#au where adric lives and travels with turlough

[cringecompanionapologist]

Had a Random Burst of Inspiration

I'm not sure if anything will actually come of this, but I wrote a bit of Turlough being a big brother to Adric and thinking about how they both have nightmares. This isn't anything like a complete story, even a short one, but I've been having writer's block for nearly a month now and I'm just excited that I created something.

CW: Turlough remembers being branded with the Misos Triangle, and the same thing happening to a literal infant. Nothing graphic, but it's mentioned, so now you know. There's also some talk about what happened to Adric in Castrovalva, so the word "torture" is used.

Adric was afraid of the Master. Of course, they all were, to some extent. Turlough found him more irritating than anything else. He usually just let the Doctor handle him and stayed out of the way. But, the other companions had a different perspective. To Tegan, this was the man who randomly murdered her aunt. To Nyssa, this was an evil being walking around inside her father’s corpse. And to Adric, this was a monster who kidnapped and tortured him to make him a weapon to use against the Doctor.

Nyssa and Tegan didn’t talk to him about their problems. They had each other and Turlough wasn’t about to stand in the middle of whatever they had. But when Adric had nightmares, he woke him up. They only shared a room because there were only so many bedrooms close to the console room and the Doctor didn’t want them getting lost. Honestly, they only shared the room around half the time anyway, with Turlough spending more and more time in the Doctor’s bed. But, on the nights they were sharing a room, sometimes Adric would wake up thrashing and muttering refusals. He wouldn’t obey the Master. He wouldn’t betray the Doctor. Turlough would crawl out of his own bed to wake him up, rescuing him from his own mind. He’d try to soothe him, though he had no idea how to do that. It was exhausting. He often fell asleep in Adric’s bed next to him, as if his physical presence could keep the bad dreams away.

Turlough knew what it was like to have nightmares, and to be tormented by some evil thing that wanted the Doctor dead. He never bothered Adric about them. There was nothing the kid could do. Anyway, Adric could sleep through basically anything. He never had to know. Even though he knew things about him that no one else in the TARDIS did. He knew that he’d had a family once. A mother, a father, brothers, sisters. He had no idea what happened to most of them. He knew his mother was dead. He’d been there when it happened. His older brothers and sisters ran away after that and he never saw them again. They were probably dead too. As for his father and younger brother…

Those were the worst nightmares. Worse than the Black Guardian, worse than the bullies at Brendon, worse than the battles, even worse than that day at the academy where he is mother died in from of him. It was those screams. Some nobody who called himself a judge reading out sentences of death and exile with no emotion in his voice. The smirks of the Custodians as the prisoners were paraded in front of them and strapped down. It was bad enough when they branded him. It was bad enough when they branded his father, who put on such a brave face for his children. But Malkon…he wasn’t even a year old. He had no idea what was happening. He was just suddenly yanked from his father’s arms and burned with a hot iron. Those screams…

Based on Trion maturation rates, Malkon would look around Adric’s age now. Maybe that’s why Turlough felt like he had to watch over him. He also knew that Adric had had a brother once, one that would be around Turlough’s age. They grew up without parents, so this brother, Varsh, was all he had. 

Adric saw Varsh die in front of him like Turlough watched his mother be gunned down. They both understood what it meant to watch the person who’d kept them safe become a pale corpse in front of their eyes. Turlough was fortunate enough that when his mother died, he could run to his father, even if he didn’t do much to comfort him. Adric ran to the Doctor. He’d only just met him, and he wasn’t any better than Turlough’s father when it came to comfort. Turlough suspected that the incarnation of the Doctor he knew was even worse than the one before him in that regard. Though, he’d gotten better. At least, Turlough didn’t feel as bad about his nightmares when he woke up next to him.