Wolf Moon: Chapter Seventeen

[amberfocus]

 

Control Issues

 

“Are you just agreeing with me because you want to get me into bed?  Or is that thing as scary to you as it is to me?” Rose asked the Doctor.  They had left the temple and were making their way west, following the vague directions of Ambigere to the bridge across the canyon.

 

“Yes,” he said firmly.  Rose rolled her eyes at him and he continued.  “That’s a drayguin.”

 

Rose glanced down at the beautifully but frightfully rendered creature that was staring dolefully at her from the parchment.  “Looks like an ordinary old dragon to me,” she said.  “All teeth, claws, scales, and flame-throwing capability intact.”

 

“There’s no such thing as dragons, Rose,” the Doctor said a tad bit condescendingly.  “But the Earth myth was derived from the brief appearances of several drayguins during important eras of human history.  Well, those and a few time-shifted pterodactyls.”

 

“Um, hmm,” said Rose trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.  “So what’s the difference between dragons and your drayguins?”

 

“No wings for one,” said the Doctor.

 

“So they don’t fly?” wondered Rose.

 

“Not fly so much as float,” explained the Doctor.  “They have the ability to absorb hydrogen out of either water or the atmosphere, heating it with their bodies’ own natural combustion process.  Heated to one level it allows a pouch in their stomach to swell up and they float like hot air balloons, using their tails like rudders to steer.  Heated to a higher level and they breathe it out as fire.”

 

“Lovely,” said Rose.  “I don’t suppose they’re unwieldy?”

 

“Nope, they’re pretty maneuverable.  And vicious.  Not terribly bright though.  Well, the males of the species aren’t terribly bright.  The females on the other hand…”

 

“So not that different from the rest of the universe then?” Rose asked cheekily.

 

The glare he directed at her sparked something low in her belly.  ‘He’s glaring at me and it’s turning me on,’ thought Rose.  ‘This is getting ridiculous.’

 

“You’re disparaging my entire gender, Rose?” he asked dangerously.

 

She licked her lips and her nostrils flared.  She could almost taste him on the breeze.  “So what if I am?” she asked teasingly, her voice dropping.

 

“You might be making things harder on yourself than you need to be, dismissing the intelligence of half the population of the universe.”  His eyes were narrowed but she didn’t think he was truly offended.

 

“I’d rather be making things harder on yourself,” she told him her eyes drifting downwards and lingering at the halfway point.  What was wrong with her?  Other than that she suddenly wanted him so much right now?  When she met his eyes again they had darkened considerably.

 

“Think you already have done.  So now the question is, what’re you going to do about it?”  His hand clamped down on her wrist and he pulled her flush up against his body, his other hand wandering from her hip to cup the side of her breast.

 

Rose pushed into him aggressively, raising her face to his and pulling his head down until her lips brushed against his.  He was having none of the light teasing and deepened the kiss with almost bruising force, suddenly aggressive in his own right, but Rose didn’t mind as he dominated her mouth, tongue thrusting forcefully against hers, claiming possession and radiating his need of her as strongly as the erection pressed against her stomach did.

 

His hand drifted down her side and she felt him slip it underneath the hem of her t-shirt, sliding against the smooth skin of her waist and upwards until he was cupping her breast through her bra, all the while continuing to own her mouth.  She tried to clear her mind and remember why this wasn’t a good idea as her hands slid down his body, why they were supposed to wait as her fingers pulled out his t-shirt, why it mattered so much to her to stop as her hands caressed the bare skin of his back and held him even tighter to her.  But she couldn’t think of a single reason.

 

She whimpered against him wondering if she was really going to just let this continue but her entire body was yelling at her mind to just shut up and let it happen.  Suddenly he released her and took a step back from her.  She was breathing hard and she felt an ache low in her body.  She knew she had to be radiating pheromones at a high level and she could smell the strong scent of pineapples exuding from the Doctor.

 

“Fog’s wearing off, Rose,” he said in a harsh, barely restrained voice.  “And the serum.  We need to get back to the TARDIS now.”

 

“Don’t want to,” said Rose.  “I want you.  Now.”

 

“Don’t tempt me, Rose,” he said fighting for control.

 

“I can’t help it,” she said forcing down a wail.  She felt her pulse quickening and she reached for him again, sparks jumping from her skin to his as the desire rose higher and higher.

 

“Damn it, Rose, we made a choice!” he snapped.

 

She felt like sobbing at the sudden ferocity of her need.  It hadn’t been this hard the first time but she was being overwhelmed so badly.  “You’re right, you’re right!  But I can’t control it,” she moaned.

 

“Then I’ll do it,” he said.  “I’m not hurting you, Rose.  Not while I can still control my own hormones.  But we have to hurry.”  He strode off ahead keeping several feet in front of her, turning once to check that she was behind him.

 

It took them an hour to reach the bridge, mostly because Rose kept trying to close the distance between them and touch him and talk him into having sex, but also because it was getting exceedingly difficult for the Doctor to walk from the rather suggestive things that kept pouring out of Rose’s mouth.

 

“Come on, Rose,” he encouraged her.  We just need to walk another three miles back to the TARDIS.  You can do this.  Just another hour and a half, okay?”

 

“But I want,” she said helplessly.  “I want so badly.”  Part of her mind knew she was begging and yet she didn’t care.

 

“I know, love,” he said softly.  “I want, too.”

 

The strength in his voice, his use of the endearment, gave her a burst of courage to hold out against the growing force of lust.  By the time they finally did burst back through the TARDIS doors they were both in physical pain as well as mental anguish.  The TARDIS immediately flooded the room with pink fog without being asked and slowly their deep breaths brought their raging hormones under control.

 

“I’m going to go dose myself with that serum,” he said.  “And tomorrow I’ll need to make another batch up.  Might be best to keep some on me from now on.”  Rose nodded dumbly.  “I’ll see if there isn’t something more I can do for you while I’m at it.  Something to make the attraction less.”

 

Rose looked down at her feet.  She felt humiliated at her total loss of control.  “No, Rose,” he said as if he could tell what she was thinking.  “Don’t beat yourself up about this.  None of it is your fault.”  She nodded and with a last glance at her the Doctor left her alone in the control room.

 

With a sigh she dragged herself off to her room and stumbled into the bathroom.  She stripped off her clothing and stepped into the shower, leaning heavily against the wall and just letting the water steam over her body.

 

She tried to focus her thoughts on the first task of the quest.  They hadn’t even fully discussed it yet, had only gotten so far as the not too bright male drayguins when all hell had broken out in hormone land.  She found it ironic that the task that had been set for them was to steal the egg of the queen drayguin.  She might as well have been in one of Mickey’s epic teenage video games.

 

Rose tried not to think about the ethics involved in stealing the offspring of any creature.  The Doctor hadn’t said it was a sentient species, but even an animal would miss its cub, or calf, or whelp, or she supposed in this case hatchling.  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it was before the creature hatched.  Maybe there wasn’t an attachment until after it was shelled.

 

She’d have to ask the Doctor about that.  Her face flushed with embarrassment as she thought about the Doctor and how hard she had tried to convince him to change his mind and just take her down in the dust on the majority of the walk back.  She remembered his kiss, too.  And the passion of it and the way his hands had felt on her body and the way his skin had felt under her fingers.

 

Her skin started to itch, an odd tingling sensation, and she wondered if she’d picked up something in the trail dust of the canyon rim.  With a sigh she stepped away from the wall, and thoroughly washed her hair and body and then stepped out to dry herself.  Despite the thorough cleansing her skin still felt oddly uncomfortable.

 

She put on a pretty silk nightgown that fell to just above her knees and wrapped her body in a matching long, moss green robe she found hanging on the back of the bathroom door.  “Thank you,” she told the TARDIS with a gentle caress to the wall.  She was thanking the ship for far more than the night clothes.  The TARDIS hummed softly in response.

 

Rubbing her hair dry with a thick towel she emerged from her bathroom to find the Doctor sitting on her bed, head in his hands.  “What are you doing in here?” she asked him.

 

He looked up and bit his lip and she could tell he was hesitant.  “What?” she repeated gently.

 

“I need to hold you, Rose,” he admitted.

 

“Oh, now you need to hold me,” she muttered.  “Well, what if I don’t want to be held?”

 

“I’m serious, Rose.  My skin hurts.  I need contact with your skin.”

 

“That’s a new one,” she told him.  But as she stepped closer she recognized that the itching of her own skin was getting painful.  She sat down next to him and joined hands with him.  The pain receded but she still felt the tingling at an uncomfortable level.

 

“I think it’s a side effect of the pheromonal control,” he told her.  “And I’m going to need more skin contact than this.”

 

Rose sighed.  “That won’t start the cycle up again, will it?  Because I don’t think I can go through that again tonight without having you.”

 

“No.  It should simply calm us,” he said.  She just barely heard his whispered, “I hope.”

 

“Fine,” she said.  He reached over and pulled the tie off her robe, pushing it from her shoulders as his hands moved down her arms.  His breath caught at the way her cleavage rounded out the top of the gown.  He stood up and shucked off his leather jacket and then stripped away his t-shirt.  His fingers hovered above his belt and he looked at her with hesitation.

 

“The more skin contact the better, I think,” he said softly.

 

She nodded and watched as he pulled his belt off and then shoved his jeans to the floor.  She scooted back onto the bed and waited for him to join her.  He stood there for a moment, just looking at her, his heart in his eyes.  She raised a hand to reach for him and he joined her, kissing her hand and then settling onto the bed beside her.

 

They lay stomach to stomach, his legs against hers, his arms holding onto the bare skin above the low cut back of her gown, her face against his chest.  Slowly the itching went away and Rose found herself relaxing against the soft strokes he was giving her hair and back.

 

Slow warmth filled her and she felt the gentle creeping of desire for the man beside her.  It was nothing like the wanton lust that had overcome her earlier.  It was gentle and peaceful.  Rose pressed her lips against his sternum.  “Rose,” he warned.

 

She sighed and stopped her actions.  “Wasn’t lust, Doctor,” she told him.  “It was more.”

 

“I know.  But I’ve been…uncomfortable for several hours and that’s the sort of thing that’s just going to make it all come back,” he explained.

 

“And holding me isn’t?” she wanted to know.

 

“It’s calming the skin hunger,” he told her, “and that’s what is needed.  But anything more than this and I’ll be hard for you again.”

 

Rose pulled away from him enough so that she could look him in the eyes.  “You halfway are.  I could…”  She stopped, blushed, tried to start again, and hesitated.

 

“You could what, Rose?” he wondered.

 

“I could help you take care of it,” she said in a rush.  “We wouldn’t have to have sex but…I could…help you to relieve the pressure.”  She blushed even more deeply.

 

His eyes darkened and she could tell he was thinking of just exactly how she might go about doing what she’d just offered.  “I couldn’t do that, Rose.  I’d be all over you.  The serum’s not strong enough to counter that sort of activity.”

 

“Oh,” she said.  She was halfway disappointed and halfway relieved.

 

“When I make the next batch of serum, Rose, I’ll make it stronger,” he said.  “Then I could…I mean if the need arose…we could…relieve the pressure together.”

 

Rose buried her face in his chest.  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

 

“Don’t be embarrassed, Rose.  Or try not to be,” he said.  “I don’t ever want you to be ashamed of anything you want to do with me or to me.  You’re going to be my…  I mean, I hope you’re going to be my bond mate some day.  I promise you, I won’t ever ridicule anything to do with your sexuality or your response to mine.  I want you to feel safe within my arms, always.  It was a kind and generous offer and I thank you for it.”

 

It was at that moment that Rose realized she could fall in love with and stay in love with this man, this different Doctor, for the rest of her life.  The Doctor let out a sudden breath of air.  “Really?” he said tilting her head up and staring at her in wonder.  “For the rest of your life?”

 

Rose looked at him in alarm.  “I didn’t say that out loud.”

 

Ch, 18:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/12334.html