Work Text:
The Master never properly sleeps.
That is not, in fact, a product of neglect. Indeed, it seems the Doctor went to great pains to as closely replicate life, as the Master once knew it, into this new chassis as was feasible for a relative genius to do. Still; the Master does not sleep so much as he enters a sleeping mode. It’s very different from sleep, and very different from death.
(He would be lying if he said he wasn’t grateful. But he’d also be much too generous—and, more worrying, far too tenderly honest—to say that he is.
It’s a tricky balance they walk. Trickier still when they’re together, no matter how long or short a time that may be. And it has been… not an insignificant amount of time that they have been together, as of late.)
The Master—it bears repeating—does not sleep.
He is not awakened, then, by the Doctor’s catching breath.
He is not awakened, either, by the shifting weight in bed as the Doctor bolts to sitting.
He is most certainly not awakened by the first strained sound of a muffled sob.
It’s only that “awakened by” need not constitute “aware of.” The hum of his mind quiets at the Doctor's first gasping, and he slips from one mode of being into another. His eyes open at the shift of the mattress and the sheets. His head turns at the first breathy choke.
For a moment, all he does is watch after. But then, he is not a product of neglect, is he? It would be… rude, perhaps—(unthinkable, whispers sentiment)—to be less than a product of the attention paid.
He reaches for the Doctor’s hand. His bones, already pronounced under his slender physique and thinner skin, raise long hills in his flesh. His tendons jump. The Master, counter to his metal frame and cool reputation, keeps his touch soft.
(In this moment, his chest mimics the motion of breathing, and the minute sway of him echoes that of a heartsbeat. What fine attention to detail it is. He catches himself wondering if it was borne out of a sense of compassion, of longing. Or perhaps it is a product of this awful, nightmarish anxiety that takes the Doctor’s mind so easily in his most recent shape.
And then, he wonders if it is possible for one to be a better comfort, when one is less an unmoving, dependable thing, and more a being to move alongside.
Perhaps—says sentiment—that is why he’s here, today.)
The Doctor’s hand loosens at last in the sheets. The Master lifts himself further, his chest to the Doctor’s back. He holds his hand with gentleness unlike him, wraps an arm around his waist in a gesture that ignores hundreds of years of possessive grabs.
“It’s all right,” the Master finds himself murmuring. “Quite all right, Doctor. You’re here.”
The Doctor sobs harder, but not worse. It is something. The Master turns his cheek, settling it between the Doctor’s shuddering shoulder blades.
And so am I, sentiment whispers.
“And so am I,” the Master soothes.
Perhaps they’ll call it generous, in the morning. Too generous, perhaps, if they’re feeling out of balance, and must reel back to maintain. They do walk such a tricky balance.
But for now, the Master thinks… for now, some tender honesty will suffice.