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Four hours 32 minutes. The dome collapses inward, glass cracks across the rounded sky. Apocalyptic. Loud. And, as Brian has so far discovered, inevitable.
Painfully inevitable.
He watches, sat at a sppicnic bench, still and passive, as yet again, the dome falls inward.
As, yet again, air is stolen from mechanical lungs.
As, yet again, he is doomed to suffocate.
He shoots himself in the heart to make it go faster. No point in a slow death.
So much for that approach.
So much for that.
This isn’t where this story starts, now is it?
Brian steps into the living room.
“Hey, Tim?” Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light reflecting across the hardwood floor. The curtains are drawn open, and the window beyond gives view of a sprawling city nestled in an asteroid crater. The dome that keeps the air in on this asteroid dwelling shines high far above.
Weeks ago he and Tim broke into an apartment and murdered the landlord. So far it's worked out. “What, um, is so fascinating?”
Tim sits at his desk, brow furrowed, tapping his foot and fingers as he pours over some sort of intricate plan, of which Brian has been trying to avoid the details of for the past few weeks.
What he doesn’t know, he doesn’t need to spoil the fun of.
But this looks like madness in the making, and he is better informed than not. Lest they have another perfectly avoidable situation. Such as the microwaved grilled cheese apocalypse. Or spider infestations.
“Well, Brian!” Tim lights up, turns away from his papers. He nearly knocks over his mug, (steaming tea, Brian made it for him earlier) does knock over a series of bullets, intertwined wire, and a half disassembled gun, he doesn’t notice as he turns, grinning wide as anything, “Today, Brian, I am going to explode the spaceport!”
“That’s nice, Tim,” Brian says, turns back towards the kitchen. “Try not to fuck up our shuttle,”
What he doesn’t know the details of exactly how, he doesn’t need to spoil the fun of.
“What, like I’m some sort of amateur? I’m just gunning for the landing strip, after all, the priest was spotted by the toy fucking clockwork! One system over! One! I don’t want to deal with him on our holiday, Brian!”
“That’s nice, Tim.”
That is, technically, where our story starts,
Three hours fifteen. The explosives are numerous. Wrapped around the supports beneath the city like snakes, or more aptly, vines. Red canisters primed to explode with a chain of very-Tim wires (that is to say, haphazard and mildly terrifying in that copper sticks out, uncovered in plastic or rubber) strung about to signal them to mix the elements inside.
The explosion will be enough, Brian has learned, that it sends the whole sub-structure of this city cracking apart.
He doesn’t know how to disarm them. He hasn’t gotten Tim to tell him that much yet.
Brian takes a long breath, hears the air whistle through the pistons in his chest.
Any action is progress, he reminds himself.
He reaches out, and cuts, this time, the first wire.
His life is ended by a blinding white flash.
Next time, he’ll cut the second.
Clock starts. Brian steps into the living room. Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light across the hardwood floor. The curtains are drawn open, outside is a sprawling city. A bird is perched on the tree outside, too long, and too thin to exist in anything but low gravity. He sighs.
Tim looks up at him, grinning. “Nice day, isn’t it, Brian?”
“It is,” he says, voice too flat. Surely Tim will notice, surely this time he’ll call him out. “What are you doing today?”
“Oh Brian! My friend, my foe, my partner in crime, I am exploding the spaceport!”
“Are you?” He quirks up an eyebrow, watches as Tim stands with a flourish, knocks over, again, the half a gun, the wire, and the collection of bullets.
Tea nearly spills from the mug.
“I am! You know, the clockwork soldier saw the priest in the next system over, you could call it me being proactive!”
“I could, Tim.” He takes a step closer. “So... do you have any measures in place to avoid more um, civilian damage?”
Tim scoffs. “Civilian damage? What am I? An amateur? Brian, my name is Gunpowder Tim, and we’re mechanisms, who gives a shit about some stupid civilians?”
Three hours ten. Brian discovers the origin point of the cracks mere minutes before Tim will detonate the explosives. A glass panel along the perimeter of the city has not been repaired in far too long. Its budged outward towards the cratered and pocketed wastes beyond. Glue and sealant have been eaten away by algae feeding off the heat and escaped oxygen along the seam against the void outside.
The depressurization is slow. A trickle a minute. There are no major gaps in the glass yet, but it's a near thing. It's not something a bit of spducktape can fix. Not something that will survive Tim’s explosion.
Raphaella would find it all fascinating. Raphaella could help him keep track of variables. Raphaella is not here. Raphaella, and anyone else who could be of any use here, is off doing who knows what across the system.
Tim is here though. Tim. And Tim is unreasonable, violent, and, unfortunately enough, knows how to explode anything.
What he doesn’t know is how to scan for structural damage beforehand.
Three hours fourty-two.
He pokes around more, finds an acess shaft to below the glass. The pylon beneath the shifted panel has bent, destableized where it anchors to the asteroid surface. Warping the glass panel above and priming it to break. He starts back to the surface.
Four hours thirty-two.
The ground shakes, first a small rumble, then an all-consuming shifting. Brian is acending the ladder back to the glass, above him, he hears the panel crack, splinter, he gets another 6 rungs up the ladder before he hears it shatter.
From there, it isnt long until he depressurizes.
Brian feels himself torn apart, rivets popping, blood boiling, hydraulics freezing, as the void outside rushes in.
Too familiar a death.
Clock starts. Brian steps into the living room. Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light across the hardwood floor. The curtains are drawn open, outside is a sprawling city. The family across the road sit on their porch. A little girl in pigtails and a fancy dress digs in the dirt with a stick, her father watches.
“What are you looking at?” hHe hears Tim ask, turns, stands, the wire falls, his tea mug in hand.
“Oh, just mortal-wacthing.”
“Anything fascinating?”
“No.” Then, “That little girl is getting her dress filthy.”
Tim steps beside him, hums, “Good on her. Fuck white dresses.”
“Strong opinion?”
“Sure.” He pauses a beat. Brian wonders, half a moment, if he’s going to learn something new about Tim.
“I’m blowing up the spaceport today!” Tim says instead of elaborating.
“I know, Tim.”
“You do?” His expression is so shocked that it startles a laugh out of Brian. Tim crosses his arms. “You can’t stop me! The priest was spotted by the fucking Toy only a system over, I don’t want him handing out his church pamphlets at our show again.”
“I’m worried it’ll destabilize the foundation.”
“Why the fuck would it?” Tim shoves him. “It’s just a few explosions!”
“…I saw it in a vision?” Brian tries. Tim squints at him, metal eyelids low.
“Your visions are bullshit, Brian.”
“Not always.”
“I’m blowing up the spaceport.”
“..I know you are, Tim.”
Three hours seventeen minutes.
He cuts the second wire. His life ends in melting flames.
Clock starts. Brian steps into the living room. Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light across the hardwood floor. The curtains are drawn open, outside is a sprawling city.
There is a fly on the window. It crawls along the glass.
He walks over to Tim, sets a hand on his shoulder, he startles, looks up.
A grin splits across his face. He leans back into Brian’s hand. “Good morning, Brian!”
For all the headache this is, Brian can’t hardly bring himself to be annoyed.
“What are you working on?” he asks, again, always this, always again.
“I, Brian, am going to explode the spaceport!”
“Tim.” He squeezes his shoulder. “You shouldn’t do that.”
Tim looks at him, groans, shrugs his hand off. “Guess you’re on boring mode then, huh?”
That’s one way to put it.
That’s one way to put it.
He spends the day in a café, ignoring the feeling of impending doom, of being useless. Sees matcha on the menu. Ignores the sinking reminder of Carmilla.
A couple on a first date compare interests. The woman with blond hair and glasses speaks of her job in structural upkeep; the woman with brown hair and feather earrings listens and nods absently.
He wonders if he should point out the crumbling exterior of this city.
Not much can be done in 4 and a half hours, anyway.
A man in the corner types away on his beat-up laptop, blue jacket too large, they make eye contact a moment, he smiles politely, then adjusts his plate.
Mortals are so complicated.
His companions are predictable.
And there is no way he could talk Tim out of this.
Three hours twelve. He cuts the third wire. Dares to hope.
For a moment, nothing happens, but the sudden boom is enough to knock him off his feet.
A chunk of ceiling falls down, and, in seconds, he is crushed. Metal denting. He’s glad for the void rushing in, when it reaches him.
Clock starts. Brian steps into the living room. Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light across the hardwood floor. The curtains are drawn open, outside is a sprawling city.
“Tim, I’m not going to let you explode the spaceport.”
Tim looks up, sharp, surprise written across his face. “I’m—not going to blow up the spaceport?”
“I know you are. The toy told me.”
“It—it fucking what? The fucking snitch.” Tim stands, expression fierce. “Brian! The fucking priest is on his way!”
“It’ll end with this station collapsing.”
“No it won’t! You know what, fuck you, this is for your own good--“
Before Brian can stop him, he’s full of bullets.
He knew there was no talking Tim out of it.
Clock starts. Brian steps into the living room. Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light across the hardwood floor. The curtains are drawn open, outside is a sprawling city.
Clock starts. Brian steps into the living room. Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light across the hardwood floor.
Clock starts. Brian steps into the living room.
Clock starts. Brian steps into
Clock starts. Brian steps
Clock starts. Brian
Clock starts.
Clock starts.
Clock starts.
Clock starts. Brian steps into the living room. Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light across the hardwood floor. The curtains are drawn open, outside is a sprawling city.
He exhales, sharp, furious, draws his gun. Tim looks up, sees the motion.
“The fuck did I—”
He falls back, dead against his desk.
His mug spills across the floor, mixing tea with the blood and viscera.
Tim wakes up. 50 minutes. Alert and furious. “Is this about the fucking explosives?”
His brain splatters against the wall.
Tim wakes up. Hour twenty. Furious. “Killing me is fucking pointless, asshole, you don’t need to--“ His blood soaks the floor. Saturates the wood. Stains it dark red.
Tim wakes up. Two hours fifteen. Paler than before, spitting mad. “You’re such a fucking dick, Brian, let me fucking out,”
His hair is matted with his blood and brains thricefold.
Tim wakes up. Three hours even. Angry. “What the fuck did I even do, asshole?” He tries to push himself up. His arm gives under him.
He dies in fewer shots that time.
Tim wakes up. Three hours fifty. He throws up bile and blood before he says a word, tries to cover his head with his arms. “Brian, I don’t—my head hurts, let me— give me a minute.”
His ulna and radius shatter into his skull.
Tim wakes up. Four hours thirty two. The dome is crashing anyway. Brian has his head in his hands. Tim revives wheezing and shaking, spitting blood as he crawls away. “Fuck you, fuck you, I had a timer set up anyway, asshole.”
He only makes it a few feet before the void tears air from their lungs.
Three hours twenty-seven. He cuts all the wires.
The dome comes down anyway.
One hour two minutes. He walks through one of the faux nature trails, the cookie cutter trees and flowers all but plastic as he walks past them.
The leaves feel like paper beneath his silicone fingers.
They rip easier.
He sets himself down on a carefully placed tree stump with three rings, each as thick as his head. Plays his banjo until the sky crashes down. Stares up at the cracking sky.
Laughs.
Dies.
Clock starts. Brian steps into the living room. Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light across the hardwood floor. The curtains are drawn open, outside is a sprawling city.
Down the street, a dog barks its head off.
He turns to Tim for the first time since he killed him. “Hey Tim,”
His voice glitches.
“What are you working on?”
Tim turns around with a flourish, grin on his face. “Brian! My friend, my foe, my partner in crime, I am exploding the spaceport!”
“Yeah,” he sighs, walks over, sets a hand on his shoulder. “I know,”
Tim leans into his hand.
“It's quite necessary, you know, the Toy Soldier said it saw the priest a system over. I don’t want him here, and, y’know, handing out his uh, church pamphlets at our concert again!”
Brian hugs him. And Tim freezes.
“Brian?”
“The explosives will cause the dome to crash down, Tim.”
“No they won’t-“
“Tim.” He exhales, hears the air woosh from his chest, Tims arms hesitatingly wrap around him. “It will crash down. I can’t do this again. I know you have a timer. Where is it?”
“Brian, what? No– it’ll be fine! The supports I chose are nowhere near the main pylons, I’m not--“
“An amateur. I know, Tim, I know, but there’s structural damage to the glass and pylons already by the edge, the support beneath it is failing, the shifting causes one of the panes above it to crack–“
“Now that doesn’t seem very likely—”
“Tim. I have—I have been stuck trying to make you not do this for months. Where is the timer?”
“Months? Brian we’ve only been on this station for a few weeks-“
“Tim. I am in a time loop.” Saying it feels like a last resort. It always makes more problems, telling him, or Jonny, or Ashes, they always want him to prove it, and it never goes anywhere. “And I just want it to be done.”
Tim blinks at him, metal clicking against metal. He can relate. “Do you– can you prove that? Because the priest will be an issue--“
“Tim.” Brian pulls back enough to look at him. “Tomorrow you can blow up the spaceport, how about that, but today how about—how about we do anything else?”
Three hours seventeen.
Tim glares at the failure point, arms crossed. “It doesn’t look that bad, Brian, just a bit of moved glass. It can take an explosion half a mile away.”
“Tim.”
“Why don’t we test it, then? Not like we’ll die!”
“Tim, the dome will crack. It’ll all reset. I’ve had this conversation with you six times.”
“…I fucking hate time shit. You know that, Brian, I hate time shit.”
“So will you explode the landing strip tomorrow?”
“…do I have to? I think the mayor’s onto my shit, and she might check, you know, she might check for—”
“I’ll kill her for you, and help you rig them up myself if they get taken down. How about that?”
Tim sighs, sits down, glares at the budged glass. “You’re such a fucking killjoy, Brian. You seriously don’t care if the priest shows up? He will. And he’ll harass you. And I hate when he does that.”
“Time loop, Tim.”
“Fucking buzzkill. Fine. I’ll turn off the timer.”
He draws a remote from his pocket, flips a switch on it. “You fucking happy?”
That’s it?
He snatches the remote, and crushes it in his hand. “Now I am.”
“Oh fuck you, Brian.”
“You can handle it, Tim.”
They’re sitting at a bench.
The dome is above them.
According to his watch, it's been four hours twenty-nine minutes since he stepped into the living room. Tim sulks behind him, dissecting the wires and crushed buttons of the remote morosely.
A long and skinny bird calls from a cookiecutter tree, white and slender. Another bird, similarly impossibly built lands beside it.
Four hours thirty.
“Did you really need to crush my remote, Brian?” Tim grumbles, hisses as he shocks himself. “I only had one of these things.”
“Yes, Tim, I did.”
A girl in a muddy white dress throws a stick for her dog, runs after it, laughs and rolls to the ground beside it. Green stains the white.
Four hours thirty-one.
A fly lands on Tim’s arm. He swats at it annoyedly. “You’re such a fucking asshole, Brian.”
“Thought you said I was on boring mode?”
“When the fuck did I say that?”
Four hours thirty-two.
Four hours thirty-two and a half.
Four hours thirty-three.
The ground does not shake.
The dome does not collapse.
Brian laughs.
(he doesn’t stop laughing until the gears in his throat catch, and Tim thinks it's best to shoot him and drag him home)
Brian steps into the living room. Polarized morning starlight shines through the drapes, sending rivers of light across the hardwood floor. The curtains are drawn open, outside is a sprawling city.
The starrise is different. Cloudier. He holds a mug in his hands. Tim sulks beside him.
Dawn of a new day.
His heart is racing in his chest. Uncomfortable. It always is.
(sometimes, he wonders if its suited for the body it’s inside)
(sometimes, he wonders if he felt like this when he was alive)
“Are you... all right?” Tim asks, finally. Brian looks over. “You look like you're about to punch the glass.”
“If I have to hear glass break again this century, it’ll be too soon.”
“...Yeah.”
Silence stretches between them.
“So uh– Time loop?”
“Time loop,” Brian confirms. Brings the mug to his mouth. He can't taste the tea, but he can sense the heat.
“…Come here.” Tim does a grabbing motion at him. “You look like shit.”
Brian sits. Hardly has time to lean back before Tim hugs him.
Pressure against plates of metal, against sensors beneath a facsimile of a body.
He knows it shouldn’t make him calmer, by all rights, he doesn’t have a brain to receive and process the chemicals hugging gives someone with a real body.
He leans into Tim anyway, lets him squeeze him as tight as he can.
(but metal doesn’t have much give)
“…You always insisted you weren’t an amateur when I said the dome would come down,” Brian finally says. “Got fucking annoying after a while.”
“Did I?”
“Every fucking time, Tim. That and you always knocked your disassembled pistol off the desk. And that weird fucking bundle of extra wire.”
Tim laughs a bit.
“You only ever spilled your tea when I shot you.”
“You can hardly blame me for that. But also, you shot me? Dickhead.” But still, Tim doesn’t stop hugging him.
“To be fair, you were being incredibly annoying most of those times.” He thinks briefly of Tim waking up, throwing up blood and bile, trying to crawl away. Shooting him anyway. How his arm exploded into viscera and bone as he begged for a moment to breathe.
Tim is hugging him. He probably shouldn’t be.
Brian doesn’t shrug him off.
(Boring mode, Tim said, dozens of loops ago.)
“You know the priest is going to show up, now, right? Because you won’t let me blow up the landing port? And he’ll be a dick. Probably give out his fucking church pamphlets again.”
“We’ll deal with it then, Tim.”
“He’s so annoying, Brian. Why did you make him immortal? He sucks.”
“I was mortal, Tim.”
“You were the worst mortal between all of us. Stupid enough to turn a religious nut immortal. How many cults about killing us has that guy started?”
“And I’ve started cults about killing him. Don’t forget that.”
“Well, yeah, Brian. But that’s like his whole fucking thing. Making religious crusades to kill us.”
“We can deal with it then, Tim. When he gets here.”
“If you say so, Brian.”
The star sets that night, and rises the next.
Time marches on.