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Claws tighten at Clara’s neck. Backed against a wall, arms clamped against the metal, she kicks out in vain at the alien currently trying to kill her. Two hands to pin her, and another two to strangle. A hardened exoskeleton that refuses to take any impact even with her strongest knee to the chitin. She shouldn’t be here, she really didn’t mean to cause any offense, but any chance of diplomacy withered when the Triloskinian officer realized exactly what company she was keeping.
Oxygen deprivation is all too familiar. She chokes as six talons curl into her skin, true terror setting in. She might die here. An old memory surfaces, one soaked in a similar, pressing panic. A thousand years before, holding her breath as half-flesh half-mechanical people watched for signs of life. Never had she felt so abandoned. Where was the Doctor when she needed him? Always one step behind, just in reach… a faded ideal, a millennium of wishful thinking, and hope crushes in her burning chest as darkness crowds her vision.
The pressure releases.
Gasping, Clara heaves for a breath. No longer pinned to the wall, she fights to remain standing. Her head throbs, swimming and she closes her eyes, desperate to alleviate the urgent pain in her lungs.
Footsteps hurry down the hall, clicking against the grated floor and new hands grip her shoulders.
“Clara,” a voice says, distant. “Clara, Clara. Eyes open, love.”
She’d know that voice anywhere. “Master,” she replies faintly.
“Yes,” he urges, “look at me, Clara.”
She shudders, intaking another breath and trying to steady, steady… her heart races wildly and she opens her eyes. Blurry with the haze of near-strangulation. She blinks rapidly to clear them, and finds the Master staring at her with a look of… is that panic?
Dark eyes scan her face. His fingers clench a little too tight, and she marvels with a dazed realization that yes, that is fear. For her?
“Aw, that’s sweet,” she mumbles, a true testament to her oxygen-starved brain.
His brow furrows. She’s not sure why he still looks so concerned. Airway open, mostly standing, life intact… she’ll be fine, just a breather and they can dash off like they usually do after a bit of trouble.
But this is different. One of his hands releases her shoulder, and she stumbles to stay upright. Off the wall a bit, back on her feet. She shivers as a cool hand grabs her own to keep her steady.
The other brushes her hair from her face, pushing it back to examine her neck. Pain lances from where the claws dug in. “Think it’ll scar?” she asks, then considers her priorities, then figures that vanity is a good sign of recovery.
“If you don’t die,” he says grimly.
“Die?” she repeats, and the word shocks some clarity into her. “What d’you mean?”
He grimaces. “Venomous talons, dear. The skin is pierced.”
“Oh,” she gasps, “am I bleeding?”
“Mildly,” he says, “need to see if you’ve been afflicted. Chin up.”
“Going to suck the venom out?” she asks, unable to help her amusement. This is far from the first time she’s been poisoned, bit, or pricked with something that most definitely should have killed her.
“Mm, not quite.”
And then he leans down and licks her, a quick stripe up the marks along her neck.
Surprised, she jolts. He leans back up, and she stares at him, unsure of whether to lead with the scandalized part of her brain or the excitement it sparked.
“You could ask,” she says.
He frowns, tasting her… blood, presumably. That definitely shouldn’t be hot.
“Hm.”
“Just hm?” she probes after a second. “You can’t just lick me and leave me at hm.”
He eyes her. “No traces of venom. Surprising.”
“Oh, fantastic. You ought to check the other marks, just to be sure.”
The Master glances over her arms—her coat looks thick enough to have protected the skin, and she’s pretty sure it’s only going to leave bruises. Then he tilts her head, looking over the wounds left by the alien’s other hand.
Tracing the points with his index finger, he meets her gaze. Her breathing has calmed, but her heart still beats with fervor. She’s aware he can feel it beneath the pad of his fingertip.
Clara already knows, but she needs to ask. “What did you do with the others?”
He shrugs slightly. “Collector’s edition.”
A glance down reveals exactly what she expected: a little figure at his feet. Given the circumstances, she can’t find it in herself to have much pity.
When she meets his gaze again, it’s filled with a dark heat to replace the earlier fear. There’s a buzz with the knowledge that it was for her. He came for her.
The pain in her arms and neck is very real, and unpleasantly present. Not the good kind of pain. She’s going to ache for weeks… not looking forward to that. They should probably get out of here. He’s still holding her hand.
The Master swipes a thin line of blood off her throat and before she can react, sucks it off his finger.
“Uncontaminated,” he offers with a sly grin.
God, that’s twisted. With her free hand, she takes the back of his head and pulls him into a kiss.
Their lips meet. Awkward at first—she pulled him quickly, and it takes a second to adjust into a better position. His mouth feels cool, colder than a human’s and subtlety reminding her of the only other person with his body temperature. It’s not a comparison she wants to entertain right now, so she waves it away. The Master kisses her more carefully than she anticipated—a few indulgent fantasies imagined someone slammed against a wall such as the one behind her—whether it was her or him didn’t particularly matter. But he’s gentle with her, hand settling at her waist to hold her close and fingers wrapped around hers.
He tastes of blood. Her blood, sharp and metallic and disconcerting.
Urging him to lose the hesitation, she bites down on his lip, giving him permission to press her against the wall. It hits her back and she pulls him closer, body flush to hers and it’s unfortunate how he has to lean down, but it’s nowhere near as dramatic of a height difference as she and the Doctor, when she’d stand at the tip of her toes and still have to draw him halfway to her… but she doesn’t want to think about him. Not when she has a perfectly present Time Lord in front of her, ragged and raging inside but always so brilliant and attentive.
Cold fingers find the edge of her shirt and she shivers as they reach her warm skin. Skimming up along her torso, they curl along her rib cage, pressing into the notches just below her bra. She pauses to breathe, his hand stilling at the edge of her expanding chest. Eyes fluttering open, she looks up to see his own: lidded, dark, and watching with intensity.
“Got you,” she says softly.
“Do you?” he replies, equally as soft.
Clara scans his face. Not quite vulnerable—fear faded, replaced with a sort of hunger. She gets the feeling that it isn’t solely for her. She slides her hand down from his neck to his chest and presses her palm flat above his hearts. Pulse quick, revealing like her own might have been.
“Definitely,” she murmurs, and she expects him to pull back, refute the admission, but he stays still. Holding in the silence. Something looms, a tipping sensation, like she’s about to topple off a precipice into something vast and irrevocable.
She lightly traces her fingers across his shirt until she reaches his waist, cupping to hold him close. He exhales into the touch, and it occurs to her that after all these months of casually pulling him along, clasping hands, sitting knee-to-knee on sofas, throwing her arms around him after success or in relief; he might crave the connection more than she does.
“You’ve been anticipating,” she realizes, “you could have asked, you know. Or just acted.”
“Didn’t I?” He tilts his head.
“What, by sucking my blood?”
“Was it not effective?”
“…Fair,” she admits, and then lets out a breathless laugh. “God, this is fitting.”
“Is it?” His eyes gleam with a sort of understanding, but he asks anyway. “Elaborate."
“You didn’t tell me,” she says, “that you’re responsible for three consecutive global wars on Triloskil, and that the surviving half of the population considers you the greatest enemy their collective people has ever known.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t think they’d recognize me. Regeneration does give you a grace period, until… you inevitably return to terrorize once again. Figured the new face would throw them off.”
“I would at least not have said your name,” she replies, “maybe a heads-up for when I suggest the remnants of your violent exploits as hosts for dinner?”
He huffs lightly. “If I recall,” he says, “our last demand for execution was due to your neglect to mention your own past exploits.”
“Jantün?” she pauses, remembering running through dark halls, heart racing as she held the Master’s hand. “We had fun though, yeah?”
He grins. “Exactly.”
“Oh,” she says, “of course. I would appreciate a warning, though.”
“Noted,” he says, lips quirked unconvincingly.
Instead of challenging him, Clara opts for what she assumes is the easiest path and urges him closer. She doesn’t want to let go of his waist to pull him down, and he’s a little too tall for her to just stand on her toes to reach. His eyes glimmer with amusement as she considers how best to coerce him back into desired proximity.
“Oh, come on,” she says, “just kiss me.”
The Master lets her hang for a slight second, as if he might refuse her, before giving in with a small smirk. Her neck still stings with pinpoints of pain, but his lips, persistent and pleasurable on her own, distract from the sensation. A few minutes pass before they pull back again and she realizes something that should probably be terrible.
“Everyone here is dead,” she muses, once she’s caught her breath.
“Do you care?” he asks.
Alone, together in the hallway of this station, embraced in the silence of the void, she considers the question. Curious, bladed, almost a test; sharpening into a truth she should step away from—but all he’s ever demanded of her is authenticity.
So she decides.
“No.”