"Okay, you got me, what is it?"
She had to be kidding.
"You've got to be kidding," he said. "You really can't guess?"
Rose lifted a hand subconsciously to her ear, and rubbed it while continuing to consider the amorphous mass wedged between his clothes hamper and his Wellingtons. "Did you get it from the Nord?"
"What? The Nord? Why would you think I got it from the Nord?"
"Well, it's sort of orange…and they were sort of orange…weren't they?"
He considered that a moment. It did make a queer sort of sense. "More cadmium yellow, I'd say. But no, I had absolutely zero contact with the Nord ambassador or any of his staff." Not that he'd had any say in that, he thought, trying not to be too bitter about Pete's whole attitude towards himself and off-world relations.
She crouched down and sat on her heels before the object. She peered at it sideways, as if that would aid her in her analysis. "I haven't seen it in any of the acquisition reports, did you steal it from UA before they could even document its arrival?"
"I didn't steal it," he asserted, somewhat testily. "It's not even on UA's radar."
Rose's eyes narrowed at that. It didn't make sense in her ordered Torchwood paperwork and red tape mind. "But it is dangerous, right? That's why you brought it here."
"No. Well, yes. Weeelll," he temporized. "It could be dangerous. Anything can be dangerous if someone misuses it. Television is dangerous, but look how everyone plops their kids down in front of it for hours at a time without supervision. But this won't be. Not if I keep my hands on it." He almost growled the last bit. He would be keeping his hands on it, no mistake there. And he was determined to ensure that it turned out as it was intended and not as some blasted Torchwood toy. The object began to glow faintly, a yellow illumination seeping from the very center of its opaque core. Rose pulled her head back at this, and realization seemed to sweep across her face.
"It's…is it alive?" She looked up at him, her eyes dark with a sudden, unfounded fear.
"Yes," he said quietly. Crouching down next to her on the carpet, he asked, "Do you want to touch it?" Her eyes widened. "Go on," he said gently, "It won't bite."
Turning towards the object with an intrepid air, she slowly reached out her hand. "Much!" he added, just before she made contact.
Rose jumped, and gave him a cross look. "Just kidding." He smiled reassurance at her. "Sorry." It had been amusing to watch her flinch, and he wasn't at all sorry. It earned him a sharp smack on the shoulder. He didn't mind.
Regaining her composure, Rose again reached forward and placed an index finger on the top of its irregular, glassy surface. The Doctor watched her face throughout, noticing the minute changes of expression that flitted across it: apprehension, then surprise, confusion, and finally, tentative recognition. She whipped her hand away and rocketed to her feet. He joined her in standing and waited for her reaction.
"I felt it," she turned wide and innocent eyes he remembered so well, from when she had been nothing more than a nineteen year-old shop girl, upon him. "In my mind."
"Did you now?" He's teasing her, and she knows it. He shouldn't. It's a serious situation, but he just can't help himself. He's smiling so hard it almost hurts. He wonders if it's possible for this inferior human face to crack at its dimples.
"It was…." Her brows crinkled in thought, and unconsciously she raised her thumb up to her mouth to bite at her cuticles. "Like humming, yeah? But not a sound, more just…you know it's there." She glances up to his eyes for confirmation. "Like the TARDIS?"
"Yes," he reasons, "Exactly like the TARDIS."
Her breath is stolen and her eyes are approaching anime proportions. "How?" she manages to stumble out.
"It was a gift." He smiles ruefully, painting the scene in his memory as he spoke. "From my other self to me, well, to both of us really. It's a piece of the old girl. Could grow into a pretty accurate copy of her some day." She's not speaking, and he knows she's in shock. Hopes that it's the good kind of shock. "Because we're all about copies in this universe."
Rose turns her head back to gaze at the thing in his closet, and the Doctor realizes that he's going to have to come up with a name for it in his mind. It feels wrong calling it the TARDIS. Mini-TARDIS? TARDIS Two? Really, what did the Time Lords do back when there were a whole slew of them? Oh right, they didn't bother giving them names.
"I felt like," she says breaking in on his thoughts, "Like it recognized me."
"It does. She does." He corrects himself. It came from the old girl, it would be a new girl. "She remembers."
"He…you…." She's confused, and not just by what pronouns to use. Shaking her head and flapping her hands uselessly at her sides, she asks "Wherever did you keep it?"
"In my pocket at first." He holds up his hand, thumb and index finger curled into a circle. "Wasn't too big to begin with."
"An' it grew to this?"
"Yep!" He pops the 'p'.
"It's still so small," she says, awe coloring her voice.
"Yes, I'm afraid it's not very big on the inside either, right now. Best to think of it sort of as an immobile, vaguely telepathic, slightly sentient pet for the time being." It was about Labrador sized, he figures the comparison was fairly apt.
Her face turns to his again and he reads something there he didn't quite expect. "Why didn' you tell me?!" She's angry. She's clearly very angry and no, no, no, this is not the way he had planned this big reveal to go.
"Rose," he says, raising both hands before him in a placating manner, "Do you know how long it takes to grow a TARDIS? Decades, centuries for the later models. Unless, of course, it gets helped along." He dips one hand into his pocket, still holding the other before him to ward off her ire. Removing the sonic screwdriver he'd been secreting there, he flicked it to life with his thumb and held it up. "With one of these, I can move the process along. It's likely to wear out the screwdriver right quick, but at least we can be sure of having a fully operational TARDIS before we both shuffle off this very mortal coil." She's looking at the screwdriver now, instead of him, and he feels a bit safer.
He steps back and drops his arms. "I didn't want to get your hopes up." She returns her attention to his face and her expression is unreadable. "If it turned out we would never get the chance to use it…well, I thought you'd be better off thinking you never even had the chance." She's blinking at him and he still has no idea what her intentions are. He's still half expecting a slap, and not a love tap like she'd given him moments before.
"Anyhow," he goes on, "Now that I've the sonic screwdriver I can get her up and running." He tries flashing his cockiest smile at her, hoping it'll work its magic like it always has before. "So, what do you think, Rose Tyler? What do you say to all of space and time at our fingertips?" Again, he wants to add, but knows it's not necessary.
She glances back over her shoulder at the young TARDIS and when she returns her gaze to him, he is nearly struck dumb. Her eyes. Certainly her eyes have never looked like that before. So wide and brown and luminous. And her hair as it swings tendrils of flax against her shoulders, can it ever really have caught the light like that? Caught it and reflected it, somehow magnifying the brilliance in the process. Her lips, tinted just a shade darker than her cheeks, are drawn up in a tight smile. A smile that just shows the white sparkle of her teeth as they teasingly grip the tip of tongue peaking out between them. This, he thinks, is Rose how he remembers her. How he remembers perceiving her with his once more attuned senses. This is hope and joy and exuberance incarnate.
"I think it's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen."
He can't agree.
And with that her fingers are wound into his hair, her arms circling his neck, and his whole world suddenly encompassed in a halo of gold and the press of soft lips upon his own. The force of her lunge pushes him backwards until his shins strike up against the edge of his bed. He loses his balance and grabs reflexively for her, managing to get his arms about her waist, but not to stop his inexorable plunge towards the bedspread. The pair of them tumble together onto his mattress and the surface springs beneath their combined weights.
She doesn't let his lips free through any of it.
He can't say that her response was entirely unexpected. Mostly unexpected, yes, but not completely. The truth of the matter was he had rather hoped her reaction would be something akin to this, but he certainly wasn't looking for it. Much.
Rose digs her elbows into the coverlet and uses their leverage to pull her knees up along either side of his hips. She begins to sit back upon her heels, and though he's absolutely enthralled with the idea of her straddling him in that manner, he is, at present, very against her pulling her mouth away from his when it's doing such wonderful things. Propping himself up with his forearms, he follows her, capturing her bottom lip and sucking upon it gently to prevent her escape. They maneuver to where he is sitting up on the edge of the bed and she is ensconced upon his lap. Her hands have moved from his hair to his shoulders to help keep her balance, and his have done just the reverse, sliding slowly up her ribcage and across her chest to tangle themselves in the hair at the nape of her neck.
She places her fingers against his chin and rubs them slowly upwards, going against the grain of the little stubble several hours of daylight have etched into his skin. Framing his face with her hands, she kisses him deeply, letting her tongue explore just behind the ivory curve of his teeth. It is her fingertips, though, that draw his attention. They hover just beneath his temples, pressed into the slight wrinkles that mark the edges of his eyes, and he can't help but want to move them higher. He knows more than a little about human biology, and enough about human sexuality to know that this is not a location most people would consider erogenous. Certainly, it seems no more sensitive than the other areas of his face. But his mind is one of the few parts of him that transcends the human condition, and it is, quite plainly, telling him otherwise. He almost squirms under her attentions, knowing she's so close, and yet…it's maddening.
Gently, he drops his hands from her hair, grips her elbows and, with only the lightest encouragement, raises her arms until her fingers slip softly into position against the slight depressions on either side of his skull. She hesitates, and he feels her kiss lighten as she concentrates on what he's doing. Then, cottoning on, she begins to softly massage his temples. A better man or a Time Lord might have been able to quell the satisfied moan that escapes him at her touch.
It's not like with another Time Lord, there's no sharing of minds, and not even the promise of the same, but still, his body reacts as if he expects there to be. He temporarily loses control of his hands, as they reach around behind her and clasp her to him. His lips find her neck of their own accord, his tongue flicking out between them to taste the salt of her skin. He inhales and, yes, that is Rose. That is his Rose; faint beneath the covering scent of her body wash and lotions, but there. The ghost that haunted the far corners of his TARDIS for years, refusing to let him move on.
She pulls away, and he is momentarily disappointed. Her eyes are dark with desire, her lips slightly swollen. "Doctor," she says, and it's not a question. She's addressing him and him. And he realizes that this is the first time she fully gets it. The first time she knows for certain that they are one and the same, that loving him is the same as loving the lonely alien in the other universe, and vice versa. That kissing him is the same thing as kissing the Doctor who first breathed his own demise out from between her lips. And he understands that this…what she's doing to him…what she will do to him…she does to them both…thanking them both…loving them both.
Something inside of him snaps at the thought.
He's not entirely certain how Rose ends up underneath him, whether he flipped her or she him. Nor, for that matter, is he entirely certain how her shirt got pushed up passed the sateen cups of her bra, exposing the rosy peach curves of her cleavage. Deciding not to question his good fortune, he leans down to lave his tongue over the creamy curves of her breasts and down into the shadowed depression between them. The taste is much the same as her neck and shoulder area, but the scent is different. Slightly muskier. His own shirt has come tugged loose from his trousers and Rose's fingers are busily engaged in dislodging each button from its hole, starting with the last. She is momentarily stymied by the presence of his tie and he feels an unpleasant constriction on his throat as she pulls it loose. Lifting the shirt fabric from his shoulders she pushes the white cotton down his arms until the sleeves bunch at his wrists, held there by the still buttoned cuffs.
"Blimey, you don't make this easy," she pants. He pulls himself to his knees, straddling her for a moment as he rips the shirt from his arms. He senses the twang of buttons flying loose as he does so, and couldn't care less. Gripping the hem of her shirt, he pushes it up over her head and she wiggles to aid him in the removal.
Hands roaming directionless about her body, he again attacks her neck, trailing kisses downwards along her sternum, over her bra, until he reaches the vast white expanse of her abdomen. He rests his cheek over her navel, circling his thumbs into the hollows above her hip bones and taking a moment to appreciate his situation. Her scent envelops him like a cloud and the heat radiating off of the flat of her stomach warms his face. Her fingers have again buried themselves deliciously in his hair, kneading at pressure points in his scalp and dipping now and again to press tension from his neck and shoulders. Sliding his hands towards her center, he hooks his thumbs over the waist of her jeans and feels for the catch. Slipping the button loose and dropping the zipper, he starts to push the tight pants down over her hips. Rose, again being helpful, raises herself from the bed to aid him. When the jeans have slipped too low for him to push any farther and remain pillowed against her, he reaches up with his foot (still in trainers, he notes absently) to finish the job and kick them from her legs. Her basic disrobing complete, the Doctor raises himself over her to survey his work.
It is a sight worth seeing.
Rose hums her own appreciation, and reaches out with one well manicured finger to tap at his nose. She drags the appendage slowly downwards over his lips, avoiding his attempts to capture it, and traces a line over the sandpaper texture of his chin, along his Adam's apple, and follows the light trail of brown and ginger hair between his pectorals down to his midriff. He inhales sharply and pulls away with a jerk as she dips her finger into his navel before continuing her path towards the buckle at his waist. "So many clothes," she complains again, playing with the tail end of his belt and threading it backwards through the clasp. She does seem to be having trouble with his wardrobe and he would gladly help to hurry the process along, were he not enjoying her attentions so thoroughly.
Still, he can be of some help. He toes off his trainers and lets them fall to the floor with twin thuds. Her hands, as they unfasten his fly, press deliciously over that part of his anatomy of which he has become increasingly more aware during his time in this universe. He hangs his head limply as nearly overwhelming sensations flow from that one tiny area to puddle in his solar plexus like liquid gold. Rose runs her hands appreciatively over his bum as she removes his trousers entirely and then they are together at last, sans everything but undergarments.
She raises her hands to his face, and her fingers drift feather-light over his temples. His eyes flutter closed in unconscious delight at the impressions which rush through him at her touch. She's a fast learner, his Rose. But her actions bring something to mind that he hasn't put much thought to previously. Because he's a gentleman, and because it's necessary, he regretfully pulls back from her touch and opens his eyes.
"Rose," he intones soberly, "There's something I have to ask, before…something you need to know."
She reaches for him again and he angles himself away from her grasp. He's not going to be dissuaded from this. She looks at him with hooded eyes. "Make it quick."
Breathing a little easier, he sits back on his heels. "You know how at Torchwood the perception filters don't work on me."
She nods. "Slightly psychic."
"A bit more than slightly."
She shook her head at that. "Can't be. Not too much anyway, we've got empaths at the office specially for rooting those types out. They would have noticed and reported you if your psychic abilities reached above a certain base level."
"I prefer that Torchwood not know absolutely everything about me, thank you very much." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "I block them out."
Her surprise is genuine. "Okay," she drew the word out, "What does that have to do with us?"
"Yes, well, in telepathic cultures the linking of minds if often an integral part of the…ummm…the sexual act."
That got her attention. "I'm not telepathic."
"I know," he agrees. "But the point still stands. It's a…a very intimate action and to…engage another being in it without their express permission…well…" He raises a hand and rubs nervously at the back of his neck. "It's tantamount to rape."
She narrows her eyes at him. "Doctor, is this your way of politely requesting to give me a…a mind fuck?" The Doctor's eyes fly open, shocked at her use of that particular vulgarity.
"No," he says, vaguely offended. "Not exactly. Look, I'm not looking to do anything that you wouldn't be comfortable with…it's just…I used to be able to control this sort of thing…I used to be able to control a lot of things…and I'm just not sure if I have that level of control anymore...especially not when we're…" He gestures vaguely between the two of them. "If I were to slip up, and let me tell you I'm going to be sorely tempted…well, I told you, permission…it's imperative."
She pushes herself up onto her elbows. "Would I…feel anything? You know, not being telepathic."
"You'd know I was there," he explains, "Like you sensed the TARDIS before. And you'd know what I was…well…you'd sort of have an idea where I am inside you mind. And that's something else you'd need to know. If you sense me going anywhere you don't want me to, you need to mentally put a door in front of whatever it is. I'll respect that sort of barrier, no matter how distracted I am. But no, you wouldn't feel…wouldn't experience it like I would."
She considers that, considers him, her bottom lip caught in her teeth. "Do you want to do it?"
"What?" How can she not know? "Yes, I…I want to." He glances down at his shorts self-consciously. "I thought that was fairly obvious."
"Well, that, yeah, but…'s not the same." He gives her a steady look, not saying anything. "Oh." She seems more than a little embarrassed at her lack of understanding. "You really need to tell me more about Time Lord physiology."
"Now?" he asks.
"No not now," she says, smiling sensually. "I've got plans for you right now." Reaching over, she slides her hand up the inside of his thigh.
He gasps and pulls away from her touch, his eyes dark. "Rose," he warns. When she looks up at him innocently and expectantly, he explains again. "This isn't going any farther until I can be sure-"
"Oh, right," she says, remembering the birth of their conversation. "Yes, then. Fine. Go right ahead."
He squeezes his eyes shut as if in pain. "You really need to be taking this a bit more seriously."
"I am!" she protests, sitting up. "Really! You…you have my permission and…and I'd very much like to make love to you…however that goes…all right?"
He looks at her. She is all eager flesh and honest eyes, and he knows she still doesn't understand, not really. But to make her fully appreciate what he's trying to tell her will take some time, and in the state he's in he's just not willing to be patient much longer. Leaning towards her, he tips her face up to his with a light touch under her chin, and ever so softly, presses his lips to hers.
She responds eagerly, nipping out at his bottom lip to tug it open and beg entrance for her tongue. She arches up into him, pressing the silk of her brassier against his chest and squirming slightly. He wonders what she is doing until he feels the thin strip of fabric separating them slip away and the sharp press of her nipples against his skin. Eyes wide with surprise, he pulls away to meet her satisfied smirk. Her hands emerge from their business behind her back and reach down to finger the elastic lining of his boxers.
Minx.
With a move that seems almost practiced, he grips at her sides and rolls them over to switch their positions. His hands, no longer needing to be engaged in holding him horizontal above her, drift tantalizingly up her sides, over her ribcage, causing her to squeal with a combination of delight and dismay. She convulses in his arms, trying to escape the ticklish torture of his fingers. Placing his considerably less stimulating palms flat against her chest, he runs his hands beneath the tempting curve of her breasts, lifting each lightly and examining with scientific interest their shape and weight. He runs his thumbs over the pimpled areolas and brushes lightly against their tips. Rose moans in response and grinds her hips against his thigh. The Doctor immediately classifies this as one of the most fascinating sounds he's ever had the pleasure to hear, and immediately attempts to get her to repeat it. Brushing her nipples again just causes her to smile, dip her eyes closed, and tilt her head. Using his mouth, he finds, does the trick. Her throaty moans degrade into a needy whimpers as he nibbles and licks, finishing with a sharp cry as he sucks hard against her skin. Detaching himself from her breast, he blows gently on the nipple he so recently savaged and watches with a critical eye as it puckers up and comes slowly to attention.
He flicks his eyes up to see Rose's mouth hanging open, her lips red and swollen, her cheeks a lovely pink and her hair cascading about it all like a shaft of morning sunlight. Her eyes open to reveal pupils gone huge with arousal, and he finds he cannot look away.
Biting at her lower lip, Rose begins to crawl backwards along his body, rubbing her hot skin against his until she was half laying over his legs, her fingers still caught on the waist of his boxers. Keeping her eyes on his face, she slowly slides the fabric over his hips and down past his knees. She has to turn away a moment to slip them off of his feet. She tosses the shorts unceremoniously to the floor before turning back.
"Oh," she says, sounding surprised.
Oh?! His eyes grow wide with concern as he searches her face wildly. She is definitely surprised and that is so. not. good. Really, you'd think even human females would know there are some things you just do not say in a situation such as this.
"Oh, what?!" He can't keep the strain out of his voice, and it comes out high and a little desperate.
"It's…it's nothing." She turns away from him, from it, and he can see deep crimson roses blossoming on her cheeks. So, now she's embarrassed. She's embarrassed, which is nothing to how he feels right now. And oh, this is not happening. He bets somewhere a Time Lord is laughing at him. He can almost hear the laughter all the way from another dimension. "You…you're not circumcised."
He stares at her for a moment in disbelief, his mouth hanging open, before dropping his head heavily back against the pillow. "No," he moans, "Rose, when on Earth would I ever have had a chance to get circumcised?"
"I know, an' I'm sorry. I know it's silly of me. It's just...I've never…and, well, Mickey and Jimmy-"
"Can we please not bring those two into this," he pulls his arm across his eyes. "The situation is uncomfortable enough as it is."
"I like it."
He raises his arm a bit, and peaks out at her from beneath it with one eye.
"I mean, it looks nice an' all."
He raises the arm from both his eyes and considers her.
Light and warm as a summer breeze, she runs her forefinger from the base to the tip, and he responds by drawing in a long hissing breath between his teeth. Delicately, she encircles the unfamiliar skin with her fingers, drawing it back slightly, to partially expose the head. Her eyes are huge with concentration, as she examines it. She brushes her thumb over the tip; its baby soft skin catching upon the lines and whorls of her fingerprint before springing back. The Doctor bucks uncontrollably into her hand as an inarticulate cry is ripped from his lips. His head, which had been raised slightly, watching her scrutinize him, smacks back down.
Rose smiles at his reaction, before leaning forwards to put her mouth to an even better use. She begins by circling the very tip with her tongue, then continues on down the shaft in the same manner, as if she is painting the swirling red stripe on a barber's pole. Having reached the nexus with the near black curls at its base, she repeats the process in reverse, until the whole is slick and wet, and thoroughly stimulated.
Throughout the Doctor lies frozen, unable or unwilling to move. She grazes the sensitive underside of the head on the way back up and he is momentarily blinded by dark purple starbursts filling his vision. When it clears his hands are gripping painfully at the blankets wrinkled beneath them. He is finding the reactions of his body distinctly difficult to control, or even predict. This was not something he had ever done before…well, had done to him he supposed. It certainly wasn't part of the culture he was raised in, nor was it a kink common to many other species throughout the universe. In general, most beings found the idea of placing the sexual organs in proximity to the locus of ingestion to be…well…disgusting. Except for those species which contrived only one bodily orifice for all functions, but that wasn't really something he wanted to think about right now. Humans, though, it seemed, were willing to go to extreme lengths for recreational purposes. It was one of the reasons he liked them so much, a species almost universally devoted to the cause of having fun. So unlike his own people.
It's at this point that Rose wraps her lips seductively around the now fully engorged head and exerts a gentle vacuum upon it, hollowing her cheeks. Her tongue continues to work, circling the tip inside her mouth, and the Doctor rapidly begins to lose focus. It is almost pain, this sensation, and he can't figure out if he wants to thrust into her with abandon or back away rapidly, as far as the mattress would allow him. He tries to think what Rose would prefer. She takes the decision away from him; sliding her lips and tongue down his shaft purposefully and taking almost all of him into her mouth. She is burning and tight and as she begins a slow torture of up and down he can feel her teeth just barely scraping at the receptive skin. His eyes squeeze shut, his head arches back into the pillow, and he is terribly afraid that the sound which just tore itself from the back of his throat would be classified as a whimper. To top that off he's babbling; he's sure of it. It's a natural defense mechanism for this incarnation and he can't help himself. Something about completion and beauty and music and oh, that anything could really feel like this.
"Tha's lovely," she gasps, releasing him. "What's it mean?"
He raises his head to meet her gaze, his eyes fluttering open. She is awestruck, staring at him like she did the very first time he showed her things could be bigger on the inside. He wonders what she's talking about, what's caught her imagination now, can she bottle that look just for him? Then he realizes that he must have been babbling in some other language. His own, most likely. He hadn't even noticed. And what siren, what golden goddess was she to so sever him from himself that he didn't even know what he was saying.
And you. You, you bloody moron, are missing this. This! This, which having now been subjected to an honest comparison, is considerably more enjoyable than adrenaline. You have no idea, absolutely no idea, and that is just sad. Terribly, pitifully sad. Sad, sad, sad. Sad and lonely, that's what it is. Country song sad. One might be tempted to ask what in the bloody hell you were thinking, missing this, if they didn't know that you could have no possible concept, no comparable comparison, no bleeding inkling, no-
Oh….oh, that is just distracting.
Rose has gone back to her teasing ministrations and he senses a corresponding tightening in his groin and legs and no, no no no, not yet. "Rose," he interjects between deep breaths, his voice quavering, "Wait. Stop now. Please…wait." She stops, and her mouth is removed from him with such care that she doesn't even brush him with the sides of it on her way back up. He tries to erase from his mind the fact that she has clearly done this before. Done it enough to know what he's asking for and why.
Taking a few moments to breathe and collect himself, he reaches down to touch her on the shoulder. She glances up, and when he tugs gently at her, crawls up beside him and arranges herself on one side so that she's pressed up against his naked body. He turns to face her and their legs twine together, seemingly of their own accord. Her nose is mere inches from his own and she focuses intently on his eyes as their lips meet. Hers are wet and slippery from her recent activity and his seem dry and brittle in comparison. For some time they are content to lay like this, bodies in full contact and tongues jockeying for supremacy.
Rose is the first to pull away. "You all right?" she asks, sounding concerned. For an answer, he kisses her mercilessly, and with perhaps a little more desperation than he wants to show. His hands are insistent on her hip and shoulder, pressing her back into the bed and rolling himself on top of her. He can feel his erection pressed between them, sliding across her sweat slick stomach, and he releases her lips with a barely stifled groan. He buries his head in her neck plying teeth to her taut skin, his lips feel hot and swollen and almost numb.
Before she can wrap her arms once again around his neck and hold him fast, he pushes himself away from her. Still keeping her to the bed with a hand at her waist, he slides backwards down her lithe frame, to position himself just over her open and welcoming knees.
Pausing briefly, only to place a quick kiss to the inside of her thigh, he slips his fingers underneath her knickers and pulls the stretchy fabric down over the sharp curves of her hipbones to expose her dark curls. He has to pause while the panties are still looped around her knees, as the scent of her arousal hits him full force. His eyes flutter shut as he is overtaken by momentary giddiness. Scent is supposed to be the physical sense most strongly tied to memory, and this heady aroma he remembers very well. It had nearly driven him mad before. Bad enough when it was just the two of them on the TARDIS or running around the universe getting into trouble. Worse when she'd smelled of it after meeting Jack; after meeting Adam. Worst of all on New Earth when for a short while she had seemed to be made of nothing but the intoxicating fragrance, and it had left him even more off balance than even her passionate kiss. Collecting himself with an effort, he finishes removing her last shred of clothing and sets to exploring that most secret of feminine places.
He runs his fingers through her curls, finding it coarser than normal hair, but not so much as he had expected. Beneath, he finds the warm wetness of her folds. He runs one finger down each side, and then slips both back up the middle to the slight point at the top. Curious at what her reaction would be, he circled the tiny knob with one finger. Rose gave a soft moan and twisted her hips in such a manner as to bring the area into greater contact with his hand. Intrigued, the Doctor increased the pressure of his attentions, speeding up the rate of his minute circling. Rose responded with a tiny whimper and began to move her hips in counter-point to his stroking. Then, turn about being fair play, the Doctor placed his lips delicately around the apex of her folds, and continued the swirling pressure using his tongue. Rose tasted salty, but not as much as he had imagined. There was a lingering sweetness too, but that was harder to discern.
Rose began making desperate little cries, her hips no longer moving with particular direction, but rather wiggling in frustration. The Doctor couldn't tell whether she was trying to increase the friction he was creating or pull away from it. He had the feeling it might be a little of both. Not at all sure that it was what she wanted, but knowing that he was the one currently in charge of taking the initiative, the Doctor used his now unoccupied index finger to gently probe at her opening. Rose gasped. The Doctor hoped that was a good sign. He slipped the finger fully inside, and was momentarily surprised at how slick the entrance was. Curling his finger upwards, he made a come hither motion, rubbing up against the tiny area which Jackie's romance novels had so elaborately described. Rose's response was a near shout, as she half raised herself into a sitting position and fisted her fingers into his hair.
Who would have ever thought he'd be indebted to Jackie Tyler for aiding his sex life.
"Doctor," came Rose's breathless voice from somewhere above him, "Doctor please!" He looks up at her, his eyes taking the slow path up from her fragrant curls, past her navel, over the heaving mounds of her breasts with their tempting pink peaks, across the throbbing pulse at the point of her neck and shoulder, to where her loose and sweat dampened hair hung in a ragged frame about her flushed face. "I need you," she all but whispers.
He could never deny Rose anything. Raising himself up to capture her lips and curling one hand possessively around her head, he used his other hand to steady her back down onto the mattress. He positions himself over her, then pauses at her entrance, not entirely certain how this should be done. Oh, don't get him wrong, he knows where everything supposed to go from a technical standpoint, but the question is how. Quick and hard? Slow and careful? He doesn't expect too much resistance, but there's sure to be some. How much is too much for her comfort? For his? He knows that most human males are rubbish at this, and he's rather concerned he might turn out to be no better. She saves him from any further indecision by taking him in hand, guiding him against her opening, and sliding herself onto him.
For an indefinite moment, he loses track of everything which is not hard and pulsing and currently engulfed in the slick heat of the beautiful girl beneath him. It turns out he's wrong about not being able to focus his thoughts on only one thing; it just depends how immediately enthralling that one thing happens to be. Miniature electric spasms shoot their way from the very engaged portion of his anatomy directly to the pleasure processing centers of his brain, sidestepping all side roads, passing Go without collecting $200, and arriving in a soundless explosion of dark light. The rest of his body, arms legs, lips, and perfectly normal sized ears seem disconnected, as if they're no longer really part of him. Apparently, only one extremity deigns to make itself known, and it does so by shouting so loudly that nothing else can be heard over its silent din. He silently blesses this imperfect and strangely sensitive human body.
He begins to feel a painful pressure in his chest, and realizes it's because he's been holding his breath. Expelling it all in one great gasp, he opens his eyes, wondering when, exactly, he closed them. She looks up at him from his pillow, hair pooled around her in a golden wave, her eyes huge and black with desire. He is enthralled by her ethereal beauty in this moment, made dizzy by the scene. Or maybe that's just all the blood usually reserved for his higher brain functions rushing determinedly southward. A strange expression crosses her face. He thinks it may be fright, and never before has that emotion seemed erotic. He wonders what she has to be afraid of, what could cause that momentary flicker of concern.
Oh, right. Him.
He can't quite imagine what he looks like to her at this moment, but he has a pretty good idea. He's occasionally watched cats play in feral fascination with dying bugs or rodents and felt a disturbing sense of recognition (in fact, it was one of several reasons he wasn't fond of the species as a whole). He's lucky he's all but human now; he's quite certain that doing this as a full Time Lord would scare her completely out of her wits. Reaching a hand out to her cheek, he tries to form his features into something reassuring and human. She nuzzles into his hand, and he slips his fingers up into her hairline. With a slow but persistent thrust, he pushes himself fully inside of her, and almost without intending to, finds himself inside her.
The first thing he notices is her confusion. It's the emotion most ruling her at the moment and closest to the surface of her awareness. It's understandable given their position; she's never had anyone wandering around inside her head before. Well, aside from the TARDIS, and the TARDIS never wandered. She just translated and observed and…well…in all honesty he didn't know what the TARDIS got up to with his companions, but the majority of them never even seemed to notice, so its couldn't be that traumatic. He, though, was a little bit harder to ignore; waltzing into Rose's consciousness like he was an actor stepping onstage. So, confusion and fear and, oh yes, a fair amount of nervous anticipation. He feels a tight burning of desire trickling between her legs and a corresponding throb through her thighs. She wants to close herself off and back away, to slip from his grip and collapse in on herself. He understands then that she is afraid to open up to him, both mentally and physically. She is afraid that he won't like what he sees or what he sees, which of course is ridiculous, but the irrationality of the emotion didn't make it any less real. It is clear, too, that she wants more. More of this, more of him, and yes…that would lead back to the confusion inherent in the situation.
He knows he's not backing off, so he decides to go with giving her more and see what happens next. Acting on an instinct, which is now more of a mutual comprehension of what Rose would find pleasurable, he reaches his hand between their bodies and finds again that hard node which he had lavished such attention on before. Rose bucks against him with a piercing cry as he grazes it with his thumb and ooohhh yes. That is different, much different from even the way this partially human male body senses things. Shorter and sharper and shallower. A promise of more to come, though, which makes it all the more sweet. Like skipping a flat rock over the surface of a still pond. Slowly, he retracts himself from her, reveling in the pleasant reverse friction it causes, before sliding back into her with another press of his thumb. This time their moans are simultaneous. The lascivious ripple of contractions that flood up Rose's abdomen feel like his own. His head falls upon her shoulder, his nose pushed almost painfully up against her collarbone, and he realizes that he will not be able to keep control of this much longer. Again, he thrusts out and in, setting up a rhythm that matches the stroking motion of his active digit. Without a conscious decision to do so, he dips farther into her mind, peeling back yet another layer like the thin translucent skin of an onion.
Memories. Memories of the estate, of scraped knees and shouted conversations heard through paper thin walls. Of cereal for dinner with watered down milk and a red bicycle she never in a million years thought that she could have. Swing sets and school uniforms and hanging around street corners trying hard to fit in. He is brought up short by the thick door that suddenly blocks his path. It feels like a smack in the face, so stark and white and solid is it. But there are other memories to indulge in, and soon he is engulfed with thoughts of the countless friends and family who made their home inside of Rose's heart. And it's not just thoughts, not just pictures and sound bytes. Humans, he's found, are creatures of emotion. Every memory evokes feelings at the remembrance; joy and passion and fear and despair. Love and hate, like pleasure and pain, two sides of the same knife blade, and they wrack through him, shuddering his body more than anything she is doing to him physically.
Her hands have found his temples again. The soft glide of her fingertips across his slick brow is intoxicating. He feels her distinct pleasure at engulfing him as much as his own at delving into her. She twists maddeningly beneath him and he finds himself falling ever deeper inside.
He sees Jackie, and more than that, he feels her. Jackie baking biscuits until the bottoms are black and charcoal hard, then teaching Rose to dip them in tea and milk to keep them soft. Jackie bawling uncontrollably, knelt by a grave, snot dripping in ribbons from her nose and her daughter clinging desperately to her arm with her two tiny hands. Jackie telling off the schoolmaster after Rose has been suspended yet again. He loves her, just a little, in that moment. Loves her for raising Rose, for loving Rose. And yes, he hates her a little too. Hates her for holding Rose too tightly, for never wanting her to cross the street unassisted, for selfishly clinging to the perfect memory of her dead husband.
Rose's legs have wrapped around his waist, her heels hooked together in the small of his back. He feels the scrape of her nipples against the planes of his chest and the tug of her sharp little teeth against his earlobe. His ear tickles magnificently as she runs her tongue up the folded edge, its skin soft and yielding under her lips and covered with the most delicate fuzz of miniscule hairs. Something is building, tightening, reaching; and he cannot tell if it is within him or her or both of them. Abandoning the attentions of his thumb in favor of pressing his entire hand up against the sensitive area of their joining, he can feel himself sliding into her and her stretching to meet him and his fingers curl to stimulate both simultaneously.
He sees Mickey as she sees him…saw him…whatever. Safe and funny, with the sheepish look of a man who's just spent a long night at the pub with his buddies watching football and knows he's in for it. Flowers and runny eggs served in bed on her birthday. His grandma's couch that smelled of old people and him saying it's okay if she wants to wait, that she's worth waiting for. A screaming match outside the council flat and him telling Jimmy Stone not to come around again or he'd put a cricket bat through his skull. He loves Mickey Smith for that. Loves him for what he's done for Rose, loves him as Rose does. He feels himself pushing back from the scenes, as if he's stepped into something he shouldn't have; as if he's intruded on some special secret understanding of Mickey that only Rose was ever meant to have. As if perhaps now is not the time to be focusing so clearly and honestly on her ex-boyfriend. He turns away, and senses an electric charge in the non-existent air followed by the distinct sound of time pulsing its way through the universe and he is there.
Unaccountably familiar pressure upon her palm and a sharp jerk of her arm. Shouted commands and hurried, confusing explanations. A manic smile and a gentle touch and she loves him. She loves him even then. Even as he leaves her on the street to return as piercing blue eyes peered through a cat flap the following day. She loves him, yes, even before the space ship which also happens to travel in time. Even before he melts her plastic boyfriend (in more ways than one) and shows her the end of her world. Even before he knew he'd lost himself to her completely and how, how was he ever going to fix that? Some Doctor he was, his heart transplant surgery went awry. He was never supposed to just give those away willy-nilly.
For a single timeless moment, he sees himself as she does.
A neon blue laser beam in a black leather jacket. The distant flash of heat lightning before a summer storm. The droning hiss of raindrops on car hoods, of waves grinding endlessly against a sandy beach, of blood flooding through a binary vascular system. The tang of ozone on the tongue, the scent of fresh powder on a deserted mountainside, the rush of standing on a cliff's edge as the wind wildly whips hair and clothes behind you. Power and sex and hunger and pain and she loves him. He wants to scream at her, to tell her no. He wants to yell at her to run away, to get clear of the blast zone, that nothing good can come of this. It's not a surprise when he doesn't. Coward every time.
"I love you," he cries past senseless tears and she digs fingernails into his shoulders and screams his name.
It starts with a burning in the arches of her feet. An electric heat which flashes its way up to her center, pooling there like liquid fire. Sending tendrils of flame up her body to the points of her nipples, her armpits, the tips of her ears; until her entire body is a hot, quivering mass of delight. At the same time he can feel a corresponding pulse in the walls surrounding him, goading his own pleasure. The combined experience is…it's too much…too much for him, for this weak human body and Rose oh Rose yes this please this forever. He finds it thoroughly possible to think of absolutely nothing as his body thrusts desperately into her and his world is narrowed to deeper and more and white flame shoots into her again and again and the world tilts falling through space like a time machine without anyone at the helm whirling towards a dying sun until it crashes on lush apple scented turf and she is in his arms and he in hers, hers, always hers.
When he comes to himself enough to know himself, Rose is caressing his back as a languorous contentment like nothing he has ever known suffuses his entire being. Sliding to the side only enough to extract himself and remove his weight from her still heaving chest, the Doctor collapses to the mattress as if he expected to continue falling on through it, as if it were made only of feathers and empty space that would give at the slightest pressure, leaving him to float suspended in blissful half-sleep forever. Rose kisses his neck with lips that are warm and inexplicably dry and he thinks that he remembers this feeling. Before the Daleks and the TARDIS; before the Academy and the Untempered Schism. In his mother's arms.
Peace.