Prompt : Purse

He walks in with a suit and a strut and a pink bag thrown over his shoulder. The Doctor raises an eyebrow at him.

“Master,” he points out, “you are wearing a purse.”

“What?” The Master raised his eyes up to look at the Doctor. He tilted his head. “Sorry, didn’t catch that. I’m going out.”

“With a purse?”

“No,” the Master gives him a reproachful look, scoffing. “With a man bag.”

The Doctor pauses a moment. He slowly gets up, walks toward the Master, and leans a hand on his shoulder.

“Master,” he tries again, “that is a purse.”

“Is not,” the Master says very decisively. He pouts a bit. “I even told Lucy. It is a man bag, when I wear it. Men don’t carry around purses.”

“Master, I am rather masculine this time around.” And it was true, this regeneration had turned the Doctor into a strapping soldier with broad shoulders, severe features, and a stringy sort of musculature that was deceptively slender for his physical capabilities. He crossed his leather-clad arms and said very authoritatively, “And I can tell you. No man would carry around a ‘man bag’ like that and still call it such.”

“What?” It wasn’t so much a question as an accusation. The Master’s brows furrowed and he pouted obstinately. “Men can wear whatever they damn well want. What is wrong with it?”

“First of all, it is a purse—”

“Will you quit it, with that?” The Master insisted.

“—and, by extension,” the Doctor continued. “Your purse is pink.”

“Pink is a perfectly legitimate color. Real men wear pink.” The Master clutched the strap of his purse to his shoulder, looking rather like Lucy when she was distrustful and as angry as the mild little thing could get. The Doctor sighed, giving up on that faction of the argument.

“Where are you going out to?”

“Shopping!” The smaller man gave such a smile that the Doctor could no longer feel quite as righteous in notifying him that ‘shopping’ when exclaimed like that, also decidedly not masculine.

“For?”

“Christmas.”

“Oh!” The scenario almost made sense for a moment. Then the Doctor remembered who he was talking to, and also the pepto-bismol-colored accessory that he had chosen. “You are going Christmas shopping?”

“Yes. And?”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes as more details gradually occurred to him. “… in April?”

The Master grinned, then leaned up to kiss his partner’s cheek. “Later, sweetheart.”

He left with that, and the Doctor was not entirely sure what sort of argument had just transpired, or if there had actually been substance argued at all. He went off about his business.