Doctor Who Research Project Fanfic Contest

[tabula_x_rasa]

Author: Tabula Rasa (tabula_x_rasa)
Title: Light Touch
Challenge Element: The Doctor losing control/inhibitions after a kiss
Rating: R-ish if you're sensitive
A/N: I'm afraid this is unbeta'd since I only just finished and I'm leaving for two days this morning, so I don't have any more time. This also means that 1) I won't be able to respond to comments before Wednesday and 2) Sadly, I won't be able to comment on (or read!) anyone else's fic before Wednesday. That said, comments and crit are always very welcome. Hope you enjoy-- it's just some fluff. Spoiler-free, I think.


"That was really excellent champagne," Rose giggled, attempting to walk on him as they staggered into the TARDIS.

"Yes it was," he agreed, "although since it didn't actually come from Champagne-- actually it didn't even come from Earth..."

Rose was kicking off her shoes and he interrupted himself as he watched. "What are you--"

Rose wrapped her arms around him and stepped on his feet, quiet deliberately. "Walk me," she demanded. Her eyes were a bit out of focus, large and wet and brown. He could feel her breath on his face, feel her breasts brushing his chest, smell all those little Rose smells.

Well.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and started taking large, slow steps, Rose hanging off him and balancing-- just barely-- on his feet.

There was a lot of stumbling, weaving, bouncing off the console, and one really good fall before they got to the inner door. "That's it," the Doctor announced, waving his arms around. "I'm cutting you off."

"We should dance," Rose said all breathy and smirking and fluttering her eyelashes at him.

It made the Doctor laugh (although everything made him laugh at this point). "I think it's time Rose Tyler went to bed."

Rose pouted-- deadly, that was-- and wrapped her arms around his right arm. "Only if you tuck me in," she demanded, and tried to drag him down the corridor with her. (He couldn't really feel his feet, so it took them a bit to get the hang of being dragged.)

At her door, he reclaimed his arm and patted her on the head. "Off to dreamland then, young Rose."

She was pouting again-- what the hell was she doing that for? Rose looked down and started to pluck at his lapels. The Doctor watched this, bemused. She seemed to be trying to straighten them. They stood this way for some time.

"What is it?" the Doctor finally asked.

"You said you'd tuck me in," Rose complained, although the Doctor was tempted to describe it as "whining."

"I did nothing of the sort," he argued.

"You lured me 'ere under false pretends-- pretenses!" she accused. She socked him in the arm.

"Ow!"

"Don't be a baby! Come on. Come in. Come on in!" Champagne drunk giggle.

And then they were in Rose's room, which was a bit of a "Here Be Dragons" place. He'd never made it a habit to go in his companions' rooms before, but he'd been in here a few times to drag her out of bed. He stumbled over a discarded jumper, which was really what he'd expected from Rose's room.

He looked at the canopy over Rose's bed (it saved having to actually look at Rose's bed). He and Jack had hung it up for her when the villagers of Greenston-on-Hrx!mntale had insisted on giving the time travelers a bolt of their finest cloth as thanks for saving them. Bits of the pattern glowed in the dark.

"Liiiiiiiiiiiights," Rose called as she flopped on the bed.

The lights obligingly went out. The tapestry's glowing threads gave off quite a bit of light.

"It is always that bright?" the Doctor asked, peering up at it. Was the pattern supposed to move like that?

"Mmrf? No, fades. Come see."

Living dangerously, the Doctor stood under the canopy and next to the bed, to get a better look at a bit of cloth he'd gotten far too close and personal with during the embarrassing amount of time it had taken to get the canopy to stay up.

"Are you tucked in yet?" he asked.

Rose crawled under the quilt fully clothed. Then she sat up, got a firm grip on his arm, and pulled the Doctor down. "Stay," she purred.

And this is such a bad idea, he thought. He kicked off his shoes and reclined next to her, over the quilt. Rose began wiggling under the cover. Eventually her jeans shot out the side to land on the floor. For some reason, the Doctor had decided it would be a good idea to remove his jackets and tie, although he couldn't recall what the reasoning behind that had been, or when he'd actually done it, for that matter.

We are drunk, he noted. There's going to be Trouble. Trouble at that moment was snuggling in next to him. An arm, long, pale, soft, reflecting the tapestry's pale light, snaked briefly in the air above him before entwining around his neck.

Everything here smelled like Rose and it made his head feel as confounded as the not-technically-champagne had. She was hot, too, of course-- tingling hot all along his left side, hot across his neck, hot where slender fingers were diving through his hair.

Sweet and hot and soft and no, not safe at all.

"Rose," he declared, trying for solemn but hearing a slightly panicky note underneath, "I am drunk. I should not be drunk. I could un-drunk-- no, that has its own word, doesn't it? I could sober myself up right now--"

"Shhh." Rose had moved a finger over his lips and was pressing down, keeping them shut. She was moving and some part of him flashed mauve. Now her head was hovering over his, complete with pale glowing nimbus (and how glad he was the tapestry glowed silver and not gold!). That light, though, was already fading, noticeably lower than when the main light had first gone off.

"You should be drunk," Rose was whispering. "An' I should be drunk. An' we should both be drunk together." And then she kissed him, without moving her finger, though, so that most of the kiss landed there. That was almost worse, though, to just get brief, tiny spots of feeling where their mouths connected, feeling more heat than flesh. Teasing, driving up his curiosity. If it had just been a proper kiss then he would have known what it felt like and that would be that. But this... this was too ephemeral to leave him wanting anything but more.

Someone growled (was that him?) and he grabbed her wrist and pulled her finger off his mouth. She pulled back a little, surprised. The Doctor lunged up-- and she must have lunged down, because there was loud THUNK and his forehead was a bit sore.

Rose groaned and sat up, hand clamped over her nose.

"Rose? Rose!" You fail at snogging, the Doctor scolded himself as he sat up to try and help Rose. "Are you all right?"

Rose had sunk back to her side of the bed and had turned away from him, hands still over her nose.

"Rose?" he put a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Do you want me to get some ice?" He felt terrible, and now he was rather worried. He hadn't broken her nose, had he?

Her shoulders started to shake and he nearly panicked as he realized she was crying. "Rose, I'm so, so sorry," he pleaded, tried to stroke her shoulder in comfort.

And then he heard it. It was muffled but nonetheless recognizable. A giggle.

"Rose!"

And she rolled back on her back, laughing full out now, and the Doctor had no choice but to take up laughing too.

Rose prodded her nose a bit. "It's fine."

"Really?"

"Really." She grinned at him, and it made him feel quite warm. Those huge grins of hers always did.

"You had me worried!" the Doctor tried to give her a stern look.

Rose stuck her tongue out at him, and there was really nothing else for it.

He went on the offensive, tugging down the duvet before she could react, and lunging for her sides.

"No!" she cried out, already laughing, as he started to tickle her.

What followed was a great deal of thrashing about and flailing limbs and grabbing and before he realized, fully, what he was about, the Doctor had Rose pinned. He didn't want her pinned, did he? Hadn't this been bad? He couldn't really remember.

It didn't matter, because a moment later she'd flipped them, and he was the one pinned and was that better or worse?

She sat up, dragging her hands down his chest as she did so. She had a bit of a smirk on her face, and the Doctor angled his head to get a look at her eyes.

They were a bit more focused and determined than he'd expected, and it occurred to him suddenly that perhaps Rose wasn't as drunk as she was acting.

He couldn't let this go; he had to test.

"Why are you doing this now?" he asked suddenly.

She looked at him from the corner of her eye, and he vehemently wished he knew what was going through her head. "It was time," she said, with a small shrug.

He frowned slightly. "I think that's my line--"

He was cut off when she swooped down. Rose licked up the column of his throat, clean over his adam's apple.

"Mrrwlgf," the Doctor said.

Rose grinned. "That's better."

"I, um, ah..." This was one of those rare moments when the Doctor couldn't think of anything to say. His hands were at his sides, madly fisting up bunches of Rose's duvet, trying not to touch any of that very bare leg they were next to.

She was sitting on him, wearing just a t-shirt and pants, and he could smell her, and there were bright flares of short circuits in his brain.

Some bit of brain that was clinging on to rationality judged the situation. You know what, old man, it told him, I don't think there's anyway out of this. You're having sex. You've sort of already started, actually.

Before he could fully process this thought, Rose had bent over his face again. For a moment, her lips just rested against his.

He wondered if she was waiting for him to make the next move. What should he do? Try and push her away? Kiss her? Kiss her and then push away? (Would that even be possible?)

And her tongue sort of fell into his mouth and the whole thing was decided.

For a moment he froze and he had the suspicion his eyes were bugging.

But Rose was quite intent on giving him a snog, and, really, what could he do? What else could he do, rather? His mouth knew what to do, anyway, and his tongue was getting involved, when Rose gave it a chance. His eyes drifted shut, and his hands did their own drifting up to Rose's waist.

Her mouth was hot and wet, and made him think of other things even though he really actually liked her mouth. She was starting to move against him, to wiggle around and rock slightly.

In danger of loosing her mouth, the Doctor moved a hand up to wrap in her hair, to try and keep her head still, anyway. Or at least where he could get to it.

Rose writhing around up there was doing all sorts of firework-like things to his body, and for the first time the Doctor considered that Rose Tyler might be good at sex. He hadn't before, not really, nor about what it could mean. When in the past he had allowed himself to think about Rose and sex, it was usually to worry about who she might be considering having it with.

But now here she was, and here he was, and she was moaning and moving against him. They were actually, really snogging, and neither of them possessed. Probably. And he really, really liked it. He felt like champagne, rather than just Champagne drunk: bubbly and light and on the way to exploding.

The last of the tapestry's light had faded and it was dark, even for him. But he didn't need to see.

Both their shirts had ridden up. The feeling of their stomachs touching would have sent the Doctor right up into the stratosphere, had they been on a planet with a stratosphere.

Rose had taken away her tongue-- rather cruel, that-- and was nibbling at his lips, at his chin, his jaw. It was driving him mad.

Rose had been a constant source of temptation since he'd met her, a sort of temptation he wasn't used to. He'd loved his companions and they'd loved him, but this question had never come up. Never been a serious option, snogging, let alone anything more involved. (After he'd heard kissing a woman was supposedly a good way to shut one up, he'd considered testing it a few times, but had never implemented it.)

But he'd been thinking about kissing Rose from the moment he met her.

And here he was kissing her, Rose increasingly loose against him. Her skin felt warmer and warmer under his hands, although this was possibly psycho-symptomatic on his part. He wanted to touch her everywhere, every bit of skin, inside her head, inside her. He'd kissed her mouth, her face, her neck; he wanted to kiss her everywhere he could touch her.

He flipped her, at last, crushing her body under his, crushing his mouth to hers.

Her legs and arms wrapped around him, first squeezing tightly then seeming to move everywhere. A right octopus, Rose was. He loved it. Rose moaned, and he thought she felt rather the same way. To him, she felt soft and hot and very good, very nice, and what was the point of resisting the inevitable?

There was only this held-back, distant, Time Lord-y part of him that was still urging caution, as opposed to the rest of him, which was urging something rather different. His body had gone right past "this is a bit of all right" to "please sir could I have some more?" But he could feel this reserved part, this unchanging, regenerating, steeped-in-tradition approbation. It was like all his past selves were watching and disapproving, except for the last one or two, who were cheering him right on, the cheeky bastards.

He pushed himself up a bit, cupping Rose's face in his hands. Even in the dark, he knew her pupils were dilated, lips swollen and wet, pulse elevated, cheeks flushed and hair mussed. She didn't want him to stop. He didn't want to stop, mostly.

Time Lord. You'd be going against all the rules and traditions of your planet, people, and class.

But I'm the only one left, he argued back. There's only me. Only me and Rose.

And what would the Time Lords say?

Bugger them. I never let them tell me what to do before, why should I now that they're not actually there to tell me?

And what would her mother say?

He looked, considering, down at Rose. "Doctor," she whispered, her voice breathy and needful and her breathing still not evened out, tugging at his shirt to bring him back to her.

She'd say go for it. He grinned and kissed Rose again.

They rolled back and forth, fighting to remove their clothes, fighting for who got to be on top. Laughing all the time.

And when at last they'd gotten rid of what clothing was left, and ended on their sides, facing each other, the Doctor noted that it felt slightly odd to be naked with Rose-- he'd spent so much time telling himself to avoid this exact naked-together situation.

But not odd enough to stop anything, or even to cause him any real pause. Rose was so happy, grinning up at him, that he could only grin back and be extraordinarily happy, too.

This is why humans like this so much, he thought, feeling all of her skin against all of his skin. It's the most complete way they have of making contact with each other.

Her skin tasted soft and salty, to varying degrees. Soft on her neck, softer still on her breasts. He dragged his tongue down her ribs and stopped to tickle her again. She scolded him, still laughing, and pushed him away so she could suck one of his earlobes into her mouth while reaching a hand between them to...oh, ah, yes. That.

He pressed his face into her shoulder, kissing everything he could reach. He fumbled for her knee, pulling her leg over his hip.

And then he was pushing inside her and she whimpered so he stopped but Rose grabbed his arse to push him in deeper and then he held very still not even breathing in case he did something wrong and this felt extraordinary and very very alive and Rose sighed.

Opened her eyes, smiled at him. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," he answered.

"All right?"

"Yeah. You?"

Her grin got wider. "Fantastic."

So they started to move, together, and the Doctor started to say something before he decided this really wasn't the time for piffle, so he tried to hold it in. But a few thrusts more and words were spilling out of him, about how she felt around him and how much he wanted her and needed her and just "Rose" worked itself in there more than a few times, too.

And the words broke down into syllables that ceased to have any meaning. Rose was gasping, head thrown back, nails digging into him. He felt her ebb and flow around him, heard her shout something like "Doctor" without the consonants.

Gulping air, Rose pulled his head to hers and kissed him, sweetly, on the lips, and it was like the other side of regeneration, and then they were both quiet for a time.

He started to come back to himself, felt Rose stroking his face. "We outta buy some more of that champagne," Rose murmured.

They both felt his face stretch into a huge grin, and the Doctor moved his head so their foreheads touched. "Tucked in yet?" he asked.

Rose giggled and he joined, because how could he help it?

Oh, no. Rose's tongue had fallen into his mouth again. What ever was he going to do about that?