Doctor Who Fic: Viola
IT'S NOT PORN! D: It turned into a...a love story sort of thing, good god. A fucked up Saxons love story. With Master/Doctor subtext, of course, but that's kind of unavoidable.
Also this is officially my first Who!fic, so crit me, baby. I will go to bed now, and fret allllll night.
Title: Viola
Rating: R
Pairings: SAXONS! \o/ And dub-con Lucy/Doctor and Master/Doctor subtextiness.
Warnings: HET, mindfuckitry, and general fucked-up-ness. And character death, but that's kind of a DUH if you've watched the plot. Which you all have. BUT SPOILERS FOR ALL OF DOCTOR WHO. Including this season.
Summary: He liked watching the Doctor try to talk some morality or sense or compassion into her. He’d sit on the steps of the Valiant and watch Lucy go emptier and emptier as he spoke, liked to watch the Doctor fail at one more thing that only he could really do.
Viola
Lucy Saxon had been wearing a beautiful, short cream-colored dress, hair curled into ringlets that made her look completely breakable, when she’d met Harold Saxon. Harold Saxon had been wearing a black suit and tie with a white dress shirt, but that didn’t really matter, did it? The thing that mattered was that she looked like she didn’t see anything. Even herself. Looked like she was already broken, bits of superglue sticking out of her soul and ready to cling to whatever managed to get close enough to touch.
He didn’t actually give a shit about her father, but he was nice to the man, even if his eyes were all over Lucy. It took nearly ten minutes for her to actually look over at the man leaning against the wall just slightly behind her, lips pressed into a thin smile and eyes dark and mischievous as he watched the fabric ripple across her as she turned.
“Harold Saxon,” he’d introduced. He still liked how the name rolled off the tongue. Still liked how it tasted in his own mouth every time he said it, like it was some dirty inside joke.
She tilted her head to the side, finally offering the hand not holding a champagne glass to him. “Lucy.” Just Lucy. Lucy, who was female, blond, and as detached as any Time Lord could dream of being. Not breaking, but already broken.
Everything the Doctor wasn’t, which at the moment, made her as perfect as anyone could get.
Instead of shaking her hand, he grinned and kissed the top of it, soaking in the actual reaction he got from her, the way her eyes widened, pulse quickened just a bit, mouth parting just wide enough for him to get a glimpse of her tongue. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, and dropped her hand, straightening to look at her from a much better angle.
A glass mask of a politician’s smile immediately covered up all his hard work. An actress, too. Interesting. “Likewise, Mr. Saxon. I’ve heard you plan to run for Prime Minister.”
“I do plan to!” He grinned. “I plan on doing many, many things, Lucy. What do you plan to do?” She looked like the thought of the future had never even occurred to her, and he smiled. “A creature of the moment, are you?”
Lucy simply nodded, one strand of hair escaping and finding its way onto her cheek. A hand that looked like it was manicured often and then neglected between appointments swept it back. “I guess you could say that, Mr. Saxon, yes,” she said, and took an appropriately feminine and controlled sip of the champagne.
“Chug it,” he found himself saying, and Lucy blinked at him, the picture of a drugged woman being snapped out of her daze.
“I beg your-”
He tilted his head again, the side of his mouth twisting upwards. “Chug your champagne, Lucy. Nobody cares. Nobody’s watching. And if they’re watching, who honestly cares? Chug it.”
“But I don’t want to,” Lucy said, still looking startled. It was probably the fact that Harold Saxon, a man running for Prime Minister, was telling her to act like something other than a pretty sophisticate.
He leaned forward, just enough that she could feel his breath over her cheek, lips close to her soft, innocent neck. “Oh, Lucy. You want to.” A deep breath, and he could smell peaches and resin. “There are so many things you want to do, because it doesn’t really matter, does it? Do they matter, at the end of the day?”
Lucy laughed softly, and moved away from him, but she was alive in there, eyes on him, living, living just because he’d given her life.
“Have a good evening, Mr. Saxon,” she said.
“Please. Call me Harry,” he said, giving her his best ‘trust me’ smile. Apparently she could see through that just like he could see through her.
“Harry, then.” She paused for a moment, obviously thinking about something, and then downed the champagne glass in one swig, eyelashes fluttering just a bit. He was smirking when she looked over, and she raised one eyebrow before dimming again. “Enjoy the party.”
And, for once, he did, since he spent most of it watching an attractive woman walk around in a dress that clung in all the right places. Well, that and getting a ridiculous amount of funding from whatever the hell these people around him were calling themselves.
It didn’t matter though, did it. At the end of the day, the only thing that honestly mattered was that Lucy didn’t care either.
---
“Mr. Saxon, a married man makes for a far more stable-looking candidate,” one of the people in charge of making Harold Saxon look like he was winning because of something that could make sense to the apes said. “A comfortable private life shows the people that you’re secure, both in and out of office.”
“Well.” He leaned far enough back in the chair that, if he hadn’t been fully aware of the weight of his body, the give and take of the wheels, the structural integrity of the plastic underneath all the fake leather. “I’ll get married, then.”
The whatever-they-called-themselves looked between themselves, obviously amused. He really was going to kill them if they didn’t shape up and stop underestimating him. If he said he was going to do something, he’d do it.
“Mr. Saxon, it’s going to take time to find a woman-”
He grinned. “Oh, I found one.” They looked a bit surprised, but he was too busy spinning in his chair, watching the ceiling whirl about, to actually care. Lucy Saxon. Almost sounded as good as Harold. Had that nice long vowel in the middle.
Didn’t sound nearly as dirty, but with Lucy it was the tarnishing that was important, so he didn’t really mind it.
---
Their first date hadn’t actually been a date. It had been another party, and she’d been wearing black with some black lace over it, since apparently someone had died. Still looked fabulous, but he missed the white. White and gold. Maybe some red when nobody else was looking. He liked red.
The Anglican priest was rambling on and on and on about whatever he thought the dead guy needed to hear now that he was dead, and Lucy looked out of it enough that he actually managed to sneak a hand into hers. She looked at her hand, and then at him, and he smiled at her. Not one of the politician smiles, not one of the Placating-Humans smiles, just him.
She was alive again for a while after that, and they ignored the sobbing people while indulging in a hand-squeezing sort of Morse Code, following each other along and then adding variations, and it was fantastic in a completely stupid way.
“Have a good day, Harry,” Lucy said at the end of the service-funeral-party-thing, and he grabbed her hand.
“You know, we could have a better day.”
She nodded, and was surprised when he kissed the top of her hand, squeezing hers again, looking viciously amused.
“Tuesday afternoon, then,” he said, throwing her a wink after letting her hand go.
She nodded, and faded again as he walked away, not looking back. He liked knowing that she was dead inside without him to bring her out.
---
Lucy was dressed in pink, of all things, for their second date. A bright jewel-toned pink that had him cringing as soon as she opened the door and grabbing her hand, pulling her into the house and heading for where the bedrooms should be. Probably. It was a stupidly big house. “Oh, no. No no no, you’re too pretty to wear that.” She looked scandalized, which he liked, and then seemed to deflate, which he wasn’t quite sure about. “What, don’t tell me you like that thing.”
“My sister picked it out.”
“Your sister hates you,” he said, and was very, very pleased with the completely unplanned guffaw he got for it. “There’s only one person in the universe I’d wish that on.”
Which, really, was a thought that stayed in his head for longer than it probably should have. He added it to the Fun Things To Do When I’ve Conquered The Universe list. Along with bullet points beneath it, because really, the possibilities were endlessly entertaining.
Lucy led the rest of the way to her room and the massive closet. She started to browse lightly, fading again from the routine, so he put a hand on the small of her back. That snapped her right out of it, and he acted like he wasn’t doing a damn thing, flicking through the outfits left and right, in huge clumps, before making a satisfied noise and pulling out a tastefully sexy gold dress.
She blinked at the thing. He grinned.
“That’s a hand-me-down from my oldest sister.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Still looks good.”
“From the seventies.”
“I liked the seventies! David Bowie, bra burnings, end of the Beatles, good times were had by everyone who didn’t end up killed in entertainingly brutal police beatings.”
And Lucy laughed. She actually laughed, and it felt like complete triumph because there was no way she’d be fading away after that, no way anyone could argue that he hadn’t done that, he wasn’t the one who could do this to her.
He put on his best pouty face, putting his hands together in front of his chest. “Please, Lucy?”
She rolled her eyes, still smiling, and kicked him out of the closet, shutting it behind her and coming out in the gold dress looking like a vixen that was terrified of finding out how foxy it was. Her hair was down and she was actually blushing, looking at him nervously.
He leaned forward and kissed her softly, but when he felt that neglected manicure against the back of his neck he couldn’t help but kiss her harder, wanting to see if she’d shatter or mould to him, and from the way her body pressed against his, he was guessing mould.
He pressed an almost viciously light kiss to her cheekbone. “The seventies were fantastic.”
The smile he got had nothing but life, humor, and mischief in it. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t really need to. He pressed another kiss to her hand, felt how it was losing the softness so many women thought they needed, and they walked out arm in arm. Into the car, into the expensive restaurant that kept throwing them glances and whispering about Harold Saxon and trying to figure out the newest fashions, and neither of them gave a shit about it.
---
The third date had Lucy in a light blue skirt and white shirt and shoes, along with sunglasses and a very, very confused expression, since they were walking. “Harry? Where are we going?”
He didn’t get bored very often. Not with Lucy around, at least. She was like an ever-changing wind-up toy that did something different every time he cranked it. But if there was one good thing and another good thing, if they were combined they had to be even better.
He liked math like that. The simple stuff that packed a punch nobody seemed to expect.
“We, my dear, are going to the end of the universe,” he said, already grabbing her hand and kissing it before letting it drop, walking side by side with her, grinning. “I know we haven’t known each other very long, Lucy, but I think I should be up front with you about some things. Like planning to marry you for political reasons…well, and fun, since really, it would be. Oh, and being a time-traveling alien, but really to me, you’re the alien, but since I’m stuck on Earth that perspective really doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t break on him, not even when he walked her into the TARDIS. Lucy didn’t do the normal ape-like gasps of wonder at it being ‘bigger on the inside’ or any of that, simply looked around it, eyes shining, a smile starting to grow on her face.
“I’ll marry you,” she said simply, staring at the console and running a hand over the railing. “What sort of alien are you?”
“You know, you are probably the only worthwhile ape on this planet,” he said, voice laced with affection. “I’m a Time Lord. The Master, to be precise.” She nodded, moving towards the console and leaning over it for a better look. And really, who wouldn’t take advantage of that. One hand on her hip and slipping towards her stomach, the other sliding down her neck. She shivered, and he loved it. “And do you know what, Lucy?”
She leaned back into him, and he could feel her pulse going faster, could see an almost manic excitement in her eyes. “What, Harry.”
It was almost disappointing to not hear her say Master, but from Lucy, Harry was almost as good. From being Mister Saxon to Harry. It meant something, even to humans who had never understood the true meaning behind names, and he pulled her close enough to breathe in that peach and resin smell. “Lucy, I’m going to take over the Earth. And then the galaxy. And then the universe. It’s going to be a beautifully deadly movement, full of fire and death, and we’re going to dance through it all. Dance to this drumbeat right here.” He tapped out the rhythm on her ribs, felt the way the fabric twisted in his grip at every beat.
“Good tempo,” she said, and when he made a curious noise she twisted enough to smirk at him. “I play the viola, Harry. Since I was a little girl.”
He took her to the end of the universe and kissed her so hard against the door that he wondered if they could bend it. And the best part was that she kissed right back, almost harder, desperate for life and he loved it, absolutely loved it. Loved the breathy gasps she let out when his hand snuck up her skirt, the way she would arch and slump and cling and breathe, because he was doing that, doing all of that, making her more than just a pretty little doll that stood primly in innocent dresses and sipped at champagne, making her live.
The grating on the TARDIS wasn’t comfortable, he decided as they slumped against it, grinning and half-dressed.
“You’re going to play it for me, aren’t you?” he asked, hand circling her neck. He could break her neck, strangle her to death, cut her, but didn’t want to, and it was fantastic. “The drumbeat. The viola.”
She leaned over him, smiling. The grating had to be eating into her knees, but apparently she cared even less than he did. All that long blonde hair was curling against and around her face, and this time he was the one to sweep it back and away from her face. “I’ll play it, Harry.”
He didn’t love her, but he sure as fuck loved what he did to her.
They walked back out of the TARDIS six minutes after they’d left. He’d told her to keep the panties off. She did.
---
Being engaged was boring, but since Lucy had explained all this flowers and dress and cake stuff (and really, the cake part was amazing), it wasn’t too bad. Plus he didn’t have to be so polite or discreet about taking her home for mind-blowingly crazy sex.
Professor Yana had been a virgin. Sure, he occasionally wondered if a human version of an old regeneration could count as being a virgin if he’d had plenty of sex in most of his forms, but it was still a depressing thought when he had Lucy curled up naked and spectacular in bed with him.
“I technically stole your virginity this time around, then,” Lucy said after he whined about it over breakfast, looking very smug and still disheveled from that morning’s bout of ridiculously spectacular sex. “I deflowered Harold Saxon.”
He’d thrown a piece of toast at her, which naturally got him nothing but amused laughter. And then it had him turned around on the stool, Lucy straddling him and grinning, and somehow that made this whole marriage and monogamy thing not that bad.
---
Lucy didn’t wear stockings very often anymore. Only on campaign routes, really. She rarely went empty, either, and he’d done all of that. All of it.
Their wedding was in a huge cathedral with a Bishop saying things that neither of them cared about, vows that were more an amusing way to phrase whatever this monogamy thing went like for humans.
Her father was crying, her sisters were there and he flipped off the one who had stuck Lucy in that atrocious pink thing. Not that anyone saw it, since Lucy tended to be wonderfully politically-minded and moved just in time to cover it, even though he got a conspiratorial smile and kiss for it.
“You may kiss the bride” got quite a few pictures, considering he nearly dipped her to the floor and she was more than happy to return the favor, both of them laughing loudly and actually running out of the cathedral. Not the normal ‘oh look at us we are so blissfully happy let’s go get rice thrown at us’ run, of course. The rice-throwers yelped in surprise when they came hurtling through the doors and into the car.
Their flavor of run was ‘we can’t have sex in front of cameras.’ The shots still looked good, though.
“All your little human beliefs are stupid,” he said while they were missing their own reception, biting her shoulder and just making her more and more his and alive and she was legally his. Not that he hadn’t known it before, but now nobody could even try to bring her to life like he did. She was his. All his.
---
“God, Harold, you look like you two were mugged!” one of the Someone-To-Pleases said as soon as he caught sight of them at the reception.
“Oh, no, I was just having a few rounds of sex with my wife, most of them in the limo,” he grinned at the man. “Some very, very good rounds of sex in the limousine.”
The band picked up a song with the beat that lived in his head, and there was Lucy of course, smelling more like resin than peaches this time around, so he left the man about to have a heart attack and spun her around the floor.
She couldn’t keep up, but that was fine. Only one person in the universe was capable of it, and he was pretty sure the idiot couldn’t tango.
---
They honeymooned in the TARDIS, where he made sure that they had sex just about anywhere that probably had a decent amount of foot traffic in it with different occupants. They meandered around the end of the world, and it was mostly the same as any other times with Lucy, which meant it was good, she was his, and they had a lot of voyeuristic enjoyment at the birth of Utopia. Once they even visited good old Professor Yana, walking right by the human and then, just for the hell of it, getting into a very heated kiss and blocking the hallway when he tried to walk by.
“Excuse me,” his old self finally shouted out as politely as he could.
He smirked back at himself. There were a lot of things he felt like saying. Felt like taking the chance of messing with the flow of time and telling himself to look at the damn watch, felt like mocking himself, maybe even showing a bit of sympathy, even maybe asking Lucy to give the nice man a kiss for the inconvenience.
But instead of any of that, he found himself leaning forward and whispering. “They’ll only get worse.”
“What?” the old him asked.
He was the one who ended up kissing his old self. Kissed him lightly on the lips, which earned a strange noise from Lucy and a blank stare almost reminiscent of the old Lucy. Lucy before he’d owned her. “The drums. They’ll pound and pound and pound.” He paused, and then grinned, giving himself a companionable clap on the cheek. “Watch some Teletubbies, professor. The universe is a fascinatingly stupid place.”
The good professor looked flabbergasted, but he was too busy grinning and grabbing Lucy’s hand, heading back for the TARDIS.
---
Everything was nice. Which meant it was boring. He knew when he’d shown up the first time around would be when the others showed up, knew he’d win the election, and if he’d paid enough attention he’d have known he’d marry Lucy, too, but he’d been concentrating a bit more on being Prime Minister and seeing the time and place he was at.
He waited. It was boring and he hated being bored, so as time went by, Harold and Lucy Saxon made more and more charities happy, went to more parties, from the black tie dinners where he wanted to kill the orchestra and give Lucy her viola instead to raves where he more often than not ended up laying on the subwoofers, Lucy drunk and on top of him while he listened to the beat as it jolted his body.
They went to the zoo. They went to Africa, which he found fantastic. They went to Japan, which for some reason he immediately hated and decided it could go on the list of Places I Can Destroy Later If I Feel Like It.
When the election went into full swing, he was ahead of everyone from the first ads. Simple VOTE SAXON posters instead of long advertisements for his political beliefs with a big picture of his head, nothing but pictures of himself and all the fake achievements he’d piled on top of himself.
He was bored, and every minute, he started thinking about their arrival. His arrival, and he wasn’t sure whether that was a good or a bad thing.
---
Lucy was in her long black silk robe, looking delicious as ever, when he woke up one day. A devious smile and she was curled around him again, which was always a good thing.
But then she went and asked “How do Time Lords get married” and he hurled himself out of bed. Nearly hit her, nearly fucked the whole plan and brought the Toclafane through without the drums and fanfare.
“Don’t,” he snapped, pacing, putting a hand to his head. It was Lucy, she didn’t know better, didn’t even exist without him, how could a toy, even one so wonderful as she was, know or understand or even ask, how could she, how could she-
“I’m sorry, Harry,” she whispered, and he looked over at her with murder in his eyes, but she was nothing but apologies, looking like a whipped dog as she sat in the same position he’d put her in when he pushed her aside to run.
Always, always running.
“Harry, I’m sorry.”
Harold Saxon. That was who she’d met, that was probably how she’d see him when she died. “You’re married to Harold Saxon, Lucy,” he said, voice quiet. “Let that be enough.”
She nodded, curling on the bed.
He got dressed, drank five cups of coffee, and ignored the fact there were only two Time Lords in the universe now. Ignored the first of the two rings he wore. Ignored that it seemed like there was double vision in everything, two sides to everything, two choices, two names he only honestly wanted to hear spoken by two people.
The sixth cup of coffee was smashed into the wall.
Maybe he could ban the number two when he owned the world.
---
When all those plans and plots that he’d whispered to a shuddering, panting Lucy beneath him finally came to fruition, she was just as excited as he was, watching everything, marveling at everything, loving everything. She loved it because it didn’t matter, nothing did, and he gave her a good time while they were dancing down the path of the dead.
Lucy didn’t hear the drums, didn’t understand the drums. She enjoyed the tempo, seemed almost constantly to add it into everything. It kept her alive, that beat, because he was the beat, he was the thumping that kept her blood moving and let her eyes and mind focus on something.
He didn’t have to care about showing her off anymore, didn’t have to care about someone realizing there was something not quite right about the Saxons, and she was in whites and reds and silks and occasionally nothing but lingerie. Black, white, red, hair up, hair down, and always, always, always sitting in front of the good Doctor for at least a little bit of the day.
He liked watching the Doctor try to talk some morality or sense or compassion into her. He’d sit on the steps of the Valiant and watch Lucy go emptier and emptier as he spoke, liked to watch the Doctor fail at one more thing that only he could really do.
Wearing nothing but a bra under a fitted silk beige dress, he couldn’t help sweeping over and putting an arm around her shoulders, watching her eyes wake up as he tapped against her bare shoulder. “Is the old man boring you, Lucy?” he sighed empathetically, and she just smiled a bit devilishly. “By Jove!” He grinned, and snapped his fingers, pointing at the Doctor. “You know what wouldn’t be boring?”
Apparently the other Time Lord felt like humoring him. Either that or he was getting tired and needed his old man nap. “What.”
He smirked, and the laser was out, aging him back to the skinny goofy-looking nerd he’d been…and then more, until he looked about sixteen. The Doctor was staring at the new age’s effects on him, on how the suit was too big, how his hair flopped into his eyes, how his shoes didn’t fit.
“Give the poor Doctor a kiss, would you, Lucy?” he said lightly, and the Doctor looked up at him, finally understanding. He smirked. “Aren’t hormones fun?”
Lucy had caught on too - clever little minx - and was more than happy to walk over and cradle the Doctor’s face in her hands. He managed the start of a protest with her name thrown in, but she was already kissing him sweet and slow, pushed up against him in all the right places, and the Doctor was shaking, barely keeping his hands off her and trying so very hard to resist her.
“How long has it been now, Doctor, hmm?” he asked. Lucy’s hand was slipping under his baggy shirt, and the Doctor moaned, clearly hating himself for loving it. “You had to feel something when you took out the Time Lords and the Daleks, when you destroyed the greatest species in the universe. Did it feel anything like this?”
“No,” the Doctor managed to gasp out, and he decided that was enough, pulling Lucy against himself and leaving the Doctor shuddering and disheveled and terribly uncomfortable. “It was…” He could see those hormones rebelling against that poor distancing mentality the Doctor had retained and he never had, saw it in the way he was swallowing the lump in his throat, the way his voice was too high and breathy. “It was horrible.” Another shudder, this time one that wasn’t just the hormones. “It was silence. Total silence.”
“And that’s gone now that I’m here, isn’t it.”
The Doctor looked up at him, young eyes flaring just a bit. If he wasn’t so young now, he thought, the idiot would probably be going on with the ‘I have one thing to blah blah blah blah’ again. And that wasn’t ever happening.
His grip on Lucy was probably tighter than it should have been.
“Do you feel the drums in your head now, instead of that burning silence, Doctor?” he whispered tightly, and let go of Lucy, striding over to grab the teenaged face in one hand. He didn’t even resist, just looked at him, almost as empty as Lucy had been before he’d shown up. “Do you hear me? Feel me?”
“I can feel you,” the Doctor whispered back. “And I only have one thing to say-”
And the laser was out again. Back to the old man that needed naptime and a wheelchair and two people to help him walk across the room.
“Don’t. You. Dare,” he hissed out. “Don’t you dare, or I will have a very good time of making you have a bad one.”
“You already do that.”
He smirked, and finally moved back over to Lucy, wrapping her arm in his. “I haven’t pulled out Lucy’s evil sister’s dress just yet, Doctor. That’s a line even I might have a hard time crossing.”
---
Apparently hormones were one of the worst tortures he’d thought up so far. The Doctor stammered and hissed and whimpered, said more than his usual repetitive phrase, acted almost like he was alive.
And he did that to the Doctor, which was interesting.
Two rings, two puppets, and two types of them - one human, female, and happy about it, and the other anything but.
---
The Doctor didn’t say his name anymore. Either of them. Any of them. Years and years and years of names and faces and titles and the Doctor never said any of them. It was driving him mad and worst of all it was almost confusing him.
“What names have I picked, Doctor?” he asked lightly, laying on the massive conference table and looking up at the ceiling.
Silence.
“Call me Master, Doctor.”
Silence.
“Try Harold Saxon.”
Silence.
“Harry. Saxon. Prime Minister.”
Absolutely nothing.
He got up, grabbed his jacket, and went and killed Captain Jack Harkness seven times to try and cheer himself up.
“What’s my name?” he’d asked distantly after the good Captain had jerked back to life after the sixth time.
Jack had looked at him like he’d gone even more insane, and then the hatred and the glare and all that pseudo-American spitfire was back as he hissed out “You son of a bitch-” and he’d killed the immortal man one more time and walked out before he came back again because that was a good enough name for now.
---
Lucy didn’t even come into the room. Everyone was gone, everyone but him and the slowly waking Doctor, who was coming to realize he was probably around nineteen this time. He knew the other Time Lord had long ago realized that a younger age meant looser control, but he’d never made the Doctor nineteen. Usually he was thirteen when he did it now.
“Would you prefer me human again, Doctor?” he asked as soon as the other man’s eyes opened. “Would you rather be all alone? You can’t save me. Someone has to want to be saved for it to work, don’t they?”
Nineteen had the Doctor less scrawny than the other ages beneath it, but he still looked wonderfully vulnerable. “The drums. You want them to stop.”
“Do I?” He honestly didn’t know the answer. It was part of him. If he was turned human again, would they go away? If the Doctor did have some way to rid him of the drums, would the quiet drive him even madder than he already was?
“Let me help you,” the Doctor pleaded.
He leaned forward. Two rings, two hands, each separate and unique. “Say my name.”
And of course, not a word.
Walking back to the massive cabin he and Lucy shared found her sitting in her black robe in one of the chairs, staring at nothing and slowly fading away.
He stood against the door and let her.
---
“Lucy, will you shoot me?” he asked one day. She was lost again, but nodded, and he pressed a kiss to her temple, and then a gentle one to her hand. For once, he really couldn’t feel anything but affection for her, and toyed with their wedding rings. “I once said you were the only worthwhile ape on this planet, but it turns out I was wrong, Lucy.” She still wasn’t saying anything; a little wind-up doll that he’d neglected the crank on. “Someone made these rings, and someone made the Valiant, and you have ancestors, thousands and thousands of ancestors. They’re still pathetic people, but pieces of them added together?” He grinned at her, and she woke up a bit, blinking at him, eyes focusing slightly. “They almost add up to a second human. Almost.”
---
Looked the same, acted the same, felt the same, even after being burned.
She’d gotten a manicure and therapy and the estate of her deceased husband Harold Saxon, managed to find prescription drugs that did what he’d done for her. Her sister that hated her had come back to life, and she was still tempted to go pull the trigger like last time around, but didn’t.
The Doctor had left, going somewhere or other. But he’d had enough fun that he could wait for a while. She understood, to a dazzling degree, why things had turned out how they had, understood the difference in those two rings.
They stayed quiet until the bees left and the stars were replaced with planets and moons and Daleks, until he found himself with fifty dead Daleks and one dead wife.
A stillness so deep came over him that, for once, he could hear over the drums. Heard the low, blurry tempo of a viola over them.
The TARDIS was perfectly themed with the pouring rain falling around it. He’d changed his shirt to black, tie a cream piece of silk that he’d cut up from the first dress he’d seen her in. Insanity? Grief? Weren’t they the same?
He knocked on the door with his right hand, left hand clenched around the viola case’s handle, gold ring tapping against it. It took a while, but the door creaked open, an astonished Doctor staring at him.
“Master,” he whispered, and he gave him a bitter smile.
“Still want to fix me? I’d almost prefer dying, but there’s that pesky regeneration thing that nobody can really get out of, just delay and transfer into something else-”
The Doctor stepped out in the rain and hugged him. He stayed completely still, just watching as the other Time Lord’s shirt collected rain, the white clinging to his skin, making a cream color.
“Master,” he said again, and he backed away, stepping into the TARDIS and setting her viola case reverently on the only bench, turning to the controls as the Doctor hurried inside. The Doctor was beaming so giddy it made him sick, and he punched his companion in the face for it. Punched him with the left hand.
While the Doctor was staring at him and collecting himself off the floor, he turned to the console, cranking a gear and letting the Doctor finally grumble his way through picking a destination.
The drums were still there. They’d always be there. But the viola was there too, soothing and fast and something he didn’t control, wasn’t controlled by, but had.
“It’s Harry,” the Master said as the TARDIS started to rock and bump its way to wherever the fuck the Doctor had eagerly picked for his ‘rehabilitation.’ The Doctor glanced up at him at that, finally noticed the case, and gave a long, slow, understanding nod.
My name is Harold Saxon. Call me Harry.
It was probably the Master’s most beloved lie.
Also this is officially my first Who!fic, so crit me, baby. I will go to bed now, and fret allllll night.
Title: Viola
Rating: R
Pairings: SAXONS! \o/ And dub-con Lucy/Doctor and Master/Doctor subtextiness.
Warnings: HET, mindfuckitry, and general fucked-up-ness. And character death, but that's kind of a DUH if you've watched the plot. Which you all have. BUT SPOILERS FOR ALL OF DOCTOR WHO. Including this season.
Summary: He liked watching the Doctor try to talk some morality or sense or compassion into her. He’d sit on the steps of the Valiant and watch Lucy go emptier and emptier as he spoke, liked to watch the Doctor fail at one more thing that only he could really do.
Viola
Lucy Saxon had been wearing a beautiful, short cream-colored dress, hair curled into ringlets that made her look completely breakable, when she’d met Harold Saxon. Harold Saxon had been wearing a black suit and tie with a white dress shirt, but that didn’t really matter, did it? The thing that mattered was that she looked like she didn’t see anything. Even herself. Looked like she was already broken, bits of superglue sticking out of her soul and ready to cling to whatever managed to get close enough to touch.
He didn’t actually give a shit about her father, but he was nice to the man, even if his eyes were all over Lucy. It took nearly ten minutes for her to actually look over at the man leaning against the wall just slightly behind her, lips pressed into a thin smile and eyes dark and mischievous as he watched the fabric ripple across her as she turned.
“Harold Saxon,” he’d introduced. He still liked how the name rolled off the tongue. Still liked how it tasted in his own mouth every time he said it, like it was some dirty inside joke.
She tilted her head to the side, finally offering the hand not holding a champagne glass to him. “Lucy.” Just Lucy. Lucy, who was female, blond, and as detached as any Time Lord could dream of being. Not breaking, but already broken.
Everything the Doctor wasn’t, which at the moment, made her as perfect as anyone could get.
Instead of shaking her hand, he grinned and kissed the top of it, soaking in the actual reaction he got from her, the way her eyes widened, pulse quickened just a bit, mouth parting just wide enough for him to get a glimpse of her tongue. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, and dropped her hand, straightening to look at her from a much better angle.
A glass mask of a politician’s smile immediately covered up all his hard work. An actress, too. Interesting. “Likewise, Mr. Saxon. I’ve heard you plan to run for Prime Minister.”
“I do plan to!” He grinned. “I plan on doing many, many things, Lucy. What do you plan to do?” She looked like the thought of the future had never even occurred to her, and he smiled. “A creature of the moment, are you?”
Lucy simply nodded, one strand of hair escaping and finding its way onto her cheek. A hand that looked like it was manicured often and then neglected between appointments swept it back. “I guess you could say that, Mr. Saxon, yes,” she said, and took an appropriately feminine and controlled sip of the champagne.
“Chug it,” he found himself saying, and Lucy blinked at him, the picture of a drugged woman being snapped out of her daze.
“I beg your-”
He tilted his head again, the side of his mouth twisting upwards. “Chug your champagne, Lucy. Nobody cares. Nobody’s watching. And if they’re watching, who honestly cares? Chug it.”
“But I don’t want to,” Lucy said, still looking startled. It was probably the fact that Harold Saxon, a man running for Prime Minister, was telling her to act like something other than a pretty sophisticate.
He leaned forward, just enough that she could feel his breath over her cheek, lips close to her soft, innocent neck. “Oh, Lucy. You want to.” A deep breath, and he could smell peaches and resin. “There are so many things you want to do, because it doesn’t really matter, does it? Do they matter, at the end of the day?”
Lucy laughed softly, and moved away from him, but she was alive in there, eyes on him, living, living just because he’d given her life.
“Have a good evening, Mr. Saxon,” she said.
“Please. Call me Harry,” he said, giving her his best ‘trust me’ smile. Apparently she could see through that just like he could see through her.
“Harry, then.” She paused for a moment, obviously thinking about something, and then downed the champagne glass in one swig, eyelashes fluttering just a bit. He was smirking when she looked over, and she raised one eyebrow before dimming again. “Enjoy the party.”
And, for once, he did, since he spent most of it watching an attractive woman walk around in a dress that clung in all the right places. Well, that and getting a ridiculous amount of funding from whatever the hell these people around him were calling themselves.
It didn’t matter though, did it. At the end of the day, the only thing that honestly mattered was that Lucy didn’t care either.
---
“Mr. Saxon, a married man makes for a far more stable-looking candidate,” one of the people in charge of making Harold Saxon look like he was winning because of something that could make sense to the apes said. “A comfortable private life shows the people that you’re secure, both in and out of office.”
“Well.” He leaned far enough back in the chair that, if he hadn’t been fully aware of the weight of his body, the give and take of the wheels, the structural integrity of the plastic underneath all the fake leather. “I’ll get married, then.”
The whatever-they-called-themselves looked between themselves, obviously amused. He really was going to kill them if they didn’t shape up and stop underestimating him. If he said he was going to do something, he’d do it.
“Mr. Saxon, it’s going to take time to find a woman-”
He grinned. “Oh, I found one.” They looked a bit surprised, but he was too busy spinning in his chair, watching the ceiling whirl about, to actually care. Lucy Saxon. Almost sounded as good as Harold. Had that nice long vowel in the middle.
Didn’t sound nearly as dirty, but with Lucy it was the tarnishing that was important, so he didn’t really mind it.
---
Their first date hadn’t actually been a date. It had been another party, and she’d been wearing black with some black lace over it, since apparently someone had died. Still looked fabulous, but he missed the white. White and gold. Maybe some red when nobody else was looking. He liked red.
The Anglican priest was rambling on and on and on about whatever he thought the dead guy needed to hear now that he was dead, and Lucy looked out of it enough that he actually managed to sneak a hand into hers. She looked at her hand, and then at him, and he smiled at her. Not one of the politician smiles, not one of the Placating-Humans smiles, just him.
She was alive again for a while after that, and they ignored the sobbing people while indulging in a hand-squeezing sort of Morse Code, following each other along and then adding variations, and it was fantastic in a completely stupid way.
“Have a good day, Harry,” Lucy said at the end of the service-funeral-party-thing, and he grabbed her hand.
“You know, we could have a better day.”
She nodded, and was surprised when he kissed the top of her hand, squeezing hers again, looking viciously amused.
“Tuesday afternoon, then,” he said, throwing her a wink after letting her hand go.
She nodded, and faded again as he walked away, not looking back. He liked knowing that she was dead inside without him to bring her out.
---
Lucy was dressed in pink, of all things, for their second date. A bright jewel-toned pink that had him cringing as soon as she opened the door and grabbing her hand, pulling her into the house and heading for where the bedrooms should be. Probably. It was a stupidly big house. “Oh, no. No no no, you’re too pretty to wear that.” She looked scandalized, which he liked, and then seemed to deflate, which he wasn’t quite sure about. “What, don’t tell me you like that thing.”
“My sister picked it out.”
“Your sister hates you,” he said, and was very, very pleased with the completely unplanned guffaw he got for it. “There’s only one person in the universe I’d wish that on.”
Which, really, was a thought that stayed in his head for longer than it probably should have. He added it to the Fun Things To Do When I’ve Conquered The Universe list. Along with bullet points beneath it, because really, the possibilities were endlessly entertaining.
Lucy led the rest of the way to her room and the massive closet. She started to browse lightly, fading again from the routine, so he put a hand on the small of her back. That snapped her right out of it, and he acted like he wasn’t doing a damn thing, flicking through the outfits left and right, in huge clumps, before making a satisfied noise and pulling out a tastefully sexy gold dress.
She blinked at the thing. He grinned.
“That’s a hand-me-down from my oldest sister.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Still looks good.”
“From the seventies.”
“I liked the seventies! David Bowie, bra burnings, end of the Beatles, good times were had by everyone who didn’t end up killed in entertainingly brutal police beatings.”
And Lucy laughed. She actually laughed, and it felt like complete triumph because there was no way she’d be fading away after that, no way anyone could argue that he hadn’t done that, he wasn’t the one who could do this to her.
He put on his best pouty face, putting his hands together in front of his chest. “Please, Lucy?”
She rolled her eyes, still smiling, and kicked him out of the closet, shutting it behind her and coming out in the gold dress looking like a vixen that was terrified of finding out how foxy it was. Her hair was down and she was actually blushing, looking at him nervously.
He leaned forward and kissed her softly, but when he felt that neglected manicure against the back of his neck he couldn’t help but kiss her harder, wanting to see if she’d shatter or mould to him, and from the way her body pressed against his, he was guessing mould.
He pressed an almost viciously light kiss to her cheekbone. “The seventies were fantastic.”
The smile he got had nothing but life, humor, and mischief in it. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t really need to. He pressed another kiss to her hand, felt how it was losing the softness so many women thought they needed, and they walked out arm in arm. Into the car, into the expensive restaurant that kept throwing them glances and whispering about Harold Saxon and trying to figure out the newest fashions, and neither of them gave a shit about it.
---
The third date had Lucy in a light blue skirt and white shirt and shoes, along with sunglasses and a very, very confused expression, since they were walking. “Harry? Where are we going?”
He didn’t get bored very often. Not with Lucy around, at least. She was like an ever-changing wind-up toy that did something different every time he cranked it. But if there was one good thing and another good thing, if they were combined they had to be even better.
He liked math like that. The simple stuff that packed a punch nobody seemed to expect.
“We, my dear, are going to the end of the universe,” he said, already grabbing her hand and kissing it before letting it drop, walking side by side with her, grinning. “I know we haven’t known each other very long, Lucy, but I think I should be up front with you about some things. Like planning to marry you for political reasons…well, and fun, since really, it would be. Oh, and being a time-traveling alien, but really to me, you’re the alien, but since I’m stuck on Earth that perspective really doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t break on him, not even when he walked her into the TARDIS. Lucy didn’t do the normal ape-like gasps of wonder at it being ‘bigger on the inside’ or any of that, simply looked around it, eyes shining, a smile starting to grow on her face.
“I’ll marry you,” she said simply, staring at the console and running a hand over the railing. “What sort of alien are you?”
“You know, you are probably the only worthwhile ape on this planet,” he said, voice laced with affection. “I’m a Time Lord. The Master, to be precise.” She nodded, moving towards the console and leaning over it for a better look. And really, who wouldn’t take advantage of that. One hand on her hip and slipping towards her stomach, the other sliding down her neck. She shivered, and he loved it. “And do you know what, Lucy?”
She leaned back into him, and he could feel her pulse going faster, could see an almost manic excitement in her eyes. “What, Harry.”
It was almost disappointing to not hear her say Master, but from Lucy, Harry was almost as good. From being Mister Saxon to Harry. It meant something, even to humans who had never understood the true meaning behind names, and he pulled her close enough to breathe in that peach and resin smell. “Lucy, I’m going to take over the Earth. And then the galaxy. And then the universe. It’s going to be a beautifully deadly movement, full of fire and death, and we’re going to dance through it all. Dance to this drumbeat right here.” He tapped out the rhythm on her ribs, felt the way the fabric twisted in his grip at every beat.
“Good tempo,” she said, and when he made a curious noise she twisted enough to smirk at him. “I play the viola, Harry. Since I was a little girl.”
He took her to the end of the universe and kissed her so hard against the door that he wondered if they could bend it. And the best part was that she kissed right back, almost harder, desperate for life and he loved it, absolutely loved it. Loved the breathy gasps she let out when his hand snuck up her skirt, the way she would arch and slump and cling and breathe, because he was doing that, doing all of that, making her more than just a pretty little doll that stood primly in innocent dresses and sipped at champagne, making her live.
The grating on the TARDIS wasn’t comfortable, he decided as they slumped against it, grinning and half-dressed.
“You’re going to play it for me, aren’t you?” he asked, hand circling her neck. He could break her neck, strangle her to death, cut her, but didn’t want to, and it was fantastic. “The drumbeat. The viola.”
She leaned over him, smiling. The grating had to be eating into her knees, but apparently she cared even less than he did. All that long blonde hair was curling against and around her face, and this time he was the one to sweep it back and away from her face. “I’ll play it, Harry.”
He didn’t love her, but he sure as fuck loved what he did to her.
They walked back out of the TARDIS six minutes after they’d left. He’d told her to keep the panties off. She did.
---
Being engaged was boring, but since Lucy had explained all this flowers and dress and cake stuff (and really, the cake part was amazing), it wasn’t too bad. Plus he didn’t have to be so polite or discreet about taking her home for mind-blowingly crazy sex.
Professor Yana had been a virgin. Sure, he occasionally wondered if a human version of an old regeneration could count as being a virgin if he’d had plenty of sex in most of his forms, but it was still a depressing thought when he had Lucy curled up naked and spectacular in bed with him.
“I technically stole your virginity this time around, then,” Lucy said after he whined about it over breakfast, looking very smug and still disheveled from that morning’s bout of ridiculously spectacular sex. “I deflowered Harold Saxon.”
He’d thrown a piece of toast at her, which naturally got him nothing but amused laughter. And then it had him turned around on the stool, Lucy straddling him and grinning, and somehow that made this whole marriage and monogamy thing not that bad.
---
Lucy didn’t wear stockings very often anymore. Only on campaign routes, really. She rarely went empty, either, and he’d done all of that. All of it.
Their wedding was in a huge cathedral with a Bishop saying things that neither of them cared about, vows that were more an amusing way to phrase whatever this monogamy thing went like for humans.
Her father was crying, her sisters were there and he flipped off the one who had stuck Lucy in that atrocious pink thing. Not that anyone saw it, since Lucy tended to be wonderfully politically-minded and moved just in time to cover it, even though he got a conspiratorial smile and kiss for it.
“You may kiss the bride” got quite a few pictures, considering he nearly dipped her to the floor and she was more than happy to return the favor, both of them laughing loudly and actually running out of the cathedral. Not the normal ‘oh look at us we are so blissfully happy let’s go get rice thrown at us’ run, of course. The rice-throwers yelped in surprise when they came hurtling through the doors and into the car.
Their flavor of run was ‘we can’t have sex in front of cameras.’ The shots still looked good, though.
“All your little human beliefs are stupid,” he said while they were missing their own reception, biting her shoulder and just making her more and more his and alive and she was legally his. Not that he hadn’t known it before, but now nobody could even try to bring her to life like he did. She was his. All his.
---
“God, Harold, you look like you two were mugged!” one of the Someone-To-Pleases said as soon as he caught sight of them at the reception.
“Oh, no, I was just having a few rounds of sex with my wife, most of them in the limo,” he grinned at the man. “Some very, very good rounds of sex in the limousine.”
The band picked up a song with the beat that lived in his head, and there was Lucy of course, smelling more like resin than peaches this time around, so he left the man about to have a heart attack and spun her around the floor.
She couldn’t keep up, but that was fine. Only one person in the universe was capable of it, and he was pretty sure the idiot couldn’t tango.
---
They honeymooned in the TARDIS, where he made sure that they had sex just about anywhere that probably had a decent amount of foot traffic in it with different occupants. They meandered around the end of the world, and it was mostly the same as any other times with Lucy, which meant it was good, she was his, and they had a lot of voyeuristic enjoyment at the birth of Utopia. Once they even visited good old Professor Yana, walking right by the human and then, just for the hell of it, getting into a very heated kiss and blocking the hallway when he tried to walk by.
“Excuse me,” his old self finally shouted out as politely as he could.
He smirked back at himself. There were a lot of things he felt like saying. Felt like taking the chance of messing with the flow of time and telling himself to look at the damn watch, felt like mocking himself, maybe even showing a bit of sympathy, even maybe asking Lucy to give the nice man a kiss for the inconvenience.
But instead of any of that, he found himself leaning forward and whispering. “They’ll only get worse.”
“What?” the old him asked.
He was the one who ended up kissing his old self. Kissed him lightly on the lips, which earned a strange noise from Lucy and a blank stare almost reminiscent of the old Lucy. Lucy before he’d owned her. “The drums. They’ll pound and pound and pound.” He paused, and then grinned, giving himself a companionable clap on the cheek. “Watch some Teletubbies, professor. The universe is a fascinatingly stupid place.”
The good professor looked flabbergasted, but he was too busy grinning and grabbing Lucy’s hand, heading back for the TARDIS.
---
Everything was nice. Which meant it was boring. He knew when he’d shown up the first time around would be when the others showed up, knew he’d win the election, and if he’d paid enough attention he’d have known he’d marry Lucy, too, but he’d been concentrating a bit more on being Prime Minister and seeing the time and place he was at.
He waited. It was boring and he hated being bored, so as time went by, Harold and Lucy Saxon made more and more charities happy, went to more parties, from the black tie dinners where he wanted to kill the orchestra and give Lucy her viola instead to raves where he more often than not ended up laying on the subwoofers, Lucy drunk and on top of him while he listened to the beat as it jolted his body.
They went to the zoo. They went to Africa, which he found fantastic. They went to Japan, which for some reason he immediately hated and decided it could go on the list of Places I Can Destroy Later If I Feel Like It.
When the election went into full swing, he was ahead of everyone from the first ads. Simple VOTE SAXON posters instead of long advertisements for his political beliefs with a big picture of his head, nothing but pictures of himself and all the fake achievements he’d piled on top of himself.
He was bored, and every minute, he started thinking about their arrival. His arrival, and he wasn’t sure whether that was a good or a bad thing.
---
Lucy was in her long black silk robe, looking delicious as ever, when he woke up one day. A devious smile and she was curled around him again, which was always a good thing.
But then she went and asked “How do Time Lords get married” and he hurled himself out of bed. Nearly hit her, nearly fucked the whole plan and brought the Toclafane through without the drums and fanfare.
“Don’t,” he snapped, pacing, putting a hand to his head. It was Lucy, she didn’t know better, didn’t even exist without him, how could a toy, even one so wonderful as she was, know or understand or even ask, how could she, how could she-
“I’m sorry, Harry,” she whispered, and he looked over at her with murder in his eyes, but she was nothing but apologies, looking like a whipped dog as she sat in the same position he’d put her in when he pushed her aside to run.
Always, always running.
“Harry, I’m sorry.”
Harold Saxon. That was who she’d met, that was probably how she’d see him when she died. “You’re married to Harold Saxon, Lucy,” he said, voice quiet. “Let that be enough.”
She nodded, curling on the bed.
He got dressed, drank five cups of coffee, and ignored the fact there were only two Time Lords in the universe now. Ignored the first of the two rings he wore. Ignored that it seemed like there was double vision in everything, two sides to everything, two choices, two names he only honestly wanted to hear spoken by two people.
The sixth cup of coffee was smashed into the wall.
Maybe he could ban the number two when he owned the world.
---
When all those plans and plots that he’d whispered to a shuddering, panting Lucy beneath him finally came to fruition, she was just as excited as he was, watching everything, marveling at everything, loving everything. She loved it because it didn’t matter, nothing did, and he gave her a good time while they were dancing down the path of the dead.
Lucy didn’t hear the drums, didn’t understand the drums. She enjoyed the tempo, seemed almost constantly to add it into everything. It kept her alive, that beat, because he was the beat, he was the thumping that kept her blood moving and let her eyes and mind focus on something.
He didn’t have to care about showing her off anymore, didn’t have to care about someone realizing there was something not quite right about the Saxons, and she was in whites and reds and silks and occasionally nothing but lingerie. Black, white, red, hair up, hair down, and always, always, always sitting in front of the good Doctor for at least a little bit of the day.
He liked watching the Doctor try to talk some morality or sense or compassion into her. He’d sit on the steps of the Valiant and watch Lucy go emptier and emptier as he spoke, liked to watch the Doctor fail at one more thing that only he could really do.
Wearing nothing but a bra under a fitted silk beige dress, he couldn’t help sweeping over and putting an arm around her shoulders, watching her eyes wake up as he tapped against her bare shoulder. “Is the old man boring you, Lucy?” he sighed empathetically, and she just smiled a bit devilishly. “By Jove!” He grinned, and snapped his fingers, pointing at the Doctor. “You know what wouldn’t be boring?”
Apparently the other Time Lord felt like humoring him. Either that or he was getting tired and needed his old man nap. “What.”
He smirked, and the laser was out, aging him back to the skinny goofy-looking nerd he’d been…and then more, until he looked about sixteen. The Doctor was staring at the new age’s effects on him, on how the suit was too big, how his hair flopped into his eyes, how his shoes didn’t fit.
“Give the poor Doctor a kiss, would you, Lucy?” he said lightly, and the Doctor looked up at him, finally understanding. He smirked. “Aren’t hormones fun?”
Lucy had caught on too - clever little minx - and was more than happy to walk over and cradle the Doctor’s face in her hands. He managed the start of a protest with her name thrown in, but she was already kissing him sweet and slow, pushed up against him in all the right places, and the Doctor was shaking, barely keeping his hands off her and trying so very hard to resist her.
“How long has it been now, Doctor, hmm?” he asked. Lucy’s hand was slipping under his baggy shirt, and the Doctor moaned, clearly hating himself for loving it. “You had to feel something when you took out the Time Lords and the Daleks, when you destroyed the greatest species in the universe. Did it feel anything like this?”
“No,” the Doctor managed to gasp out, and he decided that was enough, pulling Lucy against himself and leaving the Doctor shuddering and disheveled and terribly uncomfortable. “It was…” He could see those hormones rebelling against that poor distancing mentality the Doctor had retained and he never had, saw it in the way he was swallowing the lump in his throat, the way his voice was too high and breathy. “It was horrible.” Another shudder, this time one that wasn’t just the hormones. “It was silence. Total silence.”
“And that’s gone now that I’m here, isn’t it.”
The Doctor looked up at him, young eyes flaring just a bit. If he wasn’t so young now, he thought, the idiot would probably be going on with the ‘I have one thing to blah blah blah blah’ again. And that wasn’t ever happening.
His grip on Lucy was probably tighter than it should have been.
“Do you feel the drums in your head now, instead of that burning silence, Doctor?” he whispered tightly, and let go of Lucy, striding over to grab the teenaged face in one hand. He didn’t even resist, just looked at him, almost as empty as Lucy had been before he’d shown up. “Do you hear me? Feel me?”
“I can feel you,” the Doctor whispered back. “And I only have one thing to say-”
And the laser was out again. Back to the old man that needed naptime and a wheelchair and two people to help him walk across the room.
“Don’t. You. Dare,” he hissed out. “Don’t you dare, or I will have a very good time of making you have a bad one.”
“You already do that.”
He smirked, and finally moved back over to Lucy, wrapping her arm in his. “I haven’t pulled out Lucy’s evil sister’s dress just yet, Doctor. That’s a line even I might have a hard time crossing.”
---
Apparently hormones were one of the worst tortures he’d thought up so far. The Doctor stammered and hissed and whimpered, said more than his usual repetitive phrase, acted almost like he was alive.
And he did that to the Doctor, which was interesting.
Two rings, two puppets, and two types of them - one human, female, and happy about it, and the other anything but.
---
The Doctor didn’t say his name anymore. Either of them. Any of them. Years and years and years of names and faces and titles and the Doctor never said any of them. It was driving him mad and worst of all it was almost confusing him.
“What names have I picked, Doctor?” he asked lightly, laying on the massive conference table and looking up at the ceiling.
Silence.
“Call me Master, Doctor.”
Silence.
“Try Harold Saxon.”
Silence.
“Harry. Saxon. Prime Minister.”
Absolutely nothing.
He got up, grabbed his jacket, and went and killed Captain Jack Harkness seven times to try and cheer himself up.
“What’s my name?” he’d asked distantly after the good Captain had jerked back to life after the sixth time.
Jack had looked at him like he’d gone even more insane, and then the hatred and the glare and all that pseudo-American spitfire was back as he hissed out “You son of a bitch-” and he’d killed the immortal man one more time and walked out before he came back again because that was a good enough name for now.
---
Lucy didn’t even come into the room. Everyone was gone, everyone but him and the slowly waking Doctor, who was coming to realize he was probably around nineteen this time. He knew the other Time Lord had long ago realized that a younger age meant looser control, but he’d never made the Doctor nineteen. Usually he was thirteen when he did it now.
“Would you prefer me human again, Doctor?” he asked as soon as the other man’s eyes opened. “Would you rather be all alone? You can’t save me. Someone has to want to be saved for it to work, don’t they?”
Nineteen had the Doctor less scrawny than the other ages beneath it, but he still looked wonderfully vulnerable. “The drums. You want them to stop.”
“Do I?” He honestly didn’t know the answer. It was part of him. If he was turned human again, would they go away? If the Doctor did have some way to rid him of the drums, would the quiet drive him even madder than he already was?
“Let me help you,” the Doctor pleaded.
He leaned forward. Two rings, two hands, each separate and unique. “Say my name.”
And of course, not a word.
Walking back to the massive cabin he and Lucy shared found her sitting in her black robe in one of the chairs, staring at nothing and slowly fading away.
He stood against the door and let her.
---
“Lucy, will you shoot me?” he asked one day. She was lost again, but nodded, and he pressed a kiss to her temple, and then a gentle one to her hand. For once, he really couldn’t feel anything but affection for her, and toyed with their wedding rings. “I once said you were the only worthwhile ape on this planet, but it turns out I was wrong, Lucy.” She still wasn’t saying anything; a little wind-up doll that he’d neglected the crank on. “Someone made these rings, and someone made the Valiant, and you have ancestors, thousands and thousands of ancestors. They’re still pathetic people, but pieces of them added together?” He grinned at her, and she woke up a bit, blinking at him, eyes focusing slightly. “They almost add up to a second human. Almost.”
---
Looked the same, acted the same, felt the same, even after being burned.
She’d gotten a manicure and therapy and the estate of her deceased husband Harold Saxon, managed to find prescription drugs that did what he’d done for her. Her sister that hated her had come back to life, and she was still tempted to go pull the trigger like last time around, but didn’t.
The Doctor had left, going somewhere or other. But he’d had enough fun that he could wait for a while. She understood, to a dazzling degree, why things had turned out how they had, understood the difference in those two rings.
They stayed quiet until the bees left and the stars were replaced with planets and moons and Daleks, until he found himself with fifty dead Daleks and one dead wife.
A stillness so deep came over him that, for once, he could hear over the drums. Heard the low, blurry tempo of a viola over them.
The TARDIS was perfectly themed with the pouring rain falling around it. He’d changed his shirt to black, tie a cream piece of silk that he’d cut up from the first dress he’d seen her in. Insanity? Grief? Weren’t they the same?
He knocked on the door with his right hand, left hand clenched around the viola case’s handle, gold ring tapping against it. It took a while, but the door creaked open, an astonished Doctor staring at him.
“Master,” he whispered, and he gave him a bitter smile.
“Still want to fix me? I’d almost prefer dying, but there’s that pesky regeneration thing that nobody can really get out of, just delay and transfer into something else-”
The Doctor stepped out in the rain and hugged him. He stayed completely still, just watching as the other Time Lord’s shirt collected rain, the white clinging to his skin, making a cream color.
“Master,” he said again, and he backed away, stepping into the TARDIS and setting her viola case reverently on the only bench, turning to the controls as the Doctor hurried inside. The Doctor was beaming so giddy it made him sick, and he punched his companion in the face for it. Punched him with the left hand.
While the Doctor was staring at him and collecting himself off the floor, he turned to the console, cranking a gear and letting the Doctor finally grumble his way through picking a destination.
The drums were still there. They’d always be there. But the viola was there too, soothing and fast and something he didn’t control, wasn’t controlled by, but had.
“It’s Harry,” the Master said as the TARDIS started to rock and bump its way to wherever the fuck the Doctor had eagerly picked for his ‘rehabilitation.’ The Doctor glanced up at him at that, finally noticed the case, and gave a long, slow, understanding nod.
My name is Harold Saxon. Call me Harry.
It was probably the Master’s most beloved lie.