Who: Tenth Doctor and Tardis When: Saturday February 2nd, 2013 Where: IKEA What: Tara takes John shopping for apartment things at IKEA Rating: PG! Status: Complete
Finally John and Gwen had decided on a place. They‘d signed the papers and didn’t have to wait much longer until they got to move in. So clearly it was now a perfect time to start looking at furniture. Some things, sure, he would have to collaborate with Gwen on. Things like... well. All the big public furniture. But he could definitely go buck-wild with the smaller, more personal things! And anything he wanted in his bedroom.
More so than that, he was grateful that Tara had suggested taking him. He was still without car, and he was getting a tad tired of the bus. Especially for shopping type excursions.
“I’ve never actually been to an IKEA before,” he admitted to his new best-friend-for-fucking-ever, once they’d settled into her car, and he had pointed out that she really needed to get that noise looked into.
“Never?” she asked, shocked by that. Tara set them on their way to IKEA with a shake of her head, smiling (as usual) with all of her teeth as she watched the road. “IKEA is a magical place full of things to fill thousands of homes, and they have MEATBALLS!” Because that was always the most important part. Except for the kids’ section, or jumping on the beds. She was so excited to show John the magic of IKEA. A whole new adventure.
“You’ll love it,” she assured him. After plenty of chatter, playing with the radio and whatever people do in cars, they pulled into the IKEA parking lot. Tara parked, turned off the ignition and then turned to John with the biggest smile he’d probably ever seen (how?!) on her face, unable to hide her excitement. She put a hand on his arm and squeezed gently. “Are you excited?!”
The meatballs, he had heard of. Because if you’ve even heard of IKEA, you’ve heard of it’s meatballs. Apparently they were good or something? Or maybe they were just an odd Swedish novelty. He had a feeling he would soon find out.
“Excited?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and grinning like an idiot. “I feel like this is the first day of my REAL life!” He might have been exaggerating slightly. Okay, maybe more than that. But he was excited.
Tara may have giggled at that, because how could this be the first day of his real life? She rolled her eyes because, really, he was just trying to be cute. She knew it, he knew it. And okay, he was, but that was beside the point. She was just about over it when she opened her door and stepped out, waiting for him before walking to the store.
“Can we go through the whole store?” she asked hopefully, turning and walking backwards through the lot. “I want to see everything!”
“I don’t know why we shouldn’t,” he told her, offering her his arm playfully as they walked through the entrance of the place. Already, he could tell it was disgustingly huge. It was like a tiny city in just one building. “You’re really going to need to lead the way.”
Tara took his arm, smiling up at him. “That’s fine,” she said, leading him inside and to the start of the maze that is IKEA. (Floorplan cause, you know) “I know my way around an IKEA.” Coming into the living area of the store, Tara let go of John’s arm and flopped onto one of those L-shaped couches. Snuggling in, she declared, “I like this one!” with one of her great big grins. “It’s comfy.” She bounced for effect.
She would like the first couch she laid eyes on. John flopped down as well, right on the angle of the L. Even that was kind of comfy. But he wasn’t really sold yet. Probably because there were like one hundred million more feet of this place to explore. It was a little overwhelming. “It’s okayyyyy,” he said, finally.
Tara wasn’t a hater. She liked just about everything, and everyone. She quit bouncing and sighed quite dramatically. She made a scrunchy-face at John while he sat beside her on the couch, a face that might have communicated her annoyance at him saying it was just ‘okay.’
Popping up then (because why waste your time on a couch he didn’t like?), she reached a hand down to John to pull him up with her. “What are we looking for today, anyway?” That might help her guide them a bit better.
He let himself be pulled up and then took a long look around at, well, everything. Because there was a lot of it. “I have... nothing. So far.” he admitted. “I guess I should be most worried about what I’m going to sleep on. But I can be a little worried about everything else, too.”
“Well!” she grabbed his hand and pulled him with her. “Be worried no longer! I can’t fit a bed into my car, but I’m sure everything big can be delivered.” She pulled him past the coffee tables and couches in the first part of the store, looking at each category within the living area section, and then back at him to see if he wanted to stop anywhere. She assumed that his first priority was the beds, though, so would only stop if he pointed anything out.
John was a good sport about it -- even though, frankly, he wanted to point just about everything out. Holy shit, look at that table. Holy shit, look at that weird thing that looks like a cheetah but is actually a vase. Probably, it was better he didn’t point anything out until they got to the beds.
There were, of course, a million of them. John just stared in absolute wonder at them all. “Well,” he said finally.
Tara didn’t even say anything when they’d reached the beds. Letting go of his hand, she just walked right over, climbed up onto the first one and started jumping on it. She dropped down onto her bum to test it fully, and then nodded, crawled off and moved to the next one.
Well, John, how does it feel having a five year old for a best friend?
It worked out for him all right. She did all the sorts of things he sometimes thought about doing, but never quite felt right about. He had a feeling it was probably a lot easier to get away with jumping on beds in a store if you were an adorable girl.
He watched her jump on each bed then move to the next for a few minutes -- taking a moment on each to sit and bounce on them all as well -- because it was kind of a good way to tell if they were comfortable or not. “He we found a winner yet?”
She was on the last bed (surprisingly she hadn’t broken any or been asked to stop by security), bouncing and then once again hip dropping onto it. Another round of customers looked at her as if she were crazy, but she didn’t care. She flopped back onto the mattress and rolled back and forth on it for a minute. Now that the sheets were all messed up, she pulled one half of the duvet over her and rolled onto her side, head on the pillow, pretending to sleep.
“They’re all pretty good,” she told him, smiling from her horizontal position on the bed. “Good bounce factor, except the third one, definitely not the third one. This one is really comfy, though!”
John slipped into the bed beside her, kind of flopping a bit just to make sure she was right about the comfy factors. This one was pretty good. He stretched out. He was a lanky sort of fucker so he had to be concerned about things like the length of the bed he was in. This one wasn’t bad though. It seemed long and wide enough. “What is this? Queen?”
“Mmmhmm,” she hummed, opening her eyes as he flopped down beside her. It fit two people well enough, though if they sprawled out that space would not be optimal. She wondered for a moment why she was thinking of having two people in this bed, but the thought was gone when she threw the covers off herself and she leaned up on an elbow. She looked at him with a smile. “D’you like it?”
“Yeah,” John said, sitting up and looking over at it. “But you know what I’ve always wanted? One of those headboards with the the built in shelf.” He grinned. “Love a little shelf.” Apparently, he loved a lot of things.
She pointed at one of the beds she’d bounced on earlier, smiling widely. “That one’s got a little shelf,” she said, rolling off her side of the bed before walking over to the one she’d just pointed to. It had a headboard with a shelf on it, which she showed him. “You can put lots of fun things in here! And looook,” she bent over and pulled the additional storage drawer out. She made a motion as if she was Vanna White, presenting it to the viewers at home.
“Ooooh,” he said, clapping his hands together twice in a show of excitement. He fiddled with the drawers himself, and then moved back over to look at the little shelf again. He was terribly excited by it, because he could stash a notebook and pen in there and then if he woke up with a great idea, he had something to write on very nearby. “I like it,” he said, sitting down just to make sure this was one of the comfy beds.
While John sat, Tara flopped down onto the bed, rolled around a bit and wrapped herself up in the duvet like a sleeping bag. Just like the previous bed, she was seeing if it had the right amount of comfortable. Deciding that it did, she nodded and looked up at John. “Me too!” And then she promptly sprawled out, grinning widely up at him. Because she’s cute and stuff.
He grinned back, because he was equally cute in his own right, and also because he totally thought she was being cute. It was a terrible circle that would only lead to a path of destruction. Or something. “Here’s the fun part,” he said, pulling out the little pencil and paper pad that they had gotten when they walked in. Apparently you just wrote down what you wanted and then asked someone about it later. A novel concept indeed.
“What else? I guess I need a dresser...”
“This way!” she exclaimed, rolling off the bed (and stumbling a bit -- she was in a hurry!) and hurrying towards the dressers. She paused when she thought that she should probably wait for John, turned and extended a hand with her usual smile. “Come on, then!”