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“Congratulations!”
“Surprise!”
Several noise-makers blew throughout the room.
The Master blinked at where he’d apparently just materialised right in the middle of his own afterlife party. The Matrix construct had taken the form of an expansive hotel ballroom, decorated with balloons, banners, and streamers. It looked for all the world like a cheesy Earth New Years celebration, and was populated entirely by every incarnation of himself, it seemed.
“Well done, very well done,” the War Master said, slapped him on the back, and handed him a glass of champagne.
“Er…?” the Master said eloquently. The last thing he remembered doing, of course, was dying, which wasn’t much worthy of applause.
The Thirteenth Master approached him, took the Master’s free hand warmly in both gloved hands, and gave him a hearty handshake. “A fine accomplishment, always to be lauded. You have my most profound appreciation.”
The Master went a bit dreamy; fortunately, no one in this crowd would blame him. It wasn’t his fault he’d been such a sexy beast in that incarnation, after all, and all the Masters knew it. “The pleasure is all mine, I assure you,” he replied what he hoped was smoothly, but actually ended up sounding like starry-eyed nonsense.
His younger self pinned him with those gorgeously mesmeric eyes and then slowly, deliberately, brought the Master’s hand up to his lips. The Master might have ejaculated just a little bit when the Thirteenth Master’s lips sensuously brushed his knuckles. (It will be left to the reader as an exercise to determine just which definition of the word ‘ejaculated’ is meant.)
A bit dazed, the Master only escaped when the Ninth Master tugged the Thirteenth aside, and the Seventeenth Master stepped up.
“Yes,” his Seventeenth said warmly, “congratulations are most certainly in order.” He leaned in to brush a kiss against the Master’s cheek.
The Master was starting to think he might really enjoy the afterlife.
“Whatever,” his Eighteenth grumbled in the Master’s general direction once the Seventeenth had moved on by. The Eighteenth Master promptly stole the Master’s champagne and downed the whole glass in one elegant motion. “It’s not like you had the same ridiculous handicap I had to work against…”
“Darling,” the Nineteenth Mistress said cuttingly, “don’t be jealous. It’s so unbecoming of us.”
“At least some of us made an effort,” the Eighteenth Master snapped back. “Certain others didn’t even try.”
“Oh dear…” Missy eyed him up and down disdainfully. “Was that actually meant to be an effort?”
The Eighteenth Master glared at her, then glared at the Master, then tossed his empty champagne glass against the far wall with a dramatic crash, before grabbing the Master roughly by the face and planting a hot, wet smack right on his lips. Well, originally it was probably supposed to be just a smack. At some point the Eighteenth’s Master tongue got a bit involved (as one does when encountering such a handsome instance of oneself), and the whole thing lingered on longer than was originally intended (or not: it was always hard to tell with his Eighteenth incarnation).
At some point, the Master’s hand might have drifted onto the Eighteenth Master's pert and very angry behind (as one does when, et cetera).
The Eighteenth Master finally pulled away, regarding the Master speculatively with hooded eyes. However, before the inevitable proposition could occur, Missy yanked the Master down by the collar and laid an even hotter, wetter one on him. With really quite a lot of tongue, right from the start, as if this had suddenly turned into a kissing competition (to which none of the Masters objected in the slightest).
The Master’s hand most definitely drifted onto a very shapely behind this time (again, as one does when, et cetera, for those who haven't detected the general trend of exceptionally sexy Masters yet).
When Missy finally broke away, the Eighteenth Master looked like he was about to launch in for an even bigger counter-kiss, but at that point there was a loud clinking of a champagne glass, and all the Masters turned their attention where the First Master had called the festivities to order.
“The other guest of honour has arrived!” the First Master beamed and patted the Thirteenth Doctor on the back (and then probably on the bum, although it was hard to see, but that was always a solid guess where any Doctor and Master were concerned).
The Thirteenth Doctor gave the First Master a withering look, and then the Master a cautious smile.
The Master’s hearts warmed at the thought that she still regarded him so highly that she expected a clever, lethal plot, even after death. His Doctor really was a brilliant, meddlesome foil. He couldn’t wait to toy with her some more, here, where she could never leave him or ignore him, and she could thwart him in all the right places forever and ever.
She stepped up to him, cool as a cucumber. “Do you really have to be this petty?” she demanded.
Throughout the room, dozens of Masters caught their breath at the phenomenon they were now able to witness firsthand.
“Constantly,” the Master promised her, taking her hand gallantly for one moment, before abruptly spinning them both around so that they were back-to-back. “If someone will do the honours?”
The Fourteenth Master stepped up, pulled a tape measure out of the Matrix’ thin air, and several of the other past Masters helped him get it stretched out down from the Master’s feet up to his head.
Gasps sounded throughout the room.
“You have nearly a whole inch to spare.” The Thirteenth Master sounded genuinely choked up. In life, he had, after all, suffered the worst neck pain from having to gaze (longingly) up at his Doctor all the time.
The Fourth and Sixth Masters had grabbed the “Congratulations on regenerating taller than the Doctor!” banner that had been hung upon the wall for the party and were waving it enthusiastically. An impromptu chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” broke out.
The Master twirled himself and the Doctor again so that she was now in his arms (where every Doctor belonged, as far as the Masters were concerned).
The Doctor sighed with (fond, undoubtedly) exasperation. “You’re not even particularly tall,” she said with all the self-satisfied smugness of one who had enjoyed several lifetimes of not having to use a ladder to reach all the TARDIS circuits. “You’re far from the tallest Master, even.”
“It’s a relative accomplishment!” he insisted. “I’m the taller one for once! Deal with it!”
She snorted. “Barely. It’s not even particularly noticeable.”
The Master pulled her closer, felt her chest hitch against his. “Can’t you let me have this, just this once?” he implored. “And you call me petty.”
The Doctor smiled an impish little smile. “I could always,” she retorted, “wear heels.”
The Master’s face fell. “You wouldn’t!” he exclaimed, heartsbroken.
“Well,” the Doctor conceded, “maybe only sometimes.”
The Master opened his mouth to protest, then carefully considered the implications, and wisely shut his mouth again. “Maybe. Only sometimes.”
He leaned in, and she raised a sceptical eyebrow at him.
“It seems to be the cover charge?” he suggested hopefully.
“When in Rome,” she conceded with a put-upon nod. “Which - ironically? - doesn’t work so well in actual Rome.” Then she cupped his cheek in one palm and kissed him soundly, to wild cheers from the crowd at how he didn’t have to crane his neck up for once in his lives.
Of course, he couldn’t exactly crane his neck down either, but that was an accomplishment for another regeneration.