Title: To the Bone
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ross Jenkins
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 4, 50ficlets
Prompt: 15, Stripped
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Ross Jenkins, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Ross sighed contentedly as he slid his arms around the Doctor and pulled the Time Lord close against him, running one hand through the other man's hair. He always felt so completely sated after they'd made love, as though he didn't want to move or speak.

No one had ever given him that feeling of being completely satisfied before. He and the Doctor were a perfect match, in every way, he thought with an inward smile. The Time Lord was the one man he wanted to spend his life with, for the rest of his days.

What would be have become without the Doctor in his life? Well, if he was to believe the Time Lord, the two of them would have met eventually -- and that fateful meeting would have caused Ross to lose his life, in an attempt to save the Doctor.

He would have succeeded, of course -- but that wouldn't have been any comfort to him, not when he was dead. And the two of them would never have had the chance to become what they were -- companions and lovers, two people who belonged together.

"What are you thinking about?" the Doctor murmured, nestling into Ross' arms. "I'm not going to sneak into your mind, but you seem awfully contented and pleased with yourself." He smiled, the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Going to let me in on the secret?"

Ross laughed aloud, brushing a kiss across the Doctor's soft lips. "I was just thinking about us," he said softly, tightening his arms around the other man's waist. "About how much I love you, and how much the two of us belong with each other."

With a jolt, he realized that if he'd been with anyone else and they'd asked him that question, he wouldn't have been able to answer them so truthfully. He'd probably have smiled and made something up, turned their question into a joke.

But with the Doctor, it was different. Somehow, this man could manage to strip him down to the bone, take away every bit of protection he had against anyone seeing into his heart and his innermost emotions. The Doctor could strip him completely, down to the very basics.

It was impossible to hide anything that was in his heart and soul when it came to this man. All it took was one smile, one whispered question, and he would tell the Doctor anything he wanted to know. He'd never trusted anyone this much before in his entire life.

The Doctor could strip him bare, emotionally and even physically, and he would feel no need to cover himself up again. He had no fears about letting this man know everything that was in his heart, everything that made him the person he was, from the inside out.

Could anyone else in his life have ever made him feel safe and secure enough to let himself be stripped of all his outer protections? No, Ross thought, not even the people he'd been closest to before the Doctor had swept into his life.

Even his parents, when he was a child and he'd looked to them for comfort and protection, had never made him feel so safe. There was something about the Doctor that made him feel as though he could always take shelter with the Time Lord, in his arms and in his hearts.

He would have never willingly stripped himself down to the core of his feelings for anyone else, either, Ross told himself. He'd only been this emotionally bare with the Doctor; no one else he'd ever been with had known him so intimately.

Not only physically, but emotionally. He wasn't only stripped to his bare skin when he and the Doctor made love; he opened himself to the Time Lord completely, stripping down to what he truly felt in his heart and soul in a way that he'd never dared to do with anyone else.

"You know, I've never been as honest and open with anyone as I am with you," he said softly, taking the Time Lord's hand and placing it on his chest. "I've stripped myself to the soul for you, Doctor. I've never wanted to do that for any other person."

"And I've done the same for you, love," the Doctor whispered, his hand pressed over Ross' chest, feeling the young man's single heart beating, its rhythm strong and firm. "Anything you want to know, Ross, I'll tell you. We have no secrets from each other."

"I hope we're always that way," Ross murmured, pressing another kiss to the Time Lord's lips, this one firmer and more passionate than the last. "But right now, I'd rather have a replay of what we were just doing, instead of lying here and talking."

"Oh, I agree wholeheartedly with that," the Doctor told him, winding his arms around his lover's neck and pulling him closer for yet another heated kiss. The last coherent thought in Ross' mind was that he would be stripped even further, down to the bone -- and that he didn't mind at all.

***