“ … . . how the HELL did you build a guitar out of other guitars? Are they like, when you make a portrait of someone out of jelly beans, and the littler guitars are the jelly beans, and the portrait is the big guitar, or d’you mean you put a bunch of guitar bits together? Inquiring minds want to know.”
The Master A) is utterly unsurprised by the Doctor’s i) sunglasses, ii) lifelong lack of fashion sense, and iii) equally lifelong attention-deficient enthusiasm spliced with hyper-fixation, B) not moving an inch from where he lies, and C) genuinely curious about the guitar thing.
The Master cranes back his long slender neck and smirks over one shoulder at the Doctor.
“Not really. No one embodies the term ‘warm fuzzies’ quite so aptly as you, ‘Oncoming Storm,’” he gently goads. “And now what? Have you caught me at last, Doctor?”
“HehHAH! I sincerely doubt that Walt Disney ever encountered an aggressive devourer of inorganic matter, love.”
But the Master doesn’t argue with the usual resilient determination: not so long as his beloved scratches her fingers through the follicles of his scalp and renders him a critically tamed beast.
“I think you’re Stitch and I’m that little girl … . me wandering the slopes of Mt. Perdition, wishing for a friend, and then there you were, maniacal and suns-kissed.”
The pair of them are sitting across from each other, yogi style, knees bumped together, when the Doctor brightly declares this.
The Master leans in across the purple couch–the couch he promised he’d procure for the Doctor when she exclaimed how much she wished she owned one–and kisses her. No predication, no warning, he just does so, and enjoys thoroughly the perfect lock of their mouths into place. There’s a pattern to the “randomness” of the stars, and to the “chance” of lives meeting.
“That would be divine, if my best friend joined me.”
The Master flings himself in the Doctor’s path. He cups her face in one hand, and peers ferociously into her frightened hazel eyes. It’s an expression of helplessness she sports, and for the twelve previous faces she wore, he would have skinned himself for the chance to witness that exact face.
Not anymore. Not a Doctor who is full of hope and self-accountability and compassion. Not his boyhood best friend reborn.
“ … Hearts, we. Need. To discuss your nightmares. And their source.”
“That really isn’t necessary. Discussing them won’t make them disappear. And why should their source matter?”
He’s lucky he’s been able to avoid this discussion for so long, really, given how well the Master can pick up on things that are bothering him. It’s purely by chance that his regular pattern of sudden waking after just an hour of sleep hasn’t coincided with a moment the Master has been watching over him, until now.
As he always has, the Master summons the courage to look directly at the Doctor when the Doctor chooses to reprimand or avoid him.
“I believed that sort of thing for a very long time, but if you hadn’t convinced me otherwise, I would still be festering with rage and bitterness. And pain. And I would not be here to comfort you. I know you think you only want things, and never need them, but … . Doctor. Let me return you the favor.”
“Oooo. This reminds me of many a real ‘crisis’ scenario. What a delightful question. I would bring my laser, water, and a TARDIS coral. I suppose you wonder about food. Well, darling, that’s what the laser’s for.”
Icarus 