Heart Heard of, Ghost Guessed (Part I)

[x_losfic]

Title: Heart Heard of, Ghost Guessed

Author: x_los

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Theta/Delgado!Master, Theta/Koschei

Summary: Stealing the contents of the Matrix from Gallifrey’s capitol is easy! And so is a desperate, naïve Theta Sigma. Depending on where you are in your personal time-line.

Beta: deborah_judge    is entirely responsible for the last sex scene actually making sense, and Theta being somewhat more sympathetic. I render unto her all due praises!

A/N: For the best_enemies      Academy Relationship Challenge

Word Count: About 11,312. Mostly in 24 hours. So choose one: x_los   is a) Balzac, b) a robot or c) this is a trick question, Balzac was one of her robot race as well. They come for your spare time and your UST. We see through them: Master/Doctor is just Vautrin/Rastignac in shiny new packaging.

Follow the link at the bottom to Part II!

Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed

 

Set after Claws of Axos and before Frontier in Space.

***

Theta felt like he’d been waiting for Koschei to make a move for most of his natural life. He’d been wandering around their room out of regulation robes for solid weeks. He did his homework sprawled temptingly on his bed, sometimes migrating to Koschei’s on the pretext that the Venusian egg crate mattress made it comfier. He kept his shirtsleeves pushed up and his tie dangled in a loose knot, the silk length of it running down his chest like a lead without a hand to guide it, like an invitation.

And Koschei had swallowed visibly and done nothing. Had chatted about the upcoming break, for Omega’s sake. Had asked him if he thought he might like to go hiking in the mountains. Theta hadn’t parried with an offer to kneel down in the mountain’s daisies and get an alternative cardiac workout instead by sheer force of will.

On the evening of that conversation Koschei groaned luxuriously in his sleep. He was obviously dreaming about something Theta would quite like to help him experience in waking life. Theta sank his teeth into his pillow to keep from screaming in frustration.

He was really, REALLY done with being a virgin. Every time Koschei touched him he thought he’d regenerate right there. The other day in the lab Koschei had, on spotting a bit of the solution they’d been assigned to make splattered under his chin, clucked and rubbed it off with his thumb, the motion tilting Theta’s head up and back. When he was done he’d grabbed Theta by the chin and intently examined him for any more stray droplets. Koschei had grunted with satisfaction at finding none and pronounced a pleased ‘There now.’

It had been friendly. Chaste. Theta had wanted to sweep everything off the lab table and slam Koschei to the black granite work surface and kiss him until they came messily in their school robes.

And Koschei had to know that, because Theta couldn’t keep a secret for all the worlds he longed to visit in the heavens, and his best friend wasn’t stupid. Koschei was, if anything, the more emotionally intelligent of the two of them.

Theta suspected, but didn’t want to face, the idea that his best friend was entirely aware of Theta’s obvious interest in him and was only not verbalizing a ‘no’ to spare Theta unnecessary shame. Koschei probably only swallowed like that because he was so damn uncomfortable with how thoroughly Theta was embarrassing himself, not because the whole Clark Gable thing (his mom was quite partial to movies from her home era, and hated watching them alone) was working and Koschei was considering the idea and not hating it.

Which would have been annoying if Theta had been merely attracted to Koschei. Which would have been crushing in Theta had simply been infatuated with Koschei. Which was actually eviscerating, devastating to consider because Theta was completely, stupidly, blindly in love with his arrogant, brilliant, funny best friend.

Which is, unfortunately, about how gob smacked and rendered insecure by his emotions he’d have to be not to understand that Koschei was at least just as obsessed with him.

***

If Theta chewed his pencil one more goddamn time Koschei was going to—

Going to what? Koschei asked himself, sardonic even in his own head, Run back to the shower and wish he was in there with you and have yourself a good, long, cold wank about it? That’ll be what, the second time today? He’s going to catch on. No one is this hygienic.

He doesn’t even know he’s doing it, that’s the worst bit. Koschei glowered from his desk.

Over on his comforter, perched oh so innocently, Theta rested a hand on his thigh. He alternated between kneading the muscle and smoothing the fabric of his uniform trousers as he paged through a novel they’d been assigned.

Koschei wanted to keen with frustration. His fist clenched at every stroke that wasn’t his that casually drifted down the flesh Koschei so coveted with lazy prerogative. He wanted to run his hands along those evidently aching thighs and part them and take and be taken in turn and he was really going to have to move his book onto his lap as casually as he could because there was no way Theta, oblivious though he was, was going to miss that.

If he’d had a damn drop of interest from Theta he would have drunk the dram of it dry. The other day he’d practically begged his best friend to go hiking with him, where they could be away from their parents over break, completely alone in the evocative woods, with all their dark possibility. Which to Koschei at least screamed ‘I’d like to bring a backpack filled exclusively with lube (and sandwiches for when we get hungry) and take you against rocks and trees and any available surfaces with no regard for the peace and tranquility of woodland creatures and tell our parents we just decided to camp and help you pull leaves out of unmentionable places later.’

Theta had seemed disgusted with the prospect. The other boy’s exasperated ‘Whatever.’ was hardly the ‘of course, Koschei darling, take me among the shrubs with no regard to the pokey sticks on the ground, such is our passion! In fact why wait to go hiking? Take me right now!’ he’d been holding out for.

And the way Theta shivered lately when Koschei touched him, like his skin was trying to crawl off his bones and escape the contact—it was enough to break Koschei’s doting adolescent hearts.

But sometimes he got a hint of something that he clung to and called hope. Like now, when Theta craned his elegant neck up from his work. He looked at Koschei through his long blonde lashes, those sublime blue eyes rich with the hint of something new and dangerous and thoroughly good.

“Koschei?” It dragged from Theta’s lips, and reminded Koschei, for some reason, of the way actors talked in the funny human films Theta’s mother Verity had on in the house when he dropped by to see Theta. All husky and intent.

“Yes?” The silence was long and taunt, and they seemed on the very verge of a place they’d never been—

“What chapter are we supposed to read for Ethics?” Theta blurted.

“What—oh, er, the one on Origins of the Noninterference Doctrine,” Koschei offered, disappointment practically choking him, “Is that all you want—well. Of course it is. I think I’ll shower before bed. See you in a bit.”

Koschei grabbed a bathrobe and skittered out of the room, leaving Theta to wait for the door to click shut, wait thirty recs for the footsteps to proceed away from the door, and pound his fist into Koschei’s mattress repeatedly. If he’d been in a better mood he might have thought it was funny that at least some part of his body was getting exactly what it desperately needed.

Air. He could do with some air. A walk would be lovely. It’d clear his head or at least keep him from giving into his urge to bury his face in Koschei’s pillows and hope the other boy stayed in the bathroom long enough for Theta to properly relieve his tension. Again.

He was lucky Koschei had yet to notice that his favorite black undershirt was pretty regularly missing. It always seemed to vanish into the ether after he’d worn it once and reappear mysteriously in Theta’s clean clothes hamper, washed assiduously, with absolutely no stains on it of any kind.

Eventually Koschei was going to catch on. No one was this crap at laundry.

***

“That mendacious, conniving bastard.” The Master, hissed, coughing, and jumped down out of his TARDIS (she had made her exterior with an inconveniently high front step just to be contrary). She was conveniently disguised as one of the neat little freestanding professorial cottages flocked about the grounds of the Academy. She was being very discreet, except for the smoke flooding out of her picturesque little wooden hobbit hole of a door.

She was less than pleased about the rigors of the whole Axos farrago, and would issue random noxious gassed in her temper tantrum until for as long as she damn well pleased. Effectively, that would be until she’d calmed down and he’d smoothed her ruffled extra-temporal feathers with a shiny mechanical present. He thought he’d grab her something smart from one of the laboratories and make off with it before anyone noticed they were down a whatsit. But that would have to come after he’d vented his own ire on the unsuspecting, unlucky conifer he’d parked adjacent to.

“ ‘Oh, I’ll go with you, Master, take me away from all this!’ ” He parodied the Doctor viciously, “ ‘I’ll just bloody well move in shall I? Oh, just kidding, hope you weren’t emotionally invested!’ Every damn time! And I always want to believe him and his vile, lying face! Why, why do I always listen to him!”

The Master kicked the silver-leafed tree spitefully, wishing its thin trunk were one of the Doctor’s shins. Some of its needles spilled off sadly and plopped down to the ground with an anticlimactic ‘blop’ noise. It did not really assuage the Master’s Doctor-related bloodlust, and certainly not his straight-up lust-lust.

God, he would kill for a good solid fuck: the kind that would rip that smug little grin off the Doctor’s face and leave him wrecked, overwhelmed and consumed by it. Well, to be fair, the Master conceded, he’d kill for quite a lot of things lately. But he’d really give galaxies to pound the self-righteousness out of one exasperating little swot who called himself—

“Theta?” The Master would never have admitted to goggling, but there wasn’t really a better word for the huge-eyed double take he was doing on recognizing the back of a very familiar blonde head. The boy in question turned, curiously. He’d been strolling along the path and peered into the under-lit sweep of darkness at the periphery of the grounds, unafraid.

Stupid, the Master thought, don’t you know not to walk alone in the dark, unaccompanied? A pretty little thing like you doesn’t even know what I could, what I would do to you. And where am I, I wonder? He hadn’t been much for leaving the Theta’s side back in these days. Examining his recent behavior he couldn’t say he was doing all that much better lately.

He didn’t think he’d enraged his TARDIS to the point of deserving being dumped smack on top of his own past. She did have a tendency to overreact, but they were really going to have to have a chat about this. This was the kind of sloppiness or petulance the Doctor allowed his TARDIS, perhaps, but the Master believed in some discipline.

He should walk away. He should get back in his wayward TARDIS and sulk through the fumes and get the hell off Gallifrey and out of his own timeline. He should really, really—

He stepped into the light and the appraising glance of his childhood sweethearts and did his best to look like he belonged on an Academy campus.

“I thought I might introduce myself. I’m the new xenolinguistics professor.” No he bloody well was not, the Master thought with rising panic, what was he doing? But the lie spilled out of his lips thick and fast, and seemed to have an inertia all its own.

“Borusa said I might pick a few students of particular ability and offer them private lessons. It’s one of an instructor’s small joys, you know. Separating the milk from the cream. Cultivating the burgeoning promise of a bright young thing like you. And,” he smiled amiably, inviting the younger man into the circle of his humor, as if to imply they were in on a joke no one else got, “it means you’ll get out of those tedious standard issue lessons. They must just bore someone of your caliber to tears.”

Theta worried his lip and it occurred to the Master how much he’d always liked that habit. “Me, sir? But my grades are—”

“No reflection at all on your capabilities, from what I hear, boy. To the endless frustration of your other professors, all of whom looked ready to eat their collars at the mention of you when I spoke to them earlier. Do what you like for them, but I expect you to give me all you’re capable of while we’re working. It’s time you learned something of discipline. Am I making myself clear?” He leveled a severe gave at Theta, who, interestingly, blushed.

“Yes sir.” Now that could be quite nice. “Who else are you taking? It’s just I’ve this one friend in particular, really talented, and—”

“You’re the only one I’ve any interest in,” the Master interrupted. He appreciated the plug for his younger self, but really had no desire to deal with mucking about in his personal time stream or the French Farce that would be Koschei’s inevitable jealousy of anyone else Theta so much as looked at. He knew himself too well to assume Koschei wasn’t going to seriously consider bludgeoning him in the night. Better invent some kind of non-lethal security system for his TARDIS, controllable gas or some such—it would never do to off himself over the Doctor.

“You’re free tomorrow evening, or so your professors inform me.” He still remembered Theta’s schedule? Rassilon, now that was sad. “Why don’t you wander down and we’ll see what work we can put you to. Good evening, Theta.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Run along.” Theta turned to go, then swiveled back hesitantly.

“Not quite finished?” The Master mocked indulgently, and Theta looked down at his feet, and then up through his lashes, and that had always been a very pretty trick—one he’d been particularly susceptible to, and one the Doctor had reused not terribly long ago to good effect. The memory of being manipulated decided the Master in his course more fixedly than caution could erode.

“Theta,” the boy bit his lip, “Well, it’s just my nickname. My professors usually call me—”

“Theta,” the Master interrupted, “Will do just fine for our purposes. Don’t you agree? And you may call me Master. I find my fuller title a bit stifling.”

Theta’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips unconsciously. “That’s a little informal, sir.”

“Isn’t it, though?” The Master shot back. “I’ll see you next twilight.”

The boy made to leave, only to snap back around too eagerly when the odd new Professor called him.

“Oh, and Theta?” The Master smiled benevolently, and for the first time Theta really understood his mother’s expression ‘crocodile smile.’ He shivered, though he wasn’t cold. He felt like his skin was being touched though it was only the older man’s hooded gaze resting oh so properly on his face. He felt like they were standing much too far apart.

“Sweet dreams,” he said, and Theta had a feeling they would be.

***

The Master was a complicated man, given to ambivalence. With a significant portion of his energy he was considering how he’d stumbled upon the ideal time frame in which to implement his long-held scheme to steal the contents of the Matrix, as no one would be looking for him in his own past.

He could create an identity for himself as a Professor here relatively easily: just hack in, tweak a document or nine and register one student for private lessons. He’d even give Theta proper credit for it. Why not, he was feeling generous.

The rest of him was realizing with mingled amusement, horror and anticipation that his absolutely incandescent youthful rage over not having been Theta’s first partner might have been somewhat misplaced. Because he had been, and was about to be, Theta’s first. He just hadn’t realized it at the time, and it hadn’t been quite the right him.

Well. He couldn’t really be blamed. Time Paradoxes had to be fulfilled, didn’t they?

And a Time Paradox that handed you the sweet, virginal version of your currently sour, estranged lover and insisted you have at him couldn’t be all bad.

***

Theta tripped back into his room. Koschei was sitting up in his bed with the lamp on, reading. The way the butter-colored light illuminated the curve of his pale neck would have made Theta’s hearts clench if he weren’t so preoccupied.

“Where have you been?” Koschei demanded, because it might not be safe to wander the grounds completely alone late at night if you were as young, pretty and defenseless and he thought his best friend to be.

Gallifrey, to its shame, wasn’t without violent crime—it crept up through the cracks of their stultifying perfect society like radon poisoning choking out the basement of an old structure. Gallifrey lacked release valves for its inordinate amount of social pressure, and when people sinned against the prevailing norms it didn’t tend to be orderly or pretty.

There’d been such an attack within the year, a Dromeian girl had been found with still eyes that stared, confused, even in death. With her silver-grey robes all matted maroon. The Guard had been called out and apprehended the culprit, but the students were still a trifle on edge, and night in the capitol didn’t seem as safe and welcoming as it once had. It made Koschei itch to get himself and Theta back home, where things seemed more simple and secure.

“Walking,” Theta said absently, half-ignoring him, throwing off his shirt and climbing into bed without noticing the hot stare his bare torso elicited. “I qualified for private xenolinguistics lessons, apparently.”

This was brilliant. Theta had never wanted anyone who wasn’t Koschei before, and had begun to fear he was incapable of it. Which was quite a problem for him, as Koschei didn’t seem to want anything to do with him, at least not like that.

He loved Koschei, obviously, and couldn’t imagine not doing so, but there didn’t seem to be much point in throwing himself at someone so patently repulsed. It only hurt him and made Koschei uncomfortable. And if Koschei got too uncomfortable he wouldn’t even want to be Theta’s best friend anymore, and that was a fate worse than could be imagined.

The draper, elegant older professor wouldn’t even consider a little weed of a boy like him, but the very fact that he was painfully attracted to someone who might not be categorically uninterested was a victory for Theta.

And what a someone! Dark haired and smooth voiced with a solid Capitoline accent (so like Koschei’s, Theta admitted, and thus all the more attractive), mocking and mysterious. Nice jacket too—unusual, as everyone around here accepted the collegiate robes without dissent or deviation, even though, as a professor, Theta supposed you could probably dress however you wanted to. This Master was just so commanding, and, well, cool. Theta smiled at the ceiling dopily, settling deep into a good hard crush.

“What are you so cheerful about?” Koschei groused, slightly annoyed that he didn’t already know and still mentally wording a way to ask Theta never to gallivant off into the night without him again so that he wouldn’t seem as smotheringly overprotective and obviously infatuated as he was.

“My new xenolinguistics professor’s devastatingly handsome.” Theta said absently before realizing what he’d said and then wincing so hard he thought he’d pop a vein.

“What.” Koschei responded succinctly.

“Well I can like people, Koschei!” Theta defended himself. “I can find people sexually attractive and want to do something about it. I am seventeen, in case you haven’t noticed. People typically become interested in other people and want to pursue that interest.”

“What?” Koschei tried again. His Theta, steps away, sighing and giggling over some ridiculous old professor when he was right fucking here. It was an indignation too great to be borne. It hurt physically. What did he lack, that Theta squirmed from him and wanted other men?

“Not all of us are frigid, is all I mean.” Theta shot back.

“I am not ‘frigid,’” Koschei hissed, “I—I want people! Loads of people! I’m very much not frigid!”

“Oh,” Theta said tightly. Whole loads of people, but you don’t condescend to want me, even seeing how much I care about you. Fine then, I get the hint.

“Good luck with that then. Sleep well, Koschei.”

Theta turned off his lamp and dreamed of unbuttoning high collars and the feel of a beard scraping at his neck and Koschei’s flushed face and long fingers in a confusing, flickering montage of want. He woke up hard and restless and desperately eager for twilight to come.

***

The Master made a lesson plan and felt like an utter prat. He was seducing a seventeen year old away from himself because he had failed to get same seventeen year old to properly commit in their future. It was all predicated firmly on the pathetic.

He spent all day working his way past the first layer of Matrix security protocols. He spent all day waiting for evening.

And then finally as the suns set Theta trooped down to his cottage, taking the steep hill at a swift jog. That’s it, boy, the Master thought with a smirk, run to me.

“Good day, professor,” Theta smiled upon arrival, and tucked his plump lower lip between his teeth. He was a trifle flushed from the descent. “You look well this evening.”

It was a casual pleasantry, but the Master caught it and spun it from diffuse candy floss innocence to something diamond hard with a long glance that made a complete survey of Theta’s young body and apparently found it more than satisfactory.

“And you look indecently well yourself. Though I imagine it’s always so, with a healthy lad like you. Won’t you come into my parlor? It’s past time we began.” He guided Theta in with a hand at the small of his back and settled him in a plump overstuffed chair.

He’d asked his TARDIS to make her interior look like one of these cottages as well. While the pantry door proceeded into spatially improbable corridors and rooms, the house looked in its anterooms just as it should: a cozy, book-lined library, an intimate kitchen with an old silver-wood oak table, a dark green walled bedroom with a marvelously comfortable, worn-in bed.

She’d capitulated gracefully because, much to the Master’s chagrin, she adored her absentee parent. Said the Master had been nicer when the Doctor had been around. Made a fair bit of noise about missing being nestled inside and around the Doctor’s TARDIS as well. He and the Doctor had used to find their TARDISs affection for each other so entirely adorable. They had used, he frowned, to do a lot of things they didn’t talk about anymore.

“Something wrong?” Theta asked, observing the tight line of the Master’s jaw with concern.

“Nothing you need to interest yourself in, my dear. If you’d open the book on the table?” Theta did and propped it in his lap. The Master, standing, threw an arm over the back of Theta’s chair and put his chin close to the boy’s ear.

“What do you know,” he rumbled softly, too close to the boy’s skin, and watched Theta twitch in hastily suppressed pleasure, sensualist that he had always been, “About comparative deep structure linguistic theory?”

“Not a lot,” Theta breathed, staring down at his hands demurely, intently, “But I’d be delighted if you could show me, sir.”

“Telepathic universal grammar could be said to underlie all communication—in fact our definition of sentience is based on adherence to a mental model that allows for translation and interpretation. Though more liberal theorists argue that this model is appallingly Gallifreyan-centric. It discounts, for example, the singing gas clouds of the Rijat Cluster, which appear to move with direction and intent, but whose vocalizations we cannot decipher.

“Deep structure,” he put a hand on Theta’s, ostensibly to point out some illustration in the book, “Is at the core of all our thought. It creates meaning from a barren universe. Our foundations define us, insomuch as the language we use and the choices we make comprise who we are. Are you following me?”

“Completely, Sir.”

“Just call me Master—As you so astutely pointed out, it’s a little informal. And I’ll broke no undue formality between us, Theta.”

An audible swallow. “Yes, Master.” That was just perfect.

“There’s a good boy. Read me the paragraph at the top of the page.”

***

“He has the bearing of a god.” Theta enthused, his huge blue eyes deadly serious. He bustled around their room, piling things into a bag haphazardly, as if he was too distracted to really pay attention.

Koschei sat on his bed, arms folded across his chest. He glared at Theta’s progress and resented everything Theta touched. Each object had the other boy’s attention, while he so clearly didn’t.

“I think I’m going to be ill.” Koschei pronounced in finely tuned response.

“He’s funny, too! After our lesson we had tea. He made this remark about Borusa—I can’t even reproduce the way he said it, it was the thing he did with his eyebrows that made it so genius. I practically spit up my tea laughing. He has the best smile. And he smokes cigars, can you even imagine? And leather gloves? I could get used to that, let me tell you—”

“Must I?” Koschei grimaced, but Theta would not shut up and didn’t even seem to notice.

“—just so smooth! And he’s so well read! It’s not even his specialty but he offered to teach me about comparative folklore as well—did you know there’s an Earth sorcerer figure with your name? Uncanny coincidence, that. He says we can do a lot of Earth stuff, since I’m so interested and he’s actually been there, visited my mother’s home era even! I actually told him she was human? And he didn’t even blanch! He’s such a gentleman. I’ve never trusted anyone so immediately. I just feel like I know him, like we’ve been friends for years.”

“Could you and your precious xenolinguistics professor just get a room already?” Koschei seethed.

“Oh,” Theta began to burble, “I mean, he’d never, he’s just so, and I mean he probably doesn’t even know I—”

“I was joking!” Koschei exploded in shock and horror. “You mean you’d actually ever consider—”

“Said he was attractive, didn’t I?” Theta interrupted him right back. “If someone I liked showed any interest in me I’d certainly take advantage of it!”

Koschei, predictably, read Theta’s intent in the comment all wrong. He didn’t hear the pleading note in Theta’s voice that promised that if Koschei so much as deigned to let him he’d be on his knees in an instant, making amends for all his careless words, making something better and stronger between them than he could have with anyone else.

Koschei heard an absolute dismissal. He blushed, embarrassed to be called on his crush on Theta, humiliated at being so casually denied. Koschei was crushed. It seemed brutally unfair that someone could know him so completely, understand him so perfectly, and yet not want him at all.

He was assaulted with the image of Theta wrapped around someone who, in his mind, had no face, no quality of any kind, and obviously no soul with which to intuitively ascertain that Theta wasn’t supposed to be with anyone but Koschei. He unwillingly visualized Theta wrapping his mouth around someone else’s cock. He could see the other boy’s eyes closing in bliss, like they did when Theta ate the English sweets his mother sent him in care packages, which Theta particularly fancied and Koschei particularly enjoyed watching him eat.

For an instant Koschei allowed himself to believe in sympathetic magic. Koschei hoped if Theta’s mouth cradled anyone else’s flesh he’d choke on it. He hoped if Theta touched anyone else’s skin it’d singe his fingers. He’d take a Theta who only came to him as a last resort, out of desperation, over no Theta at all. He had, he supposed, more need than pride.

“Where are you going?” Koschei asked, almost meekly.

“He asked me to lunch.” Theta said softly, unapologetic. “Said he likes my company. Thinks I’m promising.”

“Have fun,” Koschei said hollowly, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

***

They’d had tea and lunch and long afternoons that spiraled into evening as Theta skipped his other classes and the Master drug out the length of his plan, unraveling what he’d done the day before due to some newly apprehended complication.

The Master dallied and knew he did. He worked like a knitter who’d dropped a stitch rows back, like Penelope. He felt for her, in some ways. Always waiting for a clever, reckless traveler who might never come back, who rewarded devotion with dalliance, who couldn’t even apprehend the kind of loyalty it took to keep pulling at the thread every night. To keep asking in hopes of a different answer.

Whole intoxicating weeks: a long, slow seduction with words, with senses, never crossing the line. Despite how when Theta looked at him like he was everything he wanted to crash through the line and consume all the innocence and love that lay on the other side, just out of his reach as always. They played at being the Master and his devoted (beloved) companion. As it should have been and never was.

They talked. They talked for hours, and Theta shyly articulated his unorthodox thoughts on sonic wave structure. The Master smiled and corrected him on a point or two and gave him a bit of direction, helped him grasp something he’d not been able to on his own. If the design they refined as they talked wasn’t quite a sonic screwdriver, then it was the gamete of one. A few of the issues impeding its realization were sorted with the mechanisms he used in his own TCE, just as the TCE was descended from the Master’s observation of the screwdriver’s wave pulse in action.

Paradoxes could tie up neatly like that, when you were lucky.

Theta’s clever words pried open the Master’s restraint (he knew better than to say too much, so he tried to say very little, but Theta would have none of it) like grasping, deft fingers. The Master spoke more and more honestly than he’d meant to about his travels. It was easy to talk when one’s audience was a lovely, eager, admiring boy who soaked up all of your stories with glee and used them to fuel his dream of getting off-planet someday.

Theta chased him through comparative folklore and on into comparative literature proper. They argued about Twelfth Night, which Theta didn’t appreciate quite as he should. Theta plucked himself up for a good sound row with his professor, and the Master wondered how the Doctor could so easily deny how good they were together. Even young, the Doctor was cleverer than he had any right to be.

Seventeen, he reminded himself as Theta cleared the table after tea and tossed an adoring smile back over his shoulder at his professor, Congratulations are in order. You’ve gone and effectively taken a child bride. Well, he amended, not taken. Not just yet. He remembered perfectly what day he’d have to act. He had to time everything perfectly, within a short window of hours, if he wanted to deliver Theta back to his younger self on schedule.

He’d acquired a couch in his cottage’s living room, and he and Theta sat close together on it and read as the suns’ doubled light died and the fire in his hearth waxed in tandem.

When they worked there, he smothered distinctly inappropriate impulses to simply pull Theta onto his lap. Imagining settling the boy on his cock and watching his face while he took him, or remembering other days, other couches, Theta riding him and twining in for a kiss, was hardly conducive to a properly academic afternoon. Plus one would think that at this age he could control such urges with a modicum more decorum than he’d managed when he still thought of himself as Koschei.

“I don’t like poetry,” Theta fussed at the Master’s choice of lesson topic, plopping onto the couch with ill grace, his face falling into a pout.

“Now now,” he caught Theta’s chin with one hand and Theta swore one of his hearts broke because it was Koschei’s gesture. And it reminded him of how much he loved Koschei, who withdrew from him more every day now, angry, Theta figured, at feeling excluded. Yet he couldn’t deny he felt very strongly for this man.

Theta had never before considered himself disloyal. It was an uncomfortable, poorly fitting garment. He wore his ambivalence guiltily, but couldn’t stop himself from wanting. He hated himself, but he loved this. Loved them. What did it matter though, he wondered bleakly. Neither of them cared about his unsolicited longing, neither could ever reciprocate his desire.

“You just don’t know anything about poetry,” the Master chastised, and his hand dropped, “And ignorance isn’t hatred, is it, Theta?” Theta shook his head no, rebuked.

“Poetry,” the Master continued, assured of Theta’s full attention by the rapt gaze the boy fastened on the Master’s expressive face, “Is structure married to creative impulse. Freedom in lines. The unstoppable wedded to the immovable, producing the apogee of the possible. Poetry is the surest route to the sublime. You should come to know something of that.”

“Will you,” Theta spoke around the cottony length of his tongue in his suddenly dry mouth, “read something to me?”

The Master arched a teasing eyebrow and laughed. “I’m not a performer for your amusement, my dear.”

“I know that!” Theta corrected himself hastily. He’d noticed his favorite professor had a particular abhorrence of being laughed at, and respected it as any child did the peccadilloes of a beloved elder. “I just think you’ve got an excellent voice. It would be pleasant to hear you read.” Theta was convinced that if his cheeks got any hotter he’d spontaneously combust.

The Master brushed a hand over Theta’s tousled hair indulgently. “Maybe someday, if you’re especially good.”

 

Part II