ladyoftime | (no subject) (Reply)

Community: theatrical_muse
Prompt: 291 - Take someone out.
Word count: 1,764
Author's note: O HAI I FINALLY WROTE THAT FUN!FIC WITH BONES I KEPT PROMISING.

One of the quirks of traveling with the Doctor is that you never know quite where you’re going to land. It’s one of the many variables that adds excitement, that influx of adrenaline when you step outside the TARDIS and realize that anything, anything at all, could happen.

“I don’t know how the hell you got a license to drive that thing.”

The Doctor sucks in a breath sharply and blows it out in the general direction of her traveling companion; it momentarily freezes in the icy air drifting through the open TARDIS door. Outside, the wasteland of frozen ground and gray-white sky makes for a bleak sight. “I could always let you have the controls next time, if you think you could do better.”

Bones slips a heavily insulated jacket over his blue medical tunic and smirks at her. “Far be it from me to contradict a lady.”

“Of course n–“

She cuts off in the middle of her retort, abruptly diving for the floor of the TARDIS. Bones crosses his arms, having recently decided he refuses to be startled by her random moments of distraction anymore. Too much potential for attention whiplash. “What is it?”

She waves a couple pair of shoes in the air with all the triumph of the Olympic torch-bearer. “Ice-skating!”

Refusing to be startled, however, is not the same as being immune to becoming completely flabbergasted. “What?”

The Doctor has already begun tugging off her left boot, pausing in her task only long enough to toss a set of ice skates to Bones. He catches the pair reflexively, coming within an inch of slicing his hand on the energy blades. “There’s miles of ice out there. Haven’t you ever been skating?”

“Well, no,” he admits, “not for a long– “

“–time,” she says, and stretches out on her back, luxuriating in the heat of the two fiery red suns on her stomach. Sunestrius * is home to several of the best beaches in the universe, with fine white sand, glittering purple waters, and filtered UV radiation.

Bones snorts, an unattractive sound she feels is better suited to him when directed at anyone who isn’t her, and plucks a pair of sunglasses from her grasp. “All I asked was when you wanted to eat dinner,” he grumbles. “That’s no reason to go off on a rant about the meaninglessness of mealtimes.”

“They are meaningless,” she retorts. “Lunchtime doubly so.” But they have been on the beach for a long time, she realises, and can’t blame him for feeling a tad peckish. The Doctor props herself up on her elbows so she can watch Bones properly. “I brought us a picnic dinner. In the rucksack.”

He rolls his eyes and hefts the satchel off her towel to find the promised goods. “Why the hell didn’t you say that in the– “

“–First place,” Bones is saying, voice raised in such a way as to intimate that he’s only just getting started and it’s definitely time to either sue for peace or duck and cover. “We didn’t even know about your land rules, which are damned stupid if you ask me, you can’t just forbid visitors from walking through your parks, not without signs and clear laws. And don’t you dare quote that ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’ crap at me. Your whole damned case against us is founded on the main principle of bullying, and let me tell you, we are not standing for that. You’re going to be hearing from our lawyers. All ten of them.” He sets his feet in such a way as to indicate that, there, he’s not moving, no matter what happens.

The Doctor, though she is loathe to admit it aloud, is a little impressed, and tempted to just sit back and let him sort out this little ordeal by himself. But her extremities are starting to chafe in their shackles, and there’s been a steady drip of something especially putrid landing on her head for the past half-hour.

“And I happen,” she says, with as much dignity and haughtiness as she can summon under the circumstances, “to be the Gallifreyan Ambassador Theta Sigma, personal code Gamma-Six-Three-Five-Nine-Apple-Delta-Delta-Positive, and if you do not release me this instant, I can guarantee you will have a galactic war on your hands.”

The prison guards hold a hasty conference regarding the likelihood of her bluffing and where is Gallifrey, anyway, has anyone heard of it before? And do they want to stake their careers on a geographical oversight? After much too long, they release her from her bonds and apologise profusely for the mishap.

She’d almost be willing to mark off this whole incident as a mildly refreshing touch of danger to their otherwise comfortable trip if it weren’t for the part where, due to the lack of feeling in her feet and hands, Bones is forced to carry her out. Which wouldn’t be bad exactly if he didn’t happen to keep up a constant litany of complaints regarding the relationship between her weight and the pain in his back.

“And,” he’s saying, as she rubs a little feeling back into her wrists, “I don’t care that I don’t know much about Gallifreyan physiology, spending as much time in dungeons as you do just can’t be– “

“–Good for you!” the Doctor cheers, raising blue-tinted thumbs to Bones in the universally-accepted Terran sign of you are absolutely fantastic! “You’ll have the hang of it any minute now.”

Bones eyes her balefully from beneath orange-dotted eyelids. “When you said we were going to an art exposition, I didn’t realize you meant ‘let’s go be art’.” A chubby four year old hits him squarely in the mouth with a ball of organic purple paint and chortles as Dr. McCoy’s side of the conversation devolves into a spluttering fit.

The Doctor smiles encouragingly at the child and is rewarded with a splattering of pink down her chin. “It’s for charity,” she reminds Bones, with more than a touch of reproach to her tone. “For the children. And anyway, I think you look very pretty with all those colours.”

“The children.” He squints in an attempt to prevent himself from being blinded by the bright green paint making its way down his forehead. “How do I let you talk me into– “

“–These things,” Bones announces, pupils dilating rapidly, “are. Woah. I bet they’re banned everywhere.” He waves a hand in the air, tracing ill-defined geometric figures, fingers still clutching the self-injecting acid strip he had the misfortune to come in contact with. The young lady who provided it beams at him in a way that the Doctor does not like at all, and she swiftly wraps a possessive arm around Bones to herd him out of the dense crowd.

“Do-cKT-er,” he’s saying, face going worryingly pale and translucent. “I knew a poem once. Poem. Hickery dickery.” He searches her face for a full minute as if expecting to find the next word written there. “Doc,” he says, finally, and abruptly goes slack into her arms as he blacks out from sheer sensory overload.

The Doctor sighs and drags his sorry body to the TARDIS. Several beings already high on very illegal drugs have linked hands and begun skipping around it in some sort of ritual prayer-dance. “Right,” she says, silently cursing her lack of foresight. “Woodstock of the late twenty-third century wasn’t a good– “

“–idea.” The Doctor pops a blueberry into her mouth and revels in the taste, blissfully ignorant of the berry juice threatening to permanently stain her skin. When she realises Bones hasn’t ventured any opinions yet, she cocks her head at him and raises an eyebrow. “Well?”

He takes a moment to answer, eyes set studiously on the blueberry bush. “It sounds great, but.“

Her hand freezes just an inch from the juiciest, plumpest blueberry she has ever seen in her lives. “But?”

“But I think it’s time to go back.” He shifts his blueberry pail from one hand to the other, fixes her with a puppy-hopeful face. “If I spend any more time gone, I’m liable to be court-martialed for dereliction of duty.”

“Oh,” she says, not bothering to hide the thick disappointment colouring her mood, and begins packing up the blueberry-picking supplies. “If that’s the way you feel, I can have you home in two ticks. You can’t bring the blueberries back, of course, but they’ll be brilliant with that cereal you made me stock the kitchen with, and I can store that antique rocking chair of yours, of course– “

Bones crosses his arms and waits for her to slow down, face going stony. She pauses her rambling to shoot him an annoyed, ‘don’t interrupt me’ look. “What?”

“You and I both know that cereal was your idea, not mine,” he says. “And don’t touch that chair. You’ll break it. Just leave it in my room, and I’ll deal with it somehow.” He taps his fingers on his arm, and she realises he’s smirking, of all the cheek! “And Doctor, the next time I need a break, I expect you to be ready for me.”

The Doctor glares at him for a full minute before cracking into a more customary grin. “If I’m not busy. Let me tell you, Leonard McCoy, some people have better things to do than to sit around waiting on your every beck and call.” She steals a blueberry from his pail. “Come on, I’ll have you back on the Enterprise before anyone could even realize you’re–”

“–gone,” Jim says, and gives Bones that look, that look that says nothing and no one is getting past him. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Bones fixes him with a look, too, one consisting of perfect innocence. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jim,” he says. “I’ve been on this ship the whole day.” Before Kirk can say a word, Bones pushes past him and, whistling, sets off along the corridor for Sick Bay.

Jim glances at Bones’ retreating back and pinches the bridge of his nose, momentarily shutting the sight out. Spock cocks his head at him, politely waiting for the man to either return to his duties or have a mental breakdown. “Captain?”

Jim shakes his head a couple times in a useless attempt to clear his head. “Is it just me, or did Dr. McCoy look… tanned?”