The Doctor's New Clothes [fic]

[kdheart]

The Doctor's New Clothes (859 words) by KDHeart
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswin Oswald
Additional Tags: do we still call him Twelve?, Humor, Clara's patience gets tested
Summary:

There are things in the Doctor's wardrobe Clara wishes she's never seen.

 

"If you even think of saying 'kilts are cool', I will strangle you with the sporran!" Clara warned the moment she saw his new choice of attire.

“Well, I can think of a few quarters of the Universe where it would be considered the height of fashion,” he countered. “I can even name a couple of old companions who would have appreciated it.”

He gave a little twirl, so Clara could get a better view.

“You’re not going gallivanting through time and space in that!”

“It’s comfortable!” he said huffily.

Clara was starting to feel like she was babysitting again. “You’re naked under it!”

“We’re all naked under our clothes, except… But we better not mention them.” The Doctor chuckled. “Besides, you already saw me naked.”

She pressed both palms to her eyes, hiding behind them from that particular memory – barely a day old for her, but centuries old for the Doctor.

She sighed. “Yes, and I’d like to point out that that was a lot more of you than I’d like to see for a couple of life times. And I only have one.”

Before he could bring up her complicated relationship with time and his own lives, she ushered him back into the ridiculously vast wardrobe. “Clothes! Now! The kind that keep you covered during a strong breeze!”

“Not everywhere we land is going o be 21^st century Earth, you know,” he grumbled. The way his eyebrows furrowed made him look like a grumpy owl.

“And you can dress according to the local fashion if you have to,” Clara sighed, “Just pick something practical.”

She felt trapped in one of those silly montages, except this one was in slow motion and never ending. The first thing this Doctor did after the TARDIS decided to cooperate and start drifting calmly in an uninteresting part of space, was to go rummaging for new clothes. At first she thought it was an odd choice, but he had completely changed his body and his old clothes were probably uncomfortable. New face, new body type.

This Doctor looked less like a goofy giraffe and more like a disgruntled owl and she expected his tastes in clothing to reflect that. That was before he turned up wearing a feathery contraption in alarming shades of orange and fluorescent green that was apparently in fashion on some planet she couldn’t pronounce the name of, three galaxies and twenty centuries away, followed by something that looked straight out of ancient Egypt with added sparkle and then the kilt. She hoped this pattern meant he was slowly inching toward something less eye-watering.

She was, of course, wrong.

The Doctor walked out of the wardrobe wearing a familiar looking, but equally alarming multi-colored coat.

“You know, my former self though this was lost for ever. He kept meaning to wear it again, but suspected Ace must have incinerated it at some point.” He spun around, admiring the way the coattails flapped behind him. “It wouldn’t have fit me back then, but I can definitely pull it off now.”

Clara groaned. “You can pull it off and leave it off,” she suggested.

“I’ll have you know this coat is considered the height of fashion in several solar systems and a lethal weapon on seven planets!” the Doctor huffed.

Definitely an owl, Clara thought. “Well, we wouldn’t want you to get arrested for crimes against fashion, again,” was what she said as she pointed him back toward the wardrobe.

Her Doctor hadn’t been very fashionable, but his style definitely had its charm, even if he did look like a hipster at times. This one was doing his best to look as ridiculous as possible.

She hoped that with an appropriate amount of brain bleach she could erase the next outfit from her memory. It was definitely something and that was as much thought as she was ever going to spare it. Ever. The Doctor chuckled all the way back to the wardrobe.

The wait seemed to go on forever after that. Considering the properties of the TRADIS, it was entirely possible that that could turn into a literal eternity if he got lost among the clothes racks.

She considered going in after him, even if it exposed her to more nudity, but there was no need for it. The Doctor finally came back out, wearing the most sensible attire of the day. He wore a simple, dark jacket of a fabric she couldn’t recognize, a pair of plaid trousers in red, black and various shades of blue, a grey scarf and the piece de résistance – a paisley shirt in every color of the rainbow that could easily rival with the motley coat his sixth incarnation had favored. Thankfully, it was mostly covered by the jacket.

“You did it on purpose, to soften me up for this,” she said wearily, pointing at the shirt.

The Doctor was grinning. “Oh, no, I actually do prefer the kilt,” he assured her. “But I guess this goes with the accent, too.”

She gave a heavy sigh. “If you’re planning to take up the bagpipes, remember to drop me off home when you practice.”