Prompt : Nap

Most times, he still does not sleep through the night.

He is quiet about it. He never screams when he wakes up. Maybe he did, one day. Maybe he ran out of screams early in his life, when his lives were ripped from him as easily as one pulls petals from a daisy, as casually as a child pulling blades of grass from the soil.

Like he was screaming and no-one could hear.

So if it were not for the fact that he looks tired, if it were not for the fact that he seems to stay up later than everyone, and then to wake up earlier – maybe no one would even have an inkling.

Sleep is too much like death, so he does not sleep, most times. He does not look backwards to face the dark spots in his life and he makes a point not to actively seek them. He thought it would kill him to not take each challenge presented to him. He never thought fear would quench his motivation.

The Doctor had started to change that, slowly. In time he comes to find his challenges and his thrills elsewhere. Quiet affairs. Could they stay in the same room without fear of each other. Later, could they touch without fear and, even farther, could they trust one another again. It was all gradual and it was all very, very quiet.

He does not remember how it gets brought up the first time, except that he says something, and the Doctor suddenly understands something of the Master’s insomniac tendencies. And then does what he does so well, and offers his best as though it were casual and natural to do.

“I could stay with you,” he tells him. “I could stay while you sleep.”

This is the first time, and he gives him a long, suspicious look. Trust is not easy, still, and he shakes his head.

“No.” The Master tells him; then he pauses, knowing well that they have to live together, and that some civility at least makes the situation more easily maneuverable. He nods. “I have things I still need to finish, tonight.”

It is a lie, but a civil one. The Doctor understands this and he says nothing more that day.

And the first time, when the Master had allowed the Doctor close enough to sit with him, to sleep, he did not so much rest as merely nap. The intervals of his unconsciousness were short, short enough that the black never really enveloped him. He would doze for anywhere between ten and forty minutes before starting awake.

But he rests, and though he is forcing it, he does not have to face the distorted sensations and mild hallucinations that come with severe lack of sleep. And he does not simply fall over and sleep for nearly an entire day, leaving a dreamless black hole in his memory. Slowly, sleep gets better, at least in these nap-like intervals.

“You know,” the Doctor tells him one day, simply in passing. “I was going to bed. You could come with me.”

And it is such a strange thing to hear that the Master is skeptical. He gives him a long look and the Doctor shrugs and reminds him in that usual way that the offer stands.

It is not until several minutes later. Fifteen minutes of silence and slowly, the Master stands. He finds the Doctor in bed and he decides to stand there for three breaths – breaths which he then holds, to make his time watching last longer, and to avoid closing his eyes just a little bit longer.

He hesitates. And then he finally crawls into bed after the Doctor, to nap.