@intergalacticstarlight continued from here 

“I am NOT! A KOALA BEAR!”

The Master is too comically indignant to come across as truly menacing.  He squints at the Doctor as he approaches, lip curling with comedic irritation as his oldest friend attempts with his clownishness to seduce him.

The poke to his sides earns a grunt too deep and loud for his diminutive frame, as though the spirit within can scarcely be contained in this small and boyish body.  

    “Get off me with your philandering hands!  AND YOUR POETRY, you cad!
     You obnoxious thing, you really do play a risky game, thinking you can
      probe at the tiger’s cage then compliment its stripes!”

It couldn’t be clearer that, for all his dirty talk and bombast, this particular Master is exceedingly Victorian: from his slang, to his vaguely steampunk-goth attire, to the laws of courtship by which he abides.

     “Don’t touch me, you sly heathen, I!”

But once their foreheads touch he’s ceased his pompous thrashing. And he’s smiling like a fool.

     “Oh, golly.”

************

Every single protest, every indignant utterance, it only serves to entice the Doctor and make him continue on. It’s an unspoken truth between them that the Doctor, in all his ridiculous palavering, in all of his unstoppable flippancy, is only attempting to goad the reaction he is currently getting and that it will only serve to propel him into even more imaginative narrations.

Dark eyes quaff down the Master’s annoyance and let it billow into the raging inferno of the Doctor’s insufferable boyish glee. Once their foreheads are pressed together and the incensed thrashing ceases, the Doctor’s own smile can rival that of his best friend, his hearts. The expression quickly transforms into that of an-almost-mostly-sincere apology, his voice soft and his accent taking on that of his younger, more Victorian-inclined Eighth self.

“My most sincerest of apologies to my peerless paramour, whose virtues have so strangely taken up my thoughts. I humbly request that you forgive me my transgressions, for I find myself undeniably crushed in your presence, uttering nonsensationals and walking about as filly and foal, and have behaved as though I am a man who worships his creator.”

A hand lifts to cradle the Master’s cheek against his palm, though he remains as he is, with his forehead pressed to that of his love.

“You are my fierce champion, and I but your willing prize.”

Oh, sometimes he does hate him so.

The Master’s eyes snap open, black and bright and fierce, as he listens to every syllable his presumptuous lover declares.  Knowing irritation does battle with affectionate delight.  He suppresses the urge to slap him, or knee him in the groin, for donning a Victorian poesy: suppresses it only because he knows it will further amuse his idiot. 

His idiot. 

Oh dear, the very thought tips the scales in favor of joy.  

      “Bollocks, my ‘virtues,’ you shitbag,” he counters, defiantly crass. “Oh, 
       you do know you’re good, don’t you. You do know I’m wrapped ‘round 
       your pinky.”  

He turns his cheek into the Doctor’s hand and nuzzles it, eyes falling closed again.  

     “I love you, oh, you know how I love you.”