Child of the void (Doctor Who)

Part III (III)

Black smoke enveloped reality. In every direction and so thick it was a mystery how anyone could hold it apart from the darkness around it. Maybe it wasn't possible at all. It could be a trick of the mind, an illusion. There was only darkness, after all, and within it even darker shades that moved with such a slow speed that it almost wasn't perceivable.

Nothing else was there.

Emptiness.

Silence.

The Master shot up with a gasp and looked around. The room was unfamiliar, the shapes, the smell, the whole feeling of it. But then he remembered. The half darkness. The half light.

He was alone.

The bed sheets next to him were crumpled but empty. Only the Doctor's smell lingered. The man himself was gone and the Master strained his senses to determine for how long.

An hour maybe? It couldn't be much longer. And if his time sense didn't betray him, then the Master had slept for almost three hours more. An impossibly long time.

The poison's fault.

He listened inside his body and noted satisfied that all remnants were eliminated. The detox had helped to survive, but his body had still needed time to flush everything out properly.

Speaking of which, he really needed the bathroom. And a hot shower.

So he climbed out of bed and made his way through the chaos on the ground. Parts of unfinished projects, papers with doodles and blueprints, a plush figure of a galrawus and some discarded clothes. Nothing of interest. Nothing to use. But he knew that already. It wasn't the first time he had been inside this room, albeit never for that purpose.

After taking care of his bladder, the Master stepped inside the shower and let warm water run over his head. This was pleasant. A nice distraction from the ache the poison had left in his body. And the water muffled the drums.

The Master still could only half believe what had happened before, how easily the Doctor had agreed, almost as if he had waited for the opportunity, as if he hadn't always run away before.

Acceptance could be such a strong force. And it seemed as if the Doctor was going all in on it, placing everything on this one card. On those few words he had said.

It still surprised the Master that the other one had agreed to indulge in physical pleasure. Few Time Lords indulged in anything they deemed below them. And the Doctor, more often than not, appeared to be entirely clueless about the whole topic. Aside from the bit of experimentation they had done in their younger years. An all too wrong appearance, given how effortlessly the Doctor had gone with it.

Given that he had allowed the Master to touch him like that.

The thought made him twitch pleasantly before he could will down the reaction. Maybe he was indulging those physical sensations way too much these days. A guilty pleasure, although a recent one. His high exposure to humans was the reason, he decided as he watched the water run down his body and tingle receptive parts of his skin.

He didn't need to acknowledge the physical sensation, didn't need his body to react to it.

The Doctor's lips had tasted sweet. He had smelled like a hot day in summer. He had felt so good in the Master's hands, melting into his touch, allowing him access to all the things he even denied those ape companions.

Indulgence.

The Master groaned softly and watched himself getting hard. Streaks of water ran down along the shape of him, dripping down gently at the tip. If he allowed it, those thoughts about the Doctor were enough. And the warm water too. There was the option to use his willpower to regulate the blood flow away from his groin, but the Master didn't care.