Work Text:
Baff
“Hey!”
Thirteen narrowed her eyes as she spun her swivel stool around to meet the wet-cat looking brunette standing in front of her, his expression decidedly all too pleased with himself considering he'd apparently come in here just to bap her head for attention.
Well, one of the two ‘wet-cat brunettes’ she lived with, that is. In her opinion the only distinction between them was that the idiot standing in front of her seemed to have super glued on a fez he'd found at a dollar store a few years prior.
That and he wouldn't be caught dead without a bowtie.
“El I thought I told you not to bug me when I'm working.”
Less of a question and more of a statement, because she had in fact told him this. Repeatedly.
Despite the warnings, he kept coming back, usually with silly reasons like-
“Ah! Well I was making fish sticks and was wondering if you wanted any?”
She breathed a laugh while fidgeting with a screwdriver between her hands, one that she'd fitted with a button to would make it light up and let off a quiet buzzing noise. She really did get quite bored sometimes didn't she?
“None of us like those except you El, you realise that yeah?”
Eleven shrugged, leaning against the thin edge of the door and not letting it close fully while he swayed against it.
“Still worth the ask! Mind if I join you?”
“I don't think I could stop you even if I wanted to.” She smiled as Eleven pulled up a second swivel stool next to her before she'd even finished speaking.
Thirteen glanced at him sideways as he peered down at the various metallic pieces scattered around the work table, reflecting the light of the lamp back at them.
“What'cha making?”
“Well it's already 2016 and we don't even have time travel yet, so essentially that.”
He quirked an eyebrow.
“Can I help? I'm very clever!”
That was another thing Ten and Eleven had to argue about; which one of them was more clever.
Though often this would lead to Thirteen getting to eat popcorn while they used her as a judge for their debate contests.
Sometimes it was fun to call over Fifteen, Nine and Twelve to get a proper judge panel and decide on who lost or won the debate. Most of the time it involved the loser paying for dinner and everyone else getting free food out of it.
“Right so I was thinking if we take these to reverse the polarity of the natural time stream, just in a small area around us, we just might be able to go back a few seconds.”
Eleven slowly nodded, eventually picking up what she was saying and piecing together what she'd figured out so far.
“But that would rely on your device being able to capture the previous few moments in a full 3D environment, and then project them as well… and I assume you want this to be compact?”
He took a screwdriver of his own (with its own lights and sounds of course) and examined the little gathering of clockwork.
“You know, this would be a lot easier if we had something that had more space on the inside. Hold all the mechanical gears and bits while outside it's just a pocket watch.”
Thirteen rolled back her stool, standing up and stretching her hands above her head.
“Yeah- I mean it would make a lot of things easier to have something bigger on the inside. Unfortunately for us, physics says no.”
She lay her goggles back where they'd been on the shelf, and gestured for Eleven to follow her.
“You said something about fish sticks?”