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.
It works, obviously. His resting frown is gone almost as soon as the words are said. People don’t generally tell him that, and he’s quite sure the Master doesn’t mean it. He’s amused anyway, whether it’s a genuine compliment or not.
“I’m not saying that I cried at the Lion King, I’m just saying that I’m never watching it again.”
The Doctor takes the popcorn from the coffee table, evidently deciding it’s his now. He doesn’t really care what they watch, honestly, despite the fuss he’s making. He’d much rather watch the Master watching the film instead. To silently show affection in a way he hopes isn’t too obvious, he leans against his shoulder. He won’t be moved to putting an arm around his shoulders. He’s seen people try to do that to others and sometimes it makes them look as nervous as he feels when he wants to initiate physical contact. No — he’ll just sit patiently and wait.
“What about one of those science films that are completely inaccurate?”
Patience has never been a strength of his. He lays his head on the Master’s shoulder.
The Master’s whole body shakes with his laughter; he’s not trying to hide it, grinning toothily at his best friend.
“You sobbed like a schoolchild at Mufasa’s death–oh WHAT, do you think that when I was crash-coursing myself on the history of the planet in order to pose as a prime minister, I didn’t spend a few hours on Disney? ‘You’re WEL-coooom!’”
And, thusly quoting “Moana,” he selects Jurassic Park from the direct-watch menu.
“How about this one, a Tyrannosaur eats a solicitor while he’s sitting on a toilet, it’s ever so funny.”
He rests his cheek on top of the Doctor’s head, cozily.
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.
She’s massaging his shoulders as he shrugs out of his maroon Council robes, having just taken the full lambasting of a dozen “concerned citizens” as to his crucial role in the reformation of the Prydonian Chapter’s testing procedures.
Isn’t your husband reputed to have failed his test before the Untempered Schism? and about eleven varieties of that (accurate) accusation still ring in his ears as he groans, and leans back into his wife, and takes his oldest friend’s legs, and wraps them around his waist.
The Master turns his head and presses his face into the Doctor’s neck, lazily kissing her jaw.
The Master turns to face the Doctor, deflated and weary; he looks every bit his age, which, with his round and vivacious features, is exceptionally rare. He looks flaccid and gray, and there are bags under his eyes.
“When I die, nobody is going to miss me but you.”
It’s the first time since their childhood that he’s even admitted to himself he’s mortal.
“But if you die first, there’ll be an armada of mourners. And I won’t want to share you, but of course I will. What’ve I done, Thete?”
He steals the Doctor away by the pinstriped lapels, and drags him down onto the sofa, burying his face in his chest, wrapping his legs around his waist and his arms around his neck, as close to carbon-bonded as he can get.
Send “We’re married.” for my muse to wake up in a future or alternate reality where our muses are married.
This. This!
This actually wasn’t that surprising, at all. Missy opened her eyes, realized of her situation, groaned and proceeded to sank on her resting spot again. Of course, she was going to establish an economic and legal alliance with herself. Himself. Themselves.
“Since we are Mr. and Mrs. Paradox now, can we get our daughter back?”
The Master sheds his nightshirt and buttons up his charcoal top, with its flawlessly pressed collar, and then he slips into the throbbing red lined black overcoat, tucking up the collar, like donning a mantle of ill will.
He licks his lips and smiles.
“Oh, we’ll get back that which we love, that which we deserve, my darling. All of it. A l l . Of it. But first. Don’t you think it’d be fun if we reminded this universe why it fears us?”
The one he was proposing was a quite logical and sensible course of actions. Yes, the universe needed a reminder.
And yet.
“There’s always time for that, Junior. The universe will fear me, will fear you no matter what we do. Old men will piss themselves at the very sight of your face, you can count on that. But I’m tired. Of waiting. You can go out and play if you want to so bad, but I have a better idea.”
He cocks his head, quelled by her suggestion, and takes a seat at the foot of the bed, watching her closely.
“I confess myself confused, dearest. Do you speak of the same daughter we lost well before the Time War? The one we …ah, abandoned, in pursuit of the Doctor? I’ve been looking for her for years. No matter who I interrogate, torture or kill, the answer is always that she’s dead. That’ll not stop me, though. Not if you’ve ‘an idea’ … ?”
“D’you mean to say that by being in the same place despite our horse-shoed timeline, we’ve created a temporal paradox big enough to find her?”
It takes inarticulable force and menace to curl the Master into a sobbing fetal ball. And yet here he is. What awful punishment has put him in this position, remains undetermined. But as the Doctor burrows his long lanky form around him, Koschei clings to his hands, to his wrists and forearms, happily the little spoon for once in his life, yielding entirely to the only presence he’d now welcome. Shivering violently, he holds fast to the arms encircling him, mouth pressed against the Doctor’s knuckles to muffle his own weeping.
@masterfulxrhythm liked my starter call [ Accepting ]
A light ‘tap tap tap‘ drew Johnathan’s attention and there pecking at his office window was his own Selene. Pushing away from his desk he walked over to let her in, gingerly plucking the letter from her beak. He watched the beautiful barn owl soar over to her perch in the far corner before settling back at his desk with a half smile. The letter didn’t list a sender but merely had his name scrawled across the front in elegant script. Turning the paper over he grimaced, the wax seal on the back held a very specific insignia one he knew all too well.
Exhaling heavily he sat back in his chair, deliberating over if he should actually open the letter or not. One hand absent mindedly scratched at his forearm where a black mark was concealed by his sleeve. Johnathan reluctantly decided to pry open the envelope and pull the parchment out. Skimming over the words his frown deepened and his lips formed a snarl.
Tossing the contents rather roughly into the trashcan at his feet he then pulled his wand from his side pocket.
“Incendio.”
Flames filled the garbage can until the letter was merely ash. Grumbling he let the fire die out before setting his head in his hands. Fingers gripping and pulling at his hair our of pure utter frustration. It had not been a good day.
“Whoa. Temper, temper, Johnny.”
In strolls the new auxiliary Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts: thusly assigned as penance for a lifetime of service to the Death Eaters, an alignment that one Harold Saxon held not because he believed the deranged eugenicist arguments of its proponents, so much as he relished the personal advantage of access to so much dark power. Still, silver scars remain where redacted Dark Mark once was, and he plea bargain out of a lifetime sentence at Azkaban is to have his magic sealed save in the service of academia. The penalty for any attempt otherwise? Any nasty spell he fires, fires back on him twofold.
So here he is, five feet, nine inches of mercurial intellect, in his black and red robes, unwilling to take the cursed position, but serving via extensive experience as a sounding board for the actual professor.
This grants him perhaps too much free time to spy on his oldest childhood friend.
He sprawls in a chair opposite Jonathan and his owl.
“Aw look. Our owls match. I’ve got a barn owl too. Darling. Whatever ails you. Wanna go give the Dueling Club something to talk about again?”
The Master watches his wife with an expression of astonishment as she transparently hoards him, steering him away from the woman ogling his shirtless form at the shaved ice stand. He doesn’t stop her from seizing about thirty napkins–about which he’d been asking aid in locating–and dragging him back to their beach towel.
He sits down beside her steaming form wordlessly.
His gobsmacked expression slowly melts and is replaced by the wickedest grin.
“ … . Well, WELL. What a MARVELOUS role reversal.”
“Oh, do shut up.”
She wipes her hands of the sticky blue syrup and lobs the crumpled napkin at Koschei’s smug little face.
“You totally knew she was flirting with you, didn’t you?? Oh, you TRAMP! You were just trying to make me jealous!”
The Doctor throws herself at him with a wild squeal and tickles his sides as she pins him down. Truth be told, the woman at the shaved ice stand has been forgotten already. She peppers Koschei’s face with little kisses and hovers over him.
“You’re a complete arse, Koschei. You’ll pay for that later, I hope you know.”
His laughter is riotous, blissful, unhindered. It’s the very sound of a woman taking off a corset after a long day and rubbing the indentations on her skin. It’s the sound of pressure released, a lifetime of pressure, crushing and mad, with the exonerating love of a best friend.
He holds up his hands, begging for mercy, tears sliding down the corners of his eyes, down the sides of his fat flushed cheeks.
He looks absurdly cherubic; it’s precisely what used to make him so dangerous.
“If this is payment, I’ll gladly go bankrupt,” he softly wails.
The Doctor snorts and kisses him once more firmly on the lips before rolling off him. In the mere moments her parents were distracted, Zinnia has managed to smear sticky sweet red syrup all over her hands and face, squealing proudly as her mummy turns around to see what she’d done.
“Ooh, look! Look at my colorful little girl, just as sweet as sugar!”
She laughs and kisses her daughter’s face loudly, kissing the sugar syrup right off her.
“She’s just as impossible as you are.”
The Doctor’s words are pointed and playful at her husband, but each syllable is filled with such adoration and happiness, there’s no chance to even imagine that she’s still upset.
“Come on, you two. Let’s go take a swim. Can rinse off all the stickiness while we’re at it, hm? Kosch, I know you won’t want to miss Zinny’s first time in the ocean!”
“JUST AS! Right, my own daughter, threatening my nefarious reputation!”
The Monster of Gallifrey stands and snatches up a package of wet wipes, opening them–ever the pragmatist between the two adults–to clean off wife and daughter’s cheeks and fingers, and honk both their noses.
“I shall have to don black and white stripes and rob a bank, or conquer a small moon, to regain my brand.”
He tosses the wipes in the rubbish bin, then pivots 180 degrees and straight toward the wardrobe.
“Swim trunks it is!” he thunders.
Moments later, as soon as the TARDIS materializes on an obliging beach, Koschei flings open the door, clad in black trunks with a single red stripe down each leg. He points a finger intrepidly at the shore, heavily sunscreened baby tucked across his other arm. “TO THE WATER, ZINNY!” he roars.
Icarus 