“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.”
That slap couldn’t be more comforting; the Master barks a laugh.
“You b a s t a r d, got amnesia and still having the time of your bloody LIFE. That is SO you, Thete.”
The Master bares his teeth again at his husband, letting slip the truncation of the Doctor’s school nickname. He smacks down his palms square on each of the Doctor’s thighs and leans in closer still.
“Floppy, pretty, sentimental dandy, you don’t know how happy it makes me that ninety percent of you is still intact.”
And surprisingly, he returns lewdness with chastity, pecking his beloved on the forehead. He saw the lump in his trousers. He knows. Concealing it is a moot point. Yet he allows his friend his dignity, this once, under extenuating circumstances.
“Right. No more monkey business.”
This time he well and properly disentangles himself, stalking over to the smoking circuitry. He straps on a toolbelt. He pulls a pair of goggles from an overhead cubbyhole and wheels himself under the console. The sound of tightening screws and turning gears is plentiful for several moments.
Then,
“Oh, ZOUNDS. Oh, I got it. Oh golly, I’m clever.”
He wheels out, engine oil on his cheeks and button nose, hair a mess, with an expression of mad enthusiasm.
“Darling! I’ve figured out what happened.”
Thete.
So he does have a proper name after all, and that fact only confirms the rest- he is mostdefinitely a prig who’s given himself a title out of assumption rather than achievement, and he can only hope that he’s lived up to at least half of what the word ‘Doctor’ implies. If he hasn’t, perhaps he’ll stick to Thete from now on, even once his memories are sorted and locked together again like so many pieces of a scattered jigsaw puzzle.
“I’ve got a feeling I’m only having the time of my life because you’re in it, Kosch.”
It’s instinct that tells him to truncate Koschei’s own name, and it feels just as natural as he does so. The words are said with a dual tone, both genuine and flirtatious. Even as he can’t remember who he is, who he was, or the history he has with this beautiful man he can still feel it deep down, just beneath the blurred and laundered surface. This is him. This is them, so very them.
A squeak escapes him and his hips jerk upward as palms slap against thighs through pinstriped fabric and, much to his own embarrassment, the lump in his trousers becomes prominent and well defined. He ignores it because he has no choice, the sound of two heartbeats surging through his ears nearly deafening, blood immediately turning warm and causing his flesh to tingle. Scratch his previous thoughts- he needs his memories back, now, so that when he pounces on this gorgeous man, he knows exactly what he’s doing.
His eyes lighten to chocolate even as his pupils dilate, practically shimmering in the light of the room around them and those eyes flicker to Koschei’s bared teeth, then back up to meet his gaze. His breath comes out trembling and his face, once again, burns a deep crimson. His hands clench against the grating beneath him and his body shivers, startled that this man can cause such an immediate and uncontrollable reaction not only in his mind, but biologically as well.
“Blimey, you’re sort of t e r r i f y i n g… it’s q-quite stimulating.”
He’s just said that. Out loud and everything. Gods, he needs to shut up. He holds his breath to ensure no more words can escape, counting silently in his head. To his relief and, somewhere in a more primal place his disappointment, Koschei kisses his forehead and promptly walks away from him. His held breath leaves in a whoosh of air from his lungs and he scrubs both hands down his face, attempting to regain some semblance of control.
’Thete’, as he now knows himself to be, sits silently and studies the room surrounding him as the sounds of mechanical tinkering fills his ears. By the time Koschei announces that he’s sorted out the problem, Thete’s body is thankfully back under his control and he’s settled down quite a bit- at least until the other man crawls out from beneath what appears to be some sort of control panel, covered in oil and soot with his hair messed about.
Oh no.
He barely manages to avoid asking how either of them manage to get anything done when Koschei is so bloody attractive, but thankfully steers his words to a more constructive and appropriate conversation.
“R-Right. What- What’ve you found out? Have I broken something? I’ve broken something, haven’t I? See, I knew I shouldn’t have taken on the title of Doctor without earning it first. What’ve I broken?”
“Well hold onto your corset, you slut,” Koschei teases, still with that wicked, savory grin, “cause you broke your brain while trying to build us a baby-making machine. Literally.”
He clears his throat and rattles off the particulars.
“A short in the Chameleon Arch. You tried to use components from that to help solidify the creation of the memetic primer–the information transference node, part of the genetic loom–without having to make it entirely from scratch. You bastardized one part of our TARDIS–our time travel device, coom on, tell me you haven’t forgotten that–in order to build another part.”
He pauses and holds out his hands.
“Okay, rewinding. Every Time Lord–that’s what you and I are–has a Chameleon Arch dedicated to recording their biodata, and rewriting it should the Time Lord elect to do so, to the point of being able to change species, with or without changing appearance. You and I have both elected to do this before, to become human. That’ll coom back to you, trust me, in both cases the, ah, consequences, were … vivid.”
From the Doctor, he retrieves a little fobwatch, which happens to be singed along the edges.
“So yeah. You broke your biodata nodule, genius. Trying to extract some of it and put into a loom, so your half of the baby we’d planned to make together was accounted for.”
He pauses, and squats in front of his husband, face just laden with wryness.
“Did you joost call me scary, and then stimulating, implying that this arouses you? Oh jolly good. You’re definitely cooming back from the accident, now.”
Tonight he feels inert with the futility of his smallness.
Tonight he can’t shake off the ghosts.
Tonight he can’t stop the stomachache.
Tonight his faults are loud as klaxons.
Tonight he sits at the edge of his bed and stares at his hands and wonders why he bothers to do anything but smash things together and kill.
She can feel his sorrow, the knot in his stomach identical to the one in hers. She can hear the whispers of the ghosts in his mind, taunting him with past mistakes and blood on his hands. She understands the thoughts he is harboring, likely better than anyone else, yet it is her job to help him let them go.
The Doctor walks quietly into their bedroom, a place that has become a haven of comfort and love. A place of laughter and affection and memories that might just be loud enough to drown out the lies his own mind is fueling.
Crawling on all fours onto the bed, she settles behind him, wrapping her legs around his waist and hugging his back like a koala. She presses a kiss to the back of his neck and holds her hands over his hearts, nuzzling closer and letting her mind seep into his like a cool, calming breeze.
“I know, hearts. I know, my dearest friend. My Kookaburra, my husband. But listen to me, listen and take my words to heart. You are so much more than the destruction in your past. You are so much more than a weapon, so much more than what they made you to be. You are a MIRACLE, a creator, a force of nature like the most beautiful storm. You helped create our daughter, you create such joy in our lives, such happiness. You are kind and loving and protective. You are my strength. You are so much more than smashing things and killing. You’ve moved beyond that and I am so proud of you, Koschei.
“You’re allowed to hurt, you’re allowed to ache, but I pray you don’t lose sight of the truth we’ve created together. I love you, Koschei. Master of my hearts.
I love you and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do if it made you see yourself through my eyes.”
Thawing him takes very little time once she’s present. Koschei takes his Theta’s right hand, and places his palm on her left leg. He fondles her calf and kisses her knuckles. The distant look caught halfway between nauseated rage and grief ebbs.
He exhales and leans back into her. He turns his head and catches her eye with a knowing look, a look of affectionate reprimand, how dare you know me so well, how dare you ruin my mope so quickly and skillfully?
He manages a grunt of laughter even then.
“You make me feel it’s all worth it. So easily.”
And then he’s smiling.
“Saved the day again, Doctor.”
He uses her title with the fullest understanding of its literal and ironic connotations, loaded with respect for the crisis of identity she’s long undertaken.
Sometimes he thinks maybe her entire life has been a desperate attempt at recompense for leaving him. The thought both breaks and warms him; it makes such blissful sense that he would reassure her, soothe her, by dedicating himself to being better.
So here they are.
Tonight he feels inert with the futility of his smallness.
Tonight he can’t shake off the ghosts.
Tonight he can’t stop the stomachache.
Tonight his faults are loud as klaxons.
Tonight he sits at the edge of his bed and stares at his hands and wonders why he bothers to do anything but smash things together and kill.
He was BORED.He had been piloting the TARDIS wherever she would take him. He didn’t do anything on the planets he visited, not really. He just walked around them and observed life going on while he thought up music for his guitar.
He wasn’t mourning, or at least he didn’t think he was. He was just, tired of the universe. he was tired of the hypocrisy and the lies and slander. He was tired of the violence and war. He just wanted to r e s t.
Alas, the universe called. He was currently situated in his TARDIS when she let out a warning hum before she took off without his ministrations. He stumbled on his feet and ran to the console room to find the door already open.
WHO could have done this?
Who indeed, who or what.
A red-meat-eating, volcano-roaring, blood-spilling career assassin; a beast with hearts too large and too charred; a child scared of the dark that is being forgotten and dying, lashing out perennially; a lover ousted by the other half of his own soul.
An arrogant dick, who calls himself “Master.”
Clad in head to toe black and red, the colors of death and its price, he’s leaning against a crashed space shuttle that’s still smoking.
While eating Jelly Babies. Popping them, one at a time, cavalierly, into his mouth.
“Hey bitch,” he merrily cries, and aims a black-nailed middle finger at his incredulous oldest friend. “Remember me?”
A pause, glancing back at the collateral.
“Oh, relax. It wasn’t inhabited. I was just trying to catch your attention.”
He closes the piano lid just as she utters her final line, and shakes his head, and shakes it again, almost so violently that it should do damage to his neck and shoulders. Almost like a child banishing a poltergeist.
He shudders and it seems exorcized, the mood, the memories.
“Oh, enough,” he sighs, turns and seizes her against him. “We’re both so stupid, Doctor.”
The fingers of one hand dig into her scalp, the others into the back of her little rainbow shirt, pulling it tight, clutching a fist full of thick soft bleached hair, evidence that she is real and she is present, evidence that centuries of fruitless struggle, cycling a highway ramp with no exits, have ended.
“I love you. Say you love me. It’s that simple and that complex.”
He smiles at the ceiling.
“Aren’t you proud of me? See, I learn. I even learn fast. You know what I think you should do? What we should do?”
He peels himself off her with great effort, and rests his palms on her youthful, elfin face.
“Let’s demolish this room. Don’t ask the TARDIS to do it. Do it manually. Let’s do a … a cleanse, hm?”
A pause, as his eyes rove the room.
“Except I wanna keep the piano. I like the piano. And. I want a kangaroo. And a license to be a brain surgeon. And … maybe some Jelly Babies.”
Echoes of Missy, who is, somewhere, smiling.
Her hands slide away the moment the piano lid closes, harmonious in the way that it all seems to stop at once. Her singing, the fog around them, the last humming tune of the piano strings resonating inside the instrument. It all just stops, still, silent, peaceful. Then he’s shaking his head next to her and she understands, and he shudders and she does as well.
In tandem, it seems, they release what it was that had been holding them moments ago. She can feel it leaving him, leaving herself, like a breath held betwixt them. Like the past, over and done.
She leans into his arms as they surround her, solid and sure, real- an anchor as they’d always been and would always be. Her own arms circle his abdomen, smaller frame settling perfectly against his as she buries her face against his throat. She inhales deeply and her eyes roll shut, letting the scent of home wash over her. He’s her home now. He has been since they’d met, and lost though they both had been they’d finally found their way back.
The closeness, the way he clings to her and she to him, her smaller fists clenching the fabric of his shirt and only a little satisfied in knowing it will leave wrinkles behind, it makes her blood tingle. She doesn’t interrupt him once the entire time he’s speaking, not even as he peels himself from her and her from him- not as he cups her cheeks against his own palms, her hands finding purchase this time in the fabric at the front of his shirt, unwilling to let go.
Instead she waits with a smile on her face and her watery eyes filled with affection. She waits until his eyes wander through corridors of the past, echoes of the future, both at once or none at all. They’d changed their fate together but the memories remained at the epicenter, the causal nexus. Them. Then her hands untangle from his shirt and lift to mirror his position, cupping his face with slender fingers trailing the skin atop his cheekbones. Her left ring finger still holds a crimson band with golden writing, only smaller than it had been, scaled down to fit properly.
“I love you, too. I’ll say it every minute’a every day, f’I ‘ave to, but I love you, husband. Both my ‘earts are yours, forever, jus’ like they always ‘ave been. An’ look’it us now. Together, an’ happy. Married. Properly bloody married, can y’believe it? The Doctor an’ the Master in the TARDIS, as it should be.”
She lets out a soft, watery chuckle and her eyes turn upward.
“Think a cleanse sounds brilliant. Can relocate the piano, tear the rest to bits with our bare hands, f’you like.”
Her eyes eventually came full circle and she looks at him full on once more, chuckling softly again at his list of demands- an echo, just as those corridors had been. Just as the room itself, the Vault, currently was.
“First off y’ve already got a license t’be a brain surgeon, just not on Earth. Second, there’s a stockpile’a Jelly Babies in the galley an’ you’re welcome to ’em any time. Third… I’m not gettin’ you a kangaroo, but I might be persuaded t’get you a… k o a l a b e a r.”
Her grin at those last two words is positively impish.
“ … SO? I want another. I want a double-M.D. And maybe a few PhD’s. The sky’s the limit when you’re as smart and evil as I.”
The Master’s petulance is perhaps a welcome transition from the somberness of moments past, and what’s more, it’s a sure sign that he is truly well.
He climbs into the Doctor’s lap, laying on the entitlement thick, along with pretense of daintiness. Unfazed by this role reversal of expected gender norms, Koschei bats his black-lined lashes at his wife. His entire goal, at this juncture, is to ham it up, and make her laugh, and banish the shadows of regret and sorrow altogether.
“ ‘The Doctor and the Master in the TARDIS,’ sounds like a kid’s show I’d watch. Or maybe a sitcom.”
He flashes teeth in an irrepressible grin, with elastic energy that well suits her sunny enthusiasm. He kisses her full on the mouth.
“Now, Doctor: wow me, make me swoon, by swinging a jackhammer at the walls of this room.”
“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.”
Despite his “annoyance,” he wastes no time in hurrying over to his husband’s open arms, sprawling over him with his head in Koschei’s lap, braiding their fingers together.
“Mmmm is all of that an option?” he says, smiling up at him adoringly. “I don’t know, I kinda want another girl. But Sammy might pitch a fit if someone tries to steal her throne. Then again, she might be absolutely enamoured with a little mini-me. Definitely going to need to expand the nursery. And yes, new clothes for me. Probably my favourite part, they’ll get their own section in my closet you made me.”
Koschei leans down and squishes his husband’s face between his palms, with a an enthusiastic growl.
“Whyever would anything not be an option? YOU’RE the one doing the difficult work here.”
He sits back upright, petting Jack’s hair in even rhythms.
“Our daughter will adapt as soon as she realizes her little brother or sister is a minion she can send on errands and quests on her behest. Remember, she IS the one who takes after ME.”
The Master laughs heartily, rows of flawless teeth flashing; it’s easy to see how this face, in another life, was a politician.
“Everyone’s mentioned me before,” he proclaims. “White wine, sure, how’s a Pinot sound? Nice and dry.”
He strides over to a small steel refrigerator, and pulls a chilled bottle from within. Fetching two glasses, he uncorks and pours with panache. He hands the girl called Ophelia–child of his oldest and dearest friend–her glass.
“To new beginnings: and to answer your first question, your father and I are married. And I’m going to have a word with him for not mentioning that straightaway. As for your other question: what d’you want me to be working on?”
“Ooh, sophistocated.” Ophelia replies, smirking as she keeps looking at the invention as he gets their drinks. “Apparently dad’s been mentioning me though, hasn’t he?”
“Wait, married? That’s why you said stepdad!” She grins, looking over at him. “I… I guess it’s cause I’ve been talking about mum a lot or that it’s still close to home but… wow, congrats!”
She takes the glass and clinks it against his. “To new beginnings, yes. I don’t know what I would want, but it’s certainly interesting.”
She takes a sip of the wine, more used to Moscatos and dessert wines, but supposes she can find an acquired taste for it. “What is it?”
The Master, who is poor at empathy–which is a different thing entirely from compassion, at which he is capable, when he really puts in effort, for those few beings he deems on his level–clicks his tongue at himself and nods.
“Yes, close to home, of course it would be. Do forgive me, did your mum, ah, er … “
He pauses, to sip his Pinot Grigio, and scramble for a polite euphemism.
Of all the Masters, this face is the most openly physically demonstrative, and that’s what compels him to hum fondly at the trust his lost beloved shows him, and to reach out, slowly, to pet his face.
“We’re best friends. You will always be safe with me.”
My love, oh my love, when your memory returns, and it shall, know that I didn’t lie, for all the pain’s squarely, firm as concrete, stored in the inaccessible past. Inaccessible even to time travelers, for we are changed people, no matter where or when your TARDIS takes us.
He laughs a broad cackle when his beloved suggests that he is worthier of the snobby moniker.
“You use the term less to connote a literal physician, luv. More as a bit of sanctimonious twaddle about patching oop the universe. You’re a bit of a prig, but your hearts are truly enormously loving, so after long agonies of feuding, you and I decided to simply be the old married couple that we are… . yes. I said that, yes.”
He quirks his lip at his beloved idiot.
“Don’t you dare flirt with me. Even like this! You cad. I love you.”
He turns a console monitor toward the Doctor on his way to studying the proverbial crime scene.
“You’re MY wiry thin blooshin’ maiden.”
He pinches his cheek, hard, and snaps his teeth “threateningly’ at the tip of his nose.
“And don’t you ever forget that.”
He, the ’Doctor’ apparently though he’s still not entirely convinced that should be a title one gives to one’s self but rather something one earns as time passes, leans into that given touch at his face with a gentle, affectionate hum of his own. His eyes flutter closed and briefly, though not for the first time since this beautiful stranger wandered into the room, he loses himself in ponderings of the dual feeling of thrumming beneath his chest, the scent of the other man, the way it seems as if he isn’t alone even within his own mind.
There’s a presence, just there, lingering in the background, beyond the reach of his thoughts and though he attempts to grasp it he seems unable, which doesn’t surprise him- how does one grasp something entirely intangible, as incorporeal as a specter.
He knows he has a name, a proper name, but he doesn’t ask for it. Instead he’s content to bask in the other’s hand as it travels along his freckled skin, in the other’s words as they soothe and reconfirm. This seems natural to him, this near devout interaction between himself and Koschei, and he can’t help but want it to continue. His eyes flutter open once more, unable to keep them off of the other for long.
The corner of his own mouth tilts upward in a crooked grin.
“Must be a prig if I’ve given the title to myself without having earned it first. Managed to land a bloke like you anyway, but still. Seriously, who- who calls themselves a Doctor simply because they fancy themselves one? It’s- It’s-”
The words stop, sputter off and his breath stills as Koschei continues, as he says the words ’I love you’.
He feels… special, beneath the attention of Koschei. Worthy, somehow, as though by being the object of it was in some way linked to validation. Yes, he is loved but it only matters because Koschei loves him. His mouth falls open silently and he lets out something akin to a soft grunt as he is claimed, as Koschei lays Ownership to him, as he’s ’threatened’ by those snapping teeth so close to his face which is, again, burning crimson.
Only this time, it’s not just embarrassment that’s done it, which he’s thankful isn’t evident due to the way he’s sitting. It’s still rather uncomfortable, though, and he shifts slightly to alleviate the pressure below his waist.
“I’m… I’m yours.”
He repeats this and it’s genuine, memories be damned. He knows it’s true. He can feel it down to the marrow, deeper still beneath, to his very core. It takes him several long seconds to compose himself, but when he does his smile is impish and his umber eyes sparkle with mischief.
“I love you, too, and I’ll flirt with you if I wish. You’re my husband, after all, aren’t you? That gives me exclusive flirting rights. It also means I get to do this.”
Then, against his better judgement and without getting up from the grating, he rolls onto his side, reaches out a hand, and promptly slaps Koschei right on the arse on his way past.
That slap couldn’t be more comforting; the Master barks a laugh.
“You b a s t a r d, got amnesia and still having the time of your bloody LIFE. That is SO you, Thete.”
The Master bares his teeth again at his husband, letting slip the truncation of the Doctor’s school nickname. He smacks down his palms square on each of the Doctor’s thighs and leans in closer still.
“Floppy, pretty, sentimental dandy, you don’t know how happy it makes me that ninety percent of you is still intact.”
And surprisingly, he returns lewdness with chastity, pecking his beloved on the forehead. He saw the lump in his trousers. He knows. Concealing it is a moot point. Yet he allows his friend his dignity, this once, under extenuating circumstances.
“Right. No more monkey business.”
This time he well and properly disentangles himself, stalking over to the smoking circuitry. He straps on a toolbelt. He pulls a pair of goggles from an overhead cubbyhole and wheels himself under the console. The sound of tightening screws and turning gears is plentiful for several moments.
Then,
“Oh, ZOUNDS. Oh, I got it. Oh golly, I’m clever.”
He wheels out, engine oil on his cheeks and button nose, hair a mess, with an expression of mad enthusiasm.
Icarus 