Fic: The First Five Times (3/5)
Title: The First Five Times
Author: pellnell
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: Adult, for non-porn sex and language
Summary: Set post-"Journey's End," I felt inspired by a Stars song, "The First Five Times." It's not necessary to have heard the song, but each segment is loosely based upon the song.
Disclaimer: Oh, how I wish I owned them and not the BBC. Then I would know what all that stand-in hubbub is about.
Author's Notes: Oh, this one is actually silly and not angsty! Also, mood music can be found here. Just shoot me a comment asking to be added to my flist, and you'll be privy to the music in Rose and the Doctor's heads.
third time in a doorway
with the lights all on around us
and the audience beside us
and your man watching from the trees
If there was one thing the Doctor hated most about working for Torchwood, it was the paperwork. He wasn’t much of a coffee drinker, so he couldn’t exactly join in when Jake began to criticize the inability of the machine to make…something. Couldn’t remember what it was called, but it was French and frilly-sounding and supposed to keep the office drones wired for days. Paperwork though, he was swamped in that. It wasn’t something he’d ever had to do before. Time Lords weren’t concerned with filing eight different forms for a five-minute encounter with a stray Racnoss spiderling. The Doctor could only imagine how many stacks of paper would be necessary if the team had visited another planet. He figured it was best not to tell them about that little Tardis chunk stowed under the couch cushions at his flat.
He was seated at his desk, huddled over it and stroking his forehead as he attempted to make sense of all those little boxes to tick off, when he heard a knock. His door was open, but Rose was standing in the frame, her fist pressed against the metal. Her hair was down, falling around her face delicately, and she had a presumptuous look about her lips and eyes.
“Hi,” he said, looking about the room. “Did you need…something?”
She fidgeted and bit her lower lip. “Er, yeah. You have the…erm, A-99 form about the Tetraps?”
“Still working on it,” he said, sighing. “Are there always going to be so many slots to write in, or is this just part of the hazing process?”
Rose cracked a smile. “’Fraid it’s here to stay. And so are you.”
“I hope you’re right,” he replied. “The me part, not about the paperwork. Last thing the world needs is more paperwork piling up somewhere in a landfill otherwise known as your desk.”
“God, don’t remind me,” she added, grinning. She ran a hand through her hair and glanced at her feet.
“Something else?” the Doctor inquired.
She shifted uncomfortably. “D’you want to…”
The clock ticked loudly, and the Doctor watched Rose’s eyes flick to it instinctively. “D’you want to pick up some milk on the way home?” she asked, twirling a bit of hair around her finger. “’Cos we’re out, and it’s your turn to buy groceries.”
“Would you be coming too then?” he asked. “You’ve got the…er, car, and the flat is quite a ways away.”
“Yes,” she said, a bit too enthusiastically and nodding. “I’ll go with you to…buy groceries. And, er, work on finishing up that form. We’ve got a briefing with the prime minister in less than a week. Apparently, he’s scared to death of alien bats.”
She gave him a little wave and then stalked off, the heels of her boots clattering upon the hard floor. The Doctor rested his head in his hands and looked down at the papers on his desk.
The past week had been an absolute mess, ever since that night at Jackie and Pete’s place. Rose was aloof at home, making efficient little dinners of rice and quick bake chicken, always folding up the newspaper into a tight square when she was done reading it, taking marathon baths in the evening until after he’d already gone to bed. Two nights ago he’d gone out for a walk, come back with a movie from the video store, and waved it in front of her face as some kind of peace offering.
“Think you need a bit of cheering up,” he’d said to her. “Nothing like a movie about fallen stars to do that.”
Rose had sighed. “I’m fine. Just a bit of stress at work. ‘Sides, I’ve already seen that one.”
He could recall exactly how his shoulders had dropped and the way his breath escaped him. “Well, we’ve got it until Monday, so if you change your mind, it’ll be here. And, if you wanted to maybe watch it not…alone, I’m here.”
She had nodded and given him a sad little smile, and it hurt even now for him to think about it. He winced a bit as he glanced over the paperwork. The numbers and letters had all started to run together in his vision, and he rubbed his temple and looked up.
He’d been at Torchwood for less than a month, but Sara who handled accounts had insisted he decorate his workspace with personal items. The Doctor had thought long and hard about this. The pieces he chose would reflect on the sort of person John Smith was, what he spent his outside hours doing, who he spent his time with, the sort of jokes he laughed at. It was all very technical and time-consuming, but he doubted his co-workers had put so much thought into the way they decorated their own offices. He’d eventually settled on several little things he’d seen on television programs: one of those black cat clocks, its tail twitching against the wall, a potted cactus he’d only have to water twice a year, some sort of docking station for an mp3 player he didn’t have, a book of bad poetry he had no intention of actually reading, a framed picture of the Tylers he’d taken, and a bottle of reportedly nice wine that made him seem cheeky.
His eyes were drawn to the photo, of course. Pete had his arm wrapped around Jackie’s shoulder, and he was kissing the side of her head, looking into the camera as he did so. Jackie looked like she was positively bubbling. Next to her was Rose, holding Tony high into the air. They both looked like they were laughing, their eyes half-closed and open-mouthed grins upon their faces. The Tylers were always so photogenic, and even candid shots seemed perfectly posed, the kind of thing you’d find flipping through a magazine at the check stand. The four of them made such a beautiful little family, all smiles and friendly pokes, barbecues out back, popcorn and cranberry chains at Christmas, holidays by the sea. There were the little things too that made them seem suspiciously ideal, like the way Rose’s waist bent so perfectly when she buckled Tony into his car seat and late suppers when Pete and Jackie washed the dishes together, up to their elbows in sweet-smelling suds and witticisms upon their tongues. The Doctor loved to sit and observe, like they were some kind of alien life form whose every movement should be recorded and filed away in his brain. He loved the way Pete still spoke to Tony in soothing tones, when Rose kissed Pete’s forehead before leaving the house, and especially the way Jackie took every available opportunity to wrap every member of her family into bear hugs. It was lovely and safe and warm, bit like a cup of hot chocolate on a wintery day.
He was staring into Rose’s smiling face, her giddy frozen expression, when Sara poked her head into his office. Her face was angular and she gave him a bright smile that betrayed her harsh features.
“Leslea’s offering to take everyone out for lunch at the little Chinese place down the street. Want to come?” she asked pleasantly. Her bobbed ginger locks shook when she spoke, and the Doctor imagined the best word to describe the movement was “jingling.”
“Well, it’s tempting. They do know how to make tofu taste exactly like spicy chicken- which seems a bit sacrilege, delicious but sacrilege- but I got up early this morning especially to make those little avocado sandwich things Rose likes, and they tend to expire quite quickly,” he replied.
Sara nodded. “Right. Special lunch for you and Rose then. Gotcha.” She winked. “You two ever going to go out, make it official? We’re all a bit tired of that dancing around you do.”
The Doctor wrung his hands together. “Oh, it’s not that sort of thing with Rose. Just friendly, split the rent and the food, me pounding on the bathroom door in the morning for hours as some kind of sick punishment for losing her spot in bad novels. You know, basic, platonic flatmate situation.”
Sara sucked her lips in. “Okay. I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear any subtext in that statement. Enjoy your lunch.”
He held up the form he’d been laboring over. “Er, Sara, d’you mind helping me out before you dash off? Can’t seem to understand the point of this little piece of paper and it’s beginning to affect my ability to work.”
She snatched it from his hand and gave it a brief once-over. “You’re nearly done, really. Just need to rate the encounter on the color scale and then there’s one last paragraph about safety concerns.”
“Ah, yes. A color-coding system for deciding just how dangerous an alien is. Makes perfect sense,” he quipped as he took the paper back. “Thanks, Sara. I thought I’d be here all day.”
“No problem, that’s what I’m here for. That, and fudging the numbers and, you know, eye candy. Now, finish that bloody thing. Don’t want to keep your superior waiting.” She flipped on her kitten heels to leave, but turned back and gave the Doctor a long look. “You really should talk to Rose. The awkwardness is tiring. For me, anyway. Talking helps.”
“Is that what you and your boyfriend do?” the Doctor asked, pulling his glasses out of his pocket.
“Girlfriend. And no, we sort of just…fuck the problems away. An hour in bed and we’ve forgotten she’s a Tory.” She flashed him a brilliant smile. “You should try it.”
The Doctor frowned and put his glasses on. “Something tells me that’s not going to help,” he muttered. He spoke the words to dead air, as Sara was already out of earshot, the clacking noise of her heels fading in the hallway.
It was another good twenty minutes before the Doctor had completed his analysis of the Tetraps. He kept getting sidetracked as he reminisced about Melanie’s obscenely curly hair during his first encounter with the beasts, and he’d already concluded his brief report when he remembered just how unfunny it was to be stung by a large bat-like creature. He quickly made a footnote of it and set off to look for Rose.
The office was deserted, papers and mugs strewn around desks like his co-workers only just picked up and left seconds before. It was almost eerie, like the scene of a horror film involving an airborne virus or a zombie invasion. Rose’s space was no exception. He could see through the glass walls of her tiny office that the potted plant upon her windowsill had wilted into a brown mass, and he would be hard pressed to identify the species in its state. There were several birthday cards of varying shades and sizes standing next to the plant, some pink and tall and others oddly-shaped and bulbous, though he was certain all of them contained the sort of dirty jokes common around the water cooler. He peeked his head into the room and took note of her calendar, decorated with pictures from an American comedy about drug use and the suburbs. She had tried to make him watch it once, during a Sky One marathon airing, but he had only been confused by the way the characters reacted to things, and he’d asked too many questions about the point of the series before Rose had given up and changed the channel. Her computer screen was dark and scrolling through her screensaver, which he determined to be lines of poetry. He peered closer and began to read. It was ghastly and funny, and he could picture Rose grinning when she had first read it.
“Doctor?”
Rose was standing in the doorway, one hand on her hip and the other holding a steaming mug. The Doctor inhaled the sharp scent of maté and identified the tea as being some sort of specified morning drink Rose sipped religiously throughout the day and night. There was a slight pout to her crisp red lips and her eyes were searching him suspiciously.
He held out his file folder to her, as if he were a small child presenting his primary school report card. “Just finished up that paperwork for the Tetraps. Sara helped.”
Rose nodded and took it from his outstretched hand. “Great. Almost all caught up then.” She shot him an expectant look, her eyes wide and flashing, her lips pursed a bit, and her head titled just so.
“Sara- she, well, she said something,” the Doctor said. He was certain Rose could hear anxiety dripping from his throat. “It wasn’t all good advice. Some of it was terrible, actually. Also, she was talking about her girlfriend, so it doesn’t exactly apply. Different genitals and such. Well, half-way different.”
“Doctor, what the hell are you talking about?”
He sputtered. “She said we should talk.”
Rose set her cup down on the desk and crossed her arms over her chest. “Talk about…us, yeah?” She snorted. “That’s not going to happen, not here.”
The Doctor sighed deeply. “Don’t think it ever will,” he muttered. He ran a hand through his hair absent-mindedly. Rose was making this profoundly difficult. “How long is this going to keep happening? A week? A month? A year? How long before you can’t even look at me, Rose?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, glancing down at her shoes. “It’s so confusing. You’re…him, but you’re not. An’ sometimes I just stare at you and I don’t know if you’re the Doctor, my Doctor. Don’t know how I’m meant to find out. The last two attempts didn’t really work, yeah?”
He watched her eyes begin to cloud over and water, and he was struck with the urge to wrap her in his arms. Even if he was a Time Lord- had been a Time Lord, he’d still given years of his life to the woman standing in front of him, and he had dedicated every ounce of his being during those years to keeping her safe from harm. She was older now, and she could take care of herself. She was the one to take care of insects in the flat, anyway, and she hadn’t been half-bad defending Earth from hordes of rampaging robots, television sets, and Daleks. And yet, he wanted so badly to hold her then, to protect her from all those hard things she was pondering and fighting, things that he thought she must have the ability to confront on her own.
She made up his mind for him though, and quickly pushed her face against his suit, making it damp and salty. He gingerly pressed his hands to her back. “Maybe we should talk. Later. Out. Maybe. Like a date?”
Rose didn’t say anything, just quietly sniffled against the fabric of his jacket. After a few moments, she murmured softly, “You smell like him.”
She glanced up at him and slowly pressed her lips against his. It was tender and sweet and non-threatening, and the only thing he could taste was the artificial candied flavor of her lipgloss. Nothing interfering with her then, no outside influences. He thought of the brief kisses they had shared before all the complications and the awkwardness. He remembered when he’d looked upon her in Rome, flesh and blood, no longer the block of marble she had been. They had kissed then, so simplistically and happily, and without any pretention. He could recall a moment as well when he’d pulled on a suit, dirty and oily, and Rose had held him by his little spaceman helmet and pressed her lips against the glass. Her lips had been just as unassuming then, pink and chapped, and entirely a part of her body, rather than something disconnected, the way they had felt in the past few months.
The Doctor wrapped his arms around her waist. The slightly itchy material of her gray top felt right somehow, and he thought he might always equate the texture of it rubbing against his palms with kissing Rose. He felt her breathe deeply and simply, and her tears were on his cheeks then, so close to his own eyes.
He didn’t take notice when she pulled him even closer to her body, and it wasn’t until her back was pressed against the doorframe that he even began to suspect something was amiss. She moved one of her legs up against his pants, her black pencil skirt riding up her thigh just a bit, and tilted her head back in a way that squished her hair into elaborate shapes against the glass.
Oh, no. This is bad. This is not right. Not good, not happy, definitely not hunky-dory, he thought. She sounded sincere and pleased and not sexy. The opposite of sexy, nice. Like kittens or a brand new paperback or a ‘good morning’ SMS. This is not any of those things. It’s…nice in a very bad way.
He pried his lips away from hers. “Please, Rose,” he pleaded. “We can’t do this again. I can’t do this again.”
Her hands were on his face, stroking his cheeks. “I promise. We’ll talk. Afterwards.”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I like it. There is no question that I can appreciate all the bouncing and squashing of things during the moment. It’s golden, really. But after all that, s’a bit like being a half-used tube of toothpaste. It’s like being full in some areas and completely empty in others, and then you’ve got to roll it up all wrong for it to look really full and then no one wants to use it because it looks funny and I am not about to be a half-used tube of toothpaste, Rose! I’m just not!”
He waggled a finger at her, but her right hand was already pressed tightly against the crotch of his pants, and his capacity for reason was quickly evaporating.
He gulped loudly and deeply, almost largely enough to feasibly swallow his Adam’s apple, big as it was. “Rose, really, I don’t want to-- okay, yes I do. But I don’t think we should, not like this. Maybe after we’ve gone out properly, had a picnic, eaten a dinner with your parents where I’ve properly endeared myself to them, after visiting the drive-in theater, in the parking lot of a nice French restaurant, I don’t know! Just…let’s wait til you’ve figured out it’s really me in here, and not some weird stranger who knows all about you.”
The Doctor was certain Rose could hear the desperation in his voice. The longer he talked, the more forceful she became. She was still kissing him innocently, no tongue or biting involved, but her hands were moving quickly to undo his inhibitions. He heard the distinct noise of his pants being unzipped, and then her hand wrapped around his and moved it to the warm, wet place between her legs. He felt an electric jolt to his spine upon contact, and his breath left him instantly.
Rose pulled her lips from his and looked at him sadly. “S’not…ideal. It’s not for me, either, Doctor, but…I need to feel.”
And he’d let her do things again, and she’d let him do things too. Lots of pushing and rubbing and thrusting and groaning. Entirely undignified, making love to Rose against the doorframe of her office was. The Doctor wasn’t even sure what to call this thing they’d done three times. He’d heard plenty of crude sexual terms over the years- knobbing, screwing, rutting, porking, boning, fucking, banging, humping, boinking, shagging. None of those felt like enough to describe what he did with Rose though. Nor did any of the lovely nuanced, romantic phrases he’d read in books. It was intimate and deep and captivating, what they did, but it wasn’t necessarily loving or sweet. It was something entirely different than anything he’d done before. It wasn’t animal lust or romantic or even simple copulation. It was just him, inside Rose, searching her out by any means necessary.
He pondered all these things as he moved inside her, her back straight and stiff in the doorway and his hips and lungs pumping radically, spastically. Her lower half was jutting against him, and her eyes were looking into his. Her eyelids were half-closed and covered in a faint plaster of powder the color of dusk. Her mouth was open and she licked her lips occasionally. She was panting, breathing in short little gasps, and she sounded quite like a mouse, compared to the long, low moans the Doctor was emitting. To his own ears, he sounded a bit like a wounded animal, but it didn’t seem to matter. Rose obviously didn’t want cinema-style sex. She was searching for quick, uncomplicated, and for the moment anyway, he was willing to give.
There was a tightening happening in his entire lower half, quick and spreading through his thighs and midriff, not unlike the flesh-eating vines he’d seen in some horror film Rose had insisted they rent. It was clawing at him, seeding itself through his body, and his mind went into lockdown preparation mode. He could count his sexual experiences with humans on one hand, but he knew there was a large emphasis on stamina, keeping at it, pushing the game into overtime, hitting a homerun, and a variety of other sports metaphors that seemed to be so sublimely stupid.
Rose must have been able to tell, because she slowed her movements a bit, and looked at him straight-on. “Doctor, just a bit longer, please…”
It didn’t seem to help though, her warning-slash-encouragement. He felt a bit like an amusement park ride, like a rollercoaster on a track. Once the ride had started, one could either stop it completely, or let it run its course. And any off switch there might have been had defected long ago. It was being serviced, probably far, far away by people who weren’t paid enough to do it efficiently. And the car was rolling on, faster and faster, through one of those huge loops that always made his stomach go queasy, and he could see the end of the line, the exit that led over to other things like cotton candy stands and games to win Technicolor plush animals. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and groaned.
Rose sucked in her breath and her body tensed as his hands about her waist grasped down against her skin. He buried his face in her shoulder and exhaled, long and low, and thought perhaps his body wouldn’t be able to function for the next few days.
He was certain the clapping sound behind him was merely a figment of his imagination, until Rose seized up and then lolled her head back and groaned in her specific annoyed tone of voice. The Doctor let Rose down, very gently so her stiletto boots wouldn’t scrape against the floor, zipped himself up as discreetly as possible, and then turned around, his shoulders sagging.
Jake was standing there, his arms crossed over his chest as he eyed them up. Sara was standing beside him with an impish smile playing upon her face, and there were a few scattered people whose names the Doctor couldn’t recall at the moment standing behind her. Several were holding take-out boxes and looking at him and Rose with very confused expressions.
“Glad to see you worked out your problems,” Sara commented, giggling.
Jake glanced briefly at Sara, then back at the Doctor. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t resolve the issue on company property, but I guess I can’t expect too much from a newbie. Er, don’t do it again, Smith.” He nodded and winked at them. “Wouldn’t want to have to report this to Pete, Tyler.”
Rose shook her head vigorously. “Right. Thanks, Jake.”
The Doctor watched the small crowd disperse themselves around the floor, and he turned back to Rose, a hand upon the back of his neck as he looked down at his Chuck Taylors. “Could’ve gone better.”
Rose winced and her face sort of scrunched up. “This is all your fault,” she said coolly.
“My fault?” he replied incredulously, gesturing at his chest. “My fault! Really?”
“Yes, your fault!” she cried, her hair whipping about her like it was Medusa’s slithering locks. “If you hadn’t just stood there, with your hair all…pretty, and if you hadn’t been as willing as some little lovesick girl, I wouldn’t have been humiliated in front of the entire office!”
He narrowed his eyes at her. It was going to be a screaming match, he could tell. “Oh, yes, if I hadn’t been just standing here, minding my own business, telling you that no, I didn’t intend to shag you in the doorway, your dignity would be in tact!”
“Well, yes!”
“That’s incredibly daft and ridiculous…and silly!”
“I know!”
“Well, if you’d just agree to act like a proper girlfriend and not just a randomly-appearing, occasionally-drunken one, maybe we could do it in a more normal fashion!”
“Alright then!”
“What?”
“Let’s go out!”
“Okay!”
“Okay!”
“Why are we still shouting then?” he yelled back at her.
“I don’t know!” Rose’s hard expression quickly melted, and she cracked a smile and gave him one of those mischievous glances that always made the Doctor weak at the knees. She turned toward her desk, still grinning, and picked up her mug. “Tea’s cold. Better get some more. But I’ll see you after work, yeah? Grocery shopping and such.”
He nodded and sighed happily. “Think the proper response is, ‘it’s a date.’”
Rose chuckled. “Yeah, somethin’ like that.”
Author: pellnell
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: Adult, for non-porn sex and language
Summary: Set post-"Journey's End," I felt inspired by a Stars song, "The First Five Times." It's not necessary to have heard the song, but each segment is loosely based upon the song.
Disclaimer: Oh, how I wish I owned them and not the BBC. Then I would know what all that stand-in hubbub is about.
Author's Notes: Oh, this one is actually silly and not angsty! Also, mood music can be found here. Just shoot me a comment asking to be added to my flist, and you'll be privy to the music in Rose and the Doctor's heads.
third time in a doorway
with the lights all on around us
and the audience beside us
and your man watching from the trees
If there was one thing the Doctor hated most about working for Torchwood, it was the paperwork. He wasn’t much of a coffee drinker, so he couldn’t exactly join in when Jake began to criticize the inability of the machine to make…something. Couldn’t remember what it was called, but it was French and frilly-sounding and supposed to keep the office drones wired for days. Paperwork though, he was swamped in that. It wasn’t something he’d ever had to do before. Time Lords weren’t concerned with filing eight different forms for a five-minute encounter with a stray Racnoss spiderling. The Doctor could only imagine how many stacks of paper would be necessary if the team had visited another planet. He figured it was best not to tell them about that little Tardis chunk stowed under the couch cushions at his flat.
He was seated at his desk, huddled over it and stroking his forehead as he attempted to make sense of all those little boxes to tick off, when he heard a knock. His door was open, but Rose was standing in the frame, her fist pressed against the metal. Her hair was down, falling around her face delicately, and she had a presumptuous look about her lips and eyes.
“Hi,” he said, looking about the room. “Did you need…something?”
She fidgeted and bit her lower lip. “Er, yeah. You have the…erm, A-99 form about the Tetraps?”
“Still working on it,” he said, sighing. “Are there always going to be so many slots to write in, or is this just part of the hazing process?”
Rose cracked a smile. “’Fraid it’s here to stay. And so are you.”
“I hope you’re right,” he replied. “The me part, not about the paperwork. Last thing the world needs is more paperwork piling up somewhere in a landfill otherwise known as your desk.”
“God, don’t remind me,” she added, grinning. She ran a hand through her hair and glanced at her feet.
“Something else?” the Doctor inquired.
She shifted uncomfortably. “D’you want to…”
The clock ticked loudly, and the Doctor watched Rose’s eyes flick to it instinctively. “D’you want to pick up some milk on the way home?” she asked, twirling a bit of hair around her finger. “’Cos we’re out, and it’s your turn to buy groceries.”
“Would you be coming too then?” he asked. “You’ve got the…er, car, and the flat is quite a ways away.”
“Yes,” she said, a bit too enthusiastically and nodding. “I’ll go with you to…buy groceries. And, er, work on finishing up that form. We’ve got a briefing with the prime minister in less than a week. Apparently, he’s scared to death of alien bats.”
She gave him a little wave and then stalked off, the heels of her boots clattering upon the hard floor. The Doctor rested his head in his hands and looked down at the papers on his desk.
The past week had been an absolute mess, ever since that night at Jackie and Pete’s place. Rose was aloof at home, making efficient little dinners of rice and quick bake chicken, always folding up the newspaper into a tight square when she was done reading it, taking marathon baths in the evening until after he’d already gone to bed. Two nights ago he’d gone out for a walk, come back with a movie from the video store, and waved it in front of her face as some kind of peace offering.
“Think you need a bit of cheering up,” he’d said to her. “Nothing like a movie about fallen stars to do that.”
Rose had sighed. “I’m fine. Just a bit of stress at work. ‘Sides, I’ve already seen that one.”
He could recall exactly how his shoulders had dropped and the way his breath escaped him. “Well, we’ve got it until Monday, so if you change your mind, it’ll be here. And, if you wanted to maybe watch it not…alone, I’m here.”
She had nodded and given him a sad little smile, and it hurt even now for him to think about it. He winced a bit as he glanced over the paperwork. The numbers and letters had all started to run together in his vision, and he rubbed his temple and looked up.
He’d been at Torchwood for less than a month, but Sara who handled accounts had insisted he decorate his workspace with personal items. The Doctor had thought long and hard about this. The pieces he chose would reflect on the sort of person John Smith was, what he spent his outside hours doing, who he spent his time with, the sort of jokes he laughed at. It was all very technical and time-consuming, but he doubted his co-workers had put so much thought into the way they decorated their own offices. He’d eventually settled on several little things he’d seen on television programs: one of those black cat clocks, its tail twitching against the wall, a potted cactus he’d only have to water twice a year, some sort of docking station for an mp3 player he didn’t have, a book of bad poetry he had no intention of actually reading, a framed picture of the Tylers he’d taken, and a bottle of reportedly nice wine that made him seem cheeky.
His eyes were drawn to the photo, of course. Pete had his arm wrapped around Jackie’s shoulder, and he was kissing the side of her head, looking into the camera as he did so. Jackie looked like she was positively bubbling. Next to her was Rose, holding Tony high into the air. They both looked like they were laughing, their eyes half-closed and open-mouthed grins upon their faces. The Tylers were always so photogenic, and even candid shots seemed perfectly posed, the kind of thing you’d find flipping through a magazine at the check stand. The four of them made such a beautiful little family, all smiles and friendly pokes, barbecues out back, popcorn and cranberry chains at Christmas, holidays by the sea. There were the little things too that made them seem suspiciously ideal, like the way Rose’s waist bent so perfectly when she buckled Tony into his car seat and late suppers when Pete and Jackie washed the dishes together, up to their elbows in sweet-smelling suds and witticisms upon their tongues. The Doctor loved to sit and observe, like they were some kind of alien life form whose every movement should be recorded and filed away in his brain. He loved the way Pete still spoke to Tony in soothing tones, when Rose kissed Pete’s forehead before leaving the house, and especially the way Jackie took every available opportunity to wrap every member of her family into bear hugs. It was lovely and safe and warm, bit like a cup of hot chocolate on a wintery day.
He was staring into Rose’s smiling face, her giddy frozen expression, when Sara poked her head into his office. Her face was angular and she gave him a bright smile that betrayed her harsh features.
“Leslea’s offering to take everyone out for lunch at the little Chinese place down the street. Want to come?” she asked pleasantly. Her bobbed ginger locks shook when she spoke, and the Doctor imagined the best word to describe the movement was “jingling.”
“Well, it’s tempting. They do know how to make tofu taste exactly like spicy chicken- which seems a bit sacrilege, delicious but sacrilege- but I got up early this morning especially to make those little avocado sandwich things Rose likes, and they tend to expire quite quickly,” he replied.
Sara nodded. “Right. Special lunch for you and Rose then. Gotcha.” She winked. “You two ever going to go out, make it official? We’re all a bit tired of that dancing around you do.”
The Doctor wrung his hands together. “Oh, it’s not that sort of thing with Rose. Just friendly, split the rent and the food, me pounding on the bathroom door in the morning for hours as some kind of sick punishment for losing her spot in bad novels. You know, basic, platonic flatmate situation.”
Sara sucked her lips in. “Okay. I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear any subtext in that statement. Enjoy your lunch.”
He held up the form he’d been laboring over. “Er, Sara, d’you mind helping me out before you dash off? Can’t seem to understand the point of this little piece of paper and it’s beginning to affect my ability to work.”
She snatched it from his hand and gave it a brief once-over. “You’re nearly done, really. Just need to rate the encounter on the color scale and then there’s one last paragraph about safety concerns.”
“Ah, yes. A color-coding system for deciding just how dangerous an alien is. Makes perfect sense,” he quipped as he took the paper back. “Thanks, Sara. I thought I’d be here all day.”
“No problem, that’s what I’m here for. That, and fudging the numbers and, you know, eye candy. Now, finish that bloody thing. Don’t want to keep your superior waiting.” She flipped on her kitten heels to leave, but turned back and gave the Doctor a long look. “You really should talk to Rose. The awkwardness is tiring. For me, anyway. Talking helps.”
“Is that what you and your boyfriend do?” the Doctor asked, pulling his glasses out of his pocket.
“Girlfriend. And no, we sort of just…fuck the problems away. An hour in bed and we’ve forgotten she’s a Tory.” She flashed him a brilliant smile. “You should try it.”
The Doctor frowned and put his glasses on. “Something tells me that’s not going to help,” he muttered. He spoke the words to dead air, as Sara was already out of earshot, the clacking noise of her heels fading in the hallway.
It was another good twenty minutes before the Doctor had completed his analysis of the Tetraps. He kept getting sidetracked as he reminisced about Melanie’s obscenely curly hair during his first encounter with the beasts, and he’d already concluded his brief report when he remembered just how unfunny it was to be stung by a large bat-like creature. He quickly made a footnote of it and set off to look for Rose.
The office was deserted, papers and mugs strewn around desks like his co-workers only just picked up and left seconds before. It was almost eerie, like the scene of a horror film involving an airborne virus or a zombie invasion. Rose’s space was no exception. He could see through the glass walls of her tiny office that the potted plant upon her windowsill had wilted into a brown mass, and he would be hard pressed to identify the species in its state. There were several birthday cards of varying shades and sizes standing next to the plant, some pink and tall and others oddly-shaped and bulbous, though he was certain all of them contained the sort of dirty jokes common around the water cooler. He peeked his head into the room and took note of her calendar, decorated with pictures from an American comedy about drug use and the suburbs. She had tried to make him watch it once, during a Sky One marathon airing, but he had only been confused by the way the characters reacted to things, and he’d asked too many questions about the point of the series before Rose had given up and changed the channel. Her computer screen was dark and scrolling through her screensaver, which he determined to be lines of poetry. He peered closer and began to read. It was ghastly and funny, and he could picture Rose grinning when she had first read it.
“Doctor?”
Rose was standing in the doorway, one hand on her hip and the other holding a steaming mug. The Doctor inhaled the sharp scent of maté and identified the tea as being some sort of specified morning drink Rose sipped religiously throughout the day and night. There was a slight pout to her crisp red lips and her eyes were searching him suspiciously.
He held out his file folder to her, as if he were a small child presenting his primary school report card. “Just finished up that paperwork for the Tetraps. Sara helped.”
Rose nodded and took it from his outstretched hand. “Great. Almost all caught up then.” She shot him an expectant look, her eyes wide and flashing, her lips pursed a bit, and her head titled just so.
“Sara- she, well, she said something,” the Doctor said. He was certain Rose could hear anxiety dripping from his throat. “It wasn’t all good advice. Some of it was terrible, actually. Also, she was talking about her girlfriend, so it doesn’t exactly apply. Different genitals and such. Well, half-way different.”
“Doctor, what the hell are you talking about?”
He sputtered. “She said we should talk.”
Rose set her cup down on the desk and crossed her arms over her chest. “Talk about…us, yeah?” She snorted. “That’s not going to happen, not here.”
The Doctor sighed deeply. “Don’t think it ever will,” he muttered. He ran a hand through his hair absent-mindedly. Rose was making this profoundly difficult. “How long is this going to keep happening? A week? A month? A year? How long before you can’t even look at me, Rose?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, glancing down at her shoes. “It’s so confusing. You’re…him, but you’re not. An’ sometimes I just stare at you and I don’t know if you’re the Doctor, my Doctor. Don’t know how I’m meant to find out. The last two attempts didn’t really work, yeah?”
He watched her eyes begin to cloud over and water, and he was struck with the urge to wrap her in his arms. Even if he was a Time Lord- had been a Time Lord, he’d still given years of his life to the woman standing in front of him, and he had dedicated every ounce of his being during those years to keeping her safe from harm. She was older now, and she could take care of herself. She was the one to take care of insects in the flat, anyway, and she hadn’t been half-bad defending Earth from hordes of rampaging robots, television sets, and Daleks. And yet, he wanted so badly to hold her then, to protect her from all those hard things she was pondering and fighting, things that he thought she must have the ability to confront on her own.
She made up his mind for him though, and quickly pushed her face against his suit, making it damp and salty. He gingerly pressed his hands to her back. “Maybe we should talk. Later. Out. Maybe. Like a date?”
Rose didn’t say anything, just quietly sniffled against the fabric of his jacket. After a few moments, she murmured softly, “You smell like him.”
She glanced up at him and slowly pressed her lips against his. It was tender and sweet and non-threatening, and the only thing he could taste was the artificial candied flavor of her lipgloss. Nothing interfering with her then, no outside influences. He thought of the brief kisses they had shared before all the complications and the awkwardness. He remembered when he’d looked upon her in Rome, flesh and blood, no longer the block of marble she had been. They had kissed then, so simplistically and happily, and without any pretention. He could recall a moment as well when he’d pulled on a suit, dirty and oily, and Rose had held him by his little spaceman helmet and pressed her lips against the glass. Her lips had been just as unassuming then, pink and chapped, and entirely a part of her body, rather than something disconnected, the way they had felt in the past few months.
The Doctor wrapped his arms around her waist. The slightly itchy material of her gray top felt right somehow, and he thought he might always equate the texture of it rubbing against his palms with kissing Rose. He felt her breathe deeply and simply, and her tears were on his cheeks then, so close to his own eyes.
He didn’t take notice when she pulled him even closer to her body, and it wasn’t until her back was pressed against the doorframe that he even began to suspect something was amiss. She moved one of her legs up against his pants, her black pencil skirt riding up her thigh just a bit, and tilted her head back in a way that squished her hair into elaborate shapes against the glass.
Oh, no. This is bad. This is not right. Not good, not happy, definitely not hunky-dory, he thought. She sounded sincere and pleased and not sexy. The opposite of sexy, nice. Like kittens or a brand new paperback or a ‘good morning’ SMS. This is not any of those things. It’s…nice in a very bad way.
He pried his lips away from hers. “Please, Rose,” he pleaded. “We can’t do this again. I can’t do this again.”
Her hands were on his face, stroking his cheeks. “I promise. We’ll talk. Afterwards.”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I like it. There is no question that I can appreciate all the bouncing and squashing of things during the moment. It’s golden, really. But after all that, s’a bit like being a half-used tube of toothpaste. It’s like being full in some areas and completely empty in others, and then you’ve got to roll it up all wrong for it to look really full and then no one wants to use it because it looks funny and I am not about to be a half-used tube of toothpaste, Rose! I’m just not!”
He waggled a finger at her, but her right hand was already pressed tightly against the crotch of his pants, and his capacity for reason was quickly evaporating.
He gulped loudly and deeply, almost largely enough to feasibly swallow his Adam’s apple, big as it was. “Rose, really, I don’t want to-- okay, yes I do. But I don’t think we should, not like this. Maybe after we’ve gone out properly, had a picnic, eaten a dinner with your parents where I’ve properly endeared myself to them, after visiting the drive-in theater, in the parking lot of a nice French restaurant, I don’t know! Just…let’s wait til you’ve figured out it’s really me in here, and not some weird stranger who knows all about you.”
The Doctor was certain Rose could hear the desperation in his voice. The longer he talked, the more forceful she became. She was still kissing him innocently, no tongue or biting involved, but her hands were moving quickly to undo his inhibitions. He heard the distinct noise of his pants being unzipped, and then her hand wrapped around his and moved it to the warm, wet place between her legs. He felt an electric jolt to his spine upon contact, and his breath left him instantly.
Rose pulled her lips from his and looked at him sadly. “S’not…ideal. It’s not for me, either, Doctor, but…I need to feel.”
And he’d let her do things again, and she’d let him do things too. Lots of pushing and rubbing and thrusting and groaning. Entirely undignified, making love to Rose against the doorframe of her office was. The Doctor wasn’t even sure what to call this thing they’d done three times. He’d heard plenty of crude sexual terms over the years- knobbing, screwing, rutting, porking, boning, fucking, banging, humping, boinking, shagging. None of those felt like enough to describe what he did with Rose though. Nor did any of the lovely nuanced, romantic phrases he’d read in books. It was intimate and deep and captivating, what they did, but it wasn’t necessarily loving or sweet. It was something entirely different than anything he’d done before. It wasn’t animal lust or romantic or even simple copulation. It was just him, inside Rose, searching her out by any means necessary.
He pondered all these things as he moved inside her, her back straight and stiff in the doorway and his hips and lungs pumping radically, spastically. Her lower half was jutting against him, and her eyes were looking into his. Her eyelids were half-closed and covered in a faint plaster of powder the color of dusk. Her mouth was open and she licked her lips occasionally. She was panting, breathing in short little gasps, and she sounded quite like a mouse, compared to the long, low moans the Doctor was emitting. To his own ears, he sounded a bit like a wounded animal, but it didn’t seem to matter. Rose obviously didn’t want cinema-style sex. She was searching for quick, uncomplicated, and for the moment anyway, he was willing to give.
There was a tightening happening in his entire lower half, quick and spreading through his thighs and midriff, not unlike the flesh-eating vines he’d seen in some horror film Rose had insisted they rent. It was clawing at him, seeding itself through his body, and his mind went into lockdown preparation mode. He could count his sexual experiences with humans on one hand, but he knew there was a large emphasis on stamina, keeping at it, pushing the game into overtime, hitting a homerun, and a variety of other sports metaphors that seemed to be so sublimely stupid.
Rose must have been able to tell, because she slowed her movements a bit, and looked at him straight-on. “Doctor, just a bit longer, please…”
It didn’t seem to help though, her warning-slash-encouragement. He felt a bit like an amusement park ride, like a rollercoaster on a track. Once the ride had started, one could either stop it completely, or let it run its course. And any off switch there might have been had defected long ago. It was being serviced, probably far, far away by people who weren’t paid enough to do it efficiently. And the car was rolling on, faster and faster, through one of those huge loops that always made his stomach go queasy, and he could see the end of the line, the exit that led over to other things like cotton candy stands and games to win Technicolor plush animals. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and groaned.
Rose sucked in her breath and her body tensed as his hands about her waist grasped down against her skin. He buried his face in her shoulder and exhaled, long and low, and thought perhaps his body wouldn’t be able to function for the next few days.
He was certain the clapping sound behind him was merely a figment of his imagination, until Rose seized up and then lolled her head back and groaned in her specific annoyed tone of voice. The Doctor let Rose down, very gently so her stiletto boots wouldn’t scrape against the floor, zipped himself up as discreetly as possible, and then turned around, his shoulders sagging.
Jake was standing there, his arms crossed over his chest as he eyed them up. Sara was standing beside him with an impish smile playing upon her face, and there were a few scattered people whose names the Doctor couldn’t recall at the moment standing behind her. Several were holding take-out boxes and looking at him and Rose with very confused expressions.
“Glad to see you worked out your problems,” Sara commented, giggling.
Jake glanced briefly at Sara, then back at the Doctor. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t resolve the issue on company property, but I guess I can’t expect too much from a newbie. Er, don’t do it again, Smith.” He nodded and winked at them. “Wouldn’t want to have to report this to Pete, Tyler.”
Rose shook her head vigorously. “Right. Thanks, Jake.”
The Doctor watched the small crowd disperse themselves around the floor, and he turned back to Rose, a hand upon the back of his neck as he looked down at his Chuck Taylors. “Could’ve gone better.”
Rose winced and her face sort of scrunched up. “This is all your fault,” she said coolly.
“My fault?” he replied incredulously, gesturing at his chest. “My fault! Really?”
“Yes, your fault!” she cried, her hair whipping about her like it was Medusa’s slithering locks. “If you hadn’t just stood there, with your hair all…pretty, and if you hadn’t been as willing as some little lovesick girl, I wouldn’t have been humiliated in front of the entire office!”
He narrowed his eyes at her. It was going to be a screaming match, he could tell. “Oh, yes, if I hadn’t been just standing here, minding my own business, telling you that no, I didn’t intend to shag you in the doorway, your dignity would be in tact!”
“Well, yes!”
“That’s incredibly daft and ridiculous…and silly!”
“I know!”
“Well, if you’d just agree to act like a proper girlfriend and not just a randomly-appearing, occasionally-drunken one, maybe we could do it in a more normal fashion!”
“Alright then!”
“What?”
“Let’s go out!”
“Okay!”
“Okay!”
“Why are we still shouting then?” he yelled back at her.
“I don’t know!” Rose’s hard expression quickly melted, and she cracked a smile and gave him one of those mischievous glances that always made the Doctor weak at the knees. She turned toward her desk, still grinning, and picked up her mug. “Tea’s cold. Better get some more. But I’ll see you after work, yeah? Grocery shopping and such.”
He nodded and sighed happily. “Think the proper response is, ‘it’s a date.’”
Rose chuckled. “Yeah, somethin’ like that.”