A Beautiful Snare

It had been a mistake to reverse the aging process. Like any great arch-nemesis, the Master had badly misjudged his foe and, wishing to gloat over a less geriatric prisoner, had returned the Doctor to his usual state for a time. He kept him chained to a post outside of the dog tent he’d been keeping him in, and was certain that this, coupled with a few extra sentries, would keep his prisoner from wandering.

The Doctor was not so surprised to find that the Master still had not learned his lesson, despite nine-hundred-odd years of knowing him. Ego was his greatest weakness, and the Doctor had learned how to exploit it. It was child’s play, really – all he had to do was wait for the Master to make a mistake.

The Doctor crept through the Valiant’s silent, lightless corridors, every nerve on edge. He knew he had to find Jack first and break him free, for he’d need his companion’s uncanny ability to not die. Trouble was, Jack was being kept deep in the bowels of the airship, below a half-dozen deck levels full of sentries and toclefane. The Doctor was without his screwdriver and could not rely on his ability to get past doors, and was navigating blind. All he could do was head steadily downward and towards the most heavily secured areas of the ship.

That had brought him here, to this relatively untravelled hallway. A few doors back he’d had to duck around platoons of toclefane and a few human guardsmen, and had only just made it past. He had a feeling he knew what lay behind the doors in this particular area, and why the hallway itself was devoid of guards – this wing was likely to be the Master’s own, with private rooms to either side of him. If anything, the Master would be harder to evade than his guards, but the Doctor knew that he’d find a flight of stairs somewhere along this hall. With any luck, they’d lead straight down into the restricted areas of the ship’s underbelly.

Slowly, silently, with bare feet barely whispering against the deckplates, the Doctor moved along the wall. He could hear a faint rustling from one of the rooms ahead and hoped that it was merely someone turning over in their sleep. Lucy seemed the light-sleeper sort – if she woke, would she sound the alarm?

He drew a few steps closer, then stopped abruptly just beyond the next doorway. He’d caught a sharp intake of breath, and the movement in the room beyond was too regular to come from someone sleeping. The door was only slightly ajar, a slim sliver of faint light leaking across the dark hallway – could the Doctor sneak past unseen? Was it worth the risk?

He knew he could not go back. It’d been hard enough getting past the sentries the first time, and this wing was his best chance of getting to Jack. He could only hold his breath and hope that whoever it was had his back to the door.

The Doctor steeled himself, then darted past, the faint light combing over him as bright to his eyes as a searchlight. The figure beyond did not see him – but the brief glimpse the Doctor had caught of him made him stop dead.

There had been a time nine centuries ago when the Doctor and the Master had been two of a kind. They’d grown up together, and they’d developed a fondness for each other that was perhaps more than a close bond of friendship. Time and the turning of the years had soured their companionship and turned one against the other, but the Doctor had never forgotten days spent sprawled in the Master’s arms, sheltered by long grass, their bodies warm and comfortable against the bare earth. He knew the Master was lonely, lonely as he was, and as he stood by that sliver of light and gazed in upon him, he was struck by a yearning he thought he’d lost.

The Master reclined against the arm of a sofa, his body pale in the moonlight streaming through the long window behind him. He’d let his head fall back, his eyes closed, shutting the whole world out for a moment. One hand lay against the side of the sofa, fingers tapping the subtle four-beat rhythm that never left him. The other lay between his legs, drawing slowly against his erection.

For his part, the Master did not notice his visitor. He was lost in his own thoughts, beyond the Valiant’s hull, beyond the toclefane he’d unleashed upon an unsuspecting earth – beyond the captive he had chained in the belly of the ship, but not beyond the Doctor. His thoughts rarely strayed far from his fellow Time Lord, and this was maddening to him. Why should he not have mastery over his own mind? Why should he feel so deeply the pull of the Doctor’s presence? This trap he’d laid was not simply a way to take Earth for himself – it’d been for the Doctor. All of it had been for the Doctor, to wound him. For what was the Master but an enemy of his own kind? Was he not the mad dog, howling for the Doctor’s blood because it was the only blood he was allowed to taste?

Yet, every day he had to hold himself back from taking the Doctor by the collar and taking from him the closeness that he longed for. He wanted to hurt him so, wanted to leave marks on his flesh as well as on his mind. As he stroked himself, he let himself wonder what it would be like to have the Doctor again. If he did not allow himself these moments, he would be unable to control the lust and longing that clawed at him each moment he was in the Doctor’s presence.

The Doctor could not move. He stood like stone in the sliver of light and found himself unable to tear himself away. How was it that they always came to this? Memories flickered past, reminders of the unbreakable bond he shared with this man, this last living Time Lord. He devoured the Master’s body with his eyes, repulsed and afraid and aroused, his two hearts beating a swift tattoo against his ribs.

Perhaps it was the four-beat heartbeat that gave him away. That sound, faint as it was, was a clarion call to the Master, reverberating with the phantom pulse inside his own brain. He looked up sharply, chest rising and falling like a bird’s.

“It’s very rude to stare, Doctor.” As soon as he saw the Doctor beyond his door his demeanor changed, his body sinking back onto the couch, languid and self-satisfied. “Why don’t you come in? We haven’t had a decent conversation in so long.”

Everything in the Doctor screamed at him to flee. He might still have a chance if he made a run for it.

He walked into the room.

“Come and sit down,” the Master said with an inviting smile. He sat up, though his legs still sprawled across half of the couch, the fingers of his right hand coiled loosely around the base of his erection. Just seeing the Doctor there sent him through the roof, but what was he if not in control of his own emotions?

“I don’t think I shall,” the Doctor responded, lingering a few feet away. “I don’t fancy being old again, thank you. And you’re rather undressed.”

The Master rose from the couch, slow and sinuous, feral and cat-like. “Oh, but this is precisely what you came here for, isn’t it? Don’t lie to me, Doctor. You never were very good at it.”

The Doctor was rooted to the spot, caught like a mouse in a serpent’s gaze. “You’ve done a terrible thing. All those people, hundreds of years of human achievement – and here you are, pleased as a cat with cream.”

“Funny you should use that phrase, specifically.” A step more and the Master had closed the gap between them, so near the Doctor could feel his breath. His closeness was electric, its effect instantaneous, and it was the Doctor who made the next move.

He caught the Master’s wrist and pulled him close, baring his teeth. “You killed ten percent of the population of Earth without blinking. You have laid waste to an entire planet. You keep my friends in chains and servitude. Why do you think that I would have anything to do with you?”

The Master shook him off and tangled his fingers into his hair, pulling him down. “I told you not to lie. Even with everything I’ve done to your precious human race, you come crawling back to me. You need me, Doctor.” He thrust his free hand between the Doctor’s legs, grinning in triumph. “Don’t you?”

The Doctor gasped and tried to twist away, but the Master simply pulled his head back by the hair and held him there. Even with his hands free there was nothing he could do, his whole body bent in a taut arc, helpless as the Master’s fingers kneaded against his trapped erection.

“It’s been a long time. Your sanctimonious nonsense won’t stop me having what I want.” The Master coaxed him towards the couch, step by step, purring obscenities like sweet nothings to him.

Later, the Doctor would rationalize. He’d been trapped a long time, weakening each day. He was out of sorts. He might’ve gotten something useful out of the Master. In truth, he was helpless, plain and simple. Always had been.

He found himself flat on his back on the couch with the Master straddling his hips, held down at the shoulders. Though the Master was shorter by a good few inches, he had the advantage of high ground. The Doctor tried to hold himself still, but when the Master thrust against him, he couldn’t help but arch towards him, loathing himself even as he sought further contact.

“So silent, Doctor,” the Master murmured, leaning close and catching his wrists again. “Can’t stop that tongue of yours when you want silence. I want to hear you.” He thrust against the Doctor again, this time eliciting a sharp hiss.

“Don’t want to give you the satisfaction,” the Doctor managed between clenched teeth.

“Oh, but you will.” The Master pressed one hand to the center of the Doctor’s chest to hold him still and began working on his tie with the other. Every little squirm the Doctor made to escape sent a shock of sensation through him, and he rode him with unabashed enjoyment.

The Doctor realized too late what the Master intended. By the time he thought to redouble his efforts to escape, he found his wrists pinned and tied.

“Such a good boy, behaving for your Master.”

He could do nothing to stop what came next. Now that he had his hands free from holding his captive down, the Master went to work on his clothing. Too impatient to bother undressing him properly, he merely tore aside his jacket and shirt and flicked the zipper on his slacks down. The Doctor bucked and twisted to escape his seeking hands, but when the Master smoothed both palms down his sides and grasped his hips again, his attempts to escape became desperate pleas for more. Though he kept his mouth shut, muffling all but the most insistent moans, his body spoke for him – he pressed against the Master’s hands and rocked his hips against the leg thrust solidly between his thighs, drowning in wanting.

The Master tugged at the waistband of the Doctor’s briefs, freeing his cock at last, and laughed aloud at his groan of relief. He himself was short of breath in anticipation, and found he had no more witty barbs to throw, no more goading remarks. He could feel the Doctor’s rapid pulse beneath his hands, harmonizing with the throbbing in his brain, perfectly in sync with his own heartbeats, and it drove all thought from him except one: the need to take, to possess him.
He rose up on his knees, one hand square between the Doctor’s hearts for balance. There was but one way to satisfy his need to force the Doctor to feel, to succumb to his lust and wanting, and it was not to fill him himself. He laughed breathlessly, his teeth white in the starlight, and grasped the Doctor’s cock, guiding him in.

The Doctor could see and feel every moment of their encounter at once. He knew the glorious, near-forgotten pressure and heat as his body met the Master’s; knew the humiliation and disgust of being lured and trapped; knew the oncoming oblivion of orgasm before it happened. Each second was an explosion of pleasure and anticipation and anger and longing as he forgot how to see each individual moment.

The blinding, all-encompassing need took him over, and he rolled his hips to meet the Master, letting loose a guttural, uninhibited note of pleasure. Damn the humans, the fate of the earth – he wanted this, now, more than anything. Almost before the Master had a chance to adjust be began driving into him, thrusting as well as his bound body would allow him. The Master gripped the back of the couch and dug his nails into the Doctor’s chest, triumphant. The Doctor was his, mind and body.

They merged and came apart and merged again, each feeling the full force of Time pressing upon them. The Master heard the savage drumbeat draw closer and didn’t know whether it was the noise in his head or the sound of his own pulse, but for once, he didn’t care. He stroked his own length, snarling curses and endearments both without knowing which was which. He’d already brought himself close by his own hand, and the familiar fullness of the Doctor inside of him shot him close to the edge before he could even consider self-control. The Doctor, beside himself, wasn’t far behind – it’d been too long since he’d been with another of his own kind, and this man in particular could make his hearts race simply by looking at him.

The Master came first, drawing blood as he clutched at the Doctor, spilling himself across his chest and his own hand. His cry of release took on a startled note as he realized – in this moment, his mind flooded with sensation, the drumming had stopped.

The Doctor followed a few seconds later, burying himself entirely inside of the Master, cutting red welts into his flesh as he pulled against his bindings, yanking one hand through almost by accident.

For a few precious minutes, neither was quite aware of his surroundings. The Master lay stretched across the Doctor’s chest, head pillowed beneath his chin, trembling with exertion. The Doctor, meanwhile, brought both arms up around him, subconsciously fighting off the reality of the situation. The Master was a warm, familiar weight, a perfect fit for his embrace – he always had been, no matter what body he wore.

Too soon, they came back to reality. The Doctor shifted, prepared to attempt an escape, but the Master felt the miniscule tensing of his muscles and closed a hand around his throat. The drumming was back, taunting, and any kindness he might’ve felt towards the Doctor drained from him. What was this man but his hated enemy? He had stopped the drums for a moment, but they’d come back, and the Master felt suddenly foolish and ashamed.

“You’re not going anywhere, Doctor.”