Fic: The Armistice Year (3/4)
Pairing: 10/Master
Spoilers: TLoTTL, TSOD, in fact, the whole end -of-series arc.
Rating: (NC-17), swearing, situation: see A/N
Summary: The last two survivors of Gallifrey. Good and Evil have never been closer - or more confused.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, the BBC do. Oh, and RTD. I make no profit.
A/N: Due to a suggestion, The Armistice Year has a variant section. This became The Armistice Year’s ‘Clean Slate’ remix, which is PG-13 (NC-17): a version which requires no explanation other than its rating. Sort of. If you read the text without the bracketed section, it's PG-13. The variant section - Suffice to say it actually comes from an overdose of the Hounds of Love album. NC-17, y’all.
The Armistice Year
Chapter 3 - The Far End of the World (Clean Slate Remix)
"I've always been a coward
And I don't know what's good for me
Here I go…”
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
The doors of the Tardis closed on the sight of the base, abandoned and desolate as the last of the Archangel receptors honed in on it. Blue fire seemed to consume it - though that was patently impossible in the vacuum of space - and with a great tremor, the walls fell like a child’s toy. Folding inwards, the last bastion of Torchwood’s outer defences finally sank into the dust.
“Amazing,” the Doctor panted. “But tell me, just for old time’s sake - it wouldn’t really have gone for me if I’d told it I was from Gallifrey?”
The Master gave him a look that barely bit on its lip, and only muttered a few choice words under its breath. The most repeatable being ‘idiot’.
“The drone was an automated response. Basically, Torchwood didn’t want anything to escape from having disarmed the network. If you’d stayed to gloat over what you’d done, perhaps; or if you’d not had the right codes…”
“I see.”
Meaning that Torchwood had a little foresight, and realised that if anyone was going to try and pull off a stunt like this, it would have to be the Doctor. The afterimage of blue phosphorescence, a form of laser and destruction he’d not come across before in this area of the Galaxy, still hurt his eyes. He remembered being swept onto his back by the blast of the drone’s explosion. Vaguely remembered the Master putting away his laser screwdriver (and when did he get that back? He obviously needed to hide it better the next time he confiscated it. Soon.) He recalled the feel of sand scraping at his skin as he was pulled bodily into the Tardis. His head had a nasty crack on the first step, but after that, it all seemed smooth sailing. In a way.
Without really paying any attention to whatever the Master’s looks were doing, or attempting to do, the Doctor simply slumped back and sprawled out on the Tardis’ mesh floor. There was lunar dust in his hair, in his eyes, up his nose…He supposed that it was, in a sense, payback for the work he’d done on Earth. The unsaid goodbyes. Perhaps, in some ironic fashion, an irritant for every irritating time that he’d given.
-There was so much more, though.
More what?
The Master was out beside him, lying on his back amidst the dust. Eyes closed.
-Not just irritation. Think about all the times that you’ve managed to save a world, a species, a person…surely a few irritating moments don’t beat that hands down?
As if you would know.
-Well, ok. Consider them a representation of every time you’ve managed to change the course of history. Thousands of millions of sand grains, and a hundred thousand choices, good and evil don’t come into it…
And this is your way of saying…?
There’s a pause.
And a hand carefully, gently, pushes itself into the Doctor’s exhausted palm. Folds around it, tenderly. It could mean nothing.
-You’ve got a choice. If this is only a grain of sand in the path of time, then you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s an interlude.
The hands don’t move. There’s some form of peace, there, and the Doctor has managed to push himself to the point of exhaustion. The Master is inside his mind, somehow in the place where he always wanted to be, and it’s wearing him down.
Those barriers seem, all of a sudden, very strange things to put up.
-C’mon. Just a moment. That’s all you need.
The Doctor has the strangest feeling that the sound of drums is actually the sound of his suddenly febrile hearts, thumping wildly against his chest. Is this him, his own body? Or is it the Master, can he actually feel-
He takes a very unsteady breath. Because there’s a very strong image in his mind, and a hand that’s reaching across his chest, and then he opens his eyes to the fact that the Master’s kissing him.
It’s cool. That’s the first thing he notices. Colder than a human, sweeter than the tiny fragments of memory that he’s been trying to unearth. He shivers, and then finds that he’s being lifted, just gently, so that he’s upright from the metal floor.
-So what do you want?
No repercussions.
- All I can promise is what you’ve got here.
There are some more kisses, and this time, the Doctor decides that if he’s going to blame the Zys for anything, he can bloody well blame it for this. Pulling the Master’s head towards him, he finds it ever so slightly liberating to make his own decisions, without a world coming to an end because of it. So he thought about it rationally, whilst the Master aimed a few hopeful caresses over the small of his back.
He’s being serious. Not only serious, but also rather sexy as well.
Oh, gods, say I didn’t think that.
But his own, carefully-ordered, Doctorish thoughts are not exactly cooped up on their own any more. They’ve been slowly mollified by those of the Master, and let a little loose by the parasitic effects of the Zys. Trying to save another world is tiring. He’s seen Rose in the arms of Mickey, Martha having a quick kiss with her flame, and Captain Jack flirting his way across the galaxy. It’s like being told that no matter how appetizing the food, you’ve got to make sure that no-one else hungers before you take a bite.
And he’s been hungry for so, so long.
There’s just now. Just here. And he’s sick of being tantalised.
-Doctor?
No response.
- Because if you’re backing out, not ready, that is-
“Shut up,” The Doctor growled, and made his point by silencing him with a very demanding kiss, pulling him down to the floor of the Tardis in a very ungraceful motion.
There’s something about a dim, shaded light somewhere in the distance and there’s the sound of deep, deep drumming as well. The kiss of salt in sweat, the tang of someone else and a sensation that the world is rocking to and fro, just as they are.
But we’re not prudes. A lot of this takes place in the mind, and for at least three surreal minutes, the Doctor could swear that he was back on the fields of Rimmnor, picking strawberries.
It’s a bright day, and the breeze is stiffening, and he has an old panama hat on. Seven had one like it, but then again, who knew where he’d got it from. When he hums to himself, he can only think of a few Gallifreyan folk tunes and perhaps the first few bars of Barber’s Adagio for Strings. He can’t feel the field beneath his feet. The delicate white flowers are all over, each full leaf hiding the ripe, firm berry beneath it, succulent and tart in the white light of the day. He pushes them aside, reaching under and grabbing the fruit roughly, dragging it from the bushes.
Oh, strawberries. He can taste the juice, spilling from his mouth and running onto his sleeve, and he can taste the cool core of the fruit as he takes a whole one into his mouth, savouring the texture before swallowing it, almost whole.
It slips down, the sticky nectar demanding a little more, making him almost delirious with hunger.
His hands are full, the soft, yielding fruit weighed in each palm, still and warm in the sun. It’s a white-blue sky, and there aren’t any clouds. Just a pure sky.
He gasps, and dreams.
Funny. Last time he’d been there, Rimmnor hadn’t even got a sun.
-Where are you, in that head of yours?
There’s no immediate answer. Just a reflexive motion, snuggling back into someone’s arms. It’s funny how he manages to remember, after all this time alone. Perhaps it’s something intrinsic, and he reaches his hand forward to feel the two hearts beating beneath his palm.
“Strawberries.”
The Master looks at him in wonder. He doesn’t even know how he managed to do this. It suddenly seems so beyond him, this idea of seduction - it’s frightening. Perhaps it will all wear off in a few moments. He can feel his breathing, hollow, hot, and immediately the Doctor senses his panic.
You’re fine. Relax.
-This isn’t forever, you know. It can’t last.
And there’s a look in the Doctor’s eyes that assures him that it isn’t forever. They’re different. There is an end to the Doctor, a beginning to the Master. It’s just this thing, this jailer of a device that’s yoking them to each other, giving them the same dreams.
But he can’t help feeling that he’s already losing that perception. After all, they’re the last of their kind. He is no longer Bad: but the taste of that sours when he realises that the Doctor himself is no longer quite as Good.
Damn the Zys. Just when he felt sure of something (remembering the taste of strawberries), something moves the goalposts. Good is not quite good enough. Bad is more like shades of grey that come to claim you, one by one, just like there’s a hand which gently leads you to someone’s side, and deeper into sleep.
He makes an effort, after a few hours, after the time that they spent just holding each other without words. The time that he feels slightly embarrassed about, but can’t say why. Perhaps all he needs is to get back into his old ways again, and stop playing.
“So, you saved the Earth. Again.”
The Doctor can tell that this isn’t a question that needs his input, and so he smiles, and gestures for the Master to sit down, have the cup of tea he’s poured for him.
All it needs is for him to turn, and make a kind of retort, something cutting. Just to prove that he still can. He wants to, and then he sees the Doctor, holding out his hand.
Oh, he wants to. He should.
But it’s almost as if he can’t bear to.
There was a little semblance of a normal routine within the Tardis in the next few weeks. There was, for example, the relentless search for new parts to mend some of the uglier damage on the inside of the machine. There were times when markets turned sour, trades were called off or simple swaps went wrong. Most times, the Doctor would just leave. The Master would sit - or skulk - somewhere within the Tardis itself. He rarely went out, preferring instead to be cooped up of his own will. Occasionally, he left with the Doctor, only to sit passively, somewhere whilst the Doctor bartered and made the occasional sneaky swap.
It was as though he was learning, the Doctor thought. Only learning not to be appalling by merely being. Learned passivity; never straying far from the Doctor’s side. As he wandered into the fifth dive of a bar since planetfall - ostensibly for trading - the Doctor wondered if he should be feeling out of place. Or in fact, why the Master wasn’t doing this.
In these moments, the Doctor always had a brief shiver of curiosity, tempered by a little sadness. Always, he would reach out to touch the Master’s mind, and get the same, tired response.
-Reflecting on what I’ve done. I’m fine, honestly. Fine.
And always the same question. Neither of them knew exactly who asked it first, though. It was as though they felt the same urge to question the other, every time.
What are you thinking, there in that head of yours?
The weeks turned into months, softly and smoothly. But for every turning day, there was little that they did not seem to experience together.
Both blamed the Zys. For surely, it couldn’t be that they were both so very lonely in their own lives that they needed to simply live out their lives travelling between the further points of the galaxy, from minor to major star and every constellation in between. Learning, the Doctor had called it. Waiting for the Master to appreciate the beauty of every single living thing before they moved on, encouraging him to be gentle with his thoughts. His words.
It was on the last day that they wandered the Tellis Cluster that the Master realised that there was something horribly, terribly wrong.
The Doctor’s mood had been growing steadily more irritable, but up until the moment when the meteor smashed into the side of the freshly-repaired Tardis, he had never exploded with such rage. The Master, still with a heightened perception of when things were precipitating violence, barely had time to duck the wrench that flew his way.
“Bloody frekking mess! You and your stupid ideas, sightseeing in some pointless galaxy. But it could be a start. Best thing about it’s the emptiness.”
“What do you mean?”
And the Master looked into his eyes. The blue glow, soft and pervasive, stared back out at him, clouding every inch of the Doctor’s pupils.
And he smiled. Cold, cruel. Nothing like the sun.
There was scarcely a civil word that followed, and then the Doctor finally said something the Master never thought he’d hear.
“Easier to rule.”