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.”
The Doctor can see it, of course- the moment physical violence is thrust aside in favor of not wishing to entertain the Doctor further. Whatever his love had been contemplating, he was sure it would hurt, immensely so, and that idea for some willfully unforeseen reason makes the corner of his mouth twitch for the breath of a moment. One day his beloved will give in to that temptation, and on that day the Doctor will cry out victorious- and of course in pain.
His nostrils flare, his jaw clenches tightly and the inside of his mouth expands behind sealed lips in an attempt not to allow any jovial laughter to escape at the Master’s words, at his vulgarities, at his backward admissions that weren’t-quite-admissions. Hate and love- what a fine toothed line that is, and teasing at that line had always been this fantastical dreamer’s most cherished prerogative… next to, of course, his unending vocabulary.
“Such vulgarity. I dare say it gives me a thrill when you speak that way.”
The nuzzle at his hand causes his thumb to trace the Master’s cheekbone softly, and he lets out a soft hum of agreement and contentment both. The put-on accent is henceforth banished, and he speaks as he always has with this face and this voice.
“Yeah. I do know. Just as you know how I’m wrapped around yours..”
A brief pause as he swallows visibly, pushing past the twinge of fear as he does in rare moments when it becomes less important than the action of properly saying it. Now is one of those moments and though it comes out a bit faster than he’d like, a bit more breathless, it comes out all the same.
“Just as you know how I love you, too.”
Koschei is stripped of all armor at once, perhaps all the more endeared that his Theta speaks with such evident and breathless fear. For it’s known, it’s very much known, how hard it is, the act of speaking those three words.
He finds himself uncommonly shy, in that moment, eyes downcast.
“You didn’t have to say it,” he attempts to reassure, leaning greedily into the petting of his face.
Fingers smooth down nonexistent wrinkles on the Doctor’s shirt.
“Really. As you say, I know. I do.”
The remark of vulgarity earns a positively fanged grin.
“It’s bloody well fun, from time to time, to exact a role reversal, eh?”
Hands reach up to ruffle brown bangs into further disarray, affectionate and just slightly needy, always parched for more of his best friend’s follies, always entirely besotted at the exact same time as he can cut through every illusion and see the little boy he fell in love with eons ago. It’s a marvelous double-think, to be able to believe ardently in the persona, and also know the truth beneath it: to know this mysterious wanderer through and through, and relish him all the more.
“In any case, I’ll never forget hearing you say those words.”
Icarus 