“Tremendously true, but to whom do I credit this compliment? Show yourself.”
“Nah..I’ll just stay in the shadows and continue to shower you with compliments.”
“You’re such a shit. Get back here. I miss you.”
His voice is a mixture of petulance and smug satisfaction.
Smiling almost sheepishly he walks steadily closer and pulls Koschei close for a fond embrace. His eyes close briefly as he just enjoys the familiar feel and scent of the one he loves.
“I miss you too..”
His voice is a soft almost inaudible whisper as the words fall freely.
Koschei chuckles and nips his Theta on the ear.
“Are you smelling me?” he murmurs, needling him as ever, but oh, these days, it’s always with such an affectionate glow.
send 💁 for our muses to be stuck in a small space together
They’re a pair of idiots. Idiot old men, too stubborn to cede each other exit from the TARDIS ceiling through the small hole the asteroid made–the asteroid that is the result of the Doctor’s poor driving, mind–so, in trying to crawl out the top simultaneously, they’ve gotten stuck. Arms free, but chest to chest, belly to belly, groin to groin.
The Master’s first impulse is to be furious.
But in mere seconds, the whole foolish situation has him laughing. At first, a delicious scrumptious little chuckle, and then a big bawdy cackle. As the laugh dies down into a hungry growl, he wiggles around, applying suggestive pressure to his lover’s crotch.
He wiggles his eyebrows at the Doctor, leering close,
“I know what you like, you slut,” he teases, and cackles again. “Let’s give the people who rescue us something to talk about …”
He ruffles the Doctor’s hair into helpless disarray.
Koschei’s round nose wrinkles in fond contemplation. He arches an eyebrow at his beloved and snaps at his fingers. A wicked rumbling laugh escapes, straight from the depths of his diaphragm.
“Of course I do.”
But oh, when you say it, I could erupt in a thousand colors and become sort sort of ecstatic supercorporeal entity.
The Master begins to impenitently check absurdities off his black-nailed fingers.
“Didn’t recycle a plastic bottle when the recycling bin was two feet away; stole candy from a baby and ate it in front of his weeping fat little tomato-red face; poured red dye in an evangelical church’s swimming pool, prompting panic over Moses 2.0; put gum under an antique chair; ate fish that wasn’t sustainably caught–in front of a vegan; killed the vegan later; kicked sundry puppies; have you caught on to the fact that I’m taking the piss right now?”
Never has Harry looked so dangerously ready to accept a hedonistic offering. He hasn’t used his magic, save to demonstrate for children defensive spells better suited to Aurors, in months, and oh, the hunger for something more scintillating is fierce.
That, and the chance to duel with the man with whom he is shamelessly infatuated is almost erotic.
“When? Today? Oh, DO say you’ll do it today!”
He all but leaps into a chair, swiveling in dizzying circles, a pitiable echo of his charismatically evil past, always full of excess mental and physical energy as he paces the bars of his cage. A tiger crammed in a ferret’s enclosure.
“I am so very willing to show your mother-in-law more useful expenditures of her time, with your say-so; I’d give anything to have time together with the daughter I lost. They don’t let me see her, you know. Performed a partial Obliviate on my memory then moved her into ‘protective custody.’ All because of the Dark Mark on my arm that I never believed in to begin with.”
He scoffs.
“What’s more, nobody’s allowed to hurt you that profoundly, except me.”
Johnathan stared with a quirked brow at the man’s unpredictable response to his agreement. Chuckling quietly he shook his head, amusement gleaming in the dark brown of his eyes. Oh what have I just gotten myself into?… He thought wryly.
“Yes. Really.”
The swiveling chair nearly brought more genuine laughter to his lips but he pushed it down in favor of waving over a tray with tea and biscuits. A wordless spell he had mastered long ago.
“Yes, yes, all-right. Today. Have some tea why don’t you.”
Making up his own cup of tea in one of the silver cups available he pull it close to have it at hand. An expression of darker humor manipulated his features at Harry’s willingness to have a go at his former mother-in-law. Humming thoughtfully he put the tea cup to his lips to take a slow sip from it.
“That’d be something I’d pay to see. Give the old crone a lashing from me, verbal or otherwise I wouldn’t care.”
Scowling deeply into his tea cup he chose not to remark on the final comment from the man. However the glint of near approval in his eyes was a silent give away. The eyes told everything, at least it was that way when it came to Johnathan.
“SPLENDID!”
Harold leans forward and smacks his palms against Johnathan’s cheeks, framing his lips for a big loud kiss. That kiss is utterly shameless, even though his heart secretly thunders.
He pulls back, and pinches his cheeks.
“I’ll drink your damned tea for that prize.”
Back to the chair he goes, the scars of his redacted Dark Mark stinging in warning. Per usual, he doesn’t heed them. He collects his teacup and sips. He even has the audacity to stick up his pinky.
This lasts the short side of 30 seconds before he slams the bone china cup down.
“BOTHER. You’re rubbish at this. I could give you at least five other brews for the stimulation of the senses. Or the calming. Come on, find us a dueling spot. The more public the better.”
A miracle occurs: the Master respects the Doctor’s space.
Perhaps it’s because centuries of an inexplicable, terrifying, overstimulating, isolating noise inside his head, penetrative and invasive and cruel, at the hands of their society’s great patriarch, made him realize just what it is to have no space, ever, to oneself.
Instead of overcompensation with aggressions of his own, then, he releases his beloved and steps back.
“It’s okay. C’mere. Turn around and c’mere. You don’t have to sort it alone, you mopey, deranged cockatoo.”
“Everything’s too loud, too much, I know. But you’ve got me. I get it.”
Slowly he dropped his arms back to his hands, fingers curling back into fists. His shoulders twitched as he fought away his aggressive reaction. Bowing his head his body gave another shudder. When he felt the arms release his waist and the space between them return he inhaled sharply.
Cracked lips parted as he attempted to speak again. The words seemed caught in his throat but he felt his own relief pouring through the connection. The Master did understand, quite possibly the only person who ever could. It brought him some sense of peace knowing he didn’t have to bare all of this alone.
Turning he kept his arms at his sides, still afraid of what he might do if any little thing became too much. Any sound, any action, that could grate on his already frayed nerves. Stepping forward he allowed himself to get close enough to sag into the Master’s steady frame.
“Koschei..”
Again the man’s name was the only thing he could manage to get past his lips. Like a reverent prayer. Through the mental connection his silent thanks was louder than his voice dared to be. The Doctor couldn’t be strong all the time and at the moment he was crumbling.
The Master–over self, over death, over any attempt to conquer and break him, who would sooner scream back at thunder than cower beneath it–accepts the Doctor into his arms. Immediately, he presses two fingers to the Doctor’s temple.
“Breathe.”
It’s such an overwhelming telepathic suggestion, overriding all other frequencies in the psychic stream, that it might as well be a command.
Pink noise, static, a kind of cottony warm sensation, floods into the Doctor’s mind. It’s his choice whether to accept it. He steps back enough to lock eyes with his oldest friend.
It was those words that were dangerous when matched with the suffering in his eyes. Whirling in his grief, in his anger he grabbed the nearest object. A chair. Heaving with mild effort he sent it colliding into the and watched as the impact shattered the fragile glass. It cracked and popped, spraying shards of glass across the ground at his feet. Breathing in harsh jagged drags through his lungs, his hands clenched. Still he was ready to attack, to fight, to lash out at anything or anyone that dared stray too close.
Enough loss. Enough pain. Enough life.
E N O U G H !
The telepathic bond connecting the Doctor to the Master sizzles with rage and remorse. Koschei knows what awaits him before he stalks into the observatory.
He stutters to a halt behind the Doctor. And he closes the distance between them, slowly lacing his arms around his waist. Steadfast resolve mutes the pain on his features.
“Not until I’ve said so,” he murmurs.
And does not let go.
The Doctor felt the Master before he heard him enter. The footsteps were familiar and brisk until they halted behind him. Trembling all over the Doctor dragged a slow breath into his lungs fighting the urge to whip around and face the man behind him.
The arms around his waist made him tense, he didn’t want to end up lashing out at the Master. Swallowing hard he throws his hands up over his face, his jaw clenched tight.
“Koschei…”
A miracle occurs: the Master respects the Doctor’s space.
Perhaps it’s because centuries of an inexplicable, terrifying, overstimulating, isolating noise inside his head, penetrative and invasive and cruel, at the hands of their society’s great patriarch, made him realize just what it is to have no space, ever, to oneself.
Instead of overcompensation with aggressions of his own, then, he releases his beloved and steps back.
“It’s okay. C’mere. Turn around and c’mere. You don’t have to sort it alone, you mopey, deranged cockatoo.”
“Everything’s too loud, too much, I know. But you’ve got me. I get it.”
It was those words that were dangerous when matched with the suffering in his eyes. Whirling in his grief, in his anger he grabbed the nearest object. A chair. Heaving with mild effort he sent it colliding into the and watched as the impact shattered the fragile glass. It cracked and popped, spraying shards of glass across the ground at his feet. Breathing in harsh jagged drags through his lungs, his hands clenched. Still he was ready to attack, to fight, to lash out at anything or anyone that dared stray too close.
Enough loss. Enough pain. Enough life.
E N O U G H !
The telepathic bond connecting the Doctor to the Master sizzles with rage and remorse. Koschei knows what awaits him before he stalks into the observatory.
He stutters to a halt behind the Doctor. And he closes the distance between them, slowly lacing his arms around his waist. Steadfast resolve mutes the pain on his features.
Icarus 