The Master Throws a Party
“Honey, I’m home!” The faded blue doors to the battered police box were flung open as the Master sang the words out. The TARDIS didn’t deign to reply, and it was with a theatrical sigh that he turned around and closed the doors with exaggerated patience.
“Now what did I tell you about my coming home? Dinner, piping hot on the table, at six sharp.” He paused in thought halfway up the ramp to the console, hand on his chin and hip cocked in a parody of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker.’ “That’s when these humans eat, isn’t it?” He shrugged, and then bounded the rest of the way up the ramp.
“Come on, dear. You know I love you just as much as he ever could. Probably more-and you know I’m willing to show it.” He lightly ran a hand along the console as he slowly walked around it, caressing the coral and metal before suddenly jerking his hand back. “You minx! No foreplay before supper!”
He shrugged his suit coat off, throwing it behind him without a glance as he gazed upwards along the glowing green of the time rotor. “You and I could do wonderful things together, you know. If you’d just let me….”
The green glow blinked out.
“Oh, very well then,” he said, exasperatedly. Dancing to music only he could hear, the Master kicked first one shoe off, then the other, feet launching them into graceful arcs across the cavernous room. Another light stroke of hand against one of the coral struts, a quick spin, and then a jump into the battered yellow vinyl of the chair along one of the rails lining the edge of the centre grating. He stretched his legs out, his stockinged feet just reaching the edge of the console.
“Bloody git has longer legs than I do,” he muttered. He scooted forwards on the ripped upholstery, arms draped across the back of the much-abused chair, before once more propping his feet up. Shifting a bit more, he was finally comfortable and tilted his head back to look up at the roundels and struts arching gracefully above his head.
“Well, my darling. Oh!” he giggled. “I can’t call you that anymore, can I? The wife might get jealous!” He paused. “Wife! Wifey-lifey-strifey! They’d just die if they knew!” He broke into full laughter, doubling over as the guffaws consumed him, before his mood once again shifted. “Bit of a pain, really, but she does have her uses…and she’s always good for a laugh…”
He once again tilted his head back, eyes closed and a graceful smile on his lips. On any other man, it would be an angelic look; on this one, it was menacing.
Having a wife had been a part of the plan all along-finding someone who had the wit to see his Grand Vision was a bonus. Lucy had been an unexpected find, the product of years of the class-conscious intermarriage that had permeated English society for millennia. The lack of diversity in her genealogy had rendered her pretty, a bit dim-and quite a bit mad. She was perfect, and he was surprised to find he actually cared for her.. How very…Doctor-ish of him. He giggled again.
“Well, my dear. How can we help my darling little human celebrate the passage of yet another year in her tiny little life?” He sat up, looking at the time rotor as though expecting an answer. There was a slight hum-if one were inclined to anthropomorphize a ship, it could have been called reluctant-and the Master grinned in response.
“A birthday party? How very…quaint.” He jumped up and slapped his hand against the console. “I love it! The sort of meaningless grand gesture that they love down here.” He leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper. “And it’ll do wonders for my popularity.”
He twirled away from the console and-once more dancing to a tune only he could hear-made his way through one of the many doors in the room.
The TARDIS led him down a few hallways, just to be contrary, he knew. “Now, now,” he said, loudly, as he opened a few random doors, revealing only intensely crowded broom closets. “How am I supposed to throw Lucy a birthday party-dear, sweet, innocent, human, little Lucy, my beloved, darling, adored, faithful companion-if I cannot locate any birthday party decorations?”
The Master tried another door, and cried, “Aha!” in triumph, as it opened on a relatively small room strewn untidily with coloured streamers and balloons waiting to be inflated, packages of glittering confetti and noise-makers and silly party hats and cheap paper tablecloths and ludicrous sets of paper plates and cups and utensils.
The Master bounded into the room and enthusiastically kicked a package of napkins. “Could have been a footballer, you know,” he remarked. “But I thought it would be more fun to rule the universe.” The hum of the TARDIS shifted slightly, and the Master frowned. “Well, I will rule the universe,” he informed her, viciously. “Now this room’s a mess. Couldn’t you have tidied up for me a bit?”
There was no humming response. The Master sighed heavily. “You,” he said, picking up a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game and examining it closely, “are sulky, you know that? He let you get away with too much.” The Master picked up one of the noise-makers, stuck it in his mouth, and blew. Then he took it out of his mouth and giggled, delighted with the sound. “For instance,” he continued, enjoying an exaggerated enunciation of the words, “you have never let me find his bedroom.” The Master perched a party hat atop his head. “And don’t pretend he doesn’t have a bedroom, that’s just the sort of stupid human thing he would have. Probably pretended to sleep eight hours a night, too.”
The TARDIS remained silent. The Master decided to ignore the fact that she was ignoring him. “I don’t pretend with Lucy. I hate that pretending folderol. Now, what do little humans like? Do you think Lucy would like some confetti?” The Master examined a few packages with interest. “Did I ever tell you what happened when Lucy first figured out I had two hearts? I’ll tell you what happened! She said, ‘You have two hearts,’ and I said-" Here the Master lowered his voice to his customary talking-to-Lucy pitch-of-seduction-“’Yes, two hearts,’ and Lucy-Well, I don’t want to make you jealous, my dear…” The Master ran his hand lingeringly over the nearest wall of the TARDIS, and then grinned. “Let’s just say that she helped me practice my penmanship.” The Master laughed at his brilliant euphemism, then kicked a packet of paper plates. “Goooooooooooal!” he proclaimed, gleefully, as he danced around.
He began collecting supplies, moving them to the console room via a surprisingly direct route. “Tired of me already, are you? Ungrateful wretch.” He shouted the last, determined to get some sort of reaction out of the ship. The TARDIS continued to ignore him. “I could make you so much more-so much! I would appreciate you, let you do things you could never dream of. You realize what we could do together, the two of us?” He danced back into the party supply room, hand trailing along the walls. “You’ve adopted as many silly notions as he has, with your misguided loyalty to the renegade. And so, I’ll have to teach you a lesson, I think.”
The lights dimmed dangerously, making the Master’s grin seem even more ominous. He grabbed one of the party hats from the pile of supplied and set it on at a jaunty angle. “I think someone needs to get into the party spirit.”
Rolling up his sleeves, he reached for one of the small boxes of party decorations and began singing.
Oh the boy’s a slag
The best you ever had
The best you ever had
Is just a memory and those dreams
Weren’t as daft as they seem
Not as daft as they seem
My love when you dream them up…
Continuing to sing, he proceeded to decorate the small room. Streamers were draped across struts and dangled from every nook and cranny; balloons were inflated and sellotaped to the wall; confetti was thrown upwards by the fistful, until it looked like the room had been hit by a blizzard of coloured bits of paper. The hat had slipped off at some point, and speckles of the confetti spotted the Master’s dishevelled hair as he stopped singing and stood back to survey his handiwork. He beamed. “There you are, old girl! We’ll be sure to come back after the party and take full advantage of the services you have to offer. The floor’s as good as a bed, after all, and I think Lucy would just love to work both of my hearts out in this room. Practice makes perfect, after all, and penmanship is very important.” He grinned, picking up a noisemaker and giving it a quick ‘toot’ before throwing it over his shoulder.
He skipped out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him before making his way back to the console room. Grabbing his jacket from where it had landed earlier, he proceeded down to the exterior doors. The TARDIS had piled the party supplies directly next to them, and the Master smirked. “Aren’t you just precious when you’re jealous?” He once more lightly stroked the wall before opening the door and moving the supplies to the room outside.
He sighed; he hated houses with their four walls and their windows and carpets and….permanence. He’d be so glad when this charade could end and he could go back to travelling, surveying his dominion with his eager companion by his side. And she was eager--amazingly so. He once again marvelled at his incredible luck in finding her. He’d thought he’d found the perfect woman for his needs right after his arrival, and had been surprisingly upset to find she pined for some obscure British actor. She’d amused him with her droll wit and so, despite her shunning his advances, he’d let her live. The Universe had rewarded his kindness by having him stumble across the oh-so-willing Lucy shortly thereafter.
Lucy, who should be returning shortly from whatever it was she did during the day. He’d best get cracking.
To be honest, exactly what he was supposed to do to have a birthday party was a bit beyond him. He thought possibly there were supposed to be guests, but to have guests, he’d have to invite people, and the thought of that was so unappetizing that he wrinkled his nose violently and decided against it. Decorations, he decided, would surely be enough. Especially the lovely decorations the TARDIS had so kindly provided.
The Master leaped around the room, trailing confetti and streamers behind him in the same haphazard fashion with which he had decorated the TARDIS, with results that he deemed tremendously artistic. He had put on another party hat and was ripping open another bag of confetti when Lucy walked in. The confetti and streamers now lay thickly on the polished wood floor, like violently coloured snowdrifts. Lucy looked at them with the same unblinking acceptance that she viewed everything he did.
The Master blew the noisemaker he had in his mouth, and then removed it as he bounded over to Lucy. “Happy birthday!” he exclaimed, performing a complicated twirling dance step between the decorations that put him in a perfect position to end by kissing her.
Lucy looked up at him adoringly. “This is for my birthday?”
“Of course it’s for your birthday, my darling!” Hands in hers, he swung her about the room, kicking streamers out of their way as they went. The streamers launched into the air, fluttering downward slowly. “What else would it be? What do you fancy? For a birthday gift? A turn in the TARDIS? I’ve decorated a room in there, too.”
Lucy’s eyes shone. “Oh, Harry,” she said, letting go of his hands so she could slide her arms around his neck.
He grinned. “Come on, then. I’ve a pen that could do with some use. I think it could be used for some rather impressive calligraphy.” Still grinning, he led Lucy out of the room, dancing a bit as he sang. Remember when the boys were all electric…
“Now what did I tell you about my coming home? Dinner, piping hot on the table, at six sharp.” He paused in thought halfway up the ramp to the console, hand on his chin and hip cocked in a parody of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker.’ “That’s when these humans eat, isn’t it?” He shrugged, and then bounded the rest of the way up the ramp.
“Come on, dear. You know I love you just as much as he ever could. Probably more-and you know I’m willing to show it.” He lightly ran a hand along the console as he slowly walked around it, caressing the coral and metal before suddenly jerking his hand back. “You minx! No foreplay before supper!”
He shrugged his suit coat off, throwing it behind him without a glance as he gazed upwards along the glowing green of the time rotor. “You and I could do wonderful things together, you know. If you’d just let me….”
The green glow blinked out.
“Oh, very well then,” he said, exasperatedly. Dancing to music only he could hear, the Master kicked first one shoe off, then the other, feet launching them into graceful arcs across the cavernous room. Another light stroke of hand against one of the coral struts, a quick spin, and then a jump into the battered yellow vinyl of the chair along one of the rails lining the edge of the centre grating. He stretched his legs out, his stockinged feet just reaching the edge of the console.
“Bloody git has longer legs than I do,” he muttered. He scooted forwards on the ripped upholstery, arms draped across the back of the much-abused chair, before once more propping his feet up. Shifting a bit more, he was finally comfortable and tilted his head back to look up at the roundels and struts arching gracefully above his head.
“Well, my darling. Oh!” he giggled. “I can’t call you that anymore, can I? The wife might get jealous!” He paused. “Wife! Wifey-lifey-strifey! They’d just die if they knew!” He broke into full laughter, doubling over as the guffaws consumed him, before his mood once again shifted. “Bit of a pain, really, but she does have her uses…and she’s always good for a laugh…”
He once again tilted his head back, eyes closed and a graceful smile on his lips. On any other man, it would be an angelic look; on this one, it was menacing.
Having a wife had been a part of the plan all along-finding someone who had the wit to see his Grand Vision was a bonus. Lucy had been an unexpected find, the product of years of the class-conscious intermarriage that had permeated English society for millennia. The lack of diversity in her genealogy had rendered her pretty, a bit dim-and quite a bit mad. She was perfect, and he was surprised to find he actually cared for her.. How very…Doctor-ish of him. He giggled again.
“Well, my dear. How can we help my darling little human celebrate the passage of yet another year in her tiny little life?” He sat up, looking at the time rotor as though expecting an answer. There was a slight hum-if one were inclined to anthropomorphize a ship, it could have been called reluctant-and the Master grinned in response.
“A birthday party? How very…quaint.” He jumped up and slapped his hand against the console. “I love it! The sort of meaningless grand gesture that they love down here.” He leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper. “And it’ll do wonders for my popularity.”
He twirled away from the console and-once more dancing to a tune only he could hear-made his way through one of the many doors in the room.
The TARDIS led him down a few hallways, just to be contrary, he knew. “Now, now,” he said, loudly, as he opened a few random doors, revealing only intensely crowded broom closets. “How am I supposed to throw Lucy a birthday party-dear, sweet, innocent, human, little Lucy, my beloved, darling, adored, faithful companion-if I cannot locate any birthday party decorations?”
The Master tried another door, and cried, “Aha!” in triumph, as it opened on a relatively small room strewn untidily with coloured streamers and balloons waiting to be inflated, packages of glittering confetti and noise-makers and silly party hats and cheap paper tablecloths and ludicrous sets of paper plates and cups and utensils.
The Master bounded into the room and enthusiastically kicked a package of napkins. “Could have been a footballer, you know,” he remarked. “But I thought it would be more fun to rule the universe.” The hum of the TARDIS shifted slightly, and the Master frowned. “Well, I will rule the universe,” he informed her, viciously. “Now this room’s a mess. Couldn’t you have tidied up for me a bit?”
There was no humming response. The Master sighed heavily. “You,” he said, picking up a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game and examining it closely, “are sulky, you know that? He let you get away with too much.” The Master picked up one of the noise-makers, stuck it in his mouth, and blew. Then he took it out of his mouth and giggled, delighted with the sound. “For instance,” he continued, enjoying an exaggerated enunciation of the words, “you have never let me find his bedroom.” The Master perched a party hat atop his head. “And don’t pretend he doesn’t have a bedroom, that’s just the sort of stupid human thing he would have. Probably pretended to sleep eight hours a night, too.”
The TARDIS remained silent. The Master decided to ignore the fact that she was ignoring him. “I don’t pretend with Lucy. I hate that pretending folderol. Now, what do little humans like? Do you think Lucy would like some confetti?” The Master examined a few packages with interest. “Did I ever tell you what happened when Lucy first figured out I had two hearts? I’ll tell you what happened! She said, ‘You have two hearts,’ and I said-" Here the Master lowered his voice to his customary talking-to-Lucy pitch-of-seduction-“’Yes, two hearts,’ and Lucy-Well, I don’t want to make you jealous, my dear…” The Master ran his hand lingeringly over the nearest wall of the TARDIS, and then grinned. “Let’s just say that she helped me practice my penmanship.” The Master laughed at his brilliant euphemism, then kicked a packet of paper plates. “Goooooooooooal!” he proclaimed, gleefully, as he danced around.
He began collecting supplies, moving them to the console room via a surprisingly direct route. “Tired of me already, are you? Ungrateful wretch.” He shouted the last, determined to get some sort of reaction out of the ship. The TARDIS continued to ignore him. “I could make you so much more-so much! I would appreciate you, let you do things you could never dream of. You realize what we could do together, the two of us?” He danced back into the party supply room, hand trailing along the walls. “You’ve adopted as many silly notions as he has, with your misguided loyalty to the renegade. And so, I’ll have to teach you a lesson, I think.”
The lights dimmed dangerously, making the Master’s grin seem even more ominous. He grabbed one of the party hats from the pile of supplied and set it on at a jaunty angle. “I think someone needs to get into the party spirit.”
Rolling up his sleeves, he reached for one of the small boxes of party decorations and began singing.
Oh the boy’s a slag
The best you ever had
The best you ever had
Is just a memory and those dreams
Weren’t as daft as they seem
Not as daft as they seem
My love when you dream them up…
Continuing to sing, he proceeded to decorate the small room. Streamers were draped across struts and dangled from every nook and cranny; balloons were inflated and sellotaped to the wall; confetti was thrown upwards by the fistful, until it looked like the room had been hit by a blizzard of coloured bits of paper. The hat had slipped off at some point, and speckles of the confetti spotted the Master’s dishevelled hair as he stopped singing and stood back to survey his handiwork. He beamed. “There you are, old girl! We’ll be sure to come back after the party and take full advantage of the services you have to offer. The floor’s as good as a bed, after all, and I think Lucy would just love to work both of my hearts out in this room. Practice makes perfect, after all, and penmanship is very important.” He grinned, picking up a noisemaker and giving it a quick ‘toot’ before throwing it over his shoulder.
He skipped out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him before making his way back to the console room. Grabbing his jacket from where it had landed earlier, he proceeded down to the exterior doors. The TARDIS had piled the party supplies directly next to them, and the Master smirked. “Aren’t you just precious when you’re jealous?” He once more lightly stroked the wall before opening the door and moving the supplies to the room outside.
He sighed; he hated houses with their four walls and their windows and carpets and….permanence. He’d be so glad when this charade could end and he could go back to travelling, surveying his dominion with his eager companion by his side. And she was eager--amazingly so. He once again marvelled at his incredible luck in finding her. He’d thought he’d found the perfect woman for his needs right after his arrival, and had been surprisingly upset to find she pined for some obscure British actor. She’d amused him with her droll wit and so, despite her shunning his advances, he’d let her live. The Universe had rewarded his kindness by having him stumble across the oh-so-willing Lucy shortly thereafter.
Lucy, who should be returning shortly from whatever it was she did during the day. He’d best get cracking.
To be honest, exactly what he was supposed to do to have a birthday party was a bit beyond him. He thought possibly there were supposed to be guests, but to have guests, he’d have to invite people, and the thought of that was so unappetizing that he wrinkled his nose violently and decided against it. Decorations, he decided, would surely be enough. Especially the lovely decorations the TARDIS had so kindly provided.
The Master leaped around the room, trailing confetti and streamers behind him in the same haphazard fashion with which he had decorated the TARDIS, with results that he deemed tremendously artistic. He had put on another party hat and was ripping open another bag of confetti when Lucy walked in. The confetti and streamers now lay thickly on the polished wood floor, like violently coloured snowdrifts. Lucy looked at them with the same unblinking acceptance that she viewed everything he did.
The Master blew the noisemaker he had in his mouth, and then removed it as he bounded over to Lucy. “Happy birthday!” he exclaimed, performing a complicated twirling dance step between the decorations that put him in a perfect position to end by kissing her.
Lucy looked up at him adoringly. “This is for my birthday?”
“Of course it’s for your birthday, my darling!” Hands in hers, he swung her about the room, kicking streamers out of their way as they went. The streamers launched into the air, fluttering downward slowly. “What else would it be? What do you fancy? For a birthday gift? A turn in the TARDIS? I’ve decorated a room in there, too.”
Lucy’s eyes shone. “Oh, Harry,” she said, letting go of his hands so she could slide her arms around his neck.
He grinned. “Come on, then. I’ve a pen that could do with some use. I think it could be used for some rather impressive calligraphy.” Still grinning, he led Lucy out of the room, dancing a bit as he sang. Remember when the boys were all electric…