Peel Slowly and See. (2/2)

[cereal]

Peel Slowly and See. (2/2), Doctor/Rose AU, adult
The Doctor/Rose record shop AU I've been talking about writing for a long time, made real by this week's prompts.

She pulls him up to the bar, smiling prettily at the barman and holding up two fingers. Cups of beer are sloshed down in front of them and he's got his wallet out and paid for them well before he's recovered from what nearly happened at the railing., 10,022 (4,805 this part + part one is here.)




She pulls him up to the bar, smiling prettily at the barman and holding up two fingers. Cups of beer are sloshed down in front of them and he's got his wallet out and paid for them well before he's recovered from what nearly happened at the railing.

His heart is still racing, the back of his neck still tingling, as Rose shoves away from the bar, moving to lean up against the rear wall and tipping her head to stare at the small monitors displaying the stage set up.

He takes a moment to admire the smooth column of her neck. Her shirt collar is still buttoned up so tight, almost but not quite pinching the skin, and he wants to run his fingers along it. And then his tongue.

"We've lost our spots, you know," he says, jerking his thumb at where a small crowd has gathered to fill in the hole they'd left.

She shrugs, "We could get it back. Only -- don't you think it's better back here?" She gestures at the empty space in front of them, several feet in every direction as they're backed up to the wall. The crowds up at the railing, and on the floor below, suddenly seem so stifling, so…well, crowded.

There was something to be said for the way they kept him pressed up against Rose though, and he takes a long drink of his beer to mourn the loss. They'd had a couple of pints in the pub, and he'd finished her second, as well, when she'd said she'd rather eat the rest of his chips than finish her lager. It was a trade he'd made gladly, liquid courage and all that, and now, with this new beer, it's like he's lit a fuse.

There's something heady and strong knocking around his skull, making the edges of the room seem softer, making Rose seem that much more enticing. He thinks it might actually just be her. He's got no patience for soulmates, or love at first sight, can barely even stomach it in the lyrics to songs he's listened to a thousand times, but there really is something about her. Giddy and foolish and completely enamored.

"Don't you?" She says, and he has to back track to remember what they were talking about.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course, much better back here. More room to…breathe," he says, and thinks about that, how he means it quite literally where she's concerned, that he needs that space, needs to remember that he gets all gasp-y when he's nervous, and Rose doesn't look like the type to suffer panting lechers very well.

She nods and sips at her beer, eyes darting all over the venue. It's the most awkward they've been with each other yet and he knows it's because of how he'd almost kissed her. What else could it be? But was it awkward because she hadn't wanted him to -- or because she had and he hadn't done it?

He's finished his drink, deep, steady sips just to fill the time, tossing it in the nearby bin when Rose finally breaks the silence. Well, relative silence, there's the omnipresent buzz of the crowd, the background house music, laughter, noise, all of it, but all he can hear -- all he's been able to hear for several long minutes is that he and Rose are, inexplicably, not speaking.

"Sort of gets cold though," she says. "Not being in the crowd."

Her eyes glance at the monitor again, the roadies clearing off the stage as the set up for Spaceships is completed, and she looks almost nervous.

"Rose Tyler, are you cold?" He teases, taking her now empty cup and tossing it the way of his in the bin.

"Of course I'm cold," she snarks back with a grin. "That's why I said it."

Her return is so quick that he jumps to catch up -- is she really cold, does he need to get her coat? Because he's already formed about a half-dozen fantasies of her wearing that coat and nothing else, and he is more than willing to get it. Or, actually, they involve his coat, but it's all swings and roundabouts when he gets down to it. Her coat would smell like her, but then, if she wore his, she could make that one smell like her.

"Cool, brilliant," she says, and he has got to stop letting himself mentally wander away like that. Especially since there's literally no place he'd rather be than here. "I'll just be cold, then." She raises her eyebrows at him meaningfully and he fumbles to recover.

"Oh! Did you want me to get your coat?" He glances at the monitor, the band should be going on soon, but it's not like he won't be able to hear it on the way to and from the coat check.

"No, it's fine, I'll just…" and she rubs her arms up and down her sleeves, catching one of the buttons at the cuff, accidentally snapping it open and --

Wait.

Snapping.

Oh, fuck, oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Snapping buttons. He's flooded with a million images of tugging at both sides of her shirt, the satisfying pop-pop-pop as the buttons come undone, revealing that bra that had been digging into his chest the entire opening act. All that skin he knows is underneath there. Maybe she has freckles, or a birthmark, maybe there's a bruise on her hip, maybe he can make another next to it with his mouth.

It had to be snapping buttons.

She continues to rub at her arms, but the movement loses some of its force as he remains fixed on her. She glances down at her shirt, the cuffs, rolling her head from side to side as she tries to see what he's staring at.

"Do I have something on me?" She finally asks, and he shakes his head.

"No, I just -- sorry," he says. "Sorry. Let me --" He shifts to pull her in front of him, the band on stage now and both of them of facing forward.

Slowly, lightly, so she can feel and guess at the pressure before he fully commits, he puts his hand on her arms. He gets them settled, fingers curling around her biceps through her shirt, and thankfully, she doesn't object.

In fact, she encourages him, shifting back into him so they're pressed up close again, like they were at the railing, only there's no crowd forcing them into it this time.

He begins to rub at her arms just as the drums kick in and the set begins. He recognizes the song immediately, timing his strokes to the beat, fingers catching friction against the cotton and Rose's hips begin to wiggle with the music.

Spaceships' new stuff is music you can dance to, not very well, not him at least, just jangling limb-shaking alone in his flat, and he's pleased to see Rose is moving the same way -- the happy, jerky movements of someone more caught up in the song than how they look.

Of course, that her movements keep pushing her arse right into his groin, well, he can't tell if that's helping or hurting yet. Certainly it feels brilliant, but he can't imagine getting hard in his stupid tight jeans is going to work out like he's hoping.

He focuses instead on the way his hands are skittering up and down her arms, shifting the action away from unnecessary heat and more toward twisting her body with the beat. One song rolls into the next and he's getting even more brazen, turning her back and forth as they both bob their heads and bounce on their feet.

He twists her with a bit more force during one of his favorite bits, a twangy guitar riff backed by the light pulse of a drum beat, and it's just enough to get her all the way around, and then she's facing him.

They take a moment to grin at each other, blooming smiles that look silly and feel great, and then he's laughing and sweating, his hands moving to her hips as her arms slip over his shoulders, her fingers keeping the steady, tapping beat on the back of his neck.

The stage lights are flashing, riotous colors that pinball through the venue, Rose is blue, Rose is green, Rose is a pretty, pretty pink. Everywhere, everyone, the whole venue is moving, caught up and happy, a crowd of people throbbing in waves and the pulse of a really fucking great song.

It's ridiculous and carefree and he feels like a kid again, dancing around the living room with his parents to The Beatles, even Donna joining in, Help, I need somebody! Help, not just anybody!

He can't keep still, not with Rose like a firework in front of him, sparking and giggling and shouting lyrics to the rafters, and it's this feeling, this caffeine jolt to his blood, that makes him try one more time.

"Ready?!" He shouts and Rose's eyes fix on his, and she's nodding and smiling so wide and toothy.

He's not sure she's understood, and he moves his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks, as she slows in front of him.

"Say go!" He shouts again, and and she smacks at his shoulder with the sound of a kick drum, perfectly timed.

"Go!" She yells.

He ducks his head, hands holding her face still as the rest of her body -- both of their bodies, really -- still twist to the beat.

His lips meet hers and everything goes still, both of them, the music, all of it drops out for a split second, the feel of her mouth against his the single point of life in the entire universe.

It all comes crashing back as they begin to move, differently this time, full of purpose and heat as he pulls back only to kiss her again, a quick series of kisses that he strings together on a whim, light and happy as she grins against his mouth.

The song stops in reality this time, a distant part of him recognizes that another will be starting soon, but in the silence she presses against him, catching his bottom lip between her own, and then he's tugging her tighter to him, fingers in her belt loops as his tongue darts out to glance against her lips.

She parts them swiftly, in time with his, and then his tongue is stroking alongside hers as something altogether more blues-y and slow starts up from the stage.

Her fingers curl up into his hair, tugging and scratching and twisting, and he slants his mouth more firmly across hers, deepening the angle as they advance and retreat. Her tongue in his mouth, his tongue in her mouth, teeth and spit and deep, wet noises that he's sure would be vulgar if they weren't drowned out by rhythm guitar.

His fingers dance from her belt loops to the hem of her shirt and he can't help but unsnap just that bottom button. The noise is lost to the music, but the feeling of it, of that release, is too much and he groans against Rose's mouth, his hips arching up from where she's pinned them to the wall.

Rose, bless her little music-loving heart, mimics the action, hips meeting his and knocking them back into the fake wood paneling that lines the venue's walls.

So much for not getting hard in his too tight jeans, so much for taking it slow, so much for whatever other stupid ideas he didn't even bother to think of -- it's this, it's this right now, and he and this song and this band and this girl are going to live forever right here.

He pulls away only to drop his mouth to her neck, mumbling lyrics and notes against the soft skin there, teeth for a drum beat, a lick for a lick, and she keeps squirming, one hand in his back pocket now, the other still in his hair, rutting and thrusting, and good fucking god, not only will he have gotten hard in his jeans, he's gonna fucking come in them, too.

It's two songs later, his hand just barely up her shirt, fingers skipping across the slight ridges of her ribs, when a note bends sour and there's a clatter like someone falling from the stage. They pull apart to look, mouths wet and breath stuttering, and there's the bass player, sprawled out across the stage, laughing and wincing as he points at his shoulder.

The band tries to continue down their bass player, and he and Rose try to continue, too, but there's something about the relative distance now, how it's not so easy to force your inhibitions down when you're not caught up in something more than yourselves.

They duck out of the venue before the encore, Rose teasing him, reminding him that it was his idea, if they find out tomorrow the encore was something epic. It's a cross he bears willingly, gladly, helping her into coat before hustling out them both out onto the street to beat the crowds.

The walk back to the shop seems to pass in an instant, her hand held in his, both of them tucked into the pocket of his jacket that's closest to her.

He kisses her again before she gets into her car, a soft, quiet kiss that somehow still manages to thunder over the ringing his ears are still doing. She rolls the window down to wave at him and he returns the gesture like a loon as her car pulls away.

From there, it's one door over and up the stairs back to his flat.

He yanks off his coat and collapses into bed, squirming to strip down to his boxer briefs while staying horizontal. It takes longer than it would have if he'd just done it properly, but eventually his t-shirt, jeans, shoes, and socks all hit the floor and his head hits the pillow, skull buzzing and lips raw and a hickey he imagines he can somehow actually feel when he runs his fingers against his collarbone.

That night he dreams of Rose Tyler, and she stands in front of him and she smiles.

The next morning, he's got the dried out feeling of one too many beers, cotton stuffed up in his head to replace the ringing that had been there last night, but he still can't stop himself from getting ready quickly, practically skipping through the doors of the shop just as Donna pulls up in the street.

It all comes pouring out a few minutes later, a big swig of Donna's coffee washed down with a handful of the Smarties he keeps in the bowl on his desk, and he's telling her everything.

This woman, Rose Tyler, and oh, Donna, he fancies her, he really does. And he's expecting a warning, a slow down, something, anything, but Donna just smiles, that small, knowing, big sister smile of hers, and that's it, that's Donna's blessing, given and done.

There are a few more dates, a few more gigs, pub quizzes, mix CDs, long days spent together at the shop, and so much snogging he's perpetually half-hard. It's not been that long, not really at all, but they've seen so much of each other, it feels like years crammed down into a matter of weeks.

And, well, he says half-hard, but he doesn't quite mean it, because sometimes he's not hard at all, sometimes he's soft and sweaty, collapsed on the sofa and blood singing with the things Rose Tyler can do with her mouth on his cock. Or the things Rose Tyler can make him do as he grounds the palm of his hand against the fly of his jeans, and his mouth up against where she's always so hot, and always so wet.

It's more the taste of her, the sounds she makes, the filthy words she says, than anything he's doing with hand though, and he knows it.

They've had the right conversations, both clean, her on the pill, all of it laying the groundwork for this thing that is very clearly inevitable, but it's not until another Friday night that they finally get there.

She's been in his bed before, a few times actually, rutting against each other, twin sets of boxer briefs, one borrowed and one owned, as pajamas, but somehow they've never pushed it. He never goes to bed feeling sorry for it though, or well, not really. There's an omnipresent part of him that wants to fuck Rose Tyler into the mattress, but even that quiets down when she burrows into his chest, laying her head on his shoulder as they take turns picking out albums to listen to.

He always gets up to move the needle after she's fallen asleep, and these quiet moments, looking at this girl curled up in his bed, his blue sheets setting off her pale skin and the white of the undershirt she always borrows, too, he likes these moments almost as much as the ones he spends touching her.

Of course, it doesn't stop him from hustling back to bed, the way even when she shifts and moves -- and she does that a lot -- she always keeps one hand on him, fingers clasped with his while she sleeps, or her arm flung out and resting over his heart, fingers curled around one of his biceps.

It's one of these quiet nights, that Friday, that she pushes things, and he pushes back, spooned up in front of him and her arse wiggling wiggling wiggling so very deliberate against him. He anchors her with a hand on her hip, arching forward to match her movements, and then his hand is tracing up her side, down and across the flat of her stomach, before moving to cup her breast.

She lets out a low, breathy sound, almost a purr, and when he rings his thumb around her nipple, light pressure and light friction as he presses his erection into her backside, she does it again.

There's a series of escalating noises, his groans and her sighs and when he hears her exhale around a word -- Fuck, she says, and he couldn't agree more.

He pulls back to roll her underneath him, facing up and his leg fitting between hers as she pulls him down more fully on top of her. She arches up for friction against his thigh and he complies, shifting his leg a few times, his erection brushing hard and insistent against her hip. She tips her face up to kiss him, and he returns it, it's every bit as wet and messy as it was at the concert a month ago, an ordered, efficient sort of sloppy that they've perfected by now. Tongues that stroke lazy and then fast, teeth that graze and teeth that bite, and he's never had more hickeys in his life. Never been less inclined to complain about them either.

His hands slip down to bunch in the fabric of the t-shirt at her hips, tugging up insistently until the fabric is freed from where it's pinned between her back and the mattress, and up and over her head. It leaves her hair a tousled mess, and her lips, already so full and red, made even more so by his own lips, and her lovely, definitely golden brown eyes, and he can't help it.

"You're so pretty," he says, and she laughs.

"You've already got me into bed," she tells him.

"No, but you are, Rose, look," he glances down their bodies, her breasts stretched and slightly flatter with the gravity of lying down, the soft rounding slope of her stomach, the skin disappearing into the waist band of her borrowed pants.

She shifts her head to look, too, and then back up at him, tracing his eyebrows, his cheekbones, with the tips of her fingers, down his nose and across his lips, and she smiles when she says, "You're pretty, too."

He presses a quick kiss to her lips, her hand moving aside to make way for the movement, "Aren't I just?" he says, and grins.

She rolls her eyes and slips her hand into his hair, tugging lightly, "You'd be prettier without your pants on."

Delighted, he agrees, "You would be, too! Imagine that. Best take them off, then."

He hops off of her, tugging his t-shirt over his head and shucking his boxer briefs to his ankles before stepping out them, while Rose shimmies out of her own on the bed. She reaches down to grab them when they're free, and flings them cheekily at his chest. He bats them away easily, and jumps back on to the bed, his erection bouncing slightly with the movement. Rose watches, transfixed, before reaching out to give it a light tug, grinning delightedly as it bobs back and forth again.

"Are you quite done?"

She tilts her head, considering, and then moves to do it again, gripping his cock more firmly this time before releasing it to watch as it springs back.

"All right," he says. "I can do it, too," and he moves both of his hands, thumbs edging under the bottoms of her breasts before knocking them forward slightly, a grin to match hers as they bounce perfectly.

She repeats the movement on his cock, and he on her breasts, a few more times until he can't take it, wrapping his fist around her own the next time she circles his erection.

"As much as I'm positive you could get me -- somehow -- to come from this," he twists his free hand to tap her lightly on the nose, "Especially once that mouth of yours get going, I'd much rather put this some place more interesting," he says and tightens his fist around hers, bucking his hips forward.

She feigns shock, "What mouth, Doctor? Surely you can't mean the way I talk about your cock, how hard it is, and how thick, and how sometimes I stop, right in the middle of the street, to think about what it would feel like buried inside me."

He groans, hips arching once more as his other hand tightens in the sheets next to her head, "Rose."

She smiles now, still radiating innocence, "Or maybe you mean the way I want to wrap my legs around your hips, nails digging into your shoulder, scratching down your back, as you pound into me with this," she tightens her hand on him of her volition this time, and he growls in response, but it isn't over, not by a long shot.

"No," he says, head ducking to lick a line down her throat, ending in a firm suck at the join of her neck and shoulder, "I was thinking more about how wet you get, sometimes you're nearly dripping, Rose, and, oh, you're so tight, aren't you? I can feel it around my fingers, the way I'd stretch you, fill you right up."

She slams her eyes shut, head rolling and back and forth rapidly on the pillow, "All right, all right, you win, fuck me, fuck, god, just fuck me."

He nods with a grin, and releases her hand, moving to shift his hips between her thighs, "Brilliant," he says. "We'll give that one to the skinny bloke with the great hair."

Slipping a hand between them to position to his erection, he tips his forehead to hers, an echo, "Say go," he murmurs.

"Go," she says, as her hands find his arse, pulling him fully into her one swift stroke.

There's not even a whisper of a rhythm as they both set off, bucking up and driving down and, "Fuck, god, yes, yes, keep going keep going keep going," he can't even tell who's saying it until she grins up at him.

"Not so eloquent now, are we?" She says, and he slams into her with a bit more force, dropping down to cover her closer, as she breathes out a moan in forfeit.

Their mouths meet in haphazard kisses, sometimes it just brushes of tongue, teeth, lips and it's so sloppy, and so fucking good, "Come," he groans, "We need to come, you need to come, now, oh, god, fuck, Rose."

She answers him, arms and legs tightening around him, but it's really just holding on for the ride at this point, the way he's rocketing into her, short and fast, and her repeating and babbling, "Right there, right ther---" she tips, shouting to the ceiling and pulling his hair as she breaks apart beneath him.

He rushes, frantic, a few more solid, pounding strokes and he's hollering out behind her, and it's a grunt, that's a grunt, he is literally grunting, emptying himself inside of her, but Rose doesn't seem to mind, hands rubbing across his back as she encourages him, "Yes, yes, yes, come on, love, yes."

It can't be called anything other than collapsing, the way his body falls bonelessly on top of hers, and she keeps her limbs tight, so tight around him, and there are all these emotions careening around his brain, and he's not going to cry, that's ridiculous (it's entirely possible, actually), and he just feels overwhelmed and vulnerable and happy and -- loved.

When her limbs finally go slack around him, he rolls off of her, moving to his back as she tucks up in that spot she loves, the one that's part his shoulder, and part his chest.

There's a wet spot looming if she makes a wrong move, and a few minutes later, she shifts off of him, walking -- waddling, really -- awkwardly and endearingly, her legs tucked close together, into his en suite.

He makes an effort to clean himself up, dragging his t-shirt across his lap, before giving up entirely and just waiting for Rose to come back. When she does, she tucks herself right back into her spot, and promptly falls asleep, drooling on him in a matter of minutes.

It's different, sleeping entirely naked, and he wakes up more than a few times in the night, but Rose is still there, always there, and he makes sure to press up against as much skin as he can before falling back asleep.

In the morning, she spends a full fifteen minutes with just his boxer briefs on, brushing her teeth and washing her face topless, like that's a thing he's just supposed to be used to already. And he is, in a way, has seen her breasts enough to know which one has a freckle, and that she's nicknamed them "Shiver and Shake," but somehow, the whole domestic angle of it, the bit that used to scare the hell out of him, if he's honest -- well, somehow it seems like the best bit. He wants to cling to it, have her here forever.

There are weeks that follow, more shagging and more kissing and more creeping toward domestication. She moves in after four months, which seems both much too fast, and like something that should have happened sooner. He's embarrassed for a bit, that's she moved to his shitty little one bedroom, when he's seen the house she grew up in now, but she never says a word, and he doesn't dare ask. Not when she immediately makes it feel like home.

She tells him she loves him the night before she moves in, sitting cross legged and facing him on his bed, "I just -- I think. I mean," and it's not like her, that stammer, not to that degree, and he takes her hand, knitting their fingers together while she settles. "I love you," she finally says, and it's only because he's trying to get the words out so quickly that it takes so long. "I love you, too," he finally says. And maybe he's said it before to other people, maybe he's even meant it, but not like this, never this, and he repeats himself, just because he can, "I love you, too."

There are, of course, dicey moments.

Mickey comes around and Reinette comes back, he meets her mum and he fights with her mum, and he secretly actually loves her mum. One summer he spends a night in jail for punching Jimmy Stone square in the jaw, and one winter she spends a night on the sofa for saying something she shouldn't have about his parents.

There are bumps in the road, and rough patches, and downhill free-falls, and uphill battles, but there's always the two of them.

The Doctor and Rose Tyler, his absolute favorite album, and the record never skips.