monthly test drive!!

[nukeoleptic]

THE TEST DRIVE MEME

• Got a character you're thinking of reserving/apping this round? PUT THEM HERE! • Threads here can count as your third person sample! • Comment with your character's name and canon! • Make up your own scenario or have them walk into all the doors or leave it blank for others to do it for you! • OPTIONAL SCENARIO: After your character receives his or her bracelet and the run-down from the faceless maids in the castle, the first thing they realize upon stepping outside is that the city has been all but shut down for some sort of large festival. There are stalls set up along all of the main streets, selling everything from savory foods to desserts to clothes to trinkets, and the vendors cheerfully call at people as they pass, trying to entice them over. The stalls are all decked in incredibly colorful banners and flags, as if attempting to beat back the grayness still lurking in a lot of the city by sheer physical force. Small musical ensembles play on street corners, and one can't go far at all without nearly running into someone juggling or swallowing swords. Good luck finding your god's welcome house in this chaos - the streets are pretty packed with people just milling around! And have fun! ♥

Comments

[theheroheart]

"Oh. Oh, I see." Charley takes a moment to process that little tidbit. It's difficult to say how long the Doctor means when he says "a very long time". For a human, that would mean oh, 20 or 30 years, probably? Perhaps more if you were quite old, or less if you were closer to her age. But for the Doctor, well, "a very long time" could be twice that, ten times that without difficulty.

Long enough that she's... probably not knocking about with him anymore. It shouldn't hurt, it's not as though she thought she'd live forever, she is still human after all. But there are more lines around his eyes than she remembers, now that she looks closely, and she wonders if there was anyone after her to keep him from getting bleak and maudlin.

"Well," she says after a long moment. "Then this is practically business as usual for me, and an especially nice treat for you, isn't it? Good reminder of old times! Well, even if that particular incident wasn't exactly a romp in the countryside." She smiles up at him a little and squeezes his hand.

"Although," she says a moment later with a frown, "does that mean that you - you from my point in the timeline, I mean - actually isn't here? I wouldn't fuss, only I can anticipate a bit of trouble fixing this whole... war situation with you and then trying to get me back to my proper point in your timeline without making a mess of things."

[beforethewar]

Well, alright, not quite that long, but it had felt like forever since he'd been with her. So much had happened since; sure, there were good times, but the bad times were so much worse. If the gods had more control over who they pick up, he mused to himself, I might be inclined to think they were being kind.

But of course they weren't, and Charley being here is a happy accident. Then again, after what had happened recently, maybe it isn't so happy. Eight swallows hard, trying not to think of one of those creatures cutting this precious girl down. That would certainly be the thing that might drive him completely over the edge this time.

When she squeezes his hand, he squeezes back, and smiles gently at her. It took everything he had not to just blurt out all his regrets for things he's done, since most of what he'd say would have to do with things she hasn't lived through yet. "You have no idea how pleased I am to see you," he says, brushing his thumb along her knuckles.

"And...no, from what I gather, you will be put right where you were. I'm not even sure you'll remember this. Also, I'm the only Eighth Doctor here, though there are a few past and future incarnations of me running around. You'll meet them soon, I'm sure."

[theheroheart]

"More than one Doctor, well, I'm surprised you haven't burnt the whole city down in that case." Charley's clearly teasing, and she tugs at his hand a bit to start them walking, since the stalls are all quite interesting and she'd like to look at them a bit if nothing else. Once he's walking next to her, she'll just shift their hands... like... so. There, her fingers laced through his, just as it should be.

"Still, at least there's only one of you," she adds. "I love you dearly, Doctor, but I do not fancy having another go at handling multiple yous."

[beforethewar]

Eight chuckles and dutifully obeys her unspoken directive, feigning a look of offense. "I'll have you know, Charlotte Pollard, that we've worked fairly well together so far." It's true, actually. Quite remarkably, they've worked pretty well as a team.

"Charley...you know, a lot of things have happened to me, and I may never get the chance to say this again, so..." He glances down at her while they walk, fingers laced tightly together. "I'm sorry. For every hurtful thing I've said to you. And yes, I mean the things from your time. Things you'd remember, I mean. Oh, and I meant everything else."

He gives her a little grin, hoping she realizes what he means.

[theheroheart]

She never would've said, of course, but part of her has wondered. After all, that was a particularly painful and trying time for both of them, and she's never been entirely sure what things he meant. Or what things she meant, for that matter, save one.

One thing she had never not meant.

And that little grin, the way he walks so close so that their arms are brushed together, on top of everything else (her insecurities aside)... well. It's nice to have an apology, of course, considering how hurtful some of the things he said were. But "everything else"...

Of COURSE I loved you! ...of course I love you.

"Really?" Her smile is small, but oh so bright. It gets right in her eyes, makes them sparkle. "Well all... that," she gestures vaguely with her partially eaten meat pasty, "goes for me, too. Especially the everything else."

[beforethewar]

He remembers every thing he said in that horrible glass tunnel, where they were subjected to sensory deprivation to the point where they walked for days without feeling so much as tiredness or hunger. He had been terrified, and he had lashed out at Charley. He always regretted that.

But now, he has a second chance. If the gods had anything to do with it, Eight wants to thank them.

The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles down at her. "Yes. Really. Now, what would you like to see? I confess, there hasn't been a festival like this since I've been here."

[theheroheart]

If nothing else, the universe has apparently decided to apologize for all the bad it throws at him constantly. It gave him back Charley, if only for a little while. No strings, no tricks. It's 100% her and she's here in the same situation he is.

And she, oh she treasures that smile, the kind that gets all the way to his eyes and crinkles the little crows feet there.

"I don't know, I've never been to a festival in a mythological world before. Ooo! We should see if there's a magician somewhere! I love magic tricks, they're so fun to try to figure out."

[beforethewar]

No strings, no tricks, no chance to break the Web of Time no matter what he did. And, no running. Even if being in love frightens him, he's got nowhere to run. It's almost liberating, in a strange sort of way. He may never remember what happens here, but at the moment, he doesn't care. He's not exactly inclined to want to go back to the horror of what he left.

Eight looks around, pondering the wide array of entertainment to be had. "Hmm, magicians, magicians...oh! This way."

With a tug on her hand, he pulls her off to one side of the crowd where a young, nimble man is doing some sort of magical act of your standard street magician kind. Still, in a city that's usually dull and in parts completely grey, this amount of color is staggering.

[theheroheart]

He pulls her off, leading her through the crowd, and she laughs as he does. It doesn't matter that the magician isn't particularly innovative, Charley oohs and aahs and finishes her pasty and leans against the Doctor, not letting go of his hand.

Once the magician has finished his act (and Charley has let go of the Doctor's hand just long enough to applaud before claiming it again), Charley rests her head against the Doctor's shoulder, just a bit.

"I have to admit, the whole idea of this place is a bit much, even for me," she says. "Gods and magical powers and all that? Sounds like a bad adventure serial."

[beforethewar]

"You and me both," Eight laughs, resting his cheek against her hair, "Though I suppose if they want to call themselves 'gods' and the abilities they've given us 'powers', then so be it. As long as it works and the multiverse is safe at the end of the war."

He shrugs his other shoulder, so as not to jostle her. "And if they're powerful enough to render me completely human for the entire duration of my stay here, I think I'd rather not argue with them over the words they use."

[theheroheart]

"Nor me," Charley says, and she wants to ask about his hair again, or his clothes, or the comment about him being rendered 'completely human', but for a moment, she just settles in against him and enjoys the feeling of his cheek against her hair.

There hadn't really been time, after all, between those weeks, months, however long it was in the sensory deprivation tube and her point in the timeline for them to really process what they'd said. She'd thought about it often, and she was willing to bet he'd thought about it at least a few times, but then they were travelling between the zones, picking up C'rizz and getting in scrape after scrape, searching for the TARDIS and the way out.

"They made you human?" she asks finally, curiosity overwhelming her desire to just half-cuddle him in public.

[beforethewar]

In the following years since she left him, he'd had an overabundance of time to process everything that had been said. And, while he had a perfectly understandable excuse at the time, he's now rather ashamed of how nakedly cruel he had been. Sure, she'd ignored his wishes, but she'd done it out of love and a need to be there for him. It really hadn't been right to use her as a target to vent his pain and fear.

And then there was what happened to make her want to leave him and, well...he'd been a fool.

Eight blinks out of his thoughts and nods, looking a bit exasperated. "Completely and totally! I even have to sleep regularly now. It's such a waste of time!"

Without really thinking about it, he turns to face her and lifts her hand to his chest, where she can feel the thump of one, single heart. "This whole single-heart business is especially disconcerting. If I damage it, I don't have the other one to fall back on!"

[theheroheart]

She doesn't even know how or why she left, but if she did, she could enlighten him, tell him she'd changed her mind almost at once, but it was too late already, tell him she'd just been hurting and scared and regretted it so much.

But, alas, she doesn't know all that yet.

"Oh, pity the Doctor, he must give up a few hours of each day to sleep like us mere humans," Charley laughs. "You're absolutely ridiculous."

But there, he's right. Just one heartbeat under her hand. It shouldn't be such an odd feeling, considering her own, but he never was human, and to think of him in those terms is a bit disconcerting to her, much like only having one heart is to him. "Well, I'd encourage you to not damage it, in that case," she replies, one eyebrow arched. "We can't have you expiring because you forgot you no longer had a backup."

[beforethewar]

"It's such a waste of hours when I could be doing something, or seeing something!" he almost whines, mostly jokingly, just to make her laugh again. He'd missed that laugh.

Her comment about expiring makes a look of sadness pass briefly over his features. Recent events in Asgard had not been kind. "Well, there's a bonus to being here," he begins, his hand still on hers on his chest, "We can come back after death. Hel sends us back after a short while. Though, it isn't much of a comfort for those left behind."

[theheroheart]

"Well... that's better than the alternative, really," Charley points out. "It doesn't make the thought of anyone you care about dying any more palatable, but at least it's not the absolute and utter end."

She purses her lips thoughtfully. "Though I can't say that I've had any proper personal experience with that, so perhaps it doesn't help all that much."

[beforethewar]

Oh, if Charley only knew how soon in her timeline that she was coming to that point. But then, even that was something the Doctor wasn't aware of, since he was unconscious at the time and gets permanently separated from her without ever knowing that she thought he was dead.

Still, her words make his expression even more pained, and he rests his forehead against hers with a heavy sigh. "Oh, Charley...it really doesn't. Even if you know they'll be back, looking down on their corpse is really rather painful."