Silencing the Drums

For good or ill, the Doctor woke first.

Perhaps he’d realized he was sleeping next to a time bomb, ready to go off the moment the Master opened his eyes. Perhaps he simply needed less sleep than his still-healing counterpart. Whatever the reason, even in the darkness of the den, he woke with the dawn and found himself in an extremely complicated position.

He and the Master were still entwined, his legs and arms held inextricably by the Master’s own limbs. Worse yet, his subconscious had clearly been replaying the previous evening’s events over, and the Doctor was in a rather compromising state, especially considering the proximity of his hips to the Master’s rump. There was nothing he could do about it, not without waking the sleeping dragon, and so he focused very hard on unappealing things – the Slitheen, Sontarans, apples.

It didn’t work. The Master’s subtle shifts against him undid all of that, and it took a great deal of self-control not to indulge in the moment and take advantage of his fellow Time Lord’s slumber. He rolled his hips experimentally and shuddered with delight as his cock slipped so perfectly against the cleft of the Master’s ass and the small of his back. Now that he’d had a taste of him, he felt like he’d never have enough. Their reunions were always so brief, and more often than not they parted ways before either of them could have their fill. It left the Doctor feeling quite desperate for every second of intimacy he could pull from his adversary, his mind and body trained to expect a sudden disappearance.

All the more enticing was his sudden desire to do more than lay down and let the Master have him. There had been times in the past when he’d been in control of their relationship, but it most frequently went the other way – usually to an extreme. The Master had an almost pathological fondness for bondage, for black leather and excessive levels of control. This time around the Doctor found he’d rather fight back, force a little submission from the Master for a change.

Of course, none of this was relevant right at this moment. This was not the time nor the place to test out his newfound desire for dominance. The second the Master woke there’d be hell to pay, and here he was trying to get a quick wank in before he noticed.

He had no time to calm his raging Time Lord hormones. The Master woke mere moments after the Doctor’s hips stilled, but it was much too late. In a second he’d picked up on exactly what was going on, perhaps even guessed a little bit of what the Doctor had been thinking.

“Well, this is just delightful,” he said, his voice flat and icy. “Good old Doctor, soothing away the mad Time Lord’s nightmares, taking him to bed to boot.” He broke away from the Doctor and sat up, straight-backed, the lead pulled tight.

The Doctor sat up as well, attempting unsuccessfully to cover himself. He could smell the sex that clung to them, and his gaze didn’t miss the faintest flush touching the Master’s skin. “If I remember right, you were pretty well in on it, yourself,” he countered. “Sort of… clinging on. I thought it was a pretty good time.”

“I can see that,” the Master said dryly, eyes dropping to the other man’s groin. “Looks like you might’ve been trying to take advantage. Shame, Doctor.”

“You’re just unhappy because you couldn’t get me in ropes and chains this time.”

The Master scoffed and turned away. That was too close to the truth to acknowledge, and he found himself at a bit of a loss. It’d been good. Brief, but good, and something that he’d needed, when he got right down to it. He could never admit to it – his modus operandi was to take what he wanted from the Doctor, make him want it so badly that he forgot all about the Master’s own needs.

“I haven’t forgotten – you wanted to keep me. Remember that? Suppose you’ve regenerated since, so the memory might be a bit fuzzy. I’m starting to understand your logic.”

The Doctor shook his head, annoyed. “Not at all. I told you I’d fix whatever’s wrong with your head, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

He found himself exhausted with the mental gymnastics involved in keeping the Master so close. Their long-term enmity left them constantly on edge, each trying to gain the upper hand. To be stuck in such close quarters, forced into aiding one another, with the Master quite literally leashed to the Doctor, turned their relationship upside-down.

“Tell you what – once I’ve done that, when all of this is over, you can dash off as you always do, put into place whatever petty schemes you’ve set by, and I’ll give you a bit of a head start before chasing you down to stop you. That’s the way it’s always been, isn’t it? That’s what you want – to be chased, to feel devious and important. Right now you’re a skin-and-bones madman, and you came to me, remember. Let’s just try and make the best of this, and you can save up all of your wounded pride to fabricate some sort of elaborate revenge plot once I’ve cured you.”

The Master turned sharply, lips peeled back in a snarl. The madness lurked like a parasite deep in his subconscious, silent until strong emotions brought it to the fore. Anger tied neatly with the war-drums in his head, creating a feedback loop that could only end in an explosive outburst. He launched himself at the Doctor, knocking him backwards onto the second pallet bed, and aimed a furious punch at his jaw. The Doctor caught his fist and wrenched him off, rolling him over onto his back and pinning his wrists above his head.

“None of that,” he snapped. “Look at yourself! Where’s the Master I know? This- this animal, this thing inside of you is going to eat you whole, and I’m not sure how I’ll handle losing you again. There, I’ve said it. I’ve said it! Will you just-“

The Master tore an arm free and clutched at the Doctor’s throat, squeezing and pushing until at last the Doctor was forced off of him. He leaped on him again, this time locking both hands around his neck, holding just tight enough to hurt, digging his nails in each time the Doctor made to throw him off again.

“You made this monster of me,” he hissed. “I will not lay down like a tame dog for you!”

Thinking to regain a scrap of dominance, the Master moved up the Doctor’s body and forced a kiss, mimicking his adversary’s actions from the night before. He still held the Doctor’s throat in a strangle-hold and felt a surge of triumph at his hoarse gasps and the look of panic on his face.

Neither of them heard the quiet tapping at their door. Breakfast came early in Kyu’s den, and he’d sent Rom to wake their guests and invite them down to the sitting room for a casual meal. The heavy wooden doors muffled sound, and Rom heard nothing but a quiet scuffling from the guest room. He assumed it’d be someone turning over in their sleep or perhaps dressing themselves, and when he received no response, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

“Good morning, gentlemen – I’ve come to invite you down to- ah.”

The Master hardly moved, yet managed to shift in demeanor a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. His snarl became a thin smile, and the rigid lines of his arms and back softened to slinky elegance. He still held the Doctor down by the neck, but when he turned to face Rom he seemed almost inviting.

“Breakfast, yes. Go tell your Fox that we’ll be down shortly.”

Rom shuffled backwards with eyes like saucers, and had to take a moment to recover after he’d closed the bedroom door. He’d never felt particularly threatened by any of Kyu’s guests, but this man had murder in him.

Once he’d caught his breath and remembered where he put his heart, he took off down the hall back to Kyu’s room, grinning with a mix of excitement and sheer terror and, perhaps, a hint of arousal. The magnetism between the pair of Time Lords in the spare bedroom was nearly palpable.

Kyu’s bedroom was much larger than the guest room and furnished handsomely with exotic dark woods and a great deal of silk. The floor was covered over in an assortment of plush animal skins and gaudy throw rugs, covering nearly all of the high-gloss cherry floorboards beneath. The bed was a single, gigantic white cushion filled with down and piled high with smaller pillows, more of a nest than anything. The Fox sat at the center of this plush opulence, leaning back against Jack’s broad chest and toying idly with his vortex manipulator.

“They’re absolutely, completely, 100% fucking,” Rom announced as he barged into the room and dove immediately into bed with the pair. “Right now, actually. Asphyxophillia. I think I was almost killed for walking in.”

Jack laughed in shock. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

“I told you so,” Kyu smirked. “God, you people. I saw it the moment they walked off the TARDIS. I said to myself, self – there’s a couple of people who’re definitely fucking.”

“Fucking violently,” Rom added. He’d taken his place behind Jack, curving long legs around both the Captain and his Fox.

It’d taken all of ten minutes from the time they’d shown Jack to his room to the time Jack showed up at their door, and a further fifteen for them to end up in bed together. Rom and Kyu had been an item for years, but they never said no to a third, or a fourth, or a fifth. All in all, they made an ideal threesome – Kyu’s attitude towards sex meshed neatly with the 55th Century’s, and Rom had never wanted to shag something as much as he wanted Jack. By the time they’d all finally passed out in happy exhaustion, they’d already become fast friends.

“That’s why he’s so dangerous, though. The Master, I mean.” Jack captured one of Rom’s hands and ran a thumb absently over his knuckles. “Right now, there’s exactly one thing standing between him and probable genocide, and if he and the Doctor hook up? I don’t know. I mean, I get that they’ve been at this for a long time, but everything’s different now.”

Kyu nodded thoughtfully. “The last living Gallifreyans, tied together in love and hate. Theirs is a long tale – classic, though. I’ve been charting the Doctor’s life for a while. May have to move on to the Master.”

“I could tell you stories,” Jack replied flatly. “Trust me, it’s best not to get any more involved than you already are. I’m not looking forward to getting back into the TARDIS with the pair of them, especially now.”

Rom scattered kisses along Jack’s shoulders and the back of his neck, tightening his fingers around his hand almost possessively. “Then don’t,” he said. “Stay here with us for a while. I want to hear more about your time in the Agency – and let’s face it, that was a damn good lay last night.”

Jack turned and caught Rom up in a kiss, easing him gently back into the pile of cushions behind him. Kyu joined in indulgently, letting his long, pale hands wander. It’d been a while since they’d had such an accommodating visitor, and he found he got just as much pleasure from watching the Captain with his boy as he did from being actively involved.

“Best I’ve had for a long time,” Jack grinned. He felt a brief, small stab of remorse at this little white lie – but the past was past, and there was no use in revisiting old hurts. Ianto Jones would forgive him for it, if he could.

“Seems like our guests will be a little while,” Kyu observed, criminally casual. “Let’s not roll out of bed just yet.”

And they didn’t – not for an hour more, during which time they more than made up for the angry, hateful sex happening in their guest bedroom.