Fic: Rush Into Slow Pace
Sep. 3rd, 2008 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bagheera_sanAlright, so it is Sep 3...
Title: Rush Into Slow Pace
Rating: PG-13/R
Pairing: Three/Delgado!Master
Prompt: Singing in Showers
Summary: Set after "Frontier in Space" and "Green Death", contains spoilers for both. Even simple things like singing in the shower have secret meanings.
"Oh, this is precious," the Doctor said, his voice icy with disdain. "It was you who called me? Have you become so lazy that you won't even make the effort to come after me to gloat?"
He hadn't thought much about the Master, not until he met him again. Out of sight, out of mind, and good riddance, too. Perhaps a good portion of angry denial had been involved, too. But the moment the Doctor stepped out of his TARDIS in a hotel room on Sirius IV to find himself face to face with his would-be murderer, he realised that although weeks had passed, he was still furious at the Master. He should have stepped right back into the TARDIS and left, but now he had come here, and he couldn't leave until he knew why the Master had sent that distress signal.
A distress signal directed at his TARDIS was most likely to be a trick. The Doctor had walked so blindly into this trap that it seemed awfully as if he had wanted to be tricked. But it definitely wasn't the Master whom he wanted to see right now (or any time in the next few centuries.) Even the dingy hotel room seemed like a deliberate insult to the Doctor – surely the Master could have afforded something better.
The Master spread his hands wide, palms up in a placating gesture. His tone was so sincere that to the Doctor it sounded entirely facetious. "Nothing of the sort! Really, Doctor, you couldn't be more wrong. I'm not going to gloat. I wish to apologise from the depth of my hearts."
The Doctor leaned back against the closed door of his TARDIS, crossing his arms. He shouldn't even be giving the Master the time of day, he thought, but he found himself too angry to simply leave again. It was a sour, bitter, stomach-turning anger, and he wanted an opportunity to vent that anger, some kind of explosive closure.
"Apologise," he repeated with a sneer. "For accidentally shooting me, I presume?"
"Accidentally?" The Master shook his head in surprised denial. "I would never kill you accidentally, Doctor. Although I admit that in hindsight it was a rash decision. Killing you in such a manner would have been unforgivable – unworthy of our relationship. So please accept my sincerest apologies."
The Doctor shook his head in disgust. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Of course I am," the Master said with a smile that under other circumstances would have been charming. He took a step towards the Doctor, closing the distance between them, and lowered his voice, still slyly smiling up at the Doctor, "You know that I am always serious when it comes to us."
"I do believe you," the Doctor retorted. "And it sickens me that you think this is what you ought to apologise for."
The Doctor's cutting tone seemed to affect the Master almost physically – he flinched, eyes widening, then frowned in puzzlement. "I don't see – "
"Obviously not." The Doctor stepped forward, sick of the Master in his personal space, but there was more in the momentum of his move, more fury, more violence. With a single push the Doctor shoved the Master against the wall of the room.
The Master looked shocked by the physical violence, almost as much as he had when his finger had slipped on the trigger. This wasn't how they usually played, they always kept things between them, weapons, plans, foot soldiers and words. When they touched it was subtle and fleeting, meant as taunt, reassurance or distraction, never anything as blunt as aggression. But the Doctor didn't owe his enemy such consideration anymore. Every fibre in his body knew how to disarm, how to strike down a opponent, how to hurt. When the Doctor raised his hand, sheer, honest fear appeared on the Master's face, but he did nothing to defend himself. With a swift motion, the Doctor pinned the Master's wrists against the wall, less to trap the Master than to control himself.
"I respected you," he hissed. "I cannot for the life of me think why, but I thought you had some principles left in those black, shrivelled hearts of yours."
Regaining a small bit of his composure, the Master became indignant. "So did I," he snapped, struggling uselessly against the Doctor's grip. "I thought we could have a civilised conversation on neutral ground."
"Civilised? You allied yourself with the Daleks!"
"That's what has you up in arms?" A surprised, breathless laugh escaped the Master. "What makes the Daleks so special? They're no worse than the Nestene or Axos. Admittedly more powerful and annoying, but I shouldn't think – "
"No, you shouldn't," the Doctor pressed through his teeth. "Because you're a fool if you can't see for yourself what the Daleks are –"
It was fury that made him raise his hands to the Master's temples, fury and cocksure confidence in his recently restored mind. While the Doctor's mind had still been hampered by the Time Lords, he wouldn't have dared to initiate telepathic contact with Master. But he was whole again, and the respect he had had for the Master was swept away entirely, leaving behind only the desperate need to put him in his place. He shoved the memories into the Master's mind without warning: the silently gliding armies, the ant hill of frozen, waiting Daleks on Spyridon, the screeching voices demanding utter annihilation, the creatures inside with their pure, devouring hatred and his own overwhelming fear of them.
The Master's knees buckled, his defences had flickered only feebly before breaking under the flood of images. To keep him on his feet and in his power, the Doctor pushed him back against the wall and pressed against the Master with the full weight of his own body. It felt dangerously good to exorcise his fears like this, to dump them into the Master's mind, where they fell on fertile ground. Lived vicariously, the horror was infinitely less painful; seen from the outside he could analyse it and control it. The Master was gasping, trying to form words and failing; he clutched at the Doctor's shirt and threw back his head.
It was the moment to leave him like this and turn his back on the Master for good. But the Doctor felt the weight of his body in a feedback loop of fear and something else, something like relief and pleasure.
A shiver of heat spread over the Doctor's skin, his eyes widened and his nostrils flared, and it felt as if his mind was bursting with light, the light of understanding, the rush of power and the sting of anger. "You enjoy this," the Doctor accused, and kissed the Master.
*
The Doctor stepped out of the bathroom, towel tied around his hips and found the Master awake and looking for all the world quite comfortably smug as he lay among the crumpled sheets, one of his hands still tied to the bed with the Doctor's silk scarf. The knots were tight, and the hand probably hurt or had gone numb by now, but the Master didn't seem bothered.
"I seem to have earned your forgiveness once more, Doctor," the Master said cheerfully.
Forgiveness between them was a relative term. To truly forgive the Master all his crimes, the Doctor would have had to accept the Master as insane and not responsible for his actions. He simply wasn't willing to give the Master such an easy way out – and he preferred to believe that the Master, despite everything, still had more than a few grains of sanity left.
Still. The Doctor gave him a narrow gaze. "What makes you think that?"
"You sang in the shower," the Master replied very reasonably.
"You'll have to explain that leap of logic to me," the Doctor said with a shake of his head and an amused smile that he couldn't quite keep down. Yes, he had forgiven the Master – in relative terms of forgiveness.
"It means you took your time," the Master told him, as if explaining the deeper secrets of the Unified Theory of the Doctor. "You so rarely do. If you hadn't forgiven me, you would have rushed through it – or simply slipped off in your TARDIS while I was asleep."
"Yes," the Doctor admitted. "You were rather soundly asleep."
That deep sleep had surprised him. Up until that careless shot, the Doctor had been fairly sure that at one point of their one-step-forward two-steps-back game, they would end up in a room like this, having to deal with the moment after. That they would do it in a more or less civilised, gentlemanly manner, and part to meet another time. That this tacit agreement would last until another regeneration would roll around and the balance would shift again. He had been comfortable with that idea. But never had it involved peacefully sleeping next to each other – or taking his time in the shower.
The Master raised his brows, as if asking the Doctor what was so strange about it. "I had nothing to fear with you in the room, my dear Doctor."
It was all a bit unnerving. The Master was as calm and confident as he rarely got, as if last night had expunged not only the Doctor's anger, but also that nervous tension that the Master always carried with him. And now this – having apologised for almost killing the Doctor already, the Master was laying his life in the Doctor's hands.
"I'm surprised you didn't try to escape and steal my TARDIS." What the Doctor actually wanted to ask was: Is there any chance that if I go back into the shower, you'll have left discreetly by the time I return?
"Hmm. The thought crossed my mind. But you tied the knots rather tight."
"It's a seaman's knot," the Doctor huffed, and perched on the edge of the bed, close to the Master. "You just pull here – " Like a wizard's trick, the silk unravelled, and the Doctor held it in his hands. He hadn't even had to touch the Master, and for some reason it seemed like a pity.
"Quaint but ingenious," the Master said. Red streaks encircled his wrist, but he rubbed it without complaint, cradling the numb hand like a bruise or medal attained in a fair fight. He looked genuinely impressed with the Doctor's trick, but the Doctor wasn't sure if he believed him.
"Humans invented it."
"Of course they did. The more I see of them, the more I understand your obsession with them. They certainly make more loyal helpers than Daleks and Ogrons. Where is Miss Grant, by the way?"
They were having small talk. And they weren't even dressed yet. "She decided to get married."
"Oh dear." The Master chuckled. "Not quite as loyal, then. And your commitment to UNIT? I hope you're not still working for them like some mercenary, now that the Time Lords have given you back your freedom."
"Just because I'm free to go doesn't mean I'll desert them at the first chance."
"That makes for a change. You never looked back on Gallifrey once you left it. It seems the humans have done a much better job at taming you."
The Doctor frowned sternly. "They're more deserving of my loyalty than the Time Lords ever were, that's all."
"And you've grown older and wiser."
"Are you quite done cross-examining me?"
"Almost," the Master said soothingly. "You see, Doctor, I'm merely testing the water to see if you're ready for another long-term commitment."
Perhaps his idea about where they were headed had not so much been an idea as a fantasy. He would have been lying to himself if he tried to believe that he wasn't committed already. Forgiveness always meant commitment. Even the anger that came before forgiveness was a sign of commitment. He had committed to UNIT the moment he had forgiven the Brigadier for the mess with the Silurians. Forgiving in small increments was what his relationship with the Master had been based on these last few years. When he had let him slip away during that business with Axos, when he had visited him in prison, when he had asked Chronos to spare the Master, when he had decided to go take a shower before he left – it had always been a grudging commitment, but it had never really wavered.
The Doctor raised his brows, and pretended to be more indignant than he was. "I've been ready for a good while longer than you. I've merely learned to be patient. All good things take their time."
The Master patted the Doctor's bare knee. The Doctor wanted his hand to stay there, and it did. The Master's thumb caressed the inside of the Doctor's tigh, lazy like long-term commitment. "Of course. I would never accuse you of being an insufferable tease. You haven't been playing hard to get, you simply didn't want to rush things. Very admirable – terrible things can happen if you rush things."
Title: Rush Into Slow Pace
Rating: PG-13/R
Pairing: Three/Delgado!Master
Prompt: Singing in Showers
Summary: Set after "Frontier in Space" and "Green Death", contains spoilers for both. Even simple things like singing in the shower have secret meanings.
"Oh, this is precious," the Doctor said, his voice icy with disdain. "It was you who called me? Have you become so lazy that you won't even make the effort to come after me to gloat?"
He hadn't thought much about the Master, not until he met him again. Out of sight, out of mind, and good riddance, too. Perhaps a good portion of angry denial had been involved, too. But the moment the Doctor stepped out of his TARDIS in a hotel room on Sirius IV to find himself face to face with his would-be murderer, he realised that although weeks had passed, he was still furious at the Master. He should have stepped right back into the TARDIS and left, but now he had come here, and he couldn't leave until he knew why the Master had sent that distress signal.
A distress signal directed at his TARDIS was most likely to be a trick. The Doctor had walked so blindly into this trap that it seemed awfully as if he had wanted to be tricked. But it definitely wasn't the Master whom he wanted to see right now (or any time in the next few centuries.) Even the dingy hotel room seemed like a deliberate insult to the Doctor – surely the Master could have afforded something better.
The Master spread his hands wide, palms up in a placating gesture. His tone was so sincere that to the Doctor it sounded entirely facetious. "Nothing of the sort! Really, Doctor, you couldn't be more wrong. I'm not going to gloat. I wish to apologise from the depth of my hearts."
The Doctor leaned back against the closed door of his TARDIS, crossing his arms. He shouldn't even be giving the Master the time of day, he thought, but he found himself too angry to simply leave again. It was a sour, bitter, stomach-turning anger, and he wanted an opportunity to vent that anger, some kind of explosive closure.
"Apologise," he repeated with a sneer. "For accidentally shooting me, I presume?"
"Accidentally?" The Master shook his head in surprised denial. "I would never kill you accidentally, Doctor. Although I admit that in hindsight it was a rash decision. Killing you in such a manner would have been unforgivable – unworthy of our relationship. So please accept my sincerest apologies."
The Doctor shook his head in disgust. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Of course I am," the Master said with a smile that under other circumstances would have been charming. He took a step towards the Doctor, closing the distance between them, and lowered his voice, still slyly smiling up at the Doctor, "You know that I am always serious when it comes to us."
"I do believe you," the Doctor retorted. "And it sickens me that you think this is what you ought to apologise for."
The Doctor's cutting tone seemed to affect the Master almost physically – he flinched, eyes widening, then frowned in puzzlement. "I don't see – "
"Obviously not." The Doctor stepped forward, sick of the Master in his personal space, but there was more in the momentum of his move, more fury, more violence. With a single push the Doctor shoved the Master against the wall of the room.
The Master looked shocked by the physical violence, almost as much as he had when his finger had slipped on the trigger. This wasn't how they usually played, they always kept things between them, weapons, plans, foot soldiers and words. When they touched it was subtle and fleeting, meant as taunt, reassurance or distraction, never anything as blunt as aggression. But the Doctor didn't owe his enemy such consideration anymore. Every fibre in his body knew how to disarm, how to strike down a opponent, how to hurt. When the Doctor raised his hand, sheer, honest fear appeared on the Master's face, but he did nothing to defend himself. With a swift motion, the Doctor pinned the Master's wrists against the wall, less to trap the Master than to control himself.
"I respected you," he hissed. "I cannot for the life of me think why, but I thought you had some principles left in those black, shrivelled hearts of yours."
Regaining a small bit of his composure, the Master became indignant. "So did I," he snapped, struggling uselessly against the Doctor's grip. "I thought we could have a civilised conversation on neutral ground."
"Civilised? You allied yourself with the Daleks!"
"That's what has you up in arms?" A surprised, breathless laugh escaped the Master. "What makes the Daleks so special? They're no worse than the Nestene or Axos. Admittedly more powerful and annoying, but I shouldn't think – "
"No, you shouldn't," the Doctor pressed through his teeth. "Because you're a fool if you can't see for yourself what the Daleks are –"
It was fury that made him raise his hands to the Master's temples, fury and cocksure confidence in his recently restored mind. While the Doctor's mind had still been hampered by the Time Lords, he wouldn't have dared to initiate telepathic contact with Master. But he was whole again, and the respect he had had for the Master was swept away entirely, leaving behind only the desperate need to put him in his place. He shoved the memories into the Master's mind without warning: the silently gliding armies, the ant hill of frozen, waiting Daleks on Spyridon, the screeching voices demanding utter annihilation, the creatures inside with their pure, devouring hatred and his own overwhelming fear of them.
The Master's knees buckled, his defences had flickered only feebly before breaking under the flood of images. To keep him on his feet and in his power, the Doctor pushed him back against the wall and pressed against the Master with the full weight of his own body. It felt dangerously good to exorcise his fears like this, to dump them into the Master's mind, where they fell on fertile ground. Lived vicariously, the horror was infinitely less painful; seen from the outside he could analyse it and control it. The Master was gasping, trying to form words and failing; he clutched at the Doctor's shirt and threw back his head.
It was the moment to leave him like this and turn his back on the Master for good. But the Doctor felt the weight of his body in a feedback loop of fear and something else, something like relief and pleasure.
A shiver of heat spread over the Doctor's skin, his eyes widened and his nostrils flared, and it felt as if his mind was bursting with light, the light of understanding, the rush of power and the sting of anger. "You enjoy this," the Doctor accused, and kissed the Master.
*
The Doctor stepped out of the bathroom, towel tied around his hips and found the Master awake and looking for all the world quite comfortably smug as he lay among the crumpled sheets, one of his hands still tied to the bed with the Doctor's silk scarf. The knots were tight, and the hand probably hurt or had gone numb by now, but the Master didn't seem bothered.
"I seem to have earned your forgiveness once more, Doctor," the Master said cheerfully.
Forgiveness between them was a relative term. To truly forgive the Master all his crimes, the Doctor would have had to accept the Master as insane and not responsible for his actions. He simply wasn't willing to give the Master such an easy way out – and he preferred to believe that the Master, despite everything, still had more than a few grains of sanity left.
Still. The Doctor gave him a narrow gaze. "What makes you think that?"
"You sang in the shower," the Master replied very reasonably.
"You'll have to explain that leap of logic to me," the Doctor said with a shake of his head and an amused smile that he couldn't quite keep down. Yes, he had forgiven the Master – in relative terms of forgiveness.
"It means you took your time," the Master told him, as if explaining the deeper secrets of the Unified Theory of the Doctor. "You so rarely do. If you hadn't forgiven me, you would have rushed through it – or simply slipped off in your TARDIS while I was asleep."
"Yes," the Doctor admitted. "You were rather soundly asleep."
That deep sleep had surprised him. Up until that careless shot, the Doctor had been fairly sure that at one point of their one-step-forward two-steps-back game, they would end up in a room like this, having to deal with the moment after. That they would do it in a more or less civilised, gentlemanly manner, and part to meet another time. That this tacit agreement would last until another regeneration would roll around and the balance would shift again. He had been comfortable with that idea. But never had it involved peacefully sleeping next to each other – or taking his time in the shower.
The Master raised his brows, as if asking the Doctor what was so strange about it. "I had nothing to fear with you in the room, my dear Doctor."
It was all a bit unnerving. The Master was as calm and confident as he rarely got, as if last night had expunged not only the Doctor's anger, but also that nervous tension that the Master always carried with him. And now this – having apologised for almost killing the Doctor already, the Master was laying his life in the Doctor's hands.
"I'm surprised you didn't try to escape and steal my TARDIS." What the Doctor actually wanted to ask was: Is there any chance that if I go back into the shower, you'll have left discreetly by the time I return?
"Hmm. The thought crossed my mind. But you tied the knots rather tight."
"It's a seaman's knot," the Doctor huffed, and perched on the edge of the bed, close to the Master. "You just pull here – " Like a wizard's trick, the silk unravelled, and the Doctor held it in his hands. He hadn't even had to touch the Master, and for some reason it seemed like a pity.
"Quaint but ingenious," the Master said. Red streaks encircled his wrist, but he rubbed it without complaint, cradling the numb hand like a bruise or medal attained in a fair fight. He looked genuinely impressed with the Doctor's trick, but the Doctor wasn't sure if he believed him.
"Humans invented it."
"Of course they did. The more I see of them, the more I understand your obsession with them. They certainly make more loyal helpers than Daleks and Ogrons. Where is Miss Grant, by the way?"
They were having small talk. And they weren't even dressed yet. "She decided to get married."
"Oh dear." The Master chuckled. "Not quite as loyal, then. And your commitment to UNIT? I hope you're not still working for them like some mercenary, now that the Time Lords have given you back your freedom."
"Just because I'm free to go doesn't mean I'll desert them at the first chance."
"That makes for a change. You never looked back on Gallifrey once you left it. It seems the humans have done a much better job at taming you."
The Doctor frowned sternly. "They're more deserving of my loyalty than the Time Lords ever were, that's all."
"And you've grown older and wiser."
"Are you quite done cross-examining me?"
"Almost," the Master said soothingly. "You see, Doctor, I'm merely testing the water to see if you're ready for another long-term commitment."
Perhaps his idea about where they were headed had not so much been an idea as a fantasy. He would have been lying to himself if he tried to believe that he wasn't committed already. Forgiveness always meant commitment. Even the anger that came before forgiveness was a sign of commitment. He had committed to UNIT the moment he had forgiven the Brigadier for the mess with the Silurians. Forgiving in small increments was what his relationship with the Master had been based on these last few years. When he had let him slip away during that business with Axos, when he had visited him in prison, when he had asked Chronos to spare the Master, when he had decided to go take a shower before he left – it had always been a grudging commitment, but it had never really wavered.
The Doctor raised his brows, and pretended to be more indignant than he was. "I've been ready for a good while longer than you. I've merely learned to be patient. All good things take their time."
The Master patted the Doctor's bare knee. The Doctor wanted his hand to stay there, and it did. The Master's thumb caressed the inside of the Doctor's tigh, lazy like long-term commitment. "Of course. I would never accuse you of being an insufferable tease. You haven't been playing hard to get, you simply didn't want to rush things. Very admirable – terrible things can happen if you rush things."
