Arthur the fic challenge!
I wrote something! It may indeed make little sense, but here it is! Doctor Who, Tenth Doctor and Rose, for themonkeycabal's Arthur procrastination fic challenge.
Max Yasgur's Secret Stash
by Eve11
~1600 words, PG
No spoilers, aside from taking place in series two (2006)
------------
The air pulsed around her. Such a noise in her ears, such a massive throng of colors before her eyes. The ground was a swirling, thundering miasma, the black sky was dancing with stars, and the smell... she had never imagined something so utterly alien, so...
A hand tapped her shoulder and Rose whirled around. Or tried to, and spent half a minute disentangling her black crocheted shawl from the macrame belt of the swaying woman standing next to her. The altercation was completely one-sided; the woman paid Rose no attention at all, so focused as she was on the heart and soul pouring from the microphone onstage: "So come on! Come on! Come on!..."
"Doctor!" Rose's words were swallowed by the wall of sound as she finally managed to turn around. The Doctor gave her Devilish Grin version 2.0, so different and yet still the same. In the stage light she caught only the gleam in his eye and the flash of white teeth, then he had hold of her hand and was leading her dizzyingly through the crowd. Where've you been? she tried to say but was distracted by the build of the music again.
"Break it! Break another little piece of my heart, you know you will..."
The sound died away and they finally came to a swirling stop behind a line of pine trees. The Doctor took her by the shoulders, examining her eyes intently.
"Been experimenting with the local flora, have we?"
Rose giggled. "I've been a perfect saint, I have."
The Doctor frowned. Rose found this at once frightfully funny and unfair, since she couldn't stop laughing even as she tried to defend her honor.
"I have! It's the air. I think I breathed in a bad patch." She poked him. "And what about you? You're filthy."
He was; there was not a spot on him that wasn't covered with gray-brown mud. His brown coat was browner still, and soaked. His sneakers were unrecognizable, and his eyebrows were camouflaged perfectly with the rest of his face.
"Well, you know," he said, looking up at the stars. "Woodstock, 1969. Dirt and grime don't make it into the history books, but they are part of the experience."
"Yeah? You look like a mud monster."
The Doctor swiped at his brow, leaving the area even dirtier, if that were possible.
"Funny you should mention that," he said.
***
An interesting thing to note about the Serangifax of Terrian Four, the Doctor explained as they made their way through the crowd, was that aside from evolving from a mixture of minerals, organic decay, refuse and water, they had the uncanny knack for chemically altering this mixture as a by-product of their reproductive cycle. It was an efficient and insidious scheme; the Serangifax thrived on brainwave patterns of a particular kind, and their body-produced chemical tuned human brains to exactly that. So in essence, the more the Serangifax reproduced, the more fodder they had to keep reproducing. And reproducing Serangifax were in no way a Good Thing. It's why they were ousted from Terrian Four to begin with.
"How'd they get here?" Rose asked, doing her best to keep up. She'd lost a shoe in the muck a ways back and was listing to one side.
The Doctor paused. "Oh, they're huge Hendrix fans," he said. Then he collared yet another floral-printed passer-by and waved a baggie of brown tablets under the man's nose.
"Stay away from this stuff," the Doctor said. "Do me a favor and tell your friends, mate, don't drop the brown acid. It's a bad trip."
"Sure thing, man." The hippie raised two fingers in what the Doctor had assured Rose was the peace sign here in America, and wandered off into the crowd.
"So where are we going?" Rose asked.
"You are going here," the Doctor said, waving at a large white tent that had snuck up on them without Rose's notice. A haggard-looking nurse waved at them as they approached. The Doctor swept past her with a quick introduction -- "Mary Sanderson, Rose Tyler. Rose Tyler, Mary Sanderson" -- and then sat Rose down on a bench in the tent and handed her the sonic screwdriver. "You are going to use this to sever the brainwave connection between the Serangifax and their victims. I am off to collect as much extract of teraxacum officianale as I can find."
"Te-what?" Rose echoed, staring stupidly at the screwdriver. Then, realizing what was happening as the Doctor rushed by her, she grabbed hold of his arm. "No, I'm coming with you."
"No no no," the Doctor said. "It's dangerous stuff, teraxacum officianale. Full of mind-altering properties, but it does work wonders against breeding Serangifax. Best you stay away from it, though."
"But--"
The Doctor pressed the screwdriver into her hand again, eyes brilliant behind the mud caked on his face. "I need you here, Rose," he said, then flashed a smile. "I'll be back in no time."
Then he was gone. Rose pocketed the screwdriver and took a moment to look around. The whole tent was filled with cots holding moaning, writhing concert-goers. Nurse Mary Sanderson took her hand and smiled wanly.
"Welcome to the Freak-out tent," she said.
***
Rose sighed and scanned the horizon. In the pre-dawn haze, the concert grounds had lost much of their thrall. The sun was rising to the strains of the Who's My Generation, and yet another writhing victim was being escorted into the Freak-out tent. Rose met Mary Sanderson's eyes as the nurse laid the man down on the nearest cot. She had a pounding headache, the Doctor had been gone a good two hours, and she was starting to get nervous.
"I swear to god, if I hear one more person cry 'Spiders!' I'm going to completely lose it," Rose said, running the sonic screwdriver over the newest patient's forehead.
Mary Sanderson nodded solemnly. "Last night it was snakes. When your friend started in with the mud men, I thought, well, at least it was something new."
"It's always something new with him," Rose said.
Mary Sanderson eyed the sonic screwdriver. "What's his gig, anyway?"
Rose shrugged. "We're time travelers."
"Right on. You and your friend?"
"Yeah," Rose said absently. "And if he's not back in five minutes, I'm going to kill him."
***
It was scarcely four and a half minutes later, during the very next song in the set, when the Doctor came crashing through the Freak-out tent, bedecked in mud and flowers. "Whoooooooo are you?" he announced his entrance, singing along with the strains on the wind, "Who, who? I really wanna KNOW!"
"Doctor!" Rose rushed to his side.
In the middle of the room he suddenly stopped, a study in grime and perplexity, muttering to himself.
"You know, I could swear they don't write that song until 1978. I don't-- well, I only popped by for a moment, didn't I?" His face brightened. "What's a few years? Less than ten, anyway! They--"
"What happened?" Rose interrupted. "Are you all right?"
The Doctor blinked and furrowed his brow, finally taking in his surroundings. "Rose! What are you doing here?"
"You told me to stay here," she said. "I even listened this time."
"Then what am I doing here? I was going out to take on the Serangifax." The Doctor looked around. "This isn't them. This is... oh, hello again Mary Sanderson!" He waved at the nurse, who was currently eyeing both the Doctor and Rose as though they each belonged on one of the cots in the Freak-out tent.
"This is the Freak-out tent, Doctor," Rose supplied through a smile.
"Oh. I certainly didn't mean to end up back here."
"Doctor, what's wrong?" Rose reached for the string of yellow flowers around the Doctor's head, but he pulled away from her, eyes suddenly intense.
"I told you, stay away from those. Dangerous stuff, teraxacum officianale. Mind altering properties. I was lucky to find a cache of them so close, but I think," he spun in a half-circle, staring at the ceiling, "I may have gotten a whiff of one too many."
Rose stared at the flowers chained around the Doctor's head. More were strung across his shoulders and around his waist, the milky extract mingling with the mud on his clothes. His pockets bulged with tufts of yellow, mixed with long, green leaves.
"They're dandelions," she said.
The Doctor scratched his chin. "Is that what you're calling them nowadays?"
Rose took hold of his shoulders and studied his eyes. "Are you high on dandelions?"
"I might very well be," the Doctor answered, still trying to bat Rose's hands away as she took the chain off his head. When he saw her holding the plants with no effect, he stared. "They're... no mind altering properties?" he asked.
"They're dandelions, common as salt. Where would the human race be if we got drunk from dandelions?" Rose hurriedly emptied the Doctor's pockets, taking fistfuls of dandelions and filling her own. "All those years traveling the world and you never landed in a field of dandelions?"
"I suppose," the Doctor said, "I have been spectacularly lucky."
***
They found the infestation of Serangifax blossoming out from the stagnant lake. It was a long, messy fight, but in the end, the Serangifax were no match for Rose Tyler, Dandelion queen, who vanquished them with handfuls of the yellow weed. By the time Hendrix took the stage the mud monsters were history, and Rose and the Doctor were exhausted.
"Rose," the Doctor said as they staggered past a sagging concession stand, "We need snacks."
"Dandelions give Time Lords the munchies, yeah? You got any money?"
"I do. Well," the Doctor waved a wavering hand. "Some. Well, none at all, really."
Rose steered him toward the waiting TARDIS. "I knew it. You're such a rotten date."
"Aw, who needs money? My good looks, your..." He paused, studying her mud-caked form as she fished for the TARDIS key. "Your charm--"
"Come on," Rose said, opening the door, "Before you say something you'll regret."
"I think there's a banana stand back on Route 17."
"Is there?"
"We could stop."
"No, I think we should keep going."
"But Rose, bananas are good."
"Right on."
-------------------
Max Yasgur's Secret Stash
by Eve11
~1600 words, PG
No spoilers, aside from taking place in series two (2006)
------------
The air pulsed around her. Such a noise in her ears, such a massive throng of colors before her eyes. The ground was a swirling, thundering miasma, the black sky was dancing with stars, and the smell... she had never imagined something so utterly alien, so...
A hand tapped her shoulder and Rose whirled around. Or tried to, and spent half a minute disentangling her black crocheted shawl from the macrame belt of the swaying woman standing next to her. The altercation was completely one-sided; the woman paid Rose no attention at all, so focused as she was on the heart and soul pouring from the microphone onstage: "So come on! Come on! Come on!..."
"Doctor!" Rose's words were swallowed by the wall of sound as she finally managed to turn around. The Doctor gave her Devilish Grin version 2.0, so different and yet still the same. In the stage light she caught only the gleam in his eye and the flash of white teeth, then he had hold of her hand and was leading her dizzyingly through the crowd. Where've you been? she tried to say but was distracted by the build of the music again.
"Break it! Break another little piece of my heart, you know you will..."
The sound died away and they finally came to a swirling stop behind a line of pine trees. The Doctor took her by the shoulders, examining her eyes intently.
"Been experimenting with the local flora, have we?"
Rose giggled. "I've been a perfect saint, I have."
The Doctor frowned. Rose found this at once frightfully funny and unfair, since she couldn't stop laughing even as she tried to defend her honor.
"I have! It's the air. I think I breathed in a bad patch." She poked him. "And what about you? You're filthy."
He was; there was not a spot on him that wasn't covered with gray-brown mud. His brown coat was browner still, and soaked. His sneakers were unrecognizable, and his eyebrows were camouflaged perfectly with the rest of his face.
"Well, you know," he said, looking up at the stars. "Woodstock, 1969. Dirt and grime don't make it into the history books, but they are part of the experience."
"Yeah? You look like a mud monster."
The Doctor swiped at his brow, leaving the area even dirtier, if that were possible.
"Funny you should mention that," he said.
***
An interesting thing to note about the Serangifax of Terrian Four, the Doctor explained as they made their way through the crowd, was that aside from evolving from a mixture of minerals, organic decay, refuse and water, they had the uncanny knack for chemically altering this mixture as a by-product of their reproductive cycle. It was an efficient and insidious scheme; the Serangifax thrived on brainwave patterns of a particular kind, and their body-produced chemical tuned human brains to exactly that. So in essence, the more the Serangifax reproduced, the more fodder they had to keep reproducing. And reproducing Serangifax were in no way a Good Thing. It's why they were ousted from Terrian Four to begin with.
"How'd they get here?" Rose asked, doing her best to keep up. She'd lost a shoe in the muck a ways back and was listing to one side.
The Doctor paused. "Oh, they're huge Hendrix fans," he said. Then he collared yet another floral-printed passer-by and waved a baggie of brown tablets under the man's nose.
"Stay away from this stuff," the Doctor said. "Do me a favor and tell your friends, mate, don't drop the brown acid. It's a bad trip."
"Sure thing, man." The hippie raised two fingers in what the Doctor had assured Rose was the peace sign here in America, and wandered off into the crowd.
"So where are we going?" Rose asked.
"You are going here," the Doctor said, waving at a large white tent that had snuck up on them without Rose's notice. A haggard-looking nurse waved at them as they approached. The Doctor swept past her with a quick introduction -- "Mary Sanderson, Rose Tyler. Rose Tyler, Mary Sanderson" -- and then sat Rose down on a bench in the tent and handed her the sonic screwdriver. "You are going to use this to sever the brainwave connection between the Serangifax and their victims. I am off to collect as much extract of teraxacum officianale as I can find."
"Te-what?" Rose echoed, staring stupidly at the screwdriver. Then, realizing what was happening as the Doctor rushed by her, she grabbed hold of his arm. "No, I'm coming with you."
"No no no," the Doctor said. "It's dangerous stuff, teraxacum officianale. Full of mind-altering properties, but it does work wonders against breeding Serangifax. Best you stay away from it, though."
"But--"
The Doctor pressed the screwdriver into her hand again, eyes brilliant behind the mud caked on his face. "I need you here, Rose," he said, then flashed a smile. "I'll be back in no time."
Then he was gone. Rose pocketed the screwdriver and took a moment to look around. The whole tent was filled with cots holding moaning, writhing concert-goers. Nurse Mary Sanderson took her hand and smiled wanly.
"Welcome to the Freak-out tent," she said.
***
Rose sighed and scanned the horizon. In the pre-dawn haze, the concert grounds had lost much of their thrall. The sun was rising to the strains of the Who's My Generation, and yet another writhing victim was being escorted into the Freak-out tent. Rose met Mary Sanderson's eyes as the nurse laid the man down on the nearest cot. She had a pounding headache, the Doctor had been gone a good two hours, and she was starting to get nervous.
"I swear to god, if I hear one more person cry 'Spiders!' I'm going to completely lose it," Rose said, running the sonic screwdriver over the newest patient's forehead.
Mary Sanderson nodded solemnly. "Last night it was snakes. When your friend started in with the mud men, I thought, well, at least it was something new."
"It's always something new with him," Rose said.
Mary Sanderson eyed the sonic screwdriver. "What's his gig, anyway?"
Rose shrugged. "We're time travelers."
"Right on. You and your friend?"
"Yeah," Rose said absently. "And if he's not back in five minutes, I'm going to kill him."
***
It was scarcely four and a half minutes later, during the very next song in the set, when the Doctor came crashing through the Freak-out tent, bedecked in mud and flowers. "Whoooooooo are you?" he announced his entrance, singing along with the strains on the wind, "Who, who? I really wanna KNOW!"
"Doctor!" Rose rushed to his side.
In the middle of the room he suddenly stopped, a study in grime and perplexity, muttering to himself.
"You know, I could swear they don't write that song until 1978. I don't-- well, I only popped by for a moment, didn't I?" His face brightened. "What's a few years? Less than ten, anyway! They--"
"What happened?" Rose interrupted. "Are you all right?"
The Doctor blinked and furrowed his brow, finally taking in his surroundings. "Rose! What are you doing here?"
"You told me to stay here," she said. "I even listened this time."
"Then what am I doing here? I was going out to take on the Serangifax." The Doctor looked around. "This isn't them. This is... oh, hello again Mary Sanderson!" He waved at the nurse, who was currently eyeing both the Doctor and Rose as though they each belonged on one of the cots in the Freak-out tent.
"This is the Freak-out tent, Doctor," Rose supplied through a smile.
"Oh. I certainly didn't mean to end up back here."
"Doctor, what's wrong?" Rose reached for the string of yellow flowers around the Doctor's head, but he pulled away from her, eyes suddenly intense.
"I told you, stay away from those. Dangerous stuff, teraxacum officianale. Mind altering properties. I was lucky to find a cache of them so close, but I think," he spun in a half-circle, staring at the ceiling, "I may have gotten a whiff of one too many."
Rose stared at the flowers chained around the Doctor's head. More were strung across his shoulders and around his waist, the milky extract mingling with the mud on his clothes. His pockets bulged with tufts of yellow, mixed with long, green leaves.
"They're dandelions," she said.
The Doctor scratched his chin. "Is that what you're calling them nowadays?"
Rose took hold of his shoulders and studied his eyes. "Are you high on dandelions?"
"I might very well be," the Doctor answered, still trying to bat Rose's hands away as she took the chain off his head. When he saw her holding the plants with no effect, he stared. "They're... no mind altering properties?" he asked.
"They're dandelions, common as salt. Where would the human race be if we got drunk from dandelions?" Rose hurriedly emptied the Doctor's pockets, taking fistfuls of dandelions and filling her own. "All those years traveling the world and you never landed in a field of dandelions?"
"I suppose," the Doctor said, "I have been spectacularly lucky."
***
They found the infestation of Serangifax blossoming out from the stagnant lake. It was a long, messy fight, but in the end, the Serangifax were no match for Rose Tyler, Dandelion queen, who vanquished them with handfuls of the yellow weed. By the time Hendrix took the stage the mud monsters were history, and Rose and the Doctor were exhausted.
"Rose," the Doctor said as they staggered past a sagging concession stand, "We need snacks."
"Dandelions give Time Lords the munchies, yeah? You got any money?"
"I do. Well," the Doctor waved a wavering hand. "Some. Well, none at all, really."
Rose steered him toward the waiting TARDIS. "I knew it. You're such a rotten date."
"Aw, who needs money? My good looks, your..." He paused, studying her mud-caked form as she fished for the TARDIS key. "Your charm--"
"Come on," Rose said, opening the door, "Before you say something you'll regret."
"I think there's a banana stand back on Route 17."
"Is there?"
"We could stop."
"No, I think we should keep going."
"But Rose, bananas are good."
"Right on."
-------------------