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haughty_alpha and <lj site="livejournal.com" user="5th_doc
It was really fortunate Data remembered where either of their rooms were. It wasn't that his memory wasn't functioning, persay, but it was random fact over random fact, tumbling in an illogical order that trumped his processes. When he opened the door, he barely registered the cat skittering off to hide herself in the bathroom, suitably dosed so that her feline paranoia was getting the better of her and she wanted nothing to do with these two legged fiends.
He dropped their cricketing gear near the couch in the main area, oddly clumsy, and if he hadn't been holding to the Doctor to counterbalance his own weight.
"We have a mystery to solve," Data declared sternly, holding up his tricorder so they both could look at it. "But we can't until Avon is here. He needs his mustache." This was a fact. No mystery could be unravelled until Avon was fully mustachioed and prepared to provide... something. What was it.
And where was his pipe and smoking jacket?
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He followed the destination of his bag with the cricketing gear, deciding that that was the best place to settle himself. Near his things. His lovely, meaningful gifts from the TARDIS. He sprawled on the cushions, humming when they gave up a cheerful bounce against his weight.
"He doesn't sound like so clever a man if he requires an extra bit of...of...of...facial hair to contribute his help." He was still pullover-less, his braces shockingly exposed in all their question-marked glory. He drew a palm across his jaw. "I've gone all these years without...and it's never hindered me any?"
"I can feel your stubble. Not a smooth bottom face in the least, Doctor. But that is fine, as I like things that are not perfect."
He popped up, a strand of his normally chiselled neat hair sticking up and arching before his face awkwardly, utterly perplexed. He could not find his pipe. Perhaps Spot had jammed it into the couch cushions, stashing it near the back. So easy enough, he climbed over the Doctor and started jamming his hand in the cushions to grope and feel around and at least managed to not put any knees, feet, or elbows in tender spots.
"Well, there's a difference." He ought to explain. "Between stubble." A bit more. "And full facial hair growth." And he was about to expound on what those differences were when suddenly Data was upon him, pressing against him and wriggling along him and shoving his hands deep into the cushions. "Ah, hello!" he said, brightly. "Data, I do a-ppre-ci-ate that you've decided to stay close but I do enjoy my space."
"Personal space. Space that's personal." And his and his alone.
Data was shifting dangerously close to those tender spots, though.
He took the time to smooth out that single hair sticking out of place upon Data's head, licking at his fingers before dragging them through those strands, his face framed in a fond grin.
But then the Doctor was tending to his hair, and Data actually held still for it. Letting his snicker peter off to a dopey, utterly pleased grin at the soothing grooming. "It was not your personal space a - mo - ment - a - go." He poked his finger against the tip of his rounded Time Lord nose, and quirked it gently from side to side and up and down with each syllable as he spoke.
He was supposed to be doing something wasn't he? Figuring out what these question marks? No! Finding his pipe. That was it. But why did he need that? It had something to do with Avon needing a mustache.
...Wait, what?
He noticed the Doctor, belatedly, and snickered. "I do beg your pardon. You appear to be having a cricket-and-grooming party..."
More than a bit tipsy. He'd tipped over the edge of tipsy and was quite happily ensconced in the valley of intoxication.
His eyes went wide at the sudden appearance of the stranger.
No, he knew the man, didn't he?
He hiccuped again, the squeaky noise making his entire body convulse under Data's. Struggling to get his arm free, he finally waggled it in a brief wave.
His mouth pursed up as if to make a "w", utterly confused look holding. And then a look of surprise. Ah, yes, Avon was smart without his mustache, he would figure it out.
"We are drunk. And I require my pipe to fully exorcise us of inbriniation. No, that's not right either... But now I have to stay in his personal space and discern what the question marks are for. I think. No, I am certain."
Just as Avon was now. He removed his hand from the doorframe to wave back at the Doctor. Thus deprived of his chief source of balance, he staggered, stumbled, corrected himself, and just managed to make it into the room before collapsing to his knees in front of the other two men. "I am not drunk," he announced, gravely, "I merely fell over. The event was unrelated to my neurochenemical status. Ow."
He shook Data fervently, and he swallowed, which seemed to sync up his mind and his throat again. "The duck. Tell...tell...tell him about the duck. Oh, he's on the floor."
The Doctor flailed his lanky limbs, desperate to get at Avon to help him. Help him! He was quite good at helping. Excellent at it, as a matter of fact. But Data had settled himself rather firmly on the Doctor's lap, which put a damper on whatever the Doctor thought he ought to do.
"Was it the duck's doing?" he asked Avon. "Did you...did you...notice a par-ti-cu-lar-ly smug looking mallard in...in...in the room?"
He got up, meaning to help Avon, but being that he'd settled on a flailing Time Lord meant that this invariably ended in disaster (coupled with the fact he'd forgotten where he'd put the cricketing gear) and Data found himself back on the floor again.
And spared another glance under the couch.
"The duck evaded the bat." Explanation enough. It was an escaping duck.
"Was the escaped mallard in orange or plum sauce?" he asked the Doctor, waving his booted foot in the air. "Take this off, somebody, would you? My knees hurt."
He was the Doctor, and doctors helped people. Logically, and his mind could still work logically despite this odd intoxication, he ought to help!
He gave up a satisfied grunt when Data finally rolled off him, and now he was free to help! He slid off the couch and settled next to the two other men. Then he leapt to grab his arms around the offered boot as if it were something...something he needed to wrestle to submission!
And maybe he was attempting to tear Avon's leg off instead. Why didn't the boot want to slip off?
60 trillion processes weren't sure they were up to the task.
He squirmed back onto his stomach and stretched to undo the zipper, because at least these boots he could remember. "Polywater. That is what I was trying to remember. We are infected with polywog molecules, and they will increase until the medical facility finds the cure."
He shot Data a cross-eyed, indignant look. "I have to protect my virtue," he sniffed. "Back home, everybody wants to sleep with me. Friends, enemies, priestesses, maniacal despots, Orac...I had to take steps to keep them out. Especially Servalan." He put a protective hand over his privates at the very thought.
"What," he added, as an afterthought, "is a polywog? If it is a type of alcohol, then Vila will have heard of it." He snickered. "His blood is so saturated with booze, we could use him as a vaccine."
And the zipper was unzipped! The Doctor whooped in triumph.
Oh, the buckle.
But he could handle buckles! He pawed at the catch, easily unfastening it then twisted the boot off, leaning backwards and landing on his back on the floor, hoisting the taken boot with as much gusto as Arthur holding aloft Excalibur.
He then noticed the Doctor's delighted triumph. "He has two boots," he grimly informed him.
Then he remembered that Data had asked him a question. A question. Questions existed to be answered. "It can't. At least, I hope it can't. Unless one rigs it up to a microwave oven or something...which would be a bit of rough for Orac, I suppose." He snickered again. "But he tried. He recited love poetry at me. It was very disturbing. I am only grateful that he is rectangular and does not possess the appropriate interlocking bits. Or...independent motility." It took him rather a long time to say all those complex, multisyllabic words without slurring too much.
Zipper.
Ah. Of course.
Zzzzziiiip.
"Nicely onomatopoeic," he said with a satisfied, smug grin, congratulating the zipper on a job well done at being a zipper. Which zipped. Why he was able to tackle saying 'onomatopoeic' without tripping all over his tongue was a mystery. The other boot came off after he undid the buckle and threw all his weight into scooting onto his back. He ended up sprawled on the floor, other boot cradled in his arms like a misshapen baby.
"Done!" he squeaked, excitedly.
Or all three, and that led to thoughts of them trying to get the cricketing gear off.
He undid his own shoes, just because right now it seemed like a good idea. Avon was doing it, and... a portion of the time he had good ideas. Not the rest of the time. A portion of it. The Doctor's shoes too, they should be removed. So he got to that as well. "You have him squeaking, Avon," he said as if it were a compliment once he regained his composure.
"Thank you, Doctor," he added, leaning forward to give him a friendly pat.
He looked around in bemusement at all the increasingly bare feet. "If this is strip poker, which of us is winning?" he asked. "Should I take something else off?" Avon usually lost at poker, after all.
And his trainers had somehow disappeared in between the time he'd thought about ridding himself of Avon's boot and actually ridding himself of Avon's boot. He gazed in astonishment at his socks, white, with red stripes, like everything else. He did like red!
"I've lost my coat! And my jumper. Perhaps I'm winning?" He hooked a thumb beneath his braces and gave them a slight tug, question marks stretching thin. "What about these?"
And then he hooked a finger under one of the Doctor's braces again (as they were delightfully springy) and snapped it. This time though it was at an angle so he ended up tugging it off his shoulder. Data did have an unfair advantage, being so far in the lead, so he undid his vest. Wasn't there an illness where most of the victims had ended up naked because they lost their inhibitions?
"Wait," he said the word slowly and carefully, even as he shed his vest off to the side. They were drunk. He needed to fix this. The last time he-
Oh yes, he hadn't fixed it all, had he? But he'd managed through at least 12 sexual techniques.
Just in case, however, he quickly unfastened his studded leather tunic, shuffling out of it to reveal a plain, thin black vest beneath. "I think I win because I have the heaviest clothes," he announced. "And you do so squeak," he added to the Doctor.
"N-never!" he squeaked again, tone defiant, chin dropping as he noted the sorry state of his braces. One on his shoulder; one off. They were asym...asim...they weren't entirely the same. His gaze darted between the two sides, as he attempted to remember which way they ought to be. On the shoulder seemed correct, but off the shoulder was so much more comfortable that he defied convention (aha! The Doctor, always the renegade!) and slipped the other one off.
Which slid the waist of his striped trousers a little down his slim hips, but he didn't mind very much. At least the two sides matched! But was he losing the game? No matter. It wasn't...cricket so it didn't matter.
Cricket.
There was something...and then it was gone. The bag of gear so far, far away on the couch.
No matter.
He noticed the Doctor had red stripes on his socks. "He probably has underwear. I would not be surprised if it were striped." He thumbed toward the Time Lord.
He suddenly acquired the most pitiful doggish look. "...Oh no... Doctor, I lost your cricket ball."