(This is a rewrite of my older fic We Stand Together. Some things are the same, much is not... Enjoy~)
Crackling. He was crackling. His mind, his skin, his essence, down to the bone, down to the soul, deep down to the depths and core of everything he was and everything he could possibly be. He was crackling and he knew this was not how this was supposed to be.
The resurrection had gone wrong, that was the truth and as the Master wandered and crackled and felt every thought he could have colliding with one another to make a mess, stirred up by drums, he tried to trace what had happened and why and how. He had planned everything as perfectly as he felt possible, set the pieces, let the events fall; dying aboard the Valiant had been a possibility he had always been aware of, death was something he always planned for. Lucy, sweet Lucy Saxon, she was not supposed to be the one to do it of course. He had expected the freak or the girlie or the family or maybe, just maybe, if he wished upon a star, maybe the Doctor would have finally done him in. But no, it had to be Lucy, his own companion, his own wife; how cruel and ironic was that. The Doctor's companion saves him, the Master's kills him, over and over and over again; the memories were forced forward, certainly not by choice, and a scream utterly inhuman left his lips as he slammed his hands against the sides of his head.
No.
No.
No, no, no.
He'd died and he'd planned and he had everything in preparation. The Doctor wouldn't even know, the damned fool, that meddling well-meaning walking disaster, not until it was far too late. But Lucy Saxon, Lucy, she ruined that too. It wasn't enough to kill him; she had to break his hearts too. Cruel, cruel Lucy Saxon. He'd been brought back, or was in the process of completing the process, but she had apparently plotted and planned on her own, silly girl, and they had broken the chain. Too late though, he was still there, still here; he looked at his hands, Harry Saxon's hands, the Master's hands. There was a crackle and the skin turned translucent while the bones glowed blue. A mad laugh left his lips now and he dug his fingers into his hair. He was there but he wasn't right, something had gone wrong, everything had gone wrong. The Master, immortal, unkillable, was trapped in a body that moreso than ever before was dying.
He wasn't sure where he was, nor did he much care. He could smell the world around him, of meat and life and food and existence and it made his mouth water. Delicious, hot, he was so hungry, so very very hungry. Time Lords ate, of course they did, but it was usually a sort of thing they did because they felt like it and the need to do so wasn't usually so intense. But he was Wrong and his body was dying and the energy he needed was ripping through him instead of giving him any sort of solace. He was hungry and there was so much around to devour, so many lives, so many bodies, so many people. A woman walked by with her little dog and he eyed them both in the way one might eye a particularly juicy steak; neither would fill him up, he knew in some deep unknowable way that nothing ever would, but perhaps for a second there would be relief in him from whatever was going through his body.
Luckily for owner and pet though the drums proved, as always, a far greater threat to him than starvation. They were loud, they were louder and louder with each regeneration, every death, every return, from the first to the last, from failed decaying form to death snake to Yana and beyond, but this time it was finally unbearable. His thoughts formed but the rhythm scared them away after not too long; he was certain now that they had to be audible to others, the pounding that filled the air and made him double over after the woman had passed, so loud, so painful, so intense he found himself dry heaving. The four-beat, constant and vicious, the torment from a young age. That no one, not a single soul, had ever been kind enough to accept was real; how many souls had he told? At first so many but the looks and reactions made it less and less, the Doctor's stare burned so intensely into the core of his memories that the idea of telling any other was paramount to suicide. No one believed him, no one listened; he tried of course, he really did, but he had to live with the knowledge that no one cared. One or two trickled in over the years but every last one had been the same; he was happy to be looked upon as insane if it was because he was gleefully bringing about the end of the world or had done something especially cruel and evil. But to be looked upon such because of the drums left scars every time that just made him madder and madder every time. Especially when those glances came from the one person he could not stand having look at him like that, especially when it was the Doctor.
It took time, too much time, so much time, to pull himself together. The drums never stopped, they kept going, kept pounding, but he was able to stand and breathe and look up at the sky and know he was too stubborn to fall or die. The Master licked his lips and he continued on, walking, always walking; where was a Tardis when you needed one? In the hands of a greater madman than he and she wouldn't want him anyway after he gutted her and turned her into a paradox machine. Rude he knew but necessary. He missed his Tardis but he never would have done that to her, only other people's.
He let the jumbles and the tangles of thought and memory and sentiment fill his mind, distract the drums while his feet carried him on. He had no plan, there was nothing after what had happened to him; the prison was destroyed, Lucy and the others dead, his lifeforce flickering like a candle in a storm, there was no plots or schemes that could survive the onslaught of the drums screaming out their demands. This felt pointless wandering and he chose on purpose to pretend to ignore the fact that this was what the Doctor did, always did, forever and ever. Being like the Doctor made him even more sick than the pounding made him feel. A plan, he needed a plan, something to do, somewhere to go, something to strive towards. World domination, universal domination, a point, a choice, a goal; the problem was the drums and the hunger, both deep and vicious, both consuming and demanding. One wanted his mind, the other drove him to eat. Some part of him, still sane and together in the maelstrom within, knew that nothing would truly satisfy them, not food and not dominion over all. Once he trapped by one, now he was trapped by both.
The Master continued to walk and over time he came to the decision that his best option at the moment was to feed his hunger at least. He did not have an eternity, as strange as it felt to think this as a Time Lord to whom Time should always be a question and not an absolute; between his body pulling itself apart at the seams and the Doctor who would inevitably, undeniably appear eventually as he always would to try to find him, he had to prepare, he had to plan, he had to make the best of this time Before as much as he could. But he could not calm the drums to give himself peace so he would have to do with giving into his hunger; maybe then he would find a second of peace to think straight and decide on next actions.
The next span of time felt like it was running on fast forward and bits and pieces he retained as he picked bits of flesh from his teeth, feeling nothing less than like an animal, filthy, weak and oh so hungry still.
There had been a small space contained within a larger space, his mind thought of Tardises but in reverse; a tiny food truck, a few people, not too many, not too filling. The sweetness of the lady who gave him the burger, so kind, so unsuspecting, until he made himself known and her fear had been all the more delicious for it. The two homeless men, the older one had tried to act so tough, so wise, but he tasted of indecision and despair, of cowardice and forgotten things; the younger man had been far stronger, his heart still brimming with something akin to hope. Hope was delicious, hope was strong, hope made him lick his lips and savor. There had been discussion and talk and his madness slipped out; he was still trapped in this form, in the guise of the Prime Minister, he who was the master of disguises, an expert in changing himself to hide. But talking of that only drove him even more mad and he had vague memories of his actions then, through death and laughing and attacking and then here.
A wasteland, everything was a wasteland. A quarry full of trash and rock and nothingness, within the confines of the world of humanity, a perfect representation of all they were and everything they could ever be in his mind. He felt utterly and completely alone and the drums persisted but at a decimal he could at least handle, sitting, waiting. Waiting for what, he couldn't be absolute on but it was an instinct, a voice within him that whispered and called out, slipping out from under the drums to tell him that it was almost time.
A shiver found it's way down his spine and he knew it had finally come. He pulled off his hood and took a deep breath, to sense, to feel, to find. Oh he was near, in that way Gallifreyans, Time Lords, could know, could find one another, the Master knew it was true. The Doctor had come and no doubt it would be to heal, to fix, to save. To entrap the Master and hold him forever and utter those disgusting, ridiculous words again; it filled him with rebellion just to think of ever hearing them again.
But oh it wouldn't do to just wander off and hide, that wasn't him, it never had been; pageantry and dramatics had been to his core since the beginning, since fields of burning grass and days of strange plastic figures. The Doctor had come to find him, the Doctor had come to fix it; it would only be rude not to at least give the fool a fighting chance to find him. A tiny voice whispered, as he smirked, as he got up, as he grabbed his instrument of arrival for today, a metal pipe, and approached the nearby metal barrel. It whispered and told him This is how it always goes, this is why you always lose. The Master knew the voice and he ignored it as he always had, with the confidence and faith of a true believer. This time though, this time surely and absolutely would be different.
There was but one way to announce his glorious, not so glorious, presence. A beat of four, pounded into the metal drum slowly but steadily. And then with the patience of a god he waited. He waited and he waited and he listened and he remembered. The Doctor always kept him waiting, a sort of resentment bubbled up and he did it again, slow again, steady again, but something inside started to surged. His mind was a jumble and the drum beat demanding. The world around was so empty of any true meaning or value to him, the sky too blue, the ground too barren, the world too...not home. He thought of home in this moment, of the grass and the trees and the red sky and the Citadel and everything burning, everything dying, everything breaking. But his mind stuck on the sensation of waiting, waiting so long, waiting so hard, for someone who had left him behind long ago.
A third time then unable to hold his emotions entirely in check, a fourth that came out so fast it was almost a blur. All the frustration, all the anger, all the pain, poured into his arm and out through the beat of four he forced out of pipe and barrel. He told himself that it was enough, that surely that complicated disaster would come now. He had to come now, he would of course; this version chased and chased and chased some more, with that look and that voice that begged for something, begged for more. Why he couldn't be this way before, back when things were still in flux, back when this could have all been avoided. But Gallifrey had burned and the Master's hearts had done so too long ago for it to matter now.
He ran now, because to make this easy would be no fun at all. Let the Doctor chase, to try, to fail; let him be the one yearning and asking for more, for something, a tidbit of the days of yore. The Master ran through the junkyard, the shipyard, the debris and mess of humanity, feeling his body dying with every step he took and every breath he took. But this body was incapable of doing anything but dying so he was far from surprised or disappointed, as long it kept together long enough to keep him away, to keep him steps apart. Or steps closer; he could feel the Doctor and despite himself he was drawn, drawn towards that light, flickering, warm, cruel. He thought of creeks and rivers and the laughter of children as two boys played along the banks together, never thinking, never dreaming, that this would be where they'd be one day.
His feet stopped upon a hill and he looked down. There he was, the source of all cruelty, the memory of all hope: the Doctor, staring up at him with that desperation, that surprise. Of how was the Master alive, how was the Master here, why did the Master look this way. Frustration again, and pain, and abandonment, and hatred, and the drums with which came madness, all swirling and running about in his mind. The Master screamed, he screamed with all his body and soul, he screamed because he needed to, because he wanted to, because he had to. The Doctor would never understand, he never did, he never tried, whatever was the point. There was shock and something else in those eyes that stared at him as he screamed and he wondered for a second if it was too much. Before deciding that it was nowhere near enough.
Madness brought a grin and he he jumped away, too high, too much; this body was many things but far from under any level of control. The Master simply took it as it was and he ran again, ran without stopping, ran without breathing. This game of cat and mouse, it used to be tag, it used to be hide and seek, it used to be so many things and so much more innocent. But that was when they ran through meadows of burning grass, not rocks and dirt and debris. On this planet nothing ever could be so innocent and good for them. Yet there was still some childishness left in the husk of a Time Lord and some glee to be had of being so many steps ahead, always ahead; the Doctor always took so much time to catch up, to find the plan, to know the truth. He took too long to find the Master so many times over and how many times had that allowed him almost to win. Almost, came that whisper before; Almost but never quite. He thought to shush himself but the chase was more important. He could talk to ghosts later.
Couldn't let the Doctor lose track of him too much though, had to stop, had to stand, had to taunt. He laughed as the Doctor got close again, closer now; they were almost on even footing now though of course the Master still stood on higher ground. Not morally, he knew that, but the margin seemed to have closed more and more on that one since the last days of that hell that they called the Time War.
"Please let me help you!" Oh Doctor, Doctor Doctor Doctor. There was some pity to the way he spoke to the Master and there was some pity but plenty of disgust in the way the Master looked at him in response. Why did he always do that, why always that? Help him, save him, what kindness, what cruelty.
"You're burning up your own life force!" The Master wanted to laugh again at that; as if he didn't know, as if he didn't notice. His skin crackled under itself, he felt death's grip with every breath, every step, every second of existence. But Death was a constant irritation and he was nothing if not it's Champion.
The Doctor looked so pleading, so begging. He remembered how they were apparently the only ones, the last ones, the remaining Time Lords. He'd almost chalk this up to that, to the wish to not be alone, but his oldest enemy had always been this way really. Always wanting to capture him, never wanting to kill him, no matter what the Master did, no matter how much death and destruction and pain and suffering he caused. Or was in.
A small laugh left him and he grinned before jumping to get away again, to start the running. The Doctor he was sure would chase and this would continue until the Master got bored or the Doctor gave up. Neither surely would happen before the heat death of the universe.
His leap this time was small. His surprise was not. He nearly knocked into a woman who was walking alongside it seemed at the exact wrong time. They stood face to face, the madman with drums in his head and a body ready to die at any time, and this strange woman who stared back at him with some confusion.
And eyes that reminded him of the color of the leaves in Gallifrey when the sun filtered through them. They seemed to burn at him and he wasn't sure entirely of what he was doing, or why, but his hand reached out and gripped her wrist before tugging her along after him.
"Run," he commanded and so they did.