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ushidoux · 3 years

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Look at Me, Senpai - Hinata x Reader x Daichi

Summary: Reader starts to see Hinata in a different light once he returns from Brazil. It turns out Hinata’s inability to give up isn’t just something restricted to the court. (~3.6k words)

Warnings: fem!reader, nsfw, infidelity, a touch of the yandere

A/N: This got really long so I split it in half lmfao, expect part 2 in a couple of days.

Part 1|| Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5

---

Senpai, I like you.

As you continued to sit courtside, watching Karasuno’s team overtake the opposition led by your boyfriend Daichi Sawamura, your eyes briefly settled on Hinata, the orange-haired first year. When the ball finally sailed over to him, and he hit it with an inhuman speed, the middle blocker’s signature, you thought briefly about his frank and surprisingly serious confession earlier in the day. How bold! You hadn’t taken it seriously of course - your affection towards him was nothing short of motherly. Plus, he was well aware of how serious you were about Daichi.

What an odd joke, you thought, but you had played along with it despite the fact that you knew he meant what he said, dismissing him with a laugh and a pat on the head.

I like you too, Hinata! You’re very fun to be around!

His smile had only wavered slightly at your words but you could feel his eyes get just a little darker as the twang of rejection set in.

But he was just a baby and this was just puppy love. He’d get over it eventually, right? He’d eventually find someone his own age.

Suddenly across the court, you could feel Hinata’s gaze fall on you again, and he smiled again, but this time it was different. Maybe it was bleed over from the boundless confidence and determination he had whenever he stepped on the court, but something about the way his eyes flashed just for a moment as he looked at you made your face grow just a little bit warm.

[Years pass.]

“So when’s the wedding?!”

Your grandmother’s voice blared through the phone in raucous joy as you laughed and tried to field her many follow-up questions. She, like almost everyone else you had told, was incredibly excited about your proposal, and despite the fact that it was only three days later, the high was already starting to fade and you were getting tired of answering the same questions.

When’s the wedding? Where’s the wedding? How excited are you? Are you already pregnant? Are you going to move into a house?

Between your grandmother, your parents and siblings, your wonderful friends, your neighbors - honestly, literally everyone and their mother - you were feeling incredibly supported during this time. But still, somehow, something felt wrong, and you couldn’t exactly place why.

Once you had finally answered Grandma’s questions to her satisfaction, you hung up the phone and flopped backwards back into your bed with a sigh. Holding up one hand in front of you to display your engagement ring, you inspected the stone carefully, letting it glimmer in the slowly fading sunlight beaming in through your bedroom window.

“Mrs. Sawamura,” you tried out the name in a soft whisper. It had a nice sound to it, ____ Sawamura. This was what you had always wanted, ever since you had met and started dating in high school. You’d always wanted to support his dreams, whether it was excelling at schoolwork, volleyball, joining the police force… and what better way to do it by agreeing to be his wife and spending the rest of your life with him? So many years had passed with you by his side, this was only the next natural step.

So what exactly was this reticence inside of you? You knew he would be good to you, no matter what, even if you felt that something about your relationship had already started to lose its spark. He had been working longer days and later nights, leaving very little time for you, and with all this time left alone, sometimes you regretted not having spent more time in high school or even later on making friends outside of those people he knew. The problem was that the volleyball team was so warm from the start, and you were so invested in caring for them as Daichi was… maybe this was some form of delayed empty nest syndrome, solidifying as the members all grew up and grew apart.

You checked the time on the small wall clock before you. Daichi wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours, and again you couldn’t fault him for this. The ring on your finger looked quite expensive, so he’d clearly worked hard to afford it.

Maybe you would draw.

Minutes passed, maybe even an hour, and as the sun finally set, you set down your pencil and reached over to your window to close the curtains so that the neighbors couldn’t peer into your home once you turned on the lights. Clicking on the bedside lamp, you settled back into a cross-legged position before your large sketchbook again, now taking a second look at your drawing.

An ordinary but hyper realistic-looking crow now peered back at you, almost as if it were wondering why you had decided on putting it to paper out of all the things that could have come to mind. You looked at it carefully and remembered a single fact about crows:

Crows never forget a face.

---

The next morning was Sunday and Daichi was fortunately off work for the day so you sat with your new fiancé at the kitchen table, listening to him talk excitedly about the week as the two of you shared a large omelette and munched on toasted bread.

“Honestly, you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I see, babe, it’s really something.”

His laugh was always hearty and you couldn’t deny the sparkle in his brown eyes as he shared work shenanigans with you, so while you were uncomfortable with the idea of him being in harm’s way so often as a police officer, you couldn’t help but smile with him whenever he did. His happiness was infectious, especially when he held your hand tightly and squeezed it just like this very moment, interlocking his fingers with yours as he ate with his other hand.

Once he finished eating, he leaned over to kiss you on the forehead, threading his fingers through your hair.

“Thanks for breakfast, baby,” he whispered, his voice smooth and lowered an octave. With his gaze, he drank up the image of you only in his oversized t-shirt and panties before pulling you towards him so that you straddled his hips as he sat on the chair. With you pressed close to him like this, between his hardening cock and the edge of the table, you could feel your breath hitch ever so slightly in your throat. Years had passed and you were still like this - you were still the shy, bashful girl who dared to date the captain of the volleyball team.

“Daichi…,” you trailed off, as he started to litter soft kisses on your collarbones.

“Do you want to uh…,” he paused and pulled back, a smile spreading across his features, as one of his hands found its way up your shirt to palm your breast, “... start off our morning right?”

He didn’t bother waiting for your reply before his lips met yours for dessert.

---

Parted thighs and many soft sighs later, the two of you lay side by side in pleasant exhaustion. You stared at the ceiling, your cheeks flushed as you pulled air into your overworked lungs. Daichi’s head found its way to rest in the softness of your abdomen and you languidly caressed his hair, your body still buzzing from lovemaking.

Daichi was clearly apologizing for passing out the moment he came home, you knew, and you appreciated his thoughtfulness. As you continued to softly scratch his scalp, the soft glow of the late morning sun warmed the two of you up even further and you knew that this feeling had to be what ballads were all about.

Love.

You loved Daichi. Right?

His fingers traced up and down your thighs, just barely avoiding the dampness of him releasing inside you just moments earlier slowly leaking from your center.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, as his fingers traveled your skin. He always told you this, reminded you were the most wonderful girl in the world.

And he was the most wonderful man on Earth. How incredible it was that you had found each other, you thought, as you lay together for what felt like hours and found yourself dozing off in each other’s embrace.

Yes, this was enough.

---

“You don’t have to go all out babe, it’s just the guys!” Daichi’s loud voice carried from outside the bathroom as you perfected your mascara. You ignored him with a playful roll of the eye even though you couldn’t see him, focusing on perfecting a winged eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man. It had been a while since you had dressed up, and it didn’t hurt to really go all out. This was a sort of mini-reunion anyway and what better way to make your fiancé proud than to make all his friends jealous?

“I thought you said I was pretty this morning,” you called out, as you dabbed perfume behind your ears and at the center of your chest. “Don’t you want everyone else to know?”

With that you posed dramatically at the end of the hallway, cat-walking with a face so straight it was ridiculous until you reached Daichi who stood at the front of your door, holding in a laugh. You burst into laughter once you reached him, falling into his chest.

“Let’s go see your old team!” You said, quickly pushing him away playfully when his eager hands settled too comfortably on your ass. He nodded, deciding to grab your hand instead as your cab approached.

Your car ride was short and your mind started to wander as you idly rubbed the knuckles of Daichi’s hand with your thumb. You remembered him telling you vaguely about one of his teammates returning to Japan, prompting the reunion, the orange-haired one named Hinata who you recalled was nothing short of a ball of sunshine and had confessed to you once.

Senpai, I like you.

Well, he would probably have gotten over that crush by now. It had been years.

The restaurant was loud when you entered, following Daichi closely. A table full of young men almost erupted in praise once the two of you approached.

“Captain!”

Tanaka, who you recognized easily from his shaved head and brash attitude came sailing over to essentially crush Daichi in a headlock, but before he could reach him, the orange-haired boy who had just graced your thoughts a couple of minutes earlier beat him to it, slapping him heartily on the back.

“You finally made it! Did you miss me?” Hinata said, with a grin and for a split second, you thought you saw his eyes flit to you. Without warning, your mind started to race, realizing that immediately your face had started to warm as you watched your goofy little underclassman with a crush talk and tease your fiancé animatedly-

And to your dismay, you realized you couldn’t take your eyes off of him.

---

You couldn’t pinpoint exactly what had you unsettled throughout the lively dinner - was it the fact that even though you sat by Kiyoko, the previous team manager, she seemed to be more focused on eating quietly, a smile on her face as she basked in the glory days with the boys? Or was it the fact that you could see Hinata’s rare but noticeable furtive glances towards you, the ones that Daichi seemed to miss now that he was more than a little drunk judging by how red he was in the face? Maybe it was the fact that you were trying to understand what was this sudden gravitational pull you felt towards Hinata at first glance, something that made very little sense to you and seemed oh-so-very-wrong.

Was it the fact that while he was still shorter than average for a volleyball player, his time in Brazil had tanned his skin nicely, bringing out the well toned muscles in his shoulders or arms? Or that while his eyes were still bright and kind, the angles in his face had grown sharper and his smile had made the very slight shift from determined to confident and almost even cocky?

What the hell was it that had you suddenly so distracted?

You fiddled with the ring on your finger above the table between bites of grilled meat and poured sake, trying desperately to make small talk with Kiyoko, only to be disappointed by how unsuccessful you were in engaging yourself in meaningful conversation.

Eventually you decided to get up for some fresh air, giving Daichi a little nudge on the back to let him know you were stepping out and took a seat in a small chair set outside the chilly restaurant meant for smokers. It was nice to have a little more quiet, and you briefly pondered if Daichi would be okay with you going home first.

Something was terribly, terribly wrong, and it was about to get way worse since it turned out that Hinata had followed you out.

“Heya!” Hinata’s voice startled you as he approached, quickly taking a seat beside you. Your face flushing for the second time today (you blamed it on the alcohol, of course), you eked out a hello, mentally shaming yourself for being so awkward.

“You were quiet in there...”

“A-ah, yes! It’s just I haven’t really seen any of you guys in a while and we weren’t close, so it was a bit hard to follow the conversations…,” you trailed off, not making eye contact. You decided that a good way to politely add distance would be to re-introduce yourself even though you knew exactly who he was now, and you knew he remembered you.

You stuck your hand out to greet him formally with a handshake.

“I don’t know if you still remember me but I’m ____ -”

“I know,” Hinata interrupted curtly, without looking directly at you and your hand fell to your side slowly and returned to your lap. He stared out at the street with his face unsmiling, a look that appeared almost unnatural for someone like him and then turned back to you to give you a wide smile anew.

“How have you been? I didn’t think I’d see you here again!” He was cheerful again and polite as always, but for a moment you felt mildly insulted, as though he’d implied that maybe he didn’t expect you to be with Daichi for this long.

Maybe you were just overreacting.

...

Yeah, you were just overreacting.

“Mmm, things have been great!” You replied earnestly, fiddling subconsciously with your engagement ring again, only to catch him laying eyes on it but making no comment. For some reason, you didn’t feel like it was worth mentioning either.

Silence sat between the two of you as you stared out into the road again together. Two strangers who’d known each other briefly. You wished he would go back in and the night would be over and you could forget the fact that you were suddenly attracted to him.

Ah, that was it. And that would be it.

Hinata spoke again and your heart thumped at his simple question, “Are you happy?”

You gave him a look of confusion but you could already tell what he meant just by the look in his eyes. The same look he gave his opponents on the court, the one that demanded to be taken seriously.

While, it wasn’t exactly the same look that he gave you when you brushed his confession off those many years ago, it was pretty darn close.

“Y-yes?” You asked, feigning incomprehension. He smiled in response but not with his eyes.

“When’s the wedding?”

The shift of his tone back to excitement was jarringly unnatural, especially since you hadn’t even brought up your wedding, and now you wondered how one person could be confident enough to appear out of nowhere and ask bold questions to a complete stranger.

“I’m not sure yet… we haven’t planned yet.”

“Great!” He interjected suddenly, and rose to his feet. “I still have time!”

Time?

He turned to re-enter the restaurant as you looked at him in shock and incredulity. “Excuse me, time to do what?” You asked, immediately questioning why those words had come out of your mouth the moment they did.

Hinata turned to face you, his smile only mildly sinister when compared to the seriousness of his gaze.

“Time to convince you, of course. I've always liked you from the start, ___, and I think… actually I know that I can treat you better than Daichi does.”

And with that he turned the corner, re-entering the restaurant and leaving you in a complete and utter shock.

---

Who would believe you?

Sweet little Hinata threatening to break up your upcoming marriage?

Sweet little Hinata planning to steal your heart right under his senpai’s nose?

Sweet little Hinata texting you suddenly at 11pm the next day while you got ready for bed just to let you know that he was “thinking of you”?

You looked at the phone incredulously, your other hand still holding your toothbrush wondering how to best respond to the message. The obvious answer was to block his number - you weren’t exactly sure how he’d gotten it anyway, but as your finger hovered over the button, you paused.

Then Daichi turned the corner of your bathroom door and startled, you fumbled and dropped your phone.

“You okay, Shakes?” He joked, as he reached for your phone, but you grabbed it quickly, locking it and placing it facedown on the bathroom sink. You quickly nodded, continuing to brush rapidly.

“Can you believe he grew taller?”

Your eyes rose.

“H-he?”

Daichi laughed. “Hinata, of course. He was such a shrimp, remember? I mean he’s still not that tall, but he definitely looks a lot more like an adult, right?”

“Y-yeah…,” you agreed, sheepishly, as Daichi hopped into bed, leaving you to squirm at the sight of your own reflection in the bathroom mirror.

---

The next morning, you woke up to no new messages on your phone and breathed a sigh of relief, assuming that your non-response had sent the point across to the young volleyball player. With that odd guilt now off your shoulders, you occupied yourself with the first steps of wedding planning, spending most of the day browsing through websites and calling companies. You were determined to do this mostly yourself and do it right.

You weren’t exactly sure what you were trying to prove but over the next couple of weeks, you dove headfirst into flowers and venues and elaborate table accents and fancy invitations and ignoring Hinata’s messages that had now upgraded to thirst traps that kept your eyes lingering on the phone way too long, while Daichi spent more and more time at work, and less and less time with you, until suddenly…

“Daichi!”

For the fourth night in a row, Daichi had come home in the middle of the night and wordlessly crawled into bed beside you as you tossed and turned waiting for him to come home, because that was all you did: waste time until he returned to you, of course. What else could you do? Your world was so small, after all.

And it would only get smaller once you got married. Your miniscule sphere of existence centered around Daichi and you were beginning to resent it.

Was that the reason you were starting to save every one of Hinata’s dirty pictures?

Dirty was an overstatement - you had seen everything up to his V-line and while your artist’s eye could now trace every single bit of his anatomy from memory, you couldn’t say anything he sent you was truly risqué, could you? Maybe he sent those pics to every girl on his phone, or maybe you were different...

That was besides the point. The point was that suddenly the man who lay beside you every night was no longer doing it for you.

“___,” Daichi whispered groggily, revealing that he really had just passed out the moment his head hit the pillow. “I really need to sleep… what’s the problem?”

You faltered, unable to come up with something to explain why you’d just thrown a mini-tantrum.

“... there’s no problem, I was just… never mind.”

Too many things bubbled inside you and were left unspoken that night, and so in order to express yourself, you settled on, or rather on top, something way worse.

“I have to admit, I didn’t expect it to be this easy.”

Hinata didn’t mean to be offensive - howcouldhebehewassuchasweetboyafterall - but the pang of guilt in your chest said otherwise, as you inhaled and exhaled softly under the weight of his muscular body pressed against yours.

Maybe you felt bad, but the feeling was short-lived because once Hinata’s fingers dug into the flesh of your hips and gripped you tightly, firmly, so much so in fact you were sure it was just to prove that for all these years you had really belonged to him, he thrust into you so sharply and precisely that you let out a gasp as the intense pleasure blinded you.

“S-Shoyo!”

“Say it louder,” was all he whispered as he flipped you over before slamming you down onto him hard, sending another wave of intense stimulation through you.

You screamed his name again, tears now coming to your eyes as he bucked his hips against you, bouncing you up and down his deliciously large cock at a brutal, energetic pace, knowing very well that you couldn’t keep up from the short, unintelligible sounds now leaping out of your throat.

“You’ve always been mine, ___. You just didn’t know it yet.”

Warm wetness streaming from your face almost as much as from the space between your legs, you couldn’t find the words to protest. Did you want to protest? Was he right? Wasn’t he right?

Your mind was too hazy for thought, and instead you let selfish desire overtake you for the rest of the night.

#mae.writing #hinata x reader #daichi x reader #hinata shoyo x reader #sawamura daichi x reader #hinata x reader x daichi #not sfw #haikyuu smut #haikyuu x reader #hinata shoyo #sawamura daichi #hinata #daichi #daichi smut #hinata smut #series: look at me senpai

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megabadbunny · 3 years

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Aural Fixation

He can’t say he’s imagined such things (because he hasn’t, would never; big dumb sexless space oaf, that’s him) but if he were to start, he might imagine that’s a sound Rose makes during arousal.

Not that he’d know. Or imagine. Because he doesn’t and he hasn’t.

(Warning: here there be smuts.)

***

CLANK.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!”

Halfway down the hall, the Doctor chuckles. “Need any help in there?”

Another clank, and he can just make out the sound of Rose swearing under her breath. “No,” she calls back.

“Really? Cos it sounds like you picked a fight with the wardrobe,” the Doctor teases, “and you’re losing.”

A loud Ka-CHUNK sounds in response. “I’m fine!” Rose insists stubbornly.

Shaking his head, the Doctor laughs. “What could you possibly be doing to cause that racket?” he asks, doubling back toward the wardrobe room.

“It’s not me, it’s this stupid busted thing,” says Rose’s voice, and the Doctor steps inside the room to see the outline of her body, silhouetted against the back of a folding-screen; from the looks of it, this stupid busted thing refers to the automatic lace-puller, attached to Rose’s silhouette by two shadow-strings. Normally cheerfully upright, the outline of the lace-puller is now slumped, wheezing a little, and yep, that’s the faintest hint of smoke rising from its vents.

The Doctor tsks. Only got a couple of centuries out of the thing. Typical rubbish Grishtal workmanship.

“Sure you don’t need help?” the Doctor asks.

“Not unless you know how to lace up a corset.”

“I’m sure I can figure it out,” he replies confidently, striding forward. “How hard can it be?”

Rose laughs. “I dunno, you might be—”

Without warning, the Doctor pushes the folding-screen aside to find Rose standing between a mirror and the auto-lacer, hair coiffed, corset half-laced and strings pulled taut, wearing nothing else but a pair of extremely anachronistic (not to mention extremely tiny) knickers. She’s staring at him over her shoulder, wide eyes growing wider, pink cheeks blooming pinker.

“—surprised,” she finishes breathlessly, and neither of them are laughing now.

Fortunately, the Doctor’s mind is a far more impressive machine than the auto-lacer, and its many many gears and cogs only falter for the briefest of moments. It’s nothing to be shocked by, after all. Rose or not, there’s nothing unusual about the display in front of him. It’s just a body. A human body. They’re all more or less the same. Skin, hair, curves. Undergarments. Surprisingly small undergarments that hide very little. Nothing to be startled about. Certainly nothing to bluster over.

“What are you wearing those for?” he blurts out, staring at the pants, and internally kicks himself.

Rose’s eyebrow piques incredulously. “You want to know why I’m wearing knickers?”

The Doctor rolls his eyes. “No, I’m saying that if you’re gonna go through the effort to put on something historically accurate like that—” he says, gesturing to the corset, “—you might as well commit to the whole kit. You know. Bloomers and such.”

“What do you know about bloomers?” Rose laughs.

“I know modern-day pants are an anachronism.”

“And I know no one’s gonna be seeing them anyway. Well, except you now, I guess. Not totally sure you count, though,” she teases, looking the Doctor up and down.

“Gee, thanks,” the Doctor says wryly, watching as Rose struggles to pull her laces free of the auto-lacer’s vicelike grip. “I was gonna offer to help you with that, but now I’m thinking maybe I’ll just leave you to it.”

“No you won’t.”

“Oh no?” asks the Doctor, leaning lazily against a coral strut.

“Nope.” Rose shoots another look at him over her shoulder when he doesn’t move. “You’re too impatient for that.”

“Nah. See, patience is a skill, a discipline, acquired over trials and tribulations over the course of time. And me? I’ve been around for a bit. In fact,” the Doctor says smugly, crossing his arms, “I’d say I’ve had bouts of patience that lasted longer than you’ve been alive.”

Rose smiles at him, her gaze soft and warm, and really, it’s almost maddening, the instant effect that look has on him, the way it makes something go all honeyed in his chest. “Do you really want to stall your adventure just because your companion got trapped by the dressing-machine?” she asks sweetly. “Cos the whole stuck-in-the-car, waiting-cos-the-missus-ain’t-ready-yet bit sounds awfully domestic.”

The Doctor glares at her. Rose smiles at him beatifically, tongue trapped in her teeth. His eyes narrow. Her smile brightens.

Dammit.

“Next time,” he says, even as he grudgingly pushes off away from the strut, “we’re going somewhere and somewhen that does not require complicated underthings.”

“Fine by me,” replies Rose, watching in the mirror as the Doctor approaches the auto-lacer, scanning it with the sonic. Official diagnosis: it is, indeed, busted. “Wouldn’t have gone for the whole historical look anyway, ‘cept I remembered that run-in with the what-d’you-call-‘ems, Henry VIII’s fashion police,” Rose continues.

Chuckling, the Doctor adjusts the setting on the sonic, loosening the auto-lacer’s joints. “Those were just constables, I’m afraid. No fashion police, just coppers getting a little carried away enforcing local sumptuary laws, drunk on an ounce of power. Typical lower-level law enforcement.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t give you or Jack any trouble.”

“All right, sexist typical lower-level law enforcement.” Pulling the laces free from the machine, he turns to Rose. “Now, if you want to talk about literal fashion police—”

He tugs on the corset-laces and Rose stumbles back into him, gasping in surprise.

“Still earning those sea legs?” teases the Doctor.

“Git,” Rose laughs, pushing away. “Give a girl some warning, first!”

“Sort of thought this would give it away,” the Doctor says brightly, giving the laces another little tug.

Rose shoots a dirty look over his shoulder.

His responding grin is perfectly innocent. “I’m only trying to help.”

“Speaking of drunk on power,” Rose mutters, but she’s smiling when she says it, so the Doctor pays it no mind. This time, when the Doctor pulls on the laces, she doesn’t stumble, just rocks back a little. Inwardly, the Doctor grins at that. Her time aboard the TARDIS has earned her some decent sea-legs, after all.

Crossing the laces over each other, the Doctor threads them through the grommets, pulling them taut again, after. He repeats the pattern, pulling the laces snug each time, until he cinches a little tighter and Rose lets out a sharp breath in response.

“All right there?” he asks.

“S’fine,” she says, but in the mirror, she looks a little winded.

“I can loosen up.”

“It’s fine,” Rose repeats, straightening up a little. “Just—sometimes it sort of pushes the air out of your lungs, is all.”

The Doctor shrugs and sets back to work. Cross, weave, thread, pull.

Rose gasps.

Glancing up again, the Doctor frowns. “There’s no use in you getting all dolled-up if you can’t breathe.”

“I can breathe just fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“I don’t want you fainting in the middle of the opera.”

“Oh, god forbid I should miss the opera,” Rose teases.

“I mean it,” he says, and he starts lacing again. “You faint, I’m not lugging your dead weight around. Not with whatever massive frock you’re undoubtedly planning to wear over this.”

“Oh whatever, just take the dress off.”

Something goes funny in the Doctor’s stomach and he yanks the laces hard. Rose’s footing slips a little and she gasps, the sound just the littlest bit strangled this time. Before the Doctor has a chance to apologize, Rose shakes her head.

“Don’t stop,” she says, and is it him, or has her voice gone just a little bit breathy?

“Might as well get it over and done with,” she adds quickly.

Fair enough. He goes back to it, cross, weave, thread, pull, cross, weave, thread, pull, and the little sound that escapes Rose doesn’t sound like a gasp, so much as a—

Well. No. It sounds exactly like a gasp. Just not the sort of gasp one typically makes while one is getting dressed. He risks another look up at the mirror and oh no, no, that’s a mistake, because Rose isn’t looking him in the eye anymore, instead she’s staring into nothing, biting her lower lip so hard it’s gone white as her chest gently heaves, soft pink blooming over her décolletage. And if the Doctor didn’t know any better, he’d think he caught just the lightest whiff of pheromones dusting the air.

It suddenly occurs to the Doctor that his offer of help might have gotten him more than he bargained for.

He should stop, he thinks, before Rose cottons on that he’s cottoned on and things get awkward. Or, would that make it worse, if he stopped, and then Rose would know for certain that he knew? They’ve already established that he doesn’t really. Know, that is. About this sort of thing. Well, no, she knows he knows, but she doesn’t know how much he knows, and she still seems fairly convinced he doesn’t know anything at all. So.

So the surest way to maintain decorum is to play dumb, right? Play dumb, spare Rose’s blushes, preserve plausible deniability. Just be an idiot. Capital plan.

He crosses and weaves and threads and pulls again and Rose lets out another strangled noise and he can’t say he’s imagined such things (because he hasn’t, would never; big dumb sexless space oaf, that’s him) but if he were to start, he might imagine that’s a sound Rose makes during arousal.

Not that he’d know. Or imagine. Because he doesn’t and he hasn’t.

And he crosses and weaves, threads and pulls and crosses and weaves, threads and pulls again and she swallows back a pant and he accidentally looks up to see her in the mirror again, eyelashes fluttering, still biting that lower lip, biting so hard he’s surprised she hasn’t drawn blood, and her cheeks and ears have gone pink to match the blush of her chest, which, coincidentally, is getting more and more difficult for the Doctor to ignore, either due to its color or its motion or the fact that her breasts bloody damn well look like they’re about to escape this godsforsaken corset any second now—

Cross, weave, thread, yank and Rose stumbles backward again with the force of it, smacking into the Doctor with a bodily thud.

“Leverage!” he announces before either of them have a chance to react, because her face in the mirror and her body pulled against his are decidedly not helping things. “Need leverage to wrap up a task like this,” he adds, dropping the laces so he can grab Rose by the arms and walk her over to the nearest coral strut, blessedly out of the mirror’s view. “It’s all about the physics, see,” he continues, placing Rose’s hands on the strut. “Right amount of leverage, right amount of force; hang on and you’ll be sorted in a tic.”

He picks up the laces and pulls them again, pulls them tight and crosses and weaves and oh, oh no, oh this is even worse somehow than before, because now instead of Rose’s whole body rocking toward him, it’s just her hips and bum, inching back and forth with every tug of the strings, offering a graphic preview of what it would look like if—

Nope. Nope. Can’t think like that won’t think like that mustn’t think like that but it’s too late to change tactics now, just got to ignore the scent and the heat and the view and the sounds and her and move as quickly as possible, wrap this up before his stupid overactive senses pick up on anything else. Rose clings to the strut as he works, biting back her gasps from the sound of it, but the Doctor can still hear her breath trying to escape, can’t help but notice the trembling in her legs. He focuses intently on the work in front of him, fingers and hands working rapidly to finish, and if the laces miss a grommet or two—well, that’s not a flustered mistake. It’s a stylistic flourish. Yeah. He can work with that.

“Done,” he announces, and he’s very pleased with how even and calm his voice sounds despite everything rioting in his head, very pleased indeed. “The chore is complete; you have been properly cinched, tucked, and flattened in all the right places. The inability to properly breathe or move is now totally yours.”

“Thanks,” Rose laughs, and the Doctor pointedly ignores how shaky the sound is, the way she gulps for air.

“Need any help with anything else?” he asks, stepping back, hands firmly lodged in pockets. “Socks? Shoes? Hat?”

“Bloomers?” she jokes, turning to face him.

“What, and undo all my hard work? Should have thought about that before you put the corset on.”

“I’ll just pull ‘em on over top.”

“Rose,” replies the Doctor, all faux-scandalized mock-sternness. “Bloomers go on before the corset. Every time traveler knows that.”

Rolling her eyes, Rose crosses back to the mirror. “Well then, next time I’ll be sure to get your input before I get dressed,” she laughs shakily.

The Doctor watches her as she puts the finishing touches on her makeup. His eyes do not wander down the line of her shoulderblades or the exaggerated curve of her waist or the slope of her hips or the completely bare stretches of her legs, but stay firmly fixed on the reflection of her face in the mirror; the idea of a pre-clothing Rose is more intriguing than it has any right to be, but the Doctor pushes that to the side. It’s easy enough, now that the risk of imminent danger has passed.

She’s fine, now. He’s fine, always. Nothing happened, not really. Anyway they’re back in safe territory, where they belong. Even if it is secretly just a little bit satisfying to realize exactly what kind of effect he can have on her, if he so chooses.

He hides a grin. Luckily he, the Doctor thinks smugly, is not so easily affected.

“Unless you’ve got any other chores for me, I’ll leave you to it,” says the Doctor, stepping back. “But don’t take it easy just cos I’m not in here anymore. We’re still sticking to a strict schedule. Chop-chop.”

“You got it,” says Rose, lining her lips with lipstick. “Oh, and Doctor?” she calls, after he’s made it a few steps away.

He stops and turns. “What’s that?”

“Would you send Jack in here?”

His brow furrows in confusion, and once again, he resolutely ignores the view laid out in front of him. “Why?” he asks.

Finishing her lipstick, Rose meets his gaze in the mirror. “In case I need help with any other chores,” she says simply.

Shocked, the Doctor grasps for any kind of witty rejoinder, or any sense of anything really, any at all. But all he can do is turn and leave, before Rose sees him gaping like some kind of slack-jawed idiot.

Nope, he thinks furiously. Not affected at all.

***

The incident is all but forgotten by the time Rose has finished getting ready (having taken her time about it, too, and demonstrating absolutely no remorse whatsoever), and by the time Jack is finished getting ready (how in all the hells did he manage to take even longer than Rose, the Doctor wonders?), the incident has left his brain entirely. Now he’s just tapping his foot impatiently, glancing down at his wristwatch every so often as Rose and Jack gush at each other about oh, how very splendid they both look.

Literally all of time and space at their disposal, and the two of them are making googly-eyes at each other instead. How did the Doctor ever allow himself to become party to this?

“You hens done clucking?” he asks when fifteen minutes have gone by, with no end in sight.

“Oh, hush,” Jack tuts. “You’re just jealous no one’s mooning over you right now.”

“I’m plenty happy outside the moonlight, thanks.”

“You’d be even happier in it,” drawls Jack, swaggering his way. “C’mon Doc, when’s the last time you got gussied-up for anything?”

The Doctor gestures to his shirt. “Changed my jumper. What more do you want?”

“A suit every once in a while couldn’t hurt,” Rose calls out.

“A long walk on the beach, dinner for three and drinks to match wouldn’t hurt my feelings, either,” says Jack with a wink.

The Doctor glares at the two of them. “Good grief. There’s just no pleasing you two, is there?”

“Nope,” replies Rose, and she and Jack both laugh. The Doctor has every intention of continuing to glower at both of them, reducing them both to duly chastened quietude, but then Rose sidles up to him, threading her arm through his.

“Ready to go?” she asks, with that stupid pretty tongue-touched grin of hers.

Suddenly it’s difficult to pretend to be irritated anymore.

Later, of course, he doesn’t have to pretend at all.

“Sure, let’s go to the opera, says Jack,” the Doctor grumbles under his breath, sonic screwdriver whirring in one hand as he cards through coat after cloak after coat after cloak with the other. “I love the nineteenth century, says Jack. No one’s gonna try to abduct me there, says Jack!”

“S’pose that’s what we get for traveling with a Time Agent,” muses Rose, who does not seem even remotely bothered that they’ve spent an hour in the cloakroom instead of watching the opera. In fact, the Doctor has a sneaking suspicion she prefers it.

“S’pose that’s what we get for traveling with Jack,” he mutters darkly.

Busy digging in the pocket of a grand overcoat (which does not have bottomless pockets as far as the Doctor is aware, but has large enough pockets anyway), Rose spares him a knowing smile. “I think that was code for Actually, I quite like the fellow, he livens up the place.”

“Wasn’t aware the place needed livening-up.”

“Oh, come off it,” Rose teases gently. “You like him. It’s okay to admit it.”

The Doctor sniffs before moving onto the next cloak. Maybe he’ll be lucky enough to find the reservation in there; maybe the thirty-eighth time’s the charm. “He’s a scoundrel,” he insists.

“And let me guess: you happen to like nice men.”

Distracted, it takes the Doctor half a second to recognize the exchange. “Quoting Star Wars will get you nowhere, you know,” he says drily.

“Wasn’t quoting Star Wars.” Rose flashes a grin his way as she pats down another coat. “That was The Empire Strikes Back.”

“Close enough.”

“Close enough? Not by a long shot!” she laughs. “It’s easily the best of the three. The best by miles.”

“And it just happens to be the one with a surplus of Harrison Ford.”

“Well yeah, that’s definitely not a drawback, but that’s not all.” Rose pulls a small card out from the coat, holds it up, and frowns. “What’s the name of the hotel again?”

“The Grosvenor.”

Rose sighs and puts the card back where she found it before moving on. “Anyway,” she says, “it’s not just Harrison Ford. The Empire Strikes Back has the best story of the lot, by far. Daring chase scenes, massive clashes between good and evil, swelling music, epic romance—”

“Ahhh,” says the Doctor knowingly, rifling through a lady’s-purse. “Of course.”

“Of course, what?”

“Of course, romance.”

Rose doesn’t look up, too busy feeling her way through a cloak’s silk lining. “What about it?”

“Just not surprising, is all. Lots of humans like romance. In fact, I’d venture to say most of you do.”

“That a bad thing?”

He shakes his head, abandoning the purse in favor of a cloak. “No, not at all. Just means you lot are entirely predictable.”

“What, and you’re not?”

“…definitely heard something,” another voice is saying, drifting into the Doctor’s field of hearing along with the sounds of bootsteps advancing ever-closer, and he recognizes both sounds as those belonging to a pair of Time Pirates—Jack’s captors. Before either he or Rose have a chance to finish their thoughts, the Doctor grabs her about the waist, yanking her deep into the cloaks and coats with him and pulling them both to the floor. Rose’s lips part for a small yelp of surprise but the Doctor clamps his hand over her mouth before it has a chance to escape, holding her firm against him. Probably she thinks he’s gone a little batty—her hearing’s not as good as his, after all, so his actions must seem completely out of the blue—but she stills once the bootsteps reach earshot, once she understands.

The Doctor has scarcely half a second to whisk Rose’s skirts safely out of view behind the heavy cloaks before the two sets of boots reach the cloakroom entrance, footfalls thudding heavy and ominous over the floor.

“You sure?” asks the other Pirate. “I didn’t hear anything.”

Rose starts to slip against the Doctor (curse her silky-satin dress, the thing’s got no bloody sense of friction) but the Doctor anchors her to him before she has a chance to slide, to make any noise. A torch-beam shines into the cloakroom, traveling over the coats and cloaks and furs; one of the intruders steps inside and the Doctor can feel Rose holding her breath, her exhales no longer hitting his hand, her ribcage no longer expanding and contracting beneath his palm. Neither of them dares to move.

The Pirate stops. Between two of the coats, the Doctor can just barely make out that the bloke is glancing around, but not really taking anything in.

With a grunt, the Pirate switches off the torch, stowing it on his belt. “Must’ve imagined it.”

“Or it was rats,” the other Pirate supplies. “This period’s full of ‘em.”

“Everything isn’t always rats, Vigge,” sighs his partner, as if this is a particular sticking-point between them. “C’mon, let’s go find the others.”

The Doctor lets out a silent sigh of relief at the sound of departing boots. It’s bloody awkward hiding like this, his arms cinched around Rose while she’s sat in his lap, neither of them able to shift to anything more comfortable. The sooner they can get up, the better. Fortunately, fading footfalls let him know the guards are leaving, and he moves to shift Rose off his lap.

A third pair of boots approaches. Rose and the Doctor both freeze.

“Seen anything?” asks the third voice.

“Nothing yet. You’re sure they’re not still in the theatre?”

“Positive,” the third voice confirms. “The box seat’s empty; that Doctor-bloke and his bird are both gone.”

One of the Pirates swears beneath his breath. “We’ll have to scour every inch of the place, then.”

Peering between the coats, the Doctor can make out the three Pirates talking, discussing how best to search the opera house. Hopefully it’ll be a brief bit of chatter, the Doctor thinks, but as the conversation wears on, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s not destined to end any time soon.

Of course, thinks the Doctor exasperatedly. Why wouldn’t they pick this exact place and moment for a nice long chat? He’s only trapped behind a couple dozen fur-and-woolen cloaks with Rose plastered up against him, Rose getting increasingly warm and undoubtedly uncomfortable in his arms, neither of them able to move to improve the situation for fear of alerting the three very-much-armed Time Pirates. Of course, why wouldn’t the universe conspire against him like this?

Granted, in terms of Rose’s rising body temperature, it probably doesn’t help that the Doctor’s wrapped so snugly around her. But at this point, he’s honestly not sure what he can do. He can’t move his hand from her waist; he’s got her skirts pinned there, pressed between her bodice and his palm, and if he moves, he risks the skirts spilling into view. At least he had the presence of mind to shift his other hand away from her mouth, give her a little more space to breathe. But he did not, it appears, have the presence of mind to pay any attention to where that hand might settle afterward, and only now does he realize that his forearm has fallen to rest very gently against her chest, fingertips ghosting against her throat.

Alarm bells start ringing faintly in his head. He can’t shift that arm too much more; they’re surrounded by cloaks and any such movement would surely draw attention either through motion or sound. The only thing he can really do is perhaps lift away from her a little bit, let his hand float awkwardly in the liminal no-man’s-land where her breath lives. No longer touching, but still ridiculously close. Of course, once again, that brings up the issue of acknowledging that something is happening, and something is awkward, and you’ve officially Drawn Attention To It, and now there it is, stewing in the mortification of being recognized. Whereas if he pretends everything is normal—which it is, he tells himself stubbornly, because skin is just skin, doesn’t matter whether parts of it are bare and soft and hers—then no awkwardness need be experienced by either party involved.

Not that he’d know about any of that. Because he doesn’t, and even if he does, he certainly doesn’t think about it, or notice it, much like he’s definitely not noticing how Rose’s breathing has gone shallow, and her heartrate has sped up, and one of her hands is clenching in her skirt. Doubtful the Pirates can hear it—like Rose and any other human, their hearing can’t rival his—but the Doctor sure as hell can. He hears her swallow, too, and, close to her as he is, he smells it again, that unmistakable tinge of pheromones, soft and musky and faintly sweet. And he can’t help but notice (can’t help it, really) that despite her shallow breaths, her chest is still rising and falling, bringing her breasts into whispering contact with the inside of his arm and the corner of his palm. If she breathed any deeper, he’d surely get a handful.

The Doctor scolds himself for thinking such things, trying fiercely to rein himself back in, but the glance of her skin against his is near-electric, the feel of her pressed against him is overwhelming, the scent of her, intoxicating. Suddenly he’s forgetting why it’s a bad thing for the two of them to be trapped in here like this, pressed tightly together like the pages of a fresh book. His eyes fall to half-mast as they trace the elegant slope of her shoulder and neck, impossibly close to his mouth, begging to be kissed. And she’d love that, wouldn’t she? Love for him to press his lips to her skin, worshipping her, marking her, claiming her. He’s so close now his lips can feel the warmth of her flesh, burning the scant air between them, or maybe that’s just the oxygen molecules buzzing with excitement, like atmosphere before a lightning strike, and her pulse beneath his fingertips is thunderous—

The heavy thud of departing footsteps abruptly informs him that the conversation outside the cloakroom has ended, and the coast will soon be clear again. The Doctor draws a deep breath, catching himself.

He almost fell. He very much wanted to. It’s been such a long time. And with Rose—

The Doctor shuts down that line of thought before it can develop any further, giving himself the mental equivalent of a sharp slap to the face. He hasn’t got any idea what to do with Rose, not really. Yes, her body is giving off a multitude of signs that seem rather obvious, but that’s just what bodies do, sometimes. Mix the close proximity, a dash of friction, a whole heaping load of chemistry, and that’s what you get. Bodies reacting the way bodies do. Not his, of course, not without his express wishes, but that’s what human bodies do. Human reactions for human people. And Rose is nothing if not human.

That’s right. He put up that barrier for a reason, that wall between him and the world, that line drawn in the sand between him and Rose. They’ve skirted that line enough today, flirted with it more than enough. It’s time for him to take responsibility, get his head out of the clouds and stop playing games. Nothing good can come of them nudging the line any further, no matter how brightly Rose smiles at him, no matter how sweet her kisses may be. Not that he’ll ever find out about that last one.

He collects his wits and draws his barriers close. “Rose,” he says quietly. “We should really—”

“Yeah,” says Rose, voice clipped as she shifts off his lap to stand upright, and the Doctor resolutely does not think about how cold he is now, without her body clasped to his. After smoothing out her skirts, Rose reaches down to help him off the floor. Grinning, the Doctor accepts.

“All right?” he asks despite himself, but Rose doesn’t answer; instead she watches him as he stands, eyes searching his. The Doctor gets the instinct impression that he’s being evaluated, somehow. Appraised.

“Rose?” he prompts, and she shakes herself.

“Oh yeah, everything’s fine,” she says, and maybe he just imagined it all, because now she sounds perfectly normal.

“Yeah?” he asks anyway.

“Yeah. You know,” she says, turning to continue her search. “Just thinking about Jack.”

“Right,” says the Doctor, feeling, strangely, as if he was just kicked in the shins. “Of course.”

It only makes sense that Rose would be thinking of Jack right now. He was just kidnapped, after all. It’s only natural he’d be on her mind. For the kidnapping, and no other reason. Certainly nothing to do with flushed skin and pumping adrenaline and soft little noises and the buzzing potential energy of bodies pressed close in tight spaces. Those things wouldn’t make Rose think of Jack at all. Not even a little bit.

Not that such a thing would bother the Doctor. Because it wouldn’t.

***

The good news is, there’s plenty of good news: they’re able to locate a reservation for the proper hotel, thereby raising no eyebrows when the Doctor and Rose show up at the front desk requesting their room key, and like so many other sentient beings in the universe (really, he’s in good company), the desk clerk is fully taken in by the psychic paper, firmly believing that the Doctor and Rose are, in fact, Mr. and Mrs. Henri Flugenstaff; additionally, locating and breaking into the Pirates’ room is easy as rewiring a quantum rotor, and the rest of the hotel floor is blessedly empty when they do so, meaning no awkward encounters with nosy guests or suspicious staff.

The bad news is, once they enter the room, Jack’s captors (and more significantly, Jack) are nowhere to be found.

“Any idea where they went?” Rose asks.

“Not yet,” murmurs the Doctor, kneeling down to better inspect the faint traces of silvery powder on the carpet, almost invisible even to his keen eye. A reading from the sonic confirms his suspicions: the powder contains traces of Retro-Oganesson and Nihonium-3. Unmistakable evidence that the Time Pirates were here; no clues regarding where they went next.

“Might as well search the room for clues, right?” asks Rose.

“Right.” The Doctor sets the sonic against the carpet, following the path of silvery powder illuminated by the screwdriver’s ghostly blue glow. It guides him across the rug, around the bed, to the fireplace poking out from the wall opposite Rose. For her part, Rose is rifling through the items left behind on the writing-desk; given the general state of disarray of the desk, and the room, it’s clear that the Pirates left in a hurry, so there’s every chance they left something important behind. The Doctor takes just a second to appreciate the view, allowing himself a soft grin at Rose poking around for clues like a blonde little Sherlock Holmes.

“I hope he’s okay,” says Rose, peering beneath the inkwell.

The Doctor blinks. “Who?”

“Jack,” Rose replies, as if the answer is obvious.

The Doctor huffs. “He’s fine. Probably sliding out of their clutches as we speak.”

Laughing at that, Rose pulls open a desk-drawer. “Yeah, you’re right. He’s probably seducing his captors right about now.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing.”

“You say that like it’s not,” Rose laughs.

The Doctor grunts noncommittally, inspecting the inside of the fireplace.

“What was that?” asks Rose.

“Oh, nothing,” the Doctor hmphs. “Just, there it is again. Humans and romance.”

At that, Rose turns to face him, her eyebrow piqued. “And just what have you got against romance, anyway? Did romance offend you somehow, today?”

“It didn’t,” the Doctor lies cheerfully.

“There’s nothing wrong with liking any of that stuff, you know.”

“Oh, I’m aware.”

“Really? Cos it feels like you’re gonna launch into a lecture on silly apes and their silly feelings any minute now.”

“I never said feelings were silly.”

“You didn’t have to.”

The Doctor stops his search inside the fireplace so he can look at her. “Something on your mind, Rose?”

“No,” she replies stubbornly.

“Good,” says the Doctor, and he resumes his search.

“Just makes me glad Jack’ll be back soon.”

The Doctor’s nostrils flare and the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end as something hot slithers into the pit of his belly, smoldering there. “Don’t worry, we’ll find your boyfriend soon enough,” he replies, his voice tight.

“It’s just nice to have another human on the TARDIS, is all I mean,” Rose says, and the Doctor absolutely does not notice how she didn’t correct him on the boyfriend bit. “Cos you seem to think so much human stuff is stupid, and Jack doesn’t.”

“Oh, is Jack the gold standard now?”

“When it comes to feelings? Compared to you, yeah, he is.”

“Look, do you want to find him or not?” he asks, glaring at her. “Cos if you do, I’d advise more searching, less yammering.”

If the force of his glare affects Rose, she doesn’t show it. “Someone’s moody today,” she mutters before turning back to the desk.

“Not moody, just demonstrating a wide range of all those feelings you’re so fond of.”

“All the grumpy ones, maybe. And I’m not so fond of those.”

“And I suppose Jack’s never grumpy, then,” the Doctor says conversationally. “That it? No, not perfect Jack, of course not, never. Just the perfect blend of gentleman, boyfriend, and scoundrel, him. The ideal human mate!”

Rose shakes her head. “I’m sorry, the what-now?”

“It’s fine, Rose,” the Doctor says, forcing on a grin that’s surely strained. “You don’t need to explain yourself. You don’t owe me that. You don’t owe me anything. We’ll just find Jack, and then you two can run off and have your fun and your romance. All right?”

“Have my—what are you even talking about?” asks Rose, stalking up to him. “Where is all of this coming from?”

“Observation, mostly,” the Doctor says pleasantly.

“Right. I don’t know what you think you’ve observed, but—”

And suddenly both of them snap to attention at the sound of a key in the lock, the door-handle jiggling loudly in the quiet.

In the split-second that follows, the Doctor tries to think—run? Nowhere to run, they’re in a tiny hotel room; hide? But surely they’ve already been heard—but Rose’s brain must be working a little faster than his somehow, because before he’s even had a chance to react, she’s shoved him flat on the bed and she’s straddling him by the waist, ducking down to press a bruising kiss to his mouth.

The Doctor’s brain grinds to a halt.

She—they—she just—he—

He’s never had an experience where both of his hearts stopped for a good reason, before.

“Cleaning servi—oh, oh my!” gasps a voice by the door.

Rose sits back at the sound and through the fog currently short-circuiting his brain the Doctor manages to look over at the door, to see a middle-aged cleaning maid standing there, clutching her cleaning-cart and blushing furiously.

“Blimey!” she squeaks, shielding her eyes. “Begging your pardon, sir, ma’am, I thought you were out for the evening!”

“Not anymore, I’m afraid,” Rose laughs, which is just as well, because the Doctor is too busy reeling to find his voice (or even his thoughts) at the moment. At least his hands had enough sense to plant themselves on Rose’s waist so they’re not flailing about like a pair of nerve-addled bats.

“Still on the honeymoon,” Rose continues, flashing the maid a shy but winning grin. Her voice is just the littlest breathy and shaky and very convincing, so much so that even the Doctor could almost believe the two of them had just been—well.

“You know how it is,” Rose adds, coyly biting her lip.

“Aye, once upon a time I did, ma’am,” the maid chuckles. “I’ll see to it you’re not disturbed the rest of the evening.”

“Thanks,” Rose laughs breathily before pushing the Doctor back down on the bed, kissing him passionately as the maid closes the door behind her. Her lips part against his, warm and sweet and betraying just the slightest hint of moisture as—

As a loud click lets them know the door is locked once again, and then Rose immediately stops, breaking the kiss. Pulling back, she locks eyes with the Doctor, her cheeks almost as bright as the housekeeper’s. Several long seconds tick agonizingly by, marked only by the fluttering of Rose’s lashes, the gentle heaving of her chest.

Rose’s lips part, like she might say something (or like she might bend down and kiss him again, the Doctor almost hopes) but he must be looking at her with the universe’s most daft expression, mouth agape and eyes wide as saucers, because the next thing he knows, she’s lifting herself off of him, smoothing back her hair and resituating her dress.

The Doctor sits up after her, forcing himself to stop staring. What is he, some kind of idiot?

“Sorry,” Rose laughs, all traces of breathlessness gone.

“S’all right,” the Doctor’s mouth says for him; his brain is still catching up.

“Although you’ve got to admit,” Rose adds, resuming her investigation of the room as if absolutely nothing just happened, “as a diversion it was fairly effective.”

The Doctor scratches the back of his neck. “I’ve had worse.”

“And I’ve had better,” Rose teases, her tongue trapped between her teeth. “You’re a little rusty, Doctor.”

“Excuse me,” the Doctor huffs indignantly, “maybe I just need a little more advance notice than your average boy-toy.”

“Well, as an above-average boy-toy, I’m sure Jack would be happy to give you some pointers.”

And there it is again, that feeling of something hot sizzling in his chest. “And I’m sure he can go sod right off,” says the Doctor, surprising himself.

Rose shoots him a dirty look over her shoulder. “What’s gotten into you? What’s with this mood today, why are you so cross with Jack?”

“I’m not.”

“You are, you’ve been saying nasty little things about him all day.”

“I haven’t.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” says Rose, righting the frame of a crooked painting on the wall. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were acting jealous again.”

The hot feeling grows hotter. “I’ve got nothing to be jealous about,” insists the Doctor.

“’Course not,” mocks Rose. “Cos you’ve never gotten jealous about sharing me with another man, before.”

“Shouldn’t have to,” he mutters.

“What was that?”

“I said I shouldn’t have to,” the Doctor says loudly.

“What? Get jealous, or share me?”

The Doctor’s fists ball at his side. Either one, he doesn’t say.

“Whatever,” scoffs Rose, as if he’d gone ahead and spoken the words aloud. “Not like it makes any difference anyway.”

The hot feeling pulses in his chest and pounds in his ears and maybe it’s because of the kiss or maybe it’s because Rose already seems to have forgotten it or maybe it’s just because of this bloody damn day but that line in the sand is growing dangerously thin, all of a sudden, and before he gives himself the chance to think better of it, the Doctor is pushing off the bed and striding towards the door, grabbing a chair so he can wedge it beneath the door-handle before he stalks over to Rose.

“What?” she mocks. “Don’t want the maid to see us having a row? That too domestic for—”

The Doctor pins her to the wall, grasping her by the chin to pull her up for a punishing kiss. She gasps against his mouth and fuck, he wants to take advantage of that opening, he really does, wants to force her mouth open so his tongue can dart inside and really properly tease her, taste her, but he settles for prolonging the kiss, offering no quarter and no mercy until Rose has to pull back, panting for breath. She looks up at him with eyes wide from shock and—and gods, he hopes that’s not fear he sees, because that would kill him, it really would.

He doesn’t want to frighten her. He just wants her to see. Wants her to know.

But there’s still that goddamn line to preserve.

Drawing back a little, the Doctor braces himself with both hands against the wall, one on either side of Rose. “Tell me to stop,” he says quietly, even as he cages her in, even as every atom in his being is screaming for her.

Jaw set, defiant once again, Rose shakes her head No.

Oh. That’s not fear in her eyes. That’s not fear at all.

Relief washes the line away like the ocean at high tide and the Doctor lets himself fall.

He leans in and kisses her again, claiming her mouth with a fierceness that leaves no room for doubt. He might worry that he’s being too rough, too soon but Rose is giving as good as she gets, yanking him in by the lapels as she deepens the kiss. Her hands slip beneath his jacket to clutch him by the shoulders, her fingernails sharp even through the fabric of his jumper. His tongue brushes her plump lower lip and it’s a heady realization, that he can taste how much she wants this, how much she wants him. It’s enough to make him dizzy but he doesn’t stop, he wants more, his tongue plunging into her mouth, and the breathy little whimper that escapes her lets the Doctor know he was right—those delightful sounds Rose made earlier in the day were definitely due to arousal. And the sweet scent lingering in the air lets him know she’s wonderfully aroused right now, almost certainly wet with it.

Because of him. No one else. Just him.

Good.

Lips still on hers, the Doctor pulls up her skirts so both hands can sneak beneath, grabbing Rose by the hips and pulling her roughly into him. He has every intention of tearing off those ridiculous little knickers of hers but then she arches into him, her hands slipping beneath his jumper and nails dragging across his stomach and her chest pressed against his, and it’s all too much and it’s not nearly enough and his hips are grinding against hers as he hardens between them.

Dimly it occurs to the Doctor that Rose does not seem nearly as shocked by all of this as he might have imagined—indeed, he’s shocked himself with this pure impetuous driving animal need—and he wonders if, on some level, Rose maneuvered things to this conclusion.

Well. He smiles against her lips. Two can play that game.

He hitches one of her legs over his waist and thrusts into her, the friction and the heat almost unbearably delicious even despite all the layers in the way, and Rose must think so, too, because she’s panting against the Doctor’s mouth, her nails scratching lines of fire down his back. She lets out another strained whimper and fuck, he’s not going to last, not even with his trousers on, not if she keeps making those needy little noises while rutting against his cock like that.

So he repositions, wedging a thigh between hers to maintain the friction she needs while one hand travels up to palm one of the breasts that’s been positively fucking begging for his touch all day long. He can just feel the peak of her nipple through her corset and dress, stiffening sharply as he circles it with his thumb, and Rose bites down on his lower lip, sending a jolt of pleasure straight down to his cock. Rose reaches for his belt buckle but the Doctor stops her, grabbing her by the wrist and pinning it back to the wall.

“Not yet,” he growls softly. “Not until I say so.”

She’s glassy-eyed with surprise but he doesn’t give her an opportunity to respond, rips down the neckline of her dress instead so he can cup and tease her bare breasts with his free hand while his other holds her wrist tight against the wall. Rose breaks their kiss, eyes pinched tight in concentration as she rides his thigh, sweat beading and glistening on her breasts and her brow, and the Doctor realizes she’s about to climax, right here, right now, just like this.

Positively brimming with pride (and isn’t that a first, in this incarnation) the Doctor presses a kiss to her jaw, tracing a line up to her ear, lips ghosting the shell of it. “Come for me, Rose,” he murmurs, his voice as husky and deep as he’s ever heard it, and she shudders. He lifts his hand to cup her cheek, his thumb teasing her swollen lower lip. “Come for me, love.”

Her teeth graze his thumb as she bites down on the cry that tries to escape her, her arms shaking and hips stuttering, her legs clenching tight against his thigh. The Doctor can feel the aftershocks ripping through her and he holds her tight, relishing the movement and heat of her body against his, the knowledge that he’s the one doing this to her, that all of this is because of him. Not Jack, not Ricky, not Adam or Jimmy or any other stupid pretty boy who might be sharp enough to fall in love with Rose but could never be good enough to deserve her. Of course, neither is he, but he’s at least clever enough to recognize that, and to do everything he can to make up for it; he may not always have the right words but his mouth can still say what his voice can’t, offering praise along with his hands and his tongue and all of him, really.

Those little men will never see Rose the way he does. The Doctor almost pities them for it.

(Only almost.)

Panting, Rose pushes a strand of sweat-slicked hair out of her face. “You, erm,” she says between breaths, flashing the Doctor a lazy blissful smile. “You gonna let me touch you, now?”

He’s still got her wrist pinned to the wall. He lets go.

“Take off your clothes, please,” he tells her.

Biting her lip, Rose obeys, pushing her torn dress down over her hips, her eyes fixed on his. She wriggles the dress past her thighs to reveal those tiny knickers of hers, completely soaked through and now thoroughly ruined. The sight and smell of those ruined knickers ignites a small flame of male satisfaction the Doctor wasn’t even aware he possessed, something he might have wrinkled his nose at once upon a time, but now, watching Rose pop open the front of her corset, peeling off the knickers after—now he rather likes the feeling, knowing that he can make Rose feel like this, that she trusts him like this. That he’s earned her trust, and this privilege.

There’s only the faintest hint of shyness from Rose once she’s naked beneath the Doctor’s gaze, but it’s enough to make his hearts swell almost uncomfortably behind his ribs, so the Doctor dips down to press his mouth to hers, softly, to kiss any lingering doubt away.

“Good girl,” he murmurs afterward, and smiles as Rose’s cheeks and ears flush pink. “Now get on the bed.”

The moment she does, the Doctor grasps her by the hips and slides her bum to the edge, pinning her down against the mattress as he presses a hungry kiss to her mouth. Impatient, Rose pushes at his jacket and he shrugs out of it, but he doesn’t make any effort to remove the rest of his clothing, his hands gliding up the insides of her thighs instead. His fingers tease her until she’s wet again, gloriously wet and gasping and clinging to him as she fucks his hand. He dips down to kiss the expanse of neck and shoulder that were tormenting him earlier and stops beneath her ear, lips caressing the soft skin there.

For a brief moment, the Doctor just breathes her in, inebriating himself on the smell of her. Then he latches on, giving her skin a good hard suck. Rose cries out, thighs clenching around his hand. Drawing back, the Doctor can see the mark he left behind, petal-pink blossoming in the shape of his mouth, and it shocks him how much he likes to see that, the visual evidence that he’s claimed her, that she’s his. He wants to taste more of her, he thinks, let his mouth explore and lick and nip and tug until she’s begging for mercy—

“Doctor,” Rose pants, but with a start he realizes she isn’t begging, she’s demanding, hooking her legs around his waist and pulling him down, into her. She rolls her hips against his aching cock and all other thoughts and plans fly right out the window as he realizes he’s bound to spontaneously combust if he doesn’t give her exactly what she wants and fuck her right now. In a second his belt is unlatched and trousers and pants shoved out of the way and he’s pushing into her with one smooth slick thrust, groaning at the hot wet clench of her muscles around him. He draws back and pushes in again, and again, and again, brow knit tight and mouth falling open because it’s good, it’s too good, it’s too much, he’s losing himself, drowning in her, and dying never felt so sublime.

“You’re mine,” he gasps, surprising himself, but Rose doesn’t look surprised at all, she just nods, glassy-eyed and breathless as he fucks her. “You’re mine,” he says again, kissing her fiercely as his hands pull her hips into his, harder, faster, more.

She nods again.

“Say it.”

“I am, I’m yours,” she chokes out, clenching around him, and his grip on her tightens. He’s hurtling toward the edge, spurred on by her words and her heat and her everything else but now there’s guilt chiming in too, because what the fuck is wrong with him, why would he say that, why would he make her say that, why would he make her do any of this, why the fuck would he allow her to give herself to him when he’s nothing but a broken wretched old man, and she deserves so much more—

“Hey,” says Rose, and his thoughts must be written across his face because suddenly her hands are cupping his jaw, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t do that,” she says between gasps. “Don’t wander off. Stay with me. Be here with me.”

His lips part but Rose doesn’t let any words out, stoppers his mouth with hers. “Just let us have this,” she pants against his lips. “Please. Please. My Doctor.”

Something in him snaps and he buries his face in her neck, muffling his cries as he empties into her. His head floods pleasantly with bliss but he’s just coherent enough to slide a hand between them, urging Rose along. Rose follows soon after, muscles convulsing around him, nipples sharp even through his jumper, and the Doctor feels a twinge of regret that he didn’t finish undressing, that he isn’t feeling her skin properly sliding against his. Rose must be feeling the same way; even as her hips stutter and slow, she’s sliding her hands back beneath his jumper, exploring every expanse of skin she can reach.

The Doctor sighs with something that feels suspiciously like contentment.

“I am, you know,” he says quietly.

She doesn’t reply; he half-wonders if she’s already fallen asleep, somehow.

“Yours,” he adds, voice soft.

Rose’s arms tighten around him in a hug, her heart fluttering against both of his.

She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to.

He knows.

***

Apparently Jack knows it, too.

“That dress didn’t tear itself,” the Doctor overhears him whispering to Rose after they sneak out of the Pirates’ ship. “Not to mention you smell like all the sex.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Rose replies, laughing.

“I will not! Tell me everything!”

“If you don’t behave, I will hurt you.”

“Ooh, promise?”

“I will put you in time-out,” Rose amends, mouth twitching with the effort to hold back a smile, “and I will hide the sonic so that those,” she adds, pointing to the shackles clamped over both of his wrists, “never come off again.”

Jack shoots her a sly grin. “But then how would you two ever get to use them?”

The Doctor feels a flush creeping up the back of his neck as Rose’s eyes widen, her mouth dropping open. “Pervert!” she shrieks, and Jack crows in laughter as he takes off running down the road, Rose chasing after him. It’s a good thing they’re out in the country now—they’d wake up the neighborhood, shouting and laughing and carrying on like that in the city. But eventually they settle for huddling together, arm-in-arm, as they whisper and snicker all the way back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor maintains some space, trailing a little ways after, so the humans can have their fun and their—he smiles a little—their feelings. It’s actually nice, he thinks, seeing Rose so giddy and full of joy, seeing her laugh and smile like that, even with someone else. She’s far too bright and loving and big-hearted to be kept to one person, he realizes. She deserves to share herself with whomever she wishes, not to be hoarded like gold in the fist of a grumpy old miser. Rose deserves to love freely, and to be loved freely, in return.

(They’re definitely going to make use of those shackles, though.)

***

dedicated to @galiifreyrose @yellowsuedeshoes @saecookie @aintfraidanoghosts for being such wonderful terrible influences <3 <3 <3

#ficandchips #ninerose #ninexrose #nine x rose #nine/rose #pwp #lemons #lemons everywhere #XD #jealousy #jealous!doctor #mbb fic

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alwaysmychoices · 4 years

Text

Today, I had this idea for the ending of another project I’m working on, and I couldn’t sleep until I had written it out.

Because I am nowhere near finished with this project and wanted to share it, here it is. It has absolutely nothing to do with Ethan Ramsey (sad), but it is my ending to a story I came up with that mirrors Ethan x MC.

You may not know Ellis and Ben’s story, but here’s their happy ending.

I thought about turning back at least a hundred times.

I imagined running through the airport during my layover, demanding an outrageous ticket back to London. I imagined catching a cab and walking back into his apartment only to find him reaching for his keys to come after me.

That image got me through the eight-hour flight, but when I landed in New York for my layover, I didn’t book another flight. Instead, I bought a cup an overpriced cup of coffee – strong, black, and secretly sprinkled with sugar, just like he liked it – and posted a picture to my Instagram story. For the rest of my layover, I checked to see if he had seen it yet.

He hadn’t.

I don’t know why I was surprised.

I gave him every opportunity for him to ask me to stay, and he never did. Instead, he wished me luck, kissed my cheek, and waved my cab off as we drove to the airport. He made it very clear that he didn’t want me to stay. Instead, he wanted me to go off and have all the adventures I could. He wanted me to remember the last year as one of those great stories you share in crowded bars, when your European escapades feel particularly exotic. He was a stamp in my passport, and I was a pleasant surprise.

Benjamin Clark didn’t mean for me to look back. He gave me no reason to hope, yet I did anyway.

I almost turned back before boarding my flight to Charlotte. I let myself have one last fond daydream of returning to him and spending the fall by his side, but at the end of the daydream, I still knew that winter would be a mystery.

Benjamin Clark wasn’t the kind of person you run out of an airport for. If you did, you would only be disappointed in the end.

We weren’t a grand romance. We were, at best, a humorous coming of age film with an exotic locale.

So, I flew home. For a few months, I lived with my parents and applied to every job I could find. While I waited, I hit up childhood friends and visited my old haunts. Sometimes, I would post photos and watch my notifications to see if he liked it.

He did once or twice.

He even viewed my story a handful of times, but he knew better than to message me.

In October, I got a job in D.C., and with two suitcases and a lively early 2000s playlist, I drove up alone. I rented a small bedroom from a friend of a friend, Jessica, in Alexandria, and as soon as I met Jessica, I decided we would be friends. She helped me unpack, and to celebrate my first night, we went to a nearby bar.

It took me four tequila shots for me to message Ben.

He didn’t reply until my sixth.

I didn’t realize it was five in the morning in his time zone. Even if I had, I don’t think I would have cared.

In the middle of a crowded bar, I told Benjamin that I was going to unfollow him and that I wanted him to unfollow me, too.

I don’t know what he felt when I did that. I like to think he was just as heartbroken as I was. Because I don’t know, I get to tell myself whatever I want. Some days, I need to think that he was devastated and enjoyed the remaining connection as much as I did. Some days, I need to think that he was just being nice.

Whatever it was, he messaged me back that he understood.

After a minute, he added that he would miss me.

I didn’t respond to that.

Instead, I unfollowed him. I deleted our DMs. I unfavorited his contact. I deleted our text thread.

I never thought about flying back to London for him after that.

I still harbored the fantasy that he would come to me, though…

I kept all the pictures. I even put one on display in my room. His back was turned to the camera, so I could tell myself that it didn’t mean anything when I taped it to my corkboard. I said I just liked the view.

Of course, Ben was an integral part of the view. Maybe even better than the view.

I lived in that apartment for a year. I went part-time at my job and started grad school. I wanted an apartment closer to campus, and Jess moved with me. I took special care of packing that photo, but when I got to my new apartment, I never displayed it. It lived at the bottom of my desk drawer, safe but out of sight.

I started dating someone that semester. His name was Daniel. He was a classmate, and everyone in my life loved him. We were together for six months, and in that time, I only posted one photo of him. When I posted it, I watched to see if Ben would like it. He never did. I took that photo down when Daniel and I went our separate ways.

In the year following, I cut four inches off my hair, repainted our kitchen, and made new friends. I started drinking gin, and I changed my coffee order. I was close to finishing my masters, and I was already looking for jobs all over the city. I even flirted with the idea of leaving DC, though I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I didn’t think about Ben much during that time. I doubt he thought of me either.

If I was a woman who believed in fate, I might think that there was some grand plan that brought me to that dive bar in April.

But I don’t believe in fate. I believe in coincidences, and it was one grand coincidence that I accepted a friend’s offer to meet at a bar downtown. It was also a coincidence that my friend was late and that, while waiting for her, I took a seat at the crowded bar.

It was even bigger coincidence that the man trying to get around me to order a vodka tonic was Benjamin Clark.

Three years after Ben kissed me goodbye in London, he looked exactly the same…

And even more startling, he looked at me just like he had all those nights before in Sarajevo, like he was astounded how much he liked me standing beside him.

“Ellis?” he was so happy to see me that I instantly forgot the last three years I’d devoted to moving on from him. I was happy to see him, too, if just a little more wary than he.

He was thirty now, and I could see the age on his face when he stood close. Experience etched his skin around his eyes, but after years of frowning and scowling, his smile lines hadn’t been touched. He was still infuriatingly handsome, even more so now that his hair was longer.

“Ben?” I couldn’t erase the amazement from my voice, nor could I do anything other than stare at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

He invited me back to his table, and against my better judgement, I joined him.

There was a woman waiting for him. She couldn’t have been much older than me, but she had a bronze, sultry glow I had always lacked. I immediately worried she was his girlfriend, but she was so friendly to me that I soon let the thought go. Either she wasn’t his girlfriend and didn’t care who he brough to their table, or their relationship was so strong that she wasn’t intimidated by me in the slightest. Either way, there wasn’t much I could do.

He introduced me as an old friend, one that was “one of the best” in our field. It was a complete lie, and I called him on it. He met me when I little more than an intern at an NGO he didn’t even work at. If he wanted to brag on anyone, it was himself, because he was the one who trained me.

He rolled his eyes and ordered a vodka tonic and a mojito for me.

Mojitos had been my favorite drink when we knew each other.

“You’re being too critical,” Ben corrected me with the same voice he used to use when I made a mistake at work.

“You’re being too generous.”

“You were full of potential, even when you couldn’t work a coffee maker to save your life,” Ben scoffed, and not for the first time, I was offended.

“I didn’t burn your fucking coffee,” I asserted forcefully.

The first day we met, he said I burnt his coffee, and I hadn’t.

“Yes, you did,” Ben insisted.

“No, I didn’t!”

We argued for a while.

At some point, my friend arrived, and sensing I didn’t intend to leave this table, she introduced herself and took a seat next to the beautiful tan woman. They talked among themselves as Ben and I disagreed.

He argued that I had been the one who messed up the paperwork for the festival in Belgrade. I called him a liar.

We made peace when he offered me a drink but said we had to stop fighting if I took it.

I seriously considered not accepting that mojito.

But I did.

And he asked what I was doing in D.C.

I told him my story – the job, grad school, my impending graduation, and my tiny apartment at the end of the metro line.

“And you?” I asked, already half-done with my mojito. He had hardly taken a sip of his vodka tonic. Always a slow drinker.

“Moved here a few months ago,” he explained, taking one tiny sip that made me hate him, “I took a job downtown.”

I raised my eyebrows accusatorily, “Downtown?”

“I didn’t sell out,” Benjamin stopped me before I could even suggest it.

I raised my hands innocently, “I didn’t say you did.”

“You were thinking it.”

He was right. I was.

“Well, whatever it is, I hope you’re happy,” I was telling the truth, but I also hoped he would give me every detail so I could finally decide whether or not he had actually sold out.

“I am,” Ben watched me, rightfully suspicious.

“That’s great.”

“You’re judging me,” Ben accused.

“I am,” I boldly confirmed, “I distinctly remember being warned time and time again not to sell out, but look at you…” I shook my head like I was ashamed of him. I wasn’t. I really was happy if he was happy. I just liked to torture him a bit to make up for all the times he had judged me.

As I predicted, Ben was outraged.

He spent the next hour justifying his career and his decisions.

Our friends left us at midnight. I honestly had forgotten they were even still there.

Near one am, I was convinced and gave him my approval. He knew he didn’t need it, but he seemed happy to have it.

It was surprisingly easy to be with him.

I always thought that, if I ran into him again, I would be awkward and pained. I thought that, once you loved someone like I loved Ben, you could never encounter them casually again. I was wrong about that. Sitting and talking with Ben felt like the most natural thing in the world.

I only stumbled once.

That was at 1:30 am, when he checked his watch and told me that he would need to get home soon to check on Porter.

I recognized the name. It was a name we came up with together. It had been a blisteringly cold winter day, and from the comfort of his kitchen, we dreamt up ridiculous, silly names for the dog Ben dreamed of having. At the end of the conversation, we settled on Porter, short for Portobello Mushroom. Ben poured me a second cup of coffee, and I asked him why he didn’t just get a dog if he wanted one.

He told me that he wasn’t ready. As long as he kept moving across the continent every year or so, he couldn’t take care of a dog. His career wasn’t stable enough for a dog, nor was he.

When he got a dog, he was ready to settle down.

Now, he had the dog…

I didn’t mean to, but I did it again.

I dreamed up a future with Ben. I allowed myself to hope for him. I began to long for his attention and affection.

I was scared when I realized it. One night had erased three years of work.

But I didn’t stop doing it.

When we parted that night, I wanted to ask him to come home with me, but I didn’t. He kissed my cheek, helped me in my Uber, and waved me goodbye from the pavement. It was exactly the same scene as when I last saw him in London.

I felt ridiculous for hoping for more.

He followed me on Instagram that night.

He texted me the next morning.

I met him in a coffee shop after class, and I stayed so long that I had to cancel dinner with Jessica.

I would love to say that I never saw the rest coming, but that would be a lie. I knew.

I knew that coffee would turn into dinner, and that would turn into nights in his apartment. Playful texts in the middle of the day would turn into celebrating our first anniversary. My drawer in his apartment turned into dominating half of his closet, and playing with his dog would turn into claiming Porter just as much as Ben did.

Two years after our grand coincidence, I got a job offer in New York, and I walked home slow that day. I didn’t know if our sweet little fairy tale extended beyond the District of Columbia. The first time, he hadn’t asked me to stay. But this time I asked him to come with me.

Three months later, we packed our life into a U-Haul, and from the passenger seat, I looked over at Ben and had the distinct feeling that I might just get to look at him for the rest of my life…

#writing #short story #couple #happy ending #non choices

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