Birthday ficlets, Part III.
Slowly but surely is still the watchword. Happy belated birthday to you, dear ones.
For ophelia_winters: Human Ten and Rose.
To err is human."
There are things that are too strange, now, to be anything but the human bits; the rubbery-cold feet when he sits on the edge of the bathtub too long, reading her magazines when she's not looking; the phantom taste of overcooked carrots and the ensuing gag reflex; the way his solitary heart beats more slowly, and then more quickly, when she enters a room. The fact that he can almost never tell what time it is. The fact that he can't run three miles without stopping for air anymore.
Well, two miles. One-and-a-half. Damn.
But it's still up there, ticking away, his brain. He clings to that. He can still assemble a sonic manipulator out of a car stereo system and a waffle iron. He can still draw a map of the Calufrax system on a bar napkin. He can recite the eleventy-hundred High Chancellors of Plompt, sober or drunk, though the accompanying dance is better done sober. He can still take joy in things that are new and things that are old, and things that are hers, and more recently things that are theirs.
He doesn't always get it quite right.
"You said Vienna sausages."
"No, I didn't," Rose sighs, with a tin in each hand and an exasperated expression between them. "I said Vienna fingers. Fingers." She hands him one tin and waggles her digits at him for good measure; he examines the label.
"They look like fingers," he suggests. "You could even put little slices of onion on them to look like nails."
"Oh, ew." She shoves the second tin at him, disgusted, and they stare at each other for a moment. He gestures with the cans like he's about to take up juggling and she laughs, stills him with her hands on his wrists. She leans forward and presses a kiss to his mouth.
"I'm sorry," he says, automatically. "I didn't get it right." She gives him a funny look and takes the tins away from him, sets them on the counter and then leans against it, pulling him closer by his trouser pockets. He shivers, delighted.
"There's such a thing," says Rose, "as marks for effort."
Humanity is growing on him.
For adriana_is: Doctor/Rose and The Master. This may actually become a longer... thing. Eventually.
Family.
He finally does it.
He finally does it, he does; he slips a tablespoon (okay, four tablespoons) of hallucinatory pollen into the Doctor's mug and tells Rose that the antidote is outside and down the hill and he will stay with him until it passes and he will not dress him up and convince him he's a kabuki actor. And when she's gone, he tells the Doctor the door is a giant jam biscuit, and when the Doctor has tired himself out gnawing on the hinges, he takes a blood sample and kicks him out on his ass and uses the sample to fool the ship's DNA-triggered steering system and he has finally done it.
The Master has never been happier. Never. Not even on last year's birthday, when Rose baked him a cake and he put the Doctor's face in it.
"I did it !" he crows, to them, and then frowns when he remembers that they aren't there and he hates them, anyway. He sets the controls to 1843, because he wants a meat pie and he's good with steam-powered death mechanisms. There's a good beat in the back of his brain; he dances a little, and tries to remember how to loosen a corset with one hand. There's a slight turbulence. There is more turbulence, the sensation of wind and looming space, the wildness of time- in short, something goes a bit wonky, he does a good milkshake impression and falls down on the floor a lot. Something snaps back into place. The gears grind to a halt and the landing is shaky at best; he is certain that the ship is angry with him. Fine. He kisses the glassy center column with a little tongue, just to piss her off further, and stalks to the doors. Flinging them open, just to hear the smack, he inhales deeply and savors the invigorating scents of-
-peroxide and burnt toast.
"Rose ? Darling ?" says Jackie Tyler, coming in from the hall. He shuts his eyes and opens them again, in case the pollen somehow got underneath his fingernails or into his nose. He blinks.
Everything is very wrong.
He knows it is Jackie Tyler because he has seen the photographs, the terrifying photos of strange human women in bathrobes on some holiday morning, curlers in their hair and everywhere yards of pink chenille. It is blue chenille, today. Jackie scowls at him. "Who the hell are you ?" she asks. He knows that tone, twenty years younger, too well. Her eyes narrow. "And where the hell is my daughter ?"
"Oh, balls," says the Master.
For ophelia_winters: Human Ten and Rose.
To err is human."
There are things that are too strange, now, to be anything but the human bits; the rubbery-cold feet when he sits on the edge of the bathtub too long, reading her magazines when she's not looking; the phantom taste of overcooked carrots and the ensuing gag reflex; the way his solitary heart beats more slowly, and then more quickly, when she enters a room. The fact that he can almost never tell what time it is. The fact that he can't run three miles without stopping for air anymore.
Well, two miles. One-and-a-half. Damn.
But it's still up there, ticking away, his brain. He clings to that. He can still assemble a sonic manipulator out of a car stereo system and a waffle iron. He can still draw a map of the Calufrax system on a bar napkin. He can recite the eleventy-hundred High Chancellors of Plompt, sober or drunk, though the accompanying dance is better done sober. He can still take joy in things that are new and things that are old, and things that are hers, and more recently things that are theirs.
He doesn't always get it quite right.
"You said Vienna sausages."
"No, I didn't," Rose sighs, with a tin in each hand and an exasperated expression between them. "I said Vienna fingers. Fingers." She hands him one tin and waggles her digits at him for good measure; he examines the label.
"They look like fingers," he suggests. "You could even put little slices of onion on them to look like nails."
"Oh, ew." She shoves the second tin at him, disgusted, and they stare at each other for a moment. He gestures with the cans like he's about to take up juggling and she laughs, stills him with her hands on his wrists. She leans forward and presses a kiss to his mouth.
"I'm sorry," he says, automatically. "I didn't get it right." She gives him a funny look and takes the tins away from him, sets them on the counter and then leans against it, pulling him closer by his trouser pockets. He shivers, delighted.
"There's such a thing," says Rose, "as marks for effort."
Humanity is growing on him.
For adriana_is: Doctor/Rose and The Master. This may actually become a longer... thing. Eventually.
Family.
He finally does it.
He finally does it, he does; he slips a tablespoon (okay, four tablespoons) of hallucinatory pollen into the Doctor's mug and tells Rose that the antidote is outside and down the hill and he will stay with him until it passes and he will not dress him up and convince him he's a kabuki actor. And when she's gone, he tells the Doctor the door is a giant jam biscuit, and when the Doctor has tired himself out gnawing on the hinges, he takes a blood sample and kicks him out on his ass and uses the sample to fool the ship's DNA-triggered steering system and he has finally done it.
The Master has never been happier. Never. Not even on last year's birthday, when Rose baked him a cake and he put the Doctor's face in it.
"I did it !" he crows, to them, and then frowns when he remembers that they aren't there and he hates them, anyway. He sets the controls to 1843, because he wants a meat pie and he's good with steam-powered death mechanisms. There's a good beat in the back of his brain; he dances a little, and tries to remember how to loosen a corset with one hand. There's a slight turbulence. There is more turbulence, the sensation of wind and looming space, the wildness of time- in short, something goes a bit wonky, he does a good milkshake impression and falls down on the floor a lot. Something snaps back into place. The gears grind to a halt and the landing is shaky at best; he is certain that the ship is angry with him. Fine. He kisses the glassy center column with a little tongue, just to piss her off further, and stalks to the doors. Flinging them open, just to hear the smack, he inhales deeply and savors the invigorating scents of-
-peroxide and burnt toast.
"Rose ? Darling ?" says Jackie Tyler, coming in from the hall. He shuts his eyes and opens them again, in case the pollen somehow got underneath his fingernails or into his nose. He blinks.
Everything is very wrong.
He knows it is Jackie Tyler because he has seen the photographs, the terrifying photos of strange human women in bathrobes on some holiday morning, curlers in their hair and everywhere yards of pink chenille. It is blue chenille, today. Jackie scowls at him. "Who the hell are you ?" she asks. He knows that tone, twenty years younger, too well. Her eyes narrow. "And where the hell is my daughter ?"
"Oh, balls," says the Master.