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rabid1stDISHEVELED
By Rabid1st
Ten/Rose
Rating: Mature
Beta Babes: Aibhinn, Keswindhover, Sensiblecat and Gina
Spoilers: The Satan Pit - S2
Summary: Trust…Sex…Towels…and Jean Luc Picard.
Author's Note: Thanks to Caia for inspiring the BtVS conversation.
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. If I did…the show would be censored by…everyone but you smutty few. I humbly thank Russell T. Davies for creating the sweetest, most-loving, most-genuinely iconic couple in the history of the world for me to play with.
LINKS for all previous parts…can be found HERE
PART NINETEEN
“Trust me,” she said, raking stiff fingers through his hair. “Right now, be a man...like any other man I might meet on my world. We can't read each other's minds. You can't see the future around every corner. We can't know...each other...what's coming...anything. All we have is this.” She traced a large circle on his abdomen, and then another smaller circle within the first one. It took him a moment to recognize what she was doing. She was recreating a somewhat garbled phrase in his language. The very phrase he'd used to brand her shoulder earlier in the evening. “What does it say?” she asked, nuzzling into his sideburn.
Her breath broke like a wave over the shell of his ear, setting off tiny seismic vibrations under his skin. He shuddered as mystical tremors pulsed through him, centering on and rippling across a pool of energy beneath his navel. There was definite biological activity going on as well. His throbbing cock squeezed out beads of slick fluid. He watched them tickled down his length, wax pearling from a burning candle. Rose's stroking fingers seemed to be everywhere as if she were multi-armed Kali. Fitting, he thought, as he was surely Kala, Lord of Time.
Impatient as a ticking clock, he fidgeted in her hold. He wanted to get on with things. His tongue demanded a warm, wet haven. His arms ached to wrap around yielding flesh. But he couldn't reach her without breaking free of her embrace. And she was teaching him a lesson about humans. Her hands left contrails of raw desire in their wake. He relaxed, molding his form to hers, and tipped his head back, to see her. But she denied him even this, shifting her shoulders to keep him centered.
“Teach me this word,” she demanded, again.
Such sublime torture. She was torturing him, asking about the intricacies of syntax when the only mental images he could form were strobe light stills of flesh on flesh. He writhed – sinuously rocking his hips, needing to bury himself to the hilt in her again. This time he was sure they would come together. But he didn't want her to stop what she was doing. He wanted this lesson to go on and on, until he broke. He wanted to break, to be broken on her, by her. Then, he would do something to her in retaliation. He had no clear plan, as yet, about what he would do. But, he was the oncoming storm, rumbling in the distance, rattling the windows.
“Forever,” he gasped, answering her query. “My people lack the concept. But...” he took a deep breath and pressed on, “This is...an approximation: perpetua, indeclinabilis, rosa.. My coat of arms, when I have a coat of arms,” he panted through a breathless chuckle, “shall bear this...as...as the family motto.”
She cupped his chin in the palm of one hand, holding him in place as she shunted from the waist to one side. When he'd slid down her arm, she tilted his head back so their mouths could meet. “The Eternal Rose?” she guessed, her lips moving over his, her tongue setting the words in his mouth. He thrust his tongue through the pretty phrase and into her silken heat. It slithered along the inside of her teeth, tasting her as he'd been longing to do for what seemed like hours. His fingers scrambled for a grip, seeking purchase on her smooth skin, in her silken hair.
She slipped away, squirming free of his grip with a laugh as she shifted him to center again. “Show me how it works...your language.”
“Now?” he whined, huffing in disbelief. “You want a language lesson, now?”
“Yep,” she said, popping the “p” sound. She levered him forward suddenly and stretched behind him to retrieve the tiny bottle of luminous perfume from the bedside table. Before, he knew what she was about, she'd sprayed her belly, thighs and left hand liberally. An exotically clean and spicy scent filled the room and Rose, tossing the bottle carelessly aside, glowed again. “There's your whiteboard.”
The idea of branding her intrigued him, as much as it had earlier. Shrugging aside his impatience, he settled meekly back into the curve of her body, drawing her left hand over his shoulder as he did. He curled her palm into a cup before him, staring at it like he was a tea-leaf reader. Then he drew a series of five tiny interlocking circles in it. They were varying sizes. Two of them existed wholly in subset to the others, while the largest overlapped or encompassed the other four.
“This is time,” he said.
“Which one?”
“All of it...them,” he told her. “Time is a cluster of intersecting realms.” He hovered a fingertip over the largest circle. “This is now, all else will be relative. The subjective past,” he touched one of the smaller circles. “The future...” He moved over both of the subordinate circles. Then, began to draw again. “And the objective path.” He completed an oblong with two internal zig-zags, intersecting 'the objective path' and said, “Things change around every corner. Nothing is unchanged...eternal. Therefore, there is no concept of eternity. Nothing beyond the self. There is only subjective reality, translated. This,” he breathed, drawing the large external circle that contained every phrase she'd seen written in his language. “This means...I...the self. When you write anything in Gallifreyan...you refer to it as how you see or experience it.”
“So if I want to write about an apple,” Rose said, frowning as she worked things out. “I don't say, 'the apple is red'? But...what? I believe the apple to be red?”
He hummed through a grin. “It's worse than that, really. You would say...I experienced what I believed to be an apple...as what I believe to be red,” he corrected. “And you must assign a time frame to it, of course, because apples, as we both know,” he paused briefly to kiss her wrist, “are not motorbikes.”
Rose snorted in his ear. “Will you be serious?”
“I am...totally serious. Well,” he made a face. “As serious as a naked, randy Time Lord can be in these circs. An apple would not be eternally red. It was once a seed, therefore...brownish...seed colored...and will one day rot to seed again.” He very gently touched the circle representing 'now' and then went on drawing in her palm. He drew two lines crossing through the inner circles and the outer one.
“This is growth, flowers...any vibrant life,” he told her. “Two lines because all living things have an objective and a subjective existence. The lines are straight because all life has a genetically coded course to follow. But, the universe enacts change.” A series of flounces connected the two lines. “This is beauty. Whatever the object is...it has appeal. Normally such appeal would fade. The scalloped waves would be drawn smaller as we traversed the lines, vanishing as we passed from the now into the objective and subjective pasts. But here, I keep them even. This means their essential value is continually renewed.”
“The...beauty...the life never fades?” Rose guessed, feeling as if her brain was on fire.
“Exactly. So,” he breathed, gesturing broadly above the glowing symbol in her palm. “Can you see it as a concept entire? It says...this hand...this person...this Rose...is...for me...eternal, existing in all facets of time, never fading...this is how I will see her, always and forever.”
She lay her head against his, tightened her arms around him. “That's lovely. Really...really mind-boggling. But...lovely.”
Her afterglow was killing him. He nearly whimpered as his sex, rock-hard already, swelled just a bit more. There was a concept he could explain to her. He scooted to the side. Lifting his hips as he dipped his shoulder left, he listed in that direction. Her hold on him gave way and he rolled across the bed. A second later, he was up on his knees and lunging forward. He yanked Rose into his arms. She squee-ed as he swept her to him, across his chest and on over to her back. The speed of this maneuver carried them into a skid on the silken coverlet. They ended up crosswise on the bed, her hair showering off the edge of it, like ice rooster-tailing away from a braking speed skater.
“Let's learn how to write 'temptation,'” he said, fingers swirling over her belly, connecting lines and circles and squiggles. “Or better still,” he went on as he drew another symbol, “Satisfaction. Fulfillment. Convergence.”
What he was doing tickled. Laughing in the face of his intense glare, Rose sheltered her stomach with both arms but drew her knees up and open. Her sultry eyes dared him to take what she knew he wanted. His spitting snarl told her she had no idea what he would dare to do just then. He seized her wrists and carried her arms out to the side, pinning them to the bed as he shifted into dominance above her. Nose to nose, lip to lip, eye to eye with her, he panted through some very strong urges before willing himself to move back, let go of his bruising grip on her arms. He settled onto his haunches. Kneeling between her legs, he positioned his himself for one swift true thrust. Rose stared up at him in wide-eyed wonder, not frightened really but, also, not fully aware of what she'd gotten into by baiting him.
Scooping his forearms under her shoulder blades, he lifted her easily. He levered her to just the right angle, her bare feet skidding on the silken coverlet. Then, he let her settle into the cradle of his body. Gravity drove his full eight-inches all the way into her. A jolt of pleasure rocked them both. Rose gurgled in surprise and clamped down hard, inner sheath wringing a sharp cry from him. Jerking and quivering, they both savored perfect fulfillment as Rose secured herself, locking her ankles at the small of his back to keep him close.
She was nearly weightless, malleable in his arms. But she wasn't submissive. She still had her mind in the game, while his mind was definitely befuddled by the incomparable joy of joining this way. Once again, he had the oddest sensation of being swallowed whole. Of being hers. Human women, he realized suddenly, could easily rule their world. They were all powerful in this. And this...sex...was so very important to their species. No wonder masculine aggression was so often threatened by it.
Shimmying her hips, Rose managed to adjust his angles of penetration as he dipped her into this or that position. She staked her claim to him with her fingers and feet, breasts and mouth. For once in his Tenth life he didn't have a thing to say beyond the occasional groan or whisper of praise.
In relative silence, they shafted, screwed and shuddered through three explosive surges of her rich fluids, getting sweaty and frenzied, tossing their heads back and mewling softly. Each time they approached the crest of a climactic wave, the Doctor let it recede away from him and flow over her. At one point, Rose hung half-off the foot of the bed, fingertips touching the floor as he took her upside down. Hands bracketing her hips, hammering into her, he lost all sense of himself as a separate being. He could remember nothing beyond this bed, this niche in space/time. Rose, who was all.
She came. And he almost touched her soul as it wafted by him. But he remained unfulfilled. He couldn't reach her. It was driving him mad. He needed his nematocytes. He couldn't trust without them. Returning her gently to the pillows, he blanketed Rose with his body, cupping a hand at the back of her head to pull her close. Determined to cross the final bridge of vulnerability, he thought of the question he'd been longing to ask since the day they'd met.
“How long?” he rasped, pumping ever so slowly in and out of her still quaking core.
She didn't answer, probably didn't even hear him. Certainly, didn't understand. She was making little kittenish noises. He stilled inside her, edged away, ever-so-slightly, to skim wide-spread fingers down her torso, worshiping her curves. She grew taut as a bow with this treatment, twitching eagerly, primed for release. He sang her praises, calling her beautiful and wise and sweet and his, as he braced his palms to either side of her. He pressed up on rigid arms, gaining leverage to stroke her slick channel. She arched, keening, as he brought their rolling climax to the pinnacle again. Grunting, nearly spent, nearly gone, he let the world topple over them. Rose whimpered in staccato through the avalanche of it, wrung out and gasping. Tremors rocked them both, aching aftershocks in the wake of too much pleasure.
“Stay,” he managed to groan, while eking every ounce of ecstacy from these final profound moments inside her.
Thirsting, desperate to be one in body, in mind. Only dimly aware of his subjective existence, he remained attuned to Rose. This was as it was before, in that squalid room they'd shared, in that bed where she'd made him hers, nearly 700 years before she was even born. He'd had no arousal then either, no way to join with her as he wished to join. He'd watched her strain and pant as he'd filled her with useless seed.
The back of her head smacked the mattress, shunting aside pillows, as her neck muscles spasmed. Her mouth opened in an “O” and her shoulders bucked, but still she stayed focused on him. Her eyes grew glassy as her hands, losing their grip on his waist, fell palm up to the bed. She fluttered inside when he slid free of her, butterfly-wing shivers milking him to the end. He had nothing else to give. Yet, he thought he might die, yearning to be closer to her. This, he now knew, was what it meant to be human. To be always separate. To feel complete only during the briefest instant at the height of sexual congress.
How did they live like this? Never knowing one another's minds and hearts? No wonder Rose felt jealous or insecure from time to time. That she could trust him at all was a marvel. Where did they find such flawless trust? He could never sustain it. Nor could he ever get his fill of her through flesh alone, he thought, as consciousness began to swirl away from him. Vision going black around the edges, he slumped into Rose's shoulder. But, remembering his promise to stay with her, he held on to awareness.
He followed the curve of her throat up to her earlobe and asked again, “How...long...” swallowing a gasp, he completed the thought, “Will you...stay...with me?”
He was done, certain they'd explored the limits of physical pleasures. Surely, he thought, this was what all the poets spoke of...this glorious peace. He'd pushed them both to exhaustion. Rose was shivering. His own body had gone numb, thoughts scattering. He seemed to have no more form or substance than a puff of smoke, yet Rose was solid in his arms as she rubbed her cheek along his and answered his question.
“Forever,” she whispered, reducing him to his component molecules. She exhaled and with her next breath, absorbed him into her body...blood and bones and whirling awareness, she took him all in. He became a sigh in her mouth, nothing more.
With a single word, Rose introduced him to the human equivalent of true union. As he broke apart, her soul anchored his, pulling him down and down into blissful surrender. He floated in a bubble of airy light, drifting in and out of snapshot daydreams. It reminded him of the dreaming seed and yet, it seemed far more ethereal. Every nuance of their life together replayed before his mind's eye. Like the moment before death, he thought and wondered if that was why the French called orgasm 'the little death.' Here there was no fire of regeneration. Here there was only love.
He didn't want to forget anything about this, ever, no matter how insignificant something might seem or how many times he regenerated. This might be as close as he would ever get to Heaven, but he would never again doubt its existence. Heaven was somewhere inside Rose.
Head pillowed on her breast, he listened to her galloping heartbeat slow to a canter, to her labored gasping turn into easy exhalations. He remained awake, but only peripherally aware, acknowledging no physical reality beyond Rose's skin. He was content at the core. Sated. Eyes shut, muscles slack and unresponsive, he continued to be sublimely linked to Rose in the hereafter. Neither of them moved for a very long time.
Eventually, as it tended to do, reality reasserted itself. Rose stirred, seeking a more comfortable position when her leg feel asleep. He accommodated the change, toppling off of her without really coming back to his body. Some while later, hours maybe, the Pypwsea poison began to dissipate. His skin started tingling but he wasn't up to firing his nematocytes. He was too satisfied to be completely aroused, even by Rose's naked skin sliding along his. He wanted to be human for a while longer, anyway. To be her beloved.
His reason returned at length, however. Its relentless churning prodded him to ask,. “What'd you mean by...'forever?'”
Rose grumbled, sleepily, snuggling into the hollow of his shoulder, gently pummeling him in a parody of pillow fluffing. He snickered, hugging her closer. As she curled into a ball like a wilting flower, her knee rode along his thigh and lightly grazed his flaccid member. A throbbing sting cast him out of his reverie with a sharp, “Ow!” He sat up quickly, dropping Rose to the side. His first exclamation was followed by another, even louder one, when he touched the site of the discomfort.
“Wha...? Wha's...wrong?” Rose mouthed, trying to sit, but collapsing instead with a hand to her brow. “Oh, my head, my stomach, and...yee...kah.” She grimaced, cringing as her hand probed low on her belly, and then, tentatively, between her legs. “Cor...that's bruising.” She examined her fingers. “And sticky. Where's that towel gone?”
“Towel?” the Doctor shrilled. “What towel? And why does this thing...hurt?”
“I expect you've broken it,” Rose sighed, flopping around until she found some pillows. She scraped one or two under her head, and then struggled fruitlessly to sit again. Giving up, she held her messy hand out before her. “Not designed to be used like that, I reckon. How many times did we...?” She wafted the hand through the air, encouraging him to count back.
“Five or six,” he guessed, rocking his head from side to side to indicate estimation. “Six, I think, with the individual ones at the beginning. I was waiting for the...”
“Yeah, then you've broken it,” she interrupted with a snort of mirth. “Three a night is about the human limit. It's a good thing I've got a strong heart.”
“Well, you might have said something,” he muttered.
“Then, you might have stopped at three,” she told him, with a teasing dart of her eyes. “Which one was three, anyway? The one with the rush of blood to my head?”
“Earlier than that, I believe.”
“Have you the towel over there?”
“Towel?” he squeaked, incredulously. “Why are you suddenly on about towels? What do towels have to do with anything? Why would I have a towel? Who travels through time and space with a...?” He caught himself mid-rant and, breaking into a broad grin, announced, “Arthur Dent! And Ford Prefect. All those Hitchhiker people, in fact. Mind you, I never thought the towel had anything to do with sex. Have I been missing some lusty innuendo all this time?” Scooting to the edge of the bed, he peered over and immediately spotted the towel where it had fallen in a heap. “Ah, there is one. Very handy.”
Rose wordlessly took it from him as he went on with his nattering. “I always thought it was just versatility...practicality...towels. You can wear them in a pinch. On your head as a turban or a veil. Around your middle as a kilt or dress. A towel can keep you warm at night. Or pillow your head.”
“You can wrap up a parcel for carrying,” Rose said. “Or use it as a net to catch your supper. Or wipe up a mess,” she continued, doing just that.
“Exactly.” He frowned down at his still aching cock, gingerly touching it. “Might use it as a bandage for this thing. It's not sore all over, actually...just on the tip. Like a boil though...and that seems very odd to me. There's such a thing as carrying realism too far. Wipe up a bit of alien spittle...or...whatever,” he said, returning to his previous topic. “The towel,” he pronounced bombastically, launching into an infomercial sales pitch. “Let's you ice pack your penis. It slices. It dices. It purees. Not the penis you understand...?” he snickered as he poked her lightly, “Unless you invest in the Salad Maker Attachment. The towel! Lacking a potholder about the house, protect your hand from second degree burns. Use it as sail for your boat. Flick it in the face of a charging Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.”
Rose curled up, with an oof of effort, to kiss the tip of his nose. “You're quite mad, you know?” she said.
“I do know,” he said, flashing a dimpled smile. “I've had a professional evaluation. Course they later declared me quite sane.”
“Did they? Guess even doctors get bits wrong.”
“Well...wasn't their fault. Turns out I really am an alien and a Time Lord and I do keep my time machine in a magical police box. Ergo, sane! And I'm quite sore, too.” Frowning fretfully down on his artificial member, he whistled a bright air and the Blue Label Tau Epsilon puddled back into goo. “Ah, that's better.” He scooped up the flesh-toned blob of gel with both hands, balling it up as he sat it, carefully, on the bedside table.
“That's your password?” Rose said, amazed. “A few bars of 'The Sound of Music?'” She sighed, gingerly patting at her sorest spot. “Wish I could do that.” She tried, whistling, 'The hills are alive, with the sound of music...' before giving up.
“Does it hurt terribly?” the Doctor murmured, becoming the picture of sweet solicitation as he drew her into a hug, spooning around her. “I could kiss it and make it better.”
“Oh, no more, please,” Rose gasped. ‘Honestly, you’re like a kid at Christmas. And it’s not terrible at all, just achy. I'd walk funny. If I could walk. I'm not complaining, yeah? I could get very used to it.” She stroked her hand along his arm slow and tender. “We are bringing your new toy back to the TARDIS, aren't we?”
“If you like,” he said, carelessly. He dropped kisses along her shoulder, pinching her nipple between two fingers as he did so. She squirmed and moaned. The shift of her bottom against his lap sent delicious vibrations to his nematocytic cells. They were primed to fire. He could take her any time now, he thought. “Shall we stay naked forever?” he asked, between soft smooches. “We could live quite well here...in this room...in this bed. We've got room service and a telly and a mild climate so we won't have to get up and close the walls.”
“Don't you think we might alarm the bellhop?”
“No. Not old Kirgtwi. He's a regular Thakur Sahib. A prince among men...or...mermen. He was the first to take note of your healthy appetite.”
“My appetite?” Rose snorted, shoving her shoulder back as if trying to dislodge him. “You're the one who's insatiable. I can feel you going all prickly, too. So you needn't deny it. I've barely caught my breath and you're ready to go again.”
“Careful,” he said, glancing at her fingers rubbing back and forth in random patterns along his forearm. “Petting and pushing me is no way to take my mind off sex.” Releasing her with a great show of reluctance, he flopped belly up beside her, the picture of dejection as he sighed, “Oh...all right...if you need the rest, then answer me this: Companion of choice: Spider-man or Ghandi?”
“What a pair!” Rose chortled, squirming to get comfortable. Rolling to her belly, she flexed a knee so her foot, sole parallel to the ceiling, bounced in the air behind her. Then, she propped her head into one hand and regarded him affectionately. This was a favorite game: 'If you could travel through time and space with anyone, fictional or real, who would it be?' “I suppose I'll take...," she said, foot kicking in an arc, toes to the bed, heel to her bare bottom, and back, "Ghandi. Though Spider-man could be useful, if things got sticky, yeah? Ghandi would probably advise peaceful resistance. Sod all pacifists, as my mum would say. Course, she's not a fan of spiders either, come to that.”
“Ghandi studied law. Lawyers are way more frightening than spiders. Can I get you a banana or a handful of ping-pings?” He asked swinging his feet to the floor and standing. “Some dark chocolate. A coffee.”
“Is there coffee?” Rose asked.
There was. When you knew where to look, the suite came alive with conveniences. The Doctor ordered her a chocolate-flavored latte and had it within moments. He added sprinkles of shaved chocolate from the cache in his shopping bag. Rose sat to receive this bounty. They played a few rounds of their game as they ate and sipped, debating the relative merits of Robin of Loxley versus T.S. Laurence. After working their way through the cast of Eastenders, they launched into that age-old, geek argument: Kirk vs. Picard.
“Oh, no contest, Jean-Luc Picard,” the Doctor announced boldly. Back in bed, he was licking the last traces of ping-ping juice from Rose's fingers.
“You always go with the British ones,” Rose complained, drawing his attention to a dribble of chocolate on her right breast. He slowly ran the tip of his tongue up the curve of her cleavage, and then gave both her right and, just to be fair, her left nipple a thorough cleaning. “Haven't most of your traveling companions been British?” From the side of her mouth she added, “Not to mention...fresh young things.”
“I like the accent,” he said, putting on a rather posh one. He decorated her breast in sprinkles of chocolate again. Once his gliding tongue traced down every hint of non-Rose flavor, he smirked and said, “And females are easier to TARDIS train.” She rolled away in mock outrage and, snatching up a pillow, began socking him with it, keeping on until they both giggled hysterically. The one-sided pummeling, sent him to the mat. But when she finally let him come up for a breather, he went on being sexist. “No, seriously. No offense meant, and I hope none taken, but human males tend to become aggressive in crisis. Makes my job ten times harder if I have to keep soothing their nerves, calling them off from the fight. Females are less hair-trigger, more circumspect, more adaptable and far less likely to get attached....generally speaking.”
Clutching the pillow to her chest, Rose stared at him over the swell of it for a moment and then said, “You don't want people to get attached to you?”
“Not generally, no. I did my best to avoid any attachment for most of my life. A Time Lord should never exert...”
She finished the sentence with him, “undo influence.”
“Right,” he sniffed. “It's not just some slogan off a billboard. The oath is part of who I am, Rose. I wasn't supposed to keep anyone I picked up along the way. You are quite the anomaly. I've got friends. But males, human males especially, but many others as well, when they bond, are like brothers in arms...they stay bonded. Females are generally much more practical about their future.”
“You catch and release?” she said sounding and looking pensive. “Just take us out for a spin?”
“Not you, Rose,” he said, softly, gliding a fingertip up her leg.
“Yeah, I know,” she told him, brushing off his reassurance but not his caress. “But it's no way to look at other people, is it?” Her thoughts went back to Sarah Jane. Probably, he never explained this to her.
“How do you mean?” he asked, rolling his eyes and tilting his head a bit to see her as she sat up behind him. “They were my friends, every one of them, and that's real enough. I was kidding about the TARDIS training. I just wanted you to pummel me...” Arching his neck, he tipped his head back even further as he beamed at her, “and you did.”
“But...if you look down on us..how can it be....?”
“Look down on you?” he yelped, sitting hastily and swiveling around to take her hands in his. “Look...down? Oh, Rose. No. I could never look down on your species. I find the human race...amazing. Every last one of you. But my companions most of all. Astounding people. You can't know. I wish you could. Maybe...next time we're joined...if we join...I could show you. But Jamie and the Brigadier and even that idiot, Harry Sullivan, they took it all so very seriously. Look how loyal Mickey was to you. Males, of any species, are like that. Adric died for me. You wouldn't catch Tegan doing that.” His grip on Rose's wrists slackened and he smiled wistfully, lost in memories for a moment. Then, he recalled himself with a little twitch and amended, “Well...no, I'm lying...you would, I suppose. I suppose,” he sighed, “Come to think on it, you're absolutely right. I shouldn't generalize. Tegan would have died for me. She'd have gone down fighting like a tiger defending cubs. Just like you...like Sarah Jane or Leela. Maybe it's me. Maybe I get less attached to the females.”
“Why's that?”
“I don't know. Maybe...because I know they'll let go, eventually. They'll want more than a hand to hold. So, they'll move on with their lives...once they find me unsuitable for nesting, I mean.”
“Are you terribly unsuitable?” Rose asked, teasingly.
“Terribly. Not worth domesticating, I'm afraid. You should have returned me to the wild when you had the chance.”
“Is it too late, now?”
He kissed both her palms, humming as one of them glowed, and then in a breezy offhand way remarked, “Far, far too late. You're stuck with me, I'm afraid. If you try to ditch me, I'll only follow you home.” Despite his light tone, his line of sight lifted so his eyes burned into hers. He held her gaze steadily through a dozen breathes, before suddenly returning to their game. “You know why I really want Picard?” She shook her head and he grinned broadly, “Because he'll go around saying,” he slipped on a fairly good imitation of the Captain as he said, “'Make it so!'” Then, he snickered nerdishly. “Can you imagine? I'd say something like...oh, I don't know...” his gaze flitted to the ceiling as he tried to think of something he might say, “'Would you like to see the outer asteroid belt of Piliarusa?' and he'd say, 'Make it so!'”
“Make it so!” Rose repeated. “I like that. I could start saying it if you liked.” She tried it on a few times and then went on with the game, “All right. It's Picard for you and Kirk for me. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Who's your companion? And don't say Giles or I'll biff you with the pillow of harsh judgment.”
“Giles?” He shook his head, underscoring his distaste with a sneer and a wrinkling of his nose. “No. Definitely not old Rupert. Far too pompous. Rather puts me in mind of a tutor I had as a boy.” He gave a delicate shudder. “Or that horrid Mr. Finch and his bat people.”
“The headmaster?” Rose consider this, but shook her head. “I don't quite see it. Mr. Finch was scads older. And,” she circled a hand over her head, “Graying and greasy. What about Buffy her own self? Slayer power's got to come in handy every now and again.”
“Slayers in Space,” the Doctor intoned, like he was doing a Muppet skit intro. Knowing he'd amused her, he flashed a toothy grin. “Miss Summers is a bit like Miss Piggy, come to think of it, with all of the Hi-YA.” He mimed a karate chop. “Both of them quite good with kicks to the solar plexus. I'd travel with Miss Piggy, all right. Though, I've always thought Gonzo would be loads of fun, too,” He turned thoughtful, sucking on the inside of his cheek before saying, “I don't know, though, about Buffy. She's got a destiny, with a capital 'D” and Destiny, with a capital “D” is a tricky business. And I've had a few of those 'kill first ask questions later' companions. Trying. On their best days. I think I'll pass on Buffy. Too much competition. She wants to save the world. I want to save the universe. What about Tara? Tara seems a nice girl. Wiccan, of course. Not that there's anything wrong with it.”
“There you go with the girls again. What about Xander or Spike or what's his face with the ginger hair?”
“Xander? If there was ever anyone more useless than Mickey....”
“Hey,” she warned. “Be nice.”
“Spike? Ah...hmmm? My first thought is: he's a vampire. Practically useless in the daylight and then there's the evil, unscrupulous side of things. British...only not really because he's a California boy, putting on the accent.”
“We're not talking about the actor. Stick to the character.”
“Yes, all right, I'm considering him. Let me think.” He pinched his lower lip as he considered. “I'd rather have Ghandi. Difficult keeping a companion out of direct sunlight. Planets these days...? So often sun-drenched. Look at...well...yesterday. There we were on a beach...abundant sunlight, just...bucketing down. Although,” he mused. “Sunlight does vary in spectrum, star to star, system to system, world to world. I wonder...could we toss him outside on a planet with no ultraviolet range? Hmmm! Bit of an experiment, that. Not quite ethical. And even if we could...only visting planets without ultraviolet is sadly limiting. I'd be curtailed and no mistake. Unless...? Come to think of it...I could just spray him down with late 21st century sunblock and be done with it.”
“Late 21st century sunblock?”
“Global warming. Probably not the best time to bring this up...but...it'll turn a little toasty on your world before you all," he spooled a few circles in the air with one index finger, "wise-up and stop using fossil fuels."
"That's not funny," Rose told him.
"Neither is strip-mining. Or the 'Clear Skies Initiative.' Start putting your money into algae shielding for the atmosphere. The sun is a bitter enemy, Rose, never cross it. Spike would tell you I'm right.” He closed on her, suddenly needing more contact. “You know...?” he hummed, licking into her ear so she squirmed delightfully in his arms. “Spike might be decent company. We like the same music. Love those Ramones. He's been to Woodstock and I haven't. I could take him to the Crucifixion. Though he's not likely to appreciate it...what with his Crucifix allergy bringing him out in hives. I'll take Spike, then. Or that other one...Jonathan.”
“I forgot about him,” Rose lilted, bouncing a bit. The jiggle of her flesh making the Doctor gasp and come out in a prickle of something very like hives. “Got to love Jonathan. He could go off with us instead of dying. What about Angel?”
It was getting hard to concentrate but he managed to ask, “As an alternative to Jonathan? I don't think so. I'm not sure I could take all that brooding...or...do you mean the show?”
“The series.”
They both dipped back to look at one another and chorused. “Wesley!”
Rose fell sideways into the Doctor, giggling as she pulled him to the bed. They rolled over one another, gathering a cocoon of silk as they went because Rose insisted on clawing into the coverlet. Reaching the foot of the bed, they spilled over it to the floor. The Doctor cushioned Rose's fall, but then, needing to be on top, quickly reversed their relationship. Once he had her pinned under him, he took her wrists above her head, manacling them in his fists, as he rubbed along the satin expanse of her belly. Two dozen darts fired into her flesh. She drew a shocked breath, eyes opening wide as she flinched from the pain.
“British,” she accused. “Wes is...British.”
“You can stop fixating on that any time now. The TARDIS favors one hemisphere of your world over the other, one tiny little island, in fact. Perhaps it has something to do with the chameleon circuit.” He kissed her, more darts letting go into her mouth. The world began swirling around them as he went on. “I don't know...maybe the old girl is just trying to fit in, be more comfortable in her skin. She can't change the way she looks so she goes where she's less conspicuous. Naturally, this limits my choice of companion....to British.”
“You aren't fooling me,” Rose told him as he sank, ever so slowly into her mind. “It's not the TARDIS...it's you. You like tea and crumpets and beans on toast and the accent.”
“Jack was American. Tegan? Australian. Adric was Alzarian...and I don't know but what I might rather go with Cordy over Wes. Assuming you're still on board...and I wouldn't want to assume anything else...I'm not sure I could risk having Wesley Wyndam-Price just down the hall. He's got natural human appendages and you do tend to go for that type...weasel-thin...tall...dark...first in his class with the answers. Hmmm?”
“Sounds lovely,” Rose admitted, welcoming him into her mind, offering absolutely no resistance as he flowed deep into her subconscious. There was no fear in her now. She wrapped her soul around him like a comfy blanket. “But he can't out otter you. Besides, he's not really British.”
“The character not the actor, remember, and I thought that was my bias. What do you care if he's British or not?” the Doctor asked, pulling her into his arms so their bodies echoed their minds as the room faded away into mist and they became one.
“I'm very patriotic,” she told him, outside his body. She shouldn't be able to do that, he felt, yet she was doing it. “Union Jack...Union flag...Queen Mum and all the rest.”
To his surprise the room came back a moment later, though in even more vivid color. He lifted his head to look around. He hadn't done that. Rose had recreated their hotel room. He tried to guide her to an imaginary glen or beach. She resisted his efforts. The room became extraordinarily sharp, every detail limned in light. The message was clear, there was no place Rose would rather be than right where she was.
No one else I'd rather be with, she whispered, this time without making a sound.
There was, he noticed, a stillness to this brilliantly realized world of hers. He listened but heard nothing louder than the whisper of the curtains in the breeze, the shush of distant waves and an occasional bird call.
It's so quiet.
Because we're all alone.
The world to ourselves, hey? I love it.
I love you.
Very close to her ear, and yet, also in their joined mind, he whispered, “I'm not really British.”
END THIS PART
By Rabid1st
Ten/Rose
Rating: Mature
Beta Babes: Aibhinn, Keswindhover, Sensiblecat and Gina
Spoilers: The Satan Pit - S2
Summary: Trust…Sex…Towels…and Jean Luc Picard.
Author's Note: Thanks to Caia for inspiring the BtVS conversation.
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. If I did…the show would be censored by…everyone but you smutty few. I humbly thank Russell T. Davies for creating the sweetest, most-loving, most-genuinely iconic couple in the history of the world for me to play with.
LINKS for all previous parts…can be found HERE
PART NINETEEN
“Trust me,” she said, raking stiff fingers through his hair. “Right now, be a man...like any other man I might meet on my world. We can't read each other's minds. You can't see the future around every corner. We can't know...each other...what's coming...anything. All we have is this.” She traced a large circle on his abdomen, and then another smaller circle within the first one. It took him a moment to recognize what she was doing. She was recreating a somewhat garbled phrase in his language. The very phrase he'd used to brand her shoulder earlier in the evening. “What does it say?” she asked, nuzzling into his sideburn.
Her breath broke like a wave over the shell of his ear, setting off tiny seismic vibrations under his skin. He shuddered as mystical tremors pulsed through him, centering on and rippling across a pool of energy beneath his navel. There was definite biological activity going on as well. His throbbing cock squeezed out beads of slick fluid. He watched them tickled down his length, wax pearling from a burning candle. Rose's stroking fingers seemed to be everywhere as if she were multi-armed Kali. Fitting, he thought, as he was surely Kala, Lord of Time.
Impatient as a ticking clock, he fidgeted in her hold. He wanted to get on with things. His tongue demanded a warm, wet haven. His arms ached to wrap around yielding flesh. But he couldn't reach her without breaking free of her embrace. And she was teaching him a lesson about humans. Her hands left contrails of raw desire in their wake. He relaxed, molding his form to hers, and tipped his head back, to see her. But she denied him even this, shifting her shoulders to keep him centered.
“Teach me this word,” she demanded, again.
Such sublime torture. She was torturing him, asking about the intricacies of syntax when the only mental images he could form were strobe light stills of flesh on flesh. He writhed – sinuously rocking his hips, needing to bury himself to the hilt in her again. This time he was sure they would come together. But he didn't want her to stop what she was doing. He wanted this lesson to go on and on, until he broke. He wanted to break, to be broken on her, by her. Then, he would do something to her in retaliation. He had no clear plan, as yet, about what he would do. But, he was the oncoming storm, rumbling in the distance, rattling the windows.
“Forever,” he gasped, answering her query. “My people lack the concept. But...” he took a deep breath and pressed on, “This is...an approximation: perpetua, indeclinabilis, rosa.. My coat of arms, when I have a coat of arms,” he panted through a breathless chuckle, “shall bear this...as...as the family motto.”
She cupped his chin in the palm of one hand, holding him in place as she shunted from the waist to one side. When he'd slid down her arm, she tilted his head back so their mouths could meet. “The Eternal Rose?” she guessed, her lips moving over his, her tongue setting the words in his mouth. He thrust his tongue through the pretty phrase and into her silken heat. It slithered along the inside of her teeth, tasting her as he'd been longing to do for what seemed like hours. His fingers scrambled for a grip, seeking purchase on her smooth skin, in her silken hair.
She slipped away, squirming free of his grip with a laugh as she shifted him to center again. “Show me how it works...your language.”
“Now?” he whined, huffing in disbelief. “You want a language lesson, now?”
“Yep,” she said, popping the “p” sound. She levered him forward suddenly and stretched behind him to retrieve the tiny bottle of luminous perfume from the bedside table. Before, he knew what she was about, she'd sprayed her belly, thighs and left hand liberally. An exotically clean and spicy scent filled the room and Rose, tossing the bottle carelessly aside, glowed again. “There's your whiteboard.”
The idea of branding her intrigued him, as much as it had earlier. Shrugging aside his impatience, he settled meekly back into the curve of her body, drawing her left hand over his shoulder as he did. He curled her palm into a cup before him, staring at it like he was a tea-leaf reader. Then he drew a series of five tiny interlocking circles in it. They were varying sizes. Two of them existed wholly in subset to the others, while the largest overlapped or encompassed the other four.
“This is time,” he said.
“Which one?”
“All of it...them,” he told her. “Time is a cluster of intersecting realms.” He hovered a fingertip over the largest circle. “This is now, all else will be relative. The subjective past,” he touched one of the smaller circles. “The future...” He moved over both of the subordinate circles. Then, began to draw again. “And the objective path.” He completed an oblong with two internal zig-zags, intersecting 'the objective path' and said, “Things change around every corner. Nothing is unchanged...eternal. Therefore, there is no concept of eternity. Nothing beyond the self. There is only subjective reality, translated. This,” he breathed, drawing the large external circle that contained every phrase she'd seen written in his language. “This means...I...the self. When you write anything in Gallifreyan...you refer to it as how you see or experience it.”
“So if I want to write about an apple,” Rose said, frowning as she worked things out. “I don't say, 'the apple is red'? But...what? I believe the apple to be red?”
He hummed through a grin. “It's worse than that, really. You would say...I experienced what I believed to be an apple...as what I believe to be red,” he corrected. “And you must assign a time frame to it, of course, because apples, as we both know,” he paused briefly to kiss her wrist, “are not motorbikes.”
Rose snorted in his ear. “Will you be serious?”
“I am...totally serious. Well,” he made a face. “As serious as a naked, randy Time Lord can be in these circs. An apple would not be eternally red. It was once a seed, therefore...brownish...seed colored...and will one day rot to seed again.” He very gently touched the circle representing 'now' and then went on drawing in her palm. He drew two lines crossing through the inner circles and the outer one.
“This is growth, flowers...any vibrant life,” he told her. “Two lines because all living things have an objective and a subjective existence. The lines are straight because all life has a genetically coded course to follow. But, the universe enacts change.” A series of flounces connected the two lines. “This is beauty. Whatever the object is...it has appeal. Normally such appeal would fade. The scalloped waves would be drawn smaller as we traversed the lines, vanishing as we passed from the now into the objective and subjective pasts. But here, I keep them even. This means their essential value is continually renewed.”
“The...beauty...the life never fades?” Rose guessed, feeling as if her brain was on fire.
“Exactly. So,” he breathed, gesturing broadly above the glowing symbol in her palm. “Can you see it as a concept entire? It says...this hand...this person...this Rose...is...for me...eternal, existing in all facets of time, never fading...this is how I will see her, always and forever.”
She lay her head against his, tightened her arms around him. “That's lovely. Really...really mind-boggling. But...lovely.”
Her afterglow was killing him. He nearly whimpered as his sex, rock-hard already, swelled just a bit more. There was a concept he could explain to her. He scooted to the side. Lifting his hips as he dipped his shoulder left, he listed in that direction. Her hold on him gave way and he rolled across the bed. A second later, he was up on his knees and lunging forward. He yanked Rose into his arms. She squee-ed as he swept her to him, across his chest and on over to her back. The speed of this maneuver carried them into a skid on the silken coverlet. They ended up crosswise on the bed, her hair showering off the edge of it, like ice rooster-tailing away from a braking speed skater.
“Let's learn how to write 'temptation,'” he said, fingers swirling over her belly, connecting lines and circles and squiggles. “Or better still,” he went on as he drew another symbol, “Satisfaction. Fulfillment. Convergence.”
What he was doing tickled. Laughing in the face of his intense glare, Rose sheltered her stomach with both arms but drew her knees up and open. Her sultry eyes dared him to take what she knew he wanted. His spitting snarl told her she had no idea what he would dare to do just then. He seized her wrists and carried her arms out to the side, pinning them to the bed as he shifted into dominance above her. Nose to nose, lip to lip, eye to eye with her, he panted through some very strong urges before willing himself to move back, let go of his bruising grip on her arms. He settled onto his haunches. Kneeling between her legs, he positioned his himself for one swift true thrust. Rose stared up at him in wide-eyed wonder, not frightened really but, also, not fully aware of what she'd gotten into by baiting him.
Scooping his forearms under her shoulder blades, he lifted her easily. He levered her to just the right angle, her bare feet skidding on the silken coverlet. Then, he let her settle into the cradle of his body. Gravity drove his full eight-inches all the way into her. A jolt of pleasure rocked them both. Rose gurgled in surprise and clamped down hard, inner sheath wringing a sharp cry from him. Jerking and quivering, they both savored perfect fulfillment as Rose secured herself, locking her ankles at the small of his back to keep him close.
She was nearly weightless, malleable in his arms. But she wasn't submissive. She still had her mind in the game, while his mind was definitely befuddled by the incomparable joy of joining this way. Once again, he had the oddest sensation of being swallowed whole. Of being hers. Human women, he realized suddenly, could easily rule their world. They were all powerful in this. And this...sex...was so very important to their species. No wonder masculine aggression was so often threatened by it.
Shimmying her hips, Rose managed to adjust his angles of penetration as he dipped her into this or that position. She staked her claim to him with her fingers and feet, breasts and mouth. For once in his Tenth life he didn't have a thing to say beyond the occasional groan or whisper of praise.
In relative silence, they shafted, screwed and shuddered through three explosive surges of her rich fluids, getting sweaty and frenzied, tossing their heads back and mewling softly. Each time they approached the crest of a climactic wave, the Doctor let it recede away from him and flow over her. At one point, Rose hung half-off the foot of the bed, fingertips touching the floor as he took her upside down. Hands bracketing her hips, hammering into her, he lost all sense of himself as a separate being. He could remember nothing beyond this bed, this niche in space/time. Rose, who was all.
She came. And he almost touched her soul as it wafted by him. But he remained unfulfilled. He couldn't reach her. It was driving him mad. He needed his nematocytes. He couldn't trust without them. Returning her gently to the pillows, he blanketed Rose with his body, cupping a hand at the back of her head to pull her close. Determined to cross the final bridge of vulnerability, he thought of the question he'd been longing to ask since the day they'd met.
“How long?” he rasped, pumping ever so slowly in and out of her still quaking core.
She didn't answer, probably didn't even hear him. Certainly, didn't understand. She was making little kittenish noises. He stilled inside her, edged away, ever-so-slightly, to skim wide-spread fingers down her torso, worshiping her curves. She grew taut as a bow with this treatment, twitching eagerly, primed for release. He sang her praises, calling her beautiful and wise and sweet and his, as he braced his palms to either side of her. He pressed up on rigid arms, gaining leverage to stroke her slick channel. She arched, keening, as he brought their rolling climax to the pinnacle again. Grunting, nearly spent, nearly gone, he let the world topple over them. Rose whimpered in staccato through the avalanche of it, wrung out and gasping. Tremors rocked them both, aching aftershocks in the wake of too much pleasure.
“Stay,” he managed to groan, while eking every ounce of ecstacy from these final profound moments inside her.
Thirsting, desperate to be one in body, in mind. Only dimly aware of his subjective existence, he remained attuned to Rose. This was as it was before, in that squalid room they'd shared, in that bed where she'd made him hers, nearly 700 years before she was even born. He'd had no arousal then either, no way to join with her as he wished to join. He'd watched her strain and pant as he'd filled her with useless seed.
The back of her head smacked the mattress, shunting aside pillows, as her neck muscles spasmed. Her mouth opened in an “O” and her shoulders bucked, but still she stayed focused on him. Her eyes grew glassy as her hands, losing their grip on his waist, fell palm up to the bed. She fluttered inside when he slid free of her, butterfly-wing shivers milking him to the end. He had nothing else to give. Yet, he thought he might die, yearning to be closer to her. This, he now knew, was what it meant to be human. To be always separate. To feel complete only during the briefest instant at the height of sexual congress.
How did they live like this? Never knowing one another's minds and hearts? No wonder Rose felt jealous or insecure from time to time. That she could trust him at all was a marvel. Where did they find such flawless trust? He could never sustain it. Nor could he ever get his fill of her through flesh alone, he thought, as consciousness began to swirl away from him. Vision going black around the edges, he slumped into Rose's shoulder. But, remembering his promise to stay with her, he held on to awareness.
He followed the curve of her throat up to her earlobe and asked again, “How...long...” swallowing a gasp, he completed the thought, “Will you...stay...with me?”
He was done, certain they'd explored the limits of physical pleasures. Surely, he thought, this was what all the poets spoke of...this glorious peace. He'd pushed them both to exhaustion. Rose was shivering. His own body had gone numb, thoughts scattering. He seemed to have no more form or substance than a puff of smoke, yet Rose was solid in his arms as she rubbed her cheek along his and answered his question.
“Forever,” she whispered, reducing him to his component molecules. She exhaled and with her next breath, absorbed him into her body...blood and bones and whirling awareness, she took him all in. He became a sigh in her mouth, nothing more.
With a single word, Rose introduced him to the human equivalent of true union. As he broke apart, her soul anchored his, pulling him down and down into blissful surrender. He floated in a bubble of airy light, drifting in and out of snapshot daydreams. It reminded him of the dreaming seed and yet, it seemed far more ethereal. Every nuance of their life together replayed before his mind's eye. Like the moment before death, he thought and wondered if that was why the French called orgasm 'the little death.' Here there was no fire of regeneration. Here there was only love.
He didn't want to forget anything about this, ever, no matter how insignificant something might seem or how many times he regenerated. This might be as close as he would ever get to Heaven, but he would never again doubt its existence. Heaven was somewhere inside Rose.
Head pillowed on her breast, he listened to her galloping heartbeat slow to a canter, to her labored gasping turn into easy exhalations. He remained awake, but only peripherally aware, acknowledging no physical reality beyond Rose's skin. He was content at the core. Sated. Eyes shut, muscles slack and unresponsive, he continued to be sublimely linked to Rose in the hereafter. Neither of them moved for a very long time.
Eventually, as it tended to do, reality reasserted itself. Rose stirred, seeking a more comfortable position when her leg feel asleep. He accommodated the change, toppling off of her without really coming back to his body. Some while later, hours maybe, the Pypwsea poison began to dissipate. His skin started tingling but he wasn't up to firing his nematocytes. He was too satisfied to be completely aroused, even by Rose's naked skin sliding along his. He wanted to be human for a while longer, anyway. To be her beloved.
His reason returned at length, however. Its relentless churning prodded him to ask,. “What'd you mean by...'forever?'”
Rose grumbled, sleepily, snuggling into the hollow of his shoulder, gently pummeling him in a parody of pillow fluffing. He snickered, hugging her closer. As she curled into a ball like a wilting flower, her knee rode along his thigh and lightly grazed his flaccid member. A throbbing sting cast him out of his reverie with a sharp, “Ow!” He sat up quickly, dropping Rose to the side. His first exclamation was followed by another, even louder one, when he touched the site of the discomfort.
“Wha...? Wha's...wrong?” Rose mouthed, trying to sit, but collapsing instead with a hand to her brow. “Oh, my head, my stomach, and...yee...kah.” She grimaced, cringing as her hand probed low on her belly, and then, tentatively, between her legs. “Cor...that's bruising.” She examined her fingers. “And sticky. Where's that towel gone?”
“Towel?” the Doctor shrilled. “What towel? And why does this thing...hurt?”
“I expect you've broken it,” Rose sighed, flopping around until she found some pillows. She scraped one or two under her head, and then struggled fruitlessly to sit again. Giving up, she held her messy hand out before her. “Not designed to be used like that, I reckon. How many times did we...?” She wafted the hand through the air, encouraging him to count back.
“Five or six,” he guessed, rocking his head from side to side to indicate estimation. “Six, I think, with the individual ones at the beginning. I was waiting for the...”
“Yeah, then you've broken it,” she interrupted with a snort of mirth. “Three a night is about the human limit. It's a good thing I've got a strong heart.”
“Well, you might have said something,” he muttered.
“Then, you might have stopped at three,” she told him, with a teasing dart of her eyes. “Which one was three, anyway? The one with the rush of blood to my head?”
“Earlier than that, I believe.”
“Have you the towel over there?”
“Towel?” he squeaked, incredulously. “Why are you suddenly on about towels? What do towels have to do with anything? Why would I have a towel? Who travels through time and space with a...?” He caught himself mid-rant and, breaking into a broad grin, announced, “Arthur Dent! And Ford Prefect. All those Hitchhiker people, in fact. Mind you, I never thought the towel had anything to do with sex. Have I been missing some lusty innuendo all this time?” Scooting to the edge of the bed, he peered over and immediately spotted the towel where it had fallen in a heap. “Ah, there is one. Very handy.”
Rose wordlessly took it from him as he went on with his nattering. “I always thought it was just versatility...practicality...towels. You can wear them in a pinch. On your head as a turban or a veil. Around your middle as a kilt or dress. A towel can keep you warm at night. Or pillow your head.”
“You can wrap up a parcel for carrying,” Rose said. “Or use it as a net to catch your supper. Or wipe up a mess,” she continued, doing just that.
“Exactly.” He frowned down at his still aching cock, gingerly touching it. “Might use it as a bandage for this thing. It's not sore all over, actually...just on the tip. Like a boil though...and that seems very odd to me. There's such a thing as carrying realism too far. Wipe up a bit of alien spittle...or...whatever,” he said, returning to his previous topic. “The towel,” he pronounced bombastically, launching into an infomercial sales pitch. “Let's you ice pack your penis. It slices. It dices. It purees. Not the penis you understand...?” he snickered as he poked her lightly, “Unless you invest in the Salad Maker Attachment. The towel! Lacking a potholder about the house, protect your hand from second degree burns. Use it as sail for your boat. Flick it in the face of a charging Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.”
Rose curled up, with an oof of effort, to kiss the tip of his nose. “You're quite mad, you know?” she said.
“I do know,” he said, flashing a dimpled smile. “I've had a professional evaluation. Course they later declared me quite sane.”
“Did they? Guess even doctors get bits wrong.”
“Well...wasn't their fault. Turns out I really am an alien and a Time Lord and I do keep my time machine in a magical police box. Ergo, sane! And I'm quite sore, too.” Frowning fretfully down on his artificial member, he whistled a bright air and the Blue Label Tau Epsilon puddled back into goo. “Ah, that's better.” He scooped up the flesh-toned blob of gel with both hands, balling it up as he sat it, carefully, on the bedside table.
“That's your password?” Rose said, amazed. “A few bars of 'The Sound of Music?'” She sighed, gingerly patting at her sorest spot. “Wish I could do that.” She tried, whistling, 'The hills are alive, with the sound of music...' before giving up.
“Does it hurt terribly?” the Doctor murmured, becoming the picture of sweet solicitation as he drew her into a hug, spooning around her. “I could kiss it and make it better.”
“Oh, no more, please,” Rose gasped. ‘Honestly, you’re like a kid at Christmas. And it’s not terrible at all, just achy. I'd walk funny. If I could walk. I'm not complaining, yeah? I could get very used to it.” She stroked her hand along his arm slow and tender. “We are bringing your new toy back to the TARDIS, aren't we?”
“If you like,” he said, carelessly. He dropped kisses along her shoulder, pinching her nipple between two fingers as he did so. She squirmed and moaned. The shift of her bottom against his lap sent delicious vibrations to his nematocytic cells. They were primed to fire. He could take her any time now, he thought. “Shall we stay naked forever?” he asked, between soft smooches. “We could live quite well here...in this room...in this bed. We've got room service and a telly and a mild climate so we won't have to get up and close the walls.”
“Don't you think we might alarm the bellhop?”
“No. Not old Kirgtwi. He's a regular Thakur Sahib. A prince among men...or...mermen. He was the first to take note of your healthy appetite.”
“My appetite?” Rose snorted, shoving her shoulder back as if trying to dislodge him. “You're the one who's insatiable. I can feel you going all prickly, too. So you needn't deny it. I've barely caught my breath and you're ready to go again.”
“Careful,” he said, glancing at her fingers rubbing back and forth in random patterns along his forearm. “Petting and pushing me is no way to take my mind off sex.” Releasing her with a great show of reluctance, he flopped belly up beside her, the picture of dejection as he sighed, “Oh...all right...if you need the rest, then answer me this: Companion of choice: Spider-man or Ghandi?”
“What a pair!” Rose chortled, squirming to get comfortable. Rolling to her belly, she flexed a knee so her foot, sole parallel to the ceiling, bounced in the air behind her. Then, she propped her head into one hand and regarded him affectionately. This was a favorite game: 'If you could travel through time and space with anyone, fictional or real, who would it be?' “I suppose I'll take...," she said, foot kicking in an arc, toes to the bed, heel to her bare bottom, and back, "Ghandi. Though Spider-man could be useful, if things got sticky, yeah? Ghandi would probably advise peaceful resistance. Sod all pacifists, as my mum would say. Course, she's not a fan of spiders either, come to that.”
“Ghandi studied law. Lawyers are way more frightening than spiders. Can I get you a banana or a handful of ping-pings?” He asked swinging his feet to the floor and standing. “Some dark chocolate. A coffee.”
“Is there coffee?” Rose asked.
There was. When you knew where to look, the suite came alive with conveniences. The Doctor ordered her a chocolate-flavored latte and had it within moments. He added sprinkles of shaved chocolate from the cache in his shopping bag. Rose sat to receive this bounty. They played a few rounds of their game as they ate and sipped, debating the relative merits of Robin of Loxley versus T.S. Laurence. After working their way through the cast of Eastenders, they launched into that age-old, geek argument: Kirk vs. Picard.
“Oh, no contest, Jean-Luc Picard,” the Doctor announced boldly. Back in bed, he was licking the last traces of ping-ping juice from Rose's fingers.
“You always go with the British ones,” Rose complained, drawing his attention to a dribble of chocolate on her right breast. He slowly ran the tip of his tongue up the curve of her cleavage, and then gave both her right and, just to be fair, her left nipple a thorough cleaning. “Haven't most of your traveling companions been British?” From the side of her mouth she added, “Not to mention...fresh young things.”
“I like the accent,” he said, putting on a rather posh one. He decorated her breast in sprinkles of chocolate again. Once his gliding tongue traced down every hint of non-Rose flavor, he smirked and said, “And females are easier to TARDIS train.” She rolled away in mock outrage and, snatching up a pillow, began socking him with it, keeping on until they both giggled hysterically. The one-sided pummeling, sent him to the mat. But when she finally let him come up for a breather, he went on being sexist. “No, seriously. No offense meant, and I hope none taken, but human males tend to become aggressive in crisis. Makes my job ten times harder if I have to keep soothing their nerves, calling them off from the fight. Females are less hair-trigger, more circumspect, more adaptable and far less likely to get attached....generally speaking.”
Clutching the pillow to her chest, Rose stared at him over the swell of it for a moment and then said, “You don't want people to get attached to you?”
“Not generally, no. I did my best to avoid any attachment for most of my life. A Time Lord should never exert...”
She finished the sentence with him, “undo influence.”
“Right,” he sniffed. “It's not just some slogan off a billboard. The oath is part of who I am, Rose. I wasn't supposed to keep anyone I picked up along the way. You are quite the anomaly. I've got friends. But males, human males especially, but many others as well, when they bond, are like brothers in arms...they stay bonded. Females are generally much more practical about their future.”
“You catch and release?” she said sounding and looking pensive. “Just take us out for a spin?”
“Not you, Rose,” he said, softly, gliding a fingertip up her leg.
“Yeah, I know,” she told him, brushing off his reassurance but not his caress. “But it's no way to look at other people, is it?” Her thoughts went back to Sarah Jane. Probably, he never explained this to her.
“How do you mean?” he asked, rolling his eyes and tilting his head a bit to see her as she sat up behind him. “They were my friends, every one of them, and that's real enough. I was kidding about the TARDIS training. I just wanted you to pummel me...” Arching his neck, he tipped his head back even further as he beamed at her, “and you did.”
“But...if you look down on us..how can it be....?”
“Look down on you?” he yelped, sitting hastily and swiveling around to take her hands in his. “Look...down? Oh, Rose. No. I could never look down on your species. I find the human race...amazing. Every last one of you. But my companions most of all. Astounding people. You can't know. I wish you could. Maybe...next time we're joined...if we join...I could show you. But Jamie and the Brigadier and even that idiot, Harry Sullivan, they took it all so very seriously. Look how loyal Mickey was to you. Males, of any species, are like that. Adric died for me. You wouldn't catch Tegan doing that.” His grip on Rose's wrists slackened and he smiled wistfully, lost in memories for a moment. Then, he recalled himself with a little twitch and amended, “Well...no, I'm lying...you would, I suppose. I suppose,” he sighed, “Come to think on it, you're absolutely right. I shouldn't generalize. Tegan would have died for me. She'd have gone down fighting like a tiger defending cubs. Just like you...like Sarah Jane or Leela. Maybe it's me. Maybe I get less attached to the females.”
“Why's that?”
“I don't know. Maybe...because I know they'll let go, eventually. They'll want more than a hand to hold. So, they'll move on with their lives...once they find me unsuitable for nesting, I mean.”
“Are you terribly unsuitable?” Rose asked, teasingly.
“Terribly. Not worth domesticating, I'm afraid. You should have returned me to the wild when you had the chance.”
“Is it too late, now?”
He kissed both her palms, humming as one of them glowed, and then in a breezy offhand way remarked, “Far, far too late. You're stuck with me, I'm afraid. If you try to ditch me, I'll only follow you home.” Despite his light tone, his line of sight lifted so his eyes burned into hers. He held her gaze steadily through a dozen breathes, before suddenly returning to their game. “You know why I really want Picard?” She shook her head and he grinned broadly, “Because he'll go around saying,” he slipped on a fairly good imitation of the Captain as he said, “'Make it so!'” Then, he snickered nerdishly. “Can you imagine? I'd say something like...oh, I don't know...” his gaze flitted to the ceiling as he tried to think of something he might say, “'Would you like to see the outer asteroid belt of Piliarusa?' and he'd say, 'Make it so!'”
“Make it so!” Rose repeated. “I like that. I could start saying it if you liked.” She tried it on a few times and then went on with the game, “All right. It's Picard for you and Kirk for me. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Who's your companion? And don't say Giles or I'll biff you with the pillow of harsh judgment.”
“Giles?” He shook his head, underscoring his distaste with a sneer and a wrinkling of his nose. “No. Definitely not old Rupert. Far too pompous. Rather puts me in mind of a tutor I had as a boy.” He gave a delicate shudder. “Or that horrid Mr. Finch and his bat people.”
“The headmaster?” Rose consider this, but shook her head. “I don't quite see it. Mr. Finch was scads older. And,” she circled a hand over her head, “Graying and greasy. What about Buffy her own self? Slayer power's got to come in handy every now and again.”
“Slayers in Space,” the Doctor intoned, like he was doing a Muppet skit intro. Knowing he'd amused her, he flashed a toothy grin. “Miss Summers is a bit like Miss Piggy, come to think of it, with all of the Hi-YA.” He mimed a karate chop. “Both of them quite good with kicks to the solar plexus. I'd travel with Miss Piggy, all right. Though, I've always thought Gonzo would be loads of fun, too,” He turned thoughtful, sucking on the inside of his cheek before saying, “I don't know, though, about Buffy. She's got a destiny, with a capital 'D” and Destiny, with a capital “D” is a tricky business. And I've had a few of those 'kill first ask questions later' companions. Trying. On their best days. I think I'll pass on Buffy. Too much competition. She wants to save the world. I want to save the universe. What about Tara? Tara seems a nice girl. Wiccan, of course. Not that there's anything wrong with it.”
“There you go with the girls again. What about Xander or Spike or what's his face with the ginger hair?”
“Xander? If there was ever anyone more useless than Mickey....”
“Hey,” she warned. “Be nice.”
“Spike? Ah...hmmm? My first thought is: he's a vampire. Practically useless in the daylight and then there's the evil, unscrupulous side of things. British...only not really because he's a California boy, putting on the accent.”
“We're not talking about the actor. Stick to the character.”
“Yes, all right, I'm considering him. Let me think.” He pinched his lower lip as he considered. “I'd rather have Ghandi. Difficult keeping a companion out of direct sunlight. Planets these days...? So often sun-drenched. Look at...well...yesterday. There we were on a beach...abundant sunlight, just...bucketing down. Although,” he mused. “Sunlight does vary in spectrum, star to star, system to system, world to world. I wonder...could we toss him outside on a planet with no ultraviolet range? Hmmm! Bit of an experiment, that. Not quite ethical. And even if we could...only visting planets without ultraviolet is sadly limiting. I'd be curtailed and no mistake. Unless...? Come to think of it...I could just spray him down with late 21st century sunblock and be done with it.”
“Late 21st century sunblock?”
“Global warming. Probably not the best time to bring this up...but...it'll turn a little toasty on your world before you all," he spooled a few circles in the air with one index finger, "wise-up and stop using fossil fuels."
"That's not funny," Rose told him.
"Neither is strip-mining. Or the 'Clear Skies Initiative.' Start putting your money into algae shielding for the atmosphere. The sun is a bitter enemy, Rose, never cross it. Spike would tell you I'm right.” He closed on her, suddenly needing more contact. “You know...?” he hummed, licking into her ear so she squirmed delightfully in his arms. “Spike might be decent company. We like the same music. Love those Ramones. He's been to Woodstock and I haven't. I could take him to the Crucifixion. Though he's not likely to appreciate it...what with his Crucifix allergy bringing him out in hives. I'll take Spike, then. Or that other one...Jonathan.”
“I forgot about him,” Rose lilted, bouncing a bit. The jiggle of her flesh making the Doctor gasp and come out in a prickle of something very like hives. “Got to love Jonathan. He could go off with us instead of dying. What about Angel?”
It was getting hard to concentrate but he managed to ask, “As an alternative to Jonathan? I don't think so. I'm not sure I could take all that brooding...or...do you mean the show?”
“The series.”
They both dipped back to look at one another and chorused. “Wesley!”
Rose fell sideways into the Doctor, giggling as she pulled him to the bed. They rolled over one another, gathering a cocoon of silk as they went because Rose insisted on clawing into the coverlet. Reaching the foot of the bed, they spilled over it to the floor. The Doctor cushioned Rose's fall, but then, needing to be on top, quickly reversed their relationship. Once he had her pinned under him, he took her wrists above her head, manacling them in his fists, as he rubbed along the satin expanse of her belly. Two dozen darts fired into her flesh. She drew a shocked breath, eyes opening wide as she flinched from the pain.
“British,” she accused. “Wes is...British.”
“You can stop fixating on that any time now. The TARDIS favors one hemisphere of your world over the other, one tiny little island, in fact. Perhaps it has something to do with the chameleon circuit.” He kissed her, more darts letting go into her mouth. The world began swirling around them as he went on. “I don't know...maybe the old girl is just trying to fit in, be more comfortable in her skin. She can't change the way she looks so she goes where she's less conspicuous. Naturally, this limits my choice of companion....to British.”
“You aren't fooling me,” Rose told him as he sank, ever so slowly into her mind. “It's not the TARDIS...it's you. You like tea and crumpets and beans on toast and the accent.”
“Jack was American. Tegan? Australian. Adric was Alzarian...and I don't know but what I might rather go with Cordy over Wes. Assuming you're still on board...and I wouldn't want to assume anything else...I'm not sure I could risk having Wesley Wyndam-Price just down the hall. He's got natural human appendages and you do tend to go for that type...weasel-thin...tall...dark...first in his class with the answers. Hmmm?”
“Sounds lovely,” Rose admitted, welcoming him into her mind, offering absolutely no resistance as he flowed deep into her subconscious. There was no fear in her now. She wrapped her soul around him like a comfy blanket. “But he can't out otter you. Besides, he's not really British.”
“The character not the actor, remember, and I thought that was my bias. What do you care if he's British or not?” the Doctor asked, pulling her into his arms so their bodies echoed their minds as the room faded away into mist and they became one.
“I'm very patriotic,” she told him, outside his body. She shouldn't be able to do that, he felt, yet she was doing it. “Union Jack...Union flag...Queen Mum and all the rest.”
To his surprise the room came back a moment later, though in even more vivid color. He lifted his head to look around. He hadn't done that. Rose had recreated their hotel room. He tried to guide her to an imaginary glen or beach. She resisted his efforts. The room became extraordinarily sharp, every detail limned in light. The message was clear, there was no place Rose would rather be than right where she was.
No one else I'd rather be with, she whispered, this time without making a sound.
There was, he noticed, a stillness to this brilliantly realized world of hers. He listened but heard nothing louder than the whisper of the curtains in the breeze, the shush of distant waves and an occasional bird call.
It's so quiet.
Because we're all alone.
The world to ourselves, hey? I love it.
I love you.
Very close to her ear, and yet, also in their joined mind, he whispered, “I'm not really British.”
END THIS PART
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 08:16 am (UTC)Thank you, cat.
Date: 2007-03-10 08:41 am (UTC)And thanks for all of your help with the chapters, too.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 09:55 am (UTC)This story just keeps getting more brilliant. Love the observations on humanity, the language stuff, and "who would you pick for companion?" is one of my favorite games. Though, I have to say, he shouldn't diss Xander like that...Xander was loads more useful than Mickey, or at least as useful. Though I suppose there are some striking similarities.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 12:11 pm (UTC)Have a lovely, lovely day
*big hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 12:27 pm (UTC)I loved this chapter especially the BTVS conversation and that he chose WESLEY who has always been my favorite :D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 12:28 pm (UTC)And of course, Happy Birthday. :) Hope you have a lovely day.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 12:37 pm (UTC)Geekdom and mega hot sex? Whoa. And no. No one out otters Ten.
Well....fancy that...YAY!
Date: 2007-03-10 01:04 pm (UTC)My hungry soul was missing you. Last time out, it was like..."Hey! Where's Joely_Jo?"
Sigh! It is so child-like. But here you are! ;->
No, you do not need to constantly say wonderfully eloquent things about my chapters...but you have made my birthday brighter! Thanks!
Rae
wondering about intriguing you...(speaks in innocent little voice) Did you not know the Doctor wasn't British? ;->
Well...you know...if ANYONE is likely to play
Date: 2007-03-10 01:07 pm (UTC)My personal feeling is he never watched BtVS until she came onboard...but he watched Star Trek all along.
And yeah...no one does out otter him. Also, glad you found the sex to be mega...!
Thanks for the feedback.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 01:51 pm (UTC)"Love alters not when it alteration finds,
Nor bends with the remover to remove."
I hope I got the quote right - didn't bother looking it up. Wow, it's almost Platonic, his definition of the perfect, ideal and eternal Form of beauty.
Your Doctor is always an alien, struggling for connection, for someone to comprehend him. He's never just a hot bloke who happened to be born on a different planet. To sustain that for so long means writing with great depth and it impresses me that you do it so well, and make the whole story so warm, compelling and enjoyable at the same time.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 01:56 pm (UTC)I love the journey that the Doctor's taking. For all that he admires humans, and thinks they're amazing, I don't know if he's ever really grasped what it means to be human--but I think he's starting to figure that out.
Wonderful chapter!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 03:05 pm (UTC)And happy birthday!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 03:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 03:45 pm (UTC)HOrray for waking up to more of this fic. Fantastic thing for a sat morning. yaay :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 03:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 04:29 pm (UTC)2) Happy Birthday! God, I wish I could give myself such a present...
3) Sorry for stealing
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 04:40 pm (UTC)Ten and Rose have lots and lots of lovin...
And then totally dweeb out. And Ten and Gonzo would totally be buddies. If I remember the first Muppet Movie, he really loves flying and stars. :)
Beautiful, wonderful, amazing chapter.
And happy bee-lated birthday. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 04:44 pm (UTC)Happy Birthday! If this is what you post on your birthday, then I say roll on next year!!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 04:49 pm (UTC):)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 05:53 pm (UTC)::gasps::
Seriously, lovely and intimate and funny and hot as hell.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY INDEED. And a happy unbirthday to me. :)
*carry-over weeping from last night*
Date: 2007-03-10 06:08 pm (UTC)And as I'm still rather doped up on sudafed, I really can't be much more eloquent this morning. I hope you have an absolutely fabulous birthday. Once I get myself together, I will try to post the fanart to T&C (even though I had my qualms... but that's another story)
~Kat
in a state of bliss (or is that the drugs?)
Happy Birthday!
Date: 2007-03-10 06:23 pm (UTC)Great read as usual. I especially enjoyed the "shout out" to Jonathan from BTVS. I always loved that character and thought he deserved a spot with the Scoobs, not Andrew. Oh, well.
The conversation btwn the Doc/Rose felt very real! I just love it when they go on like that! :)
Have a wonderful birthday! ~DJ
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 06:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 06:41 pm (UTC)I love this. I amend my previous comment and I'll say this is now my favorite chapter. Sexy, sweet, funny, and best of all, geeky! They are such a true couple in this. It's fantastic. The conversation is so naturally them.
And can I say I love the "companion game". I'm with the Doctor, I'd definitely take Picard over Kirk.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 07:33 pm (UTC)This and the last, I think, have been my favorite chapters so far! I'm looking forward to the rest! <3~!