Title: Dealing with Domestics
Author: Darksidion
Summary: The Doctor takes Rose back to Earth in time to enjoy her mother's birthday party. This is the aftermath of such an event.
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler.
Disclaimer: The only things I own are the laptop (defunct), the comptuer (not so defunct), my notebook and a few wild ideas that I sometimes wonder if I should have really come up with in the first place.
Rating: K+ for swearing (Rose, of course).
Genre: Humour/Fluff
Author's
Note: I swore I'd never upload this after posting, but here we go anyway. Yet another oneshot to add to the silliness. I actually really like this piece, hence the uploading, even if the Doctor is pretty domestic in this one and the idea is totally ridiculous. It just amuses me. Anyway, hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (and tell me if I should stick to the romance over the humour ;)). Originally called "Aftermath", but felt this name had a better ring to it.
Dealing with Domestics
The Doctor, hands on his hips, stared defiantly around the room. The silly string in his hair had finally given in to gravity and was now tumbling down his left cheek, destroying his rather heartfelt attempt at being disciplinary. His coat, stained with red wine and God knows what else, was hung over an arm of the sofa and his shirt sleeves were ruffled up to the elbow. Someone – woe betide if he ever found out who – had spilled taramasalata sauce down his freshly cleaned pinstripe suit, and he rather hoped the uneven feeling under his right shoe was just consequential of stepping on a drawing pin.
He looked, in fact, a perfect mess.
But he was nothing compared to Jackie's living room.
The Doctor let out a weary sigh, puffing his chest out and rolling his eyes. He dropped his hands and, carefully, picked his way across the room, past the mounds of half-eaten chicken drumsticks, past the discarded remains of monopoly, over the rather precariously balanced plastic cups, to a curled up figure in the corner, by the TV.
He squatted down with an unimpressed frown. Extending a long finger, he poked the figure in the shoulder. Hard.
It jumped instantly and sat upright, blonde hair a frizzy mess and eyes stuck together with sleep. Her mouth smacked together once or twice as she blinked to the Doctor.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Hi..." Rose said, even managing to slur that. She attempted a cheeky smile, but it looked more like she had constipation. "Time to go?"
The Doctor shook his head laughingly, then helped her unsteadily to her feet. She wobbled and, catching her by the elbows, he steadied her.
"Lesson number one," he said pointedly when she reached a hand to her head, in the vain hope it would stop the room spinning. "No alcohol at parties. Especially not birthday parties."
She squinted at him, as if he were standing in the sun. "Whose birthday is it?" she asked, the words sounding like a run-on sentence.
The Doctor's eyebrows shot to his hairline. Lord help him if Rose had lost her memory.
"Er, your mother's?" he reminded, speaking so that his teeth showed more than necessary.
Rose covered her eyes with her hand and pulled her elbow from his grip. "No need to shout."
"I'm not shouting."
"Well then, sit down," she hiccuped.
He turned and gazed longingly to the jacket strewn over the sofa. Then he grinned and hopped over the mess on the floor, bending over the garment and rummaging in the pockets. His hand slid inside the smooth lining and found a red packet of square sweets. Taking them out, he held them up to the light, as if if inspecting them, before chucking them across the room to Rose.
"Catch," he suggested while he did so.
Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised when it missed her completely and landed in the fireplace.
Rose spun around quickly, staring into the murky depths. She bent over to have a look and promptly lost her balance, sinking to her knees in a fit of giggles. The Doctor's shoulder dropped about three inches in defeat; this felt like trying to dry washing when it was still raining.
He made sure to glare at a plate he practically tripped over on his way back over, before kneeling beside Rose and groping around in the fireplace for his lost pack of sweets.
She simply laughed harder when he attempted to look at her in admonishment, and he eventually gave up, plucking the packet from the sooty fireplace and flicking one of the square, green, spongy sweets into his palm. He then offered it to Rose.
The laughing instantly stopped and she stared at it, as though he'd just offered her a shoelace.
"Anti-intoxication," he explained, eyes on her swaying figure. "It absorbs all the alcohol in your stomach as well as neutrifying the toxins currently whizzing around your head it. Eat it – you'll feel loads better."
Rose looked up, her eyes wide, and she looked a though she were about to say the most intelligent thing in the world. He smiled at her.
She pointed upwards. "You have silly string in your hair," she announced, then promptly burst out laughing.
"Oh, Rassilon help me," the Doctor muttered. He then slung an arm around Rose, took the sweet between his thumb and forefinger, and inserted it into her mouth, rather like one would do with a cat being forced to take tablets. He even coaxed her into it.
She choked and spluttered and pushed him away indignantly, climbing to her feet and using the mantelpiece for support. He stood with her, ignoring the glare that was being shot his way.
"You're an arse," Rose proclaimed loudly, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth. The powdery residue of the sweet remained and it tasted foul, like gone off beer. "An absolute arse."
The Doctor, as ever, grinned charmingly. "Welcome back."
Rose nodded his greeting away, then suddenly became aware of the room. She stared around in disbelief, then back to the Doctor.
"What the hell do you call this?" she hissed, pointing to the remains of what looked like the mess left behind from Untidy McMessyLump on the Messiest day of the year. "Mum's gonna go berserk."
"For one thing," the Doctor sniffed, patting his pockets uncertainly for his spectacles, "your mother isn't here. She went off down the road with the rest of them. For another, it was mostly her mess. And for another," he squeaked as Rose grabbed his hand and pulled him down on his hands and knees, apparently to help with 'tidying', "I don't see why I should get the blame."
Rose, on all fours, turned and positively glared at him. He had the decency to look a little taken aback.
"She could be back at any minute. And if she sees the flat like this, I swear Doctor, it won't only be your cheek that gets a slap!"
He winced at the memory, bringing a hand to rub his face in defence.
The only complaints he made as they circled the living room, piling all the disgusting, horrible mess into the middle, were variations on 'rude', 'unfair' and certain others that Rose wouldn't have thought he was capable of.
After twenty minutes, she straightened to sit on her calves and sighed loudly. The Doctor sat too, looking at her.
"Can we go, now?" he pleaded. "We could leave, and then not have to worry about the mess. Or the slapping. I'm rather keen to avoid the slapping, come to think of it."
She rolled her eyes, like the future mother she was destined to be.
"Honestly, Doctor, you've got no sense of decency. And get that crap out of your hair! You like about nine."
"I do not look about nine," he muttered, but reached up to his hair all the same. He grimaced at the sticky, spongy feel to it between his fingers, and threw the string onto the pile of mess he had made. Then, with a frown, he glanced back to Rose.
"Black sack?" he offered hopefully.
She shook her head. "Never work. Half this stuff is too gross to go in a sack anyway."
"Then what do you suggest?"
It was at that moment they heard the drunken, out-of-tune, slurred lyrics to one of Jackie's favourite songs floating eerily up the street.
The pair looked at each other, faces paling. At the same moment, they both scrambled to their feet. The Doctor, in one swift movement, made a grab for his coat with one hand, and a lunge at Rose's hand with his other. They skidded into the hall, unhooked the latch and barrelled down the stairs in about five seconds.
"Good suggestion," the Doctor panted breathlessly as they raced up the street towards the TARDIS. "But tell you what. How about, next year, we just send a card, hmm?"