Birthday Fic: The Tao of Rose (1/1)
Title: The Tao of Rose (or: Zen and the Art of Time Lord Maintenance)
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose/Ten2 (all together)
Rating: Adultish for soft-focus secks and Tencest
Summary: Perhaps a bit more srs than the title would suggest. Rose and the human Doctor nurse the Time Lord back to health and make some discoveries along the way.
A/N: Good lord there are a lot of birthdays in October! Anyway, today is editrx 's birthday, and there have been a metric fuckton of other important birthdays recently too. So, here is a fic for The Birthday People (you know who you are). And since it is a birthday fic, I thought I'd indulge in all of my guilty pleasures at once: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Tencest, an Awful Lot of Talking, and a bit of Smut. Enjoy.
"Is he going to regenerate?"
The Doctor looks down at the man that he had so recently been, lying-apparently peacefully-in bed. "It would have already begun by now."
"So he'll be all right, then?" Rose's brows are knitted and her eye make-up is beginning to run a bit around the edges. There is a lock of hair stuck to her forehead with dried sweat-the salt and tang of her exertion hangs around her like an aura.
"I don't know," the Doctor snaps suddenly, taken aback by his own lack of sensitivity.
Rose sniffles, and the sound goes straight to his single, frail human heart. It makes his hands curl into fists involuntarily, and he bites his own tongue as his jaw clenches.
"Isn't there something we can do for him?" Rose ploughs on, as the Doctor should have known that she would. She'll never leave him, like she always said-not until any hope left is reckoned in negative numbers. "I can't even hear his hearts beating."
The Doctor makes a concerted effort to calm this torrent of existential terror mixed with petty jealousy. "You know how when your computer is really bollocksed up, yeah? And you have to turn everything off, even the monitor and the internet and unhook the mouse and all of that?" Rose is nodding slowly, but he can tell that she's got no idea what he's on about. "It's like that, with him. He's... well, he's rebooting. One system at a time."
She bites her lip and he feels like she doesn't believe him. If he was the real Doctor, the original Doctor, she'd take everything he said as complete incontrovertible fact, he's sure of it. Now, as just another human-just a skinny bloke in a suit that's a size too small even at that-he's somehow not as trustworthy.
He tries another piece of dry, factual information: "If we had been present when the gas was discharged, we'd have died instantly. It's lucky for us that we-" He cuts himself off and realises far too late the road that he's mistakenly gone down.
"I know," Rose says quietly. "We shouldn't have gotten... distracted."
He fidgets with his hands, running his fingers through his hair, tugging on the lapels of his jacket, picking a piece of fuzz off of a button.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry."
He turns to her and takes her hands, which are clammy and trembling slightly from the adrenaline. "Is that what human women do?"
"What?"
"Take the blame for things that aren't their fault?" He reaches up and brushes that stuck bit of hair off of her forehead. He can feel the salt between his fingers.
"It's a bit my fault. I shouldn't have-"
"Existed?" the Doctor says, wryly. "Had a desire? Been so attractive? These are not things to apologise for." He drops her hands again and holds her firmly by the shoulders, in what he imagines is a posture of wisdom-imparting. "Besides, if we had been there, we'd just have been gassed ourselves. What use would that have been? At least the only one of us who was there is the one who can take it."
"You're right," Rose says with a worried, lop-sided little smile.
"I'm always right." He inclines his head towards his double and hands Rose a stethoscope. "Listen now."
Rose puts her hand on the other man's bare chest. The colour has drained out of him and he's even more pale than normal. Rose's hand stands out as vivid pink against him as she leans over to listen. There's no sound in the room at all for a moment as even the TARDIS seems to be holding her breath.
"I think I hear something," Rose says, but she keeps her head down for another moment. "Yeah, definitely. I definitely hear it... them." She remains sitting on the edge of the bed, the edges of her mouth trying to work themselves into a broad smile.
"He was still very badly hurt. It'll be a while I think-and I should warn you, I'm a terrible patient."
Rose nods and seems to be trying hard to not look disappointed. "I've already had to nurse you once, and you were. Terrible, I mean."
***
Rose feels like the Doctor is not telling her the entire truth. This would certainly be nothing new, and perhaps she shouldn't expect the human version to be any less circumspect than the original. Still, a little personal growth should not be that much to ask for, and she tosses the spoon from her tea onto a nearby table with a loud clatter. The sound hurts her ears and leaves little echoes deep in her head. It's been so quiet on the TARDIS since her owner fell ill, and not a little bit scary. She keeps thinking she's hearing things, voices, the faint trickle of running water, but she knows there's nothing there.
She pads down the hall towards the Doctor's room again. Pushing the door open she notes that the lights have been dimmed a great deal and there are flickering yellow orbs set on the floor in the corners (not candles, as there's no flame, but the light emitted by them has the same sort of warming, organic quality). It takes a moment for her to adjust to the light, and when she does, she sees that both Doctors are in the bed: one under the sheets and dressed in crisp white pyjamas, and the other laying on top of the duvet fully clothed in blue trousers, a t-shirt, and stocking feet.
The human Doctor is lying on his side, one arm under his own head, and the other smoothing the hair back from the brow of the other man, who remains unconscious and breathing so lightly as to be barely detectable. Rose can hear that he's whispering into his injured double's ear, but she can't hear exactly what. It doesn't sound like any words she knows, and it occurs to her that this is their native language. They've never used it in her presence, not wanting (she assumed) for her to feel left out. It hadn't occurred to her that it would be something special between them that they'd use when alone.
She backs out of the room again, but the Doctor stops her, without raising his head or looking towards the door.
"You can stay," he says, and his voice is hoarse as if he's not raised it above that gentle whisper for hours. Perhaps he hasn't; Rose had been asleep for quite some time.
"I don't want to... I'm intruding."
"You're not," he says gently.
"Can he hear you?" she asks, moving forward a few more steps, but unsure of how she feels about continuing to witness such raw intimacy.
"No. Not with his ears, at any rate, but there are other ways to communicate with a Time Lord. You should come closer."
Rose furrows her brow, hates that she has to ask so many questions rather than just accepting the mysteries of these two men. "Did he tell you that, like in your head? And if he's in your head, how come he isn't in mine as well?"
It comes out sounding all wrong. She sounds jealous and petty, and that's not it at all. She just has to know, has to catalogue the differences, tick the boxes in the various columns in order to understand them. A lump rises in her throat and she's ready to get the sour reply that she deserves.
Instead, the Doctor laughs-a low chuckle deep in his chest. "He isn't?"
Rose thinks that is possibly an even more upsetting answer than what she'd been expecting. "I... don't think so. Is he?"
The Doctor props himself up on an elbow, being very careful to not disturb the other man in the bed, and holds a hand out to her, beckoning. She puts her mug of tea down on a nearby table and approaches tentatively. She's never really liked hospitals or hanging around sick people-she's never known how to act or what to say, and she's finding that the problem is one hundred times worse when it's someone she loves this much.
He pats the bed on the opposite side of the Time Lord, inviting Rose to sit, or perhaps lay there, and she complies, trying so hard to not touch or jostle the patient that she winds up laying stiffly and unnaturally.
"Relax," the Doctor says. "He's not made of glass, you're not going to break him."
"Sorry, I just... I was so scared for him and then so relieved, but now I feel all sort of... useless."
The Doctor lays back down again on his side and reaches his hand out to clasp Rose's. "There, now isn't this nice? All of us together, one big happy... something."
Rose has to snicker at that. "Something is right. But it's a good something."
"It is. And even though he never says it, he thinks so, too."
Rose frowns. "Did he tell you that just now?"
"No, 'course not. But it's not like we're actually the same person with the same thoughts and feelings and memories... oh wait, we are! So, you could say that I have it on authority."
"But you did say he was communicating with you," she says.
"Communicating with, not talking to. And I also said it's not just me alone on this ship with him. Just be quiet for a second, see what happens."
Rose had thought she'd been very quiet. She'd been quiet while she was sleeping (obviously), and she'd been pretty quiet while making tea, except for the spoon-tossing incident, and she'd been careful to be quiet when entering the bedroom. Nevertheless, she closes her eyes and tries not to move lest she rustle the sheets.
"Not that kind of quiet," the Doctor says, jarring her determination for silence with his words.
She closes her eyes again and tries to think of what other kinds of quiet there are.
"Stop it," the Doctor says, and again she is startled. For someone who insists on quiet, he sure is talking an awful lot. But then again, that's the Doctor all over, isn't it?
"Stop what?"
"You're thinking too much-I can hear you from here. All that chatter in your head, you're drowning everything else out. Just stop trying to figure it all out. Stop looking for answers to questions that haven't even been asked yet." He pauses for a moment. "And stop trying to figure out what that last sentence even means."
She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes again, and just tries to concentrate on the feel of the convalescing Doctor's chest shallowly rising and falling, with the two-step beat of his hearts underneath. This is something she has no control over, and something that is such a beautiful mystery to her that it doesn't bear any thinking about. She long ago decided that pondering his alien life and timeless existence would get her nowhere.
She feels a warmth around her, like being wrapped in cotton wool, and she gently tries to move away from thinking about what that means, or why it is happening, or what the Doctors are each feeling. The already-quiet room seems to move into a zone even beyond mere silence. The feel of the bed beneath her, supporting her, drops away. She floats, timelessly.
A tear slides down her cheek and she doesn't quite know why.
She decides not to think about it.
***
"It's not that I was sad," Rose says, feeling bad that the Doctor has had to supply her with a tissue.
"I know."
They sit side-by-side on her bed, backs against one wall and legs stretched straight out, like little kids on a chair that's too big for them. They've left the other Doctor's sick room for a time, to get some food and maybe a bit of kip again.
"It was weird, like I was feeling every emotion, but all at once. The good ones and the bad ones, all mixed up together." She dabs her eye with the back of her hand reflexively. "Is that what it's like for him all the time? Is that what's in his head?"
"Too many questions," he answers . "And I know you've got questions also about us two, and what that's all about, and if what you experienced has anything to do with it."
"I-"
"No, it's okay. I would wonder, too, if I were you. It's a little weird."
Rose allows herself a little chuckle. "It's a lot weird."
"All right, it's a lot weird. And it's been kind of you to not ask. Not everyone could accept the things you do." He smiles warmly at her and taps the side of her bare foot with his big toe.
"All I know is that you're like a couple of OAPs. You bicker all the time, but there's something there. Something I can't really understand."
"Right in one!" A very chirpy, unnecessarily loud voice came from the doorway and the Doctor and Rose both jump a little bit and then turn to see the other Doctor, still in pyjamas, beaming at them.
The pair on the bed both leap up and run towards him, each taking one of his arms in theirs as if to steady him, though he doesn't seem at all unsteady in the first place. Rose stands on her tip-toes and covers his neck with little kisses, while the man on the other side just clings, and wordlessly looks into his eyes.
"You scared us half to death!" Rose squeaks, and then wonders if she should really be speaking for the other Doctor, who had seemed less terrified and more just contemplative and sad.
"Sorry for that, but I'm all better now. Better than better!" He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet. "I feel like I could... I dunno, eat vindaloo, run a marathon, sing an opera," he arches an eyebrow at neither of them in particular, "or any number of other very worthwhile and life-affirming activities."
"I could draw you a bath!" Rose says enthusiastically, earning a confused look from both men. "I know that after I've been ill, I always fancy a nice, hot- Oh. That's not really what you meant, is it?"
"That sounds brilliant, too," the Doctor says, inspecting the pyjamas that he didn't actually put on himself. "I do love a bubble bath."
The other Doctor nods sagely and solemnly. "Good idea. Probably very healing for the dermis, having been in bed-"
The Doctor does not have a chance to finish his sentence, as his double steps forward, quite business-like, and firmly and thoroughly kisses him. Rose stands to the side and watches, wondering if she should, or should not, go draw a bath.
She decides on not, and moves round to carefully unbutton the Doctor's pyjama top from behind. When she finishes and moves to pull it off of his shoulders, he disengages from the other man and wipes the corner of his mouth with a hand.
Rose isn't sure if it's due to her experience of earlier, of sharing something with the Doctors that had previously just been between them, or if perhaps the environment in their ship has changed as her owner has revived-perhaps all of the above and more-but when both men bend down and kiss her, something happens. She forgets to think and instead just feels.
If all that is required for flying is to throw oneself at the ground and miss, perhaps all that is needed to feel bliss is to throw oneself at a thought and miss.
The locus of her experience shifts downward, to where her breaths come deeply and evenly. Perhaps they are together on the bed, or on the floor, or against a wall; it doesn't really matter. Where there was once a solitary interior monologue that could be shared with no one just by definition, now there is just a single universal sensation. She's never been more aware of the three of them together and how they fit, and how perfect it is. It's not weird, and it's not something that has a name or a definition. It just is. They just are.
As a somewhat experienced young woman, Rose had thought she'd pretty much felt everything there was to feel when it came to making love. The operation of this part going here and that part going there, and it all feeling rather good at the end, it had sort of become old hat. A nice old hat, but an old hat nonetheless.
But now she finds that all that mapping of locations and creating a clear dividing line between where she ends and her lovers begin (and again between the two of them and their boundaries between one another) had simply been a hindrance and a fallacy. There is no separation.
There is movement, but she can't say that she was the one doing the moving, nor either of the Doctors. They move as one, but even that is a bit of a misstatement.
They move, and that is all.
And as they do, she revels in the taught, sinewy feel of their bodies against the more rounded angles of her own. She feels how the two of them press up against one another, mirror images and complimentary in their own ways. Their mouths, their hands, their tongues-on one another and then on her-warm and cool, desperate and teasing, it's like they fill up all the corners of her to perfection, slotting piece after satisfying piece into the puzzle of their miraculous lives together.
She doesn't try to tell them apart. She had, in the past, gotten entirely too wrapped up in delineating who was who, by their few individual quirks and by their body temperatures. She had felt anxiety when she couldn't tell them apart, thinking (always thinking) that perhaps she was short-changing one giving too much to the other. Letting that go and trusting that they both loved her and each other, is freeing beyond measure.
Mouths are on her hip bones, a tongue explores the crease under her breast, a hand covers her mound and slides downwards, exploring, and then for a while just the feel of two bodies pleasuring one another as she was there to witness...
She doesn't keep track of when she comes and who may or may not have been the cause. Her orgasm brings a peel of laughter from her, it has been so long since she's just let go and let passion happen. The two men laugh as well, and hungrily devour one another as she smiles and runs her hands down along the ridges of their spines, feeling how they enjoy one another when left to their own devices. Muscles move beneath skin, tendons flex and pale skin flushes.
A tear slides down her cheek and she doesn't quite know why.
She decides not to think about it.
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose/Ten2 (all together)
Rating: Adultish for soft-focus secks and Tencest
Summary: Perhaps a bit more srs than the title would suggest. Rose and the human Doctor nurse the Time Lord back to health and make some discoveries along the way.
A/N: Good lord there are a lot of birthdays in October! Anyway, today is editrx 's birthday, and there have been a metric fuckton of other important birthdays recently too. So, here is a fic for The Birthday People (you know who you are). And since it is a birthday fic, I thought I'd indulge in all of my guilty pleasures at once: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Tencest, an Awful Lot of Talking, and a bit of Smut. Enjoy.
"Is he going to regenerate?"
The Doctor looks down at the man that he had so recently been, lying-apparently peacefully-in bed. "It would have already begun by now."
"So he'll be all right, then?" Rose's brows are knitted and her eye make-up is beginning to run a bit around the edges. There is a lock of hair stuck to her forehead with dried sweat-the salt and tang of her exertion hangs around her like an aura.
"I don't know," the Doctor snaps suddenly, taken aback by his own lack of sensitivity.
Rose sniffles, and the sound goes straight to his single, frail human heart. It makes his hands curl into fists involuntarily, and he bites his own tongue as his jaw clenches.
"Isn't there something we can do for him?" Rose ploughs on, as the Doctor should have known that she would. She'll never leave him, like she always said-not until any hope left is reckoned in negative numbers. "I can't even hear his hearts beating."
The Doctor makes a concerted effort to calm this torrent of existential terror mixed with petty jealousy. "You know how when your computer is really bollocksed up, yeah? And you have to turn everything off, even the monitor and the internet and unhook the mouse and all of that?" Rose is nodding slowly, but he can tell that she's got no idea what he's on about. "It's like that, with him. He's... well, he's rebooting. One system at a time."
She bites her lip and he feels like she doesn't believe him. If he was the real Doctor, the original Doctor, she'd take everything he said as complete incontrovertible fact, he's sure of it. Now, as just another human-just a skinny bloke in a suit that's a size too small even at that-he's somehow not as trustworthy.
He tries another piece of dry, factual information: "If we had been present when the gas was discharged, we'd have died instantly. It's lucky for us that we-" He cuts himself off and realises far too late the road that he's mistakenly gone down.
"I know," Rose says quietly. "We shouldn't have gotten... distracted."
He fidgets with his hands, running his fingers through his hair, tugging on the lapels of his jacket, picking a piece of fuzz off of a button.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry."
He turns to her and takes her hands, which are clammy and trembling slightly from the adrenaline. "Is that what human women do?"
"What?"
"Take the blame for things that aren't their fault?" He reaches up and brushes that stuck bit of hair off of her forehead. He can feel the salt between his fingers.
"It's a bit my fault. I shouldn't have-"
"Existed?" the Doctor says, wryly. "Had a desire? Been so attractive? These are not things to apologise for." He drops her hands again and holds her firmly by the shoulders, in what he imagines is a posture of wisdom-imparting. "Besides, if we had been there, we'd just have been gassed ourselves. What use would that have been? At least the only one of us who was there is the one who can take it."
"You're right," Rose says with a worried, lop-sided little smile.
"I'm always right." He inclines his head towards his double and hands Rose a stethoscope. "Listen now."
Rose puts her hand on the other man's bare chest. The colour has drained out of him and he's even more pale than normal. Rose's hand stands out as vivid pink against him as she leans over to listen. There's no sound in the room at all for a moment as even the TARDIS seems to be holding her breath.
"I think I hear something," Rose says, but she keeps her head down for another moment. "Yeah, definitely. I definitely hear it... them." She remains sitting on the edge of the bed, the edges of her mouth trying to work themselves into a broad smile.
"He was still very badly hurt. It'll be a while I think-and I should warn you, I'm a terrible patient."
Rose nods and seems to be trying hard to not look disappointed. "I've already had to nurse you once, and you were. Terrible, I mean."
***
Rose feels like the Doctor is not telling her the entire truth. This would certainly be nothing new, and perhaps she shouldn't expect the human version to be any less circumspect than the original. Still, a little personal growth should not be that much to ask for, and she tosses the spoon from her tea onto a nearby table with a loud clatter. The sound hurts her ears and leaves little echoes deep in her head. It's been so quiet on the TARDIS since her owner fell ill, and not a little bit scary. She keeps thinking she's hearing things, voices, the faint trickle of running water, but she knows there's nothing there.
She pads down the hall towards the Doctor's room again. Pushing the door open she notes that the lights have been dimmed a great deal and there are flickering yellow orbs set on the floor in the corners (not candles, as there's no flame, but the light emitted by them has the same sort of warming, organic quality). It takes a moment for her to adjust to the light, and when she does, she sees that both Doctors are in the bed: one under the sheets and dressed in crisp white pyjamas, and the other laying on top of the duvet fully clothed in blue trousers, a t-shirt, and stocking feet.
The human Doctor is lying on his side, one arm under his own head, and the other smoothing the hair back from the brow of the other man, who remains unconscious and breathing so lightly as to be barely detectable. Rose can hear that he's whispering into his injured double's ear, but she can't hear exactly what. It doesn't sound like any words she knows, and it occurs to her that this is their native language. They've never used it in her presence, not wanting (she assumed) for her to feel left out. It hadn't occurred to her that it would be something special between them that they'd use when alone.
She backs out of the room again, but the Doctor stops her, without raising his head or looking towards the door.
"You can stay," he says, and his voice is hoarse as if he's not raised it above that gentle whisper for hours. Perhaps he hasn't; Rose had been asleep for quite some time.
"I don't want to... I'm intruding."
"You're not," he says gently.
"Can he hear you?" she asks, moving forward a few more steps, but unsure of how she feels about continuing to witness such raw intimacy.
"No. Not with his ears, at any rate, but there are other ways to communicate with a Time Lord. You should come closer."
Rose furrows her brow, hates that she has to ask so many questions rather than just accepting the mysteries of these two men. "Did he tell you that, like in your head? And if he's in your head, how come he isn't in mine as well?"
It comes out sounding all wrong. She sounds jealous and petty, and that's not it at all. She just has to know, has to catalogue the differences, tick the boxes in the various columns in order to understand them. A lump rises in her throat and she's ready to get the sour reply that she deserves.
Instead, the Doctor laughs-a low chuckle deep in his chest. "He isn't?"
Rose thinks that is possibly an even more upsetting answer than what she'd been expecting. "I... don't think so. Is he?"
The Doctor props himself up on an elbow, being very careful to not disturb the other man in the bed, and holds a hand out to her, beckoning. She puts her mug of tea down on a nearby table and approaches tentatively. She's never really liked hospitals or hanging around sick people-she's never known how to act or what to say, and she's finding that the problem is one hundred times worse when it's someone she loves this much.
He pats the bed on the opposite side of the Time Lord, inviting Rose to sit, or perhaps lay there, and she complies, trying so hard to not touch or jostle the patient that she winds up laying stiffly and unnaturally.
"Relax," the Doctor says. "He's not made of glass, you're not going to break him."
"Sorry, I just... I was so scared for him and then so relieved, but now I feel all sort of... useless."
The Doctor lays back down again on his side and reaches his hand out to clasp Rose's. "There, now isn't this nice? All of us together, one big happy... something."
Rose has to snicker at that. "Something is right. But it's a good something."
"It is. And even though he never says it, he thinks so, too."
Rose frowns. "Did he tell you that just now?"
"No, 'course not. But it's not like we're actually the same person with the same thoughts and feelings and memories... oh wait, we are! So, you could say that I have it on authority."
"But you did say he was communicating with you," she says.
"Communicating with, not talking to. And I also said it's not just me alone on this ship with him. Just be quiet for a second, see what happens."
Rose had thought she'd been very quiet. She'd been quiet while she was sleeping (obviously), and she'd been pretty quiet while making tea, except for the spoon-tossing incident, and she'd been careful to be quiet when entering the bedroom. Nevertheless, she closes her eyes and tries not to move lest she rustle the sheets.
"Not that kind of quiet," the Doctor says, jarring her determination for silence with his words.
She closes her eyes again and tries to think of what other kinds of quiet there are.
"Stop it," the Doctor says, and again she is startled. For someone who insists on quiet, he sure is talking an awful lot. But then again, that's the Doctor all over, isn't it?
"Stop what?"
"You're thinking too much-I can hear you from here. All that chatter in your head, you're drowning everything else out. Just stop trying to figure it all out. Stop looking for answers to questions that haven't even been asked yet." He pauses for a moment. "And stop trying to figure out what that last sentence even means."
She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes again, and just tries to concentrate on the feel of the convalescing Doctor's chest shallowly rising and falling, with the two-step beat of his hearts underneath. This is something she has no control over, and something that is such a beautiful mystery to her that it doesn't bear any thinking about. She long ago decided that pondering his alien life and timeless existence would get her nowhere.
She feels a warmth around her, like being wrapped in cotton wool, and she gently tries to move away from thinking about what that means, or why it is happening, or what the Doctors are each feeling. The already-quiet room seems to move into a zone even beyond mere silence. The feel of the bed beneath her, supporting her, drops away. She floats, timelessly.
A tear slides down her cheek and she doesn't quite know why.
She decides not to think about it.
***
"It's not that I was sad," Rose says, feeling bad that the Doctor has had to supply her with a tissue.
"I know."
They sit side-by-side on her bed, backs against one wall and legs stretched straight out, like little kids on a chair that's too big for them. They've left the other Doctor's sick room for a time, to get some food and maybe a bit of kip again.
"It was weird, like I was feeling every emotion, but all at once. The good ones and the bad ones, all mixed up together." She dabs her eye with the back of her hand reflexively. "Is that what it's like for him all the time? Is that what's in his head?"
"Too many questions," he answers . "And I know you've got questions also about us two, and what that's all about, and if what you experienced has anything to do with it."
"I-"
"No, it's okay. I would wonder, too, if I were you. It's a little weird."
Rose allows herself a little chuckle. "It's a lot weird."
"All right, it's a lot weird. And it's been kind of you to not ask. Not everyone could accept the things you do." He smiles warmly at her and taps the side of her bare foot with his big toe.
"All I know is that you're like a couple of OAPs. You bicker all the time, but there's something there. Something I can't really understand."
"Right in one!" A very chirpy, unnecessarily loud voice came from the doorway and the Doctor and Rose both jump a little bit and then turn to see the other Doctor, still in pyjamas, beaming at them.
The pair on the bed both leap up and run towards him, each taking one of his arms in theirs as if to steady him, though he doesn't seem at all unsteady in the first place. Rose stands on her tip-toes and covers his neck with little kisses, while the man on the other side just clings, and wordlessly looks into his eyes.
"You scared us half to death!" Rose squeaks, and then wonders if she should really be speaking for the other Doctor, who had seemed less terrified and more just contemplative and sad.
"Sorry for that, but I'm all better now. Better than better!" He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet. "I feel like I could... I dunno, eat vindaloo, run a marathon, sing an opera," he arches an eyebrow at neither of them in particular, "or any number of other very worthwhile and life-affirming activities."
"I could draw you a bath!" Rose says enthusiastically, earning a confused look from both men. "I know that after I've been ill, I always fancy a nice, hot- Oh. That's not really what you meant, is it?"
"That sounds brilliant, too," the Doctor says, inspecting the pyjamas that he didn't actually put on himself. "I do love a bubble bath."
The other Doctor nods sagely and solemnly. "Good idea. Probably very healing for the dermis, having been in bed-"
The Doctor does not have a chance to finish his sentence, as his double steps forward, quite business-like, and firmly and thoroughly kisses him. Rose stands to the side and watches, wondering if she should, or should not, go draw a bath.
She decides on not, and moves round to carefully unbutton the Doctor's pyjama top from behind. When she finishes and moves to pull it off of his shoulders, he disengages from the other man and wipes the corner of his mouth with a hand.
Rose isn't sure if it's due to her experience of earlier, of sharing something with the Doctors that had previously just been between them, or if perhaps the environment in their ship has changed as her owner has revived-perhaps all of the above and more-but when both men bend down and kiss her, something happens. She forgets to think and instead just feels.
If all that is required for flying is to throw oneself at the ground and miss, perhaps all that is needed to feel bliss is to throw oneself at a thought and miss.
The locus of her experience shifts downward, to where her breaths come deeply and evenly. Perhaps they are together on the bed, or on the floor, or against a wall; it doesn't really matter. Where there was once a solitary interior monologue that could be shared with no one just by definition, now there is just a single universal sensation. She's never been more aware of the three of them together and how they fit, and how perfect it is. It's not weird, and it's not something that has a name or a definition. It just is. They just are.
As a somewhat experienced young woman, Rose had thought she'd pretty much felt everything there was to feel when it came to making love. The operation of this part going here and that part going there, and it all feeling rather good at the end, it had sort of become old hat. A nice old hat, but an old hat nonetheless.
But now she finds that all that mapping of locations and creating a clear dividing line between where she ends and her lovers begin (and again between the two of them and their boundaries between one another) had simply been a hindrance and a fallacy. There is no separation.
There is movement, but she can't say that she was the one doing the moving, nor either of the Doctors. They move as one, but even that is a bit of a misstatement.
They move, and that is all.
And as they do, she revels in the taught, sinewy feel of their bodies against the more rounded angles of her own. She feels how the two of them press up against one another, mirror images and complimentary in their own ways. Their mouths, their hands, their tongues-on one another and then on her-warm and cool, desperate and teasing, it's like they fill up all the corners of her to perfection, slotting piece after satisfying piece into the puzzle of their miraculous lives together.
She doesn't try to tell them apart. She had, in the past, gotten entirely too wrapped up in delineating who was who, by their few individual quirks and by their body temperatures. She had felt anxiety when she couldn't tell them apart, thinking (always thinking) that perhaps she was short-changing one giving too much to the other. Letting that go and trusting that they both loved her and each other, is freeing beyond measure.
Mouths are on her hip bones, a tongue explores the crease under her breast, a hand covers her mound and slides downwards, exploring, and then for a while just the feel of two bodies pleasuring one another as she was there to witness...
She doesn't keep track of when she comes and who may or may not have been the cause. Her orgasm brings a peel of laughter from her, it has been so long since she's just let go and let passion happen. The two men laugh as well, and hungrily devour one another as she smiles and runs her hands down along the ridges of their spines, feeling how they enjoy one another when left to their own devices. Muscles move beneath skin, tendons flex and pale skin flushes.
A tear slides down her cheek and she doesn't quite know why.
She decides not to think about it.