exsiliumlogs | Season's Sneakings. [OPEN]

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Season's Sneakings. [OPEN]

Temporal Co-ordinates: 24/12, between 23:00-02:00, continuing into the day.

Spatial Co-ordinates: [Insert blargle of numbers here] The apartments. Yes, all of them.

Individuals Involved: The Doctor. And everyone else.

Abstract: "Look at you, beamin away like you're Father Christmas!" "Who says I'm not, red bicycle when you were twelve." The Doctor delivers wee bits of Christmas-y cheer. Or, at least, will try his damnedest to do so.

WARNING(S): None, unless folks are allergic to wibble.

The TARDIS has a perception filter around it, which is why it can materialise in a room full of people and not turn a single head despite that horrific noise it makes. It can also materialise in a quiet room and go equally as unnoticed, again, despite the terrible noise.

This is how the Doctor is able to very carefully sneak into each and every person's rooms and very carefully place a wee package of something Christmas-y for each and every person in an easily-spotted location. If one awakens, they'll do so just in time to see him closing the door of the TARDIS and to watch it vanish. They may notice he looks tired and a bit ill.

Upon awakening, whenever it is one awakens, most people will find approximately one-litre bottles of whatever their favourite drink may be (alcoholic or non), a rather generous handful of marques, and one small personal gift, the nature of which is up to the mun.

Feferi will find, along with the other things, a pair of lovely purple dancing shoes, clearly hand-crafted and hand-decorated and exactly the right size.

Collette will find, as well as the other things, a wee, elabourate hat, all ribboned and feathered in black and dark blue. It looks vintage and well-cared-for.

Ricasthix will find, among the other things, a carefully-tied bag, about the size of a man, which turns out to be full of gold coins and jewellery pieces.

Swann will find, in addition to the other things, a very old book of lost recipes for brewing tisanes, possets, cordials, and various potions of varying purposes.

Galadriel will find, amid the other things, a full-sized bottle of a clear, blue wine that smells vaguely of flowers and time and far-off-places and greenery after a rain and tastes like fruit that doesn't exist any more. It's quite potent.

Gordon will find, along with the other things, a book titled A Comprehensive Guide To Multidimensional Temporal Mechanics For Non-Gallifreyans by someone with a mouthful of a name, as well as a wee tin of coffee that smells like the platonic essence of coffea arabica.

((Feel free to post reactions here or on the main comm! Or tag each other! Merry Christmas, everyone!))

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Meliantha opens hers, wondering who got elverquisst HERE... and then opens the other box, peeks inside, blushes furiously, and stuffs it into her magical knapsack.

Well! No doubt who this came from. The coffee is a godsend but that's not what holds his attention. Since the Doctor has just gifted him a primer into god-level physics, it's a few hours before any sort of contact. And when he does he looks a little... overwhelmed, but happy.

[Video]

Doc? This, this book... this thing carries more insight and confusion in a single page than my entire damn post-doc career combined! And I mean that in best possible way. Thank you.

[By the time Gordon makes this call, the Doctor is cosily ensconced in the modified zero room, the cords that make the netbook able to connect to the outside world looping in the corner of the screen. The Time Lord himself looks exhausted but cheerful, all but buried in blankets and pillows in a bed of esoteric but insanely comfortable design. He's at least taken off the frock coat and cravat and presumably his shoes, and looks ready to fall asleep at a moment's notice. Still, he smiles.]

No sense in my trying to keep up the Father Christmas mystery, eh? [He chortles for a beat, a scarcely audible sound.] You're very welcome.

The nature of the gift was rather telling. I don't think Santa would drop off a book that features Block-Transfer computation.

Merry Christmas, doc. How're you feeling so far?

And to you, Gordon.

[There's a pause as he appears to assess his own condition, something he doesn't do very often unless something's obviously wrong. You know, like having an anti-time entity camped out in your mind.]

He's quiet. I can hear my own thoughts again, as long as I'm not outside this room for terribly long.

We can't keep you in there forever.

[He says this before he has a chance to consider that the Doctor has probably been thinking about this for hours already.]

I'd like to help out if I can, but I honestly have no idea what the hell I would do.

You've done a lot to help, already. We'll think of something. I know we will.

His first reaction upon waking was that there had been a THIEF in his lair! However a quick survey revealed that not only was nothing missing, but things had been ADDED. He recalled references to some sort of spirit giving out gifts on this holiday, but had thought this was a myth.

But treasure is treasure. Ricasthix adds this treasure to the rather modest pile, and puts the metal bottle etched with arcane markings of protection that stop the rather potent liquid within from melting a hole through the Earth's crust aside for a special occasion.

Look, for something his size, a bottle that small has to be potent to have any real effect.

Edited 2012-12-25 03:58 (UTC)

Sherlock's spot on the roof of the Radio Tower is pretty obvious. Anyone looking up there at any given time of the day might notice him, might notice the pigeons he occasionally feeds or the way the man leans out to look down over the city. No doubt the Doctor, too, has seen Sherlock up there, pacing at all odd hours, completely alone save for a handful of visitors also looking for a place to stay out of trouble during the little incident with the zombies.

Sherlock doesn't ever sleep. Not often. There's also a chip in his head, and gods know what it actually does but it's supposed to influence that already insane intellect of his. When he spots the strange man and his-... what is that? In fact, Sherlock's almost certain he didn't see anything. He definitely notices how tired the man looks, the deep shadows under his eyes, his sunken posture, and against any better sense, he calls out:

"Wait!"

And maybe the strange man and his impossible machine will wait?

It's when the Doctor focusses on Sherlock that the perception field wavers. He's at the door of what looks like a Mackenzie-Trench-style Police Box, common on the streets of London in the 1950s and 60s. The man himself is wearing very obviously Victorian-styled clothing, and looks... more displaced in time than even the other Transports. It's something about the look in his eyes.

Still, he stops, and looks in Sherlock's direction. His expression is weary and ancient but no less attentive for it, but he doesn't speak, yet.

Sherlock stares at him, open mouthed, blue eyes blown wide with shock. There's a 1930 Mosin Negant - a Russian rifle, poised in his arms, but he's not pointed it at the man in the blue box. He immediately settles it own on the ground, ignoring what the man's left and heading straight for the impossible appearance of both the gentleman and that peculiar police box. There's something about Sherlock that's out of place as well, but it's the particular hunger in his eyes that probably gives that well away, and he's too thin, and looks like he's not slept in days.

Long, dark coat fluttering out behind him as he moves, Sherlock stops a few feet away from the police box and the man looking at him.

"How?" he asks, gesturing to... all of it. "I didn't hear you. I didn't see you. I'm actually still not certain I'm seeing you, and that is a source of particular consternation to me, I'll have you know."

"Perception field," the Doctor answers. "It tricks the brain into simply not noticing things." Even now, both man and box seem... unreal. Dreamlike. "Most brains, anyway. You're the only person I've met who's seen through it like that."

He steps into the box, now. "Happy Christmas, Mister Holmes," he says, starting to close the door.

"Tricks don't generally work on me. I notice everything," Sherlock replies flatly. He's not lying. The chip in his head so lovingly provided to him has only made things worse. He could be sleeping, couldn't he? It's been cold, he's been exhausted, his nerves frayed to the point of nearly breaking, but that's not how he works, that's never how he's worked. So he's walking toward the police box with one hand outstretched. Sherlock's never liked not being able to touch things to verify their reality. This is no exception.

"I don't celebrate Christmas," that's a lie on his part, and he attempts to place his hand against the door, turning his head to look inside.

Wait.

"I never told you my name," he hisses, eyes narrowing. He's annoyed now. Another thing he hates. Other people knowing more than they should. "Who are you?"

The box is solid enough when he touches it, feeling like rough, sun-warmed wood even in this cold. It vibrates ever so slightly and gives of an almost imperceptible hum. Is it... alive? Nonsense. It's just a Police Box.

The man standing inside it shakes his head. "You didn't need to tell me your name. You're famous enough, in a few circles." Here he smiles slightly again. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."

What is it about that phrase that sounds like more than a simple introduction?

"Famous, right," Sherlock murmurs into the wood, pressing his forehead against the warmth of the Police Box. Famous is not something he ever wanted to be, and the grimace on his expression (just visible from the other man's perspective) is pained and miserable, just for the flash of a second. The expression drains out of his face as quickly as it came, and it's back into precisely schooled nothingness.

He's listening though, listening with those too-sharp ears, his heightened senses picking up on the soft hum that would be just outside of the edges of his hearing normally. He flattens a hand out on the door, both because it's warm (and the nights here are damnably cold), and because he's picking up on the vibrations. Like engines at idle, like a cat purring, the hum of a poorly grounded electrical connection... Then he's speaking again.

"I'm only famous in twenty-first century England, 2009 if you must know, and barely that. If you'd been keeping up with the news to know that I'm famous you'd also know that my career is largely ruined by shoddy journalism and that I'm supposedly dead. I was in the process of hunting down a crime ring run by a dead insane genius when this damned place decided it would be a good idea to add me to the asylum. Bringing up the idea that I'm famous is rather in poor taste then, wouldn't you agree?" Sherlock levels a fierce, cold stare on the man, and he's not done yet, not at all, his voice dropping into a growl.

"The Doctor. Second time I've heard that name, and the question is always the same. Doctor of What? Doctor Who? You know, I've met the Doctor. Tall, skinny fellow in a long coat with spiky hair. Didn't have a ... box with him, last I recall. I inferred from our conversation that he is a time traveler, ancient and impossible. Pleasant enough conversationionalist, intelligent enough, I might add, but you are not tall, nor spiky haired, nor do you smell faintly of satsumas." Sherlock narrows his eyes over at the man standing in the doorway. "So either two possibilities exist. Either you're lying, and that's boring and you can leave now. Or you're telling the truth." Sherlock pauses for breath, and it's a spare one.

"If you're telling the truth then there are multiple possibilities that can stem. The first Doctor I met said he traveled through time, evidence put forth in our conversation seemed to support that claim, so I must only assume that you are either the same person with highly advanced plastic surgery, or that the Doctor is more like a title than an actual name. It is not past the realm of possibility that the Doctor could be a perfectly acceptable name in the future, something like Paul or John is now, but I doubt that. There's more to it than that. The inflection with which you introduce yourself, and the way that the first Doctor introduced himself as well. So title it is. Now, why would a man call himself the Doctor? To be a doctor one must first be a student, an a particularly admirable one at that, a student of everything and anything that falls across his past, to be an expert in his field, or in the case of time travelers, perhaps many fields. Secondly, Doctor. Doctor as in literally a physician, a healer, someone with a kind heart and gentle hands and absolute precision. Most of them are not nice, but they are good, at least the ones I've encountered, certainly my own Doctor Watson is a venerable example of what a good healer should be."

Another pause for breath, as spare as the last few.

"So. A time traveler who calls himself the Doctor who has more than one face, or the same face that's been modified over time. Reincarnation isn't out of the picture but I very much doubt anything like that exists in our world, so, perhaps metamorphosis of some kind, which would mean you're not human, either. Likely, given the level of technology that could have anything feasibly called a perception filter, that could land silently and be mostly invisible if you didn't want to see it, so, alien technology, or from a time far past my own."

Sherlock's pacing now, not too far from the police box or the man though, he's not about to give them the opportunity to vanish again. He's not smiling, but at least he's not bored, and that's a start.

"So. Doctor," and Sherlock's laser gaze lands on the Doctor all the same, intense and cold all at the same instant. "Explain."

The TARDIS is very warm and, if one listens long enough, one can hear the acoustics of its hum from inside. It sounds vast.

The Doctor has been glared at like that a lot over the centuries, so he's pretty much accustomed to it. He leans against the door and listens and, frankly, he's heard all of this before as well, but never all at the same time. He lets the contention regarding Holmes' fame slide--his isn't the most sterling of reputations, either, and has, in fact, gotten him into his fair share of trouble.

When Holmes demands an explanation, the Doctor rubs his brows and sighs. "That man... I thought there was something familiar about him. He's... a future self of mine--he and I are the same being. So, yes, we're not human. I--and by extension, he--am from the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborus. And, yes, we look like humans but, from our perspective, humans all look like Gallifreyans. It's something called regeneration--when one of my people is old or ill or injured enough, the body goes through a complete cellular renewal, thus remedying the problem. Appearance and personality end up changing but there's a continuation of consciousness from one to the next. I remember being all of my past selves and he remembers being me--and before you ask, no, he does not remember this meeting. It's a corollary on the Conservation Principle. He'll only remember it if he leaves."

He takes a few breaths, needing far more air than Holmes does, apparently.

"And yes, I'm a time-traveller, both him and me. I don't know how far in my future he is but right now I've got about nine hundred years' experience with it. I've been a lot of places and a lot of times and that does include twentieth-first-century England. Repeatedly."

"As to why I call myself 'Doctor...' I think you explained it perfectly, yourself."

Edited 2012-12-27 07:01 (UTC)

While the arrival of the TARDIS went unnoticed, the man attempting to escape her sleeping quarters did not. Elza was awake at a moments notice as she whipped out her two pistols and whirled around to point them directly at the retreating Doctor's back.

"How did you get in here?" She demanded. There was a brief flicker of acknowledgement to the odd blue box the man tried to sneak back into. How could he have brought something that large in here without her noticing? Eyes narrowing, she couldn't help but wonder what type of skills this man had to be able to sneak up on an assassin.

Guns. Why do people always have to point guns at him? Granted, he is inside someone else's home, but really. He stops, then looks back at her, putting on a smile nonetheless.

"The same way I'm leaving," he answers softly. "I didn't mean to wake you." With that he steps the rest of the way into the box and turns to shut the door.

The smile only seemed to mock her. She was far from content with this sudden turn of events, and that displeasure showed on her face as she fired her gun towards the blue door - purposefully just above his head.

"You're not going anywhere until you tell me why you were here in the first place."

Oh... oh, Doctor. This is lovely. Where did ye find it?

[He's off in another part of the TARDIS, in the room he's claimed for the discovery of new brews and elixirs. Somehow, he's slowly moved in.]

And this.

[Swann holds up a plain brown bottle, with no label. It's root beer, his absolute favorite, brewed by a family he'd met through his travels. It was a singular thing, and he never thought he'd taste it again.

[For all his love of alcohol and mind-bending substances, he's overjoyed by a simple bottle of soda.]

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Season's Sneakings. [OPEN]

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Let me know if I should change anything?

Nope! It's lovely!

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