Less than five minutes after the Doctor calls her, Ruby comes crashing through the Tardis doors, a jacket haphazardly thrown over her pajamas. She looks from the flower petal vomit on the floor to the flashing green lights to the Doctor, and suddenly he's aware of the state he's in. Ruby resolutely looks away from his mess, and forces her eyes to his face.
"You found him?" she asks, eyes flicking to the flashing screen behind him. The Doctor nods.
"Ruby Sunday," he whispers, his voice still nearly gone, "are you ready to see another dimension?"
He has to key in the generated coordinates between coughing fits; he thinks the hope of finding Rogue soon has bought him a bit more time, but not much. The Tardis shudders into motion once he punches in the final number. Travel between dimensions isn't easy for her - according to the readouts, it'll be about twenty minutes before they arrive at their destination.
Ruby helps him out of the console room, back to the wardrobe where he can clean himself up some. He switches his pajamas for a striped shirt, blue pants, and a long brown coat (part of him wonders if Rogue will like the outfit). Keeping the clothing free of bloody flower petals is a lost cause, but at least he's no longer covered in vomit.
He splashes his face with water, and rinses out his mouth to clear out the worst of the bile. He brushes his teeth and combs his hair (grown longer over the past few months, he couldn't be bothered to keep buzzing it) to neaten it. It feels oddly presumptuous to put in the effort – as if he's assuming Rogue will care about what he looks like – but he can't help himself. Besides, if he's granted a few hours reprieve from death, he might as well take the time to make sure he looks good when he finally goes.
After he's finished, Ruby helps him back to the console room - they still have a few minutes left before the Tardis materializes in the new dimension. He sits down on the floor next to the console, winded by the walk. She sits down beside him.
"How long will it have been, for him?" she asks. "Can we pick him up the moment after he falls?"
The Doctor shrugs. "It's impossible to say until we get there-" He cuts off, coughing. After the fit subsides, he starts again, trying to limit his words to avoid another fit. "Nothing's precise when other dimensions are involved," he whispers. There's more that he leaves unsaid – that just because the Tardis found an instant where Rogue is alive in this dimension to land at doesn't mean that he'll remain so by the time they reach him. With the timeline so uncertain, there's the distinct possibility that the Tardis has brought them here just in time to find Rogue's rapidly cooling corpse. And if they do find him safe and sound, there's no way to know how long it's been for Rogue – it could have been a few minutes or a few decades. He could have gone through anything by now, marooned in a hostile dimension for years. The man they save might be unrecognizable from the man they last saw.
Will the Hanahaki fade, the Doctor wonders, if he sees Rogue again and finds that he's no longer the same man the Doctor fell for, if he's changed into someone the Doctor couldn't love? Or will it just kill him before he has the chance to find out for himself?
The Tardis shudders to a halt with a screeching groan, and the Doctor knows he won't have to wait much longer to find out.
Ruby helps him to his feet, and together they walk down the ramp of the Tardis. The Doctor stops for a minute, staring at the door. He has no idea what he's about to find on the other side. There might be nothingness, might be monsters, might be a sun hot enough to blister his skin within minutes or a cold deep enough to freeze him to the bone. There might be any number of awful, deadly things – but there also might be Rogue.
The Doctor takes a breath, and pushes open the door.
It's night, wherever they are. A black sky bereft of stars stretches overhead - the only light in the night sky is a moon shimmering with a harsh blue light. It's hard to see much of their surroundings in the dark, but from what the Doctor can see, they're in a barren rocky landscape of oddly-shaped, towering rock formations. The ground beneath them seems to be solid stone – the Doctor bends down to touch it, and licks the dust from the stone off his fingers to try to identify it – some kind of anorthosite, maybe? Definitely an igneous rock at least. Nothing here looks like it's capable of supporting life, though he supposes he can't judge the whole planet by a first impression captured in the dark. It's very possible that there are other areas that are much better suited to survival.
Even just thinking about it, he doesn't really believe it. He'd deliberately set the trifold to scan for an empty, inhospitable dimension – all the better to punish the Chuldur. If he'd only known that Rogue would end up here as well, he never would have chosen such a place-
"Doctor!" Ruby's voice jolts him out of his brooding – while he's been crouched down staring at the ground, she's turned on her phone flashlight and begun scanning the ground around them to see if she can find anything helpful. She's about twenty feet away from him now, in front of another large rock outcropping. He drags himself over to her.
"Look at this," she says, shining her light on something on the ground. He can't tell what it is at first, and he crouches down again to see it better. Once he's closer and his eyes have adjusted to the light of the flashlight, there's no mistaking what's in front of him: a small, single blue wisteria petal rests on the stone cold ground in front of him.
The Doctor's first thought is that it's his own – his shirt is covered in the petals, after all. But Ruby found the petal while he was over by the Tardis, and there was no wind to speak of that could have plucked a petal from him and carried it all the way over here. He thinks it could have gotten stuck on her shoe and dropped onto the ground, but it's too pristine for that. Besides, unlike all the petals that cover him now, there's no blood on this petal – it's as clean of a blue as the strange light shining down on them. Which means….
Which means….
That this petal didn't come from him. And if it didn't come from him, well. There's only one other way that Earth wisteria flowers could have made their way to this dimension, and it's a way that he'd long since dismissed as impossible.
"Doctor, does this mean-" Ruby begins to ask, but the Doctor starts to cough, and the single wisteria petal is buried under the blood-soaked flowers that begin to spill from his lips. He's gasping for breath by the time the fit ends, but he shakes off Ruby when she puts a worried arm around him.
"We need to keep moving – he must be close by," he whispers, and Ruby nods, instead grabbing his hand and helping him to his feet. He realizes that what he'd thought was a rock outcropping in front of them is actually a cave – the depth had been impossible to tell from further away in the dark. It's perhaps just the type of shelter that a man on the run from five murderous Chuldur would seek out. Wordlessly, he pulls Ruby with him into the entrance.
Once they're past the mouth of the cave, he realizes there's more light ahead than just Ruby's phone light – it looks like there's some kind of phosphorescent moss lining the walls and ceilings of the cave. It's both eerie and beautiful, and bright enough that Ruby turns off her flashlight as the two of them reach it. The interior of the cave looks much like the landscape they saw outside – piles of plain rock, uneven stony ground, no signs of life other than the moss. The Doctor's eyes sweep over the ground and walls, looking for any sign that someone else passed this way before them. He doesn't see anything, but that doesn't mean that Rogue didn't come this way – it could just mean he tried to ensure there was no trail for the Chuldur to follow.
As they walk, the Doctor can't help but think about the single flower petal. What does it mean if Rogue is coughing up petals? As far as the legends tell, the disease only ever affected Time Lords. Thinking about it, he supposes it might make sense that if another species has similar psychic abilities, a failed attempt to bond with a Time Lord could trigger Hanahaki disease in them as well as the Time Lord. Though if that was the case, it would mean- Rogue would have to have felt-
He cuts himself off before allowing himself to fall too deeply into that well of hope. They very well might be about to find Rogue's flower-choked corpse. He has no right to dream about a happy reunion now, not when his feelings for Rogue could have been the transmission vector for the Hanahaki disease that killed Rogue.
They've been walking through the cave for about fifteen minutes when another coughing fit hits, and the Doctor has to stop, bending over double as flower-covered vines are expelled from his lungs. He struggles to stay upright but fails, eventually falling to his knees as the fit goes on and on.
"Doctor, are you alright?" Ruby asks when the fit seems to be slowing down. He nods grimly, reaching a hand into his mouth to pull out the remains of a vine that's caught in his throat. He coughs on last time, and spits bloody petals onto the ground.
"I'm fine," he lies. Silence stretches between them as the Doctor struggles to pull air into lungs filled to the brim with flowers – he'll need a few minutes before he can stand up again.
The silence is broken by a scuffling noise, something stirring ahead of them in the cave. Ruby and the Doctor both freeze and stiffen, and the Doctor's hearts leap into his throat.
"Rogue?" The Doctor calls out in a hoarse croak, before he can think if it's wise, before he can think if there's danger.
There's no reply but the noise of gravel shifting, of what sounds like footsteps. From around a corner ahead of them, a tall figure appears. The Doctor can see he has unkempt brown curls tumbling past his ears, and he's wearing rags that once might have been a blue velvet jacket. He locks eyes with the Doctor, and the flowers in the Doctor's chest seem to squeeze his lungs painfully. Without conscious thought, the Doctor is on his feet, and stumbling toward the man as fast as his wrecked body will carry him.
"Doctor, the Chuldur-" Ruby tries to call out a warning, and he appreciates it, but at this point, if the man standing in front of him is a Chuldur, it means Rogue is dead and he only has hours left before the flowers in his lungs choke him anyway. A quick death by a shapeshifter might honestly be merciful compared to that.
The man steps forward to meet him. He's more elegant with his movements than the Doctor is, but he's moving slowly, like he's in a trance. They grow closer, and closer, and closer, until they're only a few inches apart.
"Doc?" the figure asks him, hesitant, disbelieving, in the voice that's haunted the Doctor's dreams for these past seven months. He's so close the Doctor can feel the heat of his breath. "Are you…are you real?"
"I'm real," the Doctor whispers. "It's really me." Rogue reaches up a hand to gently touch the Doctor's cheek, as though he has to prove to himself that the man in front of him is flesh and blood. Slowly, ever so slowly – the Doctor feels every second as though it's a million years – Rogue leans forward, and presses his lips to the Doctor's. His lips are dry and cracked, and his skin burns just a bit too feverishly, but the Doctor hardly notices. Rogue's lips against his feel like the cool touch of rain in the desert, like sunrise after the longest night of the year. His eyes flutter shut, and his arms seem to move around Rogue's neck of their own accord, pulling the other man closer to him. Slowly, sweetly, he deepens the kiss, and realizes he can feel flower petals brushing softly against his lips before melting away into nothing. He's not sure if they came from his own mouth or Rogue's.
When he finally breaks the kiss to come up for air, he finds that he can breathe freely for the first time in months. Something slides into place at the back of his mind, and he feels a pulse of relief that mirrors, but is separate from, his own. Huh,he thinks for a moment, before his attention steals back to the man in front of him.
"You found me," Rogue says, that same wonderstruck look in his eyes from the night so long ago that still somehow manages to make the Doctor weak in the knees.
"Honey, did you ever doubt me?" the Doctor says, trying for a smug grin. It's a waste since Rogue just grabs him by the collar and hauls him back in for another kiss. The first kiss might have been sweet, but this is passion; this is months of longing transfigured into a single explosive moment. Rogue's tongue slides against his teeth as one of his hands moves to bury itself in the Doctor's hair - the Doctor has to smother a pathetic whine that threatens to escape his lips at the touch. They're close, so close together now – the Doctor can feel every line and angle of the other man's body pressed up against his, and their kisses start to grow messy and furious. The Doctor feels something twinge in the back of his mind, and the feeling of connection – the sense that part of his mind is no longer entirely his own - is growing stronger. It should scare him, he thinks, but it doesn't – it feels perfect, it feelsright. Most of what's coming through is vague and hazy, but there's an underlying current ofwarmththat he can't mistake the meaning of. He chases the feeling, leans into it, and a moment later, when he gently bites down on Rogue's lower lip, he's rewarded by a simultaneous small hitch of the man's breath and buzz ofpleasurefrom the connection. It's possibly the most intoxicating thing he's ever felt in his very long life.
When Rogue's lips slide off of his and begin to move downwards towards his neck, the Doctor only has a moment to savor the delightful scrape of Rogue's teeth against his jawline before a small cough brings both of them crashing back to reality. They spring apart – though not too far apart, and somehow Rogue's hand finds his in the movement – and turn to see Ruby standing behind them, looking sheepish.
"Sorry, not to interrupt but…the Chuldur?" she asks, casting a nervous glance toward the cave entrance. Rogue stares at her blankly for a moment, as though he's trying to remember how to think, and then seems to recover himself.
"Three of them are dead, but there are still two left. They haven't found this cave yet, but if they saw your ship arrive-" he says. As if on cue, they can hear a piercing bird-like shriek sound off in the distance. Ruby's eyebrows shoot up at the sound.
"Doctor, Tardis now, yeah?" she says, and the Doctor nods. He looks at Rogue.
"Anything you need to take with you?" he asks. Rogue shakes his head.
"Let's get out of here," he says, pulling the Doctor toward the cave entrance.
It's a much faster walk back to the Tardis now that the Doctor isn't choking on flowers. They make it back quickly, and by the time the Chuldur would be anywhere within sight of the Tardis, they're already disappearing from the dimension.
As soon as they're safely away, Rogue requests a shower and a change of clothes, and while part of the Doctor regrets the delay in simply picking up where they left off in the cave, he does have to agree that seeing Rogue clean and wearing something aside from rags has a certain appeal. He leads Rogue to the Tardis's wardrobe, points out where the attached bathroom is, and leaves him to his choice of clothing.
While Rogue is in the shower, the Doctor takes stock of his own mind, and of the growing sense of something – or more accurately, of someone– that seems to be slowly taking up residence in the back of it. Sensations wash over him when he tentatively prods the bond - hot water flowing down his back, easing muscles that have been tense for weeks; a sweet citrus scent of shampoo lathered in his hair; the sound of water spilling across tile; a bone-deep feeling of peace and contentment in the simple feeling of beingcleanfor the first time in months. The Doctor gasps, and mentally stumbles backward. The sensations cleanly cut out, and he's alone in his mind again for the moment. Gingerly, he builds up a mental wall around the section of his mind that feels like Rogue, until only the thinnest whisper of a connection can make it through – he can tell Rogue is alive and nearby, but nothing else.
What the hell was that? He'd been psychically linked to others before – it was common, on Gallifrey, for friends and lovers alike – but nothing he'd ever experienced had felt likethatbefore. Time Lord psychic connections were primarily intellectual, allowing for telepathic communication and an awareness of the other's presence. In high stress situations, some level of emotional or physiological awareness might filter through as well, but that was the exception, not the rule. He would have expected a Hanahaki-driven connection to be somewhat stronger than a normal bond, but not this strong: that had felt as if hewasRouge for the brief moment, as if there was no boundary between their minds at all.
He has no idea what to make of it, or how to feel about it. Worse, he has no idea howRoguefeels about it, or if Rogue realizes the connection is even there. His momentary lapse in judgment in the cave aside, he doesn't want to risk taking advantage of the other man, or get in his head if there's any possibility Rogue doesn't want him there.
Thoughts of the mental link and the complications it presents are driven away by Rogue himself stepping out of the wardrobe. His curls are damp and combed messily back from his face, his skin is flushed with heat from the shower, and he's wearing a figure-hugging pair of jeans and thin blue sweater with a neckline that cuts low to show off his collarbones.
"Wow," the Doctor says, and means it. Rogue rolls his eyes.
"That's my line, I think," he says. "I don't suppose you've got anything to eat around here?"
Normally, the Doctor would insist on cooking Rogue a meal himself; this iteration of him has a knack in the kitchen that most of his previous selves didn't, and he likes the idea of serving Rogue food he's cooked with his own hands. But Rogue hasn't had a real meal since he left 1813, so the Doctor opts to let the Tardis conjure something for them rather than make him wait for food to cook. She serves them a hearty stew alongside chunks of bread that Rogue stares at in wonder after he takes a bite.
"This is- this is the same bread my neighbor used to bake when I was young," he says. The Doctor smiles.
"The Tardis must like you," he says. "Normally she takes at least a week before she starts serving people their favorite childhood meals." Rogue opens his mouth to question this, but he's interrupted by Ruby making her re-entrance – she'd left with a wink to give them some privacy when Rogue had requested a shower. The Doctor deliberately does not wonder about what she thinks they've been up to while she's been gone.
"Love the sweater, the color suits you," she says to Rogue, and turns to the Doctor. "So, what's for dinner?"
"How long was it, for you?" Ruby asks Rogue, when they've all sat down with their food. "The Doctor said dimensional travel was too imprecise for him to tell." Rogue's knee presses against the Doctor's as he considers the question.
"There wasn't much of a consistent daylight cycle there, so I'm honestly not sure," Rogue says, frowning into the answer. "But I think it would have been around seven standard quarter-cycles, maybe 8? That'd be around….two or three Earth months, I think," he adds, seeing Ruby's confused look.
"What was it like there? Being stuck all on your own," she asks, and the Doctor can tell she's asking out of both concern and dark curiosity about the fate she'd narrowly avoided. Rogue shrugs.
"It was dark, mostly – the planet only got a few hours of light at a time. Quiet as well - the only living thing I ever came across was that moss." He wrinkles his nose. "Not my favorite thing – the taste got oldveryfast." He shrugs again. "It's far from the worst place I've ever gotten stuck in, though."
"What could be worse than a barren dimension with nothing to eat but moss, and angry Chuldur that want to kill you?" Ruby asks, curious. Rogue grins at her.
"Oh, you wouldn'tbelievesome of the places I end up at, in my line of work," he says. "There was one time, on a desert planet, with a pair of Judoon…"
Eventually, they finish eating, and Ruby demands that the Doctor take her back to the night they left. ("Do you know what my mother will do to both of us if we both just vanish in the middle of the night, with the state you were in when she last saw you? Trust me, you don't want to")
"I'll see you soon, yeah?" Ruby says once the Doctor brings the Tardis back to 2024, and she's standing at the door, ready to leave. "Unless…" her voice falters and her grin drops suddenly. "Well, as long as there's still room for me on board, that is." Her eyes flit over to the other side of the console where Rogue's standing, far enough away to give the two of them a private moment. The Doctor frowns at her, confused, and then pulls her into a tight hug as he realizes what she's asking.
"Ruby Sunday, there isalwaysroom for you on board, and don't you ever forget it. You're still my best friend, nothing changes that, okay?" She hugs him back, and when they break apart he can see the relieved grin that's spread across her face.
"Thanks, Doctor," she says, "I'll see the two of you soon then." She turns, gives one final wave to Rogue, and then leaves the Tardis to sneak back into her flat. The Doctor vaguely wonders what she'll tell Carla in the morning when he turns up missing, but he's sure she'll think of something.
"So," he says, turning to Rogue. "What now?"
The next order of business turns out to besleep, because Rogue is completely, utterly drained. The Doctor fully intends to set Rogue up in one of the Tardis's many guest bedrooms, but the Tardis clearly has other ideas - the first door he opens ends up leading to his own room, the one he uses on the rare occasions he actually does sleep. He glares at the wall.
"You're not subtle, you know that?" he tells his ship. Rogue stares at him, confused. The Doctor sighs.
"Sorry, hazards of having a ship who's sentient, slightly psychic, andalways thinks she knows what's best for me," he says, the last words again directed at the wall. Rogue looks like he has questions about the sentence, but apparently decides he'd rather focus on the matter at hand for now and keeps quiet.
"I'm trying to get her to create a room for you, but she's decided to take us to mine instead," the Doctor continues, exasperated. Then heat rushes to his face. "Not that I don't want- I mean, of course I'd love to- I just figured, I didn't want to assume, I-" he manages to cut off his rambling when Rogue starts laughing at him.
"Has anyone ever told you flustered is a good look on you?" Rogue says. He grabs the Doctor's hand, and pulls him into the room.
Before the Doctor's really figured out what's going on, he finds himself in bed, with Rogue draped on top of him like a very oversized, very tired cat. Normally, the Doctor would probably protest at being trapped like this – especially given he hasn't been awake anywhere near long enough to need even a few hours of sleep – but it's so comfortable to have Rogue's head on his chest that he can't bring himself to complain. Long minutes pass in silence, and the Doctor thinks Rogue must have already fallen asleep.
It's a surprise when he hears a half-asleep voice ask, "So, Doc, do you leave flowers in the lungs of all the guys you kiss?" A yawn follows the question, and the Doctor smiles.
"Only the really hot ones," he says. He feels rather than sees Rogue grin sleepily at that. "It's a Time Lord thing," the Doctor adds, by way of an actual explanation. "Side effect of unintentionally forming a psychic connection that's immediately broken, cured by restoring the bond."
"So the flowers are gone for good then?" Rogue asks. He doesn't sound surprised to hear about the psychic connection.
"Now that the bond's settled, it should be flexible enough that it won't break even if we get separated again," the Doctor says. Rogue's eyes start to drift shut.
"That's good," he says, fidgeting until his head is nestled below the Doctor's chin. "I'd like to be able to kiss you again without them coming back."
"I'd like that too," the Doctor says, enjoying the feeling of Rogue's curls brushing against his neck. Curiosity about the bond briefly wars with his desire to further explore the topic of Rogue kissing him.
"I still don't understand howyouended up with flowers in your lungs too," he says, curiosity winning out. "It shouldn't have been possible - Time Lords can bond with other species, but the Hanahaki itself should only affect us. For that matter, I don't really understand the manifestation of the bond itself. It's much more…intense than any Time Lord connection I've ever known."
"Oh," Rogue says, his eyes still closed. "I dunno about the flowers, but the intensity is my fault."
"Oh? How's that?" the Doctor asks, gently running his fingers through Rogue's hair. Rogue leans into the touch.
"My species is psychically monogamous," Rogue says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Thoughts, physical feelings, emotions – we can share everything once we're bonded to a partner. We're hardwired to experience life as a pair, it's…" he trails off, and the Doctor might have thought he'd fallen asleep if he couldn't feel Rogue's breath hitch.
"Your friend, the one you lost, you were bonded to them?" the Doctor asks softly.
"Yeah," Rogue says, his voice low. "Someone ripped the connection out of our heads when we were captured while chasing after a bounty. The process killed Red – should have killed me, I don't know why it didn't. I didn't think it was possible for me to bond to anyone again, not after the damage that was done. It shouldn't have been possible for a pair bond to form without both of us deliberately agreeing to it either, and itreallyshouldn't have been possible for someone of my species to bond with an alien," he says.
"I wonder…" the Doctor says. "So, if Time Lords can form bonds with other species – which we can – and I accidentally reached out to you…oh!" Rogue's eyes flick open, and the Doctor immediately regrets the outburst. "Sorry. But I think I know what happened. Your mind was damaged by losing the connection with your partner, right? So it was stuck in a half-open state - you couldn't intentionally bond with someone else or close yourself off psychically because your brain kept reaching for the connection it had lost."
"Yeah, I think that's what happened. I never knew for sure – I would have had to go back to my own planet to get the full damage assessed – but that's around my best guess," Rogue says. The Doctor winces.
"You went through major psychic trauma and never had anyone check it out? That's- well, that's not the point, but honey, you need to take better care of yourself. But anyway, if you had a moment of directed psychic vulnerability while in that state-"
"Such as, say, sacrificing myself on behalf of a handsome stranger and asking him to find me?"
"Something exactly like that," the Doctor says, grinning as his momentary frustration with Rogue's lack of self-care is forgotten.
"So, if you were reaching out to me while I was half-reaching out to you…" Rogue's smiling as he's starting to put the pieces together and arrive at the same conclusion as the Doctor. "It must have been enough to forge a bond that overcame the species difference and my mind's resistance."
"Yep," says the Doctor. "Since I'd initiated it, it presented as a Time Lord bond at first-"
"Hence the flowers for both of us when it was broken a few seconds later."
"Exactly," the Doctor says. "And then when we reconnected, your stronger psychic nature took over, expanding the connection to a level that would be natural for you-"
"And now here we are, all kinds of impossible together," Rogue says.
The warmth in his tone leaves absolutely no doubt as to how he feels about the bond and its nature. The Doctor wishes his own feelings were so simple – mentally, he double-checks his shields to make sure they're still solidly in place so Rogue can't sense the heavy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.
"Yeah," the Doctor says. "Yeah, I guess we are."
It's not that he doesn'twantto be bonded to Rogue, the Doctor thinks later, long after Rogue begins to softly snore against his chest.
This is, quite literally, the moment he's been dreaming of. Rogue is safe, and they're together, and they're in love. This should be his happily ever after.
Except for the fact that the Doctor isn't the type of person who gets a happy ending.
Sure, the flirting was fun. Moreso the idea of adding a handsome newcomer to his Tardis crew. Even falling in love – and the Doctor may not have been able to say the words aloud, but the Hanahaki had forced him to acknowledge it on some level – even falling in love, even letting Rogue in for the moment, he could do that. But that's different, that's notforever. Because the Doctor, with all that he is and all that he's lost, simply does not doforever. He can't. Because every fucking time he tells himself that he can, just this once, that this time is different, someone ends up dead. And it's never him.
He'd ruin Rogue; he'd break him. The Doctor's mind is a dark place, filled with war and loss and thousands of years of hollow screams. Sure, his current body may be young and cool and sexy, but in reality he is archana. He is terrifying. He is so, so much more than anyone can love, not without keeping them at an arm's length.
A Time Lord bond would have allowed him his distance, would have allowed him his privacy. And if Rogue had gotten too close and started to burn up in the Doctor's orbit…well, a Time Lord bond would have allowed them to separate; even if the bond couldn't be broken, it would wither and fade from disuse once they separated. He suspects that things will not be so simple with what's currently in both their heads.
There's a reason that the Doctor ran away when Rogue got down on one knee, after all. Rogue's proposal had been a ruse until it wasn't; the Doctor had seen the look in his eyes when he pulled out that ring. Roguewants this, wants a partner, wants an equal, wants a forever. He'd had it, once, with his friend that he'd lost. And he imagines he can have it again with the Doctor.
More than anything, the Doctorwantsto give it to him. More than anything, he doesn't believe he can.
Despite the Doctor's attempts at shielding, something must be leaking through the bond, because Rogue jolts awake, rolling off the Doctor's chest with a start.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Rogue asks, sitting up besides the Doctor. His hand fumbles to the table beside them to turn on a lamp so he can see the Doctor's face.
"It's nothing," the Doctor says, refusing to look him in the eye. Rogue lifts an eyebrow.
"I know you're new to the whole psychic bond thing, but you actually, literally, cannot lie to me," Rogue informs him dryly. The Doctor bites his lip, making sure this time his shields are fitted firmly in place before responding.
"I don't- I don't know if I can be what you want me to be," he whispers, ashamed of the words. Gently, Rogue reaches over to squeeze the Doctor's hand.
"What do I want you to be?" he asks gently.
"A partner, like Red was to you," the Doctor says. He still can't look Rogue in the eye. "Someone who can share everything with you, someone who can stay. I can't- there's so much in my head that no one should ever have to see…"
"Doctor, you don't have to let me into your mind," Rogue says. "I know neither of us chose this bond, so I don't expect- we can keep it shielded, you don't ever have to share anything you don't want to."
"I can't ask you to- that would be torture for you, to have that connection and not use it," the Doctor would be torture for me, he thinks, to be so close to what he desperately wants but can never let himself have.
He feels Rogue go still beside him, and it's a terrible stillness, full of fear and empty of all the love and trust he'd felt when the other man had fallen asleep on him.
"So what are you saying?" Rogue asks him, voice horribly empty. The Doctor shrinks under the tone.
"I- I don't-" he says, and doesn't finish, because he doesn't know what he's saying. He loves Rogue, and he wants him to stay, and he can't let him in - all of these things are equally true.
"Doctor, if this isn't something you want – ifI'mnot something you want – I can go," he says, and the Doctor can hear Rogue desperately trying and failing to keep his voice steady. "I might even be able to dissolve the bond properly now that we're together. If it's done right, dissolved in full with both of us present and consenting, I don't think it would retrigger the Hanahaki. You're not…you don't owe me anything, I don't want you to feel stuck with me. Just say the word, and you can be free of me."
The Doctor's world grinds to a complete stop. He truly hadn't thought the bond could be broken safely; now that he knows it might be possible, the thought of losing it – and Rogue alongside it, because the only way to keep a bond that strong from re-forming would be for them to go their separate ways – feels like a knife to one of his hearts. But that doesn't make it any less impossible to keep.
"I-" the Doctor says again, but can't go any further; he is stuck on a precipice, poised to fall hard as soon as he makes the slightest of movements.
"Doctor, look at me," Rogue says, and the Doctor can't refuse; the other man is beautiful in the dim light, even with heartbreak written in his eyes. "Do you want me to go?" he asks, and the raw vulnerability in his tone is more than the Doctor can stand. He tries to form words, but they won't come out, and he is frozen by his own fear and love and longing as they intermingle into a solid snare. The precipice looms in front of him, and he knows whichever way he goes it will break him, but he cannot make a choice.
In the end, it's the tiniest movement from Rogue that pushes him over the edge.
He can see how it will go; if Rogue pulls away now, if he gets out of this bed, it will end with him walking out of the Doctor's life forever. And for all the Doctor's fear – for all he believes that he's signing Rogue's death warrant if he lets him stay – he's entirely too selfish to actually let him go.
"No," he whispers. "I don't want you to go." And then the Doctor does the only thing he can think to do: he leans over and presses his lips to Rogue's, and completely drops his mental shields.
Rogue gasps against his lips as the Doctor's thoughts and emotions flood through the bond, but he pulls the Doctor deeper into the kiss even as the onslaught threatens to drown him. The Doctor's desperate mess of thoughts churns in both their heads.
I want you but I'm so so scared I'll hurt you, I need you but I can't say I love you and I can't let you in, you'll hate me if you see me for what I am, loving me will burn you until there's nothing left I've done it before and I'll do it again and you'll die, you always die, I always stay behind there is so much death in my head, I've killed by the billions, they call me the Oncoming Storm they say death follows me wherever I go, I'm dangerous I'm deadly who could love that? Who could see inside my soul and still choose–
Rogue's mental presence shifts suddenly to absorb the chaos the Doctor is throwing at him rather than reflect it, and suddenly there's more in the bond than just the Doctor's fear. Awe at the display of psychic ability distracts the Doctor momentarily from his own panic – it's a reminder that while Rogue may not be a Time Lord, he's no mere human either.
I love you,Rogue's presence in his mind says, projecting waves of calm.I love you, and I'm terrified, but I don't love you any less for it. I love you, and I don't know how long we have or how much it'll hurt when I lose you, but I won't let today go because tomorrow might hurt. I love you, and if you can't say it back that's okay. I'm willing to wait for you, to give you all the time I have if that's what you need, and if there are sides of you that you never want me to see that's okay too. I love you, I love you, I love you, and I can feel how you feel about me, and it's okay to be scared of that. I won't leave you for who you are, I've done terrible things too, unforgivable things, and I trust you with them. I love you, and I don't know what we'll be like with each other, and I have no idea where we're going, but that's okay, I want to find out together, don't you?
Slowly, surely, the Doctor comes back to himself. He realizes they're both sitting up now, and his head is against Rogue's shoulder. He also realizes he's crying, and Rogue is gently rubbing his back.
"I'm here, sweetheart, I've got you," Rogue murmurs, over and over and over again. Slowly, the Doctor comes to believe it.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor says eventually, when words finally return to him.
"It's okay," Rogue says, and the Doctor knows that it is - knows because with the connection open, everything is out in the open between them.
They stay like that for a while, and as the Doctor's tears begin to slow, Rogue reaches up to brush them gently away with his thumb, just like he did the first night they met. It's such a tender motion that it nearly makes the Doctor start to cry again.
I've got you, sweetheart,Rogue says again, this time in his mind. It breaks and heals something within the Doctor at the same time, and he lets himself sag against Rogue, sliding down until his head is resting on the other man's chest. He can hear Rogue's heartbeat – the strange, lonelythump-thumpof a single circulatory system – and he lets the rhythm ground him in the moment.
Once he's settled, he can feel Rogue's thoughts start to grow hazy with sleep - the few hours he'd managed to get before the Doctor had woken him weren't enough to put a dent in his general exhaustion. The Doctor manages to pull himself off Rogue's chest and tug Rogue until they're both lying back down again. This time, Rogue's back ends up against the Doctor's chest; the Doctor's arm is thrown over Rogue, pulling him close. Their legs are tangled together, and with the bond fully open, the Doctor has a hard time telling where his body ends and Rogue's begins. He's surprised by how comforting the feeling is.
Rogue falls asleep again nearly instantly – the Doctor can feel the way his mind goes soft and quiet when consciousness slips away from him. It's incredibly soporific; within minutes, the Doctor can also feel himself drifting into a sleep that he suspects will be the most peaceful he's had in some time.
Nothing's certain for people like us, the Doctor thinks just before sleep takes him. They might have a few hundred years together, or they might have a few days. Maybe they'll crash and burn gloriously along the way, maybe they'll go out with a whimper. Maybe, against all the odds in the universe – against all the odds inallthe universes – they'll last. But for now, it doesn't matter, because the Doctor has Rogue in his arms, and they're safe, and they're together, and it's enough.