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“You’re not following the instructions,” Rory says, suspiciously eyeing the screws the Doctor has collected in his lap. He left for maybe two minutes in total, and already, he can sense that something has gone horribly wrong in the construction of what should have been an extremely easy-to-build bookshelf.
Rory knows, technically, how to build furniture from scratch. Simple things, anyway, and mostly if he has access to a computer nearby to make sure he’s doing it right, but he can do it. It was how his dad used to bond with him, putting together a shelf or a chair. Neither of them were very good at it, but if you had two people onboard with a mediocre amount of talent, then the end result sometimes came out looking passable and rarely, even good.
He had planned to do the same thing with the Doctor.
Then, he’d imagined letting the Doctor anywhere near a table saw and felt his knees go wobbly. He’d decided that maybe they should start somewhere simpler.
All they had to do was put the pieces together, and they would have a bookshelf.
“I’m improving on the instructions,” the Doctor insists. Rory highly doubts that. He’s pretty sure a lot of the screws currently in the Doctor’s lap belong somewhere in the shelf.
“You don’t need to improve them. Are you trying to teach our bookshelf how to time travel?” The Doctor tips his head baby to look at Rory.
“That’s a perfect idea,” he says, delighted. Rory groans quietly to himself. “Not the time travel bit, that’s insane, Rory. No, think about it. Time travel, TARDIS, dimensional engineering-”
“Doctor.”
“-bigger on the inside bookshelf for double as many books-”
“Doctor,” Rory repeats, a little louder. The shelf is creaking ominously. He inches towards the Doctor, reaching for him.
“-I could link the dimensional space to my TARDIS, and-” The Doctor can’t stop his train of thought until it’s finished. Or until-
Rory grabs the Doctor and yanks him back. It might be a bit of an overreaction. The shelf collapses in on itself, not onto the Doctor, and Rory sends the screws flying everywhere. Some roll under the couch, never to be found again, even if someone moves the entire couch out of the way and looks directly where they should have landed. Rory’s heart is beating way too hard for this. He wraps his arms around the Doctor’s torso, buries his face in the Doctor’s neck, and takes a deep breath.
The Doctor leans back into Rory, quiet again. Rory can feel his pulses. They calm him down.
“The instructions…” the Doctor says quietly, “may have known more about shelf-building than me.” Rory chuckles against his neck, shaking his head.