Work Text:
The Doctor drummed his fingers on the TARDIS control panel, idly counting the taps in groups of five. The gesture wasn’t soothing, exactly, but in general, he felt worse without it. Worse, worse, worse, worse, worse . He rolled the word around in his mind (five times, always five times). It was a good word, worse — five letters, one syllable, a nice mix of harsh and soft sounds — but now he’d gone and thought about about it a sixth time, and he’d have to start all over.
“If you don’t stop with the tapping, I’ll come over there and break your fingers,” the Master huffed from across the room.
“S’ my TARDIS,” he replied, his voice laced with righteous frustration, “I’ll tap just as much as I want.”
“Yes, and you’re holding me captive in it. The least you can do is make it a tolerable environment.”
“It’s for your own good,” said the Doctor, flipping a switch that clearly didn’t need to be flipped — anyone who was paying attention to what he was doing would notice that it had gone on-off-on-off-on — and, not as surreptitiously as he’d like to think it was, moved closer to where the Master was pacing.
“Really, is it now? Because it seems,” he said, staring at the Doctor’s hands as they listlessly tapped on his thighs, “Like this is hurting the both of us.”
The Doctor made a noise of disagreement, turning his back to the Master to fiddle with the controls again. There was a palpable tension as the Master’s words hung in the stale air, and, for a while, the only noise was the whirring of the TARDIS and the Doctor’s quiet switch-flipping and button-pressing.
“Really, Doctor,” mused the Master, spitting the last word as if it was an insult, “Do you think that I can’t tell when you’re upset? All your counting, all your fussing and fidgeting — you’ve been doing it all since we were young.”
The Doctor exhaled slowly, tamping down all of the complicated feelings that came with any mention of his childhood or of Gallifrey, or, if he was being honest with himself, much of anything regarding his past.
“Thought you liked to see me upset,” he replied, bitterness coating the accusatory edges of his voice.
“Upset, yes, but not whatever this is,” the Master said as he stepped closer to the Doctor, grazing the back of his hand down the Time Lord’s arm and wrapping his fingers around his wrist, “ This isn’t fun at all.”
The Doctor stilled beneath the Master’s touch, floundering for words as his mind raced.
“I’m the only other Time Lord left. You said it yourself, didn’t you?”
The Doctor was silent.
“I understand what it’s like to have something in your mind, something that you can’t control and you don’t understand and that consumes you a bit more every day.”
He didn’t respond.
“Please,” said the Master, letting go of the Doctor’s wrist and floating his hands above the Doctor’s temples, “Let me help.”
He shouldn’t be letting this happen. He shouldn’t want this. The Master was volatile, dangerous, the kind of man who you didn’t want to let inside the recesses of your mind; but the Doctor was tired, and he’d been running from so much for so long. The logical parts of him wanted to pull away, wanted to run like he’d done so many times before, wanted to leave the Master on some middle-of-nowhere planet and never think about him again. The rest of him, though, wanted more then anything to stay with him.
The Doctor nodded, gasping softly as the Master placed his hands on his face and slipped into his mind. He instinctively wrapped his arms around the Master, pulling him closer and reveling in the warmth of his body as they pressed against each other. The numbers and patterns and fear that lived in the crevices of his consciousness began to slip away, melding with the beating of four hearts and the pounding of drums.
He sensed that the Master was relaxing, too, the hard edges of his anger softening into nothingness. The Doctor felt tears fall onto his face — he wasn’t sure whose they were, but it didn’t matter since a rough hand quickly thumbed them away.
Slowly and gently, the Master began to poke and probe at parts of his mind that he’d left buried for longer than he’d like to admit. Red grass and golden sunsets and cold, biting wind flashed past his awareness like old photos. The memories continued to flow, visions of a dark-haired boy with wandering eyes and stars late at night and hands brushing against each other in the back of lecture halls and tender, quiet kisses when no one was watching. Each and every one of them was bursting at the seams with love and loss and a deep sense of longing that pulled at his hearts and lit a fire in the depths of his stomach.
He felt the Master’s warm breath against his face as he spoke. “Are you lonely, Doctor?”
His response was lost as the Master pressed his mouth against his, their teeth knocking together with the intensity. He eased the Doctor back against the control panel, tangling his fingers in his unkempt brown hair as the Doctor slid his hands down to the Master’s waist.
He broke away for just long enough to huff out a reply.
“Very.”
The Master pulled the Doctor into another kiss by his hair — it was hungry and passionate and messy and perfect . When he bit the Master’s bottom lip, their shared consciousness lit up with pleasure as the Master softly moaned into his mouth.
The Doctor let his hands explore all the intricacies of the Master’s form, grazing his long fingers over his chest, his stomach, his hips. This regeneration was lovely, all sharp edges and rough corners. Each touch sent electric shivers through their minds, and he frantically tugged off his stifling jacket, his untucked shirt riding up to expose a sliver of his waist. The Master made quick work of his own jacket, tugging coyly on the Doctor’s tie as he smiled against his mouth and ran his tongue over the ridges of his canines.
The Master pulled away to take a panting breath, moving one hand from the Doctor’s hair to his throat.
“You’re so easy, ” said the Master, and the Doctor swallowed hard, reveling in the feeling of his Adam’s apple bobbing against the Time Lord’s hand.
The Master loosely closed his fingers around the Doctor’s throat and kissed him again as his breath hitched.
“So, so easy,” the Master whispered.
Suddenly, a splitting pain filled his head as the Master withdrew from his mind, numbers and patterns and fear filling the now empty space.
The Master reached behind the Doctor and flicked a lever on the control panel. The Doctor yelped, prying the Master’s hand from his throat as the TARDIS rapidly took off.
“Where are we going?” yelled the Doctor over the roar of the engines. He should have known that trusting the Master was a stupid plan — trusting was eight letters and too harsh, after all, and he was so far away from the Time Lord the Doctor had loved so long ago.
“Ooooh, curious, aren’t you?” said the Master, wearing the expression of a man who was watching his dominoes fall into place. “I’m going back to finish what I started.”