Fic: الأعراف (Al A'raf) (1/1)
Title: الأعراف (Al A'raf)
Rating: R
Pairing: Ten/Simm!Master (Flashback Theta/Koschei)
Word Count: 3,365
Summary: The drums never stop, but they do change. Spoilers through Doctor Who S3.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Dialogue borrowed directly from Doctor Who Episodes 3.12 - The Sound of Drums and 3.13 - Last of the Time Lords belongs to Russell T. Davies.
Author’s Notes: So - the challenge? A vaguely romantic, sordid little tale with some unrequited pining on the Simm!Master’s part for Ten, that still has something of a happy ending. For a writer who’s a bit more inclined to go the angry, predatory, BDSM power-struggle route with characters like these, this was interesting. But I couldn’t resist the temptation to try. Bit out of character, and disregards some cannon elements while it banks on others, but what can you do? Came out as a series of interconnected vignettes, but I think the set up kinda works - or at least, it cohesive enough to follow without too much trouble. In case anyone’s interested, the title refers to the place between Heaven and Hell, a sort of limbo - studying the Arabic language and Edgar Allan Poe (who wrote a poem on the topic, with the same name) ended up making this seem particularly poignant for a story such as this one.
الأعراف (Al A'raf)
“A friend, at first.”
Koschei was barely a slight of a boy; with big, bright eyes and a tiny frame - pale, and often overlooked. He wasn’t alone, though - there was another like him. Small, thinner even than himself; Theta was a wisp of a child, but his eyes were sharp - they knew things others didn’t, saw things others couldn’t.
Looking back, Koschei didn’t quite know jealousy then, but he wonders now, if he would indeed have know that particular gem amongst emotions, whether things would have been different. He concludes that it may have changed some details, minor aspects, but he feels confident that the overall history would have been much the same either way. That part of his timeline was rooted in fact - he had always felt as much. He would always have fallen hard for his friend, from the very moment he’d taken the bravely-extended hand stretched towards him one unremarkable afternoon, a beacon in the darkness that called itself Theta.
It was inevitable, really.
“If I told you the truth, your hearts would break.”
This thing, this whole paradox-massacre-genocidal-raging-lunatic scenario; it’s all a bit twisted, even for him.
He likes looking at the Doctor, because even under the wrinkles and the age, it’s still the same person he’s always carried with him, like a shadow lurking at the back of his mind, watching everything he did, every move he made, every breath he took. Like that fucking human song; the stalker of his unconscious mind.
He presses strong, sure hands to either side of the Doctor’s chest and snidely chides him, brushing him off, lingering just a bit too long with his palms against those hearts, those racing hearts that are so off-rhythm from how they used to be, from how he remembers them, that he almost can’t reconcile the two. The Doctor meets his eyes for an instant, and they both know that the secret’s out; but he won’t give in. This is his moment, and he pulls away, angry and ready to condemn a civilization, an entire species for the sake of his all-consuming rage, in the name of his own personal loss.
The truth is, really, that his hearts are breaking, and he doesn’t want to be alone. He never did.
“Here come the drums!”
Maybe they’d always been there. Maybe; but he only ever noticed them once before the walls fell in, and everything changed - and that one time was in chambers not his own, bathed in the dark of eventide and panting hard into the shoulder of his closest confidant, whispering that sacred name, “Theta, Theta,” over and over like a mantra, its own percussive song.
He remembers trembling, and the experience of it - the feeling - has stayed with him all these years, through everything. Even now, he cannot peg a word to it, nothing does it justice; those long limbs and sleek skin, the subtle lines of gangly muscle here and there shaking next to him, breath coming quick and hearts thudding dull and flat, but soaring somehow, shuddering loud and fast beneath the cup of his hand.
Their eyes are equally large as their gazes meet, in the echoes of his memory, and the ones he’s watching - deep mahogany watching him right back - too bright, but looking at him with a depth, an affection he’s never known before - a weakness he’d never known he wanted before this very moment.
He knows that he’s never known it since.
The drums are there that night, louder than the beating against his ribs, louder than his gasps for air, louder than the buzzing thrill in the back of his mind as he presses against the chest of the only person who’s ever seemed to want to understand him, even if he doesn’t quite manage it most of the time. They’re cacophonous, and almost intimidating, and he clenches his eyes shut against the impending rhythm, clinging tight to the body beside him, wrapping his arms around the torso to his side and holding fast, never wanting to let go.
His embrace is returned with equal fervor as the room around them cools, and the drums fade into the background, thwarted for the time being by a touch so gentle and innocent that they cannot quite compete with its weight.
“And I thought it good.”
In the beginning he’d sought approval as if he depended on it for his very survival.
Sometimes, he would roam the halls of the Academy, late into the hours between sleeping and waking, absolutely consumed with the urge to seek out someone, anyone, and convince them to speak with him, cajole them into listening to his ideas, his thoughts, make them find some iota of worth in what he produced, in what his mind had built. He would waste his mealtimes straggling behind, waiting for that slow and stately nod of the head from their superiors, a nod that meant he’d done well, that what he’d accomplished was worth noting, worth something.
Theta gave him that, in a way; always made him feel like he mattered in some small sense, sometimes in a really large sense; always made him breathe a little deeper when he was nearby, as if he could handle it, as if he deserved it. And sometimes, Theta gave him something else - something that wasn’t sanction exactly, but that did the job just as well. Sometimes, Theta made him feel like he didn’t need approval, like his actions and his goals were driven by something above all that, something more important and powerful than rules and regulations and the almighty “green-light.”
Indeed - before, he’d needed the approval of others; the approval of just one person.
“It’s good, isn’t it? Isn’t it good?”
Some things never change.
“After all, you love them. So very, very much.”
Theta had always liked the words, had always been the one to say them aloud.
Himself, on the other hand, had only uttered them once.
It had been just after he’d gotten his TARDIS; his beautiful Theta, so young and strong, so wise and exuberant, smiling like a fool as he prepared to take off on his first solo journey through time and space.
They’d drifted apart, wanted different things - he couldn’t understand Theta anymore, his idealism; it was useless to the point of recklessness. He would never make a difference, never make his mark in the universe with that sort of thinking. It was impossible to go about helping and asking; the only solution was to take, by force if necessary. Some things simply required a firm hand.
But speaking from experience, he’d always preferred Theta’s gentle caress over anything else, so perhaps the way things had turned out was for the best.
It was in that moment - for all intents and purposes, their final goodbye - that Koschei had whispered it to him, suddenly melancholy, forcing a tight grin as he turned away, ready to embark on his own travels. He paused hopefully as he felt the hand on his shoulder, turning to meet the eyes of his once-lover, his closest friend, aching to hear the words -
And when The Doctor returned them to the Master in a single breath before turning back and leaving for good, Koschei died inside, replaced by something harder, colder - something more dangerous than the man he’d been before.
He watches the Doctor now, reacting in the smallest ways to his taunts, his cruelty, and he wants to say it, wants to say the one thing that’s burning to leave his throat, the single phrase that haunts him in his dreams:
‘You loved me once, you know.’
The words are on his tongue, but die on his lips before they’re ever uttered, and he hides behind a sneer as he turns away.
He’s a coward, and he always has been. But if a coward can do what he’s about to do, then maybe they’re not quite so bad, after all.
“Don’t!”
He yells it - screams it - but it doesn’t matter anymore, because it’s happening; he should have known.
The Doctor always gets his way.
He hates how these people, these sniveling, pathetic little humans - he hates how they worship him; hates how the girly swoons over him, caters to his every whim in the hopes of getting him to notice, hates how the freak watches him with those sickening puppy dog eyes.
The Doctor was made for him, damnit. The Doctor was always his.
He wants to brood, wants to pause time and make this stop, because this wasn’t how it was meant to happen, wasn’t what he wanted. This is not how he’d planned it all to end; admittedly, he hadn’t been one-hundred percent on the whole Toclafane scheme, but he certainly hadn’t envisioned the Doctor regaining his youth and strength in an echoing halo of psychic energy, either.
They’re all still chanting that single word, that single name - and fuck it, all he wants to do is join in.
“Now it ends, Doctor! Now it ends!”
When it’s all said and done, the only thing he wants is to end it on his own terms, at his own convenience - not like the pathetic little wifey left behind that fateful day back when Gallifrey was still so stately, so alive; when a Doctor left a Master to suddenly realize he wasn’t quite so masterful over everything after all; that something very important had slipped from his influence, had managed to weasel out of his reach.
Not anymore.
There’s anger and there’s chaos, and he’s there, the Doctor, just standing there - delicious in this regeneration, he must admit; and he fucking wants him to live up to his name for once, and make him better.
Maybe he does, though; maybe he is, in his own way. The Master isn’t sure. He only knows that the words being throw at him sound like noise, white noise, and only catches - latches - onto the bit at the end that’s so very true.
The one thing he can’t do. His own destruction terrifies him.
And that’s why the Doctor’s still alive, if he’s honest. So much of him is invested in those two bleeding hearts, that beautiful and menacing and powerful figure standing before him, framed by the sky - he cannot kill himself, and that’s the only reason that the Doctor's still breathing.
“Go on, do it.”
He never suspected that he’d want to die quite so much as he does in this very moment.
She, the woman in black - she says she thinks that this is the answer, and he can’t help but agree; because everything’s gone to shit, cocked up because he’s forgotten the one thing that makes the most sense in the world, the one thing he’s always known that was never in flux, that was never open for interpretation, was never subject to question; and that is that the Doctor never fails. It had always been the most crucial part of his devastating charm.
He can’t stand the disappointment, the anger that borders on real hate that’s glowing in those chocolate eyes, so sweet and still so poisonous that it makes him giddy, makes him ache - he can’t live with that shining in the eyes that stare him down, that are so desperate to change him, instead of save him.
The Doctor eyes him up for the smallest, most insignificant of instants, and the Master can’t meet his gaze; smirks instead and stares just to his side - to anyone else, it looks as if he’s mocking him, but the Doctor knows the truth. The Master’s been had, thwarted, and he’s ashamed of the failure.
He hears the words, the Doctor claiming with a grave sense of responsibility that now he’s got someone to care for, and the Master - well, he just wants to laugh, or vomit, and wishes that someone would just pull the fucking trigger already and put him out of his misery.
Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long. Trust Lucy to know what’s best.
He welcomes the pain - it’s a rush, and he’s longed for its equal for such a span of time that its almost a relief, his blood pumping and the impact tearing through the tissues and nerve endings as it rips him wide open, his neck snapping backwards before the rest of him follows as he crumbles - he can feel the shock that permeates the room, followed by a general sense of content, and he’s almost glad; what more can an evil genius want than to inspire glee in the event of his demise? Mission accomplished.
And yet, there’s something else, something like real grief and he feels arms, terribly familiar arms, and it’s comforting as his eyes slid closed; the voice he knows so well, will always know, telling him that he’s safe, telling him that he’s held, all composed in the repetition, the words “I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” over and over.
He thinks maybe his death won’t be quite so desolate if he gets to fade just here, like this.
“Always the women.”
It seems the appropriate thing to say to a man who might appreciate it, but apparently it’s not; not to the Doctor, whose eyes are fixed fearfully near his chin, watching his chest and face carefully from that vantage point, making sure he doesn’t give in.
He’s not ready yet, anyway; but he’s sure as hell not going to tell him that.
“Dying in your arms. Happy now?”
The Doctor looks at him in annoyance, and he’s transported back to a time when he’d nicked a book from the other Time Lord’s hands, refusing to give it back until they were both sufficiently sated and breathless, by which point the novel had been long forgotten - but there’s fear there now where there wasn’t before, and it almost makes him nervous. He loves it.
The Doctor babbles on about regenerating, just a bullet - but he can tell that even the daft, endlessly-optimistic cretin cradling him isn’t fooled; he knows what the Master’s thinking before the Master himself, sometimes; not this time, of course, but sometimes. He sees the tears in the Doctor’s eyes, and he almost has a change of heart just then, but there’s a bitterness in his blackened soul that’s been waiting for a moment like this, just the barest flash of weakness in which to surge forth and take him - and as it penetrates him with frightening ease and fervor, his breathing quakes, causing a flash of panic is his former-lover’s eyes. He wants it to be over, and he’s going to get his wish this time, damnit. He’s going to get his way.
He’d asked if the Doctor’s happy now, but it doesn’t matter - the Master is, and that’s what counts.
“And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with you?”
Not that he hasn’t already, in one way or another.
The Doctor says it can’t end like this. The Master’s convinced otherwise.
He does remember the Axons, though; quite well, in fact - and even here, at the end, it makes him want to smile.
The Doctor tells him, as tearfully as ever, that they’re the only ones left. That there’s no one else. And while it does sting, more than he ever lets on, he thinks it’s probably fitting. That’s all he’d ever hoped for, really. For it to come to pass one day that it was only the two of them, just them; that for once, the Doctor would look to him, look at him, like he was the only important thing in the entire universe.
So that the Master could spit in his face and toss him aside; see just how he liked it. There always had been something romantically, painfully ironic in the sort of revenge played close to the chest.
Pun intended.
“How about that? I win.”
He’s always wanted to win, but seeing the tears in the Doctor’s eyes, it doesn’t seem so important anymore - not nearly as fulfilling as he’d hoped. There’s something there as he screams, as he clings harder to the Master’s weakening frame; still something, after all this time, that resembles real affection - that makes him remember what love felt like.
He wishes he could go back, for the briefest of instants, and rewrite history. But he knows himself, and knows it never would have worked. It would always have led to this moment, this place - he never would have stopped, not even for the Doctor, and the Doctor would never have let him go. They were destined to chase after one another into the very end of time, until one of them finally met their doom.
As the blackness came upon him, strangely more final than it had ever felt before, he clenched his hand into a fist, the line of the ring digging desperately into the flesh of his palm, trying hard to draw blood as he rasped his final breaths, and the Master felt some measure of peace, for the first time in a long time, as he accepted that simple fact.
He’d never outrun the Doctor. And the Doctor would never stop chasing after him.
It was a comforting sort of certainty.
“Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming, will it stop?”
It doesn’t stop, never, but it does change; the rumbling in his head dimmed to accommodate the tattoo beating in his chest, the one against his cheek massaging warm and desperate as he catches his breath, shooting up in his bed and grasping at the warm flesh beneath him, his anchor - still the light to his darkness after so much time, so much pain.
“Nightmares?” the Doctor asks softly, running a gentle palm along the naked flesh of his side, tracing the dips and curves of his bones, his breath warm at the crook of the Master’s neck as he cups his lover’s hip.
“It’s nothing.” The reply is insistent; his voice sharp, harsh - but choked. It’s not nothing, it’s something, and they both know it; it always is, but they never go any further. Not anymore. It’s not as important as it used to be. They’ve learned that the hard way.
“Sleep now,” the Doctor’s voice is heavy, but soothing as he presses his lips to the Master’s temple, dragging his mouth down the line of his jaw, pulling him close so that he can feel the Doctor’s hearts beating into the hollow of his back, just out of time with his own. The Master feels his pulses slow beneath those supple hands wrapped around him; a weakness he’s always had, and never learned to fight well enough for it to matter.
And as he drifts off to sleep - as they both do, held tight and hot against one another - two awkward boys from Gallifrey, so many moons ago and so many suns away, are suddenly able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and finally, after so very long, they manage to become men.
Rating: R
Pairing: Ten/Simm!Master (Flashback Theta/Koschei)
Word Count: 3,365
Summary: The drums never stop, but they do change. Spoilers through Doctor Who S3.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Dialogue borrowed directly from Doctor Who Episodes 3.12 - The Sound of Drums and 3.13 - Last of the Time Lords belongs to Russell T. Davies.
Author’s Notes: So - the challenge? A vaguely romantic, sordid little tale with some unrequited pining on the Simm!Master’s part for Ten, that still has something of a happy ending. For a writer who’s a bit more inclined to go the angry, predatory, BDSM power-struggle route with characters like these, this was interesting. But I couldn’t resist the temptation to try. Bit out of character, and disregards some cannon elements while it banks on others, but what can you do? Came out as a series of interconnected vignettes, but I think the set up kinda works - or at least, it cohesive enough to follow without too much trouble. In case anyone’s interested, the title refers to the place between Heaven and Hell, a sort of limbo - studying the Arabic language and Edgar Allan Poe (who wrote a poem on the topic, with the same name) ended up making this seem particularly poignant for a story such as this one.
الأعراف (Al A'raf)
“A friend, at first.”
Koschei was barely a slight of a boy; with big, bright eyes and a tiny frame - pale, and often overlooked. He wasn’t alone, though - there was another like him. Small, thinner even than himself; Theta was a wisp of a child, but his eyes were sharp - they knew things others didn’t, saw things others couldn’t.
Looking back, Koschei didn’t quite know jealousy then, but he wonders now, if he would indeed have know that particular gem amongst emotions, whether things would have been different. He concludes that it may have changed some details, minor aspects, but he feels confident that the overall history would have been much the same either way. That part of his timeline was rooted in fact - he had always felt as much. He would always have fallen hard for his friend, from the very moment he’d taken the bravely-extended hand stretched towards him one unremarkable afternoon, a beacon in the darkness that called itself Theta.
It was inevitable, really.
“If I told you the truth, your hearts would break.”
This thing, this whole paradox-massacre-genocidal-raging-lunatic scenario; it’s all a bit twisted, even for him.
He likes looking at the Doctor, because even under the wrinkles and the age, it’s still the same person he’s always carried with him, like a shadow lurking at the back of his mind, watching everything he did, every move he made, every breath he took. Like that fucking human song; the stalker of his unconscious mind.
He presses strong, sure hands to either side of the Doctor’s chest and snidely chides him, brushing him off, lingering just a bit too long with his palms against those hearts, those racing hearts that are so off-rhythm from how they used to be, from how he remembers them, that he almost can’t reconcile the two. The Doctor meets his eyes for an instant, and they both know that the secret’s out; but he won’t give in. This is his moment, and he pulls away, angry and ready to condemn a civilization, an entire species for the sake of his all-consuming rage, in the name of his own personal loss.
The truth is, really, that his hearts are breaking, and he doesn’t want to be alone. He never did.
“Here come the drums!”
Maybe they’d always been there. Maybe; but he only ever noticed them once before the walls fell in, and everything changed - and that one time was in chambers not his own, bathed in the dark of eventide and panting hard into the shoulder of his closest confidant, whispering that sacred name, “Theta, Theta,” over and over like a mantra, its own percussive song.
He remembers trembling, and the experience of it - the feeling - has stayed with him all these years, through everything. Even now, he cannot peg a word to it, nothing does it justice; those long limbs and sleek skin, the subtle lines of gangly muscle here and there shaking next to him, breath coming quick and hearts thudding dull and flat, but soaring somehow, shuddering loud and fast beneath the cup of his hand.
Their eyes are equally large as their gazes meet, in the echoes of his memory, and the ones he’s watching - deep mahogany watching him right back - too bright, but looking at him with a depth, an affection he’s never known before - a weakness he’d never known he wanted before this very moment.
He knows that he’s never known it since.
The drums are there that night, louder than the beating against his ribs, louder than his gasps for air, louder than the buzzing thrill in the back of his mind as he presses against the chest of the only person who’s ever seemed to want to understand him, even if he doesn’t quite manage it most of the time. They’re cacophonous, and almost intimidating, and he clenches his eyes shut against the impending rhythm, clinging tight to the body beside him, wrapping his arms around the torso to his side and holding fast, never wanting to let go.
His embrace is returned with equal fervor as the room around them cools, and the drums fade into the background, thwarted for the time being by a touch so gentle and innocent that they cannot quite compete with its weight.
“And I thought it good.”
In the beginning he’d sought approval as if he depended on it for his very survival.
Sometimes, he would roam the halls of the Academy, late into the hours between sleeping and waking, absolutely consumed with the urge to seek out someone, anyone, and convince them to speak with him, cajole them into listening to his ideas, his thoughts, make them find some iota of worth in what he produced, in what his mind had built. He would waste his mealtimes straggling behind, waiting for that slow and stately nod of the head from their superiors, a nod that meant he’d done well, that what he’d accomplished was worth noting, worth something.
Theta gave him that, in a way; always made him feel like he mattered in some small sense, sometimes in a really large sense; always made him breathe a little deeper when he was nearby, as if he could handle it, as if he deserved it. And sometimes, Theta gave him something else - something that wasn’t sanction exactly, but that did the job just as well. Sometimes, Theta made him feel like he didn’t need approval, like his actions and his goals were driven by something above all that, something more important and powerful than rules and regulations and the almighty “green-light.”
Indeed - before, he’d needed the approval of others; the approval of just one person.
“It’s good, isn’t it? Isn’t it good?”
Some things never change.
“After all, you love them. So very, very much.”
Theta had always liked the words, had always been the one to say them aloud.
Himself, on the other hand, had only uttered them once.
It had been just after he’d gotten his TARDIS; his beautiful Theta, so young and strong, so wise and exuberant, smiling like a fool as he prepared to take off on his first solo journey through time and space.
They’d drifted apart, wanted different things - he couldn’t understand Theta anymore, his idealism; it was useless to the point of recklessness. He would never make a difference, never make his mark in the universe with that sort of thinking. It was impossible to go about helping and asking; the only solution was to take, by force if necessary. Some things simply required a firm hand.
But speaking from experience, he’d always preferred Theta’s gentle caress over anything else, so perhaps the way things had turned out was for the best.
It was in that moment - for all intents and purposes, their final goodbye - that Koschei had whispered it to him, suddenly melancholy, forcing a tight grin as he turned away, ready to embark on his own travels. He paused hopefully as he felt the hand on his shoulder, turning to meet the eyes of his once-lover, his closest friend, aching to hear the words -
And when The Doctor returned them to the Master in a single breath before turning back and leaving for good, Koschei died inside, replaced by something harder, colder - something more dangerous than the man he’d been before.
He watches the Doctor now, reacting in the smallest ways to his taunts, his cruelty, and he wants to say it, wants to say the one thing that’s burning to leave his throat, the single phrase that haunts him in his dreams:
‘You loved me once, you know.’
The words are on his tongue, but die on his lips before they’re ever uttered, and he hides behind a sneer as he turns away.
He’s a coward, and he always has been. But if a coward can do what he’s about to do, then maybe they’re not quite so bad, after all.
“Don’t!”
He yells it - screams it - but it doesn’t matter anymore, because it’s happening; he should have known.
The Doctor always gets his way.
He hates how these people, these sniveling, pathetic little humans - he hates how they worship him; hates how the girly swoons over him, caters to his every whim in the hopes of getting him to notice, hates how the freak watches him with those sickening puppy dog eyes.
The Doctor was made for him, damnit. The Doctor was always his.
He wants to brood, wants to pause time and make this stop, because this wasn’t how it was meant to happen, wasn’t what he wanted. This is not how he’d planned it all to end; admittedly, he hadn’t been one-hundred percent on the whole Toclafane scheme, but he certainly hadn’t envisioned the Doctor regaining his youth and strength in an echoing halo of psychic energy, either.
They’re all still chanting that single word, that single name - and fuck it, all he wants to do is join in.
“Now it ends, Doctor! Now it ends!”
When it’s all said and done, the only thing he wants is to end it on his own terms, at his own convenience - not like the pathetic little wifey left behind that fateful day back when Gallifrey was still so stately, so alive; when a Doctor left a Master to suddenly realize he wasn’t quite so masterful over everything after all; that something very important had slipped from his influence, had managed to weasel out of his reach.
Not anymore.
There’s anger and there’s chaos, and he’s there, the Doctor, just standing there - delicious in this regeneration, he must admit; and he fucking wants him to live up to his name for once, and make him better.
Maybe he does, though; maybe he is, in his own way. The Master isn’t sure. He only knows that the words being throw at him sound like noise, white noise, and only catches - latches - onto the bit at the end that’s so very true.
The one thing he can’t do. His own destruction terrifies him.
And that’s why the Doctor’s still alive, if he’s honest. So much of him is invested in those two bleeding hearts, that beautiful and menacing and powerful figure standing before him, framed by the sky - he cannot kill himself, and that’s the only reason that the Doctor's still breathing.
“Go on, do it.”
He never suspected that he’d want to die quite so much as he does in this very moment.
She, the woman in black - she says she thinks that this is the answer, and he can’t help but agree; because everything’s gone to shit, cocked up because he’s forgotten the one thing that makes the most sense in the world, the one thing he’s always known that was never in flux, that was never open for interpretation, was never subject to question; and that is that the Doctor never fails. It had always been the most crucial part of his devastating charm.
He can’t stand the disappointment, the anger that borders on real hate that’s glowing in those chocolate eyes, so sweet and still so poisonous that it makes him giddy, makes him ache - he can’t live with that shining in the eyes that stare him down, that are so desperate to change him, instead of save him.
The Doctor eyes him up for the smallest, most insignificant of instants, and the Master can’t meet his gaze; smirks instead and stares just to his side - to anyone else, it looks as if he’s mocking him, but the Doctor knows the truth. The Master’s been had, thwarted, and he’s ashamed of the failure.
He hears the words, the Doctor claiming with a grave sense of responsibility that now he’s got someone to care for, and the Master - well, he just wants to laugh, or vomit, and wishes that someone would just pull the fucking trigger already and put him out of his misery.
Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long. Trust Lucy to know what’s best.
He welcomes the pain - it’s a rush, and he’s longed for its equal for such a span of time that its almost a relief, his blood pumping and the impact tearing through the tissues and nerve endings as it rips him wide open, his neck snapping backwards before the rest of him follows as he crumbles - he can feel the shock that permeates the room, followed by a general sense of content, and he’s almost glad; what more can an evil genius want than to inspire glee in the event of his demise? Mission accomplished.
And yet, there’s something else, something like real grief and he feels arms, terribly familiar arms, and it’s comforting as his eyes slid closed; the voice he knows so well, will always know, telling him that he’s safe, telling him that he’s held, all composed in the repetition, the words “I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” over and over.
He thinks maybe his death won’t be quite so desolate if he gets to fade just here, like this.
“Always the women.”
It seems the appropriate thing to say to a man who might appreciate it, but apparently it’s not; not to the Doctor, whose eyes are fixed fearfully near his chin, watching his chest and face carefully from that vantage point, making sure he doesn’t give in.
He’s not ready yet, anyway; but he’s sure as hell not going to tell him that.
“Dying in your arms. Happy now?”
The Doctor looks at him in annoyance, and he’s transported back to a time when he’d nicked a book from the other Time Lord’s hands, refusing to give it back until they were both sufficiently sated and breathless, by which point the novel had been long forgotten - but there’s fear there now where there wasn’t before, and it almost makes him nervous. He loves it.
The Doctor babbles on about regenerating, just a bullet - but he can tell that even the daft, endlessly-optimistic cretin cradling him isn’t fooled; he knows what the Master’s thinking before the Master himself, sometimes; not this time, of course, but sometimes. He sees the tears in the Doctor’s eyes, and he almost has a change of heart just then, but there’s a bitterness in his blackened soul that’s been waiting for a moment like this, just the barest flash of weakness in which to surge forth and take him - and as it penetrates him with frightening ease and fervor, his breathing quakes, causing a flash of panic is his former-lover’s eyes. He wants it to be over, and he’s going to get his wish this time, damnit. He’s going to get his way.
He’d asked if the Doctor’s happy now, but it doesn’t matter - the Master is, and that’s what counts.
“And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with you?”
Not that he hasn’t already, in one way or another.
The Doctor says it can’t end like this. The Master’s convinced otherwise.
He does remember the Axons, though; quite well, in fact - and even here, at the end, it makes him want to smile.
The Doctor tells him, as tearfully as ever, that they’re the only ones left. That there’s no one else. And while it does sting, more than he ever lets on, he thinks it’s probably fitting. That’s all he’d ever hoped for, really. For it to come to pass one day that it was only the two of them, just them; that for once, the Doctor would look to him, look at him, like he was the only important thing in the entire universe.
So that the Master could spit in his face and toss him aside; see just how he liked it. There always had been something romantically, painfully ironic in the sort of revenge played close to the chest.
Pun intended.
“How about that? I win.”
He’s always wanted to win, but seeing the tears in the Doctor’s eyes, it doesn’t seem so important anymore - not nearly as fulfilling as he’d hoped. There’s something there as he screams, as he clings harder to the Master’s weakening frame; still something, after all this time, that resembles real affection - that makes him remember what love felt like.
He wishes he could go back, for the briefest of instants, and rewrite history. But he knows himself, and knows it never would have worked. It would always have led to this moment, this place - he never would have stopped, not even for the Doctor, and the Doctor would never have let him go. They were destined to chase after one another into the very end of time, until one of them finally met their doom.
As the blackness came upon him, strangely more final than it had ever felt before, he clenched his hand into a fist, the line of the ring digging desperately into the flesh of his palm, trying hard to draw blood as he rasped his final breaths, and the Master felt some measure of peace, for the first time in a long time, as he accepted that simple fact.
He’d never outrun the Doctor. And the Doctor would never stop chasing after him.
It was a comforting sort of certainty.
“Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming, will it stop?”
It doesn’t stop, never, but it does change; the rumbling in his head dimmed to accommodate the tattoo beating in his chest, the one against his cheek massaging warm and desperate as he catches his breath, shooting up in his bed and grasping at the warm flesh beneath him, his anchor - still the light to his darkness after so much time, so much pain.
“Nightmares?” the Doctor asks softly, running a gentle palm along the naked flesh of his side, tracing the dips and curves of his bones, his breath warm at the crook of the Master’s neck as he cups his lover’s hip.
“It’s nothing.” The reply is insistent; his voice sharp, harsh - but choked. It’s not nothing, it’s something, and they both know it; it always is, but they never go any further. Not anymore. It’s not as important as it used to be. They’ve learned that the hard way.
“Sleep now,” the Doctor’s voice is heavy, but soothing as he presses his lips to the Master’s temple, dragging his mouth down the line of his jaw, pulling him close so that he can feel the Doctor’s hearts beating into the hollow of his back, just out of time with his own. The Master feels his pulses slow beneath those supple hands wrapped around him; a weakness he’s always had, and never learned to fight well enough for it to matter.
And as he drifts off to sleep - as they both do, held tight and hot against one another - two awkward boys from Gallifrey, so many moons ago and so many suns away, are suddenly able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and finally, after so very long, they manage to become men.