[open] and an awful lot of running to do

[alwaysmovingon]

The Doctor is actually okay. For the most part. More or less recovered from his run in with Aramat - if still prone to be a little jumpy and sleeping very decidedly in the TARDIS door locked no matter what - and just a bit perplexed by his recent brief stint as a woman (that was interesting, to be sure, somewhat unexplainable) he is in usual form

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[surfaceshine]

It's the noise that gets Dean's attention. He's been exploring the mansion piece by piece, now, trying to be as studious as possible in noting what changes and what stays the same. It's maddening, but doing nothing is even more maddening, and he's pretty sure he might still be losing his mind.

All that aside, that horrid noise and the pacing in the hall that joins the one he's currently trying doorknobs in has got. to. stop. Frowning, he reaches to roll the sleeves of his flannel back down where they go, and moves towards the commotion.

"Hey!" Mouth first.

[alwaysmovingon]

The Doctor sympathizes with you on the 'maddening' front. Though in point of fact it's the time or lack thereof driving him a little batty. However, not that you could really tell the difference all that well.

Halfway through a pace, the Doctor turns around to blink at Dean, the sonic screwdriver vanishing into a pocket. "What?" He says, perfectly innocently. ...all right, perhaps a bit irritably. Things are not going well and problems are not being solved, that always puts him a bit out of sorts.

[surfaceshine]

Fortunately, Dean looks a lot less pissy than he sounds. He's still wound pretty tight from all that's happened, all that's going on, but he learned a very long time ago how to hide that, how to appear calm and even laid back when everyone else is flying apart. So he frowns at the man he sees when he walks around the corner, then looks around the area suspiciously.

"Was there a dryer with a cat in it around here a second ago, or was that just me?" Dean sweeps a finger around the area in general to illustrate his speech; he doesn't suspect the - it looked like a pen - thing that the Doctor put away just before he got a look at it as the source of the sound he'd heard anyway.

[alwaysmovingon]

"No dryers, no cats," says the Doctor, though he does a look around himself, as though double-checking. And looking Dean over surreptitiously in the meantime. He's quite a bit more subtle about it than most anyone. Still there, though. "Something was making a nasty racket. Personally I suspect the atmosphere, but that seems to be a bit more complicated than it pretends."

He frowns up at the ceiling momentarily, then takes a step forward with one of his grins and offers a hand. "I'm the Doctor. You are?"

[surfaceshine]

Dean returns his attention front and center wearing his skeptical face. "Atmosphere. Right." Which pretty much confirms it was this guy as far as Dean is concerned, but if he just missed seeing him transform from some kind of Pirates of the Caribbean extra, he doesn't want to know. He looks normal enough right now, anyway.

And then he moved into Dean's space and stuck a hand out, and for a second the hunter just looks at both. He hasn't had the greatest of luck with people naming themselves doctors, after all, let alone the Doctor. He doesn't smile back when he finally decides to shake back.

"Dean. Doctor of what?"

[alwaysmovingon]

The funny thing about it is that he's actually telling the truth about suspecting that's what makes the noise. Though he would have a hard time explaining why. And yeah, not about to change, and he really does look very innocuous.

Also fairly snappable, given the fact that he is a twig and lankiness only emphasizes that.

The Doctor's hand is cool, slightly more than usual, and his grip is firm and sure, though he doesn't hold it for long, stepping back again. He makes a bit of a face. "Bit of everything, really. Depends on what needs doing, doesn't it? Varied talents, that's me."

[surfaceshine]

Dean's is about like you'd expect; he's been topside over a year since his physical slate was wiped clean, so the gun calluses are back and he's had plenty of time to mark up his hands again over the course of their various jobs. He works, a lot, mostly with his hands, and it shows. In any case, he doesn't give the Doctor a very good grip, partially because he's more interested in letting go and partially because he's not thinking about it. Like, at all.

He's still making skeptical!face, though, eyebrows drawn together and mouth set in a line. But, he's obviously decided that he might as well go for it, because he's engaging.

"And what needs doing today?"

[alwaysmovingon]

"That's the problem, isn't it," the Doctor says, turning around in a slow circle with a frown of consternation. "I'm not sure. I am stalled and that is a little bit frustrating. So at the moment, I'm trying to work out just how this place works, and what is making it tick. It's not going nearly so well as it should be, if you ask me."

The Doctor is smoothly ignoring your skeptical face. He's half talking to himself anyway. Also he routinely ignores that face every day, so.

[surfaceshine]

Dean steps back to give the Doctor room to do his thing, messing with the way his flannel is sitting on his shoulders again so his hands have something to do while he thinks. He's kind of aware that he's mostly a third party to an inner monologue, but what this guy's saying sounds distinctly parallel to his own current goals, so Dean goes with that, too.

"Yeah? But it is going?" Because Dean's own investigation kind of isn't. Hmf.

[alwaysmovingon]

The Doctor blinks, focuses on Dean, and frowns a little. "Well, in a sense," he says, after a moment. "I know more than I did when I landed, anyway. Though not terribly much, and most of it hasn't led anywhere significant. Unfortunately." He frowns. "If I could work out what in the atmosphere is causing that reaction I might be able to...but then there's...hm. No, no, no, that's all..."

Back down into muttering.

Apparently in another language. This time untranslatable.

Pause. "How would you describe that noise you heard? Cats in a dryer, yes, but - other than that?"

[surfaceshine]

"Obnoxious," Dean returns dismissively. Tilting his head, Dean watches the Doctor back for a second, not trying too terribly hard to follow what he's saying when the sounds stop making sense. What he's hearing is familiar anyway.

"Landed? I don't see any wings from here."

[alwaysmovingon]

The Doctor does that little blink and refocus again, so it's plain he kind of forgot that he was supposed to be carrying on a conversation. Feeling a bit scatterbrained at the moment, perhaps. "What? No, don't be ridiculous. Landed. The TARDIS." He waves vaguely at the door. "Out on the front lawn. At any rate...well, if it weren't for things apparently contradictory, there are certain...hm. Well. I have theories, but...obnoxious. That's not terribly helpful."

Have a frown, Dean. Really serious.

...no, not actually.

[surfaceshine]

Hey. When Dean Winchester intends to be unhelpful, you'll freaking know it, buddy. He's capable of being WAY less helpful than that. Dean frowns back, though it's mostly with his eyes than his mouth.

"High pitched. Crackly, like static. But more like a pulse." Dean has never heard a cat in a dryer, and personally hopes he never does, but he figures it's a close approximation.

"TARDIS? That like some special-ed category?"

[alwaysmovingon]

"Hmm-m," the Doctor says, "So - yes, it is certainly amplifying the signal, somehow, but it's also - hm. I'll have to check that more closely. Later though, I think. In the meantime..."

Oh! He looks very nearly offended. "No, TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension In Space. She's mine." He has gotten less shy about sharing that. After all, she's not going anywhere. And he keeps her very well locked.

[surfaceshine]

Remind Dean to try to pick the lock on the TARDIS sometime. Because that's totally on the typist's "Fangirl Crossover List of Potentially Awesome and Completely Ridiculous Things Doom."

"Yeah, I don't know what any of that means." Dean dismisses the Time and Dimension crap with a vague wave of his hand, circling back to something he has a better chance of grasping. "What signal? What amplification?"

[alwaysmovingon]

The Doctor just gives him a Look at that suggestion. In meta. And says 'no.' The typist says YES though she's not sure it would work. The TARDIS is probably not very lock-pickable.

"Ah," the Doctor says, and pauses a moment. Frowns. Considering. "Well," he says, after a moment. "The signal from this," re-producing the sonic and giving it a little wave, "And that noise you heard, that'd be the amplification. It is definitely not supposed to make that noise. Never heard it before, as a matter of fact, and that's - rather saying something."