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For as far back as Theta could remember, Koschei was always disregarding, rather snobbish towards everyone and everything, as if he believed he was better than said everyone and everything.
Which, indeed, he did.
What Theta didn't know, because there wasn't any way of knowing - he'd never admit it - was that Koschei had worked rather hard so that he'd be like that. It was his hard work and dedication that turned his insecurities, the scorn of other young Gallifreyans and his burning ambition, into that incredibly hard deflective shield, that air of grandeur. And that feeling he gave others, that he was, to a certain extent, a jerk. But he wasn't always like that. Theta couldn't possibly remember, he was once docile and friendly, it was before he first met him. Before the Untempered Schism and the noise. That awful noise...
But that didn't necessarily mean he didn't care. He did. He always did. He had just readjusted himself as to not show it. He'd smile like he owned everything, a wide squinty rude smirk, and talk as if he was the master of all, like the whole Universe owed him. Bloody hell, he even turned that into his actual name... He wasn't that cold though, no. He just liked seeming to be like that. He had to. He never liked being weak, feeling weak, being at the mercy of another. Especially Theta's.
But Theta wouldn't see it. He was busy being popular and vain. And leaving. Always leaving, running. And he was forever misunderstood and shunned away.
But now Theta, The Doctor, is finally gathering strength, courage to express what he was trying to express for almost 9 centuries now...
"I wonder what I'd be without you..."
He hopes Koschei understands that exactly as he means it.
Now he gets to tell him...? Now, that he's bound to that chair, at his mercy, now that the whole planet is his... No. He wouldn't have him like that.
Too suspicious. Too... easy. He will not give him the pleasure.
"...Yeah."
Theta wishes The Master'd rather have killed him that very moment he opened his damn mouth to utter that phrase.
