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nehswritesstuffs · 4 years ago

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Valentine’s Gift Exchange 2021 - The Cupboard Conundrum

The Diner Patrons are at it again! We did another fan work event, but this time, we went and did a gift exchange. Here’s my gift for @dreamerwriternstargazer! I know I’m a bit late, but yeah... and i’m gonna reblurb my present from @mothdogsart here soonish

The Cupboard Conundrum; 2255 words; just a lot of Twelve and Clara behaving under the circumstances

“What a way to celebrate a murder.”

Clara glanced over at the Doctor as she continued taking inventory of the party supplies in the tight confines of an awkwardly-narrow storage cupboard at her work. She was one of the teacher sponsors of a party the students were throwing and it was currently her job to take down a list of everything they already had from years past and what they might need (some student committees were dangerously competent at putting together parties, others—like her current set—not so much). The Doctor was insisting on helping her, which thus far had involved criticizing the state of the wee chocolates that were stashed in her desk drawer, insulting the science teacher for Year Ten’s grasp on chemical compounds, and whining about the fact they weren’t traipsing about time and space.

Needless to say, he was still on the whining phase with few signs of letting up any time soon.

“You need to just relax,” she said. “No one told you to come around.”

“No one needs to tell me to do anything.”

“…except when to relax.”

He bristled at that. “I found a planet with clouds of mallowcreme and lakes of lemonade and IRN BRU, depending on the hemisphere.”

“That just sounds like Candyland.”

“You just aren’t thinking of the possibilities.”

Clara shrugged and went back to counting the small packets of novelty paper plates; they were pink with little red and white hearts on them. “I know how this goes: you’re going to get irritated that you’re not wandering about the cosmos, say that this is all a big fuss over nothing, go on about how you knew Valentine himself and he was really just an alien really bad at blending in or some dude who said the wrong thing at the wrong time or really a woman, and we’ll go into a whole back-and-forth until you’ve talked the both of us into such a stupor that we both forget what we were arguing over but the idea to go visit Valentine has grown to sound like a good one.”

The Doctor pouted—she was right.

“Just help me get this in order, please, and then we can see to this diabetes-causing planet ‘til your hearts are content.”

Grunting in slight annoyance, the Doctor put his hands in his pockets so that he would not touch anything and leaned against a shelving unit as he waited. It was a small cupboard—absolutely microscopic—and he wasn’t too keen on the idea of wandering off. Well, it was more like he knew Clara wasn’t keen on the idea of him wandering off, but it was not like he had any say in the matter. He was in her domain and the less he could get distracted by a science demonstration gone awry or a student realizing they were sensitive to minute krytoscopic wave fluctuations in the atmosphere, the better off everyone was going to remain.

After what felt like absolute ages, the Doctor heard footsteps outside in the corridor. It sounded like some students, which ones he did not know, and he let himself relax against the shelves for a moment. In that moment, however, the door to the cupboard slammed shut, trapping the Doctor and Clara in the confined, dark space.

“Who did that?!” Clara shrieked angrily. She dove for the door handle and tried to open it—stuck. Giggles reached them from the other side, which only made her crosser. “This is unacceptable! Demerits are not even going to cover what sort of punishment you’re going to get!”

“What’cha gonna do? Get the ruler?” a voice mocked. “Can’t do that anymore!”

“I can’t, but that doesn’t mean I have any control over your parents, and I can put a giant note on your records that can’t get scrubbed!”

“Tch—let’s get out of here,” a second voice said, incredibly bored by the threat. They shuffled off.

Clara was alone. With the Doctor. In a cupboard. Normally this wouldn’t be too bad a thing (it had actually happened varying times before with just as varied results), but given the fact she was at work of all places, and her workplace was a school, for children… she was ready to scream. She let her forehead thud softly against the door instead—children were sometimes the absolute worst.

“Here, let me,” the Doctor said. Clara felt him press up against her as the sonic shades whirred softly. “Huh.”

“What…?”

“It’s not working. I wonder why.”

“What do you mean it’s not working?”

“It just isn’t—this is interesting. There’s no wooden components to this lock mechanism, which leads me to wonder…” He tried to lean in closer, though threatened to topple her over in the process. “Clara, if you don’t move, there’s no way I can get to the lock and investigate.”

“There’s barely any room for me to move around in.”

“You know how rare it is for me to genuinely not know what’s going on,” he reminded her as he attempted to turn the door handle. “I need to figure this out.”

“…yeah, or else you explode or the TARDIS becomes tiny again with you trapped inside, my choice.”

He grunted grouchily.

“Well, we’re likely going to have to get someone to let us out anyhow, if the shades aren’t working on it.”

“Possibly.”

It was then that Clara realized how incredibly close the Doctor was to her; she could smell the stardust on his clothes and the musky scent of him. It was enough to drive her crazy—why did it have to be here and now?!

“Here, let’s turn together,” he suggested. Clara nodded and shuffled to her left, allowing the Doctor to move closer to the door. She felt him bend down to observe the door, his rear pushing her further into the cupboard. “Give me some more room.”

“I can’t—this thing makes a bloody toilet stall look spacious.”

“Well, we wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to celebrate a murder.”

“…I will kick you in the arse so hard you break down the door and regenerate until you’re something more compact again.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

He considered the threat and carried on, not wanting to test her further. The Doctor read the schematics of the door knob and the lock within—nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Clara, there’s nothing visibly wrong with this door.”

“Then maybe it’s being blocked from the outside.”

“Why would they do that?”

“…because they’re teenagers.”

“Oh.” She had a point there. “Maybe one of the less-terrible teens shall release us.”

“Knowing this corridor? It’ll likely be Mister Atif.” She could sense the Doctor’s scowl despite the darkness. “For all the times for me to leave my mobile in my desk.”

“Pity K-9 isn’t wandering about��he’d fix it.”

Patience, Clara; him not being able to summon the dog meant that at least the dog wasn’t anywhere around… and she was rather not in the mood for dealing with the dog if her memory of the TARDIS’s files was anything to go by.

“Adrian works in this corridor… maybe if I shout loud enough…”

“He won’t; too far down and on the other side—won’t hear a peep.”

“…then let’s at least attempt to figure out our plan of attack…”

“There is no plan of attack, you idiot. We simply have to wait here until someone finds us, which could be a while, thanks to the fact your sonic doesn’t do… whatever this door is.”

…except, no one came.

The minutes crept by, making the tiny space seem even tinier, almost closing in on the occupants. Even the air was betraying them, becoming sticky and stuffy with embarrassing speed. The Doctor undid the top two buttons of his shirt, while Clara fluffed the front of her blouse in order to move some air—it was absolutely mortifying.

“I guess we’re going to have to wait until classes switch,” Clara realized. She was able to glance at her watch—thank God for glow-in-the-dark watch faces—and saw they had less than five minutes left. There wasn’t much chance that someone would let a student out before the bell rang to swap out at this rate. “Teenagers are the worst.”

“I can think of much worse.”

“How…?”

“…those teenagers’ adults.”

Oh, yeah.

“Well, let’s hope some of the ones that aren’t like the ones that locked us in hear us, and maybe we’ll get out of here sometime soon.”

The two stood there in awkward silence for a few moments, attempting to pass the time as humanely as possible. With how tight their quarters happened to be, coupled with the increasing lack of comfortable air, it was difficult to not let the situation get on their nerves… even if, well, they were trapped with the one other person they’d rather be with.

-BBRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG-

Finally! The bell rang and the low din of students bustling about in the corridor between classes roared to life. Clara and the Doctor both pounded on the door, shouting to be released. They made as much noise as they could until they realized that the corridor was quiet again.

Bloody hell.

“I have class that’s supposed to be starting now,” Clara groaned. She allowed herself to rest up against the Doctor, irritated that she was still stuck. “They might not even come to find us…”

“…they might,” the Doctor reasoned.

“Even then, it might take a while to get them back on track anyhow.”

“Let them watch a video.”

“That was what happened last time we ducked into a cupboard while here and we were almost caught,” she scowled. Wow, it was really getting stuffy in there. “No; none of that.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that’s what we do now.”

“It sort of was.”

“Honestly, Clara, it’s not that terrible a suggestion—just let the puddings set.”

“Doctor!”

“You know I’m right.”

“You are the worst!”

“They’re Year Elevens; either they’ve figured out how to continue being brilliant or it’s dried up. You can’t change them now.”

“Why are you like this?!”

“Perceptive?”

“Stop right there or else your lack of regenerating is truly going to be threatened.”

The Doctor immediately began to gnaw on his knuckle in order to stop himself from saying anything else to anger Clara. Even with the low light in the cupboard seeping in from underneath and around the door, he could see their surroundings rather well thanks to being Gallifreyan. There wasn’t much there for them to do… except what Clara had strictly forbade. They must have really cut things close last time.

“If they know what’s wise, they’re going to leave us in here,” he shrugged. Clara raised an eyebrow at that.

“How, in all of the planets we’ve visited and all the time periods we’ve stomped about it, is that wise?”

“What other scenario would you propose in which they don’t have to indulge in the tedium of the current state of the education system? Even if it is for just this period, your absence is a release, a chance to decompress, and it would be foolish to waste it.”

“Normally I’d be more inclined to agree, but at this point, I’m just wanting to get out of here.”

Just then, as though every possible deity—metaphysical or otherwise—had answered her prayers at once, there was a knock at the door.

“Miss Oswald? Is that you?”

“Maebh! What’s blocking the door?!”

“Uhh… nothing, Miss Oswald…”

“See if you can get the door open,” the Doctor added.

“Mister Smith…? You’re… uh… in there too…?”

“Listen: not because we want to be.”

“Should I… leave you two… alone…?”

“No, Maebh, you have to help us figure out how to open up this door,” Clara insisted. “It won’t budge, despite our best efforts.” She attempted opening the door again, to demonstrate.

“…are you sure…?”

“Yes, I’m sure; now go get Mister Atif! See if he can help!”

“If you say so…” At that, they heard the sound of Meabh running away, hopefully to get the caretaker. Clara fluffed out her blouse more—she was very uncomfortable.

“Hopefully she’s not sidetracked,” she frowned.

“At least there’s worse people who I could be trapped in a cupboard with,” the Doctor reminded her.

“Uh-huh, sure,” she smirked. Knowing he could see her clearer than she could see him, she shifted her weight and glanced up at him flirtatiously. “You’ll have to make sure you remind me of that later.”

“I can remind you of that now while we’re waiting for our rescuers.” He braced his arms on the shelves on either side of them and leaned down, pressing a kiss to her lips. She began to reciprocate and the door swung open, both Maebh and Mister Atif on the other side. The Doctor and Clara broke suddenly, turning towards their audience with red faces.

“It wasn’t locked,” the caretaker deadpanned. He began to usher the student back towards her classroom, away from the adults that were drenched in sweat and had seemingly been “trapped” inside a cupboard. “Let’s get you back to class now, shall we? I think Mister Davies will be wondering where you wandered off to…”

“It’s not what you think!” Clara said, following her colleague. The Doctor merely lagged behind, not wanting to get further embroiled in the mess.

At least, after all was said and done, at least it wasn’t the worst experience they’d had locked in a cupboard, sad as he was to admit.

#Whouffaldi #Clara Oswald #Twelfth Doctor #dreamerwriternstargazer #Clara's Diner #I feel like this is a random moment in a collection of other random moments #but don't fret bc Maebh and Mister Atif aren't going to tattle #Doctor Who #fan fiction #Maebh Arden #Mister Atif #let's hope that I'm in a better position next year on Valentine's Day #bc being sales in a florist is not the best #(then again I was one of the ones making Friday the Thirteenth cards in high school when Valentine's was on a Saturday)#(so I have a record for only really liking the day for cheap candy the day after)

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