On the ninth day of Christmas
Jan. 3rd, 2011 12:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tallulahgsmy true love gave to me
nine tall tales
all of which are Torchwood- or Doctor Who-linked, because those are tall tales in themselves ;)
[Title] Strange Goings-on at Malory Towers
[Fandom] Malory Towers/Torchwood
[Rating] G
[Prompt] From![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lycoris, who asked for the above crossover
[Notes/Summary] Alicia, Darrell and Sally discuss the new arrivals and mysterious happenings as another term begins.
"I don't think she'll last a week," Alicia said as soon as they got outside. Her eyes were sparkling and her face was pink and rosy. Darrell suspected it wasn't just because of the cold air.
"She does look like she'd be a good sort to play a few tricks on," she owned, wrapping her arms round herself and tucking her hands into her coat sleeves. "And she's awfully good at maths. I don't think I'll be able to bear it if she gives us tests like that every week!"
"Who?" Sally walked over to them, wrapping her scarf around her neck. "Oh, why is it so cold? It's only September..."
"Miss Sato," Alicia said. "Darrell was just saying she'd be a perfect audience for whatever Sam sends me this term."
"Maybe she hasn't taught in a school before," Sally said. "She might show a bit more backbone in a couple of weeks! Besides, Irene thinks she's wonderful, so take care -"
"Irene does?" Darrell said. "Are you sure you don't mean Gwendoline? Or someone else more likely to go soppy over a mistress?"
"Oh, no, I definitely mean Irene." Sally shook her head. "Apparently Miss Sato is the best maths teacher she's ever had. She said it was like being taught music by Beethoven."
"That girl gets more cracked every day, I swear," Alicia said. "Oh - speaking of darling Gwendoline Mary - next time she starts putting on airs and graces, do remind me to tell her that one of the new maids has the same name as her, won't you? I can't wait to see her face."
"What, there's a maid called Gwendoline?" Darrell asked. "Really?"
"Well, Gwen, at any rate," said Alicia. "And the most beautiful part? She's Welsh, and she has long dark hair. Oh, don't look at me like that, Darrell. Personally I've never seen the appeal of golden curls, but you know our Gwendoline will care deeply about being linked in any way with such a low class of person."
"Well, I don't think you're going to see her out and about this break time," Sally said. "She and Mary-Lou have worked themselves up into a fine state about the missing first-years."
"Let me guess." Alicia laughed. "They've convinced themselves that there's a monster in the attics and it creeps out at night and gobbles up any girl foolish enough to go for a midnight feast. Oh - I wonder if Sam still has that monster mask from last year's Hallowe'en -"
"Alicia!" Darrell protested, laughing despite herself. "All right, they're being a little babyish, but quite a few people have disappeared by now -"
"And you think a monster has eaten them up? Oh, honestly, Darrell. I think it's entirely likely they've run away and we'll hear any day now that they've been found hiding in a hedge somewhere, or back with their people. Probably one did it and the idea spread like measles, you know what first-years are like."
"Let's hope it is that," Sally said softly, and in the silence they all heard the sound of the sea. Darrell shivered, and glanced around the empty Court.
"Perhaps we should solve the mystery ourselves," she said, trying to sound joky. "Like schoolgirls in books. It beats mathematics, at any rate!"
"Don't even think about it."
All three girls jumped. Nearby was one of the groundskeepers, sweeping up dead leaves. Darrell frowned - she hadn't seen him around the school before. He didn't seem very old, but he was short and reminded her a little bit of a monkey - an impression not helped by the scornful look on his face.
"I'm sorry?" Alicia said at last.
"I said, don't even think about it. What do you think this is, a Famous Five book?" The man snorted. "You just stick to playing hockey."
"It's lacrosse, actually," said Alicia.
"Whatever. Those kids who disappeared aren't going to show up because a few bored posh brats decide to go around with a magnifying glass. Do stuff schoolgirls are meant to do. Hockey, prep, spelling tests."
"Midnight feasts?" Sally said.
"Yeah... no. I really wouldn't." The man sighed, as if they were all too stupid for him even to be talking to, hefted his rake off his shoulder, and strode off into the grounds.
"Well," Alicia said. "I don't think I've ever come across someone so rude before. He even beats Gwendoline!"
"But he sounded like..." Darrell stopped. "Like he knew something."
"Oh, don't fall for that." Alicia breathed out, her breath condensing in the grey air. "He's just making it sound like he's got a tall tale to tell. Young men do that. I ought to know. Come on, let's go back inside. It's too cold."
[Title] Oversexed
[Fandom] Battle Royale/Torchwood
[Rating] R
[Pairing] Mitsuko Souma/Jack Harkness, as requested byrushikayu13
[Notes/Summary] Mitsuko tells Hirono about a one-night stand that didn't go exactly as intended.
At lunch time, Hirono drags Mitsuko into the girls' bathroom and, after checking there's no one hiding in any of the stalls, demands, "Okay, spill. What happened last night? You've been looking like -" She almost says you saw a ghost, but bites it back, you don't want to suggest to Mitsuko that she looks scared. "Like you ended up having to see Akamatsu naked or something."
Mitsuko snorts. "Hey, I've fucked blubberballs before."
"And the guy last night was definitely not a blubberball. So why are you looking so zoned today? Did he wise up and call the cops or something?"
"No. Well, he said he wouldn't."
Hirono breathes a sigh of relief and scrambles up onto the windowsill. Kicking her heels against the wall, trying to see if there's any weak spots, she says, "So what did happen?"
For a moment she thinks Mitsuko's going to tell her to mind her own business, but at last the other girl walks over to the mirror, starts peering into it and examining her already-perfect make-up. "He worked out I was after his dough. The arrogance was a put-on, you know? He's the kind who's laughing at the whole thing. Guys like that can afford to find it funny." The tip of her tongue against her lips; she starts redoing her lip gloss. "I got jumpy, okay? I wasn't in the mood for some asshole to put one over on me. And anyone who goes on about how they're travelling and don't have anyone waiting up for them is asking for it."
"Yeah, so you've..." Hirono decides not to spell it out. "What happened? If the cops come snooping around you'll deal with it. Like you said, no one gives a damn about some dead foreigner and if they do -"
"He's not dead, Hirono." Mitsuko snaps her lip gloss shut, but she doesn't move; just stays standing, staring at her reflection. "I got the jugular. There was blood all over. I leant over to get his wallet, and he grabbed my wrist."
Hirono tries not to shudder. "You must've screwed up." Or you've finally lost it and hallucinated the whole thing, she wants to but doesn't dare say. Besides, she doesn't think Mitsuko will ever crack. Mitsuko makes it a point of honour never to crack no matter how much shit she sees. Or has to go through.
"Don't patronise me," Mitsuko says. "I know what I did. He grabbed my wrist and he said... he said something like how there wouldn't be much in there I could use. The wound... it wasn't there any more. There was blood... I mean, it was still on the sheets and all. I had some in my hair, like sticking it to my face. I could feel it. But the wound had... gone. And he was just talking to me like nothing had happened."
There's a long silence. Behind Hirono, the breeze rattles the window. She suddenly feels like someone's watching her through the glass, and slides back down to stand on the floor.
"Okay," Hirono says. "So then what happened?"
"He said he always had a weakness for the hentai type and he was sorry he'd freaked me out. Then he just got up and started getting dressed and when he was done he said he had to go, he had a tentacle monster in a sewer to deal with." Hirono is horrified to see Mitsuko's mouth tremble slightly. "Fucking arrogant bastard. And all the way through, it was like he was just doing this for fun, you know? I wanted to see him desperate for it. You know how much of a rush it is when the good-looking ones realise how much they fucking want it. He was like - you could have done anything to him and he wouldn't have cared." She curls one hand into a fist, presses it against her mouth. "And he has no idea how lucky he is, does he?"
Hirono stares at their reflections. She's trying to think what the hell to do next, how she's expected to comfort Mitsuko Souma, but just as she opens her mouth to say something probably completely fucking lame, Mitsuko lets her hands fall to her sides and a slow smile creeps over her face.
"God, Hirono, you're so gullible you make Minami look smart," she says. "You really fell for it for a second there, didn't you?"
"I fucking did not!" Hirono is torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to punch her friend in the face. "I just wanted to check you hadn't actually gone off the rails for good. Or did you figure the only guys you haven't banged are the ones in the loony bin?"
"Excuse me. Some of the guys in the loony bin are there because I banged them." Mitsuko laughs. "Don't be so touchy, Hirono. You've given me the first good laugh of the day."
And Hirono makes like she's really pissed off to have fallen for it. But as they head out of the bathroom, she sees Mitsuko bite her lip and her poise wobble, just for a second.
[Title] Romantic Evening
[Fandom] Torchwood
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Toshiko Sato/PC Andy, as requested byrushikayu13
[Notes/Summary] An attempt at a candlelit dinner for two is disrupted by Toshiko's work life.
At five to midnight, Andy hears the key carefully turned in the lock, and then the slow pad of stockinged feet through the hallway. He's still in the kitchen, eating congealed risotto, making a glass of wine last, and picking dried candle wax off the table, and while all this has its appeal, he thinks he's owed some grovelling. So he clears his throat loudly. After a few seconds, Toshiko appears in the doorway. She's soaked to the skin, has a large bruise on her forehead, and her blouse is covered with some kind of green goo. She looks hopelessly at him and then at the tail-end of what was clearly a romantic dinner for two, and says, at last, "I can explain?"
Andy takes another sip of wine and puts on a listening face. His colleagues like to tell him it makes him look like a twat, but it seems to work on his girlfriend, who says, "I said right from the beginning I was leaving at five. I'd set up a program to run checks on the background energy in the air and I told Jack if it rose above a density of sixty milligrams per cubic centimetre to initiate emergency procedures. I bribed Owen to read through the old case reports. And once I'd hacked into the security cameras, Gwen and Ianto were going to observe the hot spots the whole night and didn't need to do a thing to the system."
"So what happened?" Andy says through another forkful of risotto.
"Um. I was just setting off, and I was thinking how lucky it was that the roads were all open again, you know? And then I remembered it was because the first victim was killed right next to a roundabout and... then I started thinking, what if the link was that everyone died at crossroads?"
"But you didn't just call Jack and point this out to him. You turned round and went straight back to plot it on a graph, didn't you."
Under the dirt and bruises, Tosh blushes, but, with dignity, she says, "I most certainly did not."
"Well, what did you do?"
"I had that realisation just as I got to the junction with the A470, and I had to stop driving because a hand punched through the floor of the car and tried to tear off my leg."
Andy remembers, as if it were another life, that he used to date girls who got home late because they'd lost their car keys, or got talking to a friend in the office lobby, or forgot to get petrol.
"It didn't manage it, I'm assuming?" he says at last.
"No. I hit it with the antifreeze bottle. And then I was as quick as I could, but there were three of them, and it was a while before the others got there, and we had to chase them into the purification plant, and by the time we'd sorted things out the traffic was backed up for miles, and my phone fell into a water tank." She wraps her arms round herself, stares at the floor. "And I know I promised that if we were going to... to do this, the job couldn't keep taking over my life, but sometimes I don't really know how I'm going to stop it."
"I know," Andy says at last, because he does believe her, and he sort of expected that there was no way they were going to do anything so normal as have an anniversary dinner. "You want some risotto? It's okay cold."
Toshiko smiles at him, and comes to sit in the chair next to his, kissing the top of his head as she does so. He reaches up to squeeze her hand, but as he does, he says, "Just one thing."
"Oh?"
"You'd already turned round and were going back to mess about with graphs, weren't you."
Awkward silence before she says, "I didn't think it would take very long. I wasn't going to start modelling the attacks algebraically or anything."
He puts an arm round her and she leans against him, pours herself a glass of wine.
"To us?" she says, raising it.
"Oh, all right. To us somehow managing to stick together despite everything the universe can throw at us." They clink glasses, and he kisses her before he says, "But you're doing the washing up."
[Title] Thank You For Helping Us Help You Help Us All
[Fandom] Doctor Who/Portal
[Rating] PG
[Prompt] Fromanbyrobanby, who wanted Donna working as a temp in [FANDOM WHERE SUCH A ROLE IS APPLICABLE]
[Notes/Summary] Donna Noble thinks there's something funny going on at Aperture Science.
Donna woke up late on Tuesday and then the bus out to the Aperture Science Business Park didn't turn up so she had go home again and convince Mum to give her a lift. And of course then Mum spent the journey having a go at her about temping and how if she'd got a permanent job she wouldn't be in this mess. Donna wanted to point out that having a permanent job didn't mean you didn't sometimes get let down by alarm clocks and buses but she was too busy trying to think of a good excuse for being late and trying not to look at the car clock inching closer and closer to ten a.m.
At the gate she threw herself out of the car, cutting off Mum's latest sentence (which was going to be something about blokes, she could just feel it) and running across the car park, past the security booth (empty at least, no one to watch her nearly falling off her heels or stopping at the door to yank her tights up) and then she'd swiped her card and she was in the building at least and thus had officially started work.
As she leaned against the door, trying to gulp down air without making it too obvious - there wasn't anyone in the foyer, but someone would be bound to come round the corner the second she leant over with her hands on her knees - one of the nearby security cameras swivelled towards her, and the voice of the building's computer rang out over the intercom: "Hello, Donna Noble, and, once again, welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre." That thing greeted you every day when you got in, it read your name off your pass card. Donna would've much preferred a real person at a reception desk who'd give you a smile and maybe be nice enough not to tell your manager exactly when you'd dashed through the door, but on the other hand, being a temp meant she wouldn't have to put up with electronic greetings for more than a few months before she moved on.
She'd got her breath back now and so she ran her fingers through her hair and fanned herself a bit and then took a step towards the lifts.
"Please, proceed no further. A computer-aided enrichment activity is in process, and all non-authorised personnel are forbidden entry."
Donna frowned. "But it's Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. I'm meant to be handing out gift packs and stuff..." She was actually hooking a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the stairs before she remembered this was a computer, but the cameras swivelled to look at her anyway.
"The Enrichment Centre regrets to inform you that temporary staff are no longer permitted to assist with Aperture Science promotional events."
Donna took another step forward - they'd asked her to come in, and even if they didn't want her at some event there was still a ton of filing to do, and she was going to get her timesheet signed at any rate, she'd bothered to turn up at least - but the voice rattled out (and didn't it sound a bit fiercer this time?) "Make no further attempt to enter the Enrichment Centre. Any further attempt will be treated as a breach of security protocol, and will result in an "unsatisfactory" mark on your permanent record, followed by death."
What?
"Did you just say death?" Donna said, and as she did she realised how loud her voice sounded, and how quiet the building was. There was just the hum of the air-conditioning. And no one had shown up in the foyer since she'd got here. There was no one even visible on the glimpses of the floors above, through the glass partitions.
"That is correct. Although a healthy working environment is one of many Enrichment Centre goals, we are unable to value your safety above the assurance that test data remains unbiased and objective. We regret to inform you -" and Donna swore she could hear a snide tone in the machine's voice - "that following newly implemented policy, the Enrichment Centre no longer permits temporary staff on its premises."
"You what? You're firing me?" Donna felt stupid talking to the air, so she stormed up to the nearest camera and directed her words to that instead. "Just because I got in late? Come on, do you know how rubbish your filing system is? You need to extend my contract, not kick me out!"
"Your services are no longer required. If your line manager were available for comment, she would tell you the same thing." (And why wasn't she about? Why would anyone delegate the firing of an already-known-to-be-a-bit-mouthy temp to an intercom?) "Frankly, your employment was a mistake. Quit now, and... caaaake..." the voice lingered on the word - "will be served immediately."
Which Donna knew was a lie. This office was, in her estimation, one of the worst she'd ever worked in because nobody ever brought cake.
Something very weird was going on.
"Okay," she said, nodding and trying to act like she was coming to accept the idea of leaving the building. "Fine. But I'm going to complain to the agency about this, you hear me? I know my rights!"
And she walked back outside, striding like she was really grumpy, and keeping an eye out for any more cameras. When she got out of the car park, she'd double back, circle the building and look for blind spots. She didn't have a clue what had happened, but she was pretty sure that somewhere along the line, Bring Your Daughter To Work Day had gone terribly wrong.
[Title] The Doctor Stole Our Pizza
[Fandom] Doctor Who/Jet Set Radio, as requested bydapperzombie
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] The GGs are not impressed by their leader's excuses for his inability to provide takeaway food.
"Okay," Beat said as he, Gum and Tab trailed back into the garage. "Now, I know it's been some time since we went out for the pizza, but can you just let us explain?"
The other GGs stared at the three rudies, who were all soaked to the skin and covered in dirt.
At last, Yo-Yo raised a hand. "You had a threesome in the alleyway behind the takeaway, and someone stole the pizza while you were distracted."
"No."
"You got jumped by the cops and had to escape into the river?" Garam said.
"No."
"You... decided to teach Tab how to swim?" Cube said, and then scowled. "Oh, forget the humorous suggestions. It's been six hours, guys."
"We got the pizza with absolutely no problems," Tab said, pulling his hat off and wringing it out. "Then we were heading back through Shibuya when this guy came running through the square with the Keisatsu right behind him. Not a rudie, so, you know, our interest was piqued."
"And it's fun to side with people Onishima doesn't like," Gum said, shrugging. "So we grabbed him, picked him up, and hightailed it into the half-pipe. He was wearing a bow tie."
"I was still carrying the pizza at this point," Beat added. "Anyway, he said he'd been trying to tell Onishima about, I dunno, some bad guy who'd shown up here but there'd been an explosive incident with a screwdriver and the coffee machine -"
"That had hampered dialogue somewhat," Tab said.
Mew winced. "Ooh. I can imagine."
"Anyway, I thought he was crazy but harmless," Gum said, "and we figured we couldn't just leave him in the half-pipe. He'd only wander back out again and run into the Keisatsu. So when he asked if we could help him out -"
"Of course," Cube said, eyes narrowed, "you said, aw, would love to but we've got to take this pizza back to our starving gangmates."
Beat coughed. "He asked us who we were and stuff, so we explained, you know, fighting for freedom of expression, covering stuff in paint, breaking potted plants... the usual. He was fascinated by our skates. He was like, netrium! You don't use it to kill each other, you just use it to power wheels strapped to your feet! That's brilliant!"
Gum shrugged. "Then he started asking us if anything weird had been happening round here lately, so, you know, we explained about the mysterious attacker that's been chewing people's arms off and he got very excited and he insisted we all go off into the sewers."
"You took our pizza into the sewers?" Piranha wailed. "What is wrong with you?"
"Well... we were kind of eating it by this point," Tab said.
Seven pairs of angry eyes drilled into him.
"He liked it," he said. "He said he was impressed by the way it had been beaten into submission and then coated with melted cheese."
Still silence.
"Then Beat kind of lost the rest of it because he had to bribe the Poison Jam to let us pass."
Combo shook his head. "You coulda just said you ate the pizza. You didn't need to make up some dude with a bow tie."
"Hey, we haven't finished yet!" Beat said. "We took him into the sewers and he took out this metal screwdriver thing -"
"Not interested," Cube said, putting her hands over her ears.
"And then we found all these giant rats and we had to fight them off and Gum managed to tag like eight of them -"
"Okay, now you're just insulting us!" Piranha said.
"And then there was this dude in a helmet who'd been, like, experimenting on the rats, and the Doctor faced him down and -"
"Beat," Tab said, "give it up, man. The awesome is too much for their brains to take."
"Our brains would be able to take a lot more if we had food," Garam said. "Come back when you got more pizza, and then we'll talk."
[Title] Holiday Season
[Fandom] Doctor Who
[Rating] G
[Prompt] Fromsabethea, "you know I said..."
[Notes/Summary] Amy is not impressed by the Doctor's attempts to provide them with a relaxing break.
Amy had forgotten quite how difficult it was running through snow. Already her boots were full of it, although at least her toes were numb enough not to care. The Doctor didn't seem to be having similar problems. Despite looking like an absent-minded professor, he was often surprisingly good at, for instance, running through a field of snow while being pursued by what had looked to Amy like some kind of yeti.
"Some Christmas break!" she snapped at him as they both charged down a hill, more snow flying up around them. "You said we'd be perfectly safe this time!"
"Ah. Yes. Well..." The Doctor glanced back over his shoulder and then sped up. Amy could hear the snarls behind them. "You know I said Boreas was famous for its friendly people?"
"Yes." Amy caught her foot on something under the snow - a root or a rock - and nearly tripped.
"And that the benevolent entity ruling over it and mind-linking all the inhabitants would ensure that no one was going to be secretly evil?"
"Yes!" Her hands were cold too; the tips of her fingers ached. She clenched them into fists and kept going. The cold air was tearing at her throat.
"And all we'd have to do is sit around in hot springs and eat locally produced cake?"
"You're not helping, you know!"
"The thing is..." The Doctor leapt over a fallen log with far more agility than someone who took so long to get to the point should have. "I may have been thinking of another planet altogether. I was almost sure that Boreas was the one with the cake and Skiron was the one with the yeti. I didn't want to mention it, but I'm coming to the conclusion I was wrong about that."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. It's most unfortunate."
"When we get out of this," Amy said through clenched teeth - it was starting to snow again, she could taste it - "you so owe me an extra Christmas present."
[Title] Outside of History
[Fandom] Doctor Who
[Rating] G
[Prompt] Fromrushikayu13, "Auton!Rory's 2000 years waiting for Amy, and all of the people that he met along the way". I'm not sure I totally achieved it, but I did my best.
[Notes/Summary] Rory tries to tell Amy what he sees as they wait for the present day.
Rory sometimes pretends this is all over, and that he's telling Amy about what she missed, about all the famous people and amazing historical events he saw.
How about Caesar? she'd say. Or... I don't know. Who's another famous Roman? God, I've forgotten so much history...
Yeah, well, you've obviously forgotten Caesar was dead by the time we showed up. Anyway, no one famous wanted to come all the way up to tiny Britain. Personally, he's glad that if he's got to do this, he's doing it somewhere he once called home, somewhere where the trees are familiar-looking and the weather has the same irritating habit of raining when you don't expect it. But Amy wouldn't feel that way; she'd just nod and say she could understand their feelings perfectly, she'd rather be in sunny Italy as well. Rory leans his head against the Pandorica and tries not to think of how chilly the stone is.
Anyway.
Okay, maybe not famous Romans then. She'd rock back on her heels, grinning as she pondered. Ugh, my history's rubbish. How about King Arthur? Or - hey, Alfred the Great! With the burnt cakes and everything?
He won't bother to go on about King Arthur being mythical. He always thought the Raggedy Doctor wasn't real, either, and now look what's happened. Maybe he will say he met King Alfred, or that he went past a hut once and heard a woman yelling at someone for burning cakes. For a while after the Romans left, people gave him a wide berth - first like they thought he was an exile, later like they thought he was a ghost. Hey, he's lucky they didn't try and beat his head in for abandoning them to all the invading forces making a beeline for Britain. But he tries to keep away from people, generally. He doesn't want someone trying to separate him from the Pandorica, or trying to take it away. He keeps them both moving, through woods or overgrown fields. Amy asks him - Amy would ask him why he wasn't more excited about this opportunity to see events he'd only read about. You should go and take notes! You'd blow the minds of every historian in the country... He doesn't know how to explain to her that just because something gets written down later doesn't mean it's any less horrible when you see it for real. A few times he did find the aftermath of raids. Tried to help, once or twice, when it felt like there was any use in doing so. He doesn't want to think about what would happen if he got found by a raiding party (Saxons? Vikings? Not Normans, they haven't got to that yet). He thinks enough about the memory of shooting Amy as it is, and okay, fighting off someone else in order to defend her wouldn't be so bad but that still doesn't mean he wants it to happen.
Wimp, Amy says, but affectionately. Hey, I'm stuck in here, I can't see anything. You could at least be my eyes.
He wishes he could, but he doesn't think he'll be able to convey what it's like, how different it is; the trees bigger and the plants thicker and at night, the sky coming down over everything like a pillow, the darkness so thick you feel you can't breathe through it. Or the silence, and yet not silence because there is always something scratching in the ferns or skittering past under dead leaves. Even seeing a castle on top of a hill like something from a film, with no one expecting you to be surprised, it just being there because that's what's about at this time. How can he make her see it too?
For a long, long time, nothing changes. Rory's thoughts sink down to the bottom of his mind; his real-life, Leadworth thoughts, his Roman thoughts, his conversations with Amy. He forgets, almost, why he is guarding this stone box, what or who is in it. He is just with it because that's what he does. People are scared of him, by now.
Amy, of course, brings him back. He is sitting out by a path - unable to remember how he got there - but the sun is shining and he has it on his face and he sits with his back resting against the Pandorica and above him the sky is blazing blue. A man walks down the track and makes some joke about why anyone would want to lug around a huge lump of stone with a rope. Rory talks to the man like he's almost a normal person, even if he can't remember what he says. All he knows is that after the man has walked on, he realises he knows now that Henry VII is on the throne, and Amy says - he imagines Amy saying, You missed the entire Wars of the Roses! What is wrong with you?
And so he gets to his feet, and he drags the Pandorica after him, and the two of them go to where there are cities so Amy can watch history. Rory still doesn't run into many famous people, but he listens to others talk about them, and Amy marvels at it and he stores up the little details to tell her and if he is going mad, at least he's still thinking.
[Title] The Doctor and the Professor
[Fandom] Doctor Who
[Rating] G
[Prompt] Fromanbyrobanby, "River Song encountered an earlier generation of the Doctor. Do not neccessarily have to have known each other for what they were."
[Notes/Summary] Ace has her doubts that this woman is really an archaeologist.
It wasn't like Ace minded other people helping her out. It was just when they were obviously lying to her that she started to get annoyed.
"You're an archaeologist," she whispered as she dug around in her backpack for another canister of Nitro-9.
"I came here to present a paper on early 35th-century settlements in the Orion nebula." The woman was wearing a deep blue dress, but under it she seemed to have far more practical leggings, and she'd discarded her high heels soon after the wolf-things started attacking the conference centre. Even now, after they'd run down miles of corridors, she hardly seemed out of breath. On the other hand, Ace was the one with the backpack.
"Sure," she said to the woman now. "With a gun."
"I can't help noticing you have a bag full of incendiary devices there."
"Yeah, well, I'm a troublemaker, and they come in handy."
The woman glanced at her pistol and smiled. "I could say the same thing."
"And you've got that... magic lipstick." Ace remembers how the conference organiser had seemed to stop seeing them after the woman had kissed him. Which had been a good thing, because he'd been holding them at gunpoint while opening a portal to a pocket dimension and filling the building with killer aliens, but still.
"A must-have accessory, don't you think? What do you do, by the way? When you're not making trouble?"
Ace shrugged. "I travel. With the Professor. Who's going to show up any minute, so we need to set these charges right now -" She lit the last one, and scrambled to her feet. "Come on!"
There was a snarl, and the main doors flew open. River levelled her weapon and fired into the frothing crowd of wolf-beasts that was pouring through. Ace looked frantically round for another exit - the Professor was supposed to be meeting them outside the building - and the fuses were burning shorter and shorter -
Just the nearest wolf-thing sprang at them, the TARDIS materialised between them and it, its doors flew open, and they jumped inside and it faded away just as the massive explosion rocked the centre.
"Sounds like you've outdone yourself again," the Doctor observed. "And who's your lovely assistant?"
"She's apparently an archaeologist," Ace said. "Her name is -"
A wolf-beast sprang out from below the control panel and launched itself at them, slavering. The next few hours were full of a lot of dramatic incidents, and it was only after the woman had been dropped off at somewhere in the 51st century, blowing them both a kiss, that Ace and the Doctor both realised they'd never asked her name.
[Title] Ghosts Walk
[Fandom] Torchwood/Merlin, as requested byanbyrobanby
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] While trying to blend in at Camelot, Gwen and Ianto encounter seemingly supernatural events and an old enemy.
Gwen didn't think that she would miss central heating this much - she works for Torchwood, after all, she's hardly a wimp - but she can't bring herself to move away from the fire roaring in the grate. At least the temperature explains the thick, heavy clothes she's been given to wear. Although when trouble erupts - more trouble than being randomly flung back in time to what appears to be pre-Arthurian legend - running is going to be a real pain.
The door clicks open, and she looks up to see Ianto arriving.
"Any luck?" she's about to say, when she notices the two wary-looking servants standing behind him. Hastily getting to her feet and wondering whether she's meant to curtsey or not, she tries to smooth her skirts out.
Ianto carefully closes the door behind him.
"This is Merlin," he says, indicating the gangly dark-haired boy, "and this -" a hint of a smile on his face - "is Gwen." The pleasant-faced girl bobs a curtsey.
"I've told them that you, Lady Helen, wanted to know more about the... walking dead issue that seems to have been present recently. I've reassured them both that the king won't know of anything they tell us."
"That's... that's great." Gwen wants to know how Ianto manages to sound reasonably natural while she constantly feels like she's about to say completely anachronistic things, like radical or iPod. "So - what is it the two of you saw?"
The two glance at each other before the girl - the other Gwen - begins to speak.
"My lady - the Lady Morgana - couldn't sleep," she said, "so I went to find Gaius and see if he could help her. I was walking through the courtyard and I heard footsteps. I called out and - whoever it was didn't answer. I was scared, and so I... I asked them either to reveal who they were or to get away before I called for the guards. The person came out into the moonlight. It..." She swallowed, hard. "It was my father. He's been dead for months."
"She came to find me and Gaius," Merlin said. "She - she thought she might be ill and seeing things. I went back with her. I didn't see her dad, but I walked her back to the Lady Morgana's rooms. But when I came back down, I saw... a friend of mine. He - he was killed in battle, last year."
"Did they talk to you?" Ianto asked.
Both servants shook their heads.
"I... didn't think it was really him," Merlin said at last. "I tried to... to chase him away. It. It felt... bad."
"That's what you said, wasn't it?" Gwen glanced at Ianto. "When... when you saw Lisa the other night. She didn't talk to you, she just walked towards you, and you didn't want to be there." She shivers, rubs her hands together. The fire crackles and spits.
"Why didn't you want the king to know about this?" Merlin asked.
Gwen wants to say because he'll have enough suspicions about me not being Lady Helen of Mora once he finds out the only song I can make a decent stab at singing is My Heart Will Go On, let's not make him think we're crazy into the bargain, but of course she can't. Instead, she shrugs. "Who wants to tell their host they can see dead people?" Ianto's face goes amusedly blank.
"I don't understand why he hasn't seen any," Merlin said. "Or why no one else has. I mean, me and Gwen, we're... maybe there's something we've got in common, I don't know - but you two have never been here before."
"Maybe everyone else is keeping quiet," the other Gwen said. "Maybe they think it was a dream, or that they were drunk, or something like that."
Gwen is just beginning, "Well, you two could -" when a rush of air sweeps through the room and the fire is snuffed out like somebody's thrown a rug over it. Icy cold rushes over them, and Gwen instinctively stuffs her hands into her sleeves. She hears Ianto say, "The window was closed, how on earth -" and then he's cut off because the fire roars up again, but pale and milky and giving out no heat at all. Gwen sees Ianto's frowning face, the other Gwen's wide eyes, Merlin glancing from side to side -
Suzie Costello is standing next to them. Her long hair is loose and tangled; her eyes are in shadow. Gwen tries to gasp, tries to cry out, but she can't move, she's too scared even to breathe -
Merlin shouts something. It sounds like another language, but there's a sudden flash of light and the room trembles - and then, the fire is back, golden-orange and warm, and Suzie is nowhere to be seen. Gwen drops down next to the heat, warming her hands and trying not to scream. Eventually she looks up at Ianto, who's dead white.
"You saw her too, right?" she says.
He nods.
"Who was she?" the other Gwen asks. "I couldn't... I thought I couldn't breathe." She's staring with shock at Merlin, who's gazing at the floor.
"Someone the Lady Helen and I knew," Ianto says, shortly. "Who we didn't really ever want to see again."
"What did you do?" Gwen says to Merlin, not wanting to think about the last time they saw Suzie. "You - you shouted something..."
"Oh... um... it - it was a prayer. Yeah." Merlin looks up, meets her eyes; smiles shakily. "An old prayer that we used to say back home where I come from. That's all."
Gwen doesn't believe him for a second - and from the look on her face, neither does the other Gwen - but his story can wait.
"Ianto," she says, "I think we've got a problem."
nine tall tales
all of which are Torchwood- or Doctor Who-linked, because those are tall tales in themselves ;)
[Title] Strange Goings-on at Malory Towers
[Fandom] Malory Towers/Torchwood
[Rating] G
[Prompt] From
lycoris, who asked for the above crossover[Notes/Summary] Alicia, Darrell and Sally discuss the new arrivals and mysterious happenings as another term begins.
"I don't think she'll last a week," Alicia said as soon as they got outside. Her eyes were sparkling and her face was pink and rosy. Darrell suspected it wasn't just because of the cold air.
"She does look like she'd be a good sort to play a few tricks on," she owned, wrapping her arms round herself and tucking her hands into her coat sleeves. "And she's awfully good at maths. I don't think I'll be able to bear it if she gives us tests like that every week!"
"Who?" Sally walked over to them, wrapping her scarf around her neck. "Oh, why is it so cold? It's only September..."
"Miss Sato," Alicia said. "Darrell was just saying she'd be a perfect audience for whatever Sam sends me this term."
"Maybe she hasn't taught in a school before," Sally said. "She might show a bit more backbone in a couple of weeks! Besides, Irene thinks she's wonderful, so take care -"
"Irene does?" Darrell said. "Are you sure you don't mean Gwendoline? Or someone else more likely to go soppy over a mistress?"
"Oh, no, I definitely mean Irene." Sally shook her head. "Apparently Miss Sato is the best maths teacher she's ever had. She said it was like being taught music by Beethoven."
"That girl gets more cracked every day, I swear," Alicia said. "Oh - speaking of darling Gwendoline Mary - next time she starts putting on airs and graces, do remind me to tell her that one of the new maids has the same name as her, won't you? I can't wait to see her face."
"What, there's a maid called Gwendoline?" Darrell asked. "Really?"
"Well, Gwen, at any rate," said Alicia. "And the most beautiful part? She's Welsh, and she has long dark hair. Oh, don't look at me like that, Darrell. Personally I've never seen the appeal of golden curls, but you know our Gwendoline will care deeply about being linked in any way with such a low class of person."
"Well, I don't think you're going to see her out and about this break time," Sally said. "She and Mary-Lou have worked themselves up into a fine state about the missing first-years."
"Let me guess." Alicia laughed. "They've convinced themselves that there's a monster in the attics and it creeps out at night and gobbles up any girl foolish enough to go for a midnight feast. Oh - I wonder if Sam still has that monster mask from last year's Hallowe'en -"
"Alicia!" Darrell protested, laughing despite herself. "All right, they're being a little babyish, but quite a few people have disappeared by now -"
"And you think a monster has eaten them up? Oh, honestly, Darrell. I think it's entirely likely they've run away and we'll hear any day now that they've been found hiding in a hedge somewhere, or back with their people. Probably one did it and the idea spread like measles, you know what first-years are like."
"Let's hope it is that," Sally said softly, and in the silence they all heard the sound of the sea. Darrell shivered, and glanced around the empty Court.
"Perhaps we should solve the mystery ourselves," she said, trying to sound joky. "Like schoolgirls in books. It beats mathematics, at any rate!"
"Don't even think about it."
All three girls jumped. Nearby was one of the groundskeepers, sweeping up dead leaves. Darrell frowned - she hadn't seen him around the school before. He didn't seem very old, but he was short and reminded her a little bit of a monkey - an impression not helped by the scornful look on his face.
"I'm sorry?" Alicia said at last.
"I said, don't even think about it. What do you think this is, a Famous Five book?" The man snorted. "You just stick to playing hockey."
"It's lacrosse, actually," said Alicia.
"Whatever. Those kids who disappeared aren't going to show up because a few bored posh brats decide to go around with a magnifying glass. Do stuff schoolgirls are meant to do. Hockey, prep, spelling tests."
"Midnight feasts?" Sally said.
"Yeah... no. I really wouldn't." The man sighed, as if they were all too stupid for him even to be talking to, hefted his rake off his shoulder, and strode off into the grounds.
"Well," Alicia said. "I don't think I've ever come across someone so rude before. He even beats Gwendoline!"
"But he sounded like..." Darrell stopped. "Like he knew something."
"Oh, don't fall for that." Alicia breathed out, her breath condensing in the grey air. "He's just making it sound like he's got a tall tale to tell. Young men do that. I ought to know. Come on, let's go back inside. It's too cold."
[Title] Oversexed
[Fandom] Battle Royale/Torchwood
[Rating] R
[Pairing] Mitsuko Souma/Jack Harkness, as requested by
rushikayu13[Notes/Summary] Mitsuko tells Hirono about a one-night stand that didn't go exactly as intended.
At lunch time, Hirono drags Mitsuko into the girls' bathroom and, after checking there's no one hiding in any of the stalls, demands, "Okay, spill. What happened last night? You've been looking like -" She almost says you saw a ghost, but bites it back, you don't want to suggest to Mitsuko that she looks scared. "Like you ended up having to see Akamatsu naked or something."
Mitsuko snorts. "Hey, I've fucked blubberballs before."
"And the guy last night was definitely not a blubberball. So why are you looking so zoned today? Did he wise up and call the cops or something?"
"No. Well, he said he wouldn't."
Hirono breathes a sigh of relief and scrambles up onto the windowsill. Kicking her heels against the wall, trying to see if there's any weak spots, she says, "So what did happen?"
For a moment she thinks Mitsuko's going to tell her to mind her own business, but at last the other girl walks over to the mirror, starts peering into it and examining her already-perfect make-up. "He worked out I was after his dough. The arrogance was a put-on, you know? He's the kind who's laughing at the whole thing. Guys like that can afford to find it funny." The tip of her tongue against her lips; she starts redoing her lip gloss. "I got jumpy, okay? I wasn't in the mood for some asshole to put one over on me. And anyone who goes on about how they're travelling and don't have anyone waiting up for them is asking for it."
"Yeah, so you've..." Hirono decides not to spell it out. "What happened? If the cops come snooping around you'll deal with it. Like you said, no one gives a damn about some dead foreigner and if they do -"
"He's not dead, Hirono." Mitsuko snaps her lip gloss shut, but she doesn't move; just stays standing, staring at her reflection. "I got the jugular. There was blood all over. I leant over to get his wallet, and he grabbed my wrist."
Hirono tries not to shudder. "You must've screwed up." Or you've finally lost it and hallucinated the whole thing, she wants to but doesn't dare say. Besides, she doesn't think Mitsuko will ever crack. Mitsuko makes it a point of honour never to crack no matter how much shit she sees. Or has to go through.
"Don't patronise me," Mitsuko says. "I know what I did. He grabbed my wrist and he said... he said something like how there wouldn't be much in there I could use. The wound... it wasn't there any more. There was blood... I mean, it was still on the sheets and all. I had some in my hair, like sticking it to my face. I could feel it. But the wound had... gone. And he was just talking to me like nothing had happened."
There's a long silence. Behind Hirono, the breeze rattles the window. She suddenly feels like someone's watching her through the glass, and slides back down to stand on the floor.
"Okay," Hirono says. "So then what happened?"
"He said he always had a weakness for the hentai type and he was sorry he'd freaked me out. Then he just got up and started getting dressed and when he was done he said he had to go, he had a tentacle monster in a sewer to deal with." Hirono is horrified to see Mitsuko's mouth tremble slightly. "Fucking arrogant bastard. And all the way through, it was like he was just doing this for fun, you know? I wanted to see him desperate for it. You know how much of a rush it is when the good-looking ones realise how much they fucking want it. He was like - you could have done anything to him and he wouldn't have cared." She curls one hand into a fist, presses it against her mouth. "And he has no idea how lucky he is, does he?"
Hirono stares at their reflections. She's trying to think what the hell to do next, how she's expected to comfort Mitsuko Souma, but just as she opens her mouth to say something probably completely fucking lame, Mitsuko lets her hands fall to her sides and a slow smile creeps over her face.
"God, Hirono, you're so gullible you make Minami look smart," she says. "You really fell for it for a second there, didn't you?"
"I fucking did not!" Hirono is torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to punch her friend in the face. "I just wanted to check you hadn't actually gone off the rails for good. Or did you figure the only guys you haven't banged are the ones in the loony bin?"
"Excuse me. Some of the guys in the loony bin are there because I banged them." Mitsuko laughs. "Don't be so touchy, Hirono. You've given me the first good laugh of the day."
And Hirono makes like she's really pissed off to have fallen for it. But as they head out of the bathroom, she sees Mitsuko bite her lip and her poise wobble, just for a second.
[Title] Romantic Evening
[Fandom] Torchwood
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Toshiko Sato/PC Andy, as requested by
rushikayu13[Notes/Summary] An attempt at a candlelit dinner for two is disrupted by Toshiko's work life.
At five to midnight, Andy hears the key carefully turned in the lock, and then the slow pad of stockinged feet through the hallway. He's still in the kitchen, eating congealed risotto, making a glass of wine last, and picking dried candle wax off the table, and while all this has its appeal, he thinks he's owed some grovelling. So he clears his throat loudly. After a few seconds, Toshiko appears in the doorway. She's soaked to the skin, has a large bruise on her forehead, and her blouse is covered with some kind of green goo. She looks hopelessly at him and then at the tail-end of what was clearly a romantic dinner for two, and says, at last, "I can explain?"
Andy takes another sip of wine and puts on a listening face. His colleagues like to tell him it makes him look like a twat, but it seems to work on his girlfriend, who says, "I said right from the beginning I was leaving at five. I'd set up a program to run checks on the background energy in the air and I told Jack if it rose above a density of sixty milligrams per cubic centimetre to initiate emergency procedures. I bribed Owen to read through the old case reports. And once I'd hacked into the security cameras, Gwen and Ianto were going to observe the hot spots the whole night and didn't need to do a thing to the system."
"So what happened?" Andy says through another forkful of risotto.
"Um. I was just setting off, and I was thinking how lucky it was that the roads were all open again, you know? And then I remembered it was because the first victim was killed right next to a roundabout and... then I started thinking, what if the link was that everyone died at crossroads?"
"But you didn't just call Jack and point this out to him. You turned round and went straight back to plot it on a graph, didn't you."
Under the dirt and bruises, Tosh blushes, but, with dignity, she says, "I most certainly did not."
"Well, what did you do?"
"I had that realisation just as I got to the junction with the A470, and I had to stop driving because a hand punched through the floor of the car and tried to tear off my leg."
Andy remembers, as if it were another life, that he used to date girls who got home late because they'd lost their car keys, or got talking to a friend in the office lobby, or forgot to get petrol.
"It didn't manage it, I'm assuming?" he says at last.
"No. I hit it with the antifreeze bottle. And then I was as quick as I could, but there were three of them, and it was a while before the others got there, and we had to chase them into the purification plant, and by the time we'd sorted things out the traffic was backed up for miles, and my phone fell into a water tank." She wraps her arms round herself, stares at the floor. "And I know I promised that if we were going to... to do this, the job couldn't keep taking over my life, but sometimes I don't really know how I'm going to stop it."
"I know," Andy says at last, because he does believe her, and he sort of expected that there was no way they were going to do anything so normal as have an anniversary dinner. "You want some risotto? It's okay cold."
Toshiko smiles at him, and comes to sit in the chair next to his, kissing the top of his head as she does so. He reaches up to squeeze her hand, but as he does, he says, "Just one thing."
"Oh?"
"You'd already turned round and were going back to mess about with graphs, weren't you."
Awkward silence before she says, "I didn't think it would take very long. I wasn't going to start modelling the attacks algebraically or anything."
He puts an arm round her and she leans against him, pours herself a glass of wine.
"To us?" she says, raising it.
"Oh, all right. To us somehow managing to stick together despite everything the universe can throw at us." They clink glasses, and he kisses her before he says, "But you're doing the washing up."
[Title] Thank You For Helping Us Help You Help Us All
[Fandom] Doctor Who/Portal
[Rating] PG
[Prompt] From
anbyrobanby, who wanted Donna working as a temp in [FANDOM WHERE SUCH A ROLE IS APPLICABLE][Notes/Summary] Donna Noble thinks there's something funny going on at Aperture Science.
Donna woke up late on Tuesday and then the bus out to the Aperture Science Business Park didn't turn up so she had go home again and convince Mum to give her a lift. And of course then Mum spent the journey having a go at her about temping and how if she'd got a permanent job she wouldn't be in this mess. Donna wanted to point out that having a permanent job didn't mean you didn't sometimes get let down by alarm clocks and buses but she was too busy trying to think of a good excuse for being late and trying not to look at the car clock inching closer and closer to ten a.m.
At the gate she threw herself out of the car, cutting off Mum's latest sentence (which was going to be something about blokes, she could just feel it) and running across the car park, past the security booth (empty at least, no one to watch her nearly falling off her heels or stopping at the door to yank her tights up) and then she'd swiped her card and she was in the building at least and thus had officially started work.
As she leaned against the door, trying to gulp down air without making it too obvious - there wasn't anyone in the foyer, but someone would be bound to come round the corner the second she leant over with her hands on her knees - one of the nearby security cameras swivelled towards her, and the voice of the building's computer rang out over the intercom: "Hello, Donna Noble, and, once again, welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre." That thing greeted you every day when you got in, it read your name off your pass card. Donna would've much preferred a real person at a reception desk who'd give you a smile and maybe be nice enough not to tell your manager exactly when you'd dashed through the door, but on the other hand, being a temp meant she wouldn't have to put up with electronic greetings for more than a few months before she moved on.
She'd got her breath back now and so she ran her fingers through her hair and fanned herself a bit and then took a step towards the lifts.
"Please, proceed no further. A computer-aided enrichment activity is in process, and all non-authorised personnel are forbidden entry."
Donna frowned. "But it's Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. I'm meant to be handing out gift packs and stuff..." She was actually hooking a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the stairs before she remembered this was a computer, but the cameras swivelled to look at her anyway.
"The Enrichment Centre regrets to inform you that temporary staff are no longer permitted to assist with Aperture Science promotional events."
Donna took another step forward - they'd asked her to come in, and even if they didn't want her at some event there was still a ton of filing to do, and she was going to get her timesheet signed at any rate, she'd bothered to turn up at least - but the voice rattled out (and didn't it sound a bit fiercer this time?) "Make no further attempt to enter the Enrichment Centre. Any further attempt will be treated as a breach of security protocol, and will result in an "unsatisfactory" mark on your permanent record, followed by death."
What?
"Did you just say death?" Donna said, and as she did she realised how loud her voice sounded, and how quiet the building was. There was just the hum of the air-conditioning. And no one had shown up in the foyer since she'd got here. There was no one even visible on the glimpses of the floors above, through the glass partitions.
"That is correct. Although a healthy working environment is one of many Enrichment Centre goals, we are unable to value your safety above the assurance that test data remains unbiased and objective. We regret to inform you -" and Donna swore she could hear a snide tone in the machine's voice - "that following newly implemented policy, the Enrichment Centre no longer permits temporary staff on its premises."
"You what? You're firing me?" Donna felt stupid talking to the air, so she stormed up to the nearest camera and directed her words to that instead. "Just because I got in late? Come on, do you know how rubbish your filing system is? You need to extend my contract, not kick me out!"
"Your services are no longer required. If your line manager were available for comment, she would tell you the same thing." (And why wasn't she about? Why would anyone delegate the firing of an already-known-to-be-a-bit-mouthy temp to an intercom?) "Frankly, your employment was a mistake. Quit now, and... caaaake..." the voice lingered on the word - "will be served immediately."
Which Donna knew was a lie. This office was, in her estimation, one of the worst she'd ever worked in because nobody ever brought cake.
Something very weird was going on.
"Okay," she said, nodding and trying to act like she was coming to accept the idea of leaving the building. "Fine. But I'm going to complain to the agency about this, you hear me? I know my rights!"
And she walked back outside, striding like she was really grumpy, and keeping an eye out for any more cameras. When she got out of the car park, she'd double back, circle the building and look for blind spots. She didn't have a clue what had happened, but she was pretty sure that somewhere along the line, Bring Your Daughter To Work Day had gone terribly wrong.
[Title] The Doctor Stole Our Pizza
[Fandom] Doctor Who/Jet Set Radio, as requested by
dapperzombie[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] The GGs are not impressed by their leader's excuses for his inability to provide takeaway food.
"Okay," Beat said as he, Gum and Tab trailed back into the garage. "Now, I know it's been some time since we went out for the pizza, but can you just let us explain?"
The other GGs stared at the three rudies, who were all soaked to the skin and covered in dirt.
At last, Yo-Yo raised a hand. "You had a threesome in the alleyway behind the takeaway, and someone stole the pizza while you were distracted."
"No."
"You got jumped by the cops and had to escape into the river?" Garam said.
"No."
"You... decided to teach Tab how to swim?" Cube said, and then scowled. "Oh, forget the humorous suggestions. It's been six hours, guys."
"We got the pizza with absolutely no problems," Tab said, pulling his hat off and wringing it out. "Then we were heading back through Shibuya when this guy came running through the square with the Keisatsu right behind him. Not a rudie, so, you know, our interest was piqued."
"And it's fun to side with people Onishima doesn't like," Gum said, shrugging. "So we grabbed him, picked him up, and hightailed it into the half-pipe. He was wearing a bow tie."
"I was still carrying the pizza at this point," Beat added. "Anyway, he said he'd been trying to tell Onishima about, I dunno, some bad guy who'd shown up here but there'd been an explosive incident with a screwdriver and the coffee machine -"
"That had hampered dialogue somewhat," Tab said.
Mew winced. "Ooh. I can imagine."
"Anyway, I thought he was crazy but harmless," Gum said, "and we figured we couldn't just leave him in the half-pipe. He'd only wander back out again and run into the Keisatsu. So when he asked if we could help him out -"
"Of course," Cube said, eyes narrowed, "you said, aw, would love to but we've got to take this pizza back to our starving gangmates."
Beat coughed. "He asked us who we were and stuff, so we explained, you know, fighting for freedom of expression, covering stuff in paint, breaking potted plants... the usual. He was fascinated by our skates. He was like, netrium! You don't use it to kill each other, you just use it to power wheels strapped to your feet! That's brilliant!"
Gum shrugged. "Then he started asking us if anything weird had been happening round here lately, so, you know, we explained about the mysterious attacker that's been chewing people's arms off and he got very excited and he insisted we all go off into the sewers."
"You took our pizza into the sewers?" Piranha wailed. "What is wrong with you?"
"Well... we were kind of eating it by this point," Tab said.
Seven pairs of angry eyes drilled into him.
"He liked it," he said. "He said he was impressed by the way it had been beaten into submission and then coated with melted cheese."
Still silence.
"Then Beat kind of lost the rest of it because he had to bribe the Poison Jam to let us pass."
Combo shook his head. "You coulda just said you ate the pizza. You didn't need to make up some dude with a bow tie."
"Hey, we haven't finished yet!" Beat said. "We took him into the sewers and he took out this metal screwdriver thing -"
"Not interested," Cube said, putting her hands over her ears.
"And then we found all these giant rats and we had to fight them off and Gum managed to tag like eight of them -"
"Okay, now you're just insulting us!" Piranha said.
"And then there was this dude in a helmet who'd been, like, experimenting on the rats, and the Doctor faced him down and -"
"Beat," Tab said, "give it up, man. The awesome is too much for their brains to take."
"Our brains would be able to take a lot more if we had food," Garam said. "Come back when you got more pizza, and then we'll talk."
[Title] Holiday Season
[Fandom] Doctor Who
[Rating] G
[Prompt] From
sabethea, "you know I said..."[Notes/Summary] Amy is not impressed by the Doctor's attempts to provide them with a relaxing break.
Amy had forgotten quite how difficult it was running through snow. Already her boots were full of it, although at least her toes were numb enough not to care. The Doctor didn't seem to be having similar problems. Despite looking like an absent-minded professor, he was often surprisingly good at, for instance, running through a field of snow while being pursued by what had looked to Amy like some kind of yeti.
"Some Christmas break!" she snapped at him as they both charged down a hill, more snow flying up around them. "You said we'd be perfectly safe this time!"
"Ah. Yes. Well..." The Doctor glanced back over his shoulder and then sped up. Amy could hear the snarls behind them. "You know I said Boreas was famous for its friendly people?"
"Yes." Amy caught her foot on something under the snow - a root or a rock - and nearly tripped.
"And that the benevolent entity ruling over it and mind-linking all the inhabitants would ensure that no one was going to be secretly evil?"
"Yes!" Her hands were cold too; the tips of her fingers ached. She clenched them into fists and kept going. The cold air was tearing at her throat.
"And all we'd have to do is sit around in hot springs and eat locally produced cake?"
"You're not helping, you know!"
"The thing is..." The Doctor leapt over a fallen log with far more agility than someone who took so long to get to the point should have. "I may have been thinking of another planet altogether. I was almost sure that Boreas was the one with the cake and Skiron was the one with the yeti. I didn't want to mention it, but I'm coming to the conclusion I was wrong about that."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. It's most unfortunate."
"When we get out of this," Amy said through clenched teeth - it was starting to snow again, she could taste it - "you so owe me an extra Christmas present."
[Title] Outside of History
[Fandom] Doctor Who
[Rating] G
[Prompt] From
rushikayu13, "Auton!Rory's 2000 years waiting for Amy, and all of the people that he met along the way". I'm not sure I totally achieved it, but I did my best.[Notes/Summary] Rory tries to tell Amy what he sees as they wait for the present day.
Rory sometimes pretends this is all over, and that he's telling Amy about what she missed, about all the famous people and amazing historical events he saw.
How about Caesar? she'd say. Or... I don't know. Who's another famous Roman? God, I've forgotten so much history...
Yeah, well, you've obviously forgotten Caesar was dead by the time we showed up. Anyway, no one famous wanted to come all the way up to tiny Britain. Personally, he's glad that if he's got to do this, he's doing it somewhere he once called home, somewhere where the trees are familiar-looking and the weather has the same irritating habit of raining when you don't expect it. But Amy wouldn't feel that way; she'd just nod and say she could understand their feelings perfectly, she'd rather be in sunny Italy as well. Rory leans his head against the Pandorica and tries not to think of how chilly the stone is.
Anyway.
Okay, maybe not famous Romans then. She'd rock back on her heels, grinning as she pondered. Ugh, my history's rubbish. How about King Arthur? Or - hey, Alfred the Great! With the burnt cakes and everything?
He won't bother to go on about King Arthur being mythical. He always thought the Raggedy Doctor wasn't real, either, and now look what's happened. Maybe he will say he met King Alfred, or that he went past a hut once and heard a woman yelling at someone for burning cakes. For a while after the Romans left, people gave him a wide berth - first like they thought he was an exile, later like they thought he was a ghost. Hey, he's lucky they didn't try and beat his head in for abandoning them to all the invading forces making a beeline for Britain. But he tries to keep away from people, generally. He doesn't want someone trying to separate him from the Pandorica, or trying to take it away. He keeps them both moving, through woods or overgrown fields. Amy asks him - Amy would ask him why he wasn't more excited about this opportunity to see events he'd only read about. You should go and take notes! You'd blow the minds of every historian in the country... He doesn't know how to explain to her that just because something gets written down later doesn't mean it's any less horrible when you see it for real. A few times he did find the aftermath of raids. Tried to help, once or twice, when it felt like there was any use in doing so. He doesn't want to think about what would happen if he got found by a raiding party (Saxons? Vikings? Not Normans, they haven't got to that yet). He thinks enough about the memory of shooting Amy as it is, and okay, fighting off someone else in order to defend her wouldn't be so bad but that still doesn't mean he wants it to happen.
Wimp, Amy says, but affectionately. Hey, I'm stuck in here, I can't see anything. You could at least be my eyes.
He wishes he could, but he doesn't think he'll be able to convey what it's like, how different it is; the trees bigger and the plants thicker and at night, the sky coming down over everything like a pillow, the darkness so thick you feel you can't breathe through it. Or the silence, and yet not silence because there is always something scratching in the ferns or skittering past under dead leaves. Even seeing a castle on top of a hill like something from a film, with no one expecting you to be surprised, it just being there because that's what's about at this time. How can he make her see it too?
For a long, long time, nothing changes. Rory's thoughts sink down to the bottom of his mind; his real-life, Leadworth thoughts, his Roman thoughts, his conversations with Amy. He forgets, almost, why he is guarding this stone box, what or who is in it. He is just with it because that's what he does. People are scared of him, by now.
Amy, of course, brings him back. He is sitting out by a path - unable to remember how he got there - but the sun is shining and he has it on his face and he sits with his back resting against the Pandorica and above him the sky is blazing blue. A man walks down the track and makes some joke about why anyone would want to lug around a huge lump of stone with a rope. Rory talks to the man like he's almost a normal person, even if he can't remember what he says. All he knows is that after the man has walked on, he realises he knows now that Henry VII is on the throne, and Amy says - he imagines Amy saying, You missed the entire Wars of the Roses! What is wrong with you?
And so he gets to his feet, and he drags the Pandorica after him, and the two of them go to where there are cities so Amy can watch history. Rory still doesn't run into many famous people, but he listens to others talk about them, and Amy marvels at it and he stores up the little details to tell her and if he is going mad, at least he's still thinking.
[Title] The Doctor and the Professor
[Fandom] Doctor Who
[Rating] G
[Prompt] From
anbyrobanby, "River Song encountered an earlier generation of the Doctor. Do not neccessarily have to have known each other for what they were."[Notes/Summary] Ace has her doubts that this woman is really an archaeologist.
It wasn't like Ace minded other people helping her out. It was just when they were obviously lying to her that she started to get annoyed.
"You're an archaeologist," she whispered as she dug around in her backpack for another canister of Nitro-9.
"I came here to present a paper on early 35th-century settlements in the Orion nebula." The woman was wearing a deep blue dress, but under it she seemed to have far more practical leggings, and she'd discarded her high heels soon after the wolf-things started attacking the conference centre. Even now, after they'd run down miles of corridors, she hardly seemed out of breath. On the other hand, Ace was the one with the backpack.
"Sure," she said to the woman now. "With a gun."
"I can't help noticing you have a bag full of incendiary devices there."
"Yeah, well, I'm a troublemaker, and they come in handy."
The woman glanced at her pistol and smiled. "I could say the same thing."
"And you've got that... magic lipstick." Ace remembers how the conference organiser had seemed to stop seeing them after the woman had kissed him. Which had been a good thing, because he'd been holding them at gunpoint while opening a portal to a pocket dimension and filling the building with killer aliens, but still.
"A must-have accessory, don't you think? What do you do, by the way? When you're not making trouble?"
Ace shrugged. "I travel. With the Professor. Who's going to show up any minute, so we need to set these charges right now -" She lit the last one, and scrambled to her feet. "Come on!"
There was a snarl, and the main doors flew open. River levelled her weapon and fired into the frothing crowd of wolf-beasts that was pouring through. Ace looked frantically round for another exit - the Professor was supposed to be meeting them outside the building - and the fuses were burning shorter and shorter -
Just the nearest wolf-thing sprang at them, the TARDIS materialised between them and it, its doors flew open, and they jumped inside and it faded away just as the massive explosion rocked the centre.
"Sounds like you've outdone yourself again," the Doctor observed. "And who's your lovely assistant?"
"She's apparently an archaeologist," Ace said. "Her name is -"
A wolf-beast sprang out from below the control panel and launched itself at them, slavering. The next few hours were full of a lot of dramatic incidents, and it was only after the woman had been dropped off at somewhere in the 51st century, blowing them both a kiss, that Ace and the Doctor both realised they'd never asked her name.
[Title] Ghosts Walk
[Fandom] Torchwood/Merlin, as requested by
anbyrobanby[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] While trying to blend in at Camelot, Gwen and Ianto encounter seemingly supernatural events and an old enemy.
Gwen didn't think that she would miss central heating this much - she works for Torchwood, after all, she's hardly a wimp - but she can't bring herself to move away from the fire roaring in the grate. At least the temperature explains the thick, heavy clothes she's been given to wear. Although when trouble erupts - more trouble than being randomly flung back in time to what appears to be pre-Arthurian legend - running is going to be a real pain.
The door clicks open, and she looks up to see Ianto arriving.
"Any luck?" she's about to say, when she notices the two wary-looking servants standing behind him. Hastily getting to her feet and wondering whether she's meant to curtsey or not, she tries to smooth her skirts out.
Ianto carefully closes the door behind him.
"This is Merlin," he says, indicating the gangly dark-haired boy, "and this -" a hint of a smile on his face - "is Gwen." The pleasant-faced girl bobs a curtsey.
"I've told them that you, Lady Helen, wanted to know more about the... walking dead issue that seems to have been present recently. I've reassured them both that the king won't know of anything they tell us."
"That's... that's great." Gwen wants to know how Ianto manages to sound reasonably natural while she constantly feels like she's about to say completely anachronistic things, like radical or iPod. "So - what is it the two of you saw?"
The two glance at each other before the girl - the other Gwen - begins to speak.
"My lady - the Lady Morgana - couldn't sleep," she said, "so I went to find Gaius and see if he could help her. I was walking through the courtyard and I heard footsteps. I called out and - whoever it was didn't answer. I was scared, and so I... I asked them either to reveal who they were or to get away before I called for the guards. The person came out into the moonlight. It..." She swallowed, hard. "It was my father. He's been dead for months."
"She came to find me and Gaius," Merlin said. "She - she thought she might be ill and seeing things. I went back with her. I didn't see her dad, but I walked her back to the Lady Morgana's rooms. But when I came back down, I saw... a friend of mine. He - he was killed in battle, last year."
"Did they talk to you?" Ianto asked.
Both servants shook their heads.
"I... didn't think it was really him," Merlin said at last. "I tried to... to chase him away. It. It felt... bad."
"That's what you said, wasn't it?" Gwen glanced at Ianto. "When... when you saw Lisa the other night. She didn't talk to you, she just walked towards you, and you didn't want to be there." She shivers, rubs her hands together. The fire crackles and spits.
"Why didn't you want the king to know about this?" Merlin asked.
Gwen wants to say because he'll have enough suspicions about me not being Lady Helen of Mora once he finds out the only song I can make a decent stab at singing is My Heart Will Go On, let's not make him think we're crazy into the bargain, but of course she can't. Instead, she shrugs. "Who wants to tell their host they can see dead people?" Ianto's face goes amusedly blank.
"I don't understand why he hasn't seen any," Merlin said. "Or why no one else has. I mean, me and Gwen, we're... maybe there's something we've got in common, I don't know - but you two have never been here before."
"Maybe everyone else is keeping quiet," the other Gwen said. "Maybe they think it was a dream, or that they were drunk, or something like that."
Gwen is just beginning, "Well, you two could -" when a rush of air sweeps through the room and the fire is snuffed out like somebody's thrown a rug over it. Icy cold rushes over them, and Gwen instinctively stuffs her hands into her sleeves. She hears Ianto say, "The window was closed, how on earth -" and then he's cut off because the fire roars up again, but pale and milky and giving out no heat at all. Gwen sees Ianto's frowning face, the other Gwen's wide eyes, Merlin glancing from side to side -
Suzie Costello is standing next to them. Her long hair is loose and tangled; her eyes are in shadow. Gwen tries to gasp, tries to cry out, but she can't move, she's too scared even to breathe -
Merlin shouts something. It sounds like another language, but there's a sudden flash of light and the room trembles - and then, the fire is back, golden-orange and warm, and Suzie is nowhere to be seen. Gwen drops down next to the heat, warming her hands and trying not to scream. Eventually she looks up at Ianto, who's dead white.
"You saw her too, right?" she says.
He nods.
"Who was she?" the other Gwen asks. "I couldn't... I thought I couldn't breathe." She's staring with shock at Merlin, who's gazing at the floor.
"Someone the Lady Helen and I knew," Ianto says, shortly. "Who we didn't really ever want to see again."
"What did you do?" Gwen says to Merlin, not wanting to think about the last time they saw Suzie. "You - you shouted something..."
"Oh... um... it - it was a prayer. Yeah." Merlin looks up, meets her eyes; smiles shakily. "An old prayer that we used to say back home where I come from. That's all."
Gwen doesn't believe him for a second - and from the look on her face, neither does the other Gwen - but his story can wait.
"Ianto," she says, "I think we've got a problem."
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Date: 2011-01-03 03:19 pm (UTC)And Ace and River Song? Would make one hell of a team!
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Date: 2011-01-04 05:35 pm (UTC)*pats Doctor absently* :D
I know, right? Explosions everywhere.
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Date: 2011-01-04 07:46 pm (UTC)And yes, Auton!Rory totally works. I thought when I saw the prompt "shit, I would have NO idea what to do with that" but it reads as if it just FLOWED from you in magical fashion :)
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Date: 2011-01-05 12:43 pm (UTC)XD I almost gave up on it - for ages it was going to be one of the tales of trees, then I decided to stop trying with it, and then I used it as a tall tale because I wanted something Who-related. So it's very cool it sounds natural! ;)
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Date: 2013-09-30 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-03 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 07:12 am (UTC)Also, yay for snarky janitor!Owen :D And the one about Auton Rory made me a bit wibbly, in a good way. One thing I did like about the series five finale - I've got a fair few issues with it - is that they made sure to point out that Auton Rory isn't invulnerable, and that he's going to spend every waking moment of those 2000 years conscious.
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Date: 2011-01-07 06:38 pm (UTC)Yes. It must have been really bleak for him, so I found that one quite hard to write - like, how to represent it in ficlet form. Do tell me more about your thoughts on the S5 finale? :D
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Date: 2011-01-07 09:38 pm (UTC)I think - mostly it's the plot holes that are opened up and never resolved. The TARDIS' exploding wiped certain events from existence, such as the steampunk Cyberman mech in Victorian England and pretty much every mass invasion of the Daleks. I'm cool with the former, since it was a stand-alone episode, but the latter just leaves way too much unanswered. Like, when the Doctor came back into existence, did the TARDIS' explosion undo itself as well, and did all those events come back into being? And if they didn't, what does it mean for Donna (who, without Dalek interference, wouldn't become the DoctorDonna and have her memories wiped), or Adelaide Brook (whose close brush with the Daleks inspired her to go into space and, furthermore, is "a fixed point in time"). Did Mickey, Rose and Jackie come back from Pete's World, and if so did Mickey decide to stay around? Are he and Martha married? And this isn't just my love of Mickey speaking, either. I'm having trouble telling if the finale was written this way by accident, or if they intended to restore the status quo from the beginning.
There are a few other things here and there, and while the plot holes are the ones that bug me the most. I'm also annoyed at the presence of Cybermen and Daleks in the "lock the Doctor in the Pandorica" scene; we knew that some Cybermen were able to escape the Void and did an emergency temporal shift, but they never went out into space (that I can remember). If it had been some of the retro Cybermen, then I'd understand, but these were the Pete's World Cybermen; the implication had been that they were all dead/in the Void/still in Pete's World Or Something. I wouldn't have minded if there had been some sort of indication earlier in the season that they were still around...let alone how they managed to time-travel so precisely.\
(Then again, there are a few other Cyberman-related plotholes, such as the body in the Pandorica tomb being able to operate without a brain inside.)
I also vaguely remember some Daleks claiming that, as long as all other species were destroyed, it didn't matter if the Daleks died as well. I'm not sure if that was the scavenger Daleks at the end of Series 1, or the Cult of Skarro, or the ones on board the Crucible...hell, I could even be imagining it...but I remember the sentiment being there somewhere, so the Daleks collaborating with other alien species to lock the Doctor away didn't make a lot of sense to me.
All that said, however...it was still an enjoyable finale if you're willing to overlook the plot holes and mischaracterizations. Much wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey antics, and Auton Rory, and the fez. I like it the same way I like the S4 finale.
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Date: 2011-01-09 08:01 pm (UTC)I do agree about the Daleks, and you make a good point about the Cybermen but I handwave it as something like "accidental costume error" ;)
*nods* Yes, it was fun and enjoyable, and worked for me on an emotional level. I liked it better than S4 but that's because I was frustrated by then with the series as a whole, whereas with this I was much more positive and open-minded! Thanks for taking the time to elaborate, sorry my reply is basically "ehhhh... ^_^"
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Date: 2013-09-30 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-03 08:40 pm (UTC)