Chapter Text
The Doctor had escaped right after the kiss. Of course they had. No one was surprised by their latest display of cowardice, not even the Master, who made the wise decision not to chase after them immediately. They kept an eye on him from afar whenever they thought of doing so, ensuring that he wouldn't do anything too reckless. He was behaving. Maybe all the chats about watching the universe instead of owning it had worked... or maybe he was planning something. The Doctor wasn't one to make guesses.
Adventures were the easy way to forget, to think about anything other than that kiss. The kiss, the rage suddenly shared and appeased, the pressure of the Master's arms around their body, the texture of the stubble on his cheeks, the way he had reluctantly let them go. Every single time they closed their eyes, they felt this connection that they had almost forgotten after years and centuries of being the only one of their kind... but it was wrong. All wrong. They had to forget again.
So they went to a thermal planet invaded by alien octopi who developed from bacteria in the water and turned into flesh eating monsters. Saving the world then getting a spa day ? That had to be the absolute best thing that could ever happen. Then there was this scientific base in Russia, 2052, invaded by the same Martian plague that had taken over the Bowie base, only more evolved. They had to handle the pest control, which resulted in a lot of explosions and more dead than they could count. Casualties were hard to avoid – but a few scientists were still better than the whole human race, weren't they ?
There were also these haunted dolls in a village deep in the French Pyrénées. Creepy as hell but immensely fun. Humans had such odd ideas sometimes – who else could have thought of making their deads into life-sized dolls instead of burying them ? The Doctor was still quite upset at how long it had taken them to figure out what was happening, given that the lack of cemetary was glaringly obvious. Oh, well. At least the village hadn't been destroyed by the deceased. Not entirely.
It took a good fifty years before the Master contacted them again. The message was simple and did not leave an opportunity for refusal : spatial and temporal coordinates, and a very clear “come now”.
Well, that was less original than a diva singing a song... but fifty years was probably enough to digest a single kiss.