Fic 001 Tired

Title: Ouroboros
Fandom: Doctor Who

Rating: K
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, nor am I making money off of it.

Notes: Tenth Doctor and Rose timeframe. If you think this is far-fetched, you should watch some episodes Russell T Davis wrote.

The Doctor jumped, landing on the alien he and Rose were pursuing, a feat that could only be completed by someone who could do very complicated physics in his head very quickly (which, thank goodness, the Doctor could do.) He completed some complicated maneuvers and jabbed his sonic screwdriver on to his hostage's temple just as Rose caught up to him.

"Now you listen to me," The Doctor started out of breath, "You tell me what you plan on doing with that Dwarf-star alloy you managed to obtain. What are you keeping? What are you building?"

The being chortled, an unfortunate effect of it not having a nose. "And what will you do if I don't answer? Tighten me to death."

"Oi! It's a sonic screwdriver. And no, I will crank up the frequency, shove it in your ear, and drive you mad."

The alien chortled again, but its three eyes looked uneasy as it stared from the Doctor to Rose and back again.

"He'll do it, you know. I've watched him do it before. It's pretty interesting," Rose said in her matter-of-fact tone.

After a few seconds of silence, the Doctor cried, "Alright, don't say I didn't warn you."

Immediately following that declaration, the alien buckled and shouted, "Okay, Okay! Big shipment of space meat. We're taking it to Ouroboros. We're just middle men!" Clearly, the slowest and easiest to catch were also the ones who cracked the most effortlessly.

The Doctor released the being, who collapsed to the floor, and laid his hand to the back of his neck. "What? But why? The Ouroboros are self-sufficient when it comes to food."

"Could they being selling it, or something? Like the Slitheen were gonna do with the Earth?" Rose stuttered through the sentence, trying to jump-start the Doctor's brain, because even though he was the smartest man alive, he needed some help sometimes.

"No, Ouroboros don't need money. They need, they need. Theyneedtheyneedtheyneed."

The noseless alien just stared at the Doctor, taking heavy breaths. The Doctor's eyes widened as he shouted: "BENZINE. They need Benzine. They need it to breath. A big, honking box filled with Benzine. Dwarf-star alloy is the only thing that can stand the acid!"

"But the meat?" Rose asked, not getting the connection between caustic elements and food.

"Of course! You see," the Doctor started to really get into his explanation; he was hand-gesturing as quickly as he could. "Benzine is a liquid. It evaporates fast, and I mean fast. So it needs something to sit in, like, say meat. Meat keeps it a long time, and when you need to remove whatever you put in it, you just burn the meat! But the Ouroboros are very clever. Very clever!"

Rose and the being looked expectantly, since they had no clue what he was talking about (Rose doesn't know every single alien, and the being is sort of slow.)

"See, Bezine is extremely flammable. So, buring is out of the question. Instead, after they get the meat they take the Dwarf-star alloy and create a whopping-big fan. It atomizes the Benzine and the meat and shoots it into the air. Space meat is known for its high nutritious value and absolute lack of taste. Extra particles in the air do no damage to the Ouroboros, "The Doctor took a large breath here, "SO! Their killing two birds with one stone. Getting two deliveries for the price of one."

The alien replied with a blank look resulting from the speed at which the Doctor explained the real purpose of the delivery.

"Oh," the Doctor added after a breath, "And they plan on killing you. Nothing against you or anything. They just don't like anyone knowing their secrets. I'd recommend not going and telling your three-eyed friends to hang back far enough that the great snakies can't get you."

Rose decided all the explaining was over, and although she still wasn't sure what all this meant, she wanted to get in on the action. "So what do we do now?"

"Weeeeell. We could go try to change the Ouroboros' mind."

"Sounds like a plan."

The Doctor and Rose started to walk down the hallway, back to where they ran from and back to the TARDIS. Just before they rounded the corner the Doctor turned around and called back to the alien. "Just so you know I wasn't planning on driving you mad. No hard feelings?"

Rose giggled and linked her arm in his as she asked, "Doesn't all that talking make your jaw tired."

"Nope! One of my Time Lord features is an incredibly resilient mouth. You know, from all the explaining we need to do?"

The alien went off to alert his friends as he heard Rose laugh.