rosa_acicularis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rosa_acicularis) wrote2009-01-21 10:59 pm
rosa_acicularis) wrote2009-01-21 10:59 pm
Entry tags:
Commentary: Sins of the Flesh
Requested by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
harpinred many, many moons ago.
Warning: This is pretty silly and pointless, even for me. You've been warned.
++
Wow, this fic is old. I wrote it while I was still finishing But Broken Lights. I was still very new to the show at the time, and newer still to this idea of ‘fandom’. But even so I’d noticed something rather odd as I watched and rewatched those beloved episodes – a recurring motif, if you will. That motif was the inspiration for this excessively silly story.
It had been a long day.
Which, it must be said, was usually the Doctor’s favorite kind. Indeed, he often felt it was hardly worth leaving the TARDIS in the morning (relative time) unless it was followed by a rousing day of:
1) Finding Trouble,
2) Running,
3) Giving Rose Celebratory “We didn’t die!’ Hug,
4) Finding Trouble Again,
5) Saving Planet/Oppressed People/Fluffy Victimized Creatures in Stroke of Unparalleled Genius,
6) Giving Rose Celebratory “We still haven’t died!” Hug, and
7) Tea.
That was a good number of gerunds for any man’s schedule, particularly when you took into consideration how often steps two and four were repeated. It tired Rose out well enough, but the Doctor was usually up for a full night of pacing the corridors and muttering to himself afterward. He liked long days.
But he’d noticed a rather disturbing pattern of late. On those long days when he spent any considerable amount of time without Rose by his side he found himself exhausted by the time they reached step seven. A tendency to wander off wasn’t exactly an unusual character trait in the people he travelled with, but he found himself worrying about her to a ridiculous degree. Being separated made their adventures more tiring than exhilarating.
And when she was with him, he occasionally found himself…distracted. Not distracted distracted, of course, because he was a bloody Time Lord and didn’t bother with such human stuff as inconveniently-timed lust.
No, his lusts were always very conveniently timed.
I’m not particularly fond of this passage, to be honest. I’m explaining things that probably should be explained – assumptions about the Doctor’s character the reader already assumes when reading a Doctor/Rose story. Of course the Doctor worries about Rose getting hurt. Of course he isn’t asexual. (At least, not entirely.)
I was a bit green. I forgive myself.
But today they’d been running from creatures that resembled nothing so much as giant lamprey eels with jet packs who’d wanted to amputate their legs and sew them onto their hive queen (which had been a bit surreal even for him), when he’d found himself noticing Rose’s backside. And not just noticing it, but noticing it in lieu of noticing everything else, including the ground in front of him.
He’d tripped.
It had been less than impressive.
On the other hand, I am extremely fond of the following:
1) Giant eels with jet packs,
2) The Doctor falling on his ass, and
So he had arrived at step seven that evening cranky with exhaustion and a sore bum, still unable to get the image of her bum out of his mind’s eye.
Damn my mind’s eyes, he thought,
3) This joke. This is maybe the best joke I’ve ever written. Will ever write.
God, I’m a genius.
and then let out a little shriek of surprise as the girl herself slammed into the kitchen, smelling of shampoo and freshly laundered flannel pajamas.
Rose hopped onto a chair and then plopped the aforementioned bottom on the table right in front of him. “What is it with you aliens and my flesh, eh?”
And here’s that motif I was talking about before. The word flesh comes up in New Who more often than you’d think. Listen next time you’re watching an episode: the Gelth and their craving for “this world and all its flesh”, or a horrified cat nun who cries, “The flesh is free! By the goddess Santori, the flesh is free!”
(People act really odd if you shout that in public. Just in case you were wondering.)
There maybe be something in this – something about all the death we see in Who, and about the portrayal of the body, of the purely physical aspect of human existence. The Doctor says: “What’s life? Nature’s way of keeping meat fresh,” and I wonder, how do we read that while examining a fairly atheistic text with pervasive messianic themes?
I thought about all this, and then I said, “Nah. I’m gonna write about sex instead.”
And so I did.
His head snapped up so quickly he nearly gave himself whiplash. “Wha–” he tried, but his voice had gone so high nothing came out but air. “Sorry, what?”
“Honestly, it’s getting a bit old, don’t you think? The whole of time and space, and every bleedin’ alien villain uses the same bleedin’ line.” Her voice became deep and threatening. “‘We want your flesh.’ ‘Human, your flesh will be ours!’ ‘Ooh, it’s like living inside a bouncy castle!’” She sighed wearily. “Shamefully unoriginal, if you ask me.”
“Oh!” he said, grinning goofily in relief. “You mean the Petromyzontidae!”
She looked at him askance. “What else would I be talking about?”
“Nothing, I’m sure,” he replied cheerfully. Still, he was careful to keep his eyes on her face.
She shrugged and began to chew idly on a thumbnail. “I admit they were a bit more inventive than most, what with the ‘We need your legs because our big ol’ eel queen believes she’s the reincarnation of Shirley Temple and wants to learn the time step’
I told my mother, I said, “Mom, I mentioned Shirley Temple in a Doctor Who fic.”
“Really?” she said. “Did you make her an alien in disguise bent on destroying the Earth?”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t.” And then I sulked for twenty minutes because my mother is a better fan fic writer than I am.
angle, but it all comes down to the same thing in the end.” She sighed. “Nobody ever wants me for my mind.”
You know how many times I have gotten comments from people who write things like, “lol I really like that you don’t write Rose too smart, ‘cause she’s not."
A lot of times, that’s how many.
(In their defense, it is a bit of an issue, writing Rose. She’s not a stupid person, and she’s quite verbal and sharp, but a lot of writers – myself included – seem to struggle with extremes, either dumbing her down to account for her supposed disinterest in her traditional education or putting words in her mouth that sound positively unnatural given what we’ve seen in the show.
I’d rather write her slightly out of character than deliberately make her sound stupider than she is. And, honestly, since I’m the one writing it, just how intelligent is the poor girl going to sound?)
He heard her clear her throat and suddenly realised his gaze had shifted somewhat south without this permission. When he looked up again, she was wearing a pleasant but confused smile.
“You all right?”
“Of course!” he said with all the confidence he could muster. He was proud to note that his voice barely squeaked.
“You do realise that the water’s been ready for ages?”
His mind went blank, all higher function apparently occupied with the recent realization that her otherwise pink pajamas were covered with a pattern of tiny green aliens.
“I wish I were a tiny green alien,” he thinks.
“The water?”
“For the tea?” she prompted, her confusion shifting to concern. She tilted his head up and leaned close to peer into his eyes. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head when you fell today?”
He could smell her skin, her hair, her toothpaste. It was all he could do not to press his nose to her face and breathe her in. Instead he said, “Where did you get those pajamas?”
Pyjamas, damn you! This is what happens when I don’t send things tojlrpuck to be betaed.
“Wardrobe. First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs past the bins, fifth door on your left.”
Yes, I went back and rewatched The Unquiet Dead so I could get these directions exactly right. And yes, I had to look up the title of that episode, because for some reason I can never, ever remember it, even though it is one of my favorites.
She grinned at him and leaned back so that the tiny gap of her shirt front became a not so tiny gap. The Doctor stared, transfixed. “Do you like them?”
“What?” he squeaked. “I wasn’t looking. I mean, I was, but in a very alien, ‘I am above such trivial matters’ sort of way, you know, though, yes, they do smell lovely, don’t they?” He leapt out of his chair and backed up until his sore rear hit the kitchen counter. “Not that I noticed.”
She is talking about the pajamas. He is talking about her breasts.
I have the sense of humor of a thirteen-year-old boy.
Rose stared at him. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m tired,” he said quickly.
“Tired? You?”
“Think I’m coming down with something. Nothing serious, maybe just a 24-hour flu, or, you know, leprosy.”
I wrote a term paper on leprosy in medieval Europe in high school. And I wondered why everyone thought I was odd.
(Totally awesome paper, though. I aced it.)
He edged toward the door. “I should go to bed. Alone. In my bed.”
She jumped down off the table and approached him slowly, like he was an injured animal liable to strike out at any moment.
Some sort of rodent, probably.
“I thought you didn’t get sick. Whatever happened to superior Time Lord physiology?”
“Well, it is a 24-hour flu, isn’t it, Rose?” He took advantage of the moment she took to roll her eyes and sprinted for the door. “Right, so I’ll just be going, then. Away. To sleep.”
And then he ran.
++
Two hours of wandering the corridors and muttering to himself later, the Doctor knocked on her bedroom door, resolved.
“Rose, I’m resolved,” he said when she appeared, looking half-asleep.
She leaned against the doorjamb and blinked up at him. “I can tell. Your brow is all furrowed.”
“Oh, is it?” He reached up and poked experimentally at his forehead. “Excellent. I do love a good furrowed brow. Lends a kind of gravity to the situation.”
She yawned. “So the situation’s grave, is it?”
“I’m resolved,” he explained patiently, as if making a generous allowance for her poor, sleep-addled human brain. She glared at him with her poor, sleep-addled human eyes.
“Yeah, I remember. You haven’t quite told me what that means yet.”
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Of course you can, idiot.” She laughed, somewhat more alert. “As long as it’s to tell me what’s wrong with you lately.”
He stepped into her room and blinked, giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the pink.
Is Rose’s room pink? I spent some time debating this. Her room in Jackie’s flat is more red than pink. She doesn’t really seem like a particularly pink sort of girl.
And yet, if I had a room on the TARDIS, it would totally be pink. Hot pink. With sparkles.
Let’s just call it artistic license, all right?
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
She hopped onto her rumpled bed and arched one delicately plucked eyebrow. “Really.”
“Not wrong, per se, no. Right, maybe. Yes, there’s something right with me. Or something odd, I suppose, but definitely not something wrong.” He paused and reconsidered his words. “It’s been a long day.”
“And you’re resolved,” she said, amused.
“I am.”
“That’s nice. Resolved to what, exactly?”
“Oh, haven’t I said? My mistake.” In one swift movement he leapt onto her bed, knees landing on either side of her thighs, and then, before she could react, bent to kiss her. He lingered at the corner of her mouth, tracing the lines of her still lips with his own. When he pulled away to look at her face, her eyes were closed. “Rose?”
She pressed a finger against his lips. “Shh.”
“What are you doing?” he whispered around her fingertip.
“Savouring the moment before I have to knock you unconscious and figure out what the hell the eels did to you while we were separated,” she whispered back, her eyes still closed. “Just one more second.”
He gently nipped her finger and she yelped. “Rose, I’m not possessed, I swear. All the Petromyzontidae did was fit me for a pair of tap shoes and make me watch ‘The Little Princess’ half a dozen times.” He sighed wistfully. “I know it’s not one of her best, but I am such a sucker for that ending–”
Best. Shirley Temple movie. Ever. And believe me – my mother made me watch all of them. Oh, the horror. The horror.
“You’re not possessed, or body swapped, or in any way madder than usual?”
“Than usual” being the operative phrase, there.
“Nope,” he replied, popping the end of the word centimeters from the tip of her nose.
“And you just kissed me.”
“Yep.”
She went a bit cross-eyed trying to look him in the eye. “Why?”
The Doctor grinned. “Because I, Rose Tyler, want your flesh.”
Awk. Ward.
Her eyes went round and huge, and it occurred to him that that might not have been the wisest choice of words. He backpedaled.
“Not to eat or possess or anything — unless perhaps you include the crudest meanings of those words, in which case, well, yes, I do want to do those things, but only if you want me to and only out of a deep sense of respect and affection and other feelings I won’t mention because sexually aggressive or not I still expect you to read my mind when it comes to certain declarations, and now that I’ve made myself clear can we get back to the snogging?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “You’re resolved to have sex with me?”
He frowned. “That wasn’t quite what I meant, no. I just…well, I thought…” his voice trailed off.
“You thought?”
The Doctor sighed and fixed his gaze to the ceiling, feeling his cheeks go unusually warm. “I tripped today because I was distracted by inappropriate thoughts of your bottom.”
The use of the word ‘bottom’ here amuses me deeply.
Her laugh crackled delightfully, and she fell back onto the bed, holding her arm over her eyes and giggling in disbelief. “And you thought that having sex with me would somehow make me distract you less?”
He collapsed next to her on the bed. “Well, I see the error in my logic now, thank you.” Her laughter was becoming irritating, so he poked her in the side. “Oi, some of us spent the day worrying that we’d have to wheel our best mate out of the Petromyzontidian palace in a little red wagon, so give it a rest already, will you?”
No matter what the story, their best mateness is always the most important thing to me. Smooches are fun and all, but they are, like, total BFFs, and that’s why I care. All my very favorite Doctor & Companion relationships are like that – Two and Jamie, Three and Jo, Four and Leela, Eight and Charley, Ten and Donna.
Though you know that Two and Jamie were totally doing it.
She poked him back. “You don’t worry.”
He slipped his hand into hers. “Yes, I do,” he said softy. She squeezed his hand, and he returned the pressure. Suddenly, he rolled onto his side and peered down at her, grinning again. “It’s bloody exhausting, actually.”
She snickered. “Oh, my poor, poor Doctor. Whatever can I do to relieve your burden?”
“Well, for a start you could–” he began, but before he could say another word she’d grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled his lips down to hers. When she finally released him, he entirely failed to notice the undignified squeak that escaped his lips.
Huh. He squeaks an awful lot in this story. Don’t think I noticed that before.
“Suddenly, not so tired.”
Rose smiled and fiddled with his tie. “Funny how that works.”
“Yeah, funny.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “So, sex now?”
She sighed dramatically. “If you insist.”
He sat up, pulled his glasses from his pocket, and slipped them on, suddenly all business. “I’m afraid I must.” He took a moment to study her body with an intent professional detachment, only the twinkle in his eye giving away the game. “I have to admit, it’s been a while since I did this. I believe I recall most of the basics, but you might have to refresh my memory on some details. For example, could you tell me, Miss Tyler,” he took her hand and placed it on the bulge at the front of his pants, “where this goes, exactly?”
MY MOTHER WAS SO SHOCKED.
She thought it was funny, though.
Neither of them could remember ever before laughing quite so much during sex.
++
It had been a long night.
The Doctor watched Rose’s face as she hovered in the land between sleep and wakefulness, exhausted himself and yet itching to talk to her.
“Rose? You awake?”
“Hmm.” She pressed her face deeper into the pillow.
He hesitated. “Is that a yes?”
“Hmm,” she answered helpfully.
“Your communication skills leave something to be desired, you know that?”
Her only reply was a light snore. He grinned wickedly.
“Rose?”
“Umm hmm?”
“Don’t you think it’s charming when I pretend to forget to do the washing up?”
“Hmm.”
“I know you secretly enjoy it when I use your bathroom sink for impromptu chemical experiments.”
“Umm hmm.”
“And don’t you think that now we’re going to be having lots of sex all the time, you should stop wandering off without me?”
One eye shot open. “Dream on, buster.”
It closed again, and he sighed. “Ah well. Can’t blame a bloke for trying.”
She reached out blindly and pinched his arm. “And stop staring at my breasts.”
“I’m not!”
He was.
I haven’t written many fics from the Doctor’s point of view, and in at least two of them he’s sort of a horndog. Should I be worried about that, do you think?
harpinred many, many moons ago. Warning: This is pretty silly and pointless, even for me. You've been warned.
++
Wow, this fic is old. I wrote it while I was still finishing But Broken Lights. I was still very new to the show at the time, and newer still to this idea of ‘fandom’. But even so I’d noticed something rather odd as I watched and rewatched those beloved episodes – a recurring motif, if you will. That motif was the inspiration for this excessively silly story.
It had been a long day.
Which, it must be said, was usually the Doctor’s favorite kind. Indeed, he often felt it was hardly worth leaving the TARDIS in the morning (relative time) unless it was followed by a rousing day of:
1) Finding Trouble,
2) Running,
3) Giving Rose Celebratory “We didn’t die!’ Hug,
4) Finding Trouble Again,
5) Saving Planet/Oppressed People/Fluffy Victimized Creatures in Stroke of Unparalleled Genius,
6) Giving Rose Celebratory “We still haven’t died!” Hug, and
7) Tea.
That was a good number of gerunds for any man’s schedule, particularly when you took into consideration how often steps two and four were repeated. It tired Rose out well enough, but the Doctor was usually up for a full night of pacing the corridors and muttering to himself afterward. He liked long days.
But he’d noticed a rather disturbing pattern of late. On those long days when he spent any considerable amount of time without Rose by his side he found himself exhausted by the time they reached step seven. A tendency to wander off wasn’t exactly an unusual character trait in the people he travelled with, but he found himself worrying about her to a ridiculous degree. Being separated made their adventures more tiring than exhilarating.
And when she was with him, he occasionally found himself…distracted. Not distracted distracted, of course, because he was a bloody Time Lord and didn’t bother with such human stuff as inconveniently-timed lust.
No, his lusts were always very conveniently timed.
I’m not particularly fond of this passage, to be honest. I’m explaining things that probably should be explained – assumptions about the Doctor’s character the reader already assumes when reading a Doctor/Rose story. Of course the Doctor worries about Rose getting hurt. Of course he isn’t asexual. (At least, not entirely.)
I was a bit green. I forgive myself.
But today they’d been running from creatures that resembled nothing so much as giant lamprey eels with jet packs who’d wanted to amputate their legs and sew them onto their hive queen (which had been a bit surreal even for him), when he’d found himself noticing Rose’s backside. And not just noticing it, but noticing it in lieu of noticing everything else, including the ground in front of him.
He’d tripped.
It had been less than impressive.
On the other hand, I am extremely fond of the following:
1) Giant eels with jet packs,
2) The Doctor falling on his ass, and
So he had arrived at step seven that evening cranky with exhaustion and a sore bum, still unable to get the image of her bum out of his mind’s eye.
Damn my mind’s eyes, he thought,
3) This joke. This is maybe the best joke I’ve ever written. Will ever write.
God, I’m a genius.
and then let out a little shriek of surprise as the girl herself slammed into the kitchen, smelling of shampoo and freshly laundered flannel pajamas.
Rose hopped onto a chair and then plopped the aforementioned bottom on the table right in front of him. “What is it with you aliens and my flesh, eh?”
And here’s that motif I was talking about before. The word flesh comes up in New Who more often than you’d think. Listen next time you’re watching an episode: the Gelth and their craving for “this world and all its flesh”, or a horrified cat nun who cries, “The flesh is free! By the goddess Santori, the flesh is free!”
(People act really odd if you shout that in public. Just in case you were wondering.)
There maybe be something in this – something about all the death we see in Who, and about the portrayal of the body, of the purely physical aspect of human existence. The Doctor says: “What’s life? Nature’s way of keeping meat fresh,” and I wonder, how do we read that while examining a fairly atheistic text with pervasive messianic themes?
I thought about all this, and then I said, “Nah. I’m gonna write about sex instead.”
And so I did.
His head snapped up so quickly he nearly gave himself whiplash. “Wha–” he tried, but his voice had gone so high nothing came out but air. “Sorry, what?”
“Honestly, it’s getting a bit old, don’t you think? The whole of time and space, and every bleedin’ alien villain uses the same bleedin’ line.” Her voice became deep and threatening. “‘We want your flesh.’ ‘Human, your flesh will be ours!’ ‘Ooh, it’s like living inside a bouncy castle!’” She sighed wearily. “Shamefully unoriginal, if you ask me.”
“Oh!” he said, grinning goofily in relief. “You mean the Petromyzontidae!”
She looked at him askance. “What else would I be talking about?”
“Nothing, I’m sure,” he replied cheerfully. Still, he was careful to keep his eyes on her face.
She shrugged and began to chew idly on a thumbnail. “I admit they were a bit more inventive than most, what with the ‘We need your legs because our big ol’ eel queen believes she’s the reincarnation of Shirley Temple and wants to learn the time step’
I told my mother, I said, “Mom, I mentioned Shirley Temple in a Doctor Who fic.”
“Really?” she said. “Did you make her an alien in disguise bent on destroying the Earth?”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t.” And then I sulked for twenty minutes because my mother is a better fan fic writer than I am.
angle, but it all comes down to the same thing in the end.” She sighed. “Nobody ever wants me for my mind.”
You know how many times I have gotten comments from people who write things like, “lol I really like that you don’t write Rose too smart, ‘cause she’s not."
A lot of times, that’s how many.
(In their defense, it is a bit of an issue, writing Rose. She’s not a stupid person, and she’s quite verbal and sharp, but a lot of writers – myself included – seem to struggle with extremes, either dumbing her down to account for her supposed disinterest in her traditional education or putting words in her mouth that sound positively unnatural given what we’ve seen in the show.
I’d rather write her slightly out of character than deliberately make her sound stupider than she is. And, honestly, since I’m the one writing it, just how intelligent is the poor girl going to sound?)
He heard her clear her throat and suddenly realised his gaze had shifted somewhat south without this permission. When he looked up again, she was wearing a pleasant but confused smile.
“You all right?”
“Of course!” he said with all the confidence he could muster. He was proud to note that his voice barely squeaked.
“You do realise that the water’s been ready for ages?”
His mind went blank, all higher function apparently occupied with the recent realization that her otherwise pink pajamas were covered with a pattern of tiny green aliens.
“I wish I were a tiny green alien,” he thinks.
“The water?”
“For the tea?” she prompted, her confusion shifting to concern. She tilted his head up and leaned close to peer into his eyes. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head when you fell today?”
He could smell her skin, her hair, her toothpaste. It was all he could do not to press his nose to her face and breathe her in. Instead he said, “Where did you get those pajamas?”
Pyjamas, damn you! This is what happens when I don’t send things to
jlrpuck to be betaed. “Wardrobe. First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs past the bins, fifth door on your left.”
Yes, I went back and rewatched The Unquiet Dead so I could get these directions exactly right. And yes, I had to look up the title of that episode, because for some reason I can never, ever remember it, even though it is one of my favorites.
She grinned at him and leaned back so that the tiny gap of her shirt front became a not so tiny gap. The Doctor stared, transfixed. “Do you like them?”
“What?” he squeaked. “I wasn’t looking. I mean, I was, but in a very alien, ‘I am above such trivial matters’ sort of way, you know, though, yes, they do smell lovely, don’t they?” He leapt out of his chair and backed up until his sore rear hit the kitchen counter. “Not that I noticed.”
She is talking about the pajamas. He is talking about her breasts.
I have the sense of humor of a thirteen-year-old boy.
Rose stared at him. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m tired,” he said quickly.
“Tired? You?”
“Think I’m coming down with something. Nothing serious, maybe just a 24-hour flu, or, you know, leprosy.”
I wrote a term paper on leprosy in medieval Europe in high school. And I wondered why everyone thought I was odd.
(Totally awesome paper, though. I aced it.)
He edged toward the door. “I should go to bed. Alone. In my bed.”
She jumped down off the table and approached him slowly, like he was an injured animal liable to strike out at any moment.
Some sort of rodent, probably.
“I thought you didn’t get sick. Whatever happened to superior Time Lord physiology?”
“Well, it is a 24-hour flu, isn’t it, Rose?” He took advantage of the moment she took to roll her eyes and sprinted for the door. “Right, so I’ll just be going, then. Away. To sleep.”
And then he ran.
++
Two hours of wandering the corridors and muttering to himself later, the Doctor knocked on her bedroom door, resolved.
“Rose, I’m resolved,” he said when she appeared, looking half-asleep.
She leaned against the doorjamb and blinked up at him. “I can tell. Your brow is all furrowed.”
“Oh, is it?” He reached up and poked experimentally at his forehead. “Excellent. I do love a good furrowed brow. Lends a kind of gravity to the situation.”
She yawned. “So the situation’s grave, is it?”
“I’m resolved,” he explained patiently, as if making a generous allowance for her poor, sleep-addled human brain. She glared at him with her poor, sleep-addled human eyes.
“Yeah, I remember. You haven’t quite told me what that means yet.”
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Of course you can, idiot.” She laughed, somewhat more alert. “As long as it’s to tell me what’s wrong with you lately.”
He stepped into her room and blinked, giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the pink.
Is Rose’s room pink? I spent some time debating this. Her room in Jackie’s flat is more red than pink. She doesn’t really seem like a particularly pink sort of girl.
And yet, if I had a room on the TARDIS, it would totally be pink. Hot pink. With sparkles.
Let’s just call it artistic license, all right?
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
She hopped onto her rumpled bed and arched one delicately plucked eyebrow. “Really.”
“Not wrong, per se, no. Right, maybe. Yes, there’s something right with me. Or something odd, I suppose, but definitely not something wrong.” He paused and reconsidered his words. “It’s been a long day.”
“And you’re resolved,” she said, amused.
“I am.”
“That’s nice. Resolved to what, exactly?”
“Oh, haven’t I said? My mistake.” In one swift movement he leapt onto her bed, knees landing on either side of her thighs, and then, before she could react, bent to kiss her. He lingered at the corner of her mouth, tracing the lines of her still lips with his own. When he pulled away to look at her face, her eyes were closed. “Rose?”
She pressed a finger against his lips. “Shh.”
“What are you doing?” he whispered around her fingertip.
“Savouring the moment before I have to knock you unconscious and figure out what the hell the eels did to you while we were separated,” she whispered back, her eyes still closed. “Just one more second.”
He gently nipped her finger and she yelped. “Rose, I’m not possessed, I swear. All the Petromyzontidae did was fit me for a pair of tap shoes and make me watch ‘The Little Princess’ half a dozen times.” He sighed wistfully. “I know it’s not one of her best, but I am such a sucker for that ending–”
Best. Shirley Temple movie. Ever. And believe me – my mother made me watch all of them. Oh, the horror. The horror.
“You’re not possessed, or body swapped, or in any way madder than usual?”
“Than usual” being the operative phrase, there.
“Nope,” he replied, popping the end of the word centimeters from the tip of her nose.
“And you just kissed me.”
“Yep.”
She went a bit cross-eyed trying to look him in the eye. “Why?”
The Doctor grinned. “Because I, Rose Tyler, want your flesh.”
Awk. Ward.
Her eyes went round and huge, and it occurred to him that that might not have been the wisest choice of words. He backpedaled.
“Not to eat or possess or anything — unless perhaps you include the crudest meanings of those words, in which case, well, yes, I do want to do those things, but only if you want me to and only out of a deep sense of respect and affection and other feelings I won’t mention because sexually aggressive or not I still expect you to read my mind when it comes to certain declarations, and now that I’ve made myself clear can we get back to the snogging?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “You’re resolved to have sex with me?”
He frowned. “That wasn’t quite what I meant, no. I just…well, I thought…” his voice trailed off.
“You thought?”
The Doctor sighed and fixed his gaze to the ceiling, feeling his cheeks go unusually warm. “I tripped today because I was distracted by inappropriate thoughts of your bottom.”
The use of the word ‘bottom’ here amuses me deeply.
Her laugh crackled delightfully, and she fell back onto the bed, holding her arm over her eyes and giggling in disbelief. “And you thought that having sex with me would somehow make me distract you less?”
He collapsed next to her on the bed. “Well, I see the error in my logic now, thank you.” Her laughter was becoming irritating, so he poked her in the side. “Oi, some of us spent the day worrying that we’d have to wheel our best mate out of the Petromyzontidian palace in a little red wagon, so give it a rest already, will you?”
No matter what the story, their best mateness is always the most important thing to me. Smooches are fun and all, but they are, like, total BFFs, and that’s why I care. All my very favorite Doctor & Companion relationships are like that – Two and Jamie, Three and Jo, Four and Leela, Eight and Charley, Ten and Donna.
Though you know that Two and Jamie were totally doing it.
She poked him back. “You don’t worry.”
He slipped his hand into hers. “Yes, I do,” he said softy. She squeezed his hand, and he returned the pressure. Suddenly, he rolled onto his side and peered down at her, grinning again. “It’s bloody exhausting, actually.”
She snickered. “Oh, my poor, poor Doctor. Whatever can I do to relieve your burden?”
“Well, for a start you could–” he began, but before he could say another word she’d grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled his lips down to hers. When she finally released him, he entirely failed to notice the undignified squeak that escaped his lips.
Huh. He squeaks an awful lot in this story. Don’t think I noticed that before.
“Suddenly, not so tired.”
Rose smiled and fiddled with his tie. “Funny how that works.”
“Yeah, funny.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “So, sex now?”
She sighed dramatically. “If you insist.”
He sat up, pulled his glasses from his pocket, and slipped them on, suddenly all business. “I’m afraid I must.” He took a moment to study her body with an intent professional detachment, only the twinkle in his eye giving away the game. “I have to admit, it’s been a while since I did this. I believe I recall most of the basics, but you might have to refresh my memory on some details. For example, could you tell me, Miss Tyler,” he took her hand and placed it on the bulge at the front of his pants, “where this goes, exactly?”
MY MOTHER WAS SO SHOCKED.
She thought it was funny, though.
Neither of them could remember ever before laughing quite so much during sex.
++
It had been a long night.
The Doctor watched Rose’s face as she hovered in the land between sleep and wakefulness, exhausted himself and yet itching to talk to her.
“Rose? You awake?”
“Hmm.” She pressed her face deeper into the pillow.
He hesitated. “Is that a yes?”
“Hmm,” she answered helpfully.
“Your communication skills leave something to be desired, you know that?”
Her only reply was a light snore. He grinned wickedly.
“Rose?”
“Umm hmm?”
“Don’t you think it’s charming when I pretend to forget to do the washing up?”
“Hmm.”
“I know you secretly enjoy it when I use your bathroom sink for impromptu chemical experiments.”
“Umm hmm.”
“And don’t you think that now we’re going to be having lots of sex all the time, you should stop wandering off without me?”
One eye shot open. “Dream on, buster.”
It closed again, and he sighed. “Ah well. Can’t blame a bloke for trying.”
She reached out blindly and pinched his arm. “And stop staring at my breasts.”
“I’m not!”
He was.
I haven’t written many fics from the Doctor’s point of view, and in at least two of them he’s sort of a horndog. Should I be worried about that, do you think?
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and this part.... For example, could you tell me, Miss Tyler,” he took her hand and placed it on the bulge at the front of his pants, “where this goes, exactly?”
always makes me sporfle.
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"though, yes, they do smell lovely, don’t they?"
And now I know it is about her breasts... Hello! My brain kinda shorted out there. Geez, this fic just gets better and better every time I read it. How do you do that?! And your commentary is, simply put, awesome sauce on top of already fantastic spaghetti.
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<3
Apropos of horndog, I have become convinced that he is pinching her bottom when she stands in front of him during the observatory scene in Tooth and Claw. Watch it. You'll see. YOU KNOW HE IS.
I appreciated your reflection on Rose as a character- and I think you're completely right, it's a balance of writing your own internal Rose-voice and her screen Rose-voice. (Yours is lovely, by the by.) She's not highly educated, but she is so quick and so adaptable, that's the interesting/difficult part. She always knows things today that she didn't know yesterday. When people say Rose isn't smart, I want to club them with textbooks and scream bits of dialogue from The Idiot's Lantern.
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For my "informational" speech in my freshman uni speech class, I spoke about spontaneous human combustion, complete with a poster of remains of people who has supposedly spontaneously combusted(visual aids were required!). It's good to know others have similar academic leanings.
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WORD. I don't understand people who think Rose is stupid. She's not educated, but that's different from not smart.
Your mom reads your fic? That's kinda awesome.
There maybe be something in this – something about all the death we see in Who, and about the portrayal of the body, of the purely physical aspect of human existence. The Doctor says: “What’s life? Nature’s way of keeping meat fresh,” and I wonder, how do we read that while examining a fairly atheistic text with pervasive messianic themes?
I thought about all this, and then I said, “Nah. I’m gonna write about sex instead.”
And so I did.
You just caused me massive academia-related LOLs!
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Not at all.
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No matter what the story, their best mateness is always the most important thing to me. Smooches are fun and all, but they are, like, total BFFs, and that’s why I care. All my very favorite Doctor & Companion relationships are like that – Two and Jamie, Three and Jo, Four and Leela, Eight and Charley, Ten and Donna.
And this is exactly why I love your writing. The sexy parts are fun but it's the emotional connections that you write so well that make your work sing like Maria Callas.
I love that your mother is a better fic writer than you are ;)
And NO, I love the Doctor as a horndog because it's exclusive to Rose and he worries about it. That just makes it funnier when he finally gives in. And DT played it that way too - Rose was really the only one who could make him do things that he knew he shouldn't and I like that you explore that aspect of their relationship.
So thank you, that made me happy :)