Work Text:
i. Brax
He’s so little, is what strikes Brax when he meets his brother for the first time. So very small, in a way he’s sure he never was when he was that age. Other Time Lords are certainly never that small: they’re all loomed as toddlers, idiotic brats but able to walk, talk, function. This is different: this child is a baby.
The servants say, in hushed tones, that Irving Braxiatel was like that once. If he was, he doesn’t remember it; unusually for a Time Lord, he doesn’t remember his entire life. He’s eight years old but he only remembers five—six if you’re being generous—of those years.
Telemakhos, they say he is called, this little boy with a crop of dark hair and—he blinks—hazel eyes? Or perhaps they’re blue. The colours shift a little, settling definitively on hazel—only to go on the blink again, green and yellow and grey flashing through the irises, shifting to deep dark brown, before finally sticking to hazel.
Mother used to call him Telemakhos. My darling boy. My hero. My Telemakhos. He asked her who Telemakhos was, since he had plenty of names, but Telemakhos was not amongst them. And she replied: My dear, you’ll understand when you’re older.
He’s older now, and he’s read the Iliad. The Odyssey, too. He sees the joke: he doesn’t find it funny. And now he’s leaving for the Academy, this child is to take his place. He will be the lost prince and his brother will be the darling son, waiting for his father to come home. Not twenty years adrift: more like two hundred. If he comes back—and he’s not so sure he will—his brother will be unrecognisable to him.
Ah well. Hard to get too attached to someone he’s meeting for the first and last time.
ii. Badger
He’ll tell many people that his first friend was a megalomaniac and a mass murderer, though it’s not true in the slightest. No, his first friend is an animatronic, made to be appealing to children. And, Pythia be cursed, it works. He loves Badger, even though he hates the rest of everything. He crawls up the giant furniture into his chair, legs swinging from the unnaturally grand seat. Everything is so huge and it’s stupid: they’re trying to synthesise childhood but you can’t synthesise what biology has erased. He’s been the height he is ever since he was loomed and it won’t ever change, not until he regenerates; he’s been as smart and as stupid as he’ll ever be.
This generation was loomed with defects. Maybe his frankly mundane height is amongst those defects, or maybe it isn’t; maybe there’s something far greater wrong with him. Impurities in the biodata, Glospin says: that’s why you’re called Snail, runt. Well, he’s not the only one with defects. They say Koschei of the House of Oakdown was loomed without any psychic defences; having never met Koschei of the House of Oakdown but having exchanged polite letters with him, he’s proud to announce that he hasn’t a clue if it’s true. But, well, it could be worse; they say one child was loomed without legs, another without a brain. They burnt the useless corpses and forbade that genome sequence; or they didn’t. It’s all hearsay, after all.
But he’s never heard of anyone alive not having legs.
Another study session is coming up: another opportunity to have useless facts about the gaps between stars shoved down his throat. Innocet has promised him a smile if he behaves, and Glospin has threatened to hit him if he doesn’t. (Or he’s promised not to hit him if he does. Either way, it achieves the same thing.) It’s so boring he wants to die, but he can’t: he’s too clever by half. He can’t think of a single way to die that isn’t way too painful or way too boring.
Someday he’ll be free. Today is not that day.
“Begin the recitation of the Rassilonian chants,” he says, and Badger, his one true friend in the universe, does.
Is it even friendship if your friend is barely sentient?
iii. Mother
He’s six when she dies, and thinks little of it at first. So she’s dead: so what? It’s interesting. He doesn’t know anyone else his age with dead relatives, and it brings Brax back to the house, if only for a little while. People only die on Gallifrey if they’re savages or they’re ancient; Mother was neither ancient nor savage. Some people say she’s one or both, but he can see from her face that she was just a young woman, and offworlders aren’t all primitive brutes who need civilising. Some of them are cute, almost capable of conversation.
They say his mother died in agony; he has never known true pain. There are whispers that she died in something they call childbirth, an un-Gallifreyan word that doesn’t translate well. What’s that, he asks Brax? Too primitive for words, Brax says, and means it literally. She was, he suggests, trying to replace you.
But I have other relatives, he tells Brax; Brax looks at him oddly. You know—Innocet, Quences, Luton … other people who like me. Well, Innocet likes me. Well, none of them like me.
I’ve never heard of them in my life, says Brax, and turns away.
The body is left out in the deserts to die. It’s covered in sheets, the face no longer visible; one hand, with its long, lithe fingers, escapes the blue-white shroud and reaches for him. They’re waiting for it to stop glowing with the promise of life; nobody likes a corpse that walks away. Only it doesn’t ever glow, and it never gets up. Just sits there. They expect it to stay placid; it rots. The smell of rot fills the desert and it’s this more than anything that he remembers: the stink of human flesh, slowly but surely dissolving into bones. And goo. He gets Mother on his hands; she drips all over his nicest red tunic, and he can wash the stains out but never the smell. Brax keeps vigil over the body, day and night; each night, as the suns set, he comes out to visit Brax and the body, even though it terrifies him.
His mother, whom he barely remembers, becomes the stuff of nightmares. Father retreats; Brax goes back to the Academy. Nobody calls him Telemakhos anymore. So he closes his eyes and runs away, back to Lungbarrow, waiting for the moment when the construct which calls itself his father will remember he exists.
The moment never comes, and by the time he’s sent to stare into the Untempered Schism, it’s Quences who watches over the whole ordeal.
iv. Earth
He was born on Earth, and grew up there. Where’s Gallifrey? Somewhere in Ireland?
v. Quences
Kithriarch Quences is one of the better of his relatives. His name is hideously long and he’s a bit of a prick, but when he stops blustering he can be engaging. He has all sorts of stories of the before times, or at least the times that came before the middling generation. He was loomed before Glospin and Maljamin were ever dreamt of; in fact he was loomed before even Satthralope was dreamt of, and she’s ancient. He’s on his ninth body, actually, and he’s got tremendous use out of each of them: four thousand years, is his record, caused by a combination of good luck, bad luck, and CIA-induced stasis. He refuses to elaborate on what got him in that situation in the first place, but it makes for a good story.
It’s Quences who gives him Badger; Quences who sends him on that history trip to Avelinos 6; Quences who oversees his initiation. It’s Quences’ hand on his shoulder as he stares into the Untempered Schism, and Quences who must chase after him, in a horribly undignified fashion, robes flapping round his ankles, when he runs away.
What did you see? Quences says, when they’re back in Lungbarrow. He coaxes it out of him, like he’s a terrified flutterwing escaping predators. What did you see, boy?
EVERYTHING.
Quences does not like this answer. Elaborate, he says, steepling his fingers with furious curiosity.
I saw everything, he says. I saw the oceans drown the suns—I saw the darkness turn to light—I saw the Earth and I saw the Homeworld—I saw my mother and I saw my father—I saw Penelope Gate and her husband Ulysses—I saw you die and I saw myself die—I saw the Daleks and I saw the Cyberman—I am a hollow man and you are not real, and the only thing separating the past from the future is the present id. Get it? It’s an anagram of president. And that’s funny because I’m going to be president one day, just you wait.
Dream on, says Quences, laughter in his eyes and hope on his tongue. I’m afraid they’ll never vote the cousin of a jumped-up clerk for president. That’s just the way things are.
I could do it, he protests. I could do it all.
I hope so, said Quences. By the suns, I hope so. But you’re delusional if you think it’s anything more than a good dream, my boy.
You’re delusional, he protests, and sticks his hand through Quences’ chest.
It comes out the other side.
He doesn’t remember what happens after that, or what happened before. He doesn’t remember any of it, because he wipes his own memory of it, leaving only a crater of oblivion where Quences’ unreality should be.
It raises questions, when the telepathy lessons begin. But he refuses to share anything.
vi. The Barn
Zagreus lives under his bed. The adults don’t believe him but he knows it’s true; he felt Zagreus’ hand, cold, and fractured, and terrifying, grip him by the ankle. Zagreus is trying to drag him away. He could sense its biodata: completely torn apart, like it had been exposed to radioactive material or the Vortex or something. No Time Lord feels like that except the ones who don’t exist, and Zagreus most definitely doesn’t exist.
No one believes him. They say, come out of the barn, boy, there’s space in the House. They say, no one is making you sleep in the barn, boy, if you’re that scared of Zagreus then leave the barn. They say, no one wants you, no one likes you, but we’re still not making you stay in that barn—for Omega’s sake, boy, don’t you ever listen? Get out of the fucking barn!
He does not leave the barn. They want him to be a soldier; he wants to be not that. He doesn’t want to be an academic, Brax is an academic and he’s miserable. He doesn’t want to be a soldier either, Brax is training for that and he has a prosthetic hand now. Or he doesn’t. Maybe it was a prosthetic leg. Point is, no one nice makes you stand in a minefield. No one nice blows your leg off. No one nice locks you in a school and surgically modifies the structure of your body until you’re not quite Gallifreyan anymore.
It can’t be the leg. He’s never known anyone to not have legs. Still, Brax limps tremendously; always carries a cane; never, ever hikes his robes up to bare the left shin. And the one time he did see something, it flashed like canitium.
Brax complains of pain, sometimes. Headaches and neural networks not made for him. Something about being half-human. But he’s not half-human and never has been, or at least hasn’t been as far as he knows. Maybe Brax is half-human; he’s not from the same looming but maybe there are multiple generations with defects. Maybe Koschei of the House of Oakdown isn’t the only one missing something important: this one, my brother, yes, he’s missing a leg and a heart. Or maybe it’s the hand I’m thinking of, my mistake.
If I blew him up, you know, I’d do it properly. But I can’t, because I’m too busy warding off the anti-time nightmare living under my bed, you see.
He’s fucked in the head. It happens. He only wishes his tutors didn’t want him to go the same way as his brother.
vii. Innocet
He likes Innocet, genuinely. She’s maybe one of the only people on Gallifrey he does like. He’s no good at Drat and can’t see the future for shit, but he’s a dab hand at Outlands whist and if Glospin gave him a chance, he thinks this is one thing he could absolutely trounce him at. Innocet’s closest in age to him, or close enough; he thinks maybe Celesia is younger than her, but Celesia he never sees and doesn’t want to. Just because someone’s a cousin doesn’t mean you have to like them, does it now?
Innocet advises kindness and compassion and oh no, he’s fallen asleep already. She advises shrewdness and deception as well, but he slept through that bit. And she advises not being convicted of murder, but he can’t see when that’s ever going to be relevant.
Still, their relationship isn’t always the best.
You’re not real, he says, juggling cards.
Who says that? she says. Put those down, Snail.
I say it, he says, so it must be true. You can’t be real. I’ve seen what happens when I look away: you all vanish. It’s like you only exist when I remember you. Remember Ulysses?
Who?
My father.
Your what?
Exactly, he says, and watches as the cards explode. You know, Quences doesn’t exist. And, Rassilon be praised, Glospin doesn’t exist. And nor does Brax. In fact I’m not entirely convinced I exist. Do you think I exist, Innocet?
She doesn’t reply back.
That, you see, is because she doesn’t exist.
viii. Eighth Man Bound
He sees the future and despises it. He runs through bodies faster than his classmates can run through names; he sees the future in its entirety and rejects it, like an organ transplant gone wrong. His hearts, or his heart, ache or aches with the force of it. He says to the future, no thank you: none of that. He sees himself become Zagreus and he sees himself unbecome. He sees Gallifrey fall and Gallifrey rise and Gallifrey fall once more. He sees Koschei kill him and save him and wonders: how much of it is true? Are they really seeing the future, or just the official version of it? He sees Millennia and Jelpax die and thinks much of it: they are so close to death and they don’t realise it. He sees Vansell die and feels nothing: that is so far into the future as to be irrelevant. He sees Drax just wandering around in the future, and wonders to himself: since when did he, future him, travel with dictators? That’s Pandora, sure enough; a fairytale, much like Zagreus. He sees Zagreus in his future and thank Rassilon, the girl with him has the sense to stamp him out. He sees Pandora in his future and thank Rassilon, she destroys herself. He sees the Weeping Angels in his future, sees the Krikkitas; he wants to scream that his nightmares are real, even moreso when he sees one of his faces wandering around in Krikkit gear. He wants to rip his face off. He wants to not be. He wants to be and he wants to run. He wants to stop Koschei from killing him, he wants to stop entropy eating half the universe. He wants to tell the blonde girl, kill me kill me kill me: it’s all I’ve ever wanted. He wants to tell his friends, you’re dead already and you don’t even know it. He wants to unbury Lungbarrow, but it’s not buried yet.
He sees beyond his eighth body, onto the ninth.
He doesn’t see anything.
Death comes to time.
viii.v. Clara
He lets the lab flood. It’s stupid and he can’t say why he did it, but he lets the lab flood. Maybe Koschei had said it would be funny. Either way, it happens. The lab floods. Somehow the door, which doesn’t and can’t lock, is locked. He’s going to die here and he’d be terrified if he weren’t aware already that his life isn’t his. He’s just wandering through the universe, letting unrealities possess him. Brax, who maybe exists. Innocet, whose reality has yet to be determined. Mother, who definitely doesn’t exist and for this reason haunts his nightmares concretely. Glospin, who regrettably does exist, and is all too aware of it.
He lets the lab flood, and the door is locked. He passes out at some point when the water goes over his head; he can only swim so well, and lately he’s stopped seeing the point of trying to keep himself out of danger. He seems to wake up alive sooner or later, and indeed he wakes up, sitting in Borusa’s office, cold and sodden and wishing he were anywhere else at all.
Why am I not dead? he asks.
You were saved, Borusa says, by the door opening.
Yes: it’s all coming flooding back now. Heh. Flooding. He remembers … many things. Mostly he remembers a woman rushing in, wrenching the door open, the water washing out so he could escape. Then she’d closed the unlockable door behind her and drowned in his place.
Did you see her?
See who? Borusa inquires.
The woman.
What woman?
The one who saved me, he says. Brown hair, big eyes, about yea high.
There was no one there but you, Borusa says.
But there was! Not very tall, sort of cute if you squint, all heroic and whatnot. Didn’t you find the body?
Kindly stop lying, Borusa says, it doesn’t suit you.
But I’m not lying!
Oh yes you are, says Glospin.
Oh no he’s not, says Father.
Oh maybe he might or might not be, says Brax, wincing at the pain in his very-possibly-prosthetic leg.
Oh how I do wish you would stop, says he.
Who are you talking to? says Borusa.
No one, he says, just the woman who drowned to save me.
Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, says Borusa, and I had hoped to keep the incidents of madness to under five pupils this year. So stop being mad.
As if it’s that simple, he says, and imagines Borusa drowning in the mystery woman’s stead.
Very well, says Borusa, you are dismissed. Your bother—brother—can take you back to your dormitory.
But I’m studying, Brax replies.
Yes, and have been for three weeks, Borusa says curtly, for an exam that has never come. Take him away.
Well, at least he can see some of the insanity he’s trapped in.
ix. The Before Times
He remembers a different time, sometimes. A time when time was old but Gallifrey was new, and anything was possible, even if everything wasn’t. He remembers writing the ancient texts and tomes and codes, remembers designing the Citadel, remembers building his own tomb. He remembers stealing the Hand of Omega, he remembers being a god-king of a crumbling society, he remembers hearing the Pythia set down the ancient curse and remembers setting down the law and the lie of the land in response. He remembers it all and he remembers nothing; he remembers being other and he remembers being known. He remembers having a name. Only, no, he doesn’t; all of this is stories, as surely as Zagreus’ hand round his ankle is a story.
He remembers seeing the terror Pandora when she was just a little girl. He remembers looking into the Vortex and seeing the dictator she would grow up to be. He travelled with that dictator, if he’s not mistaken; in the future, not the past, just so we’re clear.
He stole a TARDIS once and ran away. What’s a TARDIS, again? Is that some strange name for a TT capsule?
His mother’s human; his father’s a Time Lord.
Which human?
Which Time Lord?
He is Ulysses, or better yet Odysseus, so how can his father claim to be the fall of Troy? Where’s Troy and what does it have to do with horses? Be honest, Father: are you real at all?
There are no answers, only questions. Brax, at least, doesn’t pretend to have answers. Or all four of his limbs.
He’s know everyone not to have legs, for the simple reason that none of them exist.
x. Susan
Nobody else exists but she’s real, he’s sure of it. Her past’s a mystery and that’s the wonderful thing: when he says she’s the daughter of his son, poor foolish boy, she accepts it. His son was wonderful, during the short time after adolescence and before he died stupidly and brashly on a backwater planet. It was violent and muddy and he misses the boy every day; Brax suspects it was not pure mischance that the gun fired in such a way he could not regenerate.
Brax seems fairly certain that he exists, these days. No word on Father yet, and Lungbarrow’s reality is temperamental, but Brax seems real enough. Less real than Susan; no one is as real as his granddaughter and her nonsensical, garbled, twisted excuse for a timeline. She’s missing some years but so is he; maybe her own private Zagreus ate them, along with his daughter who he could have sworn used to be her mother before she turned out to be the daughter of her father.
He doesn’t want to go the way of his brother, compelled to blow himself to bits for higher-ups, now touring strange planets as an ambassador: allowed to travel but curtailed by Authority, yes, Authority with a capital letter. He doesn’t want to go the way of his father, who really, truly does not exist. He doesn’t want to go the way of his mother, rotting in the desert; he doesn’t want to go the way of Quences, convinced as he is of his own inconsequential damnation.
He doesn’t want to smell corpses in his nightmares and he doesn’t want to dwindle to nothing because he can’t move on from being a corpse. He doesn’t want to stick the Hand of Omega through his chest and find out he doesn’t exist either. He doesn’t want to stay on this stupid planet for a moment longer, a planet full of fakes. He’s certain that the outside universe must have more than two real people and he wants to find them, with Susan, the hard way.
After all, it’s hard to get too attached to a society full of paradoxes.