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thirty2flavorsTitle: Of Costumes, Superheroes and Personal Space
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Ten2/Rose
Genre: Humour, fluff, a few hints of shippiness and decidedly angst-free.
Spoilers?: Through 4x13
Summary: The Doctor has found a kindred spirit (and a Halloween costume); Rose is inclined to disagree.
Excerpt: He wiggled his eyebrows in his aren’t I a genius? way that was typically reserved for things like growing a new TARDIS, building a new sonic screwdriver or figuring out the most efficient way to peel bananas.
“I’ve decided on a Halloween costume,” he told her as he plopped down onto the sofa beside her, close enough that her level of comfort shifted from ‘snugly nestled’ to ‘really quite wedged’. The tiny bubble of personal space they had always maintained on the TARDIS seemed to have popped completely now that they were stuck in one place -- specifically, now that the Doctor had to deal with “ridiculously overzealous human hormones”. While as a general rule she didn’t mind – rather the opposite – she also rather liked the ability to breathe.
She squirmed, and he leaned into her even further.
Git, she thought, without much malice.
She tossed the file she’d been reading (Important Torchwood Business, which of course the Doctor refused to read, only to be indignant later when he violated some Important Torchwood Protocol stated in the aforementioned Important Torchwood Business) onto the coffee table.
“Your… what?”
“Halloween costume!” he repeated proudly, leaning in far closer than was generally appropriate for casual conversation. “The clever disguise I shall don for All Hallow’s Eve.” He pulled back, granting her at least enough room to breathe, and grinned. “Fascinating ritual, Halloween – put on a costume and go begging door-to-door.” A pensive look crossed his face and he scratched his chin. “You lot, you spend so much time telling kids not to take candy from strangers, then once a year you turn around and practically force them to. Well, not force, I don’t suppose the kids mind much -- I mean, free candy, what kid doesn’t love free candy -- but still. Very contradictory message there.”
Rose stared, and temporarily considered what it might be like to be in a relationship with someone who accepted trivial human rituals at face value.
She supposed it’d be a good deal less entertaining, at any rate, albeit less exhausting.
“…Right,” she agreed absently. She wondered for a second what could have brought on such a seemingly odd statement, then realized: “You’ve been talking to Tony.”
The Doctor beamed. “Yep. Clever boy, that Tony Tyler.”
Rose snorted, wriggling her shoulders to carve out more room between the Doctor’s side and the arm of the sofa. “So what’s your great costume, then?”
He wiggled his eyebrows in his aren’t I a genius? way that was typically reserved for things like growing a new TARDIS, building a new sonic screwdriver or figuring out the most efficient way to peel bananas.
“I,” said the Doctor in his (rather practiced) voice of self-importance, “am going to be Superman.”
Rose laughed; the Doctor did not, and that left her with a rather terrifying conclusion.
“Sorry, are you serious?”
“Of course I am!” he proclaimed, apparently unawares of her rather obvious and well-placed skepticism. “Isn’t it brilliant? Got quite a lot in common with Clark Kent.”
Rose stared. Her mind had rather unhelpfully crafted an image of the Doctor flying around in a cape while dodging zeppelins, and she swallowed down the laughter that was threatening to resurface.
“Er… how, exactly?”
He looked at her as though she had just asked if the sky was always such a blue colour. “Everything! Well, not everything – can’t fly, for instance. Not that I want to, really, flying’s overrated. Gets you into all sorts of trouble, there are loads of different intergalactic laws to regulate flying, not to mention all sorts of ones per planet -- it’s practically impossible to keep them all straight, even if you do happen to be very clever, and I am –”
Rose raised her eyebrows, and it seemed to occur to him suddenly that he was supposed to be telling her why he was a kindred spirit of the Man of Steel.
“Anyway,” he continued, “flying is hardly the point. The point is we’re really very alike – planet gone, last of our kind, end up on Earth, save the world a few dozen times, fall in love with a human…” He winked at Rose and she grinned despite herself. “See? Practically the same.”
Admittedly, he had a point. Still, the theory behind it did not make it sound like all that much better of a plan.
“Oh,” was the most reaction she managed. “Well… yeah, there is that, I s’pose.”
The Doctor widened his eyes incredulously. “I believe this is the part where you say why Doctor, you’re absolutely right, that’s such a clever idea, how ever do you manage to be so fantastic?”
Rose snorted. “Think you read the script wrong, then,” she quipped, elbowing him in the ribs. She ran a tongue over her teeth, considering the best way to discourage this latest idea. It was bad enough picturing the Doctor dressed as Superman; she couldn’t imagine spending an entire night seeing it in flesh-and-blood without… well, probably without exploding from the force of her own hysterics.
“It’s just…” She trailed off and he looked at her inquisitively. “… I mean, you don’t really… look like Superman.”
The Doctor shrugged. “It’s not as though he’s got a lot of distinguishing features – glasses, no glasses, that’s pretty much the height of his disguise.” He seemed to consider this. “He doesn’t really try very hard, does he? The citizens of Metropolis must be exceptionally unobservant.”
She was getting the creeping feeling he was going to make this absolutely as hard as it could be. “I just meant that… Superman’s sort of...” She waved one hand uselessly, hoping it might suddenly gift her with tact. “…y’know…”
He gave her a look that told her very plainly that no, he didn’t know.
“Well… built,” she said finally, hunching her shoulders and flexing her arms as she did so.
The Doctor stared at her so blankly that for a second she thought perhaps “built” had been lost somewhere in his vast mental dictionary, so she said, quite helpfully:
“Like Jack.”
The Doctor’s mouth dropped open into possibly the most scandalized expression she’d ever seen him wear, and she wondered if there wasn’t just a little bit of Donna at work.
“Like Jack?” he exclaimed when he had relocated his voice. “Like Jack?” It was practically a squeak.
Rose giggled. The giggle did nothing to quell the indignity he was radiating.
“Rose Tyler! I am wounded! That was rude!”
She didn’t quite manage to hold back her grin. “Yeah, you must be rubbing off on me.”
“Oi!” He pulled back even further, somehow managing to rearrange his features to look even more offended. “First you say I don’t look enough like Jack, now you’re having a go at my personality? Rose Tyler, you are cruel.”
“Sorry,” she managed, still smiling in a way that belied her apology. “It’s not that – I just mean spandex… probably isn’t a good look for you, is all.”
The insulted look left his face long enough for an incredulous one to replace it. “Is spandex really a good look for anyone?”
Rose blinked. It was a fair point. Then she snickered again, and he was back to looking offended.
“Honestly,” he muttered, folding his arms and reminding her far too much of Tony. “I come up with a brilliant costume – you could even be Lois! Lois! – and you shoot me down with the accuracy of an Olympic marksman. And anyway, the entire purpose of Halloween is to look ridiculous, so I hardly see how your criticism is valid.”
She shrugged innocently. “Just warnin’ you, spandex … s’not the most comfortable thing to wear.” Particularly around important government figureheads, she didn’t add; being in the public eye had failed to influence the Doctor’s behavior in the slightest, and she rather doubted he’d make an exception for her father’s Halloween party. “Anyway, Superman’s sort of boring, yeah? I’ve met more interesting aliens.”
His mouth twisted into a decidedly self-satisfied smile. “Have you?”
“Yeah.” She bit her lip, scrunching her face up in consideration. “Well -- Jack counts as sort of an alien, right?”
“Oi!”
She laughed again, leaning her head back against the sofa and grinning sideways at him. She supposed she ought to stop; it was just terribly entertaining to wind him up, and there was something strangely endearing about the fact that he could get worked up over apparent competition an entire universe away.
“Kidding,” she said, prodding him in the side with her finger. “You could be James Bond. I could be your Bond girl.”
He wrinkled his nose. “James Bond? I’m nothing like James Bond. And those girls, they’re--”
“I think you’re missing the point of Halloween, Doctor.”
“He’s licensed to kill, Rose, what sort of license is that? He—”
“Looks dashing in a suit, though,” she interjected, and his smug smile returned.
“Dashing? Really?” He seemed to think about this for a moment. “You know, Martha said something like that once. I was wearing that tux. Bad luck, that tux, always got in trouble in that –”
Regrettably the Doctor was cut off, as Rose -- evidently disinterested in the dangers of tuxedo-wearing -- punctured their bubble of personal space by pressing her lips to his.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Ten2/Rose
Genre: Humour, fluff, a few hints of shippiness and decidedly angst-free.
Spoilers?: Through 4x13
Summary: The Doctor has found a kindred spirit (and a Halloween costume); Rose is inclined to disagree.
Excerpt: He wiggled his eyebrows in his aren’t I a genius? way that was typically reserved for things like growing a new TARDIS, building a new sonic screwdriver or figuring out the most efficient way to peel bananas.
“I’ve decided on a Halloween costume,” he told her as he plopped down onto the sofa beside her, close enough that her level of comfort shifted from ‘snugly nestled’ to ‘really quite wedged’. The tiny bubble of personal space they had always maintained on the TARDIS seemed to have popped completely now that they were stuck in one place -- specifically, now that the Doctor had to deal with “ridiculously overzealous human hormones”. While as a general rule she didn’t mind – rather the opposite – she also rather liked the ability to breathe.
She squirmed, and he leaned into her even further.
Git, she thought, without much malice.
She tossed the file she’d been reading (Important Torchwood Business, which of course the Doctor refused to read, only to be indignant later when he violated some Important Torchwood Protocol stated in the aforementioned Important Torchwood Business) onto the coffee table.
“Your… what?”
“Halloween costume!” he repeated proudly, leaning in far closer than was generally appropriate for casual conversation. “The clever disguise I shall don for All Hallow’s Eve.” He pulled back, granting her at least enough room to breathe, and grinned. “Fascinating ritual, Halloween – put on a costume and go begging door-to-door.” A pensive look crossed his face and he scratched his chin. “You lot, you spend so much time telling kids not to take candy from strangers, then once a year you turn around and practically force them to. Well, not force, I don’t suppose the kids mind much -- I mean, free candy, what kid doesn’t love free candy -- but still. Very contradictory message there.”
Rose stared, and temporarily considered what it might be like to be in a relationship with someone who accepted trivial human rituals at face value.
She supposed it’d be a good deal less entertaining, at any rate, albeit less exhausting.
“…Right,” she agreed absently. She wondered for a second what could have brought on such a seemingly odd statement, then realized: “You’ve been talking to Tony.”
The Doctor beamed. “Yep. Clever boy, that Tony Tyler.”
Rose snorted, wriggling her shoulders to carve out more room between the Doctor’s side and the arm of the sofa. “So what’s your great costume, then?”
He wiggled his eyebrows in his aren’t I a genius? way that was typically reserved for things like growing a new TARDIS, building a new sonic screwdriver or figuring out the most efficient way to peel bananas.
“I,” said the Doctor in his (rather practiced) voice of self-importance, “am going to be Superman.”
Rose laughed; the Doctor did not, and that left her with a rather terrifying conclusion.
“Sorry, are you serious?”
“Of course I am!” he proclaimed, apparently unawares of her rather obvious and well-placed skepticism. “Isn’t it brilliant? Got quite a lot in common with Clark Kent.”
Rose stared. Her mind had rather unhelpfully crafted an image of the Doctor flying around in a cape while dodging zeppelins, and she swallowed down the laughter that was threatening to resurface.
“Er… how, exactly?”
He looked at her as though she had just asked if the sky was always such a blue colour. “Everything! Well, not everything – can’t fly, for instance. Not that I want to, really, flying’s overrated. Gets you into all sorts of trouble, there are loads of different intergalactic laws to regulate flying, not to mention all sorts of ones per planet -- it’s practically impossible to keep them all straight, even if you do happen to be very clever, and I am –”
Rose raised her eyebrows, and it seemed to occur to him suddenly that he was supposed to be telling her why he was a kindred spirit of the Man of Steel.
“Anyway,” he continued, “flying is hardly the point. The point is we’re really very alike – planet gone, last of our kind, end up on Earth, save the world a few dozen times, fall in love with a human…” He winked at Rose and she grinned despite herself. “See? Practically the same.”
Admittedly, he had a point. Still, the theory behind it did not make it sound like all that much better of a plan.
“Oh,” was the most reaction she managed. “Well… yeah, there is that, I s’pose.”
The Doctor widened his eyes incredulously. “I believe this is the part where you say why Doctor, you’re absolutely right, that’s such a clever idea, how ever do you manage to be so fantastic?”
Rose snorted. “Think you read the script wrong, then,” she quipped, elbowing him in the ribs. She ran a tongue over her teeth, considering the best way to discourage this latest idea. It was bad enough picturing the Doctor dressed as Superman; she couldn’t imagine spending an entire night seeing it in flesh-and-blood without… well, probably without exploding from the force of her own hysterics.
“It’s just…” She trailed off and he looked at her inquisitively. “… I mean, you don’t really… look like Superman.”
The Doctor shrugged. “It’s not as though he’s got a lot of distinguishing features – glasses, no glasses, that’s pretty much the height of his disguise.” He seemed to consider this. “He doesn’t really try very hard, does he? The citizens of Metropolis must be exceptionally unobservant.”
She was getting the creeping feeling he was going to make this absolutely as hard as it could be. “I just meant that… Superman’s sort of...” She waved one hand uselessly, hoping it might suddenly gift her with tact. “…y’know…”
He gave her a look that told her very plainly that no, he didn’t know.
“Well… built,” she said finally, hunching her shoulders and flexing her arms as she did so.
The Doctor stared at her so blankly that for a second she thought perhaps “built” had been lost somewhere in his vast mental dictionary, so she said, quite helpfully:
“Like Jack.”
The Doctor’s mouth dropped open into possibly the most scandalized expression she’d ever seen him wear, and she wondered if there wasn’t just a little bit of Donna at work.
“Like Jack?” he exclaimed when he had relocated his voice. “Like Jack?” It was practically a squeak.
Rose giggled. The giggle did nothing to quell the indignity he was radiating.
“Rose Tyler! I am wounded! That was rude!”
She didn’t quite manage to hold back her grin. “Yeah, you must be rubbing off on me.”
“Oi!” He pulled back even further, somehow managing to rearrange his features to look even more offended. “First you say I don’t look enough like Jack, now you’re having a go at my personality? Rose Tyler, you are cruel.”
“Sorry,” she managed, still smiling in a way that belied her apology. “It’s not that – I just mean spandex… probably isn’t a good look for you, is all.”
The insulted look left his face long enough for an incredulous one to replace it. “Is spandex really a good look for anyone?”
Rose blinked. It was a fair point. Then she snickered again, and he was back to looking offended.
“Honestly,” he muttered, folding his arms and reminding her far too much of Tony. “I come up with a brilliant costume – you could even be Lois! Lois! – and you shoot me down with the accuracy of an Olympic marksman. And anyway, the entire purpose of Halloween is to look ridiculous, so I hardly see how your criticism is valid.”
She shrugged innocently. “Just warnin’ you, spandex … s’not the most comfortable thing to wear.” Particularly around important government figureheads, she didn’t add; being in the public eye had failed to influence the Doctor’s behavior in the slightest, and she rather doubted he’d make an exception for her father’s Halloween party. “Anyway, Superman’s sort of boring, yeah? I’ve met more interesting aliens.”
His mouth twisted into a decidedly self-satisfied smile. “Have you?”
“Yeah.” She bit her lip, scrunching her face up in consideration. “Well -- Jack counts as sort of an alien, right?”
“Oi!”
She laughed again, leaning her head back against the sofa and grinning sideways at him. She supposed she ought to stop; it was just terribly entertaining to wind him up, and there was something strangely endearing about the fact that he could get worked up over apparent competition an entire universe away.
“Kidding,” she said, prodding him in the side with her finger. “You could be James Bond. I could be your Bond girl.”
He wrinkled his nose. “James Bond? I’m nothing like James Bond. And those girls, they’re--”
“I think you’re missing the point of Halloween, Doctor.”
“He’s licensed to kill, Rose, what sort of license is that? He—”
“Looks dashing in a suit, though,” she interjected, and his smug smile returned.
“Dashing? Really?” He seemed to think about this for a moment. “You know, Martha said something like that once. I was wearing that tux. Bad luck, that tux, always got in trouble in that –”
Regrettably the Doctor was cut off, as Rose -- evidently disinterested in the dangers of tuxedo-wearing -- punctured their bubble of personal space by pressing her lips to his.
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Date: 2008-09-20 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-09-20 03:18 pm (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2008-09-20 05:50 am (UTC)Yeah. That.
Only now we're friends and if it's possible, it feels even more awkward for me to rave about something you wrote. But I do love this so much. Honestly. (And this is an OTP we share so, you know, even better right?)
Now to do That Thing wherein reviewers copy/paste their favourite parts instead of being eloquent. Although I have already shared this on MSN, I will Do It Again.
“Your… what?”
“Halloween costume!” he repeated proudly, leaning in far closer than was generally appropriate for casual conversation. “The clever disguise I shall don for All Hallow’s Eve.”
I've already told you, but shit, the fact that I can hear Tennant saying this, every little change of emphasis in his voice, makes it even better. You've obviously got his voice - in the other sense of the word, not the voice you hear but... yeah, you get it, you English major you - down pat. And on that note, oh my God, the Doctor would go into a tangent about how Halloween doesn't make sense and why so perfect, Kali?!
... and I don't think I've written a review this long in ages, which is worrying.
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Date: 2008-09-20 03:40 pm (UTC)Thanks man. Like I also said to you in MSN (lirl), the main hesitation I ahd about writing for this fandom -- aside from the fact that writing the Doctor is pretty intimidating because dude is messed up -- was that tying the actors to their characters adds another level of complication, so it's always nice and reassuring when people say they could hear/see/etc Billie/David/Catherine. It requires a lot more of me playing the scene out in my head than like... HP fic does.
Halloween is pretty fucked, if you think about it. Part of the reason I like writing the Doctor -- particularly this one, who gets shackled with all the "stupid human rituals" -- is that it's quite interesting to flip things around and look at them from an outsider perspective and realize that we are dumb creatures, LIRLLL. Which is also why it was always fun to write about purebloods learning Muggle shit.
THANKS MAN.
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Date: 2008-09-20 06:17 am (UTC)Jude
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Date: 2008-09-20 03:25 pm (UTC)James Bond's outfits are much more suave, I'll admit. Spandex really doesn't work for anyone. (Plus I've possibly explained regeneration to people who don't watch the show as 'it's kind of like how James Bond always changes', lol.)
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Date: 2008-09-20 02:35 pm (UTC)...
Tarzan. With the fig leaf and everything.
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Date: 2008-09-20 03:19 pm (UTC)That is probably worse, yeah.
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Date: 2008-09-20 04:13 pm (UTC)That mental image of the clueless but enthusiastic Doctor in a spandex costume hanging all baggy off his skinny frame because they just don't make em that narrow will haunt me all day. Only people who look like this (http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd299/dcon2007/2008/supercoffee.jpg) are allowed to wear spandex in public, and even then only on very rare special occasions.
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Date: 2008-09-20 06:36 pm (UTC)"Clueless but enthusiastic" is a very apt description of the image of the Doctor i had in my mind that demanded I write this, lol. And I have to admit, I'm pretty impressed with that guy's costume. Few people can dress up as Superman without looking like idiots! lol
Thank you!
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Date: 2008-09-20 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-20 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-20 05:39 pm (UTC)I find myself always happy when you post something new. (I don't even read DW fanfiction, apart from yours.).
It's cute and funny, and I laughed a lot picturing those things in my head. Actually, I was laughing enough to get my boyfriend asking around what was it all about. He's very curious -- but I don't think he can manage reading the piece, so, yeah.
... I adored it!
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Date: 2008-09-20 06:38 pm (UTC)And hahaha I'm glad I'm your exception to the rule. I had every intention of never reading/writing Doctor Who fanfiction... but obviously my resolve didn't last.
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Date: 2008-09-21 02:33 pm (UTC)This fangirling shtick is getting ridiculous but it must be said that I absolutely adore your characterisation. It's so spot on and the way you write Rose is stunning, I like how you've made her so mature in her way of handling the Doctor's antics and infused it with just the right amount of humour.
Everything you written fits so well in the Whoniverse. I can't see this particular bit of human domestics working for Ten but for Ten II it's perfect. I get the impression that him being this invested in a costume party must be Donna's influence. ;) Ten II with that dash of Donna makes for situations that are so funny to explore. I'm sure he'll get into situations Ten never would have, just because he doesn't have that bit of Donna in him :D
...or figuring out the most efficient way to peel bananas
Yay bananas! That must be the most important thought running through his mind ;)
she couldn't imagine spending an entire night seeing it in flesh-and-blood without… well, probably without exploding from the force of her own hysterics.
Am I the only one thinking it would just sort of...hang quite awkwardly on his skinny body? :S
I'd never thought of the James Bond/Doctor analogy before but now that I think about it it's so obvious, haha.
Good job!
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Date: 2008-09-22 02:17 am (UTC)Um, I have to admit I love having Donna as an excuse to pull off things like quasi-intentional marriage
proposalssuggestions and Halloween costumes. Thanks, Donna! Plus I mean, the woman brings a hatbox, you know she'd totally be all over Halloween.I don't think you're the only one, no. I had a review elsewhere telling me they were traumatized by the mental image, lollll. It would definitely be hilarious, though, so I tried to balance Rose between the appropriate levels of horror and endless amusement.
The James Bond/Doctor analogy is weirdly appropriate and certainly more appropriate than he evidently cares to admit, haha. Like I said to
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From:our icons match!
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Date: 2008-09-21 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-22 02:08 am (UTC)Thanks!
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Date: 2008-09-21 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-22 02:09 am (UTC)Thanks! =)
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Date: 2008-09-22 02:10 am (UTC)Thanks!
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Date: 2008-09-27 08:04 pm (UTC)Thanks!
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Date: 2009-02-28 07:47 pm (UTC)Thanks!