trans_9 | Katzenjammer [Open]

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Katzenjammer [Open]

Aside from the comatose state she reached after Cassie finished her post-exorcism first-aid, sleep hasn't come easily to Eva since the possession. What little she's gotten has been interspersed with nightmares, so it's while all the Animorphs are sleeping that she slips out of Cassie's house and finds herself at the Drunken Dragon.

It's all too much. Too much going through her head and too much space alone in there. When she woke up it was because she was thrashing in her sleep and accidentally smacked her head into the bedpost. She found that she was clawing at her scalp while she dreamed.

She needs to feel a little bit out of control again, by her own doing, because that means less control that other people can take away from her. And she needs to dull the knowledge of how many bad memories she dredged up for Marco by going and getting herself possessed.

"Wine. Whatever you have. Keep it coming," she says, then, as if clarification is necessary, "I'm going to get drunk."

(( OOC: Open post but since Eva's going to be bemoaning the state of everything everywhere, please poke me first if you want to throw a character she's never met before at her. ))

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He's not proud of himself. He should've been able to resist.

Except he didn’t, and all those humans…well. Jamie especially. All those things he’d said. More importantly, all those mental invasions? It wasn’t like they had come from nowhere, either.

The Doctor's all too aware of it now that he's got himself under control and there’s no Darksoul. Seems like he could use a half-way decent brood, which means he seeks out people instead of tinkering around in the TARDIS. Being alone just jumps it from a half-way decent brood to an excellent one and then it just makes it worse. The Doctor instead tries to settle for exploring, right up until he finds some kind of tavern. Tavern. Not a pub or a bar or a Gringle pit stop. Just “tavern”. It’s the only word to describe it. As taverns go, it’s fairly clean, and it looks…comfortable. The Doctor likes it. Comfortable and old-timey, even if “old-timey” is really quite relative in the scheme of things.

He picks the human who looks like she wishes she was any place but here. He knows the feeling. But here they both are, wishes or not. The Doctor plops himself onto a seat next to her, lacing his fingers together on the tabletop. It's worn, obviously seen a lot of use. Lived in, basically. He wouldn't find this at a Gringle pit stop.

“Bad day? Of course it’s a bad day,” the Doctor answers his own question, peering at the girl. Young woman. She’s still just a girl in his eyes. Another lifeform with a short lifespan. “You’re trying very hard to get drunk, so maybe a bad couple of days.”

Edited 2011-01-26 21:10 (UTC)

Being the mother to a kid old enough to vote, Eva would take the 'young woman' comment positively if offered, lengthened Doctor life-span or not. Eva looks up at the unfamiliar face. "Well, you know, just the usual. Taxes, car won't start, kid won't do his homework, demonic possession. The daily grind."

She thinks she can see some unhappiness in him, though it may just be her own inebriated mind projecting onto him. "You seem like you could use a drink too. Bad couple of days for you?"

Daily grind. And that's why he loved humans: not exactly willing to just settle for a good brood and sit there like useless lumps (well, sit there a little, and then they generally tried to move on). The Doctor shook his head at the offer.

"Not much into that sort of thing, I'm afraid. Awful taste," he adds. Well, as much as he's established in this body. Or at least it's Earth wine that's just awful (sorry, humans). The Doctor seems more interested in her problems than his. he's found over all his faces that as a rule, it's much easier to focus on another person -- or planet's -- problems instead. "But yeah. Bad couple of days. The Doctor," he holds out his hand. "Demonic possession. You or someone you know?"

She gives him the side-eye when he mentions the taste - it's on Stacy, who does anything here for the taste - but then shrugs. "Well, I could use company."

She raises her hand up to her shoulder as if she's in a classroom. "I drew the lucky number and redeemed my prize. One expenses-paid vacation into nightmares and making myself look like a trident-toting idiot. Did you hear about all those goings on?"

Use the company, yeah. He thinks he gets where she's coming from. Better than sitting like a lump alone, Time Lord or human or aliens in between.

"Heard about it? Hard not to," the Doctor doesn't seem inclined to go into his own possession, instead more interested in hers. "Where did it happen?"

Maybe there's a path it was going to. Or they could establish a timeline and then...what? He's limited on trying to track it down with the TARDIS and dropping an evil spirity demony thing on an abandoned planet, so there's that. The Doctor eyes the mug the human is nursing. He thinks she'll be fine, in the end. Much like "old-timey", "in the end" is also relative. Could be days, weeks. Maybe months. Still, humans are pretty resilient, so he has faith in her.

"Great Wall, but I covered a fair amount of ground before running into someone who restrained me. Nothing but humiliation, including in front of my son, and some hurtful things said, mostly. I'll live. I've had worse." Were the doctor to look closely at her, he'd see that there are several faint scars of varying sizes and shapes on her face and especially around her neck and wrists. They're the few physical reminders of torture and restraints. "Does it really matter where it happened?"

"It matters," the Doctor says. He reaches up, scratching his cheek thoughtfully. Judging from the faint, long-healed scars he'd spotted on the human, he'd hazard a guess and say he really should believe her when she says that. "We should try to trace a trail. Motive, that sort of thing."

Even evil spirity lifeforms (well, some kind of form, maybe not a lifeform) probably had a motive. It certainly had ambitions. Or maybe it's just warped other peoples. Have Earth as one of your favorite planets, and suddenly with the Darksoul, you want to conquer it to show how much you care. He doesn't ask yet what she'd done under the Darksoul's influence, but considering humans, well. He can probably imagine some of it.

"I suppose it's a bit simplistic to think that it was being demonic for the sake of evil," she says before taking another drink. "And what will you do when you trace the trail?"

She can't quite place how she feels about the stranger. He hasn't given her enough information to feel comfortable divulging too much about herself, though certainly he's been cordial enough. And somewhere in the sloshy intoxicated part of her mind she remembers she didn't introduce herself. "I'm Eva, by the way, Doctor. What are you a doctor of, if I might ask?"

Oh, he wouldn't exactly say simplistic. There is evil out there that's just...evil. But that's why he wants to get a better idea of this thing, and not glimpses from an uncomfortably close encounter. A very uncomfortably close encounter.

"Sniff around. Try not to get possessed. I never mentioned anything about a plan aside from Find It First," the Doctor protests. Why does everyone automatically assume he has a plan? Not that he doesn't usually, but he can't always snap his fingers and there's a plan, right there in his hand.

And ah, there is is. Eva might be resilient but she's human and predictable. Somehow that question always comes up without fail.

The Doctor just smiles back, "Doctor of stuff. Or things, if you'd like. A pleasure, Eva." He shakes her hand, but he's also sure to do it carefully. Don't want to spill that drink on her.

"Generally it's nice to have a plan and a backup plan if you're going to go hunting evil forces that can possess you. Just a thought," she says. "But I suppose it's very possible a 'doctor of stuff' could be a genius at improv."

She shakes his hand back, not entirely pleased with that answer. If anything it's just even more vague, and for God's sake she's drinking so she can be less paranoid for a few hours, not more. "Do you have a name, Doctor, or did your parents just really believe in aspirational naming?"

See, she had it already. Not that the Doctor likes to brag (well, maybe a little) but yeah. Bit of a genius. More than a "bit". He prefers improv. Lots of room to make adjustments such as maybe running away and coming at this from a different angle. Perfectly valid tactic. It's worked wonders for him in the past.

"There you go," the Doctor says approvingly, "Got it on the first try. Improv has its uses."

The smile becomes slightly unreadable as he shrugs at the name question. Eva is starting to get that expression some humans get when he talks to them for extended amounts of time. It's not entirely a pained one or anything, but it does seem to be a running theme here. His real name isn't important. After all this time, some days he thinks he could even forget it. Besides, he rather likes "the Doctor". Certainly been with him much longer than his real name.

"I picked it myself. It's a good name," the Doctor sounds slightly defensive. "I'd even go so far as to say it's a very good name, except it's a bit of a mouthful. Not much use if you need to say it really fast. So! Are you coming, by the way? Could use another pair of eyes."

Actually, he could probably use her help on something non-spirity demon related as well, but he needs to check the TARDIS first. Make sure he wasn't imagining it.

Edited 2011-01-27 17:47 (UTC)

"Thank you, teacher. Do I get an A or are you grading on the curve?" she says sarcastically. Her 'good' mood dissipated about an hour ago and now she's oscillating between lonely and welcoming, and judgmental and irritable every few seconds. Not that the mood that drives you to drink half a jug of wine is ever especially good. The Doctor's striking her as purposefully obtuse and that isn't helping his case.

"I'm shortening it to Doc," she states, the raises an eyebrow. "Coming where? You need some live bait to dangle in front of the demonic spirit that, by the way, you have no plan to deal with?"

The Doctor opens his mouth. So she's one of those humans. "But -- "

He doesn't get to finish. It looks like he's going to be stuck with "Doc" from this human. He sighs, a little put out. What is it with humans and needing proper names all the time? Well, he supposes it could be worse, even if he really doesn't care for "Doc". It could be a number of things. Eva strikes him as the type of human woman who will stick with "Doc" just because she can which is...actually not the usual in his experience. Most humans seem to just accept it. He can see her already being a bit of a handful.

Good thing he likes handfuls. The Doctor doesn't seem too fazed by her sarcasm. Instead, his smile grows a little more broad and friendly.

"Well no," he says, waving his hand as if they could easily do that later. "Actually I was thinking a little spring cleaning. Not that it's spring. It's spring somewhere and somewhen. Just old boxes. Junk, that sort of thing. I promise there won't be any evil spirits."

Edited 2011-01-27 19:30 (UTC)

"If you expect me to waste three syllables on that ridiculous title you call a name, you're got another thing coming, Doc," she clarifies. He won't be changing her mind on the issue.

Well, that's not what she expected to hear. Furthermore, who arrives on Stacy with enough things to go cleaning through them? She cocks an eyebrow again. This man's providing plenty of questions and suspiciously few answers. And yet, despite all the talk of demons and evil spirits, he's keeping her mind off things, and that's something.

"I'm not sure how my husband would feel about me getting picked up by strange demon-seeking doctors of 'stuff' in a tavern," she says, before looking back at her drink. "And you do realize that I've downed my weight in alcohol tonight and probably couldn't walk to the door without knocking something over?"

Edited 2011-01-27 19:47 (UTC)

If he'd had any doubts about her Handful Status, he doesn't have them now. He can only hope her "Doc" doesn't catch on with the other humans.

"Oh, he's welcome to come too," the Doctor follows her gaze as it goes to the drink. It's definitely an impressive size. The Doctor reaches out to take the mug, turning it in his hands and peering up at the bottom, almost as if he's never seen one before. The Time Lord seems content to just study it for a bit with one eye squinted shut, as he talks and swishes whatever's left in the mug, "After you clean yourself up, I mean. And when you're not going to walk into any walls while you're at it."

The Doctor sets the mug down, looks at it, and thinks better of it, reaching out to rearrange it to right where Eva initially left it on the table.

"Blue box in the hanger, all the way at the back whenever you're ready. You can't miss it. If the doors are closed, just knock," the Doctor adds. "Or I suppose if you wanted to be boring, you could always use the omnicomm."

"He's not here," she says, and because she's been drinking she can't entirely mask how sad that makes her. She gives him a bit of a glare when he takes her jug of wine. Intrusive and perplexing. Maybe he just comes from a culture where taking someone's drink to look at is fine and dandy, but she's not especially keen on benefits of the doubt tonight. "Going to put a litmus strip in there while you're lab-testing my drink?"

But aside from feeling particularly territorial about her alcohol, she's not mad so much as perplexed. "Is this how you find all the nice ladies? Ask them to come clean out your storage facility? Or did I win some sort of contest?"

Like she can figure out the damn omnicomm.

"Why would I do that? I don't have the equipment," the Doctor stares at Eva, a puzzled frown on his face. He's not particularly fancying a taste test either, thank you. Sorry to hear that about the husband, though. He'd like to say maybe he was still in the pods or was otherwise elsewhere, instead of wiped out by the Ohm, but he couldn't say for sure. Eva's probably perfectly aware of that without him pointing it out and he supposes she probably isn't in much of a mood for talking about her lost husband. Now, more than ever, the Doctor is convinced that Eva could probably use a good spring cleaning. Get her mind cleared.

Or at least just be busy. He's found that sometimes works. The Doctor stares at Eva as she continues to surprise him. All right, so maybe he's had a number of female humans onboard the TARDIS. But all his companions are generally as a rule quite nice, whether they're male or female, human or otherwise. Well, nice and interesting.

"Bit of a silly contest," the Doctor remarks. "Where are you getting these ideas?"

Now he's looking at her like she's the weird one, baffled.

Oh, great. He comes from a planet where they haven't yet invented sarcasm meters.

Eva is nice, most of the time. Warm and fuzzy, even. But she's just been possessed by a demon, had an acquaintance teleport across the room unexpectedly, had to get first-aid on her neck, woken up from another slavery nightmare, hit her face on the bedpost and had her drink taken from right in front of her by a relative stranger who's being too vague for her wine-soaked mind to follow. The warm fuzzies have long since left the building.

A spring cleaning probably would not be out of order. Instead she takes another drink.

"Because being entered without my knowledge into a contest where strangers named The Doctor take me spring cleaning makes better sense than the idea that you just go around taverns asking disheveled drunks to come visit you in the hangar to go through old boxes of junk and..." She loses that remark somewhere in a slur, then looks confused for a minute as she tries to remember where she was going with that. "I swear I'm witty. People laugh at my jokes and everything."

The Doctor gets she's trying. Trying badly, but trying. Good effort?

"Bit of a bad day for everyone," the Doctor's patient, "Anyway, you're not just any disheveled drunk," he adds, as if that's supposed to make his drunken friend here feel any better. "And it's loads more productive than running into walls. Unless you like running into walls, in which case, carry on."

He watches her take another drink. If she even remembers this conversation in the morning, he somehow doubts she'll be in much of a state to come visit. What was it humans said? "One drink too many", right. Eva here has probably passed that stage a few drinks back.

But the Doctor's more interested in talking to her than going back and cleaning the scorch marks off the inside of the TARDIS. Instead of going back, he sits there with his drunk friend, fingers laced together on the table, seemingly happy to be right where he is. Bad jokes with rubbish endings or not.

"No, I'm a formerly-possessed disheveled drunk. And I didn't say anything about running into walls. I just said I'd knock things over, and unlike some people in here, walls are not among those things I can knock over. Tables, maybe, if I put my back into it," she rambles, still giving the doctor the occasional side-eye. What on Earth does he want with her? Surely she's not especially interesting right now, just tired and melancholy and lush. And yet she doesn't want to just ignore him and end the conversation if he is really being gentlemanly.

Odd person. Eva has no instinctive trust for people in general. The last decade's beaten that out of her, sometimes literally. But for all her paranoia, her curiosity is piqued. If she can remember tomorrow, she'll probably come snooping around the hangar.

"I promise, when I'm sober, I'm hysterical and vivacious and not drunk."

The Doctor lifts a finger, only for Eva to beat him to it. Yes, he'd say that's incredibly accurate. On all counts.

"I'm sure you are," the Doctor says. He either is oblivious to those sidelong glances or he's cheerfully ignoring them: with him, it's difficult to tell, the alien taking the time to glance around the tavern as he brushes that floppy brown hair out of his eyes, more out of habit than anything else. Cozy place. he can see why Eva picked it as a retreat.

Aside from the whole drinking herself silly part. She's fairly coherent, he thinks.

"Maybe you've had enough," the Doctor makes a guess. He can't exactly say what a human's tolerance is -- it seems to fluctuate over the decades, nevermind the centuries, and that's one of the things he hasn't tried to keep straight in his head.

"I've had enough when I say I've had enough," she protests weakly. Yes, she probably has had enough. She'll probably regret this in the morning. But as she closes her eyes for a moment, she can still feel the terror welling up in her, still feel compelled to clench her hands and wrinkle her nose and tap her feet just to remind herself that she's still her, in control of herself. As much as she ever is, at least. Even before she opens her eyes again she's taking another drink. "As soon as you start telling me I've had enough you become bad company. Don't toe that line."

Rather odd logic there, he thinks. Right now, she's reminding him a little of poor old Vincent back on Earth. The Doctor thinks he's still on Earth, at least safe in its history...if the Ohm didn't get that too.

The Doctor focuses on Eva. And there she goes with another drink. It's not like humans are the most drunk species out there, but they certainly do like to compete, don't they? The Doctor watches almost mildly impressed. "How many have told you that so far? Or am I the first? I do like being the first."

He wonders if it works for her. Maybe it does. She's young after all. Incredibly young. A vibrant blip to him. Despite the fact that he should probably get back to the TARDIS, the Doctor remains seated across from Eva. Part of it's just because she's so wonderfully distracting and the other is because he probably should make sure she doesn't brain herself on anything on the way out, should she decide to leave. Apparently you're supposed to do that in situations like this, according to the other humans he's talked to.

"You're the first. It's not an honor." At this point she can definitely feel that she's had enough, but it's hard to drown fear and guilt. Anger's easy enough to blunt, but there's something about terror that makes each drink only barely sand the edge down, and if anything alcohol makes guilt worse for her. That there's something seriously wrong is written all over her body language and facial expressions, but she's not going to go venting that out to the strange doctor of stuff.

She feels as if he's studying her, and while that rankles she pushes that feeling into the back of her mind. Trying to push him away with sarcasm was a miserable failure and no longer is an option worth pursuing. "You didn't tell me why you wanted me to help with the spring cleaning."

The Doctor blinks back at her, running an absent hand through his hair. Bit of a habit since he regenerated with hair twice in a row. It's almost like he sometimes checks to make sure he still has some, only to find that yes, he does and loads of it.

"Really? Obvious, I'd think. I've still only got two arms -- this time -- and it's a lot of work for one man," the Doctor says with a shrug. "I could use the help." She could use the distraction and so could he. The difference, though, is he's far older than she is and he has plenty of experience getting used to regretting lifetimes of things. The guilt. Especially the guilt.

It's obvious, even drunk. Probably especially to a human, because humans seem to need to be in control of their own actions -- or rather, think they are, because he could go on and on about humanity's herd mentality. The important thing is humans like Eva here need to think they're in control and...she doesn't seem to be thinking that right now. So it's important he get her sorted out. Then he's sure she'll recover.

Hopefully. Or at the very least, she'll have a bit of fun. As a rule, "fun" does more good than harm.

The Doctor starts to stand up, tapping the table surface with his palm as a farewell, flashing her another grin.

"Big blue box. Hanger. When you're not..." he waves vaguely at Eva's current state of Several Drinks Too Many. "Yes. Don't forget to mind your head."

Edited 2011-01-28 14:23 (UTC)

Katzenjammer [Open]

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