Title: The Time Of Your Life
Pairing: Eleven/River
Rating/Warnings: I shall make it an R to be on the safe side, because it does contain sex and at least one very bad word.
Summary: In which loving someone in chronological order is for losers.
Something's switched in his brain regarding River Song and when he realises that he's both relieved and utterly terrified. He makes himself feel better by thinking that while he doesn't believe in predestination there are some things that are sort of inevitable.
It starts at the end, but only because later is also earlier.
The first time River kisses him he can't stop himself thinking of Amy and comparing the two women in his head. Which is astonishingly rude if nothing else. It's just not on to be thinking of one woman when another's got her tongue in your mouth.
The Doctor likes kissing people, however much he also likes to pretend to be shocked when it happens. It's quite brief because if they don't keep moving they might get horribly killed, but it's also rather good and if his personal future contains more kisses like that then he's not sure what he's been complaining about all this time.
Sometimes he suspects that someone travels the universe telling people to stop kissing him just as he's getting into it. Possibly that person is himself, indulging one of those tawdry quirks that he absolutely doesn't have. So one moment his hands are resting on her hips and the next there's just thin air where there used to be tempting curves.
She shakes her hair and licks her lips. "Not bad," she says, "but you still need to be broken in a bit."
"Can we have another go? I was just getting the hang of it." Danger be damned, that nipping thing she does is lovely.
She grabs his hand and pulls him along behind her. "I'm not letting you get killed before you've done much more interesting things with that mouth."
Luckily he's quite good at running while aroused.
The second time they're in the TARDIs and she's about to leave again. His fingers grip the edge of the console and he worries for a moment about whether Amy and Rory are really old enough to be witnessing something like this.
He likes touching the TARDIS but it occurs to him that River's surfaces are equally interesting plus have some novelty value. He moves his hands to touch her hips, her waist and okay maybe it's a bit soon to be going for her breasts, although those curves do feel promising, but anyway down might be a good idea.
By this time he's kissed Amy again in extenuating circumstances and there was that thing with Rory that they don't talk about, and there was that woman with all the tentacles as well. River might be judging him on performance and he's not going to be out-kissed by himself of all people.
"I'll be off then," she says, pleasingly breathless. Then she leans in even closer and with her lips against his ear she says something that he has no plans to repeat in polite company. Or any company, for that matter.
Then she's off and he's careful to make a study of her retreating form so he has a bit more to work from when he has some alone-time later on.
The third time she kisses him leads quite directly to the first time he has sex with her, not that he really had much... no, that's not fair, he did have a say in the matter and he can't keep blaming other people for these things.
Her kiss is passionate and demanding and an obvious invitation. Her breasts are soft and heavy and when he squeezes gently she moans against his mouth. He wonders why he felt the need to wear so many clothes, and he's going to write to whoever made her dress to complain about the stupid fastenings.
Their first time (first from his perspective, at least) is a bit clumsy but they're both so desperate for each other that it doesn't really matter. He can impress her next time, this time is for fucking each other hard until they both get the orgasm they need. It's not the tender coupling he expected but he's not complaining about it either.
And then... oh, and then...
Contrary to popular belief it hasn't been that long, certainly not when you live for centuries. There was Bess (who deserves to have her picture next to the word "insatiable") relatively recently, and before her there was Reinette. Before that was the war and it's best not to think about that when he doesn't have to.
Except that was another body and regeneration's quite good for teaching old dogs new tricks. River is also good at such things, having something of an advantage over him and he thought he'd explored this new body thoroughly but that never crossed his mind and apparently he never got round to seeing whether that bit there was especially sensitive.
He is over her, under her, behind her, beside her. If he died right now he wouldn't even mind if he didn't end up ginger.
Afterwards she lies next to him and says "You don't have to stay if it makes you feel awkward. I'll forgive you this time if you want to run off somewhere."
It's a very tempting offer, but he surprises himself and says "I wouldn't mind staying for a bit."
River turns onto her side to face him. He wonders if she's going to say something emotional and therefore scary.
"My legs are a bit sore," she says, "so if you could get up and make some tea I'd love you forever."
He's very good at being in love with people and really bad at telling them about it. He's either going to say the right words at some point or River doesn't mind that he's never going to. Sometimes he writes love poems about her, but he never reads them to her because he's not fifteen years old.
He can be a bit stupid at times, and when he kisses her after a nasty Clurfax infestation she stares at him in surprise.
At least she doesn't slap him.
He can still taste her and with a bit of concentration he estimates her age at twenty-three years, four months, and fifty-eight days. "Oh," he says. "Usually -"
"Usually? You mean you've kissed me more than once?"
A lot more than once. He dodges the question to avoid some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. "Just thought it might be nice, that's all. It was nice and I won't hear a word against my kissing technique."
There isn't the slightest bit of love in her eyes and it hurts more than he would have expected. It's his own fault for not paying attention to how young she looks this time. He talks to avoid having to think and says "I'm sorry about the wandering hands, but I think you should know that you have wonderful breasts." Oops.
She doesn't slap him. She brings her knee up instead and it really, really hurts.
"Did you really have to do that to me when I kissed you the first time?" He's landed in her living room and by now she's learned to keep breakable objects away from spaces large enough to accomodate the TARDIS. It was weeks (or eighteen years) ago now but he's still not over it. "You could at least have warned me."
She shrugs. "If I'd warned you then you wouldn't have groped me and then I wouldn't have anything to warn you about."
She has a point but he doesn't feel like admitting that. "I thought you'd broken something," he sulks.
"Don't be silly." She smiles suddenly, wicked and familiar. "Though it's probably best if we check that everything still works properly."
Eventually River has to leave for a dig in the morning, but he can take her there in the TARDIS and has she missed the part where it's a time-machine so she could stay for, oh, weeks and still get back in time to dig up dead things. Then there's an argument about which of them is more capable of hitting Monday morning from a distance of a thousand years and then River's moved her stuff into his bedroom and it's not domestic, however it might appear to other people.
It might not be the start of something beautiful, but it's somewhere in the middle and that's always the best bit.
Time is something that happens to other people, and if you've got a TARDIS then everything is happening at once. She's kissing him for the first time; he's watching her die; she's chucking herself out of a spaceship; he's handing her the sonic screwdriver and trying not to cry; she's in the shower while he makes her toaster a bit too intelligent; they're uninvited guests at their own wedding; they haven't seen each other in years; he's giving her a diary so she won't get lost.
They run forever.