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fannishlissHeart’s Ease, or, Love in Idleness
4072 words
Ten/Rose
Explicit
Warnings: somnophilia, non-consensual (Rose is asleep)
Genre: sex pollen, sex or die (my two favorites!), PWP, happy endings!
Gift for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
develish1, who wanted a story inspired by a beautiful fanart where Rose is asleep and the Doctor kisses her awake. This is my crazy, angsty, hard-core response. :)
Epigraph/Literary justification:
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness. …
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees. —A Midsummer Night’s Dream, II.i.165-172
... um, I think I just demonstrated that William Shakespeare originated sex pollen??
He admitted to himself, with shame, that Rose was stunningly beautiful like this, more beautiful than he had ever really allowed himself to acknowledge. Her lashes lay thick and dark upon her pale skin; a blossoming blush colored her cheeks; her plump red lips were slightly parted. Her hair, though artificially bright, was glossy and invited his touch as it lay fanned out across the pillow. Her chest rose and fell slowly; otherwise, she lay motionless on her back in the quiet bower.
The Doctor felt an urge tingling in his fingers to reach out and touch her. The cool palms of his hands longed to scorch themselves upon her skin. How had he let this happen? How could he have been so very, very stupid? Why could he think of no other way to get out of this, than the way that led through this dark night, the air sweet with the scent of flowers, stirring in the perfect night breeze?
Despite the Doctor’s angry glares, there had been a certain amount of cheerful partying amongst the villagers. To them, this was the very opposite of disaster. To them, Rose’s misfortune was a kiss from the holiest and most powerful of their gods. To them, her lifelong happiness was now assured. What greater reason could they have for celebration? Their eyes had darted from the Doctor’s angry visage in confusion and puzzled dismay. Surely he could only want the best for his companion? Surely, no one could ask any more from this life than the god’s most powerful blessing?
The Doctor felt his helpless rage surge anew as he remembered, emerging from the forest carrying Rose in his arms, how the women had noticed their predicament and given little cheers, clapping their hands in joy, how the men had whistled low and nodded at him with knowing smiles.
There was no cure. Why would there be a cure to such great good fortune?
Even the Tardis, with her advanced medbay, could do nothing. The little flower in its innocent exhalation had triggered a complex chemical reaction, working in concert with the native atmosphere and certain rare compounds in the water that were no danger in themselves — quite the contrary, the human population on this planet enjoyed long lives and robust health, one of the main reasons the Doctor had brought Rose here for a little innocent rest and relaxation.
The plant gave forth no toxin. It was not even a drug. It seemed to the Doctor, who bridled against such things, that it was nothing short of magic.
“You are her one true love,” one of the village wise women had tried to explain to him.
The Doctor had cringed. “Don’t speak of things you don’t understand,” he had growled through gritted teeth. “Just tell me how to wake her.”
“I am telling you,” she had laughed gently. “This is no sickness. The god grants heart’s ease only to those who are truly destined to be together forever. When you join with her, she will awaken.”
“There must be another way!” the Doctor shouted. Truly, he was at the end of his rope. Rose had been asleep for ten days, sheltered in the sacred village bower. They had of course allowed him to try to treat her in the Tardis — they couldn’t have stopped him — but away from the native air, she quickly grew pale, only recovering her glow when he returned her to the bower. The very breezes and morning fogs were feeding her. She never stirred except for soft, regular breaths, a delicate smile on her warm red lips.
They called to him, those lips… they always had, from the very first time he’d laid eyes on her. Young, cheeky, brave, quick, kind, fiery, strong— she was simply everything — everything except Gallifreyan. How could he allow himself to fall in love with her — a mayfly human? The loss of his people had addled him. He had latched on to her like a fool — no better than Ricky the idiot wrapping himself around her legs. And now — what would become of him? Unless he gave in, she would be trapped like this forever. Was he supposed to just run away? Go back to Jackie and tell her that Rose was gone, that there was nothing he could do? Throw himself across the void to find her old mate Mickey and beg for his help? Go searching across the aeons for their abandoned Jack? He couldn’t leave her like this, alone, vulnerable. He knew that accidents sometimes happened even on this paradise planet, slumbering beauties whose lovers never came for them, doomed to bloom like hothouse flowers, vacantly receiving the attentions of the lovelorn like temple heterai until they faded at last, their sleep deepening, stilling into death.
There was something he could do — something he had sworn he would never, ever do. Something that despite his many well-beloved companions, he had always steadfastly resisted. Something that was now required of him for nothing less than Rose’s very survival. Something that in all likelihood would in the end destroy him utterly.
He must make love to Rose, utterly and completely giving himself to her, holding nothing back. Then and only then would she awaken.
The villagers treasured this as their most sacred ritual. Young lovers went seeking through the woods every spring for this rare, magickal flower. No one with a fleeting infatuation ever found it, although sometimes, a lover would awaken in the arms of someone unexpected, stricken by the deep heart’s joy that love had blossomed in a place most unexpected. Such unions were beyond reproach, and were always strong and happy. The wisest women of the village had tried to assure the Doctor of all of this. Several couples had come forward, testifying and promising to him that he had nothing to fear. Fools, all of them, he could have snarled as they walked away, hand in hand. It wasn’t that he didn’t love Rose; it was that he feared what he’d become if he gave himself fully to her, and lost her, as he inevitably would.
Was their little god — a simple plant growing wild but rare in a provincial wood of an obscure back world — able to put to rights a Time Lord unmated, mad with grief at the loss of his bondmate? Rassilon had put an end to such things, and rightly so.
He’d spent ten long days, ten sleepless nights, going through it all. There was nothing left to try. No more running away.
There was Rose, asleep on a dais, in a simple white gown, surrounded by flowers. The villagers kept the bower bedecked with all varieties of fresh spring blooms, no matter how much the Doctor scowled. There was the welcoming smile, soft on her lips. He could almost feel her calling to him. He resisted with everything he had, at war with his stifled longing to give way. There was no more he could do. He had to give up, give in. Touch.
His right hand lifted, almost without his conscious thought. Was this what it would be like, his rampaging brain dulled by a conglomerate of animal instincts? For the past several hours, he had stood like a statue in a tight-fitting suit and trainers, staring through black-rimmed glasses, scowling at the woman he very well loved, immobilized by terror and postulated regrets. Now he’d moved, he was on a collision course, no pulling back, no more daredevil stunts up his sleeve or held inside his tightly buttoned jacket. Just the thin white gauze of her gown, and beneath it, the soft searing heat of her belly, her sides, her thighs, her breasts.
His hand, on its own, made contact. There, on the dais, was Rose, sublime in her beauty, vulnerable, unaware. There was no consent here. She had touched a flower in the forest. Now she was under its spell, and when she woke up, she’d be the bondmate of a Time Lord. How would that even work? How would she not hate him for everything he was about to do — to her body, to her mind, to the very core of who she was, and every potential of who she might have gone on to become?
All that she was had arrived to one pinpoint of Time, suspended, when she had bent down to study a pretty little flower, sunk into its miasma, and crumpled into a heap on a bed of green moss, pink track suit and shining hair glowing in a pool of golden sunlight.
Now here she lay, a Time Lord touching her body through a thin veil of cloth. The florid bower embroidered the scene with an unearned air of purity the Doctor knew he did not deserve. He remembered across his lives, the humans he’d loved — Jamie’s warm arm and big hands, protecting his young and naive Time Lord as only a devoted Highland lad could; Jo, whose sweet lips had pressed impulsively against his cheek; Sarah, for whom he’d swathed himself in layers and layers to protect (himself from) the depth of their friendship; sad, strident, survivor Peri, whom he’d failed again and again. The Doctor had loved them all as well as he could, and his many failures stung him even now. Would Rose fare any better?
There was no more time for contemplation. Her belly lay hot and calm under his hand. Aching, he pulled it back, took off his glasses, and tucked them away in his jacket, shrugging it off. He undid his tie, rolling it slowly into a tidy coil. He undid the cuffs of his pale blue shirt, and frowned again at the hair of his forearms. It had come to this, giving himself over to animal impulses the Gallifreyan race had eschewed for millennia. Now, he was alone, he had been learning to endure, but this temptation was too powerful to resist — to bond, at last, with a mate, to hear her thoughts ringing out clear in his hollow, emptied mind — to feel the warmth of her always inside him, until she was no more, and he would swiftly follow.
He lay both hands upon her sides, just above her hips. He imagined how lovely this would be if they were dancing, the way her hands would lightly land on his shoulders, her carefree laughter as he effortlessly swung her into the air. She lay still under his touch, hot, lightly breathing, her slight smile enigmatic.
Impulsively he leaned forward, and simply lay his forehead against hers, bracing himself for the shock of contact. It did not come.
Horribly, for a long moment, he teetered there, as on the edge of a void, as though he could see her vanishing into the distance. The flower’s spell, whatever it was, held her in some kind of stasis. There would be no absolution until he had given himself to her. Nothing but his complete surrender would suffice.
Her forehead was human warm, thirty-seven degrees. He pressed forward, just a little, feeling for her consciousness. It was not there. She was not dreaming. There was a hint of presence — it wasn’t like she was dead, at least — but it was like the moment before an orchestra starts to play, just after the conductor raises his baton: an expectant hush, some longed-for brilliance held in abeyance. He felt himself falling into her, yearning for her, needing her to rise up in greeting from somewhere deep inside herself. He felt, at last, some inkling he was doing the right thing, that she would not reject him in horror, that he was in fact her one true love (whatever that meant), and that he was justified in taking the chance to save her from this terrible dormition.
In the past week, the wise woman Diura had given him advice, though he hadn’t wanted to heed it.
“Make of it a lovers’ game,” she said with a smile. “Kiss her as though she is just pretending. She will remember these things in later times, they will come to her in dreams, sweet and tender. You can do nothing that she will not welcome. She is yours to claim. She loves you with a mighty love, and wants you, all of you, more than you can yet comprehend.”
“Yet?” he’d questioned.
Diura had smiled at him knowingly. “There is an ancient saying: Love conquers all. Once you feel it, you will be astonished that you ever thought to resist it.”
He seized on her phrase. “Has anyone ever resisted this?” he asked, eyes bright.
“No,” she said, her smile fading. “Not while they lived.”
It was hard to pretend that she was awake. Her lips were soft, but they did not kiss him back. He remembered how Cassandra had plundered his mouth wearing Rose’s luscious body. It had haunted his nightmares for months, the thought of kissing Rose but not Rose, and now, here he was, compelled to do that very thing.
How would he be able to go through with this? He couldn’t imagine it. Despairing, he’d told Diura to be more explicit.
“You must awaken her body first. Her mind and soul will follow. A poet described it like this:
“My body was shaken, high,
alive, empty, yearning, fluid, hot,
a song soaring into the sky,
gasping, drinking her breath like wine,
her love pounding inside my heart,
her kisses divine, body melded to mine…
All singleness done: we became one.” *
The Doctor thought desperately of the poem, the promise that if he awakened Rose’s body, her mind would follow. He told himself that it was okay, cajoled himself that she would understand.
He undid the ties of her gown and pulled the cloth aside till she was bared to him, naked.
To a Gallifreyan, anything less than three layers was unseemly. He remembered how he’d rattled Romana early on in their friendship when he undid the buttons of his shirt, even though he’d had a vest on underneath. Nudity was absolutely not on. The Master, with his penchant for high collars and thick leather gloves, was utterly run of the mill in that regard.
But he could not spare a thought for his old rival at a moment like this. He’d begged Diura to keep the villagers away, explaining that he and Rose both came from cultures that did not celebrate public lovemaking. (He didn’t let on that his people had banned lovemaking outright.) She obviously thought his request was bizarre, but promised to do her best. So he told himself that no one was watching, and touched Rose’s breast.
Her breathing, soft and gentle, moved under his hand, and reminded him that she was alive, that she would soon be back with him.
He watched, as if from outside himself, as his hands lay against her breasts. Her skin, so pale, was in contrast with his sunburnt hands, the dark hair of his wrists. He stroked, gently, and watched in fascination as her nipples tightened and stood erect. He pinched them softly, and a shiver of pleasure rolled down his spine, the first hint of his sympathetic nervous system attuning itself to her own. It was proof that what he was doing was physically pleasurable to Rose. He knew it felt good, because he could feel the echo of her body’s pleasure in his own. He stroked her nipples again, and the pleasure intensified. Her breasts were fascinating — on the one hand, asthetically pleasing, round and full and exquisitely soft. But the nipples seemed to have a life of their own, hooked into her body’s erogenous network. His mind ran through it — the breasts were meant to feed young, so the nipples were responsive to suckling — but that sensitivity did double duty as a sexual response. It seemed a pleasant idea, to suck at Rose’s breast, to fill his senses that way with her scent and to taste her skin with this body’s inquisitive tongue — so before he thought better of it, he leaned down and took her nipple into his mouth, suckling it, rolling the nipple against his tongue.
Oh, oh, it was sweet! Rose had never nursed a baby, but her breast was designed to give milk, and that tantalizing hint of sweetness promised itself to the Doctor’s taste buds. He thought of milk, sweet human milk, flowing from Rose, and he suckled as though he could draw it forth, fondling her breasts as they filled with pleasure. He shifted from side to side, enjoying the simple act of it, his mouth on Rose’s nipples, his lips pursed around them, his tongue laving and working at them, even as his hands stroked her softness. His brain was hazed with the pleasure he was giving her, driving him on to awaken her body, to bring her back. The thrills that ran through his own nerves — the delight of his own tongue ravishing her nipples — that he tried to keep secondary.
A delicious scent filled his nostrils, a salty, musky scent, familiar to the Doctor— Rose’s arousal. Her body was reacting to the stimulation of his touch — success!— and with a shock, he realized that he knew that scent: he’d smelled it before in times when they’d been close, when she was happiest, when he'd embraced her in what he’d hoped was within the bounds of simple friendship. Here was proof that her body at least had yearned for him all along.
Reluctantly, he drew back from her breasts and regarded Rose’s body: a little more flushed than before, lips parted more widely now, her breathing stronger, a little bit deeper. Her legs had fallen apart slightly, and the Doctor could smell the warm odor of her body’s sexual response.
I have to, he told himself, and without questioning himself any further, he slipped one hand down and dipped a finger between her legs.
The electric jolt of pleasure hit him hard. Rose’s hips jumped, her thighs fell further apart. A deep breath sighed through her body. Her nipples stood deep pink, taut and glistening from his attentions. The hot fluid the poet had mentioned was flowing from between Rose’s legs, making her ready for him, smelling like all the temptations he’d spent a lifetime resisting. His hand, of its own accord, brought her flavor to his lips, and his tongue darted out to taste it. Even as his mind broke it down with a chemical analysis, his soul cried out for Rose, Rose, Rose — the smell of her readiness for him triggering something deep inside, and he felt the first stirrings of his own sexual response, that had lain dormant under the iron yoke of his will for his entire life.
Awaken her, he said to himself, and his lips and tongue, still tingling from the pleasure he’d had at her breasts, feasted upon her sex — her miraculous, glorious sex, just as good as the poet had promised, as real and warm and human as his people could have dreaded. Her flavor exploded into the Doctor’s brain, and as he licked her sensitive, swollen clitoris the waves of her pleasure battered his body like breakers at the beach.
Still there was no sense that her mind was awakening, but something inside Rose, something like the very core of her, began to hum low against his mind. Something of her called to him, golden, elusive, non-verbal — like the Old High speech he vaguely remembered from the backtime — the undifferentiated thought of his ancestors, strong and clear and free of words.
More, Rose hummed, from the deepest part of her being.
The Doctor gave her more.
Her slipped his fingers inside her, easy as a dream. So hot inside, so much hotter than his cool, efficient fingers — so slick, pulsing against him, quivering with pleasure. He felt as if he were swimming in a warm, tropical ocean, the low humming of Rose’s body yearning for him, undulating against his mind like the tendrils of some vast coral.
He stroked inside her, slow, deep, feeling her bliss and working it higher. Her body was vibrating now, quivering all over as the orgasmic energy broke and washed up her spine, drenching his hand, washing him in wave after wave of pure passion. He was enthralled, lost deep inside the pleasure of her body, thrilling to the aftershocks as he took her further and further into ecstasy.
He had climbed up on the dais and was prone now, clothed between her naked legs, her thighs splayed apart, his whole face wet with her sex. He was drinking her, literally drinking the slick that poured out of her, licking deep into her with his eager tongue, wanting nothing more than to drown in the taste of her. There was no part of her that he did not want to devour, and everywhere he touched now seemed to ring with delight at his touch. There was no more astonishment in him at his daring when he slipped a finger, wet with her own slickness, into her arse, amazed at the way the gentle intrusion triggered another explosion of tension and release inside her, and she moaned, a low, purely sexual sound that brought the Doctor back to himself just enough for him to realize: she was ready for him, he was ready for her, and the moment was now.
He pulled himself back, kneeling, keening out loud from the moment’s separation, and he tore off his shirts, kicked off his trainers (he still had his trainers on! Did he really think this was the time, of all times, to be ready to run?), shucked his trousers and pants and lay back down upon Rose, skin to skin, hearts to heart. He lay his forehead against hers, calling, Rose, Rose.
And then, miraculously, he heard her answer, Doctor!
“Rose! Rose! Is this okay? Please say yes, please, please, please say yes!” he heard himself begging.
Yes! he heard, Rose’s mental signature clear and affirmative, and with her blissful response he fell apart.
Everything inside him that had been holding back dissolved in a swell of lust so primal and strong that he hurt his teeth grinding them, growling as he tried not to go too fast, thrusting home to be a part of her.
His joy was indescribable as he felt her hot little hands grab at his back, pulling him close, the low throb of MORE singing throughout her whole body as her sweet, sweet voice keened “more! more, Doctor!” out loud, into his ears.
His hips danced with hers to a rhythm he had never known til now, one their pounding hearts played against each other. Every pulse drove pleasure into every cell of their bodies until he couldn’t tell - no, not with his genius brain nor his superior Time Lord physiology-- where he ended and she began. They were one, one body, one mind, and as his thoughts dove into hers, washing him clean in her heartswell of love, one soul — one unified creature, basking in golden light, the blessing of Time and all the universe smiling down all around them.
He, who had always been alone, out of step, held apart, just a bit too unique for his old, stodgy people — the Doctor was alone no more. A loving, brave and brilliant soul had taken him in, made him her own. He could see their life together stretching out before him, years upon years, the golden light shining in her warm brown eyes, the twinkle of her teeth between her lush smiling lips.
He was no longer alone.
Panting, he lay his head upon her sweet, perfect breast, and just tried to take it all in: to feel her heart pounding in time with his own, and to know, for once, everything, everything was fine.
“Doctor,” she whispered, and then cleared her throat. “What took you so long!”
And he laughed at her exasperated face, and kissed her silly, and eventually they got up, and he helped her get dressed, and they staggered along down the main street to Diura’s house, where they laughed and laughed and smeared each other with the wedding cake she’d baked for them, and everybody toasted them and everybody cheered.
4072 words
Ten/Rose
Explicit
Warnings: somnophilia, non-consensual (Rose is asleep)
Genre: sex pollen, sex or die (my two favorites!), PWP, happy endings!
Gift for
develish1, who wanted a story inspired by a beautiful fanart where Rose is asleep and the Doctor kisses her awake. This is my crazy, angsty, hard-core response. :)Epigraph/Literary justification:
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness. …
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees. —A Midsummer Night’s Dream, II.i.165-172
... um, I think I just demonstrated that William Shakespeare originated sex pollen??
He admitted to himself, with shame, that Rose was stunningly beautiful like this, more beautiful than he had ever really allowed himself to acknowledge. Her lashes lay thick and dark upon her pale skin; a blossoming blush colored her cheeks; her plump red lips were slightly parted. Her hair, though artificially bright, was glossy and invited his touch as it lay fanned out across the pillow. Her chest rose and fell slowly; otherwise, she lay motionless on her back in the quiet bower.
The Doctor felt an urge tingling in his fingers to reach out and touch her. The cool palms of his hands longed to scorch themselves upon her skin. How had he let this happen? How could he have been so very, very stupid? Why could he think of no other way to get out of this, than the way that led through this dark night, the air sweet with the scent of flowers, stirring in the perfect night breeze?
Despite the Doctor’s angry glares, there had been a certain amount of cheerful partying amongst the villagers. To them, this was the very opposite of disaster. To them, Rose’s misfortune was a kiss from the holiest and most powerful of their gods. To them, her lifelong happiness was now assured. What greater reason could they have for celebration? Their eyes had darted from the Doctor’s angry visage in confusion and puzzled dismay. Surely he could only want the best for his companion? Surely, no one could ask any more from this life than the god’s most powerful blessing?
The Doctor felt his helpless rage surge anew as he remembered, emerging from the forest carrying Rose in his arms, how the women had noticed their predicament and given little cheers, clapping their hands in joy, how the men had whistled low and nodded at him with knowing smiles.
There was no cure. Why would there be a cure to such great good fortune?
Even the Tardis, with her advanced medbay, could do nothing. The little flower in its innocent exhalation had triggered a complex chemical reaction, working in concert with the native atmosphere and certain rare compounds in the water that were no danger in themselves — quite the contrary, the human population on this planet enjoyed long lives and robust health, one of the main reasons the Doctor had brought Rose here for a little innocent rest and relaxation.
The plant gave forth no toxin. It was not even a drug. It seemed to the Doctor, who bridled against such things, that it was nothing short of magic.
“You are her one true love,” one of the village wise women had tried to explain to him.
The Doctor had cringed. “Don’t speak of things you don’t understand,” he had growled through gritted teeth. “Just tell me how to wake her.”
“I am telling you,” she had laughed gently. “This is no sickness. The god grants heart’s ease only to those who are truly destined to be together forever. When you join with her, she will awaken.”
“There must be another way!” the Doctor shouted. Truly, he was at the end of his rope. Rose had been asleep for ten days, sheltered in the sacred village bower. They had of course allowed him to try to treat her in the Tardis — they couldn’t have stopped him — but away from the native air, she quickly grew pale, only recovering her glow when he returned her to the bower. The very breezes and morning fogs were feeding her. She never stirred except for soft, regular breaths, a delicate smile on her warm red lips.
They called to him, those lips… they always had, from the very first time he’d laid eyes on her. Young, cheeky, brave, quick, kind, fiery, strong— she was simply everything — everything except Gallifreyan. How could he allow himself to fall in love with her — a mayfly human? The loss of his people had addled him. He had latched on to her like a fool — no better than Ricky the idiot wrapping himself around her legs. And now — what would become of him? Unless he gave in, she would be trapped like this forever. Was he supposed to just run away? Go back to Jackie and tell her that Rose was gone, that there was nothing he could do? Throw himself across the void to find her old mate Mickey and beg for his help? Go searching across the aeons for their abandoned Jack? He couldn’t leave her like this, alone, vulnerable. He knew that accidents sometimes happened even on this paradise planet, slumbering beauties whose lovers never came for them, doomed to bloom like hothouse flowers, vacantly receiving the attentions of the lovelorn like temple heterai until they faded at last, their sleep deepening, stilling into death.
There was something he could do — something he had sworn he would never, ever do. Something that despite his many well-beloved companions, he had always steadfastly resisted. Something that was now required of him for nothing less than Rose’s very survival. Something that in all likelihood would in the end destroy him utterly.
He must make love to Rose, utterly and completely giving himself to her, holding nothing back. Then and only then would she awaken.
The villagers treasured this as their most sacred ritual. Young lovers went seeking through the woods every spring for this rare, magickal flower. No one with a fleeting infatuation ever found it, although sometimes, a lover would awaken in the arms of someone unexpected, stricken by the deep heart’s joy that love had blossomed in a place most unexpected. Such unions were beyond reproach, and were always strong and happy. The wisest women of the village had tried to assure the Doctor of all of this. Several couples had come forward, testifying and promising to him that he had nothing to fear. Fools, all of them, he could have snarled as they walked away, hand in hand. It wasn’t that he didn’t love Rose; it was that he feared what he’d become if he gave himself fully to her, and lost her, as he inevitably would.
Was their little god — a simple plant growing wild but rare in a provincial wood of an obscure back world — able to put to rights a Time Lord unmated, mad with grief at the loss of his bondmate? Rassilon had put an end to such things, and rightly so.
He’d spent ten long days, ten sleepless nights, going through it all. There was nothing left to try. No more running away.
There was Rose, asleep on a dais, in a simple white gown, surrounded by flowers. The villagers kept the bower bedecked with all varieties of fresh spring blooms, no matter how much the Doctor scowled. There was the welcoming smile, soft on her lips. He could almost feel her calling to him. He resisted with everything he had, at war with his stifled longing to give way. There was no more he could do. He had to give up, give in. Touch.
His right hand lifted, almost without his conscious thought. Was this what it would be like, his rampaging brain dulled by a conglomerate of animal instincts? For the past several hours, he had stood like a statue in a tight-fitting suit and trainers, staring through black-rimmed glasses, scowling at the woman he very well loved, immobilized by terror and postulated regrets. Now he’d moved, he was on a collision course, no pulling back, no more daredevil stunts up his sleeve or held inside his tightly buttoned jacket. Just the thin white gauze of her gown, and beneath it, the soft searing heat of her belly, her sides, her thighs, her breasts.
His hand, on its own, made contact. There, on the dais, was Rose, sublime in her beauty, vulnerable, unaware. There was no consent here. She had touched a flower in the forest. Now she was under its spell, and when she woke up, she’d be the bondmate of a Time Lord. How would that even work? How would she not hate him for everything he was about to do — to her body, to her mind, to the very core of who she was, and every potential of who she might have gone on to become?
All that she was had arrived to one pinpoint of Time, suspended, when she had bent down to study a pretty little flower, sunk into its miasma, and crumpled into a heap on a bed of green moss, pink track suit and shining hair glowing in a pool of golden sunlight.
Now here she lay, a Time Lord touching her body through a thin veil of cloth. The florid bower embroidered the scene with an unearned air of purity the Doctor knew he did not deserve. He remembered across his lives, the humans he’d loved — Jamie’s warm arm and big hands, protecting his young and naive Time Lord as only a devoted Highland lad could; Jo, whose sweet lips had pressed impulsively against his cheek; Sarah, for whom he’d swathed himself in layers and layers to protect (himself from) the depth of their friendship; sad, strident, survivor Peri, whom he’d failed again and again. The Doctor had loved them all as well as he could, and his many failures stung him even now. Would Rose fare any better?
There was no more time for contemplation. Her belly lay hot and calm under his hand. Aching, he pulled it back, took off his glasses, and tucked them away in his jacket, shrugging it off. He undid his tie, rolling it slowly into a tidy coil. He undid the cuffs of his pale blue shirt, and frowned again at the hair of his forearms. It had come to this, giving himself over to animal impulses the Gallifreyan race had eschewed for millennia. Now, he was alone, he had been learning to endure, but this temptation was too powerful to resist — to bond, at last, with a mate, to hear her thoughts ringing out clear in his hollow, emptied mind — to feel the warmth of her always inside him, until she was no more, and he would swiftly follow.
He lay both hands upon her sides, just above her hips. He imagined how lovely this would be if they were dancing, the way her hands would lightly land on his shoulders, her carefree laughter as he effortlessly swung her into the air. She lay still under his touch, hot, lightly breathing, her slight smile enigmatic.
Impulsively he leaned forward, and simply lay his forehead against hers, bracing himself for the shock of contact. It did not come.
Horribly, for a long moment, he teetered there, as on the edge of a void, as though he could see her vanishing into the distance. The flower’s spell, whatever it was, held her in some kind of stasis. There would be no absolution until he had given himself to her. Nothing but his complete surrender would suffice.
Her forehead was human warm, thirty-seven degrees. He pressed forward, just a little, feeling for her consciousness. It was not there. She was not dreaming. There was a hint of presence — it wasn’t like she was dead, at least — but it was like the moment before an orchestra starts to play, just after the conductor raises his baton: an expectant hush, some longed-for brilliance held in abeyance. He felt himself falling into her, yearning for her, needing her to rise up in greeting from somewhere deep inside herself. He felt, at last, some inkling he was doing the right thing, that she would not reject him in horror, that he was in fact her one true love (whatever that meant), and that he was justified in taking the chance to save her from this terrible dormition.
In the past week, the wise woman Diura had given him advice, though he hadn’t wanted to heed it.
“Make of it a lovers’ game,” she said with a smile. “Kiss her as though she is just pretending. She will remember these things in later times, they will come to her in dreams, sweet and tender. You can do nothing that she will not welcome. She is yours to claim. She loves you with a mighty love, and wants you, all of you, more than you can yet comprehend.”
“Yet?” he’d questioned.
Diura had smiled at him knowingly. “There is an ancient saying: Love conquers all. Once you feel it, you will be astonished that you ever thought to resist it.”
He seized on her phrase. “Has anyone ever resisted this?” he asked, eyes bright.
“No,” she said, her smile fading. “Not while they lived.”
It was hard to pretend that she was awake. Her lips were soft, but they did not kiss him back. He remembered how Cassandra had plundered his mouth wearing Rose’s luscious body. It had haunted his nightmares for months, the thought of kissing Rose but not Rose, and now, here he was, compelled to do that very thing.
How would he be able to go through with this? He couldn’t imagine it. Despairing, he’d told Diura to be more explicit.
“You must awaken her body first. Her mind and soul will follow. A poet described it like this:
“My body was shaken, high,
alive, empty, yearning, fluid, hot,
a song soaring into the sky,
gasping, drinking her breath like wine,
her love pounding inside my heart,
her kisses divine, body melded to mine…
All singleness done: we became one.” *
The Doctor thought desperately of the poem, the promise that if he awakened Rose’s body, her mind would follow. He told himself that it was okay, cajoled himself that she would understand.
He undid the ties of her gown and pulled the cloth aside till she was bared to him, naked.
To a Gallifreyan, anything less than three layers was unseemly. He remembered how he’d rattled Romana early on in their friendship when he undid the buttons of his shirt, even though he’d had a vest on underneath. Nudity was absolutely not on. The Master, with his penchant for high collars and thick leather gloves, was utterly run of the mill in that regard.
But he could not spare a thought for his old rival at a moment like this. He’d begged Diura to keep the villagers away, explaining that he and Rose both came from cultures that did not celebrate public lovemaking. (He didn’t let on that his people had banned lovemaking outright.) She obviously thought his request was bizarre, but promised to do her best. So he told himself that no one was watching, and touched Rose’s breast.
Her breathing, soft and gentle, moved under his hand, and reminded him that she was alive, that she would soon be back with him.
He watched, as if from outside himself, as his hands lay against her breasts. Her skin, so pale, was in contrast with his sunburnt hands, the dark hair of his wrists. He stroked, gently, and watched in fascination as her nipples tightened and stood erect. He pinched them softly, and a shiver of pleasure rolled down his spine, the first hint of his sympathetic nervous system attuning itself to her own. It was proof that what he was doing was physically pleasurable to Rose. He knew it felt good, because he could feel the echo of her body’s pleasure in his own. He stroked her nipples again, and the pleasure intensified. Her breasts were fascinating — on the one hand, asthetically pleasing, round and full and exquisitely soft. But the nipples seemed to have a life of their own, hooked into her body’s erogenous network. His mind ran through it — the breasts were meant to feed young, so the nipples were responsive to suckling — but that sensitivity did double duty as a sexual response. It seemed a pleasant idea, to suck at Rose’s breast, to fill his senses that way with her scent and to taste her skin with this body’s inquisitive tongue — so before he thought better of it, he leaned down and took her nipple into his mouth, suckling it, rolling the nipple against his tongue.
Oh, oh, it was sweet! Rose had never nursed a baby, but her breast was designed to give milk, and that tantalizing hint of sweetness promised itself to the Doctor’s taste buds. He thought of milk, sweet human milk, flowing from Rose, and he suckled as though he could draw it forth, fondling her breasts as they filled with pleasure. He shifted from side to side, enjoying the simple act of it, his mouth on Rose’s nipples, his lips pursed around them, his tongue laving and working at them, even as his hands stroked her softness. His brain was hazed with the pleasure he was giving her, driving him on to awaken her body, to bring her back. The thrills that ran through his own nerves — the delight of his own tongue ravishing her nipples — that he tried to keep secondary.
A delicious scent filled his nostrils, a salty, musky scent, familiar to the Doctor— Rose’s arousal. Her body was reacting to the stimulation of his touch — success!— and with a shock, he realized that he knew that scent: he’d smelled it before in times when they’d been close, when she was happiest, when he'd embraced her in what he’d hoped was within the bounds of simple friendship. Here was proof that her body at least had yearned for him all along.
Reluctantly, he drew back from her breasts and regarded Rose’s body: a little more flushed than before, lips parted more widely now, her breathing stronger, a little bit deeper. Her legs had fallen apart slightly, and the Doctor could smell the warm odor of her body’s sexual response.
I have to, he told himself, and without questioning himself any further, he slipped one hand down and dipped a finger between her legs.
The electric jolt of pleasure hit him hard. Rose’s hips jumped, her thighs fell further apart. A deep breath sighed through her body. Her nipples stood deep pink, taut and glistening from his attentions. The hot fluid the poet had mentioned was flowing from between Rose’s legs, making her ready for him, smelling like all the temptations he’d spent a lifetime resisting. His hand, of its own accord, brought her flavor to his lips, and his tongue darted out to taste it. Even as his mind broke it down with a chemical analysis, his soul cried out for Rose, Rose, Rose — the smell of her readiness for him triggering something deep inside, and he felt the first stirrings of his own sexual response, that had lain dormant under the iron yoke of his will for his entire life.
Awaken her, he said to himself, and his lips and tongue, still tingling from the pleasure he’d had at her breasts, feasted upon her sex — her miraculous, glorious sex, just as good as the poet had promised, as real and warm and human as his people could have dreaded. Her flavor exploded into the Doctor’s brain, and as he licked her sensitive, swollen clitoris the waves of her pleasure battered his body like breakers at the beach.
Still there was no sense that her mind was awakening, but something inside Rose, something like the very core of her, began to hum low against his mind. Something of her called to him, golden, elusive, non-verbal — like the Old High speech he vaguely remembered from the backtime — the undifferentiated thought of his ancestors, strong and clear and free of words.
More, Rose hummed, from the deepest part of her being.
The Doctor gave her more.
Her slipped his fingers inside her, easy as a dream. So hot inside, so much hotter than his cool, efficient fingers — so slick, pulsing against him, quivering with pleasure. He felt as if he were swimming in a warm, tropical ocean, the low humming of Rose’s body yearning for him, undulating against his mind like the tendrils of some vast coral.
He stroked inside her, slow, deep, feeling her bliss and working it higher. Her body was vibrating now, quivering all over as the orgasmic energy broke and washed up her spine, drenching his hand, washing him in wave after wave of pure passion. He was enthralled, lost deep inside the pleasure of her body, thrilling to the aftershocks as he took her further and further into ecstasy.
He had climbed up on the dais and was prone now, clothed between her naked legs, her thighs splayed apart, his whole face wet with her sex. He was drinking her, literally drinking the slick that poured out of her, licking deep into her with his eager tongue, wanting nothing more than to drown in the taste of her. There was no part of her that he did not want to devour, and everywhere he touched now seemed to ring with delight at his touch. There was no more astonishment in him at his daring when he slipped a finger, wet with her own slickness, into her arse, amazed at the way the gentle intrusion triggered another explosion of tension and release inside her, and she moaned, a low, purely sexual sound that brought the Doctor back to himself just enough for him to realize: she was ready for him, he was ready for her, and the moment was now.
He pulled himself back, kneeling, keening out loud from the moment’s separation, and he tore off his shirts, kicked off his trainers (he still had his trainers on! Did he really think this was the time, of all times, to be ready to run?), shucked his trousers and pants and lay back down upon Rose, skin to skin, hearts to heart. He lay his forehead against hers, calling, Rose, Rose.
And then, miraculously, he heard her answer, Doctor!
“Rose! Rose! Is this okay? Please say yes, please, please, please say yes!” he heard himself begging.
Yes! he heard, Rose’s mental signature clear and affirmative, and with her blissful response he fell apart.
Everything inside him that had been holding back dissolved in a swell of lust so primal and strong that he hurt his teeth grinding them, growling as he tried not to go too fast, thrusting home to be a part of her.
His joy was indescribable as he felt her hot little hands grab at his back, pulling him close, the low throb of MORE singing throughout her whole body as her sweet, sweet voice keened “more! more, Doctor!” out loud, into his ears.
His hips danced with hers to a rhythm he had never known til now, one their pounding hearts played against each other. Every pulse drove pleasure into every cell of their bodies until he couldn’t tell - no, not with his genius brain nor his superior Time Lord physiology-- where he ended and she began. They were one, one body, one mind, and as his thoughts dove into hers, washing him clean in her heartswell of love, one soul — one unified creature, basking in golden light, the blessing of Time and all the universe smiling down all around them.
He, who had always been alone, out of step, held apart, just a bit too unique for his old, stodgy people — the Doctor was alone no more. A loving, brave and brilliant soul had taken him in, made him her own. He could see their life together stretching out before him, years upon years, the golden light shining in her warm brown eyes, the twinkle of her teeth between her lush smiling lips.
He was no longer alone.
Panting, he lay his head upon her sweet, perfect breast, and just tried to take it all in: to feel her heart pounding in time with his own, and to know, for once, everything, everything was fine.
“Doctor,” she whispered, and then cleared her throat. “What took you so long!”
And he laughed at her exasperated face, and kissed her silly, and eventually they got up, and he helped her get dressed, and they staggered along down the main street to Diura’s house, where they laughed and laughed and smeared each other with the wedding cake she’d baked for them, and everybody toasted them and everybody cheered.
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 11:27 am (UTC)Just re-read it though, and I still think it's great, you made a tricky scenario believable, kept things in character, and still gave them a happy ending :)
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Date: 2014-01-06 02:38 am (UTC)I love how you describe his perceptions of what he is doing and how Rose's body feels to him. Your descriptions are so vivid... so vibrant that even if you describe the story as a PWP, it feels true to the Doctor.
There was a hint of presence — it wasn’t like she was dead, at least — but it was like the moment before an orchestra starts to play, just after the conductor raises his baton: an expectant hush, some longed-for brilliance held in abeyance.
I love that. Just love it.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 04:37 pm (UTC)did you notice I wrote "fogs" in there at the beginning? I kind of thought of you! :)
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Date: 2014-01-06 06:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 04:36 pm (UTC)You have a story coming too! Sorry I've been too busy to be timely!
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Date: 2014-01-06 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 07:22 pm (UTC)Between the two of them, The Doctor is so much more messed up and vulnerable than Rose at that time in his life -- and Rose only gets stronger. ... So it will be an interesting challenge for me to try to portray his vulnerability in this kind of situation, where Rose has to have the faith in him, that he has in her in this present story. Despite all of his hangups and fears, he trusts Rose to understand. Would she be able to trust him to understand, if it were flipped? One hopes so!
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Date: 2014-01-07 12:30 am (UTC)Very hot
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Date: 2014-01-07 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-08 01:41 pm (UTC)I like words, I just try to not go too much overboard. :)
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Date: 2014-01-08 01:45 pm (UTC)I do think Ten is very dark. Nine wears his darkness on the surface, but Ten's desperation is always just simmering there about to boil over.
I find him a little hard to write for that reason -- he keeps such a tight leash on himself -- so putting him in terrible situations seems to be the way to push him beyond his self-imposed breaking points to find a way to catharsis. :)
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Date: 2014-01-11 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-12 11:08 am (UTC)I was happy to start with angsty Ten and go through his emotional upheaval as he tries to figure out what he can and should do. It was scary writing non-con, but I trust Rose, and even though the Doctor is forced to act without her explicit consent, in the end she understands.
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Date: 2014-01-14 06:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-20 11:09 am (UTC)