Archive of Our Own ^beta

“No. Absolutely not,” The Doctor insisted. It might’ve been cute, the way he looked like he truly believed he wouldn’t be giving in.

“You were perfectly alright with it last time around,” The Master pointed out, and that, right there made it more than worth the effort. Something distinctly uncomfortable flitted across the Doctor’s features, tongue swiping faintly across his lips like the memory teetered precariously between pleasure and shame.

“Yes, well I’m sure I don’t have to remind you how that went,” the Doctor abruptly shot back. There was something like sympathy in the way he met the Master’s gaze, enough to make the Master bitter and just a bit off balance. He was barely listening when the Doctor continued, “So no. I think in your impressive history of poor life decisions, trying to convince me to do something we’ve already established was a bad idea, does not rate high on plans I’m keen on going along with.”

“Oh stop being so dramatic. It just took me by surprise is all,” The Master muttered, conveniently writing out the way he’d trembled and shouted at nothing, struggling against demons that did not exist.

The Doctor looked at him from the opposite end of the couch, unconvinced and shaking his head a little. He didn’t understand. Of course he didn’t understand. The Doctor hadn’t panicked at nothing more than a harmless game. It was a humiliation the Master simply couldn’t abide. He was better than a few measly ropes, and one way or another, he would prove it, if only to himself.

There was one tactic he hadn’t tried, but it seemed as likely a way to budge a resistant Doctor as anything else. Very quickly, there was no longer a couch cushion’s distance between them. There was no distance at all, in fact, save for the book and the Doctor’s hands wedged between them. The Master’s voice was low and very consciously full of promise as he murmured, “You liked it, Doctor.”

He hadn’t been certain of the truth of that, actually. The Doctor had spent so much time avoiding the entire scenario, and then he’d been too lost in his own terror to truly look. Now, though, the way the Doctor froze under him, argument failing on his lips, and the Master knew he’d won.

And that was the second time the Master convinced the Doctor to tie him up.

XXX

He was expecting it this time, ties that wouldn’t give when he struggled. He’d demanded it in fact, determined to master his own anxieties. It would have been entertaining, the way the Doctor frowned at him, even as nimble fingers knotted ropes around the Master’s wrists, if only the Master could focus on that.

As it was, he was tense, unwillingly remembering the unpleasant shock of captivity the last time around. It was different this time, no tricks, no schemes, save for the fact that he’d decided he wasn’t going to be uncomfortable with this, and so he would not, no matter what effort it took. The pads of the Doctor’s fingers traced the ropes around one wrist when he was done, brows knitting briefly together before he left the bed entirely.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The Master demanded, the words more of a snarl than he’d intended.

The Doctor didn’t answer him, but he shrugged his suit jacket free, letting it fall to the floor in a heap. The tie came next, a slip of silk the Master couldn’t quite look away from as the Doctor untied it from his neck. There was a deliberate set to his shoulders as he popped the buttons down the front of his shirt, and the Master couldn’t quite tell whether he was teasing or stalling, his expression was so carefully blank.

A vague complaint caught on the Master’s lips, distracted by the way the last of the Doctor’s clothes were around his ankles in a pleasant shimmy of narrow hips. He stepped out of them, and even if the vulnerability he offered paled in comparison to being splayed out across the bed like this, there was some measure of comfort in it. Whatever he might’ve said dissolved in his throat when the Doctor hovered over him.

“You don’t look like you’re enjoying this,” the Doctor murmured, frowning down at him. He hadn’t put much thought into his own expression, but his jaw was tight, lips tense, and even the Doctor was not so daft as to miss it. Too late to pretend he hadn’t been scowling, the Master only shrugged awkwardly in the ropes.

“It’s not as if you’ve actually done anything,” he prodded. No matter what fell between them, this was easiest, banter and insults and something bitter to shield himself behind.

The corner of the Doctor’s mouth turned up in a crooked, barely smile, and he leaned in far nearer than strictly necessary. “Well that’s simple enough to remedy.”

There were lips over the Master’s before he had even a moment to come up with a proper retort. Eyes screwed shut, he arched into it, desperately seeking out distraction from the situation he’d volunteered himself into. He scraped his teeth against the Doctor’s lip, but the Doctor ignored him, flitting away to mouth at his jaw instead.

To his credit, the Master said nothing, only offering an annoyed sigh that bled away when the Doctor nibbled at his throat. It was a gentle thing, lips and tongue and the barest hint of teeth tracing down the hollow of his neck until he squirmed. The Master decidedly hated this regeneration of the Doctor for his capacity for tenderness in places it did not belong.

Oh not this again. Moments passed, and even when the Doctor’s mouth met his once more, there was no venom in it, no force or brutality. It was insulting because what had he been so afraid of if even laid out and helpless, the Doctor was just going to treat him like glass?

“You don’t have any idea how this is supposed to go, do you?” The Master growled against the Doctor’s mouth, the words irritatingly soft between them.

“What, because I’m being nice to you?” The Doctor asked, pulling back enough to look at the Master, a cheeky grin stretching across his lips. It didn’t bode well at all.

“You’re not being nice. You’re being saccharine and dull.” The Master scowled, noting with some satisfaction the annoyed look that crossed the Doctor’s face at the insult.

“Well, I’m sure I’ve got a riding crop or something around here. I guess I could go dig it up,” The Doctor teased, tongue passing over his teeth. He looked so irritatingly friendly about it all, the Master sort of wanted to suffocate him with a pillow.

“It would probably be an improvement,” he muttered, jaw working as he wriggled a bit in his restraints.

“You know,” The Doctor purred, and suddenly he was very close again. He nipped at the Master’s chin, more playful than painful, but his breath was warm across the Master’s mouth, and for just one moment he made the mistake of thinking perhaps the Doctor was starting to see things his way. He tilted his head, lips parted, and the Doctor only shifted away, whispering against the shell of his ear. “I don’t think you want me to hurt you at all.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Master spat, jerking away. There was nowhere to go, and infuriatingly, the Doctor only followed the turn of his head.

“Don’t I though? You don’t want me to hurt you. You just want to think you’re in charge. You’re not though. I’m not going to give you that.” The Doctor’s tongue flicked along his ear, and he hated the way his breath hitched ever so slightly.

The Master gritted his teeth, torn between anger and arousal as the Doctor’s teeth pressed against the tender flesh beneath his ear. It was brief, delicious pressure, and the Master strained against the ropes, frustrated at the way he arched upward into nothing. The Doctor shifted maddeningly out of reach the moment he gave any sign that he wanted contact.

The Master stiffened at the realization that he’d willed himself right into this, that he’d volunteered to be stripped of any ability to enforce his own desires. The acknowledgement was only eclipsed by the way the Doctor sucked at the junction of his neck and shoulder, tearing a low whine from his lips. He was trapped and at the Doctor’s mercy and some part of him liked it.

No no no, that was entirely unacceptable. Despite the fact that handling this without panic was entirely the point, he had no interest in subservience, not even here. He knew it to be true, he’d decided as much, and the way his body strained to be closer every time he didn’t concentrate on lying still was no more than a brutal betrayal.

There were fingers splayed uselessly across his belly, long fingers dragging reverently over his skin. It wasn’t fair that he was already panting, twisting against the ropes, when the Doctor hadn’t even given him anything substantial to want. He did not, could not be enjoying this, and suddenly he’d never been so desperate to get away.

He could ask of course. He had only to ask and the ropes would be severed and he would be free to flee. It wasn’t remotely an option. The Doctor mouthed at his collarbone, knees pressed into the bedding between his thighs, still sickeningly gentle, still so much at odds with the way dread welled in the Master’s chest. If he could just make it make sense.

“Is that the best you can do, Doctor?” he tried, lashing out with bravado he did not feel. Perhaps he could mock the Doctor into losing some of his insulting self control.

“And what would you have of me?” the Doctor asked. He sounded practically bored, not bothering to look up as his lips edged over the Master’s chest.

“I’ve caused you centuries of pain, haven’t I? And the very worst part, you know I could do it all again, that at any moment I could just be waiting for you to take your eyes off me so I can bring as low as you’ve brought me, but what do you do? You have me here, at your mercy, and all you have the gall to do is try and kiss it better,” The Master goaded, lashing out with half truths and maybe there was enough sorrow between them still to keep the Doctor from working out which was which.

The Doctor froze, expression dark and foreboding, and for a moment the Master was thrilled and terrified that something had snapped. He shifted near enough to whisper harshly against the Master’s lips. “You massacred the Earth to get back at me, and I don’t think you’re even sorry.”

“I’m not,” the Master hissed, braced for the way he expected the Doctor to unravel.

“But I know that. I knew that an hour, a day, a week ago. You just want something to be afraid of, and I’m not going to give you that either.” The Doctor kissed him again, unnerving in its obvious restraint. He could feel the way the Doctor tensed over him, passion and fury just beneath the surface… or perhaps he imagined it. Could be that it was an invention of his own nerves, set on edge by the way the Doctor’s tongue swiped lazily at his lips, soft and sweet despite all his angry words.

That he wasn’t even sure how effective his own tactics were got to him, unwound him, and he second guessed every move the Doctor made, even as he gave in to it. The Doctor’s tongue curled in his mouth and he hummed, eyes slipping shut, half anticipating the moment where he’d come up with teeth and a mouth full of blood. The Doctor’s fingers skittered down his belly, kneading at his hips, and he waited, breathless and shivery, for the moment nails would dig in until he cried out.

The moment never came, and there was only the Doctor, all slow, deliberate heat. The anticipation of something harsher rippled through him though he knew better, reducing the Master to cinders. Damp lips traced down his neck, along his collarbone, and somehow this far in, it still left him reeling that he could only lie there and let the Doctor do what he would.

True to his word, the Doctor did nothing that hurt, and for the life of him the Master couldn’t work out if it was kindness or cruelty. There was nothing to fear, but he shivered as the Doctor’s palms skimmed his flanks, hearts hammering frantically in his chest. He certainly didn’t mean to enjoy his own submission, but the Doctor’s tongue flicked over his navel to the tune of hitched breaths. When teeth pressed down against the insides of his thighs, he was hopelessly unable to hide the way he sobbed, heels digging into the mattress.

Whatever he destroyed, however far he ran, he was the Doctor’s creature, and for a moment he only hated the ropes for the way they gave substance to something already there. His universe was narrowed to a body between his legs, to the Doctor’s breath on his skin. Even as he strained to be closer, he wondered if he choked away the last of the Doctor’s regenerations, if this insatiable need would stop or if he’d only be driven mad in a ruin of his own making.

Awful words caught in his throat, and idly he wondered how many he could give voice to before even the Doctor would stop forgiving him. The Doctor’s mouth was on him again, and it didn’t matter anymore, the indignity of such desperate want trumped by a tongue tracing the length of his cock. His head fell back against the pillows, and he bared his teeth, but did not fight the way the Doctor slowly pulled him in.

This was right. The Doctor was verging on worshipful, nails dragging along his thighs, head bobbing in slow rhythm, and he could conveniently forget the way he was trapped. It wasn’t until he meant to reach down, yanking on the Doctor’s unruly hair and couldn’t that the truth came back to him with a snarl and a jerk of his body in the ropes. The Doctor had the nerve to simply ignore him, only sucking harder.

It was distracting in spite of the Master’s best efforts to focus. The Doctor’s mouth was heat and pressure and he lost himself to it. He hardly noticed the way the Doctor fumbled between his legs until slick fingers traced along his thighs, and he only barely pulled himself together enough to wonder when the Doctor had found the time to grab the lube in the first place before one of them was inside him, moving in tandem with the mouth on his cock.

He didn’t fight it, though he normally might’ve at least complained on principle alone. It seemed such a terribly human act, a mockery and a poor substitute of the intimacy time lords were capable of, and Lucy had offered him more than his fill of humanity once upon a time. If he hissed in pleasure as the Doctor fucked him on his fingers, pressing a second inside, it was only that he’d been given no alternative.

The Doctor was perhaps more adept than he liked to give credit for. He mouthed at the Master’s cock enough to bring pleasure, but nothing like relief, teasing until the Master was squirming in the ropes for reasons that had nothing to do with escape. Somewhere along the way, something in him faltered just this much, that he could enjoy these things when he didn’t have to take the responsibility for them that came with freedom.

That might’ve been enough. It wasn’t ideal, certainly, but the Doctor was doing sinful things with his lips and fingers and the Master was melting rapidly into it, convincing himself it was simply his way of winning out against his nerves and the fear that had put him here to begin with. There was nothing to be afraid of, just the Doctor fawning over him.

The Doctor’s fingers came away abruptly, and he lifted his head, watching the Master. All the platitudes the Master wrapped himself in fell away, because the Doctor was watching him, laid bare and vulnerable and helpless, and the Master could do nothing but let him. It was strange, the things that struck fear through him, how even the promise of nothing like pain did little to assuage the terror that ran through him. No no no, he would not be defeated by himself, and if he murmured something a little bit frantic, he could only hope the Doctor mistook it for want.

The Master watched the Doctor draw back, tugging at the rope around one of his ankles, and he didn’t quite work out the reason until the knot pulled free. The Master’s eyes flew wide and he shook his head, squirming when the Doctor’s hand fell on his other foot. He hadn’t asked, hadn’t demanded to be let go, and what did the Doctor think he was doing, leaving it like this.

He hissed something unpleasant at the Doctor, unable to quite find words to express what was so terrible about this turn of events. That he was hiding behind his captivity was a fact he intended to ignore, unwilling to think about what it might mean. He was half untied though, not because he’d wanted it, not because of anything the Doctor had the decency to let on, and perhaps he was only rattled because he didn’t know why.

“Relax,” the Doctor murmured, like even though no words passed between them, he knew. The Master scowled up at him and the Doctor offered an all too cheeky smile. He dropped the Master’s ankle back to the sheets, fingers trailing enticingly up a bare calf. The Doctor settled between the Master’s legs, hips pressing against the insides of his thighs, and he could breathe again, sorting out that he wasn’t being released at all.

He sank into the distraction of lips and teeth straying back up his body as the Doctor crawled over him. Navel and ribs and chest and collarbones, the Doctor left no inch of him untouched, and the Master’s limited freedom only meant he squirmed more, heels digging impatiently into the Doctor’s hips. The Doctor sucked deliciously at his pulse, a perfect compromise between the Doctor’s sentimentality and his own demands for something more vicious.

The Master tipped his head back as the Doctor bit down the side of his neck, surely leaving marks behind, however briefly they might last. The Doctor was a solid, if slight weight over him, pressed along the length of the Master’s body, knuckles sweeping across his temple. The Master froze even before the Doctor’s mind nudged against him.

No. It was instinctive and absolute, a mental shout. The wasy the Doctor’s lips stilled on his skin, it may have been the teensiest bit of an overreaction. It wasn’t that he didn’t want. His traitorous body was still straining to be impossibly closer, but he was already laid so very bare. Oh, the Doctor had called all his bluffs, given name to his fears and base desires, but he’d never agreed. To let the Doctor in would sacrifice any deniability, stripping him of any hope to shield how tangled up he was.

The Doctor was persistent though, brushing up against him, gentle as anything else he’d done. When the Master resisted and shied away, he stopped pushing, and for a moment, seemed to let go entirely. There was a low, bereft sound the Master refused to believe could have come from him, but the Doctor was cradling him, and the desire to melt into it was finally stronger than the urge to flee.

Good, isn’t it? The Doctor’s voice was a murmur in his head, heat and energy tenderly picking him apart. Pleasure tugged vaguely at him, unfettered and unashamed and not remotely his, and he’d been so very foolish to think this had been about him alone. Surely the Doctor was seeing everything he’d intended to hide, but they were equally unsheltered, and the satisfied hum between them when their lips met was the Doctor’s.

The way they moved felt like background noise, secondary to the way everything they thought and felt entwined. The Doctor rocked his hips forward, pressing inside, but it only mattered for the way it overwhelmed, left the Master utterly possessed. His mind was laid out as surely as his body, and even here the Doctor tread lightly, all pleasant friction and pressure until the Master wasn’t certain where one of them ended and the other began.

The Doctor was inside him, all around him, only it might have been the other way around, the way they reflected off each other. An inevitable cycle, as he leeched off the bliss the Doctor felt and fed it back until kisses were fireworks along his nerves and every touch left him shuddering. They ceased to be one and the other, hopelessly wound up in the empty space between.

They frayed together too. He was distantly aware of sheets beneath his knees, heels digging into the small of his back, and the Doctor was bound as he was, writhing in the ropes that caught him. They came together in perfect rhythm, and the Master forgot about wanting anything else in the face of it.

He shuddered, or the Doctor did, every touch of body and mind electric. The universe wound down to the two of them, unraveling hopelessly until all they knew was rapture. They lay together, and if he’d had the capacity to focus, he might’ve laughed at the way the Doctor’s hands didn’t quite seem to work. They picked clumsily at the knots around the Master’s wrists, eventually freeing them, but the only thing the Master could bother to be aware of was the patter of the Doctor’s hearts against his skin.