He asks it softly; he wants to tease the Doctor for his besotted demeanor. But this vulnerability is carefully won. Excruciatingly, in fact. The Master can’t bear to watch the Doctor retreat from him again; he would feel like a man in sweltering heat watching a cool ocean tide ebbing out of reach. Worse. Across timelines and despite his own self-thwarting spite–despite the sacrifices the Doctor’s undergone, in the face of that spite.
He’ll die before discouraging him now.
“HmmMmmmmmmmmMmmmmm,” he groans, and the smile on his face spreads drunkenly. It takes very little pretense to praise the Doctor for his courage. “That … feels lovely.”
“Shut up.” He swats the Master’s shoulder gently. Of course he’s having a good time. He’s still here, isn’t he? “You know I am.” There’s an effort made there to shoot him a glare, but it’s softer and much less cold than he usually manages to make it look.
Even despite being teased for the way he’s behaving, he doesn’t change it. His hand continues to move, and he doesn’t try to extricate himself from this hug. He doesn’t mind being teased — he isn’t ashamed. Not of this. Too proud to admit that he loves it, maybe, but never ashamed.
The Doctor’s finger begins tracing a word instead of a vague heart shape. “Can you tell what I’m writing?” He slowly forms the letter K, writing the name Koschei. He knows he’s more likely to start fidgeting if he has nothing in particular to focus on. But he’s not ready to focus on the fact that they’re cuddling and he never wants to move from here again, so he gives himself this task of writing words instead. Avoiding thinking about his quite frankly ridiculous depth of raw emotion is his preferred option, always. There’s no need to make himself any more vulnerable than he already is.
“No,” the Master yawns, an all-out ornery lie just to get the Doctor mildly flustered.
His savagely wicked grin, one that rounds his cheeks so much that his sharp little eyes nearly disappear, proves otherwise.
“Yes,” he amends mere seconds later, with a low belly laugh. “you’re writing my name in your notebook.”
He rolls over swiftly and presses a tender kiss square in the middle of the Doctor’s wavering mouth. He pulls back to look him in the eye, vulnerable and earnest; this is how it’s done, and you’re doing it well, a gaze ordinarily so malicious now gently encourages. He then rubs noses with the old owl, and bites the tip of his nose–hard, but not too hard, but really, how is he still the Master if he’s not a little vicious?–and then squirms back to his original position. He pushes his rear into the Doctor’s pelvis, just slightly, not a sexual overture so much as a clear affirmation that the Doctor may continue to fidget with his back.
He closes his eyes, resolved to croon and coo and perhaps snore a bit, while the surface of his skin becomes a place where the Doctor may regain confidence in physical intimacy. In trust.
Icarus 