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Rose.
She was the only thought in his mind. Her face, her laugh, that thing she did with her tongue when she smiled up at him.
And that wasn’t even mentioning her heart, the way it had opened up for him from the very start, like a gorgeous flower in full bloom, had saved him from himself— from their very first meeting, then again when he’d changed, and once more when he’d come to her in his current form— the one that would be his final— on a cold beach a sea away from where they now called home.
His entire journey back to the flat, through stop lights and road work signs he flew past, all he could see was her face.
“Doctor? You’re home early. What’s going-“ but her question was left unasked and unanswered, as lips crashed into hers as soon as she turned away from her tea on the kitchen counter and towards the door.
This was no peck, no friendly or sweet kiss. This was an action of pure desire, lips that landed on hers fully demanding.
He grasped her waist, holding her like he was scared to ever let go. When they did part, his month wasn’t off of her long, making a beeline for her neck.
“Doctor,” she gasped. She was trying to make sense of what was happening, of what had gotten into him. Her voice was meant to hold an inflection that expressed her questions, but it came out more breathy as her eyes fell shut in unbridled pleasure from the feel of his hot mouth on her skin. She tried again. “Doctor wh-what’s going on?” She asked, hands sliding up his shoulders.
They had been here, in Pete’s world, for all of six months now and in all that time had not came close to this sort of physical passion. They had their kiss, snog really, on the beach that first day, and then had become more shy in the time following. Chaste kisses had become a fixture as of the last several weeks, became a part of their routine. A few had lingered, lasted longer than a peck, but not one had advanced like this.
“Wanted to,” he stated, while coming up for the briefest air, like it was the simplest thing in the world.
“Oh.” Her eyebrows lifted, along with her spirits. He’d just wanted to snog the living daylights out of her. Had wanted to kiss down her neck and paw at her like he feared someone was about to take her away from him forever.
Because he’s wanted to. Wanted her.
Clearly, that was the case with his actions, but it hadn’t fully sunk in until his words confirmed it. After so long, after years of wanting him to show her how much he wanted her, not just as a companion, it was hard for Rose to process such clear, blinking-green signs. She was used to everything between them, their feelings, their wants, and the perimeters in which their relationship existed within being implied, understated. But right now he was bursting through their usual decorum, and she had no idea why he was at this moment. Or if she much cared about the why.
Attention divided between him and her thoughts of what his behavior meant left Rose surprised when the backs of her legs hit the sofa. She pushed all the thinking and subsequently overthinking about the ‘whys and the why nows’ to the side as they silently agreed to make the sofa their desired destination.
Rose took the lead for the first time through the whole exchange, now that she was beginning to understand what was happening. She pulled back from him just far enough to pull off her sweater, doing so in one swift maneuver.
She’d expected some verbal reaction of some sort, him saying something like he always had too. But instead his eyes took her in silently, studying her with full intensity. She couldn’t help but shiver under his gaze, but she didn’t feel insecure from having his eyes set on her. Instead, it made her feel powerful. Beautiful. He stared until it seemed he couldn’t stand not touching her any longer. Then he leaned in to capture her lips once again with his own as they fell into the furniture.
“Oh, Rose.” He panted from the exertion and excitement. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so alive. He wasn’t sure he ever had before now.
She was wiggling beneath him, pushing herself up towards him, where his pants were growing impossible tight. Understanding her signal, he slide his thumbs below the waistband of her jeans, pulling them down her legs in a way he knew she had been waiting for from the way the action caused her to sigh.
Her hands came up to sink into his hair, desperate to keep him close. Almost as desperate as he felt, but not quite. He knew she couldn’t have him beat.
“Doctor,” she breathed, so simply, but it was the most erotic sound his ears had ever been graced with. He pulled back, having to get a good and proper look at her.
“Gorgeous,” he said, having thought it as his eyes met hers, before traveling down her form.
She was perfect, absolutely exquisite, laid out before him. The idea that her chest was heaving in response to him— that the most beautiful being he’d ever laid eyes on in this universe and the previous could want him was utterly ridiculous. Logically, he knew he should be feeling deeply insecure, if not straight up confused, but those feelings of inadequacy only existed as a light, buried whisper right now.
Instead, he felt no real fear as he seized each opportunity that presented before him. Each new bit of exposed skin was quick to taunt him and he called that bluff each time, investigating all he could take in at once with his touch— both hands roaming, lips gliding over her burning flesh. Tasting her where she was soft and and where she was slick—places that made her gasp and scream and arch against him.
As she had become more and more exposed to him, layer by layer and inch by inch, he had only felt more drunk. Heady. He loved her so much. Needed her so badly. Had for longer than he’d ever admit, would continue to need her for the rest of life. He needed her like he now needed oxygen and water and sustenance.
But even worse, he wanted her. Felt like his new body was going to give out on him every night he spent a room away from her. Like the second heart he was accustomed to had been cut out of him and implanted in her chest.
At some point, amongst all the desperate pawing and caressing, he’d lost as many garments as she had. He wasn’t sure what parts of his attire were removed by her or by him, all he knew was that they were all gone and so were hers. And that he was glad of the fact.
And when he finally— finally sunk into her, felt her from the inside, warm and perfect around him, wholly encompassing, he felt his raving mind and racing heart center in on a single focus. He had reached his destination. His oasis after a thousand years walking in the desert.
He let out the shakiest breath, knowing moving was what was next, what she was waiting on, what he knew he should do. But he couldn’t yet even conceive the level of control over his body needed to perform such an act. He saw fireworks behind his eyelids each time they fell shut.
Hearing the most alluring soft sound escape from beneath him, he mustered his strength to open his eyes and then lift his head.
Then he saw her.
He’d thought he’d seen Rose in every type of situation. Had every micro-expression noted in his mind, each meaning dog-eared like pages in a favorite book.
He was wrong. He’d never seen her like this.
Cheeks flushed, not quite in the same way they would to signal she was embarrassed. Her eyes were closed, not quite squeezed tight, but more in a promise of extreme focus. Her lips were parted, forming a flat ‘O’ shape. It was the most striking thing.
As her eyebrows began to furrow, he realized what she needed from him, which gave him the courage to continue.
And so they were. She rocked with him, panting and crying out as he found a pace, slowly pulling out of her and pushing back in— again and again.
As they worked each other up and over that cliff, he felt a relief he hadn’t known he was capable of obtaining. Not in any of his old forms, or in the time he’d been in this one.
He was home.
The next morning, as he woke up, a clearer mind and a half a dozen messages from his lab colleague on his Torchwood-issued cell phone warning him about potential adverse effects that had been discovered surrounding the unidentified alien matter they had been observing the previous afternoon, he found that he still felt the same peace as he’d found last night in her arms.
Last night, he may had been affected by something foreign, but what it gave him the courage to do was act out familiar feelings and desires.
Looking over at Rose’s sleeping form, still bare beside him and sated from the night before, he couldn’t help but beam silently. Grateful for the toxins he’d been exposed to for giving him the confidence to break down the barriers that had stood between them for far too long.
He’d transversed universes, more planets than even he could count. Ones with beings of light that spoke directly into his mind. Planets where orange and yellow speckled frogs ruled over humans. Walked through a world made up of more colors than could ever be given names to, but had no blue.
But glancing around this tiny, well-lived in flat that the two of them now called theirs, with it’s leaky faucets and peeling checkered wallpaper Rose claimed to hate but had never took the time to change, he’d never felt more amazed. Or so much a part of a world he’d been a perpetual tourist in for centuries.
He was a piece of this life, a fixture in time. And he’d never been so appreciative of anything else in any of his lives.