face-changer.

No, nope, no thank you: Paul does not want to be part of whatever this weirdness is. He’s going to go to his boring job and spend the day surfing the web instead of actually working, and then he’s going to go home to his cat and forget any of this ever happened. This weird, British stranger doesn’t seem to have picked up on that though, given that he’s now following Paul as he walks towards CCRP, hands still balled into anxious, tapping fists. 

“Nothing’s wrong!” he says, too loud and too quick for it to be convincing. Obviously Paul thinks something is wrong, but he has anxiety-he always thinks something is wrong! He’s just overacting to a bit of harmless fun because he doesn’t like musicals. That’s it: nothing weird or sinister about this. 

Paul pointedly doesn’t look at the man-Doctor something or other, he didn’t catch the rest, as he starts walking a little faster towards work. “I don’t need any help I just need to get to work, thank you, have a nice day. Goodbye,” 

Humans are so frustrating sometimes! They refuse to see what’s right in front of them (or, in this man’s case, what’s inside of them) because it’s too hard to deal with. Well, he’s gonna have to deal with this, whether he likes it or not, because the Doctor refuses to let this strange man with Void Stuff all over him get away.

Using his long legs to his advantage, the Doctor keeps up with the businessman quite easily. If they were to break out into a sprint, he’s sure he would win. But he’d like to preserve some sense of civility.

Name: The Doctor. Ethnicity: Genuinely unsure how to answer that. Residence: A TARDIS. Average hours of sleep: 2-4. Time Lords need less sleep than humans, but even for a Time Lord, the Doctor doesn’t sleep much. Type of bed: A fairly minimalist but comfortable queen-sized bed with dark sheets. Amount of blankets: One. Amount of pillows: One.  Type of clothing: Boxers & undershirt (9), pajamas (10), sweatpants & t-shirt (11). Do they sleep with plushies?: No. Does it matter where they sleep?: The Doctor will not sleep outside of the TARDIS if it can be helped; it’s often the only safe place within miles. If necessary, the Doctor will stay awake for days to avoid sleeping in an unknown place. Frequent dreams, nightmares?: Chronic nightmares on account of the Doctor’s PTSD; reliving various moments of the Time War. What do they do if they cannot fall asleep?: Get out of bed and tinker with various engineering projects until sleep is seconds away. Deep slumber or naps?:  Deep slumber for those 2-4 hours. For the reasons mentioned above, the Doctor prefers not to nap, but if it’s a lazy day in the TARDIS, a nap might be had -- especially since naps don’t tend to bring nightmares with them. When do they wake up?: Time isn’t real in the TARDIS but the Doctor is always up and awake hours before any companion(s). When do they sleep?: Time isn’t real in the TARDIS, so just a couple of hours after companions go to bed, whenever that might be. What could wake them up?: Any slight shift in reality or small psychic impression might wake up the Doctor, but in terms of noise, it might take someone speaking.

Huh, okay. Okay, okay-okay. That…well that certainly just happened. Paul likes to think that, generally speaking, he’s a pretty down to earth guy. Despite all the weirdness Hatchetfield is known for (Woolyfoot & Watcher World horror stories to name but two) he’s never been one to believe all the bullshit about the town being cursed or connected to alternate dimensions or any of that. No, Hatchetfield is a nice, boring, and predictable town full of comfortingly boring and predictable people. Or at least, it usually is. So safe to say half the town erupting in song around him while he’s making the same commute he has every day for three years-well, it’s thrown him a little bit, if he’s being honest.

As if being directed by some invisible conductor the song ends, leaving Paul stood there trying to process what the hell just happened. “Okay,” he says to himself, brain not quite sure what to do with what’s just happened. He repeats the word a few times, fists balled up and tapping one another in a familiar stim for stressful situations. When he hears another voice he jumps, almost tripping over his own feet in shock. He’d been too caught up in…all of that to notice the arrival of another person. 

“Uh-no, no that’s not normal,” he stammers, fists still tap-tap-tapping and glancing up and down the street as if another chorus line might appear at any moment. “That was uh-that was a flash mob or something, right? I mean what else could it have been?”  he laughs nervously even as anxiety unfurls in his stomach, oh he has a bad feeling about all of this. “Sorry I should-work. I have to go to work.” 

A flash mob? In 2018? The Doctor is well-versed in Earth history, so unless Wherever-He-Is, Michigan is horribly behind the rest of its world, flash mobs stopped being a ‘thing’ a few years back. Plus, glancing around, the Doctor can’t see anyone filming the event. Generally, if something weird happens in the duration of the Doctor’s travels, there’s some nefarious reason for it. And this man seems to be more aware of the implications of the musical number than he pretends to be.

Out of idle curiosity, the Doctor whips out his sonic and does a quick scan of the retreating figure. It might be nothing, but there’s just something about him that makes the Doctor uncomfortable, physically, like he’s eaten something rotten. The scan comes back with a shocking answer. He frowns down at the sonic and shakes it a little, hoping that’ll change the reading, but no.

They’re on the planet of Glimtoon because Rose Tyler deserves a good, proper meal without being interrupted by Daleks, or Slitheens, or Americans. Granted, it’s not the type of cuisine she’ll be used to, it’s not exactly fish and chips, but it’s unquestionably the best food in the galaxy. If she’ll give it a chance, that is, because he has to concede that the slightly-wiggling mass on her plate looks disgusting.

“I promise it’s good,” he says through a mouthful of his own dinner: half a Jant heart cooked in a root vegetable sauce. Delicious. “Just give it a chance, go on.”

The restaurant is packed with a variety of beings; the two of them are certainly the most pink-looking, two-armed creatures there. As fond as the Doctor is of humans and their shape, it’s nice to see some variety every once in a while. If the TARDIS didn’t translate every language out there, they would be hearing a wide variety of sounds, too. The heat of the many bodies crammed into a dimly-lit eatery has forced him to take off his leather jacket. It hangs limply on the back rest of his chair.

It’s just coffee, she said. Please, I really want him to meet you, she said. Just this once, she said. Like a complete sucker, he gave in. Despite the promises he had made himself to stay far away from domestics, Scout somehow managed to convince him to come with her to her chosen father’s home and stay for tea. After all these years, after seeing (causing) all those dead in the Time War, the Doctor is still soft. On one hand, he hates it and wishes he were as jaded as his edges make him seem like. On the other, he is relieved to still be himself.

Anyway, that’s how he ends up here, on a couch in the living room, cradling a steaming cup of tea. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? It would be, if Scout, the twat responsible for the Doctor being here, was also present. Unfortunately, approximately two point three six one eight seconds ago, the front door closed behind her. Her excuse was awful and transparent; she hadn’t ‘forgotten a meeting with her friend’, she just wanted to bring the Doctor here and then promptly leave.

But what on Earth for?

The Doctor’s polite smile stiffens as he comes to terms with being stuck alone with Scout’s father-figure -- a ‘John’, which is funny, given his own habit of using that name -- for the foreseeable future. “Right. Fat lot you did in raisin’ her to have respect for her elders.” 

Alright, maybe not quite. Still, it gives him something to do.

The Doctor is on his stomach, flashing his screwdriver at a giant crack in the ground, when he realizes he isn’t alone. Expecting a confused local, he cranes his neck and looks up ... at someone who doesn’t look at all like the knee-height squirrel-people whose race dominates this planet. “Oh, hello! You’re not an amateur geologist by any chance, are you?”

When he set the controllers to randomized, he didn’t expect to end up in America, 2018. “Michigan?” he asks nobody in particular as he squints at the screen revealing to him his exact location. “What for?” There must be something special about this place for the TARDIS to be drawn here; they both favor 21st century Earth, so a randomized trip usually leads them away from it.

The TARDIS has no answer for him, which is exciting: a mystery! Arming himself with the sonic screwdriver, he leaps through the door and into a damp alleyway. The sound of the sparse traffic tells him this isn’t a large city; the sound of people passionately singing tells him this isn’t a normal city. Screwdriver in hand, he walks out into the street and comes face to face with a small crowd of people dancing gleefully around a man in business attire. What the Doctor thought must be a strange local custom becomes even more puzzling when he realizes that the businessman in question looks thoroughly freaked out.

With a great finishing harmony, the pedestrians end their number. And just like that, they continue going about their day as though nothing has happened. The businessman looks as unnerved as the Doctor is.

Glancing up and down the street, the Doctor approaches the businessman. “Sorry, I’m not from here -- is that normal around here?”

As a ‘thanks’ for his help in dealing with some trigger-happy aliens in the 21st century, the Doctor has taken Martin Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was on a trip to the first place that struck his mind when the man said ‘I like poetry’: “Early nineteenth century London!” The Doctor gestures to the still-closed door, behind which Martin will find exactly that. “1817, to be exact! Out there, you might find Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Keats, Lord Byron, Wordsworth, William Blake, etcetera!” He grins widely, very pleased with himself for having thought of such brilliant a time and place. “Go on, then, have a look around.” 

His hearts race with the thrill of the run as he leaps over the characteristically thorny grass of Jahorg to the little blue box he calls ‘home’. When he reaches it, he glances over his shoulder to make sure his companion is right behind him. Scout looks sweaty and a little terrified. Perfect, that’ll teach her. The Doctor unlocks the TARDIS door and shoos her inside. As she runs in, he turns to their pursuers -- just a small village of angry-looking farmers with torches and pitchforks, nothing crazy, really, reminds him of Salem -- and says, “Lovely to meet you all, have a wonderful sacrifice.” As they holler in response, he shuts the door in their faces.

The smile slips off his face and he rubs his temples. As much as he loves the running and the feeling of barely getting out of an adventure alive, he would’ve really appreciated if Scout had told him why they were suddenly made guests of honor for the sacrificial dinner. A little context would have given them a nice head start.

“So, what do we do next time a beautiful alien priestess invites us over for a day of love-making?” The Doctor speaks slowly as though to a child. Pausing for a second, he turns and looks at Scout with his eyebrows raised. “We go and find the Doctor and make sure it isn’t part of an elaborate religious ritual that ends in our own human sacrifice.”