Fanfiction: Perks and Wrecks (AU)
Dear Reader,
Please forgive for the play that's about to proceed. You will encounter many o' flaws in this work of fiction. Don't be alarmed. This was written for enjoyment, not for academics. However, if you find an error that cannot be ignored, please speak up. I have completed my warning, and now I will continue to debase two fandoms at once. Wish me luck.
Love,
Author
Title: Perks and Wrecks
Pairing: Doctor/River
Genre: Lols and romance, Parks and Recreation AU
Rating: A mix of T and M and E if called for it
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or Parks and Recreation.
Summary: The Doctor is an assistant director at the Parks Department in Leadworth, energetic and full of ideas, but is bogged down by bureaucracy. Featuring villians, old and new companions, and as ever, the Doctor.
Chapter 1. The Crack in the Wall That's Crumbling.
“DOCTOR! IN MY OFFICE! NOW”
In the small town of Ledworth, England, a young man by the name of John Smith runs the Parks and Recreation division at City Hall. His tall and lanky frame pops into the office of one Donna Noble, the relunctant Director of Parks and Recreation and his boss.
“What the fuck is this?” The equally tall, middle aged woman with shoulder length auburn hair holds up a request form from her desk. She has one hand on one wide hip as her blue suit slips open to reveal a pale lilac ruffle blouse. Around her neck hangs a thin gold chain with a gun and the words a small tap of gold. I keep this heart of mine close.
Dr. John Smith, with his large forehead, stubborn chin and long brown bangs hovering over his left eye looks innocently from the paper to his boss's face. He chews the inside of his cheek before saying carefully and full of hope, “Oh, I suppose that's the new park commission,” before breaking out in a wide grin.
Last week.
“Hello. I'm Doctor John Smith,” The caucasian male sits behind the desk in a collared shirt, suspenders and bow tie. His hands are folded over his calendar place mat which is littered with little brown rings and other mysterious stains. He smirks as if he knows something we don't. “I work for the Parks and Recreation department at Leadworth City Hall. Leadworth is almost made entirely of parks and jungle gyms and lots of benches. There are a lot of benches.”
Dr. John Smith gets up from his desk and takes us on a tour of his office. He points to a picture of him energetically attached to a startled middle age ginger in a suit.
“This is me and Donna, Donna Noble. She's the director of Parks and Recreation. Donna truly is the most important woman in City Hall. She's the head honcho. Big kahuna. Da Man. Or Da woman. Did I say that? I wanna start over. She's the most important woman in City Hall.”
Donna Noble is sitting at her desk in her office in the background with a green facial mask smeared over her face and two little cucumber slices pressed on her eyelids. She appears to be sleeping, reclined in an office chair.
“I've never been one for government,” says Donna Noble in a cut scene. She is currently holding a pre-packegd facial mask mix and stirring it with a plastic spoon in the bag. “I believe that it's possible to have a government that doesn't fuck up your life, but it has to be minimal. I don't think my job is important. I'm not special. If I have very little power, everything will move smoothly.”
“This is me and my ex girlfriend, Rose Tyler.” He holds up a framed picture of a blonde woman with a big red smile. She is currently holding up a red cup and a long, lanky arms appears to be hung around her shoulders, but the body of the person is cut out from the frame. “Smart, funny, kind girl. She moved. Kind of unexpected. But you know.” He frowns but puts the picture away behind another framed photo which he promptly picks up. “Ah, here is a photo of me at the Stone Henge.”
“People ask me 'Why Ledworth, why not London or Paris or Egypt?'” The Doctor makes an effort with his hands to come up with an answer, “I honestly don't know. I want to travel, I have, indeed, traveled in the past tense, but I dunno. Something about Ledworth, keeps bringing me back.” He kind of smiles in a dopey way.
“Plus, there's a girl I kind of fancy here, but I don't think she's interested.”
A young, red headed woman steps into the room and looks startled to see a camera man there. She is a slender, thin woman with long wavy locks past her shoulders. She is dressed in a long cardigan, t-shirt, skinny jeans, and flats. “Doctor, there this lady here.”
“Thank you, Amy, I'll be right out.” He turns as he grabs his jacket, and adds later, “Amy Pond is currently our intern from the local university. She's super fun to have around.”
“I need six college credits,” explains the red haired assistant, Amy Pond, in a cut scene shot in the hallway. She shrugs. “It pays a tad better than a kissogram.”
The ginger who had come in earlier is sitting at her desk between the two offices of Doctor and Donna, and she looks up when the Doctor enters the open office. She flipping through a new issue of Cosmopolitan.
Doctor's standing in the open office of the Parks and Recreation to greet a motherly, tight lipped woman in a small cardigan and yellow pearls around her neck. She has a designer hand bag over one shoulder and she seems to be too overdressed to be holding what appears to be is a plunger and an egg beater. Even though all her hands appear to be full, Doctor goes in a for a handshake anyway.
“Hello! I'm the Doctor! Pleasure to meet you! Actually, have we met before? I feel like we've met before!” He declares with a grin. The woman glares at his out stretched hand before the doctor's smile can waver she exclaims.
“Exterminate!”
“What?”
“Exterminate them, herr Doctor!” She exclaims with a thick German accent and a bit of an angry quiver in her hands as she grips her household items. “ Exterminate those wretched Racoons! This morning, I had to literally fight the vile creatures out of my kitchen, because during the night they had sneaked in through the cat door! That festering park in my neighborhood is under-managed and over run with rabies infested monsters!”
The Doctor folds his arms over his chest and then points at her.
“I think I do know you. You're Miss Dalek!” He remembers.
“Doctor. You must. Do. Something.” She demands as she shakes her clenched hands. “If you do not do something about it, I will be forced to end them myself.”
“Hey now, look here. Not on my watch, not in a million years, Miss Dalek. Look, if it matters that much to you, we'll hold a town meeting, and we will, uh, discuss the matter.”
Miss Dalek's eyes grow wide and her mouth scrunches upward into a frown. She grips her tools tightly. “You haven't seen the last of me,” she spits out, before abruptly turning around and marching out of the room, purposely knocking off a row of Craig's stuff off his desk onto the floor on her way out.
“Awww whaaaat? Why!?” A broad shoulder, heavy caucasian man gets up from behind his desk and begins to collect his fallen, broken things. He's dresses in a casual suit, with his coat on his chair and his tie pinned to the inside of his shirt. He has a thin mop of blonde hair on the top of his head and a thin brush of facial hair around his chin.
“What is she, a super villan?” Amy retorts, looking up at the Doctor. The Doctor twists his mouth, thinking. He shrugs as he puts his hands in the pockets of his tweed coat.
“We'll find out. Jack!” calls out the Doctor.
A young, attractive brunette male looks up earnestly from his desk. He's dressed in a designer suit and polished shoes, and he makes a kind of sparkling smile that sends hearts a-flutter.
“Good of you to notice little ol' me, Doctor,” grins Jack Harkness as he reclines in his chair and does a lazy twist and turn left and right restlessly.
“Oh stop it, c'mon, I need your help in spreading the word about a town hall meeting,” says the Doctor.
Back in his office, the doctor explains Jack's role in the department, “Jack Harkness is my assistant, American, my go-to guy in this department. He's smart, he's on top of things, and he's very friendly with the people.”
“My hope with this job, I get contacts. Enough big names to become interested in my new play production. It's called,” the good looking Jack Harkness pulls out a thick script from behind his desk to explain in his cut scene. “Time Agents! Starring me!”
Slipping one arm then the other in his jacket, the Doctor adds, “Craig? We could use your help.”
“Sure! Of course, Doctor,” says Craig as he collects the remainder of his broken belongings
Doctor asks, “Can we ride in your car?”
Craig looks unsure. “I don't know, it's not really my car. It's Sophie's, and she just cleaned it yesterday. Plus, you're looking a little raggedy today, Doctor.”
“Oh right, like you're on to talk Mr. Unshowered,” Amy pipes up from her desk.
“I was already late!” Craig protests.
“Nice try, Craig, we all know you're a part of the football team on Sundays which includes some early morning practices on Wednesdays, which was today,” declares the Doctor. “Which by the way, caught the last half of the game last week, very nice save, I might add.”
“Thanks?” questions Craig with a raised eyebrow. “Wait, am I in trouble?”
“Yes. Anyway, tut tut, let's go everyone. Amy, stay here, mind the phones.”
The ginger behind the front desk groans.
Later that week.
“This is my favorite part of the job,” declares Doctor in a voice-over as the camera follows him, Craig, Jack, and another woman into an academic building “I love it when citizens of Leadworth come together to make the city a better place.”
“The Charleston Academy has agreed to let us use their cafeteria to host the town hall meeting, and we are lucky enough to have Martha Jones,” he gestures to his left and the camera turns abruptly to capture the image of a woman dressed in a skirt and a soft, formal blouse with a dark complexion and straight black hair that's been pulled back into a spiky ponytail. She gives a tiny wave to the camera and looks like she's about to say something, but the Doctor continues his introduction, “Reporter for the Communicator, with us tonight to take notes on the public forum. Now let's do this!”
Doctor marches toward the double doors and gives the handles of the room a jostle. They remain closed. He looks to Martha who slowly picks up her pencil and starts making notes. Looking distressed, but keeping his eyes on Martha, he says back to his employees,“Jack, go find the janitor.”
“On it, boss.”
Next thing they know, it's 7:00pm in the evening, and the cafeteria of a local school has been emptied of students and organized into a forum for adults. There is a microphone set up in an aisle between four rows of chairs. In front of these rows of chairs is a table equipped with one microphone and four chairs. In thirty minutes past starting time, the cafeteria begins to fill. They begin 20 minutes later than they intended.
“Okay, so we bring to order this town hall meeting,” declares the Doctor as he takes a gavel and slams it three times at their center table. “We'll begin with the first order of business. Announcements. Jack. If you please.”
“And please I do,” agrees the handsome assistant as he drags the microphone over to read into. “Okay, first off, the Fire Department needs more dog volunteers preferably daushaunds, the library will only lift the ban on diet soft drinks in the computer area. The street sign at the corner of Swan and Fifth needs to be returned. If you are aware of its location, please return it. Also, if any of you are interested, I'm holding audtions for the second lead in my play production-”
“Alright, Jack-”
“18 years or older, please.-”
“Jack-”
“This Saturday, noon at the Community Center. Be aware of its graphic content-”
“Okay, Thank you, Jack,” says the doctor as he dragged the microphone out of Jack's hands. He props it back up in front of him. “Second order of business,” begins Doctor, “is community concerns. This is the time to speak. If you have any concerns about the upkeep of the parks or concerns of any kind of the upkeep of the community, please take five minutes behind the microphone there to speak you mind. Please be respectful of your time in consideration of others.”
The Doctor smacks his gavel twice on the table. Immediately, his foe, Miss Dalek, stands up in the back row and marches toward the microphone stand. A man in the front row stands up and beats her to it.
“Hello, I'm Mickey Smi-” Miss Dalek shoves him out of the way, and grabs hold of the mic. The Doctor wants to physically brace his ears with his hands, but fears the rudeness would only strengthen her.
“DOCTOR,” the middle aged woman nearly yells. There is a terrible feedback in the microphone, almost distorted, making her voice and tone sound more mechanical. “YOU MUST STOP THE RACCOON INFESTATION IN THE SOUTH SECTOR PARK.”
The hall murmurs in agreement. The Doctor motions for Craig to find the problem with the sound system. He leans into his own microphone. “Do you ever notice that raccoons wash their food before eating it?”
The room turns silent, waiting. A small cough escapes.
“Hmm? It turns out racoons don't rinse their food out of squeamishness. They're soaking their food in water so that it will be easier to swallow. You know how I found that out? Wikipedia. Occasionally, they get their facts right.”
There was another pause of silence, before the Doctor continued. “And as for the food supply, since mot of Ledworth was implanted in a forest, we have destroyed their food supply and taken over the responsibility of supplying food. Therefore, yes Racoons will be digging into your trash now and again, because they have no other choice. Is it polite? No. Is it a way to extract vengence on us? Not sure exactly, so I would prefer if we'd stop complaining about a few overturned trashcans. However, home invasion is not necessarily the most pleasant thing to wake up to,even if the burglars are rather cute and furry.”
“EXCUSE ME?!” blared Miss Dalek into the microphone. “THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE.”
“What would you have me do, Miss Dalek? I abhor animal cruelty. What we will do is increase our pest control surveillance of the park. A few park rangers can catch the raccoons and redistribute them to another part of town. However if you really wanna stop the problem, Miss Dalek, I suggest you keep your trash more than tidy.”
“THIS SOLUTION IS TEMPORARY,” exclaims Miss Dalek. “WE MUST EXTERMIN-”
“Oh look at that, how time flies, your five minutes are up! Next person pleaaaaaase,” asks the Doctor, and he smacks his gavel as if to punctuate his order. The man behind Miss Dalek clears his throat, and Miss Dalek narrows her eyes, nonetheless, she slides back from the microphone. She grips her bag as she marches out of the cafeteria, annoyed. But hardly anyone notices as the next citizen takes the microphone.
“Yes, Hi, I'm Mickey Smith, I would like to know why you didn't show up last night after I made very expensive dinner plans,” says the man at the microphone which has finally been fixed to sound normal. His hair is cut short and his dark complexion has a rich tone. He's dressed quite cool and casual in a leather motorcycle jacket, jeans and a t-shirt, but he carries the demeanor of a dork or a geek. The Doctor purses his lips and opens his mouth as if to respond, but it's Martha, sitting at the far end of the table, who takes the microphone from him.
“I would like to clarify, one would've shown up if you had bothered to call the night before last.”
“I did call you!”
“That was a text message!”
“Don't it still count?!”
“Mickey! Mickey, I will talk to you later!” Martha snaps over the microphone.
Mickey Smith, now in front of a growing line of people, sighs, but regains a small smile as he breathes into the micrphone, “Yeah, sure, coffee?”
“Yes, of course, later,” she adds, looking both aggravated but pleased. The guy bows then as he leave the microphone, and the person behind him takes the microphone.
“My name is Leonard, and we are in deep shit!” says the older man in thick flemish accent. He stamps his cane as he says. Doctor drags the microphone back over.
“What seems to be the problem, Leonard?” asks the Doctor.
“They stopped serving chips at the Senior Center!”
“This is the beauty of our government. The ability for its citizens to voice their concerns without seeming like a chaotic bunch of self-obsessed fools,” says the Doctor. “At least after that, they kind of picked up speed.”
“...and now I'll never know if Mal ever got together with Inara! I mean, how am I supposed to move on with my life!” the young female in skinny jeans and a Victoria's Secret pink hoodie. She seems out of place in the room full of 30-and-up year olds.
It's now 8:00, and the Doctor doesn't know how much more he can take of this. He leans into the mic.
“I know, I know, but there's not much we can do about it. We can formulate a petition to Joss Whedon, but he might just kill off another character, and we can't risk that. Anyway, thank you for coming!” Doctor didn't bother smacking his gavel anymore. “Next, please.”
The young woman wrings her fingers in the sleeves of her hoodie before nodding and retreating to take her seat. Another woman stands up now that the line has disintegrated and makes her way to the microphone. She looks to be a bit older than the previous girl, in her 30s or 40's, but having weathered age beautifully. Even though she is dressed rather casually in long full circle, tea-length skirt, a pair of boots, and tight, flattering top, she seemed uncomfortable with what she is about to say. The Doctor braces himself for another strange request.
“Hello, I'm River Song, I live in this neighborhood, and I would like something to be done about the wall just behind my house,” she begins, pleasantly. “It's big, disgusting, and there's a huge crack in it. It seems to be crumbling, but I'm not sure. Anyway, a week ago, one of my neighbors who couldn't be here tonight was climbing over it as a short cut to get to the bus stop, and now his leg is broken. I feel like this whole thing could've been avoided if you had cleaned up the debris years ago.”
The Doctor looked confused. “What debris?”
River Song's tan skin turns a rosy color as she become flustered and annoyed, and she sweeps a wave of golden curls to one side of her shoulder. “The debris! From the petting zoo some contractors were going to build? Before the recession, two years ago? Well, the property belongs to the city now, and all I ask is that you take care of it!”
The forum of adults, for some reason, feels emboldened by her demands and begins applauding and vocally praising her. The Doctor does begin to panic, although it is not an erratic panic. He gulps.
“I would love to help you,” says the Doctor. River Song prepares herself.
“But...?” She waits.
“Nothing, I would love to help you, so I will help you. We'll get rid of that wall and that crack in it. Trust me, I'm a Doctor.”
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Part Two --------> http://kiyda.livejournal.com/320732.html