[Team One] even time travelers require sick time
~1000 words of doctor who!au soriku, where Sora is a time traveling alien(?) and Riku is his companion. g-rated
"I like taking care of you once in a while,” Riku insisted.
Sora sneezed three times in response, looking more miserable each time. “But we were supposed to visit Neverland for the star shower! Oh!! And then a quick trip to Twilight Town for the opening of Little Chef’s restaurant. I can’t be sick. I don’t do sick!”
Riku couldn’t help but chuckle, reaching out to ruffle Sora’s hair. “Well, I guess you do today. Besides, you’re the one always telling me this is a time travel ship right? What we don’t do today, we can always do tomorrow. Or yesterday. Whichever comes first.”
Sora seemed slightly mollified by that, and he blew his nose into another handkerchief. Riku sighed, stepping away to make some tea or soup.
Finding things in this ship always seemed to rely more on how the ship felt rather than on any sense of direction. If Sora’s TARDIS felt like soup, Riku would find the fully stocked kitchen. Otherwise…
“Ah, so tea it is then?” Riku said as he stepped into a room filled to the brim with mismatched teacups, all souvenirs from Sora’s trips to Wonderland. Or so he said. Riku had only been once.
And after nearly getting his head lopped off by an ax-happy queen, once was quite enough. At least in that time. Maybe in a hundred years things will have settled down.
He smiled stroking the doorframe of the TARDIS gently. “Thanks. I think tea sounds perfect. We’ll have soup later.”
The TARDIS hummed in response, a stream of lights around the room flickering in appreciation.
It had been nearly three years since Sora had held his hand out to Riku on the beach of Destiny Island, imploring that he come with him on adventures through time and space.
Riku, who had never stepped foot off his island home but dreamed of a world beyond had barely hesitated before leaping into Sora’s waiting spaceship- a funny tiny looking thing painted red and gold.
“Are you sure we’re gonna fit?” Riku asked as he stepped inside.
Instantly, he regretted his words.
“Well, it might be a tight squeeze.” Sora had teased, smiling widely as Riku took in the larger room on the inside of the tiny ship. A main control console and several highbacked chars took up the central chamber, but just beyond it Riku could make out hallways that led deeper into the ship.
Gasping, Riku ran back outside. But the ship was the same size he remembered. Barely taller than himself, and no wider than the old shack on the play island. Riku went around, tapping and knocking on ever available surface. The material was strange and sort of spongey, but solid. No way was it somehow holding an entire castle inside.
But then he reached the door again and stepped in. The large room was still there. “It’s…”
Sora looked at him expectantly.
“It’s bigger on the inside.” Riku finished, realizing suddenly that Sora had been expecting that.
“Is it?” Sora teased again. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Well,” Riku brushed off his awe. He was supposed to be cool. “You are kinda short. Maybe you thought this was how it was supposed to be.”
“Hey!” Sora shouted, even as the smile on his face grew. “Just for that, I might make you wait before we visit another world.”
Riku laughed. “Well, where else are we supposed to go in a spaceship?”
“Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” Sora explained, running a hand soothingly over a railing by the door. “TARDIS.”
Riku frowned. “Who came up with that?”
Sora shrugged. “Supposedly, it was the name given to a friend’s TARDIS a long time ago, and the name sort of stuck as the name for all my people’s time machines. Though with time travel who knows what came first, the name or the machine?”
With a few twists and presses of a button, Sora grinned as the ship started to shake. Riku grabbed one of the chairs for balance looking over at Sora. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a time ship too!” Sora laughed. “And she’s brand new. How about a few hundred years into this world’s past to break her in?”
“Riku?”
Riku gasped, realizing that in his reminiscence, the water had long since boiled and he buried to pour two cups and place two bags of tea in. Sweetening Sora’s with honey, Riku made his way back to the control room, placing the cup with pink and blue dots in front of Sora, reserving the green striped teacup for himself. “Sorry. I was distracted.”
“Hmm?” Sora took a sip of tea, smiling when he tasted the hundred-acre wood Honey they picked up last week. “With what?”
Riku shrugged. “The first time you brought me on board.” He turned to regard Sora with the near three years of experience he now had.
In that relatively short about of time, Sora had become his best friend and he couldn’t imagine life without him. Together they had saved numerous worlds on more than one occasion, fighting back Sora’s enemies, the Heartless and the Nobodies- meeting new friends and creatures.
And Riku would have never met any of them, would have never stopped foot off his tiny island if-
“Why did you choose me?” Riku asked without meaning to, the question slipping out. “I mean… I know I just helped you close the door to stop the heartless from invading the islands, but… what made you come back for me. I’m not anyone special.”
Sora’s eyes widened in surprise. “Riku! You’re the most special person in the whole universe.”
Riku tilted his head, the words not making sense. “Me? I’m nobody. I’m still just a high school dropout who thought he was too cool for school and bored to death with being an islander.”
“You wanted to see the outside world,” Sora said, in that wiser and knowing way he did sometimes. The few times that made Riku realize Sora truly was older than he looked. “And it’s been so long since I- well… I wanted to show someone. See the whole universe with fresh eyes. And-”
Sora looked back down at his tea a small knowing smile on his face. “I think you needed me as much as I needed you.”
Next up is Nichi! your line is "I think you needed me as much as I needed you.”