'Bout a million miles an hour... [OPEN]

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Who: The Doctor (Eleventh) and YOU.
What: Compulsion week, ohgod.
When: Anytime this week, from Monday to Sunday.
Where: Anywhere. Really, anywhere. Come up with a place and he'll have come up with a reason to be there and start bugging you. Or you can come looking for him, if you know him already.
Warnings: If you are a Jack Harkness of any kind,

Comments

tuesday, anywhere } { /is late for everything

[isaywe_party]

Buffy and Bete Noire? Not friends at the moment.

There were too many complications running around for her to be happy in the city. Not that she was ever happy being trapped somewhere she couldn't leave, but the point still stands. She didn't want to be here, she's tired, she's hungry -- almost starving if it weren't for her rationing her food.

But she's still patrolling. She may hate the city, but the people in it were still hers to protect. Whether they want to be protected or not.

When she came upon the Doctor, though, she wasn't sure if this was a not scenario.

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From inside a run-down convenience store (of course, what wasn't run-down in this part of town?) came the sudden sounds of an altercation. Seconds later, the Doctor came backing out the door with his spread with incredulity. Pursuing him was a tattooed man who looked past ready to start something.

"It was only a suggestion!" The Doctor was exclaiming.

"Here's a suggestion, y'little freak." The man swung a wide haymaker, which the Doctor ducked - although the fist knocked his fez off.

He came back up with a glare and an accusing finger, even as he backed up. "Watch the hat." The man answered by lunging toward him -

The Doctor ducked at the last moment, positioning his shoulder so that the man's own momentum carried him right over the Doctor's back and onto the concrete.

[isaywe_party]

... Oh dear.

Buffy started jogging forward, sliding herself between the Doctor and the guy who was trying to pummel his face in. Giant Tattooed Guy was only looking angrier by the second, and while the Doctor seemed to know his way around not getting hit, by the end of this, someone might actually do some hitting.

"Hey," she said with a bit of a look as she made her way over. "Why don't you pick on someone half your size instead?"

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The Doctor's jaw dropped as he noticed Buffy rushing over - as though he wanted to say something, or perhaps he was only surprised to see her. Or surprised to see her confronting the man like that. Certainly this couldn't be standard police procedure.

Meanwhile, the assailant had found his feet and was looking amused. "This your girl?" he asked the Doctor over Buffy's shoulder, then looked at her. "Sorry, honey. I only hit the girls I fuck." Clearly he found this hilarious.

The Doctor had retrieved his hat and leaned down to whisper hurriedly in Buffy's ear: "In these situations, I normally suggest running."

[isaywe_party]

"I don't do running."

For the record, Buffy had no intention of escalating this to a fight unless the neanderthal in front of her made her. Sometimes, guys like this just needed to be stared down until they decided they had better things to do than screw with her. If he wanted to fight her, she'd take him to the ground. Otherwise, she just wanted him to leave.

She also didn't think he was nearly as funny as he thought he was.

She didn't break the man's gaze, keeping it solid and steady. "Fortunately for me, I don't have a problem hitting jerks like you. If you want him, you have to go through me."

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The man laughed derisively, but didn't make a move. He cracked his knuckles and grimaced at the both of them...

But Buffy's assessment of him was right. Faced with the threat, his own compulsions were telling him to run away.

"Not worth my time," he sneered, and headed back toward the store, which did involve passing them - but he gave them a wide berth. "Next time I see your freak face, you're a corpse," he directed at the Doctor. The store's doorbell did a cheery little ring as he stormed back inside.

The Doctor adjusted his jacket, made sure his hat was straight. "Right, well. So much for toothpaste." With an almost imperceptible nod toward Buffy, he turned and started striding down the sidewalk.

[isaywe_party]

"So much for toothpaste?" So much for toothpaste?

That sentence took a much higher pitch in her head, but right now, she was staring at the Doctor's back, trying to make sense of that somehow, but really, the most important thing was things in terms of her.

"What, I don't even get a thank you?"

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He shrugged. Kept on walking. If she chose to follow and keep up, that was up to her.

"Wasn't necessary. I was never gonna let him hit me. Though I guess I'm a bit grateful. Saved me some time." He stopped suddenly, turned on his heel. "So. Thanks." He tilted his head, suddenly curious. "...Is that a habit of yours, threatening men twice your size, or am I just a special case?"

[isaywe_party]

Yeah, Buffy wasn't letting him get away that easily. She pushed forward, jogging to keep up with his longer legs and just -- trying to figure out what he was up to more than anything else.

"Size isn't really an issue for me," she sighs. "I've taken down bigger. Plus, not a big fan of bullies. It was a bit of an instinct reaction."

She protected. It was what she did.

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"I like a girl with your instincts." Coming from anybody else, that might have come off as flirting - from the Doctor, it was far more a pure statement of fact. "Known a couple of them before. Not much for violence myself, but I won't say it never comes in handy to have someone around who's good with a bit of the old one-two." Still, he took it to understand that Earth girls weren't encouraged toward that kind of thing. Which made him curious. "Where d'you get those kinds of instincts?"

[isaywe_party]

"I think there are a lot of people who would say that I'm a bit too prone to violence," she said, pondering that over a bit, mostly to herself. "But it comes with my job. The violence. And the protecting. It was a long-story-destiny kind of gig."

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He tilted his head curiously. The long-story-destiny bit explained a lot about what he'd seen from her already - at the very least he would have guessed she'd had a hard life, been forced to grow up, as it were, much faster than most. 'Destiny,' though, put an interesting spin on things.

"Destiny," he repeated with an intrigued smile. "Hah. Knew there was something special about you."

He spun around again as if to move along, then suddenly realized he didn't actually have a plan for where he was going next. He glanced all around the sidewalk and the nearby intersections, pondering what to do.

[isaywe_party]

"Really? Do you have a special people detector? Does it make a loud beeping noise when you get close to someone who is one?"

It's said with a mostly dry bit of sarcasm, but she's curious as to how he's determined that much from the small bit of time they spent together. He seemed to be a little more observant than he's acting at the moment.

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"Oh, come on," he said, glancing over his shoulder, not believing her disbelief for a moment. "You're all ramrod spine and steely resolve. And that whole grandiose, city-wide pep talk over the Network? Love an inspirational speech. Don't often hear one from somebody so young."

"So, yeah," he went on, mimicking her dryness. "I have a 'special people detector.'" Also known as his brain.

[isaywe_party]

She grinned. Hey, at least he could appreciate a good sense of humor. "Hey, some people are a little dense. They don't always get the whole 'I'm here to save the world' thing right off the bat."

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He started moving again. There didn't seem to be any more little shops like that on this block, and there were still a few more things he needed to pick up.

"Perhaps it takes one to know one," he suggested. "People can be a bit thick when they've never had a whole world hanging over their heads." Or a whole universe. But he didn't want to seem like he was showing her up or anything.