Koschei deposits all his work on the long laboratory table and strides over to his husband. He straddles his lap and gazes at him with marmish incredulity.
“Yeah, luv, as soon as you can explain to me how you couldpossibly forget all the reasons. Shall I catalogue them alphabetically or by subject?”
“It’s not a reflection of you, I promise,” he says, taking his husband’s face in his hands and kissing his forehead before pressing their heads together. “Just a bad head day. You know how it goes.”
Koschei removes his reading glasses and settles himself more firmly on Jack’s lap.
“That I do, husband, but you miss my point. I am prepared to lavish you with reasons for your greatness. Gird your loins, or rather, don’t, for I’m about to charm off your knickers.”
He clears his throat, theatrically.
“The High Classical Greeks have striven in vain to sculpt your perfect face and body. But this barely touches upon the beauty of your mind, heart, and soul. You have the mind of a scientist, an artist, and an intellect. The heart of a poet and an adventurer. The soul of one who secretly, for all his playful transgressions, wishes to warm his feet by a hearth cozied up with a special someone.”
He wriggles a bit.
“Lucky for you, here I am, dearest friend, father of my children, hero of my hearts. You may now express your accolades in return.”
i personally LOVED the pregnancy plot line (it’s not even mpreg, it’s PART OF THEIR SPECIES) and think that yeah, people need to step back and examine why they’re so grossed out by it
“Were a book written on the virtues of being handsome, intelligent, kind, perceptive, selfless and beautiful, it would be one page long and feature a picture of you.”
Koschei deposits all his work on the long laboratory table and strides over to his husband. He straddles his lap and gazes at him with marmish incredulity.
“Yeah, luv, as soon as you can explain to me how you couldpossibly forget all the reasons. Shall I catalogue them alphabetically or by subject?”
“I thought I was supposed to be romancing you,” he grins. Oh yes, that word means everything to Jack, and the fact that he knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is no end to them is the most amazing feeling he can imagine.
His hands rest on Koschei’s hips, pulling them ever closer together. He leans down, pressing their foreheads together, and closes his eyes. “I’ll romance the pants right off you,” he smirks before reaching down and smacking his husband’s backside. “Go get dressed, I have an idea.”
Koschei sniffs, imperious and self-assured.
“The fact that you’re romancing me has very little to do with my own degree of effort, my love,” he scolds. “I get to lavish you with praise and affection because just like me, you’re a vain tart.”
He’s snuggled and then slapped on the ass, and that elicits a pleased purr.
“Well okay, since you do know what I like.”
Despite the arrogant bravado, the look he offers his husband is so softly fond.
Then he flounces out, and returns in one of his finest black suits, with a flare of red in the scarf, perfect for the chill of autumn.
“Right, I’m ready.”
“Two perfectly matched vain tarts,” he laughs, not even bothering to deny the obvious truth there.
Once Koschei leaves to change, he hurries to the console to set the coordinates for their destination: Venice, 1720s. The height of the Grand Tour that they replicated on their honeymoon, and the beginning of Canaletto’s rise to fame. Most importantly, it’s a lovely breezy day, just crisp enough to want to snuggle in the cool air, but bright enough to not be miserable about the weather.
When Koschei re-enters, Jack stops and looks at him, smiling.
“You look beautiful,” he says, pausing to kiss him softly, then takes his hand. “Come on, there’s a gondola with our name on it waiting.”
Koschei stands, hands folded across his chest, and steps a foot forward, that well-worn gesture of smug, defiant confidence. He’s pleased to watch his beloved navigating his TARDIS so competently. I taught him that.
When they arrive he turns a giddily suspenseful look on Jack, slips past him and out into the balmy Venetian air.
“Ohhhh, darling. Look at the light, it’s golden-yellow. Did you know that painters here became experts in oil, because the air is too briny and moist for frescoes? Oh, I must show you a Titian or two… . Or better yet, Giorgione’s Tempest … it is so mysterious and sexy.”
He winks at a passing cluster of gentlemen, and by their clerical attire …
“Are we near the Doge’s Palace? ARE we?”
He espies it down the way and points like a lunatic.
“THERE IT IS! OH! Yes, splendid, where’s the gondola, it MUST pass it by! Oh, isn’t it dreadfully romantic that this city is slowly sinking?”
The Master’s in the process of hydrating when Sammy and Vicky rampage around the corner. His eyes go owlish.
He’s barely seized the stairway railing when they collide with his legs. He goes down hard, landing on his ass on a stair, offhandedly grateful that there’s more padding there than in younger years.
“Golly,” he comments, with an infectious thunderclap of laughter. “What a welcoming committee. Either you two want me to do something, or you’re hiding something else.”
“One … eight hundred … . K I S S,” Koschei speaks, standing charismatically on the bed, wearing nothing but boxer briefs, short and small boned and somehow absolutely magnetic.
He knows. He chose this Peter Pan face and this Shakespearean stage actor voice together on purpose. Regenerations hardly a lottery for the Master.
Icarus 