Title: Revenge In Two Parts
Author: finkpishnets
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: T
Pairing: Rose/Master
Spoilers: All of Doctor Who up to the end of Series 3.
A/N: I felt a really strong urge to write angsty Rose/Master. It makes little sense if compared to the last episode of DW Series 3 but I'm sure all you lovely people can use your imagination. I shall hopefully write a longer story with this pairing in the near future that's not quite so depressing, but for now, this will have to do.
Their lips crushed together with a fierce intensity that matched the way they both felt. It was revenge, pure and simple; revenge for leaving them alone, revenge for not loving them enough, and revenge for being left to remember as he was able to move on.
Harold Saxon had come into Rose Tyler's life with every intention of wooing her and winning a place in her heart. He thought that sweet words and exciting stories would gain her attention so that he could use her and break her as his own form of justice. Except that wasn't her anymore. Eventually she had told him to 'Shut the hell up!' and kissed him violently. He gave up on the flowers and crap after that.
It wasn't love, it wasn't even like or comfort or any of that rubbish. It was probably hate more than anything, on both sides, but there was something else there too. Something like need. In reality, they were probably the only two people in the universe who could understand what the other was going through.
The Master had been sure that he'd be able to break the pretty little blonde human he'd seen in the Doctor's memory. She was strong of course – she'd absorbed the whole Time Vortex – but he hadn't realised that she'd be so jaded. In many ways, it made it so much easier for him to be with her like this, his attraction rising the more he realised just how much his equal she could be. Oh, she wasn't as powerful or anything of the sort, but she'd done more than him in many ways: when he'd looked into the Time Vortex it had not been by choice and even then he had gone mad, she however, had done so to save a life and had come out relatively unharmed.
He said relatively because of the other thing that made them so alike. She couldn't die. Neither of them could die and escape the feeling of complete abandon that threatened to creep into every waking moment. And there was a hell of a lot of those when time just would not stop!
Sometimes he thinks she maybe hates the Doctor a little bit for that too, this curse that means she has to watch her family and friends perish as she lives on. She'd never say that of course, oh no, the Doctor is still the love of her life and all that crap, but she definitely hates him enough to do this; to fuck his enemy and gain a rush of satisfaction from it every time. The fact that she still maybe sort of considers it cheating in the back of her mind proves that, even after all these years, she's not over him. The Master doubts she ever fully will be: he knows he isn't.
When they meet, it's in darkened corners and club bathrooms, never in her flat or his immaculate mansion. Despite how that might appear if it should ever become public, it is her decision and not his. It has nothing to do with his position in government and the title they would give her knowing that his wife is sitting at home playing hostess to all of his important guests. No, she couldn't give a damn about that. It has to do with the feeling of disgust she gets afterwards. She hates him but she hates herself so much more for needing to be with him when she could have anyone else. She could choose any man to help her move on with her life, but instead she goes backwards, clinging to a lost hope and trying to push it away all at the same time. She should feel like a bitch for stealing this man away from his beautiful, sweet wife except she doesn't because she knows who he is and that his life is a façade anyway, so why not just build on that. She could feel it straight way; the minute he'd walked into the coffee shop where she sat and drank her morning cup of tea there was a change in the atmosphere, a rush that she hadn't felt in so many years. At first she'd let hope bubble up in her, believing that finally, finally, he had come back for her. But no, the man had moved with intent towards her but she knew it was not her Doctor. There was no compassion there, no love or kindness, just purpose and something a lot like hatred. He'd followed her around for awhile, spewing romantic stories about things that would have made her heart race once upon a time. Now it just bored her, but for some reason, he didn't. In the end she'd told him to shut up and kissed him without any real thought. Afterwards she'd demanded he tell her exactly who he was and why he was stalking her like a lost puppy dog; he'd given her an amused look and proceeded to do just that. When he'd finished, she's slapped him before letting him kiss her thoroughly.
It had all developed from there.
Now, he would look at her and see a woman who had once been so full of a childish love for life but now carried a weight on her shoulders that would one day be equal to his own. Whenever he spoke to her or kissed her he made it seem like he was cold and disinterested; she was a plaything, a way of getting revenge on an unaware victim and nothing more. Except each time they met he found himself clinging just that little bit tighter and when they weren't together she was the primary focus of all his thoughts. He knew he should get out whilst he still could, but for some unthinkable reason, he couldn't bring himself to do so.
Every time she told herself that this was it, this time she was breaking free. But then she'd look at him and realise that even though he was a bastard, and even though he was quite probably more evil than most of the creatures she had faced in her life, he was just as broken as she was. They had both loved the one man you can never, ever get over and been destroyed by it.
And so they let go on, and on, and on, hoping that one day the pain would ease and they wouldn't need each other quite so much any more.
It was a false hope and they both knew it.