Dirty Laundry

Esther

She had overheard before Ten and Donna left the night before her lecturing him on how he had to talk to Rose about some business, something about him feeling overwhelmed with their upcoming wedding. Sally Sparrow had barged in and asked if she was invited to it, and he had reluctantly replied yes. That was when James Elliott had asked if he could be her plus one, and her mood had soured and she had shrugged him off. Elliott had hung like a well-intentioned shadow, a dejected puppy, over the previous day, even more so than the hellish city of the Elder Gods and their struggle with Ic'tharru to sever the connection between Acnictexr and Hollowmire.

Through her brief separation to any kind of regular electricity, after going through the dark Crater Lake Sanatorium and then into the pre-universe itself, Esther had become so exhausted her single goal had been to come home and go to sleep, and so that was what she had done. She didn't even manage to get changed into pyjamas, just kick off those awful heels and throw her coat onto the floor and then collapse into bed. She woke up in the middle of the night blearily and got changed, hearing some unusual noises coming from the attic she chose to ignore, and then crashed out again.

But it was scarcely an hour later – and she knew it was an hour because she had a clock right next to her bed she always paid close attention to so that she could feel assured when she got into arguments with Sally about what ridiculous hour she had been woken up at this time – that she was awoken again. Odd noises had ceased and been replaced by shouting from upstairs, the shouting of Sally Sparrow and the shouting of somebody else. Somebody male. Somebody, she noticed when she strained her ears to listen for just a few moments, Welsh.

Uh-oh. Not good. Esther rolled out of bed doggedly, wanting to know what exactly Sally had done now, because she had a vague idea she would prefer not to entertain in the greatest of detail. An icky idea. Dare she even intrude? Possibly. If there was anything untoward going on, it was her duty, as a decent person, to try and help. Not that she suspected that of Elliott, but… she struggled to find any reason against attempted intervention in Sally's affairs. It didn't really go that way, though.

She stepped out of the room into the hallway and was immediately subjected to seeing Sally in her pyjamas running past her down the stairs towards the kitchen. She didn't even notice Esther. Elliott shouted her name and pursued from above, but was frozen, in his boxers, by Esther, holding up a hand brimming with electricity to warn him against making any move further towards the stairs. Below, she heard the slam of the cellar door. The turn of the key in the lock.

"What's going on?" she asked Elliott.

"Nothing," he said.

"She's just locked herself in the basement," Esther said, still keeping her hand primed to shoot him. She probably wouldn't shoot him, but she could shoot him, and he didn't really know her well enough to judge if she would or wouldn't make an attack in defence of her housemate.

"She just went off – I don't know, I didn't do anything, okay?" he said. Esther was surprised Sally actually had the nerve to bring a boy back to her room, mainly because her room was filthy. She wished she'd had some warning so that she could have dug out her earplugs, then she might miss all of this.

"I think you better go get dressed while I go speak to her," Esther told him, "Seriously, I'm not a big fan of… indecency. I don't really know you well enough to not feel weird about seeing you in your underpants. I've never known anyone that well." She really did not want to see some half-naked guy in her house, but at least he did what she said and slipped back upstairs to the dirty attic, while she picked up her dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door and traipsed downstairs to investigate. A chair had knocked over in the kitchen.

Esther went to knock on the heavy wooden door, but got no response. She rarely went into the cellar, only when they needed logs for the fireplace.

"It's just me, Sal," she called, "Are you gonna let me in and tell me what's up? You can lock the door again right away." A pause. "Elliott's not here, don't worry." Then she heard the key turn in the lock again. At least Sally Sparrow was more decent than Elliott – Esther was not a fan of skin exposure. Yet another reason why people often made fun of her by calling her a prude, which she did not appreciate. Why couldn't she live her own life the way she wanted? That way being not having to be around people who were partially (or worse, fully) nude.

"I've made another horrible mistake," she said pitifully. Esther sighed.

"I'm sure you haven't," she said, though she wasn't sure at all. Sally dragged her by her elbow into the cellar, and Esther found herself thinking about where Sally's hands had been and when they had last been washed, resolving that she was going to launder her dressing gown as soon as she could. Sally hissed with pain when she got a jolt of static electricity.

"I keep telling you not to drag me places," Esther said. Sally ignored her, Esther stepping aside on the rickety, wooden staircase so that she could lock the door. That staircase was a death-trap; it had no railings at all and looked like it had been constructed very haphazardly. Esther didn't know anything at all about carpentry though to fix a banister to it – she wondered if Jenny did…

"I – bloody – I slept with him!"

"Well, yeah, I… figured," Esther said awkwardly, "What's this 'mistake'? Wait – you're not trying to tell me you didn't use… you know… um… the, uh… the… contra-thingamajig."

"Esther, you're a child," Sally told her sharply, "And no that's not what I'm trying to tell you, honestly, I'm not an idiot. But I am an idiot." She retreated back down the stairs again, clutching the key to the basement door in one hand, and went to skulk in the corner next to the rattling boiler, the only source of heat down there. It was freezing. Esther followed, wrapping her arms around herself, walking through the many shelves and cardboard boxes Sally kept down there. Honestly, there were all sorts of doomsday supplies kept in that hovel; an entire mountain of toilet paper, a hundred cans of baked beans alone, hundreds more cans of all variety of objects. A hefty amount of dehydrated astronaut food you could buy online as a kind of gimmick. Tankards full of purified water.

"Okay, I don't… I don't think it's… that bad, really? Is it?" she asked, "You like him, he likes you… I know you do, don't deny it."

"Alright, fine," she hissed, "Maybe I do. Obviously I do, in fact, because I've gone and bloody shagged him. I'm as bad as Clara."

"I don't think you are – at least you know him and you remember his name," Esther pointed out, "We've met him a bunch of times. It's like a… usual thing. From what I understand from, uh, the TV, and stuff…"

"I don't want to go out with him, though," she said, "I'm leading him on."

"No means no, regardless of anything that's already happened. I'll just zap him if he won't leave. Or I'll get Jenny to come and sort it," Esther shrugged, "C'mon, there's no need to worry. But, um, sparing me like, the gross details, how did this even happen? You came back with me."

"He showed up."

"At our house?"

"Yeah, he wouldn't go away."

"Man, that's a little… shifty."

"I haven't slept for four days…" she put her head in her hands. Esther had been standing up next to her, but now sighed again and sat down on the dusty cellar floor by her side (not close enough to shock her by accident, though.) The dirty floor was yet another excuse to wash this dressing gown.

"You gotta start taking your pills," Esther told her, "I see that bottle of zolpidem every day in the bathroom cabinet. Sarah always used to refuse any kind of medication. Then she jumped off a building."

"I don't want my brain to get messed up."

"Clearly your brain is already majorly messed up," Esther pointed out, then drifted towards a change of subject, "Anyway, I just can't believe you actually took a guy into your room. It's disgusting."

"It's not that bad."

"It definitely is."

"Just because I don't have OCD like you doesn't mean I'm messy."

"Well, first of all, you are messy, and second of all, you can't just use 'OCD' in such a colloquial way like that – you're making a joke out of an actual disorder."

"Your face is a disorder."

"Gee, thanks."

"It was a spur of the moment mistake, okay? I don't want a relationship, and certainly not a long-distance one. And I barely even know him. I'm just disoriented and not thinking clearly."

"I can just tell him to get lost and you can block his number in your phone, you don't have to see him, nobody's forcing you," she said, "Besides, you've, um… y'know, got it 'out of your system' or whatever now, so… I guess like emptying the trash can on a computer?"

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I know…" she muttered, "I don't want to. The whole thought grosses me out. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. At least you're not prying for details."

"I can't think of anything worse than details, gosh," she cringed, "Look, he's gonna come downstairs in a minute, but I can go head him off if you tell me what to say to him."

"You're not going to force me to talk to him myself?"

"No, why would I do that? Just tell me what you want me to talk to James about and I'll get rid of him. I can just threaten him if it comes down to it," she shrugged, "Do you want me to tell him to leave? Honestly, I'll just shoo him out."

"Please do, just… I have, like, no excuse. I'm just a mess."

"Well, look, I'll make him go away now, alright?" Esther said, getting to her feet. She was sure Elliott would be dressed by now. Probably lurking upstairs waiting for her. After she smiled and climbed carefully up the crooked staircase again she realised that this assumption was correct, Elliott was hanging around there in the kitchen, looking nearly as embarrassed as Sally in the basement did.

"What did she say?" he asked. Had he been eavesdropping?

"I think you should leave," Esther told him.

"Leave? Why? You can't just screw someone and kick them out with no explanation! I'm a real person, not a bloody gigolo!"

"Well, I… all this stuff is beyond me, okay? She's kind of having a crisis and I don't think you forcing her to talk to you is really gonna help," Esther told him seriously, "You should just go – maybe she'll sleep on it and call you, I really don't know what's going through her mind. She's unpredictable. I'm sure you've figured that out by now. Everything she does she does on a whim – I don't know how anybody lives like that, I need at least a week's notice… anyway, just – leave, okay? Go, James, I'm sorry that this probably isn't going the way you'd like. I'm sure you'd love to just have a girlfriend suddenly, but that's… a pipe dream." While she said this, she waved her (un-gloved and dangerous) hands at him to shepherd him out of the room, and eventually, finally, out of the front door.

"Wait – just speak to me, will you? Not her, you," he said.

"Well I don't think you're going to get very far trying your luck with me – you know I'm asexual?"

"No, but I wasn't gonna try anything Esther," he said firmly. She sighed and stepped out and closed the door behind her. She didn't have anything against Elliott, she thought he was okay. "What kind of bloke do you think I am?"

"I don't really know you," she said.

"She should have just… she shouldn't… not if she doesn't like me! Why do that?"

"I don't know. I'm not entirely sure Sally Sparrow would make a great girlfriend at the moment anyway," Esther said, "You don't know her all that well. You know… you know her fiancé she was with for six years left her, right? And that's why she moved here? Plus, he insomnia… there're a lot of reasons for her… I can't pretend to know what's going on in her head." She tried to get him to leave without just telling him something like Sally was too much of a mess to have a relationship, even though that was probably the truth. "I just – I'm sorry, but you should really go, James." And finally he did. She wondered where he was even going – he and Christina were probably in a B&B somewhere, she guessed.

Only when she returned inside did she check the time and see it was eleven in the morning; she'd barely have five hours' sleep. But she couldn't go back to bed, otherwise she wouldn't sleep that night, and it would have chaotic effects on her entire daily routine. Chaotic effects were already being had on her daily routine, even, because of this fuss about kicking James Elliott out of the house because Sally had (presumably) woken up in the cold light of day and thought what the heck is this!? Not that Esther knew at all what Sally had been thinking.

"He's gone," she called down to the cellar, "Front door locked. You can come back up." And Sally did come back up, still looking horrified and borderline ill. "If you want my opinion, I don't think this is all that bad. At least he's nice. You could have ended up with some total jerk. So that's something."

"Maybe."

"Anyway – I have an idea. I know you always want eggs when you get too tired, so how about you go have a shower and I will make us brunch?" she said, "Scrambled egg on toast. Just what we need after going to a nightmare zone like Acnictexr."

"Yeah," she said meekly, "Sounds good."

AN: See, I was gonna write Ten and Rose fluff for this chapter, but I really do not care about Ten and Rose. I don't even really care (and I don't think any of you guys do either) about Sally Sparrow and James Elliott. But I like Esther, so you get what you get I suppose.