This Is Flesh
by Camilla Sandman
Disclaimer: BBC's characters. My words.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for "New Earth", takes some liberties with the episode. Thanks to Saz for help (also, happy birthday!) and my flist for inspiring it.
II
Take the body, all flesh and simple shapes, and yet so many different perceptions.
Cassandra thinks of the body as skin, and craves it to be beautiful.
The nameless sick think of the body as dying, and crave it to stop.
Rose thinks of the body as new, and craves it to be familiar.
Chip thinks of the body as hers, and craves it to be so.
The Doctor thinks of the body as life, and craves it to go on.
The body also craves, and will not be denied. It holds life, heartbeats and pulse and breath, all noise, all roar.
This is your flesh.
Listen.
II
Cassandra is noticing her body notice the Doctor. It's a strange sensation of heat in the flesh, unfamiliar rhytmhs of heartbeat, an itching in fingers to touch and ruffle hair. She hates the Doctor, but the face of him is unfamiliar and is not the face she burned into hate in memory. He's good-looking, he's friendly, he's smiling. She knows it's because she holds the body of Rose Tyler, knows he doesn't like her at all and she might kill him later, but right here and right now, he's flesh. Beautiful fresh, curved flesh, flesh with warmth.
The body craves. She's had her flesh stretched and modelled and evened to follow the cravings of her mind, and now, it goes the other way.
She kisses him. Not gently, almost slamming his lips into hers, running her hands through his hair, feeling the warmth of his scalp. Not affectionately, biting down on his lower lips, driving the breath from his body and into hers. Not expertly, his reaction remaining passive and his lips not opening to her invitation.
The body still likes it.
This isn't Rose. Just her tongue.
Cassandra thinks it still might be what Rose craves.
II
The sick flesh is trying not to notice the pain and is failing. This flesh was built for pain, built to be constantly dying so others could live, built to hold diseases and decay. This flesh was built to be lonely, and it is, longing for touch and care.
It wakes. It wakes and calls, and gets no sympathy, no touch, no comfort. Only cold stares and words that lack understanding. Just flesh. Just flesh awake.
It is just flesh, but still it craves, will, wants. Life will out, what other choice does it have? What else is there?
The flesh doesn't know, but knows it will find out when it feels the fire on its skin. Real death coming,
This isn't life. Just a body come to its end.
The flesh still thinks it would have liked it.
II
Rose is trying not to notice the Doctor teasing her. It's not really the Doctor, she knows, it's Cassandra, but it's his eyes and his lips and his voice, and might even be his truths.
She has been looking. She has been liking, his body slim and pleasantly formed, freckles on skin and a mole on his back. His hair is fuller, his smile easier, his eyes a new colour. She followed him into the TARDIS for his mind and his charm and all the adventures his eyes promised, and the wrapping it comes in doesn't change that. Doesn't mean she can't find it lovely and want to run her hands across it still.
Doesn't mean she can't take a moment to feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek, leaning in, composure all Cassandra's, flesh all his. See his lips curved in a taunt, feel her own curve into a smile against her will, hear the sharp intake of breath and know the moment the bodies take over.
He kisses her, and she lets him, lets Cassandra, not quite knowing why, and maybe Cassandra doesn't either, and maybe the Doctor does know.
This isn't the Doctor. Just his lips.
Rose still thinks he just might crave this.
II
Chip is noticing his body dying, and doesn't really care. The body doesn't care, not built to last, only built to be handy flesh for a while, until his mistress doesn't need it anymore. Will to serve, so much will to serve his very body craves to take her on.
Beautiful Cassandra, whatever her flesh. Even his.
A volunteer body.
The mind becomes Cassandra's, but the body dies on. She cannot overrule it, cannot make the flesh crave life when it's just so tired, so tired, its time over. She cannot manage to move on, for this body holds such love for her it feels warm and a womb to die in. It feels like time to let go now, but if she feels herself or Chip, she isn't sure. The body craves what the body craves, and her mind is filled with it.
This isn't Chip. Just his flesh.
Cassandra still thinks it might be his last service to her.
II
The Doctor isn't noticing anything but Rose, all there, all alive, all his. She is smiling at him, and he's smiling at her, and he feels flushed and energetic and the Doctor, and they're about to be flushed with water and disinfectants and the water will cling to flesh and life, as it should. There has been death today - Chip's, Cassandra's, innocents' - but Rose is alive, her skin unblemished by any disease.
He still touches it to make sure. He still kisses it to make sure. He still slams her up against a wall in a rush of water and licks the water from between her breasts, as it doesn't hurt to double-check. Or triple-check, letting a hand find the zipper of her pants and his fingers find warm flesh. She gasps and he sighs, and the body feels warm and new and craving, and her hand has found his zipper.
Definitely healthy, then. Definitely Rose, all eagerness and adventurous and silly noises as bodies join and flesh clings to flesh. Definitely Not Wise, but warmth and life and her hands clutching his tie, her mouth locked to his, his hands steadying them both against the lift wall. Definitely contrived, since he didn't really have to go back here just to check if he'd forgotten his glasses again, but he likes this shower and thinks maybe the TARDIS could do with one. Definitely changed, because he didn't realise his body likes it when it's rushed and breathless and smelling of hospital.
This isn't sex. Just life being affirmed.
The Doctor still thinks he likes it.
II
The Face of Boe is noticing life. He is old, he has seen it before, know how stars form, how planets form, how flesh forms.
How flesh fails, and his is, slowly and certainly. Not today, and not tomorrow, and he will make one last meeting, but it will fail him.
He can still cling to it while it lasts. He thought he could let it go, thought he would, but seeing death he's remembered something very simple.
Life.
This isn't the mind. Just the flesh.
It still speaks.
FIN