Title: Uses for Which Leather Jackets Were Not Intended
Author: Shen
Characters/Pairings: Rose/Nine, Jack
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin. Short and sweet.
Author's Note: Another author gave me this prompt in, oh... February? So, sorry for the wait, love! It required more prodding than I thought it would.
Uses for Which Leather Jackets Were Not Intended
I. Being a Net
"Relf!" Rose yells urgently. Her voice is swallowed by the din of shouts and flames and cracking timber. So she tries again, putting a bit of Jackie Tyler bellow into it, "Come on, Relf!"
The small boy looks down at them, antennae twitching fervently in anxiousness while smoke billows around him.
"Jump, lad!" The Doctor elaborates for her. It's hot; the wind whips tendrils of flame closer to him and Rose, the heat scraping along the bare skin of his arms and wicking the moisture from his eye sockets. But they'll wait a little longer.
The boy, thankfully the last person left in the building, finally clambers onto the window sill. Crying out encouragement, Rose and the Doctor reposition themselves to better catch him. It's an interminable wait while Relf considers the fall, until a noise behind him startles the boy. He screams briefly – and then his impact into leather sucks the air from his lungs. But he's alive.
Rose whoops before falling into a coughing fit – but it doesn't stop her from scooping the child into her arms, dropping her side of the coat, and running him to the waiting medics.
II. Shield
"Oh… oh god!"
"Are you alright, Rose?!"
"It's in. My hair!"
"Well, better your hair than your eyes or mouth. I barely got my poor jacket up in time to protect our faces. You're welcome, by the way."
"This smell! Doctor, I'll never get this smell out of my hair."
"It's novel, isn't it? I don't think my olfactory receptors have burned like this in a while."
"It's sort of a… rancid diaper and, like, a lavender spray. Alcohol and flowers and crap all at once. And decay. Doctor, this smells like self loathing and failure."
"That about covers it, yeah."
"We'll have to burn our clothes. And what do you mean, 'you're welcome?'"
"For sacrificing my jacket in the name of those comely English features of yours, princess!"
"Well, perhaps if you hadn't been poking it, it wouldn't have started shaking and exploded in the first place! And now we're purple! Does this stuff stain skin? If this stains skin, we're going to look like we bathed in mulberries. My mum'll take it for some kind of disease, and it'll take ages to calm her down. By then, the neighbors will have heard her hysterics, and we'll have fifteen people flipping out and asking if we're contagious."
"Well, it could be worse, you know."
"How. How could it possibly be worse."
"Well, she could think you have a tattoo." A pause.
"Slap heard 'round the world," she finally said, succumbing to a snort. Glad to finally see her laughing, the Doctor grinned.
"For you and me both, I bet."
III. Cuddling
"This doesn't even make sense. People from your time can't make a compound that causes instant, permanent psychosis. I'll believe that 'memory fabric' before I believe a man like Falcone would lose it like that over a Scarecrow mask." Silence greets the Doctor's acrimonious observations. "Rose?"
A grumbling whimper comes from the region of his shoulder, which is when he notices the blonde-colored dead weight resting upon it.
"Oi, I'm watching this tripe for you. The least you could do is stay awake for it." The words boom in his usual semi-harsh tone, but they're teasing, a smile playing at his lips. The expression only falters when Rose sits up straight, removing her warmth from his side.
"It's not tripe. Besides, Christian Bale is right fit in it." She stretches.
"Oh, I see how it is. If it has one of your pretty boys, it's BAFTA material." That gets him a half-hearted shove before she curls back up to him. He grins.
More quietly, "How do you fall asleep on cold, stiff leather, anyway?"
"But it's not. It looks stiff, but it's actually worn and soft, and it warms up once you get close to it for a while." As if to demonstrate, she rubs her cheek against the shoulder with catlike affection. But then she freezes. "You don't mind, do you?"
Caught off-guard by her words, he stutters, "N-no. 'Course not."
"Mmkay." After stealing another snuggle for good measure, she drifts off to sleep once more. The Doctor sits through the whole, terrible movie and beyond.
IV. A Signal
Jack is cheerily traipsing to Rose's room. They're enjoying a rest day, and he's found himself hankering for bad television. The younger woman shares that vice (much to the Doctor's disdain), and they've wiled away more than one evening giggling at over-dramatic telenovelas or, in his case, trash talking hilariously wrong science fiction.
However, a sight draws him up short and then prompts a put-upon sigh. Again?
Offering the leather-clad doorknob a last glare, he walks off to enjoy a movie on his own. He's so milking a pity hug out of this neglect later.