“HehHAH, what’d I do? This is a most blessed visit.”
The Master follows wife and daughter out into that which is reminiscent of the red grassy fields made sacred by memory. He can’t help it: even when on another planet, his mind returns to the place of origin for every happiest state of his hearts. Still, the fireflies are bigger, fatter, and brighter on this planet, as he and Theta both aim to please their beloved babygirl.
“You know, I’m not sure I care, long as I’ve got my girls… . ! What IS it, my brilliant star? Oh golly, you’re joost piping with ideas!”
He bends carefully to hoist Celesia up onto his shoulders.
“Look, Lessie, look! See the lights? Those are bugs! They look like fallen stars, now don’t they? But you know those stars are all big …bigger than this whole field, bigger than ten of these whole fields? They’re joost very, very far away. Wave to them! Wave, loov! There’s a girl! Maybe you have a friend on one of those stars waving back, that you and mum and me’ll get to meet someday, hm? Like mum and I were friends!”
He realizes, of course, from his typically voracious study of child development, that Celesia can probably latch onto only a handful of the words he speaks, but Koschei hates the idea of ever speaking down to his daughter, and so it’s typical that they converse in this manner, her babbles to his full sentences, with mutually feeding enthusiasm.
“Well hold onto your corset, you slut,” Koschei teases, still with that wicked, savory grin, “cause you broke your brain while trying to build us a baby-making machine. Literally.”
He clears his throat and rattles off the particulars.
“A short in the Chameleon Arch. You tried to use components from that to help solidify the creation of the memetic primer–the information transference node, part of the genetic loom–without having to make it entirely from scratch. You bastardized one part of our TARDIS–our time travel device, coom on, tell me you haven’t forgotten that–in order to build another part.”
He pauses and holds out his hands.
“Okay, rewinding. Every Time Lord–that’s what you and I are–has a Chameleon Arch dedicated to recording their biodata, and rewriting it should the Time Lord elect to do so, to the point of being able to change species, with or without changing appearance. You and I have both elected to do this before, to become human. That’ll coom back to you, trust me, in both cases the, ah, consequences, were … vivid.”
From the Doctor, he retrieves a little fobwatch, which happens to be singed along the edges.
“So yeah. You broke your biodata nodule, genius. Trying to extract some of it and put into a loom, so your half of the baby we’d planned to make together was accounted for.”
He pauses, and squats in front of his husband, face just laden with wryness.
“Did you joost call me scary, and then stimulating, implying that this arouses you? Oh jolly good. You’re definitely cooming back from the accident, now.”
He claps him hard on the back.
‘Thete’s’ face is absolutely burning, Koschei’s piquant grin and subsequent comment about him being a slut of all things rendering flesh to ash and converting his blood to liquid fire. He can’t be certain, the title Doctor notwithstanding as his memories are still scattered to the winds, but he’s almost positive there isn’t any of that liquid-fire-blood left in the rest of his body. This man- this gorgeous, wonderful man is hishusband and for what feels like the millionth time in so many minutes he’s astounded by this fact.
“I’ve got the feeling it would arouse me whether or not I had my memories…”
He begins with a cheeky sentence, but trails off having finally registered the words that had come from Koschei’s mouth. His own mouth falls open silently, chocolate-umber eyes widening just a fraction. Before he can blink his mind is swimming with information to the extent that he can’t speak for quite some time.
It would be a blessing if he didn’t have need to actually engage in this part of the conversation.
His eyes merely follow Koschei’s hands as he seems to locate a charred pocket watch hidden in the confines of the suit jacket he’s wearing, mouth still open, unable to articulate even the simplest of phrases. The proximity of the other man as he squats in front of him certainly doesn’t help, but the clap on the back seems to jolt him out of his confounded state. Blinking rapidly and inhaling a long, sharp breath he scuttles backward and climbs to his feet. The words come then, whether he bids them to or not, free-flowing and instinctual though not all together intelligent at first.
“W-What? Our- our WHAT? That’s-… We’re… Y-You just said-…”
He clears his throat, shakes his head to rid it of the fog that’s settled inside it, and tries again. He’s in shock, clearly, and that once-burning face is now going pale in the wake of discovery.
“I was- I was attempting to take apart something called a- a Chameleon Arch to get to the biodata nodule, and it’s- it’s a system that’s used to transform us from a Time Lordwhatever-that-is, into another species such as- as a human, and I shorted it out and this-”
He gestures to the room around them vaguely.
“-this is our TARDIS? A… a time machine? I don’t- I… I don’t remember…”
Apparently he’s used up his reserve of intelligent words for the moment and now he’s back to stumbling over them dumbly, backing away from the other man and rubbing a hand against his temple. Swallowing thickly his eyes travel to the pocket watch in the other man’s hands.
“That thing. That watch. If you open it, my memories will come back, won’t they.”
It’s an assumption, not a question, and to his bones he feels he’s made the correct one. His voice is shaking now and he looks properly terrified of the small metal object. In his inability to remember himself, in his inability to recall his wish to avoid vulnerability, in his inability to recall anything of himself and Koschei together, he speaks the absolute truth and doesn’t waver. Doesn’t dramatize. But he does start to tear up, face damp as the words tumble out again.
“I’ve… I’ve done something horrible, haven’t I. In the past, I’ve done terrible things. I can- I can feel them inside. I can’t remember a lick of it but I can feel them, these dark, shameful things in the back of my mind. So many dark, shameful things, so many regrets. I can almost hear them, it’s like- it’s like I’ve got two hearts beating in my ears and I can hear them screaming. Echoes of screaming, whispers almost, if you- if you open that thing what sort of man will I become? Koschei, I’m… I’m terrified of the man I might become.”
He doesn’t know it, but he’s said those exact eight words to Koschei before, when they were adolescents, before it all went wrong. In this his moment of pure, unfiltered horror about himself and the ghost of the scars left behind from his past, he’s never seemed more like himself.
“Oho, darling.”
There you are, my Dreamer, leadened only ever by your own self-doubt.
The Master croons his fond concern, placing the fobwatch aside for the moment, ridding his beloved of the source of his dread. But the source of his crisis remains within. So his steadfast pursuant–his best friend–creeps quietly over to where he cowers.
“I’m gonna tell you something you told me before I was ready to accept it. Here’s hoping you’re more mature, more …gracious, than I was. In fact, I know you are. So here goes.”
He takes the Doctor’s face in his hands, without stepping on his feet in the customary manner, without invading his space.
“I forgive you.”
He pauses, to search frightened dark eyes.
“Sweethearts–yeah, there are two, we both have two… . sometimes it feels like I gave you one of mine and you gave me one of yours … and that’s important, because … who are you? Well, you’re me. And I’m you. We met as children, and we learned … very quickly, that we would never be alone, because while no one else ever fully understood us, we understood each other. So. Yeah. You’ve done terrible things, all on your own. And guess what: so have I. But when we’re together we both somehow seem to just … do better. Loads better. That’s why we’re married. That’s why we decided to make a kid.”
“You are imperfect but you are mine. And you are safe. This remains a constant--both your imperfection and my companionship–whether you choose to regain your memories or not. And how’s this for a closing argument: I chose to forget for a long time too. Something like … seventy years. I had another name, Yana. And if I hadn’t opened my fobwatch, a lot of terrible things wouldn’t have happened. But. I would have never come back to you, either.”
That slap couldn’t be more comforting; the Master barks a laugh.
“You b a s t a r d, got amnesia and still having the time of your bloody LIFE. That is SO you, Thete.”
The Master bares his teeth again at his husband, letting slip the truncation of the Doctor’s school nickname. He smacks down his palms square on each of the Doctor’s thighs and leans in closer still.
“Floppy, pretty, sentimental dandy, you don’t know how happy it makes me that ninety percent of you is still intact.”
And surprisingly, he returns lewdness with chastity, pecking his beloved on the forehead. He saw the lump in his trousers. He knows. Concealing it is a moot point. Yet he allows his friend his dignity, this once, under extenuating circumstances.
“Right. No more monkey business.”
This time he well and properly disentangles himself, stalking over to the smoking circuitry. He straps on a toolbelt. He pulls a pair of goggles from an overhead cubbyhole and wheels himself under the console. The sound of tightening screws and turning gears is plentiful for several moments.
Then,
“Oh, ZOUNDS. Oh, I got it. Oh golly, I’m clever.”
He wheels out, engine oil on his cheeks and button nose, hair a mess, with an expression of mad enthusiasm.
“Darling! I’ve figured out what happened.”
Thete.
So he does have a proper name after all, and that fact only confirms the rest- he is mostdefinitely a prig who’s given himself a title out of assumption rather than achievement, and he can only hope that he’s lived up to at least half of what the word ‘Doctor’ implies. If he hasn’t, perhaps he’ll stick to Thete from now on, even once his memories are sorted and locked together again like so many pieces of a scattered jigsaw puzzle.
“I’ve got a feeling I’m only having the time of my life because you’re in it, Kosch.”
It’s instinct that tells him to truncate Koschei’s own name, and it feels just as natural as he does so. The words are said with a dual tone, both genuine and flirtatious. Even as he can’t remember who he is, who he was, or the history he has with this beautiful man he can still feel it deep down, just beneath the blurred and laundered surface. This is him. This is them, so very them.
A squeak escapes him and his hips jerk upward as palms slap against thighs through pinstriped fabric and, much to his own embarrassment, the lump in his trousers becomes prominent and well defined. He ignores it because he has no choice, the sound of two heartbeats surging through his ears nearly deafening, blood immediately turning warm and causing his flesh to tingle. Scratch his previous thoughts- he needs his memories back, now, so that when he pounces on this gorgeous man, he knows exactly what he’s doing.
His eyes lighten to chocolate even as his pupils dilate, practically shimmering in the light of the room around them and those eyes flicker to Koschei’s bared teeth, then back up to meet his gaze. His breath comes out trembling and his face, once again, burns a deep crimson. His hands clench against the grating beneath him and his body shivers, startled that this man can cause such an immediate and uncontrollable reaction not only in his mind, but biologically as well.
“Blimey, you’re sort of t e r r i f y i n g… it’s q-quite stimulating.”
He’s just said that. Out loud and everything. Gods, he needs to shut up. He holds his breath to ensure no more words can escape, counting silently in his head. To his relief and, somewhere in a more primal place his disappointment, Koschei kisses his forehead and promptly walks away from him. His held breath leaves in a whoosh of air from his lungs and he scrubs both hands down his face, attempting to regain some semblance of control.
’Thete’, as he now knows himself to be, sits silently and studies the room surrounding him as the sounds of mechanical tinkering fills his ears. By the time Koschei announces that he’s sorted out the problem, Thete’s body is thankfully back under his control and he’s settled down quite a bit- at least until the other man crawls out from beneath what appears to be some sort of control panel, covered in oil and soot with his hair messed about.
Oh no.
He barely manages to avoid asking how either of them manage to get anything done when Koschei is so bloody attractive, but thankfully steers his words to a more constructive and appropriate conversation.
“R-Right. What- What’ve you found out? Have I broken something? I’ve broken something, haven’t I? See, I knew I shouldn’t have taken on the title of Doctor without earning it first. What’ve I broken?”
“Well hold onto your corset, you slut,” Koschei teases, still with that wicked, savory grin, “cause you broke your brain while trying to build us a baby-making machine. Literally.”
He clears his throat and rattles off the particulars.
“A short in the Chameleon Arch. You tried to use components from that to help solidify the creation of the memetic primer–the information transference node, part of the genetic loom–without having to make it entirely from scratch. You bastardized one part of our TARDIS–our time travel device, coom on, tell me you haven’t forgotten that–in order to build another part.”
He pauses and holds out his hands.
“Okay, rewinding. Every Time Lord–that’s what you and I are–has a Chameleon Arch dedicated to recording their biodata, and rewriting it should the Time Lord elect to do so, to the point of being able to change species, with or without changing appearance. You and I have both elected to do this before, to become human. That’ll coom back to you, trust me, in both cases the, ah, consequences, were … vivid.”
From the Doctor, he retrieves a little fobwatch, which happens to be singed along the edges.
“So yeah. You broke your biodata nodule, genius. Trying to extract some of it and put into a loom, so your half of the baby we’d planned to make together was accounted for.”
He pauses, and squats in front of his husband, face just laden with wryness.
“Did you joost call me scary, and then stimulating, implying that this arouses you? Oh jolly good. You’re definitely cooming back from the accident, now.”
Tonight he feels inert with the futility of his smallness.
Tonight he can’t shake off the ghosts.
Tonight he can’t stop the stomachache.
Tonight his faults are loud as klaxons.
Tonight he sits at the edge of his bed and stares at his hands and wonders why he bothers to do anything but smash things together and kill.
She can feel his sorrow, the knot in his stomach identical to the one in hers. She can hear the whispers of the ghosts in his mind, taunting him with past mistakes and blood on his hands. She understands the thoughts he is harboring, likely better than anyone else, yet it is her job to help him let them go.
The Doctor walks quietly into their bedroom, a place that has become a haven of comfort and love. A place of laughter and affection and memories that might just be loud enough to drown out the lies his own mind is fueling.
Crawling on all fours onto the bed, she settles behind him, wrapping her legs around his waist and hugging his back like a koala. She presses a kiss to the back of his neck and holds her hands over his hearts, nuzzling closer and letting her mind seep into his like a cool, calming breeze.
“I know, hearts. I know, my dearest friend. My Kookaburra, my husband. But listen to me, listen and take my words to heart. You are so much more than the destruction in your past. You are so much more than a weapon, so much more than what they made you to be. You are a MIRACLE, a creator, a force of nature like the most beautiful storm. You helped create our daughter, you create such joy in our lives, such happiness. You are kind and loving and protective. You are my strength. You are so much more than smashing things and killing. You’ve moved beyond that and I am so proud of you, Koschei.
“You’re allowed to hurt, you’re allowed to ache, but I pray you don’t lose sight of the truth we’ve created together. I love you, Koschei. Master of my hearts.
I love you and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do if it made you see yourself through my eyes.”
Thawing him takes very little time once she’s present. Koschei takes his Theta’s right hand, and places his palm on her left leg. He fondles her calf and kisses her knuckles. The distant look caught halfway between nauseated rage and grief ebbs.
He exhales and leans back into her. He turns his head and catches her eye with a knowing look, a look of affectionate reprimand, how dare you know me so well, how dare you ruin my mope so quickly and skillfully?
He manages a grunt of laughter even then.
“You make me feel it’s all worth it. So easily.”
And then he’s smiling.
“Saved the day again, Doctor.”
He uses her title with the fullest understanding of its literal and ironic connotations, loaded with respect for the crisis of identity she’s long undertaken.
Sometimes he thinks maybe her entire life has been a desperate attempt at recompense for leaving him. The thought both breaks and warms him; it makes such blissful sense that he would reassure her, soothe her, by dedicating himself to being better.
He was BORED.He had been piloting the TARDIS wherever she would take him. He didn’t do anything on the planets he visited, not really. He just walked around them and observed life going on while he thought up music for his guitar.
He wasn’t mourning, or at least he didn’t think he was. He was just, tired of the universe. he was tired of the hypocrisy and the lies and slander. He was tired of the violence and war. He just wanted to r e s t.
Alas, the universe called. He was currently situated in his TARDIS when she let out a warning hum before she took off without his ministrations. He stumbled on his feet and ran to the console room to find the door already open.
WHO could have done this?
Who indeed, who or what.
A red-meat-eating, volcano-roaring, blood-spilling career assassin; a beast with hearts too large and too charred; a child scared of the dark that is being forgotten and dying, lashing out perennially; a lover ousted by the other half of his own soul.
An arrogant dick, who calls himself “Master.”
Clad in head to toe black and red, the colors of death and its price, he’s leaning against a crashed space shuttle that’s still smoking.
While eating Jelly Babies. Popping them, one at a time, cavalierly, into his mouth.
“Hey bitch,” he merrily cries, and aims a black-nailed middle finger at his incredulous oldest friend. “Remember me?”
A pause, glancing back at the collateral.
“Oh, relax. It wasn’t inhabited. I was just trying to catch your attention.”
He closes the piano lid just as she utters her final line, and shakes his head, and shakes it again, almost so violently that it should do damage to his neck and shoulders. Almost like a child banishing a poltergeist.
He shudders and it seems exorcized, the mood, the memories.
“Oh, enough,” he sighs, turns and seizes her against him. “We’re both so stupid, Doctor.”
The fingers of one hand dig into her scalp, the others into the back of her little rainbow shirt, pulling it tight, clutching a fist full of thick soft bleached hair, evidence that she is real and she is present, evidence that centuries of fruitless struggle, cycling a highway ramp with no exits, have ended.
“I love you. Say you love me. It’s that simple and that complex.”
He smiles at the ceiling.
“Aren’t you proud of me? See, I learn. I even learn fast. You know what I think you should do? What we should do?”
He peels himself off her with great effort, and rests his palms on her youthful, elfin face.
“Let’s demolish this room. Don’t ask the TARDIS to do it. Do it manually. Let’s do a … a cleanse, hm?”
A pause, as his eyes rove the room.
“Except I wanna keep the piano. I like the piano. And. I want a kangaroo. And a license to be a brain surgeon. And … maybe some Jelly Babies.”
Echoes of Missy, who is, somewhere, smiling.
Her hands slide away the moment the piano lid closes, harmonious in the way that it all seems to stop at once. Her singing, the fog around them, the last humming tune of the piano strings resonating inside the instrument. It all just stops, still, silent, peaceful. Then he’s shaking his head next to her and she understands, and he shudders and she does as well.
In tandem, it seems, they release what it was that had been holding them moments ago. She can feel it leaving him, leaving herself, like a breath held betwixt them. Like the past, over and done.
She leans into his arms as they surround her, solid and sure, real- an anchor as they’d always been and would always be. Her own arms circle his abdomen, smaller frame settling perfectly against his as she buries her face against his throat. She inhales deeply and her eyes roll shut, letting the scent of home wash over her. He’s her home now. He has been since they’d met, and lost though they both had been they’d finally found their way back.
The closeness, the way he clings to her and she to him, her smaller fists clenching the fabric of his shirt and only a little satisfied in knowing it will leave wrinkles behind, it makes her blood tingle. She doesn’t interrupt him once the entire time he’s speaking, not even as he peels himself from her and her from him- not as he cups her cheeks against his own palms, her hands finding purchase this time in the fabric at the front of his shirt, unwilling to let go.
Instead she waits with a smile on her face and her watery eyes filled with affection. She waits until his eyes wander through corridors of the past, echoes of the future, both at once or none at all. They’d changed their fate together but the memories remained at the epicenter, the causal nexus. Them. Then her hands untangle from his shirt and lift to mirror his position, cupping his face with slender fingers trailing the skin atop his cheekbones. Her left ring finger still holds a crimson band with golden writing, only smaller than it had been, scaled down to fit properly.
“I love you, too. I’ll say it every minute’a every day, f’I ‘ave to, but I love you, husband. Both my ‘earts are yours, forever, jus’ like they always ‘ave been. An’ look’it us now. Together, an’ happy. Married. Properly bloody married, can y’believe it? The Doctor an’ the Master in the TARDIS, as it should be.”
She lets out a soft, watery chuckle and her eyes turn upward.
“Think a cleanse sounds brilliant. Can relocate the piano, tear the rest to bits with our bare hands, f’you like.”
Her eyes eventually came full circle and she looks at him full on once more, chuckling softly again at his list of demands- an echo, just as those corridors had been. Just as the room itself, the Vault, currently was.
“First off y’ve already got a license t’be a brain surgeon, just not on Earth. Second, there’s a stockpile’a Jelly Babies in the galley an’ you’re welcome to ’em any time. Third… I’m not gettin’ you a kangaroo, but I might be persuaded t’get you a… k o a l a b e a r.”
Her grin at those last two words is positively impish.
“ … SO? I want another. I want a double-M.D. And maybe a few PhD’s. The sky’s the limit when you’re as smart and evil as I.”
The Master’s petulance is perhaps a welcome transition from the somberness of moments past, and what’s more, it’s a sure sign that he is truly well.
He climbs into the Doctor’s lap, laying on the entitlement thick, along with pretense of daintiness. Unfazed by this role reversal of expected gender norms, Koschei bats his black-lined lashes at his wife. His entire goal, at this juncture, is to ham it up, and make her laugh, and banish the shadows of regret and sorrow altogether.
“ ‘The Doctor and the Master in the TARDIS,’ sounds like a kid’s show I’d watch. Or maybe a sitcom.”
He flashes teeth in an irrepressible grin, with elastic energy that well suits her sunny enthusiasm. He kisses her full on the mouth.
“Now, Doctor: wow me, make me swoon, by swinging a jackhammer at the walls of this room.”
Of all the Masters, this face is the most openly physically demonstrative, and that’s what compels him to hum fondly at the trust his lost beloved shows him, and to reach out, slowly, to pet his face.
“We’re best friends. You will always be safe with me.”
My love, oh my love, when your memory returns, and it shall, know that I didn’t lie, for all the pain’s squarely, firm as concrete, stored in the inaccessible past. Inaccessible even to time travelers, for we are changed people, no matter where or when your TARDIS takes us.
He laughs a broad cackle when his beloved suggests that he is worthier of the snobby moniker.
“You use the term less to connote a literal physician, luv. More as a bit of sanctimonious twaddle about patching oop the universe. You’re a bit of a prig, but your hearts are truly enormously loving, so after long agonies of feuding, you and I decided to simply be the old married couple that we are… . yes. I said that, yes.”
He quirks his lip at his beloved idiot.
“Don’t you dare flirt with me. Even like this! You cad. I love you.”
He turns a console monitor toward the Doctor on his way to studying the proverbial crime scene.
“You’re MY wiry thin blooshin’ maiden.”
He pinches his cheek, hard, and snaps his teeth “threateningly’ at the tip of his nose.
“And don’t you ever forget that.”
He, the ’Doctor’ apparently though he’s still not entirely convinced that should be a title one gives to one’s self but rather something one earns as time passes, leans into that given touch at his face with a gentle, affectionate hum of his own. His eyes flutter closed and briefly, though not for the first time since this beautiful stranger wandered into the room, he loses himself in ponderings of the dual feeling of thrumming beneath his chest, the scent of the other man, the way it seems as if he isn’t alone even within his own mind.
There’s a presence, just there, lingering in the background, beyond the reach of his thoughts and though he attempts to grasp it he seems unable, which doesn’t surprise him- how does one grasp something entirely intangible, as incorporeal as a specter.
He knows he has a name, a proper name, but he doesn’t ask for it. Instead he’s content to bask in the other’s hand as it travels along his freckled skin, in the other’s words as they soothe and reconfirm. This seems natural to him, this near devout interaction between himself and Koschei, and he can’t help but want it to continue. His eyes flutter open once more, unable to keep them off of the other for long.
The corner of his own mouth tilts upward in a crooked grin.
“Must be a prig if I’ve given the title to myself without having earned it first. Managed to land a bloke like you anyway, but still. Seriously, who- who calls themselves a Doctor simply because they fancy themselves one? It’s- It’s-”
The words stop, sputter off and his breath stills as Koschei continues, as he says the words ’I love you’.
He feels… special, beneath the attention of Koschei. Worthy, somehow, as though by being the object of it was in some way linked to validation. Yes, he is loved but it only matters because Koschei loves him. His mouth falls open silently and he lets out something akin to a soft grunt as he is claimed, as Koschei lays Ownership to him, as he’s ’threatened’ by those snapping teeth so close to his face which is, again, burning crimson.
Only this time, it’s not just embarrassment that’s done it, which he’s thankful isn’t evident due to the way he’s sitting. It’s still rather uncomfortable, though, and he shifts slightly to alleviate the pressure below his waist.
“I’m… I’m yours.”
He repeats this and it’s genuine, memories be damned. He knows it’s true. He can feel it down to the marrow, deeper still beneath, to his very core. It takes him several long seconds to compose himself, but when he does his smile is impish and his umber eyes sparkle with mischief.
“I love you, too, and I’ll flirt with you if I wish. You’re my husband, after all, aren’t you? That gives me exclusive flirting rights. It also means I get to do this.”
Then, against his better judgement and without getting up from the grating, he rolls onto his side, reaches out a hand, and promptly slaps Koschei right on the arse on his way past.
That slap couldn’t be more comforting; the Master barks a laugh.
“You b a s t a r d, got amnesia and still having the time of your bloody LIFE. That is SO you, Thete.”
The Master bares his teeth again at his husband, letting slip the truncation of the Doctor’s school nickname. He smacks down his palms square on each of the Doctor’s thighs and leans in closer still.
“Floppy, pretty, sentimental dandy, you don’t know how happy it makes me that ninety percent of you is still intact.”
And surprisingly, he returns lewdness with chastity, pecking his beloved on the forehead. He saw the lump in his trousers. He knows. Concealing it is a moot point. Yet he allows his friend his dignity, this once, under extenuating circumstances.
“Right. No more monkey business.”
This time he well and properly disentangles himself, stalking over to the smoking circuitry. He straps on a toolbelt. He pulls a pair of goggles from an overhead cubbyhole and wheels himself under the console. The sound of tightening screws and turning gears is plentiful for several moments.
Then,
“Oh, ZOUNDS. Oh, I got it. Oh golly, I’m clever.”
He wheels out, engine oil on his cheeks and button nose, hair a mess, with an expression of mad enthusiasm.
Icarus 