"Why am I the sub?"
The Doctor cracks a single eye open, able to make out the Master's expression despite the lack of lighting. The brunet Timelord revels in the sated and sluggish way his lover's lips form the words, tongue rolling out the syllables as though they're molasses. Usually, his speech is sharp and hurried, fueled by madness and irritation and a burning need to be heard but now, the Master is tired. The Master is sleepy. The Master is content.
The Doctor's ego is inflated tenfold.
But the crease between the smaller man's eyebrows and the tint of accusation in his tone is somewhat discouraging. The Doctor prefers times when the Master takes all night and a good portion of the morning to recover from their romp. Those days, he can usually persuade the Master to stick around for lunch – he's not leaking life force anymore, but his appetite is still positively porkish – and then tea – he knows just how Master likes his, from how many sugars to the exact degree of temperature – and then an argument of some sort – "What harm could come of enslaving just one tiny planet, Doctor? There are so bloody many!" – and then supper and then, of course, another romp.
However, the nights when the Master's afterglow is short-lived turn out to be the days when the Doctor wakes up to cold sheets and another planet to rescue. And he's beginning to suspect that maybe the deciding factor isn't really how good the sex is, doesn't believe anything between them could ever be that simple. If he didn't know better, he'd say that there are just times when the Master wants to stay, and times when his pride forces him to leave.
And if he doesn't say something to satisfy his dearest megalomaniac pronto, he'll have a race of enslaved aliens to apologize to tomorrow.
"What's wrong with being the sub?" he asks. He wonders, briefly, if maybe the Master isn't satisfied with his topping skills, but takes into account the blonde's still glazed gaze and promptly dismisses the thought. Maybe he's insecure about his own technique? "You're a great sub. Fan-tast-ic. That thing you do with your hips..." he trails off with a low growl and a raised eyebrow.
Master snorts and shakes his head. "I know I'm a sex god, Doctor," he replies, ego intact. "But you're so obviously the girl in this relationship," he sneers as he rubs a hand across his eye in a sleepy gesture that the Doctor finds highly feminine. "I'm the dominate force between us and therefore I should top."
The Doctor thinks about it for a moment. He really, truly does. He tries to recall all the times the Master has bested him (or at least, come close), the total control he flaunted during The Year That Never Was, and (his personal favorite) the bondage chair.
But there are other memories, darker images that assault him. He remembers watching the Master die, refusing to regenerate as he released his last breath. He remembers the helicopter that took him away, two men carrying him off, his body cradled between them, looking so helpless and so, so young. He even remembers those long nights in the Academy when the drums would beat their demented cadence on the inside of his skull, and Theta would hold Koschei - his Koschei - until dawn broke through his friend's madness.
The memories invoke an ancient urge, a single-minded need to take care of him, to help him, to save him.
He remembers all this but knows he could never tell the Master. That would surely result in overcompensation that would mean the destruction of several galaxies and, even more terrifying, very cold sheets for a very long time. So he presses a light kiss to the Master's pale shoulder and instead reasons, "If you topped, how could you scar my back?"
The Master contemplates that for a moment, gazing at his nails as if searching for the Doctor's blood underneath. The long scratches across his back bet he finds some. "That's an excellent point, Doctor dearest," he mumbles. "I'll have to let my nails grow out more."
The Doctor opens his mouth to protest but quickly closes it as blonde hair brushes under his jaw. The Master has scooted closer, not close enough to touch but close enough to share body heat, and it's so uncharacteristic that the Doctor is struck speechless. When his senses return, he bravely rests his hand on the Master's hip and feels, with curiosity and excitement, the tension leave the smaller Timelord's body.
"Don't you dare think this is cuddling," he threatens.
"Never said it was," Doctor chirps back cheekily, daring to bury his nose in Master's soft blonde hair. An irritated growl follows the action, but the Master doesn't move away. "But if you want to, you could roll over and we could give spooning a try, just - "
Several hours later, the Doctor wakes up to a bruised jaw, an empty bed, and an enslaved race to rescue.
a/n: Because I demand that John Simm be the sub, regardless of who he's with.