“Mufflepuff?” He grinned.
He leaned his elbows against the side of her bed–her childhood bed. They were at Jackie’s, and the Doctor had spent the night in the TARDIS…but would that stop him from waking her up at the crack of dawn ANYway? Oh noooo.
Rose pulled her pillow over her head so she couldn’t feel his eyes boring into her.
“Roooose.” He poked at her pillow.
“What if I told you…” he said mysteriously, his voice low and gravelly, and she felt her bed dipping as he leaned in closer and put his mouth to the gap between the edge of her pillow and the bed, “that it’s snowing?”
She turned her head under the pillow and opened her eyes wearily, blinking at him sleepily through a mess of blonde strands.
“Is snowing, has snowed, possibly will snow more. I’m running out of tenses to entice you with, Rose Tyler.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Am sleeping, have slept, will sleep more,” she grumbled, pouting.
His eyes widened, his lips opening dramatically around the word he was forming far before he issued it. He seemed to expel all of his breath with it, leaning even closer. “Snoooowwwww.”
She grinned widely and suddenly threw the pillow off her head, bounding to the window so fast that the Doctor landed on his arse on her deep-pile pink carpeting. Rose opened her white curtains–which were still glowing with the milky light of early morning–leaned a knee on her window seat, and looked out at the pristine snow stretching out under the blue cast of dawn. “It never snows this much.” There was a note of awe in her voice.
The Doctor grinned, watching her expression shift as she looked out the window. “Well?” he prompted.
She glanced over her shoulder at him, and her expression gradually morphed to match the wicked one he was wearing.
“Last one into their snowboots is a rotten Ood egg,” the Doctor growled playfully, and scrambled toward the TARDIS quick as lightning.
Rose wrinkled her nose. “Ood egg?” she murmured to herself even as she flung her closet door open and began rummaging for her rarely-utilized snow boots, shaking her head.
Both were quickly suited and booted; Rose was wearing a puffy pink coat and a pom-pommed hat, and the Doctor was wearing his trusty coat, along with a pair of brown gloves. He didn’t actually own snow boots. He had, however, flung a red scarf around his neck, which Rose supposed he was wearing simply to be playful. It was a bit dashing, in truth, but she’d never inflate his insufferable head by telling him as much.
He won without further delay, bounding down the hallway and out the front door like a puppy with springs on its feet. Promptly he tossed himself into the snow, rolling vigorously in it. He eventually settled on starting a snow angel. Rose walked over to regard him, her eyes sparkling. “Enjoying yourself?”
The Doctor was wearing a grin from ear to ear. “Earth snow,” he said, his voice pitched high. “Delightful. Not ash that is technically my fault, but actual, genuine frozen Earth precipitation.” On his next swipe, he scooped a handful of snow into his palm, raised his hand, looked a it thoughtfully, and then took a huge bite.
Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head again.
The Doctor smacked his lips. “Tastes like…well, the sky over London. Maybe a bit of Scottish ozone in there too. Furthermore, the queen is very, very unhappy,” he said, which *seemed* to be a non-sequitor, though Rose could never be sure. “May be that her corgi is shedding copiously.”
“Oh?” she asked, indulging him. “And what does the queen’s unhappiness taste like?”
The Doctor ceased snow-angeling and just lay there, looking at her. He smiled again, but this time it was a half-moon crescent, thoughtful and calculating. “Why don’t you find–OUT!” He sat up abruptly and grabbed her ankles, pulling her down onto her butt on the last syllable. He crowed jubilantly.
Rose sputtered for moment, floundering in the snow, then sat up with a glare that reminded him whose daughter she was. Snow rained furiously down from her pom pom.
They regarded each other for a moment. He was still grinning.
Rose let out a war cry and leapt onto him, pinning him down. She yanked his shirt out of his trousers and stuffed snow up under his shirt, not seeing any other way in, considering the blockade of his tie and all those buttons. The Doctor laughed uncontrollably, trying to twist out from under her. He grabbed another handful of snow and pressed it against her mouth as she tried to turn her head.
Rose coughed tragically, clutching her throat and falling over backward. She closed her eyes.
“Rose?” he sounded as though he knew she was pulling his leg, but she sensed him leaning over her to look at her closely.
“Hmmm,” he said thoughtfully. “Rose Tyler. She was valiant. She lived through intergalactic war, fought a werewolf, survived the world’s worst facial…only to be felled by the inclement weather of a Christmas morn’.” He tsked. “Lucky there’s a doctor in the house.”
She felt him shift, felt a jerking sensation as he made some violent maneuver. She realized what it was (the removal of one glove) a moment later when he gently grasped her chin and turned her face so that he could look upon it fully. “No sleeping beauty,” he scoffed, and she resisted the urge to punch him, gathering that–given his position over her–he was a particular breed of alien that knew nothing of the testicular pain that could be inflicted by an insulted human female.
“Still.” he sighed, sounding put out. “I do happen to be good at CPR.”
She kept her eyes closed, but her heart picked up speed under the thick down of her jacket at this unexpected development. Surely he wouldn’t–?
He shifted again, this time to place his body over hers. He held most of his weight on his forearms, careful not to crush her. She felt insulated in the snow, a bit surreal and unearthly, somehow, with his jacket surrounding her. Like she was cocooned in a dream. Maybe she’d never gotten out of bed.
But then his voice intruded, low and thoughtful in this surreal moment outside of time. “How’s this work again?” he murmured, seemingly to himself. “Aaah. I remember.” he stroked her lower lip delicately with the cold tip of his thumb, and it took all her restraint not to gasp at the unexpected touch. She felt his warm breath breeze over her upper lip, felt the shadow of his face pass across hers, felt his eyes regarding her–an unbearble, intense sensation–and then a new touch on her lips, hesitating, cool. She thought it was his fingers at first, stroking, but she parted her lips to exhale and felt the contrasting sensation of his sigh entering her mouth. Rose’s arms flailed out involuntarily and she gripped his shoulders, her tongue sliding forward to meet the tentative, lukewarm press of his. He kissed her slowly for what must have been a full minute, sliding his tongue over hers again and again in teasing licks, never surging forward all the way. He pulled back occasionally, breathing in what did not quite amount to gasps (though it came very close). She didn’t dare to open her eyes.
Finally he slowed his exploration, and she felt his fingers brush her snowy hair back from her temple. She could feel the question in the touch, and she opened her eyes to find that he was gazing at her intensely.
She whimpered and grasped his tie, pulling him in close again, and this time snogged him thoroughly, unable to stop herself from trying to pull him closer, to make more authoritative full-body contact. She succeeded only enough to catch a hint of the beginnings of his arousal against her thigh. He kissed her back just as passionately, but pulled away after a minute and laughed self-consciously. He was blushing, she saw, and not just from the cold. He looked like a bashful little boy. He moved off her and sat beside her instead, regarding her with a fond and yet timid affection. “Hot chocolate?” he suggested.
Rose smiled, sitting up, and stroked the tip of one gloved finger down his tie slowly. She looked up pointedly at him through her lashes. “Dunno. I feel pretty warm already.”
He giggled with barely-suppressed joy, and looked down. He had one knee bent, and he jiggled it back and forth a bit. She could see future plans in his demeanor, though what they were was as-yet a secret to her. His eyes slowly moved to meet hers once again. “It was just an excuse to get you into the TARDIS,” he murmured, his tone low, but a hint of confidence hiding behind his eyes. She knew him too well to miss that it was there. It sent a wave of surprise and arousal rushing over, stealing her breath away.
“Hot chocolate sounds wonderful,” she said, giving him her best tongue-touched grin.
The Doctor did, in fact, make her hot chocolate–but it cooled unforgotten on the counter for so long that the TARDIS telepathically rolled her eyes at him, and put the cups into the on-board dishwasher.
