who john & rose! what rose taken over by a dream beastie where their flat when 6/16 warnings some brief innuendo on cassadra's part (spoiler alert, it's cassandra), but otherwise very PG status complete!
“Oh, I love this! Can I just say, traveling with you...I love it.” “Me too.”
Rose was dreaming. She and John (sorry, The Doctor) were visiting New New New New New New New New New New New New New...New New York. There was a distress signal and whenever there was danger, the Doctor would be there to help. Rose tossed in her bed, dreaming of cats that were nurses, different kinds of diseases that she had never heard of and...Cassandra? She frowned in her sleep, remembering the stretched out bitch from her very first dream. How had she survived?
The frown grew deeper as she was caught by her and her...helper? She didn’t know, but he seemed pretty devoted to her. The next thing she knew was...nothing. Her eyes fluttered open and she tried to take in her surroundings, not recognizing anything. “Oooh,” she sat up, placing a hand on her head, trying to get her bearings. She had a banging headache but she couldn’t rightly remember why. She stood up, reaching an arm out to steady herself, but caught a reflection of herself in the mirror.
She made a bit of a pouty face at it, turning this way and that to look at herself. She looked good...like really good. She smoothed down her shirt, tilting her head to the side.
She was still looking at herself when she heard the door open, John calling out for her. “In here,” she called, the slightest difference in her voice. But it didn’t matter, she was trying to get a better look at herself, unbuttoning one or two on her blouse, puckering her lips as she turned around fully.
When John entered the room, she turned to look at him, a smile playing against her lips. “Hello there,” she purred, giving him a very obvious once over. Yes, she knew him. The Doctor. The very handsome Doctor. She walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, the smile never leaving her face. “How was your day today?”
With finals on the rise, John had been on the go in preparation for them. It had made him increasingly more absent-minded when it came to things at home, but far more organized at work. This time he’d forgotten his phone for half the morning, and so decided to call it a day early just to go home and retrieve it. Honestly, what good were infinite pockets if he didn’t keep everything in them?
Keys tossed aside, he called for Rose to see if she had woken up for the day yet. Jacket discarded and tossed onto the coat hanger, he perked up immediately at the sound of her voice. Didn’t matter what sort of day John could be having, Rose’s smile, voice, mere presence--any of it could brighten him right up. So, he made a beeline for the bedroom and was met with a very… peculiar version of his -- of -- of Rose.
Looking her up and down uncertainly as she approached him, he did slip his hands about her waist, but that was out of habit, really. Her voice struck him as odd, familiarly odd. He looked absolutely flummoxed. This was a bit more forward behavior out of her than he was accustomed to experiencing.
“Hello,” he said a tad uncertainly. “Good, short, light on the, ah, adventure… Are you alright?” “Never better,” she said, her eyes traveling down to his lips and back up to look at him. “You know, we could have our own adventure here.” Her hands traveled up into his hair, twirling a bit of it at the nape of the neck. For all accounts and purposes, Rose wasn’t exactly present in this current state.
That voice, the texture and accent, why did he have such a hard time associating it? Too many memories, faces and places, planets and times, they made it difficult for his mostly human mind to sift through. As uncertain as John was of her behavior, he certainly didn’t back away. The scientist in him had him eying her back, though in a substantially less attractive way. Not that he was finding her -- not that he was looking at the way her shirt fit her -- not that he was doing anything at all questionable.
“And, ah, what… do you have in mind exactly? I thought we’d go out and grab a late bite since you happen to be up and I happen to be home… are you sure you’re feeling alright, Rose?”
“Quite. I just can’t Adam and Eve that you’re home early,” she said, her hands roaming higher into his hair. “You know, larking about the flat made me very lonely. I was just waiting for your company, but a bite to eat sounds wonderful.” She took a deep breath in, letting it in out in a sort of a sigh. “You know...you and me...Mmmmm…” Another glance down and back up at him.
Adam and Eve it. His eyes widened instantly in recognition, but she successfully distracted him with the talk of food and--larking about? Practically floundering with the situation, John’s nerves erupted in the form of an awkward smile. Goodness, she was all hands. His eyes were darting every which way in an attempt to follow their roaming, all to no avail.
“What’s… what’s with the v…” Ah, click. He leaned toward her, eyes squinted as the final piece of the puzzle came together. “Cass--”
Before he could get the name out of his mouth, he found that he had something blocking it, namely Cassandra!Rose’s mouth. The kiss was deep, passionate, something of want but without any emotion behind it. It felt more like something that was needed rather than wanted. Her hands grabbed handfuls of his hair, pulling him closer to her. It was a good minute before she pulled back, licking her lips. She looked like she was about to say something before a strange look came over her face, almost like a realization, before her eyes fluttered back and she started to fall.
John reached out to catch her before she landed on the ground, Rose completely knocked out.
She had fallen asleep again.
The rest of her name was swallowed up in a kiss. Standing stockstill, hands tensing at her waist, John had never been more at a physical loss in his life than that moment. What could he possibly do? Shocked at the press of Rose’s lips unmanned by her consciousness, fumbling over the memory of this happening in his dream, everything felt suddenly terribly real. Had he lost Rose to Cassandra’s meddling for good?
By the time she’d pulled away, his hair was a mess and eyes dry from never having closed. Having lost every motor skill, the only thing that managed to snap him out of his it at all was the abrupt shutting of her eyes. Her body began to fall and instinct kicked in, John’s arms seized about her and held her up just enough for him to bend at the knees and sweep her legs off the ground and carry Rose to the bed where he laid her down carefully.
Worry etched all over his face, he sat in the small space between her body and the bed. His hands were braced on either side of Rose’s resting frame, concerned eyes resting on her face. There he would wait until she woke again.
“Rose,” he murmured. “Come back to me.”
It was a while later that Rose woke up, the rest of the dream finished. Her eyes fluttered open, completely herself again. She frowned, an uncomfortable weight on top of her and she glanced down to see John...asleep? She couldn’t help but laugh a little, looking at him like this. How the bloody hell did it happen? His face seemed to be planted in her chest, one hand resting on her side and the other...well, she couldn’t really see or feel where the other one was.
She brushed some hair out of his face, moving just slightly to wake him up.
“John?”
With the changes in his genetics the more he dreamed, the less John spent actually sleeping. Sometimes it caught up with him, and now had been one of those times. He’d practically face-planted on her extremities, rather inappropriately he’d note later, but couldn’t help it. He had refused to leave her side until she woke, John only hadn’t anticipated his own exhaustion creeping into the equation.
Dreams of war and old faces hadn’t plagued him this slumber, tii comforted by their close proximity. He did dream of Cassandra, albeit briefly, as if to remind himself not to hate her for what she’d done to Rose in New New York.
Rose’s shifting stirred him successfully, albeit slowly. He lifted his head gradually, hair all askew and very, very delayed on the uptake save for one thing: she was Rose again. “Rose?” He questioned, then jerked up when he realized what he’d been doing. Throat cleared nervously, he averted his gaze as respectfully as he possibly could. Never mind that he looked properly disheveled.
“Rose,” he said again, eyes drawn back to face as a dopey smile stirred awake. “That you?”
Rose hadn’t noticed the condition she had been in until he sat up and she realized that her shirt was almost completely unbuttoned. She frowned, blushing a bit as she buttoned it back up, wondering what had happened. Maybe she had tossed and turned a bit too much? Whatever the reason, her attention turned back to the man in front of her and she gave him a funny look, reaching out to flatten his hair. “ ‘Course it’s me, who else would it be?” As soon as it had left her mouth however, she frowned, thinking of what she did remember of her dream.
“Funny...I just had a dream where you weren’t you. At least for a bit.” She smiled, thinking how Cassandra had enjoyed his body, but called Rose out on how she looked at the Doctor. “Everything alright?” She focused her attention back to John, stretching on the bed to try and wake up her legs that had fallen asleep from John’s weight.
Collecting himself as she tended to her hair, John seemed to relax all the more. She had a lot to recall, though a part of him hoped it would remain forgotten. They hadn’t addressed what happened on New Earth beyond having saved the day, not after sending Cassandra to meet herself in the past. As she seemed to begin remembering it all, John slid off the bed and caught her hands with his in the process. Ready to help her stand if she wanted, noting the way she’d stretched to regain feeling in her limbs, no doubt, he offered her a smile.
“It’s alright now,” he assured. “Saw another one of our adventures, did you? And… don’t recall what’s happened at all, then?” He felt a bit foolish prodding--the Doctor wouldn’t have, and somehow that comforted him more. It meant there was still a bit of him, John Smith, left in the real world.
She didn’t stand right away, but didn’t let go of his hands either. “I like dreaming of our adventures,” she said with a smile. “This one was...interesting. I don’t remember some of it here and there…” She glanced at him, almost echoing what he had just asked. “Why? Do you remember?” She raised an eyebrow at him as if to say ‘I expect to hear about it now!’
Well, that didn’t go as planned. She almost distracted him with her words to the point he would have expounded further, but John, groggy though he was, stayed on his toes. Counting his blessings that she hadn’t been wearing lipstick--had she?! Oh no…--he had absolutely no intention of telling her what Cassandra had done in her body. It was bad enough Rose had to experience it at all.
Being a prisoner in her own mind, of course. He hoped kissing him wasn’t such a terrible chore.
“Me? Hm? Well…” Brows lifting as his mind raced for a plausible explanation, he gave her hands a reassuring squeeze. “I remember that you didn’t sound altogether like yourself, that’s all. Didn’t stay awake very long, nothing of note to… ah, report. Would you like some tea?” That didn’t sound suspicious at all.
Her eyebrows rose even higher into her hair as he tried to step around the question she had asked. He was so cute when he did that, but she tried not to let him off that easy. “What happened?” she asked, taking her hands back and crossing them across her chest. “What did Cassandra do to me?” She could only guess that was what was making him so nervous and antsy.
There were aliens easier to trick than Rose Tyler. Inwardly sighing, he scratched the side of his head like a child caught in a lie. Feet shuffling against the floor for good measure, he drew in a deep, deep breath and decided a proper ramble might do the trick of getting Rose off the subject and back onto her feet. Her mind had just been commandeered, he needed to make sure no damage had been done this time around.
“Well…” He said again, this time somehow longer. “Nothing much at all, Rose, really. Bit of this and that, a little snog here, some sultry laughing there. Really, you haven’t got anything to worry about. She just came from your dream for a little while, I think, and now you’re you again. All that matters to me,” he finished, tone veering into reassurance.
He was so cute when he acted this way and Rose had to purse her lips together to keep herself from smiling. She never understood why he tried to hide things from her, but it almost seemed like a tradition now, so she just gave him her questioning look of ‘I caught you tell me what’s up’.
She couldn’t help at John’s easy-go-lucky way of saying that they had kissed, her eyebrows rising once more. “I kissed you?” She frowned, trying to remember, a finger rising to her lips as if that would help her think of that moment. “I mean…she kissed you?” It was a strange thought and emotion to have; while it had been Rose’s body, technically it had been Cassandra kissing him and she didn’t like the idea of that at all.
It wasn’t as though they’d never kissed before, he knew. It was that it wasn’t precisely Rose that had kissed him, and it had taken him a moment too long to realize as much. He’d done very little to escape the lip locking, too. He may have been terribly slow to the draw in terms of romance, but he wasn’t daft. Better yet, he was still a bloke at the end of the day, wasn’t he?
“Right, well, not you, yes,” he nodded in agreement. “I’m sorry, I was rather--that is to say, I didn’t--anyway, it didn’t occur to me that it might not be you until…” With a slight cringe, he rubbed the back of his neck almost in defeat. Nothing he said felt appropriate at this point. “I knew something was wrong, but it was a bit too late. I wouldn’t have, ah…” Stood there and done nothing? John’s feet shuffled on the carpet nervously, eyes darting every which way.
None of that mattered to him suddenly as he leaned toward her abruptly, expression turning into that of doctor examining a patient. “Are you alright now? Head feeling alright? No echoes of her left? Malaise, headache, nausea, anything?”
Watching John stammer about was probably the cutest thing Rose Tyler had ever seen, but she couldn’t help but let him go on, trying to explain. She tucked her lips in (ooc: see picture: http://www.insanejournal.com/userpic/28222891/4017806) and nodded her head, finally flashing him a smile as he...well, sort of finished his sentence. She was about to tell him it was alright, that she had just been messing with him when he was suddenly right there, examining her. She rolled her eyes, pushing him back just a bit.
“I’m fine, really. I don’t think she’s left in there. It might just be a surprise to wake up to one night.” She grinned, trying to imagine John’s reaction if that actually happened. “But not headache, no nausea...what is malaise?” She frowned, wondering if she should know what that was.
With a huff, he relented. So long as she wasn’t displaying an further signs of being commandeered by Cassandra, and he wasn’t being possessed either, he could let it go. Her question quirked a grin, stirred the teacher in him to the forefront as he sat back down beside Rose. Better to let her sit there and relax until she was game for walking about than to force her into action anyway.
“Malaise is a general feeling of discomfort, could be related to illness or mood,” he explained, glancing her up and down with a tiny, fond little smile. “Think you are fine though, not quite ready to run, but it’ll do nicely. Glad you’re back, Rose Tyler.”