Title: Mistletoe
Pairings: Eleven/Amy/Rory
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2596
Summary: Rory runs into some paralyzing trouble on a new planet.
Notes: Thanks to reinventweather for reading through this! I am so ridiculously excited for the Christmas special, I had to revisit Team Eleven.

Rory's thinking that he's doing quite well today - no captures, no tragic misunderstandings, no bodily harm - when it happens. He feels a sharp pain against his ankle, but when he goes to react loudly to it, his entire body is frozen in place. Luckily, he'd just been mid-sentence, telling the Doctor where they could find Amy, so the Doctor notices right away.

"Oi!" the Doctor shouts, looking down at a creature that must be at Rory's feet. Rory feels lucky to still be able to breathe and even blink, but he can't see anything outside of his current field of vision. "You're alright, Rory," the Doctor says, pressing a kiss to Rory's temple.

It's a rush when the freedom of movement suddenly comes back to him, and he quickly moves back from the really quite short, lumpy creature trying to kick high enough to reach the Doctor's foot where it's holding him down.

"Mistles," the Doctor says, pointing out the particularly sharp feet. Rory winces and rubs at his ankle post-haste. "They have the power to freeze you in place with a well-placed kick, and they're good at the placing. Only a kiss can break you out. Luckily this one's a bit weak." He grabs at Rory's arm and leads him away briskly, but not overly so. "A brilliant attack if they can sneak up on you, but they're rather shamefully slow otherwise."

"So it's a bit like freeze tag, except with kicking and kisses," Rory says, fingers sliding over the warm place where the Doctor's lips had been. "If Amy had thought of that when we were younger, I imagine I'd be an expert at it by now."

The Doctor laughs, following Rory's directions on how to get back to Amy. "Listen, Rory, if we do happen to run across another mistle, you have my full permission to kiss me to get me going again."

Rory perks up at that. "Oh, well, alright." He keeps his eyes trained on the ground, hoping to spot one of the creatures. Maybe for once, getting attacked won't be so bad.

It takes them a while to find Amy, though, and since it doesn't occur to Rory that these mistles look exactly like the rocks in the area they're currently in, he's the one that gets attacked again.

The Doctor presses a kiss to Rory's opposite temple, but other than a pleasant warmth passing through Rory, nothing else happens. "Oh, I was afraid of this," the Doctor mumbles. It's just enough to worry Rory before the Doctor says, "Rory, I'm going to get Amy. You'll be alright," and then disappears. Now Rory's really worried.

After waiting hours and hours - or, probably more accurately, about five minutes - Rory hears them coming back.

"Why didn't you kiss him?" he hears Amy ask, and that's one question Rory also wants to ask.

"Because I'm not married to him," the Doctor says, and Amy's answering scoff makes Rory wish he could smile.

"Alright, so just a proper kiss, yeah?" Amy asks, appearing in Rory's field of vision.

As soon as Amy's lips touch his, it's like his body's been jump-started, and he hauls Amy to him, kissing her thoroughly. Amy makes a happy noise and kisses back for a moment before breaking off.

"Whoa," she says, hands firm on his shoulders. Her eyes are sparkling. "Down boy."

"Sorry," Rory says instantly. "I don't know why I did that. Just, that kiss, it was--"

"It's an awakening kiss," the Doctor explains, eyes averted, "bringing back to life all the muscles in your body. As you can imagine it has quite an effect on the libido."

That explains why the Doctor's kiss to his temple had burned pleasantly for so long after, but it isn't such a good sign on the 'get the Doctor to date us' front that the Doctor ran for Amy when presented with an opportunity to kiss Rory.

He had given Rory permission to kiss him, though. Baby steps.

******

They begin to get close to the Sanawa nest that the Doctor's been hunting, but of course there are a lot more rocks, and Rory stays on edge the whole time. When he spots the movement of one of the rocks, he has just enough time to say, "Amy, look out!" before a different mistle gets him in the back of the shin.

Great, he thinks. He didn't even manage to keep his gaze on Amy; instead, he's got another lovely view of sand and rocks and oh, look, more camouflaged mistles out in the distance.

The Doctor makes a distressed noise. "Rory, listen. Both of you are frozen. Is it alright if I kiss Amy? Blink twice for yes."

After a moment, Rory blinks once. If the Doctor's going to kiss his wife, Rory deserves to be able to see it.

The Doctor sighs and then moves out of his line of vision. "Is it alright if I kiss Rory?" Rory hears. A pause, and then a frustrated noise from the Doctor. Rory would smile if he had control of his facial muscles; she's probably thinking much the same as him. "This is hardly the moment to be proprietary. I have to kiss one of you, or you'll both stand here frozen for the rest of your lives." Another pause. "Yes? Yes, I can kiss him?"

The Doctor's face pops into his field of view. "Rory, Amy says it's alright if I kiss you. Is it alright with you?" Rory tries to ascertain whether the Doctor is happy about it; unable to tell, he simply blinks twice. His increase in heart rate feels more pronounced when his attention isn't on any of his other muscles.

The Doctor's lips on his are a searing heat as Amy's were before, and Rory isn't too surprised to note that his body reacts the same way this time, his arms wrapping firmly around the Doctor and holding him close as he deepens the kiss. What is surprising, though, is that the Doctor doesn't move away or resist. Rory makes an appreciative noise as the Doctor's lips part, allowing his tongue to slip through, and the Doctor echoes the sound enthusiastically.

"No, hold on," the Doctor says, pulling away and gazing around at their surroundings. "This is not the time."

"Right," Rory says shakily. The Doctor nudges him over at Amy, and after a moment of indulging her kiss as well, Rory asks, "So there will be a time, later?"

"Preferably with a bed nearby," Amy adds helpfully.

The Doctor laughs a bit nervously, hand rubbing the back of his neck. "We'll discuss it later." He points out the elevated ground he had just spotted before they'd been attacked where they can stand a safe distance above the mistles. On it, they discover a convenient path and head in the direction of the nest, Rory and Amy holding hands and smiling at each other connivingly.

When the Doctor halts in front of them, mumbling, "Oh, that's not good," Rory and Amy stretch around either of his shoulders to see what he's seeing.

Their 'higher ground' trick runs out in about fifty feet as the path goes downhill, and then between them and the nest there's a big gathering of mistles, toddling around like they're just itching to give some people a good kick.

"Oh well that's great," Amy says. "Unless you've got another stun gun up your sleeve, Rory, or you know of any birds that might come along and kiss us, Doctor, I think we may need to leave this one be."

"Hush, Amy, thinking," the Doctor says, peering down at the swarm intently. He kneels down and Rory reaches down to steady his shoulder instinctively, eyeing the mistle that's been following them down the way, just waiting for one of them to slip onto his level. Which would be silly, honestly, unless they all fell at once. Rory thinks maybe these creatures just get a sick pleasure out of kicking things.

"Wait, hang on," Rory says, nudging the Doctor's shoulder. "I've got an idea. Amy, could you help me test a theory?" The Doctor stands and looks at him curiously; Amy just raises a skeptical eyebrow and comes closer, which is good enough for Rory.

Rory wraps his arms firmly around Amy's waist, pulling her in for a kiss as he steps off the elevated path, taking Amy with him. Amy makes a surprised noise but keeps right on snogging him. Rory winces a bit when the mistle gets him in the ankle, but as Amy's tongue makes its way into his mouth he realizes with a happy shiver that his plan is working. The Doctor makes an appreciative noise and then Rory feels him pulling the two of them back onto the path.

"Saving the world by snogging," Amy says with a wide smile. "My new favorite method."

"Knew you'd like it," Rory says, nudging her with his shoulder. "So if the two of you can just keep it up long enough to get across the expanse, you shouldn't have a problem."

"Wait, me and Amy?" the Doctor asks at the same time that Amy says, "Definitely my favorite method."

"Doctor, you need to get across. You can be in charge of navigation - I'll yell at you from up here if I think you're heading in the wrong direction. Amy will be in change of maintaining the kiss; she's good at that," Rory says, sharing a wicked smile with her.

"Why, do you have any qualms with kissing me, Doctor?" Amy asks, gazing at the Doctor with wide, innocent eyes.

"No! I mean," he glances at Rory and then back to Amy, "you're a very -- and I certainly -- but you don't have to --"

The Doctor could potentially go on like this for hours, but Amy grabs him by the lapels and says, "Let's practice," pulling him to her as she steps down onto level ground. After a moment, the Doctor gets on board, humming against Amy's mouth. Rory watches in interest until the mistle gets Amy good and she pulls back, the "Ow!" halfway out of her throat before she freezes.

"Oh," the Doctor says, leaning in to capture her lips before the mistle can get to him too.

"Amy, you've got to ignore the pain and keep your lips locked," Rory coaches. He'll have plenty of time to feel ridiculous about this later. "You'll most likely be moving backwards, so you need to just follow the Doctor's lead and try not to trip."

They practice for a few more minutes, but then the mistle gets tired of being tripped over and wanders off, making a grumbling noise.

"Yeah, it's no fun to be kicked, is it?" Rory shouts after it. Amy and the Doctor step back onto his level, their lips dark and swollen from their "practice." Rory tries not to feel jealous.

Amy gives him one good kiss at the edge of the path before latching herself onto the Doctor, and then they're off, following Rory's direction. He shouts directions at the Doctor, feeling like he's in a game show, occasionally telling them to stop so they won't trip over any rocks or stray creatures.

"Okay, you're good to keep moving, Doctor, and Amy, stop trying to escalate it." Her hand slides out from where it was trying to edge under the Doctor's jacket and Rory can just make out her flipping him off from here. "Oh, that's nice. What happened to working as a team, eh? Both of us sharing the Doctor."

She holds up both hands as if in surrender, though the Doctor's arms stay firmly around her to keep her from falling. Rory smiles, wondering what's going through the Doctor's head right now. "Move to your left!" he shouts dutifully.

When they reach the other end, Rory shouts the all-clear and watches as they part, breathing heavily. They both look back at him, smiling and waving before disappearing into the nest.

Now he waits.

He gets bored after a while and slides his phone from his pocket, sinking down to sit cross-legged on the ground. Angry Birds doesn't keep him occupied for very long, but then the mistle comes toddling back. Rory talks to it for a minute, but it doesn't seem to be in the mood for chatter. Rory sighs and snaps a picture of it with his phone. The mistle squeaks as the flash goes off and run away as fast as its little legs can carry it.

"Huh," Rory says eloquently. He walks toward the expanse and snaps another picture of a group of them, and they all scatter just as quickly. Using this knowledge, Rory is able to get across to the nest in half the time it took Amy and the Doctor.

Amy is keeping watch just inside the nest, the Doctor messing with something behind her. "How'd you get across?" she asks, eyebrows raising.

Rory holds up his phone, grinning triumphantly.

"You made out with your phone?"

Rory narrows his eyes. "No, I--"

"Rory! You'll have to tell us all about it on the way out," the Doctor says, shooing them along to the edge. Rory peeks over his shoulder and discovers that they're about to be chased.

"Right, how about I show you?" he says, leading the way with his phone and getting them safely across with the mistles conveniently blocking the path of the angry Sanawa. On second look, the Sanawa look a lot like the angry birds on his phone.

When they get across, the two of them make grateful noises at Rory. "Does this mean I get a kiss now?" Rory asks, smiling hopefully at Amy.

"Ugh, I think kissing's lost it's appeal for a while," Amy says, rubbing at her jaw. She pats Rory on the cheek as she goes past.

"It does numb your mouth a bit after a while," the Doctor agrees, licking his lips. Rory looks sadly between the two of them, trying to to come up with a response that doesn't sound whiny, but then the Doctor steps up to him. "Brilliant work," he says quietly, ducking in and pressing his lips to Rory's in a quick, sweet kiss.

Rory can't help the goofy smile that spreads over his face when the Doctor pulls back. "So, back to the TARDIS, yeah?"

******

"What are you doing up there?" Rory asks as he enters the main area of the TARDIS from the back hallway and discovers the Doctor hanging from the rafters, dangling a plant from a bit of string.

Amy follows him after a moment, her eyebrows shooting up as she spots the Doctor. "Please tell me you're wearing a harness."

"I thought you both might prefer this type of mistletoe," the Doctor says, nudging the plant over so it hangs just above the door and ignoring Amy entirely.

"Oh, mistletoe," Amy says at the same moment it clicks into place in Rory's head. Toes of the mistles, why didn't he think of that?

"Yeah, come on, Amy, I got that right away," Rory says, faking arrogance.

"Shut up, no you didn't," Amy says, slugging him on the shoulder. Rory holds up his hands in defense as she pretends to start beating him up.

"That's weird, it doesn't seem to be working," the Doctor says, standing underneath the mistletoe now and poking at it curiously.

Rory and Amy trade mischievous looks and then race each other across the TARDIS.

THE END

Go here if you'd like to comment on this fic. ♥