Lock] I wouldn't save you from the path you wander. In desperation dreams any soul can set you free…
There's a refreshing chill to the Chicago air here on North Clark Street, compared to the unrelenting New Delhi warmth. The Master would like to enjoy it.
Unfortunately, he's here on business.
The cold is already biting into his skin more than his Time Lord nerves should allow - his body, his real body, not this Rift-designed degrading clone - ( Read more... )
Unfortunately, he's here on business.
The cold is already biting into his skin more than his Time Lord nerves should allow - his body, his real body, not this Rift-designed degrading clone - ( Read more... )
So much for that.
His shoulders are hunched inside his trenchcoat as he makes his way down the street - it's not the cold that's bothering him, but one could easily mistake it for that. It's not difficult to pick out the Master as he draws near, and he almost grimaces, seeing him. It's exactly the regeneration he thought, and that's not reassuring in the least.
You should be DEAD-
His steps slow a little as he gets closer, expression solemn and guarded. If the Master was expecting a warm welcome... well, he's clearly deluded, but he's also going to be sorely disappointed.
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Not that the Master would mention that. Never so baldly.
He smiles as the Doctor comes near, but it's a much quieter smile than one would think him capable of.
"Doctor." Over the centuries, he's learned how to layer meaning on those two simple syllables. Loathing, challenge, innuendo, wary respect...
Even warmth, once upon a time.
This time, however, he simply lets the name stand with a sort of quiet, almost pleased, recognition. It's a tone he hasn't used with the Doctor in a long time, not since...
Theta.Another ( ... )
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Instead, the Doctor glances down to the candy with a slight frown, and then back up to the Master's face, eyebrows raised, lips twisted into what might almost be a smile. "They're not... poisoned, are they?"
That would be... almost straightforward for the Master, but you never know.
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"Well, depending on your opinions on refined sugar..." He snaps a piece off, holding it up the the nearest lightpost before he crumbles it in his fingers. Looking back to the Doctor, he tosses the box to the ground. It lands upright, miraculously, though the one broken ribbon jolts out and onto the ground.
"So," he says, ambling in almost the Doctor's direction, aiming past him, looking along the skyline. "You've been making a name for yourself. Good for you. Killing Neqa'el, saving little Nephilim children, standing up to big, scary archangels. It's good, I suppose. I would have thought this city would get a little small for you."
He sniffs, raising his hand to examine the candy dust on his fingertips. After a moment's consideration, he tastes it.
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He forces a smile back onto his face, stubbornly cocksure, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "This city? Never! All these Rifts and creatures and angels and demons... It's good. Keeps me busy."
And it's got nothing to do with the fact that his ship's broken, or that if it weren't for certain people in Chicago, he'd have been off gallivanting around this planet, at least, ages ago.
The Doctor takes a step forward, toward him, tilting his head to one side. "And you? Did you hear about that name I'm making for myself and then come here, or was it the other way around?"
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It's not an obtrusive piece of work. It's a very conservative wire necklace, which even on a suit such as the Master is wearing wouldn't necessarily seem out of place.
"You say that as though you expect the two are somehow related," he says. Another moment he's turned, and the wire is hidden under his shirtcollar again. "Maybe I'm just taking a few moments out of a busy day to bring a Christmas gift to an old friend."
As though remembering what exactly he did with that gift, and grimaces on the box on the sidewalk. Well. At least a couple of the ribbons are still in the package, though he's not entirely convinced that the Doctor couldn't be convinced to eat the one on the pavement either.
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"And if that's the case, then you can leave. Now." His voice has the edge of a growl to it now, very faint but still just audible. He's not in the mood for this dancing about each other, not in the mood for any of this. "I really had hoped for a quiet Christmas, just once..."
The Master and quiet don't exactly go together. Not that he much wants the Master out of his sight either, set loose on the world... It's a problem for him, either way.
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"And you can have that, Doctor." He takes a step closer, looking directly into the Doctor's eyes. "You can have a very quiet Christmas and a happy New Year. Certain... negotiations..."
There's a rising pressure in the back of his mind which forces him to turn away, grit his teeth, dig his fingernails into the palms of this body-
He turns back soon. A headache isn't the most of his worries. A headache, given the usual pressures inside his mind, is a welcome companion.
"Should I call back at a better time?" he asks, taking another step. "Believe me, Doctor, this-"
And then he stops. Takes a moment to more completely study the Doctor's face, one of many faces he remembers, and...
He reaches up to study a beard line he's never been interested in having. It's infuriating, the yawn of empty space his mind won't fill in, almost as infuriating as the ( ... )
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He breaks off with a shake of his head, balling his hands into fists in his coat pockets. If he could just get one straight answer, for once... He drifts off, glancing down the street, watching the Master only from the corner of his eye - but his attention snaps quickly back when he says his name. His nickname. His hearts jump and tumble, for just a second, and the Doctor searches his face, not even sure what he's looking for.
He's sincere. That much is hard to miss - he means it, as much as the Master ever does, and that... is almost more worrying than a lie. Sympathy, concern rises for a moment, and is almost smothered. Sympathy doesn't end well for him, not here. Calisto, and Thane... It didn't exactly go well the last time with the Master, either. Whatever it is, the Doctor doesn't owe him anything, and if he just walked away now ( ... )
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How novel. Nauseating, true (unless that's just another sign of this body breaking down -- one never can tell), but novel all the same.
"Oh, I trust you'd find the conversations to be had there enlightening in the extreme." The emphasis he'd love to place on the word "trust" doesn't make it out, but there's a flicker of his eyes, a hint of tension in his jaw, that makes up for the conditioned smoothness of his tone.
It should, at least, serve as confirmation.
Again, the considering tilt of his head, the glint of silver. For someone as brilliant as you are, Doctor, you're hopelessly thick sometimes. They're already hoping to fit you for one of these.
Collared and broken, the Doctor does him no good. Not that the warning will stop him -- quite the contrary -- but if he's very lucky, it'll raise enough questions for the Doctor to have an idea of what he's dealing with.
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His expression softens a little and he steps forward to close most of the distance between them, one hand reaching up to whatever it is around the Master's neck. He doesn't touch it, quite, his fingers stopping a few inches away, but it's clear he's itching to do so, tear it apart and work out just what it is, what it does.
"What have they done to you?" It's almost gentle, and he doesn't say it, but a hint of that old pleading tone slips in, the same thing it always comes back to - I can help you, please, just let me... Maybe he really will, this time. Maybe this once...
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"I came through the Rift rather inconveniently injured," he says. "The locals were kind enough to see me taken care of."
Don't you suppose, he thinks, seething, that if I could tell you more, I would have? Idiot.
"I do mean it," he says. "You should come visit. It would be so refreshing to see an old friend."
Yes... Help me.
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He sighs a little, running his fingers through his hair again and glancing to the sky - it's not so much that he's interested in the clouds threatening rain or snow as that he just needs to look away from the Master for a moment, take a breath...
"I'd love to. Thing is, whenever I leave this city, bad things happen to it. Rather not walk away and find great piles of rubble when I come back..."
And it would be very difficult to get all the way to India without Martha or Des or Donna or someone finding out and stopping him. The less they know about this - and the less the Master and the Trust knows about them - the better.
"You're not leaving Chicago tomorrow, are you?" How long do I have to fix this before I have to chase you down? He can handle a deadline. He's very good with ticking clocks.
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But this is good. For his new, revised definition of good. So long as he has the Doctor fighting for him, his odds go up.
He can almost anticipate the Kashtta Trust burning.
"I'm here to make friends," he says. "Depending on how reluctant our friends are to being made... I'd give you at least through the New Year."
Longer, if he plays the good little Trust emissary. Goes above and beyond the call of amenability. Toadying to humans in order to buy the Doctor time to help him is apparently what he's been reduced to.
He takes some small comfort in the idea that, if the Doctor's really been stuck in this city all this time, perhaps the world's reduced him as well.
Of course, if he finds the Doctor insufficient to the task of freeing him, then that small comfort will be a large infuriation.
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"You... can't tell me who these friends of yours might be, can you?" He hasn't gotten very many easy answers so far, but he supposes it's worth asking. "...oh, tell me it doesn't have anything to do with anyone living in the Kashtta Tower right now."
There's no way that won't end with guns and bloodshed. And while the Master might enjoy that, it's not on the Doctor's list of preferred outcomes.
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But perhaps there's a way to do this without betraying the TrustHe studies the Doctor's face for a moment, with what could be taken for wariness. "...there's a criminal organization headquartered in this city whose branches have infiltrated almost every nation on the globe," he says. "In what I'm sure was a staggering act of imaginative prowess, they christened this organization 'The Organization.' The leader is a man named Adam Monroe; he seems to be a little quieter in this city than you've been ( ... )
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