Fic: Divergent Quintet - Fire
Title: Divergent Quintet - Fire
Author: doona_rose
Rating: T
Characters: Ten and Rose. As in Ten/Rose
Disclaimer: Don't own any of it at all. Just having fun.
Warning: Spoilers for TCI, lots of fluff and a new format to my fic writing.
Summary: The Doctor gives himself and Rose a night off exactly three hundred and sixty fives days after his regeneration. This fic has five different endings. …Of Course.
A/N: This, sadly, is the last ending of my five. Happily, it is the longest. Huge thanks, in particular for this part, to saganamidreams and chicklet73. Without them, this ending would never have gotten off the ground and it started out very, very badly. They contributed much patient, helpful feedback and plotting and I think it ended up alright. Am anxious to see what you guys think as it was the most challenging of them all to write.
Again, thank you to those of you who take the time to review, your feedback is extremely helpful and gives me warm fuzzy feelings. Yay!!
The Beginning
Wind
Snow
Ice
Rain
“Of course,” she replied, pushing herself up from the chair.
“Good, because I,” he waggled his eyebrows, “Have reservations.”
She grinned and rolled her eyes, momentarily impressed he was this organized because he definitely wasn’t usually and then she watched him as he stood and offered her his arm. Continuing to grin she moved to his side and threaded hers through his, pulling him in close to her with a laugh at his indignant look as he stumbled with the motion.
“Come on then,” he told her, guiding her in the right direction while expertly falling into step beside her. Strangely, it wasn’t a very far walk. In fact, it was very short. Just across the park, to the TARDIS. He stopped in front of the door, ignored Rose’s confused look and stuck the key in the lock.
Standing back as he pushed the door open, he motioned for her to go inside.
“This is your impressive reservation?” she asked.
“Yep.”
Shaking her head, but at the same time intrigued, she walked through the door, eyes flittering around to try to see just what he was up to. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and as she heard the door shut behind her, she turned to find him still looking at her with that impish charm he always used when he was keeping a secret.
“Dinner?” she asked playfully.
“Will be taken in the library.” He answered, still cryptic.
He led her down the hallways, hardly stopping to see if she was following and seemingly no longer interested in being the gentleman and keeping her close. He stopped outside the big oak library door exuding nervous energy. But she ignored it, looked to the door: the room beyond it was vaguely familiar to her, an unvisited place for the both of them except on the occasion when a book was actually needed. And just why they were taking Christmas dinner in there was still an unanswered question. All an adventure, everything with him always was.
Another impish grin, but this time his eyes dipped to the floor and she could tell he was worried about something. Before she could think further on what that was, he opened the door and ushered her in.
Somehow, it was quieter on the other side. The soft humming of the TARDIS and their own footsteps shut out by the thousands upon thousands of books and the thick carpet underfoot.
The smell of something delicious curled around them, causing Rose to sniff at the air and throw a sideways glance to the Doctor who just stared back and with another light touch to her back pushed her further into the room. Not resisting, she walked curiously forward, knowing he was watching her from just beyond her peripheral field of vision.
She rounded the first row of bookcases, walking through the shelves until she found what she was looking for and smiled, her eyes skipping over everything before turning back to the Doctor, wanting to give him a hug but, on seeing his still-worrisome look, settling for one of her brightest smiles.
What was usually just a cleared space against one of the walls - a big oak desk strewn with books, a few arm chairs and the fireplace - had been transformed. The desk had little gold stars sprinkled over it and two place settings laid out, a platter boasting the most delectable looking array of meats and roast vegetables sat between them, everything on it somehow still hot enough to give out wisps of steam. The fire itself was large and suddenly the only thing casting any light in the room, the orange flames flickering randomly higher and lower and throwing shadows everywhere.
He grinned at her, somehow having regained his façade and moved past to pull a chair out, returning inexplicably to the perfect gentleman as he pushed it in behind her, settling her in nicely before crossing to the other side of the desk and graciously transferring food from the platter onto Rose’s plate and then taking his own seat.
About to eat, he stopped her by clearing her throat and then another smile as she looked up, this one with an edge to it which should have warned her. “A toast,” he declared.
Picking up her own glass - a glass she only then noticed was filled with red wine - she waited. Another smile, this one definitely worried about something but he gave her no time to question it. “To us,” he toasted.
“To us.”
Raising the glass to her lips, the aroma astringent but tempting in a dark, indulging kind of way. It reminded her of dark chocolate somehow - dark chocolate and berries. And then she was stopped once more as he spoke. “Wait.”
A questioning look and then worry as she saw fear in his eyes. He grinned, turning back to manic and playful. “I should warn you,” he began, sniffing at the liquid. “It’s said to be a powerful aphrodisiac.”
And that was a startlingly direct comment. They’d flirted, yes. They’d flirted lots; more and more daring as the months passed but never once had either of them ever come close to admitting that flirtation really was the nature of their game. It was the kind of flirting best friends did: playful and teasing and understood on an unspoken level to be something they’d never think about yet alone voice. Ever. And here he was offering her an aphrodisiac.
The Doctor was offering her, warning her about an aphrodisiac. Something she understood to ignite passion and lust and love and not a subtle form of flirtation at all. She managed to find her voice: “Oh yes,” she prompted, hoping he’d say something a little more enlightening.
“Yes.” He took another whiff of it and then looked about to drink. “I have a different biology to you.” Brow creasing, she wondered if he had any method at all to what he was saying. “I have two hearts and a lower core temperature…” Eyes coming up to meet hers, deadly serious, conveying something she didn’t grasp yet. “And toxins, drugs, I don’t have to metabolize them.”
Swallowing, he found his mouth dry and almost gave a wry grin at the irony of it. “I can drink as much alcohol as I like and not be affected, assuming I’m in control of my own body. Which I am.” He took a sip, savoring the flavor and letting it slide down his throat. “This aphrodisiac, it’s real and I’m going to let it do to me what it pleases. Because that’s only fair.”
At the point where fear was impinging on her rationality. Confusion and uncertainty at just what this new dynamic was and how to deal with it. She stuttered, “What does it do?”
A wide, toothy grin that was fake but still convincing and hiding everything he wanted to. “Legend has it,” and that was a lie, because he was pretty damn sure that it was scientific fact, “that this here will completely do away with our inhibitions. Not your traditional aphrodisiac, all convoluted and myth. This is real.” Her eyes widened but he continued. “An interesting little chemical, I suppose, it doesn’t manipulate desires or needs or anything like that…” He was becoming flustered and quite possibly blushing and the entire plan not to make it quite clear that this was going to have an effect had come undone, his honesty and rambling demanding he tell her.
“It just makes you do what you’ve always wanted to do but never dared try,” he explained, voice hovering between a whisper and normality as he wondered if she understood this to mean what he did.
She did or she thought so at least. A year since they’d met and he’d chosen this day to do this…whatever this was. He was staring pointedly at her glass, focusing on it, unblinkingly. “You don’t have to drink,” he told her, voice low. “I won’t if you don’t. What I’ve already had won’t be enough. We’ll both need the full glass each.” He paused, eyes finally coming up to lock with hers. “But it’s up to you.”
What exactly was she deciding? So caught up in the depth of his eyes, that unknown quality and the intensity that her mind was slow. Was this a joke? Was it just some bit of strange Christmas fun? Or was he serious? Would they drink and then do whatever they wanted, inhibitions, complications, be damned?
And what would she do without her inhibitions? She hadn’t thought of it for far too long, life having become something where certain things were off-limits and that was fine. He was off-limits, she’d forced herself to stop thinking of him as anything more than the Doctor, to stop dreaming of what they might be together. Of what her hands would do, her mouth. She swallowed, finding her mind slipping into a mode she was meant to avoid, finding herself imagining them: inhibitions lost.
But would he be the same? Was this why he was doing this?
“You’d like me to drink?” she asked, half stalling for time, half actually needing to here hear him say it because it was as good as any other confession.
Tight-lipped and his eyes slinking over the table. “It’s up to you, I won’t be upset if you say no…But yes.”
“And it’s just an aphrodisiac?” she asked.
“It’s a test,” he replied, more honest than he wanted to be.
A test for us, to see if what I feel you feel, too. To see if what I feel is even what I think it is.
A nod. She understood, could see it in his eyes, could see this was a way of asking the questions she’d always wanted to ask without saying anything out loud. This was an advantage to her as much as it was to him. A chance to see what he felt without having to be difficult. All she had to do was drink.
But there were risks. So many ways this could go wrong. If she wanted him but he didn’t want her; if he wanted her but she didn’t want him; if neither of them wanted anything at all and they just sat there. What if the drug didn’t work or it did, too well? Did it only play off love or lust and did that matter, did she need to know the difference? Even if they did end up together, what happened when it wore off? How far would they go with no inhibitions? What exactly were her inhibitions?
Why had she never touched him before?
She raised the glass, smiling ridiculously, playing the game because she had to know. “To us,” she said, repeating their earlier toast.
Both drank, the Doctor watching her do it over the rim of his glass and then, as she placed her empty glass back on the table, avoiding all eye contact as he quickly began to eat. She noticed and mimicked the action, wanting to know what it all meant, wanting to know when and how she’d know the answers.
But enough was enough, five minutes, maybe ten and nothing had happened, she didn’t feel strange, he hadn’t revealed anything and she was sick of cramming forkful after forkful of food into her mouth. “Now what?” she asked rather bluntly.
Eyes moving up, just like they had several times earlier, dark and warning and worried. “It’ll kick in soon…I think.”
Soon…whatever that meant. She had to keep talking, couldn’t look away now that she’d caught his gaze. “And where exactly did you find this drug?” she asked, seeing him wince at her choice of words.
What she wanted to know, he knew, was why he had it at all, why he was using it now. And answering a question like that honestly required more honesty than even he could give. He was desperate, had watched her for a whole year, hadn’t known it would hurt so much, how badly he’d want her. Feelings like this, denied, were supposed to diminish not grow. And still he wasn’t sure just what he felt. It was convoluted and complicated. He’d lived with Rose and only Rose, had saved her life and she’d saved his too many times to count. They were best friends. But was there something else? Something more substantial than interest?
The aphrodisiac was impressive from what he’d heard. It was first class, manufactured far in the future by professionals who had designed it to work perfectly in situations such as there’s. It wasn’t something that played to shallow desires, wouldn’t allow a woman to fall into the arms of a man simply because she liked his hair. It played to logic but to the logic of love and relationships; of what was real beneath the surface. That was the theory and yet it was a chemical, it was unpredictable, unfathomable and he just wished something would happen. Soon…
“Some little planet in a few billion years time,” he answered her question evasively and she nodded, her mind seeming to have wandered as his did during in the seconds between her question and his answer.
She’d noticed his watch was lying beside his hand, his eyes flickering to it every few moments, frantic in a way and she knew he was no longer sure, thought she could see what he was thinking. Could see he was more frightened now than when he’d drank and knew it was because he’d expected something and it hadn’t happened.
Realization hit her and she knew it should have kicked in. Was this it? He didn’t feel it - whatever it was - for her and she didn’t feel it back? Was it some silly crush? Panic rose in her, turning to anger. She had to say something, waste time so she didn’t think about what it all meant. “You don’t think this might be the wrong way of going about this?”
“You’re in on it as well as me,” he shot back but saw his own worry mirrored in her eyes and knew he’d been read too easily. It was strange: both of them panicking because maybe neither of them felt anything. It should have been a relief to be in agreement in want or not, but it was panic and fear and anger. He mentally forced himself to relax. Trying to find a reason to the madness he’d inflicted upon them and voicing it in answer to a question she no doubt would have eventually asked.
“It’s been a whole year, Rose. Do you know what it’s like to spend a whole year…” Again he trailed off. “Well of course you do. I think. I thought…” It could be kicking in late. Could be anything really. But then it might just be that he didn’t love her and she didn’t love him and they were simply mixed up somehow. “It should have kicked in by now,” he said flatly. “Couldn’t possibly take more than another minute.”
She gave a curt nod, felt herself begging the universe to let her feel something, to react like she wanted to and could hardly understand why she wasn’t. Why he wasn’t when she’d always hoped and thought and dreamed he would.
But there was nothing she could say to him, just looked down and started counting to sixty inside her head. She reached ten and her knuckles were white where she was gripping the side of her chair, realizing this, she loosened her grip, daring herself to look up and see what would happen. If he was right and the drug was working…
Angling her head up first, she blinked twice and then brought her eyes up to stare straight into his and felt nothing. Could see him, see the confusion in his eyes as his head tilted ever so slightly to the side and he looked back. Her counting reached thirty and still nothing, not even the slightest wanting for anything other than to possibly yell a little at the ridiculousness of it all.
A whole minute and her eyes were starting to hurt from the lack of blinking, her mouth had gone dry.
“Well then,” he said sounding confused and crushed. And he was. If the chemicals weren’t working, that was fine but if they were…nothing had happened, neither to her nor to him and that made no sense because he knew how he felt just had never been able to get himself to act on it. So maybe they just weren’t working.
“Well then what?”
A heavy sigh escaped his lips. Well then nothing…obviously. He looked up to catch her eyes and something snapped, something in her eyes changed and in a split second she went from irritated to wanting, needing and the expression was so plain there was no mistaking what it was she wanted.
And then her lips crushed against his, meeting him half way and the entire impact doubled in energy as he rose up to meet her. Somewhere in his peripheral consciousness he registered all the mundane details: the half-glass of wine that fell, spilling its contents, the smash of his plate as it hit the ground and then of hers as it went skittering off to the side. The faint knowledge that they might very well regret this almost completely blocked out because it wasn’t a thought he wanted, it was just there. It was an inhibition and they didn’t matter anymore.
Lips touching, pressure and friction surpassing everything they’d imagined in the past but the distance was too great and no matter how many plates they threw to the floor, it wasn’t going to be enough unless one of them climbed over the top. For a second, he thought Rose might attempt it but he was too fast, instinct giving him a quicker, better option as his hands joined his lips in manipulation, landing on her hips and his fingers not waiting a moment to start teasing at the curves.
He pushed her along the length of the desk, mirroring her progress and his lips not leaving hers once and then, agonizing seconds later, there was no longer anything between them and they gravitated together. Arms sliding around each other, hands and fingers dipping beneath fabric to explore - the curve of her hip, the small of his back, the taut stretch of smooth skin across her abdomen, the play of muscles across his shoulders.
And he felt different to what she’d always imagined he would. On the periphery of consciousness she noticed that he fitted to her in a way unfathomable to her before, pressed himself to her in all the right places like he knew her more intimately than she did. He kissed her unlike anyone else ever had and she felt her entire universe moving, rearranging to fit this new idea, this new possibility that was infinitely better than what her imagination had come up with and yet so different.
Beneath it all, she could feel it seeping into her actions, that thing buried so deep that even this test hadn’t been able to pull it into daylight. Not at first. But she felt it whispered against her skin, her name as his lips hovered over hers and he said it with reverence and admiration and hopelessness. None of which she could blame on this lust. Things she knew were echoes of something better.
Lips pressing harder against his, her tongue daring him to take it further with a lick to his bottom lip and, with nothing to hold him back he did, pinning her to the wall, his hands softening the blow but not deadening the shock that made her eyes spring open, wicked sin dancing in them. So he kissed her properly, pressing his mouth, hot and open-lipped to hers, a gasp that seemed to happen even before he touched her making it all the more easy. And he wanted to be everywhere and so did she, making up for lost time or something like that.
But a second later his lips broke from hers, pulling back with a deep growl that made it seem like the most difficult thing he’d ever done and she felt him counteract it, his arms slipping under her arms and around her back, completely encompassing her and he took a deep breath and opened his eyes, meeting her gaze, hot and confused with something sharp and real. Their foreheads together, lips almost but not touching and noses bumping, he waited until they’d caught their breath.
“I’m in love with you.” He breathed it out like it was as simple and undeniable as the very air and she couldn’t help but except it and know it was true. “I think I have been for a very long time.” And now he was almost grinning, halfway there and looking incredulous.
Nodding slightly she smiled back, her hands weaving into his hair. “Has it worn off?” Her eyes were skipping from his eyes to his lips, her chest heaving against his and for a second he wasn’t sure if that meant the aphrodisiac was still working or if it had simply altered their reality quite so much that this was now normal.
But he could feel it in him, could feel it making him say and do things he never would have had he thought it through. He couldn’t feel a single doubt, a single reason for stopping. They were still under the influence but there couldn’t be much more time. Shaking his head, he saw her gaze drop, the same understanding coming to her, both of them knowing time was limited, that afterwards nothing was definite, that doubt and worry and fear and reality would interfere.
Hands in his hair, they suddenly gripped tighter; stopped their caressing to manipulate, directing his lips to her jaw, watching his eyes shut as he understood her need to get as far as they could before they had to stop, to discover as much as they could. Romantic but tragic, he supposed. Mimicking her hands, he was rough and unhesitating, tasting and testing, chin and nose and, she could have sworn, even his eyelashes, brushing against her skin in his bid to get closer.
He was memorizing her; he knew it and so did she and it was strange to find this wasn’t about the then and there but about the afterwards when things were uncertain. This was what he wanted most and she found her own fingers following the curve of his ear, drifting down his neck as she did the same. Wanting more than anything else to know him instead of have him.
But time was short and he was aware of it, the simple knowledge that time existed seemingly indicative of the drug wearing off. His hands drifted beneath her top, fingers tracing out her stomach, her waist, her hips, light but definite. Beneath his touch, she could feel him getting ready to let go, it was surreal that he prepare to stop but he was and she hated it, grasped harder at his hair, holding on and pulling his eyes up to meet hers, shades of both darkening as they acknowledged time slipping past.
Teeth raking down her neck recklessly as somehow her own lips found his skin as his found hers, kissing twice softly at the muscle between his neck and his shoulder, feeling it flex beneath her touch and finding her effect on him more evocative than his on her, and then sucking at the pulse point, nipping lightly. Wanting and attaining a gravelly groan as he grinned into her, breathing her in and burying his face in her hair. Another memory to keep no matter what.
A though arose unbidden, telling him that the drug was diminishing fast, lucidity returning, the ability to distinguish between lust and love and what was right and wrong. The ability to stop. Renewing his fervor, wanting not to waste the precious seconds, his lips dipped into the hollow of her neck while hers turned into his hair, breath against his ear as she mumbled something incoherent, something he almost heard, something he rejoiced in hearing but still didn’t quite catch. Something he wanted her to say again, something he wanted to say to her.
Doubt was flooding back and she was stilling against him so he knew it was the same for her. He wanted one more kiss but knew it was too late, could feel her tense, her hands dropping and landing at her sides numbly, her head moving away from his until only his lips on her skin remained. One more brief brush and he lifted them, not moving any further than what was needed to create a gap, staring at nothing as he waited, considering what to do.
Then he stepped back, realizing she was stuck against the wall and without the ability to run. He looked up, unable not to, needing to see her and dismayed to see the damage he’d done, to see the messed up hair and the flustered redness to her cheeks, the way her hoodie hung off her shoulders and the zipper had been shoved part-way down. The slight purple mark to her throat. His eyes shut and he swallowed.
Wondering what he looked like, he opened them again, watched Rose, waited for her. She opened her mouth but found it dry and had to close it again before continuing. “I can’t believe you just did that.” It was still a rasp but he heard it.
“Did what?” he asked, upset but strangely elated to find his own voice almost completely gone, what was left, husky and deeper.
Faltering at that voice, something she’d never before heard, she had to reorder her thoughts. “Kissed me,” a breath as she fought against the temptation to look at his lips. “Like that.”
They stared at each other, eyes locked but nothing given away. “We shouldn’t have…” she trailed off and it sounded half-hearted but he didn’t notice, he was too busy trying to find a way to win her over. “You should have told me the truth,” she continued, voice stronger.
“I did,” he returned.
“You said it was an aphrodisiac,” she accused. “You said it might have an affect.”
“Would you have preferred if it hadn’t happened?” he asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it in order to stop from imagining his hands running over her hips again.
She opened her mouth and then shut it, considered for a long moment. “No,” she whispered, both to herself and to him. The anger melting away, the shock and the fear dissolving as she realized it had happened and decided it could be good, that even if he had charmed her into something she might not have agreed to had she been approached in a more straight-forward manner, it didn’t matter because it had happened.
Perking an eyebrow up, he waited to see if she said anything else then said, “I’m sorry.”
And she shook her head, unconsciously refusing to forgive him for something she’d always wanted him to do, wanted him to do again. With lucidity she looked up, meeting his gaze again and watched as he went to say something else. “Wait,” she cut him off placing a finger near his mouth, signally he be quiet or else. She stepped forward, moving back into his personal space, her hand moving to trace his jaw, surprised when he involuntarily leaned into her touch. She considered her options, ranked them and listed them and wondered what she needed to do.
And then she stepped in closer, raised herself up onto the balls of her feet and kissed him. Slow and seductive and indulgent. Experimental and tentative. Pulling away for a moment, she let her breath trail up his jaw, lips stopping close to his ear. “Don’t you ever use that aphrodisiac on me again,” she breathed, fascinated by the shiver that she could see course up his spine, a whole new world of possibilities opening up to her. “Not without my permission.”
Stepping back again, she admired her work: jacket almost falling off, tie loosened and shirt untucked. At least half his buttons undone and his pants slung low across one hip. His hair was sticking out where she’d grasped at it and there was a hot red mark on his neck. And, topping it all was the most shocked look she’d ever seen - eyes wide, mouth hanging open and hope only now creeping in as his mouth suddenly curved upwards into a manic grin.
A/N: And that’s all I’ve got. Thanks again for being such lovely people. This fandom truly rocks! Can’t wait to hear what you thought of this one, good or bad.
Cross posted to tennant_love
Author: doona_rose
Rating: T
Characters: Ten and Rose. As in Ten/Rose
Disclaimer: Don't own any of it at all. Just having fun.
Warning: Spoilers for TCI, lots of fluff and a new format to my fic writing.
Summary: The Doctor gives himself and Rose a night off exactly three hundred and sixty fives days after his regeneration. This fic has five different endings. …Of Course.
A/N: This, sadly, is the last ending of my five. Happily, it is the longest. Huge thanks, in particular for this part, to saganamidreams and chicklet73. Without them, this ending would never have gotten off the ground and it started out very, very badly. They contributed much patient, helpful feedback and plotting and I think it ended up alright. Am anxious to see what you guys think as it was the most challenging of them all to write.
Again, thank you to those of you who take the time to review, your feedback is extremely helpful and gives me warm fuzzy feelings. Yay!!
The Beginning
Wind
Snow
Ice
Rain
“Of course,” she replied, pushing herself up from the chair.
“Good, because I,” he waggled his eyebrows, “Have reservations.”
She grinned and rolled her eyes, momentarily impressed he was this organized because he definitely wasn’t usually and then she watched him as he stood and offered her his arm. Continuing to grin she moved to his side and threaded hers through his, pulling him in close to her with a laugh at his indignant look as he stumbled with the motion.
“Come on then,” he told her, guiding her in the right direction while expertly falling into step beside her. Strangely, it wasn’t a very far walk. In fact, it was very short. Just across the park, to the TARDIS. He stopped in front of the door, ignored Rose’s confused look and stuck the key in the lock.
Standing back as he pushed the door open, he motioned for her to go inside.
“This is your impressive reservation?” she asked.
“Yep.”
Shaking her head, but at the same time intrigued, she walked through the door, eyes flittering around to try to see just what he was up to. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and as she heard the door shut behind her, she turned to find him still looking at her with that impish charm he always used when he was keeping a secret.
“Dinner?” she asked playfully.
“Will be taken in the library.” He answered, still cryptic.
He led her down the hallways, hardly stopping to see if she was following and seemingly no longer interested in being the gentleman and keeping her close. He stopped outside the big oak library door exuding nervous energy. But she ignored it, looked to the door: the room beyond it was vaguely familiar to her, an unvisited place for the both of them except on the occasion when a book was actually needed. And just why they were taking Christmas dinner in there was still an unanswered question. All an adventure, everything with him always was.
Another impish grin, but this time his eyes dipped to the floor and she could tell he was worried about something. Before she could think further on what that was, he opened the door and ushered her in.
Somehow, it was quieter on the other side. The soft humming of the TARDIS and their own footsteps shut out by the thousands upon thousands of books and the thick carpet underfoot.
The smell of something delicious curled around them, causing Rose to sniff at the air and throw a sideways glance to the Doctor who just stared back and with another light touch to her back pushed her further into the room. Not resisting, she walked curiously forward, knowing he was watching her from just beyond her peripheral field of vision.
She rounded the first row of bookcases, walking through the shelves until she found what she was looking for and smiled, her eyes skipping over everything before turning back to the Doctor, wanting to give him a hug but, on seeing his still-worrisome look, settling for one of her brightest smiles.
What was usually just a cleared space against one of the walls - a big oak desk strewn with books, a few arm chairs and the fireplace - had been transformed. The desk had little gold stars sprinkled over it and two place settings laid out, a platter boasting the most delectable looking array of meats and roast vegetables sat between them, everything on it somehow still hot enough to give out wisps of steam. The fire itself was large and suddenly the only thing casting any light in the room, the orange flames flickering randomly higher and lower and throwing shadows everywhere.
He grinned at her, somehow having regained his façade and moved past to pull a chair out, returning inexplicably to the perfect gentleman as he pushed it in behind her, settling her in nicely before crossing to the other side of the desk and graciously transferring food from the platter onto Rose’s plate and then taking his own seat.
About to eat, he stopped her by clearing her throat and then another smile as she looked up, this one with an edge to it which should have warned her. “A toast,” he declared.
Picking up her own glass - a glass she only then noticed was filled with red wine - she waited. Another smile, this one definitely worried about something but he gave her no time to question it. “To us,” he toasted.
“To us.”
Raising the glass to her lips, the aroma astringent but tempting in a dark, indulging kind of way. It reminded her of dark chocolate somehow - dark chocolate and berries. And then she was stopped once more as he spoke. “Wait.”
A questioning look and then worry as she saw fear in his eyes. He grinned, turning back to manic and playful. “I should warn you,” he began, sniffing at the liquid. “It’s said to be a powerful aphrodisiac.”
And that was a startlingly direct comment. They’d flirted, yes. They’d flirted lots; more and more daring as the months passed but never once had either of them ever come close to admitting that flirtation really was the nature of their game. It was the kind of flirting best friends did: playful and teasing and understood on an unspoken level to be something they’d never think about yet alone voice. Ever. And here he was offering her an aphrodisiac.
The Doctor was offering her, warning her about an aphrodisiac. Something she understood to ignite passion and lust and love and not a subtle form of flirtation at all. She managed to find her voice: “Oh yes,” she prompted, hoping he’d say something a little more enlightening.
“Yes.” He took another whiff of it and then looked about to drink. “I have a different biology to you.” Brow creasing, she wondered if he had any method at all to what he was saying. “I have two hearts and a lower core temperature…” Eyes coming up to meet hers, deadly serious, conveying something she didn’t grasp yet. “And toxins, drugs, I don’t have to metabolize them.”
Swallowing, he found his mouth dry and almost gave a wry grin at the irony of it. “I can drink as much alcohol as I like and not be affected, assuming I’m in control of my own body. Which I am.” He took a sip, savoring the flavor and letting it slide down his throat. “This aphrodisiac, it’s real and I’m going to let it do to me what it pleases. Because that’s only fair.”
At the point where fear was impinging on her rationality. Confusion and uncertainty at just what this new dynamic was and how to deal with it. She stuttered, “What does it do?”
A wide, toothy grin that was fake but still convincing and hiding everything he wanted to. “Legend has it,” and that was a lie, because he was pretty damn sure that it was scientific fact, “that this here will completely do away with our inhibitions. Not your traditional aphrodisiac, all convoluted and myth. This is real.” Her eyes widened but he continued. “An interesting little chemical, I suppose, it doesn’t manipulate desires or needs or anything like that…” He was becoming flustered and quite possibly blushing and the entire plan not to make it quite clear that this was going to have an effect had come undone, his honesty and rambling demanding he tell her.
“It just makes you do what you’ve always wanted to do but never dared try,” he explained, voice hovering between a whisper and normality as he wondered if she understood this to mean what he did.
She did or she thought so at least. A year since they’d met and he’d chosen this day to do this…whatever this was. He was staring pointedly at her glass, focusing on it, unblinkingly. “You don’t have to drink,” he told her, voice low. “I won’t if you don’t. What I’ve already had won’t be enough. We’ll both need the full glass each.” He paused, eyes finally coming up to lock with hers. “But it’s up to you.”
What exactly was she deciding? So caught up in the depth of his eyes, that unknown quality and the intensity that her mind was slow. Was this a joke? Was it just some bit of strange Christmas fun? Or was he serious? Would they drink and then do whatever they wanted, inhibitions, complications, be damned?
And what would she do without her inhibitions? She hadn’t thought of it for far too long, life having become something where certain things were off-limits and that was fine. He was off-limits, she’d forced herself to stop thinking of him as anything more than the Doctor, to stop dreaming of what they might be together. Of what her hands would do, her mouth. She swallowed, finding her mind slipping into a mode she was meant to avoid, finding herself imagining them: inhibitions lost.
But would he be the same? Was this why he was doing this?
“You’d like me to drink?” she asked, half stalling for time, half actually needing to here hear him say it because it was as good as any other confession.
Tight-lipped and his eyes slinking over the table. “It’s up to you, I won’t be upset if you say no…But yes.”
“And it’s just an aphrodisiac?” she asked.
“It’s a test,” he replied, more honest than he wanted to be.
A test for us, to see if what I feel you feel, too. To see if what I feel is even what I think it is.
A nod. She understood, could see it in his eyes, could see this was a way of asking the questions she’d always wanted to ask without saying anything out loud. This was an advantage to her as much as it was to him. A chance to see what he felt without having to be difficult. All she had to do was drink.
But there were risks. So many ways this could go wrong. If she wanted him but he didn’t want her; if he wanted her but she didn’t want him; if neither of them wanted anything at all and they just sat there. What if the drug didn’t work or it did, too well? Did it only play off love or lust and did that matter, did she need to know the difference? Even if they did end up together, what happened when it wore off? How far would they go with no inhibitions? What exactly were her inhibitions?
Why had she never touched him before?
She raised the glass, smiling ridiculously, playing the game because she had to know. “To us,” she said, repeating their earlier toast.
Both drank, the Doctor watching her do it over the rim of his glass and then, as she placed her empty glass back on the table, avoiding all eye contact as he quickly began to eat. She noticed and mimicked the action, wanting to know what it all meant, wanting to know when and how she’d know the answers.
But enough was enough, five minutes, maybe ten and nothing had happened, she didn’t feel strange, he hadn’t revealed anything and she was sick of cramming forkful after forkful of food into her mouth. “Now what?” she asked rather bluntly.
Eyes moving up, just like they had several times earlier, dark and warning and worried. “It’ll kick in soon…I think.”
Soon…whatever that meant. She had to keep talking, couldn’t look away now that she’d caught his gaze. “And where exactly did you find this drug?” she asked, seeing him wince at her choice of words.
What she wanted to know, he knew, was why he had it at all, why he was using it now. And answering a question like that honestly required more honesty than even he could give. He was desperate, had watched her for a whole year, hadn’t known it would hurt so much, how badly he’d want her. Feelings like this, denied, were supposed to diminish not grow. And still he wasn’t sure just what he felt. It was convoluted and complicated. He’d lived with Rose and only Rose, had saved her life and she’d saved his too many times to count. They were best friends. But was there something else? Something more substantial than interest?
The aphrodisiac was impressive from what he’d heard. It was first class, manufactured far in the future by professionals who had designed it to work perfectly in situations such as there’s. It wasn’t something that played to shallow desires, wouldn’t allow a woman to fall into the arms of a man simply because she liked his hair. It played to logic but to the logic of love and relationships; of what was real beneath the surface. That was the theory and yet it was a chemical, it was unpredictable, unfathomable and he just wished something would happen. Soon…
“Some little planet in a few billion years time,” he answered her question evasively and she nodded, her mind seeming to have wandered as his did during in the seconds between her question and his answer.
She’d noticed his watch was lying beside his hand, his eyes flickering to it every few moments, frantic in a way and she knew he was no longer sure, thought she could see what he was thinking. Could see he was more frightened now than when he’d drank and knew it was because he’d expected something and it hadn’t happened.
Realization hit her and she knew it should have kicked in. Was this it? He didn’t feel it - whatever it was - for her and she didn’t feel it back? Was it some silly crush? Panic rose in her, turning to anger. She had to say something, waste time so she didn’t think about what it all meant. “You don’t think this might be the wrong way of going about this?”
“You’re in on it as well as me,” he shot back but saw his own worry mirrored in her eyes and knew he’d been read too easily. It was strange: both of them panicking because maybe neither of them felt anything. It should have been a relief to be in agreement in want or not, but it was panic and fear and anger. He mentally forced himself to relax. Trying to find a reason to the madness he’d inflicted upon them and voicing it in answer to a question she no doubt would have eventually asked.
“It’s been a whole year, Rose. Do you know what it’s like to spend a whole year…” Again he trailed off. “Well of course you do. I think. I thought…” It could be kicking in late. Could be anything really. But then it might just be that he didn’t love her and she didn’t love him and they were simply mixed up somehow. “It should have kicked in by now,” he said flatly. “Couldn’t possibly take more than another minute.”
She gave a curt nod, felt herself begging the universe to let her feel something, to react like she wanted to and could hardly understand why she wasn’t. Why he wasn’t when she’d always hoped and thought and dreamed he would.
But there was nothing she could say to him, just looked down and started counting to sixty inside her head. She reached ten and her knuckles were white where she was gripping the side of her chair, realizing this, she loosened her grip, daring herself to look up and see what would happen. If he was right and the drug was working…
Angling her head up first, she blinked twice and then brought her eyes up to stare straight into his and felt nothing. Could see him, see the confusion in his eyes as his head tilted ever so slightly to the side and he looked back. Her counting reached thirty and still nothing, not even the slightest wanting for anything other than to possibly yell a little at the ridiculousness of it all.
A whole minute and her eyes were starting to hurt from the lack of blinking, her mouth had gone dry.
“Well then,” he said sounding confused and crushed. And he was. If the chemicals weren’t working, that was fine but if they were…nothing had happened, neither to her nor to him and that made no sense because he knew how he felt just had never been able to get himself to act on it. So maybe they just weren’t working.
“Well then what?”
A heavy sigh escaped his lips. Well then nothing…obviously. He looked up to catch her eyes and something snapped, something in her eyes changed and in a split second she went from irritated to wanting, needing and the expression was so plain there was no mistaking what it was she wanted.
And then her lips crushed against his, meeting him half way and the entire impact doubled in energy as he rose up to meet her. Somewhere in his peripheral consciousness he registered all the mundane details: the half-glass of wine that fell, spilling its contents, the smash of his plate as it hit the ground and then of hers as it went skittering off to the side. The faint knowledge that they might very well regret this almost completely blocked out because it wasn’t a thought he wanted, it was just there. It was an inhibition and they didn’t matter anymore.
Lips touching, pressure and friction surpassing everything they’d imagined in the past but the distance was too great and no matter how many plates they threw to the floor, it wasn’t going to be enough unless one of them climbed over the top. For a second, he thought Rose might attempt it but he was too fast, instinct giving him a quicker, better option as his hands joined his lips in manipulation, landing on her hips and his fingers not waiting a moment to start teasing at the curves.
He pushed her along the length of the desk, mirroring her progress and his lips not leaving hers once and then, agonizing seconds later, there was no longer anything between them and they gravitated together. Arms sliding around each other, hands and fingers dipping beneath fabric to explore - the curve of her hip, the small of his back, the taut stretch of smooth skin across her abdomen, the play of muscles across his shoulders.
And he felt different to what she’d always imagined he would. On the periphery of consciousness she noticed that he fitted to her in a way unfathomable to her before, pressed himself to her in all the right places like he knew her more intimately than she did. He kissed her unlike anyone else ever had and she felt her entire universe moving, rearranging to fit this new idea, this new possibility that was infinitely better than what her imagination had come up with and yet so different.
Beneath it all, she could feel it seeping into her actions, that thing buried so deep that even this test hadn’t been able to pull it into daylight. Not at first. But she felt it whispered against her skin, her name as his lips hovered over hers and he said it with reverence and admiration and hopelessness. None of which she could blame on this lust. Things she knew were echoes of something better.
Lips pressing harder against his, her tongue daring him to take it further with a lick to his bottom lip and, with nothing to hold him back he did, pinning her to the wall, his hands softening the blow but not deadening the shock that made her eyes spring open, wicked sin dancing in them. So he kissed her properly, pressing his mouth, hot and open-lipped to hers, a gasp that seemed to happen even before he touched her making it all the more easy. And he wanted to be everywhere and so did she, making up for lost time or something like that.
But a second later his lips broke from hers, pulling back with a deep growl that made it seem like the most difficult thing he’d ever done and she felt him counteract it, his arms slipping under her arms and around her back, completely encompassing her and he took a deep breath and opened his eyes, meeting her gaze, hot and confused with something sharp and real. Their foreheads together, lips almost but not touching and noses bumping, he waited until they’d caught their breath.
“I’m in love with you.” He breathed it out like it was as simple and undeniable as the very air and she couldn’t help but except it and know it was true. “I think I have been for a very long time.” And now he was almost grinning, halfway there and looking incredulous.
Nodding slightly she smiled back, her hands weaving into his hair. “Has it worn off?” Her eyes were skipping from his eyes to his lips, her chest heaving against his and for a second he wasn’t sure if that meant the aphrodisiac was still working or if it had simply altered their reality quite so much that this was now normal.
But he could feel it in him, could feel it making him say and do things he never would have had he thought it through. He couldn’t feel a single doubt, a single reason for stopping. They were still under the influence but there couldn’t be much more time. Shaking his head, he saw her gaze drop, the same understanding coming to her, both of them knowing time was limited, that afterwards nothing was definite, that doubt and worry and fear and reality would interfere.
Hands in his hair, they suddenly gripped tighter; stopped their caressing to manipulate, directing his lips to her jaw, watching his eyes shut as he understood her need to get as far as they could before they had to stop, to discover as much as they could. Romantic but tragic, he supposed. Mimicking her hands, he was rough and unhesitating, tasting and testing, chin and nose and, she could have sworn, even his eyelashes, brushing against her skin in his bid to get closer.
He was memorizing her; he knew it and so did she and it was strange to find this wasn’t about the then and there but about the afterwards when things were uncertain. This was what he wanted most and she found her own fingers following the curve of his ear, drifting down his neck as she did the same. Wanting more than anything else to know him instead of have him.
But time was short and he was aware of it, the simple knowledge that time existed seemingly indicative of the drug wearing off. His hands drifted beneath her top, fingers tracing out her stomach, her waist, her hips, light but definite. Beneath his touch, she could feel him getting ready to let go, it was surreal that he prepare to stop but he was and she hated it, grasped harder at his hair, holding on and pulling his eyes up to meet hers, shades of both darkening as they acknowledged time slipping past.
Teeth raking down her neck recklessly as somehow her own lips found his skin as his found hers, kissing twice softly at the muscle between his neck and his shoulder, feeling it flex beneath her touch and finding her effect on him more evocative than his on her, and then sucking at the pulse point, nipping lightly. Wanting and attaining a gravelly groan as he grinned into her, breathing her in and burying his face in her hair. Another memory to keep no matter what.
A though arose unbidden, telling him that the drug was diminishing fast, lucidity returning, the ability to distinguish between lust and love and what was right and wrong. The ability to stop. Renewing his fervor, wanting not to waste the precious seconds, his lips dipped into the hollow of her neck while hers turned into his hair, breath against his ear as she mumbled something incoherent, something he almost heard, something he rejoiced in hearing but still didn’t quite catch. Something he wanted her to say again, something he wanted to say to her.
Doubt was flooding back and she was stilling against him so he knew it was the same for her. He wanted one more kiss but knew it was too late, could feel her tense, her hands dropping and landing at her sides numbly, her head moving away from his until only his lips on her skin remained. One more brief brush and he lifted them, not moving any further than what was needed to create a gap, staring at nothing as he waited, considering what to do.
Then he stepped back, realizing she was stuck against the wall and without the ability to run. He looked up, unable not to, needing to see her and dismayed to see the damage he’d done, to see the messed up hair and the flustered redness to her cheeks, the way her hoodie hung off her shoulders and the zipper had been shoved part-way down. The slight purple mark to her throat. His eyes shut and he swallowed.
Wondering what he looked like, he opened them again, watched Rose, waited for her. She opened her mouth but found it dry and had to close it again before continuing. “I can’t believe you just did that.” It was still a rasp but he heard it.
“Did what?” he asked, upset but strangely elated to find his own voice almost completely gone, what was left, husky and deeper.
Faltering at that voice, something she’d never before heard, she had to reorder her thoughts. “Kissed me,” a breath as she fought against the temptation to look at his lips. “Like that.”
They stared at each other, eyes locked but nothing given away. “We shouldn’t have…” she trailed off and it sounded half-hearted but he didn’t notice, he was too busy trying to find a way to win her over. “You should have told me the truth,” she continued, voice stronger.
“I did,” he returned.
“You said it was an aphrodisiac,” she accused. “You said it might have an affect.”
“Would you have preferred if it hadn’t happened?” he asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it in order to stop from imagining his hands running over her hips again.
She opened her mouth and then shut it, considered for a long moment. “No,” she whispered, both to herself and to him. The anger melting away, the shock and the fear dissolving as she realized it had happened and decided it could be good, that even if he had charmed her into something she might not have agreed to had she been approached in a more straight-forward manner, it didn’t matter because it had happened.
Perking an eyebrow up, he waited to see if she said anything else then said, “I’m sorry.”
And she shook her head, unconsciously refusing to forgive him for something she’d always wanted him to do, wanted him to do again. With lucidity she looked up, meeting his gaze again and watched as he went to say something else. “Wait,” she cut him off placing a finger near his mouth, signally he be quiet or else. She stepped forward, moving back into his personal space, her hand moving to trace his jaw, surprised when he involuntarily leaned into her touch. She considered her options, ranked them and listed them and wondered what she needed to do.
And then she stepped in closer, raised herself up onto the balls of her feet and kissed him. Slow and seductive and indulgent. Experimental and tentative. Pulling away for a moment, she let her breath trail up his jaw, lips stopping close to his ear. “Don’t you ever use that aphrodisiac on me again,” she breathed, fascinated by the shiver that she could see course up his spine, a whole new world of possibilities opening up to her. “Not without my permission.”
Stepping back again, she admired her work: jacket almost falling off, tie loosened and shirt untucked. At least half his buttons undone and his pants slung low across one hip. His hair was sticking out where she’d grasped at it and there was a hot red mark on his neck. And, topping it all was the most shocked look she’d ever seen - eyes wide, mouth hanging open and hope only now creeping in as his mouth suddenly curved upwards into a manic grin.
A/N: And that’s all I’ve got. Thanks again for being such lovely people. This fandom truly rocks! Can’t wait to hear what you thought of this one, good or bad.
Cross posted to tennant_love