Fic: The End of All Things
WARNING: To people I know personally who have not been subjected to fandom, please stay away from this story. I do not take responsibility for any brain trauma induced by reading this, Tyler, if you fail to heed this warning.
Title: The End of All Things
Author: selskia
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing(s): Master/Doctor
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): Graphic torture, graphic sex, D/s, extremely dark writing. Here be no fluff. Tread carefully. Spoilers through DW 313.
Word Count: 4669
Challenge: masterficathon, for animagiblender
Disclaimer: Doctor Who isn't mine. I wish it was, though, but sadly, it isn't. Really.
Summary: What the Master offers is the forbidden fruit, the balm to heal all aches, the purest sin to ever exist. Partial-and-post-313 AU.
Author's Note: Er, animagiblender, sorry if it's like, way way way too twisted. But I took your third prompt and ran with it. It was fun! But, alas, it's also the sort of story that makes me doubt the fact that I have morals a little. It started out being more darkly fluffy, but the Master!muse insisted on utter depravity, so...here it is. Hope you enjoy!
EDIT: And a great big thank-you to snowgrouse, who pointed out an embarassing little typo for me. Eep.
~
For the moment, all was quiet.
It wasn’t too uncommon. After all, the Master didn’t spend all his time tormenting the Doctor, no, no. There were other things to do on the Valiant. Visit Jack, for example, spend a little time with darling Lucy.
Tormenting the Doctor was one of the highlights of his day, though. Flipping through the years, turning the Doctor old and young, back and forth. All with the Jones family watching their hero scream and cry and making and remaking coffee, with their “Yes, Master”s and “No, Master”s.
It sounded so much more thrilling from the Doctor’s mouth. But, alas, the noble bastard kept trying to help his twisted soul, and that just took the thrill out of it. The word was there, m-a-s-t-e-r, but the feeling, the intent, was gone, leaving only pity in its wake. Absolutely disgusting.
Still, he lives as the sole ruler of Earth, his empire. Not exactly a bad thing. Perfectly poised to take over the universe, slowly breaking the Doctor’s soul. Humanity. Lovely, isn’t it?
~
And so, world struggled, gasping for breath, scrabbling at the edges of hell and brimstone. On and on, they persevered. Later, they would return to their normal lives as if their time as mere insects never occurred.
Later, they would wish the world never turned back -- at least they had hope.
~
“You don’t hear it?”
The Master tapped out the rhythm again against the bars, asking again and again. “Do you hear it?”
Again and again, the Doctor shakes his head sadly.
“It never stops, Doctor. Always, always...”
Slowly, the feeble figure in the cage leans forward, towards the frantic Master. “I could help,” the figure whispers, “at least ease your pain.”
“Hah!” comes the barking laugh, singular, short, staccato. “You wouldn’t understand, my dear Doctor,” the Master says with a sneer. His fingers drum lightly, restlessly, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap. “You’ll never understand.”
~
It’s Monday. And with Mondays come a certain kind of relief for the Doctor: he stays young and youthful for the day.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The Master even had Tish print it out for him, clean and crisp, a weekly schedule for the Doctor to stare at into the night.
Mondays, or, for that matter, all days, were by no means peaceful. Pain came regularly, as did blaringly loud dance music.
“Why?” the Doctor asked in the brief pause between songs. “Why this, and not classic rock?”
The Master actually paused, turning to face the Doctor. He snorted. “The drums, Doctor. Always the drums.”
“Yeah, but why not classic rock? You used to like it, back at the Academy.”
The Master gives another snort, rolling his eyes. “Just because you happened to like the classics of Earth doesn’t mean it’s better than anything else. You were the only one daft enough to like 20th century Earth music, remember?”
“And I practically forced you to listen to it,” the Doctor finishes. Back at the academy, back when they would run off through the fields of red grass and just exist. Together. Always together, because even then, especially then, he was-
“It helps?” he adds, shutting down that particular train of thought. “But then, why don't you just-”
“Because doing this,” the Master says, lifting his laser screwdriver with a grin, “is just so much more satisfying.”
The Doctor sighs and closes his eyes, resigned to his fate. Once again, he prays that the others won’t have to hear him scream.
~
Later. He’s managed to save the world, the year that never was never was, but he’s still dead.
The only one that matters.
He needs him, just like he is needed. A performer needs an audience, an audience needs a performer.
His only kin.
Alone. AloneAloneAloneAloneAloneAlone.
~
Suddenly, the Doctor laid the Master down, the misery gone from his face. There was hope there instead, quickly replaced by anxiety, then fear.
“Jack, Martha,” he said, “go to the TARDIS, quickly.”
As for himself, he knelt and lifted the Master into his arms again, standing. Walking.
“Go, just go. Quickly. Martha, bring the first-aid supplies. Jack, start taking the paradox material off.”
It was unethical, not to mention dangerous. For both of them. But alone, so alone, always alone, no mind pressing against his, no foreign thoughts echoing in his brain. He could manage the side effects, if he survived it.
He would. He’d have to. He can’t bear to be alone.
~
Martha didn’t want to help. It was the Master, the Master, the time lord that held her planet captive in perpetual suffering for a full year. But, like all the others, the call to the Doctor was too strong and, in the end, she believed in him.
Jack didn’t want to help. It was the Master, the Master, the time lord that held him captive in perpetual suffering for almost a full year. But the Doctor had looked at him with such tiredness, such suffering, that he couldn’t not help.
They should have stopped him.
Later, they would wish they had.
~
“What exactly’s your brilliant plan, Doctor?” Jack asked with some resignation. Hopefully it was a way of ensuring the Master stayed dead. Probably it was some way to bring him back, and, well, the man doesn’t have the right to live. But Doctor knows best.
“Jack, you’ve been able to save people, forcefeed life into them, right?” the Doctor said, edging into the TARDIS. The paradox was broken, but she was still broken and hurt, pulsing a pale red instead of a healthy green-gold. “Martha, can you remove the bullet -- carefully! -- and patch up his wound like he were alive?”
Jack turned from where he was helping to dismantle the paradox machine. “Yeah -- wait, are you asking me to-”
Martha hesitated, shaking her head before setting to work on the newly dead corpse.
“No, it wouldn’t work. You don’t have enough Artron energy, can’t give enough in one try -- Time Lords, we require a blast of it to come back.” He began pulling cords from the console, peeling away the plastic to access the panels themselves.
Martha spoke up, “So you’re going to-”
“Have to. It’s the only way. Oh, it’s dangerous, and I’ll have to give up a regeneration, but no one else will die today. Oh, and our minds will be permanently linked-”
“Wait, what!?” both humans cried out in unison.
“-since we’ll share the same Artron signature. Permanent energy transfer, physically our minds are our own, but they act as a collective. Almost like a hive mind, but not. But, that way, I can keep an eye on him, and...” he says, his words fading to the unsaid phrase repeating in his mind.
Not alone.
The Doctor turned to the TARDIS quickly, running hands over the buttons “Please, old girl, help us out. Please, I need this to work, I need you just in case, and-” faintly, in the background, a light faded into gold “-thank you.”
He stops. It’s all theory, really, activating his stored regenerations and channeling them into someone else. It could work beautifully and force a full regeneration on the Master. It could just provide enough impetus to reactivate his mind and put him in a self-healing trance, with the bullet gone and the wound theoretically patched up. It could force a regeneration on himself and leave the Master dead. It could kill him.
“Stay away, both of you, no matter what happens,” the Doctor warned. So, how to do this? In theory, the telepathic touch to the temples were all that were needed, but -- well, it always worked for Jack, at least from what he’s said.
Carefully, delicately, the Doctor kneels by his fellow timelord, tilts the still-warm chin up, and presses his lips to the Master’s.
~
It’s dark.
Dully, that’s the only thought that sparks through the Master’s non-existant mind. His soul, perhaps, his spirit.
It’s dark, and he’s been here for either a moment or an eternity, and he can’t quite tell which.
But there’s light. Light that has just appeared and has been there forever. It’s quiet, without the drums.
Light. Lucy. Maybe the useless bitch did keep to the plan.
~
“He’s breathing,” the Doctor says with a gasp of air, clinging to the console. Jack stands above, arms crossed, while Martha kneels to check the Master’s vitals.
“That he is,” she says after a few seconds, standing. “Congratulations,” she continues, voice flat and devoid of emotion. She’s not sure what to think.
The Doctor lets go of the console and nearly crumples to the ground, supporting himself on his hands. Transferring a regeneration isn’t like experiencing one -- instead of exhilaration, there is exhaustion, a bone-deep sense of loss. But, at the same time, he can feel a healing mind against his own.
“He’s breathing and...and thank you, both of you. Truly.”
The Doctor has such a look of hope and happiness and not-alone-ness that the humans manage to smile.
Barely.
~
Exactly seventy-two hours later, the TARDIS was orbiting the Asterorpitz system, idling quietly in space, the isomorphic security system activated and tuned to the Doctor. Jack and Martha decided to head their own ways soon after the Doctor regained his strength, and he was on his own again.
Well, almost. Now he had someone to care for.
The Master had slipped out of a healing trance into a sleeping trance during the first day, and his mind was sound, as far as the Doctor could tell. Granted, staying in a sleeping trance for more than a day was unusual, even for a post-regeneration Gallifreyan -- but forcing Artron energy into a newly dead corpse was far from normal.
As the Master’s brainwaves started to ascend towards a waking state, the Doctor mulled at his bedside, waiting.
And so, the Master opened his eyes, setting off alarms left and right with his sudden surge to wakefulness.
“You bastard,” are the first words out of the Master’s mouth, and the Doctor grins at the sudden flood of thoughts mingling with his own. He doesn’t notice the light, almost-there drumbeat in the background, not yet.
The Doctor can feel the Master pause in developing his tirade about how he had won, dammit. The synapses stop firing in that particular pattern and the thoughts die in his brain. The Master probes through the Doctor’s mind, at first tentatively, then with force -- the last few days, emotions -- then to the here and now. He smiles, grins, then laughs with a cackle just barely out of reach.
The Doctor falters, and the Master turns triumphant eyes to the other time lord. With fascination, the Doctor watches the thoughts form, the words collect themselves, and the signals rushing to the motor neurons.
“You’re mine, now,” he says, and laughs and laughs and laughs.
~
Later, the Doctor finds out what he meant by that.
It comes and it goes, the drums. He finds his fingers moving to that beat, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, as he moves around the ship, fixing the odd part, fiddling with yet another almost-dead control. But always the drumming. He’s tried finding the source, maybe fixing or dampening the beat, but it seems almost ethereal. There is no source. It just is.
As time passes, both men confined to the ship (no more adventures, he needs to watch over the Master), the drums gradually get steadily worse. The Doctor can feel it, the call to war, echoing through his bones and tearing at his mind, all while the Master suggests murder, rape, control, destruction, all to alleviate the cursed drumming.
The Doctor denies the requests, and spends hours at a time curled in a corner of the sleeping quarters, head held in hands as the drumming goes on, and on, and on. He can feel his mind wearing down.
Worst of all, the Master knows this. He’ll sail in, take a look at the Doctor, lean over, and whisper of how this pain is nothing, this is what he deals with daily, wait until the drums get to where they pound on your thoughts, twisting them to its own rhythm, tearing your emotions apart in waves of pain and fury and need. Another week, he says. He knows. He’s been through this before. Another week, at this rate.
Then you’ll be mine, the thought whispers unsaid and unprojected through the Master’s mind. The Doctor can see, though, and knows it to be true.
After another day, the Doctor walks into the control room during one of the drums’ quieter moments, if they can be called quiet. More like barely bearable. He walks in, and calmly switches the classical music to Scissor Sisters and Madonna and all the music he can remember the Master playing during that year of captivity. He turns the volume to its maximum, steps back, and allows the sound to wash through him, almost cleansing. The Master was right, it does help.
~
The Master, meanwhile, has taken the drums in stride. He’s used to this, the current level of drumming -- it’s what he would normally face on a good day, if it weren’t for the Doctor’s tempering presence in his mind. The man’s control was wearing thin, though. The drums did that to a person. And the echoes of misery from the Doctor’s side, while weakened from their travel to his own mind, were annoying.
So, when the Doctor slips into excruciating pain, the Master starts introducing thoughts into the man’s mind, experimenting. Seeing what can be used to corrupt that noble soul, what can be used to alleviate that pain -- because despite everything, with both their minds being so easy to dip into, he can feel his thoughts mingling with the Doctor’s, becoming one. He’s caring, now, a little more. Not of the insects that inhabit the universe, but of the Doctor. But, at the same time, he can feel some of his sadism pulled into the Doctor’s half, like a moth to the flame.
That last fact, actually, was his inspiration for this idea. Images of pain, torture, sex, death, destruction, all slowly fed into the Doctor’s mind in varying forms during his worst moments of pain. He doesn’t remember them afterwards, and the Master is careful to cover the memory under unsuspecting thoughts and emotions.
It’s an experiment, both to finally take victory over the Doctor, and to find relief for the drums.
~
The TARDIS needs refueling every so often, and after a week, the Doctor finally relents and lands on a rift. Not Earth, mind, but on a remote planet inhabited by blue puffballs with feet, which happens to have a tiny tear in time and space the size of a post-it note.
It’s enough, though. Enough for the TARDIS to soak up energy, slowly, and for the Master to offer temptation.
He’s figured out the Doctor’s weaknesses, by now. The man is actually quite Rani-like at heart, curious and seeking knowledge above all else. Like all beings, he succumbs to the primal pleasures of food, sex, and pleasure, but he also seems to have a fascination for torture and suffering. Not death, though, the primary demand of the drums. Why that small aspect of nobility continues to shine forever through is beyond him, but the Doctor gains no relief from killing, only from passively watching death.
Which is good enough.
“Aww, are the drums getting to you?” the Master coos sarcastically, tapping his fingers against the Doctor’s head, his thoughts against the Doctor’s mind. Tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap. They’re getting much worse now, to the point where the Master himself is having trouble with them.
“I can help, you know,” he says, pushing down on the Doctor’s chest, pushing him into lying down flat on the grating. “I know how to make them stop.”
The Doctor lets out a pained, helpless sob, trying to curl in on himself. The Master forces him down again, leaning in close, breathing in the fear and pain and sheer terror. He slips the sonic screwdriver from the Doctor’s pocket and pushes it into the man’s hands, twisting his own hands to travel under the Doctor’s shirt.
“I can make it better,” he whispers, “your Master can help with the pain, dear Doctor. Do you want that?”
There’s a faint, almost non-existent plea of yes, yes, need, please.
“Excuse me? What did you say?”
No response, just the continued babble. The Master rakes his nails down the Doctor’s side, digging them in, almost drawing blood. The flood of pain-pleasure-relief from the Doctor is almost orgasmic. Finally, the man answers, almost sobbing. “Please, Master, please, more.”
Eventually, the Doctor will come to associate relief with joy and submission, and at that point, the Master wins.
“Good boy,” the Master whispers. Now, just let me out. Let me out and I can give you more, he thinks, with just a touch of intent.
The sonic screwdriver buzzes, unlocking the main doors, and the Master jumps up. He grabs a modified molotov cocktail and a box, both prepared earlier, and runs out the doors. Finally.
The window of opportunity’s too small to craft an elaborate scheme, which he would much prefer, so the Master settles for wanton destruction. It works, although crudely.
The blue puffballs gather at his feet as he steps out, curious as to the strange being that has arrived. He grabs three, stuffs them in his box, sets it down, and tosses his hand-made bomb. It explodes, right in time to the drums, with enhanced alcohol and fire and glass.
The planet itself is ridiculous, and it reminds him of Teletubbies, but he can see fire licking at the too-green grass and several puffballs lighting and spreading the fire faster in their panic. A minute later, and the first ones start to die from fire-related trauma and severe burns. Another minute, and the patch of blackened land starts to spread and grow, flames rising higher as the puffballs keen with a fearful, high-pitched squeak.
The Master claps with demented glee, mind coming alive as the drums finally settle and beat in time with his mind, instead of thrashing it apart. Just for the fun of it, he stomps on one puffball running from the fire, grinding it under the heel of his shoe, hearing bones of sodium-chloride crack and seeing a small puddle of glittering, clear blood seep out. He wipes off his shoe on a patch of clean grass, and kicks another puffball into the fire for good measure.
Inside, the Doctor sees everything from the Master’s mind, watching with fascination, relief, and lingering horror.
~
When the Doctor rises from his drum-induced fugue, he promptly manhandles the Master back into the TARDIS, into an empty closet, and locks him in, accidentally including the remaining puffballs in his haste. He’s horrified, particularly over the fact that he was enjoying the death and destruction of the adorable trippid’s homeworld right along with the Master for the first few minutes. But he manages to save a few dozen, and leaves them to resettle their land.
“It won’t last, Doctor,” the Master taunts, “you’ll be back soon, begging me for relief.”
He’s right. The drums come back quickly, within the next two days, wreaking havoc as if to punish the Doctor for the interrupted massacre, accented by the Master’s fury at being locked in a closet. The pain is crippling, and the sheer will needed to not go and massacre a planet like he witnessed a few days before is sapping his strength.
“Please, Master,” he says at the open doorway. The Master smirks and pushes the Doctor down onto his knees. He tsks, amused, taking careful steps around the kneeling man.
“Really, Doctor, no self-control! What would your dear humans think of you now?”
The Doctor just looks up, pleading still in their minds.
“Oh, well, fine,” the Master says, batting a hand at the Doctor. “I’ll let you play with my pets, just this once.”
The Master steps back into the closet, and comes back with a squealing, miserable trippid in his hand, its blue fur matted with dried, sparkling blood. In his other hand is a makeshift knife, made from a scrap of metal.
The Doctor flinches back instinctively, but his eyes follow the puffball with fascination.
“Aww, look at it! So adorable! And,” the Master says, taking his knife and slicing shallowly into one of the pale orange feet, “it cries so shrilly!”
The Doctor just watches, entranced and passive. The Master snorts, and squats to the Doctor’s level, curling the man’s fingers around the knife. As if he were a child, the Master guides his hands to the trippid, caressing the fur with the knife, gently urging the man’s hand down to cut into living flesh. There’s another sharp keen, and all traces of horror on the Doctor’s face are gone, just rapture and unmistakable relief.
“And look, see what you can do? Here,” the Master grinned, nudging the thing’s skin up and over, exposing heart and lungs. “Its organ systems are stable enough that they can be exposed to open air, and it still lives.”
Sparkling blood wets both their hands, and still the Doctor stares. He nudges a lung, moving it slightly to expose the thin tubes linking them to the heart, as it cries out again. The Doctor’s mouth hangs open, and he licks his lips before speaking. “There are actually nerve endings on the lungs,” he starts, pausing to take in a gulp of air. He’s excited. “Probably as a result of having no natural predators and...and needing a way to identify internal damage,” he says, pushing the lung back and pointing to a small, shriveled part, “which seems to be common, from the layout of the organs.”
He stops, and the Master caresses the hand under his soothingly. He can feel it -- the call to death, destruction, killing. But he also knows the Doctor could never do it himself.
So, the Master peels fingers off the knife and curls it into his own hands, dragging it across the trippid’s exposed organs as the thing’s cries bubble out with its last, fluid-filled breath. Both men watch, quietly -- the moment feels almost sacred, tangible.
The Doctor’s learning.
~
What the Master offers is the forbidden fruit, the balm to heal all aches, the purest sin to ever exist.
And the Doctor has fallen. He longs, lusts, and craves it, and centuries of what is right fall away in one fell swoop.
~
The primal pleasures are best for day-to-day management of the drums, the Master had explained one day. Good food, great women, displays of power and control. The Doctor had listened impassively, horrified at his own actions whenever the drums grew stronger. On the outside, he looked exactly the same as ever, although his face was slightly more pained and his eyes deadened. He was starting to lose touch with his ethical senses, pleasure versus morals. Lust for submission versus noble heroism.
It is this last one that the Master slowly cultivates, seeding thoughts in the Doctor’s fracturing mind. The man was strong, but dealing with the drums was making him weak, just as it had to the Master in the early days, before he embraced it. The drums were bringing out his darker, submissive, pleasure-driven side, long-hidden beneath the righteous exterior.
So it isn’t surprising that one night, the Master is awakened from a sleeping trance to painfully pounding drums and a lapful of naked, shuddering Doctor. It’s the worst the drums have been so far, bad enough that the Master immediately flips the Doctor beneath him on the bed and bites his neck, hard. He can feel the muscles spasm and can taste artron-fortified blood, and it takes the edge off the demands of the drums. But still, they call: more, now, need, use, hurt, tear.
The Doctor’s still murmuring something, an endless litany of please Master, need you Master, and the Master can see the seeds of thought he planted blooming in full sunlight his mind. Just as suspected, it’s feeding off suppressed wanton need and masochism. The man’s pushing down the Master’s sleepwear and splashing something -- strawberry lube, from the smell of it -- on his hardening cock. Please, take me, the man says, make it stop.
The Master barks a laugh at his audacity, and shoves the Doctor off the bed, pinning the man facedown on the floor, holding his neck in place. “You want this?” he sneers, pushing fully into the Doctor in one fluid movement. The Doctor screams, and the Master moves his hand to choke him, closing off his windpipe and stopping the beautiful sound. He can still hear it in his mind.
“You want to be used? Fucked? Taken, inside and out, mine?” Without a trace of finesse, the Master floods the Doctor’s mind with feeling -- the pleasure, the unending drums, the sight of the Doctor, held and choking and, despite everything, getting hard from the sheer sadism. His mind screams, and the Master laughs, feeling it pulse to the rhythm of the drums.
Then, as abruptly as he started, the Master stops, still buried in the Doctor, silencing his thoughts. Panic blooms beautifully in the Doctor’s mind, and his physical self is straining against the Master’s hold. MoreMoreMoreMoreMore, comes the echo from the Doctor, use me fuck me hurt me take me.
The Master forces a direct conduit to the Doctor’s mind, twisting open his feedback loop. He’s hit by a blast of raw pleasure from the Doctor, and he starts thrusting roughly again, laughing from the sheer power of it all. The Doctor keens, and feels nails clawing down his chest, and when the Master comes, the telepathic backlash overloads his brain and triggers his own orgasm.
~
The Doctor feels utterly filthy, hurt, used, desecrated, and violated.
The drums are nearly silent.
He’s never felt so good in his entire life.
~
The universe, as always, is incapable of taking care of itself.
Before long, there are multiple distress signals, and the Doctor’s TARDIS being the old clunker that she is, can’t help but go answer the pleas. But what comes to their aid is far from salvation, more like destruction. Doomed worlds are sent on their way, all while the Master gleefully meddles and the Doctor vicariously watches.
He still won’t kill, but he takes every opportunity to vivisect any specimens the Master sends his way. They always live, but they never want to.
Gradually, as the death toll rises, the Doctor begins actively helping the Master in his pursuits. Torturing prisoners, waiting hand and foot on the Master, charming the locals while the Master plots their destruction. He learns to embrace the drums, turn them to his own purposes, use them to amplify pleasure and power and indulgence.
Together, they’re unstoppable.
~
All was quiet, for the moment. The Doctor lies on the couch, head in the Master’s lap, hair being petted and his arse groped. Lovingly, he nuzzles at the Master’s hip, eyes gleaming with intelligence and saturated with decadence.
“So that’s what I’ll do”, the Master says. “I’ll take over the universe, watch it burn from a new Gallifrey.”
The Doctor was right, after all. The Master does need an audience, someone to watch and make everything worth it.
“And I’ll do it all, with you at my side.”
The audience doesn’t have to be against him, though. The audience could be his own personal fucktoy, a torturer, almost lover, broken and beautiful with a mind to die for, molded to complement his own.
His.
The Doctor laughs, the clear tone ringing throughout the room.
“First stop,” he says giddily, “Earth.”
Finis
Title: The End of All Things
Author: selskia
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing(s): Master/Doctor
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): Graphic torture, graphic sex, D/s, extremely dark writing. Here be no fluff. Tread carefully. Spoilers through DW 313.
Word Count: 4669
Challenge: masterficathon, for animagiblender
Disclaimer: Doctor Who isn't mine. I wish it was, though, but sadly, it isn't. Really.
Summary: What the Master offers is the forbidden fruit, the balm to heal all aches, the purest sin to ever exist. Partial-and-post-313 AU.
Author's Note: Er, animagiblender, sorry if it's like, way way way too twisted. But I took your third prompt and ran with it. It was fun! But, alas, it's also the sort of story that makes me doubt the fact that I have morals a little. It started out being more darkly fluffy, but the Master!muse insisted on utter depravity, so...here it is. Hope you enjoy!
EDIT: And a great big thank-you to snowgrouse, who pointed out an embarassing little typo for me. Eep.
~
For the moment, all was quiet.
It wasn’t too uncommon. After all, the Master didn’t spend all his time tormenting the Doctor, no, no. There were other things to do on the Valiant. Visit Jack, for example, spend a little time with darling Lucy.
Tormenting the Doctor was one of the highlights of his day, though. Flipping through the years, turning the Doctor old and young, back and forth. All with the Jones family watching their hero scream and cry and making and remaking coffee, with their “Yes, Master”s and “No, Master”s.
It sounded so much more thrilling from the Doctor’s mouth. But, alas, the noble bastard kept trying to help his twisted soul, and that just took the thrill out of it. The word was there, m-a-s-t-e-r, but the feeling, the intent, was gone, leaving only pity in its wake. Absolutely disgusting.
Still, he lives as the sole ruler of Earth, his empire. Not exactly a bad thing. Perfectly poised to take over the universe, slowly breaking the Doctor’s soul. Humanity. Lovely, isn’t it?
~
And so, world struggled, gasping for breath, scrabbling at the edges of hell and brimstone. On and on, they persevered. Later, they would return to their normal lives as if their time as mere insects never occurred.
Later, they would wish the world never turned back -- at least they had hope.
~
“You don’t hear it?”
The Master tapped out the rhythm again against the bars, asking again and again. “Do you hear it?”
Again and again, the Doctor shakes his head sadly.
“It never stops, Doctor. Always, always...”
Slowly, the feeble figure in the cage leans forward, towards the frantic Master. “I could help,” the figure whispers, “at least ease your pain.”
“Hah!” comes the barking laugh, singular, short, staccato. “You wouldn’t understand, my dear Doctor,” the Master says with a sneer. His fingers drum lightly, restlessly, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap. “You’ll never understand.”
~
It’s Monday. And with Mondays come a certain kind of relief for the Doctor: he stays young and youthful for the day.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The Master even had Tish print it out for him, clean and crisp, a weekly schedule for the Doctor to stare at into the night.
Mondays, or, for that matter, all days, were by no means peaceful. Pain came regularly, as did blaringly loud dance music.
“Why?” the Doctor asked in the brief pause between songs. “Why this, and not classic rock?”
The Master actually paused, turning to face the Doctor. He snorted. “The drums, Doctor. Always the drums.”
“Yeah, but why not classic rock? You used to like it, back at the Academy.”
The Master gives another snort, rolling his eyes. “Just because you happened to like the classics of Earth doesn’t mean it’s better than anything else. You were the only one daft enough to like 20th century Earth music, remember?”
“And I practically forced you to listen to it,” the Doctor finishes. Back at the academy, back when they would run off through the fields of red grass and just exist. Together. Always together, because even then, especially then, he was-
“It helps?” he adds, shutting down that particular train of thought. “But then, why don't you just-”
“Because doing this,” the Master says, lifting his laser screwdriver with a grin, “is just so much more satisfying.”
The Doctor sighs and closes his eyes, resigned to his fate. Once again, he prays that the others won’t have to hear him scream.
~
Later. He’s managed to save the world, the year that never was never was, but he’s still dead.
The only one that matters.
He needs him, just like he is needed. A performer needs an audience, an audience needs a performer.
His only kin.
Alone. AloneAloneAloneAloneAloneAlone.
~
Suddenly, the Doctor laid the Master down, the misery gone from his face. There was hope there instead, quickly replaced by anxiety, then fear.
“Jack, Martha,” he said, “go to the TARDIS, quickly.”
As for himself, he knelt and lifted the Master into his arms again, standing. Walking.
“Go, just go. Quickly. Martha, bring the first-aid supplies. Jack, start taking the paradox material off.”
It was unethical, not to mention dangerous. For both of them. But alone, so alone, always alone, no mind pressing against his, no foreign thoughts echoing in his brain. He could manage the side effects, if he survived it.
He would. He’d have to. He can’t bear to be alone.
~
Martha didn’t want to help. It was the Master, the Master, the time lord that held her planet captive in perpetual suffering for a full year. But, like all the others, the call to the Doctor was too strong and, in the end, she believed in him.
Jack didn’t want to help. It was the Master, the Master, the time lord that held him captive in perpetual suffering for almost a full year. But the Doctor had looked at him with such tiredness, such suffering, that he couldn’t not help.
They should have stopped him.
Later, they would wish they had.
~
“What exactly’s your brilliant plan, Doctor?” Jack asked with some resignation. Hopefully it was a way of ensuring the Master stayed dead. Probably it was some way to bring him back, and, well, the man doesn’t have the right to live. But Doctor knows best.
“Jack, you’ve been able to save people, forcefeed life into them, right?” the Doctor said, edging into the TARDIS. The paradox was broken, but she was still broken and hurt, pulsing a pale red instead of a healthy green-gold. “Martha, can you remove the bullet -- carefully! -- and patch up his wound like he were alive?”
Jack turned from where he was helping to dismantle the paradox machine. “Yeah -- wait, are you asking me to-”
Martha hesitated, shaking her head before setting to work on the newly dead corpse.
“No, it wouldn’t work. You don’t have enough Artron energy, can’t give enough in one try -- Time Lords, we require a blast of it to come back.” He began pulling cords from the console, peeling away the plastic to access the panels themselves.
Martha spoke up, “So you’re going to-”
“Have to. It’s the only way. Oh, it’s dangerous, and I’ll have to give up a regeneration, but no one else will die today. Oh, and our minds will be permanently linked-”
“Wait, what!?” both humans cried out in unison.
“-since we’ll share the same Artron signature. Permanent energy transfer, physically our minds are our own, but they act as a collective. Almost like a hive mind, but not. But, that way, I can keep an eye on him, and...” he says, his words fading to the unsaid phrase repeating in his mind.
Not alone.
The Doctor turned to the TARDIS quickly, running hands over the buttons “Please, old girl, help us out. Please, I need this to work, I need you just in case, and-” faintly, in the background, a light faded into gold “-thank you.”
He stops. It’s all theory, really, activating his stored regenerations and channeling them into someone else. It could work beautifully and force a full regeneration on the Master. It could just provide enough impetus to reactivate his mind and put him in a self-healing trance, with the bullet gone and the wound theoretically patched up. It could force a regeneration on himself and leave the Master dead. It could kill him.
“Stay away, both of you, no matter what happens,” the Doctor warned. So, how to do this? In theory, the telepathic touch to the temples were all that were needed, but -- well, it always worked for Jack, at least from what he’s said.
Carefully, delicately, the Doctor kneels by his fellow timelord, tilts the still-warm chin up, and presses his lips to the Master’s.
~
It’s dark.
Dully, that’s the only thought that sparks through the Master’s non-existant mind. His soul, perhaps, his spirit.
It’s dark, and he’s been here for either a moment or an eternity, and he can’t quite tell which.
But there’s light. Light that has just appeared and has been there forever. It’s quiet, without the drums.
Light. Lucy. Maybe the useless bitch did keep to the plan.
~
“He’s breathing,” the Doctor says with a gasp of air, clinging to the console. Jack stands above, arms crossed, while Martha kneels to check the Master’s vitals.
“That he is,” she says after a few seconds, standing. “Congratulations,” she continues, voice flat and devoid of emotion. She’s not sure what to think.
The Doctor lets go of the console and nearly crumples to the ground, supporting himself on his hands. Transferring a regeneration isn’t like experiencing one -- instead of exhilaration, there is exhaustion, a bone-deep sense of loss. But, at the same time, he can feel a healing mind against his own.
“He’s breathing and...and thank you, both of you. Truly.”
The Doctor has such a look of hope and happiness and not-alone-ness that the humans manage to smile.
Barely.
~
Exactly seventy-two hours later, the TARDIS was orbiting the Asterorpitz system, idling quietly in space, the isomorphic security system activated and tuned to the Doctor. Jack and Martha decided to head their own ways soon after the Doctor regained his strength, and he was on his own again.
Well, almost. Now he had someone to care for.
The Master had slipped out of a healing trance into a sleeping trance during the first day, and his mind was sound, as far as the Doctor could tell. Granted, staying in a sleeping trance for more than a day was unusual, even for a post-regeneration Gallifreyan -- but forcing Artron energy into a newly dead corpse was far from normal.
As the Master’s brainwaves started to ascend towards a waking state, the Doctor mulled at his bedside, waiting.
And so, the Master opened his eyes, setting off alarms left and right with his sudden surge to wakefulness.
“You bastard,” are the first words out of the Master’s mouth, and the Doctor grins at the sudden flood of thoughts mingling with his own. He doesn’t notice the light, almost-there drumbeat in the background, not yet.
The Doctor can feel the Master pause in developing his tirade about how he had won, dammit. The synapses stop firing in that particular pattern and the thoughts die in his brain. The Master probes through the Doctor’s mind, at first tentatively, then with force -- the last few days, emotions -- then to the here and now. He smiles, grins, then laughs with a cackle just barely out of reach.
The Doctor falters, and the Master turns triumphant eyes to the other time lord. With fascination, the Doctor watches the thoughts form, the words collect themselves, and the signals rushing to the motor neurons.
“You’re mine, now,” he says, and laughs and laughs and laughs.
~
Later, the Doctor finds out what he meant by that.
It comes and it goes, the drums. He finds his fingers moving to that beat, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, as he moves around the ship, fixing the odd part, fiddling with yet another almost-dead control. But always the drumming. He’s tried finding the source, maybe fixing or dampening the beat, but it seems almost ethereal. There is no source. It just is.
As time passes, both men confined to the ship (no more adventures, he needs to watch over the Master), the drums gradually get steadily worse. The Doctor can feel it, the call to war, echoing through his bones and tearing at his mind, all while the Master suggests murder, rape, control, destruction, all to alleviate the cursed drumming.
The Doctor denies the requests, and spends hours at a time curled in a corner of the sleeping quarters, head held in hands as the drumming goes on, and on, and on. He can feel his mind wearing down.
Worst of all, the Master knows this. He’ll sail in, take a look at the Doctor, lean over, and whisper of how this pain is nothing, this is what he deals with daily, wait until the drums get to where they pound on your thoughts, twisting them to its own rhythm, tearing your emotions apart in waves of pain and fury and need. Another week, he says. He knows. He’s been through this before. Another week, at this rate.
Then you’ll be mine, the thought whispers unsaid and unprojected through the Master’s mind. The Doctor can see, though, and knows it to be true.
After another day, the Doctor walks into the control room during one of the drums’ quieter moments, if they can be called quiet. More like barely bearable. He walks in, and calmly switches the classical music to Scissor Sisters and Madonna and all the music he can remember the Master playing during that year of captivity. He turns the volume to its maximum, steps back, and allows the sound to wash through him, almost cleansing. The Master was right, it does help.
~
The Master, meanwhile, has taken the drums in stride. He’s used to this, the current level of drumming -- it’s what he would normally face on a good day, if it weren’t for the Doctor’s tempering presence in his mind. The man’s control was wearing thin, though. The drums did that to a person. And the echoes of misery from the Doctor’s side, while weakened from their travel to his own mind, were annoying.
So, when the Doctor slips into excruciating pain, the Master starts introducing thoughts into the man’s mind, experimenting. Seeing what can be used to corrupt that noble soul, what can be used to alleviate that pain -- because despite everything, with both their minds being so easy to dip into, he can feel his thoughts mingling with the Doctor’s, becoming one. He’s caring, now, a little more. Not of the insects that inhabit the universe, but of the Doctor. But, at the same time, he can feel some of his sadism pulled into the Doctor’s half, like a moth to the flame.
That last fact, actually, was his inspiration for this idea. Images of pain, torture, sex, death, destruction, all slowly fed into the Doctor’s mind in varying forms during his worst moments of pain. He doesn’t remember them afterwards, and the Master is careful to cover the memory under unsuspecting thoughts and emotions.
It’s an experiment, both to finally take victory over the Doctor, and to find relief for the drums.
~
The TARDIS needs refueling every so often, and after a week, the Doctor finally relents and lands on a rift. Not Earth, mind, but on a remote planet inhabited by blue puffballs with feet, which happens to have a tiny tear in time and space the size of a post-it note.
It’s enough, though. Enough for the TARDIS to soak up energy, slowly, and for the Master to offer temptation.
He’s figured out the Doctor’s weaknesses, by now. The man is actually quite Rani-like at heart, curious and seeking knowledge above all else. Like all beings, he succumbs to the primal pleasures of food, sex, and pleasure, but he also seems to have a fascination for torture and suffering. Not death, though, the primary demand of the drums. Why that small aspect of nobility continues to shine forever through is beyond him, but the Doctor gains no relief from killing, only from passively watching death.
Which is good enough.
“Aww, are the drums getting to you?” the Master coos sarcastically, tapping his fingers against the Doctor’s head, his thoughts against the Doctor’s mind. Tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap. They’re getting much worse now, to the point where the Master himself is having trouble with them.
“I can help, you know,” he says, pushing down on the Doctor’s chest, pushing him into lying down flat on the grating. “I know how to make them stop.”
The Doctor lets out a pained, helpless sob, trying to curl in on himself. The Master forces him down again, leaning in close, breathing in the fear and pain and sheer terror. He slips the sonic screwdriver from the Doctor’s pocket and pushes it into the man’s hands, twisting his own hands to travel under the Doctor’s shirt.
“I can make it better,” he whispers, “your Master can help with the pain, dear Doctor. Do you want that?”
There’s a faint, almost non-existent plea of yes, yes, need, please.
“Excuse me? What did you say?”
No response, just the continued babble. The Master rakes his nails down the Doctor’s side, digging them in, almost drawing blood. The flood of pain-pleasure-relief from the Doctor is almost orgasmic. Finally, the man answers, almost sobbing. “Please, Master, please, more.”
Eventually, the Doctor will come to associate relief with joy and submission, and at that point, the Master wins.
“Good boy,” the Master whispers. Now, just let me out. Let me out and I can give you more, he thinks, with just a touch of intent.
The sonic screwdriver buzzes, unlocking the main doors, and the Master jumps up. He grabs a modified molotov cocktail and a box, both prepared earlier, and runs out the doors. Finally.
The window of opportunity’s too small to craft an elaborate scheme, which he would much prefer, so the Master settles for wanton destruction. It works, although crudely.
The blue puffballs gather at his feet as he steps out, curious as to the strange being that has arrived. He grabs three, stuffs them in his box, sets it down, and tosses his hand-made bomb. It explodes, right in time to the drums, with enhanced alcohol and fire and glass.
The planet itself is ridiculous, and it reminds him of Teletubbies, but he can see fire licking at the too-green grass and several puffballs lighting and spreading the fire faster in their panic. A minute later, and the first ones start to die from fire-related trauma and severe burns. Another minute, and the patch of blackened land starts to spread and grow, flames rising higher as the puffballs keen with a fearful, high-pitched squeak.
The Master claps with demented glee, mind coming alive as the drums finally settle and beat in time with his mind, instead of thrashing it apart. Just for the fun of it, he stomps on one puffball running from the fire, grinding it under the heel of his shoe, hearing bones of sodium-chloride crack and seeing a small puddle of glittering, clear blood seep out. He wipes off his shoe on a patch of clean grass, and kicks another puffball into the fire for good measure.
Inside, the Doctor sees everything from the Master’s mind, watching with fascination, relief, and lingering horror.
~
When the Doctor rises from his drum-induced fugue, he promptly manhandles the Master back into the TARDIS, into an empty closet, and locks him in, accidentally including the remaining puffballs in his haste. He’s horrified, particularly over the fact that he was enjoying the death and destruction of the adorable trippid’s homeworld right along with the Master for the first few minutes. But he manages to save a few dozen, and leaves them to resettle their land.
“It won’t last, Doctor,” the Master taunts, “you’ll be back soon, begging me for relief.”
He’s right. The drums come back quickly, within the next two days, wreaking havoc as if to punish the Doctor for the interrupted massacre, accented by the Master’s fury at being locked in a closet. The pain is crippling, and the sheer will needed to not go and massacre a planet like he witnessed a few days before is sapping his strength.
“Please, Master,” he says at the open doorway. The Master smirks and pushes the Doctor down onto his knees. He tsks, amused, taking careful steps around the kneeling man.
“Really, Doctor, no self-control! What would your dear humans think of you now?”
The Doctor just looks up, pleading still in their minds.
“Oh, well, fine,” the Master says, batting a hand at the Doctor. “I’ll let you play with my pets, just this once.”
The Master steps back into the closet, and comes back with a squealing, miserable trippid in his hand, its blue fur matted with dried, sparkling blood. In his other hand is a makeshift knife, made from a scrap of metal.
The Doctor flinches back instinctively, but his eyes follow the puffball with fascination.
“Aww, look at it! So adorable! And,” the Master says, taking his knife and slicing shallowly into one of the pale orange feet, “it cries so shrilly!”
The Doctor just watches, entranced and passive. The Master snorts, and squats to the Doctor’s level, curling the man’s fingers around the knife. As if he were a child, the Master guides his hands to the trippid, caressing the fur with the knife, gently urging the man’s hand down to cut into living flesh. There’s another sharp keen, and all traces of horror on the Doctor’s face are gone, just rapture and unmistakable relief.
“And look, see what you can do? Here,” the Master grinned, nudging the thing’s skin up and over, exposing heart and lungs. “Its organ systems are stable enough that they can be exposed to open air, and it still lives.”
Sparkling blood wets both their hands, and still the Doctor stares. He nudges a lung, moving it slightly to expose the thin tubes linking them to the heart, as it cries out again. The Doctor’s mouth hangs open, and he licks his lips before speaking. “There are actually nerve endings on the lungs,” he starts, pausing to take in a gulp of air. He’s excited. “Probably as a result of having no natural predators and...and needing a way to identify internal damage,” he says, pushing the lung back and pointing to a small, shriveled part, “which seems to be common, from the layout of the organs.”
He stops, and the Master caresses the hand under his soothingly. He can feel it -- the call to death, destruction, killing. But he also knows the Doctor could never do it himself.
So, the Master peels fingers off the knife and curls it into his own hands, dragging it across the trippid’s exposed organs as the thing’s cries bubble out with its last, fluid-filled breath. Both men watch, quietly -- the moment feels almost sacred, tangible.
The Doctor’s learning.
~
What the Master offers is the forbidden fruit, the balm to heal all aches, the purest sin to ever exist.
And the Doctor has fallen. He longs, lusts, and craves it, and centuries of what is right fall away in one fell swoop.
~
The primal pleasures are best for day-to-day management of the drums, the Master had explained one day. Good food, great women, displays of power and control. The Doctor had listened impassively, horrified at his own actions whenever the drums grew stronger. On the outside, he looked exactly the same as ever, although his face was slightly more pained and his eyes deadened. He was starting to lose touch with his ethical senses, pleasure versus morals. Lust for submission versus noble heroism.
It is this last one that the Master slowly cultivates, seeding thoughts in the Doctor’s fracturing mind. The man was strong, but dealing with the drums was making him weak, just as it had to the Master in the early days, before he embraced it. The drums were bringing out his darker, submissive, pleasure-driven side, long-hidden beneath the righteous exterior.
So it isn’t surprising that one night, the Master is awakened from a sleeping trance to painfully pounding drums and a lapful of naked, shuddering Doctor. It’s the worst the drums have been so far, bad enough that the Master immediately flips the Doctor beneath him on the bed and bites his neck, hard. He can feel the muscles spasm and can taste artron-fortified blood, and it takes the edge off the demands of the drums. But still, they call: more, now, need, use, hurt, tear.
The Doctor’s still murmuring something, an endless litany of please Master, need you Master, and the Master can see the seeds of thought he planted blooming in full sunlight his mind. Just as suspected, it’s feeding off suppressed wanton need and masochism. The man’s pushing down the Master’s sleepwear and splashing something -- strawberry lube, from the smell of it -- on his hardening cock. Please, take me, the man says, make it stop.
The Master barks a laugh at his audacity, and shoves the Doctor off the bed, pinning the man facedown on the floor, holding his neck in place. “You want this?” he sneers, pushing fully into the Doctor in one fluid movement. The Doctor screams, and the Master moves his hand to choke him, closing off his windpipe and stopping the beautiful sound. He can still hear it in his mind.
“You want to be used? Fucked? Taken, inside and out, mine?” Without a trace of finesse, the Master floods the Doctor’s mind with feeling -- the pleasure, the unending drums, the sight of the Doctor, held and choking and, despite everything, getting hard from the sheer sadism. His mind screams, and the Master laughs, feeling it pulse to the rhythm of the drums.
Then, as abruptly as he started, the Master stops, still buried in the Doctor, silencing his thoughts. Panic blooms beautifully in the Doctor’s mind, and his physical self is straining against the Master’s hold. MoreMoreMoreMoreMore, comes the echo from the Doctor, use me fuck me hurt me take me.
The Master forces a direct conduit to the Doctor’s mind, twisting open his feedback loop. He’s hit by a blast of raw pleasure from the Doctor, and he starts thrusting roughly again, laughing from the sheer power of it all. The Doctor keens, and feels nails clawing down his chest, and when the Master comes, the telepathic backlash overloads his brain and triggers his own orgasm.
~
The Doctor feels utterly filthy, hurt, used, desecrated, and violated.
The drums are nearly silent.
He’s never felt so good in his entire life.
~
The universe, as always, is incapable of taking care of itself.
Before long, there are multiple distress signals, and the Doctor’s TARDIS being the old clunker that she is, can’t help but go answer the pleas. But what comes to their aid is far from salvation, more like destruction. Doomed worlds are sent on their way, all while the Master gleefully meddles and the Doctor vicariously watches.
He still won’t kill, but he takes every opportunity to vivisect any specimens the Master sends his way. They always live, but they never want to.
Gradually, as the death toll rises, the Doctor begins actively helping the Master in his pursuits. Torturing prisoners, waiting hand and foot on the Master, charming the locals while the Master plots their destruction. He learns to embrace the drums, turn them to his own purposes, use them to amplify pleasure and power and indulgence.
Together, they’re unstoppable.
~
All was quiet, for the moment. The Doctor lies on the couch, head in the Master’s lap, hair being petted and his arse groped. Lovingly, he nuzzles at the Master’s hip, eyes gleaming with intelligence and saturated with decadence.
“So that’s what I’ll do”, the Master says. “I’ll take over the universe, watch it burn from a new Gallifrey.”
The Doctor was right, after all. The Master does need an audience, someone to watch and make everything worth it.
“And I’ll do it all, with you at my side.”
The audience doesn’t have to be against him, though. The audience could be his own personal fucktoy, a torturer, almost lover, broken and beautiful with a mind to die for, molded to complement his own.
His.
The Doctor laughs, the clear tone ringing throughout the room.
“First stop,” he says giddily, “Earth.”
Finis