The Doctor took a shaky breath as he listened to the voicemail, hanging on to every word that came over the recording. His hearts were pounding, the thought of traveling the stars with his best friend filling him with so much hope he was scared to even believe it.
He ended the message, quickly hitting redial on the number that had made the call. He waited with baited breath to hear the voice on the other end.
It’s as it was all those years ago, when this face was still young and clean-shaven. A flip-phone then, primitive and somehow just prosaic enough for the moment. A smartphone now, as they’re allegedly called, and a finger that trembles more than he’d ever care to admit, slides the green answer icon.
“Master.” The Doctor replies, schooling his features to not give away any emotion. He studies the man in front of him, his eyes tracing over his face. He clenches his jaw. There’s a million questions wanting to burst from his lips, but he stays quiet, not even sure where to begin.
Koschei lingers in the doorway with a surprisingly gentle expression.
“Nice, isn’t it? To have the perfunctory greeting out of the way. Now, to the meat of it.”
He strides authoritatively toward his counterpart, and oldest friend, and dearest enemy.
“I’ve a simple question, really.”
The expression in dark sly almond eyes is halfway between wistful and predatory. One finger reaches up to trace the contour of that clenched jaw. He knows every compulsion the Doctor combats right now. They’re mirrors.
He whispers the question, inches from the face of his other self.
“Are you happy to see me?”
The Doctor’s eyes stay locked on the Master as he makes his way towards him, and he only lets them close when he feels the Master’s finger trace his jaw.
Of course he wants to say. Of course he’s happy to see him. Especially now that they’re the last of their kind. All they have are each other, and it always brings a spark of relief to see the Master again…
But he also can’t ignore the feeling of dread that fills his stomach when his eyes fall on those of the Master. Every time he comes across him, trouble follows. He never knows what their meetings will bring, and he’s far too cautious to let his guard down easily.
“That depends.” The Doctor replies, keeping his face neutral. “Why are you here?”
The question should not be so terrifying. But it renders the Master static. Every limb locks as he contemplates the honest answer, and constructs the face-saving excuses to conceal it, and finally, calculates how great a risk to his hallowed autonomy it is to be sincere instead.
“I.”
The sacred word, that single syllable. But all it really is, is Icarus drawing too near the sun, and feeling the wax of his wings melting.
For some reason, this makes him smile.
“I dunno. Haven’t seen this face in a long time. Been places you’d scarce imagine, since that Christmas on earth. But you, you as you are now, it always draws me back like a magnetic pole. We were so close, in that wasteland. When you heard them. You know.”
He taps his temple.
“No one else had ever heard them. Until that night. But I knew it’d be you. Always did.”
The Master leaves the safety of the TARDIS threshold, and rushes out onto the hostile planet surface. Every sense thrums; he is feral. Nothing and no one will blockade the way to his Bondmate.
He crashes into the Doctor and braces his arms with surprising power, given his comparably smaller stature.
“I’ve got you, Thete, c’mon.”
He hazards a moment to press together their foreheads, and impart what clean, clear, calming energies he can.
You Are Not Alone.
He revels in it, the comfort that briefly distracts his mind. Perhaps it was the dull red grass of this planet or the way two suns could be seen high above the clouds. Though if enough attention was paid, a third could be seen above the pair. Even so. The simple way this planet both was and was not like the home they could never return to had cut him to his core. The renewal of a pain he had long pushed to the back of his mind had trampled any resolve. The bracing arms of his bondmate were all that kept him steady now.
“Why couldn’t I save them Kos?…”
These words, these melancholies they betray, terrify the Master, because they always signify the Doctor teetering over a ledge. And each time it happens, the Master’s rescue mission grows more precarious.
“Because, my darling: look at me. Say it with me: the thing I’ve told you for years, centuries, millennia: you can’t save everyone.”
How hilariously, chillingly ironic that once, he hammered this home to the Doctor by being proof that not everyone wanted to be saved. And now, he’s the one lifting his oldest friend up out of the whitewater rapids of his pain, and guilt, and shame.
He scours the planet that is so like, and unlike, Gallifrey. Like a favorite song in a discordant key. It’s more wrong for being so close. He understands. And he holds his beloved tighter still.
“Come inside with me. Come away. You still have to rest. To do your best next time around, ey?”
Hands grip the Doctor’s tormented young face; his face used to be that young, too. Ah well. He shelters him now with a piercing stare, that draws him into a safe place: within their two minds.
“You could fail them all and I’d still love you. Idiot: You don’t need to be the Doctor in front of me.”
“You have, Hearts. Long ago, and every day since, that you’ve welcomed me home.”
The words sound so polished, so practiced, but they’re on his mind like the constant thrum of the heartsbeat with which his own chest is synchronized.
He turns the parcel over in his hands, with the methodical, scientific precision for which he’s so well known.
“ … . what did you do?” he demands, with a sly grin. “What exactly’s in here?”
Smiling the Doctor reached and opened the lid. Within is black band with soft golden circles in their native tongue of Gallifreyan. Within the center of one circle is a deep red ruby that glints boldly against the dark colors. “This..” His tone is soft as he gazes at the ring in the little box.
Two words are carved into the band in Gallifreyan spelling out; love eternal. A deep blush has colored The Doctor’s cheeks as he awaits the reaction either negative or positive.
It’s only after staring at the writing, running callused thumbs over the simple truth in the concentric inscription, that the Master looks up at the Doctor. The sly satisfaction in moist eyes speaks volumes.
“You just never quit, do you?” he murmurs.
It’s evidence that he’s at last accepted the Doctor’s great turnaround–from running away, to chasing–is an act not of imprisonment, but of love.
Palms smack against ruddy cheeks, and he draws the Doctor’s face close, with a bewildering enthusiasm. He growls loudly.
“ARRRGH, you infuriating beautiful man! Would that I could bottle you like a color and paint a thousand canvases. Just kiss me, damn you.”
“Not helpful. Not helpful even a LITTLE BIT.” He moved past the other, barely touching him as he ran to the kitchen. “Come on-!! Quickly, follow me !!”
“ … right.”
The Master watches the Doctor exiting the room, flailing like a demented howler monkey, proclaiming death and despair at the hands of legumes.
Takes him back, really, to their school days. All he ever really wanted to do was complete his homework undisturbed.
Three guesses as to how many nights a schoolweek this successfully occurred.
He gathers his superhuman patience, draws his laser, and composedly follows the demented howler monkey.
It’s always the monosyllabic response to which he resorts, when his beloved speaks words of rare candor, and directness. It robs the Master of breath. But today he is older than the last time this took place, and today he is very weary. He gnaws on the inside of his lip, the dark circles beneath his eyes visible, dogged by drums, a specter he has shaken, save at times of great duress.
He’s seated at the edge of the open TARDIS doors, as the vessel idles in space, legs dangling out into the starry void, holding a thick volume in which but a slice of ancient Gallifreyan history is chronicled.
He’s dog-eared a page on the soured relationship between Rassilon and Omega. And it’s made him introspective. So introspective that he hasn’t slept in a week, an interval that takes its toll even on a Time Lord’s body.
“I’m tired of pretending I ever felt differently,” he adds, at length, turning a wistful smile over his shoulder. “Come sit with me. Make the universe make sense again.”
(continued from ask) drapetxmaniia: (10th) the doctor wraps his arms around the masters waist, hoping to surprise him as he pushed his cold nose into his neck, a grin on his lips, before he kissed it.
Koschei’s entire form tenses, the way a cat arches its back; his features contort into an expression of shock that quickly evolves into haughty outrage.
“COLD,” he protests explosively.
He wriggles like a mongoose with the intent to turn, when instead far warmer lips suckle on his neck. His deeply sensitive, long, handsome neck.
And instead he’s writhing with a host of entirely other urges.
“M-mmmm,” he groans, and flashes a lazy smile.
–//–
The Doctor Laughed softly in amusement, and takes pity on him, (If you can call it pity, or just plain teasing) before pulling away so that he can kiss his cheek.
“I seem to have captured some kind of beautiful cat-like creature,” He grinned, laughter still in his voice. “I think ill keep him all for myself~” he comments jokingly, before returning to why he suddenly decided to capture him in a hug.
“You’re not cold are you? I think The ol’ Girl’s suddenly turned the heating down, but everything is fine on screen, but i keep getting the shivers.” and as if to prove a point another uncomfortable cold spell flashed though his body, making him grimace and hug Koschei a little tighter.
“Beautiful? You flatter me.”
You could be beautiful, that face with the cockatoo hair and the pinstripes had pontificated, that long-ago Christmas.
You are beautiful, that same face states now, imparting a hope long forgotten.
“But I don’t believe you’re being a drop insincere. What a miracle.”
Deep within the Master’s telepathic channels, there’s a steady thrumming, very like purring indeed.
“I’m hardly ever cold, Hearts,” he drawls. “Which I gather is why you’re using me as a space heater.”
“Believe me, it wasn’t exactly on my list of weekend plans.”
Always the ferocity, always the bravado. Ever keeping the love of his life at arm’s length because to surrender to the Doctor’s vantage point is to surrender what autonomy he has bled and hidden and rotted and suppressed and slaughtered for.
But the Master, self-proclaimed lord over death–little more than a child screaming ‘LOOK AT ME’ in order to combat the terrifying insignificance of living–finds it difficult to maintain his dignity when his oldest friend hovers over him, once again, holding him in his arms, once again, pleading for him to live, once again. The culprit, this time, is not his wife’s bullet, but a gash down his left arm with a blade laced in poison.
“This is some sort of shitty joke,” he rasps, and laughs a husky tired version of his big brave angry cackle. “Maybe this time you wanna give me true love’s kiss, as our exciting follow-up to the whole business on the Valiant.”
He holds up a trembling hand, covered in blood.
“I’m joking. Just. Whistling in the dark. Fairly sure I can beat this, if you can ah, find me some … . salt … hm, appears my cognition’s getting impaired now …”
His vision blurs, but the strangest expression of delirious affection crosses his features.
“Hoh, you know … you’re really so beautiful. Even in this weird young face … I do love chasing you, Doctor.” He swallows back his own spit, which seems to be accumulating in the corners of his mouth at a rapid rate. “Really do love it more than anything. No. No, I love something else more than anything. Give you a hint: it’s you. Did I say that aloud? Oh, Doctor, yo-you’re … the picket fence … and the wind blowing, too … you’re all.”
If this is it, I guess at least I found my harbor, before the end.
“Mmmmguess you could kiss me ‘f you wanted …”
That pure desperation had crept back into his tone because once again he was faced with his worst nightmare. Of course he begged, begged to not go through this hell for the second time. That mantra in his head of, not again, not again, not again; is deafening. The situation was so painfully similar to last time but instead of a human’s bullet it’s something much more. Instead of a refusal to regenerate it’s a struggle to live.
The familiar joking nature of the Master is a partial comfort to the Doctor’s panic. “If this was someone’s idea of a joke it’s not funny. Not ever.” His lips twitched in an effort to smile but it just wouldn’t stick. No instead a creaky laugh escapes, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I’ll kiss you all you like if you pull through this.”
The word salt had struck a chord, throwing him back through the memories of his own detox. The highly unpleasant sensation he had endured after consuming cyanide. Scoffing he shook his head and smirked. “Salt is too salty. I need to get you into the TARDIS. I have everything there. I promise you’ll be safe, not a prisoner, not trapped.” The desperate pleading tone had returned. He didn’t want to make the Master think he’d trap him but he couldn’t do much without the supplies inside his TARDIS.
Staring at the wound he pressed his lips in a thin line. There was one other thing he could do. While the Master rambled a series of delirious affection, the Doctor was focusing. Moving one hand he hovered it over the wound, his skin gleaming with a soft gold hue. Regeneration energy, he could heal him, he could fix this.
Drawing in a ragged breath the Doctor let his dark eyes fix upon the Master’s face. “Don’t be cross with me for this..” Leaning his head down he pressed a lingering kiss upon his lips. His hand settled on the wound, sending soft gold light across the Master’s skin. He only hoped it would work, that it would be enough. Losing the Master simply wasn’t an option. He couldn’t, wouldn’t fail him again.
“L-listen. I don’t want to go before you know, it was such a good ride, such a good life. You an’ me, all we did. I wanted more but don’t I always.”
Blood drizzles down the Master’s right nostril; saliva down the corners of his mouth. Speaking becomes impossible. His body convulses at erratic intervals.
That is when the Doctor kisses him, spit and blood, poison and all, and the Master’s eyes, still grimaced in agony, peer open.
His face is still a mask of pain-wrinkles, but he’s watching the face upon which he’s fixated with equal parts hatred and adoration, watching it as one watches an unexpected beauty, an unexpected rapture of meteor showers under a crystal clear night sky. It’s that sudden and beautiful. And as it so often does, the affection and the nostalgia and the admiration and the raw adoration all eclipse the contempt and the rage.
And, exactly according to the Doctor’s plan, the Master falls perfectly still, in unwitting compliance.
The regeneration energy–robbing the Doctor of unknown years of his life–has seeped into Koschei’s pores before he can protest.
The fury is back, boosted perhaps by the fact that he is again in robust health. He sits up, a mess of sweat and blood and wrinkled suit, so rapidly that he looks like a vampire emerging from its coffin at midnight. Under other circumstances, it would be hilarious.
“How COULD you! You think I want YOU to die? Who’m I gonna hound to the brink of hell if YOU’RE gone?”
Who’m I gonna love?
No. Don’t utter any ‘ last words ‘ yet.
The convulsions caused ripples of panic to claw through him, digging deep into his flesh. His plan had to work, he couldn’t go through the pain of seeing him die again. Couldn’t handle another burial. Couldn’t face life utterly alone, with not a soul to understand all that he was so entirely as the Master does.
The regeneration energy leaving felt wrong, he fought the instinct to pull back. Tears slid down the Doctor’s face falling to the space between them, he didn’t care enough to brush them away.
When the Master sat up he felt like the air had been pulled from his lungs. The anger barely registering due to the sheer relief he felt in the moment. Safe. Safe. Safe. Safe. His mind thrumming with the knowledge the Master was well and truly alive.
A shaky smile dawned upon his lips, dark eyes a bit duller.
Sagging forward he leans into the Master, burying his face against the
crook of his neck. His arms curling around the other time lord, holding
him.
“Master.” The Doctor replies, schooling his features to not give away any emotion. He studies the man in front of him, his eyes tracing over his face. He clenches his jaw. There’s a million questions wanting to burst from his lips, but he stays quiet, not even sure where to begin.
Koschei lingers in the doorway with a surprisingly gentle expression.
“Nice, isn’t it? To have the perfunctory greeting out of the way. Now, to the meat of it.”
He strides authoritatively toward his counterpart, and oldest friend, and dearest enemy.
“I’ve a simple question, really.”
The expression in dark sly almond eyes is halfway between wistful and predatory. One finger reaches up to trace the contour of that clenched jaw. He knows every compulsion the Doctor combats right now. They’re mirrors.
He whispers the question, inches from the face of his other self.
Icarus 