Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Her footsteps crunch on the soft forest floor as she steps out into the little clearing, looking around for any signs of life. She plants her hands on her hips. 

“I know you’re here,” she says loudly. “Come out.”

There’s a large oak tree to her right, and she hears the branches rustle just seconds before a figure drops out of it, landing right on its feet in front of her. She raises an eyebrow. 

“Scared you?” The Master speaks with a toothy grin. 

“Not for a second.”

“I’ll have to try harder next time.” He steps closer to her, dark eyes sweeping over her as he does so, and she lifts a hand, planting it on his chest to stop him moving any nearer. 

“There won’t be a next time.”

“ Won’t there?” He says like he doesn’t believe her. 

“No. You know what you did this time, and it needs to stop, now. I came to tell you you have to leave.”

“Leave?”

“Yes.”

“My,” he says, and steps back, placing a hand over his heart dramatically. “I thought you’d come out here to thank me.”

“ Thank you!?”

“You’re welcome.”

“No,” she huffs, throwing her hands up. “Ugh! Why on earth would I thank you!?”

The Master grins at her through pearly white teeth. “I’m keeping you in business love.”

“By terrorising people?”

“We’ve all got hobbies.”

“You burnt down a church!”

“The whole thing was thatched, frankly it was only a matter of time.”

“And killed eight cows!”

“I was hungry.”

She scoffs. “You can’t possibly expect me to believe that one man could eat eight whole cows in three days.”

“Ahhh,” he says, and steps closer to her again, lips curled upwards. “But I’m not a man.” The Doctor holds her breath as his eyes change, flushing fully black, so quick she could almost believe she imagined it before he taps her on the nose with a finger and whirls away, purple coattails swirling around him flamboyantly. When he faces her again, his eyes look as typical as anyone’s. 

Determined not to let him see he’s rattled her, she releases the breath she was holding and folds her arms.

“You have to leave this town alone. Go somewhere else.”

“Nah, think I’ll stay,” he says, sitting himself down on a nearby rock and leaning back, crossing one foot casually over his knee. “I like it here.” He tilts his head up to the sun with a smirk on his lips. 

“Why?” She demands, frustrated. “There’s a whole world out there, why here particularly?”

“The weather’s nice,” he says, and she rolls her eyes. “Food on tap. There’s a nice stream nearby for bathing…” he turns his dark eyed gaze to her, and it shines with amusement. “I even have my own plaything.”

Her jaw drops and she unfolds her arms, curling her hands into fists, cheeks flushing with anger. “I am not your plaything!”

The Master dramatically holds a hand to his heart in pseudo shock. “I was referring to the fox burrows over there. It’s such fun to reach in and see how many snacks I can pull out. They make such delightful shrieking noises.”

“Sure you were,” she mutters, and he flashes her a grin, his white teeth gleaming in the sunlight. She frowns. “Seriously. You can’t stay here. If you don’t go they’re going to keep sending me out here.”

“I’m failing to see the downside.”

“You promised me last time I saw you. You said you’d move on.”

He shrugs. “Changed my mind.”

“Well change it back!”

“Make me.” 

She throws her hands up and makes an annoyed sound. “You’re infuriating.”

“Thank you, you’re not too bad yourself.”

“I’m being serious!” She stalks over to him, finger pointed in his smug face. “You’re not welcome here. Move on.”

The Master grabs her finger, searching her eyes with his own as if trying to gauge whether or not she’s playing with him. She isn’t. 

“Shouldn’t you be able to make me leave? He gives her hand a tug, pulls her closer to him, so she’s standing between his legs. With him still seated on the rock, she has the advantage of height. Somehow, despite that, she still feels like he still holds the control in this exchange. Probably because he’s proven to be so unpredictable so far. She registers somewhere in the back of her mind that that should probably make her want to run. It doesn’t. 

“Isn’t that what they’re paying you for, oh great sorceress?”

“There are… spells I could do,” she replies evenly. “But I’d need to know what kind of being I was dealing with first, and frankly so far you just seem like every other egotistical man I’ve come across.”

She knows he isn’t. She’s seen the evidence herself first hand. But if she’s going to deal with him, she needs him to show his hand, and going by what she’s gathered about him so far, poking at his pride seems like the best way to go about it. 

His mouth curls into a smile, which curls into a grin, and he laughs, throwing his head back, like what she’s just said is the most amusing thing he’s ever heard.

“What?” She raises her eyebrows. “Got a quibble?”

He’s still holding her finger, his large hand curled around her smaller one, and she can feel heat radiating from his touch, slightly clammy. If she concentrates hard enough she can sense his pulse through the connection. One two. One two. It’s beating fast - unnaturally so, and skips every two beats… no. It’s not skipping. It’s pausing… it isn’t beating fast at all, it’s… 

“Double pulse. You have two hearts,” she breathes in alarm.

His hand flexes around hers - like he’s going to release it; she’s startled him. But he regains control of himself almost immediately and instead merely raises an eyebrow. “Perceptive,” he says, his voice a low rumble in front of her. His gaze flickers down over her. “Perhaps you aren’t a fraud after all.”

It’s her turn to raise an eyebrow now. “What gave you the impression I was?”

“Well. You’ve been out here to drive me away… three times now, and I’m yet to see any evidence that you have the powers to do so.”

“I could say the same about you. I’m yet to see any proof you’re the demon you claim to be.”

“Touché,” he smirks, and eyes her up and down again, the smile on his lips widening. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He flashes her a grin and she yanks her hand from his grasp with a frown, stepping back. 

“My magic is sacred. I don’t perform party tricks.”

“Neither do I,” he says, “but I’m prepared to make an exception for your benefit, so how about a little compromise?”

Her frown deepens, and she watches him warily. “What kind of compromise?”

“Oh come on love. Show me what you’re made of.”

She shouldn’t. What she’d told him was true - she doesn’t use her magic futility, and she always prefers to find alternative solutions when there were ones. The energy magic required had a cost, and it was always a last resort.

But…

In order to possess any kind of power over him she needed to see what she was working with. She supposed… letting him see a little light spell was a means to an end. Resolved, she sighs, and takes a few further steps back, looking around at the little clearing. 

“That gorse bush over there,” she nods at it.

“What about it?”

The Doctor reaches into her inside pocket and pulls out her wand, then taking a deep breath she channels her energy through the instrument, aims it, and the bush bursts abruptly into flames.

The Master merely quirks a brow. 

“I can do that.”

“Wha - no you can’t,” she frowns, then narrows her eyes. “Can you?”

“Well. Give me a couple of sticks and I could. Hardly impressive love. Frankly I’m disappointed.”

“Wha - that’s not - the amount of energy it takes to create spontaneous heat hot enough to produce flames is enormous! Do you have any idea the kind of concentration one needs to have and the sort of control over my own -“

“Yes, yes, all very interesting I’m sure. I’m just saying a little fire isn’t that impressive. Visually speaking.”

The Doctor’s hand flexes around her wand. “I could burn this whole damn forest down if I wanted,” she growls, voice shaking a little with irritation.

“Go on then,” he grins.

“I - no , because unlike you I have morals and I actually care that the things I do have consequences -“

“Hey it’s okay if that’s all you can manage. Everyone’s gotta start somewhere I suppose. I’m just saying that when the king sent his greatest sorceress to be rid of me, I just expected someone a bit… more…”

He’s goading her. She knows that, and that’s the worst part, that she knows, and still she lets it work. Lets his words make the anger in her rise, lets the way he’s looking at her with laughter dancing in his dark eyes drive the ringing in her ears up higher and higher until her body is crackling with energy and her wand is so hot in her hand it nearly burns -

Lightning strikes the forest floor two feet in front of him, right where she’d been standing just before, loud and sudden and sharp, bright enough to send him leaping sideways, stumbling off his rock and tripping to land sprawled on his back on the floor staring at her.

She states back, breathing hard, trying to bring her energy levels back down. She forces herself to loosen her death-like grip on her wand, and lowers it shakily. The Master stares at her, and then the ground where there’s a scorched black mark, and back at her. 

And then he laughs.

She’s frowning as he picks himself up, dusting off his coat and trousers, still laughing.

“Now that was impressive,” he says, and she feels some of the tension seep from her bones.

“Well.” She says, and tucks her wand back inside her coat. She clears her throat. “I believe we had a deal.”

“That we did,” he agrees, and dramatically clears his throat, shaking all his limbs out as he jumps up and down in a ridiculous display of readying himself for… something? 

“You may get the urge to run,” he says through a grin. “So… just brace yourself.”

“Why, you gonna grow horns or something? Because I assure you that wouldn’t be a surprise,” she says dryly. 

“If you like.”

Her brow furrows. “What?”

The Doctor doesn’t really know what she’d been expecting. Demons came in many forms, and she’d had more than a few encounters with variations of them with her line of work. She’d thought perhaps he had wings hidden under that coat of his… or that he could breathe fire or move objects - perhaps even turn invisible like the one she’d seen down in the valley once…

What she doesn’t expect is for him to hold his hands out to the side, tilt his head up to the sky and close his eyes and then… start to glow. 

She frowns, tilting her head as she watches as strange shards of golden light seem to burst from his skin - bright light, so bright she almost has to close her eyes, shielding her view as she watches with wide eyes as the man before her starts to change before her very eyes, until the light fades and a great, hulking beast is standing across from her. 

She stares, mouth open as she sweeps her gaze over the mass of him. He’d been just a little taller than her as a man, but now he stands at least two foot over her, three times the width he’d been, with great wings stretching out either side of him, and huge strong legs with clawed feet on the end. 

His face has changed too, growing long like a wolf’s, with a huge jaw and a dark ruffle of fur, longer around his neck. From his head sprout two, curling horns. 

“An orlog,” she breathes. She’d read about them - the demon-like creature that could shapeshift into a great winged beast, or take the form of a human - but she’d never encountered one in person before. Excitement bubbles inside her, and she has to fight the urge to run forward, run her hands curiously over the great expanse of his wings. 

“You sound surprised,” he replies, and his voice is lower than before, a rumble that seems to go straight to her chest. “I told you I wasn’t human the first time. It didn’t seem to bother you.”

“Being told something and actually seeing it with my own eyes are… quite different,” she utters. 

“You didn’t believe me?” He smirks.

She swallows. “It was hard to, when you seemed so…”

“Human?”

“Normal,” she frowns. 

The Master steps closer to her, approaching her slowly until her back hits the tree (she hadn’t even realised she’d been backing up), and he stops right in front of her, the mass of him blocking the sun behind him, caging her in with his darkness. 

“And now?” He asks, leaning into her. 

The Doctor lets out a shaky breath, looking up into the black pits of his eyes. 

She lifts a hand, reaching up and placing it tentatively on the side of his huge muscular neck. Her fingers curl into the soft fur there, and her eyelids flutter as the warm puff of his breath ghosts over her face.

“You’re beautiful,” she murmurs. 

Another puff of air across her face.

“Not usually the reaction I get,” he rumbles quietly, and she shivers at the sound of his voice. The same but deeper, with a low growl to his words. 

“Maybe because you only usually use this side of yourself to cause terror.”

“What else could it be for?” He breathes, and curls his lip slightly, showing her the gleaming sharpness of his teeth. 

The Doctor shakes her head and curls her fingers tighter into his fur. 

“Not that,” she whispers.

He gives a puff of air through his nose that sounds irritated, and then he pushes away from her, stepping back from the wall and shifting back with a quick flash of golden light, morphing back into the familiar dark-haired man before her very eyes.

“You’re not scared of me,” he frowns.

A small smile dances across her lips. “I wouldn’t be a very good sorceress if I was afraid of the unexpected.”

“You’d be a smarter one.”

She tilts her head. “Why?”

“Because I could kill you where you stand without breaking a sweat. Look at you. One bite and it would all be over.”

She tilts her head. “You could,” she agrees. “But you haven’t yet.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t.”

She smiles wryly. “We’ll see.”

He scowls at her, and then stalks forward again, so she’s once again caged in against the tree, his arms either side of her head and his eyes dark and irritated as they bore into her own. “Perhaps I’ll have enough of your cockiness and decide to prove you wrong,” he threatens lowly. 

The Doctor tilts up her chin. “And perhaps I’ll have enough of your arrogance and kill you first.”

He snorts. “You think you could harm me?”

Adrenaline is rising inside her, and she can feel her energy crackling again, simmering beneath the surface. Her hands clench by her sides, and thunder rumbles in the sky overhead, a dark cloud moving quickly across the sun. “Do you really want to find out?” She threatens quietly. 

The Master exhales, but she sees the flicker of doubt in his eyes, quickly followed by a deeping, his pupils enlarging. He’s impressed. 

“There’s a lot of things I want,” he murmurs. 

“Like what?” She says, his eyes dropping to her lips as she speaks. 

“I can’t tell you,” he teases, a smile playing about his lips. “You said last time that it couldn’t happen again.”

“I did,” she agrees in a whisper, “You also promised me you would leave and you haven’’t.”

“Are you saying… we both lied to each other?”

She takes a breath. “I’m saying… that saying something and doing it are two very different things, and one is usually a lot easier than the other.”

“Hmmm,” he seems to contemplate this as he lifts a hand, watches as he trails his fingertips carefully down the side of her face and neck, across her collarbones and over her sternum as her chest heaves. “No. I lied,” he shoots her a grin. 

She rolls her eyes and gives a quiet huff. “Of course you did.”
“And you did too… admit it,” he goads, leaning in, bringing his lips to her neck and letting them brush feather-light over her skin. 

The Doctor tries to gather her thoughts, tries not to react as he presses a gentle kiss to her throat, but her eyelids flutter and her head is tilting to the side, desire pooling inside her just like the build of her magic. 

“Look at you,” he continues in a low rumble, “Baring your throat to the demon who could rip it out… we’re the same, you and I…” His hands are kneading her sides now, feeling her waist and her breasts, his thigh nudging between hers and her hands curling into the thick coat at his sides. “We want the same things, we crave the same rush of power and danger… because we both know how dull life would be without it…”

“You’re right,” she says suddenly, and the Master lifts his head from her neck to look her in the eye. “I did lie.”
He smiles at her then, and she swears she sees a flash of sharp teeth before he ducks his head to her neck, and denies it is that which sends a pulse of intensely heated lust straight to her core.

--

Chapter Text

“Give that back!”

“It’s mine!”

“It’s not yours, you took it from my room!”

“I did not!”

“You did too!”

Flinging herself at him, the little girl manages to knock her friend to the grassy floor, wrestling him for the toy telescope he clutches in his small fist. She pries it from his grasp, smacking him with it when she has it, and clambering off him to her feet, gathering her mess of skirts around her and brushing herself down. 

“Dora!” He exclaims from his place on the floor.

“Koshin!” She says back in the same tone. 

He lunges for her as she makes to march past him and grabs her ankle. She lets out a yelp as she goes down and then he’s pinning her to the ground, fingers tickling her sides and Dora shrieks as she flails, trying to throw him off, her toy clutched tightly to her chest and both of them in peels of laughter.

“ Children!” 

It’s Dora’s nanny, and she sounds furious as they scramble apart and to their feet, both of them a disheveled mess.

“I’ve been looking all over for you Theadora Lungbarrow - you’re supposed to be taking your dance lesson!” The officious older woman scolds her, “and you young man, should be at home!”

Dora folds her little arms. “Mother said Koshin could come over to play today.”

“Four hours ago! I’ve been looking for you both everywhere for the last three - how many times have I told you not to run off!?” She marches over and grabs Dora by the hand. “Come on, back inside now! You too master Koshin, I’ll have a carriage take you home.”

Dora turns and rolls her eyes at her friend as she’s tugged along, and he muffles a laugh in his hand as he trails after them.

Inside, they find out that Koshin’s father had sent a man round to collect him, and their housekeeper, not knowing where the children were at that time had insisted Koshin stay for tea and would be dropped home later that day. 

“Well,” says Dora’s nanny, "you’d better go along to Dora’s dance class - it might be good for her to practice with a partner."

“Dance with him!?” Dora is outraged as Koshin pulls a face. 

“Yes! Now get to!”

She groans out loud as she trails off in the direction of the hall, her friend hurrying after her. 

“He keeps treading on my feet!” Dora complains half an hour later to her dance teacher. 

“Because she keeps missing the steps!”

“I do not!”

“Do too!”

“ Children!” Her teacher finally exclaims. “That is enough. Theadora you’ll be ten this summer and still you don’t know your basic steps! One day, the pair of you will be dancing together at one of the summer balls. Perhaps master Koshin will even be courting you, so you’d better learn how to dance properly lest you wish to make spectacles of yourselves.” 

“Eww!” Little Dora pulls a face while Koshin vigorously shakes his head.

“No no - not her! She’s my friend!”

“Yeah, that’s so weird!”

Their instructor merely rolls eyes, clapping her hands at them. “Again,” she demands, “bow first, then Koshin, you offer her your hand - and step, one two three, good! Again.”

Koshin twirls Dora around, and when she’s facing away from her teacher she pulls a face, crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out in a “yuck” gesture, and Koshin coughs to hide his laughter.

—

Six years later...

—

“Miss Lungbarrow.”

“Mr Oakdown,” she replies, curtsying and nodding her head as he bows before stepping forward to take her hand. His hand is clammy in her own, and when he pulls her close, his eyes are darting about avoiding hers and his gaze is unfocused. She frowns as she begins moving through the steps with him. 

“How many drinks have you had?” Dora narrows her eyes at her friend as Koshin stumbles for a third time, and she has to catch him to stop them both tripping.

“Only one or two,” he replies shortly. She gives him a disbelieving look and he relents. “And maybe a couple before we arrived.”

Dora shakes her head but her face softens. “I take it… your parents have spoken to you too, then,” she says, voice lowered. Koshin seems to only stare, wide eyed at her a moment before he blinks, and nods.

“Yes.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Dora mutters, glancing around to make sure nobody is listening in on their conversation as he twirls her across the floor. She thinks she feels Koshin stumble again, but he catches himself quickly, and his hand tightens on her hip.

“Ridiculous, yes,” he echos.

“I don’t want to get married. I’ve told them that, time and time again. I want to sail with my father - but of course they won’t let me. A woman’s place is at home,” she imitates her mother’s voice mockingly and pulls a face. “This whole thing is just… so unfair.”

It’s a moment before Koshin replies. He misses another step and Dora has to take the lead. 

“Quite,” he says.

She gives a sigh. “And now they expect me to marry you and sit at home like a good little wife while you take over your father’s company and go off sailing without me. I’d go out of my mind.”

“Well,” he finally replies quietly, “it doesn’t have to be like that - I mean, I could… take you with me. If you were my wife, it would be up to me -“

“I don’t want to go sailing with you as your wife, ” she says firmly, “I want to be a captain. You know that. I want my own ship and my own rules - as your wife I’d just be a passenger, expected to sit in your cabin all day and behave myself.” She frowns. “You know that’s not what I want.”

“No, I know,” Koshin agrees quickly, “I’m just… trying to make the best of the situation.”

Dora sighs. “I know. And you know I love you for it Kosh, but it’s just never going to work.”

Koshin frowns, and they abruptly stop moving. They stand in the middle of the dance floor, couples twirling around them as they stare at each other.

“What do you think is going to happen, Dora? This is the way it is. We’re engaged - it was either that, or…”

She frowns, “or what?”

“Nothing,” Koshin mutters, looking away. “I just mean if our parents hadn’t chosen to put us together we’d only be promised to other people. Most others our age are married already, it’s just the way it is.”

Dora frowns more and pulls out of his arms, stepping back. “I hate the way it is.”

Koshin sighs, lifting a hand to rub over his forehead. “I know. But we can’t go changing it now.”

“What if we left?”

“What?”

“Like we used to talk about when we were children - we could just go, get out of here, leave Port Gallifrey -“

Koshin seizes her by the arm and marches her quickly off the dancefloor and away from prying ears hissing, “are you mad!?” In her ear. He leads her outside onto one of the balconies and shuts the door behind them. Dora yanks her arm from his grasp crossly as she whirls to face him. 

“Think about what you’re saying,” Koshin says.

“I have thought about it. I’ve thought about nothing else since I was old enough to think at all.” She frowns at him. “You used to say you’d come with me.”

Koshin gives a heavy sigh. “We were children, Dora. We’re not anymore. It’s time to grow up.”

She steps back, shaking her head. “I don’t want to grow up if it means I’ll be trapped here forever. Look at this,” she looks down, shaking out the voluminous skirts of her dress, “this isn’t me. I had to sit still for two and a half hours whilst they painted my face and pinned up my hair and it’s so tight it hurts .” She reaches up to fiddle with it. “And I think there’s a pin sticking into my head.”

After a tense pause, Koshin steps forward and turns her round. “Let me see.”

He carefully roots through the elaborate curls piled and pinned onto her head, feeling for the offending pin. “Got it,” he says, sliding it carefully out and reaching round to press it into her hand.

Dora gives a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

The tension between them dissolved, Dora gives a heavy sigh, turning and walking to lean on the balcony wall, posture slumping. “I just… hate this,” she admits quietly, eyes on the horizon, where the soft line of the sea fades into the sky. “I hate all of it.”

Her friend comes to stand beside her. “The more you keep telling yourself that, the worse you’ll feel,” he says. 

“So what am I supposed to?”

“Accept it. It’s the only thing you can do.” She hears him swallow and take a breath. “My father's sailing out in three days. He’s taking me as first mate. First,” he turns to Dora. “I’ll have charge of almost everything.”

She gives him an odd look. “You hate sailing with your father. You hate trading.”

Koshin frowns and shakes his head. “It’s what I’m supposed to do, Dora. The company will be mine some day, it’s time I started learning how to properly run it. It’s a good business, trading the sugar we farm. My father makes good money… we could do worse for ourselves -“

He reaches for her hand but she snatches it back, shaking her head. What was he saying? Koshin had always hated everything to do with his family business - the hot plantation they grew the sugar on, the business of shipping it out and trading overseas so that his father was gone more than he was home. And now he looked excited at the prospect of sailing with him? She thought Koshin understood her. Thought he shared the same dreams and ideals as her… was she finally seeing that he was just like everybody else here?

Dora folds her arms, wrapping them around herself. “When are you leaving?”

“Three days.”

“And how long will you be gone?”

“It’s a month and a half’s voyage each way. So three months, four at the most depending if we take on any more cargo on the way back.”

“Four months…” Dora says, walking away from him and turning her back to look out at the darkening sea. After a breath, she spins to face him. “If we’re engaged now, take me with you.”

Koshin’s eyes widen, and he blinks, shaking his head. “I can’t Dora.”

She frowns. “You just said -“

“When we’re married - when I own the company,” he frowns back. “I can’t take a woman I’m not even wed to off on a boat with my father for four months - it’s just not how things are done!”

“Since when do either of us care how things are done? We’re just friends - it’s not like anything improper is going to happen.”

“People don’t know that.”

“So tell them!”

“Dora - I can't take you with me. You have to stay here.”

Stay here. Be quiet. Sit still. Is this the life Dora is already trapped into enduring? She thought Koshin was the one person who understood her - but she sees now what a life as his wife would mean. 

“I don’t want to marry you.” She says firmly, arms folded stubbornly.

“Well I don’t want to marry you either but we don’t have a choice,” he snaps back. He steps forward and holds out his arm. “Shall we go back inside.”

“No.”

“Going to stay out here all night then?”

“No,” Dora repeats, looking down off the edge of the balcony.

“Well then you don’t have much of a choice.”

Heart hammering, adrenaline and fury and frustration rushing through her, Dora spins from her friend and hikes her skirts up. “see, you keep saying that,” she says, climbing up onto the ledge of the balcony. “But there’s always a choice, Koshin.”

“Dora!”

He lunges for her, but she’s already slipped over the edge, swinging down onto the trellis that climbs the side of the building, scaling it as nimbly as a monkey despite the heavy skirts that get in her way. 

“Dora!” Koshin hisses after her. “ Damnit!”

She gets to the bottom, hops down onto the ground, gathers up her skirts and turns and runs.

—