This is my entry for Sarah Eleanor Rose and Zoe Alice Latimer's fanfiction contest. I do not own their characters Tegan and Grace, nor do I own Doctor Who, the Darwin Awards, or anything else referenced within. I do, unfortunately, own all of the dreadful puns and wacky, improbable situations. Also, this is my first try at doing humor, so I would like to know how I did.
Like Nixon deciding to infiltrate the Democratic National Headquarters, a man deciding that the best way to get the land speed record was strapping rockets to his motorcycle and then unfortunately forgetting to check if there were any mountains in the way, and the Doctor deciding to cook an omelet for breakfast, it seemed like a good idea at the time. All Martha had suggested was that maybe they could take a bit of a break from running around and maybe play a board game or something.
It had started fairly peacefully. Martha had got the game from one of the many rooms in the TARDIS, and they had started setting up the board. Then came the usual kerfuffle over who would get what game piece. By some not-so-bizarre coincidence, both Tegan and Grace wanted the ship. Of course, like in most Monopoly games, there was only one ship token.
"Hey, I wanted that one, gimme!" Tegan said, attempting to pounce on the token Grace was holding.
"No way, I had it first!" Grace pushed Tegan off of her and held the token up in the air where she thought Tegan couldn't grab it.
This turned out to be a mistake for Grace, as Tegan jumped up and snatched the piece out of Grace's hand. "Aha!" Tegan cried triumphantly.
This triumph was short lived, as Grace shouted "Look behind you!" It was not the admittedly rather lame attempt to distract Tegan that caused her to lose her piece, but more the yelling in her ear that made her jump.
Tegan rolled her eyes and conceded the piece, as she was too tired to bother making another grab for it.
Why does every kind of competition between those two have to end in a near wrestling match?, Martha thought. While pondering that thought, she and the Doctor exchanged a "Why did we agree to do this?" look.
Martha saw Tegan and Grace muttering something to each other for a while and then shaking hands. Knowing those two, a million different ideas of what they were shaking about flew through Martha's head, none of them comforting her at all.
Of course, that was where everything continued its steady downward slide. Tegan turned out to be spectacularly bad at the game, or else so horrendously unlucky that it defied all belief. Who landed on Luxury Tax three times within five turns, anyway? Of course, this was before Martha saw Grace grinning madly as she moved Tegan's piece back to where it was every time she took a turn. As luck would have it, Tegan noticed this piece of important information at about the same time as Martha did.
"Grace, I think that that is my piece you are moving there."
Grace gave a too-wide grin and started to give an "I'm innocent, really", whistle. This, as one might guess, had the opposite effect on Tegan.
"My piece was there," she said, pointing to Mediterranean Avenue.
Grace sheepishly put the piece back in its proper location, blushing at being found out. Now free of the unnecessary encumbrance of continuing to land on a spot that caused her to lose money for little to no gain, Tegan rolled. Of course, upon doing so she landed on Community Chest and was told by the card she picked up to go directly to jail.
"You have got to be kidding me." Tegan put her head into her hands and then decided, since maybe this latest incident of absurdly bad luck was a bit more than what that gesture was supposed to express, took her head out of her hands and thudded it on the table, causing all of the pieces on the board to jump, making the game board look like an earthquake just hit.
The Doctor and Grace were doing very well at this game, although Martha suspected the latter to be moving her pieces around in, shall we say, a manner that was not conducive to fair play. Despite this, the Doctor seemed to be winning, which was something that he felt necessary to remind the other players of at least once every five minutes or so. After about six occurrences of these, Tegan gave a cough that sounded suspiciously like "large ego." At times like this, Martha couldn't help but agree with her on that point.
Even without Grace's interference, Tegan was still doing very badly. During the time when Grace was messing with her, all of the good properties were taken, leaving Tegan with few options. This evidently left Tegan with one option: haggling.
"I'll give you a hundred dollars and Baltic Avenue for Pacific Avenue." Tegan smiled sweetly and gave her best puppy eyes.
No amount of puppy eyes, however, was going to convince anyone to agree to her proposition. This was very quickly evidenced by Grace breaking out into hysterical laughter. In truth, Martha couldn't help but stifle a few giggles herself. This was the type of thing that would only happen in a bad comedy. Seeing everyone laughing at her, Tegan blushed. "I withdraw the deal."
Very soon after, Tegan was forced to resign after hitting yet another of Grace's hotels. Grace gave a loud whoop upon realizing this, but was cut short by a glare from Tegan. This, on the whole, was a smart move for Grace because Tegan looked somewhat homicidal. However, not even the imminent threat of violence could stop Grace from putting on a huge grin at her new loot and the fact that she had one less competitor in her quest for dominion over the entire board.
Tegan grumbled and settled into her chair to wait for everyone else to finish. Martha could tell already that she would have a long time to wait.
~Eight hours later~
The Monopoly game was still going strong. Martha, however, was falling behind, a fact which Grace sought fit to remind her of every time she felt it had been too long since the last time she said it. Of course, given that this was Grace here, this was about every thirty seconds. Tegan wasn't helping, either. To keep herself from getting bored, she had decided that she was going to narrate the entire game in a voice like a sports commentator. Tegan being Tegan, this was an extremely hammy sports commentator who evidently thought that the louder she said something, the better. This had adverse consequences on the eardrums of anyone so unfortunate as to be nearby.
"COULD YOU PLEASE QUIT SHOUTING? I'M TRYING TO CONCENTRATE, HERE," Grace screamed, proving to everyone that she could be as much of a hypocrite as anyone else at times. She did not, however, seem to notice this fact, and continued to shout at Tegan until she finally got the message and turned down the volume. Of course, her definition of "turning down the volume" was somewhat relative, and it had only gone down to the point where you could hear yourself think. Maybe, if you tried very, very hard.
The last straw for Martha came when she rolled a five and landed on yet another of Grace's hotels. Tegan's narration only made it more frustrating.
"Ooooooh, Martha lands on a hotel on Pacific Avenue and sheeee's out!"
This was made worse by the fact that Tegan happened to be sitting right next to her and despite the recent improvement in volume still was talking none too quietly.
Thankfully for the eardrums of the not-so-merry Monopoly players, the game seemed to be on its last legs. This was soon evidenced by Grace, of all people, shouting, "Holy Ra—dishes!" Martha wasn't sure, but she suspected that this latest word swap was due to a sharp kick from under the table by Tegan since, even as she said it, Grace was wincing. Grace did have a reason to be happy, too, as the Doctor had just landed on Boardwalk. Which Grace had just put a hotel on. Which made the Doctor lose what was left of his money.
"IwonIwonIwonIwonIwon!" Grace shouted even louder before while standing abruptly up to do a victory dance. This flying leap had the unfortunate side effect of tipping over the game board onto the Doctor.
As he was picking out the pieces from his hair, the Doctor grumbled, "I can certainly see that."
While all this was going on, Tegan had pulled out a bag of popcorn from some unidentifiable location and had started munching on it while obviously enjoying the proceedings. Tegan's latest popcorn-related shenanigans earned her an almost synchronized eye-roll from both the Doctor and Tegan, who had stopped their piece-picking and dancing respectively to notice.
Grace grabbed the bag of popcorn from Tegan, who sat there for a moment like a cat about to pounce before snatching it right back from her. "Oh, I almost forgot. Two pounds, cough up."
Martha now had some idea about what they were muttering and shaking hands about earlier. Of course there had to be gambling involved, it just wouldn't be a complete game of Monopoly without it.
"I'd thought you'd forgotten about that."
"Nope," said Grace. "I'm like an elephant." Tegan evidently found that statement to be somewhat amusing and, being Tegan, completely failed to stifle her giggles. This earned yet another glare from Grace. "Anyway, the money?" Grace snapped, putting out her hand.
"I don't have any pounds! I only have American money!" Tegan protested.
"Well, then, you should have thought of that before making a bet. What's the 2011 exchange rate?" Grace said. It was quite clear that she was going to try to get that money no matter what, and the simple matter of not having the right currency was hardly going to stop her.
"How am I supposed to know?"
"I don't know, Google it?"
"Whatever, I remember it being around one and a half bucks for one pound or something like that, so here's the money," Tegan sighed. She didn't appear to be in the mood for fiddling with exchange rates. Despite having absolutely no running, no monsters, and only board game-related difficulties, it had been a long day, or at least whatever passes for a day in a time machine.
As Martha went to put the game back in the far-flung closet where it had been found, she and the Doctor exchanged a look that said "never again". After all, there was only so much Monopoly someone could take.