Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

While being provided a map was all well and good, one thing Theta Sigma would like is a periscope. The school is divided in four sections to separate the youngest from the eldest, which is considerably effective. This does not, however, increase the visibility of an eight-year-old weaving through a crowd.

Everyone else in his class was led directly from the dormitories to breakfast and then to class, which was a very insightful decision, on par to that of having printed maps in places around the campus. Theta, now faced with a corner of the wall that looks no different from the other corners throughout the hallway, has regretted missing this train of students for some time now.

He internally questions himself for what feels like the hundredth time, straining to pinpoint why exactly why he snuck outside at 21:00 to sleep in a barn. All he can remember about that night is a couple of staff trying to coax him out of bed, a lot of screaming that later turned into plain whimpering, and not enough sleep to sustain him for his first day of school.

Theta musters up a teaspoon of aggression, pushing off the orangey-tan walls. They look like they’re made of bricks, but they can’t really be. It’s probably just decoration. He shoves his way into a line of boys who don’t see him coming. One of them mumbles an “oh, sorry” that Theta ignores in favour of sprinting down the hall, trying to find room 1-208, which is nowhere near 1-209 for some reason and—

“Do you need some help?” Theta’s shoulder is grabbed from behind and he tries to shake it off, legs making a break for it and body not following. “Woah, woah, woah.” The hands will not let him keep running and Theta is forced to turn his red face and messy blond hair to his captor, who is clearly holding back a grin on his round head at the spectacle.

Theta folds his arms over his chest, map balled in a fist, breath far from calmed down. “Let me go.”

“What room do you need?”

“I said let me GO!” Theta tries ducking out of the older boy’s grasp, feeling some unique flavour of panic in his head that is missing its name. Students around them look down on Theta as if he is cute, which he is most definitely not. He’s being held against his will, which is probably against the law.

His captor gives an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been here a decade longer than you have, kid. I can help you.”

“I DON’T NEED HELP.”

“You’re going to get lost and miss your entire first class on your first day. That’s not very good.”

Theta is about to retaliate and continue squirming, until the concept of logic plants itself in his head in a very tired fashion, and gets him to quiet down a bit. He evaluates the expectant expression of his captor, hearing the bell toll to start the first class. He’s already late. “Room 1-208.” Theta acquiesces, much to his elder’s satisfaction, who pats him on the back.

“You’re not that far off. Follow me.” The older boy keeps a hand between Theta’s shoulder blades to keep him from running off, a gesture Theta would normally duck away from, if it didn’t mean he’d be forced into holding the boy’s hand or something.

One ungratified minute of being marched down the hall later, Theta is presented with room 1-208, which, as it happens, is not that far from 1-209. The boy knocks four times on the door, but opens it without a response, which sort of defeats the purpose of knocking to begin with. The enrobed professor halfway through an illustration of what is most likely an umbrella looks expectantly at the pair of them, pen still poised on the electronic board.

“Kappa Tau?” At once, every student in the room turns to face Kappa Tau and his small companion, which only makes the companion in question look more disgruntled. A black-haired kid looks downright panicked at the sight of them, but it could just be the thickish eyebrows.

“Sorry, Professor. Theta Sigma here got a bit lost on the way. I’m just bringing him to class.” Theta is subject to one more ill-received pat on the back as the professor lowers her pen.

“Thank you. There’s a seat for you beside Delta Psi, Theta Sigma.”

“Thanks, Professor,” Kappa Tau says, stepping out of this classroom. Which leaves Theta — finally free of captivity — in everyone’s line of sight. He scans the room for this Delta Psi in question, wondering to himself how on Gallifrey he’s supposed to have everyone’s name memorised after one look in the untempered schism of time and space itself. He almost voices this stark opinion, then spots the sole empty desk in the room. His smoldering face might hopefully conceal the embarrassed nature of his shuffle.

A new, blank slate sits on the mahogany tabletop, next to one bored-looking Delta Psi slouched on the desk. Her black hair falls around her body at a length surprising for that of an eight-year-old, eyes trained on the leaf now being drawn beneath the umbrella. Her current demeanour is closer to that of someone who might lock you in the closet for breathing incorrectly than allow you to sit next to her, whatever the professor says. She notices his intimidation, giving some motivation or another to sit up properly.

“Welcome to the bored corner,” Delta Psi whispers, now looking casual but just as intimidating.

Theta doesn’t say anything, just nods. He should probably pay attention to the narration overlaying the leaf, umbrella, and now icicle illustrations on the board, but it’s just…

“Are you smart? The smart ones don’t talk much.”

Theta shrugs, trying to think of the most impressive bit of information he knows and only coming up with a foggy account of a river and a dead boy. A dead boy is that what sleeping in the barn was about? How did the boy get… dead?

“You don’t need to look so stressed. We’re only learning about seasons.”

Theta snaps back to Delta Psi, who has given clarity to the drawings on the board and looks far more interested in the unresponsive boy beside her.

“Professor’s name is Kettoo, in case you didn’t know. And she’s teaching us everything so you won’t get lost again until lunch.”

Theta nods, again, looking away from Delta and to the rest of the room, startled to find the panicked black-haired boy glancing back at him nervously. He looks oddly familiar. Professor Kettoo has since moved on from illustrating representations of seasons to talking about the weather, still ignorant of Delta Psi whispering in the corner.

“Do you know that kid? He’s been looking around for you this entire class. Well, I think he’s looking for you. Probably is.”

Theta shrugs, struggling to find some recognition of the boy until the desperate look on his face brings back the dead boy. He was there too. Did he kill the boy? Is he going to kill him next?

Delta scoffs. “You and your face. Is he some kind of arsonist?”

Theta shakes his head more quickly than normal, turning back to Delta Psi, perhaps the safest point of focus in the room. He’s not going to ask what an arsonist is. “I met him yesterday,” he whispers, resolved to not say more on the topic.

“You speak!”

Professor Kettoo looks in their general direction, shutting them up for a solid minute. Theta has fixed his attention on the board in front of him, outwardly determined to learn about seasons instead of talking to Delta Psi about arsonists in class.

“I don’t really think he’s an arsonist.”

The boy in question continually glances back at Theta, which is getting a bit distracting, and Theta might complain to the professor if there wasn’t a murder victim involved. 

###

Despite his moderately low interest in talking all through the first morning of classes, Delta Psi is sitting next to Theta Sigma for lunch, if anything for a lack of someone else to sit next to. And the unanswered question of who the possibly-an-arsonist boy is, and the simple fact everyone else in the class is overly fond of professor Kettoo. In Delta’s opinion, everyone should already know the five seasons by this age, not have them painstakingly explained on a board.

“I’d much rather study animals,” she tells him between bites, the angle of her back making Theta feel like he has a hunch. “There are tons of them running around my House. Some are easy to catch. One of my cousins dissects them and sometimes lets me see.” Theta looks down at his food, trying not to imagine the innards of a trunkike. Never in his life has he desired to dissect a bird.

He swallows the bite already in his mouth, thinking the hardest about mashed potatoes than he has in his life. “Aren’t plants better to… dissect?”

Delta tilts her head almost ninety degrees, scanning him in a way she has twenty times this morning. “Seriously? I’m not Cerulean.”

Theta shakes his head, looking back at his food that has somehow evolved to become more lumpy than it was before, when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He immediately flicks his head to see who it could be and is met with the frantic stare of the boy from before.

“Hey, aren’t you—” Delta starts, cut off by his turning on one heel and running away. She shrugs. “Weirdo.”

Theta takes one last look at his intestine food and decides to run after him.

They don’t get very far, admittedly, stopped at the door by a supervising staff member that could possibly just be an older student looking for extra credit, turned around and marched back to their seats. Well, Theta’s seat that the other boy is told to sit next to, giving Delta ample opportunity to conspicuously observe him from across Theta.

The boy doesn’t have any food, angle of his face and proportions of his bones making it believable he hasn’t had any in three days. He alternates between looking wide-eyed at Theta and cranking his neck around the room, paranoid.

“What’s your name?” Theta asks him once the irked staff member returns to their post, immediately drawing the boy’s complete attention to him. Which is a bit daunting, as his eyes won’t seem to reduce themselves to a normal size. Probably the eyebrows.

“Omega Xi,” he rushes out, looking over his shoulder and across the room and back to Theta. “But you can’t tell.”

“Tell who?”

“Anyone!” he shout-whispers, leaning in closer. “You remember me, don’t you?”

Theta nods, recalling a number of scattered images of blood and a river and a fire. “You and I were there when Torvic—”

“SHH!” he insists, giving Delta Psi cause to peer over Theta’s back.

Torvic?

"What are you two talking about?" She enquires loudly, turning Omega Xi's partially calmed down eyes back into wide paranoia.

"It's okay." Theta tells him, later questioning the meaning of 'okay' more in-depth than mashed potato. "She won't tell anybody." 

Delta vigorously shakes her head, leaning in as much as socially acceptable to figure out who this kid is. Omega Xi doesn't look like he trusts her. 

Instead, he whispers into Theta's ear "They're going to find me and put me in jail."

Much to Delta's annoyance, Theta whispers back "But nobody knows if we killed Torvic. We don't know if we killed Torvic!" There are brief flashes and a whole lot missing. As if someone handed them a vague sentence and expects them to produce a feature film portraying the event exactly. It's hard to know what to do with it. 

Omega Xi only shakes his head, eyeing an uncomfortably close Delta Psi. "Can I have that apple?"

Theta nods, and barely three seconds later, Omega Xi has gone running off with his apple.  

"So what's the deal with that kid?" Delta Psi demands, eating an apple of her own. "I don't think he's eaten anything."

Theta has had no time to craft some kid of believable alternative to 'we burned a murder victim together', and ends up sputtering "We're cousins."

"You are not. You don't look anything alike."

He tries to look even the smallest bit defencive. "I don't look like any of my cousins."

"And what do they tend to look like?" She raises one eyebrow, a skill Theta is fascinated by but won't attempt on his own. That and lying. "Okay, he's not my cousin." He looks at a spot on the table just as uniform as the rest of the surface, made of something he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know a lot. In terms of the whole universe and the whole of time, he knows nothing at all.

"So who is he?" She nearly shouts, Theta reflexively getting her to ‘SHHH’. 

"I don't know I met him yesterday before initiation okay!?"

She frowns, and goes back to her apple. "You could've just said so."

###

It is a combination of fatigue, feeling still overstrung by looking into the entirety of space and time itself, living an entire day surrounded by all kinds of other people and information on top of the vivid, nonsequential flashes of Torvic that got him to creep out of bed. It’s as if the story was tied to a firework, sent off into the sky by morning, and only now are the pieces falling to the ground, burnt around the edges.

He won’t try and find the barn again, part of him wondering how he even got there in the first place. He walks past three sleeping peers in beds — two opposite and one beside him — wrapping himself in a blanket. He loops it to cover his hair so nobody knows it’s him. Getting caught sneaking out twice in a row would not do much good.

He knows Omega Xi is all the way at the end of the hall, their assigned names apparently used for convenient sorting and filing if not anything else. The hall outside is dark and not patrolled by someone older, most of them assuming the eight year-olds won’t try something sneaky. It takes some effort to control the blanket hanging over everything and trying to unwind itself, the strategy of sliding along the floor with two corners of it under his feet starting to look like a bad idea.

The only thing motivating him enough to continue is the knowledge Omega Xi is most definitely still awake, if he’s got the same kind of pictures running through his head. Theta turns the door handle of room 1-1-7, holding his breath for another reason he doesn’t know. His brain contemplates how full of unawareness life is before seeing Omega Xi about ready to tackle him.

He is poised at the end of his bed with a pillow, hair and eyes wild, breathing uneven and jerky like he’s been crying. Which, Theta thinks, he probably has. Only one other person shares Omega’s room, who has wisely positioned himself as far from him as possible, the boy with the pillow not seeming to care if anyone is woken up or not.

Theta takes a deep breath and moves the rest of the way into the room, closing the door a bit louder than he’d like behind him. In the hopes he might be recognised in the dark, he lets the tangled blanket drop to the floor and braces himself for impact. He squeezes his eyes shut, but nothing rams into him like he thought at least a pillow might, a reassessment of the room informing him Omega has jumped off the end of his bed without a sound and is just sort of looking at him.

Theta doesn’t dare move much closer, stuck assessing the face in front of him as his entire plan of action has been lost. If he knows one thing, it’s that Omega Xi has had about as much sleep as Theta.

“What do you want?” Omega asks him in a hoarse whisper, throwing the pillow onto his bed in what Theta hopes is a gesture of nonviolence.

In this moment, Theta resolves to think through all his future plans. “I… I dunno…” it comes out mostly all at once. “But it doesn’t look like you can sleep and I can’t sleep because we killed Torvic and yeah…” Omega doesn’t look paranoid at the sleeping roommate potentially eavesdropping, which could mean a few things. He doesn’t say anything for a while, the silence pushing Theta almost right through the door. “I’ll just leave sorry I um—”

Omega runs over to where Theta hesitantly backs away, throwing his arms around him a little more vigorously than feels comfortable stuck against a door, with a sniff. Theta only makes sense of the fact now Omega has been crying this whole time, which doesn’t do much good for Theta now because he doesn’t know what to do with crying people or with hugs. At all.

“It’s okay,” he sputters, wondering what to do with his arms and some instinct placing them awkwardly on Omega’s back.

“I killed Torvic,” he heaves, still in a whisper, refusing to let go of an uncomfortable Theta.

“Well… well he was going to kill you first, and you’re nicer than he is so this option is better.” Theta can barely get any clear thoughts anywhere, focusing mostly on the door hinge in his back, the hair near his nose, and the weight of Omega not keeping itself up all the way, but somewhere along the line the idea of maybe moving might help appears.

“You should get out of the door,” Omega mumbles just loud enough for Theta to use up a second figuring out what he just said.

“You’re a bit in the way.” As if physically pushed, Omega runs across the room and jumps into bed face first, back still heaving up and down sporadically. Theta is caught between the urge to run away from a crying boy he doesn’t know how to handle and attempting to handle this crying boy, a fundamental part of his brain telling him running away from crying people is not good, whatever anyone else says.

Theta drags his blanket uselessly over to where Omega lies, leaving it on the floor and standing awkwardly in place for a moment. The hugging is either helping or distressing, and Theta can’t tell for who, but if it makes Torvic less of a thing than normal for Omega, it might work for him.

Theta doesn’t know how he manages it with any precision, but he curls up next to Omega with his arms around his back, trying not to look as uncomfortable as he feels. Omega eventually hugs Theta, too, in a way banishing the nightmare of being awake. It’s an awkward tangle of arms and tears and Theta refusing to acknowledge the fact he’s scared of sleeping in new places, but Omega finally goes to sleep and that was really the whole point.

Theta can’t bring himself to leave, even with the shallow breathing of a sleeping Omega and the threat of getting in more trouble for not sleeping where he’s supposed to. Ten years down the road he’d never admit it, but Theta has discovered he really likes hugs.

Chapter Text

Someone is shaking Theta awake without a touch of familiarity, which nearly sends him into a panic. 

"Oh for heavens sake, calm down," a woman hisses, trying to shush a confused Theta while trying not to wake everyone else up. 

"Hmm?" The clock on the wall reads 02:24. "Who're you?"

The woman sighs. "A relevant party." Theta has no idea what 'relevant party' means and would like to go back to sleep. "I need you to follow me. Your friend’s asking for you."

Theta is pulled to his feet either voluntarily or not, vision starting to clear as his brain makes more sense of... Whatever this is. 

"Which friend?"

"Omega Xi. He's had a nightmare."

Theta is well awake now, aware of the hand on his back and cold hallway floor under his feet. If he didn't know any better, he would start running. 

"What kind of nightmare?" As if he doesn't already know. 

"I'm sure he'll explain it to you."

The woman opens the door down the hall without knocking, turning the muffled noise into full-blown screaming and someone else almost shouting. Despite only three other people in the room, it looks like chaos: Omega clamping his ears shut and screaming on a bed, a man in pyjamas beside him clearly at his wit's end trying to calm him down, and the boy who was asleep two nights ago sitting up against the opposite wall, very scared-looking.

"Look, okay, Theta Sigma's here now. You wanted to talk to him, right?" The man looks at Theta as if he knows exactly what to do and isn't doing it. 

Omega’s screaming is reduced to a sort of flailed reaching as Theta walks over to the boy, trying not to look a bit scared and fearing for his physical well-being were he to attempt hugging him now. "Death was here," he manages in a voice hoarse from screaming, speaking the phrase itself nearly sending him into more hysterics.

"What do you mean?"

He looks at Theta more earnestly, constantly glancing to the unoccupied bed a metre left of him. "Death was in here. She talked about..." He looks at the two eldest in the room, ignoring the frankly terrified child at the other end of the room. "She talked about Torvic and and and and how he died and says she made a deal with you in the future and it's all my fault now and—" he aggressively hugs his knees, hiding his face from the rest of the world. The other people seem to have heard this story before. 

"He's had a nightmare and just needs you to calm him down," the man tells Theta. Like he knows anything. 

"Did you have a bad dream?" Theta asks him in as gentle a voice as he can muster, sitting at the end of his bed. 

Omega shakes his head without lifting his face, gripping his legs tighter. 

"Omega, death isn't a person," the woman tries in what she probably thinks is a kind voice. "There was only Zeta Omicron in this room before I was."

Omega only shakes his head again. 

"I saw her, too." Zeta has not spoken before now, every head turning to face him in some sort of shock. He points shakily to the bed Omega kept glancing to. "She was over there, but didn't talk to me." The adults are incapable of forming a complete sentence to explain this.

The man looks like he’s considering finding a new job. "Okay. Okay. Death was here, she's not now, she isn't coming back, and we can all go to sleep. Does that sound good?"

"That didn't sound very nice," Zeta says for all of them. "And Death says she'll come back for Omega once he's older."

The man looks about to speak, but is interrupted by Theta. "Omega, you don't count as older until you graduate anyways. You still have loads of time."

Omega unfolds himself and grabs onto Theta in the blink of an eye, a kind of desperate attempt to stay connected to the ground and not be sucked up to wherever Death is. He holds on so tight it almost hurts, fingertips digging into Theta’s back and chin pressing into his neck.

Eventually the two grown-ups leave, deciding Omega has calmed down enough to leave them all in the same room. Omega stops hugging Theta a while afterwards. 

"Was that really Death?" Zeta Omicron asks them, looking a deal more relaxed on his end of the room. 

"I'd say so," Omega replies in a voice betraying the wild appearance of his face. "But Theta probably doesn't believe us."

"Of course I believe you!" Theta stares Omega straight in the eye, making himself look as determined as possible.

There is a silence, in which they all feel like they hold the greatest secret in the world, broken by Zeta. "Are you going to move in here now?"

Theta's brain wildly decides Zeta looks most like an acorn with hair instead of a hat. "Yeah. The people in my room are boring anyways."

He doesn't exactly want to sleep in the bed next to Zeta in case Omega wakes up screaming again, but can't bring himself to occupy the bed Death was on yet. Omega Xi isn't the only one with nightmares. 

None of them turn off the light. 

###

“BOOM! YOU’RE DEAD!

“No, you’re dead!” There is a large thump, probably belonging to one of the voices Delta Psi can just barely not pick out from behind the wall. She went with Theta, mostly to escape the three sets of eyes asking her questions, and is now wondering why she would leave the sanctity of her room in favour of… whatever this is. Or why she was invited in the first place.

Theta opens the door to reveal Zeta Omicron lying on the floor behind a tipped over bed, throwing a pillow across the room at Omega Xi jumping from one bed to the next and barely missing the ceiling.

“Oh hi, Delta Psi!” Omega shouts, jumping off the bed and falling flat on his hands and knees, creating the thunking sound of previous repetitions.

“You can call Zeta Omicron ‘Magnus’,” Theta says. “That’s his real name. Well, Magnussianellrontang, but that’s a bit of a—” Omega hits Theta in the face with a pillow, point-blank. Omega is promptly hit back.

“Just… call me Ushas,” Delta mumbles, jumping back as Magnus turns to face her.

“Hello, Ushas,” he manages in an uncharacteristically calm voice, betrayed by his exhilarated smile. He turns almost instinctively to dodge fire from Omega.

“What exactly is the point of this game?” Ushas asks Theta, wondering whether she should stay right in front of the door or move to the other corner of the room and risk getting hit. Someone has fashioned what looks like a sort of nest with a blanket and pillows in that corner, giving it a somewhat safe appearance.

“Magnus calls it the War Games. If you get hit in the head or a heart, you have to sit in the trench and count to sixty, and if you get hit anywhere else three times you need to sit in the trench and count to sixty.”

“And if you get stabbed!” Omega yells, attempting to jump Magnus and missing.

“Yeah, if you get touched by someone’s hand in the back or the chest you’re stabbed and have to sit in the—”

“Trench and count to sixty. Got it.”

“OI! LET’S RESTART!” Theta yells a bit too loud and too close for Ushas’s preference. To her amazement, the two actually listen to him.

They all run to a bed, Ushas automatically assigned to the one that’s been tipped on its side.

“ThreetwooneGO!” Theta shouts again. Ushas ducks immediately, wondering how long it’s going to take a professor to show up or for the neighbours to complain. Maybe they already tried.

There is a lot of running around and thumping she doesn’t see, part of her wanting to run outside and stab somebody and most of her wanting to go back to where it’s quiet and where she doesn’t have to try and pretend stab people for fun. Theta suddenly appears over the top of the bed, handing her a pillow. “Throw this,” he hisses, running out to the rest of his smaller-than-they-make-it-seem bedroom. She peers over the top, flinging the pillow at the first target she sees.

“I didn’t mean at me!” Theta retaliates, shuffling over to the red duvet trench.

Magnus begins running after her with a yell that can only be described as faux-homicidal. Ushas lunges forward, nailing him in the stomach with an awkwardly placed hand. He staggers downward, clutching his stomach, making a terrible pained noise.

“He’s just kidding, Ushas. And get in the trench, Magnus!” Omega shouts, jumping off the bed again.

It took Borusa a solid ten minutes to find them, immediately ceasing the wild excitement Ushas found in assaulting others with pillows. They were marched to his office and stuck together on a bench, the uneasiness in the pit of Ushas’s stomach getting increasingly more intense.

Magnus seems the least uneasy with this arrangement, cheeks still pink from the exercise and entire body fidgety to keep moving. While a thousand ways this meeting could go wrong swam in Ushas’s brain en route to Borusa’s office, Magnus went around trying to stab people without him seeing.

“We’ll be quieter next time, sir.” Theta decides for all of them, various degrees of vigorous nodding echoed in the rest of the party.

“And how did you four even manage to get the bed into that position?” The hands folded atop the desk still taller than them holds their behaviour in checked balance alone.

None of them speak, Ushas fidgeting at the silence. Even though she has absolutely no idea how they managed to do that. Theta is unsurprisingly the one to speak, putting on the most serious of faces and addressing Borusa with some kind of melody attached. “Great teams make impossibilities come true.”

Everyone is now staring at Theta, whose face has gone an interesting shade of pink. None of her cousins change colour.

“Did you just sing?” Omega asks him, none of the children seeing the amused expression on Borusa’s face.

“It’s a long story,” he mumbles, earning a pat on the back from Magnus. Henceforth Ushas sticks around, despite the horrific trip to Borusa’s office, if only to one day hear the whole story.

###

“It’s fine.”

Theta scoffs, setting his slate beside him on the Bed Where Death Was. “Omega Xi. You’ve had a headache for the past year and a half, it can’t be ‘fine’.”

The headache-riddled Gallifreyan in question furrows his eyebrows, turning back to his assignment without another word. He mumbles “I’m okay,” to himself loud enough for Theta to hear. Magnus has disappeared to who knows where, priding himself irrationally on his ability to sneak up on people without them noticing. They agree these War Games have gotten a bit overboard, but never have the heart to tell him so.

“No, no you’re not.” Theta walks over to his best friend, shutting off the screen of the slate balanced on Omega’s lap for him. Despite being only nine and with barely an idea of how to look composed, Theta manages to pull it off, folding his arms directly in Omega’s line of sight, providing no other relaxed route for his eyes to go.

“Come on. We’re going to the nurse.”

“I said I’m okay, Theta!” He looks back at his work, trying to ignore the figure demanding he go to the nurse for what he knows is a completely pointless reason.

“You’re yelling. You don’t yell when you’re okay.”

“Whatever,” Omega mumbles, ignoring the very obvious time tot towering barely a foot over him.

“You have to go to the nurse!” Theta almost shouts, giving cause for Omega to stare back up at him, snapping the small resolve of defiance he had built.

“Why?” he demands, starting to reach the same volume as Theta, eyebrows drawn together.

“Because…” Theta feels like he’s verbally running into a wall, and wishes he knew more words. “There’s something wrong with you!”

Omega doesn’t say anything, standing up to face his friend properly. Theta’s cheeks go a tiny bit pinker than before, realising what a lack of words did to his best friend. He only barely begins to stutter out a “that’s not what I meant” when Omega speaks on top of him.

“I know.” His eyes move to the ground, feet shuffling towards the door without another word.

His feet start running soon after, leaving Theta to either stand confused with an extra slate in his hand or run after him. He’s never really been good at standing still.

The door opens barely four seconds after it’s slammed closed, admitting one more person into the nearly abandoned hallway. Omega’s running down the hall of bricks and dormitory doors, turning the corner as Theta makes it halfway. Knowing the Academy, Omega is going to run into somebody else. Knowing Omega, he’s probably going to make it wherever he wants to be without someone stopping him.

“Omega, wait!” he shouts for better or worse, tearing after him as fast as his legs will carry. Omega doesn’t answer or turn around, taking a sharp left at the small band of older people coming towards them. That’s the hall that goes upstairs and outside.

Most people are thinking about going for dinner right now, either herded in packs or given freedom of their own discretion. Omega keeps running for the doors, weaving through students that can’t be bothered to involve themselves with the habits of the very young. Theta’s running faster than Omega, but not enough.

The doors that open flood yellow light into the white-lit halls, drawing Theta’s vision into a concentrated point somehow still focused on the back of Omega’s head. Theta wears shoes but Omega doesn’t, a factor Theta thinks makes him run faster and Omega thinks makes his feet stronger. Theta can barely see for the glare of the low suns but he keeps running, knowing he’ll run into Omega eventually…

Theta is overcome with a strange instant of a weird sort of anger and overprotectiveness, springing from the ground to loop his arms around Omega’s chest before they both hit the ground quite painfully.

Omega shrieks underneath him, arms starting to jolt back, trying to get the weight off of him. “GET OFF OF ME THETA,” he yells, voice made hoarse and uneven and only an angrier version of the voice calling for him after the nightmares.

Theta does not oblige. “YouknowIdidn’tmeanitlikethatOmegaI’msorry,” he sputters, in part wanting to keep holding on to his middle so he won’t run off and also wanting to spare his torso more beating.

“I SAID GET OFF!” If people were out here, they might look over, but Theta doubts they all care because they’re all Time Lords anyways and aren’t supposed to interfere with the affairs of others.

“There’s nothing wrong with you I’m sorry,” he says again, somehow trusting Omega enough to get off him. Omega doesn’t run away like Theta thought he might.

“Yes there is,” Omega growls, determined to look at the ground instead of Theta, ripping deadish reddish grass out of the ground. “I have a headache,” he speaks with solemn conviction, as if pleading guilty for murder in a trial everyone knows the verdict of.

“What kind of headache?” Theta takes part in this ritual grass ripping, watching Omega for some indication of maybe about to run off into the trees beyond. He seems intent to sit and rip grass.

“It’s like…” he makes a sour face at the ground. “I dunno. It’s probably nothing.” He tosses freshly deceased grass into the space between him and Theta.

“Tell me.”

Omega dares a glance up, immediately returning to his patch of Gallifrey. “It’s like there’s… well it doesn’t hurt so it’s not really a headache but…” he rushes out the final “there’s this kind of noise.”

“Loud noise?” Omega shakes his head, getting dirt into his fingernails. “High noise? Whiny noise? A squealing tafelshrew?” Omega does not show signs of amusement at this hypothesis, leaving Theta to believe it’s pretty serious after all.

“It’s still sorta quiet and low so. Unless everyone has some kinda noise in their head and I’m just…” he trails off, not hearing Theta confirm his futile hopes.

“I wonder where it’s coming from,” is the first thing out of Theta’s mouth, invoking a confused expression on Omega’s face that is still trained on the ground.

“It’s coming from my head.”

“No, I mean it needs to be from somewhere because you’re the only one with noise in your head. We should go find it.”

Omega finally takes his eyes off the ground, trying to find a joke in Theta’s words that isn’t there. After a while of silence where Theta wonders if he should say something else or perhaps suggest going in for supper, or simply if time has suddenly halted save for basic life functions such as breathing and Theta is the only one with cognitive ability, Omega throws grass on him.

Theta throws grass back.

Then instead of going to dinner they’re running around a patch of field, mercilessly tearing grass out of the dirt and hurling it at each other, nobody seeming to notice this event transpiring because they’re all inside like they’re supposed to be.

It isn’t until Theta sees a distraught-looking professor emerge from the door they ran out of before his laughter settles down in favour of a hiccup of guilt. Omega rushes up to his side before the professor can hear them properly, ignoring the yelling emerging from their elder. “I don’t know all of my real name, but it starts with Koschei. Call me that.”

Theta grins. “Koschei. Sounds better than Omega.”

“Really?”

He snorts. “Of course it does. There could be a thousand people with ‘Omega’ in their name on Gallifrey but you’re the only Koschei.”

The professor looks downright perturbed at them, towering over the grass stains and dirt. “Care to explain yourselves?”

In a less-than-dignified march back to where they ought to be and a surprisingly brief outdoor lecture on responsibility, Koschei has fallen back to looking nervously at the ground and avoiding eye contact, footsteps morphing from a carefree sprint into a lowly shuffle.

“Hey.” Theta whispers, straight-backed professor ahead of them not hearing him or only pretending not to. “As soon as we’re older, we’re looking for that noise of yours.”

Koschei smiles a bit, still looking to the grass, but smiling nonetheless. His eyes reach sideways. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Chapter Text

One of the under-appreciated aspects of the Academy, in Theta’s opinion, is the lack of snow. Ever. Theoretically it could snow on occasion, but not enough to keep the entire population of the building inside, buried under something like a meter of it. Lungbarrow is positioned in just the right place to ensure all forty-five cousins end up with too much social time on their hands.

Theta sits on the floor, as do many of the smallest cousins, trying to sip lukewarm liquid out of a cup clutched between his hands. He is not, by any stretched, shielded from the occasional jostling of others. They should technically be siblings, since they all come out of the same Loom. Then again, nobody assigns relations to dolls made from the same machine.

One of the fortunate elders sitting on one of the couch ends has retained the same fed up look for the past ten minutes, only pretending to ignore the conversations of the people beside him. “Old man Quences should really have this figured out by now,” they groan, head rolling onto the back of the couch.

“We don’t have weather control this far north, Satthaltrope.” Even if it’s only Innocet beside him, Theta inches his limbs further together, trying to minimise his total volume to shy away from the voices. “And besides. It’s warm enough in here.”

“Don’t other Houses have that all over the property?” the kid above Theta snarls. He is very precariously seated on the arm of Satthaltrope’s couch, allowed to sit by their shoulder like a bird so long as he doesn’t fall off. Theta doubts either of them would care if he fell off on Theta.

“Yeah, on Wild Endeavour, Glospin.” Satthaltrope speaks to the snarly kid like they do everyone else: superior, bored, and mildly annoyed. Glospin loves it. “And those godforsaken purebred Prydonian cottages popping up all over the place.”

“I’m a Prydonian!” Theta shouts almost directly upwards, receiving a bemused smirk from Satthaltrope.

“I know.”

“Prydonians are stupid,” Glospin declares in much the same tone, folding his arms over his chest. Theta could easily pull him by the leg and topple him over spectacularly, but not without breaking Theta’s back in the process.

“There’s no need for that.” Innocet — the best of Theta’s fabricated family — stands, Theta now with a couch and a cousin towering on either side of him. She manages to find enough space on the coffee table to sit across from Satthaltrope, fixing them in place with a glare. “Prydonians are most often Lord President.”

“Yeah, Lord Presidents that won’t give us weather control,” Glospin says in a voice that can’t help but make anyone listening roll their eyes.

“Glospin, shut up, you’re nine years old.” Innocet manages to deflate the kid’s ego by a fraction.

“Rassilon’s a Prydonian, and I bet he wouldn’t appreciate being called stupid.” Theta unwisely stands up now, the attention of at least ten other cousins now drawn to the tiny argument before them. Being huddled together for warmth two days in a row does not lend itself to much excitement.

Satthaltrope’s drive has not been stopped by Innocet’s stop corrupting young children glare, the smirk turning to Theta. “You don’t look like Rassilon to me.”

The people listening around them react in half-finished laughs and forced-down smiles, turning away from Theta’s poorly shocked expression. Innocet’s the only one who looks like she’d vote for unanimous peace in a single House.

“You don’t actually look like anyone,” Glospin says, mustering up the spunk to smack Theta in the shoulder. “Blond hair, white as glue, scrawny.”

“Where did you learn the word ‘scrawny’?” Innocet tries, cut off by Theta’s dignified

“I was just loomed that way!”

By now most of the congregation has taken notice, many in the back not trying to keep down the chuckling and bemused snorts that come with watching nine-year-olds defending themselves. Theta looks at them all. Glospin’s right. They all look similar, but definitely not like Theta.

Satthaltrope nods slowly with a clearly bit back smile, gesturing to his general scrawniness. “Then something went wrong there.”

“Leave him alone, Satthalt—”

“Everything went normal! I would know, I was there!”

Glospin laughs almost out of character, having not yet begun mimicking that strand of Satthaltrope’s mockery. “Nobody can remember being loomed, stupid.”

Theta furrows his eyebrows, a small crowd waiting for the rest of the impossible story. There’s some instinct telling him to lie, but it’s probably just the multitude of people staring at him. “Well I do. Some of it,” he mutters, big toes beginning to work their way towards each other.

“Describe this momentous event to us, please.” The smirk has returned to Satthaltrope’s face, Glospin trying and failing to match it. Everyone has gone quiet for the most part, a few whispers back and forth caught between friends.

Theta remembers all of it, in truth: the terrifyingly quick ripping apart, the feeling of moving everywhere but still stuck in the dark, being nothing more than a scattered thought or two, then the sticking back together piece by piece and wondering how all the pieces found each other so perfectly. Like a caterpillar in its cocoon, body ripped and melted and stuck together again, brain intact the whole time. Not that he’s gong to tell.

“It was dark,” is all Theta can sputter before everyone except maybe three people laugh in some way, turning back to whatever they were supposed to be doing, leaving Theta to the judgement of Satthaltrope and his minion. Both of them appear about to say something, but Innocet stands up and whisks Theta away by the hand before they can say it to his face. He can hear “You’re in the wrong House, kid!” above everyone else’s conversations before Innocet pulls him out of the crowded room.

“Isn’t the heating…” Theta trails off as a flame blooms inside a jar, held between Innocet’s hands. They are both huddled on her bed, braving the cold over the crowded living room.

“When you’ve lived here for thirty-four years, you’ll learn a few tricks.”

Theta stares at the jar and Innocet’s apparently unharmed hands, feeling the warmth spread out of the top. “Why is it so red?”

“Oh, shellac, charcoal, strontium, and potassium chlorate. Three of these things are on the property. Usually.” She takes him aback, slightly, thrusting the jar with FIRE into his hands. He has to lean just slightly to avoid falling into Innocet, combating the dip in the mattress she makes. “You are not in the wrong House.”

Theta shrugs, still inspecting the shockingly red fire as it just passes the lip of the jar like a flicking tongue. “Nobody else is this white,” he mumbles. They all have fantastic bronze skin, many with thick black hair so dark it shines purple.

Innocet has a patch of darker skin on her face, pooling on her right cheekbone and trickling down almost to the corner of her lip. Not a lot of people have that. “Satthaltrope’s the only one with green eyes. They’re only saying that to make you feel uncomfortable and out of place. Everyone has differences. If we were all the same, we would be clones.”

He shrugs again. His internal motivation seems unable to provide energy for much more than passive gestures and low-volume statements. “But I’m a lot more different than anyone else.” It’s not like they were saying anything new; he’s always known that much. He scowls at the fire. “I probably am in the wrong House.”

“Look, Theta. Satthaltrope and Glospin only get their power from putting other people down and telling lies. If you don’t believe them and ignore what they say, they can’t hurt you.”

Theta scowls at Innocet in exchange for the fire. “You sound like a grown up!”

Innocet pauses in her speech, trying and failing to make eye contact. “I want to be a psychologist when I grow up. You know, thinking and emotions of other people and stuff. I’m practising.”

Without losing his accusatory exasperation and grip on the flame, he replies “Am I good practice?”

Innocet shrugs, which Theta doesn’t think is very fitting for a psychologist, even if he doesn’t know really what they are. “I don’t know if I’m doing well or not. Am I helping?”

Theta regards the jealous hands holding the jar, fingers that only know years of wishing they were wonderfully pigmented like everyone else’s. “I guess.” She’s not really. His skin’s going to stay that way. And his hair. Until he regenerates in a hundred years or so.

Innocet dubs him the slightly uncomfortable recipient of a cousinly hug. “Good.” She gives him a smile that still looks grown-up, taking the fire jar from him. “Believe me, Satthaltrope’s been picking on everybody since he popped out of the looms. We all want them to regenerate into a kind old lady who knits us all scarves.”

“Them and Quences.” Their ever-absent Housekeeper, wrinkliest of the cousins.

Innocet’s smile fades ever so slightly, still molded into a grown up’s. “He needs to fix the heating.”

###

"You looked like you swallowed a lemon whole." Koschei sidles up to Ushas, surrounded by fellow ten year olds positively bubbling with excitement. 

"Everyone's acting like they've never seen a TARDIS before when all but Drax lives far enough away they must have taken one to get here."

They are currently the only two not chattering uncontrollably and wandering around the control room, excluding the professor in training far too inexperienced to control a room full of excited ten-year-olds. Why exactly the pilot left, nobody remembers or even cares.

“We are going to the Museum of the Last Ones. That’s probably making everyone more excited than normal.”

“True.” One student is currently trying to operate some mechanism, unnoticed by the professor in training. 

“Is that Theta?" Koschei strains his neck to see him properly, and sure enough,

"I'm pretending not to notice." Some kind of low bong sounds through the whole room, emitted from everywhere. Ushas folds her arms and sighs impatiently, Koschei grinning at the idiot being forcibly dragged away from the controls. 

"But I know how to fix it! It's only the—"

"You stay right there." The professor in training with hair that used to be done up properly turns on a heel to attend to Magnus, who is now pretending to shoot everybody. 

Theta mumbles something about the monitor at the ground, scuffing one foot against the woven metal.

"Since when did you read about TARDIS mechanics?" A bemused Koschei asks, Ushas behind him trying not to laugh at Theta. 

"Since social studies got really boring." The last word is said in a whisper as an unsurprised Professor Bulek enters with some mechanical device. 

"Would everyone kindly find a spot of the orange rail and remain silent?" Everyone immediately follows orders, under the glare from their much taller professor. They all look expectantly at the pair in authority, except Magnus. He’s taken to scowling so hard at the professor in training it hurts the jaw muscles to look at.

In all her disheveledness, said professor in training beams at the whole room as if nothing could possibly be wrong. “We will be taking off in under two minutes, and it would behoove you to stay still for the flight.”

Even Ushas looks mildly perplexed at the not-yet-professor, glancing at Theta to confirm she’s not alone.

“What does ‘behoove’ mean?” A voice squeaks form the ring of students, springy dark curls and tiny frame shying away from the collapsing facade of their superior. Professor Bulek does nothing to assist the situation, absorbed in repairing whatever Theta claimed to have been able to fix with a bit of poking.

“It means it would benefit you. Help you. I mean, the TARDIS could be a bit wild while flying so if you stay in the same spot you won’t get hurt.”

The silence that follows is punctuated by whispered questions of Where are we going? and What’s Professor Bulek doing? and a single So I wasn’t actually going to fix it… muttered by Theta.

Ushas provides him with a slightly awkward pat on the back that nearly pats Koschei in three places in transit across his back. “Don’t worry. No ten-year-old can fix a TARDIS.”

Theta, of all things, sticks his tongue out at her. “It looked like the monitor just wasn’t on.”

“Silence, please,” Professor Varek calls from the centre of the room, pulling a lever. The ship’s hum turns into an excited whir, the order of silence no longer functioning in a room full of Prydonians.

“Alright YES, you may all look around individually, but STAY IN THIS EXHIBIT.” It didn’t take much for the brigade of children associated with the most troublesome chapter to tire out both Professor Bulek and his apprentice (who everyone was told to address as Xandra). Both of them uttered at some point a desire to get more sleep.

Ushas, on the other hand, is having a field day. “It’s a WIRRN THETA LOOK AT THE—”

“Ushas, it’s a giant bug.” In a number of decades, he’ll wonder how he managed to be disgruntled about a real live wirrn, but at the moment it remains a giant bug. Ushas grabs him by the forearm, dragging him closer to the glass case.

“You don’t understand, it’s a wirrn. These things are practically invincible and they lay eggs in cattle and sometimes people and then they take over the host body. So they’re all still part cattle or part person but still completely wirrn.” Koschei turns a slightly greener shade of pale at the idea of having an egg laid in him and turning into a giant bug. Most everybody walks right past the nightmarish thing, but Ushas looks excited as any normal being on Otherstide. Not that anyone in their right mind would give her a host-eating bug as a gift.

“That would be nasty in a fight.” Magnus tries to look tough at the wirrn suspended in time, which doesn’t work at a third of the height of a bug. “It’s got really long arms.”

Ushas gives Magnus a dirty look. How dare he consider fighting the last surviving wirrn ever? “And semi-opposable digits once fully developed.”

“Can we leave the bug please?” Koschei half-whines half-begs, giving the wirrn occasional sidelong glances in case it decides to lay an egg in him.

Ushas nods. “There’s a zarbi right over—”

Koschei violently shakes his head. “That’s another giant bug. What about the last of the flubbles or the,” his brain feels suddenly devoid of not bugs. “kitten?”

Ushas rolls her eyes so far Theta is mildly concerned they will fall out of her head, reluctantly walking directly past the last ever zarbi and onto a friendly-looking thing in a smaller box.

“This exhibit doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t all the bugs or all the Andromeda system be in one place, not… whatever that is?”

“I would not be here if it were all bugs,” Koschei declares, approaching the last ever

“Fruzin. They were kept as pets on the Cirranin homeworld, but nearly everything on that planet was destroyed in a war.” Ushas peers into the glass from the side, clasping her hands behind her back in an attempt to either look smart or look grown up. “This museum is also the size of a planet, so they use teleportation things to get around. They set up rooms like this so you get to see a bit of everything in one spot.”

Magnus sighs much louder than any Time Lord would naturally, itching to skip on to the next one. Reading is never his idea of a good time.

“I saw more bugs on the other end of the room.” Ushas tells him without looking up, and Magnus immediately takes off in search of large beasts to contemplate attacking.

“I wonder how they get in to save the animals.” Theta tilts his head slightly to the left, looking at an orange and black striped creature on four legs. “In the middle of a war, are they going to throw someone in to collect the last of some species or what?”

Koschei shrugs, skimming the description underneath the striped creature but focusing mainly on the thing itself. “They have time-freezing technology, so that could work. Ushas probably knows.” He looks from the description to the creature again. “Sol III. Before they went and made colonies everywhere.”

“Tiger.” Theta smiles. “They all have such easy names for things. Fish. Tiger. Bird. Bug.”

Ushas appears behind Theta as if summoned by scientific inaccuracy. “Those are actually just names for animals in general. Like tafelshrews and rovies are both rodents.”

“Oh.” Ushas walks off again, ponytail swaying with overinformed sass. “We should go see the whale.” The proboscis monkey is just not as majestic.

“Theta!” Koschei hisses, checking to see if Ushas heard what she would call a ‘terrible idea’. “We’re not allowed to see the whale.”

Theta grins. “It’s not like they’re going to notice us. They’re sitting and talking.”

“But…” Koschei searches the air for a good argument. “What if we get lost?” Not a good argument.

Theta peers around the corner. “I can see the whale from here.” Koschei continues to look defencive. “Oh, come on. Just for a minute.”

Koschei takes one last cautionary glance towards the two fatigued chaperons, pulled by the hand to the end of the room without giving an answer. Theta knows it anyways.

It’s an odd experience even for a ten-year-old to grasp, running through the very last of species from all over this corner of the universe without giving them some recognition. It’s a spectacular thing seeing the last of a species, but having a planet full almost makes it irrelevant. Someone is bound to see them, but the whale looks so massive from back here Koschei has found he doesn’t care if they’re caught.

While the room with too many bugs and a tiger is all sandy tiles and glass chandeliers, the whale’s room is a sleek black mixed in dark blues, tanks full of water surrounding the whale in a great circle. Theta smiles way up at the whale that will never move again, tracing the ridges of blues and greys with his eyes. “Now imagine riding that underwater.”

“I wouldn’t be able to breathe.”

“Pretend you could breathe, idiot.” Theta doesn’t take his eyes off the whale. “It’s so big.”

“It could eat us.”

“It’s a beautiful creature.” He turns to Koschei. “And it only eats little shrimp things.”

Koschei might be put off by Theta's sheer fascination with an immobilised animal, if it weren't for the fact he hasn't seen any living thing even close to this size in his short life. 

"Its full proper name is a blue whale. I told you they were easy--"

"THETA SIGMA AND OMEGA XI!" Xandra's voice cut through the murmur of students. Someone told. 

"Theta we should go back now," Koschei sputters. Without a word, Theta grabs him by the hand again and starts running the rest of the length of the blue whale. 

"We just need to hide and come back when they can't possibly see us," he hisses, sprinting full tilt as the prospect of Xandra trying to hunt them down increases. 

Their feet smack against the tiles, a noise that must be carrying back to the room with too many bugs and a tiger. 

"Aren't we just going to get in more trouble?"

They finally pass the huge tail, speeding into the next hallway. "Do you trust me at all?"

Turning a sharp left into a sandstone corridor, looking back to see if they're being followed, Koschei screams in response. 

Theta claps a hand over Koschei’s mouth, hesitating to turn around for the barely fading shock on Koschei's face. He draws his hand back, sucking in a breath and holding it. Someone's footfalls begin clicking against the floor angrily, passing their blue whale. Theta spins around like he’s ripping off a bandaid, eyes taking a split second to adjust. 

He nearly screams himself. "It's Torvic." Same shock of red hair, same ghostly pale skin, same construction of body parts. 

Koschei's increased breathing isn't just from the running, frantic head shaking as it forces out words. "The eyes. His eyes weren't like that."

The bright orbs could be emitting acid, staring them both down, frozen in time. As if they put them in there. 

"They've got clothes on..." Theta says, taking a tentative step towards the paper thin black sheet. "So they can't be an animal."

Koschei grabs Theta's hand, trying to keep him from the frozen, angry being. The footsteps come closer and closer, but there's no use running from the prisoner before them. 

"We must be in here, too." Koschei whispers. "Last of the Time Lords."

Theta grins at Koschei, a stark contrast to the tortured not-Torvic behind him. 

"I bet it's Rassilon."

The footsteps halt. "And I'll bet Rassilon wouldn't appreciate you two gawking at him in a glass box." Xandra locks one hand around one arm each, dragging them away from the scary anybody to the living everybody.

Chapter Text

Theta is handed a cup of some beverage he can’t name, and heartily decides it doesn’t matter anyways. “Why is this being held at 2300 hours?” he groans, for once thankful of his immaturity so he can get away with sitting before everyone else. “And why am I here anyways?”

Innocet flops in the chair beside him, holding her own cup of something-or-other a great deal more alert than Theta. “I thought you might appreciate a touch of culture.”

Theta adjusts the midriff of his robe for the tenth time, refraining from grumbling about how he was jammed into a six-year-old’s size at fourteen. “Nobody likes culture at 23:00. It doesn’t even make sense.”

Innocet contemplates the hundred lights strung on poles around them, mostly white with a few gold thrown in. Two sets of cousins mill around the grounds, all in stuffy robes and small groups. “Time Lord weddings have been much the same since Rassilon and Omega were around.”

Theta notices she skipped the Other, which must mean he’s waking up.

“You’re officially wed at the stroke of tomorrow, symbolic of a new day and a new part of life.” She doesn’t make eye contact but continues looking around at everyone else, about as social as them all.

“But isn’t marriage sort of… arbitrary? Since we can’t, y’know. Reproduce?”

“Oh, they keep it around for a few reasons. Diplomacy, position, getting on with the right people.” She leans a bit towards Theta. “That and some people actually enjoy it.”

Theta nods, trying to remember the definition of diplomacy and only coming up with an incorrect test answer. “Where were you before now? Quences had to wake me up, which is as bad as it sounds…” he tries sipping the drink, which has a startling lack of taste and far too many bubbles.

“I was helping Rynde get dressed and stuff.” She sighs, turning to look at a lit window of the House behind them. “She’s a lot older, but we’re probably friends…” she trails off as a robed foreigner at least three times her age approaches them.

“And who might you be?” he asks with a smile, confusing Theta, as Innocet somehow views this as cause to frown.

“My name’s Innocet. I’m a good friend of Rynde.” Or maybe he imagined the frown? Theta sits up a little straighter once he comprehends exactly why his robes are white and fancier than everyone else’s.

“Theta Sigma,” he squeaks, voice conspicuously higher than the rich baritone in front of him.

“Prydonian, eh?” The man turns a chair of the row in front around, sitting down in a way that somehow let his ceremonial robes fall perfectly. “I thought Prydonians hated those Greek names.”

“Well… I can’t really pronounce my actual name, so…” The man throws his head back and laughs, which has most certainly woken up Theta and silenced everyone in a seven-metre radius.

Innocet rolls her eyes, shakes her head, looks impatient. “Anyways, we’re looking forward to having you at Lungbarrow, Rannex.”

She really has nailed talking like a grown-up.

The man looks puzzled after an abrupt second of decreased laughter, regaining his uppity posture. By the look on Innocet’s face, he should maybe stop trying to act so mighty. “Actually, there’s been a change of plans. A smaller, satellite House has been recently vacated not far off Jurisprudence, and would be the utmost convenience to accommodate Rynde and I. Our Housekeeper thought it would be beneficial to participate in the alternative Housing system trials.”

Theta blinks. “Could you use smaller words?”

“Mother of Rassilon,” Innocet hisses, head turning back and forth in panic.

“That’s not exactly what I—”

Innocet runs off so fast Theta doesn’t even register being flung to one side and the knocked-over chair until she begins sprinting full-tilt at Lungbarrow.

The regards Theta like he’s telling a joke, looking as if Innocet didn’t just run away swearing. Theta has not learnt yet how to properly exit conversations with a cousin’s just-about-husband, and Innocet for once hasn’t given him a trustworthy example of how to do so.

“So where are you from?” The man asks, posture relaxing into something of a tired bug, speech patterns still matching that adult-ish demeanour.

“I’m from Lungbarrow.”

“Really? Only, you don’t look much like your cousins.” Theta can see Glospin talking to the youngest Jurisprudence cousin he can find, probably acting far too grown up for his body.

“I’m from Lungbarrow, sir,” he mumbles somewhere at the ground, cursing his glow in the dark skin and hair and just sort of self in general.

“Hey, don’t feel bad about it, kid.” Theta looks up if only to search for a level of authenticity in his words. “We’re all a bit different. Look at my feet.”

Theta has gone from feeling uncomfortable to somewhat outcast to both confused and uncomfortable and verging on scared because Innocet’s gone and he’s stuck looking at a stranger’s feet.

“Big, aren’t they?” He doesn’t wait for a reply. “It’s my curse. Much like your blond hair. We’ll stick it out together, eh?” He stands up while patting Theta on the back, walking away without another word.

###

Innocet is refusing to tell Theta what’s going on, claiming everything to be perfectly normal, despite the fact she has spent the entire reception so far with Rynde. Theta hasn’t been to a wedding before, but he knows this can’t be very normal. He’s also picked up on the presence of alcohol in some drink or another just by how civilised all the cousins above forty are acting. This is exactly why he is now trying to find Glospin in a crowd, dehydrated and overtired.

Jurisprudence has ever so kindly lent the occasion their TARDIS, trapping anyone who doesn’t know how to find the front door inside with the cousins. The lighting is impractically low, the music is far too loud, and the food must be from the other side of the planet. Theta is jostled in every direction, unseen by most (because Jurisprudence cousins just had to be taller), and probably only walks in circles trying to navigate the sea of limbs and body heat. The too-tight robe has started getting very stuffy and very uncomfortable with a lack of fresh air to offset the heat.

If this is the kind of headache plaguing Koschei, Theta’s sympathy has increased tenfold.

He can see Innocet’s dark auburn braid escape through the doors after what looks like white robes. Yeah, right, nothing’s going on. Normally, Theta wouldn’t dare leave the room for fear of tripping down one stair and ending up infinitely far from the door, but the air has gotten suffocating and Innocet’s there and it can’t all be that bad and maybe they’re just looking for fresh air too, and—

“I bet they’re having an affair.” Theta both jumps and is not surprised to see Glospin behind him, smug as ever, with a robe that actually fits.

Theta tries talking like a grown-up, too. “I highly doubt that, what with Rynde being a hundred and Innocet only thirty-nine.”

Glospin shrugs. “That’s nothing to a Time Lord. And she’s not very fond of Rannex.”

Theta decides to pick breathable air over Glospin making noise. Walking out of a conversation in the middle of somebody speaking isn’t technically very grown up, but neither is Glospin. “I wouldn’t go out there if I were—” the rest of Glospin’s warning is drowned out by the senseless music.

Theta’s still technically indoors, but he might as well be in the middle of a mountain range in spring for the difference in air quality. The door cancels out most noise, too, allowing for the sound of feet and voices to carry down the oddly metallic hall. Fresh air notwithstanding, Theta is suddenly very aware of his small age.

His robes don’t quite touch the floor, leaving only his feet to make noise, instinct to run towards the voices before they fade out only withheld by the desire to not make noise. Which he thinks for a second is odd, if he doesn’t think there’s anything his presence might disrupt.

There’s something eerie about the comparatively cold blue light, near-silent hallway, and feeling like he’s in the wrong. But if someone had only told him what was going on, seeing as everyone else seems to know…

“You have to help me.” Rynde’s voice reaches him clearly now, wobbly from something. They must have stopped.

“I can’t! Not now… I thought he was coming here—”

“How? How did you not know!?”

“I’m so sorry.”

Rynde starts crying, in a soft sort of way. Theta can only hear the hitches in her breath and rattly inhales.

“There’s nothing we can do to keep you here, but you have to make the best of it.”

“There is no best!” Theta peeks around the corner, seeing the back of Rynde as she leans against Innocet’s shoulder. It makes Innocet look a whole lot older.

“Try giving Rannex a chance. It’ll be a hundred times easier if you become friends.”

Rynde sniffs. “It’s not the same.”

Is Glospin right?

“You said Morissa’a married, too?”

“She wanted to be.”

“After everything you two went through?” Innocet only starts Rynde crying again. “Visit her. And visit all your friends, too. Don’t feel stuck because you’re married. You’re a Time Lord! You can travel anywhere in the universe!”

“No. It’s… it’s alright.”

“It’s not alright, Rynde! You can’t just give up! You have a whole life ahead of you to—”

Rynde stands up all of a sudden, and Theta begins creeping back down the hall. “Is that a lie, too?” Her crying has stopped, replaced with hollow-sounding defeat and an impossibly correct posture.

“Rynde, you know it’s—”

“Thanks, Innocet. But I’m fine. I need to get back to my… husband.”

Theta, in all his fascination, forgot the practicality of his position. Before he can turn around, Rynde just about runs into him. She barely looks at him. “Get out of here.”

Theta is left with his mouth open, a half-formed reply waiting to be spoken. Innocet slams him into the wall before he can think to tell her.

“You little— Theta what the hell are you doing?” she hisses, only slightly loosening her grip.

“I was just… and Glospin said—”

Innocet drops her arm, almost sending Theta to his knees from the sudden lack of support. “It’s not true.”

“I didn’t think it was.” Theta coughs into his sleeve, throat complaining. Innocet normally doesn’t hurt a fly, so she never seems that strong…

“Sorry.” She looks down the hall at the retreating form of Rynde, swallowing hard. “You should go back in.”

Theta doesn’t complain.

###

It’s the sun that wakes Theta up the next morning, piercing through his eyelids until his brain tricks him into thinking it’s time to wake up. He’s only been asleep two and a half hours. Innocet sits curled up on the windowsill, body compacted to look so much smaller than it should be. Her robes are discarded on the bedroom floor, old shorts and a big shirt decidedly more comfortable. The propped open window lets the smallest of breezes inside, blowing the sloppy hairs outside Innocet's braid about her head. The feeling of utter wrongness drenches the entire room, like the road you’ve gone down a hundred times is now barely recognisable for a thick fog.

“She’s gone now,” Innocet tells the air around her, not moving her eyes from the outside world. Theta would be less concerned for Innocet’s safety if they weren’t on the third floor. “Never went back inside the reception…”

Theta sits up in bed, should be tired but really isn’t. His mouth has gone dry, every swallow now suddenly very conscious. “You mean she’s…”

Innocet’s face says enough: red eyes that have seen no sleep and too much salt, nose and upper lip a mess of mucus, hair pulled and bent into tortured angles.

“Why didn’t she regenerate?” The words stumble and trip out of his mouth, coated in naïveté, trying to skirt around the truth.

Innocet shakes her head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Theta never really knew Rynde. He wishes he had. But if circumstance allowed him to now, he wouldn’t have any motivation, because the only thing making her special now is the fact she doesn’t breathe.

“It doesn’t seem real enough yet,” Innocet says. “Like she’ll still be there at breakfast, or sitting outside with a book…” The words trail off with a hitch. It must be real enough, then. “I tried helping her. It didn’t work.”

Innocet favours staring at her knees instead of outside, leaving Theta’s brain to think a hundred thoughts at once.

“What did Glospin tell you?”

Theta, now somehow sat up in bed, doesn’t know if he should speak the truth, or make something up, or change the topic completely, or—

“I won’t be offended, Theta, I just want to know.”

It’s in times of importance he comprehends how small he really is. “He said… he thinks you two were ‘having an affair’, but Satthaltrope probably made that up.”

Innocet doesn’t respond, leaving Theta to wonder if Satthaltrope was true over everything else whizzing through his head. He needs a drink of water, but can’t bring himself to leave Innocet.

“We’ll have a new cousin in a couple years,” she mumbles, trying to hold back well-worn tears and trying to pull herself out of the trance of the window. “Soon as we get all the legal stuff through…”

“Do you want something?” The words are clearer than the last ones, and probably more helpful. “Breakfast?”

Innocet smiles faintly, only the corner of her lip visible to Theta. “Just water, thanks.”

Theta silently wonders if the dead are ever regretful when people grieve, wasting so much of their lives. Or do the dead grieve their lack of existence in the living world, needing time to properly adjust to a place without everyone?

“The dead don’t have consciousness, Theta. They’re just dead.”

Theta freezes in the doorway, choking out the words “How did you know what I was thinking?”

Innocet sighs. “I wanted to be a psychologist.” She doesn’t speak further and Theta doesn’t press her for more, blissfully unaware of how loud he’s speaking his thoughts. 

###

“You two are late again!?” Ushas hisses under her breath, still manging to inflict a great deal of irritation at their loose behaviour.

“Yeah, well, there was an incident.” Koschei brushes what looks like ashes off his robes into the general atmosphere of the classroom, Theta brushing more out of his hair. How he can see it on top of the already black, Ushas doesn’t quite know.

“It’s Gallifreyan History anyways,” Theta adds in a whisper, ignoring the stern look the professor gives them for very obviously slipping in the back late. “Nobody likes this class.”

“Aren’t you always complaining about how we aren’t allowed to know anything about the origin of our species?”

“Is there something you would like to share with the class?” The professor asks across the room, giving cause for only half of the class who care to turn around and stare at Theta and Ushas talking. Ushas gives them all a grow up stare.

“I was telling Theta Sigma what he missed,” Ushas replies, turning back to her slate.

The professor returns to the board, pointing to some note or another.

“Yeah, origin. Not whatever politics happened after then.”

Ushas pretends to not hear him, taking notes on whatever’s in front of her.

It takes a few seconds — until she’s absolutely sure the professor is talking too loud to hear anything — for her to turn back with what Theta would call a conspiratorial grin if he didn’t know any better. “You’re in luck, then. Here’s something like origins.” Because according to their education thus far, Rassilon did a Thing and they all sort of appeared.

Theta taps Koschei already ploughing away at algebra homework he neglected to do last night. “Ushas says it’s something interesting,” he whispers.

Koschei somewhat hesitantly closes the algebra, knowing very well Ushas only calls something interesting if it’s advanced biochemistry or, well, something interesting.

A title on the board is underlined. “Pythias,” The professor announces to the class. “We’re not spending much time on this topic, but it’ll be on the exam. So take notes.” That Kid Who Keeps Thinking He Can Get Away Without Doing Anything reluctantly drags out his slate two rows in front of them.

“I think I’ve heard of this before,” Theta whispers to Koschei, who only shrugs. “Those of you who are taking Local Sociology might have already learnt what the Pythia was. Anybody?”

A kid shorter than everybody and at least two years younger than the rest of the class raises his hand. “’Pythia’ was the title given to the matriarchal governmental head of Gallifrey preceding ‘President’, as was instituted at the beginning of the Rassilonian Era.”

Koschei rolls his eyes. “He looked that up.”

Ushas whispers to Theta “He can’t do science for the life of him, but he knows everything about politics already.”

Theta leans over to Koschei “He’s really a moron.”

“Thank you, Rho Lambda.”

Theta writes down what the apparent moron said anyhow. “I thought you said this was interesting,” he hisses to Ushas.

“Just hold on.” Ushas sits up straighter, easily looking the part of a Participating Member of Class. She raises her hand.

“Anything you’d like to add, Delta Psi?”

“Can you tell us about the Pythia’s Curse? I’m interested to know what—”

“This is actually a phenomenon studied in Local Evolution, so I would ask professor—”

“Just a summary?” The Very Studious Ushas speaking out of turn and the word ‘curse’ itself has captivated everyone’s attention, something that cannot be said for the professor’s teaching. She frankly must give in, and she knows it.

“I suppose it’s relevant enough for this class,” the professor sighs, not bothering to write any notes on the board, which she leans against, arms crossed. “Seeing as nobody has bothered to tell you why we’re all born from machines.

“The Pythia had the ability of foresight. Actually, write that part down. The last Pythia had something of an issue with that nearing the end of her rule. She employed the help of a 'psychic' named Vael to help her spy on Rassilon. Vael eventually betrayed the Pythia, presumably after Rassilon discovered her plans, and was not heard from again. The Pythia then fled to Karn with a bit of a cult following and cursed Gallifrey with sterility. This is referred to as the ‘Pythia’s curse’. To prevent our species from extinction, Rassilon aided in the invention of the Looms. The next generation of Time Lords were to all be produced from the them, creating a genetically controlled race far less susceptible to disease and unable to be born with abnormalities and deficiencies.” Everyone remains in some part existentially interested, an ironic sure sign for the professor to continue on the material she is not supposed to be teaching. It’s always exciting when someone tries smacking Rassilon.

Theta feels like he’s definitely heard bits of this somewhere before, but doesn’t know where.

“Does that answer your question, Delta Psi?”

“Okay, but there had to be anomalies. There always are.” She’d love some statistics to go along with it, if only to calculate the number of people in the room currently outside the bounds of normalcy.

One ringlet of the professor’s hair falls out of its bun on her shoulder in such a way it makes your neck itch to look at it. She starts talking faster. “Those not on Gallifrey were not affected by this ‘curse’ and were still able to reproduce. These children, like all those before them, had an unpredictable number of regenerations and a great deal of problems that could cause civil unrest for a number of reasons. Take History of Local Sociology for more detail on that, because I’m not spending nine hours on this. To prevent any kind of uprising or foreign disease or racial mutation, Rassilon ordered a decree to eliminate the few biologically conceived children.” Theta has definitely heard this before.

“This process stirred some controversy that we are not discussing in this class,” it seems this topic has been touched on before, “but was decided ethical as the genetically superior species. Any attempt to conceal a biologically born child was met with long-term imprisonment and execution of the child. It is likely this goal was accomplished, according to records and the like.”

“How could they tell?” Ushas asks, pushing her luck and succeeding.Theta’s palms have become irrationally almost sweaty. There’s something here about being carried and run and a forest and thrown in the dark. But he doesn’t get how it ties in.

“Tell what, exactly?”

His hands grip his knees under the desk because he’s only paranoid, obviously, he can’t possibly

“The only reliable physical indicator was a naval cavity where an umbilical cord once attached the child to the mother.” Without hesitating, she returns to the board, done with answering questions. “That’s the Pythia’s curse in a nutshell. You may learn more in other classes, but I am unfortunately only registered to teach objective history and level one and two social science. May I continue?” She seems very impatient for someone who hasn’t just granted twenty-odd adolescents some great big explanation of their existence.

Ushas looks very satisfied in receiving a miniature science lesson, and logically not even close to the level of nauseous Theta does.

“Are you quite alright, Theta Sigma?”

Theta nods, trying to form words under the stare of everyone in the ringing silence. “Just… tired.”

“You look ill.”

“Professor, I think we’re all a bit put off at the idea of a cord connecting an unborn child to another person,” Koschei chips in, tapping Theta in the side of the foot. A primitive attempt to communicate with another being nonverbally, which is frankly useless. Theta can’t tell if he’s telling him to snap out of it or if Koschei’s figured it out.

Koschei nearly breaks down the door in the record time of class ended three seconds ago, which isn’t much compared to Theta’s thirty minute “I need to use the washroom”. For the first while, he can’t see Theta under the bed. In an ideal world, he would not be able to break down the door because he wouldn’t know the bloody password AND he wouldn’t see him under the bed. Which is naturally the first place he checks.

Theta hides his face with a slate, full of the most basic of information about Time Lord biology. There was nothing he could get on pre-Rassilonian versions within the firewalls of school accounts. He’s trying to match all the things and kid himself into thinking there isn’t a navel cavity in his navel, because really if everything else is the same…

Koschei is smiling. It scares Theta more than much else. He closed the door so he’s either keeping Theta hidden or doesn’t want people to see. “You genetic anomaly, you.”

Theta scooches back further into the corner under the bed, inhaling more dust than he thought was under there. His robe is somewhere in the open on the floor, sitting in dull light coming through the curtains, fabric more worthy of illumination than he. Just pants and a white t-shirt is more comfortable anyways so joke’s on the robe haha.

Koschei also lies on the floor, outside underneath the bed and not pushing his head under, still smiling sort of at Theta but it’s less of a smile really and more of a face is not relaxed. He keeps his robe on obviously, red blending with the parted black hair better than Theta’s gross yellowish. Never matched the cousins. Obviously. Very very very obviously Innocet was so wrong they probably all know and Glospin is older he probably knows times ten wow.

Koschei just lies with his head on his hands pressed against the floor, watching Theta acting like a scared kitten. Difference being nobody wants to kill kittens.

“Are you gonna kill me?”

Koschei stands up without words which is scarier because Theta can’t see what he’s doing and he could be going to the door and he’s going to tell and maybe if he runs out once Koschei leaves he could escape out the doors but they’ll come after him like in the first forest and then was carried and thrown into the dark and

Koschei’s robe is also tossed across the room, body in bluish just pants and a t-shirt, lying on the ground and coming towards Theta. Koschei killed Torvic so he might be able to kill Theta, but then what was the throwing his robe into the dark supposed to be then?

“Who needs Prydonians?” Koschei is smiling but Theta can barely see it, illuminated only by the slate telling of viral immunity. It is the only thing separating them, one cycling through lines and lines of things he could say and one pressed against the wall. Theta can hear Koschei’s breathing overscoring the murmurs of life forms resonating to his patch of floor. He can hear a lot, soaking in the amazingness of reality in anticipation of it all being the last. “And you’ve outlived Rassilon.”

Theta tries shaking his head, inhaling the smell of ignored synthetic maybe-wood and dust. Scent is infinitely complex and observable and variable and vast when it might all be over too soon to see it all. “He’s not dead. He’s achieved superior immortality.”

“So immortal he’s lying stone dead in a tomb.”

Theta attempts to reconcile the image he’s always had of Koschei with one of murder and it’s not working. Try desperately as he might, it is not working.

Theta clamps down on his bottom lip, trying to force bubbling panic back into its mental jar again. Pain. Pain means life. Life is good. “Don’t tell. They’ll kill me.”

Koschei exhales as if to give a tiny butterfly safe passage out of his mouth. “They can’t kill you here. Rassilon’s decree ended with his death.”

“But somebody will.” He can’t see his skin colour under the bed. Nobody can see him at all, except Koschei.

“Then they’ll have to get past me, and I’m not moving until you do.” The slate decides there has been quite enough stagnant display of viral immunity, snuffing all light except the crack of a curtained window Theta can’t quite see. The underneath of beds are like TARDISes, horribly cramped and stuffy from the outside, but a whole room inside. If you just hold still.

Theta passes from hyperventilating and choking on panicked emotion to a numb kind of desperation, physicality primitively conforming to the brain’s message of impending threat to survival. But he’s surviving now, so the fused hinges start to drift apart and leave him floating. Koschei takes the slate and places on his opposite side, and for no good reason, he changes the topic entirely.

“So once we leave Gallifrey, where do you want to go?”

Theta decides to go with it. “They Eye of Orion.”

“Hmm. No idea. Enlighten me.”

“One of the calmest places in the universe. An excess of positive ions and no evolved fauna.”

Koschei’s mouth twists up, not that Theta can see it. “I can see how a lack of fauna might help.”

Theta lets his head move away from the wall. “And only fauna are able to appreciate it.”

Chapter Text

The all-day public student laboratories are finally made accessible to those in fifteenth year and above, something Ushas has been itching to get to for a good three years. It didn’t take much to download the entirety of the next three years’ worth of biology classes onto her slate, an entire library available to use that not many people visit. It’s mostly textbooks.

Canoodling, nah. Learning the progressive reconstruction of a species, now that’s…

Theta and Koschei stand huddled together only slightly suspiciously in the back corner of the room, consulting what appears to be a low-level medical encyclopedia. This can, and will, only spell trouble. However harmful to her health associating with these two is, she shuffles her way around half-ring tables decked out in mostly unused equipment.

Theta tries to feign innocence once he notices her, not doing a very good job of shooing her off. Koschei continues meticulously measuring out something, pouring drops in and out of its container to maintain exactly 25 millilitres.

“This better be good,” she says, in some ways feeling responsible for the general welfare of the two. In other ways, she wants to join their sneaky endeavours.

“Oh, it will be.” Theta sprinkles some sort of powder into their solution. “That’s it, then?” he asks Koschei in a lowered voice, who nods in return.

“You wanna join us, Ushas?”

“Doing what?” she flips Koschei’s slate around, scanning down the page for what could be one of three things. Temporary stomach relaxant, temperature reduction, and “Are you serious?” she looks up at both of them, the ultimate motive of her entering the room in the first place mostly lost by now.

“Don’t worry, we’re not trying to give Borusa a neon tongue this time.” Koschei puts a final drop of something in their concoction.

“This time?”

Theta punches Koschei in the shoulder, giving him one of those looks Ushas decides could invoke telepathy if they tried hard enough.

“It didn’t work, but apparently we gave him a headache.”

Ushas grins. “Don’t you normally?”

Theta folds his arms. “We try.”

In standing across the table from them, it almost feels like she’s shoved up against a wall in a room full of people in chairs watching a play. Like she can be there if she wants to, but all the proper spots have been taken, and it might be more comfortable to leave.

A little standing never hurt. “So who’s the lucky recipient of this idea?”

“Drax.” Koschei produces his own container from somewhere and slowly pours the solution into it.

“We’re in a prank war, him and us. I think we started it,” Theta says.

“We dumped him off the bed when he was taking a nap, second year.”

“Are you going to spike his drink with it?”

Koschei addresses her properly for the first time. “Not bad! You could join us!”

Now everyone in their chairs are staring at her, and so are the people on the stage, and she hasn’t heard the question someone’s telling her to answer. “So long as I’m not the one in trouble.”

Theta smiles reassuringly. “No, that’s my job.”

Koschei and Theta seat themselves across from Drax as if they do it every day. Drax — mostly limbs and ears with a bit of teeth and acne thrown in over peachy gaps — reacts like they’re holding a bomb. Ushas pretends to not know anybody and very intentionally sits beside Theta.

“So I hear you’re into tinkering, Drax. Any good?” Koschei picks at a head of broccoli, tapping his foot against the ground in time with all the ones in his head. He’s never particularly cared for broccoli.

Drax shrugs. “People like to think so. Fixed a robot bat once.” He smiles at his own achievements like everyone of this age tends to do, taking a bite of mashed potatoes and sitting back a bit. Theta knows for a fact the robot bat was more of a toy than anything else. “Your turn, then?”

“For what?”

“You know what.”

Koschei shrugs, looking over to Theta in an expired gesture to keep their antics a secret. That was their initial goal, but after the incident with the ashes in the middle of the hallway, the notion became irrelevant.

“I’ve actually lost track.” Koschei nudges Ushas under the table, who in turn nudges Theta, who then accidentally bumps his cup of orange juice, spilling not enough orange to cause damage but still enough all over their section of the table. Drax leaps back as everyone thought he would, Ushas proclaiming some exclamation of their usual idiocy, Koschei scrambling to pull a napkin out of the dispenser while apologising to the person two seats down from Drax, pulling Drax himself into the apology, which gave Theta the opportunity to pour a small vial’s full of solution into his cup.

After returning with a hyper-absorbent cloth in the most disgruntled state she can muster, Ushas settles back down into her seat, staring the most conspicuously at his glass out of the three of them.

“Sorry about that,” Theta says for the fifth time, sticking the vial back in his pocket. “So tell me about the bat.”

Drax, after three minutes of suspicious, idle conversation, finally contemplates the contents of his drink. Koschei looks around the room, nodding his head slightly as if wanting desperately to make a sarcastic comment on something and physically holding himself back. Ushas figures it must be verging on painful, for the number of things he and Theta have decided are hilarious one-liners in the middle of class…

Drax doubles over barely a minute later, making a noise on par to that of an overweight, dying water fowl and runs out of the room in frantic search of a toilet.

Two hands smack together directly in front of Ushas’s face, bending her back for a startled moment. The person slightly assaulted by the orange juice stares back at them with a very concerned look that could very well run to authority about it.

“You two are…” Ushas shakes her head, sending out a puff of contemplative carbon dioxide, “something else.”

“And we don’t intend to stop, dear Ushas,” Koschei hails to his friend, triumphantly taking a gulp of his own juice.

###

“Do you think Time lords are even allowed off Gallifrey without an official reason?” Theta asks one night, climbing trees in pyjamas for its own sake. Technically, it’s only against the rules if you’re caught outside past curfew.

“We’re allowed around Kasterborous without time travel, I think.”

“Political capital of the universe? Sounds like that would get old fast.”

Koschei swings himself a branch above Theta, halting the movement upward until he goes up or Theta goes down. “Certainly if you’re one for travelling.”

Theta snorts unceremoniously, delicately placing his shoulders over a fork in a branch, crossing his legs to match the frame. “I can barely manage two months at Lungbarrow at a time, nevermind popping back the rest of my life.”

“Think you’ll go renegade?” Koschei hangs facedown on the branch above, legs dangling barely above Theta. They’ve gotten longer.

“Oh, yes.”

Koschei idly taps his fingers just below his chin in the unconscious four. A slow four; kind of a dance.

Theta points to it, if only to feel the weight of his whole arm collapsing in on his shoulder. “That tapping of yours, by the way. Have you not figured it out yet?”

The fingers stop on three. “No. Why?”

“It’s obvious once you get it, really.”

“Theta!”

He bites his tongue between a grin, watching the boy that will likely fall out of the tree if he isn’t careful.

“What goes one-two-three-four all day and night without end?” Theta spreads his arms to the sky, willing the answer to spell itself out in the dark.

“Thete, I will knock you off the branch—“

“Your heartbeats, moron!”

A pause. Then, “Oh. Oh, shit I’m an idiot, Thete don’t even look at me.”

Laughing, Theta stands up and starts tapping on Koschei’s forehead. “Ain’t it funny?” Koschei covers his face with his hands.

“Cut it out!”

Theta complies, propping his head on the branch, just above Koschei’s.

Koschei lets his eyes peek through his fingers. “My heartbeats, huh?”

“I’m fairly confident.”

Koschei halfheartedly smacks him on the top of his head, both of them too busy smiling like everything is too hilarious to try and rationalise the precariousness of being on a tree.

“What was that for?”

“For being so damn smart.”

“Well you can’t be the genius all the time.”

There’s a long, sleepy silence, a breeze rustling the trees and worming its way through the fabric of clothes. Theta can tell Koschei’s nodding off despite barely being able to see through the night, but however peaceful it is sleeping in a tree can’t be any good.

“Koschei. You’re falling asleep.” And starting to faLL OFF THE BRANCH NOPENOPENOPE

“Theta?”

“Yeah?”

Koschei sounds just about as disgruntled as is appropriate for anyone being folded over a branch, secured only by the idiot across from you digging his fingers into your calves. “Why am I upside down?”

Theta shrugs. “Aesthetic?”

###

Koschei sits in a large armchair in the corner of the commons, next to Theta. It dwarfs him. “Halogens?”

Theta rolls his eyes. “Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, Astatine, Helmholtzium.”

He made a mistake in group thirteen, and Ushas nearly started choking.

“Noble gases?”

Theta releases some cross between a sigh and a grunt. “Heeneearkurzeernuuoh.”

“Somehow I don’t think that’s correct.”

It’s then Ushas notices the near-transparent wire, wrapping around the floor and walls of their corner. Her eyes follow the wire around the room, no longer focusing on the accuracy of Theta reciting the order and mass of half of the atoms known to existence, attempting to find the end of the trail. Someone’s foot stops it in the middle of the floor. It’s the kid with the two mechanical legs. Koschei starts noticing too, if only from Ushas’s head zipping around the room. Two small boxes are installed almost directly above Koschei and Theta on the wall, gone largely unnoticed by everybody. He nonchalantly points about twenty degrees left of Ushas, invisible line following an invisible wire to reveal Drax hiding under a chair on the opposite side of the room. The Foot still securely on top of the wire, she pretends not to be concerned while watching him out of the corner of her eye for any amount of movement.

“Is anyone even paying attention?” There could be any number of things in the boxes above their heads — most likely dimensionally transcendent — quite possibly diluted phosphoric acid from the previous stint pulled on Drax. She wouldn’t put it past him to put contracting glue in it.

Theta clues in to current events, following the wire to the boxes before getting to radon. “Oh. Whaddaya know?” Theta stands on his chair to reach for one of their rigged boxes, looking at it with some fondness. “Thanks, Drax!” A few people start paying attention at that, their little inadvertent fanbase. They have learnt by now to not settle within a certain radius of them, with the exception of one pretentious buzzcut sixteenth-year.

Ushas takes a breath. “Theta, how long has the ordeal with Drax gone on for?”

“About fourteen years, but only technically,” Koschei replies in his stead, standing up. “More like four.” Theta hands him the cube. Ushas can see Drax frantically tugging at his end of the wire as Koschei detaches the cube from the wall. He breaks the wire out of its mechanism, tossing it to the floor.

Koschei runs across the room, just barely dodging one badly positioned table to lie on the floor in front of Drax.

“What can I do f’r you?” Koschei can practically taste the facetiousness.

He props his chin up with one hand, holding the cube in the other. “I don’t know what’s in this cube, but it could end up dumped on either one of us.” He holds out the hand from his chin in front of Drax. “I propose a truce.”

Drax sets his jaw. “You gonna help me pass exams?”

Maybe if you spent less time wiring suspicious boxes, you wouldn’t need the help.”

Drax shakes his hand, banging it inadvertently against the bottom of the chair. “Now d’you mind moving?”

###

Koschei developed an aversion to marshmallows the last time he was offered one in front of a bonfire, which he believes to be quite justified, even after a decade. He shakes his head in decline this time, watching the eldest cousin in attendance dancing around a bit too excitedly with a flaming stick on fire. Nobody else seems to be foreseeing a timeline where the forest burns to the ground, all setting marshmallows on fire either intentionally or while trying to turn the white sugar golden brown. There are only two others who decline the beckoning marshmallows, also sitting in the back row of boulders and logs having some kind of irrelevant debate on what sounds like income equality of Scendles. 

Koschei doesn't have a raging desire to be here, but was dragged along by the marshmallow waitress for looking "kinda lonely" and "in need of some fun". She hasn't said a word to him since. Which is typical in a House of a hundred cousins, even with a fifth of them eating burnt sugar and gelatin around a burning pile of wood.

A shirtless boy stands and grabs the spear from the guy who was dancing, black hair contrasting his expanse of pale skin shockingly similar to Koschei's. A hundred cousins and they all look too similar to bother telling apart.

"We don't have a bucket of water, idiot. Don't start dancing around with that." Mostly everyone else continues talking with one another, unconcerned. Neither of the flaming stick wielders seem to be volunteering.

Koschei weaves past two chattering girls withstanding the weather phenomenally in the below-average expanse of clothes they wear. He approaches the slightly archaic rusty bucket, mumbling something along the lines of "I'll go". He doesn't know if the two stick wielders even heard him, but they'll put two and two together someone didn't just decide to sneak up and steal an empty bucket. Normally, people just toss in a single-use fire extinguisher. Apparently the fringes of southern Great Endeavour still operate in the dark ages.

It’s difficult to tell which direction the river is in, with both suns set and an entire forest of uniform oak trees. He goes right, if only to avoid the shirtless guy now demanding the marshmallow stick and complaining about how he can’t very well eat a raw one. None of his cousins make any sense. If they did, he might not have missed the offhand remark about probably leaving the bucket at the House.

The sounds behind him are all jovial exchanges and friendly conversations he could never understand. Half of them are so forced the air around them could suffocate something, and the others make all the participants out to be of one mind and body in fluid motion.

Marshmallows can’t even be raw. They are an oddity of sentient species with too much time on their hands; pointless cylinders of glucose and gelatin that don’t do anything beneficial. It’d be more helpful to roast chunks of meat or vegetables over a fire and gain some kind of nutrition, but then it wouldn’t be half as fun.

Nobody notices he’s left, which is just as well. He didn’t want to be there anyways. It’s not very…

Fun. Even the more complex non-sentient species have some kind of fun, some amusing exercise every now and then with each other for no point. Potentially harmful in the long run, generally useless, but worth the momentary enjoyment and memories gained thereafter? Well technically if science were considered “fun” people would actually get something productive done, but sitting and talking and giggling and burning wood and eating compressed sugar and dancing around with flaming sticks about to set the whole forest on fire?

Koschei’s foot just barely hits the side of a pretentious rock, its stubborn placement enough to bring the bucket crashing to the ground and bouncing a little. Koschei stares at them both, mere outlines in the dark, teeth clenched together and lips in a scowl. How dare the rock. The rock will never know pain, never be subject to the unintentional condescending chortling of ninety nine cousins, never silently lug a bucket a third of its height through the dark woods because of a stupid bonfire and burnt gelatinous sugar.

The rock doesn’t reciprocate Koschei’s ranting, nor does it move out of the way or nod its head in agreement. It also doesn’t point him in the direction of the water Koschei’s supposed to know the location of. He peels his resentful foot off the ground, accidentally kicking the bucket without trying very hard to ignore it, mumbling something about the fallacy of fun while bending over to pick it up. The stars mock him, twinkling light years away and producing just enough light for him to see roughly where things are maybe, but not enough to give him any kind of further information.

He can barely hear his cousins, too, but everything’s hard to hear over all the noise in his head.He might turn around to look for the river the other way if it weren’t for the bitter thought of running into his beloved family again. Joke’s on them; fun isn’t embracing life. It’s making death come closer with poor nutrition and fire hazards.

There’s a small part of his brain telling him to calm down and he doesn’t have to go get water and doesn’t even need to be there, irrational spite taking over and whining. “Get over yourself,” he grumbles, welcoming the change in noise. Maybe that’s why people talk to themselves. “You have fun, too, moron.” The silence is bigger after every pause, filled nonetheless with a crackling sort of pace, bucket thumping against one knee, bigger inhales and exhales trying to match the rhythm. “Always gets you in trouble, I think.”

He has the rhythm all worked out in his head, mental cues falling in time with everything around him, except maybe the rustling off to the left. And then the added tiny footsteps.

The entire rhythm collapses, breath held, stars probably laughing at him now with the complete lack of detail in front of him. The other thing has stopped too, blending in with a multitude of trees that could house any number of carnivorous beasts he didn’t think about. In a whirlwind of needing to exhale and fight versus flight just not adding up, Koschei launches the infernal rusty bucket at the invisible thing and runs like hell the way he was going.

Every sense is trained stupidly behind him, trying to piece together any kind of sound or smell that might tell him what’s behind, except his useless eyes. They are replaced by outstretched arms, palms and fingers being assaulted by twigs of branches and leaves. All association with the colour brown has been scrapped in favour of useless dark grey WHY DOESN’T THE BUCKET GLOW OR SOMETHING?

His feet jump from potential footfall to potential ditch, miraculously supporting the weight weaving through trees that are just getting closer together and harder to see. He can’t block out the pounding feet and the primitive mouth-breathing and the infernal noise in his head, ears screaming at him to shut up and listen. His lungs, yelling as brought upon by his elbow having far too much association with a tree, would beg to differ.

Screaming like a banshee is only going to summon everything, be it a tafelshrew or tiger or Omega himself. If he is transported to the antimatter universe, he’s blaming dear old House Oakdown.

Slowing down is a bad idea, but hitting trees is a worse idea, and there could very well be nothing behind him but there could be something or it could be a friendly thing or maybe a tiger what force has made him recall the tiger his ears are useless his nose is not having anything to do with anything and he might die. Only one way to find out. Feet connecting themselves haphazardly to sticks and rocks, arms bending inward much farther than they had before, Koschei lets his head whip around for under half a second.

Pointless.

One second? A very helpful blur of BLACK AND GREY.

He grazes a tree with his whole right side, thrown on an angle and slowing down a fraction, arms windmilling forwards and backwards to keep him upright. Maybe if he turns. Less head movement?

He remembers a sharp right and not looking in front of him and a moment of exaggerated relief, nothing is actually following him.

Chapter Text

The first thing he can see that isn’t shrouded in darkness is a glossy, sleek, black, and full of tiny, fluffy threads at the same time. It is being smoothed over and over again between a graphite-coloured beak, layers of the feathers spread out impressively.

The shriek that follows just about drills a hole through the blurry air, forcing Koschei’s eyelids open all the way. Where his vision barely reaches is a deep, metallic blue dressed in a sheer grey cloud. This bird has decided if the sun is up, the rest of Gallifrey must also be up. Or maybe just Koschei.

He unglues his face from the ground first, tiny sticks and bits of dirt falling off as his flesh cries for their return by being in sore pain. He draws his limbs together, letting them lift his body off the ground like a spider might, old denim and synthetic cotton smudged in dirt and plant matter. It’s a good morning in an alternate universe where he sits in his window, watching the suns rise, holding a mug of something warm in a clean sweater. It’s not a good morning from down here.

The shiny black messenger of the first sun persists in its racket, cramming more air inside Koschei’s head until it might burst from the pressure and deafen him from the headache. His ankle cries at him from being dragged, a quick jerk telling him it’s only whining and not completely destroyed inside. It’s then he remembers how he got there.

His demise was flora, the dangerous construction of the planet overruling the nonexistent carnivorous beast in a quest to obliterate Koschei. The flora hasn’t won quite yet, although it is only now the river decides to speak up. The number of cousins he asked with urgency ages ago what lives in here ignored him as if he already knew. They’ll have cleared this place because it’s so close to a Great House. Just for show, a clump of trees producing much needed oxygen, wild animals driven out and stored nicely in an artificial habitat. Ushas has described quite well how appetising Time Lords are to hungry beasts.

He creaks and unfolds like a rusty lawn chair that hasn’t been used in twenty years, pulling and forcing his body into a standing position favouring the right ankle. The bird pretends to not notice Koschei standing there, cawing away at nothing ninety degrees from him, but both of them know it’s really a biological alarm clock.

In the (near) daylight, it takes an uneventful two minutes to find the river, the alarm clock bird making the wise decision in not following Koschei around. It isn’t even a river. The title of “river” has been passed down through generations, likely stemmed from some kind of dramatic impulse akin to running around shirtless with a flaming stick. Ironically, this practice sounds fittingly Prydonian of them. The creek is trying to be five metres across, water not deep enough to give itself any sort of hue other than ‘mildly disgruntled cloud’. Someone built a bridge somewhere centuries ago and everyone’s repairing it constantly. Koschei is too lazy at this point to go looking.

The first step into the water was cold.

The second gave him a small, generally bad feeling about the operation.

The third was less of a step and more of a flailing spiral onto his backside into the fervently unimpressed running water, too many body parts colliding with the eroded and very slippery rock bottom. It feels like being slapped in the face, but with an added soaked pair of legs and half a torso to boot. Maybe if he yells for help, the alarm clock bird will pick him up.

At least he doesn’t need to bathe now.

Oakdown looks almost majestic from the outside, a micromanaged mess of wooden twists that look like bundled yarn spiralling up and out. It said to be a defect of House growth, but many of its natives believe it to be superior to the rest. Flanked by the second sun finally making its way past the horizon, it is almost shining.

“Ain’t it a bit early for a swim?” Somehow the multitude of cousins burrowing inside and around Oakdown makes it less glorious. Especially since Koschei recognises this kid from the bonfire: the one with the self-altered pointed ears. She clearly does not remember him. In ignoring her, the game of catch she plays is not interrupted.

Three more outside have a good morning stare at him without saying anything out loud, but communicating clearly enough their amusement and slight confusion at his being soaking wet and favouring one foot at this hour of the morning. Whatever hour it is.

Koschei opts to opening the back door instead of having everyone from here to the front asking him why he was swimming, taking a few cold seconds to find the door “aesthetically carved” into the House. The promised warmth doesn’t hit him immediately, beat up back corridor not a priority for heating on a beautiful day such as this.

The One With the Seemingly Eternal Stubble gives him a signature ‘friendly look’ after a once-over jogging down the stairs, giving him as wide a berth as he can get on the way into the kitchen. Koschei feels like punching him, but isn’t going to, because his brain can rationalise enough at this point to understand it’s not his fault Koschei is freezing cold and still dripping from the chest down. He coughs a couple times to feel like he isn’t actually a piece of useless furniture.

The stairs are no exception to the winding, this particular set of stairs swooping through the room with all the books in it. One foot yells at him every other step, the other foot telling it to shut up or be cut off.

“Where’d you run off to last night?” The Marshmallow Distributor asks in all good superior favour. She is occupied too much with a game of three dimensional chess against Don’t Dance With the Flaming Stick to bother with eye contact.

Koschei doesn’t stop walking, paying more attention to the light fixture he’s observed every walk up through the roof than the people below. “I lost your bucket.” He only imagines the look on their faces, too tired to tempt the headache’s return to full power.

“Why are you so wet?” The cousin in front of him has no distinction to help identify themself, Koschei reduced to a grunt He ritually ignores the portrait of the first Housekeeper next to room 303, slamming the door on his way in. His long awaited opportunity to dump all his wet clothes on the floor and kick them across the room is disrupted by his slate, of all things. The device tossed on the bed one dull morning ago lights up far too excitedly for Koschei’s tired brain, displaying failproof two-dimensional Gallifreyan scribblings of a familiar sort.

ΘΣ: I just learnt 3 types of waltz. It makes hardly any practical sense, but is a surprising lot of fun for all its foot aerobics. I might teach you.

Despite the cold and the headache and the ankle and the cousins and the bucket and the fire and the hours of unconsciousness, Koschei cracks a smile.

###

“Okay you have to get to sleep right now.”

2 hours ago, Theta fell asleep on a faded scarlet couch in the commons while trying to re-teach Koschei half the day’s classes. Ushas has not been told about her friend’s internal noise problem, a concept difficult to pass off as nothing on days where it gets too loud to focus. Ushas retired to her room in a huff four hours before Theta fell asleep, spiting the pair of them for not explaining why exactly Koschei needs to be entirely re-taught something he was present for.

“Final exams are in a month and I,” he yawns, “have to finish taking notes.”

“You really don’t, Koschei.”

“But I need to be caught up for tomorrow.”

Despite everything screaming for him to go back to sleep, Theta drags himself off the couch. “You don’t have any of these classes until next week, and if you don’t sleep now you’ll miss all of tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.” 0430 hours, in fact.

“All the more reason, then.” Theta leans against the table, taking Koschei’s slate out of his hand with little effort.

Koschei leans his head against his hands lying on the desk, giving Theta a mad look that would be a lot angrier were it not falling asleep. “Give it back,” he says, caught between a whine and a scowl.

“Not for another five and a half hours.”

“Please?”

A slightly apologetic shake of the head, followed by an arm offering help. “You’re going to sleep.”

No response.

“Get up, you.”

Hesitantly, the boy grabs Theta’s arm, dragging himself off the chair and getting unceremoniously dumped onto a couch. “Mmf.” He hasn’t bothered to change out of uncomfortable pants and a rumpled white t-shirt, fringe of his hastily chopped-off black hair not quite touching the collar.

“Nighty night.”

“Theta?” He turns around.

“Hmm?”

“Listen.”

Silence.

“For what?

Koschei shakes his head, letting it fall onto the couch that has hosted generations of behinds but is still suitable as a bed. “Nothing.”

Theta sighs, arms becoming heavy with fatigue and brain demanding they continue to work for Koschei’s benefit. He knows it’s nothing and he most certainly can’t hear it. “Think about the universe, then. Akhatan. The Medusa Cascade.”

“Don’t leave.” His voice has been reduced to a whine as his mind goes into its own world as it does too often, so people say.

“Only going to the neighbouring couch.”

###

“We can’t be called ‘The Deca’ with only nine people, Mortimus.” Ushas lingers slightly on the ‘s’ as she reclines haphazardly on the arm of a chair. Thirty-three years and her black hair has become just about permanently tied back with a wire. It’s always Ushas don’t-you-dare-call-me-Delta-Psi, the biologist.

The nine in question are all situated in their usual circle in the corner of the twenty-one-to-thirty commons. What was once a casual weekly study meeting has now escalated into specific roles and the name debate. A total of three weathered chairs and a chipped coffee table next to the portrait of Rassilon in the fifth body nobody likes are often in use between the end of classes and night. Various hand-drawn academic posters have taken up permanent residence there for the number of times their figures have been repeated.

“We can always find someone else to make ten, Ushas. It can’t be that difficult,” Jelpax says. Coal black skin, platinum blond hair, any hint of a gender binary on the other side of Kasterborous. Obviously from the House of Paradox.

“Ought we to host auditions?”

Ushas none too gently rests her forehead on a fist like she usually does at Rallon’s ideas. The awkward mix of old high linguist and atrocious scientist doesn’t sit well with the three-years-younger Ushas.

Before she can impatiently respond, Millennia jumps in. “I think what we should do is find a tenth person before calling ourselves ‘The Deca’.” Temporal physicist and compromiser extraordinaire. She occasionally makes jokes on this peacemaking ability deriving from a ground desire to compromise her ocular heterochromia. Rallon always tells her it looks ‘ravishing against her stained ivory hue’. Nobody can tell if he’s exaggerating or not.

“Yes, but honestly, we need to have a name!” Mortimus retaliates. He has the least decided of positions amongst them, something of a dabbler in visual art, bionics, and random bits of history. His lavishly decorated bionic legs combine all three of these aspects. Everyone but Drax vaguely questions how he’s even arrived here in the first place. Drax is usually the one to wave off their questions. They both refuse to reveal how Mortimus ended up with mostly no legs.

“Can’t we just like, pick up some random?” Drax nearly shouts in his somehow uneducated dialect, scanning the room for anyone potentially smart enough to hold any position. Rallon habitually clenches his teeth at Drax’s mere voice, routinely calmed by Millennia and ignored by Drax himself.

Theta speaks for the first time in this conversation, back turned to the commons on his coffee table of a seat. “What other subject to we even need filled?”

“Politics.” Ushas replies, ever on top of things. Including Mortimus’s chair.

“I hate politics.” Koschei mumbles to Magnus, who smirks in return, the pair of them separated on the floor by Theta’s legs, who famously agree.

“Ya also hate curfew, get over it.”

Koschei rolls his eyes from across the circle. “That kid hears everything,” is said below a whisper, successfully not reaching the ears of Drax. Or anyone else.

Jelpax sighs. “In that case, I know a kid. He’s in my historical sociology class.” Nobody protests to them getting off the arm of Ushas’s chair and walking up to the nearest student immersed in their studies, cross-legged on a wooden chair with a slate.

The boy in question has overheard half of the conversation and stands up to face Jelpax while they still remain silent a metre away from him.

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

Instead of replying, the well-groomed short boy with an eerily chromatically homogenised physical appearance holds out his thin hand.

“Rho Lambda. Your politics expert. You’re not very quiet over there.”

Jelpax grins, turning around to the group with a wasn’t that easy look before shaking his hand.

“Nice to meet you.”

“How about no?” Magnus half-shouts to Jelpax.

Simultaneously Millennia retaliates with “That was rude”, and Theta kicks him in the knee.

“What’s your full name, then, Rho Lambda?”

“Vansellostophossius.”

Time Lords, they all decided long ago, need to cut back a bit on the syllables. “I’ll call you Vansell. Vansell the politician.”

“You’re Jelpax the mathematician.”

Koschei gives them both a look, Ushas appears mildly impressed, and Jelpax nods. “That is correct.”

“I don’t like him,” Mortimus sighs.

“I don’t think he cares,” Ushas returns, all of them watching Jelpax and their new politics expert approach, the latter of which bringing his wooden chair along. He looks them all in the face one by one, smiling triumphantly, coming to place the chair in front of Rassilon’s portrait, possibly inadvertently. “

“Not very full of himself, then.” Theta says to Koschei, both of them biting back a mocking grin at the boy at least an inch shorter than the rest of them. Nobody speaks, every head turned to Rho Lambda’s giddy expression covering most of Rassilon’s fatigued one. Only three of them try formulating some words of welcome.

Vansellostophossius creates them on his own. “You’re all sort of famous, actually. Just around the commons and stuff. It’s pretty cool. Good you have a name.” He finally sits down. “I’m ten. So you’ve got your Deca.”

A few of them nod, Koschei, Theta, and Magnus still pointedly sceptical.

“I suppose you are,” Ushas declares, gesturing to the digital white board they have stuck to the wall. “Care to teach us something?”

He stands up and straightens himself, adjusting the robes he technically doesn’t need to wear past 16:00. “I’d be honoured.”

###

Theta gets hit in the forehead with a pencil. Literally, a pencil. There are maybe ten rooms in the entire complex with these things, and empirical particle physics room is definitely not one.

Half the class is currently transfixed on a carbon atom, with the exception of Theta. The other half is sitting in benches behind tables, slaving away at select data inputs on the form they all need submitted in an hour, with the exception of Vansell.

Theta picks up the pencil and holds it out, checking once to see if Professor Samax is actually looking at anybody. Vansell holds up a perfectly rectangular, orange piece of paper definitely stolen from the art room. The words ‘I need some help’ are written across the front, backed by a being who doesn’t look in need of very urgent help.

With what? Theta mouths across the gap in the room.

It takes Vansell ten seconds to write out ‘studying’ below.

Theta rolls his eyes and almost returns to the bajillion-times-magnified carbon atom vibrating in the glass confines before him. Vansell shows him the other side of the paper too quick.

‘Today after block six?’

A handful of people notice their odd exchange, trying to make sense of the sign’s context and why Vansell has decided it’s a good idea to communicate in this way.

The professor looks up from her desk, for once. “Rho Lambda?”

Vansell puts down the sign, but still watches Theta like a hawk. To be completely honest, the kid talks way too much for his own good, and might need a lesson down the road on keeping his nose at a lower elevation. That and he’s the politician.

Despite this downfall, Theta shrugs, nods, and if that wasn’t clear enough, mouths “sure” at him. Not that he knows what he’s signed up to tutor.

###

Omega Xi lies on his dormitory bed, room shared with nobody, staring up at the blank ceiling. He idly throws a ball in the air and catches it repeatedly, left alone to mull over the definition of words, listening to music he doesn’t much care for anyways. Vibrations crashing through the air into ear canals, into the brain, processed as good, bad, or in between. The curse of boredom and the dawning realisation he doesn’t have that many friends.

Four knocks on the door: an automatic ‘damn you’. Supposed to be studying but never really, he picks up the slate abandoned an hour ago in frustration at multi-dimensional physics calculations.

“Who’s there?”

The door opens and Magnus steps in without permission. Not that either of them care. “Magnus.”

His breath shudders on the way out. “Well I can see that now.”

“Can I come in?”

“You’re already in.”

Taking that as a ‘yes’, Magnus plunks himself on the foot of Koschei’s bed.

He tells himself to have a little patience. maybe. “Yes?”

“What’s the deal with Trenzalore?”

Koschei blinks once. “Why?”

“Apparently it’s going to be on the cosmic geography test.”

Omega shrugs, shuts off the music, and tries to navigate his mess of a brain to find Trenzalore.

“It’ll start out as another human colony, level two planet. Well, human-ish colony. Life span of around a hundred twenty human years. Like the rest of them, it became some sort of an unspecific hotspot of blended humanoids, the Sol III physique was the most dominant. After a century or so, they’ll develop a truth field. For the next few centuries, a third of the universe’s collection of species with spaceships decide to invade the place, and consistently fail. Then there’s this huge siege, and Trenzalore loses, no survivors. Eventually the entire planet becomes a graveyard including one Time Lord.”

“What, that far out?”

“Yup.”

Magnus leans back, not much longer concerned with Trenzalore’s general ‘deal’. “Which one?”

Koschei drags a hand down his face. “Even our species have enough brains to not find that out. The name is somehow significant.”

“How?”

He halfheartedly rolls his eyes at Magnus. “Do you think I know?”

“Well, you are brilliant at this.”

Koschei’s internal cyclical complaints of Magnus’s interrupting his lack of activity stops for a moment. “You should see me try to do calculus.”

Magnus laughs in a sort of forced way with the same percentage of sincerity as the ratio of feet to an entire duck. “You’re better than I am.” Magnus pats him on the back with a healthy dose of awkwardness, leaning over a gap of blankets. His smile is likely intended to be reassuring, but of what, Koschei doesn’t quite know.

He is almost at the door, leaving Koschei alone to the same dull music and boredom before inflicting his vocal patterns on the world once more. “Do you know where Theta is, by the way?”

Koschei internally curses Magnus’s unwillingness to leave the room with every exhale. “Vansell’s been needing an irrational amount of intensive xenobio help for the past week.” He phrases it almost as a question, wishing nonexistence on the pointy politician. “Apparently he’ll fail the class if he doesn’t pass the exam.”

Magnus nods. “Ah.” The awkward has not left him, or perhaps it is inflicted by Koschei’s lack of personality at the moment.

“Why, in particular?”

Magnus shrugs, looking deliberately above Koschei’s head and not right at him. “He owes me a few spare parts from a temporal physics exam.” He walks out of the room, hunting after the elusive Theta Sigma, leaving Koschei with an annoyingly open door.

Chapter Text

Out of all the things that one could cognitively arrive upon after traversing the river Lethe for hours, he ends up with friend. He says it out loud. “Friend.”

Sounds stupid. Kind of like ‘fiend’, but not. What does friend even mean? Depends on the person. Yet again. Nothing is definite. Especially with people; one day everybody’s yelling and the next everyone’s holding hands.

It was one of those mal-conceived ideas of the early morning and late night that brought him out here, an irrational, adolescent test to see the difference between the entire Prydonian Academy and his House. Thus far, the test has gone quite similarly, but with a lack of a twisted ankle and adrenaline boost before hours of unconsciousness. There is nothing very hormonally stimulating about xenobiology. Which he’s better at than Vansell. Which is an arbitrary observation he needs to stop bringing up in his head.

The noise still carries on the same as before, but it takes a bit of concentration to hear it and complete stillness to pick out the pattern of four. Like it’s waiting for something, or is somehow attached to his biology and flares up at the right times, or just likes the lack of information being rushed at him through a forest devoid of killer animals.

“How long have you been out here, exactly?” The voice appears behind him.

“Since fifteen minutes before dawn.”

Koschei turns around on his rock hallway into the brook, and there’s Theta looking like he just ran here and back. Blond hair lacking all order, pants flecked with mud, face pinky red, and no shortage of increased breathing labour. Messy.

Coming from the one who’s got water half of everywhere and hasn’t eaten anything since last night, grinning ridiculously because the noise is giving him a day off mostly.

“It’s 12:00. You need to eat.”

“Eating is overrated.” Koschei replies. “Besides. The noise is kinda quiet.”

“Koschei.”

“Oo, threatening.”

Theta sighs, marching up to Koschei, grabbing him by the arm, and walking back toward the Academy.

It might physically pain him to withhold sarcasm. “Oh, you always get me with the arm grabbing.” Theta looks thoroughly unimpressed, but sticks around anyways. Bless him.

“Don’t you start. I’ve had enough verbal infliction from Vansell for the next month.”

They manoeuvre through trees and people and rocks and break the treeline: the reddish glass-and-concrete building sprawled around the flat expanse down the hill.

Koschei smiles less than sanely for other reasons, maliciously standing triumphant over Vansell for failing to steal his best friend. Vansell is so much more intelligent and qualified and altogether more composed of a being than he, but was entirely unable to convince Theta away from Koschei. There is a surreptitious curtsy of thanks amongst the triumph, thanking Vansell for the self-esteem.

“Where to?”

“I’m getting you a sandwich.”

“I can get my own sandwich, you know.”

Koschei doesn’t like that smirk. It’s the yeah that’s not going to happen smirk.

“I mean a full sandwich with actual food in it. Not a slice of bread.” Funny how they can sprout from defensive murder and the Decree of Rassilon and have qualms over sandwich composition. Theta gets irrationally irritated at Koschei’s lack of self-preservation, he’s noticed. “Tell you what, I’m taking you into Hamlet.”

If Hamlet were a person, they’d be the younger brother of a celebrity, working a nine-to-five in engineering, always pretending to get along famously with their elder sister, but pretending she doesn’t exist to maintain some kind of dignified normalcy. Living in a constant struggle to make some kind of personal identity to life that is always thwarted by people praising their relation. The elder sister never notices this struggle, stuck with the image of a younger brother that never grew up as well as she did.

Little did anyone know, the younger sibling is way better at cooking.

“So that noise in your head.” Theta doesn’t seem to understand the concept of stopping for a second to eat in silence, always rushing about to do something. Despite his pointless protests in Lethe, he would actually love to eat an entire sandwich in peace right now. “Does it still bother you?”

Koschei takes a bite of elaborately seasoned fish in bread, wondering why good food can never be properly produced in bulk. Theta has somehow located an unused building with an accessible roof, deemed worthy of eating lunch atop. Instead of somewhere normal, like the place they got the sandwich. Or a location without questionable legality.

He swallows a bit prematurely. “Occasionally it’ll pop out of six/eight time and knock at me for four beats.”

“You have a rhythmic telepathic disposition in six/eight time?”

"Four beats implies there's a break in between sections. We discussed this."

"Honestly my comprehension of music is atrocious."

Koschei opts for another bite of sandwich instead of replying.

“Although I guess it can’t be telepathic without a source.” Theta looks at him sideways, as if an unorthodox angle will help solve the mystery.

“It’s usually just a headache, sort of.”

“I am intrigued.”

“It’s really not all that exciting.”

Theta is either trying to exactly determine the array of colours in Koschei’s pupil or is attempting to initiate a soft-spoken staring contest, both hypothetical motives making Koshei look at his sandwich in slight discomfort. Embarrassment? Really, the fundamental discomfort of being stared at is the violation of social norms, which has already been undergone eating a sandwich on a roof discussing anomic mental noises. However it could lie at a basic survival instinct, as the motive of the starer is akin to that of a predatory animal. But should this not be alleviated once the subject is known?

Koschei swallows, glaring at the rest of his sandwich as if it is withholding information that could be incredibly useful in his hunt for—

Theta is holding his hand. And Koschei can’t exactly move without another bout of social norms but then hand holding isn’t exactly a social norm to begin with and it’s… well it’s… has he been shot with adrenaline?

Koschei is no longer stared at, now the one staring, feeling tentative fingers clumsily twine themselves in his hands, the nervousness rolling off him in waves that are so obvious and so… well, mutual.

He tells his fingers to work properly and communicate the same thing, whatever it is, the irrational holding of hands that would quite frankly only result in an unneeded injury if one toppled off the edge of the roof. Theta refuses to look at him properly, sneaking a sideways look underneath scraggly hair he can never be bothered to have cut.

Koschei likes it.

Neither of them seem capable of speech, the air around them feeling like many pairs of eyes and the sandwich in his left hand is momentarily forgotten. His palm is getting noticeably sweatier, but taking it back wouldn’t be conventionally correct, and it’s all quite complicated.

“The simultaneous release of adrenaline and dopamine.” Theta declares in a sheepish way, also not quite able to fathom what to do with his hand anymore. “Probably.”

“That sounds about right.” Koschei doesn’t know where to put his sandwich or what really to do with his hand, contemplating the universe’s collective bravery and social norms. He shoves himself over after six seconds, immediately next to Theta, still holding a sandwich and his hand somewhere in the air in a moment’s decision to (equally as irrationally) tilt his head to (theoretically) rest gently on Theta’s shoulder.

He’s a bit tall.

Inversely, Theta is a bit short.

###

“And where have you two been?” Mortimus asks in his slightly high lilt from the top of Drax’s chair, who is currently against Vansell, Magnus, and Jelpax in an intense-looking board game.

“You’re missing the Sepulchasm tournament.” Millennia says, legs swung over Rallon’s. They’re as cute as they are questionably spaced in age.

“Don’t you guys normally discuss quantum mechanics or… something?” Theta leans to the right as he approaches the table, looking past an overcrowded easy chair to see everyone basically tied for first. Final bracket, then.

"Hold on, is that my history textbook?"

Vansell shrugs. "I'd seen you with it before like once and didn't think you need it because everything works off the slates."

Koschei lunges forward, ripping the stagnantly burning, bound book out from under the game's setup. Suspended pieces scatter to the floor, fire being doused but not without leaving charred remains all around the book. "If I didn't need it, do you think I'd still own it?"

He is hardly heard above the collective protest, every participant and spectator now demanding of him why he would do that. 

"I don't even understand how it's in your possession!" Vansell sputters, not rising from his knelt position on the floor to be sure Koschei and Theta are the only ones standing. 

"I need it." Koschei scowls at Vansell, knowing that innocent expression is so very fake but sure nobody else recognises it. 

"Why?" Vansell's voice raises just in the right spot for everyone to hear, that fake confused laugh always backed with a curious audience. 

Koschei screams for his brain to work, to find some great phrase to twist into a crowd-pleasing insult. Theta cuts in for him. 

"Why the fuck do you need to light a textbook on fire?"

"Sepulchasm." Jelpax informs him, as if the word alone explains everything. 

Vansell ignores them. "Why do you need a physical copy of a single year's worth of history curriculum? I am genuinely curious."

Ushas isn't present to metaphysically back him up, likely tucked away safely in her room. Drax could say something if he didn't fear it would come out less intelligent than a vogon. Magnus has left Koschei to his own devices for reasons yet unknown. Everyone else, well. They like Vansell better. 

Koschei throws the textbook down and runs. There shouldn't be anything shameful about memorising history through a timeline he can touch, but in front of Vansell it sounds like he's suffering a learning disability. The rest of his Deca wouldn't mind, and Mort would probably benefit from the idea. A few people would. It's just Vansell, but Vansell seems to have everybody now. 

He can hear Theta replying to whatever Vansell sneered as Koschei fled, words muddled together by the goddamn thinking in his head. He should be able to fight his own battles, especially over a bloody textbook, but apparently he needs Theta for everything. Wonderful. 

Theta doesn't even knock. 

"Here you are, then." He flops on the bed next to a depressively perturbed Koschei, grinning for reasons yet unknown and handing him the charred textbook. Koschei doesn't bother trying to read it.

"Thanks."

"No need to sound so ungrateful," Theta scolds, "it cost me a five-day suspension."

Koschei looks from the textbook to the smirking Theta. "What the hell did you do?"

Theta leans in as if he were telling Koschei a secret, but knowing Theta he is going to tell at least six more people. "I hit Vansell in the face with it. I ran off when he was on the ground with a bloody nose growling something about battered assault."

"And you just happen to know the duration of suspension for battered assault."

Theta winks, confusing Koschei all the more. He somewhat uncomfortably checks the cover of his book for blood. "Worth every second."

"It's just a textbook. Hardly worth suspension."

Theta looks appalled. "It's not 'just a textbook'! He broke into your bedroom, stole one of your possessions that is not so easily replaceable, and lit it on fire! He's the one who should be charged."

"Literally just a history textbook."

Theta smacks him on the shoulder in all goodness, a hair distraught Koschei is not impressed by his actions. "A history textbook that put Vansell in his place, thank you. That has to be impressive."

Koschei smacks him back. "The fact you'd spend five extra days in Lungbarrow for a bloody Vansell and crispy textbook is impressive."

"Theta Sigma!" Borusa's voice booms down the halls, an impressively quick response time. Jelpax is a faster runner than they thought. 

"That's my cue." Theta smiles completely contrary to anyone about to be issued a suspension with no questions asked. He doesn't move off the bed for a few seconds, doesn't take his eyes off some part of Koschei's face, doesn't acknowledge the sound of Borusa's footsteps ascending their flight of stairs. Koschei can't hear the battle in his head raging at light speed, the driving force of his reckless demeanour. 

He makes up his mind. "See you in five days," he releases in the latter half of a breath, soon gliding out the door on the pairing of nervousness and fear of the unknown for legs. 

Koschei cracks open his hard-won textbook, gently letting part-blackened pages fall open to the construction of the Death Zone. 

The Boy Who Outlived Rassilon, crammed under the bed without a robe on, is much braver than he. 

###

Theta leans back in the chair of his desk, arms folded, back still sore from the peppering of disciplinary pseudo-burns he received for ‘motivated assault’. Quences’s “artificial” discipline, the stuff that fades after four hours sharp and is therefore “simulated” and “not actually harmful to the nervous system”. He can hear the first wave of welcoming voices from downstairs, but still keeps his eyes closed in the hope it will spontaneously become night and he can sleep for the next week.

But alas, Innocet opens the door halfway to inform him of the guest’s obvious arrival. “You have to be downstairs in thirty seconds, Theta.” Innocet’s the sympathetic type, and now always helping arranged weddings. The last of Rynde.

“No, I don’t.” Theta grumbles back, eyes still shut tight.

“I’ve been through this before, and believe me when I say you do not want her in your bedroom.”

“But why now?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Meeting my future wife,” he spits out the last word. “Doesn’t that happen at… I dunno, forty-five? I’m only thirty-five.”

She sighs, impatient. “There aren’t any rules, but yes it’s generally later. Believe it or not, Quences is doing you a favour by finding her early, and you should be grateful you’re not meeting the day of the wedding.”

“Has that happened?”

“Maljamin. Expelled Prydonian, married off at seventy-eight, went missing for a hundred years before busting down the door in their third body demanding to see the Housekeeper. That is, admittedly, the reason they implemented a few decades of meet and greet.”

Theta opens his eyes for the first time in half an hour. One-two-three-four on the desk, a kind of not habit he’d picked up that functions for nothing but making him over-conscientious of his own heartbeats. He spins around to face Innocet. “Why is marriage still even a thing? It’s not like we’re capable of reproduction or any sort of,” he makes a sour face, “attraction the looms didn’t supposedly wipe out for unpredictability.” Innocet jumps to the exact centre of her bed and picks up her slate without looking, ending up perfectly cross-legged and still looking at Theta.

“People used to do it all the time way, way back. International relations. And the looms didn’t completely eradicate anything; that’s a myth.”

“That’s great, but we’re not medieval diplomats last time I checked.”

“It’s something to do with politics that I’m sure you’re too bored to care about and a social analysis regarding the differences in raising children in packs or in units. You’re a science experiment until the contract ends, now go downstairs.”

“Don’t suppose I could catch a deadly virus?” He is glared at. “I’m going.”

“She’s two years younger than you, by the way.” Innocet says, Theta happy for the excuse to pause in the doorway. “And you graduate the same age as Patrexes.”

“So I’ve got two years to fake my own death and run off. Got it.”

Innocet sighs. “Not what I was suggesting.”

Theta saunters out of the room mainly in fear of having someone else storm up and demand he descend the stairs, working through his sloppily perfected alibi.

Favourite colour’s orange, into advanced individualised mechanics, doesn’t like drinking tea, doesn’t exactly know why he’s a Prydonian, runs a little study group with his friends Delta and Zeta, rather enjoys the naming system for clarity. Will spend a couple minutes on the point arguing individuality and whatnot for flavour.

###

Vansell is late. Although nobody’s surprised. Ushas is the only one outwardly displaying blunt irritation at this, everyone else deciding it’s better to hold their tongue instead of risking being involved in an argument with him. He has some divine gift to deliver baffling incorrect facts with such strong conviction his opponent is struck dumb for long enough to move to the next point until his position is ultimately on top. Everybody knows it happens and nobody knows how to combat it. And that is why all eight of them left make small talk instead of moving onto someone else’s idea. Like would be normal.

Koschei and Ushas make eye contact across the room, a moment of mutual agreement, stuck in their usual locations. The seating arrangement was not actually Vansell’s idea; more of a natural phenomenon. Theta is glaringly absent, if only to Koschei, who is left nearly centred in their incomplete circle of eight.

“Sorry I’m late!” He’s not really sorry. “Some idiot held up my entire calculus class. Thinks she’s going to be in pharmaceuticals.”

Ushas wants to speak. She normally does in this group, the one place Koschei can’t see the strain on her face in a constant measuring of the pros and cons of speaking aloud. He never quite understood it. Theta tried telling her to “just relax” once. She punched him in the ribcage.

“Right.” Vansell pretends he’s a professor in the extreme, complete with flourished condescension and scribbling intricate diagrams all over their smart board. “Speculative mythology. The Great Old Ones.”

“I usually do speculative mythology.” Koschei interjects, already drawing up a number of scattered facts on the Old Ones.

“Weren’t you s’posed to be talkin’ some kinda social… politics…” Drax flaps his hands in the air, receiving a mock patient posture from Vansell.

Mortimus mumbles “Sociopolitical typography.”

“Yeah, tha’ one.”

Vansell shakes his head. “Jelpax had me under the presumption we all had that cleared up enough for the unit.” He lays a pen on the smart board. “I decided this would be more efficient to cover, since it was taught horrendously.”

Koschei folds his arms. “Aren’t you the one always preaching we need to stick to the order of things?”

Vansell completely ignores this, a look around the room revealing everyone except Ushas is as well. She hyperalanyses her fingernails, one of the obvious tells she’s not going to acknowledge her existence in front of others for a while.

“As with any discussion of transcendental beings, it is crucial to remember…” Vansell writes ‘God’ on the board in giant capital letters, running a bright red line through the middle. “None of these refer to ‘God’ or ‘gods’ in the mythological sense. While to many species, their individual power and capabilities are considered equal to that of their idea of a God, Time Lords are able to rationalise the fallacy in this speculation. Old Ones do not consider themselves gods.”

“Some of them do, actually,” Koschei adds, expecting a response from anyone for the last time. Perhaps his voice box is on mute. “And the Grace are actually—”

“They originated, however, from a different multiple of the universe far more advanced than ours with the ability to travel between them.”

Koschei has no remorse in interrupting. “If you’re talking speculative mythology, then really they originated,” Vansell sighs to regain self-control. A reaction. “from a universe directly predating ours.”

“That’s not possible,” Millennia hisses at Koschei. Everyone glares at her.

“It’s part of the mytholo—”

“Would you like to leave?” Vansell asks him out of the blue in a just barely qualifying professor voice. “Because you’re stopping me every half sentence with something completely incorrect.” Everyone except Ushas takes this as their queue to all stare at Koschei simultaneously, the spell of ignorance broken.

“I think I know my facts better than you do.” Something is telling Koschei to perhaps stick to a tone of voice that can’t be labelled as ‘rude’ for sophistication reasons. That something needs a reality check.

“A universe directly predating ours is an impossible theory not included in speculative mythology,” Millennia supplies. “We are not discussing primitive mythology.”

“Nobody’s discussing anything. Vansell’s yapping at us.” Nobody speaks.

“Dude, nobody thinks the Grace are gods,” Magnus of all people decides to inform him, a radius of twenty metres in the commons now intent to listen to the silence.

“That’s not what I meant, I was only going to bring up—”

“Since you seem to have your facts in check, why are you even here?” Vansell asks with a smile, hands clasped together. Koschei would love to know what he told everybody. He contemplates Vansell for a second, trying to figure out why he came downstairs in the first place.

“I was just going to mention, Old Ones are high-evolved, alternate Time Lords who thought they were big shots.”

Vansell sighs. “Yes, thank you for your contribution Omega. You can leave.”

Leaving is always more amusing with Theta, a load of fantastic puns and sarcastic comments behind them and a stupid scientific idea they should not execute ahead. This time he goes upstairs to fact-check, alone.

Chapter Text

Vansell got them to ignore him for forty-eight hours. Ushas made herself disappear as she is so good at it, and he got only a few distracted words out of Magnus that didn’t reveal much. He wasn’t even subject to Vansell’s usual bout of sideways looks and sneers that would pass with little to no clear motive in the halls. He pretended not to mind, but he has discovered anew he does.

There’s a very loud Otherstide party going on in the commons. He has taken to sending Theta text messages, knowing he’d bring the slate with him for something to do in that dreary old House. They’ve managed to smuggle alcohol from Hamlet. He’s actually restrained himself from sending a rambling commentary on the entire proceedings of the past few days, heeding the wish to “keep him updated” and at the same time not looking like he has no other friends. I’ve had my door slammed into twice. Although by now, it seems he doesn’t.

He thought the walls and door might be a bit thicker than they are and block out the racket coming from a floor down, but no such silence came for his studying. He only justifies the profuse research of speculative mythology because he’s in the class and has an exam coming up. In a couple months. And you never know when there might be a pop quiz.

Someone slams into his door again, either trying to return to a bed or drag some unfortunate sane friend out to join in the overly loud music and ridiculous displays of substance consumption they can only imagine. Three times. It’s getting very loud.

He hasn’t actually absorbed a word in over an hour, nothing to be done but stare blankly at the slate or, Purely Mythological Historical Occasionally Psychologically Justified God forbid, go downstairs. Sleeping is a joke. He doesn’t sleep much anyways.

His own noise came back. The definite one-two-three-four with no usual context to bring it on, just the rambling noise and frustration itself. His head feels like it’s being hammered from inside with every beat, resigning his position to lying faceup in bed with hands clamped forcefully over his ears.

Removed, of course, to update Theta unnecessarily. Where the hell are you? I can’t THINK. He figures if he spams Theta’s slate with useless information enough, he might actually appear and provide intelligent conversation.

Or just a friend who won’t fucking ignore him on the whim of Vansellostophossius.

Somewhere along the line of his overstimulated, irked traipsing about the room, he found a scalpel shoved under the mattress from last year’s surreptitious trunkike dissection with Ushas. Theta decided he was too squeamish to watch, but wouldn’t report them for maintaining a mostly full biology lab in Koschei’s bedroom for two hours. They were tidy about it anyways.

He swings it by the handle above his stomach now, making many internal threats to the people outside yelling in conversation. The likelihood of him actually carving out their eyes and giving them as an Otherstide gift to Ushas is actually rather low.

Someone begins pounding on the door. Koschei resolutely ignores them. I am going to knife the next person trying to enter my room.

“Come on, you Omega Xi. Pretentious name, by the way. Omega.” Koschei raises his eyebrows, deciding he’s too good for the eight that have been ignoring him defiantly for the past two days, for all of five seconds.

Did not knife Magnus. He had alcohol. He also made no comment on the scalpel, being a bit too intoxicated for any form of logical observations or sophisticated conversation. He tried to wheedle as much as he could about whatever The Thing With Vansell was supposed to be about, but all he got was a number of profuse apologies and “of course you wouldn’t do that” and a mildly concerning amount of discussion on the multi-purpose tactics of having unlimited access to Omega(not you Omega I mean the proper Omega)’s domain.

He is trying to ration the whatever in hell Magnus put in his cup, taking tentative sips of the first proper alcohol he’s consumed. Small bits at Oakdown don’t count. Theta hasn’t bothered checking his slate at all in the past over a day, everyone happily occupied with something worthwhile to suit their fancy. The looms just couldn’t manufacture a super defence against alcohol, could they?

He is one hundred percent confident Magnus has put something in his drink with a much higher alcohol content than whatever it’s supposed to be. Which is exactly why he downs it all in one go, scalpel still in his left fingers. He needs to stop for air only once, ignoring the burning of his mouth and oesophagus so intently it sounds like screaming in his head. It surely can’t kill him. This is what happens when you’re not here to make intelligent decisions for me. Maybe Theta will be curious enough to actually respond to his rambling messaging.

He waits for the alcohol to hit his system.

Seven minutes, forty-eight seconds, although there wasn’t really a defining line that told him when to stop staring at the clock. He can see why people do it. It’s warm, in a sense, internally, and the music maybe isn’t all that loud, and his brain is being so incredibly honest with itself he kind of wants Magnus back in here to talk with. Or Theta maybe, if he showed up at all.

Magnus wouldn’t be great. He’d probably tell everyone else. Why is everyone else suddenly not on his side? They’re supposed to be his friends. Not Vansell’s friends. Vansell stole them. But you can’t really steal people if they don’t have any resistance to going, so Vansell was really just better than Koschei. Well he’s smarter, and talks better, and actually has life goals that aren’t all that stupid, and is probably not crazy. Death herself didn’t come visit him as a kid. He doesn’t have noise running through his head.

The noise. It has morphed into something symphonic, fake instruments added in to make a complete mess of a composition in his head, trying to drown out the music from below in a terrible waltz. Music was always a profession for the unchaptered, an unnecessary art form that surely anyone can mimic. But you have to be talented to get it right. Koschei can’t throw music together and call it art.

I cannot compose good music. His brain does not relent. He can’t erase all the layers of noise and it’s getting too loud but if he were better it could be amazingly amazing art and people would remember it and he’s just not that very great at all. I can’t hear myself think. Am intoxicated.

He’s not that great. His brain is impaired by alcohol and he can recognise that, but it doesn’t change the fact he feels like wrapping himself in a million blankets and crying about his life. None of his friends even want him. Come back. Not even Theta really cares. Please. And why would he? Pleeeease. Koschei’s not that really great. Pretty please?

Koschei looks at his half-forgotten scalpel, getting a good idea that’s probably a bad idea, but he thinks is a good idea. I’m going to try drawing. He holds the scalpel against his arm, feeling his hearts jump a little in the background. And he looks at it for a couple minutes, brain deciding now is the time to think up as many arguments in favour of drawing, many tiny things he’d forgotten dragging themselves to the surface again in anticipation. It’s really not that hard.

He gently presses it against his skin about an index finger down from his wrist, watching the whole thing dip into where he’s still too chicken to do anything. He pauses, listening to his trash mental noise and everyone else’s glorious composition and his brain chanting do it, do it until he sucks in a breath, telling himself he will not breathe until there is blood.

He does it a little too quick, if there is an appropriate measure for such an activity, watching red seep out of the break in his skin that stings. Stings it STINGS he tells himself to shut up because he deserves it, finding some twisted gratification in rightful justice.

He did not think this through.

Blood falls down the side of his arm onto the sheets that have already stained, a brilliant deep red rivalled only by the right wine and the right paint. The dull mentality currently not thinking about stinging and look blood decide to not worry if it’s going in the laundry anyways. He can even use the sheet as a bandage.

Ouch. Koschei wonders vaguely if Theta cares, listening greater to the voices in his head chanting again, again, again…

Scalpels are not good drawing tools, Thete.

###

“Innocet.” Theta hisses, mind made up in its ventures as the time on the wall reads 00:00. “Are you awake?”

“Yes,” she responds in a plain voice, if a little subdued, turning over to face him and revealing a slate already on. “What’s up?”

Theta squints through the dark, wondering how he didn’t notice. “Can you teach me telepathy?” he chews the inside of his bottom lip, mind still rolling in circles with the probability of his brain being dysfunctional because of the looms and will it damage his brain and will he be in trouble at school and will it be painful if he messes up and what if he can’t then how will he

She places the slate beside her, turning up the brightness to cast a sort of glow on her face. Her hair is loosely tied back, but it still falls everywhere, strands wrapping around her arms and middle. It’s usually braided. “What, now?”

Theta was too busy thinking to rationalise that point. “Well, not now but… before I go back to school in a couple days… I mean only if it works for you but you’re really good at it so…” he trails off, not entirely sincere in that last part, but observing some unspoken convention in adding it on.

“Why now?”

Theta draws in a breath, perhaps looking for a white lie or arguing the benefits of pretending he doesn’t have a reason, silence stretching on a bit too uncomfortably. Convention strikes again. “Well it’s…”

“It’s Koschei.” She smiles across the room, the only warm smile he’s known that fits the description of warm. “You’ve already told me.” She fills her lungs, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. “Of all the things you mentally yell across the room at night, that one yells the loudest.”

Theta tugs the covers higher up his face, willing them to shield his brain from further transmission. Innocet only chuckles, which means blankets can’t have worked all that effectively.

“And rightly so. It’s a kind of disfiguring of mentality one does not associate with a meticulously engineered breed of humanoid.” Theta blinks twice, resolving to wriggle out of the now diagonally placed blanket on top of him. This is why he doesn’t make the bed in the morning. “You seem set right now.”

Theta nods, simultaneously blipping back to speculation of what state Koschei is possibly in and trying to block all his thoughts from Innocet.

“If you don’t mind my saying, I already knew that.”

“Isn’t that kind of… invasive?” Theta asks, being gestured to the floor. “Reading someone’s mind without consent or something?”

Innocet shrugs apologetically, gathering her wild hair up and starting to braid it. It occurs to Thet he has never seen her cut it once in her life, and knowing her, it will probably keep on growing until it’s burned off for the next body. “There’s a whole tirade of scenarios in which it is legal to ‘read someone’s mind’, as you say, without their knowledge or consent. You already know and you indirectly fall under one of those scenarios. Kind of.” She ties off her braid in record timing, swinging the mass of hair over her shoulder. It doesn’t yet weigh her neck down or visibly give her some kind of pain, but it will one day. She might cut it then. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Theta shakes his head, trying to determine if he should be sitting somewhere specific and deciding to not worry about it. Which brings him back to Koschei.

“So.” She claps her hands on her knees, elegantly sinking down to the floor with crossed legs. “The untempered schism is the reason we’re all touch telepaths, so don’t worry about that. Some people are able to perform telepathy without touching the target in varying degrees, like me. People without developed mental barriers in a state of distress or high emotion can end up sending out telepathic signals very loudly, especially children.

“If you want to keep your life, don’t try anything on adults. You can’t hear Quences even a little bit without touching him, I’ve tried. And unless you want to get your ass kicked, don’t use the governmental list of exceptional scenarios on someone unless it’s really necessary, because a couple of them are a bit misplaced.”

Innocet positions herself directly in front of Theta, that face and that dark patch not changing in the least since he first saw her. “It’s easiest head to head because of proximity to the brain. Toe to toe could work.” She considers the statement for a moment, leaving Theta to evaluate her face from much closer than usual. “Haven’t tried. Continuing, there are two general forms: complete and partial. Partial is something of a… transcendental dialogue. Complete means you’re more or less in tune with brain signals and…” she shakes her head at Theta, or perhaps complication itself. “I’ll show you, yeah?”

Theta nods, feeling like he’s hanging from the end of a tree branch about to let go, Innocet planting her forehead on his. “If there’s something you don’t want me to see, close a door on it, lock it up, bury it, put a sign in front of it.” Innocet must be able to read his confusion like a string of scrambled circles and lines. “You’ll understand in a second.”

Theta closes his eyes as Innocet does, feeling a gentle tug in the middle of his brain, all at once pulled through to… a TARDIS?

Innocet stands across from him, looking around the room with far less intrigue than Theta does. The control room is scattered with containers: cardboard boxes, wooden crates, oversized bags, fish tanks. They are all partially filled with glossy blue cubes the size of his palm, a few spilt onto the floor. Stairwells and ramps spiral upwards to opened and closed doors, a couple swinging shut as Theta looks at them.

“This is nice.” Innocet says, Theta mildly unsure if she’s being sarcastic. “So here I am. Hello.” She waves, smiling, carefully walking to an open crate and peering inside. “#005B9F?” Using barely any movement outside the wrist, she picks up a cube on the top, staring at it intently. “No, #003B6F. Everyone has a different colour.”

“How can you tell?” Theta has now attempted walking as Innocet does, only managing a sort of unnatural slide mixed with vertical drop to the selected position.

She holds the cube delicately between her fingers, studying Theta with some bemusement. “A bit of studying, a bit of practice, and a helpful implant required for my apprenticeship.” She crushes the cube between her palms.

The Deca sit around their normal spot, except for Ushas. She is the first to stand at the unused Smart board they scavenged, writing down a number of noble gas reactions as everyone else takes notes. Innocet doesn’t, of course.

Rallon and Millennia sit in the same chair at the same time, only their legs touching. “Just friends” they say. As if we were all born yesterday.

“Xenon tetroxide is very prone to explosion and decomposition into plain xenon and O2, but only above 237.25 degrees.”

“Sorry, wot?” Drax tosses his slate to the floor, arms up in surrender. “Why’re we even learning this?”

“Just you wait,” Vansell grins, which Theta has always viewed as more of an inverted sneer. “One of these days you’ll have a gun at your head with only knowledge of the reactivity of xenon to get you out.”

And then the déjà vu hits. Wait a minute.

“That’s what going through a specific memory is like.” Innocet informs Theta, back on the carpet, forehead no longer occupied. “Except you couldn’t distinguish it from any other reality, which is normal for the first go.”

Theta looks bewildered at his own bedroom, clock now reading 00:15. “Am I going to have to do that in your head, too? He feels the breath of a thought at the edge of his mind, a wisp of smoke he cant quite grab before it drifts away. He feels too young for this.

“Not yet, you’re not.” Innocet continues her likable, nearly professional banter, placing her hands on Theta’s head. “Now you know what I sound like in your head,” she says ‘more or less’ with her entire body. “We’ll only practice the partial version for now.”

He feels something of a child with a pair of hands weighing on his head.

It’s more comfortable than head to head because we’re still 80 percent cognitively present in physical reality. Theta doesn’t understand her raised eyebrows and crooked smile until he realises…

“Oh!” Innocet flinches at the two-dimensional volume. “Or uh…” Oh!

That was more feedback than language. Try concentrating a little more.

On the eighth try, Theta actually finds something. Which is apparently impressive for someone thrice advised to not attempt something like that with barely any experience, but can if he wants to. The whole premise of trying to find a floor in an intangible, entirely figurative location was the largest hurdle to get around. Not to mention he had no idea what the floor was supposed to look like, else it would be “too easy”.

Innocet’s floor is covered entirely in snow, or is probably more accurately just snow. It looks like a furniture delivery aircraft exploded overhead, leaving antique cabinets scattered across the foggy white. Theta tries looking to the left to locate Innocet, but everything is engulfed in snow as he tries.

“#6ED600.” It takes him a second to comprehend why the voice is all clunky and surround-sound, his eyes taking their sweet time opening. “That’s what mine are.”

Theta locates the time on the wall, surprised it’s only 02:08. He should not be this tired.

“But you’re learning telepathy, which is actually more tiring than cramming for exams.”

Theta leans backwards, body uncomfortably resting against his bedframe at a thirty-degree angle. “The string physics exam was the most tiring ordeal of my life, thank you.”

“And did you pass?” Innocet leaps into bed full of energy, which Theta thinks is ludicrous for any event transpiring past 02:00.

“A ravishing 64 percent.” Theta crawls into bed, which involves a lot of arm gymnastics and the rare motivation to make a habit of actually making the bed in the morning. He feels confident in his ability to forget the idea ever happened upon him.

“What did Koschei get?” Innocet smirks like she already knows the answer, which she actually doesn’t because Theta successfully threw up a ludicrous number of mental walls to prevent her from getting in.

“65.”

###

The last time they slept in the same bed was the better part of two decades ago, the arbitrary age of twelve determined by vague authority to be ‘old enough to have your own room’. Theta, being shaken awake by Koschei, hasn’t given a shit for two hours. Damn time zones.

“Theta…”

“You have summoned the wild Time Lord,” he answers groggily, internally congratulating himself on remembering his well-rehearsed salutation and scolding himself for having one.

The two decades is displayed very effectively by their increase in size, more so with them fidgeting about and properly conscious of their limbs. Trapped in a painfully long adolescence manufacturing regenerative properties and time energy and symbiotic bonding regulations and telepathic structure and who knows what else that for some reason could not be accomplished in the bloody looms.

“When did you get back?”

Theta groggily smacks his hand against the wall and successfully turns on the embedded light.

“02:00. What time is it now?”

“Four.” Koschei awkwardly lies down again, not entirely sure what to do with a wild Time Lord lying next to him at four in the morning. “And what’s wrong with your own bed?”

Theta holds out the hand not stuck under his body. “Your arm.”

Koschei only moves his eyes in the following five seconds, so Theta pulls the arm off his stomach by the wrist himself. Koschei stares up at the ceiling, his stubborn refusal of regret. There are four red, clean lines in a neat row on his upper forearm, by knowledge two days old. His old sheets have already been thrown in the laundry, smart enough as he is to remove all the evidence except the obvious.

“It makes the noise a bit quieter,” Koschei says in such a low voice nobody but Theta could hear if they tried. “Physical pain overrides psycho-emotional preoccupation regardless of whether or not it hurts.”

“I know,” Theta replies, tracing the out-of-place lines with his thumb, pretending to remove the contrast between them and the surrounding near-white skin. “Did you even clean it out, Koschei?”

This alone is somehow enough to have his head turn to Theta instead of the ceiling. He resolutely ignores the offending arm. “I’m not that stupid.”

Theta takes to tracing the lines of Koschei’s open palm instead of cuts. It’s rougher and, in a logical sense, much more important than the skin on his arm. As a result should be much more violated. “In an alternate universe somewhere, you and I don’t even exist. Have you ever thought about that?”

Theta’s hair isn’t just blond – it’s a layered gradient of near-whites to dark gold all muddled together in just a tiny bit of order. Theta can’t see him looking. “I might like this one better.”

“That’s good.” Theta closes Koschei’s fingers around nothing.

“How about you?”

Theta drowsily turns his head up to face Koschei again, giving him a weak smile from fifteen centimetres, shrugging. “Who knows?”

Koschei smirks half-heartedly. “Death is conceptually a bit terrifying.”

“I’ve heard it romanticised as sleeping.”

“There’s nobody to wake you up at four in the freaking morning when you’re dead.” Koschei feels something almost poke at the back of his mind. Almost like groping around in the dark for a doorknob and running into the wall. Theta’s face twitches.

“Who taught you to do that?”

Theta runs into the wall again.

“You missed.” Koschei sits up, grinning smugly at Theta.

“Only because I’m not doing it properly,” he grumbles, sitting on top of the blankets he didn’t try crawling under.

Koschei pulls him forward so their foreheads touch just a bit too forcefully. “Like this, yeah?”

Theta would agree. He probably should in some form or another, which is incredibly easy to do with a functional voice box and easy access to basic telepathy. He could, were it not for the sudden hypersensitivity of his lower legs and forehead, noticeably increased heartrates, and some enigmatic malfunction of neurological decision-making.

He kisses Koschei.

It’s a lot stranger than he thought it might be, but then Koschei isn’t exactly trying at the moment and he underestimated saliva content by a fair portion. Worse, Koschei isn’t telepathically screaming any kind of response to let Theta know what on Gallifrey he’s supposed to do next.

The most over-analysed second of his life.

Koschei is baffled for one, two, three seconds, Theta’s prefrontal cortex showing up late and deciding it would have probably been a better course of action to ask permission before invading somebody’s face.

“What was that?”

“I uh, sorry, that was—”

“Do it again.”

Theta draws a quick breath, shifting to the side a little, before blurting “My cousin did.” His prefrontal cortex rolls its eyes in forlorn contemplation of what it did to deserve residence inside such a skull. “Taught me that.”

Koschei raises his eyebrows.

“Telepathy, not… not that.”

Koschei grabs him by both sides of the head, pulling the idiot in at an angle none too functional for telepathy.

###

“For crying out loud, Thete, how many detentions is this?”

Theta folds his arms, dragging his feet as much as possible down the hall. “Five. It’s just so… boring!”

Koschei coughs. “Political science. It’s got science in the title!”

Theta rolls his eyes. “I’ve no idea how you survive.” He is forced to shove this particular chunk of hair that refuses to stay in place out of his left eye.

“By not handing in a conspiracy theory on the Other being Zagreus and Grandfather Paradox’s lovechild!”

“Can’t give me detention for creativity,” he grumbles, eyeing a suspicious-looking potted plant. “Is that a carnivore?”

“Don’t change the topic.”

“Mee myeh muh myee.”

Koschei smacks him in the shoulder.

“Ouch!”

“I want to read that thing, by the way.”

Theta scoffs. “I thought you were annoyed.”

“At the fact you’re going to fail political science with the least relevant essay collection known to Gallifrey.” Theta takes a breath to say something, but Koschei cuts him off, “Which is not creativity, by the way. ‘Creativity’ implies you’re doing something relevant, but better.”

“Alright this is coming from you, who decided sticking your botanical science project in a time loop inside the head office was a good idea.”

“I had logical grounds for that!”

Ushas finds them walking the other way, practically announcing her lack of enthusiasm in doing so to the entire world. She almost turns back around.

“Hey, Ushas!” Theta starts running closer to where detention is supposed to happen, which is probably counterintuitive.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to know.”

“Yes you do. Okay are they allowed to give me detention solely for handing in a report — with no evidence of plagiarism, mind you — just because it’s more or less irrelevant to the subject and has no factual evidence?”

Ushas counts to five in her head. “Depends what you stuck in the report.”

Koschei sweeps to the other side of Ushas. “He thinks Grandfather Paradox and Zagreus got together and had the Other. It’s for political science.”

Ushas takes a long, deep, breath. “Yes, they’re allowed to give you detention for lunacy.”

Koschei smirks. “You heard her.”

Ushas practically runs away once Koschei grabs Theta’s arm and starts tugging him where detention’s supposed to be.

“There are just so many better things to do than write essays for political science,” Theta whines.

“If nobody took political science, we’d have a state of global anarchy with a population of twenty billion.”

“The Scendles don’t take it,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, well the Scendles went bankrupt building a statue in the Panopticon. Nobody’s going to let them run the planet.”

“And nobody’s going to let me, either!”

Borusa glares at them from down the hall a bit, one of the few people who can actually pull off the ridiculous headpiece of formal robes.

Koschei pats Theta on the back, then wonders a moment why he’d do that. “Clearly.”

Chapter Text

Theta sits next to Ushas at the back table of the student lab, intending to flick through the multiple homework assignments he now has to catch up on. "Welcome back, then," she says, typing down observations of one funky chemical reaction or another.

"Yup. Quences was pretty pissed."

She smiles at the beaker in front of her. "Koschei's told me alllll about it." She turns to him, looking rather disgruntled for a moment. "Well more like a fraction of it, after I asked, and not very loud."

"What did he say?"

"You two are so cute I might gag."

Theta pauses, noticing he has his mouth open, and promptly shutting it. "So he told you about the…"

"Yeah. Make it brief, if you must." She glaces at him once more, snorting a bit too loud to be discreet. "If you could see your face…"

"Isn't my fault I was born so pink," he grumbles, his hearts skipping a beat immediately after.

"Born?" she almost laughs at his word choice, before registering the look on his face. Her eyedropper remains suspended above an acid or a base, yet unknown. "'Born' as in…"

Theta vigorously shakes his head, looking around the room to see if anyone else saw, shutting his eyes too tight in an attempt to erase the past ten seconds. An entire species built entirely on the secret of time and space travel, and he can't undo ten seconds.

"…not loomed?"

"Shh." He hisses, scanning everyone's back in a panicked cycle. Nobody turns, probably because the word was muttered barely loud enough for either of them to hear. But one never knows with students. Discarding the eyedropper for something much more enthralling, Ushas taps out a message on her slate.

ΔΨ: But you're actually biological?

He regards the words with a bitter expression, taught to see them with an upturned nose and superior demeanour that only causes him to look at the ground.

ΘΣ: Yes. Sort of. I think.

He slides it back, flicking through notes without seeing on his own slate, one cheek on his fist. His legs don't feel very sturdy.

ΔΨ: Everyone thinks it's impossible, but it's not.

ΘΣ: I figured.

She almost gives him the slate, but wrenches it back before he can read it to write something else. Her face isn't giving away anything. His hearts try running out the front of his chest, smacking against his ribcage every half a second.

ΔΨ: No, I meant it makes sense. And you're still a proper Time Lord.

His legs, in relief, barely hold him up. His hearts are not getting the memo it's alright to calm down.

ΘΣ: Thank you.

ΔΨ: No problem?

ΘΣ: Just don't start telling everyone.

ΔΨ: I won't. In fact, I'd rather run tests on you.

He laughs a breathy, nervous laugh.

ΘΣ: How about no.

ΔΨ: But you're so interesting now! Original physiology determined by gene pool, unaltered chemical balance, there's a few conspiracies about stuff. Any number of defects. Unfortunately, it's probably illegal.

There is a surprising amount of consolation in hearing someone would rather run a series of illegal biological tests on him instead of shying away and occasionally throwing phrases like "not a real Time Lord" or "ew what uterus" at him.

ΘΣ: I think there's a good reason. And uh… thanks.

ΔΨ: Any time.

###

Koschei sits on a constant see-saw, despite how very stuck to Millennia's "picnic blanket" he is. Right now, he's up in the air, the high chair of rigorously trying to refuse being paid any special attention to because it's uncomfortable and a waste of time. Anticipation of smacking the ground a bit too hard in a few seconds is inherently obvious from his position. All his grand insistences of "it's fine" and "I really don't want to" crash into the smooth, dusty gravel in the attempt to say any of it out loud. Vocalising his own thoughts relating directly to himself have become just as off-putting.

Theta is ever completely oblivious to the nauseating oscillation. It is common knowledge at this point he is entirely preoccupied by the stars teasing him from the heavens, the fuel of a hundred rambling hopes. Koschei only sees them as painfully distant, possibly diffused, balls of plasma.

"One of these days, you and I are visiting all of them." Theta could be knocked over extremely easily, elbows locked with palms planted in the thin sheet, legs crossed at the knee. His head rolls to increase Koschei's see-saw entropy.

"I thought you were more keen on inhabited planets, and not… mostly hydrogen."

"You know what I mean." He finds greater favour in the sky instead of Koschei once again.

It is according to Mortimus Theta learnt how to traverse the roof without falling off, but Koschei can't help but wondering how many times Theta has run around gawking at stars all night. Koschei chances a look or two to the sky, but without a point of reference, it feels like he's about to fall off the ledge he's nowhere near. Well, nearer than he should be.

"Okay I'll tell you," Theta blurts all of a sudden, appearing cross-legged in front of Koschei within a Planck unit.

Koschei feels like arguing he is too tired for this, but even trying to look half-asleep at this height is as possible as Theta's speed of movement. "Tell me what?"

Instead of replying verbally, Theta slowly lifts his hands to the sides of Koschei's head. He wouldn't be surprised if Theta's version of sentimental speech devolved entirely to kissing.

Can you hear me?

"Yes"

Theta raises his eyebrows, feeling a telepathic blush run through Koschei's head to his hands after a satisfying pause.

So you can hear my thoughts now?

Theta's forehead scrunches a fraction in the middle. Only if I try, because you're not transmitting anything.

And if your hands are there.

Yeah.

Can you walk around inside my head?

Only if I teach you how to transmit. And probably practice.

"Wait," Koschei rustles the hands off his head. "So you dragged me up here at 23:30 to propose telepathy lessons?"

Theta swallows. "Well, yes."

With his eyes alone, Koschei asks the stars why he ever befriended Theta. They, in turn, threaten to shove him off the side of the roof for asking such a question. "Any particular reason?"

"Inspiring scenery."

"I meant any reason you were suddenly inspired to gain telepathy skills from your cousin and give me lessons."

Theta shrugs, again within a Planck unit. "Effortlessly passing notes in class."

The stars tell him there's something glaringly off about this, but Koschei never had much time for astrology.

###

If Quences had his way, Theta would probably never be picked up from the Academy, and simply left there between years. Theta would agree to that idea in a heartbeat, but the practice is, unfortunately, against the law. It's often a dull, downtrodden affair, leaving what he's now calling home for a stuffy House full of people who don't like him, but this year is harder. Leaving home is difficult on its own, but plain old leaving Koschei... That gets more irksome every year.

Not only that, it's Satthaltrope he walks away from one jerky TARDIS flight later, doors opening to an irrationally bright orange sky and cheery grass. Family meetings are stereotypically fraught with friendly exchanges and loud tales of days gone by, not a paranoid silence and half the gathering a step and a half from cowering in the corner.

He drags a suitcase along the stint of a brick path to the pretentious front doors, nudging them open with his shoulder and awaiting some scolding or another. Thank goodness he has Innocet.

Theta might have combed his hair if someone decided to inform him what's on the other side of the door. Glospin has somehow summoned thirty one other cousins to gather around him in the front room, all of them sitting on the ground or standing in a relaxed way to take in his prophetic words. All of them stare at Theta. Satthaltrope takes the opportunity to swagger inside and stand next to Glospin, giving him a highly unnecessary pat on the back. The dark eyes fix him in place, grip starting to slip a little on the suitcase's handle. Glospin gives Theta a grin that must taste like sour milk plastered on that face, letting the flavour last as long as possible before returning to his sheep. Theta is the hay in a needle stack and everyone in the room is very aware of it.

"Another way loomlings differ from biologically conceived Gallifreyans is a number of neurological alterations. While for a period, much of the decision-making processes are controlled by the amygdala, looms craft the brain to not need repair of the prefrontal cortex, which retains its ability."

He really knows. This isn't a lecture hall, it's Rassilonian propaganda.

Theta pretends unconvincingly to have no idea what he's talking about, mechanically avoiding the edge of an intricately designed rug with a pattern nobody understands on the way to the stairs. Innocet should be here, tearing up Glospin's arguments with a douse of logic. Or probably studying for some exam or learning math for the fun of it. Mathematic psychologist.

"Hey Innocet, have you heard what Glospin's..." Instead of Innocet, what looks like an anthropomorphised skinned raccoon stares back at Theta on the other side of the door. The wide eyes are either a result of Theta's presence or unfortunate complexion. The skinned raccoon does not explain themself. "Who the hell are you?"

The raccoon swallows sheepishly. "Owis. And you're the Prydonian?"

"Where's Innocet?"

This kid hasn't blinked since Theta got here. "Your old roommate? She's gone."

"Gone where?" Theta scoffs, looking to the closet door in the corner like she might pop out at any second.

"Glospin says she got a job somewhere over the break."

Theta closes the door, shoving the suitcase at his bed with one foot. He is suddenly very conscious of the thirty-seven pictures on his end of the wall, although the raccoon kid has probably seen them all. "Here's some advice: don't listen to Glospin, Owis."

"But she did leave! I saw her go."

Theta whips around, finger trailing along the wall stopped randomly on the picture of the blue whale.

"When? How!?"

"Well last week she was talking to a few people about how she got an apprenticeship out by her Academy, but just between school—"

"I know I know but how did you know all that? You're old enough to be in school!"

Owis looks at him with a blank stare, eyes still uncomfortably wide. "I'm not in an Academy... so I stay home..."

"Isn't there a school in the city?"

"That I can take a skimmer to… because it's so close…"

Theta sits on his bed, probably acting like he's overdosed on confusion, not helping his irredeemable Prydonian image. "And she didn't tell me?"

"No, you were at school." Owis's eyes return to some kind of normal size, arms that are just a bit too short folding in on themselves. "Prydonians are kinda dumb," he remarks to himself.

"Glospin tell you that?" Theta is a bit shocked to find himself marching out of his room to have Quences give him a reliable account of events, but he'd pick the Housekeeper over Glospin's minion any day. He pauses at the door frame. "Why is he subjugating you? I thought Satthaltrope's hierarchy worked in Arcalians."

"He's not...?"

"Whatever," he grumbles.

###

Theta knew it was the beginning of the end three seconds after he decided on grape jelly instead of raspberry. Normally at Lungbarrow, people eat meals in their little pods at their tables, the handful not belonging to a group subject to occasional wandering and change of scenery nobody else gets. He knows he isn't going to get grape jelly very easily upon seeing not the usual layout of breakfast in a dining hall, but all forty-three other cousins talking. To everyone. And walking around. And looking slightly panicked. And very serious at the same time. And they're all here. Except Innocet, of course.

Someone notices the second he walks in. By his fifth step into the room, everyone falls dead silent, a momentous event for such a Household. Theta continues walking forward, pretending he is not the subject of attention of all his cousins. They begin talking again in a hush, uselessly pointing at him and discussing predictable topics such as his hair. And his skin. And his eyes.

Alright, what has Glospin done this time?

"Excuse me, please." Three girls all stop their chatter to look at him all over the place, eyes widened rather dramatically, feet planted. "I said excuse me, please? I'd like breakfast." The girl in the middle, looking perhaps the most horrified, takes a step back.

"You stay away from me!"

"Ah, Theta Sigma!" Theta rolls his eyes at Glospin's clearly rehearsed voice, becoming less casually uninvolved when the remaining mass of people part in a wave to let him pass. Glospin is sitting on one of the tables, scarlet and orange robes fanned out flawlessly around his frame despite their size. His hair's parted right down the middle, reddish black conforming to the curve of his face instead of sticking up dangerously.

Theta tries to look as sarcastic as possible through this whole affair, which can be either very easy or extremely difficult when your least favourite cousin possibly out to kill you shows up on a table wearing your school uniform denying you breakfast with an army of relatives. "Was there a meeting I was unaware of?"

Glospin grins, the contour of his lips invisibly joining to the tips of his ears to form a point. "We've already had it." Theta can't see Satthaltrope or Owis anywhere, which must mean this was orchestrated without anyone else's help. Which he might find impressive if it weren't for the stack of mismatched papers in his hand.

The room has gone silent again, facing Glospin as if he were a prophet of some god, obviously taking his words as gospel. Theta knows. Of course he knows. "Over-exaggerated autobiography?" The best battles were won with entertainment quality.

Nobody laughs. It was a bad joke. "You can do better than that." Glospin stands up now, very much taller than Theta, reaching the end of the table with dramatic flair. Theta cranes his neck to look at his face, pretending he can't feel the stares of his entire family and the vibrations in his legs that don't show outward, but feel primed to explode.

"A list of cousins suspected to have stolen your laundry?"

Glospin asks the congregation a nonverbal, hopeless why with but a gesture of his arm. "I needed something formal. I'm holding a legal document."

Theta remains silent, listening to the whispers of people behind him and trying to pick up any telepathic signals Glospin might be sending out. He isn't. More likely, Theta isn't good enough to tell. The tension in his entire body is enough to be converted to mild nausea, fingertips being sent into a panic for all the physical movements he cannot do for fear of appearing scared. "Can I eat breakfast now?"

"No. No you have had far too many breakfasts under this roof, if I do say so myself." He's been waiting for this moment since they were both time tots, subject to malfunctioning heating many winters ago. He brandishes the papers in one hand, stooping in a mock sort of bow to hand them to him. "I think you'll find the House agrees with me," he sneers, bringing himself to his full height and control of the audience. "You can read that for breakfast. If you disagree with the contents, by all means, bring it up to any of us."

Theta looks at the gullible family he didn't know once cared for him, now all turned against him for possibly good reason, every bit his body setting him apart. Innocet isn't here to pull him away and mesmerise him with fire in a jar. He's on his own.

Locked in his room, having run from the dining hall without any need for breakfast, it appears Glospin has taken everything but his slate. His side of the room has been stripped bare, the wall once covered in his own drawings now decimated into nothing. Innocet always told him it was useless keeping that sort of thing up, that the wall will only get crowded, and it'll be a hassle to pack them up or throw them out once he's graduated. Now all that's left is a scrap of paper, torn, colour staining the front now meaningless without context. He had a progression, a continuum, a steady gradient of cognitive development on his wall in pictures just to remind him of home, and it was deemed too good for his deviant self. Everything about Innocet is gone from the room now, along with Theta's emotional stability. He didn't even need to read the first page to know exactly the nature of the entire document. But they'll make him read it anyhow.

He plants himself on his bed, if only to face away from the nothingness and into normalcy, feeling smaller than he should be, but perhaps has been this whole time. The second he sits down, he knows the willpower is not within him to get up again.

The first page is only cold hard fact. Something Ushas might read.

His parents are on the next page. It's like blowing the last layer of dust off a long-buried artifact, remembering that day. His life has chipped and scraped and brushed the rock around it away, but it took one last deep breath to see the complete picture.

At the end of the beginning, he was running. He could see the hell on the other side of the door on his father's face, didn't need to hear him say the word as he's already run this drill in times gone by. He was only ten, a fledgling of a should-be Prydonian if his life wasn't constant running. He ran so, so fast out the back door of his makeshift home, screaming for his mother to come follow him and the father he didn't know wasn't right behind him as rehearsed. She'll run with him for a while, then smile and say "good job" as they all walk back home. It's just pretend. It'll be okay, so his mother will say.

Silent as the night is black she scoops up her screaming son, pouring every force of telepathic ability into peace and quiet and it's okay that stream into his brain. But even he could feel how fake it is, how panicked and how sad, chest pressed to her collarbone. His father wasn't there, running with them like he was supposed to, and there is yelling from inside their little shack of a home.

"Daddy's not here!" he yells into the air, but his mother doesn't speak. People said she was weak, skin just beginning to wrinkle, auburn hair silvering in its bob, face always coming to rest in a weathered frown. But she was the best.

Theta of the Past's arms flailed in the air, sometimes coming to rest on her back, legs squeezing her torso and trying frantically to escape the bond of her arms but she didn't let him go. The yelling stopped and he screamed, demanding his throat even to tear itself to be louder. So he could bring his father back home. He couldn't be dead, though. He'd regenerate.

They lived in a forest then, once his favourite jungle gym, every brave landmark and discovery and hiding spot blurring past in liquid panic and fear, his brave mother slaloming around trees as well as any soldier. Uniformed black-and-purple men break down their wooden back door, carrying metallic tubes he'd never seen before. Is that what they used on his father? He screams louder now, at them and at the force dragging him away from home.

He eventually needed to succumb to the terror and the tears, refusing to remain silent as his mother mentally demanded of him. They were yelling orders, holding up their metallic devices and running after them, but they were slow compared to his mother.

He was suddenly dropped, or so it felt, engulfed in darkness and still holding on to his mother for dear life. She could not land on her feet, fallen to her knees but not letting go of her child, and him not letting go either...

The ground above looked solid, the perfect secret door, but Theta didn't notice because he was screaming, calling for his father to come back, to breathe again. His mother knelt on the ground, catching her breath with a bowed head, hands on her knees. She let him scream and cry and pound the dirt and curl into a ball, a selfish desire to hear her true son for as many seconds as she could scramble together. She loved him in the same way she loved the universe: an ecstatic embrace of every odd corner and fold.

She spoke an outdated word, obsolete because of the looms. The strongest sort of love; a mother and the young child she was meant to have. Theta was reduced to sobbing then, curled on the dirt in the weird torch-lit tunnel nobody will explain. "You need to hear me, now."

He looked at her then, determined to fight down the noise of it was the last thing he did, if only to hear his mother speak in that moment.

She held out a hand, running fingers through the white hair sprouting above those pink eyes. "We knew we couldn't hide you forever. We couldn't give you a proper life because they would know with one look." She smiled at him, the force of it just crinkling her forehead as it always does. She always smiled at his complexion. The days they would spend colouring his hair with anything that might stain it, dressing him as a woodland fairy for only special humanoids get beautiful pink eyes and canvas for hair. "I love you so much." She had to swallow back tears but Theta didn't bother trying, letting them flow out of his eyes. She made sure he only knew love even if they did need to hide him forever. They were all three of them happy that way. And they could have even been four. "Come on, we need to go further."

He didn't get much of an education, but he knew then asking about Father would only give the answer he already knew. It was only them two now.

The tunnels were tall enough to be walked in, and there they walked in silence. On and on until they stood before the gaping end of the tunnel. Before them stretched a maw of layers and layers of organic wires running across the pit, unmoving but nearly humming almost a song for them. The wires go down further then he can see and rise in the centre like a pillar to the surface, entwining but never tangled.

"The world will never let you have the life you deserve in that beautiful body of yours." She told him, coming to stand behind him and holding him from behind. "But that will."

The almost song almost being hummed has turned sour, pouting at their imperfect raw version of life.

"I don't want to." Is what he said, trying to turn around and get a real hug, to which his mother obliged. She sank to her knees, and wrapped her strong arms around her woodland fairy. She didn't want to let go, either.

"I love you. Don't you forget me." She hesitated. She spent an entire second of silence just holding him for the last time before letting go.

He fell. And didn't feel the landing, and it was dark.

He read the whole document. All of it. He went without breakfast and lunch and didn't leave the room before it was finished, every bitter word condemning him to so many kinds of deaths. How his very existence was mutation and evolutionary error and having reached the optimal physical manifestation it is to be preserved and not further altered by the course of nature. He was not loomed. He was thrown into a loom to be subject to five months of darkness as his body fractured and in the confusion pieced back together again perfectly. Except. Except for the bottle of biological ink his mother threw in after, working its way in as it should. Just not enough.

He is a failed attempt at correcting a mutation, living testimony to how much he should not be living. And he is the last one to realise it. They are going to kill him.

The last page was an ever so sweet personal note from Glospin, hinting in obstreperous stealth how he thereby loomed Owis as the rightful forty fifth cousin.

The list of people in his head he can cry for help from is very small, handing one simple answer on a barbed wire platter.

He grabs the slate off the floor, forcing his famine-shaken hands to move as an artist's, seeing the lightly dyed peach face of his in the glossy black screen.

They all know. They're going to kill me. Get me out of here.

That's all Koschei needs. For now, he waits. Face up on the military-straight bedding that is everything but him, looking at a ceiling that was supposed to host pictures of years of the future but now never will. He only wants to sink into his bed and be swallowed up, allowed to sleep for as long as he wants without someone breaking down the door and demanding he tear apart his flesh to have it melted down and painted and drained and refilled and manufactured and sewn back together in shining form so the planet can keep turning on its axis. He is a step too far, an unknown product of evolution, a generation closer to the final destination of Time Lords. And that scares them.

###

Koschei has a room all to his own, something like the Academy but almost more sterile-looking. No life, no personality, just a wonky hole in a strange House. The only thing in the room to identify it as Koschei's is a stuffed tiger sitting on the bed, haphazardly stitched together from an outgrown robe. He acknowledged it upon leaving Theta in his room.

One of those unnecessarily tall mirrors is embedded in the wall, impossible to miss from any spot in the room. Although Theta isn't exactly trying very hard. He stands directly in front of the mirror in the same clothes he didn't eat breakfast in, inspecting every bit of the pale and drooping body before him. He looks more like Koschei's cousins than his own. Maybe his mother got the wrong House. Maybe they should have just kept running together until they were both wiped out for the better.

Every bit of him now looks a despicable error he can't be bothered to try denying anymore, wilting lips and melting posture making it all look so much more... repugnant.

In the silence of forgetting where everyone's gone, he brushes apart hair between a finger and thumb, the white gone for an arbitrary shade of yellow the most fabricated, the least permanent. He used to have a head sprouting all the colours of the rainbow, and now it's not even worth that. With a sharp tug the unfortunate selected strand is torn from his scalp, held above the ground for longer than it need be with tired fingers. It doesn't hurt, not really, and nothing about that dead scaly thing will be missed. He lets it fall, watching the single turn to balance it before it drifts to the ground. Boring. He pulls out another one, tossing it to the ground in the other direction before pulling one from the back of his neck. That one hurt a little more.

He goes through seven more, seven pointless invisible bits of his hair on the floor nobody will notice, watching his face and waiting for it to change its expression into something more familiar. It doesn't.

Koschei opens the door but Theta doesn't see it in the mirror. He knows. And Koschei knows so he doesn't speak, doesn't ask why Theta is pulling out a hair on his head an watching it fall in front of a mirror.

He can feel Koschei's toes lightly touch his heels more than he can see it all transpiring, even if he is standing in front of a mirror spanning from head to toe. He can feel the five centimetres Koschei has on him, feel the nerve endings on his scalp light up when gentle fingers touch them. They wander around his scalp, combing random sections out so the yellowish fans into the air and falls in some untold pattern around his head. It's too short to tie or plait or arrange in some fascination but Koschei finds something to do with it Theta can't see the point of. But he can feel it.

He closes his eyes, holding his spine upright to concentrate, to find pictures of the barefoot boy with the colourful hair twirling around his domain. It is his highest evolution, the purest version of himself that will ever be, the one that didn't know what a gun was.

Koschei smiles, but Theta can't decipher why within three words of an exact definition, a skill once ever present and now sorely missing. Maybe if he looked, if he scoured the lonely hole in is head where life used to be, he might find it.

"#003B6F."

His voice croaks "Blue."

"No, that's your blue."

Theta shrugs.

"Your mother's not the only one who can dye hair."

Theta can feel Koschei tricking his brain into forcing out a tiny bit of a smile, but takes it as more of a suggestion than a command.

Chapter Text

It was the promise of mostly translated, legendarily classic science fiction entertainment from Sol III that got Theta downstairs with unforced, genuine glee. The ridiculous cocktails of over-concentrated carbonated juice was just a bonus.

They're going to be in so much trouble if someone finds out (which undoubtedly, somebody will), having this much tangled wiring and an entire TARDIS sitting in the commons past curfew breaking at least four rules. They bought off Drax with three months of acquiring necessary parts to build his own skimmer. He tried telling them if they're going through all that trouble, they may as well watch the entirety of Star Wars inside the TARDIS and have no need to wire up the pocket dimension already there, but Theta waved him off with juvenile triumphance at their pillow fort.

And there they sit, just about cuddled with Ushas and just about avoiding Magnus in a very educational night of shouting at the screen's inaccuracy.

"It's definitely pantheism!" Koschei argues to the end credits of part four.

"No it's not— Why did you even arrive at the obvious conclusion?" Theta and Koschei have been having the same argument at approximate half hour intervals over the "force", and shockingly Ushas isn't blatantly annoyed by it. "The force is prominently present in humans with a few exceptions, but not the rest of the sentient species. It's genetic!"

The entire saga is automatically queued, and nobody will be bothered to get up and skip the credits to any of them. "With so many genetic anomalies? That's not going to happen unless it's extremely new to the gene pool or the recipients have been exposed to something to mutate it. The force is suppose to be ancient and barely short of transcendental. Therefore,"

"Therefore you two," Magnus takes a swig of grape-açaï-pineapple, "are missing the bigger picture."

Ushas gasps. "What a shocking twist!" She winks sideways at Koschei, lowering her voice ineffectively, "but I'm definitely Team Pantheism. Theta's got no idea what he's talking about."

"Hey! I took bio 35!"

Magnus grins. "But did you pass, is the question."

Theta hits him in the leg, attentively watching the screen with a pretentious flourish as the only one able to read Sol. "I just won't read the prologue."

Koschei pats him on the opposite shoulder. "We literally just watched three movies prologuing this." He doesn't remove his hand.

Theta ignores his allegation, pretending to not notice his body scooching closer as he samples the every-fruit-we-could-possibly-find. It only takes a shoulder and a hand to manage it now. "During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armoured space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet". He can feel just a hint of Koschei laughing a little, as if from far away.

"The most obvious part is Koschei can read about ten words of Sol, but his facial expression has changed three times in the last paragraph." Koschei sticks his tongue out at Ushas, of all things, then gives Theta a kiss on the top of his head so fast nobody quite catches it.

Except Ushas. "Honestly, I'm surprised you've lasted three movies without being indiscreet."

"They breathe indiscreetly," Magnus adds flatly, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"Says the one who asked for an assault rifle on his fifteenth birthday."

"We do NOT TALK ABOUT THE—"

"EVERYONE SHUT UP IT'S STARTING." Theta yells, still trying to make up his mind about the every-fruit-we-could-possibly-find.

"We've been talking over it any—"

"SHH." Although you can keep being indiscreet.

###

Someone forgot to switch the stabilisers on. To be honest, Koschei blames Drax. He suspects Drax blames him.

Jelpax was nominated captain of the TARDIS, seconded by Theta, which was unanimously agreed to be a better idea than the rest of the available options in their crew of six.

This has resulted in Ushas, Drax, Mortimus, Koschei, Jelpax, and Theta hurtling through spacetime in an attempt to pop out a mere two planets down. Seven to twelve years of flight study, all culminating to this: A fantastic display of attempting to stand upright.

"CAN WE NOT LAND FOR A SEC AND FIX THE THING?"

"YOU CAN'T LAND IN THE TIME VORTEX!"

"WE CAN'T LAND ANYWAYS IF IT AIN'T FIXED!"

"WOULD YOU ALL SHUT IT?" The room is thrown into silence for about five seconds as Ushas tries to explain a more logical approach. Until their temporary Type 41 hits a sort of cosmic boulder and everyone except Theta is reunited with the floor.

"I think we're near Jaxiddel now. More or less."

"That's fantastic, Theta, but—" But what, nobody knows, as Mortimus slams his head on the control tower.

"MORT!"

"Cool it, Drax, he'll be fine." Jelpax says, managing to get on their knees. Koschei holds on to a metallic fence around the edge of the control room for dear life, steel an odd contrast to the reddish carpet. Not that he notices at the moment, but he will.

After a fair amount of groping for handholds and smacking into things, Jelpax and Theta almost simultaneously pull themselves onto the control panel. One of them slams the stabiliser on properly, the other steering haphazardly out of the vortex, presumably towards Jaxiddel. The room finally stops throwing everyone around.

"And you guys are how old?" Jelpax demands of the room in general, as if they hadn't also just stopped flailing about the place.

"Yeah, and how many times have you done one of these assignments?" Koschei with a bleeding something and bruised everything asks from his half-bent-over-the-railing position.

They fold their arms. "This is number three."

"And there are three of us on trip one, yeah?"

"I'd say we did pretty well."

Jelpax rolls their eyes. "We haven't landed yet, you know."

Everyone minus Ushas the part-time medic ("It's not that bad, Drax") scramble towards the controls, executing a ten-times rehearsed manoeuvre. They manage not to crash.

Before their short-lived round of applause ends, Theta runs across teh room and slams into the door, like he's escaping a prison cell of a hundred years. Koschei finds him barely five metres from the door, taking an overdramatic deep breath, arms lifted halfway to the sky. He is clearly resisting the temptation to run off into the neat rows of young trees.

"The air's thinner. The trees here are actually a hundred years old, they just never get any bigger." Theta talks to the air behind him, which he knows Koschei has already occupied. He can't be bothered to turn around and see, of course. Not when there's an entirely new planet in front of him. "Which is interesting, because Jaxiddel has the—"

"largest collection of hard copy sources of information in the constellation. You've been on about it for a week and a half now." Theta's shoulders slump just a fraction, air escaping though his nostrils in a drawn-out breath.

He finally turns back around as Jelpax comes up behind them, visibly acting the elder despite the fact they're a cosmic blink in age difference. "And they told me you two were smart." They send the pair back inside with one look. "Not allowed outside until everything's been evaluated and everyone's been accounted for."

"Yes, senpai," Theta retorts not kindly, dragging the tips of his shoes on the ground to make clear everyone knows he is not returning by his own will.

"Say I landed on Magla and you both asphyxiated." Theta walks past them, head barely bowed in a rare display of submission. "What then?"

###

The control room has been decked out in a patchy collection of blankets and cushions, a statement to the cold locked outside and Drax's applaudable hacking skills. Jelpax is the only one more than mildly concerned something is going to happen, but even their superior demeanour can't dampen the ambition of a handful of smart-ass wanna-be renegade Time Lords.

They all type away, spread around the console and makeshift wiring under blankets they don't really need, all drinking ice water scavenged from the minimalist kitchen. Who needs to empirically study a species when you have access to the information already?

"Can they check what we've looked up?" Mortimus asks from next to Drax, the first one to voice the question everyone was thinking.

Drax shakes his head, eyes trained on the screen in acute concentration rarely seen on him. "Nope nope NOPE NOPE NO…"

"Drax…" Jelpax warns, opening piece of the heavy pause that follows. Theta is the only one that doesn't seem to care, still mindlessly drabbling away on the slate. Without looking at what he's doing. Or really anything in particular, for that matter.

Drax perks his head up, looking around the room to verify more than one person is eyeing him more than cautiously. "Oh no fine, I got it. I got it…" he mutters in the general direction of Jelpax.

Mortimus, whose faith in Drax can only be contended with Jelpax's lack thereof, begins the idle somewhat relevant chatter again, organising this section and referencing that.

In a room with six people, a private conversation is everyone's conversation, and the proximity of telepathy is just short of socially unacceptable. So it's down to primitive keystroke transmissions to determine why Theta Sigma isn't typing properly.

ΩΞ: You okay?

ΘΣ: Not particularly, but I'm functioning.

ΩΞ: You're just slamming letters into a document.

The slamming slows, then stops, then proceeds in updated refinement at an extreme pace.

ΘΣ: Freezing cold hard-copy database of Kasterborous and even their government tops Gallifrey's.

ΩΞ: So it's climate or living rights, apparently. And I thought you weren't into politics?

There's a long pause wherein Koschei feels obliged to maintain the façade of studious paraphrasing, which Theta has disregarded for a good while. He can see the sudden frantic, angry typing unfold and knows it's one of those days. Not that any kind of day has a title except one of those.

It's a short two lines that show for the multi-paragraph tangent Koschei was expecting, but in and of itself implies quite enough.

ΘΣ: They have space-time travel tech here, too.

Theta makes eye contact with him, so direct Koschei is beginning to wonder if the rest of the room can feel it.

ΘΣ: We could do it.

Koschei sighs, running a hand through his marginally uneven hair, which needs a wash. In the span of two months, he was suddenly assigned a psychology project he did not sign up for. But of course he's doing it without hesitation.

ΩΞ: It's not that simple.

ΘΣ: But we could.

ΩΞ: You know we can't.

ΘΣ: Why not?

ΩΞ: Because neither of us are trained enough to operate any space-time vessel without reliable backup, are in one of if not the most guarded and secure cities on the planet and therefore won't be able to acquire one in the first place, and will end up with a large party of Time Lords on our tail in under the relative hour. It's impossible.

ΘΣ: I know.

ΩΞ: We can explore the city.

It's a feeble attempt at consolation as compared to the universe, but it has to do.

Theta doesn't reply, seeming to be back at tapping away on his bit of the sociological report.

"So who's making dinner?" Ushas asks the room but mainly Drax in a kind of attempt to find some way to shut up his narration of technological prowess to Mortimus.

"We can go into town and pick something up. I can guarantee it's better than this TARDIS's," Jelpax says.

"With what currency?" If a question could be oxidised into a slap upside the jaw, Theta would have just succeeded in delivering it.

"Standardised to Kasterborous in all major cities." Jelpax shoots back. "Anything goes, but they prefer exact change."

"Shall we go, then?" Ushas asks Jelpax as she addresses nobody else.

Drax looks up with a bit of a start. "Wot, only you and them?"

Ushas already has a coat on. "Only takes two, Drax."

Thirty minutes later, Theta wanders around the snow-covered forest outside, not eating his small pot of stir-fry.

"So this is as far as we're going to get?" Theta asks of the air-plus-Koschei, fiddling with his biodegradable fork, staring off into the dusty white valley below there jagged slope.

"For now." Time Lords don't hold hands in the manner humans do, but Koschei is still approached with the urge to do something like it to keep the amalgamation of unpredictability and a terrifyingly large part of his own history within arm's reach. This urge is presented instead with an "Eat something, please."

If smirks could be acidic. "Coming from you."

"You're the one who keeps reminding me, don't forget."

"You need to eat." Tendrils of steam float into the air before them that are knocked together by frozen breath: an unattractive, homogeneous muddle.

"At least a mouthful, Thete. Then you can kick it over the side of the cliff or something."

After a good moment's contemplation filled with a decent view of the clouded grey sky, Theta stabs his fork into the pot and brings it to his lips. He chews barely twice before swallowing, turning on his left heel without thinking of taking another bite. He's still holding the pot.

###

Koschei lies in a hammock attached to the console and the steel fence, barely twenty meters from the door, and doesn't know whether or not to check who just nearly slammed it. One would expect someone walking out of a room with three other sleeping people in it to close the door quietly. He sits up just enough to scan the room, counting shifting bodies. Three more? No, two.

For crying out loud, Theta. Don't slam the door. Does he slam doors on sleeping people? No, no he's not that stupid. Unless he was preoccupied with something more important, which would be… what?

"Was that Theta?" Ushas asks him through the dark. Jelpax remains asleep, probably.

"Yeah. Probably out inspecting alien plants 'cause they're alien."

"I wouldn't put it past him."

Koschei lies back down. Honestly, he's probably run off to the city to gawk at aliens and try to steal a time machine, which will leave the rest of them obligated to bail him out of custody. He takes one more look around the room. Six coats are draped in vague places. It's freezing outside. Below freezing, in fact.

Koschei waits for five seconds. Then he rolls out of his hammock, skirting around Ushas with some interesting choreography.

"Where are you going?"

Koschei throws on somebody's coat. It's probably nothing. "Making sure he has proper gardening equipment," he grumbles, closing the door quietly behind him.

The cold slaps him in the face immediately, but not hard enough to stop any Gallifreyan with a plan from running out in a t-shirt. The sky is still visibly indigo, illuminated by a handful of stars much closer than the rest in the distance.

He doesn't know where Theta went. His footprints are obscured between the tiny, stupid trees that won't keep any snow on them, Barely a metre taller than either of them. He can't have gone far. "Theta!"

Nothing.

Koschei tries to unearth some hidden slalom abilities from the Day With the Marshmallows, swatting at wimpy branches sprouting from trees once placed in an ornate grid. They used to farm the tiny timber for all it was worth before growing synthetic paper in a lab.

He weaves through trees as they thin out and grow smaller, favouring of sheets of rock buried under thin layers of dirt. Part of him wonders why in hell he thinks it's logical running aimlessly through a forest because Theta didn't put on a coat. Koschei didn't even bring an extra one.

His footsteps trail haphazardly out of the trees, printed into the snow as they slow down in five points. The snow has started soaking into his shoes, freezing to his toes and running chills up his calves.

Three breaths.

"Theta!"

There is silence. Koschei is being pulled in both directions, fatigue and wet feet insisting Theta has probably gone back into the TARDIS by now.

And from the distance, in a tired groan of absolute contempt, "Go away!"

Running again. Which could be interpreted as narcissism in many cases, but quite frankly Koschei doesn't care, because he recognises the sheets of rock impossibly close to the trees, the way it slants slightly downward, the meandering of a biodegradable fork. Stupid, stupid, stupid, "WHERE ARE YOU?"

"TURN AROUND. RUN THE OTHER WAY." There. There he is, standing a meter from the cliff, shivering uncontrollably because it's at least ten below freezing and still snowing. He shakily points an arm at him, holding… no.

"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER."

Koschei stops in his tracks, slowly raising his hands in front of him. Cautious. Unarmed. Theta's hair is exploding with the ghosts of relentless mental shouting and a terminate dichotomy, the food he didn't eat plain in his face.

"Theta…" He needs to run. Run right at him and drag him back inside, because it's coming up to this point Koschei realises how much he actually requires the fucking idiot.

"Not wondering why I've got a gun right next to a cliff?" He opens his mouth as if to smile, in quick succession clamping it shut to growl. "It's actually a coulee, for the record. DRIED-UP LAKE, NOT A CLIFF."

"WHY DO YOU HAVE A GUN, THEN?" Koschei yells, throwing his hands in the air and letting them fall down again.

"Because you care so much."

"That's usually considered a good thing, Thete." He tosses the nickname of a nickname into the air, possibly trying to draw some reaction and kicking himself because everything draws a reaction.

"I SAID DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" He clumsily switches arms, sneezing once before continuing. "Do I need to list you reasons why or do you get it enough?"

Koschei runs his hands through his hair, pulling a few strands out in the process. "I'd like a list, please!" The fact he is stuck to the spot in fear of being shot down by his best friend says something. What, he's not entirely sure. Something to do with mal-assignment of homicide.

"NUMBER ONE." Theta thinks long and hard. He has it all aid out, perfectly scripted and rehearsed as he always does, but it can't get out. "You know what? You know what I don't even care NOBODY ACTUALLY CARES"

"I CARE."

Some people romanticise suicide, claiming its tragedy is beautiful and educational in its own way. This is not what that is. This isn't even close to what that is.

Theta throws knives into Koschei with barely a look, matching one tentative step forward with two hands now balancing the gun. "I'll do it."

Koschei shakes his head. "You can't." He tries another step, trying to close their gap of twenty metres. Theta takes a tiny step sideways, still shivering violently. "Please. Oh my God, please come back."

"You're an atheist."

"We're all atheists. We're an entire race of Gods." Koschei tries holding out one arm as if it will summon him, but only pushes him a tiny bit closer to the edge. "Tell me what I have to do."

Theta takes a deep breath, for a scary moment stopping the weapon from shaking. "I already told you."

"If you think I'm going to leave you, ever, you have never been more wrong."

Theta squeezes his eyes shut, quivering under the constant pressure. "I don't want you here."

"Then kill me."

Theta gives him a death glare, shakily holding the gun with both hands. "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU KNOW. SINCE DAY ONE, OMEGA XI."

"YOU THINK I DON'T REALISE THAT?" He dares to close his eyes for longer than a blink, an entire second and a half, and Theta didn't move in the dark. "Look. You are brilliant. You're a glorious anomaly of the entire race who can fix bloody well anything, can stand literally anyone for hours without complaining — which nobody else can do — got a tafelshrew stuck in a time loop at the age of twenty, and you're damn well the best thing that's ever happened to me. Your cousins suck. But they don't have to be your family."

He might thank God Theta lowers his arms a fraction, were he not such an atheist.

Then curse Him all the same for bringing one of Theta's arms back up to his head.

Koschei runs flat-out, sprinting at the boy who he didn't have much doubt would actually kill him if he could. The snow almost flips his feet out from under him, Koschei stumbling too close to the edge of the cliff, and the bloody coward doesn't do a thing but hesitate. Koschei tackles him without mercy, prepared to break Theta's wrist to get the gun out of his hand. He doesn't need to. The limbs he twists and back he flattens with his knees move through the air like a rag doll, folding and falling at Koschei's fingers.

"You bastard," Theta grunts.

"Worst of them all."

Theta vomits into the snow, and only then does Koschei actually agree to feel something properly. In a scenario like this, he'd expect to be crying. In the first scenario of his life he'd actually see reason to be crying, he's not. The runny sick from Theta's stomach trickles down the snow, containing not enough food for it to run and far too much diluted poison the brilliant moron of a chemist whipped together in passable simulation of alcohol consumption. He kept it all choked down and threw up every single mental wall he had, until now. Koschei can feel the crippling defeat that runs out of his brain, a vast stretch of future represented only by coexisting torment and dull void. Koschei knows the void. His was perhaps brighter, and smaller, and much easier filled.

Koschei can feel the void scraping at the sides of his head, begging to break in and eat away at his brain until he wants it to leak out his ears if it means the end.

Theta has stopped vomiting, liquid eruptions turned into raspy heaving, arms and ends of hair dampened by the contents of his stomach. It is disgusting. And Koschei will drag this body through the snow for miles if it means it will still breathe. He doesn't let go of his arm, but rolls off Theta's back to let him turn away from the yellowish mess. Which means he cares a little.

"You're my list." Theta croaks, letting himself fall onto Koschei in general, slumped with just his feet dangling over the edge. "Technically." Koschei locks his arms under Theta's armpits, pulling until every bit of him is away from it. He is so cold.

"Yeah, and you're mine."

###

Theta wakes up in a zero room, suspended in the air by some force of will. Koschei's, probably. The room is filled with wisps of thoughts that aren't from Theta, telepathic enhancement announcing just about everything in the little octagon.

The beast has awoken. Koschei speaks into Theta's head, positioned with his eyes closed at the back corner of the space.

Beast?

Have you looked in a mirror lately? Something in his head tells him to be nicer, and Theta can probably hear that little voice, but Koschei is too frustrated to care.

Theta lifts an arm painfully slowly, running it through his hair once and dropping it to the air below. He looks at his middle, barely expressing any surprise in their telepathic ambiance. He barely expresses much.

I'm in a sheet. And clean. Theta sighs mentally like one might sigh while asleep and changing sides to sleep on. I think I can complain about sexual assault.

Only saved your life.

I didn't ask for that, either.

Koschei opens his eyes, levitating himself to lie in the air forty-five degrees and five metres below him. Theta is superficially silent, blunt thoughts of death running around in unspecific clauses and concepts. At the centre of all things, he didn't really want it. Nobody at their core adamantly desires death.

I stuck you in a bathtub and found a sheet.

I was naked.

And covered in vomit, alive.

Theta floats higher and higher, rotating himself to face the ground. He lets go. For one second of reaction time he is falling, the sheet that was wrapped and tucked around him hazardously dishevelled and tangled, halted by Koschei.

Theta looks at him properly for the first time, tucked above the floor, most parts bitter with a grating of kindness. Or maybe Koschei's imagining it.

How long have I been out?

Less than an hour.

Damn it. Theta thinks a bit of a smile, out of context. He contemplates how tired Koschei looks in raw objectivity, and there it is. Guilt.

I think I'm supposed to do something. The boy in the corner either deliberately thinks or just happens upon, picking out details on Theta's ankle to have something to focus on besides the face.

I thought saving my life was a thing.

I thought you didn't want it.

Or something.

A whole minute of failed attempts at starting a better sentence passes, disrupted by a soft, or likely just exhausted, I don't think I was going to shoot you, really.

Koschei defies all his instincts to shy away from the greatest threat in the room, focusing adamantly on the spot directly between Theta's eyes. I never doubted you would.

Theta spins around to curl in on himself, No… intentional velocity circling back around to Koschei. It wasn't a real gun…

The concept of some form of love and its applicable futility fizzles about in the room's corners, concepts passing too quick for words but always coming back to a naval cavity in Theta's midriff.

Koschei drifts towards him, pretending not to be noticed by Theta, who is very aware of him. He aligns himself to match every bend and angle of Theta's sideways position, an impossible sort of symmetry, one foot apart.

You have approached the terrible beast? Theta raises his eyebrows a small bit, waiting for a response he doesn't know how to predict.

Koschei stretches out his arms, trapping fabric between his fingers, and pulling Theta up against him. Hold still. I'm going to do something sciencey.

He pulls Theta and his sheet until they are all touching, bracing himself for some violent lashing or screaming or the impossible spontaneous death he's been paranoid of for an hour. He wraps his arms around Theta, fitting his head to the bend and curve of his shoulder and neck. It doesn't come.

Theta tries and fails to come up with a retort to the exact scientific explanation that is lacking here, every one getting shorter and washed away by too many things for one head to contemplate at the same time. He eventually latches onto Koschei like a lost child, arms and legs spidering around Koschei until they lock him in place.

Koschei's lungs are only a bit constricted, but he doesn't care, and Theta Sigma cries in a sheet.

Chapter Text

“Any particular reason?”

“Inspiring scenery.”

For all the weeks Theta has pretended to be quite alright thank you, Koschei has barely managed to restrain himself from tying him up and snarling at anybody who came bearing distasteful humour or exams. Theta probably heard most of the internal debate it took for Koschei to convince himself the pros of inspiring scenery outweigh the harrowing proximity of another edge to tumble off.

“You worry too much.”

For all the pride he puts in how well he picked up telepathy, Koschei is apparently not very good at keeping things in his head. "I don't worry enough."

Theta lies down on the rough surface discoloured by the sun, melancholy drumming of his fingers settled by his hips. "They are going to kill me, though."

Koschei tries to seal off his thoughts before they come, but Theta doesn't let on how much he knows. He lies down next to him, fingers running along the cuff of Theta's sweater before finding his hand. "Not if you don't let them."

"If only all murder victims had your brilliant insight, Koschei." Spiteful as it sounds, his fingers still latch on like a vice. 

"I'm serious! Tell Quences they've been threatening your life and he's obliged to get involved with it."

Theta hums in indifference. "I don't think he cares. If anything, he'd be on Glospin's side."

"Get Innocet, then!"

"Like that'll work."

"Quences is required to know where she is! Get in contact with her!"

Theta struggles to find a loophole that is less than 95% snark. "Quences won't tell me."

"Give him a chance."

"Koschei—" Theta unwraps his hand, propping his body on one side to look down on Koschei. "This guy arranges marriages for diplomacy and simulates burn wounds as regular punishment, and you think I can just walk into his room and ask where my old roommate is because I feel like my cousins are out to get me?"

"YES!"

"So why aren't you out to kill me? I'd love to know!"

"You have asked me this fourteen times."

"And you haven't answered directly on any of those occasions."

"I—" he's right. Of course he's right. The steely eyes pin him down, demanding sacrifice to their temple. "I don't know."

"Of course."

"But hear me out. I should, at the most basic level. You're a supposed threat to the species, currently weak and more trouble then you're worth to keep around, and above that you violate a basically religious order. But I could not care less because you're so goddamn important." Koschei rips back one sleeve, letting the atmosphere kiss his skin better. "Four. Only four. There could be something like forty-eight by now. And you sat through Vansell badgering you for days. And got Drax to pass his exams five years running. And fixed the bloody matrix algorithm in your own House's TARDIS because you were bored. And while neither of us know exactly what happened, I don't think I would have lived past age eight without you showing up, then cuddling me to sleep on two occasions after I hallucinated literally Death incarnate."

"Most of that sounded exclusively about you."

"Yeah. Because the years of my life you were not involved in are an infinitesimal fraction of my existence."

"It's actually—"

"YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE." Koschei sits up, grabbing Theta by the sweater front and cursing anyone who might have heard that. "NOT NOW, NOT THEN, NOT AT YOUR HOUSE, NOT EVER, ALRIGHT?"

Koschei startled him. His forehead lightly tingles from the impact of pulling Theta upright so fast, he is probably breathing much too aggressively into Theta's face, and he can feel individual fingertips through the fabric in his fists. 

"Everyone—"

"Not you."

"Koschei—"

"Nope." He takes two shaky breaths that don't help in the calming down. "One day we're going to visit all of them."

He counts four blinks atop the saccade of his eyes. 

"I’m more keen on inhabited planets."

He doesn't quite understand it yet, or how it really stimulates the right hormones, or why he feels a need for it only now he's experienced it, but he kisses Theta. Hard, he might describe it, but the process does not lend well to mental clarity of suh things. It's still strangely soft. And wet. And awkwardly positioned, maybe a bit too forward, and introspectively too noisy. But still good.

###

There are only two knocks on Koschei's door, which could mean anything. Wrong room? Offended cousin? Bargaining cousin? Housekeeper?

Marshmallows?

They walk in immediately after doing so, but refrain from speaking. Is there a social cue he is unaware of now?

"You got the right room?"

"Koschei, right?"

Koschei nods, trying very hard not to constantly glance at the raised brown patch on their long pale neck. 

"There's a kid here, friend of Distvyk, and they've been talking for a while, but you know, this kid has been asking questions about you, and it's been like fifteen minutes, and like, I was nominated to tell you so..."

"What does this 'kid' look like? In brief."

"Well he — I mean, probably he — he's got short brown hair, sorta mostly white skin, you know? He's pretty short in general, he kinda struts like he's pretending not to be, right, and like—"

"Does he go by 'Vansell'?"

"Yeah, Vansell!"

Koschei pushes air through his lips like a horse. "Shit."

"Well what's wrong with Vansell?"

"Absolutely nothing at all." Koschei pushes past the nominated cousin he doesn't know and trumps down the stairs. 

"Does he act strangely or have some other odd behaviour in the mornings, typically?"

"Well there was this one time — years and years ago — he showed up at the House soaking wet through the forest. Why, does he act up in the mornings or something?"

Koschei has reached a high enough status to effectively part a gaggle of smaller cousins by footfall alone. Vansell is seated dead centre in a worn out couch, ever so sympathetic, accompanied by a pod of oblivious others. 

"What the hell are you doing in my House?"

Vansell stretches out two arms of plastic warmth. "Koschei, dear friend."

The pod of others greet him with eyes caught red-handed. Koschei stops short of them. "We aren't friends my any stretch of the imagination."

Vansell pretends to look hurt. He is very good at pretending. "You've been acting a little off lately, and I'm concerned for you. I was visiting my friend Distvyk and thought I might ask to see if anyone here might know." The smile on his face is about as welcoming as a shark that can climb trees. 

"I have not been 'acting off', thanks, and it would take an idiot to believe you're being at all genuine. You are literally my least favourite person."

"Koschei, he's really only trying to help," Marshmallows confides, seconded by the faint nods of their small group. "I don't think he would have needed to go this far if you confided a bit more in him."

"Oh, Rassilon. Nobody tell him anything. At all."

"Don't be so afraid, Koschei. They've already helped a great deal."

###

Theta had taken six and a half steps away from his door, the first time he'd opened it since breakfast, when an enormous scream grabbed him firmly by the ankle and turned him right around. He left Owis in there alone, a decision constantly fraught with a slight paranoia and visions of potential future timelines of his bedroom completely thrashed. While everyone has been silently encouraging him to move for once, logical bit of his brain he’s ignoring telling him to maybe talk to Another Being, it seems the universe has other plans.

Owis is sitting on the ground, screaming and inhaling violently every two seconds as shrilly as his vocal cords will allow, cradling a hand against his chest. Fragments of glass surround him, any unsecured item in the room ruthlessly blown about by the gaping window. He didn't hear it break, which means...

"GET AWAY FROM ME." Owis shrieks at the sight of Theta coming closer, scrambling to his knees as blood soaks the front of his shirt a darker black. Two of his fingertips have disappeared. Definitely.

"What's the matter with you?" Theta tears the still-under-construction sonic molecular dissociation device thing from Owis’s other hand, tossing the useless apparatus on his bed. Koschei’s wonderful idea to keep Theta occupied at all hours, final use completely unknown. This is why it only looks done.

Owis continues screaming like he’s praying for death, Theta using a shard of broken glass to start ripping a bedsheet. Someone’s going to hear them and come running with something useful, no doubt.

"I SAID GET AWAY!" Owis has regained his standing function, now starting to pound on Theta’s chest with his functional hand. It provides adequate perspective into how much Theta has grown over the years. "I WONT LET YOU!"

"WON’T LET ME WHAT?" Theta is struck across the jaw with a fortunately placed bloody hand, which he grabs in an instant and twists into submission. Owis only screams louder. "IF YOU’D HOLD STILL, I’LL ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO HELP YOU."

“HOW IS THIS HELPING?”

Theta is forced to pull a leg out from Owis to slam him against the wall, dig an arm into his chest and use a knee to keep him still. Ish.

“HELP!” Owis screeches out the doorway, trying to shove Theta off him, which only makes the grip tighter.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Theta growls, grey sheets soaking through in dark red. He ignores the touch of satisfaction derived from having an ethical excuse to have Owis aggressively pinned down. His injured hand is conveniently the only limb staying some shade of still, letting him wrap the sheet tight enough without tearing the flesh much.

"IT HURTS."

Someone finally appears in the doorway, Theta catching a hand with a medical kit and at least two sets of legs, reaching the end of the wrapping of fabric, but knotting it…

Owis finds a missed precaution and slams his knee up between Theta’s legs, bloody mass slipping from his hands in a moment of pained reflex landing him on the floor. “Owis…” he groans, turning to the right and curling his legs up.

“What on Gallifrey did he do to you?” Theta hits his head on the ground, cursing the very floorboards that grew into this forsaken Household.

“Glospin.”

“You look like a fucking fetus.”

Theta demands his legs to function, to pull his body mass up, to confirm no he is not dying, it just feels like it. Glospin is giving Owis the only hug Theta has ever seen him execute, cradling the small boy gently as any mother. In a wild second of hallucinogenic pain and less-than-functional neurons, they could be the classic sort of father and son.

“Owis, we need to sit down to wrap your hand,” he cooes, Owis obliging and being led to his bed with Satthaltrope behind. The screaming banshee has been subdued to a sobbing child, face contorting itself into something pitiful and worth defending. Theta can’t say he can look on it with much sympathetic sorrow. “Arkhew, can you get Theta out of here?” Glospin barks without taking his eyes off Owis. The cousin who looks somehow incomplete without their double tentatively regards the crumpled mess that is Theta, jerking their head towards the door.

He might oblige if he weren’t bloody, suspicious, and incapacitated. “You chop off part of a kid’s hand?” they growl, towering above Theta.

“Arkhew just drag him out of the room he’s practically a twig!”

“He did that to himself.” Theta replies, mind not working enough to think up anything tactical.

Arkhew snorts, grabbing Theta by the middle and dragging him out of the room. Theta used to associate that room with peace and Innocet, on occasion a smudge of Rynde’s memory. It’s been a while. Theta dumped on the ground, Arkhew slams the door, leaving him to wonder if Arkhew was even in on the glaringly obvious intention in the whole setup.

Eleven of his cousins stand in the corridor, eyes boring into him, all arriving at the same conclusion. He is the Prydonian, after all.

###

Vansell finally walks off, for what reason Koschei doesn’t care, as he finally has one of the only cousins he could claim to know alone for the first time in two days. Marshamallows just started reading a novel, and while he has learnt from experience it’s very bad form to interrupt a novel, well. She’s only just started.

“I’m sorry, I… can’t remember your name.”

She smiles despite it all. Oh, the advantages of having an overly kind cousin. “Parsillontralthenedru.”

“Parsillon?”

“Just Parsill.”

He nods, once. “Thanks, Parsill. Can you tell me at all what Vansell’s been doing out here? Honestly?”

“He’s friends with Distvyk. Is that a crime?”

“It is if he’s been talking about me.”

She shakes her head, opening the novel again. “Good heavens. Don’t be so paranoid.”

Koschei scoffs. “That kid is a psychopath!”

Marshmallows sighs. “There aren’t any psychopaths, Koschei, we’re loomed.” She closes the novel again. “What has he even done? Seems plenty friendly to me.”

Got a study group to collectively ignore him all at once? Asked a handful of cousins about Koschei’s well-being? Stole his boyfriend for five days before it was even a thing?

“Wait, wait, wait, boyfriend?”

Three heads now decide to involve themselves in the conversation. He’s losing it. “Wait, wait, wait, you can READ MY MIND?”

Marshmallows goes back to the novel. “Only when you’re screaming.”

Koschei would like to gesture a number of things at the general population for not helping ever, but refrains in light of Marshmallows’s wise “So why don’t you ask Vansell why he’s here?”

There’s the smallest of noises from the hanging gap in the stairs above him, and two feet scurrying away.

“That literal whale dick.”

“Excuse me?”

Koschei shoves aside anywhere from one to five flocking cousins, past the unstable “naturally carved” bookshelves, taking the worn down stairs two at a time.

Two four six eight ten eleven (large cousin) twelve fourteen sixteen eighteen nineteen room 301 (don’t trip on the root that refuses to leave) room 302 room 303 is locked. He might pound on the door. He might try breaking it down because it’s bloody unattached from the House. He can hear Vansell inside perfectly clearly, but everyone would hear him if he tried going inside.

He walks away. No matter how hard he tries in his head, there’s no configuration of words that can describe Vansell to justify breaking down the door.

###

Ten minutes later, Vansell struts down to the commons and tosses a book into his hands like everything is perfectly alright, charming smile enticing one of the few cousins always found behind a book.

Koschei is already back up the stairs.

The door is hanging wide open and he closes it behind him, picking a route around a floor of havoc in sock feet. The quilt, the sheets, the mattress have one at a time been thrown off the bedframe and pitched in some direction, knocking over the dresser, toppling things strewn carelessly on the desk, burying the tiger he crafted. The clothes that were knocked out were thrown like confetti, landing everywhere and precisely placed to cover the window.

There should have been crashing, tumultuous racket, and maybe all his cousins thought nothing of it. More likely, he staged the chaos in precise silence.

Koschei picks up the corner of a sheet, tossing it at the bedframe, only to clear a path to the mirror. He doesn’t see the tiny tiger.

The mirror used to fit the wall like a glove, seamlessly ingrained and bending perfectly at the top and bottom where the House felt it should. There are two caved points for two hearts, splinters shooting and arching and spitting out shards that have come to rest at his feet. Koschei can only see bits of himself, obscured fractions where he watched himself grow year after year, where he once told Theta Sigma he would dye his blond hair #003B6F.

Vansell wrote on one of the bits of glass in ink. “I was bored.”

Absolutely nobody is going to believe Koschei.

He starts with the glass.

After all that, with a meticulously arranged court system and no word to Quences, Theta was still put back in his usual bedroom, the wide range of reasons being there was “no reasonable motive for murder” and nobody wanted to have him sleeping anywhere near them. With much uncharacteristic sympathetic dialogue, Owis agreed to this arrangement.

After all the screaming and ‘I won’t let you’s of the morning, Theta would expect Owis to be cowering against the wall, staring him down and wielding some over-exuberant mode of self-defence. Instead, he lies quite comfortably under a nicely made blanket, covers hiding his chin as the big brown eyes blink at him. Like he’s trying to fall asleep but forgot to close his eyes. A dim light on Owis’s side of the room casts something of a halo around him, light fading out far before it touches Theta.

He would feel more comfortable lying in the dark trying to fall asleep to occasional whimpers and scared sniffling instead of the constant blinking, however quiet.

“How’s your hand?” Something flies into the makeshift window, stuck together with indelicate haste until a new one is installed, hiding the fact there is a piece missing.

Owis gingerly draws the blanket far enough back to let his right hand out, wrapped in layers of thin white synthetic softness, the top of which looks like it has been dipped in paint. The dried blood offsets the white much better than the grey sheet, now hardened into its shape. “They gave me an anaesthetic and found something to stop the bleeding, so…” he trails off, trying to give Theta a Glospin face, but it doesn’t work. “We need to get bone and tissue repairing nanobots from the city tomorrow.”

In a way, Owis reminds Theta of Koschei in the first few nights he knew him. Small, scared, can’t sleep. He tried to harbour bitterness and unfeeling for as many of his cousins as possible to prevent the sting of them leaving like Innocet, but try as he might, Owis will always find some spot of redemption in Theta.

“They didn’t change the bandage?”

Owis shakes his head, eyes widening as they always do. “Satthaltrope said it’ll be fine all day.”

“They’ve had that on you since this morning?”

Owis nods, retreating ever so slightly into his blankets.

The one fortunate aspect of the judicial court was the attendee-wide consensus to leave the medical kit (however primitive by Time Lord standards) with Owis. There is a small pang of the emotional sort with the idea of Koschei superimposed on the cousin that flinches when Theta rises, opening the white and red sphere to withdraw simple could-be-cotton. 

"It's ok, I don't need to change it really I'm fine I—"

Theta shakes his head not too fast, summoning every supernatural force of reassuring motherhood to clothe him for just two minutes. "Keep it dried there too long and it could get infected and slow down the tissue reconstruction process. Even loomlings aren't immune to everything." Theta kneels by Owis's bed, waiting for a hand instead of taking it by force. Maybe that wasn't a good idea. "I can do it for you."

"Will it hurt?" He forces out, two unbound fingers curling closer to their protector. 

"Can you feel your fingers?"

Owis's eyes dart away from Theta in two directions, then back again. "Not those two."

"At least they gave you a proper anaesthetic." There holds out his palm, partly wanting to wheedle out the details of whatever Glospin was planning, partly because the world might be a nicer place if people wrapped wounds more instead of caused them.

"It won't hurt if you hold still."

Owis swallows one, trying to scan Theta's face for something malicious or some great lie, but can't find anything. A tentative hand is placed palm up in Theta's, dried blood keeping the first two from curling slightly like the other two. Much to both of their advantage, Owis holds still. 

"Why are you doing this?" He squeaks, watching a stiff bandage uncurl from his hand.

"I consider it a crime to ignore medical concerns. And you really don't deserve to have your fingertips chopped off." 

They are ragged, as if someone tore them off, lacking the precision of any functional molecular dissociation apparatus. He'll need to work on that. 

"Have you had an infection before?"

Theta smirks at his tone of voice, shyer than Theta was the first day of school. 

"Once in my left ear." He reaches the end of the fabric, pressing it down and waiting for it to fuse. "It was interesting making up an excuse for needing medicine."

He was something for some sign of amusement, but Owis continues to regard him with those owlish eyes. "There you are. Sanitary bandage."

Theta gets off his knees, smiling, taking two soft steps back to bed.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

###

The first thing Theta is aware of is unbridled trauma, so strong it penetrated his idle dream of undersized breakfast and forced him awake. His hearing perks up first, registering the curdled sound of crying behind him before the rest of his body follows. In one startled, swift movement he jolts upright and slams the lamp on the wall on, adrenaline-hyped eyes finding their way to "Owis?"

The boy didn't even bother crawling under the covers, opting to curl into a shaking ball pressed against the wall. His face is covered in tear stains and mucus, entire body convulsing in compressed sobs and something else so strong he can't identify it. 

Theta places a hand on his shoulder, making Owis nearly jump out of his skin.

"It's just me, it's okay..." Owis hasn't moved. His brain is still wholly consumed by the great complex emotion that somehow landed him in the wrong bed. "Owis?" Theta moves his hand to Owis's forehead, using so much brain power to distinguish a single clear train of thought from the mess he could uproot the House. There's a single concept repeating itself in almost a linear fashion, but Owis doesn't have words to describe it. Theta can feel it, can understand its shape and form, but doesn't know what it is. 

"What the devil is going on up here?" Theta just about falls off the bed, as Quences has managed to sneak his way into the room. Quences points one shaky, knobbed finger at now-hyperventilating Owis, leaning on a gnarled black staff that could be an extension of his arm if it wanted to. "Why is that boy screaming like a banshee?" Quences glares at Theta like a judge might glare at a serial killer. 

"I don't know, sir." Theta tries moving Owis out of his steel ball, but he refuses to budge, getting shorter and shorter of breath. 

The patterned unnamed thing in one burst gets a step clearer, the rest of the mental haze still ecstatically confused. 

Theta but twitches as Quences hobbles towards the possessed child. There is some primitive reaction of a desire to shield the kid from the world he can't quite explain. Like a craving for celery and peanut butter that never quite makes sense. 

Quences slowly raises his staff, pressing the tip into Owis's back. Theta can hear someone moving outside, running but not speaking, and Quences shoves Owis harder. 

"He looks possessed," the Housekeeper growls in his version of thinking aloud, rubbing his unshaven chin with a hand. 

"Sir, his telepathic screaming communicates patterns of severe trauma. I think he's in—" Quences brings his staff down on Owis with crippling force, "shock..."

Owis finally moves, limbs exploding and folding back together in a new arrangement as that continuous, blood curdling scream escapes his brain and tears through the House via the lungs.

"Works every time." Quences dares Theta to argue with a disdainful comb of his hair. "I don't know how to get him to stop screaming."

"ARKHEW'S DEAD." Their tear-stained roommate has appeared in the door, flanked in shadows by murmurs nobody can hear over the infernal screaming. 

Quences slowly turns his head back to them, curdling the screaming in Owis’s brain to nauseating panic. Theta needs to fight the urge to sink down at the overwhelming screeching in his head.

“Take him out,” Quences growls. 

Theta drags the boy off the bed, scooping him up with an arm under the knees. He runs.

Chapter Text

The wind is only strong enough to tousle Theta's hair, but it gets in his face anyways. He's heard the whole jumbled story from Owis in lost shards of narrative, every fraction ending with hyperventilating or distant silence. Owis has refined himself to a compact ball, chin propped on his folded knees. Half an hour ago, Theta was concerned about the spastic breathing, but it has since morphed into a reliable indicator of Owis's continued presence on the roof. Listening to the operations immediately below them has become the top priority.

Quences is showing unfathomable mercy in letting them stay on the roof for so long without testimony of the mind probe. Theta's been trying to imagine some ulterior motive of his, all of them ending up stranger than their reality. Compassion? Empathy? Prophecy? Forgetfulness?

Glospin's screaming voice breaks through the damp muffling of roof like a drop of soap in murky water, a longwinded testimony Theta isn't surprised to hear the half of. Then again, he isn't surprised about much.

"I DIDN'T WANT ARKHEW TO DIE. SHE WAS NOT TO BE INVOLVED IN THIS EVENT IN ANY CAPACITY, OKAY?"

"We are aware of this fact, Glospinninymortheras. I am asking you to describe the intended events in anticipated chronological order, or I will have to use the mind probe."

"AND WHY ISN'T OWIS DOWN HERE?"

"I already told you. You have five seconds to start talking."

Theta waits with bated breath as he and at least ten other cousins all start counting down from five. But the testimony doesn't come.

"WHERE D'YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?" Quences shouts after him, a second before Owis starts screaming in his head. They are a second long and half a second in between, constantly transmitting the words he's coming.

Theta runs over to him, firmly clamping hands to shoulders and Owis covers his ears to quiet the screaming. A hundred useless angles and velocities fly into Theta's head, displaying painfully irreversible routes off the roof and into futile hiding. The only way out is down, but that would only kill them quicker.

Glospin runs up the stairs in wild adrenaline, followed alarmingly close by Quences. The spiked hair flies in the wind, innocent pyjama shorts whipping about his legs. He holds out his arms as he lunges towards them, radiating anger beyond belief at their existence alone. Quences throws his old arms around Glospin's middle, peeling the boy off-course as if he were a small child. That, above all, is his least expected trait.

"FORTY-SIX COUSINS, QUENCES. I COUNTED THEM ONE BY ONE. FORTY-SIX LIVING BODIES TIED TO THIS HOUSE WHEN WE," he tries jabbing Quences with an elbow, failing wonderfully, "ARE ONLY ALLOWED FORTY-FIVE." He eventually wrestles himself out of the decaying arms, trapped in one place with a threateningly pointed weapon. "We all know one of us is invalid. You let him live under this roof for decades as an extra body. He didn't even show up in the looming records if you somehow got a count of forty-five." He points one quivering finger at Theta and the now-silent Owis. "He deserves to die."

Quences sighs with all the passion of overseeing adolescent drama of jealousy, meandering to stand between the two parties. "It's a shame you killed Arkhew instead." Quences returns to his withering, wrinkled self in an instant, coughing a couple times for good measure.

Owis shivers under Theta's hands.

"It's also a shame I'm not dirt-stupid and had an idea of what you were up to." Quences looks to Owis, eyes drifting slightly to the right.

"I obviously failed," he spits, itching to but a bullet through Theta's head if his eyes communicate anything.

Quences chuckles. "Forty-six. You loomed number forty-six, now don't you start lying to me."

"Prove it."

"It's true." Everyone's head turns to Owis simultaneously, the small boy shying away from all the harsh gazes. His eyes are an angry red, fingertips weathered in stress. "He made me."

Glospin scoffs. "Oh how would you know?"

"You told me. And said you'd never leave my head."

Quences's sagging lips curl into a worried frown. "Are you implying this one had you under telepathic suggestion for your entire life?"

Owis bites his bottom lip, hyperventilation or tears threatening to make a reappearance. Theta directs all the calm he can through the hands on his shoulders, taking care to not let any reach Glospin. "He made me. And he dressed up like God and told me I was in some grand prophecy and had to…" he glances at Theta, barely, raw in apology. "kill Theta. Some day. And I'd save the planet from burning." He squeezes his eyes shut. "He'd tell me about that sometimes and dig up my memories."

"And you believed him?"

Owis taps the side of his head with two fingers. "He said God was always in me because I was integral to the prophecy, but it was just Glospin." He opens his eyes again, taking calculated, deep breaths.

"What was tonight's plan?" Quences asks in the kindest voice Theta has ever heard him use.

Theta rubs his right thumb along the top of Owis's shoulder blade, a primitive display of affectionate alliance.

"Tonight the prophecy was supposed to be fulfilled. Only I could kill Theta, purify Time Lord genetic code, maintain my rank in the Household, and save Gallifrey."

"You hated me that bad?" Theta demands. "You loomed and brainwashed a child to come murder me?"

Glospin shrugs. "You suffered in the process. It was kind of fun, because I know you're going to be caught eventually." He rolls his head to Quences. "By the way, Theta here—"

"Was initially born biologically. Any more brilliant insights, Glospin, or can I call the authorities now?"

Glospin needs to take a step back, the egotistical psychopath.

"You knew."

Quences rolls his eyes, even offering a hand to Theta. He doesn't take it. "Of course I ruddy knew. He didn't pop out the looms with a shirt on."

"Then you're responsible. For not dumping him out the fucking window when you had the chance."

Quences takes the hand he held out to Theta and uses it to strike Glospin across the face so hard he staggers back. "You are not to use vulgarity with me." Quences jerks his chin at Owis and Theta, who immediately scrambles to his feet. Owis follows. "Now go to your room, Glospinninymortheras. You're under arrest for a few things."

"And the thing's not?"

Quences takes a threatening step towards Glospin. "He hasn't broken the law. In fact, he prevented his own death without knowing its imminence."

"HIS EXISTENCE BREAKS THE LAW, YOU FOOL, ACCORDING TO RASSILON HIMSELF."

Quences grins, in a sense. "Go ahead, tell the law. But you'll have to get through me."

"I knew your mother." Theta doesn't know how how formal he is supposed to act around Quences. He might assume casual by the mug of coffee and oversized easychair, or very proper from his presence in the Housekeeper's quarters at all. Owis has a coffee, too, and eagerly sips away while stuck next to Theta in the chair. "Brilliant little Prydonian. I taught her, once upon a time."

Theta's toes curl into the burgundy carpet, sinking into the soft material springing out of the ground like grass. "Is that why you're helping me?"

Quences snorts, a sound easier matched by a bull than another Time Lord. "How much time do you have?" He takes an almighty swig of his coffee, just shy of slamming it on the end table. "It's a bit of a story."

He shrugs, perhaps tiredly. "I've got until I pass out from fatigue."

Raised eyebrows. "Better get going, then." Quences leans back in his chair, the poster boy of reminiscence. "Your mother came from a moon prison. One of the ones they've ignored for centuries, except for the biologists popping back every once in a while to check on them. She came from a district of psychopaths incarcerated under the second to last Pythia."

"So they weren't sterile."

Quences nods. "Exactly. Mixing in the psychopaths with the impulsive killers eventually cycled out the symptoms quite successfully, and by your mother's time, nobody knew any sort of life off the moon for centuries. Now, a few of them still had the common sense to try and find a way to Gallifrey, their proper home, but anyone who did was either sent back or shot."

"Then why did you say it's common sense?"

Quences silences Theta by the reappearance of his signature threatening stare.

"A few people were on to something, where the rest demanded immediate evacuation. Your grandmother started tinkering away at a neuro-implant the second she felt your mother kick, filling it with all she'd need to know in time to come back and get them all out one day. She was stuck in a pod at four years old with a supposedly 'faulty' implant on a timer, a red blanket, and the driver her mother managed to win over. A satellite house of Blyledge took her in. Sent her to school. She didn't know any better until the eighth year in my gerontology class.

"She started figuring out how to reverse ageing and contain regenerative energy with obsessive passion, day in, day out. She'd never explain why, even after proposing it for her final project. Took her months and the threat of failing the assignment under lack of approval, but I'll be damned she decided to trust me. 'My family's on a moon,' she said. 'I need to go save them 'cause they only have one life in there'." Quences sighs, downing the rest of his coffee in one go.

"She figured it out, presented it to the class, and I had to report it to the higher-ups."

"Why?" Owis asks, rapt.

"It's illegal," Quences snaps, as if hitting Owis with a rubber band. "Can you imagine what would happen if we could give away whole lives in bottles?"

"Sorry," he squeaks.

"Sisterhood of Karn is bad enough. Anyways. I called the Academy's administration, they tried summoning her to the main office, but being herself, she ran off after punching me in the face. I could have stopped her if I tried. I thought she would so easily be caught, running off with a bottle of gold. She evidently had a very effective escape plan.

"I didn't hear from her until I was two years retired to Housekeeper. She sent me a note and the untouched bottle, talking this and that about finding a 'natural' tribe, running off with a man, having a baby. Problem was, the authorities had to do their homework on her after she ran off, criminal records and all that. Didn't take them long. Now, in the grand scheme of things, because I turned her in, she had to start running for her life instead of living it properly. Said I therefore owe her a favour of equal proportion, and that I'll know when the time comes and that her baby already sentenced to execution will probably be involved because I couldn't keep my mouth shut."

"Do you regret it?" Theta blurts, not knowing which answer he'd prefer: the compassionate legacy or the predictable spite.

It takes him a few seconds to contemplate the answer. "Do I regret the fact she had to do what she did instead of live like she should have? I'd be cruel if I didn't. I do not, however, regret preventing global discord by having a moon's worth of a different species flooding the planet and flipping order upside down."

"Then what was your deal with 'You'll have to get through me' business?"

Owis winces in Theta's peripheral vision from the almost-shouting, but he doesn't care.

"Theta Sigma, you're hardly fifty years old, blood still pumping unbridled passion. One day you'll understand."

"Understand what?! Thats it's correct to make a distinction between us on the scale of an entire species? That keeping rightful Time Lords on a moon stripped down to a fraction of their life is right?"

"I am not an advocate of unnecessary murder." Quences barks over Theta. "And I believe your mother was right in asking me this favour, so I have obliged. So just for one second think of the implications of a million outlaws crashing down to Gallifrey in demand of racial equality."

Theta swallows, slouching back in the chair. "There would be death."

"I am risking your life, sending you to that Academy. I am risking incarceration for keeping a fugitive of the law, the fact alone you are Prydonian puts this House on a list I was removed from once I resigned my teaching post. Your mother asked me to keep you alive but still send you to that school. Be grateful I didn't throw you to the wolves when you were loomed."

Theta's lips have been threaded shut, the righteous wisdom of Quences providing no gaps to unravel his argument with.

"Is she still alive?" Owis whispers, knuckles tensed against the mug he seemed to hold so gently. "Theta's mother."

Quences shrugs. "She could be anyone, if she got away in time. It doesn't take much on a planet so large." He reaches to the drawer of the end table without looking, creaking the ancient urn apart.

Theta shouldn't be surprised Quences holds a dusty jar swimming with golden light. "The third term of my favour." He tosses it to Theta, who would have dropped it if Owis didn't clamp his hands around Theta's. "You get your full regenerative cycle as a product of the looms. I'm giving you 250 millilitres of illegal fluid, now please use it for something useful."

"What's her name?" Theta whispers, as not to disrupt the swimming gold.

"Which one? You're Prydonian. You know a thing or two."

"Her real name."

Quences unsettles himself from his chair, by act alone pulling Theta and Owis from theirs. He doesn't speak for long enough, and Theta wonders if he ever will. "Hope."

###

"Did you get that sonic thingy?" Koschei just about pounces on Theta when his feet drag into the room, frightening Arkhew out of his head for a terrified second.

"The… what?" Koschei pulls him into the bedroom that is clearly marked Theta Sigma, hardly giving him time to walk past the door frame before smothering him in an irrationally colossal hug.

"Device to molecularly dissociate CaSO4 and some odd sort of wood maybe, about the size of a wall." Theta is trying to make sense of being affectionately suffocated, told to obliterate a wall, and where he put the sonic thingy all at once, producing what Koschei can perceive as scattered tadpoles.

"Well I haven't exactly finished it," Theta mumbles, trying to peel Koschei off of him to no avail. "And I can't breathe."

"If you can complain about it, you're breathing." Theta physically gives up trying, communicating simultaneous contempt and the current state of his just past prototypical sonic molecular dissociation thingy. He finds the ridiculously long hug actually okay.

Now we have something to do when we're bored. The thought goes straight into his head now, both of them rehearsed well enough to escape the awkward misdirected strands of thought.

It took off my roommate's finger. The day he killed my cousin.

Koschei slips into his head without the same fervour as he pounced on Theta, expertly shifting around the TARDIS and looking for the right cube. Theta pushes him off as nicely as he can muster.

"I do not want to watch that again." Koschei has adopted some intermittent grin at Theta's general presence in the room, now coupled with a bashful nod. Theta doesn't know quite what to do with his newfound lack of physical barricades. "We could just break it down with a hammer."

Koschei pulls Theta by the arm to the window, throwing it open to let the grey sky liven things up a little. "We'd make enough noise to wake Rassilon from his grave." Koschei is to his immediate left for but a second, moving on to the strewn about mess on his bed. Despite his dignified petulance, Theta sort of just wants a hug and someone to tell him something irrelevant and stupid to bring his mind back to the mostly sane world.

"Besides." Koschei grins at Theta, somewhere between sly mischief and an overwhelming giddiness at his stark existence. "I've had a great idea."

Theta's brain is annoyed with him and his weirdly nonsensical ideas but lets his body do them anyways, a clumsily orchestrated envelopment of tissues and fabric following suit. The one thing Koschei never does is hold Theta in the palm of his hand like a hollowed wasp's nest about to fall apart, the opposing sour extreme of being a self-confirmed heathen. For all the internal noise and external oddities, he got that part right. The combination of offset heartbeats walks the border between symphony and cacophony, and it really just wouldn't be worth it any other way.

###

Theta and Koschei are crammed under a bed, pillows and blankets barricading everything but an arm hole. There was always the slight chance something might backfire and blow the school to kingdom come, but after two weeks of trial runs and mostly good ideas, the blankets and pillows seemed to suffice.

Theta's continued existence is empirical proof of kingdom come deciding to spare them for now, any kind of result still hidden in his cramped quarters. Koschei, however, got sole claim of the arm hole.

The phosphorescence in his voice speaks enough. "We could rule a galaxy, Thete."

Koschei knocks over their barricade, a dim glow from the shut window the only source of illumination. The wall is reduced to two wooden beams and a smattering of dust in a symmetrical arrangement on the floor. Theta nearly bangs his head on the bed frame as Koschei pulls him out by both arms, excitedly sweeping together a handful of their dust, destroying the perfect image. "You and me, give it a couple hundred years. The Sol system."

Theta raises his eyebrows sceptically.

"I'm serious!"

"Good luck with getting off the planet in the first place." Theta works himself to his feet.

Koschei's bed rests innocently past the wooden beams, gutted and inverted and slapped together into a lab table of sorts. They have a vision of papering the walls in scientific things, but thus far have only achieved the periodic table of elements and standard model of elementary particles. It might help if either of them could think of something else to plaster on.

"When you think about it," Koschei blows their dust into the air, thankfully not at Theta's face, watching it disperse before him. "Any Time Lord could rule a planet if they wanted to."

"We're going to be breathing all that, you know." Light falls on the side of Koschei's nose and bottom lip and a touch of his forehead, and the faintest of white scars that always shone in the dark.

"Can't hurt much." All the light shifts on his face, or his face merely shifts. "We've got a bit of shopping to do."

Theta paces to the window, retracting the shade to let sunlight back in. It blinds him in white for a second, but soon gives way to the sporting field and scattered trees and river beyond. He can feel Koschei somewhere near behind him, his thoughts sanctioned to let their way idly into Theta's. He is conceptualising a massive number of possibilities to all fit in the next few years, the quantum state of time. Theta almost shivers. "Where d'you want to start then?"

Fingers ever so gently find their way to the base of his neck. The tiny lab experiments turn into rocketing celestial bodies and shining planets and alien landscapes they only dream of seeing, laced with regenerative gold and the silver of distant stars. A monumentally simple tale of running away and speeding through the cosmos without knowing precisely how to fly a TARDIS, but good enough to ramble about the universe. Where d'you want to start, then?

He accidentally just barely lets the inkling of his tiny plan through, anticipating the ends to his means within the next seven seconds. Somebody normal wouldn't catch it, and Theta might ignore it if it weren't much more fun to thwart his plans.

Theta turns around with a teaspoon of a leer. "You'll have to do better than that."

"Oh, piss off." Koschei keeps him trapped against the wall in well-rehearsed osculation. No matter how much theoretical biological research they did trying to explain it, neither of them could quite grasp the true function of kissing. Often randomly initiated, in early days deliberated, and in the best of times, reiterated.

Theta covers Koschei's mouth with one hand to get words out properly, knowing very well he could just think them, but knowing doubly well they'd be forgotten in under thirty seconds. "Artificial botanical biology." He lets his head rest against the wall, grinning. "Let's make a bunch of leaves."

Chapter Text

"There is no spoon!" Ushas yells from two rooms down, voice carrying surprisingly well across the hall and into the control room. It has come to the point of her acting as an involuntary peacemaker between two halves of the room, one containing Jelpax and Vansell, the other Theta and Koschei.

"I frankly have no idea what's going on between you all, but there is no cutlery in the kitchen. None. And I don't want to go outside in the searing heat again because nobody else will unless you're in specific twos and even then won't approach the bloody door at the same time."

"Sorry, Ushas, we can go get food." Jelpax says with over-exaggerated sweetness, having Vansell walk up immediately behind them and being nearly dwarfed by their height. They nod in the direction of Theta and Koschei upon exit, letting the TARDIS door creak closed behind them both.

Ushas walks over to the remaining two with a gait of complete doneness with everything, clasping her hands together in front of her. "Alright, what the hell is going on?"

"We disagree on multiple points." Theta supplies after a number of seconds, getting up at the same time as Koschei - the synchronisation verging on slightly creepy now - walking over to check something or other on the TARDIS control panel. Koschei only turns on the monitor to see their opposite pair walk out.

"No, no, no, not him. Everyone knows your eternal beef with Vansell." She stands immediately before Theta, arms folded, back straightened in the authority she can only don in the presence of a select few. "You two are practically hermits half the time, and in the other half you won't say a single fact to anybody. You're a horrible liar, Thete."

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Okay even I didn't believe that one, Theta."

He finds a single hand gesture sufficient to reply to this criticism.

Ushas makes her way in between the mutually put-off Theta and Koschei, fingers scarred in a few places from biology experiments gone awry. "What I'm saying is, you all might be a little more accessible to your actual friends if you acted for maybe an hour as two entirely distinct and non-mysterious entities."

The control panel of the TARDIS makes a few noises before calming down completely, rather settled into the state of being immobile on the face of a now-too-hot planet. The two on her sides don't speak or essentially acknowledge her, rather contrary to what used to happen every time they'd get into a petty scuffle.

She applies a better strategy. "Remember that one time in year five we went to Arcadia for something and Theta started crying?"

Theta considers punching her in the arm, before remembering who he's talking to. "Let's not go there."

Koschei starts laughing dryly, walking around the console in their direction. "You thought I was lost."

"You'd be panicking if all of a sudden I wasn't there!"

"Ushas wasn't!"

Theta folds his arms, trying to bite back a smile.

"That's because our entire friendship at the time was based solely on me being smarter than you two."

"It was not!" they both protest simultaneously, receiving a smirk from Ushas in the middle.

"Yeah, it was." Ushas reclines smugly, empress of their quantised blip in time.

Theta sighs the temporarily transcendental sort of breath. "I kinda miss those days."

"Can't say I'll miss you being nostalgic," Ushas retorts before he can keep talking, robes noticeably stained in one place that refuses to be washed out or replaced.

"Nah, but the running around outside and you being all smart with your biology and getting us to shut up on cue."

"That was a rather impressive trait." Koschei points out, turning to face her and Theta properly on the slightly angled bench that is furniture in a circular room.

"I can still manage it."

Theta flicks her ponytail, for old times' sake. "No doubt about it."

Jelpax opens the door to find Theta, Ushas, and Koschei all laughing too hard for sanity in various places along the control panel, multiple pillows strewn about the floor looking rather beat up.

"Um." Jelpax says, Vansell having to push past them to enter the room properly as they had stopped, looking rather confused at the whole spectacle.

"Does it take that long to pick up a few sandwiches?" Ushas asks, leaning against the console for support, trying to calm down laughter with heaving breaths.

"How old are you three, exactly?" Vansell enquires, taking the bag from Jelpax and placing it as far away from Theta and Koschei as he can get on the control panel. "Twenty? Twenty two?"

"Shut up, Vansell, nobody likes you." Theta manages to say all at once, laughter beginning to calm itself down. "Can you pass me a ham, Ushas?"

"You can get your own ham." Ushas peers into the bag as Jelpax walks into the room properly, already eating a sandwich. Beef.

"We've still got about three hours until sundown, if anyone here is actually interested in passing the course," they announce to the room, having given up, leaning against a corner of the railing. "I've heard it's a wise idea to observe socio-logistics before the population's gone to sleep."

"Who even picked this spot? The city layout is ridiculous." Vansell positions himself a fair distance away from Jelpax, but much further from the rest of the ship's inhabitants. A lone pair, indeed.

"I froze to death last time, and don't want to melt with the only other option available." Koschei fires back, still grinning at his sandwich from days gone by.

"Climate aside, we're not sitting here for the next three hours bickering." Ushas swallows her sandwich, regarding it as a wilted plant.

"You have fraternised with the enemy, Ushas," Theta attempts in a warning voice with residual giggling attached from the last conversation. Everyone else has stopped being excessively jovial.

"I've been neutral ground since you walked into science late and we learnt about the seasons." She shoulders open the door, letting white light spill in through the opening, a contrast to the bluish hue these old TARDISes give off. "Come on, then."

Within five minutes, Jelpax and Ushas simultaneously agreed it would do them all well to split up and minimise the childish insults thrown back and forth across some unspoken restraining order. Theta has thus far looked suspiciously cheerful for someone forced to wander the cosmos in extreme limits, revelling in the different things people are doing that are in no way different than anyone else. Ushas thinks he's trying to pretend Vansell doesn't exist or has been "vanquished", as was his verbatim plea half an hour ago.

"Can we go in there?" Theta asks for what must be the fifth time. He points to a building that doesn't match all the small houses, doors admitting a number of people who come in and out through the streets. The vehicles only hover around here, not flying like everyone expected them to. Ushas grumbles something about staying on-topic, still jotting down an outline of an answer to some question that's actually relevant to the project, which she's done roughly three times her assigned portion of.

"I think that's an office building, Thete," Koschei supplies for her, silently securing Theta's forearm in his hand to prevent him from running off. Not that he'd get very far without slamming into someone. Every person passing by has adopted the practice of pretending the three are invisible. Or giving them a lot of unnecessary room.

"That looks nothing like an office building. This thing is all curves and architecture, not squares and windows."

Ushas rolls her eyes. "You ran into someone's yard because you thought it was an alley, do you really think they'll have normal office buildings?"

"Who says we're not the abnormal ones?" he says, attempting to locate an alternate point of interest he might persuade Ushas into entering.

"We are wearing Prydonain robes."

Ushas glares at Koschei. "Don't you side with him now."

"He always sides with me."

Ushas pretends to gag off to the side, which she thinks only an hour later may have not been the greatest idea in the middle of a street. People walk past them on both sides, sidewalks old-fashioned and raised above the road. No pedestrian markings.

"We need to find a religious landmark of some form," Ushas tells them, ignoring the fact Koschei is still holding onto Theta's forearm and they've both started gazing off into the distance in opposite directions. It's like talking to a couple of rabbits. "That interesting enough, Theta?"

Theta doesn't respond, now looking at his shoes and the slightly beat up hem of his robes. "This was a bad idea."

"Well yeah; it was Vansell's," Koschei says, leaving Ushas wondering how they somehow know every undefined 'it' without a hiccough in communication.

"So which one of you is asking directions?" Ushas can feel the wire tying her hair starting to slip, itching to pull it back but irrationally afraid of making some rude gesture. It's been a customary phobia ever since Drax bit the side of his thumb on the last trip, saved only by profuse explanation from his peers he is a hopeless vegetable with no understanding of social cues. It took some convincing to get him out of his bedroom after that.

"Don't we get a map?" Theta asks her, more consumed with inspecting the cylindrical silicon chrome house beside him, vines creeping in and out of windows.

"We're supposed to ask directions this time, which you'd know, if either of you paid any attention."

The three of them timidly walk through a posse of less professionally dressed adults, who all glace at them thrice in quick succession. Koschei and Theta look at each other, leaving an impatient Ushas to manage affairs. As per usual.

"Excuse me, sir," she starts, walking up to the nearest unmoving being in the vicinity, all shockingly white skin and black clothes. "Do you happen to know where the nearest religious establishment is?"

The man looks down at her, then to Theta and Koschei, voiding his face of emotion. Ushas stands awkwardly in front of him, torn between asking again or walking away. She waits, and the man looks to the right of them, maybe giving a direction, maybe only obscuring them from his line of sight.

Ushas tightens the wire in her hair, looking once to the single sun and back again to the man before her. "I'm asking—"

"I heard you," he tells her without looking at them, tapping his foot impatiently.

She swallows, mouth gone dry, feeling something in her gut creep up on her. "Well that's—"

"We're going, Ushas." Theta pats her on the shoulder, weaving through the thinning mass of people and veering off onto what is (probably) a side road. Someone notices them turning the corner, pointing it out to their gaggle of girls and hushing them all. Within fifteen seconds, everyone standing on the sidewalk is looking at them sideways, halting conversations, waiting for them to speak.

Theta lets go of Koschei's arm, stepping forward into the street only pedestrians are seemingly allowed to traverse. "Um… We're looking for this neighbourhood's sanctuary. We're uh," he looks down at his robes, "obviously from out of town." All the people in this town have the exact same colour of skin, but their hair ranges from black to orange to deep blue. Nobody speaks.

"Do we have translation equipment?" Koschei whispers from behind him, Theta still looking for an answer from the audience refusing to speak.

Ushas shakes her head. "We don't need it. Everyone here speaks Gallifreyan."

"It's not a Time Lord colony, though."

Theta takes a step further into the crowd, mainly composed of people who appear to be their own age. "Should I know something?" he asks them, spared the need for an answer with the sound of Vansell's voice carrying down the road.

"HOW DARE YOU ADDRESS ME IN THAT WAY? I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I'M FROM THE NOBLEST CHAPTER OF GALLIFREYAN HERITAGE."

Rassilon help us— VANSELL!" Ushas shouts, running down the street and through the scattering of crowd that has part to let her through. Everyone begins turning to Theta, who Koschei has begun pulling by the arm after Ushas.

"Do you have anything on under that?" Theta tries asking Koschei, who is trying to hone in on the absurd yelling of Vansellostophossius.

"Is this really the time?"

"I mean, if you're not half naked, you can try not looking like a pretentious ass and maybe get an answer from someone!"

Ushas disappears behind a house, running through someone's yard to try and get to Vansell quicker, who Koschei is heavily considering running away from instead. There is the sound of flesh hitting flesh and a body hitting gravel, followed by some shouted defence from Jelpax and an increase in screaming from Vansell. "I WAS A CHILD AT YOUR AGE. YOU LOT WITHER AND DIE IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE, NO WONDER WE—"

One person pins down Vansell as another covers his mouth with one hand, screaming now muffled through flesh. Jelpax is trying to combat three people, holding them back from Vansell, Ushas already with a bloody nose backing against the wall. People have started talking, now, but not to them. None of the bystanders want to help, standing aside comfortably in groups and muttering things about Prydonians. Theta pulls Koschei back into the shadows, sun already setting and casting long shadows over everything. Another thing they didn't think about. Day/night cycle.

They all look like they could be their age, but they can't be older than eighteen. The life span of these people is tiny compared to Time Lords, something Vansell deemed safe to flaunt in front of them. A red orb hangs in the sky, visible now as the sky begins darkening. Of course it's Gallifrey.

"YOU BETTER BE DOING SOMETHING USEFUL, THETA." Jelpax yells over the noise of people already scrambling, Ushas finding a rock on the ground and nearly hitting someone repeatedly, too scared to make a mark and too anxious to fail being useful. She only hits him once he turns around. They initially tried to retaliate but were stopped, a sharp amount of impact on correct pressure points causing most to fall to the ground near-instantly, the rest to be weakened enough after a few hits.

Theta looks from Ushas to Vansell to Jelpax and back to Koschei. "We need to help him."

"You're going to get the shit beat out of you."

"We can't just leave them all!"

Vansell looks at them now, or likely in their general direction, curled in on himself and dripping blood from his nose and his lip. Koschei still, by some force incomprehensible to Theta Sigma, doesn't actually care. "It serves him right! You can't just go around screaming—"

"Koschei!" The look of shocked confusion lacing his open mouth is halted by Jelpax shouting

"THETA SIGMA."

Theta finds a rock on the ground, running at whoever's going after Ushas, looking back at Koschei in the process. Vansell is still screaming, but now stares at Koschei, who is being yelled at by Theta to "RUN YOU IDIOT."

Koschei runs, Vansell staring him down as he leaves, the crowd around them watching Koschei and Theta and Ushas and Jelpax and Vansell and all gossipping about the cruelty of Time Lords.

Too proud to claim any of their injuries were that bad and too scared to ask why in Rassilon's name there was absolutely nothing outlining the Obraeonites's millennium of slavery, Vansell's withdrawl from the planet is watched in silence. Koschei found the tabernacle they were looking for, betting on the religious order to perhaps not endorse the beating to death of a person. Not that Vansell was necessarily in fear of his life, but from what they've learnt so far about the planet's history and Time Lords…

Theta holds a chunk of ice to his eye, shouldering open the door of their TARDIS and stepping into perhaps the safest spot on the planet. He sits on the metallic stairs, Koschei following to sit next to him, Jelpax storming in after Ushas, overly distressed. Their hair is flat on one side and sticking up on the other, combed through multiple times with preoccupied hands.

They look distraught for a number of seconds at the three more tired than anything else, madly gesturing in silence to various points in the sky before uttering "How could they beat up a kid?"

Koschei rolls his eyes, leaning against Theta instead of the railing because his shoulder's a bit more comfortable. "He's actually an adult, relative to their lifespan, so there's no point in arguing."

"Not to mention we were all wearing these bloody robes," Theta chimes in, looking to Ushas for some typically-timed insight.

Jelpax is at a loss for words, again returning to making constrained gestures at places, eventually deciding to march up the steps between them all. "I'm going to bed."

Koschei raises his eyebrows at Ushas, who has now turned to face them both. "You're the smart one, have any relevant information you've withheld?"

A section of her hair has come out of its tie, stuck at an awkward angle around her shoulder. "It's really not hard to guess."

"Yes it is," Koschei mutters.

Ushas shrugs. "How do you think all our time travel technology was mass-produced? We didn't exactly have a large population at the beginning of our history. The people here multiplied and are cheap, low-maintenance. Feed them and water them and they die after a short bit to be replaced with fresh stock. Easy."

"Gotta love this planet," Theta sighs, inspecting a newly-discovered cut on his arm. "I am actually not surprised they didn't inform us of this."

"Despite the fact it happened a hundred years ago, relative to this planet." Koschei rolls his eyes. "I still blame Vansell."

Ushas seems to notice the flaw in her hair and begins tying it back up. Theta and Koschei often wonder why she doesn't just chop it all off if it acts as such a nuisance to her. "There's a debate that won't get settled." Ushas picks up a slate, somewhat satisfied with her mangled hair, silently tapping away into something relevant. Koschei only gets progressively more tired leaning on Theta's bony shoulder.

"What're you doing, Ushas?" Koschei asks in a slightly slurred voice after a couple minutes.

"Trying to find a complete timeline of this planet. It should mention slavery in general…"

"Can't we just leave it at 'Time Lords have been trash since the start'? It's quicker."

Ushas looks up the couple of stairs at the pair of them and does a double-take, smirking back down at the slate. "You two should go to bed."

"I'd rather read the newspaper."

Koschei glances sidelong at Theta. He notices.

"We don't get one of those, do we?"

"We don't get paper in general, much less—"

"Yeah I know I meant research current events or like…"

"Theta, what on Gallifrey is a newspaper?"

"Are you laughing at me?"

Koschei looks down at his legs. "I am merely confused and find entertainment in your attempts to explain the term 'newspaper', do continue."

Theta punches him lightly in the arm, not long before wincing under the action itself in context.

"Okay, I actually want to know what a newspaper is. Could you explain?"

Theta cannot tell if Koschei actually means this, but acquiesces under fatigue and the look he's being given. "A good number of less developed cultures would become aware of local and international proceedings by means of a stack of paper with stories printed on. On Sol III it was customary to read this in the morning with coffee and breakfast."

"Here." Ushas interrupts, handing both of them in general the slate, which is taken by Koschei. "Eighty-six years ago the first wave were taken and about half returned under a year later, aged up to five decades."

Theta looks at the screen, and eventually peels Koschei off him to walk upstairs. "Well. I'm going to bed."

Koschei raises his eyebrows at Ushas, not to be downtrodden. "I think I have an idea."

Ushas smiles. "You're also half-asleep."

Theta may have been more concerned with Koschei's apparent lack of feeling towards Vansell being beating within an inch of his life were he not experiencing something downright adorable. Koschei woke him up earlier than anyone had planned to dress them up in ratty clothes and pass as poor civilians. He dragged him out the TARDIS doors by the hand with little effort.

Without letting Theta get a word in edgewise, Koschei has been telling him about some art exhibition taking place, all the while maintaining a grip on his hand that would suggest Theta's been trying to run off. At first, he would take a breath to correct one fact or another and be met with a stern gaze and no break in narration. Koschei turns down streets as if walking to his destination by memory, Theta now content to listen to the tirade of information rushing out of his mouth like an affectionately rehearsed soliloquy, ignoring his tiny errors. The first mentioned art show has been lost to all-encompassing art history of Obraeon, sky still caught in the glassy state of sunrise. A faint mist hangs in the air. It seeps into Theta's clothes and skin everywhere Koschei isn't touching. He is still being pulled along a side street, a kind of glint in Koschei's eyes telling Theta clear enough they've almost made it.

"Currently, Obraeon art culture has reached a mainstream era of surrealism, a subliminal theme of capture versus freedom appearing in many works." Theta smiles at a passerby who returns the gesture, perhaps oblivious to the harm
a red gown can do. Theta would rather be constantly dressed like a ruffian if it meant he could wander through worlds like anyone else.

Koschei has not stopped speaking and Theta has not stopped listening, looking for some indication of an art-related exhibition underway. "A highly under-appreciated surrealist artist from Sol III is Rob Gonsalves, early twenty first century. I'd easily put one of his paintings on my wall." Theta bites back an ecstatic grin before letting it consume his expression anyways. He included Sol III, no matter how completely irrelevant it always is.

Koschei has stopped walking for the first time in fifteen minutes next to what looks like another back alley, beaming at his accomplishment to be. "Come see."

He leads Theta into the alleyway, and his eyes are immediately assaulted by unexpected colour. Every square inch of the walls are covered in paint, none of it thrown on in haste or in spite. None of the images overlap and yet they all blend together, faint borders determined by expertly manipulated dripping and fail proof firm adhesive.

Theta's mouth hangs just slightly open. "It's history." The walls are a scattered story of an entire planet, depicted in impossible ways just shy of reality. Time Lords record their history in pretentious permanence, fortified in the minds of the dead for anyone worthy enough to tap into. Their slaves, the people living in a shadow of the grand race they are forced to bow to, turn their lives into beauty that will wear to dust in time.

Koschei keeps taking. "On Sol III and many other planets, this style of art is technically against the law. However, it's not typically of this detail and patience, and if circumstances were differe—" he is cut off by Theta, who has a little too enthusiastically pulled him by the shirt front into him. His hands are still curled into the old fabric as he kisses him, trying to force the smile off his face unsuccessfully.

"What did you do that for?" Koschei asks, the sudden jolt of whatever bright emotion from Theta sliding into his head almost on its own.

"You don't give a damn about art," he argues, moving his hands to Koschei's back. "Or Earth, for that matter."

Koschei kisses him back, gentle as the mist, letting words trickle through his fingers and lips instead of so crudely out loud. You love species on their planets with their ways of telling a story. You love that primitive Sol III the most and that's where we're going first. Thought I'd read up on it.

There is a minuscule portion of his brain telling him off for acting irrationally and begins trying to list obvious contextual facts, brushed aside in favour of an all-consuming, resounding I am not stuck. So long as he's holding onto the idiot in front of him, he is not forever stuck.

However, you have an extremely limited time frame to exist in this alleyway, and it would be better spent without your eyes open. Koschei steps away from Theta with a grin matching Theta's reddening face. He is smacked in the shoulder. "I wasn't the one kissing you in the middle of a public art exhibition."

"Yeah, but you're the one reading my mind," he mumbles in return, caught between sarcasm and a grin that will nOT STAY DOWN

"Doesn't count when you're practically yelling—"

"Oh, go look at a painting!" Theta turns his back with that very intention, feeling some kind of affectionate laughter in the back of his head.

Show off, he thinks, knowing very well Koschei will hear it like catching a detached leaf.

The painting in front of him would have told him everything they needed to know last night. An Obraeonite body has been forced into the shape of a grandfather clock, face withering as the hands etched into its face almost reach 12:00. The bright red grass around the body has grown almost to his face, bending in a wind that isn't really there, white stars painted in a dark orange sky.

"The grass looks more like blood than Gallifrey." Koschei says, standing next to Theta, looking at the neighbouring picture.

"It'd be more accurate if it was."

Theta doesn't see the touch of serenity on Koschei's lips and the eyes so obviously not looking at a painting, oblivious to his thoughts being soaked up like a sponge from barely two feet away.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

“Theta Sigma!” Her shrill voice pierces every not good thing around her, at least in Theta’s head. Innocet’s given him the talk about how perpetually great she is multiple times, but it does not erase the fact he’s trying not to shove her to the ground and run away screaming for dear life because it’s  the fiancée . Who wouldn’t actually be that bad out of context, but to him is the symbolism of everything gruesome, and that can never be something to make nice with. Much less make friends with. Or a proper husband, when the day he never speaks of arrives.

"Patience!” he calls in return, not trying to not sound sarcastic. “How have you been?”

She gives a fake pout. “Someone’s swallowed a lemon, have they?”

“Nah, just got back from school.” Quences hovers ever too old for his regenerations in the background, making sure Theta doesn’t misbehave more than he already has. “Would you like some coffee?”

She laughs as if nothing’s been wrong, which Theta supposes is in her job description as well. He could be kind to her all his days, the pair of them bonding over having to one day end up stuck with each other. It could work out at that level; just friends. But it won’t, just because Theta has accepted his own bitter regard of other Time Lords and can’t bring himself to try. So in the end, his discontent is his own fault.

“So what are you studying nowadays?” he asks her, sipping the bitter brown liquid he’s never really cared for.

“I’m a bit of an artist, I’ve decided. Chemistry, aesthetic mathematics, 3D modelling, and you know, visual art. Those things.”

“Chemistry. So you’re not just making art, you’re making the things to make art with.”

She hums. “In a way. It’s hard to find art supplies as a Patrex, so I thought I’d find something in the Matrix to help me with it.” She sips her coffee, dark brown hair blowing slightly about her petite face in the wind. They’ve situated themselves outside as to avoid intrusions on conversation, nature alone giving the feel of hardly any intimacy for the birds and the ever-so-faint noises of the city not so far off.

“What are you studying, then?”

The lie unfolds. Not a whole lie, but enough to be just not Theta Sigma. “TARDIS mechanics and temporal physics. Engineering as well.”

“A mechanic, then? I thought you were pursuing xenobiology.”

“Well, a bit on the side. I’ve always had a liking for it, but not really as a career.”

“I’ve got a friend going into xenobiology. Cerulean, too. They’ve always spent too much time around plants.”

Theta forces a chuckle, the idea dull as a joke as much as a reality. “They in your House?”

“No. They live in the neighbouring city, small household of four. Some people wonder if they’re born, but it’s really a Warpsmith satellite.”

Theta shifts his eyes down, tapping one foot against the dead-looking reddish grass beneath him. “I never understood how that actually worked. I mean, Pythia’s curse got all of Gallifrey—”

“But not all Time Lords were on Gallifrey the whole time.”

Theta nods, as if enlightened all of a sudden about his parentage. “Fair point. I hadn’t thought about that.” He has learnt in all his years to sound completely neutral on the topic, then sway whichever way everyone else goes.

She looks to the side for a moment, considering something not important enough for Theta to try and find telepathically. He was never really very good at it, anyways. “Makes you wonder…”

He sips his coffee, contemplating the slightly downcast stare on Patience’s face. “Wonder what?”

She takes a breath, almost encompassing the about to have an edgy conversation demeanour as part of a conversation that cannot be very edgy in Theta’s context. “Well, I wonder if they have unlimited regenerations. Or a different number or something. Because really, Time Lords have before been granted more by the government for whatever reason, and so they’ve got full authority over it. I mean, what if we were all just regulated and naturally born could live on forever?”

Theta leans back, taking two quick gulps of brown ick he’s pretending to like. Similarly to everything else. “We’d be gods if we lived forever, don’t you think?”

Patience settles back in her chair, reinstating the distance between Theta didn’t realise they had lost. “I suppose we would.”

“We all need to experience death, I think.” Theta finishes the coffee, banishing his cup to their small table. He lets air escape his lips in a lazy wave, imagining the particles crashing into the atmosphere and causing waves around her coffee. “I think… maybe we’ve always had twelve. And they get extra lives from criminals.”

She nods. “Could be. There are probably enough charges of murder to compensate for the number of added distributions.”

“But they’ve discontinued extracting lives across Wild Endeavour, and they keep pumping it out.”

She sets down the cup across from Theta’s and folds her arms across her chest. “And they have huge stores of it in hospitals.”

“They do! You just never consider—”

“It comes from actual people?” She winces when Theta tenses for a moment at being interrupted. But despite everything in himself, he manages a faint smile.

“Exactly.”

They remain silent for a few seconds, tumultuous pros and cons of telling racing through Theta’s head. It pains him to think so, but she’s smarter than he thought. “You know what they have on the moons?”

“Enlighten me.”

“High-security prisons, where everyone gets one life. You know how long ago they were built?”

“Centuries.”

“If that’s eleven lives per person, and they’re constantly breeding,”

“Hospitals get the runoff.”

“And biochemists, and anyone mass-producing medicine, and so on.”

He has to smile at her fascination. “You just… never wonder with these things.”

Theta shakes his head.

It took him more years it probably should have to figure out why his mother only got one life along with the rest of them. It’s horrendous, of course, but at the same time peacefully satisfying. All their missing lives are transplanted in different lives, in small fractions. They need somebody to do it, so why not them? Which is a cruel justification for a farm of sentient species, but someone, somewhere, needs to do it.

###

To say they didn’t pick fights, cooped up in a sketchy DIY laboratory with a whole lot of chemistry to mutually distract each other from for hours, would be an outright lie. Out of spite, the mattress would be wordlessly dragged as far away from the complete bed as possible, rotations of who sleeps where intentionally infringed upon for lack of a better excuse. They’d whine and bicker and fight and shout and sometimes come out with hoarse, unstructured hateful things that mean nothing, days starting with what the next project is supposed to be and ending with accusations of who did what to fuck up my whatever important aspect of life, followed by the why are you still here, then? that profusely begs forgiveness by morning.

Today falls in the mid-high of severities, an already strung-out Koschei being totally not directly picked on by Theta for forgetting this and breaking that and it’s such a pain it has to be made or found or mixed or imagined again. It’s the acidic sound in his voice that comes spitting out that usually starts the back talk, the sound beckoning to be challenged, to be mixed with detergent and turned into salt water.

If their lives were a dramatic film, the small dish of hydrogen peroxide would be falling in slow motion, impact in a perfect design of smashing and liquid spreading out across the floor in elegant spines. As it happens, it sort of spills a bit on the table and then rolls off and dumps the rest out before falling with a dissatisfying thunk, ignored by everyone as Theta has just been shut up by a smack to the face with the back of a hand that hasn’t tried that before.

Being on the same side of the table has its disadvantages when you’re no good at fist fighting and the cruelty hasn’t given way for remorse to fit in yet. Koschei is immediately grabbed by the front of his getting-to-be-discoloured robes, wrestled to the wall, and had his head smacked against it. The previously perceived good idea turns into a desperate assault of limbs against the body trying to pin him down, pushing back the majority of all his attempts to kick and elbow and shove the body away and it’s not working.

“For good reason, too,” Theta dictates aloud, pulling Koschei off the wall.

He frankly should have known Theta would retaliate like that. What he was thinking otherwise, it would take some strong telepathy to figure out.

He stomps out of the room just barely as Theta starts to say or shout or sputter something, not even bothering to shut the door behind him. It makes Theta run at least a little bit after him, if only to prevent anyone from seeing their wall (or, lack thereof).

Magnus, the only one in their corner of the commons, briefly glances up from a number of maps strewn about the small coffee table, waiting to speak until his company sits precariously between two slightly curled pieces of informative cardstock. Koschei can make out some sort of militaristic terminology, but as Magnus routinely informs everybody listening, the Prydonian Academy doesn’t teach anything about war.

Without looking up properly for some kind of dramatic effect, he casually announces “I’m dropping out.” There’s only a slight tremor in his voice, implicit of rehearsed announcement and prior thought.

Wait. “You’re dropping out of the Academy?”

“No, Omega Xi. The farmer’s market. The Academy hasn’t done me much good, has it?”

Well, no, but reminding a militaristic soldier-or-something-to-be of his list of classes failed is not wise. “I thought you had to be a qualified Junior Time Lord to enlist.”

“What, and stay cooped up here for twenty more years?” He rolls up one of his maps, regarding Koschei properly for the first time. He shakes his head a bit apologetically. “No, you don’t have to be qualified. It’s another tick in the application, but,” he gestures to the expanse of maps before him. “Give me the people and equipment and I’ll run a coup of all authority at this establishment.”

“So all the classes you’ve missed have been spent creating a physical copy of material that, while impressive, could have you expelled?”

He shrugs, making some quick note at the bottom of the map underneath the just rolled one. “War is an endeavour to make peace. I could do a lot more out there than in here.”

Koschei can’t help but laughing, really, at the irony of it all.

“What?”

“We’re on Gallifrey, the planet nobody’s going to try and invade that’s full of people not allowed to use our technology to mess with anybody else. And yet here you are, joining the military.”

“And who says I’m staying in this one very long?”

Koschei shakes his head with a smirk. “Certainly not me.”

“Whatever you say.” Magnus checks a couple things on one map that looks suspiciously like the kitchen, adding one more point in the middle somewhere.

“When are you leaving, then?”

“Last day of classes this term. So like, three days. Signing up to go home and not arriving.”

“What House are you from, again?”

“Redloom satellite. Quite the place; everyone popped out male. Pretty lenient. I’ll be able to manage a year or two pretending to be off on summer adventures, but I need someone to fake correspondence, at least.”

“Have anybody yet?”

“You and Thete probably could.”

Right. Mad at Theta for nothing again. “We do accomplish things independently, you know.”

“Yeah, but come on.”

Koschei sighs. “How are you supposed to make the Academy believe you’re still actually here?”

“I haven’t worked that one out yet. I’ll think of something.”

The bell tolls three times for lunch, immediately drawing Theta out of the dorm room and walking past with a preoccupied glance to Magnus.

###

“Koschei…” Theta starts, walking up to him as he works away on one time-eating experiment or another that doesn’t need to be done, but is more fun to do than talking about politics or the weather so it does happen at times. “This is a bad idea.”

“What’s a bad idea?”

Oh, right. Context. “Seeing Magnus off. You’ll get in trouble.”

“Nah, I won’t. Only if I get caught.”

“I’m serious, though! Suspension, possibly a court date for co-conspiratorialism with an underage renegade, anything…” his voice falters at the end, watching Koschei gradually stare up at him, looking unenergetically irked after a while.

“I’ve stopped caring, to be honest. Taking a break from this ‘rules’ nonsense.” He glances at the clock on the wall, then does a double-take. “We’ve got the same class, right?”

“I believe so.”

“In seven minutes.” He picks up his slate, shutting the small flame off but leaving everything uncovered. “Come on, then.”

They stride out of the room still basically side by side, Koschei slightly more fluent in the art of stumbling gracefully than Theta will ever be, most likely. “I’m serious, Kosch.”

He turns around and winks. “You could help. And what’s with the ‘Kosch’? I think it sounds rather awkward.”

“You’ll have to deal. And I can’t help.”

“Please help? You’re brilliant; we’d get it done no problem.”

“I really can’t. Quences is going to flip or something.”

“He always does, doesn’t he?” They turn a corner, Koschei slowing down to keep pace with Theta, who he tells himself to be more pissed off at. They’re really good at ignoring things.

“Yeah, but.” He raises a couple hands slowly, jerkily, trying to prove a point nonverbally. Koschei knows he can do that very well, but not with his hands over there. “Okay, fine. But no.”

“And no what?” Vansell appears from behind innocently, simply walking the hallway to the sole class he shares with both of them. He might enjoy picking up a couple more just to torment them when it suits his fancy.

“Absolutely none of your business, Vansellostophossius.” Koschei retorts.

“I’m afraid it is.”

“How, exactly?”

He snorts, throwing one shoulder sloppily over Theta’s in some sign of attempted-but-not-really-trying amity. “Of course it’s not, I’m joking.”

Theta ducks away from Vansell’s arm. “All your jokes suck, Vansell.”

“I’m hurt!” He looks about as hurt as an unwashed cup.

“Be hurt,” Koschei grumbles.

###

He couldn’t sleep anyways, which is what happens rather often when there is anything at all happening worth getting up for. And the noise. They could be battle drums, but then again he’s not Magnus. He’s… well, Omega Xi.

More of a precaution than necessity, Koschei leans over Theta and projects as great an image of perfect sleep as he can — which is admittedly quite difficult with a constant one two three four going on and on and on and on and on and

Already dressed in black, he creeps noiselessly to the opposite side of the room, cracking open the door and stepping into the dimly lit hall beyond. 0300 hours was considered the best, not needing too much time to get away and being sure nobody but those pulling all-nighters to study in their rooms have any chance of hearing.

“You have everything?” Koschei whispers to Magnus’s back. Magnus currently faces the door, arms folded, head cocked to the side a little. He turns to face him with a cat’s grin thought to be lost in the early days of his life, but has only been saved up for this day. “Of course.” He jumps like a clunky, large spring, swinging his hiking backpack up with one arm and bowing slightly.

“Of course you do.” Koschei pulls a cloaking mechanism borrowed from Drax out from under the chair, strapping it to the back of Magnus’s head. No ill-effects near the brain, apparently thoroughly tested, but one never really knows where the accent of Drax’s came from. At any rate, it’ll have to do.

“Where’s Thete, then?”

Koschei snorts at three days’ worth of stubborn arguing, programming the device to have Magnus appear almost entirely invisible. A slight bending of light still passes around, the unavoidable shadow. It’s a lot less noticeable than a tallish person wearing an oversized backpack. “He figures you should stay here and refused to help anything. Us two can pull it off fine enough.”

“I don’t doubt that, I just…”

“Just what?” Completely disguised.

“You two do everything together.”

“Magnus, you are about to make a grand escape of the Prydonain Academy in favour of the military and you’re gossipping?”

“Naturally,” the air says.

Koschei takes one more deep breath, expecting some sort of similar reaction from Magnus. As if Koschei were the one leaving the dormitory for the last time. Well, that could very well be possible, but push comes to shove, he’s abandoning Magnus alone to be expelled. Others would find it shameful to have already perfectly worked out a largely credible lie of what really went down at this time, but regrets like that have no longer crossed his path. There are a great many other things to worry about.

“Off we go, then.”

They pace down the corridor, Koschei keeping to the shadows and Magnus checking hallways for clarity. Should someone spontaneously appear, Koschei will be engulfed in a mostly uncomfortable bear hug before they can wake up enough to shout anything. Probably.

Getting mostly out of the commons and classrooms was relatively easy, noise kept to a minimum. The noise internal always sounds louder here than anywhere else, and sometimes Koschei wonders if it’ll ever seep into his partial telepathic capabilities. So far, nothing, but it may have well increased since those first days. Everything’s increased since then.

There is one grand set of doors out of the Academy, little doors and obscure openings scattered throughout. In a route devoid of nostalgia or purpose, they are exiting the door usually reserved for people stocking the automated kitchen. The students that sit on tables and the floor with endless coffee, tea, and a strange assortment of foods won’t give them away. It’s just… the lights are on.

“03:11. Four minutes.”

“We can go now, Koschei. It’s not supposed to be meticulous.” The lack of physical indicators of Magnus’s presence is unnerving. There is a rough-edged, slightly off-colour blob before him, but talking to an opaque being is ultimately easier than talking to a smeared wall.

“You get caught, we both get caught. In fact, you can run off whenever it strikes your fancy with hardly a sound. I, on the other hand,”

“Are completely indistinguishable from the average student 1.8 metres in height. Cool it.”

Magnus’s warped camouflage begins the journey around better-lit halls and rooms, leaving Koschei with two options. Walk forwards or backwards.

Koschei internally curses, sidling up to the wall and following suit.

Vansellostopphossious is the last person anyone wants to see, especially at this time of day. However, there he sits, impatiently tapping away some measurement or another on a slate right around the corner. The hall is dim but not pitch black, and there’s no reasonable way around to the hall by the kitchen. He’s stuck, unless he is pressed up against Magnus and a wall under a smelly trenchcoat, which is not worth the awkward shuffling and compromised physical manoeuvrability that would ensue. Magnus appears to turn and make some kind of small gesture nobody can see towards Koschei, walking casually on tiptoe through the hallway.

Thanks.

Koschei counts on Vansell being positively enthralled with his stupidly timed project, only allowing the shallowest and faintest of breaths in a brand of idea exclusive to adolescence. He’s surprised it works. Until he kicks a bench, a dull grunt ringing in the air for maybe a second. “Who’s there?” Vansell asks, ears and head perked up and ready. What he’s doing on the slate is a mystery, probably also to Vansell.

There are two things Koschei could do now. One, walk up and attempt to make causal conversation of a meeting at 03:15 while dressed entirely in black inclusive of a mask, or render him incapable somehow.

Easy.

It’s quite unorthodox to carry weaponry around at a school, but blow darts have been obsolete for so many centuries, nobody clues in the materials for them are literally everywhere. A small bit of sedative no you can’t make anything lethal in here venom to the neck would do well. On the leg, maybe, but it’s slower. Not that Koschei’s aim is the most finished of everyone, but it’ll have to do.

One small spike picked up from a tree, a needle, toxin dipped on one end, pole to the lips and fire. It would be much more amusing with more venom but, unfortunately, has a higher expulsion value than sedative.

It’s a pretty good sedative, is what he didn’t tell Theta.

Magnus cracks open the door once he sees Koschei round the corner, pulling off the camouflage to step outside. Koschei checks over his shoulder once, delighted at the presence of nothing at all.

“Magnus.” Koschei hisses as he steps into the air, letting the sweater-weather-at-midnight season leak through the cracked open door. Magnus holds out their precious cloaking device, an asset much more worthwhile and much more illegal in the hands returning it. Worth the golden ticket out, not worth being caught with. Koschei takes it, miraculous work of technology clamped awkwardly cold in his fingers and palm.

One of Gallifrey’s uninhabited satellites burns through the sky just barely yellowish white, illuminating the tops of trees and patches of grass. Magnus already has a domesticated vortisaur tied up where it ought not to be, creature of the vortex that naturally appears at random and can’t be traced back to them. Magnus extends one cloaked arm, giving a grateful, sleight of a bow. “It’s been a pleasure, Koschei.”

Garnished with a nostalgic sigh, Koschei shakes his hand in some odd gesture that’s never really explained. Shake hands as farewell to… what? Feel the sensation of someone’s opposing nerve endings one more time in an attempt to be prepared to retain the memory? A gesture of affection?

Koschei does it anyways, like many things in life. “Go be amazing for us, okay?”

Magnus’s hand falls to his side, nerve endings entirely removed from Koschei’s influence for decades now. “I’ll miss you, I think. Hopefully I don’t get shot before I can miss you enough.”

Koschei smirks. “But wouldn’t that be nicer? Assuming a painless bullet.”

“We’re on Gallifrey, Omega Xi. Nothing’s particularly nice. The sky looks like it’s literally burning up. That alone should steer away visitors.”

“True.” They stand in place for a roughly timed six seconds, both specifically not recounting memories, but simply revelling in a just-barely not awkward silence passing. The wind ruffles the hair that’s been removed of its uniformity, favouring to keep moving East.

“Tell Theta I send my best regards.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Of course you will.”

Oh, to hell with it. Koschei pulls Magnus into a hug for barely two seconds before shoving him off.

“Any longer and we’ll be caught. Now go join the army and do something with a point in the universe as we stay here and study physics.”

Magnus nods once, killing another few seconds in place. It is all at once he looks back up, taking a good moment to absorb the darkened wall before him. “See you around, then.”

He turns to the trees, turning back once to gaze dramatically at the Academy from a bit of a distance like anyone would before properly speeding off.

###

“How long were you out?” Theta whispers, labelling a diagram of some creature called the Menoptra.

“The tea was still hot when I got there, and we’re already in second block.”

Theta catches the inquisitive look on Koschei’s face. “What?”

“Tea can’t stay that hot in the middle of a table that long.”

Theta holds out a still-pink hand. “Hot water can stay hot if it’s really hot.”

“Unless it’s a gas.”

“Which it obviously wasn’t.”

Theta receives a momentary glare from the professor, turns around, continuing the labelling on the electronic board.

Koschei leans in closer to Theta. “How did you find my blow gun?”

Theta rolls his eyes. “You keep everything in the sock drawer. Literally every suspicious item can be found in your sock drawer.”

“No, but how?”

Theta remains unresponsive for the moment, revelling in the power silence can bring by just not answering at the desired time. He has two options, one could suppose.

“So last night at approximately 3 I had a dream.”

“About…?”

“I had a dream I was sleeping.” He looks at Koschei. “While asleep.”

Koschei pauses for a second, pretending to studiously take notes on the diagram on the board and attempting to calculate lifespan and energy somethingorother while really just

“I thought I taught you how to do it properly.”

“I was in a rush!”

“To do what?”

Koschei taps on the desk in sporadic thirds, attempting to throw of the rhythm. It’s been louder since four that morning. “You know.”

“But I told you not to.”

Theta, brilliant as he is, is nearly done the diagram. Koschei has no idea where the foresight in Menoptra labelling originated, but he has managed to fill in several blanks the teacher has not.

“He was going to do it anyways, and you know that.”

“But he wouldn’t have made it without some help.”

“I thought you wanted to be renegade, too.”

“Yeah, but not that dangerously and unstructured and just…” he peters out, shaking his head and going back to the slate. “Whatever. I’ll explain at lunch.”

“Or now.”

“We’re in the middle of class.”

“So?”

“People can hear us. And we’re not that good at telepathy.”

Koschei tries to summon a good comeback, but it seems all his tongue-in-cheek resources are taking the day off.

Chapter Text

It has admittedly been a good few hours since dinner, and the day has evolved into one that makes the circumstances of sharing a room rather uncomfortable. For that reason, locking oneself in a corner has to be moved into going outside — thankfully in half-decent weather — to avoid the lack of conversation. Or worse, actual conversation.

Theta has taken to skipping rocks, which doesn't work very well in a moving river, but takes his mind off things nonetheless. What is he talking about it doesn't help anything. If at all, it keeps your mind honed in on exactly what you were thinking because the body is now rhythmically occupied and reliant more on muscle memory than actual thought and is therefore—

"Hey. You."

Vansell appears from behind, one of the only scattered few out of doors at 21:00. He could be evil if he wanted, a perfect sort of villain with just the right amount of finesse and chill introduction to balance out the studious mind and self-proclaimed superiority. His hair is never out of line, forming somewhat awkwardly to his scalp. But with the amount of egotism underneath, it doesn't exactly matter.

"Vansellostophossius." They claim Vansell's full name suits him better for its snobbishness. To their delight, it always pisses him off. "What do you want?" The rock falls into the water with an uneven sploosh, Theta's field of vision unhappily interrupted by the appearance of Vansell's robed body. A sort of red bruise kind of welt spreads halfway the diameter of his neck, a telltale mark of what hit him in the middle of a night. A poor shot, Theta could argue, but it hardly matters now.

"Have any idea how I got shot?"

The blond innocent shrugs. "Good question, although I'd bet on walking into a tree. Can't really have a good sense of direction with that big head of yours."

Ironic Theta is flirting with the possibility of being drowned in the river either he or Koschei was nearly drowned in by somebody quite like Vansell. He finds it oddly amusing.

"Hilarious, Theta Sigma."

"I do my best." Theta perches on the edge of a boulder, letting Vansell have his show of being bigger and meaner and in control of the situation, but he isn't really. Not exactly.

He clasps his hands behind his back like he's training to hold some grand position of power. It looks hilariouson his short frame. "I have reason to suspect it was your boyfriend. So do many people."

Theta snorts. "So you got a council of people to try and determine the origin of a thorn in the neck? How do they figure?"

Vansell taps his head. "It's all in here." He moves closer to Theta, looking either slightly amused or entirely confident in his claims and very far from impressed. "You two aren't the only ones who can perform telepathy."

"Well, I hope not."

"You can tell me the easy way or the hard way."

"Totally make a villain."

"Who, me? I thought my head was too big."

"Fair point." Theta attempts looking confident and mocking while sitting properly on a rock without a care in the world as Vansell continues leaning too far in, like he's going to fish around in Theta's head for the information he's already claimed to know.

"Tell me. Did Omega Xi try to kill me or not?"

"Well he certainly wasn't trying to kill you, but I wouldn't put it past him."

Now would be a good time to have someone tell him to shut the hell up before he's dumped in the river.

"I didn't think so. Which actually tells me more than you think.

"Do you understand the implications of the information you are withholding?" he starts pacing, looking occasionally to Theta, sometimes to the ground. "I am the victim of armed and chemical assault very close to the internal jugular vein, and had the venom been in a high enough quantity, would have prevented me from surviving in the state I am now. This goes by risk of suspension and likely expulsion, excluding the yet-unknown motive. You would be likely suspended for retaining information regarding to this assault. If you tell me now, I'll let you go."

"As it turns out, the consequences of withholding information of assault don't reach suspension."

"It does in attempted murder."

"Unfortunately, you're nowhere near dead, so good luck with that."

He stops pacing for a second to smile. It looks rehearsed. "Only takes a blood test."

"Care to elaborate?"

He shrugs. "Dimethyl mercury takes months for symptoms to appear. I have the grounds to get a test done, they'll find it, then get it out long before then. In a high enough dose, it would kill me otherwise."

"Then I go tell whoever you complained to you injected it yourself." Theta stands up.

"But you don't have any grounds for that accusation."

He taps his head, mocking Vansell. "It's all in here, thanks to you. Push comes to shove they can use the mind probe."

"But do you really want them to?" He steps closer to Theta, once. "Do you really?"

Theta shrugs. "Why not? The actual stuff in your system has cycled itself out by now, you complain about dimethyl mercury poisoning, I come prove it was attempted suicide. Sounds like more of a pain in the ass for you than anyone else."

He holds out a hand all of a sudden, like he's waiting for Theta to shake it. He doesn't. Vansell drops his hand. "If, like you say, I'd make such a great villain—"

"I never said 'great'."

Vansell smiles. "If I'm such a villain, I might have some ulterior motive. I might not, of course."

"Feel like telling me?"

"Absolutely not."

Vansell turns on one heel, walking back the way he came, nose pointed ever so slightly in the air. The attempted dissociative smirk on Theta's face melts, beginning to think. "Can you give me a hint!?" He shouts, knowing very well nothing at all is going to come out of it.

Vansell doesn't turn around. "Maybe if you didn't smack me in the face with a textbook!"

He can't tell if that's a legitimate statement or a hint. He starts running.

21:24 and Theta isn't back yet. Koschei has irrationally satisfying total jurisdiction over both rooms now, gleefully not turning on the lights until the very last rays of sun disappear from the window. It bugs Theta.

He turns the wall camouflage back on, allowing for the blank expanse of plaster to pretend to appear, very uncharacteristic from the other three walls covered in some kind of information. He's beginning to wonder how nobody's pointed this out before.

Someone pounds on the door only twice, which is certainly not Theta and probably not anyone else in the Deca or what have you. The Deca. What a concept. It's essentially dragged down to Rallon and Millennia taking over the corner, with Drax and Mortimus popping in wondering if they're going to fail the semester and fiddling around as Vansell tries to overlord everybody with the help of Jelpax, leaving Ushas to wonder aloud what the world has come to while Theta and Koschei do their own thing, hogging the coffee table.

Koschei opens the door, not knowing exactly what to expect, but certainly not Vansell striding in and shoving him backwards in the process. He kicks the door closed behind him, grabbing Koschei by the shirt front in two fists, one of them holding something sharp and silver Koschei cannot identify.

"Tell me why you shot me in the neck within fifteen seconds and I'll let you go."

Vansell's breathing has escalated, expression half-crazed and half very, very calculated. Koschei's eyes flick across the wall for any idea possibly tacked to it, drawing exactly one blank and one map scribbled on by Magnus and Theta. "Who says it was me?"

Vansell releases one hand to punch Koschei across the face, pain now blossoming form his cheekbone. "I was there."

Koschei restrains his arms from shoving Vansell back, experienced enough to know the silver pointed thing is not just pointed. "You couldn't see me properly."

"Fine. Your boyfriend tells me it was you who shot me, now tell me why or you will regret having not."

Koschei takes the slightest of tentative steps backwards, tactically trying to give himself enough room to strike Vansell with a limb, but he notices. Vansell shoves him three steps and into the wall, pinning him down with two fists and invasive breathing. "You really want to tell me now."

"If you were paying any fucking attention, you would have noticed the venom was non-lethal." Vansell slams him against the wall again, head knocking into the drywall.

"Could still be. You get one more chance." He shifts his right forearm to Koschei's throat, tilting his head up uncomfortably, Vansell's head drawing uncomfortably nearer. Koschei swallows against the limb that only presses harder. "You fucking ape".

Every bit of his brain screams for him to not say it before the idea even reaches his tongue, delusional pain in his head and his cheek egging him on over the fear of being strangled. "How dare you address me in that way?" He smirks for a brief instant, determined to choke out the last bit. "I'll have you know I'm from the noblest chapter of Gallifreyan—" Vansell sweeps his legs out from under him, plunging an elbow into his stomach before he hits the ground.

"Do you really think I'm going to take that?"

Koschei starts almost panicking internally, kicking himself mentally for trying something like that, wondering why he isn't getting off the floor or yelling for help or… moving. The only thing he can actually control is breathing. And thinking, kind of. It's becoming muddled and distant, as if the connection between his independent thought and nerve endings was being separated. Like transcending, but worse, because nothing is going anywhere. "No."

Vansell doesn't take his eyes off Koschei's, staring almost further than the surface level, trying to pull something out through the pupils by ocular intensity. "You understand?"

"I understand." Koschei repeats without hesitation, absently feeling terrified at Vansell kneeling next to him, bringing his fingers to Koschei's temple. He doesn't know why he's saying it. He doesn't know why he's breaking through his mental barriers that have been hastily thrown up, however well-rehearsed. He doesn't know why Vansell is even here, apart from revenge for having his life presumably almost taken.

If he didn't know any better, he would regard the brief hesitation of… whatever he's anticipating… to be kindhearted. "It's not you, technically. It's your position."

"My—"

"Don't try talking." Vansell takes a deep breath. "It's going to hurt."

The first thing that is brought to the forefront of his head is hypnosis, just the idea, and the knowledge it's been applied only partially, so he's still completely aware of what's going on. He can't say anything of his own accord, can't physically move, but his will remains the same, and the knowledge of its invasion upon very uselessly prominent.

It's like feeling an anthill crawling around under his skin, seeing Vansell strolling around the trees in Koschei's head, kicking over cubes at will. He's trying to find the why, and the why is hidden, and he can't be trying very hard to find it. The thing in his head turns around to face the mental version of Koschei properly, moment of misplaced sympathy completely dissolved. If you can call it sympathy. He picks up a cube at random and slams it on the ground. It erupts almost painfully, throwing the memory into a slightly sped-up projection in front of everybody.

It's one of the days Theta was sleeping over at Oakdown over the break, and they're sitting next to the bookshelf. Snow comes down in flurries, cousins sit everywhere on furniture and the floor, singing something he can't make out for the speed the pictures move across his head. Theta comes and sits next to Koschei, having their knees slightly overlap and looking almost nervously from person to person, combined knowing the names of about four in total. At some point, Koschei decides to curl his fingers around Theta's in every attempt to cheer him up. Vansell stands on a blank spot in the floor and looks them over skeptically with a fraction of disgust. He makes it look so… so stupid Koschei almost regrets it now…

Which is completely irrelevant to Vansell being there because he was never really there and really who cares if he was but he's there, condescending, and Koschei would not be this… embarrassed, to give a word, if the memory was still locked safely in his head. And if his head isn't safe, then nowhere is.

"Not really sure why that gets its own cube, but whatever suits your fancy, I suppose." He physically forces his hand halfway into a tree of cubes, causing some short of electric jolt in his brain. Then again, that's all thoughts really are.

The cube in his fist is not the why, not even remotely related. He doesn't know why all these memories with Theta in them are giving him so much discomfort having them revealed. It's not like much is exactly a secret anymore, but there's something about Vansell rooting through his mind without holding back that makes them less than they were before. A kind of imitation, or cheap idea from long ago you laugh at now but was world-changing years ago.

"This might be amusing." Vansell snarls, sort of mentally kicking back his feet and relaxing to see the events unfold.

It's 02:42 and the three of them are outside, running at breakneck speed around the side of the building. It was a bit cold that day, but not cold enough to deter even Ushas. "Ten seconds!" Theta shouts in the air, voice intentionally obscured beyond recognition.

"I ORDER YOU TO STOP!" some unfortunate soul caught up in the mess demands.

Ushas doesn't even try masking her voice. "You'll have to run faster than that, Runcible!"

Theta almost trips on a rogue rock, steering Koschei and Ushas varying degrees away from it as they follow. Somewhere along the mess, Theta grabs Koschei's hand from behind him as became habit in ludicrous displays of running. Vansell rolls his eyes at them, Koschei-of-the-present inclined to tell his past self to knock it off because it looks dumb.

The squealing of pyrotechnics behind them erupts through the air, with a loud bang sending blue and purple streaks through the sky. They woke up over half the school that night, at barely twenty-five years old.

It all stops abruptly, no sensation of fading or buffering to trail into the second firework.

"I'd stick around, but I'm only interested in how you got out of trouble. Which probably isn't in that cube."

Koschei knows how they did, but the explanation is lost in his head somewhere. It refuses to appear before him, maybe too focused on Vansell's every move.

He moves down two trees, keeping up the half-hearted pretence of looking for the motive of being attacked with a blow gun at 03:15. The next memory he finds is one Koschei didn't try keeping hidden away, as the only person who would really walk around in his memories was Theta. And so Vansell gets to invade that time in the zero room and Koschei wishes now he could actually kill him, but can't because he is stuck in a state of half-hypnosis screaming for him to stop perverting his brain. Vansell can hear the screaming. His nerve endings are just functional enough to register Vansell sitting on top of him, cutting off enough of his breathing ability to further mellow out his physical vigour.

A total of eleven fragments of memory pass through by the time Vansell actually finds the complete hour of Magnus leaving, watching the whole production and acting a mock boo-hoo-ing as Magnus leaves. "You seriously put yourself through all this to get Magnus out the building?"

He didn't exactly expect this to happen.

"Fair point."

Vansell simply drops it off, looking around the further dismantled forest with a look of regret in leaving, almost. Koschei can't even get any thoughts across properly, the simultaneous hypnosis and memory venture causing mental feedback that gives the one-two-three-four a sick pulse. Vansell doesn't seem to hear it.

"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" Vansell gazes around a slightly fragmented tree, marvelling at the array of sizes in cubes.

"You know, it was a pretty bad thing you did." He begins with over-exaggerated arm gestures and facial expressions worthy of a thirteen-year-old. "Magnus could have gotten in a lot of trouble, and so could you. Which you will, of course, but not yet. Magnus will too, provided he isn't dead already.

"And you did try to kill me."

Vansell reaches in and grabs a slightly off-colour cube that's an amount bigger than a lot of memories, tossing it between his hands, trying to produce a reaction from Koschei before almost laughing at him. "Oh, right.!You can't do anything. Here, let's look at this one, then."

The cube drops to the ground and would have shattered in the physical world, but instead has them pop out in a mound of snow they can't feel overlooking a cliff Vansell can't be daunted by. Vansell drags Koschei along by the arm, which he doesn't have any need to do at this stage but can anyways, taking him right up next to Theta eyeing the cliff and about to be screaming at Koschei.

"Pity he didn't really jump off. Would've made my life easier." Vansell drags Koschei down to sit and watch the whole scene again. "I'd love to see your reaction to this now, but it would be too risky inside your pitiful head. I suppose I can thank you for trying to kill me, as this will certainly be worth it in the long run."

And it's back to the screaming conversation, Theta almost falling, his facial expression so much more prominent right up close than it was from back in the snow. "Look at that. Huh. I don't even think he cares about you." He laughs once, forced. "Well, he was going to shoot you."

Koschei convinces himself that statement is untrue, so untrue, false, but the hypnotised part is conditioned to agree with everything Vansell says. "He wouldn't regenerate, either, how sad. Bit of a waste of a Prydonian if he did. Well, if he wasn't a waste of space anyways."

Koschei of the memory runs and tackles Theta to the ground, giving cause for Vansell to make some sarcastic "Woah now," noise. Theta begins being dragged away, the rest of their exchange too quiet to hear from this distance. "You know, if I didn't know any better, he was out here to kill himself. Not get dragged through snow."

Then it dawns on him. "I know what this is! This is before the zero room! Okay I need to see this again for continuity."

The subdued mental strain will increase a hundredfold later, but for now it remains but a sharp needle in the back of Koschei's head, the rest of his mind willing to watch the entire thing again.

Five minutes into it again, Vansell brings Koschei right to the edge of the cliff, having their feet dangle over the abyss. "Now, Koschei, I need a little favour from you for science. I've no idea what happens if you die in a memory other than the fact you don't really actually die. And we might as well, while we're here." Vansell looks tired, a state Koschei faces with no sympathy. "By 'we', I mean I'll observe and you'll do the actual experiment. How lucky."

Koschei cannot help but plummet to the ground in the same way Theta would have if he succeeded on that actual day. He isn't awake when Vansell stops the telepathic link and leaves him on the floor, creeping out far quieter than he came.

###

It takes Koschei a full second to remember everything, turning his pained groan into silence and freezing his limbs. There is breathing about as close as there was before. Someone has his wrist. Vansell's still here, he just jumped over the edge and nothing happened and now he's going to be

"Koschei." Not Vansell. But he still won't open his eyes. "Koschei it's okay, you can open your eyes."

Koschei is still frozen still but twitching, Theta sitting back up and trying to give him some sort of space to not smack heads with him, because it may take a while for his eyes to properly open. "Theta." He can speak. He's probably just inside another memory where Theta is, maybe jumping off the cliff did something

"Yeah. It's me." Koschei still doesn't open his eyes, shaking his head nervously, starting to sweat. It's just a memory and Vansell's going to be here and

Theta takes his fingers off Koschei's pulse, something telling him Koschei must be alive if he's breathing. His hair's brutally ruffled and sticking out everywhere, shirt twisted awkwardly and showing bits of skin in places it wouldn't normally. In any other circumstance, Theta would find this a certain amount attractive. Given the circumstances, he has a stronger urge to check his vitals as opposed to evaluating chemically biased aesthetic.

"What the hell did he do to you?" Theta tries brushing the hair back from Koschei's forehead, but the brush of contact only makes him flinch. "You can open your eyes, it's okay."

Koschei's breathing speeds up once, twice, three times, Theta pursing his lips in anticipation of him screaming, but he doesn't. Koschei opens his eyes after the fourth breath. His dilated pupils contract in the glow of the lamp. They fly all over the room, connecting invisible points Theta so desperately needs to see, pausing on the clock, and finally on Theta. He can feel the panic edging away in shavings from his mind, his own brain trying to send out as much calm as he can muster.

"How did I get here?" The sound of his voice is coated in a puree of tree sap and year-old stale bread, dripping out of his mouth in futility.

Theta doesn't dare move from the wall, afraid of falling off the tightrope, frozen in place because nanogenes will not solve this problem. "You were on the floor, so I picked you up and—"

He doesn't finish the sentence as Koschei violently slams his eyes shut, all of a sudden clenching fists into his hair and banging his forehead against his knees silently, like he's just remembered something.

"Koschei what…" his voice trails off, the pounding of head into knees not matching anything he's seen before, tears threatening to spill over despite the fact Koschei doesn't really ever cry.

Theta swallows his massive amount of guilt, curling up behind Koschei and gently pulling his head away from his knees. This only elicits a strangled groan of some kind of pain, knees coming down on Theta's fingers anyways. "Koschei you need to stop doing that."

"But it'll stop." His voice is completely changed from what it was, lost its tone in favour of strangled noises of the throat. Tortured, one could say.

What will stop? he doesn't reply with words, telepathic inquiry attacked midair and thrown away from his brain. Can I see?

"NO!" He nearly screams, startling Theta into banging his head against the wall and nearly swearing, but not for anyone's benefit.

"Koschei—"

"You can't see." He whispers, knuckles turning whiter than they are already, fingernails no doubt unprotected by hair.

Theta has no idea what to do besides physically wresting Koschei onto his back, attempting to keep his knees down and hands out of his hair, but is met with enough screaming to wake up half the dormitory.

"GET OFF ME."

Theta obliges, rolling off the bed and onto the mattress, watching his roommate bury himself in blankets until he is seen by nobody.

"Please stop hurting yourself."

The pile of fabric does not respond, leaving Theta on his knees to ponder what on Gallifrey to do next. So he starts talking.

"Remember the time we dragged Ushas out in the middle of the night and started lighting fireworks? And Runcible—"

All at once Koschei unearths himself from the fortress of blankets. His breathing is drawn-out and erratic still, and it looks like he's about to beat himself in the head again. Theta still has absolutely no idea what to do, and it bothers him to no end.

Koschei opens his mouth as if to say something, and wrenches his entire face shut to think better of it. It is best described in anger Koschei starts clawing at Theta's back, trying to pull him back from the mattress, saline tears he so rarely cries staining his face. His hands grab Theta in a whirlwind of kicking and less than quiet breathing, pulling the flesh and blood next to him. His legs wrap around Theta like a vice, arms wrapping around his chest in their impromptu angled position. He refuses to let go as Theta lifts and pulls them under the blankets, Koschei's head coming to rest on Theta's chest.

It takes Theta, constricted and clamped in too many places as it is, to understand why. Then Koschei starts tapping on the mattress in four, eyes screwed in concentration. The tapping matches Theta's pulse. He's filling his brain with a different four if it may, in any sense of the word, help.

The only limb Theta can operate properly is his right arm, not that he knows what to do with it. The only possible thing he can recall from his life is Koschei dyeing his hair blue. So extremely slowly, feeling every nerve ending in his fingertips, Theta touches Koschei's scalp. He doesn't react. Theta starts running his fingers through messy hair, deciding it's all he knows how to do in a situation such as this, and it might be working.

"I'm not letting you go," he says, maybe out of character, but it's 3 in the morning and it's the truth and maybe Koschei actually needs to hear it.

Koschei cries, but not in the sense he did some nearly fifty years ago. Theta would run away from the scared sound if he could, but he stays where he is, absorbing the occasional muffled shrieks into things that will dampen them. Koschei sends out confused bursts of things Theta isn't going to try fitting into a chronology, trying to brush Koschei's mind with good things. This planet says interpersonal sentiment is a weakness in essence, confusing the brain and causing constant distraction and the compromise of many aspects of life. Theta has decided Gallifreyan politicians are full of shit.

Theta would think Koschei has begun settling down just when his breathing picks up again in sheer recollection, entire words and sentences beginning to form in the air. Theta doesn't think he knows he's doing it. He probably doesn't.

Koschei is stuck in his own brain trying to run away from the mess. Try as he might, he can't block it all out or open his eyes without it all being far too vivid and bright and terrible and for the thousandth time he's jumping off the cliff and then Theta is and Vansell's standing there laughing and the snow gets colder and colder but it's blazing hot and eventually it all blurs together in a kind of heat and cold at the same time and he's still aware of Theta having his hand on his head or something like that and isn't sentiment ridiculous and really it's stupid and holding hands isn't a thing and he's really stupid and immature and what's even serious about Theta anyways because he doesn't care and he's failing something or other and they're both far too melodramatic and should both just die because they deserve it because Koschei tried to kill Vansell and he's so much better and thinks it's all so funny because it is and what even is drumming he always has a headache there's something seriously wrong happening and it needs to stop and

"Koschei." It's just his name, his other name, the one that isn't picked or assigned and a secret for the best of them but Vansell knows it now and there is no escape ever. "Koschei, tell me what to do." Not-Vansell asks, watching the distress come over Koschei in waves, giving less and less time for air.

Theta doesn't dare poke anywhere near Koschei's mind, almost completely out of ideas. Theta gently turns Koschei on his side to face the wall, matching every curve and angle of Koschei's body with his. He is at a complete loss for what to do with the arm he lies on, draping the other over Koschei's stomach to pull him in closer. He conjures a picture, a feeling, a thought of an entirely peaceful sleep in his brain, making it match them presently, coursing it through an imaginary nervous system of telepathy into Koschei's feet and legs and back and head.

Koschei wakes up sweaty and dehydrated, opening his eyes to see an unkempt Theta mixing something officially bottled and labelled in a cup. He doesn't notice Koschei staring at him, all odd-angled clothing and messy hair and damp patches that came from probably Koschei.

Chapter Text

After fits of sleeping and waking and a mess of being too far receded into his mind, Koschei notices at some point Theta has left, and would wonder why on a more narcissistic day. The mixed concoction has been downed multiple times, highly implicit of a sleeping drink that helps with illness or whatever it is, pushing him back into memories of memories that didn't happen.

He paces to the window without making a sound, curtains drawn and letting in far too much piercing sunlight. He's become uncomfortably hot, consequence of whatever trauma-induced illness his body is trying to fight off. The leaves lining the windows are colourful as ever, almost mocking the forest from which Koschei once emerged. He can see one outside the window ringing the Academy he's begun to call home.

The last time he got to sleep, it was completely void of dreams, most likely the effects of Theta knowing How To Do The Thing Properly and apparently trusting his own judgement enough to have himself in Koschei's head again. He's too worn to protest. At any rate, its stability is questionable as is, most likely never to be repaired over again. People run around outside.

This is one of those times Koschei's wishing for the roof of Oakdown, if only to flirt with death. Maybe hang on by his hands and see if he can make it back up again. He could always jump out the window, but that would be rather uncalled for and in many ways would be a greater win for Vansell.

Vansell is, frankly, going to haunt him for a long while now.

Theta doesn't knock, but comes in the lab door, closing it less than gently behind him. There are no classes on, then.

"Did you care?" The words that spill out of his mouth don't sound like his. They taste like white glue.

"Did I care when?" He stands beside Koschei without touching him, looking out the window alongside. The vigour of his usual self is gone form the question.

"When you were going to kill yourself." The usual sting that befalls his brain when saying things like that has disappeared completely, replaced by the fuzzy utter void. He almost misses it.

"You know, one typically doesn't care before ending the life of oneself."

Koschei tilts his head to the side, seeing Theta but also seeing the well-repeated and possibly distorted image of Theta glaring at him from across a dark plane of snow. His face has changed from then until now, no longer sinking and white, eyes no longer looking without seeing. His lips are soft pink, a tiny powdering of colour blossoming on his cheeks, eyes still crystalline stormy grey but blue at the same time. His hair's getting too long again, a feature he's infuriatingly never payed much attention to. But infuriating in a good way, a sort of progression of Time Lord aesthetic that few can appreciate.

It has been fourteen years, after all.

He still needs to stretch out a hand and smear his invisible imprint all over the miraculous face, just to be sure he's not hallucinating. "You told me to go away." Koschei doesn't retract his fingers, letting them awkwardly trip around Theta's nose, his mouth, his hair.

Theta sighs through his nose, a barely audible lull. "I think because I cared too much." Theta looks back out the window, biting slightly on the corner of one lip as he does when he's agitated and needs to say something. They never talk about it. Not about how either of them got there, not about the words they said, not about the question that always itched in Koschei's head. Did he care.

"I wanted you to go away so you'd never find my body, or whatever."

It's almost an accusation. "You were going to shoot me." He supposes it's allowed to be.

"So we'd both be dead!"

"Why?"

Theta's head meets the window with a small thunk, resonating through the rest of the glass and inaudibly into the walls. Now is normally the time Theta's face glows with his calculated kind of grin, the one with a plan, the one that doesn't care. The grin doesn't come. "Our twisted logic, Koschei. I hated life, and I wanted to die. But you cared, which means I cared, and figured if I shot you, I'd die from the guilt anyways and so both our life-hating would end."

It makes sense in their twisted sort of way, which Koschei supposes he was looking for.

They watch the people outside for a measurement of time that has lost its meaning in Koschei's head, the dull void gradually flooding with broken words and fragmented sentences that retreat. He doesn't want to explain. He doesn't want Theta in his head, he doesn't want to touch his head, he wants to terminate his head or flush it out for a new one. It only takes one perfectly unorchestrated movement of Theta's face to force out the whimper, completely counterintuitive of the desire to keep it so wonderfully untarnished.

"It was Vansell. He… fucked my brain." It sounds bitter out loud, unheroic, shameful. Messy, unorthodox, not entirely true. "He wanted to know why I shot him. He thought I was trying to kill him but I wasn't, and I didn't say why because…" He's said too many words. They're all vile and humiliating. It might be better to sleep for days. "He found out anyways."

Theta reaches out and lets two fingers slide down Koschei's forearm, resting in his palm again. Koschei instinctively pulls it away, trying to hide from the time Vansell stood there laughing at them like they're idiots. "How much did he see, Kosch?"

Vansell didn't see that stupid nickname, giving some kind of motive to keep talking, even after it's all laid out in the open. Keep carrying on until there's something to be done about it. He dictates everything with his eyes trained on the people meandering outside, distorted in slight by the pane of glass and completely inaudible. "Holding hands." He pretends Theta isn't there. "Talking." Even that lowly verb has been tarnished. "Kissing." He pretends he's repeating these things to himself, organising. "The zero room." Like he's trying to maintain a scrap of his sanity. "Just me at Oakdown." Useless thing, sanity. "Magnus." He failed. "You going to commit suicide." He was even weak enough to let Vansell completely thrash him like that. "You going to commit suicide again." He always fails. "Then he made me jump off the cliff and it made me unconscious." Always. "Then you found me."

"Did he just smash through the trees?"

He can feel Theta's eyes trained on him but wishes the sensation away, wishes everything away so he can just sleep. "Yeah." He's not even tired, really. "Some little things would blip out." He just wants to sleep. "But he's still sitting in memories, laughing."

A silence hangs in the air of no contact and no thinking and wondering what the other person is going to say. There are classes scheduled today Koschei doesn't care all too much about. They might be over already.

"He said you didn't care." Words of his own accord. "That one day." Stupid idea. "And he said… before…." Stupid Koschei. "Whatever."

"What did he say?"

Koschei shrugs. "I don't know. Something like 'it's not me, it's my position'. I dunno."

Two measures of one two three fours, which are getting very obstructive. They show up at the worst times.

"Do you trust me?"

"I feel obliged to say yes."

"Really, though."

Koschei turns to Very Insistent Theta almost painfully, his gaze met with a more-intense-than-he-thought scanning stare just about the strength of hypnotism. But more so. But it's not taking him over. "Yes." But it's still uncomfortable.

"Can I do… science?"

"What kind of science?"

"Very calculated, thought-through science. But you have to trust me, okay?"

Koschei nods as Theta finishes talking, wondering what the hell kind of science could be in any way relevant, until he's being backed into the room with Theta incessantly pushing his lips on his, starting to poke his tongue in as Koschei's heels come up against the mattress and nearly trips him. He can feel himself blushing furiously, scrambling for something to do with his hands and the rest of his arms for that matter, trying to stand up properly and failing with nothing to hold onto but Theta himself as he's pulled somewhat dangerously onto the bed with Theta over top again. Only this time, Koschei's got little to no resistance or acute feeling of weight distribution as it all starts going kind of fuzzy outside and very immediate inside.

It takes a fair amount of evading and pushing to get Theta back to off a few centimetres, only slightly consoled in the fact Theta's about as red as he is. "What kind of science is this?" He sputters.

"Endocrine."

"That's… how does that…"

"Shh. Trust me."

Koschei is distantly aware of Theta physically hovering over top of him, every point of contact barely transferring any of his weight. He is too far asleep to reconcile this position with any sort of motive, feeling another wave of fatigue wash through his veins and pull him back down to sleep within thirty seconds of waking.

Innocet taught Theta how to do that. She didn't mention how beautifully innocent people look on the outside when they sleep. He has complete jurisdiction of the body underneath him, mind so fragile and completely defenceless. But the mind never stops working, still a panicked mess of a demolished forest.

The sky above the foliage Theta walks beneath is black and clouded, stars not poking through. No colour is lost on the trees, however, quantised cubes scattered across the ground in patterns matching the chunks missing from once whole plants. Some cubes are purpling, a sick shade somewhere off black, tendrils of it cutting through the proper yellow-orange.

Theta has the constant feeling of something staring at him from behind the trees or lurking in the shadows, but every time he turns around there's nothing but an unusually still landscape. He picks up an untarnished looking cube as if it were a plucked flower, trying to stem the leak of memory to dreams. He lets the memory begin playing itself, but only bits and pieces. Enough to tell what it is and find a nook in a broken tree to place it back in.

Nitrogen atom, particle accelerator, Magnus, Ushas, No slate. Particle physics exam.

Theta places the cube where it might have once gone, wishing he could simply will them all back into place.

###

Koschei knocks, but opens the door immediately afterwards, which completely defeats the purpose of knocking in the first place. He used to do that all the time, but had rather improved in the past while. Figures. "Ushas."

"No, it's the Hand of Omega playing cards with your mother."

He grins at Ushas with her hair still down, immediately beginning to tie it back anyways. "Can I borrow a comb?"

"A comb?" She pulls her properly-handled robe on over her head, finding the state of Koschei's hair very worthy of needing a comb, but "How do you not have a comb?"

"I… lost it."

Ushas picks a comb off her desk, keeping it in one hand. "Firs you need to tell me how on Gallifrey you managed to lose a comb."

"Well uh," he hears footsteps down the hall somewhere, making him look backwards briefly and turn around blushing more than necessary for his petition. "I think it was in my pocket yesterday and it's not there anymore, I think maybe—"

"HEY USHAS!"

"Oh Rassilon — Theta you're going to wake up the whole floor!"

Theta suddenly appears in the doorway, hair combed impeccably. "GUESS WHAT."

Koschei's face has gone completely red at Theta even standing there as he sputters out "So you did steal my comb…"

"Do you still need my comb?"

"Uh…" Koschei scrambles to close the door as Theta walks in the rest of the way, leaning against Ushas's desk like he suddenly has a right to everything in the room. "Yes?"

"Right answer. I stole it."

Ushas throws her arms in the air. "You two never cease to confuse me."

"You still need to gue-ess," he sings.

"You really don't need to."

Theta grins back at Koschei with reckless abandon, brain still blanked of what it would normally be relentlessly dwelling on in favour of other things. "One guess."

Ushas stands in an awkward triangulate position between Koschei and Theta, trying very hard to piece together what is going on in regards to borrowing a comb and stealing a comb for fun or "Was this about you being absent basically all of yesterday?"

Theta nods for Koschei. "Hell yes."

"My guess is you played Scrabble for eight hours."

"We had tea."

Koschei goes even redder, if it were possible, Theta smiling stupidly at him while Ushas literally walks into the wall. "What DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH A COMB?"

"He looks cuter with messy hair."

Ushas resists the temptation to slam her head against the wall again, instead folding her arms and looking up to the sky, mentally demanding why me as Theta keeps prattling on. "And it's established tradition to annoy you with our love lives so I decided to let him try and find a comb because it's hilarious."

"You are evil." Koschei retorts, Ushas mentally kicking herself in the head because she is going to have to endure a good two weeks of this.

"Would it do anything to say 'I don't want to know'?"

"Ye—"

"No."

"I am rapidly losing my appetite."

Koschei sinks down slightly against the wall. "It was Theta's idea!"

"And you thought it was a good one after two minutes."

"Two minutes out of like, an hour."

Ushas chokes. "How do you even last for an hour!?"

"We had tea after," Koschei supplies, face not getting any whiter, but apparently trying to pretend he's not staring directly at Theta.

"You had tea after— how long does it take to drink tea? Know what I take that back, I don't want to know…"

"Well not that long but Theta had to make it first and spilt a bunch of water because he didn't want to turn the light on properly for some reason and it was really hot tea and it kinda got forgotten when we were waiting for it to cool off a bit and then we got hungry."

"Actually you got hungry, I was just told to get the food."

"Then you tried to get me to do it but—"

Ushas stomps out of the room, leaving Theta and Koschei to argue about what really happened last night without her.

###

"My favourite part is the fact there is absolutely no point to this tower, but it still exists." Theta drops an excessively large bag of dirt on the tile floor. His arms spring past where they should be with their sudden lack of weight.

"Do you think they'll get enough light up here?" Koschei stands in the doorway of the Mostly Useless Astronomy Tower with a large box of plants in pods. Weeds, mostly.

"Oh, yes." The room obviously doesn't have telescopes in it anymore, because why would you use one of those with data banks full of 3D models to immerse yourself in whenever you might need them? "Those things will spread ridiculously fast without much help."

Koschei sets down his box of plants with a lot more care than Theta's dirt. "Do they even use this place?"

Theta nods. "Storage, yeah. Just not often enough to notice we're creating a plant infestation yet." Theta starts walking around the circular room, throwing open all the windows. For some reason unbeknownst to Koschei, a lot of professors don't like plants. To the point where they don't know a useful thing about them, refuse to touch them, and will even start telling children just learning to spell "epidermis" that plants will, in fact, eat them alive.

Koschei is starting to suspect Theta was exaggerating on that last point.

Theta smiles. His hair is finally short enough to not be blown into his face by the wind through the window. "Come help me put dirt in places."

"You know, I don't think we're gardening correctly." Only took them five minutes to get all the dirt absolutely everywhere obnoxious.

Theta has done a lot of unnecessary smiling at him over the past couple of days. "We're planting weeds. Of course it's not 'gardening'." He picks up a sphere with a weed of some kind suspended in it, roots and all. "I honestly don't know why the Ceruleans are so hyped about these things."

Instead of gawking at one, Koschei does something useful and starts actually planting a weed. In a storage room. That's technically out of bounds. All over someone's stuff. Who is likely uncomfortable around plants. "Plants make food, Thete." He doesn't feel much remorse for the box of spare slates now being infested with a dandelion.

"Well, not anymore. We make plants specifically to make food, but this is just a glorified fuzzy leaf."

Only seventy-four to go. "You said this was a good idea."

Theta smiles, again. "I did."

After fifty-six plants, the whole thing is starting to get just a bit ridiculous.

"People used to wear this stuff, you know." Koschei shoves a Rassilon Knows What next to a Wilted Looking Thing, wishing there was more dirt available to wreak havoc with.

"I did sometimes when I was a kid."

Koschei gasps. "No!"

Theta nods, scooping dirt from the tile floor in his filthy hands. "I lived in the bush for years. My mom taught me how to string a bunch together."

"Doesn't that just kill a bunch of plants for the sake of a couple hours' aesthetic?"

"You let the very life of a beautiful thing violently fade away to make yourself more beautiful for only a little while."

Koschei snorts, counting how many plants they have left, just for the record. "Don't get philosophical on me, now."

Theta puts a plant on the highest shelf he can reach on the old curved storage compartments. "I am the embodiment of unnecessary philosophical ventures."

Koschei would suggest putting a couple right in front of the door, which forces people to touch the plants, but he has somehow gotten attached to the seventy-five weeds they stole from botanical biology, and doesn't want them to get stepped on. "So tell me something philosophical."

"I just did."

The problem with the open windows is they sometimes threaten to blow all the loosely-planted weeds all over the room. "Something unrelated to plants."

Theta only has to think for a second before breathing in as if to start speaking. He does this a few times.

"You sound like a suffocating fish, Thete."

Theta huffs. "Yeah okay it's another observation of Sol III."

Koschei smirks. "Nerd."

"Well you asked." To speak philosophically, he somehow finds it necessary to stop planting and lean against the edge of a window. "So there's this song I found last week called 'Hallelujah'. In English, the word is defined in solely positive, joyous, or praising terms, and is never used sarcastically in this song. But lyrically and melodically, the song itself is completely contradictory to the number of 'hallelujah's that show up, which is something like thirty. It's depressing and sort of hopeless and melancholy, especially when the surrounding mythology is taken into account. There is no way to interpret this song as joyful, and the last verse goes 'Even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah'. So this clear contradiction ends up opening up a thousand different interpretations of what the song's supposed to be about, which cannot happen with something like 'Even though it all went right, I'll stand before the Lord of Light with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah'. To have deeper, thought-provoking interpretation, the song requires blatant contradiction."

Koschei stops for a moment, looking at the nearest plant. It seems unaffected by this train of thought, which it should be, as it is a plant. "I'm impressed."

"Wanna know how it all ties in to planting weeds all over the storage tower?"

"Yes."

"It doesn't."

Chapter Text

Theta has gone off into a closet to study as he’s done in the past, different from the days he’d have to literally re-iterate the entire lesson to Koschei or review something for the hundredth time thanks to the headache deal, and so he has let him be. A form of nostalgia emerges as he sees the walls approaching, familiar classrooms lying beyond and familiar bits of forest even further. The average height of person decreases rapidly as he finally passes the invisible dividing lines between the four quadrants of the campus, making his way into a slightly older area than he had been in the past. Well, only recent past.

He slows down to pass the Gallifreyan Language Arts room, taking one deep breath of the happy sort of musty smell emanating from its open door. In all the years, the smell hasn’t changed a bit.

If he were ever to face Vansell again, he decides, he must have some kind of reverse-hypnotism. How far the heat of the moment would take him is another question entirely, but the “crossing the bridge when we get to it” phrase that has plagued many a Time Lord in a state of procrastination offers itself seductively to the idea of maybe just losing control. A bit.

Then it would be Morality and Theta and things getting in the way telling him no, rather unkindly, but what is unkind against the cruel? Justified cruel? Natural want for revenge? Revenge on the noise? But what has it actually done, in truth? Existed? Everyone wants to exist.

The twenty-year-olds believe themselves to be mature to some extent. Top of their division of classes, attached to little pods of peers with the same names as they, according to the trend. There has been a bias approaching to where your first name lands in the alphabet it originated from, putting Omega at an unbeknownst last. Theta is majestically unattainable in another universe. They say the ethical stupidity of Time Lords is getting better by generation, but in all truth it has become worse.

Fewer regrets, then.

Koschei props himself against the wall in a closet, door wide open, tempting the occasional explorer. It’s not far off a main hall, people coming down here to turn into maybe dormitories, but Koschei’s not paying enough attention to get into character. If a character even exists here.

He pretends to study, looking confused at the slate and glancing up once or twice, tapping notes onto a blank screen and looking like he’s trying to find something around the hallways. Makes it appear his question is rather urgent and the kids will actually be able to answer him when he asks. If the kids show up one at a time, without a professor about. Ah.

It takes barely three minutes for all these factors to present themselves in a very round, very colourful student, carrying a hard-copy book and slate at the same time, with clear purpose. Good.

“Excuse me there uh…” he waves vaguely at the child, who stops amid the brown-black floors to look back at her elder. Koschei taught himself hypnosis, really, taking a leaf out of Vansell’s book and applying the theory of telepathy as a whole.

“Y-yes… sir?”

“Oh no, don’t call me sir.” He smiles arbitrarily, throwing the intent in the dirt with the hard stare at two pupils. “Call me Beta.”

“Call you Beta.”

Number two. Nobody is given the name Alpha at the Academy, which is perhaps what started the discriminatory hierarchy of the younger generation, Beta now the highest rank Koschei can pull out of his meagre Omega.

“Can you count down from fourteen for me?”

“Fourteen... thirteen… twelve… eleven…”

“Stop.”

She stops. “Good. Now, walk in two circles around me.”

“Two circles around…”

“Obey me.”

Without a word, she paces in two scarily accurate circles around Koschei, not having a reaction even as she’s blocked by the one she’s supposed to walk around. He can feel a small amount of pull from the mid-front of the girl’s brain; dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Perfect. “Now stop.” She stops in her tracks, glazed eyes pointed at Koschei. He gently lets go of the pull on her brain, painting a lost sort of face back on perfectly.

“Sorry, can you tell me where the cafeteria went? I haven’t been down here in a while.”

She points, slightly confused, perhaps slightly conscious of will for too much of it and not understanding hypnotism. Chances are she won’t tell. Chances are good on the young for the exact fear Koschei had of Theta telling.

“Thanks.”

###

His brain is so worked out and wrung dry, it soaks up every stray thought like a hyperactive sponge. So he can hear the nervous kid coming before he feels the tapping on his shoulder.

“Uh, Omega Xi, isn’t it?”

Koschei doesn’t want to move from his relaxing little corner of the hallway, serenity between a broom closet and functional society of dust bunnies. It’s Koschei who looks down on the weaselly boy in a too-big robe in the metaphorical sense, glare of an exhausted skipper of class overruling the standing up of a good boy. He better have a painkiller. “I hope so.”

The boy inhales, pausing to think, strenuously trying to define the sarcasm in Koschei’s voice. “Uh, yes. Well, um, it’s Borusa. He, uh, he’s your professor, right?”

“Unless he’s turned himself into a bat.”

The boy swallows. Run away, you irrelevant gnat. “Right well, he wants to speak with you. In his office.”

Koschei blinks tiredly, letting a deep breath cycle through his lungs before making any effort to speak. “In the middle of class?” The boy nods at least five times in quick succession. “What about?”

“Uh, well…” It appears Runcible has tried morphing into a haywire security camera, scanning everything his eyes will manage in no logical order. “There’s been a report about something urgent. You’re involved.” He clamps his hands behind his back. “But he wouldn’t say why,” he blurts out, “I know nothing he just told me to come get you and—”

“Who made the report?”

“I, I dunno, Borusa didn’t—”

Koschei is on his feet in a second. “I said, who made the report?” He is about to apply a bit of the suggestive telepathy he’s learnt, but his head recoils in another throb of ache.

“‘The informant wishes to remain anonymous’,” he squeaks, the vivid picture of him recoiling at the sight of Koschei is only a little bit amusing.

Koschei scoffs. “You definitely know.”

The boy shakes his head as rapidly as he nods.

Koschei grabs him by the front of his robes, slamming him against the wall behind. “WHO WAS IT?”

“Ididn’tmeantoIwasjustwalkingpastandhecameinallsneakyand—”

“WHO?”

“Theta Sigma,” he squeaks. Of course it fucking was.

Koschei lets him go, and shrugs. “Okay, fair enough.” He runs past the squirrelly boy, down the stairs to where the eight-year-olds sleep, the best way he knows how to get outside.

Koschei finds the vortisaurs easier than he thought he would, all of them safely tucked away in their pens for the fall season. There’s been some debate to how humane it is to keep such a time-sensitive creature stuck in a single dimension of time, but the claims are always “we feed them energy straight from the schism” and “they can adapt naturally to any dimension of time” and “none of them have died yet”. Flying lessons don’t restart for another month, the greatest excitement for a twenty-year-old. Soon as thirty hits, academia suddenly give you no more time to bother with these things.

“Hello,” he whispers. The leathery indigo beast seems to hear him, or probably only reacts to the time rushing through his veins. The Time Lords here are the perfect meal for a vortisaur: every carcass they age and digest regrows itself twelve more times. “What’s your name, then?” Koschei delicately opens the half-existent glass door it is locked behind, searching for a nameplate.

It’s stuck to the back wall-ish of the pen, frosted into temporally confused glass. “Irving. Hello, Irving.” Twenty-nine more line up beyond and beside the pen he’s in. Irving doesn’t tell him anything, beginning to strain against the barely-there rope around its neck. “Sorry.” Koschei lifts the loop around the beast’s neck, letting the trained creature take a few steps into the world. Koschei closes the door to its pen, now fully solid and smooth. It wasn’t the pen caught halfway out of reality. It was Irving.

Koschei lets his feet drag through the sweet orange grass as it waits for him, basking in the sudden burst of sun that peeks out from the sort-of-cloud cover. He extends a hand to Irving, feeling the rugged skin on its side and above its spine. They do feed them well. “Up we go, then.”

Koschei plants two hands on the creature’s back, springing into the air and swinging one leg over just behind its shoulders. Irving hardly teeters to the right, and Koschei tilts forward to link his arms under its neck. Irving routinely bends its back to accommodate the weight atop it, settling into a well-practised rhythm of preparatory stances. “Come on, Irving.”

Irving gallops away from his cell in a surprisingly smooth pattern, throwing itself into the air, bursting its wings open, and beating them through the air away from the grass. It flies in a circle as it ascends, waiting for some instruction of where to go, no doubt seen by somebody through the Academy windows already.

“Just keep going up,” Koschei says aloud this time, noise softened in the rush of his body moving through the air. The suns have disappeared behind another grayish cloud, throwing the sturdy walls he flies beside into a dim shadow. Koschei waits for the floors of students locked indoors to crumble into smaller spires and dormitories, letting him see the horizon beyond. Koschei leans left, away from it, to the river Lethe and the forest much smaller from above.

Irving dips the way Koschei’s body threatens to slide off, turning its tail to the building as the first couple drops of rain fall on its head. Koschei grins. He peers at the trees below, small silvery-red splotches among breaks in foliage. He should be able to see Lethe when Irving crosses over it.

It starts spitting, then drizzling, then raining, the frequency of drops increasing exponentially as he climbs higher and higher still into the air. Koschei’s shirt sticks to his back, his pants have been soaked through, his hair drips, and he loves it. The drops quit multiplying shy of a downpour, thrumming into his skin, hurtling to the edge of the river below.

Koschei pulls on Irving’s neck, lifting his face to the sky in an impossible journey to console the mourning god letting her tears fall to the rocks. Irving squawks at him in a way reminiscent of a purr.

“A little rain never hurt anybody!” Koschei squeezes his eyes shut as water pelts his face, hearts thrumming wildly in anticipation and the sensation of hanging somewhere near vertically above the water. “Just give me a few more seconds.”

He can’t see anything but clouds now, swirling greys between rapid blinks to avoid the rain. He hesitates, and Irving begins to slow his ascent. His hands twitch but he can’t do it. His hearts scream their dissent or sing their appraisal, he can’t tell, and in closing his eyes they get louder. It’s his mental noise again.

He breathes a long, slow, sigh, blocking out the jerky movements upward as his entire body is forced to relax. His knees untuck, his legs dangle, his fingers grip for dear life in the second before a wing’s thrust from Irving sends them tumbling apart.

He plummets so much faster than he rose, letting himself scream only once. His body twists to try and see where he’s going, eyes trying to focus somewhere in the spectacle of nature swimming before him. His lungs try and suck in another useless breath of air, but nothing will go in, and the panic of watching the ground appear overrides all his previous consolations of it’s okay, it’s almost over. He finds the breath in him to scream again, river below starting to take on details of movement from the rain. He will die in the same place he was supposed to die forty four years ago.

Irving screeches from on high, the beast trained to maintain the young, stealing the instinctive orders from Koschei’s head and reaching his clawed feet out to catch the falling passenger. Somewhat.

The blunted claws snatch at Koschei’s body, sending his vision flying in one direction and another, buffering and buffering his descent until he hangs above the water in too-tight feet of leather. Koschei’s neck hangs to the side, muscles screaming against their assault. It feels like his hearts might run from his chest.

Irving lowers him to a friendly distance above the water, letting Koschei’s spasming body roll from its curled toes into Lethe. Koschei doesn’t keep his eyes open, but he holds his breath. There’s something in him ordering his lungs to give up their air supply, and something else ordering his legs to kick their way to the surface of the water.

His legs win.

Koschei was forced into the office chair after an unfair game of hide and seek, where there were too many people seeking and Koschei was not allowed to change out of his wet, muddy clothes.

“You do understand the rules regarding use of the Vortisaurs, correct?”

Koschei decides he is allowed to be incredibly unprofessional, and glares at his wet shoes. There is some satisfaction derived from getting Borusa’s other desk chair and carpet wet and dirty, and it offsets the perpetual discomfort spectacularly.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

Dripping enough water for a number of glasses thank you very much, Koschei keeps his arms folded and refuses to respond.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Koschei tries not to kick the desk, like he’s wanted to kick everything he’s come across since Irving. “Theta Sigma tipped you off.”

“Theta Sigma, after bringing to light a case of… convoluted… attempted suicide, reported an incident of significant abuse inflicted by the same person. By protocol I need you to confide in this claim’s accuracy.”

“It might help if you told me what I’m supposed to confide.”

Borusa folds his hands on the desk, looking very serious indeed. The dead-looking potted leafy plant in the corner of his office offsets this demeanour. He brings his voice to a more ‘sympathetic’ level, as if sympathy might help solve the problem or suddenly motivate Koschei to reveal his life secrets. “Theta Sigma was very distressed when he told me there was an encounter between you and Rho Lambda, in which he physically beat you and put you under hypnosis in order to harmfully invade your memories.”

“And he asked to remain anonymous?”

“He did.”

Koschei scowls. “Bastard.” Borusa opens his mouth to speak, but Koschei cuts him off. “Is this why you don’t teach telepathy at this school?” Borusa tries to look confused instead of providing insight. “I bet it is. I’m not the first. Continue.”

He sighs either impatiently, or as a form of agreement, or as another attempt to appear sympathetic. “Omega Xi, your word carries the most testimonial weight in providing an accurate account of this event.”

“Can’t you just use the mind probe?”

“That would only be more harmful in your current situation.”

Koschei actually kicks the desk. It makes a rattling noise. “Not on me, on Vansell. Rho Lambda. Whatever you call him. Hypnosis can’t beat the mind probe.”

“I’d like your word first.”

Koschei rolls his eyes. “For crying out loud. Yeah, ‘Rho Lambda’ waltzed into my dormitory and attacked me, but from his general history, we all should’ve seen it coming.”

“Can you guess any motive for his doing this?”

Koschei shifts in the chair for maximum water coverage. Even throws his leg over the arm rest. He gives Borusa a wide-toothed, very sarcastic smile. “Why don’t you go ask him?”

Borusa must have some breathing handicap for all the prolonged exhales. “Using the mind probe is only authorised in serious crimes, and is best not used on adolescents. If you give us some notion of a motive, we can spend less time looking blindly and direct the search at something for minimal time using the apparatus.”

“So some kid comes and fucks around with my head enough I literally jumped off a vortisaur past the elevation of terminal velocity and you want to minimise time spent using a mind probe?” Koschei stands up and slams the desk with his hands.

“Omega Xi,”

“If you’re digging through his head anyways, I’d love to maximise your time.”

“Revenge is not as satisfying as many make it out to be.”

Koschei turns and slams open the door, striding out into the hall. “Save your philosophy!”

###

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO TELL, THETA.”

Theta gets up from the table, walking over towards the mattress as is their usual placement should a fight ever break out. Dumping acid on the floor is not optimal, and while the sanity exists, there will be some order. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, opening them to properly see a damp Koschei partly crusted in mud. His mouth doesn’t want to speak, lungs deciding themselves too important to try and formulate a way to respond. “I had to.” Koschei doesn’t even bother refuting his words. “All thanks to Magnus.”

“Oh, so it is my fault!” He marches to their table, still dripping water in places. He glares at the gradient of leaves, frozen in time from life to death, as if they’re Theta. “We need to stop making fucking leaves, Thete.”

“It’s really not your fault, Koschei. It was a wise decision at the time, and it turned out badly, but you can’t go around with this! If he gets to you again—”

Koschei slams the table. “He always gets to me again! He’s in my nightmares, still in my memories, I can hear his voice in my head along with the noise and yet you have the audacity to give him ample opportunity to come after me again!”

“I—”

“Not only that, he will, he WILL TELL where Magnus is and he’ll be hunted after and we’ve no way of communicating with him or whatever the hell’s going on, yet here you are doing your almighty ‘right thing’! WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?”

“YOU CAN’T NOT REPORT ASSAULT, KOSCHEI!”

“I DID JUST FINE MYSELF, THANKS FOR NOTHING.”

“But the thing is, he can’t very well do it again for a long time. He could be expelled for this!”

“One scenario in retaliation to a physical assault in extreme circumstances, hardly expelled.”

“Suspended, then!”

“HE WILL STILL TRY.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because he’s been in my head!” Koschei starts walking forward, in mixed reminiscence of the time he was here, maybe mirroring it exactly and maybe trying to have exactly the same effect but not really meaning it. “He’s hypnotised me into doing exactly what he asks while marching around my brain, leaving a mark on everything he touched and believe me.” He’s walked right up to Theta now, but Theta didn’t back up into the wall. That’s because he’s in front of a bed. “I would know.”

Theta pauses, then nods slowly. “Okay.” He places hands on either shoulder, in a way going to push him back but not having the ability somehow to push him back. Not any more. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

He takes a defiant breath, staring directly back down at Koschei in a way that he never did, adding one more tick on the list of “maybe Vansell would have backed off if I did ___”

“You would know. You’re right. I’m wrong, aren’t I always?”

“Oh get lost.”

“No. No, you’re right. Vansell gave me two options. Not telling would have gotten you pegged for murder, and you’d probably be home by now. He didn’t tell me the other one, but it would keep you here. Okay I am a SELFISH BASTARD THAT PUT YOU THROUGH HELL AND I AM SORRY. I’M SORRY I’D DO EXACTLY THE SAME THING AGAIN.”

“HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?”

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.” The silence lasts for two seconds, at most. But it’s been years. “It sounds so ugly but there’s no other way to describe it, and just—” He covers his eyes with his palms, blindly facing the ground. “I love you and I’m so selfish I put everything in Vansell’s hands just to keep you here and I messed up so much and the only way to fix any of it was to give it to someone with more power.” He removes his palms from his hands, and Koschei has stopped looking quite so angry. “But I swear—” he sighs. “I swear on whatever the hell makes swearing so important he won’t touch you again.”

Koschei doesn’t seem to know what to say.

He counts one two three four four times. Theta swallows more than normal.

“I guess…” Koschei feels the most obligated to say something exactly specific more than he has in his life. He wonders what Vansell might see if he said so. Vansell would probably laugh. “I need to change,” he croaks. Any other day it would be a simple solution to avoiding more talking, but it dawns on them both at perhaps the same time this fact has been compromised.

“Should I… leave?” Theta asks, taking a step back that instantaneously clears the air around them.

Koschei drops his eyes to Theta’s feet, then back up for a second before looking away again.The smallest of smiles twitches across his face. “I… I guess not?”

The silences are horrendous.

“I mean it’s fine, I can leave—”

“No, don’t… bother. I guess.”

They make eye contact for all of half a second, but it’s enough. Koschei starts making some sort of amused noise, caught between a giggle and ironic chuckle, frozen before his simple task.

Theta follows soon enough. “We’re ridiculous,” he says, turning and walking to their little table, back turned.

Koschei peels off a wet shirt. “I can’t argue there.”

“We’ll always find something to argue about, don’t worry.”

The laughing noises peter out as quick as they came.

Chapter Text

Ushas slams the door of her room a little louder than she anticipated, some part of her wanting to go back out and clarify it was not, in fact, a cry for attention and no, she doesn't want someone to come in asking. She throws herself into the desk chair, shoving anything on top of it aside in favour of the blank wooden canvas below. Unmarked, innocent, no ingrained pattern as might be present in a natural tree. She wields a stick of graphite in one hand, less favoured than ink but far less harmful. On another day, she might try and control her breathing and calm down first, but the thought has not occurred to her yet.

The tip of the pencil almost digs into the surface, crafting shaky circles within circles. 79. The great and wretched 79, the good but not great that is therefore bad, bringer of chaos and teller of mediocrity that rubs elbows with 75 and the demon that is 70.

Her stomach has been hurting for five minutes and she knows it will not go away.

She drags her slate on top of the desk, pulling paper in to surround it for writing notes to be immortalised and never once forgotten. She condemns all her screaming emotions to the same plane of existence as the grade starting with 7, pulling the wire from her hair and pitching it across the room, willing the slate to telepathically bring up as much faintly related information it can sustain. It doesn't. 

"Cobalt sulfide heptahydrate. Co SO4 7H2O. Tetraquocobalt difluoride. Co F2 4H2O. Cobalt nitrate hexahydrate. Co NO3 2 6H2O."

She is minutely aware of someone knocking on her door, but doesn't pay them any attention. They'll leave. 

"Eukarya, Animalia, Cnidaria, Scyphozoa, Semaestomeae, Ulmaridae--"

The knocking continues. But she's too focused to bother leaving her desk. Too important. 

"Ushas, I know you're in there. I can hear you muttering." The voice that's probably Theta pauses. Hopefully he left.

N equals N sub zero e exponent negative la-" The voice that was obviously Theta throws the door open, grabbing the slate off Ushas's desk and turning her chair around before she can utter radioactive decay. 

He stands before her all uppity with his arms folded and some scowl and he's much taller from this angle an he has the slate on his hand but she's not going to try and take it from him because she'll fail. He's always easy to yell at and get a result, though. 

"THETA SIGMA." She stands up defiantly as she can before him, trying to put as murderous a look as possible in her eyes. 

"DELTA PSI." He shouts back, not even with the door closed, tossing the slate on her bed. She can't get it without trying to shove past him, which she knows isn't going to work and someone's probably heard so they'll come in and see them fighting and

"Give it back," she squeaks, feeling the murder leak from her eyes and legs just want to run away from the taller scary Theta Sigma. 

"We're going on a trip."

"No you don't understand I need to study more so I know everything properly and won't get lost next term because then I'll be behind and I'll fail and and--" the taller scary Theta Sigma pulls her into a hug, letting her head fall against his neck as hands ever so softly wrap around her back. The murder has washed away completely to salt water, a terrifying timeline of a 79% morphing into failing to never receiving Time Lord credentials to being homeless and jobless and starving to death. There is a broken mathematical constant in her head, an algorithmic measure of appropriate panic that is meant to be an addition sign. 

"I've already gotten permission from Professor Traesys to go on a two-day study trip to the library out past Hamlet. We’re taking Koschei whether he likes it or not."

"I thought you were against me studying." She holds onto Theta for an uncharacteristic length of time, claiming to never want a hug but sometimes definitely wanting a hug. She decides, very logically, it’s perfectly alright in moderation.

"I'm not against lying. We all need a vacation anyways." Theta steps back to pat Ushas on the shoulder, smile completely against the yelling and the throwing of objects. 

"Now, I'm taking this," he holds up the slate Ushas is painfully resisting the urge to snatch away, "and you won't be seeing it until classes resume."

Her stomach has, for the most part, settled itself down. In record time, no less. “Why?”

He smiles, and looks very tired. “We don’t hang around enough anymore. I miss those days.”

She doesn’t hang around anyone, much. She sighs. “So do I.”

“Too much school is a bad thing. Now get packing.”

###

Ushas can tell there’s something off about them. But then, there usually always is.

Koschei has been ravaging the pond for half an hour now in complete silence, soaked to the bone three times over at least. He looks stuck between a spellbound child and a tortured animal, flailing around Theta’s knighted Prime Camping Ground without much notice for the two of them. Theta watches him from a giant fallen tree just off to the side of the water, hugging his knees. He practically radiates interrupted peace, some kind of paranoid serenity that will not settle in any given point in time. It hangs around him like a cloud, not being directed at anything, but conscious nonetheless.

The surprise study-trip-turned-hooky-turned-camping-expedition is still the most confusing part. That and the fact neither of them have spoken a word in the full half hour.

Being a biologist of the dead sort, Ushas never found a need to learn much telepathy. If it’s important enough, someone’s going to shout it across the room at her and be plenty clear enough. Theta, on the other hand, has simply ignored mental walls as a whole. His haze of tentative calm has been assigned an aesthetic, swirling lilac and deep yellow and turquoise beginning to move in jerky patterns.

Knowing Theta, it’s probably trying to mimic Koschei. Ushas shifts to his vantage point, probably small enough to fit between him and the edge of the log. She swings her legs over the edge anyways. His eyes so betray his little cloud, locked on Koschei but calculating, not the soft and vacant gaze of a romantic.

“You can’t fix everything, you know.” Ushas barely speaks, not wanting to disrupt Koschei’s interpretive explosion of a dance. Theta’s lilac haze is punctured from the inside, turning itself dark blue before being sucked back inside his head. He’s found the walls again. Theta doesn’t tear his eyes off Koschei for Ushas’s sake, bare toes curling on top of the bark. He isn’t smiling.

Koschei has taken to holding his breath in enormous gasps, curling into a ball and plunging underwater. A multitude of bubbles break at the surface, agonising seconds stretching between them and a gasping Time Lord popping out of the pond. The stress leaks through the cracks in Theta’s head, pressure not high enough yet for his skull to break completely. It might, if Koschei doesn’t come back up. Maybe then…

“I don’t fix much.” Theta waited for him to come back up to speak. And only a mumble, only to Ushas.

She shakes her head, watching her bare feet hang three metres from the ground. “You tried to fix a TARDIS at the age of ten.”

“I was ten.”

She sighs in all their misadventures. Most of them involve Ushas in a panic as Theta and Koschei get up to no good, the former always trying to save the day in some form or another. Whether he knows it or not. “You’d fix the Medusa Cascade with a needle and thread if someone let you.”

Ushas leans her head on Theta’s shoulder, a rare occurrence of the scientist displaying sentiment. “I’m not letting you try and fix people.”

He shifts as if trying to melt into himself. “You’d think, being myself, I’d be the last person wanting to fix people.”

“You’d think.”

Koschei emerges from the water, gasping for air and choking on lungs. Perhaps the only thing Ushas has done is given Koschei more time to practice drowning.

###

Koschei was not up for talking, forget cooking marshmallows over a fire in a jar in a tent at midnight after being ordered twice to put dry clothes on. Theta probably put something in the marshmallows to make him all giggly and stupid, but then Theta’s taken his own medicine and what harm can be done? Likely keeping Ushas awake with their mindless chatter and fire hazard, but she’s somehow slipped to the back of his mind in favour of romantic conspiracies involving Omega and Rassilon.

There’s a very rational, very depressed section of Koschei’s head that refuses to be shut up in a fit of giggles and sugar, kicking and screaming against the shimmering mindlessness of his present state. It knows something’s off. Theta probably knows it knows. But Koschei really doesn’t want to know, wants to go on eating marshmallows and hold off the lecture from Ushas and be prepared to jump into the lake on fire if someone knocks over the jar. Theta probably knows that, too. He’s probably worked his way into hidden cracks of his head and started beating them into giddiness, determined to completely eradicate the protesting.

Koschei keeps adding unnecessary plot to the Unspoken Affairs of the Triumvirate, consuming another mildly burnt cylinder he hasn’t bothered counting. Theta can crawl in his brain all he likes, if the world could be turned into a tent and marshmallows all the time.

He pretends everything in his head isn’t screaming at him it really can’t and contemplates Theta’s equally deranged self going on about the Other trying to function a loom. Because it’s great fun, being normal for once. Maybe Ushas will mind less if they’re being normal.

###

As nobody seems to tell him anything, Theta is alone with an actual hard copy book from Hamlet, cross-legged on the coffee table. Two chairs are wide open on both sides, but they're just not his spot, and taking them over would disrupt the balance of the cosmos even without someone to kick him off. 

The book's been in existence for maybe only twice his lifetime, a generous twentieth of his expected lifespan, and it's already coming apart. The pages are yellow, the corners are scrubbed to a curve, the backing is all but disintegrated. It used to display the words "The Life and Death of Omega", but it has all been reduced to inference from the text itself. 

He's just getting to the end bit, and finds it quite amusing. It's always amusing when the government's having a crisis. 

"Thete." He doesn't bother closing the book. 

"It's always paint, Drax. Blood dries brown, not red."

"Thete. It's Magnus." Theta closes the book, but keeps a fingertip in to not lose the page. "He's lookin’ for ya. 3-2-4." Drax stands closer behind him than he thought.

Theta pretends not to be concerned, which in itself is conspicuous in its lack of unprecedence in learning Magnus is suddenly returned. He passes Drax in poorly executed indifference. 

"You know where he was."

"That I don't." He hears Drax jump into one of the chairs. He's going to break something one of these days. 

"Then wot does 'e want with you?"

"A warm welcome, I expect."

He doesn't need to hear Drax grumbling about bullshit behind him.

It takes less than a minute to find Magnus’s room.

“I didn’t get a trial,” Magnus declares, back turned. Theta has been oblivious to the number of people capable of telepathy at this age.

“That’s unfortunate.” Theta keeps the door open, a gaping hole in the wall propped by his foot.

Magnus turns on one heel, leaning against the window opposite Theta. His skin has been drained of all colour barely three shades below stark white, eyes angled more on their axis. The only part of his entire body that stayed is the short black hair.

“You regenerated.”

Magnus smacks one palm to his new forehead. “Really? I hadn’t noticed!”

“But they can’t do that at your age!”

Magnus’s lips turn sour. “And who’s going to tell them that? Leaving the planet’s a grand enough crime to get a heart out of commission. No thanks to you.”

“What did I do?”

“Koschei very smartly turned up ten minutes after I got in to say ‘it wasn’t me’. I believed that, but he wouldn’t say who turned me in.”

Theta sloppily breaks off all telepathic communication in an instant, a method that usually works. Magnus notices. He grins.

“See what I mean?”

Theta takes a deep breath for all the lost hours of petty War Games and stolen test answers few and far between. “I had to,” he falters on the name, “Magnus, believe me.”

“You literally got me killed.”

“I didn’t know that would happen!” Theta’s foot shifts to the left, reminding him to keep it on the open door.

“Let’s say you knew. Would you still turn me in?”

He pauses. Theta wants to say ‘no’, swallows down a ‘yes’, and settles for a ‘maybe’ he can’t very well speak as a satisfactory response. He hates dichotomies.

“In my experience,” Magnus shuffles his feet and crosses his legs to emphasise his trials of a new body, “There’s always a way around.”

Theta takes a breath to argue that this unreliable situation was so dire it was an anomaly, an exception to his rule. He closes the mouth and swallows the inhaled breath in knowing with a bit less dramatics and less angsty black and white, he could have found a way out. 

"I'll always remember you as a friend, Theta Sigma." He steps closer to Theta, shooing him out purely with in tone of voice. "If I'm out again quick enough, I won't even remember this little hiccough."

Theta takes one step back, but keeps his foot on the door. "How are you going to manage all that now?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

Chapter Text

Ushas doesn't knock, opening the door on Theta halfway through uploading a caterpillar.

"Theta."

He tries to disguise the lack of a wall very poorly. "You're supposed to knock!"

Ushas rolls her eyes, slamming the door shut in front of her. She knocks once, walking in before Theta can actually activate the cloaking device. "We all know you don't have a wall, Theta."

He clears his throat, letting the hole present the hypothetically less messy side of the room. "Oh."

"Have you talked to Magnus recently?"

Theta shakes his head. "He makes a habit of not talking to me, actually. He's trying to remember me for the person who didn't sell him out to authority."

"Fantastic. We think he talks to Drax and nobody else."

Theta pauses uploading the caterpillar. "Who's 'we'?"

Ushas shakes her head abruptly. "Millennia, Rallon, Mort, actual Drax. Essentially, Magnus wasn't seen in three days, so Drax tried breaking into his room. Door's locked from the inside, but Magnus is definitely in there, along with something mechanical-sounding."

"So why are you telling me this?"

"Because Koschei informed me you have a device that can dissociate walls at the molecular level, and would probably work on a door."

Theta rounds the table. "How did I not know about this?"

"That caterpillar must be absolutely fascinating." Theta demands the pink tint in his cheeks stay down, thank you. Ushas smirks. "Don't worry. He only brought it up today."

Theta begins pulling out drawers and opening makeshift cupboards in search of their likely illegal project number one.

"He probably hasn't eaten anything in the past three days, so we're getting him food and water."

"Magnus? He's not the kind of person who'd starve himself over a project."

"That's the thing. He's gone a bit downhill since he left."

"Beyond pissed off?"

Ushas nods, striding into the hall with Theta left to close the door.

"Any idea what it could be?" Theta whispers as low as he can muster, ear once pressed to the door to hear the muttering and clanking and occasional whirring of parts.

"I'd say something to get him off the planet, but the only noteworthy places he can get with anything inside a dormitory are the prison moons." They wait for the patter of feet from the other end of the commons, hopefully their basket of existential nourishment.

Drax is the first to round the corner, followed by Millennia and Rallon, and Koschei. A slightly large group to be assigned the sole task of getting food and water. Drax raps on the door four times with his knuckles, squaring his shoulders as if Magnus can see him. "Magnus, you gotta open the door."

There is no reply but a kick to the bottom of the door.

"We can break up the molecules in your door if ya let us in." Drax nods Theta to where he stood, who sincerely hopes the thing still works properly.

"I'm fine!" Magnus shouts from within.

"Go ahead," Ushas says.

Theta flicks its sole switch, a wonderfully designed 'on' versus 'off'. "We pawning off 'destruction of school property' to Magnus, then?"

Ushas nods. "We gave him the option to open it instead."

The molecular dust falls unceremoniously to the floor, some left to float around in light specks. What's behind the door is more frightening than what Koschei found behind their wall. A pale, baggy-eyed, twitching Magnus screeches at his lost door, standing in a mess of scrap parts and wires and an entirely deconstructed bed. The mattress leans against the wall, some of the stuffing ripped out and metallic wiring extracted for the greater good.

"You been pissing out the window, then?" Drax asks him, and Magnus would slam the door in his face if it were still there. In a starved craze, he focuses on Theta. "Of course it's you with the door thing."

His head twitches to the box of food, and to the water bottle. He fumes at Drax. "I have not been pissing out the window."

"You been eatin', then?"

His head twitches back to the box. He scoops it up in frantic haste, scared the floor outside his room might burn him. "Thought I was closer to done," he mumbles, backing into his hovel.

"Done what, may I ask?"

The work of engineering is the focal point of his meticulous interior decorating, rugged platform and metal arcs interlaced with wires and a gaping bulb at the top, waiting to be filled.

"What goes in the top?" Koschei asks.

"Nothing. Are you giving me my door back?"

"No, 'cause now you gotta 'fess up to admin ya need a new door."

"How am I supposed to explain that?"

"Don' ask me!"

Magnus stares them all down for good measure, plunking himself in the furthest corner of the room with his box. "If you could all leave, that would be great."

Drax turns to his little squad. "I think we're done here."

Millennia nods, giving Magnus some undue smile, turning to walk back wherever with Rallon.

It is only when Drax departs, all of them outside earshot of Magnus's severely ajar door, that Koschei whispers "did you see the wires?"

Ushas pretends he did. "He specifically bought them, too. It's very intentional."

Theta coughs once. "I was too focused on Magnus himself to notice the wires, sorry."

Ushas snorts. "You're the one uploading a caterpillar."

"I'm doing it the old-fashioned way! Manual input of all the synapses."

"Well, if you were doing it the logical way, you'd get a caterpillar and wire it up to a computer. But standard wires don't work; you need specific biochemical compounds to interact with the brain tissue and the synapses."

"So he's uploading a cat, maybe a large fish?"

Theta hopes Ushas finds the kind of people that will mellow her facial expressions one day. "No, Magnus's wires are temporally inclined."

"He could hook up a vortisaur," Koschei says.

Ushas shakes her head. "You two are both impossibly illogical. He can't fit a vortisaur in that thing, but yes he's going to stick a living being in the sphere and suck out its temporal energy."

"Okay, but what can he achieve with that? There's no mobility involved."

Ushas shrugs. "He had a lot of wires."

###

Koschei finds himself walking alone, which wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary, if the events of the past two years were not put into consideration. He felt completely helpless for a while, and then just paranoid, but the sense of expecting Vansell to jump out from behind any given wall is still present after such a long time (or, to Time Lords, such a short time). Vansell was, all contexts considered, suspended for one year of homeschooling.

He's back now.

Koschei nearly makes to the commons, constantly checking over his shoulder and skittering away from every physicality that looks like Vansell for more than 0.5 seconds. He is about to turn the last corner, mind fading into the potential of what could happen rather than what is directly in front of him. Reality pulls him by the arm the meter and a half into a maintenance closet. Everything happens slightly too fast for him to catch on before the door slams behind him and block him from trying to run out.

Koschei, in the face of Vansell looking ever so furious, randomly recalls the onslaught of people telling him to talk it through instead and blurts out "Is this about that time on Obraeon?"

Vansell lazily pulls back an arm and slams his fist into Koschei's right cheek, teeth cutting into his flesh and sending a burst of metallic blood into his throat.

Koschei brings a hand to his face, feeling it run down his fingers, down his wrist, onto the floor.

"Oh look. You caught me."

"I'm sorry," Koschei croaks, somehow pulling up the courage to look him in the eye for a second before shutting it again, not bracing for impact quick enough.

He has to part his lips to keep from choking on blood, tongue now gouged where he couldn't pull it back quick enough, saliva mixing with it to create a sorry, vaguely pink solution that drips onto his robes. He takes in three ragged breaths, the oh-so-wonderful memories of having his brain picked at coming back in bursts of pain shooting up the right side of his gum, his cheeks, his nose, his eye.

Then the survival instinct returns, and any notion of talking it out like a civilised being as he's been told is tossed out the window. He swings one glorious leg out in front of him and nails Vansell in the stomach.

Breathing out his mouth and therefore spitting in little bursts, he takes two fistfuls of robe on Vansell's front and slams him against the wall as hard as he can, hearing a crack as his head hits the wall and feeling subconsciously satisfied with the noise.

"Do yourself a favour and let go of me."

Koschei instead slams his forehead into Vansell's nose, again hearing a somewhat satisfying noise that was much louder than the first one. Vansell has started yelling, but not for help, which only has Koschei lean in close enough to kiss him if he very well wanted to. He balls his fists tighter and tighter around the flimsy fabric of his robes, pressing him harder against the wall and nailing him in between the legs with a knee.

Vansell attempts to curl up into a ball as would be only natural, but is hindered by Koschei, who still breathes directly in his face and will not stop until his own brain tells him to. Vansell tries to fight back with his hands, pounding them into Koschei's sides. Instead Koschei strikes him again, Vansell's arms going limp at his sides as he is raised up to just a little bit taller than Koschei is.

"Good." Koschei uses one arm to cover Vansell's neck, keeping his jaw at exactly the right angle to look directly into his eyes, "Now don't yell for help." He knows Vansell can resist hypnosis, making it all the more elating when it takes only a little bit more force to break his efforts. "Don't yell at all. You don't know who attacked you. It was a random student, bigger than you. Stronger than you. You picked a fight with him and he retaliated. Do you understand?"

Vansell nods as much as he can, Koschei not feeling the pressure that was put on his arm in doing so, not feeling the blood still dripping out of his mouth, running down his nose.

Koschei tilts his head to the side, smiling a twisted sort of way with his mouth still open to breathe through. "What to do, then?" He takes three heavy breaths, feeling Vansell squirm underneath him, only enough to take in oxygen. "I never much liked your brain, did I?" He laughs a little at the horror of seeing Vansell's brain in turn, feeling his breathing slow down and Vansell kick weakly under him.

Koschei lets him slide to the floor, body collapsing faster than he expected it to, left in an heap immobile by force of hypnosis. He expected Vansell to be a lot better at resisting mind control.

"I might just leave you there." He actually considers it, in the delay required to convert a weak argument about chivalry into a logical action. "Nah."

Despite all the rambling adults preaching on about how revenge is actually very unfulfilling, Koschei finds kicking Vansell in the side very enjoyable, thank you very much. His brain relentlessly eggs him on, chanting its appraisal with every possibly cracked rib and bruised chunk of flesh, screaming louder until everything else is overpowered with the noise.

In the sweet seconds between muffled cries beat out of Vansell's mouth, he can't hear the incessant rhythm of four.

There's something about seeing blood in places that makes it all the more thrilling, a portal to some primeval instinct of survival not permitted in civilised society. It's glorious.

Koschei doesn't know why he stops. Perhaps revenge answers primarily to objective morality, or dogging around Theta's reeking sense of Doing The Right Thing installed brakes. His obstreperous brain demands in its passion to know if he's dead, if the problem is finally solved.

Vansell inhales. Koschei exhales, feeling the red ebb away from his vision, but certainly not enough for guilt to even think of showing up.

It isn't hard to bury the memory completely in Vansell's head, piled under a nondescript clutter of things the faculty will never agree to digging through.

His nose is still bleeding. He stands immortally triumphant over Vansell for one more second of silence before turning around.

He cracks open the closet door, watching two students he doesn't recognise walk by in the opposite direction. Most people have gone to lunch by now.

He runs out the door, kicking it closed behind him, hands covering his nose and mouth to disguise most of the damage, only bringing one away to pull open the commons door and run up the stairs to his room.

He won. He finally won. And for a moment, it was the greatest achievement of his life.

He runs past three students coming down the stairs, not looking to check faces or respond to words that blow over his head, turning the doorknob and slamming the door behind him.

Theta pokes at some possibly biotic thing Koschei doesn't care about on the lab table. "Koschei, did you get me a—" he turns to see Koschei gingerly tapping his nose, verifying the brokenness. "What the hell happened to you?"

Koschei immediately wipes any kind of victorious smirk off his face in favour of the most comfortable configuration of ripped flesh, trying to clog the now-slowed bleeding with a sleeve. "Vansell happened to me. Although I did try and get him back, which means I just got wailed on." He lies all too casually, maybe the biggest lie he's ever told to Theta. Vansell has made him a liar. But for the better, in this case, he thinks.

"Well how the—" Theta is already right in front of him, moving his sleeve away and trying to assess the damage, not caring his fingers are turning red in the process. Maybe caring a little bit. "No, what exactly happened?" Koschei is starting to properly feel it now, as his adrenaline wears off.

He does tell, up until the part he slammed Vansell against the wall. That was replaced with a sketchy-sounding punch in the jaw, and a couple other things he will not be able to repeat backwards, after which he ran outside with his hands over his nose and some other kid showed up. He thinks Vansell tried to run away, but couldn't really tell.

Theta runs a hand through his hair, getting faint red streaks in it that Koschei finds oddly endearing.

The bloodlust has worn off in favour of a really freaking painful broken nose and ragged cheeks. "Well you'd think he's stopped by now. Fucking hell."

"No need to swear." Koschei feels like swearing, but it seems he would rather make a joke out of everything. "Can you make me a painkiller?"

"Why don't you just get one from the nurse?"

"Yours are stronger, Thete."

Theta walks off to the lab table without much protest, taking out a list of ingredients just in case he kills somebody by accident. Koschei pulls off his robe, very intentionally not getting it anywhere near his nose, tossing it into a laundry pile. Lying onto the bed, he balls up his undershirt in one hand and uses that to temporarily stop the blood from getting down his chest. He wipes the dealing with Vansell out of the way in favour of taking a brief medical analysis of his face, waiting to properly revel in it or regret it later.

###

Koschei is only truly afraid when Theta claims he needs added limb space to sleep, two days later. The mattress was pulled, extra blanket dug out from under the bed, mental walls constructed amazingly well. Then again, they're not forty anymore.

Koschei recounts all the times they've used that line, most often with some ulterior motive, but it's always been petty. Even under the hyper-analysis of a guilty brain, they are all so very insignificant. They used to be so important, the little arguments, so justifiable.

None of them made him afraid before. Theta knows.

He spends xenosociology in fatigued denial: like trying to weave bits of ragged thread into a fish, but no matter how hard he tries, always coming up with a cumulonimbus cloud. He has space to discard a few, because apparently "we sit together too much" and "Mort is also a friend".

He needs to get more sleep.

Abnormal chemistry brought upon the existential crisis, the dawn of how little remorse he feels combated with the justification in light of Vansell's sole existence. Is he a sociopath? Is he entitled to feel no remorse for pummelling Vansell? Does well-justified revenge qualify in the collectively decided pool of Objectively Amoral Deeds? Would he even be bothered if it weren't for Theta? What is he even scared of?

Koschei runs from most things at lunch, taking a chicken sandwich from somewhere in his quest to find a suitable point of camouflage. This has always been in plain view next to the river Lethe. Site of his first victim. He felt guilt then, the crippling remorse of wholly justified deeds bestowed on his tiny self. He wouldn't change any part of that for fear of winding up possibly dead.

Does this mean he could possibly be dead here?

Cumulonimbus clouds.

Theta doesn't go looking for him.

Between temporal physics, Gallifreyan history, primordial biology, and dinner, Theta doesn't speak a word to him.

For hours after, Theta throws frustratedness in tiny quantum bits at him like javelins, which Koschei pretends is better than nothing.

Nothing is less startling. And doesn't sporadically remind him of things best forgotten.

On the plus side, he hasn't seen Vansell since.

The seventh time Theta pokes him with a javelin, he actually walks in the room. Koschei has watched two leaves die before him, their botanical gradient of life getting very hard to add on now. Koschei refused Theta's idea of putting seeds on. Theta didn't let Koschei make tie dye leaves.

Harmonic balance.

Theta crosses his legs in elegance on their bed, mattress still resting on the floor below. He expects Koschei to come running over or something.

Koschei lets him wait. He sets up the next leaf template. He locates, double checks, and adds in the right amount of varied chemicals to their homemade chamber. He might watch the first few minutes of accelerated mitosis if it weren't really, really boring, and if Theta did not know how to telepathically get him to turn around.

"I know you know," Koschei announces, completely flat, thankful for the long-in-coming break in silence.

He half-expects Theta to continue to be a drama queen and use physical gestures and telepathy alone for the next half hour. "Come over here for a minute." Times have changed.

"Want a bit less limb space?"

"Correct."

Again, not the anticipated course of dialogue. Koschei was only killing time with the leaves. He picks his way around the less-than-optimally-cleaned room, as if not to disturb a sleeping tiger. Theta tries peering into his head without touching, probably rightfully so, but Koschei swats the invasive needles away nonetheless.

Theta lifts his arm to the height of his chest, palm up, fingers loose. If it were anyone else, he'd wince. Three fingers and a thumb curl around themselves, letting the index finger fall down the left of Koschei's chest. "Five fractured ribs." Disappointment. "Three broke entirely. You punctured a heart." His finger moves to find precisely where Koschei's left heart is, pressing into the skin to feel it beating. "He survived. Easy."

The nagging to penetrate the defences of Koschei's head speeds up and multiplies, adding background static to the ritual tapping in his head. There's no point in asking because they both know they both know, and Koschei tries sitting as precisely still as Theta, but he can't help but squirm under the tiny attacks on his head.

"Don't."

"You know I have to."

And he probably should.

Theta takes this fleeting thought as consent, precisely placing all his fingers on Koschei's head in under a second. The cube is found and crushed and exploded, speeding by in disgustingly accurate detail for all its decreased time. He hates every second of it.

And then, it's over.

"Do you remember Torvic?"

Koschei is trying not to vomit, having the contents of his head sped up and then slammed back to relativity, all without his control. Not really.

"But enough." He takes a deep breath, as if this is all so hard to manage. Of all things, Theta starts laughing at him. It starts as a chuckle sort of, a forced upheaval of breath, and Koschei is sitting a few inches away from borderline maniacal chortling.

"What?"

Theta beams impossibly at him. "We're such a mess." His laughing stops in one fell swoop. "I nearly tried to commit suicide and homicide at the same time and violate the law by breathing, and you killed a boy, chatted with Death incarnate, smuggled a student out of the building, and rightfully attacked somebody."

Koschei cracks an ironic smile, for all it's worth. "I killed a boy and chatted with Death and you thought it was a good idea to stick around?"

"Did a bit more than 'stick around'."

"I guess it boils down to neither of us would be here if it weren't for both of us making an absolute mess."

Theta stretches his arms up unnecessarily high, as if they might dislocate and fly away. "You have to admit, it's more fun than slumping about life normally."

Koschei gnaws on the inside of his cheek, still barely held together, for a second or five. "So where are we, then?"

In all required response, Theta slides effortlessly onto Koschei's lap to straddle his hips, performing the gentle assault of timeless instinct, a bit harsher than before. All hair in fists and occasional teeth and enough force to imbalance them, but not tip them over.

Theta knows Koschei knows Theta knows there is probably something a little bit skewed in their methods of solving arguments. Koschei also know neither of them care.

###

"Okay, so how long have you had this thing?" Ushas pokes around their lab table, inspecting bottles and no doubt judging their organisational skills. Theta and Koschei stand to the side, where the wall would be, ritually trained to not interfere with her science. Even if it's actually their science.

"I dunno," Theta twirls an extra leaf between his fingers, "few years?"

"And you never told me?" she pulls the trash can out from under the edge of the 'table'. "That is the craziest bin I've ever seen."

"We used to dump it out the window," Koschei says. "Then somebody noticed the permanganate."

As Ushas replaces the multi-coloured trash bin to its rightful location, the lights go down. The suns are the only source of light for seven seconds, before the power returns to its normal self.

Nobody asks what it was, but the question is almost tangible.

"The whole school can't go out like that. It has to be just our bit," Theta says, placing his leaf on the table.

"It's Magnus." Ushas walks and opens their door, waiting. "Well who else has some sketchy work of machinery wired up to the school?"

By the time they run down the stairs to find him, the power has surged again twice, and Mortimus and Drax have already started down the hallway. Magnus's door has been replaced with his gradually deteriorating mattress, leaning on the outside of the door, which Drax does not hesitate in throwing down. The massive Thing inside his room belches heat at them, all the while making the sound of a tortured android cat, sparking in the places he could not provide ample insulation.

Magnus sits below a writhing body crammed into a ball wired into the machine, doing nothing to protect himself from the infernal thing aside from covering his head with his hands.

"WHAT THE HELL'RE YOU DOIN'?" Drax yells into the room, which is starting to gather an ample audience from behind.

"One of you get somebody professional!" Koschei shouts to the masses.

"YOU CAN'T STOP ME!" Magnus yells above the noise.

"He's got an actual creature wired up," Ushas says, "and he's killing it."

Theta gently pushes Mort to the side. "I'M BREAKING IT DOWN, MAGNUS!"

"THEN YOU'LL KILL US ALL!"

Theta looks to Drax. "By the state o' that thing, he prob'ly ain't lying."

The screaming sphere stuck in the wires tries to uncurl itself, but can only squirm in its confines. Magnus eerily mirrors his captive creature in trying to hide from the energy it gives off. He starts smudging around the edges.

"Can I just pull it out?"

"Thete," Drax holds out an arm to block the door. "Don' even try touchin' that."

Koschei grabs his shoulder from behind. "That's a vortisaur."

"What?!" The smudge has turned into a blur, engulfing Magnus's forearms and shins and most of his head. It hasn't yet dissolved his body, or overloaded the synapses of his brain.

"Just hatched, by the looks of it."

"And we can't stop Magnus?"

A booming voice appears behind them. "What on Gallifrey is going on in here?"

By now, Magnus is hardly visible. "Don't touch it, professor."

"Certainly not."

"Zeta Omicron's escaped again," Theta says, stepping aside to give her an ample view. "We can't track him this time."

"And in no way could all of you dissuade him from this?"

"With all due respect, professor," Ushas pipes up. "It would have blown us to bits."

Magnus disappears, but the machine keeps working, designed for a single use and no return.

"I believe it is still capable of blowing us all to bits," the professor decides. "EVERYBODY CLEAR THE AREA!" Her voice blasts through the crowd, students closest to the sound and the heat starting to push each other down the hall and out the commons for dear life.

Those waiting with bated breath for some devastating explosion of lights wait for nothing. The baby vortisaur screeches one last time, falling limp in its cage. The last of its temporal energy is sucked out to power the machine doing no work, whirring and heating fading to a stop.

"Well." The professor holds her arms, examining the wreckage before her. "Does anyone need extra credit in… something?" Drax and Ushas shoot a hand up immediately, followed by a contemplative Mortimus. "If you might be so kind as to clean this place up?"

The professor smiles, parting the crowd to find someone more qualified and better at paperwork.

Theta Sigma is the first to enter ground zero, ducking under the metallic net the vortisaur carcass lies in and ripping wires out of the body.

"You sure that thing won't go off again?" Mortimus touches the side of the machine like it might sting him.

Theta nods. "This was born in the time vortex. Vortisaurs survive purely off temporal energy at this point in life, and if they're out, they're dead. The machine ran solely on temporal energy from this source." Theta manages to break one of the weak metallic bars on the bottom of its cage. The uncurled creature falls through, into his hands. And the source is dead."

Chapter Text

Theta picks up his feet for yet another flight of stairs upwards, in a nostalgic sense wishing for the little curled turrets in the first quadrant. It was almost like a castle. He has it hammered into his head be glad Mort isn't on the top floor as he passes one… two… three doors and approaches the first one on the left. There was a small room reassignment he and Koschei miraculously got to avoid, making some comment about Rassilon knows what Koschei was brilliant enough to make up for the both of them.

Three knocks. "Oi, Mort!"

"Yeah?" he shouts from behind the door, only half a welcome to open it but not a full statement of confidence everything is going to be presentable upon entry.

Behind the door is Mort's attempted art project still sitting right smack in the middle of the floor, currently being plastered with glue, unfinished bits of paint nearest the base. This kid cannot stay on task for the life of him. "You do know moving that to the corner would help everyone immensely?"

The statue perfectly blocks any normal access to the bed, the desk, and the window, any Gallifreyan attempting to exist around them requiring light footwork. "You know, sometimes I wonder how you're even Prydonian."

"I do too," he replies, dipping two fingers into a pot of glue and starting to rub what would be shoulders, Theta guesses, but doesn't entirely know.

"Aren't you supposed to use a brush or… something?" Not that he knows any better. Or anything about art to begin with.

"Nah. This adds texture."

"But it's shoulders. Aren't they kinda flat?"

"But not that flat. This isn't a formal piece."

Theta regards the reddish-orange-somewhere-blue-but-mainly-grayish-white statue of a Time Lord - or something of the sort - seeing Mort's tan-coloured hair peek out every now and then. It has not been combed all weekend, most likely. Theta clears his throat. "Um anyways, we got Ushas, Drax, Koschei, and I all working on that bloody math assignment. Do you wanna come over?"

"Over where? Because I'm not going to the commons again after—"

"No, not the commons." Theta begins wondering what kind of glue Mort's using and if it will result in his fingers sticking together permanently, or some similar amount of time. "We're in my bedroom."

"You mean Koschei's bedroom."

"You know, technically, it's mine. His has the table in it."

Mort rolls his eyes. He wipes glue off on a dry part of the statue and squeezes the rest out of his fingers on the bottom of his robe. "Whatever. Sure." He takes off his robe and tosses it dangerously close to a tube of paint. "Although don't tell me we're going to be up doing math all night."

"We can get into the kitchen, but we've mostly procrastinated the entire way through."

"It's a pretty bullshit assignment, though. How are we all in the same class?"

Theta shrugs. "They run out of linear material and throw us all in a pot. Easy."

Mort closes the door behind him, sticking his gluey hands in the pockets of a pair of paint-stained, multi-coloured jeans. Miraculously, the shirt he's wearing is still pristine white, save a fleck of red on the neckline. "Not when you're older than half of everybody, who are all smarter than you."

Theta pulls through the door, not waiting to see if Mort is right behind him or not. "I doubt it should be mandatory."

"It's not in the Patrex Academy."

Theta laughs silently for a second, out of convention or the amusement of societal designations. "Only ten years to go."

"Eight for me."

Theta skips the last two steps, perfecting the art of not hitting the wall before landing a good couple of feet away from it. "Not so long ago I was prowling a forest, waiting to be shoved in front of a schism."

"The schism."

"There could be more than one."

Mort tosses one arm around Theta's shoulders, giving him that ain't-it-sad face that could get him into a lot of trouble one day. "Not on Gallifrey, there isn't. You can't go renegade."

"Hypocrite."

"Oi! Who says I'm taking off?"

Theta smirks, sticking his tongue between his teeth and putting one hand on the door knob. "Drax."

Theta and Koschei have merged to become one joint mass of body amongst the mess, everyone else their own respectable island, among charts and calculations that have been printed out for some form of visual clarity. It makes mapping everything else faster. If people would stop MESSING AROUND WITH THE PILES, that is. It's gotten rather run-of-the-mill by now, but not any less mock gag-invoking since nearly thirty years ago. Thirty years? Have they been huddling like this that long?

Rassilon have mercy. Drax heaves a sigh, blowing a sheet of calculations that should have been pitched to the other side of the double-room long ago, throwing Ushas off her spot on the page. Drax looks up at the clock, then at the master map of this planet's calculated travels over the years and the distance to completion thereof.

"D'they have alcohol in the kitchen?" Drax asks the room at large, primarily Not Ushas, who doesn't have to look up before saying "No" in voice that used to get everyone to shut up, but has lost its power in time.

"We pulling an all-nighter?"

"Yes," Mort supplies from two meters to his left, sharing that conspiratorial telepathic-in-its-own-way form of whacked communication between a sculpting historian and a freelance mechanic. "And Hamlet's maybe ten minutes in your skimmer. Seats four."

"It'll do five."

"You're going to overload it," Ushas tells them both in as stern a voice as she can muster. She has something of a flashback of the number of times she's told people what they're doing is Generally A Bad Idea in nothing but a knee-jerk reaction.

"Mechanic says it ain't going to." Drax holds out an arm to Mort, who grabs it harder than necessary with a noise that can only be described as success under impossible odds. Not that anything has been accomplished. "Come on, Ushas. Only take us half an hour round-trip."

Ushas shakes her head, dragging herself to her feet. "Well, I'm not taking the chance of being locked in here with these two at one in the morning." She blinks multiple times at Theta and Koschei, already regretting the decision. "Yeah, no, I'm coming."

Gingerly stepping around piles of paper, Drax convinces Theta and Koschei solely by a hand gesture to get over here already. "'alf an hour. Promise."

Four decades ago, this trip would have been exhilarating and a lot more comfortable than it is now, and should be for anyone behaving in their right mind. It's become almost second nature to be able to avoid getting caught exiting the premises on Drax's skimmer for Mortimus, making up excuses on the fly should he get caught, and scouting well-worn passages during the day for any sign of it being thought about otherwise.

Currently, Ushas is placed between Theta and Koschei by request of Drax, who admittedly took Mort with him into the store so there wasn't even a need, other than the nostalgic just like old times routine, but with more unwelcome sexual tension. 'Unwanted sexual tension' is a redundant clause, in Ushas's book.

"It's just occurred to me now," Theta says. Ushas can tell it occurred to him a while ago.

"What has, Theta?"

He leans his head against Ushas's shoulder, delighting in how she squirms just a tiny bit after all this time putting up with them. "Twenty-seven years to the day."

"Oh Gallifrey do NOT START."

"Has it really been that long?"

"Koschei what did I just say?" It takes much more control to snap menacingly at someone when you've got a stupid blond head on your shoulder that happens to belong to the lover of the person you're trying to look menacingly at.

"You said 'Oh Gallifrey do not start', which hardly makes any grammatical sense and stopped being threatening a good two decades ago, dear Ushas."

Ushas drags a hand down her face, trying to expel the possible directions this conversation could go in. "I don't want to hear it."

"Haven't you already?"

"YES. TWICE."

"So it can't hurt, can it?"

"DINOSAURS WOULDN'T DO THIS TO ME."

"They wouldn't do you, either."

"Theta Sigma." She breathes, shaking her head. Sexual beings are beyond her sympathetic range of comprehension.

"I've heard that one before."

"I WILL HURT YOU BOTH."

Theta turns to face Ushas easier, who has all but covered her entire face with her hands.

"With what?"

Koschei leans in the opposite way. "Theta's made it rather painful before."

Ushas falls over on her back, knocking her head somewhere on the skimmer, waiting for Drax and Mort to hurry up. "I am so done."

"Makes it easier for—"

There's an impressively long, high-pitched scream originating from roughly four blocks East from the empty lot they parked the skimmer in. It is followed by its immediate silence. Gradually, but only in a manner of twenty seconds, do the number of voices begin multiplying, rising up and above and around the buildings they escape very near out of. Theta leaps to his feet in a shot, without a second's hesitation running full-tilt towards the main road.

"Don't you dare!" Koschei begins running right after Theta, yelling for him to turn around and stop what he's doing and he can't do everything or save everyone or

Mortimus runs out the back of the shop. "What the hell is going on?"

Drax appears at his side with five cans of whatever that doesn't matter now. He tosses them onto the skimmer, turning to Ushas.

"Where're them two?"

"Theta ran off soon as he heard screaming."

"Shit," Drax mutters, looking suddenly sharply at Ushas. "What d'we do?"

She doesn't speak, starting up the skimmer and ignoring the strands of hair that have somehow come undone from the tie at the back of her head. "They can't get far if we've got this."

"Who says we'll even be able to get in there?" There is an unmistakable glow coming from down the street, greater than that of turning the street light on a brighter setting.

Ushas nods them both on the disc that's already getting too small. "We have to try."

"THETA SIGMA I COMMAND YOU TO STOP MOVING!" Koschei screams ahead of him, but it can't work against the tides of people rushing outside, jostling each other, yelling for loved ones to stay inside or get something ready or lock the doors or run. He would try hypnosis if he could get close enough, but there's no chance at all of it working with all the noise and the people and the panic and the are they setting things on fire "THETA!"

He elbows and shoves and just about punches his way through people, running out into the middle of the street to try and get a clearer path to run through, but only starting to lose the back of Theta's head in the crowd. He has always been able to run faster. His legs are that bit better and stamina is just that much greater, but Koschei is running on adrenaline and chemicals mean nothing because they can escape Hamlet and go back to the Academy if they get back to the skimmer and why does he have to be heroic.

No, this isn't heroism. This is idiocy.

What can he even hope to accomplish? Unless he's got a weapon or an entire fire truck, there is absolutely nothing Theta can do to hold back the yet-to-be-determined arsonists.

A skimmer flies over his head, Drax hanging off the end, shouting something behind him and pointing to the ground. In the second of sidetracking it takes, Koschei slams into someone's back, falling to the ground and almost getting swallowed up by the feet fleeing from the fire. The ringing in his ears accompanies the incessant tapping that's started getting uncomfortably noisy and uncomfortably quick in the space of two minutes, still separate entirely from circumstance, but altered in some capacity by environment.

Koschei pulls himself back to his feet, running and shoving for barely thirty seconds before breaking through the line and into an empty moving ring of don't come any further. People dressed in red, intentionally ragged, torn formal robes hold staffs of fire, periodically setting lawns and buildings ablaze while others hold some kind of weapon trained on the crowd they oppress. They all have painted faces, black streaks resembling rivers running from eyes to neck, elaborate high-ranked headpieces marring any good view of who they are individually other than a very big problem.

Someone grabs him from behind, taking a fistful of arm and jamming him into the crowd. He turns to face a frantically breathing, very dark-skinned man with something hanging between his teeth. "You a Prydon, kid?"

Koschei nods, glancing back and forth an everywhere looking for ThetaThetaThetaTheta

"Then get the hell out of here."

"But—"

"You better run." The man disappears, leaving Koschei to walk in zig-zags through the crowd of people, dodging crying loomlings and screaming adults and people vomiting on the side of the road. He tries to scream Theta's name but it is almost completely drowned out from all the other screams. They're not special. They aren't different. They are exactly like the residents of Hamlet, but smaller and more desperate and a long way from home.

The skimmer flies overhead again, lower than before and getting dangerously close to the buildings of the North side of the street. Drax holds his arms out in a failed attempt to reach him, Koschei ignoring the summons because he needs to find Theta and that thing can't even get low enough to touch him.

Koschei is, at some point, hit in the back of the head, sending his balance off for a bit too long and invoking that slight amount of nausea sending people to the side of the street. He keeps uselessly barrelling through hoards of people. It only occurs to him less than a minute's run from the end of the border that there are, in fact, more roads than one.

He runs in front of a woman carrying a baby and a toddler, behind someone crouched at the side of the road, yelling at people to keep back. Someone else lies on the sidewalk, pressed to the side of a building, gold wisps of light Koschei hasn't seen in real life before starting to leak from their eyes and fingers and ears. The dark begins engulfing everyone, the fire from behind casting long, long shadows from buildings and people and the side of the road here is elevated and Koschei can barely see the stone wall he runs into but he can see people being herded away from the main road and feel blood running down his cheek and knuckles peeling now but he can't tell because he's already wiping blood from his eyes and someone starts yelling at him but his head is now screaming and threatening to split open and he starts throwing up but he can't feel it really but has the sense to bend over properly and the blood doesn't blend in with his robes sitting on his bed at the Academy.

"WE CAN'T LAND, DRAX, THERE ARE PEOPLE IF YOU HADN'T NOTICED!"

"THEN LAND ON THE ROOF!" Ushas clamps her teeth down on her bottom lip, hair loose and ravaged by the wind, no condition to be commandeering a skimmer in… Theta is going to get a very long, very vulgar talking-to as soon as they find him very alive.

"Have you lost Koschei?" Mort asks in the quietest tone he can above the yelling and noises of people. Only a fraction of them have managed to escape yet. An alarming number of them remain on the main road: the widest and the most direct route out, also being slowly engulfed by fire.

Drax mumbles "Bloody fell over and didn't get up soon enough."

She doesn't realise she's not breathing until her body gasps for air, for a moment taking her eyes off the course.

"Breathe, Ushas."

"Yeah thanks, Mort."

She sees what could very well be them, somewhere South of anyone else that could be them, the idea of the pair of them having not yet found each other making it all the more impossible than it was already.

Mortimus crouches on shaky legs, trying to see as far as he can into the gang of any number of those burning the place down, nearly falling over in the process but managing somehow to see just enough to conclude "They're going for the Academy."

"What?" Drax takes his eyes off the road before them. "How d'you know?"

"It would be a lot more efficient to start fires all over the town, not just down the main road."

Drax looks from Mort to Ushas with huge eyes, scratching the back of his head like he does when he's trying to think straight. "We need to go back before they do."

Ushas shakes her head. "Not without Theta and Koschei."

"If you can't find them within two minutes, we need to go."

"Not you, too, Mort."

"WE DON'T HAVE A CHOICE!"

Ushas forces herself focus again, breathe normally, whatever, in the process of trying to jam her hair back and pulling some out of her heating forehead. She steers up from the buildings and higher into the sky, not able to find them, not able to land, looking, looking, looking.

"I can't see."

Mortimus nudges her over, taking the controls as soon as she lets go, refusing to look at anything but the ground now scattered with golden dying that will just become engulfed in fire as it moves closer…

"You know them." Mortimus attempts a comforting tone. "They're gonna walk back, no problem."

She doesn't say anything, cursing Theta's stupid brain and trying to telekinetically summon them with enough force to wrestle an adult sheep to the ground. She very consciously takes another breath.

There is a blond head accompanied by a slightly charred, now bare, arm, hanging uselessly at its side. The matching unburnt one moves in the direction perpendicular to the main road, huddles of people nodding and silently following the orders that don't come with words. At least, not anymore.

The head looks down the street both ways, searching for someone or some people or something, once resting on the outline of Koschei huddled against a wall, trying to self-assess a head wound.

Three.

Two.

One.

"Theta!" he tries yelling, phrased almost as a question. He pulls himself up and ignores the pain quite professionally, listening to the yelling and fire noises for a shot of adrenaline. The burned, blond person actually responds and begins running towards him. Somewhere, Koschei misses the time between seeing him start walking and his being present. Theta pulls Koschei's head fractionally from the slightly bloody shirt.

"Of course you ran after me, idiot."

Theta begins cutting a strip off the bottom of Koschei's shirt, twisting it together in a sketchy sort of bandage maybe? The fingers on his arm out of commission still work in bits, strong enough to hold weak fabric in place. "I'm the idiot? Have you seen yourself?"

"Not entirely."

Koschei stares him down, mentally screaming DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH over and over before Theta picks it up or acknowledges it, which he doesn't do until he ties a knot in the fabric at the side of his head. He gingerly matches his forehead on Koschei's bleeding and bandaged one, muffling the sounds of people.

I'm getting people out of the town through the east exit. I'm helping.

You were IN A FIRE

I WAS NEAR THE SIDE OF THE FIRE PICKING UP A KID THAT COULDN'T WALK ANYMORE. I WAS HELPING.

YOU COULD'VE DIED.

AND THE KID WAS GOING TO DIE.

He immediately pulls back from Koschei's forehead, not letting any thought in or out, but not stepping back far enough to be so completely cold and guarded. He replaces his head with five fingertips. They're going for the Academy and aren't going through all the side streets. They came in from a few but that's their main goal.

And what are you going to do about it?

I'm staying here until everyone's either safe, dead, or out of town. Are you helping?

Koschei is only slightly aware of being breathing quite heavily, trying to dismiss it in favour of remaining upright off of adrenaline. "Theta Sigma, you can't really be thinking of undermining a pack of terrorists and having a hundred people run to the same location. They're going to figure it out and we'll all end up dead."

Theta's hand falls again. "Someone has to do it."

"You don't."

He purses his lips, shaking his head. "Are you helping?"

"If there is nothing on this planet that would dissuade you."

"Run South to the border between the main path and the road and start calling people in this way. Tell them to keep going Northeast until they find the road out, it'll end at a shuttle to the nearest city. Tell them to keep along the perimeter to avoid the fire. Normally they can run in the Academy but that's where the arsonists are going, so."

Theta flashes a grin, turning to walk away again.

"Where are you going?"

He spins around briefly. "The other side of the road. Now get going."

Koschei watches Theta retreat into tomorrow's ashes, and blurts out "I love you," in his last allotted second of hesitation. Theta probably doesn't hear him.

Ushas jumps off the skimmer before it hits the ground, rolling onto the grass and running towards the front doors at full tilt. It's barely two in the morning, still pitch black outside, but there will still be a reply from the main office if she pulls the right lever. She's seen it done before in advanced astronomy and a couple times in emergency medicine.

Tingles of impact fire up her legs as she pounds over the grass, hoping for rain as she doesn't slow down adequately to approach the main doors but doesn't care. She pulls the right switch on the first try. "You've got half an hour before they burn it down!"

"Burn it… who is this?"

"Is that… Professor Traesys, I just came back from Hamlet. There's a terrorist group burning it down all dressed in… formal robes like a show against the government and they're coming here."

Mortimus appears behind her. "I can bear witness. So can Kappa Phi. There are at least fifteen of them."

"Can you provide any proof of this threat? Sounds rather extreme for a ploy to get back in the school."

"Sir, I am Delta Psi taking twice advanced xenobiology in your class, I am begging you to open the door."

It unlocks. They run.

It takes far too much verification of events to actually act on their claims, which makes all logical sense in a situation where the claims are definitely false. But not when they are definitely true. Mortimus supplied his brain as a primary witness after Ushas failed to surrender her own memories of panic.

Within five minutes, the alarm was sounded, a message simultaneously sent to the nearest city and the Capitol.

Within fifteen, troops began unloading out of TARDISes appearing in the back and streaming around to the front, forming a defence pattern around the school. Ushas, along with Drax and Mort, were each provided a cup of tea and place to sit inside the office as short-term compensation for shock, which is promised to be further acted upon once the crisis resolves. Which realistically isn't going to be in very long. You get a hundred fifty armed first-responders against seventeen people with torches, and the army wins.

"Do you think they've made it back yet?" Mort asks both of them, leaning slightly against Drax on the bench made for two that seats three, the only one sipping his tea. Ushas chugged it all while probably burning her mouth for the next two days, and Drax has set it down completely in favour of "plain water, thanks."

"Maybe Koschei's still lookin' f'r Thete."

"One of them would be dead by now, knowing Theta."

They remain silent, vaguely hearing orders being shouted from outside. "Thanks, Ushas." Mort sighs, taking another sip of far-too-sugary chai.

"D'you think we'll get in trouble? Or is there some kinda cancelling out with running off and filing an attack threat?"

"We're not Dromeians, Drax," Ushas mumbles, peering into her empty mug and being disappointed for the third time there isn't anything in it. "We can't get away with anything."

Another pause as staff walk around looking perturbed, apparently taking no notice to the exchange nobody can see outside. "I think they were anti-government extremists." Mort says, looking rather artisty again, sipping his tea with the delicacy of a butterfly. "Unchaptered. Maybe a bunch of biological bastards."

Ushas, completely weaned off adrenaline, still buzzing but rather impatient and just wanting Theta and Koschei to show up with a stupid comment about something, does not have time to put up with slang. "Shut the hell up, Mortimus."

"What did I do?"

"You're worse than Drax and Vansell's hypothetical love child, nobody cares, quit throwing your ideology on people."

Mortimus regards her, who refuses to look at him at all, becoming irrationally intrigued with the nameplate on the Headmaster's office door.

"The hell was that?" Drax half-grows in incredulity.

Ushas puts her cup on the floor to stop her looking in for more tea. "Sorry. That was… politically incorrect."

Mortimus blinks. "Didn't know it was."

Ushas is fixated on her grounded cup. "Yeah, sorry. Stressed."

Mortimus nods.

###

Koschei doesn't know how much time has elapsed when the official-looking arrive show up overhead. People are still here, still making their way to the East exit, but there can't be anyone living around where the fire has been contained. Hamlet was not entirely defenceless. Most go out with nothing, some clothes burned, some being held up by the will of others. Koschei wonders why they chose to lie in such an unprotected, low-tech part of the planet. While the Academy sits maybe three kilometres away, but as was just wonderfully demonstrated, has not done much in the way of protection. Other than, of course, getting the Capitol involved.

He collapses onto someone's front steps, house undoubtedly empty by now, letting his head rest against the railing. The pain of everything seeps back in with every circulation of blood. Feet are sore. Legs are gelatin. Stomach doesn't have enough food but doesn't want any. Arms hurt, scraped in places and something else in others. Neck's been strained. Throat's starting to lose it from all the yelling. Head… not even going to start on the head. Theta's shirt-bandage has been dried on more securely than the knot's been tied, blood still sticky, but not seeping out anymore, which is a plus.

A white sort of mist begins descending from the sky. It isn't not lethal but it's certainly not all that healthy. It will act like water, shrinking and dousing the flame until all that remains is ash and small tongues of flame that will choke and die in time. He vaguely wonders how fast Ushas alerted the Academy of a sad, futile attempt at wreaking havoc, an event that will most definitely be censored from any news outside of word of mouth. Else someone might be inspired to try it again.

There are no bodies he can see on this stretch of street, an immense comfort to Koschei, now smelling the white mist he might actually choke on. Choke and die, lie near the conveniently burned ashes of Time Lord upon Time Lord he's realising now were probably all either unchaptered or Prydonian. The people with fire certainly weren't. They shot selectively, too. There were very few well-dressed people fleeing the town.

He wonders if Ohila made it out. Or if she's away at some shining Academy.

He begins contemplating his hypocrisy after a few seconds of almost starting to cough as effect of the mist. He should have very well joined the terrorists if he hates the government so much as a practice.

The thought exorcises itself from his searing headache as he starts hearing someone else choke about thirty meters from his steps; the corner of the street. "There you are," it chokes, voice raspy and strained almost beyond recognition. Almost. Theta approaches him with an arm stretched out, one leg bent on the bottom step. "We need to get out of here. Might choke to death."

He moves his head to the side and begins coughing, arm still out.

Koschei stands himself up, putting one hand on Theta's opposite shoulder, starting to walk away from the mist and into the surrounding bundles of trees. He's too tired to run any more than he has.

"You've lost your voice," he croaks out himself. A bit clearer perhaps, if anyone had anything to say about it.

"Can't be much worse than yours." Theta's burned arm rests precariously at his side, limp and angry red and desperately in need of work but somehow he is not complaining.

They keep ahead enough of the mist, only wisps of it reaching beyond the calculated radius of the fire. Koschei slides his hand down to sit in Theta's as they step into the unmarked tree line, silhouetted in the white mist settling behind.

"Lucky you're not dead," Koschei says, sitting Theta down on a fallen log without much protest or resistance. Theta automatically holds out his arm, amount left of the sleeve already jammed back onto his shoulder. The bright colour on the side of his arm tapers off faster than Koschei thought it would.

"It's not that bad. Take a pill and it'll be gone in half an hour."

Theta coughs into the other arm, making tiny jolts run through the one outstretched. "We're rather lucky, I think."

"Please, don't do that again." Koschei curls Theta's fingers in on themselves, holding them there a bit longer than necessary but nobody's counting the seconds. "Run off and try to save the world. You'll end up dead."

"I don't want to save the world." Theta is burnt and sweaty and far too tired and dirty and it is painstakingly beautiful. "I only wanted to save people. Some people. People with better lives than me who have better futures to live. Like if I can save other people, my life is worth living because it's creating more life for other people."

"That doesn't mean you have to jump into a fire!" His voice goes high at the end, an argument about death having the potential to sound more strained than it need be with two hardly-present set of vocal cords.

"That's the same reason I didn't want you to follow me, but you did."

"You never said anything about not—"

"Because we could save worlds together, Kosch. Pull each other out of the fire, too. Why not start here?"

He sighs. "You speak grand words, Thete."

"Doesn't make them less true. We're Lords of Time, we can do anything."

"Not without a TARDIS." Koschei stands up, holding out an arm for Theta to take, out of some kind of reverse encounter.

"We'll find one." He stands up himself, smiling sadly at the ground and kicking a rock. The mist, by now, will have cleared. "Eventually."

"Wouldn't put it past you to steal one and take me with you." Koschei takes his hand again, sometimes still fascinated at the concept of physical touch in so innocent a way and wondering why the Time Lords don't put it into practise more.

"It's a fun experience, being stolen. I'll give it that."

"I wouldn't call it being stolen if you asked for it."

Theta bumps playfully into Koschei, wondering briefly how he can possibly be doing so with the number of dead behind him, never to blink or breathe or experience anything or exist at all again. It is rather beautiful to see someone regenerating amid a fire, golden blaze mixing with the red-orange-yellow combustion and blending into one substance, fire not being matter and therefore unable to be stopped by matter recreating itself. Eventually the gold withers and dies, the body burned underneath it caught in a state of nearly regenerated, almost there, but unable to complete itself because the matter has been burned away in gold sparks.

"Like leaves turning turquoise before falling off."

"I forgot you can read my mind."

"Only when it's this quiet."

Koschei pauses. "We're breathing in the dead."

And it was beautiful.

###

This is exactly how they end up sitting on a riverbank with Mortimus and Drax and Ushas, sipping alcohol in the middle of scheduled class under the pretence of what used to be a math assignment (that has been excused for all of them). Their explanations are all quite short after leaving out all the personal bits, potentially embarrassing bits, and any commentary on the morbid beauty of death or the complex rambling of hypocrisy. Despite the theoretical bond that may have formed over a relatively shared traumatic experience, they all keep silent the parts that would later be considered some of the most important pieces. They are left drifting in the mind to be forgotten and only remembered at brief reunions starting with the line Hey, remember the time we went for a drink and nearly got roasted instead?

Eventually Rallon and Millennia show up, heard already some version of the story, nothing left for them to drink but river water since a long time ago. The collective review of the morning's events faded quickly into small talk. And long silences. And pretend intrigue at the light conversations of others. The dead begin their way worming into their heads, screaming for help before being doused in fire, watching people being shot down and stunned into unmoving as they either run away or hover far above.

The soft hum of whatever gave the drink its point only vaguely distracts from death, making a few extra words slip out and laughing easier. They're not drunk, but distracted. They only tell random bits of information to their visitors, sometimes in the wrong order for fun or because they forgot some detail that was necessary to interrupt the story with.

Rallon secretly hopes Jelpax and Vansell might show up. Koschei aggressively hopes they don't.

Eventually Rallon and Millennia disappear for lunch or some class or something, leaving the five of them with too much excused time and too much to think about. It's Drax who first suggests swimming, stripping down to a pair of boxers and jumping into Lethe with a sort of cut-off splash with the bottom being so shallow. After a significant amount of intentional splashing, Mortimus falls in next, followed by Theta making a joke about getting very hot in the recent past, Koschei telling him it wasn't funny, and Ushas telling them both a thing or two about making funny jokes.

While they were allotted the day off to recover, maybe sleep, they all naturally took advantage of this, rebellious as they believe themselves to be. Running on no sleep, and not enough food, it took only seven minutes for something to start going badly. Drax pretends to try and drown Theta for some indiscernible reason, Koschei retaliates by punching him in the face, Ushas tries to break it up and only gets hit by someone, Mortimus tries to pull from the other side and eventually gets dumped in the river again and comes up choking violently.

By then the hastily-flung, unthoughtful insults have begun firing. Even Ushas, normally everyone's favourite unbiased third party, slips into the pattern of bickering, Mortimus the only one with sense to get out of the water before anyone can start fist fighting and trying to drown people again. It would be a very advantageous trait to be able to remove oneself from the conversation and look at how futile they all sound. Might save a lot of hassle. Three minutes after Koschei hit Theta slightly harder than intended, Jelpax, dressed neatly in their robes, emerges from the trees and happens upon the four of them. Mortimus looks actually the most composed, the rest of everybody soaking wet in the middle of a river that's slightly too cold and looking two shades shy completely out of it.

"You know, soaking wet people in underwear is sometimes considered erotica, but you lot look more like a bunch of wet fluzzles than anything else.

"And who asked your opinion?" Drax shouts from the river, watching Jelpax sit down on a rock and roll their eyes.

"Millennia, actually. She figures you guys went a bit nuts."

"We watched half of Hamlet burn an' you don't doubt we're nuts?"

"You're stupid, Drax!" Theta shouts, still spitting out water.

"If you could all can it, that'd be lovely, thanks." Jelpax says. They watch them all pitifully shove each other around, water making all their moves lethargic and awkward to keep track of.

"Ushas, you have a shred of common sense, could you come up here at least?"

Ushas glares at Koschei again before crawling out of the water and retrieving the rest of her clothes. Mortimus mutters a 'thanks' Jelpax can't hear from across the bank as Ushas pulls her jeans on wet.

"How much have you all had to drink?" Jelpax enquires of Mortimus, who currently sits with his hands on his knees, cross-legged and looking like he'd rather be Cerulean than where he currently is.

"Not actually a lot," Mortimus says, managing to shut Ushas up with a look as she tries and explain further. "Although there's been some short-term psychological trauma recently infested that's caused a lot of dumb ideas and no vocal filtration."

"Oh for crying out loud KOSCHEI JUST GET OUT OF THE WATER."

"ME?"

"ALL OF YOU, HOW ABOUT?"

Chapter Text

Theta didn't notice it last time, Quences's ticking clock. It's the antique type: one large circle with only twelve hours marked, three hands circumnavigating the surface once a minute, hour, half a day. It hangs on the wall directly behind him, marking every second with the potential to drive whole nations insane with its tick, tick, tick. In a way it promotes conversation, any tiresome topic more melodic to the brain than its ceaseless pounding. This ticking could, in the right place, motivate the small talk that leads to a terrorist attack on Arcadia, all fitting into Chaos Theory as comfortably as Theta sits in the big chair. The only thing missing is somebody distant enough to engage in small talk with. Quences just doesn't fit the bill.

Theta tries to coax his mind from the ticking, but the clock has nestled itself in the rafters of his brain and decides to sleep in its new nest. The present is awoken from its catnap, arching its back before walking away on its four paws like nothing happened. "I don't understand."

"There is no other feasible way to work around this."

"'Feasible' being the operative word?"

"There is nothing feasible in politics. Especially when one is breaking the law."

"As this family enjoys reminding me on an annual basis."

Quences is out of regenerations, and he will not end on a thirteenth life. Quences didn't need to tell Theta that for him to figure it out. He comes from a family of criminals, it seems.

"The government has never been quite… ethically inclined."

"I thought higher-ups were so confident in their history they passed this stuff off as a hoax?"

Quences shakes his head. "'Higher-ups' have no love for their history. It's why they keep repeating it." He sets down the cup of tea he was drinking, hand shaking in the way it does when Death isn't far around the corner. Like the body starts to fear what's coming and tries to warn the mind. But there's nothing it can do. "It could pass."

"You don't sound very convinced."

"I'm not."

The clock fills their silences.

"My Junior qualifications are in two years."

"I'm sorry."

Theta smirks. "No, you're not."

"So you think it benefits me to have you hiding about the House every day of the year?"

"You can just as easily send me back once it's over."

Even Quences's breaths fear Death. "It's not that simple. I can get away with not Looming another cousin. But they will still screen you for the so-called 'virus' a few years after the fiasco ends. Call yourself what you like after that; people will think you were screened anyways."

Theta lets four ticks of the clock go by, for old times' sake.

"What if they just screened me?"

"The Decree of Rassilon is still in the constitution."

"Nobody edits the constitution."

"Dromeians do."

"Yeah, well, they're Dromeians."

"There is nothing else I can do."

Theta picks up his dusty golden jar, the peacekeeper of his conversations with Quences, always listening from beside his foot. The thing they have in common. "I believe you." He tries deciphering the impressions in the glass one more time, an impossible feat he always put off to another day. He tosses it to Quences. "You didn't get thirteen, thanks to the same government. I don't need a fourteenth."

Quences doesn't look surprised at Theta's knowing. He looks surprised at the jar. His limbs no longer feel the need to fear Death. "I tried running away." His creaking fingers clamp onto the lid with every stored up motivation they have, whole arms vibrating as they loosen the seal. Theta doesn't help him. "They took two lives off." His voice is strained, his whole body is strained, contorting to fit the motions for his wrist to turn the lid. The clock tells of how long it takes to open, a perpetual activity only punctuated by success or eventual death.

Theta rises from his chair, for a moment stuck between leaving nature to its course and interfering with the jar's fate. He steps, and he bends before the old man, prying the jar of life from his fingers and breaking the lock before the clock ticks six times. Tiny wisps of gold escape their confines. "Better be quick."

###

Ushas sits on her high-backed chair as is only tradition, sporting well-kept robes and the signature ponytail. But she has fallen to the cushion in a slouch instead of the poise of the arm, tears silently streaking the skin of her cheeks. Only half of her face is illuminated, tinted a shade hellish from the deep crimson hue of night.

They all sit where they're supposed to, a habit worn as the wagon tracks on a dirt road. Jelpax has assumed the role of Senator: the tallest, the calmest, the eldest, the wisest.

"'Rallon has been taken. I forgive you all for not noticing, because we all take leave for days at a time with little explanation. I ask your forgiveness in return for what I am bound next to do. There were three ransom notes following his disappearance, appearing on my desk in three mornings. I don't know who sent them, and I don't know why, but I know it's not some cruel prank because they got Rallon to write it. I would leave them for you to see if I wanted you all to follow me. Quite simply, they threatened to kill Rallon after four days of my absence, and one more child they could coerce like myself for every day following. If I go now, they will spare Rallon in place of another life force to serve their sustenance.

'I know the chances of them keeping their word are slim, and I will likely be killed as a result. I might go on a tirade of moral dilemmas and psychology if I didn't already know you have the entire scenario mapped out in all its possible paths. I hope to see you all again, quite soon. You won't even miss me.'"

Jelpax lets the paper drop, swinging wildly in free fall before crashing to the ground. They take a deep breath. "I'm going to read the next one, before we all start arguing over who took them."

"She mentions it," Ushas forces out, "in that one." Nobody knows how many times she read them over when she found them both, and will never know precisely why she found the motivation to seek out Millennia in Rallon's absence. Someone with no knowledge of Ushas would call it "unrequited love". They would be wrong.

"'Some of you are so, so brave — you were born that way — which is why this letter will arrive the second I take my leave. Time Lords all fantasise of swooping in and saving the day, like all the tales of our childhood. At least, our lot has. It is my dying hope you have all broken the laws to come rescue us both in another universe where I am a little more selfish. Perhaps you all might one day, and release us both from the never-ending game.

'The Celestial Toymaker was out of game pieces, so he started collecting more. Time Lords were a natural choice, so durable and changeable. He likes us so much, he bet his weary body for Rallon's in checkers. You're all smart, I grant you, but this man has been playing games since the universe before ours. He always wins. He let me pick any game I wanted in my agony, and I regret choosing checkers out of sentimental vengeance. I lost, and I still live. I get to live as his doll until I run out of lives, or until somebody comes along and kills me. My free will exists for a little longer. Enough to say goodbye.

'I want nothing more than to be brought back home. But none of you are good enough, however you may protest, to beat the Toymaker. Think about me and Rallon when you play checkers. Win for us. I'll miss you all terribly.'"

For shame, none of them look at each other. Jelpax stands in place, torn between sitting down and keeping the dim silence in balance. Not even Vansell makes a noise.

Theta Sigma kicks the underside of the coffee table. Without a doubt, somebody has woken up to what they hope isn't a gunshot. He is the first to hurdle the piece of furniture and stomp away, dispersing their Deca-gone-Hepta. They all watch his back storm to the stairs, an excuse to focus on something, waiting for the bomb to set off with bated breath.

He might wake up the whole dormitory, he might break a hole in the wall, he will do something drastic, and nobody bothers trying to stop him.

The last they hear as his shadow disappears up the staircase around the bend is a poetically symphonic, beautifully pondered, "FUCK."

"How civil."

Ushas sniffs. "You can shut the fuck up, Vansell."

"Please," Koschei echoes.

Nobody moves in a silent minute of reverence, a gap in productivity in life only rivalled by sleep. Koschei feels as if conscious in a dream, but argues in a whisper it's probably dehydration.

Jelpax draws in a shaky breath. "Who missed Rallon, here?" Ushas raises her hand unapologetically, scanning the remaining five like they all do for another arm. Koschei might have, once, as much as a redundant adjective or a fifth shade of oceanic blue.

"Who even noticed something off about Millennia?"

Koschei decides to leave.

Theta Sigma is hunched in a wooden chair, idly flicking the screen of his slate in pauses of frantic, swooping eyes. The bluish tint of the screen lights up every jagged edge of his face, overhead lights not to be bothered with in times of urgency. Koschei takes advantage of the empty bed as somewhere comfortable to physically exist, turning on the wall lamp for some illumination. The yellow glow grazes Theta's toes, which curl back as if whipped.

"What's the light for?"

"What's the slate for?"

Theta exhales with enough restraint of will to implode a crustacean. "Data banks here say the Toymaker's just a legend. So we can't call the authorities on him without sounding like we're making shit up." Theta turns off the screen, letting the device fall to the ground. It doesn't break. "That leaves one option."

Koschei might exclaim in futile despair with a safer roommate at hand. Give a nice speech, full of reasoning and encouragement. "That leaves no options, Thete."

"I don't think you get it." Theta stands, and he leans on the wall, but just enough to appear one tier short of threatening. "We're it. The seven of us are the only ones in the goddamn universe who can help those two, and half of us won't lift a finger."

Koschei stands himself. "You walk in there and you'll be killed or worse, and in the impossible chance you do make it out, your glorious welcome home will be charges of illegal interference, unregistered TARDIS piloting, and probably skipping class if someone invites Borusa to the trial."

Theta stops leaning, and he takes a casual step, but even his bones quiver. "So you're saying it's right to let them decompose with no free will?"

"I'm saying you can't run in there and commit suicide trying to help them!"

"But if there's a chance, if we can get enough people on our side, people from other planets, then we are obliged to try!"

Koschei takes a deep breath of incredulity, and barely holds down a shout. "No, we're not!"

Theta shouts for him. "Then you're the one killing them!"

"I'm the one keeping you from killing yourself!"

"And am I somehow worth more than they are?" Theta tries invading the outer bubble of his personal space.

"Theta! You! Will! Not! Live! Through! Finding! Them!"

"THERE HAVE TO BE PEOPLE WHO WILL SIDE WITH ME, WE'LL TAKE HIM DOWN-"

"YOU CAN'T FIX EVERYTHING!"

Theta, bound first and foremost to the primordial synapses that govern him, balls up one dominant fist and punches Koschei across the left of his jaw. Something bleeds, an instinctive hand flying to the throbbing impact, the taste of iron exploding around his tongue.

"You know I'm right," Koschei works around the blood.

"Of course you are."

"Going to hit me again or go apologise to half the dorm for waking them up at 01:00?"

"Neither." Theta removes himself from the room in the same storm he entered it by, slate still blank on the floor.

Their fights always instill paranoia, a sensation Koschei only fully put a name to now. He stands inside the bathroom doors, listening to a single shower running, and doing nothing but listening. He's taken a seat on a counter, opposite side of the wall, shielded from the steam billowing above and underneath the stall he can't see. Logically, he should be incredibly unconcerned with a shower. It's a great course of action in washing off excess emotion, full of routine to focus on and soap to clear the head. But it is their own construct of fights to throw verbal attacks and follow up with structural nervous assessment of their actions. That and problematic sex.

He spent hardly five minutes in the room full of the stark loss of Rallon and Millennia, two entities well silenced by the constant lights of a bathroom facility and the uneven patter of water hitting the ground. His back is turned to the mirrors that could host any number of the imagination's creepy quirks. There's a tiny bit of his consciousness expecting Death herself to show up under Theta's accusations of Koschei's indirect double homicide, but the thought has deformed and stretched as his brain and body grew. It's been 88 years since he saw her. 88 long years.

He listens for the water's pattern to shift into uniformity, which it is having a hard time doing. It's always being obstructed in different places or stored up and released in waves. He lets the grumpy part of him that doesn't want to be sitting on a counter in the bathroom for no reason commandeer his thoughts for a while, full of sour nothings and mean talks. He even considers turning over his paranoia for sleep. The grumpy thoughts mean nothing useful as they always do, not that it ever feels that way at the time. He revels in his complaints of how uncomfortable the counter is, how bright the lights are, what he could be doing instead. And it's all Theta's fault.

Seven minutes go by at least, the incalculable more-than-five and less-than-ten, and he let the water achieve its uniformity without moving himself. The unease in his stomach increases, a fun trick to keep down and ignored, the structure of long showers and the implications of unmoving occupying his mind for a good while. He even lets the thoughts drift into the air for cherry picking and organising. Theta can't hear them. He's not that good a telepath.

At the probably ten-minute mark, the voice of paranoia kicks him in the gut, shock of the blow throwing him off the counter and into small steps around the thermal polished stone floors. The lights overhead never turn down and may never turn off, stuck on a setting bright enough to keep the best of them awake in the mornings. The consciousness agent is predominantly the mass of students milling inside with their odd smells, whatever the lights make claims to.

Third shower from the front end. Completely random. "If that's Koschei, you can please find your own shower."

Koschei stops walking, stops breathing, in a long second deciding it better to do both. "I'm not here for a shower."

"Then sod off."

He stops in front of the door. "I don't trust you."

"I am literally taking a shower."

"You don't take showers when you're in a bad mood."

"Well maybe I just needed a shower."

"That is the least convincing line I've heard you deliver this week."

Theta grunts. "What could I possibly do in the shower that requires convincing against?"

Koschei folds his arms at the partial door, waging a tiny war of wills in going in for strictly paranoiac reasons or not. "A few things."

"Such as…?"

"No clue, but the fact you're continuing this conversation is an indicator." A portion of his sentience tells him he's stupid, he opens the door and walks through the squareish area devoted to decency.

"Don't you dare."

Koschei pulls back the curtain, getting water on himself for the opportunity to see Theta gripping the side of his left bicep too tight for normalcy. "Stings in the shower, doesn't it?"

"You know, I've never done it properly before. Now seemed a good time."

Koschei shrugs. "Fair enough."

"Now really do sod off."

Koschei, now with many quantised opinions of his sentience crossing the floor to the verdict of I'm stupid, he walks into the shower fully clothed. "Nah." He leans against the opposing wall, of anything glad he did not wear socks.

Theta looks him up and down once. "Have the laundry systems been sabotaged?"

"Don't pretend this isn't exactly what you would do." Koschei folds his arms, feeling the water seal the clothes to his body, waiting for a protest from Theta he will only immediately argue against.

Theta doesn't speak. He counts down from three in his head, releasing the pressure from his arm to welcome the cleansing sting. He blinks hard like it might change something, and leaves Koschei to himself and his heavy clothes.

Koschei peels them off and takes a shower himself.

Chapter Text

It was like competing in a 100-metre sprint. Standing in the lane, waiting for everyone to show up. Staring at the guy with the air horn, staring at the guy in the tent taking down the times of the previous heat. Forgetting which foot to start on and, in a moment of panic, trying to inconspicuously assume the starting position without really doing so. Seeing the guy with the air horn turn and feel your heart rate increase, only to stand there still waiting for a gruelling ten seconds longer than you thought. Bending down on the (hopefully) correct foot and planting your fingers in the grass, for a moment appreciating the current atmospheric temperature and panicking you might miss the air horn. Waiting for the air horn. And sprinting like mad when you hear it, running for what seems like so long and your legs start complaining and you don’t think you’re going to make it in any decent time, and two people pass you. Telling your legs to move faster, damn it, seeing the finish line and anticipating crossing over it and finally doing so. Then replaying what you just did over in your head as sixty seconds finally passes since you first stepped up to lane three. That was the last year.

He is very deliberate and a touch hyper-regulatory in his last week of mandatory waiting, a day dedicated to one of seven parts of his history. “Nostalgia, Koschei,” he argued amid minute timing and abstract categorisation. “I can’t cram ninety years into only one day.” It was then he handed Koschei a leaf so close to death it was curling and wilted and grey, but still technically living. “The last one.”

Koschei runs into some unfortunate twelve-year-old, throwing her to the ground on reckless accident. Knowing Theta, he can’t be running so far behind. Chances are he’s barrelled into his own share of clueless younger students. Koschei has to do a complete u-turn to slow down.

“Sorry.” He holds out a hand, waiting in slight impatience for her to come to her senses and crawl to her feet by her own power. "You alright?" Instead of running off halfway to tears or sheepishly inspecting her toes as most of the kids do, she stares back up at him, arms folded, whip of a braid menacingly positioned in front of a shoulder.

“Just what do you think you’re doing!?”

Koschei, in his shock, takes a step back from the menace. “I’m racing across the grounds, actually. Trying to beat my friend.”

“Why?” She sticks her chin up in demand of an answer, fragile body reaching around his waist maybe.

“He wants to see the whole place before he leaves, and decided this was the best way.”

“Why are you running it if you’re not leaving?”

Koschei shakes his head, departing the child’s metaphysical grasp and running with newfound purpose. “Priorities.”

The running doesn’t cease for another ten-odd minutes, the ultimate test of dodging moving targets and taking evasive action when spotted. By the time Koschei reaches the banks of Lethe, legs starting to complain under their abuse, hands uniting with his knees for more breath, Theta isn’t there. As instructed, Koschei kicks off his shoes and wrestles off his socks, taking two tentative steps into the counterintuitively cold river. He sits by a tree to wait, attempting to dry his feet on the grass to reutilise his footwear.

Theta arrives after a minute, not slowing to avoid crashing into the trees, which he miraculously doesn’t accomplish. He doesn’t slow down when he sees Koschei, or when he reaches the edge of the river, launching himself as far as his legs will muster and plummeting into the water.

His head reappears four seconds later, flanked by moving arms. “So I win?”

Koschei raises his eyebrows. “I got here over a minute ago.”

Theta swims back to dry land, just a touch of shivering gracing his teeth. “I said you needed to jump in the river, not look at the river. So you never crossed the finish line.” Rivulets of water run everywhere off him, making their way closer to Koschei’s wet feet. He sits in the grass.

“I did put my feet in.”

Theta claps a hand to his shoulder. “Jump in!” The hand leaves a dark, undefined oval on him.

Koschei sighs for an unnecessarily long time. “Fine.”

“And every two years, alternating between two seasons every four and the country every event, people from the entire planet all come and play sports!” Theta takes an enthusiastic and partly subconscious sip of his third cup of coffee in an hour and a half. “We need to see one of those, 22nd century. But a winter one, the summer’s really hot for Time Lords.”

They went outside again on his day dedicated to “remember the huge whale?”, to the clearing where Torvic burned for the express purpose of being able to see the stars and not get caught out past curfew. Theta is barley able to stay still cross-legged, even at this dead hour of the night (or, likely, tomorrow morning), hands always waving patterns in the air or clutching a tin cup.

“We also have to find the Medusa Cascade. The rift has enough sort of… not gravity but space-time distortion, you know, that a bunch of stuff orbits it but because it’s a rift all the bodies have some problem with them. The Fifteen Broken Moons, or something.” Theta thrusts the tin cup out to Koschei, who takes it from his jittery hand. It snaps back to the matching one, pale skin strikingly visible against his sleeves. Koschei takes a sip, if only to stay better awake. Coffee is a drink he can tolerate for its benefits, but never tastefully enjoy.

With nothing to bind them together, Theta’s hands shake almost without end, twitches moving to his arms and torso and neck and legs, on occasion. He says it’s not from the cold, and it can’t be all from the caffeine. He wants to run.

“Akhaten, though, we’re going there. A sentient planet that eats memory, and all the asteroids with little shops and every kind of people and the scenery is all bright red and orange and yellow up against space, Koschei the planet eats an intangible concept I mean come on!” His enthusiasm almost echoes. It’s the last noise before silence, the only works for the brain to follow after a long string of information it doesn’t continue receiving.

Koschei tries smiling. “You should write all these down.”

“I don’t have paper.” Theta throws himself to the ground, lying parallel to Koschei under a blanket of stars. Koschei watches his face and his chest, waiting for some abnormal explosion of breath or another Matrix entry on a cosmological system. Theta lets his brain breathe out disconnected places and colours and stars for him, bursting into Koschei’s vision in front of the sky. Almost.

Theta grabs his hand with much more force than Koschei thought the twitches were, random movement still jumping to his fingers and wrist. Koschei tries keeping his arm planted in the ground in the hopes it’s all a placebo effect.

It’s not.

For once, Theta is not the one most enthused about one of his Last Days. Mortimus is quiet about it, and very controlled, but it’s obvious from the way his arm moves in acute concentration he’s overly excited about painting the wall. Against the rules. Theta promised to take all the punishment for vandalism if (and probably when) they are caught, because he’s leaving anyways. In an ideal world, the whole Deca would be painting tasteful graffiti on the wall outside the qualified Juniors’ dormitories, but that number has boiled down to five. Jelpax and Vansell were not invited.

Ushas is trying to discretely paint plant cells in an abstract way and failing terribly, all but labelling the diagram and calling it art. “It’s supposed to be a building,” she mutters when Koschei asks, providing no context for the idea.

Theta tells them to try painting things that all somehow tied together or fell under the same theme, but after five minutes a photo-realistic sparrow appeared right next to a cockeyed war-related defence mechanism and the point was lost. Theta doesn’t seem to care.

He paints one of his hands at least three colours from deep purple to orange, smearing it across some designated rectangle, and repeating the process systematically. Koschei doesn’t ask. It’s probably the sky.

He stands next to Theta, as has been unintentional habit since day one, painting abstract red and black squares in a simple pattern. Theta never said what the actual point of painting the wall was, and halfway decided to start illustrating their designated subjects that would be discussed at length on a Smart board after classes.

He notices the checker board one smear of the hand away from finishing the sunset. He has to touch Koschei’s hand, colouring it red and yellow and lilac. I’ll miss them, too. He studies the irises of Koschei’s eyes longer than normal, withdrawing his hand as if nothing happened. Koschei paints two odd checkers on the board. It could have been them.

“Think yeh can visit us?” Drax asks, around Mort and Ushas and Koschei.

Theta smiles at the wall. “You lot should visit me.”

Theta is hesitating, as long as he wants, surrounded by a ring of all the leaves they ever fabricated. Koschei guesses he’s saying a few words in his head, a preemptive funeral for their first real project. It took little more than an hour to lay them on a circle of rocks and drench them all in elements and methanol.

“Are you ready, then?” Theta asks with his back still turned. Koschei’s been ready for five minutes.

“Sure.”

Theta throws him a handheld blowtorch, and steps outside the circle. Koschei stands at more or less the leaf opposite, wielding the blowtorch in two hands. “On three?”

Despite his waiting about of funeral qualities, Theta smiles like he can’t possibly wait three whole seconds. “One.”

“Two.”

“Three.” They run around the circle clockwise, standing a bit too close to the erupting flames, jusr to ensure a hundred-odd leaves are burned properly.

They stand on opposite sides of the circle still, taking a couple steps back to see them all. The flames all bleed into each other, a choppy gradient through the spectrum of visible light. The leaves barely have time to react to their newfound interaction with the first time dimension before being engulfed in burning colour.

“You better burn me like this when I die,” Theta says. The steam floating off their pyre is more brilliant than the fire itself. An entire rainbow of smoke suffocates the sky.

“I don’t know if I could get away with that.”

“Sure you can. Just show up with a portable lab and dump it on me.”

Koschei idly rubs his hands together, a repetitive futile attempt to get the odd stains out. He’s been doing weird science experiments all day. Theta sits on the untarnished grass, watching one green flame in particular. Koschei thinks it’s boron.

“What would happen if you mixed it all together?” he asks either the fire or Koschei. “Would it be black?”

“I think so,” Koschei says.

He thinks to knock on Ushas’s door once he’s inside, but doing so might be a little sarcastic.

“Do you know where Theta went?”

Ushas ties back her hair. “It is 07:00 on a day I am not required to wake up in the morning, and you expect me to be awake?”

Koschei blinks. “Well, you are, so—”

She rolls her eyes. “He walked in at five in the bloody morning to tell me specifically to tell you I do not know where he is, despite the fact I actually do.”

“So he just ran off?”

Ushas shrugs. “It must be hide-and-seek day.”

“Why would he have a hide-and-seek day?”

“To be perfectly honest, why would he have a ‘let’s all paint the wall’ day? Mort is the only artistic one out of all of us.”

Koschei shakes his head. “I don’t know why he’s doing most of this, but he is. You hear about the leaves?”

“He was in here for half an hour. Didn’t even bother asking about the conspicuous rat.” It sits on her desk, asleep, probably very conspicuous, but Koschei isn’t paying attention.

He takes a deep breath. “Where is he? I don’t want to run around the campus trying to find him for hours on end, that’s stupid.”

“He’s under the bed.”

“What?” Koschei bends over, trying to find evidence of any body parts under Ushas’s bed.

“Not mine,” she says, in a voice that would normally be irritated, but today has decided to give up a little. “Yours.”

“And he’s been there since 05:30?”

“He’s probably asleep. I don’t think he got any.” Koschei makes for the door, stopped by Ushas’s voice with one hand on the doorframe. “Don’t wake him up yet. He probably needs it.”

Koschei pauses. He turns back into Ushas’s room. “Probably.” He sits on the end of her bed.

Ushas sits next to him. “What was today supposed to be?”

Koschei shrugs. “He never says until the morning.” The noise in his head squirms its way out of his subconscious, parading its small pattern. “It might actually be ‘hiding under the bed day’.”

“Is there some profound aspect of his past relating to the undersides of beds?”

He nods, slowly. “Surprisingly, yes.” He springs off Ushas’s bed, taking to the hallway. He almost goes back to his room, crawls under the bed, and lies there debating whether or not to wake Theta up.

He lets Theta sleep through breakfast, instead.

“You said today was about Hamlet!” Koschei watches the entire town rush past as Theta refuses to stop Drax’s skimmer. All shiny new buildings with a better layout and nicer roads. The fire was, in the long run, quite the improvement. Only problem is the bakery was never rebuilt. Ushas seems to be enjoying this sudden change in course.

“It was going to be, but then I thought ‘well if everything is all new and rebuilt and the bakery isn’t there, what’s the point’?”

“That and we haven’t actually gone past Hamlet before,” Ushas says, balanced perfectly despite the uncomfortable driving.

“Another thing,” Theta adds. “Ninety years and we haven’t gone exploring.”

“Didn’t we go camping a couple times?”

“Technically, we were on a study trip. So it doesn’t count.”

Koschei does not mention how everything they’re doing is technically against the rules, because he has decided not to care. “How far off are we going, then?”

“Far as we can get.”

The sparse plants outside Hamlet turn into fields and hills. All the nature out here was regrown after the majority of it was desecrated ages ago for industrial purposes. Theta keeps flying in a straight line, only averting from his most direct route far away when he must.

“Isn’t there just a city this way?” Koschei asks after half an hour of conversation based mostly on the past.

“Only if we go further North. We’re due Northwest.”

Theta flies straight ahead for two hours straight, passing little towns and farms and odd terrain. Koschei has broken into the bag of various foods when he crests another bare hill, revealing blue-green mountains.

“Is that copper?” Ushas asks between bites of a banana.

“You bet,” Theta replies, aimed straight for the rocks and the metal. He only stops once the skimmer reaches the giant wall, parked on a ledge overlooking the world below. He takes a sandwich.

“How far did we go, then?” Koschei’s legs rest on solid ground for once, pointed down the alarming incline of the mountain.

“Two hundred kilometres? Roughly?”

Ushas sits in between them. “There’s a city on the other side of here, part stuck in the mountain.” From up here, they can see at least halfway back home. “Used to be a mining settlement.”

“We passed four towns kinda like Hamlet,” Theta says, looking back up the mountain as if he might be able to see the city through solid. “We never visited any of them.”

Ushas nods, scanning the horizon. She doesn’t mention how she and Koschei are very much capable of doing so themselves in the following decade, leaving Theta to his wistful finality.

“I’ve been here ninety years.” He turns to Koschei, and Ushas, but Koschei in particular. “You two should. You never how much you could’ve done before you have no more time to do it.” He throws part of the bread crust as hard as he can, watching it fall to the ground. “Time lords included.”

I still can’t hear it. Theta drops his hands from Koschei’s head, but keeps his forehead in place. I have no idea what it is.

I’ve stopped trying to find a definition and just went with it.

Theta’s legs wrap around Koschei’s waist, his hands planted on the rough surface they sit on to keep himself from falling over. A sunset is best seen from the roof, but regardless of position, is still a painstakingly slow process to watch. Koschei could hear the angry popping of noise in Theta’s head for wanting the suns to speed up already, and scolding himself for wishing time would speed up on his last day. They can’t even see it right now.

We’ll figure it out one day.

We better.

All the things they should talk about have been brought up and passed over the week of forced nostalgia Theta insisted on, leaving them now with a strange lack of worthwhile conversation. Or maybe it’s them so arduously avoiding the elephant in the room everything is simply excluded from Permissible Things.

Theta lets his head slide from its place, falling forward until his torso meets a barrier and his arms wrap around it. How much do you want to bet there isn’t even a virus?

Koschei keeps his hands on the ground for both of them. I want to know what constitutes ‘virus’. Slight genetic deviation where it’s not supposed to be? Actual illness? A single anomaly?

Probably an anomaly they didn’t want happening again. Poor kid’s going to be strapped to a lab bench for days.

The ironic thing is you are the least likely to have a Loom virus out of everyone on Gallifrey.

That’s my favourite part. He adjusts his head once, twice, trying to find some suitable location for it. Can we just go back downstairs?

I thought you were watching the sunset.

At the rate it’s going, we’ll be up here another half hour.

So…

Theta detaches himself from all other body parts, freeing himself enough to stand. “Come on, you.”

Koschei doesn’t need to be told twice.

Theta packs in mostly silence, determined to keep his hair an absolute mess and by suggestion will go ask Ushas for a comb. For old times’ sake. The silence can only be extended to his voice, crashing and muffled thumps escaping from every object he throws into the suitcase with no care for order, or state of repair. His pulse has been higher than normal since six in the morning, when Koschei turned the lights back on.

Theta pelts a random shirt at his suitcase, standing in the middle of the bedroom to stare down that makeshift table of theirs. The tension in his shoulders fades after a second, whatever he had in mind to angrily pick up next lost. He kicks one of the wooden beams that would not dissolve. “WHOSE FUCKING IDEA WAS A VIRUS?” He whips around, facing Koschei. “WHY’D MY MOM STICK ME IN THE LOOMS TO BEGIN WITH?” Koschei never prided himself for having a superb grasp on psychology, or what to do with people Having An Emotion in general. “HOW COME QUENCES’S ONLY IDEA WAS FOR ME TO FAKE MY OWN GODDAMN—” Koschei almost tackles him, but remains upright, running the risk of being punched in the face by not clamping Theta’s arms down.

He stops yelling, even in his head, angry tense muscles relaxing everywhere but his legs. If Koschei had to assign a colour to Theta’s mind, it would now be steely grey. “I’m not allowed to cry. I’m technically an adult.”

“Adults have emotions, Thete.”

The last word is what ultimately confirmed it.

Chapter Text

Theta looks at his teeth in the mirror, peeling back his lips and cheeks to see all the way to the gums, all the way down the sides. They're the only things he's been particularly caring about. He hates the feeling of having grime built up on the surface of his teeth, whether or not it's there. It's a good kind of distracting, deliberating what shade to the HTML code his teeth are, mentally taking note and checking on his slate later.

Offline slate, that is, shiny and new but with no uplink capabilities to the Matrix, and therefore no way to communicate with anyone else. Centuries ago, people could still send letters and things through the mail, but that was phased out in favour of digital words and 3D fax machines. So he's almost entirely trapped at Lungbarrow for the next ten years. And who knows how many after that with a wife.

He only stands in the bathroom now because it's the one place worth standing, dim lights and mirrors and too much traffic of cousins. Practice in changing mood in an instant.

It's a waste of time, standing in front of a cold mirror, bare toes curling in on themselves to keep warm. But it's something besides lying awake in bed, thinking over what he's missing or the sums he has started memorising to eliminate everything else. He wonders now if the House has died and only left its inhabitable carcass behind, the number of machines and appliances and shortcuts that have been put in making it more cyborg than whatever a House is.

His brain eventually leads him away from teeth to biology and immediately back to sums again, the pictures of days passed still too vivid and too sad. And it's only been three months. #FEFFD4.

Their ghosts walk along the halls with him, his own sorry memories projected into the dark without enough to distract him, fatigue itching away. The two best states of being are complete overstimulation and the deepest corners of sleep, but everywhere in between happens much more than both of them combined.

There's Koschei at twelve years old, walking next to him, scared of the dark and tentatively grabbing onto his arm as Theta grabs on back. There's Ushas at thirty, grumbling something about yesterday's test being too easy and the quality of Prydon education. Drax lumbers behind, trying to flirt with Mortimus and failing terribly, but Mortimus plays along all the same, rubbing paint of glue off his hands. Even Jelpax saunters ahead of them, white braid falling halfway down their back in the messy sort it was always in.

He lets their voices overlay each other to muddle into something incoherent, but Theta puts the words there so he knows exactly how they all sound, exactly when they sounded, and what Theta really said in return.

He doesn't say anything because he's not properly hallucinating, only remembering vividly in a state of grief he didn't think he would feel. They're all going to leave, go other ways eventually, every student is going to feel the momentary loss of the idle companionship of education. But it'll have an end, it'll be complete, they won't be leaving people behind. They'll be all walking one and the same.

Theta has allowed himself five months to process every feeling of jealousy and longing for the hallways and classes, five whole months to put things in mental airlocked canisters and file them away to rot and never have to be pulled out again.

He lets himself lie awake watching people that aren't there for one month, and the month is coming to an end, yet he has no intention of stopping them. Innocet would tell him to stop. To think of something else, all with good intentions. Owis doesn't talk to him much. He gets more conversation out of an empty mental TARDIS than he does another physical being in his bedroom.

Then again, he's only ever been used to two specific people close enough to kill him in his sleep.

He wonders if he should pull up a mental Vansell to scare them all away, fading into the walls and out the door and out the windows. They can fly. They're only thoughts.

He can't bring himself to do that, just yet.

###

Dear Koschei,

I'm not sure how Quences even managed it in the first place, but what do you know? I'm finally dead. He put a lot of thought into this, apparently. I think he knew the inspector. Meanwhile, all the unchaptered cousins got checked, and turned out shockingly perfectly fine. It took a bit to get Owis settled down, probably because Glospin was trying to freak him out. As usual.

Right so I'm dead, which means I really can't access the Matrix without somebody asking for authentication and "Koschei" is already a registered citizen and any name I make up doesn't have a Loom record. Hence, I have purchased the cheapest paper I can find and have taken up letter-writing as communication. I hope my writing is actually legible. Sorry about that.

While it would probably be amusing, don't arrange a funeral with all my remaining friends and pretend I'm actually dead. If you are, invite me. I'd love to see it. It would probably be more fun than teaching myself practically everything, of which I am currently procrastinating. He lets me go into town and pick up "curriculum-based equipment" nowadays. I go by Koschei, because I am supposed to be dead and nobody knows who you are. I honestly wish I had a tutor, as my self-motivation is hovering around 0/10 at the moment. I haven't actually learnt anything besides cosmic geography. Sort of.

I'm pretending to not miss you lot, like I'm on some sort of extended break between Junior qualifications (do not write that word down, holy shit) and the next ten years. Decade. One tenth of my education. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but like I'm getting married in twelve years and then how long am I stuck?

Get me out of here.

Closing Salutation,

Theta Sigma.

###

Dear Koschei,

I was going to wait until you replied to the last letter, but it dawned on me you might not be able to even send letters from the Academy, and chances are you didn't receive it in the first place. There are a hundred better methods for transporting information across large distances, so why would anyone maintain a mail system? Even if there is sort of one? I could not find a purely logical purpose for writing another one without a reply, other than procrastinating and keeping my psychology more or less in check.

Remember the time we were playing War Games with Magnus in our second year, then we got Ushas to join, we got caught by Borusa, and I started singing? Tell her that story. I don't think I did. But I remember telling you that story, and it was fairly early on and you were very confused. Mostly because I could not describe the origin of the song.

These letters don't sound very much like letters in books, I realise. Yes I read books. I don't do my homework but i read books... According to them these things should all have some declaration of love and a paragraph on how much I miss you, which I find redundant and a waste of paper. Which is hard to get, mind you.

(I'm also partially suspicious someone in the practically nonexistent mailing business is reading every one of these and it would be rather unsightly.)

I must keep these at a page to prevent myself from rambling.

Declaration of love, I really fucking miss you,

Theta Sigma.

###

Usually at 03:00 when Koschei couldn't sleep, he'd wake up Theta and bug him until he was verbally caged into submission, or in another shape or form. After staring at a wall that used to be a gaping hole for half an hour, he decided to see what venturing into the kitchens at this hour would produce, be it something other than people already awake and looking for breakfast. Which he doubted. Usually he wasn't particularly hungry after just waking up to begin with, but with a lack of anything else to do and a time lapse of a year and a half since actually seeing Theta in the flesh, well. He might as well be. Maybe they have coffee.

The kitchens were actually empty, although not unlocked, much to a number of students' satisfaction. Four quarters, rules of said four differentiating in everything from curfew to the kitchen. Second quadrant you got quite a talking to for being out of bed at this hour, but here all the doors are always unlocked, provided you don't turn anyone's head in the process. Apparently Junior Time Lords are responsible enough not to make noise.

Eh.

Some responsible group of people, whom in another life he would aspire to be, already have a number of hot drinks set out on a table next to where they all study in a manner quite unlike what he used to do with Ushas and everyone else. All numbers and diagrams and order and whispers and being all studious, were it like an actual study group and not a bunch of bored smart kids sitting around each other for the good company.

"You mind if I drink this?" he asked one of them who merely waved him along, resulting in Koschei now sitting on a staircase with a hot mug in his hands and a wrapped wrist that got burned with clumsy hot water. A bit of pink extends out either side, but he's covered it with a sleeve as anyone would in the middle of the night with snow falling outside. Snow at the Academy. Theta would love it.

His drink is still too hot but he makes a point to nobody of sipping it, daring blank space to tell him off for being careless, or not paying attention, or just getting noticed and caringly instructed to wait for it to cool off, you idiot or you'll burn your tongue for two days and not be able to taste anything. He used to mix sugar in his coffee, but decided against it, what with a burned hand holding in a number of curses directed at whoever decided it would be a good idea to not watch where they're going in the middle of an unsupervised corner of cafeteria.

He finishes his coffee in what could be ten minutes or two, only knowing it never did cool down to a palatable temperature and burned the entirety of his mouth. It will not taste vibrantly for three days. He knows he is found a long time later, eyes glued onto soft specks of white floating down through the dark. There is no glare on the window because there isn't enough light to throw it off, giving view to miles and miles of empty sky, stars replaced with frozen water that goes down, down down…

Ushas finds him eventually, sitting beside him in the middle of the staircase. He doesn't know quite how she managed it, if she installed a GPS system into his head along with Theta's decades ago, or if she was looking specifically. You can leave traces of a mental imprint on space and time, but none that Ushas would be able to find. He can only tell it's her by the way she clears her throat, the impatient you know I'm right here mixed with the equally as metaphysical I wonder. He thinks he makes things up in his head to give them labels and sort them out even if they don't make sense. In fact, he knows they don't make sense.

He feels her pry the mug from his hands, peeling back fingers that snap into place on air, absent of the subdued metal that makes an ever so soft clink as it is set down on the marble-wooden stairs beside him. Ushas knows how the two mix. Koschei doesn't. She sits right beside him without making a sarcastic comment or ordering him around, or informing him of the time and what classes he has.

The tapping starts in his fingers again without anything to hold them still, feeling flesh press against flesh and feel the bone underneath, making them a little bit numb but not all the way. Maybe they go more red. He doesn't know; he's not looking.

"It's a Bad Day." He says it after an unknown length of time he romanticises as an hour that could really have only been four minutes. The tapping still goes on, making his speech follow some sort of pattern in his head that sounds easy to break but isn't even close to easy. It regulates everything: breathing, speaking, dancing. Blood circulation.

"I can tell," is all she replies with, catching him off-guard with a voice that isn't snark or timid or thoroughly unamused with everyone around her and wishing to go back to science. Dissecting something has always taken priority over other Time Lords, in her time. It doesn't startle him enough to take his eyes off the window, and he might be falling asleep but nothing's there enough in his head to tell him definitively so. He could be dreaming all the snow, Ushas, tapping. He doesn't dream tapping, it can't make its way into dreams now. He's sure they're there anyways and he's only dreaming not having them there.

"Its only four in the morning." He sort of sings, voice higher up than it usually is on purpose but at the same time unintentionally. Koschei grins softly at the idea he's going insane. All for unjustified reasons he can't see past and only knows that they're unjustified because he has Theta to compare to.

Ushas's head is all of a sudden on his bony shoulder, making him lean into the railing very slightly to his side, head making contact with the wood and marble hybrid he doesn't understand and is probably a hoax or some very powerful co-existence on two planes of time and space that merge into this one with varying solidity depending on what works. Her hair gets kind of near his mouth, near his face, falling out of the ponytail it's usually pulled up into, Koschei always wondering why she doesn't just cut it all off. To annoy herself, maybe. To make it look like she actually has less hair, maybe. Because she doesn't want to, like everything else, probably. "It's 05:45."

He raises his eyebrows, the effort his muscles are using suddenly very much present in his conscious mind. Wow. Movement. It's been a while. "I've been out of bed almost three hours." He still looks out the window, the length of time before him making it impossible not to look anymore. His brain has been longing off and on to see something else, to be torn off the monotony of snowflakes falling from the sky and sticking to a frozen ground he can't see below. They almost hurt now, he will see the image of snow every time he closes his eyes for the rest of his life, he will dream snow, he cannot escape the snow now, even if he burns up in flame he will not be able to rid himself of the constant cold he's away from, inside, warm, with an empty mug of coffee that burnt his entire mouth and left it in pain for only a short amount of time.

"You need to talk to somebody," she tells him, the momentary I have no intention but sitting here dropping in favour of her constant need for paying her dues to the mental sanity of people so they don't get in the way of her science.

"Like a therapist?"

"You didn't really see her much last time."

"Hmm." He thinks for the thousandth time that every snowflake looks a bit different than the last one, and it will never be witnessed again and melted into a monochromatic buildup of oxygen and hydrogen that will all evaporate again into almost nothing. It's both depressing and wonderful at the same time. "I thought she was a 'he'."

"You're only proving my point."

His fingertips have really started going numb from repeated impact, but the muscles keep moving as if they were stuck in a constant cycle like the snowflakes are falling. They won't fall up. Won't stop falling altogether, either. "I don't need therapy. Nothing's happened."

"A lot of things have happened." She lifts her head again, rattling the mug slightly but he can't see why or where. "Do you need a list?"

"But you need an imminent reason to go in for therapy. Time Lords can manage themselves."

"Every species thinks they can manage themselves."

"Theta's Sol III people can't. They're all too panicked because everyone's rotting all around them, so they try to make themselves the best so people remember them in statues and things."

"Every species in the universe tries to make themselves the best." She puts a hand on his shoulder quite tentatively, given the way she had her head on his shoulder. Like there's some breach of contact only noticeable when just barely past the line, but not so far out the thought is already strange.

"We already call ourselves the best. We don't need help."

"You have been staring at a window for two and a half hours."

The statement itself makes him sound like a hopeless child with nothing to live for, or some dying old cripple that can't do anything about it. The snow keeps falling and he can't take his eyes off it. He can feel the railing digging into his skull, feels the stairs underneath him that have been uncomfortable so long he doesn't notice, feel some cold breeze as Ushas moves, but it's not cold. Only a breeze. "You can file that and they'll take you."

"I can't file a window."

"I can file your own symptoms."

He shrugs. "Of what? We were engineered, right? All the kinks worked out in Looms?"

"That's factually incorrect. You've got as much of a mental capacity as Theta." She starts walking down the steps just a few in front of him, standing and walking to block his view of the window. It is all being taken up by robes she put on at this hour, still caring so much but not enough to put her hair down for a reason he doesn't quite understand yet. He doesn't understand much. In the scope of all time and space, he knows just about nothing. He can't see the snow anymore, and he has to drag his eyes up to Ushas's face in the lighter-now dark. She looks as tired as he does. "If you don't put your name in, I have to."

"Isn't it anonymousssss?" he drags out the the word as she kneels in front of him, assuming the role of responsible older sibling like she took to more with Theta gone than before. The logical course of action would have it reversed because she's younger, but not by much.

"How can it be anonymous if you need to be referred?"

He shrugs his shoulders and takes the hands she holds out for him to grab onto, gently pulling him up from the sitting position and almost making him fall over. His backside is half-asleep, his fingers are tingling, and his legs were bent like that so long there are slight pins and needles in his feet. They are immediately taken over again with a binary cardiovascular system. He knows everything about him looks a mess and he should shower, what with the hours still left in the mornings he used to sleep all the way through like a normal sentient being with too much time on his hands.

"Go get washed." She tells him back in the instructing voice supposed to help him through education but not life as a whole, her resilience in having him as mentally well as possible something rather odd he again doesn't understand. A lot of things are odd in the world. Only took having only two eyes to see it through for him to grasp that fact.

"I used to think I was indestructible," he thinks aloud, being turned around to march to the dormitories again.

"You certainly did."

###

Theta has learnt to pretend to look like he knows what he's doing, to look at other people like they are worth looking at but not intimidating as they have developed to be, minding his own business to the extent sociological practicality allows him to be. He has been alloted a bit of money from the House itself, a sort of allowance in the place of having an actual job. It's a problem when you're dead and all. He briefly remembers his fiancée having a job on the weekends outside her Academy, wondering how on Gallifrey she manages both at the same time.

"What'll it be, then?" A rather well-dressed bartender raises one eyebrow across the table at him, gender gloriously irrelevant, cleaning of glasses perfectly executed without the need for eyes. Theta picked the location for its cleanliness and lack of complete discord, and clean it certainly is. He still feels too young but knows full well he isn't, and nobody can tell. If anything, the bartender across from him looks younger. "You awake?"

Theta shakes his head to jolt himself out of a degrading mental tangent. "Something light, I guess."

"Anything in particular?" The glass glaringly reminding him of a measuring flask is placed in front of him, bartender putting both forearms behind it.

Theta shakes his head. "Surprise me?" The bartender raises an eyebrow. Theta always hurt himself trying. "But less than 13%."

"Haven't seen you around here before." Someone else steps up to the counter, and for a wild second he thinks it's Innocet. He did this all the time with Koschei and Drax and Mort and— "Do you always wait five seconds to respond to things?"

"No, I'm just—"

"Preoccupied." They immediately turn around with a full glass, and Theta wonders how they did it so fast. "I know the symptoms."

Theta could sit in a corner and not say anything as he intended, but some sense of boredom keeps him going in a conversation he didn't sign up for. "Symptoms of what, may I ask?"

They seem to pull a checklist out of their head. "Easy. Unchaptered, bad grades, some complication in a romantic situation, you're not supposed to be here but have consumed alcohol before and know it works."

"Were you on the forensics division at some point?"

"So you don't always take five seconds to talk. Don't think you have many people to talk to."

"Seriously."

They shake their head, picking up a refill request without looking or speaking or acknowledging its existence in any way aside from having it in their hand. "I've had all kinds in here. And I've worked here a long time."

"Is it a fulfilling job?" In all honesty, there is a part of him that misses the small talk.

They smirk. "It's intriguing. I get to see a lot of weird people. Makes me feel fulfilled in my own endeavours."

He always thought alcohol tasted weird and sour, the after-effect one of the many delicacies of existence. Liquid that causes mental and physical alterations that are not natural, yet not considered poison or a toxic substance. "Does that make me one of the weird people?"

"I'd say you were a Prydon if I didn't know any better." Theta nearly chokes on whatever drink he was served that is faithfully above 13%.

"I'd say you're Patrex, but the Patrexes don't serve in bars."

"A fair point." They smirk at the amount of ruptured breathing still going on, correct in their assumptions. "I've only met five Prydonians out here. You're interesting." They check the time on the back of the room, shrugging. "I'm off in five. You're inherently lonely and have a tragic romantic past I want to hear about."

Theta snorts. "Can't say I'm looking forward to it."

"Definitely Prydonian."

He swallows before trying to respond. "I'm technically unchaptered."

"And technically not lonely."

Theta cannot contradict what they said, and cannot bother to tell himself to run away and hide in a closet while he still can. He's tired of hiding in closets. In bedrooms. In Houses. In his head. "You'll need to give me your name first."

They jump onto the counter and swing their legs over as is obviously practised on many occasions, giving Theta a hand to shake. "Call me K'anpo."

###

Your name's on the envelope I'm not putting it in here,

Look at me, wasting paper. It seems you have no paper at all to reply to these with. You had all summer, nitwit. I'll pretend it's just a very, very slow mail system.

Books have also outlined I need some groundbreaking quotes in these things to pass as a letter of an incarcerated soul writing to his lover. So instead of studying for my Gallifreyan Politics exam (WHICH I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR), I wracked my brain for a creative quote I'm going to pretend I made up myself. "The opposite of love is not hate, but complete and total indifference." Slightly redundant at the end, but I like it. Well, philosophically it therefore means Daleks could love the universe a lot less than they already do. And really if you honestly don't love someone, it would be kinder to be completely indifferent instead of torturing killing them. Although, I am conditioned to view love as the opposite of hate and not an idea separate of the quote's presented false dichotomy, so my philosophy is skewed. As usual. (The Daleks could still calm down a little and it wouldn't hurt.)

I feel like I should make these more sentimental than I am. Or maybe you like them all choppy and slightly impersonal? I would know if you wrote me back.

I actually made a friend the other day (sort of. It's a long story), which I find fairly impressive for a deceased individual. They're a barperson who served me a higher concentration of alcohol than I requested, then wanted to hear my "tragic backstory". They still think my name's Koschei. They probably always will. Only problem is Quences somehow found out I had an Actual Conversation with Another Person, and in some obsession for my own personal safety told me to "not" and talk with the cousins if I must. Tried that once at breakfast, they mostly haven't let go of the previous breakfast, which is irritating.

Philosophically yours,

Theta Sigma

Chapter Text

 Don't judge, Mail System Void.

I can physically feel you not being here. My back and my legs contain a physical sensation of absence that should not be possible because biology doesn't work that way. If I think long and hard and desperate enough I'm back at the Academy half asleep with you filling the sensation of absence on my body and the impossible biology makes sense, because it's just the struggle to physically draw you back to me.

I'm starting to sound like a Sol III human but it's 02:00 and I don't care. It's all really to do with fatigue and hormones but it feels like reality... Like a form of pain coated in memory of bliss to let it be inflicted without protest. You are a mess of a person just like I am but somehow the lack of you is causing more of a disaster on me. I have tasted bliss and it has been taken from me so I try and replace it with ink on paper that flies into the air and doesn't come back in any form. This is all such a waste of paper maybe I'm a waste of paper this is all just so... Futile. Everything is futile in reality, so I might as well sit here scribbling about being lonely and cold. This letter doesn't have a point. Telekinetically bring me to wherever you are and we'll preserve my sanity.

Love,

Theta

###

Quences has him dressed up in a semiformal whatever the heck for no good reason (according to Theta), dragging him away from his usual suspiciously long trips to the city in favour of being coached on what not to mention yet, and going back into the city. This time with a fiancee in tow.

He keeps his shirt rolled down to his wrists, thankfully black because white does nothing for him (if mirrors say anything), white pants he didn't know he had being produced from a closet without a stain anywhere. They have become rather convenient to remove with technology of the day, but given Theta's history as a General Prydonian Child, the prospects of him owning a pristine white anything tanked at the age of eight.

Patience sits across from him in a dress that curls and fades from purple into white and then thins into the air all over the place, giving her a light, wispy effect to normal people. Theta only sees it as high-maintenance and something that would get in the way. He rather hoped she'd favour Generic Masculine Clothing as a simple effect, but he could not be so lucky. He's wondered if he developed a preference towards masculinity, or if it's just Koschei he's grown up with.

He pretends to think it's Koschei to have fewer problems than he has already. He actually makes himself eat his sandwich despite having eaten a rather odd meal somewhere between three in the morning and the breakfast he skipped, which was big enough to take him until at least 14:30, but not with his fiancee around.

"I hear you're House-schooled now?" she asks, or comments, either one.

Theta nods, scowling slightly at his sandwich.

"And how's that going?"

He shrugs. "Alright, I suppose."

"Bit lonely?"

He looks up at her properly, in some capacity surprised she recognises any emotion. He reminds himself she is actually a person and has a brain, despite his highest ideas of her. "It is, really. Compared to the Academy."

"I'd think so." She takes a delicate sip of her tea, elegance completely lost in euphemism. "How many people are even in the House over the year?"

"Me, Quences, Owis, off and on cousins that have grown up, everyone else going to school out here. It gets busier around the breaks, but other than that…" she looks sympathetic, like she tends to a lot, but Theta recognises it as not something cruel or mocking, for once. The thought has always been yelled at him, sternly suggested to him, even crossed his own mind, but he'd never been able to equate his version of the embodiment of stuckness with a potential friend for too long.

"Look," she starts, ignoring her own intentionally cold soup in favour of addressing Theta very directly, bending but not yet breaking her usual lighthearted demeanour. She takes a deep, shaky breath as Theta realises with a bit of a pang she's scared of him. He does not dare interrupt her now. "Like it or not, we're in this together. For a long time. We can go about being all cold and lying and pretending, but it's not going to do us any good." She remains seated at her chair, but raised slightly, hands curling on the table and still managing to stare right despite her apparent fear. "I hate this as much as you do, but you and I both need to try a bit." Her fingertips press into the table, food momentarily forgotten, arranged by their superiors but decided upon themselves.

Theta regards her from a slightly tilted perspective, brain automatically making it straight in his mind's eye, science taking over again. "Are you scared of me?" he asks, thinking he knows the answer but wanting to hear it out loud so he can respond properly.

She looks taken aback, blinking rapidly before staring at him again, distraught he didn't answer her properly. "Have you seen yourself, ever? You terrify everyone."

Maybe he needs a mirror. "Sorry…" he says, trying to look sincere. "Sorry."

She draws her arms back, folding them against her chest and looking more worn than annoyed. "Don't need to apologise." Theta waits in the silence for her to carry on, picking again at the top piece of bread on his food. "Do we have a deal then?"

"To do what?"

"You're smart. I've already told you. Deal or no deal, because we're going to have to like it or lump it anyways."

He smiles dryly, watching her bite back a sort of smile at her own odd phrasing. He holds out an arm, seeing her more now as a person than he ever might have once. It almost feels like ignoring absent Koschei a bit more, giving her his hand in an agreement to get along, refusing years ago in favour of getting along with someone else. He's learning it doesn't work that way. A lot of things don't work the way he though they did.

"I will try." He enunciates every word, watching intently as Patience's hand takes his for the first time, bobbing up and down in the air that used to be full of negative ions. Not that it makes any scientific sense, but his marks in particle physics have never been very fulfilling.

"Then we have a deal, oh husband of mine." She sighs out sarcastically, words nailing themselves in Theta's head.

"Not yet, I'm not."

"Nine more years of freedom. Go nuts. Sleep with everybody."

"Traditional marriage does not signify 'sleeping together'," he retorts, sitting back in his chair and deciding to actually eat the sandwich in favour of going straight to dinner.

She shakes her head, looking unamused, but returned to the folly and unawareness their relationship has been composed of thus far. "Does for you, bio."

His knee hits the bottom of the table in the middle of a bite, controlling all his thoughts on swallowing properly and not choking before getting out "Who told you that!?"

She looks straight forwards over his head, focusing on some point on the wall and looking that sort of scared again. Probably because Theta is kind of angry. And confused. Emotional evaluation: yippee.

"Innocet. She's actually told me a lot."

He tries thinking back to any time she's been alone with Innocet, or to any conversation in which he missed something, wondering why Innocet would talk to her like that anyways…

"Which is convenient for the both of us, actually. I knew your mother." She doesn't look at him, or his reaction, but gives their flimsy outdoor ceiling a small smile. "Don't worry. I'm only a hundred."

###

There's finally visible grass now. It's all basically dead because the snow had just FINALLY MELTED but I'm outside. I have escaped the cousins. You'd think after being stuck here all year with like 5 people maximum at one time I'd want to actually socialise but. I'm socialising with you, technically, but not really because you don't get any of these anyways. I talk to the void. Or a mail worker confiscating them all for his amusement purposes. That and K'anpo the barperson. They're pretty cool.

It's actually freezing out, but it's been colder. Obviously.

It feels like I should ramble on about my life or something if we always used to know everything about each other but it sounds stupid put on paper. Like I have nothing else to do with myself than narrate every futile event.

Thing is, I don't really know you anymore. You could be someone completely different as your life moved on without me, and came to figure out my existence matched with yours is arbitrary. You would have found someone to be me if I didn't exist, and I would have found a replacement for you if Torvic killed you way back when.

Sol III humans love fantasising about destiny and soul mates and immortal love. I see why they do it. Reality is rather depressing.

I wish you were here. Whatever version of you I can get. Damn sentimentality. It's irrational, really...

I hope you miss me. The thought is fractionally comforting.

Theta

###

I don't even care who gets this the name's on the envelope.

I am actually hiding now. Remember Glospin? Well he's chasing after me with a fucking illegal laser thing trying to age my physical body so it's basically useless. I can't regenerate yet without something going wrong I don't know what it is with this body but some medicinal professional they brought in tells me not to try anything for another at least fifty years. I bet Glospin knows but doesn't care because he can easily pass it off as a joke. If he finds me I'm screwed. Innocet's not even here. I can't get her either.

I could be dead in a day if one of my hearts fails I don't know how well that laser works.

Funny, I actually don't want to die. After all these years, I want to live. I can hear him oh Rassilon please no. Quences can't be so cruel if I scream he'll find me. So will Glospin. But I might live if Quences is fast enough.

WHY AM I NARRATING THIS ON PAPER YOU WONT EVEN READ ITS NOT LIKE YOU CAN HELP I'm screaming now.

Nice knowing you.

###

"It's been four minutes, just laugh at me already."

Theta sits next to K'anpo at their usual table in the corner, the off-work barperson never knowing quite where else to go. "No, no it's not that funny." They bite back an obvious mocking grin at his wrinkly frame, to which Theta leans back in his chair.

"The cousins didn't bother holding it in."

"How did that even happen?"

Theta sighs, but it sounds different, like some membrane has appeared to make his breathing sound gruff and old. "That one cousin that tried to kill me?"

"Owis?"

"No, Glospin. He tried again. I got Quences to stop him."

The grin fades, thankfully. "Your own cousin did this?"

Theta nods. "Just about killed me. Then we'd have two extra Loomlings running around." He takes a sip of 'whatever you gave me the first time'.

"Your House was the one with the dead kid, right?"

He nods. "Theta Sigma. Didn't really know him."

"What did he look like?"

Theta is taken aback. "Uh, black hair? Sort of medium skin? Short, mostly."

"You sure about that?"

He rolls his eyes. "I didn't know him. Kept to himself."

"But you're the same age. Exactly."

"N— no… he's a bit younger."

K'anpo smirks. "It's you, isn't it?"

Theta immediately turns his head to see if anyone reacts to this information, hurting his neck in the process and feeling his shoulder complain. "Hush."

"It really wasn't that hard to figure out. You forgot that bit in your alibi." They lean into the table, as if divesting a grand secret. "So who is Koschei?"

Theta doesn't know why he has told so much to K'anpo. "Omega Xi's real name." Probably because he has only Owis and Quences to talk to.

"Did he ever reply to your letters?"

Theta snorts. "Of course not." The drink he ordered doesn't actually taste that great, but the aftertaste and effects are prime. "He doesn't even get them."

"How do you know? The mail system's still marginally functional."

"And guess who gave them all orders to burn mine before I even wrote them?"

K'anpo chuckles. "Your cousins are absolute assholes."

"You could say that again."

"Your cousins are absolute—"

"A figure of speech, K'anpo."

They fix their hair by intentionally messing it up, coloured parts somehow falling into their correct orientation after the fact. "Can he get Glospin to reverse it?"

"Glospin doesn't know how. Someone's regenerative energy might fix it up. Or if I just regenerate. Which I can't do."

"Why not?"

"I'm still too young, technically. I passed my Juniors but my body won't produce it yet. I tried."

K'anpo raises one bold dark brown eyebrow. "You need to be just about dead for it to work, Thete."

He is startled, for a second, at the name. "Don't… don't call me Thete."

"Alright, Thete."

"I mean it."

They sit back in their chair, sipping from the rugged old tumbler. "Suit yourself."

"In the presence of injury, you can coax it out. That's how most kids at the Academy can tell. Then there's faculty running around discussing a regeneration safety course they'll never manage."

"So where'd you get injured?"

Theta pauses. "Practically everywhere. Have you seen my body?"

They grin, raising their glass a small amount. "That is true."

He's lying, and for once nobody guesses.

###

Koschei runs through stacks of information that tingles under his fingertips, such a large onslaught of knowledge being downloaded into the slate and hidden away for people concerned not to find, the pages he starts reading only being skimmed before put in anyways. Everything from fine-tuned poison he won't make to reports of legal cases that have been shut away too quick and too sloppily to escape publication. He has always tossed around the idea of completely trampling the government, Magnus's wonderful maps giving him something to work off.

He has been unevenly split into three parts: one sitting properly and passing school properly and graduating properly so he can get a proper job and steal his TARDIS in peace. The second, teaming up with Magnus, assassinating a few people, running a full coup of the government with a bunch of other idiots, as the maps will allow.

That and leave the chunk of godforsaken rock first thing in the morning, if he has any confidence in his hypnotism skills. He sets the slate on the desk once the amount of information pending for download is just under enough to make it crash (as some technology still does these days), surprised to see Ushas has snuck her way inside without a sound. Without any sort of warning, it seems like, not even mentally.

"Ushas?" the slate makes a small noise of some sort, and he shuts off the volume.

She sits with her legs crossed on his bed, feet long enough to touch the floor properly. Her hair falls around her shoulders, the once in a blue moon it is not tied at the back of her head.

"Remember my conspicuous rat?" There's a long cut down the side of her arm, underneath the rolled-up sleeve of her robe.

Koschei has momentarily forgotten whatever he was downloading. "What the—"

"Lab experiment gone wrong at the exhibition thing I was in." She purses her lips together, shrugging innocently in a way that is completely lost of Generally Ushas. "I killed the President's cat. Nearly him, too."

"But," he leans against his desk, bracing two hands against the edge. "aren't you at least expelled?"

"Oh, yeah. Going to some prison off in the South. Immediate arrest, trial to be had later, probably accused of first-degree murder, you know the drill. In fact, I've already been carried off."

"Then how did you—"

"You aren't usually so confused. It's fun to see." She grins maniacally, gesturing to the tall cabinet in the corner of his room, waiting.

It dawns on Koschei as soon as he figures out there has never been a cabinet of that shape in his bedroom. His jaw drops almost comically, Ushas springing up from his bed and laughing at him. "But this Academy is enclosed! You can't even get a TARDIS in here!"

"Is that what they tell you? It's only rules. Not to mention this ship can get into prison cells, which are properly blocked off."

"So you decided to pop into the Prydonian Academy to bid us all farewell?"

She pulls his forehead down and gives him a usually uncharacteristic kiss on the forehead, making Koschei jump back a bit. "Nah, just you. For old times' sake."

She gives him an enthusiastic pat on the back, pacing towards her stolen TARDIS, hesitating. She never actually signed him up for therapy.

"How'd you get rid of the guards?"

She turns only her head around, hand resting on the door handle. "Now that you'll have to figure out for yourself." She swings the door open, revealing a very metallic, official-looking machine inside. "I need to redecorate."

Never the one for sentimental farewells of any sort, she doesn't say anything along the lines of 'goodbye', favouring closing the door behind her and a minute later, disappearing with barely a sound. Fortunate she can work the muting device on these prison ships, else he'd be in for questioning…

The slate on his desk has stopped scrolling on its own, stopped on a page of security mechanisms most commonly found to ensure TARDISes remain within a set of coordinates. Koschei counts on his fingers how many out of ten have now left, one finger Vansell and one of them himself. They've gone down to half: half of a handful of students trying to be smarter or maybe just make learning a good time. Or were all perhaps too distracted by things and needed someone else to teach them everything.

He's trained himself not to wonder where Rallon and Millennia have gone, official reports marking them as deceased without bodies found, simply because they can't trace how they got off the planet. Which might be a situation if they miraculously make their way back. In reality they probably won't, but in reality he shouldn't have an incessant tapping in the back of his skull patterned after heartbeats that may or may not line up (and probably do).

Koschei starts sorting through the mess of information downloaded, categorising it into neat folders and sub-folders and sub-sub-folders that would be very nice to have inside his head. He can't get rid of the trees, and is too afraid to try and do so by burning them lest he suddenly forget his entire life.

Chapter Text

I was going to leave it there and pretend to be dead forever, but I am a selfish being. Hello, I’m alive.

Glospin didn’t make it far enough to kill me, obviously. But I’m old. My skin sags, my hair is white, my muscles are shot, my bones ache, my eyes take too long to focus. He can’t reverse it, either. Fundamentally I suppose it’s some deep-rooted vanity that makes me so irritated. That and the knowledge I will not be able to run for fifty years. Convenient for Quences, and for the fiancée, and any beast trying to eat me. I really am stuck. In between teaching myself entire classes to scrape past school, I have tried manufacturing something to reverse the effects. Nothing has worked.

Surprisingly, I am still lacking a death wish.

It would logically seem within all our best interests to go our separate ways, but then, I am a selfish being. If you can find a way to keep my physicality from deteriorating, then I will take freedom for as long as I can. I look forward to it.

Say hello to Ushas for me. Or, you know, say hello to your boss, mail guy. If you have a boss.

Yes I know I’m talking to myself.

Theta Sigma

###

Theta stands on one side of the roof after a lot of internal debate Innocet would no doubt overhear, if she were still present. In fact, she’d heartily take part in the debate and make him more agitated than he is already.

They liked deciding on exact days when they were somehow still relevant, and this was the highest in importance if there ever was one when they still shared a bed. The first day of the last two years before Theta is to be sent off into getting married all proper and orderly, neat rows of census records to follow. Well, they would be orderly if people in general didn’t think him to be dead, but then Blyledge doesn’t actually care about his physicality. One day, Theta Sigma can pop up again.

His arduously-packed suitcase sits on the polar opposite side of the House’s roof, silently mocking him from its place in the pitch dark sky, moon above barely a sliver. The twentieth day of the final month of what would be the break were they still in school (properly), 00:00 on the roof.

The suitcase mocks him because he has not had a direct word from Koschei in years, and he could very well be off the planet by now. Or plain just not coming. He doesn’t like it, but he could be sitting on a roof all night waiting for a dead man to show up in a TARDIS and drag him away.

He has his useless offline slate with him if only to tell time, screen brightness turned up only enough to throw a soft glow to his chest and no further.

00:04.

He’s never been a fan of waiting, the action so opposite to that of the running he’s done since taking a glimpse of everything that is and was and ever could be in all of space and time. After watching his best friend kill another boy to save… one of them. Their first encounter and neither of them can properly remember what even happened.

One memory runs into another and he remembers the day he promised to find the noise for Koschei wherever it might be.

They could do that in their TARDIS.

There was the day somewhere after that he stayed up all night with Koschei trying to re-teach an entire class a week before exams were to begin, the motive behind deciding to skip sleeping entirely that night unquestionably absent. Only something he’d do naturally for his friend and didn’t wonder why until a while later. They skipped sleeping a number of times after that, learning things again. Something else they could do in their TARDIS.

He can see inside his mental TARDIS, which must mean his eyes are closed or he’s hallucinating into the sky, hearing small noises of machinery starting up artificially. A small touch of his immobility. He paces down open crates of memories that have been stowed without his knowing. They do that.

He almost falls lies down and falls asleep for all the silence, but someone moves. He would have jumped down from the roof would it not have killed him, and maybe moved a bit faster and taken the suitcase if the person he saw were actually Koschei. He can’t have regenerated by now… or could he?

Theta can’t hear any thoughts coming back despite the number he’s screaming out into the air quite against his better judgement, if it could be anyone out there waiting for him. At the exact time and the exact place?

He comes walking through the relatively small stretch of land faster than he anticipated, slowing down as drastically as he can speed up in a rotting body when he sees whoever it is before him. They’re obviously not Koschei. A bit shorter, leaning against a tree, an umbrella stuck in the ground in front of them despite the lack of rain. His eyes are still dazzled by the light inside to see them clearly, but they either have a dress or a robe on and smile disconcertingly in the dark.

“Who are you?” he asks them a bit harsher than the situation calls for, but he has no qualms in blaming his curdled voice box.

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.” The accent sounds from somewhere far away. He can tell, by now, she’s a woman.

She doesn’t say anything else and Theta doesn’t know what else to say, but can’t very well turn around and leave her lazily trailing a hand along the outside of the property line passive-aggressively. Her dress looks like it’s been patched up from the styles of multiple planets all at the same time. Her shoes are beaten up yet still laced relatively pristine white, a five-pointed star on each side. Her hair is done up perfectly despite the patchwork, twisted into an elegant heap on her head that stays in place with some miraculous force.

She stops her pacing back and forth. “This is the twentieth day of the last month of the last break, right? Would be embarrassing if I missed…”

“How the hell do you know that?” he asks, stepping up as close as he dares to whoever she is.

“Oh, Theta Sigma.” She shakes her head quickly and sticks out her tongue before chuckling to herself. “That name sounds funny on the tongue. It’s been a while since I’ve used it, but I can’t very well—”

“If you don’t explain what you’re doing out here in the middle of the bloody night I’m going to have to inform the Housemaster, and it wouldn’t do well to be out here when he’s angry.”

She pouts, squatting on the ground and propping her hands on her fists. “Okay okay okay. Sheesh, you were edgy.”

“I was edgy?”

She passes it off with a wave of her hand, shaking her head. “Nononono shush. Listen.” Her whole body shudders for a second, hair still sticking in place. “Would’ve been soooo much easier just to break out of the time lock now but it’s really hard to get back in. BUT,” she holds up a finger to silence Theta’s impending protest. She looks at him funny, as if every muscle in her body needs to move but it has all been contained to dialogue and facial expressions he can’t see clearly. “Hold on you are Theta Sigma?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so, but it’s been a good couple thousand years, oh I’ve said too much em,” she stands up with a quick clap of her hands, pausing to grin at them and apparently deciding against their comedic properties. “Tell him your name, would you? Describe me in detail.” She looks at her raggedy dress that is actually very well put together for what would fall under the category of ‘patchwork’. She sighs a moment, lifting her arms out to the side like a very lost dancer.

“Tell who?” He tries assuming as tall a posture as he can, but doesn’t think he’d be much of a deterrent for how very disordered the woman acts. He should report her, having no idea who she is, but feels a sort of requirement to be involved in nighttime rendezvous of a chronologically transcendental type.

He can’t see well in the dark, but he’s almost entirely certain she winked at him. “Oh, you’ll see him again. He even showed up on time, didn’t he?” she places her hands on her hips, expression shockingly similar to something he’s seen before and can only place a slow minute and a half later.

“Oh, I need to stop saying ‘he’.” She grins lopsided, curtsying to Theta. “Tell him your name for me. Now hasn’t this been fun?”

Theta finds himself smiling or falling asleep, and it can’t really be the latter. “Who are you?”

She claps four times in response, already walking away to wherever her TARDIS is hidden. He doesn’t see her escape the treeline, and in the dark he can’t tell if it’s disguised as an oak tree. Knowing him, it probably is.

###

Nobody was going to sleep that night. Not even the quiet ones, or the studious ones, or the least of the troublemakers. The now-official Time Lords have some unspoken sanction to make noise into the night, celebrating their “proper adulthood” and glorying in a future devoid of forced education.

Vansellostophossius sits in the corner, almost trying to recreate some position in the Deca. He exists in authority with a handful of honour students, discussing politics in a holier-than-thou fashion. Jelpax is nowhere to be seen around him. Good on them.

Drax has clearly had too much to drink, shouting obscene congratulations at everybody. At an unfortunate moment in time, he discovered the urge to put back on the formal billboard of a headpiece, whapping a few unfortunate souls in the head with it.

Mortimus dances with the small crowd in the corner, moving in what could be described as grace compared to what everyone else does.

Jelpax is off to the side talking with a girl. The girl seems quite interested.

Koschei stands on the wall, nearer the scattered food and drinks table than the mass of people dancing, telling himself to not consume alcohol this fast, because something adverse will probably happen. As if there aren’t a good number of people not paying attention to this rule.

Vansell surprises him by getting off his seat at some point, and making his way over. He still retains the air of a great jerk, every feature and every joint placed to irritate Koschei. Maybe it’s unintentional, maybe it’s just the way he looks, but Koschei can’t stand it. Vansell swallows. Leans with his back on the wall, next to Koschei. And he doesn’t talk for a while.

“Omega Xi.”

Koschei tries not to respond, looks around for the catch or the joke or the trap. Shockingly, he can’t see one from here.

“I’m sorry.”

Koschei’s face contorts itself into at least four disparate expressions at once, smeared across the air in turning to verify it is, in fact, Vansellostophossius beside him. To his shock, Vansell looks fractionally intimidated by Koschei’s face. “What?”

“You out of everyone knows I probably can’t force my throat to make that sound again.”

He could try. “I don’t get it.” Koschei internally prepares himself for some kind of fight involving extreme measures of defence, as is only customary in his little brain.

Vansell needs to take a few deep breaths, and makes a habit of not looking directly at anything. “I envied you. You and Theta Sigma and Ushas founded the Deca and I wanted it.” He swallows. “I needed to get you in trouble, you shot me and I got scared, I got scared so easily after Obraeon. So I did something very wrong, and I recognise that now.” Vansell extends one arm in front of him, gently, palm open, waiting for another one to shake. “Can we part on decent terms?”

Koschei blinks as if his eyes might clear and reveal Vansell is nothing but a tired imagining, some odd disfigurement of reality. His eyes are working. He’s awake. Vansell stands before him just as he normally looks; flat hair, pristine robes, pointy nose tilted up just a bit. And he’s… apologising?

What shocks Koschei the most is he actually considers it. He looks from the hand in front of him to the brain that controls it, trying to pick up some sense of deceit from his brain. His brain reveals nothing. He tries telling himself Vansell is capable of honesty and truth, that people change and their childhood doesn’t have to shape their life. Koschei could even, by taking his hand, help him. Theta would probably forgive him. In the twinge of absence the thought demands, one memory is brought up, one with all three of them in it. Except Vansell wasn’t actually there. It’s Vansell’s fault for years of discomfort in his own damn head. And for Magnus. And Irving the vortisaur.

Koschei doesn’t take his hand. “You know, a couple months after you… attacked me, I nearly died. I was falling to my fucking death because of you, and you’re going to stand here asking to part as friends?”

He might say the best part is how Vansell looks genuinely guilty. The whole situation feels more uncomfortable than anything else, and he wants it to be over.

“I know. There’s no reason for you to forgive me, but here I am asking for it.”

Someone’s watching them, now. A few someones. His political buddies. Koschei squares himself. Something in his head tells him to kill Vansell. Smash his nose into his skull, twist his head on his neck, pinch the windpipe until he croaks. He might do it.

“Many religions of the cosmos believe in one of two final destinations after death: Heaven or Hell. And some deity will come to judge all life on the planet and determine where they ought to go. If, one day, this all turns out to be true and we are standing side by side in Hell for all our misdeeds and faithlessness,” Vansell gives Koschei the smallest hint of a lopsided smile. “I still won’t shake your hand.”

So Vansell retracts it. “Perhaps one day, if we’re both reincarnated into a less pretentious race?”

“Perhaps.”

Vansell doesn’t move for a moment.

“Would it really kill you to apologise again?”

Vansell smiles awkwardly at the wall opposite. “I’m afraid it would.”

“Oi, Koschei!” Jelpax gestures with their head at him. “Come over here.”

Koschei physically holds his arms to himself as he walks away from a scenario with a very different, very plausible outcome in another universe.

Jelpax’s braid is back together, intentionally uneven ends sticking out in places until the end is about the width of a pencil.

“Look, I know we weren’t really friends, and mainly because I hung around Vansell.” Koschei nods. “It was… it was good for me to stop.”

“I’d have to agree with you there.”

Jelpax is just tall enough they have to bend down a bit to have a secretive dialogue with Koschei. “Remember the stunt you pulled with Magnus?”

Koschei raises his eyebrows. “No. Not at all.”

They exhale sharply. “You people never change.” They hold out something smallish, bent wires spidering out of a small disc. “Drax told me to give this to you, as he expected to be ‘incapacitated’ at the right moment.”

Koschei takes it. “This is the—”

“Cloaking device. They leave the TARDIS bay open.”

Koschei looks down at the thing. “Can’t really get expelled now.”

“He says to please return it safely at some point or another.”

Koschei laughs a bit oddly. “I’ll tell him I’ll try.” He smiles at Jelpax, the beats of four shouting an increasing command: run.

Chapter Text

He is more nervous than he should be, standing outside Lungbarrow in the evening light. Quences has this no visitors rule, and it might be conspicuous if Theta quite plainly disappears, and they'd be tracked down in fifteen seconds flat. The punishments are not pretty.

Then he gets an idea.

Koschei walks to the front door, TARDIS more or less disguised as an oak tree (as per Oakdown tradition he has a hard time breaking), eyes still bagged from the night and formal robes still on. They're proper Time Lord robes, too, fancifully embroidered at the lowest rank possible above Juniors. You can judge a person's rank from the approximate time it took someone to sew the damn thing.

He knocks on the door. Four times. Just for fun. Someone he doesn't know opens the door, looking at him oddly, and at his clothes. Their eyes look a bit too small for their circular face. "Can I help you?"

"Hello, I'm looking for a certain Theta Sigma. I'm a professor from his old Academy and need to make a copy of his final qualifying marks for our records. We tried contacting him, but the only version of him in the matrix we found was an offline account linked to our school's issued slate."

The cousin is young enough to believe him. "Okay, sir, I'll go get the Housemaster, um…" she starts closing the door.

"Can I come in?"

"Oh yeah, sorry." He steps over the threshold, closing the door behind him, and realises just how much he knows about the layout of Lungbarrow. And how far he'll actually get when Quences walks out and sees a very obviously just graduated Prydonian in front of him. He could just yell for him to come down, but it would also bring a number of cousins and Quences a bit too fast. Walking around knocking on doors wouldn't work, either.

And Quences, it seems, has gotten a facelift. "Who are you?"

"Hello, ma'am. My name is Professor Varek, I'm from the Prydonain Academy. Theta Sigma," he says it like he's only heard it once in his life, "used to attend. We need his final marks for the first attempt at Time Lord exams for our records."

Quences folds her arms. "I used to teach there, you know. I don't remember this being a part of protocol. Can I see your credentials?"

Koschei laughs, just once. "Sorry, ma'am." He holds out the psychic paper he 'borrowed' from some seventy-year-old at least six years ago. It's all the rage nowadays, apparently. "This procedure was added only seventy years ago, as there were few cases of this occurring. However, the gaps in our records were great enough, administration decided it was necessary to follow up on the few cases, for completion."

"That's fine, but if you checked properly, you would have noticed the death record." Koschei doesn't see the small cousin scurry away.

He grins despite himself. "Our procedures are very thorough. This article proved to be a forgery."

"Oh, well then." Quences shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "Forty three percent."

"What?" She looks up at him. "Pardon?"

"That was his mark. You can go home now."

"I'm afraid I'll have to see an official record of that. What with the legitimacy errors of the death certificate."

"Well excuse me. Come this way."

Koschei is escorted down a flight of stairs and into a grand office-slash-residence. The best part is that she probably knows Koschei is holding up psychic paper, but she can't say anything about it in case it actually isn't. His alibi could be dismantled in less than a minute very easily, but in the slim chance he's telling the truth, Quences simply can't.

In the time it takes her to reach the computer and start uncovering files, Koschei tries finding Theta's mental imprint without letting much on. She's not allowed to comment on his mind anyways, he's a professor, that would be rude. Theta's here. He can sense something like an individualised shoe or the top of his head: it's him, it's definitely him, but it's not quite all of him.

He missed Theta.

"Here you are, then. Sir." Quences shows him the computer screen. "Marks for every question, forty two percent."

Koschei nods. "It pays to be thorough." Or something. Theta's getting closer. Is he a good enough telepath to figure out he's here? No… "It would be most efficient to send this straight to the Academy files form your computer, if I may do so."

"What are the other options?"

Koschei mentally kicks himself. He's impressed he even got this far. "On occasions where this is impossible, we may use a portable drive. However, it's very easy for these things to be corrupted or damaged early on."

Quences stares at him, throwing up Koschei's mental walls instantly. He smiles charmingly.

"Go ahead, then."

Theta is right behind him.

"I brought Theta Sigma down."

"You did what?" Quences is not looking at Koschei. He can get away with clearly not sending it to the Academy now. "Into my office?"

Theta sees him. He can tell without looking.

"Look, you made up a death certificate ten years ago, and now you're talking about him as if he's alive about his own education, he has a right to know."

Theta doesn't respond. It physically pains Koschei to not look up, to focus on the task at hand, to figure out how to make it look like he exported a file.

Theta doesn't speak, but Koschei can hear his breathing, and everyone notices this.

"Are you okay?" the small cousin asks Theta.

"Hmm?" he chokes after a while, voice a little gravelly. "Yes, yes. What's going on here?"

"I'm professor Varek," Koschei tells him with a smirk pointed at the computer, "from the Prydonian Academy. I'm here to get a record of your," he presses a few buttons and returns to the screen the file was on, finally allowing himself to look up. It looks like Theta's been gone for three hundred years, not ten. "…marks." What the hell did he miss. "You are, in fact, Theta Sigma?"

Theta looks at his body. "Yes."

"Yes," Quences adds.

"Sorry about the body, it's… a long story." Theta looks back up at Koschei, unable to suppress a grin despite the old, old face. Koschei has another brilliant idea.

"On the topic of stories, I'd also like to interview you. As it happens, there are very few in-depth records of House-schooled people, and we'd like to ask some questions about education and about life learning from home. The information will help optimise teaching structure at the Academy. Would you be up to that?"

"Yes," he answers a little quick.

"The questions are a bit long for this hour. However, will tomorrow work? Perhaps in the neighbouring city for a change in atmosphere?"

He looks to Quences, as if for permission to take her son away. The woman can't say no, even if it's painstakingly obvious she knows. "I don't see the harm in that."

"Fantastic. Say, 09:00?"

###

Theta is handed a jar full of goldish pills as soon as he walks in the door of a very obvious statue of a whale, and doesn't quite know what to do with it. The nervousness in his stomach will not stay down. He thinks the nerves all come from having an old man's body where it should be young and dexterous. For example, he wants very much to kiss Koschei for a long time, but doesn't know how that's going to work with all the… skin.

"Does it ever hurt you, being old?" Koschei sits on the railing around the control panel, looking tired. He's changed out of the formal robes into just a t-shirt and pants, hair still dripping water on occasion.

Theta closes the door. "When I try doing things I really shouldn't be doing. Like running." He unscrews the lid of the jar, taking out one of the pills. It almost pulses, swimming around in its casing.

"I've been out here for a few days, working on those. I'm older than you."

"Weren't you already?"

Koschei waves a hand in dismissal.

"Is that regenerative energy?"

"Yes. I finally got it in a solution. The research took me to many interesting corners of the matrix."

Theta sets the jar on the floor. "How much?"

"Take it first."

"How much?"

Koschei draws in a breath. "One life."

Theta almost drops the pill.

"It'll reverse the effects of ageing for about a month? I think? I was on all these cosmetic resources and they all said different things and I'm pretty sure one involved some kind of drug I didn't have on hand."

"You put an entire life into this jar."

"Yep." There's only a teeny part of him that regrets it. Mainly for the existential crisis it put him through. "Swallow it. The effects begin within twenty seconds. Or forty-five. I haven't tested it."

"It's just that easy?"

Koschei snorts. "Depends on how you want to define 'easy'."

Theta puts the pill in his mouth with shaky hands, tremors from God knows what plus the old bones. He keeps his feet planted just inside the door until he feels the slightest burning tingle course through his body, scrubbing away the age and put life back in him. His muscles have shrunk significantly. "Better now?"

Koschei slides off the railing and holds out a hand. "So do you want to chat now or later?"

Theta twines his fingers in Koschei's, filling the artificial ache of separation from years ago.

"I seriously hope 'chat now' was a joke."

"I am physically and psychologically restraining myself in every way."

Theta smiles sideways. "Just to find somewhere comfy?"

"I feel like we'll be there for a while."

###

"I am finally here."

"And in costume, no less."

Theta has almost reverted back to the enthusiasm of a child, dressed in a poor boy cap and only somewhat rickety clothes, complete with Koschei's gloves with only half fingers from That Time On Obraeon.

"Sol III. London, England, 1940," Koschei announces in his best attempt at professionalism. "We're stuck on relative time, so no more than three hours out here. Or else they'll catch us."

Theta nods vigorously. Koschei opens the door. Theta just about knocks him over on his way out, running very conspicuously into the street, but he obviously doesn't care. Koschei does the normal thing and walks. But only barely manages it.

"Where should we go, then?" Theta asks, practically bouncing up and down in the dank street with an odd smell. The sky is shockingly blue as compared to Gallifrey's sort of orangey yellow hue. Theta runs over to mostly green grass before Koschei has a chance to answer.

"You're the expert on Sol III, I'm only the pilot."

Couples in frilly dresses and battered suits give them funny looks, the pair running around a single street marvelling at the state of everything. "Well, we need to try the food, that's obvious. And walk around and blend in with the people and look at the shops. And there's this river right in the middle of the city they can even get horses across and the river's just there they can't do anything but sit in boats on it. Yet."

Theta runs over to the nearest available homo sapien, who looks slightly uncomfortable. "Excuse me, ma'am, can you tell me a good place to get food around here?"

She looks Theta up and down, the boy vibrating with excitement, deciding him too predisposed to weirdness to bother much with. "There's a place for lunch just up the road that way," she nods behind her. "Can't miss it. They got a live singer in."

"Koschei! She says there's one just up the road with a singer!" Theta shouts without moving at all, and the lady briskly walks away. Koschei runs over to Theta's spot on the sidewalk. "Have any money?"

"Of course I do." He holds out a handful of blank coins. "Psychic currency."

"How do you have that?"

Koschei shakes his head. "Ten senior years at the Prydonian Academy."

Theta counts five men in matching uniforms, the real-life versions of people drawn on posters around the room saying things like "support our troops" and "enlist". There's a war going on, which Theta probably should have known, because it clicked when he got the menu this was the second World War, so it was a pretty big deal. He ordered the Shepherd's Pie, mostly out of curiosity as to why they would serve a dish normally intended for shepherds in an urban area. Koschei got the French onion soup, wondering equally as hard why they would serve a French dish in a very English restaurant. Or "club", as he heard someone say.

Theta leans over the table slightly. "So these people are all in a war, getting bomb threats every other day and running into shelters."

"And?"

"And here they all, even the soldiers, sitting together having lunch and listening to someone sing 'with all your faults, I love you still'. None of them are so afraid it shows." Theta takes another bite of shepherd's pie, refraining from throwing his fork down in satisfaction. "It's bloody fantastic!"

"Theta!"

"I'm allowed to say that word in England."

Koschei bursts into small chuckles at everything. They're on Sol III, eating oddly-named food, listening to someone sing, with a bomb threat hanging over them and the rest of the population.

"What?"

Koschei would like the recipe for French onion soup, but is far too afraid to ask lest it be out of place. "You're brilliant."

Theta lets his legs dangle over the edge of the TARDIS into space, only after multiple promises the gravity will pull him back in if he falls. Koschei sits next to him, in the same position, occasionally eyeing him in case he leans over too far and does, in fact, fall off.

The Medusa Cascade is painted in light green and blue and orange, like a constant stasis of their leaf fires. The rift slices through the most dense centre of clouds, temporal sort of gravity pulling them in until the horizon cuts it all out. It's a bit terrifying, the rip in reality, especially when nothing but space and clouds (and a functional gravity field) separate you and it.

Theta tells Koschei a very long word.

"What was that?"

"What my mum called me." Theta extremely carefully budges over the small bit enough to lean against Koschei. The Medusa Cascade is now a bit sideways. "She always sang the full thing when I was a kid. It was the first two syllables when I got in trouble."

Koschei looks at him, then at the rift, then simply returns the favour. "But I like yours better."

"More vowels."

They sit in silence for a moment, watching the beautifully slow process of cosmic dust moving about a rift.

"So what spurred that motivation?"

Theta kicks his feet just a little, creating a ripple in reality itself. Nobody will notice the disruption of a couple of shoes. Or maybe they will. "On the twentieth day of the last month, a woman showed up in my backyard. Her hair was done fantastically in some pile of knots. Had a patchwork dress of fabrics from who knows how many systems. The shoes were bright blue with a white star on the ankles, didn't look too sturdy." Is it messing in the space-time continuum if he obviously reveals her identity? Should he mention the oak tree? How much detail does he want from him? "She told me to describe her to you in detail. She seemed to know what she was doing."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Theta shifts his head on Koschei's shoulder, crossing their legs out in space.

"You know, the first time I had marshmallows at a camp fire, my cousins forgot I was there, and I got knocked out in the middle of the night."

Theta pauses halfway through a roasted marshmallow before continuing. "I do not remember you telling this story."

"They had some huge bonfire, and didn't have any water, so I volunteered to go get it. Something started chasing me so I ran for my life, got knocked out, and woke up in the morning with a giant empty bucket."

"So you didn't get eaten."

"I did not get eaten. They probably had the place cleared of all lethal fauna long before I got there."

The jungle below has probably not been cleared of lethal fauna. But whomever's abandoned village this is, they were high enough up the technology tree to run an electric net around their elevated property. It's still comfortably spooky without much sunlight to illuminate their safety net, but nothing a campfire and marshmallows on top of a jungle tree can't fix.

"Do you know who lived here?" Theta asks, cold enough to require a blanket on his sturdy, wooden platform. The firepit is, of course, stone.

"I think they called themselves the Trepids, habitants of Intrepida. They had all the technology down pat, but naturally evolved to value nature a whole lot more than most sentient species. That's how you have tree dwellings and electric katanas designed to shock a creature unconscious first, and kill it humanely after."

Theta lights one of his marshmallows on fire, taking his time in blowing it out. "Who booted them out?"

"The Pteronites. They kept preaching about the apocalypse with enough compelling evidence to get them all underground and therefore into slavery."

"And they're still there?"

"I don't know about enslaved, it's been a while, but for all they know the outside world is a burnt husk."

Theta chews his marshmallow, furrowing his eyebrows, looking to the canopy of stars for permission as he always must. "Should we go down there and tell them?"

Koschei points his marshmallow stick at Theta. "They figure it out themselves, one day. A purebred Pteronite, revered by his peers, the one guy who got everyone equal rights in the end. If we mess it up now, we'll probably get things thrown at us and they may never live in peace."

"And here we are using their firepit."

"In the middle of a thousand galaxies all hanging out. Not once has someone painted a dead accurate picture of this sky."

"I bet Mort would try."

Koschei snorts. "He'd be here for years."

###

Koschei wasn't there when Theta woke up in the morning. Not in bed, not in the kitchen, not in the wardrobe, not in the console room, not anywhere. He tries mentally scanning for just another brain in general, but he's not good enough to find someone that way. He tries suppressing the boiling panic in his head, claiming it's only being accustomed to having Koschei constantly present for over a year and half now.

Maybe he's parked outside a grocery store or something to restock the kitchens. Yeah, that's probably it.

Theta's hearts still make an unnecessary amount of noise when he walks up to the console, and he hesitates before opening the doors. Nobody could have gotten in here; it's a school vehicle. Locked beyond comprehension. Theta takes a deep breath and flicks the switch to open the doors. Outside their pocket dimension are a smattering of trees, sprouting from messy red grass. Gallifrey. They look vaguely familiar, but then all the trees on the planet are mostly the same.

Theta runs a hand through his hair a few times to make it look halfway presentable for any people he might run into, taking a chained key off the console and looping it around his neck.

He strides out the doors, into the barely-there canopy. It's very intentionally organised, and the trees can't be very old. "Koschei?"

No response. He locks the door behind him. It is ten steps of walking before the Deja-vu algorithmically increases into the answer dangling just above his head. He just can't place it.

The trees thin out after ten steps more, and he runs the rest of the way, half-expecting an Academy to appear at an awkward angle before him. He stops once he sees the building clearly. It's Lungbarrow. Did Koschei just turn them both in? It's 5:00. Why now? Why at all?

Before he can get much closer to the front doors, Koschei comes running out of them like he's on fire.

"Shit!"

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Run! Now!" Koschei grabs him by the hand, pulling him back the way they came.

"Koschei, what did you just—"

"I'll explain when we get inside!"

Small branches whap him in the arms and the face, Koschei's hand is too tight, they're running too fast, and someone is actually chasing them. It's Glospin.

"You better have a fantastic explanation!"

Koschei doesn't reply, ripping a key off from around his neck and jamming it in the lock of their obviously misplaced oak tree. "Come on, come on…" he grumbles, slamming the door open and pulling Theta inside before Glospin can reach them.

Koschei leaves Theta inside the door and immediately runs to the console, jamming all the levers and buttons to start moving without punching in coordinates. The machine lifts off the ground, out of space, into the vortex.

Koschei, clad in all black and even painted charcoal in places, slides to the ground, heaving breaths.

Theta tries not to stomp over to him, but some could describe it like that, standing with his arms folded a bit too menacingly for their day and age. "Explain?"

Koschei can only meet his gaze for a second, eyes needing to regain their determination, and he holds up one finger.

"No, now. Where do you even start?"

Koschei steels himself, trying to make eye contact with Theta again, failing, and compromising on a spot on his forehead. "So we've been stuck here, right? Not… not at the House, but in relative time in short hops. So they don't notice something."

"Yes."

"And you had to stay at your House for the last ten horrendous years."

"Yeah."

"And because of that, Glospin had you alone to try and use that… laser thing." Koschei still doesn't stand, still hasn't regained his breath. The charcoal on parts of his face has started smudging. "And because of that, I put one of my lives in a jar."

"You didn't have to—"

"No, I did."

"I don't see where this is going."

"Wait. I'm almost done."

Theta shifts from his right foot to the left. He doesn't drop the folded arms for a lack of anywhere else to place them.

"You don't want to get married, but you have to for some bullshit reason."

"We've been over this…"

"You don't have to."

Theta swallows, trying to find a complete explanation. "I don't get it."

Koschei takes a deep breath, letting his head tip back. He finally makes eye contact. "Quences is no longer with us."

Sorry, no, "What?"

Koschei exhales the shuddering breath he held in. "I killed Quences."

Theta sits on the floor across from him. He blinks a couple times, picking at the cuticles of his fingernails and trying to form a coherent thought. "You just… went in and…" his wrist makes circles in the air that beg for words to be procured. "Killed him. He's dead. Gone."

"The rank of Housemaster will be passed down to Innocet, as it turns out."

"Innocet."

Koschei nods very shallowly, trying not to twitch the wrong way and set off a bomb.

"She won't make you get married. Quences was on his last life, and from what you told me, artificial. Her ideals were too outdated, and we could have avoided all the trouble of the past ten years without her."

Theta nods once, twice, biting his lip to see if sense comes from there.

"We can leave whenever you want."

Theta stops nodding. "What's wrong with you!?"

Koschei's back straightens, all breath regained. "Look at the pros and cons. She was near the end of her life, and keeping you—"

"No, no shut up."

Koschei shuts up.

"You don't know anything about why Quences did what he did. And he talked to me, over those past ten years, he'd help me with schooling, you can't just—" Theta, in all his shock, can feel the threat of tears in the sides of his head for the old man he thought he hated. He stands up. "It was my mother's life, passed down to me, that I gave him to regenerate! I let him live and THIS IS WHAT YOU DO?"

Koschei still shuts up. He holds out hope Theta's argument might loop around. But he can't see any other way it could have worked.

"I WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE. Quences would have died on her own time, I could part with my House on decent terms, actually pass my exams, get some life experience and now you're expecting me to run off with a murderer!?"

The word stings, fired through the ear canal and exploding in the corners of his synapses until his whole mind resonates with the current reality. He is a murderer. But then, hasn't he always been?

"If you murder people to solve your problems, I'm a dead man walking."

Koschei has to speak. "If she was on her third life, there's no way I would have killed her!"

"But you did! You had every single possibility laid out in front of you, so many of them lacking death and full of a few better ideas that would get us past these barely-done developing brains and whatever else, but you decided nah, this person is clueless, better fucking KILL THEM HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO THINK THIS THROUGH? Or was it some spur-of-the-moment decision, like Vansell in the closet? You'll probably kill him, too!"

Koschei stands. "You hated those ten years. You hate being stuck, you nearly I because you felt so pointlessly STUCK, and here you're saying you'd rather be a hell of a lot more stuck than do what we've been planning to do for a hundred years!?"

Theta puts two hyperactive hands on Koschei's shoulders. "YOU…" there is a moment, spanning two overactive breaths, where he sees his fork in the road. It dissolves a little quicker than he wishes it would. His voice will not turn down below his horrid shouting. "I met you less than a minute before you bludgeoned someone to death with a rock at the age of seven, and before any part of our lives began, we burned the body. Since day one you have been completely past fixing and now I fear you'll kill me in my sleep!"

He finds the audacity to smack Theta's arms off. "I KILLED QUENCES FOR YOU, WHY THE HELL WOULD I KILL YOU?"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE FUCKING INSANE." Theta shoves Koschei off of him, deliberating his own spur-of-the-moment ideas, all of them interrupted with a well-trained fist on the jaw. His teeth slam into his upper jaw, pain shooting up his skull and pulsing in his jawbone ceaselessly. But it wasn't hard enough to make him bleed. It wasn't even that hard. But his brain cannot rationalise this fact.

"You see what I mean?" The portion of his consciousness that has began cooling is screaming and crying and begging him not to go. "You keep your jar of life. If you step out those doors, I'll turn in the ID of this TARDIS without hesitation."

"Theta—" he says, watching the doors open and Theta turn towards them. "I'm sorry."

Theta barely makes it through the doors in heated blood and a cold chuckle, all ends of his mind screaming at him to walk one way or the other, or maybe just stop and think.

He considers it for an entire two seconds.

No, he has a funeral to attend.

Some estranged fourth argument forces him to stop, and turn on one foot, and look back into the TARDIS. Koschei has not moved, the muscles of his jaw clenched so hard against his teeth, his face looks pained. But he didn't try turning Theta around with his brain.

"Thank you," Theta says. What for, he doesn't know.

Chapter Text

Theta has always wondered about K’anpo, which is what makes toasting to a week left of Lungbarrow slightly uncomfortable. But only slightly. They are surprisingly easy to talk to, or it’s simply the fact there is influence of alcohol in every encounter of theirs. Theta is open-minded enough to let it be both without question.

“May I attend this wedding of yours?”

Theta sets down his drink. For once, it’s different than ‘whatever it was the first time’. This one’s under 13%. “If you want to, I guess. Weddings aren’t terribly exciting.”

“And that’s not why you’re here.” Theta didn’t really choose to be here in the first place; it was K’anpo’s ‘intuition’ that brought them to Lungbarrow to take Theta halfway up a mountain. They sit under some gnarled old tree, a strange sort of picnic, patches of slush lying about in the suns. The snow will come soon, as it likes to do, but not yet.

“I suppose not.”

K’anpo’s hair is woven with two yellow flowers, eerily trapped exactly in place in the short brown mess.

“You remember Koschei?”

“Koschei Actual Koschei or You Pretending to be Koschei?”

“Actual Koschei.”

They lean back on the old tree. “What about him?”

Theta watches two birds flying overhead, squawking their mockery to the lumbering bodies stuck on the ground. “He killed Quences so I wouldn’t have to get married and we could scurry off.”

“Is that why you left him?”

Theta nods once. His old body can pull that off. “Somehow I feel responsible.”

“Do you think it’s because you left or that he did in the first place?”

Theta shakes his head. “Both. I don’t know, it just…” He rips some grass out of the ground for some consolation. “I was surprised! And I’m looking back now to when we were kids and seventy-somethings and it makes sense he’d do something like that. Everything he said once he did it made sense. And for the past ninety-something years it was always the two of us, we didn’t see the point of not being always together, because we always needed it. So that means either I have helped shape Koschei into someone who would find murder to be a perfectly reasonable option, or I would do the exact same thing if our positions were reversed, or…” He simultaneously wants to punch something and scream. “And it’s not like I suddenly despise him or have seen the error of our ways or something I still miss him and I don’t GET IT.”

K’anpo listens to the whole thing like they’re listening to a particularly odd mystery that seemed very simple at the beginning, but all the facts ended up red herrings twenty minutes in. They don’t say anything, and Theta takes it as an invitation to keep rambling.

“We were always stuck together because we’re both absolutely messed up. And I thought maybe, because we both are, we would be okay. But that’s obviously not how it works, and I guess I thought it was for ages, and all the things we thought of doing are just gone now.” He becomes conscious of the ravaged ground before him, demanding his old hands to stop ripping up grass. He thought he was done. Maybe he’s not. “Because there’s no point, is there? To anything! All life is finite, the universe is finite, it’s all just going to be black nothing, so why do we BOTHER WITH ANY OF IT?”

His voice echoes a tiny bit. Just a bit. And the sound ends.

Theta leans back on their tree, feeling the repercussions of the shouting on his chest. “I’m done.”

K’anpo doesn’t say anything still, reaching into their hair. The yellow sarlain slides from their hair like it was never attached. All the roots follow the stem, splitting itself into thousands of tiny hairs from a single stalk. They dig a bit, where Theta tore up the ground, placing the thing in the soft hole. They look at Theta. He fills the hole back in with dirt.

Theta looks for K’anpo to say something, but they refuse, pointing instead to the flower rooted in the ground. It was ripped from its home and travelled from the only place it’s ever been to be stuck in the dirt somewhere else, and it’s still very much alive. And so, it seems, is Theta. Life stinks, ultimately, but it’s so worth it.

Theta chuckles, one of the sounds that changed the most, still observing the brilliant yellows and deep reds. “How old are you, K’anpo?”

They pat Theta on the shoulder. “Much, much older than you.”

###

“You look fine.” Innocet came back as she promised she would, maestro of all the colours and lights and ceremony and costume. That, and the House. They get to wear white robes, without the headpiece, the only occasion outside of being Lord President. The white doesn’t suit him. It never has.

“White’s just not my colour.” He turns from the mirror placed in his bedroom, catching a glimpse of the stars sitting in their place out his window. He takes Innocet’s arm, body faded back to its old self. Glospin has really outdone himself.

Innocet moves her arm to grasp Theta’s hand, swinging it slightly like they did when they were young. Today is his last march through the halls of his House, a kind of nostalgia very much separated from his last week at the Academy. Nobody talks of Quences’s inevitable absence on the day of his orchestration, funeral come and gone months ago. That cushion gave Theta enough time to study for once, day in and day out, before requesting the exam again. He could have done better if he tried, but there’s something to be said for passing with a 51%.

Innocet holds his hand until they are out in the arches of lights, coloured impressive gold and lilac. “You did amazing with the place,” Theta tells her, resisting the urge to plunk down in the grass and gawk at the lights.

“They’re traditionally supposed to be genetically modified lightning bugs producing a particular colour.”

“What are these?”

She is forced to let go of his hand when she sees the black-robed cousin of Patience’s house. “Electricity. The bugs always die by the end of the night.”

“Thank you,” he says, before she walks off their cleared area and into the crowd, before someone is always occupying his time and he won’t get her alone. “For everything.”

“My pleasure, Theta Sigma.”

The man in black robes stands behind Theta, slate in hand carrying all the senseless legal words they need to speak for it all to be official. “Sixty seconds to back out,” the man hisses. Theta gives him an odd look. “Only joking, of course.”

Theta doesn’t find it very funny. He can see Patience from across their fabricated aisle, wearing the same robes he does, embroidery highlighted in lilac rather than his gold. They don’t mean anything, the colours. They probably did, once upon a time. Someone starts humming. She doesn’t move yet. Someone joins in a duet, and then three-part harmony erupts with voices added on in quick succession, and she walks.

It’s only when she does, getting larger and larger in his field of vision, that he understands how badly he wants to run away. The absence of Quences has paled before the smallest of ventures to Sol III and the Medusa Cascade and all the things they did. The jar of pills he left behind has found a place in his mental TARDIS, an unbreakable, inexorable homage to an entire life barely dented. It taunts him, all the adventures never had contained so well in that one container, and it may never leave his head.

Patience stands directly in front of him, now. And it’s now he understands how straightforward it must have been to go ahead and kill somebody to stop her standing in front of him.

###

Patience has an entourage of cousins fawning after her, getting their last goodbyes and conversations and secrets and laughs. Theta has Innocet, who has a great number of people, and he has Owis. Maybe if more people talked to Owis, he would stop trying to pursue any affection of Glospin’s he could muster, addicted to the mind he always had with him that was so brutally lost.

Theta stands alone in their specially decorated hall within the Lungbarrow TARDIS, between gold and lilac balloons and an elegant painting displaying all the brilliant colours of a sunset on water. The music Innocet brought together for the occasion is incredibly diverse, samples taken from all over the universe where she could easily find something worth listening to. She asked if he had any preferences. He told her ‘everything’.

The TARDIS translates it all in their heads, meaning manipulated melodically to suit translation and the rhyme scheme, if there is one. The cousins from Lungbarrow ask for dances from the cousins of Brightshore, all stepping the right way and holding the right distance. It’s all so painfully traditional. Theta is consoled in the composition methods of Alpha Centauri IV.

“May I have this dance, sir?” A young red-haired boy steps up to him with no shame, the style of his clothes a bit different than his cousins. He is uncomfortably skinny. Why he is asking an old man to dance escapes Theta. “All in good favour, of course.”

“I’m not really a dancer,” Theta replies, gesturing to his entire self. “This old thing acts up sometimes.”

“Nothing a painkiller can’t fix?” The boy looks so young - barely an adolescent, yet tall enough - but so confident about it, Theta has a hard time trying to refuse. Positive inter-House relations, yadah yadah. The song from Alpha Centauri IV ends. He takes the boy’s hand, which is a bit weird.

“Oh, alright then.”

The boy smiles. Theta is not in the mood to try and place what’s so familiar about him. Bright red hair? Greenish eyes? Forty-year-old? Alarmingly skinny? Theta puts his hand somewhere appropriate anyways. “I heard somewhere your favourite planet’s Sol III, and I know a song from there, so I asked Innocet to play it just now.”

They step into the group of people dancing, under brighter yellow lights and only hints of lilac. And now the song is familiar, too. Is everything here purely composed of rude awakenings and uncanny familiarity? Everyone around him has shifted, slowing down, some darking to stand closer to their partner in tight configurations. It’s this song.

And it’s that boy. He knows Theta knows. The sly smile has not changed.

“Your bit’s not until the end.”

“You’re Torvic.”

He looks down at himself. “I’m not too sure why that one happened, but it worked.”

“How long has it been?”

He considers this, flawlessly starting to dance as the music suggests. Nobody questions the lyrical content of the song, some discussing its relevance to marriage on its planet or something else miles away from a shepherd playing music for the king he will one day replace. “Ten years. Ha! Another ten.”

“It’s been five months here. So you’re older than me.”

“I know.” The song should be too bleak to have a chorus entirely composed of the word ‘hallelujah’. But somehow, it’s not. “How funny we must look.”

Theta doesn’t say it. His brain is erupting with things to say, confessions better left unspoken. He would kiss him, maybe, briefly, in the shadows somewhere, if it would not feel so foreign.

“You can if you like. I’ll shut my eyes.”

“How is it you can still hear me?”

Koschei smirks. That one has changed. “You’re brain hasn’t changed.”

Theta nods, looking around the room. Nobody’s watching them. They don’t matter.

Theta kisses him, he who is shorter than the groom, for one second, still dancing properly, feeling only half weird on his mouth. It’s different.

“You’re line’s next.”

He doesn’t know if it’s for the tired body of scratchy vocal chords or absurdity of plants, but he lets the words pass him by as it tells him point-blank it all went wrong. Theta pulls the foreign body closer to him, brain commanding him to stop for so many reasons. “I’m afraid I’m stuck here, now.”

“You didn’t opt out.”

It’s almost over. “No. It’ll do me some good, learning how to be an adult adult in a House with no residents trying to kill me. Attempting some proper independence. Actual responsibility.”

“Hmm.” The song ends, and in all good favour they bow to each other, departing from the floor. “I became a Russian myth on Sol III in this body. Koschei the Deathless, they call me.”

“You said it was only ten years.”

They reach the spot Theta was standing by himself, and he thinks Koschei might stay a bit longer. “I have a time machine,” he says in a deadpan.

“How have they not caught you here yet?”

“Tradition.” He downs a glass of punch in five seconds. “You can’t arrest someone attending a wedding with no malicious intent, as evidenced by the bride and groom.” He hands Theta the empty cup. “See you around, then.”

“Don’t get into too much trouble.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

Chapter Text

Theta hears that old whooshing again at the cusp of twilight, evening's last thoughts sinking below the horizon to the dark can have a turn. Patience could always get Arkytior to bed at exactly this time, but the skill has completely escaped Theta in her professional absence. The baby hasn't worked out how to walk yet, but she most certainly would if the capability graced her path. Theta is, at the moment, consoled in the fact he only has to keep her on one knee.

He loves reading to her the most, one of the many activities that blow the changing and crying and spitting and feeding and diapers out of the water. The brilliant little thing picks out different shapes as words already, matching pictures to black lines and pointing to the moon outside ecstatically. Theta can see little traits of his on her body and in her brain, the beautiful blend of genes nature intended from the start.

It's been ten years, yet again, and Theta has enjoyed life more than he thought he would. The degree in temporal engineering, the wife he has come to know as a good friend, the little package of flesh and brain he has become fiercely attached to. Arkytior. In all his adolescent years, he expected the whooshing interrupting an incredibly basic story about a rovie might be exhilarating, a welcome sound, but in all truth it scares him. Terribly. Because he has to answer it.

"I wonder who's out the door?" he asks his daughter in a cheerful voice, but not one people tend to speak to babies with. Arkytior's so damn smart, she'll probably understand language either way. Theta swoops her off his knee, earning a delicate giggle, placing her in the crook of his arm. He leaves all the lights on, the door unlocked for the moment.

He'll be coming back.

A small wind blows the smell of rain into the atmosphere, light grey clouds above waiting for their turn to pour from the heavens. A single oak tree stands in their yard, perfectly centred in the left half of their allotted grass. They live almost at the edge of the city, a place small enough to not require a glass dome and purely enormous buildings. He likes it.

"How long has it been?" Koschei asks, standing in the doorframe of his beloved TARDIS. He already knows the answer.

"Ten years." Arkytoir makes a noise, practically forcing Theta to express some kind of a smile. He stands exactly across from Koschei, two metres from the ship. Arkytior wants to say hello. Theta doesn't let her. "You?"

"A week. See? We're even again."

"So it's been just over a week since Russia?"

Koschei nods. "I might pop back just to scare 'em all again. They're fun."

Theta nods, not needing to deliberate the options that will be proposed to him. He has learnt to think things through in advance.

"Do you feel stuck?"

He sighs. "In a way. But a good way. I have a kid, a good friend to help me look after her, a degree, job experience."

"That sounds unbelievably boring. Oh, the places I've been."

Theta swallows the part of his mind still slave to a century of wanderlust. "I've got a couple minutes."

Koschei grins, the smiles of old lost to time. And Russia. "Oh, here and there. The beginning, more or less. Around Andromeda - including Junk, Museum of the Last Ones again, Terileptus, Skaro, the Pillars of Creation, Zebadee, Spekra," he pauses, "Lethe. Turns out I have killed two people." Koschei looks at Arkytior, and she looks back, cheerful as ever, safe in her father's arms with a stranger about. "She can come, too."

"I'm not coming."

"Because Gallifrey is so much nicer than every other point in space and time. With its babysitting and jobs and one plain old dimension of time. What happened to you?"

Theta hugs Arkytior closer to himself, feeling her tiny, fragile ribs against his chest. "I owe it to her. She can't grow up like that."

"She'd be the daughter of the universe itself."

"She's an infant, Koschei." He hasn't said that name in over a decade. The last time he did, it was smothered in anger and shouting and irreparable arguing. He says it again, without any hint of any of that, like he used to. "Koschei."

"I love you, you know. I'm doing this for you. It wasn't exactly fun."

He doesn't want to know who it was this time. Koschei disappears into the tree, door still open. "Glad to know it wasn't fun." Theta covers Arkytior's eyes. His baby will not be exposed to death before she can talk. Koschei reappears with a body dragged along the floor, his own stature too small to lift all the weight.

"I don't like killing, Thete. But it was necessary." Koschei sets the body outside his ship, Glospinninymortheras seeing no more. "Once I leave, he'll be released from the temporal lock on his body. So it will seem he just died now, and nobody else is home."

Theta takes his eyes off the cousin he once hated, death lifting him of the need for such emotions. "Why was this necessary?"

Koschei returns for a moment to his old self, the one who would follow him into the shower out of inbred paranoia. "If you don't run now, just take a little more time perhaps, you'll get a better job and wait for your kid go through all of school and wait for grandkids and wait for them to grow up and suddenly it's been two regenerations and your job is too good and your wife is the most important thing and you're too attached to the little house at the edge of town to leave, and you will die here."

Theta hugs Arkytior a little closer, watching his entire existence of millennia flow through Koschei's fingers like sand.

"You still have the key to that little TARDIS repair shop downtown." Of course he's been watching. "If you won't run off with me, you better run by yourself."

Theta knows exactly where the key is. He presses two lips together, and he should be so very, very mad. "You said it turns out you have killed two people."

He nods. "Just the two."

There is some part of Theta that feels like he's always known. It suits him.

"She calls me Grandfather, around here. People tend not to notice, since it doesn't mean much anymore, thanks to the Looms." He bounces Arkytior up and down a couple times, in the way she always finds reason to giggle at. "It should be just Father, really, but grandfathers are so much more fun." He takes a long breath. "I'm afraid her mother won't be around to say otherwise."

Koschei's smile has returned, slowly.

"There you are."

The part of him that could not care less about the house at the edge of town is excited in a way he hasn't let it be in a long time.

"Now get going already. Or I might kill you for making me a felon."