(no subject)
Title: 50 Ways to Propose Marriage to Your Non-Lover
Author: aces
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairings: oh gods, do I have to? It’ll be almost as long as the fic!
Rating: G
Word count: Around 2000
Warnings: Eight on constant sugar high. BEWARE.
Prompt, from churchontime: Eight decides getting married might be quite fun.
A/N: I apologize to Paul Simon for my atrocious abuse of his song title. I also apologize for the K9 bit to all of you reading this. Sorry about that.
“This is beautiful!” The Doctor laid back on the hill, spreading his arms wide to soak in more of the sunshine and allow more of the butterflies to land on him. “A perfect day!”
“Isn’t every day a perfect day in here?” Sam asked wryly with a raised eyebrow, coming to sit down next to him on the hill.
The Doctor frowned momentarily, but the look was broken when a Ornithoptera euphorion landed on his eyebrow, making it twitch. Sam started snickering. The Doctor snorted. The butterfly flew away, offended.
The Time Lord gazed up at the sky-or rather, “sky”-deep in thought. Sam was content to let him lie quietly, distracted by the Dryadula phaetusa resting on her wrist. “Sam,” the Doctor said suddenly, still staring upwards into the dizzying blue depths. “Sam, would you marry me?”
Sam coughed. “Um, why?” she asked.
“I think it might be fun. I haven’t been married in centuries, have you?”
“I’ve never been married,” she said. “Loads of boyfriends and girlfriends,” she added hastily, and then felt stupid for doing so, “but never married.”
“Then don’t you think it’d be fun to try?”
“With you?” Sam looked down at him fondly, lying next to her in the grass on a hill inside a living machine that traveled through time and space. A regular old monarch landed on the tip of his nose, and he looked down at it, cross-eyed. “Absolutely not,” she told him.
*
“Romana! Romana, Romana, Romana,” the Doctor swept into the Presidential quarters, trailing a wake of confused Chancellery Guards behind him. Romana looked up from her large and ornate desk and sighed, waving the Guards back outside to their posts. “How delightful to see you again! How is Gallifrey? How are you? Everything going well?”
“As well as can be expected,” Romana told him dryly, setting aside the documents she had been reading. “May I ask what brings you back here, Doctor? There must be either a universal doom about to come crashing down on all of us, requiring my help and Gallifrey’s might, or you’ve accumulated too many TARDIS moving violations again and are hoping I can get you out of them. Which is it?”
“Neither,” the Doctor looked hurt, “how could you possibly think that?”
Romana quirked her eyebrows. The Doctor looked shifty for a moment and then whirled around when he heard a certain robotic dog trundling into the room. “K9! K9, my favoritest dog ever! How are you, old chap?”
“Unnecessary question, Master,” K9 said smartly. “All systems operating within normal parameters.”
“Of course they are,” the Doctor said, grinning down at the pet.
“Doctor,” Romana said from the other side of the room. She sounded remarkably patient.
“Yes, yes, of course,” the Doctor replied, turning back toward her again. He sat down in one of the large overstuffed receiving chairs in front of her desk. “Have you ever noticed how these chairs have an unfortunate tendency to look comfortable without actually being so?”
“Yes, I have,” Romana said, “the same way you act as if you’re going to get to the point without ever actually arriving at it.”
The Doctor planted his elbows on the desk in front of him and looked deeply into Romana’s eyes. “Marry me,” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Romana sputtered.
“Marry me, Romana! We could do wonderful things together! It would be an adventure!”
“Didn’t we already do that once?” she asked. “I thought my staying behind in E-Space rather got the point across.”
The Doctor looked hurt. “I’m a different person! So are you, practically. I’m sure it’d work out famously this time.”
Romana looked at him and then laughed. “Oh, Doctor,” she said. “What’s brought on this sudden desire for matrimonial bliss? Again?”
He shrugged, carelessly. “I think I might be bored,” he confided.
“Go find somebody else with whom to be bored,” the Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar ordered the Doctor. “I have better things to do with my time.”
“Hmph.” The Doctor stood, turned toward the door that led out of Romana’s chambers, and spotted K9 again. He looked down at the dog consideringly for a long, long moment, and Romana watched his back.
“Doctor,” she said at last, in a warning tone.
“I was only thinking about it!” he defended himself without turning around. “Anyway, I’m sure it’d never work.”
And with that, he left Gallifrey once more.
*
“Charley,” the Doctor said, running up to her and grabbing both her hands and looking soulfully into her eyes. “Charley, Charley, Charley.”
“Er, yes, Doctor?” Charley glanced at C’rizz and received only a confused and resigned shrug in response.
“Marry me,” the Doctor said.
Charley snorted, in a most unladylike manner.
“Why does everyone react like that when I ask them to marry me?!” the Doctor said indignantly, letting go of Charley’s hands.
“Exactly how many people have you asked to marry you?!” Charley replied, prepared to be offended at the thought that he’d been asking other people before her.
“Lately?” the Doctor said and went on without waiting for a response, “Charley, please will you marry me?”
“Doctor,” Charley told him as kindly as she possibly could, “your friendship is the dearest and most important thing to me in the universe. Let’s not ruin it, alright?”
The Doctor looked crestfallen for a moment, and then he turned to C’rizz.
“Don’t look at me,” C’rizz said immediately.
*
“Look, I’m grateful,” Fitz said as he stumbled into the TARDIS. “I am really, really grateful, yeah; thanks very much for getting me out of the awkward situation with the posh alien bird, but why did you have to tell her that you were married to me?”
“Because saying ‘You look smashing, care for a drink?’ to a Mondrovian is a form of marriage proposal, Fitz, and the only way to get out of that sort of binding contract was to be already engaged or married to at least one other person,” the Doctor told him patiently, jogging up to the console in order to close the doors.
“Oh,” Fitz blinked. “I didn’t know that. Well, then. Um. Thanks again?”
“You’re welcome,” the Doctor sighed. He turned to survey Fitz, who was absolutely drenched from the downpour they’d just run through to get to the TARDIS. His companion in fact had the distinct look of a wet and sheepish dog with its metaphorical tail hanging between its legs. “You know, you would avoid a lot of these unnecessarily messy situations if you really would just marry me.”
Fitz choked. “What?” he squawked after he had enough breath to speak.
“I’m simply giving you a suggestion,” the Doctor told him patiently. “Really, Fitz, I’ve never had a companion before who found himself entangled with so many women on so many different planets. You would save yourself a lot of heartache if you simply married me.”
“You’re daft,” Fitz blinked. “Men don’t marry men. That’s-that’s daft.”
The Doctor shook a finger at him. “That is very mid-twentieth-century Earth thinking of you, Fitz, and I expect you to broaden your horizons a little if you’re going to keep traveling with me.”
“Am I actually having this conversation?” Fitz wondered. “I’m not. I am not having this conversation. This is not in fact happening.”
The Doctor sighed and turned back to the console. “Think about it,” he said, his voice drifting back to his companion.
Fitz shook his head and went off to find the wardrobe room so he could change.
*
"No," said the Doctor. "Absolutely not."
"Oh, go on, Doctor," Iris smiled seductively. "You know you want to ask me."
*
“If you so much as think about asking me,” Compassion told the Doctor calmly as he stood inside her console room, “I will depressurize this room where you stand.”
“What if Fitz were in here?!” the Doctor exclaimed.
“I’d still do it, just to make you shut up,” Compassion told him. She sounded a little smug.
*
“I have no idea who you are, Captain Jack Harkness, but you seem a nice enough chap. Care to get married?”
*
“Benny! Bernice, my dear, dear, dear old friend, how are you? Listen, I have a marvelous idea, and I think you’ll think it’s a marvelous idea too.”
*
"Lucie, what do you think of marriage? Specifically, to me?"
"I think you're even madder than usual for suggesting it, Doctor. Would you mind paying attention to where you're driving this TARDIS and proposing to me later when you're not at the controls?"
*
“You’re joking,” Anji blinked, sitting upright from her sprawl in her deck chair. They were on a cruise liner, taking a break from the search for a piece of alien technology that had fallen in the wrong hands. She turned to look at the Doctor. “Right?”
“No,” the Doctor said, still lying back comfortably and looking out at the moonlight on the water. “I’m perfectly serious. Don’t you think it’d be fun?”
“No,” Anji said honestly, “I think getting a root canal without any anesthetic would be more fun.” The Doctor looked hurt, and she softened her tone. “You can’t even get me to my home time and planet; why do you think marriage would be any smoother or-or fun?”
The Doctor folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “It would certainly be a change of pace,” he said.
Anji huffed out a breath and fell back against the back of her deck chair again. “You have got to be joking,” she muttered.
The Doctor grinned in his sleep.
*
“Oh, bloody hell,” said the Doctor, staring at the clean-shaven man wearing a rosette on his lapel. “Not again.”
“Doctor,” the man said pleasantly. “I hear you’ve been making some interesting propositions.”
“Hope I might make one to you?” the Doctor said, walking closer to the clean-shaven man. “I think you asked me last time.”
“Didn’t go very well, did it,” said the other man. He sounded a little sad.
The Doctor tilted his head, looking at the man with the rosette. “Come back another day and try me again,” he said, and the clean-shaven man smiled, secretly.
*
“What do I get out of it?” Trix asked.
“Um, well,” said the Doctor, floundering.
“You don’t even have a name,” she pointed out, hands on her hips. “I’m already traveling with you and therefore have access to your library, your goods, your wealth, and your admittedly fabulous wardrobe area. And, I’m sorry, Doctor, but you’re not really my type.”
“Oh,” said the Doctor.
*
The Doctor sat on the green hill in the TARDIS, twisting a leaf in his fingers. He was looking down at the leaf, and the look on his face was a little forlorn.
Fitz marched up and stopped directly in front of him. The Doctor looked up, shielding his eyes from the glare of a nonexistent sun.
“I can’t stand to see a grown man pout,” Fitz said. “So yes. I accept.”
Slowly, the Doctor smiled.
Author: aces
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairings: oh gods, do I have to? It’ll be almost as long as the fic!
Rating: G
Word count: Around 2000
Warnings: Eight on constant sugar high. BEWARE.
Prompt, from churchontime: Eight decides getting married might be quite fun.
A/N: I apologize to Paul Simon for my atrocious abuse of his song title. I also apologize for the K9 bit to all of you reading this. Sorry about that.
“This is beautiful!” The Doctor laid back on the hill, spreading his arms wide to soak in more of the sunshine and allow more of the butterflies to land on him. “A perfect day!”
“Isn’t every day a perfect day in here?” Sam asked wryly with a raised eyebrow, coming to sit down next to him on the hill.
The Doctor frowned momentarily, but the look was broken when a Ornithoptera euphorion landed on his eyebrow, making it twitch. Sam started snickering. The Doctor snorted. The butterfly flew away, offended.
The Time Lord gazed up at the sky-or rather, “sky”-deep in thought. Sam was content to let him lie quietly, distracted by the Dryadula phaetusa resting on her wrist. “Sam,” the Doctor said suddenly, still staring upwards into the dizzying blue depths. “Sam, would you marry me?”
Sam coughed. “Um, why?” she asked.
“I think it might be fun. I haven’t been married in centuries, have you?”
“I’ve never been married,” she said. “Loads of boyfriends and girlfriends,” she added hastily, and then felt stupid for doing so, “but never married.”
“Then don’t you think it’d be fun to try?”
“With you?” Sam looked down at him fondly, lying next to her in the grass on a hill inside a living machine that traveled through time and space. A regular old monarch landed on the tip of his nose, and he looked down at it, cross-eyed. “Absolutely not,” she told him.
*
“Romana! Romana, Romana, Romana,” the Doctor swept into the Presidential quarters, trailing a wake of confused Chancellery Guards behind him. Romana looked up from her large and ornate desk and sighed, waving the Guards back outside to their posts. “How delightful to see you again! How is Gallifrey? How are you? Everything going well?”
“As well as can be expected,” Romana told him dryly, setting aside the documents she had been reading. “May I ask what brings you back here, Doctor? There must be either a universal doom about to come crashing down on all of us, requiring my help and Gallifrey’s might, or you’ve accumulated too many TARDIS moving violations again and are hoping I can get you out of them. Which is it?”
“Neither,” the Doctor looked hurt, “how could you possibly think that?”
Romana quirked her eyebrows. The Doctor looked shifty for a moment and then whirled around when he heard a certain robotic dog trundling into the room. “K9! K9, my favoritest dog ever! How are you, old chap?”
“Unnecessary question, Master,” K9 said smartly. “All systems operating within normal parameters.”
“Of course they are,” the Doctor said, grinning down at the pet.
“Doctor,” Romana said from the other side of the room. She sounded remarkably patient.
“Yes, yes, of course,” the Doctor replied, turning back toward her again. He sat down in one of the large overstuffed receiving chairs in front of her desk. “Have you ever noticed how these chairs have an unfortunate tendency to look comfortable without actually being so?”
“Yes, I have,” Romana said, “the same way you act as if you’re going to get to the point without ever actually arriving at it.”
The Doctor planted his elbows on the desk in front of him and looked deeply into Romana’s eyes. “Marry me,” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Romana sputtered.
“Marry me, Romana! We could do wonderful things together! It would be an adventure!”
“Didn’t we already do that once?” she asked. “I thought my staying behind in E-Space rather got the point across.”
The Doctor looked hurt. “I’m a different person! So are you, practically. I’m sure it’d work out famously this time.”
Romana looked at him and then laughed. “Oh, Doctor,” she said. “What’s brought on this sudden desire for matrimonial bliss? Again?”
He shrugged, carelessly. “I think I might be bored,” he confided.
“Go find somebody else with whom to be bored,” the Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar ordered the Doctor. “I have better things to do with my time.”
“Hmph.” The Doctor stood, turned toward the door that led out of Romana’s chambers, and spotted K9 again. He looked down at the dog consideringly for a long, long moment, and Romana watched his back.
“Doctor,” she said at last, in a warning tone.
“I was only thinking about it!” he defended himself without turning around. “Anyway, I’m sure it’d never work.”
And with that, he left Gallifrey once more.
*
“Charley,” the Doctor said, running up to her and grabbing both her hands and looking soulfully into her eyes. “Charley, Charley, Charley.”
“Er, yes, Doctor?” Charley glanced at C’rizz and received only a confused and resigned shrug in response.
“Marry me,” the Doctor said.
Charley snorted, in a most unladylike manner.
“Why does everyone react like that when I ask them to marry me?!” the Doctor said indignantly, letting go of Charley’s hands.
“Exactly how many people have you asked to marry you?!” Charley replied, prepared to be offended at the thought that he’d been asking other people before her.
“Lately?” the Doctor said and went on without waiting for a response, “Charley, please will you marry me?”
“Doctor,” Charley told him as kindly as she possibly could, “your friendship is the dearest and most important thing to me in the universe. Let’s not ruin it, alright?”
The Doctor looked crestfallen for a moment, and then he turned to C’rizz.
“Don’t look at me,” C’rizz said immediately.
*
“Look, I’m grateful,” Fitz said as he stumbled into the TARDIS. “I am really, really grateful, yeah; thanks very much for getting me out of the awkward situation with the posh alien bird, but why did you have to tell her that you were married to me?”
“Because saying ‘You look smashing, care for a drink?’ to a Mondrovian is a form of marriage proposal, Fitz, and the only way to get out of that sort of binding contract was to be already engaged or married to at least one other person,” the Doctor told him patiently, jogging up to the console in order to close the doors.
“Oh,” Fitz blinked. “I didn’t know that. Well, then. Um. Thanks again?”
“You’re welcome,” the Doctor sighed. He turned to survey Fitz, who was absolutely drenched from the downpour they’d just run through to get to the TARDIS. His companion in fact had the distinct look of a wet and sheepish dog with its metaphorical tail hanging between its legs. “You know, you would avoid a lot of these unnecessarily messy situations if you really would just marry me.”
Fitz choked. “What?” he squawked after he had enough breath to speak.
“I’m simply giving you a suggestion,” the Doctor told him patiently. “Really, Fitz, I’ve never had a companion before who found himself entangled with so many women on so many different planets. You would save yourself a lot of heartache if you simply married me.”
“You’re daft,” Fitz blinked. “Men don’t marry men. That’s-that’s daft.”
The Doctor shook a finger at him. “That is very mid-twentieth-century Earth thinking of you, Fitz, and I expect you to broaden your horizons a little if you’re going to keep traveling with me.”
“Am I actually having this conversation?” Fitz wondered. “I’m not. I am not having this conversation. This is not in fact happening.”
The Doctor sighed and turned back to the console. “Think about it,” he said, his voice drifting back to his companion.
Fitz shook his head and went off to find the wardrobe room so he could change.
*
"No," said the Doctor. "Absolutely not."
"Oh, go on, Doctor," Iris smiled seductively. "You know you want to ask me."
*
“If you so much as think about asking me,” Compassion told the Doctor calmly as he stood inside her console room, “I will depressurize this room where you stand.”
“What if Fitz were in here?!” the Doctor exclaimed.
“I’d still do it, just to make you shut up,” Compassion told him. She sounded a little smug.
*
“I have no idea who you are, Captain Jack Harkness, but you seem a nice enough chap. Care to get married?”
*
“Benny! Bernice, my dear, dear, dear old friend, how are you? Listen, I have a marvelous idea, and I think you’ll think it’s a marvelous idea too.”
*
"Lucie, what do you think of marriage? Specifically, to me?"
"I think you're even madder than usual for suggesting it, Doctor. Would you mind paying attention to where you're driving this TARDIS and proposing to me later when you're not at the controls?"
*
“You’re joking,” Anji blinked, sitting upright from her sprawl in her deck chair. They were on a cruise liner, taking a break from the search for a piece of alien technology that had fallen in the wrong hands. She turned to look at the Doctor. “Right?”
“No,” the Doctor said, still lying back comfortably and looking out at the moonlight on the water. “I’m perfectly serious. Don’t you think it’d be fun?”
“No,” Anji said honestly, “I think getting a root canal without any anesthetic would be more fun.” The Doctor looked hurt, and she softened her tone. “You can’t even get me to my home time and planet; why do you think marriage would be any smoother or-or fun?”
The Doctor folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “It would certainly be a change of pace,” he said.
Anji huffed out a breath and fell back against the back of her deck chair again. “You have got to be joking,” she muttered.
The Doctor grinned in his sleep.
*
“Oh, bloody hell,” said the Doctor, staring at the clean-shaven man wearing a rosette on his lapel. “Not again.”
“Doctor,” the man said pleasantly. “I hear you’ve been making some interesting propositions.”
“Hope I might make one to you?” the Doctor said, walking closer to the clean-shaven man. “I think you asked me last time.”
“Didn’t go very well, did it,” said the other man. He sounded a little sad.
The Doctor tilted his head, looking at the man with the rosette. “Come back another day and try me again,” he said, and the clean-shaven man smiled, secretly.
*
“What do I get out of it?” Trix asked.
“Um, well,” said the Doctor, floundering.
“You don’t even have a name,” she pointed out, hands on her hips. “I’m already traveling with you and therefore have access to your library, your goods, your wealth, and your admittedly fabulous wardrobe area. And, I’m sorry, Doctor, but you’re not really my type.”
“Oh,” said the Doctor.
*
The Doctor sat on the green hill in the TARDIS, twisting a leaf in his fingers. He was looking down at the leaf, and the look on his face was a little forlorn.
Fitz marched up and stopped directly in front of him. The Doctor looked up, shielding his eyes from the glare of a nonexistent sun.
“I can’t stand to see a grown man pout,” Fitz said. “So yes. I accept.”
Slowly, the Doctor smiled.