The Master’s bristly chin rests on the Doctor’s shoulder. Arms slide around his old friend’s waist like additional appendages, and he reaches for a fist full of marshmallows, which he places directly in his mouth.
“Mhm,” he confirms, with a smirk.
“Well, you can’t have any now. I’m going to drink yours too.” He’s smiling, and it’s audible in his voice, but he pretends it isn’t.
“I’m going to have the rest of the marshmallows, too.”
There are far too many left for this claim to be reasonable, but he holds the bag out of reach anyway. Long arms are useful for many things, the most enjoyable of which being holding things out of the reach of people who are shorter than he is.
“Oh yeah? Just so happens I have leverage, Doctor.”
By now the Master’s standing at the Doctor’s other side, leaning his head back onto his shoulder, coquettish. Wicked.
“If you eat all the marshmallows, I’ll never tell you where I’ve stashed your favorite guitar pic.”
The Master lifts his hands high in apparent surrender; they both know better. His eyebrows loft amusedly.
“Like I said, the morphology. You’ve added every single useful scanning, diagnostic, and unlocking component you’ve ever had, and I wouldn’t dream of tooching that. But all of that’s utterly pointless if the shaft is shaped like some sort of…banana or … . vibrator that while it gives me wonderfully naughty thoughts, it’ll slip right out of your hand mid-crisis … . then that’s not of much use, now is it?”
He saunters over to her side, and produces his laser.
“Simple rod shape. Retractable shaft. Easy. Because when monsters are chasing you, my love, I’d like to think you had a fighting chance of unlocking that crucial door to safe escape.”
A rueful smile.
“Take it from someone with an insider’s perspective on monsters.”
She stands there, still as a statue except for an incessantly tapping toe which seems to be containing all her energy. But this stillness belies how quickly her mind is working, imagining what this makeover would look like.
Finally, she speaks.
“Draw me oop some plans. Then we’ll see,” she declares. She’s fairly partial to the way it looks right now, but then…. she’s even more partial to watching him work. And extremely self-centred when it comes to watching him make things for her.
Koschei’s face is radiant. The patina of youthful enthusiasm inherited to match the Doctor three faces back is just as suitable to her elastically joyful new personality. He seizes her arms and leaps up and down like a child on a trampoline.
“Oh, JOLLY good.” No one says jolly good anymore, but the Master certainly does. “YES! I will give you the most rigorously, mathematically precise calculations conceivable, and you will be wooed by my logic! WOOED, I tell you. Oh, darling.”
He claps his hands over her cheeks.
“DAR-ling, thank you! This has worried me EVER so much!”
Oh, perilous place walk backwards toward you Blink disbelieving eyes chilled to the bone Most visibly brave no apprehended bloom First to take this foot to virgin snow
I am magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment I am a wunderkind And I live the envelope pushed far enough to believe this I am a princess on the way to my throne Destined to serve, destined to roam
Oh, ominous place spellbound and un-child-proofed My least favorite shelter to bear alone Compatriots in face, they’d cringe if I told you Our best back pocket secret, our bond full blown
And I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment I am a wunderkind And I am pioneer, naive enough to believe this I am a princess on the way to my throne Destined to seek, destined to know
Most beautiful place reborn and blown off roof My view about face whether great will be done
And I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a Joan of Arc and smart enough to believe this I am a princess on the way to my throne Destined to reign, destined to roam Destined to reign, destined to roam
“What, landed us at the intended place and time on the first try? Bollocks, open the doors, you fibber!”
The Master dashes toward the TARDIS entrance with a wicked guffaw.
The Doctor rushes towards the TARDIS doors, nearly tripping over herself in her haste to beat him there.
“I proper did it this time! Honestly is it so hard to believe–”
There’s a pregnant pause as she peers out the doors at the chaos on the other side. A swirl of wind and sand, some sort of desert tinged a deep unnatural red. Definitely the wrong place. Immediately she attempts to pull the doors shut again, a deep blush creeping up the back of her neck.
Damn it.
“ … if you’d like I can, ah, pretend to have not noticed you going quiet, and I can sort of, go to the bathroom or something, while you do the Not-Trial-Number-Two. And then come back, and be amazed.”
The Master is trying to sound supportive but he also can’t conceal his amusement, or the way it hitches his powerful baritone to a higher sort of secpn soprano, the more he strives to muffle his laughter.
The Master’s bristly chin rests on the Doctor’s shoulder. Arms slide around his old friend’s waist like additional appendages, and he reaches for a fist full of marshmallows, which he places directly in his mouth.
Icarus 