A/N: Shoutout to the one person who binged the entire thing today, I'm impressed.
I'm also impressed with the stalker-ish traffic statistics available on this webside.
"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.
A/N: Oh the fluff it's painful
Yo if you're reading this and your tumblr URL is currently (or was as of September, 2015) theseedsofdoom, I say hello from the grave. 'Tis I, elementarymydearphoton, who deleted my account. We mentioned the Web Planet a couple times, um. I did not forget you...!