[oncoming_storms] - Caught in an embarrassing situation
The TARDIS, as it just so happened, was drunk.
Most anyone familiar with the TARDIS - or, at the very least, claims to know the TARDIS - would be hard pressed to believe a statement such as that. After all, ships don’t actually have organs, let alone a liver, and no one has ever seen one imbibe anything. (This is, of course, discounting autoships, a doomed construct of the 34th Century that attempted to make a hybrid interstellar vessel with antiquated Earth technology that involved the consumption of fossil fuels. That particular endeavour did not go over so well with the Federation of Free Bloogs, who claimed the company producing the vessels - though only one was ever completed - were attempting racial cleansing by ridding the universe of their ancestral history, petroleum and Bloogs sharing so many qualities, including appearance and that bloopy sound petrol makes when being drilled.)
But really, all of that is neither here nor there. For all intents and purposes, ships do not drink, especially alcohol. Especially not the Doctor’s TARDIS. There’s just no real point.
Which would be true in almost all cases, save one: someone had apparently spilled several litres of the substance into the environmental control systems of the TARDIS.
Generally speaking, this would not be an issue. Alive or no, the TARDIS was still a ship, and being a drunk ship wouldn’t be a terribly noticeable deterrence from being a sober one, at least in her case (or so argued Charley). But the TARDIS was hardly a normal ship on the best of days and ever since that Zagreus incident and the divergent universe, the old girl had revealed any number of quirks and secrets about herself.
Like the fact she enjoyed walking around as the grey lady, singing in the shower (in particular, the Beetles), rearranging the wardrobe and, apparently, sneaking into the Doctor’s bedroom on those rare occasions when the man deigned to use it. Well, sneaking in the most general sense, seeing as she didn’t technically have feet and could appear where she would anywhere within her interior.
As it was, tonight just so happened to be one of those nights in which the Doctor, exhausted from a long day of saving the universe - really, why did people feel the need to procure space craft that used probability engines, of all things? - the Doctor had called it a night and trundled off to his room, grumbling something about never allowing two-headed aliens aboard the TARDIS again, and just what was a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, anyway?
Which is where this story really begins.
Knowing full well the TARIDS’ habits, one might assume that tonight was to be a typical evening, what with the grey lady sneaking on into the Doctor’s room. And one would assume correctly, if they were to ignore the obvious reality of the TARDIS’ current inebriated state, which left the truth standing stranded on a corner, much to its dismay.
Like most beings that have imbibed beyond their limit, the TARDIS was hardly in control of her base motor functions and, without any other recourse, made an emergency landing on the nearest planet, which just happened to be populated solely by rejected artisans and colour blind painters, none of whom could resist a giant blue box and all the positively smashing projects to be done with such an object. First and foremost: a paint job. But the TARDIS’ motor functions were also waylaid in her grey lady consciousness, and with it her sense of direction, so when she should have turned left, she instead turned right.
And so the future was forever changed.
Or would have been, had Charley not realised what happened and went running to find the Doctor, carrying with her a never-ending glass of Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster she’d found tipped over and draining into an open cuplink in the TARDIS’ engine room. The Doctor, understandably, was worried, and hurried to the console room to fix the damage while Charley went in search of C’rizz to let him know what had occurred.
The Doctor could hear her laughing from the control room and dashed back to find Miss Pollard slumped against the wall across from C’rizz’ room, brushed at her eyes and clutching her stomach.
Peeking into the Eutermesan’s room, the Doctor couldn’t help but chuckle himself.
‘Um, a little help here?’ C’rizz begged, fending off a still-sloshed TARDIS as she tried in vain to snuggle with him. Upon realising someone else was there, the grey lady turned bleary eyes to the Doctor and gave a little wave, blinked in confusion, looked at C’rizz, back to the Doctor, then suddenly turned bright red and disappeared; around them, the TARDIS grumbled, mortified, and the air felt uncomfortably warm for the next several hours.
When day broke and everyone had a chance to see her canary yellow exterior with the chartreuse trimming and pumpkin orange curtains, accented with chubby little cherubs and about a dozen potted plants, none of which complimented the others in either aesthetics or aroma, the old girl was absolutely inconsolable and refused so much as to budge until her appearance had been fixed.
Which, of course, involved going back to before the artisans were there because they simply redid the damage each night when the Doctor and his companions finally called it a day.
After that, neither Charley nor C’rizz saw much of the grey lady, but for a couple months at least they could hear the Doctor through the halls having rather heated arguments with himself, apparently, (if only) stressing just why it was a bad idea to find a certain Zaphod Beeblebrox and introduce him to the Eye of Harmony. Molecular destabilisation of reality was, of course, not to be damned, no matter what she thought of the matter, thank you very much.
Or so the Doctor said until he found his spare outfit was irreparably stained, at which point it was all-out war.
Muse: TARDIS
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 981
Most anyone familiar with the TARDIS - or, at the very least, claims to know the TARDIS - would be hard pressed to believe a statement such as that. After all, ships don’t actually have organs, let alone a liver, and no one has ever seen one imbibe anything. (This is, of course, discounting autoships, a doomed construct of the 34th Century that attempted to make a hybrid interstellar vessel with antiquated Earth technology that involved the consumption of fossil fuels. That particular endeavour did not go over so well with the Federation of Free Bloogs, who claimed the company producing the vessels - though only one was ever completed - were attempting racial cleansing by ridding the universe of their ancestral history, petroleum and Bloogs sharing so many qualities, including appearance and that bloopy sound petrol makes when being drilled.)
But really, all of that is neither here nor there. For all intents and purposes, ships do not drink, especially alcohol. Especially not the Doctor’s TARDIS. There’s just no real point.
Which would be true in almost all cases, save one: someone had apparently spilled several litres of the substance into the environmental control systems of the TARDIS.
Generally speaking, this would not be an issue. Alive or no, the TARDIS was still a ship, and being a drunk ship wouldn’t be a terribly noticeable deterrence from being a sober one, at least in her case (or so argued Charley). But the TARDIS was hardly a normal ship on the best of days and ever since that Zagreus incident and the divergent universe, the old girl had revealed any number of quirks and secrets about herself.
Like the fact she enjoyed walking around as the grey lady, singing in the shower (in particular, the Beetles), rearranging the wardrobe and, apparently, sneaking into the Doctor’s bedroom on those rare occasions when the man deigned to use it. Well, sneaking in the most general sense, seeing as she didn’t technically have feet and could appear where she would anywhere within her interior.
As it was, tonight just so happened to be one of those nights in which the Doctor, exhausted from a long day of saving the universe - really, why did people feel the need to procure space craft that used probability engines, of all things? - the Doctor had called it a night and trundled off to his room, grumbling something about never allowing two-headed aliens aboard the TARDIS again, and just what was a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, anyway?
Which is where this story really begins.
Knowing full well the TARIDS’ habits, one might assume that tonight was to be a typical evening, what with the grey lady sneaking on into the Doctor’s room. And one would assume correctly, if they were to ignore the obvious reality of the TARDIS’ current inebriated state, which left the truth standing stranded on a corner, much to its dismay.
Like most beings that have imbibed beyond their limit, the TARDIS was hardly in control of her base motor functions and, without any other recourse, made an emergency landing on the nearest planet, which just happened to be populated solely by rejected artisans and colour blind painters, none of whom could resist a giant blue box and all the positively smashing projects to be done with such an object. First and foremost: a paint job. But the TARDIS’ motor functions were also waylaid in her grey lady consciousness, and with it her sense of direction, so when she should have turned left, she instead turned right.
And so the future was forever changed.
Or would have been, had Charley not realised what happened and went running to find the Doctor, carrying with her a never-ending glass of Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster she’d found tipped over and draining into an open cuplink in the TARDIS’ engine room. The Doctor, understandably, was worried, and hurried to the console room to fix the damage while Charley went in search of C’rizz to let him know what had occurred.
The Doctor could hear her laughing from the control room and dashed back to find Miss Pollard slumped against the wall across from C’rizz’ room, brushed at her eyes and clutching her stomach.
Peeking into the Eutermesan’s room, the Doctor couldn’t help but chuckle himself.
‘Um, a little help here?’ C’rizz begged, fending off a still-sloshed TARDIS as she tried in vain to snuggle with him. Upon realising someone else was there, the grey lady turned bleary eyes to the Doctor and gave a little wave, blinked in confusion, looked at C’rizz, back to the Doctor, then suddenly turned bright red and disappeared; around them, the TARDIS grumbled, mortified, and the air felt uncomfortably warm for the next several hours.
When day broke and everyone had a chance to see her canary yellow exterior with the chartreuse trimming and pumpkin orange curtains, accented with chubby little cherubs and about a dozen potted plants, none of which complimented the others in either aesthetics or aroma, the old girl was absolutely inconsolable and refused so much as to budge until her appearance had been fixed.
Which, of course, involved going back to before the artisans were there because they simply redid the damage each night when the Doctor and his companions finally called it a day.
After that, neither Charley nor C’rizz saw much of the grey lady, but for a couple months at least they could hear the Doctor through the halls having rather heated arguments with himself, apparently, (if only) stressing just why it was a bad idea to find a certain Zaphod Beeblebrox and introduce him to the Eye of Harmony. Molecular destabilisation of reality was, of course, not to be damned, no matter what she thought of the matter, thank you very much.
Or so the Doctor said until he found his spare outfit was irreparably stained, at which point it was all-out war.
Muse: TARDIS
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 981