FIC: Heartline Roll [fandom: Doctor Who] (chapter 3/7)
Title: Heartline Roll (3/7)
Author: Thascalos
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Master/Duplicate Ten
Rating: Adult
Warnings/Contains: Explicit sex, violent imagery, voyeurism, humor, gratuitous juggling, a disco space buffalo
Summary: The Doctor, the Master, and the Doctor's human clone go to a space carnival. The Master wonders what he could ever have possibly done to deserve such a fate.
The mood was rather subdued at the next booth. The Master could almost feel the thing's hateful gaze boring into the back of his skull. The Master's aim faltered, then again, then again. One of the glowing holo-rings he tossed missed the table entirely, fizzing into nonexistence as it fell past the electro-magnetic generator's field. The Doctor was only marginally worse than he. The metacrisis threw its rings with almost ruthless efficiency and won a small, semi-aquatic lizard. It gave the prize away, transforming a child with even worse aim than the Doctor from tearful to overjoyed in moments.
They played a few more games, though the only one the Master really paid attention to was the Whac-A-Mole, which proved to be wonderfully cathartic, until he accidentally broke the machine.
"Sorry," the Doctor was saying to a peevish repair bot.
"Doctor, it's a robot, just leave it alone and let it fulfil its pointless existence," the Master said.
"Repairing carnival games isn't pointless," the Doctor insisted. "It's a very important job if you're at a carnival." He patted the robot, which was floating around the Whac-A-Mole machine and poking at it with various instruments and sensors extending from its small metal carapace. It whirred a little more brightly at the compliment. "Well," the Doctor said, straightening up, "smashing small mechanical mammals with a mallet is out for the foreseeable future. Why don't we go up in the ferris wheel?"
The Master was just opening his mouth to vehemently refuse when the metacrisis interrupted.
"You two go do that," it said. "I'll be over there when you're done," it said, and briefly pointed at a drinks booth. It walked away before either of them could respond. The Doctor watched it go, looking a little deflated.
The Master frowned. If anyone was going to make the Doctor unhappy, it should be him, not some jumped-up regenerative failure.
"Come on then," the Master said. "Let's go up in a stupid metal cage and hope the health and safety inspections for this place weren't bought with too many bribes."
********
"Remind me again why I agreed to get into this very obvious deathtrap?" the Master asked, giving their passeger capsule a dubious look.
A grotty metal bar was pulled down with a screech that made the hairs on the back of the Master's neck stand on end. It locked into place over his and the Doctor's laps with a rusty metallic thunk.
"You're a being of mysterious and inexplicable motivations, I suppose," the Doctor said, not looking at him.
The Master was spared having to come up with a response to that by the sudden jolt of the ferris wheel starting to move. They sat in silence for several minutes as their capsule slowly ascended higher into the air.
Dusk was just starting to creep across the sky. As the light faded, the dirt and grease and flaking paint began to recede, and the bright lights on every ride and tent began to sparkle and shine. The noise and smell of the crowds faded as they rose into the air. It wasn't peaceful, or beautiful, but at a remove the carnival lost some of its garishness, and if the Master imagined seeing it through the deluded eyes of the Doctor, he could almost see some of its charm. The Master glanced towards him.
The Doctor was also gazing out at the carnival spreading out beneath them, a pensive cast to his features. Thinking of his little freak, no doubt, with its horrible dead eyes and its compulsion to always be touching, touching, touching -- touching the Master's face, his shoulders, his chest; grabbing his throat and coldly beating his head against a metal-plated floor, kissing him softly and promising terrible things.... The Master suppressed a shiver. He looked back at the Doctor's melancholic profile, and watched as his pulses beat steadily in his throat.
"Well?" the Master finally asked, tired of the nearly peaceful quiet between them.
The Doctor turned his head back toward him. "Well, what?"
Frustratingly dense as always. The Master frowned. "Get your lecture out of the way, then," the Master said. "The one where you tell me I should play nice and not hurt your darling pet's feelings, that I'm better than that. Throw in a bit of angst, how we're all in this together, we're the only ones left, blah blah blah."
"No point in that, is there?" the Doctor said. "After all, I know what you're like." The Doctor looked back down at the carnival. "So does he." The Doctor straightened, his manner becoming nearly instantly cheerful again. "This is quite a ferris wheel, isn't it?" the Doctor said, in an abrupt change of subject. "It was the tallest in this quadrant for thirty-three years, then second tallest for three years, then tallest again after the previous tallest wheel unexpectedly collapsed. Well, I say 'unexpectedly', actually it was quite expected, I told the designers as much, but would they listen to a genius in a stove-pipe hat and an admittedly poorly done-up bow tie? No!"
"It was a particularly stupid hat," the Master said.
"Oi, it was brilliant!" the Doctor said. He looked thoughtful for moment. "Maybe I should haul it out. I keep meaning to try out some hats with this suit." He frowned, sadly. "They always crush my hair," he said. He gingerly touched the hair in question, as if making sure it was still perfect, down to the follicle.
"We are not going to have a conversation about the relative merits and demerits of your various hair-styling products, Doctor." The Doctor closed his mouth, obviously trying to look as if he hadn't been about to do just that. "Why don't you tell me how a Time Lord is so absolutely terrible at a few games of hand-eye coordination, while his little human clone is so very good?"
"I've got great aim," the Doctor insisted. He caught the Master's look. "What, I do! I just don't like guns. Anyway, I'm not the only one whose aim needed a little work," the Doctor pointed out.
"The only way your aim would have only needed 'a little' work is if the Hand of Omega was guiding it," the Master said.
"Hmmph," the Doctor replied. His expression softened. "Well... Donna had a good eye. And she was brilliant at darts. So, the other Doctor probably got a bit of that from her too."
Donna. The Master had heard the name a few times now. Enough to know that she had been one of the Doctor's pet humans, and that she must have been the human catalyst for the biological metacrisis that resulted in the Doctor's doppelganger.
And, that she must now be dead.
It was the inevitable result of a metacrisis, and one of a whole host of reasons that they had been both taboo and highly illegal on Gallifrey. Back when Gallifrey had existed.
"Donna once won me from a pack of Wojan pirates with a game of darts," the Doctor said. His mouth quirked up. "Plus a pair of anti-grav boots, a cask of Saurian brandy, and a tin whistle. So, yeah, I suppose the other Doctor might have inherited some of his skill from her." He made a face. "And his taste in magazines. Atrocious."
"Ah," the Master said. He felt as if a blindfold he hadn't realised he was wearing had just been taken away.
"What, you think I'm not giving Heat magazine the appreciation it deserves?"
"No, you idiot," the Master said. "Now I understand your fixation with your freakish double. All this time I thought it was your natural narcissism, magnified by your perpetual obsession with humanity, but it's more than that. It's all you have left of this precious Donna, after you inadvertently killed her with your botched regeneration."
The Doctor's face looked like it could have been made of stone.
"What's it like to search for the little, corrupted bits of her that are left while looking into the eyes of her murderer?" the Master asked.
He watched the Doctor's mouth twist, ever so slightly. The Master took a slow, deep breath, as if he could breathe in the scent of the Doctor's pain, as if he could taste it on his tongue and feel it dissolve into his own bloodstream, as if the Doctor's pain could be just as nourishing and necessary as oxygen itself.
"It's not like you to be jealous of a human," the Doctor said, shattering the Master's reverie.
"What?" The Master just stared, completely taken aback.
"Well, actually, I guess it... is," the Doctor amended. "Sort of one of your standard personality quirks. I have to admit, I've occasionally even found it charming -- against my better judgement, of course. But it just seems petty, when the human is me. Mostly me. Well, partly me. I wasn't jealous when you had a human wife," the Doctor pointed out. "So this just seems a bit silly, really."
It was the Master's mouth that twisted now, into an angry sneer.
"So it really doesn't bother you, then?" he asked. "Being reminded every time you see it, of what you did? That it only exists because you killed a person you loved?"
"I've killed a lot of people I loved," the Doctor said, quietly. "And worse. That's not his fault."
The Master regarded him for a long moment.
"You're actually mad, aren't you?" he finally said.
"Ohhh, maybe," the Doctor replied. "But I don't hold it against you, why should you hold it against me?"
"I'm your prisoner, fitted with mind-controlling shackles, forced to follow you and your disgusting freak around like a slave, and that's not holding it against me?"
"I haven't made you eat out of a dog bowl or listen to me sing along to awful millennial dance music, have I?" the Doctor asked. His expression was innocent, but there was a hint of something darker underneath. There were so many things the Master had done to the Doctor during that year on the Valiant. Some of them had even disturbed the Master himself. Making the Doctor eat out of a dog bowl seemed worshipful in comparison.
The Master scowled. "Yes, yes, message received."
"What message?" the Doctor asked, his eyebrows arranged in their most guileless position.
The Master only scowled harder and looked away. Their capsule was ever so slowly making its way back down toward the ground, bringing the noises and smells of the carnival back into focus.
"Have you thought about where you'd like to go on your trip?" the Doctor asked. "We could always arrange a visit with Lucy. Though I suppose she might not be too keen on that, seeing as the last time we saw her she shot you in the stomach."
The Master turned back towards the Doctor, disbelieving.
"Are you serious?" the Master asked.
"Sorry," the Doctor said. "You're right, bad idea. Probably like asking if you want to visit Chang Lee -- "
"Doctor, haven't you wondered why I'm alive?" the Master asked through gritted teeth. "Who do you think resurrected me?"
"You're always turning up after you die. I didn't exactly question it, to be honest. I mean, I did, but --"
"Lucy is dead," the Master said, cutting off the Doctor's rambling. "My resurrection didn't go exactly as planned. She died so I could live." He looked at the Doctor. "And I didn't get a bargain-basement copy of her as a keepsake."
Before the Doctor had a chance to say anything, their capsule ground to screechy halt. A couple of very handsy teenagers were waiting impatiently for them to disembark. The Master did so as slowly as possible, just to annoy them.
"Have fun, kids," the Master told them as they were strapped in. "Don't worry, apparently that snapping noise you hear when you get to the top is completely natural." He smiled and waved as their suddenly ashen faces started to recede.
"That wasn't very nice," the Doctor said, mildly.
"I'm not a nice person," the Master replied.
He walked away from the ferris wheel.
chapter one ~ chapter 2 ~ chapter three ~ chapter four ~ chapter five ~ chapter six ~ chapter seven
Author: Thascalos
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Master/Duplicate Ten
Rating: Adult
Warnings/Contains: Explicit sex, violent imagery, voyeurism, humor, gratuitous juggling, a disco space buffalo
Summary: The Doctor, the Master, and the Doctor's human clone go to a space carnival. The Master wonders what he could ever have possibly done to deserve such a fate.
The mood was rather subdued at the next booth. The Master could almost feel the thing's hateful gaze boring into the back of his skull. The Master's aim faltered, then again, then again. One of the glowing holo-rings he tossed missed the table entirely, fizzing into nonexistence as it fell past the electro-magnetic generator's field. The Doctor was only marginally worse than he. The metacrisis threw its rings with almost ruthless efficiency and won a small, semi-aquatic lizard. It gave the prize away, transforming a child with even worse aim than the Doctor from tearful to overjoyed in moments.
They played a few more games, though the only one the Master really paid attention to was the Whac-A-Mole, which proved to be wonderfully cathartic, until he accidentally broke the machine.
"Sorry," the Doctor was saying to a peevish repair bot.
"Doctor, it's a robot, just leave it alone and let it fulfil its pointless existence," the Master said.
"Repairing carnival games isn't pointless," the Doctor insisted. "It's a very important job if you're at a carnival." He patted the robot, which was floating around the Whac-A-Mole machine and poking at it with various instruments and sensors extending from its small metal carapace. It whirred a little more brightly at the compliment. "Well," the Doctor said, straightening up, "smashing small mechanical mammals with a mallet is out for the foreseeable future. Why don't we go up in the ferris wheel?"
The Master was just opening his mouth to vehemently refuse when the metacrisis interrupted.
"You two go do that," it said. "I'll be over there when you're done," it said, and briefly pointed at a drinks booth. It walked away before either of them could respond. The Doctor watched it go, looking a little deflated.
The Master frowned. If anyone was going to make the Doctor unhappy, it should be him, not some jumped-up regenerative failure.
"Come on then," the Master said. "Let's go up in a stupid metal cage and hope the health and safety inspections for this place weren't bought with too many bribes."
********
"Remind me again why I agreed to get into this very obvious deathtrap?" the Master asked, giving their passeger capsule a dubious look.
A grotty metal bar was pulled down with a screech that made the hairs on the back of the Master's neck stand on end. It locked into place over his and the Doctor's laps with a rusty metallic thunk.
"You're a being of mysterious and inexplicable motivations, I suppose," the Doctor said, not looking at him.
The Master was spared having to come up with a response to that by the sudden jolt of the ferris wheel starting to move. They sat in silence for several minutes as their capsule slowly ascended higher into the air.
Dusk was just starting to creep across the sky. As the light faded, the dirt and grease and flaking paint began to recede, and the bright lights on every ride and tent began to sparkle and shine. The noise and smell of the crowds faded as they rose into the air. It wasn't peaceful, or beautiful, but at a remove the carnival lost some of its garishness, and if the Master imagined seeing it through the deluded eyes of the Doctor, he could almost see some of its charm. The Master glanced towards him.
The Doctor was also gazing out at the carnival spreading out beneath them, a pensive cast to his features. Thinking of his little freak, no doubt, with its horrible dead eyes and its compulsion to always be touching, touching, touching -- touching the Master's face, his shoulders, his chest; grabbing his throat and coldly beating his head against a metal-plated floor, kissing him softly and promising terrible things.... The Master suppressed a shiver. He looked back at the Doctor's melancholic profile, and watched as his pulses beat steadily in his throat.
"Well?" the Master finally asked, tired of the nearly peaceful quiet between them.
The Doctor turned his head back toward him. "Well, what?"
Frustratingly dense as always. The Master frowned. "Get your lecture out of the way, then," the Master said. "The one where you tell me I should play nice and not hurt your darling pet's feelings, that I'm better than that. Throw in a bit of angst, how we're all in this together, we're the only ones left, blah blah blah."
"No point in that, is there?" the Doctor said. "After all, I know what you're like." The Doctor looked back down at the carnival. "So does he." The Doctor straightened, his manner becoming nearly instantly cheerful again. "This is quite a ferris wheel, isn't it?" the Doctor said, in an abrupt change of subject. "It was the tallest in this quadrant for thirty-three years, then second tallest for three years, then tallest again after the previous tallest wheel unexpectedly collapsed. Well, I say 'unexpectedly', actually it was quite expected, I told the designers as much, but would they listen to a genius in a stove-pipe hat and an admittedly poorly done-up bow tie? No!"
"It was a particularly stupid hat," the Master said.
"Oi, it was brilliant!" the Doctor said. He looked thoughtful for moment. "Maybe I should haul it out. I keep meaning to try out some hats with this suit." He frowned, sadly. "They always crush my hair," he said. He gingerly touched the hair in question, as if making sure it was still perfect, down to the follicle.
"We are not going to have a conversation about the relative merits and demerits of your various hair-styling products, Doctor." The Doctor closed his mouth, obviously trying to look as if he hadn't been about to do just that. "Why don't you tell me how a Time Lord is so absolutely terrible at a few games of hand-eye coordination, while his little human clone is so very good?"
"I've got great aim," the Doctor insisted. He caught the Master's look. "What, I do! I just don't like guns. Anyway, I'm not the only one whose aim needed a little work," the Doctor pointed out.
"The only way your aim would have only needed 'a little' work is if the Hand of Omega was guiding it," the Master said.
"Hmmph," the Doctor replied. His expression softened. "Well... Donna had a good eye. And she was brilliant at darts. So, the other Doctor probably got a bit of that from her too."
Donna. The Master had heard the name a few times now. Enough to know that she had been one of the Doctor's pet humans, and that she must have been the human catalyst for the biological metacrisis that resulted in the Doctor's doppelganger.
And, that she must now be dead.
It was the inevitable result of a metacrisis, and one of a whole host of reasons that they had been both taboo and highly illegal on Gallifrey. Back when Gallifrey had existed.
"Donna once won me from a pack of Wojan pirates with a game of darts," the Doctor said. His mouth quirked up. "Plus a pair of anti-grav boots, a cask of Saurian brandy, and a tin whistle. So, yeah, I suppose the other Doctor might have inherited some of his skill from her." He made a face. "And his taste in magazines. Atrocious."
"Ah," the Master said. He felt as if a blindfold he hadn't realised he was wearing had just been taken away.
"What, you think I'm not giving Heat magazine the appreciation it deserves?"
"No, you idiot," the Master said. "Now I understand your fixation with your freakish double. All this time I thought it was your natural narcissism, magnified by your perpetual obsession with humanity, but it's more than that. It's all you have left of this precious Donna, after you inadvertently killed her with your botched regeneration."
The Doctor's face looked like it could have been made of stone.
"What's it like to search for the little, corrupted bits of her that are left while looking into the eyes of her murderer?" the Master asked.
He watched the Doctor's mouth twist, ever so slightly. The Master took a slow, deep breath, as if he could breathe in the scent of the Doctor's pain, as if he could taste it on his tongue and feel it dissolve into his own bloodstream, as if the Doctor's pain could be just as nourishing and necessary as oxygen itself.
"It's not like you to be jealous of a human," the Doctor said, shattering the Master's reverie.
"What?" The Master just stared, completely taken aback.
"Well, actually, I guess it... is," the Doctor amended. "Sort of one of your standard personality quirks. I have to admit, I've occasionally even found it charming -- against my better judgement, of course. But it just seems petty, when the human is me. Mostly me. Well, partly me. I wasn't jealous when you had a human wife," the Doctor pointed out. "So this just seems a bit silly, really."
It was the Master's mouth that twisted now, into an angry sneer.
"So it really doesn't bother you, then?" he asked. "Being reminded every time you see it, of what you did? That it only exists because you killed a person you loved?"
"I've killed a lot of people I loved," the Doctor said, quietly. "And worse. That's not his fault."
The Master regarded him for a long moment.
"You're actually mad, aren't you?" he finally said.
"Ohhh, maybe," the Doctor replied. "But I don't hold it against you, why should you hold it against me?"
"I'm your prisoner, fitted with mind-controlling shackles, forced to follow you and your disgusting freak around like a slave, and that's not holding it against me?"
"I haven't made you eat out of a dog bowl or listen to me sing along to awful millennial dance music, have I?" the Doctor asked. His expression was innocent, but there was a hint of something darker underneath. There were so many things the Master had done to the Doctor during that year on the Valiant. Some of them had even disturbed the Master himself. Making the Doctor eat out of a dog bowl seemed worshipful in comparison.
The Master scowled. "Yes, yes, message received."
"What message?" the Doctor asked, his eyebrows arranged in their most guileless position.
The Master only scowled harder and looked away. Their capsule was ever so slowly making its way back down toward the ground, bringing the noises and smells of the carnival back into focus.
"Have you thought about where you'd like to go on your trip?" the Doctor asked. "We could always arrange a visit with Lucy. Though I suppose she might not be too keen on that, seeing as the last time we saw her she shot you in the stomach."
The Master turned back towards the Doctor, disbelieving.
"Are you serious?" the Master asked.
"Sorry," the Doctor said. "You're right, bad idea. Probably like asking if you want to visit Chang Lee -- "
"Doctor, haven't you wondered why I'm alive?" the Master asked through gritted teeth. "Who do you think resurrected me?"
"You're always turning up after you die. I didn't exactly question it, to be honest. I mean, I did, but --"
"Lucy is dead," the Master said, cutting off the Doctor's rambling. "My resurrection didn't go exactly as planned. She died so I could live." He looked at the Doctor. "And I didn't get a bargain-basement copy of her as a keepsake."
Before the Doctor had a chance to say anything, their capsule ground to screechy halt. A couple of very handsy teenagers were waiting impatiently for them to disembark. The Master did so as slowly as possible, just to annoy them.
"Have fun, kids," the Master told them as they were strapped in. "Don't worry, apparently that snapping noise you hear when you get to the top is completely natural." He smiled and waved as their suddenly ashen faces started to recede.
"That wasn't very nice," the Doctor said, mildly.
"I'm not a nice person," the Master replied.
He walked away from the ferris wheel.
chapter one ~ chapter 2 ~ chapter three ~ chapter four ~ chapter five ~ chapter six ~ chapter seven