Fic: Call Me Sentimental
Title: Call Me Sentimental
Author: lindest
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1081
Characters and pairings: Theta/Koschei
Warnings: none
Spoilers: possibly for The Last of the Time Lords
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is the intellectual property of the BBC. No infringement on that right is meant by this fan work.
Author's Note: "Ariston", from the greek αριστος, means "the best".
Summary: Perhaps, after all this time, he's allowed to keep something sentimental.
Long ago, it had stopped fitting, but the Master still carried the ring the Doctor had given him. It was all he had left from a planet which no longer wanted him and a partner who considered him to be an enemy.
...
Koschei wore the ring on a chain around his neck, letting the Doctor rest his head in his lap and sleep. The Doctor was beginning to look his age now, hair gone soft and white. Koschei, having already decided on a new name but reluctant to admit it, stroked his companion’s head, sending soothing thoughts into his dreams. They were waiting for news about Eric’s looming, a baby granddaughter. He and his wife Gleme, the senator’s daughter, had chosen an Earth name because it sounded exotic: Susan. The Doctor had tried to explain that it was a perfectly ordinary sounding name in Earth-speak, but they hadn’t believed him.
...
He had finally decided on “the Doctor”. Koschei didn’t think it fit any better than any other name Theta had tried on like oh so many hats; when was the last time he had fixed anything? Koschei was the one setting things straight after Eric nearly got himself expelled. Koschei was the one who had paid with a life when Th-the Doctor-tried to repeat their son’s experiment to the same explosive consequences. Koschei threw the naming party anyway, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the new name during sex that night. Perhaps the Doctor did not notice.
...
It took fifty years to cut through all the bureaucratic red tape and get approved for a second child. Most families were only permitted the one, but the president was a personal friend of Theta’s. By that time, Theta was testing out new names for himself-the Professor, the Healer- and was no longer interested in spending eight years raising a son and a hundred years paying for things when they blew up a wing of the Academy. They had a fight in Theta’s lab, and then there was an accident, and rather horribly the Master found himself on his third regeneration. This version of him was shorter than he had anticipated, with sort of scruffy black hair which was difficult to slick back in the acceptable fashion. (He always hoped to be blonde.) This version of him didn’t want more children, not after... The ring no longer fit, anyway, and he stopped wearing it, always meaning to get it resized but never finding the time.
...
After a mere eight years, Eric-a diminutive Theta had thought up from Rassilon know where- was taken from them, bound for the Academy. Every night, Koschei had nightmares about the untempered schism, imagining his son standing in the place he had first heard the drumbeat. They wouldn’t find out until thirty years past that Eric had stood before the jaws of hell and screamed. Screamed and screamed, for his father to come and save him.
...
Ari was afraid of the dark. In the velvet softness of their bed, Theta slept like the dead, and never once stirred when the frightened cries of the three year old rang out. But they had Koschei bolting out the door of their bedchamber and down the hall, night after night. Now, he could have had a night light installed, but he preferred being needed, preferred coming to the rescue and being the hero. They had had a plan, in school, to go out in the universe and set all problems right. Planet bound, this was the next best thing.
...
The baby rolled and burbled in the grass, gnawed toothlessly on his father’s ring, and generally enjoyed himself. Koschei adored the child, who was already beginning to smile like Theta. After one year, they named him Ariston, for he was the best thing they had ever seen. All names have power; Koschei whispered it to him each night, teaching the wise-eyed infant his place in time and space. “Ariston,” he would say, “we will show you the universe some day. And it will belong to us.” The blanket swaddling his son was soft and silver.
...
Halfway in to his second regeneration, the ring was a tight fit, chafing red around the knuckle, but he wore it anyway. It was more important than ever. Their first son had been loomed, a fat infant with blonde hair and blue eyes. They spent that first year away from the capital, in the hill country where the red grass smelled sweetest and the air did not need the pollution filtered out and the harsh rays of the twin suns browned their skin.
...
He called him a sentimental fool and laughed, but wore it because it fit perfectly and went well with his tastes in jewellery- big and gaudy and fitting of the fashion of the day, with some kind of green stone mined from the under the purple ocean depths of Phanzok Eleven. The birds of Phanzok Eleven swim in those waters. The rumour is that the green pharnakle stones are eggs which never made it as eggs, but nobody has been able to prove it one way or the other because nobody has ever caught one of the elusive birds of the sea. They wore those collars (they had once mocked as ridiculous) at their binding ceremony. They looked like gold wings about Theta’s pink, blushing face; Koschei squeezed their clammy hands together under the ornamental cloth (which was just a little bit alive) and couldn’t help but smirk. They had once sworn they would never do this. Things change but they always stay the same.
...
Theta gave him a ring on the day they pledged; called it an engagement ring. It wasn’t diamond studded or even particularly fine quality gold, for they were both slightly broke at the time. The cost of their experiments always seemed to run a little higher than their family allowances provided, even when they shared lodging in the capital. There was no such thing as rent control on Gallifrey, for obvious reasons, and the prices were exorbitant.
...
His fingers were slender, in that first regeneration. He dropped the last ounce of baby fat by sixteen but he never quite grew into those eyes, big and round and not quite sane, even then. His smiles were normal enough but his eyes... It was those eyes that attracted Theta Sigma to him, a moth to the flickering flame.
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Author: lindest
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1081
Characters and pairings: Theta/Koschei
Warnings: none
Spoilers: possibly for The Last of the Time Lords
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is the intellectual property of the BBC. No infringement on that right is meant by this fan work.
Author's Note: "Ariston", from the greek αριστος, means "the best".
Summary: Perhaps, after all this time, he's allowed to keep something sentimental.
Long ago, it had stopped fitting, but the Master still carried the ring the Doctor had given him. It was all he had left from a planet which no longer wanted him and a partner who considered him to be an enemy.
...
Koschei wore the ring on a chain around his neck, letting the Doctor rest his head in his lap and sleep. The Doctor was beginning to look his age now, hair gone soft and white. Koschei, having already decided on a new name but reluctant to admit it, stroked his companion’s head, sending soothing thoughts into his dreams. They were waiting for news about Eric’s looming, a baby granddaughter. He and his wife Gleme, the senator’s daughter, had chosen an Earth name because it sounded exotic: Susan. The Doctor had tried to explain that it was a perfectly ordinary sounding name in Earth-speak, but they hadn’t believed him.
...
He had finally decided on “the Doctor”. Koschei didn’t think it fit any better than any other name Theta had tried on like oh so many hats; when was the last time he had fixed anything? Koschei was the one setting things straight after Eric nearly got himself expelled. Koschei was the one who had paid with a life when Th-the Doctor-tried to repeat their son’s experiment to the same explosive consequences. Koschei threw the naming party anyway, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the new name during sex that night. Perhaps the Doctor did not notice.
...
It took fifty years to cut through all the bureaucratic red tape and get approved for a second child. Most families were only permitted the one, but the president was a personal friend of Theta’s. By that time, Theta was testing out new names for himself-the Professor, the Healer- and was no longer interested in spending eight years raising a son and a hundred years paying for things when they blew up a wing of the Academy. They had a fight in Theta’s lab, and then there was an accident, and rather horribly the Master found himself on his third regeneration. This version of him was shorter than he had anticipated, with sort of scruffy black hair which was difficult to slick back in the acceptable fashion. (He always hoped to be blonde.) This version of him didn’t want more children, not after... The ring no longer fit, anyway, and he stopped wearing it, always meaning to get it resized but never finding the time.
...
After a mere eight years, Eric-a diminutive Theta had thought up from Rassilon know where- was taken from them, bound for the Academy. Every night, Koschei had nightmares about the untempered schism, imagining his son standing in the place he had first heard the drumbeat. They wouldn’t find out until thirty years past that Eric had stood before the jaws of hell and screamed. Screamed and screamed, for his father to come and save him.
...
Ari was afraid of the dark. In the velvet softness of their bed, Theta slept like the dead, and never once stirred when the frightened cries of the three year old rang out. But they had Koschei bolting out the door of their bedchamber and down the hall, night after night. Now, he could have had a night light installed, but he preferred being needed, preferred coming to the rescue and being the hero. They had had a plan, in school, to go out in the universe and set all problems right. Planet bound, this was the next best thing.
...
The baby rolled and burbled in the grass, gnawed toothlessly on his father’s ring, and generally enjoyed himself. Koschei adored the child, who was already beginning to smile like Theta. After one year, they named him Ariston, for he was the best thing they had ever seen. All names have power; Koschei whispered it to him each night, teaching the wise-eyed infant his place in time and space. “Ariston,” he would say, “we will show you the universe some day. And it will belong to us.” The blanket swaddling his son was soft and silver.
...
Halfway in to his second regeneration, the ring was a tight fit, chafing red around the knuckle, but he wore it anyway. It was more important than ever. Their first son had been loomed, a fat infant with blonde hair and blue eyes. They spent that first year away from the capital, in the hill country where the red grass smelled sweetest and the air did not need the pollution filtered out and the harsh rays of the twin suns browned their skin.
...
He called him a sentimental fool and laughed, but wore it because it fit perfectly and went well with his tastes in jewellery- big and gaudy and fitting of the fashion of the day, with some kind of green stone mined from the under the purple ocean depths of Phanzok Eleven. The birds of Phanzok Eleven swim in those waters. The rumour is that the green pharnakle stones are eggs which never made it as eggs, but nobody has been able to prove it one way or the other because nobody has ever caught one of the elusive birds of the sea. They wore those collars (they had once mocked as ridiculous) at their binding ceremony. They looked like gold wings about Theta’s pink, blushing face; Koschei squeezed their clammy hands together under the ornamental cloth (which was just a little bit alive) and couldn’t help but smirk. They had once sworn they would never do this. Things change but they always stay the same.
...
Theta gave him a ring on the day they pledged; called it an engagement ring. It wasn’t diamond studded or even particularly fine quality gold, for they were both slightly broke at the time. The cost of their experiments always seemed to run a little higher than their family allowances provided, even when they shared lodging in the capital. There was no such thing as rent control on Gallifrey, for obvious reasons, and the prices were exorbitant.
...
His fingers were slender, in that first regeneration. He dropped the last ounce of baby fat by sixteen but he never quite grew into those eyes, big and round and not quite sane, even then. His smiles were normal enough but his eyes... It was those eyes that attracted Theta Sigma to him, a moth to the flickering flame.
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