The Master stalked into the Doctor's TARDIS, long black coat flowing behind him as he slammed the door. His eyes were gleaming with something not quite human, his mouth was tugged into a petulant smirk.
He'd regenerated again. Tall and slender, pale, with a striking, almost feline face; sharp high cheekbones and calculating eyes even he hadn't decided if they were blue, grey or green. His hair fell in careless copper curls, tumbling over his forehead in a way that would have been endearing if he'd been anyone else.
However, when the Doctor turned away from the TARDIS console, everything changed. He had been crying. His green eyes were hard, narrow and cold. Tear tracks were clearly visible on his dirt streaked face. The Master could tell he'd really been crying properly, for hours and hours...
As their eyes met, the Doctor's pupils contracted and his lips thinned. "Get out." He hissed. The Master felt his sneer drop. "What's happened to you?" He said, almost gently.
The Doctor glared at him so viciously it would have hurt if he'd cared about facial expressions. "I said, OUT!" The Master walked slightly closer. "Doctor..." The Doctor rubbed angrily at his eyes with the sleeve of his tweed jacket. "What's wrong?" Another tear, like a diamond in the green light of the TARDIS, dripped from the end of his nose. "Tell me!" The Doctor started. Now that sounded like the Master he knew.
The Master sighed, running a hand through his unruly hair. "Another pet?" As soon as the words left his lips he knew it was the wrong thing to say. The Doctor had always been fast, but the Master didn't even see him move this time.
Instantly, he had him pressed against the TARDIS door. "You have no right to talk about them like that! NO RIGHT!" The Doctor screamed, tears pouring from his eyes. Instead of making some sarcastic jeer, the Master looked down at him, almost concern tracing his cold marble face. "Uh... I - I'm..." He tried. "I'm sorry?" The Doctor looked at him in disbelief. "Well, you should be! You spent your whole life trying to destroy me, now here I am, destroyed! Are you happy now? Isn't this what you've always wanted?!"
The Master was completely shocked. The Doctor had always been so composed around him, he'd almost stopped thinking of him as a man who cried at all.
"I... No...no..." For once in his life, he was at a loss for words. "I never thought..." "NO!" Shouted the Doctor, eyes wild and bloodshot. "You never did think!"
Overcome by grief, the Doctor collapsed onto him, clinging to the front of his coat, no doubt soaking the expensive fabric with wet salty residue. For once, he let him cry, without even a sneer on his part. As he wrapped his arms around his distraught nemesis, the Doctor wailed all the louder, whimpering about his pets and some kind of ponds. When he finally stopped sobbing, the Master still refused release him.
As he stroked long white fingers through the shaky younger man's hair, the Master mused. They hadn't been this intimate since the Valiant, and he winced, remembering how he'd been, so easily lured by the pull of the drums. The Doctor must have sensed a change, for he held him all the tighter, and the Master let him.
Because, for now, right now, this was what they both needed. Not to think about what-ifs, maybes or what happens next. Not to think about later. Right now, his oldest companion needed him, and the Master was not really too unhappy to oblige.