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richieisabastardman · 4 years

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The Demon and The Witch - Part 1 (Crowley x Reader)

Summary: In 1519, your ancestor made a deal with a demon that protected your family for eternity. In return, your family devoted themselves to the demon Crowley. When Crowley loses track of your family suddenly and without reason, he panics. Decades later, you walk into a little bookstore owned by a kind man. When you are introduced to his tall, red-headed friend, you can't help but think that fate had brought the two of you (back) together. (Fluff, Eventual Romance & Smut).

Word count: 4,135

Notes: This is going to be a long series that eventually leads to a relationship between Crowley and the reader. Any witch references etc. is probably not in line with how witches work within the show/book, but for the sake of the story I wanted to create my own lore. Hopefully you guys enjoy slow burns (though not really because there's already so much tension in this first chapter between the two of them).

Masterlist

In the year 1519, Anthony J. Crowley, at that time only known by the latter part of his name, walked into a forest far from the hustle of the London streets in which he usually roamed. It had been night, and therefore dark, and the growth of the trees above him had meant that the light of the moon could not guide his path. This was no matter, of course, as he was not a mere mortal. It was, however, a slight inconvenience. Despite being a demon, he did quite enjoy a bit of light to guide his journey, if not purely for the symbolism.

He had been summoned to the forest in a traditional, witchy sort of way. The way that involved candles and incense and incessant chanting. He had appreciated the effort the summoner had put into the ordeal, even though it was not at all necessary. A letter to his home would have worked just as well.

Still, he continued walking, the mud and muck beneath his shoes producing a squelching sound that he wasn’t very fond of. The night was freezing, but Crowley could sense the warmth of a bonfire as he neared a clearing.

A woman stood next to the fire, holding her hands together in front of her person, rubbing them together nervously. Crowley could feel her fear. It radiated off of her in waves that he was sure demons and angels alike could feel for miles. Regular humans would not exude such a strong energy.

As he expected, the woman was a witch.

As he walked closer to the fire he stepped on a thin branch and the sound of it cracking in half echoed through the woods. “Dammit” he whispered. Crowley had always had a flare for the dramatic and preferred a traditional, ominous entrance to any meeting he attended.

“Demon? Show yourself to me!” the woman yelled.

“Alright, alright I’m here no need to yell” Crowley replied, pushing away a branch to step into the brightly lit clearing where the woman stood.

“Are you the demon Crowley?” she asked, her eyes examining his thin frame and curled, long hair. His features were angular, but in no way demonic. He could sense her sizing him up and smiled.

“Indeed I am” he replied.

“You look fairly...human” she stated cautiously.

The demon reached for his sunglasses, removing them to reveal bright yellow irises surrounding a slitted pupil. The woman gasped lightly before nodding to herself, attempting to calm her rapid breath. “I see”.

“Haven’t done much demon work, I take it?” Crowley said, beginning to circle the bonfire which sat in the middle of the clearing. The woman moved away from him, slowly walking further around the bonfire in order to avoid any close proximity to the demon.

“I’m desperate” she admitted, almost whispering.

“Why?” Crowley returned.

“The town speaks of witches and witchcraft” she said, her chest heaving with her heavy, fearful breaths.

“Oh, do they? I wonder why?” Crowley responded, gaze fixated on the circle of candles, herbs and crystals that surrounded the bonfire. “You could be a bit more discreet”.

“It is my heritage. My birthright. Who am I to deny it?” She spoke and Crowley pursed his lips in thought before nodding his head.

“I suppose” He replied.

“I was caught” she explained “I was caught with certain books and herbs and sigils”.

“Oh, not sigils. You can never get caught with sigils” Crowley said, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“I fear they may wish to kill me” she said.

“What do you want me to do about it” Crowley replied.

“Protect me. Guide me. Enhance my practice. Care for me.” She had stopped moving away from him, instead facing him on the other side of the bonfire. She stared into his eyes, refusing to break her gaze despite their snakish appearance. Her fear had all but dissipated as she propositioned the demon. He had to admit, her bravery charmed him just a little. Human bravery always did.

“And what do I get in return?” he asked.

“My soul”

“Pfft.” Crowley huffed, rolling his eyes at her offer.

“My devotion for eternity”

“The issue with that, is that you are merely mortal” he sang slightly.

“My devotion for eternity through my daughter, and my daughter’s daughter, and her daughter’s daughter, until the end of time or the end of family’s line” the woman explained.

Crowley’s interest suddenly peaked. He was quite fond of human devotion, though he would never admit it. Not just devotion to him (though there was a period in ancient Greece where a temple was built in his honour and he had a small following of cultists that his ego quite enjoyed), but human devotion in general.

The willingness of a human to throw themselves into the fire for a cause. To martyr oneself, to put one’s life on the line for another, the brotherhood of man as it was later called. Of course, this sort of action also led its way to things a bit more sinister, such as the willingness to kill others for one’s cause, an issue that was present for the woman currently pleading with him.

The thought of generations of young witch women devoting their life and practice to him lit something within him. He was sure that the fire behind his eyes was visible to the witch lady, as she took a step back from him.

“It’s a deal,” he said, smiling at the woman. She withdrew herself further.

“How do we seal it” the woman asked, her hands once again hovering in front of her and rubbing together in a nervous gesture.

“Like all good deals - with a kiss” Crowley smirked, but dropped his lips quickly when he saw the terror upon the woman’s face. “Though I am happy to settle for a handshake”.

~~~

And so Crowley kept his end of the deal, as all good demons do. He thwarted the interest of the local puritans from the woman, allowing her to continue her practice in peace and without fear of persecution. When she birthed a daughter, and taught her daughter the craft, Crowley watched over her too. He had seen her first steps, her first words and her first marriage. Great Uncle Crowley, as he was called by the youngin, was worshipped in modern ways by the family. The small child would bring him flowers she had picked from her garden and he would accept them happily. Her mother would bring him alcohol and he would accept it ecstatically. In return, the demon would bless their ventures and punish those who wished to harm them.

As generations were born and eventually birthed more children, they began to forget their heritage and their promise. They also began to forget Crowley.

Despite this, Crowley did not forget them.

Whilst he was a demon, he was not one to break an eternal pact. That would defeat the purpose, he supposed, of the eternal part of the pact. He continued to watch the women grow and bring forth more children. More importantly he watched them survive and thrive within the world. He watched the women birth world leaders, revolution starters and martyrs. He helped them where he could, however they generally appeared to get along quite well for themselves.

Until one day, on a sunny afternoon in 1923 - after centuries of watching after the children of the witch, he lost track of them.

Crowley had driven over to Edinburgh to do a quick miracle for his angel, Aziraphale. On return, he had planned to check in again on his girls. Sitting within Aziraphale’s bookstore, holding tightly onto a cup of tea and swirling the spoon within the cooling mixture softly, the sound of the teaspoon hitting the sides of the china lulled his eyes to a close. Aziraphale was looking at him disapprovingly for his rudeness, however his stare was missed by the demon. Crowley focused his energy on his mind’s eye, chanting a quiet mantra to himself.

On previous occasions of using such a technique, he would feel his spirit shift from within the earthly body he possessed to engulfing all that was and ever will be. He became the teacup he held, the seat in which he sat. He also became the sky, the sea, the Thames. Importantly, he became the women in which he had agreed to shelter. He saw what they saw, felt what they felt, knew what they knew. He would know where they were, who they were with and what they were doing. He could keep tabs on them in order to help them where he could,and in order to keep his word on the pact in which he had agreed.

And so he became the tea cup, and the chair, and the sky and the sea and the Thames, and as he shifted his focus on finding the women, he could not find them. Not anywhere on Earth at least.

“Huh” Crowley spoke, opening his eyes slowly.

“What’s wrong?” Aziraphale questioned, his reading glasses covering his curious gaze which was fixed upon the demon. He did not need the glasses of course, but he felt a sort of comfort in their weight upon his nose.

“I can’t find her” Crowley said, eyebrows furrowed in concern. For a moment he thought that, perhaps, she had died. Upon this thought, he further realised that even if she had died, he still would have known where she was. No she was not dead. She had just sort of vanished. She had disappeared off of his radar.

A wave of panic ran down his slim body, causing goosebumps to rise on his skin. He had never had goosebumps before. He had also never lost a human before. He supposed there were first times for everything.

“Well, where is she?” Aziraphale asked, voice laced slightly with concern. The girl was not, of course, his concern. However, a human disappearing from the gaze of any non-human being was unheard of.

“I dont….know” the demon spoke. He looked up at Aziraphale, and for the first time in the nearly six thousand years he had known the angel, his face displayed human signals of fear.

“Surely she’s somewhere. Would you like me to have a look? I’m happy to-”

“No angel you don’t understand. I’ve been watching this family for centuries. I’ve known where they are, what they’re thinking, who they’re with, what they’re doing. Their needs, their wants, their hates. I’ve never lost them, Aziraphale. Something is very wrong”.

Very few witches by blood are currently aware that they are witches. Often the ritualistic aspect of the craft is lost throughout generations, resulting in plenty of born-witches but very few practising witches.

You were not aware of your heritage. You were also not aware of your ancestor’s eternal pact with a certain demon. You were further not aware that said demon had been searching for your family for decades. All of these things you were very much not aware of when you walked into Mr. Fell’s bookstore a month ago. Since your first meeting with the man (where he had nearly tackled you for attempting to buy one of his books), the two of you had become close companions and had easily fallen into a quaint routine. You went to your university classes during the day, and in the evenings you would come visit the older man, helping him sort out his mess of a store.

It was strange to you how quickly the two of you had become close, especially considering the considerable age gap between the two of you. However, you supposed the man was quite lonely all by himself within the shop. He told you he had a friend who usually visited him, however he was out of town for a few weeks trying to find an old friend. You had told him you were happy to take his place for a while and Mr. Fell was glad for it.

“Mr. Fell~” you sang as you entered the store, peaking your head around the store to find the older man.

After stumbling upon his store the month before, you had been drawn inside by the eeriness of the building. It was old and creeped you out slightly, however the inside had a warm, comforting vibe that you could only credit to the angelic looking man who owned the store.

You heard Mr. Fell sing your name back to you from the backroom of the store, where he was surely sitting with a book and having tea after a long day of avoiding trade. You skipped slightly to follow the voice, spinning yourself as you entered the back room.

“Oh Mr. Fell I’ve had the strangest day you won’t belie-” you stopped yourself, your gaze locking onto the slim, tall, sunglasses-wearing man who sat in your usual seat.

You smiled, embarrassed by your antics that this stranger had just had to witness. He smiled back curiously, refusing to break the gaze the two of you held.

“Hi” you tried to say, but it came out as barely a whisper.

“Hi” he returned, smirking and much more confident in his delivery. His arm was draped across the back of the lounge in which he sat, his ankle resting on the knee of his opposite leg. He exuded a confidence you had never felt from another man before. It was otherworldly.

You realised that this must have been the friend Mr. Fell was missing.

Mr. Fell cleared his throat from where he sat behind you and you spun around, smiling sheepishly at him. “I didn’t realise you had a guest, I wouldn’t have come-”

“Oh no dear! Don’t you worry. Mr. Crowley was just leaving”.

Crowley, you repeated his name within your mind.

Crowley.

Why did that sound familiar to you.

CrOwLeY.

Oh! , you thought, that was the name of that occultist. You had just been reading a book on the occult that Mr. Fell had lent you, that must have been where you spotted the name. A slightly spooky coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless , you thought.

Your train of thought was halted by the sound of the stranger standing up behind you, beginning to leave the backroom.

“Wait!” you practically yelled “You don’t have to leave on my account, Mr. Crowley! Please, stay”. You hadn’t meant it to sound so desperate, yet the need within your voice was clearly not lost to the man. He smiled at you, and then looked up at Mr. Fell.

You supposed Mr. Fell must have gestured for him to sit back down, because he did, inviting you to sit beside him. You, of course, had missed this gesture as your eyes had not left the tall man, whose hair (you had just realised) was a wonderful red colour.

“Would you care for some tea, my dear” Mr. Fell offered.

“Or perhaps some wine” Crowley offered, raising an eyebrow and pouting his lips slightly. He held the bottle within his hands and shook it slightly, tempting you with it’s contents.

“Oh surely not-” Mr. Fell began, giving Crowley a pointed look but he was interrupted by your exclamation.

“I wouldn’t mind some wine”. And so Crowley poured you a glass and watched as you took your first sip, smiling for the nth time at your little hum of pleasure at the taste.

“I suppose I will put this away then” Mr. Fell mumbled, packing his tea-set up and leaving to place it in another room.

You hummed at your friend’s statement, not completely sure what he had said. If you had, you would have felt quite bad for rejecting your friend's offer of tea, as it was somewhat of a tradition for the two of you to have tea together every afternoon.

But you were once again lost in learning every crevice and curve of your new friends face. You wished you could see his eyes, which were hidden behind a pair of thick, dark sunglasses. You always had your imagination, you supposed. You suspected they were a bright amber in the light of the sun and a deep brown in the light of the moon.

You wondered why he kept the glasses on inside. Was it the fluorescent lighting? Perhaps he had horrible migraines because of the lighting. How inconsiderate of Mr. Fell to not turn off the lights for the sake of this poor, poor man. Though the more you thought about it, you were sure Mr. Fell would be on top of something like that. He was not one to revel in others’ misfortune or discomfort. He was a lovely man.

“So, how do you know Aziraphale?” Crowley asked, resting his elbow on the back of the lounge to face you properly.

“Azira...Oh! Is that his first name? Azira. A-ZIR-AH. Huh. That’s very pretty. Is it hebrew?” you asked but the man ignored your question.

“I suppose you only know him as Mr. Fell then” he said and you nodded your head, taking another large sip of wine.

“Oh yes. He never told me his full name. I’m not sure why. I never really questioned it” you rambled and the man watched you intently, smiling again when you took another large sip of wine. “I met him in this shop” you explained “I came in here and chatted with him. It’s funny, I’m not the chatting type..”.

“No?” Crowley raised an eyebrow, teasing you slightly.

“No” you smiled back, blushing slightly and embarrassed by your rambling “but Mr. Fell is very easy to talk to. He knows a lot about everything”.

“That he does” the man said “With all these books that he reads, I’d hope so”. Crowley’s gaze left yours momentarily to admire the vast amount of books that surrounded the two of you.

“What was your first name?” you slurred, only then realising how quickly the wine had hit you. You raised the glass to your mouth once again to take another sip, only to find the glass was empty. Crowley chuckled at your actions before placing his hand around your hand that held the glass to steady it, and then filling the glass.

“My names Anthony” he said, placing the bottle of wine back onto the table after refilling his own glass.

“Anthony Crowley” you repeated, swirling the wine in your glass.

“Technically Anthony J. Crowley” he corrected.

“What’s the J stand for?” you asked, pouting slightly.

“Just a J” he replied and you furrowed your brows before humming, shrugging your shoulders at this strange man’s even stranger name.

Crowley observed your features as you gazed around the room, appreciating the store more in your state of intoxication. That wine was far too strong, you thought. Maybe it was moonshine.

You felt his gaze upon you, but being too drunk to be flushed, you continued to act as though you had not noticed, allowing him to stare at you a little longer than what would be considered normal curious gazing one partakes in when they meet someone new. Your lack of reciprocal staring (and your slight intoxication) meant that you did not realise he was staring at you for more than the reason you assumed. He stared at you like he was trying to put a name to face. He gazed as though he was sure he had seen you somewhere before, but he wasn’t sure where.

He was trying to recognise you, and yet he had just met you.

“I hope you aren’t irritating my poor human friend, Crowley” Aziraphale said as he trotted back into the room, seating himself once again in his chair.

At the fault of the alcohol in your system, you laughed a little too hard at Mr. Fell referring to you as a human friend. The man spoke so oddly, it seemed like he was from a different time. Or an alien. Or an alien from a different time. You continued to chuckle, spilling a bit of wine from your glass onto the ground in the process.

“Oh no!” you pouted, staring sadly at the puddle on the floor of your friend's bookstore.

Aziraphale stared angrily at Crowley, a silent accusation against the demon. Crowley raised his hands in his defence, a gesture meaning to signify that he played no part in your current intoxication, and that it was of your own free will that you had decided to partake in such drinking activity. The angel however did not budge, his gaze practically burning holes into the demon.

“Would you like me to drive her home?” Crowley sighed.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Crowley” Aziraphale stated sternly in a voice you had only heard once (a few weeks ago, when a man had refused to stand down when Aziraphale rejected his monetary offer for a book he was particularly fond of).

“Oh I LOVE Queen” you slurred, staring at the collection of tapes within the man’s car. He drove a Bentley - which had you not been so drunk, you may have appreciated more.

“Well I’ve got a lot of it in here, so you’re practically in Heaven I suppose” he said, and then shivered slightly at his use of the word Heaven. This was lost to you of course, as you were intently analysing the back of one of his tape’s cases. “You are quite a light weight” he said, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the song that played softly from the speakers.

“Always have been” you asserted, staring at him from the passenger's seat of the car. “It’s almost magical how quickly alcohol affects me”.

It is a little known fact that witches have a dominant gene that makes them intolerant to alcohol. This intolerance is often overlooked by witches (especially those who aren’t aware that they are witches) as it manifests itself in a slight flush of the skin, and the extremely quick absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream. Crowley was aware of this genetic fact, of course, after many years of watching witches get hammered during rituals. His application of this to you, however, was absent, as he was too busy admiring your soft hair and skin and the pink tinge on your lips from the wine you had been drinking.

“Mmm” Crowley hummed, smiling at you. His smile was different from the ones he had graced you with within the shop. Those had been more cunning and slightly sly. This smile was genuine. You supposed it would reach his eyes, if you could see them.

You watched him look down towards your chest and you chuckled “Eyes are up here, Mr. Crowley”.

The man was startled, mouth agape at your accusation as he shook his head. “Oh no. No, no, no. I wasn’t-. That wasn’t-.” He huffed, closing his mouth before speaking again “I was looking at your necklace”.

You looked down to the necklace that hung low on your chest, just above your cleavage. It was a gold circle, with engravings all along the edges and one large engraving in the middle. “Oh, this old thing” you said, rolling it between your fingers “it’s from my Great-Grandma”.

“Family heirloom?” Crowley asked and you shook your head.

“I mean sort of. My mum told me, when she gave it to me, that Great-Grandma had been given it by some lady who lived in her neighbourhood when she was a child. The lady said it was to look after her - to ward off evil”.

Crowley stared at the jewelry, observing the writing that had been etched deeply into the gold. “Do you know what the writing is?” Crowley asked. It was old, some ancient language definitely. However the markings were not familiar to the demon at all, and he had been around for the creation of language itself. Goosebumps raised upon the demon’s skin for the first time in a long time.

“No clue” you replied, staring at the jewellery once again. “I’ve been trying to find out actually. I’ve been looking through a lot of the books at Mr. Fell’s shop, but I haven’t had any luck yet”.

Crowley didn’t reply. Instead, he listened to your light humming to the songs that played on his radio and tried to calm the anxiety he felt rising within his mind and body.

It probably isn’t even a language, he thought, it’s probably just scribbles and decoration.

And if it was anything, surely the angel would have said something. He had been friends with the girl for weeks and he would have definitely seen the necklace at some point during that time.

Crowley began to calm at this thought, a smile coming onto his lips as he heard you belting out the intro to bohemian rhapsody, clearly still drunk.

#crowley x reader #anthony j crowley x reader #good omens #crowley imagine #anthony j crowley imagine #good omens imagine

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richieisabastardman · 4 years

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Stop It (Tenth Doctor x Reader)

Summary: You had been travelling with The Doctor since his ninth face, and been in love with him just as long. After the loss of Rose, your friend and The Doctor's companion, The Doctor took on Martha Jones as a co-companion. When you see her pining after The Doctor so hopefully, you try to put a stop to it, for the sake of her heart and yours.

Word count: 1984

Warnings: Angst? A bit of unrequited love but that’s fixed real quick.

Link to Masterlist

“Stop it” you said, staring at the aloof Doctor as he played with his toggles. The Tardis’ toggles that is.

Having returned from your adventures in the Andromeda galaxy, Martha had decided to go rest, the day’s activities proving too much. The Doctor had sent her away with a smile, and she had hovered within the console room for a moment, perhaps lost and distracted by that smile, before sending a curt smile your way and leaving for the TARDIS’ hallways.

“What?” he asked absentmindedly, raising an eyebrow as he finally looked over at you.

“Stop leading her on”

You had been through this. The heart break of loving such an extraordinary being and finding no love in return. Well not no love, just a different sort of love. A platonic love. A lovely love none the less, but not the type you wished for. You had dealt with that (in an unbelievably unhealthy way but that’s neither here nor there) and you were over it.

You were over him.

But you refused to let Martha go through the heartbreak you had to endure.

“Leading who on?”. He was playing dumb. Not a good look for The Doctor. Though you could tell he knew what you had meant by how he avoided your gaze, fiddling around with the console. You had flown around with him enough to know that he wasn’t really doing anything with it, just distracting himself.

You rolled your eyes at his childishness and deciding to indulge in your own kind. “The TARDIS. Playing around with her bits like that and not even buying her a drink first, shameful really, Doctor”

He grinned at you then, his tongue poking out between his teeth for a moment before his gaze was off of you once again and back on the controls of his beloved TARDIS. “Oh we’ve had many drinks together me and her, don’t you worry”.

The silence hung around the two of you then. You had only felt such a heavy silence with the man twice before. Both of you could hear the words yet unsaid floating between you, taunting and teasing (but The Doctor was always good at that, wasn’t he?)

“I was talking about Martha” you replied finally, leaning your hip against the console lightly and staring at the tall man.

“I know”.

“Then why didn’t you reply properly?”.

“Because it wasn’t a statement worth replying to properly ”.

And there was the nastiness that crept up on him every so often. It would poke its head out from behind him and would try to bite your tongue from your mouth (in a very non-sexy way, to be clear). The Doctor had been alive for so long he surely had enough practice with verbal quips that shut down a conversation in seconds. But the malice in his voice when he engaged in such an act was so rarely heard by his companions that when it did appear it was, to put it plainly, scary.

You were used to it now. You had had your fair share of experience with it. When he lost Rose, it was as if any little thing you did was now subject to scrutiny. He had only calmed after you finally had enough and threatened to leave, to go back home and never see him again. That had hurt him. You had hurt him. And part of you felt proud for it because finally someone stood up to The Doctor in his moment of malice and it was you. But when his eyes had begun to water, you had felt bad again. You had felt evil and unlike yourself and so you had held him. He had rested his face within the junction of your neck and shoulder, lost within your hair. He had held you tightly around your waist, pulling you closer and closer to him. And for a moment all the work you had done to stop loving the man had returned with no complaint from you, no sir. The moment had been far too intimate to be just a moment between friends. But every moment felt like that with The Doctor, didn’t it? The fleeting touches, the hand holding, the hand resting gently on the small of your back, the hugging. All of it so intimate.

Yet, the next day after this moment with The Doctor, it was as if nothing had happened. He had busied himself with the TARDIS and finding somewhere new to jet off to. You had mourned for your hope the day before and then moved on, as it was all you could do.

“She really likes you” you say, parting yourself from the memory in which you had been lost in for a moment.

“I like her too” he replies. You wished he would just look at you.

“Not the way she likes you. She adores you. She thinks the sun shines out of your arse”.

“Oi” he finally turned to you “watch it”.

“You know its true though, don’t you Doctor”.

“How do you know all this then, huh? You got psychic powers or something you haven’t informed me about?”.

Because I’ve been in her place, Doctor. I know how it feels. It hurts. Not in the way poets describe it. It doesn’t feel like your heart being ripped out of your chest. It feels your heart… it was never even there. You forget what having a heart feels like. But you mourn for it. And that’s the pain. I don’t want her to feel like that.

Instead, beyond any judgement of your own and perhaps as an act of fate (or malice sent straight from Hades) you replied, “Because I love you too”.

The moment the words left your mouth your eyes widened and your jaw dropped, as though it wasn’t even you who had revealed such a secret directly to the man it was about. The subconscious had become conscious. Surely there were defence mechanisms to stop this kind of behaviour in its tracks. “Damn you, Freud” you mumbled.

The doctor stared at you, his eyes squeezed together in confusion. “What?” he whispered.

“I was thinking about defence mechanisms” you replied quietly, looking at him. He was finally looking straight back at you. You wished he would stare at the console once again, maybe flick a few switches, anything to get his eyes (wide and soft in their gaze) off you.

“What?” the Doctor replied again, shaking his head. “No not the Freud thing, the thing before it”.

Might as well stick to my guns you thought. “I love you too?” you replied, though it released from your mouth as a question.

“Since when!?” he exasperated.

“Since your last face” you replied. You sounded guilty. Why did you sound guilty? Was it the feeling of the words left unspoken between the two of you? Or was it simply the elephant in the room?

Rose.

By any other name she would have caused just as much tension.

He had loved Rose in a way you were sure he would never love you.

He hadn’t stopped staring at you, his jaw tight and his eyes, to you, appeared full of pity.

“Stop staring at me” you said, staring right back at him.

“Why didn’t you-“ he started but stopped himself, answering his own question within his mind. He knew why and suddenly he felt guilty too.

He began to move towards you and you froze where you stood, confused by his actions. You raised your eyes to meet his as he hovered above you. He leaned down to place his forehead gently against your own and shut his eyes gently. You did the same.

Here was the intimacy again, you thought, here are the fleeting touches that we will never talk about again.

But you didn’t stop him. How could you, when his hands moved to rest softly upon your jaw and neck, and you could hear him breathing, heavy and deep.

And then you felt his lips upon yours and you froze. He continued to kiss you, and you reciprocated, kissing his soft lips gently, both of your eyes still shut.

You pushed him away gently, opening your eyes to his face, sullen and confused. His eyes shined in the light of the console room, and you hoped dearly the wetness there was a trick of the lights.

“We can’t do this to Martha” you practically whispered.

You watched him clench his jaw, his sad gaze never leaving your own. “This isn’t about her, is it?”.

You felt a fire and heaviness within your chest at his words, accusatory and all-knowing, but it died when you replied “We can’t do this to Rose”.

And that was the kicker wasn’t it? Whilst you had always felt The Doctor would not love you as much as Rose, you had only really felt that way after she was gone. When you had travelled with the two of them, The Doctor surely treated you as romantic interest equals, flirting and teasing. At first you thought that maybe that was just The Doctor, or maybe that was just who his new, tenth version was like. But his actions proved just a little bit too loving, just a little bit too intimate for it to be the case.

The Doctor had loved Rose. The Doctor had loved you. He had just loved you a little more privately.

Sure, Rose was smart enough to probably know there was some tension between the two of you, yet she had never mentioned it. And then when she was gone, all the feelings of schoolgirl excitement in getting attention from The Doctor became guilt. All his touches that once cause a tingling within your skin and stomach now almost made you ill with regret of things that hadn’t even had the chance to happen.

“Rose loved you” he said, ripping you away from your thoughts. Your guilt.

“Not like she loved you” you smiled.

“Does that mean we can’t love each other?” he asked, though you knew it was rhetorical. “Has she claimed me so that I can’t love anyone else? I have to mourn my love for her for the rest of my life?”

You laughed sadly at that.

“If that’s the case, is it not enough for me to mourn my love of her? Why do you have to do it to?” he continued.

You looked up at him then from behind tears you hadn’t realised had began to form within your eyes. He moved towards you again slowly. He traced his hands down your arms lightly and took your hands in his own. His hands were so soft, you noted, something rare for a man. Though he wasn’t a man, was he? You supposed you should remind yourself of that more often.

The face that stared at you now with tired, red-brimmed eyes would someday be the face of another. The hands that held yours would someday change shape and size and softness. The lips that kissed the skin of your hands now would be a slightly different shape and fullness. The man that pulled you towards him lightly and held your waist tightly against him would someday be another man. And then another man. And then another man. And maybe one day a woman.

And somehow you didn’t mind. Somehow, as he leaned down to place his lips upon yours again, firmly but with so much love, you realised you would not mind at all. Because it would still be him.

You broke away from him again but this time much softer, as he still held you within his arms, hands tightly around you. You stared up at him and smiled and he returned with a grin, wide and cheeky as it always was.

“You can’t keep leading her on” you warned once again, and he nodded his head.

“I won’t”.

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