Don't fret, precious

Continued from here.

Back at the Hub, the Master keeps his expression still and his thoughts carefully in check as he unbuttons the first button of the Doctor's shirt. It's late, so late it's becoming early, and even Ianto has gone home for the night. The place is just theirs, and that, he thinks (or doesn't, because he's taking care not to think) is good. If the others were here, he'd have to answer, or ignore, questions—and no matter how he answered, they would think he had done this. They know his history, and they've learned to know their superior officers' relationship.

This would be his fault.

It is His fault.

He hooks into the thump-thump-thump-thump of the drums and lets that, and his concentration on unbuttoning the Doctor's shirt, as the other man sits on the examination table, legs over the edge, be the only thing on his mind.

Each button reveals more of the angry bruise blotted thick across the Doctor's chest.

'Verse: Doctor Who, Simm!Master, set early in his time on Earth. No diversions from canon.
Words: 259
Notes: I wrote this, because I saw "Dinner" as a drabble prompt for best_enemies and then realized it's . . . neither a drabble nor is the pairing D/M. OOPS.



Another publicity stunt, his detractors say, and they’re right. Of course it is. Every move he makes on this planet, every word, every smile, is a publicity stunt, another move in a game they think they understand. The game of politics.

Hm. He smirks, and hums to himself, dusting spices from his fingers on a dishtowel to the side of the range. The kitchen, designed to be manned by chef and sous-chef, chef de parties and assistants, stands empty around him, warm and still with the smell of the roast in the oven and the glow of copper and the oil and orange of the sauce in the saucier pan on low heat in front of him.

He dips a finger in and tastes it, savoring the pain of the burn from the simmering liquid (it will heal in an instant), as well as the flavor of the sauce.

“Perfetto.” He brings his fingers together in a pinch of approval, complement to the exaggerated Italian accent.

Through the open doors of the kitchen, he hears the sound of footsteps—a woman’s footsteps. Expensive shoes and poised even steps and an eager, tense, violent caution.

This is why he commandeered the most exclusive restaurant in London for the evening.

The game of politics? How unromantic, human pundits and paparazzi.

This is the game of love.

Scooping up a tray of bruschetta and a bottle of wine, a white cloth draped over one arm, he sweeps out of the kitchen door, still humming. “And we call it bella notte . . .”

The Master believes himself entitled and unique, inherently superior to all other life by virtue of his vision and his abilities. For him, life is about control. Everything and everyone in the universe is an opportunity for him to extend his control, to impose his will on matter and minds beyond his own. When something or someone reacts in ways he cannot take advantage of or has not provoked, they defy his control—and by doing so, they threaten his sense of identity. In his mind, he is the only real being in the entire universe; anyone who resists him aspires to individuality, threatening to steal a part of himself from him, and he cannot accept that. He will go to any lengths to grind others down into predictability and to make them extensions of himself, tools for his use.

He is both passionate and calculating, impulsive and capable of long-term planning. Often, his impulsiveness will undermine his carefully-laid plans, as will his arrogance and his underestimation of all others, but equally often, it serves as a show to make him appear less of a threat than he really is.

A hedonist and a sensualist, he enjoys the finer things in life and believes he deserves them. He plays roles and conforms to or defies expectations with ease and glee, always aware of the rules he's playing by and always willing to break them if it suits him. In effect, he uses others' own rules, social expectations, taboos, and sacred beliefs against them and for himself.

Trust is a weakness, and he trusts no one; on the other hand, betrayal against him is unforgivable. He will punish betrayal, and hold an unrelenting grudge against the betrayer.

He has an obsessive personality, and he rarely gives up. If someone succeeds in breaking his rule of individuality, if he or she proves him or herself his equal, he will go to any lengths to bring them around to his way of thinking. He has no equals, and any exception to that rule becomes the second-most important thing in his universe, right behind himself. They must work with him. They must become him. He will love and hate them as he loves and hates no one else. In canon, he grants this obsession only to the Doctor, a peer and fellow (ex-)Time Lord.

He's terrified of death, though he's died many times before. In all of his previous deaths, he retained the possibility of eventual resurrection—a possibility that has always been realized. As a human, his death will be final. He fears nonexistence above all else. He is incapable of imagining it.

The Master is a human being who was once an essentially immortal, time-and-space-traveling, superhumanly intelligent alien. Now, however, he has no superhuman or inhuman abilities—he doesn't even have the psychic sensitivity that some humans canonically do in his universe. He's normal. Within that, however, he's a very brilliant sort of normal. In fact, he's a genius! Or certainly on the very upper range of human intelligence. Though his memory has large gaps, he still retains knowledge and experiences far beyond what any single human could have experienced. Though he can no longer perform complicated calculations entirely in his head, or remember the thousands of languages he once knew, or build a teleportation device from a paperclip, some cat hair, and calcite crystals, he remembers being able to do these things. And what's within human capacity to do, he can still accomplish. He's fluent in many modern and ancient languages (though not all—he had no control over which of his memories were lost when he was made human, so some of the knowledge that would have been useful in the 21st century went right out the window) and extremely able in mathematics, physics, and engineering/invention—in any of these fields, he knows quite a bit more than 21st-century science knows, though, again, he'll bump up against unexpected knowledge gaps now and then. He knows his history—and what's to come. He's good with a sword, both fencing and broadsword, and able with concealable personal weapons, poisons, and drugs. He knows human anatomy and the science and mechanics of the human brain and body intimately—this comes from an entire year spent ruling the Earth and torturing human beings. He's a gifted manipulator, and familiar with the British political system. He's also "up" on turn-of-the-20th-to-21st-century pop culture, particularly music and children's television. He knows a bit about human occult and religious beliefs—because those are such easy fields to twist to one's advantage, if one has the mind to influence the credulous and superstitious. In fact, he knows a little, at least, about just about everything.

'Verse: t_eyla and I go AU with our Doctor/Master again, and play with the idea of a Lucy/Master metacrisis.




kikainogimon: I'm crossing my fingers for metacrisis!Master, though. So pissy. Snarky little useless human person. Rather like my Master >_>

teyla: lolol xD the Doctor would be all o__o

teyla: plz to be stopping being human nao. >_>

kikainogimon: He's not completely human! He's just *too much* human. And blond :\

teyla: Doctor: Yes. He can see that. >_>

kikainogimon: Master: *Bully for him* *Flounces off in his random monk robes to sulk*

teyla: Doctor: :| *this is no fun. He's not sure how to deal with this. Maybe by buying the Master eye make-up remover.*

kikainogimon: Master: *No. He likes his eye make-up. It suits his Emo*

kikainogimon: Master: *sulksulksulk. Where's Lucy? LUCY! Where's she gotten off to?*

kikainogimon: Master: *Time Lords, never *can* make them stick around. Not even half-strength Time Lords."

kikainogimon: Master: *CONTINUES SULKING*

teyla: Doctor: *talking to Lucy. Trying to find out what exactly happened. Because the Master doesn't really seem to be in the mood to tell him.*

( kikainogimon: Master: *has taken lessons from Bernard Black* )

Due to the magic of memes, the Master (made human by Torchwood and the Chameleon Arch he re-engineered to turn the Doctor human while still allowing him to retain his Time Lord memories, and currently living in a rubbish flat in Cardiff) had a human!Doctor (dreamtofbeing, made human by the Master and the aforementioned Arch, in a poorly-thought-out revenge plot) appear in his bed.

Huzzah! And there was much rejoicing. And a little bit of angst.

The thread that started things begins here.

The continuation/variation in chatplay is here.