Cafestrovalva
Title: Cafestrovalva
Author: x_los
Rating: R
Pairing/Characters: Eight/Jacobi!Master
Summary: “You could very easily be poisoning these people. You might be attempting to weaken this time line by feeding it a steady diet of anachronisms-softening it up in preparation for a larger plan. You might, Master, be capable of anything. Or at least of anything but running a tea shop.”
Beta and Acknowledgments: Beta'd by aralias, a most missable miss (in the Czech sense). Mezzo for introducing me to the word 'mamihlapinatapai,' and Chatting At the Amber Teahouse, a ridiculously fluffy yuri manga, to which I attribute the gloopy sweetness herein. Kundera for his description of the Czech phrase. Tu for question mark shirt--she's like Kundera, in her way...
***
Anticipating danger, sonic screwdriver at the ready, the Doctor pushed open the teahouse’s wooden door. From the signals the TARDIS was picking up, he had expected the place to contain an armed and obvious alien beachhead. Instead he had burst in to confront the most innocuously comfy room imaginable. The interior was crowded and cool, but still there was a great deal of seating, and an alcove sat miraculously empty at the room’s rear. Either something much more involved was going on, or, as seemed more likely, the TARDIS was simply jumping at shadows. Whether they were plotting something larger or just serving tea, the Doctor thought the place bore investigating. He made for the free alcove.
He preferred booths to chairs, and he liked sofas and divans better still. Well--in this body. In his fifth he’d have been perfectly fine with a lawn chair, if you had one. He’d liked something sturdy and wooden in his sixth, and a good plush armchair in his last. But now it was couches for him-the cozy sort you’d sink into, and have to climb and claw your way out of, so really you’d be better off grabbing a book from your pocket and not attempting to stir until absolutely necessary or until you’d finished-whichever came first.
“Well,” the Doctor murmured, opening the menu, “what have we here?”
He said this to himself, because he was between companions at the moment, but Lucie had never properly appreciated tea, anyway. Oh he’d tried to help her-Lucie Miller had been exposed to the best tea Earth had to offer (and when that didn’t work, to more exotic treasures). He’d introduced her to Queens and Emperors, and together they’d imbibed the beverage in some of the tea-drinking-galaxy’s most glittering courts-and she’d still hardly exhibited a drop (aha) of enthusiasm. She’d only just consent to a desultory cup of PG Tips if he was making some. Additionally, if called on her obvious lack of respect for tea culture, Lucie lacked the basic courtesy to really argue with him about it, so that he could correct her. She insisted on insisting that she liked tea just fine, she simply wasn’t mad about the stuff like some people.
At least now that he was on his own he’d be able to come to charming places like this without putting up with a lot of groaning from her, not to mention her traditional running commentary on how ‘naff’ all the tea sandwiches on offer sounded.
Still, the absence of sass didn’t quite make up for having no one to talk to (or talk at). The Doctor sighed a bit to himself-an old, worn sigh that encompassed his feelings on all the imperfect, lovely traveling companions and assistants to have abandoned him over the years-and began to actually read the menu before him.
He raised an eyebrow at the selection. The menu consisted of several printed pages-one for each category of tea available. But each of the offerings was particularly, strangely good. He spotted a batch of monkey-picked white lotus and jasmine, which had been a favorite of the Qing emperors, but which he’d have thought impossible to obtain it in this century. And there was a brew from a little-known plantation, which languished in total obscurity-the Doctor only knew of it because he’d once stumbled across the place itself while chasing a yeti across rural Tibet. The lady of the manor had hospitably offered him a wooden bowl of tea. It had been thick with yak butter, salted, and the Doctor had fallen a little in love. With the tea, rather than the lady, whose barking laugh at his delighted expression had exposed all three of her blackened teeth (and not to her advantage, either).
The menu boasted a full range of flushes, all of which were available to sample. It offered blends of incredible inventiveness. It promised the most delectable tastes. He could smell delicate bergamot orange on the air. In addition to flavoring Earl Gray tea, perfumers used the oil from the oranges’ peels to bind bouquets of complimentary scents together into a whole. It accomplished something similar in the teashop. It took the myriad smells, conducted the marriage of a hundred blends of tea, and it proved a good husband to each.
The Doctor had seen a thousand teashops and he had never liked one better. Which was a shame, because he’d come to investigate this one on suspicion of alien intervention and anachronism with intent.
“Can I help you?”
The Doctor looked up. Light from the room’s long French windows obscured the man’s features, and gave his clothing a harsh chiaroscuro effect. His cream shirtsleeves were cast whiter than white, and his dark trousers and waistcoat melted into each other-a long, connected streak of black. It made him look taller than he probably was.
The Doctor leaned back on his sofa, quirking an eyebrow. “Well. Hello there.”
The man gave him disinterested smile. “Have you made a decision?”
“Several. But as to your tea…” He pretended to peruse the menu, then looked up. He found the man’s eyes and stared directly into them (as well as he could manage to, half-blinded by the sun). “Perhaps you’d better choose for me. I’m in the mood for an old favorite, appropriately enough.”
“As you wish.” The man plucked the menu from his fingers and scooped it under his arm. “Darjeeling is always popular.”
He crossed the restaurant to converse with another table of customers. They greeted him warmly. They knew him.
The Doctor watched the pantomime, suspicious. Suddenly the signals the TARDIS had been picking up made a lot more sense. But what in hell was he up to?
He lingered in the restaurant far longer than could be considered polite. He ordered upwards of six free refills. He read all the magazines, twice. He had the ‘manager’ chose different blends for him (discreetly testing their potability by plunging a giant stick spring of celery, which he’d found in his pocket, into his various beverages.) Just before closing time he ducked into the bathroom. He waited there, tapping his foot and, for form’s sake, examining a pocket watch that didn’t even tell time properly on this planet.
When the Doctor heard the man who seemed to be both the shop’s owner and its sole employee step into the back stock room, he slipped out of the toilet and in after him.
The man faced a counter. He measured out dried tealeaves, and poured them into a canister with scientific exactitude.
“You took your time,” he said to the Doctor, without turning around.
“Yes,” the Doctor acknowledged. “But now there’s no one here to witness anything out on the ordinary, anything unpleasant. Or to be caught up in the crossfire. I make it a point never to spoil anyone’s tea break.” Well. Anyone but the Brigadier’s, the spoiling of which he’d made something of a game out of-but then he’d been so very bored stuck on Earth, and he’d felt rather justified a bit of harmless scone-scrumping at the time. When Alistair caught him at it, he had, of course, been of a different opinion.
The man tutted. “Do you suppose I’d harm my customers?”
“Now that’s an interesting question, because yes, I do know you, and yet you don’t seem to have. Why is that? More to the point, where is it?” The Doctor scanned the neatly labeled canisters. None of the thick, clear jars seemed to contain what he was looking for.
“Where is what?” the man asked placidly.
“Master,” the Doctor said, which was an acknowledgement, a wheedle and a warning in one.
The Master chuckled, still working at his scales. The Doctor watched the neat economy of his arms-watched the way, like a chef or a scientist, the Master kept them close to his body, tucked his elbows against the side of his chest. He had, the Doctor observed, very elegant hands this regeneration, and he used them deftly.
“You think I’d leave something so anachronistic out here, where anyone might stumble in and lay hand on it?” the Master asked, but it wasn’t really a question. “That sort of foolish carelessness is more your-”
“Cup of tea?” the Doctor interrupted, unable to resist.
The Master groaned, either in response to the Doctor’s comment, or because he had to stoop to unlock a cabinet, and he wasn’t particularly youthful this time around. The cabinet was sealed with what looked to be a heavy, old-fashioned padlock, and what felt like a psychic isomorph print.
“You might have said anything else,” the Master complained.
Ah. It had been the joke, then.
“Your predilection,” The Master suggested, turning the lock.
“Your bailiwick,” the Doctor continued agreeably.
The Master raised an eyebrow at the word. “Balliwick,” he turned it over in his mouth, then shook his head. “Oh, hardly in this regeneration.”
The Doctor leaned back against the counter at his back and watched the Master pull a wooden box out of a safe that was much wider and deeper than it had looked from the outside, before the Master had opened it.
“You’ve been keeping track of me well enough to know my verbal tics. How thoughtful of you-and while you were supposed to be dead, too.”
The Master turned around to him. There was something tight in his eyes, and it struck the Doctor that that remark might be truer than he knew. Something had happened, and the Doctor didn’t know what, which bothered him immensely.
The Master set the casket on the counter beside the Doctor and opened it. He pulled out several transparent sachets of brightly colored leaves.
“I never sell it to the customers, of course.”
“Then why do you keep it?” the Doctor pointed out, reasonable and cynical. “You could very easily be poisoning these people. You might be attempting to weaken this time line by feeding it a steady diet of anachronisms-softening it up in preparation for a larger plan. You might, Master, be capable of anything. Or at least of anything but running a tea shop.”
The Master glanced at him, unruffled. “My customers’ provincial palates are hardly capable of appreciating this, and as you suggest, their digestive tracks would positively recoil at some of them. Still, such blends are, you must concede, precious in their own right. I need hardly estimate their worth in terms of mere utility.”
As he spoke, the Master gathered a pot, a straining basket, cups and saucers. “I keep this tea for my own personal use. And, naturally, for out-of-town guests.”
The Doctor took a wary look around him. “I came to London-well, because I always come to London. But I came here tracing some very odd energy signatures. Were you luring me here with this? Is there something going on out there, while we chat over this-incidentally, exquisite looking-Venusian green pearl? Are there Boekind in Belgrave Square? Are Sontarans breathing the lowly air of Seven Dials?”
The Master raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that an up-market shopping district now? Not to my knowledge, and I can hardly imagine a squadron of Sontarans boutique-hopping. But I imagine no reassurance I can offer will satisfy you.”
“Probably not,” the Doctor agreed. His voice was amiable, but his eyes were hard.
“See for yourself then,” the Master gestured towards the door. “It should only take you a few minutes to determine whether anything untoward is occurring in the city. When you’ve made a sufficient nuisance of yourself, come back. Your tea will have finished brewing.”
***
Fifteen minutes later, having irritated a record number of people in the given time (borrowing a businessman’s iPhone, barging into a pub during the football and demanding they change all the televisions to various news-stations, running up to no less than seven worried-looking people in the street, demanding to know what they were Running From, and consequently enduring four conversations about unsatisfying relationships, two whinges about the economy, and one panicked slap), the Doctor slumped back into the teashop. The Master sat at the section the Doctor had occupied earlier, enjoying a madeleine with his tea.
“You know,” the Doctor said, sitting down gingerly in an attempt not to be half-absorbed by the sofa, “I had madeleines with Proust once...”
“Really, Doctor? I’d love to hear about it.”
The Doctor perked up. “Well-”
“In a hundred words or fewer.”
He slumped down in a sulk again. “Well, if you’re going to be like that about it. Who ever heard of Proust abridged? Even anecdotally?” Really, sometimes the Master missed the whole point of things.
The Master had the gall to chuckle. “Try your tea, my dear.”
With a sour expression, the Doctor lifted the delicate cup from its saucer. “Certainly, Master,” he murmured sarcastically, “anything else, Mas-oh god,” his eyes widened comically. He looked up at the Master, expression almost reverential. “Oh, Master.”
“Mm. I know.” Smug as a cat, the Master took a sip of his own. “You’ve no objection to me keeping the shop, then?”
The Doctor hadn’t consciously allowed his eyelids to flutter, and the eyes beneath roll back in pleasure. Upon realizing they’d taken some initiative in the matter, he sternly schooled them. “Hm?” he asked, confused, slightly blissed-out. “What?” he asked, tone sharper this time, the verbal approximation of a man searching for his clothing after an unwise one-night-stand. He cursed this body’s sybaritic tendencies. He wondered if the tea might be drugged (even hoped it a bit, because it would have been a terribly convenient excuse), but he knew better.
“Nothing important, Doctor. Have a cake. You could even try dipping it in the tea, as your afore-name-dropped friend would advise.”
“Oh ha ha.” The Doctor rolled his eyes (this time in a properly condescending rather than shamelessly wanton manner-v.g.), but did as the Master suggested. “Mm. They’re really very good.”
“I find the lemon zest adds interest.”
“You baked these?”
“Why not?” the Master asked, simply.
The Doctor could think of any number of reasons why not. He knew the Master was capable of making all manner of things-from incredible (in the literal meaning of the word, i.e. he could not credit them) costumes to scientific gadgetry, from doomsday weapons to the universe’s worst mistakes-but surely tea cakes was stretching it? The Master’s plans were usually more complicated, ridiculous-to-surreal, and, well, evil than
`
1) buy ingredients,
2) make pastry,
3) have very old friend over for tea and cake,
but the Master was busy pressing on.
“As it happens, I find myself too occupied by my other duties to bake enough for the shop, which is regrettable. People expect the sweets to be of a quality commensurate with the tea itself, but the bakery I’m forced to order from lacks my… exacting standards.”
The Doctor smiled. “You mean your obsessive perfectionism.”
The Master’s lip quirked. “Don’t tell me what I mean,” he said, not unkindly.
In silence the Doctor took the final sips from his second cup, draining it to the dregs. There was nothing left in the pot-to continue the conversation, they’d have to make another. The Doctor found that he lacked sufficient trust. The Master opened his mouth, ready to suggest it, and the Doctor preempted him.
“Thank you for the tea, Master. It’s been-unexpected.” The Master was doing something here, of course he was-it just wasn’t apparent yet. The Doctor could play a long game too, if he had to, though really it was bound to be tiresome, having to come back here like this.
“I take it you’re going, then?” And was there a hint of disapproval in the Master’s voice? Of all the cheek. As if someone who’d done what he had could call the Doctor to account for not staying to make polite conversation. “Do drop by when you’re next passing through.”
“Oh, I intend to,” the Doctor promised, with a grating smile which further implied that next time, he would discover what the Master was really up to.
Outside, there was still light. The English summer day stretched on into evening, less showy than a Midnight Sun. It was reserved and undemonstrative, with an innate wish to avoid making itself garish and ridiculous-typically British. Good old London- it always felt welcoming (even if he had been partially responsible for burning it down once). He couldn’t have the Master lurking about the place, spoiling it.
But there were very good reasons he didn’t usually let himself have quiet interludes like this with the Master. It was all too easy to forget what he’d done, what those acts had made him. It was all too easy to remember that he liked the Master-that he liked him very much.
***
The next time the Doctor returned to the café, about two months later, he headed straight through to the back and took his tea with the Master. They talked about the places he’d been recently, and about a companion who’d only lasted one adventure before deciding time travel really wasn’t for him. Cowardly, the Doctor called it. And he’d had hopes for the boy, too-he’d reminded him a bit of Hairy Sullivan. Largely because he was quite hairy-he’d been a fur-covered humanoid from the Meeron spiral.
Restless and irked that the Master wouldn’t just tell him the entire plan (as he often had, in the bad old days) and give this teahouse farce up for a bad joke, the Doctor left after an hour.
***
When he came back three weeks after that it was two a.m. and he was bleeding copiously. He soniced-and-entered stealthily, making his way to the back room--only to trip on something that hadn’t been there last time. Deeply tired and irritated, the Doctor didn’t bother to get up. In a minute someone flicked on the lights, and in another thirty seconds he was eye-level with a pair of bare feet. Looking up gave him the Master, amused (and rather handsome) in a sturdy claret dressing gown.
“Good morning, Doctor. I see you’ve found my latest acquisition. Do you like it?”
The Doctor craned his head to look at his apprehender. A cloudy, blue-green, stone elephant-like creature was propping the door open, probably in order to keep air flowing through the rooms. It was an attractive little thing-wildly out of place, given that it wouldn’t be carved by Draconian artisans for centuries yet, but not obviously intrusive. It was the sort of thing Brax would have been proud to have in his collection, and the Doctor said as much.
“I know,” the Master admitted. “I snatched it out from under him in a highly contested auction lot-I had to make a more exclusive arrangement with the purveyor, but Braxiatel’s annoyance is, as usual, worth any price.” The Master held out a hand to help him up.
The Doctor laughed. “I can imagine.” He took the Master’s hand and got to his feet, favoring his wounded shoulder, wincing when he saw the amount of blood on the hard wood floor. Oh dear. He hadn’t thought it was as bad as that. “You still have your TARDIS, then. I had wondered if that was why you stayed.”
The Master ignored the comment. “You’re injured.”
There was a flat quality to his tone that took the Doctor by surprise. “Are you worried?” he asked without thinking, wishing in the next instant that he hadn’t brought it up.
But the Master ignored that too, steering him over to the plush green divan the Doctor had decided was his favorite on his first day here. The Master darted into the back room and returned with boiling hot water to clean the wound, a cloth to apply it, and a sleek tissue regenerator.
“I had something of a misunderstanding with the Sycorax,” the Doctor said, by way of explanation.
“Standard energy weapons, then-brace yourself,” the Master said, but the Doctor still gave an embarrassingly loud cry when the super-heated wet cloth touched the charred flesh, and another when the tissue regenerator knitted him back together with sudden, brutal sutures.
“Did you come to me for help?” The Master’s voice was laden, but its burden was all wrapped up, in boxes, and the Doctor couldn’t tell whether he wanted to hear ‘yes, I came to you to be cared for,’ whether he was mocking the very idea; whether he was angry, or what specifically he was angry about.
I used to know you, he thought, so well I’d never have had to wonder, like a stranger.
“Tannins,” the Doctor supplied, (mostly) honestly. “To kick-start the healing process. You seem to have a wide variety of tea lying about-including the heavy-duty stuff, which it would have been tricky to track down in my condition.”
“Ah.” There again, textbook enigmatic. The Doctor didn’t like it. With some difficulty, he swung his legs around, making to get up, thank the Master, and head back to his TARDIS.
“Wait,” the Master said, disappearing into the kitchen, returning a moment later with something that smelled strongly of herbs.
“Bless you,” the Doctor said feelingly, taking the warm cup into his hands. He took a large swallow of the strong beverage. He could feel the buzz of a localized temporal manipulator, tingling in his mouth. The Master must have used it to hurry the Doctor’s tea along, accelerating the time-field just around the mug, so that it would brew faster. That also meant wouldn’t taste quite right-he’d sacrificed his usual perfectionism for the Doctor’s comfort. It was almost sweet.
“And how did you manage to annoy the Sycorax this time?” The Master leaned back in an armchair, looking as though he belonged to the better class of Bond villain. The Doctor thought it suited him. The claret dressing gown really was very nice. No slippers, which was a pity. A man with an enviable dressing gown should definitely have slippers to match. His bare feet were rather distracting. Perhaps, the Doctor thought fuzzily, he should buy him some-slippers, not distracting bare feet. The effect would be adorable.
“Adorable?” the Master asked, amused, at which point the Doctor realized that he’d been speaking out loud, in an increasingly muffled, far-away tone. He slipped off into sleep, which was much less embarrassing.
***
“Rough night, eh?”
In response to the amiable query from a young man seated at the next table with by some female friends, the Doctor cracked an eye open. It was almost noon, and the teahouse was relatively busy around him. He had a pillow under his head, a blanket tucked around his body, and an empty mug of tea by his enervated hand.
“Excuse me,” the Doctor said to the gallery, standing and marching into the back room full of righteous indignation.
“You drugged me!” the Doctor shouted, finding the Master calmly pouring water into a long row of teapots.
“Doctor, my customers!” the Master tsked.
“You drugged me!” the Doctor whispered, loud and theatrical.
“Naturally. Isn’t that what you came here in order for me to do?” The Master had the gall to look totally unruffled.
The Doctor spluttered. “No, no, I came here for some of your wonderfully strong tea. Not to have another Valeriana incident-which, incidentally, I know you used, because I can still taste it on the roof of my mouth.”
“I had some left over,” the Master gave a Gallic, unapologetic shrug and set down the kettle.
“What did you do while I was asleep?” the Doctor demanded, horrified at his own vulnerability, and at that of his unguarded TARDIS.
“I saw you settled, as you no doubt noticed when you woke. I had a shower, and then I went to sleep,” the Master said, with infinite patience. “Upstairs, in my bedroom, before you ask. You yourself managed to sleep through the entire morning rush. You must have been more gravely injured even than you appeared, but then energy weapon wounds are often deceptive. The internal ricochets can be far more damaging than the surface condition might imply.”
The Doctor whirled and stomped out of the kitchen, past the Master’s bemused customers. He furiously opened a broom cupboard and slammed the door behind him. His TARDIS was tucked directly inside. The Doctor tapped rapidly at the console, doing a thorough scan of all her systems, his own body, and the planet itself. He cross-referenced and scanned the scanners themselves, so he could trust his results.
Nothing, nada, zilch.
The anger drained out of him. Someone knocked politely on his TARDIS door. The Doctor opened it, stepping back so the Master could come in.
“Any luck finding rare neurotoxins, Doctor?” The Master asked, as politely as if the Doctor were on a safari for them. He surveyed the room. “I like the redecoration. It’s very elegant. Sadly I didn’t have the opportunity to comment on it, the last time I was here.”
“You were somewhat indisposed.”
“I was a snake made of goo,” the Master said, with a sort of world-weary acceptance of the fact that his life had come to the point where he could announce such things casually.
“Aren’t we all, in one way or another?” The Doctor waved a generous hand.
The Master crossed his arms. “No.”
“Well no, I suppose we aren’t all ectoplasmic snakes.” The Doctor cleared his throat. “Thank you. For the tea.”
“You are, as always, welcome. Will you be leaving now?”
“For the moment.” The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. “I still don’t trust you, Master.”
“No,” the Master agreed. “But then I didn’t imagine you would.” He placed a green thermos on the console. “Au revior then, Doctor.”
He left, shutting the door softly behind him, and the Doctor dematerialized. The Master had been right to assume that, if not for his stealthy chemical intervention, disguised by the lingering taste of the time field, the Doctor would have discharged himself directly after visiting. He’d have pressed on and either spent a week being thoroughly sick in the Vortex, alone and unable to properly care for himself, or he would have plunged into another adventure immediately and barely come out of it with his life.
The Doctor ran the tea through a battery of analysis as well, because it would be just like the Master to do everything irreproachably and then poison the tea in the thermos as a Parthian shot. It was normal Joolian herbal, famed throughout the crab nebula systems for its restorative properties. Not even a trace of Valerian kicking about the place. It was even still hot.
Frowning despite its rare lightness and quality, the Doctor drank the tea slowly, wondering which of them had gone mad.
***
The Doctor visited to return an old book the Master had left on his TARDIS, centuries ago. The Master looked at the book coldly, as if he too didn’t find the excuse it presented very impressive, and told the Doctor to keep it.
The Doctor dropped in, smug as anything, to foil an alien invasion, only to discover it had nothing whatsoever to do with the Master. The Master was nonetheless willing to shut down the shop for the afternoon in order to help the Doctor work out the maths necessary to summon and confine the extra-dimensional beings stalking several major British asylums, feasting on the altered brainwaves of the disturbed as though they were delicacies. Afterwards the Doctor took him out for dinner. The parted awkwardly-the Doctor, flushed and a little drunk, practically shouting his ‘goodbye’ and dashing back into the TARDIS.
The Doctor came in the early afternoon and sat in the back room, talking to the Master whenever the other man was free. It was a slow day, and their conversation was languid and desultory. After closing time the Doctor helped him tidy, putting half the things he touched back in the wrong places. From the corner of his eye, he watched the Master scrub the countertop in strong, sure strokes. He watched the Master toss the rag in the sink with a flick of his wrist before going to wash his hands.
They had another cup together and, in the absence of guests to attend to, the Master did everything properly. Steam curled up prettily from the curvaceous pot, thickening and heating the air between them.
“You know, I hate waiting for proper tea,” the Doctor confided. “Bags and electric kettles have spoilt me.”
“You lack patience,” the Master agreed, not unkindly. “The anticipation is part of the experience. The first sip of a brew allowed to properly mature is well worth the wait. They call it the agony of the leaves. An apt description of the way the tea leaves uncurl under the hot water, yielding themselves up to it.”
The Master poured, and the tea slipped into their small, pale cups. In each case it sloshed up around the sides before sliding down into the belly. The Doctor had his hands wrapped around his cup, and he could feel the hot blush of the porcelain. He wet his lips and took a warm gulp of the liquid, almost burning his tongue.
The Master raised an eyebrow. “Greedy,” he said, and it wasn’t a criticism. “This is particularly a exquisite blend. But the experience should be drawn out. Savored.” He made a gesture, as if to ask the Doctor if he’d like him to refill his cup.
As a result, the Doctor asked the Master to fill him up again. Something that had sounded much better in his mind.
“Is this first or second flush?” the Doctor asked, in a voice deeper than he meant it to be.
“You’re on your third,” the Master murmured, which did not help. Noticing the tray before them was nearly bare, he moved as if to refill it, but then stopped, reconsidering. “We haven’t eaten yet,” he Master pointed out, gracefully ignoring the Doctor’s suite of troubled expressions. “Perhaps you’re hungry for something more satisfying than these paltry appetizers?”
“No,” the Doctor said, too firmly. “No I’m perfectly satisfied. By which I mean I’m fine with these biscuits, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” The Master got up to clear, his expression souring in a way that made the Doctor feel guilty.
It seemed so natural to walk up behind him. The Master could surely feel him there, but continued on, reaching for the soap, giving the bar a quick spin in his hands before setting it down again. The Doctor slid an arm around his waist, pressing their bodies close. The Master was slightly taller this time, and the Doctor could easily kiss the side of his neck without having to stoop. The Master ran the tap and briefly thrust his hands under it, so he wouldn’t get soap all over the Doctor’s velvet coat, and then turned around, tilting his head down to kiss the Doctor firmly, wrapping his arms around the Doctor’s chest and pulling him more tightly to him.
The Doctor made a small, settled noise, stumbling backwards. The Master followed, and the Doctor let himself be pushed back against the counter and up onto it. His head lolled against the thick wooden door of the cabinet, and he grew short of breath when the Master wedged a knee between his legs and spread them, forcing himself between them, thigh very present against the Doctor’s constrained cock.
Being taken on a freshly cleaned counter in the back kitchen of the Master’s improbable teahouse could be seen as a moment (or several) of soft madness. But eagerly clambering up the stairs into the Master’s nicely decorated bedroom and, say, gleefully sucking him off and then taking him roughly from behind while he groaned encouragement-that was less excusable. The Doctor vaguely remembered choking out lavish praise for the Master’s abilities and natural endowments in an increasingly husky voice. It had not been his finest hour.
The Master had fallen asleep directly afterwards, leaving the Doctor to fret for another half an hour, unwilling to just leave (more because it might wake the Master and force an immediate awkward conversation than because he was above such pettiness-he was decidedly not above such pettiness) and unable to sleep, until suddenly it was ten in the morning, and he was waking up to a coy autumn sun pressing at his eyes through the half-slatted blinds. He showered as quickly as he ever had in his life, threw on the Master’s dressing gown (his clothes from the night before having been abandoned in the kitchen), and stumbled down the stairs, wanting to make a discreet, Master-free exit (less a Walk of Shame than a Run of Evasive Maneuvering) and to not come back until enough time had passed that he could reasonably be expected not to have to talk about this.
But before he was halfway down the stairs, he was hailed cheerfully by a customer at the bottom. Already. He hadn’t thought the Master’s shop was even open at this hour. “You must be the Doctor,” the man said, as if this were a pleasant, normal thing for a pleasant, normal man to be called.
“That’s right,” the Doctor agreed cautiously.
“Your husband’s gone out to the shops,” the man continued. “He said to tell you to mind the store while he was out-said he wouldn’t be long.”
“Did he,” the Doctor muttered.
“So, I hear you’re a long-haul freight captain,” the man began. “Oh, I’m Todd, by the way-Todd Kingston.” He reached out a hand, and the Doctor shook it.
“Did-” Rassilon, what did they call the Master, here? “er, he say that?”
Todd’s attention had shifted to a cheerful-looking, plump redhead who was in the process of sneakily adding another spoonful of sugar to her tea, “Honey, remember what the doctor said.” The woman rolled her eyes, but put the teaspoon back in the sugar tray, conceding the point.
“Diabetes, bless her.” Todd said, turning back to the Doctor. “The wife and I noticed you’d been dropping in every few weeks or so, and I asked Cyril what sort of thing you did.”
The Master was not necessarily who the Doctor would have chosen to give him a reference. He crossed his arms. “And how did he describe what I do?”
Todd shrugged. “Just said you were in charge of a ship crewed by a lot of-if you’ll pardon me, his words-overly idealistic young save-the-world types. He implied you did a lot of humanitarian work, and were often away for long stretches of time. Said we should probably call you Doctor if we met you, because the kids all did, and you’d gotten used to it.”
“Oh,” the Doctor blinked. “You know, that’s not actually as terrible a synopsis as I was expecting?”
Todd gave him a sympathetic look. “Does he resent your job, then? I’ve been there, mate. Must be hard on a couple-still, he seems a bit older than you, I expect he knows how to be patient.”
“We’re the same age, actually,” the Doctor corrected automatically, which he supposed wouldn’t really bolster any claims he might want to make that the man had misread the situation, and that he and ‘Cyril’ barely knew each other, that they were about as married as-well, as two very unmarried things, who had possibly once been engaged, in an arguable sort of way. Anyway, that had been very long ago and was not important at the moment. “Cyril,” the Doctor mused, “Greek for Master. Typical.”
“Er, is is?” Todd blinked. “He said his mum named him after Cyril Delevanti. Told us we could call him Masters, but surnames are awfully stuffy.”
“That one in particular,” the Doctor said grimly. “I’m surprised he told you we were married.”
“It is London, we’re generally pretty open-minded.” Todd seemed taken-aback, and gave the Doctor’s current attire a pointed glance, but then recovered. “Of course you probably do a lot of your work in places where they’re more sensitive about it. You don’t even wear a ring..”
Which implied the Master did - of course he did, the Doctor groaned internally, a friendly smile still plastered on his face. Still.
“Come to think of it, I don’t know that he did say,” Todd shrugged. “Just picked up on it, I suppose.”
A fresh group of customers entered, jangling the small bell attached to the door. “Could we get two pots of black rose?” a lanky girl called.
“Oh, actually, I wouldn’t mine a refill,” Mrs. Kingston piped up.
“And some of the shortbread biscuits,” her husband Todd added.
“I-” the Doctor faltered. Generally speaking, he was both more suited to and more prepared for a sudden Cyber Invasion than he was customer service. But all these nice, friendly English people were smiling at him expectantly. And not because he had just announced something impressive, like that they would not die, not today. They didn’t want deliverance, a heroic sacrifice on his part, or even world peace. They just wanted tea.
“Doctor?” Todd asked, breaking the moment.
“Right,” the Doctor said, clapping his hands together. “Two pots of black rose, a refill on what smells like keemun-”
“That’s the one,” Mrs. Kingston agreed.
“-and some of the shortbread biscuits. I’ll be back in just a minute.”
The Doctor ran up the stairs and straight into the sad cliché of having to borrow clean clothes off another man after an ill-advised sexual encounter. From the Master’s too-neat closet he whipped out the shortest pair of plain black trousers he could find then hunted and hunted for a clean shirt small enough to fit him. The Master was only slightly taller, but his was significantly broader in the chest, and the Doctor had no intention of going around all day looking as puffy and pale as the Pillsbury Doughboy. Finally, behind the rich white and cream, old-fashioned ones the Master favored, he found what looked by both its size and by the red question marks on the lapels to be one of his own shirts, abandoned on a similar occasion. Chagrined that the Master was either confident or sad enough to keep it in his closet in case of a reoccurrence, and not happy at being reminded that this was not the first occasion on which he’d made this mistake, the Doctor shrugged it on. It did not fit perfectly, but it was an improvement on its predecessor, which smelled tragically of sex. He added a very enviable waistcoat of the Master’s. A row of clean shop aprons hung on the back of the door. Squaring himself, the Doctor grabbed one, tied it on, positioned the neck-strings so as to hide the embarrassing question marks on his lapels, and headed downstairs.
For the next two hours, the Doctor served tea. Once he got over being wary of being confused, and miffed and afraid of a confrontation with the Master where he knew he wasn’t absolutely in the right, the Doctor found he was in a pleasant, gregarious mood-possibly because, for the first time in a long time, he’d spent the night having a ridiculous amount of sex. His beaming conviviality invited conversation, and when the Master returned the Doctor was sitting in the middle of a group of middle-aged insurance saleswomen telling a story about how, back in the seventies, he’d once had to dress as an old washer woman to find out what was going on inside a business that had committed a host of ecological crimes.
A giggling woman boggled at him. “In the seventies! You must have been just a baby then!”
“Seventies? I meant the Eighties, I’m forever getting those two confused-especially where UNIT’s concerned. Beside, I’ve aged remarkably well.” He gave her a cheeky smile, then turned towards the shopping-laden Master, who was observing the scene with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t you think, Cyril?”
“I’ve always thought so, my dear,” the Master replied without missing a beat. “Age does not wither, nor custom stale. Are you going to help me carry this, or should I stumble on?”
The Doctor rose, weaving through the women and taking a cloth bag off the Master. “You recycle?” he muttered under his breath, baffled. “You’re not even trying to destroy the planet in slow, unimpressive ways?”
“Waste not,” the Master quipped. “Besides, I find plastic bags gauche.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes.
In the kitchen he slammed his bag down on the counter and hissed, “Those people all think we’re-”
The Master, putting away groceries, turned around to give the Doctor a smug, curious look. The Doctor abruptly shut up, walked into the broom cupboard where he kept his TARDIS on visits, and left.
He didn’t come back for three months. It was the longest he’d been absent since discovering the Master’s establishment.
PART II
Author: x_los
Rating: R
Pairing/Characters: Eight/Jacobi!Master
Summary: “You could very easily be poisoning these people. You might be attempting to weaken this time line by feeding it a steady diet of anachronisms-softening it up in preparation for a larger plan. You might, Master, be capable of anything. Or at least of anything but running a tea shop.”
Beta and Acknowledgments: Beta'd by aralias, a most missable miss (in the Czech sense). Mezzo for introducing me to the word 'mamihlapinatapai,' and Chatting At the Amber Teahouse, a ridiculously fluffy yuri manga, to which I attribute the gloopy sweetness herein. Kundera for his description of the Czech phrase. Tu for question mark shirt--she's like Kundera, in her way...
***
Anticipating danger, sonic screwdriver at the ready, the Doctor pushed open the teahouse’s wooden door. From the signals the TARDIS was picking up, he had expected the place to contain an armed and obvious alien beachhead. Instead he had burst in to confront the most innocuously comfy room imaginable. The interior was crowded and cool, but still there was a great deal of seating, and an alcove sat miraculously empty at the room’s rear. Either something much more involved was going on, or, as seemed more likely, the TARDIS was simply jumping at shadows. Whether they were plotting something larger or just serving tea, the Doctor thought the place bore investigating. He made for the free alcove.
He preferred booths to chairs, and he liked sofas and divans better still. Well--in this body. In his fifth he’d have been perfectly fine with a lawn chair, if you had one. He’d liked something sturdy and wooden in his sixth, and a good plush armchair in his last. But now it was couches for him-the cozy sort you’d sink into, and have to climb and claw your way out of, so really you’d be better off grabbing a book from your pocket and not attempting to stir until absolutely necessary or until you’d finished-whichever came first.
“Well,” the Doctor murmured, opening the menu, “what have we here?”
He said this to himself, because he was between companions at the moment, but Lucie had never properly appreciated tea, anyway. Oh he’d tried to help her-Lucie Miller had been exposed to the best tea Earth had to offer (and when that didn’t work, to more exotic treasures). He’d introduced her to Queens and Emperors, and together they’d imbibed the beverage in some of the tea-drinking-galaxy’s most glittering courts-and she’d still hardly exhibited a drop (aha) of enthusiasm. She’d only just consent to a desultory cup of PG Tips if he was making some. Additionally, if called on her obvious lack of respect for tea culture, Lucie lacked the basic courtesy to really argue with him about it, so that he could correct her. She insisted on insisting that she liked tea just fine, she simply wasn’t mad about the stuff like some people.
At least now that he was on his own he’d be able to come to charming places like this without putting up with a lot of groaning from her, not to mention her traditional running commentary on how ‘naff’ all the tea sandwiches on offer sounded.
Still, the absence of sass didn’t quite make up for having no one to talk to (or talk at). The Doctor sighed a bit to himself-an old, worn sigh that encompassed his feelings on all the imperfect, lovely traveling companions and assistants to have abandoned him over the years-and began to actually read the menu before him.
He raised an eyebrow at the selection. The menu consisted of several printed pages-one for each category of tea available. But each of the offerings was particularly, strangely good. He spotted a batch of monkey-picked white lotus and jasmine, which had been a favorite of the Qing emperors, but which he’d have thought impossible to obtain it in this century. And there was a brew from a little-known plantation, which languished in total obscurity-the Doctor only knew of it because he’d once stumbled across the place itself while chasing a yeti across rural Tibet. The lady of the manor had hospitably offered him a wooden bowl of tea. It had been thick with yak butter, salted, and the Doctor had fallen a little in love. With the tea, rather than the lady, whose barking laugh at his delighted expression had exposed all three of her blackened teeth (and not to her advantage, either).
The menu boasted a full range of flushes, all of which were available to sample. It offered blends of incredible inventiveness. It promised the most delectable tastes. He could smell delicate bergamot orange on the air. In addition to flavoring Earl Gray tea, perfumers used the oil from the oranges’ peels to bind bouquets of complimentary scents together into a whole. It accomplished something similar in the teashop. It took the myriad smells, conducted the marriage of a hundred blends of tea, and it proved a good husband to each.
The Doctor had seen a thousand teashops and he had never liked one better. Which was a shame, because he’d come to investigate this one on suspicion of alien intervention and anachronism with intent.
“Can I help you?”
The Doctor looked up. Light from the room’s long French windows obscured the man’s features, and gave his clothing a harsh chiaroscuro effect. His cream shirtsleeves were cast whiter than white, and his dark trousers and waistcoat melted into each other-a long, connected streak of black. It made him look taller than he probably was.
The Doctor leaned back on his sofa, quirking an eyebrow. “Well. Hello there.”
The man gave him disinterested smile. “Have you made a decision?”
“Several. But as to your tea…” He pretended to peruse the menu, then looked up. He found the man’s eyes and stared directly into them (as well as he could manage to, half-blinded by the sun). “Perhaps you’d better choose for me. I’m in the mood for an old favorite, appropriately enough.”
“As you wish.” The man plucked the menu from his fingers and scooped it under his arm. “Darjeeling is always popular.”
He crossed the restaurant to converse with another table of customers. They greeted him warmly. They knew him.
The Doctor watched the pantomime, suspicious. Suddenly the signals the TARDIS had been picking up made a lot more sense. But what in hell was he up to?
He lingered in the restaurant far longer than could be considered polite. He ordered upwards of six free refills. He read all the magazines, twice. He had the ‘manager’ chose different blends for him (discreetly testing their potability by plunging a giant stick spring of celery, which he’d found in his pocket, into his various beverages.) Just before closing time he ducked into the bathroom. He waited there, tapping his foot and, for form’s sake, examining a pocket watch that didn’t even tell time properly on this planet.
When the Doctor heard the man who seemed to be both the shop’s owner and its sole employee step into the back stock room, he slipped out of the toilet and in after him.
The man faced a counter. He measured out dried tealeaves, and poured them into a canister with scientific exactitude.
“You took your time,” he said to the Doctor, without turning around.
“Yes,” the Doctor acknowledged. “But now there’s no one here to witness anything out on the ordinary, anything unpleasant. Or to be caught up in the crossfire. I make it a point never to spoil anyone’s tea break.” Well. Anyone but the Brigadier’s, the spoiling of which he’d made something of a game out of-but then he’d been so very bored stuck on Earth, and he’d felt rather justified a bit of harmless scone-scrumping at the time. When Alistair caught him at it, he had, of course, been of a different opinion.
The man tutted. “Do you suppose I’d harm my customers?”
“Now that’s an interesting question, because yes, I do know you, and yet you don’t seem to have. Why is that? More to the point, where is it?” The Doctor scanned the neatly labeled canisters. None of the thick, clear jars seemed to contain what he was looking for.
“Where is what?” the man asked placidly.
“Master,” the Doctor said, which was an acknowledgement, a wheedle and a warning in one.
The Master chuckled, still working at his scales. The Doctor watched the neat economy of his arms-watched the way, like a chef or a scientist, the Master kept them close to his body, tucked his elbows against the side of his chest. He had, the Doctor observed, very elegant hands this regeneration, and he used them deftly.
“You think I’d leave something so anachronistic out here, where anyone might stumble in and lay hand on it?” the Master asked, but it wasn’t really a question. “That sort of foolish carelessness is more your-”
“Cup of tea?” the Doctor interrupted, unable to resist.
The Master groaned, either in response to the Doctor’s comment, or because he had to stoop to unlock a cabinet, and he wasn’t particularly youthful this time around. The cabinet was sealed with what looked to be a heavy, old-fashioned padlock, and what felt like a psychic isomorph print.
“You might have said anything else,” the Master complained.
Ah. It had been the joke, then.
“Your predilection,” The Master suggested, turning the lock.
“Your bailiwick,” the Doctor continued agreeably.
The Master raised an eyebrow at the word. “Balliwick,” he turned it over in his mouth, then shook his head. “Oh, hardly in this regeneration.”
The Doctor leaned back against the counter at his back and watched the Master pull a wooden box out of a safe that was much wider and deeper than it had looked from the outside, before the Master had opened it.
“You’ve been keeping track of me well enough to know my verbal tics. How thoughtful of you-and while you were supposed to be dead, too.”
The Master turned around to him. There was something tight in his eyes, and it struck the Doctor that that remark might be truer than he knew. Something had happened, and the Doctor didn’t know what, which bothered him immensely.
The Master set the casket on the counter beside the Doctor and opened it. He pulled out several transparent sachets of brightly colored leaves.
“I never sell it to the customers, of course.”
“Then why do you keep it?” the Doctor pointed out, reasonable and cynical. “You could very easily be poisoning these people. You might be attempting to weaken this time line by feeding it a steady diet of anachronisms-softening it up in preparation for a larger plan. You might, Master, be capable of anything. Or at least of anything but running a tea shop.”
The Master glanced at him, unruffled. “My customers’ provincial palates are hardly capable of appreciating this, and as you suggest, their digestive tracks would positively recoil at some of them. Still, such blends are, you must concede, precious in their own right. I need hardly estimate their worth in terms of mere utility.”
As he spoke, the Master gathered a pot, a straining basket, cups and saucers. “I keep this tea for my own personal use. And, naturally, for out-of-town guests.”
The Doctor took a wary look around him. “I came to London-well, because I always come to London. But I came here tracing some very odd energy signatures. Were you luring me here with this? Is there something going on out there, while we chat over this-incidentally, exquisite looking-Venusian green pearl? Are there Boekind in Belgrave Square? Are Sontarans breathing the lowly air of Seven Dials?”
The Master raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that an up-market shopping district now? Not to my knowledge, and I can hardly imagine a squadron of Sontarans boutique-hopping. But I imagine no reassurance I can offer will satisfy you.”
“Probably not,” the Doctor agreed. His voice was amiable, but his eyes were hard.
“See for yourself then,” the Master gestured towards the door. “It should only take you a few minutes to determine whether anything untoward is occurring in the city. When you’ve made a sufficient nuisance of yourself, come back. Your tea will have finished brewing.”
***
Fifteen minutes later, having irritated a record number of people in the given time (borrowing a businessman’s iPhone, barging into a pub during the football and demanding they change all the televisions to various news-stations, running up to no less than seven worried-looking people in the street, demanding to know what they were Running From, and consequently enduring four conversations about unsatisfying relationships, two whinges about the economy, and one panicked slap), the Doctor slumped back into the teashop. The Master sat at the section the Doctor had occupied earlier, enjoying a madeleine with his tea.
“You know,” the Doctor said, sitting down gingerly in an attempt not to be half-absorbed by the sofa, “I had madeleines with Proust once...”
“Really, Doctor? I’d love to hear about it.”
The Doctor perked up. “Well-”
“In a hundred words or fewer.”
He slumped down in a sulk again. “Well, if you’re going to be like that about it. Who ever heard of Proust abridged? Even anecdotally?” Really, sometimes the Master missed the whole point of things.
The Master had the gall to chuckle. “Try your tea, my dear.”
With a sour expression, the Doctor lifted the delicate cup from its saucer. “Certainly, Master,” he murmured sarcastically, “anything else, Mas-oh god,” his eyes widened comically. He looked up at the Master, expression almost reverential. “Oh, Master.”
“Mm. I know.” Smug as a cat, the Master took a sip of his own. “You’ve no objection to me keeping the shop, then?”
The Doctor hadn’t consciously allowed his eyelids to flutter, and the eyes beneath roll back in pleasure. Upon realizing they’d taken some initiative in the matter, he sternly schooled them. “Hm?” he asked, confused, slightly blissed-out. “What?” he asked, tone sharper this time, the verbal approximation of a man searching for his clothing after an unwise one-night-stand. He cursed this body’s sybaritic tendencies. He wondered if the tea might be drugged (even hoped it a bit, because it would have been a terribly convenient excuse), but he knew better.
“Nothing important, Doctor. Have a cake. You could even try dipping it in the tea, as your afore-name-dropped friend would advise.”
“Oh ha ha.” The Doctor rolled his eyes (this time in a properly condescending rather than shamelessly wanton manner-v.g.), but did as the Master suggested. “Mm. They’re really very good.”
“I find the lemon zest adds interest.”
“You baked these?”
“Why not?” the Master asked, simply.
The Doctor could think of any number of reasons why not. He knew the Master was capable of making all manner of things-from incredible (in the literal meaning of the word, i.e. he could not credit them) costumes to scientific gadgetry, from doomsday weapons to the universe’s worst mistakes-but surely tea cakes was stretching it? The Master’s plans were usually more complicated, ridiculous-to-surreal, and, well, evil than
`
1) buy ingredients,
2) make pastry,
3) have very old friend over for tea and cake,
but the Master was busy pressing on.
“As it happens, I find myself too occupied by my other duties to bake enough for the shop, which is regrettable. People expect the sweets to be of a quality commensurate with the tea itself, but the bakery I’m forced to order from lacks my… exacting standards.”
The Doctor smiled. “You mean your obsessive perfectionism.”
The Master’s lip quirked. “Don’t tell me what I mean,” he said, not unkindly.
In silence the Doctor took the final sips from his second cup, draining it to the dregs. There was nothing left in the pot-to continue the conversation, they’d have to make another. The Doctor found that he lacked sufficient trust. The Master opened his mouth, ready to suggest it, and the Doctor preempted him.
“Thank you for the tea, Master. It’s been-unexpected.” The Master was doing something here, of course he was-it just wasn’t apparent yet. The Doctor could play a long game too, if he had to, though really it was bound to be tiresome, having to come back here like this.
“I take it you’re going, then?” And was there a hint of disapproval in the Master’s voice? Of all the cheek. As if someone who’d done what he had could call the Doctor to account for not staying to make polite conversation. “Do drop by when you’re next passing through.”
“Oh, I intend to,” the Doctor promised, with a grating smile which further implied that next time, he would discover what the Master was really up to.
Outside, there was still light. The English summer day stretched on into evening, less showy than a Midnight Sun. It was reserved and undemonstrative, with an innate wish to avoid making itself garish and ridiculous-typically British. Good old London- it always felt welcoming (even if he had been partially responsible for burning it down once). He couldn’t have the Master lurking about the place, spoiling it.
But there were very good reasons he didn’t usually let himself have quiet interludes like this with the Master. It was all too easy to forget what he’d done, what those acts had made him. It was all too easy to remember that he liked the Master-that he liked him very much.
***
The next time the Doctor returned to the café, about two months later, he headed straight through to the back and took his tea with the Master. They talked about the places he’d been recently, and about a companion who’d only lasted one adventure before deciding time travel really wasn’t for him. Cowardly, the Doctor called it. And he’d had hopes for the boy, too-he’d reminded him a bit of Hairy Sullivan. Largely because he was quite hairy-he’d been a fur-covered humanoid from the Meeron spiral.
Restless and irked that the Master wouldn’t just tell him the entire plan (as he often had, in the bad old days) and give this teahouse farce up for a bad joke, the Doctor left after an hour.
***
When he came back three weeks after that it was two a.m. and he was bleeding copiously. He soniced-and-entered stealthily, making his way to the back room--only to trip on something that hadn’t been there last time. Deeply tired and irritated, the Doctor didn’t bother to get up. In a minute someone flicked on the lights, and in another thirty seconds he was eye-level with a pair of bare feet. Looking up gave him the Master, amused (and rather handsome) in a sturdy claret dressing gown.
“Good morning, Doctor. I see you’ve found my latest acquisition. Do you like it?”
The Doctor craned his head to look at his apprehender. A cloudy, blue-green, stone elephant-like creature was propping the door open, probably in order to keep air flowing through the rooms. It was an attractive little thing-wildly out of place, given that it wouldn’t be carved by Draconian artisans for centuries yet, but not obviously intrusive. It was the sort of thing Brax would have been proud to have in his collection, and the Doctor said as much.
“I know,” the Master admitted. “I snatched it out from under him in a highly contested auction lot-I had to make a more exclusive arrangement with the purveyor, but Braxiatel’s annoyance is, as usual, worth any price.” The Master held out a hand to help him up.
The Doctor laughed. “I can imagine.” He took the Master’s hand and got to his feet, favoring his wounded shoulder, wincing when he saw the amount of blood on the hard wood floor. Oh dear. He hadn’t thought it was as bad as that. “You still have your TARDIS, then. I had wondered if that was why you stayed.”
The Master ignored the comment. “You’re injured.”
There was a flat quality to his tone that took the Doctor by surprise. “Are you worried?” he asked without thinking, wishing in the next instant that he hadn’t brought it up.
But the Master ignored that too, steering him over to the plush green divan the Doctor had decided was his favorite on his first day here. The Master darted into the back room and returned with boiling hot water to clean the wound, a cloth to apply it, and a sleek tissue regenerator.
“I had something of a misunderstanding with the Sycorax,” the Doctor said, by way of explanation.
“Standard energy weapons, then-brace yourself,” the Master said, but the Doctor still gave an embarrassingly loud cry when the super-heated wet cloth touched the charred flesh, and another when the tissue regenerator knitted him back together with sudden, brutal sutures.
“Did you come to me for help?” The Master’s voice was laden, but its burden was all wrapped up, in boxes, and the Doctor couldn’t tell whether he wanted to hear ‘yes, I came to you to be cared for,’ whether he was mocking the very idea; whether he was angry, or what specifically he was angry about.
I used to know you, he thought, so well I’d never have had to wonder, like a stranger.
“Tannins,” the Doctor supplied, (mostly) honestly. “To kick-start the healing process. You seem to have a wide variety of tea lying about-including the heavy-duty stuff, which it would have been tricky to track down in my condition.”
“Ah.” There again, textbook enigmatic. The Doctor didn’t like it. With some difficulty, he swung his legs around, making to get up, thank the Master, and head back to his TARDIS.
“Wait,” the Master said, disappearing into the kitchen, returning a moment later with something that smelled strongly of herbs.
“Bless you,” the Doctor said feelingly, taking the warm cup into his hands. He took a large swallow of the strong beverage. He could feel the buzz of a localized temporal manipulator, tingling in his mouth. The Master must have used it to hurry the Doctor’s tea along, accelerating the time-field just around the mug, so that it would brew faster. That also meant wouldn’t taste quite right-he’d sacrificed his usual perfectionism for the Doctor’s comfort. It was almost sweet.
“And how did you manage to annoy the Sycorax this time?” The Master leaned back in an armchair, looking as though he belonged to the better class of Bond villain. The Doctor thought it suited him. The claret dressing gown really was very nice. No slippers, which was a pity. A man with an enviable dressing gown should definitely have slippers to match. His bare feet were rather distracting. Perhaps, the Doctor thought fuzzily, he should buy him some-slippers, not distracting bare feet. The effect would be adorable.
“Adorable?” the Master asked, amused, at which point the Doctor realized that he’d been speaking out loud, in an increasingly muffled, far-away tone. He slipped off into sleep, which was much less embarrassing.
***
“Rough night, eh?”
In response to the amiable query from a young man seated at the next table with by some female friends, the Doctor cracked an eye open. It was almost noon, and the teahouse was relatively busy around him. He had a pillow under his head, a blanket tucked around his body, and an empty mug of tea by his enervated hand.
“Excuse me,” the Doctor said to the gallery, standing and marching into the back room full of righteous indignation.
“You drugged me!” the Doctor shouted, finding the Master calmly pouring water into a long row of teapots.
“Doctor, my customers!” the Master tsked.
“You drugged me!” the Doctor whispered, loud and theatrical.
“Naturally. Isn’t that what you came here in order for me to do?” The Master had the gall to look totally unruffled.
The Doctor spluttered. “No, no, I came here for some of your wonderfully strong tea. Not to have another Valeriana incident-which, incidentally, I know you used, because I can still taste it on the roof of my mouth.”
“I had some left over,” the Master gave a Gallic, unapologetic shrug and set down the kettle.
“What did you do while I was asleep?” the Doctor demanded, horrified at his own vulnerability, and at that of his unguarded TARDIS.
“I saw you settled, as you no doubt noticed when you woke. I had a shower, and then I went to sleep,” the Master said, with infinite patience. “Upstairs, in my bedroom, before you ask. You yourself managed to sleep through the entire morning rush. You must have been more gravely injured even than you appeared, but then energy weapon wounds are often deceptive. The internal ricochets can be far more damaging than the surface condition might imply.”
The Doctor whirled and stomped out of the kitchen, past the Master’s bemused customers. He furiously opened a broom cupboard and slammed the door behind him. His TARDIS was tucked directly inside. The Doctor tapped rapidly at the console, doing a thorough scan of all her systems, his own body, and the planet itself. He cross-referenced and scanned the scanners themselves, so he could trust his results.
Nothing, nada, zilch.
The anger drained out of him. Someone knocked politely on his TARDIS door. The Doctor opened it, stepping back so the Master could come in.
“Any luck finding rare neurotoxins, Doctor?” The Master asked, as politely as if the Doctor were on a safari for them. He surveyed the room. “I like the redecoration. It’s very elegant. Sadly I didn’t have the opportunity to comment on it, the last time I was here.”
“You were somewhat indisposed.”
“I was a snake made of goo,” the Master said, with a sort of world-weary acceptance of the fact that his life had come to the point where he could announce such things casually.
“Aren’t we all, in one way or another?” The Doctor waved a generous hand.
The Master crossed his arms. “No.”
“Well no, I suppose we aren’t all ectoplasmic snakes.” The Doctor cleared his throat. “Thank you. For the tea.”
“You are, as always, welcome. Will you be leaving now?”
“For the moment.” The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. “I still don’t trust you, Master.”
“No,” the Master agreed. “But then I didn’t imagine you would.” He placed a green thermos on the console. “Au revior then, Doctor.”
He left, shutting the door softly behind him, and the Doctor dematerialized. The Master had been right to assume that, if not for his stealthy chemical intervention, disguised by the lingering taste of the time field, the Doctor would have discharged himself directly after visiting. He’d have pressed on and either spent a week being thoroughly sick in the Vortex, alone and unable to properly care for himself, or he would have plunged into another adventure immediately and barely come out of it with his life.
The Doctor ran the tea through a battery of analysis as well, because it would be just like the Master to do everything irreproachably and then poison the tea in the thermos as a Parthian shot. It was normal Joolian herbal, famed throughout the crab nebula systems for its restorative properties. Not even a trace of Valerian kicking about the place. It was even still hot.
Frowning despite its rare lightness and quality, the Doctor drank the tea slowly, wondering which of them had gone mad.
***
The Doctor visited to return an old book the Master had left on his TARDIS, centuries ago. The Master looked at the book coldly, as if he too didn’t find the excuse it presented very impressive, and told the Doctor to keep it.
The Doctor dropped in, smug as anything, to foil an alien invasion, only to discover it had nothing whatsoever to do with the Master. The Master was nonetheless willing to shut down the shop for the afternoon in order to help the Doctor work out the maths necessary to summon and confine the extra-dimensional beings stalking several major British asylums, feasting on the altered brainwaves of the disturbed as though they were delicacies. Afterwards the Doctor took him out for dinner. The parted awkwardly-the Doctor, flushed and a little drunk, practically shouting his ‘goodbye’ and dashing back into the TARDIS.
The Doctor came in the early afternoon and sat in the back room, talking to the Master whenever the other man was free. It was a slow day, and their conversation was languid and desultory. After closing time the Doctor helped him tidy, putting half the things he touched back in the wrong places. From the corner of his eye, he watched the Master scrub the countertop in strong, sure strokes. He watched the Master toss the rag in the sink with a flick of his wrist before going to wash his hands.
They had another cup together and, in the absence of guests to attend to, the Master did everything properly. Steam curled up prettily from the curvaceous pot, thickening and heating the air between them.
“You know, I hate waiting for proper tea,” the Doctor confided. “Bags and electric kettles have spoilt me.”
“You lack patience,” the Master agreed, not unkindly. “The anticipation is part of the experience. The first sip of a brew allowed to properly mature is well worth the wait. They call it the agony of the leaves. An apt description of the way the tea leaves uncurl under the hot water, yielding themselves up to it.”
The Master poured, and the tea slipped into their small, pale cups. In each case it sloshed up around the sides before sliding down into the belly. The Doctor had his hands wrapped around his cup, and he could feel the hot blush of the porcelain. He wet his lips and took a warm gulp of the liquid, almost burning his tongue.
The Master raised an eyebrow. “Greedy,” he said, and it wasn’t a criticism. “This is particularly a exquisite blend. But the experience should be drawn out. Savored.” He made a gesture, as if to ask the Doctor if he’d like him to refill his cup.
As a result, the Doctor asked the Master to fill him up again. Something that had sounded much better in his mind.
“Is this first or second flush?” the Doctor asked, in a voice deeper than he meant it to be.
“You’re on your third,” the Master murmured, which did not help. Noticing the tray before them was nearly bare, he moved as if to refill it, but then stopped, reconsidering. “We haven’t eaten yet,” he Master pointed out, gracefully ignoring the Doctor’s suite of troubled expressions. “Perhaps you’re hungry for something more satisfying than these paltry appetizers?”
“No,” the Doctor said, too firmly. “No I’m perfectly satisfied. By which I mean I’m fine with these biscuits, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” The Master got up to clear, his expression souring in a way that made the Doctor feel guilty.
It seemed so natural to walk up behind him. The Master could surely feel him there, but continued on, reaching for the soap, giving the bar a quick spin in his hands before setting it down again. The Doctor slid an arm around his waist, pressing their bodies close. The Master was slightly taller this time, and the Doctor could easily kiss the side of his neck without having to stoop. The Master ran the tap and briefly thrust his hands under it, so he wouldn’t get soap all over the Doctor’s velvet coat, and then turned around, tilting his head down to kiss the Doctor firmly, wrapping his arms around the Doctor’s chest and pulling him more tightly to him.
The Doctor made a small, settled noise, stumbling backwards. The Master followed, and the Doctor let himself be pushed back against the counter and up onto it. His head lolled against the thick wooden door of the cabinet, and he grew short of breath when the Master wedged a knee between his legs and spread them, forcing himself between them, thigh very present against the Doctor’s constrained cock.
Being taken on a freshly cleaned counter in the back kitchen of the Master’s improbable teahouse could be seen as a moment (or several) of soft madness. But eagerly clambering up the stairs into the Master’s nicely decorated bedroom and, say, gleefully sucking him off and then taking him roughly from behind while he groaned encouragement-that was less excusable. The Doctor vaguely remembered choking out lavish praise for the Master’s abilities and natural endowments in an increasingly husky voice. It had not been his finest hour.
The Master had fallen asleep directly afterwards, leaving the Doctor to fret for another half an hour, unwilling to just leave (more because it might wake the Master and force an immediate awkward conversation than because he was above such pettiness-he was decidedly not above such pettiness) and unable to sleep, until suddenly it was ten in the morning, and he was waking up to a coy autumn sun pressing at his eyes through the half-slatted blinds. He showered as quickly as he ever had in his life, threw on the Master’s dressing gown (his clothes from the night before having been abandoned in the kitchen), and stumbled down the stairs, wanting to make a discreet, Master-free exit (less a Walk of Shame than a Run of Evasive Maneuvering) and to not come back until enough time had passed that he could reasonably be expected not to have to talk about this.
But before he was halfway down the stairs, he was hailed cheerfully by a customer at the bottom. Already. He hadn’t thought the Master’s shop was even open at this hour. “You must be the Doctor,” the man said, as if this were a pleasant, normal thing for a pleasant, normal man to be called.
“That’s right,” the Doctor agreed cautiously.
“Your husband’s gone out to the shops,” the man continued. “He said to tell you to mind the store while he was out-said he wouldn’t be long.”
“Did he,” the Doctor muttered.
“So, I hear you’re a long-haul freight captain,” the man began. “Oh, I’m Todd, by the way-Todd Kingston.” He reached out a hand, and the Doctor shook it.
“Did-” Rassilon, what did they call the Master, here? “er, he say that?”
Todd’s attention had shifted to a cheerful-looking, plump redhead who was in the process of sneakily adding another spoonful of sugar to her tea, “Honey, remember what the doctor said.” The woman rolled her eyes, but put the teaspoon back in the sugar tray, conceding the point.
“Diabetes, bless her.” Todd said, turning back to the Doctor. “The wife and I noticed you’d been dropping in every few weeks or so, and I asked Cyril what sort of thing you did.”
The Master was not necessarily who the Doctor would have chosen to give him a reference. He crossed his arms. “And how did he describe what I do?”
Todd shrugged. “Just said you were in charge of a ship crewed by a lot of-if you’ll pardon me, his words-overly idealistic young save-the-world types. He implied you did a lot of humanitarian work, and were often away for long stretches of time. Said we should probably call you Doctor if we met you, because the kids all did, and you’d gotten used to it.”
“Oh,” the Doctor blinked. “You know, that’s not actually as terrible a synopsis as I was expecting?”
Todd gave him a sympathetic look. “Does he resent your job, then? I’ve been there, mate. Must be hard on a couple-still, he seems a bit older than you, I expect he knows how to be patient.”
“We’re the same age, actually,” the Doctor corrected automatically, which he supposed wouldn’t really bolster any claims he might want to make that the man had misread the situation, and that he and ‘Cyril’ barely knew each other, that they were about as married as-well, as two very unmarried things, who had possibly once been engaged, in an arguable sort of way. Anyway, that had been very long ago and was not important at the moment. “Cyril,” the Doctor mused, “Greek for Master. Typical.”
“Er, is is?” Todd blinked. “He said his mum named him after Cyril Delevanti. Told us we could call him Masters, but surnames are awfully stuffy.”
“That one in particular,” the Doctor said grimly. “I’m surprised he told you we were married.”
“It is London, we’re generally pretty open-minded.” Todd seemed taken-aback, and gave the Doctor’s current attire a pointed glance, but then recovered. “Of course you probably do a lot of your work in places where they’re more sensitive about it. You don’t even wear a ring..”
Which implied the Master did - of course he did, the Doctor groaned internally, a friendly smile still plastered on his face. Still.
“Come to think of it, I don’t know that he did say,” Todd shrugged. “Just picked up on it, I suppose.”
A fresh group of customers entered, jangling the small bell attached to the door. “Could we get two pots of black rose?” a lanky girl called.
“Oh, actually, I wouldn’t mine a refill,” Mrs. Kingston piped up.
“And some of the shortbread biscuits,” her husband Todd added.
“I-” the Doctor faltered. Generally speaking, he was both more suited to and more prepared for a sudden Cyber Invasion than he was customer service. But all these nice, friendly English people were smiling at him expectantly. And not because he had just announced something impressive, like that they would not die, not today. They didn’t want deliverance, a heroic sacrifice on his part, or even world peace. They just wanted tea.
“Doctor?” Todd asked, breaking the moment.
“Right,” the Doctor said, clapping his hands together. “Two pots of black rose, a refill on what smells like keemun-”
“That’s the one,” Mrs. Kingston agreed.
“-and some of the shortbread biscuits. I’ll be back in just a minute.”
The Doctor ran up the stairs and straight into the sad cliché of having to borrow clean clothes off another man after an ill-advised sexual encounter. From the Master’s too-neat closet he whipped out the shortest pair of plain black trousers he could find then hunted and hunted for a clean shirt small enough to fit him. The Master was only slightly taller, but his was significantly broader in the chest, and the Doctor had no intention of going around all day looking as puffy and pale as the Pillsbury Doughboy. Finally, behind the rich white and cream, old-fashioned ones the Master favored, he found what looked by both its size and by the red question marks on the lapels to be one of his own shirts, abandoned on a similar occasion. Chagrined that the Master was either confident or sad enough to keep it in his closet in case of a reoccurrence, and not happy at being reminded that this was not the first occasion on which he’d made this mistake, the Doctor shrugged it on. It did not fit perfectly, but it was an improvement on its predecessor, which smelled tragically of sex. He added a very enviable waistcoat of the Master’s. A row of clean shop aprons hung on the back of the door. Squaring himself, the Doctor grabbed one, tied it on, positioned the neck-strings so as to hide the embarrassing question marks on his lapels, and headed downstairs.
For the next two hours, the Doctor served tea. Once he got over being wary of being confused, and miffed and afraid of a confrontation with the Master where he knew he wasn’t absolutely in the right, the Doctor found he was in a pleasant, gregarious mood-possibly because, for the first time in a long time, he’d spent the night having a ridiculous amount of sex. His beaming conviviality invited conversation, and when the Master returned the Doctor was sitting in the middle of a group of middle-aged insurance saleswomen telling a story about how, back in the seventies, he’d once had to dress as an old washer woman to find out what was going on inside a business that had committed a host of ecological crimes.
A giggling woman boggled at him. “In the seventies! You must have been just a baby then!”
“Seventies? I meant the Eighties, I’m forever getting those two confused-especially where UNIT’s concerned. Beside, I’ve aged remarkably well.” He gave her a cheeky smile, then turned towards the shopping-laden Master, who was observing the scene with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t you think, Cyril?”
“I’ve always thought so, my dear,” the Master replied without missing a beat. “Age does not wither, nor custom stale. Are you going to help me carry this, or should I stumble on?”
The Doctor rose, weaving through the women and taking a cloth bag off the Master. “You recycle?” he muttered under his breath, baffled. “You’re not even trying to destroy the planet in slow, unimpressive ways?”
“Waste not,” the Master quipped. “Besides, I find plastic bags gauche.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes.
In the kitchen he slammed his bag down on the counter and hissed, “Those people all think we’re-”
The Master, putting away groceries, turned around to give the Doctor a smug, curious look. The Doctor abruptly shut up, walked into the broom cupboard where he kept his TARDIS on visits, and left.
He didn’t come back for three months. It was the longest he’d been absent since discovering the Master’s establishment.
PART II