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It isn’t that he wants to tell her he told her so.
There’s a bit of lingering resentment deep down inside him that nearly makes the words rise up, but he keeps it in check. Because although Jimmy has turned out to be the complete and utter wanker John predicted six months ago, he can’t pretend that his prediction was completely…scientific, in nature. It hadn’t even been a snap judgement upon seeing Jimmy’s boyband good looks and ratty guitar slung over his shoulder, though that had confirmed it to him later; John hadn’t even glimpsed him when he’d told Rose he was a tosser.
Jealousy, pure and simple, had led him to his unkind comment, when Rose had come into Drama class all flushed and excited, having been asked out by an older boy who had once attended their school.
And now, after a whirlwind romance, Jimmy’s up and left for Europe with another girl.
“You were right all along,” Rose groans, flopping down on John’s bed, having come round to the house he shares with his grandad and sister uninvited.
He keeps quiet, and just sits in the chair at his desk waiting for her to elaborate. It doesn’t take long.
“Bloody Denmark, or Belgium, or somewhere, anyway, he’s taken her. After all these months of me supporting him when his band weren’t making much. Suddenly he gets some gigs outside of London and is it me that he takes along for the adventure? Nope! Some random groupie who he picked up last weekend, instead. I mean, what the fuck?”
John winces, and props his feet up on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry, Rose. He’s a bastard, and he doesn’t deserve you.”
“What goes on in your minds, anyway? Why do you blokes have to be so bloody horrible?” She sniffs, and rolls over, and he wonders if she’s crying into his pillow so that he doesn’t see.
Heaving a sigh, John gets up and lays beside her, nudging her to get her to shuffle over a bit more and make room for him. “Rose.” She doesn’t respond, so he tugs lightly on a strand of her hair. “Rose.”
She turns her head, and he notices that there’s mascara smudged underneath her eye and on his pillow.
“What?” she mumbles.
“I think you need a hug.” He lifts his arm up, and she snuggles into him, throwing one of her arms around his waist. Stroking her back lightly, he asks, “Did he say goodbye?”
“He left a note.”
“Eeesh,” John winces.
“I know, right? Heartless git.” She sniffles quietly, then ventures, “Listen, Doctor. I’m…I’m sorry about the way I’ve been, lately.”
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
She props herself up to look at him properly. “You’re my best friend and I sort of…well, I kept getting so caught up in my stuff with Jimmy that I deserted you a bit, didn’t I?”
“I do have other friends beside you,” John snorts. “I was fine.”
Rose frowns at him. “Still.”
“I missed you, obviously,” he says, unable to remain stoic in the face of her expression, “But I get it - it’s the way it goes, with your first boyfriend or girlfriend, isn’t it? It’s exciting and new and - well, look at what happened with Jack? We didn’t see him for months when he first got together with Ianto.”
“S’pose.” She nibbles on her bottom lip for a moment. “Did, um. Did anything come of your date with Lynda, by the way? You’ve not said.”
“What date?”
She stares at him. “You went to the cinema with her a few months back.”
“Oh, that!” He shakes his head. “No.”
“Oh.” She settles into his embrace again, her head on his chest. “So, anything else going on I need to know about?”
“Hmm?”
“Any gossip I’ve missed?”
“Nah, same old.”
She’s quiet for a little while. Then, “So, if not Lynda, who else?”
“What are you going on about?”
“You just said - just now, you said about how exciting it is, getting a boyfriend or girlfriend for the first time.”
“Are you jealous or something?” He tickles at her ribs and she squirms. “You sound jealous.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Rose says, and he tickles her even harder. “No, no, stop!” she laughs, wriggling around.
“You sound very interested in my love life all of a sudden.”
She finds his hands and pins them either side of his head, stopping his torment, and he lets her. “Just wondered, that’s all.”
He meets her gaze seriously. “I took a girl from the bus bowling one night.”
Rose’s grip on his wrists loosens, but she doesn’t lift off completely. “Oh?”
“I talked too much and she threw her slush puppy at me. The blue one, too! It stained my t-shirt.”
At that, Rose giggles. “What?!”
John shrugs, not wanting to elaborate. She’s not ready to hear that it’s who he talked too much about that caused the problem.
He’s not an idiot - he knows his crush on Rose isn’t as unrequited as he first feared. She’s currently seeing fit to straddle his lap and pin him to his bed, for starters, though he’s aware that she’s probably unaware of the implications of that at this present moment, such has always been their comfort and ease within each other’s personal space.
But there have been looks, and shy smiles, and uncontrollable giggling; nights spent looking up at the stars and planning the travelling they’ll do once he’s done with school and she’s saved up some money from her job at Henriks. Even while she’s been with Jimmy, there have been these…charged moments, between them.
They’ve never mentioned the depth of the connection between them, never ventured to give an explanation for the way in which they’ve been so certain that they’ll end up exploring the world together, and they certainly haven’t voiced their feelings of attraction. He knows, though. He’s heard from Keisha that Rose talks about him when she’s tipsy, not Jimmy. Mickey’s grumbled to him about the fact that Rose doesn’t pay attention to him when John’s around. Even his geography teacher asked him, the other day, if he and Rose enjoyed their summer holidays, despite the fact that Rose left school after her exams had finished and they were no longer going from class to class as an inseparable entity.
“So you haven’t, then,” she murmurs, eyes wide and peering into his curiously.
“I haven’t got a secret girlfriend,” he confirms.
“No, I meant - ” She blushes, and looks down. She seems to notice her position, then, and hastily climbs off him, crossing her legs as she sits beside him. “Do you remember that time at Maccy D’s, when we were all there together, me, you, Jimmy, Shareen and the others?”
He nods.
“And Jimmy said something that implied…” Rose glances around his bedroom, unable to meet his eyes. She clears her throat. “He implied that I wasn’t a virgin anymore.”
John’s heart starts thumping a bit too fast for his comfort. “Um.”
“I really…I really wish…” Her eyes suddenly fill with tears and he sits up, reaching for her hand. Carefully entwining their fingers, he strokes his thumb against hers, waiting for her to speak. She squeezes his hand back, grateful. “I wish I’d never met Jimmy Stone,” she whispers finally.
“Rose, as much of a wanker he is for leaving you - you had some good times, yeah? You can’t blame yourself for wanting…that, with him, when you, um. When you were having fun with one another. Regardless of how it ended.”
She looks at him. “Yeah. But he never - he never saw me, really, never knew me like - ” Breaking off, she shakes her head. “Part of me wanted to…get it out of the way, but I also thought it would be amazing, with an older boy, someone in a band, someone who was gonna be this - this rock star. God. I sound so stupid. And I realised, after, that it wasn’t what I expected.” She blows out a long breath. “What I’d imagined.”
“Well, I’m no expert but I doubt it’s ever that great the first time around.”
“I s’pose not.”
“Come here.” He grabs her into another hug, holding her tight, and she lets out a long, shaky breath.
“You don’t think less of me, do you?” she murmurs.
“Don’t be daft, course I don’t. What, you think I’m prudish or something?”
“No. But…”
“What?”
“Before Jimmy asked me out, I always sort of assumed - it was stupid, but I just sort of thought - ” Rose hesitates, then continues, “- me and you, we’re together all the time, or we were, before I went off with him, and I - but you never - and I thought…”
He kisses the top of her head. “I know.”
She pulls back to watch his reaction. “You do?”
John swallows hard. “I’m not going to kiss you right now.”
“Oh.” There’s a crease between her brows, now, and he kisses her there, contradicting his terms.
“I mean, not properly,” he corrects, sniffing. “’Cos…you’re upset. And, um. You’ve only just - whatever you think about it all being a mistake, Jimmy’s just broken your heart, so. You’re not…”
“Ready,” she whispers.
“Exactly.”
She leans in and presses her lips to his anyway. “You’re probably right, I just wanted to see how that felt,” she murmurs sheepishly, as she pulls away. He can feel his cheeks heating up and he just smiles at her. “It felt good,” she giggles, and he nuzzles his nose against hers because he can’t resist.
He leans back afterwards, though, and puts some space between them. “We’ll do that again sometime but not…” He shakes his head, motioning between them. “Not right now.”
“It’s not that you’d be a rebound, or something,” she tries to explain. “It was…I’ve realised lately that it was always supposed to be you I ended up with, Doctor.” She shrugs a little. “Don’t you reckon?”
John grins. “Well. We’ll be travelling the world together. Bound to be.”
Rose beams back. “So we’re just, what? Pressing pause?”
He nods, itching to be near her again already but knowing it’s not the right time.
“Can I still stay here tonight?” she asks tentatively. “It’s just, Mum’s gonna go mad about Jimmy and I - I can’t really face that, right now.”
“You can stay, but I’m gonna sleep downstairs.” She pouts at him, and he knows she’s angling for him to stay and cuddle her all night, but there’s something…anatomical which is very determinedly gonna make that quite - difficult, so he can’t.
“If we’re gonna end up sharing sometime anyway, why can’t we - ”
“Rose,” he says, giving her a helpless look.
She gives him her most innocent expression. “What?”
He changes tack, and teases her instead. “I’m not as well-versed in these activities as you, I’m not used to sleeping in the same bed as people I fancy.”
“Oi!” she laughs, shoving his shoulder. “I’m not that used to it, either!”
“Whatever you say,” he grins, getting up from the bed. He steals a pillow and pulls the blanket she’s sitting on from underneath her, sending her sprawling over his duvet, hair fanning out across the deep blue fabric. “Blimey,” he murmurs, staring at her for a few seconds.
“Yeah?” She blows a strand of her hair out of her face and stares back at him with those eyes of hers. “What?”
John swallows. “Yeah, definitely sleeping on the sofa. There should be a spare toothbrush in that cupboard somewhere. Help yourself to some pyjamas or pants or whatever.” He takes her in for a couple more moments. Somehow she looks even more gorgeous and tempting than twelve seconds ago. He takes a step backwards. “Night, Rose.”
“You’re going already?” she laughs, as he backs up towards his doorway.
“To be honest, I think I’ll be gone for some time,” he mutters, and Rose’s giggles follow him all the way down the hall.