Drabbles

Doctor stares down the table at the younger man who shifts rather uncomfortably under his gaze, though he tries to pretend that he doesn’t at first, until Doctor’s eyes harden and then he’s squirming like a puppy told to sit still. It makes Doctor want to laugh slightly, how much control he seems to have over this near stranger all ready, it gives him a lot of hope.
“What’s your name then?” Doctor asks, keeping his voice low, he doesn’t want the whole of this café to be listening in to his conversation, or at least doesn’t want to make it easy for them. He got enough stares as is when entering the building, do they not get many people in here that aren’t young hipsters? [From the current room population, probably not, but it was the closets place Doctor could drag this person]
“Wayde Simmons.” Are the only words that comes from the other man, and Doctor was hoping for something more, maybe even an awkward sir that those people are so fond of using, even if it makes his skin crawl.
Though, it’s not even like Doctor needed to ask his name, he found that out a couple months ago, no - what he wants to know is about Stone, and he knows this man can give him those answers. What he doesn’t want to do however, is tell this man too much, such as why he’s interested in Stone and what he’s up to, and potentially even that he knows Stone’s name at all.
A few tense silent minutes pass, as a waitress comes over and places the two cups of coffee in front of them with a wide, attempt at a warm smile, but she already seems exhausted and goes no where near her eyes. Wayde narrows his eyes slightly at Doctor, before slowly pulling the coffee closer to him, Doctor makes no attempt at either, it won’t suit his taste, no need to even taste test it.
“What do you want of me?” Wayde asks eventually, and Doctor has to bite back a laugh and instead just leans back in the chair. He’ll answer the fox, he knows that, but he just wants to really make him squirm and suffer through this all.
“I want whatever, and all the information that I can get out of you.” Doctor states, simply and Wayde raises an eyebrow and has to bite back his own laugh, Doctor picks this up though so continues speaking, “And let it be known, I would rather not do this in any sort of dirty way, but I could do, oh boy could I.” Doctor allows a toothy smile to grow on his face, while slowly opening his jacket slightly, flashing one of his newer robotic toys. He doubts he’d genuinely hurt the other man in any way, he already seems to be the kind of guy to talk if too much pressure gets put on him. He watches as Wayde glances around the room before looking back at the man who is currently threatening him.
“Are we really going to do this here?” Wayde asks a little nervously, tapping his fingers on the cup.
“I mean, we could go somewhere more private if you want, but I think you’d rather we do this somewhere public.” Doctor states, and that gets such a good response from the other man; as Doctor watches him shudder and look around even more nervously, as if someone will suddenly appear to save him.

Twenty minutes later, and another round of coffee, Doctor has gotten quite a bit out of Wayde, but none of it is going to help him at this point. It just wants to command him to tell him everything about Stone, why he left, what was really better then the life they had built together. But Doctor bites it back, and he’s also pretty sure it was Stone’s sense of duty over a promise of some better life that brought him back to those people and away from him. He is starting to get frustrated though, this is taking longer than he hoped and he knows Roo will be out of school soon and he doesn’t want the child to think he’s abandoned him, or doing something stupid, and well yes, he is doing something stupid right now, but Roo doesn’t need to know that one. Doctor instead simply bites his tongue, watching Wayde, watching him shift around and internally question how long this is going to go on before Doctor actually does something worse then make him shift uncomfortably in his seat. He’s not actually told Doctor anything important, bits and pieces here and there that if he really wanted to he could find a lot out about, but nothing direct, nothing outright that could cause any real problem at this point, or a problem that can be rooted to Wayde. Instead, the two just stare at each other from across the table.
That is until Wayde’s phone buzzes. Both of their heads snap to the machine, and Doctor raises his eyebrow, betting Wayde to pick up and answer it, forget what’s going on. If he does that Doctor is probably set with everything he needs, but instead Wayde swipes it off, cancelling the incoming call. Whoever is on the other end of the phone however, did not seem to appreciate this and the phone begins to buzz again.
“You going to answer that?”
Wayde just rolls his eyes and hangs up on it again, Doctor notes that Wayde makes sure to press that a voicemail can’t be left, maybe he is smarter than Doctor first gave him credit for then. Or at least there’s some common sense in there.
By the third time it rings, Doctor gets frustrated,
“Right either pick that up and let me learn stuff I shouldn’t, or just turn it off.” He snaps, a little louder then he expected and a couple people turn to look at them, and Doctor just sort of waves the nosey people off, he won’t give them any form of apology for his small outburst. They should just try caring less, that would be far easier for everyone involved here. Wayde however, just narrows his eyes,
“Well I’m not supposed to turn it off…” He starts out and Doctor scoffs,
“You’re also not meant to be forced into a coffee shop to tell someone your company’s secrets, also pretty sure you’re not supposed to hang up on people who have access to that number.” Doctor responds and Wayde just sort of exhales in a way that shows just how much he agrees with what has just been said. Doctor then precedes to watch Wayde sigh and press down the power button of the phone and shut it off, a look of guilt shoots through him for a second as he does it, before he closes back up. He then narrows his eyes again at Doctor,
“Anyway, what do you really want from me? There’s clearly something specific that you want from me, so spit it out, otherwise we’re going to be here all day and I think we’d both rather not have that happen.” Wayde states crossing his arms and leaning on the table, pushing the second empty cup away from him. Doctor narrows his eyes in return, he knows that this is defiantly some form of trick, and if he tells Wayde there will then be more questions on Wayde’s end for Doctor and that’s not what he wants from this, he’s meant to be the guy who’s in control of this.
Doctor goes to say something but before he can there’s a commotion at the doorway, something which both he and Wayde turn their heads to look at. There’s what seems to be some shoving and someone sounding rather angry, but the words aren’t discernible from where they’re both sat, near the back. They also can’t see the figure yet, and both of them tense up, it’s not good if either of them are caught in this current situation, so Wayde looks back and looks nervously at Doctor, who slips his hand in his jacket, carefully wrapping his hand around his machine.
The commotion continues before then pushing back into the room, Wayde has sat back down normally to try to look like they’re just a regular pair down at a coffee shop, and maybe then this won’t be brought to them. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case as it continues down towards them,
“Wayde.” A voice says and then it feels like the world hits slow motion.

Both Doctor and Wayde look up to see Stone, his jackets lightly dishevelled like he’s just ran here, hair messier then when Doctor last saw it. Doctor’s hand falls out from inside his jacket and he has to stop his mouth from dropping open, as he looks over the other man, it’s been over a year since he last saw him at this point, but he looks practically the same. Everything then seems to happen at once as Stone realises there’s someone else at the table with Wayde and he drops the phone he was holding, just staring at Doctor, unsure on how to cope. Wayde looks hesitantly between the two of them, trying to get what’s going on to click in his head, why the two men are just staring at each other. Stone goes to say something but then he just splutters out again a little bit, trying to exactly process what on earth is going on and how these two people are on a table together, though it does seem that it explains why Wayde kept hanging up on him when he was trying to contact him.
The rest of the café seems to have gone back to normal, already forgetting what’s going on and a couple people side-step around Stone to go to the bathroom, as if he’s always been there and didn’t just cause a massive scene coming into the building. Wayde is the first one to finally say anything, breaking the silence,
“So, is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” He just sort of puts it out there, not minding which of the men will respond to them, because at this point they’re pretty sure any explanation from anyone will help the confusion they’re currently suffering from. There’s a lot of suspicions on who could be what and what that means, but he doesn’t want to reach out with that in case he’s horrifically wrong.
Nobody says anything however, Stone continues to stare at Doctor and he just sort of drops his eyes, almost looking slightly guilty. Stone has however, put a hand on Wayde’s shoulder, a very protective move – and Doctor’s pretty sure that he can feel a lump in his throat form up as he watches the other two men and he also feels incredibly guilty. He found out about them, of course he did, it was easy enough once he found some of the data and got a couple contacts, though the images gave no real explanation for what’s going on compared to actual explanations from a human. Doctor doesn’t feel like anything else could go worse today until it does, he didn’t realise how late it had gotten in the day, though admittedly the plan happened later in the day then he initially wanted it to happen. The three are still in an awkward silence,
“Dad!” A voice calls out and Doctor’s head snaps up, Roo is coming bouncing towards them, Lina following behind him looking like thunder, because of course she is, Doctor still doesn’t know what her problem with him is.
“Hey Roo.” Doctor manages to splutter out as Roo bounces over to them, sliding into the stall beside him and wrapping an arm around him before the teen then really registers that there’s other people at the table as well.
“Who are…” Roo starts and then stops, focusing his eyes on Stone, “Wait, is that Stone?” He asks, remembering the phones that Doctor holds so dear at home. Doctor simply sighs softly, not really in frustration but more about how horrifically everything has gone. This is not how he wanted to get Stone back in his life, this is defiantly also not how he wanted him to find out that he’d basically adopted a child, and was being harassed by another one. Wayde is the next one to actually be able to form words, as he glances up at Stone in a slightly worried manner.
“I would really appreciate an explanation on what’s going on.” Wayde states softly and Stone gently rubs his forehead before sliding in to the stall beside Wayde, Lina has headed off to get herself a drink and will then probably be back to watch what goes down.
“I’ll start, Doctor you can take over when,” He just sort of gestures at Roo, “well you need to explain all of that.” He says and once Doctor nods, he begins. “Right, so clearly you all know I’m Stone. I first met Doctor 11-years-ago, when I graduated from the academy where I studied with Wayde, I worked with him for 10 years. After 8 years we became a couple.” He pauses for a second, wrapping one of his hands around his wrist, “Three years ago, I left. The company told me they needed me back, I – I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d beg me to stay and I would have, but this is something I needed to do. I found out after I got back to the academy I was to work with Wayde, I’d lost contact with him after I started working for Doctor, and I was glad to see a face I recognised.” At this point Stone begins to faulter slightly and Wayde grabs one of his hands with his own, this seems to give them man enough confidence to continue. “A year ago I started dating Wayde… I thought I had to start living in the moment.” His voice gets quieter until he’s then said his piece, and he glances down at the table, refusing to look up at anyone, partially out of slight embarrassment and also to hide his watering eyes though it's quite clear.
Doctor clears his throat slightly and wraps an arm around Roo, pulling him off of him slightly but keeping the younger man close, for comfort.
“When Stone left, I focused all my energy into working out why he left, it’s something that I just couldn’t wrap my head around, though slowly I had been coming to terms with it all. 2 months after Stone left, my bosses go tired of my moping, and decided I was the best case to look after a teenager apparently, and don’t give me that look Stone, I told them it was stupid.” Doctor says as he watches Stone look at him with raised eyebrows in slight confusion. “2 months after that I decided I quite liked him,” He squeezes Roo, “So asked to permanently move him in, I had an empty spare room after all. That’s when I met his friend Lina too, she hates me, I don’t know why. Over then, the past year, we both kind of realised that I’d become Roo’s father figure, and we just sort of both fell into that set of roles. I also, I also found out you two were together, I still have some very interesting contacts in my folder. I didn’t know much, but in the most non-weird way possible I was given some photos of the pair of you.” Doctor finishes, he decides to leave off the whole threatening Wayde for information part. If that has to come out in the open, Wayde can do it himself, it’s not something he’s going to deny, but he's also not going to volunteer it himself. Roo shifts slightly his tail tips wagging as he stares at the other two people, and then back at his dad.
“Well, this is a lot for everyone to take in,” He laughs softly, “You clearly know where to find us, Doctor hasn’t moved because he’s old,” He gets a sharp hey from Doctor but ignores him, Lina lets out a little woop sound, “Cause I think we should all go our own ways for the evening to wrap our heads around what’s really going on.” Roo smiles out with a wag.
He then leaps up from the table and gently grabs Doctor’s wrist, dragging the man with him, deciding that Stone & Wayde can work out what to do with all the information themselves. He can also tell that Doctor is looking incredibly overwhelmed and he wants to get the man out of there before he completely panics over everything.

Once Doctor’s comfortably in his home, everything comes out at once, and he just bursts into tears. Roo rushes out of the room to go get his Doctor panic kit, a warm blanket, ready to go mini-cake and then a Roo to either hang onto, or send away, which ever helps comfort him more. The sobs forcing themselves out of him are causing Doctor to hiccup, and then gently bite his tongue to stop himself from being sick, one of the worst things that happens when he cries heavily is the urge to throw-up which is even more spiteful as he’s got emetophobia. As Roo brings the blanket to him, Doctor opens his arms, causing Roo to clamber into the other’s lap, letting the other cuddle him as he tries to stop the sobs coming through him. Tonight is looking like it’s going to be a hard night, which he wasn’t expecting, he did hope that when he first got to see Stone again, he'd be swarf, and not this.

Over in Wayde & Stone’s hotel room, Wayde is holding Stone close, listening to him ramble and panic his way through everything.
“Stone,” Wayde shushes him gently, “Look, please calm down, we can talk through all of this when everything seems less new and overwhelming. I am here for you whatever you chose, whether you chose to return to Doctor or stay with me.” Wayde says while then starting to gently help rock Stone, the other starts to relax back into the shorter man’s grasp, practicing the breathing techniques that he’s been taught. Everything has just been all too much, all at once, it’s not the way that any of them expected this to happen really.