Her sixth suitor was blue with bulging eyes and eight hands. A few years ago, she might have considered it—the more hands, the better, had been her motto—but now she found herself well spoken for, and she said so. She barely registered the disappointment in his eyes as he slunk back into the pulsing crowd. She was looking out for someone else.
Almost twenty minutes now and it seemed the Doctor had yet to find the bar. River hoped he hadn't been beaten up or thrown out. The Xycleans could be a hard race at times, and the Doctor was, well… soft.
But sure enough, there he was. When the crowd shifted the right way she could still see the tip of a fez or the odd wildly gesticulating hand flick above the masses. A few minutes more and he was dancing back towards her looking so pleased with himself that she thought he might have skipped if his arms weren't so heavily laden with cocktails.
"I thought I'd get a selection," he informed her with a bashful tip of his head and an endearing grin.
"Oh, I can see that," River replied, extracting a very potent Xyclean specialty liqueur from the inside of his crooked elbow.
"Can't get the hang of these local drinks," he babbled apologetically and River—very kindly, she thought—didn't remind him of the fact that he couldn't even stomach a glass of wine.
Still. Within the endless array of new planets, new cities and new bars left for the pair to discover, the Doctor remained ever certain that the liquor for him existed somewhere. And although she openly scoffed at what she called his interminable silliness, River didn't at all mind being the one to sit by him and finish his discarded drinks.
Yet beneath the Doctor's goofy smile, and the awkward way in which he released his armful of glasses onto the low table before her, River knew that today had been particularly difficult for him. In fact, she knew that most days, lately, had been difficult for him. Whether it was Romans or Scotts, red heads or baby-faced nurses, it seemed somehow that the shadows of the friends the Doctor had lost were showing up in all the wrong places. And although he never said it aloud, River knew that even her presence was, for the time being, still a painful reminder of her parents' loss.
She found herself wishing, for his sake, that maybe just this once he'd find a drink he liked. By the end of the night she'd be high as a kite, and the Doctor would take her home, as sober as ever beneath his usual pretence of childlike enthusiasm. They might fool around a bit, but they probably wouldn't make love. His mind was too quick and his hearts were too big. He couldn't forget. Not even for a moment… River drank so that she could sleep. She drank so that she wouldn't have to watch him lie awake alone.
The Doctor would order and discard three more rounds of drinks before it happened. When it did, he almost dropped his glass in surprise, and River lurched forward belatedly—her reflexes already a couple of seconds slow—as if to catch it. When she did, their hands met briefly, and she felt a spark of heat she hadn't felt so keenly in weeks now.
"Oh… OH! River, River, this is brilliant. This is— River, look! Taste it. River, I do like this one!"
It was almost unfathomable but her silly little Doctor had done it. Barely containing her surprise, River quirked her head, took the glass and gave it a tentative sniff. Then a lick. And small smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
"It's chocolate but it's alcohol," the Doctor explained enthusiastically, snatching it back with a gleeful giggle. "Alcohol. But with chocolate. Chocolate with alcohol! Oh, I dolike this one!"
And through the beginnings of her liquor-induced haze, River smiled as the Doctor took another deep and exaggerated sip of his new favourite drink. Then, moving ever closer, she rested her head against his shoulder and watched him consume four more in quick succession. His eyes were dim but affectionate when they found hers again.
"I think I've had enough," he whispered, inhaling raspily against her soft, springy hair. But he didn't protest when River ordered another round. He barely registered the fifth, sixth, or seventh drinks go down.
Oh, the Doctor was clever. He knew what she was up to—with her gentle strokes, her soft smiles, her delicate coaxing. River Song wanted him drunk. But the soothing caress of the chocolatey liqueur sliding down his throat was therapeutic in a way he'd never experienced. He felt his troubles slipping off into the deep recesses of his mind. He felt that mind, that great big mind, so powerful and so active, so much bigger on the inside, begin to slow…
The Doctor wondered if this was how humans lived every day. Perhaps that was how they functioned in the face of such a cruel, torturous world: they lived in this wonderful state of softness, of dulled perceptions and deep pleasures. He almost felt a twang of jealousy for them, but as River's lips touched his, he let his mind fall blank for the first time in a hundred years or more. Certainly the first time since he had lost the Ponds…
River's lips were soft and scented with the same cocktail the doctor had been drinking. He found himself leaning in closer just to smell it on her breath, taste it on her tongue, and feel its presence it in her silky, shuddering touch. A clumsy attempt to grasp her hand landed him flush across her chest, but the Doctor glanced up with an uncharacteristically unbothered smile.
"S'sorry, River. My coordination seems to be a leeeetle bit off," he whispered, and that whisper wandered into a breathy wee giggle as River kissed the apology from his lips and steadied his lanky body against her chest.
Soothingly, she held him there for a moment, eyes closed and breathing deeply, and then she looked at him again. "Let's go home," she murmured, and they kissed their way out the door.
The Doctor kissed River all the way back to the TARDIS, in fact. And all the way back to their room. And they kissed with more and more urgency, the closer they got. One hand on River's back, and the other on the door handle, the Doctor push-pulled them into the room in a vague sort of stumble-jig that ended up on the bed, with River on top and he below.
"Oh, you n-n-noooofty little girl," he giggled, hands tangled in her gorgeous mane, eyes sparkling with excitement. And through the gentle softness of her own, half-dazed awareness, River replied that he was himself a very naughty boy.
But it wasn't for always, they both knew, beneath it all. Tonight was a night for haziness and laziness and gentleness, for softness and stroking and so much more. But it wasn't for always. Tomorrow there'd be headaches and neck aches, groaning and grumbling—pain coursing through every cell of their bodies. But that was okay. That was how it usually was. A hangover was just an excuse to say it out loud—to get a little sympathy. The Pond-pain was so much worse…
But tonight was for the Doctor, and the Doctor alone. Tonight was for every sleepless night, and every waking nightmare he had ever lived through. Tonight was for peace, just this once.
Peace, love, and the faintest taste of chocolate to linger in the morning.
Just sweet enough to get him through another day, another decade, another death.