or_timelords | This could prove to be interesting.

[Oh. OH. He's getting it now.]

Oh! I get it now. The multiverse is not an actual multiverse in its own right, is it. Oh. Right. So if I bring my TARDIS here and don't actually enter any other universe, she'll be fine. Riiight.

[Now that makes things a lot easier.]

Well, I don't think we should establish a connection between the universes if it's not absolutely necessary. Bad things tend to happen when you do, at least that's my experience. But, yes, we should let your TARDIS find her, that will be the quickest way.

[And he lowers his hand, an invitation for the other Doctor to initiate a connection.]

Right, yes, exactly, it's like a terminal, a hub, shortcut between universes, breaks all the rules of time and space, I love it.

[And the science talk, the technobabble, he loves that, too. Hasn't had much opportunity, really, not until recently. No audience, and it needs an audience.]

Ready, then? Allons-y! [And he brings his hands back to the other Time Lord's temples, a mirror to earlier, but he's pleased this time, not angry or distant, and the drums will be less—or not so much less as different, more a part of him than an infection, an invasion. More complex and less militant, almost as though there might be music behind them, but it's too far away to hear.]

[This connection isn't about letting his other into his mind—only in so much as his mind can serve as the connection between his TARDIS and his other. That's where he places his own mental focus—on that point at the back of his thoughts where everything that he is merges out into something greater, the ship around him, her reassuring, total presence, the constant adjustments of systems, the gold and spark of almost-thoughts, almost-memories, almost-emotions, sensations from a sentience that's beyond even his total comprehension but that is also part of him. There are flecks of that gold in him, where there shouldn't be, and out there, in the flow of her, the occasional flash of the wrong kind of memory, of being limited and small and quick and bright and easily hurt.]

[The harder he focuses on that connection, the less-threatening the drums become, until they almost fall away into the pulse of him and her, and of the greater Time Vortex beyond, that alien place apart from everything that he can touch, just barely, through her.]

[The TARDIS is curious. She's been helping him, but there's someone else here now, like her Doctor but not, someone else who might be able to help, and she curls forward through her Doctor's mind, like an anemone unfurling, twists of light along shared nerve endings, looking for the other. Wary, afraid the new one might hurt hers, but willing to make him welcome. For now.]

[For the second time in such a short time, he lets the other Doctor into his mind. He's not used to this; the last time he's shared so much of his mind was that one time back in France. But this is him, his other self, and it feels right.]

[The drums are so different this time. It's surprising; he's never heard them like that. The Master's are always angry, always demanding, and the Doctor didn't know there was anything else to them. He halts for a moment and just listens; this is fascinating.]

[He's distracted, though, when his other opens his connection to his TARDIS. It's both exciting and a little frightening; the connection between a Time Lord and his TARDIS is such a private, personal thing, to be let in on it is a great privilege. And this connection his other has with his ship is even more personal. They're not two entities, closely connected; they are basically one and the same. The rebirth of this Doctor has changed them both, and it's created a bond that's the same as well as something completely different from what the Doctor shares with his TARDIS.]

[And then there's the TARDIS, the other TARDIS. He can feel her, and she's different, so different from his and yet the same. He can see her hope, and her worry, and he tries his best not to scare her as he leads her into the part of his mind that's reserved for his TARDIS. It's empty and still right now; she's not there, but there are very clear memories and imprints, and this is what he focuses on now. This is her. This is my TARDIS. This is what you're looking for. Please?]

[And the TARDIS' reaction to the feel of the other Doctor and his TARDIS are similar to the two Doctors' reactions to meeting each other. Curiosity, amusement, puzzlement, fascination, the macabre lure of seeing what might have been, of looking at oneself in a mirror where the glass is ever-so-slightly warped.]

[He feels so much like hers, but not. He's had others with him, and she's had so much time with just hers, where she's been all he's had. Precious time, for her, but wrong, for him, and she's known that. Known it would end, and, hello, it has been. Ending. And she's helping it along now.]

[It's quiet, too. This one needs his TARDIS, his her, but not...in the same way. He's whole in himself, still, and she remembers when hers was like that. Entirely wrapped away in himself, all of those emotions and thoughts and she only ever caught fragments of them, pieces, and never quite understood.]

[Now she's seen everything he is, felt her way through all of his memories, his moments, and feels each one with him, the ticking and pops of his thoughts as an undercurrent to her own larger being and the far thunder-sheet din of his drums, and she still doesn't understand.]

[Except maybe the drums. There's a very good chance she understands those more than he might expect, but, well, he's never thought to ask, has he? Of course he hasn't.]

[When she gets to the place in his mind that's his TARDIS, she laughs. That's the only description for her reaction. Oh, hello, that's...well. HA. Of *course* she'll call this other self of hers over. She wants to meet her. Rather a lot.]

[They can trade ideas.]

[Even as she's curling back through the linked minds of the two Time Lords, she's calling out to her other self, across the Time Vortices of all the universes.]

[This, she thinks, ought to be good for all of them.]

[She's so different. She's like his TARDIS, but she's like a much older version, with much more patience and indulgence. She observes rather than judges, and he can see himself there, his own need to accept, to understand and to embrace. The merge with her Time Lord has changed this TARDIS so much, has made her into something else, has expanded her nature as the keeper to become part of the explorer. He observes this with great curiosity and something like awe; he didn't know it was even possible.]

[She knows her Time Lord, knows him so well. Better maybe than he knows himself; at least parts of him. He can see in her presence - it's not thought, it's not a mind, not really; having a mind implies that there's also a body, and there's no body for a TARDIS, they don't exist in the material world, not really - that she knows about the drums, that she understands them, maybe better than anyone else. He doesn't intrude, not now, it's not his place, anyway, but he puts the recognition away as something he will have to ask his other self about.]

[He lets her in, gives her free access to every part of his mind that usually belongs to his TARDIS, and he can feel her amusement. There's no embarrassment in a meld like this; it's all laid open for all participants to see, the way things are, the way things need to be. So rather than being embarrassed, he laughs as well; his TARDIS will enjoy meeting this one as much as vice versa.]

[As she pulls back, he can hear her calling out, can feel the feedback from the Time Vortices reverberate through their shared minds, and he's sure she will bring his TARDIS to him. Thank you. He agrees, this will be good for all of them.]

[Her Time Lord has disappeared, and it doesn't please her.]

[Not that he hasn't been away from her before; he leaves quite often. He often feels the need to 'explore the universe', as he calls it, and while she doesn't understand, she lets him get on with it. It's good for him; he thinks too much if he stays with her for too long without going anywhere. And so far, he's always come back.]

[This time is different, though. He didn't leave of his own volition. He was here, and then he stopped being here. And she doesn't know where he's gone, and that's the part that - yes, she has to admit, it worries her. She can feel the universe, all that was, is, may be, and never can be, and she can tell that his current persona is not in there. It's rather impossible; not that he hasn't crossed into other universes before, but always with her - reluctant - help. He can't do it on his own, he's corporeal. Corporeal life forms, even Time Lords, are too flimsy and fragile to cross the space between dimensions on their own.]

[It's the only explanation for his absence, though, and yes, she's worried. It's not an unreasonable worry. He's her Time Lord. She doesn't want to lose him.]

[When she hears the call, it startles her at first. It's yet another impossible thing, a call from one of her sisters. She's the only one left; the only TARDIS in existence who is still active, still with her Time Lord. She listens, though, because sometimes, impossible and impossible cancel each other out. This seems to be one of those times; her sister speaks of a multiverse, and there's no way such a thing can exist. But her sister also carries the mental imprint of her Time Lord, and it's like that of her own, but not. She is an alternate, the TARDIS quickly enough realizes, this is herself in another universe. And she says that she knows where her Time Lord is.]

[So she follows her call, and she finds the multiverse, and it's quite impossible. She hadn't thought that there were things that could still surprise her on this scale, but the multiverse - it's new. She's not sure what she thinks of it, but it will have to wait till later. Her sister is right there, and she can also feel her Time Lord again. It's somewhat of a relief. She can feel another one; in fact, she can feel many other ones in this multiverse. That's very odd; it will take some getting used to. For now, she only wants her Time Lord to come home.]

[This isn't something the Doctor's ever done before, sharing his connection with his TARDIS with another Time Lord. It's not something he would do, except with this one, another self; and the experience surprises him. The theory's straight forward enough, but the actual experience...]

[He's let the TARDIS far into his mind before, needed it, when the drums were at their worst, let himself become the undermind instead of the over, in his own head, but only every once in a great while. It's comforting and the best answer to the drums he's yet found, but it's also frightening, something he doesn't understand; he feels like he could lose himself, in the exchange. Feels the ghost-memories of being lost before, his essential self laced throughout hers, bodiless and centerless. Remembers, as she remembers, and there's not enough of a divide between the two of them.]

[It's not supposed to be like that.]

[So this, now, letting his TARDIS use his mind to connect with his other...]

[For the duration of the connection, he's...gone. Or not gone, it's more like being turned inside-out mentally or as though someone's stirred water and oil so hard that they actually have mixed, not just emulsified, but properly mixed. He has to trust her to proceed as he asked her to, because he's not really there to ask any longer. He's a part of her, the part of her that's thinking/knowing that she needs to make connection with the other Doctor and call his TARDIS and then sort herself out so that she's two halves again and let the one half go back about its business.]

[He's the part that feels her understanding of the drums and wants to know more, but that's not part of what the moment is about and the rest of him/her isn't thinking about that right now, so he lets the wanting pass and forgets.]

[He's the part that feels bemusement and sympathy more than amusement, when s/he taps into the other Doctor's memories of his TARDIS.]

[And nostalgia. S/he can remember being more like that.]

[The call goes out, through him/her into the Time Vortex, and then s/he begins to turn him/herself right side out again, the oil and the water to settle out into their component parts.]

[The Doctor blinks. Wow. Wow, okay.]

Blimey. That—that worked. Did it work?

[He hasn't noticed yet, but his hair's standing on end, as though he just suffered severe electric shock, and wisps of golden energy, like mist in lamplight, are sublimating from his skin into the air around him.]

[Just before the connection breaks, the other Doctor surfaces in his own mind, and there's a rush of emotions as the three entities in this mental bond - Doctor, Doctor, TARDIS - disentangle. It's frightening as well as exhilarating, and the Doctor hastily pulls back, so as not to lose his own self in this whirl of identity.]

[He snaps back into his own mind, and the force feels almost physical, making him take a step backwards. His eyes snap open, and he's looking into the wide eyes of his other. There are small swirls of gold in them, spinning, turning like the Vortex. The Doctor blinks, and they are gone.]

Yes, yes that did work, I think. Ah. Um, are you okay?

[The other Doctor hasn't lost the wide-eyed look, and his hair is standing up in spikes poking hazardously in every which way possible. It looks somewhat intimidating slash crazy, the Doctor has to admit, but what's much more interesting is the golden mist that's emerging from his other's skin, dissipating into the air. The Doctor reaches out, his fingers passing through wisps of golden smoke before they brush over a couple of spikes of hair.]

Look at that, you're sparkling.

[His fascination is broken when he can suddenly feel a presence in his mind, filling the space that's reserved for -]

It worked! It's my TARDIS, she's here!

[That she is, she's right outside, close enough for him to feel her, and to feel her slight indignation at having discovered the existence of a thing like the multiverse. That's her, that's his TARDIS. This is brilliant.]

She's right outside, come on.

[And he'll be off towards the console room.]

"Good! What? Sparkling?" Someone is not completely oriented yet, and he's just had several totally unrelated, he doesn't think, well, they're related, they just lacked transitional phrases, sentences thrown at him, and now his other's running off, corduroy jacket flapping and blue Converse eating up the short distance to the wardrobe door.

And he is sparkling. He frowns and waves his arms, and the golden energy disperses. Artron energy. Mm. Not as much as when she'd rebuilt him—that had been worse than regeneration, he'd been lit up like a Christmas tree for days after—but still, levels high enough to be visible. He'll want to go by his laboratories after this, see if he hadn't done himself any harm.

Not just now, though.

Right now, his TARDIS tells him that his other's right, and the other TARDIS is here, outside, already; so he legs it out of the wardrobe and into the hallways, sprinting after his other to the console room.

The outer doors will already be open when his other arrives in the console room; no button-pushing required for such simple functions on this TARDIS. The Doctor and the TARDIS both want the doors open, and so they are.

The doors are indeed open, and now he can not only feel his TARDIS, but also see her. See inside her, actually, because she has opened her doors as well and has closed in on this TARDIS, so all he has to do to cross over is step over the narrow strip of black space from this TARDIS' threshold into his own.

This is much better. Being in the console room and having it actually feel like the console room - it really is like coming home.

He steps up to the console, putting his hands on the smooth metal braces, and smiles as the TARDIS bristles, telling him to stop being a sap, and what's up with the outfit?

Yeah, good to see you, too.

She seems unchanged, and the multiverse seems to be agreeing with her as well, at least in regards to energy. He can tell she's not happy with the way this place breaks the laws of time and space, but she might just have to get used to it.

"Come on in." He waves an invitation at his other.

The Doctor makes his way across his own TARDIS' console room to the doorway, where the two TARDIS have "docked" with each other. A very precise materialization, that—one of those miracles of accuracy the TARDIS achieves when she wants to, and rarely when he does. The more things change, the more they stay the same, even across universes...

He's left most of his "sparkle" behind—though, as he lets his hand trail across his TARDIS' controls as he passes the console, a faint haze of energy follows the path of his hand. It's impossible to say whether the energy moves from his hand to the TARDIS or from the TARDIS to his hand—and, in any case, he doesn't notice the phenomenon.

When he gets to the TARDIS' almost-touching doorways, he leans across the small gap, and knocks on his other's TARDIS' doorframe.

"Permission to board?"

His tone says it's a joke, but...well, he did absorb the sense that his other's TARDIS is a bit...different from his.

The Doctor can feel the TARDIS' disapproval the moment his other attracts her attention. She can hear the drums, and she can see the darkness in him. No, he tells her, he's not like the Master. Trust me, he's different. And he shows her a glimpse of what his other showed him; the loneliness, the helpless anger, the fruitless search for a connection, any connection. He needs my help. Give him a chance, okay?

After a moment, she agrees to do so - reluctantly. It's more than he'd dared to hope for, but he thinks she's probably looked into his own mind, where there's still quite a lot of residual imprint from his other. He gives the Doctor in black a smile.

"Sure, come on in."

He does, stepping across the small gap between the two TARDIS. He can still feel his, of course, at such close proximity, but he can't feel the one he's standing in now, except at a very, very distant twice-remove—the far-away sense that his TARDIS is in contact with this one. It's always bizarre, being in a TARDIS that is his but isn't his.

He lets his hand rest on the doorframe of his other's TARDIS for a moment. Thank you, the gesture's meant to say.

It looks just like his, his other's TARDIS, except...

Leaning in to look at the console closer, he pushes his glasses (which he's not yet bothered to take off) further up his nose. "No, you've still got the strange-force hypothetical-particle relay bypassing the Keppler resonance arc?"

And even before he's finished that sentence, he's looking over other bits of wiring and circuitry, commenting to himself on their state of affairs and how it could be improved, his expression somewhere between amused and 'oh, really, come on, you can do better than this, look at this.'

Oi. That's not what the Doctor invited his other over for. He doesn't even need to feel his TARDIS' indignation, he's indignant enough himself at the other Doctor criticizing his ship.

Although, removing the bypass on the Keppler arc? He's never thought about it, but it makes sense -

At a comment of his other about the Bohr Cylinders, though, the Doctor's had enough. He knows that the Cylinders are out of alignment, thank you very much. He's keeping them that way on purpose, to compensate for some irregularities in the atomic structure at the base of the Time Rotor that he hadn't been able to fix directly when he was dismantling the Master's Paradox Machine. He leans forward, resting the heels of his palms on the edge of the console, and raises his eyebrows at the other Doctor.

"Would you like a cup of tea while I relocate the TARDIS?" He's speaking pointedly over the other Doctor's unwelcome although probably well-meaning advice. He's not actually talked to him about this yet, but the Doctor figures it will be easiest to park his TARDIS inside his other's. Only if the two TARDISes and the other Doctor agree to that, of course.

His own TARDIS isn't too happy at the idea, but she seems willing, as long as he won't make this a permanent arrangement. Of course he won't, he reassures her. It's just for now, while his other needs him around. And yes, I will shut him up. I'm trying right now.

"You know, I think she keeps this one twitchy on purpose, I've jimmied it to within a decade but—hm?" The other Doctor looks up from tapping the casing of the yearometer. "What? Oh, tea. Yes. Tea would be brilliant, thanks." And he recognizes the expression on his other's face; it's something along the lines of 'I'm trying to be polite but would you please just shut up and let me get on with doing things my way, because my way works, and I really don't want to snap at you but I will if you keep it up' crossed with a bit of the old standby, 'Did you really just insult my TARDIS?'

Oh. Oops.

He slips off his glasses and pockets them, standing back and away from the console. He really wants to get out his sonic screwdriver and have at those controls—it's become almost a hobby of his, maintaining his TARDIS—but it's not his place. It feels like it should be, but it isn't. Crossing his arms across his chest, hands tucked under his upper arms, an old posture kept over from his Ninth, he gives his other a small, slightly apologetic grin. Got carried away with myself there, sorry, you know how it is.

"I'll get it myself. You carry on." He starts towards the door into the interior proper, but stops himself on the way. "Oh, and the console room might be best, if you're...if you're stopping over."

They haven't talked about it, not out loud, but that's where it's felt like all of this has been leading, the understanding backgrounding their mental communications, the intent of their actions so far.

The Doctor does know how it is, in fact, and so he contents himself with twitching an eyebrow at his other before he returns his attention to the controls.

"Console room, yes, I'll park her next to the inner doorway." The nonverbal understanding seems natural, and it probably is, at least in this case, when they've taken such close looks into each other's minds so very recently. It's not something that's happened often, not recently, certainly never with humans. (Except maybe with Donna, perhaps even before she took his mind into hers, but he's not thinking about that now.) It's always a rush, and it lets him forget his brief moment of irritation.

He pays no attention to his other disappearing into the kitchen, concentrating on the controls before him. The TARDIS is made for travel through the whole vastness of time and space; what he wants her to do now is make a tiny spatial leap in a linear time line. It's not an easy maneuver, and the challenge excites him.

He presses a few buttons, changes a few settings on the scanner frame controls, and takes a hold of the dematerialization lever before he looks up at the Time Rotor. "Allons-y, eh? Don't let me down now." It'd be just embarrassing if he failed at this.

He doesn't. There's some shaking, and the doors slamming shut with a bang - the TARDIS never liked traveling with her doors open, no matter how short the distance - but when the materialization is complete and the Time Rotor has stopped moving, the scanner screen is showing the outside view: the other Doctor's console room.

"Ha!" The Doctor grins and pats the console, well done! Still smiling, he jogs the few steps to the kitchen, leaning into the room with one hand on the door frame. "We're all relocated."

The Doctor has canisters and boxes and packets of tea scattered across one of the kitchen's tables; there was a particular kind he wanted, and he was curious to see if his other had it, and and his other did, but not where he keeps it, and while he was looking for that one kind, he found other kinds that he doesn't have, and some of them seem to be from places and times he hasn't been yet, and so of course he had to look through them all and hey, look at this, it's that performance tea from the Emperor of the Shattered Sundial, he'd almost forgotten he had that! ...Does he still have that? Well, regardless, his other does, and it's very good tea.

He glances over from where he's pouring hot water into a glass mug, the ball of tea at the mug's bottom beginning to unfurl intricate layers of herb "petals" as it's submerged.

"What, already?"

"Yes, already." And he can't keep from adding, "my Keppler arc may be bypassed, but it seems like I can still maneuver my TARDIS when I need to."

It's kind of a petty thing to say. He doesn't say it in a petty way, though, but with a smile and a wink. Without waiting for his other to reply, he returns to the console room. He still needs to go to the wardrobe and change into his proper outfit, but first he wants to make entirely sure they're actually in the other Doctor's console room. It looks like it on the scanner monitor, but the Doctor knows better than anyone that looks can be deceiving.

He crosses the room, opens the doors and - ah. Now. That won't do.

He's staring at a close-up of the glowing round ornaments that decorate the walls of the TARDIS. Seems like he parked her the wrong way around. Okay, so that is a little embarrassing.

The Doctor strolls into the console room, mug in one hand. The tea in it's steeping, the little ball of herbs spreading out into a full red faux chrysanthemum, complete with yellow center and green leaves at its base. It smells like flowers, too, and honey, warm and dark and far-away enough to be tantalizing instead of cloying.

"D'you remember the Emperor? He told me, us, me, well, you could set your clock by how long it takes this tea to bloom, there's an equation, compensates for differences in water temperature..."

He takes a sip of the tea as he properly takes in the view through the doors. Hm. That would explain why his TARDIS feels amused.

"Well. Full marks for precision, but I'll have to dock you on orientation..." Which isn't meant any more harshly than was his other's comment about the Keppler arc. In fact, the Doctor is smiling as he takes another sip of his tea. Nice to see he's not the only one who has trouble with parking.

"Mmmyeah." The Doctor rubs a hand over the back of his neck. Well, parking was never something he was very good at. "I'd better turn her around, then. And yes, I remember that," he continues as he returns to the console; good opportunity for a change of subject, there, "but the equation was based on time as a constant. Bless him, the Emperor did love his sundial, but he wasn't the brightest when it came to elementary physics."

Not that it makes much of a difference when it comes to the time it takes tea to bloom, but it's just principle when it comes to things like constant versus relative time. Believing in time as a constant, that's like believing in a geocentric solar system; it's quite ridiculous.

The tea does smell very good, though.

"Now," he says, not really thinking about what he's saying, "let's hope I'll be able to do this without losing this time line."

Oi. That's actually a Rather Good Point. He's not very familiar with the progression of time in the multiverse, and if he were to lose this current time line, with both of them in this TARDIS, his other's ship would end up drifting abandoned in space. Maybe it would have been a good idea for his other to stay on his ship while he himself relocated the TARDIS. Ah well, too late now. He gives his other a broad grin and initiates dematerialization.

It is very good; it's one of the best teas in the universe, made by the Emperor himself and given out only as a sign of imperial favor.

And he did try to explain to the Emperor about the fluid-relative nature of time, but his other knows how their attempts at explanation go. Really, you need the maths to understand it, and the time sense, and trying to substitute vague waving hand gestures for both gets no one anywhere.

"Oh, I don't know, I think he knew more than he was letting on, he had the oddest little smirk when I—oi, wait, what?"

But it's too late, his other's already set the TARDIS in motion and there's that grin—the grin that says 'Well, I hope I know what I'm doing, but I'm sure I do and it will all turn out for the best and if it doesn't, well, um, won't that be interesting? Allons-y!'

He jumps over to the console, wedging his mug of tea between a bank of toggles and a twist of wires, his attention entirely for the scanner and the other instruments.

"You can't lose it, they're in contact, they'll help. Yours will help?" He can't imagine her not helping, but he's found that TARDIS have reasons he can't begin to understand, half the time.

"Come on, come on, come on..." He watches the scanner with the intensity of a sports fan watching the last few moments of a ballgame, hoping his team will pull off that last-second win.

The Rather Good Point seems to worry his other much more than it worries the Doctor - and, well, yes, it would; after all it is his TARDIS that would end up lost in the multiverse. He sprints over to the console - and what, no mugs on the console, especially none with content. This has ended badly more than once.

"Don't put that there, it'll fall -"

And when he lets go of the steering lever to reach out for the mug, he can feel his TARDIS starting to drift, deviating off course ever so slightly, but slightly enough in this case.

"No!" His hands are back on the controls, and he's pleading with his TARDIS, mentally dragging her back on course. "Nonononono -"

They almost don't make it. The Doctor manages in the very last millisecond to locate that particular point in time and space that he's aiming for. When he does, he yanks the lever up with a jerk and initiates materialization. The TARDIS shudders as she makes that last little unexpected jump, and the mug does tip over, spilling tea over the controls. The Doctor can feel the TARDIS' dismay and displeasure, but he snatches the mug up too late, and the tea has already started to seep into the wiring.

"Now look what you've done, you got tea all over my console!" It's more an unhappy tone than one of outrage, and the Doctor tries to mop up the tea with his sleeve best as he can, not bothering to check the scanner if they really are where they're supposed to be.

They actually are in the other Doctor's console room, the right way around this time, but when they exit the TARDIS they will notice that a few of the wall lights got smashed as the TARDIS materialized a little too close to the wall.

The Doctor feels his connection with his TARDIS attenuate as his other reaches away from the steering lever, and there's nothing he can do. He hates that, hates being helpless; anger and irritation and the sound of the drums flood into the hollow in his chest caved out by panic. If his other only kept his TARDIS in proper repair—

But then the connection snaps back into place, and it's alright, his TARDIS is there, so they must have arrived without incident. Though...she seems a bit put out. About something. Huh.

What? He glances over at his other, who's complaining. It sounds like he's complaining—they made it, what would he be complaining about?

A spark fizzles deep in a snarl of the console wiring, and a wisp of steam, smelling of ozone and flowers and honey, wafts over towards him, from where his other is dabbing at the controls. OH. ...That was bound to happen, wasn't it? He really needs to solder some cupholders on, one of these days.

"Here." He riffles through his pockets, and comes up with...a loofah, well, that'll work, why does he have that? And a handkerchief embroidered with winged snakes in a quaint countrified pattern. Also some Peeps, in assorted colors, hm, those are a bit absorbent. He squashes loofah, handkerchief, and Peeps all down on the damp part of the console. Peeps also make for decent insulation, that ought to keep some of the sparking down. "There we go."

"We've made it." He hugs his other one-armed, around his back and shoulders, grinning. "Fantastic! Come on, open the doors, see if you've got her the right way about."

The corduroy doesn't really soak up the tea very well, and there's sparking and quite a worrying smell. The TARDIS is angry and in pain - well, or rather discomfort - and it's making the Doctor anxious. When his other dumps a colorful heap of - somethings - on the console, the attempt at help is not exactly appreciated, not by the Doctor or by the TARDIS.

"What are you doing?" The Doctor reaches out and picks up a soggy, sticky pink object that used to be - a marshmallow Peep? Oh, now really, come on. "This is not helping!"

There are more of those marshmallow duckies, and in the still-lukewarm-liquid, they're dissolving rather quickly and spreading a sugary coat over the controls. More sparks fly, and the smell changes to integrate the unpleasant odor of burned marshmallow mass.

The Doctor doesn't really pay attention to the other's arm around his shoulders, trying to pick the marshmallow candy off the console without getting either the console or his fingers too sticky. He's having little success, his hands covered in a sugary coating and holding a couple of deformed Peeps each.

"Now, seriously, Doctor, look at this mess; I'll have to replace the century fine tuner completely, it's unusable with sugar all over its switches, and I don't even know if I still have a model like that around, I used the last one after the whole Davros debacle, and why don't you go check yourself? I'm sort of busy right now."

The Doctor peers over his other's shoulders at the mess he, the Doctor in black, has managed to make.

The Peeps sag down into the wires, coating the century fine tuner with goo, their little food-coloring eyes spreading out and disappearing into the morass of yellow and pink and green muck as it melts down into the seams of the fine tuner.

Um...well. Oops. He really should have just contributed the loofah and the handkerchief. Though he has had some luck with juryrigging systems with stale Peeps, those must have been fresh. Damn.

"...Mm. Sorry." He runs his hands through his hair, feeling rather thick. "I think I've got a fine tuner, it's 71st-century Kort-Binary make, not the newest, but...it's in good condition." Which his other's isn't. Anymore. Um. "Let me go find that. Won't be a moment."

He heads out of his other's TARDIS, looking back at his other as he opens the door to leave. Not a great start, really. Meanwhile, his own TARDIS is feeding him a mix of reactions, exasperation and irritation and the amused, rubbernecking interest of a bystander watching the aftermath of a small but unique accident, like the collapse of a display of cereal boxes onto a few shoppers who were already arguing because they'd bumped into each others' carts.

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