Who: Tenth Doctor and Tardis When: Monday February 11, late dinner time Where: Gwen and John’s apartment What: Awkwardness, most likely. Rating: PG! Status: Complete
Tara had made a few stops before heading to John’s place, including the grocery store and her house for his glasses. Which she was pretty much sure she didn’t take with her on Friday before going out with Billy (unless she was losing her mind), but she had checked anyway. It was now later in the evening when she parked at his place, and it had long since gotten dark.
Swinging the bag of groceries back and forth, she was wearing the sunglasses she’d found in her house (because she wears her sunglasses at night?). Those must be what John was talking about, right? She didn’t have any of his other pairs.
Approaching the apartment’s door, she gave it a firm knock, still swinging the plastic bag back and forth as she waited for someone to let her in.
John answered the door -- finger half in his eyeball even as he did so. He’d been rubbing at his eyes all day, really. He didn’t need glasses for most things, but he definitely did when he was writing or reading.
“Hi,” he said, raising an eyebrow at the sunglasses, even as he let her move into the apartment. Were those his? From back at the pool? Huh. He smiled in greeting, but this was really some awkward business going on here, though. Was he supposed to tell her she looked good? Was it that kind of relationship now?
Tara, oblivious to the awkward, beamed at John when he opened the door, stepped inside and pulled him in for a hug. “Hi!” she said, sounding quite pleased to see him. As she leaned back from the hug, she pulled the sunglasses off of her head and placed them on his nose. With a little giggle and a bounce, she then continued into the apartment.
“I’ve got to cook the ravioli still!” she said, turning around and walking backwards into the kitchen. “Can I use the kitchen?”
O-okay. John watched her as she moved on toward the kitchen, and then took off the sunglasses. Well, they were his glasses, anyway. Just not the ones he had meant.
“Of course,” he said, trying to stay cheery despite his utter confusion. “My kitchen is your kitchen.” he set the sunglasses down on top of the coffee table, and trailed after her.
“Great!” she said, turning to walk the correct way again. She would probably topple over if she tried walking backwards any longer. “How was the rest of your weekend?” she asked, starting the food preparation process. She filled a pot with water and set it on the heat, then pulled all the groceries she’d picked up and placed them on the counter. She turned to look at him while the water did its thing and heated up.
“After Friday?” John asked, more than a little bemused. “Well.” What could he even say? The Brit crossed his arms and settled against the frame of the door -- setting one foot over the other in an awkward leaning stance.
“Uhm, a bit awkward.” He did tend to be a bit honest, if we were keeping track.
“Why was it so awkward?” she asked, turning back to pick up the package of banana bread. She turned back to him, presenting it with a big grin. And a waggle of her brows. She knew that bananas were one of his favourites, and though she hadn’t cooked it herself, was excited for him to try it. Because she’s Tara and she’s cute and she gets excited over that kind of stuff. Duh.
It was hard to refuse banana bread -- especially since he’d asked for it -- and even harder yet not to be excited for it. He took it from her with a wink and then moved to the opposite counter to pull out a cutting board and knife to slice it with.
“Well, you know. Because of Friday? Did you get home all right, by the way?”
She giggled at his wink, poking her tongue between her teeth as she smiled. She walked up next to him to watch him cut it, because watching a water on heat will make it never boil. And she got impatient.
“Of course I got home all right,” she said, smiling up at him. “I wasn’t out very late. I had fun, though.” It would be awkward when they compared their night’s happenings.
John handed her a piece of the bread after he’d cut a few slices off, and then turned to lean on the counter and give her one of those high raised eyebrows he was so good at. “Well, I mean -- no. It was kind of late when you left here?”
She took the banana bread with a smile, immediately taking a bite and mmm’ing at the taste. John was lucky that she liked bananas, or else they might never be able to share a meal. Or a party.
At his question, Tara furrowed her brows and was... well, confused. “I left here at 7:30,” she told him, not quite understanding how that was late. Usually she was much later showing up to things.
If Tara didn’t like bananas they couldn’t be FRIENDS.
“Well -- yeah. But.” John paused, as if to think this out. Because it needed to be thought out, okay? “But then you came back, and you were drunk.” Well, maybe that was why she couldn’t remember.
“I was drunk?” she asked, now even more confused. “But... I didn’t have anything to drink. I went out for ice cream and rollerskating with a friend. And then I went home.” This was really weird. First that McCoy guy was stopping her on the street and acting as if they’d met, now John was talking about her showing up at his place on Friday. Very very weird. “Are you feeling okay?”
Okay, so probably now as not a good time to get sidetracked, but John couldn’t really help himself. He had been kissing this girl in his bed not even three days ago, whether she remembered it or not. “Wait,” he said slowly, “you went out for rollerskating and ice cream with a guy?”
“Yes,” she answered with a nod. “With Billy. On Friday.” she reached over and put her hand on his forehead. He didn’t feel warm. Perhaps he had just forgotten. Maybe he had been the one that was drunk on Friday. “I told you that I was going out.”
“Yes, but -- Oi-- I am not sick -- I am talking,” He ducked out of the way of her hand, and ruined his whole effect of being very serious business when he shoved the rest of his slice of banana bread into his mouth. Hey, it was good.
“But you came back, and kissed me.” And don’t even get him started on glasses theft, man.
Okay, so Tara would definitely remember if she’d kissed her best friend. Because she very much liked kissing. Not quite as good as biting, but it was quite fun! “I... What? How did I kiss you when I was out with Billy?” she asked, setting her slice of banana bread down on the counter. This conversation was way too deep to be worrying about banana bread right then.
Tara, there is never a bad time to worry about the greatest form of bakery known to man. “Well, when you came back,” John repeated, feeling himself getting a little frustrated -- not really at her, but at their obvious mutual confusion. “Drunk?”
No, this was very weird. She was very sure she would remember at least starting to drink. The banana bread (and boiling water) completely forgotten, Tara crossed her arms and watched him. “I didn’t come back here on Friday. I would remember kissing you even if I was drinking. I wouldn’t forget that,” she said, not realizing she was being quite sweet in that moment. “That wouldn’t be something to forget.”
Well, that gave him some pause. It was a lot harder to be jealous of rollerskating, anyway. But while sweet, it was definitely not enough to stop the confusion.
“...No. You were definitely here.”
“I would remember it,” she said, sounding a bit sad. She was pouting now. Good one there, John. Make the girl sad. She noticed the water was boiling now, so turned and began preparing the ravioli. Tara wasn’t in the mood to talk right then. She looked like she was concentrating quite hard on the cooking process.
John shut up for a short moment, watching her work over the ravioli. He just needed to step this back a notch -- they were both confused. There was no reason to yell at her or make her sad, obviously.
Maybe (despite her thoughts on the matter), she just had been too drunk to remember it? What other kind of nefarious plot could it be? None on her part, obviously. Tara was a lot of things (a lot of great things), but she had never been a liar.
“Well,” he said, a little desperately as he grabbed for invisible straw.
“Yes?” she asked, not looking up from what she was doing. She stirred the pasta and let out a sigh. She didn’t want to fight with John. He was her best friend, nobody wants to fight with their best friend. Especially not over something as silly as this.
IT WASN’T SILLY SHE TOTALLY KISSED HIM AND HE WANTED TO DO IT AGAIN AND-- Phew.
“I--” John sighed and just dropped it. Because what else could he really do? “I need to see an optometrist,” he said, finally.
“Do you need new glasses?” she asked, though she didn’t really sound all that terribly interested. She was thinking about other things. Like how could she have gotten drunk and kissed her best friend if she had been on a date adventure with someone else? “I brought the ones I had,” she pointed out.
The pasta was done. She turned off the heat, took the pot and began draining it in the sink. “Can you get some bowls?”
She still sounded mad about it all, and while John would usually not have the patience for this sort of thing from anyone else, he felt terribly bad that it was her. He couldn’t say anything more on the matter, beyond a petulant, “No, I mean my reading ones,” even as he reached up into a cabinet for some bowls.
“Oh. What happened to them?” she asked, deciding in that moment that she couldn’t really be mad at John. He was her best friend, not someone to get mad at. Even though she didn’t understand how she could be in two places at once, it wasn’t his fault, really. “Did they break?”
“I’m not sure,” he said after a moment, handing her the bowls. Maybe it was just best if he played ignorant to this. Because it was clearly too hard to tell her she’d had them on her head when she’d up and disappeared from his kitchen. “I guess I lost them.”
She began plating the food, putting the pot in the sink once she was done. “That’s too bad!” she said, sounding much more cheery. It was a good (or possibly bad) thing that she could change her mood so quickly. “I’ve never needed glasses. What’s it like to wear glasses?” Ever the curious one.
“It’s...” John shrugged, picking at the banana bread again, because dessert before dinner was always best. “Well. I wear mine for reading. I get a headache if I focus on small things like print or a computer screen without them.”
Leaving the bowls on the counter, Tara turned back to John and approached him. She was staring at his eyes as she got reeeeeeeaaaaaaaallll close, moving around and up and down to look at his eyes from all angles. “It’s weird,” she observed, sounding as if she was fascinated by his eyes. Which she sort of was. “How eyes can be damaged, but you can’t really see it plainly. The body can show lots of damage, but not... Always.”
John had to resist the urge to go oddly pink under her scrutiny. She always did it with such...intensity that sometimes it was hard to imagine exactly what was going through her brain. “Er,” he said. “Yes, well.”
She liked his awkward face. It made her laugh, because it looked as if he was trying to look for a way out of moments like this. But if he was going to have her as a best friend, he was just going to have to deal with the Tara brand of crazy.
Without warning, the crazy girl popped up and placed a kiss on John’s cheek. She just couldn’t resist her impulsive nature. Leaning back to standing at a polite distance, she grinned at him. Apparently she rewarded his angry moments with affection.
That kind of reinforcement really couldn’t end well. After all, if a guy was going to get a kiss for being in a sour mood all the time, why wouldn’t he always just be in a sour mood?
But yeah, not really. Because John was rarely mad for long. He looked away from her, looking exasperated and pleased all at the same time.
And she just picked up their two bowls and slid over to his kitchen table, looking quite pleased with herself as well. “I had a lot of fun on Friday though,” she called back to him, taking a seat and waiting for him. “Billy is really very nice. You should meet him!”
Leaning over, she began pulling up her pant legs to display just how much fun it had been. There were big black and blue dots all over her knees and shins. They really did hurt quite a lot -- she’d taken a big tumble. “I fell while rollerskating. My knees are covered in bruises.” As he could see. A pause as she looked up at John, smiling. “But he got me an Icee, it made it all better.” Because that’s all it takes, it seems.
“He got you an Icee? For your knees?” John was not sure he cared to meet “Billy”, who took Tara out rollerskating. He couldn’t quite put a finger on why, though. Oh yeah, because she’d been kissing John on Friday and the thought of her dating icee-buying men was offputting.
“Well,” she began, pushing her pant legs back down. “Yes, for my knees. But I also drank it.” She sounded as if she would have placed a “duh” on the end of that. “It was really good!”
Pausing for a moment, Tara just watched John. He was acting very weird. He didn’t sound nearly as cheerful as she thought he might while she told him about her Friday adventure. John loved adventure! “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, because he still really didn’t look happy. Jelly donut there, 10? “Have I done something wrong?” she was about ten seconds away from pouting. “Are you cross with me?” All she’d done was give him a kiss on the cheek!
Well, that question snapped him out of it. He looked over at her, eyebrows raised almost comically. "What? No. of course not!" And he wasn't, not really. He was just.. Well. Yes. A smidge jealous. Maybe. Sort of. He rubbed at his eye again.
Tara hadn’t really thought he could be mad at her, but she couldn’t be sure. Though they were best friends, they’d only known each other a short while, and she couldn’t remember him ever sounding this way before. “Oh... Okay.” She really didn’t know what else to say, so she just started on eating.
He followed suit, albeit awkwardly. He felt kind of bad for having been a bit rude to her, even if he was just terribly confused about everything... Even now he was thinking hard, gears working away in his brain as he tried sorting through it all. He wondered idily if that man who only spoke of spoilers and gave no answers at all would understand. Of course, there was no point in asking.
"How about a movie then?" He asked, deciding he couldn't go on being moody and pensive forever.