Fic: Punch-Drunk (G, 1/1)

[nonelvis]

Title: Punch-Drunk
Characters/Pairing(s): Nine/Rose
Rating: G
Word count: 2,000
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none
Summary: Being Rose's designated driver is a lot more emotionally complicated than the Doctor expected.
Beta: platypus
Disclaimer: Not mine, obviously.

Author's Notes: My Ninth Doctor-era entry in who_at_50's 50th anniversary fanwork-a-thon-a-thon.

::xposted to who_at_50, who_at_50, dwfiction, dwfiction, and time_and_chips, and archived at Teaspoon and AO3



"Some designated driver you are," Rose grumbled, words slurring into a tangle of barely distinguishable syllables. "Making me walk back to the TARDIS." She tripped over her right foot, slumped over the Doctor's chest like an old blanket. He yanked her back up just before she'd have hit the ground.

"Walking's a terrible idea," she said.

"Walking's a terrific idea, Rose. Fresh night air'll do you some good."

"It's cold. Take me back to the club, it was warm there." A hand slipped inside his leather jacket, clutched him around the waist. "Or I could keep warm next to you."

Fingers picked at the Doctor's forest-green jumper, pinching and scrunching wool until they brushed bare skin. The Doctor shivered, and hoped it was just due to the temperature.

"Here we are, then," he said as they approached the TARDIS. "Go on, in you go."

Rose slammed against the door with her forearm. "Whoops," she said, giggling, dragging the Doctor along with her. She stumbled again over that same apparently treacherous right foot, spun about trying to catch her balance, and knocked herself into the Doctor, pinning him to the door.

"Whoops again." Still giggling, intermixing with a delicate pair of hiccups.

Rose's head was halfway to the Doctor's waist now, and she clawed herself back up by clinging to the neck of his jumper. Parts of her he was fairly certain were never supposed to be quite this close to parts of him were in fact that close, like those fingertips slowly tracing his collarbone, and her thigh pressed to the junction of his legs; and sure, her breath smelled of Altairian Sucker Punches, but then her lips covered his and her tongue tentatively launched an exploratory mission, and every alarm klaxon in his head was momentarily overridden by the shock and relief of finally kissing Rose Tyler.

But only for a moment.

"Rose," he said, carefully dislodging her lips, and thigh, and hand. "Rose. You're very, very drunk."

"So what if I am? Don't you want to kiss me?" She blinked at him. Her lips were wet and shiny from the kiss, and, he imagined, growing cold without his lips there to warm them, and ...

"What I want," he said instead, answering with only one of many possible truths, all of which were more enjoyable than this version, "is for you to go sleep this off."

"I'm not even that ..." She pushed at his chest, and the rebound was enough to knock her backwards, and ultimately, right on her bottom. She slumped the rest of the way down, tilted her head slowly from side to side. "TARDIS is spinning. How does it do that?" Her forearm drooped over her face. "All right," she said, "I might be a little bit pissed."

"Just a bit." He hauled her up, and together, they wound their way to Rose's room: Rose flopping against him or the wall; him waiting, nudging her in the right direction when she spun too far around.

The TARDIS had moved Rose's room very close tonight. Another time, maybe even one not terribly far in the future from this one, the Doctor could see himself walking back an entirely sober Rose: lingering in the doorway, deciding that this night, at last, would be the one where neither of them would settle for a hug before bed.

It was one possible future, anyway; one of a thousand strands of time he could see, and he wouldn't know until he got there whether this was the one that finally happened, or whether it was simply another night Rose clung to his jumper and then bounced off to bed alone.

Whenever it happened, it wouldn't be tonight. Tonight, Rose ploughed through her doorway and toppled backwards onto the bed, crooking a finger towards the Doctor. "Come here," she said. "Not gonna bite unless you want me to."

"Think I'll stay right here, thanks," he said, settling into a side chair and scooting it the nine centimetres he calculated were just enough to put him outside Rose's reach, even if she leaned halfway off the bed.

"God, you never let me have any fun."

"You've had plenty of fun. How many of those Sucker Punches did you drink, anyway?"

She held up her hand, wiggled her fingers, stared at them, moving them closer and further away from her face. "Um ... just three? I think?"

He shook his head. "I'm going to get you a glass of water and a couple paracetamol. No hangover cure in the universe for an Altairian Sucker Punch, so we'll just have to make do."

When he came back from Rose's en-suite, her shoes and at least some of her outfit – probably best not to look closely enough to determine which parts of it – had hit the floor, and Rose was snuggled beneath the covers. Good; temptation nearly averted.

"Tell me a story," she said. "Least you can do if you're not going to join me."

He sighed and dropped back into the chair. "Once upon a time," he began, "there was a sweet young girl whose friends accidentally let her drink way too much, so one of them took her home and put her to bed and kept an eye on her that night to make sure she'd be fine in the morning, even if she was going to wind up with a hangover that could fell a Judoon."

"That's not a story."

"Sure it is. It's got a beginning, a middle, and a sort of an end. Plot needs a bit of work, but you weren't asking for a Booker Prize winner, were you?"

"It's boring. And you didn't even say where the girl's other friend went."

"Ah," he said. "He made a new special friend with a lot of wiggly arms and suction cups, and said he'd be back in the morning."

"Oh, yeah, saw them dancing at the club. I mean, dancing dancing; not sure how the other kind would work with the ... ." An arm snaked out from under the covers and wriggled a sine wave.

"Jack's flexible in all sorts of ways. I wouldn't worry about him."

"Mmph. S'pose not." Her voice trailed off at the last syllable.

The Doctor sat in the chair, drumming his fingers on its wooden arm. Rose had gone very quiet, and he had to listen closely for her breath, slow and even.

He reached for the light switch, tapping it to fifteen percent power. Sitting in the dark watching his companion sleep was creepy. Sitting in the mostly dark watching his companion sleep was simply friendly concern, making sure she was okay, and that he could stumble to the bed to help her if she needed anything. It was the kind thing to do, and allowed him plenty of time to sit and think about how tonight might have gone if Rose had only stuck to ice water instead.

* * *

He blinked at Rose in the dark for three hours, during which her sleeping body flipped back and forth, restless limbs twitching beneath the covers. Other than a gentle snore during the few minutes in which she was lying on her back, she was out cold. Altairian Sucker Punches – well, they did pack a punch.

Unfortunately, deep sleep wasn't their only side effect. Half an hour later, Rose moaned, drooped over the side of the bed, and half-crawled towards the en-suite. It wasn't long before the Doctor could hear Rose losing the contents of her stomach, which was at least far better than the same happening in her bed, which he'd dimly feared might come to pass.

He waited several minutes until Rose stopped – might as well leave her some small semblance of privacy – then took her glass of water and met her at the toilet, where she was kneeling on the floor, bent full forward so that her forehead touched the chequered ceramic tile.

"You okay, Rose?"

There was a short, miserable groan. "Oh, God, please don't come in."

"Too late." He crouched beside her, laid a hand on her camisole, rubbing lightly. "Here, drink this. Slowly."

"But then I have to move, and it's so nice and cool on the floor. I'm going to stay right here."

"In a minute, then, when you're ready to move. Alcohol dehydrates you, and besides, you probably want a bit of a rinse right now."

"Don't worry, I'm wasn't going to snog you again, if that's what you're worried about."

He snatched back his hand. "It's not – I wasn't – I didn't even ... ."

She moaned again softly, tipped over onto her side. "Just leave me here to die. It'll be fine."

"Rose. You're not going to die. You're just going to have a spectacular hangover in the morning. Now here, drink up. You need it."

Slowly, Rose bent her arm, tilting herself until she was upright enough to swallow. She slouched back to the floor and closed her eyes. "That's good. Thanks."

He refilled the glass at the tap and left it next to her. "More, when you're ready."

One eye cracked open. "You're not upset I snogged you, are you?"

"Upset": no, that wasn't it, even if he had been able to sum it up in a single word. A vertiginous rush of energy spiralling through his head, tingling along his arms and everywhere else she'd touched him. Joyously out of control; bubbly and tipsy, but not yet wholly drunk. All that in the few moments he'd had before he'd pushed her away.

"No, Rose, I'm not upset," he said. "Anyway, wasn't you that snogged me. It was the drinks, right?" Giving her an out was the friendly thing to do. The right thing to do. Not what he wanted to do, but that was beside the point.

"How do you know?"

"Oh, been there myself once. You know how it goes: you're young, it's your first trip out of uni, you want to do all those things your teachers would never approve of. Not that I'm your teacher, or that the TARDIS is your uni, or that you're all that young – well, you are young, especially compared to me, and I suppose when I say I was young I don't mean 'young' on the same scale as humans –"

"Not sober enough for this," Rose muttered. Both eyes were open now, staring directly at him. "But ... what if it wasn't? The drinks, I mean."

"But it was."

"But what if it wasn't," she repeated, more slowly.

Hope bubbled up in him again, but he let it fizz away. Rose was in no condition for this conversation, and the Doctor doubted he'd be in any condition for it without weeks, possibly months of advance planning involving many faltering conversations with himself in the shaving mirror.

"If it wasn't," he replied, "it'd be something we should sort out when you're not practically passed out next to the toilet, eh?"

She sipped at her water again, then lay back down. "Yeah, okay."

There was only so much the Doctor's 900-year-old knees could take, even if they were in a body substantially younger than that, and he gave up on crouching next to Rose. "Come here," he said, sitting beside her and patting his thigh. "You can't be comfortable like that."

"No, it's fine. Feels good. Feet are a bit cold, though."

He shrugged off his jacket and draped it over the bottom half of her curled-up body.

"Thanks," she said. "You don't have to stay with me. I'll be fine."

"Think I will, though. Got some calculations to sort out, and someone should keep an eye on you."

Rose yawned, closed her eyes. "Doctor," she said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"How does that story end?"

He reached for her, stroked her hair, filtering straw-blonde strands with his fingers. Tomorrow was another possible future. Tonight there was simply silence, stillness, warmth. Rose's breathing slowed and deepened.

"Don't know yet," he said softly. "Maybe we'll find out in the morning."

Comments

[gratiela]

<3

I wish I could say more, but I'll stick to my thoughts getting smashed into fluffy purée... kind of thing..
/what, nevermind >.>;;

I actually wanna say thank you, this has been sweet!

[nonelvis]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the story.