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“When I arrange for your death, I expect you to stay dead.”
The Doctor doesn’t laugh in his face, but it’s a very near thing. Maybe you should arrange it better, she thinks instead.
It’s what she’s thinking when she’s shivering in the icy cold of a windy Paris winter, when the Master tells her what she’s always known –
“How else would I get your attention?”
Missy had my attention, she doesn’t say. When she was trying, really trying. So what happened to you to make you stop?
And of course – when his image projects in the TARDIS, because they both know that neither of them can conceive of a universe where the other is truly and irretrievably gone – she can only wonder what else is left for him to burn, a signal flare in the sky to draw her gaze.
She’s without her fam the next time she runs into him (runs into, not finds, because that’s just the way they go.) It’s really probably a good thing; when the Doctor is alone is when the Master’s least likely to lash out at the humans he thinks are distracting her from important things (like him.) It’s when they’re most likely to pause (or abandon entirely) the façade of wanting each other dead.
She’s taken captive while skydiving in Lexicor 4, nestled just a few million light years away from Earth in another corner of the Milky Way.
“From the concentration camp at Dachau to ruler of this planet,” the Master says as he looks down on her where she’s been shoved unceremoniously by the arresting guards. Her skin is sweaty from adrenaline – skydiving always does that – and from being hauled around like a sack of potatoes by the guards.
He, meanwhile, wears a tailored suit with the confidence that O lacked.
No, not O. He was never O (and her hearts clench slightly at the thought, at the memory of a quiet man with witty words and the right memes, who never existed.)
“Not too shabby,” she grudgingly admits, shoving that painful thought back into the corner where it’d been hiding, as she looks around the grand hall in which his throne sits. The stone is marble (or something like it) and pristine white silver, the sparkle-flecked stone gleaming in the light of the planet’s sun streaming through high open windows.
The Master always has liked pretty shiny things. Liked breaking them, too.
She makes to stand, but an abrupt shake of his head and wave of her hand sees her shoved straight back down, wincing at the impact on her kneecaps.
“I like you like this,” he says as though nothing has happened. “On your knees, where you belong.”
“How chauvinistic,” she retorts, and he shrugs.
“But you holding me hostage for all those years wasn’t?” He has a point there. “That’s the problem with your pets, Doctor. They’re fun, I’m sure – but they get you so caught up in…humanity. All their genders and ethics and silly little worries.”
Again, he’s not wrong – but this is an old fight, and she knows where it goes.
“So what am I doing here, then? Thought you were just wanting me dead, this time around.” The Doctor doesn’t bother trying to mask the bitterness; she’d finally thought, after Missy, that they were moving on from that endless charade.
“Oh, that.” The Master waves a gloved hand dismissively. “Regeneration teething troubles, you know how it is.”
“I mean – I forget where my kidneys are, you can’t make up your mind about murder.”
“Same difference. Just getting things back where they’re supposed to be.”
“And where’s that, I wonder?”
“With you in your place, Doctor.”
“Right, yeah, good luck with that,” she says with a short laugh. “Not one for staying still, not me.”
“Not forever,” he agrees surprisingly easily. She’s instantly wary. “But long enough for me to have some fun.”
“What does that-”
“Now!” The Master claps his hands – it appears to be a signal, as the Doctor is hauled non-too-gently to her feet. “Time for a bath.”
She blinks, twice. “What?”
“A bath, Doctor, do try to keep up. You’re absolutely filthy, love.”
She is, and once again – he’s not wrong, but the way his tongue curls around the word is a whole different kind of dirty.
It’s almost comical how much the next twenty minutes feel like a scene from one of those young adult books that Yaz is always reading, that get slammed hastily shut whenever the Doctor comes anywhere near her. It’s a whirl of confusion in which she finds herself handed off to a group of long-limbed, pale-furred female Lexites. They’re too polite to fully express their fascination with her hairless skin and short, thin hair, though she gathers from their chatter that they think she must just be quite ill.
They’re also too wary of her status – as captive? Damsel in distress? Neither of which she’s particularly pleased about – to be drawn in by her attempts to distract them with chatter. Instead she’s politely but firmly divested of all her clothes and practically dumped in a pool of steaming, rose-scented water in the middle of a room made of that same marble. She can only assume that this is supposed to be a communal bath, because a) it’s huge and b) there’s nothing else in the room. At all. Not even a sponge, or a bathrobe, or a bookshelf.
It’s very tempting to just get out and look for an escape…but the water is warm, and the heat seeps into her cold sore bones…
So when the door opens and she hears the Master’s footsteps (heavier than Missy’s, but only barely) against the marble, the Doctor doesn’t even bother to move from where she lies slumped, head against the edge of the pool.
“Feeling relaxed?” His tone is amused, and she can imagine without looking that there’s a smirk toying at the corner of his mouth.
“Have to say, this is definitely an improvement on plane crashes and 1943 Paris winters,” she admits, craning her head back to catch a glimpse of him as he approaches, water sloshing around her. He’s carrying something, a vial of liquid or gel. “Though I did like the Australian outback.”
“Nice place,” he agrees, and when she cranes her neck back further it’s to see him crouching behind her. “Kangaroo hunting – good sport, wonderful meat. Very old-school, rifles and all.”
“I hope you were humane about it,” she sighs, watching as he crosses his legs in front of him. You’re destroying your suit, the Doctor doesn’t say.
“Humane? Never.” His hands sink into the water, the movement sending brief ripples that brush against her breasts. New erogenous zones, and the only reason she’s still shivering a little when water is dumped unceremoniously on her head.
“Hey!” The word comes out a splutter as another handful of water runs down her face and hair.
“Turn around.”
Another splash of water when she begins to protest. “Be quiet, Doctor,” the Master says brusquely, “and let me wash your hair.”
Oh.
So, there are many reasons that this is a bad idea. The first is that – not to put too fine a point on it – the last time they saw each other, he was making rather a serious effort to kill her. Her throat still feels the phantom grip of his fingers wrapped around it, with at best an ambivalent response.
The second is that…Gallifrey. Gallifrey brought down for some reason she senses she’s not going to find out today, brought down by the same hands that are guiding her to relax back against the rim of the pool.
But those hands move with a familiarity she’s missed, so much. They massage water into her hair and scalp, seeking out and finding with annoying efficiency each of her most sensitive spots (one a couple of inches left of her right ear, another just above her temple.) With every touch, she relaxes just a little more, her mental defences unfurling and unlocking till –
Contact.
I’m only letting you in because your hands feel…you know.
I know, the Master replies, though she isn’t sure which bit he’s responding to. But it feels good to let me in, doesn’t it ?
Of course it does. Not like I’ve had Time Lords aplenty to do this with, past few centuries.
Oh, right. Because you killed them all. Or I did? Who knows, at this point?
Her mind rears easily at that – moves to tear away from their link as she shifts away from his hands.
“Sorry,” he says quickly, then again into the Doctor’s mind – sorry. I’m not trying to stir you up just now.
He sounds…genuinely apologetic. It’s not an unwelcome tone, but it throws her more than anything else.
“Not like you to apologise this time around,” the Doctor says cautiously, craning her neck back just enough to see his shoulders move in a shrug.
“Like I said,” he tells her, enigmatic, “teething troubles.”
There’s a lot he’s leaving unsaid there, a lot that she really should poke and prod at. But then he’s reaching for the bottle, conversation clearly over. She can only hope that Lexite hair is keratin-based – alien hair product hadn’t been a major concern for her before this body, but after a few experiences that have left her hunting the galaxies for hair regrowth product (not that she’s vain, but she likes her hair the way it is), she can’t help the flash of wariness over their bond.
Oh, just relax, Doctor, he tells her with some amusement as he begins to massage liquid into her hair – argan oil, keratin, coconut, she scents, and decides to take him at his word. Those clever hands sink into her hair and move with unerring grace, gentle yet firm.
She doesn’t realise just how quickly she’s relaxed till he’s whispering in her ear, “I’ve missed those sounds.”
Across their link flash images – unintentional, she thinks – of the last few times they’ve been in any position like this.
The Vault. Only twice, right at the end, when the Doctor had felt their bond resonate true for the first time in centuries.
The Valiant, when the Master had played her – him – the Doctor – to screams of orgasm or agony almost every night – sometimes both at once-
The images stop abruptly, the only remnant a memory of the Doctor’s face twisted in – pain? Pleasure? She’s blocked out a lot of that time.
“Sorry,” he apologises – again? “I was a bit unhinged that time.”
“The drums,” she says, because wouldn’t it be wonderful if things were that simple?
His hands still a moment, then begin to move again, working to work the liquid into the Doctor’s hair again, a wave of pure relaxation rippling through her despite herself.
“The drums,” he echoes. His hands move lower, massaging into the nape of her neck. It tugs at her hair, firm but not ungentle.
Another noise escapes her mouth, involuntarily. “Good?” His tone is smug.
“Very,” she admits readily, because Rassilon, it is.
“Good.” One and is drifting around her shoulder, tentative, before she feels fingers brush at her throat. He’s testing her for a reaction, she knows; can feel in his touch the memory of being shoved up against the edge of the Tour Eiffel by that same hand. But he’s still carding through her hair, sparking heat in her body, and the water is warm.
So she tilts her neck back further, an unspoken invitation.
He takes it. His fingers settle around her throat, a solid grip without squeezing. It’s the first time in a long time that she’s been small enough for him to be able to bracket her neck this easily, and she settles into the thrill it stirs within her.
“You’ve always liked this,” he murmurs, mouth brushing against the Doctor's ear as he speaks. “What does that say about you, I wonder?”
“You’ve always liked doing this,” she retorts. She can feel his hand against her throat as she speaks, unyielding. “What does that say about you?”
“I think the real question should be,” what does that say about us?
That we’ll always end up here, she thinks. Doesn’t project through their bond, but his breath hitches and she knows he heard.
“Perhaps,” he allows. Unless I finally do kill you.
It's such a laughable thing for him to say, still, after the past hour. After the fact that he's apologised more in the space of minutes than he has over centuries. It's a ludicrous thing to even think when he's been touching her like she touches the TARDIS, but with more familiarity and the flutter of arousal in his pulse.
The Doctor doesn’t bother rolling her eyes. Just turns in his grasp, rears up in the water to press a shadow of a kiss against his mouth. “You might,” she agrees. “While we’re waiting for you to get around to that, though?”
She’s managed to startle him, and it’s glorious. “You – really?”
They’re barely twenty, aching to leave the Academy, and Theta’s fingers are nudging against Koschei’s.
“You – really?” Koschei’s eyes, usually so sharp and keen, are wide with dumbfounded shock.
Theta doesn’t know if it would be possible to be more in love.
“Yes. Really.”
The Doctor smiles. Takes the hand that had been on her throat, laces her fingers with his. “Yes, really.”
She pauses, then adds – “until you start planning to blow up this planet or oppress its people.”
She can see it in his eyes – the urge to tell her that he’s already well on his way to oppressing the planet or blowing up its people – and squeezes his fingers. Leans forwards and looks up at him as she slowly, meaningfully, raises their joined hands to her throat.
You know, she tells him. The usual arrangement.
He blinks, and she watches those plans shelve themselves in his mind for the moment.
The usual arrangement, the Master agrees, one hand dipping into the water around her waist to pull her in for a kiss.