Collaborative Fic: What Happens in Vegas (1/3)
Title: What Happens in Vegas (1/3)
Authors: fid_gin and unfolded73
Beta: jfiliberti
Pairing: Ten/alt!Ten/Rose
Rating: NC-17
Summary: While the threesome enjoy a trip to Las Vegas, the part-human Doctor wonders how he can set himself apart from the Time Lord.
A/N: Written for catyuy, who won fid_gin in the help_haiti auction. This story is part of the Loved 'Verse, and falls a few weeks after "Feeling by Proxy" in the chronology. More specifically, fact fans, it can be placed between the first and second scenes in "Love's Not a Competition." One additional note about this fic: This may seem like it's developing in a way which some of you will probably not approve of, but we ask that you trust us.
He'd been staring at his face in the mirror for far too long.
The part-human Doctor had dragged himself into the en-suite to wash up, ignoring the slightly light-headed, sluggish feeling that came from just having had an orgasm. He'd been delayed in his quest by his reflection. Rose would probably giggle and elbow him in the ribs and accuse him of vanity, but that wasn't what it was. Well, mostly not what it was.
It had been a few weeks since he had shared his mind with Rose and the other Doctor through a rather brilliant bit of improvisation on the Time Lord's part; it had been wonderful, and had brought the three of them together closer than before, but it had also cast into relief that, no matter how similar they were on the outside, he and the other Doctor were very different men on the inside. He was tired of feeling like a living copy, a walking shadow of his other self, and as much as he cared about him, he found himself wanting distance from the other Doctor. Wanting to differentiate himself. At a loss as to how to express it, he'd let his hair grow out a bit and had taken to shaving less frequently, resulting in a near-permanent five-o-clock shadow which Rose said made him look sexy, but which the other Doctor frowned at. He'd stopped short of wearing a different suit, but he'd considered it.
He scrubbed his hands over his almost-beard now, worrying over the dark circles under his eyes that came from a constant sleep deficit. It had only taken once trying to stay awake as long as his counterpart to make it quite clear that he had to sleep some every night. But he slept as little as he could get away with, still feeling like sleep was an awful waste of the little time he had left in his terribly short, human life.
Finally, he twisted the taps open and washed his hands and face in the warm water. Drying off quickly, he returned to his bedroom, wondering if his absence had been noted.
Not by Rose it hadn't, he thought as he took in her sleeping form. She lay on her stomach, her face pressed into the pillow, the slope of her nude back making his breath catch as he looked at her. The sight was so arresting that it took several seconds before he noticed what the man in the bed was doing.
The other Doctor, glasses perched on the end of his nose, was examining a familiar book, turning it this way and that, and the Doctor flushed with embarrassment. He suddenly felt terribly exposed, standing there naked.
"Where did you find that?" he asked, the pitch of his voice coming out much higher than he intended.
His double looked up at him. "Under your bed. Is this yours?" He held the pornographic book out, not with distaste exactly, but certainly with confusion.
"What were you doing, rooting around under my bed?"
The other Doctor ignored him, back to flipping the pages of the book. "The pictures aren't bad. Not bad at all." His review given, the Time Lord took his glasses back off. "Where'd you get it?"
"Elstrl'juddst," he responded, the name of the alien moon tripping off his tongue as he picked his underpants up off the floor and pulled them on.
"Ah." The other man stood up then, gathering up the parts of his suit from where they had been discarded in haste, and began to dress. "I can put it in the library with the others," he said as he pulled his trousers on. "It'll make a good addition to the collection." The TARDIS' vast collection of books, gathered over hundreds of years from a vast range of times and planets, did not exclude the occasional pornographic item.
"No, I don't ... you don't need to ..." The Doctor sat down on the spot vacated by his duplicate, feeling flustered.
"What?"
"I'm still reading it."
"Reading it?" the other Doctor barked out a laugh, and then quickly lowered his voice when Rose snuffled in her sleep. "It's got a total of 500 words in the whole bloody thing."
The Doctor swallowed his embarrassment. This was a man with whom he'd shared literally almost everything; he should be able to speak frankly to him about porn. "I like to look at it sometimes, when I ..." He gestured toward his groin, feeling very stupid.
"Oh." The other man had been in the middle of tying his tie, and his hands froze for a moment before continuing. "I forget sometimes how ... human you are."
"You don't have to make it sound so much like an insult." He pulled the covers up over his body, turning toward the wall and effectively ending the conversation.
After several long moments he heard the door to the room open. "Goodnight," the other Doctor said softly as he left his human companions to sleep.
***
Rose wanted to go somewhere warm. "Don't take this the wrong way," she was saying to the Time Lord in a tone of voice that suggested she assumed that he very likely would take it the wrong way anyway, "But, seems like every time you take us to Earth it's just back home or somewhere else cold and wet. Why can't we go to the beach or something?" She caught her tongue between her teeth. "I'll wear a bikini," she finished, in a promising tone.
The part-human Doctor was watching this exchange with interest. He found himself quite excited by the idea of sun and sand, if he was honest with himself. Maybe it was the part of him which grew from Donna, or maybe it was just needing a change. He'd felt it recently, this nagging desire to do, to be something different. If they went somewhere warm, the Doctor decided, he was definitely wearing a t-shirt. And jeans. He smiled, enjoying the idea. The thought of Rose in a tiny two-piece, slick with sweat and suncream, didn't hurt one bit either. The Doctor in brown didn't look convinced, however.
"Only you humans could get excited at the idea of exposing yourselves to strangers and...and skin cancer. At least make it somewhere interesting, like...ooh, like America? Los Angeles, Las Vegas...lots of places starting with 'L,' really. What do you say, Rose: we could give Elvis another try!" The other Doctor grabbed Rose's arm and twirled her out in front of him, singing 'Viva Las Vegas' in an exaggerated Elvis-imitation, his top lip curled in a sneer. She giggled, but also made a face.
"I dunno. Isn't it just like Blackpool in the desert?"
The Doctor in brown looked offended. "What's wrong with Blackpool?" he said, his voice rising in mock-offense.
"Aside from too much booze and noisy fruit machines, you mean?" She shrugged. "Had a bad experience there, once."
The Doctor in blue perked up. "Oh? Do tell."
Rose smirked. "Got pissed and shagged some bloke in the ladies at a club, don't remember the name of it. Couldn't even remember what he looked like, but Shareen said that was probably a good thing. I was hungover for days." Both Doctors were watching her with matching gobsmacked expressions. "What?"
"You had sex with a complete stranger?" the part-human Doctor finally squeaked.
"Yeah, so? What, like you've never..."
The Time Lord sniffed indignantly. "We have, actually, but we are hundreds of years old and much, much wiser."
"I'm not," the Doctor in blue said quietly. "And I haven't." The other Doctor looked over at him.
"What do you mean, don't you remember that time on-"
"That's just your memories that I share, it's nothing I've actually done."
"Well there you go," the other Doctor continued as if he hadn't really heard. "As I was saying, we are older, and wiser, and it wasn't with a human. It probably wasn't even what your species would consider sex, though we were quite fantastic at it-"
"Doctor," Rose interrupted. She wasn't speaking to the Doctor currently babbling, and the part-human Doctor shifted uncomfortably as she walked over to him. "Does this bother you?"
He sighed. "I'm not thrilled about the idea of you with other men, but if I could learn to cope with the thought of you with Mickey then I'm sure I can accept this."
"Not that." She was staring at him in that careful, sympathetic way which he sometimes found sweet, but also frequently found condescending. "The whole sharing memories thing. It's like, you've only got..." She seemed to try and mentally tally the time they'd been together, then appeared to give up. "You've only got some of your own, and the rest are his."
"So?" He found himself feeling annoyed. Why wouldn't she just drop it?
"So does it bother you that the stuff you remember isn't stuff you actually did, like shagging aliens or whatever?"
"Well, Rose, since I'm not human and I'm not a Time Lord, you could say I've been shagging aliens for some time now." He could hear the irritation in his own voice, and flinched internally. "I just need to..." He gestured toward the exit of the great room, scrubbing one hand through his slightly-longer hair as he turned and walked out, relieved to leave the subject behind.
***
"No Elvis, then," she'd stated matter-of-factly as they'd gotten their first sight of the Las Vegas Strip that morning. Electronic signs flashed around them; a Prius' anaemic horn had beeped to tell the Doctor not in blue, but rather faded jeans and a grey t-shirt, that he was dangerously close to being run down, standing where he was, and he'd stepped back to rejoin the pedestrian throng.
Both Doctors had scratched the backs of their necks. "I may have missed Elvis by a few years," her first Doctor had finally conceded, while his counterpart had checked a newspaper box.
"It's 2010," he'd said, and Rose had smiled, reassuring them that it was brilliant.
Several hours later, she could not remember the last time she'd been so exhausted. The short sprints of running for her life were one thing, but roaming the deceptively traversable lengths of the Las Vegas Strip was something else entirely. The huge casinos and landmarks appeared much closer together than it turned out they actually were, and by the time the sun had begun to drop in the sky and lights everywhere had started to flicker into life, her feet hurt, her back hurt, even her hair hurt. The Doctor in brown expressed profound disappointment when she decided to head back to the TARDIS for at least a short nap.
"But Rose! You have to see the Bellagio fountains at night! Not quite as impressive as the sentient water aerobics in the Python Temple at Glaknoss, of course, but that's a bit exploitative if you really think about it. Would you like your workout routine set to loud music and displayed for a bunch of slack-jawed spectators?"
She ignored this question, too tired to get into a discussion with the Doctor regarding the hurt feelings of intelligent liquids. "Are you even sure the fountains are working again after this afternoon? Honestly, can't we go anywhere without you sonicing something?"
"Thirty minutes between shows is unreasonably long. I just thought I'd...hurry it up a bit, is all."
"I'm pretty sure the water isn't supposed to spray the bystanders like you made it, though." She stifled a yawn against her hand. "Really, just an hour or so. You boys'll be fine without me." Except she wasn't entirely sure if that was true, not only because of her original Doctor's propensity to sonic things he shouldn't and get into trouble, but also because her second, part-human Doctor was decidedly...off. He'd been acting a little strange lately anyway, but since her admission about Blackpool he'd gone all quiet. The Time Lord Doctor had mentioned finding the other Doctor's pornography stash the night before, and while Rose thought that was adorable and not half-sexy, she wondered if maybe he wasn't still a little bit embarrassed.
Rose dug into the front pocket of the jeans he was wearing, enjoying the way his eyebrows flew up and his breath hitched at the intimate action. She had to concede that her awareness of his mood was in no small part due to the fact that she had hardly been able to take her eyes off him all day. The Doctor in jeans and a T-shirt was almost profane, and she'd been surprised how much she liked it.
Plucking out a roll of bills, Rose peeled off an American note with a bold, sans serif twenty on the corner. Her second Doctor's "beginner's luck" at blackjack that morning had already earned them more than enough money for the visit. With a wave to both of them, Rose hailed a cab to take her back to where they'd left the TARDIS.
After the roiling cacophony outside, the pulsing hum inside the ship was soft and soothing. Rose made her way to the bed the three of them shared more often than not, these days. The sheets were cool and comfortable and smelled like the Doctors, and she hadn't even realised she'd fallen asleep until she was awoken by her name being hissed into her ear.
Her part-human Doctor lay next to her. "Oh," he said pleasantly as she groaned and rolled away from him on the bed. "You awake, then?"
"Piss off," she mumbled into a pillow, smiling. "Where is he?" she asked, not needing to clarify who 'he' was.
"Gambling," the Doctor said, flopping onto his back and crossing his arms up under his head. "We'll probably get a call any minute now that he's been roughed up and dumped in the desert for counting cards or sonicing the roulette wheel or something." There was an exasperated affection in his voice that warmed Rose's heart, and she turned back over toward him, letting one arm slide over his belly.
"So, what're you doing here?" she continued, her voice teasing and her fingers sliding under the grey t-shirt and tickling the light trail of hair leading from his belly button under the top of his jeans. She had to admit: it was a great look for him, and it did things to her. Nuzzling into his neck, she planted a kiss just under his ear, letting her tongue flick his flesh and then breathing hot breath across the wet spot she'd made.
"Thought you were tired," he said, grinning, but he was already reaching for her.
"I'm feeling much better," she rushed out before he captured her mouth in a kiss. She didn't waste any time, her hand darting down to the button fly of his jeans, stroking him through the rough fabric. It was even more confining than the tight trousers he usually wore, and she smiled at his frustrated moan.
He pulled back and looked into her eyes. "Can we ... can we do something?" The Doctor murmured, a hesitant, vulnerable note in his voice.
"What?"
"Just a ... a game I'd like to play."
Rose's grin bloomed full, and she sat up. "What kind of game?"
He flushed and looked away, and Rose reached out to touch his face. "Hey. You can tell me anything, yeah? Ask me for anything."
The Doctor cleared his throat. "I thought we could pretend ... you know, that we don't know each other." He moved closer, seeming to warm to the discussion when her smile didn't falter. "I could be a bloke you picked up," he whispered, his lips ghosting over her mouth without touching her, "because you just had to have me. Had to fuck me," he added, his voice deepening on the last.
Rose felt a rush of desire for him. "Okay." She stood up and offered him her hand. When he looked confused, she explained, "I don't think I'd fuck a stranger in the other Doctor's bed."
Rising, he took her hand and let her lead him through the halls of the TARDIS to her own bedroom. "So what's your name?" he asked.
She looked back and grinned at him. "It's Rose. Yours?"
He hesitated before saying simply, "John."
He had a predatory gleam in his eye as they walked into her bedroom. As soon as the door shut behind him, the Doctor had her pressed up against her dressing table. Rose fumbled for the lights and turned them off, hoping the fantasy would be easier to maintain in darkness. The Doctor's hands were everywhere, his mouth latching onto her throat and sucking. Rose's heart raced as she clutched at him, swept along on the current of his obvious desire. She closed her eyes, trying to imagine that he was a stranger, but it was difficult to lose herself in the fantasy. She felt like she had so much already: two men with whom she was desperately in love, men she wanted so much that the intensity of her feelings still shocked her sometimes. It seemed greedy to even fantasize about anything else. Someday, perhaps, when her feelings for them had cooled, but even though she understood the biology, it was hard to imagine that day would ever come.
The Doctor unfastened her trousers, sliding them and her knickers over her hips and down. Rose kicked them off and scooted back to sit on the edge of the dressing table, the Doctor's hand tickling up her inner thigh to touch her intimately. Her mind spun as she tried to think about what she could say to continue the game. "Saw you across the casino and knew I wanted you," she gasped into his ear. She unbuttoned his fly, finding him completely bare underneath, and she bit back a teasing question about his lack of pants. Instead she gripped his cock firmly in her fist, stroking him from tip to base. "Knew I wanted this inside of me."
She worked him with her hand for a few silent moments, enjoying the motion of his hips, the way he buried his face in her neck and groaned as she reached lower and cupped his balls. Playing into his fantasy, she whispered finally, "Do you have a condom, John?"
"Hmm?" the Doctor moaned, obviously forgetting their game. Seeming to remember suddenly, he pulled back. "Uh, no...I'm, ah, I'm..."
"It's okay," she said quickly, not wanting to spoil the moment. "I trust you." She squeezed his penis gently in her hand, felt him shudder with pleasure. "I just want you to fuck me, hard, right now."
With a partially-stifled whimper, the Doctor quickly aligned their bodies and pushed all the way inside her. "Like this?"
"Yes." She wrapped her legs around his hips. "God, yes."
He thrust into her fast and hard enough to shake the dressing table. Rose could hear the clatter of various tubes of makeup falling over and rolling onto the floor. The mirror knocked against the wall as he pounded into her. "Do you like that?" he murmured into her ear.
"Love it," she said, and then had to bite her tongue before she continued with 'I love you.'
The Doctor was grunting with every thrust, and Rose had only a moment to register how fast things were moving before he came suddenly with a pained groan. She was close enough to her own orgasm that she didn't want to give up, but the Doctor soon slowed and then stopped moving entirely. Rose moaned with frustration.
"Sorry," he said, pulling out of her and returning his hand to between her legs. "Are you close?" His fingers slid into her, his thumb working her clit in a rhythm he knew from experience. No stranger could know her so well, she thought, pleasure spiking through her.
"Yes." She gripped his neck and pulled him close for a deep kiss, their tongues tasting each other as the Doctor continued to nudge her closer and closer with his fingers. She moaned with relief as he finally took her over the edge. They continued to kiss, and Rose could sense the shift in the Doctor as the game was forgotten and it was only them again, the Doctor and Rose.
She grinned at him as he helped her down from the dressing table. "Liked that, did you?"
He looked somewhat discomfited as he refastened his trousers. "I guess I did, yeah. Sorry I was so ... quick."
"No worries." She excused herself to the loo to wash up. When she returned to her bedroom, the Doctor was stretched out on the bed, looking straight ahead. She'd often wondered if it were his superior knowledge of space that allowed him to stare so deeply into it when he wanted.
Rose decided she might as well change into a dress, in the hopes that they might all eat at a posh restaurant together that night. An idea had occurred to her in the loo, and as she perused her wardrobe, she debated internally whether to say it out loud. Even as the words spilled out, she wondered if it was a mistake to utter them: "You could do that for real, you know. If you wanted." She didn't look at the Doctor as she spoke.
"Hmm? Do what?"
"Have sex with a stranger."
She heard the bed creak as he shifted suddenly, and she took a deep breath, turning to face him. "You want me to have sex with a stranger." He was clearly incredulous.
"I don't ... want you to, exactly. But if that's an experience that you want to have, I don't want to hold you back."
He opened and closed his mouth, looking a bit like a fish. "It's ... it's like he said, though," he stuttered. "It's something we've done before."
"And you pointed out that it's something he's done before. You only share the memory." She selected a dress and pulled it off the hanger.
"That's all experience is: memory. I was just being shirty before."
Rose walked over and sat next to the Doctor on the bed. "I know, but ..." She wondered why she was trying to convince him of something when she wasn't even sure if she could handle the idea. "You can't tell me that sex isn't different for you, as a human. You've said so, and even if you hadn't, I can tell. And so maybe that's an experience you want to have as a human. Or ..." She reached out and cupped his cheek in her palm. "Or maybe it's a memory you want to make that's yours alone."
He looked confused but not, she was relieved to notice, offended. "That doesn't bother you? The thought of me with someone else?"
Shrugging with one shoulder, she gave a small smile. "'Course it does. But what bothers me more is the idea that you might feel like you're...missing out on something. It's a great life we have, I know you know that, but it's the only life you know. There's a lot of other stuff out there. Human stuff which I think he might not understand, and you might not even understand yet. But it's a possibility, you know?" Leaning over, she brushed her lips across his cheek, enjoying the scratch of his significant stubble. "Forget it. If it's not something you want, then I don't want you to do it." She rose to continue dressing.
"It's an interesting idea." She turned to see he had again laid back and was staring at the ceiling, pondering.
PART 2
Authors: fid_gin and unfolded73
Beta: jfiliberti
Pairing: Ten/alt!Ten/Rose
Rating: NC-17
Summary: While the threesome enjoy a trip to Las Vegas, the part-human Doctor wonders how he can set himself apart from the Time Lord.
A/N: Written for catyuy, who won fid_gin in the help_haiti auction. This story is part of the Loved 'Verse, and falls a few weeks after "Feeling by Proxy" in the chronology. More specifically, fact fans, it can be placed between the first and second scenes in "Love's Not a Competition." One additional note about this fic: This may seem like it's developing in a way which some of you will probably not approve of, but we ask that you trust us.
He'd been staring at his face in the mirror for far too long.
The part-human Doctor had dragged himself into the en-suite to wash up, ignoring the slightly light-headed, sluggish feeling that came from just having had an orgasm. He'd been delayed in his quest by his reflection. Rose would probably giggle and elbow him in the ribs and accuse him of vanity, but that wasn't what it was. Well, mostly not what it was.
It had been a few weeks since he had shared his mind with Rose and the other Doctor through a rather brilliant bit of improvisation on the Time Lord's part; it had been wonderful, and had brought the three of them together closer than before, but it had also cast into relief that, no matter how similar they were on the outside, he and the other Doctor were very different men on the inside. He was tired of feeling like a living copy, a walking shadow of his other self, and as much as he cared about him, he found himself wanting distance from the other Doctor. Wanting to differentiate himself. At a loss as to how to express it, he'd let his hair grow out a bit and had taken to shaving less frequently, resulting in a near-permanent five-o-clock shadow which Rose said made him look sexy, but which the other Doctor frowned at. He'd stopped short of wearing a different suit, but he'd considered it.
He scrubbed his hands over his almost-beard now, worrying over the dark circles under his eyes that came from a constant sleep deficit. It had only taken once trying to stay awake as long as his counterpart to make it quite clear that he had to sleep some every night. But he slept as little as he could get away with, still feeling like sleep was an awful waste of the little time he had left in his terribly short, human life.
Finally, he twisted the taps open and washed his hands and face in the warm water. Drying off quickly, he returned to his bedroom, wondering if his absence had been noted.
Not by Rose it hadn't, he thought as he took in her sleeping form. She lay on her stomach, her face pressed into the pillow, the slope of her nude back making his breath catch as he looked at her. The sight was so arresting that it took several seconds before he noticed what the man in the bed was doing.
The other Doctor, glasses perched on the end of his nose, was examining a familiar book, turning it this way and that, and the Doctor flushed with embarrassment. He suddenly felt terribly exposed, standing there naked.
"Where did you find that?" he asked, the pitch of his voice coming out much higher than he intended.
His double looked up at him. "Under your bed. Is this yours?" He held the pornographic book out, not with distaste exactly, but certainly with confusion.
"What were you doing, rooting around under my bed?"
The other Doctor ignored him, back to flipping the pages of the book. "The pictures aren't bad. Not bad at all." His review given, the Time Lord took his glasses back off. "Where'd you get it?"
"Elstrl'juddst," he responded, the name of the alien moon tripping off his tongue as he picked his underpants up off the floor and pulled them on.
"Ah." The other man stood up then, gathering up the parts of his suit from where they had been discarded in haste, and began to dress. "I can put it in the library with the others," he said as he pulled his trousers on. "It'll make a good addition to the collection." The TARDIS' vast collection of books, gathered over hundreds of years from a vast range of times and planets, did not exclude the occasional pornographic item.
"No, I don't ... you don't need to ..." The Doctor sat down on the spot vacated by his duplicate, feeling flustered.
"What?"
"I'm still reading it."
"Reading it?" the other Doctor barked out a laugh, and then quickly lowered his voice when Rose snuffled in her sleep. "It's got a total of 500 words in the whole bloody thing."
The Doctor swallowed his embarrassment. This was a man with whom he'd shared literally almost everything; he should be able to speak frankly to him about porn. "I like to look at it sometimes, when I ..." He gestured toward his groin, feeling very stupid.
"Oh." The other man had been in the middle of tying his tie, and his hands froze for a moment before continuing. "I forget sometimes how ... human you are."
"You don't have to make it sound so much like an insult." He pulled the covers up over his body, turning toward the wall and effectively ending the conversation.
After several long moments he heard the door to the room open. "Goodnight," the other Doctor said softly as he left his human companions to sleep.
***
Rose wanted to go somewhere warm. "Don't take this the wrong way," she was saying to the Time Lord in a tone of voice that suggested she assumed that he very likely would take it the wrong way anyway, "But, seems like every time you take us to Earth it's just back home or somewhere else cold and wet. Why can't we go to the beach or something?" She caught her tongue between her teeth. "I'll wear a bikini," she finished, in a promising tone.
The part-human Doctor was watching this exchange with interest. He found himself quite excited by the idea of sun and sand, if he was honest with himself. Maybe it was the part of him which grew from Donna, or maybe it was just needing a change. He'd felt it recently, this nagging desire to do, to be something different. If they went somewhere warm, the Doctor decided, he was definitely wearing a t-shirt. And jeans. He smiled, enjoying the idea. The thought of Rose in a tiny two-piece, slick with sweat and suncream, didn't hurt one bit either. The Doctor in brown didn't look convinced, however.
"Only you humans could get excited at the idea of exposing yourselves to strangers and...and skin cancer. At least make it somewhere interesting, like...ooh, like America? Los Angeles, Las Vegas...lots of places starting with 'L,' really. What do you say, Rose: we could give Elvis another try!" The other Doctor grabbed Rose's arm and twirled her out in front of him, singing 'Viva Las Vegas' in an exaggerated Elvis-imitation, his top lip curled in a sneer. She giggled, but also made a face.
"I dunno. Isn't it just like Blackpool in the desert?"
The Doctor in brown looked offended. "What's wrong with Blackpool?" he said, his voice rising in mock-offense.
"Aside from too much booze and noisy fruit machines, you mean?" She shrugged. "Had a bad experience there, once."
The Doctor in blue perked up. "Oh? Do tell."
Rose smirked. "Got pissed and shagged some bloke in the ladies at a club, don't remember the name of it. Couldn't even remember what he looked like, but Shareen said that was probably a good thing. I was hungover for days." Both Doctors were watching her with matching gobsmacked expressions. "What?"
"You had sex with a complete stranger?" the part-human Doctor finally squeaked.
"Yeah, so? What, like you've never..."
The Time Lord sniffed indignantly. "We have, actually, but we are hundreds of years old and much, much wiser."
"I'm not," the Doctor in blue said quietly. "And I haven't." The other Doctor looked over at him.
"What do you mean, don't you remember that time on-"
"That's just your memories that I share, it's nothing I've actually done."
"Well there you go," the other Doctor continued as if he hadn't really heard. "As I was saying, we are older, and wiser, and it wasn't with a human. It probably wasn't even what your species would consider sex, though we were quite fantastic at it-"
"Doctor," Rose interrupted. She wasn't speaking to the Doctor currently babbling, and the part-human Doctor shifted uncomfortably as she walked over to him. "Does this bother you?"
He sighed. "I'm not thrilled about the idea of you with other men, but if I could learn to cope with the thought of you with Mickey then I'm sure I can accept this."
"Not that." She was staring at him in that careful, sympathetic way which he sometimes found sweet, but also frequently found condescending. "The whole sharing memories thing. It's like, you've only got..." She seemed to try and mentally tally the time they'd been together, then appeared to give up. "You've only got some of your own, and the rest are his."
"So?" He found himself feeling annoyed. Why wouldn't she just drop it?
"So does it bother you that the stuff you remember isn't stuff you actually did, like shagging aliens or whatever?"
"Well, Rose, since I'm not human and I'm not a Time Lord, you could say I've been shagging aliens for some time now." He could hear the irritation in his own voice, and flinched internally. "I just need to..." He gestured toward the exit of the great room, scrubbing one hand through his slightly-longer hair as he turned and walked out, relieved to leave the subject behind.
***
"No Elvis, then," she'd stated matter-of-factly as they'd gotten their first sight of the Las Vegas Strip that morning. Electronic signs flashed around them; a Prius' anaemic horn had beeped to tell the Doctor not in blue, but rather faded jeans and a grey t-shirt, that he was dangerously close to being run down, standing where he was, and he'd stepped back to rejoin the pedestrian throng.
Both Doctors had scratched the backs of their necks. "I may have missed Elvis by a few years," her first Doctor had finally conceded, while his counterpart had checked a newspaper box.
"It's 2010," he'd said, and Rose had smiled, reassuring them that it was brilliant.
Several hours later, she could not remember the last time she'd been so exhausted. The short sprints of running for her life were one thing, but roaming the deceptively traversable lengths of the Las Vegas Strip was something else entirely. The huge casinos and landmarks appeared much closer together than it turned out they actually were, and by the time the sun had begun to drop in the sky and lights everywhere had started to flicker into life, her feet hurt, her back hurt, even her hair hurt. The Doctor in brown expressed profound disappointment when she decided to head back to the TARDIS for at least a short nap.
"But Rose! You have to see the Bellagio fountains at night! Not quite as impressive as the sentient water aerobics in the Python Temple at Glaknoss, of course, but that's a bit exploitative if you really think about it. Would you like your workout routine set to loud music and displayed for a bunch of slack-jawed spectators?"
She ignored this question, too tired to get into a discussion with the Doctor regarding the hurt feelings of intelligent liquids. "Are you even sure the fountains are working again after this afternoon? Honestly, can't we go anywhere without you sonicing something?"
"Thirty minutes between shows is unreasonably long. I just thought I'd...hurry it up a bit, is all."
"I'm pretty sure the water isn't supposed to spray the bystanders like you made it, though." She stifled a yawn against her hand. "Really, just an hour or so. You boys'll be fine without me." Except she wasn't entirely sure if that was true, not only because of her original Doctor's propensity to sonic things he shouldn't and get into trouble, but also because her second, part-human Doctor was decidedly...off. He'd been acting a little strange lately anyway, but since her admission about Blackpool he'd gone all quiet. The Time Lord Doctor had mentioned finding the other Doctor's pornography stash the night before, and while Rose thought that was adorable and not half-sexy, she wondered if maybe he wasn't still a little bit embarrassed.
Rose dug into the front pocket of the jeans he was wearing, enjoying the way his eyebrows flew up and his breath hitched at the intimate action. She had to concede that her awareness of his mood was in no small part due to the fact that she had hardly been able to take her eyes off him all day. The Doctor in jeans and a T-shirt was almost profane, and she'd been surprised how much she liked it.
Plucking out a roll of bills, Rose peeled off an American note with a bold, sans serif twenty on the corner. Her second Doctor's "beginner's luck" at blackjack that morning had already earned them more than enough money for the visit. With a wave to both of them, Rose hailed a cab to take her back to where they'd left the TARDIS.
After the roiling cacophony outside, the pulsing hum inside the ship was soft and soothing. Rose made her way to the bed the three of them shared more often than not, these days. The sheets were cool and comfortable and smelled like the Doctors, and she hadn't even realised she'd fallen asleep until she was awoken by her name being hissed into her ear.
Her part-human Doctor lay next to her. "Oh," he said pleasantly as she groaned and rolled away from him on the bed. "You awake, then?"
"Piss off," she mumbled into a pillow, smiling. "Where is he?" she asked, not needing to clarify who 'he' was.
"Gambling," the Doctor said, flopping onto his back and crossing his arms up under his head. "We'll probably get a call any minute now that he's been roughed up and dumped in the desert for counting cards or sonicing the roulette wheel or something." There was an exasperated affection in his voice that warmed Rose's heart, and she turned back over toward him, letting one arm slide over his belly.
"So, what're you doing here?" she continued, her voice teasing and her fingers sliding under the grey t-shirt and tickling the light trail of hair leading from his belly button under the top of his jeans. She had to admit: it was a great look for him, and it did things to her. Nuzzling into his neck, she planted a kiss just under his ear, letting her tongue flick his flesh and then breathing hot breath across the wet spot she'd made.
"Thought you were tired," he said, grinning, but he was already reaching for her.
"I'm feeling much better," she rushed out before he captured her mouth in a kiss. She didn't waste any time, her hand darting down to the button fly of his jeans, stroking him through the rough fabric. It was even more confining than the tight trousers he usually wore, and she smiled at his frustrated moan.
He pulled back and looked into her eyes. "Can we ... can we do something?" The Doctor murmured, a hesitant, vulnerable note in his voice.
"What?"
"Just a ... a game I'd like to play."
Rose's grin bloomed full, and she sat up. "What kind of game?"
He flushed and looked away, and Rose reached out to touch his face. "Hey. You can tell me anything, yeah? Ask me for anything."
The Doctor cleared his throat. "I thought we could pretend ... you know, that we don't know each other." He moved closer, seeming to warm to the discussion when her smile didn't falter. "I could be a bloke you picked up," he whispered, his lips ghosting over her mouth without touching her, "because you just had to have me. Had to fuck me," he added, his voice deepening on the last.
Rose felt a rush of desire for him. "Okay." She stood up and offered him her hand. When he looked confused, she explained, "I don't think I'd fuck a stranger in the other Doctor's bed."
Rising, he took her hand and let her lead him through the halls of the TARDIS to her own bedroom. "So what's your name?" he asked.
She looked back and grinned at him. "It's Rose. Yours?"
He hesitated before saying simply, "John."
He had a predatory gleam in his eye as they walked into her bedroom. As soon as the door shut behind him, the Doctor had her pressed up against her dressing table. Rose fumbled for the lights and turned them off, hoping the fantasy would be easier to maintain in darkness. The Doctor's hands were everywhere, his mouth latching onto her throat and sucking. Rose's heart raced as she clutched at him, swept along on the current of his obvious desire. She closed her eyes, trying to imagine that he was a stranger, but it was difficult to lose herself in the fantasy. She felt like she had so much already: two men with whom she was desperately in love, men she wanted so much that the intensity of her feelings still shocked her sometimes. It seemed greedy to even fantasize about anything else. Someday, perhaps, when her feelings for them had cooled, but even though she understood the biology, it was hard to imagine that day would ever come.
The Doctor unfastened her trousers, sliding them and her knickers over her hips and down. Rose kicked them off and scooted back to sit on the edge of the dressing table, the Doctor's hand tickling up her inner thigh to touch her intimately. Her mind spun as she tried to think about what she could say to continue the game. "Saw you across the casino and knew I wanted you," she gasped into his ear. She unbuttoned his fly, finding him completely bare underneath, and she bit back a teasing question about his lack of pants. Instead she gripped his cock firmly in her fist, stroking him from tip to base. "Knew I wanted this inside of me."
She worked him with her hand for a few silent moments, enjoying the motion of his hips, the way he buried his face in her neck and groaned as she reached lower and cupped his balls. Playing into his fantasy, she whispered finally, "Do you have a condom, John?"
"Hmm?" the Doctor moaned, obviously forgetting their game. Seeming to remember suddenly, he pulled back. "Uh, no...I'm, ah, I'm..."
"It's okay," she said quickly, not wanting to spoil the moment. "I trust you." She squeezed his penis gently in her hand, felt him shudder with pleasure. "I just want you to fuck me, hard, right now."
With a partially-stifled whimper, the Doctor quickly aligned their bodies and pushed all the way inside her. "Like this?"
"Yes." She wrapped her legs around his hips. "God, yes."
He thrust into her fast and hard enough to shake the dressing table. Rose could hear the clatter of various tubes of makeup falling over and rolling onto the floor. The mirror knocked against the wall as he pounded into her. "Do you like that?" he murmured into her ear.
"Love it," she said, and then had to bite her tongue before she continued with 'I love you.'
The Doctor was grunting with every thrust, and Rose had only a moment to register how fast things were moving before he came suddenly with a pained groan. She was close enough to her own orgasm that she didn't want to give up, but the Doctor soon slowed and then stopped moving entirely. Rose moaned with frustration.
"Sorry," he said, pulling out of her and returning his hand to between her legs. "Are you close?" His fingers slid into her, his thumb working her clit in a rhythm he knew from experience. No stranger could know her so well, she thought, pleasure spiking through her.
"Yes." She gripped his neck and pulled him close for a deep kiss, their tongues tasting each other as the Doctor continued to nudge her closer and closer with his fingers. She moaned with relief as he finally took her over the edge. They continued to kiss, and Rose could sense the shift in the Doctor as the game was forgotten and it was only them again, the Doctor and Rose.
She grinned at him as he helped her down from the dressing table. "Liked that, did you?"
He looked somewhat discomfited as he refastened his trousers. "I guess I did, yeah. Sorry I was so ... quick."
"No worries." She excused herself to the loo to wash up. When she returned to her bedroom, the Doctor was stretched out on the bed, looking straight ahead. She'd often wondered if it were his superior knowledge of space that allowed him to stare so deeply into it when he wanted.
Rose decided she might as well change into a dress, in the hopes that they might all eat at a posh restaurant together that night. An idea had occurred to her in the loo, and as she perused her wardrobe, she debated internally whether to say it out loud. Even as the words spilled out, she wondered if it was a mistake to utter them: "You could do that for real, you know. If you wanted." She didn't look at the Doctor as she spoke.
"Hmm? Do what?"
"Have sex with a stranger."
She heard the bed creak as he shifted suddenly, and she took a deep breath, turning to face him. "You want me to have sex with a stranger." He was clearly incredulous.
"I don't ... want you to, exactly. But if that's an experience that you want to have, I don't want to hold you back."
He opened and closed his mouth, looking a bit like a fish. "It's ... it's like he said, though," he stuttered. "It's something we've done before."
"And you pointed out that it's something he's done before. You only share the memory." She selected a dress and pulled it off the hanger.
"That's all experience is: memory. I was just being shirty before."
Rose walked over and sat next to the Doctor on the bed. "I know, but ..." She wondered why she was trying to convince him of something when she wasn't even sure if she could handle the idea. "You can't tell me that sex isn't different for you, as a human. You've said so, and even if you hadn't, I can tell. And so maybe that's an experience you want to have as a human. Or ..." She reached out and cupped his cheek in her palm. "Or maybe it's a memory you want to make that's yours alone."
He looked confused but not, she was relieved to notice, offended. "That doesn't bother you? The thought of me with someone else?"
Shrugging with one shoulder, she gave a small smile. "'Course it does. But what bothers me more is the idea that you might feel like you're...missing out on something. It's a great life we have, I know you know that, but it's the only life you know. There's a lot of other stuff out there. Human stuff which I think he might not understand, and you might not even understand yet. But it's a possibility, you know?" Leaning over, she brushed her lips across his cheek, enjoying the scratch of his significant stubble. "Forget it. If it's not something you want, then I don't want you to do it." She rose to continue dressing.
"It's an interesting idea." She turned to see he had again laid back and was staring at the ceiling, pondering.
PART 2