“Darling, I know that it’s been a bit since you were stranded on earth, but supermarkets aren’t that difficult to navigate. The bakery is one aisle over. So … when you’re donelamenting the cruelty of life …?”
There he stands, the Master, intergalactic menace, with a shopping cart full of groceries, eyeing his oldest friend smugly. Perhaps it’s good that he far more recently spent over a year masquerading as a human politician, and visited the store many a day.
But it’s also hysterically funny, that Koschei is still the pragmatist and Theta still the dramatic, when it all boils down to their underlying personalities.
He nods his head toward turning the corner.
“Come on, let’s not have you pining after carbs any longer.”
Theta knows the moment he’s gotten what he’s after, and that moment brings with it sharp teeth against the soft flesh of his upper lip, piercing, that sends fire trembling through his veins and oh, oh how he burns. He ignites beneath the violent eroticism, the subsequent kiss scorching him, engaging every sense and every synapse at once, one domino in a line of many that seem to fall in rapid succession. Penny in the air, penny drops, penny spins round and round its’ axis until it glows beneath the velocity of force. It renders him nearly incapable of paying much attention to what the Master begins to say.
Drawn in, his eyes darken further, dilating until naught but a sliver of brown remains to line his pupils. It’s in that moment the Master speaks the truth, unfiltered, telling Theta what he wants in as near exact words as he’ll ever hope to get. His goal is met, he waits, knowing, burning just as the other suggests he might and he burns willingly. The flames are welcome as they lick at his flesh and cause his face to redden as that hand shoves into his trousers.
Mouth opening he can’t prevent the small gasp nor the way his body shudders in response. It’s only by sheer luck that he wears layers, fabric to cover up the millions of goosebumps the Master’s touch produces. Either way the darkness in his eyes is riotous and unfiltered, his fingers twitch at his sides, the back of his neck prickling in a way that has his muscles tensing. Before the Master’s even finished speaking the Doctor has already calculated the exact number of steps between his counterpart’s back and the wall laying just beyond. Has already determined force, velocity, weight distribution.
It takes everything within him to wait until the words are done, the second squeeze producing a twitch of a very different nature against the Master’s palm. A hand lifts to trail fingertips along his counterpart’s cheek and it seems, at first, as though the other’s requests will go unfulfilled. Then his hands both lift at once to twist into fabric, to shove the Master backward as he propells himself forward in tandem, unwilling to have that hand removed from his trousers as he pins him to the wall.
His teeth are bared, and his breathing hitched. It’s only then he speaks in a low voice that reverberates with that hunger, leaving his tone near trembling with the sound of a growl beyond the horizon of his words.
“You speak with such thinly veiled desperation, yet such a blatant vulgarity. Commanding things of me in a way that suggests you’re still begging for it and oh, oh the images that must be in your mind. I bet they’re delightfully pornographic, aren’t they… et si je te connais aussi bien que je le pense, je parie que je suis derrière toi, putain de te jusqu’à ce que tu cries mon nom… am I close?”
He pauses, the corner of his mouth twitching upward just a fraction as the Oncoming Storm billows in, a crack of proverbial thunder and a strike of invisible lightning besides.
“Such a lecherous little bitch you are…”
One of his hands shoves into the Master’s trousers, mirroring the action his counterpart took previously, but his hand doesn’t simply squeeze- it moves in a specified pattern, with a specified purpose as his mouth crashes against the Master’s, near bruising in the force of the ardent kiss.
The Master rolls his hips and cants back his chin, smiling with reckless vainglory. But then again, that’s so him, and he knows he is what the Doctor wants. Oh, the feeling of that … .
“D a r-ling, I am usually vulgar, and I am always a bitch.”
And then, cruel tease, he tosses the gauntlet:
"It doesn’t make you special that I act this way.”
Oh, what a move.
The Doctor’s Keeper, forced flush against a wall, is hard in an instant, but he squeezes yet a third time before lifting his palm off and sliding it harsh up the Doctor’s shirt, popping every single button on the hapless blue article. He cups his chin viciously. His lip ripples in a hungry snarl.
“I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I’d rather DIE than beg YOU. Essaies-toi plus fort, ma jolie. I’ll scream your name when you’ve REALLY … ”
He spins them and slams the Doctor hard into the wall in turn.
“ … put your BACK into it–”
At which juncture the Doctor’s touching his length, and kissing him so voraciously that he’s rendered silent, his mind hot red static.
By the time the Doctor finishes his indignant condemnation, his chest is heaving and his muscles are trembling beneath his flesh. Each word projected outward brings with it an internal echo that begs of him to cease, a startling contrast between actions and thoughts, but in the end actions have won and the shame of having targeted his innocent beloved only adds gasoline into the raging inferno deep within. It isn’t the Master’s fault, none of this- but only his own, and he knows it, and it aches.
He lets out a resounding ’ooof!’ as the Master pulls him in and holds him, cradles him, forgives him and in his wake of self-destruction he stubbornly squirms and grunts in an attempt to free himself. He can’t, of course- he’s weak from lack of sleep and lack of proper, healthy communication and that idea only causes the vexation of his dilemma to swell until it forms tears in his weary eyes. His breathing wavers in the silence that follows, biting back against every natural urge to fill that silence with something– speaking, screaming, clawing, kicking, anything but silence and his own thoughts -and he manages it, somehow.
Shoulders tense before going lax against the Master as he speaks, the genuine love and understanding the Doctor hears there causing those watery formations to trickle down his cheeks and at once he knows he shouldn’t feel guilty- this is expected. This is common. This is the proof, the evidence of difficult labor spent chipping away at centuries, millennia of telepathic manipulation and misheld beliefs.
This is a terrified little boy in a red field being brought out in a time and place he wasn’t quite prepared for, and this is his best friend, his lover, his e v e r y t h i n g, being there to help him through- the same little boy that Theta held hands with, trapped, as Theta is, in the mind and body of a person turned into something o t h e r. A chorus of ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ rings out like a Cloister Bell in his mind but he can’t form the words, knowing they aren’t necessary. Neither can he form the words to insist that the Master is the master of something- the master of him, right there, always, the Doctor’s keeper.
He frowns at the question of sleep though, at the way the Master’s palm presses against his forehead and his eyes widen as the realization of what’s about to happen dawns on him a fraction too late. He opens his mouth but only a few whispered words escape, frenzied, rushed.
“W-Wait, I’ll let you, Kos, I swear, w-we’ll bend them together-”
Then the force of the Master’s telepathic brilliance overpowers his own, breaks down every barrier, permeates into all of his senses, occupies all thought and forces a gasp from his parted lips. Eyes roll closed and his body slumps forward against the Master, immediately unconscious, adrift in the darkness of a dreamless sleep.
The Master catches the Doctor as he falls; his expression is cautiously blank even as his beloved begs him to know his love and contrition. He only microscopically shakes his head: no, Hearts, later. Now, you rest.What is time to us?
Adrenaline, sheer will, who can be certain which, but the smaller man carries the larger in his arms directly from the library.
“Work with me here,” he growls at the rafters, and the TARDIS seems to yield to Her once-mutilator, permitting him access down Her corridors and into the bedroom.
Rarely does the Doctor even come into these chambers, which have been made luxuriant only after the Master’s arrival, with bedsheets of a high thread count, pillows everywhere, and an eternal battle between his pristine order and the Doctor’s explosive chaos, and their secret love of each other’s staple temperament. He places him down on top of the sheets, and tugs a blanket over his lanky frame.
He climbs into bed beside him and wraps his arms around his waist, nestled against his side, facing him, chin on his shoulder.
And quite unabashedly, the Master watches the Doctor sleep.
The corner of the Doctor’s mouth lifts into a crooked half smile as he feels the Master’s nose against the back of his neck, goosebumps lifting as he felt the other Time Lord inhale his scent. He tilted his head forward in silent tribute, welcoming this gesture as he did all the others. His hand lifted and draped backward, fingers carding through the Master’s hair, gently scratching his short nails along his scalp.
A steady rumble of pleasure rolls up the Master’s throat, as he so very idly, so very confidently, watches his beloved gob react to his advance. Smugly hooded eyes travel to the Doctor’s hair and arms slide through the space between head and shoulders, reaching up to comb, pet, and caress.
Trust these two fools to turn their usual abundant physical affection into something of a contest, because now, Koschei is trying to soothe his Theta into a state of silly bliss. The moment, paradoxically, that he feels the delicious scratching in his hair cease, he will know he has won.
He kisses the back of the Doctor’s neck for good measure.
“Good morning,” he greets sumptuously, even though he has no idea of a daily cycle here, idling in space; it just holds the right hopeful, intimate ring.
The moment he feels those hands begin to comb through his hair, to pet him it would seem, the Doctor knows what the Master is after and he feels compelled to hold out as long as he possibly can. The feeling produces goosebumps and a contented sigh to pass his lips, his eyes closing though his hand remains steadfast, scratching lightly at the Master’s scalp in slow movements from his crown down to the back of his neck where hairline meets bare skin.
Of all the ways for the pair of them to be in competition with one another, the Doctor must admit that this is perhaps his most cherished. A battle of affections, each of them intent on rendering the other entirely immobile by sending them into a state of physical nirvana. Seeking out this end, this peaceful end, is more intimate to the Doctor than any other form of physical touch between them and in these moments he finds himself the most happy.
The kiss at the back of his neck that his Koschei so lovingly gives nearly does him in completely, but though his hand falters for just a fraction of a second, it does not stop, but continues on its’ pathways through the short strands.
“Good morning, beautiful hearts.” he replies, voice tranquil, his entire body relaxing into a point of near serenity, not bothering to comment or even consider the fact that morning and night were rather abstract ideals in the wake of a timeless place where they can be with one another; floating through space, eternity surrounding them yet apart from them.
The Master circles around to perch in the Doctor’s lap, straddling and facing him, with a feline and fussy air, leaning into the scratching of his scalp. He shivers bodily and bats at the Doctor’s bangs very like the animal he so often resembles, with bratty, impudent, entitled, doting affection.
“D’you reaaaaally think me beautiful?” he drawls, grinning foolishly.
Fingers trace the smug curl of the Doctor’s lips, thumbing his fuller bottom lip, teasing his slim upper.
“I rather thought I was always the one fawning, and you the one preening. I was the plain peahen of our boyhood.”
Their gifts of mutual euphoria are only barely piqued; both can still speak and see in a straight line. Both can still speak and reminisce and see time as falsely direct and causal, rather than as myriad interlocking screens, a nexus, of here and then and was and will be and is. It’ll come, though.
He catches his Theta by the hand and sliiiiiides his brown pinstriped sleeve up, to reveal the fine soft skin of his inner wrist, and kiss it.
“ {You’re lovelier than a meteor shower, prettier than any pattern that smoke could make, wild and hot and fast, my comet tail.} ”
These words flow out in Old High Gallifreyan, as he nuzzles the skin he’s so thoroughly kissed, by the nose, eyes falling shut.
As he says the words with a subdued exhilaration, he gently places a small, wooden, indigo box on the desk next to the keeper of his hearts. After he does so he steps back, observing, waiting, hoping perhaps. He does a lot of that- the hoping. Ever since their few long talks, their more abundant adventures, ever since he asked Koschei to become his and had been met with a resounding ‘yes’ the fear began to transform into something else. Hope for the future. Their future together.
He’s aware of course that it’s a piffling tradition not observed by most species- both the holiday marked as Father’s Day and the gift he’s made for him [yes, made himself, both bits of it]- but it means something to the Doctor, so he hopes it means something to his other half. Within the small indigo box are two small items nestled on black velvet.
One is a ring made of a deep crimson metal with sparkling golden script- circular Gallifreyan -inscribed along the band on the outside. It is their names- their true birth names -combined into one long, flowing word in such a way that there can be no mistaking the nature of the ring itself. The second item is a small phial no larger than three centimeters [1 inch, give or take] with a sample of the Doctor’s blood. His genetic signature, the stuff that makes him, well, him. The exact thing required if they would want to, say, Loom a child?
They’ve both been parents in the past, but those days have gone and the Doctor isn’t keen on reminding them both of what they’ve lost. So instead, he’s chosen to remind his Koschei of what they could have in the future. What they could create together.
If he wants to.
Somehow exceedingly appropriate to the gesture being made, the Master has been tinkering with the water-borne microbes of the last planet the pair visited, playing with a centrifuge and microscope all day, wearing thick goggles and gloves. He finishes placing a dropper of saltwater on an empty petri dish, in the dearth of glass slides, to place it under the scope, when the Doctor slips the indigo parcel beside him.
His lover whispers something; he lifts the goggles, which had covered his ears, with an inquisitive expression.
“Hm?” he chirps, in an invigorated mood as the result of his discoveries.
Dark eyes dart to the parcel, to the Doctor’s mouth, and back down again.
“ … Oh, yes. Yeah. Right, the humans do that, don’t they? Okay, luv.”
Obliviously–indulgently, he thinks–he chuckles, slips off his gloves, and flips open the box lid.
The ring catches his eye first. He tucks his chin in for a moment, absorbing as best he can a feral myriad of potent emotions. He is again a child of seven in a field holding a bedraggled blond boy’s hand; he is again an adolescent in stifling wool and velvet Prydonian robes giving his beloved a lock of his silky black hair because he fears their bond is f a d i n g. He is again a maimed thing shrieking at the skies into which his beloved disappeared. He is again a monster trying to fill the devouring void in his chest with the deaths of other people; look at me, Doctor, LOOK at me. See me again. You tell me I don’t hear the music of the universe; that’s because I’m too blinded and deafened by you, you, only you.
And suddenly, ineffably, he is h e r e.
“Put it on me,” he breathes, and waits for his strangely furtive oldest friend to comply.
His gasps for air are soft and shallow as the watches the golden band with their enjoined names slide onto his left ring finger, forever, forever.
Mine, mine. At last. All I have ever wanted, needed. You.
He moves to kiss the Doctor, but stops short, hand still on his Theta’s jaw, when he frowns, and takes a better look within the indigo box.
Hands clamber to pull the goggles off his head; they clatter to the grates. He lifts the phial out and holds it to the light; red, it’s dark maroon red. It’s blood.
“Why would y … ?”
Happy Father’s Day.
His hand violently shakes but he manages to place the blood back safely in the box. His hands climb to his hair and pull, tear at it.
To the outward observer the reaction might be alarming, but all that this conveys is that he is overwhelmed: afraid of the perfection of this offering, and what it means.
He backs obliquely toward the other side of the workbench. He jolts against it; the petri dish falls to the ground and breaks. Five or six veins press against his temple; his face is red and his eyes have long since spilled tears.
The words come out in pitch much like the expression on his face- bitter and biting, tempered, and the syllables tremble just so at the ends. Enough to let even the most unfamiliar of strangers know that should they see any significance or worth to their lives, they won’t risk asking again. The normal rich chocolate hues of his eyes, dotted with umber and burnt sienna are now a more cafe’ noir lined with inky black. The storm is raging just beneath the surface, the result of three restless nights spent pacing the library in search of how to make the infernal nightmares- and, by consequence, the ever present noise of whispers and heartsbeats – cease.
If there is any being in all the universe whose stare can match a hopeless Doctor’s, in both blackness and intensity, it is the Master. He tilts his head to the right; it’s a form of measurement and a signal that he is game for this dark conduct.
“Then I’m sure you won’t mind me joining you. Indefinitely.”
For the challenge in his stare, his words are almost serenely cool.
You can’t pull this shit on me, Thete.
The challenge is met with narrowed eyes, until inky irises that all but match their respective pupils are but slits peeking through lids on the Doctor’s face. His own head tilts backward less than a centimeter, hardly noticeable to anyone without their keen senses. His own challenge rests in the gesture alongside a simple, stubborn message:
I can do whatever the fuck I like, Kos.
Outwardly, his words remain wooden and gelid- like the pier of a lake frozen over in winter, only creaking when stepped on too firmly and oh, oh how he creaks now.
“Indefinitely?Oohh, so now the Master’s stuck to my side like a barnacle to a sea vessel. At least I know nothing’s changed.” a flicker of his gaze from the Master’s head to his feet, then back again, “No matter. Just try and stay out of my way and for the love of Rassilon, stop asking if I’m alright. I swear, sometimes you behave just like a human.”
It’s clear he’s only trying to infuriate the other Time Lord enough to make him leave the room and leave the Doctor to his- fruitless -work. He doesn’t want to be alone. He isn’t alright. But he won’t ever, ever admit it.
“You know what, get your own act. ‘Selfish bastard’ is taken by me, and I’m way better at it. You get occasional attacks of morals.”
The Master is thrummingly aware of how much danger he’s in, to taunt the angry beast of his lifetime best friend when the Doctor is already past consolation. But he can’t stop; the truth is simple. The one thing more important to him than survival is being that impossibly stubborn “barnacle.”
He summons his lion courage and strides to a nearest bookshelf, pulls a title off and hands it to the Doctor.
Icarus 