A/n: I've been trying to write this for a while, since lines like "don't worry buddy, we'll find someone," and, "I want our Annie back," make it a little difficult to not draw the conclusion that these three would be perfecttogether. Plus, they totally remind me of Rose, Jack and the Ninth Doctor, who were my first OTP3 ever. This fic is actually named after an OTP3 series, which I think is still on A Teaspoon and an Open Mind somewhere. Highly recommended.
Also, I'm incrediby obsessed with my own Inspector Spacetime canon right now (as evidenced by The Cambaire Machine) so I am sorry that it takes up most of this fic. I promise future chapters will focus more on them outside the Dreamatorium. Cross my heart and pinkie swear.
Finally, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, even if it's just "I enjoyed this," or "Your tense was a little shaky here and here and here." They really do mean the world.
Better with Three
Chapter One: Dimensions.
It had to have been building for a while, Annie reasons to herself later. It's not like sexual tension is something their little group lacks, even if it is mostly unresolved.
All she knows is by the time the three of them start kissing on a more frequent basis, and they all kiss each other in simulation from time to time, it's been on her mind for a while. Both of them. Sometimes individually, but more often together. And it is driving her crazy.
It doesn't help that neither of her roommates seem to have a sense of personal boundaries. Troy thinks nothing of sitting around all day in nothing but his pajama pants, and sometimes Abed doesn't realize he's standing close enough to send her temperature skyrocketing until he's almost on top of her. And both of them, at least when they think she's not present, sometimes change into whatever costume is called for in the middle of the living room. She'd walked in on them half-dressed more than once.
She didn't want to let on that it freaked her out- she's trying to be more relaxed- but it's difficult to simply avert her eyes sometimes. Once or twice, she didn't even try.
Instead, she planned her revenge. It was in its early stages still; she'd only gotten as far as moving her showers to the evening, when Troy and Abed were glued to the television. She made sure, each time, to leave her clothes in her bedroom, so she had to slip through the living room, still damp and steaming and clad only in a towel. Every flick of her roommate's eyes toward her feels like a small victory.
She's not quite at changing in front of them or going around half naked, but she's working on it.
But everything culminates before she has a chance to enact Step Two, or even figure out what Step Two is.
They're reenacting the Intersection of the Dimensions, the last episode Professor Lily Taylor has with Inspector Nine and Constable Reggie. It's towards the end of the episode; she's saying her veiled goodbyes, helping the Inspector trick the Constable into putting himself out of harm's way in the DARSIT. Captain James Haggard, her former partner and the man who had betrayed the Chrono Constabulary to help her retrieve her memories, has already gone off to head the attack on the Blorgons, leading a troop of civilians.
It is just Lily Taylor, Constable Reggie, and the Inspector on the deck of the starship, waiting for the Blorgons to descend upon them. While the Inspector works on his secret thing that might just work and save them all, she convinces Reggie that the anti-Blorgon weapon she and Captain Haggard had been working on might just work, and she leans in to kiss him goodbye and good luck, as it says in the script.
But Constable Troy doesn't freeze, stunned by the turn of events, his face flushing with heat. Instead, his hands slip around her waist and pull her closer, kissing her back. He broke it off before she did, leaving her suitably flustered, and her grip on the unflappable Professor Lily Tyler tenuous at best.
Annie watches as Constable Troy hugs the Inspector close, kissing him gently on the lips. She supposes she should be surprised that there's not even a second's hesitation between them, but they've kissed before in other contexts, and it's only getting more frequent. Reginald and the Inspector always did have some major UST.
But she's getting too meta. Analyzing instead of acting. As she watches the Constable run towards the DARSIT, his feet spurred by hope, she reminds herself what Lily Tyler was thinking, trying to slip back into character.
Lily's feeling guilty, she thinks, for sending Reggie away, but he wasn't a soldier like the Inspector, the Captain and Lily had been. Despite everything they had gone through, Reginald was an innocent, and he was too precious to be sacrificed to the Blorgons. It was something she and the Inspector agreed upon, though they sometimes found themselves fighting for his affections.
She watched as the Inspector flicked his optic pocketknife open, selecting the skeleton key
He looks over his leather-clad shoulder. "Are you alright?"
That wasn't part of the script, but Annie goes with it. "Of course Inspector. As alright as one can be with the Blorgons breathing down our necks. Now let's get this Omega wave up and running shall we?"
The Inspector gives her a searching look, his dark eyes filled with an unfathomable sorrow for a flash before he slips back into mania mode. If she hadn't been travelling with him for the past two and a half years (Relative DARSIT Time) she would have missed it.
As they set to work, they hear the faint pounding on the DARSIT door, and they ignore it as best they can. They're almost done, Lily thinks, as John's voice pipes in over the om-com, sounding suspiciously like Reginald's.
"Inspector. The Blorgons. They're here. We've got them blocked off for the moment but there's more pouring in every second. You need to hurry it up with that wave."
"We're hurrying, Captain," the Inspector snaps. "Can't rush perfection."
"Only it's not, is it?" The new voice is hazy, like it's not quite on the right frequency, but melodious, and they both turn to see a golden specter of a woman – the most unearthly thing Lily has ever seen – floating before them. She appears to be made out of picodriods. Dancing, luminescent particles sketch out the suggestion of a dress and windswept curls, and the only thing really, truly solid about her are her eyes, set solid gold in the outline of her face.
Lily gasps. "Inspector, what…?"
"You know it, as I do, my Inspector. The Omega Wave will take too long to charge properly, and the Blorgons are already here."
"Well, what do you expect me to do?" the Inspector shouts in her general direction, even as his hands keep moving on the starship's console. "Sit back and let them destroy Earth? Let them run rampant throughout the stars? No. I know you know me better than that, Pythia."
The specter says nothing, merely watching them with her metallic eyes.
"What is that, Inspector?" Lily asks, her words barely above a whisper. She seems mesmerized by the figure, and she starts to unconsciously sway to music that doesn't exist to her ears.
"She's the one that's been following us through Time and Space, Lily, and she's like me. Last of her kind. There were two species on Kayaclasch; those who would become the Infinity Knights, and her people – the Sisterhood of Eternity. When the Space Battle came, they ran into the Continuum. But they were hunted down by the Blorgons anyway. If I'm right- she's just like me. Alone in the multiverse." His hands never stopped working, but his eyes were on her as if gauging her reaction.
"So why would you deny me my revenge? My chance to repay the Blorgons for what they did to our people?" the unearthly woman asks.
"Because you ask too much, Pythia!" he shouts behind him, and for a moment Lily is scared. Really, properly scared. Because the Inspector is terrified, and if he's terrified, then doom can't be that far behind.
The specter doesn't answer him, only holds out her suggestion of a hand, beseeching.
And Lily hears that not-music that has been following them through time and space, and she understands.
Her eyes meet the Inspector's and his eyes widen, catching her thoughts without her having to vocalize them. His hands finally still. "No, Lily. You can't do it. You don't know what she is, what she's become. She'll burn you!"
"And if what she says is true, she's the best way of stopping the Blorgons and saving humanity, and you're too important. The Multiverse needs you, Infinity Knight."
He closes the distance between them, standing in front of her as if to bar her way. "I can't let you do this."
He's so close and she's so frustrated and outright terrified for him. For herself. It seems like the most logical thing in the world to close the millimeters of air between them. Sooner done than thought, she's kissing him, and he's kissing her back, passionately. It's deep and full of longing, and he doesn't seem ready for it to end when she pulls back.
It's all just character, Annie reminds herself, willing her pulse to slow. It's the Inspector that is terrified for Lily, hating himself for never telling her how he felt despite his lack of a heart. Knowing what's going to happen next and being powerless to stop it. The Inspector always could see a few steps ahead, except when he refused to look.
"Unfortunately, Inspector, it's not your decision," Lily says as she steps backwards. The Inspector makes a move to follow her, only to find himself tethered, with his own handcuffs, to the console he was just working on.
He looks down at them in horror, then back at his associate. She's already running towards the golden figure that floats, ready to receive her.
He's screaming incoherently, searching his pockets like mad for his optic pocket knife. By the time he locates it on the other side of the console, just out of his reach, Lily isn't Lily anymore.
Oh, she still appeared to be Lily; the same old bomber jacket that marked her as the one-time general of the New Earth Astroforce, the same form fitting jeans and high-heeled leather boots, but her eyes burned gold with the death of galaxies, and the sorrow in her smile spoke of lost time and empty space.
"Lily…"
"Don't fret, Inspector. We're going to save you. We're going to save us all."
She turned on her heel to face the screen just as the High Priest of Vosrda, the leader of the Blorgon fleet, appeared on the starships holoscreen
"Your Omega wave should have been completed by now, Inspector," it droned. "What could possibly be staying your hand?"
It caught sight of Lily, moving towards the screen languidly, too graceful to be human, and it fell into silence as if it was processing the new development.
It was then that the Constable burst out of the DARSIT. The surprise on his face resolved into confusion and anger, and he surged forward. "Inspector, what is going on?"
"Yes, Inspector, what fresh blasphemy is this?" the Blorgon on the holoscreen demanded.
"She's got her, Reginald," the Inspector replied. He was twisted around as much as the handcuffs would let him, staring at Lily's back with horror written on his face. "Pythia has got Lily and now she's lost. Burnt up."
"The ghost that chased us into the continuum after our visit to the planet Mobius?" Reggie asked as he rushed forward, grabbing the optic pocketknife from where it lay. "We can get her back, Inspector. We will."
The Inspector just shook his head "She's gone. You TOOK her, you fiend!"
"She offered herself," Not-Lily spoke, her voice taking on the same resonating chime the specter's had. Her eyes were still trained on the screen. "She offered herself to Pythia, last of the Sisterhood of Eternity, and we have become the Good Lamb. Time's Champion, here to undo what has gone wrong. We create ourself," she waved an elegant hand, "scatter our song throughout the continuum to call to us here, at this moment."
Reginald was working on the handcuffs, switching through each setting on the optic pocketknife, but having no luck, but all the Inspector's attention was on the Good Lamb. She who had been Lily, one of his closest associates, for the short time they spent together.
"Lily, please. You've got to stop this. Stop, and think. You've got a being of the continuum inside you, and she's burning you up. Lily, you're burning."
She twisted her head to look at him and she smiled something small and sorrowful. "You must live on, Infinity Knight. My Inspector, Defender of Space. We would have you safe." Her gaze fell upon the holoscreen yet again. "Protected from those who would disrupt the fabric of reality."
The Blorgon must have figured it meant them, for it starts to scream. "You cannot destroy us! We are the Blorgons. Chosen of Vosrda! We are immortal! We are invin-ca-ble!"
"You. You are so very small. So very limited," she laughs and it sounded like panpipes. Like a shepherd calling to its flock. "I can see you all, like pinpricks in time and space, every molecule that makes every one of you up. And I send you back to the stardust from whence you came."
With a wave of her hand the Blogons who had started filing into the room, more pouring in every second, seemed to evaporate, vanishing into silver dust.
"Everything must come to an end. And here and now, I end you."
"The Blorgons will live on!" The High Priest screams in a frenzy of fanaticism. "We cannot be defeated! We will not be defeated!"
And the Good Lamb laughed, and sent him into eternity.
"We bring death, and we bring life." She waves her other hand in a complicated gesture, and titters accordingly, though nothing seems to happen.
The Inspector watches as she rises up on the balls of her feet and turns, still laughing, to her former Associates. At the same time, Reginald finds the correct setting, snapping the handcuffs off the Inspector's wrists.
And the Inspector ran to her.
"Okay, Pythia, you've done it. Destroyed the Blorgons, avenged your people and mine where I couldn't. But they're gone, and you can let Lily go now," his voice has a hysterical edge to it, and Reginald can only watch. "Let her go, and fade back into the continuum where she belongs."
"Oh, Inspector," she says, reaching up to cup his face with her hand. "We can't. We are intertwine. To remove one would be to remove the other. There is no separation- we are the Good Lamb."
"I can't believe it. I won't-"
"Somethings can't be reversed, Inspector. So we suppose you were right. We did use her up. But don't fret, Inspector. Now Lily will know eternity."
"I won't allow it, do you hear me? I won't!"
"There is nothing to allow," the Good Lamb rasped, her frown quickly softening. "Our Inspector. We are sorry. We are so so sorry. But it was the only way. We saw it, in the whole of Time and Space. All that Was, all that Is, all that Ever Could Be. Everything you see and more. The curve of the Multiverse and the ripples in the current. It was the only way, to save humanity for now, to save you. Defender of Space, and now, Champion of Time."
She leans in and whispers something in his ear, and when his eyes go even wider with shock and he begins to protest again, she kisses him.
He starts back in surprise initially, but quickly reciprocates. The contact isn't enough for either of them, but she breaks it off, earlier than she wants and later than she's supposed to, because the Inspector is not yet ready for eternity.
"Go now." She looks over at the Constable, who seems too shocked to move, and smiles. It's an echo of the one that belonged to Lily, but altogether alien.
"Take your loyal Constable and your DARSIT and get on with it. You have planets to trod, stars to dance through, timelines to set right," her vibrating voice carries laughter in it, though whether she means it, she can't say. "The Multiverse isn't done with you yet."
The Inspector lingers a moment, his eyes trained on hers, but in the end, he grabs his protesting Constable's hand and heads for the DARSIT.
It's only when he reaches the door that she speaks again. "Inspector?" He pauses, moving his head so he can only see her out of the corner of his eye. "Take him to Barcelona. The planet, not the city. He'll love it."
The Inspector only nods curtly, unable to speak, and he enters his wondrous machine with his ever loyal constable in tow.
The Good Lamb watches as the DARSIT fades out of time and space, and her lips curl up in a smile. "Farewell, My Inspector. For now."
"End Simulation."
They're still reeling from the episode as they emerge from the Dreamatorium. The Intersection of the Dimensions is simultaneously one of the best and most hated episodes of the reboot. For all the emotions it brought out in the audience. It was second only to Constable Reginald's departure in Apocalypseduring the second season with the 10th Inspector.
Annie, for one, is feeling a mix of sadness and elation. It was an amazing simulation, truth be told, but she'll miss playing Lily. Unless Abed decides to take her suggestion and start coming up with adventures outside the confines of the show, Lily won't meet up with the Inspector for quite some time, long after Reginald has left.
She'll have to introduce him to the concept of fanfiction, she thinks, though he's very strict about his canon.
She feels someone's gaze on her, and she glances over to see Abed staring. It's not unusual in and of itself, but he's got an unfamiliar look in his eye, and the fact that the Inspector's leather jacket is slung on the chair next to him means it's hislook.
She's still puzzling it out when Abed steps forward and kisses her. It's so chaste. Their lips are the only thing touching and even then there's just barely enough pressure to let her know she isn't going crazy. It lasts a second, maybe two, and he's a step away again, scrutinizing her with that strange look.
"Abed, what?..."
"I'm sorry, did I misread the situation?" Annie just gapes at him, unable to find the words, and he continues. "It's just that the last kiss wasn't as scripted, and I thought that it might…"
Annie's not sure how to react. She bites her bottom lip, and her eyes flick behind Abed to Troy, who has since removed his Constable's surcoat so his chest is more outlined than hidden by his undershirt. He's watching them with interest, and Annie feels her heart flutter. She closes her eyes to think.
Abed kissed her, outside of any playacting, outside of simulation. Her mind is reeling, and she ends up stuttering something in an octave higher than normal, just so awkwardness didn't strangle the moment.
"But I thought all that was just a simulation. I mean…"
Troy steps forward to stand almost-not-quite between them, his face entirely serious in a way that scares her. Something big is happening here. She just knows it – there might as well be build-up music in the background.
"Just because it's a simulation doesn't mean it's not real, Annie. Sometimes it's even more real. You know?"
The quote comes unbidden, "'Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth?'"
He wouldn't know Oscar Wilde if she hit him in the face with The Picture of Dorian Gray, but his whole face lights up, and she feels the warm pressure of his hand on hers. "Yeah, like that."
Abed looks over at his best friend, anxiety writ there for anyone who knew how to look. "Perhaps now isn't the best time to broach this topic. We're still emotional from Lily's sacrifice. If we tried this at a later time…"
"No, man." He claps Abed on the shoulder and it's like completing a circuit. "Can't keep putting this off, or it will all end up with a drunken confession scene, remember?"
"Right." His warm brown eyes flick to Annie, "Last week, after the lemon meringue pie incident," Annie felt blood rush to her face, "Troy and I had a discussion about the obvious unresolved sexual tension between the three of us, and we decided we had to have a discussion with you. After tonight's simulation, that's even more apparent." He pauses. "I have to admit, I was reluctant to bring it up. I was afraid that UST was all that was keeping our show going for a while, but I believe the three of us getting together would be interesting enough to hold viewers. And it's not like it's entirely unprecedented. Wildthings, Threesome, the British TV show of the same name. And I'm fairly convinced that the Inspector had a relationship with most, if not all his associates."
Annie just stares at him, feeling like her brain is revving up but not quite turning over.
"Dammit, we broke her," she hears Troy say, as if from far off and the warmth of his hand pulls away from hers. "Did we not ease into it enough? Maybe…"
She blinks and heaves in a breath of air, stopping Troy in mid-sentence. "Are… are you guys asking me to be in a…" the next words came out in a forced whisper, "ménage à trois with you?"
"What's a…"
"It's French for a three-way relationship," Abed quickly answers.
"Oh."
"And yes, we are," he cocks his head and inspects her face, before continuing, "Troy and I have had a few close-calls, especially since we started living together, but things didn't start clicking until after you arrived. The apartment has felt more like home. Even the simulations became more fun when you joined us. And we all find each other attractive… correct?"
She nods slowly and takes in a breath so her hesitation won't seem quite so obvious. She's looking between the two of them, unsure of where to place her eyes, so she settles for the air right between their heads, feeling cross-eyed and awkward.
"I…" she swallows, "I find you both veryattractive," and she closes her mouth before the other words escape, the ones about checking herself before each hug, or really, whenever she gets within touching distance of either of them, trying to make sure she wasn't overstepping her bounds. The ones about how great it was playing Professor Lily Taylor because she got to do all of those things with her boys.
Troy beams at her words, and even Abed's lips curl up in the corner. And the panicked knot in her chest loosens.
If Annie is anything, she thinks, she's practical. And practically speaking, such a relationship makes sense for the three of them. It's a classic Relationship Triangle 8, according to that website Abed turned her onto, all three of them attracted to each other, and she's already half in love with both of them, if she's honest with herself.
To leave anyone out would generate hurt feelings, and that's the last thing she wants. It's why, in retrospect, she had never made a move. It's partly selfish- she didn't want to have to choose – but she didn't want to leave anyone in the cold.
Abed and Troy are a packaged deal, she thinks, feeling more confident by the minute. It's why it never worked between Troy and The Librarian last year – to choose one over the other was just wrong.
It all makes so much sense.
So she summons a little Lily Taylor into her smile and straightens her posture, looking Troy, then Abed, dead in the eye. "Well then. Abed, Troy. Will you two go out with me?"
Before she knows it, she's being pulled into a group hug. She's not sandwiched between them, but sort of cantilevered, so she's a third angle. It's strange, but kind of wonderful too.
It's then that her hold on Lily Taylor, who would be totally comfortable with this in every way, slips. "But, we'll take it slow, right guys?"
She feels Troy's voice reverberate through his chest, and Abed's words wuff softly through her hair. "Of course, Annie." "We'd never do anything you aren't ready for."
She lets go of the breath she's been holding. "Cool."