Koschei moans: one long noise of exasperated suffering. He bunts his head into the petting of his hair, having collapsed hours earlier after stubbornly refusing for days upon days to acknowledge his physical ailment.
Now his head rests in his Theta’s lap, and he stares up at him with an increasingly transparent plea for sympathy. The humming mesmerizes him in a few moments’ time, fair hued eyelashes fluttering, flirting with unconsciousness. He reaches for his husband’s hand and brings it against his chest between his hearts.
“Don’t let anyone know … . they’ll get me.”
A slurred but urgent request, a fever-dream of fear that the many enemies he’s accumulated over the centuries will learn of his temporary frailty and take advantage.
He smiles dopily.
“Pity I’m sick, we could ‘play doctor’ in the sexy way otherwise … put that in a rain check, ey? Hmmm, you’re a very pretty thing to look at, Hearts.”
“D’you still loov me? Even like this? All gross and sweaty and snotty?”
It’s with an endearing wistfulness that the Master drops his gaze. A foolish, dreaming smile barely ghosts his lips. It’s obvious: he’s sold.
His fingers trace the silhouette of the phial of blood. The power he’s granted, and he’s so joyfully beguiled that he could never abuse what he’s always connived to possess. Oh, how wonderfully hilarious. He even chuckles, softly, just a few merry breaths of sound.
“But where’re we gonna find a loom, Thete? Gallifrey’s … it’s beyond us.”
Eyes that’ve softened to butterscotch snap up to face his other self, with purest faith that the Doctor will have an answer. Yet the Master finds it intuitively, before his best friend need speak again.
“You really think you and I can BUILD one? From SCRATCH? OHO. Oh, Doctor! Very WELL. Oh, VERY WELL, I ACCEPT THIS CHALLENGE!”
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my lives, except maybe about wanting to marry you… and, w-ell, loving you.”
He leans in and presses a gentle kiss to the Master’s forehead, his voice absolute and optimistic, as the other Time Lord drops his gaze. Hands remain cupping either side of his beloved’s face, thumbs still trailing over the crests of cheekbones, exploring and memorizing though he’s long since memorized the planes and dips.
The Doctor’s smile is sanguine, tranquil, at peace ever since that blessed night when the Master had pulled him from his nightmares and, as such, had also pulled his head out of his arse. Since that moment he’s been lighter. He’s been trying. More importantly, he’s been Theta Sigma. His mouth opens to respond to the question of Looms, but he needn’t have bothered at all. The Keeper of His Hearts knows, already, the answer to that question and he lets out a jovial chuckle in response instead before speaking.
“We’re brilliant, you and I. Geniuses. Together we can do anything, including building a complex and delicate genetic amalgamation matrix and accompanying memetic primer. We can do this, Kos. And I think I’ve got the fundamental building blocks to start with in one of the storage compartment areas in the ship.”
His right hand slides down then, leaving its’ spot against his beloved’s cheek and trailing fingertips over throat and fabric, all the way down to the Master’s hand, intertwining their fingers together and squeezing confidently. He speaks then, in Gallifreyan, a twist on an ancient saying that now seems more fitting than it ever has before.
“~The life that breathes us is home to all souls. We are children of stars, galaxies learning to walk, eternally at home, within each other.~”
“STOP. I may die of happiness: I who am NEVER satisfied!”
The Master snatches the Doctor’s face in his hands and bites his chin–hard–the way an overly excited affectionate feline might bite its owner in the middle of play. Coursing through his telepathic brain circuitry is a steady rhythmic thrumming that can only be described as psychic purring. It’s only ever audible around the person he’s currently roughhousing.
“Right, right! Joost. Run your ‘building block’ by me, before getting involved in any sort of accident. You tend to be, you know, darling, more of the innovator than the, er, meticulous sort. Let me beta you, right?”
His fussing, somewhere between housewife and fellow mad scientist, is cut off decisively when the Doctor speaks an unbreakable promise in Old High Gallifreyan.
Clasping him by the neck with both hands, the Master grazes his thoughts, bringing from memory and mind the words of this revised vow.
And he joins him in reciting the final phrase:
“–Eternally at home, within each other.”
Koschei hesitates, licking his lip. He sighs, hapless, amused, through his nose. Might as well just be honest, might as well:
“Doctor, I want you to know that I would lose for you. I would forfeit. I would surrender. I have never been happier than you have made me.”
Oh, the smirk that spreads across his face, at that declaration; the expression of triumph. Oh, this conquest. He takes the hands around his waist, forces them down and slides his fingers into the Doctor’s. He lifts both joined hands to his lips and kisses, with particular fervor, the left.
“I think you belong to me already.”
He turns his head enough that he can look up, and back, at his oldest friend’s face.
“But I will marry you anywhere and anywhen. So let’s go.”
A half-chuckle escapes him, one born of exultant acquiescence to the Master’s words. He knows them to be true as he knows any Universal constant; it’s evident now in every movement he makes, in every word he speaks, every day spent with this man who he already belongs to. Those kisses linger on his skin and cause the static tingle he’s so fond of to permeate his hands and dive deeply into his bones.
“Of course I do. I’ve belonged to you since the day we met, Kos. Doesn’t mean we can’t make it official. Recognized in every star system. Binding. Imagine that- legal documentation that proclaims me to be yours, and you to be mine.”
He confirms and proclaims these things so easily it’s almost as if he’s never had trouble admitting them to begin with. Dark eyes meet those of his oldest friend, his best friend, the person who’s held his hearts in their palms since the moment ‘hello’ had been uttered. A squeeze of the Master’s hands in his own and his grin spreads like fire to kindling. Oh he’s lighter now. Has been since the day he’d been thrust into a deep sleep and woken a better man, having shed much of his regrets in favor of living in the beautiful present.
“Anywhere and anywhen, coming right up.”
He winks, still grinning, and releases one of the Master’s hands before using the other still joined with his to lead him to the control room. The coordinates are already set and all it takes as they near the console unit is a flip of the lever before the ship shudders and hurtles toward its’ destination.
“Now, now. You’re being disagreeable, you know.”
The Master stands on the Doctor’s feet, as he always does when particularly, possessively affectionate. He snaps his teeth at his nose, and nuzzles his face, demanding access to every inch of his essence.
“Monopolizing all the pretty words, so I’ll have none left with which to speak you my vows, heard across those infinite star systems. You cur. You know what a show-off I am.”
He slips off the feet of his beloved long enough to return his arms round his waist, standing behind him, conspiratorial, inhaling deeply of his fugitive scent. He closes his eyes and burrows a cheek against the crook of the Doctor’s neck.
Nowhere, you’ll go nowhere on me again. You’ve got to break this death-grip. I am obstinately attached to you now, my love of loves.
The thought process is silly and infantile, but he can’t help it; it’s so difficult to trust this building euphoria. Even as the TARDIS moves toward the spot the Doctor has chosen, the Master gloms tightly on. His features are blinding, joyous and wicked and crafty.
“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.”
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.
Those widened-umber eyes scan the room surrounding him, a vastness he can’t quite place settling deep within his psyche and he doesn’t understand the meaning behind what he sees nor why that strange mechanical vibration seems to be apologizing. That was silly- machines couldn’t apologize because machines weren’t alive. So lost is he in his ponderings of the environment and the void within his head that feels both achingly familiar and steadfastly foreign that he doesn’t notice at first when the other man kneels before him.
He doesn’t notice until the gentle whoosh of air carries the scent of the other to his nostrils and they flare, his head turning instantly and his eyes locking onto the face of the man as a hand reaches out with a light touch to his brow. He can’t explain the flush that rises to his freckle-laden skin at the close proximity of this man, nor can he explain why it feels like there are two hearts fighting for dominance beneath his chest in a desperate attempt to escape the cavity they’re contained in. Before he has time to question his own bodily reactions he feels that soft, gentle warmth spreading through him that seems to relax him.
Perhaps that has to do with the touch as well but in that moment as his mind fills with a soft cotton and his veins pump downy-feathers through his body, he is perfectly incapable of caring where the pleasant sensation comes from- just that it is there and shall remain, always. His eyes become more naturally lidded and a crooked half smile appears on his face, nodding dumbly as the man speaks to him of lost memories, of friendship and safety. Of names.
“We’re friends. I’m safe with you.Koschei...”
He whispers the last part, the name, softly- like a prayer of the devout in the most holy of temples, but it sparks no memories to fill the void in his mind. This makes him feel guilty, and he can’t understand why- so he shoves the guilt aside, not wishing to feel it any longer.
“And I’m the Doctor… that’s not a proper name, though, is it. The Doctor. What sort of a man calls himself a Doctor? Bit pompous if you ask me. I don’t think I’m any sort of Doctor. Certainly don’t feel like a Doctor. Why couldn’t I have a normal name, like yours? Koschei. Your name’s beautiful, I want a name like that.”
Blimey, it seems his mouth is keen to move whether he wants it to or not. Snapping his lips closed promptly he attempts to stem the flow of vocabulary, which seems to make his tongue twitch behind his teeth. No thoughts accompany the semantics- they seem to have a mind of their own. Despite this attempt at silence, his mouth opens again and provides more words against his will. He doesn’t get up though- he stays put, as he’s told, on the floor of the vast and unfamiliar room.
“Diagnosing things- sounds more like you’re the Doctor, not me. Diagnosing mechanical issues, diagnosing me with amnesia, taking care of me here on the floor. If I am the Doctor then I’m a rubbish one and I demand a new name immediately- wait. Hang on. Did you say we’re married? Properly together? Oh that’s- that’s brilliant. How’d I land a bloke like you? You’re gorgeous! Certainly better looking than I must be, I mean- I feel all thin and- and wiry and-”
The words stop immediately, silence falling as he claps a hand over his mouth to prevent any more from flowing out. Clearly, regardless of who he is, he certainly has a gob. That flush on his face turns into a proper burn of embarrassment and he’s positive he’s going to melt into the floor. He shan’t be removing his hand from his mouth again any time soon, at least… that’s the plan.
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.
Even as his lover tucks in his chin, the Doctor feels no trepidation, no doubts soaking in to toxify the moment. He knows the Master better than perhaps he knows himself, can read his tells, can go on the journey of discovery with him as the keeper of his hearts sees the ring first. Good. He’s placed the items well, then.
He goes with him to the red fields, when flesh first met flesh, hand first met hand, mind first touched mind. He runs from childhood to adolescence, when the Council was manipulating him to suit their needs and he, hopeless dreamer, was too naive to see it, clinging to a lock of hair in a darkened room after hours with tears in his eyes and a deep fear turning his hearts to stone- their bond hadn’t faded, but it had been used a g a i n s t t h e m. Even further he runs until he’s in orbit around Gallifrey, his home, a place he never belonged, but he is alone and he is desolate, on his knees in front of the open doors of the TARDIS, staring down at the crimson planet where he’s left the only person that’s ever mattered to him, screaming, howling because he thinks he has no choice. Before he knows it they are calling themselves enemies and he is desperate to fix a man who doesn’t need to be fixed, who is p e r f e c t as he is, even through the monstrous acts.
The Doctor has never judged the Master for those acts. Never blamed him. No, rather, the Doctor has blamed himself- but no longer. The pair of them know now that neither of them are to blame but rather the Time Lords. The situation. The time. Their choices were their own but only at the most base and primitive levels. Even through this journey, the Doctor feels no fear in the present, no doubt, not a single drop. He is in love. He always has been in love. He always will be in love and now they’ve shattered the chains that bound them. Now they are free to be in love as they always should have been. The Master has taught the Doctor that there is little to fear about that, aside from losing it- and he will not lose it again.
The words ’put it on me’ are breathed and the Doctor breathes as well, respiratory bypass having engaged without his consent though his hearts remain beating steadily. As steady as his hand is as he reaches out for the ring and slips it on to the Master’s left ring finger to a silent chorus of forever, finally, eternally, yours, mine, yours, mine, everything I want or need, right here.
He knows the Master hasn’t seen the phial yet when he moves to kiss him, and the Doctor’s lips part, unsure whether to let it go or suggest he look twice. Thankfully he doesn’t have to do either, and the goggles tumbling to the grates, the sound of contact uncharacteristically loud in the silence of the room that’s only filled otherwise with their mutually shallow and hitched breathing, lets him know the Master’s realized something else hides within the box. A gentle anxiety begins to weave itself into the Doctor then, but it isn’t negative in nature- even now, unsure as to how the Master will respond to this gesture, he is hopeful. What a strange thing love can do once you accept it and learn that it’s nothing to be afraid of after all.
His knowledge of the other Time Lord comes in handy to quash his own overwhelming emotions as the Master begins to speak and subsequently goes silent. Realization dawns, and the Doctor’s respiratory bypass once again engages, his synaptic system having to temporarily reroute itself in order to avoid the deluge of chemicals that become emotions. What he witnesses is beautiful and his hearts swell, more and more until he feels the legitimate pressure within his chest and thinks it not possible to love another person more than he loves his Koschei in this moment. Gorgeous chaos, enchanting terror, beautiful tears- the reaction the Doctor had been expecting.
A gentle smile warms his face and at once he steps forward to close the distance that’s been placed between them. Hands lift to cup damp cheeks against his palms, thumbs trailing through the saltwater as he both lifts the Master’s chin and lowers his own, seeking out the other’s eyes. The question only makes that gentle smile widen, and his own eyes mist over as he finds himself incorrect– now, he thinks, now he loves him even more than he did moments ago and he knows that love will only grow deeper. Every moment of eternity is theirs now, and every moment will bring them closer. Every moment of their fixed-point infinity will be spent chasing away fears together.
“Of course I do. Koschei, I’ve never wanted anything more than I want you. As my traveling companion, as my best friend, my lover, my partner, my husband… It doesn’t have to be now, or tomorrow, or even anytime soon but-.. I’d love to have a child with you, Kos.”
It’s with an endearing wistfulness that the Master drops his gaze. A foolish, dreaming smile barely ghosts his lips. It’s obvious: he’s sold.
His fingers trace the silhouette of the phial of blood. The power he’s granted, and he’s so joyfully beguiled that he could never abuse what he’s always connived to possess. Oh, how wonderfully hilarious. He even chuckles, softly, just a few merry breaths of sound.
“But where’re we gonna find a loom, Thete? Gallifrey’s … it’s beyond us.”
Eyes that’ve softened to butterscotch snap up to face his other self, with purest faith that the Doctor will have an answer. Yet the Master finds it intuitively, before his best friend need speak again.
“You really think you and I can BUILD one? From SCRATCH? OHO. Oh, Doctor! Very WELL. Oh, VERY WELL, I ACCEPT THIS CHALLENGE!”
Icarus 