There’s a searing note of betrayal in the Master’s eyes, as he looks up from his work.
“Is that so,” he balks, in a tone he’s not used on his best friend for long months. It’s suspicious and it’s wounded. “Then how about how to keep you alive? Why’ve I not puzzled that one out?”
You said you wanted to die. I heard you I heard you I heard you I HEARD YOU….! You self-centered old BASTARD, you’re my WHOLE EXISTENCE, or is that still not clear?
Koschei hoards his Theta close. He shifts to slide his legs around his waist, and his arms around his shoulders. He rubs his back while bunting the side of his face into the crook of the Doctor’s neck.
“You, bumping into me on that hillside on Mount Perdition, when we were little kids: that’s still the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Forever sounds good.”
Home, home, I’m home.
He cuddles tightly with both arms, holding him as close as possible.
“I love you. I know I keep saying it, but I do, I love you so much. You, and this, all of this, makes me so happy. I’ve got you, and you’re mine. This wonderful creature, this masterpiece…loves me. That’s why I’m the luckiest person in all the universe. Because I have you.”
Theta turns his head and kisses Koschei’s cheek.
“You make me excited to live,” he whispers. “And that’s not something I thought I would ever say.”
“That, my beauty, was the plan.”
From the moment he espied fizzling gold at the Doctor’s fingertips, and knew the forces against which his old friend struggled: the plan was to impart some of the Master’s own tenacity to live upon his far more self-destructive counterpart.
Hands callused by millennia of mechanical work feel for the honest wrinkles and weathered spots of the Doctor’s face, as though to memorize it for the millionth time. The Master takes his time fondling the features of his beloved.
“Now you’ve got to repay me by doing it. By living as long as you can. Promise me.”
“Well why WOULD I?” Koschei half-shrills, voice a disbelieving falsetto. “ ‘Escape,’ he says! You silly sausage!”
The nickname of Missy’s invention has stuck, and will stick, indefinitely.
He kicks his legs where he dangles “captive,” taking wholly for granted that his bondmate and dearest friend will hold fast. Even with the extra pound or two that the Master’s put on in middle age.
“What d’you intend to do, then, with my full and undivided attention? Play all the parts to Bohemian Rhapsody, on that bloody guitar? Give me an ethics lesson? Force me into indentured servitude, doing Console maintenance? Kiss me? Kiss me a lot? Kiss me a whole, WHOLE lot?”
“Kiss you? I might.”
He adjusts his hold again. They can’t get much closer to each other, really.
The Doctor tilts his head forward, touching the end of his nose to Koschei’s. For a second, he looks nothing but entirely innocent, loving, and intent on kissing him a whole lot. Then, his smile turns wicked, just as their lips are about to touch.
“Then again,” he whispers. “’That bloody guitar’ does sound rather tempting.”
He’s kidding. He can’t even kid himself for more than a few seconds. Finally, he closes his eyes and kisses him. Once, twice, and a third time.
“I love you. This is…everything I want. You. Me. Forever, if you want. I’ve never been happier.”
He kisses him again.
Koschei hoards his Theta close. He shifts to slide his legs around his waist, and his arms around his shoulders. He rubs his back while bunting the side of his face into the crook of the Doctor’s neck.
“You, bumping into me on that hillside on Mount Perdition, when we were little kids: that’s still the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Forever sounds good.”
“That is … . . absolutely out of bounds, you rule-breaking heathen!”
That the Doctor would regularly surmount his insecurities to display stubborn affection for the Master … oh dear. It delights the jealous Time Lord down to the marrow.
He turns and leaps indelicately into his lover’s arms.
“I’ll show YOU,” and he bites his nose, far from gently.
A cat, and guess who is this notorious, evil genius’s catnip.
“Rule-breaking heathen?”
The Doctor catches him, just about, and holds on tightly. Now that he’s got him, he has no intention of letting him go, regardless of the biting. He smiles instead, pleased to be able to demonstrate that he can hold him, carry him, even if he does look older and less strong than his previous bodies.
He shifts the Master in his arms, keeping one arm firmly wrapped around him at all times. There’s absolutely no chance he’ll be dropping him. The Doctor turns his head and kisses his cheek firmly, then does it again.
“You’ll show me? Oh, no, I think it’ll be the other way around. After all, you did just land yourself captive in my arms, and from where I stand, I don’t think there’s very much you can do about that to escape.”
“Well why WOULD I?” Koschei half-shrills, voice a disbelieving falsetto. “ ‘Escape,’ he says! You silly sausage!”
The nickname of Missy’s invention has stuck, and will stick, indefinitely.
He kicks his legs where he dangles “captive,” taking wholly for granted that his bondmate and dearest friend will hold fast. Even with the extra pound or two that the Master’s put on in middle age.
“What d’you intend to do, then, with my full and undivided attention? Play all the parts to Bohemian Rhapsody, on that bloody guitar? Give me an ethics lesson? Force me into indentured servitude, doing Console maintenance? Kiss me? Kiss me a lot? Kiss me a whole, WHOLE lot?”
This feisty verbal bandying is a new development of their maturing, strengthening reconciliation. It invigorates Koschei, and he grows louder and more boisterous by the minute.
“Oh, very well, you pedantic bastard! See if I let you spoon me again for the next fortnight! No, no, don’t coom a drop closer, you can’t seduce me into compliance again!”
“Oh?Can’t I?”
The Doctor does as he’s told and does not come a drop closer, feet staying fixed on the floor exactly where they are. Instead, he kisses his own hand, and reaches out to press that same hand to the Master’s cheek, ‘transferring’ the kiss.
He beams then, pleased with himself. “Kissed you, and I didn’t even have to take another step! You don’t stand a chance.”
“That is … . . absolutely out of bounds, you rule-breaking heathen!”
That the Doctor would regularly surmount his insecurities to display stubborn affection for the Master … oh dear. It delights the jealous Time Lord down to the marrow.
He turns and leaps indelicately into his lover’s arms.
“I’ll show YOU,” and he bites his nose, far from gently.
A cat, and guess who is this notorious, evil genius’s catnip.
At first the Doctor’s fussy concern pleasantly flusters him, and the Master is very nearly bashful.
But then he chuckles, and it’s rich and genuinely amused, without a touch of the habitual snideness. He reaches down and pinches the Doctor’s sides, even as they’re still touching foreheads, even as his beloved gazes furtively, ashamedly, into his eyes. It’s a tacit reminder that their lives need not be marked by grave ceremony all the time; they know each other way too well for that.
“You really are a silly sausage. I would do anything for you, genius. Willingly. But it seems we’re at an impasse, as you’re wired to do the same for me.”
He kisses first the Doctor’s chin and then his lips.
“You should know I will be there every time you awaken. Again, my vow to you. And you should further know that the shame you’re feeling, that I can practically taste between our minds, is misplaced, my love. Take it from someone who’s always suffered self-imposed claims of invincibility, just to cope with what was done to me by the same bastard that shoved you in that Confession Dial.”
His surprise registers both physically and mentally at the Master’s playful touch. He jumps visibly, and there’s a quick flash of a grin on his face, before he replaces it with a glare and something that might resemble a pout, if he’d admit to such a thing. The telepathically transmitted shock, however, is much more difficult to mask. It’s exactly the same kind of surprise he always projects when he’s given unexpected affection, and he has no ability to suppress it.
The forced glare disappears after a moment. He doesn’t mind really, even if he does expect his reaction to be the source of a new wave of amusement from Koschei.
“Yes, well, it might take me a while to get used to that. To you, being there. Knowing. I’ve been very good at pretending it’s not a problem for a long time, so — be patient.” Be patient, the way I’m not patient with myself.
The Doctor releases the Master’s shoulders, and wraps his arms slowly around his waist instead. His movements are carefully measured and thought out.
“You’re being far too nice to me, given how stupid I’ve been about this.”
“Oh, do shut up. Never call me ‘too nice’ again. Remember the hell I’ve given you over the millennia. I don’t want to hear that I’ve gone soft in the will as well as the tummy.”
The Master pinches the Doctor’s arm suddenly, without ceremony.
“I’ll acclimate you to my magnificence faster if I continue to do naughty, mean things like that, on a mundane everyday basis,” he cheerily explains. “Anyway!” He sinks back into the embrace that his beloved has so carefully executed. “You know … given what you’ve survived, my love, I’m proud.”
He chuckles straight from the gut, and rubs circles in the Doctor’s spindly back.
“And if you’re asking me to be patient–me–then you’ve forgotten that patience has been the one virtue I’ve always exhibited in spades. Don’t worry.”
They spent the whole of a week conversing quietly about painful truths. The whole of a week, while the Master chose to sit by the Doctor’s side, and honor the bond of their childhood, and tend to him without glory, or even hope of a happy ending.
So it’s with these thoughts in his hearts that he reaches his oldest and dearest friend–the one person he might place before himself–and rushes to his side.
He kneels. And then he lies down. And takes his hand.
“Come with me and I’ll show you a different perspective.”
A pause, and he turns to look at the Doctor’s profile. He beholds age and weariness and regret. These will simply not do.
“I’m sorry, Hearts,” he breathes, and means it, and hopes that the strength of that voluntary contrition will empower the Doctor to stand and follow him to safety.
The Doctor’s eyes are closed now, but he’s conscious. His fingers curl slowly around the Master’s.
“I don’t think I can stand yet,” he murmurs. There’s a crucial word there. Yet.
He needs to move a little bit, keep his body going. He bends his free arm, lifting his forearm up off he ground and repositioning it, hand resting on his middle. There’s a pain there, where the Cyberman shot him. It was an old one, not quite strong enough to kill him. The pain sears through him very suddenly, rising in intensity. He takes a shuddering breath, tensing his whole body and gripping the fabric of his clothes tightly with cold fingers. His other hand squeezes the Master’s.
It passes after a moment or two of agony. It’s his body trying to heal itself. It’s working, sort of. He needs a zero room really, if he’s to recover from this. It’s possible. He just needs to get there.
“It hurts,” he says quietly, opening his eyes once more. A second surge of pain forces him to close them again just as he tries to push himself onto his side, and he cries out this time. The first one, he’d been expecting the whole time he’d been lying here. The second has come sooner than he thought, and it catches him off guard.
He clutches the Master’s hand with both of his own now, trying again to force his injured body to move the way it’s supposed to. “Zero room,” he tells him. He can do this, for him. For his best friend. He’ll keep living, for him. Or trying to, at the very least.
“If we don’t make it there, I just- I just want you to know-” he coughs as he tries to sit. “-That I love you. Without hope, without witness, without reward. I still love you.”
The Master sits up with some strain, but succeeds. He turns and rests his hands beneath the Doctor, as though his old friend were floating on the surface of water, and he standing, and supporting him afloat.
Yet, yet. Good, progress. A sacrifice, an allowance, for once not in vain.
“I’ve got you,” he responds, without even being conscious of his words, the moment the Doctor voices his pain. “Zero room, a martini, a soft pillow, one of my life cycles, you name it, you old fool.”
If Bill bloody Potts can carry the person Koschei has known and loved longest, the person about whom he could write an anthology of novels, or to whom he could dedicate a newly discovered galaxy, then the Master certainly can do the same.
He steels himself, and presses his forehead to the Doctor’s. Eyes close, and for once there is something like humility, and something like a great deal of vulnerability.
“Surely you know. Surely. That I never stopped either.”
And I never will.
He’s kissing the Doctor’s eyelids without thought, as though by instinct.
“You know, you know. Come on. Here we go.” And again, “I’ve got you.”
He stands and lifts the Doctor into his arms, and begins to carry him across the smoking fields of Mondas, to safety.
A few steps in, and he scoffs, and speaks with characteristic indelicacy:
“Golly, Thete, you’re a stick, how can you be this heavy?”
“Oh? Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but eating people’s body parts won’t make you grow any taller. Must be true, what they say about short people being the angriest.”
He inches closer, daring, and quickly kisses the end of the Master’s nose. The speed of his movement is a tell; he wouldn’t move so fast unless he knew he was playing with fire. This isn’t the same, though. He almost wants to be caught. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
This feisty verbal bandying is a new development of their maturing, strengthening reconciliation. It invigorates Koschei, and he grows louder and more boisterous by the minute.
“Oh, very well, you pedantic bastard! See if I let you spoon me again for the next fortnight! No, no, don’t coom a drop closer, you can’t seduce me into compliance again!”
The Doctor is only just awake, but conscious enough to register the movement. Before, there were no arms around him, and he was cold, but now he’s being held. It’s a huge improvement, according to his tired mind.
His hands move blindly to rest over Koschei’s, but he gets distracted from his intention to just leave them there and relax. He ends up tracing the shape of his hands, touching every finger as though he’ll never be able to see them again, and must commit the shape to memory. He measures his own hand against Koschei’s, testing out whether he’s able to cover the whole hand with his own. He can, as it turns out, if he positions his hand just right.
He’s already been lying here, in this half-awake state, for quite some time. But it’s suddenly become much more interesting, now that Koschei has moved so close to him. He considers their position, and what he likes most about it. He very much likes their closeness, and the fact that he’s being cuddled but not restricted. He can move if he wants to, which from time to time is something that’s absolutely necessary for him to be comfortable. He’s okay now, though. He wouldn’t mind more touching.
When he’s been lying in silence for the amount of time it takes him to go through each and every thing he likes about this, he begins fidgeting. Not a lot, but enough to give himself something else to think about. If he moves his left foot three inches backwards, he’ll reach the Master’s foot. He calculates the approximate number of degrees he can tilt his head backwards before his hair will brush the Master’s, then converts it to radians, then loses concentration and thinks about something else entirely.
He needs to move. He doesn’t want to wake the Master, though. Or does he? He wants attention, that’s for sure, but Koschei is sleeping… No, he needs to let him sleep.
He carefully turns himself over, so that he’s facing him instead. That’s much better; now he can study his face. That’ll give him something to think about for ages. He smiles for a moment, adoring. If he wasn’t so concerned about waking him, he might have kissed him. On the cheeks, on the nose, on the lips. Everywhere.
I love you, he thinks. He doesn’t even realise he’s projecting. I love you so much. He’s happy just to lie here and observe, in wait.
SEND FLUFF
Koschei doesn’t awaken fully at first. He took to hearts the Doctor’s demand that he not disrupt his own sleep schedule.
But feeling his Bondmate’s eyes rapturously upon his features has a way of rousing him even from the deepest stupor.
“Mnnnn, what?”
“Hmmmhmhm, Thete. You’re such a closet romantic.”
He speaks as though he hasn’t just described himself. Regardless he burrows closer still, greedily hoarding every gangly inch of his oldest friend. Lazily, he kisses his jaw, and then his mouth, and closes his eyes again.
They spent the whole of a week conversing quietly about painful truths. The whole of a week, while the Master chose to sit by the Doctor’s side, and honor the bond of their childhood, and tend to him without glory, or even hope of a happy ending.
So it’s with these thoughts in his hearts that he reaches his oldest and dearest friend–the one person he might place before himself–and rushes to his side.
He kneels. And then he lies down. And takes his hand.
“Come with me and I’ll show you a different perspective.”
A pause, and he turns to look at the Doctor’s profile. He beholds age and weariness and regret. These will simply not do.
“I’m sorry, Hearts,” he breathes, and means it, and hopes that the strength of that voluntary contrition will empower the Doctor to stand and follow him to safety.
Icarus 