dear_mun | (no subject)

Entry tags:

canon: doctor who universe

(no subject)

Really, my dear lady,

I cannot fault your taste, but I hardly think I need enumerate on the fact that my purpose here is not to fulfil your sordid little fantasies. I am, of course, appropriately grateful that you've deigned to turn your attention my way again-- I can't imagine what fascination those absurd American boys with their incoherent medley of mythologies holds for you, to prove such a distraction-- but honestly, that you should spend such time bemoaning the lack of people to-- and I cringe at your internet neologisms, I must point out-- 'play smut with' is frankly silly. You've plenty of compatriots with a similar regard for my, ahem, many striking attributes in this body; just go and ask one of them! Surely they cannot have changed so much, even if you've not 'chatplayed' with them in years. Regardless, whatever path you choose to go down, I maintain that I refuse to prostitute myself to your capricious, hormonal whims.

Adamantly,

The Doctor

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was a bit busy, yeah. Sorry about that, I was trying to keep up with the drums.

I beg your pardon?

There's a drumming noise inside my head, old friend. War drums.

Remember the headaches I got once in a while, back when we were kids? That was the very beginning of my madness. *He taps out the drumbeat on the nearest flat surface.* I thought it was just my heartbeats for a very long time, but they were a psychic suggestion to be violent from another time. Bloody Untempered Schism.

. . . so, you never explained the rainbow monkey outfit. Would you be so kind as to change that?

Oh, would you forget about my clothes just for a moment?!

[Because no, seriously, this is important. The Doctor had not thought about it in years, centuries, but at the Master's prompting, he does remember the boy Koschei suffering from headaches. For a few moments, he appears quite speechless, before finally settling on:]

How? I mean, what? Who would-- you've had a drumbeat in your head all these years like some kind of-- psychic apple of discord? Why in the name of Rassilon did you never tell anyone?

Edited 2013-11-24 17:15 (UTC)

I didn't realize it until I was far too under it's thrall to fight back. It was designed that way, I think.

And don't mention Rassilon, because hewould do something like that. Oh Other but I hate Time Wars . . . pretend you didn't hear that.

[Time Wars? Rassilon? The Master-- the most stupidly, mulishly stubborn and self-possessed man he's ever known-- admitting himself to be in the thrall of something else? The Doctor is growing increasingly alarmed.]

Pretend I didn't hear that my foot; we're in metafiction, the fourth wall is allowed to crack. Now tell me, what the devil has been going on?

A Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks. Well, more like a gigantic pissing contest between Davros and Rassilon, but it came to the same thing in the end. *He sighs.* The drums were a last-ditch effort of Rassilon to keep the war going once it became obvious that no one was winning.

The bastard ruined my whole history for nothing. Although I got to lynch him afterwards, so that's alright I guess.

He-- you're telling that one of the founders of Time Lord society, power-mad dictator as he was, went back along your timeline to... implant these drums in your head, for the sake of winning a war? Drove you to-- What did he think you would do?

[He scoffs, to cover the gnawing horror he's feeling at the notion.]

If he imagined you, of all people, would fight for the Time Lords--

He thought I would become a violent lunatic that could be aimed at his enemies, then cast aside. And he was almost right, but I killed him as soon as I found out.

That's... horrific. I-- I'm sorry, Master.

[He's certainly not as idealistic as Ten, to imagine that these drums are entirely to credit for the Master's tendency to dominate and enslave, but if they had exacerbated it; if, in some universe, the Master might have grown into something else... The loss of that possibility is tragic. And that level manipulation by Rassilon, whilst frankly not unexpected, is still heinous.]

It's alright. *He smiles weakly.* I'm used to it by now.

Hell, it wouldn't be safe for me to remove them anymore. My hearts beat to the drumming, my thoughts dance between the beats and silence might well kill me.

But if you ever could use a bit of violence, I'm happy to help.

[The Doctor hasn't met the Master in this regeneration before, so he can't claim to know any of the peccadilloes particular to this body, but having known the man generally more or less all his life, he can safely say he wasn't expecting that to be met with acceptance and a smile, however weak. He'd anticipated something more along the lines of a sneer, accompanied by a retort that the Master didn't need the Doctor's pity. He's so taken aback by the lack of such that he's struck quite silent for a moment, lips pursing and brows bunching.]

You'd be happy to help, would you? To help me? Out of the kindness of your hearts?

I'd get to kill things without you stopping me, what's not to like?

[That too is unlike the Master he knows. His contemporary Master is utterly mad, of course, and has a nasty tendency to kill people who get in his way, but he doesn't generally, at least as far as the Doctor has observed, kill things for the sheer sport of it. His eyebrows go up.]

Well, when you phrase it so piquantly, how am I to resist? If I need anything butchered, I'll be sure to let you know.

[Is that judgement? It's totally judgement.]

*Don't you judge him, he's been having some hard times.* Don't you be getting sarcastic on me, Doctor. Killing things makes me feel better, of course I want to do it.

I miss Jack, he always died so nicely . . .

You realise, of course, that as methods of self-medication go, killing people simply isn't sustainable? Are there not any less violent ways you could go about appeasing these drums of yours?

[Actually, you know what, he's got more to say, and the Doctor puffs himself up just slightly, voice taking on an orator's tone]

Come to that, from what do you draw your conclusion that it would be unsafe to attempt to remove them? Surely you, of all people; you have the greatest idée fixe with control of anyone I've ever met! 'Master' indeed. To be without your accustomed, vaunted sophrosyne, to be unable to control even yourself-- you would rather live like that than even try to rid yourself of this pestilence?

There are a lot of people in the universe, dear Doctor.

*He sighs.* I tried blocking them out. It made my autonomous functions start to shut down, because dying was the only thing that had shut them up since I was eight and therefore losing them meant I must be dead. Since I prefer to be alive, I'm trying to ignore them as much as possible instead.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only