He draws his laser screwdriver and dislodges the switchblade component. Fancy fingerwork boasted, he twirls it in his fingers and reaches up to shear off a strand of silver-blond hair, of moderate length.
He knots it into a small circle and slips it around the Doctor’s left ring finger.
“You said you wanted to marry him. Here he is. Marry me today.”
“We can go somewhere else if you like.”
His voice is gentle and without judgement, offering Koschei a way out should he find this place too much to bear a second time. But even as his best friend presses against him, hides and buries his face in his chest, he knows that the Master will not be content with running again. And that’s enough.
The Doctor’s arms wrap tightly around his lover’s body and he holds him very close, protecting him and offering him his own strength.
He’ll go first. He’ll help him.
“It’s alright to be afraid. I am, too. All the infinite possibilities, what we could be, what we will be… what we’ve been.”
He realizes as he speaks that these are his vows, and the boy who is the Doctor takes his best friend’s hands and holds them tight.
“I’m afraid… But I know that as long as you and I are together, there’s nothing we can’t take on together. Here, at the place that set us off on our long journey home… Here is where I make marriage vows to you, Koschei, and promise you this:
From today onward, you are not a failure. You are not a monster. You are not a mistake or irrelevant. You are the Universe. Every possibility creation can contain, all bundled up in you, in those beautiful hearts that you have gifted to me. You are my best friend, my savior, the only person in the universe who could have taught me that I’m worth something. You’re my husband. You’re mine. For the rest of Time.”
The Doctor lifts the Master’s chin up so he’ll meet his gaze, and Koschei will find his other half smiling, confident in this.
“I’m afraid, but I’d much rather be afraid while holding you than to do it on my own.”
For the interval that his Most Beloved speaks, the Master is without fear.
“No. Keep talking. You make me feel powerful.”
It has long been fear that’s motivated him: driven him like game outrunning hounds, to grotesque excesses. Fear of abandonment, of obsolescence, of death. Fear of ordinariness, of dullness, of insufficiency. Fear.
Fear has made him wicked, and bitter, and wrathful, and cruel. Always fear.
But that is the incantation, of their nearness: whenever he stands with the Doctor, he is recklessly unafraid, just as the Doctor forever seems reckless, and it intoxicates him, to see that legendary figure at the edge of every cliff, still shouting at the sky, shouting like they shouted as boys, that storm, rolling in, a thing that can never be fully tamed.
The only thing that the Master has ever done unmotivated by fear, was chase the Doctor.
Because the Doctor is Absence of Fear.
The instant his Theta stops speaking those words that Koschei, parched, laps up, his confidence wavers.
But Theta’s final words seep deep into some innermost recess of Koschei. And he cants his head back, and dons reading glasses that, more and more, have become necessary.
“Right, then.”
He’s not reading from any prompt but his own hearts, and yet, he wants to make it clear, he can see the Untempered Schism with every syllable that falls from his lips. A passing look of trepidation, a firm look straight into the swirling abyss of All Things, and then he turns and faces his best friend.
“I’m not afraid. I have you. I have us. We are a fixed point. Here, at the place that set us off on our long journey home… Here is where I make marriage vows to you, Theta Sigma, and promise you this:
… I promise… ah … ah, lord … Can you ever know … . is it fathomable … how important you are to me? Ah, my Sweethearts. From today onward, you are not a killer. You are not a monster. You are not a guilty survivor. There’s no blood under your nails. You needn’t outrun a hundred million ghosts; you needn’t save everyone. You are not your father’s son, you are not destined to either solitude or enslavement, and you are not burdened solely to be my keeper. You are the Universe. Every possibility creation can contain, starlight shooting out your fingertips and your hair follicles and your …nose and your eyes, hehah. You are the constellation that points me home to every purpose worth acknowledging. You are my best friend, my savior … the only person …”
He swallows loudly; a tear escapes down his cheek anyway.
“The ONLY …person … who could teach me what to do with all the awful mighty self-devouring love I’ve felt for you since we were boys. You are the only person who could teach me how to save myself. You’re …”
He draws his laser screwdriver and dislodges the switchblade component. Fancy fingerwork boasted, he twirls it in his fingers and reaches up to shear off a strand of silver-blond hair, of moderate length.
He knots it into a small circle and slips it around the Doctor’s left ring finger.
“You said you wanted to marry him. Here he is. Marry me today.”
“I take it the idea finds FAVOR with you, Hearts!” the Master thunders, as his beloved dissolves in a fit of pure elation.
He grins, smug and triumphant, blinking rapidly as he’s only barely released from the kiss.
“Golly,” he comments, almost by way of delayed reaction, eyeliner smeared and hair a disaster.
His smile, his whole demeanor, are foolishly besotted, and he who has challenged, demeaned, antagonized his lost best friend for century upon century now leans heavily into that very person, welcoming the Oncoming Storm to swallow him up in its vortex. This beast who has murdered thousands is now a boneless ragdoll at the mercy of his affianced; he smooshes his round nose into the Doctor’s and lazily kisses him back.
All but drunk on endorphins, he murmurs,
“Take me right now, to do it. Let’s do it now. C’mon, Thete, kidnap me.”
The Doctor has never been this happy in all his lives, it seems. He crows with laughter and picks the smaller Time Lord right up and kisses him again, the Master’s legs wrapping around his waist.
“HAHAHA! Careful what you wish for, Koschei!!”
“HA!”
It takes all his self-control not to throw the Master down on the nearest horizontal (or, let’s be honest, any) surface and ravish him until he’s breathless and unable to utter a word beyond the Doctor’s name.
But there will be time aplenty for that. Right now, he carries the Master to the console and sets him on the control panel before kissing him again and releasing him. He flies the TARDIS with purpose, to the spot where it all began.
Gallifrey is no longer in the same place it once was, but even a Time Lock cannot change the very fabric of reality, not the wonders of the universe sewn into that very fabric.. The Untempered Schism is one such wonder. While the Time Lords had used the Schism as a rite of passage, the tear in the space-time continuum could not be moved, even when the planet was. What remained when Gallifrey had gone was far more beautiful than what the Time Lords had made it.
It was an opening, only a few meters wide, but within the Time Vortex swirled with beautiful colors. All the possibilities and hopes of infinite realities could be seen within should one care to look long enough. This was where the Doctor and the Master had been set on their paths all those centuries ago, and this would be where Theta and Koschei finally came together.
When the Doctor parked the TARDIS, he did so with a grin and walked around to his husband-to-be and offered his hand, pulling him to the doors and opening them to reveal stars beyond number and the eye of the universe stretched out before them.
“I don’t yet have a ring for you, but I have something better. We spent so many centuries fighting and running and hating one another… but I want to make a vow to you, in front of the whole of the universe, and I could only think of one place to do that. We’re together this time, Koschei. We’re starting over, stronger and wiser for the struggles we’ve endured.”
He took Koschei’s hands and moved so they stood directly in front of the open doors as if they were an altar, and the universe was to bear witness to their union.
“Should you go first, or me?”
He’s a lazy lovesick noodle in the Doctor’s grasp, arms around his neck, grinning into his temple, murmuring sweet nothings into his temple and kissing it. All the eruptions of laughter and boisterous declarations in the world couldn’t stir him from this euphoric state, quite literally wrapped around his favorite person. His mind purrs and he smooths down his lover’s short-shorn hair needlessly, just to have an excuse to touch him.
When they arrive, however, and his dilated pupils fall on the console’s coordinates, his muscles tighten. He slides reluctantly down and off his best friend.
“ … Here?” he queries, a little breathless.
But he takes his north star by the hand and follows him outside.
And then he spots it: the epicenter of his alleged “madness,” the place where he was rendered degenerate and Other, the place where he first learned what it is to be small, insignificant, forgettable, the place where he learned shame and failure.
He is so frightened that he’s an animal; he pushes himself against the Doctor, seizes flush onto him and presses his face into his chest, even as he peeks out, and stares, hearts thundering, at the place from whence That Noise came.
His voice is small, a child’s; he is eight years old again.
“Doctor, I’m afraid.Help me.”
I want to make my vows right here. Help me be brave.
He draws his laser screwdriver and dislodges the switchblade component. Fancy fingerwork boasted, he twirls it in his fingers and reaches up to shear off a strand of silver-blond hair, of moderate length.
He knots it into a small circle and slips it around the Doctor’s left ring finger.
“You said you wanted to marry him. Here he is. Marry me today.”
He watches, somewhat confused as the Master cuts a lock of hair and fiddles with it. He doesn’t understand until the moment he slips the makeshift ring onto his finger, and in that same moment, the Doctor’s jaw drops.
“I… You…”
He stumbles over his words, eyes wide, and it’s unclear if he’s elated or terrified. Or both.
But after another moment of wordless gaping, he grabs the Master by his shirt and yanks him flush against himself. The Doctor’s lips crash against his in a furious display of passion and joy beyond words.
YES. YES, YES!!
Yes, I will marry you, my best friend, my hearts, my other half, mine mine MINE!
A joyful, boisterous laugh rumbles in his chest and bursts from his lips as he pulls away from the Master and beams ear to ear.
“Let’s do it! Best friend o’ mine, let’s elope! Run off and get married! HahaHA! HAHAHA YES!”
“I take it the idea finds FAVOR with you, Hearts!” the Master thunders, as his beloved dissolves in a fit of pure elation.
He grins, smug and triumphant, blinking rapidly as he’s only barely released from the kiss.
“Golly,” he comments, almost by way of delayed reaction, eyeliner smeared and hair a disaster.
His smile, his whole demeanor, are foolishly besotted, and he who has challenged, demeaned, antagonized his lost best friend for century upon century now leans heavily into that very person, welcoming the Oncoming Storm to swallow him up in its vortex. This beast who has murdered thousands is now a boneless ragdoll at the mercy of his affianced; he smooshes his round nose into the Doctor’s and lazily kisses him back.
All but drunk on endorphins, he murmurs,
“Take me right now, to do it. Let’s do it now. C’mon, Thete, kidnap me.”
He draws his laser screwdriver and dislodges the switchblade component. Fancy fingerwork boasted, he twirls it in his fingers and reaches up to shear off a strand of silver-blond hair, of moderate length.
He knots it into a small circle and slips it around the Doctor’s left ring finger.
“You said you wanted to marry him. Here he is. Marry me today.”
Suddenly, the Master is on his feet and the Doctor sits up, blinking his surprise.
“Wait– Koschei, wait, please!”
He stands, hearts still pounding, his desire ebbing, but still present. He steps forward and takes the Master’s hands, silently begging him not to go.
“I think we’re going in circles, saying the same exact thing. Please… We’re both saying that all we want is the other, that we’re done running… so why does it still feel like an argument? I… I need to forgive myself, yes, and maybe that’s stupid of me, but I feel like I can love you so much better if I don’t have this guilt hanging over my head. I’ve never told anyone some of the things I’ve told you. I want us to trust each other, and to… to be open, together. Love, you’re not high maintenance. You’re… passionate. You always seemed to me like a star, burning brightly, white-hot and magnificent. I don’t want to wallow, I don’t want to fight. I just want you. I want us. Please, don’t… don’t go. We should be able to talk about this. You and I should be able to get through this. Please.”
“ … look, darling, I’m not walking away to manipulate you, or even leave the TARDIS.”
The Master, iconic terror of the cosmos, could not look more like a kicked Basset Hound puppy if he tried.
“I believe you’re right. That’s why I was stepping out. The circling was giving me vertigo. And I suppose I feel … rather … a nuisance. When we’re about to have angry sex and you bellow in my face that you’re ‘never enough.’ I know that I’m greedy and insecure.”
I know I make things hard. I’m trying, though; I’m learning.
“I’m sorry that it feels like I’m doubting you.”
That bright star is dimmed and wilting, chided by the one being who can control it. But he sits, obliging the Doctor’s request.
The Doctor, who had tried to approach with a softness and understanding, feels the Master’s intensity and insistence that he is still hiding, still running after all this time. A soft growl of frustration rumbles in his chest and his grip tightens on the Master’s upper arms.
He is not gentle, and a fire burns in his eyes, dangerous and white hot. If he wants to be greedy, if he wants every ounce of the Doctor, then so be it.
“Why must I ALWAYS be hiding from you? Why must I be running? When I’m right here and telling you that together, we are unique and magnificent and beautiful!”
The Doctor’s hands came up to the Master’s cheeks and held him close, forehead pressed hard against his best friends. They slip up into his salt and pepper hair and pull on those strands, tugging his head back as he places violent, hungry kisses to his jaw.
“The only thing I am ashamed of is MYSELF! The only thing that embarrases me is the fact that I failed you so horribly for so long! Losing you was the biggest regret of all my lives! I’d die a thousand times in the most horrible ways imagined if only I could go back and keep you by my side throughout it all. Koschei– MY Koschei. I am not running from you, I’m running TO you.”
He pulled back, chest heaving, his expression a mask of guilt and intense pain.
“Please, just see that. See that this is all I want. That I’m TRYING. For you, for us…”
“You’re the only one who can answer THAT question, TOO!” the Master roars.
Exasperation turns swiftly to fury as the Doctor seizes him bodily, and both aggravates and satisfies his yearning. There it is, that tornado of dangerous, beautiful passion, there it is: his groin hardens and throbs because this is the god at whose altar he worships, this is HIS Doctor, ALL sides of him, completely succumbing to his possession. This is the god, and yet, in the SAME BREATH, his sweet, ordinary, dreaming boy, whom he would protect with his BARE TEETH.
The pain of that grasp on his arms only arouses him further; he gasps at the kisses, the bites, that mark his skin, tears spilling from flushed cheeks, catches the Doctor’s mouth hard and suckles on it until there are marks.
He tackles him and throws his weight on top of him, forces his arms apart and kisses him harder, watering the Doctor’s face with the moisture from his eyes.
“BUT I AM NOT ASHAMED OF YOU. You are, to ME, the most beautiful fucked up thing that was ever loomed! You don’t NEED to refine yourself into something more perfect, you only need STAY. Not only in body, but in mind, in hearts. Just LOOK AT ME, look at me, I am WANTON with love of you! This ‘trying’: it need only be DAILY, CONSISTENT PRESENCE. You are my perfect, wounded boy. I would die, I would kill, and I would most certainly live, for the boy who is already right here beside me.”
His body presses against the Master’s and discovers he’s hard, of all things, and that both infuriates and arouses him even more. They kiss, and it’s hard and bruising; the Doctor knows he’ll bear the marks for days.
“YOU’RE the one who keeps insisting I’m running! YOU’RE the one who says I’m keeping something back!!”
The Doctor bellows, pushing Koschei hard back against the sofa.
“Am I not ENOUGH as I am? I’m giving you my ALL, Koschei, I am HERE, and it’s still not ENOUGH!!”
“WHEN WILL I BE ENOUGH!?”
The Doctor is thrown backwards almost hard enough to knock the wind out of him, and in that moment, the Master pins him, kisses him, and as his tears fall on to the Doctor’s face, they mix with his own.
But he breaks his wrists free of the Master’s grasp and grabs him by the hair again, pressing their bodies together and grinding up against him so he can feel that Theta, too, is hard and aching with desperate need. His nails draw sharply down the Master’s back, and then he falls slack, staring up at his frenzied, ardent lover. The could continue this wild, animalistic game, but to what end?
“You say all you need is me, by your side, consistent and present and here… I’m not trying to… sterilize myself for you, condense myself into a more palatable version. I’m trying to forgive myself, to forgive you, so we might have a future together. I’m trying to learn how to love again… I’ve been here, ever since you and I found each other, mind and body and soul, and you still say I’m hiding something. I don’t know what else to do, Koschei. I’ve confessed my darkest sins, let you help me bear the weight of my own guilt… and you still say I’m running.
All I want in this damned universe is you.
I’m not gonna run away again, I’m not gonna let anything tear you out of my arms. Don’t you believe that?”
Don’t you believe in me?
“I love you. Koschei, I love you so much.”
Whatever was ignited is snuffed instantly.
“You ARE enough for me. I just TOLD you that. You were enough for me BEFORE you tried to forgive yourself. I believe you are enough, and I’ve said so repeatedly. You’re punishing me for your own insecurity. It’s easier to wallow. Believe me, I know.”
The Master struggles out from under the Doctor. He stands, smooths his clothes, smooths his hair, smooths his emotions.
“I’m sorry … . that I believed you were trying to present only your best self to me. Trust is difficult. I didn’t mean to be …”
Tiresome. Exasperating. Needy.
“ … high-maintenance.”
Why can’t you shut up and lie in wait, and scheme coldly, and hide your hearts, the way he could, when he mobilized the Autons? The way she could, when she played House in the Vault?
Why are you the worst, most pathetic version of yourself you’ve ever been? A loud-mouthed, vulnerable child?
Euthanize yourself and do your loved one a favor, why don’t you.
“I think it would be best for us both if I got some air.”
Icarus 