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whifferdills · 7 years

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"Landscape With the Fall of Icarus" Braxiatel and his brother. Gen, with some background Brax/OFC and Brax/Romana. ~3k words.

alternately read on the Ao3

"It's from the war to come," Arkadian says, grinning wolfishly. "Or so my source says. You know how tricky provenance can be. But it's got a certain...something. Don't you agree?"

The Council is dispersing. Braxiatel tries very hard to ignore the reporter who's been hounding him (and everyone else) since the referendum had passed. Mostly just him and the other aides and assistants and advisors, though. He wills himself to vanish into the crowd. Eyes averted, a swift gait. No joy. He grits his teeth as Atrade scampers to catch up with him.

"Braxiatel. I heard a rumor."

"Yes?" He draws the syllable out, like he could put all the needed nonchalance into it. He fails.

"About your career change. Tell me-"

"Still a tutor and an advisor to Vansell, Atrade."

"-All the details. Open up, you can trust me. I'm one of your closest friends and colleagues. I am a trustworthy individual." Atrade slings an arm around Braxiatel's shoulders.

Brax shrugs him off. "Patently untrue. You're a snake in the grass. You've told me so yourself."

"Right. So. Yes, I understand your qualms about consorting with the enemy, the enemy in your case being any sort of investigative body, especially one which examines the various timelines for criminal manipulation. I feel your anxiety on this matter. But. Braxiatel."

"There's nothing to discuss."

"They're calling you the Deadagogue. I made that up, they're not really calling you that. But the CIA grunts, believe me, the halls of Old Tranley are buzzing with the news. An assassin being called, for one."

"Atrade-"

"Which hasn't happened for decades. And for two, that it's an assistant lecturer. Brother of famed muckraker. As the hidden hand of Rassilon. You are aware the job involves killing people, yes?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Brax stares straight ahead.

There is an opening: an express elevator down to the street, a path through the throng. He takes it.

(His brother is not the only one in their family who knows how to run away from their problems.)

The pouch comes skidding under his office door half past seven the next morning. The messenger's gone by the time he thinks to check, and the surveillance files will be deleted when he checks those. It's an object divorced from cause and effect. Lying there on the carpeted floor of his office, innocent as anything.

Department of Internal Security. Eyes only, read and burn, a blue square to put his thumbprint on. Inside is, predictably enough, a staser with the serial numbers filed off and the track/lock mechanism not there at all, and a disposable file card. A thumbprint to open that too, and here he is, squinting down at a tiny screen scrolling information on his first job. What's the Earth expression? A hit.

A date, time and place, a series of precautions and general instructions, and he knows what's about to happen before he even gets to the name. Which, there it is. The full dossier like he doesn't know, like his brother is a stranger. Twelve pages of details, known associates, statistically likely actions, past attempts at flight. Access codes for the Oubliette.

The Council is dispersing. He assumes Atrade will be there, and picks his pace up accordingly.

"So I was right," Atrade says, breathing hard as he struggles to keep up.

"Unlikely."

"I have proof that you've been working with the CIA, in a - a less than above-board fashion. And who you've been tasked with...following."

Braxiatel stops short, stuck calmly in one spot as Atrade tumbles forward.

"You have nothing," he says quietly.

"I have - I have more than nothing. I've enough."

"You have nothing. And even if you did - so what? Do you really think you could do anything? Change anything for the better? What happens is what happens, Atrade."

Still regulating his breath, re-adjusting his robes. Composing himself. "Forget the - the everything else. Just. Baseline, in terms of morals, in terms of family. Regardless of whatever is actually happening, something is happening with You Know Who. And surely, there's something you can change there for the better."

"I'm not my brother's keeper," Braxiatel says.

"Talk to him."

"There's no talking to him. He's unreachable. He does what he does."

"Talk to him. Or, the next thing is-" Atrade looks to the ceiling and then to the floor and then delicately massages the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. "You know what happens."

"Exile. Do I look like I care?"

"Not - not exile." He pauses, holds his hands up like he's conducting an orchestra. "Braxiatel. They don't want him exiled. I know this, you know this. They want you to take care of him. Is this making sense yet."

"They want me to talk to him." He knows, he knows. He knows what he's been asked to do.

"They want you to take care of the problem. I'm saying, talk to him first. For your sake."

“I’ll see what I can do,” Brax says. He smiles politely, and makes his exit.

Brax had long ago realized he was looking for something without knowing precisely what it was. The act of acquisition in and of itself seemed necessary, the gathering of things, a series of transactions. He was looking for something and at a certain point had bid on a lot, a random thing, had put up his hand without paying attention. The casual escalation of price, the opposing bidder warring with red face and urgent mobile-phone communications, Brax feeling a sort of perverse determination to win simply so the other man would lose.

He'd smiled the affable no-hard-feelings smile at the final gavel, the gentleman's battlefield smile, and went to collect his ticket. The other man vibrating with frustration as Brax swept past him to the auctioneer, the seller unconcerned with the small dramas of loss and desire, handing him the key to a storage locker and a thick black binder of documentation. Which, opening it, Brax discovered he'd just bought a collection of antique weapons. Sometimes he thought it didn't matter what he was looking for. It's the search, maybe.

And in the locker, located deep in a self-store warehouse, the emerging cloud of must and old gunpowder, gun oil, wood and steel and pearl inlay, a history of fetishized violence, someone else's nostalgia, another search for meaning in manufactured objects. The safety release, the spark and shot. The boyhood fantasy acted out with capguns in treehouses or back alleys, the peculiar human fascination, war games, cops and robbers, grown up into a man's dissatisfaction and impotence. A locker filled with weapons that hadn't been used for centuries. He'd lifted each one from its custom-built display, continually suprised by the weight, how his wrists and forearms were unequal to the task of aiming. Look down the sight, feel the spring-resistance of the trigger. Imagine the brutality of propelled metal ripping through flesh and bone.

The other man so desperate, so invested, that he refused to meet Brax's eyes. Spooling out his life's savings for this. A foreign compulsion, an alien culture's shared dream of power. Imagine arterial spray, imagine the recoil insistent against your shoulder. The lovingly cared-for Winchester '73.

Gallifreyan weapons, he's discovered, are plastic and fully automated. No moving parts. The staser feels like nothing in his hands. The staser feels like a toy. Wide-spray burns and precise holes. He practices in the Chancellery Guard firing range, after hours. He shoots at holograms. The electric pop and whine, the light beam. He figures he should at least know enough to be able to miss.

Arkadian is smiling broadly, falsely.

Brax grimaces back distastefully. "Let's make this swift, shall we?"

"Why rush? Some things deserve a bit of pomp and circumstance." Arkadian leans back and props his feet on the edge of the desk.

Today is not a day in which Braxiatel will kill someone. It is not. "Some things. Not whatever tat you're trying to pawn off on me. Do you know how many people try to sell me war memorabilia? And do you know how much of it is worth the blood on their hands? I'll give you a hint: you're looking for a number smaller than one."

"Sadly, there will always be those who attempt to profit from the suffering of others. I understand your trepidation."

"Do you?" Braxiatel asks. "Time may have passed, and we are neither of us the men we were, but you must know I cannot trust you. I'm not a very trusting man as a general rule, but you, well."

"I'm a con man and a thief. There's no need to mince words, not now. But you're a collector, and I, for all my many faults, am in possession of one of the finest, rarest artifacts this universe has to offer." Arkadian reaches into his ticket pocket and produced a small red bundle. "I'll let it do the talking," he says, and hands it to Braxiatel.

"Let me guess, you found it in your dear departed grandfather's attic," Braxiatel murmurs. He gingerly pulls the fabric apart, spreads the handkerchief flat on the desk. In the middle is - a medallion? A monocle? A black disc, mirrored, maybe two inches in diameter, ringed in silver. He feels the most curious sensation, as if the thing is inviting him in, asking him to keep it. He feels suddenly, obscurely, possessive.

"It's from the war to come," Arkadian says, grinning wolfishly. "Or so my source says. You know how tricky provenance can be. But it's got a certain...something. Don't you agree?"

His brother is defiantly old. His brother is frail and slow-moving, clinging onto his body like he's afraid he's wasted it. His brother, teetering on the edge of regeneration, has decided that now is the right time to run away.

The staser is in his pocket. The disc is in his other pocket. This is a fixed point. This has always happened, he thinks. The disc pulses in response.

His brother is playing at senility to make it past the guards. His brother's granddaughter is trailing close behind, smiling winningly, making excuses, carrying a pocketbook that probably holds all their worldly belongings. Wanderlust skipped a generation: her mother is still at work, sitting behind the same desk she's always had, processing the same paperwork. Her mother has committed a sin her grandfather cannot forgive, has failed him in some obscure way.

Susan, leaving everything behind, and she doesn't know that the man she's following must necessarily leave her. You can't take home with you when you go. Susan picking up the hem of her robes. Susan laughing like this is the most wonderful adventure. He's got a staser in his pocket and he's wondering what would happen if he actually went through with this. He won't, of course; he can't. This is his brother and grandniece, this is blood kin, Lungbarrow sitting silent and ancient in their hearts.

His brother playing the doddering fool. Still, the guards will catch on soon enough. Brax steps in.

"Oh, it's you," his brother says. "I don't have time for you right now. Perhaps later."

He takes a deep breath. "If you don't let me help you, you'll be dead within the span."

"Dead? Me? No no no. You must be mistaken. I'm perfectly healthy."

"Listen. For once. Listen. You know they won't let you out of here alive. Take a TARDIS from the bay and they'll recall you before you make the vortex. You've been planning this for centuries and you still haven't thought this through. Listen to me. There's an assassin-" He stops, thinks, plows on. "There's an assassin coming. You'll be wiped from history. She'll be wiped from history. If you don't pay attention and for once do what I say."

There's a bright, hard intelligence buried somewhere beneath the pretense. His brother hooks his thumbs around his braces and leans back. "If you have a suggestion. Potentially I'd follow it. Not that I am, of course, in the habit of committing crimes. I'm simply going for a walk."

"Transmat to the museum. The ships are unregistered and no one watches the security video. Take a TARDIS and leave. I'll hold them off for as long as I can. And."

"Yes?"

"Don't come back."

His brother smiles. "A trip to the museum sounds lovely. Susan? Would you enjoy a little educational diversion?"

Susan grinning and bouncing on the heels of her feet, like what fun this all is. "That would be wonderful, Grandfather. I do so love the dioramas."

"And the interactive displays, musn't forget those. Til we meet again, Braxiatel." He doffs his cap then dashes off, going faster than any decrepit old man has the right to go, Susan in tow.

"Which will be never," Brax calls out, but he's already disappeared down a corridor.

There's a matter to attend to. A death has been contracted, and there's a balance to these things: if his brother lives, then someone else can't.

His brother is a rapidly fading memory. His brother is in a tin can with faltering circuits, plunging into the unknown. His idiot brother, and there's a tiny part of him that's envious.

There is a woman in the foyer of the Collection. A beautiful woman, and a strange one, and a quietly powerful one. Brax slips a hand into his pocket and strokes the edge of the disc. It's warmer than usual, or maybe that's just his imagination.

She says her name is Sophia (no surname), which is most likely a lie, but that's fine with him; he wasn't born Irving, after all. She says Sophia, charmed to meet you and holds out her hand, not sideways for a shake or palm up as a gesture of openness but palm down, fingers bent, to be taken gently and kissed. He obliges, as there are few things in life he enjoys more than being a gentleman in the classical sense. Mr. Braxiatel of the pocket squares and doffed hat.

Sophia sells paintings. The provenance is iffy but the quality is undeniable, and he isn't above acquiring stolen goods.

"I've sent you our full catalogue," she says as they meander deeper into the halls of the Collection, their hands almost but not quite touching. "Though you strike me as the sort of man who knows what he wants."

He watches her out of the corner of his eye. "A reasonable assessment," he says.

He kisses her in the greenhouse and then fucks her in the Antiquities Wing. History, history. The disc burns red-hot through the silk lining of his coat as he slips it off.

She moans a name out, but it isn't his. In the morning, they strike a reasonable deal. He saves her contact information and blows a kiss as she leaves.

(The painting arrives swiftly and discreetly, wrapped in brown paper. Two men and a robot unload it off the clipper. He has them leave it by the stairs - he can take care of the installation, thank you.

And they leave, and it's silent again, and he slowly tears the paper off. Yves Klein, IKB 191. The bluest blue. He spends the rest of the day staring at it, an armchair pulled up and a clock, somewhere, ticking.)

Time passes, history happens. Braxiatel falls through the world and the disc falls with him. He stands up and dusts himself off. He can feel the disc, can sense it - not pulsing, now, but tugging. Back to where he came from.

From the war, Arkadian had said. The war to come.

"So let it," Brax says to a startled-looking bird. "It's not my concern anymore."

He lives here, he lives here. He garrotes himself with piano wire and watches himself die and neatly disposes of the remains. He lives here, now. The Collection is almost exactly as he left it. IKB 191 hangs high in the foyer, looming down at him.

There's a woman in his bed and she is beautiful. She says her name is Sofya, and if that's a lie he cannot judge her for it. Nor can he judge her for not being someone else, though part of him would like to - would hold her up to an ideal.

One of his hearts with Sophia and the other with...well. Everyone makes compromises, don't they, Madame President?

He won't judge Sofya for those things but he will judge her for the lie that arrived, vacuum-sealed, off the clipper three mornings ago. He will judge her for thinking so little of him to assume he wouldn't notice.

"It's a fake," he says quietly, the words pressed into the skin of her neck. "You've never tried to sell me a fake before."

"It's not a digital copy, if that's what you mean."

"It's not a Bruegel. That's what I mean." He'd meant to remain calm, stay detached and almost amused, but he finds himself becoming angry, like this was a trust that has been betrayed, like there'd been an intrusion into not just the Collection's system but himself. A 'how dare you' wavering gauche and banal at the back of his mind.

"Does it move you less now that you know it's a forgery?" Sofya rolls over and props herself up on her elbows, hands tucked beneath her chin. She has a look on her face like this has been a test and he's just failed. "Does its power and beauty diminish? The market value does, of course. Nobody wants an anonymous painting. But the painting itself."

"This is a museum, not a charity shop. I'm not in the business of exhibiting paint-by-numbers."

"The painting itself should exist outside all your machines and experts and auctions."

"It doesn't. I don't." He stares up at the ceiling, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't sound terribly bourgeois.

"So lie," she says. "It took you long enough to figure it out. No one else will care, they'll believe you."

"I can't lie to myself."

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, you can. You're excellent at it. And besides, even if you can't, or won't, does it matter? Does a person's name mean that much? Are you collecting art or brands, is I suppose the question."

His suit jacket hung up neatly by the closet. The disc in the suit pocket. The war on the other side. He can hear it, nearly. Can feel it tugging at the space between his hearts.

"I collect moments," he says, turning back towards her. "Of which this is certainly one." He's not the only brother who knows how to run away.

She smiles, teeth bright white in the dim lighting, and she kisses him. Above them, in the forgery hung high on the wall, the laborer toils unaware as Icarus falls into the sea.

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