"Rose, are those my trunks?" the Doctor, halted in mid-step stared in bewilderment at his companion, lounging about along the kitchen counter in – sure enough – nothing but his trousers and a loose, plain white tee. "Are you wearing my trunks?"
She shrugged, blonde hair bobbing against her shoulder. Rose sucked on the spoon in her mouth, enjoying the sweet taste of the honey-like substance she had found in the cupboard, eying the Doctor edgily.
"If they are?" she asked, glancing down at the starkness of the black and yellow against her legs. "I never really pegged you for a comic lover, you know. Guess Batman suits rather well as it is, though."
The Doctor grunted, coming over and attempting to make a grab at her which she easily dodged. She ducked around the table fluidly, giving a little swirl for ten points of flare. The Doctor wasn't so amused.
"They are not Batman, they are just –" he stopped and glared. "That is really far besides the point."
Rose looked at him as if he were odd. "What're you talking about?" she spoke in her south London drawl. She fingered the edge of the fabric, lifting it high enough so she could see the design, a black bat-like symbol inside a yellow oval spanning right across the middle. "That's Batman."
"No," the Doctor muttered exasperated, his uncharacteristic strain and impatience foreign to him but nevertheless there. He had gotten a rather odd message on the psychic paper and for once didn't know what to make of it, setting him in his foul mood. "It isn't. It's Kragnor the Flying Belkhin, and I'm not the type for comic heroes this was a present from –" He tsked. "Never mind that, you still haven't answered why you are wearing my drawers!"
The two had circled each other, a predatory dance, five rounds about the table. Rose stopped, easing out of her crouched and readied stance with her arms raised in a placating way. She shushed him with "Easy, easy, easys" and placed her hands on her hips.
"I couldn't find my laundry and yours were the only ones in there, so," she patted her thighs as she trailed off on the explicable.
The Doctor eyed her for a moment before scoffing. "You mean you couldn't be bothered to look for your own clothes," he corrected.
She shrugged in answer, scurrying away from his grabby hands as he made a go at her again.
"If I could just get those back now…"
"What?" she called teasingly, dipping around and scooting a chair out to block his path. "Don't want stupid human germs on your precious alien clothes?"
"As a matter of fact," he grumbled, knocking the chair back into place with the flat of his palm, eyes trained to her every moment.
In all honesty, he could have cared less about having her cooties spread throughout the fibers of his boxers – Rose cooties were ones he could, and would, be able to live with – he just didn't want her smell to seep too deeply into them lest he resort to the humiliating act of stuffing it before his face and sniffing it.
"All right then," she twirled on her bare heel, finger poised on her full lips thoughtfully. Her finger never strayed, even as she bit her grin back, teeth digging into the succulent bit of flesh that was her lower lip. Her eyes sparkled. "Try and get them."
With pleasure, he growled inwardly and then he was too busy to say the words aloud. The chase…had begun.
Springing forward, he nearly had her in that instant, but with a yelp she ducked and flew out of the way, banging her shoulder into the wall. The Doctor grinned intimidatingly but with nothing yet to back it up; the look was simply smoke and mirrors and gave Rose a cockier edge. Grabbing a spoke on one of the chairs, she maneuvered and twisted with him, the tamer for the lion that stared down at her with a hunger she couldn't place. Grinning, she gave the chair a light chuck and propelled herself to the right, sliding alongside the table.
The Doctor, graceful and lithe, leapt at just the right moment, feet landing square on the base of the chair and kicked off from it, bounding over the table – even knocking a plastic plate of toast down with the flap of his coat. He never really did like the stuff anyway, plain and liquid; and the toast was too toasty. Rose squeezed herself into a corner until she was just out the reach of his hands, long fingers combing the air for her. They missed and she bolted, peals of laughter chasing him as he did her, skidding on his trainers and racing after her.
She careened down corridors, still laughing and getting breathless. She ran until her legs weren't the only things pounding, her heart and head keeping time just as quick. Hopping into a crevice that seemed beautifully convenient in her winded state, she stilled her breath and saw the streak of brown and blue whiz past. Sighing, she slunk against the TARDIS, happy for its surprising coolness pressing along the length of her heated back. Her breath finally settled, there was a rustle and a sudden tug of her elastic waistband had it hitch up higher in her throat.
"Gotcha," he panted down her neck, sending shivers of things only dreamt of down her spine. Gooseflesh rose along the nape of her neck as he pulled on her – his – pantline once again.
"Oh, Doctor," she whispered, turning on the spot and thankful for the close space. It meant she could do this; lifting on her toes, her chest pressed against the taut line of his. He froze, finger unfurling as the position had his arm resting against the dip of her hip. Those long appendages twitched with the need to tangle in her hair or to make purchase against the flesh of her side to bring her closer, closer, and closer still. She stood until her lips were ghosting over his, eyes fluttering shut. "I don't give up that easy."
A gust of wind suddenly met his puckered lips. He blinked until the righteous indignation left his features bare with only the grim set of determination seized behind his eyes. He chuckled darkly. She wanted to play unfair? Typical. But he was clever, and suddenly knew what to do. Patting his machine for good measure – and luck – he hurried after her, this time tracking the pattering of her feet and giggling, both playing in harmonious unison together.
It had been a few minutes since she had last seen him in the labyrinth of rooms. In one she had hidden in, she nearly shrieked when she thought he was right behind her. It was only a mannequin – a wooden one because the experience with plastic ones with Nestene Consciousness were not pleasant – with the leather jacket, trousers, and shirt the Doctor once so very recently had donned. Seeing the outfit - hung up with eight others in neat little rows of wooden and steel dummies - made her sad and wistful. She touched the material with a reverent fondness and remembered when a hand had stuck out from it, gripping hers and telling her to run; to run for her life, Rose Tyler.
A hand still did that. Every day, in fact, even when lives weren't in peril – or mortality tested - and it was just for the fun of it; but the hand was different - stronger, hairier - draped within a pinstripe suit and trench, not the black sleekness of leather. It was the same hand, in a way – the same way that it was the same man – but different all together. She would never go on adventures in the way that she always would - with him. Her Doctor. They were both her Doctors because they were both the same man. Same, but entirely different. She didn't mind though, it was almost as if there were two to love, and she felt her heart – even if there was only one – was big enough for the both of them to share. On the thought of her brown, blue, and striped Doctor, she jolted back to the present – an oddity to think of in a time-locked state the TARDIS operated under – and creaked to the door, charging away as the last of the light shone on the Doctor's old self, locking him back in the dusty cupboard of suits once his.
Midway through a hall, the corridor shifted like something out of a Harry Potter novel.
"Hey!" Rose cried, unsteady and wobbling as the TARDIS shifted beneath her feet. She knew this sort of thing happened, the Doctor had told her once before; that the TARDIS did a little "jiggery pokery" and shifted and shuffled to encompass and fit more rooms to the infinite space. She had just never felt it before. She assumed it happened when she wasn't there or looking, like a silent tremor that passed underfoot, unfelt and unnoticed.
The TARDIS slid back into a proper place and Rose, dubious and on uncertain footing, began her trek, albeit more warily. Glancing around, she peered and slithered around corners and crannies - at any sign of fluffy tufts of brown or swaying cloths of cotton, she was prepared to bolt. Unfortunately, she was not prepared for a sneak attack from a darkened, purposefully re-directed kitchen.
"YAAAAAGH!" the Doctor shouted, his arms shooting out like twin cobras, ensnaring the poor, unsuspecting field mouse in his trap.
Rose screamed and thrashed, arms tight at her side but legs making up their work tenfold as she bicycled the air in violent flailings. In her shock, she managed to jab him a good one to the gut and he dropped her, taking all his well earned self control to not double over from the lack of breath she had stolen with her elbow. His fingers gripped the wood paneling of the door frame as she circled around behind him. He flopped his head, looking at her from beneath the wing of his arm as she brandished the first thing her scrawling fingers could scrape. He chuckled breathlessly, straightening up and stepping over to her, in measured, paced steps. She flicked the weapon in warning and groaned when she finally caught what it was. No wonder he was laughing.
"What are you going to do," the Doctor stood, lanky and lean before her, a hands width away and smirking like the arrogant victor he was. "Spread jam all over me?"
Her eyes flicked down to the spoon oozing with a rich, decadent auburn. She swallowed. "It, it, it's," she stared at the goopy mess, willing the rounded edge to transfigure into something more threatening. "It's…honey." She added as an afterthought, "And don't tempt me."
"No," the Doctor stuck his finger deep into the opened jam jar, never taking his eyes from hers. "It isn't. It's nectar from the healing plant Festos Solvos on Rthgar-7, nutritious and," he dabbed her nose with his finger, sticky and sweet. "Delicious."
"Well it tastes just like honey," she countered heedlessly, smiling up at him with a thought more than mischievous. "And so," she used her fingers to spin the spoon in her grasp, raising it up with slow purpose until the tasty goo enveloped the tip of his nose. "Do," she smeared it lightly, acquiescing to his earlier remark. "You."
Something in his eye shifted, as seamlessly as the TARDIS was generally partial too. It was like a shadow had passed over his face, hungry like the Vashta Nerada, but so much worse.
Or better, thought Rose as she felt her stomach do flips; the sight of his finger, dripping with the nectar of a far off planet slide easily between his lips – watching him swirl the long appendage about and seeing him work it dry with nothing but lips, teeth, and tip of the tongue – was almost more than she could handle. She was suddenly glad she had had the good sense to wear her own pants below his. She gulped, his fingers tracing her upper arm, feeling limp and lightheaded in the charged proximity, particles between them charged with a force that just this once, science couldn't explain.
Then he grinned, face transforming into a childlike glee. Swiping his forearm across her nose to rid it of the honey glob, the Doctor tapped the now clean spot with a slim and faded wallet. The psychic paper. Rose, dazed at being jolted from her transfixed reverie, gaped up at the Doctor like a beached fish. He winked at her, told her to hurry up and get dressed; that they had a planet to save, no time for dillydallying, and took off without her. She could hear the happy whir of the idle TARDIS from the spot she was rooted to. Laughing through her nose, she shook her head and padded off down the hall, trying to deduce where her room was now with the abrupt change in layout. It shouldn't have been hard - the only room with a Rose engraved around the doorknob.
Trust the Doctor to be hot and heavy the one minute, clueless and cheerily impassive the next. It reminded her so strongly of his old self – his past self? His still self – that the pang from earlier was gone and replaced with a happier, lighter spring in her step. Finding her room, at long last, she folded her arms and peeled out of her baggy night shirt, tossing it – landing as an extra shade for the bedside lamp. Her drawers – rather, his – were shucked off next and placed neatly at the foot of her duvet, fitting oddly against the swirling pink, red, and violet design of her comforter. She left it alone for the time being. Taking care to leave on her own knickers, she slipped into yesterday's rumpled jeans, clipped a bra, and threw on a jumper bare and headed for the door, hesitating at the light switch.
Grinning slyly, Rose clicked the light off and left with the thought, He wants 'em, he'll get them, and left to find her Doctor and the adventures he had waiting for her; boxers, or briefs.
A/N: So, hey, hey, hi, hey, hi, heyyyyyyyyyy. I say this in every story but, in all honesty, I care about what you guys have to say about my story. I literally scream in sheer joy when I get an email that says, "Fanfic: Review Alert+" I love hearing your input, I love constructive criticism, those are the best. So hey, drop a note, huh? :D
And yes, if you point this out, Rose had not met the Vashta Nerada, but because we all have – amirite? – I added them in there as a "ja;lsjfa;slfja;sdlfja;sldfja;lfkjasdlkfja;ldkj" factor.
Oh, and in case for those who don't know, 'pants' aren't to american's like jeans and, you know…pants. They mean underpants. So yeah, that one line where Rose is like "glad to have worn pants under his" it's not like she's wearing her jeans under his trousers…that'd…be far weirder… and give cause for why the Doctor was acting more strange.
Anyway, post a review. "Bless your face – if you sneezed during this reading, bless you. Daniela out – hurragh!" Dooba dooba dooba dooba doo REVIEW~
AND A HAPPY CHRISTMAS (slash/Hanukkah - and Kwanza, Ramadan when it comes!)