Fic: Non-Linear Love Story - 6b/6 (Doctor Who)
Title: Non-Linear Love Story (6b/6)
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 10.7k
Warnings: Spoilers for season two
Beta: vyctori
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: "Come with me." She's worth it, he thinks. They fit so well together and she already knows how to use a fire extinguisher.
Chapter 6a
He leans on the entwinement, using it as ruthlessly as it uses him, both time and Time Lord struggling for their own fulfillment. If it tightens or stretches, here is danger: run. Don’t do what makes it worse. Don’t do what makes it complete.
Don’t give up this guiding star, this landmark in time. So long as he has it, he knows how to move, knows how to avert the worst catastrophe of all, the loss of her.
It keeps her safe, gives him vague instruction instead of letting him wander lost. Even in this, she gives him purpose, gives him clarity and he needs that.
He needs her.
He needs her and he knows that someday, some point in time after the entwinement is fulfilled and after she’s had a full and long life - and she will have a full and long life - she’ll die. He knows that. There’s a clock in his head, tick, tick, ticking its way through the moments, through every single second.
For that, he hates it. She’ll die soon, sooner, even sooner now, simply because of the passage of time. The clock counts on, but it counts the moments in both directions.
This is how long she’ll stay.
This is how long she’s been with him already.
Both counts can’t be high, a finite number of moments transferring constantly from the first category into the second. And he can’t stop it, can’t stop the loss of her if he is to keep the gain of her.
Tick, tick, tick, just waiting for a tock.
She’s patched him together, his fantastic, precious girl. He’d shattered and she’d taken up the pieces, glued them back together. The glue won’t last forever, can’t last as long as him, so it has to be now. Now, while she’s holding him together, he’s got to complete the repairs she’s started.
Otherwise, when she’s gone - as she will be but not for a long time yet, a very long time - when she’s gone, it all will have been pointless, a waste of her as he falls apart once more. He can’t do that to her, can’t put her through all of this and render her efforts useless.
He won’t.
"Hey, can you teach me how to use fire extinguishers? Alien ones that don’t come with the instructional label?"
"Sorry, what?"
"Y’know, the thing normal people put fires out with. That handy world-saving tool?"
"Um. Why?"
"Well, you use ‘em all the time and I just thought . . ."
"That you should too?"
"Yeah."
". . . Okay."
It was only a matter of time. Really, he should have expected this, should have seen it coming ages back.
But it’s not like it’s his fault for not noticing. He’s had a lot on his mind, a very large lot on his mind. Small wonder it snuck up on him like this. Completely unexpected and all.
His well-formulated and carefully thought-out argument is gasped into her mouth, rationale breaking apart into a muffled murmur. Warm weight presses down upon him, blankets him delightfully. His overcoat on the back of the couch, his suit jacket spilled onto the floor, her hands easily slip beneath his shirt, untuck the cloth to touch his chest.
She marvels at the coolness of his skin, lifts herself off him enough to explore one-handed. Her hair falls into his face and he brushes it back, brushes the dyed strands away from their kiss. Her hand travels between his hearts, a trailing touch that sends his hips grinding up into hers. Her legs on either side of his, her thighs squeeze his, hold him in a tempting preview of what is to come.
He tries to speak, tries to halt momentum with rambling words that even he knows make no sense. He’s saying one thing and completely doing another, his hands cupping her curves, his hips rolling against hers insistently, body begging for entrance. She drags herself over him, finding friction in the cloth between them even as her skirt rides up.
"I need," he tries to say, "I need to- need to- Rose, I- please, let me, please."
"Yes," she pants into his ear, her hands lower between them now, tugging at his fly and touching him in the same motion. "Yes."
He cries out as she cups him, bucks into her hand in the desperate need for entry and still he hasn’t penetrated, hasn’t even been touched skin-to-skin. The sounds he makes are absurd; he’s never been so helplessly vocal. Moans break into whimpers, groans into sighs, manly grunts into high-pitched squeaks. He can’t stop it and she pushes him further, rewards each sound with the incentive for another.
"Rose, please, I- explain- need to-" He interrupts himself with a noise he’s never made before, not with this mouth.
"Explain later," she tells him and provides a compelling argument as to why he should. Later sounds good, later sounds very, very good, fantastically good, but he knows better.
"Now," he insists, pushing at her shoulder, forcing her up with a will he doesn’t truly have. "Now. You need to listen to - oh."
Change of angle, focus of pressure, grinding friction and heat heat heat . . .
His head pressing back into the couch cushion, he squeezes shut his eyes, gasps and tries to control the jerking motions of his hips. He’s still pressing up into her, still straining for her.
She rises up and he nearly pulls her back down. The sides of her shins press into the outside of his thighs; her hands against his bare stomach keep him where he is. The skin beneath his hands is bare as well, her skirt giving him every opportunity to touch her legs.
"Talk fast," she tells him, panting and she kneels over him.
The noise he makes in reply is highly inarticulate.
Her fingers drum on his ribcage.
"Not helping," he informs her.
"Not explaining," she reminds him. "If you’re not going to, then I’m just gonna have to . . ."
He groans, makes a grab at coherency as he forces himself to change his grip on her, move his hand from flesh to cloth. He can’t let go, but he can’t hold on. "Two things," he gasps. "Different biology. Not human, so obviously, it’d be different. Not that different - not that I’ve compared - not different in appearance, not so much, I think - oh, gah, stop that - behaviorally, that’s the issue, that’s it, yes, I, yes - can’t stop, no - ahh - no stopping once, ah, penetration and, and - stop, stop, please, Rose, don’t . . . don’t . . . . Thank you."
His head lolls to the side, his body an impossible mixture of tension and relief. His hips still jerk, the motion completely beyond his control, this helpless begging and blatant display of need. His hands fall from her sides, slip from her waist to fall further, one hitting the couch cushion, one hanging off the piece of furniture entirely.
She lets him breathe, allows him this terrifying moment when all control is gone, allows him to endure it.
It might be the pain of waiting or it could simply be the scent of her arousal filling up his head. It might be a lot of things, a great deal of things he can’t face at the moment and so he keeps his eyes closed. He breathes, tries to breathe. His respiratory bypass isn’t helping, would probably startle her anyway if he used it now.
Murmuring his name, she touches his face, sounds more worried than frustrated, more concerned than annoyed. He nuzzles into her hand, leans into her touch. He’s always done that. He’s always done it and now there’s no point in denying it, not after what she’s just seen.
"Did I hurt you?" she asks, sounding scared. "Your different biology - did I . . . ?"
He shakes his head, rubs his cheek against her palm, still unable to speak with an unwavering voice. "No. No, you . . . . If we kept going, maybe. If I startled you and you pulled back . . . . I need to . . ."
"Explain," she finishes for him.
"Two things," he agrees. "You need to know both first."
Because consent is meaningless if it’s not informed consent.
"If you’re about to give me the alien sex talk," she tells him seriously, impatiently, "I’ve already had it."
He frowns up at her, going so far as to open his eyes to see. "No you haven’t," he protests. "I don’t care what your mother says, she’s not qualified to give that talk. And if she is," he adds belatedly, "I’d really rather not know."
As far as mood dampers go, that one is highly effective. He might even say extremely.
She laughs at the look on his face, shakes her head. "Nope. Got my information from a very knowledgeable source. Ex-Time Agent, you know."
He stares at her. "You’re kidding."
"’m not," she replies. "Got the safety talk, the manners talk, the how-not-to-react-to-unexpected-bits talk . . . . I think I’ve got enough talks."
"He gave you talks," he says blankly, mind inexplicably detached from the movements of her hips. "He taught you how to have sex with random aliens."
She shakes her head, her hair still mussed from his hands. "With a very specific random alien," she corrects, sending memories crashing through him.
Looking up at her like this - oh, Rassilon, no - she’s herself already, simply unaware of it. The time is soon to come, very soon to come and after, his lifeline of the entwinement, his simple and easy guide to keeping her safe, after that, it’s gone. He’ll lose her after this, he knows he will, knows something will happen because he can’t see it coming.
She sits on his thighs and he sits up, pushes himself up with his arms, pushes himself up and gathers her to him, her arms wrapping around him instantly. Enfolding her in his arms, he presses his face into the crook of her neck, gently kisses what bare skin he finds before simply resting his head on her shoulder.
"Doctor, what’s wrong?" she asks him, tense and holding tightly to him and that’s good. That’s very good. He wants her to hold on, wants her to never let go. "Tell me." She cradles his head, keeps him where he is. "Whatever it is, we can-"
"I love you."
Her body tenses as she stops breathing and he has never felt more like a child, hiding his face and clinging for comfort. He tries to stop but he can’t seem to, can’t reclaim composure when she’s rapidly becoming the woman he fell in love with twice. She should know him and love him and hold him and he wants that back, wants it so much that it physically pains him.
"What was that?" she asks softly, holding him as if realizing for the first time that he can break.
"I love you," he replies, attempting to sound irritable. It’s an impossible task with her on his lap but then, he likes impossible. "Try to pay better attention."
"Okay," she breathes, relaxing into him, stroking his back soothingly. "Definitely paying attention from now on."
"Very good." Well, no, it’s not, not until he gets the looked-for response out of her, but it’ll have to do for now.
He lifts his head from her shoulder, pulls back enough to look at her.
She kisses him immediately. "Love you," she murmurs against his lips. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
"Rose Tyler," he says.
"Loves you," she adds with a smile, finishing his sentence.
"I like the sound of that," he admits, hands stroking her sides.
"You’d better," she replies, shifting on his lap, unfolding her legs to loosely wrap them around him. "You’re sort of stuck with it."
He looks up at her, admiring the brightness of her eyes. "Am I now?"
"Yep," she replies simply, "‘fraid so."
The corners of his mouth twitch. "I’ll make the best of it, I suppose."
"You’ll just have to manage, yeah," she agrees, tangling her hands in his hair.
"Oh, I can do that," he tells her seriously. "I can do anything, me."
She grins at him, arms around his neck, legs tightening around his waist. "Including sex with Rose Tyler?"
"With the utmost skill," he replies before continuing with equal seriousness and less arrogance. "Just not now."
That delightful shifting on his lap stops immediately. "Two things, you said," she reminds him, confused. "That was two things."
He blinks. "What? No, wait, that was- Well, yes, I suppose. Or no. Not, I mean. That was the first thing and the third thing, skipped over the second thing entirely."
She frowns. "If there were three things, why’d you only say two?"
"Meant to get to the third bit later," he admits. "But you know me, running at the mouth as always. Just sort of popped out."
"I’m glad," she says. "That it did. ‘m glad."
There’s an incomprehensible mix of emotion flowing between his hearts, tangling and clashing and merging together, taking elation and nerves and mashing them together, melding fear and relief, combining giddy euphoria with the utmost dread.
She watches his face, easily picks up on his mood. Not the nuances of it, never the nuances of it, not when he can’t understand them himself. But enough. Always enough. "S’okay," she says gently, so very gently that he just might break anyway. "You can tell me."
He wants to ask for later, to promise he’ll get around to it eventually but eventually has begun to collide with now and there’s nothing else for him to do, nowhen for him to run to.
It takes him two attempts, but he says it.
"It’s about the Time War," he breathes. "About how I survived." He closes his eyes, fights back the twisting sensation between his hearts. "And why," he adds quietly, even softer than before. His throat closes after that, refuses to allow even his babble to break through.
She holds him, holds herself against him, her heat sinking into him through her gentle embrace, gentle and secure. His arms tighten around her, pull her closer still.
She tries to speak, manages to tell him what she’s told him before. "You’ve got me," she tells him, sounds so strangely sad, sounds as if she believes she should somehow be able to give him more than all that she is. "You’ve got me and ‘m never gonna leave you. Love you too much."
"Yes," he answers, accepting a promise she can’t fulfill. "That’s the ‘and why.’"
After, she sits back against the arm of the couch, sits there with her legs pulled up to her chest, sits there hugging her knees. "It’s like . . ."
"Like what?" he asks, watching her face carefully, waiting for the play of emotion across her features to be decided one way or another. He hasn’t told her everything, hasn’t told her half of it, merely the outline. They met, they had a few adventures, she was there for him both before and after the War and then he’d had to find her. Couldn’t have tried to stay away.
"It’s like," she says again, trying to find the words he knows she’ll find. "It’s like a non-linear love story."
"Yes," he says quietly, "it is."
She bites her lip, stares at a point in spacetime that not even he can see. There might be flecks of gold in her eyes, but he’s too afraid to look. She’s quiet then, for a time.
"I’m not surprised," she says at last, sounding surprised.
He blinks at her.
"I mean, I should be, yeah?" she asks. "But ‘m not. Not even confused," she adds, sounding confused.
This is not the reaction he expected, not any of the reactions he expected. And he’s thought of millions of ways this might go. "Rose?"
"It makes sense," she says. "In my head, it just - it makes perfect sense. And I know it shouldn’t, so I’m confused over that, but, yeah. I feel like . . . . I dunno." She bites her lip again, going somewhere in her mind where he can’t follow. "S’like . . . like you told me about a dream I had. I already knew, I just . . . didn’t know I knew, I guess."
"What do you dream about?" he asks, touching the entwinement to make sure it’s still in the safety range. What he finds surprises him: it’s the loosest around him it’s ever been, giving him more leeway in his actions than he’s had since he’d met her. "A recurring one, maybe?"
She thinks about it for a moment. She bites back a smile, telling him, "I’ve got this one where you’re in velvet and on fire and I’ve gotta put you out. And then we laugh about it later."
This is said as if it couldn’t possibly be important.
"Do you really?" he asks. "Is that why you asked for the fire extinguisher lessons?"
"Could be, yeah," she replies, just a touch sheepishly, a bit more like she’s ready to laugh at herself.
"Ah," he says because, really, there’s nothing else to say. He’s tempted to ask if she ever dreams about having sex with him, but that could easily be taken in completely the wrong way. "What happens after that?" he asks instead, feigning innocence.
"Dunno, really," she replies, shrugging a little though her cheeks do flush. "Just goes the way dreams go, I guess."
Meaning that she wakes up before the good part?
He can’t ask that, thinks about it instead.
"Hey." Moving forward to tap him on the arm, she’s looking at him in a way she’s never looked at him before, like he might actually be frail. "When are we going to do this? Go back into your timeline, I mean," she clarifies, part of her mind still obviously on intercourse of the nonverbal kind.
He stares at her. "You want to? Just like that." Obviously, he’s left out too many of the sketchy details. "Rose, you don’t-"
Her finger is soft and firm against his lips. "You needed a hand to hold, yeah? Okay, I can do that."
"Rose-"
"I want to do it," she adds. "I mean, I’ve thought about it - different, but sort of - but I figured there’d be a paradox involved or something. But if it turns out I can be there for you, I’m gonna be an’ -"
"We had sex."
There is a short moment as she processes this. "Okay," she says. "Now I really want to do this."
"Rose! This isn’t a joke," he stresses. "It’s a paradox waiting to happen, self-fulfillment and entwinement all rolled together."
"I know, I get that," she tells him patiently. "It’s serious. What’s entwinement?"
"Two or more timelines twisting together to the point where the destruction or violation of one at a certain period of time would result in destruction or violation of the other," he rattles off.
She processes this as well. "So if I don’t go and visit younger you, your timeline implodes or something?"
"More or less," he admits.
"And then mine goes the same way from association?" she asks.
"Quite possibly," he agrees.
"Well," she says, sounding completely serious at last, "I think I get why you’re acting like this is kinda skeevy. Y’know, besides the age gap and the species thing and all that." This list is said as if it happens to be utterly unimportant and truly makes him wonder about what goes on inside of her brain. She bites her lip and then asks, "When this started, how did you think it would end?"
He rubs the back of his head, mulling it over. "Didn’t know it was starting, actually. After I caught on, I mostly assumed I’d sort of stumble into it and have it work out that way."
"Okay," she says, leaning towards him. "I’m gonna ask you a question. There’s two options you can pick from and you’ve gotta pick one."
He nods because he owes her that much.
"You risking a fatal paradox to send me back in time for a shag, or me doing whatever I have to do to be there for my best mate," she says. "One’s likely, one’s not. Your pick."
"Rose," he says softly.
She kisses him, soft and tender and everything he doesn’t deserve. "Don’t be daft."
"Rose."
"And don’t you dare go off on one of your guilt trips or something. ‘Cause it’s my idea an’ you just had to remind me, s’all," she tells him, hugging him from the side. "Just had to tell me it was possible."
"Rose."
She looks up at him, lets him speak. "Yeah?"
"Thank you," he tells her and pulls her tight against him, his fantastic, precious girl.
They stay like that for quite a while.
"Okay, so we had the first thing, the second thing and the third thing - not in that order - but we never got around to the fourth thing," she informs him.
He frowns, puzzling it over. "What fourth thing?"
She answers him simply: "Sex."
"Now?"
A nod. "Yeah."
"Here?"
"Bed?" she asks.
"Yours," he insists.
They grin at one another and she takes his hand. "Let’s."
Her bed is a little too small and far too pink but she’s discovering her audacity and he won’t ever say no. After what he’s told her, he’s still amazed that she’s saying yes.
She’s yet to climb on top of him like it’s her accustomed place, yet to undress him like it’s her right. Of course, he technically has yet to see her naked, so it’s not like he can talk.
She gropes his bum a bit and while he’ll be first in line to agree that this is yet another wonderful location for hand-placing, he likes other things more, needs her to touch him differently if he’s going to touch her the way he’s waited to. He catches her hands, presses her palms to the sides of his face. Fingertips creep into his hair and he readjusts her grip on him, murmurs something against her lips about her staying like this, just for a little while. It’s as if his skin is on fire, feels like it, feels like this might work.
She arches up to fit her body against him, all warm and soft and when he slips his hands under her top, presses them against the skin of her back, when he does that, she gasps into his mouth and arches further, moves without intent, only reaction. She’s still not used to it, still unaccustomed to the temperature of his body. She’s not used to it, but she doesn’t pull away, only holds on tighter, squirms against him.
His hips slam her down, grind against hers mercilessly and her answering cry fails to be one of complaint. Her hands leave his face, clutch at his shirt, his back, and he nearly forgets what he has planned. He pants into her neck, moves his hands from her back to her stomach and when she gasps, it’s not from cold.
He’s ready, he decides. Nuzzling as he goes, he moves down her body, kisses her skin where her top has risen up. It occurs to him that he should really impress her now. He’s going to look like such a clumsy git when he’s younger.
He pulls down her skirt as he flicks his tongue into her navel, tastes her there because he can. Realizing his intent, she whimpers, a weakly sighed expletive encouraging him.
He chuckles, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to her stomach as he rids her of her knickers as well, loving the way she moves beneath him to help. The side of his face against her skin, he nuzzles her belly in a pointedly languid counterpoint to her struggling legs, twisting hips.
It’s her turn to make inarticulate noises, to writhe deliciously beneath him, the scent of her arousal strengthening the further down he goes. He wants very much to lick and taste and suck and so he does.
A keening cry meets his ears as hands tangle in his hair, push his head down in encouragement. Chuckling entirely on purpose, lips tugging, tongue pressing, stroking, flicking, he gathers up the taste of her, can’t imagine why he’s never done this before.
And the sounds she makes, the mewling whimper as he pauses, the groan when he presses there or licks here, the gasp as he rubs his sideburns against the inside of her thighs. But best of all, best of all sounds she has ever made, best of all is his name falling from her lips, pulled from her as he thrusts his tongue into her core.
He smirks and lets her feel it, presses his mouth to her in a wet and intimate kiss, drinking in the scent of her. Hot fingers pull at his hair, touch his neck. He keeps his hands on her, keeps his hands warm with her heat. "Rose," he murmurs, growls her name into her, plays with the syllable with lips and tongue, caressing her with it. "Rose, Rose, Rose . . ."
She gasps and jerks and squirms and it’s beautiful, she’s beautiful, glorious, exquisite. His. She’s his. Now and always, for the rest of his life, she’ll be his.
Sucking, licking, tasting, he lays claim with tongue and lips and teeth. He gauges her reactions, takes note of her sounds as he presses his tongue flat or strokes with the tip, learns her responses and uses them mercilessly against her. She presses into his mouth, her hips bucking up against him, and he moans for her, against her, into her, long and low and loud and she moans to match.
He tastes her orgasm and immediately decides that she should have another.
After he’s done with that - for a little while, perhaps - he sits up to look at her, lying limp and languid before him with the perfect little smile, at once content and dazed. As she watches, he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, licks it clean. Breathing out a shuddering sigh, she reaches for him and he climbs over her, blanketing her with his body, his precious girl.
Her arms wrap around him, hold him weakly. "You’re still completely dressed," she tells him, points out this important fact.
"Yep," he tells her, popping the "p" close to her ear. "Actually, no. Started with just the shirt. Took my socks and trainers off, too."
"Yeah, I saw an’ . . ." She closes her eyes, tightens her grip on him. "Oh god."
"What?" he asks, not entirely sure of this reaction.
"Death by shagging," she replies.
"Long, slow, drawn-out death by shagging," he agrees.
She giggles, petting his hair. "Life’s overrated." Their legs twine together, hers bare, his covered.
He snickers like the arrogant madman he is. "I’m rather fond of it at the moment," he informs her seriously, rocking his hips against hers.
She groans, eyes squeezing shut. "G- gimme a mo’?"
He’s already given her years, but would give her decades if she asked him, if she could hold them within her life span. "Yes," he replies. "As long as you want."
"Want now, need later," she answers and he’s back to snickering.
"Well then," he says.
"Yeah," she breathes.
He is very, very pleased with himself.
Seeing a perfect opportunity for cuddling, he seizes upon it, rolling off her to gather her against him. She sighs, pressing back into him, and her hand covers his encouragingly when it slips beneath her top.
She trembles, just a little, but her voice is remarkably steady as she asks, "About that entwinement thing . . ."
Ah, there it is. The not-making-sense-in-bed. "Mm?"
"How’s it work?" she asks him snuggling into him contentedly, pressing her shapely little bum against a not-so-content piece of him. He bites back a groan and it comes out like a growl instead.
She pulls his arm tight around her and pushes back even more firmly.
"How’s it work?" she prompts him again. "After the loop is closed or whatever - the paradox prevented - what happens?"
"It-" His breath hitches as she shifts. "It stops being dangerous. Obviously, if the crucial period of time is attacked or altered, there would be problems, ah . . ."
"Obviously," she agrees, squeezing her thighs tight around the leg he’s pushed between hers. She’s hot and burning and he can smell her on him, can smell him on her. "But once it’s complete, there shouldn’t be a problem, normally?"
He grinds into her rear, squeezes her breast the way he knows she likes it. "No," he admits, sounding more strained than he would like. "But . . ."
"But what?" she asks, turning her head for a look at his eyes, for the kiss he wants to give her.
"It keeps you safe," he murmurs to her lips. "I can feel it - when it’s in danger of not coming to pass, I can feel it . . . correct it." He’s depended on it for as long as he’s known her name, has had to depend on it. "Protect you."
She releases his leg to roll over, to press against him chest-to-chest. "S’okay," she tells him.
"I’ll lose you," he tries to explain. "If it’s gone-"
"You’ll think of something," she interrupts, interrupts with a kiss. "You’re brilliant, after all."
"Completely genius," he agrees, slipping his hand around to her back, fumbling one-handedly with the catch of her bra.
They snog a bit, sitting up enough for him to return her to her proper state - namely, naked and in his lap. She toys at his tie, loosens the knot slowly. A thought striking him, he breaks the kiss to watch her face, his hands cupping her shoulder blades.
"S’like," she says slowly, says and then trails off, a blush crossing her features.
"Like what?" he asks her, touching her face, already knowing the answer.
"S’like unwrapping a present," she says for the first time, says it quietly and without looking him in the eye, embarrassed.
"Mm," he replies, brushing his lips against hers, his hand in her hair. "Yours."
It’s a statement, not an offer, but she responds as if it were, as if he’d added something about it being a limited time only deal, as if he might snatch back the words. He is very quickly rendered shirtless, her clever fingers working through tie and buttons as her legs wrap about his waist, hold him where he’d never try to leave.
"Rose," he says, cries, reminds her, presses up and into her hand, her hot little hand cupping him through cloth.
"Penetrate, flare, climax, withdraw," she repeats, pants out the carefully explained mantra. "No stopping until the end. No thrusting."
"I’m," he tries to say, both of them fumbling for his zipper. "I - colder than - body heat, and, you, ah, hot and, and, yes. Yes." Both straining to rise up enough for the act, they shove his pants and trousers down, the cloth getting caught mid-thigh and giving him a rush of sexual déjà vu, the rising memory of his first blowjob and his legs restrained. "Oh Rose."
He brushes against her opening, her weight pressing down on him as she shifts and gasps and he has to fight not to bite down on her shoulder, not to mark her before it’s time. "Warm enough," she decides quickly and takes him inside.
There are words for this, he thinks. Words like homecoming and completion and many other things he’s never believed in, never cared to believe in until he had her to believe in as well.
He flares and he’s almost braced for it, almost prepared for the way they don’t interlock, not completely, for the way he clutches at her from the inside and still cannot hold on. She lets out a shriek that turns into a low moan, nearly pulls up and pull back but stops, stops at his cry and comes back down, returns to him and the Shorts of Rassilon, that hurt.
Her arms tighten around his neck as he grips her by the waist, hands digging into her hips. "Did I, oh god, did I?" she asks and this is it, this is why he made sure she came before, why he hopes she’ll remember the start and not the finish.
He shakes his head, a lie. "No," he pants, "no, good, like this, like, yes, this."
They fumble into it and she catches on quickly, such a fast learner, his girl, his, his his his, his lover now, yes, his lover. To love and be loved by; to shag and be shagged by. His his his. He finds that rhythm they hold between them, adapts it for this body, new and untested and hers.
He grinds up into her and she rocks her hips, rolls them, clenches, nearly holds him as tightly as he needs. "Please," she gasps into his shoulder. "Please, oh god, I, please."
"Rose, Rose Tyler," he replies, clutching her to him.
And then that’s her mouth, her mouth on his shoulder, biting and sucking, and oh yes, this is going to leave a mark, her mark, her claim and yes. Yes.
They shudder together and he follows her into completion, still sighing her name.
"Can we go now?" she asks one day, sitting on the jump seat as he tinkers beneath the console.
He shakes his head even though she can’t see it with him down where he is. "There’s still time."
"I know."
Her voice draws him up, brings him around to her side of the console. He leans back against it, ignoring the levers digging into him as he crosses his arms. ". . . You’re sure, then?"
"Yeah," she replies, nodding, then gives him a small smile. "Can’t keep your reality hanging in the balance, now, can I?"
He shrugs fondly. "I don’t mind."
"I do."
He looks down, sees her feet as she moves to stand before him, to reach for the contact he’ll always give her.
"It’s okay," she tells him, holding his hands, one in each of hers. Their arms form a circle between them and his lips quirk at the symbolism. "I’ll come back to you."
"I know," he says, not doubting it.
She always has.
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 10.7k
Warnings: Spoilers for season two
Beta: vyctori
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: "Come with me." She's worth it, he thinks. They fit so well together and she already knows how to use a fire extinguisher.
Chapter 6a
He leans on the entwinement, using it as ruthlessly as it uses him, both time and Time Lord struggling for their own fulfillment. If it tightens or stretches, here is danger: run. Don’t do what makes it worse. Don’t do what makes it complete.
Don’t give up this guiding star, this landmark in time. So long as he has it, he knows how to move, knows how to avert the worst catastrophe of all, the loss of her.
It keeps her safe, gives him vague instruction instead of letting him wander lost. Even in this, she gives him purpose, gives him clarity and he needs that.
He needs her.
He needs her and he knows that someday, some point in time after the entwinement is fulfilled and after she’s had a full and long life - and she will have a full and long life - she’ll die. He knows that. There’s a clock in his head, tick, tick, ticking its way through the moments, through every single second.
For that, he hates it. She’ll die soon, sooner, even sooner now, simply because of the passage of time. The clock counts on, but it counts the moments in both directions.
This is how long she’ll stay.
This is how long she’s been with him already.
Both counts can’t be high, a finite number of moments transferring constantly from the first category into the second. And he can’t stop it, can’t stop the loss of her if he is to keep the gain of her.
Tick, tick, tick, just waiting for a tock.
She’s patched him together, his fantastic, precious girl. He’d shattered and she’d taken up the pieces, glued them back together. The glue won’t last forever, can’t last as long as him, so it has to be now. Now, while she’s holding him together, he’s got to complete the repairs she’s started.
Otherwise, when she’s gone - as she will be but not for a long time yet, a very long time - when she’s gone, it all will have been pointless, a waste of her as he falls apart once more. He can’t do that to her, can’t put her through all of this and render her efforts useless.
He won’t.
"Hey, can you teach me how to use fire extinguishers? Alien ones that don’t come with the instructional label?"
"Sorry, what?"
"Y’know, the thing normal people put fires out with. That handy world-saving tool?"
"Um. Why?"
"Well, you use ‘em all the time and I just thought . . ."
"That you should too?"
"Yeah."
". . . Okay."
It was only a matter of time. Really, he should have expected this, should have seen it coming ages back.
But it’s not like it’s his fault for not noticing. He’s had a lot on his mind, a very large lot on his mind. Small wonder it snuck up on him like this. Completely unexpected and all.
His well-formulated and carefully thought-out argument is gasped into her mouth, rationale breaking apart into a muffled murmur. Warm weight presses down upon him, blankets him delightfully. His overcoat on the back of the couch, his suit jacket spilled onto the floor, her hands easily slip beneath his shirt, untuck the cloth to touch his chest.
She marvels at the coolness of his skin, lifts herself off him enough to explore one-handed. Her hair falls into his face and he brushes it back, brushes the dyed strands away from their kiss. Her hand travels between his hearts, a trailing touch that sends his hips grinding up into hers. Her legs on either side of his, her thighs squeeze his, hold him in a tempting preview of what is to come.
He tries to speak, tries to halt momentum with rambling words that even he knows make no sense. He’s saying one thing and completely doing another, his hands cupping her curves, his hips rolling against hers insistently, body begging for entrance. She drags herself over him, finding friction in the cloth between them even as her skirt rides up.
"I need," he tries to say, "I need to- need to- Rose, I- please, let me, please."
"Yes," she pants into his ear, her hands lower between them now, tugging at his fly and touching him in the same motion. "Yes."
He cries out as she cups him, bucks into her hand in the desperate need for entry and still he hasn’t penetrated, hasn’t even been touched skin-to-skin. The sounds he makes are absurd; he’s never been so helplessly vocal. Moans break into whimpers, groans into sighs, manly grunts into high-pitched squeaks. He can’t stop it and she pushes him further, rewards each sound with the incentive for another.
"Rose, please, I- explain- need to-" He interrupts himself with a noise he’s never made before, not with this mouth.
"Explain later," she tells him and provides a compelling argument as to why he should. Later sounds good, later sounds very, very good, fantastically good, but he knows better.
"Now," he insists, pushing at her shoulder, forcing her up with a will he doesn’t truly have. "Now. You need to listen to - oh."
Change of angle, focus of pressure, grinding friction and heat heat heat . . .
His head pressing back into the couch cushion, he squeezes shut his eyes, gasps and tries to control the jerking motions of his hips. He’s still pressing up into her, still straining for her.
She rises up and he nearly pulls her back down. The sides of her shins press into the outside of his thighs; her hands against his bare stomach keep him where he is. The skin beneath his hands is bare as well, her skirt giving him every opportunity to touch her legs.
"Talk fast," she tells him, panting and she kneels over him.
The noise he makes in reply is highly inarticulate.
Her fingers drum on his ribcage.
"Not helping," he informs her.
"Not explaining," she reminds him. "If you’re not going to, then I’m just gonna have to . . ."
He groans, makes a grab at coherency as he forces himself to change his grip on her, move his hand from flesh to cloth. He can’t let go, but he can’t hold on. "Two things," he gasps. "Different biology. Not human, so obviously, it’d be different. Not that different - not that I’ve compared - not different in appearance, not so much, I think - oh, gah, stop that - behaviorally, that’s the issue, that’s it, yes, I, yes - can’t stop, no - ahh - no stopping once, ah, penetration and, and - stop, stop, please, Rose, don’t . . . don’t . . . . Thank you."
His head lolls to the side, his body an impossible mixture of tension and relief. His hips still jerk, the motion completely beyond his control, this helpless begging and blatant display of need. His hands fall from her sides, slip from her waist to fall further, one hitting the couch cushion, one hanging off the piece of furniture entirely.
She lets him breathe, allows him this terrifying moment when all control is gone, allows him to endure it.
It might be the pain of waiting or it could simply be the scent of her arousal filling up his head. It might be a lot of things, a great deal of things he can’t face at the moment and so he keeps his eyes closed. He breathes, tries to breathe. His respiratory bypass isn’t helping, would probably startle her anyway if he used it now.
Murmuring his name, she touches his face, sounds more worried than frustrated, more concerned than annoyed. He nuzzles into her hand, leans into her touch. He’s always done that. He’s always done it and now there’s no point in denying it, not after what she’s just seen.
"Did I hurt you?" she asks, sounding scared. "Your different biology - did I . . . ?"
He shakes his head, rubs his cheek against her palm, still unable to speak with an unwavering voice. "No. No, you . . . . If we kept going, maybe. If I startled you and you pulled back . . . . I need to . . ."
"Explain," she finishes for him.
"Two things," he agrees. "You need to know both first."
Because consent is meaningless if it’s not informed consent.
"If you’re about to give me the alien sex talk," she tells him seriously, impatiently, "I’ve already had it."
He frowns up at her, going so far as to open his eyes to see. "No you haven’t," he protests. "I don’t care what your mother says, she’s not qualified to give that talk. And if she is," he adds belatedly, "I’d really rather not know."
As far as mood dampers go, that one is highly effective. He might even say extremely.
She laughs at the look on his face, shakes her head. "Nope. Got my information from a very knowledgeable source. Ex-Time Agent, you know."
He stares at her. "You’re kidding."
"’m not," she replies. "Got the safety talk, the manners talk, the how-not-to-react-to-unexpected-bits talk . . . . I think I’ve got enough talks."
"He gave you talks," he says blankly, mind inexplicably detached from the movements of her hips. "He taught you how to have sex with random aliens."
She shakes her head, her hair still mussed from his hands. "With a very specific random alien," she corrects, sending memories crashing through him.
Looking up at her like this - oh, Rassilon, no - she’s herself already, simply unaware of it. The time is soon to come, very soon to come and after, his lifeline of the entwinement, his simple and easy guide to keeping her safe, after that, it’s gone. He’ll lose her after this, he knows he will, knows something will happen because he can’t see it coming.
She sits on his thighs and he sits up, pushes himself up with his arms, pushes himself up and gathers her to him, her arms wrapping around him instantly. Enfolding her in his arms, he presses his face into the crook of her neck, gently kisses what bare skin he finds before simply resting his head on her shoulder.
"Doctor, what’s wrong?" she asks him, tense and holding tightly to him and that’s good. That’s very good. He wants her to hold on, wants her to never let go. "Tell me." She cradles his head, keeps him where he is. "Whatever it is, we can-"
"I love you."
Her body tenses as she stops breathing and he has never felt more like a child, hiding his face and clinging for comfort. He tries to stop but he can’t seem to, can’t reclaim composure when she’s rapidly becoming the woman he fell in love with twice. She should know him and love him and hold him and he wants that back, wants it so much that it physically pains him.
"What was that?" she asks softly, holding him as if realizing for the first time that he can break.
"I love you," he replies, attempting to sound irritable. It’s an impossible task with her on his lap but then, he likes impossible. "Try to pay better attention."
"Okay," she breathes, relaxing into him, stroking his back soothingly. "Definitely paying attention from now on."
"Very good." Well, no, it’s not, not until he gets the looked-for response out of her, but it’ll have to do for now.
He lifts his head from her shoulder, pulls back enough to look at her.
She kisses him immediately. "Love you," she murmurs against his lips. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
"Rose Tyler," he says.
"Loves you," she adds with a smile, finishing his sentence.
"I like the sound of that," he admits, hands stroking her sides.
"You’d better," she replies, shifting on his lap, unfolding her legs to loosely wrap them around him. "You’re sort of stuck with it."
He looks up at her, admiring the brightness of her eyes. "Am I now?"
"Yep," she replies simply, "‘fraid so."
The corners of his mouth twitch. "I’ll make the best of it, I suppose."
"You’ll just have to manage, yeah," she agrees, tangling her hands in his hair.
"Oh, I can do that," he tells her seriously. "I can do anything, me."
She grins at him, arms around his neck, legs tightening around his waist. "Including sex with Rose Tyler?"
"With the utmost skill," he replies before continuing with equal seriousness and less arrogance. "Just not now."
That delightful shifting on his lap stops immediately. "Two things, you said," she reminds him, confused. "That was two things."
He blinks. "What? No, wait, that was- Well, yes, I suppose. Or no. Not, I mean. That was the first thing and the third thing, skipped over the second thing entirely."
She frowns. "If there were three things, why’d you only say two?"
"Meant to get to the third bit later," he admits. "But you know me, running at the mouth as always. Just sort of popped out."
"I’m glad," she says. "That it did. ‘m glad."
There’s an incomprehensible mix of emotion flowing between his hearts, tangling and clashing and merging together, taking elation and nerves and mashing them together, melding fear and relief, combining giddy euphoria with the utmost dread.
She watches his face, easily picks up on his mood. Not the nuances of it, never the nuances of it, not when he can’t understand them himself. But enough. Always enough. "S’okay," she says gently, so very gently that he just might break anyway. "You can tell me."
He wants to ask for later, to promise he’ll get around to it eventually but eventually has begun to collide with now and there’s nothing else for him to do, nowhen for him to run to.
It takes him two attempts, but he says it.
"It’s about the Time War," he breathes. "About how I survived." He closes his eyes, fights back the twisting sensation between his hearts. "And why," he adds quietly, even softer than before. His throat closes after that, refuses to allow even his babble to break through.
She holds him, holds herself against him, her heat sinking into him through her gentle embrace, gentle and secure. His arms tighten around her, pull her closer still.
She tries to speak, manages to tell him what she’s told him before. "You’ve got me," she tells him, sounds so strangely sad, sounds as if she believes she should somehow be able to give him more than all that she is. "You’ve got me and ‘m never gonna leave you. Love you too much."
"Yes," he answers, accepting a promise she can’t fulfill. "That’s the ‘and why.’"
After, she sits back against the arm of the couch, sits there with her legs pulled up to her chest, sits there hugging her knees. "It’s like . . ."
"Like what?" he asks, watching her face carefully, waiting for the play of emotion across her features to be decided one way or another. He hasn’t told her everything, hasn’t told her half of it, merely the outline. They met, they had a few adventures, she was there for him both before and after the War and then he’d had to find her. Couldn’t have tried to stay away.
"It’s like," she says again, trying to find the words he knows she’ll find. "It’s like a non-linear love story."
"Yes," he says quietly, "it is."
She bites her lip, stares at a point in spacetime that not even he can see. There might be flecks of gold in her eyes, but he’s too afraid to look. She’s quiet then, for a time.
"I’m not surprised," she says at last, sounding surprised.
He blinks at her.
"I mean, I should be, yeah?" she asks. "But ‘m not. Not even confused," she adds, sounding confused.
This is not the reaction he expected, not any of the reactions he expected. And he’s thought of millions of ways this might go. "Rose?"
"It makes sense," she says. "In my head, it just - it makes perfect sense. And I know it shouldn’t, so I’m confused over that, but, yeah. I feel like . . . . I dunno." She bites her lip again, going somewhere in her mind where he can’t follow. "S’like . . . like you told me about a dream I had. I already knew, I just . . . didn’t know I knew, I guess."
"What do you dream about?" he asks, touching the entwinement to make sure it’s still in the safety range. What he finds surprises him: it’s the loosest around him it’s ever been, giving him more leeway in his actions than he’s had since he’d met her. "A recurring one, maybe?"
She thinks about it for a moment. She bites back a smile, telling him, "I’ve got this one where you’re in velvet and on fire and I’ve gotta put you out. And then we laugh about it later."
This is said as if it couldn’t possibly be important.
"Do you really?" he asks. "Is that why you asked for the fire extinguisher lessons?"
"Could be, yeah," she replies, just a touch sheepishly, a bit more like she’s ready to laugh at herself.
"Ah," he says because, really, there’s nothing else to say. He’s tempted to ask if she ever dreams about having sex with him, but that could easily be taken in completely the wrong way. "What happens after that?" he asks instead, feigning innocence.
"Dunno, really," she replies, shrugging a little though her cheeks do flush. "Just goes the way dreams go, I guess."
Meaning that she wakes up before the good part?
He can’t ask that, thinks about it instead.
"Hey." Moving forward to tap him on the arm, she’s looking at him in a way she’s never looked at him before, like he might actually be frail. "When are we going to do this? Go back into your timeline, I mean," she clarifies, part of her mind still obviously on intercourse of the nonverbal kind.
He stares at her. "You want to? Just like that." Obviously, he’s left out too many of the sketchy details. "Rose, you don’t-"
Her finger is soft and firm against his lips. "You needed a hand to hold, yeah? Okay, I can do that."
"Rose-"
"I want to do it," she adds. "I mean, I’ve thought about it - different, but sort of - but I figured there’d be a paradox involved or something. But if it turns out I can be there for you, I’m gonna be an’ -"
"We had sex."
There is a short moment as she processes this. "Okay," she says. "Now I really want to do this."
"Rose! This isn’t a joke," he stresses. "It’s a paradox waiting to happen, self-fulfillment and entwinement all rolled together."
"I know, I get that," she tells him patiently. "It’s serious. What’s entwinement?"
"Two or more timelines twisting together to the point where the destruction or violation of one at a certain period of time would result in destruction or violation of the other," he rattles off.
She processes this as well. "So if I don’t go and visit younger you, your timeline implodes or something?"
"More or less," he admits.
"And then mine goes the same way from association?" she asks.
"Quite possibly," he agrees.
"Well," she says, sounding completely serious at last, "I think I get why you’re acting like this is kinda skeevy. Y’know, besides the age gap and the species thing and all that." This list is said as if it happens to be utterly unimportant and truly makes him wonder about what goes on inside of her brain. She bites her lip and then asks, "When this started, how did you think it would end?"
He rubs the back of his head, mulling it over. "Didn’t know it was starting, actually. After I caught on, I mostly assumed I’d sort of stumble into it and have it work out that way."
"Okay," she says, leaning towards him. "I’m gonna ask you a question. There’s two options you can pick from and you’ve gotta pick one."
He nods because he owes her that much.
"You risking a fatal paradox to send me back in time for a shag, or me doing whatever I have to do to be there for my best mate," she says. "One’s likely, one’s not. Your pick."
"Rose," he says softly.
She kisses him, soft and tender and everything he doesn’t deserve. "Don’t be daft."
"Rose."
"And don’t you dare go off on one of your guilt trips or something. ‘Cause it’s my idea an’ you just had to remind me, s’all," she tells him, hugging him from the side. "Just had to tell me it was possible."
"Rose."
She looks up at him, lets him speak. "Yeah?"
"Thank you," he tells her and pulls her tight against him, his fantastic, precious girl.
They stay like that for quite a while.
"Okay, so we had the first thing, the second thing and the third thing - not in that order - but we never got around to the fourth thing," she informs him.
He frowns, puzzling it over. "What fourth thing?"
She answers him simply: "Sex."
"Now?"
A nod. "Yeah."
"Here?"
"Bed?" she asks.
"Yours," he insists.
They grin at one another and she takes his hand. "Let’s."
Her bed is a little too small and far too pink but she’s discovering her audacity and he won’t ever say no. After what he’s told her, he’s still amazed that she’s saying yes.
She’s yet to climb on top of him like it’s her accustomed place, yet to undress him like it’s her right. Of course, he technically has yet to see her naked, so it’s not like he can talk.
She gropes his bum a bit and while he’ll be first in line to agree that this is yet another wonderful location for hand-placing, he likes other things more, needs her to touch him differently if he’s going to touch her the way he’s waited to. He catches her hands, presses her palms to the sides of his face. Fingertips creep into his hair and he readjusts her grip on him, murmurs something against her lips about her staying like this, just for a little while. It’s as if his skin is on fire, feels like it, feels like this might work.
She arches up to fit her body against him, all warm and soft and when he slips his hands under her top, presses them against the skin of her back, when he does that, she gasps into his mouth and arches further, moves without intent, only reaction. She’s still not used to it, still unaccustomed to the temperature of his body. She’s not used to it, but she doesn’t pull away, only holds on tighter, squirms against him.
His hips slam her down, grind against hers mercilessly and her answering cry fails to be one of complaint. Her hands leave his face, clutch at his shirt, his back, and he nearly forgets what he has planned. He pants into her neck, moves his hands from her back to her stomach and when she gasps, it’s not from cold.
He’s ready, he decides. Nuzzling as he goes, he moves down her body, kisses her skin where her top has risen up. It occurs to him that he should really impress her now. He’s going to look like such a clumsy git when he’s younger.
He pulls down her skirt as he flicks his tongue into her navel, tastes her there because he can. Realizing his intent, she whimpers, a weakly sighed expletive encouraging him.
He chuckles, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to her stomach as he rids her of her knickers as well, loving the way she moves beneath him to help. The side of his face against her skin, he nuzzles her belly in a pointedly languid counterpoint to her struggling legs, twisting hips.
It’s her turn to make inarticulate noises, to writhe deliciously beneath him, the scent of her arousal strengthening the further down he goes. He wants very much to lick and taste and suck and so he does.
A keening cry meets his ears as hands tangle in his hair, push his head down in encouragement. Chuckling entirely on purpose, lips tugging, tongue pressing, stroking, flicking, he gathers up the taste of her, can’t imagine why he’s never done this before.
And the sounds she makes, the mewling whimper as he pauses, the groan when he presses there or licks here, the gasp as he rubs his sideburns against the inside of her thighs. But best of all, best of all sounds she has ever made, best of all is his name falling from her lips, pulled from her as he thrusts his tongue into her core.
He smirks and lets her feel it, presses his mouth to her in a wet and intimate kiss, drinking in the scent of her. Hot fingers pull at his hair, touch his neck. He keeps his hands on her, keeps his hands warm with her heat. "Rose," he murmurs, growls her name into her, plays with the syllable with lips and tongue, caressing her with it. "Rose, Rose, Rose . . ."
She gasps and jerks and squirms and it’s beautiful, she’s beautiful, glorious, exquisite. His. She’s his. Now and always, for the rest of his life, she’ll be his.
Sucking, licking, tasting, he lays claim with tongue and lips and teeth. He gauges her reactions, takes note of her sounds as he presses his tongue flat or strokes with the tip, learns her responses and uses them mercilessly against her. She presses into his mouth, her hips bucking up against him, and he moans for her, against her, into her, long and low and loud and she moans to match.
He tastes her orgasm and immediately decides that she should have another.
After he’s done with that - for a little while, perhaps - he sits up to look at her, lying limp and languid before him with the perfect little smile, at once content and dazed. As she watches, he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, licks it clean. Breathing out a shuddering sigh, she reaches for him and he climbs over her, blanketing her with his body, his precious girl.
Her arms wrap around him, hold him weakly. "You’re still completely dressed," she tells him, points out this important fact.
"Yep," he tells her, popping the "p" close to her ear. "Actually, no. Started with just the shirt. Took my socks and trainers off, too."
"Yeah, I saw an’ . . ." She closes her eyes, tightens her grip on him. "Oh god."
"What?" he asks, not entirely sure of this reaction.
"Death by shagging," she replies.
"Long, slow, drawn-out death by shagging," he agrees.
She giggles, petting his hair. "Life’s overrated." Their legs twine together, hers bare, his covered.
He snickers like the arrogant madman he is. "I’m rather fond of it at the moment," he informs her seriously, rocking his hips against hers.
She groans, eyes squeezing shut. "G- gimme a mo’?"
He’s already given her years, but would give her decades if she asked him, if she could hold them within her life span. "Yes," he replies. "As long as you want."
"Want now, need later," she answers and he’s back to snickering.
"Well then," he says.
"Yeah," she breathes.
He is very, very pleased with himself.
Seeing a perfect opportunity for cuddling, he seizes upon it, rolling off her to gather her against him. She sighs, pressing back into him, and her hand covers his encouragingly when it slips beneath her top.
She trembles, just a little, but her voice is remarkably steady as she asks, "About that entwinement thing . . ."
Ah, there it is. The not-making-sense-in-bed. "Mm?"
"How’s it work?" she asks him snuggling into him contentedly, pressing her shapely little bum against a not-so-content piece of him. He bites back a groan and it comes out like a growl instead.
She pulls his arm tight around her and pushes back even more firmly.
"How’s it work?" she prompts him again. "After the loop is closed or whatever - the paradox prevented - what happens?"
"It-" His breath hitches as she shifts. "It stops being dangerous. Obviously, if the crucial period of time is attacked or altered, there would be problems, ah . . ."
"Obviously," she agrees, squeezing her thighs tight around the leg he’s pushed between hers. She’s hot and burning and he can smell her on him, can smell him on her. "But once it’s complete, there shouldn’t be a problem, normally?"
He grinds into her rear, squeezes her breast the way he knows she likes it. "No," he admits, sounding more strained than he would like. "But . . ."
"But what?" she asks, turning her head for a look at his eyes, for the kiss he wants to give her.
"It keeps you safe," he murmurs to her lips. "I can feel it - when it’s in danger of not coming to pass, I can feel it . . . correct it." He’s depended on it for as long as he’s known her name, has had to depend on it. "Protect you."
She releases his leg to roll over, to press against him chest-to-chest. "S’okay," she tells him.
"I’ll lose you," he tries to explain. "If it’s gone-"
"You’ll think of something," she interrupts, interrupts with a kiss. "You’re brilliant, after all."
"Completely genius," he agrees, slipping his hand around to her back, fumbling one-handedly with the catch of her bra.
They snog a bit, sitting up enough for him to return her to her proper state - namely, naked and in his lap. She toys at his tie, loosens the knot slowly. A thought striking him, he breaks the kiss to watch her face, his hands cupping her shoulder blades.
"S’like," she says slowly, says and then trails off, a blush crossing her features.
"Like what?" he asks her, touching her face, already knowing the answer.
"S’like unwrapping a present," she says for the first time, says it quietly and without looking him in the eye, embarrassed.
"Mm," he replies, brushing his lips against hers, his hand in her hair. "Yours."
It’s a statement, not an offer, but she responds as if it were, as if he’d added something about it being a limited time only deal, as if he might snatch back the words. He is very quickly rendered shirtless, her clever fingers working through tie and buttons as her legs wrap about his waist, hold him where he’d never try to leave.
"Rose," he says, cries, reminds her, presses up and into her hand, her hot little hand cupping him through cloth.
"Penetrate, flare, climax, withdraw," she repeats, pants out the carefully explained mantra. "No stopping until the end. No thrusting."
"I’m," he tries to say, both of them fumbling for his zipper. "I - colder than - body heat, and, you, ah, hot and, and, yes. Yes." Both straining to rise up enough for the act, they shove his pants and trousers down, the cloth getting caught mid-thigh and giving him a rush of sexual déjà vu, the rising memory of his first blowjob and his legs restrained. "Oh Rose."
He brushes against her opening, her weight pressing down on him as she shifts and gasps and he has to fight not to bite down on her shoulder, not to mark her before it’s time. "Warm enough," she decides quickly and takes him inside.
There are words for this, he thinks. Words like homecoming and completion and many other things he’s never believed in, never cared to believe in until he had her to believe in as well.
He flares and he’s almost braced for it, almost prepared for the way they don’t interlock, not completely, for the way he clutches at her from the inside and still cannot hold on. She lets out a shriek that turns into a low moan, nearly pulls up and pull back but stops, stops at his cry and comes back down, returns to him and the Shorts of Rassilon, that hurt.
Her arms tighten around his neck as he grips her by the waist, hands digging into her hips. "Did I, oh god, did I?" she asks and this is it, this is why he made sure she came before, why he hopes she’ll remember the start and not the finish.
He shakes his head, a lie. "No," he pants, "no, good, like this, like, yes, this."
They fumble into it and she catches on quickly, such a fast learner, his girl, his, his his his, his lover now, yes, his lover. To love and be loved by; to shag and be shagged by. His his his. He finds that rhythm they hold between them, adapts it for this body, new and untested and hers.
He grinds up into her and she rocks her hips, rolls them, clenches, nearly holds him as tightly as he needs. "Please," she gasps into his shoulder. "Please, oh god, I, please."
"Rose, Rose Tyler," he replies, clutching her to him.
And then that’s her mouth, her mouth on his shoulder, biting and sucking, and oh yes, this is going to leave a mark, her mark, her claim and yes. Yes.
They shudder together and he follows her into completion, still sighing her name.
"Can we go now?" she asks one day, sitting on the jump seat as he tinkers beneath the console.
He shakes his head even though she can’t see it with him down where he is. "There’s still time."
"I know."
Her voice draws him up, brings him around to her side of the console. He leans back against it, ignoring the levers digging into him as he crosses his arms. ". . . You’re sure, then?"
"Yeah," she replies, nodding, then gives him a small smile. "Can’t keep your reality hanging in the balance, now, can I?"
He shrugs fondly. "I don’t mind."
"I do."
He looks down, sees her feet as she moves to stand before him, to reach for the contact he’ll always give her.
"It’s okay," she tells him, holding his hands, one in each of hers. Their arms form a circle between them and his lips quirk at the symbolism. "I’ll come back to you."
"I know," he says, not doubting it.
She always has.