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Lapidary	By : Savaialian Category: 1 through F > Doctor Who Views: 1563 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Doctor Who fandom, nor to I make money from writing about it. I use their creations with due respect.

Chapter List
- 1-Lapidary
- 2-TWO
- 3-THREE
- 4-FOUR
- 5-FIVE
- 6-SIX
- 7-SEVEN
- 8-EIGHT
- 9-NINE
- 10-TEN
- 11-ELEVEN
- 12-TWELVE
- 13-THIRTEEN
- 14-FOURTEEN
- 15-FIFTEEN
- 16-SIXTEEN
- 17-SEVENTEEN
- 18-EIGHTEEN
- 19-NINETEEN
- 20-TWENTY
- 21-TWENTY-ONE
- 22-TWENTY-TWO
- 23-TWENTY-THREE
- 24-TWENTY-FOUR
- 25-EPILOGUE
- 19
- 20
- 21
“I feel drained,” the Master complained, staring at his food and not lifting a finger to eat.
“Those narcotics,” I replied. “Try to eat your soup.” We were on his balcony, watching the sun go down. “How’s your head?”
“It doesn’t hurt,” he said. He picked up his soup bowl and had a sip. “I had nightmares. I dreamed Harkness came into the room and tried to seduce you.”
I pressed my tongue against the inside of my mouth. Jack’s voice had prompted the Master’s dream, no doubt. “Well, he didn’t try to seduce me, but he did let himself into your bedroom,” I admitted. “The violation of your privacy had a higher result, however. He thinks we’re…”
The Master snorted inelegantly into his soup bowl and set it down. “That won’t stop him,” he vowed. “He wouldn’t mind at all to help you forget about me.” He picked up a stick of celery-like tuber and crunched into it with force, chewing viciously.
“As if he could,” I replied.
The Master eyed me askance. “No, I don’t suppose,” he admitted, calming a little.
“I tried to explain the cohesive qualities of the history you and I share, but I think he ignored me for favor of the moral high horse,” I went on. “Humans are stubborn that way.”
The Master tilted his head a little. “You made an attempt at explaining us to the freak,” he paraphrased flatly.
“Well, I really just let him think you were fucking a new hole in me each night and that I wanted you to,” I said, grinning a little at the look of dawning amazement creeping into the Master’s face. “It’s none of his business, is it?”
“Exactly,” the Master agreed faintly. He started tearing his bread into tiny pieces and letting them fall to his plate. “Well, as long as he doesn’t get it into his head that you need rescued from me.”
“I don’t think he’ll ever quit thinking that, but acting upon that opinion is something else,” I pointed out. “Jack does have some respect for me, if I haven’t ruined it by having you hoisting my legs.”
The Master groaned and gave a pained smile. “There’s your vulgar side coming out. I wondered if I’d ever see it again before I died.”
“Oh, you thought it was funny,” I argued, pouring him a glass of juice. “You’re the one who taught me a very long time ago to take advantage of what people believe; no one’s going to assume I’m the one hoisting your legs, are they?”
He gave a small chuckle and shook his head. “Maybe, maybe not. I’m the one that’s made a history of chasing you, Doctor, not the other way around.”
Oh, and that was the truth. The only time I tended to chase him was for getting some stolen property back, to prevent him killing someone, or similar things.
I looked at him, at the way the setting sun illuminated his darkened skin and made his bottled-sherry eyes gleam. He was a magnificent eye draw. Beautiful, smooth and elegant, with an underlying force of pure brutality; God, sometimes just meeting his eyes made me feel like I was falling eternally. His intelligence made the air around him vibrate now, just like in the days before he led the Prydonian Revolt.
He never should have wanted to chase me for anything. I had nothing he could possibly want. I wasn’t as smart, I wasn’t ever all that good-looking, just remarkable. We were both talented and inventive, but he could dream up the most amazing things. He had a genius mind that accepted no limitations, no boundaries, the complete opposite of our stodgy old, blinkered race. I’d never been able to outright insult him, there, except when I was so eaten up with jealousy of him that I couldn’t act right.
Those were bad days for both of us. I got so caught up in UNIT, in hating my own people for stranding me on Earth and tinkering with my head, that I hadn’t paused to consider anything but sulking. I was as arrogant as I’d ever been, and so envious of his freedom, his natural abilities. And, I’d hated myself for wishing I’d see him, for hoping he’d throw a challenge my way even if it proved horrible and dangerous. For, he’d been the only light at the end of my tunnel, the only proof I wasn’t becoming human from overexposure, and I resented that he knew that and didn’t care.
“I only give the possibility to hurt me, once,” the Master said softly as he sipped tea and stared into the last vestiges of day. “You have limitless reserves for that, and I don’t.” He gave a tiny shrug, as if a thought had just occurred. “I suppose there wasn’t any cause to make that an emotional thing, though. We didn’t learn our weaknesses as much as we were created with them.”
God, he’d been listening to me again.
The Master put an elbow on the table between us and extended his arm. “Take my hand, Doctor,” he asked more than demanded. His fingers extended, unfurled to allow our contact. And, though we were determined to make things casual, we never could. We were too wrapped up in each other to allow more alignment, yet we’d been doing so for weeks.
I copied him, and we poised as if to arm wrestle, though we didn’t. His palm felt hard, smooth and strong, his fingers firm and agile. The power of his life force hummed below his skin, but the heat of his pores made crackling energy.
“Why would you be jealous of me, my dear?” He asked, keeping my hand clasped and his face pointed away from mine. “You’re brilliant and creative, very versatile in your learning processes. I’m too rigid to flow into new things easily, while you just pour yourself into new experiences and demands with joyful abandon.” He squeezed me a little and smiled into his cup. “There’s no one as rare and exotic as you,” he added. “And, I collect the rare and exotic, especially if dangerous.”
**
I wished that I didn’t feel the need to examine the Master and his motives so much. Sitting there in bed, watching him sleep, I took a lot of pleasure in the gentle handsomeness of his relaxed face. Yet, I should be sleeping, not hanging over my once-best-enemy and trying to divine the workings of his hearts. I looked down at his bare chest and slowly pressed upon his right heart, feeling the beat. Then, I moved to the other. So reassuring.
The Master sleepily moved his arm, crooking his elbow. Slowly, he covered my hand with his. I felt the warm strength of him, the tenderness he’d always been capable of and had never showed me. The moment suspended in time, drawing my throat closed with beauty. Sliding back down to rest beside him, I still kept our hands together.
“I know what you need,” the Master rumbled. He rolled onto his side and gathered me against himself, in his arms. “You need held.”
I did, and so I joyfully accepted his offer of comfort. I felt my hearts would break, but the hurt was so good, so very, very good.
**
Another week passed with the Master and me completing our varied objectives. Work on the improved housing in the city took his attention, while I ensured the stability of the palace down to the plumbing. Eventually, someone would have to take over for us, and we both felt determined to make Seldatia a showcase of our cleverness.
Jack, currently helping me track down the hot spring that fueled the Master’s splendid bath, hadn’t been talking to me very much these last few days. I suspected he was measuring me, attempting to judge if I was still the man he’d come to admire. I wondered if he’d found me acceptable.
“This is a scary place,” he commented idly, holding the lantern higher so we could orient our direction again. There were a lot of twists and turns in this tunnel, and the airlessness disturbed me a little. “You’d think a maintenance route for water would be slimy, though, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. I could sense we were getting closer to the hot spring, though. My new affinity with water allowed that, but I didn’t know how it worked. At this point in my life, at this point in my age, actually, I was starting to accept miracles without thinking them to death. The miracle of the Master’s new mindset was enough to give my soul new buoyancy all by itself.
“Uh-oh,” Jack murmured, holding the lantern over. “Cave in. We’ll have to clear it.”
I looked at the pile of tunnel rubble, seeing the collapse had the placement of simple mortar failure. “Maybe not,” I murmured back. This was a good opportunity to see if earth responded to me the same way water did. I stretched out my hand and concentrated upon the stones going back to their original placement.
A groaning, grinding sound reverberated in the tunnel as the stones moved back into place. They didn’t leap up from the tunnel floor, as I’d half expected, but rolled up the wall, keeping in contact with their kin. In less than two minutes the tunnel was whole again. I stood under the repair and watched/guided the heavy clay to serve as new mortar, using my sonic to dry it and cement the stones securely. All in all it didn’t take five minutes for me to accomplish this feat, and when finished I felt rather invigorated.
“Doc, how did you do that?” Jack asked quietly from right behind me.
“Got the attention of Elemental Earth,” I tried to explain, knowing it sounded dumb but not having any other good way to put the event that led me to this point. “Water, too,” I added. “And no, I don’t know how it works. It’s just… well, it just happens.”
“Seldatians worship the elements,” Jack replied. “You and the Master are rulers here. Did it come with the job?”
“No.” We started walking again, getting ever closer to the hot spring. “The Master and I visited their oldest known elemental worship site, and it happened there.”
“So, what did he get, fire?” Jack asked, intuiting perfectly.
“Fire and air,” I confirmed. The luminous, multicolored lichen down here posed a serious visual distraction, and I was only half paying attention to Jack’s conversation.
“Fire and air,” Jack repeated, sighing. “That’s perfect. Air fuels fire.”
“Never thought of it like that,” I admitted. I took a piece of the lichen and stuffed it into a collections bottle to take back to Matreus. I wanted to know the properties of this stuff. “Earth supports water, though. Bit of poetry in elemental thought.”
“You’re opposites that attract,” Jack mused, and I could tell by the way his voice lowered that he was giving serious thought to a mental picture that had actually never happened.
“Stop that,” I said sternly.
“Like I can help it,” he said, grinning at me a little. “He’s not a bad looking little tyrant, after all.”
“He’s not a tyrant this time,” I corrected, walking around the next bend. We were very close, now.
“This time,” Jack pointed out. “It’s still in him, Doctor, even if you’ve reached an accord.” He held the lantern higher so I could see better, using the excuse to stand closer, which I ignored. “I had a lot of time to figure him out, you remember? I might know certain parts of him better than you do.”
Now that stopped me in my tracks. I whirled on Jack, the foremost impetus in my head a blistering jealousy. It seized me so quick I didn’t even recognize my own voice when it came out of my mouth. “What do you mean?”
“Whoa, Doc,” Jack said, stepping back with his free hand in the air as if to ward me off. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Do you think he’d have stooped so low?”
“Humans aren’t too low,” I said. “He married one. I fell in love with one. Several, if you want the truth.” I made myself relax. The Master’s view on rape wasn’t gauzy; he wouldn’t ever do that. Jack had been a prisoner, and not able to work his charm even if inclined to do so for escape purposes. I was overreacting. Still, the very thought of the Master turning his attention to someone else made my stomach roil.
“My God, you’re really in deep with him,” Jack murmured, once again falling into step with me. “I should have figured so. In retrospect, you made no secret of it, and neither did he. I just thought there was some race loyalty going on, or the being the last two.”
“There is a bit of that,” I acknowledged. “And, so much more that I couldn’t sum it up, not to anyone, not even to myself.”
“Yeah, kinda gettin’ that, Doc,” Jack replied in a wry tone.
We turned to find the hot springs. It was beautiful. From a smooth rock bed, it burbled up, occasionally overflowing and spilling across the stone floor. It had done so for a very long time, making the floor dangerously without friction. A single pipe fed into it, a pipe large enough to feed the palace kitchens and separate baths as well as the Master’s hot tub. But, there was a broken place just at the water mark, and the pipe sucked in air, lowering the water’s force. I got closer to make sure that wasn’t a deliberate attempt to keep the water from building up too much pressure. Fortunately, there was a lot of lichen in this room, so light wasn’t an issue.
“Too bad about the pipe,” Jack said. “This is a spot made for romance.”
I rolled my eyes. He would see it that way. Yeah, I could get what he meant, but…
But, the Master looked wonderful in his civilized bathtub.
I shook my head. Where did that come from? I didn’t linger on the observations I made of his physical form except when looking right at him. Did I?
“Hey, Doc, if you’ve got earth powers, why not move the pipe back to blend in with the wall?” Jack asked. “It’ll hide that there’s a utilitarian purpose for this hot spring.”
I got a sudden suspicion. “You have someone you’d like to bring down here,” I accused. Nevertheless, I began doing what he wanted. The pipe was fired clay, and obligingly sank through the stone at an angle. I made the wall rise up to meet it, coaxed the rock into swallowing the pipe. The increase in pressure wouldn’t hurt anything. Now, the hot spring was decidedly heart shaped.
Jack chuckled. “Nice touch,” he praised. “How about a submerged bench all the way around?”
Thinking this was rather fun, I molded the bench to the depth he suggested. “Anything else?”
“Stone lacing around the lip,” Jack said with an innocent smile. “Open-weave, like twenty sea serpents going nose to tail.”
He was testing if I could sculpt, I imagined. Determined to show off and not be caught out as a disappointment, I sculpted images of this culture’s Great Dragon, the Sky Serpent. The images were joined nose to tail, like he wanted, and perfectly looped like stretched stitches.
Jack grinned at me. “You’ve got talent,” he drawled. “How about a single, small table about four feet away from the pool?”
“Need a place to put the champagne?” I asked coolly, making the one-legged table for him. To show off, I made it have the same rim as the pool. Then, as Jack chuckled, I molded a candlestick holder up from the center of the table.
“Excellent!” Jack’s delighted laugh rang down the tunnel and bounced crazily. “A couple of wall sconces?”
I made four of them, to go in an equal circle around the room. Then, I made a cooling bench, designing it for the comfort of a wet bottom. This really was fun. The stone, when stretching and flowing to suit my wants, revealed hidden colors and patterns. Those colors and patterns stayed when I finished making something. Inspired, I put my hands on the wall and thought about goblets with dragon stems. They formed, and I popped them loose, making the wall absorb the holes. I made sure to put some strut in my stride, walking over to put those goblets down on the table.
Jack clapped as I came back to him, showing nearly all of his teeth. “Now all it needs is that bottle of champagne,” he told me, his grin becoming just a very wide smile. “And, the last two Time Lords,” he added.
I finally had Jack’s approval.
**
- 19
- 20
- 21
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Lapidary