The Master (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beholdthedrums) wrote2010-03-24 12:51 am
beholdthedrums) wrote2010-03-24 12:51 am
Entry tags:
FIC: Descent
Character(s): The Master and The Doctor
Summary: Hell is descending.
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1,316
Warnings: I'm sorry Wilf D: I really do love you, but D: Spoilers for End of Time.
So I really just wanted to play a bit with the horrors the Doctor was talking about from the Time War. Although I've really only got the Nightmare Child figured out, since I had done that for Shades of Three. And then I got lazy so I'll probably touch on other things at some point.
Takes place during part 2 of EoT, before the Doctor gets back to his feet in the mansion.
Descent
It’s a similar kind of moment to his failed resurrection. His breathing is irregular and there’s energy coursing around them, suffocating and latching to the drumming in his head and amplifying with each beat. The fear is similar to before, so open and impossible to push under walls and wrap himself up tight. Everything has gone wrong these past few days. This instant is the first time since his return to the universe that he doesn’t notice his insatiable hunger.
The Master stares up through the shattered dome into the sky. He flinches mentally at the sight of his childhood home breaking apart Earth’s atmosphere in its Gallifreyan supremacy. He feels Time shy away from him, away from all of them, as if becoming a sentient body and developing survival instincts, because the Time Lords will no longer cradle it close and protect it.
He staggers back, wets his lips and tears his eyes away from burning orange to look at where the Doctor curls his hands into glass, his eyes fixated on the floor.
The Master is chilled. He has no control over this – he barely has any control over his own diseased body. Time sideswipes him and he jerks as though slapped. It’s an assault and their corrupt Lord President intends to just leave them to deal with it.
“So what?” the Master hisses, defiant eyes finding Rassilon’s. “You’re just going to ‘ascend’, just like that? You can’t do this!” He recoils at his own words, feeling suddenly as though the Doctor has possessed him. Next he’ll start yelling out ‘stop this’ and ‘let me help you’ and all those foolish phrases that could never work on the Master, and they sure weren’t about to work on their Lord President.
He seethes and throws out an arm. He hates being powerless. Hates it. Hates this body, this planet, this life, but he hates the Time Lords more than ever before. They can’t do this to him. They can’t just pack their bags and toss him out like rubbish; they made him. They can’t just leave him.
Somewhere above them isn’t just Gallifrey anymore. The sky distorts and churns under a new presence; an eerie, nerve-grating howl fills the air. For the first time, the Master really accepts it: hell is descending. His deepest fears reawaken with that howl, sends his entire mind off kilter, and even the drumming silences – momentarily – from it. He knows that sound, even if he ran so quickly from the war, he knows it.
The Nightmare Child.
He pivots on his heel and runs. The Doctor shouts after him, but he doesn’t care. He pushes out and doesn’t stop. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want all the evils of the Time War pulling into this existence, destroying Time, destroying everything. In the past he could handle it, maybe. Now, his body screams and it’s his skeleton that turns a corner and his drained body that crashes down to the floor in pain. He’s so hungry but that’s no time – he has to keep running, he has to get out.
But how can he escape the war this time? His TARDIS is long, long since lost amongst an elephant graveyard of ships. Decayed as much as the Master’s current state. The Doctor wouldn’t reveal the location of his own. Something… there had to be something he could work with…
Electricity ripples through his body and dances around his fingers. “Too unstable,” he murmurs to himself, flexing his hands and staring down at them. “But it’s mine,” he cries. The energy! It’s his – it’s all his, so why can’t he just keep it? Why must it fight with him?!
“Master!”
He snaps his head up, briefly phasing, and looks as the Doctor stumbles through the corridor. The Master releases his pent up energy at the other’s feet, but he takes no pleasure in watching the Doctor slam to the ground in shock. The current seeps away from him, and for now his body is at peace.
The Doctor makes it standing only through sheer desperation. His breaths are ragged and his face is a storm of emotions. He glances over his shoulder, makes a weak sound, then darts his gaze back round to the Master. “We have to go,” he manages, “now.”
“Where’s your little pet?” the Master spits. He gets to his feet nonetheless, because if the Doctor is determined to get out, he’ll go to the TARDIS. The Master needs that.
“Dead,” the Doctor’s reply is steel. It isn’t a discussion he wants in this hall, not when Rassilon is basking in orange and waiting, Time so unimportant to him now that his plans have fallen into place. “What remains of the time-lock isn’t going to hold up much longer. Stay if you want to.”
The Master has no intention of staying. He wants to make Rassilon suffer for what he’s done to him, but he can’t, not now. When the Doctor continues on, the Master is close to follow, hoping to feast on the TARDIS’ reserves and restore some of his life force. Another howl of the Nightmare Child rumbles through the mansion. He cringes. “So, what’s the ETA on the end of existence?”
“I’m sure Rassilon is just fine with standing there for days – if only I had – I should have –” the Doctor trails off angrily and the Master chooses not to comment, even when the TARDIS syncs properly with the area and opens her shelter to them. Still, the Doctor continues. The Master may have pent up energy, but the Doctor is all pent up rage. “Why couldn’t you just listen to me for once? Look what’s happened! How are you going to get out of this one? Do you have a backup plan to the backup plan?!”
He raises a brow, using all his remaining strength to keep his body from collapsing. “I think I shall have a meal, first,” he says.
The Doctor slams a hand against the console. Broken ribs, cuts all throughout his body, torn clothing; what’s a little bit more damage to himself?
“I would have helped you, you know! We could have done this right! No one had to die!”
“Everyone always has to die around you,” the Master tells him. He turns his focus to the TARDIS, licking his lips hungrily. She won’t be needing everything. He could just take and take and take and she would still fly because the Doctor needed her to. A fascinating thing, symbiosis. He wonders if he could drain the Doctor, too. If the other would still manage to move in his current state after losing a bit of his side. The Master laughs to himself.
“Don’t you dare,” the Doctor says suddenly, catching his look. “The Earth is in a panic. Bring you to the market and you can have anything you want, but not the TARDIS.”
“You ruin all my fun, Doctor.”
“Good.”
True to his word, the Doctor takes them to a market and lets the Master out on his own so that he can sulk in his own gloom. His mouth is a grim line and the Master knows that the Doctor isn’t naïve enough to think that he’s really just going in for the food – no, human meat is just as filling. But when comparing the Master to all the horrors spilling through the shattered time-lock, the Master is at the bottom of the list when it comes to concerns.
He rubs his hands together in a mad glee, watching his meal run wild before his eyes – a lion amongst a herd of gazelle. The Nightmare Child isn’t in this part of town, but there are Daleks settling into formation high in the sky and Gallifrey looming unnaturally in contrast to Earth. There’s more to come and he knows this, but he doesn’t care.
For now, it’s mealtime.
Summary: Hell is descending.
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1,316
Warnings: I'm sorry Wilf D: I really do love you, but D: Spoilers for End of Time.
So I really just wanted to play a bit with the horrors the Doctor was talking about from the Time War. Although I've really only got the Nightmare Child figured out, since I had done that for Shades of Three. And then I got lazy so I'll probably touch on other things at some point.
Takes place during part 2 of EoT, before the Doctor gets back to his feet in the mansion.
It’s a similar kind of moment to his failed resurrection. His breathing is irregular and there’s energy coursing around them, suffocating and latching to the drumming in his head and amplifying with each beat. The fear is similar to before, so open and impossible to push under walls and wrap himself up tight. Everything has gone wrong these past few days. This instant is the first time since his return to the universe that he doesn’t notice his insatiable hunger.
The Master stares up through the shattered dome into the sky. He flinches mentally at the sight of his childhood home breaking apart Earth’s atmosphere in its Gallifreyan supremacy. He feels Time shy away from him, away from all of them, as if becoming a sentient body and developing survival instincts, because the Time Lords will no longer cradle it close and protect it.
He staggers back, wets his lips and tears his eyes away from burning orange to look at where the Doctor curls his hands into glass, his eyes fixated on the floor.
The Master is chilled. He has no control over this – he barely has any control over his own diseased body. Time sideswipes him and he jerks as though slapped. It’s an assault and their corrupt Lord President intends to just leave them to deal with it.
“So what?” the Master hisses, defiant eyes finding Rassilon’s. “You’re just going to ‘ascend’, just like that? You can’t do this!” He recoils at his own words, feeling suddenly as though the Doctor has possessed him. Next he’ll start yelling out ‘stop this’ and ‘let me help you’ and all those foolish phrases that could never work on the Master, and they sure weren’t about to work on their Lord President.
He seethes and throws out an arm. He hates being powerless. Hates it. Hates this body, this planet, this life, but he hates the Time Lords more than ever before. They can’t do this to him. They can’t just pack their bags and toss him out like rubbish; they made him. They can’t just leave him.
Somewhere above them isn’t just Gallifrey anymore. The sky distorts and churns under a new presence; an eerie, nerve-grating howl fills the air. For the first time, the Master really accepts it: hell is descending. His deepest fears reawaken with that howl, sends his entire mind off kilter, and even the drumming silences – momentarily – from it. He knows that sound, even if he ran so quickly from the war, he knows it.
The Nightmare Child.
He pivots on his heel and runs. The Doctor shouts after him, but he doesn’t care. He pushes out and doesn’t stop. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want all the evils of the Time War pulling into this existence, destroying Time, destroying everything. In the past he could handle it, maybe. Now, his body screams and it’s his skeleton that turns a corner and his drained body that crashes down to the floor in pain. He’s so hungry but that’s no time – he has to keep running, he has to get out.
But how can he escape the war this time? His TARDIS is long, long since lost amongst an elephant graveyard of ships. Decayed as much as the Master’s current state. The Doctor wouldn’t reveal the location of his own. Something… there had to be something he could work with…
Electricity ripples through his body and dances around his fingers. “Too unstable,” he murmurs to himself, flexing his hands and staring down at them. “But it’s mine,” he cries. The energy! It’s his – it’s all his, so why can’t he just keep it? Why must it fight with him?!
“Master!”
He snaps his head up, briefly phasing, and looks as the Doctor stumbles through the corridor. The Master releases his pent up energy at the other’s feet, but he takes no pleasure in watching the Doctor slam to the ground in shock. The current seeps away from him, and for now his body is at peace.
The Doctor makes it standing only through sheer desperation. His breaths are ragged and his face is a storm of emotions. He glances over his shoulder, makes a weak sound, then darts his gaze back round to the Master. “We have to go,” he manages, “now.”
“Where’s your little pet?” the Master spits. He gets to his feet nonetheless, because if the Doctor is determined to get out, he’ll go to the TARDIS. The Master needs that.
“Dead,” the Doctor’s reply is steel. It isn’t a discussion he wants in this hall, not when Rassilon is basking in orange and waiting, Time so unimportant to him now that his plans have fallen into place. “What remains of the time-lock isn’t going to hold up much longer. Stay if you want to.”
The Master has no intention of staying. He wants to make Rassilon suffer for what he’s done to him, but he can’t, not now. When the Doctor continues on, the Master is close to follow, hoping to feast on the TARDIS’ reserves and restore some of his life force. Another howl of the Nightmare Child rumbles through the mansion. He cringes. “So, what’s the ETA on the end of existence?”
“I’m sure Rassilon is just fine with standing there for days – if only I had – I should have –” the Doctor trails off angrily and the Master chooses not to comment, even when the TARDIS syncs properly with the area and opens her shelter to them. Still, the Doctor continues. The Master may have pent up energy, but the Doctor is all pent up rage. “Why couldn’t you just listen to me for once? Look what’s happened! How are you going to get out of this one? Do you have a backup plan to the backup plan?!”
He raises a brow, using all his remaining strength to keep his body from collapsing. “I think I shall have a meal, first,” he says.
The Doctor slams a hand against the console. Broken ribs, cuts all throughout his body, torn clothing; what’s a little bit more damage to himself?
“I would have helped you, you know! We could have done this right! No one had to die!”
“Everyone always has to die around you,” the Master tells him. He turns his focus to the TARDIS, licking his lips hungrily. She won’t be needing everything. He could just take and take and take and she would still fly because the Doctor needed her to. A fascinating thing, symbiosis. He wonders if he could drain the Doctor, too. If the other would still manage to move in his current state after losing a bit of his side. The Master laughs to himself.
“Don’t you dare,” the Doctor says suddenly, catching his look. “The Earth is in a panic. Bring you to the market and you can have anything you want, but not the TARDIS.”
“You ruin all my fun, Doctor.”
“Good.”
True to his word, the Doctor takes them to a market and lets the Master out on his own so that he can sulk in his own gloom. His mouth is a grim line and the Master knows that the Doctor isn’t naïve enough to think that he’s really just going in for the food – no, human meat is just as filling. But when comparing the Master to all the horrors spilling through the shattered time-lock, the Master is at the bottom of the list when it comes to concerns.
He rubs his hands together in a mad glee, watching his meal run wild before his eyes – a lion amongst a herd of gazelle. The Nightmare Child isn’t in this part of town, but there are Daleks settling into formation high in the sky and Gallifrey looming unnaturally in contrast to Earth. There’s more to come and he knows this, but he doesn’t care.
For now, it’s mealtime.