The Gift of Words Part 12
The Gift of Words 12
Title: The Gift of Words
Part: 12
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose
Spoilers: Children In Need (The one with Rose in it), Christmas Invasion.
Summary: Words can be so powerful. Sometimes they can be the finial thread of sanity. But words only mean something if the person speaking and the person listening both understand the weight, and meaning behind the words. (And I totally suck at summaries)
Rating: M very much adult content
Disclaimer: Very much belonging to those at the BBC
Previous parts 1-10 can be found on my lj
http://nogbad.livejournal.com/
OK, I’m as usual late and I know that some people are going to throw things at me because of the lack of smut. But smut in the next chapter, and also the end is in sight, well sort of.
First of big thanks if you are still reading this (two years after it started) so yeah and thank you for sticking with me and my insane ramblings.
Big thanks to my most excellent beta’s Platypus and Ivydoor who put-up with bad spelling, bad grammar and who push me in the right direction when I’ve been trying to get there for months.
So on with the show. Always please let me know what you think
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Silence holds them, but not in stillness, not in peace. Echoes of what they have just shared ripple underneath flesh. The embers of pleasure burn flaring with the echoes of pain between the two rather than contained in separate skin and nerves as her muscles tighten around his softening member. She feels protective, powerful and feminine as his head rests heavily against her collar bone, his body weighing her own, keeping them slumped against the wall. Her body curves, limbs holding him closer as their breath and hearts try and find again their natural rhythm.
Shared knowledge and shared awareness; she knew what he needed to tip the scales, allowing them both to slide into jagged pleasure, and now she knows the moment to stop, releasing the biting pressure of teeth and lips on his flesh before the balance slides fully to the side of pain. She can taste him as she swallows, wetting her lips, trying to drag the moisture down her parched throat, and she has to close her eyes. Somehow intrinsic is the knowledge that the taste is not just from his skin, but rather something that she can feel he has laid inside her, the scent, the essence of him placed beneath her very skin.
Cool is the trickle against exhausted nerves as their combined liquid begins to seep from her body, and her torso arches, twists, arms and legs twining tighter as her sex squeezes, ripples, unwilling to let any part of him leave her just yet. Bodies still locked but moving alignment now he shares the wall with her, using it as a pillow, and his jagged breath stirs the hair against her temple, the rough softness of his beard scrapes, nerves tightening, skin reacting as the sensation slides underneath, slithering over her breast, down her stomach, catching in pool of their sex, the raw pulse forcing her eyes open.
He glows in the neon that flashes in through the window; the coloured lights jewel his eyelashes, gleaming on the moisture that clings to his skin, to his hair, his beard. There is no mask; there is no title or pretence. Translated onto flesh is the fact, the truth of who and what he is. She maps it, her eyes starved and greedy, knowing that only she will ever see this facet of him, only she will ever see the truth of him expressed in his features.
And the knowledge of what he is to her, the place that he has taken, that she has given to him, flows over flesh and bone. Muscles tremble and limbs ache as her shaking fingertips catch his hand as it looses its grip on the wall. Vicious tenderness threads through her veins, sweetening the taste and again she can feel the wildness that sings to her as she nuzzles softy, gently at the mark she placed on him.
She is not fooled. She knows that neither of them have tamed the storm; she can feel the violence between them, the compulsion prowling, lingering at the very edges of their pleasure, but the intensity, the insanity, the cruelty within her is no longer as vicious, is no longer as strong.
Yes, the ruthless compulsion to claim has been appeased, by hormones, by the blood. Their bond is fixed, threads, ropes wound tight through minds, woven beneath flesh. There is no thought of worry about both of them having lost clear lines to define between the mind and the body, between themselves. What has been woken inside, the animal, the storm, is in accord with intellect.
She knows that before, he thought that he did not want the violence that they shared when their minds connected to stain the physical. She knows that he asked to rest so that the wildness, the storm between them might have some aspect of control. And at the time she had no choice but to surrender, swept away by the force of their combined exhaustion that lulled those stronger instincts. Holding the basic promise that he would be there when she woke, that touch would be later, she had pulled the feel of his mind close around her as he curved his physical form around hers.
The storm of golden darkness had roared inside her when something had fractured their shared rest, the wildness had pushed through her veins fast and needle sharp. She had been aware of her guardian, of the other male, and she had felt the violence held coiled within the Doctor’s body, the jealousy that rippled beneath his skin. She had been past the point of caring who was in the room. All she could think was that he was there, he was hers. His lips should be on her, his skin beneath her skin, his body surrounding and inside her. And the violence had felt so right, so good, that their bond had to be completed this way; that for all he thought, he needed it as much as she, for the violence of them to break across skin and bones.
Her fuel, her inclination had been fed by his violent fantasy, the dark truth of what she had seen when they shared, what his mind gave to him in his cell, the violent compulsion of his instincts when they had drugged, him when they had threatened, promised to give her to him. There is joy inside her that now he is flagrant, that he feels no shame over what he did, over what she allowed, no doubt over the reality, no confusion with the fantasy, with the hallucination.
“It had to be this way; we needed it to be this way.” The words from her dry throat sound so loud. By themselves the words are inadequate. But they are through the glass darkly now, and the knowledge that he, unashamed, needs her to say them, that he needs to hear them after everything, makes her heart feel so tight, as if it could shatter like glass. The raw complexity of touch with mind and body, tided with the simple power of words spoken, of words meant. After everything, for all that they share, for all their bonds it is still words spoken, the vibration of sound given for all to hear that is able to bridge divides in ways that nothing else can.
The fragile touch of his left hand against her cheek is almost reverent, and as she turns her cheek, she presses her cracked and bleeding lips softly against his finger tips. Skin seeking skin, his other hand, long fingers probing, finds the gap between her ruined top and jeans. The soft fragility of his fingerprints against the small of her back, possessing the curve of her spine, catches, and electricity slowly spirals out from where their bodies still join.
They move as one, his hands tight at her hips, as she pushes herself against the traction of the wall. She hisses in female shock, and both flinch in pain, as he pulls away, as his half hard sex pulls out of her. Their minds intertwine tighter in an effort to soothe the physical trauma. Seconds pass heavily before either of them can master the complication of moving limbs that have been still too long, of separating bodies that don’t want to be separated.
The ordinary pain of pins and needles creates a necessary physical distraction for both; the bubbles of hilarity, of joy that begin to fizz inside her feel strange and distant, almost foreign. She feels inside herself for the first time since before this started the honesty of the smile that stretches across her lips as she watches the face he makes as he stands, and starts to hop a little.
The smile stays as she takes his hand and he pulls her up. He bends his head, and she welcomes the cool tongue, the softness of lips, the sharp strength of his body, the quiet insistence of his hands framing her face, cupping her throat. Breath and lips, so soft, so tender, and their smiles melt away.
Her jaw, aching just a little, opens wide, almost as if she could somehow swallow him as her hands reach up, sliding through his beard as she breathes his breath, as he seals his lips on hers.
As if before had not happened, as if sex was something that they had yet to make their own, her hands shake as she pulls at his shirt, skimming under the tails, searching for the cool smoothness of skin. Her lips sting as he breaks the connection, his forehead pressed heavy against hers and his mouth open, his breath ragged as her fingers skate down the vault of his ribs. The sound he makes as her hands move to press her nails lightly against the length of his spine is somewhere between a hiss and a growl….a warning to both of them.
Again pain moves through them with the loss of touch, their flesh burning, as her hands fall reluctantly away as he steps back. She takes a step to follow as he moves a short distance, crossing the room, and then back at her side, almost shyly presenting her with his suit jacket. The cloth is cool in her hands and out of the corner of her eye she watches him tuck his softening sex inside his trousers. She could tease, she could slowly strip the tattered remains of her clothes and they would be back against the wall, or down on the floor. But she doesn’t, even though she doesn’t care, is almost proud that those outside the room know about the violence of them, the brutal magnificence of what they can be. But beneath the storm, beneath the tooth and claw they are too fragile, too unstable, and unwilling to expose the tenderness, the softness they can now feel calling to them to anyone but each other.
Enough of what should have been private has been put on display for all, shared in manners and ways that have scarred and both know that the trial that is to come will expose things far beyond what they would willingly give. It would be a mistake, a violation for this fragile gentleness to be released anywhere but where they felt the safest, the most secure.
So she does not tease, she does not strip but rather she uses what is left of her belt to keep her jeans on, shields her destroyed clothes and marked body, wraps herself in part of his armour and takes the hand that waits for her, threading their fingers, letting him lead her from the room.
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It is almost a risk, going back to the TARDIS for the first time together. Both know the temptation that she offers for both of them. To escape, to leave, and they have done it before and know they will do it again, but not in this instance.
The beautiful muffled cacophony of the TARDIS rings through her mind and bones, the pitch and tone of the ship sounds somehow even more harmonic, even more joyful than usual. She almost feels like a bride being presented as, with the door closed behind them, hand in hand they walk up to the centre column. As they pause there, the colours of the room dappling his skin, she can see the line of his shoulders relax, she can almost feel the beats of his hearts slow a little, and tension she did not realise that he was holding in every cell seems to seep away from him.
Anxiety creeps as she starts to think, as she wonders, as she fears. Did she do the right thing in letting the others treat him, in not taking him back to the TARDIS? Maybe he needed the TARDIS, like he had needed her at Christmas, maybe….maybe…
She can taste the perfume of her sex on the long finger that comes to rest against her lips. The coolness of his mind reaches out with gentle carefulness, reassuring her over her action, slowing her single heart that she didn’t realise had begun to race, calming the panic attack before it can start.
She sighs against his mouth as he replaces his finger with his lips, as her mind reaches out to return the embrace. She tastes the truth; that, yes, the TARDIS would have been able to guide her to heal him, but if he had woken in the TARDIS, in his fractured state, he would have run; from the situation, from her, from himself, from the memories. And they had needed to stay to face this; those around them needed them to stay, both the dead and the living. She had been right and he would always trust her to do what she thought right.
The strength of his belief in her, the power of conviction that flows through their bonds makes her heart sting, her throat tighten, and the salt of her tears comes to flavour their kiss. She tilts her head as his fingers move to thread and weave into her hair. Visceral is the contrast between the violence remembered and the tenderness now. Shimmering pulses trail out from where their bodies touch and where they connect unseen beneath their skin, and she moans as he breaks the connection of their lips, moving down to delicately lap at her jaw, at her throat.
As the edge of his teeth closes around her flesh the sting causes her tears to dry. The sweetness darkens, slipping through to become something richer. She can feel the promise of the storm that they share between them golden and dark, waiting, aching to be let loose again. She can feel his reluctance as he pulls back, but his eyes look heavy lidded and sleepy. Again she takes his hand but knows from the song inside her that it is the TARDIS that is leading them both.
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The room is not a room, but rather a space devoid of shape, shade, or colour, an empty canvas, waiting for them to make it their own. In this space they stand facing one another, his left hand quietly cupping her right. Reverence, timidity seems to fall between them as the index finger of his right hand traces a line down the centre of the hand he holds. It’s only then that she absently notices that the splint on his left hand is gone.
His fingers follow a path that he does not share with her. She knew before, had seen before the sensitivity of his skin to stimuli, but now she wears it through her own, can feel how it has been torn and repaired, carrying memories that tease, torment fragile nerves. She can feel the schism as the dual electrification dances on her own flesh through his nerves as his fingers and then nails graze a path from her wrist to her fingertips.
Her heart dictates her actions as she reaches for him, eyes large and luminous with darkness shared, body translating the furious tenderness. Her head titling, their souls touch skin, watching as he feels the fullness of the sensation that she translates back to him, pushing through their bond the burning emotions and sensations that belong to her. The smile that she feels now is craven, wanton, his eyes full of darkness and waiting, and somehow the tenderness is still threaded through them both for her as he watches her, as the gentle stroke of his fingers leaves her hand and moves to her lips.
She can see the inches of control that he is losing as he waits for her, his fingertips that shakily trace the bow of her mouth, splitting the seam of her lips, shallowly dipping into the slick heat inside.
Her tongue flickers forward to the edge of his finger to taste his skin, the softness of her eyelashes as they half close, as she watches his own lips pull back, the slickness of his teeth as she pulls his taste of salt honey and spice, muted by musk of her own body, and his breath pauses as the sharp edge of her teeth nips with muffled violence.
Cool like water she can feel the heat of her own body against the fragile softness of his lips replacing his finger, the grainy velvet of his tongue tasting her, teasing her. Spine and hips move but there is no stanchion to use as he presses the clothed sharp angles of his body against her, into her.
His teeth tug at her lower lip as her nails trail down his cheek, finding the hollow of his jaw. Her hands continue to drift down, her thumbs curving in the hollows of his throat. Nerves murmur and spark as he subtly shifts his weight against her, her fingers tangling with the open collar of his shirt. Before aggression fuelled inclination; now, that is tempered with tenderness, softening the bite as she presses her blunt nails sharply against his throat. His neck arches, his moan vibrates along her fingers.
The air of the room is cold against her heated skin, but it’s his touch that causes her to shiver, as he pushes ruined cloth aside and traces the line between her sternum and her belly button. Electricity dances on her skin, her muscles shifting, as his touch slowly becomes lighter. But there is only darkness in his eyes, and for the first time she feels him pull at their bond, the strength of his mind against her, as he stretches out his left hand over her heart. His whispering breath is scalding, condensing in the shell of her ear.
“Aem Anima, Rose. Mine.”
Words that they both need to hear; even though the knowledge is already written in every cell, his proclamation is in no way superfluous, and in this place, like her violence he wears on his wrist, the significance rings through her bones. Her body quakes and shivers at the meaning of his words, the understanding behind them that he has already gifted to her, the intent of his words pools in the heat between her thighs. She aches for the promise that she has tasted on his words, but this time there is temperance.
She watches his bent head, his trembling fingers as he unbuttons the right cuff of his shirt; the dark of his hair gleaming in that light that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere. He does not need to reach for the other cuff, her nails and fingers tingling with the memory of the cotton she ripped in her haste, in answer to his need. He lifts his head, the glittered dark of his eyes catching hers; again she can feel the weight of his gaze against her skin, only this time it pins her in place.
There is no ghost of the smiles before, there is nothing flirtatious, but she is breathless as she watches him slip the darkness of his ruined shirt slowly from his shoulders. Her mouth dries as piece by piece he reveals his body to her gaze, as she watches him strip.
The beat of her blood is too heavy now, as she waits, as she watches. Naked, his clothes scattered around him, the heat and heaviness low in her belly, her sex tightens as waves of heat spread out, creeping over her skin as her eyes for the first time look their fill without guilt, without reparation.
His skin is still too pale, stretched too thin over lean muscles and sharp bones. The dark thin scattering of hairs on his chest becomes a thick narrow line as it edges towards and just past his belly button, their density then spreading to nest the heaviness of his engorged sex. As her eyes drift back up their gazes meet; full of darkness and unrepentant, the weight of his stare is heavy against her skin, waiting, wanting her to take.
She doesn’t realise that she is moving, that she’s stepping forward, she can feel the tattered threads of her ripped top graze the skin of first her stomach and then her arms as she mirrors his actions, slipping it from her shoulders. She doesn’t tease, doesn’t flirt, either; she merely holds his eyes as she reaches, pushes her ruined jeans from her hips. His intake of breath is loud, as she bends to take off her shoes and socks.
Cool and nimble fingers stop her as she reaches behind for the clasp of her bra. With his the touch at her shoulder and her waist, she turns so that his long thin arm can curl around her, pulling her back against him. The points where their skin touches burn; the fragile wings of her shoulder blades, the sensitive skin of her waist, the weight of his sex against the curve of her spine.
Breath halts and skin shivers; the touch of his skin on hers is more than electric as his finger and thumb work the clasp of her tattered bra. The coolness of his body steals the heat of her again he peels the cotton and elastic from her arms and chest; her spine is filled with fire as his breath drifts over the nape of her neck and swirls around the points of her clavicle.
She turns to face him, presenting herself, offering herself, because now it’s his turn to look, and it’s her turn to covet the feel, the touch of his eyes against skin. Naked in body, mind and spirit, everything shared, everything exposed. Almost funny is the realisation that both had clung to the clothing of their bodies as some sort of mask, a last barrier. A perverted nervousness seems to encapsulate them both; they have seen each other like this before, but this, now, is completely different.
She tracks the movement of his eyes, of his throat as he swallows. Almost automatic is the turn of his head, she can almost see the heat of her breath condense against the fragile line of his throat. His hands flutter at the curve of her waist as she reaches up and lets the slick heat of her tongue dart out to taste his pulse.
What was learned under the violence seems to have been lost to them, fading. Where before was so fast, the brutality they shared so sharp, making them both bleed, now there is the intent, the wildness sheathed in tenderness, and in their need for tenderness they now find a lack, not as fluid, not as confident as the animal. Fingers and hands begin at the safety of the waist, and move up.
Their bodies move with purpose, not to take but to give to share, watching each other’s eyes and face, taking and holding each gasp, each hitched breath. They may wear each other, but just as they have to learn and understand the other’s emotions they still have to learn the skin, the nerves that the other wears, and map the differences in between. Each limb, each body part is given attention, almost avoiding the parts that they had focused solely on the last time. But still sensation ripples, carrying to gather in those places, their isolation making them more sensitive. Her nipples become painfully furled and tight against his chest as his cock slowly stretches to become rampant against the softness of her stomach.
The staggered beat of his hearts aches beneath her own ribs as she learns how he differs from a human. Nerves in different places, things almost the same but not quite as in the dream they shared. The shifting pattern of muscles beneath his skin is more dense, the edge of his collarbone sharper beneath her lips. She doesn’t realise that she is moving until her lips loses contact with is skin. A sort of bed seems to have been pushed up from the floor. Balance is lost; and automatically he tightens his grip on her waist and she stumbles to fall on top.
Laughter and giggles break the silence and the sound is so loud so foreign to both. She feels giddy, almost drunk and she rolls away playfully, her hands reaching for the soft bedding that seems to form beneath her. Her body is still moving, her hands closing tight through some autonomic reaction as her mind freezes, and they are both taken to the last time they scuffled with bedcovers, both taken to the night it all started. Memories cascade and the fun, the joy of seconds before is gone, lost by the knowledge that lives beneath both their skin. The fear, the isolation, the desolation, the pain, the despair; darkness and water, needles and scalpels.
She is almost ashamed of the tears that begin to burn her throat, demanding to be spilt. She doesn’t want this now. Now is about learning each other, it’s about knowing the tenderness between them, sharing the contrast to the violence between them. Not this not tears for something that they have already accepted, that she knows she cannot change. He’s safe and alive and with her in ways that she never even imagined. She can still feel the echoes of his body inside her. She’s already cried, what good does crying solve?
But the tears burn like acid and it is she and not he that jerks in shock as one falls from her cheek to slide down his, getting lost in his beard. This was not what she had intended coming back to the TARDIS coming to this space that the TARDIS, created for them. Like the violence, like the want, too much repressed and as he reaches up and wipes the tears away more come to fill their place.
She wants to hate herself as she finds herself sobbing into the space between his throat and shoulder. The torrent that she thought released when she saw the recording was nothing. All the pain, all that she folded up inside of herself made loose by their bonding pushes up, refusing to be pushed back in any box. The rage, the terror, the fear and pain echo between them. Shared and pooling between, the emotions demand release, the violence before not enough, not nearly enough as the body tries to wash away the pain pouring from her, pouring from both of them.
She can feel the strength of his sobs, the sharp fall of his tears on her hair and skin as he clutches back at her with the same desperate ferocity. Muscles stiffen, tendons wrench as they pull each other closer, tight, as if the other could, would fall from their grasp. Breath is catching, so jagged, sharp, her lungs fighting to stop sobbing long enough to function. Her eyes so hot with tears, skin tight and raw from the salt that is drying there, salt belonging to both of them.
But the body, both human and Time Lord, only has so many tears that can be shed. Eventually the storm of weeping lessens leaving her throat raw, chest and stomach sick with being so tight, her head dizzy and light. She is hardly aware of the pillows that have formed beneath their heads. Again his fingertips are fragile against her skin and she closes her bloodshot eyes, letting the coolness of his touch soothe as he traces her eyelids.
The emotions, the memories that fuelled this still there, still raw and bleeding, not washed clean, but better than before. It was not what she had thought, what she had imagined that they would share when she thought of tenderness between them. Her breath shudders again as he pulls her close, kissing, swallowing the remnants of her tears. How could they go from before and come to this?
I was in that cell, but both of us were tortured.
Words whispered from his mind to hers, neither having the strength or will to speak. Emotions, all the ones they shared, so complex, so different, and their release, the demand for them to be expressed, to be acknowledged, rising, leaking, and leaching first in violence and now in tears. Ways that neither of them wanted, ways that both of them need.
Just as she had known what he needed before, as she had given him freedom in the violence she had let loose, in showing him that her darkness met and matched his own, she realises he had known what she needed, even if she had not. He had given her the same freedom in the quiet tenderness, the letting loose of tears that she had still held inside, sharing with her the tears, which he, in turn had held inside.
This is tenderness, an aspect that only a trusted lover would see, comfort, support given and received. And she completes the act, doing the same for him, absorbing his tears with lips and tongue. Both knowing that there will be more tears; both of them knowing the hopelessness of the hope that the other will always be there to give tenderness and comfort and to kiss the tears away.
She’s getting a bit fed up with exhaustion; it is as if she never had slept before. But her irritation with the sensation doesn’t stave it off; still it slides to fill the place of the tears, numbing the pain, distancing the memories. The tenderness, the comfort, the necessity of holding each other as close as possible comes back and, unlike the exhaustion, is welcome. Part of her feels like laughing, wondering if he will do this every time as again he arranges their limbs. With knees bent and hands woven, they are locked facing each other this time; she knows that they both trust the TARDIS to keep them safe as possible.
As he pulls covers, cocooning them both, the memories stir but do not win this time and she thinks that she can see colour beginning to steal through the quilts. The TARDIS dims the light but does not smother them in darkness, and at the back of her mind she feels the ship murmur to her, the acknowledgement that lack of light will be something else that will awaken recollections.
Even as she drifts in the comfort of his mind woven with her own, his skin beneath her touch, she can’t help at wondering how long exhaustion will be the guardian of the nightmares that both know waiting, as again they fall sleep.
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So please what do you think.
Title: The Gift of Words
Part: 12
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose
Spoilers: Children In Need (The one with Rose in it), Christmas Invasion.
Summary: Words can be so powerful. Sometimes they can be the finial thread of sanity. But words only mean something if the person speaking and the person listening both understand the weight, and meaning behind the words. (And I totally suck at summaries)
Rating: M very much adult content
Disclaimer: Very much belonging to those at the BBC
Previous parts 1-10 can be found on my lj
http://nogbad.livejournal.com/
OK, I’m as usual late and I know that some people are going to throw things at me because of the lack of smut. But smut in the next chapter, and also the end is in sight, well sort of.
First of big thanks if you are still reading this (two years after it started) so yeah and thank you for sticking with me and my insane ramblings.
Big thanks to my most excellent beta’s Platypus and Ivydoor who put-up with bad spelling, bad grammar and who push me in the right direction when I’ve been trying to get there for months.
So on with the show. Always please let me know what you think
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Silence holds them, but not in stillness, not in peace. Echoes of what they have just shared ripple underneath flesh. The embers of pleasure burn flaring with the echoes of pain between the two rather than contained in separate skin and nerves as her muscles tighten around his softening member. She feels protective, powerful and feminine as his head rests heavily against her collar bone, his body weighing her own, keeping them slumped against the wall. Her body curves, limbs holding him closer as their breath and hearts try and find again their natural rhythm.
Shared knowledge and shared awareness; she knew what he needed to tip the scales, allowing them both to slide into jagged pleasure, and now she knows the moment to stop, releasing the biting pressure of teeth and lips on his flesh before the balance slides fully to the side of pain. She can taste him as she swallows, wetting her lips, trying to drag the moisture down her parched throat, and she has to close her eyes. Somehow intrinsic is the knowledge that the taste is not just from his skin, but rather something that she can feel he has laid inside her, the scent, the essence of him placed beneath her very skin.
Cool is the trickle against exhausted nerves as their combined liquid begins to seep from her body, and her torso arches, twists, arms and legs twining tighter as her sex squeezes, ripples, unwilling to let any part of him leave her just yet. Bodies still locked but moving alignment now he shares the wall with her, using it as a pillow, and his jagged breath stirs the hair against her temple, the rough softness of his beard scrapes, nerves tightening, skin reacting as the sensation slides underneath, slithering over her breast, down her stomach, catching in pool of their sex, the raw pulse forcing her eyes open.
He glows in the neon that flashes in through the window; the coloured lights jewel his eyelashes, gleaming on the moisture that clings to his skin, to his hair, his beard. There is no mask; there is no title or pretence. Translated onto flesh is the fact, the truth of who and what he is. She maps it, her eyes starved and greedy, knowing that only she will ever see this facet of him, only she will ever see the truth of him expressed in his features.
And the knowledge of what he is to her, the place that he has taken, that she has given to him, flows over flesh and bone. Muscles tremble and limbs ache as her shaking fingertips catch his hand as it looses its grip on the wall. Vicious tenderness threads through her veins, sweetening the taste and again she can feel the wildness that sings to her as she nuzzles softy, gently at the mark she placed on him.
She is not fooled. She knows that neither of them have tamed the storm; she can feel the violence between them, the compulsion prowling, lingering at the very edges of their pleasure, but the intensity, the insanity, the cruelty within her is no longer as vicious, is no longer as strong.
Yes, the ruthless compulsion to claim has been appeased, by hormones, by the blood. Their bond is fixed, threads, ropes wound tight through minds, woven beneath flesh. There is no thought of worry about both of them having lost clear lines to define between the mind and the body, between themselves. What has been woken inside, the animal, the storm, is in accord with intellect.
She knows that before, he thought that he did not want the violence that they shared when their minds connected to stain the physical. She knows that he asked to rest so that the wildness, the storm between them might have some aspect of control. And at the time she had no choice but to surrender, swept away by the force of their combined exhaustion that lulled those stronger instincts. Holding the basic promise that he would be there when she woke, that touch would be later, she had pulled the feel of his mind close around her as he curved his physical form around hers.
The storm of golden darkness had roared inside her when something had fractured their shared rest, the wildness had pushed through her veins fast and needle sharp. She had been aware of her guardian, of the other male, and she had felt the violence held coiled within the Doctor’s body, the jealousy that rippled beneath his skin. She had been past the point of caring who was in the room. All she could think was that he was there, he was hers. His lips should be on her, his skin beneath her skin, his body surrounding and inside her. And the violence had felt so right, so good, that their bond had to be completed this way; that for all he thought, he needed it as much as she, for the violence of them to break across skin and bones.
Her fuel, her inclination had been fed by his violent fantasy, the dark truth of what she had seen when they shared, what his mind gave to him in his cell, the violent compulsion of his instincts when they had drugged, him when they had threatened, promised to give her to him. There is joy inside her that now he is flagrant, that he feels no shame over what he did, over what she allowed, no doubt over the reality, no confusion with the fantasy, with the hallucination.
“It had to be this way; we needed it to be this way.” The words from her dry throat sound so loud. By themselves the words are inadequate. But they are through the glass darkly now, and the knowledge that he, unashamed, needs her to say them, that he needs to hear them after everything, makes her heart feel so tight, as if it could shatter like glass. The raw complexity of touch with mind and body, tided with the simple power of words spoken, of words meant. After everything, for all that they share, for all their bonds it is still words spoken, the vibration of sound given for all to hear that is able to bridge divides in ways that nothing else can.
The fragile touch of his left hand against her cheek is almost reverent, and as she turns her cheek, she presses her cracked and bleeding lips softly against his finger tips. Skin seeking skin, his other hand, long fingers probing, finds the gap between her ruined top and jeans. The soft fragility of his fingerprints against the small of her back, possessing the curve of her spine, catches, and electricity slowly spirals out from where their bodies still join.
They move as one, his hands tight at her hips, as she pushes herself against the traction of the wall. She hisses in female shock, and both flinch in pain, as he pulls away, as his half hard sex pulls out of her. Their minds intertwine tighter in an effort to soothe the physical trauma. Seconds pass heavily before either of them can master the complication of moving limbs that have been still too long, of separating bodies that don’t want to be separated.
The ordinary pain of pins and needles creates a necessary physical distraction for both; the bubbles of hilarity, of joy that begin to fizz inside her feel strange and distant, almost foreign. She feels inside herself for the first time since before this started the honesty of the smile that stretches across her lips as she watches the face he makes as he stands, and starts to hop a little.
The smile stays as she takes his hand and he pulls her up. He bends his head, and she welcomes the cool tongue, the softness of lips, the sharp strength of his body, the quiet insistence of his hands framing her face, cupping her throat. Breath and lips, so soft, so tender, and their smiles melt away.
Her jaw, aching just a little, opens wide, almost as if she could somehow swallow him as her hands reach up, sliding through his beard as she breathes his breath, as he seals his lips on hers.
As if before had not happened, as if sex was something that they had yet to make their own, her hands shake as she pulls at his shirt, skimming under the tails, searching for the cool smoothness of skin. Her lips sting as he breaks the connection, his forehead pressed heavy against hers and his mouth open, his breath ragged as her fingers skate down the vault of his ribs. The sound he makes as her hands move to press her nails lightly against the length of his spine is somewhere between a hiss and a growl….a warning to both of them.
Again pain moves through them with the loss of touch, their flesh burning, as her hands fall reluctantly away as he steps back. She takes a step to follow as he moves a short distance, crossing the room, and then back at her side, almost shyly presenting her with his suit jacket. The cloth is cool in her hands and out of the corner of her eye she watches him tuck his softening sex inside his trousers. She could tease, she could slowly strip the tattered remains of her clothes and they would be back against the wall, or down on the floor. But she doesn’t, even though she doesn’t care, is almost proud that those outside the room know about the violence of them, the brutal magnificence of what they can be. But beneath the storm, beneath the tooth and claw they are too fragile, too unstable, and unwilling to expose the tenderness, the softness they can now feel calling to them to anyone but each other.
Enough of what should have been private has been put on display for all, shared in manners and ways that have scarred and both know that the trial that is to come will expose things far beyond what they would willingly give. It would be a mistake, a violation for this fragile gentleness to be released anywhere but where they felt the safest, the most secure.
So she does not tease, she does not strip but rather she uses what is left of her belt to keep her jeans on, shields her destroyed clothes and marked body, wraps herself in part of his armour and takes the hand that waits for her, threading their fingers, letting him lead her from the room.
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It is almost a risk, going back to the TARDIS for the first time together. Both know the temptation that she offers for both of them. To escape, to leave, and they have done it before and know they will do it again, but not in this instance.
The beautiful muffled cacophony of the TARDIS rings through her mind and bones, the pitch and tone of the ship sounds somehow even more harmonic, even more joyful than usual. She almost feels like a bride being presented as, with the door closed behind them, hand in hand they walk up to the centre column. As they pause there, the colours of the room dappling his skin, she can see the line of his shoulders relax, she can almost feel the beats of his hearts slow a little, and tension she did not realise that he was holding in every cell seems to seep away from him.
Anxiety creeps as she starts to think, as she wonders, as she fears. Did she do the right thing in letting the others treat him, in not taking him back to the TARDIS? Maybe he needed the TARDIS, like he had needed her at Christmas, maybe….maybe…
She can taste the perfume of her sex on the long finger that comes to rest against her lips. The coolness of his mind reaches out with gentle carefulness, reassuring her over her action, slowing her single heart that she didn’t realise had begun to race, calming the panic attack before it can start.
She sighs against his mouth as he replaces his finger with his lips, as her mind reaches out to return the embrace. She tastes the truth; that, yes, the TARDIS would have been able to guide her to heal him, but if he had woken in the TARDIS, in his fractured state, he would have run; from the situation, from her, from himself, from the memories. And they had needed to stay to face this; those around them needed them to stay, both the dead and the living. She had been right and he would always trust her to do what she thought right.
The strength of his belief in her, the power of conviction that flows through their bonds makes her heart sting, her throat tighten, and the salt of her tears comes to flavour their kiss. She tilts her head as his fingers move to thread and weave into her hair. Visceral is the contrast between the violence remembered and the tenderness now. Shimmering pulses trail out from where their bodies touch and where they connect unseen beneath their skin, and she moans as he breaks the connection of their lips, moving down to delicately lap at her jaw, at her throat.
As the edge of his teeth closes around her flesh the sting causes her tears to dry. The sweetness darkens, slipping through to become something richer. She can feel the promise of the storm that they share between them golden and dark, waiting, aching to be let loose again. She can feel his reluctance as he pulls back, but his eyes look heavy lidded and sleepy. Again she takes his hand but knows from the song inside her that it is the TARDIS that is leading them both.
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The room is not a room, but rather a space devoid of shape, shade, or colour, an empty canvas, waiting for them to make it their own. In this space they stand facing one another, his left hand quietly cupping her right. Reverence, timidity seems to fall between them as the index finger of his right hand traces a line down the centre of the hand he holds. It’s only then that she absently notices that the splint on his left hand is gone.
His fingers follow a path that he does not share with her. She knew before, had seen before the sensitivity of his skin to stimuli, but now she wears it through her own, can feel how it has been torn and repaired, carrying memories that tease, torment fragile nerves. She can feel the schism as the dual electrification dances on her own flesh through his nerves as his fingers and then nails graze a path from her wrist to her fingertips.
Her heart dictates her actions as she reaches for him, eyes large and luminous with darkness shared, body translating the furious tenderness. Her head titling, their souls touch skin, watching as he feels the fullness of the sensation that she translates back to him, pushing through their bond the burning emotions and sensations that belong to her. The smile that she feels now is craven, wanton, his eyes full of darkness and waiting, and somehow the tenderness is still threaded through them both for her as he watches her, as the gentle stroke of his fingers leaves her hand and moves to her lips.
She can see the inches of control that he is losing as he waits for her, his fingertips that shakily trace the bow of her mouth, splitting the seam of her lips, shallowly dipping into the slick heat inside.
Her tongue flickers forward to the edge of his finger to taste his skin, the softness of her eyelashes as they half close, as she watches his own lips pull back, the slickness of his teeth as she pulls his taste of salt honey and spice, muted by musk of her own body, and his breath pauses as the sharp edge of her teeth nips with muffled violence.
Cool like water she can feel the heat of her own body against the fragile softness of his lips replacing his finger, the grainy velvet of his tongue tasting her, teasing her. Spine and hips move but there is no stanchion to use as he presses the clothed sharp angles of his body against her, into her.
His teeth tug at her lower lip as her nails trail down his cheek, finding the hollow of his jaw. Her hands continue to drift down, her thumbs curving in the hollows of his throat. Nerves murmur and spark as he subtly shifts his weight against her, her fingers tangling with the open collar of his shirt. Before aggression fuelled inclination; now, that is tempered with tenderness, softening the bite as she presses her blunt nails sharply against his throat. His neck arches, his moan vibrates along her fingers.
The air of the room is cold against her heated skin, but it’s his touch that causes her to shiver, as he pushes ruined cloth aside and traces the line between her sternum and her belly button. Electricity dances on her skin, her muscles shifting, as his touch slowly becomes lighter. But there is only darkness in his eyes, and for the first time she feels him pull at their bond, the strength of his mind against her, as he stretches out his left hand over her heart. His whispering breath is scalding, condensing in the shell of her ear.
“Aem Anima, Rose. Mine.”
Words that they both need to hear; even though the knowledge is already written in every cell, his proclamation is in no way superfluous, and in this place, like her violence he wears on his wrist, the significance rings through her bones. Her body quakes and shivers at the meaning of his words, the understanding behind them that he has already gifted to her, the intent of his words pools in the heat between her thighs. She aches for the promise that she has tasted on his words, but this time there is temperance.
She watches his bent head, his trembling fingers as he unbuttons the right cuff of his shirt; the dark of his hair gleaming in that light that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere. He does not need to reach for the other cuff, her nails and fingers tingling with the memory of the cotton she ripped in her haste, in answer to his need. He lifts his head, the glittered dark of his eyes catching hers; again she can feel the weight of his gaze against her skin, only this time it pins her in place.
There is no ghost of the smiles before, there is nothing flirtatious, but she is breathless as she watches him slip the darkness of his ruined shirt slowly from his shoulders. Her mouth dries as piece by piece he reveals his body to her gaze, as she watches him strip.
The beat of her blood is too heavy now, as she waits, as she watches. Naked, his clothes scattered around him, the heat and heaviness low in her belly, her sex tightens as waves of heat spread out, creeping over her skin as her eyes for the first time look their fill without guilt, without reparation.
His skin is still too pale, stretched too thin over lean muscles and sharp bones. The dark thin scattering of hairs on his chest becomes a thick narrow line as it edges towards and just past his belly button, their density then spreading to nest the heaviness of his engorged sex. As her eyes drift back up their gazes meet; full of darkness and unrepentant, the weight of his stare is heavy against her skin, waiting, wanting her to take.
She doesn’t realise that she is moving, that she’s stepping forward, she can feel the tattered threads of her ripped top graze the skin of first her stomach and then her arms as she mirrors his actions, slipping it from her shoulders. She doesn’t tease, doesn’t flirt, either; she merely holds his eyes as she reaches, pushes her ruined jeans from her hips. His intake of breath is loud, as she bends to take off her shoes and socks.
Cool and nimble fingers stop her as she reaches behind for the clasp of her bra. With his the touch at her shoulder and her waist, she turns so that his long thin arm can curl around her, pulling her back against him. The points where their skin touches burn; the fragile wings of her shoulder blades, the sensitive skin of her waist, the weight of his sex against the curve of her spine.
Breath halts and skin shivers; the touch of his skin on hers is more than electric as his finger and thumb work the clasp of her tattered bra. The coolness of his body steals the heat of her again he peels the cotton and elastic from her arms and chest; her spine is filled with fire as his breath drifts over the nape of her neck and swirls around the points of her clavicle.
She turns to face him, presenting herself, offering herself, because now it’s his turn to look, and it’s her turn to covet the feel, the touch of his eyes against skin. Naked in body, mind and spirit, everything shared, everything exposed. Almost funny is the realisation that both had clung to the clothing of their bodies as some sort of mask, a last barrier. A perverted nervousness seems to encapsulate them both; they have seen each other like this before, but this, now, is completely different.
She tracks the movement of his eyes, of his throat as he swallows. Almost automatic is the turn of his head, she can almost see the heat of her breath condense against the fragile line of his throat. His hands flutter at the curve of her waist as she reaches up and lets the slick heat of her tongue dart out to taste his pulse.
What was learned under the violence seems to have been lost to them, fading. Where before was so fast, the brutality they shared so sharp, making them both bleed, now there is the intent, the wildness sheathed in tenderness, and in their need for tenderness they now find a lack, not as fluid, not as confident as the animal. Fingers and hands begin at the safety of the waist, and move up.
Their bodies move with purpose, not to take but to give to share, watching each other’s eyes and face, taking and holding each gasp, each hitched breath. They may wear each other, but just as they have to learn and understand the other’s emotions they still have to learn the skin, the nerves that the other wears, and map the differences in between. Each limb, each body part is given attention, almost avoiding the parts that they had focused solely on the last time. But still sensation ripples, carrying to gather in those places, their isolation making them more sensitive. Her nipples become painfully furled and tight against his chest as his cock slowly stretches to become rampant against the softness of her stomach.
The staggered beat of his hearts aches beneath her own ribs as she learns how he differs from a human. Nerves in different places, things almost the same but not quite as in the dream they shared. The shifting pattern of muscles beneath his skin is more dense, the edge of his collarbone sharper beneath her lips. She doesn’t realise that she is moving until her lips loses contact with is skin. A sort of bed seems to have been pushed up from the floor. Balance is lost; and automatically he tightens his grip on her waist and she stumbles to fall on top.
Laughter and giggles break the silence and the sound is so loud so foreign to both. She feels giddy, almost drunk and she rolls away playfully, her hands reaching for the soft bedding that seems to form beneath her. Her body is still moving, her hands closing tight through some autonomic reaction as her mind freezes, and they are both taken to the last time they scuffled with bedcovers, both taken to the night it all started. Memories cascade and the fun, the joy of seconds before is gone, lost by the knowledge that lives beneath both their skin. The fear, the isolation, the desolation, the pain, the despair; darkness and water, needles and scalpels.
She is almost ashamed of the tears that begin to burn her throat, demanding to be spilt. She doesn’t want this now. Now is about learning each other, it’s about knowing the tenderness between them, sharing the contrast to the violence between them. Not this not tears for something that they have already accepted, that she knows she cannot change. He’s safe and alive and with her in ways that she never even imagined. She can still feel the echoes of his body inside her. She’s already cried, what good does crying solve?
But the tears burn like acid and it is she and not he that jerks in shock as one falls from her cheek to slide down his, getting lost in his beard. This was not what she had intended coming back to the TARDIS coming to this space that the TARDIS, created for them. Like the violence, like the want, too much repressed and as he reaches up and wipes the tears away more come to fill their place.
She wants to hate herself as she finds herself sobbing into the space between his throat and shoulder. The torrent that she thought released when she saw the recording was nothing. All the pain, all that she folded up inside of herself made loose by their bonding pushes up, refusing to be pushed back in any box. The rage, the terror, the fear and pain echo between them. Shared and pooling between, the emotions demand release, the violence before not enough, not nearly enough as the body tries to wash away the pain pouring from her, pouring from both of them.
She can feel the strength of his sobs, the sharp fall of his tears on her hair and skin as he clutches back at her with the same desperate ferocity. Muscles stiffen, tendons wrench as they pull each other closer, tight, as if the other could, would fall from their grasp. Breath is catching, so jagged, sharp, her lungs fighting to stop sobbing long enough to function. Her eyes so hot with tears, skin tight and raw from the salt that is drying there, salt belonging to both of them.
But the body, both human and Time Lord, only has so many tears that can be shed. Eventually the storm of weeping lessens leaving her throat raw, chest and stomach sick with being so tight, her head dizzy and light. She is hardly aware of the pillows that have formed beneath their heads. Again his fingertips are fragile against her skin and she closes her bloodshot eyes, letting the coolness of his touch soothe as he traces her eyelids.
The emotions, the memories that fuelled this still there, still raw and bleeding, not washed clean, but better than before. It was not what she had thought, what she had imagined that they would share when she thought of tenderness between them. Her breath shudders again as he pulls her close, kissing, swallowing the remnants of her tears. How could they go from before and come to this?
I was in that cell, but both of us were tortured.
Words whispered from his mind to hers, neither having the strength or will to speak. Emotions, all the ones they shared, so complex, so different, and their release, the demand for them to be expressed, to be acknowledged, rising, leaking, and leaching first in violence and now in tears. Ways that neither of them wanted, ways that both of them need.
Just as she had known what he needed before, as she had given him freedom in the violence she had let loose, in showing him that her darkness met and matched his own, she realises he had known what she needed, even if she had not. He had given her the same freedom in the quiet tenderness, the letting loose of tears that she had still held inside, sharing with her the tears, which he, in turn had held inside.
This is tenderness, an aspect that only a trusted lover would see, comfort, support given and received. And she completes the act, doing the same for him, absorbing his tears with lips and tongue. Both knowing that there will be more tears; both of them knowing the hopelessness of the hope that the other will always be there to give tenderness and comfort and to kiss the tears away.
She’s getting a bit fed up with exhaustion; it is as if she never had slept before. But her irritation with the sensation doesn’t stave it off; still it slides to fill the place of the tears, numbing the pain, distancing the memories. The tenderness, the comfort, the necessity of holding each other as close as possible comes back and, unlike the exhaustion, is welcome. Part of her feels like laughing, wondering if he will do this every time as again he arranges their limbs. With knees bent and hands woven, they are locked facing each other this time; she knows that they both trust the TARDIS to keep them safe as possible.
As he pulls covers, cocooning them both, the memories stir but do not win this time and she thinks that she can see colour beginning to steal through the quilts. The TARDIS dims the light but does not smother them in darkness, and at the back of her mind she feels the ship murmur to her, the acknowledgement that lack of light will be something else that will awaken recollections.
Even as she drifts in the comfort of his mind woven with her own, his skin beneath her touch, she can’t help at wondering how long exhaustion will be the guardian of the nightmares that both know waiting, as again they fall sleep.
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So please what do you think.