A/N: The basis for this one came from a prompt over on tumblr, which I used as an excuse to write dumb porn. Enjoy!
Mind-Dive
Clara slowly came out of her sleeping state, surrounded by warmth and awkward limbs. She turned her head and rested her chin against the Doctor's forehead, his grey curls tickling the tip of her nose.
'Better and better,' she thought, allowing herself to dwell on the night before. The Doctor was becoming increasingly used to being with her, long past the point where he needed her (and to be honest, she needed him), and they had begun taking things from there months ago. To start it had been a kiss to her knuckles, tender and delicate and attentive, back in the trap street before the Raven turned on its master. It moved quickly after that until that pesky roadblock of actual sex popped up, to which she had to ease him along. They'd both wanted it, but he was terrified of what it would be like in his new body, and properly so, making it so that she was very slow and forgiving when it came to a man who was older than the ages.
Then the sex; oh, the sex. While it was expectedly timid the first couple times, when they were experimenting with what they were able to do for one another best, but once he got used to it… wow. That was all Clara could really say to describe it. For being a life-long student of literature and a traveler to strange and wonderful places, she had always been absolute shit at describing sex and with this man it was no different. Her muscles clenched at the memory of what had brought her and the Time Lord curled into her side to their current positions, and part of her was glad that she couldn't describe it so the experience could be all her own.
It was then that the Doctor stirred, coming out of his productive resting state that totally wasn't sleeping, pressing a kiss to her chest in adoration.
"Morning, sleepy-head," she chuckled, scratching his head. "How're you feeling?"
"Great," he replied. Debriefing was important to them, if only to keep checking on the Doctor's progress. Any hint of discomfort and they would figure out a way around it, or work with it, and they'd been lucky. "How about you?"
"I'm waking up snuggling with the man I had an amazing night with; I think that qualifies as doing very well."
She waited until he craned his neck up to meet her before kissing him, pressing her mouth to his. She felt great in her post-sleep daze, already aroused enough to not care what time it was, and pulled him so that he towered over her while they kissed. He eventually moved down, mapping her body with his lips and hands as he silently worshiped her. She was the reason why he even had this regeneration; she was his savior and he was going to treat her as such.
"What's on the agenda for today?" she wondered as he nuzzled his unshaven face just below her navel.
"Didn't have much of a plan," he admitted. "Was there something you wanted to do in particular?"
"Not really—I'm fine just staying in," she said. Then again, "staying in" still meant being in the Time Vortex doing… whatever it was they were going to do. She felt his lips travel lower and she tapped the back of his head. "Breakfast first, or I'm going to pass out from malnourishment."
"Have it your way," he smirked. They then rolled out of bed to find that their hastily discarded clothes from the night before were gone, replaced by two neat piles of fresh ones courtesy of the TARDIS. After showering and dressing, it was time to make their way towards the kitchen hand-in-hand.
Eggs, bacon, beans, toast, a lovely tomato… the Doctor put his accent to good use and conjured up a decent fry-up for them both. They ate contently in the kitchen at the small table the TARDIS liked to give them—a two-seater, with metal edges and a mustard-yellow top with tattersall print—not much unsaid between the pair. Clara took her stockinged foot and played with the hem of the Doctor's trousers while he pretended to not notice. It was the prefect start.
One of the major risks about taking a day to simply stay inside the TARDIS meant that Clara always risked the Doctor getting into one of his tinkering moods. He would be doing something rather innocuous, such as reading or playing his guitar, and suddenly he'd have an idea to help "improve" something somewhere else on the ship. It was difficult to get him out of these moods at times, so much so that she'd often just fly the TARDIS back to her flat and leave him there while she carried on with life.
This particular instance, however, occurred when they we in the library reading, snugged up against one another on the couch. The Doctor had sprung to his feet and dropped his book, dashing off while Clara slumped over onto her side.
"What's the matter with you?" she called out, already knowing the answer.
"I've got an idea!" he shouted from the corridor. She shrugged and went back to reading, pulling the blanket down from the back of the couch and curling up instead. There was no way one of his moods was going to ruin her day in. The coziness of her surroundings nearly lulled her to sleep when the Doctor came bursting back into the room again. "Clara! Clara! I think I've got it!"
"Got what…?"
"The answer to this hybrid business!" he said excitedly. She sat up and palmed the sleep from her eyes while he went through a dusty old book that definitely looked like it came from his private archive. "You know how I told you and Pudding Brain that there was no such thing as the Hybrid? That I was just making up any knowledge of it to save our skins?"
"Yeah, I recall this," she nodded. That had been an interesting conversation with Rigsy, since it involved explaining a whole lot of backstory, including Ashildr's, and none of them had really been happy with the whole thing.
"So, when two people join together, they become one, correct?"
"Yes…"
"…and we thought about the possibility of it being a child of ours, which is highly improbable because of overly-complicated genetic factors…"
"…that you've already explained to me, so get to the point."
"The Hybrid still involves us, but we haven't gotten there yet," he explained. The Doctor underlined some circular text with his finger. "You're the one—out of all my human companions, you're the one most likely to be able to join minds with me."
Clara blinked at him, incredulous. "Join minds? Doctor, you're a rubbish telepath."
"Rubbish when compared to other Time Lords, but I don't need another Time Lord, I need you, which is much better if you ask me."
"…and what do we do when we join minds?"
"Make sure we can join minds, then we can start making plans," he said. The Doctor closed the book and placed it down on the floor before drawing his knees up and sitting cross-legged on the couch, facing Clara. "Okay, I need you to do what I tell you."
"Yes, dear," she teased, imitating his sitting position. She tossed him a flirty smile, which he reciprocated.
"Alright, now I need you to close your eyes," he requested. She did, and he touched his pointer fingers to her temples before closing his own. "Now I need you to concentrate on my fingertips."
"Concentrating."
"Feel my presence, my touch, and imagine going through my nerves to my brain. It's easiest to go this way for a first-timer."
"Okay, okay, I'm doing it," she said. Clara thought hard and visualized his fingers, his hands, his arms, shoulders, neck—all the things she'd given so much physical love in the past few months—and went to his brain. Insufferably clever, he was, and it was one of the intangible things she adored about him. She was about to say she was there when all of a sudden the Doctor appeared in her head, right in front of what she was attempting to mentally conjure.
"There you are," he grinned in her mind. The mental him, naked and exposed, held out a hand. "I knew you could do it." She reached out with her real hand, trying to take his, yet nothing happened.
"I can't, Doctor," she grumbled.
"Yes you can," he assured. "Reach out to me."
Clara tried again to no use. "Doctor, humans aren't telepathic…" He instead moved his hands so that from finger to wrist was touching the side of her face.
"Maybe there's not enough contact—try again."
"No, I can't," she said. She opened her eyes and put her hands on his wrists. "I can't enter your mind. Can't you just enter mine?"
"Not as simple as that," he frowned, opening his eyes again. "If you got that far, but couldn't continue, there's possibly a natural block—a defense mechanism—which means that you're more suited to this than I thought."
"If that's the case, then how do we fix it?" she wondered. It was then that Clara remembered that the Doctor was still holding her face, not letting go. "Why are you still touching me?"
"This sort of telepathy is best with skin-to-skin contact," he replied. "I was hoping that my whole hand, not just my fingertips, would help."
"There's another way that we can make plenty of skin-to-skin contact, but we just did that last night, and I don't know if you're ready again for another round," she giggled, watching his face grow red.
Instead of sassing back, as he was prone to do, the Doctor closed his eyes and pulled Clara close to him, jamming his tongue in her mouth. She yelped in surprise before pushing him down onto his back, snaking her hands underneath his jumper and t-shirt in an attempt to peel them both off in one go. This ready-to-go Doctor was definitely nice.
"Let yourself move on instinct," he gasped between kisses. "Don't think about anything other than returning to my mind."
"Mind, right," she murmured against his jaw. They fumbled in getting one another's clothes off while the TARDIS wheezed in disapproval because of the cleanup she had to do the last time they decided the library was as good as her bedroom. As soon as her bra was unclasped, Clara pressed her chest against his and kissed deeply.
Like a terrible jerking motion she was swept inward and suddenly she was back in the sparse area, standing next to the Doctor near the entrance to his mind. She reached out, and he took her hand. They entered his consciousness together, past the physical synapses and neurons to the true inner workings, until the form holding her hand disappeared. She floated through memories and experiences, love and heartache, joy and sadness, seeing things that he had seen over the many centuries of his life. She saw faint impressions of his family on Gallifrey, to his adventures on Earth and beyond, with humans, or sometimes not, with people that loved him and sometimes he loved in return.
When it was time for her spot in his life, back when his hair was still floppy and his face a bit square-ish, it brought an interesting pang in her stomach to see the different hers he'd experienced before meeting her. He had told her about what her echoes had done for him long before, but it was different to see them in his memories, his archive so to speak. She felt his love for her grow as they solved a ghost story and discovered the town of Christmas; there was a surge as he was convinced she was gone, never to return to the war that was being waged to outlast his final regeneration.
…and then she appeared, and he regenerated again.
It was all too much and she broke down into sobs—what do you do when you find out a nigh-immortal, nearly-god-like entity loves you with this much ferocity? He loved her so much that he was willing to bend the laws of time and space for her, multiple times, as much as it took to keep her by his side as long as possible. He would kill for her, as he did with the dream crabs. The Doctor was not one to end lives so arbitrarily as that; it was terrifying.
"Are you alright?" he asked, voice disembodied. Clara could feel pressure around her, like a hug, though he was not present.
"Yeah—it's just… a lot to take in."
"You're doing fine." A pause. "This one was successful; did you want to leave for now?"
"Please," she said. She drifted back the way she came, through the times and spaces he'd been, and was outside his brain again, accompanied by a corporeal version of himself. He took her hand and guided her to what she assumed was her own mind. She let go and allowed herself to be absorbed and go back to normal.
Gasping, Clara's muscles grew tense as pleasure pulsed through her, arriving in time for her own orgasm. The Doctor beneath her moaned loudly and she could feel him coming as well. When did her knickers get tossed to the floor? How had she mounted him without control of her body? Had she had control of her body, or was it on autopilot the entire time? She waited out the orgasms before leaning forward and laying down on the Doctor's naked form, kissing the wisps of hair on his chest.
"…wow," she breathed, her head feeling light. "That sure was something."
Yes, it was. Clara's attention immediately honed itself and she stared at him, her brown eyes wide.
He was in her head.
Of course; that's what telepathy is, or did you forget that already? You're not turning into a pudding brain on me, are you?
'Bug off,' she thought, making him smirk in reply. She placed her head back down on his chest and listened to the two hearts racing inside his chest.
Their minds were now one, or at least, one step further. Whether the Hybrid Prophecy was really what was behind it or not, she didn't care. It was still same-old-same-old: Clara Oswald and the Doctor in the TARDIS, only now, their minds were one.