Drabbles

Doctor sighs softly and leans back in his chair, causing it to creak in protest. His mind feels muddled and he can’t work out if he should be upset, angry or happy about this all, it feels like he’s experiencing all of them at once and he just wants all of these retched emotions to go away.

“Are you okay, Doc?” Roo calls, his voice soft from the doorway to Doctor’s studio. He normally leaves it alone when it’s working, but he knows Doctor likes to eat on time, and it had finished cooking 10 minutes ago and he called to no response. It’s not normal for no response when it comes to food. So, he decided to come and see what’s going on with the man.
What Roo wasn’t expecting was Doctor just sat with his computer open on some screen, staring blankly at it, one of his robots sat on the desk beside him with a hand on it’s back. Doctor doesn’t even respond to Roo’s questioning from the door, from the looks of it he doesn’t even register Roo’s presence from where he is at the doorway. This worries Roo more, but he hesitates, he’s rarely allowed into this office / lab, the only times he’s ever been in it in the past was after Doctor said he explicitly could. However, as he peers closer he notices tears welling at the corner of the man’s eyes. This just fills Roo with even more confusion, the last time that he saw the older man cry, he was in the middle of a panic attack, and admittedly Roo didn’t even really know what to do then. Roo doesn’t know what to do, he wants to go and help Doctor, but he doesn’t really know how to, nor does he know if helping really well as he doesn’t know what’s going on. Roo takes a deep breath, he doesn’t know what is the best move to do, so instead he’ll take the one that makes him feel better.
Roo slowly walks into the room, as if the whole room may explode if he steps the wrong way, and if he’s honest and thinking about Doctor, yeah that might happen. As he gets closer to Doctor, all he can see is the man just sat there, but clearly not actually there as he thinks and stares blankly at the screen. Roo glances at the screen, he doesn’t recognise the two men, one of them, shorter and seems to be a fox, has their arms wrapped around the other a bright grin on his face. The other one is looking down fondly at the figure, though Roo can see some form of sadness in their eyes, as if there is something that they’re not as happy as they feel they should be.
“Doctor?” Roo tries again while he’s now closer to the other man, though he’s ready to flee back if Doctor does suddenly snap back to his true self and doesn’t react well to Roo being in his personal space. There’s still no real response from the other man, he simply blinks but it is as if he hasn’t heard Roo in the slightest. Roo tries to ignore his now increasing and worried heartrate, he feels like he might be sick as he tries to think of what he has to do to try and get Doctor back to him.

Doctor feels like he’s brought back to reality with a snap of fingers, though he knows it is rather a beep from his watch, he glances down at it, Roo’s heartrate is incredibly high. He then turns and notices Roo next to him, his initial reaction is to tell him to get out, but then he notices the state that the child is in.
“What is wrong with you, child?” He asks, tilting his head and the minute Roo hears Doctor’s voice he jumps and takes three steps back.
“I’m so sorry for coming in Doctor, you hadn’t come down when I told you tea was ready and I was worried about you.” Roo’s words come out about a thousand words a minute, as he spits them out the robot shifts as Doctor slides his chair back and stands. Roo barely has time to register that the man has stood up before he’s then engulfed into a hug.
“I’m sorry that I worried you, kiddo, I just, I’ve found out some information I don’t know how to react to.” Doctor states while then stepping back, though he keeps a comforting hand on Roo’s shoulder. Roo leans into the touch, still thriving on getting any off of the older man, especially in this fond way. He’s not too sure if he should bring it up, Roo’s mind wonders back over to the image on the screen, that’s clearly what the Doctor is talking about and Roo would be lying if he didn’t say that his attention was peaked. However, he also knows that this is very unstable footing when it comes to the older man, he doesn’t open up easily and after he has, he tends to shut down for a bit. Doctor however, catches the shift in Roo’s eyes, and doesn’t even need to look to know what it is that he’s looking at. A gentle sigh comes out of Doctor’s mouth and Roo looks up at him, eyes wide.
“That’s Stone, well the taller one is.” He states, only just loud enough for Roo to hear, as if speaking it any louder might bring the world down on top of them, and the way that his eyes water as he does speak, well it probably would. That’s all Roo needs to hear before he then launches further forward and wraps his arms around Doctor’s waist, pressing his head into Doctor’s chest. This causes another breath to hitch in Doctor’s throat, he feels less bad about it without having to explain exactly why this is a problem; it's not like he ever even meant to tell Roo about Stone, the man was long gone before Roo even turned up, but the man just meant so much that Doctor couldn’t help but let it out.
The two stay there for a couple of minutes, Roo just embraced around Doctor, waiting.
“Do you want to talk any more, or do you want to go down for food?” Roo says it slightly hesitantly while finally letting go of the man. He lets it hang in the air for a couple of seconds, waiting for Doctor to respond, in whatever way that Doctor wants to respond. The question just makes Doctor slump slightly, as if a weight as been taken off of his shoulders,
“Why don’t we do a bit of both. You, you understand emotions far better then I do so I could probably do with your help when it comes to understanding these emotions that are going through my head.” Doctor says and Roo brightens up by this open honesty that he's been given, that emotional vulnerability is a true rarity.
“Of course, dad.” The term comes out so easily and Doctor wraps his hand around Roo’s. He knows there is going to be a lot more crying on his end tonight, emotions are so stupid. Though there is a small part of him that has made up it’s mind, at least Stone is looking happier, he does believe it would be worse if he wasn’t.