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𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 ([personal profile] nohugpolicy) wrote2018-12-08 07:39 pm

IC Inbox (deer)





{ voice | text | action | video }
oddbod: (but you're just passionate)

action, first night.

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-09 04:53 am (UTC)(link)
[She still makes the guise of going to bed, sometimes. When her body feels wrong and her spirits are low, she'll put on pajamas and crawl into scratchy sheets and just pretend that rest of her apartment in Hackney is right out that door, that there's a nonsense text from the Doctor on her phone, that in seven hours she'll crawl into a skirt and a blouse and ride her bike to Coal Hill.

It never works. She always lies with eyes wide open for hours, listening to every second of silence from her heart, before giving up the game and making herself a cup of tea.

When she wishes the Doctor good night, it isn't because she's tired. It's because it's two in the morning, well after her old bedtime, and she doesn't want to give him another glaring fallacy to hone in on, to grieve for. So when the clock strikes two, she feigns a yawn, gives him a sideways hug, and stalks off up the stairs.

She's standing in front of the bathroom mirror in sweatpants and foamy toothpaste when she realizes that she can't do this. She can't do this, not after all they've been through, after all the lies they've spun and shouted and fought over. She's something terrible now, something that breaks his hearts, but it's not going to change just because she pretends. Lying awake every night, counting off the minutes, won't do anything to ease his grief. Dragging along a lie won't heal what she's already broken.

So, in socked feet and a somber face, she creeps back out of the upstairs bathroom, and follows the glow of the living room lamp back to where he is.]


Not so tired after all, [she explains as a re-greeting, her tone not inviting further inquiries.]
oddbod: (it was just like that)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-09 07:12 am (UTC)(link)
Can't a girl change her mind?

[She hovers in the doorway, arms wrapped around herself, watching him tangled up on the floor like a great big praying mantis. He's here. He's in her house. How could she have hoped to run and hide?

He's going to find it all out sooner or later, a voice in her head chides. Even now, it still sounds a bit like Danny. Better if it's all from you. No more lies.

Eyes trained on the dim lamp, she purses her lips. Without the red scarf, the bandage around her neck is a glaring signal of wrong, wrong, wrong.]


I don't... sleep much, [she tries, the words pushed hard from her lungs.]
oddbod: (he waits in the wings)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-09 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
[She stays haunting the doorway, like a statue grasped in her own arms. The thinnest slant of a smile acknowledges his words.]

I used to wish I didn't need to. That I could just stay up all night, watching you pitter around the TARDIS.

[Right up until Trap Street, she wished that. She would have given anything to be like him, to be his equal in every way. And in the end, she did.

Slowly and silently, she leaves her perch on the threshold and makes her way to the sofa arm. It's lumpy and lopsided, another thrift store find, and she's not entirely sure that the stain on one cushion's underside isn't blood. But if it took sitting on a sofa while she drank her tea to feel like she had a semblance of humanity left to her routine, she was willing to sacrifice a bit of fastidiousness.

(It didn't work. When she sits on the edge of the cushions in her dusty house, sipping bad tea from a chipped mug, she never feels more like a ghost.)]


It's boring, really. I usually just go ride my bike, see how far away I can get.
oddbod: (something to being one of the many)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-10 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
The woods make you turn back. They get in your head. [Easiest questions first. Questions that won't break anyone's hearts.] Me and River got about fifteen miles before we coudn't figure out which way was up.

[There's a gravity to her voice, a touch of warning: You probably think you can solve it, but don't go out there. Not without me.

You do not leave me.]


And I can't, [she finally adds, breaking an uncomfortable silence. She pauses on tenterhooks in front of him, as if waiting for some kind of evaluation, some kind of acceptance.] Not at all.
oddbod: (of a neon sign)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-10 02:07 am (UTC)(link)
[She nods absently along with his deductions, a laundry list of things she already knows about herself. Senses, yes. Thoughts, yes. There are graphs on legal pads somewhere around here, scribbled within an inch of life, hastier and more desperate with each page.]

It was done by someone very clever.

[There's no big show of secrecy, not even the slightest hint in her voice that she's dissuading him from a conclusion. He knows, somewhere in that head, whether or not it's conscious. All he needs to do is put together the facts.]
oddbod: (drinking like the world is gonna end)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-10 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
[Alright, that gets the corner of her mouth to tug up. A little huff of a laugh even comes out.]

And what are you going to do with those? Open a jar of pickles?
oddbod: (our hearts fill with miracles)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-10 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
[She lets him take them, without a thought.]

I'll take that as a compliment, 'long as you aren't about to try to open my head.
oddbod: (to the flatline)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-10 03:59 am (UTC)(link)
[Clara's brow furrows, uncertain. That depends hugely on what he's doing, first. On if he even knows what he's hoping to help.]

Tell me what you're trying, first.

[Not to say that the whole thing with the neural block ruffled her trust in him at all, but... She just likes to know what she's getting into.]
oddbod: (but the bad wolf don't bite no more)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-10 04:49 am (UTC)(link)
... Really? You could-

[She pauses, lets out a puff of air. Her eyes - tired, tired eyes - flick down to their hands, and then back up to him.]

Yeah. [It comes out like a breath, barely another thought necessary.] Yeah, that would... that would be awesome.

[God, she has missed sleeping. Her body positively aches for the sensation of waking up, soft sheets up to her chin, sunlight streaming in the window.]
oddbod: (a chest filled with diamonds and gold)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-10 06:55 am (UTC)(link)
[Her fingers pull out, lacing with his, and her lips spread into a broader smile.]

Can we try it now?

[She's already tugging backwards, towards the doorway, a bit of old spark in her eyes for the first time since they met a few hours ago.]
oddbod: (they started from a distant place)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-10 06:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[She steps backwards up the first stair, hands still linked, her eager smile a manic contrast to the way she haunts this house. Her hands are cold, her skin too pale in the darkness, but her excitement cuts through it, familiar and warm.]

It's been two months of two-in-the-mornings.

[The wallpaper in the stairwell is yellow and peeling, and a small window sends a patch of white moon across their feet as Clara pulls the Doctor upstairs. If he expected anything different about the top floor of the little cottage, he'll find he was wrong - it's the same barren jumble as below, save for the back bedroom, where a double mattress lies on the floor under a picture window.]

I sold the frame. [And bought Murder Sofa and her motorcycle boots with the proceeds. Smart girl.] Didn't really plan to use it much.
oddbod: (floating neither up or down)

[personal profile] oddbod 2018-12-10 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[Clara moves to wrap her arms around herself, and then drops them, hands fidgeting as she circles the bed. It occurs to her, minutes too late, that the ritual is familiar: hands clasped, grins giddy, tugging a man - or woman - down the hall and into her bedroom. This reads like a grim parody.

Do you love him?, the last man she invited to her bedroom had asked. She had only half-lied. Love, as a human understands it, is a narrow and desperate thing. This isn't that.

(She's not sure when she stopped considering herself a human.)]


I thought about getting a four-poster one, like I had on the TARDIS. Get a canopy, maybe.

[She sits down, legs crossed and smile easy. Then, a hint of teasing in her face, she reaches up and tugs at his hand again.]

Get down here, you giraffe. [Leaning back on her pillow, she makes plenty of room for him and all his elbows.] Now, how do we do this?

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