Because You're Special - Three
Because You're Special
Biker-Boy
Donna Noble pushed back the door to her favorite pub. It was surprisingly busy, considering it was Christmas Eve. A group laughed stupidly by the door, all of them dressed in revolting green and red or snow white and blue sweaters. She wrinkled her nose, threading her way through the merry idiots to perch at the bar.
"Anything, anything, bar-boy," she combed her red hair from her face, avoiding meeting the eyes of the bartender.
"Ginger."
"What?" She turned towards the voice, coming from a barstool at her left, raising her hand to give the arrogant little prawn a slap.
"Instant hostility, one of humanity's worst traits if you ask me." The man was wearing a dark outfit, all black and leather, like he was a scrawny biker. "But then, really, I set my expectations too high. Ever the optimist, that's me. Always disappointed. I think," and he lifted a shot glass to his mouth, and glanced at her, smirking in an oddly endearing and bizarre way, "maybe a few more of these and the whole picture will look a bit rosier… ah, Rose…"
"You snockered, mad or stupid?" Donna let her hand drop to the counter, fingers tracing the groove of her name she'd carved there years ago. Nearly had gotten her kicked out, but then again, she threatened to sue the living backside off him for failing to have a handicapped bathroom… and either her voice or her words were so convincing that she'd had no more trouble.
"One, maybe, two possible, three, never. I'm clever… not like those wooly apes at the door." He jabbed a finger at the sweater-wearing partyers. He turned his eyes to her hair, openly admiring it. "Always wanted to be ginger."
"Ever heard of hair dye?" She emphasized each word with sing-song sarcasm.
"Ever heard of genetically pure Gallifreyan hair follicles?"
"Oi, you always speak rubbish fluently?"
"You always ask so many questions?" He was smiling, not a completely happy smile, but rather the smirk of the arrogant, confident, irritating bloke that he was. Blimey, he thought he was so special, this skinny streak of nothing with dumbo ears.
"You always act like your hoarding the answers to life itself?"
He nearly choked on his drink, snorting with sudden laughter. "Sort of, yeah."
"Well," she said snidely, "I can believe that, sunshine."
"Sunshine?" He twirled on the barstool, long legs touching the floor. "Not quite as impressive a title as Lord of Time and Space…"
"Just cause," she reached for her drink, "you light up my life and all."
"Not just your life." He noted, beaming with an almost alien satisfaction. "Rose thinks…" He stopped, looking incredibly broody and miserable and un-sunshine like.
"Thought'cha mean." Donna finished, motioning to the bartender. "Get Mr. Ego here another drink."
"Any woman in the galaxy would be proud to travel with me." The man announced, "You would, wouldn't you?"
"What's the pay?"
The man froze, staring at her with a look of incomprehension, as if she had said his mother was really a Tasmanian devil. Slowly, a wide goofy spread from enormous ear to enormous ear. "What's your name?"
"Donna." She spun her empty glass on the bar, keeping it from falling with the tip of one of her nails. "Isn't it a bit… I don't know, cliché?"
"Donna? Nope. Never hear that name anymore. Died out in the 50th century, Galaxy time, naturally-"
"No." She turned to face him, her brows furrowing. "I mean, you here. Drinking yourself to death over a long lost love. It's like writers went on strike and some substitute is writing your life story…."
"I don't believe in destiny. Besides, Rose isn't lost…like you could just lose Rose Tyler…" He scoffed at the very idea, draining another glass, "It's just…"
"She doesn't fancy you anymore?"
The man almost winced at the sound of her voice or the question. He covered almost immediately by hunching his shoulders and staring mindlessly at the TV rolling with news and weather in the corner.
"We're not like that. We're… better than all that. All that… domesticity."
"Domesticity." Donna repeated, "You mean like "I'm gonna be with you forever and ever until the day I die" domesticity? Oi, yeah, anything's better than that!"
"You know, Donna," He turned suddenly, "shut it."
"Come again, biker-boy!" And Donna Noble readied herself to give the obnoxious drunk the slap of his life.
"I have to hear the telly." He sighed, probably at her stupidity, and turned his gaze at the TV. A second later, he had yanked a slender metal wand from his jacket and was bleeping the screen with a turquoise light. He met Donna's eyes for a second. "Uh, universal remote."
There was a woman in a scarlet suit with perfect short hair on, interviewing a chunky man with pale-white skin. There was something, plasticy and doll-like about his eyes. Bad contacts, Donna judged, also noting the peculiar redness of his gums. Orthodontist and Optomoligist is what he needed. The sound, now blaring over the carols and customer's voices, was unintelligible at first. Something about a new restaurant.
"Blimey, who'd wanna eat there? He looks like a pudgy vampire."
"Yup." The man in the jacket rose from the barstool, knocking back his last drink. He smiled down at her and for some reason, Donna couldn't breath. Something about him, and it was crazy, it really was, but when he looked at her, she felt this stirring inside like… like…she was something special.
"You coming?"
"Yeah." Donna's voice sounded husky to her and she babbled something about 'nothing better to do', flustered like she rarely was. She pulled her coat on tighter and stood to follow him.
He held out his hand. An odd gesture for a complete stranger.
"Come on now, Donna. Just because I have bigger teeth than a Radishom Mole doesn't mean I bite. 'Sides," And he grinned that crazy mad smile, "Lots of running to do."
"We're going to run to a restaurant?"
"A simple question like that and you turn it into the snidest sarcasm… And no, we're probably going to be running from the restaurant. Ninety-eight and a half times out of a hundred that's how these things go."
"So now you're what? James Bond?"
"Sort of, yeah." And he waggled his long fingers at her.
"You're bonkers!" And she was too. Because she took his hand.
Next Chapter: {James Bond}