amberfocus | Always Ask Twice

A/N: Some of you may have seen this on Teaspoon, though I've made some changes, polished it up more and improved the flow since it first went up. I want to move all my Nine/Rose stuff over here, so thought I'd start with this. For those of you waiting for Wolf Moon who haven't read this before, I hope it'll feed the craving just a little bit. New Wolf Moon chapter up on Monday, sometime, promise. This is set sometime in season one, before Jack.

Always Ask Twice

“Impress me,” Rose had said looking up at him from under her lashes in a way that shouldn’t have bothered him in the least, but damn near caused both of his hearts to visit tachycardia land. So he’d taken her to Raston, a beautiful, uninhabited hotbed of geothermal activity.

She watched the fountaining water shoot high into the sky from the natural build-up of pressure under the surface of the ground with such charming delight he couldn’t tear his eyes off of her. Each geyser was a different color depending on the nearby minerals and one or two of them had two or three different colors mixed together. Her favorite seemed to be one that had shades of indigo, violet and lavender, for she stared at it entranced. In turn, he stared at her entranced.

The geysers were warm, not boiling hot like the ones on Earth, and erupted for a minute at a time, roughly five minutes apart so one or more were always active. Rose ran about from one to the other, the water drifting down like mist until eventually she was soaking wet. He was pretty sure she didn’t realize how her clothes clung to her curvy frame leaving very little to the imagination and yet at the same time firing his imagination beyond anything he’d ever allowed himself to think about before when he’d thought about himself and Rose Tyler.

She came back to him after awhile and threw her arms around him enthusiastically and he’d leaned into that hug a little more than he ought to have. “Thank you,” she breathed, “for taking me here.”

Taking her here, oh yes, that was just about all he could think about at the moment. Taking her right here, right down against the rocks in the puddles of water and amongst the rushing sounds of geysers shooting towards the sky. And really, thinking about geysers was not helping his current situation one bit. Neither was her body pressed so closely up against his.

He didn’t realize that his arms had tightened convulsively around her until she tried to pull back and he didn’t let go. “Doctor,” she asked. He released her finally and she took a step back. “What’s the matter?”

He tried to find the words to let her know that for the first time in as long as he could remember there was absolutely nothing wrong. At this moment here with her, everything was perfect. He smiled. “Not a thing, Rose.”

“Then come play with me,” she said reaching her hand out for his and wiggling her fingers impatiently. She matched his smile with a brilliant grin of her own.

“I’ll get me clothes wet,” he said gruffly crossing his arms across his chest and leaning back against the TARDIS door as if prepared to settle there permanently.

“So take ‘em off,” she said simply. “The planet’s uninhabited. There’s no one around to see you in your boxers.”

“Who says I wear boxers?” he asked. She blushed but was it his imagination or had her eyes just dropped to his groin? No, that was not his imagination.

“Anyway, there’s you,” he said roughly. “I’m not taking me clothes off, Rose.” He tried not to let his discomfort show, but he’d need to be adjusting his jeans soon if she kept looking at him so hopefully like that. She was so beautiful. Rassilon, she was likely to think him a dirty old man if he really stripped down and she saw the evidence of what she did to him.

She studied him for a long moment and he could tell she was trying to figure out whether or not to press him on this. He wanted her to press him, wanted her to convince him that prancing around under the geysers more than half naked with her was a fine idea. Almost as fine as doing it completely--.

“Pity,” she finally said and turned her back on him with such a look of disappointment in her eyes. He felt a pained regret center in the pit of his stomach as she walked away. When she was about twenty feet from him she turned back around and said, “Will this make it any easier?”

Slowly and deliberately she shucked off her jeans and t-shirt, her eyes never leaving his. Clad only in pale blue bra and matching knickers, she gave him a mischievous smile. No, not any easier. It was, however, making things harder. Decidedly harder.

“Sure you won’t come with me?” she drawled. Innuendo was in every nuance of her voice.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, the Doctor thought. Nine hundred some odd years of living, the last survivor of an incredibly smart and powerful race that could control time and space, and here he was reduced to the mental equivalent of a goldfish by a scrap of a girl as he stood there opening and shutting his mouth, unable to speak and barely able to breathe.

Oh, the hell with it, he told himself, dropped his leather jacket to the ground and skinned off his jeans and jumper. He found his voice as her eyes moved appraisingly over his body, the light of hope springing onto her face. “Oh, yes, Rose. I’ll come with you,” he growled striding forward and pulling her roughly into his arms.

He dropped his mouth to hers, devouring her hungrily and damning the consequences. His tongue slid across her lips, pushing between them and she opened for him, granting him access to a place he never expected she would and he had never before presumed to go. His tongue was greedy, searching out the furthest recesses of her mouth, eliciting happy sounds from her throat, slipping at a fevered pace while trying to convey exactly what she made him feel. Powerful and powerless all at the same time. He wanted her and as close as they were, bodies pressed together, he could no longer hide it from her.

As the first desperation of that kiss began to soften she giggled against his lips and he pulled back in annoyance. That wasn’t the response he’d been expecting from her, not after the sounds she had been making. “Something funny about how I kiss?” he demanded.

“No, not at all,” said Rose. “That was amazing. I’d even go so far as to say impressive.” She winked at him. “No, I was just thinking of the most important thing you’ve ever taught me.”

“What’s that, then?” he asked his curiosity piqued despite his irritation at her laughter.

“Always, always, always ask twice.”

He laughed then and swept her up into his arms and headed back with her to the ship. “So then, Rose Tyler, do want to come with me?” He cocked an eyebrow at her and his tone and the look on his face left nothing to the imagination as to what he wanted from her.

“Oh, yes, Doctor!”

“Twice?” he asked wickedly.

“At the very least!” She grinned as he kicked open the TARDIS door with his foot and carried her inside.