rude_not_ginger | four; for best_served

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four; for best_served_hot

Follows this.

He was quite pleased with the Master's development. He'd learned how to behave, for the most part. Oh, he was hardly the most agreeable of companions, but he wouldn't want the Master to be agreeable. He wanted him to be the Master. He wanted him to be there, part of his world.

Over the week that followed, the quiet drumming in his mind that insisted that the Master had to live at all costs had quieted, the part of him that was the Doctor apparently sated with the Master's presence. The Valeyard was pleased with it, too. He remembered why he was so fond of his old enemy. He posed a challenge.

He was challenged with frustration and irritation and glorious success. Things were going better than planned, and now with the traitor out of the way, he'd be able to do so much more.

The week went by wonderfully. He felt the first tremor of exhaustion run through him and he believed that he might sleep well for the first time since the Master came back into his life.

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The Master let the quiet of the room change his perceptions momentarily. He let himself drift into the past to times when they found themselves sharing their bed with the other. While it had usually been the Master as a boy comforting the Doctor, there was a span of cold nights, after a day they did not speak of, where the Master would cling tightly to the other boy.

The joke of a universe they found themselves in reminded him of what he had been afraid of then, even though it could no longer harm him, and he found himself tense at the mere memory. He allowed the Doctor's voice to pull him free of it, and he relaxed as he thought before answering.

"No, I haven't," he answered. "Have you?"

He could feel the Master tense, and he didn't know why. It was frustrating and lonely, actually, to know that he could feel the tension and not know the cause. There used to be a time where he knew the Master completely. But that was oh, so very long ago.

"I haven't," he replied. "I've heard it's beautiful."

He turned his head to face the Master. "Take him there."

The Master turned his head slightly, watching him. "What reason would he have for a field trip of that sort?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said. "But you'll figure something out."

He sighed. "He needs to remember why he loves the universe. Why I love the universe."

"You can never make it easy, can you?"

"If I could make it easy, Master, we'd already have been away from here," he said.

"You're very lucky that I'm patient."

He pulls in a breath, letting it out as a sigh once again. "The Medronica cluster, hm? I'll get us there. I'll get him there."

He just had to work out how. A shift, and his shoulder knocked against the Doctor's again; resting there.

"I know you will," the Doctor replied. The Master would help him. The Master would save him.

"We'll make it right," he promised. He felt his eyelids start to droop.

He hummed his agreement to the promise, tempted for a moment, by the memories of a child, to wrap an arm around the Doctor as if he could ward off what was coming.

As if he could ward off the nightmare.

"We ran first, do you remember? We ran when no one else did," he said, finding himself speaking without any real reason other than to fill up the silence. To offer something that would help his best friend and oldest enemy hold on just a little bit longer. Steal a few more moments.

Just a few.

"All through the fields of my father's land. We'd run ourselves out of breath, fall into the grass, and stare up at the stars. Point and say which one we'd go see first, that was before we knew most of their names."

He grew quiet then, a memory stilling his voice, a memory that brought an old ache into his hearts. Their first star, which was actually a binary system though they didn't know at the time, they never went there. The Master wasn't completely certain he could even remember the name.

"Dimatis 7," the Doctor replied, smiling softly at the memory. He remembered laying there, his hand inches from the Master's, wanting to hold it and held back by the knowledge that such contact wasn't approved.

If only the Valeyard would remember the way things were. If only the Doctor hadn't become so disillusioned to want to forget all of the things that made him who he was. The Valeyard, the Doctor remembered, wasn't just the enemy. He was the Doctor's fault.

"Remember when I destroyed that project of yours? You were so furious---"

Dimatis 7. He didn't file the name away as he would a piece of information he was given that meant little to him. He focused on it, and then put it away in a place in his mind he rarely let himself dwell in, a place where all the memories of a young child went, the memories of a person who was not the Master.

A small wave of irritation sparked through him at the next memory, and a scowl flitted across his features. He immediately pushed the feeling down, those memories, however useful to the Doctor, were of no use to him. He had no intention of growing soft or lingering too long in these. After this was over, they would go back to how they were before, and none of this, here and now, would matter.

"I believe I may have shouted something to the extent of never speaking to you again for all the rest of my lives."

The Doctor grinned rather madly at the memory. The smile felt so strange and unusual on his face, he almost didn't realize what it was. But it was such a brilliant prank. The whole experiment fell apart right in front of Borusa. Nothing could've been planned more perfectly.

"Well, you managed to get me back quite securely, if I remember," he replied, letting his head loll over so he was looking directly at the Master.

He could see him. Not just the incarnation he was in, not just the lines and planes of his face, but he could see the Master. He could see everything he was, everything he might've been. He was beautiful. It was a terribly romantic thought, and the Doctor realized the Valeyard would've been disgusted by it, but it was true. Right now, and always, the Master was beautiful.

"You still would have deserved my original threat, had I ever thought I had any hopes of following through with it," he said, trying and failing to keep an irritated or indifferent look on his face. But the Doctor's smile, an actual smile despite everything that was going wrong around them both, was infectious, and he found himself giving a grin as well.

It had been so long since he had shared an emotion in particular with the Doctor, he realized. Usually, when one was filled with a kind of exultation, the other was left despairing.

"And while you were in the midst of your followers." He had tried to make quite certain that the prank would not be repeated. He felt the Doctor's eyes on him, and sought them out with his own.

"What?"

"I always did amass followers, didn't I?" he replied. He realized that was a very Valeyard-like thing to say, but it was true. The Doctor pulled people towards him. He made them gravitate towards him the way that a moon gravitated towards a planet. And it was the same, even back at Gallifrey. Though the Master's prank did keep him alone for quite a few weeks.

He realized that he'd been staring. The Master's eyes were brown, now, but the Doctor could remember when they were green and blue. He knew him. He knew him.

"I'm so tired," he said.

"You did," he affirmed. Even after he had sought out his own kind of revenge against the Doctor with his own prank, he hadn't been able to stay away for very long. He had sulked, pretended to be furious still, and tried his very best to ignore him, especially in front of others who knew they were nigh inseparable, but eventually he'd gone back to him.

A part of him hated that he still needed that from him. Hated that he craved that attention, and wanted his focus to be solely on him. Even if the nature of their affections had changed from that of the children they had been, the Master was still just as bound up in him.

"You've been up longer than before already, it is to be expected," he replied, keeping his voice light. He pretended to himself that all he thought it could be was the strain of the Doctor taking control of himself in the Valeyard's absence, not the bone tired exhaustion that usually came with those of their race who had seen and done too much over the long centuries of their lives.

He let his eyes close, but he forced himself to stay awake. He didn't want to go. This was too comfortable, this was too wonderful. Despite how hard things were, despite how hopeless they could be, the Doctor felt almost (but not quite) happy here. Lying next to the Master, remembering how things used to be.

"Keep yourself safe," he begged, his voice quiet. "For me, please."

"I will," he said, lowering his voice to almost a whisper.

Then, almost like in the cave weeks before, he leaned closer to him and touched his forehead to the Doctor's. He focused on a memory that came up earlier as they sat and spoke, a memory of huddling under a blanket together, whispering secrets in the night when they should have been asleep. It was a memory that the Master did not hold to, but one not made less by anything that came after those times.

Almost like they were something sacred, to be left unmarred by broken promises and bitter partings.

He brought it into the clearest clarity he could, and shared it with him. It was brief still, but he allowed the connection to persist for as long as he dared before slowly pulling back out of the Doctor's mind.

He felt the memory move through him, the warmth of the Master's body next to his, the complete safety of being with someone who understood him so perfectly. He curled himself up in the memory, he wrapped himself up in it like a blanket. A safe, solid blanket. A blanket of the way things were before they went all wrong. Before hatred and anger and---

As the Master pulled away, the Doctor was aware of how the Master felt so close to him, he was aware of the warmth of the Master's breath against his face. And in that moment, he wanted---he wanted---

Wrapped up in the warmth of the memory and the safety of the Master's closeness--a safety he might never admit to--he found himself falling into a deep, dream-filled sleep.

Opening his eyes, which he hadn't realized he had closed, he watched the Doctor as he pulled back, though their shoulders were still touching. His eyes slid over the Doctor's face, uncertain of what he was thinking. There were times he thought he could almost remember what might be going through his mind, but other times he felt as though he were floundering in waters he had once been familiar with.

This was one of those moments, and then it was gone; the Doctor asleep.

"I hate you."

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