Tuesday, Somewhere
Tuesday, Somewhere, Nine/Rose, All ages
Gift for: deludedvision
Prompt was a time loop, ala Groundhog Day. Somewhat loosely interpreted, because my muse can't get away from weirdness. I had this whole thing written, was displeased, scrapped it all and rewrote it. Finally, here we are.
He pulls a basket of strawberries, surreally bright in the flourescents. Little seeds blink up at him, and he can't stop staring at the pattern, rows of yellow and brown dots designed to procreate and continue the delicious species. He pinches one, bruising the so-red flesh and getting juice into the grooves of his fingerprints. He rubs index and thumb together, feeling too powerfully in the moment and struck dumb: he does not know what day of the week it is. 1,458 words.
Tuesday. He wakes with a start.
The dark ceiling of his room flickers with flecks of light, mimicking the vortex outside. Thirty seven clocks tick on his walls, dangling parts whooshing side to side like metallic birds. Not one of them chimes. He has an itch on his left shoulderblade, and a crease of Gallifreyan script pressed into his right cheek from where he'd fallen asleep suddenly on his book. The thick tomb with raised gilded letters proclaims proudly, The Gardens of Wild Endeavor: Getting the Most out of Your Vegetables this Spring. He'd fallen asleep sometime between the sunlight requirements of tubers and the harvesting of sprouts.
He smells a wolf. He reaches for the itch.
***
Coffee beans, check. Arabica. Box of cereal, liter of milk, loose leaf black tea, heavy cream. Strawberries. Marmalade. Sugar, flour, whole wheat bread.
Check. Check. Check.
Aisle twelve, seven tiles wide, each tile consisting of the length of one of his boots, scuffed to the side and feeling impossibly heavy.
Check.
Maybe a trip to Terralon 8 to see Rose against the newly rising leaves, shimmering blue things in the wake of an indigo sun. Maple brown sugar oatmeal into the cart, next to the bread and the orange juice. An itch he hasn't been able to reach in days. Toothpaste, deodorant, aftershave, tucked in like tetris blocks next to the milk, paid for with a fabricated credit chip, the receipt tucked into denim pockets measuring ten by twelve centimeters.
Check. Check.
A trickle of sweat meanders down his spine, licking along each vertebra, irritating his nervous system. He carries bits and bobs and groceries for Rose back to the TARDIS, feeling like he's stepping in boot prints he left in another life.
Later, teeth on edge, he sets about making his companion waffles. He feels her eyes on him as he heaps strawberries onto the hot pastry, but he turns around to empty space.
***
She's bundled into a cashmere high necked sweater, blonde tresses mussed around her flushed face. She's by the fire in the library, reading a book in Gallifreyan; what she doesn't understand she imagines, running her fingertips along each whirl and arch and closing her eyes, feeling his breath on her skin and hearing the story of red grass blowing in eastern winds.
The cover of the book shows a marmalade sky. She means to ask about it, but falls asleep with her hand pressed in the middle of a foreign chapter instead. She dreams of high towers, and the Doctor.
She wakes to a misty undercurrent of spring strawberries, the smell of waffles. The fruit's so alarmingly red in the library light, she pulls one still warm from the plate and sucks on it, eyes rolling back and hand unconsciously curling more tightly around the spine of her (his) book.
"S'about gardening," he says. "The bit about sprouts always puts me to right to sleep, too."
***
Tuesday. He wakes with a start.
Dickens, he thinks. Strawberries.
Thirty seven clocks and not a single one chimes. His back itches.
***
He doesn't know what's woken him or why he feels like crawling out of his skin. He tries to scrape his back along the dark cotton of his sheets, but the itch persists and his skin is too clammy, anyway. He smells tea in the kitchen, and remembers how he promised Rose strawberry waffles.
He lands the TARDIS roughly and grumps about domestics through the entirety of the Tesco's parking lot. Aisle twelve, seven tiles wide, each tile consisting of the length of one of his boots, scuffed to the side and feeling impossibly heavy.
He pulls a basket of strawberries, surreally bright in the flourescents. Little seeds blink up at him, and he can't stop staring at the pattern, rows of yellow and brown dots designed to procreate and continue the delicious species. He pinches one, bruising the so-red flesh and getting juice into the grooves of his fingerprints. He rubs index and thumb together, feeling too powerfully in the moment and struck dumb: he does not know what day of the week it is.
He sucks the juice from his fingers slowly, the sugary thought rolling down his tongue. There is something missing, but every time he looks, its already gone.
Instead, he thinks about breakfast.
***
"Doctor, I really don't think this is right."
"'Course is it! You know right when you see it, dontcha? Right's that way! Or, er, t'other way, I spose, if you're facing me and not facing the way I'm facing right now."
"I mean this is wrong."
"Can't be! Delicious breakfast, sunshine of Gamma Eight! Or do you mean actually wrong, like things misspelled in Webster's or like pears?"
"I can't remember what day it is, not for the life of me."
"It's you and me and Tuesday, Rose. Rightest place in the universe, Tuesday. At least, it's Tuesday somewhere."
"Here?"
"Here is somewhere, yeah."
***
No matter how much he scrubs, the itch is still there. Distal to the inferior angle of his left scapula.
He looked it up.
He turns his shower hotter, already cool skin pinkening in the mist. Turning the water pressure high enough to bruise a human doesn't even alleviate the sensation on his back, nor does pressing against the cold tiles, nor using the sonic as a back scratcher. He feels a little bit of madness in the back of his throat like bile, and thinks this must be what its like to always hear drums beating inside your brain.
There is a fire coming on the horizon, a timeline he can't read and he doesn't like it. He wants to dance on the balls of his feet, moving about the universe with as much agility as he can muster; he knows, can feel how he's going to have to jump out of the way of something big so very soon.
The last time he felt this coming dread, the skies above Arcadia burned for a century. He prays with faith he doesn't have that the storm will pass him over.
That night he dreams of lupine eyes and billions of glowing atoms, floating away in a spring breeze that's cloying with the smell of coming rain. He remembers he promised Rose strawberry waffles, and wakes with thoughts of breakfast behind his eyes and impatient clocks towering above him.
***
It's Tuesday when they land on Satellite Five.
She is shot into dust, and he feels like he'll never wake at all.
***
Tuesday.
Well, its Tuesday somewhere.
She throws open the window shades, thick wooden panels painted in chipping turquoise. The sunlight pours in, liquid kissing her skin cells, a transaction of Vitamin D and Keratin and that warmth of the morning feeling, the same one she had forever ago but yesterday morning when she woke on the TARDIS. She leans on the sill, the soft undersides of her elbows catching the breeze, rustling an army of gooseflesh along her body. Tiny little hairs turn their faces to the light in prayer, and she smiles.
She knows, can feel today like lightning buzzing on her skin. She makes herself a cuppa and waits, a glowing bird perched steady on electrical wire. She rests, not ready to take flight until she hears the sound of the parking brake left on, the warm and familiar feeling of coming home.
The important thing, as the bergamot is too hot and scalds the hesitant tip of her tongue, is that this is the end.
The end of all, the burn of stars and the gap between three hearts and the universe, and it is not a bang or a whimper but the smooth sound of a sheet rustling over the skin of her beloved.
Knock, knock, she hears him call from Satellite Five, and when she opens the door his mouth is crashing onto hers and there is power here, the vortex and time and the swirling of minds. It is like silk sliding against itself, this mass of tongues and skin and greeting in the gap between their lungs. Leather, ghosting her fingers over his sleeve; time, as she chokes on his death in her mouth.
The Bad Wolf holds him like Rose can't, not yet. She brings him back again and again, and he brings her strawberries in the library, and she touches the old pages of a book she can't read, and the firelight dances on their skin. She finally asks about marmalade skies, and he falls in love with her fingertips touching the insides of a gardening book, ghosting along the ink as if in worship. Maybe, he falls a little in love with her.
Forever, yeah?
Rightest place in the universe, you and me and Tuesday, somewhere.
Gift for: deludedvision
Prompt was a time loop, ala Groundhog Day. Somewhat loosely interpreted, because my muse can't get away from weirdness. I had this whole thing written, was displeased, scrapped it all and rewrote it. Finally, here we are.
He pulls a basket of strawberries, surreally bright in the flourescents. Little seeds blink up at him, and he can't stop staring at the pattern, rows of yellow and brown dots designed to procreate and continue the delicious species. He pinches one, bruising the so-red flesh and getting juice into the grooves of his fingerprints. He rubs index and thumb together, feeling too powerfully in the moment and struck dumb: he does not know what day of the week it is. 1,458 words.
Tuesday. He wakes with a start.
The dark ceiling of his room flickers with flecks of light, mimicking the vortex outside. Thirty seven clocks tick on his walls, dangling parts whooshing side to side like metallic birds. Not one of them chimes. He has an itch on his left shoulderblade, and a crease of Gallifreyan script pressed into his right cheek from where he'd fallen asleep suddenly on his book. The thick tomb with raised gilded letters proclaims proudly, The Gardens of Wild Endeavor: Getting the Most out of Your Vegetables this Spring. He'd fallen asleep sometime between the sunlight requirements of tubers and the harvesting of sprouts.
He smells a wolf. He reaches for the itch.
***
Coffee beans, check. Arabica. Box of cereal, liter of milk, loose leaf black tea, heavy cream. Strawberries. Marmalade. Sugar, flour, whole wheat bread.
Check. Check. Check.
Aisle twelve, seven tiles wide, each tile consisting of the length of one of his boots, scuffed to the side and feeling impossibly heavy.
Check.
Maybe a trip to Terralon 8 to see Rose against the newly rising leaves, shimmering blue things in the wake of an indigo sun. Maple brown sugar oatmeal into the cart, next to the bread and the orange juice. An itch he hasn't been able to reach in days. Toothpaste, deodorant, aftershave, tucked in like tetris blocks next to the milk, paid for with a fabricated credit chip, the receipt tucked into denim pockets measuring ten by twelve centimeters.
Check. Check.
A trickle of sweat meanders down his spine, licking along each vertebra, irritating his nervous system. He carries bits and bobs and groceries for Rose back to the TARDIS, feeling like he's stepping in boot prints he left in another life.
Later, teeth on edge, he sets about making his companion waffles. He feels her eyes on him as he heaps strawberries onto the hot pastry, but he turns around to empty space.
***
She's bundled into a cashmere high necked sweater, blonde tresses mussed around her flushed face. She's by the fire in the library, reading a book in Gallifreyan; what she doesn't understand she imagines, running her fingertips along each whirl and arch and closing her eyes, feeling his breath on her skin and hearing the story of red grass blowing in eastern winds.
The cover of the book shows a marmalade sky. She means to ask about it, but falls asleep with her hand pressed in the middle of a foreign chapter instead. She dreams of high towers, and the Doctor.
She wakes to a misty undercurrent of spring strawberries, the smell of waffles. The fruit's so alarmingly red in the library light, she pulls one still warm from the plate and sucks on it, eyes rolling back and hand unconsciously curling more tightly around the spine of her (his) book.
"S'about gardening," he says. "The bit about sprouts always puts me to right to sleep, too."
***
Tuesday. He wakes with a start.
Dickens, he thinks. Strawberries.
Thirty seven clocks and not a single one chimes. His back itches.
***
He doesn't know what's woken him or why he feels like crawling out of his skin. He tries to scrape his back along the dark cotton of his sheets, but the itch persists and his skin is too clammy, anyway. He smells tea in the kitchen, and remembers how he promised Rose strawberry waffles.
He lands the TARDIS roughly and grumps about domestics through the entirety of the Tesco's parking lot. Aisle twelve, seven tiles wide, each tile consisting of the length of one of his boots, scuffed to the side and feeling impossibly heavy.
He pulls a basket of strawberries, surreally bright in the flourescents. Little seeds blink up at him, and he can't stop staring at the pattern, rows of yellow and brown dots designed to procreate and continue the delicious species. He pinches one, bruising the so-red flesh and getting juice into the grooves of his fingerprints. He rubs index and thumb together, feeling too powerfully in the moment and struck dumb: he does not know what day of the week it is.
He sucks the juice from his fingers slowly, the sugary thought rolling down his tongue. There is something missing, but every time he looks, its already gone.
Instead, he thinks about breakfast.
***
"Doctor, I really don't think this is right."
"'Course is it! You know right when you see it, dontcha? Right's that way! Or, er, t'other way, I spose, if you're facing me and not facing the way I'm facing right now."
"I mean this is wrong."
"Can't be! Delicious breakfast, sunshine of Gamma Eight! Or do you mean actually wrong, like things misspelled in Webster's or like pears?"
"I can't remember what day it is, not for the life of me."
"It's you and me and Tuesday, Rose. Rightest place in the universe, Tuesday. At least, it's Tuesday somewhere."
"Here?"
"Here is somewhere, yeah."
***
No matter how much he scrubs, the itch is still there. Distal to the inferior angle of his left scapula.
He looked it up.
He turns his shower hotter, already cool skin pinkening in the mist. Turning the water pressure high enough to bruise a human doesn't even alleviate the sensation on his back, nor does pressing against the cold tiles, nor using the sonic as a back scratcher. He feels a little bit of madness in the back of his throat like bile, and thinks this must be what its like to always hear drums beating inside your brain.
There is a fire coming on the horizon, a timeline he can't read and he doesn't like it. He wants to dance on the balls of his feet, moving about the universe with as much agility as he can muster; he knows, can feel how he's going to have to jump out of the way of something big so very soon.
The last time he felt this coming dread, the skies above Arcadia burned for a century. He prays with faith he doesn't have that the storm will pass him over.
That night he dreams of lupine eyes and billions of glowing atoms, floating away in a spring breeze that's cloying with the smell of coming rain. He remembers he promised Rose strawberry waffles, and wakes with thoughts of breakfast behind his eyes and impatient clocks towering above him.
***
It's Tuesday when they land on Satellite Five.
She is shot into dust, and he feels like he'll never wake at all.
***
Tuesday.
Well, its Tuesday somewhere.
She throws open the window shades, thick wooden panels painted in chipping turquoise. The sunlight pours in, liquid kissing her skin cells, a transaction of Vitamin D and Keratin and that warmth of the morning feeling, the same one she had forever ago but yesterday morning when she woke on the TARDIS. She leans on the sill, the soft undersides of her elbows catching the breeze, rustling an army of gooseflesh along her body. Tiny little hairs turn their faces to the light in prayer, and she smiles.
She knows, can feel today like lightning buzzing on her skin. She makes herself a cuppa and waits, a glowing bird perched steady on electrical wire. She rests, not ready to take flight until she hears the sound of the parking brake left on, the warm and familiar feeling of coming home.
The important thing, as the bergamot is too hot and scalds the hesitant tip of her tongue, is that this is the end.
The end of all, the burn of stars and the gap between three hearts and the universe, and it is not a bang or a whimper but the smooth sound of a sheet rustling over the skin of her beloved.
Knock, knock, she hears him call from Satellite Five, and when she opens the door his mouth is crashing onto hers and there is power here, the vortex and time and the swirling of minds. It is like silk sliding against itself, this mass of tongues and skin and greeting in the gap between their lungs. Leather, ghosting her fingers over his sleeve; time, as she chokes on his death in her mouth.
The Bad Wolf holds him like Rose can't, not yet. She brings him back again and again, and he brings her strawberries in the library, and she touches the old pages of a book she can't read, and the firelight dances on their skin. She finally asks about marmalade skies, and he falls in love with her fingertips touching the insides of a gardening book, ghosting along the ink as if in worship. Maybe, he falls a little in love with her.
Forever, yeah?
Rightest place in the universe, you and me and Tuesday, somewhere.