monkeys and ponies

Title: A Scattering of Stars
Characters/Pairing(s): Thirteenth Doctor/Dhawan!Master
Rating: Adult
Word count: 3,553
Spoilers: through Flux
Summary: After the Flux had chewed its way through the universe, after the Doctor had let her friends off for a brief stop to comfort their families, after she’d found herself flat on her back in the console room pointedly trying not to listen for her previous voices whispering to her from somewhere deep and unknown within her ship, she’d heard an entirely different voice calling to her and had known she had to follow it.

Author's Notes: Many thanks to my beta platypus, who found all the rookie mistakes a writer makes when cranking up the fic skills after a year off.

::xposted to dwfiction and dwfiction, and archived at A Teaspoon And An Open Mind and AO3


New York City: a thornbush of timelines, each one a prickle and a pinch at the Doctor's skin; thick, ropey brambles weaving a tight temporospatial fence that blocked out nearly every bit of light.

But there was a bit. A ray of partially occluded space-time enclosed in the thicket, something only a lucky, exceptional, or perhaps just exceptionally lucky Time Lord might be able to pry open enough for a TARDIS to enter.

"I think I can do this," the Doctor said. "Just, you know, cross everything, kiss a rabbit's foot, preferably still attached to the rabbit, make a wish upon a star and all that."

A punched-in button sequence, a knob twirl left, another four ticks right, three different levers thrown to three separate positions. Smoke curled from a vent in the console. The Doctor peered inside; nothing completely on fire yet, just a tiny flame, hopefully one that would sputter out on its own. The TARDIS lurched tiltwise, pitched yaw-wise, skittered under one bramble and squeezed past another.

"Nearly there," the Doctor muttered, pounding a rubber mallet all along the TARDIS' vortex stabilisers. "Hang on!"

The ship whirligigged in place, widened its circles, spun end-over-end. The interior shrank by six and a half percent; only later, when the Doctor tripped on a hexagonal stairstep she could have sworn had been bigger moments before, did she realise what had happened, at which point the TARDIS, noting her pilot's confusion, stretched herself taut to her original dimensions.

There was a landing, probably. Or at least, they'd stopped, and the fact that they were now 15 degrees off-kilter was irrelevant, because at least this was a stoppage point you could likely walk away from.

"Everything good?" the Doctor asked.

The Master groaned and rolled out from a nook beneath a console strut, where he'd been thrown after the ship had come to a halt. He shook his head, ran his fingers through his hair in a pointless attempt to set it back in place.

"Good's not the word I'd use," he said. "But let's get to work."

* * *

After the Flux had chewed its way through the universe, after the Doctor had let her friends off for a brief stop to comfort their families, after she'd found herself flat on her back in the console room pointedly trying not to listen for her previous voices whispering to her from somewhere deep and unknown within her ship, she'd heard an entirely different voice calling to her and had known she had to follow it.

The Master was sprawled on a striped canvas deck chair beside an empty swimming pool in what had been the premier resort colony on Andara Prime, but was now a set of jagged, steaming fissures in the ground. The sky was quiet other than a handful of gnats desultorily orbiting a spilled cola; a dead place waiting impatiently for the rest of its habitat to catch up.

"Not surprised at all you survived the Flux," the Doctor said. "Only surprised you weren't responsible for it."

"Division, was it?" the Master replied. Improbably, there was a neon-green margarita in his hand, complete with salted rim, and he swayed as if this weren't the first one he'd had. "Seemed like their work."

"Tecteun. My mother." The Doctor spat out the word like venom sucked from a wound. "She said everything you'd told me was true."

"I lie about a lot of things, love. But that, that appalling, disgusting, completely unacceptable story? That I'm not going to lie about. Especially not when it hurts you."

"I didn't ask to be found. I didn't ask for Tecteun to experiment on me. And I certainly didn't ask for my DNA to turn up in every Time Lord that ever existed. Including you."

"Sounds kinky when you put it that way."

"Shut it."

"Make me."

The Doctor took a step back. "Have a breath mint first."

"Have a marg, then you won't mind." He gestured with the glass. "Miraculously, the Flux spared the bar. I can only assume it liked me."

"Look, you called me. And I'm here, because apparently I actually care about whether you're one of the last remaining people in the universe, even if you did murder the rest of us."

"I heard about the Flux before you did," the Master said. "I tucked the Cyber Lords away in a pocket universe. Plan on bringing them back out to play when it's the worst possible time for you, just 'cause that's the best possible time for me. Which isn't right now."

"I'm waiting."

"Good."

The Doctor spun on her heel and headed for the TARDIS.

"Wait," the Master said, and the Doctor turned slowly back to him, one hand already on the TARDIS door. "It's a little embarrassing, honestly."

"Now I definitely want to hear it."

He tossed his margarita, unfinished, into the empty pool. His eyes followed it and stayed there; his shoulders deflated, sagging like a sigh. "There's something I need on your pet planet," he said. "And the timelines are so wildly crossed even I can't get through them."

"What is it?"

The Master scuffed a foot in a charred patch of grass, his head bowed. When he finally spoke, his face was barely turned towards the Doctor.

"Well," he said, "it's me."

* * *

So here they were in New York City, timeline thorns still pricking at the Doctor's skin. She'd grown these brambles herself; not intentionally, and not all on her own, but these were the seeds she'd planted and had left to run wild, and it had meant Amy and Rory had –

Well. She'd made it through the thicket, and so had her current companion, such as he was.

"It doesn't have to be like this," she said to him. "The universe is in tatters, and you're still scheming about how to murder me with cyber-zombies."

"I don't care what state the universe is in. I still haven't had my revenge."

"And that's what's most important, is it? Tell me, what's left for you to rule over? Earth and a few scraps here and there? And how much fun is it going to be without me there to stop you?" she hissed. "You and I both know what you care about most. It isn't the wanton destruction. It isn't the chaos. It's you hurting me, and me hurting you. So go on, then, tell me all about how you're going to have your army of the dead rip me limb from limb until I'm permanently, undeniably out of the picture, because I. Don't. Believe. You."

He went quiet then, but turned to face her, his body squaring shoulders and hips and feet into a single bold line. "I don't have any memory of how I found you again after you left me on Earth. None. It's just gone, and gone in a way that says someone messed with my head again, and you know how much I hate that. You know.

"So I tracked myself down. I don't know how he got to this godforsaken city, but I know I couldn't get him out. So all I need is for you to help me get him outside whatever incredibly stupid barrier you set up, and then we're done. We're even."

"Oh, no, we're not. I want the Cyber Lords."

"What, so you can have an army of your own?" He sniffed, tapped his fingers on his waistcoat, cocked his head at her. "No," he said. "No, of course that's not it. You think you can save them somehow. You and your god complex."

"I have to – they're all we have – I have to try."

"They're Cybermen now, love. Dead as dead can be."

"They're Time Lords, love. If any species can survive the Cyberisation process, it's us."

"Because of you."

"Yeah," the Doctor said. "Because of me. But I'd try even if they didn't have that little part of me. Because of me. Because I always, always have to try."

* * *

The Doctor had anticipated an argument before they'd be able to coax the younger Master onboard. "You," he'd probably start, "this is all your fault. You stole my TARDIS, you left me on this pathetic backwater to rot without so much as a time ring, and now you expect me to go with you just because my future self says the universe depends on it? What a joke."

But there was no argument. Instead, they found the Master half-asleep on a bench in front of a gourmet food store in the West Village, a handmade milk chocolate halvah bar in one hand, a jar of Himalayan pink salt in the other. "Electrolytes and fat. Just need a little more energy and then I'll kick your scrawny arse, Doctor," he mumbled before fully passing out, the salt jar scattering pink granules a pair of sparrows pecked at before giving up and fluttering to an abandoned bag of truffle popcorn.

"He's overwhelmed by the timelines," the Master said. "Even I've got a headache. How are you still standing?"

"It's my mess," the Doctor said, jaw clenched. "Less resonant interference from the timelines." She knelt, tucked the halvah bar and salt into the Master's pocket, took hold of his feet. "Come on, help me get him back to the TARDIS."

* * *

The Master paced, hunched and twitchy, outside the Zero Room where his younger self lay asleep. "I don't remember any of this. Not a minute of it. I don't remember how I got there, what I was doing there, being found, being in your TARDIS ... nothing."

"Then how did you know you needed my help to get you out of there?"

"That's the only thing I do remember. Along with burning resentment I'd had to ask for your help in the first place."

He gave up pacing but went silent, pressing his hand against the door to the Zero Room. The Doctor kept her watch. The current Master was barely an arm's breadth away; she could reach him without even trying, but her hands stayed still at her side. Swallow everything instead: what the Master had done to Gallifrey, or would do, in the form lying on the opposite side of that door; what this current one would do in the form she could reach but could never, ever change.

He wasn't ready for forgiveness, and she wasn't sure she was ready to offer it, either. But he'd called to her, and she'd found him, and maybe –

"This is your fault," the Master hissed, turning on her, and there at last was the accusation the Doctor had expected an hour ago. "You just barrel on, never mind what kind of mess you leave behind, and look what you've done to me. Look what you always do to me. And you wonder why I hate you."

"You say 'hate' a lot when you talk about me." The Doctor's back straightened, chin edged up, a string pulled taut along her spine. "But who did you go looking for when you needed someone to rescue you? Who do you always turn to when you've backed yourself into a corner because your plan's gone sideways or you've made too many promises you can't keep?"

The Master snorted, waved his arm at her, turned back towards the door.

"Because the thing is," the Doctor continued, "you know I'll come running. Well, usually. Most of the time. I did today, anyway. Because I have hope I'll have my friend back someday. I've got so much hope. And I know you do, too, or you wouldn't call.

"So I'm here, now, and I'll take the pair of you back to your TARDIS and let time play out the way it's meant to. And all I've asked for is one favour in return."

"I told you: they're locked away, and even I don't dare touch them until the Flux has fully fizzled out."

"It's in a Passenger form. It's totally neutralised."

"Right, because you've no reason to lie to me about something you want."

"Takes one liar to recognise another."

The Master wheeled round. "That's where we are now, is it? Schoolyard taunts?"

"It's where we've always been," the Doctor said softly. "Our whole lives. It's just that sometimes, our taunts have a body count."

"Stop –"

"I won't."

"Don't you understand? I won't owe you anything." The Master's palm collided with the Doctor's shoulder, shoving her backwards, pinning her to the wall with a thud. "I asked for your help because the timeline depends on it, but the price you're asking in return – I won't pay it. You owe me, not the other way round. And I'll have my revenge."

"Keep telling yourself that," the Doctor said. The Master had only one hand on her; she could escape anytime she liked, no matter how close he was to her, no matter that she could hear his hearts echo in her head, his breath a warm brush across her lips. "But I've got so much less universe to search now the Flux has been by, so the door to your pocket one? I'll find it even if you won't share it with me. I'll beat you every time, Master. And you? I think you love it, or you wouldn't be here in the first place."

His grip tightened on her, another hand pressing deep into her other shoulder. "You know nothing about me, Doctor," the Master growled.

"I know enough," she said, cocking her head towards him, waiting.

His kiss drew blood from the Doctor's lower lip, salt and iron filling her mouth. This called for retaliation: untucking the Master's shirt, fingernails sneaking below to clutch his waist tight enough to draw blood of her own.

The Master's laugh was a feathery vibrato at the Doctor's lips, against her chest, a rumble travelling deeper still until she gasped when the Master drove his leg up between hers. He still hadn't let go of her shoulders, and there was only so far she could move her arms, but it was enough for her to reach his arse, pushing his thigh harder towards her cunt, where she could grind against it.

"Like I said," her teeth at his neck, a scar they left on each other with every regeneration, "I know enough."

She could reach the fastenings of his trousers as well as her own. The Master might have the upper hand, literally, but here she was in charge, and the whimper he made when her fingers circled round his cock made it all worthwhile.

How many years had they shadowed each other? And how many more years than she thought, given her unknown lives? Had every one of her found every one of him? They must have, they'd have to – the Master would have never missed a chance to tilt at her, and she'd have never missed her chance to give him his comeuppance.

And if they'd done this with every incarnation, every one of them prickling with tension left by fingers and lips at cock and cunt and chest and – well, they must know it by heart, by unconscious muscle memory, because if Division had taken this from the Doctor, they'd surely taken it from the Master, too. One more reason for him to hate her and her tangled past, she supposed, not that it was stopping either of them.

It wasn't easy to unfasten her own trousers one-handed, but she did it, with a muffled "Sorry, sorry, sorry" at his lips when she had to let go of his cock to undo her shoes and toss the trousers aside. The Master's eyes met hers when she slipped back into place at the wall. The Doctor curled one leg against him, guided his hand to her thigh and his cock inside her.

Every incarnation had a different pace to their thrusts, a different catch in their throat when one touched the other. This time, they'd both remember.

The Master was oddly quiet as he moved within her – grunts and hissed breaths, but no more insults, as if he'd at last found his focus. And though the Doctor's head spun with the Master's every motion, there was still time to consider: this wasn't the ordinary late-night drunk-dial each one of them had been guilty of more than once. Casual genocide was the Master's flirting, and though neither of them had been responsible for the Flux, there was another mass casualty event to review.

He'd said he'd killed the Time Lords because he hated being reminded of the ancient part of the Doctor that lived within him. But here he was, fucking her, his teeth buried in her neck, a hand pulling her arse tight against him, another hand tangled deep in her hair as his rhythm sped up, sharp but erratic.

"I've been wondering why you called me," the Doctor said through rough breaths. "It couldn't just have been a ride."

"I told you, I couldn't get –" A hitch as he inhaled, his hand yanking the Doctor's head back.

"Yeah, but now we're the only two left, aren't we? Other than Sleepyhead, though I suppose we could wake him up, see if he wants to join in."

"What's your point, Doctor?"

"Well," she said, trying to control her voice even as the Master's hand slipped from her hair to the point where their bodies joined, "it means there's no one else who can do this for you." She touched two fingers to his temple. "Contact."

It was always a steep cliff dive into the Master's mind no matter how many times the Doctor did it, her breath a rapid sigh as her fingertips traced a line through his thoughts, skipping past a hundred breaks in the cord – the memories he wouldn't let her touch.

She'd never reach the end. She stopped where they always did, where the Master's anger and jealousy and raw need swirled round the two of them, where the Doctor could let her own anger and disappointment and raw need feed the cyclone.

They were both so close now, the Doctor's body and brain humming in tandem with the Master's. A point where they were so in sync she could focus on the whirlwind and pluck the one emotion she'd been searching for.

"There it is," she said, with a gasp as the Master moved hard and fast within her, "there it is. Knew it had to be in here."

"Why. Won't. You. Stop. Talking. We're busy here."

"Yeah, we are. Because what are you going to do after you've made me watch you turn our people into Cybermen? What are you going to do after you kill me?" She bared her teeth at him. "You'll be bored to tears in under a minute. You only hurt me because you need me in your mirror, watching you, acting as your conscience because you can't bear the thought of having one yourself. And I will always be there, Master, because I always have hope."

She bit his neck, tasted his blood on her tongue as he yelled his defiance out loud and in her head, and came alongside him.

A sudden vertigo as he threw her out of his head, a rush so strong the Doctor stumbled as the Master drew away from her physically and mentally.

He stepped backwards, eyebrows drawn tight, a snarl on his lips. "Think what you want, Doctor. See what you want. That doesn't make it true."

"Don't worry. I'll drop you back on Andara Prime, just like you planned. You'll drop yourself back on Earth to meet me." She crossed her arms, leaned against the wall. "And we'll see whether the universe takes my side or yours in the end."

* * *

The Master didn't say another word to the Doctor all the way to Andara Prime, silently helping to load his still-unconscious previous self on an anti-grav gurney and unload him outside the TARDIS.

"So, that's it?" the Doctor said. "You wake him, drop him back on Earth, zip back off to that pocket universe with your Cyber-friends?"

"What else do you want, Doctor? You've had your fun. And my revenge is a dish best served cold, after all."

She took a step towards him. He recoiled.

"I'm still here in the mirror, Master."

"That mirror's broken, Doctor." He bent down, hooked his arms underneath his own, dragged himself towards his own TARDIS, a thatched bungalow. "You'd better mind your own reflection. If you look closely, you might see me in the distance, waiting for you."

The door to his ship slammed shut with a crack and an echo that rippled at the Doctor's feet. A creak, a groan, a rush of air into the void left by his TARDIS, and it was gone.

The sky above Andara Prime glowed an increasingly dim red from the planet's dying star. Somewhere after a brief trip back to Earth, somewhere past the Flux, past the universe itself, the Master would be landing now, howling into the dark.

The Doctor curled her nails into her hand, digging crescents in her skin. Dusk shifted red to black, pinpricked with a scattering of stars lucky enough to have survived the devastation – distant, but still shimmering.

They looked like hope.