“My DEAR Rose,” the Master drawls, over their shared fish and chips: monopolizing the chips, of course. For all his snobbery, his taste in food has never been particularly pretentious. “When was it you first noticed?’
The Master begins to impenitently check absurdities off his black-nailed fingers.
“Didn’t recycle a plastic bottle when the recycling bin was two feet away; stole candy from a baby and ate it in front of his weeping fat little tomato-red face; poured red dye in an evangelical church’s swimming pool, prompting panic over Moses 2.0; put gum under an antique chair; ate fish that wasn’t sustainably caught–in front of a vegan; killed the vegan later; kicked sundry puppies; have you caught on to the fact that I’m taking the piss right now?”
“HehHAH, what’d I do? This is a most blessed visit.”
The Master follows wife and daughter out into that which is reminiscent of the red grassy fields made sacred by memory. He can’t help it: even when on another planet, his mind returns to the place of origin for every happiest state of his hearts. Still, the fireflies are bigger, fatter, and brighter on this planet, as he and Theta both aim to please their beloved babygirl.
“You know, I’m not sure I care, long as I’ve got my girls… . ! What IS it, my brilliant star? Oh golly, you’re joost piping with ideas!”
He bends carefully to hoist Celesia up onto his shoulders.
“Look, Lessie, look! See the lights? Those are bugs! They look like fallen stars, now don’t they? But you know those stars are all big …bigger than this whole field, bigger than ten of these whole fields? They’re joost very, very far away. Wave to them! Wave, loov! There’s a girl! Maybe you have a friend on one of those stars waving back, that you and mum and me’ll get to meet someday, hm? Like mum and I were friends!”
He realizes, of course, from his typically voracious study of child development, that Celesia can probably latch onto only a handful of the words he speaks, but Koschei hates the idea of ever speaking down to his daughter, and so it’s typical that they converse in this manner, her babbles to his full sentences, with mutually feeding enthusiasm.
theta, for her part, watches the entire interaction with amusement and warmth in her eyes. she relishes these moments between the three of them, and a swell of contentment washes over her as it so very often does in these moments. she is here. she is happy. she is home. because her home are the two gallifreyans talking nonsense to each other three steps ahead of her.
“one day.” she echoes, because she wants to show celesia the universe. but she is also very aware of their mutual enemies who would only seek to harm their daughter or worse. she won’t let fear govern her always, but the anxious mother in her only wants to keep celesia safe. and koschei safe. “though don’t go putting ideas in her head about rebellious boys and girls who run off together and promise to see the stars in a stolen tardis.” she teases, setting the picnic box down and spreading out a blanket.
“there’s a meteor shower tonight.” theta adds in afterthough, remembering why she’d lured her better half here to the middle of nowhere, where there is no light pollution on the planet to disturb the show of stars. “it only happens once every thousand decades. not that it’s that imperative considering the time machine and all but – i thought it would be nice for us. clearly you two are already thrilled and i haven’t even brought out the snacks.”
Koschei thrusts back his head and laughs in that characteristic manner, a defiant brash noise aimed at the stars themselves.
“What ELSE am I supposed to tell her, as a model for finding her soul mate?”
He gathers Celesia down from his shoulders, tickling her navel, and places her in the middle of the veritable feast. He ties a bib around her little neck, hums in delight at the news his wife offers.
“Nooo, but I know. There is an extra sort of poignancy to experiencing it once you’ve heard of it, the ‘first time’ a big event comes ‘round.”
Never has Harry looked so dangerously ready to accept a hedonistic offering. He hasn’t used his magic, save to demonstrate for children defensive spells better suited to Aurors, in months, and oh, the hunger for something more scintillating is fierce.
That, and the chance to duel with the man with whom he is shamelessly infatuated is almost erotic.
“When? Today? Oh, DO say you’ll do it today!”
He all but leaps into a chair, swiveling in dizzying circles, a pitiable echo of his charismatically evil past, always full of excess mental and physical energy as he paces the bars of his cage. A tiger crammed in a ferret’s enclosure.
“I am so very willing to show your mother-in-law more useful expenditures of her time, with your say-so; I’d give anything to have time together with the daughter I lost. They don’t let me see her, you know. Performed a partial Obliviate on my memory then moved her into ‘protective custody.’ All because of the Dark Mark on my arm that I never believed in to begin with.”
He scoffs.
“What’s more, nobody’s allowed to hurt you that profoundly, except me.”
Johnathan stared with a quirked brow at the man’s unpredictable response to his agreement. Chuckling quietly he shook his head, amusement gleaming in the dark brown of his eyes. Oh what have I just gotten myself into?… He thought wryly.
“Yes. Really.”
The swiveling chair nearly brought more genuine laughter to his lips but he pushed it down in favor of waving over a tray with tea and biscuits. A wordless spell he had mastered long ago.
“Yes, yes, all-right. Today. Have some tea why don’t you.”
Making up his own cup of tea in one of the silver cups available he pull it close to have it at hand. An expression of darker humor manipulated his features at Harry’s willingness to have a go at his former mother-in-law. Humming thoughtfully he put the tea cup to his lips to take a slow sip from it.
“That’d be something I’d pay to see. Give the old crone a lashing from me, verbal or otherwise I wouldn’t care.”
Scowling deeply into his tea cup he chose not to remark on the final comment from the man. However the glint of near approval in his eyes was a silent give away. The eyes told everything, at least it was that way when it came to Johnathan.
“SPLENDID!”
Harold leans forward and smacks his palms against Johnathan’s cheeks, framing his lips for a big loud kiss. That kiss is utterly shameless, even though his heart secretly thunders.
He pulls back, and pinches his cheeks.
“I’ll drink your damned tea for that prize.”
Back to the chair he goes, the scars of his redacted Dark Mark stinging in warning. Per usual, he doesn’t heed them. He collects his teacup and sips. He even has the audacity to stick up his pinky.
This lasts the short side of 30 seconds before he slams the bone china cup down.
“BOTHER. You’re rubbish at this. I could give you at least five other brews for the stimulation of the senses. Or the calming. Come on, find us a dueling spot. The more public the better.”
A miracle occurs: the Master respects the Doctor’s space.
Perhaps it’s because centuries of an inexplicable, terrifying, overstimulating, isolating noise inside his head, penetrative and invasive and cruel, at the hands of their society’s great patriarch, made him realize just what it is to have no space, ever, to oneself.
Instead of overcompensation with aggressions of his own, then, he releases his beloved and steps back.
“It’s okay. C’mere. Turn around and c’mere. You don’t have to sort it alone, you mopey, deranged cockatoo.”
“Everything’s too loud, too much, I know. But you’ve got me. I get it.”
Slowly he dropped his arms back to his hands, fingers curling back into fists. His shoulders twitched as he fought away his aggressive reaction. Bowing his head his body gave another shudder. When he felt the arms release his waist and the space between them return he inhaled sharply.
Cracked lips parted as he attempted to speak again. The words seemed caught in his throat but he felt his own relief pouring through the connection. The Master did understand, quite possibly the only person who ever could. It brought him some sense of peace knowing he didn’t have to bare all of this alone.
Turning he kept his arms at his sides, still afraid of what he might do if any little thing became too much. Any sound, any action, that could grate on his already frayed nerves. Stepping forward he allowed himself to get close enough to sag into the Master’s steady frame.
“Koschei..”
Again the man’s name was the only thing he could manage to get past his lips. Like a reverent prayer. Through the mental connection his silent thanks was louder than his voice dared to be. The Doctor couldn’t be strong all the time and at the moment he was crumbling.
The Master–over self, over death, over any attempt to conquer and break him, who would sooner scream back at thunder than cower beneath it–accepts the Doctor into his arms. Immediately, he presses two fingers to the Doctor’s temple.
“Breathe.”
It’s such an overwhelming telepathic suggestion, overriding all other frequencies in the psychic stream, that it might as well be a command.
Pink noise, static, a kind of cottony warm sensation, floods into the Doctor’s mind. It’s his choice whether to accept it. He steps back enough to lock eyes with his oldest friend.
It was those words that were dangerous when matched with the suffering in his eyes. Whirling in his grief, in his anger he grabbed the nearest object. A chair. Heaving with mild effort he sent it colliding into the and watched as the impact shattered the fragile glass. It cracked and popped, spraying shards of glass across the ground at his feet. Breathing in harsh jagged drags through his lungs, his hands clenched. Still he was ready to attack, to fight, to lash out at anything or anyone that dared stray too close.
Enough loss. Enough pain. Enough life.
E N O U G H !
The telepathic bond connecting the Doctor to the Master sizzles with rage and remorse. Koschei knows what awaits him before he stalks into the observatory.
He stutters to a halt behind the Doctor. And he closes the distance between them, slowly lacing his arms around his waist. Steadfast resolve mutes the pain on his features.
“Not until I’ve said so,” he murmurs.
And does not let go.
The Doctor felt the Master before he heard him enter. The footsteps were familiar and brisk until they halted behind him. Trembling all over the Doctor dragged a slow breath into his lungs fighting the urge to whip around and face the man behind him.
The arms around his waist made him tense, he didn’t want to end up lashing out at the Master. Swallowing hard he throws his hands up over his face, his jaw clenched tight.
“Koschei…”
A miracle occurs: the Master respects the Doctor’s space.
Perhaps it’s because centuries of an inexplicable, terrifying, overstimulating, isolating noise inside his head, penetrative and invasive and cruel, at the hands of their society’s great patriarch, made him realize just what it is to have no space, ever, to oneself.
Instead of overcompensation with aggressions of his own, then, he releases his beloved and steps back.
“It’s okay. C’mere. Turn around and c’mere. You don’t have to sort it alone, you mopey, deranged cockatoo.”
“Everything’s too loud, too much, I know. But you’ve got me. I get it.”
It was those words that were dangerous when matched with the suffering in his eyes. Whirling in his grief, in his anger he grabbed the nearest object. A chair. Heaving with mild effort he sent it colliding into the and watched as the impact shattered the fragile glass. It cracked and popped, spraying shards of glass across the ground at his feet. Breathing in harsh jagged drags through his lungs, his hands clenched. Still he was ready to attack, to fight, to lash out at anything or anyone that dared stray too close.
Enough loss. Enough pain. Enough life.
E N O U G H !
The telepathic bond connecting the Doctor to the Master sizzles with rage and remorse. Koschei knows what awaits him before he stalks into the observatory.
He stutters to a halt behind the Doctor. And he closes the distance between them, slowly lacing his arms around his waist. Steadfast resolve mutes the pain on his features.
Send Try + a muse that you want to see me write! (accepting)
“Come on now. Don’t tell me y’ve never heard’ve it.”
Clad in pink cubic zirconia studded hoodie and wide legged jeans, sporting a toothy smile that is magnetically infectious, is Rose Tyler, “chav extraordinaire.”
Talking to a perfect stranger, a lonely, homely little old bag lady she’s seen by the flats where she lives the past three consecutive nights. Hew new friend is probably honing in on sixty, with frizzy salt and pepper waves peeking out of a hand-knit hat, and business casual attire that was once not so threadbare.
Rose has given the lady an excuse to come inside, and play Mickey’s favorite “don’t tell nobody I play it” game: Dance Dance Revolution.
She clicks on an easy-level song and leaps onto the mat, while mum makes them tea in the squeezed-tight kitchen, making a fool of herself flailing about to the steps of some catchy disco tune.
The stranger is laughing breathlessly; mission accomplished.
Send Try + a muse that you want to see me write! (accepting)
In the scope of the 16 billion or so years that he has existed as a discrete consciousness, the Morningstar has never found a more pitiable mortal life form than the human race. Never.
He muses upon this fact as he sits, chin on hand, in broad daylight, at a bench outside a Walmart parking lot. Yes, oh yes. The absolute dregs of human society populate here: “ordinary” people.
People parking in handicapped spaces without placards. People shouting at actual handicapped people who “don’t look it.” People trying to return used goods because they broke them, passing them off as new. Muggings, pick-pocketings, and the thieves aren’t even the filth of that scenario, it’s the red-faced middle-aged rich guys who scream “don’t ram your cart into my Beemer!’ The occasional Salvation Army bellringer, oho, those are the best of false messiahs yet. No homo!
People are disgusting. And Lucifer’s sole remaining consolation in all the universe, jilted from Heaven by a Father he loved too covetously, is the roiling nausea in his gut and the ache in his grinding jaw when he thinks too long on how disgusting life is.
“Get a job,” a woman with a soccer mom haircut snaps at the Devil, as she slap-slaps past in her flip flops.
Eyes the hue of a desolate winter sky follow her receding form through the automatic doors. Lucifer considers spontaneous disembowelment, but then shrugs, and the cold fury ripples off his form, replaced with a sinuous sneer. He doesn’t wanna lose his front-row seat, after all.
It’s funny. The Lightbringer is painted as a putrid rotting corpse, crawling with maggots and boils and burns and leprous holes, six bruised and torn wings once white as virgin snow now reeking of rotting roses, towering, a jowly beast of a fallen Archangel, and it’s true, on a supercorporeal level, that is the best way to describe Lucifer. But he chokes not with broiling fire. Not with dramatic horrific displays. Nah. Lucifer chokes with ice. He chokes with words never said. Jealousies that fester for years and centuries. Misapprehensions and miscommunications and resentments that turn into bitter entitlements. Lucifer is xenophobia, and envy, and foregone accountability. Lucifer is the simplest of concepts, really: he’s the absence of compassion. And these things are all soooo quietly insidious. They never make a fanfare, for all the talk that he is the embodiment of Pride (which he is).
And he RELISHES that humans will forever misperceive him as a red skinned imp with a forked tail. Or better yet, as a snake: an innocent legless lizard. Jesus, it’s hilarious!
The most. Pathetic. Creatures. In. The. Cosmos.
And thinking about that? It drowns out the endless keening wailing of a thing abandoned and past hope: with no one but himself to blame. It freezes that noise over. Just a little longer.
“You know, sometimes, I think that’s why they left me behind on that game station. Figured I’d be fine in the end, I’d figure a way out of there one way or another. I mean, sure, he was regenerating, I get that. But then nothing after that? Yeah, I was never gonna need them. Not like I need you.”
He’d be marinating in bitterness, save for the way Jack chose to conclude. As is, Koschei can’t help but exude warm affection. He reaches out to caress Jack’s ever-soft cheek, familiar and gentle.
“Yeah,” is all he says: happy to confirm to whom he belongs.
Jack takes that hand that reaches for him, turning it palm up to kiss it and pulls him close. “Unsure on the ‘saviour’ part, but that deep, existential need? Yeah, that’s got you written all over it. So come here, hubby, and give us kiss.”
“Well I’m sorry, but I DO believe you’ll have to apply for a husbandly snog.”
Koschei pulls coquettishly away from Jack, stands and saunters to the other end of his TARDIS.
“We accept submissions to the slotbox at the front of the vehicle, or, if you prefer an expedited process, you may woo the recipient directly.”
Icarus 