Being in a relationship with two other people was interesting. Being in a relationship with his best friends was amazing.
But as they grew older, Koschei became more and more distant. And after so many years, Koschei and Jip's cynicism was starting to wear off on him. Then, something even more interesting happened.
He found an unlocked TARDIS. Theta went to Koschei's room first, then Jip's room, and finally found them in Ushas' lab, which, admittedly, he should have checked first as that was where they'd been spending most of their time, but he was so excited he didn't think.
Theta entered the lab grinning and bouncing around like an idiot. Both of his partners were watching the door when he entered and he guessed they must have felt him coming. Ushas was too busy with something to look up, or she didn't care that much which was more likely.
Everyone around him was getting much better at telepathy while his skill seemed to stay the same. He barely had any shields, he was an open book. He'd need to ask Koschei about helping him improve. It was hard to keep secrets when his thoughts were broadcasted to anyone close enough to hear them.
They were all huddled in the corner, after he'd entered, both Jip and Koschei went back to watching whatever Ushas was doing. Koschei was watching in fascination, while Jip was scowling down at it with her arms crossed.
"This is incredibly cruel, Ushas, even in the name of science."
Ushas looked up and sneered saying, "I will reattach it, if you have such a problem with it."
Jip looked thoughtful for a moment before giving a curt nod of reluctant acceptance.
Theta practically skipped over to his partners, landing a passionate kiss on both of them before turning to look at what Ushas was working on and his eyes widened.
It was a severed rabbit leg, cut open and held with clamps, muscle pulled back and veins and bones exposed.
"It worked? And you killed it! Why would you do that?" Theta exclaimed.
Ushas sneered at him. "It is not dead, it is over there. As for whether we created it correctly, we have not tested it yet."
Theta spun around to where he knew the cage sat. Inside was a pure white rabbit. One leg was missing and in its place was a line of stitching.
"Why not test it first? Instead of chopping its limbs off." Theta said, offended for the first of its kind.
Ushas started writing notes and spoke without looking up, "Considering the difficulty and time it would take to rework out which DNA strands to isolate, isolate them, and feed the correct amount of energy from the Time Vortex into them, create the first cell, then speed up the growth process, I would like to study this creature while it is still alive in case we fail." Ushas explained. "Once I am done studying everything I can, one of you can kill it and we'll see if it regenerates."
Koschei came over to the cage and smirked at the creature inside. He got that look sometimes, and it always made Theta worry. Greed.
Jip slung an arm aroung Theta's shoulders and pulled him close, talking quietly into his ear, "Once we are done here you can show us what you found." Theta's worry forgotten, he grinned excitedly at his girlfriend. "We need to work on your shielding, darling."
"But it's so boring!" he whined playfully. Jip smacked him lightly upside the head and he pouted.
"Jippy! Theta! Do you know what this could mean?" Koschei exclaimed, spinning to look at them. "Unlimited regeneration! Maybe even better regeneration. Without any kinks or side effects or acceptions. Rassilon, this could change everything!"
Theta frowned, finally understanding the magnitude of their project. "How illegal is this..?"
Ushas is the one who answered, "Illegal enough that if anyone found out we would be exiled without trial." She turned to glare fiercely at him. "But the people in this room are the only ones who know, meaning if anyone else finds out you are all losing your tongues."
Koschei scoffed, "You can try, you mean. Jip could kill you with her finger."
"And I am very skilled with knives."
Ushas started stitching up the leg, movement fast and precise.
Koschei opened up the cage, pulling the rabbit out and placing it in Theta's arms. Theta's face lit up at the small fluffy creature. First of its kind. "This is amazing."
"Obviously," Ushas deadpanned.
Theta rubbed the rabbits head as he watched Ushas sear the leg's flesh back together, then remove the stitching to reveal a long scar.
"Why not use more advanced healing methods?" Jip asked.
"Why are you so concerned over such a primitive creature?" Ushas asked, like she really didn't understand, "When we force the regeneration I would like to see if the scars heal as well."
"This is pretty cruel.." Theta agreed.
Ushas shrugged and got back to writing notes.
"It may be," Koschei said, still smiling, "But it's worth it."
Koschei and Jip left the lab following Theta's lead. Jip with a knowing smirk and Koschei with confused concern.
Anyone who looked at him could tell he was a ball of excitement, he was never good at hiding his emotions like the other two. And Ushas. It seemed to be a Time Lord trait to be clinical and closed off. One that Theta had never had. Maybe he would grow out of being so open, like he had with never wearing shoes until he sliced his foot open on a rock.
Jip had always been rough around the edges, but even she was becoming more and more Time Lord as the years went by.
They reached an area they weren't supposed to be in and Jip, being the most sensitive telepathically, took the lead, knowing where to go by Theta's thoughts. They had to stop a few times to hide when people walked by, but they reached the room with the old, broken down TARDISes fairly quickly.
"And you're worried about our project being illegal," Koschei said playfully as they stood in front of the TARDIS Theta had found.
Without the chameleon circuit on, it looked like a big white cylinder. Theta could hear it singing in his mind and smiled softly and fondly at her, like she was an old friend. Theta reached out and pushed the door open. "Come on, look around!"
The desktop theme was on default, everything white, the console a hexagon.
Jip was the first to start examining the console. The other two still staring around in awe, thinking about the possibilities.
The first thing Theta was going to do was take his partners on a date. A proper one, with flowers and candles and a whole new world to explore. A whole new culture to learn about.
"Theta, this can't go anywhere, there's so many repairs we would need to do just to get her to dematerialize." Jip said eventually.
Theta's hearts sank, then surged up with hope. "But we can repair it! Right? I found the keys under the console, we can sneak in here and do repairs without anyone knowing or us getting locked out."
"A fifty one year old and two fifty year olds steal a TARDIS, the CIA will be on us before we can even take off." Koschei finally spoke, looking thoughtful.
Theta was ready to start begging. He saw this going differently, he was going to welcome them aboard and then whisk them away to some beautiful planet.
"We can try to disable the sensors, and any remote influence they have over this TARDIS," Jip suggested, grabbing Theta's face and pulling him into a quick kiss. "Relax, we can make this work."
Theta beamed at her.
Koschei, who had been running his fingers along the console said, "Do you think anyone has ever had a threesome in here?"
"Hmm, we could, in case no one else has," Jip said seductively.
Over the next week, they slowly moved all the books and tools they would need to the TARDIS. The control room was a mess. Scattered with open text books, manuals, diagrams, and notes. There were pieces of paper taped all over the walls, the console, sticking out of pages.
They had a lot of work to do, and not enough knowledge to do it. But they were nothing if not determined.
They quickly realized Theta didn't have the patience nor the coordination to keep up with Koschei and Jip. Instead the other two worked on the TARDIS while Theta worked on his telepathy. First he was starting off with shielding, then he was going to move on to communicating. He wanted to always have a link with his partners, like his partners always had a link to him.
He opened his eyes after half an hour of meditating, imagining cement walls encasing his mind. "I'm ready!"
Koschei rolled his eyes and put down some parts he had been working on to walk over to him. Theta stood up, like he had last time.
Koschei leaned in close, staring in concentration into the other boy's eyes. He felt a prodding on the walls, Koschei testing them. He gave a quick nod and Theta grinned. Then came the hard part.
Koschei started speaking quietly, softly, seductively, "Theta, you will listen to me. Obey me. You love it, when I tell you what to do, don't you?"
Theta felt his defenses melting away. He caught himself halfway through a nod and focused harder on his shields. Koschei had a shark like grin.
"That's it. Listen to my voice, Theta. You will obey me," Koschei paused, eyes locked on his, staring into him, "Kiss me, Theta."
Theta couldn't stop himself. He surged forward, grabbing the back of his head to pull him forward. Theta was falling into it, sinking into his will. He ran his fingers through the other boy's hair. He could feel Koschei laughing in his mind, smirking into Theta's mouth. He started pulling at his robes-
STOP!
Theta jumped back with a gasp at hearing Jip yelling into his head, abruptly cutting the connection. Koschei turned to glare at her.
"You could have let him get a little further."
"The point of this exercise is for him to learn control. You're rewarding him for bad behavior."
"Just a little further, and then I would have pulled him out of it. Instead of screaming into his mind like that."
"Meditate some more. Remember, the wall is solid. You need to learn the wall, every inch, the same width or you'll leave gaps. Think of what it feels like to touch it, how hard it is, the temperature. Thinking of it being cold to the touch will help you remember that it is concrete, then relearn it but warm, feed your mental energy into it." Jip said to Theta, ignoring Koschei.
"Yes, mummy," Theta said sulkily, missing Jip's cringe as he sat back on his place on the floor and closed his eyes.
The other two got back to work.
Ushas called the rabbit Trial I, Theta started calling him Trail, as a nickname.
"Trail like a bunny trail," he defended his name choice.
Jip kissed him. "I like it, Theta."
He often went to the lab to play with Trail. Every day he had more and more scars, but he seemed healthy enough. Even if he was missing an appendage he would still hop around, slightly lopsided.
He ate a lot. Which had them all worried. Koschei and Ushas for their experiment, Jip and Theta for his health. He was eating to make up for a rapid energy depletion and they still couldn't find the cause. They thought it had something to do with the regeneration energy dormant inside him.
Theta just started putting him in a large container filled with vegetables he'd found in the forest whenever it was time for him to eat. He'd eat a lot of it, then he'd stop and Theta would put him back in a little play pen he'd made for him. He put a rubber ball in with him one day and ever since it had been his go-to toy, pushing it around with his nose and bouncing it against the pen's walls.
"Usually, an energy loss of this size only happens after a regeneration, but for some reason having the potential is draining it at a steady rate," Ushas said thoughtfully.
"Maybe a rabbit is too small," Jip suggested.
"No," she said in determination, "There must be a way." She picked up one of her many notebooks and started writing furiously. "Time Lords evolved through thousands of years from exposure to the Time Vortex, there must be a way for us to harness that."
"Maybe if you feed the energy into the DNA slower, give it time to adjust," Koschei suggested. Theta could tell he was getting frustrated, and for the hundredth time he worried about why he needed this so badly.
