossed the towel back into his face.

"Perish the thought." His laugh was bright, the stress of his day falling away slightly. "So it isn't just my mother that... asks after women." He stumbled over the words, flustered. The towel was pushed back into Fitz's hands as the Doctor went to the closet, pulling one of the spare robes off the hook on the door.

Fitz turned his back, making a show of checking on the kettle. Amazing how they could have a conversation about the universal truths of life and mothers, and at the same time the Doctor reminded him how odd he could be, changing clothes with little compunction or modesty. "No, that's everyone," he went on, ignoring his bashfulness. Thank god Anji was out.

Then again, the Doctor's utter lack of physical shyness didn't seem to extend to Anji, or to anyone beside Fitz really. It might have stemmed from years ago when the Doctor's episodes were most frequent and Fitz had seen him at his best and worst. After one of your tenants gives you a tackle to stop you from doing a runner, mumbling incoherently about alien pepperpots and rifts in space-time, a little communal nudity was hardly an issue. Or so Fitz imagined the Doctor thought. Fitz still had to pretend very hard his landlord wasn't stripping off his wet clothes just out of sight. He could hear the sound of soaked fabrics hitting the ground.

"I almost feel bad for always dodging the question now."

Fitz belatedly remembered they'd been talking. "Hey, maybe one day you won't have to." It was suddenly very quiet behind him. He almost turned around, but caught himself before accidentally getting an eyeful. "I mean, you're hardly old or unattractive or anything. You could find the right girl. Hell, I bet you'd find one before I would."

It was very quiet now. His own breathing sounded deafening to him. Fitz couldn't stand it and hazarded a glance behind him.

The Doctor's sky blue eyes looked overcast, his mouth ever so slightly downturn. His hands were wound into the belt of his robe, but his grip was white-knuckled and desperate. Fitz was willing to bet anyone else in the world would miss just how disconsolate he'd become, but to Fitz it was in every line and angle of his body. Just looking at the Doctor made him feel like a coward.

I take it back. It was a joke. I was distracted by the fact you just got naked not three metres away from me. I get it now. I'll do anything for you, just don't look at me like that. Fitz was filled with the right things to say, but couldn't form the words. He didn't dare risk making things worse. That there could be something worse than the Doctor looking at him like that was terrifying.

The Doctor turned away and made for the stairs. "I won't be needing any tea, Fitz. I think I'll go have a bit of a lie down. It's been a long day."

"Doctor, wait!" Fitz took one step towards him, choking on those right words as they all fought to get out at once. The Doctor stared balefully at him, giving nothing away. Say something, you idiot, Fitz thought frantically. Unconsciously echoing the Doctor, he managed, "I didn't mean that."

A bit of sunlight breaking through the clouds, the Doctor's frown faded. He didn't say anything in reply, just fixing Fitz with his habitually intense stare. For once, Fitz made himself not look away. The Doctor always seemed to find the answers he wanted from Fitz in his eyes. Right now, Fitz was all for that. Anything to prevent him opening his stupid mouth again.

The Doctor nodded once to Fitz and went upstairs.

Fitz let out the breath he'd been holding and leaned on the counter. His pressed his palms against the granite, willing his hands to stop shaking.

He'd been scared he'd misstepped and ruined whatever it was between them. But when Fitz saw the Doctor next, the invisible red string binding them hadn't snapped; it'd tightened, and Fitz felt it in his chest, like a leash being pulled taut. They were drifting, but definitely not apart.

The Doctor was long since awake when Anji and Fitz finally made their way out of their respective bedrooms Saturday morning. Fitz was still in his pajama trousers but had remembered to throw a shirt on to avoid offending Anji's delicate sensibilities. She, in turn, was fully dressed, but looked worse off than Fitz with her hair still unbrushed and eyes almost shut. The fact she couldn't stop yawning as well didn't help.

"Knock it off, you're gonna make me yawn too." Fitz slumped down in his chair at the kitchen table.

"They aren't contagious, that's..." she paused to yawn, "that's an urban legend."

"Doesn't mean it's untrue."

"No, actually, that's exactly what that means." She rolled her eyes heavily at him before turning in her seat to face the Doctor. "Doctor, tell Fitz he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"While there is no scientific explanation to explain the way yawning affects those around you, it's a matter of record that when you yawn, it does tend to make other people do the same," the Doctor replied dutifully.

Fitz beamed. "Ha, so we're both right."

The Doctor turned around and blinked at the two of them, holding a notepad in his hands. "Well, no. You're both wrong, really. Have you seen my pen?"

"It's behind your ear." Fitz pointed vaguely. "No, the other one."

"Oh, thank you." He clicked the ballpoint a few times as he darted around the room, peering into cabinets and jotting little notes down. "By the way, Anji, I made you one of those mochas you like so much."

Anji's face lit up, her drowsiness gone in an instant. "You did? That's nice of you. I could definitely use one this morning." Fitz tried to hide his knowing smile behind his hand, but Anji caught it. "What?"

"There's a catch," Fitz stage whispered to her.

The Doctor spun on his heel and bapped Fitz on the head with his notebook. "There is not a catch."

"He makes me Darjeeling tea and lemon scones when he wants me to do it."

"I make you that breakfast all the time. It has nothing to do with what you're referring to."

Fitz tipped his head back and grinned up at the Doctor. "And yet you know exactly what I'm talking about." The Doctor huffed and went over to the pantry, abandoning the conversation.

Anji had found the thermos of her chocolate and coffee concoction and watched the exchange hesitantly. She took a slow sip of her drink with a pleased hum at the taste. "What's the catch then?"

Fitz grinned at her. Knowing she listened to him before the Doctor on this was a small victory, but he'd take what he could get. He leaned forward and grabbed an old tin off the center of the table, pulling it into his lap. With some effort, he popped the rusted top off and took out a wad of pound notes. "Monthly grocery trip. Compassion and I used to alternate who had to do it. Your turn now." He licked his thumb and started counting out some money. "How bad are we, Doc?"

"Oh, not too bad, but I am on page two," came a muffled reply from inside the pantry. Fitz nodded and plucked out a few more notes.

Anji glanced apprehensively between the two. "I'm not sure I follow. Why is this a big deal? Fitz, you pick up things from the shop almost every day."

"If he's making a list, that means we're running out of everything. You've seen how he cooks, massive bloody meals we never finish. Fancies himself a master chef." Fitz handed Anji the money, tucking the rest away. "You'll have to take the car and go to the next town over. The shop here won't have half that stuff."

"Why they won't let me special order things is beyond my comprehension," the Doctor said sullenly, reappearing. He ripped two pages out of his pad and folded them up carefully. "I think I've got everything." He handed the list over to Anji, smiling gently. "You'll do fine. If anything happens, you can call Fitz. He'll help you." He snapped his fingers. "Oh, you'll need the car keys. I believe I left them..." He darted out of the room.

"Doctor, they're right..." Fitz pointed to the keychain on the counter, but he was already gone. "Oh, nevermind."

Anji leaned on the table, dropping her voice to ask Fitz softly, "Is this really that big of a deal?"

"He's giving you a wad of cash and a list of things he thinks he absolutely needs. Sending you out for groceries is his way of saying he trusts you. Congrats, Miss Kapoor, you're officially part of the family." He patted her hand. "My sincerest condolences."

"Oh." Anji read over the list. "When you put it like that, it's a little flattering, I suppose."

"I dare you to say that again in four hours." Fitz stood up and guided her to the door. He couldn't resist mentioning a few tips, like how the car's seatbelt sometimes got stuck in the clasp, how the Doctor would read her a riot act if she bought anything made by Nestle, and how his ones looked like sevens in that stylish cursive writing. Perhaps he built it up too much, as she looked more than a tad nervous as she clutched the keys in her hand and slipped out the door. But hey, it was one day Fitz wasn't going to spend pushing a trolley around squeezing blood oranges and hunting fresh spices.

He went back into the kitchen and found the Doctor making tea. "Darjeeling sound good to you, Fitz?"

Fitz laughed and pulled his chair out and over to the Doctor, sitting in it backwards with his arms slung over the back. The Doctor set up teacups for them both and began cutting up some fruit with a paring knife. "You're just upset I know all your tricks."

"Oh, do you now?" The Doctor smiled indulgently, eyes genial and lingering on Fitz's face.

Fitz poked the Doctor's side with an accusing finger. "You're manipulative. You think you're some master of subtly getting people to do what you want. But I know when you're playing me. I let you win."

The Doctor leaned over, closer to Fitz, and murmured, "Ah, but by that logic, I still win. I've manipulated you to the point you'll concede to my wishes even when you should know better. Isn't that right?" When Fitz opened his mouth to argue, the Doctor pressed a slice of pear past his lips. It was juicy and sweet on his tongue and momentarily quelled his retort. The Doctor's thumb stayed pressed against his lips as he watched Fitz chew, one eyebrow arched inquisitively.

Fitz swallowed, tilting his head back and licking his lips. "Chicken and the egg."

"A causality dilemma? Perhaps." He popped a bit of fruit into his mouth as he considered it. "The result is the same."

"Yeah, what's that?"

The Doctor set the pear aside on the counter along with the knife with purpose, making Fitz sit up anxiously. He didn't get far. One of the Doctor's hands curved over his wrist while the other touched his face with sticky fingers. Fitz let his head be tipped back and felt the Doctor kiss him chastely. It was barely more than a pressure against his mouth and, closing his eyes, Fitz thought he might imagining it. But he could feel the tickling of the Doctor's curls against his skin, his exhalations against his cheek, and even the coolness of his lips. Too many vivid details for one of Fitz's dreams.

As far as he could tell, it lasted both hours and yet just an instant. Too soon, the Doctor released Fitz and neatly straightened up. He wordlessly tended to the tea as though nothing had occurred, but he was smiling.

Fitz rested his chin over his crossed arms and watched him, letting the heavy silence wrap around them.

He was convinced there was nothing wrong with what they were doing and that it was probably a logical progression in their weirdly co-dependent relationship. That said, Fitz couldn't help feeling like the Doctor's dirty little secret. He often found himself pulled into empty rooms with the Doctor and enthusiastically snogged, all of the innocence of that first kiss abandoned for a deliriously joyful mash of lips. Fitz was getting used to the Doctor's hands curling around his neck, pulling him down to close the distance between them. He wasn't getting used to how often he ended up with his back against closed doors and open walls, but with the Doctor pressing against him like he was trying to meld their bodies together, Fitz did not mind.

But as affectionate as the Doctor was, he played it like a game. Covert kisses out of sight, always taking Fitz off guard and always slipping away just as Fitz was getting with the program. Fitz could simply assume he wanted to keep things quiet from Anji, but the new mischievous gleam in the Doctor's eyes made him think flustering Fitz was half the point. "You're a bloody tease," Fitz once hissed at the Doctor's back after one such occasion.

It was telling that Anji didn't seem to notice any difference between them. She accused him of doting on the Doctor at times, long before the Doctor had even mentioned kissing him. The addition of daily, furtive liplocks to their routine wasn't a great shift. They still spent all their time in the house lazily orbiting each other, moving apart only to swing back together like some inexplicable gravity controlled their lives. Business as usual, only now Fitz didn't lay in bed at night wondering why he was so unlucky in love. He had better things to occupy his mind, like recalling the unanticipated strength of the Doctor's hands as they directed Fitz or the soft little hum he made against Fitz's mouth when their kisses started.

He played sweeter songs, filling the house with more romantic tunes than were usually in his wheelhouse. Anji did give him the queerest, most baffled look he'd ever seen on her when she stood in the garden and tipped her head back, finding him singing "Angel of the Morning" on the widow's walk.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and called up to him, "Have you hit your head?"

"Not recently, no." He kept playing even as he answered her, notes spilling from his fingers like water. "Why'd you ask?"

"You must be a body snatcher or something then."

"I'm just in a good mood, Anj. Can't I be in a good mood?" He could do to tone it down, he realized. He was acting like a lovesick git, but underneath the plant shop clerk was the soul of an artist. Artists were practically required to be lovesick gits sometimes.

Later, the Doctor leaned forward and snogged him as they sat behind the ivy-covered trellis, tending the snapdragons and orchids. Fitz murmured into the warm air between them, "You can't go a day without doing this, can you?"

"You aren't used to it by now?" The Doctor sighed melodramatically. "I guess I'll have to kiss you more often until you've grown accustomed."

Fitz snorted. "No, I don't mind. At all. Take as much advantage of me as you like, Doctor." The Doctor seemed to take that as invitation to kiss the corner of Fitz's mouth as he spoke. He never needed much provocation to do so. Maybe he'd been so restrained for so long, he had an overwhelming surplus of affection to dispense. "But Anji thinks I've been possessed by an alien invader or something."

"Oh, certainly not. I'd know if you had."

"You and I need to talk," Anji said, slipping into Fitz's room late one evening and quietly shutting the door behind her.

"Finally giving into my considerable charm and good looks? No need to feel bad, no one can hold out forever," Fitz quipped, barely looking up from his book. It was a novel about a house, or about a movie about a house, or about a documentary about a movie about a house. All Fitz knew was that it was weird and left him feeling more baffled as he went on.

Anji approached the bed, standing over him with her arms akimbo. "You need to be serious, Fitz. I know it's so very difficult for you, but try it for a moment, okay?"

"Uh, okay." Fitz frowned up at her. She looked upset, and what was more she looked upset at him. "You're going to have to tell me what I've done wrong. I'm really bad at that thing women do when they're angry at you and won't tell you why because you're supposed to just know or something." Anji glared fiercely at him and snatched his book out of his hands, tossing it on the dresser. "Hey, careful with that!"

She swatted him upside the head. "This is important! Can you wrap your head around that? Or is everything just a laugh in the life of Fitz Kreiner?"

Clutching his head, he stared up at her in alarm. "Okay, see, you're doing it! That exact thing I told you not to!"

"Don't be a child." Anji sat down next to him on the bed, shoving his long legs aside for extra room. The longer she lived in the house, the less reservations she had around him, he noticed dimly, rubbing his head where she'd hit him. "You're not actually hurt, I barely tapped you."

"Still." Fitz dropped his hands in his lap, tense and ready to block another whack. "So. We need to talk about something."

"Someone," Anji corrected darkly. Her anger slipped into exasperation, as though she'd expected better from him. "What do you think you're doing, Fitz?"

"I dunno what you mean," Fitz muttered, looking askance at the door. He was always pretty fast. He could make a run for it if he needed.

Anji faltered, face reddening a little. "I... saw you. This morning."

"Oh." Fitz remembered reading aloud some article in the newspaper about the upcoming lunar eclipse for the Doctor, interrupted near the end by a sudden kiss. He didn't resist the urge to hold the Doctor's shoulder, prolonging it for a little while before he heard the sound of Anji waking up and pretended to act like nothing happened. Evidentially he hadn't been careful enough.

Fitz had to look at her again when she took one of his hands in hers, drawing his wandering gaze back. "Fitz. How long have..."

"I don't know, a week?" She was staring very hard at him, a bit like the Doctor did at times. All her focus sitting on his face felt disconcerting. "What?"

"You really don't see what a bad idea this is? Come on."

Fitz bristled. "Do you expect me to feel guilty or something? If he wants to snog me once in a while--" more like every day-- "I've got no problem with that. And, hey, he's the one who grabs me more often than not!"

"But you let him!" Anji's grip tightened, her short nails digging in a little against Fitz's skin, making him flinch. "It's not right. He's got something wrong with his head and you're taking advantage!"

Fitz's patience dropped like a stone into a deep lake of outrage, leaving no sign of his usual languid calm but the ripples of resentment on his face. "Anji," he started, voice uncharacteristically quiet and low. "Get out."

She recoiled at the harshness of his tone, taken aback. She'd never seen him properly angry before. Hell, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been so upset, but it washed over him, sudden and drowning him. He thought she'd known better by now. He thought she might have understood, but her words reverberated around his head. Wrong.

"Fitz..."

He leaned forward and said, voice shaking, "I said get out." With one sudden jerk, he shook her hand off him, standing up and stalking across the room. He wrenched the door open and stood beside it.

Anji slid off the bed and reluctantly followed him, as if afraid he'd lash out at her. Fitz dropped his gaze to the floor. She stopped by him, her arms crossed protectively over her stomach, the way she stood just a little back making it obvious she didn't want to be too close to him. Not only don't you understand him, you don't understand me either, Fitz thought bitterly.

"I'm sorry." She bit her lip, waiting for him to say something. When Fitz just stood there, holding the door open, she sighed dejectedly and left.

He pushed the door shut behind her, wincing at the slam. Deep down, he knew or hoped she didn't mean it, that it'd just been a slip of the tongue, the wrong word at the wrong time. He couldn't wrap his head around her thinking like that. She'd lived with them for months, she couldn't possibly think the Doctor was wrong. He was strange and brilliant and saw things no on else did. Granted, every once in a while the things he saw really weren't there, but that was what Fitz and Anji were there for, to keep him grounded and safe.

Fitz buried his hands in his hair, tugging at his fringe irritably. He never could hold onto anger for long. He just wasn't wired that way. All he was left with was a faint feeling of betrayal and disappointment.

As the night went on, Fitz holed himself up in his room, ignoring the Doctor's call for evening tea. He faintly heard the sound of conversation downstairs but made no motion to leave. He wondered if Anji was chatting with the Doctor, oblivious to what she'd said about him or telling herself it wasn't a big deal.

His songs were far from the Pretenders this time, instead floating through one depressing and beautiful song after the next. In the end, he played McCartney's part of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" to himself, sometimes purring the lyrics to himself, but mostly just looping the arpeggio to himself, over and over and over, tapping his foot where the drums should be. He could play it in his sleep, and he hunched over the guitar with his eyes closed, rolling the refrain over and over in his fingers until his breathing, heartbeat, and the ringing of the strings all seemed in tune.

It was dark behind his eyelids, so when the door opened, he saw the glow of light more than he heard it. He ignored that too, not wanting to lose the hum of the music, like it could shield him from the world. If he couldn't hear it, it couldn't bother him.

The fractured logic of that was obvious when hands cupped his face. Fitz startled, his playing halting abruptly, and rather fittingly considering the song. He opened his eyes and was taken in by the searching blue of the Doctor's eyes. He always doing that, not bothering to ask, just reading Fitz and finding what he wanted.

"You're rarely like this, Fitz." Fitz closed his eyes, sighing. The Doctor's thumbs brushed tenderly over Fitz's eyes. "What did she say to you?"

"It's nothing, Doctor," Fitz replied, unconvincing to his own ears.

"It's all right. You don't have to tell me now." His fingers scratched lightly, soothing back into Fitz's hair. His nails felt wonderful, pulling a groan out of Fitz's throat. "Do you know... in my dreams sometimes, I can just touch your skin and know what's bothering you. I can fix it." He kissed Fitz's forehead. "Now I can just ask you not to be like this. It hurts to see."

All the cool-skinned touches disappeared and Fitz felt oddly bereft, watching the Doctor leave him alone with his guitar.

Fitz successfully dodged his housemates all morning through a mix of pure luck, being skinny enough to hide anywhere in the house, and not bothering to grab anything to eat before heading to work. His job was mindlessness at its zenith, something he usually railed against, but one this particular day he didn't mind. It made the time pass slowly and gave him time away from Anji's sharp words and from the Doctor's piercing stare.

But it couldn't last forever, even when Fitz offered to stay after his shift. He was shoo'ed off by his boss, who seemed to think his offer was a sign of the endtimes. He hadn't been aware he was that lazy.

Fitz wandered home, taking the long way through the park, his gait slow and as leisurely as it could be while still being considered progress. He smoked a fag on the front porch, practicing making smoke rings, and after various attempts at further procrastination, went inside.

His efforts seemed silly in hindsight. No one jumped him as he entered his home. It was quiet, almost empty. The lights left on were the only sign that anyone was actually there. That, and in the kitchen, there was a lemon scone sitting on a plate next to a teacup with the saucer flipped on top, holding the heat in the cup. He lifted it and inhaled deeply. Darjeeling. The Doctor's classic bribe. Fitz never turned down food, his financial strife before meeting the Doctor making him opportunistic when it came to eating. He helped himself to the scone as he discovered a piece of paper under the plate and read it. The Doctor's elegant but somewhat illegible script asked him to go up to the attic to find the spare record needle as theirs wasn't playing properly anymore.

The attic seemed safe. It was about as remote as any room in the house could get. Fitz thought the Doctor might even be helping him stay isolated from everyone while he got over what Anji had said. It'd be the first time he'd done so, but Fitz could hope.

Licking his fingers free of crumbs, he took off his trainers and headed upstairs to the top floor. There was a pull line from the ceiling in front of the Doctor's bedroom door and with a tug, Fitz opened the attic door and steadied the sliding ladder before ascending.

Much to his surprise, he wasn't alone. Sitting on one of the many unlabeled storage boxes was Anji. Immediately, she called out, "No, don't shut it!"

"What?" Fitz blinked, coughing as he inhaled some dust.

"The door, don't let it close!" She practically threw herself at him to get to the hatch. He lost his footing in his attempt to get out of her way, managing to trip her along the way, and they landed awkwardly on the floor. Anji's fall was broken by Fitz's body, winding him when her knee knocked right into his diaphragm.

"Ow," Fitz complained, thumping his head back against the floor, then coughing again at the dust he unsettled.

"Great." Anji climbed over him and knocked on the door a few times. "He's locked us in."

His pain was instantly forgotten at that. Fitz sat up and pushed Anji aside, trying to open the door himself with a little more gusto. The door didn't budge. "Oh shit, this is bad." He looked at her, eyes wide and wild. "Is he having one of his spells?"

Anji shook her head, scooting away from Fitz and tucking her legs under her as she sat. She looked resigned. "No. This is just his way of getting us to talk apparently."

"So he's locked us in the attic?"

"Yeah, he's very determined to have us discuss things." She seemed about as thrilled with the idea as Fitz was.

Fitz finally looked at Anji, the way her hands were folded in her lap, fingers twined tightly. She seemed much smaller now, lacking that easy confidence she had when she barged into his room the night before. Now she just watched him, waiting for him to make a move. He wondered what the Doctor had said to her.

"I don't want to discuss things with you," Fitz said. That betrayed feeling was making itself known again.

"I don't want to either, but the Doctor's right, even if his methods are a bit extreme. We should talk." She fidgeted, her hands folding and unfolding in different ways. Her eyes flicked to his face, away, and back again. "I know what I said about the Doctor upset you."

Fitz closed his eyes, recalling what she'd said like he'd only just heard it. "What you think of the Doctor is your own business."

'It's not that simple, you know that." She rubbed her face and finger-combed her hair back, blowing out a long, weary breath. "We have to take care of him."

"Yeah, because he's wrong, is he?" Fitz spat viciously, a remnant of his previous anger flaring.

"I didn't mean it like that! You know I didn't!"

"Oh, it was just a Freudian slip thing, it's okay then."

Anji rolled her eyes. "Do you think being sarcastic is going to help right now, Fitz?"

Fitz fixed her with a glare. "Who said I was being sarcastic?"

Her face fell abruptly, wounded. "You can't think that."

"Well, what am I supposed to think?" Fitz grumbled.

"That... that I was agitated and I said something I didn't mean?" Anji stood up and walked over to Fitz, sitting down again right in front of him. Fitz leaned back and looked around skittishly, like he wanted to run away. Anji confronting him seemed to make him want to do that a lot. But once again, like they were repeating the steps from before, she grabbed his hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that about him. I care about him like... well, not like you do. I don't know how you do it, but Ido care, all right?"

Fitz deflated, his hopes about her confirmed. But without his anger, he didn't know how he felt about her. It was safer to be ticked at her. That way he didn't have to think about what she was saying. "I know," he mumbled, squeezing her hand faintly. "Think we can go now?"

Anji glanced at the attic door, then back at Fitz. "I don't think we're done."

"Anj..."

"I'm sorry for saying what I did about the Doctor, but I did have a point." She leaned forward, forcing him to look at her and not just stare at their hands. "You can't pretend he's completely normal."

"I know. I know he's not," Fitz insisted. "You weren't even here for the worst of it. He was out of his head for a long time before he got set up with his shrink. He's so much better now." He scratched his neck, uncomfortable. No bloke liked talking about these sorts of things, especially with a girl that wasn't his girlfriend. Even more, talking about feelings to family and people who were like your family, that was the worst.

"But he still has episodes," Anji pointed out.

He got loud again. "So what? So bloody what, you want to treat him like a kid?" He shook his head, wordlessly apologizing, making an effort to not shout so much. If the last day had taught him anything, the Doctor was clearly a trigger of sorts with him. He felt like the man's only protector sometimes. He'd never been good with responsibility. "He's a grown man."

"I... oh, I know, but it's not that easy, is it?" She leaned forward on her knees, tucking one chin on her fisted hand, watching him closely. Her voice was soft, lacking that usual assertive tone that she carried around so much. He sometimes envied how certain of herself she could be. "Why're you doing it?"

Fitz shrugged. His face felt hot and he was grateful to the dim light of the attic. "He said he wanted to kiss me."

"Are you humoring him?"

"No! Er, no." Fitz cleared his throat. "I wanted him to, I mean. Who wouldn't, you know?"

"Not me," Anji replied, now smiling a little. "Not my type."

Fitz had been under the impression the Doctor was everyone's type. He assumed everyone who spent enough time around him would be drawn in by that magnetism he had. But then again, Sam and Compassion had left. Fitz hadn't. That put things into perspective.

"You don't want to talk about this. I can tell. So just listen." She waited patiently for him to meet her eyes. "I'm just trying to help you, okay? You never know when he might get worse. And you know him scarily well, but even you might hurt him. I just want you to remember that, okay?" When he mutely nodded at her, she tugged him forward and hugged him. He stiffened, bewildered for an instance before he slowly hugged her back. At least she wasn't asking him about the big L word or anything.

He waited what he hoped was the appropriate amount of time before asking, "Can we get out of this attic now?" Anji leaned back and looked at him like he was some sort of alien. "This dust is killing me."

She sighed and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Why do I bother," under her breath. She slammed her fist on the attic door a few times. "You can let us out now, Doctor!"

The Doctor beamed beatifically at them as they climbed down from their impromptu prison. Anji fixed him with a furious look, wordlessly stomping past him and downstairs. His pleased smile remained nonetheless as he tried it on Fitz instead.

"Don't give me that," Fitz grumbled, coughing some more, feeling like he'd inhaled a sandstorm. "I'm as angry at you as she is."

"Oh, she's not angry," the Doctor said with absolute certainty. "She wanted an excuse to talk to you. I just helped."

"All right, first off.... thanks, I guess, for being off your rocker enough to do something that extreme to your friends."

"You're quite welcome, Fitz." For the second time, Fitz was swept into an embrace, nearly toppling over as he was forced to bend at the waist, his face buried in the white cotton over the Doctor's shoulder.

"Mmph." Fitz held the Doctor by the arms and extracted himself from the hug. "Not done, Doc." He gripped the man's shoulders, ducking his head so they were at eye level. "Don't ever lock us in the attic again. I will kick your arse."

"You will not."

Fair point. "I'll be very cross at you."

"I won't do it again, I promise." He kissed Fitz's cheek, smiling winningly. "Come on, some tea will help your throat."

Since moving out of his tiny little flat, Fitz had made changes, adapting to his new surroundings. More precisely, he adapted to the Doctor. Sam had done her best for him, but she lacked Fitz's experience with logic from the dark side of the moon, metaphorically speaking. Asking nicely did not make the Doctor stop turning the house upside down for his magic screwdriver. Standing in the doorway just meant he'd use another exit (once, memorably, a window) to pull a runner. Treating him like a glass figurine on a high shelf didn't prevent his hold on the real world from occasionally shattering. When Sam had been the Doctor's companion-- the Doctor's word, not Fitz's, who found it a bit bawdy-- she was loyal as anything, but never talked about the episodes, pretending they didn't exist.

Fitz knew better. Sometimes you had to fight crazy with crazy. Point out the flaws in the Doctor's space logic and you could disarm him long enough to calm him down. When he wanted to run, you ran faster. You started bar fights with the local boys who called him a nutter, but you called him out if he forgot to take his medicine.

You slept lightly, ready to jolt awake at the first sound of footsteps on the stairs. Like one night or perhaps early morning when Fitz's eyes slit open, not sure why he was awake but knowing something had set off his internal alarm. The house was quiet though, the only sound the light rain on the roof. He closed his eyes again, ears straining to hear more and coming up with nothing. Thinking it nothing, he shut his eyes against, ready to drop back off into sleep.

And yet he stayed awake. Paranoia that he'd miss an important thing kept him conscious. He sat up, groaning, and fumbled around, looking for a shirt to throw on. Five seconds of patting the bedspread, looking for the right material came up with nothing, so he decided to forgo the whole process of making himself decent. It wouldn't be worth it if he was just going to be back in bed in a moment anyway.

He shuffled out of his room and downstairs, reflecting wistfully on how much easier his life was when he didn't care about other people. Anji was sound asleep, the garden was empty, and the front door was still locked. Mentally jotting a checkmark next to those items on the list in his head, he turned around and went back upstairs, past the second floor and up to the third. He always started downstairs. Going up and finding the Doctor gone was a time-waster when he could be catching him on his way out. That hadn't happened in a long, long time, but it had once happened often enough to leave a permanent mark of Fitz's instincts.

Upstairs, he found the Doctor's bedroom shut, as usual. He took a deep breath, gripping the doorknob and turning it slowly. Determined to keep as stealthy as possible, he nudged it open carefully. The hinges would squeak if he moved too hastefully and the Doctor was almost as light a sleeper as Fitz.

"Thank you for the consideration, Fitz, but I'm awake."

Fitz swung open the door and peered into the dark room. His eyes were still adjusting to the lack of light, but he spotted the giant four-poster bed near the window. The Doctor was sitting up on it, curled up with his arms folded on his knees. Fitz couldn't see the expression on the man's face, but he could hazard a few guesses about what he'd see there if he could.

"What bloody time is it?" Fitz muttered, inviting himself in. He rubbed one of his eyes, tired but determined to make sure the Doctor was all right before anything.

"I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say 3:25, maybe a few minutes before." He laid his head down on his arms effetely, seeming painfully vulnerable tucked up as he was in the middle of his expansive bed. "Did I wake you?"

"Dunno, just woke up. Sixth sense put out a siren, I think." Fitz sat on the edge of the bed, back against one of the posts. "What's got you up at this hour?"

"Oh, nothing really. The usual dreams." He looked away, out the window. This close, Fitz could see the barely contained sorrow on his face. He scooted closer and put a hand on the Doctor's arm.

"D'you want to talk about them?"

"What's there to say?" He lay his head back down. "I know all these dreams are pure fantasy, but even so, they make me feel so helpless." His eyes opened, an oddly luminescent sight in the dark. "I keep dreaming about people leaving. Always people I care about. But..." He frowned deeply. "I can see their faces but often I cannot remember their names. My memory has always been a little spotty, or as much as I recall about it, but it's their names, Fitz."

He looked like he desperately needed a hug. Fitz crawled over the bed, close to the Doctor, and obliged, wrapping one arm around his shoulders. "I know. It's awful, but... maybe you don't want to remember. You always get in a state when someone moves out, maybe that's just your head's way of dealing."

"That's a rather insightful hypothesis." The Doctor sounded a little awed, though whether by the idea itself or that it was Fitz's idea wasn't clear. "Oh, but that just makes things worse. What about when you leave? I... can scarcely remember a time you weren't here. I can't even imagine it," he moaned, distressed.

Fitz leaned his face against the Doctor's, breathing in the smell of his shampoo and water from his earlier shower. Very quietly, he said, "I'm not going anywhere."

"I'd love to believe that."

"Where would I go? What's better than here? I mean," he sat up straight again, twisting so he was facing the Doctor, able to stare imploringly down at him, "knowing my luck, I'd move out and my neighbors would be even noisier than I am or crazy or something."

"Crazy?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow, not needing to expound on his point further.

"I mean proper crazy," Fitz explained impatiently. "People who try to hurt me or steal my stuff. Stuff you'd never do."

"I may not be what you deem 'proper crazy'," he smiled slightly at the term, "but there was that time I stole your guitar."

"What?" Fitz was confused for a moment, not awake enough to remember right away what the Doctor was referring to. "Oh, that time you were going to use it as a weapon against those aurally sensitive invader guys. You didn't hurt it, I got it back, no problem."

"Still."

"Still what? You took my guitar to fight off an invasion and you think I'm upset or something?" Fitz chuckled. "Do you know, sometimes I think if I knew someone at the Beeb, we could make millions off your schemes."

The Doctor didn't look so sure, frown returning. "Oh, don't joke about that, Fitz. They'd be dreadful."

"No, it'd be like Star Trek, but with decent effects!"

The Doctor cracked a small smile at Fitz's insistent enthusiasm. "People will watch anything, I suppose."

"Killjoy," Fitz accused lightly. "You think you're all right now to sleep? Got some of that off your chest?"

The Doctor nodded slowly. "I should try at least." He uncurled his body, stretching out more across the bed. He still seemed small in comparison. That more than anything was why Fitz was reluctant to leave. Instead, he lingered around the room as the Doctor got settled and slipped under the covers. He felt like standing guard, needing to be that protector or something equally daft. An awkward silence filled the room as he uselessly stood around, retying the ropes holding the four-poster's drapes back. "Fitz."

"Yeah, sorry, I'll just..." Fitz waved vaguely to the door. "G'night."

The Doctor reached out, grasping Fitz's hand, halting him instantly. Fitz paused, looking back. The Doctor stared up at him, and it was plain on his face that he was still rattled. "Promise you'll... that you'll be here tomorrow."

Fitz sat down again beside him. "Doctor, what's wrong? What'd you dream about?"

The Doctor laughed suddenly, not happily. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Tell me anyway." Because it always worked on him when the Doctor did it, Fitz reached out and cupped his face, trying to be comforting but entreating all at once. "Please, Doctor."

The Doctor put his hand over Fitz's, framing it in cold skin. It'd taken so long for Fitz to not want to do something to warm him up all the time, to just accept his oddities weren't solely mental. "You died. But it wasn't you, it was..." His nose scrunched up as he tried to explain, as though he couldn't figure it out himself. "Another you. You died because of me, somehow. I think you blamed me. You'd waited so long." His face crumpled and Fitz quickly embraced him, feeling the Doctor's hands latch onto him tightly. "I keep wanting to tell you sorry. Isn't that odd?"

"If it's really me in your dream, he forgives you." Fitz rubbed the Doctor's back soothingly.

"You don't know what happened."

"Doesn't matter. He forgives you." Fitz pulled back enough to kiss the corner of his mouth. "This is me we're talking about. So I should know, right?"

"I... I suppose." The Doctor laid his head on Fitz's shoulder. "Thank you, Fitz."

Fitz just hummed back, threading one hand into the Doctor's hair and rubbing his thumb over the spot right behind his ear. He heard the Doctor mumble happily if a bit incoherently at the attention, and grinned. "Sleep?"

"Mmm." He didn't move.

"Sleep on the bed, not on me. I am not sitting like this all night." In a fit of pique, he pushed the Doctor down onto the bed, amused by the surprised gasp he let out as he bounced against the pillow. "Goodnight."

"You're leaving?"

That had been the idea. "As opposed to what?"

"Nothing, nevermind." He rolled over, away from Fitz, pulling the sheets up. "Goodnight."

Fitz leaned over him. "Do you... want me to stay?"

"No," he said in the sullen tone that mean 'yes.'

"All right." Fitz spent a moment hoping he wasn't doing something stupid-- always a possibility with ideas like this-- before slipping under the covers as well.

The Doctor immediately turned and wriggled over. He didn't bother keeping up the pretense that he'd expected Fitz to leave. Manipulative git. "Thank you." Fitz nodded, giving a long-suffering sigh, mostly for effect since he didn't actually mind too much. The Doctor lay against Fitz's side, his skin cold even in the early summer heat. Once he'd stopped moving around to get comfortable, it was nice. Fitz shut his eyes, ready to finally get back to sleep.

Right before he managed to make it to unconsciousness, the Doctor moved again. He crawled over Fitz and for one second, Fitz felt a low heat skitter around his stomach. Their bodies slid together, the Doctor climbing on top of Fitz. He wondered if the Doctor had misread his intentions. Not that he didn't want to but when the Doctor was sad because the Fitz in his head just died, it didn't seem right. "H-hey, Doc..."

Then the Doctor flopped down on Fitz's other side, all his exciting squirming ceasing. "There. That's better." He laid his head down on Fitz's chest, shutting his eyes.

"Uh..."

"Sorry, I just thought I'd sleep better if I could hear your heartbeat. I was on the wrong side." He looked up at Fitz, eyes wide and clueless to Fitz's trouble. "You don't mind, do you?"

Fitz slumped back down against the pillow, certain the Doctor had done that on purpose. He wouldn't be sleeping well that night. Still, he whispered, "Nope. Not at all."

There were worse things to wake up to than a bloke you quite fancied watching you with his bright blue eyes. It felt like Fitz was living inside a really cheesy guilty pleasure sort of telly show, where the camera went fuzzily out of focus while the music got all twinkly. He used to scoff at those sort of scenes, having woken up next to his fair share of bed partners and not found them tastefully lit in the morning light with a little lens flair for... well, flair. But the Doctor never fit into the groups of people Fitz often get involved with. He was a singular, remarkable event in Fitz's universe, impossible to replicate or even imitate.

Thus, he did wake up with that whole soft focus filter thing going on as he opened his eyes and saw the Doctor leaning over him, mouth curved in a secretive smile.

"Morning," Fitz murmured.

"Yes, it is," the Doctor agree just as quietly, then leaned down and kissed him like he'd been waiting to do so for some time.

Since Anji confronting Fitz, they hadn't done this so much. Regardless, it was easy to fall back into the routine of it. The Doctor's kissing was insistent and a little pushy, so much like the man himself. Either he was reserved or greedy with no middle ground between the two. If anything, now Fitz noticed that more. With them lying down and Fitz under the Doctor, there was no need for bent backs or balancing on one's tiptoes. The Doctor was sprawled half on top of Fitz, and it was gravity binding them together.

The Doctor shimmied over a little more on top and, oh, his tongue flicked along Fitz's. He tasted minty and clean, the faint tang of toothpaste painfully domestic. Fitz didn't want to think about why that was so freakishly sexy, but he was throughly awakened by it and kissed back open and wet.Definitely worse ways to wake up, he decided, hands slipping under the covers and holding the Doctor's hips. Fitz found hands winding into his hair, keeping him still, as if he was planning on going somewhere. The Doctor was always doing that, grabbing his hand, the sleeve of his shirt, anything his fingers could get a grip on. Fitz didn't know what to do to prove he wasn't going to leave.

Not that he was in any position to think too deeply about that. He wasn't thinking about anything really. His mental facilities weren't up to the task with drowsiness just fading and being replaced with a rising heat that left him equally loose-limbed and slow. There was no urgency and Fitz wasn't certain the rest of the world even existed at the moment.

The Doctor pulled back briefly, staring down at Fitz. Anji had been right: Fitz could read him scarily well, and Fitz could barely breathe with that much intensity radiating off him. He so often hid himself, layering purposeful misunderstanding with off-putting bizarreness to keep himself safe. And here Fitz was with him and the only layers left were only physical and textile.

Even you might hurt him.

Oh, goddamn Anji.

"What's wrong?" The Doctor's face fell, making Fitz curse how bloody transparent he apparently was.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. Here." Fitz leaned up and caught his mouth. It was obvious then how much desperation the Doctor was pouring into him now that Fitz wasn't so off-guard. He fell against Fitz, hands splayed over his chest. It felt brilliant, that weight almost pushing him down.

Just not right now. And he so very much blamed Anji. Her, and how at twenty-nine, he couldn't keep pretending he wasn't a somewhat responsible adult.

Fitz rolled them both over, laying the Doctor onto his back on the bed. He went too willing, too eagerly, even as his hands clung to Fitz. Fitz gently pried them off, twining their fingers and pushing their joined hands into the mattress.

Then he let go, rolled over again, and climbed off the bed.

"Fitz?" He looked back, meeting the Doctor's completely lost stare evenly. "I'm not sure I understand." From the shaking in his voice, Fitz could tell that was an understatement. He sat up, folding his hands in his lap nervously. "Why...?"

Fitz took a deep breath and walked back to the bed, leaning across it to kiss him again. The Doctor didn't respond, just looking at him, waiting. Fitz shook his head, licking his lips. Minty, he noted vaguely. "This is going to sound stupid, but because I think I might love you a little bit."

"That's... that's somewhat contrary."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Fitz straightened and shuffled backward a few steps. If the Doctor reached out and managed to pull him back into bed, Fitz wasn't sure his resolve would hold out. Because, honestly, he'd been around a bit when he was younger. Sex was always fun, but sometimes there was that thing, usually just a spark that made it brilliant. The Doctor had more than just a spark of it. A lot more. It was like the man's inexplicable influence over Fitz was multiplied by touch.

It was the Doctor, though, not just some bird he'd met in a bar. If he let this happen because the Doctor thought it'd keep Fitz from disappearing like the others, and not for the right, better reasons, Fitz wouldn't be able to live with himself. So he backed off and gave the Doctor his most reassuring smile. "I'll see you at breakfast," he promised, then made himself walk out the door.

Anji's jaw dropped as Fitz walked into the living room. "What, is it your birthday or something?"

"No. March the seventh though, I'll expect presents," Fitz replied, putting down his shopping bags and pulling out the bottles, setting them neatly on the coffee table.

"What's the occasion then?" 

"The Doctor's going to be gone for the night. Went for a check-up to the hospital, standard stuff." Fitz dumped the rest of his goods out, a few limes and other citrus fruits, a box of gaudy paper umbrellas, and a container of bright red maraschino cherries. The last he picked up and opened, popping a cherry into his mouth, then sucked the juice off his fingers. "Did you know I can tie a knot in a cherry stem?" He smirked, waggling his eyebrows at Anji.

"Wait, back up. Hospital? Is the Doctor okay?"

"Yeah, just getting his hearts checked." Anji stared at him. Fitz's smirk widened. "Oh, did I forget to mention? Doc's got two hearts."

"You lie."

"Like a barrister, but he does have two hearts." He clapped his hands together. "I'll prove it to you. Be right back. You," he pointed to her as he headed upstairs, "get the glasses out of the china cabinet. And break out your laptop. That thing can play movies, right?"

"Where's his lungs?" Anji asked later, holding the x-ray up to the light.

"What?"

"His lungs." She tapped a finger over the picture of the Doctor's chest.

"It's complicated," Fitz hedged, more focused on shaking the cocktail mixer than anything. "And I wasn't really listening when he told me. Something about his having a completely different respiratory system than the rest of us. Gimme your glass."

"Hm? Oh." Anji set the translucent image aside, letting Fitz pour out a drink for her. "Amazing they haven't locked him up or something. F-for his hearts, I mean," she added quickly when Fitz shot her a sharp look. That wound hadn't fully healed and things had been awkward between them since their fight. Half Fitz's reason for doing this was to repair things. He adored Anji, even when he wanted to tell her to shut up and let him make his stupid mistakes in peace.

"I think they did for a while when he was younger. But really, what're they gonna do with him? He's got two hearts. Big deal." He shrugged and flopped down on the sofa, clicking his glass against hers and ignoring the incredulous look she was giving him. Anji gave him that god, you are thick look often enough, he barely noticed anymore. "Cheers."

Even later, Fitz was occupying himself by dusting the rims of their glasses with sugar. "I can't believe I'm making bloody girly drinks for you. If I even said the word cosmopolitan where I grew up, I'd get my arse beat."

"I thought you grew up in London." Anji didn't look up from her laptop, where she was picking whichStar Trek movie they'd watch next. She had all of them on there, much to Fitz's surprise. She just said something about a former boyfriend who was a fan when asked about it, getting this faraway look in her eyes that was like flashing a neon Keep Out sign at him. He'd obligingly asked what she wanted to drink next after that, which lead to his current girly drink dilemma.

"Not that part of London."

"Well, if it offends you so much, why'd you buy cranberry juice?"

"To make raunchy jokes while I make us Sex On the Beaches, of course."

"Of course," Anji intoned dryly. "Almost done there, Fitz Fortune, self-styled bartender to the gods?"

"Just call me Dionysus." He'd missed that surprised look she gave him when he said things like that, bits of information your average slacker didn't bother learning. "I read, you know."

"You reading classic lit of all things, that's my real point of contention here."

Fitz set up their glasses and added the ingredients into his shaker. Quietly, he recited, "Sing to me of the man, Muse. The man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course, once he plundered the hallowed heights of Troy."

"This is you drunk, is it?"

He poured once again, filling the glasses with cheerful pink liquor. "Anji, I have not yet begun to drink. Now budge over, I haven't seen the one with the whales."

"Question for you."

"Boxers."

"You don't quit, do you?"

"Quitting's for losers. Why do you think I still smoke, even with a man called the Doctor putting me up?"

"Sheer bloodymindedness?"

"That too."

"Has he tried to get you to quit?"

"Many a time. But I look far too sexy when I'm smoking, can't give that up."

"That coat of yours smells like an ashtray."

"Was this what you wanted to ask me?"

"I don't remember, actually..."

"That's fine. Hey, did I mention I can tie a knot in a cherry stem?"

"... And then her grandfather screamed at her for sullying herself with a Kraut and tossed me out," Fitz went on, pausing to tip some more beer down his throat. It was dark by then, the only light on the moonless night coming from the laptop's screensaver, one of those generic starfield deals. Fitz never liked them. He'd seen the pictures sent back to Earth from the telescopes floating around the galaxy. Everything was vivid and colorful, like swirling clouds of rainbow paint dabbed onto a black canvas.

"That's terrible," Anji mumbled from somewhere near his shoulder.

"Mind you, he didn't have the decency to toss out my clothes with me." He felt Anji start to snicker against his side. "I hid in the brush nearby, throwing rocks at her window until she opened up."

"That must've went bad." She paused. "Went badly."

"Yeah... she did throw one of her nighties at me though."

"You didn't."

"What else was I going to do? Walk home nude? Nah, it worked out. Made a great story once I got over the fact I walked over a mile wearing just a pink dress thing." Fitz tipped some more beer down his throat, long since having abandoned his stint as their personal bartender. "And that's why I hate lace. Hard to be turned on by it when you actually know what that shit feels like to wear."

"I'm half-convinced you made all that up."

"The names were changed to prevent the innocent."

"And who's innocent there?"

"Fuck, I can't remember."

Fitz was almost dozing off when Anji burst out, "I remembered my question!"

"Oh good," Fitz grumbled, covering his eyes with one hand. "Kindly forget it again. I'm sleeping."

Anji was giggling about something she evidentally found funny. She hadn't needed that last G&T, he decided. "You can't talk and sleep, Fitz."

"You're right. You must be sleeping yourself then and imagining I'm talking."

Anji was very quiet for a very long moment as she thought about this. "No, I don't think so. Anyway." She poked him in the chest. "Why'd you do all this?"

"Mostly to seduce you, but you wouldn't let me do my cherry stem trick, so." Fitz shrugged the shoulder Anji wasn't resting against.

"You don't think it's a little suspi.... weird that the moment the Doctor's out of the house, you get us totally pissed."

And there it was again, that feeling of hating Anji and loving her all at once. "I am not totally pissed. I'm not the one who can't say suspicious."

"Did you have a fight?"

"I don't want to talk about this, Anj, please." He was whinging, he could tell. Why couldn't she just fall asleep like most people did when they imbibed as much as she had?

"So it is about him."

"Fuck, Anji, what in my life isn't?"

Again, she was quiet. Fitz shut his eyes and slumped back against the cushions, wincing. He really hoped that was the alcohol talking, or at least that he wouldn't remember anything about the night tomorrow. He was in the mood to get drunk and forget everything, not to get introspective.

Anji sat up and looked down at him, eyes clearer than he would have expected. She seemed to be sobering somewhat. "You love him, right?"

"It's more complicated than that."

"No, it's not." It was like they'd swapped scripts all of a sudden, ethos and logos traded off. "When someone becomes your whole life... that's either love or hate, right?"

Fitz didn't hate the Doctor, that was for sure. He refused to say it out loud though. Anji watched him expectantly for a long time before getting up. Unsteady, she kept a hand on the wall as she wandered off to bed.

Much to his dismay, Fitz didn't feel better. He'd managed to distract himself for a few hours, but alone in the dark, he just wished he'd made an excuse to go with the Doctor. He should have. He could have bluffed something. But when the Doctor didn't respond to the kiss Fitz gave him that morning before breakfast, he was too cowardly to say anything.

He wondered how the Doctor was, if he sleeping that night or if he was laying awake, filled with sullen regrets like Fitz was.

Fitz slumped sideways on the sofa and tucked his feet up, shutting his eyes. He'd sleep there, not wanting to settle for his empty bed when he'd much rather be in another.

The phone rang. As it was what only the most technically minded people would call morning and the phone was right next to Fitz's head, this turned out to be extremely unpleasant.

"Can't a man be hungover in peace," he grumbled, patting around the table to try and locate the phone by touch. "If this is Mrs. Simms calling me in, I'm quitting. I'll be a loser for once." He reluctantly sat up and found the phone, snatching it up and slumping back down before hitting the call button. "Whoever this is, if you ask me if my fridge is running, I'll hunt you down."

"Fitzgerald Kreiner?"

"Speaking." He was ready to just drop back off and let them try to sell their product while he napped.

"We apologize for the hour, sir, but you're the first name on our patient's contact list."

Fitz sat up, sober as a heart attack. "What's happened?"

Ten minutes later, they were bundled up in the neighbor's car, Fitz screeching out of the driveway with Anji in the passenger's seat, a black designer purse on her lap. She was blurrily blinking at the world outside the window, like she wasn't sure how she got there.

"So... what's happened?"

"Brummie hospitals are run by idiots is what happened," Fitz snapped. "And I'm likely going to try to strangle them."

"Is that why I'm here? To stop you?"

"No, you're meant to help."

"Fitz!" Anji grabbed his arm. "What. Happened."

"They lost him, okay? They got it in their heads his medication would interfere with their tests, so they took him off it. All well and good, they know he has episodes, it's on his chart."

"So what then?"

"They let him leave the hospital for dinner." Fitz punched the steering wheel in a fit of anger. "They took him off his meds and then didn't think, oh, hey, perhaps we should keep him in the hospital until we're done."

Anji sagged back against her seat, comprehension dawning in her eyes. "He didn't show back up." Fitz nodded. "Wow. That is phenomenally stupid of them." She bit her lip and tentatively slipped her hand into his, running her thumb over his knuckles. "It's going to be all right."

"The Doctor's alone in one of the biggest cities in England out of his head and has been all night. Want to revise that statement, Anji?"

She squeezed his hand tighter. "It's going to be all right." Fitz chanced a look at her from the corner of his eye. She looked just as shaken up as he felt. He took a deep breath and nodded.

They stormed into the cardiology wing of the hospital shoulder to shoulder, looking ready to set fire to the place at the slightest provocation. Fitz imagined himself some vengeful MI9 agent, ready to unleash hell using all his knowledge gained working as a spy. M would revoke his license to kill, but sacrifices had to be made for love. Or something.

His own cheesiness distracted him, giving Anji the opportunity to step up to the cardiologist and snap at him, "You are so unbelievably lucky we haven't already got you for malpractice. You waitedhow many hours to call after you let a man with a history of mental issues walk out of your hospital? How many people do you have out looking for him? Have you reported this to the police?" The man blanched and looked baffled by the sudden onslaught from this woman who'd marched into his office. "I have a lot of friends in London, one who works for the Times. Stop staring and start talking!"

If Fitz had a ring, he'd get down on one knee and propose to her. The Doctor would just have to learn to live with it. While Anji drilled the lower-case doctor, he drifted over and chatted with Nurse Michaels, letting him fill Fitz in on what they'd missed.

It wasn't anything unusual. Hospital food wasn't the sort of thing the Doctor would willingly eat, so he signed himself out and mentioned heading out for some Mediterranean. With some convincing, he managed to get Michaels to draw him a quick map on the back of a blank patient chart to some of the places that fit the bill. Information gathering finished, he wandered over to where Anji was severely watching Dr. Hudson as he spoke to the police on the phone.

"You really know a guy at the Times?" Fitz asked. 

"The Sun, actually, but still." Anji looked at the paper in Fitz's hands. "You have a lead?"

"Yeah. Yeah, have a few ideas of my own and the nurse helped me out too."

"Then what're you still doing here?" She pointed to the door. "Get out there and find him. I'll hold down the fort here."

"Are you sure? I mean... I'm a little afraid to leave you alone with these guys..."

"Fitz." She pushed him lightly away. "Go, now. You're wasting time. I'll call if he shows up here, so keep your phone on."

"Okay. Okay." He didn't bother with any more inane statements and left, walking fast.

He outright skipped the first two restaurants on the list he'd been given, pegging them as the dives they were. If the Doctor was keen on getting a good meal, he'd pick a place that didn't look like it got its hummus premade from a grocer. The next locale had been closed at the time of the Doctor's evening stroll, so Fitz stopped at restaurant number four. Heironymus' was a bit of a hole in the wall type of place, but the moment Fitz walked in, he was enticed by the smell of olive oil and thyme. If only he had a few hours to kill...

Fitz's instincts were very good. The proprietor of the place remembered the strange man who'd dined there the night before, who had worn a very distinctive if unseasonal velvet jacket. He'd apparently asked to watch the establishment's chef cook for a few minutes, hoping to hone his own culinary skills and master baklava.

Fitz left with a free gyro and the advice to check out some of the parks in town, as the Doctor had mentioned desperately wanting to do some stargazing. "At least he's making friends instead of enemies," Anji had remarked when he called her with the update.

"Befriending everyone in this city won't help him if he managed to get on one guy's wrong side," Fitz pointed out.

At Cannon Hill, some bird lady-- a old woman feeding birds, mind, not the other kind of bird that Fitz was so partial to-- recognized the little wallet photo Fitz had taken to flashing around. "He was around late last night," she said. "Poor thing seemed confused."

Fitz's heart sank. The Doctor roaming around the massive park at night with its statues and long shadows, the thought of it hardly made him optimistic. "Did he say anything, mention anything? Even odd things, those would help me find him."

The woman clicked her tongue a few times, tossing out more breadcrumbs. "He was quite the talker, going on about the stars being out of position. Orion's belt was crooked, he said. Needed to fix it before the poor man's skirt fell down."

"That's helpful. No, really, it is." Fitz was already dialing Anji on his mobile. "He say anything else?"

"He walked around in that fountain for a bit," she said, pointing to the marble fixture. "Then he said his shoes fit horribly and kicked them off."

Fitz's felt the start of a smile steal over his face. "That's definitely him."

"You can tell him his shoes would fit better if he didn't walk around in dirty fountain water. Ruined all that nice suede."

"I'll tell him. Thanks," Fitz jogged off, heading back to the car. "Anji? Hey, I need you to look up something for me. I have a hunch on where he's gone."

Anji took a few moments to find what he was looking for on her laptop, but when she called back, she gave him a location and relayed some directions to him before wishing him good luck.

Fitz pulled up to the planetarium and turned off the car, staring up at the domed building, drumming his hands on the steering wheel. He was fairly certain he had the right idea, and Anji confirmed for him this was the only planetarium that wasn't open to the public. It did look abandoned at the moment, which suited Fitz fine. The less people around, the better.

He got out of the car and went over to the main doors of the building. Unlocked, and he could see the alarm system blinking a friendly, non-threatening blue. Cleaning crews or security would be around. He let himself in anyway and set off towards the theatre, following the signs and walking like he owned the place. It was amazing what a purposeful stride did for you when you were in places you ought not to be. The sole guard he passed didn't try to stop him, just waving when Fitz gave him a curt, businesslike nod. Fake it until you make it was practically Fitz's life philosophy.

Eventually he reached the double doors with a gaudy star printed above them. He lingered on the outside for just a second, putting off the moment when he could be proven wrong about how well he knew the Doctor. Either he was right or he was wrong. Or maybe if he didn't look in the doors, he'd be both at once? Wasn't that how the Schroedinger's cat thing worked?

Fitz shook his head and pushed the doors open in one smooth motion, walking into the auditorium. It was dark, but not because no one was inside. The lights were down, as though there was an audience watching a show. The ceiling above him was shining with light, stars, planets, and constellations sketched out. It was like stargazing back home, but with all the lines inked in, displaying Gemini, Canis Major, Taurus, and between them, Orion.

There was a click and all the dotted lines disappeared. Fitz watched raptly as a few were drawn back in and a few new ones were created. Some swirled, some stretched from one side of the sky to the other. One was drawn in, then quickly marked out. "No, no, no, no, only in winter, only in winter," Fitz heard faintly from the podium in the center of the room. Now that he cared to look, he saw the Doctor hunched over it, tapping a stylus against the side.

Fitz smiled, relief washing over him. Putting his hands in his back pockets, he sauntered over, trying to move slowly so not to startle. "Doctor."

"Busy," the Doctor said back, drawing on the screen in front of him some more. "It's so difficult to re-triangulate these stars from Earth. The angle is completely different."

"Doctor," Fitz called again, coming to a stop behind him. 

"Busy, Turlough. I'll be with you in a moment."

"Try again, Doctor."

That got him to stop and turn around. The man looked exhausted, eyes a little red and face pale, emphasized by the strange lighting of the room. The lower legs of his trousers were stained and he was, in fact, shoeless. Fitz wondered where his socks went.

"Fitz," the Doctor said quietly, almost asking, as though he were unsure himself.

"The one and only." Fitz stepped up to him and gently took the stylus out of his hand. "Are you all right? What're you doing?"

"I..." The Doctor looked up, mesmerized by the simulated cosmos. "I'm not exactly sure. It was important though." He covered his mouth, brow furrowing as he thought very hard. "Something about the stars seemed off. Then I thought I was just looking at them from the wrong place." His head snapped up, a flicker of lucidness alight in his eyes. "Oh, I must have worried you terribly, Fitz."

Fitz nodded. "Little bit."

"I'm so sorry. I just wanted to fix the constellations. But then I got here and I couldn't find where they went wrong." He turned back to the podium, looking forlornly at the display. "It's so very frustrating."

"Do you remember why you're here?"

"Stranded. Misplaced my TARDIS. Or someone's taken it. Always a possibility. Time machines are quite the commodity."

"Do you remember your appointment? At the hospital?" The Doctor tilted his head, gazing at Fitz. Fitz met his stare evenly, hardly blinking. Out of his pocket, he pulled out the pills he'd pocketed, clenching his fist around them, their glossy surface a small comfort. Whether he could lead the Doctor back to reality or not, he had the back-up ready.

"You... came looking for me." The Doctor sounded awed, which Fitz found odd. It wasn't like he hadn't always gone to find him. "You found me."

"Yeah. It's kind of what I do, right?"

"I thought you were angry with me." The Doctor leaned in, grabbing Fitz's shirt in both hands. "You say things that don't make any sense." Fitz barely swallowed his laugh. If only the Doctor knew how ironic that was. His humor faded as his friend leaned his face against Fitz, moving so slow, like he was waiting to be pushed away.

Fitz pocketed the pills again and wrapped his arms around the Doctor, tucking the man's head under his chin. "I'm not angry at you. I can't think of anything you could do to change that either, Doc."

"You said you loved me," the Doctor whispered against the hollow of Fitz's throat.

Yeah." Fitz closed his eyes. "I said that."

"Even though I can't figure out what's wrong with the stars?"

"Yeah."

The Doctor sighed and pushed harder against Fitz, sliding his arms around his waist, his fingers hooking onto the loops of his jeans. "Thank you, Fitz." He hummed happily for a moment. "Can we go home now?"

Fitz kissed his forehead, leaving his lips brushing the cool skin of the Doctor's forehead as he whispered back, "Absolutely."

Anji drove the way back, leaving Fitz to tend to the Doctor. As the Doctor fell asleep almost immediately after they got him into the car though, Fitz's tending started and ended with him sitting awkwardly sideways in his seat and watching his landlord snore softly. Nevertheless, he took to it with single-minded determination.

"That was an adventure," Anji said about halfway home, finished with the long silences.

"Yes, it was. Oh," Fitz looked over and her and clapped a hand on your shoulder. "You were fantastic, by the way, with Hudson and all."

"You don't think I was too harsh on them?"

The thought hadn't crossed Fitz's mind, but at the time, Fitz was a little preoccupied with pretending he wasn't soul-shatteringly worried for the Doctor's safety, so. "They'll survive. But seriously... you were brilliant."

Anji grinned a little, pleased. "Thank you, Fitz."

"So I was wondering, if I asked you properly and got a nice ring, would you marry me?"

Her smile didn't falter at all. "Nope."

"Not even if I said it's been my dream since I was a tiny Fitz to get married?"

"I'm not under any circumstances helping you with the fact you haven't had a date in ages."

"This is not about me needing a shag and I'm offended-- offended-- you would think so little of me."

"Then marry the Doctor if you're so eager."

Fitz snorted. "Yeah, that'd go down like a lead balloon. Everyone in town would probably accuse me of taking advantage of him and call me a gold digger."

"I notice you're not protesting the marrying a guy part."

"Shut up."

"I'm proud of you, Fitz. Obviously you're a much more open-minded person than I assumed from your whole 'I should be living in the Sixties' mentality."

Fitz rolled his eyes and went back to watching the Doctor sleep. "I don't want to marry you anymore."

The Doctor was essentially on probation for the next week. Fitz shadowed him whenever he left the house, making up excuse after excuse to keep the man in his sight. It wasn't that he really thought the Doctor was going to go out of his head again, or that he even would have in Birmingham if he had stayed on his meds, but it was something he had to do. This went on until Anji said over dinner to him, "You're the wife, you know." The Doctor had blinked and asked what she was referring to. Fitz gave her a look that could boil water and bit his tongue for the rest of the meal.

He voluntarily did some laundry after that, if only to avoid Anji's smugly amused look and the Doctor's inquiring glances between the two of them. That, and it wouldn't get done if he didn't eventually break down and do it. "God, I really am the wife," Fitz grumbled to himself, punching the start button before climbing onto the machine. He sat cross-legged with a fag between his fingers and a book open on his lap. The machine wobbled something awful, often banging against the wall if he didn't perch on top. He could just take a day to drag the thing away from the wall but he probably never would. Just like he would never put a bulb in the entryway's light fixture and he'd never attempt to fix the loose pole in the stairway's railing. He was a big believer in liking things and people for their strengths and loving them for their flaws. It was the angst-ridden artist in him.

He was quite absorbed in his book and didn't notice the Doctor's arrival until there was a tap on his shoulder. The sound of the washer drowning out his steps didn't help. Fitz looked up and before he could say anything, the Doctor tapped his finger against Fitz's mouth. "Open."

Fitz frowned, but after seeing the Doctor was hiding something behind his back, complied. His reward as some sort of pastry thing, sweet enough to hurt his teeth but utterly delicious. His eyes widened and he chewed thoughtfully. "Wha's tha'?"

"Baklava. Have I got it right finally?"

Fitz nodded, swallowing. "Will you give me more if I say yes? Because really, I'm not sure what baklava is, so I'd be guessing."

The Doctor smiled and set a plate down on the folding table, feeding Fitz another piece. "That's good enough for me. What're you reading?" Fitz held up his book, too busy munching the honeyed treat to reply. "T.S. Eliot? Really?"

"You and Anji, you have to stop thinking I don't read good stuff." He cleared his throat and read aloud, "Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act falls the Shadow."

"That's Shakespearean, you know," The Doctor replied. "Julius Caesar, I think."

"You're probably right. You remember his plays really well." Which Fitz found suspicious as he'd never actually seen the Doctor actively reading. He just knew.

"Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my own dukedom."

Fitz shut his book and replied, "We are such stuff that dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with sleep."

"Oh, very good, Fitz! You know The Tempest?" The Doctor's smile could replace the sun, it was so bright.

"That's the only line I know. I'm not a big fan. Never could understand the iambic thing and what was so special about it." Fitz tried for nonchalant, but getting that sort of reaction out of the Doctor was making him flush slightly.

"Did you know the line is actually we are such stuff as dreams are made on, but everyone gets it wrong because of that one film?"

To Fitz's amusement, the Doctor's tone implied this was some great crime he could hardly stand. He did get worked up over the oddest things. "The Maltese Falcon, I saw that one. Didn't get it, to be honest. It seemed to be one of those I was supposed to learn some deep lesson from, but I just thought the whole thing was a good movie."

"To borrow another line from the Bard, it was essentially much ado about nothing." The Doctor pushed the last piece of baklava against Fitz's mouth, his fingers staying pressed faintly against his lips after he accepted the offering. It gave Fitz a sense of deja vu. The Doctor did tend to ply him with sweet things. Then, appearing to pick up their thread of recitations, "I do believe I understand, and it is proof that ignorance is not bliss, if ignorance would mean I didn't know your mind and the depths within. I hardly deserve you, but forgive my selfishness, as I do not care."

Fitz frowned. "I don't know that one. What's it from?"

"It's not from anything." The Doctor stepped closer, bracing his hands on the washer and kissed Fitz soundly. There was no moment of warm-up, no pause before he tilted his head and he tasted like honey, cloying sweetness that was almost overpowering. That more than anything was why Fitz's hand wound up clutching his coat, pulling him closer, not that there was much space left between them. He needed to never stop doing this. It'd been way too long since the last time. Even a minute would be too long though, he thought, seeing if he could lick the honey taste out of the Doctor's mouth.

Fitz let his cigarette fall down somewhere and used the free hand to push himself to the edge of his perch, uncrossing his legs. The Doctor stood between them and broke the kiss to pant against Fitz's cheek. "My apologies. Got carried away."

"Get carried away more often," Fitz murmured and put his hands on the Doctor's back, fingers splayed wide, pulling them flush. "All the time would be perfect for me." He kissed his nose, his cheek, and point where the Doctor's chin met his neck. He felt the Doctor shiver and sigh happily, and Fitz was always receptive to positive reinforcement. He scraped his teeth against soft skin and followed it up by kissing every bit of his neck he could reach. Cold hands inched under his shirt, a nice counterpoint to the Doctor's warm breath by his ear. There was a reason they weren't supposed to be doing this here, but Fitz was having a difficult time remembering.

Sudden as a lightning strike, the Doctor pulled back and looked over his shoulder. Without a word, he picked up the empty plate and walked off, moving about as quickly as he could without actually running.

Just as he slipped out the door, Anji walked in. "Fitz, have you washed my...." She stopped dead in her tracks. Slowly, she looked him up and down, then looked back to where the Doctor had retreated to in the next room. "You know what? Nevermind. It can wait." Her head was held high as she fled, but her face was red.

Fitz slouched deeply, arms hanging off his knees, catching his breath. He felt like he'd just been caught in the middle of a storm. It was not a horrible feeling, he thought, a grin forming on his face.

In a village where everyone knew everyone else, it wasn't really feasible to be a celebrity. Fitz sometimes came pretty close though. He enjoyed a certain reputation with the half of the population, the ones who frequented the one and only tavern they had. The proprietor, Molly, had miraculously not thrown him out on his drunk arse the first time he played there. Now they had an arrangement. People hung around the pub later when there was something other than the jukebox playing its dated tunes. Fitz had a large wheelhouse and Molly bribed him with free drinks and a few pounds, so long as he didn't get too morose. He'd explained to her that the most beautiful songs were the sad ones, but she'd countered that there was only one thing worse than a rude drunk and that was a weepy one.

Thus, Fitz kept it upbeat until midnight, then indulged himself once he was throughly buzzed. The worst Molly would do is stop refilling his glass, after all. He even collected some tips, often saving them up for the end of the month to either pad his rent payment or to treat himself to a new album or book. It was a good system and got him out of the house. He hated feeling like a homebody, in with such a warm, friendly home.

Tonight, Molly kept his glass full and he returned the favor with her own favorites, long since memorized. They lead him into the evening, along with a few regulars requests. Anyone who put something in the tip jar got a song, even if it was insipid pop bollocks he had to tame and bend to his own style.

Molly suddenly took his glass away and placed a martini in its place.

"Not to seem ungrateful, Mols..."

"A gift from the corner table," Molly explained, patting his shoulder and walking away. Fitz stood up and discreetly looked over all the bowed heads. Anji's sensibly cut jet black hair was easily visible. Next to her...

Fitz got up and weaved over to their table. Upon reaching Anji and the Doctor, he wordlessly snatched his trilby off the Doctor's head. "You cannot wear a bonnet one moment then put on one ofmy hats."

The Doctor pouted at him. "Well, first off, hello, Fitz. Secondly, I only wear the bonnet for gardening. Thirdly, you have so many hats, I didn't think you'd mind."

"It's true," Anji added. "I bet you could wear a different hat every day for a month if you liked."

"I look good in hats," Fitz said defensively. "And anyway, you have how many pairs of the same black strappy heels? Don't throw stones, Anj."

"They aren't the same, you just don't know anything about shoes."

The Doctor shook his head, smiling ruefully. "Now, really, you two. The way you fight, one would think you didn't like each other."

"I can't stand her," Fitz said with absolutely no sincerity. "What're you two doing here at this hour?"

"The Doctor said it was going to rain tonight and didn't want you to walk home in it. So we're here with the car." She waved him off. "Go on, then. You brag about your gigs all the time. Get on with it, Fitz Fortune."

Fitz spun the trilby in his fingers and flipped it with practiced showmanship onto his head. He tipped the brim to them. "Ta."

He made his way back to his barstool, picking up his guitar and setting it back on his lap. The room that seemed so large a moment ago was condescend down to just the corner table and his housemates' eyes on him. He couldn't play to the crowd anymore. not knowing who was there, giving him their full attention.

He strummed out something jaunty and flirtatious, testing the sound in a few different notes before settling on Am and kicking off a song.

"Paris, my paramore, I'm sorry for this letter
London town, girl next door, you'll find someone better
Tokyo, our nights were endless and you were a peach
Rio, senora, I'll miss our walks on the beach
But I'm afraid I've found my better half..."

He didn't want to lose his thread, but Fitz chanced a look up at this friends. Anji had a perplexed but intrigued look on her face, like she'd just noticed something brand new about him. The Doctor hand his elbows on the table and his chin resting on his fists, giving Fitz his total rapt attention. Fitz gave him a wolfish grin and shut his eyes, sliding into C for the bridge.

"She's the fifth impossible thing before lunch
Walking her streets, I'm walking on water
Her figure has the curves, canals, and arch
There's no lady in the world quite like her..."

He held out the note for a long, paralyzing moment, letting it reverberate and hum before smashing into E and going on.

"Venice is turning me upside down
Hook, line, sinker, I'm going to drown
But I don't mind, amante
Let the water pour in because
Venezia, I don't mind..."

When he'd finished, there was a small but jubilant burst of applause from the Doctor, making the other patrons of the pub glare at him for breaking the reverie that settled over them. Anji hastily grabbed his hands, earning another pout for herself, but he was just as content to hold her hand as he was to clap. Fitz chuckled to himself and stood again, slinging his guitar onto his back and picking up his martini to go join them. Molly gave him an approving nod as he passed her and shut off the light that has illuminated his seat. He was off the clock, as it were.

"Oh, Fitz, Fitz, Fitz," the Doctor gushed. "That's why you asked me what the Italian word for 'lover' was?"

"That was months ago. You remember that?"

"When someone asks me about the romance languages, I don't easily forget. But nevermind that," he waved his hands, one dragging Anji's along in his short flail. She grabbed her drink and moved it out of the way before it could be knocked over. "That was lovely! Very pretty, though your voice made it seem rather sad, but that's just your normal register and cadence at work. Melancholic, I believe is the word I'm looking for."

He tipped his hat to the Doctor, hoping the shadow from the brim would also hide the way his face went pink, pleased but somewhat modest. "Yeah, well... needs work. That's the first time I've played 'Upside-Down in Venice' for anyone."

"I know I'm not the musician here, but professing your love for someone then going on about how they'll drown you... not very romantic, is it?" Anji asked.

"Sometimes love isn't very romantic," Fitz said quietly. There was a long silence after that. He still had an audience, their gazes heavy like a physical weight on him. He shook his head and took a sip of his drink. Above, he could hear the starts of a rainstorm beating on the roof, but there at the table in the pub, he was high and dry. For the moment, anyway.

There was no better sleep than the one that came after playing his guitar for a few hours and enjoying a steady flow of alcohol, knowing you'd make it home all right. There were few things more comforting than having responsibility lifted off your shoulders for a while, and Fitz had been responsible for a long time without reprieve. It was hard to remember when he was younger and didn't care about anyone, just running around London after hours and looking for the next high he didn't have to pay for.

Now he was settled down with the house and the garden and the steady job. He did less dancing in the dark to loud music and more sitting on the porch, watching the leaves turn from green to brilliant reds and yellows.

The temperature was slowly dropping and Fitz was finally getting into the habit of laying under the covers and not just irritably kicking them off. It was a much appreciated break after the months of summer humidity. His slumber was getting deeper as the season changed.

He'd have been dead to the world for a good solid ten hours if all that nice warmth wasn't ruined by something freezing cold slipping in next to him on the bed. Not even awake, Fitz yelped and recoiled. His bed wasn't very big though and he ended up falling half out of the bed, shoulder hitting the ground as his legs, tangled in the blankets, remained on the mattress.

It was very quiet for a moment as his brain slowly caught up with what had happened. Eventually, Fitz groaned and said, "You can help me back up now."

"I'm really very sorry, Fitz," the Doctor said sheepishly, his head appearing over the side of the bed. "I didn't think you would startle that badly."

Fitz rolled his eyes and waved a hand at him until the Doctor grabbed his arm and hauled him back up. They ended up crushed together on the bed, Fitz's half on top of the Doctor. "S'okay. What time is it?"

"Late. Or, I suppose, early. You should be sleeping." The Doctor wiggled until he could push Fitz down on his side, guiding him into what he approximated to be a restful position before petting Fitz's hair soothingly.

Fitz laughed quietly to himself, snatching up the Doctor's hand to stop it, as nice as the feeling of his fingers through Fitz's messy hair was. The Doctor immediately twined their fingers together, like he was desperate for that little bit of tactility. "Are you okay?"

"Me? Yes, yes, I'm fine. Don't be silly."

"Bad dreams?" Fitz asked, because he knew better than to believe him.

"No. Actually I... couldn't sleep a wink." It felt like a non-sequitur when the Doctor kissed him then, but maybe in the Doctor's mind it wasn't.

"Mm, hm," Fitz mumbled, taken aback. He pulled back and looked the Doctor in the eye. "Mrs. Robinson, I think you're trying to seduce me." It was the most obvious joke ever, but he needed something. He figured he could be forgiven since he was still mostly asleep.

"Trying being the operative word," the Doctor said mildly. "Not having much luck. How you earned such a reputation is beyond me."

"Just have that look. And my buckets of raw sex appeal help." Fitz yawned and laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "You seducing someone, that's a laugh."

"Is it?" His voice was very soft, breath ghosting over Fitz's skin. "I admit I don't have your experience in these matters, but..." His lips pressed against the corner of Fitz's mouth, somewhat chaste but very deliberate. The lingering touches went on, against the apple of his cheek, the curve of his jaw, and the vulnerable skin under his chin. "Need a shave," the Doctor mumbled.

Fitz's eyes closed peaceably, though his drowsiness was being pushed aside by the purposeful touches the Doctor was pressing into him. "Wasn't expecting you to jump me tonight."

"I did no jumping, that was all you, my dear," The Doctor pointed out. His words were too steady for a man who was climbing atop his tenant, straddling him, and arching down to pepper Fitz's neck and shoulders with kisses. "Fitz."

"Yeah?" 

"Are you going to push me away again?" Fitz opened his eyes to meet the Doctor's. "Because if so, I'd... prefer you did it now. Your moments of chivalry are very sweet, but are also very frustrating."

He frustrated the Doctor. Fitz smiled a little at the thought. Turnabout was fair play, he thought. But maybe not this time. He'd been afraid of hurting the man before, accidentally using his urgent fear of Fitz leaving against him. There wasn't any fear in the blue of his eyes now, just hope and a shade of playfulness. And something much more intense that Fitz wouldn't dare put a name on right now. He'd deal with that later. For now, it was fine to put his arms around the Doctor, his hands slung low on his back.

"Wasn't planning on it," Fitz whispered before sitting up. The Doctor's hands seized Fitz's shoulders, like he was expecting to fall backward. Fitz slid his hands up, pads of his fingers pressing in just so, holding him up. "Got you," he said a bit uselessly. The Doctor nodded his understanding and curled his hands around Fitz's neck, dragging him in and kissing him soundly. All the practice had evidentially payed off. Fitz clearly remembered that first press of their mouth in the kitchen, innocent and timid. This was lightyears away from that. Still vaguely innocent though, and the Doctor was the only person in the world who could seem innocent when doing that trick of running your tongue over someone's lips to get them to open up to you, but there you were.

Fitz's hands worked up and down the Doctor's back, an impromptu massage that elicited a stream of blissfully happy noises from deep in the man's throat. Fitz's thumbs framed the line of his spine and the Doctor leaned back hard against them, groaning loud enough Fitz was worried Anji would hear. "Hey..."

"Sorry. Never had someone do that. I didn't expect it to feel that good," he replied breathlessly.

"Backrubs as foreplay. Duly noted." Fitz was spurred on by the Doctor's reactions, their proximity making it impossible to not read his movements, the way he telegraphed everything he wanted. He wanted a lot and Fitz was feeling unconventionally generous. He let the Doctor kiss him for a moment before nudging him off. The Doctor's confusion lasted only until Fitz rubbed his stubbled cheek against the Doctor's throat, making him shiver, and following it up by wetly mouthing his way down his neck, giving special consideration to the hollow of The Doctor's throat and the taut skin over his collarbone. The Doctor, enthusiastic as he was, seemed at a loss of what to do, left gasping, trying to keep quiet, and carding Fitz's hair with his fingers.

Fitz found a splattering of light freckles over the Doctor's shoulder and took his time tracing each one with the tip of his tongue. Engrossed in his very vital task, he scarcely noticed how tense the Doctor was becoming, eyes screwed shut and body wound up tight on Fitz's lap. "What is it?"

"Nothing. Don't stop doing that, please."

"You look like you're about to pull something. Relax." He ran his hand soothingly up and down the Doctor's back.

"Trying not to move."

Fitz laughed. "Why? Restraint's not exactly the name of the game here, Doctor." Deviously wanting to prove his point, he lavished some consideration on the Doctor's chest, as low as he could reach without separating them.

"It's just..." He let out a full-body shudder, distracted for the moment. "It's not what I imagined."

That halted Fitz completely, made him sit up and really look at the Doctor. "What's not?" The Doctor shrugged and tried to kiss Fitz, but Fitz put a hand on his shoulder. "No. Talk. Explain. Elucidate. Whatever. What'd I do wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing you're doing is wrong. It feels like you're tying me in knots and untying me all at once." He tipped his head back, looking away, obviously embarrassed. "I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do."

Oh, Fitz's brain supplied at long last, hey. Virgin. He hadn't even thought about that and he felt like a arse for not doing so. He should have been able to suss that out, really.

Fitz very slowly kissed the long, now-exposed line of his neck. He felt the Doctor's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed thickly. "Okay. How about this..." He let go of the Doctor, lay back, propped up on his elbows. "Do whatever you like. That's the way it works. So long as something feels good, you're on the right path."

"That seems very simple." The Doctor stared at Fitz, gaze sharp, almost examining. He tentatively put one hand on Fitz's chest, waiting a long moment before sliding his hand down, palm against Fitz's skin.

"Well, er... Sex isn't really that complicated. Trust me."

"I do. Explicitly." The Doctor leaned forward, holding himself up on one arm as he continued to just touch, lingering around his bellybutton. Brow furrowed, he glanced up at Fitz's face for approval before shifting. He held himself up on both arms and dipped down to imitate what Fitz had done before, mouthing along his chest. His tongue pressed against the point just under Fitz's ribs and Fitz choked back a groan and tried to not watch. Looking down at the Doctor as he did that was unbearable. When cold fingers slipped under the top of his boxers, Fitz had to look though. "Can I?" 

"Yeah. Definitely, yeah." With a little coordinated effort, they got Fitz naked. He promptly snatched his boxers out of the Doctor's hands-- he looked like he was going to neatly fold them or something-- and tossed them across the room. The Doctor shook his head but didn't remark on it, instead moving around again until he was back atop Fitz and comfortable.

"Now you seem tense," the Doctor murmured absentmindedly, more focused on trailing his fingers along Fitz's chest than any conversation.

"Oh, I'm not. Well. Okay, maybe a little. Haven't done this with a bloke without being a bit out of my head first is all." He added hastily, "Not that I wanna be out of my head for this."

"I would hope not." Fitz jumped when the Doctor ran his nails over the curve of Fitz's hip, feeling how closely his reactions were being watched. He felt like a puzzle of some kind that the Doctor was trying to learn the knack to solving.

Heh. Fitz was doing anything to keep looking at the Doctor's face despite the fact the man had crawled naked into bed with him. Someone might have been nervous, but Fitz couldn't say for certain which of them it was. He'd seen the Doctor in varying stages of undress, but never like this. He was all at once perfect and yet almost delicate. He'd always struck Fitz as somewhat frail, needing to be protected. He'd fancied him for longer than he'd admit, but now he was afraid of one mistake, one accidental hurt that would ruin anything. Perhaps it'd be easier if the Doctor was just another bloke and not someone who trusted him explicitly.

He was being an idiot about it, Fitz decided. The Doctor was the one willingly wandering out of his comfort zone, albeit while seeming pretty sanguine about it all at the moment. Fitz needed to make sure this was good to show him it was worth it. Fitzgerald Kreiner, responsible adult. It was his solemn duty to shake loose that casual aloofness and give the Doctor the shag of his life.

"What's so funny? Are you ticklish?"

"No. Come here." Fitz guided the Doctor down onto the bed, carefully pushing him onto his back and effectively reserving their positions. The Doctor's hands wrapped tightly around his wrists, and Fitz remembered the last time they did this, he'd left the Doctor just this way. That was where the similarities ended, as Fitz kissed the Doctor then, hard and fast, not bothering to tease. He slid one of his hands down the Doctor's chest, this time not stopping at his hips, and the Doctor gasped against his mouth at the sudden boldness. Fitz broke the kiss, leaning on his other arm above the Doctor, and whispered roughly, "Good?" The Doctor was doing that tensing thing again and Fitz pressed their foreheads together. "Don't do that. Talk to me. Whatever you want, tell me."

The Doctor laughed shallowly, the sound cutting off into a sharp inhale when Fitz's hand wrapped loosely around him. "Can't."

"Won't," Fitz challenged, licking his way to the Doctor's ear and blew softly into it, making the Doctor shake. "You don't need to be eloquent or anything. I'm not looking for that." His voice deepened, coarse like sandpaper.

"Oh, Fitz..." The Doctor turned his head, pressing their cheeks together. "You are terribly unfa-- ugh." He covered his mouth with one hand, eyes squeezing shut, back arching as Fitz-- yeah, a bit unfairly-- started to stroke his cock in earnest. The Doctor moved constantly, legs stretching out then bending again, dragging the sheets with them, his hands tight on Fitz's shoulders, likely to leave marks. "Fitz... Fitz, Fitz, Fitz." His name was muffled but undoubtedly being chanted like a curse and a praise all at once.

Fitz kissed his cheek tenderly, a stark contrast to the wicked sliding grip of his hand. "D'you want more?"

"I... aha, I don't know if I can take it." He met Fitz's eyes and his pupils were completely blown. "Feel like I may burst."

"That's the idea," Fitz said but lightened his grip. The Doctor took a long breath, easing back from the edge Fitz had him moving quickly towards. His hips twitched with every motion of Fitz's hand though, unabashedly caught up in the pleasure. "I'm going to try something else now, okay?" The Doctor nodded and watched Fitz crawl up the bed and lean over his bedside table, rattling through the drawers for a moment. The paraphernalia he needed didn't get as much use as it used to though and he hastily shoved stuff around the drawer, searching.

This wasn't made easier by the Doctor getting a little more aggressive and putting observational experience to work. He curled around Fitz's chest and ran one cool finger down Fitz's cock, making him startle. The Doctor clicked his tongue, as if chiding him for almost falling out of the bed again, and kept on, touch maddeningly light. "Problem, Fitz?" He was shooting for nonchalance, but missed it, an octave too high.

Fitz finally tossed the tube he was looking for onto the pillow and half-threw himself at the Doctor, pushing him down and pinning him with a lax grip. "Should've known you'd be a bastard in bed." He kissed him, tasting the fading hint of mint, slow and languid. It was sloppy, more of Fitz's attention elsewhere as he urged the Doctor into a better position. "Lucky you're sort of gorgeous like this."

"Am I?" The Doctor smiled warmly at the compliment.

"Don't let it go to your head," Fitz said, unconvincing to his own ears. Before the Doctor could seize the opportunity to tease, Fitz wrapped his hand around him again and rubbed his thumb over the head. The Doctor's words died in his throat as he groaned, head thrown back against the pillow. Fitz could see in the moonlight the flush of his skin and were Fitz had left a few marks on his shoulders and neck. Gorgeous was the word. He kept rocking his thumb in that circular motion, listening to the Doctor's incoherent mumblings and excited gasps. Once his supine body was as relaxed as Fitz could get him, Fitz pressed one slick finger inside him.

Cold, cold but tight enough that he could feel that dual pulse. Fitz bit his lip, suddenly ridiculously turned on by that fast heartsbeat. Coupled with the Doctor's loud whimpers-- fuck. If his hands weren't otherwise occupied... Fitz shook his head, gathering himself before nudging another finger inside. The Doctor's face was pulled taut, almost like in pain, but his thready, nonsensical speech made it clear he was really quite okay with the circumstances.

Fitz wanted very badly to replace his fingers with something a bit more substantial. But that seemed self-serving and not the sort of thing you did on a guy's first time. Literally his first time, too, not just his first time with another guy. No, Fitz was going to do the right thing. Well, if the Doctor just flat out asked, then he wouldn't say no, sure--

"Fitz, oh my..." The Doctor panted. "Please, please, please."

Fitz propelled himself up and back to the ajar drawer, grabbing a condom before resettling between the Doctor's legs. "Okay, okay, yes, definitely. I mean, if you're sure?"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure, just hurry up please." Then he babbled in something Fitz very distantly recognized as either French or Italian, a mixture of Fitz's name and florid vowels and crisp consonants. Weird, but sexy. Fitz fumbled with the condom wrapper for a moment, but triumphed over it and got the damn thing rolled over him. Then it was just a matter of moving that extra few centimeters closer and pushing in.

Oh, a cold shower would never work on him again.

He went as slowly as he could, trying to be patient, but it was hard with the Doctor's impatience. He kept rocking his hips and Fitz had to grab them and hold them still so he didn't come immediately. His breaths were ragged, each inhale a gasp of air into his lungs, each exhale ripped out of him. Even the autumn chill and the fact the covers had long since been knocked off the bed couldn't keep the heat from flooding Fitz's veins. He didn't realize he'd shut his eyes until the Doctor's palms pressed over his cheeks, urging him to open up, close enough he thought the could see the reflection of his own grey in the Doctor's blue.

Once he managed to calm down, he pulled back and thrust once back in. The Doctor's eyes unfocused, eyebrows drawing together. He didn't seem clear on what he was feeling right away, but on the next thrust, he cried out. Fitz ineptly tried to cover his mouth, worried about the volume, but the Doctor ruined the effect by taking Fitz's thumb into his mouth and there was suction and wetness and Fitz may have yelled pretty loud himself there.

Fitz felt himself getting close, his rhythm getting a little disjointed. Sometime shallow, sometimes deep, but fast, uneven. 

He could hear his heart beating in his ears and could feel the Doctor's beating around him. Three beats in a fast tempo that drowned out everything else. 

His orgasm came out of nowhere and slammed into him. He buried deep inside with one overbalanced push. He would have fallen on his face if the Doctor hadn't been holding him up. For a brilliant second, he was drowning in it, a wave smashing over him.

The metaphorical tide receded and he lay limp on top of the Doctor, half-lidded eyes watching the man as he smiled kindly. Like that was it, they were finished.

Fitz pulled himself up, planting one elbow on one side of the Doctor's head and staring down at him. Without a word, his other hand pulled at the Doctor's cock. What he lacked in subtlety, he made up for in technique, constantly changing his grip and pressure, but always moving at a steady, speed. The Doctor's smile slipped, a surprised stuttering gasp taking its place. Fitz didn't blink, watching like a hawk as the Doctor went to pieces in his hand. He couldn't say anything, just moaning and making soft keening noises, until he went completely silent, eyes shut, back bending. He came like a shot, body locking for one perfect moment as Fitz let him ride through it, hand lightly caressing until he became too sensitive to it.

With a tired flump, he ended up back on the pillows, Fitz lazing against his chest. It wasn't the most comfortable position with his arm squashed between them, but Fitz couldn't make himself move. Not just yet.

Boneless, he was easily nudged off and onto his side by the Doctor. "Nngh." Fitz said. The Doctor laughed and curled up next to him, tangling their arms and legs together until their skin was touching in more places than it was not. Fitz knew they really needed to get up and clean up. A shared shower would be fun, he mused idly.

But Fitz was, despite all of Anji's teasing, male, and after getting laid he got sleepy and crashed. The Doctor wrapping around him and nuzzling his face did not help matters. He couldn't work up the willpower to fight off the wave of exhaustion that replaced the frantic rush he'd been in before. In his defense, he had been in a sound sleep when the Doctor had woken him up.

"Going back to sleep?" He kissed Fitz's closed eyelids faintly.

"Mmhm."

"Do you mind if I stay here for the night?"

"Nn-hm."

"Thank you. For everything, really, not just letting me stay."

"Mmhm."

"Fitz?"

"Mm."

"Do you think we could go to Venice?"

"Mm."

And Fitz, unknowing what horrors he had just unleashed, fell asleep.

In the morning, Fitz came upon Anji sitting in the recliner, glaring at him like he'd murdered a kitten or touched her laptop or something equally heinous. "Uh. Morning, Anj."

"There was a QI marathon on last night, you know."

"Oh. Okay?" Fitz was thrown by the statement, utterly baffled by what Stephen Fry had to do with anything.

"I know this because I was up half the night. Couldn't sleep."

Fitz blanched. Oh shit, he thought. He hadn't been as careful as he'd hoped. 

Anji glowered at him for a moment before getting up and heading for the kitchen. "Next time, please don't do that in the room directly above mine." There was a silent but heavily implied or else at the end of that sentence. Fitz winced and sheepishly followed her. He was afraid of her righteous fury, but he was also very hungry, having worked up a big appetite. 

He smiled a little at the memory. When he woke up, he almost assumed it was just a freakishly vivid wet dream. Cleaning up the leftover mess hadn't been fun, but it had dispelled that notion. He'd shagged the Doctor. He was fairly sure that wasn't a mistake and that everything went well and life was going to be good.

When he finally meandered into the kitchen, the Doctor was tipping blueberry pancakes onto Anji's plate and asking her if she had a passport.

"Yeah, I went to Boston a while back. It should be still valid. Why?"

"Oh, we're going to Venice together!" He beamed and turned back to the stove, humming cheerfully.

Fitz froze in the entryway, he and Anji wearing identical open-mouthed expressions. She slowly swiveled her head from the Doctor's back to Fitz. He got the feeling he was about to find out what Anji's or else entailed.

"Fitz..."

"I can explain. It's not my fault. I can explain." He really could not explain, which meant it probably was his fault, and Anji was going to kill him.

But she probably wouldn't kill him in front of the Doctor, so he sat down and let the Doctor making him some pancakes as well. Anji, sitting across from him, watched him sharply as he very slowly worked his way through his food. He was stalling, but he also had no illusions about how brave he might've been. 

"Shall I make everyone tea? I have some nice roobois for you, Anji," the Doctor said, still smiling sweetly like the world was perfect and Anji wasn't going to kill Fitz.

"I'd love some," Fitz said eagerly as Anji said over him, "No, we're good, thanks." She stood up and grabbed Fitz's arm, pulling him out of the room. "We'll be right back."

"Anj, babe-" Fitz started in his most cajoling tone.

"Not here." She got to the closet and threw his coat at him. "Put some shoes on."

"My boots are in my room. I'll just..."

"You will not."

"Okay then."

A moment later, Anji and Fitz, wrapped up in their jackets, stood in the garden, talking in hushed tones. Or, Anji did. Fitz mostly just stood there, staring at his sandals and wishing he'd had the foresight to put on a coat and shoes that would actually keep his feet warm. He wondered how painful his death would be if he asked Anji to let him run back inside to grab his boots.

"And right after Birmingham, Fitz! That was such a close call and now you're going to let him go on about Venice? You have to talk to him, tell him we're not going and why. What were you thinking?"

Fitz shrugged. "Wasn't thinking. Hell, I don't remember him asking me." He held up a hand when Anji started up again. "Look, spare me the tirade. I get it." He looked away, back at the house. Through the windows, he could see the Doctor putting on a record in the living room. He still had that beatific smile on his face. 

The thing was, when you got right down to it, Fitz wasn't nearly as cool and confident as he acted. He was like one of those chocolate toffees in the foil wrappers; under the independent wannabe-rocker shell was a gooey center of sensitive benevolence. He was a cynic, because it was better to be surprised by the world going right than constantly disappointed when things went wrong. But he thought about the Doctor and Venice and how rare his episodes were nowadays, and he knew he wasn't going to make the right choice about this.

It was stupid, so very stupid, but as much as he refused to acknowledge it, as much as he still mentally dubbed the two of them 'tenant' and 'landlord' when they very plainly weren't, as much as he didn't want to put a name to the gleam the Doctor got in his eyes when he looked at Fitz, Fitz knew he wasn't strong enough to tell the Doctor no. All of the man's dreams revolved around traveling and adventure, things that in reality he just wasn't built for. He wanted to have one adventure, and he wanted Fitz and Anji to go along with him. Fitz could deny a lot of things, but not this. Not to him.

"Oh no," Anji said. "Fitz, no. Don't you dare." 

Fitz sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, Anji."

Anji rubbed her eyes, mostly to have an excuse not to look at him. "Can't you be sensible for once in your life?"

"Oh, why start now?" He pulled her hand down from her face and squeezed it reassuringly. She resumed glaring at him, but her heart wasn't in it. He was fairly sure that if push came to shove, she couldn't tell the Doctor no on this either.

The Doctor was waiting for Fitz when he came back into the house. He sat primly on the sofa, hands on his knees and back straight. He seemed to be radiating an aura of solemnity. Fitz realized he was waiting for Fitz to give him his answer. His posture, his patient silence, the way he was trying to hide just how badly he wanted this... Fitz never stood a chance.

"I don't have a passport."

"Neither do I. We'll get them. It only takes a few weeks."

"I don't speak Italian. Anji doesn't either. You'll have to do the talking for us."

"I'm perfectly all right with that." His voice was edging away from stoicism to hopefulness.

"It'll probably have to wait until winter."

"That'll be out of the tourist season, it shouldn't be as crowded."

Fitz started to bring up something else, but stopped. "Yeah. Okay. Venice."

"Venezia." His smile returned and Fitz couldn't make himself regret his answer when the Doctor jumped up and hugged him. "Thank you, Fitz, thank you."

For the first time in his life, Fitz felt like he was on a schedule. He'd dodged letting others dictate his actions all his life, the master of being fashionably late to everything. Now he had a list of things to do. Fitz hadn't made a list since he was in school. He always preferred to wing it instead of having a plan.

But Anji had sat everyone down with a large pot of hot tea after dinner and wrote out a list of things that needed to be done if they were going to make it to Venice. The paper was passed over to him, much to his dismay. He glowered at it, but it continued to sit there in front of him as Anji rinsed out her teacup and went to bed. He almost wished she put effort into it, arguing with him and explain why this was all for him to do, not her. Sadly, she seemed to know he'd spend some time grumbling about how much his life sucked but would eventually get to it.

"There's no need to glare at the paper, Fitz. It's hardly its fault."

Fitz rolled his eyes at the Doctor and folded up the paper. "The things I do for you, I swear."

He smiled sweetly. "And I am grateful. Inexpressibly grateful." His smile tilted coyly. "Though... maybe not inexpressibly," he went on, words thick with meaning.

Fitz didn't know why, but he was surprised by the obvious come on. It seemed like the sort of line he'd pull on someone he'd shagged when he wanted a repeat performance. In the Doctor's dulcet tone, it was... strange. Not in a bad way though. That the Doctor would be interested in another round of shagging hadn't occurred to him in all the mess with Venice and Anji deciding to spare his life. He didn't know why he'd thought otherwise. The Doctor made his intentions toward Fitz crystal clear, still stealing kisses when he saw opportunity.

Here was the thing, Fitz didn't see him as a sexual being. He never sensed any ulterior motives in anything the Doctor did. When he kissed Fitz, it was because he wanted a kiss. When he undressed after being soaked by rain, it was because he wanted dry clothes. Darjeeling bribery aside, the Doctor's motives where simple if Fitz cared to look. Now, sex was a new bit in the Doctor's repertoire, or so Fitz assumed. He knew he'd been the man's first and that most of the mechanics were foreign to him.

Fitz was stuck by a sudden thought that he immediately tried and failed to squash: Did the guy ever get himself off? Fitz took a few seconds trying to imagine such a scenario-- it wasn't like he didn't have a big spacious room to himself or that sometimes both Fitz and Anji were out of the house-- but came up with nothing. He reluctantly went on to wonder if the Doctor even had any porn. It didn't seem likely that he did. Really, picturing him going out to buy a dirty magazine just resulted in a large cannot process message being sent back from his brain. If not magazines, what could he use? Was there a well-thumbed copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover hidden in his room? Or was he one of those people Fitz had always considered smug gits who just grinned at you and claimed they had a verygood imagination, thank you very much?

Fitz was about to stop thinking about it all together when he finally postulated a more likely answer. What if he was the Doctor's porn? That intense stare, the utter lack of personal space, his remarkable memory for tiny details most people would consider unimportant... 

There was a hand waving in front of his face. "Fitz? I haven't broken you, have I?" 

Fitz blinked and looked up at the Doctor, who was standing over him, a hand on his shoulder. He looked worried instead of teasing. Fitz didn't know how long he'd been wrapped up in his thoughts but it must have been a while. "No, I'm good. Sorry."

"Perhaps you're tired? You should get a restful night's sleep." He brushed Fitz's fringe back and kissed his forehead. "Goodnight, Fitz."

Fitz continued to sit at the table for a while, vacillating. He was quite exhausted and hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. He had so much to do in the morning, he should've just gone to his bed and slept. He could get up bright and early and get started on Anji's list, knock out an item or two right away.

He chuckled to himself as he locked up the house and went upstairs, passing the second floor and going up to the third. Him of all people waking up before ten was a laugh. Sleep was for people who didn't have better things to do with their nights.

The next morning was much less fun. Fitz sat in the lobby of the bank, slouching so deep in his chair, only the most charitable person would refer to his position as upright. He had his best hat on for moral support and it was tipped down as low as he could get it. He was working under the theory that if he couldn't see the bank and its employees, they didn't exist. That was quantum physics or something. His logic was sound.

Anji must not have ever heard of quantum physics though. She was still talking loudly, ignoring his attempts to not be there. "I cannot believe you. How can you not have a bank account? How can you not have a bank account. No. Fitz. Really. How can you not have a bank account? How... how do you cash your paychecks?"

"They let you cash 'em anyway. They keep, I dunno, a few quid out of it. Five, I think..." Fitz shrugged and turned up the collar of his leather jacket. He was almost completely blind to the bank now. If only he had a scarf to wrap around his neck, his quantum non-observance thing would be complete.

"Hold on. You've lived here about three years and you get a check every other week, right? And every time you throw away five pounds. That's-"

"Don't do the maths. I don't care, Anji."

"How can you be thirty and never had a bank account or a passport?!"

He looked up at her and hissed back, "I'm twenty-nine!"

"How did you get a place to live? Or get hired?"

"I was..." Fitz sighed and climbed back into the chair before he fell to the floor. Sitting, tapping his fingers irritably on the armrests. He'd not had to sit in a bank to talk to someone for years. Not since his mother died at least. "I wasn't exactly planning on settling down here. I was just wandering north. I think I had a mate in Manchester I was going to go meet. I was just doing the plant shop thing for a little extra money. Mrs. Simms needed temp work." He got a cigarette out of his jacket, only for Anji to grab it and point meaningfully at the no smoking sign on the wall. Fitz groaned and started bouncing his leg up and down, antsy. "I haven't had a fag in over a day, Anj..."

"Why'd you leave London?" She patted his hand, offering up a distraction.

"Mum got committed. Couldn't stay after that." He looked at his shoes, not keen on the sympathetic look in her eyes. "Then I got stuck here. Meant to head further north but you know how it is. You say this thing you're doing is temporary until suddenly it's not anymore."

"And now you've been here years and have a home and a stable job."

"But no bank account."

"But no bank account," she agreed. "You got sucked into that house like I did, I guess."

"I was living in this little motel just outside of town for a while. S'gone now, I think. Feels like a lifetime ago, before I met him and moved in." He made a move to grab his cigarette back from her, but she just put it in her pocket, ignoring his attempts at being sneaky.

"How'd that happen? Ad in the paper?"

"No, no. You know he loves his garden... He came into the plant shop a lot. Browsed, mostly. This was before I knew anything about him, rumors or not. He was just this loiterer. Never talked to me, but always gave me a wave before he left."

"Naturally friendly, the Doctor." By which she probably meant normal rules of society didn't apply to him. Fitz couldn't disagree with that sentiment.

"Anyway, one day he did try to buy something, this little potted begonia that was half-dead."

"Begonias, aren't those in your window box?"

Fitz smiled. "Yeah, the red flowers, that's them. He wanted to 'rescue' the thing, so he asked for a discount, on account of it being a lost cause and all. We argued for a few minutes, but he was holding up the queue, so I gave him his discount just to get him to leave."

Anji snickered. "Not exactly love at first sight."

Well, Fitz had always noticed how handsome the Doctor was. He nodded along anyway, keeping that to himself. "Then it was like how you're not supposed to feed stray cats because they'll come back. He kept coming in, sometimes buying, mostly just to chat with me. I must've mentioned that I was looking for a permanent place to stay at some point because he sent Sam-- nice girl, she was in your room at the time-- over one day to invite me to his house for dinner." He waved his hand expansively. "Fast forward to today. Here I am."

"You live a charmed life."

"The name's Fortune for a reason, Anji, my love." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles extravagantly.

She flicked his nose and pulled her hand away. "Come on, I think the loan officer's free now."

"Oh, excellent," Fitz drawled, watching her go into the office before reluctantly following.

Fitz had to be the only person who realized he was an adult and had a mid-life crisis within the same year. It was really disconcerting.

"I mean, I have a loan out. Loans are for college students and married couples expecting kids," Fitz explained, putting all his weight forward on his hands and dragging them down the Doctor's back.

"Uuuuuhnghmm," the Doctor replied into the pillow.

"Though I have to say, getting a loan out just to go on a vacation... that does sound like me, right?"

"Mmmmmmnnnngh," the Doctor possibly agreed while Fitz kneaded his shoulders.

"It's weird. I used to resent my mates when they went off, fell in love, got a house, and all that. Felt like they were giving up everything to be chained down." He paused and looked around the room, like it was the first time he'd noticed he was in a house himself. "I used to like hopping from flat to flat just because a shitty flat was still not a house." The Doctor made an upset noise and wriggled underneath him. "Oh, sorry." He ran his knuckles in circles over the place where the Doctor's back met his hips, pushing hard against the muscles.

"Mhn." He settled down again, groaning deep in his throat, like a low purr.

"It's like I'm living my life out of order. Had to be there for Mum after Dad died, had to try to support us when her mind started to go... then it was nothing but hedonism for years. Even worse than when I met you. By then I didn't have the money to get smashed all the time." He reached over to grab the bottle of lavender oil and put more on his hands. The stuff worked great but his hands smelled like the garden in midsummer and he'd have a hell of a time washing it off. He'd scrub for hours if he needed to, anything so Anji wouldn't laugh at him. For now, he just put his hands on the Doctor's neck and massaged around the knot at the base. "Then I had the house and now I've got... well, you know."

The Doctor lifted his head out of the pillow and said simply, "Me."

"Yeah." Fitz smiled a bit at that. "That part's not so bad."

"Thank you. Do you know what I think?"

"Sometimes, but as a rule I try not to."

"I think you're being very silly. I admit I don't have much experience in the linear progression of human maturity--"

"This is why I have that rule, see."

"--and I think Anji could probably relate more to this than I could, but I think she may have more problems discussing her emotions without sarcasm and diversion than you do. That said..." He started to turn, and Fitz lifted himself up while the Doctor rolled onto his back before settling back down. His oily fingers touched the spot where a bellybutton should have been, tracing shapes into the flat plane of skin that was there instead. "I don't actually see what you find so objectionable. You seem more content than when you first moved in, you haven't said anything bad about these developments in your life, and yet you're... complaining is not the word I'm looking for, but I can't really think straight when you're doing that."

Fitz looked down at his hand and made an effort to keep still. It wasn't easy with all that really lovely skin up for offer to him. "No, I know. It's like... I'm happy, but I don't think I should be happy."

"You don't think you deserve happiness?"

"No, it's..." Fitz trailed off, looking for the words. They'd come to him if he actually knew himself what he felt. "I feel like I'm driving myself crazy. And it's not a long drive to begin with."

"Is this your proper crazy or the other kind?"

"I have no idea."

The Doctor took Fitz's hands in his and clasped them tightly, the oil spreading over his own palms as well. "I find, when my mind wanders places it ought not, it's best to find a good distraction until the spell passes." Living up to his name, his tone was almost clinical. It didn't waver as he slipped his slick hands under Fitz's shirt. "I could help with that, if you're agreeable."

"You're turning into a nympho, Doc."

"I'm sure you'll let me know if you start to mind."

He came home the next day with a stack of forms tucked under his arms, fetched from the post office. "We're not going to Venice for at least two months after these are sent off."

"I still cannot fathom how you made it this far without a passport," Anji said over the clicking of keys as she worked on her computer.

"I hate doing forms." Fitz dumped all the papers on the kitchen table. "We've got to get started on these. Where is he?"

"Out. Went to visit his mother. I didn't know he had one."

"Funny thing, I didn't until about... two years ago either. He never talks about her, not really." Fitz dumped himself into the chair next to Anji and pulled one packet of papers in front of him. "Do I really have to do this? I had this friend in London who made me a perfect fake driver's license so I could buy alcohol. He could make us some passports."

Anji pulled a pen out of her pocket and threw it onto the forms. "Welcome to adulthood, Fitz."

"I hate how well-adjusted you are, Anj, I really do." He irritably clicked the ballpoint a few hundred times before putting pen to paper and getting to work. It was tedious as expected, but once Anji let him put on some music, it became the same kind of mindless that his work in the plant shop was. He felt like an automaton, but the blanks were getting filled.

It was nightfall when the Doctor finally let himself into the house. Anji was reading one of the books Fitz had finished and Fitz was attempting to roll meatballs with little success. "Evening, you two. My dear, your hands are too wet for that, they're just going to keep breaking apart."

"How was your trip?" Anji asked keenly, much like Fitz had the day he'd read the note that the Doctor left about his mother. He wondered if she too had thought the Doctor didn't have a mother, that he was too otherworldly for such a mundane thing.

"Cold, but beautiful. All the leaves are turning, it's quite stunning outside."

"She meant your mother, you dolt," Fitz said, sotto voce.

The Doctor looked nervous. "Erm. Well. You see." Fitz arched an eyebrow at him, waiting. "I'm not sure just yet. Let me think about it for, say, four hours? I need time to process."

Fitz shrugged and went back to trying to make dinner. "Please yourself."

Four hours later, he was almost asleep, for once not being kept up by the Doctor. Ever since that first night, the Doctor was giving Fitz's libido a run for its money. It was like being a teenager all over again, giddy and happy to just be with someone, giving and taking pleasure freely. But tonight, the Doctor was too wrapped up in his own head to initiate anything and secretly Fitz was content to just put an arm around his waist, bury his nose in the Doctor's soft hair, and sleep.

"Fitz," the Doctor whispered into the dark.

"Right 'ere," he slurred, otherwise not moving.

"My mother wants me to go see her again tomorrow."

"Mmkay. We have to fill out those forms soon, yanno."

"Yes, I realize. But that's not all. She wants me to bring you along."

Fitz's eyes blinked open, looking at the Doctor. They were very close, and neither had to speak above the softest murmur to be heard. "She does?"

"Yes. Is that all right?"

Was it? Fitz had never had a good experience meeting the parents of someone he was sleeping with, but on the other hand he never voluntarily did so. And it bore repeating that the Doctor was not like anyone else he'd ever been with. But it was a universal truth in Fitz's life that mothers and fathers hated him. 

The Doctor wanted him to meet his mother. He was going to meet the parent of someone he was in love with. Fitz had turned into the kind of person you brought home to mother. Oh, there was his mid-life crisis again, rearing its head.

"Yeah," Fitz croaked, then coughed. "Sure. Why not?"

They walked across the fields, out of town and to the neighboring village. The Doctor insisted on walking the trip and leaving the car behind, citing the nice weather that would only last a few months more if they were lucky. The sound of dying leaves under their feet was the only sound. They hadn't spoken much since breakfast, tension palpable in the air around them. The Doctor and Fitz were equally nervous. When Fitz got nervous, he tended to talk it out, but making lame jokes about the Doctor's mother would only make things worse.

Sometimes the Doctor would start sentences only to let the words disperse into nothing, like ripples fading into a puddle, leaving no sign of having been there. Some were restrained chatter about the season and some seemed to be warnings about his mother. None were very clear.

It was a long walk. Fitz wished it was even longer by the time the village was in sight. He must have been obviously terrified as the Doctor took his hand reassuringly, holding onto him as they came up to a house on the outskirts of the village. They both stared at the front door for a long time, gathering their courage.

"Well," the Doctor said at length. "Are we ready?"

"You're asking me?"

"I suppose we could always go home and say you've fallen ill and couldn't make the trip." He didn't seem entirely disagreeable to the notion of lying to his mother if it meant they didn't have to do this.

"Could say we were expecting someone over and needed to get ready for that."

"Or that I've fallen down the stairs and broken my ankle."

"Or there's a Martian invasion that desperately requires our attention."

They both startled when there was a knock on the door from inside. "Jonny? Aren't you and your young man coming in?"

The Doctor paled. "My young man?"

Fitz's jaw dropped. "Jonny?"

"Jonathan is a very nice name," the Doctor-- not Jonny, that was never going to work for Fitz, ever-- said sullenly from beside Fitz on the sofa.

"I'm not speaking to you," Fitz hissed back angrily.

"It's Hebrew, you know. It comes from Yehonatan and means 'God has given'," he went on sheepishly.

"Ever again. No more speaking." He refused to look at him. "You know what Fitzgerald means? It means I'm never talking to you again."

"Actually, it's an interesting name. You see, Fitz means 'son of' and serves as a prefix to--"

"Jonny, Jonny," the Doctor's mother called as she wheeled herself back into the room, a tray on her lap laden with teacups. "Your young man looks upset at you." She stopped in front of Fitz and handed him a steaming cup of tea, something that smelled spicy like a chai blend. "Jonny is not very learned in the ways of love. Have patience with him."

Fitz smiled at her, suddenly all charm. Being upset at the Doctor was a good distraction from his worries about meeting the parents. "For you, ma'am, of course." He blew across the top of his drink and sipped it, letting it warm him up after the trek in the brisk cold. "This is wonderful, thanks."

She patted his knee, long painted nails clicking together. "Smart boy, either has good taste or the sense to pretend he does. What sign are you?"

"S-sign?" Fitz had never been the type to pull the 'what's your sign' line on girls because he wasn't even that daft, so it took him a second to remember. "Uh... Pisces?"

"Two water signs!" She nodded approvingly. "Good, able to relate. Jonny, dear, are you all right?"

The Doctor looked mildly miserable, surreptitiously glancing between Fitz and his mother with something like a pout on his face. "Fine. I'm fine, Mother. Just wondering if this is another one of my strange dreams."

It wasn't until the Doctor's mother abandoned the tea and switched to mixing drinks that they really started to get on like a house on fire. She had a very well-stocked liquor cabinet and some of the nicest highball glasses Fitz had ever seen, crystal with starry etching in the sides. He knelt on the floor next to her as she pulled out a few things for mixing. "You know your gins, Fitzgerald?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do. I've been to every pub and bar in the greater London area." He immediately wanted to retract that statement, sure it made him sound like a scoundrel, but she just nodded approvingly.

"What do you use? Tanqueray?"

Oh, she was testing him now. He was sure he could pass with flying colors with an exasperated reply, "God, no. I'm a fan of Miller's Dry right now, and if anyone tried to shake my martini, I'd have to ask them to step outside."

"Good, good. You can make one for me." She passed the glasses to him along with a worn but sturdy metal shaker. "Jonny? Would you like one?"

"No, thank you," the Doctor said from the sofa, where he was still sitting. "Shouldn't you have something to eat first before imbibing?"

"Only if you're a lightweight," Fitz replied, momentarily forgetting he wasn't speaking to the Doctor ever again. "Don't worry, Doc, I'm not going to take too much advantage of your mum." He gave the woman a wink, earning a fond pat on the shoulder as he pushed himself to his feet.

He belatedly noticed he'd used her leg to push himself up and did the physical equivalent to a stutter once it occurred to him. "Oh, er, I'm sorry, I wasn't..."

She waved him off. "I didn't feel anything, Fitzgerald, do not worry." She jabbed a finger into one of her legs, demonstrating the lack of feeling she had. "No pain, no sensation at all."

"Still, I'm sorry about..." He didn't have a delicate way of phrasing it. "I didn't hurt you?"

"No, no, dear." She shook her head, smiling ruefully. "No pain since Jonny was born. 'Unexpected complications,' they told me. Small price to pay for my Jonny." She looked past Fitz to her son, gaze fond and maternal. The Doctor blinked, surprised by the sudden attention, and sat up straighter.

"Mother, you're..."

"Not you too. I am good, no more fuss."

"But your..."

"Really, Jonny, you fret so much, it's bad for your hearts." She tutted and rolled herself towards the kitchen. "I will see if we have any ice for the drinks."

The Doctor watched her go, murmuring hopelessly, "Your legs..."

Fitz was sent away to put on some music after he let it slip to her he was a musician. Another test of character, he assumed as he flipped through the vinyls, trying to find something he recognized. His knowledge didn't extend to 1920s jazz outside the classics like Ellington and Armstrong. Deciding to play it safe rather than attempt to impress the Doctor's mother, he put on some Glenn Miller and was done with it.

He put the record on and stood over it to make sure the gramophone would work properly before nodding to himself and heading back down the hallway to the sitting room.

Fitz was stopped in the doorway by the sight before him. Stepping back to stay unseen, he watched the Doctor sitting on the floor beside his mother, his hands pressed against her knees. He was talking, too soft to hear but rapidly, muffled words slipping out of his mouth. She was watching him closely, eyes sad and confused, but her hand laid on his head, her long nails scratching his scalp in an attempt to calm him. It didn't seem to be working; his face was the epitome of distress, lost and upset. When he stopped for breath, she said something back to him that was lost to Fitz's ears amidst the music. The Doctor's head shot up, staring up at her helplessly. She leaned down, back arching in a way that looked painful, and kissed his forehead.

His face crumpled and he lay it in her lap, shoulders starting to shake.

Fitz was frozen, feeling like he was a voyeur watching the candid scene. Eventually, her eyes lifted to his and they stared at each other for a long time. Like mother like son, she saw something in him that made her nod faintly.

Fitz got the message and left them, returning to the front room and sitting down. This was her time to comfort him, not Fitz's. He let out a shaky sigh and tried to be relieved.

At some point, Fitz dozed off in the chair, stuck in one spot, unable to leave but unwilling to check on the Doctor and his mother. It wasn't that he minded sitting around, in fact did a lot of it back home, but usually he had his guitar or a book, something to occupy his mind. All he had as he waited was worries and the feeling he was a bit useless. Granted, deep down, he always felt that way, but without distractions, he got introspective and angsty, and with his... significant something or other in the next room falling to pieces, it was rougher than usual.

The light outside was fading when his light nap was interrupted by approaching footsteps and another sound Fitz didn't immediately recognize but placed as the sound of the wheelchair rolling across the ground. He sat up and pretended he hadn't been dozing as the Doctor walked in, followed by his mother. He looked a mess, but like he was trying not to be. His eyes were pink around the irises and he'd tried to hide how wild his hair had gotten by tying it back with a big scrunchy, presumably borrowed from his mother if the sequins were a sign. 

He didn't say anything, just picked up his shoes and started putting them on. His mother wheeled up besides Fitz. "You will come again, yes? Bring your guitar. Records are good, but nothing next to live music."

"Yeah, sure," Fitz said, making a game attempt at meeting her eyes respectfully and watching the Doctor out of the corner of his vision all at once. "I'd love to."

"Don't be strangers. Company is good, and you are good company." She took his hand, squeezing tightly, and looked over at her son significantly. When her grip loosened, it was like a torch was being passed and Fitz was being trusted with something precious.

He turned her hand over and kissed her knuckles. "Ma'am."

She chuckled and waved him off. "Go, the day is ending and you have a long walk! Must get home before the chill sets in."

"We'll be fine, Mother," the Doctor said quietly, standing. "I'll see you soon." He dutifully gave her a kiss goodbye before walking out the door, not giving Fitz a second glance.

Fitz jammed his feet into his shoes and took off after him. "Doc, wait up!"

The Doctor slowed his pace, but otherwise didn't acknowledge having heard. His hands were tucked into his coat pockets, and for some reason that really bothered Fitz. He was more closed off this way. Not reaching out and not offering anything. It wasn't like him. When the Doctor was upset, he latched on, afraid of those around him leaving. Fitz wasn't sure how to deal with this.

Silently, he walked beside the Doctor, eager to be home and on familiar ground. Their trip to the village had been filled with short, staccato attempts at conversation. That had been painful enough. Now he found himself again needing a distraction from the thick waves of isolation coming from his...

There was something he could concentrate on. Fitz often heard that labels were a bad thing, but they were pervasive in his life. Terms evolved, as much as Fitz sometimes pretended they hadn't since the '60s. The album he'd bought with his first measly paycheck had been Modern Rock, and now was consigned to the Classic Rock heading in the music stores. Indie, punk, post-punk, psychedelic, prog, alt, metal, pop. In music, there was a term for everything, and everyone could find a banner or two to follow. So why couldn't he buckle down and put a name to what the Doctor was? 

'Boyfriend', that certainly applied but seemed somewhat juvenile for their weird, complicated relationship. He hated the word 'lover,' couldn't think about it without grimacing. 'Partner' was okay, but simultaneously meant too little and way too much. A partner could be just some bloke you worked with or it could be more akin to 'life partner', which was a terrifying combination of words. What was the label for the bloke you loved despite not being all that gay really and who you took care of and would die for? He needed a word that was all that and didn't sound ridiculous on his tongue.

Shakespeare had it easy, Fitz decided. If the Bard didn't have the word he needed, he made it up. He didn't have the right tools, he invented them.

Fitz looked sideways at the Doctor, who hadn't lifted his head from where it hung, staring at the ground as he put one foot in front of the other. Maybe, he thought, we're something new.

Slowly, he reached out and linked his arm through the Doctor's.

Anji's uncanny ability to read Fitz like a book came in handy at their late dinner, when he gave her a few looks to let her know to not ask why the Doctor was so solemn. The meal was simple and unadorned, and the Doctor retreated to his room immediately after, leaving the other two to clean up.

"What happened? Did she decide to disown him after getting a look at you?" Her tone was light, but the question was honest and worried.

"No. I have no idea. But something happened. He had a bit of a breakdown with his mum. Not, no, not like that," he said, passing her another dish to be dried after he'd washed it. "Not mental, but depressed or something. And it wasn't because of me, thanks. His mum's odd, but we got on well. Woman knows her booze, for one."

"Ah, so you had common language on your side."

"Pays to have been a bit of an alchie in my twenties." He paused. "Early twenties." He was already shifting into a thirty-something's mindset, annoyingly enough.

"Were you really?"

"I don't seem the type?" He smiled at her, letting her know it was okay to say so. She shrugged noncommittally. "Yeah, drowning my sorrows on a nightly basis. Only alcohol though. Heard about this bloke who went to the same pub I did, he got really hooked on the hard stuff. Trepanated himself."

"He what?" Fitz put a finger against his head and made a drilling noise. "Ugh!" Anji recoiled, disgusted. "That's horrific."

"Don't forget stupid." Fitz handed off the last of the plates and dried his hands. "Anyway. His mum's not bad. I was even having fun before the Doctor lost it."

"Speaking of," she nodded to the ceiling. "He doesn't seem to be coming back down, does he? We usually have tea about now."

"It is late. Maybe he just went to bed." Fitz yawned. "I think I should follow his lead. Crazy day. But it's always like that around here, isn't it?"

"Only on days that end in 'y'," she quipped. "Goodnight, Fitz."

"Night, Anj." He touched her shoulder companionably before heading upstairs. He stopped in his room to deposit his shoes and jacket, then went up to the Doctor's room. He hadn't slept in his own bed for over a week and he was happily getting used to the new arrangement. Not only was it less lonely, but the big four-poster was dead comfy.

Fantasies about the comfy bed and equally comfy Doctor were cut off when the door to his room wouldn't open. For one blissful second, this fact didn't even register with Fitz and he blinked, utterly baffled at the fact he was stuck outside.

He shook the knob a few more times with no result. "The hell..." He knocked lightly on the door, ear pressed against the wood. "Doctor?" There wasn't a response and Fitz's heart began to race. "Doctor? Answer me, please. Are you all right?" He tried the knob once more before stepping back and slamming his shoulder into the door. Still no movement and now his shoulder hurt. He started swearing under his breath.

"Fitz." He went silent at the sound of the Doctor's voice. "I'd like to be alone for tonight, if you don't mind." His voice was dull and flat, lacking all his normal nuance and cadence.

Fitz rubbed his shoulder and frowned at the door. "No, that's... that's fine, of course. Just had to say so, didn't need to lock the door." He laid a palm against the grain. "You don't want to talk or anything?"

"No," came the clipped reply. "Goodnight, Fitz."

A vice tightened around Fitz's chest. "Goodnight." He had the distinct feeling the Doctor wasn't listening anymore. He desperately wanted to knock again, to kick the door open, just not leave the man alone for the night. But he'd been unmistakably dismissed.

He stood on the landing outside the door a long time before finally going downstairs and to his own room.

In the morning, Fitz went downstairs and found Anji alone in the kitchen making toast.

"Fuck," Fitz said with great feeling and turned around, going back upstairs to the Doctor's room. The door was still locked and Fitz gritted his teeth. He shouldn't have let this sit overnight, not after what happened at his mother's house. She'd trusted him, he'd seen it in her eyes. He'd just been given a mother's blessing to look after her son and what was he doing?

He was knocking on the door, hard enough to hurt his hand. "Doctor! Open up, Doctor."

"What's going on?" Anji said, following him up the stairs.

"Buggered if I know," Fitz said before resuming his shouting. "I will break this door down."

There were slow footsteps past the door and Fitz held out hope he'd see reason. No such luck. The Doctor simply replied, barely loud enough to be heard, "Is that quite necessary, Fitz?"

"Two words for you: Orion's belt," Fitz shot back. Anji sucked in a breath and jogged back downstairs. Once she was out of earshot, Fitz tried again, more gently. "Will you please open up?"

"No. No, I don't think so." His voice was still so monotonous, and that more than anything worried Fitz. He wanted to see him, to look at his face and figure out what had hurt him so and how he could fix it. Fitz was convinced he could if only given a chance.

Frustrated, Fitz slapped his palm against the door. "Why won't you talk to me?"

"I'm... I don't want to see you right now." Fitz stared unseeingly at the door, stunned. "It's nothing you did. Well, I suppose it is, actually. Nonetheless... leave me alone, please."

He heard Anji return and stand beside him, pressing something into his hand, but he was still dully staring at nothing. His mind was a senseless whirl, trying to figure out what he'd done, how he could fix things, what things in the house were heavy enough to use as a battering ram. One part of him whispered insidiously, he's not your responsibility if he doesn't want to be. Walk away and it'll hurt less.

He looked down at his hand, the pill bottle wrapped in his fingers. He looked at Anji, her sad, dark eyes. She squeezed his wrist, sympathetic and supportive, before stepping back. 

Because the Doctor wasn't hers to cajole and lure out of that room. He was Fitz's, in every sense of the word.

Fitz sighed, tucked the bottle into the pocket of his flannel trousers and sat down on the floor. His back was pressed against the door and he laid his head along the wood, shutting his eyes. "When you're ready, Doc, I'll be here."

There was no reply, but Fitz knew he'd been heard.

The problem with being in a relationship with a patient person was that they were, well, patient. Fitz was not patient though and while he had loads of resolve and determination about his task, that meant sitting in the same spot and waiting for the Doctor to break.

He made it an hour before he called for Anji and got her to bring him his book. When his foray into a Bukowski novel just made him more depressed over the entire situation, he asked for his guitar, some paper, and a pencil. Any other day, she'd complain about being made to fetch for him, he knew, but today she even brought him a sandwich around one before she went out on some errands.

He fiddled around with the guitar, working with softer, complicated but pretty chord processions. He tried to imitate Sufjan Stevens for a few minutes and even played some of Damien Rice's less whingy songs. He could have done with a more appreciative audience, but there was nothing offered from inside the room. He was having a hard time keeping his cool as the hours ticked on, but more shouting wasn't going to do anything.

He couldn't shout and he couldn't keep up a conversation with a man who was ignoring his stakeout. That didn't stop him from chattering on about anything that crossed his mind in hopes he'd get something in return.

"I keep ending this one line in purple. And the line's great, it fits the refrain, but it's that damn no-rhyme thing. I should do blank verse. Worked for Bowie. Now if anyone's an alien, it's him. He's barely aged in the last twenty years, that's suspicious, isn't it?"

"And then I told the guy I actually liked Life of Brian more and he tried to deck me. Lucky he was totally pissed at that point and, me, I'm used to dodging punches. First time I almost had my eye blackened over a film. No, wait, that's a lie. Augustine, she had a hell of a right hook and I was a jerk to her at this matinee. I deserved that one. Sure taught me to keep my hands to myself."

"Give me your hand and take what you will tonight... I'll give it as fast and high as the flames will rise... Cinders and smoke, some whispers around the trees, the juniper bends as if you were listening..."

"Eleven letter word, relating to the alphabet... Oh, abecedarian. Yeah, I know you're impressed, don't try to hide it. Slacker by day, sexy crooning wordsmith by night, that's me."

"No, really, it makes sense if you think about it. His real alien name must be Ziggy Stardust. On his planet, they communicate through music, right, so he releases this album expecting people to understand he's stranded and offer him a lift back to Mars or whatever, but instead he's a pop sensation. After that, he just decides to stick around. I bet on his planet, his music's nothing special, but here it gets him any bird or bloke he wants. I think I've got this figured out."

In the absence of the Doctor's voice, he filled the air with enough noise for the both of them.

Day faded into evening and Anji found Fitz just where she left him. As soon as she came up the stairs, he said, “No, he's not come out and yes I've been here since you left. I'm starving, tell me you have food.”

They sat together, Fitz still against the door, Anji on the top steps of the staircase, eating takeout. “Marry me, Anji. I'm serious. You can't say it's because I want to get laid anymore.”

Anji rolled her eyes. “You need to stop asking. There is absolutely nothing in it for me.”

“I would worship the ground you walked on.”

“You mean you don't already?” She waved him off. “Get to the point, what do you want?”

“My cigarettes. Don't gimme that look, I've gone ages without one thanks to him.” He knocked on the door demonstratively. “You can't pretend I don't deserve one after my day.”

“You should really quit smoking.”

“The day you swear off caffeine, I will.”

“Caffeine doesn't give you lung cancer,” she pointed out, but stood up and went to fetch his cigarettes anyway. The thing about Anji was that she was reserved, even compared to Fitz, who hid his emotions with whatever mask he could come up with, and the Doctor, who could be quite the stoic. If there was any tell when it came to how worried she was, it was in how agreeable to all of Fitz's requests she was. Usually he'd have to wheedle and plead to get her to put the kettle on for him.

As he practiced blowing smoke rings, she asked the big question. “What're you going to do if he won't come out?”

“Well. He has to eventually. He has to eat and I know he's got to be thirsty by now.”

“What about...” She pointed to the pill bottle sitting next to him on the floor. “He's long overdue.”

“It'll be fine. It will,” he insisted when she didn't look convinced. “Just make sure you keep your trainers near your bed.”

“You're going to sleep, right?”

“I'll sleep.”

“In your bed, I mean.”

“I'm on a stakeout, Anji.”

“You, or Fitzwilliam Fort?” He flipped her the v-sign. It was none of her business what scenario he drew around what was happening. If it made it easier to keep calm and rock on, he'd do anything. “Uh huh. I've got work to do. Good luck dueling stubbornness with stubbornness.”

He called at her back, “You got a better strategy?” She didn't respond. “Yeah, neither do I...” He thumped his head back against the door, shutting his eyes again.

He was about to get in a nice nap when he fell, the door opening and his support giving way. He landed on his back with an undignified yelp and held his head as pain flared where it'd hit the floor. “Ow, fuck-” He forgot his pain as he looked up and saw the Doctor's emotionless face watching him, detached but there, not hidden away, finally.

Fitz scrambled to his feet, leaning on the door jam for support and took in the Doctor's appearance. He looked... Fitz had no idea how he looked. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, his had new curtains up, blocking the view.

“Are you hurt?”

“N-no, I'm good, I'll be fine. Had worse knocks before I was three. Are you all right?”

“No. No, not really.” He sighed and looked at the scattering of things spread around where Fitz had camped out. “You refuse to go away, don't you?”

“Yeah, that's the long and short of it. This may be just me, but I think abandoning someone you love when they're obviously upset is a shite thing to do.” He bent down and grabbed the pill bottle and held it up. “Guessing you haven't taken these yet either.”

The Doctor looked at the orange plastic container and his face hardened. Without taking them, he went back into his room, sitting on his bed, facing the window. Fitz quietly shut the door behind him and flipped the lock again, pocketing the key, just in case. Two could play the Doctor's game.

Cautiously, Fitz approached, circling the bed so he could look the man in the face. Setting the bottle on the bedside table, he knelt down in front of the Doctor, playing to some instinct that said he needed to relinquish the upper hand here. “Why'd you lock me out of your room?”

“I didn't want to see you.” Prompt and brutally honest, he answered.

“Was it something I did?”

“It's something you do. All the time.”

Now they were getting somewhere, though Fitz wasn't sure he liked where that was. “You want to clue me in as to what that might be?”

“You wouldn't understand.”

“Let me decide that. I'm getting pretty fluent in your logic, Doctor.”

“Are you?” The Doctor finally looked at him, eyes cold as ice instead of warm like a blue flame for the first time Fitz could remember. “Is it you changing to understand me or the opposite?”

“Uh... try me anyway and we'll find out?” He put his hands on the man's knees. “Please, Doc. I'm doing my damnedest here, but you have to help me out a bit.”

The Doctor took one of Fitz's hand, clasping it in both of his own. As unkind as he currently was, his grip was cradling and gentle. In a move that truly baffled Fitz, he kissed his hand, intimate and loving. “I'm getting better. Every day, I can feel it. The dreams feel more like dreams. It's as though a veil has been lifted from my eyes. Everything is clearer and more real.”

Fitz's heart leapt at the sound of it, but when the Doctor didn't seem so thrilled, he asked, “Isn't that good?”

“I don't know,” he whispered miserably. “You've never lost your mind, Fitz. You can't understand just how much reality hurts.” He shut his eyes and pressed Fitz's palm against his cheek. As much as he didn't want Fitz there, he still needed that comfort. “It hurts so very much sometimes.”

“I'm... I'm sorry.” He was right; Fitz wasn't sure he understood. When he thought of the Doctor's mental problems, a vice wrapped around his chest and started to squeeze, tightening as nightmarish what-ifs filled his mind. Getting the man away from that could only be good in Fitz's head. “What started this then?”

The Doctor laughed suddenly, a horrible empty sound that cut into Fitz like a shard of glass. “It's so ridiculous, Fitz. You have no idea how foolish I've been.” His laughter faded, leaving a desolate quiet Fitz didn't know how to break. He just waited until the Doctor said, “I thought she was a mermaid.”

Fitz blinked. “What? Who?”

“My mother. I thought...” He laughed again, some hysteria coloring the sound. “I never realized she was paralyzed. Maybe I was too mad to see it or I refused to. I always thought she was a mermaid. That was why she couldn't walk.”

Oh, thought Fitz, struck dumb by the revelation. It took a while for him to find his tongue again. “And when we visited her...”

“She's paralyzed from the waist down because of a complication from my birth,” he said solemnly. “She's not a mermaid. I've been delusional for almost forty years of my life. I couldn't even recognize what had happened to my mother. I...” His voice failed and his turned his face into Fitz's hand, and Fitz could feel the start of tears against his palm.

“But that's.... isn't that good? That you're seeing things for what they are?”

“I knew you wouldn't understand,” he said in a shaking voice. “I hate this. I hate that I know the truth now. I know exactly how idiotic I've been.”

“Doctor...” He didn't know what to say to that, and in this moment he really needed to know the right thing.

“What else am I wrong about, Fitz? I dread to think... One day I'll wake up and everything with be as it should be. Everything will be so real and sharp, it'll slice me, bleed me dry.” He shook his head and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Fitz's. “You're making me saner, Fitz, and I think I may hate you for it.”

“That-” his voice cracked. “That won't happen. I promise.”

“No, don't do that. Don't promise. Never make a promise you cannot keep, Fitz.” He exhaled, ragged and painfully. “I don't want to take those pills. I don't want to leave behind my dreams. I don't have anything else to protect me from the world.”

“No. No, you listen to me.” Fitz stood up suddenly and put his hand on the Doctor's shoulder, the other lifting his chin to make him meet Fitz's eyes. “You have me, you bloody idiot. And you're dreams aren't some safe bubble where nothing can hurt you. They're amazing and wonderful, but they're dangerous. I know you're scared and I know the real world sucks sometimes but it's not all bad. Isn't..." He wanted to say, isn't this good, what we have, but if the Doctor didn't agree, he didn't know if he could handle it.

"Are they so bad? My dreams?"

"You..." Fitz bit his tongue, swallowing the instinctive angry answer. "You say I don't get it, but you know, you don't either. Your dreams drive me just as mad as they drive you. I-I'm scared, Doctor. I'm always scared because I have to protect you from yourself and all it takes is me screwing that up once and what'll I have?" He let his hands fall, fists clenched tight and pressed against his legs. "I don't know how I got to this point, but you're the only thing I still give a damn about, Doctor. I'll do anything you ask me to, I am stupidly, hugely in love with you, but I can't watch you do this. Not after Mum."

He took a step away and found himself pulled back, the Doctor grabbing him and yanking him with such sudden force, they both tumbled onto the bed. The Doctor wrapped his arms around Fitz's chest in an iron grip and pressed his face against his neck. In one long, drawn out sigh, Fitz relaxed and rested his head against the mattress, his hands curling over the Doctor's shoulders.

"You hate me?"

"No. Goodness, no, Fitz. I just wish..." The Doctor sighed. "I wish for a lot of things."

"Yeah?" Fitz pushed himself up and smiled faintly down at the Doctor. "Welcome to the real world, Doctor. All some of us have are wishes."

"That sounds dreadful."

"Nah, because you know the best bit?" He lowered his voice and whispered like a secret, "Sometimes they come true."

There was a stretch of silence between them before the Doctor nodded, resigned, and reached out to the bedside table and grabbed his medication.

"Do you remember? I told you months ago- you should leave."

"Safe to say that isn't going to happen."

"You were going to walk away from me," the Doctor murmured into the dark.

"No." Fitz pressed their lips together and confided against his mouth, "I knew you'd pull me back. You always do."

"Batten down the hatches, 'cause here comes the cold," Fitz sing-songed as he shut up the house, drawing curtains and pulling out blankets to throw over all the chairs and sofas. 

"Quiet, we're working. Now here," Anji pointed to a spot on the screen, "see, it's cheaper for whatever reason to fly out of Manchester, so we'll do that."

"I wonder why it's cheaper out of Manchester," the Doctor mused, his chin on Anji's head as he watched her booking their tickets.

"Maybe because it's Manchester and no one wants to go there?" Fitz offered brightly.

"I like Manchester," the Doctor said defensively.

"Only because you like everything until it gives you a reason not to," Fitz said. 

The Doctor considered this and nodded. No argument. 

Fitz chuckled and went on, "Uh huh. Hey, Anji, do newlyweds get a discou-"

"No," she interrupted him.

The Doctor looked at her, then at Fitz. "Is it difficult to get married?"

"No," Fitz said instantly, meaning to tell him there was no way in hell that was happening. "I mean yes. Very difficult. Takes years at a time."

"Backpedal faster, Fitz."

"Shut up, Anji." He walked out of the room, cleaning out the coat closet to make room for the winter jackets. Funny how he always got stuck with the physical chores while the other two sat around doing their 'work'.

The Doctor waited for him to walk back through the room. "I don't see why you're so disagreeable to it. You ask Anji to marry you on a weekly basis."

"That's different." The Doctor kept looking at him, clearly wanting him to explain why. "Because... hey, the couple's dance. With two blokes, who leads?" Anji gave him a look over the top of the laptop that told him even she was disappointed in the lameness of that answer and expected better of him. It wasn't his fault he hadn't prepared a list of reasons why he and the Doctor shouldn't get married for events like this. One could only be so prepared.

"We could figure that out," the Doctor replied and got up. Fitz intercepted him before he could get to the record player, catching him and linking his arms tightly around his waist. Leaning back, he pulled both of them back onto the sofa. The Doctor struggled for a moment, making upset noises, but Fitz's hold was secure and he sighed, going slack against his chest. Then he seemed to realize how comfortable Fitz was to lay on and shifted around until he happily settled with his head on Fitz's shoulder, arms around his chest. "I don't see what the fuss is about."

"Fitz has commitment issues," Anji offered.

"I do not. Don't listen to her, Doc."

The Doctor lifted his head and fixed Fitz with a piercing look. Fitz got the feeling he wouldn't be getting any until he gave a satisfactory answer to the Doctor's question. Damn.

With a click of her mouse, Anji lay back against her chair and announced, "We're booked. Two weeks from tomorrow, we have a flight to Italy out of Manchester. Three o'clock."

It took another week for Fitz to panic.

"Why didn't you stop me? You're supposed to be the sensible one in this madhouse and you can't even do your job properly." Fitz paced around Anji's bed as she ran a few searches for a good hotel in Venice. We are going to Venice, Fitz remembered miserably and moaned again. "Why am I such an idiot?"

"I have no clue. All signs point to you being smarter than you look, what with the way you go through three books a week and knock out crosswords in ten minutes. And yet here we are. You're an idiot." She seemed gleeful about being able to say it without repercussions. Then she coughed and said, "What have I said about you lighting up in my room?"

"I need this or I'm gonna have a full-blown panic attack, Anj," he replied, the words accompanied with a cloud of smoke. He didn't mention the fact this was his fifth cigarette in the last two hours and the only reason he was in her room was because the Doctor got cross about him smoking in the kitchen when he was trying to make dinner. "Have we already paid for everything? Is this, uh, set in stone, as it were?"

"Yep. Just getting the hotel rooms now and then we are set for the trip. You aren't going to want a two-bed, right?"

"I... I dunno. Where'll you sleep?"

"Different room. I am not sharing with you and the Doctor on your honeymoon."

"Anji, love, be a dear and stop saying shit like that." He moaned some more. "Oh, I've got to sit down." He flumped down beside her on the bed, an arm thrown over his eyes.

She tutted angrily and grabbed his cigarette, tossing it into an empty coffee mug. "If you get ash on my bed..."

"Your overwhelming concern for the fact I'm having a good solid freak-out over here is a comfort, lemme tell you."

She moved her laptop and held it up in Fitz's field of vision. "Look. A nice big room, a great view, and it has a stocked minibar."

Fitz reluctantly looked at the blown up image on the screen. It was nice. "I do like minibars."

"I knew that would seal it. I'll book us here then?" When Fitz slowly nodded, she patted his knee and went back to her noisy clicking and typing. "You need to relax. I mean, I thought this was the worst idea in the world when the Doctor first mentioned it, but now I think it could be fun. I've never been somewhere like Venice."

"Yeah... Me neither." Fitz rubbed his face tiredly. "I need to go buy a suitcase, I guess."

Anji stared at him. "God, Fitz. I'd ask how you made it this far without one, but you might actually answer."

Fitz waved a hand dismissively. "Fitz Kreiner, charmed life, you know the drill."

Days were slipping away from him, water pouring from his fingers as he tried to grip on things. He took off a week of work, bought a suitcase, got the house ready for winter, and started obsessively checking the weather forecast for the day they were flying out. It was Anji who eventually took him out and got him drinking. He knew she disapproved of his vices, so he must have been a real pain to live with if she wanted him a little drunk. He certainly wasn't complaining either; she paid for his drinks.

He wasn't inebriated enough to forget his stress and went to bed tense, if exhausted and already sliding towards sleep. He barely managed to kicked off his shoes before laying bonelessly on the bed, mostly dressed.

He heard the Doctor murmur something, but Fitz's mind was out to lunch and all he got from it was the tone, affectionate but exasperated. It was followed by the Doctor's hands, rolling him over onto his back before unbuttoning his shirt. Fitz let him, making no move to help. His jeans went loose around his hips and Fitz pushed himself up enough so those could be pulled off. His only concession to help the Doctor done, he flopped back down, sighing.

Once his shirt was off, a cool finger traced the angles of Fitz's skinny torso. Having none of that, Fitz rolled over onto his stomach again. His eyes remained carefully shut because he was too tired to shag the Doctor tonight and no amount of big blue eyed pleading was going to change his mind. The Doctor just laughed and ran his hands soothingly along Fitz's skin. "All right, then," he said mildly.

There was a rustling sound all around him and Fitz let one eye slit open enough to look around. There was nothing to see, just pure darkness. The drapes around the four-poster had been pulled and they blocked out what little light came through the moonless night. It was pitch black. His only comfort was that he could feel the Doctor nearby, touch still drifting over Fitz's back, lulling him further. He shut his eyes again, seeing no point to looking around if he couldn't see anything, just enjoying the attention as he sank deeper into repose.

It could have been five minutes or an hour later when Fitz felt the Doctor kiss his shoulder. He didn't ask for anything in return, dragging his lips along the warm skin of Fitz's shoulder and neck. Fitz thought about saying something, even making an appreciative hum to let the Doctor know he wasn't asleep and that felt really nice, thanks. Something stopped him, the blanket of darkness muting him. He could hardly take more than a slow deep breath, feeling like he was being pressed into the mattress by nothing, held still and silent. Fitz must have been almost delusional with weariness, feeling like the night had hands pinning him down where he lay.

The Doctor didn't seem to mind, lavishing attention into Fitz's skin, his lips wet and hands so, so soft. He pressed his palms to Fitz's sides, dragging up and down as his mouth kissed down the long relaxed line of his spine. He reached the base, stopping just above Fitz's boxers. His tongue pressed flat against the bumps of his vertebrae and ran all the way back up to Fitz's shoulder blades. Just like that, Fitz felt pure hot want flooding his system, fanning through his body, outward from the points where the Doctor touched him.

He couldn't move though. His breath caught in his chest for the span of a heartbeat, but otherwise nothing. He needed to reach out and touch and dispense some of that intense heat settling in his veins. It was too much, agonzing but exquisite, how it built up in him until he felt dizzy from it. He needed to move.

The Doctor's hands closed over his wrists then and he lay his body against Fitz's back, and the idea of movement became much less urgent. He was heavy, but not so much FItz couldn't breathe, and really breathing was all he needed right now. The Doctor kissed his ear and neck, lazily switching between flicks of his tongue and brushes of his lips, blending the sensations together until Fitz's neck became oversensitive. "Let me know if you mind," he murmured before going on. Something as simple as the graze of his teeth made Fitz's body tense all at once, muscles bunching for a second's time before he relaxed again.

He noticed that the Doctor was still speaking, and again not in English. He mumbled into Fitz's body as he moved along it, barely audible and beyond Fitz's understanding. He could guess at the basic meaning though, the sort of words you only said in this kind of impenetrable darkness. He was inordinately grateful to the Doctor for his small mercies; having to hear and understand what he was saying in his current state, Fitz had no idea how he could. It was enough he could hear the sound of amore in most of what was being said, that base sound being twisted and fashioned into a plethora of declarations.

A few words pierced through the dreamlike trance Fitz was under. "Stay like this," the Doctor requested or ordered before he slipped away, off of Fitz. Fitz didn't even nod his acceptance, just obeyed, as if he were capable of anything else. He felt utterly alone in the dark for a moment as he waited. He heard sound, didn't bother trying to place it, and then the last of his clothes were being taken off. The Doctor's tentative hands on his now-bare hips got a gasp from Fitz. He knew where this was going and it wasn't the sort of thing he did, no matter how drunk he got, but this was more than alcohol. He was pliable in every sense of the word and the Doctor was taking advantage of that, kneeling between his legs and in the process nudging them further apart. Fitz's breath was shallow now, nearly loud enough to drown out the only other sounds in the room: his pulse drumming in his head and skin rubbing together as the Doctor kept up his touches.

Slick fingers pushed into him, his body in such a state they slid in with no resistance. Fitz panted against the pillow, his entire being focused on the singular sensations of the Doctor's hand curled around his hip and his fingers leisurely moving around inside him. A little further and Fitz's legs weakly twitched as a slow burn of pleasure started. He wanted to say there, right there or lean back into the touch or anything really, but he was still frozen, laid out on offer to the Doctor to do with as he wished. 

Too soon, Fitz groaned with regret as the Doctor's fingers withdrew. Both his hands held Fitz down, slick on his hips. There was only the sound of Fitz panting for air for a long minute before the Doctor shifted and pushed inside in one long, ceaseless motion.

It was very possible he didn't exist but for where the Doctor was pressing against him. Fitz was completely languid and everything felt like it started and ended where pleasure was being coaxed out of him. He was fine with that, okay with how all the Doctor's weight was on Fitz's lower back as he was held still and how, as slow and measured as the pace was, the Doctor's thrusts into him were fluid and claiming, rocking Fitz forward and back in a steady rhythm that was driving him mad. He was hard, more turned on than he'd ever been in his life, and left completely up to the Doctor's whims.

Fitz was utterly silent as he came, caught just as he took a sharp breath in. It stayed stuck there as his back arched, fingers tightening in the sheets, suspending him like that as he rode it out, all while the Doctor didn't give him any rest. If anything, his thrusts got rougher as he chased his own climax, reaching it just as Fitz went slack against the bed again.

"Ugh. Holy fuck," Fitz said, or tried to. He wasn't enunciating very well at that point. "I'm going to tell you no more often."

"Mm, I should have avoided the positive reinforcement perhaps," the Doctor said casually.

"If I try to sleep now, you're not going to shag my brains out again, are you? 'Cause I need to sleep."

The Doctor laughed and kissed his shoulder tenderly. "Bouna notte, Fitz."

There were a lot of deeply satisfying nights in bed before Venice. Fitz became somewhat dependent on them as days ticked away. He couldn't drink solidly through the time his thoughts started to repetitively chant oh god we're going to Venice fucking Venice everything is going to go wrong oh god, and Fitz couldn't up his cigarette usage anymore than he already had without having a coughing fit. So the Doctor gracefully took to the task of getting Fitz to chill out. Fitz was starting to get why some guys really liked the whole bottoming thing. He was always really fucking mellow afterward. Mellow or borderline comatose.

Two days before Venice, Anji and the Doctor were getting ready to go out shopping for something. Anji made the mistake of asking Fitz what he was so happy about. Fitz told her.

Her face turned cherry red. "Okay. You could have just as easily said that without the.... hand gestures."

"I'm just saying. I feel bad for you girls, lacking the--"

"Oh, god, stop talking."

"I mean, you've got some good bits, like the--"

"DOCTOR! We're leaving right now!" She grabbed her purse and marched out the door while Fitz laughed raucously at her back.

"Bisexuality is awesome," Fitz gushed as the Doctor appeared, winding a scarf around his neck to get ready for the cold.

"I'll have to take your word for it, Fitz. We'll be back later. Be good!"

"Nah, not my style." He snagged one trailed end of the scarf and pulled the Doctor in for a lazy but utterly obscene kiss that Anji would have balked at if she hadn't already made her escape. Letting go and reclining across the sofa again, Fitz said, "Bring me something nice back."

"Oh, well, that is the idea," the Doctor said vaguely before scampering off after Anji.

The next day, they were packing, mindful of the forecast Anji had printed off and stuck to the fridge with a magnet. She was finished early, being sensible and calm and all those other things, so Fitz roped her into helping him pick out things and get them all stuffed into his suitcase.

"You had to buy the smallest suitcase the store had, didn't you?" Anji gritted out as she put all her weight on the top of the bag, holding it down as Fitz tried to zip it shut.

"Well, I've never bought anything like this before, how was I supposed to know?"

"I offered to go with you."

"I would have ended up buying something stupidly expensive that I'd never really need."

"Instead you got something that won't fit your things!"

"If a job's worth doing, it's worth me screwing it up," he said self-deprecatingly. He sighed with relief as the zip shut and he was able to snap the little padlock onto it. "There!" He sighed with relief.

"Thank goodness that's over with." Anji patted the bag gently, as if afraid doing so too hard would result in the thing bursting apart on her.

"Oh, shit," Fitz picked The Age of Reason up from his dresser and showed it to Anji. "I forgot to put my book in." 

Anji grabbed it from him. "I'll keep it in my bag. Do not open that thing again." She walked out of his room quickly. He imagined she wanted to avoid any more favors he'd ask of her.

"Thank you, Anji," he called at her back. She froze and looked back at him, frowning. He just smiled back and waited for her to stop thinking he was buttering her up for something.

Slowly, she grinned back. "You're welcome. I'm going to go make sure the Doctor's ready too. Why don't you start tea for us?" She jogged up the stairs, looking back at him a few times.

Weird, he thought idly and meandered downstairs.

They all woke up at some ungodly hour of the morning. Well, the Doctor and Anji did. Fitz tried to go back to sleep, Venice be damned, until he smelled breakfast downstairs and tumbled out of the four-poster and wobbled downstairs. There was bacon, and he was not strong enough to resist its siren call.

The Doctor and Anji were talking intently to each other in hushed voices when he came in and immediately pretended like they hadn't been when he slumped down on the table. Weird, Fitz thought again, looking between them curiously. Anji was on her laptop, probably doing final checks on everything because she was Anji and Anji made sure things never went too crazy for them. The Doctor was fixing up thermoses of hot tea and bacon sandwiches for the trip. He was also bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, brimming with excitement.

Fitz snorted. "I know you're psyched for this, Doc, but calm down before you break something."

The Doctor and Anji simultaneously looked at him in surprise. The Doctor cleared his throat and said, "I'm sorry?"

"Uh. I mean, I'm ready for Venice and everything too, but you've got to chill out a bit."

"Oh, Venice! Venezia, yes, I am... terribly excited." He nodded adamantly and went back to watching the bacon, humming cheerfully.

"What am I missing here?" Fitz asked Anji quietly. She shrugged and hid behind the laptop screen. Fitz was about to demand answers when the Doctor gave him his thermos. Darjeeling. Fitz would never claim to be above bribery.

Manchester Airport had no right to be as busy as it was when they arrived. It wasn't a holiday, it wasn't even a weekend, so where were all the people going? Fitz put on his best game face, aided by the support of his very best hat-- a pinstriped fedora with a silver silk ribbon that was just loose enough around his head to sit at the perfect jaunty angle he needed-- and grabbed the Doctor's hand like he'd be swept away in the crowds if he wasn't careful. He took a deep breath.

And he let Anji lead the way to their terminal. Unlike Fitz, when Anji looked like she knew what she was doing, chances are she did. He just faked it, albeit with years of experience in faking it on his side.

The Doctor smiled reassuringly at him, rubbing his thumb up and down the back of Fitz's hand, radiating serenity.

"They gave me the window seat? I don't want the window seat."

"Whyever not? You'll get the best view."

"I'll also be the first to die if the plane depressurizes or decompresses!"

"Oh, that's an urban legend."

"Anji, the last time you said that, you were wrong."

"And so were you, if you recall. Now sit down, you're holding up the.... oh, fine, I'll take window. Fitz, sit in the middle. Doctor, take the aisle so you can stop Fitz from making a break for it."

It was only two and a half hours before their transfer in Frankfurt and Fitz already was making a tower of the little shot bottles the flight attendants had given him.

"Really, my dear?" The Doctor asked, frowning at him sadly.

"I don't like planes."

"You've never been on one before," Anji pointed out.

"I'm on one now. Don't like it. Ground feels different. Not stable."

Kindly, the Doctor offered, "Try crossing your legs. That way they won't be on the floor."

Fitz did so and looked around. "Huh. What do you know." He winced. "My ears just popped."

Anji rolled her eyes and buried her nose in the newspaper.

From Frankfurt to Venice, Fitz took the window seat and stared out of it most of the flight.

"This is so weird. People do this all the time?"

"I believe so. Some do, anyway," the Doctor said, also looking out as he ate a biscuit. He had several packs of the things, given to him by one of the younger flight attendants who had apparently thought the Doctor was the sweetest thing ever and could have anything he liked off the cart. Fitz wanted to whinge about how a short man in a velvet, deeply anachronistic coat could outdo Fitz and his very fine hat, but the Doctor was sharing his swag, so he couldn't complain too much.

"But you can feel yourself moving. It's weird."

"Isn't that like being in a car?"

"No, totally different." He leaned his head on the glass, watching the clouds. "I wish I could just shut my eyes and be there when I open them. No turbulence or no smoking signs or anything. Even if I lose the travel time still. Just so I don't have to sit like this through it, you know?"

"That's... a very strange thing to wish. I think. I'm not a good judge of these things."

"That's okay." Fitz smiled at the Doctor's reflection in the glass. "I'm used to strange."

In the end, Fitz was surprised the Doctor held it together so long.

"Venezia!" He dropped his bag right outside the airport and dashed forward into the sunshine, coat flying up behind him. "Oh, it's beautiful! You can smell the water in the air! And it's sunny, oh that's just the cherry on top, isn't it?" He twirled in place and caught the hand of a Venetian woman walking by, kissing it extravagantly. She blinked at him and said something in luscious Italian, which the Doctor laughed at and nodded to. He gave her a kiss on each cheek before letting her go.

"Turista..." She walked off, face pink.

Anji shoved her bag into Fitz's arms and took off after him. "Doctor! You can't just go up and kiss people!" She grabbed his arm, pulling him back before he could wander further off.

"But I do that all the time and as I understand it certain parts of Europe are more open to affection than England." As though to prove his point, he gave her the same double kiss.

"Yes, but we're used to that. Just..." She hooked her arm in his and held his hand tightly. "Calm down. At least until we can drop off our luggage at the hotel."

"Speaking of," Fitz said loudly, "I've got it. All of it. Every bag. Right here."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" The Doctor returned to his side and took his suitcase from him. "I'm so sorry, you know how I get carried away, Fitz."

Anji took her bag back as well. "He does. Now, I've got the map printouts here. We're going--"

"This way," the Doctor said and started off.

"No, wait, Doctor..." she looked at the papers in her hands. "Oh, actually he's right. How does he do that?"

Fitz threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, this is going to go great!" And despite himself, he wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

Bags dropped off, room keys collected, the Doctor lead them back into the city, holding both his companions' hands as he set off at a brisk pace. "You said you've never left the country," Anji said once she'd fallen into step beside him.

"I haven't. But I know this city. I can feel it. We want to start over here."

If Fitz hadn't watched the Doctor take his medication that morning, he'd think this was the start of a break. It was the sort of thing he'd been worried about since he agreed to this trip. He gripped the Doctor's hand that much tighter. If the Doctor ran off, at least he'd be dragged along. "Where are we going though?"

"The place everyone goes when they visit Venice!"

"Fine, don't tell me." Fitz shook his head.

"Oh, you take the suspense out of everything. I was taking us to..." He stopped all of a sudden, jerking the other two backward. "No, wait. We can't go there yet. Oh, this way!" He took a sharp turn and dragged them along another road. Anji nearly stumbled in her heels, laughing as she bumped into the Doctor.

"Are you going to be like this the whole trip?"

"I don't know! I've never felt so happy! Well..." He looked sideways at Fitz, who immediately colored at the implication.

"Uh..."

"Anyway!" He pointed with the hand holding onto Anji. "Let's begin over there."

They stood upon the Rialto Bridge, looking upon the water, watching the gondoliers float by beneath them.

"We have to get on one of those," Anji said, staring longingly at one as it passed.

"Later," the Doctor promised, leaning his arms on the stone of the balustrade. "We have many more sights to see before indulging in a gondola trip. Fitz, put that away."

Fitz pouted and put his lighter away, but left the cigarette in his mouth. "Sorry."

"Now, this bridge," he patted it affectionately, "is the true soul of this city. It is one of the busiest streets over one of the larger waterways. The shops.... come here, we need to be on the main bridge." He lead them into the center of the bridge, which was filled with shops tucked into the walls. They walked up the steps and with each one, there was a new booth lit up like gold against the cool stone arches. "The bridge was designed by Antonio da Ponte, whose name actually means 'Antonio of the Bridge,' I believe. It's been here for hundreds of years and the original wood structures still help hold it up. Isn't that lovely?"

"Yeah, sure is. That a sweets shop?" Fitz pointed off to the left.

The Doctor turned and looked. His smile grew. "Yes, it is. I suppose you'd like something before we get this going?"

"This is Fitz we're talking about." Anji said. "Of course he does."

They headed along the city streets, the Doctor expounding upon each landmark they passed. Famous palazzos, the Bridge of Signs before they were found there without a guide and were sent away, standing upon a dock staring at the vessels, yahcts and cruises ships and little fishing boats, across the water. The Doctor maintained a running commentary on everything, reading aloud the Italian plaques and translating them, and pointing out where Leonardo da Vinci probably worked. 

Fitz had no idea how he knew half the stuff he did or how he instinctively knew where to go. Too often they left the crowded streets and weaved their way through canyon-like alleys to reach their next destination faster. Anyone who watched him would assume he'd done this all his life, moving through a foreign town with the same leisurely stride as a native resident. It was like the city was speaking to him, leading him along just as he lead them.

As the evening wore on, Fitz's gaze wandered around the tall buildings as the lights came on, shining in the dimming light. He looked behind them and saw some other tourists going the same way they were. He thought nothing of it and jogged to rejoin the others as the Doctor showed Anji a particularly opulent fountain.

But when the Doctor went on about the Ghetto Nuovo and its history, Fitz found the same clutch of people still behind them. Slipping away, he walked towards them, stride long and determined. He tugged the brim of his fedora down and tried on a low growl as he said, "Can I help you lot?"

He wasn't sure if it was his own intimidating demeanor or the natural nervousness that came from being in a strange city far from home, but the tourists took a collective step away from him. One woman replied in an American accent Fitz couldn't name, "I'm sorry?"

Fitz grinned like a knife, not at all friendly. "You have been following up around for the last hour and I'm just giving you a word of caution." He leaned in. "I will not let you ruin our trip, so if you want to prey on someone, I suggest you pick someone else. I will not hesitate to kick your arse if you so much as look at those two wrong," he went on, gesturing vaguely to the Doctor and Anji.

The group exchanged a few baffled looks. The American, who took up the task of spokeswoman for them, asked, "Is this part of the tour?"

His dangerous smile slipped. "What?"

"The tour."

"What tour?"

"The tour we're on?"

Fitz opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking at the Doctor, then back at the tourists. "Not to be repetitive, but what?"

The woman pointed to the Doctor, who was just noticing Fitz's disappearance and looking around worriedly while Anji held his hand, doing much the same. "I don't know, the tour that man is leading. There didn't seem to be a fee and it was very interesting. How late will it be going on?"

Fitz stared at her, waiting for the punchline to her joke. When one didn't come he turned around and walked away, back to the Doctor, who immediately caught his sleeve, clearly glad to have him within reach again. "Trouble, Fitz?"

"No. Can we wrap this up though? I think we should get back to our hotel." There were no objections and the trio started the journey back.

Halfway to the hotel, Fitz turned around and shouted, "He's not a bloody tour guide! Piss off!"

"What was that all about?" Anji asked, watching the group that had been following them disperse.

"Ask me in about an hour, Anj. By then it'll be a funny story." 

It did turn out to be a funny story over dinner, partly thanks to Fitz's embellishments. Anji thought his imitation of the Yank's accent hilarious, probably because she'd actually been to America and was the only one at the table who could call him out for it. The Doctor was sad Fitz had chased the people away. "I didn't even notice them. It was no bother to act as their guide, I didn't mind."

"I minded," Fitz said shortly. He tried not to think about how dark his thoughts turned when he spotted them, assuming they were going to cause some trouble. Not for the Doctor. Especially not for their short time in Venice.

He was rather wrapped up in his self-appointed mission of keeping the Doctor safe during their stay. The entire day was more for Anji and him than for Fitz. The two were perfect sightseers and if one wasn't pointing out the next interesting bit of architecture just down the street, the other was taking up the task. Fitz just followed along and kept his eyes peeled for any problems. It wasn't until they were settled in their hotel room that Fitz got the chance to take in how really stunning Venice was, standing on the tiny balcony and watching the boats go by, the lights of the buildings over the canal catching in the waves. All the arches and towering buildings made the city feel tall and graceful. He'd been right to write her as a lady in his song.

The Doctor came in, carrying a small bag filled with toothbrushes and other essentials that had been stuffed in Anji's suitcase for the flight. "Anji says goodnight, and if you're too noisy, she won't hesitate to shove you into the Grand Canal tomorrow."

"It's always my fault," Fitz observed, hesitantly walking back into the room and shutting the balcony door. "She'd never shove you into the Canal."

The Doctor simply smiled and shrugged, evidently agreeing. "Are you enjoying yourself so far, Fitz?"

"Not as much as you, I bet," Fitz hedged. "You're pretty good at this traveling thing."

"Do you think so?" He started to strip, getting ready for bed after the long day. "It is very... invigorating. It's all so new and yet so familiar. Like I've been doing this forever." His smile turned sheepish. "Perhaps I've gotten some practice in my dreams. About time they're good for something, I suppose."

"Gonna be impossible to get you back on that plane," Fitz said through a yawn. Taking a cue from the Doctor, he sat down and started to get ready for bed, pulling off his shirt before plucking at the laces of his shoes.

"Oh, no, not really." The Doctor stood before Fitz and ran his nails through the messy, dark hair, a habit Fitz greatly approved of. Fitz leaned into his hands, savoring the feeling. "Venezia is wonderful, but I imagine you'd prefer a place where you speak the local language."

"And you follow me? That seems backwards."

"Maybe we follow each other."

"Going to end up going in circles that way."

"So negative, my dear."

"Yeah. Sorry." Fitz kissed the flat plane of his stomach. "Very sorry." He nipped at the cool skin. "Extremely very sorry." He tugged the Doctor closer and continued his escalating ministrations,

"That's... not proper grammar. And you're trying to distract me from the fact you're not enjoying yourself."

"I am enjoying myself right now," Fitz mumbled.

"That's not what I meant. I meant- oh, stop that, that's not fair, I'm trying to talk to you." He put his hands on Fitz's shoulders like he was preparing to push him away, but didn't get around to it, just holding on. Fitz smiled roguishly and watched him bite his lip, the effort to remain restrained under the onslaught of Fitz's mouth making him tense up. It took little further coaxing to get him to climb onto the bed with Fitz and from there the conversation was swiftly forgotten.

The next morning they returned to the Rialto Bridge under Anji's insistence. She said she needed to visit all the shops there they had skipped. Fitz had complained the entire way there about retracing their steps when there was so much else they could see, but the Doctor sided with Anji, wanting to spend the small bit of money he'd put aside for frivolous purchases. All of Fitz's money had gone to covering his fare, though he didn't dare admit it because the Doctor would insist on giving him some and he'd die of embarrassment.

Anji vanished into the shops as Fitz and the Doctor waited for her. They managed to stay put for all of thirty seconds before the Doctor dragged Fitz off to a nearby gelato stand. 

"Due coni, due gusti... What do you want, Fitz?" Fitz gave him a blank look. "Oh, why not... Fragola e limone. Grazie, grazie." A cone with huge scoops of pink and yellow gelato was handed off to Fitz. "E... e... cioccolato e nocciola? Grazie." He paid the man and came away with his own, much darker than Fitz's treat. "Feel better now?"

Fitz tried some of his gelato. Strawberry and lemon, almost painfully sweet, but fresh as any fruit he might have had. "You act like I'm a sugar addict or something."

"Admittance is the first step to recovery, Fitz."

Fitz childishly stuck out his tongue at him, mostly because he wasn't sure he wasn't a little addicted to sweets. The Doctor responded by tapping his gelato against Fitz's tongue. "Whoa, what'd you get?"

"Hazelnut and chocolate. It's bit rich, I must admit..."

"Here, trade me," Fitz passed his off to the Doctor, who looked much more pleased with the lighter fruity taste. Fitz was just as happy to scarf down the other. They wandered back to the bridge, hand and hand because the Doctor didn't see any issue with being thousands of miles from home, indulging in some PDAs.

Anji looked upset when she found them, carrying a few bags in her arms and wearing a new jacket. "I completely blew my budget. Get me out of here."

"Ooh, in a moment, Anji, I think I see something I'd like." The Doctor set off into one of the stores as Anji watched him helplesly.

"No, Doctor! They're too good! You'll never make it out with your money!" She looked at all the bags she'd collected sadly.

"Nice jacket," Fitz complimented.

"Shut up, it cost way too much. Why did I buy it?"

"It... makes you look nice?"

"Oh, they are going to eat the Doctor alive. He's too kind to tell the salespeople no. Here," she set her bags down at Fitz's feet, "watch these. And take this," she pushed her wallet into his free hand. "I'm going in."

Fitz hummed the Mission Impossible theme at her as she strode off after the Doctor.

With a newly purchased hat on Fitz's head and his own on the Doctor's, they dropped Anji's purchases off at the hotel and set off into the city again. Most of the sights they had hit the previous day, but there was one more the Doctor seemed keen on.

One moment they were walking through cramped, claustrophobic streets and the next they stepped into the open air of the Piazza San Marco. A massive courtyard stretched before them with the Basillica di San Marco shining before them in the afternoon sun, its Byzantine domes and spires watching over the square as many birds and a few of their fellow off-season tourists milled around the ornate grounds. The salt-smell of the nearby sea mixed with the inviting aromas of the cafes whenever the breeze blew.

"Napolean called it the finest drawing room on the Continent. It does feel both enclosed yet free, doesn't it?"

"It's... well it certainly..."

Fitz smiled at Anji and suggested, "Better than Boston?"

"Of course!" She laughed. "It's beautiful. I see why you saved it for later, Doctor."

"That and I wanted to be sure it wouldn't be crowded. I've always wanted to do this." The Doctor took both their hands and urged them along at a brisk jog that developed gradually into a full run through the Piazza. With Fitz's long legs and Anji's more sensible shoes, they kept up apace. Together, they sent the pigeons scattering in a great, blinding flurry of feathers and cooing. It was disorienting, so much motion being lead by a gleefully, barely in control pilot, but his laughter was infectious and by the time they reached the steps of the Basillica, all three were winded and giggling faintly.

Anji collapsed onto the stairs, leaning on one of the archways as she caught her breath. "You're mad."

The Doctor gasped and laughed, sitting down next to her and looking even more exhausted than she was. "You're right. I should have let this coat at the hotel if I planned on running. Much too stifling." He brushed his hair out of his eyes and after a moment of rustling in his pockets produced a plain black scrunchie and tied his hair back. That done, he rested his head on Anji's shoulder. "Now... we'll grab a light lunch, I think, then have a look around. We already saw the Bridge of Sighs, but over there," he pointed south, "is the Doge's Palace. We have the Basillia di San Marco right here, there's a museum nearby, and we should get a look at the Golden Staircase. Where shall we start?"

A well-spent afternoon seeing all the Piazza had to offer was only left when the sun began to set and the Doctor noted the vaporetto would be closing down for the night soon and if they didn't want to walk all the way back to their hotel, they needed to catch one right away.

"Not quite a gondola," Anji said, sitting on one of the seats in the back as the boat pulled away.

"I'll find you one, I promise," the Doctor said reassuringly, patting her hand.

Anji nodded and looked out at the water's wake as they cut through it. "Is this like the Thames and how you're not supposed to touch the water?"

"Hm." He leaned over her to peer at the Canal critically. "Best not to test it. Never know what sort of monster could lurk in the depths."

Fitz snorted and cracked the spine of his Sartre, which he'd thought to bring with him this time. He settled back on the seat, one arm laid across the top so his fingers touched the Doctor's shoulder, and picked up where he'd left off.

The vaporetto wasn't very crowded and plenty of seats were open, so when someone sat down on Fitz's other side, he drew his attention from the book. He'd been joined by a very pretty woman with golden brown skin and keen eyes that matched her curly dark hair. And she was definitely looking right at him.

"Italiano?"

"Uh... no, English."

"Oh, shame, I've been wanting to practice mine on someone," she said coolly, smiling at him. "Thought I could get in a debate about existentialism in Italian. Would be fun."

Fitz grinned back and shut his book, running a hand over the cover. "I'm sorry to disappoint you."

"Emilie."

"Hm?"

"My name." She held out a hand, delicate and adorned with a few eclectic rings.

"Oh, right." Fitz took her hand and instead of shaking, kissed her knuckles lightly. "Fitzgerald."

"But you go by Fitz or Gerald right?" She winked. "You have that look. A groovy laid back dude," she drawled, tapping the brim of his hat with a finger.

"It's Fitz, if you please."

"Knew it. Gerald's way too posh for you."

He leaned in and put on a hurt face. "You don't think I'm posh?"

"I hate posh blokes."

"Then I'm definitely not posh." She tossed her head back and laughed, a deep earthy sound. A bit of the sunset peeked through the buildings and caught her hair, making it burn in the light.

"How long you in Venice for, Fitz?"

"Just another day."

"Oh, that's a shame. You live anywhere near Leeds?"

"Not even remotely, why?"

"Going to school there. Would've charmed your number off you if there were a chance. Oh well." She patted his cheek and got up. "Nice talking to you, Fitz. Enjoy your Sartre."

He tipped his hat at her. "Ta, Emilie." He watched her go with an appreciative gaze and slouched back in his chair. Twenty-nine and I've still got it.

The Doctor immediately vanished into Anji's room after they got back to the hotel. The two were practically inseparable all day, thick as thieves throughout all the sightseeing. Fitz felt a little out of the loop, but it was his own fault for being perpetually worried about things going wrong. It was only now he could stretch out on the bed with his book and stop keeping an eye out for danger.

It was strange to admit that Anji Kapoor, businesswoman with heeled shoes and a typist's fingers, was a better adventurer than he was. Under her reserved exterior was a bird who wanted to go and do and see everything. That, Fitz assumed, was why the Doctor was so taken with her lately and why Fitz was laying alone on their bed, Age of Reason in one hand, the other wrapped around a bottle of Menabrea.

He drank slowly, in no hurry and not looking to get tipsy. He was only just started his second bottle when the Doctor came in, shoulders drawn with a hand pressed deep into his pocket. He didn't look upset exactly, but there was a thick air of contemplation to him. Fitz watched him hang up his coat and divest himself of some of his clothes, loathe to break the Doctor's concentration. Concentration might've been the wrong word; visually losing his train of thought, the Doctor went to the window and stared out at the Grand Canal.

Fitz could see his mind drifting further away, so he called out, "You and Anj are close lately. Do I have competition?"

The Doctor stiffened, like he hadn't realized Fitz was plainly laying across the bed like a contented cat. "Anji and I...? I don't mean to leave you out, Fitz. We just have... things to speak about."

"Hey, I was kidding." Fitz got up and joined the Doctor at the window, looking out too. "I wonder what you'd be like when you're flirting..."

"I... flirt," the Doctor said slowly, like he was unused to the word in his mouth. "You don't often notice, though."

"I do sometimes. Just takes me off-guard, you know? And I meant with other people."

"Like you do?" His voice was very soft.

Fitz remembered Emilie suddenly, and even more clearly remembered the stern look Anji gave him as they left the vaporetto, which baffled Fitz. Until now, anyway. "I don't..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, I flirt, but I don't pull, you know? No, no you don't. Erm." He sipped a bit of his beer, aware the Doctor was watching him with a carefully blank face. "It's just fun. If Emilie tried to give me her number, I'd have told her I was taken."

"You do look though," the Doctor noted.

"Yeah, well, I look at everyone. I'm shameless like that. But seriously, Doctor, it'd take a lot for me to even think about someone else like that."

"Is that so?" He finally smiled a little. "Not an impossibility though?"

Fitz chuckled. "Pretty close to one. Maybe if I saw a girl suck a whole grapefruit through a straw, I'd have to think about it."

The Doctor blinked and did the sort of headtilt thing that got stray puppies guaranteed homes, painfully cute. "What do you mean?"

Fitz colored. "You know... suction."

The Doctor stared at him, head still tilted at that silly, curious angle. Oh, hey, Fitz was reminded,virgin. Well, not really, I took care of that, but still.

Still. Fitz took a long drag of his drink. Venetian beer. He was out of the country for the first time. He was standing in a city he'd written a song about, eating foods whose names he couldn't pronounce, walking through ornate and gorgeous places, slowly getting used to the way he could always smell water in the air around him. It was a place for new things, not the same old routine of lazing about and reading, even if the book was a good one.

He lowered the bottle, making a faint pop sound as his lips left the rim, and set it down on a table with obvious purpose. "You still trust me explicitly?" The Doctor nodded eagerly, unsure of where this was going but willing to follow Fitz there anyway. Fitz took him by the arm and dragged him over to the plush armchair next to the table, pushing him a little roughly down into it. "Good." He went back to the bed, grabbing one of the pillows off it and tossed it on the floor by the Doctor's feet. 

"What're you doing?" The Doctor looked down at the pillow, brow furrowed, then watched Fitz kneel on it.

"Demonstrating." He hooked his fingers in the Doctor's belt and pulled him closer to the edge of the cushion. There wasn't any resistance, but he did continue to blink in a sort of puzzled way at Fitz as he slouched in the chair, holding onto the armrests so he wouldn't fall. Fitz busied his hands with undoing the Doctor's trousers, trying to hide how unsteady his hands were with motion. "I haven't actually... done this, but I've had it done to me loads of times, so I definitely know the theory of it."

"All right." He shifted anxiously. "Should I be doing something?"

"No, heh." Fitz scooted closer, trying to get close enough for what he was doing. "Just... tell me if I do it wrong."

"How will I know?"

"You'll know." He cut off any more protests by taking the man's cock in a loose grip, leaning down to kiss it dryly. The Doctor's mouth formed a surprised little O and he nodded slowly. Much better, since Fitz wasn't sure if he could talk the Doctor through this. Not because his mouth would be full in short order so much as he wasn't sure what he'd say.

Because the thing of it was, Fitz really hadn't done this before. His encounters with men could be counted on one hand and only one had even made it to an actual bed. He'd gone down on girls plenty of times and assumed it was a bit similar. Except getting a girl off was a very heterosexual, healthy thing to do whereas getting a bloke off with your mouth... wasn't. Getting on his knees for the Doctor felt like adding to his Kinsey number, or something. He was doing the sort of gay thing that didn't guarantee him any reciprocity, especially considering who he was doing it to and his relative lack of experience. It was crossing a line Fitz had drawn for himself because he was male and still took offense when someone called him a queer.

Although, and it was a big although or else he wouldn't be kneeling where he was, it was very hard to care about those things with a intriguing novelty of having this particular man in his mouth. He kept trying different things, slower, faster, sliding his lips up and down, doing things with his tongue. The Doctor had grown pretty uninhibited about sex, which was fine in the privacy of their bedroom back home, and he was practically broadcasting his opinions on the whole thing. Fitz knew already he didn't like teeth involved at all and suction felt great, but not as great as Fitz's tongue curling around him.

Fitz kept his eyes closed, one less distraction as he carefully figured out what the hell he was doing. When he did sometimes chance a look, he consistently found the Doctor staring at him, eyes so dark with arousal. He always looked away, like seeing Fitz looking back at him made the whole thing too much for him to stand. That was encouraging, as was the very tentative touch of the Doctor's hand on his head, so gradual Fitz barely realized he was doing it until nails scratched over the skin behind his ears and he hummed happily.

Humming was high on the More of That Please list, Fitz noted. The Doctor melted like chocolate in the sun, completely lax against the chair, contorting to its shape as though he'd lost all ability to support himself. His mouth was open and loudly gasping for air, head tossed back against the chair, pale chest rising and falling rapidly. Fitz braced his hands on the Doctor's thighs and took as much of him in as he could manage, pressed the flat of his tongue along the underside, and hummed the opening to a rock song the Doctor would have loudly objected to any other time.

The Doctor had the good sense to cover his mouth, but there was no way half the floor of the hotel didn't hear his loud, satisfied groan as he came. They were going to get seriously reprimanded by the staff and Anji was going to throw Fitz into the Canal, but Fitz would care about that later when he was swallowing as fast as he could and listening to the Doctor panting like he'd run a mile or just had the best orgasm in his short but respectable career in sex. Could go either way, that one.

Fitz sat back on his knees and picked up his Menabrea from the table, finishing the bottle off in a series of long gulps, watching the Doctor. Idly, he stroked the soft cock. The Doctor gave a full-bodied shiver and wearily batted Fitz's hand away. "No, no, don't... don't do that," he managed through some deep breaths.

"Sorry." Fitz climbed to his feet and leaned on the armrest, hanging over the Doctor and taking in the sight of him so completely debauched. "Too much?"

The Doctor glared weakly. "Smug is not a good look for you, Fitz."

"Liar. It's my best look." He smirked and sauntered back to the bed, reclining along it again and grabbing his book. "Let me know when you're done recovering."

Fitz was well versed in Doctorese and translated the glare he got as something along the lines of, If I were a lesser man, I would say something very rude about your person right now, but I am not, so I am taking the high road. You prat. Fitz winked at him and casually started reading again.

Fitz looked the Doctor dead in the eye as he slowly dragged his tongue over the top scoop of gelato. The Doctor hurriedly looked away, making a noise like someone had stepped on his foot. He walked quickly ahead of them, remaining in sight, but a good distance from Fitz. Fitz chuckled.

"Really, Fitz?" Anji asked, looking peeved. And like she hadn't gotten much sleep. Between introducing the Doctor to the joy of blowjobs and the Doctor's very generous returning of that favor, he wasn't surprised. Busy night. He smirked at her and kept suggestively licking his not-quite-ice cream. "I have no idea what he sees in you."

"What, you couldn't tell from last night?"

"Besides that!"

"Oh, so you admit I must be an absolutely brilliant shag?"

Anji dramatically put her hands over her ears. "I am not having this conversation with you. This is my last day in Venice and I am going to enjoy it. Imagining you having sex ruins everything."

Fitz pouted. "You're not even slightly attracted to me?"

"No."

"Oh." Fitz scuffed his feet sheepishly. "Well, this is a lot less fun now."

Anji did her eye roll thing again. She always did that around him. It always reminded him how lanky and awkward-looking he was. He followed her and the Doctor around silently, having a good sulk. Maybe he was just too old for her. Maybe all his attempts to be clever and charming just didn't work on her. Maybe he couldn't compare to whoever her last boyfriend was. It wasn't that he wanted to sleep with her, not anymore anyway, but he couldn't even flirt. Flirting was practically how Fitz said hello.

After a while, Anji took pity on him and said, "I think you look kind of cute in that green military cap you have." Fitz beamed and slung an arm around her shoulders, giving her a big wet kiss on the cheek. "Ugh, Fitz!" She rubbed her cheek roughly as he laughed. "At least you're finally enjoying yourself."

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I am." He rubbed her shoulder, keeping his arm around her for the moment. He wasn't worried for once, enjoying the afternoon in the city on the water with its winding streets and vibrancy, awesome in the classical, oft-forgotten sense. No spells to deal with, not job to run off to, and the imminent trip back home, they all lifted a weight off his shoulders. Venice hadn't sprung any major shocks on him and he was grateful to her for that. He reached out and ran his hand over one of the stone railings of a bridge they crossed, thanking the city for not shaking up his life as much as she was obviously capable of.

Nothing could go wrong.

There was a note on the door to their room when Fitz wandered back to it, a brand new pack of smokes in his pocket. Come outside, the dock nearest the hotel. There was no name, but the Doctor's barely legible, loopy cursive was unmistakable.

"I've commandeered a vessel!" the Doctor said cheerfully, spreading his arms wide. He was standing on what looked like a stripped gondola. In was a decent sized flat-bottomed boat, somewhat plain, lacking the fancy seats and ornate decor of some of the gondolas Fitz had seen around the city had. But it looked sturdy and reliable, as much as Fitz could tell. 

"I can see that," Fitz said dryly, walking down the dock to stand beside the Doctor.

"It's a traghetto," he went on, as though that would mean something to Fitz.

"Not a gondola?" The Doctor's face fell and Fitz backpedaled quickly, "I mean, Anji's just been going on and on about getting her damn gondola ride... Should I go grab her?"

"Oh... no, no, I already told her where we were. Why don't you sit down?" He held out a hand to Fitz.

Fitz looked at it and at the boat, then looked around for Anji. "You don't want to wait for Anj? I mean, she loves this stuff. I can't even swim..."

"I won't let you fall. Please, Fitz," the Doctor said softly, hand still extended. 

With the strangest sense of deja vu, Fitz took the Doctor's hand and stepped onto his ship.

Because Fitz was a clumsy git at the best of times, he did almost topple over the side. The Doctor grabbed his upper arm and steadied him before he hit the water. Fitz flushed under the surprised expression on his face, like even he was shocked Fitz was that unbalanced. It wasn't his fault the Doctor was short and had a lower center of gravity or something. Being tall and strikingly handsome was a curse.

Once he got Fitz safely seated on the boat, the Doctor grabbed the oar and used it to push away from the dock. "Hey, what're you doing? What about--?"

"She won't be joining us," the Doctor replied cryptically, steering the boat into the Canal and directing them away.

"Uh. Okay." Fitz held onto the sides of the boat and tried to relax. It was a little nerve-wracking and he kept looking over his shoulder at the Doctor. He looked confident in what he was doing, but he often looked confident when he didn't know what he was doing too, so Fitz felt unsure.

He luckily didn't startle too much when the Doctor touched his neck. His fingers pressed against Fitz's skin and it took a second for him to realize he was feeling for Fitz's pulse. "Why are you so nervous?"

"I'm not."

"Your heartrate says otherwise."

"Let's not play doctor right now," Fitz muttered. He tried to chill out, releasing his iron grip on the traghetto and putting his hands on his knees. Pleased, the Doctor's hand lightened, stroking soothingly, thumb tracing his hairline. Fitz let his head tip forward, offering himself up a bit more. "S'nice."

"You are always sensitive right around here." The pads of his fingers absently massaged out the tension in Fitz's neck.

"Which you exploit all the time."

"I don't think it's exploitation unless you're disagreeable to it." They were turning, Fitz could feel it, but kept his gaze down and eyes blissfully closed. "I could stop if you like."

"Are we still surrounded by water?"

"Yes."

"Then I wouldn't if I were you."

It wasn't horrible, feeling adrift like that along the water and knowing he was in if not the best hands at least some pretty good ones. It was oddly quiet, especially considering just how noisy Venice was during the day. When he took a furtive glance around, Fitz found the Canal-side houses were lit up in the dusk, their light reflecting in the water, the waves making everything dance like flames. The water looked like it was dotted with a thousand flickering candles. It was a bit beautiful.

Fitz twisted to tell the Doctor so when he finally noticed how the man was dressed. His coat was the same as ever, but his shirt was a pale hue of blue that made his eyes pop, covered in a very swanky silk waistcoat embroidered with paisley swirls. His trousers seemed tailored and his shoes were shiny and new. The Doctor hated new shoes, always preferring old, well-broken-in boots.

Unsettled, Fitz turned back in his seat, frowning. He knew now he was missing something, like a husband that forgot an anniversary. He was also extremely under-dressed, still wearing his clothes from the afternoon, just long sleeves and jeans with the hat the Doctor had given him. He was wearing trainers, for goodness sake, and the Doctor was practically in formal wear.

"What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what's going on? Is today special and I forgot or something?"

"Special? Fitz, my dear, we're in Venezia."

"I mean besides that."

"Please, just relax. Don't work yourself into a state," the Doctor assuaged, touching Fitz's shoulder before returning to his rowing.

Somewhat mollified, Fitz sighed and watched as they drifted out of the Canal and a ways into the open water. The Doctor swung the traghetto slowly around so they faced back towards the city.

"Oh," Fitz whispered, staring at the Santa Maria della Salute, burning against the evening sky as though it'd been built out of bricks of light instead of stone. It was an ethereal sight in the dark, hypnotic enough that Fitz didn't immediately notice when the Doctor set the oar down on the side of the boat and sat next to Fitz. He eventually sensed he was being watched, the Doctor's eyes on him with the same intense admiration as Fitz was giving the church. Wordlessly, he took Fitz's hand and held it tight. He hardly blinked.

"What?" Fitz tried to look away without much success. The amount of affection coming from him was intimidating, but Fitz had to stare back. "What's going on, seriously?"

"Not yet," the Doctor murmured. His hands curled over Fitz's face, agonizingly tender. "I don't want to say just yet." He shook his head and leaned his, bumping his nose against Fitz's. "This whole thing could go wrong and I'll never get to do this again..."

Fitz's demands for an explanation were swallowed up in a kiss. They didn't seem so important with the Doctor kissing him so urgently, winding his fingers into Fitz's hair and pulling him closer. Fitz grabbed the sides of the boat, holding himself up as he was pulled down flush against the Doctor's chest. It went on and on, the hold on Fitz insistent like even stopping for a moment would break the Doctor's hearts. Fitz had no idea what was going on, but this he could do. Heedless to the fact they weren't exactly in private, Fitz pushed the Doctor down against the bottom of the boat, propping himself up over him. He pulled back for a breather, managing one gulp of air before he was tugged back down. 

Fitz kissed like he was drowning in the best possible way, in something sweeter than water and more intoxicating than any drink. It was heady and dizzying, but the Doctor just held onto him and kissed back, and Fitz would die before disappointing the man.

The Doctor was mumbling again in that lilting, perfect imitation of the accent, "Ti amo, ti amo. Non lasciarmi. Voglio passare il resto della mia vita con te." 

He didn't understand the words, but the meaning was clear. Maybe the Doctor, after so long alone, couldn't just say it and had to layer it like this. Fitz could relate to that as he just said, "Yeah, me too," before climbing off him. The Doctor sat up slowly after, still watching Fitz closely.

"Sposami," the Doctor said gravely.

Fitz laughed breathlessly. "Am I going to need to learn Italian now?"

"Marry me."

What?

What?

"What?" Fitz managed.

"Marry me. I want you to marry me." He took hold of Fitz's face again and gave him a bruising kiss. "I love you and I want you to stay with me. I don't want you to leave."

"A-are you serious?" His voice hadn't been that high since he was a teenager.

"Completely." Fitz found the tables turned as he was pushed back, landing on his elbows with a lap full of the Doctor as the man went on. "I want to have you and for you to have me. I don't care about all your silly objections. You can lead in the couple's dance and I'll take your name if it means you don't have to learn to spell mine. The next time you propose to Anji, I want her to tell you you're already engaged. To me." His hand dipped into his pocket and Fitz felt his jaw drop at the sight of a velvet ring box being pulled out.

"Holy shit."

The Doctor opened it, palming whatever was inside and dropping the box. "You keep driving off my dreams and giving me new ones. You make every pain hurt less and every good thing in my life that much better. You--" He cut himself off by giving Fitz another hard, fast kiss, like he couldn't stand another solitary second without. Drawing back, he went on as if there was no pause, "--make me happy just looking at you. You stayed with me and stopped me from hurting myself and you took me to Venice."

Fitz's left hand was snatched up and there was a ring in the Doctor's, a perfectly plain gold band. No, Fitz realized like a brick to the head. It was twisted. A Möbius strip of a ring. 

Fitz needed to remember how to breathe. 

The Doctor tilted his head back up, away from their hands and back to the Doctor's earnest blue eyes. "Fitzgerald Michael Kreiner, I really would like you to say you'll marry me." Like running out of steam, he rested his forehead against Fitz's. "Sposami, per favore."

There was no way this was happening. He wasn't getting proposed to by a bloke on a tiny little boat in the middle of Venice. Fitz's flight instinct was kicking in harder than ever before in his life, but he was surrounded by water and pinned down by the guy he loved. He loved the Doctor, he had the house and the quaint garden and the steady job and he couldn't hide and pretend he was going to be eighteen and reckless forever.

"Yes," Fitz said. Then blinked. "Oh, fuck, yes, I said yes, what the hell is wrong with me? I mean, yes."

The Doctor laughed and pushed the ring onto his finger before knocking him flat on his back, rocking the traghetto dangerously, and pressing their lips together in a fit of boundless joy.

Later, Fitz sat up and looked around.

"Doctor."

"Si, mi amore," the Doctor said dreamily, still laying in the boat.

"Stop that." He scrambled around, feeling around for it because it couldn't be lost, they'd be so screwed and Fitz couldn't swim.

The Doctor noted Fitz's distress and sat up, tugging his waistcoat straight as he did so. "What's wrong?"

"Where's the oar?"

The Doctor blinked and looked around as well. "Oh. It must have fallen off in the commotion. I'll have to buy a new one for the nice man I borrowed the traghetto from."

"Are you forgetting the bit about us floating in the middle of the water without any way to get back?!"

The Doctor smiled. "Don't worry. I have a plan." Fitz stared at him until he went on. "Anji will come for us."

"Why would she do that?"

He squeezed Fitz's hand. Fitz tried not to notice his thumb against the ring, turning it around Fitz's finger idly. "Because I asked her to. I asked her to check on us if we weren't back by midnight."

Incredulous, Fitz asked, "You... you planned for this?"

"No, I planned in case of this. Prior planning and preparation prevents poor performance."

"Oh god. You're insane." Fitz covered his face with the hand the Doctor wasn't petting. He was freaking out-- stranded and surrounded by water, how did he get in these messes?-- and it felt really good. If he freaked out about this smaller thing, he didn't have to consider the fact he'd done the lifestyle equivalent of jumping off a cliff before testing his bungee cord. "What time is it?"

The Doctor checked his silver pocket watch. "Right before eleven."

"Great. Okay." All he had to do was keep not thinking about things for another hour.

The Doctor shivered and inched closer to Fitz.

"Oh, come here, you git." Fitz urged the Doctor over, sitting him between his legs and pulling his back against Fitz's chest. He wrapped his arms loosely around the Doctor's waist, and the Doctor linked their hands together, tangling their fingers, holding onto Fitz as he reclined against him.

"I can't believe you said yes," the Doctor whispered, the sound almost lost to the waves around them.

His throat tightened, leaving him mute. Fitz shut his eyes and buried his face in the Doctor's curls, inhaling the smell of shampoo and salt water and home.

As soon as Anji was in sight, the Doctor waved at her. Or, rather, he waved Fitz's left hand at her, making Fitz want to throw himself overboard. Sadly, with rescue so nearby, he'd probably just be pulled out of the water before he had the chance to drown, so he didn't bother.

"I told you I would get you that gondola ride you wanted, didn't I?" The Doctor said amiably once she was within earshot.

Anji smiled and looked up at the man steering her gondola. "Yeah, but I didn't imagine it'd be like this. What happened?"

"We seem to have lost the oar. I'll have to procure another before returning the boat tomorrow." The Doctor carefully climbed to his feet and stepped lightly over onto the gondola. "Coming, Fitz?"

Fitz nodded and let Anji take his hand, keeping him steady as he crossed the gap between the boats. Settling down against one of the plush seats, he let the others fret over the traghetto, figuring out a way to bring it along with them as the returned to the hotel.

With Anji and the Doctor holding the traghetto, they set off at a leisurely pace, the gondolier guiding both vessels at once without complaint. The Doctor slipped back into Italian, presumably thanking him for his patience with them and getting themselves sorted out. With the others preoccupied with that, Fitz withdrew, staring down at his hand.

He'd never worn jewelry before, especially not rings. They caught on his guitar strings and weren't worth the effort. The most he'd ever wear would be a funky necklace he'd buy, keep on for a few days, then discard once he'd gotten bored of it. He couldn't do that with this. The ring would stay on his hand forever.

Forever. That was the most terrifying word in the entire English language. It made his blood run cold with its deep, unfailing promise. The Doctor had told Fitz not to make promises he couldn't keep. Now he put one on Fitz's finger, making that promise for him.

He wanted to take it off. He wanted to ask the Doctor where he got the idea that Fitz was the kind of person anyone would want to spend their lives with when even he didn't like spending his life with himself. The Doctor wanted to marry a man who preferred to wear the mask of anyone else rather than see himself in the mirror. On what planet was that marriage material?

This time last year, Fitz lacked a passport, a bank account, a suitcase, and hadn't been in a relationship more than two months. Now he was engaged.

"Fitz," Anji said faintly. "Are you okay?"

"No. No, Anj." He looked at her despairingly. "What the hell am I doing? I can't do this."

Anji glanced at the Doctor, who was off in his own wonderful world, looking around at the city as it floated by. "Yes, you can."

"No, I can't. I mean, have you met me? I'm not this guy."

She grabbed his hand, grip tight enough to make Fitz flinch. "Yes, you are. You're already that guy to him, you idiot. What is this going to change and make so horrible?"

Fitz shook his head silently. She didn't get it, she wasn't the Doctor's ... and he still didn't have a word for this, though now it was apparently fiance. She didn't support him like Fitz did, wasn't the one driving him horribly sane. The Doctor didn't look at her like he did at Fitz, like Fitz was something grand, worth leaving all those magical dreams of adventure behind for. Fitz never was supposed to be something cherished like that.

Whatever she saw in his face made her let go of his hand and give him a one-armed hug. "Tomorrow I am going to deny ever saying this to you, but you're a good man, Fitz, and most certainly do deserve this."

Fitz pressed his face into her shoulder and definitely did not cry a little against her jacket.

"None of this would have happened if you just said you'd marry me, Anj."

"You'll get over it," she said sweetly.

After they got back to their hotel room, after the Doctor laid Fitz down on the bed, after they did what Fitz would refer to as 'shagging' but was likely closer to something like 'making love', the Doctor pushed himself up on his arms so he could kiss Fitz, a quick peck against his lips, and said, "Sing me something."

"I don't have my guitar."

"I don't care." The Doctor kissed his bare shoulder. "I love your voice. I love you."

"You have to stop saying that, you're killing me," Fitz protested weakly.

"It stands to reason if you sing, I won't be able to." He smiled, already knowing his weird brand of logic would win again.

Fitz rolled over onto his side, curling an arm around the Doctor and rubbing his back. Looking at him, sated and content with the universe, the only thing he could think of spilled out of his lips. "All the sights of Paris are pale inside your iris... Tip the Eiffel Tower with one glance, stained glass cathedrals with one glint, you smashed it with your eyes..."

The Doctor's eyes softened at the sound of Fitz's smoke-worn voice. "We could have gone to Paris instead."

Fitz grinned. It had all just come down to a song, this entire trip, didn't it? "Nah, Venice was great."

"It was, yes." His gaze bored into Fitz, a bright gleam of hope clear in the blue. "But perhaps... next year, we can go there?"

Paris with the Doctor. That sounded amazing to him. Fitz nodded. "Save up all year, go in the autumn or winter, out of tourist season."

The Doctor sighed, finally resting his head down on the pillow. "That'd be wonderful."

Fitz smiled and thought about how another year had passed. He wasn't sure why to him the beginning of winter was the start of his year instead of January, but it was. In another ten or eleven months, he, the Doctor, and hopefully Anji would go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower and Lourve. Then they'd walk the streets together, looking for the types of adventures you didn't find in a handbook. Before then, they'd live in their little house and tend to the garden. Fitz and Anji would work all day and watch over the Doctor. Somewhere in there, there would be a wedding, even if the thought of it just then made Fitz want to hide under the bed in fear.

Maybe this year would be the one where the Doctor finally snapped and lost his mind. Maybe this year his episodes would stop altogether and he'd shake off the hold his dreams had over him. Maybe nothing would change; Fitz would spend some nights reminding the Doctor he was human, and some nights in their bed, doing pretty much the same thing.

Maybe Anji would leave and maybe it'd be just Fitz and the Doctor in that big house of theirs. Maybe someone would rent out that first floor bedroom, replacing Anji's things with their own. Maybe Anji would stay forever.

For the moment, Fitz lay next to the Doctor with an infinite gold band around his finger, completely still, but filled to the brim with potential energy.