By the time the Doctor finishes his indignant condemnation, his chest is heaving and his muscles are trembling beneath his flesh. Each word projected outward brings with it an internal echo that begs of him to cease, a startling contrast between actions and thoughts, but in the end actions have won and the shame of having targeted his innocent beloved only adds gasoline into the raging inferno deep within. It isn’t the Master’s fault, none of this- but only his own, and he knows it, and it aches.
He lets out a resounding ’ooof!’ as the Master pulls him in and holds him, cradles him, forgives him and in his wake of self-destruction he stubbornly squirms and grunts in an attempt to free himself. He can’t, of course- he’s weak from lack of sleep and lack of proper, healthy communication and that idea only causes the vexation of his dilemma to swell until it forms tears in his weary eyes. His breathing wavers in the silence that follows, biting back against every natural urge to fill that silence with something– speaking, screaming, clawing, kicking, anything but silence and his own thoughts -and he manages it, somehow.
Shoulders tense before going lax against the Master as he speaks, the genuine love and understanding the Doctor hears there causing those watery formations to trickle down his cheeks and at once he knows he shouldn’t feel guilty- this is expected. This is common. This is the proof, the evidence of difficult labor spent chipping away at centuries, millennia of telepathic manipulation and misheld beliefs.
This is a terrified little boy in a red field being brought out in a time and place he wasn’t quite prepared for, and this is his best friend, his lover, his e v e r y t h i n g, being there to help him through- the same little boy that Theta held hands with, trapped, as Theta is, in the mind and body of a person turned into something o t h e r. A chorus of ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ rings out like a Cloister Bell in his mind but he can’t form the words, knowing they aren’t necessary. Neither can he form the words to insist that the Master is the master of something- the master of him, right there, always, the Doctor’s keeper.
He frowns at the question of sleep though, at the way the Master’s palm presses against his forehead and his eyes widen as the realization of what’s about to happen dawns on him a fraction too late. He opens his mouth but only a few whispered words escape, frenzied, rushed.
“W-Wait, I’ll let you, Kos, I swear, w-we’ll bend them together-”
Then the force of the Master’s telepathic brilliance overpowers his own, breaks down every barrier, permeates into all of his senses, occupies all thought and forces a gasp from his parted lips. Eyes roll closed and his body slumps forward against the Master, immediately unconscious, adrift in the darkness of a dreamless sleep.
The Master catches the Doctor as he falls; his expression is cautiously blank even as his beloved begs him to know his love and contrition. He only microscopically shakes his head: no, Hearts, later. Now, you rest.What is time to us?
Adrenaline, sheer will, who can be certain which, but the smaller man carries the larger in his arms directly from the library.
“Work with me here,” he growls at the rafters, and the TARDIS seems to yield to Her once-mutilator, permitting him access down Her corridors and into the bedroom.
Rarely does the Doctor even come into these chambers, which have been made luxuriant only after the Master’s arrival, with bedsheets of a high thread count, pillows everywhere, and an eternal battle between his pristine order and the Doctor’s explosive chaos, and their secret love of each other’s staple temperament. He places him down on top of the sheets, and tugs a blanket over his lanky frame.
He climbs into bed beside him and wraps his arms around his waist, nestled against his side, facing him, chin on his shoulder.
And quite unabashedly, the Master watches the Doctor sleep.
Icarus 