Work Text:
He was different, sure. Quieter, older, skinnier. But that blistering ego was hard to mistake. And the smell, there was a particular smell. The Doctor, moping over a milkshake. Chocolate.
Chocolate milkshakes had used to make the guy happy. But then, plenty of things had made Frobisher happy, once. Before all the bullshit, before being through the wringer. The Doctor was supposed to be better than the rest of them, though.
Frobisher pushed through the crowd, the gun molls and gangsters and three-eyed fugitives. He slid into the booth across from the Doctor, flippers braced against the Formica table top.
“What’s up, Doc?”
Hey, that got a reaction. Of some kind. The Doc’s now-craggy brow crunching up suspiciously.
“The ceiling,” the Doctor said warily.
“Ha ha.” Frobisher fiddled with the salt shaker, sneaking glances up at the Doc’s face.
Guy was even older than he’d first thought. Nothing to do with appearance - the Doc wasn’t like that, didn’t work like that - but just a sense to him. Like he was carrying some awfully heavy weight. Or a few of them. Just beaten down and wrung out and left in the gutter for the pigeons to peck at.
“You remember me?”
“Talking penguin, hard to forget.” The Doctor pushed his curly straw around the glass. “Never thought about being anything else?”
“A few times. Tried being a horse, for a while. Guess being a penguin just feels right.”
“Yeah. Know that feeling.”
Frobisher would never have guessed that he’d miss Mr Loud Bad Suit Shouting Bastard, but here he was, mentally willing this sad sack to regenerate back into someone more cheerful. Less gaunt and haunted. He tipped the salt shaker over, sprinkling salt onto the table. “So.”
“I’m in between companions, at the moment,” the Doctor said, acting like Frobisher had asked.
“You need a buddy or you’ll go totally nuts,” Frobisher said.
“I’m not bad at going totally nuts with a buddy.” The Doc rolled his shoulders, stretching then hunching back over the milkshake. An extended, overly-loud slurp. “So how’ve you been?”
“Can’t complain. I write a few columns for the local rags, it pays the bills. Got married a few times. You?”
“Totally nuts,” the Doctor repeated. Smiled, a hint of the grin Frobisher knew buried under a few layers of irony and self-pity. “You know, whatever happened, and I’m not saying it was all good, I liked running with you. I liked who I was. Dunno if I was objectively likeable, but.”
“Yeah. We had some good times.”
“Wanna try it again? There’s a vacancy. TARDIS still goes through time and space. Adventures, excitement. The usual.” Doc sounded like he was trying to sell a used car so crappy even the best actor couldn’t pretend it wasn’t a lemon, and therefore wasn’t even bothering.
“Nah. Nah, I’m good.” A pregnant pause. The scum of the universe drifting past them. This backwater diner, couldn’t even make decent sunny-side-up eggs. “You ever need an article about a sensational murder, good old-fashioned muckraking stuff, you’ll hit me up, yeah?”
The Doctor huffed out a laugh. That was something, at least. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that.”
“And if I hear you threw yourself off a bridge I’ll be real fuckin’ disappointed.”
“Mm. Thanks, I think, but I’m not planning on it.”
“Just, you’ve got that look.” Frobisher had run out of salt, was just tapping the shaker against his flipper. Never been much of a conversationalist.
“There’s no look. I promise.”
There was a look, definitely. Poor bastard. Whatever had happened had happened just a bit too much. “Right. Yeah, no.” Tap-a-tap-a-tap-tap. “Nice coat, by the way.”
“Thanks! Yeah, uh, a friend - someone - I thought I should wear it.”
Everything continued to be weird and uncomfortable. There was no escape from the social faux-pas loop. Just him and his empty salt-shaker, and the Doc and his empty milkshake glass, and Tom Jones singing distantly about what was new, pussycat.
“It’s a good look. For you,” Frobisher offered. Tap-a-tap-a-tap-a-tap-a-tap-tap-tap. The song starting over. Whoa-oh-oh.
“Thanks. Yeah, it’s…”
Frobisher put half a smile on, like not too much, not like he was happy, but just enough to be an attempt to defuse this particular time bomb. How long, d'you think, like in terms of etiquette, how long is long enough to make running away seem like a reasonable move? Ten minutes? Fifteen? The clock on the wall was ticking but not moving. Twenty? Frobisher awkwardly widened his smile, flicking his flipper rhythmically over the cap of the salt shaker.