“I can’t properly answer that, because if I changed anything in Jack’s life, or my own, there’s a chance we’d have never met.”
The Master steeples his fingers, inhales, exhales, and gnaws on a nail, ruining his manicure: a rare tell of anxiety.
“My husband is giving to a fault. I’d like to put the brakes on that. I’d like to have removed him from the position to die, over and over again, in agonizing ways, for the sake of the cowardly sheep he protects, who have the audacity to turn ‘round and condemn him morally. But I’ve been trying to help him be more self-preserving retro-actively.”
The Master glances over the rim of his reading glasses at his husband. He examines him like a fruit fly, but the glint in eyes the hue and effervescence of root beer is telling.
“Has someone been bitten by the mummy bug?” he queries, closing the holographic console in front of him, to wanly smirk. “Someone who once complained of being pregnant?”
“Listen, you little rat,” he starts, trying to sound annoyed and yet there’s still a smile on his face. It’s definitely those glasses. “It’s… different with you. It’s still annoying as hell, especially at the end, but last time with the twins was completely different than the first time I was pregnant. And yes, it was probably thanks to you, so go ahead and be smug.”
“HAPPY to hear it, handsome.”
Koschei delightedly owns his title of “rat,” setting the reading glasses aside. He opens his arms to his husband, wiggling his fingers toward himself, the epitome of the self-satisfied seducer.
“Come, come snuggle. And do let your mind wander to green pastures. Shall it be a boy or a girl? Shall we go on spending sprees or hand-me-downs? Expand the cottage nursery? Come, regale me with your hopes and dreams. And I shall set about at once to commissioning a tailor for more stylish maternity clothes.”
Koschei laughs rather foolishly, head lulling back, and then dipping forward until his chin is tucked in, with a rarest display of shyness. He thinks on his handsome cur, with the perfect brown combover and the rakish dimples.
“I dunno,” he effuses–this worldly, seasoned monster–turning red as a damned maiden.
//There are many but if I really really had to pick one, it’d be becoming a teacher. there’s nothing quite so satisfying as knowing your higher purpose in life and enjoying it at the same time.
The Master glances over the rim of his reading glasses at his husband. He examines him like a fruit fly, but the glint in eyes the hue and effervescence of root beer is telling.
“Has someone been bitten by the mummy bug?” he queries, closing the holographic console in front of him, to wanly smirk. “Someone who once complained of being pregnant?”
He’s been waiting and watching for his husband’s reaction to the present. One of the small silver orbs he made him for Christmas a few years back is not only taking photos of the event, but also streaming straight to Jack’s wrist strap so he won’t miss a precious second of it.
And what a reaction it is too.
He swaggers into the room a few moments later, brimming with confidence (even arrogance).
“Steal is such a dirty word,” he says as he approaches Koschei. “I like to think of it as displaying it in its rightful place. I’m sure Klimt had us in mind when he painted this.”
Koschei laughs lustily, smacking his thighs. He spins and seizes Jack’s face in a rough unsoftened kiss.
“You DIRTY THING,” he growls, in raptures at being so spoiled by so competent a criminal mastermind. “That’s right, you redistribute the bounty to appreciative owners, my Robin Hood.”
He squishes Jack’s cheeks and nips both his dimples. Then he turns in his arms and claps his cheek with one hand.
“The crown jewel of Viennese Art Deco,” he croons.
Jack laughs through all the attention and doting, grinning almost madly as Koschei admires his handiwork. “Robin Hood? So does that make you my Maid Marion? Minus all the ridiculous angst?”
He presses a kiss to Koschei’s bare cheek, both his arms wrapped around his husband’s waist. “And if you like that, I’ve got a surprise for you in the drawing room.”
He takes Koschei’s hands then and guides him to the smaller study that still carries the same interior decorating. On the wall is another new painting, likewise liberated from its former residence to now grace their walls.
“Not quite as bright and shiny as the other, but I like this one a lot.”
Koschei grabs Jack’s face yet again, massaging all the beautiful Grecian muscles and LOUDLY kissing the dimples, and then his mouth, ecstatic.
“Is that a MUNCH? That man was utterly MAD! HehHAH! Oh, darling. It’s so soft, and.”
Fingers dance down Jack’s neck, unbuttoning his collar, sliding inside his shirt to massage his chest.
“Like what, given their scope for mischief? Let’s maybe keep it to a mammal. No iguanas or tarantulas just yet.”
“Okay, first of all, I’m not cleaning up cow shit. Doubly no for sloths, which are actually the most disgusting creatures ever to exist. But what about… a koala?”
“Sweet pea. You have to the count of five to leave the room before I THROW something at your HEAD.”
Jack lets loose with an enormous laugh, a cackle that seems to come all the way from his toes. “Oh come, you don’t want to damage this masterpiece, do you?”
As they happen to be standing in the kitchen, Koschei lobs a rutabaga–don’t ask how they have a rutabaga–at Jack’s head.
Icarus 