Application for The Master, Doctor Who

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

Arranging universal domination... was not as easy as it looked.

Okay, that was complete bullocks. It was very easy. Also fun, convenient and –so satisfyingly destructive after that endless stasis– surprisingly simple to set on autopilot once all the essentials were put in place. Also oddly merciful this time around; he was saving two great civilizations from terrible fates, after all. How could that not be –and it isn't, it's only to save his precious mind from it, the drums, the neverending– merciful? –da-da da-da, da-da da-da–

Well, the Doctor didn't seem to think so. Then again, they rarely –never– agreed on anything, and the Doctor's opinion didn't matter so much now that he was in the doghouse. Literally.

Hedonism agreed with him. He had fallen asleep on the floor between his manicurist and the woman –curvy, graceful, dark-haired and full-lipped, who made Lucy's eyes dim like crushing a firefly between his fingertips, yes– who had been brought on board to arrange all the rooms on the Valiant so that they kept with the rules of Feng Shui. He had found it endlessly amusing to chase her around all day, rearranging her work; it wasn't what she'd really been brought on board for anyway. Feng shui. What an idiotic concept that was. –Everything still looked like shit, only now it was all blocking the door to prevent "negative energies," ooooo, how inspired– Just another example of the funny ideas humans came up with to make their existence more meaningful. Big scary world, but maybe it would be more bearable if your bed faced the rising sun...

He had a feeling that he was going to wake up soon. Somewhere in the middle of his subconscious he was thoroughly aware of this, which was an odd sort of thing –all that flickering and burning, like knowing you have a cold before it hits full on– to know. His eyes fluttered open and he blinked into... sunlight? But the blinds had been closed.

There's an emptiness and an echo right at the edge of his mind that he can't expel. It makes him restless enough to sit up and slump forward, dazed.

Mickey coughs theatrically. "'What is your name?'"

He gets up, takes his time doing it too, gesturing with one hand in a 'go away while I get rid of this hangover' sort of manner. Dusting off his suit jacket, he remembers a dream he had about teletubbies the other night.... –Dream! Oh, of course.– He smirks like the cat who ate the cockatiel. With whipped cream and peaches –yum–. "The Master. As in 'Your Lord and --'. I used a human name to make people comfortable for a bit, which was bloody tedious. Harold Saxon. You've probably heard the whole story, though. Remember this?" And he clasps his hands and smiles, wide and seemingly genuine, though it is plain that there is something not right –but they always missed it, didn't they, with their little human brains, so easily hypnotized and trusting, taken in by the drumming because now they felt it too– about the expression.

"What is your quest?" asks the Cat. It's perched, suddenly, on the roof of one of the gate-stiles.

Well, that's enough to make certain that he doesn't take any of this seriously. Loopy and sarcastic it is, then. "My semi-corporeal friend, you've really got your Time Lords crossed. I'm rubbish at the chivalry... thing. Why don't you give me a quest?"

"'What is the average w..?'" Mickey frowns down at the notebook. "You know, I don't really see why that's important." He flips a page. "'If you could be granted three wishes, what would they be?'"

He lets out a held breath in a big puff, shifting his hands behind his back –because he doesn't wish, he never wishes, he either has his way or it's one more for the airlock– in a harmless sort of way. "Oh... how about the Doctor on his knees, begging me to be forgiven for both of his mawkish hearts? Mawkish... that's a good word. Or!" he pipes up excitedly, "a really big strawberry sundae? Or maybe an encyclopedia collection and a few chimpanzees, it would make work so much easier." He tilts his head from side to side, grimacing as though the line of questioning is far too trying. "I really can't decide, can you give me a minute on that one?"

"Or," the Cat says, examining its tail with interest, "if you were a genie and someone you were trying to give three wishes to was trying to trick you into giving him more, what would you say?"

He pauses for a moment, lips pursed together in a manic manner, before beginning to guffaw like a deranged hyena. He wants to respond, he really does, it's just... giving. Giving wishes. Being benevolent, like a saint or that foundation for little children dying of cancer –or a Doctor; see definition: a man who makes people better–. Can't breathe-

Mickey looks rather nonplused at the next, but reads, "'When the revolution comes, what skills will you be able to barter for food?'"

He rolls his eyes and buffs his immaculate fingernails on the lapel of his jacket before inspecting them boredly. "Why would the one leading the revolution need to do that? Stop having a laugh Mickey, you go run your evil empire and leave me to mine."

The Cat rolls its eyes in a friendly (and rather disconcertingly out-of-sync) way, and asks, "Milk, dark, or white chocolate?"

Oh, he likes that cat. –da-da da-da– "Er... white. Dark. No, milk. Though it must be white because they always say that your initial impulse is the correct one, right?" He wiggles his eyebrows. "The real question is why are you asking that? Are there psychological reasons behind the question, for instance; dark means you're unthinkably evil, or something?" There's no response from the inquisitors - not that there has been for any of his answers - and so he shakes his finger in a 'got you' sort of way. "I think true, true evil should prefer white. Traditional colour symbolism is such a bore."

"'Choose the two coolest: robots, pirates, fairies, bears, ninjas, monkeys, vampires, or humans,'" says Mickey, giggling a bit as he goes through the list. "'Explain.'"

"Can't I have one of each?" he suggests sensibly.

"Great!" Mickey flips through the blank pages of the notebook at top, cartoon-y speed. "Well, I think that's just about it! Oh, and I'm supposed to ask, 'for your safety: are you carrying anything sharp?'"

Laser screwdrivers –his toys always were more fun– weren't sharp per se, so he felt no need to mention it. "Why, are you going to frisk me?" he asks, feigning shock. "If the answer is yes, please choose someone else to do it, would you? I've never had a cavity search by a two-dimensional being, and though I'm sure you're very nice, we've only just met."

((Well, folks, you've met the good Doctor. Now meet his archnemesis - the Master. Yes, it does sound very kinky. Because it kinda is.... But I digress. I should warn those who are only familiar with Classic Who, this regeneration of the Master is a little different from the ones you've been used to; he's about 90% kooky-er and much less vampiric. Still just as evil, though. For more info, see his profile. The Master was taken some time between The Sounds of Drums and Last of the Time Lords, the last two episodes of season 3. Also, it would be great if no one mentioned the Doctor just yet. ;) Oh, and this would be Crichton-mun. *waves*))

Comments

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

His eyes widen, gaining fury as his head tilts the way a child's might. "Well, well, well," he whispers, leaning in –uncomfortably– close to his enemy's face, "put him in a blue suit and he becomes bold."

He laughs suddenly. "You don't actually feel safe here, do you? Think the good and mighty Mouse will have enough fight in him to come to your rescue?" The Master sneers, awaits the cavalry. –And they won't come.– "No one for it, it seems, no companions about. Where's strong Jack, Doctor? Smart Miss Jones, maybe?" He presses two fingertips to his lips, seeming to consider a moment. "Or maybe–"

And then he presses his fingers to the Doctor's temples and –dives, digs and scrapes the sides with claws– presses into the other Time Lord's mind without asking. He never had asked, not for this favorite pastime on board the Valiant. He doesn't think of where he is or all the information he needs from the man, no, he focuses and grabs hold of something bright –all pink and yellow– in the Doctor's brain.

"Where is she, then?" And he knows he won't have to say more than that.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

“I think it suits me,” the Doctor murmurs coolly.

He hardly feels safe here, in this unknown place with its broken lines and changed rules, but the stakes are different now, the anti is lower and his own hand is higher –and when did he start thinking in poker metaphors? Jackie and her love of George Clooney, probably…– And he knows that look in the Master’s eyes and she’s not the person he should be thinking about now, but it’s too late because the Master is there.

The Doctor throws up walls so fast and so hard he makes himself dizzy, and he scrabbles vainly with the other –outside their minds his hands, too, catch at the flesh and blood fingers against his temples– for a few moments before he’s pushed back and clawed aside and the Master’s grabbed something beautiful and –golden and– sacred from one of the most private parts of his mind.

Let her go, he snarls.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He feels the Doctor's fingers working against his own, but –they are old and arthritic– it only makes him fix his own hands harder against the skull. That stabilized, he glimpses the show from his own corner, watches that precious kernel glow, feels that active resistance and pain leaking like blood onto the tapestry of the Doctor's memories.

He guards her like a treasure. The Master never could make sense of it, of her, her above all the others there had been. But that would not stop him. Penance due.

Say you're sorry, he hisses back.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

No!

He surprises himself with his own vehemence. Angry with the Master and angrier still with a Universe that won’t leave her alone even in his head, he finds himself struggling harder, lashing back at the Master with whatever weapons he can, trying, maybe, to return a little of that pain.

Still, he knows –in some more rational part of his mind– the great disadvantage he is at. They’ve done this too many times before the past year, the Master knows him too well. The Doctor can see that he is losing.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

If it were a physical movement, it would be quite like side-stepping a javelin or a bullet. The Doctor throws at him, but there's no elegance in it, –he'll have to do so much better than that– no ability to make a concentrated effort because he's harbouring too much there, and he can't control it.

He feels a light wash of agony seep through his own barrier. It sharpens and renews him, and he stops holding back. He pries and pushes until he has command over what his enemy guards, thinks to twist it, change it, even –it would be so difficult and so very worth it– force it to vanish entirely.

I can make it worse. Much worse. Say you're sorry and mean it.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

He can’t do it.

He could stop the Master, –he’s sure he could– fight him off and throw him out of his mind, but not without using all his strength. As long as the Doctor holds back the Master wins.

And there is so much he has to hide, so much he can’t risk letting the Master catch even a glimpse of. –so he’ll sacrifice her again; let her die in his mind as she died in their Universe? she’s worth more than all of them, damn the rest to Hell–

The Master holds her tight in his mental grip, and it hurts. He hesitates.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He knows there's something wrong.

The Doctor should be –wheezing and sinking– finished with his little bravery act by now, it shouldn't take this long. It had taken three arduous months to bring him down to such minimal resistance, and this felt like –it had at the beginning, all hope and defiance and sparks at the edges–....

He couldn't afford to dwell on it if he wanted this round. No, he has to dangle it on a string and laugh in spite of the headache it's giving him to maintain such a hold.

You've taken her this far and only to give her up now?

Shame on you.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

Something sparks in the Doctor at the words, a –bright and painful– barb of defiance shooting toward the Master, but it fades as quickly as it came. Because the other is right, and there is no victory for the Doctor here no matter what choice he makes.

Also, he’s forgotten what he was trying to do in the first place.

So he lets go, eases back and allows the Master’s presence. I’m sorry, he says, and then, Master. and then, please. Slowly, and with a little reluctance, he opens a corridor in his mind, inviting the other wordlessly to follow.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He swallows to drink in his name.

With the rest of those appeasing words it's like being stroked with silk after having your fur rubbed backwards. He absorbs it, explands it, he obtains power from it. Very good.

He follows the path the Doctor has opened while this new energy suffuses, taking no care to be cautious with the other's mind as he rushes through.

The place where he comes out is already disorienting –same painting with the subject changed, what a cheat– and he peers hard to see it.

What is this?

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor flinches away from the words, drawing a little deeper into his own mind, and hates himself for it, stopping the mental cringe that follows a moment later as the Master goes charging through his consciousness. –like he owns the place–

You never listen, he murmurs back to the other's bewildered question, and there’s almost a sort of exasperated fondness there. No, you have to make me show you…

He guides the Master’s attention to the moment of his own arrival, lets the other feel his own confusion, –disorientation, even fear– as he slowly recognized the strange place for what it is. He doesn’t linger after the questioning –too many faces, vulnerable already for their acquaintance with him– but ushers the Master forward in his memories to his exploration of the park and then finally to the awkward stare down with the void. –possibly with a capital ‘V’, he hasn’t quite decided–

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

The Master's chuckle echoes through the space. I'm a visual learner. You know that. He would have thought that was made clear enough through Jack –how do I know I can kill him over and over again unless I see it happen all the time? Watch me, watch me do it again–.

The Doctor's scattered emotional imprinting tackles his brief calm as he watches the scene - almost like the way they showed these things in Earth movies, –not live, like a rerun you can walk through– but with extra colour and light and the all impressions of shared thought. The other hadn't known what to make of it either, had tried to shape the references in a more recognizable pattern, forced to admit that there was no reason in any of it.

It's not possible.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

You’re just thick. The Doctor’s answer is warmer in response to that chuckle. He waits while the Master explores the memories.

Obviously it is, is his solemn answer to the Master’s denial, even though he fully agrees. Because how many other things has he seen in his life that logic, reason, and all his experience told him were impossible? –That’s why I keep traveling, he’d told someone once, before taking a leap of faith into a dark pit on a planet that couldn’t exist, looking for a creature he didn’t believe in. To be proved wrong.–

He doesn’t make a particular effort to hide any of his thoughts from the other.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

And you're just obnoxious, insufferable and righteous, but I've put up with you, he shoots back without even thinking. He stifles the rest because he has no time –use– for it.

When the Doctor drops a handful of barriers without reason, he has to follow. It wasn't even a matter of curiousity, not going would have revolted against his natural instincts. The planet he sees shouldn't exist –just like this one– and the evil waiting there is older than even they can fully grasp, like legend –like the Infinite–. And yet it doesn't matter, none of it because if it's all true then...

I can't, I-

He withdraws from the Doctor's mind on a sharp breath, still kneeling on the ground in front of the old man, shaking.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

Master-

The Doctor reaches for him but when the Master draws away abruptly he’s left grabbing at nothing as the mental movement bleeds into a physical one and he falls forward, catching himself awkwardly on fragile hands and wrists. He hisses in a breath and looks up at the other Time Lord.

“I’m sorry.”

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He spinning and curling back in on himself –and it does look like the Void from here, doesn't it– and waiting for some final stroke to prove the end is closer. It's the old man on his arthritic hands –they had been reaching for him– and two words that bring him back to himself.

He tilts his chin up, expecting it all along. "You're forgiven," he tells the other with a slow nod, feeling strangely magnanimous and emptied.

He won't talk about it now. Wait until all of this was done, whatever this is. Can't think yet, the works are rusted –and aching–.

The screwdriver lifts in his hand as he stands. Well, he had to do it some time. And he could change the Doctor again whenever it suited him, find a way to cage him when he got aggravating. So he presses the button and waits for those old eyes to glimmer again.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor laughs once, harshly, and drops his head –let the Master interpret that one however he likes– and so is almost unprepared when the change comes again. Fortunately, it’s much less agonizing in this direction.

When he’s himself again he climbs shakily –but no longer painfully– to his feet, and stands for a moment, just watching the Master, waiting for he’s not sure what. Then, sensing the grace that he has been given, he walks past the other and goes to Setsuna, crouching down at the boy’s side and drawing a concerned hand across the cut on his temple.

[swordandchalice.livejournal.com]

Groggy, Setsuna jolts at the feel of skin on the injured area and blinks. He doesn't make much of an effort to sit up and mumbles out, "S'not big deal. You 'kay?"

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

The Master rolls his eyes. –always pandering, everyone, to that simpering– "He's fine," he says, folding his arms and glancing sideways at the Doctor.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor glances over at the Master, raising his eyebrows pointedly before turning back towards Setsuna.

“I’m fine,” he echoes gently, peering at the cut again. “Not so sure about you though. Doesn’t look that bad but you seem pretty out of it. Hang on,” he digs into his pocket and comes up with the sonic screwdriver, which he tilts in the direction of Setsuna’s head and activates.

[swordandchalice.livejournal.com]

"S'fine," Setsuna insists, and points at the Master, "Lika he said."

He couldn't really explain the blood problem, as he had no idea what caused it, and it wasn't so great to give everyone your main weakness.

When Setsuna first sees the item, he jolts away and insists, "M'fine," with more urgency. Besides, even if the wound was healed, the sleepiness would remain until Setsuna managed to snap out of it, or splashed some water on his face.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor looks over at the Master.

“How hard did you hit him?!”

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

The Master is immediately –like a child facing suspicious parental looks about finishing homework– defensive. "Barely!" He turns the laser screwdriver over in his hands for a moment, then tucks it away in his inside pocket, as if that decides the argument. "I knicked him, if that. You can see, there's no bruising."

It isn't that he cares whether or not the boy is hurt; he's just as curious as to why he collapsed, though.

[swordandchalice.livejournal.com]

"S'like he said," Setsuna mutters an agreement with the Master. He may not like him, but he won't argue with the truth. "S'not his fault. Barely hit. Doesn't even hurt."

But damn he feels like everything is made of lead and doesn't want to budge.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

They’re both right, it isn’t a bad injury at all, no swelling or bruising, and the information the sonic screwdriver gives the Doctor confirms that there’s no hidden internal injuries either.

The Doctor frowns as he tucks it away again, concerned for Setsuna and annoyed at his own inability to figure out what’s wrong with the boy. “Do you want to try to sit up?” he ventures.

[swordandchalice.livejournal.com]

Setsuna didn't bother answering, but set up well enough, still feeling the effects. Finally, he muttered, "I just need some water, or something to snap me awake. Senpai would've been nudging me with his foot by now."