An Earnest Discourse on Time Lord Sexuality
(a.k.a. Sassy Gay Friends)
Author: Lilac Summers
Rating: PG-13, language and banter
Pairing: Ten/Donna
Category: Humor, UST

A/N: This little fic has been lurking around in my hard-drive for a while. I finally decided it was time to set it free! Fly little bird, fly! Also, I mean no disrespect to any persons of any sexual orientation - it's just a bit of Ten/Donna fun.

"Son of a bitch!"

The Doctor thought briefly about making some passing protest against Donna's language, but as he valued his hide he just ran faster, a swearing Donna in his arms. "You all right?"

"NO! This effing hurts like I've taken a laser ray to the thigh. Wait, wait...I HAVE taken a laser ray to the thigh!"

With his superior ingrained survival instincts (Donna would challenge that comment) and cat-like reflexes (Donna would challenge that one, too), he dodged left just in time to avoid another stream of laser fire that came his way. Donna's hold on his jacket tightened and she bit back another round of curses, though he knew the jostling no doubt was even more painful.

He juggled Donna in his arms as he fumbled to unlock the TARDIS, Donna helpfully screaming in his ear for him to hurry. The door opened with a soft "click" and he raced through, kicking it shut behind him.

"And safe!" he cheered, coming to an abrupt stop.

"I hate you."

"Aww, Donna! You don't mean that," he assured her as he began to make his way to the med-bay.

"I do. You shoulda known that licking the wall of their 'holy temple of Nutella' wasn't kosher. You're the worst space explorer ever," she said sadly, woebegone that she was stuck with a defective time/space guide.

He made vaguely indignant noises and corrected her about "Holy Temple of Neuet'la" before carefully setting her down on the exam table.

She hissed as she settled. He could see the long patch of seared fabric where the laser had flashed by her skirt.

"Okay, where did the laser hit?"

Without preamble, Donna raised the hem of her skirt, unceremoniously baring an indecent amount of thigh all the way up to the hip. The Doctor glimpsed the edge of lacy blue knickers.

He swallowed thickly, trying to keep his eyes away from all that taut, silken skin. Donna had fabulous legs.

He'd seen a lot of those legs - actually, he'd seen a lot of Donna, period - since she started traveling with him. She treated him with the same offhand intimacy that she'd treat a girlfriend, or a slightly slow younger brother. He had exactly what he'd asked for: a friend who didn't see him as anything other, and apparently didn't even see him as a male, in general. A male who might react a bit to her hitching her skirt over her legs with no reservations.

"Uh..." His mind had gone blank. All he could think of was that she had a beguiling series of freckles marching up her hip, like little cinnamon soldiers.

"Well, are you going to fix it or what?" she demanded after he stood there stupidly like a big useless lump.

He shook himself slightly, refocused on the angry red line that traveled from the outer corner of her hip and down the length of her right thigh.

"Oh, that's grand!" he exclaimed, whipping out the brainy specs, settling low to look at the injury.

"It's WHAT?"

"Grand! Superb! Molto bene! You're the luckiest ginger ever! See, that's why I've always wanted to be ginger: you are statistically luckier. So, not only because gingers are revered in 70 percent of this universe's planets and, besides, I think my coloring would go-"

"I will kill you and drop your body into a black hole if you don't explain how me getting shot in the thigh is lucky right this flippin' instance!" Donna screeched.

"Ah. Oh. Weeellll, it's just a mild contact burn, you see. The laser didn't actually hit you, it hit something close to you and you got a proximity burn. They hurt like the dickens, but it's not serious. I can fix it in a jif. Really, the Neuets are excellent shots; it's miraculous you've got a leg left at all!"

At Donna's horrified squawk he rushed to reassure her. "No, but don't worry, I would have kept you - one-legged and everything! You would have been like, like my pirate second in command! Oooooh, Donna, we could get you a wooden prosthetic and go to a pirate ship and-"

Donna grabbed the nearest instrument as a weapon. It was a tongue depressor, but he didn't doubt she'd stab it through his eye if she had to.

The Doctor hurriedly danced out of reach and sulkily made his way over to the cabinets, pulled out a jar of ointment, and trudged back.

Donna tensed as he neared the burn, but then "oohed" and made other assorted yummy noises in wanton appreciation as he slathered the cooling lotion on her with equally cool fingers. The Doctor twitched as heat rose up the back of his neck and to the tips of his ears, and hurriedly stepped back.

Donna folded her injured right leg over her left, shifted onto her left hip, and hitched her skirt up clear past her waist to peer curiously down at his handiwork, thus finally treating the Doctor to a full, uninterrupted view of Donna's lacy, somewhat sheer low-cut knickers. He jumped slightly, grabbed the ointment and tried to make himself look away.

"Think it'll scar?" she asked worriedly.

"Nah, good as new," he squeaked.

"You sure? Doc...oi, Doctor! You're not even looking! How can you tell if you're not even looking?"

"It's fine. Just fine."

"Get your scrawny butt back here and take a good look at-"

"Donna!" he finally cried, frustrated. "Do you mind pulling your skirt down just a tad!"

She titled her head, looked at him as though she were a clever puppy seeing a new species of particularly interesting squirrel, and lowered her skirt just enough for modesty's sake. "All right then, prissy pants. What's gotten into you?"

"I just...I just don't think it's appropriate."

"You don't think me pulling my skirt up so you can see my injured thigh is appropriate?" she asked, in that special 'you are the universe's biggest idiot' voice that she seemed to reserve just for him.

"Y-yeah," he muttered, in fact, feeling like the idiot her tone implied.

The head tilt intensified. "But aren't you a doctor?"

"Well yes. I mean, no. I mean, yes, I mean-"

"Which is it? You do have a fancy degree from interplanetary Cambridge around here, don't you?"

"Not as such, no."

Donna gasped. "You were lying to me?"

The Doctor drew himself up, insulted. "No! I just never...there's no need for some meaningless diploma and...I know everything and more than any of your doctors could ever know!"

"I've half a mind to report you to the health board! Is there an intergalactic health boar-"

"DONNA! Just-let's just imagine I said 'yes' when you asked your question, and we'll both sleep better at night."

Donna gave him the stink eye, but must have figured reporting him to some higher health authority would dash her plans for continued space exploration.

"In any case, I'm always the Doctor, but not always a doctor! Like when you prance around in your towel, or want me to 'unzip' you, or ask me which bra would match your top best, or pad around in that sleep-shirt that is, quite frankly, see-through, or hitch your skirt up to your waist."

Donna stared at him for a long second, blinking rapidly in surprise at this unforeseen diatribe. "But - you're my mate. And, well, you're you."

"What does that mean?" he was almost afraid to ask, but the question tumbled out.

"Come off it. S'not like I care if you see me in my unmentionables."

The Doctor had the niggling feeling his ego was about to be stomped into the ground, but couldn't stop himself from demanding, a bit put-out, "Whyever not?!"

"Coz, you know. You're like...my sassy gay friend."

"Your WHAT?!"

"My sassy gay friend."

"What?!"

"My sassy-"

"I HEARD YOU!" He made crazy hand flapping/shooing motions as if warding off a cloud of gnats. "It just doesn't make any sense!"

"Look, Spaceman, I don't see why you're acting like a bee has flown down your pants."

"Because I'm not gay?"

"Oh," she blinked again, rapidly, surprised. "You sure?"

"Yes!"

"But, the hair and the skinny-trousers and-"

"You're stereo-typing, Donna!"

"Okay, well, then how about the glasses you don't really need?"

"I do need them!"

At her pointed look, he faltered. "Okay, I don't need them to see better but they, they help me concentrate and surely that's just as important and not at all vain."

Another pitying look from Donna, which made the Doctor realize this particular point was already lost. "Look, my vision is none of your concern! And I'm not sassy or gay!"

"Not even a tiny bit? Are you absolutely sure?"

"Yes!" he roared. "Rose! Remember her?!"

"Of course I remember the whole, 'woe is me, Rose has left, boo hoo boo hoo' emo stage I had to deal with, but I thought it was all quite melodramatic. Over-acted, really. Figured maybe you were secretly sad about losing Jack. Now he I could understand! Yowza!"

The Doctor stared, gobsmacked. Only Donna could describe a pivotal moment of loss in his life as a 'boo hoo over-dramatic emo stage.' And only Donna could make him believe that was exactly what it had been.

Donna took his shocked silence as surprise at being 'outed.' She patted his hand kindly as he goggled at her. "Don't worry, Spaceman! I know my people as a whole are a little behind the times on that sort of thing, but I support whichever lifestyle you choose, honestly I do."

"Well I appreciate that, Donna. And yes, you humans are a bit backwards and sexual orientation is not nearly as simplistic as you, especially 21st century, humans believe. The Kinsey scale of-" He trailed off as he saw Donna's eyes glazing in disinterest. "Regardless! I'm very much attracted to women." In general...or, really, mostly in theory. Okay maybe only curvy ginger women with legs that went on for miles and breasts that... "So, ummm, you see, I can't really be your sassy gay friend."

Donna scrunched her nose and pursed her lips at this shift in her world view, in a way the Doctor thought was frankly adorable.

"But even if this is true..." Donna said very slowly, working out some seemingly insurmountable problem in her head, "you made it very very clear that we were only mates. And if you want to be my mate, then I treat you as my mate," she argued. "So even if you claim you aren't gay - which, by the way, I really truly would support wholeheartedly - it's not like there's an attraction, so what if I do treat you as my 'sassy gay friend.' No harm, right? So there."

The Doctor tried heroically to hide the wince at the pointed "no attraction" statement. His ego, as predicted, shattered into millions of little pieces, no doubt never to be seen again.

But no, Donna was not finished! "Besides, even if you're not 'technically' gay, then you're as close to an asexual bloke as I've come across, so I don't see how a glance at my knick-"

"WHAT?!"

"Oi, no need to shout, Mr. Broken Record!" protested Donna, trying to clear the ringing in her ears. "I've watched all these biddies flirt with you and you never bat an eye. And Martha - well, she's hot - and like a big idiot you didn't hit that while you had the chance. And really, gorgeous girl like that, all smart and stuff, head-over-heels in lust with you, plays 'house' with you for months and you don't even try for a snog! So yeah, asexual... or sassy gay friend. Either works for me."

"Well, neither works for me!"

"Why do you care what I think about your sexuality? And you've never mentioned my walking around in my underwear before!"

"I am a male, one who is neither gay nor asexual, Donna. It's not like I suddenly go selectively blind when you pass by wearing that toweling robe of yours that covers nothing. You don't magically become invisible. I notice!" he cried, at wit's end. And he could still see edges of lacy blue knickers.

Donna jerked back, looking at him with a slightly startled expression, perhaps just now noticing his elevated breathing and dilated pupils - signs of his, well, noticing.

Donna slowly, carefully brought her skirt down to cover her thighs, eyes wide. "You notice."

He nodded grimly.

"And it makes you uncomfortable?"

Another nod.

"Well, okay. All you had to say, really. I've had my share of sexual harassment in the workplace training; m'not here to make you uncomfortable in your own space ship. I'll make sure I'm decently covered from now on. I didn't think it bothered you at all, so I'm sorr-" suddenly she stopped, and her wide-eyed look of surprise narrowed to a glare.

"Wait, do you notice or are you looking?!"

The Doctor, not being a stupid man, lied through his teeth. "No! Not looking!" he cried, and if his voice as a few octaves higher, well, that could be blamed on anything. "Not actively - not what you would call actively - looking! Just noticing, like any non-asexual bloke would do."

She kept him in her raptor-like gaze another second, waiting to see if he'd cave. After a while, she relented, apparently satisfied. "All right, then. No more walking around as if you are my asexual or gay friend."

He breathed out in relief. "Thank you."

"But we both agree you're still sassy."

"Donna!"

"Aw, relax. I'm kidding." She hopped off the table and tried out her injured leg. After deeming it servisable she beamed at the Doctor. "Thanks for treating my burn, though it was your fault I got shot to begin with."

"You're welcome," he grinned back.

"'Kay, I'm gonna take a nap. Wake me for dinner, will you?" She sauntered over, gave him one of her usual hugs (the ones that pushed her breasts against his chest and made him acutely aware of how well she fit against him) and then continued on by, patting him fondly on the arse as she passed.

The Doctor speared his hands through his hair and pulled, hard. "One battle at a time," he muttered to himself, then found himself transfixed by the sway of Donna's hips as she walked away. A tumble of red hair leading down to an hourglass waist, gorgeous rounded backside and long, long legs...

Wait a minute...had he just argued his point so that he wouldn't be treated to the sight of Donna in skimpy clothing anymore? What the hell good did that do him?!

Damn, but she was right: he was an idiot

The End

Bit of fluff for you! Hope you enjoyed it.