Title: The happiest place orbiting earth.
Pairing: Ten/Simm!Master
Rating: G
Warning/Spoilers: Post EoT but no spoilers. Don't know why Ten and Simm!Master are hanging around, they just are.
Disclaimer: not mine
A/n: This is what happens when I watch so many Futurama episodes. Title from Futurama.
Summary: In which the Doctor learns that eating people isn't the height of the Master's insanity and the Master "finds" himself. This is crack, people.
In which the Doctor learns that eating people isn't the height of the Master's insanity.
*****
"This is getting ridiculous! Come out of there right now Master! Don't make me force you." The Doctor's near the end of his tether, if the feet stamping, hair pulling and general I'm-at-the-end-of-my-tether look in his eyes are anything to go by.
For once, the Master can say it's not his fault. Well it is his fault, technically, but he's not actually doing anything that would precipitate a near melt down from the Doctor. He puts it down to this regeneration's propensity to overreact.
"The only ridiculous thing here is you!" the Master shouts back at him but it's rather muffled. The Master is inside a dumpster after all.
The Doctor decides to try another approach.
"You don't like America!"
The Master says something but the Doctor can't hear him and has to settle for spending much of the next five minutes shouting "what?" at the dumpster. Several different occupants of the building that the dumpster is leaning against have threatened to "call the cops" and one has taken a pot shot at him. It is four in the morning. However, the Doctor's too immersed in the task of getting the Master out of the dumpster to care.
Finally, much through annoyance than anything else, the Master pushes up the lid and glares at the Doctor, "I said," he says through clenched teeth, "that it is a necessary evil."
The Doctor, taking advantage of the Master's bad mood (something that always distracts the Master from whatever he is doing) leaps at the dumpster and manages to wriggle in the gap created by the Master opening the lid. He drops down beside him and the lid clangs shuts again, pitching them into darkness. They squirm and flail in the dark until they're sitting side by side.
Now the Doctor's here, he's not really sure what to say, so he opts to go for small talk.
"It doesn't smell in here."
Not really small talk for most situations, I'm sure you'll agree, but when you're an alien sitting in a pile of rubbish with another alien who's to argue?
The Master scoffs, "Of course it doesn't smell, why would I sit in a stinking pile of human refuse?"
"Well, it really begs the question then of why you are sitting in rubbish, odourless or not."
The Master gives the Doctor that particular look he saves for when he thinks the Doctor's being particularly stupid.
"Experience" is all he says.
"Ahh."
They sit there in silence in the dark, listening to car alarms and sirens in the distance for quite a while.
"Experience for what? If you don't mind me asking." Polite is the best policy for dealing with the Master when he's like this. Pity the Doctor doesn't remember that more often.
"I'm living like a hobo."
"Yes, I can see that."
"For life experience.
"Weeelll, I hate to break it to you Master, but if you don't have life experience then no one has it."
The Master sniffs disdainfully, which is a bit much coming from someone who is sitting in a skip.
"I know I have life experience, just not the right kind."
The Doctor fishes through his pockets and pulls out his sonic, he doesn't have a light setting on it per se, but it glows the same blue no matter what he uses it for.
In the dim light, the Doctor gestures frantically around, banging his flailing limbs more than a few times. The Master has to duck several times to avoid being hit.
"So you're going to find the right life experience in this particular dumpster!?"
The Master purses his lips, "No..."
The Doctor thinks that the Master's finally seeing sense, but no.
"No...I still have to live in a refrigerator box and then you have to take me back to the 1800s so I can trudge across this continent with a bindle, living on whatever I can catch with my bare hands."
"I see...and why exactly do you need to do this?"
"For material, for my songs."
"Oh, going to be a folk singer then?"
"No need for that tone, Doctor."
"Oh, yes of course, there is a natural progression from hobo to folk singer. Perfect sense," he pauses a moment to decide how best to phrase his next sentence, "It just seems a little...insane, is all and not in your usual way."
The Master sighs pathetically, "Of course a Time Lord would have to be insane to want to be a folk singer," he frowns angrily "I need to do this to be authentic! This is what you said I should do anyway."
"What? I never did!"
"Yes you did, you said and I quote, 'bla, bla, bla, find yourself Master, bla, bla'-"
"I didn't mean this!"
"Well you didn't specify, so I'm trying as many identities as I can, see which one suits the new me."
Ah, so that's what's going on. The Doctor's relieved to finally be on the same page as the Master. Well maybe not on the same page, but on the same chapter. The same book volume, at the very least.
Finding himself, that should be short lived and soon the Master will decide to stick with his own personality, minus the killing of course. Hopefully.
"So," the Doctor continues cheerfully, "1800s?"
The Master arches an eyebrow, not that the Doctor can tell in the dark, "If you drop me off just before the turn of the century, I'll let you come with."
The Doctor grins, walking with the Master; he thinks he'll like that.