They both loved to dance - figuratively, literally, a mix of both. They danced in all sorts of ways as the weeks passed.
The Master spun Missy out, then caught her again around her hips, pulling her flush to his body. This wasn't a dance with steps, or choreography, but the Master and Missy were as ever on the same wavelength as heels clicked and hands wandered to David Bowie's "Modern Love."
On the sides, hesitant and subservient, were Martha's family in their silly little serving outfits and dour faces. Lucy stood across the room, distant-eyed though her gaze followed the two as they danced. Missy wondered what she was thinking as another woman danced with her husband. She caught her eye and blew her a kiss. Lucy flinched, stare falling away to a suddenly very interesting middle space.
You scare her, she felt in her mind. She's afraid I love you more.
"Do you?" Missy asked aloud, the ghost of a whisper brushing across the Master's lips. He was still being very stubborn about letting her properly into his mind, so she wasn't going to give him the pleasure of their instinctual formless, wordless dialogues.
"Yes." The answer fell in the lull between songs, and Lucy's attention snapped back to them. Missy didn't even need to read her mind to know her thoughts. What was her Harry saying 'yes' to?
He grinned, and she grinned, and as the Master dipped Missy their teeth clicked in a rough kiss. There was, after all, only one person in the universe the Master loved more than the Doctor.
The Master pulled her back up and looked at one of the speakers now blaring "Life on Mars."
"It's not much of a dancing song, is it?" he asked. "Is all you have David Bowie?"
"I like David Bowie."
The Master reeled her in for a slow dance to the whine of the sad, yearning lyrics. As he pulled Missy in close, he kissed her cheek and she heard under the drumbeats of his mind, And what of that other David of yours? Her own thoughts supplied the image, his supplied the fantasy - screaming, dying - and she jerked away from the Master, pale eyes glinting like diamonds.
"Leave him out of this," she hissed, shaking off the Master's touch. He grabbed her again, pulled her close as though there hadn't been even the slightest hiccough in their dance.
"You seem... upset," he said aloud, mind closed off to his actual thoughts.
"He is mine."
The fingers around her waist and wrist tightened, and she felt the imprints of her bracelets digging into her skin, felt the remnant ghosts of his mind where he'd been prodding. They were no longer dancing. Missy breathed hard through her nose, lips pursed tight as she forced herself to not lash out. Possessiveness was a trait she'd never been able to rid herself of, and both knew that.
The Master's lips trailed along her jawline, the drawn tendons of her neck. "By virtue of that, he's mine, too, is he not?"
Missy shoved him away, twisting her wrist to break his hold on her, and stormed off. Several Toclafane parted to make passage for the door, bobbing uncertainly in the air. They liked the Mister Master, but got conflicting information about the Missy Master. Behind her, the Master resumed dancing, catching Lucy up into his arms and replacing Missy like she'd never been there at all.
"Hello, deary."
Lucy's blue eyes drifted up the mirror, tube of lipstick poised just above her lips, and caught the silhouette of Missy reflected from the doorway, bathed in the brighter light of the Valiant's halls. Missy stepped further into the room, closing the door behind them and plunging them back into the cozy gloom of the bedroom.
"Harry's not here."
"I know." Missy settled in on the desk beside Lucy, perching primly at the corner. When it was obvious she wasn't going anywhere, Lucy retracted her lipstick and put the lid on it with a sharp click.
"What do you want?" she asked, frowning up at Missy. She would never have dared be so forward with Harry, Missy thought, lips curled into a moue at the lack of respect. But it did make those eyes sparkle nicely.
Missy set a bottle and two glasses on the table. "I thought we could have a little party. Just us girls."
"Does Harry know about this?" Lucy asked, eyes sliding away from Missy's face and looking around the room as though to find any hidden surveillance equipment. They were there, but Missy had already disabled them before making her move.
Missy leaned forward, close enough to kiss those pale lips that still needed their lipstick. She knew there was a bit of a rebel somewhere in Lucy's pretty head. It took getting blown up to notice, so the Master still didn't suspect a thing, and she was going to use that to her advantage. "Do you want Harry to know about this?"
"No," Lucy said quietly. She wanted her secrets as anyone did, and goodness knew with an unapologetically intrusive telepath for a husband, Lucy didn't have many left.
Smiling - not grinning her usual grin, all teeth and malice, as she didn't want to make Lucy suspicious - Missy closed that infinitesimal gap between them. Unlike how she liked to be treated, she had to be careful with Lucy. Be gentle. The Master certainly wasn't.
Even with a different person beside her and half a bottle of wine inside, Lucy's thoughts were mostly on the Master. Missy listened idly to Lucy talk about how things were before as she traced Gallifreyan letters on Lucy's stomach, felt the tension of muscles beneath the thin material of her dress. She had to go slow, push boundaries only slightly. Like a wounded bird, Lucy had to have time to acclimate to her presence, especially as an ally instead of the competition.
"Were you and Harry lovers before? You seem to know him better than I... than I ever did," Lucy said suddenly. Though the statement was neutral, Missy felt the shiver of jealousy under it. Lucy might have begun to fear the Master, might think she made some very poor calls, but he was still her husband and she had loved him. Having lost him to someone of less conventional beauty and frankly grating personality rubbed the wrong way more so than if he'd been fucking models or secretaries like any normal politician. It settled on her thoughts like a thin sheet of ice, projected loud and clear for Missy to pick up even with just her fingers on her skin, and Missy was pleased that she felt comfortable enough to ask.
"No, no, don't worry, poppet. He never cheated on you - well, before this. Does it count as cheating now? - Either way, he likes you, I like you, and he definitely doesn't like me."
Lucy pulled herself up and reached across Missy for one of the glasses of wine, winding up with the one that had pink lipstick in a shade Lucy would never wear stamped onto its lip. Missy grabbed the bottle and topped her off.
"Why are you still alive, if he doesn't like you? He doesn't... play with you like he does the others, either."
It wasn't trust, and it wasn't entirely the alcohol that made her so forward. A bit of prodding, and Missy decided it was simple resignation. If she was betrayed, she was betrayed; if they were caught, they were caught. If neither happened? Then neither happened.
"We play, just our games are different."
When Missy was there, the Master latched onto her instead of hiding, face buried in her hair and hands tight around her hips, or her throat. The first time he did it, she'd collapsed at the sudden mental intrusion and reevaluated her own, earlier attempt at contact. It really was horrifying when it happened apropos of nothing. Just a sudden cacophony where once there was calm - whirling storms and beating drums siphoning down like a broken dam, dragging her own thoughts away to be replaced by the drowned and damaged ones of the Master.
Once they established how much surprise contact sucked, and the Master felt suitably avenged, their encounters were much more enjoyable. They even talked sometimes, though Missy couldn't explain too much lest he interfere with her own plans. She knew he would, both out of malicious intent and curiosity, so kept those cards close to her chest and the ideas locked away behind shattered glass and burning cities, places the Master would never go in his explorations of her mind. But spoilers were fine, since he wasn't going to remember, and she spoiled everything.
"Very different," she repeated almost to herself, thinking on the games she played with the Doctor. Where often she'd wear disguises, plan plans that spanned years for the Doctor, she was always toe-to-toe with the Master, barely ahead, then barely behind, then ahead once again. Neither was a gracious loser, and both played to win, even if it meant self-sabotage. Missy stroked Lucy's jawline with the back of her fingers, letting the feather touch trail down to her dress's low collar. She wondered if Lucy had come up with her schemes on her own - no, likely not. Poor dear didn't have the mind for scheming.
Lucy made no comment to that, sitting still and simply observing Missy as Missy observed her, lost in her own thoughts. "Are you a Time Lord like my Harry and the Doctor?"
"I prefer Time Lady."
Lucy pulled her lower lip between her teeth, worrying at the skin. Missy made a vague noise of encouragement, and that was enough for her to continue. "Which is... which is normal for your kind? The Doctor, or Harry?" Missy tried to recall if she ever heard Lucy refer to the Master by any other name during this time, but no. She clung to the illusion.
"The hero or the villain? Neither, deary. Time Lords as a general rule don't get involved, and when they do they ruin everything." She paused, reconsidering her statement. "In that regard, at least, the Doctor and the Master are typical Time Lords. But in every other way, they're both atypical. Renegades."
Missy wisely kept herself out of that grouping, if she wanted to win over Lucy. Tender touches and plying wine was only a short-term gain. Besides, omitting some information wasn't nearly the same as lying, and she'd found recently that honesty, rare and lauded trait that it was, was really the best way to manipulate people without mind control.
Lucy relaxed visibly at that, and let Missy continue with her petting. It certainly said something about this situation, that the most trustworthy alien here was Missy. She just didn't know what.