forgediinfire:

sclfmastery:

Angsty sentence starters.

      “HOW HAVE I NOT?!” 

With a single sweep of his arm, and a roar from the gut, the contents of his workbench clash and shatter.  

For the first time since Zinnia’s birth, Koschei is the Master, a fury brimming with explosive physical violence.  Entirely, irony of ironies, because of the Doctor’s accusations.  

     “I don’t UNDERSTAND, Thete!  Why this antagonism?  I give you every minute of every day of my life, if it’s not for you it’s for our baby, I let you coom and go as you please, cavort with any friends you LIKE, go on ‘SAVING’ people, one project after anootha to outrun, to outrun … that black hole in your chest, and I love even THAT part of you!  What else am I meant to DO?  I, I anonymously donated my own medical inventions to Martha Jones’s hospital; I wired Donna Noble’s husband a raise; I talked to Nyssa in disguise to help her cope over her father; I apologized, cried,  to Jo; I got Lucy in counseling; is it Bill? Because we haven’t found Bill yet.”

Frantically, he seizes her by the arms, and shakes her, once.

     “ANSWER ME, is it BILL?  Is that why you’re angry?  Is that why you’re DISAPPOINTED?  How am I NOT trying? TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” 

I am a tiger, I am an inferno, and I don’t know what to do.  

The Master’s fury is enough to make any storm seem pitiful in comparison, but the Doctor stands her ground as he rages like a howling wind. He shouts, upends his workbench and leaves the room an utter disaster, yet she stands there, staring at him with narrowed eyes and a frown line between her brows.

It’s only when he touches her that she reacts. His grip is violent and something she is utterly unused to when Koschei touches her. When the Master shakes her roughly, she shoves him away out of reflex, eyes flashing dangerously. 

              “Don’t TOUCH me!” 

A sick feeling forms in the pit of her stomach and she stares at him as if she doesn’t recognize her own husband. 

The tension in the room crackles as if with electric energy, but really this is an argument that is long in coming. And now that they’ve let it loose, it will take the force of both their wills to contain it.

             “You say you LET me come and go, as if I’m some sort of property,
              that what I do is even remotely up to you! Cavorting and saving people!
              Like it’s a bad thing!”

She glares at him and takes a step closer to him, every bit as intimidating as the Master in full fury.

              “It’s not just Bill! It’s everyone! Everyone you’ve ever hurt, the lives
               you’ve destroyed, the people you’ve killed! You’re trying to fix it,
               trying to be better, but when it’s not enough, you get angry!
               You smash things and go right back to the way you have always been!
               You get mad at me for having friends, for doing what
               I HAVE ALWAYS DONE.“

               “When will you see that it’s not just going to magically get better?
                There’s not going to be some COSMIC SCALE that suddenly tips
                 in your direction and absolves you of your crimes! I can’t even
                 do that for you, it’s YOU! You have to do it for yourself!
                Just like you tell me to when the guilt gets too much,
                but you can’t just SHOUT and BREAK THINGS
                when it doesn’t go your way!
                The truth of it is simple enough, Master.

                It all boils down to the same thing, over and over. 

                         You’re JEALOUS.”

Koschei is breathless with pain.  Horror tightens his features as he immediately drops his hands off his wife. 

      “I’m sorry, I’m …very sorry …” he gasps, feebly, stepping back, averting his eyes, the picture of submissive shame.  The mess of his lab is no longer testimony to his formidable ire, but rather, a mockery, a humiliating witness that he is raw and childish and stupid.  Everything about Koschei Oakdown that makes him a bad habit to hide; a disgrace to the name of Lungbarrow; an unfortunate chapter in a life best closed and shelved and abandoned and forgotten.  

None of this softens the Doctor, but then that’s one reason why he loves her so much. She is not soft. She is not nice.  Not always.  

She throttles him with words he never thought he’d hear. This, this, this is why he never fully relaxes, not months, not even years, into their reconciliation.  She goes about the verbal beating with dazzlingly systematic, efficient litigation.

      “That’s not what I meant… !”  he tries, but her volume and ferocity swallow his words. He’s in tears and he hates himself for it.  He hates himself, hates himself, his ugly fat baby face, his freak exuberance and enthusiasm and his weird tics and habits and his childish propensity to overwhelmed overstimulation; his idiot bouts of naivety; his egomaniacal overcompensation for being constantly scared shitless; god, can he really be such a disappointment?  What is the point of him?  

He treats her like a possession. 
{ No!  I meant I shouldn’t see you that way, and I was behaving accordingly! }
He sees her desire to save and fix the wounded and disenfranchised as a “bad thing.”
{ No!  I meant we’re at philosophical odds, yet I value your point of view, even if I don’t agree! } 
His efforts to do better are self-important.
{ No! I … }
His efforts to do better are simplistic and childish.  
{ I … }
His efforts to do better are lazy. 
{ … I …} 
He is pompous, tyrannical, and jealous. 
{ … . I am pompous … tyrannical … and jealous.}

Oh Doctor. The POWER you wield. 

       “I’m not …sure . .. what more you can  . .  . s … say to hurt me, but.  I don’t have what you have, I … don’t have … I don’t have the reference, or the skills, required to be desirable to many people.  And … and I don’t say that to excuse my behavior. I DON’T say it to fish for pity or even for forgiveness, but there are simply people in this world, Doctor, in this universe, who are not well equipped to be sources of goodness. Or comfort.  We are not built to deserve love.  And some of us are cursed with knowing that. Knowing that to our marrow, day in and out, no matter what we do to fight it.”

He smacks a hand over his chest, and swallows audibly.  

    “But I fight it anyway. I fight what I’m best at: I fight being jealous. I fight being notorious for the one thing I do right.

              I fight it for you. ”