fic: tourist (Dr Who)
for various reasons, i love writing in this fandom. it has a lot of 'gaps', it has loads of subtext, and the characters are ever-changing - what more could you want?
Title: tourist
Media: Dr Who (Eleventh Dr)
Rating: PG-13 ? - lots of talk and little action?
Disclaimer: not mine, don't own etc.
Archive: My LJ, goblok archive, others by permission.
Summary: “He’s thinking of his skin, and the expression ‘it’s bigger on the inside’. He has a sudden urge to say something, like: ‘Could you please do that thing again, that thing where you put your hands on my chest and lean in like -‘ He doesn’t say that.”
Note: I liked Moffat’s comment (Confidential - post-Angels) about the Doctor being completely taken aback by Amy’s brazen attempt to seduce him. ‘Tripping over his shoelaces’, was the term he used, I believe. I think Amy’s summation was about right: “I’m 907 years old! Do you know what that means?” “Er - it’s been a while?”
Spoilers: I’ve only seen up to “Vampires of Venice”
Feedback: and I’ll give you a Jam Fancy.
tourist
It took him fifty-seven seconds to figure out that business of the Weeping Angel in Pond’s head. And he did it under pressure.
This…
This takes him ages to figure out. Comparatively. But it’s all relative, isn’t it?
*
They’ve scurried into the TARDIS, both sopping wet and shivering, fringes dripping, peeling off their coats and dumping them on the floor. Definitely time to leave. He slides around the console, punching buttons and twisting knobs. He’s totally distracted.
“Towel?” she offers, through chattering teeth.
“Lovely.”
“Cup of tea?”
“Certainly.”
“Shag?”
“Please,” he nods. Blinks. “Wait -“
She laughs. His forehead puckers sternly as he whips around to look at her.
“You have to stop doing that, Pond.”
She laughs again, and heads off to the kitchen.
“I mean it!” he calls out to her, trying to sound cross, merely managing plaintive.
*
He chooses companions with whom he feels a kinship. Like-mindedness. A meeting of minds, not skin, not flesh. The flesh is deceptive - he himself is many-fleshed, wearing many skins, and he’s encountered so many other physical forms on other planets, over so many centuries… The form then is irrelevant. Each form is different.
Maybe the physicality of this form has something to do with it, then. Biology as destiny - he finds this funny. Used to find this funny. This form, then. Younger, leaner, stronger, more active and virile in nature. He is male in each form. And this is the youngest he’s ever been.
Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis. Ha. Can’t say that. Maybe he’s getting old. Maybe that’s it.
He’s observed the phenomena in other life-forms. Ageing, that produces a softening of the tendency to create personal space, that reminds of the short time remaining, that ignites the need for intimacy of the flesh. The need to cuddle something warm and soft by the fire in the hearth, as you sip your cup of tea, while your back aches. Soothe my old bones, won’t you, sweetheart?
But his bones aren’t old. Only his mind ages. He has seen too much. Perhaps he’s mentally weary. Perhaps he’s seeking solace of a different kind.
(You can talk yourself round to anything if you talk long enough)
*
She’s the first person he has ever chosen who is so direct. He sees the way Western civilization has moved on, up to her time, in this regard. Sex has gone from being unspoken, scandalous, to being discretely discussed, to being scientifically examined, then permitted, permissive, feted, celebrated, understood…and now finally, merely accepted.
A socio-anthropological vanguard. Study a society’s sexual mores and you learn a lot about its people. On Denari IV, for example, the males are ritually and honourably cannibalized after sex.
*
“So, what would you like to do now?”
“Now? Before I collapse with exhaustion, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what can we do?”
“There’s a pool…”
“Is it warm?”
“It depends.”
“Yes, if it’s warm. We could go skinny-dipping.”
“Pond - behave.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because because.”
Etcetera.
*
She’d like to think that it isn’t complicated. He’d like to think that too, but that would be a mistake. Sex is always complicated, but particularly for her species, with such a prior history, a delicate web of myth and emotional nuance and expectation surrounding the act. She may be one of the ‘new generation’, but she has historical baggage. And personal baggage. Four psychiatrists, and a wedding gown on a padded satin hangar, suspended off the edge of her wardrobe like a crystalline ivory soufflé.
*
“So - no skinny-dipping.”
“No.”
“Have you always been such a prude?”
“I’m not a prude. If it’s just sex, we could go to a planet -“
“Ohmygod, stop right there.”
“Now who’s the prude?”
“It’s not the same. Sex with strangers.”
“But it’s…”
“What?”
“It’s not simple, for you.”
“Actually, it’s very simple…”
“No - for humans. You attach.”
“We attach? Like barnacles?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do know, but I think you’re being very silly.”
*
It is not that he is without desire. He desires, he does, with a certainty.
But it’s not why he chose her. He chose her for other qualities, and these qualities take precedence. Open-mindedness, sense of adventure, spirit, intelligence, humour, courage, kindness, selflessness - the qualities of a citizen of the galaxy. He is attracted to all these things.
And he very much likes her red hair. Not least because it helps him keep track of her in a crowd.
*
She keeps pressing buttons.
“So, what does this do?”
“Something.”
“What something?”
“Something. I don’t know. She keeps changing them,” he admits.
“She? Like, the TARDIS?”
“Ye-e-es.”
“So.” She makes that amused moue. “Does she get jealous when you bring other floozies on board?”
“…sometimes.”
“Really? Ooh, I like that…”
He rolls his eyes.
*
He is physical, he moves, is moved.
He likes the casual intimacy - the touching of hands, shoulders, the rubbing of noses, the hugging. He likes the hugging. It’s as if they are children, in a giant intergalactic sandbox.
But it’s not an appropriate analogy.
He’d like to say, ‘Here, read this before you attempt to proceed further’, and then throw a big book on her bed, something hefty with a title like “Gallifrey: its Peoples, Customs and Society”. Something like that. Maybe that would put her off. Or maybe she’d take it as an encouragement, he honestly doesn’t know. A two-way bet.
When he thinks of throwing a book - anything - on her bed, and the way the bed might bounce slightly -
*
He’s doing that thing he does where he just stands in front of the console with his eyes open but his gaze elsewhere, tapping his fingers on the nearest hard surface. Tapping and thinking. Thinking and tapping.
She’s standing across from him. He’s thinking of his skin, and the expression ‘it’s bigger on the inside’. He has a sudden urge to say something, like: ‘Could you please do that thing again, that thing where you put your hands on my chest and lean in like -‘
He doesn’t say that.
It’s the most infuriating, frustrating experience he’s had in, oh -
*
He thinks about the time she tried a number on him, the graceless offering of herself, graceful all the same. He thinks about the kiss, particularly - he resisted, resisted again, then the moment he softened, however briefly, and then finally pushed her away.
The softening moment, then.
*
This is a resting moment. She is reading a book on one of the swiveling chairs, and he is sitting on the edge of the walkway, adjusting his welding goggles as he considers the work.
“Pond…”
“Yes?”
“Pond Pond Pond Pond Pond…”
“Yes yes yes - what?”
He slides the goggles on. Now he looks owlish.
“It’s just a nice name. Such a lovely combination - the nice round vowel. Your mouth has to make this shape…”
She looks at him. He glances over and realizes she’s looking.
“…I mean, I don’t know why you changed it. I told you it was a nice name, didn’t I, when we first met -“
“Are you deliberately trying to make me feel twelve years old again?” she frowns.
“Yes. No.”
He squints through the goggles, at the underside of the console. He says it again, without letting the sound come: A-me-li-a-Po-ond.
“Doctor, is there -“
“Forget it, ignore me, I’m yammering…”
It all sounds very lightweight, but now she is resting her book on her lap. He waves her gaze away.
“…I mean, don’t worry about it…”
“Whatever you like,” she sighs.
*
Maybe it’s the procreative-instinct, he thinks suddenly one day. That is both intertwined with and distinct from the sex-instinct. He is, after all, the only individual left of his species.
He thinks about this. Maybe it would explain what is happening to him.
It sounds better, to say something is ‘happening’ to him. It sounds better than saying it is something he is doing to himself.
Winding himself up.
*
He wanders into the kitchen, where she is eating a sandwich. Towel-turbanned and a belted bathrobe.
“Mm…” She finishes a mouthful. “So, I was thinking about what you said, the other day in Venice -“
“Aren’t you worried about catching a chill?”
“What?”
“Your clothes.”
“What about them?” She licks cream cheese off her thumb, grins into his face. “Oh - they got smelly. I’ll get some new ones, okay?”
“Right. Certainly. Sorry - what did I say?”
“About my clothes?”
“No. Venice.”
“Oh, right. I thought it was funny.”
“What’s that?”
“You said they were ‘buxom’. The girls.”
“Did I?”
“I didn’t think you noticed that kind of thing.”
She comfortably puts one bare foot on the table, exposing a length of bare leg.
“I didn’t. I don’t. I mean -“
“I just thought it was funny.”
“Really.”
He looks at her. She has that ‘trying not to laugh’ expression. He has absolutely no idea what to do or say, so he goes out.
*
Then there’s the day after, when he opens his eyes and his first conscious thought is that he needs to get her fiancée off his ship. As soon as possible.
He could lose the man, of course. There are rooms in the TARDIS where time passes extremely slowly. He’s had other unwelcome houseguests. There are options.
When the many options start formulating, taking shape in his head, that’s when he realizes.
That’s when he figures it out.
*
He is animal, after all, with the same instincts. But these are mostly subsumed, rather like the minimum requirements. Sleep - he sleeps rarely. Food - he eats occasionally. Sex…
It is another country, which he has not visited often enough to become familiar with the landmarks. He remembers that he had a nice time, last he went. But he doesn’t know if his health clearance is still current. And he doesn’t even speak the language properly - he recalls the communication difficulties on her bed in the little blue-painted room…
He is an infrequent traveller in the realm of the senses, unaccustomed to operating purely on one level. He dislikes this feeling of culture shock. He is comfortable, he is at home, in every place he visits.
Damn it. He hates feeling like a tourist.
*
They are back, after running through a number of side streets and then sprinting the last distance through a large formal garden. They slam into the console together, out of breath and laughing, and the doors bang shut behind them as he starts moving around, bringing everything to life. She moves counter-clockwise to him, in a kind of dance, and they make last jokes to each other, and then they’re on their way, and they are completely alone.
“…and not dead again!” she finishes, eyes sparkling.
“Yes, it’s good, not dead. That’s what I aim for. I mean, it’s bad form, isn’t it, otherwise?”
“Absolutely,” she nods. “So, now where to?”
“Don’t know. Nowhere. We’re cruising, so to speak. In absentia localis.”
“Cruising, mm…” she grins.
“So to speak.”
He gets tongue-tied again, so he says nothing. Just looks away. Lightweight, he thinks, just lightweight, nothing too over-done, over-analyzed, over-intellectualized, just -
“Doctor?”
She is beside him, he’s suddenly aware, pressing up against him almost, so he only has to turn his head, turn about just so. He hasn’t created space between them, he is sure she has realized what this might mean.
“Yes?”
His voice sounds peculiar, he thinks. Thick and soft. She doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t say anything, and her body has a tangible heat, and he swallows convulsively. She puts her hands on his chest and leans in like -
He gives in.
“Pond -“
His mouth opens, makes the nice round vowel, his lips parting gently against hers, so they share one breath.
notes to this fic at fic_overthink
Title: tourist
Media: Dr Who (Eleventh Dr)
Rating: PG-13 ? - lots of talk and little action?
Disclaimer: not mine, don't own etc.
Archive: My LJ, goblok archive, others by permission.
Summary: “He’s thinking of his skin, and the expression ‘it’s bigger on the inside’. He has a sudden urge to say something, like: ‘Could you please do that thing again, that thing where you put your hands on my chest and lean in like -‘ He doesn’t say that.”
Note: I liked Moffat’s comment (Confidential - post-Angels) about the Doctor being completely taken aback by Amy’s brazen attempt to seduce him. ‘Tripping over his shoelaces’, was the term he used, I believe. I think Amy’s summation was about right: “I’m 907 years old! Do you know what that means?” “Er - it’s been a while?”
Spoilers: I’ve only seen up to “Vampires of Venice”
Feedback: and I’ll give you a Jam Fancy.
tourist
It took him fifty-seven seconds to figure out that business of the Weeping Angel in Pond’s head. And he did it under pressure.
This…
This takes him ages to figure out. Comparatively. But it’s all relative, isn’t it?
*
They’ve scurried into the TARDIS, both sopping wet and shivering, fringes dripping, peeling off their coats and dumping them on the floor. Definitely time to leave. He slides around the console, punching buttons and twisting knobs. He’s totally distracted.
“Towel?” she offers, through chattering teeth.
“Lovely.”
“Cup of tea?”
“Certainly.”
“Shag?”
“Please,” he nods. Blinks. “Wait -“
She laughs. His forehead puckers sternly as he whips around to look at her.
“You have to stop doing that, Pond.”
She laughs again, and heads off to the kitchen.
“I mean it!” he calls out to her, trying to sound cross, merely managing plaintive.
*
He chooses companions with whom he feels a kinship. Like-mindedness. A meeting of minds, not skin, not flesh. The flesh is deceptive - he himself is many-fleshed, wearing many skins, and he’s encountered so many other physical forms on other planets, over so many centuries… The form then is irrelevant. Each form is different.
Maybe the physicality of this form has something to do with it, then. Biology as destiny - he finds this funny. Used to find this funny. This form, then. Younger, leaner, stronger, more active and virile in nature. He is male in each form. And this is the youngest he’s ever been.
Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis. Ha. Can’t say that. Maybe he’s getting old. Maybe that’s it.
He’s observed the phenomena in other life-forms. Ageing, that produces a softening of the tendency to create personal space, that reminds of the short time remaining, that ignites the need for intimacy of the flesh. The need to cuddle something warm and soft by the fire in the hearth, as you sip your cup of tea, while your back aches. Soothe my old bones, won’t you, sweetheart?
But his bones aren’t old. Only his mind ages. He has seen too much. Perhaps he’s mentally weary. Perhaps he’s seeking solace of a different kind.
(You can talk yourself round to anything if you talk long enough)
*
She’s the first person he has ever chosen who is so direct. He sees the way Western civilization has moved on, up to her time, in this regard. Sex has gone from being unspoken, scandalous, to being discretely discussed, to being scientifically examined, then permitted, permissive, feted, celebrated, understood…and now finally, merely accepted.
A socio-anthropological vanguard. Study a society’s sexual mores and you learn a lot about its people. On Denari IV, for example, the males are ritually and honourably cannibalized after sex.
*
“So, what would you like to do now?”
“Now? Before I collapse with exhaustion, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what can we do?”
“There’s a pool…”
“Is it warm?”
“It depends.”
“Yes, if it’s warm. We could go skinny-dipping.”
“Pond - behave.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because because.”
Etcetera.
*
She’d like to think that it isn’t complicated. He’d like to think that too, but that would be a mistake. Sex is always complicated, but particularly for her species, with such a prior history, a delicate web of myth and emotional nuance and expectation surrounding the act. She may be one of the ‘new generation’, but she has historical baggage. And personal baggage. Four psychiatrists, and a wedding gown on a padded satin hangar, suspended off the edge of her wardrobe like a crystalline ivory soufflé.
*
“So - no skinny-dipping.”
“No.”
“Have you always been such a prude?”
“I’m not a prude. If it’s just sex, we could go to a planet -“
“Ohmygod, stop right there.”
“Now who’s the prude?”
“It’s not the same. Sex with strangers.”
“But it’s…”
“What?”
“It’s not simple, for you.”
“Actually, it’s very simple…”
“No - for humans. You attach.”
“We attach? Like barnacles?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do know, but I think you’re being very silly.”
*
It is not that he is without desire. He desires, he does, with a certainty.
But it’s not why he chose her. He chose her for other qualities, and these qualities take precedence. Open-mindedness, sense of adventure, spirit, intelligence, humour, courage, kindness, selflessness - the qualities of a citizen of the galaxy. He is attracted to all these things.
And he very much likes her red hair. Not least because it helps him keep track of her in a crowd.
*
She keeps pressing buttons.
“So, what does this do?”
“Something.”
“What something?”
“Something. I don’t know. She keeps changing them,” he admits.
“She? Like, the TARDIS?”
“Ye-e-es.”
“So.” She makes that amused moue. “Does she get jealous when you bring other floozies on board?”
“…sometimes.”
“Really? Ooh, I like that…”
He rolls his eyes.
*
He is physical, he moves, is moved.
He likes the casual intimacy - the touching of hands, shoulders, the rubbing of noses, the hugging. He likes the hugging. It’s as if they are children, in a giant intergalactic sandbox.
But it’s not an appropriate analogy.
He’d like to say, ‘Here, read this before you attempt to proceed further’, and then throw a big book on her bed, something hefty with a title like “Gallifrey: its Peoples, Customs and Society”. Something like that. Maybe that would put her off. Or maybe she’d take it as an encouragement, he honestly doesn’t know. A two-way bet.
When he thinks of throwing a book - anything - on her bed, and the way the bed might bounce slightly -
*
He’s doing that thing he does where he just stands in front of the console with his eyes open but his gaze elsewhere, tapping his fingers on the nearest hard surface. Tapping and thinking. Thinking and tapping.
She’s standing across from him. He’s thinking of his skin, and the expression ‘it’s bigger on the inside’. He has a sudden urge to say something, like: ‘Could you please do that thing again, that thing where you put your hands on my chest and lean in like -‘
He doesn’t say that.
It’s the most infuriating, frustrating experience he’s had in, oh -
*
He thinks about the time she tried a number on him, the graceless offering of herself, graceful all the same. He thinks about the kiss, particularly - he resisted, resisted again, then the moment he softened, however briefly, and then finally pushed her away.
The softening moment, then.
*
This is a resting moment. She is reading a book on one of the swiveling chairs, and he is sitting on the edge of the walkway, adjusting his welding goggles as he considers the work.
“Pond…”
“Yes?”
“Pond Pond Pond Pond Pond…”
“Yes yes yes - what?”
He slides the goggles on. Now he looks owlish.
“It’s just a nice name. Such a lovely combination - the nice round vowel. Your mouth has to make this shape…”
She looks at him. He glances over and realizes she’s looking.
“…I mean, I don’t know why you changed it. I told you it was a nice name, didn’t I, when we first met -“
“Are you deliberately trying to make me feel twelve years old again?” she frowns.
“Yes. No.”
He squints through the goggles, at the underside of the console. He says it again, without letting the sound come: A-me-li-a-Po-ond.
“Doctor, is there -“
“Forget it, ignore me, I’m yammering…”
It all sounds very lightweight, but now she is resting her book on her lap. He waves her gaze away.
“…I mean, don’t worry about it…”
“Whatever you like,” she sighs.
*
Maybe it’s the procreative-instinct, he thinks suddenly one day. That is both intertwined with and distinct from the sex-instinct. He is, after all, the only individual left of his species.
He thinks about this. Maybe it would explain what is happening to him.
It sounds better, to say something is ‘happening’ to him. It sounds better than saying it is something he is doing to himself.
Winding himself up.
*
He wanders into the kitchen, where she is eating a sandwich. Towel-turbanned and a belted bathrobe.
“Mm…” She finishes a mouthful. “So, I was thinking about what you said, the other day in Venice -“
“Aren’t you worried about catching a chill?”
“What?”
“Your clothes.”
“What about them?” She licks cream cheese off her thumb, grins into his face. “Oh - they got smelly. I’ll get some new ones, okay?”
“Right. Certainly. Sorry - what did I say?”
“About my clothes?”
“No. Venice.”
“Oh, right. I thought it was funny.”
“What’s that?”
“You said they were ‘buxom’. The girls.”
“Did I?”
“I didn’t think you noticed that kind of thing.”
She comfortably puts one bare foot on the table, exposing a length of bare leg.
“I didn’t. I don’t. I mean -“
“I just thought it was funny.”
“Really.”
He looks at her. She has that ‘trying not to laugh’ expression. He has absolutely no idea what to do or say, so he goes out.
*
Then there’s the day after, when he opens his eyes and his first conscious thought is that he needs to get her fiancée off his ship. As soon as possible.
He could lose the man, of course. There are rooms in the TARDIS where time passes extremely slowly. He’s had other unwelcome houseguests. There are options.
When the many options start formulating, taking shape in his head, that’s when he realizes.
That’s when he figures it out.
*
He is animal, after all, with the same instincts. But these are mostly subsumed, rather like the minimum requirements. Sleep - he sleeps rarely. Food - he eats occasionally. Sex…
It is another country, which he has not visited often enough to become familiar with the landmarks. He remembers that he had a nice time, last he went. But he doesn’t know if his health clearance is still current. And he doesn’t even speak the language properly - he recalls the communication difficulties on her bed in the little blue-painted room…
He is an infrequent traveller in the realm of the senses, unaccustomed to operating purely on one level. He dislikes this feeling of culture shock. He is comfortable, he is at home, in every place he visits.
Damn it. He hates feeling like a tourist.
*
They are back, after running through a number of side streets and then sprinting the last distance through a large formal garden. They slam into the console together, out of breath and laughing, and the doors bang shut behind them as he starts moving around, bringing everything to life. She moves counter-clockwise to him, in a kind of dance, and they make last jokes to each other, and then they’re on their way, and they are completely alone.
“…and not dead again!” she finishes, eyes sparkling.
“Yes, it’s good, not dead. That’s what I aim for. I mean, it’s bad form, isn’t it, otherwise?”
“Absolutely,” she nods. “So, now where to?”
“Don’t know. Nowhere. We’re cruising, so to speak. In absentia localis.”
“Cruising, mm…” she grins.
“So to speak.”
He gets tongue-tied again, so he says nothing. Just looks away. Lightweight, he thinks, just lightweight, nothing too over-done, over-analyzed, over-intellectualized, just -
“Doctor?”
She is beside him, he’s suddenly aware, pressing up against him almost, so he only has to turn his head, turn about just so. He hasn’t created space between them, he is sure she has realized what this might mean.
“Yes?”
His voice sounds peculiar, he thinks. Thick and soft. She doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t say anything, and her body has a tangible heat, and he swallows convulsively. She puts her hands on his chest and leans in like -
He gives in.
“Pond -“
His mouth opens, makes the nice round vowel, his lips parting gently against hers, so they share one breath.
notes to this fic at fic_overthink