NOTE: Slight potential to be incredibly disturbing.
The Doctor looks exhausted. She eyes him critically from where she sits, rigid, at the Master's mockery of a thanksgiving feast. Her family are around her, Tish by her side and her husband across from her, both looking just as wary as she feels. It's just the four of them around this huge table. A brief respite before the Master bursts in spouting madness, she thinks.
It's been almost a week since she last saw the Doctor, and if she'd thought he seemed tired then it's nothing to the shadows she sees now. He's sitting hunched over the table, head leaning on one thin arm, eyes closed. She doubts he's sleeping. Resting, maybe, but the lines around his eyes and the stiffness of his body betray him. She doesn't think she's ever seen him sleep, wonders if he has to. The dark circles under his eyes certainly seem to indicate that he does.
As if sensing her stare, he opens his eyes and gives her a small, tired smile. She tries to return the favour, thinks she's probably failed miserably. The Doctor looks as if he's about to say something to her but is cut off as his eyes widen and he visibly stiffens as his gaze shoots to the doors. It's the body language they've all come to associate with the Master's arrival.
"Aw, look at the family all sitting together!" the madman crows, striding into the hall with Lucy in tow. She is clad in orange, today. A well-tailored dress that hugs in all the right places. She seems completely absent, smiling vacantly as she takes a seat by the head of the table and next to the Doctor. The Master, eyes following her, seems to notice his enemy for the first time.
"Doctor! Now honestly, head on the table? What kind of manners are those?" he chides, playful in his tone but with danger in his eyes. The Doctor shrugs and sits up, eyes averted. For once there is no cutting comeback, and the Master seems disappointed. Francine can only hope that won't mean trouble for them all later.
"Now, are we all here?" the Master asks happily. He scans the scant occupants of the table and comes to light on the only empty chair. "Oh dear, now I certainly can't have forgotten Captain Jack!" He turns on his heel, looking towards the door impatiently. "Where is that Freak?" he asks.
As if on cue the Doctor's eyes light golden, and the door opens. Jack is escorted in by two Toclafane, well-dressed and looking far healthier than Francine's seen in the last month or so. The immortal man's gaze instantly seeks out the Doctor, seeming to fall when he realizes that his friend is still trapped in the body of a child.
"I thought we'd get him a bit cleaned up before we let him near the table," the Master smiles. Jack, as he so often does now, looks ready to kill the man, but a glance at the tired boy that is the Doctor, and Francine's terrified family, and he instead takes his seat quietly. He's been placed across from the Doctor, forced to watch as his young-old friend cringes at the sight of him, eyes glowing with the excess vortex energy emanating from Jack.
"Oh, but I do love that effect," the Master says, taking his seat. He smiles indulgently at the softly glowing Doctor, who is busy trying not to wince. "Like a little Christmas bulb! Hmm.. We'll have to think about that next month."
The meal is uneventful, as far as meals on the Valiant go. Despite everything Francine finds herself wishing the Doctor would eat more. He sits picking at his food, clearly unsettled by Jack and too drained physically to put much effort into eating. The Master is indulging himself with stories of his latest conquest, Lucy chiming in at all the right places with oohs and aahs. Jack eats voraciously, as he always does when food is set in front of him. Too many deaths by starvation, he'd said once, taught him never to let a meal go to waste. Francine thinks of this as she urges her family to eat. A full-spread turkey dinner is something to be taken advantage of, unpleasant company or not.
#-#
The Doctor pokes rather listlessly at the meat on his plate, trying to quell the rise of nausea in his stomach. This isn't turkey. He desperately hopes the Master won't reveal that fact to the humans, but he knows it's only a matter of time. The entire day's just been a setup for this meal, after all, and there's no way the Master would let it go by without tormenting his guests just that little more.
He sneaks a discrete glance at Jack to see if the immortal has noticed the not-turkey, and immediately wishes he hadn't. Besides the fact that, no, Jack hasn't noticed, the sight of that terrible, bright knot of fact sends his time sense reeling and his head pounding. Gold tinges the edges of his vision as he quickly looks away.
Wrong direction. The Master is smiling at him from the head of the table, just beyond Lucy. He considers averting his eyes, even decides that, yes, that's probably the right thing to do, and then finds himself glaring. And he thought his adult body was impulsive! The Master's grin has widened, nearly manic now, and the Doctor finally manages to look away. He can feel the others watching him, wonders what he could possibly offer the Master to keep him from sharing tonight's mealtime secret.
Nothing I'd want.
His fork clatters to his plate as he suddenly sits up ramrod straight and stares at his old enemy in shock. The Master's voice is cackling in his mind, even as the man's physical face grins at him. The humans have all stopped eating, startled by his sudden movement.
W-what are you—? How are you doing this? Get out!
He glares venomously on the last words, pushing with all his might against the presence in his mind. The Master merely chuckles.
"Now you know that's not going to work," he gloats, watching the Doctor like a cat with a mouse. The Doctor can feel himself panicking, hearts speeding up as the malevolent force in his mind shows no signs of retreating. All the humans are watching now, he can feel their fear, confusion, Jack's concern.
"G-get out!" he splutters. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jack start to stand, Toclafane rounding on him even before he can push his chair out. Struck with an idea, he tries desperately to keep his immediate thoughts from the prying eye of the Master.
Black tendrils curl around his mindscape, as he becomes partially pulled inwards by the invasion. The Master is searching, seeking out his secrets. He can't believe he's let this happen, let his concentration slip far enough to allow the Master into his head. No, no, don't think, don't vocalize… Just do!
Before anyone can stop him the Doctor lunges across the table, standing on his chair to reach as he grabs a startled Jack by the hand. A Toclafane takes aim and fires but that only helps him as he takes the ensuing surge of vortex energy from Jack's death and channels it inside himself, through his own mind and hard, hard as he can push it towards the Master's.
The resulting burst of lights behind his eyes renders him practically senseless. There is only gold and light and somewhere far away his TARDIS calling. And then Tish screams and he comes back to himself sprawled on the table, left arm stretched out and gripping Jack's dead body. Fizzles of vortex energy spark and jump between them, burning the already scorched skin on his hand and arm. His hearts are beating triple-time and every breath is fire, but he can't feel anyone but himself in his head and he knows he's driven the Master out. Pain, he can handle, loneliness he has practice with, but being violated on such an incredibly basic level… In telepathic terms such an invasion is tantamount to rape, and he can hardly bring himself to believe that the man he once counted as friend could have done something so vile. This madness has pulled him farther down than he'd thought possible.
The table shakes and he is pulled bodily from Jack's arm and tossed on his back on the floor by what he can only assume is the Master. Stars are still dancing through his vision and making everything but the most basic of shapes impossible to make out. Burnt out the optic nerve, he thinks, giddily. Shock is taking over his body and suddenly nothing is nearly as bad as it was. A drop of something warm hits his face and he blinks through the dull golden haze to see the Master standing directly over him, a thin red line of what is presumably blood leaking from what the Doctor decides to assume is his nose. What he can make out of his friend's face doesn't look too pleased and he can only grin, thinking serves you right! with no hope or desire to be heard.
#-#
When Jack comes to it is to the sight of the Master standing over the Doctor with possibly the most vicious expression he's yet seen on the vitriolic Time Lord. A line of blood is leaking from his nose and it doesn't take Jack long at all to figure out what happened. The Master had invaded the Doctor's mind and, panicking, the Doctor had driven him out using the only weapon at his immediate disposal: vortex energy. Jack is impressed, if worried for the health of everyone in the vicinity. The Master doesn't look pleased at all, and an upset Master usually results in death for him and pain for the Joneses, and the Doctor.
Speaking of whom—Jack leans forward slightly in his seat only to see the man-turned-boy in question lying sprawled on the ground, grinning like a loon. Jack thinks he must be in some sort of shock, because he doesn't look even remotely perturbed by the laser screwdriver now pointed at his face. The Master yells something untranslated, a jangling, angry noise that sounds somehow like music. Giggling, the Doctor responds in the same language, his soft child's voice adding a lilting quality to the notes.
Gallifreyan… Jack realizes, transfixed by the sound. In the two months they've been here, neither the Doctor or the Master has uttered anything in their native language. Or, he thinks, the TARDIS has been translating for him. He hates to think what the sudden change means for the state of the Doctor's mind.
Another few chiming words, back and forth between the two Time Lords. Whatever the Doctor just said seems to have infuriated the Master, and before Jack can react he finds himself dead for the second time in as many minutes, the laser screwdriver pointed squarely at his heart.
#-#
All is silent as Jack crumples to the floor. The Master stands still, screwdriver still pointed at the air where the Freak used to be. He's heaving, mind straining to right itself after the Doctor's unexpected onslaught. Using the Freak to channel a bolt of vortex energy… Dangerous, stupid, and exactly the sort of idiotic thing the Doctor would do. He turns and glares again at the boy sprawled on the floor, small chest heaving and eyes screwed up in pain. At least the little bastard's stopped grinning now.
Behind him the Joneses are staring, glued to their seats with fright. Lucy, bless her, is still gingerly sipping her wine. With a quick flip of the screwdriver into his pocket the Master deliberately turns from his adversary, smiles at his wife and plucks a napkin from the table to mop up the blood from his nose. The humans don't know what to think; he likes it that way.
"Alright, kids, show's over. You don't want your turkey to get cold now do you?" He grins at the Jones family, who seem capable of nothing besides shocked staring. Francine, though, glares faintly. Oh but she's suddenly so protective of the Doctor now that he's small. It's cute how quickly her tiny human mind switches gears based on nothing but appearances.
"Oh, but you know the really interesting thing?" he suddenly continues, leaning on the back of his chair casually. "With just a few spices and the right cooking method, you can make a human thigh taste almost exactly like turkey! No kidding!" His grin widens as the faces before him suddenly go pale. Humans!, he thinks, no sense of taste whatsoever.
"Now," he stands up straight, stretching and patting his stomach as if full, "I don't think this table is going to clear itself, is it?" A pointed, dangerous stare at Francine, and suddenly all the Joneses are up, clearing dishes with that sickly pale look on their faces. It's frankly quite hilarious, and he laughs as he draws up Lucy from her seat. She's completely unfazed, the mad girl. He loves how insane she's become in such a short time, how disconnected and cruel she is. Definitely an improvement from just a few months ago, the priss in frills and curls.
He orders Jack's body cleared from the room and the Doctor, still glowing faintly and staring at the ceiling, to be left alone. Lucy leaves for her chambers and he leans against the table, waiting for the Joneses to clear it and considering his options. He'd love so dearly to hurt the Doctor right now, but looking at the Time Lord he can see that neither physical nor emotional pain is going to penetrate far in this state. The boy seems to be in a bit of a daze, no doubt from channeling the equivalent of a TARDIS flux drive through a head the size of a coconut. Talk about overreacting.
"Doctor," he says, kneeling beside the boy on the floor. The golden glow is receding from his eyes, leaving them their usual brown—the optic nerve must have burnt out, but with all that residual healing energy he can probably see well enough by now. Experimentally he waves a hand above the Doctor's face and is rewarded with a startled blink.
"Wakey wakey," he says, the words dripping with malice. His old friend seems confused.
"Was I asleep?" the boy asks, blinking. He's using a subset of Gallifreyan usually reserved for children, the words simplistic and conveying only the most basic of temporal clause. It isn't how the Doctor normally speaks, and the Master finds himself suddenly concerned. He wants his enemy to hurt, yes, but he certainly doesn't want him to lapse into some sort of bizarre second childhood. That would be no fun at all.
Francine is mopping up bloodstains nearby and he speaks in English for her benefit, knowing the TARDIS is too weakly linked to the Doctor's mind to be translating. He likes the humans to be included—the more you know the more you have to fear, after all.
"You tried to kill me, you little bastard," he says maliciously. It is part anger at the actual event, and part fear that he has finally pushed the Doctor's juvenile mind too far.
"Oh? I'm sorry, Koschei, I didn't mean to." The Doctor yawns and raises his left arm, scrutinizing the scorched flesh with a detached air. "I think I burnt my hand," he remarks blankly.
In a fit of irritation the Master grabs the injured appendage, finding only the barest hint of pleasure in the startled squeal. The Doctor's mind is receding from his now, too young to do anything but wander, and the silence left allows the drums to beat louder than ever.
