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Koschei winced for what had to be the seventieth time. The screech of metal hangers against the clothing rack they hung on felt like it was beginning to drill a hole into his skull. Noticing the discomfort on his face, Theta looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Having fun?”
“Sure.” Koschei replied sardonically. “Loads.”
Theta rolled his eyes and went back to flipping through the clothes on the rack. The music coming from the speakers was a bit tinny, and all of the clothes on the rack were a bit musty, and the sleep-deprived college student at the front desk was more than a bit apathetic. And then there was that fucking noise. Each of the tiny annoyances was beginning to pile up, and Koschei could feel his mental energy seeping away. Outside wasn't much better than inside; a cold, miserable gray drizzle had been going on for what seemed like hours. He regretted agreeing to Theta’s plan to spend the afternoon on Earth, even if they really didn't have anything better to do after classes. He loved his best friend, and genuinely enjoyed getting to hear about the things he liked, but he still sometimes found himself secretly wishing that Theta's favorite planet wasn't so overwhelming.
Koschei froze as his fingers brushed across the sturdy denim. He blinked away the sharp sting that the sudden telepathic barrage had brought to his eyes. That day in the Earth shop was so far away now. Light years away. But the memory of it was still woven tightly into the fibers of the indigo jacket Theta Sigma had bought for him. Objects didn't always carry telepathic signatures, but Koschei had noticed that the combination of Theta’s nigh-on uncontrollable telepathic output and his own more sensitive, meticulously calibrated one had led to a few of their shared possessions becoming slightly mentally charged over the years. This one had been stuffed into a box shortly after they'd moved out of their dormitory in the Academy, shelved in some cupboard in Koschei and Katie's small house in the Capitol, and forgotten about.
Koschei delicately lifted one sleeve of the jacket by its slightly worn cuff.
“C’mere,” Theta coaxed. He tugged on Koschei’s jacket at the wrist, and the touch of his fingers on the back of Koschei’s hand was warm. He had a smile in his eyes and a curl of hair sticking out at a funny angle over his left eyebrow. “Don’t be so worried. We’ve gotten in trouble lots of times before.”
Koschei’s voice fizzled out behind the tightness in his throat. Borusa told us if we got caught cheating again he’d call an academic hearing. And you know Vansell’s been watching us. I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. He pushed his thoughts into Theta’s psychic field a little too harshly.
Theta shrugged. His hands traveled upward, one to Koschei’s collar and the other to trace a fingertip across his cheekbone. “If Borusa wanted us out, he’d have expelled us before now.” His telepathic outreach was fuzzy around the edges, effortfully held together as it reached to comfort the distress that tightened the muscles on Koschei’s temples. Theta breathed a little affection into his mind, lowered his voice to that volume reserved just for the two of them, tilted his face so their foreheads met and noses brushed. He was only trying to distract him, Koschei knew, and he let himself fall for it.
A shudder ran down Koschei’s spine and he flung the sleeve of the jacket down as if he’d been stung. He glared at the box he’d found. This was bad timing. He needed to focus.
“Koschei.” Ushas’s voice was punctuated by the heels of her shoes against the floorboards. He turned quickly to look at her as she strode into the room. “I’m getting tired of this. I’m not a babysitter. Leave them here, let them go, kill them, I don’t care. Make a decision.”
Focus. Focus. Koschei tilted his head, listening to the sounds coming from the room down the hall. Quiet, muffled sobbing, the kind of desperate wheeze someone made after crying for too long, when their body was on autopilot and couldn’t escape from the source of their pain. He felt sorry for the agent they’d captured. It wasn’t their fault, really. And Ushas was right. They couldn’t deal with them forever. Too inconvenient. They were a screamer. That was why he’d stepped away in the first place. He detested screaming. It grated against his ears, made him angry. Always had.
Koschei stood up and tugged his robes to straighten them. He walked out, down the hall, through the doorway of the kitchen. Maris--that was the poor agent’s name--was tied to a chair. Ushas hadn’t been very creative in securing them, but it seemed that Maris wasn’t creative enough to escape. They shrunk back, their breathing quickening as Koschei stepped closer. He wrinkled his nose at the primal panic permeating the air. Exhaling as he fortified his mental shields against the terrified hostage’s emotions, he crouched down next to them.
“Maris,” he said calmly. “I don’t want to kill you.”
Maris hiccuped and coughed, tears streaming down their face. They shook their head vigorously.
“Please--” Koschei frowned, pulling back a few inches. “Please, pull yourself together. You’ll feel much better if you take a few deep breaths. There’s no need for hysterics.”
Eyes wide, Maris trembled, and said nothing.
Koschei sighed. “Tell me where Theta is, Maris. I’m not angry with you. This is really nothing personal. I just need to know. And you know, don’t you?” He did his best to pull a smile. “It’s your job to know. And you’re very good at your job. So you’ll tell me.” He probed outward with his mind until he encountered Maris’s. It was in disarray, easy to enter, easy to control. “It’s as easy as a thought. Just tell me. Where is Theta?”
Like climbing the rungs of a ladder, Koschei ascended through the associations that strung together Maris’s memories. Assignment. Objective. Surveillance. The Doctor. Previous alias: Theta Sigma. Location… The thought slipped as Koschei reached for it. He gritted his teeth. Theta Sigma. Location… CIA agents and their ridiculously extensive mental training. He should be able to get past this. He was the strongest telepath on the planet. He needed to focus. He was focused. Theta Sigma. Location. Location. Focus! Location.
“No!” Maris cried out hoarsely. Koschei stumbled backwards as they shoved him out of their mind with a shocking amount of brute strength.
He caught himself, shot to his feet. “You idiot!” he yelled sharply. “How dare you! You know where he is!” His voice rose as he seized Maris’s face in one gloved hand. “Tell me! Tell me!”
He was interrupted, again, by Ushas’s footstep behind him. “This is pointless.” Her ever-unchanging monotone underscored Koschei’s frustrated shouting. “Your dramatics never get you what you want.”
Koschei growled under his breath and flung Maris out of his grasp sharply. He whirled around to face Ushas. “Don’t tell me what to do. You agreed to help me.”
“And I should have known you’d be absolutely unbearable to be around.” Ushas rolled her eyes, ignoring Maris’s sniffles. “I’m not going to be arrested because you’re too lovesick to solve your own problems. Vansell will sniff us out sooner or later if we don’t clean up this mess.”
“Fine.” Koschei’s jaw was set. “Then I’m leaving.”
“Leaving me to be discovered by the CIA, in your kitchen, with a blubbering hostage lashed to your wife’s nicest chair?”
“I’ll wipe their memory.”
“No. I will.” Ushas folded her arms. “You couldn’t hypnotize a flubble. You’re compromised.”
“I am not--”
Ushas narrowed her eyes. “Get out of my way,” she said coldly. “I’ll meet you outside.”
Fuming, Koschei shoved past Ushas and back into the side room, where he’d been in the middle of throwing clothes and belongings haphazardly into a bag. He seized the nearest item and froze.
“I don’t understand why you’re angry!” Theta’s voice was sorrowful, even as he shouted and gestured furiously. “You always do this!”
“Do what?” Koschei scoffed. “Worry about you? Try and stop you from going through with your stupid fucking plans?”
“Except it isn’t about being worried, is it?” Theta swiped his hand across his eyes to brush away tears. “If I got hurt or something, you’d love it. You’d be in heaven. You’d get to hold me and take care of me and kiss me better.” His voice dripped with venom. “That’s what you want. You don’t want me to be safe. You want me to need you.”
Koschei’s mouth filled with salt. He stared at Theta, and the space between his hearts ached suddenly as if he’d been punched in the chest with a battering ram. “Theta,” he managed.
Theta stared back. He looked as if he could feel the weight of what he’d said bouncing back onto him, and maybe he could. “Say you’re sorry,” he asked plaintively. “Tell me that’s not true.”
“Sorry,” Koschei whispered.
The jacket fell from Koschei’s fist and landed in a heap on the floor. He blinked. Then he turned, picked up the bag he’d packed, zipped it closed, swung it over his shoulder. Kicked the jacket out of his way and walked back into the hallway. A glance into the kitchen revealed Maris, unconscious, slumped in the chair, bonds loosened enough that they’d be able to slip out once they woke up. A few more steps to the front door, which he closed sharply behind him.
“Is it done?” He asked Ushas. The orange lights of the Capitol’s streets cast a shadow of her dark-robed form.
“Done. But the farther we go, the better.” She fell into step with him as they turned through a back alley, where two TARDISes had been stowed a few hours before. Ushas retrieved a small silver key from around her wrist, turned it in the lock, and opened the door.
Koschei fumbled in his own pocket for his TARDIS key. “You won’t see me again.”
“I hope not.” Ushas raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s a big universe. Don’t look for me.”
“I won’t.” Koschei unlocked his TARDIS, and paused. “I’m looking for someone else.”
Ushas tilted her head. “I meant what I said before. When you’re thinking of Theta, you aren’t thinking. I’ve never understood the benefit of allowing him to manipulate your emotions like this.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
She shrugged. “It’s your funeral.” She stepped into her TARDIS. “And Koschei?”
“Yes?”
“Check Earth.”
The door to Ushas’s TARDIS slid shut. It dematerialized smoothly, phasing out of existence before Koschei’s eyes. He stepped into the quiet hum of his own TARDIS and locked it behind him. Without looking back, he strode to the console and entered coordinates for the planet Earth.