(no subject)
a list of standard issue regrets, TenII/Rose, PG
They don’t sleep that first night., 741
They don’t sleep that first night.
Instead they lie on the bed facing each other,
an uncomfortable distance between them even as their palms ache with loneliness
and want of the other.
There should be words. Words and sentences and fully formed thoughts,
the stories they carry, tattooed on their skin in scrapes and scars,
saved lives and righted wrongs.
Sundays at her parents’,
Jackie pouring tea, the cat testing her claws on the hems of his trousers,
and he finds himself wishing for an invasion, a paradox, or to run out of sugar,
something or anything to make it like it was. An excuse to run,
fingers tight, lungs burning and the pound, pound, pound of rubber soles (swear by them still).
Tuesday his spine presses against the wood of the bathroom door,
and he pleads,
and he begs,
and he gives up too easily.
She's somewhere on the other side,
because there's half a lab on the third floor burned (well, more melted really)
and how was he supposed to know that concrete resonated so violently here.
Because it's like this,
he's not him and he's not sure he wants to be, but he's trying
for her.
He fixes and tinkers and makes things more sonic
even when he's told they already are
(because who would know better than he?).
Because it's like this,
he is him in every way that matters, and she's trying, really trying,
for him.
She lets him poke and fiddle and tries to keep him from getting carried away,
because nothing really needs to be twice as sonic
(and what does that even mean anyway?).
She says this is the life she really wants,
and he pretends not to notice the crossed fingers behind her back.
They make a go of it for a while;
his suits hanging in her wardrobe, their trainers tumbled together like their limbs in her bed.
Until one day she comes home to a flat that’s half empty
and a rack void of outrageous ties.
It was bound to happen.
It’s not in him to stand still for very long,
and she knows this about him,
loves this about him.
But the worst part of it is she doesn’t even look for a goodbye.
He stares out of a rain blurred hotel window,
the tea in his hand turning cold long before he remembers to drink it.
There’s a bag he should be packing, and return tickets to London
tucked safely under a layer of rumpled clothes.
It’s for when he’s ready,
or so he tells himself.
Just one more stop, one more moment’s contemplation and then he’ll be ready.
Half truths are as much his specialty as running.
Fifty six minutes and four seconds pass before he thinks of her again,
remembering the flecks of gold in her eyes and the soft skin of her hip under his long curious fingers.
Looking down at the small bedside table,
he eyes the empty postcard,
purchased as an afterthought on the way out of another random shop.
Months later, there’s an open suitcase on the bed
and cardboard boxes waiting in the living room.
A postcard stares back at her from the corner of her dresser.
‘Wish you were here!’
proclaimed over a shining Mediterranean view.
(And not so secretly, she does.)
He doesn’t know that the rest of his salutations will fall silent,
into a mailbox with no name,
the label peeled off in haste on her way out of the building for the last time.
Paris, Madrid, New York,
and some unnamed town on an island she can't pronounce.
North, South, East,
and a dart thrown at a map because she's not trying to look for him anymore.
(Not again.)
All those miles, all that running,
and it's a street in London where he finds her again for the first time.
(Nice to meet you, Rose.)
He stops and stares and waits for her to notice,
and when she does, when she turns around, it's there finally,
stretched between them, etched into the air.
(i think i love you,
but i'm afraid)
Because it's like this,
he's the Doctor, she's Rose Tyler, and somewhere along the line they started trying,
too hard,
when they never needed to at all.
So he makes things more sonic and she makes the tea
and the curves of her palm still match up with the dips in his.
(Run for your life.)
They don’t sleep that first night., 741
They don’t sleep that first night.
Instead they lie on the bed facing each other,
an uncomfortable distance between them even as their palms ache with loneliness
and want of the other.
There should be words. Words and sentences and fully formed thoughts,
the stories they carry, tattooed on their skin in scrapes and scars,
saved lives and righted wrongs.
Sundays at her parents’,
Jackie pouring tea, the cat testing her claws on the hems of his trousers,
and he finds himself wishing for an invasion, a paradox, or to run out of sugar,
something or anything to make it like it was. An excuse to run,
fingers tight, lungs burning and the pound, pound, pound of rubber soles (swear by them still).
Tuesday his spine presses against the wood of the bathroom door,
and he pleads,
and he begs,
and he gives up too easily.
She's somewhere on the other side,
because there's half a lab on the third floor burned (well, more melted really)
and how was he supposed to know that concrete resonated so violently here.
Because it's like this,
he's not him and he's not sure he wants to be, but he's trying
for her.
He fixes and tinkers and makes things more sonic
even when he's told they already are
(because who would know better than he?).
Because it's like this,
he is him in every way that matters, and she's trying, really trying,
for him.
She lets him poke and fiddle and tries to keep him from getting carried away,
because nothing really needs to be twice as sonic
(and what does that even mean anyway?).
She says this is the life she really wants,
and he pretends not to notice the crossed fingers behind her back.
They make a go of it for a while;
his suits hanging in her wardrobe, their trainers tumbled together like their limbs in her bed.
Until one day she comes home to a flat that’s half empty
and a rack void of outrageous ties.
It was bound to happen.
It’s not in him to stand still for very long,
and she knows this about him,
loves this about him.
But the worst part of it is she doesn’t even look for a goodbye.
He stares out of a rain blurred hotel window,
the tea in his hand turning cold long before he remembers to drink it.
There’s a bag he should be packing, and return tickets to London
tucked safely under a layer of rumpled clothes.
It’s for when he’s ready,
or so he tells himself.
Just one more stop, one more moment’s contemplation and then he’ll be ready.
Half truths are as much his specialty as running.
Fifty six minutes and four seconds pass before he thinks of her again,
remembering the flecks of gold in her eyes and the soft skin of her hip under his long curious fingers.
Looking down at the small bedside table,
he eyes the empty postcard,
purchased as an afterthought on the way out of another random shop.
Months later, there’s an open suitcase on the bed
and cardboard boxes waiting in the living room.
A postcard stares back at her from the corner of her dresser.
‘Wish you were here!’
proclaimed over a shining Mediterranean view.
(And not so secretly, she does.)
He doesn’t know that the rest of his salutations will fall silent,
into a mailbox with no name,
the label peeled off in haste on her way out of the building for the last time.
Paris, Madrid, New York,
and some unnamed town on an island she can't pronounce.
North, South, East,
and a dart thrown at a map because she's not trying to look for him anymore.
(Not again.)
All those miles, all that running,
and it's a street in London where he finds her again for the first time.
(Nice to meet you, Rose.)
He stops and stares and waits for her to notice,
and when she does, when she turns around, it's there finally,
stretched between them, etched into the air.
(i think i love you,
but i'm afraid)
Because it's like this,
he's the Doctor, she's Rose Tyler, and somewhere along the line they started trying,
too hard,
when they never needed to at all.
So he makes things more sonic and she makes the tea
and the curves of her palm still match up with the dips in his.
(Run for your life.)