somewhere i have never traveled (Ten/Rose)
Feb. 2nd, 2008 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dollsomeTitle: somewhere i have never traveled
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Word Count: 1,100
Rating: G
Spoilers: pretty general season two; little references to "New Earth," "Rise of the Cybermen," and "The Satan Pit"
Summary: His fingers fit with hers just right.
Author's Note: I . . . don't really know where this came from. I never even contemplated writing fic for this show, just because -- there are aliens! And incredibly complicated backstory and canon that you have to master! And how on earth are you supposed to capture the magic of Doctor/Rose in writing, anyway? But the first line just popped into my head, and now, here it is. It may have something to do with the fact that I have a paper to write on Wordsworth that I am avoiding like hell. Oops?
Also, titles are the devil, and therefore I just stole an e.e. cummings line. But this poem suddenly seems infinitely Doctor/Rose-ish to me, so . . . it works? Right!
--
The Doctor breaks a fingernail saving the human race from being made the slaves of an army of twenty-foot-long super-intelligent slugs in the year 2159. It’s quite nasty, really – bruised bright purple, and it bleeds a bit. Doesn’t change the fact that he’s broken a fingernail. He moans and groans about it, his voice swooping high and low in good-natured agony, fishing for a smile from her, then a laugh; she obliges, ‘cause it’s what they do, him and her, and besides, he’s cute when he’s pathetic.
“What d’you want me to do?” she demands, glints of smile canceling out the sternness she’s trying for. “Get an emery board?”
He feigns mortal offense, a hand to his (left) heart; she chokes on giggles.
“Rose Tyler,” he intones, woefully, “I believe you’ve cut me to the core.”
“Baby,” she retorts. He pulls a face at her. “Oh, c’mere, then.”
He sits himself down in front of her, surrendering his ‘wounded’ hand into her outstretched one. Sure enough, there it is, that home feeling she gets from touching him, and she wonders in the back of her head if the day’ll come when she knows him with a different face, different hands. She’ll love him all the same, of course – he’ll always be her Doctor – but she does like him like this, wiry and boyish, gleeful in a way that makes her brighten too. His fingers fit with hers just right.
“I like your hands,” she says unthinkingly. The words are out of her mouth all of a sudden – just there, floating, said – and she wants to kick herself.
“I’m a fan myself,” he answers, chipper – not missing a beat, not batting an eyelash. “Don’t know where I’d be without them. Imagine – a life with no hands. S’probably what was bothering our gigantic slug friends back there, come to think of it. Imagine trying to take over a planet without any hands to help you along. Not saying it hasn’t been done, of course, but damned if it’s not tricky.”
“Right,” she says, smiling a little bigger than she needs to. She feels a bit like she’s stumbled and he’s caught her at the last second without even noticing he’s got her in his arms. Just graceful enough to be suspect, and she’s comforted, in a way, that maybe he dances around this sometimes just like she does.
His hand’s in hers, all the same.
“Yours aren’t bad either,” he says then, surprising her. She tilts her head a little as she meets his eyes – his gaze immediately shifts to the right, casually contemplating a patch of nothing a few feet from her head.
“Don’t know if I’ll be taking over any planets with them,” she answers.
He shrugs, nose wrinkling dismissively, and his eyes come back to her. “Overrated, anyhow.”
Another smile blooms on her face; seems like she can’t help it, when he’s around. His pinkie finger twitches against hers, an affectionate gesture that’s as small and thoughtless as a blink, a breath. His eyes are warm and bright.
And here’s the thing: she knows that they can’t – that it’s not even an option, that she shouldn’t even think about it. And she doesn’t, most of the time.
Part of the time.
She’s traveled to the farthest reaches of space – seen cats in wimples and a dog who got her name instead and a man eaten up inside by the oldest evil there is, wearing Satan on his face like tribal markings – and here, here’s what’s impossible. Noticing when she stands too close to him. More than once (or twice, or three times – you get the pattern) she’s taken out the blurred, backseat memory – flinging (not) herself at him with reckless abandon, her fingers in his hair, her mouth and his. It’s only that she wonders what it might be like if they did it properly, just the once. She’s curious by nature.
“Enough pissing and moaning, then,” he says, cheerfully brisk, like he’d been reading her mind and recognized the immediate need for a change of topic. He pulls his hand away, stands up, claps once. “Where are we off to next? Say, have I ever told you about that time I ran into Elizabeth Bathory?”
“No,” she says, trying to place the name. Her empty hands curl into absent fists.
“Feisty, that one,” he reflects, shaking his head at the memory. “Maybe a little off-putting, but I liked her fire.”
“Wait a minute,” she says, frowning, “wasn’t she the one who used to take baths in her servant girls’ blood?”
“It kept her skin silky-smooth,” he replies mildly.
“You weren’t friends with Elizabeth Bathory,” she declares, coming up to join him by the console.
“All right,” he admits with a shrug, the corner of his mouth twitching in a poorly-concealed smile. “Maybe I saved a few dozen servant girls from filling up her bathtub.”
“That’s more like it,” she says, nudging him. “Don’t scare me like that. Next you’ll be going on about the good old times you used to have with Jack the Ripper.”
“Now, you want to talk about feisty,” he replies, teasing her on purpose now. “Not to mention quite artistic as well.”
She rolls her eyes.
“How ‘bout – hmm – Beethoven?” He looks to her for approval. “Loads of fun, that one. No bloodshed.”
“Surprise me,” she replies.
His grin widens. “Will do.”
His hands fly across the panel for a moment; he hits his injured finger on something and swears under his breath, shaking his hand impatiently like he’s trying to drive the pain out of it. A flutter of pity goes through her.
“Hold on a sec,” she orders, and hurries to her room. She digs around in her bag for a couple of seconds before finding what she’s after at the bottom. When she comes back out into the console room, he’s looking in her direction, like he’s been waiting for her to reappear.
“Hand,” she orders as she nears him. He provides it obediently. She performs her task with careful fingers.
“There,” she announces, pleased, when she’s done. “All better.”
“Ahh,” he says, grinning down at the bandaid on his finger. It’s covered in bright yellow smiley faces. “What would I do without you?”
‘Let’s not find out, shall we?’, she means to say, but there’s something a bit sad about it somehow. Instead, she lifts his hand to her mouth and presses a tiny kiss to the bandaid. Her lower lip brushes his skin for a second, but only barely.
“Good as new,” she says.
He grins at her. “Better.”
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Word Count: 1,100
Rating: G
Spoilers: pretty general season two; little references to "New Earth," "Rise of the Cybermen," and "The Satan Pit"
Summary: His fingers fit with hers just right.
Author's Note: I . . . don't really know where this came from. I never even contemplated writing fic for this show, just because -- there are aliens! And incredibly complicated backstory and canon that you have to master! And how on earth are you supposed to capture the magic of Doctor/Rose in writing, anyway? But the first line just popped into my head, and now, here it is. It may have something to do with the fact that I have a paper to write on Wordsworth that I am avoiding like hell. Oops?
Also, titles are the devil, and therefore I just stole an e.e. cummings line. But this poem suddenly seems infinitely Doctor/Rose-ish to me, so . . . it works? Right!
--
The Doctor breaks a fingernail saving the human race from being made the slaves of an army of twenty-foot-long super-intelligent slugs in the year 2159. It’s quite nasty, really – bruised bright purple, and it bleeds a bit. Doesn’t change the fact that he’s broken a fingernail. He moans and groans about it, his voice swooping high and low in good-natured agony, fishing for a smile from her, then a laugh; she obliges, ‘cause it’s what they do, him and her, and besides, he’s cute when he’s pathetic.
“What d’you want me to do?” she demands, glints of smile canceling out the sternness she’s trying for. “Get an emery board?”
He feigns mortal offense, a hand to his (left) heart; she chokes on giggles.
“Rose Tyler,” he intones, woefully, “I believe you’ve cut me to the core.”
“Baby,” she retorts. He pulls a face at her. “Oh, c’mere, then.”
He sits himself down in front of her, surrendering his ‘wounded’ hand into her outstretched one. Sure enough, there it is, that home feeling she gets from touching him, and she wonders in the back of her head if the day’ll come when she knows him with a different face, different hands. She’ll love him all the same, of course – he’ll always be her Doctor – but she does like him like this, wiry and boyish, gleeful in a way that makes her brighten too. His fingers fit with hers just right.
“I like your hands,” she says unthinkingly. The words are out of her mouth all of a sudden – just there, floating, said – and she wants to kick herself.
“I’m a fan myself,” he answers, chipper – not missing a beat, not batting an eyelash. “Don’t know where I’d be without them. Imagine – a life with no hands. S’probably what was bothering our gigantic slug friends back there, come to think of it. Imagine trying to take over a planet without any hands to help you along. Not saying it hasn’t been done, of course, but damned if it’s not tricky.”
“Right,” she says, smiling a little bigger than she needs to. She feels a bit like she’s stumbled and he’s caught her at the last second without even noticing he’s got her in his arms. Just graceful enough to be suspect, and she’s comforted, in a way, that maybe he dances around this sometimes just like she does.
His hand’s in hers, all the same.
“Yours aren’t bad either,” he says then, surprising her. She tilts her head a little as she meets his eyes – his gaze immediately shifts to the right, casually contemplating a patch of nothing a few feet from her head.
“Don’t know if I’ll be taking over any planets with them,” she answers.
He shrugs, nose wrinkling dismissively, and his eyes come back to her. “Overrated, anyhow.”
Another smile blooms on her face; seems like she can’t help it, when he’s around. His pinkie finger twitches against hers, an affectionate gesture that’s as small and thoughtless as a blink, a breath. His eyes are warm and bright.
And here’s the thing: she knows that they can’t – that it’s not even an option, that she shouldn’t even think about it. And she doesn’t, most of the time.
Part of the time.
She’s traveled to the farthest reaches of space – seen cats in wimples and a dog who got her name instead and a man eaten up inside by the oldest evil there is, wearing Satan on his face like tribal markings – and here, here’s what’s impossible. Noticing when she stands too close to him. More than once (or twice, or three times – you get the pattern) she’s taken out the blurred, backseat memory – flinging (not) herself at him with reckless abandon, her fingers in his hair, her mouth and his. It’s only that she wonders what it might be like if they did it properly, just the once. She’s curious by nature.
“Enough pissing and moaning, then,” he says, cheerfully brisk, like he’d been reading her mind and recognized the immediate need for a change of topic. He pulls his hand away, stands up, claps once. “Where are we off to next? Say, have I ever told you about that time I ran into Elizabeth Bathory?”
“No,” she says, trying to place the name. Her empty hands curl into absent fists.
“Feisty, that one,” he reflects, shaking his head at the memory. “Maybe a little off-putting, but I liked her fire.”
“Wait a minute,” she says, frowning, “wasn’t she the one who used to take baths in her servant girls’ blood?”
“It kept her skin silky-smooth,” he replies mildly.
“You weren’t friends with Elizabeth Bathory,” she declares, coming up to join him by the console.
“All right,” he admits with a shrug, the corner of his mouth twitching in a poorly-concealed smile. “Maybe I saved a few dozen servant girls from filling up her bathtub.”
“That’s more like it,” she says, nudging him. “Don’t scare me like that. Next you’ll be going on about the good old times you used to have with Jack the Ripper.”
“Now, you want to talk about feisty,” he replies, teasing her on purpose now. “Not to mention quite artistic as well.”
She rolls her eyes.
“How ‘bout – hmm – Beethoven?” He looks to her for approval. “Loads of fun, that one. No bloodshed.”
“Surprise me,” she replies.
His grin widens. “Will do.”
His hands fly across the panel for a moment; he hits his injured finger on something and swears under his breath, shaking his hand impatiently like he’s trying to drive the pain out of it. A flutter of pity goes through her.
“Hold on a sec,” she orders, and hurries to her room. She digs around in her bag for a couple of seconds before finding what she’s after at the bottom. When she comes back out into the console room, he’s looking in her direction, like he’s been waiting for her to reappear.
“Hand,” she orders as she nears him. He provides it obediently. She performs her task with careful fingers.
“There,” she announces, pleased, when she’s done. “All better.”
“Ahh,” he says, grinning down at the bandaid on his finger. It’s covered in bright yellow smiley faces. “What would I do without you?”
‘Let’s not find out, shall we?’, she means to say, but there’s something a bit sad about it somehow. Instead, she lifts his hand to her mouth and presses a tiny kiss to the bandaid. Her lower lip brushes his skin for a second, but only barely.
“Good as new,” she says.
He grins at her. “Better.”
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 06:06 am (UTC)I AM SO GLAD YOU ARE WATCHING THIS SHOW NOW.
Because it means fic. Wonderful, perfectly IC, sweet, funny, lovely fic. I just...gah. The Doctor with a broken nail. LOVE IT. You are just the best. I firmly declare this. Am fangirling till the end of the universe.
YAY!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 06:47 am (UTC)*goes off to actually read fic*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 07:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 09:03 am (UTC)Haha! Story of my life. :D
And oh, I don't usually go for the more conventional OTP-type romances on shows anymore, but these two are just PERFECT.
Thanks for readingggg!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 08:46 am (UTC)How's the s3 viewing going? What ep are you on and what do you think about Martha?
no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 09:04 am (UTC)And I've watched the first three episodes so far, have enjoyed them all immensely, and I totally love Martha! She's wonderful.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 09:48 am (UTC)Your fic reduces me to capslock, and Ten/Rose also reduces me to capslock, and now that they've gone and been put together IT RENDERS ME INCAPABLE OF COHERENT SPEECH.
As always, I want to pretty much highlight the entire thing and write "this is my favorite part" after every other line, but for some reason I'm terribly drawn to his cheerful "Imagine - life with no hands" babbling, so calmly collected, except...not, really, a couple of paragraphs later.
He looks to her for approval.
And that, too. That's true in many circumstances.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 08:59 am (UTC)Oh, I'm excited for you to actually reach them on the show! THEY ARE SO MUCH THAT IS AMAZING.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 08:38 pm (UTC)Lovely. Of course. Bravo.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 09:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 09:32 pm (UTC)And lo, it is brilliant. D'awww. Also: I totally made myself a Doctor/Rose header with that poem awhile back. Yeah. It's pretty much perfect for them.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 09:01 am (UTC)And that poem is so strikingly beautiful, and then I just had a Doctor/Rose epiphany reading it, and it is freakishly fitting for them. Oh, sigh!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 10:57 pm (UTC)... and it gave me warm fuzzies.
Fantastic piece. :3
*meming. :3
no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 11:17 pm (UTC)And here’s the thing: she knows that they can’t – that it’s not even an option, that she shouldn’t even think about it. And she doesn’t, most of the time.
Part of the time.
She’s traveled to the farthest reaches of space – seen cats in wimples and a dog who got her name instead and a man eaten up inside by the oldest evil there is, wearing Satan on his face like tribal markings – and here, here’s what’s impossible.
Yes. That's the way they are - so close, yet so very far from the kind of conventional physical intimacy we expect from a relationship. Yet they're intimate in every other way that counts, and in many ways far more intimate than most couples who are at it like rabbits.
Lovely work :)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 11:50 pm (UTC)Just those two sentences, that's all, almost a fic-within-a-fic, the whole universe of the Doctor and Rose.
Your prose is gorgeous and your understated emotion and affection, even more so. I love their playfulness, and I can absolutely see this happening on screen.
Beautiful, beautiful work.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-09 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-09 12:19 am (UTC)(Plus SQUEE for e.e.cummings.)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:52 am (UTC)(I second your SQUEE!)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-09 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-09 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-09 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-09 05:14 am (UTC)“Good as new,” she says.
He grins at her. “Better.”
It is better! And that is what makes it happy/sad!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-09 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-09 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 12:34 pm (UTC)THAT WAS SO LOVELY! =D=D=D
no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-11 08:33 am (UTC)I think this calls for drastic measures. I must friend you, because I cannot miss out on any more fic. *g*
Also? I'm ridiculously happy to see that I'm not the only one who has trouble with titles. (Not happy that you have trouble, of course, just happy that I'm not alone in my toils.) I always barely tolerate mine, and everyone else seems to come up with such beautiful ones. It can be quite disheartening...)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-11 07:43 pm (UTC)And, dude, TITLES ARE THE DEVIL. I have so much trouble with them, almost without fail, that it's just ... ridiculous. Maybe even ridonkulous.
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Date: 2009-05-04 05:20 am (UTC):)
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Date: 2009-05-04 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-04 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-04 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-15 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-15 04:22 pm (UTC)