Fic: Couples Therapy
Despite (and perhaps even because of) my bitterness, I decided to play with these two boys one last time before I pack them away.
Title: Couples Therapy
Author: Evilawyer
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ten/Simm!Master
Summary: The Doctor and the Master attend a couples therapy session.
Disclaimer: All characters in this work, all accept for Dr. G.... (she's mine, dammit!), belong to the BBC. I own no right, title or interest in any of said characters, I intend no infringement of any copyrights or trademarks held under US or international law, and I am not realizing any financial profit whatsoever from this work.
: In the midst of all my displeasure over the handling of D/M in The End of Time, Parts 1 and 2 (not to mention all the other issues I have about Ten's era in general), I remembered that, in real life, it is possible for two people to love each other not only until they're both constantly arguing old men, but so much that they literally can't live without each other. I give a little nod to the memory of W and J, the two men who showed me that. Also, to any doctorate or masters level couples therapists out there who may run across this, all I can say is --- I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Nothing was more tedious than waiting for first-time clients to show up for their initial appointment. They were always in denial about the need to attend, so they were always late. These ones, the couple Dr. Stein had referred, took the cake as far as tardiness, however. They were twenty-five --- no, make that twenty-seven --- minutes late for a sixty minute session. And sixty minutes really meant fifty minutes in a therapy session.
knock-knock-knock-knock
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga pushed herself up from her chair with her tentacles and slid on her single, gastropodal foot to the door. Opening it, she found herself face to face with her new clients. The tall, dark haired man in the rumpled suit and long brown coat was grinning like a madman; the shorter, bottle blond man dressed like a homeless person and stuffing his face with body parts from the family-sized bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken he held was acting like one.
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga did so love being a couples therapist.
“Hello! I'm the Doctor,” the Doctor announced loudly before Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga could even wave her antennae in greeting. He pointed at the Master, who was busy chomping on a chicken thigh. “This is the Master. Dr. Stein referred us. Said something about cultural differences between him and us getting in the way and that maybe the Master and I should see you, being as you're not human, either.” The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “Which is odd, because I get on quite well with humans, even though the Master usually turns homicidal around them.” He dropped his hand from his neck and put his hands in his trouser pockets. “Not sure why Dr. Stein didn't think he could understand us enough to help us just because of a few cultural differences,” he continued as he bounced lightly on his toes, a slight whine giving his voice a petulant tinge. “I mean, when you think about it, we look more human than most aliens. A lot of aliens out there look like big, slug-like...,” His comment went into an embarrassed stall when he took in Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's mollusk-like features.
“Maybe he thought he couldn't help us because he couldn't understand you,” the Master said as he cracked open the chicken bone he'd completely denuded of meat and sucked the marrow out. “Maybe his culture knows nothing of this thing called 'whinging' that you do so well.” He threw the fleshless, pulpless bone over his shoulder and dug into the bucket for another piece.
“The man must really love poultry,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga thought but, wisely, did not say.
“Sorry we're a bit late. Had to stop off to get a snack for my other half,” the Doctor announced with forced cheer as he ignored the Master's comment and subsequent glare. “Shall we come in? We could always reschedule if you don't have time to....”
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga immediately recognized the Doctor's tactic for exactly what it was --- an attempt to weasel out of attending couples therapy, although she thought that she should perhaps more charitably think of it as “avoidant behavior.” “No, please, come in,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga invited as she took the Doctor's hand in one of her more hand-like tentacles and shook it, gently drawing him into her office as she did so. “Please, sit down, won't you?”
The Master pushed his way inside Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's office ahead of the Doctor and moved to sit in the chair right next to the office door. It was the only chair near the door - all the other chairs were on the other side of the room. That would not do. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga knew from long experience that clients sitting on opposite sides of the room never helped the therapeutic process. “No, please, both of you sit here.” She motioned to the loveseat against the far wall. “The Intimator”, she liked to think of it as, since most couples couldn't sit on it without their thighs touching. The Doctor and the Master, however, were both so thin that they left a twelve inch gap between them when they sat down. Even still, they immediately scooted to opposite ends of the loveseat. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga made a mental note of this as she lowered herself into her chair.
“Surprise, surprise. It's all my fault we're late. He always blames me for everything,” the Master told Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga before turning to look at the Doctor. “We wouldn't have been late if you hadn't taken all that time visiting your old companions before you finally kick off. We've got, what, thirty minutes until you have to go back to your TARDIS and wail about having to regenerate? We'll accomplish so much in that time, I'm sure.
“Actually,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga corrected as she looked at the digital clock on the small sidetable next to her, “we have twenty-one minutes. We can make the second session longer than an hour, if you like.” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga never extended an initial session to accommodate her clients' tardiness. It set the wrong tone. This was serious work, and it was important to establish boundaries and rules at the outset.
“What about you,” the Doctor asked the Master, clearly not having heard a word Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga had said. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga sighed. First-time clients never wanted to hear that she wasn't going to give them the full fifty minutes because they had been late. It clashed with their sense of entitlement, which the two men in front of her appeared to have in spades.
The Doctor forged on, oblivious to Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's disenchantment. “It's not like you were ready and waiting for me. I had to wait until you found a way back from the time lock...”
“Oh, yes, and your concern for my fate on my plunge toward virtual death was so touching. Made me feel all warm and tingly inside,” the Master interrupted with all the subtle sarcasm a sixteen year old girl telling her parents she really would rather spend the day hanging wallpaper at Aunt Rosalie's than going to the mall with her sixteen year old girlfriends to watch sixteen year old boys. “Oh, no, hold on a tick. You didn't even notice I was gone! Sorry. Silly me,” he added, just to make sure the Doctor knew he was being sarcastic. In the Master's experience, sarcasm usually went right over the Doctor's head.
“...which I knew you'd do because you always escape miraculously,” the Doctor continued. “Then I had to wait while you raided the TARDIS kitchen and ate everything you could get your hands on. Right pig, you were, and complaining all the while about how hungry you were.”
“I'm still hungry,” the Master spit --- literally, as globs of spittle and little bits of chicken spewed out of his mouth along with his words. “I could eat and eat and eat. Cakes and pies and turkey and goose with all the fat dripping down and huge roasts of beef with the blood drooling out and...”
“Really,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga marveled. “You don't look like you eat much of anything. You must have an incredibly high metabolic rate.” She tried to not let any of the envy she felt come out in her voice. She herself could not so much as look at one of the small pieces of coffeecake that always seemed to be nestled tantalizingly in the pastry case of her local Starchuck's without packing on the pounds; she had long since accepted that she was destined to never enjoy such sweet delights with her creamless, sugarless coffee.
“It's a recent development,” the Doctor explained. “He's come back from the time lock not complaining about his drums and seeming a little less crazy, but he's still eating to excess. And he's not as thin as all that. The black jeans and black hoodie make him look a bit, well, gaunt, really, especially when he's got his hood up over his head, but he actually has a bit more meat on him than you might guess.”
The Master stopped chewing and looked daggers at the Doctor. “Are you saying that I'm fat?”
The Doctor kept on talking. “I'm thinking it may be a clue as to why he's running around killing people. This time, anyway.”
The Master rolled his eyes ceiling-ward, then lowered his head and looked at the Doctor. “Maybe it's a clue that I'm feeling so unloved that I have to turn to food for affection, Doctor So-Quick-to-Judge. What's your excuse for committing genocide on your own people? Again?” The Master hugged his bucket of chicken to his chest and shifted his torso so that his back was to the Doctor.
The Doctor opened his mouth to respond, but Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga jumped in before he could speak. “Are you?”
Realizing he had possibly said too much, the Master frowned. “Am I what?”
“Feeling unloved?”
“If I was, it wouldn't make me weak or pathetic, you know,” the Master said truculently.
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga knew a gold vein begging to be mined when she saw one. She wasn't about to let the Master's non-answer go unexplored. “Why do you say that?”
This, apparently, was not a question the Master was prepared to answer, judging from the way he reverted back to answering Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's first question. Sort of. “Unloved, loved, who cares? It's being unappreciated that I don't like. I extend the hand of companionship to him, and he shoots me down. I try to get close to him and he either ignores my existence or imprisons me.”
The Doctor facial expression was a study in disbelief. “Oh, what a whopper! You?! Trying to get close to me?!”
“I'm always seeking you out,” the Master insisted. “I came to you when you were hanging around all those military types at UNIT, remember? I didn't have to do that, you know. I could have left you there alone to stew in your own exiled juices. And I lured you to Gallifrey, and to Traken, and Logopolis, and Castrovalva, and...and to every other place you and I have ever been at together, now that I think about it.”
“Didn't lure me to the end of the universe,” the Doctor disagreed. “Came there on my own. Well, was pushed there, at any rate. Never saw the TARDIS move faster than when she was trying to get away from Jack.”
The Master made a small moue of disgust at Jack's name, but said nothing about him. “I was human. I wasn't me. That doesn't count.”
“You didn't lure me to find you out in those wastelands.”
“Ha! That's what you think! You really think that bunch of Ood wanted to sit around on their backsides waiting for you to finally show up so they could intone grave warnings at you? I had to pay them extra to stay put, otherwise they'd have all gone golfing. They had a tee time reserved.”
“Well, every time you lured me anywhere, it was 'cause you wanted to kill me, not 'cause you wanted to get close to me.”
“I was multi-tasking,” the Master said loudly, exasperation at the Doctor's intransigence finally getting the better of him. “One of us has to get something accomplished, and it's not likely to be you. You're too busy running around kissing all your earth girls.”
“They're just friends,” the Doctor sputtered indignantly.
A dubious look worthy of Saint Thomas crossed the Master's face. “'Just friends' put their tongues down each other's throats now, do they?”
The Doctor looked scandalized. “I've never put my tongue anywhere like that with anyone but you, Master, and you know it!” The Doctor's expression shifted to musing. “Well, there was that one time when Donna was trying to help me detox...”
“Bleah,” the Master interjected. “Donna? Donna whose practically your sister and your mother all wrapped into one?”
“She's not my mother. That mysterious woman from Gallifrey's my mother. Of course.”
The Master was unconvinced. “That after-the-fact flimflam is all very fine and well, Doctor, but Donna's definitely Mum to that human Doctor you left drifting out there in that parallel universe. And she's definitely like a sister to you, even though you got rid of her sisterly connection with you when you erased her mind.” A thoughtful look came across the Master's face. “I wonder if that was some sort of sibling rivalry thing? Couldn't take the competition, maybe? Huh. Anyway, she's that close to you, and now you're telling me you French-kissed her? I always knew your kinks were decidedly unsavory.”
“No, no, no! I did not French-kiss Donna,” the Doctor vigorously defended. “Her tongue just sort of... accidentally mushed up against mine.” The Doctor turned to Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. “It was messy. There were anchovies involved,” he explained. Turning back to the Master, he continued, “And I wouldn't be too quick to accuse me of having unsavory kinks. There are old school viewers out there who're still convinced we're secret brothers, after all.”
“There are old and new school viewers out there who are still convinced that I'm the dominant partner in this relationship even though you have more power over me than I'll ever have over you,” the Master shot back. “Happily, the ones who think we're brothers are wrong.” The Master scooted even further away from the Doctor; his chicken bucket began to crumple in on itself from how tightly he clutched it.
“You're getting defensive,” the Doctor observed. “Why're you getting defensive?” The Doctor frowned. “Wait a minute. What did you say about me having power over you?”
The Master glanced at the Doctor, then looked at Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. “He never listens.”
“That's not true,” the Doctor cried. “I listen. It's just that I don't understand you.”
“You don't want to,” the Master said unhappily.
The Doctor reached over to touch the Master's forearm. The Master pulled away. The Doctor scooted a tiny bit closer to the Master on the loveseat and turned to fully face him. “Come on. Tell me why you think I have power over you.”
The Master pouted. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga was pleased that the Doctor had enough insight to ask the Master this question. She was not at all miffed that the Doctor was stomping on what should have been her line.
“Oh, come on, Master,” the Doctor cajoled. “It'll be good for us as a couple.” He looked toward Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga for confirmation, but she decided the wisest thing to do was not respond. The Doctor turned back to the Master. “Please?”
The Master checked the time on the clock sitting on table beside Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. “Well, we've still got some time on the clock. What the hell?” Turning back to the Doctor, he said, “ I'm the one who tracks you down and lies in wait for you. I do it because I care. Do you ever act like some demented stalker for me? No, because you don't care as much as I do. And it leaves me in a more vulnerable position than you, which gives you more power in our relationship.”
“I can't believe this,” the Doctor muttered. “I don't stalk you, so I don't care? I only care if I get a restraining order issued against me?”
“You always miss the point,” the Master groused. “When have you ever tried to get close to me?”
“What?”
“You heard me. When?”
“Plenty of times. I spent centuries foiling your evil plans.”
“It was my plans that you cared about, not me.”
“Okay. Well, I spent that whole year on the Valiant trying to get you to listen to me.”
“That was all about you loving the sound of your own voice and not wanting to be alone. It had nothing to do with me.”
“Oh, no? Then who was it I begged to regenerate? It wasn't myself I was begging. It was you.”
“So you could keep me like a pet you could leave alone all day then come home to scritch once behind the ears and expect me to slobber all over you in gratitude? Not trying to get close to me, not by a long shot. Besides, that was ages ago. How have you tried to get close to me lately?”
“I spent at least ten minutes tracking you down before I found you in that quarry.”
“Where you promptly found my mind-sex technique to be so exciting that you immediately backed away with a look of horror on your face.”
“What?! No! It was great mind sex! A bit loud, what will all the pounding going on in there, and certainly unexpected, but it was great mind sex. Did I say it wasn't great mind sex? No. The answer is no. No, because I didn't say it wasn't great mind sex.”
“How could you tell whether it was great or not after two seconds? Stamina is no longer your strong suit, Doctor. Martha Jones doesn't know how lucky she is that you two never went down that road. You'd have been bound to disappoint her in that, too.”
“I told you you were wonderful! That proves I care!”
“You told me that I could be wonderful, right before you told me that I am bone-dead stupid. Hardly a compliment. And to think I almost fell for the flattery.”
The Doctor had the good grace to look chagrined. “Yeah. Sorry about that. But you know it's not like I really thought it.” He looked worried when the Master responded only with a harumph, then his face brightened. “I know what proves I care. I didn't shoot you. When I pointed that gun at you, I didn't shoot you.”
“Yes, because nothing says 'I love you' like pointing a gun in your loved one's face but not shooting it. I'm all aglow.”
“What am I supposed to do?!” The Doctor ruffled his hair in frustration. “What do you want from me?! How am I supposed to...”
“To think about me sometimes!” The Master's shout made the Doctor jump and stop talking. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga swore she could have heard a pin drop on the floor in the ensuing silence; since the floor was carpeted, that was saying a lot. “Every once in awhile,” the Master continued more quietly, “I want to know that, when you see me, you're not just seeing something you have to save your precious humans from, or something you have to save me from. I have a few fine qualities, you know, ones that don't necessarily involve killing and taking over planets, but you never see them. You only ever look for the things you don't like about me. I wonder, does that make you feel better about yourself? Have you always thought that if you see those things in me, they don't exist in you? Or is all your wanting to 'save' me from all the terrible things I am really about getting rid of those things in you? Bit of both, maybe?”
“Doctor,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga prompted in the wake of the Doctor's continued silence and blank, unfocused stare. “Would you like to say something about what the Master has said?”
The Doctor eyes refocused. He glanced at Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga, then looked at his hands in his lap. He cleared his throat before saying, “You have many fine qualities, Master.”
“Oh, yeah,” the Master asked dubiously. “Go on, then. Name three.”
The Doctor looked at Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. She merely nodded for him to answer the Master. “Well, you're...you're...hmm. Let's see. Oh, I know! You're enormously entertaining, what with all your evil laughing and evil dancing and, now, you're evil skyrocketing up into the air like you're wearing a rocket pack. What's up with that, by the way? But that's not it, really. You...everything about you is fascinating. You're fascinating, and because you are I want you around me. It would be my honor.”
“Heard that before,” the Master phewed.
“No,” the Doctor protested, “I mean it. I really do. The things you do? They're riveting. I can't take my eyes off of you.”
“That's just because you know I'd go off and blow up a galaxy if you did.”
“No, that's not it,” the Doctor disagreed. “You try that even when I'm watching you. No, it's that...It's like...Okay. When we're together?” The Doctor spared a shy look at Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga before continuing. “I mean, you know, together, you do things that no one else, and I mean no one, can. The way you make me feel...I can't describe it really, but it's all trains running through tunnels and star bursts and rockets flying up into the sky. Well, maybe not that last one. That could mean just about anything. Could even be used to represent the time vortex, I suppose, with a bit of stylized graphics. But my point is, I want you around.”
“Wonderful,” the Master remarked sourly. “You want me around because my package sets your stuff on fire.”
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga saw the opportunity for further meaningful exploration. “You don't think he's just told you something good?”
“No, as I matter of fact I don't,” the Master huffed.
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga would have asked more, but the Doctor beat her to it. “What do you want me to do,” the Doctor asked earnestly. “How can I satisfy you that I really do truly care about you? What haven't I done that makes you so sure I don't care? And remember, I've only got a few minutes left in this body, and who knows how long you'll last with your life force leaking out all over the place.” The Doctor turned to Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. “Sorry about that. At least it doesn't stain. Running one of those little hand-held vacuums over the seat here should clean it all up molto bene.”
“Don't worry about that,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga said. “You asked the Master a very important question.” She turned to the Master. “Did you want to say something in response?”
The Master pouted briefly, then said, “You haven't said you love me.”
“Aww, Master,” the Doctor groaned, “you know I have trouble saying it.”
“Then convey it in a snog. A proper one, not a little peck.”
Which the Doctor heartily did. Or tried to do, anyway, amid the tangle of limbs and other frotting appendages that got all scrunched together when the Master flung aside his bucket of chicken, tackled the Doctor and laid him down on the loveseat that was at least three feet too short for either of them to lay down on.
“Ow, ow, ow! My neck,” the Doctor yelled when the Master's maneuverings succeeded in jambing the Doctor's head up against the arm of the loveseat.
“Oh, stop being such a baby,” the Master complained between giant wet kisses to the Doctor's lips and nipping little bites to the Doctor's neck. “It's good when it hurts.”
“Then why don't you get on bottom so your neck can get all jacked up?”
“Because it's best when you're the one that's hurting,” the Master explained as he simultaneously undid the Doctor's belt buckle with his hands and ripped three of the Doctor's shirt buttons off with his teeth. Apparently, the Master was still peckish.
“Master, ahh...really...ooh...we're not both going to fit on this little sofa.”
The Master stopped and assessed the spatial dimensions in which he was trying to work. “Suppose not,” he conceded. “But I can fix that. I'm stone cold brilliant, after all.” He grabbed the front of the Doctor's semi-buttoned shirt. “Geronimo,” he exclaimed as he rolled off the loveseat and landed on the floor with a thunk, bringing the Doctor down on top of himself as he did so.
“Geronimo! I like it. My next body'll have to remember that one,” the Doctor said as he settled on top of the Master. He liked the turn of events even more that he liked his next body's new catch phrase. “So I'm topping, am I?”
“Only because I want you to,” the Master said as he squirmed away from the chicken thigh bone he'd landed on. “And I'm more than prepared to make you do it if you say you won't,” he said as he ripped open the Doctor's shirt the whole way, sending the rest of the buttons flying.
“Yeah, that's it.” The Doctor moved his head down to give the Master a forceful, breath-stealing kiss; he bit at the Master's lower lip for good measure as he broke the kiss off. “Dominate me,” he said in a manner far too demanding to be considered even remotely submissive before he remembered that he and the Master were rolling on the floor of Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's office. “Master, wait!” He stopped pushing the Master's hoodie and tee shirt up over the Master's chest and pushed slightly up off of the Master's body; the Master lifted his hips up off the floor to maintain contact so he could keep doing interesting groiny things and leaned up to kiss the Doctor some more. “Ooo, no, wait, mmm, Master. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga may need her office back.”
“Don't mind me, gentlemen,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga said from in front of the open door to her office closet. “We've done good work here today, and I think we all deserve to celebrate a little.” She reached into the closet and retrieved her coat and purse. “You gentleman feel free to continue celebrating in your way,” she said as she removed her wallet from her purse, then removed her Starchuck's card from her wallet, “and I shall celebrate in mine.” Leaving the Doctor and the Master to enjoy their celebration, Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga headed off for a small piece of coffeecake and a cup of coffee. With cream and sugar. She deserved it.
Title: Couples Therapy
Author: Evilawyer
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ten/Simm!Master
Summary: The Doctor and the Master attend a couples therapy session.
Disclaimer: All characters in this work, all accept for Dr. G.... (she's mine, dammit!), belong to the BBC. I own no right, title or interest in any of said characters, I intend no infringement of any copyrights or trademarks held under US or international law, and I am not realizing any financial profit whatsoever from this work.
: In the midst of all my displeasure over the handling of D/M in The End of Time, Parts 1 and 2 (not to mention all the other issues I have about Ten's era in general), I remembered that, in real life, it is possible for two people to love each other not only until they're both constantly arguing old men, but so much that they literally can't live without each other. I give a little nod to the memory of W and J, the two men who showed me that. Also, to any doctorate or masters level couples therapists out there who may run across this, all I can say is --- I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Nothing was more tedious than waiting for first-time clients to show up for their initial appointment. They were always in denial about the need to attend, so they were always late. These ones, the couple Dr. Stein had referred, took the cake as far as tardiness, however. They were twenty-five --- no, make that twenty-seven --- minutes late for a sixty minute session. And sixty minutes really meant fifty minutes in a therapy session.
knock-knock-knock-knock
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga pushed herself up from her chair with her tentacles and slid on her single, gastropodal foot to the door. Opening it, she found herself face to face with her new clients. The tall, dark haired man in the rumpled suit and long brown coat was grinning like a madman; the shorter, bottle blond man dressed like a homeless person and stuffing his face with body parts from the family-sized bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken he held was acting like one.
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga did so love being a couples therapist.
“Hello! I'm the Doctor,” the Doctor announced loudly before Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga could even wave her antennae in greeting. He pointed at the Master, who was busy chomping on a chicken thigh. “This is the Master. Dr. Stein referred us. Said something about cultural differences between him and us getting in the way and that maybe the Master and I should see you, being as you're not human, either.” The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “Which is odd, because I get on quite well with humans, even though the Master usually turns homicidal around them.” He dropped his hand from his neck and put his hands in his trouser pockets. “Not sure why Dr. Stein didn't think he could understand us enough to help us just because of a few cultural differences,” he continued as he bounced lightly on his toes, a slight whine giving his voice a petulant tinge. “I mean, when you think about it, we look more human than most aliens. A lot of aliens out there look like big, slug-like...,” His comment went into an embarrassed stall when he took in Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's mollusk-like features.
“Maybe he thought he couldn't help us because he couldn't understand you,” the Master said as he cracked open the chicken bone he'd completely denuded of meat and sucked the marrow out. “Maybe his culture knows nothing of this thing called 'whinging' that you do so well.” He threw the fleshless, pulpless bone over his shoulder and dug into the bucket for another piece.
“The man must really love poultry,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga thought but, wisely, did not say.
“Sorry we're a bit late. Had to stop off to get a snack for my other half,” the Doctor announced with forced cheer as he ignored the Master's comment and subsequent glare. “Shall we come in? We could always reschedule if you don't have time to....”
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga immediately recognized the Doctor's tactic for exactly what it was --- an attempt to weasel out of attending couples therapy, although she thought that she should perhaps more charitably think of it as “avoidant behavior.” “No, please, come in,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga invited as she took the Doctor's hand in one of her more hand-like tentacles and shook it, gently drawing him into her office as she did so. “Please, sit down, won't you?”
The Master pushed his way inside Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's office ahead of the Doctor and moved to sit in the chair right next to the office door. It was the only chair near the door - all the other chairs were on the other side of the room. That would not do. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga knew from long experience that clients sitting on opposite sides of the room never helped the therapeutic process. “No, please, both of you sit here.” She motioned to the loveseat against the far wall. “The Intimator”, she liked to think of it as, since most couples couldn't sit on it without their thighs touching. The Doctor and the Master, however, were both so thin that they left a twelve inch gap between them when they sat down. Even still, they immediately scooted to opposite ends of the loveseat. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga made a mental note of this as she lowered herself into her chair.
“Surprise, surprise. It's all my fault we're late. He always blames me for everything,” the Master told Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga before turning to look at the Doctor. “We wouldn't have been late if you hadn't taken all that time visiting your old companions before you finally kick off. We've got, what, thirty minutes until you have to go back to your TARDIS and wail about having to regenerate? We'll accomplish so much in that time, I'm sure.
“Actually,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga corrected as she looked at the digital clock on the small sidetable next to her, “we have twenty-one minutes. We can make the second session longer than an hour, if you like.” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga never extended an initial session to accommodate her clients' tardiness. It set the wrong tone. This was serious work, and it was important to establish boundaries and rules at the outset.
“What about you,” the Doctor asked the Master, clearly not having heard a word Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga had said. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga sighed. First-time clients never wanted to hear that she wasn't going to give them the full fifty minutes because they had been late. It clashed with their sense of entitlement, which the two men in front of her appeared to have in spades.
The Doctor forged on, oblivious to Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's disenchantment. “It's not like you were ready and waiting for me. I had to wait until you found a way back from the time lock...”
“Oh, yes, and your concern for my fate on my plunge toward virtual death was so touching. Made me feel all warm and tingly inside,” the Master interrupted with all the subtle sarcasm a sixteen year old girl telling her parents she really would rather spend the day hanging wallpaper at Aunt Rosalie's than going to the mall with her sixteen year old girlfriends to watch sixteen year old boys. “Oh, no, hold on a tick. You didn't even notice I was gone! Sorry. Silly me,” he added, just to make sure the Doctor knew he was being sarcastic. In the Master's experience, sarcasm usually went right over the Doctor's head.
“...which I knew you'd do because you always escape miraculously,” the Doctor continued. “Then I had to wait while you raided the TARDIS kitchen and ate everything you could get your hands on. Right pig, you were, and complaining all the while about how hungry you were.”
“I'm still hungry,” the Master spit --- literally, as globs of spittle and little bits of chicken spewed out of his mouth along with his words. “I could eat and eat and eat. Cakes and pies and turkey and goose with all the fat dripping down and huge roasts of beef with the blood drooling out and...”
“Really,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga marveled. “You don't look like you eat much of anything. You must have an incredibly high metabolic rate.” She tried to not let any of the envy she felt come out in her voice. She herself could not so much as look at one of the small pieces of coffeecake that always seemed to be nestled tantalizingly in the pastry case of her local Starchuck's without packing on the pounds; she had long since accepted that she was destined to never enjoy such sweet delights with her creamless, sugarless coffee.
“It's a recent development,” the Doctor explained. “He's come back from the time lock not complaining about his drums and seeming a little less crazy, but he's still eating to excess. And he's not as thin as all that. The black jeans and black hoodie make him look a bit, well, gaunt, really, especially when he's got his hood up over his head, but he actually has a bit more meat on him than you might guess.”
The Master stopped chewing and looked daggers at the Doctor. “Are you saying that I'm fat?”
The Doctor kept on talking. “I'm thinking it may be a clue as to why he's running around killing people. This time, anyway.”
The Master rolled his eyes ceiling-ward, then lowered his head and looked at the Doctor. “Maybe it's a clue that I'm feeling so unloved that I have to turn to food for affection, Doctor So-Quick-to-Judge. What's your excuse for committing genocide on your own people? Again?” The Master hugged his bucket of chicken to his chest and shifted his torso so that his back was to the Doctor.
The Doctor opened his mouth to respond, but Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga jumped in before he could speak. “Are you?”
Realizing he had possibly said too much, the Master frowned. “Am I what?”
“Feeling unloved?”
“If I was, it wouldn't make me weak or pathetic, you know,” the Master said truculently.
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga knew a gold vein begging to be mined when she saw one. She wasn't about to let the Master's non-answer go unexplored. “Why do you say that?”
This, apparently, was not a question the Master was prepared to answer, judging from the way he reverted back to answering Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's first question. Sort of. “Unloved, loved, who cares? It's being unappreciated that I don't like. I extend the hand of companionship to him, and he shoots me down. I try to get close to him and he either ignores my existence or imprisons me.”
The Doctor facial expression was a study in disbelief. “Oh, what a whopper! You?! Trying to get close to me?!”
“I'm always seeking you out,” the Master insisted. “I came to you when you were hanging around all those military types at UNIT, remember? I didn't have to do that, you know. I could have left you there alone to stew in your own exiled juices. And I lured you to Gallifrey, and to Traken, and Logopolis, and Castrovalva, and...and to every other place you and I have ever been at together, now that I think about it.”
“Didn't lure me to the end of the universe,” the Doctor disagreed. “Came there on my own. Well, was pushed there, at any rate. Never saw the TARDIS move faster than when she was trying to get away from Jack.”
The Master made a small moue of disgust at Jack's name, but said nothing about him. “I was human. I wasn't me. That doesn't count.”
“You didn't lure me to find you out in those wastelands.”
“Ha! That's what you think! You really think that bunch of Ood wanted to sit around on their backsides waiting for you to finally show up so they could intone grave warnings at you? I had to pay them extra to stay put, otherwise they'd have all gone golfing. They had a tee time reserved.”
“Well, every time you lured me anywhere, it was 'cause you wanted to kill me, not 'cause you wanted to get close to me.”
“I was multi-tasking,” the Master said loudly, exasperation at the Doctor's intransigence finally getting the better of him. “One of us has to get something accomplished, and it's not likely to be you. You're too busy running around kissing all your earth girls.”
“They're just friends,” the Doctor sputtered indignantly.
A dubious look worthy of Saint Thomas crossed the Master's face. “'Just friends' put their tongues down each other's throats now, do they?”
The Doctor looked scandalized. “I've never put my tongue anywhere like that with anyone but you, Master, and you know it!” The Doctor's expression shifted to musing. “Well, there was that one time when Donna was trying to help me detox...”
“Bleah,” the Master interjected. “Donna? Donna whose practically your sister and your mother all wrapped into one?”
“She's not my mother. That mysterious woman from Gallifrey's my mother. Of course.”
The Master was unconvinced. “That after-the-fact flimflam is all very fine and well, Doctor, but Donna's definitely Mum to that human Doctor you left drifting out there in that parallel universe. And she's definitely like a sister to you, even though you got rid of her sisterly connection with you when you erased her mind.” A thoughtful look came across the Master's face. “I wonder if that was some sort of sibling rivalry thing? Couldn't take the competition, maybe? Huh. Anyway, she's that close to you, and now you're telling me you French-kissed her? I always knew your kinks were decidedly unsavory.”
“No, no, no! I did not French-kiss Donna,” the Doctor vigorously defended. “Her tongue just sort of... accidentally mushed up against mine.” The Doctor turned to Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. “It was messy. There were anchovies involved,” he explained. Turning back to the Master, he continued, “And I wouldn't be too quick to accuse me of having unsavory kinks. There are old school viewers out there who're still convinced we're secret brothers, after all.”
“There are old and new school viewers out there who are still convinced that I'm the dominant partner in this relationship even though you have more power over me than I'll ever have over you,” the Master shot back. “Happily, the ones who think we're brothers are wrong.” The Master scooted even further away from the Doctor; his chicken bucket began to crumple in on itself from how tightly he clutched it.
“You're getting defensive,” the Doctor observed. “Why're you getting defensive?” The Doctor frowned. “Wait a minute. What did you say about me having power over you?”
The Master glanced at the Doctor, then looked at Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. “He never listens.”
“That's not true,” the Doctor cried. “I listen. It's just that I don't understand you.”
“You don't want to,” the Master said unhappily.
The Doctor reached over to touch the Master's forearm. The Master pulled away. The Doctor scooted a tiny bit closer to the Master on the loveseat and turned to fully face him. “Come on. Tell me why you think I have power over you.”
The Master pouted. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga was pleased that the Doctor had enough insight to ask the Master this question. She was not at all miffed that the Doctor was stomping on what should have been her line.
“Oh, come on, Master,” the Doctor cajoled. “It'll be good for us as a couple.” He looked toward Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga for confirmation, but she decided the wisest thing to do was not respond. The Doctor turned back to the Master. “Please?”
The Master checked the time on the clock sitting on table beside Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. “Well, we've still got some time on the clock. What the hell?” Turning back to the Doctor, he said, “ I'm the one who tracks you down and lies in wait for you. I do it because I care. Do you ever act like some demented stalker for me? No, because you don't care as much as I do. And it leaves me in a more vulnerable position than you, which gives you more power in our relationship.”
“I can't believe this,” the Doctor muttered. “I don't stalk you, so I don't care? I only care if I get a restraining order issued against me?”
“You always miss the point,” the Master groused. “When have you ever tried to get close to me?”
“What?”
“You heard me. When?”
“Plenty of times. I spent centuries foiling your evil plans.”
“It was my plans that you cared about, not me.”
“Okay. Well, I spent that whole year on the Valiant trying to get you to listen to me.”
“That was all about you loving the sound of your own voice and not wanting to be alone. It had nothing to do with me.”
“Oh, no? Then who was it I begged to regenerate? It wasn't myself I was begging. It was you.”
“So you could keep me like a pet you could leave alone all day then come home to scritch once behind the ears and expect me to slobber all over you in gratitude? Not trying to get close to me, not by a long shot. Besides, that was ages ago. How have you tried to get close to me lately?”
“I spent at least ten minutes tracking you down before I found you in that quarry.”
“Where you promptly found my mind-sex technique to be so exciting that you immediately backed away with a look of horror on your face.”
“What?! No! It was great mind sex! A bit loud, what will all the pounding going on in there, and certainly unexpected, but it was great mind sex. Did I say it wasn't great mind sex? No. The answer is no. No, because I didn't say it wasn't great mind sex.”
“How could you tell whether it was great or not after two seconds? Stamina is no longer your strong suit, Doctor. Martha Jones doesn't know how lucky she is that you two never went down that road. You'd have been bound to disappoint her in that, too.”
“I told you you were wonderful! That proves I care!”
“You told me that I could be wonderful, right before you told me that I am bone-dead stupid. Hardly a compliment. And to think I almost fell for the flattery.”
The Doctor had the good grace to look chagrined. “Yeah. Sorry about that. But you know it's not like I really thought it.” He looked worried when the Master responded only with a harumph, then his face brightened. “I know what proves I care. I didn't shoot you. When I pointed that gun at you, I didn't shoot you.”
“Yes, because nothing says 'I love you' like pointing a gun in your loved one's face but not shooting it. I'm all aglow.”
“What am I supposed to do?!” The Doctor ruffled his hair in frustration. “What do you want from me?! How am I supposed to...”
“To think about me sometimes!” The Master's shout made the Doctor jump and stop talking. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga swore she could have heard a pin drop on the floor in the ensuing silence; since the floor was carpeted, that was saying a lot. “Every once in awhile,” the Master continued more quietly, “I want to know that, when you see me, you're not just seeing something you have to save your precious humans from, or something you have to save me from. I have a few fine qualities, you know, ones that don't necessarily involve killing and taking over planets, but you never see them. You only ever look for the things you don't like about me. I wonder, does that make you feel better about yourself? Have you always thought that if you see those things in me, they don't exist in you? Or is all your wanting to 'save' me from all the terrible things I am really about getting rid of those things in you? Bit of both, maybe?”
“Doctor,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga prompted in the wake of the Doctor's continued silence and blank, unfocused stare. “Would you like to say something about what the Master has said?”
The Doctor eyes refocused. He glanced at Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga, then looked at his hands in his lap. He cleared his throat before saying, “You have many fine qualities, Master.”
“Oh, yeah,” the Master asked dubiously. “Go on, then. Name three.”
The Doctor looked at Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. She merely nodded for him to answer the Master. “Well, you're...you're...hmm. Let's see. Oh, I know! You're enormously entertaining, what with all your evil laughing and evil dancing and, now, you're evil skyrocketing up into the air like you're wearing a rocket pack. What's up with that, by the way? But that's not it, really. You...everything about you is fascinating. You're fascinating, and because you are I want you around me. It would be my honor.”
“Heard that before,” the Master phewed.
“No,” the Doctor protested, “I mean it. I really do. The things you do? They're riveting. I can't take my eyes off of you.”
“That's just because you know I'd go off and blow up a galaxy if you did.”
“No, that's not it,” the Doctor disagreed. “You try that even when I'm watching you. No, it's that...It's like...Okay. When we're together?” The Doctor spared a shy look at Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga before continuing. “I mean, you know, together, you do things that no one else, and I mean no one, can. The way you make me feel...I can't describe it really, but it's all trains running through tunnels and star bursts and rockets flying up into the sky. Well, maybe not that last one. That could mean just about anything. Could even be used to represent the time vortex, I suppose, with a bit of stylized graphics. But my point is, I want you around.”
“Wonderful,” the Master remarked sourly. “You want me around because my package sets your stuff on fire.”
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga saw the opportunity for further meaningful exploration. “You don't think he's just told you something good?”
“No, as I matter of fact I don't,” the Master huffed.
Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga would have asked more, but the Doctor beat her to it. “What do you want me to do,” the Doctor asked earnestly. “How can I satisfy you that I really do truly care about you? What haven't I done that makes you so sure I don't care? And remember, I've only got a few minutes left in this body, and who knows how long you'll last with your life force leaking out all over the place.” The Doctor turned to Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga. “Sorry about that. At least it doesn't stain. Running one of those little hand-held vacuums over the seat here should clean it all up molto bene.”
“Don't worry about that,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga said. “You asked the Master a very important question.” She turned to the Master. “Did you want to say something in response?”
The Master pouted briefly, then said, “You haven't said you love me.”
“Aww, Master,” the Doctor groaned, “you know I have trouble saying it.”
“Then convey it in a snog. A proper one, not a little peck.”
Which the Doctor heartily did. Or tried to do, anyway, amid the tangle of limbs and other frotting appendages that got all scrunched together when the Master flung aside his bucket of chicken, tackled the Doctor and laid him down on the loveseat that was at least three feet too short for either of them to lay down on.
“Ow, ow, ow! My neck,” the Doctor yelled when the Master's maneuverings succeeded in jambing the Doctor's head up against the arm of the loveseat.
“Oh, stop being such a baby,” the Master complained between giant wet kisses to the Doctor's lips and nipping little bites to the Doctor's neck. “It's good when it hurts.”
“Then why don't you get on bottom so your neck can get all jacked up?”
“Because it's best when you're the one that's hurting,” the Master explained as he simultaneously undid the Doctor's belt buckle with his hands and ripped three of the Doctor's shirt buttons off with his teeth. Apparently, the Master was still peckish.
“Master, ahh...really...ooh...we're not both going to fit on this little sofa.”
The Master stopped and assessed the spatial dimensions in which he was trying to work. “Suppose not,” he conceded. “But I can fix that. I'm stone cold brilliant, after all.” He grabbed the front of the Doctor's semi-buttoned shirt. “Geronimo,” he exclaimed as he rolled off the loveseat and landed on the floor with a thunk, bringing the Doctor down on top of himself as he did so.
“Geronimo! I like it. My next body'll have to remember that one,” the Doctor said as he settled on top of the Master. He liked the turn of events even more that he liked his next body's new catch phrase. “So I'm topping, am I?”
“Only because I want you to,” the Master said as he squirmed away from the chicken thigh bone he'd landed on. “And I'm more than prepared to make you do it if you say you won't,” he said as he ripped open the Doctor's shirt the whole way, sending the rest of the buttons flying.
“Yeah, that's it.” The Doctor moved his head down to give the Master a forceful, breath-stealing kiss; he bit at the Master's lower lip for good measure as he broke the kiss off. “Dominate me,” he said in a manner far too demanding to be considered even remotely submissive before he remembered that he and the Master were rolling on the floor of Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga's office. “Master, wait!” He stopped pushing the Master's hoodie and tee shirt up over the Master's chest and pushed slightly up off of the Master's body; the Master lifted his hips up off the floor to maintain contact so he could keep doing interesting groiny things and leaned up to kiss the Doctor some more. “Ooo, no, wait, mmm, Master. Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga may need her office back.”
“Don't mind me, gentlemen,” Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga said from in front of the open door to her office closet. “We've done good work here today, and I think we all deserve to celebrate a little.” She reached into the closet and retrieved her coat and purse. “You gentleman feel free to continue celebrating in your way,” she said as she removed her wallet from her purse, then removed her Starchuck's card from her wallet, “and I shall celebrate in mine.” Leaving the Doctor and the Master to enjoy their celebration, Dr. Gwpnmlstbwoga headed off for a small piece of coffeecake and a cup of coffee. With cream and sugar. She deserved it.