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Raindrops rage down from the sky and fly over the curling edges of rusted gutters, bounce off the pavement and glow green, blue, red in the fading neon lights. They soak through cotton and churn crisp white into translucent windows of flushed skin; they twist and snicker as they drip into puddles and swirl with rainbows of polluted oil.
Weighed down wool and tamped down hair, glistening in flashes of shadows from mindless passersby and can’t they feel it? Can’t they see? He’s falling apart and he’s held together under threat of annihilation because the Master is close, close enough to touch but he can’t, won’t, he’s not allowed.
Not allowed to look away, not allowed to run, not allowed to hide (and the rules are unspoken but he feels them in the air, feels them in the roil of the Master’s mind so he cowers, not afraid but waiting, waiting). He stares into the eyes that change with the tide of time—they’ve never been green but they are in this singular moment, they reflect and horde the glow pouring off the street like they own it, they do—knows them better than he knows the flecks in his own irises that weren’t there the last time he wore this body.
He drowns in the deluge, doesn’t need to be held down to be submerged; and he knows he’ll be washed out by the end of this, strewn across the ground, a wobbling stack of boulders ruined by the sea.
“Please,” because he’s allowed to beg, cry, it’s expected and coaxed from his tongue with a wet lap up his throat and a nip under his ear (and these rules are spoken, first whispered through blood-stained teeth millennia before in a language now long dead, commanded and followed with the attuned agony of needing, wanting). A cruel tsk and a soft hush and the nip turns into a bite; it hurts but it feels so sweet, thorns that prick into his skin not to keep him but to mark him and force him to remember that he reached out first, that he reaped his reward.
It’s hard to breathe, or he forgot how, and the hands pinning him against the brick wall push in and pull back, again and again, creak his rib cage as they dictate the rhythm of his hearts.
“Stunning,” the Master murmurs—hot and humid in his ear but he’s not allowed to touch, he’s not allowed to touch so he clenches his fists and hopes he’s enough. “Pretty, wicked thing. If only you could see yourself right now.”
Reflected in glassy green eyes is his very own visage, drenched and trembling and he knows just what he looks like: wrecked from memory and promise, future, past. He’s caught, not trapped—they both know he could leave. They both know he won’t, that he’ll wait, wait, impatient as a hound whining for the clip of the lead.
“Please,” as much a whisper as a scream, the storm beats down around them and bodies patter by the alleyway and it’s not quiet, but “Please,” cuts and saws its way through their fragile tension, exposes fallow faith and damned devotion.
Swiping down his neck, mouthing the sodden fabric of his shirt, rumbled against his collarbone. “Use my name.”
“Master,” and his feet are knocked apart, felled until his head grinds into the grimy wall and the Master is closer than ever. He’s never had this but he’s always wanted it, never had it with either of these faces — not the first time, or the second, or the third. He had it after, before, between, near and far and through the stars but never here, never now, and he still can’t feel the Master’s lips on his own. Pressure, teases and taunts and hints, the crush of a hand around his mouth and around his hip and he gags with a sob, a wail.
“You disgust me,” the Master says, breathy and enthralled at this tenet of their orbit, this fact. “You ask for so much but you don’t deserve it, do you?”
Shaking his head, mindful not to dislodge his muzzle even as it constricts his breaths, and they were hard to rein before but it’s nearly impossible now. He stops trying, light-headed under the Master’s pitying smile, like he’s looking at something small, pathetic, worthless—he thinks this is true, hopes it is, because the Master is looking at him and touching him and leaning in to push against the blockade between them. It’s not a kiss, not on his end, just the join of the Master’s lips and the Master’s hand and the twitch of his mouth held captive under damp skin.
“You’ll have to earn it,” gusts through the gaps of the Master’s fingers, near enough to air that he gasps it in and reddens at a hoarse laugh. “Or you’ll have to take it. You could, you know. All you do is take, and take and take and take, and you’ve never deserved a single thing you’ve stolen.”
A peck, a brush of heat against his forehead, and his knees buckle—break, shatter along with his fragile grip on himself. The Master lets go, pulls back and he can breathe, doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to strain for air that doesn’t taste like home, like sweat and the downpour pounding away without a sign of a ceasefire. Crashing onto his knees feels like finding his footing, looking up and the green is gone, red, now, as dull as the bricks around them.
A dreadful sigh, a gallows confession. “I’d let you take anything you wanted, old friend, if I ever thought you meant it.”
The fingers running through his hair are too gentle, too kind, a punishment coloured by a burning ache of rejection that hurts worse than dissection (he knows, he knows, he’s been under the Master’s scalpel before and the fingers holding it were too soft then, too).
“Find me once you remember yourself, Doctor,” and the grasp curls, tugs, those are the hands he knows—rough and so utterly right. “Find me once your name no longer makes you flinch.”
Tears rage down from his eyes and fly over the stubbled line of his jaw, bounce off the pavement and glow green, blue, red in the fading neon lights. They soak through cotton until the sheer cling of his shirt can’t bare any more of his soul than he already has; they dance and writhe as they drip into rising puddles and disrupt rainbows of polluted oil.
Ruined wool and mussed hair, flickering in flashes of shadows from oblivious passersby and can’t they feel it? Can’t they see? He’s slack on the ground and he can’t hold himself together because the Master is gone, footsteps echoing down the damp pavement but he can’t run after him, won’t, he’s not allowed.