"No, you listen here, Mark: If I say we cast the hot girl from the audition as Moriaty's long lost identical twin sister, then that's what we do. I don't want to hear your whining about 'That's not how identical twins work' or 'That makes no sense at all'."
"But, Steven," the phone crackered "It's just a ridiculous idea-"
"YOU'RE A RIDICULOUS FUCKING IDEA! NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP AND WRITE THE FUCKING EPISODE!" Before a response could come, Steven Moffat threw down the phone. It was a Nokia Lumia 920- expensive- and it broke as it hit the table. The Moff didn't care though. He would buy another.
"Gatiss giving you trouble again?" asked Matt Smith as he wandered into the room.
"The man gets one BBC Four documentary three years ago and he still thinks he's god's gift to writing."
"To be fair, the documentary was pretty interesting, and the other stuff he's written was-" Matt faltered as Steven fixed him with a steely glare. "Sorry, Steven, I meant to say... uhh... he's shit?"
"You're damn right. Compared to me, everyone is shit."
Matt nodded, knowing that it was probably best for his career that he stay on the executive producer's good side. One wrong word in front of Moffat and he could say goodbye to kissing every attractive companion his Doctor had.
"Anyway, Matt, what did you want to see me about?"
"Right. The thing is, I've been reading some magazines, some newspapers-"
"Never read reviews."
"Yeah, I know, I wasn't. I was reading some rumours they were printing-
"I read a review once."
"Ok, that's great, but-"
"The reviewer said my writing was 'overly complicated'"
"Yeah, the thing is, they were saying that-"
"He doesn't write for that paper anymore."
"What?"
"Let's just say," Moffat leaned back in his chair, and arched his fingers "He doesn't write for life anymore"
"What does that even mean?" Matt muttered beneath his breath.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. I was just wondering, you see, there are all these rumours going around that I'm going to be leaving Who soon."
"You don't know if you are."
"Well, yeah, that's kind of the thing. You know that I want to stay around for at least a few more years, but when I read things like that, I get kind of worried that you're planning to write me out. You know, have a regeneration."
"You don't know if you're going."
"Yeah, that's what I'm saying-"
Moffat leaned forward, looking Matt dead in the eye. "You know who does know?"
"I... uh..."
"The papers don't know." Moffat jabbed a finger into Matt's chest "You don't know." He brought the finger back pointing to himself. "I know. I'm the only one who knows."
"I know you are, that's why I came to ask you."
"You could be the Doctor for years to come. Or, one flash of my fingers across my keyboard and boom..." Moffat threw his hands up into the air, symbolising an explosion, and brought them down slowly, his fingers waving like confetti falling in a light breeze. Matt sat, watching Moffat's hands, entranced by the inanity of what was happening. "The Doctor gets trapped in an Ood sex dungeon, and we roll on number twelve"
Matt waited for Moffat to go on, but he didn't. He just sat there, staring the actor in the eye unnervingly. This lasted for an uncomfortably long moment, before Moffat finally spoke "Does that answer your question?"
"No... no it doesn't" Matt said quietly.
"Excellent. I'll see you on set tomorrow."