Title: Board Games
Author: ninedaysaqueen
Beta: openedlocket
Disclaimer: No ownership of Doctor Who is claimed or implied. The Doctor, in all his glory, will always belong to the BBC.
Rating: G/K
Genre: Humor/Crack/Fluff
Summary: Rose challenges the Doctor to a game of the most dreaded of the Parker Brothers's creations–Monopoly. Not even the most ridiculous and fluffy thing I've ever written. :)
Author's Notes: Cluedo is the British name for Clue, in which the murder victim is called Dr. Black not Mr. Boddy. And no, I'm not British. I may have spent two hours on the internet reading about Parker Brothers games. Maybe...
Written for the then_theres_us ficathon; filling a prompt made by the_idiotgirl.
Also, I'm not even entirely certain if the Doctor would play Monopoly, unless maybe Rose asked. :P
"You want to play what...?"
"Monopoly, Doctor. You know, tiny metal car and dog; fake paper money; do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars."
"Yes, yes, yes," he muttered, crawling out from under the console and sitting up. "I know what Monopoly is. In fact, I was there when Elizabeth Magie invented it. Lovely woman. Well, sort of. Bit dull. Couldn't stop yammering on and on about that Henry George fellow."
Rose sighed, "Doctor, I didn't ask you for the history of Monopoly; I asked you if you wanted to play it."
"But there are so much more interesting Parker games," he whined, "Cluedo, Sorry, Trivial Pursuits. The concept of Monopoly was based on real estate homework. Why do you think it's so dull and endless?"
Rose crossed her arms from where she was sitting cross-legged next to the console. "Sorry is a horrible name for a board game, Trivial Pursuits lives up to its name, and in Cluedo, the doctor always dies."
The Doctor pulled at his collar and decided to change the subject. "Where did you even find a Monopoly game?" He was pretty sure he destroyed any version of it that had been on his ship after he'd discovered how the Venusians used it at the historic game festivals of Tarius 3. He was still mourning to loss of that scarf.
"In the library, under the loveseat by the fireplace," Rose answered.
The Doctor decided not to ask what she'd been doing under the loveseat next the fireplace. "Okay, fine," he relented, standing up and putting the sonic screwdriver away in his jacket pocket. "But I call dibs on the tin dog!"
-X-X-X-
Three hours later...
The Doctor stared pensively at the board in front of him. In the time it takes to recalibrate a fusion device, he'd been jailed six times, had almost been bankrupted twice, three of his hotels had seemingly burnt to ground, and he'd been forced to watch Rose greedily count fake, paper money across from him. (Okay, maybe the last one wasn't so bad.)
"I can see why you picked the battleship," he commented, drily.
Rose ignored him, "Your turn, Doctor."
"Are these dice loaded?" He weighed them suspiciously in his palm.
She smiled sweetly. "That would be cheating, Doctor. Now roll."
The Doctor sighed. "Alright, I give up. What do you want?"
Rose feigned innocence. "I have no idea what you mean, Doctor."
"This has something to do with what happened on Poshikan, doesn't it?" How many times do I have to explain to you I had no control over where that blue slime went?"
Rose cleared her throat, looking irritated. "I haven't thought about the slime for days, Doctor. Not till you brought it up just now."
He cringed ever-so slightly. "Okay, alright. I was simply trying to determine where this stone-cold CEO persona was coming from. You haven't ever been on The Apprentice, have you?"
"Doctor..." Rose started.
He waved his hands about like a defeated general. "I surrender. Now, have I earned a 'get out of jail free' card, or do I have to rob the community chest to pay my debts?"
"Doctor..."
"We could go to the real Board Walk; they sing that lovely song by The Drifters every New Years. You know, the settlers of the Trent 10 Galaxy named each of their planets after a Monopoly property-"
"Doctor... Just say it."
The nine-hundred year old Time Lord, the last of his kind, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Oncoming Storm, the Legendary Soufflé Maker of planet Peachy-Keen (don't ask), sighed.
"Rose Tyler is better than me."
Rose leaped to her feet, a big smile on her face and began to do her own version of a Super Bowl victory dance. He may not be able to win a silly human board game; but at least, she was happy.
"Hah, I totally took your hostile takeover to town!" He strongly suspected she may start to hop on one foot.
"If you start to sing We Are the Champions, all your shopping mall planet privileges may be revoked."
"Nobody likes a sore loser, Doctor." She ran from the room, laughing as she went.
Monopoly may have been marketed all across the Human Empire, may have been published in ever language, may have been used to smuggle maps to Allied World War II prisoners, may even be in the hearts of capitalism loving countries everywhere, but it was by far, the worst human invented game ever.
Author's Note: Clue is so much better than Monopoly. :P *apologizes to Monopoly fans*
Thank you for reading.
