Eros, Agape, Philia (1/1)
Title: Eros, Agape, Philia
Rating: All Ages
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose
Word Count: 1484
A/N: Written for Round 2.03 of writerinatardis . The prompt was: " "The Doctor has a strange, unusual, or very silly hobby. Rose just found out about it." I stealthily snuck by totally under the radar this round, once again surviving to fic another day. :) And congrats to f-lister wildwinterwitch , who won this round!
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Hello, my name is the Doctor."
He didn't sound close enough to be talking to her (and she knew his name perfectly well anyway, or what passed for his name), but she supposed that the weird acoustics of dimensional transcendence might be making him sound farther away than he actually was.
"Your concubine is very handsome. Is he for sale?"
"Pardon?" Rose called as she approached a set of wooden double doors at the end of a dark hallway and pushed them open. "Doctor?" she said tentatively, seeing him sitting, back to her, at a large desk spread with books and papers.
"Can you direct me to a species-appropriate lavatory?" he replied. He leaned over to write something down on a scrap of paper, muttering to himself, "I would like... one nutrition pod, please.”
He nearly jumped out of his suit entirely when she touched him on the shoulder, and it wasn't until that point that she noticed that he had tiny little earphones on, and hadn’t been able to hear her approach. She stepped back, apologetically.
"Sorry," she said as he removed the earphones and set them down on his desk. "I heard you talking and… were you talking to me?"
He turned towards her in his high-backed chair. "I thought you'd be sleeping," he remarked, capping his fountain pen and brushing a bit of torn paper off of his lapel. "Being possessed by a foreign consciousness takes a lot out of humans, or so I've been told."
"Couldn't sleep," Rose mumbled in reply, suddenly feeling like her inability to get some quality kip was a personal failing. "Like, I'm tired-exhausted, really-but every time I close my eyes, they just pop right open again."
"Have you tried warm milk? Have we any, or are we out? It seems to turn so much faster on the TARDIS than it should. Though... if I wired up the refrigerator to the temporal stabiliser, maybe that would solve the problem. Right, then! Off to the kitchen for some nice, warm, temporally-unstable, possibly-sour milk."
Rose didn't move as the Doctor stood from his chair.
"No?" he said, his voice rising to a bit of a surprised squeak. Only the Doctor would assume that the words "temporally-unstable" and "possibly-sour" sounded at all appetising.
"Well, I was wondering if maybe I could just.... you know, hang out. Here, with you. While you... do whatever it is you were doing." She moved to the opposite side of the room and sat herself on an overstuffed divan, upholstered in soft maroon velvet. "You don't mind, do you?"
"’Course not. We could go somewhere, though, if you want. Maybe catch a show? Elvis, the Beatles, Mozart... a little night music, yeah?" He studied her face, and indeed Rose had never before in her life felt so studied. "No?"
"I'm sorry," Rose apologised, again. "Just... go about your business. Don't mind me. I'm sure in a few hours I'll have had some sleep and you can take me wherever you want. Elvis sounds fun. But, like, the later sort of fun."
"Later," the Doctor sniffed and sat back down at his desk, looking somewhat crestfallen. "Right. Well, I hope you don't mind, I'm in the middle of my lesson."
Rose stretched herself out on the divan and laid her head on a brocade pillow. "Yeah, what was all that, anyway?"
"Language lessons," the Doctor replied, holding up his earphones.
She blinked, and blinked again, her expectations all crashing into one another as if in a pile-up on the motorway. "But... you said the TARDIS translates. I know it does, because when you were ill, it stopped and I couldn't understand the Sycorax. Do you need to know all the languages, or else it doesn’t work?"
"No, no, not at all." He waved his hand dismissively. "I'm just a bit of the circuit, but she does all the work."
"But... you were speaking English just then anyway. I heard you.”
The Doctor smiled impishly. "How do you know I'm ever speaking English? The TARDIS translates. I could be speaking Gax for all you know. Every word in their language rhymes with spork."
Rose rubbed her eyes and squinted. "So, we're not speaking English right now?"
"We are," he said, putting his feet up on his desk and tipping his chair back. "I said you wouldn't know if we weren't. But before, when you heard me practising-Soreanian, incidentally-the TARDIS was translating and you heard English, but that wasn't what I was speaking."
Rose felt momentarily quite stupid, and chalked it up to her lack of sleep. “Right,” she said. “I should have thought of that.” She reached for a shawl laying across a nearby ottoman and snuggled under it.
The Doctor went back to studying the papers lying before him on the heavy wooden desk, occasionally uncapping his pen and making a notation. She could tell from the movement of his hand that whatever language he was writing in was not composed of the small, clipped strokes of the Roman alphabet. His arm moved in broad, fluid motions, his posture changed as he wrote, to accommodate these sweeping figures, and Rose marvelled that such a little thing could make such a large difference to how she perceived him.
“Just one thing, though,” she said quietly, and he looked over, putting his pen down and clasping his hands in his lap. “If the TARDIS translates for you, why do you need to learn other languages? When I was in year six, yeah? We took a trip to France for the day, and we were supposed to go ‘round and use all the French we’d learned in school, but all the French people I met insisted on speaking English with me every time I’d struggle over a word. I never really bothered to get good marks in French after that-what’d be the point?”
The Doctor looked like he was having a difficult time keeping himself from tutting at her. “You can’t really understand a culture unless you understand its language.”
“You mean like how in Chinese the word for crisis is the same as the word for opportunity?” She couldn’t remember where she’d heard that bit of trivia. Maybe a pub quiz.
“That’s rubbish, actually. Modern Mandarin Chinese is made up of compound words, and the words for crisis and opportunity share a phoneme in common. It’d be like saying that English has the same word for underpants and underground. Or excellent and excrement. Rhinoceros and rhinoplasty?”
“Oh.”
The Doctor’s face shifted suddenly from rather loftily pedantic to warm and open. “It’s just to say that there’s really no substitute for learning these things yourself. Like the Soreanians here, do you know they’ve got no word for love? It’s a strictly market-based society, and the structure of the Soreanian brain lacks the ability to manufacture the proper chemicals to feel romantic love.”
“That’s terrible!” Rose clutched a nearby throw-pillow to her chest in horror.
“Don’t get so high and mighty yourself, Rose Tyler. English has only one word for love, while the ancient Greeks had half a dozen. Think about what Aristotle would say if you told him that you love your mum, and you love pork chops, and you love your pet goldfish, and that you also love…." He cleared his throat and his eyes darted down to his shoes for a moment. "Well, whomever. You get the idea. In Greek you’d use all different words 'cos they’re all quite different sentiments. I’m assuming that you don’t love your goldfish in that way, yeah?” He smirked suggestively.
“But to never feel love at all… I can’t imagine it.”
“Ah, but the Soreanians have two dozen different words for happiness. And they’ve got no way of expressing verb tense. Everything happens in the present. A wonderfully spontaneous and joyful people, the Soreanians. They just concentrate on what makes them happy, right now. Their prosperity and fertility rites are not to be missed.”
“Can you say something? I mean, without the TARDIS translating?”
“If you'd like.” He stood and crossed over to her, knelt by where she lay on the divan and placed a finger to her temple.
Like when he’d been writing earlier, the sounds that came out of his mouth now changed the look of his face as he pronounced them. Even the normal timbre of his voice, still so new to her in his new body, was different.
He took his hand away again and stood over her, smiling with self-satisfaction.
“What’d you say?” she asked, still trying to understand how such little things could change someone you thought you knew.
“That’ll just be your motivation to learn a new language,” he said, and strode back over to his desk. “You’ll have all the time in the world, if you stay with me.”
Rating: All Ages
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose
Word Count: 1484
A/N: Written for Round 2.03 of writerinatardis . The prompt was: " "The Doctor has a strange, unusual, or very silly hobby. Rose just found out about it." I stealthily snuck by totally under the radar this round, once again surviving to fic another day. :) And congrats to f-lister wildwinterwitch , who won this round!
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Hello, my name is the Doctor."
He didn't sound close enough to be talking to her (and she knew his name perfectly well anyway, or what passed for his name), but she supposed that the weird acoustics of dimensional transcendence might be making him sound farther away than he actually was.
"Your concubine is very handsome. Is he for sale?"
"Pardon?" Rose called as she approached a set of wooden double doors at the end of a dark hallway and pushed them open. "Doctor?" she said tentatively, seeing him sitting, back to her, at a large desk spread with books and papers.
"Can you direct me to a species-appropriate lavatory?" he replied. He leaned over to write something down on a scrap of paper, muttering to himself, "I would like... one nutrition pod, please.”
He nearly jumped out of his suit entirely when she touched him on the shoulder, and it wasn't until that point that she noticed that he had tiny little earphones on, and hadn’t been able to hear her approach. She stepped back, apologetically.
"Sorry," she said as he removed the earphones and set them down on his desk. "I heard you talking and… were you talking to me?"
He turned towards her in his high-backed chair. "I thought you'd be sleeping," he remarked, capping his fountain pen and brushing a bit of torn paper off of his lapel. "Being possessed by a foreign consciousness takes a lot out of humans, or so I've been told."
"Couldn't sleep," Rose mumbled in reply, suddenly feeling like her inability to get some quality kip was a personal failing. "Like, I'm tired-exhausted, really-but every time I close my eyes, they just pop right open again."
"Have you tried warm milk? Have we any, or are we out? It seems to turn so much faster on the TARDIS than it should. Though... if I wired up the refrigerator to the temporal stabiliser, maybe that would solve the problem. Right, then! Off to the kitchen for some nice, warm, temporally-unstable, possibly-sour milk."
Rose didn't move as the Doctor stood from his chair.
"No?" he said, his voice rising to a bit of a surprised squeak. Only the Doctor would assume that the words "temporally-unstable" and "possibly-sour" sounded at all appetising.
"Well, I was wondering if maybe I could just.... you know, hang out. Here, with you. While you... do whatever it is you were doing." She moved to the opposite side of the room and sat herself on an overstuffed divan, upholstered in soft maroon velvet. "You don't mind, do you?"
"’Course not. We could go somewhere, though, if you want. Maybe catch a show? Elvis, the Beatles, Mozart... a little night music, yeah?" He studied her face, and indeed Rose had never before in her life felt so studied. "No?"
"I'm sorry," Rose apologised, again. "Just... go about your business. Don't mind me. I'm sure in a few hours I'll have had some sleep and you can take me wherever you want. Elvis sounds fun. But, like, the later sort of fun."
"Later," the Doctor sniffed and sat back down at his desk, looking somewhat crestfallen. "Right. Well, I hope you don't mind, I'm in the middle of my lesson."
Rose stretched herself out on the divan and laid her head on a brocade pillow. "Yeah, what was all that, anyway?"
"Language lessons," the Doctor replied, holding up his earphones.
She blinked, and blinked again, her expectations all crashing into one another as if in a pile-up on the motorway. "But... you said the TARDIS translates. I know it does, because when you were ill, it stopped and I couldn't understand the Sycorax. Do you need to know all the languages, or else it doesn’t work?"
"No, no, not at all." He waved his hand dismissively. "I'm just a bit of the circuit, but she does all the work."
"But... you were speaking English just then anyway. I heard you.”
The Doctor smiled impishly. "How do you know I'm ever speaking English? The TARDIS translates. I could be speaking Gax for all you know. Every word in their language rhymes with spork."
Rose rubbed her eyes and squinted. "So, we're not speaking English right now?"
"We are," he said, putting his feet up on his desk and tipping his chair back. "I said you wouldn't know if we weren't. But before, when you heard me practising-Soreanian, incidentally-the TARDIS was translating and you heard English, but that wasn't what I was speaking."
Rose felt momentarily quite stupid, and chalked it up to her lack of sleep. “Right,” she said. “I should have thought of that.” She reached for a shawl laying across a nearby ottoman and snuggled under it.
The Doctor went back to studying the papers lying before him on the heavy wooden desk, occasionally uncapping his pen and making a notation. She could tell from the movement of his hand that whatever language he was writing in was not composed of the small, clipped strokes of the Roman alphabet. His arm moved in broad, fluid motions, his posture changed as he wrote, to accommodate these sweeping figures, and Rose marvelled that such a little thing could make such a large difference to how she perceived him.
“Just one thing, though,” she said quietly, and he looked over, putting his pen down and clasping his hands in his lap. “If the TARDIS translates for you, why do you need to learn other languages? When I was in year six, yeah? We took a trip to France for the day, and we were supposed to go ‘round and use all the French we’d learned in school, but all the French people I met insisted on speaking English with me every time I’d struggle over a word. I never really bothered to get good marks in French after that-what’d be the point?”
The Doctor looked like he was having a difficult time keeping himself from tutting at her. “You can’t really understand a culture unless you understand its language.”
“You mean like how in Chinese the word for crisis is the same as the word for opportunity?” She couldn’t remember where she’d heard that bit of trivia. Maybe a pub quiz.
“That’s rubbish, actually. Modern Mandarin Chinese is made up of compound words, and the words for crisis and opportunity share a phoneme in common. It’d be like saying that English has the same word for underpants and underground. Or excellent and excrement. Rhinoceros and rhinoplasty?”
“Oh.”
The Doctor’s face shifted suddenly from rather loftily pedantic to warm and open. “It’s just to say that there’s really no substitute for learning these things yourself. Like the Soreanians here, do you know they’ve got no word for love? It’s a strictly market-based society, and the structure of the Soreanian brain lacks the ability to manufacture the proper chemicals to feel romantic love.”
“That’s terrible!” Rose clutched a nearby throw-pillow to her chest in horror.
“Don’t get so high and mighty yourself, Rose Tyler. English has only one word for love, while the ancient Greeks had half a dozen. Think about what Aristotle would say if you told him that you love your mum, and you love pork chops, and you love your pet goldfish, and that you also love…." He cleared his throat and his eyes darted down to his shoes for a moment. "Well, whomever. You get the idea. In Greek you’d use all different words 'cos they’re all quite different sentiments. I’m assuming that you don’t love your goldfish in that way, yeah?” He smirked suggestively.
“But to never feel love at all… I can’t imagine it.”
“Ah, but the Soreanians have two dozen different words for happiness. And they’ve got no way of expressing verb tense. Everything happens in the present. A wonderfully spontaneous and joyful people, the Soreanians. They just concentrate on what makes them happy, right now. Their prosperity and fertility rites are not to be missed.”
“Can you say something? I mean, without the TARDIS translating?”
“If you'd like.” He stood and crossed over to her, knelt by where she lay on the divan and placed a finger to her temple.
Like when he’d been writing earlier, the sounds that came out of his mouth now changed the look of his face as he pronounced them. Even the normal timbre of his voice, still so new to her in his new body, was different.
He took his hand away again and stood over her, smiling with self-satisfaction.
“What’d you say?” she asked, still trying to understand how such little things could change someone you thought you knew.
“That’ll just be your motivation to learn a new language,” he said, and strode back over to his desk. “You’ll have all the time in the world, if you stay with me.”