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Tweak says, "LYK SO TTYLY AWESOME"

rose tyler (rosetyler) wrote,
@ 2009-04-15 00:57:00

role-play for time_lord; the ticking of the clock

There were things a person learned about the intergalactic, other worldly time machine that they were calling home for as long as time permitted or they so chose. One of the benefits of making her own choices was that Rose had the ability to come and go as she freely pleased from the TARDIS. Were she to get the wild urge to do so, there was nothing to stop her from getting off in the medieval Renaissance, finding a crimson gown embroidered with gold threads and taking a place at the court of whichever king she chose. It wouldn't be hard, if she wanted to. But the funny thing about traveling through time was that somehow, home became more important than it ever had before.

And home was a blue police call box, where the only other occupant slept (supposedly) a few feet away in one of the cavernous rooms.

It was rare for Rose to be awake when the Doctor was not, she often succumbed to her human desire for sleep and rest long before he did, and when those times came he would throw her a mischievous wink and tell her to sleep well and to tell him what she dreamed about - what place, what star, what planet - because he would take her there when she woke.

Moments like those made her realize how much she had loved him, even before she knew it, and chide herself for trying to tap dance around it as if that would be easier. Nights like these when she let herself stay up and think about this, her room seemed desperately isolated and the loneliness spider walked up her shoulders like some kind of overgrown insect.

The quiet became too much and Rose threw back the blanket she had tucked around herself. Her feet padded across the cold, metal flooring and two minutes later she was, without hesitation, letting herself quietly into his room.

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time_lord
2009-04-16 01:52 am UTC (link)

After the Time War the Doctor had become something of a minimalist. He no longer donned bright, obnoxious colors with excessive and silly accessories. Instead he chose innocuous shades and practical clothing for all manner of situations, oftentimes appearing quite drab and intimidating than the characteristic loud and cheery of his previous incarnations. He had preferred to blend in rather than stand out, become a no one in a universe full of someones, and much like its master, the TARDIS had gone through her own changes since those times.

The interior had been stripped of its skin, the old wood paneling from his eighth incarnation discarded for the blue and green veining of the organic machine, each wall now pulsating and whirring with a steady, glowing heartbeat. His bedroom was no different, even now, long after his body had shed the daft ears and piercing blue eyes. It still appeared sterile, functional and with few personal possessions strewn about the dressers and bedside stands to give away any of its owners secrets.

There was a four poster bed placed in the center of the room, not cramped against any walls or accent furniture, but simply barren, resting on clawed wooden feet with a wide expanse of walking room on each side in spotted, dark marble. There were two or three dog eared, leather bound books forgotten upon the bedside table; one titled in swirling, eloquent script that remained untranslated by the ship, the other nameless and with a fading, water logged cover, and the last a compendium of Yeats work.

At the center of all this, twisted between silky black sheets in fitful sleep, was the Doctor. His suit jacket had been removed and draped over the intricate headboard behind, leaving a layer of navy blue dress shirt that had its buttons undone to just above his naval. The shirt sleeves were now unfastened and rolled to his elbows, now wrinkled and drooping toward his forearms from too much tossing, turning and fidgeting in his slumber.

It wasn't often that he allowed himself to nod off, as a Time Lord it wasn't required in the same volume of that of an average human, but from time-to-time it did become necessary to recharge. He hadn't used to fight it so adamantly, but now, after seeing the worst that the universe had to offer, he loathed the moment his eyes closed and mind opened to the painful memories he'd rather keep hidden, safe and sound, outside of reach, deep within his subconscious.

His eyelids did not flutter, though his eyes were quite active beneath the thin covering of skin, a series of darker images playing repetitively behind them. The rise and fall of his chest was labored, bare skin visibly clammy with a cold sheen of perspiration leaving him almost ghastly in the dim glow of the ship. Outwardly, he didn't look near as distressed as his rapid pulse would lead one to believe, but it was little more than deception when his mouth parted in a sharp intake of oxygen that put to rest any disbelieving consideration to the contrary.

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rosetyler
2009-04-16 02:04 am UTC (link)

Had he been awake and moving about, conscious and taking part in some thought process or other, Rose would have adamantly thought twice about invading upon his personal space, or even going so far as to admit she was checking up on him. There would have been room for her to do so, of course, without appearing overbearing or anything of that nature - so long ago had they left behind those kinds of feelings - but there was still the semi-newness of being home again on the TARDIS after having been away for so long, the kind of home that made a person wonder just how they belonged here, or what had kept them away for so long. Home was a double edged sword, it held the comfort of memories past but also the cold wonder of whether or not more would be made.

When his eyelids didn't twitch she was almost relieved, as if that kind of movement would have made him more human than she was ready to see, but his distress was evident and enough for her to see. The door to the room was left a crack's width ajar and Rose abandoned conventional means of gaining his attention for the wild, unsuppressed desire to take away and soothe the terrors he was seeing behind the rare screen of his eyelids.

Her bare feet made little, quiet patterns across the floor when she crossed from the doorway to his bedside, and she wasted no time with soft pleasantries or the gentle means of waking a person that Jackie would have tried on her as a small girl. Rose recalled all too well the demons that went bump in the night and what they could do to a person's mindset when in the vulnerable throes of sleep. She wasn't about to let him go through that - not now, or ever if she could help it.

Tugging back one end of the blankets and covers, Rose tucked herself up onto the edge of the bed in a perch that was more than slightly awkward, but one she was willing to endure for as long as it took. Her palm pressed against his forehead, and then her knuckles touched the curve of his cheek.

"Doctor." Soft, then with a gentle note of insistence, against the tousled mess of his hair. "Doctor. Wake up, you're having a nightmare. It's all right, come on now, wake up."

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time_lord
2009-04-16 02:39 am UTC (link)

Distantly, somewhere between the coaxing reality of wakefulness and the cold, puzzling complexities of dreams did the Doctor teeter, toeing the edge with his mind but never truly crossing one path into the other. His senses were torn somewhere in the middle, and while his eyes remained closed and he asleep, his instinct was sharp and reactive as ever when he sought out the new warmth against his cheek, reaching through the dark linens and sliding far enough to capture her hand within his fingers and draw them to settle against the fierce drumming within his chest.

“Rose,” he murmured, voice sounding small and hoarse with misuse. Her name was uncertain upon his tongue, the disorienting sensation that came with such conflicting and distracting things as nightmares still taking hold and grasping firmly to his awareness. His mind grew indecisive at the familiar sound, senses recognizing the soft and soothing presence at his side even as his dreams grew muddled with the delayed and resisting intrusion of consciousness.

She was there, in his dreams, yet he knew, however detached his thoughts were, that she was at his side in the same instance. All at once she was walking away, fading into nothingness, becoming fainter the longer he stared at the vacant street and growing nearer and nearer still at the recesses of his mind, prodding insistently for lucidity.

“. . Forever, I remember, forever . . said it, won't let me forget, but you always disappear, never stay,” he muttered unintelligibly in his sleep, grunting when the figure in his dreams vanished, leaving him alone in a dirty street without a name. He sounded vulnerable and exasperated with confusion, and his fingers tightened around the small of her hand when he still did not wake.

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rosetyler
2009-04-16 02:45 am UTC (link)

Her own heart rose up to tighten itself in her throat, come near to choking off the rhythm of her breathing, a sense so necessary that unless she remedied this soon, she might well topple over into unconsciousness to join him. It wasn't as if she was intending of it, but to see the Doctor in this sort of vulnerable state was completely and wholly out of the ordinary, something he would quite possibly be outraged at himself for when he came to wake, or deny the happening of altogether. Either way, that didn't change that Rose was holding an adamant presence at his side.

When his fingers banded their strong grasp around her hand she gave him a moment to take up the hold he wanted, prepared to acquiesce to whatever he wanted, no matter how awkward it might end up being or feeling. Her fingers were able to comfortably fold through his in a clasp, but the grip she gave in return was hard, with the bumps of his knuckles making little indentations in the pads of her fingers. It hurt, but she was past caring about her own pains now. Rose didn't need to ask questions to know what he was trying to tell her.

How long are you going to stay with me?

Forever.

"I'm here. I'm right here." Leaning in at the waist let the golden fall of her hair topple downwards to brush across his cheek in a quiet caress, and her free hand cupped at his cheek to keep his head from thrashing either way too fiercely. "It's just a dream. It's just a bad dream. It's okay, you can open your eyes. I'm here. I'm right here."

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time_lord
2009-04-21 02:10 am UTC (link)

“. . No,” he murmured roughly, forehead tightening with something akin to a flinch. He was shaking his head and trying to disagree, but the slow process of reconnecting with reality was leaving him slightly out of sorts. The muscles in his throat worked on a dry swallow, brows quickly knitting together in distaste when he had to rake his tongue across the roof of his mouth to promote the flow of saliva back into an otherwise parched mouth. He cleared his throat, rustling between the thin layer of bedding when his senses started to become more and more alert.

“No, it's . . I've seen it all before,” he continued in a rasp, pushing air through his nostrils after he ceased the movement upon the bed and situated, the spill of her golden mane tickling against his cheek when he felt the mattress shift beneath her weight and the comforting warmth of a nearness that wasn't there before exhale against his skin.

The Doctor opened his eyes, unfocused and bloodshot from fitful sleep. Had he been at full faculties, he might have startled at the vision he was presented with, but instead he simply attempted to narrow in on the familiar features of his blond companion. “I can't ever keep you," he mumbled incoherently.

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rosetyler
2009-04-21 02:16 am UTC (link)

It was strange how five words, small as they were, could slam hard and unrelenting into the center of her chest and nearly knock the breath right out of her. Rose had been sent to reel many times by things far greater in magnitude and vehemence said in her direction - such had been the life of a teenage girl, some things would never vary - but now the situation was heightened in a greater way and what he said seemed to be rife with impossible sadness, the ache that came from centuries' time of thinking that very thing.

Her hand strayed to his forehead again, soft and warm, and the near-to-ginger flicks of strands of his hair touched and tickled at her fingertips as if asking to be stroked back into place. A swallowing pull of her throat gave her back her breath and when she spoke it was with the tender, quiet voice that belonged to darkened rooms where nighttime fears needed to be chased away.

"Of course you can," she said quietly. "Of course you can. Not sure how I feel about being a kept woman, but if there was anyone I'd be willing to do it for, it'd be you. I'm not going anywhere."

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time_lord
2009-04-21 02:39 am UTC (link)

The Doctor appeared to be working something very important out in his head at that moment, and he grew distant, withdrawn into himself when the presence of her fingertips started to tingle at the forefront of his scalp and push backwards, deeper into the thick strands of chestnut hair. His heartbeats flip flopped in his chest and he felt his pulse quicken in his veins when she uttered the soothing words, the combination of voice and touch delivering him into the waking world with the very worrisome and abrupt realization that he might have said too much while under the confused spell of slumber.

He blinked once, twice and darted his attention to the surrounding room. Bedroom, his to be precise and if the comfortable surface was at all telling, he had fallen asleep in his room and Rose had ventured in at some point to rouse him. The bewildered look in his eyes left the Time Lord's defenses in shambles and it was enough to give away the swift change in mood, no matter how quickly he made to cover it.

His mouth opened and closed, brown eyes widening when he searched for the right response, something obliging to her reassurance and not further incriminating to the admittance he'd already made in his sleep. Instead he failed miserably at both and stated the obvious when nothing else came to mind. “. . I was talking in my sleep,” quickly followed by, “. . which you're no doubt aware of as you've been sitting there, and how long is it? That you've been sitting there?”

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rosetyler
2009-04-21 02:52 am UTC (link)

At some point, she knew this was coming. There was no way he would surrender himself that completely to the few hours and luxuries of sleep that he permitted for the sake of letting something like this go unrecognized, unacknowledged and just glossed over to have conclusions drawn about on its own. No, he was the master of avoiding all sorts of feelings and conflicts whenever he was able and now that vulnerability had destroyed that option it was inevitably time for damage control. It sometimes startled Rose how well she knew him, but she wasn't about to go down that train of thought now. Not now, when he was looking at her with worried and slightly bewildered eyes.

"I heard you," she said, not quite directly answering his question immediately, but that would come later. "Didn't know what was happening, so I followed the sound. You were having a nightmare." She rid her voice of the soothing, almost motherly tone because she knew he'd hate it, hate to be patronized and fettered over by her, as if she thought he wasn't capable of handling something himself. It was a dangerous road to walk, but she was ready to take the careful steps.

Her eyes moved across his face, silent and searching, looking for a tell as to how he was feeling. He was good at hiding, concealing, far better than she was even though now she did her best to try, but she didn't want to have to worry and guess, only to help.

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time_lord
2009-04-21 03:16 am UTC (link)

He made a mental note to reconfigure the privacy settings in the TARDIS, particularly the ones in his bedroom that governed the escape of sound from one room to another. Times like these he almost wished he were human, because at least then there was a higher possibility of not recalling what his dreams entailed, though as it was he knew exactly what he had been fretting over in his dreams. The focal point of which was still sitting irritatingly nonplussed at his side, her hand wrapped tightly within his own. The Doctor paused, glancing down to his chest where he still grasped her free hand between where his shirt unbuttoned to bare skin and just above the rhythmic heartbeats that thumped behind his ribs. His grip loosened, but he didn't let go. I'm not going anywhere hadn't quite stuck just yet.

“Suppose that's one word for it,” he agreed on a tired sigh. Live as long and see as much as he had and you were bound to have a reoccurring nightmare or two. The words 'sleep easy' stopped applying centuries ago. “I didn't mean to wake you.”

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rosetyler
2009-04-21 03:27 am UTC (link)

"You're not going to apologize to me for having a nightmare, are you?" She didn't inject incredulous venom into her voice, Rose wasn't the kind to make anyone feel bad for any reason or cause unless they'd earned it - which happened so rarely - and even then she was forgiving in so many ways. With the Doctor she was more so, probably a great deal more than she needed to be, but trying to argue that with her was a pointless waste of breath. She was too set in believing what she did.

Her thumb moved across his knuckles and the back of his hand, slow and easy and comforting, an almost absent gesture that had far too much thought put into it to be completely unthinkable. "If it was me laying there now and I tried to apologize, you'd tell me something about the whole science of dreams and how we can't control them ultimately, so I had no reason to be sorry. I can't quite spout off the same, but the ending can be right on." Her lips turned slightly into a smile that touched the corners of her eyes.

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