Archive of Our Own

They were just returning from a trip to Centauri 4, a planet where the Doctor had neglected to tell him that it was currently monsoon season and very cold. The Master had drawn his purple jacket tight around himself, and the Doctor had several mostly-invisible limbs wrapped around him, but absolutely none of that was staving off the fact that most of his extremities, nose included, were going a bit numb by the time they got back to the TARDIS. 

So, as soon as the sudden warmth of the ship hit his face, he sneezed. 

And the oddest feeling hit him, like being briefly shunted into a different universe entirely before whipping back to his present location. The Master’s head spun, and he reached out to grab the console to stop himself from falling over. 

“Theta...did you do something?” He eyed the Doctor suspiciously, but his gaze wouldn’t quite focus. “Just got the strangest...strangest feeling, I guess. Right in my head. All fuzzy, and, and...alien.” 

“Don’t think I did anything.” The Doctor prodded his nose as if that would help. “Hold on. I’ll scan you.” 

She stepped towards the console, and the Master was still so out of it that it took him maybe four seconds to realise that she’d walked right through where his arm ought to be. He blinked. 

His arm wasn’t there. His arms were at his sides. And yet, he could feel quite clearly another limb gripping the TARDIS console. 

“Oh, fuck.” The spinning in his head suddenly increased about tenfold, and the last thing he was aware of was the Doctor’s surprised yelp, and several strong limbs catching him before he could slump unconscious to the floor. 

——

When the Master came to, he was in a bed of some kind. Not his usual bed, or the Doctor’s. This one was in a room lit with bright white lights, and a machine was beeping just above his head. He stirred, and groaned, closing his eyes against the fluorescent glare. 

“Why’m I in the medbay?” 

“You don’t remember?” The Doctor was at his side in an instant. He cracked an eye open. She was holding a clipboard, and there was a stethoscope draped around her neck- for once, she looked to be living up to her title. “You collapsed, Kosch. Right in the console room. And- and I don’t mean to alarm you, but-“

“-You’re taking some very odd readings,” the Master finished, lifting his hands- his real hands- and rubbing them down his face. “Readings like the ones you’ve been taking off yourself since all this started.” 

The Doctor’s form flickered and blurred, which happened a lot when she was surprised. “...Yeah.” 

“Figures.” He sighed. “Shit.” 

“How did you know?” She perched herself on the edge of his bed, a stray phantom limb lifting to smooth his hair away from his forehead. It occurred to the Master that it didn’t feel quite as cold as usual, which was...worrying, but hardly unpleasant. 

“Before I passed out, I put a hand on the console to steady myself. Except- I didn’t. You walked right through it.” 

“Oh,” the Doctor said, pressing the top of her clipboard worriedly against her lip. 

“That’s my name.” That joke was never going to get old. Even in moments of mild crisis. 

The Doctor bonked him on the head with the clipboard. Apparently she wasn’t worried enough to avoid minor acts of violence, then. Good to know. 

“Be serious, Kosch. This is weird. I don’t know why this would be happening to you. I mean- it’s a me thing. You’re not me! You’re not from my dimension! So- why?” She got increasingly animated as she spoke, to the point where the clipboard slipped into the grasp of another semi-real hand and her actual hands were just waving frantically about. 

The Master wriggled a hand out from under the blankets, and rested it on the Doctor’s leg. “I don’t have a fucking clue,” he admitted. “But it’s happening to me, and I’m not panicking, so- it’ll be okay.” 

She looked doubtfully at him, so he shifted until he was mostly sitting up in bed, and smiled at her. “Look- I’m fine. I’m- ow. Oh, my back hurts.” 

It felt as though there were needles jamming into one point on his spine, right at the top. He grimaced, suddenly having a very nasty feeling that he knew what was causing it. The Master leaned forward, realising that the Doctor must have changed his wet clothes while he was unconscious, because he was wearing a t-shirt. Ugh. 

“Oh,” the Doctor breathed, and it took every ounce of the Master’s willpower not to make another name joke. She reached out, and he made a very undignified noise as her fingertips grazed along something unfamiliar. It felt electric. Actually electric, that same strange jolt and all-over prickle that came from accidentally getting a mild shock. 

“What’s there?” He was almost afraid to know, honestly. 

“It’s, um- I’d better show you.” Her free hand pressed against his temple, and his eyes widened as she sent him an image. 

There was a pair of almost skeletal oily-black wings emerging from his back, their form indistinct and, as he watched, slowly changing into a nest of tentacle-like limbs that curled around the Doctor’s fingers. 

It would be an impressive sight, if they weren’t about four inches long at the most. 

“They’re tiny!” Maybe that wasn’t the priority at the moment. Maybe the priority should be why they were there at all. But all the Master could do was look up at the Doctor’s twelve foot wingspan, and pout. 

“They’re adorable,” the Doctor said, suddenly grinning. “Oh. Oh! Hey! Theory. Okay. So- we have a bit of the same DNA, right? They...she...used me, to make...all of you. Time Lords. Right?” 

“Right,” the Master said, squeezing her thigh comfortingly at the mention of Tecteun. She shot him a small, grateful smile. 

“So...so you’re a little bit me. A little bit connected to that other dimension. Not so much that it would ever bother you. Unless you spent way too much time around me, and I started using my powers on you. A lot.” She wrinkled her nose sheepishly at him. “I think I accidentally fucked you into having eldritch powers.” 

The Master stared at her, then snorted with laughter, sitting up properly so that he could pull the Doctor into a kiss. His own teeth stayed disappointingly not sharp as he kissed her, even though he could feel the points of hers grazing across his bottom lip. 

“Eldritch STDs, Theta. That’s...not quite the explanation I was expecting.” 

“Oi! Come on, that’s not what I said.” She smacked him on the arm, and the Master just snickered, rolling his shoulders. 

“Nah. It’s not so bad, I suppose. So I have weird amounts of hands. I have tentacles. Even if they’re tiny.” He was still just a little bit sulky about that, but never mind. “How do you do other things? Any other things- mm...teleporting? Or that thing where you make everything go dark?” 

“Oh, the dark thing’s a bit advanced. Kind of draining. Even for me. But... Teleporting’s easy.” The Doctor appeared on the other side of his bed. “You just have to think where you want to be. Anywhere.” Every few words, she flickered from one side of the bed to the other, finishing in her original spot with an eerie black-eyed grin. 

“Right.” The Master concentrated on a spot about five feet away, just behind the Doctor. He closed his eyes, sharpened his focus to the peak of precision, and aimed. Nothing. So, he tried straining like he really needed to use the toilet. Still nothing. 

“Air’s going all cold,” the Doctor said, sticking a hand out behind her. He cracked an eye open and frowned. 

“Cold?” 

“Yeah.” She grabbed his hand, and suddenly he could feel what she was feeling. In the spot behind her chair, there was an almost crystalline chill to the air, and a faint electric crackle. 

“That’s where I was aiming. Maybe I almost got there,” he suggested, rather optimistically. 

“Or maybe your power is creating weird cold spots,” the Doctor teased. 

“Shut up,” he said fondly. 

“Never.” She grinned, pulling back the blanket on his bed and climbing in next to him. The grin faded, and she rested their foreheads together, her expression turning a little more serious. The Master gazed into her eyes, watching them shift from brown to green to the occasional solid black. It was hypnotic. It...usually gave him a headache. Apparently it didn’t, anymore. Huh. 

“I really am sorry, Koschei. You didn’t ask for this. And I don’t know what’s going to happen to you, if it’ll be as much as happened to me, or...or what.” She sighed. “I don’t like uncertainty.” 

“Shh, shh.” The Master draped his arms around the Doctor, pulling her in close. “I didn’t ask for this. But I did ask for you.” He let his hands rest just beneath her extra limbs, and felt warm, soft tentacles curl around his hands, snake up his arms. He wasn’t used to the warmth, but it was so nice. “And I’ll take any associated strangeness. Even if it’s affecting me. This is hardly the worst thing that could have happened. It’s fascinating. I’ll deal with whatever happens to me. No, no- we will. Not alone anymore, are we?” 

He closed his eyes as the Doctor kissed him, her hands snaking around his back, rubbing at the strange knot of extra limbs. It prickled again- a little less intense than before, but still there. He could feel tentacles winding around the Doctor’s fingers, her wrists- not that they could get much further than that. 

“You’re right,” she said softly. “Neither of us are alone. In any sense.” She kissed him again, tangling their legs together, and the Master felt several more limbs wrap around his waist to pull him even closer. He was going to have to learn that trick. 

“Love you,” he murmured against her lips, pulling away in time to see the Doctor’s face flicker and then reassemble itself, complete with a slight blush. Adorable. 

“...Love you too,” she said, and promptly buried her face in his shoulder. The Master didn’t mind. She wasn’t the greatest at verbal affection, but she tried, for his sake. 

He smiled, resting his head against hers and closing his eyes. He felt completely entwined with her, tangled up in every possible sense, and maybe having these bizarre powers wasn’t so bad if it meant they could cuddle like this more often. 

Surprising as this was, it was hardly the worst thing either of them had been through. And, more importantly- whatever happened with this, they had each other. 

They could deal with it together.