This is my first Doctor Who fanfiction. It's slash, again, of course; you might have realised that I enjoy writing that ;) So this is the result of my hearty perusal of other Doctor Who fics - this is the first thing that came to mind. The idea has probably already been done, so sorry for any inadvertent plagiarism, but whatever. Enjoy!
Sorry - I know it's all angst-ridden again. But I'm trying to make it as accurate as possible and this is how I see the Doctor and Master. For me, it seems more realistic, for so much unchangeable pain and hate to be mixed in with so much unbreakable love and nostalgia. So yep. This is personally my favourite fic yet.
Doctor Who belongs to someone else, not me. You can tell I know fuck all about Doctor Who. Ah well. Onwards and out!
(And yes, the title is based on the song of the same name by Three Days Grace. Got to love them.)
Doctor Who:
I Hate Everything About You
Victor M. Garcia Jr.
Love is like the truth; sometimes it prevails...sometimes it hurts.
When the Doctor awoke, all he knew that he was in a bed.
He looked around the elaborate room in which he found himself; a large bed, with crimson quilts, and five long windows.
At first his attention considered inspecting those windows more intricately, eachshowcasing a view of the dying planet he loved so much. The dying planet he couldn't (at least, at present) help to save. He'd prepared himself in sleep for the shock the visage of the wilting Earth would have come as, but never in each of his hundreds of years could he have readied himself for this.
But, when it became too much to bear, and he was unable to watch, he looked around the room.
He knew it well.
Groaning, he threw himself back onto the bed, becoming aware of how quiet everything was despite the mass havoc and killing happening unstoppable only hundreds of metres away. The reminder of his predicament shot through him painfully and he screwed his eyes shut, a lock of brown hair falling in his eyes.
Moments later the wooden door opened; the Master emerged, smiling maniacally, the sun turning his pale hair gold. The Doctor didn't want to look at him, but he couldn't stop. He commanded his eyes to fix on something else, anything else, but they disobeyed him. They found the Master's equally dark eyes and held the contact almost desperately.
"Good morning," the Master greeted, poisonously. The Doctor still sat up in the bec, expressionless. The Master slowly made his way over, sitting at the end of it. He stared out of the windows, a milky haze settling over his face. Admiring his own handiwork. The Doctor felt his heart ache; it happened a lot, but there was something very wrong this time. Someone else making his heart bruise in this way was his own fault; this almost felt traitorous. "It's a lovely view, isn't it?"
The Doctor instinctively jumped blithely from under the sheets and flung himself in front of the Master, grabbing the front of his shirt. The Time Lord didn't look fazed; the smile was still fresh on his lips. The Doctor's eyes bore into him, and found everything. They tried to get through to him.
Nothing.
"You can change this," the Doctor whispered, frantically, imploringly. He had to try - that's what he did best. Always had done. "All of this. Look out of the window." Neither of them broke the careful eye contact, but they could both see the images, and completely different things surrounding them. "Is this what you want?"
The Master's smile faltered slightly. Not because he was contemplating the Doctor's words...rather, the intentions behind them.
"Nobody can change me," the Master announced. His eyes narrowed, the sneer falling. His words were hissed through bared teeth. "You can't change me."
"I can help you," the Doctor promised. The Master was taken aback; he didn't realise somebody could channel so much energy, so much passion, full of pleading, into meagre words. Inside he was sighing; the Doctor had always been so good at doing that.
I hate how you take words and make them into something else...
Outside he pushed the Doctor off of him, biting down on his bottom lip. The Doctor didn't look hurt. The Master noticed this - too easily - and smirked.
"Your resilience is touching," he scoffed. "But there is nothing you can do to stop this. To stop me. That spaceship has flown, and I'm afraid it's leaving you here; in this room."
The Doctor nodded, his eyes curious, his brow furrowed. "Why this room?"
The Master blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Why did you pick this - this template - for my bedroom?" the Doctor questioned. He looked like he already knew. Part of the Master was horrified that he knew. Horrified that the Doctor's eyes were skimming over this thoughts. There was something about their proximity he loathed; how this other man simply moved closer to him, and the effects were claustrophobic. How he detested the eye contact, and yet failed to break it as quickly as he might like. He always felt like a prisoner - even when he was the captor.
I hate how you trap me...
"Well - it's a bedroom, isn't it?" he said, frustrated, hiding his initial panic. "We're sat on a bed, aren't we?"
The Doctor inhaled slowly. He closed his eyes, at first in meditation, and secondly, almost in pain; a pain that only hundreds of years of nostalgia can create. He didn't open his eyes, not even as he spoke, but the Master still knew he was watching him.
"This was my room...on Gallifrey. It was..."
"Don't," the Master choked, before he knew he was speaking. His stomach was doing something unpleasant, and his hearts were inordinately vapid, two abhorred, wretched...drums...in his chest.
"Our room," the Doctor whispered.
"Stop it!" the Master screamed, jumping up from the bed. The Doctor remained sitting, his suit never creasing, simply clinging to his supple, slender frame. The Master wrung his hair, closing his eyes, wondering if he existed. It didn't feel like it. Gallifrey...he'd left it so far away... A wild fury took over. How dare the Doctor bring it back up, after so many years of keeping it down!
"It can be like that again," the Doctor said, his voice soft and quiet. The Master heard drums; bloody, beating, braying drums, taking over...devouring him...
"Stop it..."
"All those days..." the Doctor continued. The Master was pleading, holding his head. Did the Doctor know what he was doing?
"Please, just stop it..."
"All those nights..." the Doctor whispered. The words were so quiet.
Perhaps that's why the Master's agonized cry seemed so much louder to the two people inside that room; the room on Earth, from Gallifrey.
"I never made love to you!" he shrieked.
The Doctor's eyebrows raised of their own accord, surprised to hear those words. The Master turned away, breathing heavily, his hearts verging on cardiac arrest and the drums deathly silent. Replaced merely by the echoing of his shout, the pain of his scream...
The words he knew might not be true.
"You...can't know that," the Doctor finally said, looking up at the Master, watching him stand against a window but not seeing, for the first time, the destruction he'd caused outside of it. This time, he was more focused on feeling the destruction that he himself harboured within.
"It must be true," he reasoned, more to himself than anyone else. "We couldn't remember. And fuck, we tried." He whirled around, staring at the Doctor, tears in his eyes and a half smile on his lips, the smirk of minutes and millenia ago long forgotten. He laughed; the Doctor winced. He'd never heard anything sound so ghoulishly hollow before in his life. "Hell knows, we tried!"
The Doctor nodded softly, his eyes tearing away from the Master's. They both rekindled the eye contact after a moment; as much as it hurt to look at each other, it was never quite as unendurable as when they made themselves look away.
"You don't know that," he sighed. The Master felt a warm tear fall down his cheek. He pressed himself against the cold plane of the icy window, not even hearind the bangs and explosions from outside; the monsters he'd created, the lives he'd taken. The memories he could never shake away. "Not for sure. We would have known that it was forbidden - we would have deleted it in that second before we fell asleep. Not even we could remember...and neither could anyone else." The Doctor looked up, pained. "Forgetting...it was our protection."
"Protection?" the Master snapped, venemously, wheeling around again. He blinked the tears away; he was scared that the blurry Doctor would disappear, and never return again. He didn't like crying, but he loathed lies even more. "How could that be protection? What about that is protecting us? Years of never knowing...centuries of wondering, nightmares, never being able to remember..."
He stopped again, his words catching in his throat. He blinked the tears away; suddenly he didn't care about them anymore. He was insensible to emotion. At least, that's what he told himself. He stole a look out of the window, smiling, though not with quite as much vigour as beforehand. The chaos, destruction...that was all he had. It was all he needed.
The Doctor shook his head quickly, watching the Master change infront of him. He threw himself up, grasping onto his shoulders and whirling him around, shaking him. The Master grabbed onto his hands, stopping him. They were trapped staring again.
"Things don't have to be like this," the Doctor said. His voice was like a lullaby, and the Master didn't know if he wanted to believe it.
I hate how you make me change my mind...
"I promise you," the Doctor carried on, relentless, the Master's hand and heat burning into him. He could cope. He had to cope, for both of them. So many years, so many shared memories and...he nodded, resolute. Love. He knew that they'd been in love; he knew that would never really change, no matter what was happening. They had found each other; the last of their kind, the only people they'd truly cared about. The Doctor was sure he would never let go. "Listen to me, and I can help you. I can stop everything; we can turn back time. This can all go away...the drums can go away..."
The Master was gripped by ferocity again and pushed the Doctor squarely back onto the bed, falling on top of him, holding his hands somewhere near his shoulders and straddling him quickly.
Their breathing deepened, filling the room. The Doctor swallowed, the same lock of brown hair falling in his knowing eyes again. The Master exhaled, missing a breath.
I hate how your hair falls in your eyes, and I can't move it...
"The drums will never go away!" the Master spat. "The drums, and killing, and agony, and chaos, will never cease to be here! With this small, pathetic planet...with me!"
The Doctor shifted slightly, the Master's body temperature rising exponentially.
"Then neither will I," he swore.
He Master probed his eyes, trying to find any flicker of doubt or unfaithfulness. Nothing. He closed his eyes, his grip on the Doctor's wrists loosening, his throat insufferably dry and their noise - their breaths, their hearts - intolerably loud.
I hate how you're always so certain of things you can never be certain about...
"You can't promise that." The Master forced the words. The Doctor smiled gently, affectionately. The Master flinched, not used to it, unacclimatized to love in any way, shape, or form. Their thighs pressed together. Not from him. His position still faintly dominant. Not like this. The explosions; the death...the drums. Not right now.
The Doctor nodded, moving so that the Master got off of him, the Doctor sitting close to him and running his hands through his hair, everything about his touch reassuring. "I can," he said, fierily. They were so close. The Master couldn't breathe again.
I hate how you change my body...
"Let me show you," the Doctor begged. He didn't need to. "How things could be."
The Master gave in. Perhaps he was tired. One conversation had aroused so many memories...
He felt his heart, shoulders, groin, all pulsating. Aroused more than memories.
The Doctor placed his fingertips, both hands, at each side of the Master's face. The Master closed his eyes, seeing nothing but feeling everything. The Doctor pressed their foreheads together; they both whimpered slightly at the relief, yet hungered for more. The Master hid that thought. Mentally, and physically, going rigid.
I hate how I have to hide everything from you...
"Relax," the Doctor murmured.
...because I can't let you see it.
The Master complied, his muscles going limp in the Doctor's hands. The Doctor smiled, their noses locked together, their lips brushing each other's. The Master stopped himself from doing something he would most certainly regret, the Doctor similarly returning to the tast at hand.
He showed him. Everything.
Their days on Gallifrey. How they could sit, for hours, in the fields under the suns as they sunk lower in the sky, knowing that they would soon kiss each other but waiting for the perfect moment, when their fathers would repair inside and they would be left in the sanctity of their solitude. How they could be together for hours, and never speak a word. How they planned, and touched, and joked, and studied. How they knew each other more than anything else in the Universe. Sometimes they didn't understand each other, but their knew. Deep down, they knew.
The days on Earth. The saving; the being in control of your own destiny, part of a planet and yet never controlling it. That wasn't meant for them; it was meant for humans. They could go wherever they liked, do whatever they wanted, and be together. Peaceful. No drums; just silence. No war; just harmony. No people to kill them, or people to kill; just each other. Everything they could do...everything they could become.
The Master smiled sadly.
He as looking at the future he - they - could never have.
The Doctor felt somewhat drained, focusing everything he wanted the Master to see - everything the Master needed to see - into his head. He should have been surprised at how strong their link was, even after all these years. He wasn't, somehow. It seemed obvious that it would still be there, shining in the darkness. It was like breathing; it was like blinking. It happened - it was, it just was - and thoroughly out of your control.
They both collapsed into each other, almost panting, the Doctor's head resting on the Master's shoulder and the Master's nestled against the soft brown hair he'd never forgotten the texture, tone, or scent of.
When they finally did look at each other again, they knew that something was different. The Master smiled, further tears building in both of their eyes.
I hate how you think you have the right to change me...
"Thank you," he said.
The Doctor grinned.
"No problem."
They stared at each other; the healer saw a murderer, and the murderer saw a healer. They were polar opposites; they were black and white.
They were irrevocably connected.
"Come here," the Doctor smiled, crying freely, holding the Master against him and feeling the only other Time Lord in existence pull him to his own frame just as powerfully. They sat, together, intertwined, their tears warm. The Doctor could still see and hear the dying...it never went away. As long as he was near the Master, it never would go away. But it was something he'd have to live with. War would become his breathing; destruction would become as usual as blinking.
"I'll never stop fighting for you," he said. He sounded just as certain as earlier. The Master sobbed again, pressing his face into the Doctor's dampened shoulder, the brown suit soft and deliciously sweet. He knew how much pain he caused. He knew that being near him was more than difficult, it was almost unbearable. But it wasn't totally unbearable, and whilst this was true, the Doctor would be there. He would be a constant reminder of their past, and their never-certain future, but he was there. A knife. A thorn. A heart that felt.
I hate how you make me feel like a monster...
The Doctor hugged the Master tighter, inhaling his smell, feeling his body, being his only protection. His protection against himself. The Master knew what he was doing. He knew the Doctor felt that this was his duty, that the Master had to be constantly guarded against from what he could do to others - and himself. He shook his head.
I hate how you break my heart...
The Doctor lifted the Master's head gently. They smiled; in a broken, harmonious way. A way that would last lifetimes. Of pain. Of suffering.
Of always being there.
The Doctor brought the Master's lips to his. He kissed him, once; gently. Softly.
Their second first kiss was over.
He pulled away. For several minutes they stared at each other, their lips tingling, realising how intimate they'd just come and what they'd just done.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor apologised. The Master yanked the Doctor back to him, their noses locking, their eyes fluttering closed and their lips meshing together. The Doctor moaned, his hands on the Master's waist. In his hair. Their tongues met, at last, eager and somehow whiter than ice. The Master delicately trailed the hand that wasn't tangled in the Doctor's hair to his groin, feeling the Doctor break away for a second as the oxygen shuddered out of him and he moaned again, falling into the Master. They breathed heavily, listening to four hearts collectively pumping.
"I'm not," the Master admitted.
They held each other, not knowing what would happen next. The Master probably wouldn't give up. The Doctor wouldn't either. But now, they could never truly be enemies. Never lovers. Something floating in the middle, until one surrendered to the other.
That would happen when the sky swallowed the land, or when the earth rose up and obliterated every last cloud.
But they still held each other. Realising how much pain they were going to be in, were already in. How many centuries and nightmares had led them to this moment.
The Master sighed, falling flat in the Doctor's arms and kissing him again, sweetly. Dangerously.
I hate how much I love you.