The mid-morning sun was shining brightly as Clara took the remaining clothes from the line and pocketed the clothespins. It was a royal pain that the dryer was malfunctioning again; hopefully, the Doctor would be able to fix it. But, knowing him, he was just as liable to turn the machine into a toaster or a Hadron Collider.
Upon her return from the garden, she was relieved to hear the drying machine tumbling away as it used to.
"Thank y—" She was about to say to the man standing in the living room, but as he turned around, she stopped short.
"Yo ho, Clara!" He waved Artie's ruler in the air as if it were a sword. "Arrr, me hearties and that sort of thing."
Clara's face instantly reddened as she saw the triangular scrap of black lace neatly covering the Doctor's left eye. The spaghetti-thin elastic bands hugged all the way around his head.
"T-that's not an eye patch!" She jumped on her toes and tried to snatch it off his face.
The Doctor chuckled as he reared back to evade her attempts of removing the rather stylish eye patch from his person. Without any shoes on, she really was a petite, little thing.
"Oomph!" Clara lunged at him with a little too much force. The Doctor had no choice but to grasp her around the waist as they tripped and flopped onto the couch.
With the Doctor trapped beneath her, Clara easily removed the raciest piece of lingerie she owned from the Time Lord's head. It seemed that in his mirth, he had forgotten that he was still gripping her around the waist. It took a moment for her to gracelessly extract herself from him and stand up.
"You didn't play 'pirates' when you were little?" The Doctor smiled as he leaned back on an elbow and watched as Clara straightened her floral print dress that had accidentally ridden up when they fell.
"It's really not an eye patch," Clara blushed prettily. "It's a… they're my… um, pants."
The Doctor frowned and then raised an eyebrow quizzically. "Those are not pants."
"No," She looked at her feet for a moment and then turned to pick up the basket of clean laundry she had dropped a few moments earlier. "They really are."
Jumping to his feet, the Doctor strode over and swept the basket out of Clara's hands and brought it to the coffee table. He fished into the basket and brought out a large y-front…Mr. Maitland's he presumed.
"These," he waved it around in the air. "are pants. What in heaven's name was that? It doesn't cover a thing! It's big enough to cover my eye and that's it."
"It's not supposed to cover a lot. It's a thong," Clara huffed and grabbed the pants back from the Doctor. "That's the point! And… and you won't have the lines from the fabric of your regular pants showing through your clothes."
The Doctor looked at Clara and at the short, flowy dress she was wearing. She was trying to fold the clean laundry to keep herself busy.
"Are you wearing one right now?" He tipped his head to the side and asked curiously.
"What?" She gasped and blushed again. "No! No.. no. It's for certain occasions or certain…outfits only. It's not particularly comfortable to wear everyday. Just when… you know… sometimes less is more."
"Why bother wearing anything at all then?" He shrugged and combed back his hair with his fingers. "That "less" is nearly nothing anyway."
Clara shook her head and laughed. There were some things that the Doctor just didn't understand. And, probably never would. She picked up a shirt and began to fold it.
"Sometimes," she smirked but turned away to avoid the Doctor's curious gaze. "A little bit of something is better than nothing at all."
It was quiet for a few minutes; the only sound in the room was the rustle of cloth.
"This is a sex thing," he suddenly broke the silence startling Clara. "Isn't it?"
"Uh," Clara scratched her head. "Well… I suppose in some ways…"
"Alright then," He nodded, took her hand, and began leading her out of the room towards the stairs.
"Doctor?"
"Less is more, you say?" He bent towards her ear so that she could feel his breath on her skin. His free hand ghosted down the side of her body to her pocket. He reached inside it and pulled out the lacy, black thong that she'd tried to hide away.
Clara's pulse quickened and her mouth suddenly turned dry as they ascended the steps towards her bedroom. This time she felt the blush internally; a heated flush that pooled tantalizingly at her core.
"I'll be the judge of that."
