The story below is a work of fan fiction, using characters, dialogue snippets, and plot events from the Sanders Sides YouTube series, which is created and owned by Thomas Sanders and his team. The first half mirrors the plot of Doctor Who, Season 7, Episode 1: Asylum of the Daleks, and the story makes use of and references Doctor Who characters, aliens, and events throughout. Several episode snippets are used toward the end. I do not own Sanders Sides, Doctor Who, or any of the related characters, nor is this story connected to either series. It is intended for entertainment only. I am not making any profit from this story.
Watch Sanders Sides here on YouTube.
Song lyrics belong to their attributed artists.
Chapter 1- The Eleventh Hour
“Who are you?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m still cooking.”
Midnight.
The witching hour.
Or was that 3AM? Roman scowled. No, that’s the devil’s hour…damn it, Virgil! You had to get them all mixed up!
It was nearly midnight on the Imagination’s border. Moonlight, pearlescent and brighter than it could ever shine in the real world, floated feather-light through the tall windows on Roman’s side of the Dream Palace. It made patterns of shine and shadow over the black marble floors, made nighttime caricatures of the white ivory statues that lined the corridor.
Roman’s heeled boots echoed in the silence; jarring, compared to Logan’s whisper-quiet dress shoes.
Logan himself had been uncharacteristically quiet since they entered this place, Roman noted as he glanced back. Curious Logan should have asked a million questions by now, or made a million plans, or be several bullet points into a lecture about gothic palace construction, why America still used imperial measurement units, or some other nerdy, obscure subject. And Roman would either pretend to be annoyed or interject witty counterpoints to make Logan stop and bluster and…
But not tonight.
Maybe he’s nervous about being here. Roman smoothed a hand over his red sash. He’s only pointed out a million times that Logic and the Imagination are anathema to one another. Maybe I should have planned something else…
Or maybe he’s just annoyed at you for dragging him out of bed in the literal middle of the night, a more insidious inner voice whispered. When you know he likes to keep a consistent sleep schedule.
Roman pressed his lips together and lifted his chin. He might be a mere facet of a single person, but he was also a Prince, and Princes do not listen to inner demons. And yet, he found himself looking back for the dozenth time to make sure Logan was actually still there.
That was the only reason Roman kept looking back.
It had nothing to do with the way the translucent moonlight caught the other’s dark, immaculate hair or glinted off his glasses.
In the real world, of course, and whenever they manifested near their Source, the Sides all had precisely the same face and body as Thomas. But deep inside the mind, where physical appearance was an illusion anyway, the Sides exercised much more control.
Thomas remained their base template, but each Side also portrayed himself with features that Thomas associated with their core function. Like Patton’s fluffy curls and childlike freckles; Virgil’s hunched posture and ever-changing eyeshadow; and Remus’s abominable comic-book villain mustache. Like Deceit’s…no, Janus’s very real scales.
Roman scowled again. Damn that snake. Why did I have to think of him now?
Hopefully the lying bananaconda had better things tonight to do than pop up and spoil things. Because tonight, Roman was finally fulfilling a longtime promise and taking Logan on a grand adventure.
The thought made his heart flutter in anticipation, and he snuck another guilty look at his companion.
Logan within the mindscape was leaner than Thomas, an inch or two taller, and his neatly trimmed hair and intelligent eyes were almost black in the low light. His face was narrow and intense, the nose more aquiline, and he had a habit of standing straighter than any of the rest of them—a habit which constantly showed off his trim waist and chest muscles.
Not that Roman paid any attention to that.
Roman, by contrast, was shorter, but his shoulders were broader, his body more muscular from all the questing and sword fighting he did here in the Imagination. He wore his hair in longish disarray that paired devastatingly with his clean, square jawline; hair that could be turned loose and wild on quests or pulled neatly back as befitted royalty. His hands were strong, with long, artistic fingers as skilled at wielding pens and paintbrushes as they were at wielding swords.
He liked to think he was handsome.
He was also painfully aware of how little it mattered when a certain someone…ehem…never seemed to notice.
“Roman, I confess to still being lost as to the purpose of this journey.” Logan’s deep baritone shattered the high-ceilinged silence with its musical resonance. “You said you were taking us on a…‘lark’? If so, why are we wandering around the Dream Palace?”
“LARP.” Roman flashed him a smile. “L-A-R-P. It stands for live action role play, Specs.”
Logan’s nose wrinkled at the words “role play”, making Roman’s stomach lurch. He hates it, he hates the very idea of it, you haven’t even started and you’ve already failed…
“Oh, don’t make the scrunchy face!” Roman added, a bit louder than necessary. “At least wait until you’ve seen it.”
He’d only been planning this for weeks.
“You know, when you promised to take me on one of your ‘adventures’.” Logan made exaggerated finger quotes. “I was not expecting to be roused from bed.”
“That’s because this isn’t your average adventure.” Roman gestured around them. “I constructed a special dreamscape to get all the details right, which we can only use in the Dream Palace when Thomas is asleep.” He turned with a wink. “Only the best for you, my detail-oriented friend.”
Logan adjusted his glasses. “Let it be known that I am indulging your antics right now because you do, on occasion, stumble upon some excellent ideas. You will, in turn, have to indulge my skepticism.”
“I have no idea what you just said, but I’m gonna pretend it was a compliment.” Roman dared another wink, which Logan rolled his eyes at.
“And here we are!” Roman stopped at a set of iconic blue doors, nearly vibrating in excitement as he waited for Logan to recognize them. The nerd did not disappoint.
“Roman…” Logan stepped forward to touch the white PULL TO OPEN sign. “The attention to detail is exquisite; this looks just like the entrance to the TARDIS. But why?”
“Because I’m taking you on a Doctor Who LARP!” Roman flapped his hands. “All we have to do is step through, the Imagination will make us Doctor and companion, and we’ll whisk away through all of time and space!”
Logan’s face bore a mixture of confusion and curiosity. “Again, why?”
“Because it will be fun?” Roman bit his lip. “I…I know you aren’t into swords and sorcery and dragon-witches and whatnot. I wanted this to be something you might actually enjoy.”
Logan’s brow furrowed, as it often did when he tried to process something that didn’t fit neatly into his graphed, notated, logical worldview. Usually, it was an emotion.
“Won’t us enacting such a detailed scenario at this time of night negatively affect Thomas’s sleep?” Logan asked.
“That’s the genius of adventuring in the Dream Palace.” Roman rapped his knuckles against the TARDIS doors for emphasis. “You can do hyperreal, immersive stuff, and if Thomas does remember anything, he’ll just think he had a weird dream. The worst that could happen is he might post about it on Twitter.”
“Hmm. I can see you’ve thought this through. I am…flattered that you went to all the trouble.” Logan’s normally confident, self-assured voice softened as he spoke.
Roman bit back an ecstatic giggle at the praise. Not…not because his nerves skittered below his skin when his gaze caught Logan’s black eyes and near-smile. No, Roman was merely excited! That someone like Logan, someone he very much respected, appreciated his hard work!
It wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone, like some middle school boy with, you know, a crush or whatever. For the last, well…
Two years.
Ugh.
Denying his feelings would only accidentally summon Janus and his oily smirk. If that happened, Roman would most certainly die of embarrassment, and that was not a lie, thank you very much.
The truth was, ever since Thomas had placed that jar of Crofters into Logan’s hands and inspired him to sing—not just rap, or begrudgingly harmonize, but actually sing—Roman had fallen sash over boots.
How could he not?
Logan’s words and reasoning and ideas had always challenged him, pushed him to be smarter, sharper, better, just to keep up. Logan was the grounding anchor to his sails, the guide rope keeping his flights of fancy from soaring to unmanageable heights. It used to infuriate Roman, the way he and Logan came at problems from opposite sides and fought, sometimes bitterly, over the best way to meet in the middle.
But now? Now Roman relished the way they traded words in a good battle of wits, like blades in the hands of expert swordsmen. Logan, despite his open dislike for anything fanciful, was a natural wordsmith…and Roman was a great lover of poetry. He would willingly throw himself upon the sharp edges of that expertly wielded vocabulary any day…
Roman mentally reeled in that sprawling metaphor with a frown. Too much like Remus. And thinking of his brother only reminded Roman of everything that had happened over the last few months.
The Decision.
Deceit, and the way that snake had let Remus out of the shadows to wreak havoc. Then the disastrous wedding itself…
And Roman knew that Logan, through all of it, had been feeling pushed aside. Goodness knew Logan hadn’t deserved to be shoved to the back of a courtroom, or relegated to a pixel-y shadow of himself before being removed from the discussion entirely.
Worse, in both of those scenarios, Roman had either done nothing…or had actively made things worse.
Roman knew he was guilty of letting his mouth run wild in his zeal to solve Thomas’s dilemmas or in desperately hiding his true feelings. He knew his nicknames often came with barbs, he knew his insults sometimes drew blood. More often than not, in the heat and passion of the moment, Roman tended to ignore or dismiss Logan’s cool, unemotional perspective.
He knew he needed to be better.
I’ll make it up to him tonight. Roman laid a hand on the wooden blue doors and glanced back at Logan. The other nodded, giving Roman a tiny burst of confidence. He’ll get to play his favorite character and be his best nerdy self. This is going to be great!
Roman took a breath, let it out, and shoved open the TARDIS doors.
Chapter 2- Human Nature
“It’s all becoming clear now. The Doctor is doing the things you’d like to be doing.”
Discordant sirens blared in Logan’s ears, momentarily disorienting him as he stumbled across the threshold, Roman’s hand practically a vice around his wrist. The sharp scent of metal and warm electronics saturated his senses as he inhaled, causing a million figurative lights to fire up his brain.
Being the physical incarnation of Logic, this wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar sensation for him.
His TARDIS shuddered—wait, my TARDIS?—under impact. Lights flashed and alarms blared; reds and greens and shrillness over an ambiance of steely blue-gray, and Logan knew exactly what to do.
He shook free of Roman’s grip and strode to the center console, flipping switches and turning the green dial to precisely 3.56 degrees to offset the radiation sheer from the M-class star they’d just spun past—because of course they happened to be careening through an asteroid field. The time rotor rose and dipped; Gallifreyan symbols whirled overhead. Logan forgot everything else as he adjusted shields and dodged rocks, striding confidently from station to station. He guided his TARDIS around the last large asteroid and breathed when they were clear. The TARDIS chimed reassuringly under his hands, relieved as he was to be in empty space again.
Roman screamed.
The sound echoed off the metallic walls, causing Logan to whip around and nearly lose his balance.
“What happened?” he demanded, leaving the console. Roman stood near the railing, staring down at himself in obvious dismay. “What’s wrong?”
“Look at me, Logan!” Roman gestured up and down his own body. “Just look!”
Logan examined his fellow Side, seeing no obvious injuries, no blood, no bruising, nothing that would merit a scream. There was just Roman, wide-shouldered, wild- haired, unfairly handsome as always. He still wasn’t sure how Roman managed to be so objectively aesthetically pleasing when they literally, at least some of the time, had the same face.
“I…don’t see a problem?” Logan said.
“I meant, look at what I’m wearing, Calculator Watch.” Roman turned to yell nonsensically at the ceiling. “Am I a joke to you? When I said I wanted to be a companion, this is not what I meant!”
Logan focused on Roman’s clothing, which had shifted rather drastically since passing through those doors. Instead of his normal princely attire, he now wore a denim cutoff skirt, overalls, pink leggings, and a tight pink blouse that clung to his muscular chest and arms.
“I look ridiculous, don’t I?” Roman scuffed a combat boot against the metal grated floor. The motion drew Logan’s gaze again to the way the cutoffs hugged his hips and wow, that skirt was extremely short, wasn’t it? And those tights, the way they accentuated Roman’s legs...
Logan noted, with a frown, how warm his face had grown. Why did he keep noticing these things? Of course, Roman was more fit than the rest of them. Perhaps Logan was simply unused to seeing the evidence on such…display.
Stop, Logan told himself sharply. You might be gay and allosexual, but that is no excuse to indulge in disrespectful thoughts.
“If I may, Roman?” He cleared his throat and approached to make a closer examination of Roman’s outfit. “I hypothesize from your ranting that you instructed the Imagination to cast you as one of the Doctor’s companions for the duration of this scenario?”
Roman huffed. “Well, yeah, but I was thinking someone like Jamie McCrimmon, or Rory Williams, or maybe even Jack Harkness!”
“There is arguably some debate over whether Jack Harkness can be considered a proper ‘companion’, as he has never traveled full time aboard the TARDIS,” Logan argued reflexively, still distracted by Roman’s ensemble. Attractive, but also familiar; he just couldn’t quite place it…
“Neither was Clara Oswald at first,” Roman retorted, “but nobody had a problem handing her that label from the start!” He folded his arms, and Logan had to look away because wow, short sleeves and arms. “Just because she was a girl, and the writers obviously intended for her to be a love interest—”
“A girl, of course!” Logan snapped his fingers. “Roman, you are a companion. Specifically, you are Rose Tyler.”
“What?” Roman smoothed the overalls across his middle with a frown. “I…Hmm. You might be right.”
“Of course, I am right.”
Roman scoffed at that but continued to frown.
“It is a sound choice,” Logan added. “Rose is arguably one of the most beloved companions in new Who; bold, kind, and intelligent in her own way. She was pivotal to the Ninth, Tenth, and arguably the War Doctor’s character arcs.”
He laid a hand on Roman’s shoulder—to convey reassurance, of course. Not because he suddenly wanted to touch…
“Hers are not the worst shoes you could be given to fill,” Logan added, “idiomatically speaking.”
“Only you would drop a word like ‘idiomatically’ in everyday conversation.” Roman smirked, some of the spark returning to his caramel eyes.
“But look at you!” he said in a brighter voice, gesturing. “All proper and Doctor-ish. At least the Imagination let you keep your tie, or whatever that thing is around your neck.”
Logan glanced down at himself for the first time. His sensible polo and jeans had transformed into a clean-cut black suit, with a warm grey waistcoat, a crisp white undershirt, and a silver pocket watch. A navy cravat was knotted around his throat. His knee-length suit jacket was also black, not unlike the Twelfth Doctor’s coat, but with a striking cerulean lining instead of red.
Upon investigation, the jacket’s inner pocket yielded a slender, metallic instrument: the Doctor’s signature sonic screwdriver. Specifically, the Tenth Doctor’s version. He chuckled, remembering all the times he’d ranted to Roman about how impractical and flashy Eleven’s screwdriver became, and don’t even get him started on Twelve’s, which was practically a lightsaber…
“Interesting.” Logan stretched out his arms to turn in a sharp circle, letting the jacket flare. “Fashionably, I appear to be a cross between the Eighth and Twelfth Doctors, which I appreciate, as they are the two most sensible dressers of the bunch. And by the way, Roman, this ‘thing around my neck’ is called a cravat, not a tie…”
The words died on his tongue.
Roman had summoned a mirror and was, quite literally, checking himself out. He swayed his hips, tilted one toward and then away, pouted, did a tongue smile, and…and Logan realized he had been watching for more than a socially acceptable length of time. He cleared his throat again, but was saved from having to speak by a loud crackling at the center console.
Both Sides rushed over, Logan seizing the TV screen and pulling it down. Gray static skittered over the polished surface. He flipped two switches and turned a dial, trying to zero in on the signal.
“I meant to ask earlier…how do you know what to do?” Roman tilted his head. “You were piloting before I think you even realized we were on a TARDIS in the first place.”
Logan paused in the middle of winding one of the cranks.
“I…really do not know.” In fact, the more he thought about it, the less sense any of the controls made. “Now that you’ve drawn my attention to it, you are correct: rationally, I should not know the function of any of these gizmos.” He gestured at the crank he’d been winding. “Yet somehow my hands and brain just…know.”
Roman leaned onto the console. “When I built this LARP, I gave the Imagination quite a lot of leeway in how it chose to construct our characters. So things wouldn’t be too predictable, you know? But I’m thinking it took things a step further than costume changes, like making me the companion it thinks I most resemble, instead of the companion I wanted to be.”
Roman bit his lip as though troubled, then clearly shook himself out of it.
“And it must have imparted some of the Doctor’s knowledge upon me.” Logan added, not sure how he felt about the Imagination having such a direct influence over his mind. He supposed if it didn’t get too invasive, and the interference remained confined to this one night, he could deal with it. It had proven useful so far, after all.
Roman shot Logan a fierce grin. “Indeed! So, engage that big Doctor brain, and let’s see who’s trying to call us. Allons-y, adventure awaits!”
“You know ‘allons-y’ is my line, right?” Logan said dryly.
Roman only stuck out his tongue.
Logan had to employ his screwdriver on the screen before the picture came clear. The stream of static acquired the cadence of a voice, and then a disturbingly familiar face flickered into focus, looking equally shocked.
Roman, for the second time that evening, let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Chapter 3- The Witch’s Familiar
“If you’re going to take my stick, do me the courtesy of actually killing me. Teamwork is all about respect.”
Janus had just settled into his favorite chair, with a mug of chamomile tea and a political science book, when he was yanked—rather rudely, he might add—onto the deck of a spaceship. He sighed and dismissed his drink. When one shared a mindspace with the literal embodiment of chaos, one unfortunately learned to expect such interruptions.
“REMUS!” he roared, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Did I not specifically ask to be LEFT ALONE tonight?”
Silence.
Deeply annoyed now, Janus took a moment to look around himself. This was not a normal spaceship; no windows, for one, and it was laid out in levels around a translucent column at the center. His mismatched eyes followed the center rotor up and down, his mind almost placing it…
Something rose from the deck with a clatter, causing Janus to summon his crook with a yell. Only…the object that dropped into his hand wasn’t familiar wood, but a slender metal instrument just barely longer than his hand.
A sonic screwdriver? What the actual heck?
Well. It was what he had.
“Get back!” He pointed the instrument at the…figure…who slowly gained its feet. An android, or robot of some sort; humanoid, and the same kind of weirdly familiar as the ship.
“Janus?” The robot tilted its head.
Janus froze, all the scales standing up on his body. That was Patton’s voice. Flat, mechanical, but unmistakable. After all, Patton was the only Side who consistently called Janus by name.
“Patton?” Janus whispered.
“Oh, that was so weird feeling! Thank goodness I’m not all by myself.” Robot-Patton put a hand over his chest, where his heart should have been, in obvious relief. “But why are we both on the TARDIS?”
Janus drew in a sharp breath. Of course. He should have recognized the stupid time rotor immediately.
He’d never admit it to any of them, but he was as much of a Doctor Who nerd as Logan or Roman, sometimes going so far as to spy on them when they argued over episodes together. To learn their arguing styles, of course.
Not because he had any desire to join those discussions.
And now, looking at Patton with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Janus deduced exactly what he was: a Mondasian Cyberman. Older, cruder in design than the reboot versions…no wonder he hadn’t put a finger on it right away.
That wasn’t really the issue.
“REMUS!” Janus shouted again, more angrily this time. Bad enough his pleasant evening of solitude had been interrupted by whatever the hell this was. But stuffing the sweetest, most emotional aspect of Thomas’s personality into a canonically unemotional shell, a robot? That was cruel. That was insulting.
It was too far, even for Remus.
“Janus, is everything okay?” Patton came closer. Janus shivered at the sound of that warm voice coming from an unmoving rectangular mouth, in a blank metallic face with empty eyes.
“Do you…feel all right?” Janus said hesitantly.
“I’m a little chilly, but otherwise I’m in ship shape!” The other giggled. “Get it? Cause we’re on a ship?”
“Hilarious,” Janus deadpanned.
Inside, his thoughts spun. Is it…is it possible that he doesn’t know?
Janus sensed they were in a dream construct within the Imagination, which meant this had to be Remus’s doing. Remus, who reveled in gore, despair, disturbing imagery, angst, and who oversaw Thomas’s nightmares. Remus could—and would, given the chance—recreate the experience of being a Cyberman down to the Last. Grim. Detail.
Maybe he hadn’t meant to ensnare Patton specifically to fill this role, as Remus didn’t generally need to pull other Sides in for nightmares. But whatever the excuse or reason, Janus didn’t want to find out what playing a Cyberman might do to Patton’s mental health.
Worse, it became clearer by the second that Patton was, in the unquestioning manner of dreams, oblivious to the state of his own body. He’d used his metallic hands to clutch at his metallic chest and found nothing wrong with either. He couldn’t hear the electronic rasp in his own voice, or the heavy clanging of his steps on the grated floor.
Should Janus say something?
Would Patton believe him if he did?
Ever since Thomas’s mental breakdown after the disastrous wedding, Patton and Janus had orbited around each other in a state of fragile truce. They talked now, sometimes, and those talks didn’t always end in arguments. Patton began to leave space by Thomas’s blinds when the Sides were summoned. Patton also—and by extension Thomas—occasionally actually sought Janus’s input on matters.
But Janus, well. Janus was still a liar.
The others still called him Deceit, either by accident, like Logan, or out of spite, like Virgil. Roman invented a colorful, wounding ego-jab to call him by every day, and Remus’s fond nicknames tended to double as sex jokes. Having no other real allies in the mindscape, Janus really, really didn’t want to screw up his tenuous alliance with Patton…who would probably assume Janus had stepped back into his old ways, lying just because he could, and he would make that sour, pinched face he always made when someone disappointed him, the one that made Janus want to crawl into a hole…
So.
Best to keep his observations close to the chest, for now. Why sabotage his figurative “seat at the table” over one of Remus’s stupid nightmares?
“Do you have any idea what we’re doing here?” Janus strode to the center console. True to dream logic, the controls made no sense and simultaneously, made perfect sense.
Patton shrugged; a stiff, clanky motion of his shoulders.
Janus sighed. “Remus has dragged me into dreams before, even though he generally understands the concept of consent.” He flapped a hand. “And he always leaves you ‘light sides’ alone.”
“Honestly, this doesn’t feel like a nightmare to me.” Patton clanked over to stand by the console, the irony of his words nearly making Janus choke.
“It’s too clean,” Patton added. “Roman let me glimpse Remus’s side of the Imagination once, not long after he showed himself to Thomas, and it was…” He trailed off.
“Fragmented? Chaotic? Disturbing?” Janus supplied.
“Sure, we’ll go with that.” Patton’s voice dropped. “This,” he waved a hand around, “feels more like Roman’s work.”
“I suppose you would know.” Janus ran a thoughtful thumb over his lip, continuing up to trace the ridge that ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear.
“And I would almost have to agree,” he added. “If this was a nightmare, surely something ghastly would have happened by now. But my being pulled into one of Roman’s creations makes even less sense. He literally cannot stand me.”
“Maybe this is one of those dreams Thomas has sometimes after watching a whole season of a show all at once?” Patton suggested. “When there’s enough material in short term memory that the twins don’t get much input? Did Thomas binge a season of Doctor Who yesterday or something?”
Janus bit back a smile. And to think the others still view you as stupid, or slow-witted.
“It’s a good theory, Patton, but no,” he said. “Thomas hasn’t really binged on much of anything lately.”
Patton ducked his head. “You don’t…you don’t have to keep rubbing it in every chance you get, you know.” The metallic rasp in his voice grated on Janus’s ears. “You and Logan have both made it pretty clear that I’ve been too strict with Thomas’s time.”
Janus fought to keep his expression neutral, but his stomach twisted. Damn it. Leave it to a goody two-shoes to find guilt where none was intended. Even if Janus claimed he hadn’t meant it like that, Patton would probably not believe him.
Patton tilted his metal head as he examined Janus’s face. “Did you know you have a mustache now? And a little goatee?”
“I have a what?” Janus felt at his face, his gloved fingers tugging at hair that most certainly did not belong there; with the scales, it probably looked hideous.
In fact, his entire outfit had altered in subtle ways. His usual plum tunic and trousers were now a brown suit and waistcoat ensemble, crossed with yellow pinstripes, with a black collared undershirt. A brown, knee-length suit jacket with subtle gold trimming replaced his caplet. His yellow gloves remained unchanged, thank goodness, and his hat…? His hands flew to his head and encountered something perched over his hair, sitting at an angle.
Janus yanked down a screen from the console and stared. His beloved bowler had shrunk into a tiny, flat, rakish thing with a wide brim, festooned with a cluster of yellow rosebuds and black beads.
“What on earth, Remus?” He turned his head from side to side.
Well. Honestly, pinstripes and a hatinator weren’t a terrible look.
“If we’re on a TARDIS, I guess you’re supposed to be the Doctor,” Patton pointed out. “Which would make me your companion.”
Janus frowned as he examined their surroundings in more detail. If I am a Doctor, which one am I meant to be? Whose TARDIS is this? Because while they were clearly on a TARDIS—what other class of sci-fi spaceship had a time rotor?— he was almost certain this was not the TARDIS.
Every corner of the Doctor’s ship, no matter which face it belonged to, cascaded and spun and overflowed with bright, shiny, eclectic whimsy. By contrast, this one was static, stark, with exposed metal beams and sharp angles.
Too dark, too full of shadows.
An awful suspicion rose up in his mind. He crossed to one of the bookshelves, ignoring Patton’s soft inquiry, and his jaw clenched. There was the Necronomicon, shelved between the Liber Inducens in Evangelium Aeternum and The Black Scrolls of Rassilon, Book of Vile and its Black Appendix, The Ambuehl Lores and the Insidium of Astrolabus.
Janus finally examined the sonic device he’d been clutching all this time; seeing now that it wasn’t a screwdriver at all, and thanked every god he knew that he hadn’t tried to use it on Patton earlier. It was a sonic laser.
Once again, even in a stupid, nonsensical dream, Janus had been cast as the villain.
His fist collided with the bookshelf before he even realized he was moving, books falling to the floor. He punched it again, and again, until a cool rigid hand closed around his wrist and yanked him back.
“Janus, Janus, stop!” Patton yelled in his ear.
Janus wrenched his arm away to stalk back to the console, running gloved fingers over his scales, pushing them up and smoothing them down. The familiar sensation grounded him.
“You were right, Patton,” he threw over his shoulder. “This is definitely one of Roman’s dreams, and he definitely fucking hates me.”
Patton’s heavy footsteps clattered behind him. “Language. And how do you know?” he asked. “…Doctor?”
Janus whirled; lips curled in a snarl.
“I am not the Doctor, Patton, and we are not on the TARDIS.” He spread his arms to encompass them both, gesturing to the dimly lit spaceship. “Look around. Look at me!”
He turned, and sourly eyed his mustached visage in the dark view screen. “I am, clearly, meant to be the Master.”
Chapter 4- Nightmare in Silver
“You think he knows what he’s doing?”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far.”
Patton rested his arms against the console with a sigh. Once again, someone I care about is upset, and I don’t know what to do. I guess I should be used to it by now.
It didn’t help that it was so cold in this TARDIS. He folded his arms around his middle, which felt strange and heavy, to combat the chill that seemed to have curled up deep in his bones.
Janus stalked past again, grumbling to himself. “Of course, the Prince would pull me into one of his ‘adventures’ without my consent. He probably needed an antagonist. And naturally the slippery snake would have been the first person to come to mind!”
Patton opened his mouth—even his jaw felt strange and stiff—but Janus drowned him out.
“Come on, Roman!” He threw his yellow-clad hands up. “You’ve had your fun. Yes, I’m evil, I’m the villain, I’m the bad guy, blah blah. Let’s have our epic confrontation or whatever nonsense you have planned, as I would very much like to get back to my reading tonight.”
Silence. Patton didn’t know what Janus was expecting.
“Look, maybe we should just play along for now?” Patton said aloud, wincing when Janus turned his murderous expression on him. The other had such deep, cutting golden eyes, the human iris so much darker than the snake one. Cynical eyes that were, ironically, almost impossible to lie to. They’d see right through it.
“It takes a liar to know a liar.”
The glare quickly softened to something neutral, though, which in Patton’s opinion said a lot about how far Janus had come. ‘Deceit’ had never cared to temper his anger for anyone’s sake.
“And how do you propossse we ‘play along’?” Janus did still hiss his s’s when he got frustrated.
“Well, we’ve kinda decided this is Roman’s dream, right? And since we’re in his part of the Imagination, we know he won’t let anything bad happen to us…”
Patton trailed off at Janus’s pained expression, reminded of just how badly Janus and Roman’s last encounter had gone.
“What are you, a middle school librarian?”
“Thank god you don’t have a mustache.”
And I just stood there and did nothing…Patton shook himself out of the memory. Even his emotions felt a little heavy and muted. Patton supposed he wasn’t used to being in a dreamscape; unlike Roman, who played in them all the time.
I know Roman, Patton reasoned. He might hold a grudge for a while, but he wouldn’t actually set out to hurt Janus.
Right?
“So, if we’re on a time ship, on a dream adventure leading up to a confrontation like you said,” Patton continued. “The first thing we have to do is figure out where we need to go.”
Janus pursed his lips, which made his mustache bristle, and began pushing buttons on the console.
“You are definitely incorrect, Patton.” He pulled up another screen and flipped a few switches. “If I have been cast as the villain in this ridiculous charade, that means Roman is likely prancing around on the proper TARDIS as the Doctor. And, as the Doctor’s nemesis, I should be able to contact him…ha!”
The screen burst into static.
“Doctor, oh Doctor, do you read me?” Janus crooned, and if Patton hadn’t known just how angry he was in that moment…well, he would have never known. Janus had tucked it away entirely, in half a second's time.
That’s the scary thing about him, Patton thought, feeling uneasy. He’s smart, nearly as smart as Logan. Smart enough to run circles around me, that’s for sure. And he’s easily as good an actor as Roman. Those attributes, combined with his naturally manipulative nature, made it difficult to trust him.
Patton was trying.
He’d been trying since everything that had happened since the wedding. He’d done a lot of thinking and growing that day—he still cringed when Thomas encountered even a picture of a frog —and he’d come to a disturbing, but inevitable conclusion.
Janus wasn’t evil.
He never had been…just like Virgil never had been. Virgil could be mean, sure; and sarcastic, and spiteful…but at his core, Virgil just wanted what was best for Thomas. They all did.
And as an uncomfortable corollary, Patton discovered that, despite his best efforts, despite his core Purpose…Patton wasn’t entirely and automatically good. Because two weeks ago, it had been Patton who’d inadvertently pushed Thomas to the brink of a breakdown, and Janus who had to pull them all back. Janus had proven beyond a doubt that Thomas needed him—ruthlessly, cuttingly, but no one could say he hadn’t made his point.
Despite Patton’s unease, and the little voice in his head telling him Deceit could never be trusted because it’s right there in the name, it’s in very his nature to deceive…Patton also remembered how they’d pushed Virgil so hard he decided to duck out, and how much of a tragedy that could have been if they hadn’t all intervened to bring him back.
If Virgil could learn to work with them instead of against them, so could Janus.
If Patton could learn to recognize when his own Purpose did more harm than good, so could Janus.
Patton had to believe that. He’d made too many mistakes lately to think otherwise. At least once per day, he made himself picture Thomas lying on the floor, crushed under the metaphorical weight of everything Patton needed him to do to keep from being a bad person.
He would not do that again.
“What? Logan??” Janus exclaimed, drawing Patton’s attention back to the screen as a scream echoed somewhere in the background.
“D—Janus?” Onscreen, Logan looked over his shoulder. “Roman, for the love of Archimedes, will you stop shrieking? I cannot hear.”
The screaming cut off, and Roman’s fuming face squished into the frame with Logan.
“Deceit! I should have known you would show up to ruin this!” he managed to shout before Logan shoved him away.
“Ruin…I’m sorry, what?” Janus glanced at Patton, looking honestly confused. “Is he roleplaying right now? We assumed this scenario was Roman’s creation.”
Logan placed his whole hand against Roman’s mouth to prevent him from interrupting. “It is. But to my understanding, it was only supposed to involve myself and Roman, and…wait. You said ’we’.” Logan leaned closer, as though trying to peer into Janus’s ship. “Who else is with you?”
Patton started to wave, but his view was blocked by Janus bending close to the screen to whisper something. Suspicion flared in Patton’s stomach; old, familiar, but after the talk he’d just given himself, he purposefully pushed it down.
I won’t assume he’s being shifty unless he actually gives me a reason to.
Lifting his chin, he stepped forward until he was next to Janus’s shoulder. “Logan!” he said with a bright wave.
“Ah…hello, Patton,” Logan squeaked after a moment, his eyes wide.
“Wait, Patton’s there? With the snake?” Roman’s voice yelled from the background, and Roman’s face appeared onscreen again.
“Patton?” Roman narrowed his eyes. “But why are you—?”
Both faces disappeared as Logan yanked Roman out of frame for a rapid, hushed conversation. Patton glanced at Janus, who only shrugged, looking at puzzled as Patton felt.
Roman’s face reappeared, solemn and deeply annoyed. “Patton,” he said, and hesitated. “D—Janus. You two…well, you’re not supposed to be here.”
“Very reassuring,” Janus quipped.
“This was only supposed to be a two-person adventure: Doctor plus companion. I have no idea why the Imagination brought you both in as well; I certainly didn’t tell it to.”
“Aw, that’s okay, kiddo,” Patton started gently. “It’s not your fault—”
“Oh, sweetie.” Janus folded his arms. “I’m sorry, but that’s bull. Putting me in the Master’s shoes? Are we seriously going to pretend the Side who unashamedly hates me had nothing to do with that?”
“I didn’t!” Roman’s voice went high. “You really think I wanted you here, in any capacity?”
“Deceit…er, Janus, you are being unnecessarily antagonistic, and as such, unhelpful,” Logan cut in, low and reassuring as always. “But Roman, it might behoove us to consider the role of subconscious influence. You may not have intended to pull the others in, and yet here they are.”
Roman looked at Logan, aghast, and Patton almost flinched at the raw hurt in his caramel eyes. He backed out of frame.
“So, you’re on his side, too,” his voice said quietly. “Is that how it is?”
“I am not on anyone’s side.” Logan raised his hands. “We are all currently in this situation together, and as such—”
Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off by another garbled transmission, taking over Janus’s screen with crackly, purple static. A gray, snarling face flashed out of the haze, making Patton shriek in surprise; even Janus took a step back. Then whatever it was dissolved back to static, and shrill laughter cackled over the connection.
“Hellooooo, nurse,” a familiar sing-song voice crooned. “Did you miss me?”
Chapter 5- The Long Game
“You can’t just read the guide book, you’ve got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me?”
Logan sighed. He knew that voice; they all did. Even Thomas, unfortunately.
“Remus,” Roman hissed.
The mustached Side filled the screen, grinning madly. “Boo!”
“Get out of my scenario.” Roman’s eyes flashed. “If you know what’s good for you.”
“Your scenario?” Remus echoed, faux outrage in his expression. “Yours? The Dream Palace is my domain, too, brother, whether you like it or not.” He leaned closer, letting his nostrils and a single radioactive green eye fill the screen. “Did you really think you could keep me out?”
Roman made a sound of disgust deep in his throat.
“Am I to assume, then, that you are responsible for bringing in the other Sides?” Logan was careful to keep his voice even; Remus thrived on getting a rise out of people.
“Of course, he is!” Roman threw up his hands. “He loves to ruin things, especially my things.”
“Now why would having the others here ruin anything, brother?” Remus propped his head on his hand, his voice sickly-sweet. “Unless you intended for this nighttime romp between you and Logan to be private?”
Roman sputtered and glanced at Logan, red-faced, as Remus giggled.
“It was meant to be so, yes.” Logan was unsure why Remus would find that funny, or why Roman would find it embarrassing.
“As amusing as this all is—” Janus’s crooning voice cut through the speaker.
“Great. You’re still here, snake?” Roman folded his arms around himself.
“We’re all listening, kiddo,” Patton’s metallic voice added.
Roman’s lips always curl into a pout when he is angry. Logan eyed him without turning his head. And he gets a little wrinkle between his eyebrows. Why…why am I noticing such things all of a sudden?
Maybe it was the stress, or the unfamiliar environment. Or maybe it was the Rose Tyler outfit. That skirt would to be illegal in some regressive countries…
Logan deliberately focused on the screen, his cheeks warm.
“So, this is kinda new,” Patton went on, “all of us actually talking—”
“If Remus is responsible,” Janus cut in again, “then perhaps he would be so kind as to explain the objective of this late-night group therapy session?”
Despite the biting sarcasm, Logan did appreciate Janus’s insistence that they get to the point, though talking over Patton was quite rude.
Speaking of, why would Remus have paired Patton with Janus? Surely, he should have grouped Patton with Logan and Roman, and put Virgil with Janus? Or perhaps not, given how Virgil hisses if Janus so much as enters the same room.
Ugh. Interpersonal drama. Logan was thoroughly sick of keeping track of who carried a grudge against whom, especially when it seemed to change from day to day.
And on top of that, why would Remus make Patton a Cyberman? None of these decisions make any sense…
“Right?” Roman agreed softly next to him, and Logan realized he’d said that last part out loud.
“If anything, I should have been the unfeeling killer robot,” Logan murmured.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Specs.” Roman shot him a strange look, both warm and troubled. “And frankly I don’t give a stinky rat’s ass about my stinky rat brother’s sick thought process. What I want to know is why Deceit doesn’t want us to mention it around Patton?”
Logan, whose overly literal brain had stumbled over rodents and donkeys—Roman’s wild metaphors always took some parsing—shook his head.
“There’s no logical way Patton is unaware of his condition,” Logan pointed out. “Therefore, I can only guess he wishes to protect Patton’s feelings on the matter by not allowing us to talk about it in front of him.” He shrugged when Roman’s frown deepened. “Those two have been getting along much better these last few weeks.”
“I think you’re giving the snake too much credit,” Roman muttered. “Even after he impersonated you, Logan? C’mon. It has to be something else.”
Logan bit back a sigh. He doesn’t understand. An unfamiliar emotion—guilt, he supposed—churned unpleasantly in the vicinity of his stomach. Because he doesn’t know what really happened…
#
“This is unacceptable, Deceit.” Logan flung the crook away from his body. “I was in the middle of a discussion—”
“He won’t listen to you,” Deceit had said, and Logan detected no sarcasm or snark in his tone.
“Patton asked for my opinion!”
“And he dismissed you from the conversation the moment that opinion went against his preconceived notions!” Deceit snapped back.
Silence. Logan heard the others still talking, out in the real world—without him—as the misty dregs of subconscious curled around their feet.
“You tricked him.” Logan folded his arms. “He was scared, off balance, and you gave him an out.”
“I didn’t make him take it!” Deceit pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know he is wrong on this. You know what this is doing to Thomas. His unquestioning, black-and-white, juvenile morality; it’s not working anymore. Thomas needs to grow up, and Patton is not letting him.”
Logan bit his lip.
“Logic.” Deceit moved closer, dismissing his crook into mist and setting both gloved hands on Logan’s shoulders. Logan stiffened.
“Logan. I admit, I am no good at this.” Deceit dropped his head, his hat obscuring his eyes. “I operate through deceit because that is the only way I can make them acknowledge me.”
“They don’t acknowledge you because you operate through deceit,” Logan pointed out.
“A perfect catch 22.” Deceit let out a bitter laugh. “But a snake cannot change its scales, and I…I have tried everything I know. I cannot fix this from the shadows. I am out of ideas.”
A strange thought entered Logan’s mind. “You care. You care what happens to Thomas.”
Deceit looked up, his mismatched eyes glittering with stinging intensity. “I am the literal representation of selfishness. Why the hell else would I go to all this trouble if I didn’t care?”
“Well…” Logan trailed off, troubled.
He’d let the others get to him, he realized in that moment. He’d let Roman get to him, with his talk of evil and Dark Sides, and how they were always trying to tempt Thomas off the right path. But…they were all part of Thomas, even the so-called “Dark Sides”.
Of course, they wanted what was best for him—well, what Remus wanted at any given moment was debatable—even if they didn’t always go about it in the healthiest of ways.
Deceit had laughed then, high-pitched and bitter. “Really? Really? Even you think so low of me?”
“You are manipulating me right now.” Logan frowned. “You are using my concern for Thomas to make me trust you.”
“Yes! I am!” Deceit got in his face, fangs flashing. “I am a manipulative bastard because that is the lens through which my Source perceives me. But that doesn’t matter because you, Logic; you see through me, always have. And you know perfectly well that logically, any objection you have to my personality or my methods does not change the fact that I. Am. Right.”
He punctuated each word with a poke to Logan’s chest.
“Deceit—” Logan started.
“Janus.”
“What?”
Deceit sighed. “My name. My…real name. It’s Janus.”
Logan knew the mythology, of course. Janus, keeper of doorways and thresholds, looking simultaneously to the past and future. Two faces. Seeing things from every angle. Self-preservation.
“It suits you,” Logan said quietly.
Tension bled out of Janus’s shoulders; a stiffness Logan hadn’t even realized was there until it was gone.
“Thank you.”
“Why am I here…Janus?” Logan glanced away. “What do you need from me?”
Janus looked at him intently. “Let me speak to them as you.”
Logan raised an eyebrow, and Janus sighed, waving a hand.
“I know, I know, more deceit, more lies, but—”
“No, it’s…” Logan pressed his lips together. “You already pointed it out. They don’t listen to me, either.”
The bitter twist that accompanied those words was becoming an all too familiar sensation in Logan’s chest.
Janus snorted. “Oh, they do. Eventually, once they’ve run out of excuses and nonsense, they do. They heeded your advice on how to deal with Remus.”
Logan shrugged uncomfortably.
“Look,” Janus added, “honest people know how to tell the truth, but liars…” He smirked, not especially nicely. “We know how to wield the truth to accomplish an end. I can pull Thomas and the others out of this rut, but they have to be receptive to my tugging on the reins.”
Logan pursed his lips. “You won’t fool them. If you recall, you tried to impersonate me once already and barely lasted two minutes.”
“I didn’t have your blessing.” Janus fixed Logan with his intense mismatched gaze again and held out a hand.
Logan stared at it, torn. This was Deceit, the master liar: Thomas’s entire capacity for deception condensed into a single, snake-faced Side. How could Logan possibly trust him to not make things worse, after all the falsehoods, the impersonations; how he’d manipulated them all in one way or another to get his way?
However, as much as Logan, personally, didn’t understand why that callback had been so important to Thomas, he could not dismiss the fallout Thomas had suffered as a result of missing it. The decision to attend the wedding had turned out to be a bad one. Patton had been wrong to insist upon it over Janus’s objections, and over Roman’s.
Those were simply the facts.
Janus sighed. “I’ll unmask when an opportunity arises, if that would help.” To Logan’s shock, he slowly tugged off a glove. “I won’t…I won’t let it go on as long as it did with Patton.”
He offered his now bare hand.
Out in the real world, Logan heard Patton’s increasingly desperate, ridiculous responses to Thomas’s and Roman’s questions and winced. Janus did the same.
“Please,” was all he said.
Logan sighed—it really couldn’t get any worse, could it? — and shook Janus’s hand.
#
In his TARDIS, Logan let out the sigh he’d been holding back.
He might have personal, concrete evidence that Janus wasn’t evil, but Janus had also wounded Roman, badly, that day. As a result, Roman was simply incapable of viewing any situation involving Janus with any sort of objectivity. Passionate, sensitive people like Roman had an unfortunate habit of hanging onto grudges.
As Logic, Logan needed to remember that.
“Oh, all right.” Remus’s voice crackled over the connection. “Since you’re all here—”
“Actually, we’re not all here,” Patton’s voice pointed out. “You all know perfectly well who we’re missing; we’ve done this before.”
Logan’s eyes widened. “‘Where is Anxiety?’” he quoted.
“You mean Tickle Me Emo isn’t with one of you?” Remus looked delighted. “Oh dear, oh dear. Is he lost?”
“I mean, TARDISes are huge,” Roman pointed out. “He could be somewhere on one of our ships.” His voice dropped again. “I’ll bet Deceit stashed him away; we all know how he hates Virgil.”
“Excuse you,” Janus’s annoyed voice interrupted. “It is Virgil who hates me, not the other way around.”
“Let’s both scan our ships,” Logan suggested, hoping to head off an argument. Honestly, if Roman and Janus didn’t stop picking fights with one another, he was going to lose his marbles.
The scans pulled up nothing.
“Oh well.” Remus shrugged. “Guess the emo gets to miss out.”
Janus grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “lucky”.
“All right, here’s what’s going to happen.” Remus leaned close to the screen. “I’ve crash landed on a lovely snowbound planet that’s crawling with psychotic tin cans who like to roll around yelling ‘exterminate’.”
“Daleks? And a snowbound planet, so not Skarro, but where else…” Logan narrowed his eyes.
“He’s on the Dalek asylum,” Roman said lowly. “That was one of the episodes I had in mind when I plotted this adventure.”
“Very good, brother.” Remus clapped his hands. “And up there in orbit is a ship full of people who’d really like to blow up the whole planet. Oh, woe is me, whatever shall I—”
“Save it,” Roman snapped. “You’d probably enjoy getting blown up.”
“Hmm, true.” Remus’s green eyes sharpened. “Think of the mess! Little bits of intestines floating through space; long pink ropey—”
“Or?” Logan interjected before Remus gave Patton nightmares.
“Or you get to come rescue me!” Remus’s teeth flashed as he grinned. “Because otherwise it’s nighty-night for me and all the other aliens in the asylum.”
A beat of silence passed.
“As terrible as that sounds,” Janus drawled, sounding anything but worried. “Given that none of this is real, and at least one of us would very much rather not be here at all, why exactly should your plight concern us?”
Logan secretly agreed, but Roman’s troubled face made his heart do a worried little flip. None of this was real, right? Would something concretely bad happen to Remus if the planet he inhabited was blown up? Surely not. This was only a dream.
Perhaps, then, Roman was merely upset that his twin had usurped his adventure for the night?
“Also.” Remus buffed his fingernails. “You should know that the Imagination will only release us once we complete the objective. In other words”—his eyebrows wagged, the garish purple eyeshadow glittering— “we’re all stuck in this scenario until we’re all reunited.”
Remus giggled as Logan exchanged a shocked look with Roman.
“I don’t believe you. This is my dream,” Roman said darkly. “And I’ve just about had enough of all this!”
He stepped back and snapped his fingers with a flourish. Frowning, he did it again, and again, his face growing paler with each try.
“Roman, what—” Logan started.
“I can’t end it.” Roman snapped a few more times. “He’s right. He’s…he’s sealed off the dream’s boundaries somehow. Remus!” This he roared at the screen. “Keeping Thomas trapped in a dream state is going too far! I don’t care what kind of demented game you want to play with us, but we don’t bring Thomas into it.”
“Oh, you think I created an unbreakable dreamscape?” Remus snapped. “You let the Imagination have too much reign, my dear brother, and now neither of us have the power to end this dream ourselves. I estimate we have about ten hours before Thomas wakes up.”
For a moment, all Logan heard was the soft whoosh of the time rotor and Roman’s shallow, angry breathing at his shoulder.
“So, I suggest you all pilot your ships to these coordinates,” Remus added as a series of numbers and strange symbols flashed up on a smaller console screen. “And get started.”
The main screen blipped; Remus’s face was replaced by an expressionless Cyberman and a snake-faced Side who looked extremely pale under his scales.
“Well,” Logan stated. “This is a problem.”
Chapter 6- Asylum of the Daleks
“You’re going to fire me at a planet? That’s your plan? I get fired at a planet and expected to fix it?”
“In fairness, that is slightly your M.O.”
“Don’t be fair to the Daleks when they’re firing me at a planet.”
The TARDIS’s familiar materialization wheeze rang in Roman’s ears as he waited by the doors. The ship thudded to a halt, and Logan joined him at the threshold.
“Ready?” He smoothed a hand over his cravat.
Logan looks good as the Doctor. Roman eyed the slimming black and navy, the graceful arc that hand made as it adjusted a pair of glasses…
He shook himself out of his distraction when he saw that Logan was waiting for an answer. “Let’s do this, nerd.”
The two stepped out, not onto the asylum, but onto a spaceship. Shiny copper terraces lined the vast walls in curving rows, leading the eye to a domed ceiling with a stunning view of black, star-studded space. Like a huge amphitheater or stadium. Even Roman had to admit, the Imagination had really outdone itself on the realism.
Of course, given that the ship was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of Daleks calling for violence, realism wasn’t exactly comforting at the moment.
“Surprise, surprise, I don’t see my stupid brother,” Roman commented over the crowd’s dull roar.
“No. But I recognize where we are.” Logan waved a hand. “I think you were right about Remus’s location; this ship is from the episode ‘Asylum of the Daleks’, in Season 7. If we are following the basic plotline, Remus is likely somewhere down on the planet below, and we will be sent to him in due course. However, I am curious as to why all the non-Dalek aliens are here.”
Roman looked around again, seeing that Logan was right. Daleks formed most of the crowd, but he also spotted Zygons, Sontarans, Silurians, other Cybermen, Ice Warriors, and quite a few aliens from older seasons he couldn’t remember the names of—though Logan probably could.
A second TARDIS materialized near their familiar blue box, plain and gray; a squat column of a ship. Janus emerged first, something silver gripped in one gloved hand, followed by an old-school Cyberman…Patton. Roman frowned. Seeing that metal…being…and having to remember it was actually his dear friend without blurting out said fact was going to be difficult.
“Nice work, Roman.” Janus sidled up and faux-clapped his hands. “A ship full of aliens who want us dead; always an excellent starting point for an adventure.”
“This is how the episode starts, Mr. Oh-I’m-Such-an-Expert-in-Doctor-Who,” Roman retorted. “Accuracy is important.”
“But this isn’t accurate,” Logan pointed out. “There should only be Daleks here.”
Roman folded his arms, stung. “I…well, I didn’t model this adventure after just one particular episode,” he admitted. “I wanted it to be a challenge, and it wouldn’t be if Logan and I already knew the ending. So no, I can’t exactly explain why all the other aliens are here, okay?”
Damn you and your damned need to be right all the time.
Logan sighed. “I was not criticizing you,” he said in a gentler voice. “As this has apparently become as much Remus’s and the Imagination’s handiwork as it is yours, it would be unreasonable to expect you to know what comes next.”
“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL APPROACH THE SUPREME DALEK.”
A grating robotic voice boomed across the ship, making them all whip around to face a large white Dalek with an antenna on its shell, looming on a raised stage near the center of the amphitheater.
“They expected me, too?” Janus raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”
The lights on the Dalek’s head flashed as it spoke again. “THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL APPROACH WITH THEIR COMPANIONS.”
The four Sides exchanged a glance and weaved through the assembled Daleks to the raised stage. The White Supreme Dalek was not the only occupant; it was flanked by an Ice Warrior, an Emojibot—which made Patton giggle— and…
“Look, a Janus.” Roman nudged the snake-faced Side in the ribs and pointed out the two-faced alien.
“You are all nerds, and my logo is a two-headed snake.” Janus rolled his eyes. “I literally do not know how all of you missed that obvious clue to my name.”
“DOCTOR,” the White Dalek said as they climbed the dais. “MASTER. WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THE DALEK ASYLUM?”
“I’m just impressed my rat-faced brother wasn’t lying about his location,” Roman grumbled, sputtering when Logan placed a hand over his mouth.
“According to legend,” Logan said, “you have a dumping ground, a planet where you lock up all the Daleks that go wrong.”
“The battle-scarred, the insane. The ones even you can’t control,” Janus clarified. His voice dropped to a hiss. “No wonder they ssstuck Remus there.”
Roman covered his mouth to hold back a snort. The snake would not make him laugh.
“CORRECT.” The Dalek pushed a button, which opened a hole in the middle of the floor. A snow-covered planet lay below them, pristine from this high up.
“Ooh, that’s…” Patton let out a metallic gulp. “That’s quite a drop. Do we, ah, have to go down the same way? Cause I remember that part, and—”
“How many Daleks are down there?” Logan asked.
“A COUNT HAS NOT BEEN MADE,” the white Dalek said.
“Millions, certainly,” a new voice chimed in. The tall, robed, dark-skinned Janus stepped forward, their front face addressing them. “But they will not be your only concern. The population of the planet consists of more than just Daleks.”
Roman exchanged a suspicious glance with Logan. This wasn’t in the episode. This is new.
“What do you mean?” Janus, their Janus, asked.
The alien Janus turned to a nearby monitor, pulling up some information. The backward-facing face continued to address them.
“Some time ago, the Daleks noticed a curious phenomenon,” they said. “Random people, from all different races and species, began turning up on various planets in this quadrant of space, including the asylum. No ships, no technology, and no knowledge of how they’d gotten there. At first the imprisoned Daleks on the asylum simply killed them off as they appeared—”
Patton visibly winced, even with his metal body, and Logan’s eyes grew flinty.
“—but the new arrivals eventually became too many to exterminate,” the alien Janus went on, unconcerned. “By now, we suspect the planet has a population of over a billion, far too many for its automated systems to properly support.”
They turned their forward face to the four again.
“THE ASYLUM IS COMPROMISED,” the Dalek Supreme proclaimed. “IT MUST BE CLEANSED.”
“Hang on, you’re still going to blow the whole planet up?” Roman protested. “A billion people?”
“To be fair, that is what they did in the original episode,” Logan pointed out quietly.
“But that was just Daleks!”
Janus rolled his eyes. “So, genocide is fine when it’s only the evil aliens getting blown up?”
“You know, somehow I’m not surprised to hear you defending the bad guys!” Roman retorted.
“That is enough!” Patton snapped in his robotic voice, stepping between them and raising both his hands. Laser pistols popped out of both of them, making both Roman and Janus step back in alarm. After a tense moment, Patton lowered his arms again; the guns clicked and vanished into their casings.
“Uh, sorry kiddos, I don’t know what came over me,” he said in a sheepish, more Patton-y voice. “Can we please not fight? It…it kinda makes me feel weird and jittery when you do.”
Roman stared at Patton’s blank Cyberman face and armored Cyberman body, and he swallowed hard. Their Patton would never deliberately aim a gun at anyone, let alone his family. But Cybermen were created to eliminate—or rather, delete—anyone who got in their way.
Did Patton even realize what he’d almost done?
What would happen, if and when he was forced to confront the reality of his body in this realm? What if he accidentally did something terrible? It wouldn’t be real, of course, but to Patton, that wouldn’t matter. If his Cyberman programming forced or tricked him into hurting someone, the guilt of it would devastate him.
All I wanted to do was take Logan on an adventure, Roman thought bitterly. A fun little dream adventure where he could play one of his heroes. Was that too much to ask, Imagination? He folded his arms and glared around the Dalek ship, anywhere but at his fellow Sides. Whatever the hell this has turned into, I want no part of it anymore.
“In order for us to destroy the planet, we will need you to disable the planet’s forcefield—” The alien Janus started, but Logan held up a finger.
“Excuse you,” he said sharply. “We have not agreed to do anything, least of all help you murder a billion people whose only crime is to have accidentally turned up in your prison. Have you even attempted to solve that mystery?"
"And why do you care what happens down there?" Roman sneered. "If the insane Daleks are armed—”
“DALEKS ARE ALWAYS ARMED,” the white Dalek proclaimed.
“—then why can’t they defend themselves?” Logan finished, shooting Roman a look.
Roman huffed and turned away.
“At first, they did,” the Janus explained. “But as I said, the automated systems cannot keep up with the influx. Wars are being fought over food and other resources as we speak. A starliner crashed on the surface mere days ago, and—”
“Ah,” Logan said slowly. “You're afraid, because now there is a ship within their grasp. With all the shifting alliances, the mad Daleks could find it and escape in the confusion.”
“We do not know who or what is behind the influx,” the Janus said. “But eventually, they will start coming with other ships, or build them on the surface, or they will figure out how to reach out to those who could attempt a rescue.”
“‘If sssomeone can get in, everything can get out’,” their Janus quoted darkly.
The other Janus nodded. “Even the Daleks agree, their mad brethren cannot be allowed to escape. We, of this assembly—”
They waved to the assembled crowd of aliens, who observed in eerie silence.
“—have decided that one planet must be sacrificed for the greater good of the universe.”
Roman slowly and deliberately drew his sword, which the Imagination had kindly left as part of his outfit. It rasped as it emerged, the sound hair-raising in the lull.
“And if we refuse?” he said evenly.
Instantly, every Dalek gunstick and alien weapon on the ship powered up and pointed at the four Sides.
“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL COOPERATE.” The Supreme Dalek’s lights flashed balefully.
“COOPERATE! COOPERATE!” The other Daleks echoed the cry, filling the ship with a cacophony of robot voices.
The alien Janus shrugged, spreading their hands. “You don’t really have a choice. If you want to live, that is.”
“Is that so.”
Roman sprang at the white Dalek, not giving himself time to think. He dodged a blast from its gunstick and leaped, bringing his sword down hard. This being the Imagination, the katana cut through the Dalek’s metal armor like butter, and it clattered to the deck in two pieces.
A shocked silence fell, but no retaliation followed.
“Well?” Roman spread his arms and turned in a slow circle. “This is me, not cooperating. What are you waiting for? Are you really going to shoot us?”
If they all died on this spaceship, the worst that would happen is they’d be kicked from the Imagination…and that was what they wanted, anyway.
“Roman,” Logan warned, pointing.
Roman looked. The white Dalek’s shell was…laughing?
“Oh, Roman,” Remus’s crackly voice emerged from the fallen Dalek’s casing. “Roman, Roman, Roman. My poor brave brother who thinks he can solve all his problems with steel and bravado. Did you really think it would be that easy?”
Each word rubbed like sandpaper against Roman’s ears. He stalked to the Dalek’s top half, snatching it up and quickly locating a tiny speaker.
“C’mon, Remus. End this stupid charade.” He held the casing to his face so he could speak quietly. “You’ve had your fun at my expense. Go back to your pile of severed limbs and gloat if you must, but end this. For Patton’s sake, if nothing else.”
“I’ve already told you, it’s out of my hands,” Remus responded; typically, annoyingly casual. “If you want to end the game, you have to come down here and find me.”
Roman exhaled, resting his head against the cold, bumpy metal for a moment. His eyes burned, but he was a Prince; he wouldn’t cry, not here. “Why must you make everything difficult?”
“Roman, in all seriousness,” Remus’s voice dropped. “I didn’t know you were taking Logan on a date tonight—”
“It’s not a date.” Roman glanced at the other Sides…one in particular.
“The Imagination brought me into this without asking, just like it pulled the others in,” Remus went on. “I am aware of what has to happen, but I did not cause this.”
“You’re lying,” Roman said tonelessly.
Remus’s whiny voice grew hard. “I don’t lie, and you despise that about me. You hide so much shit from yourself that it baffles you when I refuse to do the same.”
“Look,” Remus added when Roman didn’t respond. “The Imagination is clearly trying to get our attention. Sure, it usually goes through one of us first, but it doesn’t have to. When it comes down to it, Thomas’s mind answers only to Thomas.”
“How are you so sure?” Roman frowned. Was Remus seriously suggesting the Imagination they both oversaw had gone rogue somehow?
“Because I don’t curate my side as meticulously as you do, brother.” Remus chuckled. “I listen. I let the Imagination do as she pleases, free from all those pesky ethics and morals and other boring boxes you force her into, so that our sweet, sweet Thomas doesn’t fear the contents of his own head.”
“You expect me to believe that you know what’s going on.” Roman let every ounce of disdain seep into his voice. “Because the Imagination talks to you, and not to me? Because you don’t make her behave?”
“You should try letting her loose sometimes,” Remus drawled, “or you’ll end up with a cane up your butt like Nerdy Wolverine over there.”
“Don’t call him that,” Roman spat.
“What you so-called ‘Light Sides’ always get wrong,” Remus went on, “is that the juicy stuff, the gruesome and grim, the ‘bad’ thoughts that filter up from the subconscious; they can’t all be locked away and ignored.” His voice dropped ominously. “Repression can be very bad indeed, you know.”
Roman’s reasonable nature knew that his brother, despite his infuriating attitude, was making some good points. Thomas had been dealing with a lot lately; the tension in the mindspace felt like a ticking clock, counting down to the next disaster. But at that moment, Roman had no desire to humor his twin. All he wanted to do was lock himself into his own room in the Dream Palace and spend the rest of the night writing sad poetry about love, or maybe listing his mistakes to himself until he fell asleep.
“I just wanted to show Logan a good time,” he said aloud.
“And oh dear, apparently you couldn’t even manage that correctly,” Remus said, implacably. “So maybe you should use this opportunity to get your head out of your poopy ass and reevaluate yourself.”
Roman slammed the Dalek shell against the floor. It cracked upon impact, the wiring inside sparking and flickering down to darkness. He ran his hands through his hair, reminded, once again, why he hated talking to his brother.
Like looking in a funhouse mirror…
“Roman…” Patton sidled up to lay a cold hand on his back. Roman shoved the metal arm away and stalked back to the others.
“Let’s just get this done,” he said in a low voice.
“You will need these.” The alien Janus pushed a button on a nearby console. A translucent vertical tube rose from a gap in the floor, holding three bulky black bracelets.
“Ah yes, I remember this.” Logan strode forward to take one.
“The bracelets will prevent—” the Janus started.
“The nano cloud from converting us into Dalek puppets, yes?” Logan snapped it onto his wrist and handed another to Roman.
The nerd is getting into this. Roman couldn’t help a small smile as he put his on. I guess that’s something.
“The cloud is only active in certain areas of the asylum,” the Janus warned them again. “And those change as different factions seize control of different areas and weaponize them.”
Patton hesitantly raised a hand. “Um, Mx. Alien, I can’t help but notice that there are only three bracelets, and four of us?”
Logan frowned. “But, Patton, why would you—?”
“I’m sure it’s because I’m part snake, Patton.” Janus swooped in to grab the last bracelet and snapped it onto Patton’s metal arm.
Roman exchanged a knowing look with Logan. That was the last bit of confirmation he needed; Patton really was unaware that he was a Cyberman. But why on earth would Janus go to such lengths to keep him in the dark about it? Even leaving aside the fact that Patton was a walking weapon; being a machine, he didn’t need protection from the nano cloud at all. Whereas Janus—half snake or not—probably did.
But when Roman opened his mouth, Janus shot him a fierce look, full of daggers and promises of pain. Typical Deceit. Protecting his lies. At least Patton would be twice protected. If the snake wanted to risk his life for a lie, let him. Roman rolled his eyes and mentally washed his hands of the situation.
“The gravity beam will convey you close to the crashed starliner,” the alien Janus said, and then Dalek blasters were being shoved into their backs, propelling them toward the hole in the floor.
“Oi,” Roman protested, “get your freaky little eggbeater appendages away from me, you AAAAHHHH!”
And they fell.
Chapter 7- Oxygen
“Look at this. Classic design. Pressure seals. Hinges. None of that ‘shuk shuk’ nonsense.”
“Space doors are supposed to go shuk shuk.”
“Are you gonna be like this all day?”
Janus was done.
He sat up with a groan, irritably brushed snow from his jacket and vest, made sure his hat and gloves were still in place. Everything ached. Bad enough he never wanted to be part of this stupid dream adventure in the first place; now he’d been spat out of a spaceship and was probably going to turn into a literal Dalek.
All because the Imagination is being a dick, and Patton doesn’t know he’s a killer robot.
Wind gusted around him, making Janus glad that the Master, like the Doctor, tended to prefer long sleeves and an overcoat. He stood and turned in a slow circle as he took in the lay of the land. Snow, rocks, emptiness; true to the episode, still.
The gravity beam had split into four as it hurled them at the planet, but Janus was reasonably sure at least one of the others had landed nearby. He hoped it was Patton. Not because he was concerned or anything. It was just that either of the others would be absolutely insufferable company, that’s all.
“Janus!” a metallic voice called, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
Patton’s Cyberman body clattered awkwardly down a nearby snowbank, sliding the last few feet to land in a heap.
“It is all kinds of chilly down here.” Patton stood and waved rather nonsensically. “Hullo there, Janus, so ice to see you.”
Janus rolled his eyes, and he would deny to his dying day that the corner of his mouth twitched at the ridiculous pun.
“Since this part of the scenario appears consistent with its source material.” He gestured to the closest ridge. “There should be an escape pod from that crashed ship nearby. Come on.”
He set off across the snow, Patton clanking along in his wake.
“Say,…” Patton drawled. “What do snowmen call their offspring?”
Janus exhaled carefully. Hoo, boy, maybe Logan wouldn’t have been so bad…
“I haven’t the faintest.”
“Chill-dren!” Patton chortled at Janus’s grimace. “What did one snowman say to another?”
“Saint Genesius spare me.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “What, pray tell, did one snowman say to another?”
“‘Do you smell carrots?’”
A snort, quickly muffed, emanated from Janus’s throat. He covered his mouth.
“You smiled,” Patton crooned.
“I most certainly did not.”
“Okay, okay, one more.” Patton scurried ahead and turned to walk backwards. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” Janus said flatly.
“Snow.” Patton hooked his thumbs into the metal rim at waist, like one might on a pair of pants. Janus looked away.
“Snow who?”
“Snow laughing matter, Janus, I don’t know why you’re smiling.”
Janus snorted for real before he could hide it and cleared his throat. “I am not smiling, how dare you.”
“That’s twice now!” Patton cackled, the sound coming out all distorted. “Admit it.”
“I refuse.” Janus drew himself up. “You won’t make a liar out of….”
Liar.
The joke didn’t merely fall flat; it practically crashed and burned in the snow. Patton’s metal shoulders stiffed, and he turned his expressionless face away. Janus cringed.
Too soon.
Liar.
Too much history between them.
Besides, you are a liar, his mind whispered. Lies of omission are still lies, Deceit, and you’re doing that right now. Janus gritted his teeth, mentally told the voice to shut up, and kept walking.
They topped a ridge; the expected escape pod lay half-buried near another ridge, across a flat stretch of snow. The two glanced at each other, briefly, and continued their journey in silence. Patton seemed disinclined to continue his little pun war.
Janus badly wanted to say he hadn’t minded the punning, but truthfully, keeping silent was easier. Patton’s baffling ignorance over the state of his own “flesh” grated on Janus’s conscience. He knew the longer he kept it secret, the worse the fallout would be when Patton finally learned the truth. The urge to come clean was unfamiliar and extremely uncomfortable for him.
Ironic. The so-called master liar, conflicted about a lie.
The old him would have laughed, but…the old him hadn’t heard the sincerity in Patton’s voice when he’d spoken Janus’s actual name aloud for the first time. The old him assumed Thomas would continue to reject him, forever, because of Patton. But that day, with Janus still smarting from the sting of Roman’s mockery, Patton had said his name and trusted him to take care of Thomas in his stead.
The memory still made Janus’s scales tingle and his heart beat a little sideways. The new him…this him…couldn’t find it in his small, shriveled, but very much present heart to risk pushing Patton away.
They reached the pod. Muffled shouts and the high-pitched whine of blaster fire filtered up from inside, making them exchange another glance.
Janus set a hand on the ice-crusted latch. “Remember, we’ll have to fight our way through a bunch of dead Dalek puppets.”
“That’s a lot of noise for just a few puppets.” No frost puffed from Patton’s small, rectangular mouth as he spoke, a fact Janus wished he hadn’t noticed. “Canonically, they shouldn’t even be awake yet.”
“I know, and that is strange,” Janus agreed. “Maybe Logan or Roman got here before us and stirred them up. But we won’t know exactly what to expect until we get down there.”
He pushed the latch, popped his head in, and witnessed a scene of utter chaos.
Six or seven human-Dalek puppets, with stalks sticking out of their heads and blasters sticking out of their hands, exchanged gunstick and blaster fire with a horde of robotic humanoids that looked like they came from the Fourth Doctor’s era, if Janus remembered correctly. Round, bulky shoulders, and faces that looked like sunbursts. Both puppets and robots utilized the seats as cover, laser bolts zinging back and forth, exploding against the walls in little showers of sparks. Janus and Patton would be directly in the blast zone when they jumped down, a little closer to the robot side.
“Well, someone definitely got here before us,” Janus muttered, though he didn’t see any either of the other Sides.
He withdrew his head and studied Patton. With his metal body he’d be in far less danger, and those guns in his arms would be useful in this situation. But telling Patton he was a walking weapon, now, would definitely not go over well.
“The hatch down into the asylum should be in the cockpit of this thing,” he informed Patton. “There’s a lot of blaster fire, though, so—”
“—don’t get cold feet and hesitate?” Patton finished.
Something in Janus’s heart twisted, something he didn’t dare examine too closely.
“Say, Patton.” His gaze flitted away.
“Yes?”
“What did the hat say to the scarf?”
Patton turned his black Cyberman eyes on Janus. “What?”
“‘You hang around, and I’ll go a-head’.” Janus let a smirk curl his lips.
Patton was silent for a moment, but then he began to giggle, covering his mouth.
Janus pulled out his sonic laser, dropped into the pod with a swing of his legs, and caught one of the robots in its chest. It fell with a screech, careening into another of its kind, but by then Janus had gained his feet and ducked behind a seat. Patton clattered down behind, with less grace and far more noise…
…and a random Tivolian tumbled in directly after him.
Janus blinked; where the hell did they come from?
Patton caught the rodent-faced alien with a startled shout, immediately dropping them again when they screamed and struggled. The Tivolian tumbled across the pod’s floor, only making it a few feet before getting cut down with blaster bolts. Patton cried out; Janus caught him by his head handles before he could leap out and draw more hostile fire.
“It’s too late!” he shouted over the noise.
“I should have hung on!” Patton, if he’d had a proper face, would probably be in tears. He hated death. “I don’t know why they were so scared of me!”
Janus could answer that…
“I’m more curious about where they came from,” he said instead. “They surely weren’t up on the surface with us. It’s like they just teleported in, but Tivolians don’t teleport. They don’t have the technology—”
A blaster bolt exploded across the top of their hiding place, showering them in sparks and forcing them both to duck.
“Janus!” Patton snapped. “We need to get out of here!”
“Right.” Janus brandished his sonic. “We’ll just have to run for it.”
He leaped out, activating his weapon, and discovered that a sonic laser had a very satisfying range and kickback. Forget the Doctor’s screwdriver. He zapped a Dalek puppet aside and ducked another laser bolt. I wonder if the Imagination will let me keep this…
A cold, dead hand seized the collar of his jacket, yanking him back.
Then there was a yell, a clatter, and Janus turned in time to see Patton blast a puppet with a fire extinguisher. He chuckled metallically at Janus’s shocked expression.
“I’ve seen this episode too, you know,” he pointed out.
Janus huffed. The two dodged and fought their way to the cockpit; Janus used his laser to seal the hatch behind them. For a moment they slumped, backs pressed against the door, catching their breath.
Well, Janus caught his. Did Patton even breathe, in that form?
“Unauthorized personnel may not enter the cockpit.” Remus’s high-pitched voice warbled over the speaker system. “Unless it’s an actual pit full of cocks, in which case, where’s my invitation?”
Janus was going to need something much stronger than tea once they finally got out of this mess.
“Remus, for god’s sake,” he grumbled.
“God has nothing to do with my cock, but if that’s how you want to roll…” One of the cockpit screens flickered to life, showing Remus in all his ruffly, sparkly, mustached glory. Clara’s warm, messy cove sprawled out behind him, reds and yellows clashing horribly with the green of his sash.
Janus moved so that his chest and shoulders blocked the screen, to prevent Remus from catching sight of Patton. If Remus saw Patton as a Cyberman, Janus would never be able to convince him to keep his mouth shut.
“All right, where do we find you?” Janus said. “And where did the others land? Not to mention our dear missing ball of anxiety.” He leaned forward, putting on his trademark smirk. “Come on, Re. You must know more than you let on before. One Other to another, you can tell me.”
“Aww, Jan Jan,” Remus crooned. “You care.”
“I most certainly do not!” Janus cleared his throat. “Patton was worried about, uh, Virgil, that’s all.”
“I was?” Patton asked from the other side of the space. “I mean, of course I am, but—”
“But surely you can at least tell us why this scenario isn’t playing out quite like the episode it comes from,” Janus interjected. He didn’t want Remus to notice the metallic quality of Patton’s voice.
“Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve already told you everything I know.” Remus shrugged. “Roman really did give the Imagination too much freedom.”
Janus frowned. “Then how do you know the scenario will end when we find you?”
“I actually don’t! Isn’t it great?” Remus clapped his hands. “I love stories where anything could happen. We could all get vaporized, or have our flesh eaten by—”
“Remus, focus.” Janus flapped a hand at the screen. “So, given what we know of this particular episode, you’re assuming that our main tasks are to come get you, and to drop the forcefield on the planet so the Daleks can blow it up?”
“That’s the idea, Double Dee!”
Behind him, Janus heard Patton make a choked noise, and grimaced.
“By the way, Roman and Logan are already inside the asylum.” Remus let his nostrils dominate the screen again. “So, if you want to catch up, you’d better scute those scaly asscheeks along. Check the floor for a breach; that will be your way out. A breach, ha! Like a butth—”
Janus pointed his laser and fired at Remus’s face, cutting the transmission and sending sparks flying all over the cockpit. In the resulting awkward silence, he turned to face Patton, who of course wore no visible expression. This, and all the reasons for it, annoyed him further.
“I swear if you ask one question about scutes or scales.” He held up a warning finger.
“I wasn’t…going to.” Patton held up his hands. “Logan kind of taught us how to tune out the more, er, naughty things Remus says. But I am wondering,” he added hesitantly. “Are you…feeling okay?”
“Fabulous. Peachy.” Janus knelt to feel around on the floor. “Fantastic, allons-y, geronimo, what have you.”
“It’s just, you seem a little angry,” Patton went on. “And you remember, that’s, that’s the first step in being converted. Maybe you should wear the bracelet for a while? We could trade on and off.”
Patton’s fingers went to his wrist, but Janus stopped him with a gloved hand on top. Tell him, an inner voice whispered. Tell him now, before this gets any more awkward.
“That’s sweet of you, but no, I’m merely frustrated with this whole sssituation,” Janus admitted. “I would very much like to get out of here, so I can return to my pleasant evening.”
Patton joined him on the floor. Together they found a hole with a rope ladder hanging down.
“Hey, Janus,” Patton murmured, as they were about to start the long climb down. “Can I ask you something?”
“Why do I have a feeling you’re going to ask no matter what I say?” Janus said wryly.
“Do you remember when that puppet attacked you in the main part of the ship, and I fought it off with the fire extinguisher?” Patton ducked his head.
Janus raised an eyebrow.
“They hesitated, when they saw me.” Patton’s unnaturally black eyes met Janus’s. “That’s why I had time to grab the extinguisher.”
Janus’s heart started to pound. “Well, I’m sure they aren’t used to anyone fighting back—”
“No, they hesitated like…like I scared them or something,” Patton pressed. “It was weird, Janus. Please. If you know something…if there’s something you need to tell me…you know you can.”
Janus’s mouth compressed into a flat line, and he looked away, bitterness welling up inside.
“Can I, Patton?” He held up a gloved hand; a yellow indictment of everything he was. “Can I really?”
Patton sighed, long and deep. “Touché.”
Chapter 8- Extremis
“Something’s coming. And I’m blind. How can I see them when I’m lost in the dark?”
Logan awoke to someone shaking him.
He opened his eyes to an expanse of blurry blobs, color splotches, and Roman’s sharp, frantic face very close to his. His eyes have amber flecks, his brain noted inanely. But why is he clear when nothing else is…?
Roman threw his head back and exhaled in obvious relief when Logan groaned, blinking rapidly to clear his vision.
“Singing chimeras, Specs, I was starting to worry.”
Logan sat up and touched his bare face. Ah, there’s the problem. “Where are my glasses?”
Roman said nothing.
Logan leaned closer, squinting. Bad eyesight was such an annoyance. If only Thomas’s developing brain hadn’t decided early on that “smart and logical” also meant “stereotypically nerdy” and pigeonholed his own sense of Logic into requiring corrective eyewear.
“Roman?” Logan tried again.
“Um. About that.” Slightly Blurry Roman bit his lip and produced a smashed set of familiar frames. Logan’s stomach sank as he examined them; the lenses were shattered beyond repair.
“I found them next to you like that, when I woke up,” Roman explained. “I’ve been trying to summon another pair, but for some reason the Imagination won’t let me!”
Logan pushed down a growing sense of dread that he’d have to navigate the rest of this adventure half-blind. “We did fall down a rather deep hole. My glasses getting broken is obviously not your fault. But what do you mean, the Imagination isn’t letting you?”
“I mean it’s not letting me!” Roman threw up his hands. “I could summon things on the TARDIS just fine, but now…” He sighed. “I am Creativity, right?”
Logan tilted his head and frowned. “Is that…Roman, that is a nonsensical question. Of course, you are.”
“So, summoning a tiny object in my own dream scenario should be easy.” Roman hung his head.
“How long have you been trying?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe?” Roman shrugged, still not looking at him. “All that time, and yet still I fail.”
Logan resisted the urge to point out that twenty minutes should be long enough to realize a thing might be outside of one’s control and to start brainstorming other options. Stubborn fool.
“Maybe it’s just as well we picked the wedding over the callback.” A darkly uncharacteristic glower twisted Roman’s face. “When Thomas’s Creativity apparently can’t even control his own dreams.”
Oh…this isn’t about glasses at all, is it? Logan swallowed around an achy sensation in his chest; one he always got when something was wrong, and Roman made that face, and he just needed to fix it.
Native English speakers have a passive vocabulary of around forty thousand words. So why, in situations like this, am I constantly struggling to find the right thing to say?
The resigned set to Roman’s jaw prompted Logan to try anyway.
“Your inability to summon things may not be your doing.” Logan laid a hand on Roman’s knee. “Perhaps the Imagination is attempting to impose a sense of realism on this adventure.”
“Realism,” Roman echoed flatly. “In Doctor Who.”
He had a point. “Well. You must admit that summoning objects out of thin air does defy even time-traveling alien logic,” Logan pointed out.
Roman’s face twitched in the tiniest of smiles. “So why did it work before, Teach?”
“Maybe it only worked on the TARDIS because the ship already defies every known rule of physics.” Logan shrugged. “I admit I cannot possibly intuit the inner workings of the Imagination; I can only theorize from what I have observed thus far.”
Roman chuckled softly and bumped Logan’s shoulder. “Aww, Nerd, I’m touched. You’re trying to logic me into feeling better.”
“Is it working?” Logan asked.
“Kind of?” An unreadable expression flitted over Roman’s face. “At least one of us is still grounded in reality.”
“Where else could one possibly be grounded?”
Roman laughed outright at this. “Oh, Logan. Never change, okay?”
He stood and pulled Logan to his feet as well.
“Where are we?” Logan squinted around.
He could tell they were in some large, open space, all blacks and browns and dull grays. Blurry domes of copper hunched on the floor, scattered amongst what could be bits of fallen scaffolding or machinery.
Logan was also hyperaware of Roman’s warm arm pressed against his, and his own hand clasped tightly within the Prince’s larger grip. With everything else blurry, physical sensations were all the more distracting.
“Don’t panic, okay?” Roman started.
Logan scoffed.
“You are fortunate that I am not Virgil,” he commented wryly. “Starting a sentence like that would almost certainly have caused him to panic.”
“Well, it’s just, do you remember that scene in the Dalek asylum episode where Rory wakes up in the hanger full of dead Daleks who turn out to be not actually dead?” Roman said in a rush. “Because…yeah.”
Oh. Logan swallowed. “I surmise that those copper domes are Daleks, then?”
Roman snorted. “Copper domes? Jeesh, your eyesight sucks.”
“I am aware,” Logan said flatly. “Which means you will have to guide us out. If I remember correctly, as long as we are quiet and don’t kick any pipes on the ground, we won’t wake them up.”
Roman released Logan’s hand—almost prompting a protest—and replaced it with an arm wrapped around his waist. Logan only held back a squeak because it would have been extremely undignified.
“Hey, relax, I got you, Specs.” Roman’s breath ghosted over Logan’s ear. The Prince’s shorter stature allowed him to fit snugly against Logan’s side; if Roman turned his head, he could comfortably tuck his face into the crook of Logan’s neck.
Not…not that Logan imagined him doing any such thing.
Roman drew his sword with a metallic rasp, prompting Logan to pull out his screwdriver, and they set off across the floor. Walking so close to another was a strange, vulnerable sensation, Logan mused, while also being forced to rely on them for direction. Or maybe it was simply that Roman’s Rose Tyler outfit left so much more skin on display than his usual royal attire…
To be fair, Roman’s bare arms and short skirt and leggings were the only non-blurry things in Logan’s line of sight at the moment.
“You know, I am not sure how much good a sword will do against a Dalek now,” Logan said dryly, not to distract himself. “Since the Imagination is apparently attempting to be realistic.”
“It’ll be a lot more useful than a screwdriver,” Roman retorted. “Honestly, the War Doctor had a point. The later seasons really do start to treat the sonic like a weapon, and it looks ridiculous. Don’t step in that water.”
They dodged around an oily-looking puddle.
“The sonic screwdriver is an ingenious, multipurpose tool,” Logan argued. “Fitting for a character who is, at heart, a pacifist. Despite this, in the right hands, it most certainly could serve as a weapon. For example, one could scramble a Cyberman’s circuits, short out fuses, or calculate the precise amount of blunt force needed to take down an enemy.” Logan waved the hand with the screwdriver around them. “All things that a sword could not accomplish.”
“Sure.” Roman led them around one of the still, silent Daleks. “But you don’t point a sonic at an oncoming Dalek and expect to survive. Even the Doctor had more sense than to try that. At least a sword could cut off its blaster arm.”
“We don’t know how strong Dalek armor is down here,” Logan pointed out. “You could end up breaking your sword, and then where would we be?”
“Better off than we’d be while you assembled a cabinet at them!”
Logan’s foot collided with something that made an awful CLANG and went skittering across the floor. Roman pulled them up short. The ensuing silence felt deafening.
“I kicked the pipe, didn’t I?” Logan’s heart pounded.
All around them, round blue lights flickered on, one by one.
“You kicked the pipe,” Roman confirmed in a sick voice.
“EGGS…!” a crackly Dalek voice next to them stuttered, making them jump. “EG-EG-EG-EGGS…!” Its twin lights flashed erratically in time with its words.
They both instinctively stayed still.
“Roman,” Logan started.
The Dalek rolled toward them creakily. “EEEEEGGS!”
“‘Eggs, you may laugh and that’s great…’” Roman sang in a wavering voice. “‘Your smiles are what make my day’…”
Logan’s breathing sped up. Another Dalek rolled in from the other side, causing him to stumble. All around them, mechanical creaks and groans and a chorus of digitized voices rose.
“EG…EG-EGGS…TERM…”
“Roman, I believe we need to run.” Logan could see the Dalek almost clearly now, which meant it was much too close. Its eyestalk glowed, its gunstick lifted.
“…IN…ATE…”
Blurry, flashing lights closed in.
“‘My self-worth’s fragile like an egg,’” Roman sang. The arm gripping Logan’s middle tightened painfully. “‘When it breaks it’s tough to put together again…’”
“EX…TERM…IN…ATE!”
“Roman!” Logan shouted. “Get us out of here!”
“EXTERMINATE!” A blaster bolt exploded over their heads.
Roman shuddered and seemed to snap out of it, seizing Logan’s arm and pulling him so hard he nearly fell. Logan staggered, hanging onto Roman’s hand for dear life as they ran. Blaster bolts warbled and burst at their feet.
“This way, boys and boys,” Remus’s voice sing-singed across the room. Roman yanked them in that direction.
“REMUS!” Roman shouted as they dodged another blurry, screaming Dalek, and Logan was impressed he had the breath for it. “Remus, you better open that door like you’re supposed to, or we are DEAD!”
“Oh, keep your pants on, brother,” Remus snarked; his voice sounded closer now. “Although maybe Logan would prefer that you didn’t—” Whatever else he said wasn’t audible over a hanger full of jabbering Daleks and firing blasters.
They reached a wall, and Roman shoved Logan down.
“Straight ahead, crawl. Go, go, go!” He whipped around and brandished his sword. Bless that Prince and his stupid, stupid bravery…but it wasn’t like Logan could help him while blind.
Logan went, nearly tripping over his coat as he crawled under the barely lifted hatch door. Once he’d crossed the threshold, Roman flung himself under and through, knocking into him, sending them both sliding across the floor. There was a hiss and a heavy thud—Logan hoped that was the door shutting behind them—and finally, blessed silence. They both leaned against the wall for a moment, catching their breath.
Roman thunked his head back. “Jesus Christ Superstar,” he muttered.
“You’re welcome.”
Remus’s voice crackled through the hallway. Roman growled and sat up straighter, looking around as if his brother would magically appear.
“I did just save your lives,” Remus added. From the direction of the sound, Logan guessed he was talking through a speaker somewhere on the far wall.
“Yeah, and I’m still gonna whip your butt when this is all over,” Roman groused.
“Oooh, do I get to choose the instrument?”
Roman sputtered, but Logan grabbed his arm before he could yell back.
“You know he just likes to get under your skin,” he murmured, and raised his voice. “Thank you for opening the door, Remus. We are grateful for your help.”
A silence fell on the other end, with a quality Logan would have described as startled.
“Well. You two lovebirds better move along,” Remus drawled finally, shrill as ever. “Before the Silurian army shows up.”
“Excuse me, the WHAT?” Logan exclaimed.
No answer.
“Remus!” Roman clambered to his feet and helped Logan up.
Nothing. Except now that Logan was listening for it, he definitely heard footsteps and murmuring, heavily-accented voices coming towards them.
“That dick,” Roman grumbled through gritted teeth.
“To be fair, I think he is trying to help,” Logan pointed out. “In his own way.”
“Don’t be fair to my brother when he’s just led us out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“We are neither in a pan nor on fire, Roman; I have never understood that saying—”
The lights dimmed and flashed an eerie purple; Roman silenced him with a hand over his mouth. A heavily distorted voice sputtered over Remus’s speaker…but not Remus’s, not alien, not like anything Logan had ever heard. It chanted something, over and over again, before fading away.
The lights flared back to normal. Logan waited, counting Roman’s shallow breaths against his neck. Nothing.
“What was that?” he asked softly.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Roman responded. “But I’m taking it as our cue to go. Stay close, Mr. Magoo.”
Logan grumbled at the choice of nickname, but he allowed Roman to recapture his hand and lead them in the opposite direction of the approaching footsteps, which had resumed the moment the purple light vanished.
Next time Roman asked him to come on an adventure, he was bringing a pair of running shoes…and a spare set of glasses.
Chapter 9- Gridlock
“This Martha. She must mean an awful lot to you.”
“Hardly know her. I was too busy showing off. And I lied to her. Couldn’t help it, just lied.”
Patton felt strange.
Well, he’d felt strange ever since this odd little adventure started, but it grew worse the further into the asylum they traveled. His limbs weighed him down, uncomfortably heavy. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, and a chill had settled deep in his core, one that no amount of self-hugging could alleviate.
Plus, he kept having these flashes of…well, anger. Like, sure, being stuck in the Imagination in the middle of the night was a tad frustrating, but that was no reason to feel this, this blind, red rage that welled up from time to time. What was wrong with him?
Patton needed a hug. He wondered if Janus would give him one if he asked.
Eh…maybe not. Janus was many things: smart, cunning, arrogant, fiercely caring…but huggable wasn’t a word that immediately came to mind.
The ladder from the escape pod led down a long shaft that dumped out into an empty metal hallway; dark, rusty, dripping with water. Janus found a computer terminal and scanned the area, plotting out a route that would lead them around various knots of warring aliens. He’d located Remus’ tiny prison almost immediately, and ignored it in favor of scanning for a teleportation chamber.
Again.
“If I have to be in this stupid adventure,” he informed Patton tersely, “I want my damned TARDIS back.”
“I’m not arguing with you.” Patton spread his hands.
“We’ll have to cross four hangers and a maze of corridors to reach the room.” Janus irritably rubbed the scales on his face. “And it looks like most of this area is still infected with the nano cloud.”
“I know,” Patton whispered as Janus strode off.
Patton would feel a lot better about their chances if this hadn’t been the fifth time they’d had this exact conversation.
One empty hanger and two hallways later, Janus stopped at another terminal.
“Janus…” Patton started.
“There’s Remus’s prison.” Janus stared at the screen, ignoring him completely. “But where’s…ah. There’s a teleportation chamber about three hangers away. We should head for that.”
“But…”
“No, Patton, we are not going after Remus first.” Janus itched his face. “If I have to be in this stupid adventure—”
“You want your damned TARDIS back, I know!” Patton yelled.
Janus blinked in clear surprise and narrowed his eyes. “You never swear.”
I never feel like this. Why am I acting like this?
“And you are being affected by the nano cloud,” Patton pointed out before Janus could talk over him. “We keep having this same conversation! I am begging you, please wear the bracelet for a while.”
He held out his wrist, which Janus absently took in his hands. His mouth compressed, so hard that the skin around the snakelike slit grew pale.
“Or let me go ahead and try to deactivate the cloud,” Patton offered.
“You wouldn’t be able to hack the system.” Janus shook his head. “I have all the Master’s knowledge, which is why I can.”
“Then you take the bracelet and do it!”
“We’re not splitting up, Patton.”
Patton growled softly and turned away, walking in a small circle to calm himself down.
“You…just…I am getting really frustrated with you, mister,” he sputtered. “Take. The. Bracelet.”
“I’m tough, Patton. I can handle it.” Janus smiled bitterly. “Maybe the cloud is messing with my memory, but it will never be able to actually convert me.”
Patton frowned…or tried to. His facial expressions felt as stiff and heavy as his limbs. “Why’s that?”
“You remember the whole ‘how do you make a Dalek’ schtick?” Janus’s grin grew wider, fangs flashing behind his lips. “‘Erase love, add anger’? Well. My heart is already cold and hard. There’s no love to erase, and thus, nothing to convert.”
Patton felt his own heart break, to hear Janus say such awful things about himself…but maybe he had an inadvertent point. Patton knew that he himself, on his best days, was a squishy ball of excessive caring and emotion, prone to bouts of both effervescence and melancholy—or so Roman had once described him. Nothing to be ashamed of; as Thomas’s heart, that’s just who Patton was. But as such, maybe…maybe the nano cloud really would have an awful, immediate effect on him.
Maybe Janus was right to insist he keep the bracelet on. He already felt so strange.
Well. Patton put his hands on his hips. That doesn’t mean he gets to talk bad about himself.
“Hello?” a strange, furry-sounding voice called behind them.
Two aliens shuffled out of the same corridor Patton and Janus had exited, rounding the corner hesitantly. They looked almost human, except for their furred bodies, large, feline ears and catlike faces. They moved hesitantly, with inhuman grace, their long tails flicking behind them.
“Ooh, Janus, they’re Catkind!” Patton clasped his hands together. “I always wanted to see one up close.”
“But where the hell were they hiding?” Janus groused. “We were just in that corridor. Also, may I remind you that you’re allergic?”
“Hello there!” Patton called as the Cat People approached, ignoring Janus’s eye roll. “Where did you come from?”
“I’m not sure.” The tabby-like Cat Person rubbed their furred hands together. “One moment we were in our hover van, watching the newscast as always, and then…oh!” The Cat Person’s eyes widened as they drew up to Patton.
Janus quickly stepped between them and lifted his hands.
“It’s okay. We’re lost here, just like you,” he said in a low, soothing voice.
“Well. I guess strange times make strange bedfellows, or something like that.” The tabby Cat flashed a mouthful of feline teeth.
“Isn’t that the truth,” Janus crooned. “You were saying…?”
Patton was beginning to sense, more and more, that Janus was actively, purposefully hiding something from him. But now wasn’t exactly a good time to ask.
“We were watching the TV,” the second Cat Person said. They were shorter, their voice and fur color both lighter than that of their companion, and they wore a sling pouch across their body. “And something flickered across the screen; I can’t remember exactly what. A gray face, or…” They shrugged, furred shoulders rippling. “And then we were just…here.”
A tiny face popped out of the sling as they spoke, mewing. Patton let out an unapologetic squeal.
“Is that a kitten?” he all but squeaked, holding hands up to his face. It was so cute!
“Oh! Yes.” The pale Cat smiled down at the sling. “Our six babes. They sleep better when I keep them close.”
“Can I pet one?” Patton was practically vibrating. “Pretty please? I’ll be very careful.”
The Cat frowned, exchanging a glance with their partner, but carefully extracted a kitten and cradled it. Patton ran a trembling finger down its spine and cooed when it started to purr.
Janus, meanwhile, stroked his bottom lip. “Catkind…hover van…were you on the Motorway in New New York, by chance?”
The tabby Cat frowned. “Well, of course.”
“The Gridlock episode,” Janus said quietly to Patton. “Which was set in the far future, if I recall. But where—or ‘when’—does the asylum episode fall within that timeline?”
Patton shrugged. He didn’t have Logan’s or, he supposed, Janus’s patience for untangling complex plot threads in TV shows, and time was so wibbly wobbly within the Doctor Who universe anyway. Plus, knowing “when” the Cat People were from didn’t explain how they spontaneously ended up here, in this hallway.
They’re just…here, like that poor Tivolian in the escape pod. Sadness crashed through him. The asylum was no place for innocent people like this, especially a couple with babies!
“If I may,” the tabby Cat said as their partner resettled their kittens in the sling. “Where did the two of you come from? And where are we?”
“Well, that’s a rather long story,” Janus said. “We—”
“Ah-ha! More intruders in our quadrant!”
Six or so squat Sontarans, helmeted and bristling with blaster rifles, flooded the corridor. The two Cat People froze, eyes growing wide.
“Terminate them.” The Sontaran leader pointed. “For the glory of Sontar!”
The aliens raised their guns.
“Invasion of the Potato People,” Janus snarked as he pulled out his sonic laser and flicked a setting. “Just what we need.”
“Now, er, fellas,” Patton tried, raising his arms. “There’s…there’s no need for violence. Can’t we all just, uh, get along?”
“The Sontaran Empire does not take orders from your kind, metal scum!” the lead Sontaran snarled. “Fire!”
“Run!” Janus seized Patton’s arm and shoved the two terrified Cat People ahead of him.
The Sontarans forced them on a confused, mad rush through a half dozen corridors, dodging blaster fire, as Janus occasionally fired back with his laser and stopped to hack closed doors as they encountered them.
Clomping boots and chanting echoed behind them. “Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!”
At one junction, the Cat People peeled off down a smaller hallway before Patton could even protest.
“Splitting up is safer! We can’t worry about them!” Janus yanked Patton down a different corridor. It terminated in a door that Janus couldn’t seem to hack, and they had to backtrack to a tiny alcove that barely fit them both, folding themselves inside and catching their breath.
Janus pressed one yellow-clad hand against Patton’s chest as they waited for the bootsteps and yelling to pass, the sound of their breaths filling the space. He stood so close that Patton could count individual scales on his cheekbone and green flecks in his yellow slitted eye. Unfamiliar facial hair; familiar, hooded gaze.
It occurred to Patton, suddenly, that he’d never been this close to Janus before. Close enough to feel his slight warmth, to breathe in the spicy, subtle aroma emanating from his clothes.
“Did you know you smell like cloves?” Patton blurted out when the corridor was silent again. It had been such an odd thing to notice. It also wasn’t unpleasant.
Janus didn’t acknowledge that, but instead massaged his temples. “Ugh, my head is killing me.”
“Say…” Patton narrowed his eyes as he realized he was looking down at the other Side. “I’m the shortest Side in the mindspace. Shouldn’t I be shorter than you?”
If Patton hadn’t been looking for it, he might have missed the way Janus’s eyes widened infinitesimally.
“Well.” Janus shrugged; all expression gone. “I hadn’t paid much attention.”
Liar. Something stone-like settled in Patton’s stomach.
“No, you’re definitely supposed to be taller,” he said, more firmly.
Deceit.
“If the Imagination altered our clothes coming in, surely it could have altered our heights.” Janus’s voice was as smooth as ever, and for a moment, Patton hated how easily the other Side did this. The unfamiliar anger at the back of his mind woke and glowered.
Deceit, come on.
“Well, then why didn’t I sneeze when I pet that kitten?” Patton demanded. “You yourself pointed out that I’m allergic.”
“Kittens don’t produce the protein that triggers an allergic reaction.” Janus’s eyes went distant for a moment. “I do hope that couple found a safe place to hide.”
“Gosh, yeah, me too…” Patton stopped, and frowned. “Oh, no you don’t, mister, you’re trying to change the subject! I wasn’t allergic to the parents, either; explain that!”
Janus shrugged, still infuriatingly calm. “Maybe Catkind as a whole don’t produce ordinary feline dander.”
“Why won’t you just tell me what it is you’re hiding!” Patton grabbed Janus’s shoulders and raised a hand…wait.
What am I doing?
Janus paled, and the spark of actual fear in his eyes was enough to snap Patton out of whatever that was. He stared at his ordinary hands and for a moment, he swore he saw a flash of silver. But then it was gone, and he was just himself…and Janus had pulled away, stepping out into the now-empty corridor.
“We should keep moving,” he threw over his shoulder, jacket flapping as he stalked away, leaving Patton to stumble after him.
“Janus.”
Janus’s shoulders flinched but he kept walking, his boots clacking harshly on the concrete floor.
Patton hurried to catch up. “Janus!”
The other turned a corner, taking him momentarily out of Patton’s line of sight. Patton broke into a run, rounding the bend and almost crashing into him. He’d stopped and was typing away at yet another terminal. They were back at the door from before, the one Janus hadn’t been able to hack.
“Almost got it.” Janus absently rubbed his head; hadn’t he mentioned a headache? He’s always concealing things. I wish he could just…but Patton still felt shaken by the weirdness of their last confrontation, so he decided to let it go. Best to avoid another quarrel.
“Are you sure we want to go this way?” Patton said instead. “It sounds like a battle on the other side.”
Muffled shrieks and shouts echoed through the thick metal doors.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Patton.” Janus waved a hand. “I already looked. It’s just some people milling around; they likely won’t even notice us. And the teleportation chamber we need is on the other side.”
Patton hunched to peer through the smudged glass rectangle on the door. It was difficult to make out specifics, but he definitely saw blaster fire and knots of very large aliens running back and forth.
“That is not just people, J—” he started, but the door slid open, and Janus was already striding through.
“—Janus, no!” Patton yelped and followed.
That door, it turned out, had been blocking a great deal of noise. Yelling, clanging, laser bolts hitting metal, horribly familiar robotic voices screeching. Knots of hulking Judoon fought a proper horde of green Silurians, with a few commanding Daleks thrown in on both sides. It was impossible to tell who, if anyone, was winning; or what, if anything, they were fighting over.
Patton caught up to Janus and grabbed his jacket collar.
“See, Patton?” Janus shot him an easygoing smirk that made Patton’s stomach twist in alarm. “It’s just people.”
“Oh, no, I remember this bit now,” Patton murmured. He seized Janus’s face.
“Janus Sanders, the nanocloud is altering your perception.” He twisted the other Side around. “Look again, look!”
Janus looked, and Patton heard his swift intake of breath.
“EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! THE CARGO DOOR HAS BEEN BREACHED!” Several Daleks split off from the battle and rolled toward the two of them, drawing a few curious Silurians along.
Patton huffed. “And now they’ve seen us.”
He again held up his arms, though logically he knew negotiating with Daleks was a worse non-starter than placating Sontarans. Still, it never hurt to try.
A Silurian grabbed one of their neighbors and pointed at him. “It has a nano repeller!” they called. “Seize it!”
“Well, that’s new,” Janus snarked.
“Run?” Patton squeaked as more Silurians peeled off from the main battle.
“Run,” Janus confirmed.
They bolted across the hanger, skirting the thick of the fight. The pursuing Daleks proved to be a useful distraction, charging after them with blasters blazing, drawing enemy fire away from the two Sides. But the pursuing Silurians were faster, and they kept chasing long after the Daleks found other, more engaging targets.
The Silurians tailed Patton and Janus into the adjoining corridor, briefly catching up when Janus had to stop and hack yet another door. Green hands scrabbled at Patton’s arms as he and Janus fought their way through the hatch. Janus zapped one with his laser and pulled Patton in, slamming the inside panel with his other hand. The door slid shut, and Janus fried the controls so it couldn’t be easily opened again.
Patton breathed. They were safe, again, for the moment.
At least Patton thought they were, until he happened to glance down at his hands.
“Janus!” he yelled shrilly. “My bracelet is gone! Oh no, oh no, oh no, I thought if we didn’t lose it in the escape pod, we wouldn’t lose it at all…”
“Patton.” Janus was abruptly in his face, gloved hands gripping his jawline. “Patton, breathe.”
“I’m sorry!” Patton sobbed. “I lost it, and now we’re both going to turn into Daleks, Janus, I’m so sorry—!”
“Nonsense.” Janus’s voice grew sharp. “You have nothing to worry about.”
And something truthy in the timbre of those words cut through Patton’s rising panic like a slap to the face.
“And why is that?” Patton asked, just as sharply.
Janus hesitated. He very clearly hesitated, his fingers digging into the nape of Patton’s neck. Patton held his breath.
“Because…” Janus’s eyes darted away. “Because nobody in this universe, or any other, could possibly exhaust the well of love in Patton Sanders’ heart.”
With that he whirled away, stalking to the raised teleportation platform and sliding under the glass floor. Patton slowly closed his gaping mouth—darn his stiff muscles. He’d never been so certain in all his life that Janus had just lied to him, again. But…that was also the sweetest and most vulnerable thing he’d ever heard the other say. It sent a shock of warmth down to Patton’s too-cold toes.
Janus…truly believed that Patton’s heart held too much love for the Daleks to steal?
“Oh.” Patton exhaled, gaze drawn to Janus’s movements as he rewired the platform; jacket sleeves rolled up his forearms, sonic held between his teeth, and a look of utter concentration on his face.
That strange, intense, and oddly beautiful face.
Oh.
Chapter 10- Silence in the Library
“The shadows are moving again. Those people are depending on you. Only you can save them. Only you.”
“What I want to know,” Roman griped as he and Logan slumped against yet another corridor wall. “Is where all these blasted aliens are coming from.”
Ever since giving Remus’s “Silurian army” the slip, they’d encountered one obstacle after another. They’d been pursued across what felt like half the asylum by a pair of crafty Saturnynians wanting their nano bracelets; Roman had singlehandedly fought off a horde of Tritovores; Logan outsmarted a Sontaran troop by trapping them in a chamber with only one working door; and they had only just outrun a platoon of Judoon.
All with Logan unable to see more than five feet in front of his face.
Roman, if he was being honest with himself, kind of didn’t mind being Logan’s eyes. Sure, his sword arm throbbed from fending off aliens trying to rob them or kill them—made harder by the fact that Roman fought with the flat of his blade; no need for pointless killing. But having his crush depend on him to see threats coming, to keep from crashing into things…it was nice to feel needed.
For once.
Plus, Roman could compose entire sonnets about Logan’s beautiful galaxy-dark eyes, when they weren’t hidden behind glasses.
“Remus.” Logan straightened up. “We could use some help.”
Roman scoffed. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
“If Logan offers to pay in dick pics, I might get something up,” Remus’s whiny voice commented from the wall behind them, making them both jump.
Roman sputtered. Did his brother really have to keep…was it even flirting, when it was that crude? Roman knew he was only doing it to get a reaction, but gosh darn Remus for going straight for his metaphorical heart.
“We are all anatomically the same, Remus.” Logan frowned. “Why would you wish to see my—?”
“Logan, I implore you not to finish that sentence.” Roman flapped his hands.
Logan leaned over to squint at him. And quite apart from Remus's inappropriate commentary, Roman wished he could figure out what that intense, narrow-eyed look Logan kept giving him meant. He was sure his face must be as red as his missing Prince sash.
“It would be helpful.” Logan turned to face the general direction of the wall speaker. “If I could see a current life-form reading for the whole planet. Then we would know which areas to avoid. Remus, is that something you can hack into?”
“Only for you, Logie-bear,” Remus answered. “Or should I stay in character and call you Nina? There’s a terminal with a screen just down the hallway.”
“Remus, I swear…” Roman brandished his sword at the speaker as Logan climbed to his feet.
But Remus only giggled, and Roman didn’t know how to finish the threat without prompting uncomfortable questions, anyway.
The screen showed the whole planet, with life-form density marked in red and notes written in some alien tongue. Logan leaned close, typing various commands, calling up different areas; his frown grew deeper as he worked.
“Is that, like, a whole lot of red, or do I just not know how to read this thing?” Roman asked.
“No, it doesn’t make any sense,” Logan muttered, mostly to himself. “Remus. Will you read that number to me? Perhaps the Doctor’s command of this language is incomplete…”
“You mean the part where it says there are currently 13 billion life forms on the planet?” Remus said.
“What?” Roman sputtered.
“Exactly. It’s preposterous.” Logan nodded. “That is nearly twice the population of humans on Earth. We’d be packed into this asylum like sardines, were the population really so high. Perhaps it’s aggregate?”
“Hmm, you know people can aggregate, too, especially during orgies when they f…”
“Remus, while normally I would applaud any creative use of vocabulary,” Logan cut in with a flat expression. “I do not wish to discuss group copulation at this or any other time.”
Roman, meanwhile ran a hand down his flushing face. “‘Copulation’, my ass,” he grumbled.
“Yes, that is usually how it works among men,” Remus crooned.
“REMUS!”
“Both of you!” Logan snapped. “Enough. Remus, please.”
“Fiiiine. Here are your stats over a span of weeks.” Remus flashed another chart on the screen. “And here’s months, and years.”
More charts.
“See, this math makes more sense.” Logan reached up as if to adjust his glasses, but then made a fist and dropped his hand. “A constant flow of new aliens, while a smaller number disappear every day. That is unfortunately as I would expect in such a volatile environment.”
He peered closer to the screen.
“However, nearly eighty percent of the abnormally high life form readings are concentrated in a few clusters around the asylum; mostly in dark, isolated nooks. Remus, can you provide a visual for one of those areas?”
Remus did so, the screen switching to what appeared to be a security feed, pointed at a storage room. A room which was conspicuously empty, except for a few piles of long, white objects.
“Come on, quit fucking around,” Roman complained.
“Language.” Remus’s voice tsked.
Roman scoffed. “Oh, put a maggoty sock in it, Remus; you aren’t Patton.”
“Careful with those metaphors, brother mine, or you’ll start to sound like me.”
“Why you—!”
“Hush!” Logan snapped. “No, these are the correct coordinates. According to this data, there are several million life forms packed into that space.”
Roman and Remus gasped in unison, causing Logan to shoot Roman an alarmed look.
“How big are the ‘life forms’ that chart is picking up?” Roman demanded.
“Way ahead of you.” Remus threw more readouts onto the screen. “But I’ll bet my favorite stick of deodorant that they’re really, really small.”
“They appear to be microscopic, in fact,” Logan’s eyebrows shot up. “And those white objects…”
“Bones,” Roman whispered. “‘A million million life forms, and silence in the library’.”
Logan’s eyes widened. “Vashta Narada?”
“Vashta Narada!” Remus screeched, startling them both. It took Roman a moment to realize his brother had screeched with glee.
“Ooh, look, there are so many of them!” Remus pulled up a chart of the whole planet, with clusters illuminated in red. Logan whipped out his screwdriver to scan the screen.
“I did wonder why the Daleks always avoided the shadows, and ooh, look! Bones! Piles and piles of bones!” Remus showed another security feed; Roman quickly turned away. “They’re so clean.”
“I have downloaded the locations of the worst nests,” Logan flashed his sonic. “So, we can avoid those areas, too.”
“Well, that’s just boring,” Remus complained. “One of you could surely sacrifice a leg or something. Aren’t you curious to see what your skeleton looks like?”
“Nobody wants to see that!” Roman felt slightly nauseated at the idea.
“Well, and if they did,” Logan added, ever literal, “that is what X-rays are for.”
“The Vashta Narada are his favorite Doctor Who alien,” Roman said in a lower voice. “He talked about that episode for weeks—”
The lights cut out, and the Voice—that’s what Roman had taken to calling it, anyway—mumbled its distorted, incomprehensible speech. It had happened several times on their journey now.
“What is that?” he demanded once the lights came back up.
“I think I heard ‘tower’, that time, and something about seconds,” Logan commented.
Roman shrugged. “I may regret this, but…Remus, what do you think?” he asked with a grimace.
Silence.
Roman sighed. “Typical.”
A blast down the hall interrupted them. Several Daleks rolled into the hallway, screeching in their room-filling, robotic voices. Roman seized Logan’s arm and pulled them into an alcove, placing his hand over Logan’s mouth when the other started to protest.
“Daleks, super close,” Roman whispered.
He swore he felt Logan shiver in his grasp, and tried not to hyperfocus on the other’s rapid breathing, and heated skin, and…
One of the Daleks rolled in their direction. “INTRUDER! COME OUT AT ONCE!”
Logan pried Roman’s hand away. “If we are at the scene in the asylum episode that I believe we are,” he said lowly, “then this should be the Dalek that runs out of power. If so, I remember how to defeat it.”
“And if it’s not?” Roman demanded in a whisper.
“INTRUDER!”
“Then we will think of something else.”
“But—!”
Logan pulled Roman’s face very close, effectively shutting him up. His dark pupils were blown wide with adrenaline, his skin flushed with all the running they’d done. Roman couldn’t help it; his gaze flickered to Logan’s lips. Those well-bitten, unfairly kissable lips.
“Roman,” Logan said, the words puffing against Roman’s face. “Do you trust me?”
“Oh, you…you can’t just quote Aladdin at me, Lo,” Roman protested. “That’s not fair.”
“I would not be here to quote it if you hadn’t gotten us this far. I outwitted the Sontarans; let me handle this.” Logan leaned even closer, and Roman couldn’t move even if he wanted to. “Do you trust me?”
Always, Doctor. Roman nodded.
“INTRU—der—!”
As if on cue, the Dalek sputtered to a stop just before it reached their hiding place. Logan shot Roman a devastating smirk and stepped out.
“All right, you rolling tin can.” Logan flicked his wrists and performed a mocking bow, cerulean jacket lining flaring. Even half-blind, he was so fully and completely the Doctor in that moment that the performer inside Roman could only swoon.
Well, their Source was an actor, after all. Even his Logic instinctively knew how to work an audience.
“Identify me. Access your files. Who am I?” Logan’s voice dropped. “Come on. I’m tired and blind and just want to go home. Who’s your daddy?”
Roman choked and slapped a hand over his mouth.
“YOU ARE THE PREDATOR,” the Dalek declared.
“And what are your standing orders concerning the Predator?” Logan asked.
“THE PREDATOR MUST BE DESTROYED.” The Dalek attempted to use its gunstick, but only managed to wiggle it around.
“And how are you going to do that, Dalek?” Logan smirked, making Roman swallow another soft noise. “Without a gun, you’re a tricycle with a roof. How are you going to destroy me?”
“SELF-DESTRUCT INITIATED.” A light inside the Dalek’s eyepiece flashed red.
“Oh, heck, I remember this!” Roman rushed out to join Logan as the other pulled out his sonic and lifted the Dalek’s lid.
“Exactly.” Logan ran the screwdriver along the shell’s insides.
“SELF-DESTRUCT CANNOT BE COUNTERMANDED.”
“I’m not looking for a countermand, dear.” Logan slammed the lid down. “I was looking for reverse.”
The Dalek whizzed backwards, flailing its appendages, its lights flashing frantically. “FORWARD! FORWARD!”
It sped back into the chamber it had vacated, where several other Daleks waited.
“Run!”
Logan pulled Roman along, nearly running them into a wall—Roman quickly righted their direction—and barely making it to the other end of the hallway before the Dalek exploded. Roman pushed them both down, crouching protectively over Logan as heat blasted against both their backs.
The asylum shook. Grit rained down on their heads.
When it stopped, Roman pulled Logan to his feet and led them through the newly cleared chamber, dust still settling in the air. Dalek shells lay scattered, cracked and smoking; he had to guide Logan around them. He noted a few other…bodies, too, which he determinedly looked away from and didn’t mention.
“Oh my gosh, Roman! Logan!” a metallic, voice shouted.
A Cyberman came barreling across the floor, prompting Roman to raise his sword…but relaxed when he realized it was only Patton.
“Janus, I’ve found the others!” Patton shouted over his shoulder; Roman squinted but didn’t see anyone else. “Boy, am I glad to see you guys!”
“We are pleased to see you as well, Patton.” Logan scrunched his face in that adorable squint again; Roman caught himself smiling fondly and swallowed the expression.
“Although unfortunately,” Logan added, “I mean ‘see’ in an entirely metaphorical sense right now.”
“Oh no, Logan, did you lose your glasses?” Patton caught up to them, clunky, metal, and frankly as scary looking as before. “Well, come on. Janus found a teleportation room and is almost finished rewiring it to get us out of here.”
He led them across the exploded chamber, around a bend, and into a room with a raised glass platform and machinery-covered walls. The platform itself looked half-disassembled, with dozens of wires and components sticking out.
Janus lay, collapsed and unmoving, at the base of it.
Chapter 11- The Power of Three
“I’m not running away from things; I am running to them, before they flare and fade forever.”
Patton screeched.
There was no other word for the unholy noise that came out of that rectangular mouth, Logan decided. The moral Side-turned-Cyberman rushed to Janus’s collapsed form, shaking him and calling his name.
“I don’t know what happened!” He rocked back on his heels. “He was fine when I left…well, not fine, he hasn’t been exactly fine this whole time, but he was awake!”
Logan knelt beside Janus and scanned him.
“He does not appear to have suffered any sort of electrical shock or other accident.” Logan peered at his screwdriver, reading numbers on the tiny screen. Yes, it had a readout, something he’d never noticed from the show. Either it had never been shown in canon or the Imagination altered the lore for convenience.
“Hmm. It would seem that the nano cloud is having an unexpected effect on his serpentine biology.” Logan leaned over to place a hand under Janus’s jaw, and then over his heart. “It is making him too cold.”
“Oh!” Patton’s stance shifted. It was difficult to read his body language in his current state. “Well, that sounds pretty fixable. Do we need to, like, cuddle him or something? Body heat is good for cold, right?”
“I’m certainly not cuddling that viper!” Roman announced with folded arms.
Patton rubbed his head. “I mean…I could do it.”
It was on the tip of Logan’s tongue to point out that Patton would not be warming anyone up with his cold, metallic body, but it was clear he still didn’t know. And if Janus still hadn’t told him, Logan certainly wasn’t going to do it right now. Patton having an identity crisis would be a distraction they didn’t need.
“Body heat would not be enough,” Logan said. “But I believe if I reconfigure one of our protective bracelets to counter those particular effects, he would revive on his own. Of course, that would mean one of us temporarily going without nano cloud protection.”
Patton sighed and rubbed his wrist. “I’d give up mine in a heartbeat, except I already lost it earlier.”
Typical Patton. Logan bit back a sigh of exasperation. His was the bracelet he'd hoped to use, as Patton didn't actually need it. Always willing to sacrifice his own well-being, and always losing things.
Well, that meant there was only one way to wake Janus.
He’d begun the process of unfastening his own bracelet when a strong, warm hand stopped him.
“Hang on, Calculator Watch.” Roman separated Logan’s hands as annoyed, caramel eyes stared into Logan’s own. “Why do you automatically assume you should be the one to give up your only means of protection?”
Logan frowned. “Of the two of us, Roman, I am the least emotional. Obviously, it has to be me.”
Roman let go and paced the room, coming back with determination sparking in his gaze. “Look, I’m going to be logical here, because I know that’s the one thing you understand,” he said.
“Roman, we don’t have time—” Logan started, but Roman silenced him with a finger over his lips.
Logan noted, absently, how his skin reacted to the touch.
“We have to finish this adventure before Thomas wakes up, right?” Roman’s eyes flickered down to Janus. “As much as it pains me to admit it, the snake is smarter than me. We need both brainiacs on this team awake and thinking clearly to get us out of here.”
“Roman, you—” Logan protested.
“We both know I’m the expendable one here!” Roman shoved his bracelet-ed wrist into Logan’s face. “So just take it and fix him.”
“Falsehood!” Logan pushed Roman’s arm away. “May I remind you that the nano cloud subtracts love and adds anger; ergo, it manipulates feelings. As I have pointed out many times before, and let me know if I lose you, I am not a feeling. I am Logic. It won’t—”
“You are Thomas’s Logic, you big-brained idiot!” Roman got in his face again. “And no part of our Source could simply lack the ability to feel things. It's not in him. That's why you are not just Logic; you are Logan, and you already have a temper problem. The last thing you need is more anger!”
Logan whipped out his stack of vocabulary cards and flipped through them. “As they say: ‘pot, meet kettle’.” He held one up.
Roman growled, raising his hand like he’d knock the card away, but seemed to realize that would only prove Logan’s point. The hand clenched into a fist, which fell resignedly onto Logan’s chest like a soft shock against his skin.
Logan was quite sure Roman’s touch didn’t always do that.
“Using my bracelet will buy us more time. The conversion will take longer with me,” Roman said through thin, angry lips, staring at the floor.
“Why?” Logan whispered.
Roman’s fist flattened into a palm, still resting against Logan’s chest. “It’s just arithmetic. It’ll take longer with me because—”
Logan inhaled sharply, and Roman’s suddenly wide eyes came up to meet his.
“It'll take longer with me because we both know, we've always known, that, the basic fact of our relationship is that I love you more than you love me.”
Without even realizing it, they’d been reenacting the fight between Amy and Rory.
Logan placed his own hand over Roman’s, wondering if the other could feel how rapidly his heart was beating. Does Roman really believe I care for him less than he does for me?
Well.
Thinking over their tumultuous friendship, the fights, the insults; he realized he’d given Roman every reason to believe that. But then another realization crashed over Logan, which he experienced like a physical shock through his system.
Do I…do I love Roman?
Headstrong, stubborn Roman, who knew exactly how to get under his skin with his over-the-top ideas and ridiculous facial expressions and twisty, rapid-fire cleverness. Brave, selfless Roman, who’d sacrificed his own dreams to ensure Thomas could keep a clear conscience. Roman, with his wild hair and pouting lower lip and those fiery, passionate eyes that made Logan feel sparks just from looking into them. He defied all logic, all sense, all attempts to constrain or catalog or categorize him.
And Logan absolutely loved him for that.
“So…so it has to be me,” Roman concluded, glaring, finally snatching his hand away.
It took Logan a moment to remember what they’d actually been arguing about. He grabbed at Roman’s wrist as the other began blindly removing his bracelet, both hands held high above Logan’s head.
“Roman, no, you’re…you’re making a mistake,” he grated as Roman kept his arms out of reach. No matter how he tried, Logan couldn’t budge him.
“Yeah?” Roman succeeded in unsnapping his bracelet. “Well, get a pen and get in line, Specs. I have a list.”
He thrust the device into Logan’s hands and stomped away, avoiding Patton’s questioning gaze. Logan shook his head, hand tightening around Roman’s bracelet until the edges bit into his skin. Stubborn. So, so stubborn.
Like you, a quiet part of his mind whispered. Because he’s your equal, your check. That’s why you like him…and that’s why it could never work.
He exhaled.
Then he pulled out his sonic and set about reprograming the bracelet to wake Janus.
Chapter 12- A Good Man Goes to War
“Good men don’t need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.”
Janus awoke with a pounding headache and a frayed temper. He sat up, digging at his face so hard he dislodged a scale. Irritably flicking it away, he saw that Patton had managed to find both Logan and Roman.
Good. That means we can all get out of here.
“Janus—” Patton started, but Janus held up a finger.
“Do not.”
He stood up, swaying a little, hating the way they all clustered around him.
“Stop hovering, I’m fine.” He waved them away. Aside from the headache, his body felt stiff and sluggish…probably similar to how Patton feels, he realized, which only worsened his sour mood.
“What happened to me?” He flexed his stiff hands.
“The nano particles caused your internal body temperature to drop too quickly,” Logan explained. “Which, due to your unique biology, caused you to pass out. Your reflexes may be impaired for a few minutes as the bracelet continues to counteract the effects.”
Janus glanced down at his wrist, noting the bulky black bracelet with its cheerfully blinking light. Who…? Not Patton, his was lost; so probably Logan…but no, Logan still wore his. But that only leaves…Sure enough, both of Roman’s wrists were bare.
Janus raised an eyebrow, but the other refused to meet his gaze.
Whatever.
“I am getting us off this rock and back to our TARDISs.” Janus stalked to the abandoned panel, picking up the wire cutters he’d purloined from another room. “Feel free to either help, or preferably stay the hell out of my way.”
“Ooooh, Jan Jan sounds a widdle angwy.” Remus’s sing-song voice crackled over a loudspeaker. “Pretty soon he’s going to try and kill you.”
“That does it!” Janus threw the cutters at the wall, eliciting a startled yelp from Roman, whose face they narrowly missed. “Logan, you reprogram the damned panel. I will deal with Remus.”
“Oh no, I’m so scared!” Remus gushed, sounding not one bit scared.
Janus marched to the chamber door, only to be stopped by Roman’s outstretched arm.
“Move.” Janus clenched a gloved hand.
Roman didn’t budge. “What are you even going to do? If this is like the episode, then he’s already a Dalek, and we can’t exactly bring him along for a ride.”
“I’ll figure it out when I get there.” Janus knocked Roman’s arm aside. “Perhaps we’ll get lucky and seeing him in person will be enough to satisfy the Imagination’s need for reunification. We should at least make the attempt.”
“Well, then I’m going with you!”
Janus stopped at that, turning slowly to face Roman.
“Why?” he said flatly. “Surely not because you crave the pleasure of my company.”
Roman mirrored Janus’s folded-arm stance. “Maybe I don’t trust you.”
“Because you haven’t already made that crystal clear.”
“And maybe I have my own score to settle with my brother,” Roman added in a louder voice, glaring around the room as though waiting for Remus to butt in.
Remus did not.
But maybe that was because the Voice chose that moment to override the comms yet again, dimming the lights and rattling off its garbled message. Logan narrowed his eyes, Patton cocked his head, but Roman simply looked annoyed.
The Prince does hate to be interrupted when he’s picking a fight. Janus rolled his eyes.
“The instances of hearing this Voice are becoming more frequent,” Logan observed, once it was over.
“You know,” Patton said. “That almost sounded like Virgil when he gets really upset, and his voice goes all deep and layered.”
Janus’s eyes widened, and he inadvertently met Logan’s shocked gaze.
It did. It sounded very much like Virgil’s Tempest Tongue, and Virgil had been inexplicably missing from this entire adventure, and why had none of them made that connection? Once again, Janus found himself both impressed and unsurprised that Patton had been the one to put the pieces together.
“If that’s true,” Logan began.
“You know it is,” Janus cut in, a little sharper than he meant to. Logan held up his hands.
“I was not disputing the validity of Patton’s claim,” he said.
“Uhhhh, overprotective much, snake?” Roman rolled his eyes, making Janus’s scales bristle and his nostrils flare.
“If that is Virgil, and Patton is correct; it seems very likely,” Logan enunciated, still holding up his hands. “Then he is part of this LARP and has been the entire time. If reunification is indeed the ultimate goal, we will need to locate him as well to meet the Imagination’s requirements.”
“Well, I’m not fighting my way back through this goddamned, alien-infested haystack to look for one overdramatic, anxious eyeshadow palette.” Janus turned toward the door again. “Not without my TARDIS. Virgil can sit on his moody ass and wait.”
“Language!” Patton called after him.
Roman, more annoyingly, followed; surprisingly quickly, given his short-skirted outfit.
“Mixed metaphors aside,” Roman said as Janus stalked across the exploded chamber. “I still demand to know what you mean to do when we reach my brother…will you slow down?”
Janus stormed into a far corridor, making a sharp left and leaving Roman to stumble along afterward. Two lefts, a right, a straight shot through Intensive Care and we should find Clara’s—or rather Remus’s—chamber.
“Come on,” he threw irritably over his shoulder. “Or is Mr. Really Obviously Muscular And Nice having a hard time keeping up? What are all those muscles for, anyway?”
“Don’t you dare bring up that courtroom right now, Deceit,” Roman said darkly, still trailing behind. “Don’t you dare.”
“Still refusing to use my name, I see.” Janus’s fast, angry footfalls echoed on the concrete floor.
“Show me where you’ve earned the right to be called anything except what you are, Deceit,” Roman spat. “I can wait.”
Janus stopped and whirled, coat flaring, almost causing Roman to collide with him. He thrust a gloved finger into Roman’s face.
“You don’t get it. You still don’t get it, because you are too spoiled, entitled, and self-absorbed to even attempt to understand another Side’s point of view.”
Janus started walking again, ignoring the pinched, insulted look he knew Roman was giving the back of his head.
“And what exactly am I supposed to understand?” Roman demanded, catching up.
“Why do you know my name at all, W-R-O-M-M-I-N?” Janus asked.
Roman exhaled, closing his eyes for a moment. “Ignoring that obvious bait, we know your name because you told us.”
“Exactly! I told you!” Janus paused just outside the Intensive Care ward, facing Roman fully. “You know Deceit’s true name because Deceit willingly revealed it.” He let his voice drop. “Now why do you suppose he did that?”
“Don’t refer to yourself in the third person, like some creepy, two-faced Elmo doll,” Roman groused. “Obviously you wanted to manipulate Thomas into trusting you for some nefarious purpose of your own.”
“Oh, for—!” Janus barely resisted the urge to beat his head against the wall. “I could have told Thomas my name any time I pleased, if his trust was the only thing I wanted.”
Roman smirked. “Ah-ha, so you admit you have an agenda—”
“I wanted your trust, Roman!” Janus roared. “Yours, and Patton’s. I thought taking my glove off would be enough of a symbolic gesture for you to comprehend, but how did you repay me? With laughter!”
Roman just stared. Janus sighed.
“You were on my side, in that courtroom,” he said in a quieter voice. “Whether you are willing to admit it or not, Creativity and Self-Preservation make a strong team for Thomas, and I don’t hate you, Roman.”
Roman scoffed but said nothing.
“I have been trying to be more than just Deceit, to Thomas, to all of you,” Janus went on. “Given how well our Purposes align, I cannot understand why you, of all Sssides, have been the most resistant to the notion that I am not evil!”
“Then let me enlighten you, Jack the Fibber.” Roman leaned close, eyes ablaze. “Remember that courtroom scenario you just bragged about? The one where you claim I was on your side?”
Janus made a “duh” gesture with his hand.
“Did you conveniently forget that you spent the entire time patronizing me, emotionally manipulating me, and making me look and feel like a fool?” Roman folded his arms. “Because if that’s how you treat your so-called ‘allies’, then I would hate to be an actual enemy.”
Janus frowned. It was true; he had done a bit of twisting Roman around his finger, hadn’t he?
“Nobody trusted me then, and I needed you to help Thomas make the right choice,” he explained. “Your pride and your little rivalry with me make you irrational at times. I couldn’t risk either getting in the way.”
Roman let out a humorless chuckle. “See, you say things like that with a straight face, and then act shocked when I do the honest thing and side with Patton.”
“Which we all now know was a missstake!” Janus snapped. He tapped a series of numbers into the control panel by the Intensive Care door, which slid open.
They went in, but Roman, unfortunately for Janus, was not finished.
“And don’t forget the part where you manipulated us all again, by removing Logan and impersonating him,” Roman said.
“Because you and Patton were handling that situation so admirably on your own,” Janus snarked.
“That is not the point! That has never been the point!” Roman waved his arms for emphasis, almost knocking into one of the cells along the walls.
“Even here, now, when I’m trying to have an actual conversation with you,”— he jabbed Janus’s chest— “you’re still trying to manipulate me. The only time you’ve called me by my actual name is when you’re like ‘oh, Roman, woe is me, why won’t you trust me’? The rest of the time it’s all mockery.”
“It’s almost like it hurts when someone refuses to call you by your actual name.” Janus leaned into Roman’s space, baring his fangs. “Doesssn’t it?”
Roman winced. It was a tiny, tiny motion, but Janus saw it.
“Fine. Janus. But lying and manipulation are still wrong,” Roman said in a firm voice. “It doesn’t matter why you do it. It doesn’t matter what mistakes I make, or Patton makes, or even Logan or Virgil makes without you. Lying fixes nothing.”
Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are missing the bigger picture—”
“No! Stop pushing me to accept the things you’ve done to me just because you maybe, maybe, had good intentions!” Roman shouted. “As long as you believe deception is a legitimate path to making Thomas do what you want—even when it turns out to be the right call—you and I will never see eye to eye, and I will never trust you!”
Janus’s mouth lifted into a snarl. “You know what? So be it. I do not have to defend my purpose or my methods to you.” He yanked out his sonic laser and placed it under Roman’s chin, relishing the momentary flare of fear in those caramel eyes.
“I just want to know one thing, oh noble Prince Roman, and be honest. When you created this cute little adventure for yourself and Logan, did you really have nothing to do with me being cast as the villain? The Master?”
The last word he cracked like a whip, and it echoed down the long, straight corridor.
“…master?” a staticky voice echoed from one of the cells, and a small yellow light flickered to life on the wall. Cells that were, Janus noticed for the first time, unsettlingly empty of Daleks. Instead, rows and rows of fist-sized metal spheres lined the walls; spheres which began to light up, one by one.
“Uh…” Roman whispered. “What is happening? Where are the Daleks?”
Other voices joined in the chorus of “master, master”, until the corridor buzzed with echoes, and Janus’s blood ran cold as ice in his body. He knew that childlike cadence…
“There are no Daleks.” He stared at the spheres, realization crashing over him.
“What?” Roman looked around wildly at the mass of yellow and now red lights, sword hilt gripped so tight that his knuckles were white. The spheres slowly detached from the walls.
“There are no insane Daleks in here,” Janus repeated, his voice rising. “They’re Toclafane! Run!”
He sprinted down the corridor as the first laser blast burst at his heels. Roman yelped, and then they were both running for the far door. A few cells burst open, though the little aliens were small enough to slip right through the bars, and the air swarmed with spiky, fist-sized metal balls.
“What…Toclafane?!” Roman yelled as they ran, dodging blasts. “Why? And why are they shooting at us?”
“The Master betrayed us! Kill the Master!” Metallic spikes whirred.
“They’re shooting at me!” Janus yelled back, pointing a wild blast with his laser over his shoulder. “Or rather, at the Master!”
Laser fire exploded at Roman’s feet, sending him careening into a cell as they ran. “Well, tell them they have terrible aim!”
“Yes, I’m sure they’ll take marksmanship advice from the character who canonically used and betrayed them.” Janus zapped a Toclafane and sent it spinning into its neighbor.
They reached the far door and slid to a halt, Janus seizing the control panel to open the door.
“Funny.” Roman caught up and drew his sword. “I can relate.”
Janus rolled his eyes as Roman faced the oncoming horde of tiny aliens, batting away a few spinning metal spikes.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, use this!” Janus thrust his sonic into Roman’s hands. Roman, to his credit, didn’t argue, but switched his sword to his left hand and readied both weapons.
“Remus!” Janus focused all his attention on the door’s keypad. “A little help would be appreciated.”
His sonic buzzed behind him, along with the sound of Roman’s sword crunching through something metal. The ozone smell of burnt electronics was starting to hurt his lungs.
“You have to say pleeeeeeease,” Remus’s voice said.
Janus slammed a hand against the panel. “REMUS, I SWEAR TO APOPHIS I WILL REMOVE EACH ONE OF YOUR ORGANS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER—!” he roared.
“Which alphabet?” Remus cut in.
“REMUS SANDERS—!”
“All right, all right! So violent. I love it!” Remus crowed. “Here you go.”
The door opened. They tumbled through, Roman zapping away one last murder ball as the door slid shut again.
Chapter 12- Can You Hear Me?
“I’m still quite socially awkward, so I’m just going to subtly walk towards the console and look at something. And then, in a minute, I’ll think of something that I should’ve said…that might have been helpful.”
Roman leaned against the door for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the bright white light filling the circular chamber. Compared to the dimness of the rest of the asylum, it was downright blinding.
“IT’S ABOUT TIME,” a harsh Dalek voice rasped, making both Roman and Janus jump.
A Dalek loomed, motionless and menacing, at the far side of the room, bound in layers of chains. Its casing was green with silver trimming, and it wiggled its green-glowing eyestalk in a way that was somehow suggestive.
“I suppose that’s you, Remus?” Janus visibly relaxed.
Roman sheathed his sword and realized he still had Janus’s sonic, which he tucked against his wrist. As little as he liked the unchivalrous weapon, he didn’t feel like handing it back over just yet.
“IN THE FLESH. BUT NOT REALLY.” Dalek-Remus burst into metallic giggles, sounding all the more bizarre coming from the killing machine he currently inhabited.
He probably likes being a Dalek, Roman thought sourly.
“ZAP MY CHAINS, MASTER JAN.” Remus wiggled, attempting to move. “AND LET’S GO FIND THE EMO.”
Janus pulled a face.
“You actually want to come with us?” Roman raised an eyebrow.
“THAT IS WHAT I SAID.”
Roman scrubbed a hand through his hair. He hadn’t considered what they would do if the dream didn’t end once they actually found Remus, and he definitely hadn’t considered the possibility of Remus wanting to be rescued. He’d assumed his brother was just, well, being himself. Taunting them, messing with them, before fucking off—sometimes literally, ick—to do his own thing.
“I had hoped the scenario would end once we reached this room,” Roman confessed aloud, side-eyeing Janus.
Janus scoffed. “Well, it didn’t. Any other bright ideas, Creativity?”
“Well, we can’t take him,” Roman began, and startled backward when Remus screeched.
“EXCUSE YOU!”
“I’m sorry, Remus, but you’ve seen this episode! This is where your involvement in the story canonically ends.” Roman threw his hands up. “If we bring you along, it could mess up all the parameters we’ve established so far. And if finding you wasn’t enough, that means Specs was right; we really do have to track down old Panic at the Everywhere before the Imagination will let us go.”
“And since we haven’t the faintest idea where to start, we’ll need our TARDISs.” Janus walked back to the door and sighed. “We’ll have to run the Toclafane gauntlet again.
Roman cracked his neck. “I’m ready if you are, snake.”
“I’ll have my sonic back first.” Janus held out a hand. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to secret it away.”
Roman’s mouth twisted, but he handed it over.
“Ready?”
“Ready.” Roman hefted his sword. Janus slapped the panel.
Nothing happened.
Frowning, he hit it again, but the door remained obstinately closed. Roman’s stomach sank. Can’t one aspect of this disaster be easy? Just one?
“Remus, open the door,” Janus snapped.
“WHY SHOULD I?”
Both Sides slowly turned to face the Dalek.
“Exsscuse me?” Janus dipped his head to glower.
Remus’s twin head lights flashed. “WHY SHOULD I LET YOU GO?”
“Because we need to end this adventure, Remus! You know that!” Roman ran a hand exasperatedly down his face. “Are you choosing now to be contrary? Really?”
“EXCUSES!” Remus snapped. “THE TRUTH IS, YOU DON’T WANT MY COMPANY.”
“Remus, that’s not it,” Janus started.
“Oh, that is absolutely it.” Roman folded his arms. “You pride yourself on how many different ways you can gross someone out within the span of five minutes, and then you act surprised when nobody wants you around?”
“I HAVE BEEN HELPING YOU THIS ENTIRE NIGHT.” Remus rattled his chains; one of them snapped. “AND YOU MAKE PLANS IN THIS ROOM LIKE I’M NOT EVEN HERE. YOU WOULD LEAVE ME BEHIND WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT.”
Roman rolled his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t do the same for a laugh, if it suited you!”
“BUT I DO NOT CALL MYSELF A HERO.”
Roman felt those words like a punch to the solar plexus. He physically recoiled, his grip on his sword tightening.
“Look, Remus—” Janus started.
“I AM EVERYTHING THOMAS FINDS DISGUSTING AND ABHORRANT,” Remus continued. “UNLIKE SOME, I DO NOT PRETEND TO BE ANYTHING OTHER THAN WHAT I AM.”
That barb seemed to be aimed at Janus, who flinched, and Roman almost felt bad for him.
Almost.
“WHY SHOULD I ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE HERE, WITHOUT ME, JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE THE SO-CALLED GOOD GUYS?” Remus surged forward, snapping the rest of his chains, and raised his gunstick. “THOMAS IS SUPPOSED TO REJECT ME, BUT WHY SHOULD I ACCEPT THE SAME FROM YOU?”
The gunstick began to glow.
Roman’s back hit the wall, out of time, out of options, again. What would they do if Remus decided to shoot them? They were trapped in here.
“KILLING YOU WOULD END THE GAME, WOULDN’T IT?” Remus shrieked, shrill even for a Dalek. He rolled forward until his eyestalk was inches from Roman’s face. “TELL ME WHY I SHOULDN’T!”
Roman saw his own terrified face reflected in a Dalek eyestalk. Like looking in a funhouse mirror. Is this what I would be like, if I become someone Thomas doesn’t need anymore?
“Maybe you should.” The words slipped out of Roman’s mouth.
Remus stopped. “WHAT.”
“Roman, what the hell?” Janus had his sonic aimed at Remus’s headpiece, clearly ready to return fire if necessary.
Roman chuckled, bitterly. “You Dark Sides always know how to hit where it hurts, you know? You’re right, Remus, I’m not a hero. Thomas even said so. So maybe killing us really is the fastest way to end this. Clean reset. Done.”
“Don’t be a moron,” Janus retorted. “Thomas said no such thing. I was there for that conversation, if you’ll remember.”
“Shut up, snake!” Roman bared his teeth. “He thinks it, and don’t pretend like you aren’t the reason; you and my brother both! I knew who I was, and Thomas knew who I was, and everything was fine until you two started showing up with your lies and your lewdness, making Thomas doubt everything he is!” He dropped his gaze, eyes stinging. “Everything I am.”
Remus backed up a few inches. “AT LEAST YOU ARE HEEDED.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Roman still bit back angry tears.
“YOU NEVER HAD TO SHOUT TO BE HEARD. WHEREAS I WILL ALWAYS BE A MONSTER.”
Janus’s face shuttered. “Remus. We’ve talked about this.”
Remus aimed his eyestalk at Janus. “I AM NOT LIKE YOU. I NEITHER WANT NOR NEED ACCEPTANCE FROM OUR SOURCE, BECAUSE I AM THE VESSEL AND DEPOSITORY OF EVERYTHING THAT HE FINDS UNACCEPTABLE.”
“But you still want it from us,” Janus finished quietly. “Is that what this is about, Rem?”
Remus said nothing.
Roman glanced between them. Somehow, he had a hard time picturing his chaotic brother sitting down and just talking, especially about heavy stuff like Purposes and whatnot. Especially with Janus?
Janus exhaled. “Honestly, neither of you know how to change, and I have watched it hold both of you back.”
He held up fingers to forestall both their protests and pointed at Roman.
“You have always bathed in the light with Thomas, and so you’ve never needed the motivation to be better. And you,” he pointed at Remus, “have never been accepted by anyone, and therefore have never had the opportunity.”
“But the clock ticks on, and Thomas is growing up.” Janus began to pace. “Which means all of us, including the two of you, must adapt. This whole ‘Light Side, Dark Side’ nonsense must stop if Thomas is ever to achieve any sort of peace within himself.”
“EASY FOR YOU TO LECTURE,” Remus said. “NOW THAT YOU HAVE A SEAT AT THE TABLE.”
“As much as I hate to agree with Remus.” Roman folded his arms again. “I have to agree with Remus. What makes you the expert in how we need to change?”
“I am Thomas’s Self-Preservation!” Janus stalked back to Roman. “Adaptability is one of my core functions, because those who cannot change, do not survive.”
Roman frowned. “That seems like an oversimplification—”
“You really want to know why we ‘Dark Sides’ have become such a problem for you, Roman?” Janus interrupted. “It’s because you, and Patton, and to a lesser extent Logan, have all kept Thomas trapped in a familiar, oversimplified pattern of thinking, like an ill-fitting jacket bursting at the seams!”
Janus held up a finger. “Virgil was the first tear in the stitching, tugging you to think deeper, think wider, think differently. And when he, too, got too used to squeezing himself to fit into that safe little kid coat, you got me.”
He smirked.
“You got me, yanking your loose strings and forcing you to understand that the world is bigger than black and white, good and evil, and that sometimes the solutions to problems are not wholly one thing or another. And when you wouldn’t heed my words, you unleashed someone with all the subtlety of a morning star to the head.”
He gestured at Remus as he spoke, then exhaled and adjusted his coat. “We are not evil alien forces creeping about in Thomas’s mind, making trouble for no reason, Roman. We have Purposes, too. And if you’d take one moment and use that creative brain instead of lashing out with your fantasy-trope, holier-than-thou, six-year-old mores, I know you are capable of seeing that.”
Roman looked away, stung…and uncomfortable. Because he did see it.
Maybe he couldn’t have put it in such articulate terms; he wasn’t Logan, after all. But anyone who looked into Thomas’s dejected eyes lately could deduce that the so-called Dark Sides were a symptom of something deeper, not the cause of it. He just hated when Deceit—fine, Janus—was right, and lately it felt like the crafty Side turned out to be right about a lot of things.
If Roman was ever going to be better, he needed to reign in his pride and acknowledge the truth in Janus’s words.
“The god of doorways, of beginnings and endings,” he said quietly. “One face to the past, and one to the future.”
Janus blinked, clearly shocked. His snake eye slitted to the merest sliver.
“I am Creativity,” Roman added, enjoying the other’s momentary discomfiture. “Do you really think I’m not familiar with all the mythology Thomas has studied over the years?”
“If you recognized my name from the start.” Janus spoke barely above a whisper, looking away. “Then why did you mock it?”
Roman pressed his lips together. In all honesty, despite all his posturing, he knew he hadn’t acted particularly admirably that day.
“I was jealous,” he admitted, just as softly. “Thomas needed you, a Side he’s always seen as morally abhorrent, more than he needed me, his…his hero…” he trailed off, staring hard at Remus’s Dalek shell. “What was I supposed to think? What does that make me?”
Janus sighed, deeply, and rubbed his brow. “It was never a competition, Roman. The metaphorical table is big enough for all of us. And I…” he sighed again. “I was wrong, to dig at your insecurities the way that I did. It was unworthy of me.”
Roman gaped at him. “By Odin’s beard. Was that an apology?”
Janus flicked out his forked tongue. “Don’t get usssed to it.”
“GET OUT.”
Both Sides turned to face Remus, who’d been blessedly, unusually quiet up to that point.
“Excuse me?” Roman said.
“I HAVE LOWERED THE PLANET’S SHIELD.” Remus gestured with his gunstick as the door to his prison slid open. “WE HAVE JUST UNDER TWO MINUTES TO GET BACK TO YOUR TELEPORTATION CHAMBER.”
“Are you crazy?” Roman drew his sword as the Toclafane outside swarmed toward the door.
“Kill the Master!”
A distant explosion rocked the asylum, making Roman and Janus stumble.
“IT HAS STARTED.” Remus slammed his body into Roman, pushing him toward the door. “TWO MINUTES, THE PLANET BLOWS UP. TICK TOCK.”
“What about them!” Janus zapped a Toclafane that tried to breach the doorway and hauled Roman back by his denim suspenders.
“I WILL CLEAR THE WAY.” Remus rolled into the carnage, firing his gunstick and laughing maniacally. “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!”
Laser fire and smoke clogged the air, Toclafane swarmed and fell in his wake, but finally the little murder balls began fleeing en mass. Another explosion shook the ground, closer this time.
They ran.
“What made you change your mind?” Janus panted as they rounded a corner.
“THE ADVENTURE MUST END.” Remus kept up easily, despite being a tin can on wheels. “THOMAS IS ATTEMPTING TO WAKE UP.”
“What about Virgil?” Roman demanded.
“IT DOESN’T MATTER NOW.”
“You didn’t kill us,” Roman pointed out.
Remus made a grating noise that might have been a chuckle. “MAYBE YOU DON’T KNOW ME AS WELL AS YOU THINK,” he said. “OR PERHAPS THIS IS MORE FUN.”
The floor shook violently, sending cracks knifing up the walls.
“We have a problem!” Janus, bringing up the rear, shouted as they sprinted down the last hallway. “A big, fiery problem!”
Roman felt scorching heat on his neck and looked back without slowing down. His heart dropped; a wall of flames rapidly engulfed the corridor behind them.
“This bit seemed so much cooler in the episode!” He put on a burst of speed.
“Shut up! Go, go, go!”
Patton waited outside the teleportation chamber, his Cyberman head swiveling back and forth. He let out a metallic screech as they approached.
“Don’t shoot the Dalek, it’s just Remus!” Janus waved his hands. “Get inside!”
They all stumbled in. Logan crouched by the translucent floor panel, sonic poised, obviously ready to activate the teleport. Roman had never been so happy to see his nerd.
“Patton, Roman, what—?” Logan squawked when Roman grabbed his arm to haul him up on the platform. Remus levitated the last few feet; he was the last one on.
“No time, Specs!” Roman yelled cheerfully. “Step on it!”
An explosion, near and violent, rocked the room and sent everyone but Remus stumbling into each other. Roman caught himself on Logan’s shoulders…completely by accident, of course.
“Step on what?” Logan squinted at Roman’s face. “What’s—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Janus seized Logan’s sonic and pointed it at the panel, whirring it to life.
Light blasted up from their feet as fire filled the doorway.
Roman braced for a fireball, but the room disintegrated, and the awful heat vanished. Soft weight enclosed his arms—sleeves. His outfit was shifting back into his familiar Princely attire. He sagged against Logan’s back.
They had done it!
“BY THE way.” Remus’s voice warped from a Dalek’s screech to his own whiny tenor. “Whose idea was it to make Patton a Cyberman?”
Stunned silence.
“I’m a WHAT now?” Patton’s shocked voice rang out.
Chapter 14- Closing Time
“You could walk among the stars. They don’t actually look like that, you know. They are rather more impressive.”
Logan, clad in pajamas, padded down the upstairs hallway in the mindscape, heading towards Patton’s room. It was early, barely 7am; Thomas still slumbered in the real world. But Logan had a feeling—ugh, feelings—that Patton would be awake. He guessed none of them were sleeping well.
It had been five days since Roman’s disastrous LARP.
Thomas, as expected, had tweeted about his “crazy dream”, and hadn’t thought about it since other than to interact with a few fans. Logan wished Thomas’s Sides could do the same. Instead, they’d all been tiptoeing around each other for one hundred and twenty excruciating hours, avoiding the common room, stammering and making excuses when they did encounter each other.
Even Logic could deduce that they needed to talk about it. But nobody seemed to want to go first.
Feelings, Logan groused to himself. Why does everything have to be about feelings?
He reached Patton’s room and found the door cracked, to his surprise. Voices came from inside.
“…gonna get through this,” Patton said gently.
“I just wish I knew what it meant,” Virgil’s rough, low voice answered.
Logan peered in. Virgil and Patton perched on the edge of Patton’s bed, Patton with an arm around the other.
The contrast between the two was stark. Within the mindscape, Patton was the smallest and softest of the bunch, with curling hair, constellations of freckles, and guileless blue eyes behind round glasses. Roman had once proclaimed him the prince of hugs, a title nobody disputed.
Virgil, on the other hand, was the tallest; lanky, quiet, with dark, darting eyes and thin, nervous hands, pale as the vampire he’d portrayed during the Embarrassing Phases video. At the moment, his arms were folded across his middle and his purple-hued bangs hung low, obscuring his face.
As far as Logan knew, Virgil still hadn’t told any of them where he’d been during the LARP, or what role he’d been made to play. Roman’s and Patton’s hesitant inquiries were met with sullen silence; Janus’s with hisses. Logan, for his part, had refrained from foolish questions, knowing Virgil would tell them when he was ready, and not a moment before. Maybe him being here, talking to Patton, meant he was ready.
Logan knocked crisply on the door and let it swing open.
“Oh, good morning, Logan!” Patton waved, his tone cheery. “Virge and I were just having a little chat.”
“I don’t wish to intrude,” Logan offered.
“It’s fine.” Virgil hopped down from the bed, hunching into his hoodie. His eyeshadow, which tended to ripple and shift with his moods, was particularly stark this morning. “We were pretty much done.”
He gave his trademark salute and sunk out before Patton or Logan could protest. Which, to be fair, was almost normal behavior for him…except for the deeply unhappy line between his eyebrows, and the moody set of his jaw. And that dark, dark eyeshadow.
“Skittish as a feral cat, even after all this time.” Patton sighed.
Logan stepped further into the room. “I did not mean to scare him off. I would not have minded him staying.”
“He’s been having a time of it.” Patton fiddled with his cat hoodie strings. He wore it properly for once, instead of draped over his shoulders, which made him look smaller and softer than usual. “But he’ll be fine, I’m sure. What can I do for ya?”
The last was said with a bright smile that didn’t quite reach Patton’s eyes.
Logan’s mouth compressed. Even after The Talk about nostalgia and moving on—even after everything Logan had said on the subject—Patton still tended to repress his negative emotions and put on a false, cheerful face. Aside from being unhealthy, it also made it difficult to know what he was really thinking, and Logan had enough trouble interpreting others’ emotional states at the best of times.
“We need to talk about the LARP,” Logan stated, noting the way Patton’s face immediately fell.
“I’m not sure there’s anything to talk about, kiddo.” Patton refused to meet Logan’s gaze. “It’s over, and—”
“Patton.” Logan ignored the other’s flinch and laid a hand over Patton’s rapidly drumming fingers. “Even I can tell that you are not okay with what happened. You never call me kiddo.”
Patton chuckled, then dropped his head into his hands.
“He lied to me, Logan,” he said in a quiet, miserable voice. “He was with me the whole time and he lied and I thought by now, he would have at least explained why, but he hasn’t even spoken to me, and I just…”
Patton trailed off, and a tear made its slow way down his freckled face.
“…I thought he had changed,” he concluded.
Logan felt immediately out of his depth. This is not where I thought this conversation would start. Janus’s and Patton’s tenuous relationship was not something he felt adequately prepared to help sort out, but as it was clearly weighing heavily on Patton’s mind, he supposed he was obligated to try.
“I think, perhaps.” Logan moved to sit on the bed next to Patton. “This is something you need to discuss with Janus.”
Patton let out a sharp laugh. “Didn’t even have to ask who I meant.”
“It was not a difficult deduction? As you pointed out, you and Janus were together the entire time.” Logan frowned. “And he is the only self-proclaimed liar amongst us.”
“‘Self-proclaimed,’” Patton echoed sadly. “Because he’s not the only one, is he? He’s not even the worst. My mask is so good, the Imagination decided to make me a robot.”
Logan swallowed hard, remembering his thoughts about Patton’s false cheeriness from earlier.
“But gosh, I’m being so selfish right now.” Patton laid a hand on Logan’s forearm. “You came because you wanted to talk, and I turned it around and made it all about me.”
“Believe it or not, your grievance is not unrelated to mine,” Logan said. “Roman’s LARP has pushed all our relationships to the breaking point and put further stress on Thomas’s mind.” He sighed. “I know he had good intentions, but everything he does is so unbelievably extra.”
“Now, I’m gonna have to disagree with you there.” Patton held up a hand. “First of all, none of what happened was Roman’s fault.”
“I know that, but—”
Patton hushed him with a finger to his lips. “Secondly, Roman’s little adventure didn’t create any new stress for us. I think it just shined a light on what was already there, and maybe…” He sighed. HIs gaze skittered away. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that means we really, really need to talk about it. Not just you and I, but all of us.”
Logan couldn’t argue with the truth in that.
Patton nudged him. “And you know, as crazy as it was, it was kind of refreshing? Having us all work together on something a little less high stakes than Thomas’s real life problems.”
“But we didn’t work together,” Logan pointed out. “Roman had to practically drag me along when I lost my glasses, and you already talked about how Janus deceived you. The only consistently helpful party in that game was Remus, and if that isn’t a damning statement, I don’t know what is.”
To Logan’s surprise, Patton nodded eagerly. “But that’s just it, see?”
“I do not?” Logan frowned.
“Roman’s LARP illuminated all those pesky issues we, as a group, need to work on.” Patton’s hands waved as he spoke. “Like me: I know I still have trouble letting myself feel the ickier sorts of emotions. And Janus, well, tells lies.”
“I suppose Roman is terribly insecure.” Logan felt a now-familiar little pang in his heart. “And I am often unwilling to listen to opinions besides my own.”
Patton narrowed his eyes. “Mmm-hmm. And we all now know that Remus actually does have the capacity to, well…”
“Not be a complete and utter agent of chaos every second of the day?” Logan said wryly.
“I was gonna say focus on a problem, but sure.” Patton’s smile was almost genuine that time.
“Well,” Logan reasoned. “If Thomas was once able to work through his issues using, of all things, puppets.” He side-eyed Patton, who smirked. “Then I suppose there is merit to the idea of channeling difficult topics and emotions into a relatively harmless role-play environment.”
“Exactly.” Patton nodded. “I don’t know about you, Logan, but I learned a lot about myself during that adventure.”
His face darkened.
“Being in that body, with all that false, cold anger ready to burst out at the slightest trigger, was scary. It wasn’t fun not being in control of those kinds of emotions. And those are exactly the kinds of emotions I tend to repress until they get, well, explosive, and green…and froggy, as it turns out.”
“And even though I’m still upset with Janus…” He sighed. “I learned a lot about him, too. More than I think I would have in Thomas’s living room, trying to debate him.”
Logan nodded, lost in his own thoughts. Roman’s fierce, smiling face from that night flashed through his mind, hair all disheveled and damp with sweat from running and defending them both, his strong arm holding Logan securely. Not being able to see would have been so much worse without him.
For once in my existence, I was forced to rely on someone else’s courage, someone else’s strength, and I think…we were better for it.
Logan knew he would have to ponder this more later, preferably back in his room with its calm, rational influence.
Patton gently elbowed Logan’s side. “No offense, Logan, but that attitude you tend to have? That singing and acting and roleplaying are wastes of time? It makes you underestimate Roman’s creative intelligence. Just because he isn’t smart in the same way you are, doesn’t mean he doesn’t know his stuff.”
Logan bit his lip, stung, because the words were true. He might be Thomas’s smarts, but Roman was his loyalty, and bravery, and…and all sorts of admirable traits Logan often dismissed as impractical, useless, or unimportant. I am blind like that, sometimes, aren’t I?
He drew in a sharp breath.
Blind.
“Patton, I…I think I do understand what you mean.” His eyes grew wide. “Our roles and situations within the LARP were crafted to exacerbate our own shortcomings, and to force us into relying on each other to work around them.”
Patton hummed and nodded. “And I think the Imagination wasn’t finished.”
“Wait, what?” Logan blinked.
“Well, think about it, Lo.” Patton shrugged. “It’s like when you clean a room that’s full of hidden junk. At first you have to make the room even messier, because you have to take out all the junk to sort through it. And if you get interrupted, it looks worse than it ever did before you started. That’s where Thomas’s head is right now; all cluttered and uncomfortable.”
It was Logan’s turn to narrow his eyes. The things Patton said were usually so full of cotton and rainbows and foolishness that whenever he got serious like this, Logan was often left astounded at the deep emotional nuances Patton could wrap his mind around.
“You think we need to complete the Imagination’s story arc,” Logan guessed. “In order to figuratively finish cleaning the room.”
Patton merely shrugged. “Well, for one, we never found Virgil, and I feel like that’s important. And like you said, the mindspace has felt more tense than ever. We’ve dug up the issues and left them scattered all over the floor, and now we’re all tripping on them. We weren’t done.”
Logan hummed, drumming his fingers on his leg. “I do not know if Roman possesses the ability to recreate a specific dream. And assuming he could recreate it, my experience has taught me that Doctor Who, while enjoyable to watch, is exhausting to reenact. I, for one, do not relish the thought of going through that whole scenario again.”
He shuddered, and Patton shuddered with him.
“I hear ya. Normally the only relish I want is on a hot dog!” Patton quipped.
Logan rolled his eyes, but fondly. “But if it would help us, and by extension, Thomas; perhaps we should consider it. Whatever we decide, I feel—pssh, listen to me, feel—I feel better, having spoken to you, Patton.” He stood. “I will, as they say”—he whipped out his stack of vocal cards to rifle through them— “‘get out of your hair’. Thank you for listening.”
Patton held out his arms. “Aww, bring it in here, Lo.”
Logan’s mouth twisted, but he allowed himself to be embraced. He disliked hugging on principle—as the Twelfth Doctor said, it was often just a way to hide your face—but he knew Patton thrived on physical affection, and at least he’d learned to ask first.
“I would advise you to talk to Janus,” Logan reminded Patton as he prepared to sink out, then chuckled. “You know, before the whole wedding situation, that is not a statement I would have ever imagined myself saying.”
Patton chuckled, briefly, but the smile didn’t stick.
“Sure,” he said in a soft voice. “I’ll talk to him.”
Chapter 15- Midnight
“We look upon this world through glass, safe inside our metal box.”
Patton had gone downstairs, fixed breakfast, eaten, washed all the dishes, cleaned the counters, and watched an episode of Owl House with Roman before finally working up the courage to trudge to Janus’s door.
He raised a hand to knock—and lowered it, wringing his hands—then raised it again…
“Patton, I can hear you dithering out there,” Janus called from inside, making Patton’s stomach swoop.
The door jerked open and Janus’s face appeared, all narrow-eyed and pinched. Patton’s eyes were drawn to iridescent scales, to the riot of yellows and greens in his slitted snake eye, and to the large green lizard perched on his shoulder.
“Uh, hey.” Patton awkwardly rubbed his arm.
Janus said nothing, merely raised an eyebrow, the scales on his forehead shifting with the motion. They were really quite distracting…and…
“Pretty.”
“I’m sorry?” Janus’s eyes widened, and Patton realized he’d blurted that last part out loud like a doofus.
“The…the lizard, I mean! Is pretty.” Patton cleared his throat, knowing his cheeks were probably flaming. “I, I thought you only had snakes.”
“His name is Geb. He’s an Asian Water Dragon.” Janus let the creature climb from his shoulder to his forearm. “They eat mostly insects, and as the name implies, they like to swim. When properly socialized, they can be quite friendly.”
“Right.” Patton bit his lip.
He’s not being cold on purpose. Surely, he’s not. It’s just been a couple days, and we still don’t know each other all that well, that’s all.
“You know, it’s kind of nice, coming upstairs and seeing your door with all of ours.” Patton forced a smile. “It’s probably nice for you, too—”
“Do you need something, Patton?” Janus interrupted. “Or are you simply here to make inane commentary about my door?”
Patton shut his mouth, stung, and backed up a step.
“You know what, I think I’ll just go,” he whispered, turning, fully expecting to hear the door slam behind him.
Instead, he heard it swing further open, and a gloved hand fell gently on his arm. “Wait.”
Patton turned.
Janus stared down at Geb, who sat placidly on his arm, and sighed. “I am, as Remus would say, being a butthole.”
Patton waited.
“Thomas has been playing video games all morning,” Janus went on after a moment. “Which wouldn’t normally be a problem, except he keeps telling himself he’s just taking a little break, or just finishing one last level. Every lie and excuse to hide the truth: he’s burned out and lacks the motivation to get any actual work done. Virgil has already been here twice to complain.”
“He came to see me, too.” Patton frowned. “Maybe that’s why he’s been so agitated today.”
“To sum up, Thomas is feeling extremely guilty about not being productive, and frankly between Virgil’s fretting and trying to keep Remus from taking advantage of the situation, my morning has been rather stressful.” Janus stroked Geb’s head with a sour face. “But I suppose that’s no excuse to be surly with you.”
Patton disliked that Janus automatically defaulted to “mean” when he got upset, but…at least he’s aware of it, and trying to do better? And besides, doesn’t Roman do the same thing, sometimes?
“Would…would you like to come in?” Janus gestured at his door.
Patton nodded, his heart skipping, and followed Janus across the threshold of the unfamiliar room. He’d seen glimpses of it, of course, but he’d never been invited inside before.
All the Sides’ rooms resembled Thomas’s bedroom to an extent, but like their faces, each room contained individual quirks. Janus’s room was cooler in temperature than the rest of the mindspace and darkly lit, a sharp contrast to Patton’s own hazy yellow memory cove. This room had an old-fashioned gramophone where Thomas’s dresser would sit and shelves along the wall that held several large, heated reptile habitats.
Janus put Geb away and gestured to a chair. Patton sat; Janus perched on the bed, facing him. If Patton didn’t know better, he’d have said Janus looked nearly as self-conscious as Patton currently felt.
“I sort of assumed you were the one pushing Thomas to be lazy today,” Patton admitted.
“And I assumed you were the one making him feel guilty about it,” Janus countered.
Patton flinched. “Not…not directly.”
Janus raised both eyebrows that time, and Patton held up his hands.
“I promise! But I’m still Morality, you know?” Patton sighed. “I can’t help it. Thomas needs to put out the content he’s promised to his fans. He needs to be productive, but…but breaks are okay. Our kiddo has been pretty burnt out lately; I know that now.” He dared to meet Janus’s eyes. “I’ve been trying not to push so hard.”
“I know you have.” Janus’s gaze skittered away. “It is appreciated.”
“The thing is, Janus.” Patton twisted the sleeves of his hoodie. “I think Thomas needs me to work with you instead of against you, and…and I want to. I want to be able to trust you, but…” he sighed. “But that’s really hard for me to do when you lie to me.”
Janus’s lips compressed. “This is about the LARP, isn’t it.”
“You should have told me!” Patton cried. “You knew I wasn’t…perceiving myself properly.”
“Patton—”
“I had guns in my arms, Janus, and every little thing kept making me angry for no reason.” Patton interrupted. “How many times did I almost shoot someone?”
Janus pressed his lips together. “Twice,” he admitted. “That I saw.”
His face was so pinched and clearly regretful that Patton wanted to shake him and just…just make him do better. Why couldn’t he just be better? It seemed like he wanted to, and that honestly made Patton more sad than angry. And disappointed.
“Look, Janus,” he said quietly. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and there was just no reason to keep it a big secret. In fact, me having a Cyberman body could have been an advantage to us, with the nano cloud and all, remember?”
Janus’s jaw worked, but he said nothing.
“I think I understand why lies are sometimes necessary,” Patton admitted in a small voice. “I don’t like it, but I get it. You…you’ve had an influence on me. I guess I was hoping I’d had at least a little bit of an influence on you.”
“Patton—” Janus’s normally smooth voice sounded pained.
“But lying to my face about being a Cyberman felt like something the old Deceit would do.” Patton’s voice sharpened. “I wanted Janus to be better.”
I can’t love someone I can’t trust. Patton’s heart turned over at the realization.
He studied Janus’s deliberately neutral expression, the tightness around the eyes and a set to his jaw betraying more than he probably knew. Those cynical, deeply intelligent eyes, that cutting wit that could be so easily turned into a weapon. But was that so different from Logan’s temper, Roman’s snark, Virgil’s sarcasm, or even Remus’s…Remus-ness? All of them had traits that could be turned against each other.
“At first,” Janus said slowly. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d believe me. I was afraid you would assume I was lying just because I could.” He chuckled, bitterly. “And now here I am, dealing with that exact accusation.”
Patton frowned, prompting Janus to wave a hand.
“I don’t say that to blame you. Ironically, in trying to avoid an accusation of lying, I have come to deserve said accusation.”
No, Patton decided. I don’t love him yet. But…I want to. I think I could.
“The longer it went on, the more I feared your inevitable anger at me for keeping it secret.” Janus huffed. “I told myself we couldn’t afford to stop and have an awkward conversation; we were always in too much danger, or too distracted, or the LARP would end soon and there simply wasn’t a point anymore.”
“It got away from you.” Patton nodded. “Lies do that.”
Janus shot him a deadpan look that seemed to say, “who do you think you’re talking to?”, almost making Patton crack a smile.
“I didn’t know…” Janus added, “that you were struggling, or I would have…”
He looked away.
“You might be pleased to know I almost broke several times,” he admitted. “Out on the snow, in the escape pod—”
“In the teleportation chamber.” Patton’s eyes widened. He knew Janus had been hiding something in those pretty words!
“Did you mean what you said, then?” Patton looked away. “Because if you were gonna tell me about the Cyberman thing, and decided to say the other thing instead…”
“Mean what, Patton?” Janus sounded honestly confused.
Patton took a deep breath, fighting the blush creeping up his cheeks. “When you said nothing in the universe could take away the love in my heart. Did you mean it, or was that a lie, too?”
A gloved finger caught his chin and turned his face up. Patton’s breath caught at the soft expression in those mismatched eyes.
“You have every reason to doubt me.” Janus enunciated more than he usually did. “But I am Thomas enough in my core to never say a thing like that if it wasn’t absolutely true.”
Patton touched the gloved hand, his heart jumping like an excited puppy in his chest, but there was still that little uneasy voice in his head saying no, this is what he does, don’t let your guard down…
“A truth in service to a lie,” he pointed out quietly.
“A truth, nonetheless.” Janus dropped his hand, and Patton hated to admit he missed the slight warmth, and softness.
“Lies break trust, Janus.” Patton sighed. “Even lies meant to keep you from getting hurt. Sometimes, in a friendship,”— and he hoped Janus considered them friends; he really, really hoped. “You have to tell the truth, even when you know it will hurt, because that trust, once broken, is so hard to rebuild. Remember that whole dilemma we had after Thomas forgot to go to Joan’s reading?”
“When I impersonated you?” Janus said dryly. “No, do remind me, it had completely slipped my mind.”
“Janus.” Patton folded his arms.
“I am Self-Preservation, Patton!” Janus threw up his hands. “Keeping Thomas from getting hurt is literally my job, and lying is often part of that. I swear I am making an effort with all of you, but self-preserving lies are who I am; I cannot simply turn it off because it makes you sad. It is not fair to require that from me.”
Patton opened his mouth, but Janus kept going.
“Had I not lied my way into that conversation about Joan,” he said, “I would likely still be locked away in the depths of Thomas’s mind, ignored, while he self-immolated his way through burnout, depression, or possibly worse! The only reason I don’t have to lie to you all now is because of the lies I told to get you to listen to me in the first place—!”
Janus stopped mid-rant, frowning, cocking his head as though listening to something. A mixture of anger and resignation twisted his mouth, and he vanished with a faint “pop”.
“…Janus?”
Patton blinked at the now empty room, trying and failing not to feel hurt. He didn’t just leave; he was obviously summoned. By Thomas, most likely; Janus probably could have ignored anyone other than their Source. If only it hadn’t happened when he was getting so angry…I could have…
But Patton honestly wasn’t sure what he might have said, or done, to make it better.
He watched Geb creep placidly around his habitat for a few moments before sighing, standing up, and sinking out himself. Janus was an extremely private Side, and he’d only just invited Patton into his room; Patton still being there when he returned might not be good for their extremely fragile peace.
Why would Thomas summon Janus, though? If he’s just having a casual day in…
Patton checked the deserted common room and kitchen. Not finding Janus there, and not daring to ask any of the others, he went to his usual spot next to the blinds, took a bracing breath, and rose into the real world.
Only one way to find out.
Chapter 16- Turn Left
“Your life could have gone one way or the other. What made you decide?”
“I just did.”
What is he doing?
Janus grumbled to himself from his place by the blinds, arms folded, a scowl flexing his forehead. Thomas stood by his open front door, talking, his words so steeped in tiny, pleasant lies that Janus’s skin practically crawled with them.
He felt movement at his elbow as Patton rose up, curls flattening into Thomas’s trademark swoop, blue eyes deepening into brown, freckles fading.
The Sides always more closely resembled their Source in the real world—Janus had felt his own scales shift to makeup, his fangs recede when he’d popped in—but in that moment, the transition only served to annoy Janus more. It reminded him of the LARP; Patton’s smiles and sunshine crammed inside an unfeeling metal shell. Patton’s true face was a delight to look at, and Janus was quite ready to tell circumstances to quit hiding it from him.
“What’s going on?” Patton’s question jolted him from his thoughts. “Why’d you leave so sudden?”
Janus gestured towards the door. “Apparently, Thomas felt a sudden need to start white-lying up a storm. I was pulled in and promptly ignored; the usual cognitive dissonance our Source employs when he requires me and pretends he doesn’t.” He chuckled. “I’m surprised our resident storm hasn’t made an appearance as well, if only to hiss and spit insults.”
He nodded toward Virgil’s usual spot on the stairs.
“I guess that means whoever’s at the door, can’t be stressing Thomas out too much,” Patton reasoned. “But if he’s not stressed, why would he accidentally summon you?”
“Thanks,” Janus said wryly.
Patton’s eyes widened. Even brown and identical to Thomas’s, they were disarming. “I…I didn’t mean it like—”
Janus sighed. “I wasn’t joking, and you’ve definitely hurt my feelings.”
Patton narrowed his eyes, and to Janus’s relief, attempted a smile.
“I think your sense of humor is, uh…” Patton’s lips curled into the tiniest smirk. “Not gonna take some getting used to.”
“Beautiful. Bravo.” Janus gave a mocking round of applause.
Inside, his heart tripped all over itself. Patton had mimicked him to try and make him feel better! He was not ridiculously flattered, and he was certainly not blushing.
“Cool, come in,” Thomas said from the front hallway, opening the door wider. Two people entered, carrying bags and an orange jug. “We could also do something else, if you don’t want to play,” Thomas stammered, following. “Video games…”
Janus instinctively stiffened as they all approached, even though he knew perfectly well only Thomas could see them. Their Source made eye contact with both Sides for the briefest second before looking back to his guests.
“Uh, just crash on the couch for a minute while I get some glasses?”
Thomas turned into the kitchen. The couple came fully into the living room, and Janus’s eyes widened when he saw who it was.
“It’s Lee and Mary Lee!” Patton half-whispered, half-squealed.
“So, it is.” Janus frowned. “But why, I wonder?”
“Oh, come on, Mr. Cynical.” Patton elbowed Janus gently in the ribs. “They’re Thomas’s friends. Maybe they just wanted to visit.”
“Of course, because they put so much effort into visiting with him at their wedding that they invited him to,” Janus snarked.
Patton huffed and fell silent.
“I hope you don’t mind plastic.” Thomas came back to the living room, carrying plastic cups, paper plates, and a corkscrew. He set them on an end table and scrubbed his neck. “I, ah, wasn’t exactly expecting to have anyone over, so I hadn’t done dishes yet, and I know the place is a little messy—”
“Thomas, sit down, it’s fine.” Mary Lee pulled clear pastry containers from the plastic bag she’d brought.
Patton gasped softly again and grabbed Janus’s elbow. “Brunch Tuesdays!”
It was Janus’s turn to roll his eyes…but he also left Patton’s hand where it was on his arm. And missed its warmth when Patton removed it to clap excitedly.
Lee picked up the corkscrew and set to work on the champagne bottle. “Really, it’s us who should be apologizing,” he said. “It’s been so long since we all just hung out, with all the wedding planning and stuff, and we really wanted to make some time for you.”
“Awww,” Thomas and Patton said in unison, causing Thomas to glance at the pair of them again.
Patton clapped a guilty hand over his mouth. Janus had to swallow a smile.
The trio talked about pastries, the wedding, and finally Kingdom Hearts, at which point Thomas dragged his friends over to the TV and booted up his game. Patton and Janus stood side by side, watching.
Well…
Patton watched Thomas, and chuckled, and cracked a pun every now and then over something Thomas or one of his friends said. But Janus…Janus watched Patton.
The unfinished argument from his room echoed in his mind. Lying was always going to be a part of who Janus was; ironically enough, it was the reason he’d been summoned in the middle of discussing it. Patton needed to understand that if this…alliance, or whatever this was between them…was going to work.
But Janus also realized he’d never seen Patton truly in his element; not like this. Thomas, and by extension, Patton, needed time with friends; possibly as much as Logan needed to be listened to, and Roman and Remus both needed validation for their ideas.
Before the callback, before his own begrudging acceptance, Janus had seen Patton as nothing but a source of puns and silliness; at best a distraction, at worst an annoying rival for Thomas’s attention. He’d been easy to impersonate, easy to lead and manipulate with slick words and quick thinking. He hadn’t known Patton at all, and he hadn’t wanted to.
“Do you know what this means?” Patton touched Janus’s sleeve again.
“Do tell.”
“Maybe it wasn’t all in vain.” Patton gestured at Thomas and Lee, who were plugging in a second controller while Mary Lee nibbled on a pastry. “Going to the wedding and all. You called it a net loss, because we assumed that Lee and Mary Lee didn’t really care if Thomas showed up or not.”
“They basically ignored him, Patton,” Janus argued. “After what Thomas sacrificed to be there, I don’t think that was an unreasonable assumption to make.”
Patton smiled softly. “But look at them now. They obviously still care about Thomas very much. They are happy he came; so happy that they came all the way out here to rekindle a tradition that means a lot to them.”
Janus’s mouth worked. Patton probably wasn’t trying to make him feel guilty, but all the same, the words felt accusatory.
“Well,” he said at last in a biting tone. “Seems like things worked out after all.” He made a mocking gesture with his hands. “Guess I was wrong about everything.”
Patton’s smile wavered. He snuck a sideways glance at Janus.
“You and I both know…” Patton’s dark gaze moved to stare at nothing. “That’s not true.”
Janus guessed that Patton was remembering the aftermath: Thomas’s near-breakdown, his own rather traumatic transformation. And he hoped this was Patton’s way of acknowledging that Janus wasn’t all wrong. That sometimes, Patton needed him.
And watching Thomas smile and interact with his friends made Janus realize that maybe he’d been wrong, to call friendship a boogeyman and dismiss it as unimportant. Sure, it wasn’t a callback to a freaking Alfred Hitchcoppalucas movie…but it meant a lot to Thomas.
Maybe Janus needed Patton too, sometimes. The corner of his mouth lifted into a soft half smile, and he nodded.
“Oh, hey!” Thomas called from the kitchen. At some point he’d gotten up and was now rummaging around in a cupboard. Lee and Mary Lee followed. “Did I tell you guys about getting fricking Leslie Odom Jr. to be in one of my videos?”
Lee gasped. “Shut up!”
“It was so cool!” Thomas gushed.
“…think Odom Sides would be cool.” Leslie sauntered into the living room. “I would watch Odom Sides, do what he can do.”
Janus stared. Leslie wasn’t really there, of course; any more than Janus and Patton were “there”. But Thomas must have been daydreaming very strongly in that moment, for it to manifest to his Sides.
“What is up, everybody?” Imaginary Leslie said in a louder voice, attempting the hand gesture Thomas used to open his videos.
Thomas watched the scene from the kitchen, a Tupperware container grasped loosely in his hand. Janus’s heart skipped; he’s so easily distracted, they’re going to notice and ask about his mental health, and he’s not ready to talk about that yet…
“That was scary,” Leslie muttered. “But I feel that…”
“Thomas, are you all right?” Mary Lee waved a hand in front of Thomas’s face. “Earth to Thomas?”
This daydream was getting out of hand.
“Okay.” Janus dismissed the illusion with a firm wrist flick. “That…okay. Gosh.”
Thomas shook himself out of his daze and made eye contact with Janus. ‘Thank you,’ he mouthed, and turned back to his friends.
Janus felt like he’d been knocked breathless.
Thomas had never thanked him before. The sensation thrummed like the satisfying snap of one puzzle piece clicking into another. Like he’d been viewing the world through a blurry lens all this time, and that one look had wiped it clean.
“Janus?” Patton touched his elbow.
“Is that what it feels like?” Janus said softly. “To…to work with him. Instead of…”
“Against him?”
Janus turned to find Patton giving him a smile so bright it was practically blinding. He felt the light all the way down to his suddenly weak knees, and oh, he really did have it bad, didn’t he?
“Yeah,” Patton breathed. “Yeah, it’s like that. Feels good, doesn’t it?”
Janus pressed his lips together and nodded.
Thomas laughed at something Lee said, another sound like little sparks of light in his nerves. No lies, no pretense, just joy. It had been so long since Thomas had laughed like that.
Because of friends.
Maybe Patton was right.
Maybe the wedding hadn’t been a net loss after all.
“I don’t know about you,” Patton said. “But I think he’ll be okay without us now. And we have some more talking to do in the mindscape.”
Janus nodded again, still unable to say a word. They both sank out together.
Chapter 17- World Enough and Time
“This is not an exodus, is it? More of a beginning really, isn’t it?”
“I’m just saying, Logan.” Roman twirled across the kitchen, a bag of tomatoes in hand. “Grouping vegetables by flavor category instead of growing habit just makes more sense.” He dumped the vegetables on a cutting board and grabbed a knife.
Roman had jumped at the chance to help Logan fix supper for them all, as Logan often did when Patton was preoccupied with Thomas.
“The fruit versus vegetable debate is arguably meaningless once you have put them into your dish.” Logan passed sheets of dough through a pasta maker, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to give Roman the stink-eye. “For instance, you don’t make a ‘vegetable’ salad; you make a salad, which is mostly vegetables, but can occasionally have fruit and even meat or eggs on it.”
Logan waved a hand for emphasis.
“If the debate is meaningless, why do we have salad and fruit salad?” Roman pointed out in a sing-song voice.
“Whereas growing habits determine which plants can be planted next to each other,” Logan argued in a louder voice. “How much water and sun they need, etcetera. A fruit tree has very different needs than a bean bush, and thus they are classified differently.”
“Then why are tomatoes grown in vegetable gardens?” Roman whirled, his knife flinging tomato juice on the floor. “They don’t taste like fruit, they don’t go with most fruits, and on top of that, you don’t even grow them like fruits! So why, pray tell, are they fruit?”
Logan’s dark eyes flashed behind his glasses. “You are making a mess.”
“You are not answering my question!”
“Well, I suppose technically, you are correct.” Logan shrugged. “While the tomato is botanically a fruit, it is considered a culinary vegetable due to its lower sugar content.” He opened a lower cabinet and dug around for a pot, his neatly tucked-in polo riding up in the back to reveal the tiniest slice of bare skin.
Roman exhaled, turned back to the cutting board, and focused on his chopping. Logan’s deep, steady lecturing voice was already having enough of an effect on his concentration; his slices were horribly uneven.
Oh well. It was all going into a sauce.
“The tomato, you might be interested to know, is actually a berry, from the solanum lycopersicum plant.” Logan filled the pot from the fridge water dispenser. “And it is not the only backyard garden plant with this ambiguity. Bell peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, and squashes are all botanically fruits, and culinary vegetables.”
Roman blinked. “Wait…really?”
He finished cutting the last tomato and dumped the chopped pile in a saucepan. The move brought him shoulder to shoulder with Logan, who nodded.
“Indeed.” Logan flicked his hand to summon a green bell pepper. “Spaghetti sauce is quite an…ambiguous…dish.”
Roman narrowed his eyes, fighting a smile. “So, what you’re saying is, I was right all along and you were just arguing for the sake of arguing.” He moved closer to take the vegetable.
Logan smirked, holding it back. “Arguing? I thought we were having a rather invigorating discussion.”
The two stood only inches apart now. Roman’s heart pounded; he had no idea what was happening here, but he didn’t think he wanted it to stop.
“Arguing, discussing,” Roman said lowly. “Tomato, solanum lycopersicon.”
Logan’s eyes dilated. Roman grabbed for the pepper again and their fingers brushed, which Roman felt like electricity down his spine. His gaze unconsciously dropped to Logan’s lips…
“Oh, my fricking god, would you two get a room already?” Virgil’s aggravated voice called from the living room, causing the two to spring apart.
Logan cleared his throat and turned back to his pasta, dumping it in the now boiling water with little ceremony. Roman chopped up the bell pepper, then an onion, and added them to the saucepan in silence. Was that…did he…what…?
Even his brain couldn’t form words.
Virgil hissed from his position on the back of the living room couch. Roman glanced over and set his jaw when Patton and Janus rose together in Patton’s spot by the blinds. I’ll never get used to seeing Deceit standing side by side with one of us…even if he isn’t quite as bad as I once thought.
“Hey guys?” Patton called. “Can we all meet in the living room for a minute?”
Roman and Logan exchanged a glance. The snake better not have done something to our little puffball.
“Patton does not sound upset,” Logan said.
Roman grimaced. “Am I that easy to read?”
“Or I have become more skilled at it.” Logan set a timer on his phone and walked out of the kitchen. Roman, shaking his head, followed.
They sat on the couch, on either side of Virgil’s purple-socked feet. Patton took Roman’s usual beanbag chair, while Janus sat primly at the far end of the sectional.
“So.” Patton rubbed his hands together and smiled much too widely. “Gang. And Janus.”
“Yes, do single me out,” Janus muttered.
“I think we need to try the LARP again.”
Roman sputtered in shock, but he was drowned out by Virgil.
“Are you kidding me?” Virgil’s eyeshadow crept across his face, deepening his eyes. “That’s a horrible idea, Patton, what the heck?!”
“Whoa, Surly Temple, no need to be insulting,” Roman cut in. “Besides, why would you care? You weren’t even in the last one.”
Virgil’s lips turned up in a snarl. “I was in the last one, dipshit!”
“Language!” Patton protested.
“But you guys never even tried to find me!” Virgil went on, undeterred.
“Exactly!” Patton shouted, causing everyone to look at him again. He sighed. “There was a whole part of the story that we never even got to. I just feel like whatever the Imagination was trying to show us, we didn’t finish. And for Thomas’s sake, I think we need to.”
“I agree with Patton,” Logan piped up.
Roman stared at him in mild betrayal.
“What? Why?” Virgil hunched into his hoodie.
“We have all been at a figurative precipice since the wedding decision and fallout.” Logan’s voice came out cool and unperturbed. “Clearly this state of affairs cannot continue. Thomas’s mind will not sustain our tumultuous relationships indefinitely without fracturing.”
Roman’s gaze flickered to Janus, only to discover the snake already staring at him. Janus’s scales rippled as he scowled, and his cross-armed posture grew more rigid.
“I think it likely that Thomas’s subconscious is attempting to bring the various parts of himself together and reconcile them, before his mental health deteriorates further,” Logan went on. “That is, us. If such is the case, I have a suspicion that the Imagination will keep thrusting us into scenarios until we have figuratively”—he flicked his wrist, snatching a vocab card out of the air— “‘kissed and made up.’”
Virgil made a face.
“Ew,” Janus deadpanned.
“Who’d want to kiss you anyway, scales?” Roman scoffed.
Patton coughed quietly into his cat hoodie sleeve.
“I…I do not think it means to literally kiss.” Logan frowned at the card he held. “Did I employ the phrase incorrectly? There should be no actual kissing involved.”
If the word kissing came out of Logan’s mouth one more time, Roman was going to blush so hard blood would surely come out of his nose…no no no, ew, that’s such a Remus thought, ugh. He was sure his face must be flaming.
Patton’s and half of Janus’ face sported awkward color as well. Only Virgil seemed immune to embarrassment, the lucky asexual emo. Thankfully Logan’s timer went off, breaking the moment. He stood up, rather quickly, and walked into the kitchen to check the food.
“So, Roman!” Patton’s voice came out a bit too loud. “Do you think you could recreate the LARP?”
Roman chewed his lip. It had taken him weeks to perfect the last one, but most of that was fretting over getting every detail correct for Logan. And if the threads of the old dream still existed within the subconscious, he could pull upon those rather than building an idea from scratch…
“Maybe,” he allowed at last. “But I honestly have no idea how much of what happened in there was me, how much was Remus, and how much was the Imagination. Besides…” he trailed off, hands twisting in his lap. “You all hated it.”
Logan returned from the kitchen, eschewing Virgil’s legs to sit directly next to Roman.
“The noodles are done, and your sauce is almost ready,” he reported. “Also, hate is a strong descriptor. The attention to canon detail was exquisite; even the ‘extra’ bits were cleverly woven in to fit the narrative. It felt like a genuine episode of Doctor Who.”
“I…” Roman opened and closed his mouth a few times, touched nearly beyond words. “That’s uncharacteristically complimentary of you.”
Logan shrugged, but a corner of his mouth turned up. Out of the corner of Roman’s gaze, Virgil made a gagging face.
“Honestly, the worst part was being forced to participate against my will,” Janus said. “And being cast as a villain, of course. And—”
“Janus.” Patton shot him a dad frown.
Janus waved that away. “The point being, Patton is right. Thomas’s subconscious clearly wants us to play nice with one another, and it has employed the Imagination in its…quest.” He shot Roman an unreadable look. “I vote for letting things play out in a somewhat controlled environment that we are all, now, somewhat familiar with.” The snake looked at Patton, who shot him another patented “Dad look”.
Roman couldn’t help but frown. He’d known those two were almost, well, friends now, but them having conversations with only their eyes was new.
Janus sighed, stood, and walked to Roman, who tensed.
To Roman’s utter shock, Janus removed one of his gloves to lay a bare hand on his shoulder. But unlike the time in Thomas’s presence, this was his left hand; the back of which was covered in patches of olive-green scaling, with random scales scattered down to the first knuckle of his fingers.
“I would like to apologize, properly this time. With words, not just implication.” Janus drew in a deep breath. “I am sorry I called you the evil twin.”
Roman sat, stunned. This…this has to be Patton’s influence…
Remus popped up from behind the couch, prompting Virgil to scream and launch a pillow at his face. The chaotic Side caught it, grinning, and promptly ripped out a mouthful to chew.
“You called?” A few feathers puffed from Remus’s mouth.
Janus frowned. “I did not.”
“Oh, but you did.” Remus dropped the pillow and leaped over the couch, barely moving his head, graceful like a contortionist. “You said evil twin, and here I am.”
Something sharp lurked behind his maniacal smile, an edge that had Roman reaching for the hilt of his sword.
“What I want to know, Jan Jan.” Remus’s expression dropped into something stony, the white streak in his hair drooping over his acid green eyes. “Is that really how you see me? Because I thought we were friends.”
At the word “friends” he dropped his hand and casually summoned his morning star.
Janus’s gaze darted wildly between Remus and the rest of them, and he licked his lips. Roman, for a moment, genuinely feared what his brother might do if Janus didn’t say exactly the right thing, right now. Luckily, saying exactly the right thing was something natural manipulators tended to excel at.
“I have been unfair to a number of people lately, it would seem.” Janus looked down at the glove he held, rubbing it between his fingers. “Remus, in a moment of anger, I used you to score a cheap shot against your brother at the expense of you both. That was wrong of me, as your friend. I’m sorry.”
Remus shifted his weapon to his shoulder and cocked his head, his mouth a flat line under his mustache. Roman’s fingers tightened around his sword hilt, though he had no idea who he’d be defending if he did decide to intervene. Janus, to his credit, stood up and stood his ground, his scaled face a mask. Being the third tallest Side—next to Virgil, and then Logan—he had a full two-inch height advantage over Remus, not even counting his hat.
Remus studied him, absently picking his nose and then wiping the finger on Janus’s capelet. Janus’s nostrils flared. He said nothing.
“Aww, Jan, who could stay mad at that creepy scaly snake face?” Remus dropped his morning star to throw both arms around Janus’s waist, bowling them both back into the seat cushion.
“Ugh, get off me, you trash rat!” Janus shoved at the chaotic Side. “You smell like week-old rotten tuna fish.”
“Thank you, I’ve been trying a new scent.” Remus allowed himself to be pushed away. He stood, clapped his hands once, and rubbed them together like a plotting villain.
“All right, Roman.” He abruptly turned. “Shall we?”
Roman blinked as every eye in the room swiveled to him. He became acutely aware of his hand still around his sword hilt and released it. “Shall we…what?”
“Reboot the LARP, ding dong!” Remus rolled his eyes, and smirked. “Say, did you know that ding dong is a slang word for—”
“Nope!” Patton smacked hands over his ears. “No sir! We are not talking about anyone’s anything that needs to stay zipped up in their pants!”
“So, you’re…you’re helping us?” Roman stammered to Remus, confused. “Just like that?”
An uncomfortable silence fell, the other Sides all looking at each other. Roman immediately felt very small, very awkward, and very, very exposed. Had he said something wrong, again?
“He did help with the last one, kiddo,” Patton pointed out. “And we need you both.”
“Indeed, Remus’s aid was instrumental in overcoming many of the obstacles we faced during that adventure,” Logan added.
Roman stared at them, all the facets of Thomas’s mind, standing here together in the same space. He realized that this might be the first time he’d ever seen them all united about something instead of picking fights with each other. And as usual, it was him, Roman, holding them back.
He’d gotten so used to blaming the “Dark Sides” for the strife in Thomas’s mind that even when he knew better—and he did know better, now—he still defaulted to that faulty mindset. He expected Remus to work against them because that’s what Dark Creativity did, despite current evidence to the contrary.
He expected Janus to betray and manipulate them…because that’s what Deceit did.
Current evidence to the contrary.
The realization hit him like a thunderclap: that was how he once saw Virgil.
And the way through the strife Virgil caused, he thought as his gaze unconsciously sought out the anxious Side, wasn’t cutting him down and excluding him. It was lifting him up and making him part of the family.
Virgil raised an eyebrow, clearly uncomfortable with Roman’s staring.
“Look, I don’t necessarily like it either,” he spoke up in his low, gravelly voice. “No offense, Rem, but you are chaos incarnate, and you know I’ll never be completely okay around you.”
“Aww, love you too.” Remus waggled his fingers.
“But Patton and Logan are right,” Virgil went on. “If we’re doing this…and for the record, I don’t see how going back into that LARP is really gonna help. There are a million things that could go wrong, and what if we can’t even—”
“Virgil, breathe,” Logan interrupted.
Virgil paused and took a deep breath. “But if everyone else thinks it’s a good plan, then I guess I don’t have any better ideas.” He sighed. “If we’re doing it at all, then we’re all doing it.”
Roman swallowed as everyone looked at him again. Geez, normally he liked being in the spotlight, but this was excruciating.
“Look, what if I can’t recreate it?” he blurted out. “What if I mess it up? What if my stupid LARPing idea isn’t strong enough to hold…” he gestured at the group of them. “Whatever this is? What if we try, and it just makes things worse?”
“Catastrophizing, Princey. Totally stealing my job.” Virgil made a sarcastic thumbs-up.
But it was Logan who came forward and laid a hand on Roman’s shoulder.
“Roman. It has come to my attention lately that I do not say this enough,” he said lowly. He set his other hand on Roman’s other shoulder. Roman felt the warmth of those hands burning even through his thick tunic.
“I believe in you.” Logan’s deep voice was firm, his dark eyes solemn, and his long fingers dug into Roman’s sleeves. “If that helps.”
“Face any and every challenge with courage and honesty!” Patton piped up.
Warmth rose in Roman’s chest and spread through his body, becoming tears on the way to his eyes. He blinked, rapidly, barely holding back from throwing himself into Logan’s arms.
“Okay.” He scrubbed his face. “All right. All right, let’s do this!”
Remus whooped. Roman took a breath, and shook his hands out…
“Um.” Virgil raised a hand. “Not to be a wet blanket here…”
“When are you anything but?” Janus deadpanned.
“Hee hee, you said butt.” Remus giggled.
“However, can we, like, eat first?” Virgil said. “I would rather not come back to a blazing fire in the mindspace because someone left the stove on.”
Roman gasped, and it was his turn to grab Logan’s shoulders. “My sauce!”
Chapter 18- Time Heist
“My personal plan is that a thing will probably happen quite soon.”
Logan was more prepared, this time, for the rush of Doctor-ish knowledge firing across his synapses and the stomach-dropping lurch of entering a dreamscape. He noted the subtle shift on his skin that was his wardrobe changing, and honestly, he was looking forward to having a working sonic screwdriver at his disposal again.
He was not expecting to reappear on the same Dalek ship they’d left, surrounded by angry aliens.
“There they are!” The Dalek ship’s Janus pointed from their dais. “Take them!”
“What?” Roman gasped from Logan’s left. “What??”
Blaster bolts exploded around them. Logan had just enough time to register that Roman’s outfit had changed, again, before their own Janus seized both their elbows and hauled them toward their TARDISs.
“Our ships have shields!” he shouted. “Get inside their range!”
“HA! YOUR WEAPONS ARE USELESS AGAINST ME, BITCHES!”
A green-and-silver Dalek with a green glowing eyestalk screeched past, shooting madly at their foes. Remus, still a murder-tank. It was disorienting to watch one using its ridiculous firepower to defend them.
Logan, meanwhile, stumbled toward his familiar blue box, breathing a sigh of relief when the rain of blaster fire began deflecting off the shield behind him.
“Why are they shooting at us?” he demanded of the others, who stood scattered nearby, panting. Patton, Logan noted, was once again a Cyberman, and Virgil was nowhere to be seen.
“I PUT THE PLANETARY SHIELD BACK UP BEFORE THEY COULD FINISH BLOWING IT TO SMITHEREENS.” Remus squatted in front of them, acting as both a target and a shield. “THEIR BLAST ONLY DAMAGED SECTIONS. THEY SEEM UPSET ABOUT THAT.”
“We need to get out of here,” Janus pointed out. “Our shields won’t help if they swarm us.”
Daleks and Ice Warriors and Cyberman descended toward them, from all parts of the ship.
“Agreed,” Logan said. “Everyone, into your TARDISs.”
They split off. Logan snapped his fingers, and the door to his sprang open, which brought a grin to his face despite the circumstances.
“That’s still really cool!” Roman’s grin was wide as he jogged past and into the ship. Logan followed and nearly startled out of his skin when Remus, in all his Dalek glory, levitated in through the door behind him.
“IT IS BIGGER, ON THE INSIDE!” Remus crowed.
“Remus!” Roman roared. “What are you doing? Get on Janus’s ship!”
“NO. I WANT A GO IN THE REAL TARDIS.” Remus’s Dalek voice grew pouty as he flew around the ship, Roman chasing and shaking a fist at him.
Logan rolled his eyes and snapped the door shut. It really didn’t matter, and there was no time to argue.
An explosion outside threw them all off balance. Logan seized the controls, flipping switches to start the takeoff sequence. Janus’s scaled, bearded face—still the Master, I see—came up on the screen.
“We should get off this murder vessel and rendezvous.” Janus’s voice crackled over the speaker.
“Indeed, but I do not think we should stray too far from the planet.” Logan’s fingers flew over a keypad. “Since it is still here, I surmise it is meant to be our primary clue into discerning what’s next.”
“You may be right.” On the screen, Janus navigated the controls of his own ship. “Go into orbit and cloak?”
“Good idea.”
Logan wound another knob that would warm up the ship’s cloaking device and threw the lever to start up the time rotor. He piloted them to a safe orbit above the planet, on the exact opposite side from the murderous Dalek ships.
“Your outfit is the same.” Roman came around the center console, looking down at his own sleeveless brown dress, tights, and matching boots. “Everyone looks the same except me. I wonder why mine is different. Ooh, look, I have a utility belt this time! And a holster!”
He started taking various items out and fanboying over them, while Logan made sure the TARDIS’s cloaking device was working properly.
“Janus, are you there?” he said into the speaker.
“Unfortunately.” Janus’s face reappeared on the screen. “What do you propose we do now?”
“Clearly we need to find Virgil, since he is once again not with us.” Logan frowned. “Did nobody think to ask him one last time where he was during the last LARP?”
Janus’s face grew pinched, which Logan supposed was answer enough. He sighed.
“That would have made things easier. As it is, I propose we start by scanning the asylum for aliens matching Virgil’s description,” Logan mused.
“You go right, and I’ll go left.” Janus switched off his screen.
For a brief interlude, all was quiet aboard the TARDIS. The time rotor hummed contentedly as Logan set the TARDIS to circumnavigate the planet and run scans.
“Oh.”
Logan glanced up to see Roman studying a fantasy-esque pistol, turning it over and over in his hands. He abruptly sheathed the weapon, and his caramel eyes met Logan’s. “I’m River Song this time around.”
Logan studied Roman, his gaze lingering on bare, muscular arms and a V-cut neck that showed off entirely too much chest to be fair…
“Yes,” he agreed, swallowing. “I believe that is the outfit she wore during the battle of Demons Run.”
“Why did my clothes change, when everyone else stayed the same?” Roman asked, and then chuckled bitterly. “Is it because I’ve been feeling like I don’t know who I am anymore?”
“I HAPPEN TO LIKE MY SHAPE,” Remus said behind them, making Roman scream and Logan whirl with his sonic in hand. The green Dalek rolled over the grating, coming to rest next to them.
“Jesus Christ Superstar, Remus!” Roman clutched at his heart.
Logan narrowed his eyes. “Where have you been?”
“EXPLORING.” Remus’s head lights flashed.
“You best not have broken anything.”
“HOW?” Remus wiggled his appendages. “WITH A PLUNGER AND A WHISK?”
Roman let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort, and quickly covered his mouth.
“HAVE YOU FOUND VIRGIL?” Remus asked.
Logan sighed. “No. The scanners show no humans below at all, and I am realizing that such a search may be futile anyway.”
“Why’s that, Specs?” Roman leaned on the console.
“Remus is a Dalek.” Logan adjusted his glasses. “Patton is once again a Cyberman, and technically, both Janus and I are Time Lords. There is no guarantee that Virgil is playing a human character, and in fact, given the composition of our party, the odds are rather against it.”
Roman frowned, and Logan had to look away again so as not to get distracted by those pouty lips.
“With the multitude of species in the universe, the odds that we would guess the correct category in order to even begin properly scanning for Virgil himself are infinitesimal,” he went on. “Put simply, I do not know what to tell the TARDIS to look for.”
“Furthermore, the state of the planet itself concerns me.” Logan typed a few numbers and pulled a screen down, showing the twins a readout. “Despite the aliens we dispensed with and the number that must have perished when the Dalek ships fired—although perhaps ‘perished’ is an incorrect term, as it could be argued that denizens of the Imagination were never properly alive to begin with—”
“Oi, Yerkes-Dodson, nobody cares about semantics.” Roman waved a hand.
Logan cleared his throat. “As I was saying, despite our various interferences, more aliens are scattered within the bowels of the planet than ever. I suspect that Roman must have ‘reset the game’, as it were, when he recreated it, but that doesn’t explain—”
Roman sputtered. “Reset? You think I would tell the Imagination to just bring all those people back like nothing happened?”
Logan frowned. “Do not most of your games and adventures begin in such a way?”
“You really don’t understand anything, do you?” Roman sounded so honestly hurt that Logan was taken aback.
“I—” he started.
“You’ve never understood what I do in the Imagination,” Roman went on. “You’ve never tried to, and yet you’re constantly judging it!”
He folded his arms and stalked a short distance away, putting his back to Logan.
“Roman, I…I did not accuse you of anything, or judge you.” Logan’s gut twisted; what on earth had he said? “I do not know where this is coming from.”
“HE WOULD NEVER DESIGN A RESETTING WORLD.” Remus’s Dalek voice was dark. “SUCH A CONSTRUCT WOULD INEVITABLY FAVOR VIOLENCE OVER CHIVALRY AND CHEAPEN THE GRAVITY OF DEATH.”
Roman said nothing, but he shot a contemplative look at his brother.
“WHERE IS THE HONOR IN BESTING AN EMEMY, AND THEN MAKING THEIR DEATH MEANINGLESS BY RESURRECTING THEM?” Remus’s green eyestalk fixed Logan with a hard stare. “IF YOU KNEW MY BROTHER AT ALL, YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND HOW ABHORRENT HE WOULD FIND THAT IDEA.”
Logan’s eyes widened. Of course. Roman is not the sort to take a life without good reason, not even a construct of the Imagination. An adventure that reset itself once complete would render any deaths or sacrifices irrelevant. Roman would hate that.
Roman, meanwhile, gaped openly at Remus, as though he either couldn’t believe his twin had actually come to his defense, or that Remus knew him well enough to do so.
“You are absolutely right, Remus,” Logan said in a soft voice. “I had not considered that perspective. Roman, I apologize for my flippancy.”
“Eh. It’s no big deal. I shouldn’t have gotten upset.” Roman came back to the console, but the set of his shoulders told Logan he wasn’t entirely forgiven just yet.
“Roman,” Logan tried again. “What do you think we should do?”
“Me?” Roman looked around, as if there was some other Roman aboard who Logan could possibly be asking for help.
“Oh, uh. Well. I think we all know I’m not exactly an expert in the, uh”— Roman rubbed his neck— “high tech, spaceship, scan-y thingy department.” He flapped a hand at the time rotor.
“But you are an expert in the ideas department,” Logan reminded him. “And frankly, I am unsure how to proceed from here. Given what we know and the tools that we have, how would you begin a search for Virgil?”
Roman licked his lips. “Okay. Um. Hmm. You said there were more aliens on the planet now than before?”
Logan nodded.
“Well, maybe we’re meant to solve that mystery before we go looking for old Panic at the Everywhere. That’s the core of the narrative, right?” Roman’s voice grew more confident as he spoke. “If only we could talk to some of those aliens, ask them how they got there. Surely some of them know.”
“I MAY BE ABLE TO HELP WITH THAT.” Remus rolled closer. A small door on his armor popped open to reveal a plug, which he hooked into a nearly hidden port on the TARDIS console. Information flew at high speed across the screens.
Logan realized that the Doctor in him knew what this was.
“The Pathweb, of course,” he mused. “I didn’t realize you were still connected to it.”
“ALL DALEKS ARE. I AM ALSO GOOD AT FINDING”— his Dalek voice backed off to a purr— “BACK DOORS.” This he said with a suggestive swivel of his eyestalk that had Logan flushing and Roman sputtering in indignation.
“You cannot make sex jokes while you’re a Dalek!” Roman declared.
Remus only cackled.
“What are you looking for, Remus?” Logan cut in, mostly to forestall any further discussion on that topic.
“I AM CHECKING SECURITY RECORDS FOR REPEATED WORDS ACROSS SPECIES.”
Videos popped up on the screen, a few at a time, each showing gathered alien groups. Saturnyns, Cybermen, Sontarans, Catkind, other Daleks.
“Good thinking,” Logan said. “If a single source is responsible for the planet’s displacement phenomenon, it stands to reason that this would be the one topic of discussion they have in common.”
“I hope you’re excluding ‘exterminate’ and ‘delete’ and ‘for the glory of the Sontaran empire.’” Roman chuckled.
“THOSE ARE THE THREE MOST COMMON RECORDED PHRASES,” Remus said.
“Ha! Called it!”
“THE FOURTH MOST COMMON,” Remus’s Dalek voice shifted lower. “IS ‘STATUES.’”
A chill swept down Logan’s spine. His gaze met Roman’s; both their eyes widened.
“Weeping Angels!” they said in unison.
“Oh my gosh, that makes so much sense.” Roman paced, snapping his fingers. “It’s not technology at all; it’s just people getting sent back in time by Angels.”
“But why are they being sent off their own planets?” Logan pulled up the TARDIS’s databanks on Weeping Angels. “To my knowledge, the Angels prefer to displace through time, not space.” He frowned. “Although we have seen location displacement in canon, and arguably, space and time are both facets of the same overarching law. They cannot exist separately from the matter and energy that create the gravitational field of the universe.”
“Nobody except you has any idea what that means,” Roman said with both a frown and an odd smile.
Remus made a disgusted mechanical noise. “DO NONE OF YOU REMEMBER THE ANGELS TAKE MANHATTAN? OF COURSE, THEY CAN SEND PEOPLE TO DIFFERENT LOCATIONS.”
“Well, we’re not talking about a couple city blocks on one planet; we’re talking about millions of miles worth of space!” Roman argued.
“Millions of light years, actually,” Logan added. “I hypothesize that it would take an exceptionally powerful Angel to send a person that far; however, considering the flexible and frankly undeveloped parameters set by the show’s canon, it should be possible.”
“So…I guess that means our job is to find and interrogate the most powerful Weeping Angel in the universe?” Roman shrugged.
“SOUNDS GAY.” Remus swiveled his eyestalk. “I’M IN.”
Logan narrowed his eyes. “The fact that neither of you finds that thought utterly terrifying concerns me. You remember Blink. You remember the Byzantium. I may not experience fear, but even I must acknowledge that Weeping Angels are objectively frightening creatures.”
“Yes, but fear is how you know a quest will be a worthy venture!” Roman crossed a fist over his chest, his gaze far away. “If you aren’t at least a tiny bit afraid before embarking on a grand journey, you are either overconfident and will fall to hubris, or the dragon you seek isn’t worth slaying.”
“ALSO, DALEKS DON’T BLINK,” Remus added. “AND DALEKS DO NOT FEAR.”
“Your demented brain is scarier than an Angel any day,” Roman said scathingly.
“WHY THANK YOU.”
“Let’s just see what the TARDIS knows, if anything.” Logan programmed an algorithm to scan the Angel databanks for any mention of one more powerful than all the others. Surprisingly, the TARDIS found a result almost immediately.
“What…no, that can’t be right.” Logan typed in a code to refine the algorithm. But the same results came up on a second scan.
“What’s not right?” Roman leaned into Logan’s space, also peering at the screen. Logan ignored their brushing shoulders and pointed.
“These are records from the 47th century, right around the time when the Angels wiped out the Aplan civilization,” he explained. “But they mention an Angel home planet colloquially known as the Clocktower, which I know for a fact does not exist in proper Doctor Who canon. The Angels do not have a home world.”
“Why am I not surprised you’ve read the Wiki?” Roman muttered.
“And furthermore, how would the Angels have existed as a society when they cannot even look upon one another without quantum-locking themselves?” Logan gestured at the screen. “But here’s the history, and surprise, surprise, a supposed ‘First’ is rumored to live on this Clocktower world.”
“THE ANGELS HAVE A NEAR INFINITE ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER, EVEN ACROSS LONG DISTANCES,” Remus said.
“How do you know that?” Roman asked sourly.
“I HAVE ALSO READ THE WIKI.”
Roman scoffed.
Logan, however, pursed his lips. Had Remus boasted such a thing at the beginning of this adventure, Logan would not have believed him. But the more they all worked with Remus, the more Remus revealed aspects of himself that Logan would never suspect the chaotic Side possessed. In that sense, Remus was a little bit like Roman.
“A POWERFUL PATERFAMILIAS WEEPING ANGEL WOULD PROBABLY KNOW ABOUT THE ASYLUM MYSTERY,” Remus added. “THEY MIGHT EVEN BE BEHIND IT.”
“And with eyes all over the universe, they might know where Virgil is,” Roman mused. “If we could somehow persuade them to tell us.”
“Well, the records provide a map.” Logan pulled down a navigation keypad. “It’s not even a secret, it’s just…hmm. The Clocktower exists at nearly the edge of the known universe. But no information exists on when this world existed, or if it is still there.”
Static burst onto the main screen, causing Logan to startle back. Janus appeared onscreen, his mismatched eyes wide and frightened, followed by an ear-piercing metallic screech that echoed through the speakers. Logan and Roman both covered their ears until it stopped.
“Janus, what on Earth—” Logan started.
“Shut up, Brainiac, I need your help.” The skin under Janus’s scales was deathly pale. “It’s Patton. He’s screaming, and I don’t know what to do.”
Chapter 19- The Girl Who Waited
“If you love me, don’t let me in. Open that door, I will, I’ll come in. I don’t want to die. I won’t bow out bravely.”
It had all gone to hell on the third trip around the planet.
Janus, having deduced that searching by species would take far too long, set his ship’s scanners to look for Virgil-ish traits among the aliens below: a hunched posture, eyeshadow-smeared eyes, the color purple. But even so, he was beginning to think a broad, scattershot approach like this was hopeless.
Janus had turned to say as much to Patton when the lights dimmed and flickered.
Great timing, Voice, he thought. Let’s make my already moody ship even darker.
But then Patton had screamed, dropping to the grated floor and clutching his head. Janus came as close to panicking as he ever had and rushed to the other’s side. The noises spilling from Patton’s square mouth speaker alternated between a low, guttural voice and high-pitched, electronic-y shrieks. No matter how loudly Janus yelled or shook Patton’s metal shoulders, he couldn’t get the other to acknowledge him or tell him what was wrong.
Not knowing what else to do, he called Logan.
“Look, I’ll show you.” Janus pulled his viewscreen down and around so that Patton’s collapsed metal body was in frame. Another chorus of muttering reverberated from Patton’s mouth. “The Voice has…has hijacked him, somehow!”
“Do you see the lights?” Roman asked in the background, his voice barely audible over the connection. “They’re flickering. They kept doing that last time, remember?”
“THAT IS THE SAME SIGNAL THAT KEPT OVERRIDING MINE IN THE ASYLUM,” Remus stated.
“I don’t care about that!” Janus slammed a fist on his console. “Patton is obviously in distress here; how do we stop it?”
“Can you move him closer?” Logan asked. “Let’s figure out what this Voice is trying so hard to say. Maybe my TARDIS can help analyze.”
Janus did, with a lot of grunting and swearing and metal bits digging into his ribs. Sometimes it felt like Patton was almost cognizant and trying to help, but then a fresh signal wave would hit him, and he’d be back to that awful, R2D2-ish distressed wailing.
As they reached the console, another long string of distorted words burst from his mouth.
“…okay, I believe I captured the whole thing that time.” Logan’s face went briefly out of focus as he bent close.
It felt like everyone held their breath.
“The tower waits in the static,” Logan read from his screen. “It is one hundred seconds to midnight. My spirit is sleeping somewhere cold; I can’t wake up.” He glanced up as he read the last phrase. “It is one hundred seconds to midnight.”
Even Janus couldn’t contain the shiver that ran down his spine.
The Voice took over Patton’s cyber-mouth again, and as though Logan’s translation had cracked a backmasked message, this time Janus understood the words.
“The tower waits in the static.
It is one hundred seconds to midnight.
My spirit is sleeping somewhere cold; I can’t wake up.
It is one hundred seconds to midnight.”
“Well, that’s definitely Virgil’s Tempest Tongue,” Roman said after a moment. “I’ve pissed him off enough times to know.”
“I KNOW THAT SONG.” Remus rolled into view. “TYPICAL EMO. SENDING CODED MESSAGES WITH ANGSTY LYRICS.”
“Ah. I thought that third line sounded vaguely familiar.” Janus stroked his goatee. “Evanescence, right?”
“How the heck would you know that?” Onscreen, Roman glared at them both.
“VIRGIL LIVED WITH US BEFORE HE LIVED WITH YOU,” Remus said. “AND HE HAS ALWAYS PLAYED HIS MUSIC TOO LOUD.”
Patton gave a sharp gasp and straightened up, his black metal eyes bright and clear. The transition was so eerie that Janus instinctively leaned away.
“Track the signal!” Patton rasped. “Help h…”
The words morphed into a screech, which cut off as he slumped to the floor with a clatter. Janus took a step, paused, gritted his teeth, and instead flipped a number of switches while typing a tracking sequence into a keypad.
“So!” Logan clapped his hands together sharply. “Shall we assume that Virgil has been trying to contact us this entire time, and finally got desperate enough to commandeer Patton’s internal cybernetic systems to do so?”
“I mean, taking over random speakers on the asylum wasn’t working,” Roman reasoned. “And this time around he knew Patton would be a Cyberman.”
The message started again. Janus flipped a switch and hissed at them all to shut up, as his TARDIS traced the signal to its source.
“Got it!” he crowed as his ship chimed. “Well, I have a location, anyway; the time coordinates are fragmented and useless. Sending it to you, Logan; this is probably where we need to go.”
Logan looked over the numbers and exchanged a look with Roman.
“What?” Janus demanded.
“Those are the same location coordinates that my TARDIS gave me,” Logan explained. “For the Weeping Angel home world.”
Janus frowned. “Weeping Angels don’t have a home world.”
“Has everybody read the Wiki except me?” Roman grumbled.
“Apparently in Thomas’s Imagination, they do.” Logan shrugged. “We determined that the influx of aliens on the asylum is being caused by Angels, possibly by a single extremely powerful Angel. My 47th century records speak of a being called ‘the First’ who would certainly fit that description.”
“MIDNIGHT!” Patton’s metallic voice startled them all. He straightened up, gripping the handles on his head. “Ow. That was…that was very un-fun. That was not enjoyable at all.”
Janus let out a deep breath. “Are you all right?”
“I’m me again, at least.” Patton sounded as much like himself as he could, wrapped in Cyberman armor. The scales on Janus’s neck finally settled.
“Well,” he said. “Thank heavens our resident drama king didn’t fry any of your circuits in his zeal to be heard.”
“Excuse you!” Roman crowded Logan out of the frame, ignoring his squawk of protest. “Drama king? How dare you give that title to Virgil? It is mine, thank you very much!”
“Oh honey.” Janus tilted his head down. “You know you’re our resident drama queen.”
For a moment Roman looked insulted, but then the corners of his mouth turned down and he shrugged. “You know what, that’s fair.”
“If I could have my console back…!” A slender hand shoved Ronan’s face out of view; Logan reappeared.
“Patton, I too am relieved you seem to have suffered no permanent harm,” he said.
“Aw, our Virgil would never hurt anyone on purpose.” Patton clanked over to stand next to Janus. “He was just really, really scared. And angry. The kiddo needs our help.”
“Then we must help him!” Roman chimed in offscreen.
“Obviously, Roman, now hush so we can figure out how.” Janus rolled his eyes.
“Does sarcasm help?” Roman snarked.
“Wouldn’t it be a great universe if it did?” Janus snarked back. “So, we think Virgil is on this Weeping Angel home world, along with this ‘First’ Angel, who’s likely behind our asylum mystery?” He huffed. “Honestly, there are weirder canon episodes of the show.”
“We have one problem, however.” Logan frowned. “There’s no actual record of this world in any star map my TARDIS has access to.”
“Of course, there isn’t.” Janus ran his own scan of the coordinates. “The Master’s records show an unnamed nebula in the vicinity, but other than that, nada.”
“I say we go anyway, and check it out,” Roman said.
Logan shrugged. “We wouldn’t be any worse off.”
“Fine by me.” Janus started his dematerialization sequence, leaving the comm line open this time…just in case Virgil decided to get shouty through Patton again.
The short flight was blissfully uneventful. Roman and Remus bickered in the background over the open line, with Logan occasionally chiming in to tell them to knock it off. Patton leaned on his arms while hunched over the console, unusually quiet.
“Are you truly all right?” Janus asked.
“Hmm?” Patton glanced up; Janus once again felt a tiny zing of anger over having to look at an expressionless robot instead of Patton’s actual face. At least this time around, there were no awkward lies to compound the problem.
“Oh, I’m just worried about Virgil, that’s all,” Patton said. “I’ve never heard him sound that panicked before.”
“I’m still going to kill him,” Janus grumbled. “Whatever he did to you just now scared the scales off me.”
Patton shook his head. “He wasn’t trying to hurt me.”
Janus pressed his lips together. “Virgil hides the worst of himself, you know,” he said at last. “But anxiety is, at its core, an irrational fear response to ordinary stimuli.”
“Virgil is more than that,” Patton argued.
“Yes, he is.” Janus allowed himself a small, sad smile. “Virgil is Thomas’s Anxiety, but he is also the will to harness and channel those feelings. Unfortunately, the better Thomas grows at managing his anxiety, the better Virgil becomes at hiding his more panicky, impulse-driven, irrational aspects from all of you.”
“That’s why he hates me, you know.” Janus traced the top of his gloved left hand. “When Thomas was young, he focused most of his budding irrational fear into creative fodder for Roman to play with. Even then, in many situations, Virgil got to be too much. And since younger Thomas was not ready to acknowledge that he had anxiety at all, guess what he’d do instead?”
“Lie about it,” Patton said in a hushed voice. “Which would mean pretending Virgil wasn’t there at all. Oh…poor Virgil…”
“Virgil has a complicated relationship with lies now, in large part due to the lies Thomas told himself to crush his own anxiety for so long. The lies I helped Thomas create, because that is what I do.” Janus sighed. “The habitual lies Thomas still defaults to, without my direct prompting, whenever Virgil has an anxious moment.”
Patton placed a metal hand over Janus’s; he’d begun to pick at his gloves without realizing it.
“But now you’re here, working with us,” Patton said firmly. “We can start to do things differently. Thomas can do things differently.”
Janus pressed his tongue thoughtfully against the inside of his fangs. It was still so new and strange to be trusted, and he both pitied and envied Patton’s unwavering belief that anything could be fixed with enough good intentions. But the animosity between Virgil and Janus was an old, many-headed monster; as deep and fraught as the relationship between lies and fear itself. It would take more than Patton’s disarming puppy eyes and Dad frowns to fix that.
The Master’s TARDIS shuddered.
“We’re here.” Janus pulled up a black, star-studded screen. “And, surprise, surprise, there’s nothing but empty space.”
“Let’s take an actual look outside,” Logan said over the comm line. “Just in case.”
Janus sighed and stalked across his ship to the doors to fling them open. His TARDIS emanated a bubble of protection, like the Doctor’s. He saw the Doctor’s familiar blue box floating only a stone’s throw away, looking small and fragile against the blackness of space. No Angels, no Angel home world. Their only lead was a dead end.
Now what were they going to do?
Patton’s clomping footsteps came up behind him. “Oh, Janus, look!” He pointed.
Janus breathed in sharply.
The unnamed nebula spread out below them in all its swirling pink and green glory, bathing their faces in faint shifting light. In his annoyance, Janus hadn’t even noticed it at first, but now he wondered how he’d missed something so spectacular. He could almost understand Logan’s borderline obsessive love for astronomy, seeing something like this up close. Of course, it was the first thing Patton had seen.
For a few moments both Sides stood close together in silence, admiring the shifting ebbing light and curling colored strands.
“HEY OBLIVIOUS BITCHES!” A Dalek voice screeched from Janus’s console, making him jump. “MOVE YOUR TARDIS CLOSER. NERDY WOLVERINE WANTS TO TALK.”
“You don’t get to call him that!” Roman’s faint, shrill voice shouted in the background.
“Oh! I guess they were waving at us.” Patton gestured across to the other ship, where sure enough, Logan and Roman stood at the edge of their open TARDIS doors.
Janus grumbled but navigated his ship until the two TARDIS’s protective fields merged. The blue box floated a few yards away, but now they could hear each other across the void.
“As lovely as this is,” Janus called. “It doesn’t help us find the First Angel or Virgil. So, what now?”
Patton lifted his shoulders into a shrug; across the way, Logan scrubbed a hand through his hair. Roman paced just behind Logan, up and down the entryway ramp.
“Say, Logan.” Roman stopped for a moment. “Are you absolutely sure that 47th century source of yours said ‘First’ Angel? Like, this was the first Angel to ever exist or whatever?”
Logan tapped his chin. “Actually, the Aplan word has a connotation of ‘all encompassing’; first in magnitude, not necessarily in a linear sense. The translator even made a note saying as much.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why, Roman?”
“Oh…no, I just.” Roman shook his head, looking uncharacteristically bashful. “It’s probably nothing.”
“No, go ahead. I would like to hear from you.” Logan turned, giving Roman his undivided attention.
Janus plopped himself in his doorway again, leaning out so he could hear.
“Uh, well, it’s two things, actually.” Roman resumed his pacing. “First of all, you once told me that nebulas are where stars are born.”
“You remember that?” Logan smiled.
Janus rolled his eyes. Honestly, those two were as nauseatingly into each other as they were oblivious to the fact.
“Well, so maybe there’s not a planet here, but there is a nebula,” Roman went on. “Which means in a few million billion years or whatever, there might be a star. And where there’s a star, there might be planets.”
Janus frowned. “Meaning…?” he called.
“I’m getting there, snake, keep your hat on.” Roman flapped a hand in Janus’s direction. “Secondly, Weeping Angels only ever send people back in time, never forward. Why is that? They feed off the years that person would have lived if they’d stayed in the present; you’d think it wouldn’t matter which direction in time they’re sent.”
Logan rubbed a thumb over his lips. “That is an interesting observation, Roman, but it is conjecture—”
“No, no, no, no, listen!” Roman flapped his hands. “What if we’re in the right spot, but Weeping Angels are like River Song? And their timelines run backwards instead of forwards?”
All the scales on Janus’s neck stood up. Logan’s eyes had grown wide behind his glasses.
“Because like you said, Logan.” Roman was on a proper roll now, pacing and snapping his fingers. “This ‘first’ Angel might just be the most powerful, which means there’s no reason why they couldn’t exist at the end of everything. Because for them, that’s the beginning!”
“In other words,” Janus clarified, “you think the planet we need doesn’t exist yet, and all we need to do is travel forward in time until we find it?”
Logan’s eyes were so wide that Janus saw the whites of them, even several yards away. “Wait. Wait. Everybody just, just shut up.” He held up a hand, eyes closed. “Shut up. Just shut up, shut up, shut up, shutetty up up up.”
“Twelve. Nice,” Roman commented.
“Wait. Janus.” Logan flapped a hand across the way. “What did you say, just now? Say it again. De-shut up.”
“We need to go to the future?” Janus said.
“Right.” Logan paced. “Right. Roman, your reasoning is…adequate, but the TARDIS cannot simply travel indiscriminately in time and hope to encounter one particular planet, not without clearer parameters.” He exhaled. “If only Virgil could have just told us exactly when…”
He paused and clapped a hand over his mouth with more excitement than Janus had ever seen him display.
“Oh. Oh, Virgil, that is clever.” Logan’s voice dropped. “I know how to find him.”
Chapter 20- Hell Bent
“At the end of everything, one must expect the company of immortals.”
“Care to share your brainwave with the rest of the class, Specs?” Roman dodged Logan again as the other rushed around the console, typing so quickly his hands were nearly a blur.
“It’s really quite simple.” Logan squinted at a scrolling table full of numbers and symbols.
Roman scoffed. “‘You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means,’” he quoted.
“Is that why you coerced me into watching The Princess Bride four times in a row?”
Roman ignored Logan’s grumbling and waved at the multitude of screens. “No, but seriously, how are these big brain, Doctorish calculations gonna lead us to Virgil?”
“His message was the parameter I needed.” Logan typed in one last equation and stepped back. “‘It is one hundred seconds to midnight.’ I don’t suppose any of you have heard of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Doomsday Clock?”
“Um…” Roman started.
“He’s going to tell you anyway,” Janus drawled over the comm.
“Good, Janus, there you are, though currently I cannot divert power to put any visuals through,” Logan said. “I will have coordinates for you in a moment, and we can be on our way.”
“How kind.” Janus’s voice dropped. “When you slammed the door in our faces, I wasn’t worried you would leave us behind or anything.”
A soft thud sounded over the line, followed by a breathless curse.
“Now, we all know Logan wouldn’t leave anyone behind,” Patton’s voice chided.
“May I remind you that your elbows are made of metal?” Janus’s voice snarked in the background.
“I mean, I’d consider leaving the snake,” Roman mumbled, and nearly startled out of his utility belt when Remus snickered directly behind him.
“AWW, DID YOU FORGET I WAS HERE?” Remus waggled his eyestalk.
“If only,” Roman panted. “Jesus Christ Superstar, how does your Dalek ass move so quietly?”
“Language!” Patton called.
“ENGLISH,” Remus snarked. “AND SARCASM. AND MEMES AND DIRTY JOKES AND BUTT—”
“An-y-way!” Logan clapped his hands with each syllable. “While the TARDIS is calculating, shall I explain Virgil’s message?”
Silence.
“Thank you.” Logan rubbed his hands together. “The Doomsday Clock is not a real device, but rather a metaphor for how close humanity stands to self-extinction. Midnight represents Armageddon; the end of all things.”
A small shiver walked down Roman’s spine at the aptness of that metaphor. How many times over the last few months had he felt the twisting dread of a clock ticking down to some sort of disaster: a wedding, perhaps; or another sleepless night, or saving Thomas’s friends from a metaphorical trolley car?
“Countdown to doomsday, nice and foreboding.” Roman smiled to hide his uncomfortable thoughts. “Right up Virgil’s conspiracy-loving alley.”
“As of 2019, the Clock sits at two minutes to midnight; the closest it has ever been since the 1950s, I believe.” Logan adjusted his glasses. “Virgil almost certainly guessed that I would know this, but his message specified a closer time: one hundred seconds.”
“Uncomfortably close,” Roman muttered.
Logan gestured at the TARDIS screen; probably forgetting, Roman thought, that neither Patton nor Janus could see it. Numbers trickled steadily across.
“I am utilizing the TARDIS computers to extrapolate the mathematical variance between the current Doomsday Clock time and Virgil’s clue, and to use that difference to calculate the precise timespan between the death of the last known star”—Logan held his hands apart in front of his chest— “and Virgil’s assumed location.”
Roman blinked. “That’s…I mean I don’t think I understand most of it, but it sounds kinda brilliant.”
Was it Roman’s imagination, or did Logan’s cheeks turn a slight shade of pink as he ducked his head? Surely, it’s just the light.
All the screens abruptly went blank except for a tiny cursor blinking in the nearest one.
“And…” Logan squinted. “Success.”
“Anticlimactic,” Roman muttered. “There should be a ding or something.”
“Technically we won’t know if it’s a success until we get there,” Janus pointed out.
“Gee, thanks, Virgil.” Roman grinned at Patton’s mechanical giggling in the background.
Logan flipped a switch and wound another dial. “Sending the coordinates to you now, Janus.”
He then waggled his fingers over the lever that would start the dematerialization process, shooting Roman a soft smirk. “Care to do the honors with me?” he asked. “River Song?”
Roman grinned. “Doctor.”
Their hands had to squish together to fit; Logan’s hand was fiery warm against his. Together, they pulled the lever down, and the TARDIS shuddered to life.
The trip lasted only minutes, as though the Imagination wanted them to reach their destination as quickly as possible. Soon enough, the TARDIS’s wheezing filled the air, and they landed with a hollow thud.
“Well,” Roman pointed out. “We’re definitely somewhere, which is better than before.”
For a long, nervous moment, they waited, ears straining. If this was the Weeping Angels’ home planet, would they immediately swarm the ship, hoping to feed on the time residue? Logan’s hand hovered over the lever still, clearly ready to send the TARDIS back into orbit if that happened.
The quiet pressed down like a blanket…or maybe a stone hand.
Roman followed Logan to the door; Remus’s wheels clattered over the metal flooring behind them. Before they reached it, though, Logan held up a hand.
“If we truly have found the Angel’s planet,” he warned. “There could be dozens, maybe hundreds out there.”
“I WILL GO FIRST,” Remus offered. “I DO NOT BLINK.”
“Good thinking, Remus.” Logan said.
“Great, maybe they’ll get stuck when they see themselves in your shiny…shiny…hang on!” Roman snapped his fingers and, ignoring Logan’s inquiry, scurried down into the wardrobe room.
“C’mon, girl, you know what I need.” He turned a corner and found two chest-sized, lightweight mirrors. “Yes! Thank you, TARDIS.” He swore he heard a contented hum in response, and he suddenly wasn’t entirely sure if he’d been talking to the TARDIS or to the Imagination herself.
Back on deck, he handed one of the mirrors to Logan.
“It’s not a perfect solution.” Roman hefted his own against his chest so that it pointed outward. “But it may help.”
“Clever,” Logan commented.
Roman bit back a wide grin, knowing his no-filter brother would be sure to make a rude comment if he saw.
They opened the door, mirrors raised.
Remus barreled outside and stopped, his eyestalk swiveling a full 360 degrees before turning to face them.
“LOOKS CLEAR.” His head lamps flashed in the dimness.
Roman’s fingers itched for his sword, or maybe River Song’s pistol that currently hung at his belt, as he and Logan ventured out. But logically, he knew the mirror was a far more effective weapon in this circumstance.
They’d landed on a dark, flat, night-shrouded plain; featureless, treeless, lifeless. Even the knots of scrub that grew in fits looked unhealthy and wan. A smothering blanket of fog lay low to the ground, rendering anything more than twenty or so feet away a blank wall of mistThe TARDIS’s roof lamp shone brighter than usual in the pitch black, illuminating a circle of fog around them.
“Great,” Roman muttered. “Bad enough they move faster than the eye can track. Here we won’t even see them coming until they’re right on top of—!”
Roman screamed.
He’d turned his head and found himself face to face with a snarling stone mouth. Gasping, Roman held his mirror like a shield and scrambled away from the Angel, mid-pounce, its claws outstretched just inches from his chest. His heart beat like a hummingbird’s wings.
“You said clear!” he yelled at Remus.
“I SAID IT LOOKED CLEAR.” Remus waggled his eyestalk, which Roman supposed was the Dalek equivalent of a shrug.
“Put your back to mine.” Logan moved close. “And blink one eye at a time. Keep your mirror on that one; I don’t see any others just now.”
Roman did so, but blinking like that took a lot of concentration, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long.
“What does it look like now?” he asked Remus.
“LOOKS CLEAR.”
Useless tin can. Roman sighed as Remus rolled off into the night; even in Dalek form, he seemed unable to stay in one place for long.
“We will need a portable light source—” Logan started.
The thud of another materializing TARDIS interrupted him, though were it not for the cloud of fog that billowed up, Janus’s plain gray time ship would have been invisible in the blankness. The door opened a crack; the snake himself emerged. Well, his head did, along with that ridiculous tiny hat. He frowned at their mirrors and disappeared back into the ship before Roman could even say a word.
Janus and Patton came out together a moment later, holding mirrors of their own; Janus, Roman noted, also carried an electric lantern. The two visibly startled when they saw Roman's trapped Angel, and they both edged carefully around it.
The four Sides huddled together, backs to each other. Patton touched his arm a few times; a beam of light flicked on from somewhere in his wrist. He shone it around.
“I didn’t know Cybermen could do that,” Roman commented.
“Me, neither.” Patton shrugged, light beam bouncing with the movement. “Now what?”
“Firstly, I will fetch one more lamp.” Logan hurried back into his TARDIS. He emerged, minutes later, with a second lantern and a familiar, lunchbox-sized device.
Roman gasped. “Is that—?”
“The timey-wimey detector? Yes.” Logan handed the lantern to Roman and braced his mirror against his knee to type one-handed. “It only has a short range, but I believe if I program Virgil’s unique temporal signature into here, I can use it to track his precise location on this planet.”
Janus scoffed. “It’s a glorified tape deck, Logan, not a GPS. ‘Unique temporal signature’, my—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, mister,” Patton interrupted.
“WHAT, ASS? ASS ASS ASS POOPY ASS—” A gleefully swearing Remus whizzed past, fog billowing in his wake, and was quickly gone again.
Patton thunked a hand over his face with a long-suffering sigh.
“I have observed,” Logan commented as they waited for his machine to work, “that both dream logic and Doctor Who logic do not always follow the actual laws of the physical world.” He shot a glance over his shoulder at Janus. “You are correct, many of the vaguely scientific-sounding principles the Doctor uses are nonsense, but they work in his universe, and as such—”
His device ticked, whirred, and gave a loud ding.
“They should work in this one,” Logan finished.
“See, now that was a satisfying ding,” Roman commented. “There should always be a ding when there’s stuff.”
Logan nodded his head off to their left. “Virgil is somewhere in that direction.”
“THAT IS WHERE THE TOWER IS.”
Patton pointed his arm light at Remus, who reemerged from the fog and rolled up to them.
“WHILE MY BROTHER AND THE BRAINIAC HAVE BEEN MASTURBATING OVER HIS SCIENCEY DOHICKEY,” he said, prompting both Roman and Logan to sputter. “I HAVE BEEN SCOUTING. THERE IS A CLOCKTOWER AT THE EDGE OF A FIELD FULL OF ABANDONED ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT.”
“‘The tower waits in the static’,” Logan quoted in a quiet voice. “Were there many Angels? Did you see Virgil at all?”
“I DID NOT SEE THE EMO,” Remus said. “NOR ANY ANGELS.”
“How do you see anything at all in this gloom?” Roman wanted to know.
“MY SHELL’S VISUAL SENSORS DETECT INFRARED AND ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT, AND ALSO HEAT.”
Roman frowned. “Would Angels show up on any of those?”
“HOW SHOULD I KNOW?”
“So, there could be thousands of them down there, and we wouldn’t know,” Roman grumbled. “Great.”
“Angels or no, if that is where Virgil is,” Logan said. “Then that is where we must go.” He hung the timey-wimey detector from his wrist and hefted his mirror. “Keep an eye out for Angels. I’m frankly surprised we’ve only seen the one.”
Roman glanced that way and gasped. He’d never taken his mirror off that first Angel, so when he didn’t see it, he’d nearly panicked. But looking closer, he noticed a substantial pile of dust and rubble where it had stood.
“Logan.” He silently pointed it out.
“Did it…did they die?” Patton’s metallic voice rasped. “Is that how they die? Was it a very old one or something?”
Roman wished he could feel bad for the creature—trapping it with his mirror hadn’t been what killed it, right? But honestly, all he felt was relief.
“I do not know, Patton,” Logan said quietly. “But we need to move on.”
They moved in an awkward knot across the barren landscape, their combined lights casting a tiny, wavering circle illuminating only fog and scrub. Patches of ground sparkled with frost, and Roman’s bare arms prickled in the cold. He wished he’d thought to grab a coat from the wardrobe room while he was there. He saw no buildings, no farms, no sign of civilization at all. No animals of any kind, not even insects. No Weeping Angels, either, which Roman did not trust. They did pass more dust piles, however, and plenty of rubble.
Are the rest out there in the dark just watching, biding their time, waiting for our lights to fail, or for one of us to drop our guard? What if Remus is leading us into a trap?
Remus rolled ahead of them, just beyond the light circle, his eyestalk constantly swiveling.
What if…? The mirror’s edges cut into Roman’s fingers, and he forced himself to ease his death grip on it. Pull it together, Princey. Just because Virgil isn’t here, doesn’t mean you have to do his job for him.
They passed weirdly specific garbage: old, smashed TVs; a beat-up refrigerator; wires; speakers; amps; bits of unidentifiable, clearly advanced technology. The clutter grew thicker the further they went, forcing them to maneuver around bigger pieces.
“Maybe the Angels abandoned this world, and the rest of the universe decided to use it as a dump.” Janus wrinkled his nose as they walked. “I wouldn’t blame them. This place is downright depressing.”
“Chilly, too,” Roman said. “Does the sun ever come up?”
“There may not be a sun left.” Logan’s voice was solemn, even for him. “We’re at the end of time, Roman. Have you noticed the lack of stars? No stars, no sun, just leftover hunks of rock. I imagine this planet will gradually become colder until the very atmosphere freezes, and it is no longer habitable.”
Silence, as everyone digested that bit of cheeriness.
“Also, you realize you aren’t wearing very much.” Janus frowned.
Roman never thought he’d be grateful to Janus for changing the subject. “Well, I can’t help that the Doctor’s companions like short skirts and sleeveless dresses!” He smoothed his tan dress. “At least you Time Lords get to wear layers.”
"You know, as a Floridian," Janus went on, "I never saw the practicality in the Doctor wearing both a suit jacket and a coat. How does he not melt?”
“Aren’t you literally cold-blooded?” Roman raised an eyebrow.
“Doctor Who is based in England.” Logan pointed out. “Where it is significantly cooler for much of the year—”
“QUIET.” Remus rolled to a stop. “WE’RE HERE.”
The fog grew thinner here; a few more steps, and they passed through the bulk of the mist. Patton cranked up the brightness on his arm light and pointed it ahead. Roman drew a deep breath.
The land dipped into a television-strewn valley, a ridge rising sharply on the other side. Unlike the TV’s they’d passed before, these had power; collectively, they lit the little valley in a sea of shifting multicolored light. Gray stone gathered at the ridge’s shoulder, twisting and thrusting into the tallest tower Roman had ever seen; the TV ambiance only barely reached the top. A gigantic clock face dominated the apex, hewn from solid rock. Its face writhed with shadows; the time impossible to read.
“Look at that thing,” he muttered, marveling.
“IT IS QUITE THE ERECTION,” Remus commented, but solemnly, and Roman didn’t know whether his brother had meant to make a dick joke or not.
“Do you feel that?” Logan pressed a hand against his chest.
“FEEL WHAT?” Remus asked, as quietly as a Dalek could.
“Oh, I definitely feel it,” Janus grumbled.
“I don’t feel anything.” Patton looked between them.
“Well, technically, you are a—” Logan started, but Roman pressed a finger to his mouth. Logan pushed it away, but then seized one of Roman’s cold, bare arms.
“You are freezing, Roman, for goodness sake.” Logan put down both his mirror and the detector and began shrugging out of his jacket.
“Oh, no, you don’t have to—” Roman started, but Logan had already shoved the garment into his chest.
“My outfit already has long sleeves,” he pointed out. “Yours does not.”
Roman, his face burning, decided not to argue and put on the coat. It was deliciously warm from residual body heat and carried Logan’s trademark old paper and ink smell. He wished he could tuck his face into the collar, but not with everyone watching.
“I was going to say, I don’t feel anything wrong either, except cold,” Roman said.
“Really?” Logan frowned. “It’s really quite impossible to miss. A pressure on my rib cage, like being squeezed by a giant hand.” He took a slow, deliberate breath. “It is rather uncomfortable.”
“Like a vice around my hearts.” Janus rubbed his own chest. “Feels like it’s coming from that blasted tower.”
“Hearts.” Roman’s eyebrows climbed. “Maybe this pressure, or whatever, is something only a Time Lord can feel.”
Logan pursed his lips. “A force only Time Lords can sense, emanating from a clocktower at the edge of the universe, at the galactic equivalent of one hundred seconds from the end of time itself.” He visibly shivered. “What is this planet, exactly?”
“Only one way to find out,” Roman pointed out.
They ventured down. Static sputtered across screens as they passed, lighting their faces in discordant chaos. It grew so bright that their lamps grew unnecessary, though nobody lowered theirs. Electronic hums, whines, and crackly voices echoed eerily off the valley walls.
“Why do these TVs work when the others up there don’t? What’s powering them?” Roman murmured.
“Maybe these belong to someone,” Janus said darkly. “Or something.”
Patton pointed up. “I see a platform at the base of the tower. And I think there’s someone standing up there.” He met their curious looks with a shrug. “Eye-ronically, it turns out Cyberman vision is good at long distances.”
Logan sighed at the horrible pun, and Janus pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Let’s pay this stranger a visit, then,” Roman declared, eager to have a tangible objective again. The pitch black and cold and light and buzzing quiet, without an enemy to fight, and with them seemingly no closer to finding Virgil; all of it grated horribly on his nerves.
“What if it’s an Angel?” Patton asked.
“We have our mirrors and lights.” Logan hefted his. “We are as ready as we will ever be. If it is an Angel, they might be persuaded to reveal where they are keeping Virgil.”
They climbed a stairway of stacked TVs; Remus levitated beside them. The platform was larger than it had looked from the valley floor; large enough to hold a theater-sized screen and an array of smaller televisions, speakers, and amps.
A lone figure stood facing the theater screen, hunched over, its back to them.
Roman had enough time to recognize the height, the patch pattern on one arm, the long swoop of hair before Patton lunged forward with a cry.
“Virgil!”
Chapter 21- Time of Angels
“A Weeping Angel, Amy, is the deadliest, most powerful, most malevolent life form evolution has ever produced, and right now one of them is trapped inside that wreckage and I'm supposed to climb in after it with a screwdriver and a torch, and assuming I survive the radiation long enough and assuming the whole ship doesn't explode in my face, do something incredibly clever which I haven't actually thought of yet. That's my day. That's what I'm up to. Any questions?”
Patton’s head was seized and hauled backward. Those handles were really inconvenient.
“Patton, wait!” Janus hissed in his ear.
“But that’s Virgil!” Patton shook himself loose.
“Is it?” Janus’s voice dropped. “Look at him.”
Virgil—if it was him—stood unnaturally still; he didn’t turn, didn’t even twitch at the sound of their voices. It was difficult to tell from the erratic screen light and with his back turned, but Patton thought Virgil’s skin and clothes looked awfully sallow, devoid of what little color they had. Then there was his awful posture, making his back look strange and humped…
Wait. Are those…wings?
A horrible suspicion took root in Patton’s mind. “Virgil?” he called again, much more hesitantly. “Can you hear us?”
Nothing. It was like calling out to a statue.
“Do you think—?” Logan’s voice came out as barely a whisper. “The Imagination made you into a Cyberman, made Remus a Dalek. Would it really have turned Virgil into a—?”
TICK.
The Clocktower let out a percussive pulse that thrummed down the rock and rolled through the valley. They all looked up for a split second, and then Roman let out a shriek that had Patton fumbling his mirror in haste to hold it up.
They all lurched back from the statue abruptly in their midst, all wings and claws and a snarling face. Definitely an Angel; but an Angel wearing a stone version of Virgil’s hoodie and void-black eyeshadow streaking down its face like tears. A muffled shriek rang out from the statue, more felt than heard, and then silence.
Stillness.
Patton stretched his mechanical eyes so wide they started to feel moist—not that they actually had tears. Plus his Cybernetic eyes would stay the same size and shape no matter what he did, but the feeling of it was the same.
“Okay,” he said in a shaky voice. “Okay.”
“It would seem that Virgil wasn’t kidnapped by Weeping Angels after all,” Logan murmured. “Everyone, keep your mirrors up. We…we can deal with this.”
Feedback whined through one of the nearby speakers, along with a familiar distorted Tempest Tongue. “I can hear you.”
Someone moved at Patton’s elbow—he didn’t dare take his eyes off Virgil to properly look—and Roman stepped into view.
“Virge,” he started, and swallowed. “Buddy. Um, hey. So, this is, ah, a bit awkward—”
“Let me go.” Virgil’s eyeshadow curled like black fire on his face, the only sign of life in his frozen body.
Patton wished someone else would speak up, if only to illicit a familiar snark or something out of his dark strange son. This stone Virgil, snarling and unmoving, felt wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Why did you hijack Patton?” Janus demanded.
“You weren’t listening.” The response came too fast; Virgil must have expected one of them to ask.
“You hurt him,” Janus pointed out.
“I…didn’t mean to,” Virgil’s speaker muttered after a moment.
“Janus, Virgil, I’m fine,” Patton cut in, reaching out blindly for Janus’s shoulder. “Really.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Janus’s sour answering expression, but ignored it.
“Is…” Logan started. “Is this really the Weeping Angel home world?”
The speaker crackled. “Yes.”
“Then where…?” Janus took a breath. “Are the others?”
“This is the End of Time. I am the last Weeping Angel.”
“Falsehood.” Logan scowled. “We saw one just outside the ship, when we arrived.”
“There were hundreds. Then twenty, then twelve. Then three. Then two.” Another soft noise emanated from Virgil’s stone form. “I felt the last one die. The Tower claims us all; except me, the First and the Last. I am all that stands between the universe and the End.”
“Hang on, Virgil was this so-called ‘First’ Angel all along?” Roman sounded indignant. “I mean, as far as villains go that’s impressive, but—”
“Be nice,” Patton scolded.
“Wait, are you jealous?” Janus wanted to know.
“What, no!”
Roman’s lie was utterly unconvincing; Patton didn’t have to look at Janus to know the other was rolling his eyes. Meanwhile, Patton inched forward, stretching a metal hand towards one of Virgil’s stone ones.
“DON’T!” Virgil’s sharp command caused another feedback loop and made them all jump. “This body is hungry. Screens don’t satiate like flesh does.”
Patton had no idea what that meant and started to ignore it. But Logan caught Patton’s arm and pushed it back.
“If Virgil is canonically an Angel,” he explained in a low voice. “He may not be able to resist sending us back in time if we give him the opportunity. We cannot afford to get separated this close to the end.”
“We have to do something,” Patton argued.
The tower gave another loud TICK, jarring their bones.
“Let me go!” Virgil shouted from his speaker. “I have to keep sending them!”
Their lanterns dimmed and flickered; Janus let out a yell when a crystalline crack splintered across his mirror.
“Sending who, Virgil?” Logan’s knuckles grew white against his own mirror.
“Anyone. Everyone. I have to stop the End.”
“The end of what?” Janus hissed.
“The Clock keeps the time of the universe,” Virgil explained. “Emanating from the End, counting down to the End. The Angels were born of the Clock, and to the Clock we return, save for me.”
Smaller screens flickered from static to life around them, showing clips of various aliens going about their lives.
“Every life sent back adds seconds and minutes to the Clock,” Virgil went on. “Every moment added to the Clock is more time the universe gets to exist. Outside of quantum-lock, we Angels are unbound by the Clock. Only the Angels can manipulate it.”
“I thought Angels were all about subjugating everyone in the universe or something sinister like that?” Roman frowned.
“The only way to stop the Clock forever is for the Angels to feast forever. Mass subjugation is the most efficient way.”
“Ethics aside, that does make a certain amount of sense,” Logan pointed out after an uncomfortable moment. “Remember the time loop in The Angels Take Manhattan, where Rory kept living out his life and coming back to the same moment, over and over? Expand that loop to encompass the universe, and the universe itself would never end.”
Patton didn’t think that sounded like a good way to live at all, but he decided not to point that out.
“That might also explain the pressure we feel, Janus.” Logan gestured at the tower. “If this Clock is somehow the source of Time itself, then naturally we Time Lords would experience discomfort being so close to it.”
Patton decided to focus on a different issue. “‘We’, Virge?” he echoed softly. “You said you were the last one.”
“I speak for all the Angels. I am the First. I am the Last.”
“Drama king,” Janus muttered under his breath.
“So, hang on.” Roman waved his free hand around. “What’s with all the screens, then?”
“‘That which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel’,” Logan quoted, sounding awed. “That’s how he’s doing it all by himself; he uses this equipment to commandeer radio and electromagnetic waves from all over the universe. As fast as Angels are, he could observe thousands, millions of people, all at once. And since every image has the potential to act as an Angel…”
“I have to keep sending them back, to hold the second hand in place.” Virgil made their lights flicker again. “At midnight it all ends.”
Silence.
The Clock gave another TICK.
“PLEASE,” Virgil pleaded.
Their lanterns and Patton’s arm light sputtered and died, casting their circle into momentary blackness. Patton froze; someone whimpered; Logan uttered a particularly nasty swear word Patton hadn’t realized he even knew.
A few anxious seconds ticked by.
Logan’s sonic buzzed, and Patton released a breath when his lantern flickered back to life. He sucked in another when he saw that Virgil was gone; no, he’d just moved. His winged figure now hunched over his main TV screens, several hundred feet away.
Hands near his eyes, this time, Patton noted uneasily. They wouldn’t mirror-trap him so easily again.
“What exactly are we supposed to do here?” Janus wondered aloud.
“I am not sure,” Logan admitted. “He’s meddling with time, and that’s generally bad form in Doctor Who. But his motives for doing so are understandable, and frankly, commendable. Are we meant to help him stop the end of Time? Or are we meant to end the Angels’ interference with Time altogether—?”
“I’m not talking about plot, Brainiac.” Janus rubbed a hand over his face. “I mean what are we supposed to do with Virgil? I thought the whole goal of this Imagination journey was to find him.” He gestured at the winged Side. “Well, mission accomplished. Can we go home now, or what?”
This he directed to Roman and Remus, who’d both been unusually quiet.
Roman shrugged. “If finding him was enough, the dream would have ended already.”
“IMAGINATION QUESTS ARE WON BY SOLVING PUZZLES AND DEFEATING THE BOSS,” Remus added. “NOT BY MERELY ARRIVING AT THE CORRECT LOCATION.”
“Really. And you couldn’t be arsssed to inform the rest of us of this?” Janus demanded.
“Language,” Patton murmured.
“No one cares about that except you, Steve Rogers,” Janus murmured back.
Patton bit back a stab of hurt. Janus really did get mean when he got frustrated.
“I WANTED TO SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.” Remus made a rude robotic noise. “SO FAR IT HAS BEEN PRETTY BORING.”
“Shouldn’t figuring out Virgil’s clue have counted as a puzzle?” Logan asked, and Patton flinched to hear annoyance in his voice as well. Clearly Logan was also ready to be done with this whole adventure, or possibly he felt disappointed that his cleverness in finding Virgil had not, apparently, been enough.
“Plus, there’s no enemy here to defeat,” Logan added with a gesture at all of them. “It’s just us.”
“Which doesn’t make any sense.” Roman rubbed the bridge of his nose. “To be honest, I thought we were going to have to save Virgil from this ‘First’ Angel, and that would be our ‘final boss’. But…” He gestured helplessly at Angel Virgil.
“Sorry to ruin your plans, Princey,” Virgil’s speaker quipped, sounding almost like himself. “I’m good at that.”
Patton kept forgetting Virgil could hear them, despite being a literal statue.
“Maybe we’re making a mistake in thinking about this as two different adventures,” Patton mused aloud. “Had Thomas not needed to wake up, the Imagination would probably have kept us going until we reached this planet, this moment. Which means we should have all the clues we need, to know what to do.”
He sighed. “What did we learn last time that will help us now?”
Nobody spoke.
Patton leaned his mirror against his legs and dared to look out over the barren landscape. A thousand, thousand alien faces silently laughed and cried and chattered from screens all around them, completely unaware they were being watched. Ironic, since being covertly observed was one of Virgil’s irrational fears.
What do we need to do? he mused.
Remus’s Dalek figure caught his eye, scooting from screen to screen, cackling at the people he saw and as usual, ignoring what was happening. Patton frowned. Remus thought reunification was the Imagination’s goal. But apparently that wasn’t enough.
“Perhaps our purpose is to free the First Angel from this dreadful task,” Janus stated abruptly, startling everyone. “And I may have an idea. Remus, come here.”
Remus obediently rolled over.
“We’re going to need your gunstick.”
Chapter 21- Flesh and Stone
“Well, it’s a death trap and a time bomb. And now it’s a dead end. Nobody panic. Oh, just me then.”
“What did we learn last time that will help us now?”
Janus had no idea. He eyed Patton, who’d set down his mirror and was currently wringing his metal hands. Metal Cyberman hands, with who knew how much deadly force locked inside them.
He then eyed Remus’s Dalek shell; specifically, his gunstick.
Cybermen and Daleks carry a lot of firepower, Janus thought. And we also have River Song, he added, glancing at the pistol on Roman’s belt. The Imagination has certainly geared us up for a fight. So why hasn’t it given us one?
He studied the giant clocktower.
“Perhaps our purpose is to free the First Angel from this dreadful task,” he said. “And I may have an idea. Remus, come here. We’re going to need your gunstick.”
“Whoa whoa whoa!” Roman gave up all pretense of watching Virgil and stomped over. “We are not shooting anybody, least of all the person we came here to get! I don’t care if he’s an evil statue—”
Janus ignored him and seized Remus’s gun ‘arm’.
“OHHHH YES JANUS GRAB MY STICK!”
It warmed under his hand, even through his gloves. Janus rolled his eyes and aimed at the Clocktower itself.
The bolt hit the tower, but a purple energy web sparked to life, absorbing the blast. Remus whooped and fired a few more times, with the same result. Virgil screeched in annoyance or pain, but being observed, he couldn’t do anything else. Eventually Remus got bored of shooting and gave up.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Janus grumbled.
Roman, meanwhile, ran a hand sheepishly through his hair. “Sorry…I thought…”
“Honessstly, Roman,” Janus said sharply. “I said we needed to free Virgil, and you assumed I meant kill him?”
Do you still think so low of me? he added silently.
Roman sighed, stared at his feet, and made a pathetic attempt at a smile. “That’s me. Always taking a U-turn right back into being part of the problem-town.”
Janus frowned while the others looked away; clearly nobody knew quite what to say to that.
“The Clock cannot be destroyed,” Virgil’s speaker grated. “No more than Time itself can be stopped.”
“Well, if that’s so, then what are we even doing here?” Janus lost patience. “Enough games, enough drama. Leave the stupid Clock, and let’s get back to the mind palace before Thomas needs to wake up. I am not putting myself through this nonsense a third time.”
“I can’t.”
“Sweetie, I assure you, you can,” Janus drawled. “This is all a dream happening inside a man’s head, remember?”
“‘Sweetie’ is my line,” Roman grumbled, barely audible.
“I…I know that.” The Tempest overtone drained from Virgil’s digital voice, for the first time since the whole adventure had started.
Janus’s heart skipped. He’d spoken in annoyance, but maybe he’d actually started to get through?
“Virge, let’s go home.” Patton shot a sideways look at Janus. “We’ve done what we came here to do; we found you. Once we get back, we could build a blanket fort and watch a movie or, or, just relax however you want,” he concluded weakly at Janus’s pained look.
“I can’t just leave this universe to die.” Virgil’s statue body stood unmoving, but Janus swore he saw the wings hunch just a little more. “Not when I can keep it from happening. And I know it’s not real, so don’t even start, Deceit.”
Janus raised eyebrows and held up a hand, as if to say, “I didn’t say anything.”
“It’s just, the idea of it. Letting the bad thing happen, even if it’s just in the Imagination, feels wrong.” Virgil’s gravelly voice grew smaller. “What would Thomas think of me?”
“Kiddo, Thomas thinks the world of you—” Patton started.
“He knows I was a Dark Side!”
Cracks splintered across all their mirrors, concussive in the sudden silence.
Janus hissed on instinct as he felt hostile eyes on him. “What, you think I spilled that secret?” he snapped.
“You taunted him with it in the courtroom,” Roman pointed out lowly.
Janus huffed. “Fair enough, but I only brought it up then to make a point—”
“AND BECAUSE YOU’RE A MEAN BASTARD,” Remus added.
“Be that as it may.” Janus flapped a dismissive hand. “I—”
“He didn’t tell Thomas,” Virgil’s speaker cut in. “I confessed. This is my doing, my penance.”
Janus closed his mouth in shock, staring at Virgil’s unmoving features and disturbingly blank eyes. Screen light made shadows of his wings and the stiff, stone bangs over his face. Had…had Virgil actually come to his defense? Even if only to pile more unnecessary guilt onto his already hunched shoulders.
‘Anxiety’, indeed. Always trying to carry a world that doesn’t want or need carrying.
Logan loudly cleared his throat. “I am confused,” he said. “Surely Virgil’s former classification was not new information for Thomas? Did we not film an entire video on phases, and how he has grown from who he used to be? I do not see why confessing should have caused any undue distress—”
“Teach, you’re trying to logic people’s feelings again,” Roman warned. “Not helpful.”
“Oh.” Logan adjusted his glasses and wisely shut up.
TICK.
The Tower shuddered.
“Stop watching me!” Virgil growled through his speaker. “You’re making this difficult.”
They’d all gotten complacent with their mirrors, and perhaps Virgil had grown more desperate. His stone figure appeared to flit from screen to screen, each time in a slightly different position. Janus realized the movement probably corresponded with every blink of someone’s eyes.
“Virgil—” Roman started.
“This is ridiculous,” Janus interrupted. “Can we just throw a sack over his head or something? Remus is strong enough; let him drag Virgil’s stone ass—butt,” he amended at a stern look from Patton. “Back to our TARDISs, and let’s just go.”
“SAY, DO YOU THINK A BUTTHOLE IS STILL JUICY WHEN IT’S MADE OUT OF—”
“No, no, no, no, no!” Patton clapped metallic hands over his metallic ears. “We are not speculating about that!”
“MAYBE YOU AREN’T.”
“We’re not tossing Virgil in a sack and carting him off like a…a freaking Scooby-Doo villain!” Roman crossed his arms.
“Ooh, clever, Roman; you’ve never used that line before,” Janus snarked.
“Roman is right,” Logan said, prompting Roman to make a triumphant noise. “Surely kidnapping Virgil against his will is not the solution the Imagination wishes us to employ to end this.”
“Then what do you suggest, Einstein?” Janus said.
“Please.” Logan sniffed. “If you must nickname me, I prefer Newton.”
“Galileo, Aristotle, Py-freaking-thagoras—”
“WHO’S A THAG?” Remus interrupted.
“Shut up, Remus!” Roman, Logan, and Janus all yelled in unison, and stared at each other.
“Whatever.” Janus rolled his eyes. “Grace us with your vast wells of knowledge, Logan, please.”
Logan narrowed his eyes. “Do you know, you become rather bitingly sardonic when you’re upset?”
“Fuck around and find out.” Janus bared his fangs.
“Okay!” Patton clanked swiftly between them, holding out his hands. “Let’s just brainstorm some other ideas, yeah? Logan?”
Janus folded his arms and snarkily waved Logan on.
Logan cleared his throat again. “Since forcibly removing Virgil from this place is out, the next logical course of action is to convince him to give up this task of his own accord.”
“Because that’s been going so well,” Janus grumbled.
“Janus.” Patton’s metallic voice was soft. “I’m gonna need you to stop biting everyone’s head off, please?”
Being a Cyberman, Patton couldn’t actually do the Disappointed Dad Glare, but Janus felt it in the words anyway. It stung, and worse, Janus knew he deserved it. He was being difficult. The human side of his face flushed.
“Fine.” He looked away.
“I propose,” Logan went on, “that Virgil’s imprisonment within the form of a Weeping Angel represents how isolated he feels.”
“Oh! Oh, oh, you just gave me an idea,” Roman interrupted. “What if Virgil’s Weeping Angel-ness is like a Disney curse? And we can break it with a kiss, er, well, maybe just a hug. Or, or a pat on the back. A touch, as a show of trust, to prove he’s not isolated, you know?” He cringed. “Virgil would probably knock all my teeth out if I tried to kiss him.”
“I’d pay to see that,” Janus muttered, but subsided when Patton pointedly cleared his throat.
“Hmm.” Logan adjusted his glasses. “You may be onto something, Roman. This is the Imagination, after all; whimsy might work where logic fails. I admit I really don’t have any other ideas.”
“This body is hungry. I won’t be able to resist sending you back in time,” Virgil’s speaker cut in.
Everyone turned; an eyeshadow-streaked stone face hovered only centimeters from Roman’s. Who, naturally, screamed again.
They all staggered back. Janus would later deny how his heart tried to leap out of his chest. Goddamn, Weeping Angels were creepy.
“Why does everyone keep sneaking up on me?” Roman’s voice cracked. “Is it because I said you weren’t scary as a vampire? Fine, you’re still scary; very, very scary, Virgil. Happy now?!”
Logan stepped forward with a lifted hand. “Virgil—” he started.
“Don’t.” Virgil’s speaker crackled.
“Logan, now hang on…” Roman made an aborted movement, like he meant to reach out and thought better of it. “Are we, have we decided on this? Maybe I should…”
“No. It is going to be okay.” Logan inched forward.
Janus ground his teeth. He had a gut feeling this was going to go badly, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of anything else to try.
“I am going to touch you now.” Logan’s fingers wrapped around one of Virgil’s stone hands. “You are not going to send me back in time, because you are not a villain.”
“I am, though!” Virgil shouted. “I’ll always be the villain, no matter what I do. The Imagination knows it now because I told Thomas everything. That’s why it put me in the body of an enemy and turned me into Roman’s final boss!”
“Falsehood,” Logan snapped. “If that was so, why did it make Patton a Cyberman? Surely he is not, as you say, a villain.”
Patton nodded eagerly.
“Cybermen are canonically redeemable. Even a few Daleks have been redeemable,” Virgil pointed out, bitterness lacing the digitalized words. “Weeping Angels are just evil.”
“HE’S RIGHT, YOU KNOW,” Remus said.
“Not. Helping.” Roman glared at his Dalek brother.
“Even Deceit gets to play a Doctor, because Thomas accepted him—” Virgil went on.
“Oh, honey,” Janus spat, yanking out his sonic laser. “Better check your notes again, because the Master is arguably the most canonically evil recurring character in the entire series.” He fired the weapon at Virgil’s stone feet; it made a satisfying woomph and carved a sizzling rut in the drab dirt.
Virgil went silent.
Janus re-pocketed his sonic and tilted his head to glower from beneath his hat. “Speaking of villainy. As bad as you were at your absolute worst, I was ten times that. Wasn’t I?”
He glanced at the others.
“DEFINITELY.” Remus sounded predictably delighted at the idea.
Logan and Patton, at least, had the grace to look away and fidget. Roman folded his arms and glowered right back.
“And yet, Thomas acknowledged me,” Janus said. “Sometimes…”
An unfamiliar skittishness rose in his chest., but some instinct deep inside told him that this needed saying.
“Sometimes I can’t quite believe it myself.” His voice grew quiet. “Goodness knows I haven’t even begun to make up for how I’ve treated all of you, trying to be heard. I am trying, but…but I am mean, and sarcastic, and difficult.”
He startled when Patton laid a heavy metal hand on his shoulder. The show of solidarity made Janus bite his lip.
“So surely…surely, if Thomas doesn’t hate me, Virgil.” Janus firmly met the other’s blank stone eyes. “He could never hate you.”
“Janus is absolutely right.” Logan’s fingers gripped Virgil’s stone ones harder. “You are not evil or unredeemable; you belong with us. Let us take you home, Virgil.”
“Logan, please let go,” Virgil’s voice pleaded softly. “I’m holding back but I can’t; the moment anyone looks away…”
“You can.” Logan touched Virgil’s other hand as well. “I am going to close my eyes now, and everyone else will do the same. You’ll be able to move, and we’ll walk to the TARDISs together.”
“DON’T!” Virgil shouted.
What was left of their mirrors shattered into glittery-edged fragments.
“On my count.” Logan closed his own eyes. “One.”
“Logan, maybe this isn’t such a—” Roman started again.
“Two.”
Remus screeched. Sharp and Dalek-shrill, the robotic shriek shattered the quiet like glass thrown against the ground. The suddenness of it caused everyone to take their eyes off Virgil for a critical second.
When Janus looked back, Virgil’s lips were drawn back in a frozen, fanged snarl.
And Logan was missing.
Chapter 23- Listen
“The deep and lovely dark. We’d never see the stars without it.”
Gone.
Logan was gone.
No fanfare, no warning, just gone in an instant, out of Roman’s reach…
“I told you!” Virgil’s voice snarled. “I warned him, and you, and none of you would listen! Now Logan’s lost and everything’s going wrong and it’s all my fault—”
No. No, it wasn’t Virgil’s fault. Roman’s numb thoughts crept like ice across his mind. Touching Virgil was my idea. Logan trusted me to know how the Imagination works, and now he’s gone. He trusted me.
And I’m always failing him.
“Virgil, sweetie, spiraling fixes nothing,” Janus snarked.
Beyond Virgil’s hunched, frozen figure, stone fingers still outstretched, Roman saw Remus. Infuriating, screaming Remus; his Dalek eyestalk fixed unblinkingly on Virgil’s form. Utterly unconcerned by what he’d just caused. If he hadn’t shrieked like that…he’s always ruining everything!
Rage welled up in Roman’s body. He drew River Song’s pistol and aimed at his brother, who ignored him with Dalek indifference.
“Why the hell would you do that?” Roman yelled.
“Roman—” Patton said.
“No! I want an explanation!”
“YOU WOULD NOT HAVE CLOSED YOUR EYES.” Remus’s voice grew uncharacteristically hard. “NONE OF YOU TRUST VIRGIL AS MUCH AS YOU CLAIM.”
“Well? Wouldn’t you say it’s a bit merited?” Janus gestured at the spot Logan had vanished from.
“BECAUSE YOU DOUBTED HIM,” Remus argued. “DOUBT IS POISON TO ANXIETY. LOGAN WAS STUPID TO TRY THAT STUNT ALONE.”
“He is not stupid—!” Roman’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Roman, you…you wouldn’t shoot your own brother,” Patton said lowly, but Roman noted the waver in that mechanical voice. His trigger finger curled, just a little.
“I really don’t know,” he grated.
“GO ON, THEN.” Remus taunted. “BUT I AM THE ONLY ONE KEEPING VIRGIL IMMOBILIZED RIGHT NOW.”
Roman growled; his hand shook.
“Roman. This form has had a taste now.” Virgil’s digital voice dropped to something soft and scared. “He’s right. It wants more. You have to keep eyes on me.”
Roman swore and holstered the weapon, prompting Patton to breathe a sigh of relief. Which only made Roman feel more disgusting inside. I’m always disappointing him. Always disappointing everyone.
He stalked to the edge of the ridge and looked out over the black valley, lit with a thousand chaotic screens that felt like a reflection of his own chaotic soul.
“This is my fault,” he murmured. “I should have never let Logan do that. I just hoped…I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. This is my realm. I should know, and I…I don’t.”
“Roman, you don’t have to figure this out alone,” Patton said.
Tears bit at Roman’s eyes, and he swiped them away.
“What am I supposed to do?” he shouted to the barren landscape, to the starless, empty sky; maybe to the Imagination herself. “You made this your adventure, not mine! Tell me what to do!”
Silence.
Static.
Roman exhaled and dropped his head, anger draining away as quickly as it had come. He laughed bitterly.
“This whole LARP thing was just an excuse to try and impress Logan, and maybe feel like someone’s hero again.” His voice grew muffled as he hid his face. “And now he’s gone, and I…”
“Shhh…” Patton laid a cold, heavy hand on Roman’s back.
“LISTEN,” Remus piped up.
“No, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say right n—” Roman snarled.
“NOT TO ME. LISTEN.” Remus paused. “DO YOU HEAR THAT?”
Soft sound filtered from the speakers around them, including Virgil’s; soft, but swelling. It spread across the valley, amplified by the curved walls. Music: a woman’s voice, crooning, and then a haunting, repeating piano melody.
“Virge?” Patton asked.
“It’s not me,” Virgil’s speaker rasped. “I don’t know this song.”
The woman’s voice rose.
become one with Imagination
no more fairytales
our souls will unite together
we will lift the veil
“LISTEN,” Remus said again, more quietly.
your touch has turned to stone
no fire in your bones
it’s time to leave the past behind
They all looked at Virgil, whose snarling, winged form still crouched, stony and silent. Is…is the Imagination actually…talking to us? Roman wondered, his heart aching with the beauty of the melody. A gust of wind kicked up, whipping through Roman’s hair and prompting him to pull Logan’s coat more closely around him.
the road is never-ending
all dreams will start ascending
beyond the boundaries of the mind
Logan’s paper-and-ink scent filled Roman’s nose, making him shiver. “Please,” he whispered, like the Doctor might whisper to his TARDIS.
break loose from the chains
rise above the waves
fighting in the darkness
dancing in the light
break out of your cage
turn another page
drowning in the river
swim against the tide
of life
Roman startled when he noticed Patton still standing next to him. Silent, and unnaturally still in his metal body.
“What do I do, Pat?” he whispered. “You always know. I did everything wrong with the wedding because I didn’t listen to you. What are we all supposed to do now?”
“Roman.” Patton looked away. “I…I don’t always know.”
“Yeah, you do.” Roman sniffed. “I’m just a terrible listener. I’m too selfish and—”
“Now that,” Patton said sharply, “is what a certain someone would call a falsehood if he was here.”
Roman bit his lip, hard, as he pictured a pair of glinting, fiercely intelligent eyes behind black-rimmed glasses, a thin-lipped mouth forming that familiar phrase.
holding tight to the ever after
living for a sign
Janus sidled up on Patton’s other side, his face as solemn as it had been in Thomas’s living room after the whole frog episode. He and Patton had a whole conversation with just their eyes again, and Janus…well, Roman had never seen such soft reverence on the other’s face before.
Like Patton held the whole world in his hands…
to survive raging storms together
through the eye of time
…or, or maybe just Janus’s whole world. Roman’s eyebrows climbed. Is that how it is, then?
“Last time.” Janus’s smooth voice dropped low. “We talked it out. Remember, Roman? Me, you, and Remus, in that white room. The Imagination let us go after that. Maybe…”
Roman chuckled bitterly, placing a hand over his mouth for a moment. “Maybe what, snake? You’ve said your piece, I’ve said mine.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what more she expects.”
Janus sighed. “True.”
In the background, the Imagination’s haunting song drifted on.
the eye shows no reflection
no dreams without inception
exist within oceans of time
“Oh,” Patton said in a quiet voice. “Oh, of course.”
“What?” Roman asked.
Patton caught Janus’s eye again; the other’s brow lifted.
“Janus has apologized,” Patton twisted his hands, “for what happened after the wedding. You all have cleared the air, but…I haven’t, yet.”
“What do you have to apologize for, padre?” Roman grumbled.
Patton took a deep breath.
break loose from the chains
rise above the waves
fighting in the darkness
dancing in the light
“For pretending like I had all the answers. For implying that if you weren’t on my side, or had ideas that differed from mine, that meant you were automatically wrong, or…or bad. Because I’m Morality, you know?” Patton sighed. “I felt like I had to know my stuff, no matter what…”
Janus let out a soft noise, like a chuckle, but sadder.
“And in trying so hard to be right, to be good, I made you think...” Patton exhaled, long and deep. “I made it seem like you had to choose between my way and your own when really, other solutions existed. I just refused to see them.”
“Out of everyone I hurt,” Patton stepped up beside Roman and looked out over the bright wasteland. “I think I put you in the most impossible situation of all.” He put a hand on Roman’s trembling shoulder. “And I’m sorry, Roman. So, so sorry.”
break out of your cage
turn another page
drowning in the river
swim against the tide
of life
Roman exhaled. A bright curl of hurt and anger, one he’d been suppressing so hard he hadn’t even realized it was there, floated to the surface and finally, finally started to unravel.
“I never let myself be mad at you.” He looked away from Patton. “I thought…I thought I wasn’t allowed; you know? Because you’re my friend. It made so much more sense to pretend it was all—”
“Me,” Janus concluded in a low voice. “Not that I don’t deserve a great deal of that blame.”
“But not all of it.” Roman dared to meet Janus’s mismatched eyes for a moment. “Because…” He turned back to Patton. “I was, well, not angry exactly, but frustrated with you. That callback felt so, so important and you kept, just…”
“Dismissing it?” Patton nodded.
Roman hated, suddenly, that sweet, emotive Patton had to wear a blank Cyberman’s face for this conversation.
“And you made me feel horrible and selfish for wanting it.” Roman stared at his feet.
“You were selfish to want it.” Janus held up a finger when Roman directed a murderous glance at him. “And that wasn’t a bad thing. That’s what I have been trying to make you all see. How can a person really be alive, and a person, if they don’t ever want things for themselves?”
“That’s what I couldn’t see, without Janus’s help,” Patton added. “And that’s why we need you, Roman. You’re Thomas’s hopes and dreams; by nature, those are always going to be a little bit selfish. But Thomas isn’t our Thomas without them.”
“Roman?” Thomas said, smiling softly. “You’re my hero.”
Roman shivered at the memory and huddled deeper into Logan’s coat. The chorus of the Imagination’s song rose again in the short silence that followed.
break loose from the chains
rise above the waves
fighting in the darkness
dancing in the light
break out of your cage
turn another page
drowning in the river
swim against the tide
of life
“The Imagination responded when you called, Roman.” Patton pointed out. “Because you’re her Prince, too.”
“Thomas will always need his knight in shining armor.” Janus smiled, a tiny motion that lifted the edge of his mouth. “You shouldn’t doubt that.”
“And right now,” Patton added, “it’s Logan who needs rescuing.”
Logan’s absence coiled like an aching void in Roman’s heart; he unconsciously rubbed his chest and chuckled harshly.
“Logan doesn’t need me. Not like I need him.”
The words were out of his mouth before he realized he’d more or less just admitted his feelings out loud. His cheeks flushed and he looked away.
Patton chuckled in a way that sounded almost coy, almost Janus-like. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, kiddo.”
Roman glanced at the snake, whose face was studiously blank. Maybe he, too, remembered the last disastrous time he tried to encourage Roman with a nod, and was trying to stay neutral. Those two do work together, like mismatched cogs in a clock, he realized. Maybe Janus really can change; maybe Patton will soften him. And Patton…
He rubbed his face and shot Patton a watery smile. I could never stay angry at him forever.
“Aww, Pat, c’mere.” He held out his arms.
The hug was awkward, as Patton’s current form had a lot of sharp bits, but it was the thought that counted. When they let go, Roman and Janus exchanged another measured look.
“Nope. Not hugging you,” Roman declared with narrowed eyes. “I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”
Janus’s nostrils flared. “Agreed.”
“And we still have to get Virgil out of here without kidnapping him, and without letting him do to us what he did to Logan.” Roman sighed. “On top of that, we’ve got to find the nerd. I don’t suppose you know where you sent him?”
This he directed at Virgil.
“No. It’s all instinct,” Virgil’s speaker answered, the voice again sounding almost like himself. “Angels just seize and push into the void, I guess.”
“Finding Logan might actually be the simple part,” Janus suggested. “He is the Doctor in this scenario, and we have no time paradoxes to avoid. Surely his TARDIS knows him well enough to pinpoint where and when he is.”
“But who’s gonna fly her there? You?” Roman asked sourly.
Janus gave him a level look. “You, obviously,” he drawled.
Roman sighed. “I’m just a companion. You’re at least a Time Lord.”
“And you’re part Time Lord,” Janus said. “River Sssong.”
Roman’s heart skipped as he glanced down at himself. River is the only companion whom the Doctor taught to fly his TARDIS, he remembered. Maybe the Imagination really does know what she’s doing.
“But I may come along anyway,” Janus added casually…too casually. “In case you need, you know, an actual Time Lord brain.”
Roman blinked. “You are being unusually helpful.”
Janus wrinkled his nose. “Don’t get used to it.”
Despite the circumstances, some of the leaden despair in Roman’s heart lifted. Maybe we’ll get out of his mess, and things will turn out okay after all.
“I’ll stay and keep an eye on Virgil,” Patton offered. “I might have an idea on how to free him, but it’ll take all of us working together.”
“I WILL STAY AS WELL,” Remus said.
He had yet to move his eyestalk from Virgil’s stone form.
“You’d better.” Roman folded his arms. “I still say this current mess is mostly your fault.”
“IT IS EVERYONE’S FAULT, FOR NOT TRUSTING AND NOT COMMUNICATING WITH EACH OTHER.” Remus’s rasping Dalek voice grew sharp. “YOU HAD THE CORRECT IDEA, BUT AS USUAL, OUR RESIDENT SMARTY PANTS STUPIDLY DECIDED TO ACT ALONE.”
Roman scowled. “For the last time, Logan is not stupid—”
“WHAT VIRGIL NEEDS,” Remus barreled on, “IS A SHOW OF TRUST FROM ALL OF US. OR HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN WHAT KEPT HIM FROM DUCKING OUT LAST TIME?”
Stunned silence.
“Remus, that’s…” Patton said. “Uncommonly wise. And I don’t just mean coming from you, kiddo.”
Roman could do nothing but stare at his brother with narrowed eyes.
A sound like metallic laughter rattled Remus’s casing. “ANXIETY AND INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS GO TOGETHER LIKE FERAL CATS IN HEAT,” he said.
“Aaand, there’s the gross,” Roman muttered.
“VIRGIL MAY NOT LIKE ME MUCH, BUT I DO KNOW HOW HIS JITTERY BRAIN WORKS.”
“Still standing right here,” Virgil pointed out sardonically.
“If we’re done?” Janus gestured amongst them all. “With the interpersonal exploration, or whatever this is—?”
“SOUNDS KINKY,” Remus cackled. “CAN I—?”
“Can we get on with finding Logan, pleassse?” Janus folded his arms.
Roman took one last considering glance across the valley before drawing himself up and holding out an arm to the television stairway. Face any and every challenge with courage and honesty.
“After you,” he said to Janus.
“You know I’m only really accompanying you so that I can fly in the proper TARDIS,” Janus commented as the two moved away. “Might as well get some enjoyment out of this train wreck of a LARP.”
“Sure you are, snake.” Roman chuckled. “Sure you are.”
They descended into the valley, down and across to where they’d find their ships, as static light played across their bodies.
The last notes of the Imagination’s song faded away.
Chapter 24- The Doctor Dances
“You’ve got the moves? Show me your moves.”
“Rose, I’m trying to resonate concrete.”
A green-and-gold sweep of Saturn-like rings dominated the southernmost arc of the planet’s sky. Wind whistled through rock formations the size of skyscrapers. Whatever force had eroded this section of planet had been grandly consistent, creating triangular arched towers with flat, north-facing angled tops. Acres of bare, orange rock and the setting sun created a multicolored, stunning evening vista.
One achingly familiar structure drew Logan’s gaze immediately: a pair of towers, side by side, on an open plain amongst all the others. And from those towers, an eerie melody drifted on the wind.
The Singing Towers.
“Darillium,” Logan muttered to himself. “I cannot believe he sent me to Darillium.”
He might have enjoyed the view more if he wasn’t trapped here without a TARDIS. He’d been walking for at least thirty minutes, in his estimation, and his feet were starting to ache. And without a clear destination, what was the point?
I suppose I’m lucky that Virgil sent me to a planet with a breathable atmosphere and no predators. He looked around again, swallowing. I get the feeling that Angels do not have much control over specifics, nor do they canonically care.
Despite being safe, the planet currently also seemed to lack any sort of civilization, possibly any sentient beings at all. Darillium, as it existed before the Doctor’s and River’s crash. Which did not bode well for finding anyone to help him.
“And what would I say, anyway?” Logan sat down on a rock in a small clearing. “Where would I tell someone to take me? I came from a planet that, according to all known records, doesn’t exist. Plus, without my TARDIS, if they don’t speak English, I couldn’t communicate with them.”
He removed his glasses and scrubbed his face. I have to hope the others will think to use my TARDIS to find me. Maybe I was foolish in pushing Virgil like that, but they wouldn’t use that as a reason to leave me here stranded.
His lips compressed.
Without his glasses, the rocky landscape blurred into a mess of orange, reminding him of the Dalek asylum, and Roman’s warm hands and warmer voice in his ear, always confident, always sure…
Surely not. He…they would come after me.
Logan steadfastly ignored the tiny voice in his head reminding him he was only here because he’d tried the “Imagination way” and failed, that he just wasn’t cut out for quests, that maybe the group was better off without his cold, useless logic.
No. They’ll come. Assuming they can pilot my ship.
Well, Janus was a Time Lord, and his character had canonically hijacked the TARDIS at least once. Or Janus could bring his own TARDIS.
“Or, worst case scenario,” Logan reasoned aloud, “they’ll succeed without me, and the LARP will end. That would be a perfectly acceptable outcome.”
He took a deep breath, feeling calmer. Talking to himself always helped, even when the others good-naturedly teased him for it.
“Perhaps the best thing I can do is stay in one place.” He put his glasses back on. “So that I’m easy to locate.”
He wished he had a rubix cube or something to occupy his hands.
Roman had better hurry…Janus.
Janus, I mean.
He exhaled and shook his head again. Logically, he understood that if any of them came, it would be Janus: the only other Time Lord in their group. That simply made the most sense, and yet…and yet…
Logan rubbed a hand over his heart. Here I am, the Doctor, on Darillium. And he was River Song this time around. He huffed out a tiny laugh. The Imagination is not being very subtle.
Feelings were so frustratingly irrational.
“And pointless.” He rubbed his chest again. “It’s not like he could ever actually…”
…love me.
Logan couldn’t bear to say the word out loud, even with no one to hear.
Still, he could almost hear the TARDIS’s materializing wheeze, could imagine how blue she would look against all this brown, the doors flying open and Roman, striding out with a smile…
Hang on.
He couldn’t almost hear it. He heard it.
Logan leaped to his feet as wind whipped around the clearing. The familiar blue ship wheezed into being not ten feet away, landing with a thud. The doors creaked open…
And there was Roman. Not Janus, but Roman, walking toward him with one hand on his pistol grip and that infuriating smirk on his face. He carried Logan’s cerulean-lined jacket bundled up under his arm.
Roman paused a few feet away, hip cocked to one side. “Hello, sweetie,” he drawled.
Logan gaped. Roman still wore River’s slinky, sleeveless dress and boots, carrying himself as only someone completely comfortable in his masculinity could. The effect was unfairly sexy, and for once Logan couldn’t rationalize his response as anything other than blatant attraction.
And then Roman completely destroyed the effect by giggling. “You cannot imagine how long I’ve been waiting to use that line. Here’s your coat, by the way.” He held it out. “Thanks for letting me use it.”
Logan mutely took it, put it on; noting, as he did, that it now smelled the tiniest bit like roses.
“Come on, Doctor, time to go.” Roman held out a hand.
Logan stared.
“Logan?” Roman’s smile wavered.
“It’s just, you’re…” Logan stammered.
“A sight for sore eyes? Here? Late?” Roman raised an eyebrow. “You gotta give me something.”
Logan cleared his throat and adjusted his cravat, which felt uncomfortably warm.
“Apologies, Roman,” he said. “Your appearance, ehm, caught me off guard. I was expecting Janus, to be honest.”
“Janus?” Roman’s brow furrowed, then cleared. “Oh, because Time Lord, TARDIS, I get it. But may I remind you”—he leaned closer— “that you yourself taught me to fly your ship?”
It took Logan several distracted moments to realize Roman was referencing the show and not anything that had actually happened between them. Because Logan would surely remember that…
“You are having far too much fun with this role,” he grumbled.
“I know!” Roman grinned. “But seriously, we gotta get back to the others. Patton has an idea of how to get through to Virgil, but he said it would take all of us working together—”
Unease, sudden and unwelcome, rose up in Logan’s throat. “Are you sure that’s wise?” he blurted out.
Roman’s mouth clicked shut.
“I mean.” Logan looked away. “My last attempt at helping ended in disaster. I admittedly do not understand the Imagination, and Virgil’s issue seems to be entirely feelings-based, which I am particularly ill-equipped to handle.” He sighed. “I do not wish to be a further hindrance.”
“You? A hindrance?” Roman echoed sharply. “Logan, most of the time you’re the only reason we get out of the messes we get into. What is this crazy talk? I’m not going to leave you here.”
“I am in no danger,” Logan pointed out. “At worst, I’ll simply be bored for a few hours. The others will convince Virgil to leave the Tower, and we’ll all wake up back in the mind palace.”
“That is not the point!” Roman cried.
Logan turned away; hot, unfamiliar emotion welling up inside. He paced, passed a hand through his hair, and grasped for the words to explain why Roman’s question had him wanting to crawl out of his own skin.
“I am always bemoaning the fact that you all rarely listen to me.” He raised a finger when Roman opened his mouth to protest. “But I am beginning to wonder if maybe you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t, because despite how I pretend that only I, Logic, can cut to the heart of any problem, I am not enough. Logic alone has never been enough to keep Thomas on track, and more importantly, happy.”
Roman’s face scrunched up. “This isn’t about the LARP, is it?”
Logan shook his head, crossing his arms around his body. “These last few months have been excruciating. Everyone feeling so much, all the time, this, this…onslaught of pain, confusion, frustration.” He waggled his fingers near his face, smiling bitterly. “Seething fire.”
Roman chuckled, his face unusually gentle, and waited.
This was another thing Logan appreciated about the Creative Side, more than his audacious ideas and his ridiculous handsomeness. When Roman didn’t feel the need to protect himself; when he felt grounded and confident, like he clearly did right now, Logan would argue that Roman was the best listener of the group. Logan could just open up about things, and Roman would instinctively pick up whatever he put down.
“And I cannot seem to make it better.” Logan bit his lip. “Nothing I say or do seems to help. Half the time I feel like I make things worse with my inability to”—he flicked his wrist for a vocab card— “‘read the room.’”
“Well, yeah. Of course, Logic isn’t enough.” Roman held up his hands. “No, no, wait, let me finish.”
Logan frowned as Roman looked out toward the setting sun.
“You couldn’t save Virgil because you tried to do it on your own,” Roman said. “And I should have known better and tried to stop you. See, frankly, none of us are much good all by ourselves. At the risk of invoking a dreaded song, which I know you love…” A half-smile flickered over his face, quickly gone. “We’re incomplete.”
Logan shook his head. “I failed,” he said quietly.
“We failed, Logan. And not really, even. We had the solution but not the methodology. Virgil needs trust and acceptance from all of us,” Roman added, “or he won’t believe it’s real.”
“Wise words,” Logan said after a moment. “Did Patton say that?”
Roman gave a strained smile. “Remus did.”
Logan’s eyebrows shot up.
“I know, right?” Roman shook his head ruefully. “‘No rhyme or reason’. Yet somehow, he’s the only one blunt enough to break through all our bullhonky.”
He sighed.
“I think I understand what the Imagination has been trying to show us. How many of our problems stem from us competing with each other—and with Thomas—for a seat at the table, when the table was always big enough for everyone? We’re all so desperately afraid that we’re not doing enough, or that some other Side’s agenda clashes with our own and needs shouting down.”
Roman scrubbed a hand through his messy hair, the setting sun’s light making the strands glow softly.
“But when we work together? When we pool our resources and reach for a common goal?” He chuckled. “We outsmarted a planet full of Daleks. We tracked Virgil across the whole universe, to the very end of time. And you should have heard Patton and Janus improvising off each other to pull me out of my own head after you disappeared. Even my ridiculous brother has his moments.”
He turned to smile at Logan, which Logan felt like a burst of warmth behind his breastbone.
“When we all work together,” Roman’s voice dropped. “We are damn near unstoppable.”
Logan almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Roman Sanders,” he joked softly. “Saying something positive about the Dark Sides? I never thought I would see the day.”
Roman shrugged with a rueful expression. “Like it or not, Thomas needs Janus’s sense of self-preservation and my brother’s brutal honesty as much as he needs your calm and my ideas. The Dark Sides—the others, when they work with the rest of us? They make Thomas better.” He smiled. “Just like Virgil.”
What on earth happened on that planet, after Virgil sent me here?
“Roman, may I hug you?” Logan asked, and immediately clapped a hand over his mouth.
Roman’s face turned a pleasant shade of pink. “Uh…ok?” He held out his arms.
Logan hesitated, a million thoughts running through his head: why did I say that, why do I suddenly crave physical affection, where do I put my hands…but at last, he set awkward wrists on Roman’s shoulders.
The romantic Side yanked him in. Roman, like Patton, was not at all shy about hugging. Logan made himself relax his stiff arms and let his fingers rest against the back of Roman’s dress.
Humans have such strange ways of showing affection. But I cannot deny that this is…nice.
“Just like Twelve,” Roman said warmly into his neck, making Logan shiver. “Doesn’t know how to do the hugging. You remember what he said?”
“Hugs are just a way to hide your face,” Logan quoted into Roman’s hair.
“Which begs a question, Specs.”
“Yes?”
“What did you suddenly need to hide?”
Logan pulled away, only to be confronted with Roman’s dilated eyes boring into his own. He swallowed hard. This was just like that moment in the kitchen, with figurative electricity sparking between them and Logan liking it—definitely liking it—but not knowing what he was supposed to do.
“Will you two just kiss already?” An annoyed-looking Janus hung his head out the TARDIS doors. “So we can get a move on?”
Roman blew a raspberry in Janus’s direction, who rolled his eyes and retreated into the ship. Logan cleared his throat and stepped back, unable to meet Roman's eyes.
“So, ah, technically you were right,” Roman admitted sheepishly. “Janus did come to rescue you, too.”
“…he just wanted a ride in the proper TARDIS, didn’t he?” Logan narrowed his eyes.
“That is exactly what he said.” Roman giggled, his ear tips still red.
Logan’s heart nearly stopped when the other sobered up, took one of his hands, and laid a tingly kiss on his knuckles.
“Never think you aren’t needed, Logan,” he said in a gentle voice. “If nothing else, I need your calm and your reasoning to keep me in check. Even when I don’t always like it,” he added wryly.
Logan’s eyes subconsciously flitted to Roman’s lips, and back, and he saw the other register the movement. Roman’s gaze sharpened.
“So, are…are you going to do it?” Logan bit his lip again, slowly, his skin alight with nerves.
“Do what?” Roman stepped closer.
“What…” Logan’s voice grew shaky. “What Janus said. Are you going to do it?”
Roman took another step in; he stood so close now that Logan felt the heat radiating off his body. “I don’t know.” A tiny smirk lifted those lips which were very close, and very pink, and… “Can a Prince in good conscience obey a Dark Side?”
Logan was going to spontaneously combust. “W—well, I am Logic,” he pointed out in a rush of bravery. “And Logic is permitted to take objective advice from a third party.”
He swooped in and pressed lips to Roman’s before he could overthink it. It was soft, a bit moist, and the rush of warm air over Logan’s face as Roman exhaled almost made him pull back. But he let Roman guide the kiss, all hot breath and hands and tiny movements that sparked along his nerves like golden bubbles.
He had no idea if he was doing this correctly at all.
Roman made the tiniest noise of protest when he tried to pull away; a hand snaked around to the back of Logan’s neck. Then he bit Logan’s lower lip, making him gasp, and oh, open mouths made this a whole different thing, didn’t it? Red and trembly and wanting, and a whole nervous system full of emotions Logan couldn’t even begin to parse. When Roman finally pulled away to breathe, it was Logan who whined softly.
“Was that…” Logan asked once he had a voice again. “Was that okay?”
“Was that okay?” Roman sounded breathless himself. “Do you have any idea how long I have wanted to do that?”
“Really?” Logan frowned. “With me?”
Roman huffed and laid his head on Logan’s shoulder. “It was always you, nerd.” His voice was muffled by Logan’s coat. “Always.”
Pure happiness made tears prick Logan’s eyes, and he laid his cheek against Roman’s hair. Roman’s hands found his waist. They swayed for a moment, content.
A low, swelling sound made them both look out toward the horizon and gasp. A…flock? herd?…of giant ray-like creatures swam through the nearest rock formation, gliding effortlessly in the air to dance among the arches. They called to each other as they flew; hollow, resonant calls, not unlike those of whales. The sound mixed hauntingly with the song of the towers.
“How does a creature that big stay aloft?” Logan mused.
“Oh, I should have known.” Roman’s eyes were blown wide. “Why didn’t I see it before?”
“See what?”
Roman shot him a smirk. “Haven’t you realized where we are?”
“Darillium, obviously.” Logan gestured at the Towers.
“Yeah, but this is the Imagination. So, it isn’t just Darillium,” Roman said.
Logan frowned.
“I’ll give you a hint, Doctor.” Roman took Logan’s hand. “‘How long are you gonna stay with me?’”
It took Logan a moment before he gasped. This is also like the planet the Doctor took Rose to, before Doomsday. Those are the same creatures.
“Wait, that’s my line!” he sputtered. “That was the Doctor’s line to Rose, and you stole it!”
“Too late.” Roman shrugged with that insufferable smirk; the kind that used to raise Logan’s hackles every time.
But how much of that annoyance, he wondered ruefully, stemmed from the fact that what he actually wanted to do was kiss that expression right off Roman’s insufferable face? The feelings had crept up on him so slowly that he couldn’t pinpoint when exasperation had transformed into this…this irresistible attraction.
Well. At least now he could wipe the smirk from Roman’s lips, if he wanted. And he definitely wanted. So, he did, swallowing Roman’s soft noise of surprise.
Logan liked to think of himself as a man of science. As such, after another thorough round of rigorous testing, he’d gained a solid understanding as to why Thomas daydreamed so much about the act of smushing mouths together.
“We, uh,” Roman stammered once they parted again. “Should go. Virgil. Rescue, and uh, stuff.”
Logan’s own mouth curled into a smirk as Roman—Thomas’s confident, poetic, brash Creativity—stumbled over his words.
“Indeed.” He took Roman’s hand.
They paused at the TARDIS’s threshold, looking one last time at the rocky landscape, the towers, and the sinking sun.
“For the record, Roman,” Logan murmured. “The correct answer to your question is ‘forever.’”
Chapter 25- The Big Bang
“We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”
Disgusting.
Janus lounged against a railing and watched the two lovebirds flit about their ship, flipping switches and making googly eyes around the time rotor. When he’d suggested that they kiss and get on with it…
…he never imagined they actually would.
Not because they weren’t crazy about each other. Anyone with functioning eyes could see that.
No, he simply assumed Logan would keep on denying he experienced any sort of icky icky feelings, and Roman would keep on being too afraid of rejection to make the first move. Janus had gotten so used to their sad little pining dance that seeing it shift in real time was…interesting.
Patton’s sky-blue eyes flitted unexpectedly across his mind. Maybe, when this is all over…Janus scowled and shook the distracting thought away.
The TARDIS shuddered as she landed back on the Clocktower planet.
“I parked us a little closer this time,” Logan explained. “Although the Tower itself is generating a temporal field my TARDIS cannot penetrate. We will still have to walk.”
Roman rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get a move on, then.”
“Ladies first.” Janus gestured at the door.
“Ha! How adorable, you think that’s an insult.” Roman sashayed his hips as he swept past Janus, River Song’s dress whispering around his legs. Janus almost laughed when he caught sight of Logan’s slack-jawed, sharp-eyed expression.
“You’ll catch flies with that gaping mouth, Doctor,” he called.
Logan blushed a furious red, adjusted his glasses, and followed Roman out the door without a word.
Janus snickered. Remus is going to have a ball with those two, in every sense of the word, once we’re back in the mindspace proper.
The walk to the tower was as cold and empty as last time until they began to hear it.
At regular intervals, something dull and concussive shook the ground under their feet, more felt then heard. Coupled with that, Janus began to feel that crushing pressure, so sharply he had to take a deep breath to counteract it.
Tick.
He rubbed his chest and exchanged a glance with Logan.
“Is it—?” Logan looked strained himself.
“Worse?” Janus shuddered. “Much. Forgive the cliché, given where we are, but we may be running out of time.”
Tick.
“I agree,” Logan said lowly.
They came up on the valley and the ridge. The TVs and Virgil’s huge screens flickered madly, lighting the whole valley in chaotic, intermittent white light.
Tick.
The intervals were definitely getting closer together.
Tick.
“Is that the Clock?” Roman asked. “Did Virgil lose control of it?”
“I fear that might be the case,” Logan answered grimly.
They walked faster.
Tick.
The televisions’ content changed as they climbed. Instead of aliens, Janus realized they now depicted memories from Thomas’s recent life.
A foot, kicking open a door.
“Guess who just got a callback for an Alfred Hitchcoppulucus movie?”
“April 13th...”
An open wedding invite, shoved under a mess of paperwork on the counter.
An angry scribble across a calendar.
TICK.
“The callback date is inflexible.”
A pair of clenched fists in a pajamaed lap.
“It will crush you if we miss it.”
Janus cringed as they passed scenes from the courtroom, not daring to meet Roman’s or Logan’s eyes.
At the top of the ridge, the other three Sides stood as they’d left them: Virgil, frozen, arm outstretched and teeth bared; Remus, eyestalk focused on the Angel; Patton, sitting on the ground and humming tunelessly. The flickering screens lit their faces in a riot of color; all the lights they’d brought, Janus observed uneasily, were out. All their mirrors lay shattered, useless; shards so small they were nearly sand.
The ticking was much louder here.
Virgil’s speaker became audible as they approached, begging Remus to let him go, let him tend to the Clock, let me stop the End from coming, Remus, please…”
Janus, Logan, and Roman exchanged a worried glance.
Patton leaped clankily to his feet as a new scene flickered onto the largest, movie-theater sized screen, showing Logan, Thomas, and Virgil in their usual places in Thomas’s living room.
“Well. How are you doing right now?”
“I don’t know! I’m fine.”
“Virgil, how’s he doing?”
TICK.
“He recently realized he’s a bigger liar than he thought he was, he doesn’t understand himself, he’s committed to skipping a big callback, and he’s sleep-deprived. So yeah. He feels like a piece of dirt who has no control over his life.”
“You found him!” Patton rushed to grab Logan in a hug, but seemed to remember at the last second that he was literally made of metal. “Oh, thank heavens. We’re—”
“Running out of time?” Logan interrupted crisply as another TICK echoed around them. “Yes. Janus and I feel it, too. Roman said you had a plan. I suggest we execute it promptly.”
“OR HE’LL PROBABLY EXECUTE US. SNAP ALL OUR NECKS,” Remus muttered, as much as a Dalek voice can mutter.
“It’s not me, Remus, it’s the Clock!” Virgil protested. “Everything is slipping…”
“…the Dark Sides?” The Thomas on the largest screen asked.
“The others,” onscreen Virgil answered. “I thought…I thought I knew how to handle them.”
Janus mentally timed the interval between ticks.
Seven seconds.
“Oh, well, I think we’re all trying to figure them out for now,” onscreen Thomas said. “It’ll take some time to figure everything out.”
Onscreen Virgil grimaced. “Yeah, but I should know better.”
TICK.
Six seconds.
TICK.
Five.
“Okay!” Patton almost shouted. “We need to gather around Virgil.”
They did, shuffling awkwardly to accommodate a Dalek and a Cyberman body. Two seconds between ticks. The Clock sounded like a proper clock, now, and Janus wasn’t feeling properly alarmed.
“All right,” Patton said. “Now, each of us is going to put a hand into Virgil’s.”
“What are you up to, Patton?” Virgil demanded. “Guys…this isn't like me ducking out. I chose to come back then, this is different, this is mine, you can't pull me out of this...”
"You're right, Virgil." Patton's voice was firm. “When we were falling apart, you chose us. You pulled us back.” He took a breath, looking around the circle with his black, Cyberman eyes. They came to rest on Janus, who couldn’t look away. “Now it's our turn to do the same for you."
“Isn’t that kind of unfair?” Screen Thomas’s voice echoed over the valley. “Why should you be held to a different standard than any other Side?”
“Because I was—”
The transmission cut. Clara Oswald’s frightened face filled the screen instead, drawing Janus’s gaze, all orange light and big eyes and Victorian dress.
“But where is the other one?” A clockwork monstrosity asked her.
“I don’t know,” Clara whispered.
Clock parts ticked in the villain’s face.
TICK; the valley trembled.
“But I know where he will be,” she said. “Where he will always be.”
Tick, tick, went the villain clock parts.
“If the Doctor is still the Doctor…he will have my back.”
TICK.
“Go on, please, please, go on, say I’m right,” onscreen Clara whispered, blindly stretching out a hand behind her.
Janus's heart did a slow flip in his chest. Patton is right. The only way we all get out of this, the only way we move forward, is if we have each other’s backs. He eyed Virgil’s stone hands. We have to trust him, no matter what he thinks he’s done, no matter what he thinks of himself.
“I DO NOT HAVE A HAND.” Remus waved his gunstick and plunger. “JUST THESE.”
“Oh, shoot, that’s right.” Patton looked wildly around. “Uh…?”
“Remus, do you have an actual Dalek body inside that shell?” Janus demanded.
“YES.”
“Logan, open his casing.” Janus gestured.
Music swelled from the valley speakers; on the screen, a hand fell into Clara’s waiting one.
Logan whipped out his screwdriver and buzzed it at Remus’s shell; the top portion popped open to reveal Remus in all his tiny, blobby, greenish Dalek glory. Without his shell, he couldn’t speak to them, but he seemed to grasp Janus’s idea anyway. He lengthened one of his tentacles and wound it around Virgil’s stone wrist.
“Okay, that is just gross,” Roman muttered.
The ticking sounded every second now, percussive heartbeats like an ever-tightening vice around Janus’s chest…
The screen switched to the Eleventh Doctor and his manic smile, standing in a tower with acid rain falling outside.“Do what I do. Hold tight and pretend it’s a plan.”
Bits of familiar, beloved episodes played on every screen now, an overlapping montage of Doctors.
“I think the Imagination is trying to help us!” Roman’s caramel eyes were wide.
“You can’t redeem me!” Virgil’s digital voice was nearly sobbing now. “It’s not gonna work…”
Rose and the Tenth Doctor in their TARDIS flashed up on the biggest screen.
“There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe,” the Tenth Doctor said, gesturing. “Warp drive…wormhole refractors. You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold.” He turned, grinned, and grabbed Rose’s outstretched hand.
The Sides each put a hand on Virgil’s stone one. Twenty seconds to midnight…
“Janus,” Patton said sternly.
Eighteen…
“What?” he snapped.
Patton seized his hand, unceremoniously tugged off the glove, and replaced the hand in the pile. Innocuous, but powerfully intimate, and Janus couldn’t fight the rush of heat to his body.
Fifteen…
“Now, we’re all gonna close our eyes,” Patton said. “All of us, this time. And Virgil is going to take our hands.”
“Everything’s got to end sometime,” Eleven murmured, leaning against the TARDIS in the snow, facing Amy. “Otherwise, nothing would ever get started.”
Eleven…
“And then what?” Virgil demanded. “Then what?”
Ten…
“Midnight,” Patton whispered.
“The spell breaks and we all go home,” Roman added.
“Together.” Logan shot him a fond look.
Nine…
“We all change, when you think about it. We’re all different people all through our lives,” Eleven said, holding out his glowing hands. “And that’s okay, that’s good, you gotta keep moving. As long as you remember all the people that you used to be.”
Janus, daringly, laid his other hand on Virgil’s stone shoulder. “You’ve come this far, Virgil,” he said, in all seriousness. “You’ve got this. And we’ve got you.”
Six…
“Before I go, I just want to tell you: you were fantastic,” Nine said. “Absolutely fantastic. And you know what?” He grinned his trademark, closemouthed grin. “So was I.”
“Count of three?” Patton said.
They nodded.
Three…
Two…
One…
Janus held his breath and squeezed his eyes closed. A devastating chime shook the valley, shattering a thousand screens all at once. Glass pinged against his coat, but he hunched and stubbornly kept his eyes shut.
A set of cold, thin fingers slowly clasped around his.
Chapter 26- Resolution
“When you say places to go, where are you thinking? Where to next?”
“I was thinking…everywhere.”
Roman’s ears rang in the quiet.
He dared to open one eye and whooped to see his own bedroom walls. The Imagination had dumped them into the center of Roman’s room, right beside his bed. Virgil hunched trembling and wide-eyed in their midst, eyeshadow rippling, but thankfully human again.
One by one everyone opened their eyes and dropped hands in relief.
“Why did…how did…?” Virgil mumbled, and Roman had never been so glad to hear that gravelly voice. “I can’t believe that worked.”
“Well, I for one am thankful that we both have skin again!” Patton seized the tall emo in a Dad hug.
“I mean, sure.” Virgil squirmed like an awkward beanpole, as he tended to do whenever someone touched him unexpectedly. “Also being able to move when I want to is nice, and whatever…”
“Patton, ask before hugs, remember?” Roman reminded him.
“Oh right!” Patton let Virgil go with a sheepish grin. “Sorry, kiddo, I just got excited.”
“S’ok.” Virgil rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, guys, I dunno exactly how to say this, but, um—”
“I think the words you’re looking for are ‘thank’ and ‘you’,” Janus drawled.
Virgil hissed at him, but then closed his mouth with a frown. “Actually, yeah,” he mumbled. “Um. Thanks. For…for trusting me, even after…everything.”
“Confessing to Thomas all by yourself must have been tough, kiddo.” Patton touched Virgil’s hoodie sleeve. “Was that the same day we’d given him such a hard time about Remus’s intrusive thoughts? We should have stuck around to support you.”
“S’fine.” Virgil shrugged. “It was kind of an impulsive decision at the time. I’m not sorry I told him; I just wish his reaction had been better. He kinda stared at me with this expression, like…I don’t even know.” His voice dropped. “Like he didn’t know who I was anymore.”
Roman winced in sympathy.
“I would remind you that Thomas was extremely sleep deprived that evening, and thus perhaps not quite himself,” Logan said. “Plus, he had just met Remus, which would be draining under the best of circumstances.” He shot a glance at Remus. “Erm. I am not trying to offend, Remus, but you are…uncommonly extra.”
“Offend away.” Remus, back to his usual flashy self, shrugged; the ruffles on his sleeves bounced. “My fabulous presence is just too much for some people.”
“I guess you’re right.” Virgil looked away from Logan. “Sorry for sending you back in time, by the way.”
“You are forgiven, Virgil.” Logan’s gaze shifted to Roman for a split second. “Everything worked out quite satisfactorily despite the unexpected trip.”
Roman had to bite his lip to keep from blushing.
“Well, I’m going to miss being a Dalek,” Remus announced. “Did you know that anatomically Daleks can actually—?”
Patton slapped a hand over Remus’s mouth and yanked it away with a cry of disgust when Remus licked it.
“There is no possible way that sentence would end with anything anyone wants to hear,” Roman griped.
“You all are so booooring.” Remus yawned and stretched exaggeratedly. “If we’re done with the adventure recap, I’m gonna go hide in Thomas’s shower and jump-scare him again when he wakes up.”
He flounced from the room, not even bothering to sink out. Roman sighed and rubbed his face.
“How’s about I go and make everyone some breakfast?” Patton offered. “Virge? Janus? You want to help me?”
“Does he have to come?” Virgil and Janus said simultaneously, then glared at one another. Virgil hissed again for good measure.
“Well, no, you don’t both have to, I just kinda hoped…” Patton twisted his cat hoodie sleeves.
Virgil and Janus exchanged another look; softer, more contemplative this time.
“I heard what you said, you know,” Virgil mumbled to Janus. “Just before the Clock chimed, about how far I’ve come, or whatever. Were you just mocking me?”
Janus picked at one of his gloves. “Six months ago, that would have been a toss-up,” he admitted. “Maybe a bit true, maybe a bit mocking.”
“Like at Christmas?” Virgil all but spat out.
Janus swallowed and nodded. Roman wondered what they could be referencing; some private confrontation, clearly. Just how often did those two fight, anyway, away from everyone else? Would that change now, after everything the Imagination had put them through?
“But, in all seriousness,” Janus went on, “your growth within Thomas’s circle of trust has been astounding, Virgil.” His mismatched eyes flickered away. “Perhaps now that I’ve been permitted to join that circle—”
“You’re on the edge of it; don’t push your luck,” Virgil grumbled.
“Will you give me a chance to do the same?” Janus finished, unperturbed.
Virgil chewed his lip, tugged his hoodie more tightly around himself, but finally, he nodded.
“‘Hate is always foolish’,” Logan murmured, so softly only Roman could hear him. “‘And love is always wise.’”
Roman momentarily linked their pinkies together.
“Yay!” Patton clapped his hands and seized Virgil’s elbow to pull him toward the door. Janus followed at a more sedate pace.
Roman, on impulse, tailed him to the doorway.
“Good luck with Logan,” Janus said softly.
Roman allowed himself a smirk. “Good luck with Patton.”
Janus’s human side flushed a satisfying red.
“That’s ridiculousss, we aren’t…there isn’t…” He visibly wilted under Roman’s knowing expression; his shoulders drooped under his cape. “Fine. I’ll probably need it.”
“I don’t know what he sees in you, snake, but if you hurt him, I will carve out your spleen and feed it to the Dragon Witch.” Roman gripped his sword hilt for emphasis.
“Charming.” Janus’s nostrils flared as he sighed. “Unfortunately, I can’t promise I’ll never hurt him. Patton and I are fundamentally different. It’s why we work so damned well together, but it also means we often won’t see eye to eye on things. Just like you and Logan.” He held up his hand. “Don’t glare at me; you two are a powder keg about to explode—”
“Hamilton. Original.” Roman rolled his eyes.
Janus seized Roman’s arm in a firm, yellow-clad grip. “You will hurt each other again. It is inevitable. But if you really love him—”
Roman blushed and swallowed, hard.
“—you’ll talk to each other, compromise, and work it out.” Janus let go of Roman’s sleeve. “That is what I can, and will, promise to do with Patton.”
“That’s fair, I guess.” Roman shot Janus a contemplative look. “You aren’t so bad, you know? When you aren’t being a manipulative jerk.”
“Why, Roman,” Janus smiled, baring just the tips of his fangs. “You’re losing your touch. That was almost kind.” He twirled and stalked down the hallway, caplet flaring behind him.
“And you call me and Remus extra.” Roman closed his bedroom door.
“Remus and I.”
Roman whirled, surprised to see that Logan was still there. The other Side raised an eyebrow.
“It’s ‘Remus and I’, not ‘me and Remus’.” Logan clarified, turning again to stare intently at something in the corner.
“You really gonna grammar nazi me in my own room?” Roman came closer. His heart sank into his stomach when he saw the subject of Logan’s scrutiny.
Being a Prince, Roman always keenly felt the pressure to always look put-together and presentable. He kept a full-length mirror in his room, near his wardrobe, for just that purpose. And, truthfully, maybe he was a little vain.
But he knew the mirror itself wasn’t what had caught Logan’s eye.
Packed into the crevices between glass and wood were dozens of sticky notes, some legible, some crumpled and blurred, accumulated over years. Admonishments to do better, to do more, to focus, to stay grounded. Rebukes for perceived laziness. Reprimands for all the times he led Thomas astray. Many were things that Logan had said to him, at one point or another.
Because those were the words that always hurt. Always stuck. Always haunted me when I couldn’t sleep, or couldn’t think of a good idea, or…
Logan let out a sharp breath.
“Logan…” Roman reached out a hand and dropped it again. “I…”
He stopped when Logan began plucking out the notes, one by one; quick, jerky movements, his face a mask. Roman thought maybe he should stop him, but the last time he’d seen Logan look this angry, he’d gotten a balled-up bit of paper thrown at his face. Once he’d cleared the mirror, Logan unceremoniously crumpled the damning stack in his hands and let it drop, where he then crushed it underfoot. Roman got the distinct feeling if Logan really could manifest flames on the side of his face, those notes would have been turned to ash in an instant.
“Logan…” Roman tried again.
“I’ll do better.” Logan met Roman’s eyes, and Roman was shocked to see tears glittering in them. “I swear. I will do better by you.”
Something deep in Roman’s chest dislodged; he half-laughed, half-sobbed, and dropped his head into his hands. Logan wordlessly gathered him into his arms, and for a while they just stood together; Roman crying, Logan gently stroking his hair. Finally, the tears slowed, and stopped, and for the first time in a long time, Roman’s head felt not quite empty—he was Creativity, after all—but blissfully quiet.
Those serene thoughts laser-focused on Logan's soft breathing and the warmth of his neck against Roman's face.
“You kissed me,” he murmured. “Twice.”
Logan stiffened and pulled away. “I did.”
“Is that…” Roman wiped his face. “Is that gonna be a thing, now?”
“I do not see why not. I found it quite enjoyable.” Something small and insecure flickered across Logan’s stoic face. “Do you want it to be a ‘thing’?”
“God, yes, you useless amazing nerd.” Roman laughed helplessly. “But if it’s gonna be a thing, like, right now, I should blow my nose first.”
“Ah…” Logan wrinkled his own nose. “Wise.”
Roman found a box of tissues, cleaned his face, looked at Logan’s lips, and…
…and there were too many emotions, too much insecurity swirling in his chest, just too much, all at once. He couldn’t close the distance.
“Roman.” Logan moved into his space, all dark eyes and dark hair and beautiful mystery. “You have my explicit consent to kiss me. As the embodiment of Thomas’s romantic tendencies, I did not think this would be a difficult task for you.”
Logan smelled like old paper, ink, and tea leaves, and that scent always made it difficult for Roman to think…well, gay.
“Two years of pining, Specs.” He laid a hand on Logan’s chest. “Just…just gimme a second.”
He exhaled.
Tilted his head.
And like magnets, lips found lips again, and it was just as good as it had been in the Imagination. If this did become a thing—and oh, did Roman hope it would—neither of them would be getting anything done in the foreseeable future.
“I believe I have harbored these ‘feelings’, as it were, for quite some time as well,” Logan confessed when they breathlessly pulled apart. “I just…”
“Feelings.” Roman smirked. “Not your department. Yeah.”
Logan chuckled, all mussed hair and slightly pink cheeks now. Then he sighed.
“We are still going to fight, sometimes, you know.” He shot a dark glance at Roman’s now-bare mirror. “Despite my best intentions, I…I fear I will hurt you again.”
Roman rubbed his face. “Janus said the same thing. But he also said if I really—”
He paused and swallowed.
“—really cared for you, then we’d make it work,” he finished. “Besides”—and he allowed a smirk to pull up his lips— “I think I can handle you.”
Logan leaned down; Roman nearly squeaked when he felt lips against his neck, right over his pulse point, because of course Logan knew exactly where that was.
“Can you?” Logan murmured into Roman’s sensitive skin, sending a delicious shiver down his back.
“Breakfast!” he blurted out. “Er. That is. The others will be wondering, you know. What we’re doing up here.”
Logan straightened up, that devastating smirk on his lips. Oh, Roman thought, his heart pounding. We are a powder keg, aren’t we?
They walked together through the door and into the hallway, where Logan pulled up short and sniffed.
“Is that peanut butter and tuna?” he asked. “I thought Patton was making breakfast…?”
Roman and Logan exchanged a horrified look.
“REMUS!” they shouted in unison and rushed for the stairs.
The End
…or is it?
Bonus Scene- Journey’s End
“Now then. Where were we?”
They could have just made the darned pancakes.
But Janus and Virgil declared themselves so vehemently against the idea of pancakes with marshmallows on top—really, what was wrong with that? — so, Patton caved and looked up a recipe for French toast instead. Being unfamiliar with the steps, Patton couldn’t work on autopilot like he normally did.
Then, Janus turned out to be incapable of cracking an egg without getting shell everywhere, and Virgil was unwilling to allow the stove to be turned up to anything resembling a temperature you could actually, you know, cook food on. Between checking his phone multiple times to see if he needed a teaspoon or a tablespoon of something, and trying to delegate two other hopeless cooks, Patton had taken a lot of deep breaths in the last ten minutes.
“Janus, you may have to temporarily take your gloves off,” he said in an even voice, adding a dash of nutmeg to the cinnamon-sugar mixture. “And Virgil…oh dear, now where has he gone?”
Virgil’s task was melting butter in the skillet, but at some point, he must have left the kitchen. Both butter and skillet still sat on the stove, unmelted and cold, respectively.
“He probably went to go make sure Thomas’s front door is locked, again.” Janus stalked to the stove and turned the eye up. “At least now we can actually cook something.”
“Don’t be mean.” Patton swirled the cinnamon-sugar-nutmeg mix in a bowl. “It’s all Logan’s fault, honestly.”
Janus cracked his last egg, gingerly, and only had to fish a bit of shell out of the bowl. “I sense a story here.”
“It wasn’t a big thing.” Patton shrugged. “It’s just, you know how Logan gets when he has one of his brainwave moments?”
“Oh, like him almost abandoning us in the LARP when he figured out how to find Virgil?” Janus whisked milk in with the eggs. “I really did think the brainiac was going to take off in his TARDIS and leave us there.”
Patton felt a little bad for chuckling.
“Well, this one time,” he said, “Logan was frying chicken and abandoned the pan full of hot oil, all because he had an idea for how to reduce plastic waste in the ocean and had to go write it down.” He giggled, remembering. “First and only time we’ve ever had to use the kitchen fire extinguisher. Now Logan isn’t allowed to cook by himself.”
“Is that why Virgil is always on Thomas’s case about making sure the stove is off?” Janus asked with a grin.
Patton giggled. “You know, probably! He’s never let Logan live that down.”
The two shared a laugh, and Patton realized that Janus never truly laughed around any of the others—evil chuckles and shrill cackles didn’t count. Which was a shame. Janus had a fantastic laugh: deep and warm, like a toasty sweater on a winter’s day. Something you wanted to just wrap yourself in.
And Patton was staring. He turned away, blushing, and got out the bread.
SLAM.
Patton startled at the sudden noise, which sounded like it had come from down the hallway. He and Janus looked at each other as they also heard Remus’s distinct, high-pitched giggling, and Virgil, sounding weirdly muffled but swearing up a storm. More banging followed.
“You know, you can’t even threaten Remus’s life when he irritates you,” Janus commented. “Because he enjoys being threatened. He’ll even give you suggestions.”
“Do you think we should make sure Virgil’s okay?” Patton asked.
Janus sighed. “It sounds like Remus locked him in a closet again.”
“Again??” Patton’s voice rose, prompting Janus to sigh.
“I forget, sometimes,” Janus said lowly, “that Virgil hasn’t had to deal with Remus’s nonsense since Thomas accepted him, and he moved to this part of the mindspace. Remus, as you can guess, is a prankster, and he loved pranking Virgil because Virgil is so easy to scare. And with us all in the conscious mind, now…” He gestured, helplessly.
“Well, that won’t do at all!” Patton planted his hands on his hips. “I can appreciate a wholesome prank every once in a while, but I will not have anyone scaring my kiddo.”
He marched out of the kitchen—turning the stove off first, of course—with Janus close behind.
“You know you two are the same age,” Janus said. “Ergo, he’s not your kiddo.”
“You are all my kiddos, kiddo,” Patton retorted.
Janus pulled a face. “Please don’t start calling me that.”
Patton glanced back, pressing his lips together. It felt natural when Virgil, Thomas, and to a lesser extent Roman called him “Dad”; they were his kiddos, always had been. Remus, as much trouble as he caused, was nevertheless becoming a “kiddo” in Patton’s mind as well. Logan was trickier, since his personal level of professionalism felt naturally at odds with any parent-child dynamic.
And now, Janus. Whatever Janus was becoming to Patton—and he admitted, it was starting to be an awful lot—“kiddo” was not the right word for it at all.
“You’re right,” Patton agreed. “It does feel weird with you.”
They reached the front closet, closed and dark. Patton tried the handle, and to his surprise, it turned. He glanced at Janus, who shrugged.
“Virge?” Patton swung open the door and flicked on the light. Empty. No Virgil. “Well…”
Patton started to turn back to Janus, only for Janus to crash into his side and send them both tumbling into the closet. The door slammed shut behind them; the light clicked off.
Janus swore, rattling the unyielding doorknob. Suspicious giggles came from the other side.
“Remus,” Janus yelled. “Open this door!”
“What have you done with Virgil?” Patton yelled at the same time.
“Oh, I locked him in the bathroom,” Remus admitted shamelessly through the door. “Now I get the kitchen all to myself. Have fun, use protection, and watch out for spiders!”
“Protection??” Janus sputtered.
“Spiders?!” Patton squeaked, all the hair on his neck standing up.
“REMUS!” Janus tried again, pounding on the door.
Silence.
Patton wrapped arms around himself, taking deep, careful breaths. It was so dark, and claustrophobic, and if spiders did live in this closet, he wouldn’t even be able to see them until…
Something touched his cheek.
Patton yelped and swatted frantically, encountering Janus’s hand, which the other quickly removed.
“Patton?” Janus asked.
“I’m fine!” Patton’s voice cracked. “But you don’t…you don’t really think there are spiders in here, right?”
“I am gonna kill that trash rat,” Janus muttered. “I really am. Patton, listen to me; I will say it again. Remus is a prankster.” He cupped Patton’s cheek, firmer this time. “There are no spiders, and I am going to get us out. Okay?”
Janus’s low, resonant voice washed over Patton in reassuring waves, loosening his tense shoulders, calming his heart. He was suddenly ridiculously glad of the other’s presence; something that, a year ago, he never thought he’d say.
Janus squawked when Patton threw arms around his waist, enclosing him in a desperate bear hug.
“I’m sorry I know I’m supposed to ask first but I just really, really hate spiders and I really need a hug right now,” Patton said without taking a breath.
He felt Janus chuckle, breath puffing against Patton’s curls. The other Side’s hands came up; one to rest between his shoulder blades, the other cradling the back of his neck. Patton felt Janus’s body relax in increments, felt him take a breath, felt him lean a little more into the warmth.
Patton liked to think of himself as something of a hug expert, at least as far as the other Sides were concerned. Virgil and Logan were the least tactile of the bunch, although Patton guessed Logan wouldn’t object to touches from a certain Prince. Those two put up with Patton’s hugs, but he wouldn’t say they particularly enjoyed them. Roman’s hugs were grand and showy, with lots of squeezing and twirling and on bad days, clinging. Remus…well, Patton wasn’t brave enough to try hugging him just yet.
Hugging Janus, however, was simply nice. His skin felt noticeably cooler than any of the others’; his arms felt safe, he smelled divinely of cloves, and surprisingly, he hadn’t shrugged away yet. Instead, Janus set his chin on top of Patton’s head, and the hand on the back of his neck began combing gently through his curly hair, sending pleasant shivers down his spine.
“Feeling better?” Janus’s voice came out lower-pitched than normal.
Patton hummed. “You smell nice.”
For a moment, Patton feared Janus would pull away, throw up all his walls again, demand to know what that meant. But he didn’t.
“You do, too.” Janus moved his head; Patton heard him breathe in. “Like vanilla and sugar.”
Patton giggled, nervousness bubbling up like soda fizz, and he hid his face in Janus’s neck again.
“Janus?” he murmured after a moment.
“Hmm?”
“I need to tell you something.” Patton breathed in, his heart skipping as Janus’s spicy scent set all his nerves alight again. “I…I think I like you.”
“Glad to hear it,” Janus muttered sardonically against his hair. “Otherwise, this wouldn’t be extremely awkward.”
“No, I mean…!” Patton pulled back, relieved that his eyes had adjusted enough to make out Janus’s face in the dimness. “I mean I really like you. Like…”
His words cut off in a gasp when Janus planted a soft kiss on Patton’s forehead. Then one on his cheek, cool breath ghosting against Patton’s face, making him shiver. Then, on his other cheek.
“Like that?” Janus touched his forehead to Patton’s, gloved hands cupping his jaw again.
“Do you…too?” Patton asked shakily.
Janus exhaled and nodded, his thumbs caressing Patton’s cheekbones. Patton breathed, suddenly glad of the dark, and pulled Janus into another hug. This time Janus went willingly, and Patton felt so light inside he could have danced on a cool, clove-scented cloud.
Janus laid another soft kiss on the top of Patton’s head.
“Hey, Janus?” Patton whispered, pulling back again. “You keep missing with those.”
Janus looked confused, but then his eyes flickered to Patton’s mouth and widened. “Do I?” His voice dropped.
Patton nodded, biting his lip, and feeling soda fizz again when Janus’s sharp gaze tracked the motion.
“Well.” Janus’s nose touched Patton’s. “That won’t do at all, will it?”
“Nope—”
Patton had barely gotten the word out before Janus’s mouth alighted on his. The kiss was shaky, sweet, and Patton laid hands on Janus’s waist to pull him close. Janus retaliated with a satisfying breathless noise and by curling gloved fingers into the nape of Patton’s neck.
After a moment, they broke apart to breathe and stare.
“I missed this face.” Janus ran a finger down Patton’s nose. “All through that stupid LARP, all I could think was how I never properly appreciated these big blue eyes and all these freckles.”
He traced swirls over Patton’s flaming cheeks, making him giggle.
“Flatterer.” Patton slipped a hand between them to touch Janus’s face. “What are freckles compared to these?” He let his thumb glide over the scales on Janus’s cheekbone, not missing the way the other tensed.
“You don’t mind, that I look…” Janus looked away. “It’s…I’m Deceit, I’m meant to be creepy, I—”
“You’re beautiful.” Patton let his whole hand rest against Janus’s cheek; against smooth, silky scales that were actually pleasant to touch. “Janus.”
A shiver traveled through Janus’s body at those words, triggering a corresponding flutter in Patton’s stomach. He likes hearing his name said aloud. Never taking his eyes off Janus’s face, Patton trailed hands down the other Side’s arms until he reached the edge of his gloves. He tugged the right one off first, then the left, letting the pad of his thumb caress the smattering of scales as he did. Janus stood perfectly still, his intense eyes fixed on Patton’s face.
“Janus Sanders,” Patton said again.
This time Janus rewarded him with another kiss, one that stole his breath and made his eyes flutter shut. Janus pulled him suffocatingly close, one bare palm cradling Patton’s jaw, the knot of Patton’s hoodie digging into both their chests. The kiss grew open-mouthed, and Patton shivered at the cautious brush of fangs against his lower lip…
“Are you kidding me?” a voice cried.
Patton and Janus sprang apart as the closet light clicked on. Roman stood in the open doorway, holding an annoyed hand in the air. Janus cleared his throat and straightened his cape before hiding his bare hands behind his back.
“Roman. Impeccable timing,” he drawled.
Meanwhile, Patton recovered enough of his wits to notice a truly awful stench in the air. He wrinkled his nose. “Is that…?”
“Tuna fish? Yep.” Roman let them shuffle out of the closet.
Patton slipped Janus’s gloves back to him, earning a grateful half-smile.
“Remus decided to concoct some abomination,” Roman went on. “I thought you were making breakfast, Padre. How the heckity heck did that turn into making out in a closet?”
“Uh…” Patton started.
“We were making breakfast.” Janus flexed his yellow-clad fingers, armor fully in place again. “And then your brother locked us in said closet. Speaking of which, someone should probably let Virgil out of the bathroom.”
“Logan already found him.” Roman narrowed his eyes. “But I know you can pick locks, snake. You could have gotten out.”
“We, uh…got a little distracted.” Patton’s heart skipped when Janus’s fingers twined with his.
Roman chuckled and shook his head.
They all entered the kitchen, where Logan was gingerly scraping something wet and lumpy into the trash. Virgil perched on the countertop, chewing his lip.
“So apparently when Remus locked you in the bathroom, Virgil,” Roman announced to the room. “He locked them in the front closet.”
Virgil raised an eyebrow under his long bangs. “Together?”
Patton and Janus exchanged a glance, blushing, which made Virgil cackle.
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll forgive him after all, just for that.”
Logan tied off the garbage bag as he studied Patton, then Janus, and finally let his gaze rest on their still entwined hands. His eyebrows raised. “You, too?”
“Looks that way.” Janus’s voice was casual, unconcerned; but a small smirk lifted his lips.
Roman sidled over to stand next to Logan, who absently touched Roman’s lower back. The five all looked at each other for a moment.
“Okay, first ground rule.” Virgil held up his hands. “No making out when I’m around. You allos can allo all you want, just not where I have to watch. Cool?”
“Very cool,” Patton said with a grin.
“That seems fair,” Logan agreed.
“Are we…?” Roman started. “Is this”—he gestured at them all— “gonna be okay for Thomas’s mind, long term? Obviously, it beats having us all at odds with each other, but…”
“I think it will be fine, Roman.” Logan’s deep voice was unusually gentle. “Those two are arguably the two Sides of Thomas’s morality. In a yin-and-yang, push-and-pull kind of sense, they belong together.”
Patton snuck a glance at a blushing Janus, unable to contain his small smile.
“What about us?” Roman asked Logan softly. “Logic and Creativity are polar opposites. What does that make us?”
Logan didn’t have an immediate answer for that.
“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Janus spoke up. “An endless, enthusiastic knowledge of what’s possible, combined with endless speculation of what might be possible one day? If I’m not mistaken, that is called Wonder.”
Logan and Roman stared at each other, wide-eyed.
Patton gave Janus’s hand a proud squeeze.
“That’s it.” Virgil hopped off the counter and shoved them all toward the kitchen entrance. “Out! All of you. Go to your rooms and get this out of your systems before Thomas’s mind starts generating bad poetry and heart balloons and chocolate all over the mindspace.”
“But…” Patton protested.
“Shoo, padre.” Virgil flapped his hands at them. “I’ll make breakfast.”
“You’ll end up making us eat cold cereal, Mr. I’m-Too-Scared-To-Work-The-Stove!” Roman pointed out.
“Yeah, and?” Virgil smirked. “You really want to stay down here and cook, or do you want to hang out with Logan?” His eyebrows waggled. “Alone?”
Roman pressed his lips together.
Virgil’s smirk grew. “That’s what I thought. Shoo!”
He flapped his hands one more time and disappeared back in the kitchen. The couples looked sheepishly at each other.
“He does have a point.” Janus glanced at Patton. “You haven’t met all my snakes yet, have you?”
“Is that what we’re calling it now.” Roman smirked grew wicked.
The human side of Janus’s face flushed crimson; Patton let out a hysterical giggle.
“Roman,” he chided, his voice squeaking.
“I don’t…” Logan’s eyes widened comically in understanding. “Oh. I take it that ‘snake’, in this instance, is a euphemism for a—?”
Janus flicked his wrist; Logan’s hand slapped over his own mouth. Roman burst into laughter, which only grew when Logan glowered at him from behind his hand.
“Janus Sanders.” Patton put his hands on his hips. “Let him go.”
Janus relented, looking abashed. “Habit,” he muttered.
Logan cleared his throat and straightened his tie.
“You better not be making sex jokes out there!” Virgil called, letting a little Tempest layer his voice. “GO…TO…YOUR…ROOMS!”
“Ok, Nine,” Roman grumbled.
“And take video!” Remus shouted from somewhere else in the house.
“REMUS, NO!” The couples shouted in unison and stared at each other, flame-faced, until Patton burst into giggles, which seemed to break the awkward spell. They laughed and sank out.
And out in the real world, a YouTuber named Thomas Sanders woke up from yet another strange dream and smiled, feeling lighter and more hopeful than he had in months.
“The universe is big. It’s vast and complicated and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen, and we call them miracles.”