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It’s pitch black. The kind of darkness that suffocates, that turns the air in the room to a cloud of ink he struggles to breathe. A blindfold pressing against his eyes until he can’t tell whether his lids are opened or closed.
His throat burns as the cold, thick air rips in and out of his lungs, but the noise doesn’t reach his ears. He feels the vibrations of his vocal cords beneath his neck as he expels the air harder, and he can almost taste the sound on his tongue. The volume of the outburst should be unbearable now, but still he hears nothing. The silence hovering in the darkness closes over his ears and weaves around his entire body, constricts and smothers him.
His hazy, jumbled thoughts only exacerbate the disorientation. No memory of how he got here. Time sense tells him a large chunk of a day has gone missing, starting from about ten seconds ago.
Needing to escape the chaos in his mind, he moves every muscle he can. Starchy sheets rub against against the bare skin on his back and he (still noiselessly) cries out with relief that he still exists in three dimensions, somehow. A metal bar marks the edge of the bed beneath the naked soles of his feet and he jumps at the unpleasant chill. Cheap mattress springs buckle beneath his hips. He plunges his hands deep into his trouser pockets but neither set of fingers closes around the sonic.
Large, calloused hands land on his limbs, and he screams as the rough palms and thick fingers pin him against the starchy sheets beneath him. Not only is he not alone, but the restraining hands must belong to creatures who can see in this penetrating darkness. Two of them press down on each of his bare, exposed arms, two more around each of his ankles. Eight arms then. 22 degree body temperature. Lots of silicon. Not human.
Words tumble from his lips, pleas for mercy he hopes are coming out coherently and in the right language.
A ninth, much smaller hand clasps his forearm, twisting his arm until his palm is face up on the mattress. Cotton doused with isopropanol is spread cool on the skin on the underside of his elbow, giving him a very good guess at what’s about to happen. He fidgets and flexes everything, squirming to free his arm, but his physical strength is no match for that of his captors.
They aren’t careful with the needle.
He can’t see or hear it, but he swears he can feel the gush and trickle against the inside of the glass vial resting against his arm as it fills with his blood.
He keeps shouting he can help them, that whatever they need, they don’t have to do this.
None of them responds in a way he can sense; they just keep changing out the full vials for empty ones.
Eight full vials and there’s gauze wrapped tightly around his elbow.
He tries to get a grip, to assess his own physiology for the first time since he’s woken up. He hasn’t lost that much blood, relatively, only enough to make him lightheaded for a couple of hours. A search for foreign chemicals turns up two toxins in circulation, both of their structures unfamiliar, but he’s certain they’re acting on the brain stem, blocking visual and auricular inputs. The effects seem to be only temporary but he can’t tell for sure, but what he does know for certain he is not among friends, and this is no hospital.
And he doesn’t know where Rose is.
Another pair of burly hands wraps around his face, rough and smelling of clay on his chin and forehead. He’s not sure if he’s forming proper words anymore, just mindlessly begging the shapeless, detached beings to leave him alone. But the prayers are as lost to their ears as his. The darkness chokes and constricts him, every muscle in his body twitches in rebellion against the aggressive grip of the strangers as the new hands bruise his jaw trying to pry his mouth open.
A plastic tube slides between his lips and under his tongue, its violent suction taking all the moisture from his mouth in a few seconds flat. He can just barely taste it, before it’s torn from his mouth again, and he recognizes the material instantly as polypropylene and praises this one small victory: that they haven’t taken away his sense of taste, too.
What are you doing!? He thinks he cries out to what must be a very crowded room, now. Whatever they plan to do with his bodily fluids, he knows it can’t be good. And he has a feeling they aren’t through. Dread twists in his stomach and he feels sick because whatever their plan for him next is, he can’t see it coming. His entire body clenches tight, rigid with the effort to resist, to keep fighting, and sometimes a powerful jerk of his chest or his thigh gets him one inch of movement. But it also makes the offenders lean over him with their weight, crushing any degree of success. His muscles are beginning to tremble from the strain, his teeth chattering as he finally starts to succumb to the fear he’s been trying to resist. Trying to predict their next movements despite the sensory deprivation has already completely exhausted his normally formidable mind.
Another soaked gauze smears alcohol across his abdomen, and he twitches and hisses with the cool evaporation. He tries to brace himself for what they’re going to stick him with now, shivering with fear and squeezing his eyes shut like it will make any of it go away.
He yelps as something sharp and metal pierces his skin. The thick needle penetrates deep, taking a piece of his liver on the exit journey. Pain seeps under his skin and radiates through his gut because though he tries to pinpoint the source of injury, either to heal it or at least suppress the pain, his mind too stressed to perform even this kind of basic task.
They cover his impromptu surgical wound with layers of cottony stuff and tape, and the feeling of powerlessness consumes him. Blinded, deafened, completely at the mercy of what seems to be a hostile species, with either a vendetta against Time Lords or an unhealthy aspiration to become them. He yells as loud as he can without being able to test the volume, and thrashes against the flesh manacles with renewed strength, adrenaline from the pain fueling his muscles.
Stop this! Let me go! Where’s Rose!
A mask lands on his face, enveloping his nose and mouth and he inhales a distinct whiff of a heavily fluorinated hydrocarbon, one that may not be specific to Gallifreyan physiology but that would probably put him out in minutes. He stops shouting and cuts off his breathing, scrambling to kick in his respiratory bypass while he jerking his head side to side to try to free his airways of the anesthetic fumes.
A needle pokes into his neck from the exposed side. The cold liquid spreading through his veins is familiar, and he tries to figure out the… chemical… brain going fuzzy… composition… is… it… has… thio…pent…
All sensations fade to nothing with his consciousness.
---
“There are other toxins, mixed with the anesthetic,” the thick, dark purple man explains, his deep voice quieter than she would have thought it could go. He hovers over the Doctor’s lifeless form with his own sonic screwdriver, knowing how to operate it better than Rose does herself. “But I don’t recognize them. I’m not sure what the effects will be. We should prepare for the worst, when he wakes up.”
She stares down at the Doctor, asleep with anything but peace etched across his features. His hair isn’t sticking up in its usual energetic style, instead matted against his forehead and neck with dried sweat. His breathing is regular but labored, and though she’s certain patients under anesthesia don’t have nightmares, given any other circumstances she’d be convinced he was having one. Dry, pale lips are parted unnaturally, sunken into a slight, perpetual frown, trademarks of chemically induced unconsciousness.
The too-tight bandage around his elbow, the ominous patch of gauze on his stomach, the bluish-purple blemishes in sausage shapes around his arms and his jaw: they were just the tip of the iceberg of what he must have endured. The sickening urge to kill them all, every last one of the bastards in that room, overwhelms her, even here, dozens of miles from their stronghold. The only thing that had stopped her in the moment was the nagging knowledge it isn’t what he would want.
“I’ll go and fetch him some water,” Rose whispers, as though her voice will wake him up, even though he was out cold through the entire bumpy and very noisy flight to this secluded sanctuary.
“I’ll stay with him.” Quinton stashes the stethoscope and screwdriver in his billowing coat in a swift movement.
Rose gives him a subtle nod before making her way to the open door, needing to escape the hopeless sight. She used to think the Doctor in another man’s pajamas and a post-regenerative coma was the worst image of him she’d ever have to cope with. But seeing him like this: his defenses stripped away with his shirt and jacket, half naked and vulnerable. Bruised. Broken. Powerless. His newborn nap in Howard’s jim jams was nothing by comparison. Nausea and panic compete for first prize in her stomach as she drags her feet mechanically in the direction of the kitchen.
The Doctor likes to think of himself as invincible, and most of the time she believes he is, having seen the things he can do, the disasters and injuries he can miraculously avoid. He always finds a way to save the day, somehow – to rescue her when she’s captured, to catch her when she stumbles, to save his own arse with nothing but his screwdriver, his gob, and some luck. But if she hadn’t been there to save him this time, she’s not sure he would have left that cement building alive.
She’s just closing a plastic canteen of water when the Doctor calls out.
“NO! STOP!” He sounds terrified.
It takes her a fraction of the time to return to the small guest bedroom than it did to wander from it. The bottle is forgotten on the counter.
Quinton’s hand struggles to find a place to rest on the Doctor’s shoulder as he squirms and wriggles under his touch. His eyes are blown wide open but he doesn’t look at the figure next to him, just shouts oddly slurred words to him to stay back, and though she’s within his line of vision, he doesn’t turn his head to look at her, either. His hands scramble around on the bed, feeling out the material, and he gasps as he leans away from the purple stranger. Quinton’s calm words of reassurance are filtering in one ear and out the other, it seems, and he still doesn’t look up when she calls his name and steps closer. Panic wells up in her gut that they’ve manipulated him more than she initially thought, that his mind snapped and these are early symptoms of insanity.
The Doctor’s arms flail around him, like he’s batting away invisible bugs, before he rolls gracelessly off the far side of the bed. He squeals in shock but rights himself quickly, sitting up and scrambling backwards on the carpet, alternating hands, feet, and bum until he’s against the wall. Hands on his shins, he tucks his knees against his chest and buries his face in his trousers, his arms quivering as his lungs heave out a few dry sobs. Her heart completely, utterly shatters at the macabre image of such helpless terror. She can’t seem to move, afraid of making him more frightened than he already is.
“Doctor, I’m not going to hurt you. I might look like them, but I’m not one of them. I swear. Rose is here, do you see?” Quinton explains, his tone soothing despite the rumbling bass of his voice. The Doctor doesn’t respond, and she’s almost certain he’s completely unaware of his current surroundings. That for whatever reason, he thinks he’s still back in that room, with the purple giants who hurt him. His arms have stopped shaking and he just sits motionless against the wall, breathing heavily against his knees.
“Doctor, you’re safe. We got you,” she adds, kneeling next to Quinton but not wanting to push him too soon by reaching out to him, because it seems like not being touched is beginning to calm him.
“D’you think it’s some sort of psychosis from the medication?” she asks quietly.
“It must have something to do with the toxins. Causing a state of extreme confusion, or even amnesia.”
The Doctor looks up, as though he recognizes that single word amidst the garbled others. His eyes wander lazily around the room – a halfhearted attempt to scan for enemies, she thinks – but they never focus, roving over Quinton’s and then her face without pause. His gaze passes right through them, like they’re ghosts or something equally immaterial.
“That doesn’t look right,” she breathes.
With slow, deliberate caution, she inches forward and reaches out to touch her hand to one still clutching his calf.
Her touch electrocutes him, making his whole body jerk so strongly the back of his head hits the wall. She pulls away her hand, remorseful and rejected. But he inhales sharply, once he’s over the initial shock, loosening his defensive grip on his legs and straightening his chest. His dead eyes search the room, though she’s crouching right in front of him, the same hand she touched reaches out, slow and hesitant, curling back on itself like something will bite off his fingers if they’re exposed.
She clasps her hand in his, pressing her palm against his, hooking her thumb and squeezing, and he sighs, too loud in the small, tense space of the room. He inhales deeply through his nose a few times, his eyebrows pulling together with focus. She’s seen the face before: he’s analyzing a scent.
“Rose?”
“Yes, Doctor, it’s me!” she yells. His eyes still just stare straight through her face, blank, no recognition.
“Rose?” he calls again, more frantic, starting to tug on her arm.
All the pieces of the puzzle finally click into place. He’s perfectly alert and cognitive, has been all this time. But he can’t see or hear a thing.
She lets him pull her hand closer, and he leans his head forward to press his lips to her skin, tongue darting out for just a moment to get a gustatory confirmation. His exhale of relief is immediate. He repeats her name over and over, a prayer and praise. His legs collapse in front of him and she climbs onto his lap as he pulls her to him, squeezing her so tightly she can barely breathe, burying his face in her shoulder. She rubs her hands up and down his arms, swirls her fingers around in his hair, kisses the top of his head, does anything she can think of to try to bring him some measure of comfort without speaking.
After a long moment he eases back, enough that she can see his face again, much more calm than when she first found him. His hands splay out on her thighs, mapping the contours of the muscle, then his fingertips trail out and up, tracing the shape of her legs. His eyes drift closed as his fingers graze a trail up her body, and though he couldn’t see before, the gesture still feels intimate. His touch softens, his fingertips spread to gather as much information as they can, just enough pressure to feel her as he mentally maps out every dip and curve he encounters.
She shivers when they brush along her neck, and he chuckles, a breathy, awkward sound that only tells her he felt it and he’s still nervous. His hands cradle her jaw as his thumb swipes over her lips, back and forth, moaning a bit as he matches his memories to the shape, apparently finding it familiar.
She forgets about Quinton’s existence until he stands abruptly and heads for the door, and she turns her head, freeing her lips enough to speak.
“Thank you for everything, Quinton. We’ll be out later, I’m sure.” Her eyes express her gratitude, and he bows before closing the door behind him.
“What?” the Doctor half-shouts, assuming she was trying to tell him something.
She covers his mouth with one hand and shakes her head, exaggerating the movement so he can easily feel the motion with the hand that’s still on her cheek. He nods silently and continues his exploration of her face, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, drawing three lines down her nose to model the shape. He pushes her hair back from her face, massaging along her scalp before stroking his fingers through the strands. When his index finger rims around the shell of her right ear, she shivers again and he again picks up on the subtle movement.
“Can I?” he tries to whisper, placing two fingers on each of her temples.
She nods, again exaggerating the movement. She’s always heard about the fact that he’s telepathic, but he’s never asked about doing this with her before.
Intangible and ethereal but characteristically him, wisps of hot steam gather at the forefront of her mind, whispering her name, waiting for a point of entry they can flood through. Taking a deep breath, she relaxes her mind and he enters it slowly, warm, ghostly tendrils of his consciousness connecting to hers. Flickers of recent trauma, fear, and stress flood the highways of her thoughts once they’re fully intertwined. The emotions race chaotically through the lanes, too quickly for her to get a grasp on any of them, but tears roll down her cheeks as she experiences firsthand just how terrified he’s been until now.
Safe? he asks, muffled and fuzzy but easy enough to make out.
She nods again, bending all her thoughts to create a mental picture of the room they’re in, her desire to reassure him allowing her to focus on it with surprising clarity. She paints the clean-looking guest bedroom in her mind, the carpet, walls, and linens in varying shades of cream. It seems to work, because he hums in grateful acknowledgement that they’re alone in the room and the bed doesn’t match his tactile memory of the one he was in before, and his rush of relief cascades through her.
How? It seems difficult for him to communicate concrete words with her, like he isn’t meant to have simple mental conversations with his telepathy. Her instinct is that it’s meant for more: shared emotional wavelengths, transfers of memories and sensations.
She replays the memories in fast forward for him: Quinton, his family, their selfless offer to help her find the antidote they wanted, recruiting his brawny friends to help rescue him, the generous offer of extended hospitality. His thoughts swell with pride at her success, but he doesn’t seem at all surprised.
Temporary. He doesn’t think it explicitly, but she knows he means the sensory disabilities. She nods again, believing him wholeheartedly despite her earlier internal paranoia that the damages could be permanent. Instead of those fears, she concentrates on comfort and optimism – nudging them forward to the Doctor as she wraps her arms around his neck. His answering gratitude barrels through her, knocking her own inner voice off its feet, and she thinks the finally understands what he was going on about whenever he insisted his mind was so ‘powerful.’
The intimacy vanishes when his fingers fall from her temples, and sorrow suddenly throbs in her chest at the sudden, bewildering feeling of loneliness that accompanies the disconnection. Like she misses him, even though she’s still sitting on his lap and his hands are on her shoulders now, slowly massaging the tension from them. But the Doctor has never been one to over-share, and her first thought is that he took away the direct line to protect her from thoughts he doesn’t want to reveal, or doesn’t want her to see yet. She won’t press him now, with all the stress he’s already been through on this wretched misfortune of a trip. Another time.
Sliding her hands down from behind his neck, over his chest and wriggling behind his back, she leans down to rest her head on his bare shoulder, careful not to bump the wall he’s resting on. His arms wrap around her back, pulling her closer as he rests his chin on her head and exhales deeply, something like a sigh and a moan. The sound is so beautiful and arousing, rumbling just under her ear; he can’t possible realize how he sounds or he wouldn’t be doing it. He’s just relieved, happy that she’s alive and he’s safe, and she shouldn’t even be considering taking advantage of him. She can pass it off as okay when he’s healthy and happy and in top shape aboard the TARDIS, maybe. But not now. Damn hormones.
The same moment, though, her shirt lifts away from her skin as the Doctor’s hands slip beneath the fabric. Echoing his earlier tactic, he runs the pads of his fingers over the sensitive skin, gooseflesh following the trails as they climb up her sides and swirl just under her hairline. One of his hands supports the small of her back, then, while two fingers of the other trace a slow, twirling path down her spine, and she shudders with pleasure against his chest.
They linger in the nervous limbo following her reaction for several minutes, his thoughts completely shrouded, hers preoccupied with stamping down this ridiculous desire. It’s painfully clear that he needs her now, for physical comfort more than he ever has before, because words and smiles won’t suffice like they normally do. This is the only thing she can comfort him with until this passes, this temporary impairment: her touch. She won’t make this into something it doesn’t need to be, won’t make it awkward and impossible for him. They can get through this without shattering their platonic relationship. She’ll get them through this, because this is all he can do right now. Feel and hold her.
She squeezes him in reassurance, and turns her head to press a quick kiss to his shoulder. He relaxes, his hands resuming their ministrations on her back as he bows his head to kiss her shoulder, too. His mouth meets her t-shirt, though, and he changes course, lips searching to the left until he finds bare skin just at the base of her neck. They press softly there for a moment, an innocent, tender gesture. She starts drawing little circles from his ribs down to his hips, mimicking what he’s doing to her, keeping her touch light and soothing. Trying to ignore the way his heartbeats quicken under her ear, insisting it’s only a physiological response.
That’s when his lips part against her skin, and suddenly his mouth is devouring her. Wet and hot brushes of his lips, circular strokes of his tongue and nips of his teeth and then he’s sucking and claiming her, leaving a mark and ohh… she whimpers against his collarbone as her hips buck forward. His mouth continues a messy trail up her neck as her head lolls to the side, allowing him better access, and his hips lift off the floor to meet hers again. And he’s hard.
Shrugging off the plan to navigate the line between hugging and foreplay with restraint, she sets up a rhythm grinding against him, moving her hips in slow circles to maximize the contact. She lifts her hands to use the floor and the wall for leverage, and he groans loudly as his mouth shifts to her shoulder at the change in positioning. His hands travel down, kneading the flesh of her bum and pulling her harder against him with every thrust, biting almost too hard on the crook of her neck to keep his volume in check. She’s already a bit close, coiled tightly with tension and adrenaline and she hasn’t taken care of herself in weeks, and she doesn’t want it to happen like this, but her self-control is slipping from her grasp.
The Doctor’s hands still her hips when she tries to speed up, snapping her out of the selfish frame of mind. This is supposed to be about him.
It’s all moving too fast. All the times she’s dreamed and daydreamed about this moment, it doesn’t happen like this, with him scared and vulnerable. So many months he’s let the opportunities pass them by, ignored the chemistry between them, but it seems like he’s more than willing now. Of course she wants him – she has since the day he was born, really. So badly it aches in her chest and pulses between her legs almost every minute she’s with him. But would it be truly, selflessly helping him, or just taking advantage of him? To give into what he thinks he wants now, when he’s established a strict precedent of avoiding amorous expression?
She pulls away from his chest when his mouth freezes against her shoulder, like he can sense her hesitation, and she fights the instinct to check for a mark even though he wouldn’t be able to tell if she did. One of his hands moves from her hip up to his lips, his fingers pressing lightly there before reaching slowly across the tiny space between them. They miss the mark only slightly, landing on her chin before readjusting north and pressing against her lips, too.
It’s the most endearing way a bloke has ever asked to kiss her.
---
Rose’s lips shift up and down beneath his fingertips as she nods.
His fingers guide his mouth to press against hers, soft but firm, certain. Her lips are dry but soft and supple and so warm that it radiates down through his body. A rush of pleasure and adrenaline that reanimates him, screams he’s alive. A literal kiss of life. She pushes back against him, more insistent, as her hand lands gently on his cheek, light, soothing strokes of her thumb on his jaw. He can just barely taste her in the smooth ridges of her lips, something even better than the salt and caramel undertones of her skin, and he needs more.
His lips part against hers and he feels her gasp into his mouth as he deepens the kiss, tilting his head for better leverage. It’s wet, even a little sloppy on his end. But the curves of her mouth are even more silky and hot with the added moisture, and then there’s the way she tastes that makes him forget to care. Just the way she moves her lips over his: prods and brushes and tugs of her lips meeting his own, matching his urgency but with a dimension of tenderness he can’t quite emulate. The earlier lightheaded feeling returns but he just craves more and more, like he hasn’t eaten in weeks and her mouth offers his only sustenance.
His chest throbs with how hard his hearts are beating against his ribs, his blood flows white-hot in his veins, and the rigid pressure just beneath where Rose is sitting only hardens more with the passing minutes. He had always imagined he would close his eyes the first time he kissed her, anyway. And he’d love to be hearing the noises he knows she’s making when she breaks the kiss for air, but they’re not strictly a necessity. A proper kiss requires narrowing the senses, a tactile focus. To touch and feel above all else. Right now, those things happen to be all he can do, but he needs them.
He’s always needed Rose, since the day he met her. Needed her words of encouragement and the hope in her eyes and the joy in her smile. But all that has been taken from him, all the ways she can mend him and make him better in a strictly platonic context. He always thought eventually he’d muster the courage to cross the line from friendly to amorous, at some undefined, blurry point in the future. A push in the right direction is all he needed, for someone to remind him that she’s all he’ll ever want. The quiet darkness of his mind is screaming it now, that they’ve always been headed for this and it shouldn’t matter how they have finally arrived.
He needs to feel alive, to shake this awful feeling that he’s powerless and useless in this state, to find security in her arms and purpose in giving her pleasure.
If he can’t make love to her now, he’d rather get more of the anesthetic.
He fumbles with her shirt until she stays his hands so she can pull it over her head herself, and only with the pause from the heated kiss does he realize he’s panting, hard. He hopes it isn’t noisy.
His hands leave no inch of the newly exposed skin untouched, mapping the contours and committing the textures to memory, the sensitive skin at the waistline of her trousers, the curve of her waist, and the smooth expanse of her stomach. Her bra falls onto his arms but he takes his time, mentally painting the beauty beneath his touch with her skin color. When the lush weight of her breasts finally fills his hands he rocks his hips up, desperate for friction but hitting the wrong angle. All the times he’s caught himself staring at her chest replay in his mind, now that the soft mounds of flesh are under his palms and, guh, he can almost see them, rosy nipples resting on rounded pillows of fair skin.
His mouth supplants his left hand, smearing slow, wet circles with his tongue before pulling the flesh between lips and teeth with delicate suction, teasing her nipple with the tip of his tongue. She jerks forward and squirms, and the new constant level of friction this provides makes him never want to stop. Grabbing his head in her hands, she holds his face against her breast while her fingers comb and pull on his hair, and he considers the possibility he never will.
Rose’s wriggling escalates back to steady grinding against him, and he doesn’t let it go on for long before he finally pull his mouth away. He doesn’t want her to just use him to get herself off, he wants to actively, intimately make her come.
“Bed?” he says aloud, still cursing the fact he can’t tell if he’s whispering or yelling.
A sense of isolation returns instantly when she pushes off him and stands, faster than he would have expected. But she takes both his hands in hers and it disappears as quickly as it came as she helps him get to his feet.
Their hands get to work at zippers and buttons, and her knickers are on the floor someplace with his boxers in just a few seconds. She leads him to the bed slowly, walking backwards so he can walk forwards, minimizing his discomfort. Rose, always so considerate.
He sits on the edge and she nudges him down with a hand on his chest before climbing on top of him. As soon as his back hits the sheets her mouth descends on his, a kiss as passionate as it is delicate and he melts under her, until his continued existence hinges solely on her touch. Her knees and arms are on either side of his body so he can’t feel most of her, her smooth stomach over his or the weight of her breasts on his chest.
The moment he tries to pull her down, though, she retreats, swiping her tongue over his bottom lip and pulling back on it as she separates their mouths, and she’s bloody brilliant because he can hear the sound it makes, the messy smack as she releases him, even though he can’t hear it. Intuitive. Genius.
She sets out to explore his body. Lips and tongue tending to his neck and shoulders while fingers swirl patterns over his collarbone and sternum, and it’s so good, it’s all so good. When she flattens her palm against his chest so she can nip and lick and suck under his jawline, beneath his ear, in the hollow of his throat. When she bites and pulls too hard and he feels the tiny blood vessels breaking but even then it shoots pleasure throughout his body. Hers isn’t the only bruise on his body today, but it’s the only one he’ll wear proudly, a memoir of all the ways she’s saved him.
His hips are lifting off the bed before long, searching for her.
“Please,” he begs. “Need you.”
He can’t remember ever exposing himself so much, putting himself in such a vulnerable position. But he trusts her implicitly, with every fiber of his being, that she won’t abuse the power he’s giving her.
Her ministrations on his torso cease as she repositions, little dips in the mattress wherever her knees or hands land telling him where she is. Some very warm fingers wrap around his erection and then she’s there, completely sheathing him in slippery warmth and hugging so tight… A noise of relief comes from deep in his lungs but he has no clue what it comes out sounding like.
Time passes to the rhythm of her unhurried, deliberate thrusts, the way she rises and falls on his length supplanting his instinctual time sense entirely. His hands reach around to support her bum in both hands, helping steady her so he can rock his hips up, burying himself deeper inside her with every tick of their joint chronometer. He’s not worthy of it, of experiencing this level of intimacy with Rose Tyler. But she thinks he is, and she’s so… ah… hot when she squeezes him, driving down and tugging up with the undulations of her hips. He imagines he can see the sensual dance, her lips parted and eyes closed, head thrown back with pleasure, breasts bouncing lightly as she moves faster and faster over him, following the tempo he sets with his hands and the jerks of his hips.
But he really shouldn’t have, because he’s so close now, that familiar pulling sensation in his groin trying to bring him under. He almost wishes it hadn’t happened this way, because he wants so badly to reconnect their minds for this and share the heavenly bliss, to dive even deeper into her mind and get her permission to form a permanent bond. Just the thought of the telepathic union makes him insane with desire, because he can feel and he can touch but he needs to hold her, for a physical closeness to fill the void where he needs an emotional one.
He lets go of her bum so he can push off with his arms and wrestle them into a sitting position, before returning his hands to where they were and feeling hers grip onto his shoulders for balance. Her breasts rub against his chest as she speeds up again, breathing heavily against his cheek while he bites down on the crook of her neck and does what he can to stave off the inevitable.
But then she whispers in his ear, two hot puffs of air that he can’t hear but that he knows can’t be anything but his name, hurling him over the edge and he comes, hard, spilling two years of sexual repression inside of her. And he must be loud because she pulls back and grabs his face with unexpected urgency, covering his lips and swallowing down his cries as he ekes out a few more lazy thrusts.
He kisses her properly once he resurfaces, slow and sensual, her cheeks secure in his hands. Only hopes she can feel the peace and gratitude emanating from his lips.
But of course, he doesn’t linger, because they still have one big problem.
“You didn’t finish?” he whispers. He’s fairly sure he whispers.
She’s still for a long moment, and he’s about to ask again but she shakes her head, subtle, like part of her doesn’t want him to know.
Does she not want to burden him with the task? No, this simply won’t do.
One hand travels down her body, slow but deliberate until he can dip two fingers between her folds, letting them saturate with the slick wetness. They only linger a brief moment before he brings them back to his face and slips them into his mouth, being sure to groan aloud as he tastes her, tangy and savory with just a hint of flowery sweetness, making a spectacle of sucking on his fingers.
She pulls his hand out of the way so she can kiss him, a tongue-in-his-mouth, hot and desperate sort of kiss as she rocks against his hips in search of some friction. It’s a little unpleasant, because he’s still quite deflated inside her and his lower abdomen and jaw are a bit sore, tender to the rougher touches. He tries to maintain a degree of gentleness but has to pry her away from his mouth so he can lean back. Once he’s settled comfortably on whatever cushioned blanket is under them, he splays his fingers on the small of her back and pulls her forward. He isn’t successful on his own, unsurprisingly, but his intentions must come across very clear, because he slips out of her at last as she crawls up his body with her hands.
Some shuffling and maneuvering interrupts the mood a little but she’s finally positioned above his shoulders, her sultry heat radiating just inches above his face. Running the backs of his hands along the insides of her thighs, he maps out the space and she sinks lower until short curls are brushing against his nose. Calling on old Tetris skills, he works his hand between her legs, tracing her slit with one finger before spreading open the plump lips. He breathes her in, the humid air so thick and heated with arousal he could almost comes again, maybe he would, if he wasn’t a Time Lord.
He dips his tongue between her folds, moaning as the taste explodes in his mouth, warm and concentrated and now in never-ending supply. Zeroing in on her clit, he laps up the flavor greedily, shallow strokes of his tongue against the tiny sensitive bud making her thighs tremble around his ears.
He drinks the flowing nectar like a healing elixir, plundering into her entrance to collect from the source, and when he tastes a little of himself infused with her feminine essence he’s consumed with an unfamiliar surge of male pride. Her walls tighten around him as he thrusts his tongue in and out, and he tries to imagine what a sight they must be now, her legs spread over his face while he devours her. Remembering his ultimate goal, he draws back, tending to her swelling clit with singular focus, broad sweeping rings with the flat of his tongue and pinpointed flicks of the tip in a merciless pattern.
He knows she’s close when she starts rocking against him, rubbing herself against his mouth while his tongue tries to keep up. He wishes he could hear her. He hopes she’s screaming. Or saying his name. Or both. His teeth sink in just a little, latching on and sucking while his tongue twirls and dances over her clit, and she finally snaps. Muscles clench under his hands on her bum and her whole body quakes and shivers through the lighter and slower strokes of his tongue extending the pleasure.
He knows now he’s not completely useless, but he mostly lies still and fairly helpless while she disentangles them, gingerly extricating herself from around his head and rolling away. He reaches over to re-establish some contact, but his arm only lands on an empty blanket. Panic floods through him instantly, fear that he’s done something wrong by giving her this type of attention and he calls out to her, volume be damned.
Her hand covers over one of his from the other side of the bed, and he turns around frantically in search of the rest of her body. She climbs up next to him and wipes a warm, damp but familiar fabric that smells a lot like Rose’s skin over his neck, then his chin and around his mouth. Her shirt. She must have poured some hot water on it – is there a loo connected to this bedroom? He must have looked a right mess, strange that he didn’t notice. One-track mind, he supposes. She must have cleaned herself up, too. He feels a bit of sheepish regret that he couldn’t provide some measure of protection.
She squeezes his hand once she finds him presentable enough, a firm reassurance before letting go again and stepping off the bed. It takes everything in him not to panic again, and he hates this feeling, having no knowledge whatsoever of what’s happening around him unless it’s on his body. He waits impatiently, like a dog trapped inside its house when its owners have gone out, no grasp of what exists beyond the front door, at a loss for what to do until they finally return home.
It seems like an eternity before he feels the bed sink with her weight again and he tries not to make a show of it, to act like he hasn’t missed her desperately in the probably three or four minutes she’s been gone. A plastic ring presses against his mouth, and his hand flies up to identify the object. Bottle. She takes her hand away as his takes over and he guzzles the contents down, the water a cool, cascading remedy for a thirst he hadn’t realized was this bad until now.
When the bottle is empty, she takes it from him, placing a soft bread thing in his hand instead, and he holds it up to his nose. Bread. Peanut butter. Strawberry jam. He scarfs it down, using his respiratory bypass rather than breathing. He can sense they hit him with amnesia, but he doesn’t know how much time he’s forgotten, or how long it’s been since he’s eaten. It feels like days.
She pushes him back against the pillow once he’s done, curling up next to him and, much to his chagrin, she’s wearing something now, a rather unacceptable layer over her skin. He’s about to do something about it, figure out what it is and try to remove it, but she takes one of his hands in hers, her palm facedown over the back of his hand. Sliding them both between two silky layers of cloth – a robe, he realizes – she presses his hand between her breasts, firm enough that he can feel her heartbeat. (It’s still rather fast.) His hand twitches to shift a little and give them some attention, thinking it’s what she wants. But she pulls his hand away and leads it back to his own chest, pressing his palm in the center of his chest with the same firm pressure until he can feel his own hearts beating.
And then he understands.
He can’t say it back right now. The words are too sacred to be defiled by his shouting, slurring tone-deaf mouth. But he kisses her again, slow and tender and a little strawberry jam, and hopes it’s enough to show her he reciprocates. That this hasn’t been a one-night stand born of nothing but fear and vulnerability. They’ll return soon, his lost vision and hearing, and he’ll tell her.
But for now all he can do is kiss her, care for her with every brush of his lips, until he’s too tired to move.
He dreams, wrapped around her, of the sunshine in her smile and the hope in her laughter, and counts the seconds until he can experience them again.
---
He’s leaning against the bathroom counter, clad in nothing but the white towel around his waist, combing his fingers through his damp hair with meticulous care. The corners of the mirror are still fogged up with steam, so he can’t have been out long. She nudges the door open further.
“Gooooood morning,” he announces brightly, meeting her eyes in the mirror with a wide grin, but doesn’t turn around just yet, still working on making his hair perfect. “Ready for another day at the Olympics, sleepyhead?” She can’t return his carefree enthusiasm. Nightmares and troubled thoughts kept her up most of the night.
“Doctor, do you really want this?” she asks, without preamble.
“Want what?” he asks, his forehead scrunching up in confusion but most of his attention still on his hair.
“Us. You and me. The first time we… a few weeks back, when you…” She can’t find the right word or euphemism for it to use, so she settles on staying ambiguous. “Do you wish we hadn’t?”
He abandons the task of his hair and turns around, stepping towards her and taking her face in his sticky hands.
“Why do you think that?” he almost demands, his tone grave.
“I think maybe you were just… scared. And you needed something that you don’t normally, to cope with it. An’ maybe now you’re just tryin’ not to hurt my feelings.” The floodgates have opened and every doubt she’s had since he woke up with his senses back are pouring out. But he still hasn’t said he loves her, even though she made her feelings quite clear with her little gesture reminiscent of sign language. One she regrets more days than she’d like to.
He’s upset, clearly. His eyes close and he breathes in and out heavily while he processes her words.
“Rose, can I… please?” he huffs out, a pair of fingers on each of her temples now.
She barely nods before he barges in, infiltrating her mind with jets rather than soft wisps of steam. His memories of that night overwhelm her, though they’re dark and silent, she can feel how terrified he is of letting her go, and how desperately he needs touch to feel alive. Her hands, her lips, her body against his: they resuscitate him from the half-consciousness he was suffocating in. But it’s not just about the circumstances, about the impairment or the fear. It’s that he trusts and cares for her, and he needs her even when, no, especially when he’s trapped in a noiseless void inside his mind. He suddenly needs a new way to express his emotions, but they haven’t changed. There isn’t a word associated with the sentiment, but it’s unmistakable to her, as his hands roam over her body and he kisses and pleasures her: love.
The specific recollection shrinks as the rest of his mind expands, a network of memories and stored emotions from months before and weeks after the unlucky (and also lucky) trip sprawling through their connection. The notion seems so ridiculous now, that she even felt the need to ask him, because even though he hasn’t said it and may never say it, his affection for her is so strong and runs so deep it’s carved permanently into his existence, independent of time itself: it ripples back through previous regenerations and launches into future ones. The sensation of experiencing time outside the present is so strange and foreign and intense that it burns and aches deep in her head and she has to plead for him to stop from within their link.
His hands drop to his sides immediately and the pain vanishes with his thoughts. Overwhelmed by it all, she can’t speak, so she shoves him back against the marble counter and kisses him, hard. He kisses her back, but slows her down, the sensitive human side of him shining through as he savors the moment.
They manage to stumble back to bed, his towel and her loose pajamas thrown to the floor on the way, and he climbs on top of her, rock hard against the inside of her thigh. He kisses her for several minutes more, grinding languidly against her, until she can feel him pushing against her mind, knocking and ringing the buzzer and shouting to let him in, even though his hands are nowhere near her head.
“Rose…” he pants. “Let me… I want you… all of you… please… take… all of me.” He braces his right arm on his elbow so he can rest his fingers against her temple, waiting for her to say the word.
“Yes.”
Well, they don’t make it to the games. But they leave their bed a couple of hours later in search of nourishment with fuzzy, tingly warmth between their ears, a fledgling bond blossoming to life.