The Crane Wife: Chapter 6 of 8 (Part I)

[x_losfic]

Title: The Crane Wife
Chapter: Six (Part I) : Eight (cut in half/posted separately due to lj length limitations)
Author: x_los
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Five/Ainley!Master
Summary: In which the Master suggests commitment.
Beta: aralias
Warning: Dub-con
A/N: Remember that best_enemies Cliche Challenge forever ago? This was started under its auspices. Slave!fic cliche ahoy! Also, collar!sex in this one? If that's a turn-off for you?
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Part II



The Crane Wife
Chapter 6, Part I


The Master had been thinking recently about dynastic succession. Actually, he’d been thinking recently about particle/wave light structure duality; how best to capitalize on a neighboring planet’s failing grain market; whether the Doctor could be seduced into trying fisting; what, if any, difference there was between ‘jam’ and ‘marmalade;’ whether the Doctor might know the distinction; and a few thousand other subjects besides, but not least among them had been the topic of dynastic succession.

The Monin Host were politely questioning the Master as to how a long-term contract they wished to enter into with him would be honored in the event of his death. They understood that, as he was a Time Lord, that unfortunate event might be very far off, but the Monin Host were not in the business of trading in optimism. Had the Master chosen a successor, and could that individual be depended upon to maintain order and to uphold any contractual obligations the Master’s government had agreed to?

The Master had asked for a brief recess in their ongoing negotiations before he presented the Host with relevant information. Truthfully, he had no relevant information to give them. It wasn’t that he was ridiculously short-sighted — the Empire was well-structured enough not to collapse into anarchy with his death. He simply hadn’t wanted to name a successor from among his political supporters. Such an act would make that individual more vulnerable, and seemed intolerably peremptory when the Master expected to live a good deal longer, potentially outliving any potential successor he could name. But the Host had a point. He himself didn’t make long-term contracts with governmental systems whose mechanisms weren’t transparent to him.

He spent the day thinking on it, idly drumming his fingers on every surface he walked past. At lunch, the Doctor, sitting next to him, tolerated this for seven seconds before he seized the offending hand with his own and began rubbing the over-wrought tendons. The Master blinked. He hadn’t even realized he’d been ceaselessly tapping their silver wood dining table.

“I’ve the strangest intuition something might be troubling you,” the Doctor said wryly.

The Master chuckled. “Do you recall those contraband diagrams Arkadian brought me? More particularly the ones which detailed the impressive engines the Monin Host have developed?”

“Mm,” the Doctor took up the Master’s other hand and performed the same operation. “Difficult to forget. I believe you started to fantasize about reconverting the engine to build the same sort of planetary shielding system around your core world Gallifrey has, using the engine as an anchor in place of the Eye of Harmony. I’d still like a look at the power-core, I can’t believe they were getting that kind of output to stabilize.”

The Master’s thumb traced circles on the top of the Doctor’s hand, pressing against the sweet hollow of the thenar space — a valley sloping down from the pronounced metacarpal of his forefinger. The slightest abuse of the vulnerable flesh just here would have the Doctor gasping in pain, yet the Doctor gave his hands, himself, over to the Master, trusting that no harm could possibly come to him from that source. The Master found the Doctor’s blithe, trusting naïveté both foolish and dear, though in this instance he was perfectly correct.

“How charmingly attentive you are, Doctor. The Host have declined to provide us with an example of their technology unless I agree to shelter them under a long-term protection agreement, as I do a number of their neighbors. However, even if I made them such an offer, they’re consumed with worry that, in the event of my death, any arrangement I might have made with them would be rendered valueless. They suggest, as have a number of my advisers for some time now, that I produce an heir.”

In what the Master would later bitterly remember as a deeply ironic gesture, the Doctor dropped his hand.

“I should get back to work.” The Doctor stood.

“You’ve barely begun your lunch.” The Master gestured to the plate in front of the Doctor. It contained an untouched half of a cucumber sandwich, and another semi-sandwich with just four of the Doctor’s small, neat bites missing.

“Can’t talk, critical stage of the project, must dash, lovely sandwiches!” The Doctor fluttered out the door, dashed back to grab his abandoned hat and shove it on his head, and then was gone again.

“But you’re only doing paperwork today,” the Master called after him, bemused.

***


An hour after Linme had begged exhaustion and toddled homewards, the Doctor finally completed the blasted paperwork. He sighed and stepped back from the lab table he’d been working at with an air of relief — directly into the waiting embrace of his lover, who had somehow crept up behind the Doctor without him noticing.

“Doctor,” the Master nipped his earlobe, “I’ve a proposal for you.”

“Mm,” the Doctor leaned back, “what sort of proposal did you have in mind?”

“What do you mean ‘what sort of proposal?’ Abruptly the Master stepped back, and the Doctor turned around to face him. “A proposal!” The Master’s tone was harsh with nervous exasperation.

Conventional wisdom among their people dictated that a relationship should survive a regeneration intact before the couple in question attempted to make a long-term commitment. The Master had spent only the better part of a year with the Doctor—no time at all to Lords of it. However, the Doctor was nearly new-born into his current body and the Master’s embarrassing accident on Keeper Tremas’s staircase (he avoided mentioning both the event and the humiliating regeneration imprinting that had followed) had only preceded the Doctor’s regeneration by a handful of years. He could of course rush the process out of convenience, but it seemed such a waste when he was content as he was, and when he found the Doctor’s present incarnation exquisite in every detail. Even attributes as ultimately trivial as his current physical features held ample charm. It seemed ludicrous to wait for the decades or centuries that would probably pass before their next regenerations to publicly claim the Doctor as his own.

It would also be politically inconvenient. Treating the Doctor as if he were unworthy of official recognition for the next several decades would ultimately undermine the Doctor’s political legitimacy and credibility. If a lingering air of disrespectability hovered around the Doctor it could prove difficult to dislodge when the time came to invest him with all the power due the Emperor’s legitimate chosen. Best to avoid it altogether.

The Doctor paled: It seemed he was equally agitated. “What?Now look here, I—”

The Doctor was clever, he must have expected this. The Master found that reassuring, because it made them companions in the stupid distress of the moment they had finally arrived at. That was fine—what couldn’t he bear, with the Doctor to share it?

The Master seized the Doctor by the shoulders. “You are the most remarkable man I’ve ever met. There is, of course, no room for preordination in a rational cosmology, but I find rationality denatured—matched and overruled by the very fact of your existence, and your presence here. I believe we know our minds. I already think of you as my consort. We need only publicize our union abroad.”

“Oh dear,” the Doctor said faintly.

“Marry me.” The Master murmured, kissing him as if it sealed a contract.

“Mmph!” The Doctor, surprised, pushed the Master back by the shoulders, his teeth firmly clamped shut against any possible incursion of the Master’s tongue. Forcing the Master back a few inches, the Doctor grasped the nearest point, hoping to arrest the asteroid of consequences hurtling towards him. “I am not marrying you to satisfy the Monin Host and clench your contract.”

The Master scoffed, stepping back and crossing his arms over his chest. “My dear Doctor, forget the Host. You cannot think I would suggest something this important merely to facilitate a trade agreement.”

“You might,” the Doctor persisted, “if it were expedient.”

“But I’m hardly likely to treat matters that concern us so lightly!” the Master argued, indignant at the suggestion. “The Host’s complaints brought to my attention that the time had come to celebrate a marriage, but no more than that. Put the Monin and their ridiculous craft from your mind as thoroughly as I have done.” The Master grinned at him. “I should infinitely prefer it if, for the time being, you thought only of me.”

The Doctor shoved his hands in his coat pockets defensively. “Forgive me if I’m finding it difficult to forget that you’re the Emperor just at this moment.”

The Master’s expression was perplexed, then indulgent. “Is it that you find the disparity between our relative positions disturbing? Doctor,” he tsked, “I cannot allow such trifles to stand in our way. Perhaps it would ease your mind to have something entirely your own. You need only ask, and I’ll make you an engagement present of a star system. Of any number of them. Even,” he smiled, “unto half my kingdom. I would prefer, however, to formally name you my consort upon our wedding. Your power would then be identical to my own. You need never fear I think of you as anything less than entirely my equal.”

“No,” the Doctor fidgeted, distressed. “You don’t understand. I want to see the universe, not rule it.”

“Don’t be naïve,” the Master laughed. “What do you think you’ve been helping me to do these last months?”

The Doctor grit his teeth. “Whatever I’ve been coerced into doing, whatever collusion I might have succumbed to out of weakness, I assure you I’ll be more careful in future. I don’t want anything you can give me. Keep your star systems, I don’t need them.”

The Master arched an eyebrow.. “So you’re mine for the asking, without any such bribery?”

“I don’t recall having said anything of the kind.” The Doctor took a step back, hips hitting the table, and the Master stepped forward with him, intent on maintaining the distance between them.

“My dear Doctor, be reasonable. I’ll give you anything in creation, should you require or request it. Though I must admit, I never thought you so materialistic.” The Master smiled teasingly, obviously baiting him. “That isn’t intended as criticism—far from it. You look charming in greed, and there’s something delicious in your ambition.” He chuckled. “Perhaps I’ve spoilt you.”

The Doctor bristled and came to a decision. “Anything in creation, you said?”

“I did, pet.” The Master dropped the indulgent endearment to provoke the Doctor into making a fantastic demand—the more ridiculous, the greater his victory would be when he managed to deliver it. He was enjoying the pleasurable escalation of tension, the prospect of a rewarding struggle, of the exquisite conquest and the sublime consummation only the Doctor could provide him.

“All right. I want you to give me my liberty.” The Doctor’s voice was level, his expression direct.

“You-” the Master started. “what?”

“I think you heard me.”

It was possible that this was a joke in poor taste, but nothing in the Doctor’s face hinted at flirtatious challenge

“You can’t intend to leave,” the Master said, without knowing what to make of such an absurd statement.

“If I wanted to, yes, exactly that,” the Doctor said. “To do whatever I like, and to go wherever I please, which is, unless I’m much mistaken, the whole point of having one’s freedom.”

“If you want a pleasure jaunt, it can be easily arranged. Anywhere you choose, Doctor,” the Master offered, beginning to grasp that the Doctor’s unease was something more troubling than the mirror of his own tension, but still unable to grasp or define the problem. “We’ll go wherever you wish, for as long as you like. We needn’t marry immediately, if you’d prefer to have time to grow accustomed to the prospect.”

The Doctor gave him a pained look. “No,” he said, quietly. “No. I don’t want escorted somewhere by a flock of hidden guards intended to ‘protect’ me. I don’t want to be kept at your side on a short leash, like your pet, as you so charmingly put it. You don’t understand. It’s not a matter of giving me time, of placating me with gifts, as if I were a child. I’m giving you my answer. No. No to any of it, to all of it.

“I’m sorry, but I could never have said otherwise. I never meant for—” The Doctor stopped, trying to arrange his thoughts. “I think it’s best I leave. You offered me anything. I’m asking for my freedom.”

“Absolutely not,” the Master answered automatically, his gut dropping at the Doctor’s suggestion. “How can you even—how can you fail to comprehend that what I’m offering you is infinitely more profound than what either of us intended, than the life you formerly led? How can you love me as you do and suggest something so foolish?”

“I beg your pardon?” The Doctor looked shocked, paper-pale. “I most certainly do not! How dare you just presume I—I never claimed to—to,” his voice faltered slightly, “love you.”

“Some things are so sublimely obvious they hardly require articulation,” the Master said, cold and unyielding. “I assumed you understood what you are to me. An imbecile could discern the nature of our attachment,” the Master hissed, crossing his arms. “What is it you propose to do if you should manage to ‘escape’ me? Do you intend to crawl into the nearest functioning TARDIS and run back to the life you knew? To forget you were ever bound to me?”

“My life was hardly meaningless before you enslaved me, and I imagine we’ll be able to put all of this behind us soon after I return to it. I take it you don’t intend to release me?” The Doctor’s tone was polite, wry. The Master nearly shook with rage and could trust himself to say nothing. “No, I thought not,” the Doctor said. “Excuse me.” He pushed his way around the Master, deftly avoiding coming into contact with the man. He shut his office door behind him and left the lab.

The Master was left alone in the well-equipped office he’d given the Doctor. Indicator lights from the line of high-end equipment he’d purchased especially for the man’s use flashed, cast dancing patterns across his expressionless face. Red, then blue as the cooling cycles flipped on. Dramatic against his sickly pale skin, playing in chiaroscuro across his dark hair and beard.

A Time Lord’s conception of his element is endlessly adaptable and achingly flawless, but still the Master couldn’t say precisely how long he stood there. Without his being consciously aware of it, it was as if he were waiting for the scene to break, for it all to have been a grotesque illusion, a nightmare that had run its course and would end at any moment. He’d bubble up through the gloaming dark, into the welcome clarity of consciousness, where the daylight world was ordered and sensible. Where what was most precious to the Master would never think of ripping away from him, harshly enough to leave blood welling at the tear.

He waited.


***



He’d expected the Doctor would come to bed—if not that night, then the next. He didn’t, and when the Master returned from a conference the day after that he discovered the Doctor’s clothes and effects missing from the bureau given over to his use—as though the Doctor had waited for that opportunity. Their rooms were naked, stripped of the Doctor’s books and his projects, which had lain scattered across the suite’s various surfaces for the past nine months.

The Master had often needled the Doctor about his personal expression of the universal tendency to entropy. Any space he inhabited grew exponentially more disordered. Now everything was clean and hateful. The cleaning staff had changed the sheets, and the bed smelled of soap and chemical-fresia from the softener. It was as if the Doctor had never lived here. It was as it would be if he escaped, the Master thought darkly. How could the Doctor imagine doing such a thing to him? To himself?

The Doctor must have moved back into that ridiculous little room. He must have actually been serious when he’d suggested they not see each other. It was cowardly and enraging of the Doctor to deny him an official union, but it was unfathomable to keep himself separate and apart here, while they slept only a few floors apart, when their lives were so exquisitely intertwined as to be inextricable.

The Master reeked of unhappiness. He verbally savaged anyone who displayed the slightest incompetence in his service, and at the same time he seemed distracted, to have lost something of his verve.

On the third night alone he failed to sleep entirely. Close to morning, he shrugged on his dressing gown, unlocked his ‘closet’ and walked deep into it, brushing aside overcoats until he stood in his console room facing the Doctor’s TARDIS. The Master took the second TARDIS key from the ring he kept in the puzzle box on his bureau and unlocked the door. When he’d first found him, the Doctor had worn the key around his neck like a talisman, but it had been easy enough to slip it off him while he was still suffering from regeneration sickness.

The Master had explored the ship more thoroughly as his fascination with the Doctor increased. He’d become increasingly eager to know the Doctor—every detail of his past, every triviality and omission. Who he was when the Master wasn’t watching. Everyone he’d been.

With perfect confidence he made his way to the Doctor’s bedroom, drew back the counterpane, slipped out of his dressing gown and into the bed. That was better. The sheets smelled of cologne the Master had never known this Doctor to wear, but it was nonetheless comforting on a primitive, sensual level. He picked up the book on the bedside table and read it from where the Doctor had used what appeared to be a Midskari phoenix feather as a bookmark until he fell asleep.

***

The Doctor acted as though nothing was wrong so aggressively that his distress was obvious. In the over-brittle brightness of his voice, in the stress and tension lurking around his eyes, which furrowed tight lines there. His ‘I’m fine’ was quick as thought and sharp enough to cut. His coworkers, Professor Linme included, were bright enough not to ask him why their employer avoided his entire lab, sending written orders or instructing Linme via the com channel. The general conclusion of their private gossip was that the couple in question had engaged in similar dramatics before, and that this one was only another spat of the same. What more could it be, given their obvious mutual attachment?

It had been four days since he’d so much as seen the Master, and he got to the lab early, before anyone else, because he was tired of hearing himself think—the same circles, over and again, the same self-recriminations and desperate denials, pacing paths into trenches, accomplishing nothing and benefiting no one, all as involuntary as a leg jerking when a rubber hammer tapped the knee.

He’d been working for less than a quarter of an hour when he looked up at the sound of his door opening, visibly paled, and swallowed.

“You’ve been hiding from me, Doctor. I almost find that more insulting than your spurning my advances.” The Master shut the door behind himself, slatted the blinds closed and came to stand in front of the Doctor’s desk.

“As I’m not permitted even to leave the palace grounds, I’d hardly call it hiding.” The Doctor leaned back and endeavored to look disaffected, staring vaguely past the Master’s face so that he wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.

The Master sneered, dismissing the reproach as the avoidance it was. “No, of course not. Dodging, perhaps. Cowering?”

“Try ‘innocuously keeping to myself,’” the Doctor corrected, raising a cool eyebrow. “Why are you here now? You’ve done anything but seek me out these past days.”

“Disappointed, my dear?” the Master shot back.

The Doctor colored. “Hardly,” he muttered, looking down at the papers on his desk blotter.

The Master came around the desk, gathered the papers the Doctor had been staring at, briskly straightened them and moved them aside, sitting where they’d been. The Doctor raised his eyes to the Master’s face to avoid looking directly at the man’s groin.

“So you can make eye contact,” the Master praised sarcastically.

“And you’ve come to bicker. Good to see you getting out, Master, but really, couldn’t we have done this over the vidcom?”

“No, Doctor,” the Master said, more soberly. “I haven’t come to argue with you over trivialities. And furthermore, I’ve no intention of renewing the offers which were so disgusting to you the other day.” He paused a moment before beginning again. “My opinion has not altered. I still think you are, for reasons I do not fully comprehend, being incredibly foolish. Nevertheless, this is intolerable. I will, for the time being,” he stressed the conditionality of his magnanimity, gritting his teeth, “endeavor to forget your behavior.”

The Doctor frowned. “It’s not simply—about that question. I meant every objection I made to—this. Some of the jumbled signals are my fault, I’m afraid,” he sighed. “But it really is best for both of us if we give it up full stop.”

“Given your behavior, Doctor, I don’t believe you can have any idea of or interest in what’s best for me,” the Master countered, which hurt rather more than the Doctor had expected it to.

He swallowed. “Perhaps I deserved that. For what it’s worth, I am sorry, but you’re hardly blameless in this—”

“So you’ve said, but I’m afraid your apologies are worth very little to me." His eyes narrowed as he considered the Doctor. "'Jumbled signals,'"he scoffed. "You never gave the slightest indication that you were displeased with any aspect of our liaison. Were you perhaps looking for a pretext to end it? I wouldn’t have expected such duplicity of you, but then, I’d hardly have expected this.”

“No!” the Doctor’s denial was too hot, too emphatic, jarring with his affected detachment. “I wasn’t, you know I wasn’t. That’s not—not the problem. What we—it was pleasant, certainly, and I don’t regret all of it, but it shouldn’t and can’t go on, and it’s no use talking about it or pretending otherwise.”

“It was ‘pleasant’? You ‘don’t regret all of it’?” the Master repeated, incredulous.

The Doctor adjusted his collar uncomfortably and tried to change the subject to anything other than his very poor choice of words. “Please don’t avoid the laboratory facilities on my account, as I think you have been. It is your lab, after all, I wouldn’t want you to feel uncomfortable—”

“You ‘wouldn’t want’—you vile, self-righteous little bastard! Next I suppose you’ll say you ‘bear me no ill’ will, and that you ‘hope I’ll have a nice life’!” The Master gawped at him.

“That sounds along the right lines, yes,” the Doctor said weakly, assuring himself that if ‘having a nice life’ meant the Master immediately replaced him, he would be absolutely fine with that. Well. If not ‘fine,’ per se, that he would keep calm and carry on, as it were.

The Master leaned forward, furious, seemingly intending either to say something really cutting or to kiss the Doctor until he had to admit that he hadn’t been able to sleep properly in days, was twitching for lack of the sex he’d grown so accustomed to, was incredibly bored, lonely and generally miserable without him. The Doctor was afraid of both possibilities, but luckily for him they were interrupted, and he never had to find out which was in the offing.

“Doctor, I was wondering if you knew Assistant Stassi had sent you lemon squares? It’s just they’re sitting in the kitchen and Doctor Flekkur asked if they were for everyone, and I said I’d ask-”—Linme looked up from the schedule he’d been browsing while addressing the Doctor. “oh dear.”

“This isn’t over,” the Master hissed at the Doctor, wheeling and stalking out. Linme skittered out of his way like a frightened beetle. The Doctor watched him go. He winced at the slam of the door.

“So you’re, er, speaking again?” Linme tried, tentatively cheerful. “That seems like good news—”

“I’m going to lunch,” the Doctor interrupted him, gathering his things.

Linme checked his chronometer. “A few hours early, isn’t it?”

“I’m going to lunch for the rest of the day.” The Doctor clarified and left, ignoring as best he could the discreet stares of all the lab techs who’d watched the Master storm out not a minute ago. Leaving now looked an awful lot like following him, even to the Doctor. With determination he veered towards his cell of a room, determined to conduct his pacing and worrying unobserved.

***

The Master had so much scheduled that day that he didn’t have any time to confront the Doctor again. He concentrated as best he could on his agenda, but all day long a ribbon of resentment wound sinuously through the back of his mind, growing ever harder to ignore.

Was it possible he’d managed to delude himself? Had he only imagined the Doctor’s passion, and his deeper interest, because he craved reciprocation? No, impossible—the Doctor’s responsiveness had exceeded anything he might have dreamed. The most desperate mind couldn’t have invented the Doctor’s rapt, adoring expression, or the careful, undeniable tenderness of his hands and his gaze when he took the Master. The way the Doctor bit his lower lip when he was restraining himself from going too fast, from hurting him. The way, breathing hard, the Doctor touched him afterwards. He would run his hands over the Master’s body as though he were proud of how well his lover had done, dipping into the Master’s mind as though he were swimming in him, luxuriating in his partner with the smug satisfaction of a cat sunning itself, with the unselfconscious delight of a child at play.

Neither had the Doctor been deliberately deceiving him to curry favor or ease his escape—a game that would have spiraled out of control when the Master developed more serious intentions towards him. It wouldn’t have occurred to even the most capable liar to hint that he preferred the Master’s hair worn loose, and then, when the Master failed to accede to his preference, to passive-aggressively hide his hair gel and then deny that he’d done any such thing. That particular brand of petty manipulation was exclusively employed between people who cared for each other.

They’d fallen hand in hand, tumbling together. They’d been intoxicated by each other’s enchantment, even as with they had been with each other’s several charms. How dare the Doctor. How dare the Doctor look him in the eye and say he’d felt nothing, that their relationship had been merely an accident of circumstance, and a regrettable one, at that? Anger swelled in the Master like a tide coming in as the hours passed. Heartsless idiot. Arrogant prat. Did the Doctor really intend to lie to him like this? Did the Doctor imagine he could claim he didn’t ache for him, and that he might, after all that had occurred between them, be believed? That the Master would accept such eviscerating denials, that he would tolerate such blatant mendacity? Well, the Doctor was wrong, about everything.

***


The Doctor sat up in bed with his back against the headboard, too occupied with brooding to sleep. He was still wearing his trousers, braces and shirtsleeves, not even having managed to undress for the night, when the wall opened. Not the door—that was on the opposite side of the room, and firmly locked against any possible intruders. The wall paneling itself slid neatly back—so neatly the Doctor could see that it had been designed to do so, and thought himself an idiot for not realizing much earlier that the distance between the palace’s corridors allowed for a narrow passage between the walls. Of course the Master would have built in an escape route only he knew about, and naturally he would have cleverly disguised the paneling and entrance catches by overlaying the palace walls with ornamental carving. All of that was only to be expected of the brilliant, paranoid, obsessively well-prepared Master he knew and—well. Knew.

As the Master stepped through the newly-revealed door, the Doctor scrambled to his feet on the other side of the bed, in the narrow canyon between it and the wall, keeping it between them.

“To what do I owe the—”

“Shut up,” the Master snapped, his expression so vicious, his eyes so black, that the Doctor swallowed apprehensively. Ignoring the Doctor’s attempt to maintain his distance, the Master stalked around to his side of the bed. The Doctor stepped backwards as the Master advanced with gathering speed. The Master slammed the Doctor into the wall he’d been backing towards, the black leather gloved hand on the Doctor’s right shoulder, moving up to grip his neck. The Doctor’s eyes widened at the pressure, at the sudden, wildly unanticipated threat of being choked.

The Master moved in a sudden snap, his mouth on the Doctor’s even as his hand tightened, keeping the Doctor still. The Doctor opened his mouth to him automatically—his body had been trained almost since its birth to respond to the Master like a thing bespoke. He slackened, made a slight noise that was nearly a moan, shoved his hips forward as if in a moment he might wrap his legs around the Master’s waist in a wanton invitation for the to man fuck him through the wall. The Doctor’s eyes slipped half closed, then shut entirely.

The Master had endured for several days now with only the scant comfort their remembered trysts and his own ministrations could provide. The Doctor was too self-conscious to allow himself a similar nostalgic release. By now, he was perhaps even more desperate to be taken than the Master was to take him.

The Master chuckled into their kiss, cynically amused that this was the worth of all the Doctor’s protestations. The sound jarred the Doctor, and his dreamily closed eyes snapped open. The Doctor began to struggle in the Master’s grip, fingers scraping against the velvet pile of the Master’s shoulders as he attempted to push him off.

“Stop that,” the Doctor hissed when he’d managed to force the Master back. The Master’s eyes narrowed. His grip on the Doctor’s neck felt cold, hard, metallic, the Doctor blinked with the shock of realization, as the Master drew away with a smug smile on his face. The Doctor’s breath caught as he recognized the weight of the slave collar and cuffs the Master had released him from months ago. Before the Doctor could react, the Master released his neck and caught his wrists. He shoved those elegant hands together and forced them up above the Doctor’s head, then ran the fingers of his right hand down the length of the Doctor’s arm, returning to his neck.

“Just look at yourself, Doctor,” the Master murmured, his face so close to his captive’s he could see every panicked flicker of the Doctor’s eyes as he squirmed in his bonds. “See how readily you move for me.” He stroked his right hand down from the collar decorating the Doctor’s neck. The Doctor watched him silently, trying not to shake.

The Master gently slipped the bottom buttons of the Doctor’s shirt loose, and the Doctor exhaled sharply when the Master’s hand at last brushed the bare skin of his stomach. The Master stopped there, casting an amused glance down at the Doctor’s trousers, where his cock had half-hardened at his attention, in just the anticipation of his touch. If the Doctor himself was wayward, his body was the Master’s faithful congregation, yielding to him with the exquisite, automatic obedience of call and response.

“Try and tell me, if you can,” the Master said, his voice a husky near-whisper, “that you don’t belong to me alone. That you’re not aching to be reminded of it.” He was so sure the Doctor would crumple for him. In his mind he was already making up for misspent days, fucking the Doctor desperately on this miserable, lonely little bed. Making him scream apologies. Accepting them afterwards—forgiving the Doctor so that everything could return to the way had been—to the relationship he’d thought himself to be in before he’d destroyed everything by speaking its name aloud.

The Doctor looked him in the eye. “Terribly sorry,” he said, brittle and maddeningly casual, “I’m afraid you must’ve mistaken me for someone else. I’m not property, and if I were yours, I’d try to forget it whenever possible.”

The Master growled, twisting something around his hand. The Doctor jerked forward, startled, then looked down. His collar had been augmented with a long, thin chain that draped down from its center to settle firmly in the Master’s grasp.

“What have you—” the Doctor began. In response, the Master turned around and walked back out into the passageway, forcing the Doctor to follow him or strangle himself. His cheeks burned with the indignity of it. “I’m not your plaything,” he snapped.

“I beg to differ.” The Master jerked hard on the lead, walking on, forcing the Doctor to keep up with him. “If I so choose, that’s exactly what you are.” He smacked a panel and waited a moment as the walls shifted like the internal configuration of a TARDIS. The Master strode forward, pressed his hand against the wall, and stepped into his room, which would have been on another floor without the benefit of dimensionally transcendent architectural engineering. Once in their—in the Master’s bedroom, the Doctor wrenched away, diving across the bed on his hands and knees, grabbing the Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminator from the top of his nightstand.

The Master launched himself after the Doctor, flipping him over onto his back and straddling him. “That weapon is useless in your hands,” the Master panted, forcing the arm that held the weapon back so that the TCE was pointed towards the ground. “You’d never have the courage.”

“You don’t know me nearly so well as you’d like to think,” the Doctor said through gritted teeth, struggling under the force of the Master’s grip, which was tight with rage and frustrated desire.

“Don’t I?” He bent down to lick the Doctor’s flushed face, to shove his tongue into his gasping mouth, to grab his cock through the fabric of his strained trousers. The Doctor squeaked in surprise at that unexpected move, bucking up helplessly into the Master’s grip. The hand holding the TCE sagged, slackened. The Doctor’s head tilted back over the edge of the bed and the Master moved down to suck his throat. His world spun dizzily, drunkenly. A sudden bite made the Doctor gasp, shut his eyes and drop the TCE altogether. It rolled away under the dresser, forgotten.

“You never mentioned how much you would enjoy having your hand forced,” the Master murmured, unbuttoning the rest of the Doctor’s shirt and unsnapping his braces.

“I don’t,” the Doctor hissed, squirming to get away and to get out of his clothes in one confused motion.

“You never knew that you did,” the Master corrected, taking his time undoing the Doctor’s button fly and insinuating his hand there, running his fingers along the Doctor and giving him a few hard strokes, until his hips were rising and falling with the motion of the Master’s hand. Satisfied, he slipped free and lifted the Doctor’s hips, stripping him of his trousers. Again he wrapped his gloved fist around the Doctor’s cock, enjoying for a moment how the pale skin flushed scarlet wherever his rapacious hands touched, like visible corruption. Still fully clothed, he bent to take the Doctor in his mouth, intent on tasting him, on reclaiming everything the Doctor had so viciously kept from him.

This was another activity he’d unexpectedly come to enjoy. The Doctor, outwardly so prim, became incredibly reactive at the touch of his mouth, and was so entirely under his power like this. Tauntingly he ran his tongue around just the head of the Doctor’s cock, sucking it, lapping only at the very top of the nerve that ran down the length of his penis. The Doctor fisted his hands in the bed sheets and then, when the Master stayed right where he was, only just touching him rather than doing it properly, in the Master’s hair.

“Master stop,” the Doctor breathed even as his hips bobbed up greedily under the Master’s unyielding grip, desperate to fuck his throat.

You don’t want this, then? the Master enquired in his mind.

“No,” the Doctor said aloud through his teeth, slamming his mind shut and doing everything he could to keep it locked tight.

Infuriated by the Doctor’s hypocrisy, at being denied, rejected and kept from what was rightly his yet again, the Master slammed his mouth to the root of the Doctor’s cock and set to work, determined to make him want this uncontrollably and undeniably. He shamelessly used everything he’d ever learned about the Doctor’s preferences, pulling him towards a climax as relentlessly as he’d pulled him down the hall on a chain, flicking his tongue over the Doctor’s frenulum with cruel strength and persistence, relishing how the Doctor’s faster, louder moans were being cut off by his breathy gasps.

“It’s too—” the Doctor tried, shaking, wound tight enough to break, gulping for air, “I can’t—”

The Master wasn’t interested in mercy, and he raked his teeth over the particularly good spot he’d just tongued into hypersensitivity. The Doctor came with a snap and a cry. He felt weak afterwards, devoured. The Master licked his lips and climbed up his body, kissing the Doctor hard, forcing him to taste himself.

He sat up and leaned back against the headboard, slipping out of his trousers. “Come here.” The Master began to undo the buttons of his jacket and tugged the lead in his hand, forcing the Doctor to crawl into his lap on his hands and knees. He used the hand not holding the leash to riffle through the Doctor’s nightstand and remove a bottle of salve, tossing it to the Doctor, who caught it neatly.

“Ready yourself for me,” the Master told him imperiously, raising an eyebrow at the Doctor’s narrowed eyes, stripping off his gloves at last so he could feel the Doctor moving under his hands.

With a glare, the Doctor spun the cap off the bottle, slicking two fingers and wincing briefly as he slid both of them inside himself without prelude.

“So desperate? You’re allowed to go slowly. I haven’t asked you to hurt yourself.” The Master propped his hands behind his head and watched the Doctor glare at that, watched him move on his own long fingers—watched him twitch as he worked himself wider for his Master’s pleasure. He pushed these thoughts up against the Doctor’s infuriatingly shut mind, letting the Doctor hear them, letting them jar and spark up against that resistance. He slicked the fingers of the Doctor’s other hand and curled them around his own erection, guiding the Doctor to stroke him in preparation. Lovely, the Master thought, running a hand down the Doctor’s spine, enjoying the incredible eroticism of watching him.

But his own cock twitched needily at the wait, and soon the Master pulled the Doctor up and onto him, aligning himself and giving the Doctor no warning before he shoved up, earning a pained grimace paired with a gasp of pleasure from the Doctor, a falter in his tight shields. Then his mouth snapped back from a wide O into a thin line—determined to bear it, bless him.

“Move,” the Master muttered throatily after a few unnecessarily punishing thrusts. The Doctor began to bounce. “Harder,” the Master’s voice scraped out, and the Doctor’s body rocked with frantic passion, his face bore a delicious expression of disorientation. The Master lifted his hand from the Doctor’s back and smacked his ass hard enough to leave a red handprint on his fair skin.

“Master,” the Doctor gasped at the shock of the impact, and the Master nearly moaned when every successive smack made the name pop from his lips once more, repeating it like a prayer. The Master was so aroused he was giddy with it. He licked his lips—had he ever been so hard in his life? The Master stared at him, decadent and perfect, almost in awe.

He broke through the Doctor’s weakened mental barrier, shoving himself in, touching everything he could. His mind was as invasive and determined as if he were physically tying the Doctor down and fucking him stupid, and he relished the natural resistance of the Doctor’s consciousness to such an intimate intrusion even as he welcomed the tight grip of his flesh. He sucked the Doctor’s mind into his own, greedily taking more and more of the Doctor into himself.

“Kiss me,” he ordered, utterly enchanted. The Doctor set his jaw and made no move to do so, tipping back when the Master exerted pressure on his lower back to bring him close, fucking himself on the Master’s cock almost stubbornly. The Master grabbed the lead and forced the Doctor’s head down, forced the Doctor’s closed lips to open for his tongue. He grabbed the Doctor’s right wrist and stroked his thumb along the cuff, turned his head and licked along the left, then brought them together to seal them with his biokey, forcing the Doctor’s hands around his neck to keep him near, trapped in an embrace.

“You’re mine,” the Master said with conviction and triumph. “Tell me you are.”

“Why would you want,” the Doctor managed without ceasing for an instant the harsh coulé of his hips against the Master’s, “me to lie to you?”

“Mine,” the Master insisted angrily, ratcheting the Doctor’s arousal up to near-painful levels directly through his mind, guiding the Doctor’s hips with his hands, forcing him to bounce faster, to impale himself on his Master’s cock.

“Mas—Master!” Unbearably close, the Doctor’s arms trembled desperately around the Master’s sensitive neck, their fluttering delightful.

“Say it, Doctor, let me hear you say it,” he nearly begged, needing this to push him over the edge, wrapping his hand around the Doctor’s cock and giving it hard pumps.

“I— ah! Please, I—” the Doctor whimpered, then dissolved into a series of high, breathy, rippling-sharp noises.

“Doctor,” the Master growled.

“Yours, yours, I’m—god, Master, I’m yours,” the Doctor gasped deliriously.

The Master finished inside him with an unusually harsh cry, bursting in his mind like a storm. The Doctor, as if spurred by that impetus, coated his stroking hand with come. He dipped his forehead to rest on the Master’s, breathing raggedly for whole minutes in an attempt to recover.

“There now,” the Master said when they could both breathe again, sounding far too pleased with himself. “Isn’t that better?”

The Doctor stiffened. Under normal circumstances he would have stayed in the Master’s lap for some time, but at that comment he soundlessly brought his hands up over the Master’s head and slid off him and to the side. He lay with his head propped up on his bound arms. The Master reached over to stroke his side and unlock his wrists and collar, and Doctor stayed perfectly still and unresponsive.

“What is it, my dear?” the Master asked, all post-coital bliss and self-satisfaction. The Doctor was his, and everything was right in the universe.

“Can I have a new particle dasher? For the lab.”

The Master frowned. “What an odd request—of course you may, just order it.”

“Would you give me Uxian chocolates?” the Doctor pressed. “French champagne?”

“Certainly, if you’d like—”

“Sapphire jewelry from Metabilis Three?” He pouted at the Master. “And a Trakken seal-fur coat?”

“What is this about, Doctor?”

“I’m given to understand pleasure slaves, concubines and what have you customarily receive favors—I wouldn’t want to feel left out. Didn’t I please you? Is there anything else I can do for you, Master? Wouldn’t you like to come in my mouth? No? Perhaps you’d like to tie me up and fuck me ‘till I beg and cry—that sounds very diverting, and I do excellent crocodile tears, you know. Or would you prefer to shove your whole fist inside me—I’ve certainly felt you thinking about it every time I bend over in your presence these last weeks. There’s no need to be coy—I’m only your slave, after all.”

The Doctor spoke quickly, gathering force and speed, giving the Master no time to react. "And isn’t there anything else you’d like me to say? After all, I’d do anything for you, anything at all to make sure you got the most possible enjoyment out of me. ‘Oh Master, you’re so good,’” the Doctor mocked his own thick, lost tones ruthlessly. “‘Please, Master, I’m yours, I belong to you. Oh,’” he moaned, “‘Take me, darling. Fuck me until I break. Oh please marry me, because I love you, Master, so very much!’” The Doctor’s lipid, adoring expression dropped and shattered like a plate, and his tone snapped instantly back to flat pleasantness. “None of that? No?”

“Get out.” The Master’s face was devoid of expression. He almost didn’t seem to breathe.

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t want to play that ‘Zeus and Ganymede’ game you like so much,” the Doctor said sarcastically, sliding off the bed and gathering his clothes, dressing quickly.

“Get out now,” the Master said again, still dangerously quiet.

“You would insist on starting it,” the Doctor muttered coldly, snapping his braces into place as he walked out into the hall. He left the Master alone to stare at the closed door behind him, feeling as though he’d been sliced to ribbons.


***

Chapter 6, Part II