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rumpelsnorcackTitle: A Long Life (But One Worth Living)
Author/Artist:
rumpelsnorcack
Rating: PG-13 generally
Characters & Pairings: This chapter: Rory/Amy
Word Count: 1448 this chapter
Summary: The story of Rory's life, from meeting Amy to death.
This Chapter: How the Doctor got Rory to go to the TARDIS with him after bursting out of his stag party cake.
Notes: Many thanks to the wonderful
a_phoenixdragon and mollywheezy who have been extremely supportive through this whole process. I've been writing this on and off for a while. It's still not finished, but is getting there. Not sure how many chapters there will be, but each one is intended as a short one-shot in its own right so all can be read independently. However, they do all build together to give a picture of Rory's life, complicated timelines and all. It's all roughly chronological, but each piece doesn't necessarily exist in the same timeline as each other piece. So some are pre-reboot, some post, some exist in a universe which includes Mels, others don't.
Disclaimer: Sadly none of the characters are mine, I just enjoy hanging around in their sandbox.
Rory wasn’t having the greatest time at his bachelor party. Mike had set it all up and dragged his mates down to the local pub, which was fine for someone like him who enjoyed random blokes joining any group he was with – ‘the more, the merrier’ was Mike’s mantra. But a huge party with him as guest of honour wasn’t Rory’s idea of fun. So he’d turned his back on the group, shuffled as far out of the limelight as he could get, and called Amy to remind himself why he was doing this ridiculous thing in the first place. He found himself getting ridiculously gushy as he left a message for her.
Rory knew he was just putting off the inevitable moment when he would be thrust into the centre of the circle and forced to have everyone’s eyes on him again. There was, he knew, going to be a stripper – another of Mike’s grand ideas which Rory really didn’t want, but he’d never been able to say no and so here he was, wishing he was with Amy and instead being surrounded by a bunch of guys, many of whom he didn’t even know. When the men’s shouts indicated that the stripper’s cake was arriving Rory put the phone down reluctantly as he was pushed to the front of the group. Feeling awkward, Rory tried to act like he was enjoying this, but in reality he wished himself many miles away – preferably with his fiancé.
Then, in one moment, embarrassment turned to devastation as the last person Rory ever wanted to see again burst out of the cake. All he could hear was a buzzing noise as he shook his head, shock shutting down his senses as he tried to come to grips with this reappearance of Amy’s Raggedy Doctor. Then one line stood out in stark clarity and Rory finally understood what people meant when they said the ground dropped away from beneath them.
‘Now then. Rory. We need to talk about your fiancé. She tried to kiss me. Tell you what, though, you’re a lucky man. She’s a great kisser.’ Obviously noticing the stunned expressions on the faces of all the men around him, the Doctor added, ‘funny how you can say something in your head and it sounds fine …’
Rory’s heart collapsed inside him. The one thing he’d always feared, the one thing he’d finally thought he was safe from, had now been articulated – and by the man who had inspired those fears two years ago. His face fell and he felt tears pricking behind his eyes. Rory clamped his lips together to avoid any show of weakness in front of his mates and all the other blokes at the pub. Rory blinked back the tears and forced his rebellious limbs not to tremble through sheer force of will, determined not to break down in such a public arena. That this announcement was made in so open a way was bad enough – to react would be unconscionable.
The Doctor was looking at him with a sympathetic and perceptive eye. Which meant that in short order he’d clambered awkwardly out of the cake, fallen into Mike’s arms, apologised and fetched up nose to nose with Rory. He did that intense stare, the one from last time, where he seemed to look inside your soul and read your innermost thoughts. Rory felt exposed and vulnerable, especially under the interested gazes of the men around him.
The Doctor obviously noticed how uncomfortable the silence was getting, because he suddenly spun around and flapped his hands at everyone.
‘Sorry, lads. Party’s over. We really do need to talk about Rory’s fiancé and it would probably be better somewhere … else. Yes, else.’ He spun again, noticed the barman, pulled out some money which he fluttered down onto the bar before adding, ‘there, that should buy them some drinks.’ He clapped Rory on the back. ‘Come on, you. Let’s go see Amy.’
Only because he was still in shock and still close to breaking down did Rory allow the man to lead him away from his still-stunned friends and into the night air. He barely noticed as someone pushed his vest into his hands as he walked out the door in stunned and disbelieving silence.
Once they got outside, around the corner and away from all the vaguely embarrassed and sympathetic gazes of the men in the pub, Rory did collapse, allowing the vest to fall from numb fingers as he processed what had just happened. He flopped backwards and was only prevented from falling by the solid wall behind him. Feeling an uncomfortable queasiness in his stomach, Rory took several deep breaths and bent forward. He rubbed his hands over his face as if that would make the Doctor disappear and the nightmare end. Unfortunately it didn’t work. He could hear the other man babbling away as he strode into the distance, unaware that Rory wasn’t dutifully following along wherever he was taking him. A small surge of hope welled up in Rory’s chest – hope that the Doctor would keep walking and never come back. He risked peeking in the direction of his voice and groaned. The babbling had stopped and the Doctor was on his way back.
‘Now then, Rory. We need to go see Amy,’ he said as he arrived back by Rory’s side. He clapped his hand on Rory’s shoulder and tried to pull him forward off the wall.
‘No.’ Rory pulled his shoulder out of the Doctor’s grasp and took another deep breath.
‘No? What do you mean, no?’
‘I mean no. I won’t go with you. I don’t want to see Amy. I don’t want … I don’t want …’ memory of the words crashed in on him again. She tried to kiss me … she’s a great kisser. Yes, she was a great kisser. Kissing Amy was one of Rory’s favourite things to do, but … she’d kissed this man. And not, apparently, in the way she kissed her jobs. Those she was always upfront about. Rory always knew about them ahead of time. But this time she’d hidden it, kept it behind his back – and it was with the man Rory had always been measured against. This time felt different. The tears that had threatened in the pub were even closer to the surface now and Rory had to pull all his reserves of strength out to keep them from falling. He looked away from the Doctor, trying not to let him see how difficult this was, how shattered inside this had made him feel.
To his surprise, the Doctor was sympathetic. He leaned against the wall next to Rory and looked fixedly at the distant outline of a tree until Rory had himself under some semblance of control again. Once Rory had stopped gasping and had thrown his head back against the wall, eyes unfocussed, staring into the distance, the Doctor began to speak. He didn’t look at Rory, whose head snapped round as he uttered the first words.
‘The thing is, Rory, she needs you. Somehow, this is all about you.’ He looked momentarily embarrassed as he added, ‘I fail so often, Rory. This time I need to leave her better off, not worse. She needs you – and so do I.’ There was a plea in his voice, one Rory found it very difficult to ignore.
As a counterpoint to his words, the noise in the pub suddenly increased as someone opened the door.
‘Nah, I can’t see him,’ the someone said in slurred tones. ‘Poor bastard – probably gone home to cry into his pillow.’ Raucous laughter followed him back into the pub as the door slammed shut behind him. Rory gritted his teeth in agony as he realised what his friends were thinking, how … how wimpy and unwanted they believed he now was.
‘They won’t remember, you know,’ the Doctor said cheerfully. ‘They’re all too drunk already and they’ll just get worse as they drink through my money. Now. Will you come?’
Still feeling queasy, Rory nonetheless found himself nodding. For all the pain of the betrayal, and the raging hurt that threatened to drown Rory with its powerful waves, the Doctor had hit on the one thing that would have made him respond. Amy needed him, and if Amy needed him then he had to go. Reluctant, and still resentful of the revelation made this evening, Rory nevertheless found himself picking his vest up again and following the man toward the blue box. How bad could the meeting with Amy be, after all? What could be worse than learning she had kissed another man?
Author/Artist:
rumpelsnorcackRating: PG-13 generally
Characters & Pairings: This chapter: Rory/Amy
Word Count: 1448 this chapter
Summary: The story of Rory's life, from meeting Amy to death.
This Chapter: How the Doctor got Rory to go to the TARDIS with him after bursting out of his stag party cake.
Notes: Many thanks to the wonderful
mollywheezy who have been extremely supportive through this whole process. I've been writing this on and off for a while. It's still not finished, but is getting there. Not sure how many chapters there will be, but each one is intended as a short one-shot in its own right so all can be read independently. However, they do all build together to give a picture of Rory's life, complicated timelines and all. It's all roughly chronological, but each piece doesn't necessarily exist in the same timeline as each other piece. So some are pre-reboot, some post, some exist in a universe which includes Mels, others don't. Disclaimer: Sadly none of the characters are mine, I just enjoy hanging around in their sandbox.
Rory wasn’t having the greatest time at his bachelor party. Mike had set it all up and dragged his mates down to the local pub, which was fine for someone like him who enjoyed random blokes joining any group he was with – ‘the more, the merrier’ was Mike’s mantra. But a huge party with him as guest of honour wasn’t Rory’s idea of fun. So he’d turned his back on the group, shuffled as far out of the limelight as he could get, and called Amy to remind himself why he was doing this ridiculous thing in the first place. He found himself getting ridiculously gushy as he left a message for her.
Rory knew he was just putting off the inevitable moment when he would be thrust into the centre of the circle and forced to have everyone’s eyes on him again. There was, he knew, going to be a stripper – another of Mike’s grand ideas which Rory really didn’t want, but he’d never been able to say no and so here he was, wishing he was with Amy and instead being surrounded by a bunch of guys, many of whom he didn’t even know. When the men’s shouts indicated that the stripper’s cake was arriving Rory put the phone down reluctantly as he was pushed to the front of the group. Feeling awkward, Rory tried to act like he was enjoying this, but in reality he wished himself many miles away – preferably with his fiancé.
Then, in one moment, embarrassment turned to devastation as the last person Rory ever wanted to see again burst out of the cake. All he could hear was a buzzing noise as he shook his head, shock shutting down his senses as he tried to come to grips with this reappearance of Amy’s Raggedy Doctor. Then one line stood out in stark clarity and Rory finally understood what people meant when they said the ground dropped away from beneath them.
‘Now then. Rory. We need to talk about your fiancé. She tried to kiss me. Tell you what, though, you’re a lucky man. She’s a great kisser.’ Obviously noticing the stunned expressions on the faces of all the men around him, the Doctor added, ‘funny how you can say something in your head and it sounds fine …’
Rory’s heart collapsed inside him. The one thing he’d always feared, the one thing he’d finally thought he was safe from, had now been articulated – and by the man who had inspired those fears two years ago. His face fell and he felt tears pricking behind his eyes. Rory clamped his lips together to avoid any show of weakness in front of his mates and all the other blokes at the pub. Rory blinked back the tears and forced his rebellious limbs not to tremble through sheer force of will, determined not to break down in such a public arena. That this announcement was made in so open a way was bad enough – to react would be unconscionable.
The Doctor was looking at him with a sympathetic and perceptive eye. Which meant that in short order he’d clambered awkwardly out of the cake, fallen into Mike’s arms, apologised and fetched up nose to nose with Rory. He did that intense stare, the one from last time, where he seemed to look inside your soul and read your innermost thoughts. Rory felt exposed and vulnerable, especially under the interested gazes of the men around him.
The Doctor obviously noticed how uncomfortable the silence was getting, because he suddenly spun around and flapped his hands at everyone.
‘Sorry, lads. Party’s over. We really do need to talk about Rory’s fiancé and it would probably be better somewhere … else. Yes, else.’ He spun again, noticed the barman, pulled out some money which he fluttered down onto the bar before adding, ‘there, that should buy them some drinks.’ He clapped Rory on the back. ‘Come on, you. Let’s go see Amy.’
Only because he was still in shock and still close to breaking down did Rory allow the man to lead him away from his still-stunned friends and into the night air. He barely noticed as someone pushed his vest into his hands as he walked out the door in stunned and disbelieving silence.
Once they got outside, around the corner and away from all the vaguely embarrassed and sympathetic gazes of the men in the pub, Rory did collapse, allowing the vest to fall from numb fingers as he processed what had just happened. He flopped backwards and was only prevented from falling by the solid wall behind him. Feeling an uncomfortable queasiness in his stomach, Rory took several deep breaths and bent forward. He rubbed his hands over his face as if that would make the Doctor disappear and the nightmare end. Unfortunately it didn’t work. He could hear the other man babbling away as he strode into the distance, unaware that Rory wasn’t dutifully following along wherever he was taking him. A small surge of hope welled up in Rory’s chest – hope that the Doctor would keep walking and never come back. He risked peeking in the direction of his voice and groaned. The babbling had stopped and the Doctor was on his way back.
‘Now then, Rory. We need to go see Amy,’ he said as he arrived back by Rory’s side. He clapped his hand on Rory’s shoulder and tried to pull him forward off the wall.
‘No.’ Rory pulled his shoulder out of the Doctor’s grasp and took another deep breath.
‘No? What do you mean, no?’
‘I mean no. I won’t go with you. I don’t want to see Amy. I don’t want … I don’t want …’ memory of the words crashed in on him again. She tried to kiss me … she’s a great kisser. Yes, she was a great kisser. Kissing Amy was one of Rory’s favourite things to do, but … she’d kissed this man. And not, apparently, in the way she kissed her jobs. Those she was always upfront about. Rory always knew about them ahead of time. But this time she’d hidden it, kept it behind his back – and it was with the man Rory had always been measured against. This time felt different. The tears that had threatened in the pub were even closer to the surface now and Rory had to pull all his reserves of strength out to keep them from falling. He looked away from the Doctor, trying not to let him see how difficult this was, how shattered inside this had made him feel.
To his surprise, the Doctor was sympathetic. He leaned against the wall next to Rory and looked fixedly at the distant outline of a tree until Rory had himself under some semblance of control again. Once Rory had stopped gasping and had thrown his head back against the wall, eyes unfocussed, staring into the distance, the Doctor began to speak. He didn’t look at Rory, whose head snapped round as he uttered the first words.
‘The thing is, Rory, she needs you. Somehow, this is all about you.’ He looked momentarily embarrassed as he added, ‘I fail so often, Rory. This time I need to leave her better off, not worse. She needs you – and so do I.’ There was a plea in his voice, one Rory found it very difficult to ignore.
As a counterpoint to his words, the noise in the pub suddenly increased as someone opened the door.
‘Nah, I can’t see him,’ the someone said in slurred tones. ‘Poor bastard – probably gone home to cry into his pillow.’ Raucous laughter followed him back into the pub as the door slammed shut behind him. Rory gritted his teeth in agony as he realised what his friends were thinking, how … how wimpy and unwanted they believed he now was.
‘They won’t remember, you know,’ the Doctor said cheerfully. ‘They’re all too drunk already and they’ll just get worse as they drink through my money. Now. Will you come?’
Still feeling queasy, Rory nonetheless found himself nodding. For all the pain of the betrayal, and the raging hurt that threatened to drown Rory with its powerful waves, the Doctor had hit on the one thing that would have made him respond. Amy needed him, and if Amy needed him then he had to go. Reluctant, and still resentful of the revelation made this evening, Rory nevertheless found himself picking his vest up again and following the man toward the blue box. How bad could the meeting with Amy be, after all? What could be worse than learning she had kissed another man?
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(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-18 06:04 pm (UTC)Ohhh, RORY.
*hugs you hard*
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-24 11:27 pm (UTC)*hugs you* Thank you. You're always so supportive and lovely.
P.S, your icon is amazing. <3 Rory :)