Thwat.
Turlough caught the rubber ball as it came down and flicked it back at the white ceiling.
Thwat.
From his reclined position on the couch he looked upside-down at Tegan, who was sitting in a chair reading a book with a cover she wouldn't let him see. She still was very intensely ignoring him.
Thwat.
Thwat.
Thwat.
Still nothing. He started humming.
Thwat.
Thwat.
Thwat.
She slammed the book shut. "Turlough! Do you mind?"
"Oh?" He looked up innocently. "I didn't mean to disturb you. You should have said something."
"I thought moving rooms twice got the point across! Two rooms from which you followed me! Why are you still here?"
Because the Black Guardian was less likely to bother him if he was with someone else. "I don't know my way around the TARDIS very well yet. I'm afraid I'll get lost if I'm by myself."
"Why don't you go bother the Doctor, then?"
Because he was afraid what the Black Guardian could make him do. "I thought we were friends. You spend time with your friends."
"We're not friends."
"I thought we had a good bonding experience in the air vents on Terminus. And how are we supposed to become friends if we don't spend time together? Do you not want to be friends with me?"
He could tell from the way she clenched her teeth that she was itching to say no, but that would surpass even her levels of acceptable rudeness. "I don't know anything about you. You always talk in circles, and you never say anything substantial. You could try opening up."
He quickly looked back at the ceiling. The last time he had tried didn't even notice and called him weird. Thwat.
"I thought so."
Thwat. Who cared what she thought, anyway.
Thwat. He was just trying to cast off the suspicion.
Thwat.
"Tegan?"
"What?"
"Never mind."
Thwat. It's not like he actually wanted to be friends.
Thwat. He was leaving as soon as he could.
Thwat. He didn't need anybody.
Thwat.
"Turlough, either have a conversation, or leave. Or I swear I will take that ball and shove it down your throat."
He caught the ball off the last bounce and pocketed it. "Tegan?"
"Yes, Turlough?"
"Do you ever feel sexually frustrated?"
"What?"
There really was this very interesting spot on the ceiling where the lamp was casting a shadow. "Well, my planet was at war and then I was stuck on Earth in a public school with underage boys for three years, so it's been a very, very, long time. So I was very glad to get away on the TARDIS. See the universe, meet new people, all that. But it's all a lot of running around, people dying, and trying not to get killed, isn't it? The only people I ever have a moment's rest with are you and the Doctor, so that limits my options. I imagine you must be feeling similar. Unless you and the Doctor..?" He glanced back at her.
She was sitting pressed up against the back of the chair, body tensed, hands clenched. He was a threat. Damn. Miscalculation. He sat up. "Tegan." Relaxed body language. Stay back from her. "If I was trying to seduce you, it wouldn't be like that."
"Then where is this going?"
"You told me to open up!"
"Too open!"
"Since we are both sexually mature members of our respective species who, to the best of my knowledge, are 'not getting any,' I thought it might be a point of connection." Although when he said it out loud, it... might not have been the best subject to bring up to a member of the respectively opposite sex with whom one was trying to establish a rapport.
"Are you even old enough for that?"
"I'm not a child, Tegan. I haven't been one for quite some time. And from what I know of humans, you're not very old yourself."
"I'm still the only responsible adult in this place."
Interesting. "Not the Doctor?"
"He kidnapped me, died, and turned into a different person the first time I met him. Not to mention he couldn't find Heathrow if it danced naked in front of him. Then he abandoned me at Heathrow."
"...Which you had wanted to go to?"
"But I didn't at that point."
"But you're still here."
"I found him again."
"I see." Actually, he really didn't. He had been joking, but, "So, do you and the Doctor..?"
"Leave it, Turlough."
Sore spot. "Ah. I should have guessed it from Passion Among the Stars." Tegan hastily shoved her book under the seat cushion. "So I'm free to try my luck, then?"
"Maybe if you're a flying blue box."
"Ah, well, he's not my type. Too idealistic." Much too idealistic. And blind. He could find problems all over the galaxy, but he couldn't read the people right under his nose.
She snorted. "What, so that leaves me, then?"
"What?"
"You said your options were limited to me and the Doctor. And if the Doctor's not available, that apparently just leaves me."
"I said I was sexually frustrated, not desperate. I'm not going to have sex with you just because you're the only person to have sex with."
"Oh, is this some, 'I wouldn't do you if you were the last person on Earth' thing?"
"Tegan," Turlough laid his head back against the wall. "I am trying to be nice to you." Why did he even bother.
"You've got a funny way of showing it."
"Oh, like you make it so easy. You're one to talk about not opening up. Every conversation with you is like trying to hug a cactus."
"Every conversation with you is like trying to grab an eel!"
"I have been trying to have a straight conversation!" What was it about her? He could start off talking her in circles, but eventually she brought him down to her level. "You're the one going in circles. First you get offended when you think I'm propositioning you, then you get offended when I say I'm not."
"'I'm not desperate'? That's what every girl wants to hear."
"I'm trying to respect you! What do you want me to say? That I do want to casually shag you because there's no one else? Because I don't want to do that. If I'm going to casually shag someone, it's going to be someone I don't care about. If I'm going to shag someone I do, there's going to be some meaning to it."
Silence. Ah, well, he had done what she asked. He started a conversation. He had tried. Turlough pulled the ball back out of his pocket.
Thwat.
Thwat.
"It's been a long time for me, too," Tegan muttered. "And yes, it's getting grating,"
"There! Was that so hard?"
Tegan just glared at him.
"Now we've established a common point of connection, aren't you glad?"
"Yes, I am so glad our common point of connection is..."
"Our involuntary celibacy?"
Another glare.
"Well, now we can bond together to solve our common problem. There must be some places in this universe where everyone isn't trying to kill us."
"Oh, so we'll just go ask the Doctor, 'next time, instead of taking us somewhere where people want to kill us, can we go where people want to shag us?'"
"Well, that would be a nice change of pace, wouldn't it?" Turlough and Tegan started. The Doctor was leaning against the doorway. "And really, Tegan, I do try my hardest to make sure you don't die. As it is, we appear to have landed on a nice, non-lethal, vegetated planet. Now who wants to go exploring?"
"Ten quid that we're the only mammals on the planet and the plants try to eat us," Turlough muttered to Tegan as they shambled toward the TARDIS doors.
"My money's on underground mole people with a tragic past or an impending supernova," Tegan muttered back.
She later complained that the whole thing had been in jest and what was Turlough actually going to do with ten quid anyway, so he just made her pay for lunch the next time they were stuck on Earth in the 1960s. He even helped her get up a flirtation with the nice waiter which, really, was more than he should have done because she was the one that owed him. It wasn't his fault he turned out to be an auton.