A Good Nap | Thirteen x Reader | 7.5K
Gosh, hello. It’s been approximately a thousand years since I last posted anything here for real. Quarantine has had me in a whole different realm, if I’m honest. But I miss you guys, and I’m getting back at it, and I’m gonna start with this very sweet request for @gayforthe13th 💕
Your bedroom had been destroyed.
No — destroyed might not have been the right word, because even that implied that there might still have been something left of it to be salvaged, and, well... there wasn’t.
The floor, the walls, all of the furniture, the small bit of clothing you’d had stowed away in the closet... it was gone, all of it, completely obliterated with one devastating crash landing.
The TARDIS had been in crisis, damaged in flight, and her shields had been down. It had been all that she could do to protect the console room ( which you were more than thankful for, as it had, in fact, contained you and The Doctor at the time).
“Oh, darling,” you heard The Doctor murmur as you made your way back into the console room a few minutes following your discovery. You come upon her standing at the console, stroking it gently as she looks over what seems to be a map of some sort. “You took some real damage, didn’t you? I’m so sorry.”
You sigh as you watch her speak to her ship, so softly; it always brings a smile to your face to see it, because it’s one of the softest sides of The Doctor.
“She definitely did,” you pipe up, folding your arms across your chest and making your way toward the console. You stand by The Doctor’s side, sparing a glance at the map that she’d been examining. You wonder where your own room might be on that particular map, but you quickly come to the realization that you wouldn’t have been able to read it properly if you had tried.
The Doctor looks your way, then, and flashes you a smile. She straightens up a moment later and turns toward you, and with a glance between the console and your face, she shakes her head.
“I’m afraid we might need to park someplace for a while,” she says. “The TARDIS will recover — she’s done it before, but it takes her a good bit of time and even more rest.”
You smile and nod at that; it makes enough sense, after all.
“Can’t go hurdling through time and space with a hole in the hardware, can you?” you point out, and she laughs softly.
“Exactly right,” she says. She turns her gaze back on the map, first, and then the console itself, which she pats gently once more. “The old girl probably deserves a good rest every now and again, anyways — if you asked her, she’d probably tell you personally that I mistreat her at least a little bit.”
You don’t even have to ask, in the end; the TARDIS chirps her agreement the moment The a Doctor finishes speaking, and you snort softly at that. The sound of it is a bit tired and a bit insistent, like she’s telling you firmly that it’s definitely more than a little bit.
The Doctor mutters something in response, you think, but you don’t hear it, not really; now that everything has calmed down, you find your brain melting into an all-too familiar fog. It’s the type of daze that comes with potentially life-threatening experiences — the let-down of it all.
Often times, this would be about the time you might head off to bed, or to have a relaxing shower; it was instinct, you thought, to resort to some old-fashioned self-care when you had had a hard day. The instinct came to you all the same, today, but for obvious reasons, you wouldn’t be able to act on it right now.
You must wind up lost in thought about it for a good moment or two, because before you know it, The Doctor has turned her attention on you again. She’s all warmth and kindness and concern as she places both of her hands on your shoulders and turns you to face her, and when you find your focus once more, she smiles at you.
“Are you alright, Y/N?” she asks, and raises one of her hands to touch your cheek gently. You make your best effort not to let it make you blush, obviously, but you’re not entirely sure it’s effective.
“Oh, yeah — I’m fine,” you reassure her with a tired smile. You subtly avoid her gaze as she brushes her thumb across your cheekbone, not looking very convinced.
“Are you certain?” she prods, finally dropping her arms to her sides and withdrawing her gentle touch. “Not injured or anything, are you? You’re looking a bit... spacey.”
You can’t help but laugh softly at her observation, and as you recover from the brief closeness in proximity, you offer her a much more genuine smile.
“Spacey?” you ask, eyebrows raised. She scoffs and rolls her eyes at the bit of teasing, but she stays close nonetheless, arms folded across her chest as she eyes you.
“Yes, spacey — a bit loopy, out-of-it, zoned-out, blank-faced... d’you need anymore synonyms? I’ve got a thesaurus full of ‘em,” she retorts, smiling as she proceeds to poke fun right back at you.
“Alright, alright,” you sigh, raising both of your hands in surrender. She raises an eyebrow at that, watching you closely as you go on to explain yourself. “I am a little spacey, I suppose. Not anymore than normal, though — it’s just...”
You pause momentarily, considering how you might explain to her that your bedroom had been one of the many pieces of the TARDIS destroyed in the midst of all of the chaos. Had she already noticed? Did she even know where your bedroom was?
“It’s just..?” she urges you on, and when you meet her gaze again and notice the way that her smile has faded into concern once more, you sigh.
“Well, my bedroom was destroyed. Along with all of my things,” you say, and she blinks, definitely looking rather surprised. “So more than anything I’m just... thinking about where I’m going to be lying down for the nap that I very much need.”
“Oh, no — oh, stupid me, I didn’t even realize!” she says, and in the next moment her hands are on your shoulders once more. “I’m so sorry, Y/N! I really hope you didn’t lose anything important.”
You make a face and shrug your shoulders in response to that, taking a moment to consider what you had actually lost along with your room — apart from the room itself.
“I mean — not really. Not apart from my clothes, anyways,” you tell her. “Might have lost a souvenir or two — and definitely my favorite jumper — but nothing valuable.”
She softens at that, making one of those faces that clearly says “alright, I’ll take it, but I’m still not happy.” You offer her a smile, regardless — it’s not like it had been her fault, anyways. It hadn’t been anyone’s fault but the rogue ship who had seen you in their flight path, apparently, and decided to move you out of it. Forcefully.
“If I had my way, we’d go and confront those lot,” she mumbles, returning once again to touching the TARDIS’s console gently. “Not very often I let anyone get away with using my ship for target practice.”
You laugh softly as you watch her, looking thoroughly offended on behalf of her TARDIS. You give the console a pat or two of your own, and you sigh softly when you here her respond with a soft hum, sounding just as tired as you feel.
“I don’t think I’d mind giving them a good telling off,” you say. You allow your full weight to rest against the TARDIS, finally, as you close your eyes for a split second. The energy she’s giving off now seems to be equal parts apologetic and relaxing, and the moment it hits you, your exhaustion seems to increase tenfold. “But I think what I might like most right now is a good nap.”
The Doctor looks your way again, then, and the thoughtful upset on her face fades into concern once more.
“You do look absolutely knackered, Y/N,” she says with a shrug. “No offense.”
You snort, responding first with a shake of your head as you absentmindedly rub at one of your eyes. “None taken,” you muse, smiling at her a moment later. “I’m feeling it.”
She mirrors your smile, looking thoughtful for a a brief moment. She seems to mull over something for a good moment or two, glancing between your very tired-looking face and the map of the ship that she had been focused on earlier.
“You know...” she begins, seeming to wait for your acknowledgement before she goes on. “My bedroom wasn’t destroyed in all of the wreckage.”
Your eyes narrow at that — at the hesitant way that she looks at you as she talks about her own room. You cock your head curiously to one side as you consider what she might be implying.
“Rather lucky, that,” you say, as nonchalant as you can manage. You’ve got to admit, you’re rather intrigued even at the idea of seeing The Doctor’s bedroom; you’ve always known she had one, and that — like you — she was a bit of a comfort napper. You had never seen her room, however, no matter how many times she had mentioned it.
“Right — lucky, yeah,” she agrees, and you smile — you can’t help it. “But, what I was getting it was — well. You could always kip off to my room for a nap, couldn’t you?”
Your smile grew.
“The shape that the TARDIS is in, it’ll be some time before she can repair yours, and I can’t leave you without a place to sleep, can I?”
The laughter that escapes you in response to that is soft, and amused, and rather unavoidable. It’s just... funny, is all, how flighty The Doctor is when it comes to anything even remotely intimate. You’ve always liked to toe those boundaries a bit — to flirt, as it were, with every intention of making The Doctor blush a bit.
But even so, you don’t want her to feel uncomfortable, because she is your closest friend, after all.
“Oh, Doc — honestly, I don’t want to go imposing like that,” you insist. As difficult as it proves to be, you right yourself and turn to face her properly. “I don’t want to invade your space.”
She mumbles and grumbles for a moment at that, but the next time she meets your eyes, she’s shrugging her shoulders and smiling.
“Strictly speaking, you wouldn’t be invading my space,” she points out, dragging a hand through her mess of blonde hair. “Not really. It’s sharing a room and a bed and all, sure, but... my bed is big enough for both of us, you know.”
Your only reaction to that is a rather startled blink.
It’s not that you’re put off by the idea — you aren’t, not in the least. It’s rather more that you’re surprised that The Doctor isn’t put off by the idea.
You certainly enjoyed flirting with her a bit every now and again, just to see her go red and hear her stammer for a good minute, but you had never imagined it would go anywhere. Not in a real way, anyhow. And — and not that this was what that meant, either, because it surely wasn’t, it was just —
“Oh, don’t look so shocked,” The Doctor says, effectively breaking your train of thought. The tone of her voice clearly conveys a bit of a tease, and as your focus returns to the immediate conversation, you snort softly.
“No, no — I’m not shocked,” you explain, happy to backtrack a bit. “Well, not really, i just — I didn’t quite expect you to be so willing to share.”
She cocks her head to one side at that, folding her arms over her chest as she gazes expectantly at you. “And why not?”
You shrug your shoulders, then, not entirely sure how to respond for a good handful of seconds.
“Well, it’s your bed, innit?” you say — a bit dumbly, you’ll admit. “And you do love your naps.”
The Doctor snorts at that, still smiling at you even though she definitely looks at least mildly offended.
“Oh, don’t be absurd,” she argues, and you snort. It’s not all that absurd — not as far as you’re concerned, at least. “I do love a nap — didn’t let myself have nearly enough of them, the first thousand-and-some years of my life, mind you — but I can still have a good night’s sleep with you there next to me.”
You watch her carefully as she makes her point, gesturing animatedly with her hands as she so often does when she feels particularly strongly about something. The Doctor is a good liar, but you’re also rather good at detecting it. And looking into her eyes now as she waits for your response, there doesn’t seem to be anything there but honesty.
“Well, alright,” you begin, cautious, still. “If you say so.”
“I do!” she insists. You grin.
“I don’t think I’d even mind if you changed your mind later, so long as I could have a good, long sleep now,” you comment, breaking eye contact, finally, as you drag a hand through your disarrayed hair once more. You hear her laugh at that, soft and amused, and next thing you know, there’s a gentle hand on your shoulder.
“Well m’not planning on it, am I?” she says. You feel her thumb brush across your shoulder blade, then, and it’s a real struggle for you to keep from piling yourself into her arms and demanding a cuddle. “Anyways — you know where my room is, don’t you?”
You shake your head.
“I’ve never been in your room before, Doctor,” you point out with a smile and a shrug. She looks a bit surprised at that — why, you’re not entirely sure.
“Oh,” she says quite simply. “Well, in that case — it’s up the stairs and down that hallway there. You’ll take a left near the end, and my bedroom will be the second door on the right. You go on and have yourself a nap while the TARDIS and I figure out the rest.”
You sigh at that — perhaps a little bit too relieved — and nod your head. Before you turn to make your way up the stairs, you make a point of taking half a step closer to The Doctor and pressing a soft kiss to her cheek.
There isn’t any intention behind it — not really, not apart from expressing your gratitude — but she blushes anyhow, and you can’t help but smile at that.
You leave the room without another word, content with you goal to seek out The Doctor’s bedroom and kip in for a nap. It takes you a moment, admittedly, to remember the exact directions you had been given, but you get there in the end. And as it turns out, it’s terribly obvious which door leads to The Doctor’s room.
The doors are grand in comparison to all the rest, large and wooden and very french-looking in style. Even the handles are quite elaborate looking, all old-worn bronze, and you smile at that; you can’t help but wonder what the inside of the room is like in comparison.
To no one’s surprise, everything inside is rather magnificent as well. Or, no — perhaps eccentric would have been a better word. The furniture, the decoration, the room itself... if anyone had asked you, you’d have said it was a rather good reflection of The Doctor herself.
All in all, none of it quite looked like it belonged together; not exactly. Apart from the bed and the room itself, which you had to assume had been put together by the TARDIS as a baseline, everything was quite mismatched. For instance, there was a night table in one corner that looked like it might have come out of early, early times, with chipped wood and rickety looking drawers and legs that looked like they were only just holding the thing up. But to the same tune, there was a massive armoire on one wall — or what you assumed was an armoire, anyways — that looked like it could have been picked up from an IKEA store in modern times.
There was so much to look at that you spent a good handful of moments just standing in the doorway, admiring each individual item. It was lost in translation sometimes, how much time The Doctor had really spent traveling here and there and seeing this and that and the other, but her bedroom and all of the things inside of it gave every bit of that away at a mere glance.
Eventually, you gather your bearings and round back on your original plan to tuck yourself straight into bed, but even that proves to be a something of a challenge.
The bed may not have been one of the most eye-catching things in the room, but even it, in it’s own very, very unique way, had The Doctor written all over it. The sheets were rumpled and purple and soft, and immediately upon toeing out of your shoes and lying down amongst the (abundance) of pillows, you notice that they smell like her, as well. A bit like amber, a bit like clove, and a lot like some unidentifiable spacey thing that you’ve always liked to think of as moon-dust.
You’re grateful for it, for the touch of familiarity; you’ve always had a bit of trouble sleeping in rooms that weren’t your own, but wrapping yourself in the sheets of The Doctor’s bed feels a whole lot like wrapping yourself up in The Doctor herself, and if you were honest? She had always felt more like home to you than any old room could ever have.
Even despite the fact that you’re fully clothed, it doesn’t take you very long to begin drifting off; your eyelids had been heavy to start, and as you make yourself comfortable, the feeling only grows tenfold. With a a deep sigh and a final tug at the bedsheets, you allow sleep to overcome your exhausted body. You had come here with the intention of resting, after all, and you’d be damned if resting wasn’t just what you were going to do.
✦
In the end, you must wind up sleeping much, much longer than you might have initially planned, because when you do wake, it’s not of your own accord.
What initially rouses you is a soft touch at your shoulder - nothing urgent nor insistent, but firm enough to wake you from your nap. You roll onto your back with a soft groan, quite unwilling to come to at first; you toss one arm over your face stubbornly and sigh, certainly not ready to face the waking world just yet. That touch at your shoulder becomes a firm grip, then, and a gentle shake within another few moments.
“Y/N,” a soft, familiar voice — quite close to your ear — says. “Y/N, wake up.”
There’s a rather insistent noise to accompany the voice that must come from the TARDIS, and you mutter an unintelligible complaint under your breath at that. You’re pouting as you drop your arm back to your side and submit to the idea that you might not be able to get back to sleep right here and now, and with a deep sigh, you give your legs a stretch.
It’s only when you finally open up your eyes that you come to remember that you aren’t, in fact, in your own bedroom. You’re still very much in The Doctor’s room, surrounded by her things and sleeping in her bed, and as it turns out, the soft voice that had been attempting to wake you had been hers, too.
Your cheeks flush as your eyes fall upon her face.
“Oh, Doctor,” you mumble, still very much half asleep. “Sorry.“
She smiles at you, looking… rather fond? You blink, wondering offhandedly if your tired eyes are playing tricks on you.
“Oh, don’t be sorry,” she says, waving a hand dismissively. “Must have been a good nap, eh?”
You respond with a soft snort, closing your eyes for a brief moment and nodding your head.
“It was,” you say with a smile, combing a hand through your knotted hair and wriggling a bit until you’re a sitting a tad more upright. “Thanks. But I can definitely leave now, if you want the room—“
You don’t have the opportunity to finish your sentence before The Doctor is shaking her head at you, murmuring a little string of “no, no, no’s” and looking quite a lot like she’s the one invading your space.
“You don’t have to leave,” she insists. She sits back on her heels, and you realize for the first time that she’s knelt down beside the bed, at your side. “In fact, I wasn’t going to wake you at all — it was just…”
You raise an eyebrow, watching her closely as she explains herself. She’s looking almost bashful, now, and altogether it has you feeling curious.
“What? Was I snoring or something?” you ask her, only half-joking. It wasn’t like you hadn’t been known to snore a bit boarishly in the past.
She shakes her head at that, laughing softly and fiddling with her hair somewhat nervously.
“No, no. Nothing like that,” she reassures you. A handful of seconds later she looks you in the eye once more and smiles kindly. “I came in to check on you, that’s all. And found you fully clothed.”
You spare a glance down at yourself and your rumpled clothing, taking in the state of yourself for a moment before you offer up a shrug in response.
“I didn’t have anything else,” you explain. “Everything but what I’m wearing was in my bedroom when we crash-landed.”
She nods.
“No, I know,” she responds. You tilt your head expectantly, then, and she averts her gaze. “I just wandered in to check on you — to make sure you were alright, yeah? Crash-landings can be tough on a human person, and I just wanted to make sure — never mind. Not the point. Anyways…”
You don’t take your eyes off of her as she continues to waffle on for a moment, and you’re just about to pipe up and ask her where, exactly, she’s going with all of this when she finally reaches her point.
“You looked comfortable enough when I came in, but I just thought — I don’t know, I got the idea in my head that you might like to borrow some of my clothes,” she says. She gestures offhandedly to the armoire that you had caught a glimpse of earlier as she says the words, and you spare a glance in its direction before looking back at her. “Just for now — so you have some proper sleepwear, right?”
There’s no holding back the fond smile that plays on your lips as she explains herself. You don’t think that you’d have been able to withhold it if you had tried, because it’s just so sweet, the way that The Doctor seems to be doting on you. It’s not exactly a common thing — she cares for you, and you care for her (to say the very, very least), but it’s never gone beyond that; not before now.
It makes you wonder — it does — but you keep your curiosity to yourself for the time being.
“That would be really nice, Doctor,” you say simply. It’s a stark contrast to her rambled explanation, and she seems to flounder for a moment before she smiles brightly and makes for the armoire.
“Brilliant! In that case —“ she starts, opening up a door here and a drawer there and pulling out a couple of soft-looking pieces of clothing. None of it looks terribly a lot like her everyday clothing, but it all looks quite comfortable. “These ought to do nicely, eh? You can take your pick, Y/N — whatever you like.”
You flash her a smile as she tosses the garments your way, and as you pick through them, you hum quite happily. Most all of them are as soft as they look, and you’d be willing to bet that they’re just as comfortable, too.
“You do know how to pick out pajamas,” you comment, and she snorts. After a bit of sifting, you settle on an oversized, button-up sleep shirt and a nice, loose pair of shorts. She’s looking rather smug when your gaze finds its way back to her, and you laugh softly as you set the remaining clothing aside.
“What’s a good nap without some extra-comfortable sleepers?” she says, perhaps a little too proud of herself.
“Not a good nap at all,” you agree, regardless, and brush a few stray hairs out from in front of your eyes. You are grateful, genuinely, for her generosity with both her clothing and her space, because if you’re honest? You still feel a right mess, and having these few comforts makes you feel just a little more human.
You’re quiet for a moment (and so is she, oddly enough) before you look The Doctor’s way once more, a curious gleam in your eyes.
“I don’t suppose you would mind if I used your shower as well, then?” you ask, not quite as hesitantly as you might have at the beginning of this day. You might have felt a bit worse about it had you actually asked for everything that The Doctor had given you, but… well, you hadn’t. And honestly, if there was anything in the world that you might just have done anything for, it was a good, hot shower.
“‘Course you can, Y/N,” she responds without hesitation. There’s something a bit softer in her voice, and it prompts you to study her for a long moment as she stands there. It’s only fifteen seconds or so, but she must begin to feel the scrutiny rather quickly, because it’s not very long afterwards that she turns her gaze away and makes for the door. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I’m in the console room if you need me!” she calls to you as she goes, and you laugh softly as you look after her for a moment.
With a stretch and a yawn and a creak of your bones, you crawl out of the bed and go about finding your way into the shower — into the bathroom that branches off of her bedroom, just like your own little ensuite had done.
No use wasting any time.
✦
“Oh, shut it,” The Doctor says, firm, but without much fight. She’s standing at the console in the control room, and she’s just left her own bedroom in a ridiculous hurry, because she just... couldn’t seem to collect herself, as it were. She was usually rather good at it, if she did say so herself; she had been doing it for such a long time, now, that it didn’t tend to be such a bother for her to keep her guard up around you. Today, though — today, it seemed that something had slipped. And it had been a rather significant something, if her current, flustered state was anything to go by.
Maybe it had been your peacefully slumbering face. She had only seen you in such a state a handful of times, after all, and you had just looked so... so... content. Serene, even. And you’d been in herbed, for crying out loud —
She groans. Her head drops into her hands as she props herself against the console, and she sighs thickly as she thinks it over. You had never so much as been in her room before (which she had less than gracefully forgotten, earlier), and now you were in her room, her bed, her space — and sooner than later, you would be in her clothes, too. All of it, as a whole, had her feeling rather flustered.
“Then go on and do something about it, would you?” she catches the TARDIS insisting. It’s a tug at the corner of her mind, her ship’s intention, but it’s there, and she rolls her eyes, choosing not to dignify the demand with a verbal response.
The TARDIS doesn’t stop there, though, no — she continues to niggle at The Doctor’s mind, each and every suggestion coming across her consciousness like an insistent child jabbing a finger into their sibling’s shoulder to catch their attention.
“It’s been months, Doctor. Months!”
“Are you just going to sit by and stare at them forever?”
“If you paid attention you’d notice that they stare at you, too.”
“Constantly.”
“Doctor!”
The frustrated yelp that she had been valiantly suppressing breaks free, eventually, and she straightens up, staring pointedly up at the TARDIS’s dimly glowing crystals.
“What do you suggest I do, eh?” she demands, and the TARDIS gives a dissatisfied vworp. “They don’t know. I can’t — ! I can’t just waltz into the room and, what — ask them for a cuddle? Tell them how astounding I think they are?”
Her words start out just as sharp as she’d meant them to, but the fire in her outburst dwindles rather quickly the moment she really hears herself.
It’s... different, saying these things out loud. Very different, and the weight of it all seems to bear down on her very suddenly. The TARDIS appears to catch onto this, and adjusts the lighting in the control room to reflect the abrupt shift in The Doctor’s mood.
With her features now cast in a delicate, fuchsia light, she shakes her head. Shadows dance across her face as she turns away from the console and makes for a way to distract herself once more.
“I know your intentions are good, love,” she says, and the light in the room begins to sink into a deep purple as she speaks. “But it’s not realistic.”
The TARDIS wants to argue the point further — she really, genuinely does. She can, after all, see you in her pilot’s room, fresh out of the shower and wearing her clothing, ever-so-gently perusing the room with that special sort of awe in your eyes.
But she also knows The Doctor, and she knows better than to force the issue with her. She had never been one to have any issue forced upon her — thus the ship’s roundabout way of wordlessly guiding her where she needed to go most. It was almost always better (where it wasn’t exactly possible to coax her) to let The Doctor come around on her on, and, with an exasperated thunk of her engines, the TARDIS supposed that that was what she would have to do.
✦
In the hours following her confrontation with her ship, The Doctor made every effort she could to keep herself occupied.
She cleaned, she tidied, she repaired what she could; she tinkered with everything that she could tinker with, and read through a solid three-and-a-half six-hundred-and-something page books, and paced metaphorical ruts into the floor. She was doing anything and everything she could think of to keep busy, to keep herself distracted while you rested, but in the end, her efforts didn’t make the kind of difference that she might have hoped they would.
No matter how much she paced, she still paused every so often to ponder whether there might be something more she could be doing for you. No matter how deeply she buried herself in thick books written on the most wildly obscure topics, she still found herself distracted at the thought of you sleeping in her bed.
You had been resting for quite some time, now, hadn’t you? It had been hours. Did you typically nap for this long? Was she overthinking it? Were you okay? Why couldn’t she just stop thinking about it?
The TARDIS would nip in every now and then, too, much to The Doctor’s frustration. She would mumble and grumble at the back of her mind that she knew bloody well what was going on in her own head — that she had simply refused to acknowledge it.
“You can only do this for so long, Doctor,” she had sighed at one point. It had also been at that point that The Doctor had pushed the thick book she’d been thumbing through aside and groaned out loud.
She was utterly exhausted.
She hadn’t actually rested since well before the incident with the TARDIS, and the whirlwind of emotions that she was currently experiencing wasn’t doing very much to help her case. She could hardly focus, anymore, and that — that wouldn’t do.
It was usually right around this point that she would sneak off to her bedroom for a nap, but — well.
“You told Y/N that your bed was big enough for the both of you. That hasn’t changed,” the TARDIS pipes up, conveniently.
“Get out of my head,” The Doctor mutters, dropping into her seat beside the console and burying her face in her hands.
“You know full well that I can’t do that.”
She grumbles once more, dragging her clammy palms across her face as she sits up. She couldn’t lie in this bed that she had made for herself forever, could she? Not unless you came waltzing out of her room in the next few moments (unlikely), or the TARDIS suddenly announced that she had been able to pop up a spare bedroom (even more unlikely), she was doomed. Completely and utterly doomed.
“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it? Y/N might be offended.”
The Doctor snorts at that, in part because you absolutely would be offended at the phrasing. No doubt.
She also recognized, however, that it is a bit dramatic. She was tired — so, so bloody tired, and upon further consideration, the strange way that she had been acting would likely only succeed in raising your suspicions.
She had to sleep sometime, and tonight, she supposed... tonight, awkward as it may or may not have turned out to be, it would have to be next to you.
✦
As it happened, you had only just fallen asleep by the time The Doctor came creeping into the room. And — quite unfortunately for you — you hadn’t even fallen asleep on purpose.
You had spent a long, long while after your shower perusing The Doctor’s room, and all of the delightful treasures that it had been hiding. Well, you thought — not hiding. Not really. You had been careful not to be too invasive in your curiosity. Your intention hadn’t been to dig up anything terribly personal, after all, and when it came right down to it, you had only bothered with the things that had been in plain sight; out on bookshelves, lying across an oddly-shaped chair in the corner, that sort of thing.
And, in the end, that had been more than enough. Hours had passed, and by the time you had worn yourself out, there had been books and trinkets and clothing strewn around you. The mess was primarily confined to the bed, where you had propped yourself against the pillows to read through an old, dog-eared book that looked like it had come from a time not so far off of when books had been carved into stone rather than printed onto paper.
You had fallen asleep not more than a hundred-or-so pages into the story, book in hand and sheets only half-covering your tightly-curled form.
This was the sight that The Doctor came upon, as she so-stealthily crept into her bedroom.
Her first reaction was open-mouthed shock, of course. She had expected to find you asleep, yes, but not like this — not quite literally surrounded by her very own belongings, from the lovely, color-changing crystal necklace she’d nicked from Planet Steppes to a bundle of tapestries and odds and ends she’d gathered from an obscure civilization on the outskirts of Andromeda.
She very likely should have been much more upset than she was — it was her room, it was, and you had gone and made quite the mess of it. But regardless of what she should or shouldn’t have been feeling as she stood, gobsmacked in the doorway, she could hardly help but smile.
You were just so cute.
She stifled soft laughter into one hand as she proceeded to tiptoe into the room, sidestepping a jacket, which looked to have been tried on and then discarded.
The situation at hand slips her mind as she spends a good few moments tidying the bed around you, and all she can think about is the wonder that must have shone in your eyes as you had inspected all of her favorite trinkets. She considers it, and the sweet smile that never failed to accompany it when you were especially enthralled, and it warms her heart.
There’s certainly a small part of her that’s hesitant, still, about the situation as whole. There’s not going to be any changing that. A good amount of that hesitance certainly dwindles, though, when she gets all of the non-essential things cleared from the bed, gets changed into her own set of comfies, and pulls back the bedsheets just in time to get a full view of your face as you begin to mumble something in your sleep. She grins — she can’t help it. She grins, and she sighs in a distinctly lovesick manner as she shakes herself from her trance and goes about wedging herself into the bed beside you.
It’s not a tight fit, not in the least; The Doctor had always been a fussy sleeper, even when she slept on her own, and she had been sure to accommodate herself with a bed big enough to support that. All roominess aside, though, she still finds herself hyper aware of your presence beside her; your warmth, your soft mumbling, the sound of your breath, every tiny movement — she couldn’t help but be aware of it, and while she tried her damndest to tune it out (she did, honestly), she couldn’t help but gravitate towards it.
The moment her eyelids began to droop, she became keenly aware of every little noise you made — every hum, every murmur, every stray word. When she allowed herself to sink into the mattress, even just a little bit, she found herself lolling towards the heat of your body.
It’s somewhere around the fifteen-minute mark (and her third bout of shaking herself away from the edge of sleep — from you), that you begin to stir. You’re not aware of her presence immediately; you were only just coming back from a very good nap, after all. You couldn’t be blamed. It’s not long before you do become aware of her, though, because you’ve only just woken up, and the first thing you hear is the sound of her grumbling softly.
“Blimey — “ you hear her mumble as she wriggles, trying (again) to get comfortable in her own space. It doesn’t seem that she’s successful, though, because she stretches out again not a moment later, mumbling something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like “not getting any bloody sleep tonight”.
Your eyelashes flutter as you process the words, and there’s a crease in your brow as her frustrated expression comes into focus.
“Wh’not?” you ask on the cusp of a yawn, dropping the old book that you’d been holding, still, in favor of rubbing at one of your eyes. She doesn’t respond to the question for a handful of seconds; she’s quiet for a spell, and then she begins to shuffle, again. You’re just about ready to repeat yourself when she looks your way and finds your eyes on her.
“Y/N!” she says, soft. Your name comes out sounding more like a surprised squeak than much anything else, and you snort softly.
“Doctor,” you murmur, taking a quick moment to stretch the sleep out of your own muscles. You get comfortable again not a moment later, though, and you level her with a curious gaze. “Why can’t you sleep?”
The Doctor looks somewhat startled at the question. She avoids your eyes, looking this way and that and blushing in a rather guilty fashion as she rummages for an excuse.
“Ah, no, I’m alright — really, it’s just — I don’t—” she stammers. She bites her lip to quiet herself a second later, though, apparently collecting her thoughts. “I suppose I’m just not used to sharing a bed, s’all.”
It was close enough to the truth, anyways.
The face you make, though… the startled blink, the furrow in your brow, the hesitation in your eyes — it still catches her off guard.
“Oh,” you say. You’re the one averting your gaze, now, and it sends her backpedalling rapidly. “D’you want me to leave, then? I can leave.”
She doesn’t think before she speaks.
“No!” she exclaims, propping herself up on one elbow and looking squarely at you. She seems to realize the abruptness of her response a moment later, however, because her cheeks flush and she makes a soft, frustrated sound. “You don’t have to go, Y/N. Really.”
“Oh,” you say again, a touch baffled. “Alright.”
The Doctor sighs softly, feeling quite sheepish. Your response hadn’t been negative, but it was still clipped, still confused. Clearly you were beginning to notice her odd behavior, and she didn’t want you feeling like you weren’t welcome, did she? She thinks about it for a moment, about all of the TARDIS’s scolding and about her own racing mind. And she decides to tell the truth.
“I’ve been more worried that I would make you uncomfortable,” she admits. Her voice is soft, and she doesn’t quite meet your eyes at first, but you hear her nonetheless.
“What, me?” you say. There’s laughter and disbelief in the tone of your voice, and when The Doctor does look at you again, her worry ebbs, if only a little bit. “Doctor, this is your room, and I’ve had a good sleep already. You don’t need to worry about me.”
She laughs softly at that, watching you closely as you readjust once more, picking up the book that you’d been reading and searching out the spot where you’d left off.
“And besides,” you say, glancing at her overtop the pages and smiling somewhat mischievously. “I don’t mind sharing space with you. So if that’s what you’re worrying about… don’t.”
If her cheeks hadn’t been red before, they definitely are, now. Had that been… a hint of flirtation? Surely she was imagining things, wasn’t she?
Right on cue, the TARDIS begins to grumble at the edge of her mind, as if telling her to knock it off. She can’t help but smile.
“Alright then,” she says, as noncommittally as she can manage. There’s a bit of residual nervousness, of course, but the look of you, the smile on your face and your content posture… it puts her at ease.
It’s uncharacteristically quiet for a moment afterwards, as she makes herself comfortable and you settle back into your reading. It’s not a terribly long time before she begins to feel sleep settle over her once again, and she breathes a soft sigh as she nestles against the pillows beside you.
“Thanks, Y/N,” she mutters, as she allows herself to drift. The last thing she hears before she falls asleep is your soft laughter.
“Don’t thank me,” you say, and inch just a little bit closer to her as you settle in.
✦
Sometime later, The Doctor wakes slowly. Her hair is a terrible mess, the sheets around her have been kicked into disarray, and there’s a crusty bit of sleep clouding her eyes, still. Clearly, it had been a good nap.
It’s only as she makes an attempt to turn over, however, that she realizes why, exactly, that is.
Beside her, you’re still reading intently. Your eyes are bleary, your head is propped a bit awkwardly against a couple of pillows, and in the midst of your fascination with the story, you’ve slunk down beneath the covers beside her.
That’s not what catches her attention, though. It’s all captivating, obviously, all on its own, but what really holds her interest is the arm you’ve got curled around her shoulders. Her head is resting comfortably near your collarbone, and as she comes to recognize her surroundings fully, she can feel every inch of your body, too, pressed warmly against her own.
Her cheeks flush bright red in an instant, and she doesn’t move another inch.
She doesn’t let herself tense, though, no — she doesn’t want to soil the moment. The warmth, the closeness, your arm wrapped almost protectively around her… it’s nice. More than nice. It’s comforting. She’s craved it, and she’s not about to cut it short.
Instead of addressing it, she lets out a soft breath and very, very carefully, she turns closer to you. She lays her arm across your stomach and closes her eyes once more, nestling close.
She’s not sure whether you realize that she’s woken up or not, but all the same, you sigh, too, and press a sweet kiss to her temple, and that seals it. She’s not moving anytime soon.