“Well let me help you with that,” the Master seethes through his teeth, in a tight and frantic whisper; it’s always perilous, so perilous, when the both of them are in a fragile and mercurial state, when the both of them are raw.
“I could have chosen to respond differently to what you did, to how you left. I who pride myself on being so self-sufficient and self-justified, have done nothing in life but react to you. Nothing … !”
His exclamation seems to combine everything he’s feeling at once; delight, embarrassment, confusion, and warmth. He turns on the spot, taking in the sight before him. He’s known for a day or so that his lover must’ve been planning something, and now he understands. The Doctor has just woken up from a long nap following a few days of avoiding sleep, and he realises Koschei must have been waiting for him to fall asleep to put his plan into action.
The console room is roughly fifty percent more redthan it was before. Red roses line every surface, stems wound around each control on the console. The Doctor sees that the pots on his desk previously containing just pens and sonic screwdrivers now contain flowers too. He loves it. He takes up one of the roses and just stares at it for a moment, beaming.
He’s captivated with the beauty of it all at first, and then at the thought of how much work must have gone into it. Where might the roses even have come from? He doesn’t know, and he’s immediately distracted from thinking about it further when he sees the Master appear in the doorway.
“Koschei!” he almost shouts, racing over to him. His own eagerness speeds him up, and he skids to a halt directly in front of him. It’s certainly the most excited hug he’s ever given him, and the most confidently he’s ever initiated a kiss when he presses his lips firmly to Koschei’s.
“I love you. Why have you done this?” For me, he doesn’t add. I know the facts, I know roses are a nice gift to give someone, but why do I deserve them? What have I done to make you so happy that you’d do this for me? He wants to know, so that he can do it again.
The Doctor gives him another kiss before he even lets him answer, like he’s rushing to expel nervous energy through affection. The smile stays on his face, evident in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the energy brought to his entire body.
The Master opens his arms to the Doctor and catches him with a grinning growl.
His answer is so sublimely simple:
“I did it because of what’s happening right now.”
You, overjoyed, childlike, carefree and robbed of your weight and your gloom, you, the way you were before, the last time you saw me when I wore this face, and before that, when we were children; you, with hope.
The Doctor looked up at her love in surprise, having been trying to keep her shivering to a minimum. She had hoped she was doing a good job of hiding them… but apparently not.
“Th-thanks K-Kosch…” She then frowned. “But… what about you?”
The blond clutches at his coat, which dwarfed her, keeping it tugged around her. she buries her nose into the fabric, both smelling it and thankful for the warmth.
“Oh, you know me. A positive furnace.”
It’s true, he loves cold weather; it quells the sweltering of his core body temperature, which has always been elevated, but particularly since his botched resurrected in 2009 London.
So he stands in the frigid air, soaking it into his ever-feverish pores, while beaming down at his slip of a lover.
“HehHAH!” the Master barks a boisterous laugh. “Who’re you meant to be, a PTA Mum? Come in, let’s … lace some caramel apples with laxative, or … some other benign mischief that’d only make the Doctor mildly repulsed.”
“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.”
Icarus 