What Happened Here - Blog Posts
Vice Versa
Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial! With the prompt:
[over on ao3] Fandom: Doctor Who Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler WC: 719 The console room being upside-down's one heck of a way to wake a person up. And what's with the rabbit-themed walls?
Rubbing at her eyes, Rose steps out onto the ceiling. And slips down the curved wall with a yelp. Scrabbling for purchase, her fingernails scrape across worn copper, then oddly-indented roundels… before she rolls to a stop at the bottom.
"Ow," she says.
Overhead the door that'd led her into this mess clicks shut; the quiet sound echoes through the cavernous space.
"Sorry, sorry," a cheerful and all too familiar voice calls. "Everything's just a little… wonky, right now. I'll get it fixed in a jiffy!"
On automatic, she looks down.
Below her cyan gleams across thick branches that stretch outward from their coral base, catching on wild hair and a beaming angular face.
The Doctor's currently clinging half-way up one of the struts like his very life depends on it, sonic screwdriver held in one hand.
"Looks like you've been trying to fix this for more than a jiffy," Rose calls back. "How's this happened?" She eases herself into a sitting position, trying to ignore how her stomach's currently doing backflips on how far off from the safe ground she is… and the stings from newly borne grazes. Won't be surprised if she winds up with bruises after this, that was far from a fun fall.
"Ah yes, well," with a grimace, he scratches behind his ear, "she doesn't like the rabbit-themed desktop I er, installed."
"The what?" She squints at the odd shapes situated around the roundels. Usually they're hexagons but these have sets of rounded out-rectangles sprouting out that look a lot like… "Oh."
Fiddling with the sonic's settings, the Doctor hurries on with adding, "With all that jabbering on you did on the phone with Jackie about chocolate eggs and all of that. I thought, Easter, you know, bit of celebration, bit of fun! Bring a bit of a festive touch to the ship!"
"An' you didn't think to ask about stopping off to celebrate it with me and my mum?" Amusement bubbles up before she can stop it, knowing fully well how awkward he can be about anything close to 'domestic'. … Despite his whole time spent celebrating Christmas with her shortly after he'd regenerated.
"Welll…" He trails off, squinting at the monitor blaring dimly down below. Then points the screwdriver at it. There's a whirr, an irritated grating noise similar to someone clearing their throat, then… the rabbit outlines around every roundel are replaced by angles again.
And Rose realises she's being turned around mid-air - floating in place.
Before gravity notices it exists and pulls her down at a surprisingly gentle pace. Trainers clacking against the metal grating, she turns to catch a blur of pinstripes halt before the console.
Tapping on the chunky keyboard, the Doctor turns the monitor screen off before twirling to face her, tucking the sonic screwdriver back into his pocket. "Told you fixing it wouldn't take too long," he says, sounding way too smug over sorting out something he'd caused. "Now, what do you say to visiting a particular planet over in the Oryctolagus system? Has giant rabbits over there. Just imagine it! Fluffy giant rabbits, with floppy ears!"
Running her hand through her hair to disentangle the mussed-up strands, she quirks an eyebrow at him. "You're still thinking 'bout the chocolate eggs, aren't you?"
Tilting his head a bit to the left, he leans further against the console's edge. "Who says I am? Might not be." He tugs at his ear. "Well, little bit. Can't go wrong with those ones with the little surprises in the middle. Pralines. Chocolate itself used to be a luxury item, you know. Up until the late 19th century. Speaking of luxury items with surprises inside - Jewelled Fabergé eggs! They were grand gifts created for Russian Tsars by Peter Carl Fabergé himself."
"Could always stop off to pick some of the Easter eggs up," Rose suggests, keeping it casual as she goes over to rest against the railing. "Head over to the… Oric-whatever system."
"Oryctolagus," he corrects. Tapping out a random beat against the coral surface, he turns to eye the doors before looking back at her. "Could do. Quick pop in, then off again. Just… for the eggs."
"Just for them," Rose agrees with a small grin.
And he grins back at her, that small moment of hesitance gone in an instant.