“Yeh, when in doubt, the people who stole your lucky boxers, even though you don’t HAVE lucky boxers because you sleep in the nude, have to be those triangle-worshiping bastards.”
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.
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.
“You’ve got another gray hair? You’ve stolen me another painting? Some crown jewels? A rare love powder for extra pleasure from an intergalactic market? A new grand piano? The kids drew me a picture? Did I get any of them right?”
“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?”
“You’ve got another gray hair? You’ve stolen me another painting? Some crown jewels? A rare love powder for extra pleasure from an intergalactic market? A new grand piano? The kids drew me a picture? Did I get any of them right?”
A folded piece of paper is slid underneath the door of Koschei’s workshop.
Send my muse a gay anonymous love letter.
Koschei reads the letter three times before throwing back his head and laughing his thunderous and ever-ominous cackle, but the one from deep in the gut that’s also peculiarly infectious and warm.
He folds the letter and places it in the pocket of his suit. He tiptoes to the wardrobe and changes clothes. Then he sneaks to their bedroom to pen a new fanciful response, and he sticks it beneath the bathroom mirror, sealed with thoroughly old-fashioned red wax.
Alas, when Koschei arrives to that very same moor, there is no beloved husband waiting there. Instead, there is a red and blue scarf dangling from a tree, blowing in the wind, and another letter stuck to that very same tree.
Koschei laughs for a solid minute, smacking a thigh as he holds the parchment, with its elegant penmanship, in his free hand.
He dashes to the wardrobe and clads himself in appropriately Victorian English attire: billowing white shirt, drawstring neckline; tight black trousers and knee-high polished black boots, with a loose, unbuttoned waistcoat and yes, THE fobwatch, essentially what remains of Professor Yana’s attire. It’s too large on him, save the pants, which are new, but it’ll give across the romantic inclinations.
He arrives, TARDIS in tow, at the beach on the French Riviera, spotting a table somehow transported smack dab in the middle of the sand, red rose upon it, throws back his head, and laughs again.
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.
“ … intimate.”
“Who knew stealing you fine art made you this randy?” Jack laughs, throwing an arm around his waist and pressing them close together. “Actually, that shouldn’t surprise me in the least, should it.”
He takes Koschei’s hand, kissing each fingertip, then his palm, then his pulse and all the way up to his neck, nipping at his earlobe as he pauses to whisper there. “I’ve even got the video of me stealing them all cued up in the bedroom.”
Koschei laughs debauchedly.
“A lot of things make me randy when they coom from you,” he drawls, turning distinctly Mancunian.
Those kisses expertly arouse him, eliciting soft gasps of astonished pleasure. He arches his back and rolls his eyes shut, and smiles so carelessly.
“Mmh, like you had to further persuade me to head that direction,” he growls, sliding his hands up his husband’s back until they’re digging canals into his lush brown hair.
“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.”
Icarus 