A/N: I had a prompt over on tumblr for a story involving "12's chaos and shenanigans with Clara's students. Clara discovering his "lecturer skills" and the fact that he's amazing with kids ( a quality she finds very attractive )" Honestly? Of course she finds this extremely attractive—it had her making eyes at him in episodes such as Into the Forest of the Night and Listen (it was less apparent in Eleven's run, due to seeing what was more his "fun uncle" or "weird granddad" side then), as well as part of what I'm certain drew her towards Danny. Clara's got a thing for them Dad Skills.
3474 words; takes place in some vaguey-vague s9 setting because I don't feel like resurrecting Danny just for them to butt heads over this (I'll do it one day, just not regarding this prompt); has a small sliver of what I imagine Twelve's lectures at St. Luke's was like: sort of multidisciplinary and rambling and always a wee bit interpretive, all in the same session; wasn't originally going to turn into porn, but ended up turning into porn, in the prompter's honor I suppose, since we likely all have a need for it in these trying times; I'm just so tired right now you guys and I'm very glad to have prompts like this to help me get through the workday so thank you
Doctor Robotics
Things would really be leagues calmer at her job if she didn't have to worry about the Doctor butting in all the time, Clara surmised. She cringed as she heard a muffled crashing sound coming from the corridor, completely disrupting her otherwise peaceful prep period.
"I'm going to strangle him so hard he regenerates."
Clara stood and walked out of her empty classroom and a few steps down the corridor to where she could look out onto the courtyard. There, just as she expected, was the Doctor, with a smoldering heap of metal in front of him and several Year Eight and Nines huddled behind him. He lifted his sonic specs and set them atop his head, the corners of his eyes now adding to the immeasurable grin upon his face.
"What are you doing now…?" she asked dully, making certain it was loud enough for them to hear.
"Robotics," he claimed. "Mister Atif has an excellent grasp of the topic for his particular place in space-time, however, I thought I'd give the kids a little booster demonstration."
"Alfie? What did he destroy this time?" Clara asked. One of the smaller children popped his head out, still clearly terrified.
"I don't know, Miss," the boy said. "It came from his box."
"Just… stay out of Doctor Smith's box, okay?" she warned gently. "None of you go in there unless you're willing to end up like that… whatever that was." She gestured towards the wreckage that was now being poked at by the Doctor as he properly donned his sonic sunglasses again; the last thing she needed was one of the kids getting into more than they bargained for before they were able to wholly make the decision for themselves.
Something told her though, as she made her way back to her classroom, that she wasn't going to have much of a problem with that. It would be Mister Coburn, the one who begged her to bring back the Doctor to substitute once again, who would be the one who needed to reassess his choices. Too many more metal corpses of this machine and that, and, well… she wasn't going to fuss over it. None of it was supposed to be her problem, after all.
It had been a whole week since Mister Atif had to stay home with an extremely nasty bout of the flu.
Granted, commuting by TARDIS was rather convenient, and the Doctor had a whole new set of things to fuss over while she was busy with work, but there was also the problem of worrying over the Time Lord being in charge of Mister Atif's singular class. Being a retired engineer who took the caretaker position out of sheer boredom, the man had more than enthusiastic when it came to instructing an introductory robotics class when the need arose. It kept something in the school records and administration satisfied and allowed him to share what he loved with a whole new generation of potential engineering fiends. Everyone was generally pleased with the setup, with Mister Atif even enrolling the students in a local competition, for which Missus Atif even made special scarves to commemorate the occasion.
All bets were off now, however.
As they were (luckily) post-competition, the children were restless, which meant that the Doctor's substitution was almost perfectly-timed. He was originally less-than-thrilled at the prospect of taking on a class—"I don't have time for puddings that are still setting, Clara"—yet once he was actually presented with the children whom he was in charge of for a few hours each week, his tune seemed to miraculously change.
"I've met worse," he claimed over a curry one evening. He'd fetched it from Hyderabad, since their favorite place in Hoxton was closed for renovations. "Ansar somehow was able to collect the least irritating of those levels and turn them into future scientists."
"How are you on given-name-terms with Mister Atif when you've never supposedly met him?" she frowned.
"I'm allowed to have some secrets, aren't I?" he wondered. "Just harmless, little ones."
"I'll be the judge of that," she replied. She gently nudged his shin with her foot, throwing him a flirty glance over her naan that she knew made him weak in the knees. He leaned closer to her and arched an eyebrow in a silent dare.
All he got was a face full of naan and korma instead.
The following day after school, Clara was sitting in the caretaker's office, waiting to go home. She stopped scrolling through the news feed on her mobile to check the time—the Doctor was extremely late—and rolled her eyes. Considering he should have been done with tidying up well over an hour ago, she slid herself off the table and decided to find him herself, whatever was keeping him be damned.
So she looked… and looked… and looked… nothing. He wasn't in the courtyard or the assembly hall or the cafeteria or wandering about the science labs (ha; the day he found him poking around there had been a disaster). She was beginning to genuinely worry as she wandered the corridors, her heart skipping a beat as she finally figured out where he was.
"Why weren't the Romans able to escape? Didn't they know what was gonna happen?"
Clara recognized the voice as one of the children in the Doctor's robotics class. She poked her head in a classroom and found the entire group sitting at desks, their attention rapt upon the man at the front of the room. He was drawing on the moveable whiteboard (all the others attached to the wall were already filled), his back to everyone, and did not notice Clara coming in. She stood along the cinderblock and held her finger up to her lips as the students saw her come in—no tattling.
"The main reason is that no one really listened to me," the Doctor explained. "The other, lesser, reason is that none of the warning devices that you take for granted these days were available at the time, making it so that when there was a slight rumbling, they considered it as the gods being pleased or some other such nonsense like the idiots they were."
"That's rather mean," another student said.
"Sometimes the truth is mean, and the only defense we have against it is something that is just as bad or worse, just in a different way, because there might be no good answers," the Doctor explained. He turned around, showing that he had just finished roughly mapping out a diagram, and his eyes brightened as he saw the new person in the room. "Clara! How good of you to finally join us!"
"Doctor, what are you doing?" she asked.
"Giving a bit of an additional lesson on robotics—extracurricular and wholly voluntary, of course."
"That looks like a volcano you just drew."
He glanced back at the board, then at her, and shrugged. "Tangent."
"Are you nearly done with this tangent? The kids are not the only ones who need to go home."
"Ah, yes, fair enough. Please, take a seat as we finish up for the day, Miss Oswald." She did so, giving him a smirk as she took a seat in the very back of the room. "Now? Where were we?"
"You were saying that the people in Pompeii deserved to die," the student piped up.
"No, wrong: I said they were idiots," the Doctor responded, in a tone that was both firm and gentle. He used the whiteboard marker to point and gesture around the room to emphasize his point. "We all die at one point or another, and manner of death isn't necessarily a good indicator of deservedness."
"…but they were still idiots."
"Well, yes. Everyone in this room is an idiot in one way or another. In fact, I myself am a very, very big idiot, and I've found that the best remedy for the situation is to understand it."
"So you're saying Miss Oswald is an idiot too?"
"No—she is likely the exception to this rule," he replied, giving the actual educator a quick smile. "Take myself, for example: I am an idiot with a box and a screwdriver, going wherever I please and helping fix things along the way. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I get it wrong, but the key is that I am always trying my best and acutely aware of it. Many people who are rather brilliant overall can be considered idiots… just like many that were there that day at the base of Mount Vesuvius." A different wee hand went up. "Yes?"
"Would that make 'idiot' more like an approximate translation instead of a direct one? Almost metaphorical?"
"That's a bit closer; make of it what you will."
"Then are we just using the word wrong?"
The Doctor pondered the answer for a moment, gnawing on the middle knuckle of his left pointer finger. His right hand still held his marker as he used his wrist to support his left elbow. His puzzlement was met with silence from the students, who allowed him his time to think. Clara was rather impressed by the development, as it had taken her a couple years to achieve such levity—while teaching just as serious a subject no less. She studied the Doctor as he wracked his brain, taking in his off-center stance… the crease to his brow… the way his hair moved ever so slightly now that it was getting longer… how the cut of the "substitute caretaker disguise" coat suited him…
She had to stop herself from smacking her own forehead; there are better times to drink him all in, Oswald.
"That I cannot answer," he finally replied. "It's a difficult word with many connotations—I do believe that part is up to you." He then looked at the invisible watch on his wrist—bloody ticking and all—and raised his eyebrows. "Yes, goodness, look at the time. There is a pressure cooker at Miss Oswald's that needs attention, as well as your homework. Pick a side, if you're for or against modern art being important, and then write two pages attempting to outline the opposite viewpoint. Remember it's 'art that is new' and not Modern Art as a movement. It'll be a good exercise and I'll know if you're cheating. Due in a week. Ta."
With a little wave, the Doctor sent the children off without so much as another word. Once the room was only occupied by the two adults, they looked one another in the eyes again, sparks flickering between them despite the distance.
"You handle them well," Clara noted. "Are you sure you don't want to come onto payroll and do this full-time? I think I heard one of the governors speak highly of your ability."
"Chesterwaithe only says such things because he knows what's good for him," the Doctor replied. He watched as she stood and approached him, shuddering in anticipation as she did so. After just barely missing him, she walked right past, allowing him to make a full-bodied turn as he followed her to the door and out into the corridor. "It's a good thing the Human sense of smell is pathetic."
"Now why's that?"
"We'll have to put the stew on low," he said, his tone almost that of a non-sequitur. He leaned down as they turned to go down a staircase, using the railing as leverage as he lowered his voice into a deep burr, "it's rolling off you. I'm drowning in it."
Clara knew exactly what he meant: pheromones.
"Then let's get you back to the flat so that you can breathe," she replied. They both knew fully-well that her flat wasn't what either of them called home, yet it was still where they both lived while the Doctor was playing at caretaker. It was where she was normally, when it was not designated Doctor Days, though the Time Lord and Human both had decided that they would both stay at the flat for the duration of the experiment, out of respect to the TARDIS if anything. Though neither would admit it, it was nearly fun pretending that the flat was where they both belonged, if only because they intrinsically knew better.
Down the stairs, through the corridors, lock up the building, and final rounds were done; the Doctor and Clara made it back to the caretaker's office with their fingers laced together as they held hands, the contact forbidden while they were in-sight of impressionable young minds and gossipy coworkers. They went into the TARDIS and disjoined long enough for the Doctor to walk over to the console, make the brief jump to the flat, and return to her side.
All he could smell and taste in the air was her and it was driving him appropriately mad.
Two steps over the TARDIS's threshold, out of their shoes, and the Doctor pulled Clara close, leaning down to kiss her deeply. She eventually broke the contact, inhaling sharply as her voice took on a slight waver.
"Shit. The stew."
"It won't be ready for another five hours," he promised. Ah—a space-and-time jump. "Just making use of Missus King's rock concert days catching up to her and the fact neither of the Chowdhrys work from home anymore."
"…and here I thought the way you had the students' attention was sexy," she laughed. The TARDIS whirred in irritation and the couple used it as an excuse to move their operations elsewhere. Bending slightly at the knees, the Doctor allowed Clara to latch onto his upper half so that they could kiss properly while he carried her to the bedroom, hands cupping her rear in order to hold her steady. He could feel the sharpness of her nails scraping up against his scalp and the nape of his neck and the warmth of her breath as she moved to his chin and down his throat.
"I think I figured out your type," he teased. She nibbled gently at a bit of skin, daring him to elaborate. "Being just as good with children as you are."
"Need I mention the various times you allowed yourself to get pranked by the Maitlands and nearly got them killed in the same stretch?"
"Let's just say I've been practicing since then." He sat down on the edge of her bed and was almost instantly thrown onto his back, his body bouncing on the mattress at the force used to put him there. "Then again, I have an excellent example to learn from."
"If that's the case, then why do you still act the way you do around adults?" she wondered. She undid her bunched-up skirt zip and allowed his hands to untuck her blouse and reach under the hem to unlatch her bra. Soon there would be no mental capacity between the two of them to bicker and she needed to get him to admit it before they lost their train of thought.
Yeah—bickering he could do, but don't call it bantering or there would be no adult version of extracurriculars for at least a week.
"I don't hear an answer," she pressed. His hands had now moved to one clawing at the top buttons of her blouse while the other teased a breast, making the nipple nearly sting at the friction. She was relieving him of his trousers, the motion going temporarily on-hold as he finally relieved her of her upper garments, shucking them off and tossing them blithely to the floor.
"They're not you," he growled. He let go as they parted to get rid of his trousers and coat and jumper, as well as her leggings and both their pants, only to grab her again once they were fully naked. "Why should I care if they're never going to understand anyhow?"
"…because flashcards are not the way normal people talk to one another. You can be honest and frank with the robotics students and me, but no one else?"
"No." He parted her legs with his knee as they resumed where they left off on the mattress; she was scorching-hot and already alarmingly wet. "Maybe I just need a bit more practice."
"Maybe I should see if I can talk to one of my friends in admissions over in Liverpool and get you a lecturer's position for a term—see how you do with semi-adults."
"I might have to take you up on that, just to prove you wrong."
"I look forward to it." She bit his shoulder to where she knew she'd leave a mark, safely keeping it tucked away underneath where fabric would be the following day as he tinkered around the school. That's truly all he did—tinker—and it was such a thing from an odd children's television show she could cry in laughter.
She was shagging Coal Hill's (substitute) hyper-competent caretaker, who was ready to mentor students and impart life advice to any willing to stop their youthful mishaps long enough to listen.
Not only that, but she was halfway gone just watching him in action for a short while.
Clara had to admit: the Doctor had her type down to a very specific point.
Oh no.
She did, however, declined to give him that satisfaction by going and clearing the thought from her mind as she took his throbbing erection and stroked it. Yes, there was that moan she loved to hear. A few decent pulls and she decided he had been tortured enough and guided him into her, everything slipping wonderfully into place as he filled her and she surrounded him.
Gazing down at him in the pale afternoon light filtering in through her curtains, Clara knew she was meeting the eyes of the version of the Doctor she loved the most. It wasn't looks (which didn't hurt) or accent (again, that neither) or even the fact he now had mood lighting in the TARDIS (she wasn't entirely certain it was all his doing), but the sort of man he had grown to become with her. All the barriers his previous face had were long-gone, shed for the sole purpose of baring himself to her. Every last bit of him. He did it because he knew she could see what he was without all the trappings and whimsy, that she was ready to get to something more meaningful between them, because despite anything they felt for one another before he gained his pre-frowned face, it was now all that and more. There were no remaining barriers betwixt the Time Lord and his saving grace and they were willing to act accordingly.
He bucked his hips up into hers, making her eyes roll into the back of her head as he began to set their pace; all that and so, so much more.
"You know they're just better off reading nature logs at this point—John Muir has an excellent one about encountering what people now call Bigfoot but what was really a stranded extraterrestrial in Ahwahnee."
Clara stopped writing on the whiteboard and closed her eyes—a headache was coming on. A few students made poor attempts at hiding their laughter, which their teacher could not blame them for. She turned around and looked up to see the Doctor poking his head in the window.
"Have you forgotten what doors are for?" she wondered sarcastically. The remaining students couldn't help but snicker.
"Doors are not me; windows are me," he claimed frankly. "That's not the point; why are you going over something as boring as Wordsworth?"
"It's not boring, and it's required in the curriculum set up by your I-don't-even-want-to-know-how-he's-your-friend Chesterton. I teach Wordsworth, whether it's boring or not, and I'm allowed to compare The Scottish Chiefs to Ivanhoe, with enough leeway to maybe brush against Chandrakanta if we have enough time before I have to go into the section on Dumas to correlate with their history class." She watched as his face grew almost sheepish. "Now, did you need anything?"
"Yes! Kaja! Do you have that component you were talking about?"
"Right here, Doctor Smith," a girl said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like a small circuit board—simple enough to have been cannibalized from a television remote older than her.
"Good—now I need to see if Raj got his piece and we'll be set for class later todaaaaaayyyy!" The Doctor attempted to make a smooth exit down the ladder, only serving to knock it off-balance and fall from just below the window all the way to the ground. There was a muffled "I'm fine!" and Clara shook her head, completely exasperated.
Just because the scenery was better did not mean that she couldn't wait until Mister Atif returned to his duties.