Silencing the Drums

IN WHICH THE MASTER HAS A NIGHTMARE

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They were to sleep in the den that evening, as was customary among Storytellers. Kyu had shared his knowledge, and his guests were in turn expected to stay and infuse his home with the energies of their own personal plotlines. It was a way to enrich a Storyteller’s dwelling, to recharge the strange magics they relied so heavily on. Where the Time Lords they resembled were reliant on time itself, omnipresent, Storytellers were bound up in the lives of other creatures.

The evening had gone startlingly well, all things considered. Jack and Rom hit it off like old friends, with Rom hanging on his hero’s every word and Jack soaking in the attention like a lizard in the sun. They’d each been expected to share a story, and they had – all save the Master, who remained silent the entire evening. Kyu had taken him away to read the tale of his life and had come back somewhat shaken himself. The Doctor would not share the story he’d been told, of course, and didn’t expect the Master to do any differently, but he was desperately curious.

When it came time for sleep at last, the lead made things very awkward. There was nothing else for it – they’d need to share, and the Doctor would have to spend the entire night with a good hold on the Master’s leash. He was grateful to all involved for leaving off the smart remarks; Kyu merely showed him to one of the larger sleeping chamber and assured him he’d come get them for breakfast in the morning.

In the way of all fox-dens, even this, the larger of the Fox’s bedrooms, was small and close. It was dim, filled with an orange glow from bioluminescent fungi growing in small alcoves in the walls. Two thick bolsters lay side-by-side on a wooden floor, deep enough to negate the need for any sort of bedframe. The paneled walls were covered over by rich tapestries, and the heat of two bodies quickly filled the space, making the piles of down sheets at the foot of each pallet somewhat redundant. A scant few feet separated each pallet, and the walls themselves prevented them from being moved further apart. Even if the beds themselves could’ve been pushed apart, it would have done them no good – the Doctor needed to keep a hand on the lead at all times.

“Isn’t this disgustingly cozy,” the Master scoffed, nudging one of the pallets with his foot. “I bet you love this, don’t you?”

“We’re being polite,” the Doctor replied, not meeting the Master’s eyes. “Just one night, then we’ll pop back to the TARDIS. You’ve got a bit more freedom there.”

“Mm, freedom.” The Master fell to sit cross-legged in the center of one of the pallets, forcing the Doctor to stumble forward a few paces with him with a jerk of his neck. “That’s not what I’d call it, but suit yourself. Whatever soothes your conscience.” He thrust one leg in front of him and began to work on his shoes, savaging the laces.

The Doctor kicked off his own boots and draped his jacket over a hook on the wall, then sat across from the Master, one ankle up over his knee. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Yes – this is very helpful.” The Master chucked his borrowed coat in a heap by the door and began to work on the buttons of his vest, eyes locked on his own hands. “Quaint little stories, a night spent in a fox-hole with you – just what the Doctor ordered. The drumming’s still there, just as loud, but I suppose even this must have a point, eh?”

The Doctor didn’t bother with a reply. He stretched out on his back, ankles crossed, arms folded behind his bed, eyes gazing aimlessly at the featureless ceiling. What point was there in explaining? The Master wouldn’t accept a word of it. Better to get this evening over with and start fresh in the morning.

“Don’t tell me you’re sleeping in that awful coarse shirt.”

The Master’s question startled him out of silence. He glanced over at the other Time Lord and felt his hearts hitch at a teasing sliver of skin exposed beneath parted rows of buttons, the curve of the Master’s back as he worked his arms free of his sleeves. Lucky the Master was looking away – lucky the Doctor had a moment to catch himself. He’d spent days following the Master’s naked body around, but the act of undressing itself stirred memories he’d rather not have had at this particular moment.

“No, I suppose not,” he said, swallowing down the sudden lump in his throat. “Just thought – a bit warmer, you know. Suppose it’s warm enough in here as it is.” He rolled into a sit and went to work on his shirt, self-conscious and certain the Master was watching.

The Master flung his shirt and vest atop the coat, then rose up to his knees, fiddling with the buttons of his slacks. He seemed entirely unconcerned with the Doctor’s state of dress, wholly focused on a hook that seemed to have caught on a stitch. The low, orange light lit every hollow of him in perfect relief, highlighting the corrugation of his ribs, the chasm of his belly. A tracery of old wounds still crossed his skin, and bruises that’d been a livid purple just days ago had faded to a sickly green.

Even so, the Doctor knew if he chanced a look, just a single look, he’d be done.

He shucked off his own slacks and burrowed immediately beneath a pile of sheets, feigning a chill. The lead burned like a live coal in his hand, his eyes darting along its length towards the man kneeling beside him, then back again at his own knuckles before he could linger too long on his enemy’s bare skin.

“Don’t you let go of that now, Doctor,” the Master murmured, rising just long enough to kick his slacks off. “Never know what mischief I’d get up to with a TARDIS all my own.” He lay down himself and immediately rolled to face the wall, pulling the sheets up around his chin. Nothing but a shock of white-blonde showed above the blankets.

The Doctor breathed a long, silent sigh and turned the other direction, edging as far away as he could without drawing the lead tight. The room seemed far too close, too hot, and the Master burned like an afterimage in his mind.

Had the Fox spoken true? Had the Master’s memories of him been strong enough to rip him through the fabric of space and time itself? Of all the things he could’ve chosen to save himself, all of the planets, the people, the time periods, even one of his own TARDISs, he’d chosen the Doctor’s TARDIS a mere heartbeat away from their last meeting. In terms of the Doctor’s own personal timeline, the Immortality Gate might as well have been yesterday.

Stranger still, the Master would not have known how to escape. He might’ve had the theory, but it would have taken an incredible force of will to actually execute such a maneuver without a Storyteller’s help. Time Lords hadn’t the biological equipment to make use of thoughts and words in such a way. Indeed, it’d taken billions of voices raised in chorus at once to force a story into working for the Doctor. The Master had done it with one voice, one violent push.

And yet, the Doctor could nearly feel the waves of resentment and hate pouring from him. The Master had saved his own life, but at great cost to his ever-delicate ego. The Doctor hadn’t a clue what to do with him once he’d fixed what was wrong with his head, but he imagined it’d be something like releasing an extremely angry, extremely toxic snake.

The orange glow dimmed as the fungi sensed a decreased activity in the room, and soon enough it was black as pitch. The Doctor couldn’t sleep, his head too full of worry, but the Master was out in an instant. In the silence, the Doctor could hear each even breath. It surprised him for a moment – he expected some manifestation of the drums, now that the Master’s subconscious had taken over.

The Doctor drifted off, eventually. It was a restless sleep, his body still preoccupied with keeping a hold on the end of the lead, so when the Master’s first small, quiet whimpers stretched out across the room, he awoke almost at once.

~*~

It was dark and cold and empty in his tiny cell. He thought he might go blind simply from staring into the blackness, trying to make sense of the shapes that floated before him. After a time he could no longer tell whether his eyes were open or closed. After a time he memorized the exact dimensions of his prison by feel – step-step-step-step-turn, step-step-step-step-turn, and over and over again, as if They’d built this prison to fit with the pulse in his head.

His other senses became razor-keen to make up for his lack of sight. The beast within him could smell the burning flesh beyond the walls of his prison, could hear the death rattle of a whole world gone to shit. With nothing else to occupy himself, he could not but envision what was happening beyond – the bodies, the bleeding wounds of the world, the very spine of Time Itself cracking under the strain. Why would they keep him here, locked away in isolation? It was torture beyond reckoning, beyond the physical hurts they’d inflicted with such precision upon his arrival. Even the whitewashed agony of the mind probe was nothing compared to the darkness. With the image of Gallifrey burning etched in his mind, he hardly felt the oozing wounds on his back and arms, the sting as broken flesh brushed against the foul, piss-stained walls.

And so, he screamed. He screamed until he could taste blood, until he could no longer tell whether he was still screaming or rasping soundlessly. The noise echoed on and on, joining the thunderous drum-beats, deafening him and overwhelming him.

~*~

The Master’s near-silent whimpers rose to a howl of abject terror, a mindless noise that drove into the Doctor’s brain and forced his limbs to action. He crossed the space between them in one swift, fluid movement, wrapping his body around the Master’s, cradling him as he would a terrified child. The Master clutched at his arms, digging nails in hard enough to draw blood, wriggling backwards into the Doctor’s embrace as though the only way to escape his demons was to burrow beneath the other man’s skin. The nightmare went on for what felt like hours, and each panicked sound from the Master’s throat tore straight through the Doctor. The Doctor’s brain hadn’t caught up to things yet, hadn’t quite taken in the fact that he’d so readily leaped to the Master’s defense. He felt the press of the Master’s thin spine against his chest, yes, but he hadn’t processed it. His entire being was focused on stopping whatever it was that had the Master in such a state. Small words poured from him in an endless torrent of whispers, his lips pressed against the shell of the Master’s ear so he’d have a chance of hearing them over the sound of his own screaming.

In reality, the Master woke within minutes. His cries cut off abruptly, and his whole body grew stiff and wary in the Doctor’s embrace. Even awake, he hadn’t quite shaken off the nightmare’s grip, but he was very quickly realizing what had happened. At the same time, the Doctor’s mind at last caught up to events, and he felt his hearts leap spectacularly into his throat.

“Got a little cold, did we?” the Master said, his voice quiet and still shaken, but still enormously irate. “You really ought to stop breaking your own rules – you know, boundaries, personal space.”

The Doctor cleared his throat and attempted to shift away, but found his arms still held tight, fingernails catching him like fishhooks. “You might want to loosen up a bit,” he suggested, tentative.

The Master’s fingers uncoiled slowly from the Doctor’s arm, but did not release him entirely. He felt the blackness encroaching at the edge of his consciousness and knew the moment he slipped back into slumber he’d be back in his cell again, alone and blind. The heat, the solid presence of the Doctor at his back drove the terror away and seemed to clear his mind, reminding him that he’d made it out. He’d escaped.

The Doctor felt every tiny shift in the Master’s posture and was shocked to find him relaxing, muscles loosening in miniscule fractions. As he did, his body sunk back against the Doctor’s chest, conforming to the shape of him – fitting against him as if he’d been made for this. The Doctor was aware of every bone pressing through pale skin, of the place where the waistband of the Master’s stolen boxers brushed beneath his navel, of the slowing rise-and-fall of his chest. Pale hair fluttered against his ear with each of the Doctor’s exhalations.

They couldn’t stay this way, wrapped in such tentative stillness. The Doctor was on edge, ready for the Master’s retaliation, and the Master himself struggled to balance his own ego with his need to escape his own head. Something had to break – someone had to act. In desperation, and because he could no longer stand the tension between them, the Doctor took the initiative. He pulled his arm free and pushed down on the Master’s shoulder, rolling him over onto his back, allowing him to get a knee around to his opposite hip. If he didn’t move now, if he didn’t act on the flood of heat rushing through each nerve, he thought he might die – and so he dropped the length of his body against the Master’s and caught his lips in a hungry, demanding kiss.

The Master pushed against him, fighting back with teeth and tongue, gripping the hair at the back of his neck tight with one fist. He was well and truly trapped – each arch of his spine, each thrust of his hips only brought further under the Doctor’s control. When had panic and confusion become such sudden, insistent arousal? He thrust against the Doctor, groaned aloud into his mouth at the delirious friction, pulled him down and set his teeth against his shoulder.

The Doctor twisted up and away, holding the Master down with hands braced on his upper arms. His briefs had hitched down along his hips in the struggle, and his cock throbbed against his stomach, reminding him with great insistence of how warm and inviting the Master’s body had been. He panted, struggling to regain some semblance of rationality, fighting the urge to run fingers, tongue, teeth over every inch of his enemy’s skin. The Master lay beneath him, stunned for the moment, flushed lips parted as he drew in deep lungfulls of air.

They came together again, and this time the Doctor didn’t hesitate in thrusting a hand between them, shoving the Master’s boxers down around his thighs. The both of them gasped, moaned around tangled tongues, rutting against one another as though they’d been waiting their entire lives for this. The Master drew his nails down the Doctor’s back, leaving angry red furrows behind, and in return the Doctor bit down against the Master’s collarbone, eliciting a startled yelp from him.

“Don’t- don’t fucking bite me,” the Master laughed, yanking hard on a handful of the Doctor’s hair. “Never- nnhgod, never used to be into that.”

The Doctor bit him again just to show he could, leaving imprints on his neck just below the edge of his collar, and the Master shoved at him in another frantic bid to push him off. The Doctor merely settled his hips more firmly against his captive’s, thrusting against him with long, slow strokes. The Master’s shoving turned to clawing and grasping, his breathless laugh to a low, guttural moan.

At last, even the close press of their bodies wasn’t enough. The Doctor sat back on his knees and let the Master go, wrapping the fingers of one hand around the both of them, closing tight around hot, wanting flesh. The Master thrust against him, needing more, reduced to base desires by the Doctor’s unexpected forcefulness. This was not usually the way things went for him, but on rare occasions, when the pair of them shared a moment of impatience, he wanted to get off and nothing more, and let the Doctor have his way for once. It kept things interesting, at least.

In any case, his present circumstances had driven the nightmares off completely.

“Come on,” the Doctor breathed, thrusting against the Master, stroking his thumb against the head of his cock, pulling at the lead. “Come for me, you bastard, you horrible, beautiful monster, don’t keep me waiting-“

The Master couldn’t, even if he’d wanted to. All the stress and rage and fear he’d crushed down deep seemed to vanish in an instant, seared out of him by white-hot sparks of pleasure as the Doctor’s strokes grew quicker, driving them both on. He writhed, fucking the Doctor’s slick, closed fist with everything he had in him, now clutching the sheets as if the world was crumbling away from him.

He came with an explosive cry, the Doctor’s name and a Gallifreyin expletive mingled into one long, drawn-out syllable. The Doctor milked him dry, coaxing every last shuddering spasm from him, then barreled over the edge himself.

Utterly spent, he settled again atop the Master’s prone form, grinning to himself at the slippery sheen that now covered the both of them. The Master lay spread-eagle, eyes closed, gulping air like a drowning man. It took him a long while to recover, and when at last his breathing slowed and his body relaxed, he seemed too exhausted to push the Doctor away. The most he could manage was to shift the Doctor to one side, leaving them entangled side-by-side, a sticky mess between them.

“I’m going to kill you in the morning,” he murmured, tightening his fingers once more in the Doctor’s hair.

“Oh, I’ve heard that one before,” the Doctor chuckled. He couldn’t quite believe that this was happening – that the Master hadn’t already pulled away, scooted as far as the lead would let him.

Lucky for the Doctor, the Master was more concerned with returning nightmares than with an evening spent in his arms. Though part of him raged against such easy compliance, he felt such a deep, lethargic gratitude that he was entirely unable to resist the Doctor’s embrace. He was certain that this would come back to haunt him in the morning.

Perhaps the both of them felt the lingering effect of the Fox’s stories. Perhaps they’d simply tired of fighting for one night. Whatever the reason, this last pair of Time Lords drifted, for once, into effortless slumber, limbs and bodies entwined.