Ficlet
I wrote this silly little fanwanky Doctor Who piece... well, no, it features Benny and Ace really. You guys can make fun of it, but only if you add constructive criticism as well. And really, there's nothing all that risque about it, so quit giving me that collective look. Oh, and if anyone can think of scenes I should add, tell me. I did this one just for shits and giggles, after all.
Ace is cleaning something metallic, tubular, probably
one of her weapons when she looks up suddenly to glare
at Bernice. Assuming an expression of mock innocence,
Benny waves her fingers. Caught staring again. She hates
that, how inaccurate Ace's body language is, almost
arbitrary. A bit like the Doctor's really and Bernice
wonders if the soldier is even aware of that. Probably
not.
But now the younger woman has stopped glaring and
her eyebrows form arcs of amusement, a poorly suppressed
smirk twisting her face.
Bernice tracks the gaze to the, what is it, tie she's
wearing. Ah. I've gone and made another era specific
cultural mistake. She thought it went rather well with
the slacks she had also found in the TARDIS wardrobe,
but apparently, something was not quite right about
her ensemble.
Ace was pointedly ignoring her now, having returned
to her task, though her face remained amused. She wouldn't
comment. She rarely did.
Turning to amble down a corridor, though not the
same one through which she had arrived, as that one
had disappeared. She wouldn't be at all surprised to
discover that Ace had requested the TARDIS to help her
"look it up" to quote the vernacular. Benny
waited for the Library to present itself. And there
it was, the ornate doors opening of their own accord.
Of course, she could have just told me.
There: Twentieth Century, Human, Culture, Dress and
Style: Tie. An ornamental article of clothing, generally
consisting of a scarf, tied or wrapped in a specific
manner around the neck. Typically worn during formal
occasions by men or uniformed service personnel. Outside
of civil service, worn by women for recreational purposes.
Subcategory: Uniformed Services. Subcategory: Transvestites.
She clasped her chin and laughed, silently. Oh, it
was that again. With all her knowledge of that century,
she still found its definitions of sexually appropriate
behavior amusing, in a horrified sort of way. Certainly,
there were words in her own century to describe certain
sexual foibles such as preferring only one's own gender,
when it could be identified or only preferring members
of another species. That sort of thing. Then there was
Ace's point in history, separated by only a few hundred
years from Benny's, yet so archaic in some ways. So
it seemed, Ace still ascribed gender roles in relation
to dress style, leaving little or no room for negotiation.
It was all very peculiar.
This time, it's the Doctor who catches her looking
but he only raises a finger to his lips in a "shush"
gesture. He walks silently across the console floor
and fetches a small object from the pocket of his jacket,
which is dangled from the coat hanger. He tosses the
object into the air, throwing a grin in her direction,
and the object vanishes. The Doctor pockets his hands
and disappears back into the main corridor. Bernice
pretends to ignore his trans-dimensional parlor trick.
She watched him do that in front of Ace once, seen
him wait expectantly. Ace, wearing her shades was almost
indecipherable, except for the lock of her shoulders
beneath her molecularly fitted uniform. Finally, when
the Doctor would not stop staring, Ace lifted her chin
in a direction perpendicular to the imaginary point
in space. The Doctor had looked immensely pleased and
then severely put out as Ace stepped neatly around him.
Fido would not fetch.
Bernice has an unnerving version of thousands of
yo-yos and golf balls bobbing up and down within their
trans-dimensional pockets of space all throughout the
TARDIS. She wonders if Ace can see them or simply knows
where they are the same way she senses temporal activity.
She wonders if Ace realizes how impossible both those
things should be for a human to do.
She considers waking Ace to ask, as politely as possible
of course, if she can see through dimensions. Then she
realizes that's garbage. Ace is only human with very
human eyeballs hidden by her plastic shades. She's still
mostly human, at any rate, but Benny wonders for how
long.
In her sleep, Ace twitches her trigger finger and
the motion is enough to cause pain along her cast-enveloped
arm. Bernice remembered the Doctor wrapping what looked
like gum around that broken arm and the gum had turned
into a lime green shell as it dried. She remembered
the way Ace stood with her head bowed as if oblivious
to pain while he set her bones. That man, if one could
call him that, kept strange things in his pockets.
Ace mumbles something that sounds guttural and alien
because the TARDIS doesn't bother to translate dreams
for each other's benefit. So it was something in her
native tongue, in English, a language so changed by
the twenty-sixth century as to be extinct. Nevertheless,
the ship understands the complaint. Bernice can't help
smiling as the couch on which Ace is laying changes
shape, adjusting its contours to become softer, more
rounded and forgiving of battle injuries.
The three of them are engaged in a task that involves
throwing a fine line with a hook attached at the end
of it into a stream. After a while, Ace whoops and gradually
pulls in the line to reveal a fish, wriggling in the
sunlight. Colors shimmer along the scales, red, coral
pink, orange and yellow. She throws the fish into a
steel bucket full of water and three other struggling
animals.
"Oi, Professor, y'could've sprung for some poles."
Ace has some line wrapped around a gloved fist.
"You seem to be doing fine," he answers
in an abstracted tone.
"It would be easier with poles."
"It would be easier to use the food dispenser."
"It can't do fried fish."
Benny stopped peering at a particularly unusual rock
formation and jerked her gaze to the bucket of squirming
fish. "Fried? We're going to fry those fish?"
Ace grins over her shoulder. "What'd you think
we were gonna do? Make hats out of them?"
"Oh please don't tell me you're going to eat
them, because that would be absolutely disgusting."
She peers down into the bucket and semi-translucent
silver eyes stare back, gills flaring a wet red. "You,"
she points a finger at Ace, "are revolting."
"Fine. I'll make sure you're watching when I
gut them."
"You cut them up before eating them?"
"Before frying and eating them. And yeah. Got
to scale them too. You'll like that part." There
was something faintly malicious about her grin. "You're
looking a bit green around the gills, Benny."
"If that's a colloquialism for 'sick', then
yes. It's disgusting and I can't believe the Doctor's
letting you do this." She waited for his admonition,
then glanced over to find him studying the rock formation.
Ace grinned wider and began to wrap the line around
her hand. "Well, if you're not eating then I'm
done fishing."
Despite herself, Bernice did watch as Ace prepared
the fish for cooking. Using the blade of her flat black
combat knife, she scraped the clear scales off the skin.
Then, she slit the throat, cutting shallowly along the
gills, then made another long slit down the belly. A
snap and twist of the neck and the guts followed along,
trailing like slugs behind the head. Ace threw the entire
mass back into the stream while Bernice fought her gag
reflex.
Ace looked up, searching for the Doctor. "Oi!
These aren't poisonous, are they?"
The Doctor, not moving from his cross-legged position
in front of the rock formation, waved a negligent hand.
"You'll be fine."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Only the blue one is."
Ace snorted and held up the metallic blue fish in
front of Bernice. "Here. You want this one?"
"Ace," the Doctor interrupted in a low
reproving tone. "Don't antagonize her."
Benny stuck out her tongue at Ace, who responded
by thrusting the fish carcass at her face. She felt
another retch and jerked back. Ace laughed and threw
the carcass over her shoulder, with unerring aim, into
the water.
"You could have told her before she killed it!"
The Doctor merely hummed in reply.
The younger and more revolting woman busied herself
mounting the three remaining fish onto branched sticks,
belly flaps held open, tails skyward. She planted the
sticks over a small fire she had set earlier, then went
to wash her hands with sand and water by the stream
bank.
Ace was burying the remains of the fire and bones
while Bernice struggled to remember what an appetite
was when the Doctor stood. He dusted the bottom of his
still white trousers with his hands and made his way
over to them, his eyes locked in concentration.
Bernice took that as her cue to stand also. "Doctor,
did you know that among humans it's creepy and rude
to stare."
"Hm?" He raised his brows but she wasn't
fooled. "Ah, well." He dusted his hat, the
umbrella dangling off his wrist.
"Well? What is it, Professor?"
He grinned toothily at Ace. "Qrlk'mnk says you're
disgusting."
"Who?"
The Doctor pointed at the rock formation.
Ace rolled her eyes.
Bernice was pleased that their visit hadn't been
for the express purpose of indulging in barbaric hunter-gatherer
practices, after all.
They're lying curled together behind a rock outcropping
that they both know perfectly well is a sentient life
form. Unfortunately, from Bernice's point of view, it
isn't because Ace finally relented and has agreed to
shag. No, as usual, circumstances are more dire. She
tries not to look at the broken arm of her fellow companion.
Trying not to do something invariably leads to the
doing and this time is no exception. It's not that Ace
isn't always injured in some fashion due to the nature
of her employ, but still.... It's broken in two place.
At one junction, bone protrudes in a jagged stump from
the flesh. The entire mess is covered by a very blood
former vest but the outline remains visible.
And her body temperature is low. Bernice closes her
eyes, knowing she should stop stroking her, that Ace
is a terribly tactile person and will take it entirely
the wrong way but it's the only way she has to offer
comfort right now. That's important - letting others
know you care. Some people won't hear it, can't see
it, and so she uses that one form of communication that
even newborn infants understand with accuracy.
The human body releases endorphins when touched.
The cortisone and seratonin levels of the brain drop
as dopamine production increases, producing lethargy
and a sense of calm. The body responds by cutting back
production of adrenaline, slowing the heart rate and
preserving energy. Right now, Ace doesn't have the energy
to shiver.
That bleeding git of a time lord better get here
soon. Just in case the Doctor is listening, Bernice
sends him a few choice hateful thoughts. He could have
checked the local laws. He could have found out ahead
of time that fishing was illegal on this planet and
would result in being chased and mangled by very large
and strong figures of authority. Was a little common
sense so much to ask?
A barely audible, yet unmistakably angry sound permeates
her thoughts. She finds the glimmer of brown eyes, slitted
open and glaring, yes, glaring, at her. Bernice smiles,
pleased her pugnacious friend is conscious.
"Hello. Still feel like crap?" Privately,
she hoped Ace didn't feel anything. That's what painkillers
from her military pack were for, after all.
Ace growled.
"Ah, I see. Very erudite. Try not to look at
your arm, eh?"
Ace growled again.
"Erudite, an adjective that means.... No? Not
what you're complaining about. Hm." She considered
what could be wrong, besides the obvious and looked
around. Attackers? No. Doctor? No. Stinging ants? She
peered hard at the mossy ground. Nope. So what could...?"
Ace was making a gun shape with her left hand and
glaring again.
"You didn't bring it, remember?" Her reply
was met with another very angry sound and Bernice raised
her free hand to gesticulate in exasperation. Instead,
all she said was, "Oh."
Sighing, Ace closed her eyes and returned to her
crucial task of resting without falling unconscious.
"I don't crukkin' believe this." Bernice
carefully put her hand down on the ground. "You
just spent the past few minutes hissing and spitting
at me because I had my hand on your tit?" Bernice
saw her lips twitch into an almost-smile. "You'll
shag your way across the seven galaxies but I can't
have so much as a feel up on account of your archaic
hang-ups?" She muttered, more in exasperation than
anger, laying back down. "Hypocritical little toady.
Three years in Space Fleet, the bloody marines.... You
know what?" She leaned back up and waited until
Ace opened one eye. "I'm going to wait until you
fall asleep and then I'll put my hand down your pants."
She gave a disgruntled nod for emphasis.
For her part, Ace made an indeterminate noise that
could pass for either a laugh or a snort, then closed
her eye.
Ace is cleaning something metallic, tubular, probably
one of her weapons when she looks up suddenly to glare
at Bernice. Assuming an expression of mock innocence,
Benny waves her fingers. Caught staring again. She hates
that, how inaccurate Ace's body language is, almost
arbitrary. A bit like the Doctor's really and Bernice
wonders if the soldier is even aware of that. Probably
not.
But now the younger woman has stopped glaring and
her eyebrows form arcs of amusement, a poorly suppressed
smirk twisting her face.
Bernice tracks the gaze to the, what is it, tie she's
wearing. Ah. I've gone and made another era specific
cultural mistake. She thought it went rather well with
the slacks she had also found in the TARDIS wardrobe,
but apparently, something was not quite right about
her ensemble.
Ace was pointedly ignoring her now, having returned
to her task, though her face remained amused. She wouldn't
comment. She rarely did.
Turning to amble down a corridor, though not the
same one through which she had arrived, as that one
had disappeared. She wouldn't be at all surprised to
discover that Ace had requested the TARDIS to help her
"look it up" to quote the vernacular. Benny
waited for the Library to present itself. And there
it was, the ornate doors opening of their own accord.
Of course, she could have just told me.
There: Twentieth Century, Human, Culture, Dress and
Style: Tie. An ornamental article of clothing, generally
consisting of a scarf, tied or wrapped in a specific
manner around the neck. Typically worn during formal
occasions by men or uniformed service personnel. Outside
of civil service, worn by women for recreational purposes.
Subcategory: Uniformed Services. Subcategory: Transvestites.
She clasped her chin and laughed, silently. Oh, it
was that again. With all her knowledge of that century,
she still found its definitions of sexually appropriate
behavior amusing, in a horrified sort of way. Certainly,
there were words in her own century to describe certain
sexual foibles such as preferring only one's own gender,
when it could be identified or only preferring members
of another species. That sort of thing. Then there was
Ace's point in history, separated by only a few hundred
years from Benny's, yet so archaic in some ways. So
it seemed, Ace still ascribed gender roles in relation
to dress style, leaving little or no room for negotiation.
It was all very peculiar.
This time, it's the Doctor who catches her looking
but he only raises a finger to his lips in a "shush"
gesture. He walks silently across the console floor
and fetches a small object from the pocket of his jacket,
which is dangled from the coat hanger. He tosses the
object into the air, throwing a grin in her direction,
and the object vanishes. The Doctor pockets his hands
and disappears back into the main corridor. Bernice
pretends to ignore his trans-dimensional parlor trick.
She watched him do that in front of Ace once, seen
him wait expectantly. Ace, wearing her shades was almost
indecipherable, except for the lock of her shoulders
beneath her molecularly fitted uniform. Finally, when
the Doctor would not stop staring, Ace lifted her chin
in a direction perpendicular to the imaginary point
in space. The Doctor had looked immensely pleased and
then severely put out as Ace stepped neatly around him.
Fido would not fetch.
Bernice has an unnerving version of thousands of
yo-yos and golf balls bobbing up and down within their
trans-dimensional pockets of space all throughout the
TARDIS. She wonders if Ace can see them or simply knows
where they are the same way she senses temporal activity.
She wonders if Ace realizes how impossible both those
things should be for a human to do.
She considers waking Ace to ask, as politely as possible
of course, if she can see through dimensions. Then she
realizes that's garbage. Ace is only human with very
human eyeballs hidden by her plastic shades. She's still
mostly human, at any rate, but Benny wonders for how
long.
In her sleep, Ace twitches her trigger finger and
the motion is enough to cause pain along her cast-enveloped
arm. Bernice remembered the Doctor wrapping what looked
like gum around that broken arm and the gum had turned
into a lime green shell as it dried. She remembered
the way Ace stood with her head bowed as if oblivious
to pain while he set her bones. That man, if one could
call him that, kept strange things in his pockets.
Ace mumbles something that sounds guttural and alien
because the TARDIS doesn't bother to translate dreams
for each other's benefit. So it was something in her
native tongue, in English, a language so changed by
the twenty-sixth century as to be extinct. Nevertheless,
the ship understands the complaint. Bernice can't help
smiling as the couch on which Ace is laying changes
shape, adjusting its contours to become softer, more
rounded and forgiving of battle injuries.
The three of them are engaged in a task that involves
throwing a fine line with a hook attached at the end
of it into a stream. After a while, Ace whoops and gradually
pulls in the line to reveal a fish, wriggling in the
sunlight. Colors shimmer along the scales, red, coral
pink, orange and yellow. She throws the fish into a
steel bucket full of water and three other struggling
animals.
"Oi, Professor, y'could've sprung for some poles."
Ace has some line wrapped around a gloved fist.
"You seem to be doing fine," he answers
in an abstracted tone.
"It would be easier with poles."
"It would be easier to use the food dispenser."
"It can't do fried fish."
Benny stopped peering at a particularly unusual rock
formation and jerked her gaze to the bucket of squirming
fish. "Fried? We're going to fry those fish?"
Ace grins over her shoulder. "What'd you think
we were gonna do? Make hats out of them?"
"Oh please don't tell me you're going to eat
them, because that would be absolutely disgusting."
She peers down into the bucket and semi-translucent
silver eyes stare back, gills flaring a wet red. "You,"
she points a finger at Ace, "are revolting."
"Fine. I'll make sure you're watching when I
gut them."
"You cut them up before eating them?"
"Before frying and eating them. And yeah. Got
to scale them too. You'll like that part." There
was something faintly malicious about her grin. "You're
looking a bit green around the gills, Benny."
"If that's a colloquialism for 'sick', then
yes. It's disgusting and I can't believe the Doctor's
letting you do this." She waited for his admonition,
then glanced over to find him studying the rock formation.
Ace grinned wider and began to wrap the line around
her hand. "Well, if you're not eating then I'm
done fishing."
Despite herself, Bernice did watch as Ace prepared
the fish for cooking. Using the blade of her flat black
combat knife, she scraped the clear scales off the skin.
Then, she slit the throat, cutting shallowly along the
gills, then made another long slit down the belly. A
snap and twist of the neck and the guts followed along,
trailing like slugs behind the head. Ace threw the entire
mass back into the stream while Bernice fought her gag
reflex.
Ace looked up, searching for the Doctor. "Oi!
These aren't poisonous, are they?"
The Doctor, not moving from his cross-legged position
in front of the rock formation, waved a negligent hand.
"You'll be fine."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Only the blue one is."
Ace snorted and held up the metallic blue fish in
front of Bernice. "Here. You want this one?"
"Ace," the Doctor interrupted in a low
reproving tone. "Don't antagonize her."
Benny stuck out her tongue at Ace, who responded
by thrusting the fish carcass at her face. She felt
another retch and jerked back. Ace laughed and threw
the carcass over her shoulder, with unerring aim, into
the water.
"You could have told her before she killed it!"
The Doctor merely hummed in reply.
The younger and more revolting woman busied herself
mounting the three remaining fish onto branched sticks,
belly flaps held open, tails skyward. She planted the
sticks over a small fire she had set earlier, then went
to wash her hands with sand and water by the stream
bank.
Ace was burying the remains of the fire and bones
while Bernice struggled to remember what an appetite
was when the Doctor stood. He dusted the bottom of his
still white trousers with his hands and made his way
over to them, his eyes locked in concentration.
Bernice took that as her cue to stand also. "Doctor,
did you know that among humans it's creepy and rude
to stare."
"Hm?" He raised his brows but she wasn't
fooled. "Ah, well." He dusted his hat, the
umbrella dangling off his wrist.
"Well? What is it, Professor?"
He grinned toothily at Ace. "Qrlk'mnk says you're
disgusting."
"Who?"
The Doctor pointed at the rock formation.
Ace rolled her eyes.
Bernice was pleased that their visit hadn't been
for the express purpose of indulging in barbaric hunter-gatherer
practices, after all.
They're lying curled together behind a rock outcropping
that they both know perfectly well is a sentient life
form. Unfortunately, from Bernice's point of view, it
isn't because Ace finally relented and has agreed to
shag. No, as usual, circumstances are more dire. She
tries not to look at the broken arm of her fellow companion.
Trying not to do something invariably leads to the
doing and this time is no exception. It's not that Ace
isn't always injured in some fashion due to the nature
of her employ, but still.... It's broken in two place.
At one junction, bone protrudes in a jagged stump from
the flesh. The entire mess is covered by a very blood
former vest but the outline remains visible.
And her body temperature is low. Bernice closes her
eyes, knowing she should stop stroking her, that Ace
is a terribly tactile person and will take it entirely
the wrong way but it's the only way she has to offer
comfort right now. That's important - letting others
know you care. Some people won't hear it, can't see
it, and so she uses that one form of communication that
even newborn infants understand with accuracy.
The human body releases endorphins when touched.
The cortisone and seratonin levels of the brain drop
as dopamine production increases, producing lethargy
and a sense of calm. The body responds by cutting back
production of adrenaline, slowing the heart rate and
preserving energy. Right now, Ace doesn't have the energy
to shiver.
That bleeding git of a time lord better get here
soon. Just in case the Doctor is listening, Bernice
sends him a few choice hateful thoughts. He could have
checked the local laws. He could have found out ahead
of time that fishing was illegal on this planet and
would result in being chased and mangled by very large
and strong figures of authority. Was a little common
sense so much to ask?
A barely audible, yet unmistakably angry sound permeates
her thoughts. She finds the glimmer of brown eyes, slitted
open and glaring, yes, glaring, at her. Bernice smiles,
pleased her pugnacious friend is conscious.
"Hello. Still feel like crap?" Privately,
she hoped Ace didn't feel anything. That's what painkillers
from her military pack were for, after all.
Ace growled.
"Ah, I see. Very erudite. Try not to look at
your arm, eh?"
Ace growled again.
"Erudite, an adjective that means.... No? Not
what you're complaining about. Hm." She considered
what could be wrong, besides the obvious and looked
around. Attackers? No. Doctor? No. Stinging ants? She
peered hard at the mossy ground. Nope. So what could...?"
Ace was making a gun shape with her left hand and
glaring again.
"You didn't bring it, remember?" Her reply
was met with another very angry sound and Bernice raised
her free hand to gesticulate in exasperation. Instead,
all she said was, "Oh."
Sighing, Ace closed her eyes and returned to her
crucial task of resting without falling unconscious.
"I don't crukkin' believe this." Bernice
carefully put her hand down on the ground. "You
just spent the past few minutes hissing and spitting
at me because I had my hand on your tit?" Bernice
saw her lips twitch into an almost-smile. "You'll
shag your way across the seven galaxies but I can't
have so much as a feel up on account of your archaic
hang-ups?" She muttered, more in exasperation than
anger, laying back down. "Hypocritical little toady.
Three years in Space Fleet, the bloody marines.... You
know what?" She leaned back up and waited until
Ace opened one eye. "I'm going to wait until you
fall asleep and then I'll put my hand down your pants."
She gave a disgruntled nod for emphasis.
For her part, Ace made an indeterminate noise that
could pass for either a laugh or a snort, then closed
her eye.