Drunker Than Me

written in about half an hour, based off a prompt for then_theres_us. it was too late, but nevertheless I wanted to post it. :)
TenII/Rose, established relationship.

"I really needed that," Rose says, walking along, watching the light bounce off the wet pavement and reflect off car headlights and windows of the shops they passed.

The Doctor turns to face her, so he is walking backwards, their hands still intertwined. "What, the night out or takin' off your shoes?"

Rose tilts her head to the side, one of her high heels (so high the Doctor didn't know how she had managed that long with them on) in each of her hands. "Both," she says, stumbling to the left a bit.

"Woops," the Doctor says, holding her around the waist. "Alrighty?"

"You're the one that's drunker than me," Rose says, smiling as the Doctor continues to walk backwards, his arms wrapped tightly around Rose's waist.

"No, you are."

"You are."

"Yoooooou are!"

"Yoooooooooooooooooou arrrrrrrr!"

Rose gives up, bursting into shrieks of laughter. "You sound like, a pirate!" she says, finding the mental image of a Doctor with an eye-patch and parrot hysterical.

"I think I'd like to be a pirate," the Doctor says, letting go of Rose's waist and walking ahead of her. "Arrrrr!" he says, pretending to brandish a sword at unsuspecting passers-by, who look at him as if he was a Slitheen asking them for a dance. Not that there was many passers-by, at half one in the morning. "Shiver me timbers!" He continues, running down the high street with the imaginary sword, Rose's manic laughter following him down. "Ho, ho, ho an' a bottle of rum!"

"Now you just sound like Santa!"

"I think I'm gonna be sick if I keep singin' 'bout rum," the Doctor says, leaning against the wall a few feet down the street from Rose, his face taking on a greenish tint.

It had been their colleagues and good friends of the Doctor and Rose's, Ianto Jones and Lisa Hallett's, engagement party and the whole of Torchwood had turned out in force to get away from the stress of work, get drunk and basically have a good time. Pete and Jackie had turned in early, to relieve the babysitter for little Tony, while the Doctor and Rose had stayed until the Doctor had walked into a door no less than three times. Lisa's Mum had suggested to Rose that they go home, and after half an hour bidding everyone farewell (the Doctor managed to squeeze in an extra pint in the time that it took Rose to say goodbye to everyone) they had decided just to walk the short distance from the pub to their flat.

Easier said than done, really, when you have a drunk human and an even drunker half-Time-Lord who can no longer handle his drink as well as he used to.

He looks decidedly greenish, Rose decides, from his perch against the wall next to the Post Office. His hair is all over the place, more erratic than ever, and his tie has been tugged looser with every pint and there is a smudge of what looks like barbeque dip on his cheek. He looks beautiful to her eyes.

"Don't be sick all over me!" Rose squeals, running past him and the Doctor looks up, and smiles.

He gives no warning as he chases her down the high street, which is basically deserted at this time of the morning. If possible she squeals even louder, and runs. She nearly drops her expensive shoes in the process of hiding behind a bus stop just as a empty night bus is pulling away from it.

"Roooooose," he calls, seeing her through the clear plastic of the bus stop. He sneaks up behind her, raps on the plastic twice, and laughs as she screams in shock.

"Not funny!" she says, holding one hand to her heart, the hand still holding one shoe. The dirt from the sole of her shoe is transferring to her dress, but she doesn't have it in her to care. She is not like her mother. Her mother is very careful of her new clothes and shoes and jewellery. Not that Rose isn't careful, or grateful for these new things she didn't have before, but to Rose, they are a bonus, not the grand prize.

Her grand prize is beside her, trying not to puke in a bin.

He is standing beside her, laughing at her shocked face, so she tries to push his head in the bin, but he is too quick and too strong, so his head just stays where it is instead of being forced down the bin.

"You lose," he says, retracting his head from the bin. His nausea has passed, or so he hopes. Rose is glaring at him, evidently for scaring her. He finds it hard to glare back when she is standing there, shoes in each hand, her mascara halfway down her face and her hair falling out of the curls she'd so carefully put in earlier. He is so entranced by her that he barely registers her speaking before she walks away from him.

"Prick," Rose calls, as she meanders away from him.

"Now, now, now, Rosie-posie," he says, catching up to her and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. She wraps an arm around his waist automatically, not even thinking about it. "There is no need for such language."

"Is too."

"Isn't."

"Is too."

"Isn't."

Rose elbows in the stomach, and he laughs. "I'd like to see us, savin' the world right now, this very second," she says, smiling. "I bet we could take on aliens drunk."

"We could," the Doctor agrees, nodding his head vigorously. "We'd be the best drunken alien-hunter-earth-defender-y people in the galaxy."

"Universe?"

"Oh yes," the Doctor says. "Martians can't handle their drink. Humans and Half Time Lords? Masters o' handlin' drunk. Drink." he says, correcting himself as he gestures to himself with a thumb.

"Yeah, you arrr'," she says, and both of them laugh hysterically as the reach their flat just off the high street.

And so the imperfect couple, walking along a wet high street in bare feet and a loose tie, return to their imperfect flat with broken handles and remote controls, and to imperfect jobs where there is too much paperwork and too little action, but therein lies their perfect life.