thedreamer | open post;

Thomas' gasp is soft but genuine, his entire being wrapped up in this moment right here. It's beautiful the way that it works, the way the entire place seems to harmonize.

For a while, he's speechless, eyes wide, hands grasping at the Doctor's as he walks as close to the railing as he can without fallin gover.

He will hold close to his hand, not least because he wants to make sure he does, in fact, not topple over that railing. There's a breeze, of course, here on the balcony in the open air, but it's not overmuch, and certainly not loud enough they can't hear each other.

"Music," he simply says, smiling softly. "Its own song, these clouds, the suns."

The sky erupts with color as the light fades and the night gradually darkens.

He breathes out, eyes wide. "I've never....seen anything like this," he says and while it feels trite to say because of course he hasn't, it is still something that needs expressing.

This is the life he's always wanted. Seeing new things all the time.

He squeezes The Doctor's hand. "Will it be like this every time we see something new?" This feeling, this elation, this lightness in his chest.

It's on the tip of his tongue to respond quickly, easily, with an affirmative yes, but he gives the question actual pause for a moment.

"It's so much. Wonder and beauty, hope and joy. It can be dangerous, too," he notes, a little softer. He should have said that before. He tries to lead with that, but he forgets himself and it's been so long now. "And I wouldn't want —" He stops, squeezes Thomas' hand. He feels like he still needs to give him an out, a chance to live a full life of his choosing, perhaps a safer one. "I never want anything to happen to you, but if that's a life you want, then you have it with me."

"I know it's dangerous," he assures him. "And danger is not a stranger to me. But if I must face it, I'd rather face it with you." Which is wholly the truth. He leans against him on the balcony.

"That is the life I want. I'm not certain why you would want it, but - I am yours."

It eases some of the worry he'd been carrying around a bit, this feeling that he's stealing Thomas away from a better life, a more normal life, somewhere far away from the likes of him. He stands here and he says he wants this and the Doctor believes him, even if in the reverse, he struggles sometimes to accept he could be worthy of any of this love and affection from the likes of Thomas Jopson.

He can't let it go so easily, though, when he hears the words from Thomas' lips. "Why do you wonder that? Why I'd want a life with you, that is." He questions gently.

"Because I am just a man," he says. "And you have seen so much, been so many places, it feels - wrong to hold you back."

It's not the first time that he's expressed fears like this. It probably won't be the last. Thomas doesn't have a shortage of self esteem, but he holds the Doctor so high in regards that he doesn't understand why he would measure up.

"You would never hold me back, you haven't for a moment. You've given me...a fuller life than I've ever known, Thomas."

He's loved all of his friends, he's seen so many great and terrible things. So many lives are so important to him, but this is something else, something so unlike anything he's known or had before. "A day like today...spent alone, I would have had my fun, seen old friends, I would have marveled at the beauty here, the song of the suns," he gestures around at the clouds. "I wouldn't have taken one single moment for granted, but with you here, it's all better, more meaningful. I don't know," he shrugs a little, feeling his explanation fails a bit. "Can you understand it? I want you here for every moment."

"I do," he says because he does. Because he feels it, too. Because he wants this more than anything else in the world. Not just to survive but to live. He wants to live and love and enjoy and feel and experience and cry.

"I want to see everything." He leans against him. "But only with you."

In his life, the Doctor has seen so much and lost so much, and he'd reconciled with the understanding that his own time had nearly come, and that was how it was meant to be. Everything ends eventually, even the Doctor. Suddenly he'd been thrust to a new world, trapped, far away from the life he'd known, and yet — from all of that, there sprung this new life, the beginnings of it, at least. Now it's so much more, it's everything.

"Only with you," he promises in return. And what an extraordinary thing, in fact. The most extraordinary for him. He's never had only with you, no matter the friends along the way. He couldn't — they had their lives to live eventually, or he lost them. "You make me not afraid of that, Thomas." He moves closer, holding him near, kissing him softly now.

That kiss feels like electricity because of what's behind it. A promise, a commitment, something that is binding only in the way that the most important things are. Not one else involved, no one validating it, just them.

"I love you," he tells him because those words haven't lost any of their meaning.

The fact that the Doctor genuinely wants to say the words in return speaks volumes of the magnitude of Thomas' importance to him. These are words the Doctor doesn't say; he finds every other way to say it without saying it, when it's felt the most. As if the saying of those words makes it real and something real can be taken away. But as he's learned from Thomas, too, there is every reason to hold on tighter, then, to feel it deeper, to embrace what can be embraced, as long as it can be.

For him, the words are...slower, but not impossible. Nothing is with Thomas Jopson. It is a true thing, and he's only speaking it aloud. "I do love you," he breathes out softly, cradling his cheek in his hand. "You're so very dear to me, Thomas." Even that feels like the understatement of every century, but it's everything.

The second statement seems more poignant to him anyway. To be dear to someone, to be in their heart and their soul and their very mind, that's something that's so precious and he can't understate it at all.

He stays there for a moment, enjoying the touch, his hands on the Doctor, just mapping him out with his fingertips. But it has been a day. A very long day, and he can't justify standing any longer.

"I think I have reached my limits, sir," he mutters. "And I should retire."

"Retire...oh, oh, yes, yes you should." In his excitement, he's quick to forget sometimes, even his own needs. "There's the bed in the suite, if you want to stay on this world longer, explore more in the morning, or if you want to be somewhere new when you wake up instead, there's room on the TARDIS. A room — many rooms!"

Thomas doesn't pull back, his arm around him. "I will stay where you will be with me," he assures him. "Whether that is here or on the TARDIS."

It's all so...new, everything. It was before, but now it is again, in an entirely different way. There's so much to see here, yes, but so much to see everywhere, and he's eager for it.

"The TARDIS, then," he decides. "Somewhere new." He's kept his hand on Thomas' cheek in return, but he drags his fingers through his hair for a moment now, a tender touch to brush the hair back from his eyes. "A room with every comfort, and me."

"Somewhere new and healing," he reminds him, taking his hand to step back and let him lead. "Because I want to go on these adventures, but I want to enjoy them as I should, not with someone who has the bones of a 60 year old man," he adds, squeezing his hand. He is quite used to managing up, after all, and if he can remind his Doctor about that, then he will.

"That," he ducks his head a moment, closing his eyes briefly in just a slight wince as he silently chastises himself, Silly Doctor, good job. He's already steps ahead to the next great adventure, but this, this is the most important right now.

"— yes," he finishes, belatedly, squeezing his hand back. "You'll rest and you'll wake up and we'll be in the perfect place for it. You'll be right as rain. Funny phrasing, that, but suitable! There's no exact origin for it, you know, that idiom, but generally started circulating around the 19th century. Humans and your delightful idioms," he smiles, and as he talks, he does at least lead him back inside, back into the TARDIS. Inside on the threshold, he lets go of Thomas' hand, does a quick little spin, and where he stops, he points and snaps his fingers. "Ah, this way!" Now he reaches for his hand again, to lead him down the corridor towards where his room will be, evidently, decided by a spin and snap of fingers. It will be spacious and comfortable, warm and cozy, piled with blankets and pillows — perhaps a bit more than is needed.

Thomas presses a kiss to his cheek at the duck of his head, because he doesn't expect him to remember. That's not what the Doctor's strengths are, and that's fine with Thomas. He loves him for every reason, including his desire to keep moving, to continue on, to be adventurous.

But this is an adventure for Thomas. This is a new place.

He follows him inside, watching with a shake of his head. "Do these rooms exist before you find them?' he asks, well aware of how cryptic that sounds.

"Well, they exist when I find them. That is, at the moment they're thought of. That exact moment, they come to life." It is, perhaps, no less cryptic, and it's not even entirely accurate, so he does amend to say, "Some exist without my knowing, actually. She sneaks a few in, the old girl." He laughs briefly, fondly under his breath as he pats the wall and nods to the bed.

"If it's not to your liking, you can have anything you want."

"I have never once been particular about where I lay my head," he tells him, already walking over, untying his shoes and sitting on the bed. "Are you?"

He laughs a little, shaking his head and sitting on the very end of the bed. "The least particular. A pillow, a stone floor, a bundle of hay — oh, even the edge of a wall will do." Yes, he's fallen asleep standing in a corner before. On rare occasions. When he's been too busy with everything else to sleep and his body and mind had other plans.

Thomas glances over his shoulder and crawls into bed, curling up underneath the blankets. "The edge of a wall. Was that - purposeful?"

"Well, it was something new!" He doesn't quite answer the question, so it's not actually a lie, he reasons. No need to dwell on the fact that he hadn't intended on it at all, right?

He slips off his outer coat now, setting it aside, while trying to decide if he's ready to sleep himself just yet or not.

Thomas turns to face him, closing his eyes as he pulls the blankets over himself. "You didn't answer the question."

Thomas isn't going to let him get away that easily, unfortunately.

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