Party thread, aaaand GO!
In one corner of the Nexus sits the Doctor, wearing one of those silly cone-shaped party hats (his is green with silver stars on it!), behind a rather long table that has, among a few other things, a huge cake.
Not just any cake. A birthday cake. Said cake has three candles on it, one shaped like a 9, one shaped like a 2, and another 9. There are ( Read more... )
Not just any cake. A birthday cake. Said cake has three candles on it, one shaped like a 9, one shaped like a 2, and another 9. There are ( Read more... )
"I'm afraid I haven't got a present for you," unless the Doctor wants a half-built Tesla coil (and no, you shouldn't ask where he got the parts), "but since I didn't know that you were going to choose to celebrate your birthday today, you'll have to forgive me."
He eyes the setting with some amusement and some vague displeasure - his last real "birthday" was years and years ago, celebrated only a month or two before - well, before everything. It's been ages since he's been to a proper party. He sits down at the table, clasps his hands, and waits for the other (or maybe the first) shoe to drop.
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"Oh! Hello there, Ianto! I'm glad you could make it!"
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"Yes, hello." Ianto leans back and idly taps out a rhythm on the table (dada dada dada dada dadada). "I suppose this slipped your mind. But happy birthday, anyway. 929? I'm barely out of my thirties, yet."
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Oh now look Ianto, your tapping went and got that song stuck in the Doctor's head, and he quietly hums the next bit -- hmm hmm hmmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmm hmmmng hmm hmm hmmmmm. "I suppose then," he says once he's got that humming business out of his system, "I should consider you a Time Tot, huh."
It was odd, every time he was reminded of Ianto's real age. Though, really, he was a special case, so the title of 'Time Tot' didn't exactly apply, despite whatever his physical age may be.
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No, Rassilon, don't hum, because it's going to start playing nonstop in his head and too late, it's always playing nonstop in his head, it's just gotten louder. And this is Ianto being a bit cross and a lot distracted, now, because instead of having something nice like "Happy Birthday" in his head he has to have bloody "Starman". Ah, right, there's a reason he so rarely seeks out the Doctor.
"Call me that again and I'll steer the TARDIS into the nearest sun with both of us inside." And he might be joking, just a little bit.
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The Doctor pouts a little, though, well, he can't exactly blame Ianto for not wanting to be called a Time Tot. The Doctor didn't even like being called that when he was one, so he can fully understand Ianto, who has the mind of a grown adult, objecting to being called as such.
"So!" he says, changing the subject. He's good at that, changing subjects. "Care for some cake? Or-- ooh! I don't suppose you want to wear a hat, do you?" Because there's a stack of party hats similar to the one he's wearing a little ways down the table, that unfortunately nobody has touched yet. Shame, that. Party hats are ~fun~.
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"Cake, yes. No thank you on the hat, though." Pardon him while he clings to his dignity. "But yours is... festive." (And besides, the tenth Doctor is wearing one, so Ianto doesn't feel so guilty about declining.)
Here, he digs around in his waistcoat pocket - why yes, he does have dimensionally transcendental suit pockets, now, though he doesn't have quite the same amount of detritus as the Doctor seems to have. There we are, a fobwatch chain made of bazoolium. He winds it in his hand and then slides it across the table. "Here, a present." And now cue awkward questions, because this was never really the sort of conversation he had with the Master. "Did they... do they celebrate birthdays on Gallifrey, like humans do?"
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The Doctor almost looks sad there for a moment, when Ianto declines the hat offer. They were nice hats, too! But the present perks him up, a bit. "Thank you Ianto," he grins and begins replacing his own watch's chain with the new one.
The question makes him pause and blink. Oh yeah, this Gallifreyan had actually never quite been to Gallifrey. Well, not that he remembered, at any rate. "Well they don't sing the song, if that's what you're asking," he laughs, then figures Ianto deserves a better answer than that.
"It-- well. As you can imagine, celebrating birthdays would get old for most people after a certain number of them. Sometimes the young ones will have small celebrations, and then usually there's a big to-do for everyone's eighth birthday, as that's sort of the 'important' one. Er, occasionally there will be celebrations for new regenerations? Though that's not really the same thing."
He shrugs. "I've usually preferred Earth customs anyway though."
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"Interesting." And that's a vague response if there ever was one. Maybe in a week or so he'll claim it's his birthday and demand that the Doctor take him to (Old) Gallifrey as a present. "I'm somewhat used to them," he says with a shrug. No, he doesn't prefer them, why would you think that? It's just that he spent twenty-odd years of his life following Earth customs and they do tend to grow on you.
He helps himself to a piece of cake (learn to be a good party host, seriously, Doctor) and tucks a napkin into the front of his shirt. "Why today, then? For your birthday."
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"Gallifrey doesn't have as good cake," he remarks. "Oh, I mean birthday cake. Nothing quite like a nice Earth birthday cake."
And it's at this point when everybody realizes that the mun is just shoving her own ideas about caek onto her character, but it's her birthday so nobody is mean enough to point it out. Right?
"I thought today might be nice. And it's been a while since I last had a party."
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