🫂 // long-time coming
Send 🫂 to hug my muse (no longer accepting because I have terrible time management!)
The Master doesn't see it coming; the tautness of his back and the way pupils blacken irises, it betrays a sadistic anticipation: At last, you'll prove me right, and do to me something worse than even I could imagine.
Then we'll be wretched together.
Tht anticipation is never fulfilled, as the Doctor instead flings both arms around his oldest friend.
Part of becoming (allegedly) ancient and wise is learning to hold space inside oneself for more than one conflicting truth.
The Doctor holds the Master, who contains eons of pain, betrayal, suffering and enmity. He also holds Koschei, who is only a child in love with the first being who gave him more than a moment's consideration.
That two-truthed being in his arms is still stiff and taut and wide-eyed and at a total loss for what happens next.
