A/N: Um, er, well, this. . . I don't know what this is. It started out as one thing and fell into the next. I think, overall, this fanfic is a bit of a bottomless pit. Enjoy it, at any rate. *flees*
The first time the Doctor sleeps with River Song, it's as though he unknowingly receives a personality transplant, his 'I-know-how-you-can-blush' trait being replaced by a sexualised Valeyard, as despicable as the comparison is.
He remembers the moment when he bit down on her shoulder, groaning when he came with a final, rough snap of his hips against hers and hearing her trembling outcry from feeling oversensitive, nails scratching down his back. He then thought she was the fault of all this: seducing him like it was a simple first grade lesson and making him want her like she was the only air in the universe left to breathe. He firmly believed he didn't have a choice and pushed the abashment over the affair off on her.
He recalls it now and realises he probably wanted her even more than she did him. The tension he'd felt was like a sheet of glass and each moment he spent with her like this was another strike of the hammer against it, and the second he felt her fall apart around him with a scream, it shattered into millions of pieces and scattered, so tiny it was impossible to put them together the right way again.
The ones he can scrape back together are never the same. His moral bankruptcy is what he uses as sticky glue.
The second time is what he tries to say sorry for what he has done and what he will do to her. Being loving and gentle proves to be an enormous mistake, because this very young River seizes the opportunity in a death grip to take advantage of him.
She throws him down onto the bed and doesn't give him a chance to stutter a word out before she bruises him with a teethy kiss and wraps a hand around his cock, stroking rapidly. Stars implode behind his eyes and he bucks into her hand, giving a helpless whine.
"Good boy," she whispers, and slips down between his legs. As she begins to suck him off, his fingers tangle in her hair and embarrassing noises keep falling from his mouth, over and over and increasing in volume with the seconds passing. Most of them are mixtures of her name and curses in different languages, the others nothing more than moans and whimpers.
River's tongue is skilled and swift, and before he can process it, he's crying out and grasping her curls so hard his fingers hurt. She lifts her head, panting, drops of white lingering on her lips, which are swollen and deep red and, oh, God, he wants to kiss her -
She smacks his hands away when he reaches for her and shoves him back down against the mattress.
"Let's see how well you put that mouth of yours to use, sweetie."
She maneuvers forward instead of backward this time. He gets to taste her and breathe in her scent. He keeps a hold on her hips as he runs his tongue along her slick heat, to her clit where he teases it. The sounds she makes are positively obscene and continue in that vein until when he's licking the insides of her walls, striking that spot just there, and she calls his true name.
After they're done keeping each other entertained for a good hour after, he estimates, his body feels heavier than his eyes do, which is saying quite a lot. River doesn't say much to him afterwards, save for "The guards are just going to chase you out later so there's no point in staying, honey" after she finally catches her breath.
"You don't want me to?" He personally thinks the post-coitus cuddling is what makes the fighting and bloodshed worth it.
"Well . . . no."
"Why not?"
"Don't you have Amy and Rory to get back to?"
His face flushes. River has this way of saying tiny little things that'll crack at him unexpectedly at any given moment. He doesn't appreciate it. "I suppose," he mutters. "They're going to be wondering about the, erm, the hickeys, though." His fingers brush the side of his neck where the bites and sucking marks are visible, blossoming over his pale skin in indigo flecked with red.
"You've got the bloody bowtie and collar. Make it work, Doctor." River yawns and draws the sheets around her figure.
He licks his lips and gazes at her from across the bed. There's something niggling at his mind that he wants to say, but can't snatch it up. It's become a bar of soap in a wet hand. He manages to drag himself to his feet and collect his clothes.
He's slipping the knot of his bowtie into place as he tells her softly, "Goodnight, River."
"'Night, sweetie," she mumbles from under the sheets.
He doesn't sleep that night out of stubbornness, because he knows he'll dream and dream of her and he doesn't want to see her right now. It's the first time in months he's been tired.
The third time is, well, he considers it proper, really. He gets a message from her via psychic paper and asks him if he plans on being in Paris in 1957. He wasn't, but he takes the hint (or maybe it wasn't a hint at all — spoilers are likely to be involved). He drops the Ponds off in Leadworth with some tosh about having business on planet Abnegetionem.
He meets her at a flower shop while she's picking out a bundle of deep blue irises and poppies, her curls trying to hide beneath a wide-brimmed sunhat with a large, sky blue bow. It matches her polka-dotted cocktail dress and a thought crosses his mind that she looks quite adorable and elegant. He shakes it off because that's ridiculous. River Song isn't supposed to be adorable and elegant; she's supposed to be dangerous. And infuriating. And not so easy to love as she's making it seem.
He takes her to dinner where they compare diaries. She's older than him, but not by much. She treats him with relieving respect and familiarity, which she doesn't do when he's younger. He knows she doesn't do it on purpose, but that doesn't mean it doesn't get to him. They have strawberries with cream for dessert and he tastes the chilled sweetness on her tongue when she kisses him in the Prince de Galles hotel room she'd rented earlier that day.
It's different this time. They really, truly make love, his hands reverent and touches light as a butterfly's wingbeat over her skin. Her moans and sighs turn into praises and urges for him and are spun into a mixture of Gallifreyan and English; it sounds like she's singing to him. He finishes each verse for her in turn.
When he finally shatters apart, he's clutching her so tightly he feels melded to her body and never wants to let go. She strokes a hand through his hair and whispers more of that music into his ear. It's something he hasn't heard for centuries and it's something like a divinity.
They fall asleep together this time. He wakes up an hour before her, watches her sleep, plays with her hair. Her curls are just as much a conundrum as their owner, and he'll happily spend years trying to figure out the way nature decides to spin them.
He makes her breakfast later. They eat waffles together and River's kisses afterwards are still sweet, but a little sticky. She laughs when he tells her so and suggests they both take a shower.
When he traces his hands over her curves under the streaming water and swallows each of her groans, all he thinks is how content he is with her. With all of this. He could drown in the river she's made of and he'd die happy.
The fourth time is, again, out of the ordinary. It's just after Demons Run and he's torn between guilt and elation. It was his fault Amy and Rory lost their baby, and he could just as well rewrite time and bring little Melody back to them. He doesn't tell them that because it would mean rewriting River Song out of the universe. Thus, he refuses and tells them he's at a loss.
The elation is his discovery of River's biology not being only compatible, but akin to his own. She can sing Gallifreyan to him because it runs through her blood. He won't outlive her because she's gloriously, miraculously inhuman.
He meets her at her cell in Stormcage without calling beforehand and presses his lips to hers her a millisecond after she gives him a "Hello, sweetie". He's filled with life and, dare he finally admit it, love for her. He loves her. He mentally repeats it over and over as he holds her and kisses her with every fiber of his being, wanting her to know she is wanted and loved. Beautiful Melody Pond, beautiful River Song. She is his and he is hers, always and completely.
"What was that all about?" she murmurs to him afterwards, the pad of her thumb stroking over his cheek.
He searches for the appropriate response. "I needed to see you. Earlier was a bit . . . difficult for everyone. Especially your parents." It feels incredible to say that. It makes him feel warm to think that River does have a proper family, even with how twisted the circumstances are.
"How so?"
"Demons Run. They lost you."
"Oh." Her response isn't much, but holds a heavy pocketful of emotion. "I'm sorry, my love."
"They'll heal, in time. As long as I'm not around."
The remark is self-deprecating and River doesn't disagree with him. They lay in silence until he hears her dreams through their telepathic connection as sleep overtakes her. He keeps her close.
He does sneak out at night to parties with River Song; Amy was completely correct when she interrogated him two nights prior. He doesn't give her the details of those parties, though, and it's for a reason. It's her daughter, for God's sake.
River's dress of choice tonight is slinky and black and paired with strappy stiletto heels and lipstick he's sure could kill a man somehow, even if it's not hallucinogenic. He can't be blamed if he happens to glance down the front of her dress a few times. She catches him once and smacks his cheek before sipping her red wine. He dips his head and giggles a bit, his skin smarting.
River does get drunk on occasion, but only if she's young. And this version of her is only a year or so into her prison sentence. She has another glass of wine. Another. He does want to get in the spirit of things, so he sips champagne instead.
They dance.
When he dips her, her curls fall back and she smiles brighter than the Canopus star. She takes the lead and indicates when he's supposed to act that part instead. Her breath smells of drunken strawberries and blackberries, tart and rich. When the song ends, their noses are inches apart and his bypass respiratory system has damned itself to hell because he can barely breathe. Her pupils are dilated to the point where her eyes are nearly black.
Another chord is struck up and the couples around them strike into pose. The Doctor takes River's hands in his own, "do you want to—"
"No," she replies, brisk and businesslike as she grasps his hand and pulls him off the floor. He wants to protest and ask what she's up to, but as soon as he speaks up, she gives him a "Shush" and squeezes his hand.
She slips him away from the noise and chatter into the nearest darkened corridor. Before he has a chance to blink, she spins him and shoves him back against the wall and kisses him, and the confusion vanishes instantly.
The fuzziness induced from the alcohol and just River makes him respond hungrily, his tongue shoving into her mouth and hands fisting into her curls. She moans and yanks his shirttail from his trousers, scratches her nails along his skin.
"I've wanted you," she gasps, "every second you've had your arms around me on that goddamn dancefloor." She undoes his trousers with astoundingly quick fingers, reaches into his pants, takes a hold of his rapidly hardening cock and he almost chokes.
They fuck against the wall, desperate and needy for each other. Her legs are wrapped high around his waist, him buried so deep in her burning heat his head pirouettes. He manages to push her bra up, cup her breast and roll her nipple between his fingers. She groans a little too loudly for their current whereabouts.
"River," he hisses, "shut up or we'll get caught."
Her nails dig into his nape and she grins at him, breathless. "Make me, Doctor."
He glares at her and gives a particularly rough thrust into her, making her gasp his name and pant for breath, her smugness gone. He releases her breast to grasp her hair and pull her in for a sloppy kiss to cover her lewd noises — and, indeed, his own.
When they both come down, that tension has broken again. The string stretched taut and snapped within a moment. River barely gives herself a moment to get steady and pushes him away, stepping onto the floor on rather shaky legs.
"We'd better get back." River swipes at her mouth, her lipstick smeared and faded.
"What—" His brain is still stuck in the awkward point between lust and reality and he's feeling very fuzzy. And his pants and trousers are still down around his ankles. He has no idea where his top hat went; was he wearing one at all? "Aren't you feeling at least a bit exhausted, River?"
She laughs shortly, fixing herself back into place. He notices she's broken a strap on one shoe. "My love, I've been through much more invigorating activities with you. What we just did was child's play."
"It sounds disturbing when you put it like that." His daze has been shaken off enough so that he can put himself back together as well, finding his bow tie and, unfortunately, two torn-off buttons from his shirt.
"You know what I meant, you idiot." River ruffles a hand through her hair, which is even more unmanageable now. And sort of cute. "We've still got an hour before they shoo everyone away. And I'm looking forward to another glass of wine."
She turns and walks off without another word, her heels clicking on the floor. He stares after her, nonplussed.
Batrachotoxin is known to be the most potent neurotoxin on planet Earth. It's not the worst in the universe (he should know), but still incredibly potent. It affects the bloodstream and shoots straight to the heart—or hearts, as it were—but it's pleasant and quick and a wonderful way to die for those suffering.
River Song must be batrachotoxin, he mulls, dropping the two buttons in his pocket and making a mental note to sew them back on later. Much later, most likely, if he's going to drop her off at Stormcage and she'll want him to stay another hour afterwards.
He thinks he's going to want another glass of champagne.
He marries her.
Everything about their relationship is unconventional, but this is pushing the limit beyond boundaries. She wears form-fitting black instead of white. Their wedding rings are his blue bowtie. At least her parents are present and they recite a form of vows, and they seal it with a kiss.
He kisses her with such an accustomed familiarity after all these times. It's passionate and wanton and he doesn't care that Amy and Rory see. Besides, if they're so easygoing with physical affection around him, he might as well return the favour. And River responds to him eagerly.
It's much briefer than he'd like. In a second's time, time is reversed and snapped back into place like a jigsaw puzzle. The Teselecta is shot and River's face is tearstained. The world stops spinning, turns at lightspeed, then slows.
Tick-tock, goes the clock. He gave all he could give her. Tick-tock, goes the clock. Now, prison waits for River.
He takes her out for an adequate wedding night to Cauldron Beta on her first night in Stormcage. Even just a date for him and his wife — his wife; it feels incredible to say so, but oddly unsurprising — doesn't go as planned. There's a moment of panic and confusion and a slash of pain. It reminds him that River isn't a permanent part of his life, but a temporary lover. One day, she'll decide to go to the damned Library and throw the rest of her life away for his sake.
It make him feel bitter, angry.
But only until River bounces up the steps, clutching armloads of clothing to her chest, a bright excitement in her eyes. She's his wife and she's beautiful and, right now, she's full of life and he wants it to stay that way. He needs it so that clawing at his chest will dissipate for the night. This is their night, lying under the sky painted with star after star so bright it shines as much as she does.
He makes love to her for the first time in her perspective. And it's a new perspective to him — he figured she'd be aggressive and exuberant, controlling. Instead, she's submissive.
He soon knows she's learning him, as well as herself. Her fingers trace each line and muscle on his body, making him tremble above her as he gives her the softest, deepest kisses he's ever given her among the times he's had her in his bed, in hers, against the wall, in Stormcage, any place they deem worthy. And they're not picky.
It's then he realises River is not batrachotoxin, but dopamine. She's his mind-clouding pleasure. She's a narcotic that's integrated already into his system and he can't get enough of her taste. Of her body. The way she fucks him.
When pleas fall from her lips and she shudders around him, her skin glowing under the sky, back arching, he decides he'll be happily under the influence for as long as he's able.
He's getting older.
When he goes to visit River at Luna University, every other word out of his mouth is "Spoilers". He has to be patient with her. Take things slow.
He won't sleep with her, not yet, because the timelines are in flux. He'll ruin their wedding line and his own memories.
He cheats a bit, even so.
She sighs into his mouth as his hand slips into her knickers and his fingers brush against her. He flicks her clit, gently at first, then harder as her panting increase in volume.
She curses under her breath, "Shit— sweetie, faster."
"Yes, dear," he mutters in reply.
He tugs her onto his lap and pulls her lip into his mouth, sucking hard. He gives her clit a pinch and makes her whimper. Strokes two fingers down her folds and slides them into her.
She moans, hands clenching his shirt. He thrusts in and out of her, and she's soaking, dripping wet. He knows that tension for her has yet to snap and he wants to cut the string. His fingers curl inside her and strike a spot that make her hips jerk. She lets out a cry for more.
"You're going to come so hard for me," he whispers into her ear, his voice raucous. He loves this part: talking smutty as he can to her. She has a kink for his voice and he knows it. "You're hungry. Starving. I know you've been touching yourself and picturing me in your place, with me stroking you until you spill over your fingers. And then you lick yourself clean, don't you, loving the way you taste and how pleased you are with how you get yourself off, don't you? You're such an awful little girl."
River sobs and grasps his hand, urging him to go on. He's so hard it aches, but he doesn't care, he just needs to see her fall apart —
"You're not even ashamed, are you? You'd play yourself like a violin in front of me, putting on the grandest show. You'd imagine me dragging my hand down your body and working my hardest to leave you screaming— because, River Song, you're a screamer and you don't give a damn who hears you. Why would you? You have the hand of the universe's Lonely God, the Doctor, buried in your cunt and hitting every point that makes you almost cry —"
"Doctor!" His voice is drowned out by her shriek. Her whole body shakes with the force of her orgasm and she buries her head in his neck, muffling her wet gasps. He hushes her and threads his fingers through her hair, kindly until the aftershocks have left her.
She gets annoyed when he tells her afterwards they can't have sex, not yet. Spoilers. She grumbles but still asks him to stay until she has to go to class tomorrow.
He does. Their good-morning snog is something he could get used to.
He's almost relieved the Ponds want to stay in Leadworth, because that leaves him time to spend with River.
They run, have adventures, save civilizations, spend nights both out and in.
He keeps asking her to stay. Each time she refuses, and he knows it's not her fault, but it still feels like a twist of a knife every time he hears the "You know I can't". He seeks out any version of her he can find. He doesn't mean to take advantage of her, not really, but his addiction is driving him to a neediness he can't keep down or fend off. One time she seems to notice something is off with him and orders him to go see her parents. He protests, says he doesn't need them, he needs her, he wants her.
She won't accept him. She sends him off in the TARDIS, slams the doors, and locks herself back up in her prison cell.
That knife twists even deeper and he wants to hate her for a while, knowing he can't. He needs another distraction, so he begrudgingly goes to Leadworth.
He takes Amy and Rory to Manhattan and didn't know he missed them.
He reflects back on that sometimes, too. The only thing keeping him from locking himself in his box forever is his wife. The only person of worth in the whole of existence is gloriously alive to him and that's what matters.
For now.
The last time the Doctor sleeps with River Song, the Towers of Darillium sing. She's wearing the gold dress she used to hate, but he convinces her it's important. She asks why and he tells her he wants to relive their anniversary, with a few tweaks.
"Sentimental idiot," she tells him.
"You have no idea," he answers, swallowing something heavy in his throat before he gives her a brief kiss.
He treats her like a goddess. The gold pools around her feet and makes her look the part as she glitters like the stars on Cauldron Beta. He melds his mouth to hers and robs them both of breath, wanting to give her everything he has because she deserves it, and doesn't deserve her fate. He needs her, wants her, deserves his bespoke, Melody Pond, the woman who married him. The woman who killed him and still is killing him, even if she doesn't know.
He tears the pages from his diary and throws them one by one into a supernova. He sits in their bedroom, his shoulders shaking under his suit jacket, his top hat thrown God knows where. Everything about the bedroom results in disgusting him, and when he returns to it a day later, he doesn't remember breaking the mirror of her vanity. He doesn't pick the glass up and briefly wonders what it would be like to walk in there barefoot.
He redesigns the TARDIS because he can't fucking stand to look at the warmth of the orange lights that remind him of the ginger sprinkled in River's hair. The console gets completely rewired, the lights dimmed. It's only when it looks nothing like the console room he remembers that he's vaguely satisfied. The memories of her are becoming more fuzzy. The only thing he could do now to rid himself of them completely would be to burn the recollections out manually by tossing himself into that supernova.
What an idea.
Time passes. The clouds are surprisingly friendly. Vastra and Jenny are down below, keeping the townspeople of Victorian London safe.
Of course he cares. Why wouldn't he?
He finally, finally gets a decent distraction: Clara Oswald, a bubbly, feisty little number with a searing kiss on her lips. She dies, he finds her again, she becomes his newest companion. Joy. Rapture, he thinks. At least the mystery surrounding her is interesting enough. She prances around in tight minidresses and quirkiness and she's relatively attractive. Well, aside from how short she is and there's the nose thing and she's terribly bossy and nosey. She's fine enough. He considers sleeping with her, but shoos the idea away because she's not worth it.
He wants his wife, needs her, needs her so badly his entire body aches for her at night sometimes. His clever fingers are barely a poor substitution for her touch, and when his entire body shudders as he muffles an outcry into his pillows, hot, thick liquid spilling over his hand, tears prick at his eyes like he's the universe's favourite pincushion.
He'll probably just take a bloody holiday to that supernova. He's sure it would welcome him.
He sees her again.
He feels like crying, really, truly crying, and he's quite sure he nearly does when he hears her voice for the first time in years.
"He can't see or hear me, Clara; I'm just a projection," River says, and she doesn't know. He wants to grab her, curse her for tormenting him so, clutch her and entwine their bodies, make him and her become one again, just like they're meant to be. Seeing her makes it so much harder to even breathe, let alone speak.
Clara throws herself away for his sake. Good girl. He knows he has to get her back, but, right now, he doesn't care; he has his wife again, his River Song, his everything. He kisses her so hard his hearts nearly give out from the sheer need coursing through him.
He wants to damn the universe at large and keep her for his own. If she were real and not just this wretched, sodding imagery dreamed up, he'd tie her up and lock her away from anything that thought about taking her away from him again. Just like it was meant to be. His forever, because she promised.
She fades and he doesn't break apart this time, because he's shattered into so many pieces that it would drive him past the point of madness to try to fit them together again. There's nothing left to break.
Melody Pond was the woman who killed the Doctor all along. Killed him heart, body, mind, and soul, buried his spirit into the dust. He thinks it was scattered across the universe and blended in with the stars somewhere. Maybe he could go find it sometime.
There is a time to live, and a time to sleep.
He likes to think he never woke up after the first time he fell asleep next to him in her bed.