I. Jones (
i_jones) wrote in
applesaucedream2014-11-29 06:18 pm
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what's happened to these buildings? they all look rundown and so forlorn [open to all]
Imagine a street in New York City. Well, you're not imagining it, someone else is. One of those long avenues where you could stand on the sidewalk in Harlem and see all the way down to the Statue of Liberty, if you could see that far. Which you can't. I mean, you literally can't see that far, but you also can't see an end to this avenue. It just keeps going, which is scary sort of in the way that the expanding universe is. What is it expanding into? Is there an edge? Is it really donut-shaped infinity? You read about that somewhere.
If you explore further, you find that it is sort of donut-shaped, or it must be, because you keep coming back to the same block. Or maybe you never leave it. Every window is - not dark, precisely, but the stores aren't open, and the apartment dwellers are asleep. Actually, not every window. Two wide windows frame a glass door and they're all spilling warm, welcoming light onto the sidewalk from underneath the scalloped hat of an awning. You can't read it if you try, and yet you know that it's inviting you into a diner. It's a really nice looking diner. Not nice like fancy, but nice like, that's exactly the sort of diner you'd like to go to late at night. Hey, it's nighttime. It's so quiet for the nighttime, especially for New York City.
You want to go to that diner, don't you? Yeah, you do. You might see through the window, or as you walk in, that it's full of worn and comfortable (but empty) leather-cushioned booths. Stools (also empty) file along the linoleum-topped counters. Nothing is dirty, but it doesn't look clean, either, like everything from the 70s. And there's just... there's a lot of pie. You probably noticed that first. Some diners might have a choice of two pies, or even three, but this one just might be run by someone who can reanimate things by touching them. It's not, don't get excited. But it could be. That's how dedicated this diner is to pie. They probably serve other food too, since it's a diner. Or they would if there was anyone to serve it. Looks like you're stuck with pie.
What? You don't like pie? Well, you're wrong. But that's okay. Ianto does. He'll eat it for you, after he's finished eating the slice he's picking at in the booth halfway down. Have you met him before? Does he even go here? You know what, it's hard to remember.
If you explore further, you find that it is sort of donut-shaped, or it must be, because you keep coming back to the same block. Or maybe you never leave it. Every window is - not dark, precisely, but the stores aren't open, and the apartment dwellers are asleep. Actually, not every window. Two wide windows frame a glass door and they're all spilling warm, welcoming light onto the sidewalk from underneath the scalloped hat of an awning. You can't read it if you try, and yet you know that it's inviting you into a diner. It's a really nice looking diner. Not nice like fancy, but nice like, that's exactly the sort of diner you'd like to go to late at night. Hey, it's nighttime. It's so quiet for the nighttime, especially for New York City.
You want to go to that diner, don't you? Yeah, you do. You might see through the window, or as you walk in, that it's full of worn and comfortable (but empty) leather-cushioned booths. Stools (also empty) file along the linoleum-topped counters. Nothing is dirty, but it doesn't look clean, either, like everything from the 70s. And there's just... there's a lot of pie. You probably noticed that first. Some diners might have a choice of two pies, or even three, but this one just might be run by someone who can reanimate things by touching them. It's not, don't get excited. But it could be. That's how dedicated this diner is to pie. They probably serve other food too, since it's a diner. Or they would if there was anyone to serve it. Looks like you're stuck with pie.
What? You don't like pie? Well, you're wrong. But that's okay. Ianto does. He'll eat it for you, after he's finished eating the slice he's picking at in the booth halfway down. Have you met him before? Does he even go here? You know what, it's hard to remember.
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And of course she likes pie. She picks up a slice of chocolate meringue pie from the counter before walking down the neatly kept diner and taking a seat in Ianto's booth. "Hello," she greets him with a small smile. "This is a nice place." She's seen him dream worse, anyway.
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"Very Edward Hopper," he agrees, though he hadn't intended to be a night hawk. Dreams don't care much for intent. He swirls his fork in the cream atop his slice of banoffee pie. He has a napkin tucked into his collar in case of spills, of course. "It's good to see you." Which might be the understatement of the year, if not the century so far. "How are... things?" Also, stuff.
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"His current self was taken away by the rift soon after," she adds and doesn't manage to ban her sadness and worry from her voice. It's hard not to wonder where he might have ended up, or if he survived the trip at all. Perhaps if she hadn't let him go outside she could have protected him, but of course she is completely blind to the web of possibilities and consequences in this universe.
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"Never even got to say hello." Ianto takes a bite of his pie, mulling that over. It's probably for the best they never met. That would not have gone... it just wouldn't have gone. "What's he like? The new one. Or is it a she?" Man, just once.
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"He is male again." Or a reasonable approximation thereof. She doesn't see what sort of significance that's supposed to have, but oh well. It's the easier question to answer out of the two, and she frowns down at her pie while considering the other one. "Him being an incarnation I am not at all familiar with is difficult, but he himself is that too. He has not been this prone to careless rudeness and disregard since his sixth body, or even his first." And it's doubly disconcerting that she feels affected by that now, to a degree.
"Outwardly, he isn't anything like the two incarnations of his that you were most fond of." So don't get your hopes up, Ianto. Possibly it might be best if he doesn't try to befriend this Doctor at all. Still, she's not quite doing him justice, and musters a small but sincere smile when she adds, "But he is still the Doctor. Nothing of importance has changed. And he has already amassed a number of strays." The last is said with the customary degree of affectionate annoyance that she would have been displaying for centuries if she'd had a body for that long.
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Ianto coughs again and settles a little more comfortably in his seat, looking positively pink with amusement. "So he has a heart of gold under his stony exterior, but he... isn't cute?" That's what she meant, right? That's definitely what she meant.
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"I'm not certain how you would quantify such an attribute?" she ventures, intensely confused. "He is... comparatively tall." Humans tend to assign cuteness to small things, don't they. Why is she even trying to answer this. "Honestly, why are you so amused?" she scolds, though underneath all the righteously confused indignation she's glad to see him experiencing positive emotions.
no YOU had finals and are tagging late and have also had some baileys
Ianto shakes off the daydream within a dream
BRAAAAAAAAAAP iantoceptionand focuses again, the corners of his mouth curling. "Just imagining what he must be like." Tall compared to what? It'd be nice to look him in the eye for once. "He's not ours, then?"oh is THAT what I've been doing
"No, he isn't from our universe," she says regretfully, glancing up at the image. "He would not know you. He even has trouble adjusting to my humanoid form." It's all quite troubling, and she can't just ignore or avoid it.
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Ianto reaches out to prod the representation of the Doctor in the thigh, hoping for a reaction. It's not even solid, and he waves ineffectually at the hem of its coat. It hasn't moved, but it seems like those eyebrows are judging him even harder now. "He'll settle in soon enough. He has to."
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But Ianto also has a good point. "Yes, indeed," she agrees, though it's as comforting as it is disheartening to think he is forced to settle in. Settling into a cage is not something either of them have ever done willingly or well. Still, "I think perhaps the child someone brought him will help. He was travelling alone in his own universe. You know that is never good for him in the long term."
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"I'm going to give you a chance to rephrase that," he settles on - rather magnanimously, he thinks, "and, if you don't mind a suggestion, a good place to start would be the child someone brought him."
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"Was I not being clear?" Perhaps he just needs a little more context. "A scientist named Iman Asadi brought him a child the day after he arrived. They had previously met in one of the rift-facilitated inter-universal dreams, and since she had just arrived, he decided she ought to live with us. He is already quite attached to her." But not in any way the TARDIS has reason to mind. Especially since the child is a tolerable inhabitant.
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"Lead with that next time," he suggests, disgruntled, and he imagines a slice of custard pie and a cup of coffee back to give his hands something to do. "Saying that anyone's been brought a child is..." He shakes his head. It's not worth the explanation. It's not worth admitting that the idea of bringing children to someone makes his skin crawl for reasons other than morals or ethics.
"I really - absolutely tell him this - I really doubt the suitability of the Doctor as a foster parent."
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"He has been a parent before, you know," she points out, frown intensifying. Though that was 'before her time', which as a concept is very nearly unfathomable to her. "As well as a grandparent, in human terms. It has been a very long time, for him, but I think he has retained some degree of sense for it. And you are all children to us, at the core of it." And besides, she's not going to let the child starve when the Doctor temporarily forgets she is on board.
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"People change," he counters, cutting his slice with the edge of his fork and stabbing at the piece. Especially over centuries. "Susan, yeah?" He contemplates as he chews. Wasn't there someone else in there too? Andrew? Colin? Not that the Doctor was much involved in his great-grandson's life. "How did that work out for him?" he asks, staring down at his pie to avoid her gaze.
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Nor does she appreciate that Ianto is apparently being fractious on purpose and trying to worry at the complicated matter of the Doctor's grandchild without possibly being able to understand. Her expression darkens, and she sets the fork down on the plate with a delicate clink before tightly folding her hands on the table. "The way it always does," she replies coolly. "She chose to stay in one place. We carried on travelling and he found new friends. Whatever else may change in him, his desire to care for those he loves does not." And if anyone can say that with any authority, it's certainly her.
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Ianto leans back, abandoning his pie, trying to ease up a little. He knows he's being harsh, but he feels that someone must be the voice of reason here, if no one else is going to say 'hey, you can't just pick up lost little girls and drop them on the doorsteps of well-intentioned but dangerous men without maybe informing them about other options or calling child services or anything but doing what you did'.
"I just don't think it's safe," he tries, which is a slightly different argument that maybe the TARDIS will find more palatable. "The Doctor attracts danger when he's standing still. Anything bad in this city will inevitably involve him. Adults can choose to stand by him, but children... that isn't fair."
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"Your lives are never safe," she counters, unimpressed. "Who else would you have take care of the child? Both of the rift-aware factions imprison and torture innocents. And neither of them could protect anyone against the highly powerful malevolent beings currently residing in the city." She raises her chin, less in defiance of Ianto now than of her own circumstances. "I may be as trapped as everyone else, but I am still the safest place here. And she feels safe with him." The Doctor and her might not agree on terribly much at the moment, but they both need this, and so does the girl.