#😬😬😬 golly i hope this turns out to be a fun idea

[gingerteaonthetardis]

WIP Telephone: "Spooky"

if you don't want to see what might become an increasingly long tumblr post, feel free to block the tag "WIP telephone." (i'll also be tagging it "long post," just in case. don't want to clog up people's dashes.)

when i logged on this morning and opined what to do with all the WIPs i know i'll never finish, it was brilliantly suggested that i offer some of them up to be collaboratively worked on by my pals here on tumblr. it's intended to be a tag game, of sorts, with each person adding maybe a hundred words (obviously, since my WIPs are all more than a hundred words, my starting excerpts are going to be… a bit longer than that, oops; and feel free to add more than that, if you feel like doing so) and then tagging someone else to add more, and so on, etc. etc.

if it's fun and anyone's interested, i'll do more, but i thought i'd start with something... 🍂 seasonally appropriate. 🍂 i'll be sharing additions as they come along!

also, tagging you for the next hundred words, because you're the one who started it all: dear @mrunmione (i'm not telling which doctor this is supposed to be; i'll let you pick!)

-

She hadn’t meant to say it.

“I’m not sleeping in here without you.”

In all honesty, she’s perfectly capable of sleeping on her own in a strange place; she’s done it plenty of times before. Living with the Doctor means getting used to sleeping in unusual spots. Hospital gurneys. Motel rooms in the far future where the beds float. Under ballroom tables, though that was just the once, and she’d had a lot to drink. The occasional jail cell.

Needless to say, she’s well acquainted with catnaps in odd places.

Only “odd” isn’t really the same as “haunted.”

And this place—wherever they are—is definitely haunted.

No matter what the Doctor says.

-

"Spooky," she decreed as they trudged up the damp path toward the house on the hill. "Think it's haunted?"

"There's no such thing," he insisted. The Doctor rolled his eyes in clear scepticism, but they both knew there was some reason the TARDIS landed them there. 

Entering through the unlocked door, they set about taking readings of the entrance hall and cramped lower rooms, all covered in dark wood and heavy tapestries. The decor was decidedly out of date, like something from a period film. No modern lighting, no electrical outlets to speak of. 

But though the place had something unsettling about it, it also seemed decidedly empty.

“This house is old,” the Doctor said, eyes intent, scanning over the low ceilings. “A few hundred years, I’d say. Maybe more."

When Rose wandered to the hearth, his supposition was confirmed by two small, framed sketches: two different women, their hair pulled back in artful ringlets and their faces set in gentle Mona Lisa smiles. One was dark and the other fair. And there were no names. 

They were both dated 1781. 

Before she could point them out, the Doctor was already running up the main staircase, rattling off jargon that she couldn’t even begin to understand—nonsense about atmospheric pressure and residual readings of… something—his voice too-loud in the stillness of the house. 

She trailed after him, only sort of half-listening. But as she turned the corner back into the hall, the whole place rumbled—and thumped, a sound like stones grinding against the bottom of a ship. The floorboards shook perilously under her feet, and she reached out on instinct, steadying herself against the base of the bannister.

“Doctor?"

The Doctor, of course, didn't so much as move. He remained stopped about halfway up the stairs, effortlessly balanced despite the unstable terrain. His head cocked and a half-smile on his lips, he said, "That wasn't a quake."

Of course not.

"What was it, then?"

His smile spread, becoming a full, face-overtaking, slightly manic sort of expression. "I have no idea."

To her very great alarm, he sounded delighted.

-

"Don't tell me you're scared, Rose," the Doctor laughs, sending the torchlight juddering through the darkness. "Look, it's cosy!"

"I'm not scared," she insists. "It's just—"

"Yes, spooky." It's a little too dim to tell, but she's pretty certain he's rolling his eyes. "So you've said." 

He'd picked her room for the night seemingly at random, nudging open doors until he found one with a suitable bed. And in the faint light, the bedroom does seem—nice. Less haunting, maybe, than the rest of the house. But still… off, somehow, in a way she can't quite put her finger on.

As she steps around him, careful not to cut off the wavering beam of the torch, she peers around, making note of all she can see: the crisp linens, the intricately carved wooden bed posts, the glint of polished glass—an oil lamp, she realises.

Something catches at the back of her mind, and she turns toward the Doctor with a frown already creeping over her face. "It's all sort of… clean, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's not musty or anything in here." Gesturing at the bed, she waits for the torch to illuminate the bedspread; startlingly, the coverlet is tucked down, as if someone had only just recently got in or out. Though, perhaps not. Maybe the last occupant of the house just really went in for turn-down service.

But then, she sees it, on the pillow…

She ducks down, looking closer at the little shadow against the pale linens. A faint waft of something carries up to her nose, and it takes her a moment to register just what it is: floral, reminding her faintly of Mickey's Gran.

"Lavender," she murmurs, thumbing over the little bundle of flowers, held together by faded ribbon. "It's fresh."

With a click, the torch light blinks out, and for an instant, she is overtaken by unstoppable, irrational fear. The Doctor is in the room with her, and as he's reminded her several times tonight, they've swept the whole house, searched every nook and cranny: there's nobody here.

But the wind howling outside the window, the faint blueness of the night, and the whisper of dry, bare tree branches scraping together all press in around her, thick as shadow, making her skin crawl and her breath catch.

The prospect of passing a whole night like this, alone with the dark and whatever lurks inside it, is almost too much to bear.

So, fine. She is a little bit scared.

Then there's a rustle, a scrape, a hiss, and then a match blooms with fire, lighting the sharp lines of the Doctor's face from below. He's grinning as he lowers the match to light the oil lamp.

"You're right," he says pleasantly. "This is spooky."