Archive of Our Own ^beta

Crimson blood, thick and deep and raw in its presence.

It seeped down the floor

into the drain

to the sound of screaming.

The worst thing was that he was half distracted as he did it. Normally causing severe wounds sent a rush through his body like nothing else, but today he had something else to keep his mind occupied.

The Master sighed, and dropped the shears. They landed with a dull splash. He took a step, and the leather of his shoe squelched nastily. What? - he looked at his shoe and groaned. He always forgot how much head wounds bled. But a ruined shoe was what he got for paying too much attention to the screen.

To him. To that pinstripe suit-wearing, spiky-haired man with the cheeky grin and eyes that spoke of centuries. Warm brown eyes that spoke of Time, and Space, and down in the depths, Darkness.

The screen took up almost one entire wall, and split up into multiple different viewpoints. In front of the screen stood the operating (torture) table, and to his right was the small table which housed his equipment. There was a door on either end and the wall behind him had chains draped over it. They weren’t just used for decoration.

There was a sink with running water close by, but he preferred to see the smears of blood leave his hands and ruin something pure. It was a nice reminder of what he’d done.

The Master snatched the cloth from the hands of his frightened human slave. He made her stand there and watch as he tortured her boyfriend. After the first few times, she’d stopped begging or yelling at him to stop and had just averted her eyes.

As he wiped the red from his hands, he looked her up and down. The blonde-haired girl trembled. It was a remarkable difference to how she’d acted when he’d first kidnapped her. It was disappointing. For the first week, she’d defied all orders. The Doctor will save me, she’d snapped. Just you wait, the Doctor will be here any moment.

He’d laughed when her face fell. When he told her that the Doctor coming for her was the point.

That was when she’d stopped resisting, as if uttering his name would bring the TimeLord here and into the trap.

If that worked, the Doctor would’ve been here a long, long time ago. And he would never have left.

The Master dropped the cloth onto the bloody floor, turned off the screen, and left the room. Just behind the door, he waited. He listened. Still inside the room, the girl scrambled to pick it up and leave in the opposite direction. He heard her step wetly around the metal table, and heard the door swing shut behind her. Then, he went back in. Quietly, with barely a creak of the door. He hid and watched.

As he’d thought, the corpse was moving.

The man stood up and immediately wavered, nearly falling face first onto the floor. He scrambled for the cloth the girl had left behind, and held it in a ball against the wound on his head. The blood had darkened to a crust that matched his hair. The man took a few seconds to breathe before shakily kneeling. A roughly-bandaged hand reached over to the shears.

The Master had kidnapped him on the same day as the girl. He thought that the pair might have been dating, once. He hoped that if they did somehow get away from him, he’d ruined their romantic relationship forever. After all, there was only so long you could spend getting tortured while your girlfriend watched. At some point, the attraction would start to fizzle out. On both sides.

That had never been a problem for the Master, but then again, he hadn’t had that much experience.

The man closed a hand around the shears and tried to stand. However, he’d lost too much blood, and collapsed. The Master smirked from his shadowy corner.

The girl came back in.

“Mickey I can’t find him, I can’t find him anywhere,” She said, voice high and frightened.

“Rose, if you think I’m going back to that table, you’ve got another thing coming.” Mickey said. He showed her the shears. “The moment that bastard comes back, these are going straight into his face.” His eyes were wide, almost absurdly. The shears gleamed red and cold. Blood was slowly dripping off the blades and into the pool at Mickey’s feet.

“The Doctor may be looking for us but it’s been weeks. He’s not going to find us in time. I’m not waiting for a miracle.”

“He’s so close, you saw on the screen-” Rose gestured at the black screen, which was still splattered with blood.

“Not close enough. Babe, you’ve got to let him go. We have to help ourselves now.” Mickey stroked her cheek with his thumb. She leaned into his hand, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. His touch left smears of blood in its wake.

The Master frowned. So, they weren’t broken apart entirely. It was early days - well, minutes - of their ‘freedom’, but he’d hoped there’d be a little more flinching and general talk about filth and defilement and unworthiness, but how they’d always love each other in their own way. And then he’d come in and ruin it.

He felt sick.

Was that what all his nights binge-eating icecream and watching romantic comedies starring Meg Ryan had gotten him? Hoping for some kind of romantic interlude before he went in, to satisfy the audience and give them hope that everything would turn out ok?

Well, he wasn’t going to let that happen. Not on his watch.

Rose had tears freely rolling down her cheeks. She leaned in, and the Master stepped forward.

With a shriek, both his prisoners launched themselves backwards. They only narrowly avoided hitting themselves on the second table, atop which were the rest of his metal tools. Rose scrambled to grab one. Her hand closed around the sharp edge of a tool and she yelped. The Master smiled as ruby red dripped down her arm. He took another step forward, and Rose clung to Mickey with her uninjured hand. He held out the shears in front of him, one hand still pressing the blood-soaked cloth to his head.

“Well,” The Master said. “Isn’t this a predicament?”

“Let us go,” Mickey said, but the shears wobbled in the air.

“I can’t, I’m afraid. I’m still waiting for the Doctor.”

“What do you want with him?” Rose  asked, “Why are you watching him on your screens all the time?”

“I’m bored.” He answered simply, and straightened his tie. With steady hands, he pulled a set of plastic gloves out of his pocket. He set about putting them on.

“And when I’m bored, really bored, there’s only one thing I can do.” He kicked the shears out of Mickey’s hand and out of reach.

“Sometimes watching is enough. But sometimes, like right now, it’s not. So, I lay some bait, and I wait. It’s our little game. We’ve been playing it for years.” He lowered his voice as if he was telling them a secret. Unconsciously they leaned in, and the sentient rope was able to sneak behind their backs. With a flick of his fingers, it obeyed his instruction to slip over their laps. To distract them, he leant in closer too, kneeling on the floor. The blood soaked his pants, still slightly warm.

“Let’s review the facts, shall we? I was bored enough, so I kidnapped you a few weeks ago. The Doctor has been looking for you ever since, and I have been watching him. Soon enough he will find us. Then, we switch.” He held up two of his fingers and crossed his wrists, so they gave the appearance of swapping places.

“What do you mean, we switch?” Mickey asked stupidly. Rose sat silently, face pale. The Master grinned.

“He takes you both, and I try to find you.”

“It’s hide and seek. A twisted version, where we’re along for the ride.” She gasped.

“Bingo.”

“But why are you hurting us?” Mickey stammered.

“Because waiting for him is boring. ” He groaned to the sky. The Doctor was taking longer than he normally did and what was meant to be a distraction from boredom was turning into boredom’s creator. “Normally, I watch him until he notices and conveniently leaves you two alone. Then I kidnap and torture you. He’s not allowed to look for you on the screens, but I’m still able to watch him. Despite this, normally he shows up a few days later. Then he rescues you and it’s my turn to chase.” He hummed. “I’ll be honest, I’m not very good at the chasing bit. I almost never catch you guys, I just skip straight to watching.”

“You’re sick, and you’re lying.” Rose spat. “The Doctor would never let me- I mean us, be hurt.”

He smiled, and let his false pity show clearly. She glared at him. Poor girl. Heart torn between two people, one out of her reach and one losing its spark. She’d end up alone in the end.

Mickey would only last another hour, maybe two if he was lucky. Their relationship wouldn’t have lasted much longer, anyway.

And the Doctor was his. If she wanted to fight him for him, then she had another thing coming.

There was a crash and the wall burst, bits of metal peeling back into the rough shape of a flower. Plaster and wood and who was he kidding, he didn’t know, scattered across the floor. The chains clanged loudly as they either fell or swung back and forth. The shockwave shook them all. The shears slid across the floor and into Rose’s hands. The sentient rope tightened around their waists, throwing her off balance, but she somehow kept her grip, and started opening the shears. The Master cursed and got to his feet. This was bad timing, really bad timing. He looked over his shoulder.

Where the chains had been, there was now a hole in the wall. In the room beyond was a blue 1950’s police box, and a man standing in front of it, sonic screwdriver outstretched.

“You couldn’t have waited another day? I had a whole thing planned!” The Master yelled at him. He’d thought that since he’d taken so long, he’d be allowed to kill at least one of them. Mickey was going to be dramatically cut open on the table and everything! The Master had already made the breadcrumbs, and even made sure the oven worked.

“I’d already spent too much time looking for them,” The Doctor snapped, and climbed gracefully through the hole in the wall. He avoided the blood on the floor, staying on the outskirts of the room. “If you’ve killed them-”

“Nearly.” He grumbled, but Rose yelled over the top of him.

“Doctor! Help!” She yelled. The Master clicked his fingers and the sentient rope curled up around her wrists and then across her mouth, silencing her. She wielded the shears, but before the Master could do anything the Doctor had already handled it. With a quick zap of the sonic screwdriver, the edges of the tool were blunt and useless. The metal curled in on itself. Rose’s eyes widened and she started breathing rapidly. Mickey was phasing in and out of consciousness, but he stubbornly held on.

“Doctor, what’re you doing?” He asked, before the rope bound his wrists and mouth too.

This left panicking Rose and an unconscious Mickey bound, and the Doctor and the Master standing metres apart, separated only by a slowly draining pool of blood.

The Master genuinely smiled. The Doctor returned it, although the edges were a little strained. The Master reached out his hand, and the Doctor put out his own. The two stood, arms fully outstretched, the Master’s fingers dancing over the Doctor’s palm. There was a jolt of electricity when he pressed down more firmly and opened his mind. There was a seconds wait, and then his thoughts were merging with the Doctor’s in a haze tinged with golden light.

They know too much, was the first thing he told him. You took too long, and I got bored.

You’re always bored, Koschei, a wave of fondness drifted over his senses, sinking into his muscles and causing him to release a satisfied sigh. It’s a pity. I liked her.

You could always erase their memories, Theta. You’ve done it before, he reminded him. The last time had been back before the Time War, when they’d both worn different faces. But life wasn’t too different from them, because they were still playing the exact same game. He didn’t know what would happen when one of them won.

Mmm… yes, you’re right. I’m sorry this time took so long. You were too hard to find. Regret and disappointment coloured his thoughts.

Well now, it’s my turn to find you, The Master hesitantly sent over a spark of his excitement.

I can’t understand why you take so long, I don’t exactly hide, The Doctor grinned without moving his mouth.

Maybe I just like watching you.

And people say you’re a villain.

I am, The Master argued.

You are, the Doctor told him, and left his mind. There was a final swift brush of love at the corner of The Master’s thoughts. The Master held onto that as long as he could, basking in that golden feeling. The Doctor’s love was a drug and the Master was always thirsting for his next hit. The spillover wasn’t deliberate, however much he longed for that day when it was. Sometimes they left their conjoined minds without even a hint of feeling making its way over. But that just made it all the more delicious.

The Master knew that the Doctor knew that the Master loved him. He didn’t try to hide it like he hid it from the rest of the Universe. It was obvious. But the Doctor was a stubborn bastard, still trying so hard to deny his true nature and do ‘good’. One day, he’d give in. One day, he’d come to the Master and sit down at his table. Drink his wine, eat the companions he’d finally been allowed to kill.

TimeLords could only deny their true selves for so long. The Doctor’s alarmingly frequent regenerations just meant it would take longer than normal. He only had a few left, but he’d come home soon.

This time, being late to the rescue, was just the first of many. One day, he’d be too late. And he’d have no choice but to stay here with the Master and love him, forever.

The Master shook his head, clearing the fogginess the Doctor always left in his wake. The Doctor was already bent over both of his companions' prone forms, stroking gentle fingers across their foreheads and plucking out the memories of their encounter. He was likely planting an explanation for Mickey’s wounds in their brains at the same time.

Despite his best efforts, his shoes were stained around the rim, the white turned pale red.

The Master left the building, but not the sidewalk outside. He waited until he heard the sound of the TARDIS dematerialising. When the echoes disappeared, he turned on his heel and vanished into the shadows.

He licked the blood of his hand, tasting the residual energy of the Doctor’s mind, and savoured it.

One day.

Until then, he had his screens. He had his spies. He had the TARDIS’s help, he had her cameras. He had the dragon heart he was still reserving for her, for that eventual feast. He had his and the Doctor’s game of hide and seek.

One day, the Doctor would be his in every way that mattered.

Already, The Master was bored. But he wasn’t bored enough. Not yet. For now, he was content just to watch.

For now.