Nerd Flirts X

Adam

He didn't know where Oswin had gone. When he'd gotten back to the TARDIS some hours ago now with Ravenwood after fixing her door, she'd practically vanished. She hadn't been answering her phone, and Clara was missing, too. If she had left without a word alone, he may have worried, but since he assumed she was with Clara he was sure she was fine. It didn't snuff out his desire to wait up for her, though. No, the thing that snuffed that out was just his overwhelming tiredness, as he had trudged over to the bed to 'rest his eyes' for a while when it was almost midnight.

Adam Mitchell didn't know if he had actually managed to get to sleep or not, but he supposed that since he was definitely woken up by something throwing itself down onto the other side of the bed, he must have done. He certainly hadn't heard anybody come through the doors, and was plenty startled by the sudden shape crash-landing onto the mattress.

"Sorry," said a voice meekly.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Your girlfriend."

"I haven't had a girlfriend for a long time and doubt I'll ever have one again, not since the only girl I ever loved walked out on me one day, and all she left me with was her broken, spare prosthetic leg," he said in a voice he would have liked to sound faux-forlorn, but which really came across as sleepy and slow. Still, Oswin laughed a little, her face half pressed into the pillow. He was on his back and he yawned drowsily and turned to look at her on his left.

"Did I wake you up?"

"I don't know. Maybe? I don't mind," he told her. He still had his colour-blindness correcting glasses on, the plastic frames sticking to his face, and in the dark Oswin still seemed to be vibrant, which was funny since she wore all black all the time. "Where did you go?"

"Doesn't matter, go back to sleep."

"I'm not even tired," he lied, and she smiled and looked away, "Tell me?" She looked back at him and narrowed her eyes.

"You're pathetic, honestly, just lying there and begging me for things."

"You only give me stuff when I beg."

"It's a bit like I have a pet dog. Teaching you tricks, and stuff. I already taught you that trick you can do with your tongue when you go down on a girl last week," she said.

"Where did you go, though?" he persisted, desiring to turn the subject away from anything sex-related. He was not the biggest fan of talking about sex, which was shocking when one looked at how crude Oswin always was.

"I left a note," she said, then thought, "Didn't I?"

"If you did you must have hidden it because I didn't find one."

"Maybe I didn't write one…"

"Don't you have an eidetic memory?" he toyed with her.

"Okay, it's not the same thing, shut up. And I was just out with Clara. Fyn rang me," she said, then she turned and pushed her face into the pillow, mumbling, "He found our dad." Then she turned back again and spoke clearly, "That's where I was."

"Wait – your dad?" he asked, sitting up on his elbows and looking at her through the gloom. She nodded. "You found him? That's great! Isn't it? Is it great? Is it not great? Did I say something wrong? That's horrible, I can't believe you found your dad. Ew." She laughed.

"You're so adorable," she said, then she held out her arm in a vague sort of gesture, "Lie back down babe, come over here." He did, and she came and cuddled up next to him with her head on the same pillow.

"Are you still dressed?"

"I can't be bothered taking my clothes off. Take them off for me, if you want."

"Well, uh, they're your clothes, Oswin… I couldn't possibly go… undressing you…" he mumbled. She had her eyes closed but was smiling.

"You're frigid."

"I will choose to take that as a compliment."

"It was an insult."

"But I'm choosing-"

"I'm insulting you, deal with it," she reiterated firmly.

He paused for a while in silence, then said eventually, "I'm taking it as a compliment," which made her laugh. "Tell me about your day, though. Your dad? Haven't seen him since he died when you were two? What's that like?"

"Weird," she said, "He looks the same as he did the last time I saw him, like a ghost. I suppose he is a ghost. Clara made me go. He wants to meet my boyfriend now." It took Adam Mitchell a good few moments to realise that she meant him, her father wanted to meet him.

"Me!? Why?"

"Because you're obsessively stalking his only daughter."

"Obsessively stalking?"

"Yeah. Waiting in my bed for me while I'm away."

"It's our bed, and this room was my room originally, so you're the stalker coming in here in the middle of the night," he argued, "Which you've always done – you've basically never been away from me since the second time we ever kissed. Kind of clingy."

"I'd dump me if I were you."

"I wouldn't have to meet your dad if I dumped you."

"Why don't you want to? He's nice and he's clever. He died before mother had her brainwave about my IQ, before he knew I was… you know, me."

"He wouldn't like me," Adam said, and then she sat up next to him slightly and stared.

"What? Of course he would – how could anyone not like you, Mitchell? And it wouldn't change my opinion of you anyway, even if he didn't; nothing could stop me from loving you, you obsessive stalker," she joked, "But really, you were always a bit creepy."

"Yes, you're always telling me how everyone called me 'Creepy Adam' just because I had a crush on you. Well, I still think it was love at first sight-"

"La, la, la, la, can't hear you, la, la, la," she said loudly, clamping her hands over her ears then then throwing herself back down onto the linen next to him.

"You're in a good mood," he said, watching her lie there. She was smiling. He hadn't seen her smile properly for a long time, thought, without that trace of sadness in her eyes, the hint of guilt that she should be allowed to be happy when – though it pained him to admit – she didn't think she deserved to be. She was on her back looking at the ceiling, and he was on his back looking at her. But her smile disappeared.

"Fyn told him everything. Everything I did."

"Oh, right."

"He said it's not my fault."

"Everyone says it's not your fault…"

"He said it's the fault of the people who asked me to build the bombs, of the Cluster Spores, and he said that he would have done the same thing if it was the only thing to do to save my brothers. Because he could have, you know – my dad could have built bombs like that, if he spent time on it like me, he's a genius as well, he's as smart as you are," Oswin said. Adam didn't know if he would be any good at building explosives, he hadn't ever really tried, nor did he want to. "And he knows about Clara, who she is. What I am."

"Oh yeah? And? Is he alright with that? With you being… you know?"

"What?" Her brow creased slightly when she looked at him.

"I don't know, but it must be a bit weird to find out that who you thought was your biological daughter is actually kind of the sci-fi space-offspring of a girl born three-thousand years ago and an alien grave," he said.

"I think he would have been weird about it if Clara didn't look after me," Oswin explained, "If she just didn't care about her Echoes. You know, like Ravenwood. She has Echoes, too, and she's never even met any of them."

"Ravenwood can barely even look after herself, let alone Echoes," Adam sighed while Oswin repositioned herself again so that she had her head on his shoulder. He wasn't all that tired anymore, he would rather stay up late and talk to her than go to sleep anytime soon. "She wouldn't let me meet Sally Sparrow earlier. You know, when I was fixing her lock."

"Is that all you were 'fixing'?"

"How do you mean? I'm the landlord."

"Ooh, sexy."

"…I don't get it…"

"I mean, that's how porn always starts. You could bounce loads of innuendos off a broken door – 'Have a lot of people smashing your doors in lately?' 'With the front door wide open, I'd like to see what kind of a state your back door is in as well.' 'Anyone could cum right in here with this lock so loose.'"

"Is this how you get girls, then?" he questioned her, "You go drop lines like that at them? Which is a trick question, obviously, because I do know the story about how you and Flek got together, and I know it was a lot of awkwardness rather than anything so smooth. And gross."

"Okay, I am totally smooth. You are the one who just a few minutes ago refused to undress a girl who threw herself into your bed. And you're still refusing," she pointed out.

"I'm not undressing you," he mumbled, "You're better at getting girls' clothes off than I am."

"I know – the last time you were in drag it took at least an hour for you to peel off those fishnets. Or was that just because you were enjoying it so much…"

"Ha, ha. I've never worn any fishnets."

"I know! And what a shame that is! Nothing better than a boy who knows how to work a pair of fishnets – god, the thought of it makes my knees go weak. Which is a lie, obviously, my singular knee is weak for a different reason," she said, "But for the record, if you do get a cheeky little inkling to put on something fierce, do let me know. So I can prepare myself."

"Well you need to go to sleep now, I think."

"I was thinking about something else, though," she began, "Some other… few things…"

"Like what? Not me in a corset?"

"…I wasn't thinking of that, but now you said it-"

"What, then?" he interrupted quickly, not wanting to know whatever ghastly thing she had been thinking of to say next.

"…What if it's not my fault?"

"It isn't, Oswin," he said. He told her this all the time, so did Clara, and Jenny, and the Doctors – even Fyn. She never listened. But apparently now, her father was the one who held the key to making Oswin see again, see the real world, maybe not so much through her constant haze of self-hatred and sickness. Perhaps Oswin would start to get better, to recover, to heal. She would dig herself out of the deepening well she had been drowning in for years. It was possible, wasn't it? "You could get better."

"What do you mean?" she asked seriously.

"Your neuroses, however many of them there are. Since they're, you know, a recent thing, since you died-

"What did you say?" And then he realised he had said something wrong, something genuinely wrong, because he wouldn't be mistaken for thinking he heard a note of genuine anger in Oswin's tone of voice. And he was scared of Oswin when she was angry, she was capable of all sorts of things. "It's not recent."

"Isn't it?"

"No. Sorry. It's not your fault for thinking… I don't talk about it…" The sparks of happiness that had crept up in Oswin's manners earlier had faded away now. And Adam Mitchell was the one to blame, he knew it. "I'm twenty-six. I'll be twenty-seven in five months, that's when December is to me, not next week like it is to the TARDIS. Then it'll be ten years." He felt like he'd been stabbed he felt that much guilt for his brief mistake. "It wasn't the Dalek Asylum that broke me, it was just life. It's just me. Aristotle said 'there is no great genius without some touch of madness.'"

"You're not broken…"

"Everyone's broken."

"Did I upset you?"

"No, it's nothing," she sighed, "You're right, I should go to sleep, I should take my leg off." She sat up and shuffled over to the edge of the bed carefully so that she could remove her prosthetic, which she pulled out of the end of her jeans. It always looked odd to do that, he thought, watching her.

"I'll get your pyjamas," he offered.

"What? No, what about your foot?"

"It's fine," he said, but he flinched when he stood up and put weight on it. Lucky for him she didn't see that, but what else was there to be done? Oswin could no longer stand at all without her fake leg, because the right one was so mangled. And he saw it, too, in the gloom when he opened the draws. She didn't pay him much mind as his eyes trailed over the bumpy, messy scars. Oswin's right leg looked like it had been twisted around and had never been allowed to return to its rightful position, it was a Frankenstein's-monster of a limb. Her foot had a large indented scar running down the middle of it, and she only had three toes, the second, fourth and fifth ones.

"You don't have to look at it if it bothers you."

"Doesn't it hurt?" he asked tentatively, passing her some clothes from the wardrobe against the wall by the door.

"Yeah, it always hurts, it always used to," she said, then she paused and said surprisingly wryly, "God, would you look at the pair of us? We're like a novelty act. Me with my legs and you with your ankle. We're literally useless, we can't do anything. What if there was a burglar in the night and I didn't have my leg and you didn't have your foot brace?"

"A burglar on the TARDIS?"

"Yes!"

"Why would there be a burglar on the TARDIS?"

"I don't know. They're after my ideas."

"Your ideas?"

"Yes, blueprints and stuff. You know."

"You haven't got any blueprints, Oswin. But I suppose if, hypothetically, you did, and if, hypothetically, there was a burglar somehow, we'd probably just have to give in to them," he shrugged, shuffling back over to the other side of the bed.

"We couldn't give in to a dangerous burglar, they would violate your body."

"They would what?"

"You're just so cute and defenceless."

"Oh wow, my girlfriend is making me out to be a rape victim."

"You just have that sort of vibe."

"The vibe of being a rape victim…?"

"How do I put this politely?"

"You've never put anything politely in your life."

"Then yes, you have that vibe," she shrugged.

"…I bought a derelict factory today while I was waiting up for you," he said, shamelessly changing the subject. She froze halfway through putting one of his t-shirts on, one with the Bat Logo on it.

"Sorry, you did what? Bought a derelict factory? Why would you do that?"

"I thought I'll renovate it, make it into an orphanage or something. The Oswin Oswald Home for Neglected Children," he said, smirking. She turned around and glared at him over her shoulder.

"Don't name it after me. And as if you'll just build a children's home on a whim…"

"I have to do something with all my bloody money."

"You do, you give millions of pounds to charity each year," she crawled back under the covers next to him as he removed his glasses now, shoving them under the pillow. She always told him not to do that in case he broke them by accident, but he would drop them onto the floor and completely lose them otherwise – then he'd be seeing the world in a dull hue of non-colour.

"Ellie thinks it's a good idea."

"I never said it's not a good idea, but one day you're going to overload me with how impossibly perfect you are and my head will explode," she muttered, putting an arm around him.

"Do you want to know a fun fact? About me?"

"…Sure…" she said, though she sounded suspicious.

"Did you know that I am the world's youngest billionaire? Or, I would be, if I didn't give so much away."

"You're what? The world's youngest billionaire? I'm going out with the youngest billionaire of your century?"

"Uh, so far. I can't predict the future, there could be an even younger billionaire come along soon."

"What about Bruce Wayne?"

"…I don't know how to tell you this, Oswin, but Bruce Wayne isn't real. And I mean a self-made billionaire, not someone who just inherited it because of great personal tragedy," he said.

"Do you ever think," she began, nuzzling closer to him, "that we're kind of a power couple?" He laughed.

"We are so not a power couple."

"Oh my god, we definitely are. Smartest girl in the universe and the youngest billionaire of the Twenty-First Century. How come nobody else appreciates how extraordinary we are?"

"We should tell them. We'll throw a dinner party. Join high society, or something."

"You wouldn't make it in high society."

"Thanks," Adam muttered, "I'm going to go to sleep now before you insult me again. You'll make me cry."

"Good, that's what I'm aiming for."

"You're so kind."

"I know."

AN: Sorry about this guys, but I have to go on break. Only for a week, two weeks tops, then the Monday/Wednesday/Saturday update cycle will resume, because I have an essay due on the 13th and I literally cannot do an essay this week AND write fic. Plus I do, in fact, have a job now (I know, it's miracle) – I basically write scripts for a YouTube channel called Nexus so go subscribe because that would be cool of you. But anyway, I can't do that and write fic and write an essay so I have to put the lesser priority on hold. Anyway, the next storyline is meant to be the ultimate Lovecraftian amalgam, so I have to read a lot of Lovecraft this week to be able to do it properly.