Chapter Text
Theta sighed, watching as the birds went by. Her legs were dangling out of the window, the breeze on her face as she waited.
She would be honest, she was getting a little bored.
Theta glanced back over her shoulder, and pouted.
Their first few days off, before they began their research, had largely been spent drinking. With no adult supervision, and a very large supply of ginger wine, the ten of them had done the logical thing, and gotten really drunk.
Well, it was more like the seven of them. Rallon, Millennia and Vansell didn’t seem keen on drinking, but Theta thought that was ok. At least the two former seemed to actually want to be there. Vansell just seemed to mope in the corner.
Still, some people had gotten a lot more drunk than others. And that was why Theta had gotten up three hours before Koschei, and was now waiting impatiently for him to wake up.
Really, she was waiting for most people to get up. The three sober ones had already had breakfast, and were lounging about in the living room. But the other six of them were all still in bed.
Theta found that rather frustrating. It was supposed to be their first day of research, and sure, whilst she wasn’t a massive fan of work, she at least wanted to find out what it was.
There was a groan behind her, and Theta grinned, swinging herself back inside and jumping on the bed beside Koschei, who groaned.
“Stop moving.” He grumbled. “I feel like I’m on a tram.”
“That’s not my fault. You drank way too much.” Theta shrugged, flopping down beside him. Koschei just grumbled. “Do you want a glass of water or something?”
“Yes please.”
“Ok.” She rolled her eyes fondly and bounced back off of the bed, drawing another groan from him. Theta trotted out of the room and closed the door behind her, before heading down the two flights of stairs into the kitchen.
Millennia and Rallon were sat at the table, each with a cup of something that looked hot, and chatting.
“Good morning Theta,” Millennia smiled. She hadn’t had a good chance to get to know either of them particularly well yet, but Theta thought they seemed really nice. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine, really. I’ve been up for a while.” She explained, making her way over to the cupboards to grab a glass. “Koschei’s just woken up, I’m getting him some water.”
“Is he ok?” Millennia asked sympathetically. Theta made a kind of so-so noise.
“I think he will be. If the others aren’t up soon though I say we drag them downstairs. We’re supposed to start research today.”
“Yeah, we were just saying that.” Rallon agreed, before frowning a little. “Just..in a slightly less dramatic, kinder way.”
“I dunno,” Theta shrugged. “I reckon we should just get a giant gong.”
“Or maybe we’ll just have to hide the alcohol.” Millennia suggested with a small laugh, as Theta bounced past on her way back out to the stairs.
“A very good idea. I’ll start waking the rest of them up if they’re not awake in the next hour.”
“Alright. Let us know, we’ll help you out.” She offered.
Theta nodded and headed back up the stairs, pushing open the door to her and Koschei’s room.
“Why is it so bright in here?” He whined.
“Because the curtains aren’t closed you idiot.” She rolled her eyes and passed him the cup of water. Koschei sat up a little bit and chugged it, Theta watching to make sure it didn’t seem like he was going to hurl.
“Can you close them?”
“No. You should’ve been up hours ago.” Theta took the empty glass from him, and Koschei made a noise of discomfort, rubbing his eyes.
“Am I the last one up?”
“No. Everyone but me, Millennia, Rallon and Vansell are still in bed. I’m gonna wake them up if they’re not up soon. We have a busy day.”
“Since when did you care about schedule?” He muttered, trying to wipe his eyes of sleep.
“Since dimensional engineering might be on it.” Theta pointed out. Koschei finally looked at her properly. He looked pretty groggy.
“How are you not hungover? You drank as much as I did.” Theta just shrugged.
“Guess I’m just better at holding my alcohol than you, lightweight.”
“Oh leave me alone, you gremlin.”
“Gremlin?” She pouted. “You’re the one that looks like he just got dragged through a bush.”
“Yeah, yeah. Give me twenty minutes in the shower, some peace and quiet and I’ll be able to metabolise it.”
“Oh yeah, that’ll do loads for your headache.” She grinned, before leaning over and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll leave you to it. Go bother the others till they sober up.”
“Alright. Try not to have too much fun.” He rolled his eyes.
-
An hour later, when everyone had finally gotten up, and forced themselves to metabolise the alcohol and sober up, the ten of them sat down in the common room.
Most of them had breakfast on their laps, their perfectly good dining table gone completely to waste.
It was just more comfortable in the common room.
“Alright,” Vansell stood up, with a letter in his hand. “This arrived today. It’s our first project.”
“Go on then, don’t leave us in suspense.” Ushas grumbled, mouth full of fruit. She was probably the grumpiest about being woken up, even when she wasn’t hungover anymore.
“Patience is a virtue, Ushas.” Vansell muttered, opening the letter anyway, and flattening it out. “Right. Our first project is to prove that more than one star can be put into a TARDIS, as a back up power source.”
“Sounds easy enough.” Jelpax shrugged. “We’ll just need to know the power capacity of a TARDIS, and stuff like that.”
“So who wants to work on this first?” Vansell asked.
Jelpax offered, Drax quick on his tail. Millennia and Mortimus also offered, and the four of them disappeared up the stairs, already discussing the ins and outs of what they might have to look at.
The other six of them sat around for a long moment, before Ushas took a loud bite of the fruit she was working her way through.
“So what do the rest of us do?”
“Whatever we want, I guess.” Magnus shrugged, and Ushas groaned loudly.
“Are you kidding me? You fuckers woke me up for nothing!”
“Do you have to swear that much?” Vansell frowned a little. Ushas glared at him.
“You fucking know it Vansmell.”
“Classy.” Koschei hummed, from the armchair Theta was sat on the arm of. There was space for her on the sofas, but she didn’t really care. Sitting in normal places normally wasn’t really her style.
“Shut it Koschei.” Ushas scowled.
“It’s a good thing you sobered up, all that scowling would make your headache ten times worse.” Theta added. She just rolled her eyes and slumped backwards.
“I don’t know how I agreed to live here with you lot.”
“I wouldn’t have if you were gonna be such a downer all the time.” Koschei jabbed. Ushas just pulled a face at him.
“And you look so much prettier when you smile, Ushas.” Magnus tried with a smile.
They were silent for a moment, before at least three of them, including Ushas got up.
“Oh god, Magnus, why-“
“Dude, that was a terrible idea.”
“This is why I share a room with Mortimus.”
-
“Koschei?” Theta clambered from the sofa, across the gap, onto the armrest on the armchair, and finally sprawled across his lap. Koschei only raised his book out of the way, and didn’t bat an eyelid, before returning to it again when she had stopped shifting around.
“Hm?”
“Do you think we’re allowed to use some of the parts in the lab for our own projects?”
“I don’t see how anyone’s going to stop you.” He turned the page over in his book, and Theta hummed. “Why? What do you want to make?”
“I don’t know. Something helpful. Or fun. Maybe both.” She grinned.
“What? Like one of those tissue compression things?” He asked. Theta pouted a bit and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
“That’s not fun! That’s murder, there’s a difference.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be kinda funny to see all the little people? They’d be so tiny.”
“That sounds horrifying over anything else.” She pointed out.
“But they’d be wearing little clothes. Little people in little clothes.” He took a hand away from his book to motion a small space between his fingers. Theta rolled her eyes.
“No! I mean something else. Like something that helps people.”
“Oh here we go,” Koschei groaned noncommittally, shifting her up and more securely onto his lap. She could tell he didn’t really mean it. “Back on your helping people thing.”
“You make it out like it’s a bad thing to want to do.”
“No, my love, it’s not. But you are a little obsessed.”
“You want to shrink people, don’t judge my plans.” She pointed out.
“Alright, alright. So what are you going to make, to help people?” He asked. Theta shrugged.
“I dunno. I’ll have to figure that out. Do some messing around, figuring out what works.”
“As long as you don’t get oil all over our bedroom, knock yourself out.” He shrugged.
“Supportive as ever, Kos’,” she grinned, and patted him on the back. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”