Fic: Irony
Told you there'd be more of this...
Fandom: Doctor Who
Title: Irony
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Jack Harkness/The Master. Mentions of (both unrequited) Jack/Doctor and Doctor/Master.
Summary: The universe is nothing but a series of deep, dark, diabolical ironies. Jack should know this by now. He will soon learn.
Notes/warnings: Smut, dark!fic. I'm writing this based on the tiny glimpse we've had so far of Simm as the Master, so if you want to discuss my interpretation of his character, or offer your own, I'd love to hear from you. Of course, this will all be moot by tomorrow night.
Jack shuts his eyes. He listens to the footsteps behind him. Back and forth, back and forth, quickly, and then slowly. Toying with him. Letting him wonder which side the attack will come from. A cat both puzzled and excited by the little mouse that has thrown itself under its paws.
“Stand up, captain.”
Disobeying is impossible. That’s the only fact left. When this new and terrifying Time Lord says ‘jump’, Jack will find himself freefalling before his brain interprets the sound.
He pushes up. His spine aches from arse to skull. One leg takes his weight, the other trembles slightly. Nerves or exhaustion. The distinction is immaterial. There’s nothing to steady himself on, no one to lean against, but the instruction was to stand, so somehow, inexplicably, he stands.
Footsteps again, back and forth. Irregular, agitated. Jack exhales loudly, pants for breath, grips his thighs tight with either hand. Head bowed. Hair plastered to his scalp and neck by sweat and tears.
“Look at me.”
That isn’t an instruction, it’s permission. By the time Jack lifts his head, the slight, suited figure is in front of him. Clean, crisp. Smiling.
“Pretty, for a human. Best of breed. No wonder he let you follow him around. Silly little man, always was far too fond of you lot, although…”
Fingers under Jack’s chin, a thumb rubbing his cheek.
“You have your uses. If only he had realised that. Too late now, I suppose. Too late for so many things.”
He lets go of Jack’s face, walks away again, to the side. Jack cannot turn his head that far, to watch, but he listens. The footsteps on the polished wooden floor are like quick drum beats. Jack thinks he understands. His distant ancestors used drums as a warning, when going into battle. Turn back now. Run. If you fight, you will not win.
An arm appears in front of him, his throat caught in the crook of an elbow. A slender body presses tight against his back. He finds, unexpectedly, that he can breathe freely. What he thought was a throttle hold is actually an embrace.
“Captain. That’s how you like to be known. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“A man who dies and then gets up again, who travels through time and space, and introduces himself with an emphasis on his honorific title. If you were a bit less rugged I’d ask you to join the club.” A laugh, bordering on a chuckle. “Captain, I’d like very much to understand something about you.”
“Yes?”
“Yes what?” Short, abrupt, expectant. The arm around his throat tightens, as he always knew it could.
“Yes, Master,” Jack chokes.
The pressure loosens, and he’s being held again, from behind. The Master’s face is close to his, his breath cool on Jack’s neck, his hair tickling his ear.
And there’s something else.
“You’re… in my head,” Jack groans.
It’s like a pressure headache, seeping in from the edges of his mind, cold and insidious. Jack tries to shut all the doors he does not want this alien to see behind, but it’s pointless; the tendrils of the Master’s consciousness drift through Jack’s mental barricades like a ghost through walls.
“Looking for something… so much clutter in here. Scarring… dear me, captain… how am I supposed to find anything in here?” He tuts, disapproving, like a mother inspecting a sub-par bedroom. “Where is it? The reason? Why have you come to me?”
Jack shuts his eyes, tries to follow the presence around his mind. The world becomes a series of sensations. The weight of the arm round his throat. Fingers digging into his hip. Breath on his skin.
The synchronised thudding of two heartbeats against his back.
He chokes back a sob, and the Master whoops with delight.
“Oh yes, there it is! That’s the reason! Or a reason, anyway.” A finger strokes Jack’s cheek, caressing him, almost comforting. “You’re in love with him! The one man in the entire universe who will never love you back, and you are infatuated. Obsessed, I’d dare say!” He lets Jack go, steps back, laughing at a joke Jack doesn’t understand. “Oh, the irony! The exquisite poetic justice! The little human desperately in love with the cold, distant Doctor comes running straight to me. How appropriate is that? Not to mention entertaining!”
He’s moving again. Can’t stay still for five minutes. Just like the Doctor. Jack wonders if they were all the same, a whole race of restless, volatile, endlessly chattering people in suits and ties.
“Appropriate?” Jack’s voice cracks.
“Oh, yes. I’d say so.”
For a moment, Jack thinks he understands. “You loved him too?”
“Nope. Guess again!”
And then nothing makes sense any more.
The light grows dim, a cloud passing before the sun. Jack wants to kneel again, wants something he can understand. He knows why he came here. He needs someone who will command him, who will use him, who will punish him, who will drain him of everything he has, then send him away cracked and broken on the outside, but somehow mended within. He always thought the Doctor would be the one to do it. He never expected the Doctor to run from him.
He remembers, too late, that the Master is still inside his mind.
“I can give you all you think you need,” he says. “And in return, I want two things. One thing you will give me willingly, and one thing that will tear your soul to shreds.”
Jack almost gags on the surge of relief that rises in his throat. This is simple. Almost easy. He doesn’t need any elucidation to know what is being asked of him.
“Say yes, captain.”
“Yes.”
The Master grins. A brilliant, beautiful, trustworthy grin. Jack feels his lungs heave, like he needs to cry or scream, and he knows what that feeling is. This is what it feels like to fall, to drop like a stone into the abyss. He needs this too, needs to fall, to hit the ground, because only then can he pick himself up again.
Jack unhooks his braces, takes off his shirt. His whole life till now was spent taking, and now that he has to give, he’s uncertain of his role. He’s played the sub before, but this is no game. For the first time in his life, this is real. It’s going to hurt, and there is no failsafe, no safe-word, no way back.
The Master is still smiling when he sinks his teeth into Jack’s lip. He backs Jack into the desk, kissing him with the same zeal he puts into everything. Jack’s hands scrabble on the polished walnut, but he won’t fall. The Master has him. Fingers and nails and teeth, all biting into him, wounding Jack’s flesh, healing his soul.
He hooks one leg round the Master’s hip, the other foot pushing against the floor. Doesn’t care how desperate he seems. The Master is clever, his touch deceptive. He kisses Jack like a lover, as his fist closes in the hair at the nape of his neck, too tight, tearing at the sensitive skin there. Then one hand caresses his thigh, while the other drags nails down his spine, breaking flesh, drawing blood. Jack pants, moans, howls, sobs, reacting to every sensation, clinging to every spark of pain and pleasure, afraid of nothing now except the horror of unfeeling numbness.
He arches his back, pushing his erection against a perfectly creased trouser leg. That terrible grin widens, and finally a hand finds Jack’s cock, grips, twists, releases. Jack’s back hits the desk. The Master pulls at the last of Jack’s clothing, stripping him naked, while still fully dressed himself.
Jack finds that unbelievably erotic.
The Master takes a step back, looks down at Jack, sprawled on the desk. He quirks an eyebrow. The walls behind him are oak-panelled, the room smells of polish, and he is dressed in a plain, formal suit. He looks so ordinary to Jack, so inoffensive.
And then he speaks.
“There’s another irony here, too, captain. You will obey me, you will follow me, you will fall to you knees at my command, and you would put a gun to your mother’s temple at my whim. But you will never love me. I am the one man in the universe you could never love.”
He raises his hands, shuffles loose the knot of his tie. His fingers are long and slim, the nails buffed to an immaculate shine. Jack wants them on him again, needs those fingers to bruise him more before this night is over.
The Master flicks up his shirt collar with his thumbs, and lifts his tie, still knotted, over his head. He steps forward again. Slips the fabric around Jack’s neck and pulls it tight.
“The irony,” he murmurs, “being that you, Jack Harkness, are the one man I could ever love.”
Jack stares. The moment stretches. Finally, the Master smiles again, everything is alright again.
“Well. Perhaps not you, as such. Not the you who thinks and feels and fights, but perhaps the you who dies and lives, lives and dies, over and again, never giving up, never letting the universe win. Life must continue, captain. That we should die… That all of us who breathes must die… That is the only evil. Nothing else. Nothing!”
Jack flinches when the Master shouts, his sudden anger wounding Jack’s illusions, but it is gone before it has begun. The smile is fainter when it returns, but return it does. He strokes Jack’s throat with the backs of his fingers, over his collar bone, soothing, comforting. Then he grips the tie. Runs his fingers over the fabric, studying it. He uses it to pull Jack slowly upwards until they meet in a warm, passionate kiss, and Jack wonders if the Master was right about any of the things he said.
“That means you, captain, are the only good in the universe.” The Master murmurs against his ear, his lips brushing Jack’s skin so very slightly. He shudders, remembers the time he discovered the ear lobe was an erogenous spot. His hips twitch as an unexpected tongue flicks against the place where ear meets neck, and remembers, too late, that pleasure here means pain elsewhere.
“Fuck,” Jack grunts. He’s close now, so close, and he’s barely been touched. He needs to come, needs to fall that final time, needs the physical and the emotional catharsis of orgasm.
“Not tonight,” says the Master. He clenches his hand round Jack’s cock, rubs his thumb up and over, his gaze never leaving Jack’s face. He isn’t smiling now. He never really was.
“Please,” says Jack.
The Master regards him with cold, steel eyes. He stands between Jack’s legs, one hand on the desk near Jack’s balls. They aren’t touching now. He’s going to leave, but Jack knows it isn’t over.
The Doctor ran from him; the Master walks away.
Jack lies on the desk for an hour, or a day, or perhaps it’s only a second or two. He doesn’t know. The movements of shadows across the wall mean nothing to him. Light and dark have no value. He wonders where his Master has gone, when he will come back. Jack will stay here until he does, naked and bleeding, tired and scared and alone.
Irony, he thinks. Yes. Irony is the word.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Title: Irony
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Jack Harkness/The Master. Mentions of (both unrequited) Jack/Doctor and Doctor/Master.
Summary: The universe is nothing but a series of deep, dark, diabolical ironies. Jack should know this by now. He will soon learn.
Notes/warnings: Smut, dark!fic. I'm writing this based on the tiny glimpse we've had so far of Simm as the Master, so if you want to discuss my interpretation of his character, or offer your own, I'd love to hear from you. Of course, this will all be moot by tomorrow night.
Jack shuts his eyes. He listens to the footsteps behind him. Back and forth, back and forth, quickly, and then slowly. Toying with him. Letting him wonder which side the attack will come from. A cat both puzzled and excited by the little mouse that has thrown itself under its paws.
“Stand up, captain.”
Disobeying is impossible. That’s the only fact left. When this new and terrifying Time Lord says ‘jump’, Jack will find himself freefalling before his brain interprets the sound.
He pushes up. His spine aches from arse to skull. One leg takes his weight, the other trembles slightly. Nerves or exhaustion. The distinction is immaterial. There’s nothing to steady himself on, no one to lean against, but the instruction was to stand, so somehow, inexplicably, he stands.
Footsteps again, back and forth. Irregular, agitated. Jack exhales loudly, pants for breath, grips his thighs tight with either hand. Head bowed. Hair plastered to his scalp and neck by sweat and tears.
“Look at me.”
That isn’t an instruction, it’s permission. By the time Jack lifts his head, the slight, suited figure is in front of him. Clean, crisp. Smiling.
“Pretty, for a human. Best of breed. No wonder he let you follow him around. Silly little man, always was far too fond of you lot, although…”
Fingers under Jack’s chin, a thumb rubbing his cheek.
“You have your uses. If only he had realised that. Too late now, I suppose. Too late for so many things.”
He lets go of Jack’s face, walks away again, to the side. Jack cannot turn his head that far, to watch, but he listens. The footsteps on the polished wooden floor are like quick drum beats. Jack thinks he understands. His distant ancestors used drums as a warning, when going into battle. Turn back now. Run. If you fight, you will not win.
An arm appears in front of him, his throat caught in the crook of an elbow. A slender body presses tight against his back. He finds, unexpectedly, that he can breathe freely. What he thought was a throttle hold is actually an embrace.
“Captain. That’s how you like to be known. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“A man who dies and then gets up again, who travels through time and space, and introduces himself with an emphasis on his honorific title. If you were a bit less rugged I’d ask you to join the club.” A laugh, bordering on a chuckle. “Captain, I’d like very much to understand something about you.”
“Yes?”
“Yes what?” Short, abrupt, expectant. The arm around his throat tightens, as he always knew it could.
“Yes, Master,” Jack chokes.
The pressure loosens, and he’s being held again, from behind. The Master’s face is close to his, his breath cool on Jack’s neck, his hair tickling his ear.
And there’s something else.
“You’re… in my head,” Jack groans.
It’s like a pressure headache, seeping in from the edges of his mind, cold and insidious. Jack tries to shut all the doors he does not want this alien to see behind, but it’s pointless; the tendrils of the Master’s consciousness drift through Jack’s mental barricades like a ghost through walls.
“Looking for something… so much clutter in here. Scarring… dear me, captain… how am I supposed to find anything in here?” He tuts, disapproving, like a mother inspecting a sub-par bedroom. “Where is it? The reason? Why have you come to me?”
Jack shuts his eyes, tries to follow the presence around his mind. The world becomes a series of sensations. The weight of the arm round his throat. Fingers digging into his hip. Breath on his skin.
The synchronised thudding of two heartbeats against his back.
He chokes back a sob, and the Master whoops with delight.
“Oh yes, there it is! That’s the reason! Or a reason, anyway.” A finger strokes Jack’s cheek, caressing him, almost comforting. “You’re in love with him! The one man in the entire universe who will never love you back, and you are infatuated. Obsessed, I’d dare say!” He lets Jack go, steps back, laughing at a joke Jack doesn’t understand. “Oh, the irony! The exquisite poetic justice! The little human desperately in love with the cold, distant Doctor comes running straight to me. How appropriate is that? Not to mention entertaining!”
He’s moving again. Can’t stay still for five minutes. Just like the Doctor. Jack wonders if they were all the same, a whole race of restless, volatile, endlessly chattering people in suits and ties.
“Appropriate?” Jack’s voice cracks.
“Oh, yes. I’d say so.”
For a moment, Jack thinks he understands. “You loved him too?”
“Nope. Guess again!”
And then nothing makes sense any more.
The light grows dim, a cloud passing before the sun. Jack wants to kneel again, wants something he can understand. He knows why he came here. He needs someone who will command him, who will use him, who will punish him, who will drain him of everything he has, then send him away cracked and broken on the outside, but somehow mended within. He always thought the Doctor would be the one to do it. He never expected the Doctor to run from him.
He remembers, too late, that the Master is still inside his mind.
“I can give you all you think you need,” he says. “And in return, I want two things. One thing you will give me willingly, and one thing that will tear your soul to shreds.”
Jack almost gags on the surge of relief that rises in his throat. This is simple. Almost easy. He doesn’t need any elucidation to know what is being asked of him.
“Say yes, captain.”
“Yes.”
The Master grins. A brilliant, beautiful, trustworthy grin. Jack feels his lungs heave, like he needs to cry or scream, and he knows what that feeling is. This is what it feels like to fall, to drop like a stone into the abyss. He needs this too, needs to fall, to hit the ground, because only then can he pick himself up again.
Jack unhooks his braces, takes off his shirt. His whole life till now was spent taking, and now that he has to give, he’s uncertain of his role. He’s played the sub before, but this is no game. For the first time in his life, this is real. It’s going to hurt, and there is no failsafe, no safe-word, no way back.
The Master is still smiling when he sinks his teeth into Jack’s lip. He backs Jack into the desk, kissing him with the same zeal he puts into everything. Jack’s hands scrabble on the polished walnut, but he won’t fall. The Master has him. Fingers and nails and teeth, all biting into him, wounding Jack’s flesh, healing his soul.
He hooks one leg round the Master’s hip, the other foot pushing against the floor. Doesn’t care how desperate he seems. The Master is clever, his touch deceptive. He kisses Jack like a lover, as his fist closes in the hair at the nape of his neck, too tight, tearing at the sensitive skin there. Then one hand caresses his thigh, while the other drags nails down his spine, breaking flesh, drawing blood. Jack pants, moans, howls, sobs, reacting to every sensation, clinging to every spark of pain and pleasure, afraid of nothing now except the horror of unfeeling numbness.
He arches his back, pushing his erection against a perfectly creased trouser leg. That terrible grin widens, and finally a hand finds Jack’s cock, grips, twists, releases. Jack’s back hits the desk. The Master pulls at the last of Jack’s clothing, stripping him naked, while still fully dressed himself.
Jack finds that unbelievably erotic.
The Master takes a step back, looks down at Jack, sprawled on the desk. He quirks an eyebrow. The walls behind him are oak-panelled, the room smells of polish, and he is dressed in a plain, formal suit. He looks so ordinary to Jack, so inoffensive.
And then he speaks.
“There’s another irony here, too, captain. You will obey me, you will follow me, you will fall to you knees at my command, and you would put a gun to your mother’s temple at my whim. But you will never love me. I am the one man in the universe you could never love.”
He raises his hands, shuffles loose the knot of his tie. His fingers are long and slim, the nails buffed to an immaculate shine. Jack wants them on him again, needs those fingers to bruise him more before this night is over.
The Master flicks up his shirt collar with his thumbs, and lifts his tie, still knotted, over his head. He steps forward again. Slips the fabric around Jack’s neck and pulls it tight.
“The irony,” he murmurs, “being that you, Jack Harkness, are the one man I could ever love.”
Jack stares. The moment stretches. Finally, the Master smiles again, everything is alright again.
“Well. Perhaps not you, as such. Not the you who thinks and feels and fights, but perhaps the you who dies and lives, lives and dies, over and again, never giving up, never letting the universe win. Life must continue, captain. That we should die… That all of us who breathes must die… That is the only evil. Nothing else. Nothing!”
Jack flinches when the Master shouts, his sudden anger wounding Jack’s illusions, but it is gone before it has begun. The smile is fainter when it returns, but return it does. He strokes Jack’s throat with the backs of his fingers, over his collar bone, soothing, comforting. Then he grips the tie. Runs his fingers over the fabric, studying it. He uses it to pull Jack slowly upwards until they meet in a warm, passionate kiss, and Jack wonders if the Master was right about any of the things he said.
“That means you, captain, are the only good in the universe.” The Master murmurs against his ear, his lips brushing Jack’s skin so very slightly. He shudders, remembers the time he discovered the ear lobe was an erogenous spot. His hips twitch as an unexpected tongue flicks against the place where ear meets neck, and remembers, too late, that pleasure here means pain elsewhere.
“Fuck,” Jack grunts. He’s close now, so close, and he’s barely been touched. He needs to come, needs to fall that final time, needs the physical and the emotional catharsis of orgasm.
“Not tonight,” says the Master. He clenches his hand round Jack’s cock, rubs his thumb up and over, his gaze never leaving Jack’s face. He isn’t smiling now. He never really was.
“Please,” says Jack.
The Master regards him with cold, steel eyes. He stands between Jack’s legs, one hand on the desk near Jack’s balls. They aren’t touching now. He’s going to leave, but Jack knows it isn’t over.
The Doctor ran from him; the Master walks away.
Jack lies on the desk for an hour, or a day, or perhaps it’s only a second or two. He doesn’t know. The movements of shadows across the wall mean nothing to him. Light and dark have no value. He wonders where his Master has gone, when he will come back. Jack will stay here until he does, naked and bleeding, tired and scared and alone.
Irony, he thinks. Yes. Irony is the word.