In comes Mum, carrying a tray of soup and tea that she sets down on the edge of the bed before she reaches over and feels Koschei’s forehead. “Someone told me you were feeling under the weather.”
“Aw, hey mum. You didn’t have to … my body’ll burn through it fast enough.”
Laura is one of a handful of people, exempting even Jack in Koschei’s present state of snarly, grouchy illness, that the patient in question would still treat with such gentleness. Butterscotch eyes soften at the sight of someone once emaciated, lost in her own horrified sorrow, now fleshed out, rosy cheeked and engaged in the act of nurturing.
“Okay, I. Suppose. That I could use a little help,” he reluctantly concedes.
“Yes, you could,” she says matter-of-factly. “Besides, it seems my natural-born son is incapable of illness anymore, so I’ll just have to dote on you all the more.” She helps him to sit up a little bit more in bed, fluffing his pillows and tucking the blankets around him. “So what’ll it be first? Soup or tea? And don’t worry, I got the soup from a sweet little cafe in a little town in Italy, so it’s actually edible as I can’t make rice without burning it.”
Koschei laughs huskily; it induces a coughing spell, which he struggles to sit up and ease. He struggles for breath, and when he finds it, his smile resurfaces.
“You say that about Sam almost accusatorially. But I know what you mean. It makes him so bloody cocky sometimes. Suppose it’s why he never gets even a single drop of acne. Oh, who’m I joking? He was always that gorgeous, wasn’t he?”
He rolls his eyes, and catches her hand, and simply holds it, comforted by the presence of an inalienably benevolent being.
“I love your burned rice. But I’m famished. Soup, please.”
Koschei looks up from his favorite lounging spot, naked, on Jack’s chest, leeching his warmth like a cat does a spot of sun, and the dictionary definition of smug.
“Flattery may get you everywhere but don’t expect me to want to move anywhere anytime soon, regardless.”
Koschei gulps back a guffaw; he kneels and takes his daughter’s nearest foot in one hand, pretending to examine every digit thoroughly. He takes care to tickle them too, before sneaking a conspiratorial grin up at his baby girl.
“Not exactly. It’s quite alright, luv. I’ll tell you a secret; you’re meant to have one big toe, and four little ones, on each foot. It’s a most marvelous part of being part Gallireyan. And guess what? You have the most wonderful little toes I have ever seen. Toes that could conquer the universe.”
Despite the abysmal afternoon, consisting of a violent run-in with a long-ago enemy, Koschei’s found it in himself to give Sammy her bedtime story (usually largely narrated by the demanding and intrepid girl, but her father loves to indulge her).
He’s already dozing with her, bundled together under a thousand quilts and blankets, when Jack joins them.
The Master needn’t even open his eyes to find his husband’s arm and latch it with his own, effectively trapping him in the blanket nest.
It has been a rough day for all of them, one way or another, and it’s not only Jack that slips into bed, it’s Victor as well. He’s been snuggling with his papa the whole night, doing the best impression of his father that he can (that is, making like a koala and burrowing into Jack’s chest). He isn’t going to let a little thing like bedtime end his clinging.
As they climb into bed, there’s a bit of shuffling and Vicky lets go to instead curl up with his sister. Which is just fine with Jack, who throws that spare arm around all three of his darlings.
“Hey, beautiful” he says, quietly, peeking over the blond and brunette heads to look at his husband. “How are you doing?”
“Well, I can hardly complain now that my entire person is covered in loved ones, now can I?” Koschei murmurs, kissing the wrist that encircles him, alongside their almost absurdly beautiful children.
He sneaks a sly look at his husband, and cranes his long slender neck to deposit a kiss on Jack’s lips.
“You lot put things in perspective for me. Give me something to stay well for. So odd, really. The more I have to lose, the stronger I feel.”
“Well, I mean, all of that too, butthat’s not what I have to show you this time. Come here,” he says, taking his hand and pulling him into one of the lesser visited rooms of the TARDIS. There’s a large marble sculpture there, one that on first glance seems to be Rodin’s The Kiss, but as Koschei comes closer, he’ll see that it’s been restyled to represent two male figures – complete with theirfaces too.
“I thought about a small little token, but then I thought, ostentatious is much more our style.”
Koschei laughs. He throws his head back and laughs so hard that tears gather in his eyes and spill out the corners. He smacks his thighs and bends at the waist.
“PLEASE tell me I’m actually seeing an exact replica of Rodin’s The Kiss with OUR FACES on the models!”
He pauses, and leaps into Jack’s arms confident that he’ll catch him, smacking his palms on his cheeks for ultimate, undivided focus.
“OR DID YOU GO BACK IN TIME AND CHANGE IT SO WE’RE ON THE ORIGINAL?”
“Darling, please,” he says, lips pursed as he gives his husband, secured in his arms, a look. “Do you think I would half ass something like this? Now come on, we have a sculptor to sit for. And by sit, I mean make out in front of.”
((This is the funniest fucking thing I have ever seen I LOVE IT OF COURSE JACK AND KOSCHEI WOULD ALTER THE GREAT ART OF CIVILIZATION FOR SUCH A VAIN SELF INDULGENT REASON LMFAO. Maybe next time they should go back to Egypt and change some Pharaoh faces lkjhsdf))
Koschei’s got his back to his husband when Jack so casually speaks these words. His ears, and then his cheeks, go ruddy. It’s one of the very few things someone can say to him that actually causes embarrassment.
“Stop,” he murmurs.
“Never,” Jack grins, sliding up behind him to kiss his cheeks. It’s a pointed compliment, one he knows will always cut through all bluster and ego to bolster his truest hearts, but it’s also a completely true one as well. “I mean it. You’re so patient with them, and attentive, and you never talk down to them or treat them like they’re anything less than their own person. You remind me a lot of my dad.”
“Oho, look. I didn’t raise them to be such pillars of intellectual and ethical rectitude without you.”
Koschei, cheeks kisses, smacks his hands against each side of Jack’s face, demanding his fullest attention.
“You’re hard on yourself, Sam. I know you don’t like talking about that time, and the losses you were forced to incur, when no one else would make the impossible choices, but I’d not be having any children with you if I thought there was any universe in which you’d hurt them.”
“Oh, I get it, joost ask your conveniently extra-terrestrial husband! We’re all little green men, right, I would know why some flying saucer wanted to anal-probe some bovines!”
Koschei removes his glasses and clears his throat. He tucks his daughter in against his side, combing her chestnut braids over one shoulder and leaning over to rub noses with her.
“Once upon a time there was a warrior princess clad in bright glistening vallidium armor whose mind was most powerful. She used her mind for good, planting ideas about how to be kind in the minds of anyone she touched. So she dashed across the countryside on her noble steed, reaching over to tap the shoulder of anyone she came across. And that person would think of the most agreeable things to do for their fellow people: pick up a dropped object, offer a hand oop, pay a compliment. And her kingdom prospered because she was ever so clever and good. Her name was Samantha.”
“Oh, I get it, joost ask your conveniently extra-terrestrial husband! We’re all little green men, right, I would know why some flying saucer wanted to anal-probe some bovines!”
Icarus 