Peel Slowly and See. (1/2)
Peel Slowly and See. (1/2), Doctor/Rose AU, adult
The Doctor/Rose record shop AU I've been talking about writing for a long time, made real by this week's prompts.
He barely even looks up when the bells above the door jingle anymore. It's hardly ever a customer for him, always One Direction this and Adele that, today's pop music, all firmly in Donna's wheelhouse., 10,022 (5,217 this part)
He barely even looks up when the bells above the door jingle anymore. It's hardly ever a customer for him, always One Direction this and Adele that, today's pop music, all firmly in Donna's wheelhouse.
As it is, he only looks up this time because if he stares at this album cover much longer, his eyes are going to drop right out of his head. It's been two weeks and he's tried every epoxy on the market, but still can't find one strong enough to get the damn banana sticker to stay on, and one harmless enough not to damage anything.
Damn banana, damn Velvet Underground, damn Nico and Andy Warhol, too.
And damn this customer, this blonde woman standing at the door of his shop and looking around like she's going to need loads of assistance. Dirty Chuck Taylors, and olive green coat, jeans too tight for proper circulation -- she looks like he does actually, nearly identical uniforms, but he can spot a fake from a mile away.
"Donna, customer for you!" he calls, not even bothering to rise from his desk in the office at the back of the shop. Donna had removed his door in a fit of irritation one day, telling him it was starting to smell in the small room. Donna, his sister, who couldn't even change a plug, had found her way to getting the door clean off its hinges. Wonders never cease.
Still, it affords him a view of the shop's entrance, right down the main aisle, to whichever Philistine was going to fork over money for some abomination that shouldn't even qualify as music today.
"Get 'em yourself, dumbo!" Donna shouts back. "I'm having lunch!"
Donna's voice is muffled by the ratty, still-on-its-hinges door that leads to the small break room and he knows that if he tries opening it, tries to force her out to deal with this lady at the front, he'd find himself locked out.
With a sigh, he pushes himself out of his desk chair, quickening his step as he notices the lady has made her way to the side aisles where the vinyl -- his vinyl -- is kept. It's the only part of the store he feels strongly about and he doesn't like allowing just anyone to browse. Not with their greasy little fingertips and tendencies to bend corners.
"Can I help you?" He says, sounding annoyed even to his own his ears.
The girl -- the woman, or, well, tough to say actually, she seems to be right in the in-between, 19 or 20, maybe even older, but definitely going on what he knows is the meaningless existence of adulthood -- startles at his interruption.
"Yeah," she says. "I'm looking for the first pressing of 'Bad Wolf,' I heard you had one."
No, no, no, no. No. Not this girl, not this blonde, mascara-ed kid. No way is she getting that. It took him ages to find a second copy, and it's only because they could really use the money that he's started selling from his second collection.
"What?"
The girl gives him a weird look, her face twisting in confusion, "'Bad Wolf,'" she says. "The TARDIS album? I heard you had a first pressing, I want to buy it."
He's still staring at her, can't seem to form words, no questions, no dismissals, nothing. Just staring.
"Listen," she tries again. "Is there someone else I could talk to about this? I heard there was a music expert at this shop, could I speak to them maybe? They'll know what I'm looking for."
He feels his mouth open, jaw dropping slightly before he clicks it shut, "I am the music expert, and I know exactly what you're looking for. Question is -- do you? That album is groundbreaking. Bands are still trying, every single day, to emulate -- poorly -- what TARDIS did on that record. It's not something you buy to look pretty in your flat."
The girl rolls her eyes, "Oh, terrific, a wanker and a snob. If this thing weren't so hard to find, I'd already be out of here, but like I said, I heard you had one and I want to buy it."
He can't help crossing his arms over his chest. Not the first time he's been called those names, not even the first time today, actually, but he's not taking cheek from some posh little girl who's found her way to the wrong side of town.
"Where'd you hear that?"
The girl shakes her head at him, clearly in disbelief, "From your site. Where you put --online -- that you had a copy available. Honestly, you don't want people to buy something, don't advertise that it's for sale on the internet, not if you weren't expecting to attract people with those new-fangled computers to come knocking."
Oh, right, the advert. He'd forgotten about that, the way Donna had made him put a page on the website with all the rarities they had on offer. Supposed to help bring in more money, although he'd just as soon keep his records. He can picture Donna in the back of his head, waving overdue invoices at him and he has to relent.
"Fine," he says. "Tell me five modern bands influenced by TARDIS' work on 'Bad Wolf' and I'll let you buy it."
With a smirk, the girl extends her hand, ticking acts off on her fingers, "SJ Adventures, Torchwood, Exterminate/Exterminate, Spaceships, Hat Trick Adric, Time Rotor, and oooh, maybe Arctic Monkeys, just the drums though. Shall I keep going?"
Well, he's not going to admit he was wrong about this girl, if that's what she's looking for.
"Oh, how brilliant, you can access Wikipedia on that new-fangled computer," he says, and, okay, maybe -- maybe that was uncalled for.
"Fuck you," the girl says.
From up the main aisle, he hears Donna huffing angrily their way. Great, now he's going to get chewed out and lose the sale. In the background, Lou Reed warbles over the speakers, the album to the cover he'd been repairing.
I am tired, I am weary, I could sleep for a thousand years.
Preach, Lou, preach.
"I'm sorry, miss," Donna says, sweeping around the corner rack all smiles and light. "Was my brother being unhelpful? It's an affliction he has. What I can do for you?"
The girl's face changes into something more pleasant as she turns to look at Donna, "I was just saying I wanted to buy your copy of 'Bad Wolf' and your...brother doesn't appear to want to sell it to me."
Donna steps closer to his side, voice lowering to a murmur, "That's a 150 quid album! Sell. It."
He snorts, "Yeah, 150 quid, exactly how much that field jacket she's wearing costs," he turns back to the girl. "Do you think that makes you blend in with the cool kids? Because let me tell you, they certainly didn't buy theirs at Harrods."
Red heat rises angrily in the girl's cheeks and she slams her eyes shut for a long second before opening them to stare daggers at him, "Yeah, 150 quid, that's exactly how much my dad paid when he bought it for himself two weeks before he died. Wanker."
He feels all the blood drain from his own face, guilt settling huge and heavy in his guts as Donna clears her throat.
"He's very sorry, really he is," Donna says. "I'm Donna and this is the Doctor."
He nods, trying to agree, but the thing in his stomach is doing flips and all that comes out it is, "Our parents are dead, too."
The girl's eyes soften briefly before she slots her annoyance back into place, "I'm Rose," she says to Donna, before turning to him, "And I am not here for a meeting of the orphans club. I'm here to buy a record."
Donna nods at her, "Right, definitely, let me just grab it for you. Will that be credit? You know what, it doesn't matter, all your money is good here," she turns to glare at the Doctor, "Everyone's money is good here." Then she's dashing back to the stock room for the rare stuff, leaving him standing awkwardly with this Rose.
"Are you really?" He asks, because he's an idiot who can't help himself.
"Am I really what?" She's turned to flip through the 'S' section, stopping deliberately on The Stranglers, and if he were the sort to get soppy about women anymore, he'd definitely trot out 'Golden Brown' about this girl's eyes.
"An orphan," he says.
She shakes her head, "Nah, I got my mum. Sorry about your parents, though."
He shrugs, it's not something he talks about a lot, neither he or Donna. "It's all right," he says, gesturing around him. "We've got their shop, sort of keeps them alive." He pauses, "I'm sorry, that sounded stupid."
She smiles at him, a tiny, quiet thing that he finds just a little bit comforting, "I don't think so. That's why I wear this coat. Why I listen to this music, actually. Reminds me of him."
The Doctor nods for lack of anything better to do, scrubbing his hand through his hair as Donna comes rushing back with the album.
"Is there anything else we can get for you?" Donna, ever the up-seller, asks.
"Depends," Rose says, chewing on her lip, and, oh, that's distracting, but no. No. Not distracted by women at all, ever, anymore, that's his thing now. "Do you have any punk?"
He can't help the grin that takes over his face as Donna shakes her head, muttering, "Oh boy, here we go." She raises her voice louder, waving the TARDIS album, "I'll just leave this at the till!"
Then, before he can think better of it, he's grabbing Rose's hand, dragging her to the corner of the shop where he keeps the punk, old concert posters peeling from the walls, the floor marked off in spray paint.
In the background, Lou Reed sings on, Run, run, run.
Running with this Rose, that's not bad for a Monday.
"Do we have any punk?" He scoffs when they're settled in front of the racks. "Of course we have punk, but none of that commercial garbage. You want any of that, you can head right back to the CDs. Nothing but the finest on vinyl."
Rose begins flipping through the albums, handling them gently, and it's possible -- just a tiny bit -- that he misjudged her.
"Where are you drawing this line then, Doctor? Nothing arbitrary, I hope. Not one of those '70s purists or UK-only twats, are you?"
Her eyes are sparkling at him, tongue between her teeth, and he likes this smile the best so far, this girl in her olive green coat and her dirty trainers, that spent the last ten minutes making him look like an idiot.
"No," he says, voice rising, ready for a good lecture, the one he's given himself a million times in his living room. "I'm just saying, the commercialization of punk rock as a product packaged for the mass market completely flies in the face of its ethos. It's about more than record sales, it's about the disadvantaged rising up to take back what's their's, it's about saying no, we're not going to take what the establishment feeds us," he's getting more frantic, more passionate, "It's -- it's the music of the people!"
Rose is still grinning at him -- actually, she's properly laughing at him now, "Hey, hey, calm down there, Victor Hugo, I'm pretty sure that's your anti-establishment Prius parked out front."
From across the shop, Donna's laughing, too, "Oh, I like you, you can definitely stay."
He leaves Rose alone then, confident she's not going to do irreparable damage to anything, and when she heads to the till an hour later, he jumps back up from his desk, waving Donna off to ring Rose up himself.
He's more than a little curious about her selections, the fat stack of vinyl she's clutching delicately to her chest. She deposits them on the counter next to the TARDIS album and his eyes scan the covers. A handful of from the punk section, a bit more new wave than he'd have expected, and still more from the rarities room. Donna must have let her in when he wasn't looking, but he can't say he's angry -- impressed is more like it. She's managed to pick out more than a few albums he'd consider hidden gems.
There is also every single Buzzcocks album they currently have in stock. She shrugs when he lingers over them.
"My dad's name was Pete," she says, and points to Pete Shelley's name on one of the back of one of the covers. "Seemed like a sign."
He nods eagerly, "Oh, they're brilliant, you're gonna love them. Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with? Story of everyone's life, right?"
He clamps down hard on the memory of Joan, and Reinette, and every other person who endured the misfortune of having him in their life. Although, sometimes, especially those most recent two, it was his own misfortune.
"Yeah, tell me about it," she scoffs, as he rings up her purchases, and he can't imagine a bloke mistreating this girl, but clearly one or two have, if that reaction meant anything.
Her total is a big number -- more than the shop usually takes in in a day, and she looks almost embarrassed as she counts out the notes to pay it. It's only then that he notices that her bag, the one slung across her chest, and her wallet, too, they're just as high quality as her coat.
"I know what you're thinking," she says, "I think you thought it when I walked in here -- some posh princess, spending daddy's money."
He looks away sheepishly, making a show of putting the albums into a bag.
"I am though," Rose's voice is soft. "He was an inventor, my dad, a good one. And I promise you, I'd rather have him back than all of this," she shoves the pound notes toward him on the counter.
The Doctor nods, quietly accepting the money, "I'd trade the shop for mine," he says. "Donna would, too, but it doesn't mean as much to her. Think she'd fancy it better if the family business had been something else. Hats, maybe."
Rose laughs, "Hats?"
He grins and hands the bag over the counter to Rose, "Loves a good hat, my sister does."
It's not typical, walking a customer out, but he makes his way around the counter anyway, curiously anxious to keep talking to Rose. Certainly she's the best customer they've had in months.
"Never had much of a head for hats," Rose tells him as the walk the aisle toward the door.
"Ah, me neither," he says. "Well-llll, probably could do, but then I'd be covering up this," he points at his hair, taking a moment to ruffle it deliberately.
"It is pretty great," Rose agrees, and he feels like preening.
The shop bells jingle again as they open the door, and he's reluctant to let her go, back to the monotony of his office and whatever brain-dead Belieber is sure to come in next. Although -- maybe Rose likes Justin Bieber. It would be okay if she did, he decides. She would probably have a good reason.
God, he is a fussy bastard, isn't he?
"Hey, Rose," he says as she steps through the door and out onto the sidewalk. "Spaceships is actually playing a gig on Friday, a couple blocks over. You could come -- if you want?"
Stupid, stupid, stupid. So stupid.
She stares at him then, a searching look that he does his best not to fidget under, "No...I've got...no. I just -- I can't, not right now."
He can't say he's surprised, that whole fussy bastard thing, that's probably evident, and he nods before waving goodbye and stepping back in the shop.
In his office, he only allows himself to wallow for five minutes before he forcibly reminds himself that women are trouble anyway, and he's sworn off them.
He doesn't need women, and he doesn't need Rose.
Four days later, he reverses that decision entirely.
It's Friday evening, and he and Donna had agreed to close the shop early -- her for another date with Lee, and him for the Spaceships show later that night. He's in a record shop on the outskirts of London, searching in vain for a hard-to-find import of Pandorica's debut album, when he sees her again.
With his prize tucked firmly under her arm.
"Hey," he says, by way of greeting. "That's my album."
She glances up at him, eyes widening in surprise before she recovers, grinning, "Is it?" She holds the album up to his head. "You don't look like Amy Pond, or Rory Williams. And you don't seem to be in possession of this record. So, I'd say, in no way is this your album."
He reaches up for the record near his head and she snatches it away with a smirk, putting it back under her arm.
"No," he says. "But it's what I came here for -- it's my album."
She shrugs, managing to make the gesture look cheeky, "It's what I came here for, too. Just as much mine. Actually, it's more mine, because I have it."
He barely stops himself from stomping his foot, "Aww, come on! Please?"
She shakes her head, "Nope. You can listen to it if you want, I can come around to the shop and you can destroy the quality on those shit speakers of yours."
He huffs, "They're hardly shit! I installed that system myself! State of the art!"
"When? In 1985?"
He huffs again, because maybe it has been a few years, but they still definitely sound brilliant, he's sure of it.
"Haha," he says. "Anyway, don't bother, I have the album, it's that import cover art I'm looking for. Something about that Roman bloke, just waiting, it's sort of unnerving, isn't it?"
She glances down at the album and back up at him, "I think it's romantic," Rose says. "I think he's waiting for a girl."
This time he scoffs, "Romance? On a Pandorica album? None of those lyrics speak to a healthy relationship." He pauses, considering, "Well, maybe that song about Idris, but that wasn't even written by the usual lyricist! Not gonna count it."
She laughs, "Fine, you don't have to listen to it, but you're not going to be looking at either. If you'll excuse me, I have a purchase to make."
Rose leaves him standing in the aisle as she walks toward the till. It's only a few seconds before he dashes after her -- if he can't have the album himself, at least he can make sure it's going to a good home.
When Rose is finished, she dangles the bag enticingly in front of him and he makes one final grab. She ducks under his arm, moving toward the door, and he finds himself following again.
If he's going to keep making an arse of himself, what's one more time?
"About that Spaceships show tonight," he says as they exit the shop. "Did I mention Time Rotor's opening up for them?"
It's the longest few seconds of his life, or it feels like it, as Rose stares at him, car keys clutched in the hand not holding the album and a look he can't decipher on her face.
At the very least, he's seen that face one more time, he tells himself. That'll help fill in the parts where his memory was going fuzzy, a couple of nights of thinking about her coming back to the shop and a door mysteriously materializing to his office when he leads her to it. His wandering right hand didn't seem to need a refresher, but certain elements of his brain appreciate it.
He's just about to ask if she'd heard him, or call the whole thing back, when she nods.
"Sure," she says and when she nods this time it's more emphatic. "Sure, okay, I'll go."
The grin that takes over his face even feels goofy, he can't imagine how it must look.
"Brilliant! You can follow me back to the shop," he points at the car she's standing near and then his own maligned Prius. "We can walk there."
They settle themselves in their cars and he pulls into the road, making sure she's following and humming along with the radio. It's only as he parks his car in his spot in front of his shop that he realizes what he'd been humming.
Friday, I'm In Love, and, ugh, he's just as easy as he ever was.
Getting out of his car and waiting for Rose to park and do the same, he comforts himself rewriting the lyrics.
Somehow, "Friday, I'm Vaguely, Perhaps, Infatuated," just doesn't have the same ring.
It's only a short walk to the venue, but they're far too early and he's certainly not going to stand in a queue. No, quick nod at the bouncer and right in, that's more his style.
"Do you want to get something to eat?" He asks, the smell of chips making his mouth water from two doors down.
"What, like a date?" Rose is grinning innocently at him, but there's mischief in her eyes that he wants to poke at.
He pretends to deliberate, eyes skating slowly over her. She's wearing the same coat, jeans, and trainers from before, but her shirt is different, a plaid button up she's buttoned right to her neck.
His fingers itch to undo that button, and, frankly, all of them, when he says, "Yes, exactly like a date."
She rakes her eyes over him with the same scrutiny he'd used and he's caught up trying to imagine what she sees, hoping it's non-threatening and friendly and maybe a little enticing.
There's his own coat, the one that looks so similar to hers that he can't help wondering if they're the same make. Not that he has 150 quid to throw around on a coat, but he used to, when his parents were alive and people didn't download music, and he had. It's how he'd known the price tag, actually.
His jeans are a bit dirty, a bit skinny, and a bit precarious in the way they're hanging from his hips -- that'll be put right if he can just get some chips in his belly, though.
His shoes, well, not much room for her to judge, she's wearing the same scuffed up Chuck Taylors he is, only hers are cream colored, and his are black. Still, nothing he can imagine is deal-breaker territory.
His t-shirt, too, seems neutral enough, black cotton with a white screenprinted logo for The Jam across the front of it. If he squints and thinks really hard (not hard at all), he can imagine a cut up movie montage of their walk to the venue set to "In The City."
In the montage, they're holding hands, and that stupid, irrepressibly romantic part of him, wants to do just that.
By the time he's completed his mental assessment, Rose is staring at him, an amused smile turning up the corners of her lips, "Everything okay?"
He nods, rapid and exaggerated, "Brilliant, everything's brilliant," he says. "Or, well, sort of depends on your answer -- want to get something to eat, exactly like a date?"
The full smile spreads across her face and, good fucking god, is he ever in trouble, heart hammering and palms sweating and breath held as she says --
"Yeah, I do."
Everything in him sings, that ecstatic buzz of fancying someone flying through his veins and he's leading her into the pub before he can do something ridiculous, like dance a jig.
He'd forgotten what this was like, to find someone and like them and be with them, even just for a little while. Every relationship invariably became work, too much for him, or too much for the women, and someone always quitting.
He has a feeling though, with this woman, with Rose, he might not mind the work.
It doesn't hurt that she's pretty enough that he has to curl his fingernails into his palm to keep from telling her so.
Rose orders chips, warning him that he'll be wanting his own basket when he sees the way she takes them. He follows her advice and is glad for it when upturns the bottle of vinegar and lets it pour out while she looks around the pub.
Her eyes land on a telly and she squints at it before finally righting the bottle and reaching for the salt.
The shake shake shake of her wrist and hand as she salts her chips is practically vulgar, and not just for the way she's ruining her meal. It's a whole new world, the way Rose's hand could wrap around other things and make that same movement.
He snuffs out the thought -- he may have been out of the game for a while, but he's nearly certain that sexual fantasies during dates, especially first dates, is not how things are done.
And anyway, he really does want to talk her, or, rather, he wants her to talk to him. He wants to know as much as he can about this woman, this Rose --
"Hey, what's your last name?"
"Tyler," she says and sets the salt aside.
-- this Rose Tyler. And doesn't that just trip off the tongue?
Rose Tyler.
It's an hour and a half later, as they're leaving the pub for the concert, that he's learned so much more than just her last name. Her embarrassing fondness for cheap pop music, her mum and her history and the dog she never had.
He learns that she smiles with her tongue even more than he could ever have hoped for, and that those, bright white teeth she pinches it between are the product of three years of braces in her adolescence.
He also learns that she, thankfully, is no longer an adolescent.
He learns about her mates and her schooling and her habit of dating music bloggers.
The last blogger-boyfriend, Mickey Smith, had apparently grown up with her, and she had laughed and admonished the Doctor when he called the bloke, "Mickey the Idiot."
(He's sticking by that though, he's read that blog, and anybody that can't see beyond the stigma to genuinely enjoy Coldplay is an idiot, as far as he's concerned.)
Most importantly, he's learned that she's not opposed to hand-holding at all, and it's this bit he relishes in as her fingers twine between his and they push past the crowds to head to the mezzanine.
She worms her way right up to the railing just as Time Rotor is beginning their set, and there's no room for him to stand next to her, so he steps behind her, pressed up close as the first song begins and the crowd contracts.
Their coats have been checked and it's just two layers of the thin cotton that makes up their shirts separating his torso from the skin of her back.
He can feel the ridges of her bra clasp right in the center of his chest every time he leans forward to predict the next song. She's been right more than he has, but it's a happy problem to have, tilting in close to make more rapid fire guesses just to feel the pressure point.
They're a sweaty, panting mess by the time the set is finished and Rose twists to face him, her back to the stage as the roadies for Spaceships start setting up.
"Thank you," she tells him and his ears are still ringing, the high, tinny echo still bouncing in his skull.
"What?"
"I said thank you!" she shouts, and grins when he jerks his head back. She lowers her voice again, "I shouldn't have said no the first time you asked."
He raises his eyebrows, head bobbing in exaggerated confirmation before she swats him across the biceps.
"I just meant, they were silly, my reasons for turning you down," she says.
"What were they?"
Her fingers pick at a piece of imaginary lint on her shoulder and he brushes them away, his own fingers plucking at the cotton until she answers.
"Oh, you know, same old stuff, didn't want to get hurt, didn't want to get involved, didn't want you going behind my back to ask my mum for money to feed your drug habit -- the usual" she says.
He can't keep back the way his eyes widen, "Mickey did that?"
Rose shakes her head, "No, no, that one was Jimmy."
The Doctor moves his fingers, nudging her shoulder and trying to get her to smile, "I, of course, am only going to ask your mum for money to feed my vinyl habit."
She laughs, "Store full of the stuff and you still don't have enough? Spoken like a true addict."
In a wave of bravery, his hands settle on the railing behind her, caging her in, "Seems like I'd be seeing you at those meetings, too, you know."
Shaking her head, Rose defers, "No, no way, just a hobby. I know my limits."
He tips his head forward, voice low, "I'll bet you don't. I bet it's in your blood. I bet sometimes just the sound of the needle dropping on the record gets you going."
She moves her forehead to rest against his, and it's suddenly so, so warm, "What do you know about what gets me going?"
Tightening his arms where they're resting against her waist, he shuffles forward a single step, bringing them chest to chest, and his stupid heart, the way it's pounding, the way the ringing in his ears hasn't dulled, has, in fact, gotten so much louder, and she smells so much better than anyone has a right to, sweat and beer and smoke and chips, all wrapped in a pretty little package, and signed with expensive perfume.
"Not much yet," he says, and the words are spoken slowly, quietly, because he's close enough to her that any big movements, any big words, they'd put his lips against hers. "But I want to."
He's going to do it, he's definitely going to do it, this girl he's barely known for a handful of hours, he's going to kiss her. And somehow, he knows, it's going to feel like so much more than that. He shifts so his nose rests alongside hers, her breath ghosting warmly over his lips, and he can't even lick them, can't do anything, because it's all going to be a kiss, and he wants to do it deliberately.
From the front of the venue, a guitar clangs on stage, discordant and loud, and they both startle, breaking the mood as he jumps away from her.
Air leaves his lungs on an obnoxious sigh, completely typical, that. Before he can get too down though, Rose is grabbing his hand, tugging him back through the crowd, "Let's get something to drink!"
Part 2/2
The Doctor/Rose record shop AU I've been talking about writing for a long time, made real by this week's prompts.
He barely even looks up when the bells above the door jingle anymore. It's hardly ever a customer for him, always One Direction this and Adele that, today's pop music, all firmly in Donna's wheelhouse., 10,022 (5,217 this part)
He barely even looks up when the bells above the door jingle anymore. It's hardly ever a customer for him, always One Direction this and Adele that, today's pop music, all firmly in Donna's wheelhouse.
As it is, he only looks up this time because if he stares at this album cover much longer, his eyes are going to drop right out of his head. It's been two weeks and he's tried every epoxy on the market, but still can't find one strong enough to get the damn banana sticker to stay on, and one harmless enough not to damage anything.
Damn banana, damn Velvet Underground, damn Nico and Andy Warhol, too.
And damn this customer, this blonde woman standing at the door of his shop and looking around like she's going to need loads of assistance. Dirty Chuck Taylors, and olive green coat, jeans too tight for proper circulation -- she looks like he does actually, nearly identical uniforms, but he can spot a fake from a mile away.
"Donna, customer for you!" he calls, not even bothering to rise from his desk in the office at the back of the shop. Donna had removed his door in a fit of irritation one day, telling him it was starting to smell in the small room. Donna, his sister, who couldn't even change a plug, had found her way to getting the door clean off its hinges. Wonders never cease.
Still, it affords him a view of the shop's entrance, right down the main aisle, to whichever Philistine was going to fork over money for some abomination that shouldn't even qualify as music today.
"Get 'em yourself, dumbo!" Donna shouts back. "I'm having lunch!"
Donna's voice is muffled by the ratty, still-on-its-hinges door that leads to the small break room and he knows that if he tries opening it, tries to force her out to deal with this lady at the front, he'd find himself locked out.
With a sigh, he pushes himself out of his desk chair, quickening his step as he notices the lady has made her way to the side aisles where the vinyl -- his vinyl -- is kept. It's the only part of the store he feels strongly about and he doesn't like allowing just anyone to browse. Not with their greasy little fingertips and tendencies to bend corners.
"Can I help you?" He says, sounding annoyed even to his own his ears.
The girl -- the woman, or, well, tough to say actually, she seems to be right in the in-between, 19 or 20, maybe even older, but definitely going on what he knows is the meaningless existence of adulthood -- startles at his interruption.
"Yeah," she says. "I'm looking for the first pressing of 'Bad Wolf,' I heard you had one."
No, no, no, no. No. Not this girl, not this blonde, mascara-ed kid. No way is she getting that. It took him ages to find a second copy, and it's only because they could really use the money that he's started selling from his second collection.
"What?"
The girl gives him a weird look, her face twisting in confusion, "'Bad Wolf,'" she says. "The TARDIS album? I heard you had a first pressing, I want to buy it."
He's still staring at her, can't seem to form words, no questions, no dismissals, nothing. Just staring.
"Listen," she tries again. "Is there someone else I could talk to about this? I heard there was a music expert at this shop, could I speak to them maybe? They'll know what I'm looking for."
He feels his mouth open, jaw dropping slightly before he clicks it shut, "I am the music expert, and I know exactly what you're looking for. Question is -- do you? That album is groundbreaking. Bands are still trying, every single day, to emulate -- poorly -- what TARDIS did on that record. It's not something you buy to look pretty in your flat."
The girl rolls her eyes, "Oh, terrific, a wanker and a snob. If this thing weren't so hard to find, I'd already be out of here, but like I said, I heard you had one and I want to buy it."
He can't help crossing his arms over his chest. Not the first time he's been called those names, not even the first time today, actually, but he's not taking cheek from some posh little girl who's found her way to the wrong side of town.
"Where'd you hear that?"
The girl shakes her head at him, clearly in disbelief, "From your site. Where you put --online -- that you had a copy available. Honestly, you don't want people to buy something, don't advertise that it's for sale on the internet, not if you weren't expecting to attract people with those new-fangled computers to come knocking."
Oh, right, the advert. He'd forgotten about that, the way Donna had made him put a page on the website with all the rarities they had on offer. Supposed to help bring in more money, although he'd just as soon keep his records. He can picture Donna in the back of his head, waving overdue invoices at him and he has to relent.
"Fine," he says. "Tell me five modern bands influenced by TARDIS' work on 'Bad Wolf' and I'll let you buy it."
With a smirk, the girl extends her hand, ticking acts off on her fingers, "SJ Adventures, Torchwood, Exterminate/Exterminate, Spaceships, Hat Trick Adric, Time Rotor, and oooh, maybe Arctic Monkeys, just the drums though. Shall I keep going?"
Well, he's not going to admit he was wrong about this girl, if that's what she's looking for.
"Oh, how brilliant, you can access Wikipedia on that new-fangled computer," he says, and, okay, maybe -- maybe that was uncalled for.
"Fuck you," the girl says.
From up the main aisle, he hears Donna huffing angrily their way. Great, now he's going to get chewed out and lose the sale. In the background, Lou Reed warbles over the speakers, the album to the cover he'd been repairing.
I am tired, I am weary, I could sleep for a thousand years.
Preach, Lou, preach.
"I'm sorry, miss," Donna says, sweeping around the corner rack all smiles and light. "Was my brother being unhelpful? It's an affliction he has. What I can do for you?"
The girl's face changes into something more pleasant as she turns to look at Donna, "I was just saying I wanted to buy your copy of 'Bad Wolf' and your...brother doesn't appear to want to sell it to me."
Donna steps closer to his side, voice lowering to a murmur, "That's a 150 quid album! Sell. It."
He snorts, "Yeah, 150 quid, exactly how much that field jacket she's wearing costs," he turns back to the girl. "Do you think that makes you blend in with the cool kids? Because let me tell you, they certainly didn't buy theirs at Harrods."
Red heat rises angrily in the girl's cheeks and she slams her eyes shut for a long second before opening them to stare daggers at him, "Yeah, 150 quid, that's exactly how much my dad paid when he bought it for himself two weeks before he died. Wanker."
He feels all the blood drain from his own face, guilt settling huge and heavy in his guts as Donna clears her throat.
"He's very sorry, really he is," Donna says. "I'm Donna and this is the Doctor."
He nods, trying to agree, but the thing in his stomach is doing flips and all that comes out it is, "Our parents are dead, too."
The girl's eyes soften briefly before she slots her annoyance back into place, "I'm Rose," she says to Donna, before turning to him, "And I am not here for a meeting of the orphans club. I'm here to buy a record."
Donna nods at her, "Right, definitely, let me just grab it for you. Will that be credit? You know what, it doesn't matter, all your money is good here," she turns to glare at the Doctor, "Everyone's money is good here." Then she's dashing back to the stock room for the rare stuff, leaving him standing awkwardly with this Rose.
"Are you really?" He asks, because he's an idiot who can't help himself.
"Am I really what?" She's turned to flip through the 'S' section, stopping deliberately on The Stranglers, and if he were the sort to get soppy about women anymore, he'd definitely trot out 'Golden Brown' about this girl's eyes.
"An orphan," he says.
She shakes her head, "Nah, I got my mum. Sorry about your parents, though."
He shrugs, it's not something he talks about a lot, neither he or Donna. "It's all right," he says, gesturing around him. "We've got their shop, sort of keeps them alive." He pauses, "I'm sorry, that sounded stupid."
She smiles at him, a tiny, quiet thing that he finds just a little bit comforting, "I don't think so. That's why I wear this coat. Why I listen to this music, actually. Reminds me of him."
The Doctor nods for lack of anything better to do, scrubbing his hand through his hair as Donna comes rushing back with the album.
"Is there anything else we can get for you?" Donna, ever the up-seller, asks.
"Depends," Rose says, chewing on her lip, and, oh, that's distracting, but no. No. Not distracted by women at all, ever, anymore, that's his thing now. "Do you have any punk?"
He can't help the grin that takes over his face as Donna shakes her head, muttering, "Oh boy, here we go." She raises her voice louder, waving the TARDIS album, "I'll just leave this at the till!"
Then, before he can think better of it, he's grabbing Rose's hand, dragging her to the corner of the shop where he keeps the punk, old concert posters peeling from the walls, the floor marked off in spray paint.
In the background, Lou Reed sings on, Run, run, run.
Running with this Rose, that's not bad for a Monday.
"Do we have any punk?" He scoffs when they're settled in front of the racks. "Of course we have punk, but none of that commercial garbage. You want any of that, you can head right back to the CDs. Nothing but the finest on vinyl."
Rose begins flipping through the albums, handling them gently, and it's possible -- just a tiny bit -- that he misjudged her.
"Where are you drawing this line then, Doctor? Nothing arbitrary, I hope. Not one of those '70s purists or UK-only twats, are you?"
Her eyes are sparkling at him, tongue between her teeth, and he likes this smile the best so far, this girl in her olive green coat and her dirty trainers, that spent the last ten minutes making him look like an idiot.
"No," he says, voice rising, ready for a good lecture, the one he's given himself a million times in his living room. "I'm just saying, the commercialization of punk rock as a product packaged for the mass market completely flies in the face of its ethos. It's about more than record sales, it's about the disadvantaged rising up to take back what's their's, it's about saying no, we're not going to take what the establishment feeds us," he's getting more frantic, more passionate, "It's -- it's the music of the people!"
Rose is still grinning at him -- actually, she's properly laughing at him now, "Hey, hey, calm down there, Victor Hugo, I'm pretty sure that's your anti-establishment Prius parked out front."
From across the shop, Donna's laughing, too, "Oh, I like you, you can definitely stay."
He leaves Rose alone then, confident she's not going to do irreparable damage to anything, and when she heads to the till an hour later, he jumps back up from his desk, waving Donna off to ring Rose up himself.
He's more than a little curious about her selections, the fat stack of vinyl she's clutching delicately to her chest. She deposits them on the counter next to the TARDIS album and his eyes scan the covers. A handful of from the punk section, a bit more new wave than he'd have expected, and still more from the rarities room. Donna must have let her in when he wasn't looking, but he can't say he's angry -- impressed is more like it. She's managed to pick out more than a few albums he'd consider hidden gems.
There is also every single Buzzcocks album they currently have in stock. She shrugs when he lingers over them.
"My dad's name was Pete," she says, and points to Pete Shelley's name on one of the back of one of the covers. "Seemed like a sign."
He nods eagerly, "Oh, they're brilliant, you're gonna love them. Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with? Story of everyone's life, right?"
He clamps down hard on the memory of Joan, and Reinette, and every other person who endured the misfortune of having him in their life. Although, sometimes, especially those most recent two, it was his own misfortune.
"Yeah, tell me about it," she scoffs, as he rings up her purchases, and he can't imagine a bloke mistreating this girl, but clearly one or two have, if that reaction meant anything.
Her total is a big number -- more than the shop usually takes in in a day, and she looks almost embarrassed as she counts out the notes to pay it. It's only then that he notices that her bag, the one slung across her chest, and her wallet, too, they're just as high quality as her coat.
"I know what you're thinking," she says, "I think you thought it when I walked in here -- some posh princess, spending daddy's money."
He looks away sheepishly, making a show of putting the albums into a bag.
"I am though," Rose's voice is soft. "He was an inventor, my dad, a good one. And I promise you, I'd rather have him back than all of this," she shoves the pound notes toward him on the counter.
The Doctor nods, quietly accepting the money, "I'd trade the shop for mine," he says. "Donna would, too, but it doesn't mean as much to her. Think she'd fancy it better if the family business had been something else. Hats, maybe."
Rose laughs, "Hats?"
He grins and hands the bag over the counter to Rose, "Loves a good hat, my sister does."
It's not typical, walking a customer out, but he makes his way around the counter anyway, curiously anxious to keep talking to Rose. Certainly she's the best customer they've had in months.
"Never had much of a head for hats," Rose tells him as the walk the aisle toward the door.
"Ah, me neither," he says. "Well-llll, probably could do, but then I'd be covering up this," he points at his hair, taking a moment to ruffle it deliberately.
"It is pretty great," Rose agrees, and he feels like preening.
The shop bells jingle again as they open the door, and he's reluctant to let her go, back to the monotony of his office and whatever brain-dead Belieber is sure to come in next. Although -- maybe Rose likes Justin Bieber. It would be okay if she did, he decides. She would probably have a good reason.
God, he is a fussy bastard, isn't he?
"Hey, Rose," he says as she steps through the door and out onto the sidewalk. "Spaceships is actually playing a gig on Friday, a couple blocks over. You could come -- if you want?"
Stupid, stupid, stupid. So stupid.
She stares at him then, a searching look that he does his best not to fidget under, "No...I've got...no. I just -- I can't, not right now."
He can't say he's surprised, that whole fussy bastard thing, that's probably evident, and he nods before waving goodbye and stepping back in the shop.
In his office, he only allows himself to wallow for five minutes before he forcibly reminds himself that women are trouble anyway, and he's sworn off them.
He doesn't need women, and he doesn't need Rose.
Four days later, he reverses that decision entirely.
It's Friday evening, and he and Donna had agreed to close the shop early -- her for another date with Lee, and him for the Spaceships show later that night. He's in a record shop on the outskirts of London, searching in vain for a hard-to-find import of Pandorica's debut album, when he sees her again.
With his prize tucked firmly under her arm.
"Hey," he says, by way of greeting. "That's my album."
She glances up at him, eyes widening in surprise before she recovers, grinning, "Is it?" She holds the album up to his head. "You don't look like Amy Pond, or Rory Williams. And you don't seem to be in possession of this record. So, I'd say, in no way is this your album."
He reaches up for the record near his head and she snatches it away with a smirk, putting it back under her arm.
"No," he says. "But it's what I came here for -- it's my album."
She shrugs, managing to make the gesture look cheeky, "It's what I came here for, too. Just as much mine. Actually, it's more mine, because I have it."
He barely stops himself from stomping his foot, "Aww, come on! Please?"
She shakes her head, "Nope. You can listen to it if you want, I can come around to the shop and you can destroy the quality on those shit speakers of yours."
He huffs, "They're hardly shit! I installed that system myself! State of the art!"
"When? In 1985?"
He huffs again, because maybe it has been a few years, but they still definitely sound brilliant, he's sure of it.
"Haha," he says. "Anyway, don't bother, I have the album, it's that import cover art I'm looking for. Something about that Roman bloke, just waiting, it's sort of unnerving, isn't it?"
She glances down at the album and back up at him, "I think it's romantic," Rose says. "I think he's waiting for a girl."
This time he scoffs, "Romance? On a Pandorica album? None of those lyrics speak to a healthy relationship." He pauses, considering, "Well, maybe that song about Idris, but that wasn't even written by the usual lyricist! Not gonna count it."
She laughs, "Fine, you don't have to listen to it, but you're not going to be looking at either. If you'll excuse me, I have a purchase to make."
Rose leaves him standing in the aisle as she walks toward the till. It's only a few seconds before he dashes after her -- if he can't have the album himself, at least he can make sure it's going to a good home.
When Rose is finished, she dangles the bag enticingly in front of him and he makes one final grab. She ducks under his arm, moving toward the door, and he finds himself following again.
If he's going to keep making an arse of himself, what's one more time?
"About that Spaceships show tonight," he says as they exit the shop. "Did I mention Time Rotor's opening up for them?"
It's the longest few seconds of his life, or it feels like it, as Rose stares at him, car keys clutched in the hand not holding the album and a look he can't decipher on her face.
At the very least, he's seen that face one more time, he tells himself. That'll help fill in the parts where his memory was going fuzzy, a couple of nights of thinking about her coming back to the shop and a door mysteriously materializing to his office when he leads her to it. His wandering right hand didn't seem to need a refresher, but certain elements of his brain appreciate it.
He's just about to ask if she'd heard him, or call the whole thing back, when she nods.
"Sure," she says and when she nods this time it's more emphatic. "Sure, okay, I'll go."
The grin that takes over his face even feels goofy, he can't imagine how it must look.
"Brilliant! You can follow me back to the shop," he points at the car she's standing near and then his own maligned Prius. "We can walk there."
They settle themselves in their cars and he pulls into the road, making sure she's following and humming along with the radio. It's only as he parks his car in his spot in front of his shop that he realizes what he'd been humming.
Friday, I'm In Love, and, ugh, he's just as easy as he ever was.
Getting out of his car and waiting for Rose to park and do the same, he comforts himself rewriting the lyrics.
Somehow, "Friday, I'm Vaguely, Perhaps, Infatuated," just doesn't have the same ring.
It's only a short walk to the venue, but they're far too early and he's certainly not going to stand in a queue. No, quick nod at the bouncer and right in, that's more his style.
"Do you want to get something to eat?" He asks, the smell of chips making his mouth water from two doors down.
"What, like a date?" Rose is grinning innocently at him, but there's mischief in her eyes that he wants to poke at.
He pretends to deliberate, eyes skating slowly over her. She's wearing the same coat, jeans, and trainers from before, but her shirt is different, a plaid button up she's buttoned right to her neck.
His fingers itch to undo that button, and, frankly, all of them, when he says, "Yes, exactly like a date."
She rakes her eyes over him with the same scrutiny he'd used and he's caught up trying to imagine what she sees, hoping it's non-threatening and friendly and maybe a little enticing.
There's his own coat, the one that looks so similar to hers that he can't help wondering if they're the same make. Not that he has 150 quid to throw around on a coat, but he used to, when his parents were alive and people didn't download music, and he had. It's how he'd known the price tag, actually.
His jeans are a bit dirty, a bit skinny, and a bit precarious in the way they're hanging from his hips -- that'll be put right if he can just get some chips in his belly, though.
His shoes, well, not much room for her to judge, she's wearing the same scuffed up Chuck Taylors he is, only hers are cream colored, and his are black. Still, nothing he can imagine is deal-breaker territory.
His t-shirt, too, seems neutral enough, black cotton with a white screenprinted logo for The Jam across the front of it. If he squints and thinks really hard (not hard at all), he can imagine a cut up movie montage of their walk to the venue set to "In The City."
In the montage, they're holding hands, and that stupid, irrepressibly romantic part of him, wants to do just that.
By the time he's completed his mental assessment, Rose is staring at him, an amused smile turning up the corners of her lips, "Everything okay?"
He nods, rapid and exaggerated, "Brilliant, everything's brilliant," he says. "Or, well, sort of depends on your answer -- want to get something to eat, exactly like a date?"
The full smile spreads across her face and, good fucking god, is he ever in trouble, heart hammering and palms sweating and breath held as she says --
"Yeah, I do."
Everything in him sings, that ecstatic buzz of fancying someone flying through his veins and he's leading her into the pub before he can do something ridiculous, like dance a jig.
He'd forgotten what this was like, to find someone and like them and be with them, even just for a little while. Every relationship invariably became work, too much for him, or too much for the women, and someone always quitting.
He has a feeling though, with this woman, with Rose, he might not mind the work.
It doesn't hurt that she's pretty enough that he has to curl his fingernails into his palm to keep from telling her so.
Rose orders chips, warning him that he'll be wanting his own basket when he sees the way she takes them. He follows her advice and is glad for it when upturns the bottle of vinegar and lets it pour out while she looks around the pub.
Her eyes land on a telly and she squints at it before finally righting the bottle and reaching for the salt.
The shake shake shake of her wrist and hand as she salts her chips is practically vulgar, and not just for the way she's ruining her meal. It's a whole new world, the way Rose's hand could wrap around other things and make that same movement.
He snuffs out the thought -- he may have been out of the game for a while, but he's nearly certain that sexual fantasies during dates, especially first dates, is not how things are done.
And anyway, he really does want to talk her, or, rather, he wants her to talk to him. He wants to know as much as he can about this woman, this Rose --
"Hey, what's your last name?"
"Tyler," she says and sets the salt aside.
-- this Rose Tyler. And doesn't that just trip off the tongue?
Rose Tyler.
It's an hour and a half later, as they're leaving the pub for the concert, that he's learned so much more than just her last name. Her embarrassing fondness for cheap pop music, her mum and her history and the dog she never had.
He learns that she smiles with her tongue even more than he could ever have hoped for, and that those, bright white teeth she pinches it between are the product of three years of braces in her adolescence.
He also learns that she, thankfully, is no longer an adolescent.
He learns about her mates and her schooling and her habit of dating music bloggers.
The last blogger-boyfriend, Mickey Smith, had apparently grown up with her, and she had laughed and admonished the Doctor when he called the bloke, "Mickey the Idiot."
(He's sticking by that though, he's read that blog, and anybody that can't see beyond the stigma to genuinely enjoy Coldplay is an idiot, as far as he's concerned.)
Most importantly, he's learned that she's not opposed to hand-holding at all, and it's this bit he relishes in as her fingers twine between his and they push past the crowds to head to the mezzanine.
She worms her way right up to the railing just as Time Rotor is beginning their set, and there's no room for him to stand next to her, so he steps behind her, pressed up close as the first song begins and the crowd contracts.
Their coats have been checked and it's just two layers of the thin cotton that makes up their shirts separating his torso from the skin of her back.
He can feel the ridges of her bra clasp right in the center of his chest every time he leans forward to predict the next song. She's been right more than he has, but it's a happy problem to have, tilting in close to make more rapid fire guesses just to feel the pressure point.
They're a sweaty, panting mess by the time the set is finished and Rose twists to face him, her back to the stage as the roadies for Spaceships start setting up.
"Thank you," she tells him and his ears are still ringing, the high, tinny echo still bouncing in his skull.
"What?"
"I said thank you!" she shouts, and grins when he jerks his head back. She lowers her voice again, "I shouldn't have said no the first time you asked."
He raises his eyebrows, head bobbing in exaggerated confirmation before she swats him across the biceps.
"I just meant, they were silly, my reasons for turning you down," she says.
"What were they?"
Her fingers pick at a piece of imaginary lint on her shoulder and he brushes them away, his own fingers plucking at the cotton until she answers.
"Oh, you know, same old stuff, didn't want to get hurt, didn't want to get involved, didn't want you going behind my back to ask my mum for money to feed your drug habit -- the usual" she says.
He can't keep back the way his eyes widen, "Mickey did that?"
Rose shakes her head, "No, no, that one was Jimmy."
The Doctor moves his fingers, nudging her shoulder and trying to get her to smile, "I, of course, am only going to ask your mum for money to feed my vinyl habit."
She laughs, "Store full of the stuff and you still don't have enough? Spoken like a true addict."
In a wave of bravery, his hands settle on the railing behind her, caging her in, "Seems like I'd be seeing you at those meetings, too, you know."
Shaking her head, Rose defers, "No, no way, just a hobby. I know my limits."
He tips his head forward, voice low, "I'll bet you don't. I bet it's in your blood. I bet sometimes just the sound of the needle dropping on the record gets you going."
She moves her forehead to rest against his, and it's suddenly so, so warm, "What do you know about what gets me going?"
Tightening his arms where they're resting against her waist, he shuffles forward a single step, bringing them chest to chest, and his stupid heart, the way it's pounding, the way the ringing in his ears hasn't dulled, has, in fact, gotten so much louder, and she smells so much better than anyone has a right to, sweat and beer and smoke and chips, all wrapped in a pretty little package, and signed with expensive perfume.
"Not much yet," he says, and the words are spoken slowly, quietly, because he's close enough to her that any big movements, any big words, they'd put his lips against hers. "But I want to."
He's going to do it, he's definitely going to do it, this girl he's barely known for a handful of hours, he's going to kiss her. And somehow, he knows, it's going to feel like so much more than that. He shifts so his nose rests alongside hers, her breath ghosting warmly over his lips, and he can't even lick them, can't do anything, because it's all going to be a kiss, and he wants to do it deliberately.
From the front of the venue, a guitar clangs on stage, discordant and loud, and they both startle, breaking the mood as he jumps away from her.
Air leaves his lungs on an obnoxious sigh, completely typical, that. Before he can get too down though, Rose is grabbing his hand, tugging him back through the crowd, "Let's get something to drink!"
Part 2/2