The Mating Habits of Humans

Fandom: Doctor Who

Characters: The Tenth Doctor/Donna

Season 4, oneshot, humour

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: These characters belong to the BBC, not to me.

The Doctor's lanky form was sprawled on the worn leather sofa in the TARDIS’ library, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his dark glasses perched slightly askew on his nose. He was reading something, hidden from Donna’s view by the angle, but whatever it was, he clearly found it riveting. He was studying it with the sort of rapt fascination he ordinarily reserved for bananas.

She stood at the door, watching him, and found herself wildly curious about what could possibly have kept him nailed to that sofa for the past half hour, when ordinarily he couldn’t sit still for more than a minute at a time. Stealthily, she crept closer. The Doctor, engrossed in his reading material, didn’t seem to hear her.

And then she saw the book's cover, and her mouth dropped open.

“Oi, Martian-Boy!” she yelled, and the Doctor yowled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, and flung the book clear across the library. He leapt to his feet and stared at her, his dark eyes huge behind the glasses, his ears red, the hair standing up on his head in even more disarray than usual.

“Donna,” he said, his voice weak. “You startled me.”

That was so obvious it hardly seemed worth commenting on, so she didn’t.

“You were reading my book!” She advanced on him, and he backed away, clearly fearing she was going to slap his head off his shoulders. The red spread from his ears to his cheeks, and his eyes grew even wider.

“Your book? Oh… was that yours?” He coughed, and did his very best to look innocent. His expression didn’t fool her, any more than it had fooled the Sussetalla last week. They’d known perfectly well he’d instigated that little rebellion, and she knew perfectly well he’d been aware that was her book. It wasn’t like there were a whole lot of Mills & Boon romances filling the TARDIS’ shelves. He’d swiped her book, the rotter!

“I’ve been looking all over the bloody ship for that book!” She glared at him. He might be the Oncoming Storm, but by God, she was the Oncoming Shouter, and he cowered visibly before her wrath. “Do I steal the books you’re reading? Do I?”

He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’ve been reading Ten Practical Uses for a Twelve-Dimensional Continuum,” he offered weakly. “If you want to borrow it–“

“Oh, there’s a bestseller if ever I heard one,” she growled. “Right up there with the Shopaholic books, I imagine.”

The Doctor looked as if he were about to say something else–probably to explain that Ten Practical Uses was actually at the very top of the bestseller list on the distant planet of Egghead, or something along those lines–but he glanced at her face, and closed his mouth instead. Rather wisely, she thought.

“You wanker!” she yelled, and the Doctor turned a shade of crimson that, had he been human, would have indicated either impending stroke or an extremely high fever. It occurred to her that possibly, just possibly, wanker wasn’t the best word she could have used. She certainly didn’t want to think about wanking right now. And judging from the Doctor’s expression, he just might have been.

She stalked past him, bent, and picked up the abused book, straightening up and smoothing the cover (not to mention the very attractive male chest depicted on it) under her fingers. The Doctor’s eyes followed the movement of her hand, and his cheeks got even redder–something she would have sworn was impossible.

Watching his reactions curiously, she ran her fingers over the cover model’s chest again, and he blinked and swallowed and looked like steam might just come out of his ears.

“Been enjoying my book, Spaceboy?” she inquired, in a much sweeter tone.

He cleared his throat and reached up to rub the back of his neck–clear signs that he was very, very uncomfortable. “Um,” he said. “Well, the writing was a little overblown, and the plot wasn’t particularly believable, but the, um, relationship was…”

She smiled, very, very sweetly. “Hot?”

His ears were really blazing now. He looked as if he thought crawling under the nearest table and hiding might be a better option than discussing this with her. He shoved his glasses up on his nose– another nervous habit.

“Um,” he said again. “It’s a rather… educational… book.”

She blinked. “Educational?”

“Regarding the mating habits of humans,” he explained.

She looked at him, perplexed, and then down at the book in her hands. “Doctor,” she said, very slowly, “you already know about the mating habits of humans, don't you? I mean, you do know all about sex, right? They do have sex on your planet. Don’t they?”

“Of course I know about it,” he said, ruffling a little at the implication that there was anything he didn’t know about. “I’m a doctor, remember? Doctor of everything. Xenosexuality is absolutely one of my areas of expertise. Definitely. No question about it.”

“So you know all about it already,” she said, looking back at him with a steady gaze. “So exactly what was so educational about the book?”

“Wellllll.” He cleared his throat again and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “It was an excellent review of the basics, I thought.”

“The basics,” she echoed.

“Right. The basics.” He started edging toward the door. “Donna, I think the TARDIS needs a little work done right now, so…”

“Hold it right there.”

He froze, and looked at her with imploring eyes. She could read his thoughts in his eyes, as clearly as if he’d uttered the words. Please, please just let me go without further interrogation, and I swear I’ll never touch one of your books again.

“Basics,” she said, slowly running a finger over the cover and its naked chest. The Doctor made a sound that might have been a gulp. He took off his glasses (because they were fogging up, she rather suspected) and put them in his suit pocket. “Such as… snogging?”

“Right.” The Doctor sounded hoarse, but he tried to cover it by taking refuge in one of his typical onslaughts of nattering. “Snogging is certainly one of the most basic of human sexual habits. Rather a nasty sort of habit, if you ask me. Spreads germs like wildfire. It just isn’t sanitary to go sticking your tongue into someone else’s mouth–“

She moved toward him, and he broke off, looking distinctly alarmed. “Donna. Donna? Uh… Donna?”

On the third repetition of her name, his voice went up an octave, mostly because she had moved to within an inch or two of him. She stood in front of him, looking right into his enormous dark eyes. The Doctor stared back, looking very much as if he would rather be facing a horde of Daleks.

“Doctor,” she said, very gently. “You’ve snogged women before. Haven’t you?”

“Of course.” His voice was still unnaturally high, and he cleared his throat and went self-consciously for a lower octave. “Of course. Scads of women. Loads of ‘em.”

“Recently?”

“That depends,” he said cautiously, “on how you define recently.”

“Within the past year.”

“Um…” He thought about it. “Well, I snogged you.”

“I snogged you, Alien. To save your life. And there was no tongue involved.”

He looked as if he was trying very, very hard not to think about tongues. “Still,” he said. “It was a kiss.”

“Not much of one.” She leaned toward him, closing the already-tiny gap between them. “So you’re not exactly an expert on kisses,” she said. “What did you learn from this book, then?”

“The… book?” He blinked, then looked down at the book, still held in her hands. “Oh, yes, the book. Well. Ever so informative about the best way to insert your tongue into someone’s mouth, wasn’t it? Really, very descriptive on that topic. Quite well done, I thought.”

“Really.” She looked him straight in the eye and caught him by the tie, pulling him a little nearer. “Show me what you’ve learned.”

He made another of those gulping sounds, and then he very slowly bent, and his lips met hers.

His mouth was very slow and very cautious against hers, and she thought it was more like kissing a sixteen-year-old virgin than a nine-hundred-year-old man. She remembered that he’d told her he was only a few years old in this body, and all at once she wondered if he’d ever even had sex in this particular form. For all she knew, he might in fact be a virgin. Well, a sort-of virgin. The thought sent an uncharacteristic wave of warmth and compassion through her, and she suddenly felt like the worst sort of person for tormenting him this way.

She let the book drop to the floor, reached up, and dug her fingers into all that thick hair, pulling him even closer.

The Doctor made a funny little noise deep in his throat, and then his own hands settled onto her waist, right above the hips, and his tongue slipped out of his mouth and very gently touched her lips. She parted them instinctively, and his tongue delved into her mouth. He tasted good-- slightly different from any other man she’d kissed, but in a good way. A very good way. He tasted sexy and spicy and rather addictive.

His tongue caressed hers, and the warm, velvety slide of it made heat arrow straight down into the depths of her body. She’d thought she was the one in charge of this situation, but all of a sudden, she found herself melting from the inside out. His tongue continued to slide against hers, in slow, seductive strokes, and her knees went weak. She felt herself trembling, and she clung to him for support, pressing her body against his helplessly.

One kiss. One bloody kiss, and he’d managed to reduce her to a pathetic little pile of goo.

One bloody kiss, and he’d somehow transformed himself from an uncertain virgin to a man who could kiss so well it made her toes curl.

Now how the hell had he done that?

She pulled back, ending the kiss, and stared at him. He looked back, his dark gaze taking in her stunned expression, and the corners of his mouth curled up in a self-satisfied smile.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, indeed. That was certainly a very educational review of the basics.”

And looking rather pleased with himself, he straightened his tie and sauntered from the room, leaving her standing there, gaping.

She wasn't sure how long she stood there, stockstill, staring after him. Eventually the fog he'd somehow induced in her brain cleared, and she remembered the book. She picked it up, sat down on the couch, and opened it, settling in for a long afternoon of reading.

Apparently, she thought glumly, she was the one that needed a review course.

-The End-