The Methuselah Hunters
Lt. Commander Richie
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is property of BBC, Trinity Blood of Sunao Yoshida (may he rest in peace). It's their sandboxes full of toys, and while they're inside for lunch I'm the angry neighbor kid that jumps the fence and puts their action figures in compromising positions.
Warnings: Humor, completely made up jargon, an awful lot of running, the requisite 10/Rose flirting and spoilers for Trinity Blood up to but not into Know Faith/Silent Noise and Who up through but not surpassing "The Satan Pit". Disregards the timeline of the varying Great and Bountiful Human Empires because I am lazy. Contains 10 and Rose trussed up in artbook Trinity Blood uniforms (feel free to laugh and/or fangasm).
A/N: I am a bad person and I love it. I've also combined Firefly and Bleach before, though the internet is never seeing that. SO YES! Two of my favorite things, Trinity Blood being an old favorite and Doctor Who being a brand new one, combined into one thing! This will either end very well or very badly. Allons-y!
Story most likely best read in 3/4 or 1/2 page width.
-/-
"What's 'AX'?" Rose's question made the Doctor stop short halfway through an explanation of the history of the garden they stood in, full of decorative greenery and beautiful flowers and a large stone angel that the Time Lord didn't seem to want to turn his back on. He looked at the blond in the white nun's habit like she had just used Descartes' Compendium Musicae to explain why her mother enjoyed hitting him as much as she did. "Don't you look at me like that; 's on your armor. S'it on mine too?" Rose offered up the oddly-shaped piece on her upper right arm for scrutiny, and after a moment the Doctor nodded.
"It's short for 'Papal State Affairs Special Operations Section'- in Latin, 'course. Says so 'round the edge of the piece on your back with the strands hanging off it." The Doctor's eyebrows furrowed as he took that in for a moment, before he shrugged and let go of the blonde's arm. "'course that means we're impersonating members of the AX, which won't go over so well if we're caught," Rose put her gloved fists on her hips, facing down the Doctor with a small smile playing at the edge of her mouth as she tried to look disbelieving.
"An' you just happen to have Vatican Special Ops. uniforms layin' 'round in the TARDIS' wardrobe?" The Doctor smiled at this, and Rose couldn't help but take his arm again as he swung them around to continue walking in the opposite direction towards an ornate gazebo. "D'ya moonlight as an officer of the Vatican while I'm sleepin', then?"
"Oh I'd never do that. Too many enemies, no paycheck, very high chance of death, alien vampires-" he paused for a moment and Rose let out something akin to a giggling and unladylike snerk as she caught on to his train of thought. "I already do that. Huh." Without a hitch in his stride the Doctor shook it off with a noncommittal shrug.
The duo passed under a large wrought-iron arch into the ornate gazebo and sat down, Rose immediately massaging one of her feet through her white high-heeled boot. She grumbled about the armor on the shoes before unlacing them and pulling them off and sitting back, the two companions watching each other with vague amusement as they tried to get comfortable on the stone bench while stuck in such bespangled disguises. Rose pulled off her wimple and stuck one gloved finger through the hole that had been shot in it, and then pulled at the Doctor's cloak until he shifted over and she pulled it out from under him to hold it up to the light. There were three bullet holes in it of varying sizes, and a grommet was missing from the edge.
"How d'you suppose th' guards saw through the psychic paper?" Rose couldn't help but muse on the subject, toeing one of her armored boots with a stocking foot. The socks didn't match her habit in the slightest, being garishly pink and blue striped toe socks. One of the boots fell over and she righted it with her feet, demonstrating an amazing amount of dexterity.
"Oh I dunno," the Doctor began, surveying the decorative latticework above them before giving the stink-eye to a decorative statue about thirty feet away and surrounded by hedges. "It probably has something to do with the fact that they're Vatican guards, though. In an age where the church is actively participating in a Cold War with an Empire of vampires I'd imagine they all have at least a minimum amount of psychic training." Looking quite a sight with his messy hair and tall cloak collar covered in gold armor pieces, the Doctor suddenly turned to his blond companion with a look that spoke of urgency. "That reminds me," his tone became exceedingly grim as he continued, grabbing Rose's gloved hand with one of his own. "Steer clear of the Inquisition. Anyone in red robes, and I mean anyone, make sure they don't notice you and run in the opposite direction. The Cardinals all wear red robes too, but you ought to steer clear of them anyway so the rule still stands. Understood?" Rose nodded, her wide-eyed blue gaze conveying that she got the hint- the Inquisition was capitalized Bad News.
With that out of the way they lapsed back into comfortable companionable silence, still holding hands as they listened to birdsong in the garden. Rose wiggled her toes in the fresh air, smiling lightly at the absurd look of her childish socks clashing with the white and blue of her habit and the silver accouterments that festooned the garment. Her free hand found the rosary looped around her neck, picking up the mid-sized silver cross and holding it up to see. A gold pattern like stardust gradated across the surface with a large pink jewel as the centerpiece. The beads were light pink pearls with interspersed gold spacers, and the entire thing looked far too rich to belong to a nun. But then again, there she was in a very white and blue habit with a beautiful skirt covered in blue lace and completely decked out in seemingly random pieces of silver armor. The Doctor's cassock and cloak weren't much better, having even more armor and random fiddly bits than hers and all in gold as well.
"So…" Rose began, setting her rosary back down on her lap and looking up at the Doctor. His attention snapped to her, the usual amount of unbridled excitement shining behind his eyes. "Papal State Affairs Special Operations Section," the blond said the words like she thought the Time Lord might have made it up. "What is it?" The Doctor shifted uncomfortably at that, like a squirming schoolboy trying to get out of speaking in front of the class. Rose's lips curled into a smile at that, and she leaned her head on his shoulder and batted her eyelashes at him in a pleading gesture. When the Doctor's face turned to one of slightly exasperated acquiescence her smile grew into a grin, a hint of tongue peeking between her teeth in a cheeky manner.
"They're the Special Ops. portion of the Ministry of Holy Affairs, run by Cardinal Caterina Sforza. We shouldn't run into any of them since they're all field agents, but we ought to be careful," at Rose's slightly confused raised eyebrow, he continued. "For the purposes of explanation, they've all got…" Surprisingly, the Doctor seemed to grapple for a word for a moment. His attention focused on the ornate ceiling of the gazebo before falling back down to Rose. "Well I don't suppose there's any point in beating around the bush- most of 'em 'ave got abilities and skills that any normal human being would call super powers." Rose gave him a disbelieving look, leaning away from him but not letting go of his hand. The Doctor returned the look with a pinch of cheeky sarcasm at the edge, and the blond couldn't decide if she should be laughing or being as serious as he had been.
"An' you're sure there's nothing wrong here? No aliens masquerading as human to their own nefarious ends?" The blond kicked her feet out as she spoke, making her toe socks visible and her large skirt swish in a cloud of white and blue.
"Of course not! They may have a man that can turn invisible and a woman that can walk through walls, but it's all the result of purely human scientific advancement! The only thing alien on this entire planet right now is the bacillus that makes the Methuselah- that's what the vampires call themselves- vampires and me." The Doctor managed to look inordinately proud of himself at that, settling back in his seat with a broad grin on his face.
"So all we've got to worry 'bout is vampires an' the Inquisition?" Opening his mouth to respond to the blonde's question, the Doctor was cut off by a sudden and surprised-sounding scream. He was instantly on his feet in a clicking and tinkling of metal and rosaries, running for the source with Rose in tow. She voiced protests as loud as she could about the fact that she wasn't wearing shoes but they fell on deaf ears. The duo rounded a large decorative hedge to come face-to face with a young nun in a blue novice's habit; her long light hair tinted a light pink shade. She was sprawled in a tangle on the ground along with a set of white wrought-iron chairs and a table, looking indignant as a nun could in such a situation and valiantly attempting to remove herself from the predicament.
Rose fixed the Doctor with a look and went to get her shoes before she ruined her nice socks.
When she returned, her boots firmly on her feet and laced, the Doctor was helping the young girl set the table and chairs upright again with a laugh. The girl looked rather intimidated by his presence, her large bright green eyes open as wide as they would go but refusing to quite look right at him. With the garden furniture righted once again she stood awkwardly, those same wide eyes fixed on the toes of her shoes as she fiddled with the somewhat plain turquoise and silver rosary around her neck with gloved fingers.
"Forgive me, Father, I didn' mean t' disturb you or y' friend." The girl's voice was a willowy and shallow-sounding Northern burr, shaking like she might snap at any moment. The Doctor smiled widely, trying to put her at ease, but the girl just shook a little harder and redoubled the intensity of the gaze she was giving the ground. The Time Lord swept his cloak back behind his arms and shoved his hands into the pockets of his black pants, rocking back on his heels for a moment.
"Oh that's quite alright. No harm done!" The novice looked up carefully, her green eyes full of unbridled curiosity as they shifted from Rose to the Doctor and back again before taking them both in at a distance. "We were actually just about to go, weren't we?" The Doctor turned to Rose and she turned to him, both of them wearing the same questioning expression. "…Sister Tyler?"
"Ah… Yeah. We were just leavin'." Rose's eyes flicked to the novice, whose green gaze was still boring holes in them. The Doctor seemed to shrug it off easily enough, but something about it felt off to his blond companion.
"To the security meetin' 'er Grace jus' called?" Immediately the pink-haired girl squeaked and put her hands over her mouth, conveying very well that she probably shouldn't have known about said meeting. In that slight moment the girl's voice had gained an inquisitive strength, not tinted by fear or willowy and frail. "'m sorry!" slipped out between her fingers, and she backed up a step. "I shouldn' know 'bout that! Please, don' tell anyone! I didn't mean ta 'ear, honest!"
"Our secret." The Doctor's smile was a conspiring one, and it seemed to put the pink-haired novice at ease. She let out a long and careful sigh, her shoulders visibly slumping. "Now! You ought to be running along, yeah? You've prolly got duties an' other such things to attend to, an' I don't want to keep you!" The statement was accompanied by a quick wink, and the novice blushed lightly with widening eyes before curtseying deeply to the two companions and turning tail. She was a blue and pinkish-blond flash as she ran from the garden, a moment passing before a door opened and closed in the distance. When the two were quite sure that the novice was gone the Doctor offered his arm to his companion, the beginnings of a wide and cheeky grin playing at his features.
"What's got you so happy, then?" Rose asked, taking his arm in hers with a small clicking of their respective armor. The blonde's own smile was threatening the edges of her lips, and her eyebrows rose as she was tugged lightly in a semi-circle until the unshakable duo were facing down a brand new path through the garden.
"I know exactly where I'll take you next. You'll love it!" The grin finally burst over the Time Lord's features and infected his friend, and the blond smiled as well and gestured down the thin cobblestone walkway. With a laugh they started off, all semblance of formality in their linked arms dissolving away as they both dropped any pretenses and threaded their fingers through each other's.
-/-
Most excellent, yes? No? Eh. Whatevs.
Review if you like it, review if you don't.
