Disclaimer: I own some Doctor Who merchandise, but I have no claim of ownership to the copyrights of the franchise. This fic is canon-compliant, which means it does not directly contradict any aspect of canon.
"I'm bored."
The Doctor raised his head quickly from under the grates of the TARDIS' console room floor. "What?"
"I'm. Bored," Rose repeated slowly, leaning forward with her hands on her lap.
The Doctor scratched his head, thinking for a moment. "What?" he said again, this time mostly to himself.
Rose rolled her eyes but didn't say anything this time; instead, she huffed and leaned back in the jumpseat.
"Wha-at?" the Doctor whined, pulling himself out and straightening up.
"'All of time and space' you promised me, and we're stuck not going anywhere because your ship's broken!"
"She's not broken!"
"Broken down," Rose amended.
"There's still stuff we can do!" the Doctor insisted, glancing distractedly at something sticky between his forefinger and thumb (engine grease or motor oil or whatever the TARDIS equivalent is, Rose figured).
"Like what?" Rose crossed her arms in front of her chest and raised an eyebrow at him.
"The TARDIS is infinite! We can do whatever you want!" he declared, surreptitiously wiping his hand on his suit.
Rose thought for a minute. "Race."
"What?"
Rose stifled a giggle. As silly as it was, she loved hearing him say the word "what." And "well." The Doctor cleared his throat and Rose sobered. "I wanna race you."
"How's that?" He looked utterly nonplussed. (Rose tried not to think "cute." Tried.)
"It was your idea!"
The Doctor blinked. "What?"
"Before! Back when you were– I mean, when we were traveling with Jack…"
"Ah. Well…" He scratched his ear. (Rose tried not to think "cute." Really.) "Actually, it's a… well, a video game."
Rose blinked. She was so busy gazing at him that she had forgotten what they were even talking about.
The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. (Rose didn't even try not to think "cute.") "It hasn't been released in your time yet… It's called Mario Kart Wii."
"Mario Kart… that sounds familiar… I think Mickey used to play that game! Wasn't it for the Nintendo 69 system?"
"Ah, Nintendo 64, no, that was an earlier one; the Wii version won't be available until 2008."
"But we can play it now?"
"Sure, if you want…" the Doctor said uncertainly. "You didn't want to play before."
"I didn't know what you were talking about before," Rose sassed as she got to her feet. "You just said you were gonna race, and you never explained things back then; for all I knew, you could've had a go-kart track somewhere in here." She tapped his nose as she walked by.
"I do," he stated matter-of-factly before following her down the halls until they reached the right room.
Upon opening the door, Rose felt that the term "entertainment center" was far too lenient in everyday use; this was an entertainment center – no, scratch that; this was entertainment central! Large screen TV? Pfft, one entire wall was a TV! Beanbag chairs? Check. VCR? DVD player? Double-check… though she wasn't sure what the blue letter b on the front of it was supposed to stand for.
"So? What do you think?"
Rose jumped at the Doctor's voice coming from behind her; she was so awed by the room that she hadn't realized she was blocking the doorway. "Yeah. It's nice. It's… wow."
The Doctor smiled. With all his teeth. Gorgeous. "Sit down."
Rose giggled, then leapt into the room and pirouetted over to a comfy-looking beanbag chair before flopping down onto it. It let out a poof of air as it was crushed beneath her, and she was surprised to find that it was neither full of beans nor styrofoam (as one would expect from a beanbag chair) – it rather felt like a million tiny beads of water suspended individually inside a silken pillowcase. Whatever it was, it shifted around as she moved to get comfortable.
The Doctor followed with his hands in his pockets, stopping to stand over her with that goofy smile still on his face. "You like it?" he asked.
"Yeah… what's this stuff made of?"
"Dunno!" he shouted with glee as he spun in place to approach the wall opposite the TV.
Rose let her head drop back so she could still see him (Even looking at it upside down, he's got such a fine arse! she thought to herself) as he walked away.
As she watched, a panel above the DVD player slid open and Rose saw a tall white… well, it looked like another DVD player, but standing on its side. "I let the TARDIS decide what to fill them with," the Doctor informed her, "and she usually goes with whatever the person sitting there wants." From next to the upright DVD player, the Doctor picked up what looked like a steering wheel and a thick white remote control with an extension cord connected to the end.
"What does she fill them with for you?" Rose asked curiously.
"Ah. Well, that's the exception." The Doctor turned back toward her, and she thought she saw the slightest pink tinge in his cheeks.
Rose looked askance at him. (She wondered if the look would carry the same weight when inverted as it does normally.)
He cleared his throat. "Let's just say Jack wouldn't stop laughing at me after I sat down and leave it at that, shall we?"
Rose raised an eyebrow. (His cheeks turned redder.)
"Whatever seat I sit in, it's always air. Nothing but air."
"And…?"
"And… the air gets squeezed out when I sit on it," he mumbled. (His blush spread to the edges of his ears and neck.)
Rose tried to keep a straight face. "I'm sorry?" She had heard him, but she wanted to see just how red he could get.
"Fine, to appease you, I'll sit on one of them. Will that make you happy?"
Tongue sticking out slightly, she nodded.
"Right then. You want the wheel or the stick?"
Rose blinked. "Come again?"
"The controls. For the game." The Doctor held up the items in his hands, and she realized the steering wheel was fitted with a remote like the one in his other hand but without the extension cord. "Do you want the wheel?"
"Um, yeah, sure." He held it out to her and she took it, moving to sit upright. As she did, the water beads (if that was indeed what they were) inside the cushion seemed to shift automatically to support her new position. "How do I use it?"
"It's motion-sensitive; steer like you would a car. This button's the gas…" He pointed to the one closest to her right thumb. "This one's the brake…" He indicated the one right next to it. "And this one…" He flipped the wheel over and showed her a button on the back. "…lets you slide on the turns and get a mini speed boost afterwards." He put the wheel back right in her hands, and she felt for the button under the fingers of her left hand. "But, that's only if you select 'manual'; if you don't want to have to worry about that one, then just pick 'automatic' instead."
"Alright, but if I steer by turning the wheel, what's the direction button for?" Rose brushed her left thumb against the button shaped like a plus sign.
"Items."
"Items?"
"Yup." He popped the 'p.' (Rose loved it when he did that.)
"In a racing game."
"Yup." He popped the 'p' again.
"So, I just push this button here…" She pressed down on the middle of the +. "…and an item comes out?"
"Nononono, you get items by driving through the question mark blocks."
Rose stared blankly at him.
He sighed, resigned to giving an explanation of the game's item mechanic. "The question mark blocks give you a random item by roulette, somewhat based on your current position in the race, which you can use by pressing here." He moved her thumb so it was positioned over the left arm of the +. "Some items, like shells, can be thrown either forward or backward, in which case you can choose by pressing here…" He moved her thumb to the top of the +. "…or here…" He moved her thumb to the bottom of the +. "…respectively, but you can still use them by pressing here…" He moved her thumb back to the left arm of the + and then to the right one before continuing, "…or here, and they'll be sent in the default direction – which for shells is forward."
"What about… this one?" Rose moved her thumb further to the right of the + and onto the next button without taking her eyes off the Doctor's face. He had leaned in pretty close as he'd explained item use in detail for her, and she was momentarily mesmerized.
He looked into her eyes, unblinking, and whispered, "Look behind you."
She turned her head so quick she thought she heard a crack, then whipped back around at the sound of poorly-stifled laughter.
"No, that's what that button is for! When you press it, the screen shows you what's behind you! Like a rear-view mirror!"
She smacked his arm.
"Ow." He pouted at her. "Meanie." He flumped down into the beanbag chair next to hers and…
Oh. So that's what he meant.
His pout instantly disappeared, to be replaced by a look of embarrassment.
Rose snorted. "Excuse you."
"Rose, you know very well that wasn't me," the Doctor stated seriously. He wouldn't look at her; instead, he fumbled with the cord that connected his remote control to the nunchuk-like extension attached to it.
"So, that's what the TARDIS always does? Whenever you're going to sit on one of these beanbag chairs, she turns it into a whoopee cushion?"
"Well, she hasn't always done it… just since I helped organize a dinner party in Rome in the year 218. The emperor was just a kid – fourteen years old when he took the throne – I figured it'd be a laugh! How was I to know he'd become famous for it?"
"Wait a minute…" Rose could hardly contain her laughter. "Are you telling me you put out whoopee cushions for all the guests to sit on… in ancient Rome?"
"Of course not! I just gave him the idea; it was young Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus – or, as he then became called: Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus – who put them out."
"And when was that?"
"I just told you, 218 A.D."
"No, I mean… when was it for you? What'd you look like at the time?"
The Doctor sniffed. "Uh… I had curly hair."
"What? Seriously? You?"
"Oi! Don't knock the curls! I've had curls a couple of times, actually; once brown and once blond… Would you believe I was mistaken for a baker both times? But! It was when I was blond that I met Emperor Elagabalus – and let me tell you, if it weren't for the whoopee cushions, everyone would've thought my outfit was the most outlandish thing there."
"Why? What was it?"
The Doctor grimaced.
"That bad?"
"Imagine an explosion in a rainbow factory."
Rose's hand flew up to cover her mouth, her expression a combination of horror and hilarity. After a moment she lowered her hand and asked, "Do you have a picture?"
The Doctor's face hardened. "No."
Rose was undeterred. "No you don't have a picture, or no you don't want to show me?"
"No. Just no."
Rose opened her mouth to insist, but he cut her off.
"No! Don't you dare!"
Rose's mouth snapped shut, momentarily shocked and slightly hurt that he'd raised his voice to her like that; then she realized he was glaring not at her but at the ceiling. Rose slowly grinned. "That's alright, Doctor…" She smiled sweetly. "You don't have to show me. And I'm sure there aren't any photographs floating around here that would somehow wind up in my room later so I can see them in private." She looked back and forth from the ceiling to the Doctor, her tongue once again playing peekaboo between her teeth.
"Ugh, fine!" the Doctor groaned, burying his face in his hands. "Go ahead and show her, then. Just not–!"
Before he could give further instruction (or admonition) as to which picture she could see, the big screen was filled with an image of a man with curly blond hair. He was smiling (mouth closed, no teeth showing) standing on one foot with one arm fully extended and an umbrella held in his other hand going over his shoulder. The umbrella was divided into eight colored segments in a repeating pattern of red-yellow-green-blue going clockwise from twelve. There was what looked like a light blue ribbon tied like a cravat around his neck, which clashed wonderfully (woefully) with the open knee-length red plaid and green patchwork coat he wore over it – the lapels of which were pink on one side and dark yellow on the other. Finally, to complete the ensemble, yellow and black pinstriped trousers that matched neither the coat nor the umbrella.
"Oh. My. God," Rose uttered. "That is hideous." She turned to the Doctor, who was still hiding his face in shame. "Please tell me you burned it."
"No."
"You mean that sorry excuse for a clown costume still exists somewhere?"
"Yes," he sighed as he finally lowered his hands. "I saw it in the wardrobe room when I was choosing this one last Christmas…" He plucked at the material of his current suit. "…along with the scarf from my fourth…"
As if on cue, the image on the TV changed to that of another man, this one with curly brown hair, protuberant eyes, and a wide smile (with prominent teeth).
"…which, come to think of it, how did you manage that?" He looked again at the ceiling. "Didn't I unravel it after I regenerated into my fifth?"
The TARDIS merely hummed. Rose looked at her Doctor again (no, she most certainly did not just apply that possessive pronoun to him in her mind) and then back at the one now on the screen.
"Wait, that's not right… Didn't I wear a burgundy one towards the end of my fourth life? That must've been the one I unraveled. But, hold on a minute, I thought I got rid of the original in my last incarnation, along with my old recorder?"
While the Doctor mumbled to himself, Rose studied the man in this new picture. He was wearing a multicolored scarf (though it was thankfully much more tasteful than the atrocious crime against fashion in the other picture), which was so long it draped around him several times (Rose couldn't even tell what else he was wearing as it covered him so completely) and still fell beyond the edge of the photo. "He's cute," Rose told herself.
The Doctor instantly looked over at her with raised eyebrows, having heard her whispered musing, then looked at the screen just before it changed and video game music was piped into the room through invisible speakers: "Do doot do-do-doot-do~ Mario Kart Wii! Whoo-hoo!" – so he decided to file that information away for later reference.
A/N: Next chapter they'll actually start playing the game, I promise! And there will be plenty more surprises so long as you stick around!
Edit – 11/10/13. Reworded a little bit, added a couple small things, fixed some punctuation errors… and got a few new ides for the next chapter (or at least a later one)! :D
Edit – 2/5/14. Language note: "pants" are outerwear in America, though they are the opposite in Britain. I apologize for any resultant confusion if any of my readers came across the term here before this; I have rightly changed it to "trousers" now. I may not accommodate all Britishisms (note I didn't use "apologise"), but where the intended meaning may be confused I will try to stick to the British way (except for the part where I consistently render the date in mm/dd/yy format). Consider: ever since I became a Whovian, my definition of "chips" has changed from "crisps" to "French fries"!
P.S. This fic is part of my CC'verse (see my profile for more).