In The Eye Of The Beholder.

A story of Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa.

Rating:  PG13 - Turlough with no clothes on!

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Dr Who is copyright BBC.


The diffuse lighting of the TARDIS corridor dimmed suddenly.  When it came up
again, the corridor walls had taken on a vague, ethereal mistiness.  The
soothing hum of the TARDIS now held a slightly irritated edge.

As the floor lurched again, Tegan put out a hand to steady herself.  Her
fingers sank into the wall, an icy chill enveloping them.  She gave a little
cry, and snatched her hand back.

Whatever that "minor problem" was the Doctor was fixing, Tegan wished he'd
get on with it.  All this bouncing around was very trying on her nerves.  The
Doctor's blithe assurance that: " there is no danger at all," did nothing to
reassure her.  He'd said that too many times before.

When the floor displayed no more tendency to dance a jig, she pressed on to
the swimming pool.  Pushing open the doors, she moved into the steamy
chemical stink beyond.  The large room was alive with watery echoes.

"Turlough?" she called.

The boy was in the pool.  Tegan moved to the edge.  She caught her breath at
sight of his bare buttocks.  The little creep was skinny dipping!  He's a
real cutie though, she thought, blushing, surprised by the strength of her
response to the sight.

She was debating with herself whether she had the bravado to get the boy's
attention, or just withdraw quietly, when the floor bucked again, almost
pitching her into the pool.  The walls retreated into a semi-transparent
vagueness, seeming to become a mere suggestion of the solidity Tegan had
hitherto taken for granted.  She peered around at the melting walls,
wondering exactly what was the nature of that "little problem"?  When she
turned back to the pool, Turlough was at the far end.  He was in the act of
surging from the water, like a seal beaching itself on a rock.

As he stood and turned to face her, Tegan caught her breath in shock.

It was Turlough, of that there could be no doubt; but at the same time, it
was a Turlough she had never seen before.

Everything about him was wrong.  He was no longer human, but only humanoid.
His mop of red hair had become a great mane that spread down his back and
over his shoulders.  It was rooted right down the spine to the cleft of his
buttocks.  But that was the least of the oddities.  That at least she was
prepared for.  She knew that he had shaved his neck, shoulders and back
regularly to blend in with the other boys at Brendon school on Earth.  Since
coming aboard, he had let his mane of fire red hair grow back to its natural
state.

No.  It was not the hair.  It was...Everything - a total wrongness.  His
muscles were arranged all wrong; and a powerful aura of otherness clung to
him.

Naturally, because he wore no clothes, her attention shifted downwards.
Well?  it was sort of inconceivable that it should not.  Tegan drew in a
breath of surprise at what she saw.  Instead of the usual bits and bobs she
was expecting, what greeted her gaze was a heart shaped mound, completely
naked of hair, divided by a pronounced groove.

Tegan gaped.  This sight of him would not square with her certainty of his
maleness which he exuded, and which spoke to the deeply instinctive female
part of her being.  Turlough was a Male.

But this...

She knew she was staring; but she couldn't help it.

Then the creature that she knew had to be Turlough, grew even stranger to her
eyes.  The mound at his groin rippled with powerful muscles.  The slit
widened, the folds of skin drawing aside to disgorge a long, coiling
tentacle.  For a moment, the plump appendage hung down before his oddly
slender thighs.  Then the tip raised up like the head of a snake.  It quested
about in her direction, as though scenting her presence.

Tegan took a step back.  The backs of her legs caught the edge of a pool-side
seat and she sat down heavily, a hand going to her mouth, which still gaped
open.

Turlough reached down, slipped a finger in each side of the organ and dug
around, expelling a trickle of water.  A moment later, the folds of skin
rippled, the tentacle withdrew and the mound reformed once more.  Turlough
shook the last of the pool water from his fingers, watching her with his oval
eyes.

Blue eyes?

He blinked.

Grey eyes?

He blinked again.

Now two black eyes watched her without readable expression from that face
that was undeniably Turlough's, but now quite alien and lizard-like.  His
lipless mouth opened; a forked tongue licked out to taste the air.  He spoke.

"Teeegan?" His voice had become a reedy whine, with a slightly wheezing
quality.  "Neegre deel been, Teeegan?" he whined again.

The reptilian Turlough took a step towards her.  Three toed feet slapped the
damp floor.  Alien musculature slid under the pale skin, patterned with a
diamond scaling, touched by a bluish tinge.  He had raised a hand towards
her.  The hand, too, was wrong in some fundamental way that eluded Tegan's
bemused grasp.  She shrank back from the monster.

It was not because there had been any threat in the movement, for there was
not.  It was more that Turlough totally lacked any readable intent, so alien
had he become.  Neither was it because he was ugly or unpleasing to look
upon.  This was decidedly not the case.  In fact, he was beautiful.  The way
the diffuse lighting of the pool caressed his lithe body made Tegan's breath
catch in her throat.  He was like a living rainbow, or jewel made of liquid
crystal.  He was the most beautiful thing her gaze had ever fallen upon.

His nakedness stirred no embarrassment at all within her.  The maleness he
possessed was of such a different order it was incapable of engendering any
sexual response.  The total lack of any sexual tension in the confrontation
made embarrassment quite impossible.  Missing, too, was any feeling of sexual
threat that would have been a corollary to a confrontation to a youthful
naked male of her own species.

This alieness that Turlough displayed left her free to admire him in the way
one might catch one's breath at sight of a soaring eagle.  Such sights could
evoke a sense of awe without sparking arousal.  For long seconds, she just
stood there, admiring the line of him, the play of the light on his skin, the
way the oddly arranged muscles slid under the iridescent scaling.  The vision
of the marvelously mutated Turlough, made her heart pound with excited awe.
Her brown eyes drank him in.  She wanted, needed to speak his beauty to frame
it in wonderful words; but the power of speech had abandoned her, and she
remained mute before the vision of Turlough's beauty.

Unworthy to the task, her words had slunk away to hide.  Her mouth opened and
closed as she sought for them; and at last she routed them out of hiding.
But before she could speak, the lights dimmed once more.  When they came up,
the walls had regained their pretense of solidity.

Turlough, a recognisable Turlough, stood before her, now, quite normally
male.  Now Tegan did blush, and felt a sudden stir of embarrassment at the
sight of the boy's scrawny nakedness.  Turlough too was blushing.  He turned
quickly away and grabbed up a towel to wrap about himself.  Now that things
had returned to "normal", an awkward silence solidified between them like a
wall of glass.  Each was now acutely embarrassed.

The doors swung open.  Nyssa stuck her head in.

"Oh, there you are.  The repairs to the Translations circuit are completed,"
she announced.  "The circuits are running at ninety nine percent of normal,
so things should be alright.  But any weirdness you're still experiencing is
beyond the circuits ability to smooth over, so you'll have to learn to live
with it.  - Eh?  Is something the matter, Tegan?"

The end