[round robin!] chapter 1: the lunatics are in my hall
New Years 2009-10 has the honorable distinction of falling on a Full Moon! This is something that only happens once every nineteen years, so it's a pretty big deal. If that wasn't enough, there will also be a partial lunar eclipse! Pretty cool, huh? If you're going out on New Years, make sure to look up at the sky once or twice while you're getting crunk!
That being said, New Years is a holiday where people tend to go nuts. Adding a Full Moon onto that is basically asking for trouble. Naturally the crew of the HMS Absolutely Fucking Ridiculous would stumble straight into that, wouldn't they?
Dorothy always took her time getting ready to step out the door. There was something like a ritual in it-- checking the external visuals to see if she needed a jacket, changing to the right shoes for the expected terrain, making sure she had everything she'd need in her knapsack. She knew she didn't need to hurry, because also with her in the console room, performing their usual pre-adventure ritual of loudly arguing around said console, were the Doctor, Last of the Time Lords, and James Tiberius Kirk.
"Oh, come on, Doctor, even you have to have some sense of how patently ridiculous it is to be running every other instrument on board off of a completely different energy source! Look at that one, I'm pretty sure it's steam powered."
The Doctor whirled around the console to where the Enterprise's legendary captain hovered perilously close to pushing some doubtlessly important button and reached over it, not-so-subtly squeezing Jim out of the area.
"There is nothing wrong with using variable power sources in the TARDIS, Captain, and if you knew anything at all about time and space travel, you'd understand that already." He flipped a few switches grumpily, and the TARDIS seemed to sigh in the exasperation that only comes with having heard this argument dozens of times already-- but probably it was just landing.
Dorothy generally couldn't bring herself to interrupt the boys. They loved their arguing, and who was she to intervene? Jim loved making the Doctor look slightly less like an all-knowing-all-seeing-Lord-of-Time, and the Doctor liked to go on and on at length about all the technical gizmos and gadgets duct-taped and staple-gunned onto his ship. Still, certain Excellent Questions always needed asking. She zipped up her grey corduroy jacket and started doing up the snaps from the bottom up, the way she always did.
"So, Doctor," she emphasized, "Are you gonna enlighten us as to what planet we're on? Or is it a surprise again?"
"Again? Don't tell me Mr. Shut-Up-I-Know-What-I'm-Doing-Here gets lost!" Jim Kirk was in possession of the remarkable ability to be a complete smartass and somehow make it seem utterly charming. Even Dorothy couldn't help herself from giving him an indulgent smile, and he grinned back in his way. They got along almost shockingly well, even for having known each other for a relatively short amount of time. Maybe it was a midwestern thing. Maybe it was just nice having another American on board. Maybe it was his eyes. Hey, she's a relatively innocent fairytale princess in a committed relationship with a space alien, but she's not dead.
"Oh, I picked this one specifically for you this time, Dorothy, and it doesn't count as being lost if you've hit the Random switch on purpose, Jim." The Doctor wheeled on the heels of his red converse and jogged towards the door, gathering up his coat from one of the TARDIS's coral supports as he went. He stopped for a second to privately grin at Dorothy. She took the opportunity to adjust his tie just a tiny bit. It wasn't crooked-- well, no more so than it usually was-- but it was a particular quirk of Dorothy's to touch everything, and the Doctor was certainly no exception to this rule. It just made things more real, somehow, helped her to understand things. The weight of them, the texture. Even the tie to the Doctor's blue suit.
She didn't really like that suit very much. Still. She tended to put more importance into the man wearing it.
"Alright already, let's see where we are!" Jim pushed between his companions and out the door. Dorothy shrugged helplessly at the Doctor, who looked slightly annoyed, and followed him out.
"Oh. So... what planet is this?" Jim said, looking around him at the city nightscape, neon signs and lights blinking and cutting through the dark like lasers.
"It's Earth, dummy," Dorothy smiled, stepping up behind him and nudging him with her elbow. "Looks like around my time, too. And if I'm not mistaken--"
"Earth!" The Doctor interrupted, closing the TARDIS door behind him. "Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, circa two thousand and nine. New Years, to be exact! Happy New Year."
"Happy New Year," Dorothy grinned back. The throngs of people walking by, she had noticed, were all in some state of inebriation, or on their way towards achieving inebriation, so she had at least guessed it was some kind of holiday. Two points to the fairytale. She was getting pretty good at this! "Though I could've just taken a plane for this."
"Wellllll, you could do, yeah, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun, would it! Now then, Jim, what d'you have to say about this, eh? What do you know about the history of Las Vegas? The Jewel in the Desert?"
"Just about everything," Jim said. "It has one of the more interesting histories of just about any city in the country-- my country, in case you forgot. Actually, Doc, I'm surprised you didn't drag us off to London for this. Finally getting bored of your people, huh?"
Dorothy had already stopped listening. Tuning the two of them out was a skill she'd developed through sheer necessity, even when there was nothing else going on, which to be fair wasn't a problem here. The city was beautiful at night, all lit up and full of people wandering the streets. It was like a circus hadn't just come to town, it bought the town and took over. She liked it.
Turning her face to the sky, she jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and took a deep breath of the crisp night air. If there was one thing to be said in defense of the desert, it really did afford a person a good clear view of the sky-- even in a city full of lights. It seemed as though the moon was bigger somehow, puffed up to its full brilliance for the occasion. As if to say look at me. Beautiful, glowing, silver. Full and round, casting its gentle, comforting light down on the people, whispering spells into their minds. It was mysterious. It was entrancing. It was wonderful.
It was the third or fourth time the Doctor had called her name before she finally snapped back down to earth.
"Hm?" She said, whirling around to face her friends. "Whazzat?"
"See? She wasn't even listening. Told you you're not that interesting." Jim was about five seconds away from actually sticking his tongue out, putting his hands up on either side of his head and wiggling his fingers at the Time Lord. The Doctor, to his credit, just rolled his eyes and strolled on, hands in his pockets, ignoring the captain's antics. Also like a five year old.
"Come on. Do you two wanna see this city or not? Blimey, I go out of my way to take you two somewhere you'll enjoy, and all I get is whinging from the peanut gallery."
"Hey, who're you calling a peanut?" Jim hurried after the Doctor, and Dorothy laughed. Her boys. Bless. Before she followed after them, the sound of someone with a noisemaker echoed off a building nearby-- someone on a hotel room balcony, it seemed. She smiled up at it. It's a time of year when everyone celebrates, regardless of religion or socio-economic status or even place on the globe. It's hard not to feel a little closer to your fellow man.
The moon shined down on all of them. Dorothy felt her eyes slide back up to it, meeting its pale gaze with her own. Something about it... she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Something about it was... well, it was just so...
...hypnotic.
Dorothy blinked, turned swiftly on her heels, and hurried off after her friends, into the night.
The moon watched.
...to be continued with chapter 2: here
That being said, New Years is a holiday where people tend to go nuts. Adding a Full Moon onto that is basically asking for trouble. Naturally the crew of the HMS Absolutely Fucking Ridiculous would stumble straight into that, wouldn't they?
Dorothy always took her time getting ready to step out the door. There was something like a ritual in it-- checking the external visuals to see if she needed a jacket, changing to the right shoes for the expected terrain, making sure she had everything she'd need in her knapsack. She knew she didn't need to hurry, because also with her in the console room, performing their usual pre-adventure ritual of loudly arguing around said console, were the Doctor, Last of the Time Lords, and James Tiberius Kirk.
"Oh, come on, Doctor, even you have to have some sense of how patently ridiculous it is to be running every other instrument on board off of a completely different energy source! Look at that one, I'm pretty sure it's steam powered."
The Doctor whirled around the console to where the Enterprise's legendary captain hovered perilously close to pushing some doubtlessly important button and reached over it, not-so-subtly squeezing Jim out of the area.
"There is nothing wrong with using variable power sources in the TARDIS, Captain, and if you knew anything at all about time and space travel, you'd understand that already." He flipped a few switches grumpily, and the TARDIS seemed to sigh in the exasperation that only comes with having heard this argument dozens of times already-- but probably it was just landing.
Dorothy generally couldn't bring herself to interrupt the boys. They loved their arguing, and who was she to intervene? Jim loved making the Doctor look slightly less like an all-knowing-all-seeing-Lord-of-Time, and the Doctor liked to go on and on at length about all the technical gizmos and gadgets duct-taped and staple-gunned onto his ship. Still, certain Excellent Questions always needed asking. She zipped up her grey corduroy jacket and started doing up the snaps from the bottom up, the way she always did.
"So, Doctor," she emphasized, "Are you gonna enlighten us as to what planet we're on? Or is it a surprise again?"
"Again? Don't tell me Mr. Shut-Up-I-Know-What-I'm-Doing-Here gets lost!" Jim Kirk was in possession of the remarkable ability to be a complete smartass and somehow make it seem utterly charming. Even Dorothy couldn't help herself from giving him an indulgent smile, and he grinned back in his way. They got along almost shockingly well, even for having known each other for a relatively short amount of time. Maybe it was a midwestern thing. Maybe it was just nice having another American on board. Maybe it was his eyes. Hey, she's a relatively innocent fairytale princess in a committed relationship with a space alien, but she's not dead.
"Oh, I picked this one specifically for you this time, Dorothy, and it doesn't count as being lost if you've hit the Random switch on purpose, Jim." The Doctor wheeled on the heels of his red converse and jogged towards the door, gathering up his coat from one of the TARDIS's coral supports as he went. He stopped for a second to privately grin at Dorothy. She took the opportunity to adjust his tie just a tiny bit. It wasn't crooked-- well, no more so than it usually was-- but it was a particular quirk of Dorothy's to touch everything, and the Doctor was certainly no exception to this rule. It just made things more real, somehow, helped her to understand things. The weight of them, the texture. Even the tie to the Doctor's blue suit.
She didn't really like that suit very much. Still. She tended to put more importance into the man wearing it.
"Alright already, let's see where we are!" Jim pushed between his companions and out the door. Dorothy shrugged helplessly at the Doctor, who looked slightly annoyed, and followed him out.
"Oh. So... what planet is this?" Jim said, looking around him at the city nightscape, neon signs and lights blinking and cutting through the dark like lasers.
"It's Earth, dummy," Dorothy smiled, stepping up behind him and nudging him with her elbow. "Looks like around my time, too. And if I'm not mistaken--"
"Earth!" The Doctor interrupted, closing the TARDIS door behind him. "Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, circa two thousand and nine. New Years, to be exact! Happy New Year."
"Happy New Year," Dorothy grinned back. The throngs of people walking by, she had noticed, were all in some state of inebriation, or on their way towards achieving inebriation, so she had at least guessed it was some kind of holiday. Two points to the fairytale. She was getting pretty good at this! "Though I could've just taken a plane for this."
"Wellllll, you could do, yeah, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun, would it! Now then, Jim, what d'you have to say about this, eh? What do you know about the history of Las Vegas? The Jewel in the Desert?"
"Just about everything," Jim said. "It has one of the more interesting histories of just about any city in the country-- my country, in case you forgot. Actually, Doc, I'm surprised you didn't drag us off to London for this. Finally getting bored of your people, huh?"
Dorothy had already stopped listening. Tuning the two of them out was a skill she'd developed through sheer necessity, even when there was nothing else going on, which to be fair wasn't a problem here. The city was beautiful at night, all lit up and full of people wandering the streets. It was like a circus hadn't just come to town, it bought the town and took over. She liked it.
Turning her face to the sky, she jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and took a deep breath of the crisp night air. If there was one thing to be said in defense of the desert, it really did afford a person a good clear view of the sky-- even in a city full of lights. It seemed as though the moon was bigger somehow, puffed up to its full brilliance for the occasion. As if to say look at me. Beautiful, glowing, silver. Full and round, casting its gentle, comforting light down on the people, whispering spells into their minds. It was mysterious. It was entrancing. It was wonderful.
It was the third or fourth time the Doctor had called her name before she finally snapped back down to earth.
"Hm?" She said, whirling around to face her friends. "Whazzat?"
"See? She wasn't even listening. Told you you're not that interesting." Jim was about five seconds away from actually sticking his tongue out, putting his hands up on either side of his head and wiggling his fingers at the Time Lord. The Doctor, to his credit, just rolled his eyes and strolled on, hands in his pockets, ignoring the captain's antics. Also like a five year old.
"Come on. Do you two wanna see this city or not? Blimey, I go out of my way to take you two somewhere you'll enjoy, and all I get is whinging from the peanut gallery."
"Hey, who're you calling a peanut?" Jim hurried after the Doctor, and Dorothy laughed. Her boys. Bless. Before she followed after them, the sound of someone with a noisemaker echoed off a building nearby-- someone on a hotel room balcony, it seemed. She smiled up at it. It's a time of year when everyone celebrates, regardless of religion or socio-economic status or even place on the globe. It's hard not to feel a little closer to your fellow man.
The moon shined down on all of them. Dorothy felt her eyes slide back up to it, meeting its pale gaze with her own. Something about it... she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Something about it was... well, it was just so...
...hypnotic.
Dorothy blinked, turned swiftly on her heels, and hurried off after her friends, into the night.
The moon watched.
...to be continued with chapter 2: here