Worth the Wake

5. Sunrise – Zepheera enjoys something beautiful for once

AU: Donna AU of BTaS (the Doctor rescues Zepheera while Donna is traveling with him)

Warm, gentle pressure at Zepheera’s back brought her to the waking world. She nearly batted at the finger prodding at her when the Doctor whispered, “C’mon, wake up. It’s happening.”

That was enough encouragement for Zepheera. They’d spent the night out here, under an alien sky, because it was one of the simple pleasures that had never been available to the borrower. She was either too busy worrying about her survival or that of her people, or was stuck in a cage in a windowless room. Here she had friends who were concerned for her recovery, invested in her interests, and more than willing to be her safe place to fall.

Sitting up, Zepheera rubbed her eyes and looked around. Donna was still fast asleep in her own spot, and the sky above was becoming lighter by the second.

The Doctor’s hand shifted to form a platform near Zepheera, who sat on his chest while he lay on his back. She accepted the silent offer without hesitation, and the Doctor was able to sit up without sending Zepheera tumbling. Then she could take her usual perch on his shoulder.

“Any moment now…”

All of the tension from the effort of waking up melted as soon as Zepheera saw the first sliver of sunlight peeking over the horizon.

The Doctor plucked out a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and balanced it on his shoulder so Zepheera could balance one lens on her lap to protect her eyes from the intensity of the sun without missing out on any of the beauty. Together, they watched the arrival of the sun change the colors of the sky and the clouds, a breathtaking canvas constantly in motion.

Zepheera, careful to not shift the sunglasses enough to cause them to fall, scooted herself closer to the Doctor’s neck. Part of her was grateful that he couldn’t see her tears when they were this close. It was still tough for her to be emotionally vulnerable around someone his size, and she didn’t want him to worry needlessly when he’d made her so happy.

“Thank you for this,” she said, unable to avoid the slight crack of emotion in her voice.

She could hear the smile in his voice as he whispered back, “Anytime.”

A First Borrowing

2. Curiosity – Nate’s first excursion into the human world

AU: ??? (Nathan Sullivan is a borrower in a world in which borrowers are common knowledge)

Twelve years old was rather young for Nathan to learn to borrow, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

He was far from rebellious or daring by nature. Quiet and respectful of the rules, of which there were many. With borrowers being known to humans, it was sort of necessary.

Nate understood that, even though the humans had mostly agreed to leave borrowers alone, that it was still dangerous out in the world. Even so, he argued that it would do no harm for him to get a head start on learning to survive. Evidently that was hard enough to argue with that he got his way in the end.

Truth be told, Nate was dying for a glimpse of the human world. It was all so much bigger than the community he grew up in, in more ways than one. Humans had far more at their fingertips than Nate could ever hope to underground. The most exciting learning experience he had to look forward to was studying a trade. He had a deep hunger in his mind that longed for more to learn.

So one could imagine Nathan’s excitement when the first place his father took him to borrow was full of homework. Spanning several grades, the dining room table was full of the stuff to the point that Nate’s father repeatedly chided him to focus on filling his bag with materials.

Compared to that, the rest of the flat was fairly standard. It was a decent distance from the community so it couldn’t easily be traced if worst came to worst. There wasn’t much to learn about the humans that lived here, but it seemed to Nate that it was mostly kids.

In their last room before they returned, Nate noticed something that his father, knowingly or not, overlooked. It looked like a scrap of loose leaf paper folded two or three times, tucked in the space behind a small bookshelf, with a colorful “Hello!” scrawled on the front in pencil crayon.

Intrigue got the best of him and, checking to see if his father was looking, Nate unfolded the paper. It read, in carefully printed block letters:

My name is Stan. I am ten years old. I don’t know any borowers, I promise I’m nice! Will you be my friend?

“Leave it.”

Nate’s father’s voice melted the endeared smile he didn’t notice was forming. He hurried to fold the note back as it was. His dad gave a gesture for Nate to follow, and he knew they were about to leave.

Before he obeyed, Nathan hesitated. He wasn’t usually impulsive, especially when it came to safety. This kid seemed sweet, though. Perhaps he really was nice.

Nathan wasn’t sure if he’d ever find out, but for now, he surreptitiously took a pencil tip from his bag and scrawled a quick and small “Hi” next to the larger, more colorful greeting.

April Fools!

1. Pranks – Zepheera is bored. Shenanigans ensue.

Slowly working my way through these. Let’s see if I actually finish the list this time

Btas: Non-Canon

“Lose something?”

The Doctor paused in his frantic search around the console room, lifting his chin to find the source of the tiny owner of the tiny voice.

“You didn’t,” he growled as he squinted toward the shadowy tops of the coral supports surrounding the room.

A small shadow shifted overhead. “Who, me?”

“Zepheera. Where. Is. My. Sonic?”

As a little figure swung out under a branch of coral on a thin line, the Doctor turned to square off with it, crossing his arms and tapping his toe. The woman who lowered herself unto the dim blue-green light tossed her short brown bob oh so innocently.

“I’ve absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” With her line attached to her belt, she allowed one hand to reach into her vest pocket and pulled out an absolutely miniscule device. She pressed the button and the tip lit up blue.

The Doctor’s eyes widened. “You SHRANK IT?!”

Zepheera smirked, letting herself hang upside down from her harness, waving the sonic and letting the light glint off the gold ring on her upper arm. The culprit for the shrinkage of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. “Sure did!”

“Well, un-shrink it!” the Doctor demanded, holding his hands out under the dangling borrower and his miniaturized tool. It distressed him to no end to see it no bigger than a grain of rice. “Why would you even take it, anyway??”

“Because,” Zepheera shrugged. She then let the sonic slip through her fingers, and quickly reached out the arm with the ring to point at it.

“April Fools!” she cried, flipping herself upright the second before the sonic landed safely in the Doctor’s hand, its proper size once again.

After a tender moment of holding his sonic close to his chest, the Doctor shot a flat look up at Zepheera and pointedly returned the device to his inside jacket pocket. “You do realize we’re floating in space, there’s no way to keep track of dates out here.”

Zepheera rolled her eyes and released the latch on her harness to allow herself to lower to the Doctor’s eye level. “It’s been days and I’m bored!”

“We’ve talked about this, we are social distancing!”

Asks and Prompts are open! | Main Story

Life Update

I FINALLY graduated college!

I’m settling into adult life now, but I’m hopeful that writing and content creating can resume without such huge hiatuses like these past four years.

Tomorrow I’ll be belatedly posting a few of those generated shitposts from April Fool’s day (I saved a bunch of the funny ones with the intention to post them and then whoops never did) and this week I’ll answer a few asks that came in ages ago. Wish me luck on the writing!

Thanks to everyone for your patience with me these last four years! I’m free!!!

Song Meme

nightmares06 asked:

Nate Sullivan :3

Based on this song-shuffle meme

So…I have a lot of soundtracks in my library, especially from tv shows and movies I love. I can’t help it, I’m a music nerd.

The first song that came up in the shuffle was “There’s That Smile”, a song from the Series 8 soundtrack from Doctor Who, and somehow I felt that it was incredibly appropriate for Nate. It’s incredibly romantic, but just a touch off-kilter to let you know that things aren’t quite normal. It tricks you into thinking it’s a waltz when it’s not, and there’s an underlying touch of danger that I feel could be implicit of his connection to Stan, whose life is full of it. This was definitely a surprising find!

Fun fact 1: I did check and the next two songs after this one in the shuffle were love-related xD

Fun fact 2: for any music theory nerds, I think this song is in 8/8 time. Idk i get really excited about music theory xD

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Song Meme

torchmlp asked:

Stan Baker

Based on this song-shuffle ask meme

This miiiiiight be a bit of a cop out but it really was the first, most appropriate song that came up!

I ended up on “Lestrade – The Movie” from the BBC Sherlock soundtrack. It’s dramatic and the perfect background music to Stan’s action-packed life!

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Song Meme

nightmares06 asked:

Stan Baker!

Have I mentioned how much I love this meme? cuz I really really do

Only two songs into the shuffle and I ended up on “No Way” by Darren Criss from A Very Potter Sequel. It’s a high-energy group number between Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco, full of determination to fight the battle and win it. I imagine this is the attitude Stan has going into a mission.

Send me more characters!

G/T Prompts Day 8

8. Jar – Stan has a wake-up call.

AU: ???

Stan couldn’t breathe.

He thought seeing the world from only a few inches tall had been amazing, and after he climbed down his bedspread to the floor, he was all set on exploring the alien landscape his bedroom had become.

Then the ground, the very air, everything began to shake. Steady vibrations rattled the floor under Stan’s feet and froze him in place. Sharp impacts on the massive shut door made him flinch, and he clapped his hands over his ears as a tremendous voice rumbled through it.

Panic rose within the teen as it sank in. Someone was looking for him, and they were enormous.

His imagination took it from there, disregarding the logic that whoever it was out there was one of Stan’s brothers, his family. Instead, Stan was paralyzed by images of giants as they’d always been portrayed in films and stories, vicious creatures who meant harm to those smaller than them.

These overwhelming fears came to a head when he saw the door open ever so slightly, and Stan jumped behind the nearest thing to hide, hardly noticing that it happened to be a discarded shoe that was now taller than he was.

Stan’s heart pounded too loudly in his ears to process what the giant was saying, but he certainly felt the wave of displaced air when the door swung open, the earth-shattering footsteps that followed. Humongous feet stomped closer and swung right past Stan’s hiding spot in only a handful of steps.

A hand shot up to cover Stan’s mouth, quieting his heavy breathing and stifling the dread-filled cries he could feel creeping up his throat. The giant’s feet were right there and Stan was completely exposed, it could notice him at any moment! He needed to find a new hiding spot, and he glanced around the corner of the shoe to find one.

If he could just made it under the dresser in the distance…

The next few minutes were an adrenaline-filled blur; dashing from one shoe to its match to hide, then from there to the safe shadowy cavern under the dresser. The SLAM of a door and more thunderous footsteps to run away from.

Before Stan could make heads or tails of anything but runrunRUN!, he found himself surrounded by warmth and gentle pressure. Squirming against it made Stan realize it was flesh he was resisting, a dull and distant heartbeat pulsing through a palm much bigger than Stan’s entire body, long and strong fingers curled impenetrably around him.

Just when Stan started shaking with terror, the grip around him loosened. He fell between fingers and landed on something cold and smooth, and slid down a steep angle for only a second until he settled at the bottom.

The bottom of a jar, Stan realized after a panicked look around. Surrounded on all sides by glass that was surrounded by those gigantic fingers, gripping tight as the hand tilted to right the jar. The jar was lifted, and Stan flattened himself to the bottom as he felt the pressure of gravity working against him. From there, too terrified to do much else, Stan curled into a ball in one last ditch attempt to block out the world.

Then, after a second or two that seemed like an eternity to Stan, the world flipped on its head, and it was for the best that Stan was scrunched in such a tight ball. It kept him safe while he tumbled out of the jar, landing back in that massive hand.

It didn’t close around him this time, but that hardly mattered to Stan, who scrambled to find some way to escape from the immense creature that had him in its grasp.

“N-no! Please!”

Stan just got tossed ten pounds of yike in a five pound bag.

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G/T Prompts Day 6

6. Catch – A Wild Baker Appears

Sort of doing these out of order, but I’m determined to do them all

AU: ???

“Stan?”

Simon Baker rapped gently on his youngest brother’s bedroom door. “Suppertime! Get it while it’s hot!”

These days, Simon thought to give Stan whatever space he needed. School had always been a rough time for the kid, even more so now that he was a teenager. Even so, Simon tried to keep spirits light in the hopes of cheering Stan up.

Simon’s brow pinched when there came no answer. Usually, even on the worst days, he’d get a grumble in response at least. Stan would never turn down a meal.

“C’mon Stanley, don’t want it to get cold without you,” he called through the door as he made a move to open it. He went slow, not one to burst in on anyone, and he listened for Stan to correct him.

It wasn’t that he hated being called Stanley, but he did prefer ‘Stan’.

Only when Simon still didn’t hear a peep out of the room did he open it all the way. Now he was concerned.

His frown deepened as he stepped into the room and found it empty. Stan wasn’t in bed, but his schoolbag was still there and the window was securely shut. Simon knew Stan came home earlier, so where did he–?

A light skittering on the floor by his feet interrupted Simon’s thoughts. He looked down; when he didn’t see anything, he took a wary step closer.

In the corner of Simon’s eye, he noticed something quick and tiny dashing into the open. He didn’t get a good look before it took shelter under Stan’s dresser.

Simon sighed and strode over to shut Stan’s door. If his brother brought another mouse in the house, he’d better take care of it before it got into the walls. Then he could resume figuring out where Stan went.

Grabbing one of Stan’s jars and a ventilated lid from the desk, Simon lowered himself to the floor to peer under the dresser. It was too dark to see in any detail, but a small shape hurried to the far side. Simon sat up and reached around to snatch it before it hid under the bed.

In his hurry to get his catch into the jar, Simon didn’t notice that it didn’t quite feel like a mouse in his grasp.

He made sure to tilt the jar so the little thing would slide safely to the bottom. Simon was used to this habit of Stan’s, and he knew it came from a well-meaning place. Their youngest brother was never one to walk away when anyone or anything needed help. Even a lost, injured mouse.

So it was a complete shock to Simon when he lifted the jar to find something that definitely wasn’t a mouse.

“Oh, God.”

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