Gift-fic: Cataloguing 1/1
Story: Cataloguing
Author: wmr
wendymr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Rated: soft M for Mature
Spoilers: Up to TCI only
Disclaimer: If you don't already know they're not mine, where have you been for the past three years?
Summary: It's not like I’ve ever just changed my entire body. Haven’t even had a nose job. So, you know, ‘m just wondering what it feels like, that’s all.
Dual-purpose gift-fic: for
misscam, who needs cheering up and wanted Jack-free fluff and smut, and for
aibhinn, whose birthday it is today. With many thanks to
dark_aegis for BRing, and to
christn7, who supplied the perfect line of Ten-babble. Virtual prize to anyone who picks out his line!
Cataloguing
The first night, after she’s held his new hand, his fightin’ hand, he asks her if she’s staying in the TARDIS. Immediately, before he’s even finished speaking, she shakes her head. “Not tonight. Wanna stay with Mum.”
So he’s left on his own, rattling around his wounded time-ship, wondering whether she really needs Jackie so much more than him or whether she wasn’t joking when she said his hand creeped her out.
***
The next night, after a day when he hasn’t seen her because Jackie insists on family visits, making a half-hearted offer to include him which he refuses, she lets herself into the ship unannounced. He’s working at the console, soothing his damaged TARDIS with his hands and with his mind.
“Is she... is she okay?” she asks, a frown of concern on her face as she comes to the console and lays her hand on the edge.
“She will be.” He uses the screwdriver to tighten the edge of the console, the part that was ripped open with, of all things, a yellow tow-truck.
“I’m glad.” She’s looking troubled. “Wouldn’t want to think I lost her as well- ”
Her abrupt halt makes him look at her. As well as him - the other him. “I am still here,” he points out, feeling irritated but sounding... hurt.
“I know.” She comes to him, reaches for his hand - not the fighting one, folds her smaller one around it. “ ‘S bigger.”
“What is?”
“Your hand. Fingers are longer. Thinner, though.”
True. He noticed that when he was poking around in the narrow spaces below the control panel. Made things easier for him. He likes his new hands.
But now he wonders if she preferred short and calloused.
***
“Your nose is smaller. An’ your ears. What does that feel like?”
It’s the next morning, and she’s just dropped in to see him.
He pops up from under the grille to stare at her, eyes wide. “What kind of question is that?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. I mean, ‘s not like I’ve ever just changed my entire body. Haven’t even had a nose job. So, you know, ‘m just wondering what it feels like, that’s all.”
He considers. “Never really thought of it like that. I mean, I noticed the new teeth - now, that takes some getting used to. The bite’s different. Did you know the way you eat changes completely based on the shape of your teeth? But the nose and ears... well, don’t think I could say that my olfactory sense is any different, or my hearing’s got worse. Interesting. Maybe I should conduct a few experiments -”
“Doctor,” she says, a little tartly, cutting across him. “The new teeth makin’ you talk non-stop, too?”
***
She brings him a cup of tea later, and he sits on the edge of the grille, feet dangling down into the crawlspace, to drink it. She’s perched on the captain’s chair as they chat.
He starts as fingers comb through his hair. “What?” He twists around to look at her. “Have I got something stuck in my hair?”
“Nah.” She grins, a little sheepishly, he thinks. “Jus’ not used to seein’ you with hair. Had to check it’s real.”
His eyes widen. “Course it’s real. What’d you think? You didn’t think it was a wig, did you? Because I’ll have you know that would be completely undignified for a Time Lord.”
“Since when’ve you cared much about dignity?” she teases, ruffling his hair.
“Oi!” he protests, but then curiosity - that’s all it is, just idle interest - gets the better of him. “You like the new hair, then, do you?”
She’s silent for almost a minute, then finally says, “It’s different.”
***
“You’re the same height. That normal?” she asks.
She’s been walking in circles around him for the past few seconds. Very disconcerting, especially as she kept looking up at him and then back down at the floor. Well, if he’d realised she was measuring...
“Normal? Hard to tell what’s normal when you regenerate. Went from medium height and very, very old to short and middle-aged. That was a bit disconcerting. The next few mes were tall and absolutely dashing and handsome, even if I say so myself. Had a bit of a short spell for a while there in my seventh body - actually, the eighth wasn’t all that tall either -”
“Wait a minute.” She’s frowning now, looking as if she’s having difficulty keeping her jaw in place. “How many times have you done this?”
“Ooh...” He pretends to have to count. “Nine. This is the tenth me. Takes a while to achieve perfection, you see.” He grins winningly.
Bad idea, he realises immediately; why give her an opportunity to decide that she thought his last body was closer to perfection? Though, really, he’s definitely much more handsome in this body. Isn’t he? Some reassurance would be nice here - isn’t that what companions are supposed to be for? Or is that friends? Are they friends still?
Her hand slides into his. “S’pose you’re not bad.” She grins, tongue between her teeth. “Maybe I should reserve judgement until you show me your mole.”
***
“So, do lots of planets have a south, then?”
“What?” Or at least that’s what he tries to say, but since he’s got the sonic screwdriver in his mouth at the time it comes out something like “Ha?”
“Well, what you said before - you know, when I asked you about your accent.”
He lets the screwdriver drop into his hand. “Oh, that. Yeah, suppose it makes sense. I mean, if you have a north you have to have a south. Would be a bit pointless otherwise, wouldn’t it?”
“S’pose,” she agrees, bending to pick up the wires he’s managed to drop on the floor. “So how’d you get this accent, then? I mean, that changed along with everything else. Why this one? Why not Welsh, or Scottish, or... I dunno, Jamaican?”
“Ooh, think I’d sound a bit odd as a Jamaican, don’t you?” he observes, raising both eyebrows as he contemplates the prospect. “I was Welsh once. Well, not really Welsh, I suppose. Liverpudlian. Close, anyway. That wasn’t bad - quite liked that accent. Ooh, but I was Scottish. Liked that one. Scottish, yep, love the Scots.” He slips into what he’s confident is a perfect Scottish accent. “T’was a braw, bricht bonnie nicht the nicht.”
She shakes her head, smothering laughter. “See one thing’s the same. You still never give me a straight answer to simple questions.”
***
He comes to a halt outside her bedroom door, swinging around to lean against the frame. She looks up and, seeing him, gives him an enquiring look.
“Seem to remember you were interested in seeing my mole.”
“Might be, yeah.” She finishes pulling off her blouse, letting it fall to the floor. He doesn’t disguise his interest in the view.
Hands on her hips, she stares at him until he’s finally forced to respond. “What? What’ve I done now?”
“You’re hardly gonna show me your mole if I’m the one takin’ my clothes off here!”
“Suppose not,” he agrees, and makes an elaborate gesture of pulling off his tie. “Mind you, I wasn’t complaining.”
She rolls her eyes. “Somethin’ else that’s not changed, then?”
“What is this?” he demands. “You making a list or something? Everything that’s different?”
She shrugs. “Why not? Cuts down on surprises later.”
He steps closer to her, then takes her face between his palms. “So tell me if this is different, then.”
Rose grins as he brings his head down to hers and snogs her.
“Ooh,” he says, pulling away after a few seconds. “New lips. Now that’s strange.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “Might need to test that a bit more. You know, just to get used to them an’ all.”
She reaches up for him, looping a hand around the back of his neck. “Shame. Can’t pull you down by the ears any more.”
“Oi!”
***
“Hope you’re not going to tell me everything that’s different about that!”
He’s eyeing her in trepidation as she kneels between his spread legs, her hands exploring lots of places he’d ordinarily be only too happy for her to explore. Places he always was only too happy for her to explore.
“What, the big, powerful Time Lord’s all insecure about his manly parts?” She grins, tongue poking between her teeth. He can think of better places for it to be, frankly.
“Not... not insecure,” he protests. After all, he’s got no reason to be insecure. Has he? He wasn’t insecure at all in his last body. But that was his last body. This is his new one. And what if she decides he’s lacking now?
In one fluid movement, she straddles him and takes him inside her. Ooh, now that is different. Not bad different. Good. Maybe he’s better at it this time around? Or was it always this good?
"Oh, that's nice.” He grins winningly up at her, his hands going to rest lightly on her hips. “Different, certainly, but nice. You like it, right? Of course you do - I think I'm good at this, this time around. Better than I was, don't you think? Fits better and it's so much, it's so... If you could just - just shift - yeah, that's it. Better, right?"
“Oh, you think you’re better at it now, do you?” she asks, very uncharitably pausing in the midst of all the things she’s doing that are making him feel very, very good.
“Well, I...” he begins, before her implication dawns. “Are you saying I’m not?”
“Least the last you didn’t talk all the way through sex,” she grumbles, then squeezes him just there with her muscles so all he’s able to muster in reply is a squeak.
***
He’s proving to her, later, that he really can keep his mouth occupied with things other than talking, and that he’s even better at multi-tasking, too. He’s filling her, driving into her and making her gasp, while learning the way her breasts taste with this new tongue.
Ooh, yes, there might be so many better things to do with this tongue than simply talk.
Her hands have been clutching his back, his shoulders - oh, yes, he’s good at this. And then suddenly she cries out.
“Found it!”
Bugger. He’s lost his momentum. “Found what?”
She giggles. “Your mole.”
“Ooh, the mole,” he says, distracted. It’s even more of a distraction when her fingers run over it. “Love the mole.”
“The other you had a mole too,” she tells him. “Well, sort of.”
Oh, right, on his face. “This mole’s different,” he points out. “Nicer. Much nicer.”
“What, now we’re having mole contests, are we?” She shakes her head, laughing in disbelief.
“What?”
“First time I’ve ever met a bloke who had to out-perform himself.”
***
They’re lying together later, after he’s managed to give her four - count them, four - successive orgasms. His longer fingers are combing through her hair, and she’s...
...she’s staring at him, an expression of intense concentration on her face, and is she... counting?
“Rose?”
There’s a pause, as if she doesn’t want to be interrupted. “Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
She shrugs. “Nothin’.”
“Yes, you are. Come on, confess. I can make you, you know. Secret Time Lord powers and all that.”
“Yeah, right.” She sticks her tongue out at him; he’s tempted to lick it. Oh, this oral fixation’s going to be interesting. “I was counting.”
“Yeah, worked that out, thanks. What were you counting?”
“Your freckles.”
He props himself up on one elbow so he can stare down at her from a greater height. “If you absolutely insist on cataloguing me, I’m sure there are more interesting things you could admire than my freckles.”
“Prob’ly are.” She leans up on her elbow, meeting his gaze. “But maybe ‘s about time you put that new tongue of yours to good use an’ started cataloguing me instead.”
He’s about to object to being ordered around - Time Lords generally do the ordering, after all - when he decides that she’s right. It is a better use of his skills.
No point having a new body, after all, if he doesn’t exploit its best features.
end
Author: wmr
wendymr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Rated: soft M for Mature
Spoilers: Up to TCI only
Disclaimer: If you don't already know they're not mine, where have you been for the past three years?
Summary: It's not like I’ve ever just changed my entire body. Haven’t even had a nose job. So, you know, ‘m just wondering what it feels like, that’s all.
Dual-purpose gift-fic: for
misscam, who needs cheering up and wanted Jack-free fluff and smut, and for
aibhinn, whose birthday it is today. With many thanks to
dark_aegis for BRing, and to
christn7, who supplied the perfect line of Ten-babble. Virtual prize to anyone who picks out his line!
Cataloguing
The first night, after she’s held his new hand, his fightin’ hand, he asks her if she’s staying in the TARDIS. Immediately, before he’s even finished speaking, she shakes her head. “Not tonight. Wanna stay with Mum.”
So he’s left on his own, rattling around his wounded time-ship, wondering whether she really needs Jackie so much more than him or whether she wasn’t joking when she said his hand creeped her out.
***
The next night, after a day when he hasn’t seen her because Jackie insists on family visits, making a half-hearted offer to include him which he refuses, she lets herself into the ship unannounced. He’s working at the console, soothing his damaged TARDIS with his hands and with his mind.
“Is she... is she okay?” she asks, a frown of concern on her face as she comes to the console and lays her hand on the edge.
“She will be.” He uses the screwdriver to tighten the edge of the console, the part that was ripped open with, of all things, a yellow tow-truck.
“I’m glad.” She’s looking troubled. “Wouldn’t want to think I lost her as well- ”
Her abrupt halt makes him look at her. As well as him - the other him. “I am still here,” he points out, feeling irritated but sounding... hurt.
“I know.” She comes to him, reaches for his hand - not the fighting one, folds her smaller one around it. “ ‘S bigger.”
“What is?”
“Your hand. Fingers are longer. Thinner, though.”
True. He noticed that when he was poking around in the narrow spaces below the control panel. Made things easier for him. He likes his new hands.
But now he wonders if she preferred short and calloused.
***
“Your nose is smaller. An’ your ears. What does that feel like?”
It’s the next morning, and she’s just dropped in to see him.
He pops up from under the grille to stare at her, eyes wide. “What kind of question is that?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. I mean, ‘s not like I’ve ever just changed my entire body. Haven’t even had a nose job. So, you know, ‘m just wondering what it feels like, that’s all.”
He considers. “Never really thought of it like that. I mean, I noticed the new teeth - now, that takes some getting used to. The bite’s different. Did you know the way you eat changes completely based on the shape of your teeth? But the nose and ears... well, don’t think I could say that my olfactory sense is any different, or my hearing’s got worse. Interesting. Maybe I should conduct a few experiments -”
“Doctor,” she says, a little tartly, cutting across him. “The new teeth makin’ you talk non-stop, too?”
***
She brings him a cup of tea later, and he sits on the edge of the grille, feet dangling down into the crawlspace, to drink it. She’s perched on the captain’s chair as they chat.
He starts as fingers comb through his hair. “What?” He twists around to look at her. “Have I got something stuck in my hair?”
“Nah.” She grins, a little sheepishly, he thinks. “Jus’ not used to seein’ you with hair. Had to check it’s real.”
His eyes widen. “Course it’s real. What’d you think? You didn’t think it was a wig, did you? Because I’ll have you know that would be completely undignified for a Time Lord.”
“Since when’ve you cared much about dignity?” she teases, ruffling his hair.
“Oi!” he protests, but then curiosity - that’s all it is, just idle interest - gets the better of him. “You like the new hair, then, do you?”
She’s silent for almost a minute, then finally says, “It’s different.”
***
“You’re the same height. That normal?” she asks.
She’s been walking in circles around him for the past few seconds. Very disconcerting, especially as she kept looking up at him and then back down at the floor. Well, if he’d realised she was measuring...
“Normal? Hard to tell what’s normal when you regenerate. Went from medium height and very, very old to short and middle-aged. That was a bit disconcerting. The next few mes were tall and absolutely dashing and handsome, even if I say so myself. Had a bit of a short spell for a while there in my seventh body - actually, the eighth wasn’t all that tall either -”
“Wait a minute.” She’s frowning now, looking as if she’s having difficulty keeping her jaw in place. “How many times have you done this?”
“Ooh...” He pretends to have to count. “Nine. This is the tenth me. Takes a while to achieve perfection, you see.” He grins winningly.
Bad idea, he realises immediately; why give her an opportunity to decide that she thought his last body was closer to perfection? Though, really, he’s definitely much more handsome in this body. Isn’t he? Some reassurance would be nice here - isn’t that what companions are supposed to be for? Or is that friends? Are they friends still?
Her hand slides into his. “S’pose you’re not bad.” She grins, tongue between her teeth. “Maybe I should reserve judgement until you show me your mole.”
***
“So, do lots of planets have a south, then?”
“What?” Or at least that’s what he tries to say, but since he’s got the sonic screwdriver in his mouth at the time it comes out something like “Ha?”
“Well, what you said before - you know, when I asked you about your accent.”
He lets the screwdriver drop into his hand. “Oh, that. Yeah, suppose it makes sense. I mean, if you have a north you have to have a south. Would be a bit pointless otherwise, wouldn’t it?”
“S’pose,” she agrees, bending to pick up the wires he’s managed to drop on the floor. “So how’d you get this accent, then? I mean, that changed along with everything else. Why this one? Why not Welsh, or Scottish, or... I dunno, Jamaican?”
“Ooh, think I’d sound a bit odd as a Jamaican, don’t you?” he observes, raising both eyebrows as he contemplates the prospect. “I was Welsh once. Well, not really Welsh, I suppose. Liverpudlian. Close, anyway. That wasn’t bad - quite liked that accent. Ooh, but I was Scottish. Liked that one. Scottish, yep, love the Scots.” He slips into what he’s confident is a perfect Scottish accent. “T’was a braw, bricht bonnie nicht the nicht.”
She shakes her head, smothering laughter. “See one thing’s the same. You still never give me a straight answer to simple questions.”
***
He comes to a halt outside her bedroom door, swinging around to lean against the frame. She looks up and, seeing him, gives him an enquiring look.
“Seem to remember you were interested in seeing my mole.”
“Might be, yeah.” She finishes pulling off her blouse, letting it fall to the floor. He doesn’t disguise his interest in the view.
Hands on her hips, she stares at him until he’s finally forced to respond. “What? What’ve I done now?”
“You’re hardly gonna show me your mole if I’m the one takin’ my clothes off here!”
“Suppose not,” he agrees, and makes an elaborate gesture of pulling off his tie. “Mind you, I wasn’t complaining.”
She rolls her eyes. “Somethin’ else that’s not changed, then?”
“What is this?” he demands. “You making a list or something? Everything that’s different?”
She shrugs. “Why not? Cuts down on surprises later.”
He steps closer to her, then takes her face between his palms. “So tell me if this is different, then.”
Rose grins as he brings his head down to hers and snogs her.
“Ooh,” he says, pulling away after a few seconds. “New lips. Now that’s strange.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “Might need to test that a bit more. You know, just to get used to them an’ all.”
She reaches up for him, looping a hand around the back of his neck. “Shame. Can’t pull you down by the ears any more.”
“Oi!”
***
“Hope you’re not going to tell me everything that’s different about that!”
He’s eyeing her in trepidation as she kneels between his spread legs, her hands exploring lots of places he’d ordinarily be only too happy for her to explore. Places he always was only too happy for her to explore.
“What, the big, powerful Time Lord’s all insecure about his manly parts?” She grins, tongue poking between her teeth. He can think of better places for it to be, frankly.
“Not... not insecure,” he protests. After all, he’s got no reason to be insecure. Has he? He wasn’t insecure at all in his last body. But that was his last body. This is his new one. And what if she decides he’s lacking now?
In one fluid movement, she straddles him and takes him inside her. Ooh, now that is different. Not bad different. Good. Maybe he’s better at it this time around? Or was it always this good?
"Oh, that's nice.” He grins winningly up at her, his hands going to rest lightly on her hips. “Different, certainly, but nice. You like it, right? Of course you do - I think I'm good at this, this time around. Better than I was, don't you think? Fits better and it's so much, it's so... If you could just - just shift - yeah, that's it. Better, right?"
“Oh, you think you’re better at it now, do you?” she asks, very uncharitably pausing in the midst of all the things she’s doing that are making him feel very, very good.
“Well, I...” he begins, before her implication dawns. “Are you saying I’m not?”
“Least the last you didn’t talk all the way through sex,” she grumbles, then squeezes him just there with her muscles so all he’s able to muster in reply is a squeak.
***
He’s proving to her, later, that he really can keep his mouth occupied with things other than talking, and that he’s even better at multi-tasking, too. He’s filling her, driving into her and making her gasp, while learning the way her breasts taste with this new tongue.
Ooh, yes, there might be so many better things to do with this tongue than simply talk.
Her hands have been clutching his back, his shoulders - oh, yes, he’s good at this. And then suddenly she cries out.
“Found it!”
Bugger. He’s lost his momentum. “Found what?”
She giggles. “Your mole.”
“Ooh, the mole,” he says, distracted. It’s even more of a distraction when her fingers run over it. “Love the mole.”
“The other you had a mole too,” she tells him. “Well, sort of.”
Oh, right, on his face. “This mole’s different,” he points out. “Nicer. Much nicer.”
“What, now we’re having mole contests, are we?” She shakes her head, laughing in disbelief.
“What?”
“First time I’ve ever met a bloke who had to out-perform himself.”
***
They’re lying together later, after he’s managed to give her four - count them, four - successive orgasms. His longer fingers are combing through her hair, and she’s...
...she’s staring at him, an expression of intense concentration on her face, and is she... counting?
“Rose?”
There’s a pause, as if she doesn’t want to be interrupted. “Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
She shrugs. “Nothin’.”
“Yes, you are. Come on, confess. I can make you, you know. Secret Time Lord powers and all that.”
“Yeah, right.” She sticks her tongue out at him; he’s tempted to lick it. Oh, this oral fixation’s going to be interesting. “I was counting.”
“Yeah, worked that out, thanks. What were you counting?”
“Your freckles.”
He props himself up on one elbow so he can stare down at her from a greater height. “If you absolutely insist on cataloguing me, I’m sure there are more interesting things you could admire than my freckles.”
“Prob’ly are.” She leans up on her elbow, meeting his gaze. “But maybe ‘s about time you put that new tongue of yours to good use an’ started cataloguing me instead.”
He’s about to object to being ordered around - Time Lords generally do the ordering, after all - when he decides that she’s right. It is a better use of his skills.
No point having a new body, after all, if he doesn’t exploit its best features.
end