The Most Awful Thing About Thoschei Is That They Love Each Other.

the most awful thing about thoschei is that they love each other.

they were childhood best friends. one of them murdered for the other and changed the trajectory of their lives forever. they grew up to hate each other, they’ve spend hundreds of years fighting and exchanged an amount of “please, join me” and “over my dead bodies” that’s honestly a little embarrassing. they hate each other so much (“how could you kill?” “how could you cure?”) but there’s no one else who knows them as well as the other. it is familiarity at first. i know you, and i will keep knowing you, and maybe hating you is comforting enough. the time war happens. if they didn’t understand others, they certainly don’t now, last of the time lords as far as they’re aware. if that wasn’t enough, one of them finds out the other is this deity so far out of their worldview (“above” them) and shatters.

and THAT. that’s what hurts. because if they were rivals, it would just be unfortunate. you are stuck with the person you hate the most, but you find other things to do, and they show up sometimes, and it’s fine, you leave them to their own devices. there’s a whole universe to see, after all. it’s possible to keep your distance. you don’t have it in you to care.

except you do care. you love them. you’ve loved them through every regeneration that it might as well be written into your artron energy. you need to be as close to them as the universe allows, so you plan to kill them as an excuse to see their face. and it is an excuse. if you really wanted them gone, you could have killed them off by now. for all your elaborate, stupid at times, schemes and silly costumes you are remarkably clever, and if you’re being honest with yourself, the costumes are just a way to get their attention. because you love them. even when you don’t want to. you like it when they look. you burn cities so they’ll turn their head.

sometimes you find yourself on the other side of the equation, and you love them. you love them so much it kills you over and over because you keep giving them a chance. you keep begging them to run away with you, and they won’t, and they never will, and you carry hope anyway. it kills you and kills you because you love them when you shouldn’t. you see it in every companion’s face. your empathy for them has gone past your usual savior complex into something raw, something ugly, something you keep hidden away between your two hearts except for when they’re in front of you and it comes pouring out. you love them. you wish they made it easier.