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Aftermaths by Kaethel [Reviews - 5]  Author's Notes: Written for aibhinn’s Happy Prompts ficathon; the prompt I chose was morning, and this should’ve been finished ages ago, but lots happened, real life was a pain and well… here it is at last! Many thanks to Meijeen for letting me bounce ideas off her, for offering to read and commenting even though she’s no Doctor Who fan. Thanks also to my invaluable BRs, WMR and Gillian Taylor. This is for sc_angel72, because I told her months ago, the night Journey's End aired, that I would dedicate my next smutty fic to her, so here it is. Hope you like it! | |
A sharp noise I can’t identify wakes me, and I crack an eye open. My surroundings are unfamiliar. A stack of unidentified magazines is sliding off the bed and onto the floor, one by one. I wasn’t really sleeping after all. I’m lying on my back, a thin cotton sheet covering my unusually naked body. A masculine leg is brushing against mine. Jimmy.
Should I feel any different? It hurts a little, even now, but it’ll pass. Jimmy will ask for round two anyway, and it won’t hurt as much. I’ll probably enjoy it, too.
I’m on the other side of the fence now. Pride mingles with disappointment, and I’m not sure I like the feeling. I can’t shake it off, though, even hours after Jimmy stopped crushing me under his sweat-covered body.
I thought it was all going to be so wonderful, especially after Shareen’s overly detailed account of her own experience with Sam. Jimmy was more than enthusiastic about the idea. That’s how, a film and a greasy sandwich later, I found myself in his bedroom, in a dingy flat located in an area of London I’ve never been in, my clothes and his in a heap on the floor.
Mum thinks I’m at Shareen’s. Jimmy’s parents are out. We’re on our own.
“It’s not my first time,” he said when I confessed my lack of experience.
His self-confidence should’ve reassured me. Instead, it made me feel inadequate and a bit worried not to be able to please him. All in all, though, it didn’t go that badly. I liked it, I suppose, though it’s a far cry from the fireworks teen magazines rave about.
Jimmy’s arm is still stuck under my back. I shift a little, trying to get more comfortable while not waking him. I want to go home, but it’s almost five in the morning. I can hardly sneak back into the flat unnoticed, and pretending I had a fight with Shareen won’t fly. Mum would see right through me, and two cuppas later, I’d probably tell her everything. If that happened, I could kiss my sex life goodbye.
So I’m going to stay here, try and get some sleep, or maybe count the minutes until Jimmy wakes up. I’ll have a word with Shareen, though. Whatever she says, sex is far from being the eighth world wonder.
**********
I roll onto my back. The first lights of dawn send white patches onto the bedroom’s far wall. A dark hand is lying on my stomach, spreading warmth through my entire body. Mickey’s still holding me close, and I feel good. In fact, I feel better than I’ve felt in months. I let myself drift between sleep and wakefulness, enjoying this first morning at his side.
Naked and vulnerable. That’s how I always felt with Jimmy. That’s what I expected this morning, too, but there’s no regret, no emptiness, no inadequacy. Mickey was everything I didn’t expect him to be: tender, patient, looking out for my every reaction, responding to my needs.
He hasn’t told me he loves me. Those words don’t mean anything anyway. Jimmy said them so many times, and look where that got me. Mickey doesn’t need to say the words. His actions speak for him.
He kisses my lips softly, tearing me out of my musings.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” I reply, a bit embarrassed by the situation. I’ve never thought of Mickey this way. He’s my mate, the bloke who’s always there when I need him. He knows everything about me. I look at his fingers, tracing gentle circles on the skin of my thigh.
“Coffee?”
I nod, half-relieved, half-disappointed when he removes his hand and gets out of bed. He comes back a few minutes later, carrying two cups of steaming coffee and buttered toast on a plate. One slice only, because he didn’t have enough butter and jam for a second one, he says sheepishly when I ask him about it.
I smile, aware that I’ve probably been waiting for Mickey Smith all my life.
**********
Bright red numbers glare at me. Four thirty-six in the morning. He’s still lying beside me, here in my bed, here in my room on the TARDIS. I can’t see him, but his cooler body is pressed against my back and his arm is loosely wrapped around my waist.
He came to me for comfort last night. Wounds whose depth I hadn’t suspected reopened by the return of his worst enemy, he needed not to be alone. He held me, and I wrapped my arms around him, and then his lips were on mine, and one kiss escalated into a second, and a third, and before I knew it, we were both naked, fiddling and struggling and giggling because it wasn’t meant to be like that. It happened. It doesn’t mean anything.
Four thirty-seven.
He shifts beside me. I can’t help but tense.
A kiss is pressed to my shoulder. “Go back to sleep,” he says, then slides away from me.
I hear the soft rustle of his clothes as he’s getting dressed, then the door opens and closes behind him.
Gone.
Four thirty-eight.
He doesn’t need as much sleep as I do, though right now, sleep is as far from my mind as it can be. I can still feel his lips on my body, his hands, stroking, teasing, finding and giving me more pleasure than I’ve ever had. I wish he’d stayed. He’s probably gone to the console room to fix some rotor-related stuff that’s not even broken. I wish he’d held me for a bit longer. I wish he’d made love to me again.
I roll onto my stomach and grab the pillow where his head rested. It still smells of him, and the scent soothes me. It doesn’t mean anything. In fact, he might just ignore that anything happened when I see him again. It doesn’t mean anything… but it can’t be a one-time thing either, can it?
**********
It wasn’t a one-time thing. It wasn’t even a two-time thing. I’m facing him, my eyes wide open, his bright smile warming my insides. His arms are around me, holding me close, and my breasts are pressing against his clothed chest. A contented sigh escapes my lips.
I’m getting used to this. He comes to bed often enough for me to be disappointed when he doesn’t. When he does, though, he holds me, kisses me, makes love to me, then leaves me to sleep. Most mornings, like today, I open my eyes to find him lying next to me, fully dressed, and staring at me, a tender look on his face.
“We’ve landed,” he says, then his lips graze my cheek, and I have to strain to hear his next words. “We’re on a planet with no gravity.”
“Hmm.”
Eyes closed, I focus on the sensation of his thumbs running meaningless patterns at my waist. I wrap my leg around his, unrepressed need flooding through me and guiding my hand to the hardening bulge in his trousers.
“People float around.”
“Hmmm.”
I reach for the hem of his jumper and slide my hands underneath, seeking his skin, feeling the double pulse of his hearts under my fingers.
“Like birds.”
“Hmm.”
He lifts his arms and lets me tug his jumper over his head. Amusement dances in his blue eyes. I know hunger is in mine. I press my mouth to his chest. My lips close around a nipple, and I feel his whole body tense under my ministrations. His reaction is my reward.
“Usually you’re more enthusiastic about new places,” he complains, but I immediately detect the half-hearted nature of his protest.
“You’re too distracting,” I mumble against his skin.
His answer is lost in a gasp of pleasure. We both decide anti-gravity can wait a few more hours.
**********
The one time Mickey suggested we invited another partner into our bed, I shrieked and glared and threw a tantrum and refused to let him touch me for weeks.
It got worse when, out of curiosity, I asked him who he had in mind and he mentioned his mate Tod Jenkins, who’d had more women in his bed than Queen Elizabeth had hats in her wardrobe. When he asked if I’d feel any better doing it with Shareen, I kicked him out of his own flat and refused to answer his calls for an entire week.
Yet here I am right now, buck naked in my own bed, perched atop the Doctor’s body, him sheathed inside me while Jack, a look of pure concentration on his face, is fondling one of my breasts and murmuring soft words of encouragement. The whole situation feels entirely natural, as if being with both of them is exactly where I belong.
I should be exhausted. We kept each other up all night, Jack a starving man both for me and the Doctor, and the Doctor proving to be just as insatiable as the Captain. I should be exhausted, but I’m not. My hands drift down the Doctor’s chest, and I reach for Jack, half-looking for support as I lose my last bit of control.
Later, I lie still on my side, safe and warm between their masculine bodies. The Doctor’s lips are grazing the skin at the back of my neck. Jack’s kissing me, and I’m kissing him back, then his mouth leave mine to seek the Doctor’s. I slide from under their arms and watch the two men in my life embrace and kiss and join once more.
I’ve never thought I could be aroused by the sight of two men together, but the Doctor and Jack make it beautiful, passionate, and I know I’ll never get tired of watching them.
Jack reaches for my hand just as the Doctor enters him. I lie on my side, kissing him softly, my hand absently stroking the Doctor’s arm.
For as long as I started having relationships, I was dead certain I could only ever love one man at once. I even accused people who claimed otherwise to be liars, or delusional at best.
All along, I’ve been wrong.
I love the Doctor; I’ve known that for a while now. We met Jack a couple of weeks ago, but I’m already feeling much more than physical attraction for him. I could well be falling for him, yet my love for the Doctor hasn’t diminished.
And the most surprising thing of all is that it makes me happier than I’ve ever been before.
**********
Panting and sweating, I roll onto my back, fully aware of the hand still holding mine tightly. It’s all unfamiliar, the long fingers threaded through mine, the fair skin and thin body lying by my side, the disarrayed hair, the brown eyes staring at me. The grin eating up his face is probably wider than I’ve ever seen on him - the previous him.
I sit up to reach for the quilt that slid to the foot of the bed.
“Don’t tell me you’re tired.”
I turn around, taken aback by his relaxed expression. He’s lying on his back, his head resting against the headboard, arms crossed at his nape.
“That was just foreplay, Rose Tyler,” he adds, then grabs the hand that was holding the quilt and tugs me back onto him.
His body is bonier, less solid than it looked before. Yet underneath, he’s the same man, the Doctor who showed me the universe like no-one else ever could, the Doctor who made me feel special and worthy.
He kisses me, his tongue sliding along my lower lip, demanding access into my mouth, then denying me as soon as I grant him what he wants. Every touch, every kiss is a discovery, as if I’m making love to him for the first time. In a way, I am.
I knew it would happen, ever since I agreed to travel with him again two weeks ago, ever since I slid my hand into his and kissed my mum and Mickey goodbye. I knew it would happen, but it still feels new and unexpected.
Lovemaking with him is all about teasing and playing and giving and taking. He’s more demanding, too, encouraging me to take the lead in ways his pre-regeneration self didn’t. Maybe it’s because he’s more tactile on a general basis, hugging me and holding my hand every chance he gets. Maybe it’s because he feels he knows me better now.
It feels new to me. Making love to him feels different from my experience with his other self, but it’s not really like being with a whole new man either. He recognises my needs, knows what I want, like a long-time lover. I, on the other hand, have to memorise the different shape of his body, to discover the new feel of his lips, of his tongue, and his new obsession with my left earlobe.
“It’s new to me, too. These lips,” he says when I look up in surprise, “have never kissed you before.”
He trails them along my cheekbone, drops another kiss on my mouth, deepens it and retreats almost as fast.
“This tongue has never tasted you.”
Rolling me onto my back, he crushes me to the bed and dips his head to touch the tip of his tongue to the valley between my breasts. I bury my fingers in his hair and close my eyes, surprised not to see dark hair and blue eyes invade my mind as I do.
“These hands have never touched you.”
Eyes still closed, I feel his fingers trail down my sides and close over my bum. I look up to see him shifting between my legs and positioning himself at my entrance.
“I’ve never been inside you,” he whispers just as he pushes into me.
His words, devoid of any Northern intonation, drown in the pleasure that shoots through me. He stays still for a moment, his eyes boring into mine, their dark shade conveying all the desire we feel for each other.
I’m the first one to move, instinct taking over and making my hips buck under his. I want him, I need him more than ever. With excruciating slowness, he withdraws, then slides into me again, quickly picking up a rhythm and taking me along. My head falls back against the pillow. My mouth opens, forming his name, but the sound of my voice is lost in a moan that he kisses away.
I can hear him above me, murmuring words I can’t make out. He slows down just as the first tremors of orgasm throw me over the edge of control. I feel him tense, thrust into me once more, and he collapses onto me, his weight heavier than I expected.
With a satisfied sigh, he lies onto his back and holds me close, bringing our joined hands to his mouth to kiss mine softly.
This feels right. I was scared, terrified when he changed, when the dark, brooding man I’d fallen in love with disappeared in an explosion of light to be replaced by this new version of the Doctor, but this, lying here with his arms around me, my body still humming from our lovemaking, is where I want to be.
Releasing my hand, he touches a finger to my forehead. “I know what you’re thinking.”
I growl. “Can’t you turn off that telepathic field sometimes?”
“Not when we make love. Wouldn’t want to anyway. I can see every tiny desire you’ve got, even what you won’t ask me out loud,” he adds with a wink. “I wouldn’t miss that for the universe.”
Before I can reply, he lowers his head to the skin of my neck and, ever so slightly, slides his lips down my throat, his tongue dropping feather-like touches onto me, leaving just the hint of moisture on my skin. My hands grab the sheet first, then I fist my fingers into his hair and push his head down, accompanying his journey downwards and amazed that my new Doctor is even more insatiable than he used to be.
**********
“Knock-knock!”
I crack an eye open. “You didn’t knock,” I growl, then sit up, combing fingers through my hair in a vague attempt to tidy it.
The Doctor advances into the room, balancing a tray on one hand while closing the door with the other. He’s still wearing his shirt, the one item of clothing I didn’t take off him when he came to bed an hour earlier, waking me from the first restful night I’ve had in weeks.
“Breakfast in bed for Miss Tyler.”
He lays the tray onto my lap, then bounces onto the bed. With a shriek, I grab the two cups of tea before they splash all over the quilt.
“I thought you didn’t do domestic?”
He grabs both cups from my hands and pushes them to the nightstand. “It’s not domestic if it’s exceptional.”
“Three mornings in a row, though. The exception is wearing out.”
His fingers curl around my neck, and he lays his lips on mine. “Ask the TARDIS,” he mumbles against my mouth. “She’s the one who cooks breakfast every morning. I just add tea to the deal.”
My hands roam his chest under his shirt and close over his shoulders to slide the garment off his arms.
“And I need breakfast anyway,” he adds, his voice no louder than a whisper against my hair. “It’s not domestic if it’s a need.”
“Do you need me then?”
The words are out before I can think about them. I freeze, terrified he’ll shrink away from me. I know he has no time for human considerations on relationships. His set of values is different, he once explained to me. People make lifetime promises to each other, only to break them on first occasion. And I’ve seen first hand that talks of mortgages, carpets and doors are enough to send him running off to another galaxy.
He’s happy the way we are. We travel through space and time, run from more danger than I ever thought possible, flirt with death on a daily basis, shag like a couple of rabid teenagers to check that we’re still alive.
And I’m crazily in love with him.
He’s staring at me, a dumbfounded expression on his face. Is this where I backpedal to the safety of unspoken feelings, turning the whole thing into a joke and distracting him with what he likes best?
“S’pose I do,” he says with a slow nod before I can put my plan into action.
He doesn’t wait for a reply. I don’t have one anyway. But when he kisses me, there’s something different about him, about us. His touch is more tender, infused by a new gravity I didn’t expect from him. It should make me feel safer. Instead, I’ve never been more scared of losing him.
I hold onto him as he joins our bodies once more. Whatever storm is approaching can’t hit us.
**********
I wake up just as the first lights of dawn crack through the blinds. It takes me a moment to take in my surroundings. The familiarity of the pale blue tapestry and the sound of Gran’s old clock are conspicuously absent. A heavy arm is thrown over my body and encircling my waist under the bedspread. I’m still wearing the black dress I picked out for last night’s reception, but it’s riddled up to my waist. A warm breath is tickling the back of my neck.
“Go back to sleep.”
The words are whispered close to my ear, Mickey’s soothing voice easing a bit of the tension coiling in the pit of my stomach.
Slowly, last night’s events come back to me, like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. Dad’s fifty-fourth birthday party was his occasion to introduce his long-lost daughter to his friends and colleagues. To him, it had been about pride and joy. To me, it had been about lies, denial, and admittance that I was stuck here forever.
Last night, I missed the Doctor more than ever. Mickey was the only one who noticed that something about my smile was faked. He took me back to his place, held me while I cried, didn’t ask any question when I sought his lips and started tugging at his clothes.
I haven’t been with a man since the Doctor. I never talk about him, not since our last goodbye on Bad Wolf Bay. The subject has become taboo in the family, as if the Doctor’s name is forever banned from any conversation when I’m around. I’m no fool, though. Their hushed whispers speak louder than words.
Mickey’s different. He knows me, knows how I feel - felt about the Doctor. He knows it’s too soon to talk about it, even now that I’ve stopped hoping I can ever see him again.
I wipe at my eyes, angry that I let more tears fall down my face. It was a moment of weakness, a one-time thing that won’t happen again. It’s been so long, though, so long since he last held me in his arms. I’ve almost forgotten the feel of his fingers running on my skin, of his lips closing around my earlobe, of his tongue teasing me, finding erogenous zones I never even suspected existed. I’ve forgotten how it feels to have him come inside me and cry out my name in shameless ecstasy.
It won’t happen again. Not with Mickey. I know I have to move on, let him go and start dating again. It’s been months now, and if there was any chance he or I could cross the void, we’d have figured it out by now. The dimension cannon isn’t showing any sign of sending me across the void either.
It won’t happen.
**********
He’s in the kitchen, rummaging through more cupboards and drawers than I ever thought I had. I bury my head under the pillow and try to recapture the last shreds of a dream I’ve already forgotten.
It feels strange, having him here, watching him get settled in some sort of human life, teaching him how to use a vacuum cleaner and seeing him in different clothes every day. Carpets, doors and a mortgage. Everything he didn’t want back in the other universe, yet he seems fascinated by every new discovery he makes about day-to-day life as a human being.
Four months have passed since that day in Norway, when the Doctor left us both here, stranded in a universe that’s been my home for five years. At first, it was too hard to even look at him. His face, his eyes, his mouth, his hands, it was all the same as my Doctor’s, yet it wasn’t. He wasn’t my Doctor. He wasn’t the man I loved.
I hurt him, cut more wounds into him than I ever did with another man. I rejected him, thought of him as an anomaly and made him feel like he wasn’t wanted.
He could’ve left. I know I would’ve, if our roles had been reversed. He didn’t, though. He stayed and kept on talking — yapping until I listened. The continuous strain of words that irked me at first soon reminded me of his other self. He would talk about the weather, the cost of milk and the rude cashier at our local Tesco’s. He would talk about the past, too, about Satellite Five, about Jack and Torchwood, about Krop Tor and everything we went through together. I guess that’s how it happened. After a while, I stopped fighting against the idea that he was the Doctor. My Doctor.
“Rose?”
His head pokes through the door.
“Oh good, you’re decent.”
“To be on the safe side, it’s usually better to knock first, you know.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I’ve seen you naked plenty of times before.”
I blush under his heated gaze. He’s not hiding his attraction any more, not ducking away when I reach for him other than behind closed doors. He holds my hand when we walk outside, threads his fingers with mine, kisses my lips and whispers soft words of love into my ear.
“Besides, it’s my bedroom, too.”
“Is it your bed, too?”
“Yup!”
“When did we decide I was sharing?”
“I think it was somewhere around the time you cornered me against the front door last month and decided snogging was on the agenda.”
“Snogging and more.”
He nods solemnly and approaches the bed. I’m still sitting in the centre, legs crossed. He leans over me and kisses me softly.
“Snogging and more,” he confirms, sliding his hands down my back and under the hem of my sleepshorts.
“Fancy more now?”
He withdraws for a second, apparently giving my suggestion some thought.
“Breakfast is going to get cold,” he says with a frown. “I spent time cooking it. It’d be a shame to waste it.”
“So we’re going to waste a perfectly good occasion to shag instead.”
He takes my hand and tugs me towards the kitchen.
“Rose Tyler, we’ve got a lifetime for that.”
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