“I’ll tell you a secret: the Doctor isn’t interested in you unless you need them. And I don’t mean need them to carry your parcels or give you driving directions. I mean need them in a deep, aching, existential way. I mean you’re looking for a savior. They can’t resist. Not one. Single. Time.”
In comes Mum, carrying a tray of soup and tea that she sets down on the edge of the bed before she reaches over and feels Koschei’s forehead. “Someone told me you were feeling under the weather.”
“Aw, hey mum. You didn’t have to … my body’ll burn through it fast enough.”
Laura is one of a handful of people, exempting even Jack in Koschei’s present state of snarly, grouchy illness, that the patient in question would still treat with such gentleness. Butterscotch eyes soften at the sight of someone once emaciated, lost in her own horrified sorrow, now fleshed out, rosy cheeked and engaged in the act of nurturing.
“Okay, I. Suppose. That I could use a little help,” he reluctantly concedes.
“Yes, you could,” she says matter-of-factly. “Besides, it seems my natural-born son is incapable of illness anymore, so I’ll just have to dote on you all the more.” She helps him to sit up a little bit more in bed, fluffing his pillows and tucking the blankets around him. “So what’ll it be first? Soup or tea? And don’t worry, I got the soup from a sweet little cafe in a little town in Italy, so it’s actually edible as I can’t make rice without burning it.”
Koschei laughs huskily; it induces a coughing spell, which he struggles to sit up and ease. He struggles for breath, and when he finds it, his smile resurfaces.
“You say that about Sam almost accusatorially. But I know what you mean. It makes him so bloody cocky sometimes. Suppose it’s why he never gets even a single drop of acne. Oh, who’m I joking? He was always that gorgeous, wasn’t he?”
He rolls his eyes, and catches her hand, and simply holds it, comforted by the presence of an inalienably benevolent being.
“I love your burned rice. But I’m famished. Soup, please.”
“She always has me. She always did, she always does, she always will.”
No matter what; that’s my blessing and my curse.
“Rose, I killed myself for her. She’s dangerous. She has power over people that I, with my ‘pretentious’ title and my crimes, things that I KNOW you know of, from the look on your face when I said my name, could only DREAM to possess. She makes people think they can be ‘heroes,’ doesn’t she? She ‘inspires’ them to suicidal acts–trust me, I KNOW–because she’s ever so eloquent, ever so clever, and then once she’s transformed them such that they don’t fit the mold they were born into anymore, she turns ‘round and RUNS, and leaves them to be hurt, like exposed nerves, like … planting a flower in winter and expecting its beauty to last when you set it outside the greenhouse. And THEY clean up the mess, don’t they? DON’T they?”
Don’t WE?
But it’s in that moment that the Master realizes none of this is Rose’s fault. Rose is collateral, like he is collateral, like the constellation of bright faces from the Doctor’s long twisted history with Earth are collateral.
A peculiar sense of camaraderie sprouts from that epiphany: this girl is owed what information he can provide.
“Yes, she’s a woman now. Five foot six, blonde with brown roots, hazel eyes, dresses like a bloody hipster, has the whole Holzmann from Ghostbusters vibe.”
“yeah. they DO. ”we do. it’s an odd sort of camaraderie they’ve built from being burned by the doctor — tentative&.fragile(&.oh, she can already imagine the looks of judgement from her coworkers if she ever made the mistake of mentioning that too ). it was a jaded way of looking at the doctor’s influence on people, sure, but that didn’t make it any less TRUE or painful to experience firsthand. “ she picks you up &. makes you FALL IN LOVE with her &. then drops you back off when you can’t possibly go back to who you were. ”
&. the WORST part?it was worth it.
sarah jane was right too. some things were worth the heartbreak. the doctor was one of those. “ tell ya what, though. i wouldn’t change any of it. dangerous as she is… as much as it hurts when she picks up &.LEAVES… something tells me you wouldn’t either. ” hell, he’d just as much said so himself.
god, they really were quite the pair together, weren’t they?blondes( of a sort ) with brown eyes who were both hopelessly GONEfor the doctor. rose had never expected having so much in common with the infamous master, but knowing it all put so much into perspective.
&. his description of her now makes her SMILE — really smile.
“sounds about right. ” that made it her third regeneration, then, if clive had his order right. remembering the picture of her running away from a giant frog in front of buckingham palace, rose stifles a giggle &. the urge to ask if that’s happened yet or not. NOT THE TIME. teasing, on the other hand, there was ALWAYS time for. “ could be worse, really. at least she’s not dressed like a picnic this time around. ”
“Hoh, GOD. Am I that transparent these days?”
The magma in his eyes dims. In its place there’s a soft kindled hearth glow, which belies his truest, innermost feelings. He averts his eyes to the ground, because he knows how predictable his turns in mood are, when the Doctor is the subject of discussion.
“ … she’s my best friend. No one’s ever understood me but her. Sentimental drivel, but every syllable the truth. Yes. I’d do it all again. A thousand times.”
He shifts weight, a tiger on its haunches crammed in a cage by its own affection. And he breathes a laugh, examining Rose again sidelong.
“You’ve a disarming aura. Normally that’d raise my hackles. I hope you recognize the privilege here.”
It’s his aloof, arrogant way of voicing what she’s already thinking.
“But seriously. I’ve read all about you, Rose. Years back, when I did the whole Harold Saxon schtick. ‘Know thine enemy’ and all that. But we’ve no need to be enemies now, do we? She doesn’t forget anyone she leaves behind. She just … thinks they’re better off without her meddling, or that what they have to teach her, or she to teach them, has run its course. And she’s restless. Perpetually kinetic. But she misses you. All of you, I know, I’m up enough nights with her agonizing over it, her psyche just … writhing in pain and guilt … but you were special, believe me. You should come ‘round sometime. Pop in for a drink. Call me for coordinates, if you see something unusual on the telly, and wonder if it’s the Doctor’s doing. I can be a buffer if you get awkward. I’m quite good at ‘blowhard,’ you might imagine.”
He smiles wryly.
“You’re wondering why I’d do this. Share her. Because I love her, Rose. Just like you said.”
She is sleepy and ever so content beside her best friend and husband. Nothing in the universe could make her happier than these precious, quiet moments with him. Koschei pulls her closer and she elicits a soft, gentle hum, nuzzling closer and smiling in response to his kisses.
“Mmn, good morning to you too…”
“Hmmhmhmmmmmn …”
He rolls her over lazily, and finds her lips with his own, without even opening his eyes, and kisses her as one savors a bracing meal.
“I dunno if it’s morning or not,” he drawls, “but it is very. Very. Good.”
FIXED! He did it! He bluffed having ANY sort of medical expertise, and he fixed his stepchild’s shoulder! Why, this is the most glorious day in the Master’s life! He could become a bloodyparamedic! He could do ANYTHING he set his mind to!
He–!
Oh.
“Oh, golly. Yeah, sorry about that. Anesthesia, right.”
He scurries to draw a syringe full of aspirin-free painkiller, which he injects into Ophelia’s vein.
“Er, that’ll take the edge off.”
Ophelia watched his expression change and couldn’t help but smirk through the pain. “Now you’ve realized it. Bit too late. That’s suppose to go before you do the painful bit.”
The girl winced as the needle was put in her vein, glancing away until it was gone.
“You know… we don’t have to tell Dad about this. We can just say I just walked into a door or something. I don’t want you getting in trouble because I’m not coordinated.”
“Oh, right, SURE, brilliant scheme, and then later he’ll find out because on a good day he’s cleverer than either of us, and then it’ll compound his grouchiness tenfold that we kept a secret!”
Though the Master is indubitably terrifying, but right now he comes across as a fussy fishmonger’s wife. He pushes gently on Ophelia’s chest.
Koschei looks up from his favorite lounging spot, naked, on Jack’s chest, leeching his warmth like a cat does a spot of sun, and the dictionary definition of smug.
“Flattery may get you everywhere but don’t expect me to want to move anywhere anytime soon, regardless.”
Koschei gulps back a guffaw; he kneels and takes his daughter’s nearest foot in one hand, pretending to examine every digit thoroughly. He takes care to tickle them too, before sneaking a conspiratorial grin up at his baby girl.
“Not exactly. It’s quite alright, luv. I’ll tell you a secret; you’re meant to have one big toe, and four little ones, on each foot. It’s a most marvelous part of being part Gallireyan. And guess what? You have the most wonderful little toes I have ever seen. Toes that could conquer the universe.”
Rose can’t know that her words are a sharp backhand across the face. Or perhaps she can, and she conceals her schadenfreude considerably well, but that’s the rub: the Master highly doubts she has any notion of how dismissive she’s being. Her compassion is legendary.
No, she can’t know what she’s confirmed. While the Doctor literally crafted the Master like a chisel to marble with a single childhood act of (understandable, so bloody understandable) selfishness, and another single adulthood act of (understandable, so bloody understandable) abandonment … . in the reverse, the Master is just one of many important people in the Doctor’s orbit, relegated to a place of convenience when all other options have grown too angry, disillusioned, or hurt by the Doctor’s actions. The slight owes little to the Doctor having thought himself the last of his kind in Rose’s company. After all, who can justify failing to ever mention an old friend, or a notorious enemy? Even once, over a fire, for nostalgia’s sake?
God, there are moments when the Master can fool himself that the Doctor is as infatuated with him as he is with her.
This is not one of those moments.
So wounded is he by Rose’s casual brush-off that he scarcely registers the intentional insult that follows. He staggers for dignity, scrambling for a riposte, cheeks on fire.
“Well, my dear, that … happens to be the currency of Time Lords: we are affected and vain.”
He smiles thinly.
“It would seem that you could ask her all these things inperson.”
oh.
it occurs to her ( rather too late to properly do anything about it, of course ) that she’s just said entirely the WRONG thing to him. worse than that, even, she’d gone beyond the sort of cheeky rudeness that had ( for the MOST part ) been intentional &. ventured into the cruel. his deflation is visible, &. the sheer amount of emotion &.history that he confirms in that one-word response tugs at her heart.
she knows exactly what it’s like to be &. feel abandoned by the doctor. she remembers looking at sarah jane &. realizing that THAT was the sort of future she had to look forward to — being left, forgotten, &.never mentioned again — &.lashing out at the woman as a result of it. while she by no means knows the full extent of the master’s relationship with the doctor, it’s fair to say that there’s even MORE history there than there had been with her&. the doctor, &. she’d just put him in the same position.
sarah jane. france. pete’s universe. the metacrisis. if there was oneDARK TRUTH that she’s been forced to confront about the doctor, it was that they had a nasty little habit of leaving people &.never looking back.
rose itches to apologize for the unintended slight, but since she doesn’t know how without putting the master in even MORE of an awkward position already, she dons a tentative ( if slightly forced) smile &. opts for the only other route she can think of.
pretending it hadn’t happened ENTIRELY.
“ ‘m probably the LAST person she’d want to see. you know how the doctor is. doesn’t like to look back. ”&. even if she did, there’d be questions that rose just didn’tknow how to answer. they’d made their choice in leaving her with the metacrisis. wasn’t it for the best if that was where the doctor thought she was, still?god knows the TRUTH would break her heart.
“ ‘sides. she has you now… doesn’t she?” at least, that was the vibe she’d gotten from the brief interaction. whatever issues they’d had before, rose imagines they’d resolved MOST of them already, at least besides the ones she’d unintentionally dredged back up. “ you’re very different than wha’ i expected. unit talks, but you’re… ”
softer. not something so black &. white as ‘good’ now ( even the doctors she’d known hadn’t been all good, though she liked to think they at least tried to be ), but the master SHE’D been told about would have lashed out at her for her slight, not deflated as if disappointed but resigned to a rather harsh reality.
“ ‘m glad she has you. ”
He laughs bitterly now.
“She always has me. She always did, she always does, she always will.”
No matter what; that’s my blessing and my curse.
“Rose, I killed myself for her. She’s dangerous. She has power over people that I, with my ‘pretentious’ title and my crimes, things that I KNOW you know of, from the look on your face when I said my name, could only DREAM to possess. She makes people think they can be ‘heroes,’ doesn’t she? She ‘inspires’ them to suicidal acts–trust me, I KNOW–because she’s ever so eloquent, ever so clever, and then once she’s transformed them such that they don’t fit the mold they were born into anymore, she turns ‘round and RUNS, and leaves them to be hurt, like exposed nerves, like … planting a flower in winter and expecting its beauty to last when you set it outside the greenhouse. And THEY clean up the mess, don’t they? DON’T they?”
Don’t WE?
But it’s in that moment that the Master realizes none of this is Rose’s fault. Rose is collateral, like he is collateral, like the constellation of bright faces from the Doctor’s long twisted history with Earth are collateral.
A peculiar sense of camaraderie sprouts from that epiphany: this girl is owed what information he can provide.
“Yes, she’s a woman now. Five foot six, blonde with brown roots, hazel eyes, dresses like a bloody hipster, has the whole Holzmann from Ghostbusters vibe.”
[ Closed Starter For @masterfulxrhythm – Welcome To The Dark Side Dearie ]
Today was going to be one of those days, he could already tell.
Not only had the TARDIS been decidedly non-communicative for the past four hours, hiding herself away in the farthest recesses of the mainframe, but he’d gotten a rather execrable knot in the pit of his stomach that he just couldn’t seem to shake. Normally during those times he would seek out a room to destroy, to tear apart until the feeling went away. Other times he would venture out of the ship and seek out a less-than-willing participant to bear the brunt of his darkest rage. There were times he even sought out means to harm himself.
This day though the ship had seen fit to hide every doorway in every corridor, leaving him to just the control room and when he’d attempted to simply exit the ship, she’d refused that to him as well. After a few rounds with the mallet to her controls the TARDIS had still refused to cooperate, so whatever it was that had gotten into her, it was clear it wasn’t going away until he chose to listen. He rarely did, and normally she did what he asked without question so this… was rather unprecedented, and he was less than amused by it.
Long, pale fingers tapped anxiously against the edge of the console unit as he stared at the space-time coordinates the ship had projected onto one of the navigational monitors, wanting nothing more than to ignore her suggestions. He didn’t do that anymore, he didn’t help people, he didn’t respond to S.O.S. signals or requests for ‘The Doctor’s’ presence. He wasn’t the Doctor anymore, after all- he was just Theta Sigma. Just a retired Time Lord sick and bloody tired of being the punchline to every Universal joke. Yes, he’d made mistakes but he’d attempted to fix them, to become a better man, a newer man, and it had done n o t h i n g. The ship hummed insistently, adding to the din inside of his mind and causing him to wince.
“Fine… FINE!”
Cursing in Gallifreyan he let out a growling huff and set the coordinates, moving around the console unit as he muttered to himself, sending the ship out of its’ spot in the clouds in Victorian London, through the Vortex, and off to wherever-in-Rassilon’s-name she wanted to go. Once the ship was fully materialized he pushed off from the console and spun in a circle, glaring up at the time rotor before stalking toward the doors, grabbing his jacket in the process.
“There. Are you happy now? Ay? Infernal time machine… I’d scrap you for parts if I weren’t so use to having my own living space! I swear if this is one of those ’Doctor’ bits you keep attempting to force on me, I’m turning you around and detaching your automatic controls.”
He yanked the doors open and stepped out, scanning the area, a scowl on his face.
He loves the finality of bodies hitting hard surfaces.
The Master loves to watch the final impotent exercise in futility, as a foe’s form wriggles and writhes like a worm on a hook and finally falls slack in blissful lifelessness. It’s nearly as grand as watching an enemy’s skin blister as he burns.
He loves these things without pretense, needy and ironically abject as an addict standing in the rain begging strangers for a lighter.
He loves them, and he indulges every whim to a new fix, the longer the epicenter of his life is skewed off course: the longer the Doctor is no more.
It’s rare that he feels that darkness existing palpably outside his own mind. But he feels the rage radiating from above his head, and it is raining on Mondas, raining on the corpses of the government agents that rose against him for his tyranny and died. Raining off the blood on his face and mouth and hands, raining a deluge so forceful that he nearly cannot see the blue box materializing on the muddy slippery hill overlooking the most populated platform of the ship.
The Master’s feet carry him upwards, until he’s waiting outside the TARDIS door for the man who steps out; without having ever seen this long thin face, he knows his oldest friend; the miasma of violent darkness radiating off of the Doctor, however, that is new, and it is intoxicating.
He is impenitently aroused.
“Oh, you … are … . beautiful,” he breathes, snatching out a hand, cupping the Doctor’s jaw harshly, appraising the old friend who has sunken into the quicksand beside him. “A Doctor without hope: you are a black hole. I feel that I am standing inches from death and I would nearly pitch myself over the ledge into oblivion just for the pleasure of the fall.”
Icarus 