Xenohorticulture and You (ADULT)
Title: Xenohorticulture and You
Series: Couples Therapy (not at all necessary to have read the others)
Author:
the_tenzo
Pairing/Characters: Ten/Rose, and a very brief special guest appearance from an original companion
Rating: Adult (including implications of very mild B&D situations, though none actually depicted)
Word Count: 5929 (hope you're sitting comfortably--I may have gotten slightly carried away)
Summary: So you want to take up xenohorticulture as a fun and rewarding hobby? Here are a few things you should know about the possible hazards.
Hey lookit, this fic won an award! If you're here via Children of Time:
Who I Wrote it For:
gowdie and
wiggiemomsi via the 2nd Support Stacie Author Auction.
The Couples Therapy Series: A series of AU fics with no real internal chronology. All can be read as one-shots, and they can be read in any order. The premise of the 'verse was prompted to me by
wiggiemomsi, when she won me in the first Support Stacie Author Auction. I have shamelessly used her Bad Wolf fixit prompt as an excuse to write porn.
Even the most passionate and harmonious of human marriages have a natural shelf life reckoned in decades. There's a reason that the most poignant part of any love story is the ending. A successful partnership lasting centuries, while perhaps not unheard-of among some species, differs in several key ways from the human unions that Rose Tyler had grown up observing. Sometimes a little couples therapy is required.
"Did it have to be xenohorticulture?"
The Doctor was suspended upside-down, held at the ankles by a seemingly very perturbed vine that had in a matter of minutes entirely taken over the TARDIS garden. His tie flipped down over his face, and he had to keep blowing little puffs of air to keep it out of his mouth.
Rose, pinned to a far wall by the rogue plant, rolled her eyes. "You're the one who said I needed to find a new hobby, especially after the...unpleasantness with Cistophore husbandry. And then when the Archduke gave William that cutting, it seemed like the thing to do. It's not like I knew this would happen."
The Doctor struggled with his tie a bit more before blustering back. "Would doing a spot of research really have killed you? And where is that boy? William!" he called, noticing after a moment that Rose was not joining in.
"He's not here. He's gone down the shops, remember?"
"Great. Fantastic. Nice work, all around," the Doctor huffed. "And I bet he's going to forget the milk again anyway. He always does. The one thing we go to the market on Earth for and he can never remember it. Just because he drinks that ghastly soy rubbish doesn't mean I want it anywhere near my tea."
Rose began to feel a touch guilty for what she had done, which was difficult given what a great whinger the Doctor was being. The vine, for its part, was still growing steadily, continuing to fill the cavernous expanse of the garden.
"So, any idea what this is, Doctor?"
"Well, like the Archduke said, Turbatrix leucanthemum. And I think it's a fair guess to say the fast-growing variety."
Rose knitted her brow and for the twelve million five hundred and eighteenth time wished the Doctor wouldn't be so literal. "I mean, what's it doing?"
He twisted around to face her, the momentum of which made him begin to swing like a pendulum, his tie fluttering like the tail of a kite. "There are eighteen billion forms of plant life on Hylidae. I'm supposed to be an expert on every single one of them, hmm?"
Rose's guilt and sympathy levels began to fall again. "Well, pardon me for asking. Let me just see if I can--"
Her words were cut short by a tendril of the vine shooting up to right in front of her face, where it swayed as if in a breeze (though there were no breezes aboard the TARDIS), seemingly in thoughtful botanical consideration.
"Oi!" she heard the Doctor cry and out of the corner of her eye she saw a similar dance going on where he was hanging. "Get out of my face, you...you...gah! Rose, I think it's plotting to destroy us and take over the ship," he said very seriously.
The bud of a flower spontaneously grew out of the end of the shoot that had been quivering and swaying around him, rendering the Doctor surprisingly speechless momentarily. The bud then pulsated, bulged around the bottom, seemed to aim itself very carefully and....
"What?!" the Doctor gasped.
"Whoa!" Rose protested.
Each bud had exploded in to full bloom, just inches from their faces. Rose squirmed and tried to move away from it, but she was being held too tightly by the other branches. She settled for just cocking her head to the side and squeezing her eyes shut. It was just a flower (though quite a large one) but she felt it was somehow looking at her, very much violating her personal space, and scrutinising her most intimately.
The Doctor began to wiggle, causing his body to spin around in mid-air and consequently away from his own intrusive flower. The plant as a whole seemed to not care for this much at all and the vines rearranged themselves in order to set him right-side up again, and facing away from Rose. Branches and shoots gripped him around the middle and wrapped around each limb.
The flowers were like interrogation lights from an old noir film; unblinking eyes set at close range and making them both extremely uncomfortable. Rose couldn't quite place her finger on what exactly it was about the enormous pink flower that was giving her the creeping heebie-jeebies , but she didn't have time to consult with the Doctor, as the whole organism then began to shudder and quiver, each limb thrumming out what might have been a pulse or language of some kind. The beat quickened in speed and intensity, causing the tendrils that held her to constrict slightly.
"Ouch! Doctor, what's happening?" There was no answer except the sound of a lot of rustling and grunting. "Doctor?"
"I dunno," he gritted out. "I think it's getting ready to--Oh!"
Rose screamed with surprise as well, as the flower that had been dancing before her face suddenly exploded with a fine blueish powder that covered her nearly from head to foot. She squeezed her lips shut and closed her eyes, trying not to breathe any of it in. Who knows what horrible thing might happen if she did. She could turn in to a plant herself! Or maybe the creature had claimed her as its queen and would go galumphing off the TARDIS with her in its clutches, never to be seen again.
"What?!" the Doctor said again, really not being much help at all.
She opened her eyes a crack and saw that he too was covered in a faintly luminescent powder, though green rather than blue.
"Wonderful," he sighed. "Now we're covered in pollen on top of it all."
"Is that what this is? You sure about that?"
She could see the back of his neck and his shoulders tensing with continued struggle to free himself, and he turned his head slightly so he could just barely see her out of the corner of his eye.
"No I'm not sure, but it makes sense, doesn't it? This plant may be a bit more...complicated than the ones we're used to, but all plants exist to basically make more plants. Well, animals as well, but we tend to be a bit more subtle about how we go about it. Well, I say we tend to be subtle...really very rarely. But occasionally. Sometimes."
"So now what?"
He wriggled a bit more in his bonds and made some manly-sounding noises of struggle, but to no avail. "I guess we wait until William gets back and wonders what's become of us."
"That could be a while." Rose looked towards the door to the garden, which was shut.
"The TARDIS can make sure he finds this room easily enough." The Doctor let out a long, resigned sigh and there was a protracted period of silence, until:
"I spy with my little eye something....green."
Rose just laughed and it occurred to the Doctor, really quite out of nowhere, that it had been a very long time since he'd complimented her on her laugh. A shame really, because he loved it, and he loved to make her laugh just so he could hear it. In those early weeks and months he'd told her so many times about all of the little things he loved about her, written sonnets to her toenails which he then pinned proudly to the fridge, composed an entire symphony just about the colour of her eyes. That had all been a few hundred years ago, but surely she remembered. Besides, they regularly demonstrated their love in some very pleasing and creative ways. Of course she must know that he wouldn't engage in that activity with her if he didn't love every single thing about her still.
"Nice try, Doctor," Rose said, a twinge of mirth still in her voice. "I think we'll have to perhaps move on to Twenty Question, as I have a feeling I Spy is going to be a bit of a wash-out. This pollen stuff is all sort of itchy and tingly isn't it? "
"Shhh," he hissed, "I'm trying to analyse its chemical make-up."
He had, of course, managed to lick a bit of the powder from off of his face and was now hemming and hawing to himself.
Rose began to feel a strange sense of urgency, impatience, even annoyance. She could imagine in her mind's eye the sight of him darting his tongue out of his mouth and giving a very careful, long, perhaps even languorous lick to his lips (to of course get the best possible sample to analyse) and the thought began to utterly infuriate her. How dare he be so sexy in such circumstances!
"Well, what is it?" she finally said, with a rather unattractive nagging tone.
"Half a minute," the Doctor shot back and Rose just stared impatiently at the back of his head. The back of his head where it had been several weeks since he'd had a haircut and little locks of hair curled adorably. The room was hot enough that even he was beginning to break out in a bit of a sweat, and the base of his neck was glistening with the powder mixed with his salty, spicy--
"Almost got it," he mumbled, bringing Rose back out of her reverie.
"Yeah?" she said weakly.
"Just pollen, really. There's a few carbon chains I'm not particularly familiar with, but nothing that's going to hurt either of us. That tingling you're feeling, I think that's totally normal. The sweat mixed with this powder, it's creating a bit of a chemical reaction on your epidermis, but nothing to be alarmed about."
Epidermis. Sweat. This glistening, somewhat iridescent powder. Rose Tyler. Chemical reactions. The Doctor rambled on at length about plant life cycles, angiosperms, ferns and suchlike. Meanwhile the other 98.865 percent of his brain was still dwelling on Rose Tyler's skin. Rosy-golden, twenty-years-old forever--or at least the foreseeable future--soft, smooth, and now covered in a fine film of sweat and then over top of that this shining, faintly glowing powder. She was likely flushed in this heat as well, her full pink cheeks complimenting the deep red that undoubtedly her lips were turning. He swallowed, hard, mid-sentence (something about spores and rhizomes), and wound up spluttering and coughing rather than finishing his thought.
"You okay?" she asked as he hacked and coughed--an operation not made any easier by the constricting vines around his chest.
"I'm fine, really...sorry," he wheezed. "Just, you know, down the wrong pipe."
"I'm feeling a little funny," she confessed, more out of wanting to get him to stop the science lecture than a serious concern for her well-being. She saw her mistake however when his shoulders tensed up and he began his struggle with the plant anew.
"If I could just.... Hang on, Rose!" he said in his best hero voice, doubtless gritting his teeth and making what she called the Angry Eyebrows, and she felt immediately guilty for saying anything.
"No, no, it's okay. It's okay. It's not bad-funny. Just funny-funny. Don't you feel funny?"
"A little, I guess, yeah," he said, settling back down in to his bonds again. "I feel all sort of--flushed."
"Well, we do keep it rather warm in the garden."
He shook his head, and again Rose watched almost in slow-motion as those little locks of hair behind his ears and at the base of his neck became damp with sweat as he did so.
"It's not hot enough that I'd normally be fussed about it. But I'm really perspiring in the worst way here."
"You're...ah, yes, I can see that." She tried to sound business-like but her words came out as weirdly croaking. Her perception seemed to shift and her vision keenly focused on one little droplet that clung to the bottom of a dark curl at the base of his neck. She could almost hear it as it dropped finally, agonisingly, down to his neck and began to slide, leaving a dewy trail in its wake. Down it went, sliding under the loosened collar of his shirt and from there Rose imagined its progress. It would trace a trail down the long, lean, freckled expanse of his back, between his shoulder blades and further towards his hips. She could taste the salt, the musk, the feel of his skin on her tongue where she would slide it in the wake of that one little drop of sweat.
Rose shook her head violently from side to side, trying to clear her mind. The tingle on her skin was more than just the pollen now--there was an ache at her finger-tips, the corners of her mouth, the base of her spine. She didn't want to tell the Doctor for fear that he'd worry needlessly, but her ability to carry on a jaunty conversation was being seriously impeded.
"How are you holding up over there?" he called.
"Best as can be expected, I guess. My hair's in my face and I can't brush it away. It's ticking my nose." It was the most innocuous thing she could think of to tell him, not really wanting to share the increasingly intimate details of this coiling, surging feeling of impatience that was now crawling throughout her body. It seemed so wildly inappropriate to the situation, she was more than a little ashamed.
"Your hair--" the Doctor noted, but it came out as a sigh more than a statement.
Her hair, fine and soft, and perfect when it tickled his chest as she straddled him and covered his neck with kisses. Or even more perfect in the way that it created a veil around them when she rode him and they touched foreheads and stared in to the depths of each others eyes. Most perfect when she slept and it lay as a golden nimbus around her head, making her look like the angels of Earth legend, or the woman in the sun, the creator goddess of off-world stories. And with the power that she had briefly wielded, why shouldn't she be exactly that goddess? She had to know how much he was in awe of her still for that one act, that the few occasions that he slept, he dreamt of her filled with the golden light of the vortex, and that her sunny yellow hair reminded him of that every time he looked at her. Surely he'd mentioned that at some point.
"Your hair," he continued after a tense pause, "that's a shame. Still, I expect William will be back soon enough."
"Mind he doesn't get caught up in this as well," she cautioned, looking towards the door where several branches twined and waved in the non-wind, waiting.
"We'll just have to warn him before he comes in. Great," the Doctor sighed, exasperated, "now I've got a cramp. Oi, you, plant-thing! Ease up will you?" He tried to shift around and ease the pain in his leg.
Rose watched his gyrations, trying to conjure up some concern, or sympathy. She knew that's what she should be feeling as he yelped and wriggled some more, but she couldn't keep her eyes off of his behind. She'd told him recently how much she adored his pert little bum, hadn't she? She certainly couldn't have ever failed to mention how much she loved to grab it and guide him in to her when they were enjoying each other. Just enough for a girl to know she's got a hold of something, but no more. For such a skinny bloke he really did have a fine, rounded....
"What was that, Rose?" the Doctor tried to twist around to look at her. "Are you okay?"
Rose realised that she had in fact been salivating and had slurped in order to keep from drooling. She closed her eyes in exasperation.
Across the room, when he'd heard her, the Doctor tried to pitch his voice so that it sounded concerned and understanding, but he was mainly thinking that the sound she'd made was so much like when she took him in to her mouth and licked, sucked, stroked.... One hundred percent of his mind now wandered off entirely to the first time she'd slid down his body, grinning, licking her lips, and the glorious feelings she created just by placing tiny wet kisses all up and down his length and then blowing gently on them. At the time he had told her he'd be the happiest man in the Universe if she'd just keep on doing that forever. Fast forward a few centuries and it felt just as incredible, the little white stars exploded behind his eyes in exactly the same way, and just a few days before she'd been particularly teasing, goading, deliciously infuriating in her ministrations--had he even thanked her after?
"Say, Doctor?" Rose called and he twitched like someone woken from a deep slumber. He was now sweating profusely and, unbeknownst to Rose behind him, was frustratingly hard and wanting her.
He cleared his throat and tried to sound casual. "What's that?"
"How long have we been here?"
Good question, that.
"It's...." He thought hard, he pulled faces, he bit his bottom lip. "It's...."
"Doctor?" Rose grew concerned, he should have answered by now. This ache that pitched her in to roiling seas of need didn't abate, however and she squirmed against the vines holding her, wondering at what point this thing inside of her would give her the strength needed to break through them.
"It's...." He tossed his head back violently and groaned. "Rose," he said through gritted teeth, composing himself again, "do not be alarmed, but I think that we may be under the influence of a drug. And I have no idea what time it is." He said the last bit sadly, ashamed of himself.
"Do you feel...funny, too?" she asked tentatively. Every beat of her heart seemed to resonate on the surface of her skin and she wondered if it was worse for him, with two pulses to create the sensation.
"Yes," he said in a low, gruff voice.
"And this funniness, is it making you want to...." she trailed off, not quite sure how to put it. Mate furiously? Copulate like bunny rabbits? Rut like wild beasts? All of the images that flashed through her head were decidedly on the animalistic side and none of them were helping her to be articulate.
"Do you mean is it making me want to rip through these vines with my teeth and ravish you to within an inch of your life?" he growled darkly, as if it was the most important task the Universe had ever set before him.
Rose nearly started crying, the image he presented was so exactly what she wanted, and so completely out of reach.
"Yes," she squeaked, closing her eyes and trying to at least get the most from the visions popping in to her head. Oh how she loved it when he just took her as if he couldn't help himself, wherever they were, quickly and in whatever posture they could manage. Yes, a sweet languorous session of lovemaking--orgasms guaranteed to all and sundry, multiple if possible--was all well and good, but to be pinned against a wall simply because your lover finds you so utterly irresistible, well.... There's something to be said for it. Had she ever told him how magnificent it was when he did that? Perhaps not.
Perhaps she should.
Perhaps she would.
"Doctor, can I tell you something?" The sound of her voice was strained and reedy.
For his part, the Doctor barely heard her. He was himself picturing what he would do if he could just get these sodding vines off. He needn't even free her from them really, and he considered the angles. Yes, it would do quite nicely to have her just exactly the way she was. Up against the wall, hands and feet bound to a trellis, a little bit off the ground and at a height such that the usual geometric and spatial issues normally encountered would be immaterial. Yes, just like that. He would march over and rip her knickers off and....
"Doctor?" she called again.
"What?" he bit out.
"Can I tell you something?"
"If you want to apologise or whatever for this, really there's no need. We all make mistakes." That's what he said. What he was thinking was that he'd be only too happy to discipline her quite severely for her failure to use the library before sticking alien plants in to the preternaturally fertile soil of the TARDIS garden. Perhaps even a light caning would be in order. She'd seemed to quite like that the last time they'd played at naughty pupil.
"No, it's not that, though I am sorry. I just wanted to tell you...I love how you always try to make me laugh, even when things are pretty dire. I'm not sure I've mentioned it, recently." It was a bit of a departure from her originally planned confession of I-love-it-when-you-shag-me-senseless, but was also a truth she didn't speak nearly enough.
She watched his shoulders relax a little, and even the vine had to tighten its hold as it had grown around a much more squared and tense torso. "Oh, well...ta," he said, rather bashfully. "I do my best."
"You do brilliantly," she smiled, and he could hear the smile in her voice, which just got him thinking about her lips again. How full they were, how her smile lit up even the bleakest, darkest dungeons (and he had evidence that this was quite literally true), how her eyes narrowed to laughing little slits when she was really glad about something, and she couldn't keep her smile inside. And then of course about the feel of those lips on him, and the feel of her smile against his neck as he whispered some ridiculous little naughty thought when they embraced (before, during, or after the running-for-their lives bit).
"Well, for what it's worth, it's somewhat selfish on my part. I just love to see that smile on your...lips...." He trailed off, already heading in to another daydream.
A fraught silence settled over the garden and the only sound that could be heard was a faint squeaking that must have been little bits of the vine still growing, filling in the corners. The heat, the increasing dank humidity, this damned drug-induced haze that seemed to make time stop, reverse itself and speed up again as his thoughts went galloping like a team of horses after every tiny thing Rose said or did. It became unbearable and the Doctor found himself baring his teeth like a caged animal, the sinews of his neck taut as he made a last ditch attempt to struggle free.
"Right!" he spat furiously. "Turbatrix leucanthemum, you have messed with the wrong Time Lord!"
Rose didn't even need to see his face to know that the Angry Eyebrows were being deployed at their top setting.
"You are going to let me go and then you're going to let her go--" He paused. Did he actually want the plant to let her go? Really, technically it wasn't entirely necessary in order to manage the operation he had in mind, and then afterwards he could just get the sonic screwdriver and make the thing release her that way. He would have scratched the back of his head in deep thought had he been able to. After a moment's contemplation, he suddenly remembered that he was meant to be in the middle of a loud, angry tirade directed at a giant plant.
"You are going to let us go, and then I'm going to take you right back to Hylidae where you belong! You can't have me, and you can't have Rose, and you absolutely can't have my ship!" He tossed his head around trying to see if the vines were responding in any way. He wondered if the TARDIS translation circuits would help at all in mediating between these two species and hoped for the best, because aside from waiting for their companion to find them eventually, shouting really loud was pretty much his only trick in this situation.
Rose felt a thrill move through her body, watching the Doctor struggle and shout and make stern demands. He could be a bit pompous at times, sure, but there was something so vital about the way he took command of situations. Something so alive, so virile, so...
Her thoughts were derailed by the feeling of the vines constricting around her, first rather pleasantly as they sort of scratched the itch that had been building since they'd been trapped, but then rather painfully. She cried out briefly before the air was squeezed from her lungs, but just as she was about to really run out of room to breathe, she found herself toppling to the ground, panting and coughing. She heard a soft thud from across the room and looked up to see the Doctor standing right below where he'd previously been suspended, rubbing his behind and removing his tie.
He looked as if he might say something triumphant or grandiose, but quickly shut his mouth again and sprang forward, crawling on hands and knees through the dense tangle of foliage towards her.
Rose looked as if she might be about to tell him to mind his trousers in all the sticky, damp vines, but she too shut her mouth again and sat back on her haunches, watching his every move with great interest. Her tongue darted around the corners of her mouth as she admired the way his body moved as he scrabbled through interwoven limbs and over enormous wet leaves. Finally she'd be able to get her hands on those hips and feel the muscles slide over his bones as she always relished. Maybe she'd even tell him so.
He didn't stop his advance even as he got close, and fairly climbed right over her, pushing her backwards as he did so and coming to stop hovering over her body. Sweat dropped from his temples down on to Rose's collar bones and she felt the slightly cooler temperature of it greatly exaggerated, like an ice cube being played over her skin.
"Hi," he growled, his eyes dark and lidded.
"Hello." She couldn't help the grin that crept across her face in anticipation, and she didn't have the mental energy to fight it back and put a coyer or sexier look on.
He licked his lips and blinked slowly, languorously, and pushed the lank hair away from her face with one trembling hand. "I love your smile," he purred as he lowered himself down to lick the pollen from her lips and then plunge fully into her sweet, warm, perfect mouth. Hundreds of years of memories of her kisses and this moment seemed to explode them all as mere trifles, clumsy pecks and gropings. The taste of the pollen on her was perfumed, floral, but still earthy. It seemed to complement her so well, and he drank in the taste, the heat of her lips, and the fluttering of her tongue against his.
"Your hair," he murmured against her cheek as he continued to trail kisses down her neck and over her pollen-covered chest, tearing at her shirt as he did so, buttons flying in various directions when he pushed it hastily off her shoulders. "I love your hair," he continued, while increasing the urgency of the way he licked and sucked each nipple.
She writhed under him and herself fumbled with his clothes, tearing and clawing and not particularly caring. "I love it when we just fuck," she said, perhaps a bit more enthusiastically than she'd intended, but the reaction from him was immediate.
"Oh, I do too!" he squeaked, as if he she had suggested sharing a chocolate milkshake or watching old Tracey and Hepburn movies all night.
"I love how you're so poor at playing the manly ravisher for very long," she giggled, prompting protestations from him as he grasped her wrists and held her hands above her head.
"I'll have you for that, missy!" He parted the zipper of her shorts with his free hand and sucked in a large amount of air at seeing the way her hips bucked up to meet his hand as he pulled them down.
"I love your strong hands." She made a show of struggling in his grasp, the way he liked her to do when they played, as he gripped the lace of her knickers and harshly removed them as well.
He released her and sat back on his heels, undoing the clasp of his trousers at last. Rose sat up and sampled the sweat now glistening on his naked belly, lapping around the edges of his hip bones and nipping each one in turn.
"I love it when you do that," he groaned.
She pushed his trousers down and gripped his bare behind so roughly that it made him lurch forward, toppling her down under him again.
"I love this part," she said, locking her legs around his and gripping his arse to guide him home. Pollen and sweat mixed to create a sticky ichor where their bodies met and rubbed together. The places where they touched now glowed strongly in hues of pink, and the Doctor found himself looking down on a map of all of the places he'd just been, his own finger prints on her shoulders, across her temples, and around her wrists. He felt a spreading liquid heat as the substance traveled like oil on water coating even the parts of them had had been clothed when they'd first been showered with it. As he drove in to her, this burning was the only other sensation he had beyond the familiar ecstasy of being subsumed in the close, slick warmth of Rose's body.
It was over astonishingly quickly, with a lot of rough crying out of nonsense and smacking of bare flesh. If there were any more long overdue observances to be made, they were unable to articulate them. When he moved off of her, she remained quivering and shuddering for some moments after, mewling with simultaneous pleasure and loss. Her throat felt raw and sore from shouting, and still the strange sensation of the pollen covering them moved over her skin in waves.
His breathing began to slow and he kicked his trousers off finally so they could lay together, damp and entangled on the soft mossy floor of the garden. He opened his eyes and found that for the moments of their coupling, he'd completely forgotten about the entire situation that had gotten them there--the Turbatrix leucanthemum, the flowers, the pollen, the vines, the whole bit. He rolled over to his side and regarded Rose, looking glassy-eyed up at the ceiling and still panting.
"That was good," he stated quietly. "I loved that."
She looked over at him. "Yeah," she sighed. "Me too."
"I love you." He said the words against her neck as he nuzzled there, taking one last little lick of the combined pollen.
"Yeah," she said again. "Me too."
He propped himself up on an elbow again. "When someone says I love you, and you say me too, does that mean you love you too, or that you love me?"
She reached a weak, rubbery arm over and smacked him across the shoulder. "Don't play stupid, you know what it means."
"A little clarification never hurt anyone."
"Then it means that I love you too." She smiled benevolently and brought a hand up to her forehead. "Blimey. We're a right mess, aren't we? Showers all around, yeah?" She sat up and surveyed the garden, where the Turbatrix leucanthemum, was still twining around every other plant and trellis available. "I wonder why it let us go. I have a feeling it wasn't just because you shouted at it, as terrifying as you sounded, mister scary Time Lord."
"Oh, I dunno. They say you're supposed to talk to plants to make them grow, so why not getting very cross with them to make them stop...." He trailed off and felt around on the ground in the space between them. "Hello, what's this?"
The Doctor was staring intently down at the patch of moss-covered dirt, wrinkling his nose to get a better look without having his glasses available.
"What's what?" Rose rolled over, and saw there on the ground a golden seed pod, about the size of a satsuma, seemingly pulsating and glowing with an internal light.
"Oh!" The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, and then did it again a half dozen more times. "Oh oh oh oh! I get it!" He sat up and addressed the entire garden. "You clever, clever plant! Ooh, you cheeky, perverted plant! Now that is an adaptation to write home about! Mental note, Rose. Next time we need a," he counted on his hands and then on his toes, "an eighteenth honeymoon, the cloud forests of Hylidae in the springtime it is!"
"You mean--" she looked down at the seed, which she was sure had grown slightly in the few seconds the Doctor had taken to fete the local flora.
"Oh yes!" he cried, his face lit up with the puzzle solved. "Turbatrix leucanthemum, requires the pollen of two flowers to mix in order to create a seed. It traps two life forms, drugs them with an aphrodisiac, covers them in pollen and then whammo! Well, that's a new twist on the birds and the bees, I daresay."
"I'm not sure if I should be proud of us or thoroughly creeped out."
"Nah, we were taking part in this creature's life cycle, just as we ought. We're a part of the living world, Rose, not separate from it."
"Well either way I think we should probably be delivering this seed back from whence it came. It's looking rather...impatient."
His face fell and he swallowed the rest of his sermon on the glories of the natural world when he too noticed the seed begin to quiver and pulsate at a much higher rate.
"Uh oh."
It was certainly not the first time they'd been naked in the console room, but it was the first time that William had walked in on them thus unattired. He covered his eyes and dropped his bag of shopping, screaming like he'd been burned.
"Oh my god, you two!" he shouted, making his way blindly across the room, hugging the wall. "When you invited me to see all of time and space I really was not thinking that would include you both starkers!"
"Sorry, just a little emergency!" the Doctor shouted, frantically twisting knobs and pulling plungers as the rotor wheezed in to life. Rose stood off to the side cupping something glowing in her hands, bouncing impatiently from foot to foot.
"Hurry up, Doctor! It's sprouting!"
He flicked one final switch, the ship pitched from side-to-side, shuddered, and there was a dull thud.
"Out out out out out!" he whooped, ever so slightly enjoying himself and shoving Rose before him, through the TARDIS doors.
"Bugger," he groaned, as they both found themselves standing completely nude in front of the Grand High Council of the Dolorous Pretorians.
There was a great cracking sound, like the biggest, hardest egg in the galaxy being topped, and the seed sprung from Rose's hand and began to grow, wrapping its twining tendrils around their ankles as it spread to engulf the rest of the council chamber.
"It just had to be xenohorticulture," he sighed to Rose as they were both enveloped in foliage and lifted off the ground in front of one hundred and twenty-nine Dolorous eyes.
Series: Couples Therapy (not at all necessary to have read the others)
Author:
the_tenzo
Pairing/Characters: Ten/Rose, and a very brief special guest appearance from an original companion
Rating: Adult (including implications of very mild B&D situations, though none actually depicted)
Word Count: 5929 (hope you're sitting comfortably--I may have gotten slightly carried away)
Summary: So you want to take up xenohorticulture as a fun and rewarding hobby? Here are a few things you should know about the possible hazards.
Hey lookit, this fic won an award! If you're here via Children of Time:
Who I Wrote it For:
gowdie and
wiggiemomsi via the 2nd Support Stacie Author Auction.
The Couples Therapy Series: A series of AU fics with no real internal chronology. All can be read as one-shots, and they can be read in any order. The premise of the 'verse was prompted to me by
wiggiemomsi, when she won me in the first Support Stacie Author Auction. I have shamelessly used her Bad Wolf fixit prompt as an excuse to write porn.
Even the most passionate and harmonious of human marriages have a natural shelf life reckoned in decades. There's a reason that the most poignant part of any love story is the ending. A successful partnership lasting centuries, while perhaps not unheard-of among some species, differs in several key ways from the human unions that Rose Tyler had grown up observing. Sometimes a little couples therapy is required.
"Did it have to be xenohorticulture?"
The Doctor was suspended upside-down, held at the ankles by a seemingly very perturbed vine that had in a matter of minutes entirely taken over the TARDIS garden. His tie flipped down over his face, and he had to keep blowing little puffs of air to keep it out of his mouth.
Rose, pinned to a far wall by the rogue plant, rolled her eyes. "You're the one who said I needed to find a new hobby, especially after the...unpleasantness with Cistophore husbandry. And then when the Archduke gave William that cutting, it seemed like the thing to do. It's not like I knew this would happen."
The Doctor struggled with his tie a bit more before blustering back. "Would doing a spot of research really have killed you? And where is that boy? William!" he called, noticing after a moment that Rose was not joining in.
"He's not here. He's gone down the shops, remember?"
"Great. Fantastic. Nice work, all around," the Doctor huffed. "And I bet he's going to forget the milk again anyway. He always does. The one thing we go to the market on Earth for and he can never remember it. Just because he drinks that ghastly soy rubbish doesn't mean I want it anywhere near my tea."
Rose began to feel a touch guilty for what she had done, which was difficult given what a great whinger the Doctor was being. The vine, for its part, was still growing steadily, continuing to fill the cavernous expanse of the garden.
"So, any idea what this is, Doctor?"
"Well, like the Archduke said, Turbatrix leucanthemum. And I think it's a fair guess to say the fast-growing variety."
Rose knitted her brow and for the twelve million five hundred and eighteenth time wished the Doctor wouldn't be so literal. "I mean, what's it doing?"
He twisted around to face her, the momentum of which made him begin to swing like a pendulum, his tie fluttering like the tail of a kite. "There are eighteen billion forms of plant life on Hylidae. I'm supposed to be an expert on every single one of them, hmm?"
Rose's guilt and sympathy levels began to fall again. "Well, pardon me for asking. Let me just see if I can--"
Her words were cut short by a tendril of the vine shooting up to right in front of her face, where it swayed as if in a breeze (though there were no breezes aboard the TARDIS), seemingly in thoughtful botanical consideration.
"Oi!" she heard the Doctor cry and out of the corner of her eye she saw a similar dance going on where he was hanging. "Get out of my face, you...you...gah! Rose, I think it's plotting to destroy us and take over the ship," he said very seriously.
The bud of a flower spontaneously grew out of the end of the shoot that had been quivering and swaying around him, rendering the Doctor surprisingly speechless momentarily. The bud then pulsated, bulged around the bottom, seemed to aim itself very carefully and....
"What?!" the Doctor gasped.
"Whoa!" Rose protested.
Each bud had exploded in to full bloom, just inches from their faces. Rose squirmed and tried to move away from it, but she was being held too tightly by the other branches. She settled for just cocking her head to the side and squeezing her eyes shut. It was just a flower (though quite a large one) but she felt it was somehow looking at her, very much violating her personal space, and scrutinising her most intimately.
The Doctor began to wiggle, causing his body to spin around in mid-air and consequently away from his own intrusive flower. The plant as a whole seemed to not care for this much at all and the vines rearranged themselves in order to set him right-side up again, and facing away from Rose. Branches and shoots gripped him around the middle and wrapped around each limb.
The flowers were like interrogation lights from an old noir film; unblinking eyes set at close range and making them both extremely uncomfortable. Rose couldn't quite place her finger on what exactly it was about the enormous pink flower that was giving her the creeping heebie-jeebies , but she didn't have time to consult with the Doctor, as the whole organism then began to shudder and quiver, each limb thrumming out what might have been a pulse or language of some kind. The beat quickened in speed and intensity, causing the tendrils that held her to constrict slightly.
"Ouch! Doctor, what's happening?" There was no answer except the sound of a lot of rustling and grunting. "Doctor?"
"I dunno," he gritted out. "I think it's getting ready to--Oh!"
Rose screamed with surprise as well, as the flower that had been dancing before her face suddenly exploded with a fine blueish powder that covered her nearly from head to foot. She squeezed her lips shut and closed her eyes, trying not to breathe any of it in. Who knows what horrible thing might happen if she did. She could turn in to a plant herself! Or maybe the creature had claimed her as its queen and would go galumphing off the TARDIS with her in its clutches, never to be seen again.
"What?!" the Doctor said again, really not being much help at all.
She opened her eyes a crack and saw that he too was covered in a faintly luminescent powder, though green rather than blue.
"Wonderful," he sighed. "Now we're covered in pollen on top of it all."
"Is that what this is? You sure about that?"
She could see the back of his neck and his shoulders tensing with continued struggle to free himself, and he turned his head slightly so he could just barely see her out of the corner of his eye.
"No I'm not sure, but it makes sense, doesn't it? This plant may be a bit more...complicated than the ones we're used to, but all plants exist to basically make more plants. Well, animals as well, but we tend to be a bit more subtle about how we go about it. Well, I say we tend to be subtle...really very rarely. But occasionally. Sometimes."
"So now what?"
He wriggled a bit more in his bonds and made some manly-sounding noises of struggle, but to no avail. "I guess we wait until William gets back and wonders what's become of us."
"That could be a while." Rose looked towards the door to the garden, which was shut.
"The TARDIS can make sure he finds this room easily enough." The Doctor let out a long, resigned sigh and there was a protracted period of silence, until:
"I spy with my little eye something....green."
Rose just laughed and it occurred to the Doctor, really quite out of nowhere, that it had been a very long time since he'd complimented her on her laugh. A shame really, because he loved it, and he loved to make her laugh just so he could hear it. In those early weeks and months he'd told her so many times about all of the little things he loved about her, written sonnets to her toenails which he then pinned proudly to the fridge, composed an entire symphony just about the colour of her eyes. That had all been a few hundred years ago, but surely she remembered. Besides, they regularly demonstrated their love in some very pleasing and creative ways. Of course she must know that he wouldn't engage in that activity with her if he didn't love every single thing about her still.
"Nice try, Doctor," Rose said, a twinge of mirth still in her voice. "I think we'll have to perhaps move on to Twenty Question, as I have a feeling I Spy is going to be a bit of a wash-out. This pollen stuff is all sort of itchy and tingly isn't it? "
"Shhh," he hissed, "I'm trying to analyse its chemical make-up."
He had, of course, managed to lick a bit of the powder from off of his face and was now hemming and hawing to himself.
Rose began to feel a strange sense of urgency, impatience, even annoyance. She could imagine in her mind's eye the sight of him darting his tongue out of his mouth and giving a very careful, long, perhaps even languorous lick to his lips (to of course get the best possible sample to analyse) and the thought began to utterly infuriate her. How dare he be so sexy in such circumstances!
"Well, what is it?" she finally said, with a rather unattractive nagging tone.
"Half a minute," the Doctor shot back and Rose just stared impatiently at the back of his head. The back of his head where it had been several weeks since he'd had a haircut and little locks of hair curled adorably. The room was hot enough that even he was beginning to break out in a bit of a sweat, and the base of his neck was glistening with the powder mixed with his salty, spicy--
"Almost got it," he mumbled, bringing Rose back out of her reverie.
"Yeah?" she said weakly.
"Just pollen, really. There's a few carbon chains I'm not particularly familiar with, but nothing that's going to hurt either of us. That tingling you're feeling, I think that's totally normal. The sweat mixed with this powder, it's creating a bit of a chemical reaction on your epidermis, but nothing to be alarmed about."
Epidermis. Sweat. This glistening, somewhat iridescent powder. Rose Tyler. Chemical reactions. The Doctor rambled on at length about plant life cycles, angiosperms, ferns and suchlike. Meanwhile the other 98.865 percent of his brain was still dwelling on Rose Tyler's skin. Rosy-golden, twenty-years-old forever--or at least the foreseeable future--soft, smooth, and now covered in a fine film of sweat and then over top of that this shining, faintly glowing powder. She was likely flushed in this heat as well, her full pink cheeks complimenting the deep red that undoubtedly her lips were turning. He swallowed, hard, mid-sentence (something about spores and rhizomes), and wound up spluttering and coughing rather than finishing his thought.
"You okay?" she asked as he hacked and coughed--an operation not made any easier by the constricting vines around his chest.
"I'm fine, really...sorry," he wheezed. "Just, you know, down the wrong pipe."
"I'm feeling a little funny," she confessed, more out of wanting to get him to stop the science lecture than a serious concern for her well-being. She saw her mistake however when his shoulders tensed up and he began his struggle with the plant anew.
"If I could just.... Hang on, Rose!" he said in his best hero voice, doubtless gritting his teeth and making what she called the Angry Eyebrows, and she felt immediately guilty for saying anything.
"No, no, it's okay. It's okay. It's not bad-funny. Just funny-funny. Don't you feel funny?"
"A little, I guess, yeah," he said, settling back down in to his bonds again. "I feel all sort of--flushed."
"Well, we do keep it rather warm in the garden."
He shook his head, and again Rose watched almost in slow-motion as those little locks of hair behind his ears and at the base of his neck became damp with sweat as he did so.
"It's not hot enough that I'd normally be fussed about it. But I'm really perspiring in the worst way here."
"You're...ah, yes, I can see that." She tried to sound business-like but her words came out as weirdly croaking. Her perception seemed to shift and her vision keenly focused on one little droplet that clung to the bottom of a dark curl at the base of his neck. She could almost hear it as it dropped finally, agonisingly, down to his neck and began to slide, leaving a dewy trail in its wake. Down it went, sliding under the loosened collar of his shirt and from there Rose imagined its progress. It would trace a trail down the long, lean, freckled expanse of his back, between his shoulder blades and further towards his hips. She could taste the salt, the musk, the feel of his skin on her tongue where she would slide it in the wake of that one little drop of sweat.
Rose shook her head violently from side to side, trying to clear her mind. The tingle on her skin was more than just the pollen now--there was an ache at her finger-tips, the corners of her mouth, the base of her spine. She didn't want to tell the Doctor for fear that he'd worry needlessly, but her ability to carry on a jaunty conversation was being seriously impeded.
"How are you holding up over there?" he called.
"Best as can be expected, I guess. My hair's in my face and I can't brush it away. It's ticking my nose." It was the most innocuous thing she could think of to tell him, not really wanting to share the increasingly intimate details of this coiling, surging feeling of impatience that was now crawling throughout her body. It seemed so wildly inappropriate to the situation, she was more than a little ashamed.
"Your hair--" the Doctor noted, but it came out as a sigh more than a statement.
Her hair, fine and soft, and perfect when it tickled his chest as she straddled him and covered his neck with kisses. Or even more perfect in the way that it created a veil around them when she rode him and they touched foreheads and stared in to the depths of each others eyes. Most perfect when she slept and it lay as a golden nimbus around her head, making her look like the angels of Earth legend, or the woman in the sun, the creator goddess of off-world stories. And with the power that she had briefly wielded, why shouldn't she be exactly that goddess? She had to know how much he was in awe of her still for that one act, that the few occasions that he slept, he dreamt of her filled with the golden light of the vortex, and that her sunny yellow hair reminded him of that every time he looked at her. Surely he'd mentioned that at some point.
"Your hair," he continued after a tense pause, "that's a shame. Still, I expect William will be back soon enough."
"Mind he doesn't get caught up in this as well," she cautioned, looking towards the door where several branches twined and waved in the non-wind, waiting.
"We'll just have to warn him before he comes in. Great," the Doctor sighed, exasperated, "now I've got a cramp. Oi, you, plant-thing! Ease up will you?" He tried to shift around and ease the pain in his leg.
Rose watched his gyrations, trying to conjure up some concern, or sympathy. She knew that's what she should be feeling as he yelped and wriggled some more, but she couldn't keep her eyes off of his behind. She'd told him recently how much she adored his pert little bum, hadn't she? She certainly couldn't have ever failed to mention how much she loved to grab it and guide him in to her when they were enjoying each other. Just enough for a girl to know she's got a hold of something, but no more. For such a skinny bloke he really did have a fine, rounded....
"What was that, Rose?" the Doctor tried to twist around to look at her. "Are you okay?"
Rose realised that she had in fact been salivating and had slurped in order to keep from drooling. She closed her eyes in exasperation.
Across the room, when he'd heard her, the Doctor tried to pitch his voice so that it sounded concerned and understanding, but he was mainly thinking that the sound she'd made was so much like when she took him in to her mouth and licked, sucked, stroked.... One hundred percent of his mind now wandered off entirely to the first time she'd slid down his body, grinning, licking her lips, and the glorious feelings she created just by placing tiny wet kisses all up and down his length and then blowing gently on them. At the time he had told her he'd be the happiest man in the Universe if she'd just keep on doing that forever. Fast forward a few centuries and it felt just as incredible, the little white stars exploded behind his eyes in exactly the same way, and just a few days before she'd been particularly teasing, goading, deliciously infuriating in her ministrations--had he even thanked her after?
"Say, Doctor?" Rose called and he twitched like someone woken from a deep slumber. He was now sweating profusely and, unbeknownst to Rose behind him, was frustratingly hard and wanting her.
He cleared his throat and tried to sound casual. "What's that?"
"How long have we been here?"
Good question, that.
"It's...." He thought hard, he pulled faces, he bit his bottom lip. "It's...."
"Doctor?" Rose grew concerned, he should have answered by now. This ache that pitched her in to roiling seas of need didn't abate, however and she squirmed against the vines holding her, wondering at what point this thing inside of her would give her the strength needed to break through them.
"It's...." He tossed his head back violently and groaned. "Rose," he said through gritted teeth, composing himself again, "do not be alarmed, but I think that we may be under the influence of a drug. And I have no idea what time it is." He said the last bit sadly, ashamed of himself.
"Do you feel...funny, too?" she asked tentatively. Every beat of her heart seemed to resonate on the surface of her skin and she wondered if it was worse for him, with two pulses to create the sensation.
"Yes," he said in a low, gruff voice.
"And this funniness, is it making you want to...." she trailed off, not quite sure how to put it. Mate furiously? Copulate like bunny rabbits? Rut like wild beasts? All of the images that flashed through her head were decidedly on the animalistic side and none of them were helping her to be articulate.
"Do you mean is it making me want to rip through these vines with my teeth and ravish you to within an inch of your life?" he growled darkly, as if it was the most important task the Universe had ever set before him.
Rose nearly started crying, the image he presented was so exactly what she wanted, and so completely out of reach.
"Yes," she squeaked, closing her eyes and trying to at least get the most from the visions popping in to her head. Oh how she loved it when he just took her as if he couldn't help himself, wherever they were, quickly and in whatever posture they could manage. Yes, a sweet languorous session of lovemaking--orgasms guaranteed to all and sundry, multiple if possible--was all well and good, but to be pinned against a wall simply because your lover finds you so utterly irresistible, well.... There's something to be said for it. Had she ever told him how magnificent it was when he did that? Perhaps not.
Perhaps she should.
Perhaps she would.
"Doctor, can I tell you something?" The sound of her voice was strained and reedy.
For his part, the Doctor barely heard her. He was himself picturing what he would do if he could just get these sodding vines off. He needn't even free her from them really, and he considered the angles. Yes, it would do quite nicely to have her just exactly the way she was. Up against the wall, hands and feet bound to a trellis, a little bit off the ground and at a height such that the usual geometric and spatial issues normally encountered would be immaterial. Yes, just like that. He would march over and rip her knickers off and....
"Doctor?" she called again.
"What?" he bit out.
"Can I tell you something?"
"If you want to apologise or whatever for this, really there's no need. We all make mistakes." That's what he said. What he was thinking was that he'd be only too happy to discipline her quite severely for her failure to use the library before sticking alien plants in to the preternaturally fertile soil of the TARDIS garden. Perhaps even a light caning would be in order. She'd seemed to quite like that the last time they'd played at naughty pupil.
"No, it's not that, though I am sorry. I just wanted to tell you...I love how you always try to make me laugh, even when things are pretty dire. I'm not sure I've mentioned it, recently." It was a bit of a departure from her originally planned confession of I-love-it-when-you-shag-me-senseless, but was also a truth she didn't speak nearly enough.
She watched his shoulders relax a little, and even the vine had to tighten its hold as it had grown around a much more squared and tense torso. "Oh, well...ta," he said, rather bashfully. "I do my best."
"You do brilliantly," she smiled, and he could hear the smile in her voice, which just got him thinking about her lips again. How full they were, how her smile lit up even the bleakest, darkest dungeons (and he had evidence that this was quite literally true), how her eyes narrowed to laughing little slits when she was really glad about something, and she couldn't keep her smile inside. And then of course about the feel of those lips on him, and the feel of her smile against his neck as he whispered some ridiculous little naughty thought when they embraced (before, during, or after the running-for-their lives bit).
"Well, for what it's worth, it's somewhat selfish on my part. I just love to see that smile on your...lips...." He trailed off, already heading in to another daydream.
A fraught silence settled over the garden and the only sound that could be heard was a faint squeaking that must have been little bits of the vine still growing, filling in the corners. The heat, the increasing dank humidity, this damned drug-induced haze that seemed to make time stop, reverse itself and speed up again as his thoughts went galloping like a team of horses after every tiny thing Rose said or did. It became unbearable and the Doctor found himself baring his teeth like a caged animal, the sinews of his neck taut as he made a last ditch attempt to struggle free.
"Right!" he spat furiously. "Turbatrix leucanthemum, you have messed with the wrong Time Lord!"
Rose didn't even need to see his face to know that the Angry Eyebrows were being deployed at their top setting.
"You are going to let me go and then you're going to let her go--" He paused. Did he actually want the plant to let her go? Really, technically it wasn't entirely necessary in order to manage the operation he had in mind, and then afterwards he could just get the sonic screwdriver and make the thing release her that way. He would have scratched the back of his head in deep thought had he been able to. After a moment's contemplation, he suddenly remembered that he was meant to be in the middle of a loud, angry tirade directed at a giant plant.
"You are going to let us go, and then I'm going to take you right back to Hylidae where you belong! You can't have me, and you can't have Rose, and you absolutely can't have my ship!" He tossed his head around trying to see if the vines were responding in any way. He wondered if the TARDIS translation circuits would help at all in mediating between these two species and hoped for the best, because aside from waiting for their companion to find them eventually, shouting really loud was pretty much his only trick in this situation.
Rose felt a thrill move through her body, watching the Doctor struggle and shout and make stern demands. He could be a bit pompous at times, sure, but there was something so vital about the way he took command of situations. Something so alive, so virile, so...
Her thoughts were derailed by the feeling of the vines constricting around her, first rather pleasantly as they sort of scratched the itch that had been building since they'd been trapped, but then rather painfully. She cried out briefly before the air was squeezed from her lungs, but just as she was about to really run out of room to breathe, she found herself toppling to the ground, panting and coughing. She heard a soft thud from across the room and looked up to see the Doctor standing right below where he'd previously been suspended, rubbing his behind and removing his tie.
He looked as if he might say something triumphant or grandiose, but quickly shut his mouth again and sprang forward, crawling on hands and knees through the dense tangle of foliage towards her.
Rose looked as if she might be about to tell him to mind his trousers in all the sticky, damp vines, but she too shut her mouth again and sat back on her haunches, watching his every move with great interest. Her tongue darted around the corners of her mouth as she admired the way his body moved as he scrabbled through interwoven limbs and over enormous wet leaves. Finally she'd be able to get her hands on those hips and feel the muscles slide over his bones as she always relished. Maybe she'd even tell him so.
He didn't stop his advance even as he got close, and fairly climbed right over her, pushing her backwards as he did so and coming to stop hovering over her body. Sweat dropped from his temples down on to Rose's collar bones and she felt the slightly cooler temperature of it greatly exaggerated, like an ice cube being played over her skin.
"Hi," he growled, his eyes dark and lidded.
"Hello." She couldn't help the grin that crept across her face in anticipation, and she didn't have the mental energy to fight it back and put a coyer or sexier look on.
He licked his lips and blinked slowly, languorously, and pushed the lank hair away from her face with one trembling hand. "I love your smile," he purred as he lowered himself down to lick the pollen from her lips and then plunge fully into her sweet, warm, perfect mouth. Hundreds of years of memories of her kisses and this moment seemed to explode them all as mere trifles, clumsy pecks and gropings. The taste of the pollen on her was perfumed, floral, but still earthy. It seemed to complement her so well, and he drank in the taste, the heat of her lips, and the fluttering of her tongue against his.
"Your hair," he murmured against her cheek as he continued to trail kisses down her neck and over her pollen-covered chest, tearing at her shirt as he did so, buttons flying in various directions when he pushed it hastily off her shoulders. "I love your hair," he continued, while increasing the urgency of the way he licked and sucked each nipple.
She writhed under him and herself fumbled with his clothes, tearing and clawing and not particularly caring. "I love it when we just fuck," she said, perhaps a bit more enthusiastically than she'd intended, but the reaction from him was immediate.
"Oh, I do too!" he squeaked, as if he she had suggested sharing a chocolate milkshake or watching old Tracey and Hepburn movies all night.
"I love how you're so poor at playing the manly ravisher for very long," she giggled, prompting protestations from him as he grasped her wrists and held her hands above her head.
"I'll have you for that, missy!" He parted the zipper of her shorts with his free hand and sucked in a large amount of air at seeing the way her hips bucked up to meet his hand as he pulled them down.
"I love your strong hands." She made a show of struggling in his grasp, the way he liked her to do when they played, as he gripped the lace of her knickers and harshly removed them as well.
He released her and sat back on his heels, undoing the clasp of his trousers at last. Rose sat up and sampled the sweat now glistening on his naked belly, lapping around the edges of his hip bones and nipping each one in turn.
"I love it when you do that," he groaned.
She pushed his trousers down and gripped his bare behind so roughly that it made him lurch forward, toppling her down under him again.
"I love this part," she said, locking her legs around his and gripping his arse to guide him home. Pollen and sweat mixed to create a sticky ichor where their bodies met and rubbed together. The places where they touched now glowed strongly in hues of pink, and the Doctor found himself looking down on a map of all of the places he'd just been, his own finger prints on her shoulders, across her temples, and around her wrists. He felt a spreading liquid heat as the substance traveled like oil on water coating even the parts of them had had been clothed when they'd first been showered with it. As he drove in to her, this burning was the only other sensation he had beyond the familiar ecstasy of being subsumed in the close, slick warmth of Rose's body.
It was over astonishingly quickly, with a lot of rough crying out of nonsense and smacking of bare flesh. If there were any more long overdue observances to be made, they were unable to articulate them. When he moved off of her, she remained quivering and shuddering for some moments after, mewling with simultaneous pleasure and loss. Her throat felt raw and sore from shouting, and still the strange sensation of the pollen covering them moved over her skin in waves.
His breathing began to slow and he kicked his trousers off finally so they could lay together, damp and entangled on the soft mossy floor of the garden. He opened his eyes and found that for the moments of their coupling, he'd completely forgotten about the entire situation that had gotten them there--the Turbatrix leucanthemum, the flowers, the pollen, the vines, the whole bit. He rolled over to his side and regarded Rose, looking glassy-eyed up at the ceiling and still panting.
"That was good," he stated quietly. "I loved that."
She looked over at him. "Yeah," she sighed. "Me too."
"I love you." He said the words against her neck as he nuzzled there, taking one last little lick of the combined pollen.
"Yeah," she said again. "Me too."
He propped himself up on an elbow again. "When someone says I love you, and you say me too, does that mean you love you too, or that you love me?"
She reached a weak, rubbery arm over and smacked him across the shoulder. "Don't play stupid, you know what it means."
"A little clarification never hurt anyone."
"Then it means that I love you too." She smiled benevolently and brought a hand up to her forehead. "Blimey. We're a right mess, aren't we? Showers all around, yeah?" She sat up and surveyed the garden, where the Turbatrix leucanthemum, was still twining around every other plant and trellis available. "I wonder why it let us go. I have a feeling it wasn't just because you shouted at it, as terrifying as you sounded, mister scary Time Lord."
"Oh, I dunno. They say you're supposed to talk to plants to make them grow, so why not getting very cross with them to make them stop...." He trailed off and felt around on the ground in the space between them. "Hello, what's this?"
The Doctor was staring intently down at the patch of moss-covered dirt, wrinkling his nose to get a better look without having his glasses available.
"What's what?" Rose rolled over, and saw there on the ground a golden seed pod, about the size of a satsuma, seemingly pulsating and glowing with an internal light.
"Oh!" The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, and then did it again a half dozen more times. "Oh oh oh oh! I get it!" He sat up and addressed the entire garden. "You clever, clever plant! Ooh, you cheeky, perverted plant! Now that is an adaptation to write home about! Mental note, Rose. Next time we need a," he counted on his hands and then on his toes, "an eighteenth honeymoon, the cloud forests of Hylidae in the springtime it is!"
"You mean--" she looked down at the seed, which she was sure had grown slightly in the few seconds the Doctor had taken to fete the local flora.
"Oh yes!" he cried, his face lit up with the puzzle solved. "Turbatrix leucanthemum, requires the pollen of two flowers to mix in order to create a seed. It traps two life forms, drugs them with an aphrodisiac, covers them in pollen and then whammo! Well, that's a new twist on the birds and the bees, I daresay."
"I'm not sure if I should be proud of us or thoroughly creeped out."
"Nah, we were taking part in this creature's life cycle, just as we ought. We're a part of the living world, Rose, not separate from it."
"Well either way I think we should probably be delivering this seed back from whence it came. It's looking rather...impatient."
His face fell and he swallowed the rest of his sermon on the glories of the natural world when he too noticed the seed begin to quiver and pulsate at a much higher rate.
"Uh oh."
It was certainly not the first time they'd been naked in the console room, but it was the first time that William had walked in on them thus unattired. He covered his eyes and dropped his bag of shopping, screaming like he'd been burned.
"Oh my god, you two!" he shouted, making his way blindly across the room, hugging the wall. "When you invited me to see all of time and space I really was not thinking that would include you both starkers!"
"Sorry, just a little emergency!" the Doctor shouted, frantically twisting knobs and pulling plungers as the rotor wheezed in to life. Rose stood off to the side cupping something glowing in her hands, bouncing impatiently from foot to foot.
"Hurry up, Doctor! It's sprouting!"
He flicked one final switch, the ship pitched from side-to-side, shuddered, and there was a dull thud.
"Out out out out out!" he whooped, ever so slightly enjoying himself and shoving Rose before him, through the TARDIS doors.
"Bugger," he groaned, as they both found themselves standing completely nude in front of the Grand High Council of the Dolorous Pretorians.
There was a great cracking sound, like the biggest, hardest egg in the galaxy being topped, and the seed sprung from Rose's hand and began to grow, wrapping its twining tendrils around their ankles as it spread to engulf the rest of the council chamber.
"It just had to be xenohorticulture," he sighed to Rose as they were both enveloped in foliage and lifted off the ground in front of one hundred and twenty-nine Dolorous eyes.