Never Trust a Hippy [open]

[genehunt]

Well, at least this place had a pub, and that was what mattered.

With a sigh, DCI Gene Hunt straightened his mustard-coloured jacket and peeled off his leather bike gloves, squinting at the man behind the bar. Funny-lookin' bloke. "Pint of yer cheapest beer, mate," he muttered. When the drink came, it was a uniform deep amber, and didn't look at all suspicious, which set Gene's mind on ease slightly. The barman grunted rather than spoke, which further reassured Gene, who grunted back, feeling briefly more at home.

Not that the brief wordless communion between two gruff, taciturn souls gave any real, lasting comfort. Where the hell was he? He'd gone to sleep pass-out pissed on the sofa after coming home late and being informed by the Missus that if he thought he was sleeping in her bed when he stank of whiskey like that, and he had woken up here, outside, on some dusty trail. Thank God he'd lost consciousness still clothed. He wasn't sure who was to blame, but he was fairly certain he was going to pound them into a pile of dust when he found out who they were. And then he was going to find a way to charge them with as many offences as he could think of. 'Abduction' was definitely on the list. He could probably mention emotional abuse- because fuck, confusion and irritation were emotions and they were abusing his skull right now, sure enough. 'Playing silly buggers' wasn't a criminal offence but God, if Gene had his way it would be. He took a large gulp of the beer and was surprised to find that it was alright. Not a patch on his usual, but not as bad as it could have been.

Right. Time to scope out the area, which felt much more bearable with a drink in his hand. Candles, there were candles. Bloody arty-farty new age shite, most likely, or some kind of 'ambience' thing. Ambience! In a pub! Stupid bastards. Pubs were for drinking, not feeling the goddamn vibes. Still, they were good for some things, Gene thought, ducking his head with a cigarette between his lips and lighting it off one of the flames, sucking in smoke with relief. That felt good.

Ok, what else? Not much. Loads of wood, more arty-fartyness. Good beer. No clues as to where he could have ended up. He had a horrible feeling he must've blacked out last night or something, and some little dick from the station- Tyler? Nah, Tyler was too sensible, more likely to be Ray- had dumped him in some godawful hippy commune. Yeah, that must've been it. Well, nothing for it but to cause a scene. Gene finished the beer, slammed it on the bar, and cleared his throat. "Excuse me!" he said, in his loud-but-not-yelling-yet-still-aggressive voice, specially cultivated by extensive police work. "Can any one of you give me any clue as to where the hell I am and what I have to do to get back to Manchester and my bloody job? Thank you!"

[THE DOCTOR]

The Doctor was not a drinking man, not that he never drank, but he often found it more appropriate for his line of living to have his wits about him. When he found the time though, oh could he go wild - just ask France about the Banana Daiquiri. However he knew just as well as the next bloke that the best place to find people willing to talk would be the pub. He was beginning to suspect that no one really knew anything about this place and had made the mental decision that if he could find nothing here, he would focus his efforts on finding a way off instead. Not that he didn't find an opportunity to explore a world uncharted on his systems fascinating, but he would be finding it so much more interesting right now if he knew where his Tardis was located while on said uncharted world. As it was, he was growing restless, never having liked the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in any one planet or time.

He stepped into the pub, looking around at all the patrons. Nice little place this: it had an air about it that was at once inviting and secluded as if welcoming you into privacy. Of course not everyone seemed to be capable or had a desire to appreciate this little ambiance. A man at the bar slammed down his drink and proceeded, through use of sarcastic bravado to request, perhaps demand was a better word, that someone tell him where he was and how to get back to his place of work: Manchester. He shook his head slightly. It was an invasion of the English here, wasn't it? Not that he was complaining, it made him feel more at home -- as at home as a man without one could feel anyway.

He sighed and made his way to the bar counter: it sounded like this man could use a Doctor with his area of expertise. Before he spoke to him, though, he wanted to test a theory about this place. He leaned over the counter, flashing the bartender a grin. "Think you could whip up a Vinessian Sour?" he asked. It had been a delightful little drink he'd had when visiting the planet Barcelona - fantastic place that- but most importantly it wasn't something that Earth provided. After the bartender presented with his drink, he took a sip and was only mildly surprised to note that it was a proper Vinessian Sour. "Look at that," he murmured, an intrigued smile set on his face. His theory tested, he returned his attention to the man from before.

"I believe you'll find you're in Terra," he informed him calmly. "That's what they're calling this place." He swirled the drink round in his glass with a little plastic prong. "As for getting back to Manchester," he went on with a shrug. "I'm afraid if anyone here had managed to figure out how to get back, you'd have arrived to an abandoned pub."

[genehunt]

Well, he'd gotten some attention. Good. Gene didn't tend to go unnoticed long, not with all his bravado and loud voice and habit of causing loud crashes, bangs and occasionally gunshots wherever he went.

The bloke said this godawful tree-hugging dope-smoking place was called Terra. Terra? Where the hell was that? "That down South?" Gene sniffed suspiciously, taking note of the man's accent and his general appearance. Skinny with mad hair. Proper little poofter, he guessed, sticking his cigarette in his mouth and pulling out his badge. "DCI Gene Hunt of the Machester and Salford Police Force, A-Division, CID. PhD- that's 'pretty hungover, dammit'. Mind giving me a little bit more information? I don't have time to waste." The fag in his mouth waved as he spoke, trails of smoke wafting up in streams through the air.

Was he insinuating there was no way out? Gene's bullshit sense was tingling, but so were his police instincts. Sounded like some kind of kidnapping operation. With him as one of the victims. Oh, he didn't like that, no way. The stranger didn't look like he was in control of the situation, but you never knew, and you couldn't trust anyone in an uncertain environment. Especially not anyone in a funny suit. He narrowed his eyes and leant against the bar and spoke over his shoulder; "Give us another, barman, same as before. Ta. Got a name? ...No? Fair enough." He took the second beer and gave his new suspect (everyone in the surrounding area was a suspect until he got more information) a professional, policing, cold look. Mysterious circumstances, possible hostages, weird bent-looking blokes in funny suits- what was this, had he landed in Tyler's wet dream or something? Well, at least when Tyler wasn't here, he could work his own way, without that little Hyde shit at his shoulder wittering on about doing things 'by the book', but he'd have to call the department sooner or later, admit that he'd got himself caught in something. Great, that was going to be fun. He leant forwards towards the other man. "Now listen, Dorothy. I want your name, I want how come these people are here and I don't want you to withold any information from me. I also want access to a phone and preferably some pink wafers, but that's just a personal preference. Is this some kind of hostage situation, is there any apparent danger to any of the people around here and when you say that people can't get back, what exactly do you mean?"

[THE DOCTOR]

The Doctor arched his eyebrow as the man asked if Terra was down south. Oh he really didn't know where they were, did he? He wondered idly if he wasn't the welcoming party for half the occupants in this place, and if half of the people here would truly be able to accept 'this place' for what it really was: an anomaly in time and space. "Not quite, no," he answered , taking a swig of his drink. No one knew drinks like Barcelona. He watched as this man, Gene Hunt, as he announced, waved his badge around and rattled off his ranking in the police force. He an the police didn't always see eyes to eye, well to be fair no one ever really saw eye to eye with him. His lips quirked up into a slight grin despite himself at the inventive use of the PhD in his name.

He shrugged as he was asked to give some more information, resisting the urge to pull out his psychic paper for a little fun on his part. "I suppose so," he returned. He waited while this Gene Hunt went and ordered another drink, beer if he had to guess, and then turned back to look at him. He raised his eyebrows in response to the cold look he'd received. It took a lot to intimidate him and this certainly wasn't the first time anyone had glared at him. This person was rather. . .abrasive though. The Doctor could tell this man would be a handful if he let him.

As if on cue Gene began speaking again. "Dorothy?" The Doctor intoned with mild amusement. "Oh you can do better than that." He listened to the barrage of questions that followed the initial insult and had to choose which one to answer first. "I wasn't expecting a sort of Spanish Inquisition," he said lightly. He paused eying the other man's reaction. "No? See, it's funny . . ." He allowed his voice to trail off, shrugging his shoulders lightly as he went on to actually answer the questions. First things first. "I'm The Doctor," he informed him. That was the one nice thing about being here. There was little or no reason to have to lie to people about his name. No John Smith running around with his psychic paper, adopting this or that persona.

"As for the rest: if this is a hostage situation, it's the strangest one I've ever seen. No one's demanding ransom from the looks of it. The how's and why's are a little bit fuzzy." he paused to take a sip of his drink. "I can't help you with the phone, but from what I hear, electricity isn't having much, well any, effect around here. You'd have to ask around for those pink wafers though: I wouldn't give up hope on them. And as for the getting off part, I should think that was pretty self explanatory: there isn't one. No one's figured out how to get out of here."

[genehunt]

"No electricity, possible pink wafers, stuck. Fuzzy hows and whys. Not as bad as it could be, still not ranking up there on my list of very best days ever." Gene took another gulp of beer, staring off into space. "Alright then, genius, astound me. How come no one can leave? Walls? Guards? Invisible bloody forcefields? Trained flamingoes armed with machetes? Today, nothing can surprise me. And I think Dorothy suits you. It's either that or Gladys. Maybe Minnie."

It wasn't like he never had bad days. He definitely did. He worked amongst the scum of society, the dregs, the people that were forgotten and left to rot and who became the worst sort of bastards possible. He worked to protect innocent people, and sometimes he couldn't. Those were the worst days. Really, waking up in some weird hippy place down south wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. There were no drugs, no dead children, no nonces, no armed robberies, no car bombs, just candles, a powercut and a poofter snarking at him. "Anyway, when you say Doctor, what type of Doctor do you mean? Are you the useful stops-people-copping-it type doctor or the type that stays shut in with books on bloody art history or something?" He had patience for medical doctors, he admitted that. They did good work, they helped a lot. He might not like being attended to by them when he was injured, but they saved lives. Often, they were smug smart-arses while they did it, but he could just about put up with that, provided they had the skills to back up all the bragging.

Gene took a long drag from his cigarette, and gave the Doctor another appraising look. The bloke hadn't actually said his name, which Gene felt was highly suspicious. If he actually had a clue what was happening, this Doctor would have been high up on the list of possible subjects. (Then again, possibly only because he was closest, and seemingly a know-it-all, and a pretty-boy). "And incidentally, lovely as our respective titles are, and while I'd probably deck you for referring to me as anything but DCI or Detective or possibly 'Guv' until I've had a couple more drinks, I'd like your real name. As in, all of it. Or else I'm just going to have to refer to you as Dorothy forever and ever amen." He took another drag. "Dorothy."

[THE DOCTOR]

The Doctor smiled as the other man called him a genius. He knew it was meant as an insult, but he also knew it was a simple fact: he was really quite brilliant. He almost snorted into his drink at the mention of machete carrying flamingos. "No, that's only done on Boromeo these days. Pity too," he sighed in fond reminiscence. "As far as I can see it's some sort of force field set up, only there's no focal point to it. No point of origin that could disable the thing. Whoever set it up is remarkably clever, and I don't often get to say that." He took another generous swig of his drink at the mention of the other names the man might call him to quell his initial response.

"Better," he admitted. "But unless you want me to start calling you Deborah Sue, I'd suggest using my name." He didn't mind the occasional joke about his name, but it was best to put a stop to this quickly. He sighed as the other man went on to ask him about his 'title'. Honestly, when would humans just accept that at face value. "I mean Doctor as in my name: Doctor comma the if you're looking at a roster, but just Doctor will do," he informed him. "As for what I do, I suppose a little of both. I'm a doctor of all sorts."

His mind flashed back to the other doctor he'd met while here: Doctor Helen Magnus. She'd been much more inclined to accept his words for what they were, none of this beating around the bush, inquisition nonsense. Sure he had studied enough medicine over the years to be a passable doctor for minor injuries. He had figured a basic knowlege would be good considering what he did on a daily basis, but why limit yourself to only area of doctoring? There was so much out there. Besides it was impossible to explain to humans of almost any age why that was the name he had chosen for himself in the first place and what he had gone on to study on Gallifrey.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and shook his head at this man, this DCI Gene Hunt. He couldn't see how he managed to get anything done in his line of work, what with his wonderful social charm. His suspects must open right up to him. "Right that," he said leveling his gaze with the other man's. "Is going to stop, Merrideth. Oh that is fun to do, isn't it? I already told you my name, so please feel free to use it at your leisure."