[fanfic] Small Hats Are Cool
Arthur Kirkland, esq, made an effort to be as painfully normal as he possibly could. He was unfailingly polite (except when he stubbed his toe), he was always careful to offer tea to acquaintances old and new, he wore jumpers with alarming frequency, apologized profusely at inconveniences that were not his fault, and had a vast reservoir of Monty Python references that he pretend to loathe with every fiber of his being. (In reality, he loathed them with only forty-seven percent.) He did, of course, have a purpose to all of this, for who would willingly choose to be as boring as the old Greek cat lover down the street?
Arthur’s only failing was that he loved adventure, and in every adventure he had seen or read, it is the normal, boring, stable man who is dragged off by a letter or a wizard or a 1967 Chevy Impala.
He went to great lengths to make himself as boring as he could.
It was only a matter of time.
- - -
Fifteen years after Arthur’s first date with a novel drenched in adventure, he went to bed at roughly eleven p.m. having officially given up on the world. He was an adult now, at that specific age where absolutely nothing happens. He wasn’t bitter about it. In hindsight, his teachers and parents and friends had been right, as they so often were - adventures simply did not happen in this day and age, and he would have to spend the weekend looking for one himself.
He drank the last of his tea and switched off his light and pretended the sinking feeling in his chest did not exist. But before he could close his eyes, he heard the distinct click and twist and grind that was his shitty front door.
Burglar, he thought immediately, and sat up slowly so his bed would not creak beneath his weight. Beneath his pillow was a crowbar - what kind of sane man went to sleep without one? - and it felt smooth and cool in his hands.
He looked out of his doorway. Down the flat, the kitchen light was on, and he could hear soft hissing that was the universal sound effect of whispering into some sort of communication device. He could not, however, hear what the man was saying.
Part of Arthur thought he should call the police.
It is a good thing he did not.
Standing in his kitchen was a man taller than himself (but almost everyone was taller than Arthur), with extremely light hair held back with a silver clip. He was speaking into what could be said to be a mobile, except that calling it a mobile would be like calling a tiger a dog.
“I’ve already told you what’s hear, would you make up your damn mind already?” the man snapped.
Some buzzing.
“There’s plenty if you weren’t such a picky eater.”
More buzzing. In fact, the device buzzed at every break, so it shouldn’t need to be stated more than once.
“No, I’m not going to cook you something. We don’t have all the time in the world. … That is a pathetic argument and you know it. … You can’t just run away from everything!-“
The man was tall, yes, but he was also slender and Arthur had a crowbar. Arthur cleared his throat to get the man’s attention. “Excuse me!”
The man turned. His eyes were steely blue, and his expression completely unreadable -- which is to say, he had no expression, unless bored out one’s mind counts. “Can I help you?”
His manner was disarming, but Arthur had spent his life preparing for situations just such as these. “Ah, yes,” he said, using his best glare. It had often been described as containing an intimidation factor worthy of the queen herself. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve called the police, and my neighbors hate me so ransom won’t work, and every item of food in there is poisoned! So you might as well state your purpose for being here or you’ll drop dead.”
“I haven’t eaten anything,” the man replied.
Buzzing.
“And your devices won’t work,” Arthur continued, quickly dipping into a confident lie. “I am a computer genius and have built a device that disables any piece of technology that I do not personally approve. And I’m armed.” He displayed the crowbar.
“Congratulations,” the man replied, then into the device, “Shut up, I’m working on it. … No, that won’t be necessary-“
“Too late!”
Arthur didn’t want to take his eyes off of the man, but the sudden voice behind him said otherwise. He turned rapidly, cursing inwardly that he’d forgotten to take accomplices into account.
The second man was shorter than himself, with much darker hair and much redder eyes, as if he didn’t get quite enough sleep. He was swathed in a dark coat that made him seem smaller than he probably was. His most notable feature, however, was not any of this, nor was it the slightly disquieting grin that showed too many teeth.
“Your hat,” Arthur said. “It’s . . . .”
“Small, yes,” the second man said much more cheerfully than the first. “Small hats are cool, obviously. No one else wears one, except for that one planet-I forget its name. Lukas, what was the one planet called where the size of one’s hat determined one’s status?”
Lukas, if possible, seemed even more unimpressed than he had before. “What happened to ‘it won’t be necessary’?”
The second man frowned. “No, that’s not it. And you’re supposed to be the one with perfect memory. Anyway. My hat was the smallest there, so obviously they made me their king, except I couldn’t stick around to enjoy the title and that was rather depressing.” He looked rather depressed about it for about half a second, before shoving Arthur aside and looking for the refrigerator. “What do you have to eat?”
“Poison, apparently,” Lukas said.
“Bullshit, there’s no such thing.”
Arthur had been preparing for this situation his entire life. As it turned out, real life was a little bit more jarring than fiction - had he fallen asleep? Quite possible, really, he’d been annoyed before bed and he dreamed when he was annoyed. He hooked the crowbar on the belt of his bathrobe and glared in the second man’s direction. “Excuse me, but how is there no such thing as poison? I developed that mix myself! I have a degree in chemistry!”
“Poison,” the second man said, pulling things out of the refrigerator and handing them to Lukas, who put them on the table that he’d taken the liberty to sit on, “is a liquid or powder or something that has to be ingested. But there are very few poisons that don’t have antidotes and none of those that I can’t find antidotes for and even if I couldn’t find an antidote for one of them, I sincerely doubt you can get your hands on them. So on that note, there is no such thing as poison.”
Arthur tried to process that for a moment before deciding it made no bloody fucking sense.
“It doesn’t need to make sense,” Lukas calmly told him, “it just needs to be true.”
“You see, Mr. Eyebrows - can I call you Eyebrows?”
“No chance in hell.”
“Eyebrows, there is a kind of philosophy here on Earth called a Gettier Case. Have you heard of it?”
Arthur hadn’t. The second man’s expression dropped.
“Oh, that’s disappointing. But few people have so I don’t mind explaining it-is that marmite?”
“Of course it’s marmite,” Arthur proudly said, and was about to talk about how expensive it’d been since he had received it as a present from the most prestigious company in London, but he never got that far.
“I hate marmite. Lukas, get rid of it.”
“I’m not your servant.” Lukas was perched on the table with his legs crossed as he examined his fingernails - he most certainly wasn’t a servant, but Arthur was beginning to suspect both men were something else entirely.
The second man smiled with large eyes. Arthur hadn’t been able to pull off that look in years and was mildly envious. “Please?”
“How do you know you don’t like it if you won’t try it?”
“I didn’t like it before.”
“You weren’t a child before either, you’ll have to come up with a better argument.”
The second man pursed his lips, then opened the kitchen window and threw the marmite out. Somewhere a dog barked. Arthur felt something inside of him break.
“Temper tantrums,” Lukas warned.
The man said, “If you have a problem with it you can leave.”
“I think I will.”
“No!” Arthur shouted. Both men looked at him quizzically. More softly, he said to Lukas, “No, you are not leaving me alone with him.”
Lukas raised one perfect eyebrow - another tick against his favor. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because this is my damned flat, and you simply can’t come in here and start tearing things up without my permission! Oh, god,” he realized, “I’ve turned into my mother.”
There was a snapping sound as the second man bit into a carrot and chewed it thoughtfully. “Carrots. Good.”
“Alright, you’ve found something you like. Can we leave?”
The man was aghast at Lukas’s attitude. “A man can’t live on carrots! Where did my train of thought go? Something to do with philosophy. Oh, Lukas, did you know I can speak fluent Romanian now? I didn’t know that, the TARDIS has always translated things for me. But the TARDIS is damaged now you see and for some reason I could only find the Romanian instruction manual and understood it perfectly well. I suppose I could have read the Uzreskian one as well but nobody speaks Uzreskian anymore - actually, I’m not even sure that Uzreskia is still around, didn’t the planet it was on get invaded?”
“Yes. By you.”
“That can’t be right, why would I invade something?”
"You’re invading my kitchen right now,” Arthur pointed out.
“Shut up, Eyebrows, I asked an important question.”
Arthur, having finally had enough, did not hear Lukas’s answer to the man’s important question. Instead he began putting away all of the groceries lying out on his table, ignoring the protests of both parties in his kitchen, and when he finished he shut the refrigerator door with finality. “My question,” he snapped, in such a voice that neither dared interrupt him, “is who the hell do you think you are?”
The man smiled again and Arthur had the distinct feeling that he was about to be mocked, but of all the answers he could have come up with, this wasn’t one of them.
“I’m the Doctor.”
- - - - - - -
A/N incidentally this is my headcanon romania to a T. turning him into a timelord didn't alter his personality at all o_o
Arthur’s only failing was that he loved adventure, and in every adventure he had seen or read, it is the normal, boring, stable man who is dragged off by a letter or a wizard or a 1967 Chevy Impala.
He went to great lengths to make himself as boring as he could.
It was only a matter of time.
- - -
Fifteen years after Arthur’s first date with a novel drenched in adventure, he went to bed at roughly eleven p.m. having officially given up on the world. He was an adult now, at that specific age where absolutely nothing happens. He wasn’t bitter about it. In hindsight, his teachers and parents and friends had been right, as they so often were - adventures simply did not happen in this day and age, and he would have to spend the weekend looking for one himself.
He drank the last of his tea and switched off his light and pretended the sinking feeling in his chest did not exist. But before he could close his eyes, he heard the distinct click and twist and grind that was his shitty front door.
Burglar, he thought immediately, and sat up slowly so his bed would not creak beneath his weight. Beneath his pillow was a crowbar - what kind of sane man went to sleep without one? - and it felt smooth and cool in his hands.
He looked out of his doorway. Down the flat, the kitchen light was on, and he could hear soft hissing that was the universal sound effect of whispering into some sort of communication device. He could not, however, hear what the man was saying.
Part of Arthur thought he should call the police.
It is a good thing he did not.
Standing in his kitchen was a man taller than himself (but almost everyone was taller than Arthur), with extremely light hair held back with a silver clip. He was speaking into what could be said to be a mobile, except that calling it a mobile would be like calling a tiger a dog.
“I’ve already told you what’s hear, would you make up your damn mind already?” the man snapped.
Some buzzing.
“There’s plenty if you weren’t such a picky eater.”
More buzzing. In fact, the device buzzed at every break, so it shouldn’t need to be stated more than once.
“No, I’m not going to cook you something. We don’t have all the time in the world. … That is a pathetic argument and you know it. … You can’t just run away from everything!-“
The man was tall, yes, but he was also slender and Arthur had a crowbar. Arthur cleared his throat to get the man’s attention. “Excuse me!”
The man turned. His eyes were steely blue, and his expression completely unreadable -- which is to say, he had no expression, unless bored out one’s mind counts. “Can I help you?”
His manner was disarming, but Arthur had spent his life preparing for situations just such as these. “Ah, yes,” he said, using his best glare. It had often been described as containing an intimidation factor worthy of the queen herself. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve called the police, and my neighbors hate me so ransom won’t work, and every item of food in there is poisoned! So you might as well state your purpose for being here or you’ll drop dead.”
“I haven’t eaten anything,” the man replied.
Buzzing.
“And your devices won’t work,” Arthur continued, quickly dipping into a confident lie. “I am a computer genius and have built a device that disables any piece of technology that I do not personally approve. And I’m armed.” He displayed the crowbar.
“Congratulations,” the man replied, then into the device, “Shut up, I’m working on it. … No, that won’t be necessary-“
“Too late!”
Arthur didn’t want to take his eyes off of the man, but the sudden voice behind him said otherwise. He turned rapidly, cursing inwardly that he’d forgotten to take accomplices into account.
The second man was shorter than himself, with much darker hair and much redder eyes, as if he didn’t get quite enough sleep. He was swathed in a dark coat that made him seem smaller than he probably was. His most notable feature, however, was not any of this, nor was it the slightly disquieting grin that showed too many teeth.
“Your hat,” Arthur said. “It’s . . . .”
“Small, yes,” the second man said much more cheerfully than the first. “Small hats are cool, obviously. No one else wears one, except for that one planet-I forget its name. Lukas, what was the one planet called where the size of one’s hat determined one’s status?”
Lukas, if possible, seemed even more unimpressed than he had before. “What happened to ‘it won’t be necessary’?”
The second man frowned. “No, that’s not it. And you’re supposed to be the one with perfect memory. Anyway. My hat was the smallest there, so obviously they made me their king, except I couldn’t stick around to enjoy the title and that was rather depressing.” He looked rather depressed about it for about half a second, before shoving Arthur aside and looking for the refrigerator. “What do you have to eat?”
“Poison, apparently,” Lukas said.
“Bullshit, there’s no such thing.”
Arthur had been preparing for this situation his entire life. As it turned out, real life was a little bit more jarring than fiction - had he fallen asleep? Quite possible, really, he’d been annoyed before bed and he dreamed when he was annoyed. He hooked the crowbar on the belt of his bathrobe and glared in the second man’s direction. “Excuse me, but how is there no such thing as poison? I developed that mix myself! I have a degree in chemistry!”
“Poison,” the second man said, pulling things out of the refrigerator and handing them to Lukas, who put them on the table that he’d taken the liberty to sit on, “is a liquid or powder or something that has to be ingested. But there are very few poisons that don’t have antidotes and none of those that I can’t find antidotes for and even if I couldn’t find an antidote for one of them, I sincerely doubt you can get your hands on them. So on that note, there is no such thing as poison.”
Arthur tried to process that for a moment before deciding it made no bloody fucking sense.
“It doesn’t need to make sense,” Lukas calmly told him, “it just needs to be true.”
“You see, Mr. Eyebrows - can I call you Eyebrows?”
“No chance in hell.”
“Eyebrows, there is a kind of philosophy here on Earth called a Gettier Case. Have you heard of it?”
Arthur hadn’t. The second man’s expression dropped.
“Oh, that’s disappointing. But few people have so I don’t mind explaining it-is that marmite?”
“Of course it’s marmite,” Arthur proudly said, and was about to talk about how expensive it’d been since he had received it as a present from the most prestigious company in London, but he never got that far.
“I hate marmite. Lukas, get rid of it.”
“I’m not your servant.” Lukas was perched on the table with his legs crossed as he examined his fingernails - he most certainly wasn’t a servant, but Arthur was beginning to suspect both men were something else entirely.
The second man smiled with large eyes. Arthur hadn’t been able to pull off that look in years and was mildly envious. “Please?”
“How do you know you don’t like it if you won’t try it?”
“I didn’t like it before.”
“You weren’t a child before either, you’ll have to come up with a better argument.”
The second man pursed his lips, then opened the kitchen window and threw the marmite out. Somewhere a dog barked. Arthur felt something inside of him break.
“Temper tantrums,” Lukas warned.
The man said, “If you have a problem with it you can leave.”
“I think I will.”
“No!” Arthur shouted. Both men looked at him quizzically. More softly, he said to Lukas, “No, you are not leaving me alone with him.”
Lukas raised one perfect eyebrow - another tick against his favor. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because this is my damned flat, and you simply can’t come in here and start tearing things up without my permission! Oh, god,” he realized, “I’ve turned into my mother.”
There was a snapping sound as the second man bit into a carrot and chewed it thoughtfully. “Carrots. Good.”
“Alright, you’ve found something you like. Can we leave?”
The man was aghast at Lukas’s attitude. “A man can’t live on carrots! Where did my train of thought go? Something to do with philosophy. Oh, Lukas, did you know I can speak fluent Romanian now? I didn’t know that, the TARDIS has always translated things for me. But the TARDIS is damaged now you see and for some reason I could only find the Romanian instruction manual and understood it perfectly well. I suppose I could have read the Uzreskian one as well but nobody speaks Uzreskian anymore - actually, I’m not even sure that Uzreskia is still around, didn’t the planet it was on get invaded?”
“Yes. By you.”
“That can’t be right, why would I invade something?”
"You’re invading my kitchen right now,” Arthur pointed out.
“Shut up, Eyebrows, I asked an important question.”
Arthur, having finally had enough, did not hear Lukas’s answer to the man’s important question. Instead he began putting away all of the groceries lying out on his table, ignoring the protests of both parties in his kitchen, and when he finished he shut the refrigerator door with finality. “My question,” he snapped, in such a voice that neither dared interrupt him, “is who the hell do you think you are?”
The man smiled again and Arthur had the distinct feeling that he was about to be mocked, but of all the answers he could have come up with, this wasn’t one of them.
“I’m the Doctor.”
- - - - - - -
A/N incidentally this is my headcanon romania to a T. turning him into a timelord didn't alter his personality at all o_o