Four ways it didn't happen, and one way it did

by Kass

Notes:
Thank you to Sihaya Black and bironic for beta! NB: Some of these vignettes flirt a bit with dubious consent. I think they're all perfectly consensual, myself, but if that's a trigger for you, read with care.

1.

"Don't think anything rude," he said, as he guided her hands into the TARDIS.

"Why not?"

"It might end up on all the screens."

This part of the inside of the TARDIS felt warm, gripping Clara's fingers like a custom-made glove.

Like gliding her fingers inside herself, at night, in her bed, thinking about someone else's hands.

Don't don't don't, she thought frantically to herself. But she couldn't help it; she was already remembering the last time she touched herself and imagined it was the Doctor's mouth. His fine long fingers spreading her open. His sharp tongue put to the best possible use.

She couldn't bear to look at the TARDIS' displays. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin and looked at the Doctor, daring him to shame her... but in place of the sly smirk she'd expected she saw naked hunger in his eyes.

"Oh," Clara said inanely as he walked toward her with new intention in his stride.

2.

"It might end up on all the screens."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Depends. Would I have to watch you with your date?" He said the word as though it tasted bad.

"He's a very handsome man," Clara retorted.

"Oh, I don't doubt it. You do like them pretty."

Hot indignation bloomed. He was driving her up the wall. All of these cutting little remarks about how she liked men young and cute. She wasn't sure who he was trying more to insult -- her, for having predictable tastes; the men in question, for being callow; or himself, for not looking young.

As though she weren't attracted to him now. Wild eyebrows and slightly crooked smile. His whole demeanor crackling with frenetic energy. She could just imagine what it would be like to have that energy focused solely on her.

Oh, hell. And now she was imagining it. Which meant she was broadcasting it, thanks to the TARDIS, wasn't she? She couldn't see any of the screens from where she was standing, but Clara could feel her face flushing hot, her nipples hardening.

"So that's how it is." He sounded amused. She glanced across the control room to where he leaned against one wall, arms folded.

"You tricked me into showing you that." Actually he'd warned her not to do, but a good offense seemed like the best defense, especially when he wasn't giving away anything about how he intended to respond.

"I'd say you just tricked yourself." He uncrossed his arms and pushed away from the wall. "Screens are blank."

She glanced around. They were. Bloody hell. "So, what, you were," she sputtered.

"Bluffing," he said. His eyes sparked. "To see what you might give away."

"That's not nice."

"I'm not particularly nice," he pointed out. He was standing right in front of her now, hands tucked into his pockets and chin held high. Waiting to see what she would do.

Kissing him seemed like the only reasonable response.

3.

The next time the TARDIS materialized, Clara half-ran toward it, the usual excitement blooming in her chest. Only a few days had passed (for her, at least; one never knew how much time had elapsed for the Doctor) but she was already eager for the next adventure.

But the TARDIS didn't open for her. That was strange. She lifted a hand and knocked.

"Go away," the Doctor shouted.

"Excuse me?"

"Go on another date or something!"

Her curiosity was piqued. Let me in, she thought, and the TARDIS kindly obliged.

The first thing she noticed was that the lights were low and that the Doctor was clinging to the center console, his breathing wild and audible. The top two buttons on his shirt were undone, his coat and waistcoat were nowhere to be seen, and his shirttail was half-untucked.

This was altogether too reminiscent of his post-regeneration madman phase, and it worried her. Clara took a step toward him and he skittered backwards. "You don't want to be here," he said curtly.

"Exactly why not?"

"Listen to me," he snapped, but her attention was drawn away by the sound of a moan.

"Oh," she said, raising an eyebrow. "You've got company. You could've just said." Some irrational part of her felt just the tiniest bit stung, though she had been spending most of her time with Danny lately, and besides, it wasn't as though the Doctor had ever expressed a whit of interest.

"Clara," he said, his voice tense and low --

But his mouth hadn't moved. That wasn't him speaking. Except it was, that was absolutely his voice, so what the hell was going on?

And then she heard her own voice answer "yes," low and breathy. "Please."

As though without his volition, his eyes flicked up toward the TARDIS' monitors and then back to her again, and she looked where he had been looking. And she felt as though she were in freefall.

Every fantasy she had ever had about him was playing out on the TARDIS' screens. On one screen she was kneeling over him and sucking his cock, and his hands were fisted in the coverlet, his whole body begging for more. On another he was fucking her, maddeningly slowly, and she was convulsing beneath him. On a third he pulled out just at the last instant and came all over her.

"How long have you been watching these," she asked, but he didn't answer. Her first flush of mortification was transmuting into excitement. She'd feared that if he ever found out what she wanted, he would respond with pity or revulsion, but she didn't see either of those on his face. She saw hunger. 

She strode toward the center console and he backed further away, but she wasn't heading toward him; she was heading toward the place where she'd put her fingers last time she'd been here. She pushed the cover aside and plunged her fingers in and thought stop it, stop it right now, and the screens all went dark.

She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. And then she opened them, pulled her fingers free, and turned toward the Doctor.

He looked wrecked.

It was a good look on him.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"You're welcome," she said, just as quietly. And then waited.

He cleared his throat. "You'd better go."

"Oh?" Reason told her he was right about that, but she was feeling, all of a sudden, not so inclined to listen to reason. Not now. Not in this.

"You may have noticed that I can't seem to control what comes out of my mouth, this time around." He quirked a dry half-smile.

"I have, yes." As had most of the galaxy, at this juncture, but she refrained from mentioning that.

"I'm not sure that's the only impulse I won't be able to control." His voice was barely audible. Admitting that obviously cost him a great deal of pride.

Every inch of Clara's skin felt electrified. "I'm not sure why that's a problem."

"There is a difference between wanting something in a fantasy, and actually wanting the reality."

"True," she acknowledged, and she saw his shoulders slump, just the slightest bit. "But in this case I want them both."

"I'm telling you to run." He took a step toward her, and then another.

"No," Clara said, and stood her ground.

4.

"It might end up on all the screens."

The moment he said it, her mind leapt to one of the images she absolutely, positively did not want the TARDIS to show him. Which meant it was already too late.

"Clara Oswald, you've quite an imagination."

Oh no, no, no. Clara spared a quick glance at the screen nearest her and flushed hot with embarrassment. The TARDIS was helpfully displaying a lurid depiction of her, bent over a bed while the Doctor fucked her from behind.

Some idle part of her brain noticed that the angle of view was different than she expected, and the picture far more detailed. The TARDIS apparently knew more about his arse and his thighs than she did.

"Oh God," she said, and closed her eyes. The TARDIS gripped her fingers. Was it her imagination or was the machine pulsing?

"I warned you about that." The Doctor's voice came from right behind her left ear. When had he moved so close? Clara tried and failed to suppress a shiver.

"You didn't have to look," Clara pointed out.

"True." He sounded amused. "But this is far too fun."

"You've completely distracted me from thinking about the dream," she said. Maybe he would latch on to that and start going on about invisible creatures again.

"The dream can wait." She heard a soft susurration, cloth against cloth, and then a sound like something hitting the floor behind them. She opened her eyes and turned to look; his coat was in a heap on the floor, displaying so much red silk it seemed suddenly obscene. The Doctor was unbuttoning his shirt cuffs and rolling up his sleeves. "A proposition."

"Oh?" She tried to sound nonchalant.

His hands went to his belt buckle and Clara felt light-headed with desire. "I'll give you what you want if you keep your fingers where they are."

"What does that --"

He stepped closer and nudged her feet further apart. She felt a trickle of wetness dampening her panties.

"Stay where you are," he murmured, "and I'll get all kinds of feedback."

The TARDIS was definitely throbbing around her fingers. The telepathic interface. He was going to see everything she thought, as she thought it. The notion was almost unbearably exciting, and also a little bit horrifying. To be so revealed.

Clara let her head drop forward. She wanted it. And all she had to say was "Yes."

5.

"And by the way, that wasn't very nice of you." Clara crossed her arms.

"What wasn't?"

"The other day. Trying to scare me like that." She gestured toward the console that held the telepathic interface. "'Might end up on all the screens.'"

The Doctor laughed. "You're right, the TARDIS wouldn't do that to you."

"I knew I liked you," Clara said to the room at large.

"Of course, I'm not as polite as she is."

Her heart seemed to stop. "I beg your pardon?"

"Polite. I'm not polite."

"No, but fortunately I'm fond of you anyway."

"I don't need the TARDIS to show me what you're thinking." He smirked.

And that was just -- mind games, and she wasn't having any of it. "Prove it." She leaned back on the console and waited. Ha! That would teach him to bluff.

His mouth quirked in a half-smile, and without any volition she thought, God, that mouth.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Come off it," she snapped. "You're not fooling me." Because if you could read my mind, you would kiss me. It was a ridiculous thought; he would never do that. But that didn't make it any less of a lovely notion to contemplate, from time to time.

He walked closer to her, looking at her face as though trying to decipher a particularly puzzling script.

And then he cupped her face in two cool palms, and she closed her eyes, thinking I'm making this up, this isn't happening as his mouth met hers.

His mannerisms and his words had been brusque, but the kiss was tender.

When he pulled away she felt swoony, her lips tingling. "I thought you didn't like hugging," she said. It was only barely apropos, but it was the first thing out of her mouth.

"I don't," he agreed. His eyes were dancing. "I like other things."

"I think I might like some of those too." That was definitely promise in his expression, and Clara couldn't help grinning.

Though the Doctor looked like the cat who'd caught the canary. Smug barely began to cover it.

"Oh, I am not." As though he were really affronted.

She grinned at him some more. "You kind of are."

"I might be," he admitted. "A little bit."

"Well, now that you've caught me, what do you intend to --"

This time it was a full-body kiss. They pressed against each other everywhere they could reach. And he kissed as though he knew exactly what she liked.

Because he did, didn't he?

She could feel the suppressed laughter in the way his chest quivered against hers. You are impossible, she thought.

And clear as day, she heard his voice in her mind's ear: you're the impossible one. He could broadcast, too?

Fuck me, she thought.

So he did.

The End