(no subject)
Desultory,
AU Ten/Rose, R,
"I had a dream I was arguing with that bloke."
"How'd that work out for you?"
"Eh, I think it was my subconscious trying to tell me something.", 1,630 words
A/N: Thanks to seeing_history for beta reading this piece.
Desultory
A piece of popcorn flits idly into the air. Rose makes a desultory attempt to catch it, and when she does, there's a single second of a hint of a grin on her face as she crunches the kernel in her back teeth. It passes, along with her urge to throw her food, and she chews the next few pieces mindlessly as her attention focuses on the TV.
She reflects dully that she's probably gained a stone since they moved here from... she doesn't actually care to remember, and the thought drifts away as lazily as it arrived.
"What's on?" asks her useless lump of a boyfriend (her mum said so), leaning over the back of the couch Rose has made her perch for the... day? week? forever? She doesn't actually care.
"Dunno," she says. "Looks like Strictly Come Dancing, maybe?" She tilts her head back to look at him, and he has this vague, disinterested look. "It's rubbish," she adds, and clicks the remote.
"They don't get Strictly Come Dancing, here," he says, and he knows most everything, so she believes him. He flops down next to her, his long, spindly limps splaying quite a bit as he takes up more than his half.
She humphs a non-committal answer at him, and stops flipping channels on something red. "Legends are the spice of the universe, Mr. Data, because they have a way of coming true..."
"Star Trek," she mumbles.
"Huh," he says.
They watch for awhile, and then a commercial comes on. "I had a dream I was arguing with that bloke."
Rose is mildly amused and she mutes the commercials. "How'd that work out for you?"
"Eh, I think it was my subconscious trying to tell me something."
"Because he was green or some such?" she wonders.
"Nah, I was superimposing him on someone else. Can't remember who. He was wearing the traditional robes of the Lord President of the High Council of Time Lords."
She nods. "Nice," she says, then does a double take. "What's that when it's home, then?"
He's been doodling on a little notepad he keeps for just that purpose, and he hands it over. What he's drawn is pretty amazing, but all his drawings are. It's Patrick Stewart, but he's wearing this high collar that rises behind his head like a half moon, with another crescent cut out of the very top of it. She decides its meant to make the wearer look impressive and divine at once, and then shakes her head, because it isn't real.
There's that odd symbol he's always drawing, the one that makes her think of music that's sung by stars, and it's on both breast pieces of the collar thing. She used to think he had a tattoo of it on his left shoulder, but that's stupid, because she sees his left shoulder every night, and there's nothing there except his mole.
She hums the tune that's always in her head, and he smiles as she finally figures out another note. "Nice," he says.
"Thanks," she answers, and hands his notebook back. "What were you arguing about?" she wonders.
"Oh, he was telling me off for violating the Prime Directive, and I was telling him off for taking the Prime Directive."
"No interfering," she mumbles, and then she shakes her head. "But what're you meant to do, yeah, when people are dying and being stolen and sold and tortured, and not because of their culture or their laws, but just because one evil person decides he ought to be the law?" She's breathing hard, sitting up and glowering before she's even finished.
He's got her hands in his, his freckled face alive and animated, his dark eyes blazing like hell fire. "Or a bunch of people are dying of starvation just because their sun's got spots, and who the hell says it isn't someone outside's fault, because the Universe is a sealed system - it's possible for one environment to affect others, no matter what some people like to claim."
"Seriously," she declares vehemently. "It's all well and good to lay back and say 'I'm too special and advanced and important, I can't get involved,' but how is it ever fair if it just might be your advancement that's causing them their problems? If you can make a difference, if you really can save the world, then you always have to. You've got a responsibility!"
He's shining like the sun in the dingy light of their grubby little flat. "It isn't playing god if you just do what you can, is it?"
"No," she decides, "no, it's not. It's trying, even if no one else will. It's got to be. People have to do their part, too, they can't just count on others to save them, but anyone who can save someone, well, it's that person's duty to try."
"Can you imagine?" His voice lightens and brightens, and he stands up, his hands describing a scene she can almost see as his eyes follow it. "Going around, you and me, traveling, doing whatever we can to help people."
"Never staying around, of course, because we can't take the credit," she agrees, bouncing on her toes next to him, excited, shivers running up and down her spine as she thinks of it.
"John Smith and Rose Tyler," he says, his gaze on that scene they're both looking at, the one that isn't actually there. "In the TARDIS, just as it should be."
She's grinning, and she throws her arms around his neck, hugging him close, nearly squealing in her delight. Of course they're not meant to be living like this, two bored ne'er-do-wells in a dump of a flat - apartment - in some nondescript American town just like every other town in every other state in America. For one thing, they both sound British, so how the hell did they end up here, anyway?
He's giddy and he spins her around - but carefully, as there's no room - and they laugh, and it feels like it's the first time they've done that in ages. When he puts her down, she thinks of it, concern joining her joy. "Not John Smith and Rose Tyler," she says.
"Hum?" he wonders, and he's nuzzling her hair with his nose.
She giggles, suspecting what he's up to, and not opposed. "Not John and Rose," she repeats.
"Oh?" he says, eyes twinkling merry mischief. "What then?" He kisses her then, and she lets him, and it feels lovely and warm and only a little strange.
"We'll think of something," she says, and kisses him this time, and he hums quiet approval while she assaults him.
She thinks, while they're having sex on the sofa, that it's really pretty good this time, even if the remote is sort of sticking in her back. She has a nagging little idea in her head that it used to be much more intimate between them, somewhere, somehow, like they shared this and everything else between them so much deeper.
Then, he's licking at her neck and her breasts in that sweet, familiar way of his, and she can't keep her teeth out of the muscle at his shoulder (he sports a permanent mark there, but so does she on hers). She gets lost in the rhythm of thrust and slide and groan and gasp and sweat and more more more, and then she's arching her hips so high to receive him, and its so so so good, and she doesn't know why she never remembers that. And then, he's flying apart and she's plummeting like a rock and their orgasms slam them back down onto the sofa and into their real life.
Maybe they're not good at anything else, really, but they're fucking good together. Good fucking together. Whatever.
That reminds her. "What's a TARDIS?" she asks.
He kisses her nose. "Haven't decided," he admits, and slides off her, rather easily, since they're both covered in sweat. "McDonalds?" he offers.
"Shower?" she suggests. Men, honestly.
"Fine," he agrees, and though there's something attractive about him ruffling his hair as he considers, there's nothing attractive about him smelling his pits to decide. "Then McDonalds?"
"Whatever," she says, and sits up. She puts the remote on the table, and finds a popcorn kernel stuck to her back.
"When're Mickey and Martha visiting?" he asks as he pads, naked except for one sock, into their single bedroom.
"Don't use all the hot water!" she orders, and digs her bra out from between the cushions. "Dunno," she continues. "Next week, I guess?"
"Come with me!" he calls, in response to the water comment.
She smirks a little, and for just a moment, she feels like herself again when she says, "I just did."
He laughs aloud, sounds like his real self, too, and she's almost happy for a moment. She flicks the remote at the telly, noticing vaguely that Captain Picard has been replaced by the eerily familiar invisible guy from the Heros promo. She clicks the telly off and shivers.
"Rose!" John whinges, and she hears the water cut on.
Rose chuckles ruefully to herself and ventures toward the bedroom. John's tall and lanky, but he's younger and not blue eyed, so she'll never understand why that actor reminds her of him.
She walks past the dresser in the bedroom, looking at the photo of her and John from way back before all this happened (whatever it was), when he still wore that brown striped suit most of the time, and she was usually found in a blue leather jacket. Mickey and Martha will be by next week. Maybe one of them will remember where she and John got the locked jewelry box that sits under that picture.