He loves the finality of bodies hitting hard surfaces.
The Master loves to watch the final impotent exercise in futility, as a foe’s form wriggles and writhes like a worm on a hook and finally falls slack in blissful lifelessness. It’s nearly as grand as watching an enemy’s skin blister as he burns.
He loves these things without pretense, needy and ironically abject as an addict standing in the rain begging strangers for a lighter.
He loves them, and he indulges every whim to a new fix, the longer the epicenter of his life is skewed off course: the longer the Doctor is no more.
It’s rare that he feels that darkness existing palpably outside his own mind. But he feels the rage radiating from above his head, and it is raining on Mondas, raining on the corpses of the government agents that rose against him for his tyranny and died. Raining off the blood on his face and mouth and hands, raining a deluge so forceful that he nearly cannot see the blue box materializing on the muddy slippery hill overlooking the most populated platform of the ship.
The Master’s feet carry him upwards, until he’s waiting outside the TARDIS door for the man who steps out; without having ever seen this long thin face, he knows his oldest friend; the miasma of violent darkness radiating off of the Doctor, however, that is new, and it is intoxicating.
He is impenitently aroused.
“Oh, you … are … . beautiful,” he breathes, snatching out a hand, cupping the Doctor’s jaw harshly, appraising the old friend who has sunken into the quicksand beside him. “A Doctor without hope: you are a black hole. I feel that I am standing inches from death and I would nearly pitch myself over the ledge into oblivion just for the pleasure of the fall.”
That crafty little timeship.
Theta’s scowl immediately transforms into something between a satisfied smirk and astounded pleasure as his green eyes land on the visage just outside the doors. A visage so familiar that for a few seconds he deigns to give himself permission to believe it, because it simply can’t be true. Yet here he is, standing before him, older than he had been the last time they’d met and looking for all the cosmos as if he’d been having all the fun. He wants to ask a flurry of invasive questions, the first of which being how in Rassilon’s name the Master had escaped a timelocked planet in the throes of an epoch War, but he remains silent.
The scent of blood and rain, of dirt, of fire and burning flesh, it fills his nostrils and they flare as his pupils dilate. It’s liking to that of two predators meeting in the heated jungle during the depths of the twilight hours, eyes glowing and muscles both lax and tensed- always prepared to spring. Theta doesn’t move a centimeter as the Master’s hand lifts to grasp his jaw, studying, and he knows just what the other Time Lord is seeing. Instead of attempting to hide it, the satisfied smirk widens and those green eyes practically shine with malevolence, with pride, with lust.
He lets the Master speak, if only because he can feel the appreciation, the arousal, rolling from him in droves, the energy electric even in the wet of the rainfall. He doesn’t bother to attempt control over his biological systems- he lets his hearts speed up with excitement and anticipation, he allows his breath to shallow and escape with a shudder that lets the Master know he enjoys the words, enjoys the sharp grip he has on his jaw. As he speaks his tone is almost flirtatious.
“Well look who’s found his way off of Gallifrey. A true Master, if there ever were one and might I say… you look positively dashing covered in the blood of your enemies. It’s a shame the rain’s washed most of it away. I only wish I’d gotten here sooner so I could’ve joined in on the fun.”
He inhales again, deeply, and his green eyes darken.
“A few things before either of us get into questions, of which I’m sure we both have plenty. The first rather important thing is that I’m happy to see you. The second, nearly as important as the first, is that I don’t use that title anymore. I’m not the Doctor, I’m Theta. Just- Just Theta. The Doctor is gone, and good riddance. Now on to the third. The third and most important thing I’ve ever said, at least up ‘till now…”
Theta lifts his own hand then, fingertip tracing the outline of the Master’s face, trailing temple and cheek and finally jawline. He still speaks too much, it’s true, but at least now he says things that matter. He’s honest, blunt, and there is very little in the way of theatrics.
“You were absolutely right. I was a fool. I allowed myself to become perhaps even more despicable than the Council itself, and for that, I apologize. Hope is a frail and pointless venture, justice and peace futile mistresses and I’ve wasted enough centuries in the company of apes chasing after them. If I’m honest, your hand was the only one ever worth holding on to and…”
His fingertip trails lower, following the Master’s pulses-point all the way down to the sodden collar of his shirt, curling into it and pulling him closer.
“…-yes, you are standing inches from death and believe me when I say… the fall would be absolutely euphoric. Some may say it’s almost a religious experience, but I never put much stock in theological matters. Now, what d’you say you and I have a little chat, ay?”
The Master licks his lips, on which infinities of possible responses pose. Should he be grateful? Horrified? Stimulated? Angered? Threatened? Aroused?
All of the above?
The emotions crash, beat against each other like boiling waves, and manifest violently fast: his hand collides with the Doctor’s cheek. The sound that erupts is ballistic. The force of it echoes across the Mondasian landscape.
He’s on the Doctor then, scarcely hearing anything he’s said in the wake of a single phrase.
“Say that again. Say I was right.”
He’s backed him against the TARDIS door, face contorted with bewilderment and rage and lust.
“SAY it!”
Doctor, he’s no longer the Doctor?
If he isn’t the Doctor, then what is the Master?
The dichotomy must be upheld or their orbit will lose its gravitational pull and they will both collapse into oblivion.
This freefall suddenly terrifies. It is wrong, wrong as cold fire and hot snow, and the only consolation the Master has is to hear that the once-Doctor understands his years of quarreling with the sky.
He seizes her face, drags his hands down her cheeks, down her impossibly little neck; how can a storm also be so fragile?
His fingers irrigate little red marks down her shoulders, down her arms, then coil around her waist and return up the terrain of her back (that back, it’s held so many burdens, so many w o r l d s of burden!) and his fingers find their home in her hair, and his fingers dig into her scalp, his nails scratch her scalp, and he takes fists of her hair, and he grinds his teeth and he weeps, because sometimes, g o d , sometimes it’s too much for them to resonate on the same frequency so close together, sometimes it’s too sublime, so joyful that it pitches itself close to desolation, sometimes he could sit on the ground and sob at the notion of her existence. Sometimes.
But Koschei loves his Theta Sigma.
He is a round-faced brown-eyed bearded silver-blond, and he is also a black-haired blue-eyed little boy who failed and urinated in his robes in front of a gaping wound in time and space, but who loved, loved, LOVED the boy who took him from there, and held him high with words and dreams.
“Let me fill you,” he gasps, against her ear, “let me fill you and warm you, let me protect you, let me cease to be except with you … !”
Easy? Hardly, that was excruciating. And yet he can’t but feel softly. Softly, for the angry, weary, befuddled old man (old, like he is) fumbling for his dignity. And that is all he’s ever wanted to see from the Doctor, in the end: some semblance of vulnerability, or neediness. Some sort of aching empty spot where Koschei used to be. Rather like the facade of an old house, whose shutters have been ripped off, and the remaining rectangular stains haven’t weathered like the rest of the house. Something fresh and vibrant and yet devoid, beneath, within.
At his core, the Master wants to feel … . mandatory. Necessary. Needed.
By this specific person: or who this specific person was.
Softly, yes. He feels softly. Like he never feels.
How terribly, sentimentally ordinary of him.
“You’re welcome,” the words escape before he’s able to stop himself, because they are the truth.
But when the Doctor lets slip his true condition, up flies a protective emotional exoskeleton around the Master’s hearts. Up like the carapaceof an armadillo, circling itself. His eyes blaze and flash.
“Like hell you’re fine,” he snarls, face viciously animated, even while his voice remains discreetly low. Because this is his, this is HIS to hoard, the Doctor told HIM first how badly off he really is, and no one, not a cyberman named Bill, and not even his own future self, can take that away. “If your body is trying to regenerate that’s the very definition of not fine.”
He leans across the bed, feigning an effort to adjust the curtains and shutters, glances around, and continues, in the Doctor’s ear, so close that his scent of cloves and engine grease is overpowering.
“It’s mindfulness. That’s literally ninety-nine percent of it. You have to will yourself not to regenerate. You have to recite it like a mantra, and keep your mind from wandering off the subj … look, Doctor, I’m not giving you advice on how I stopped my own regeneration. You may recall that ended with me dying.”
He grinds his teeth.
“I’m rather not keen on you copycatting me.”
He rolls his eyes and puts his water down. ‘Like hell you’re fine’. Yeah, he’s very much aware of that; he just didn’t expect to be called out on it so directly. He supposes he shouldn’t have expected anything else. This is his oldest friend, and he does know him better than anyone else.
“Alright, well, if not-fine is what you want to call it, go ahead. But as far as anyone else is concerned, especially Bill Potts, and including your future self, I’m FINE. One person’s concern is quite enough for me.” And yours is the one I’ve chosen.
The Doctor watches him as he moves closer, but ignores the strange mix of instincts he has to both push him away and pull him closer all at once. The closer someone is, the more easily they can hurt him. Physically and emotionally. He would do well to remember that. But the urge he has to grasp him by the shoulders and hold him right where he is or closer — that’s one he’s not sure how to handle. It comes with the voice that whispers ‘please don’t ever leave me alone, I’m hurting and you’re the only person in this universe who understands’; the same voice he chooses never to speak aloud because it would reveal too much. He’s unable to make a decision between his two instincts, so grips the sheets either side of him instead, and lies still.
“That’s not your choice to make.” He speaks seriously but calmly. His death is, and has always been, something that isn’t finality or closure for him. Because he dies, and he is reborn into a new body, and he must work himself out all over again. Just for once, he wants that concept to mean the same as it does to those without the gift or curse of regeneration. “It has to be my choice. I can’t do this again. Why is it never my turn to rest?”
He doesn’t expect an answer. Doesn’t want one, really. He turns on his side, facing the other way. Hiding, again. Don’t look at me.
The Master sits looking at the Doctor, who doesn’t want to be looked at, piercingly, knowing him mercilessly, loving him recklessly; this Master cannot be Missy, the clever cool lioness lying in wait, for he can conceal his claws to be a charming politician, but not when the person with whom he is most infatuated, the person whom he has adored since the day they met, is in the same vicinity. He’s a tuning fork picking up the Doctor’s vibrations, and they are loud, and they are violent, and never more so than when the Doctor is SILENT.
So it’s with a look of knowing, bleak exasperation that the Master smiles, the longer the Doctor faces away and strives to ignore him.
‘That’s not your choice to make.’
It’s in that moment that the Master realizes there is no honor, no privilege, in being the Doctor’s confidante. He was just HERE, when the Doctor was tired and discouraged enough to be candid. Just in the right place at the right time. Any show of steadfastness or loyalty or kindness rewarded with scoffing, yet again, with rebukes and cold shoulders. There is nothing special about him at all.
It was just a fluke.
“So you’ve told me that you plan to kill yourself, you’ve entrusted ME with that, and nobody else, and I’m the one who’ll have to watch it happen, because it’s ‘your choice to make.’”
He pauses, to gasp a laugh, and slowly shake his head.
“You’ve put me in that position, Doctor. Nobody but you.”
He leans in very close, lips a wounded sneer.
“I didn’t realize you were auditioning for MY part.”
{ You selfish prick. }
He stands, withdraws his jacket violently from the Doctor’s grasp. He dons it with brusque efficiency.
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.
“Help me forget a while.”
she’s eager to help; he can read the tension not just in his face but his entire frame. the entire line of questioning had felt like a firing squad in her opinion. she had kept her tongue, however, unwilling to make it seem like koschei couldn’t speak for himself. but she will not waver on his role, or the complete overhaul of the testing procedures. it’s another step in gallifrey’s reformation. for the better, as far as she’s concerned.
her fingers dig deep into his shoulders, dragging the fabric of his robes to the floor somewhere on her left. her motions dip across his shoulder blades to his spine and back again, massaging anywhere she can. she mind is calm, warm, enveloping as she embraces him physically and emotionally at his request. yes, she can do that.
one hand breaks off the massage to drag through his hair, nails against his scalp. she tilts her head to press a series of kisses against his temple, trailing until she can kiss him properly. her other hand digs into the muscles down his spine, and she hums softly in agreement.
“of course.” she murmurs against his skin. “here, or shall i run you a bath?”
Koschei falls forward onto his face and stomach. He groans a long, quasi-obscene sound as the lady president’s fingers knead into and render pliant dough of his battle-taut muscles.
When his best friend encircles him mind and body he exhales just as slowly, and closes his eyes.
“Couldn’t move if I wanted to,” comes his voice from a smushed, muffled place somewhere in the sheets.
And when her hands employ their secretmost weapon and comb tension from his scalp, his mindscape is a bath of batik ink, swirling outward from a throbbing red place into gradations of violet and blue, indigo to cerulean to the hue of earth’s skies.
“Whoooooohhh,” comes the Master’s inarticulately blissful warbling.
“ … . That’s all I ever wanted to hear from you and yet I’m … I’m sometimes uncertain where to go from here. Hating you and finding ways to render your life’s mission moot … was … . my default setting for centuries.”
“How do I see the man behind the monster? How do you?”
“How DARE you, Rose Tyler! What happened to sisters over misters? We were meant to be the bleach-dyed duo and now you’ve gone and spoiled our mojo!”
“You’re tellin’ me that Time Lords have to reduce themselves to bleach? Talk about superior biology. Oh, please tell me hers is bleached, too? We’re not the bleached trio, are we?”
“Well I didn’t exactly bleach my hair during the brief interlude when it was THAT pale a blond; I wouldn’t go for a bottle of Sun-In while I was a cannibalistic electric skeleton running naked about London at Christmastime, now would I? Bit of a complication with being resurrected properly and an angry ex-wife. Some ex-wives want alimony, but mine? Me as a cannibalistic electric skeleton, I suppose, or, you know, rather dead. As for the Doctor, she came out the regeneration with that hair, but I guess we’ll see when her roots grow out.”
Icarus 