Prompt : Swoon

He was not exactly one for romantics, not in the sense that most people thought of it, anyway.

The Master was sparing with his words and polite if not cold in his conduct. He had a tendency to hold his chin up with the arrogance typical of one trained to think they were better than others around them. He was fast to criticize and quicker to contradict, when he could. He was intelligent, cool, poised, and very, very dangerous.

These things by no means excluded romanticism. But nor did romantics fall under his highest and most obvious priorities.

However… what had started as bitterness and determination and a step forward to prove how strong he was, how nothing could break him, had started to turn. What he had called resentment was proving to be a bit more like longing, what he had deemed greed was turning into something a bit like envy. And what he had named his foe and his rival and maybe, possibly, an enemy… he was starting to hold in a more and more tender light.

Which absolutely contradicted his need to bloody kill this man.

He blamed him. The Master blamed the Doctor. It was hardly rocket science; there had been a trust, it had been betrayed, he had suffered for it and he had little inclination that the Doctor had paid equally for such a betrayal. So the next part was obvious.

Find this man. Take all that cool intellect and anger, and bitterness and destroy the bastard, if he could not make him suffer.

When he finds him at last, though, the Master is stunned to be reminded so slightly of himself. To see a man who holds himself with poise and with dignity, who has regenerated at least once now. He is tall. He is cool. He is arrogant and you have to look hard to see any semblance of the playful boy he had once been.

He starts plans. He starts to muck things up and he starts using his genius and his mind and his own strength and slowly, he begins to see if he cannot attract the Doctor’s attention. See if the man can still not help but fix things, save people, and the like.

Imagine his delight when the Doctor falls right into the plans and suddenly, they are aware of each other, again. Very suddenly, the Master is elated. Not fulfilled – not until this man is dead and his – but they have knowledge of each other and suddenly, he is not quite so jealous of the stars.

They are angry at each other. The Doctor stares down his nose at him and the Master approaches him with the cool politeness that he would a stranger. Nothing is like it was. He is not Koschei and the Doctor is not Theta and they are not the people they were, back then. Trust is broken.

But gallivanting off after one another has its own romanticism to it. Regardless that this tall arrogant cold man that the Master thinks looks so much like him was once a boy, once a young soul who had swooned in his arms to private romantic games – regardless of what was lost.

It is not his highest and most obvious priority. But something about it could maybe be romantic.