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ans99Characters: Rose, the Master
Location: Diagon Alley
Date: Afternoon
Rating: R territory now...
The Alley was a mess. An absolute mess. Rose walked through the rubble and fragmented corpses slowly, stopping and stooping periodically to pick up coins and slip them into her pocket. She surveyed the buildings, their facades crumbled, almost unrecognizable. She was pretty sure she recognized the entrance to the stairway that led to the apartment she shared with the Doctor, but it was pretty well blocked with wreckage. Rose sighed and started to move the smaller pieces.
The Master had read the Network, and so he had some idea of what to expect upon his return to the Alley (not the least of which was the distinct possibility of incarceration). But just the sight of the place was something expectations could not prepare one for, and it gave him pause.
He was just starting to cross to the other side to where he hoped his belongings were still accessible-- at first attempting to pick his way carefully through the gore and debris, but very quickly giving up that idea and treading unevenly and carelessly over it all, this suit was ruined anyway-- when he spotted a small blonde figure a few doors down, struggling to unblock some stairs.
Rose. She hadn't looked up, but he was almost sure of it. The Master froze for a second. He didn't recall seeing her since witnessing the break-up of Abberline's oh-so-secret meeting, but he had the vague idea he had anyway. The feel of her hand on his, pulling him through a void.
This is really not the time. He continued to walk quickly, turning his face from her and hoping he could disappear from her sight before she did look up.
Rose set the chunk of cement she was moving aside and stood to brush her hands on her jeans. She caught sight of a man hurrying past, looking away, and recognized him instantly.
"Sam!" she called, heading toward him. "Hey, Sam!"
He froze again, darting his eyes around, for a moment entertaining the notion that Sam had made it out of the maze alive, that Rose was calling him over, that this whole nasty business concerning the Doctor's whereabouts was going to begin again.
Thanks a lot, you supercilious pain in the ass.
But Sam didn't appear, and the Master realized Rose was approaching him, eyes wide and too familiar and not at all with her usual level of guardedness. She thinks I'm him.
Well, whatever.
He raised his hand awkwardly. "Hi."
Where did you..." she started to say as she came closer, then trailed off and swallowed.
That wasn't Sam.
"Master," she said quietly. "Sorry, from over there..." She gestured back to the pile of rubble she had been working with, letting her thought once again hang unfinished. She cleared her throat and came closer.
"Are you okay? How are your arms?"
The Master stared at her for a long moment, wondering how she knew about that.
her hand on mine
Something fit into place, her presence taking shape slowly in his memory. "You were there." It was somewhere between a statement and a question.
He blinked a few times, trying to jolt himself back into himself, put on some sort of face. "Right as rain. Never better. And you?"
She nodded at the words that were half questioning, stepping still closer.
"Fine," she said. "I'm fine. Trying to deal with the mess, and clear out some way of getting back into our apartment." She tilted her head, raised her eyebrows. "And hoping to stay as much out of all this political stuff as possible."
The Master smiled, drumming his fingers against his thigh restlessly. He didn't really care about any of this, and it was a mystery he'd even bothered to ask. He did not do small talk.
"Admirable goal." There was a pause. "I'm... glad you're alright." Inwardly he winced in disgust.
"Glad you are, too." She swallowed and gestured back to the blocked entryway. "Well, I should probably let you go, and get back to... you know..."
She took a step back, but didn't turn around yet. "Take care of yourself..."
He remained staring at her, speculative but clearly agitated.
"Why?"
Rose shook her head, confused. "Why what?"
"Just. Why. Why were you there?" The Master was speaking more rapidly, looking more pained and angry, as he went on. "Why do you care? After everything. Why?" His eyes pierced her.
She flinched under his sharp gaze, swallowed and looked away. She blinked, shook her head, shrugged.
"I... just do," she said softly. "You already have plenty of people who hate you. Maybe you need someone who doesn't." She looked down, studied her hands, smirked ruefully. "I'm likely daft, or naive. But I'm not willing to write anyone off." She looked up again, still to the side, and dropped her hands. "Sorry if it bothers you."
Maybe you need someone who doesn't.
He thought of the Doctor and felt like screaming. Instead he closed his eyes, tilting his head back and breathing in deeply before bringing his gaze back to her.
"If you're trying for my softer side, it may come as a surprise to you that I haven't got one. Lost it in the War." The Master tried unsuccessfully to smirk.
Rose shrugged again. "Sorry. Don't believe you."
She shifted her gaze back to the Master, and took a step forward. "What do you care? I mean, really? You could just..." She shook her head. "Take advantage of me. Of my good will. Why don't you?"
The Master took a step towards her in turn, flashing a wolfish grin, eyes dark.
"Is that what you want, then? Rose Tyler, safely kept, in her innocent little life. Does she want to look out into the dark? Maybe take a little tour?"
Rose took another step forward, her eyes steady on his. "Perhaps," she said quietly, honestly. "It's certainly what draws me to you." Another step, and she was really rather close, close enough to touch him if she wanted to.
He blinked, the only sign of surprise, before his expression settled lazily back into one of predatory amusement. He had expected fear, outrage, at the very least, hesitation, and for a moment he floundered mentally.
Oh, but she was close, the drums whispered. The Doctor's perfect Rose, he could grab, and pull, and wrench her out of the earth if he so chose. Uproot her, drive her mad. Make her his. His last revenge.
He considered her another moment. "No 'perhaps,'" he murmured. "No tours. No promises of safety. That's all so boring anyway, being safe. But then you know all about that, don't you."
Rose nodded slowly. "All too well," she murmured. She hated being coddled, kept safe, kept away. The Doctor wanted her safe because he loved her, because he couldn't bear to lose her. And she loved him, more than anything. Yet still his protection chafed at times.
And the condescending bastards here in Wonderland only made her feel it all too keenly. She had saved humanity, quite possibly the universe. Who were they to be so high and mighty?
But the Master... he had hurt the Doctor, hurt Jack, enslaved humanity, tried to destroy the universe...
"What exactly," she said, easing still closer, "do you propose?"
"That's another thing." He smiled crookedly at her. "I don't propose."
And then all at once his mouth was on hers, crushing, as if he were trying to bruise her lips. His palms rested with a gentle firmness against the back of her head and her shoulder, pressing her closer and preventing her from pulling away immediately.
Of course not, she thought, her mind strangely calm even as her body stiffened in surprise. He takes what he wants... He pressed her close, kissed her hard. Rose considered fighting him, pulling away, but knew that his hold on her would make that difficult. Instead, she raised her hands to rest them lightly on his arms, and kissed back.
The Master had closed his eyes before he'd even realized it, soaking in her reluctant compliance. Reveling in it. The drums thundered on, intensified by his pounding hearts. The two rhythms feeding into one another, so loud that surely someone else must hear it.
Someone else does.
His hand tightened in her hair and on her shoulder as he tried to pull her even closer to him.
She could feel his pulse as he pulled her tightly against him, the call-and-answer rhythm drumming against her chest. A small sound escaped her throat as her own eyes drifted closed, and her arms slid around him, her palms against his back, embracing him, holding him close.
We're in the middle of the street...
She managed to pull back just enough to whisper. "Not here..." Then she pressed her lips to his again.
The Master blinked his eyes open as Rose pulled away with her small protest, rolling them a little impatiently as she then immediately resumed kissing him anyway. This time he broke the kiss to speak.
"Still embarrassed to be seen with me?" His fingers toyed idly with the shoulder of her blouse, and underneath that, the strap of her bra. He studied her with his eyes as if she were an old project he'd just about made up his mind to go back to working on.
Rose sighed. "People already think that I'm in league with you, and nothing that I do seems to make a damn bit of difference. So for the vast majority of Wonderland, no. Screw them." She turned her head and watched his fingers playing with her blouse, then swallowed and turned to meet his eyes.
"But you know the exception to that."
Of course, why not, he's the exception to everything.
The Master went cold, furiously cold, his expression blank and unreadable, his fingers ceasing their exploration. "Where, then?" Just the right amount of defeat in his voice, although he hadn't really lost any ground, not really. If this was going to work, it'd have to be on her terms. Her decision.
Rose swallowed.
Oh God, Rose, what are you doing?
She shook her head a little, cast her gaze around the Alley. "The shops are all empty. I'm sure we can find somewhere..."
To do what? What exactly are you doing, Rose?
The Master looked around himself, thinking, seriously, where was a motel when you needed one? He spotted a shop with curtains drawn over the place where the front window should have been, the door yawning open on one hinge and the hanging sign long gone. He looked back at Rose until he managed to catch her eye, and then started towards the shop casually.
Rose took a moment to brush her hands again on her jeans, turning her head one way, then the other, surveying the Alley. No one seemed to be paying attention to her or the Master. What few people were about were either clearing rubble like she was or scrabbling for coins, and she didn't recognize any of them.
She straightened, took a breath, and followed. He'll rape you, her mind whispered. Probably. At the moment, she didn't care.
The Master was already inside the darkened shop, walking amongst rows of objects, mostly smashed or bent. He twirled one idly as he passed-- might have been for navigation, or perhaps some sort of star charting device-- and dust flew up, illuminated by small slits of light getting past the curtains and streaking their way across the room, and settled again somewhere else.
If he'd been able to think, if there wasn't this insane rhythm of pain and anger and fear pounding through him, he might have been searching right now for the knapsack he'd left what seemed like ages ago. He'd be on his way out of the Alley, out of danger.
Alone.
The Master closed his eyes, resisting the urge to dash the contents of the shelf to the ground.
She came up behind him, watching him as he trailed his fingers over the objects. As he stopped, and stood, his head bowed slightly, his body rigid. Something was wrong, and Rose felt a twist of pain for him.
He's so alone...
She remembered that day, in the middle of a busy sidewalk, in the middle of London, when the Doctor had told her that he was the last of his kind, that everyone else was dead. This was eerily similar.
She stepped close, held out her hand, ran it gently down his back. "I'm here," she whispered.
He shuddered involuntarily as she touched him, then inwardly cursed himself for letting her sneak up on him, for allowing his senses to be so dulled, for letting this trip him up again and again and again and again, getting in the way of everything, for letting her get close enough to touch him, see him this way.
For liking it quite so much.
The Master turned quickly, catching her wrist, smirking. "So you are."
He gestured around the shop. "So. Anywhere in particular strike your fancy? There might be some sort of quarters for the shopkeeper. Or, you know, we could just clear off one of these tables. Of course there's always the floor, but honestly, you don't strike me as the type." He grinned harshly.
He shivered under her touch, then turned quickly, and she flinched as he caught her wrist.
Too close.
"Rather kind of you, really," she said, meeting his eyes as she flexed her trapped hand once, slowly. "To be thinking about my comfort." She nodded, looking around. "Let's see if there are quarters. If not, we can... improvise."
"Whatever you say." The Master interlaced his fingers in hers, trying to ignore the painful fact he hadn't done that since Lucy, and turned, taking quick strides towards the shadows at the back of the shop, half-dragging Rose behind him. Glass and rubble and who knew what else crunched beneath their feet.
She swallowed and squeezed his fingers gently, then did her best to keep up. The light that filtered in from the half-open door and the small gap between the curtains only reached about halfway through the shop. After that the only light was a dull glitter of reflection off of the broken glass scattered over the floor. In her hurry to keep up, Rose hit her shin on something wood... maybe a chair, or an upturned table. She sucked in her breath in pain, but kept going.
As they approached the back of the shop, they could just barely make out another door, open a crack, a dim light filtering through.
He could hear nothing but the drums as he thundered towards the door he'd seen, pushing it open and swinging her around, hauling her roughly into the room ahead of him and letting go of her hand. This was bad. Very bad. And it was going to get so much worse. He leaned against the door frame watching her stumble, his other hand clenching at the molding behind him, trying to gain some sort of control, before following her in.
It was sort of a bedroom, kitchen, and dining area all in one, and it was less a mess than he would have expected, judging on the rest of the place. Light filtered softly in from a window draped with thin curtains, the rod slightly askew. The bed, a utilitarian cot, sagged sadly at one end of the small room. The Master strolled over to it, brushed some dust off it with a critical air, and immediately sneezed.
Rose struggled to keep her footing as he pulled her violently into the room, throwing out her hands to steady herself on the far wall. She stood for a moment with her head bowed, her eyes closed, trembling slightly.
She heard him sneeze, and whirled around, her back hitting the wall with a dull thud. She reached up with a shaking hand and brushed the hair out of her face, watching him closely.
At least she's not laughing.
"Well?" He looked up at her as he spoke softly. "Comfortable enough for you? Or shall we look elsewhere?"
She swallowed, nodded, and began to approach. "This... this will do fine," she murmured. Once she was close, she reached out a hand and trailed it lightly down his chest, her breath picking up speed, ever so slightly. She looked up into his eyes, examining them, wondering what he was thinking, what he was feeling.
The Master watched her approach him, purposefully remaining still. Although his actions were mercurial, he was old enough to have stored up at least a little patience.
She touched him like you would a dangerous animal, with some sort of strange mixture of fear tempered with desire, a longing to connect, an illogical need to tame, and he hadn't had that since Lucy either.
Oh, yes you have.
Shut. UP.
He closed his eyes and attacked her mouth with his own again, desperately.
She gasped at his suddenness, then moaned against his lips and kissed him back with force, a counter-attack of lips and teeth and tongue. One of her hands went to the back of his head, her fingers sliding into his hair and tightening there, while the other tugged at his shirt until it was untucked. She slipped her hand beneath the cloth and moaned again, softly, as her fingertips glided over the bare skin of his stomach, his side, the small of his back.
He smiled against her mouth, she was just as out of control as he was, and that was comforting in a strange way. His hands went to her back, and he crushed her against him, swinging her onto the cot and falling with her in a large puff of dust. The cot creaked warningly, but held.
He lazily traced a loose strand of her hair down her collarbone to her shoulder, gently tugging the collar of her blouse down, before trailing down that same path with his teeth, biting into her flesh, sometimes gentle, mostly not.
Rose let out a short cry as they hit the bed, then turned her face and coughed on the dust. She looked back to the Master when he began to touch her, gazing up at him, allowing herself to gently touch his cheek.
"Master," she whispered.
Then he began to bite her, and she cried out in pain-tinged pleasure, her back arching involuntarily, the hand that was on his cheek shifting into his hair. She closed her eyes, bit her lip, her breath ragged.
Still that involuntary shiver at the sound of his name, a lit fuse traveling quickly. With his other hand the Master groped for the buttons on her blouse, undoing them with... perhaps an unsurprising deftness.
He tried to avoid wondering if the Doctor had done this a dozen times before, traced this exact same path, but of course by then it was too late. He bit down especially hard into her trapezius muscle, unable to hold in a little groan.
She shivered as his hand ran down the front of her blouse, undoing the buttons one by one, beginning to expose her, lay her bare. Then he bit her, hard, and Rose had to bite her own lip so hard that she tasted blood to keep from screaming.
>God, what the hell am I doing?
But that groan that escaped from the Master's throat touched her, captivated her. At that moment, she would do almost anything to hear it again. The hand in his hair tightened, and her other hand began to gather up the cloth of his shirt, slowly drawing it up his back.
The Doctor will hate you for this... She turned her head, just enough to capture the Master's ear in her lips, sucking it gently, then biting it firmly.
The Doctor moves on, and once he does, he doesn't even want me back. Only a matter of time. Her breath hitched in her throat, half sigh, half sob.
He gasped in a little breath as she bit him back, clenching her shoulder tight, for a moment the names of muscles and bones and tendons, all knowledge, all memory drowned out. Just this, just sensation and Rose and drums and he hurried through the last of the buttons, running his hand up her side and back down the curve of a breast, digging in slightly with his fingers.
She's probably thinking about the Doctor right now.
He growled softly, as if marking his territory, and squeezed harder.
Rose moaned as his fingers tightened on her breast. He liked the bite to his ear, so she bit him again, harder, and allowed her own fingers to dig into his side.
"Master," she whispered, her lips against his ear, and continued hesitantly. "Would you take off your shirt? Please?" She didn't know how he'd respond to that. It was as much an invitation for him to define the boundaries and flavor of their encounter as it was a request to feel his bare skin on hers.
The Master closed his eyes as she bit him again, hard enough to hurt, whispered his name again. Marveled at her willingness to call him that; even Lucy couldn't get her head around it, would always end up screaming the name of Harold Saxon no matter how much he tried. And then stiffened at her request, the subservient phrasing rankling a little.
He shifted slightly, up on one hand for balance, staring into her eyes coldly, his tie trailing onto her, before he continued opening her blouse, reaching to undo her bra, pointedly ignoring her words. She'd have to learn to take what she wanted, sooner or later.
She blinked up at him, not having expected this response... or rather, non-response. Her mind raced to interpret. He likes it when I bite him, when I kiss him hard... he doesn't want me to be submissive, he wants me to take him.
She grabbed his tie, pulled him down roughly, and crushed her lips against his, beginning to undo the buttons with her other hand.
His other hand came down onto the cot for balance as she pulled and he fell, sending up another small cloud of dust, and he uttered another very small groan of surprise and resignation. The smell of the dust, the destruction, reminded him of home
(or what had been home)
the rubble and the char, memories of smoke and screaming and metal and blood still lingering, and he surrendered to that feeling of aimless victory, of being trapped even as he won. He pressed into her, raising up against her as she fumbled with the shirt buttons under the suit jacket.
His groan sent a chill right through her, and she echoed it with one of her own, deep in her throat. Her hands became insistent, impatient, as she dragged his jacket back off his shoulders and peeled it off his arms, one by one. All the while she kissed him, hard, her tongue exploring his mouth, her teeth occasionally nipping at his lower lip.
The Master shuddered again, faintly feeling a little more vulnerable, another layer exposed. His hands returned to Rose's own chest, finally unhooking the bra clasp, appreciative that it was a front-facing one. He parted it as he had her shirt, cupping her breasts and running both thumbs across her nipples lightly, retaliating. He opened his eyes, watching her.
Rose dropped the Master's jacket to the floor beside the bed. Before she could return to unbuttoning his shirt, however, he unhooked her bra and began to caress her breasts. She drew in a shivery breath, her eyes on his, then very slowly closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and raised her arms above her head, presenting her chest and her throat to him. As his thumbs ran over her nipples she moaned, softly.
"Master," she whispered again, loving the sound of his name, as well as the effect that it had on him.
rose
Something about her position
like a flower opening up a contradiction thorns and acquiescence
awakened some predatory instinct in him and the Master wasted no time in darting his arm up, pinning her wrists with one hand. He lunged teeth first at her exposed neck, other hand still on her breast, crushing it possessively. He writhed against her, tongue running against her skin as he bit down, flooded with that internal rhythm, unconsciously incorporating it into his movements.
He captured her, crushed her, bit her, hard, and she cried out his name, the name that's not a name yet more than a name, as her body writhed against his in pleasure, in pain, in time with his body's insistent dance. She strained her wrists against his hold, not intending to escape, but to give him something to work with.
His hand tightened on her wrists painfully, his fingers branding them with white, as she struggled and cried out, and oh, how rewarding that was, the Doctor's perfect Rose calling out his name, wanting him, the rest of the world, everything she cared about, falling away. Or being ripped away, piece by piece, he could do that. She could be like him. Stronger than Lucy, she'd fight him the whole way, and he needed that, needed that struggle.
He ran his other hand back down her side, catching his fingers on the waistband of her jeans, running them just under it and around to her lower back.
Rose cried out in pain as his fingers dug into her wrists, and writhed against him, fighting him for real now, fear starting to creep in.
Then his fingers slipped into her waistband, and she became very still, her eyes drifting closed, remembering their first encounter, in the grotto, when he had done the same thing. She had been so tempted, even then...
But the Doctor...
She swallowed. Oh God...
The Master paused, waking a little as he sensed some sort of shift in her, relaxing his grip incrementally. He unconsciously began rubbing the small of her back; he'd fallen into the habit on the Valiant, finding it seemed to help when his wife had been feeling... tetchy.
He lifted his head from her neck, where he noted a truly magnificent bruise forming, and looked at her lying there with her eyes closed, no longer struggling.
"What?" He spoke quietly, with a hint of irritation at the disturbance.
He was rubbing her back, gently, and Rose opened her eyes, surprised by the tenderness of the gesture. She met his gaze and swallowed, shaking her head slightly. "Nothing, it's... I..."
Oh God...
"I can't." She closed her eyes and grimaced. Fuck. "I can't do this." Then she laughed like someone falling apart at the seams, rocking her head back and forth.
The drums were still raging in him, and he had to fight an almost irresistible urge to slap her as she laughed, hit her and keep hitting her until she shut up shut up SHUT UP
He was off the cot, off her, in one fluid motion, buttoning his shirt quickly, turned away from her.
The laugh died.
"No," she said, scrambling up. "No, please. I'm... I'm sorry. Please." She stared at him, stricken, shaking her head. Then she cleared her throat and said one word, firmly. "Stay."
The Master looked back behind at her with an unreadable, tight expression as he finished buttoning the collar, straightened his tie. He scooped up his suit jacket and threw his arms into it, shrugged it the rest of the way on, adjusted the lapels with rushed, jerky movements.
Rose sighed, and swallowed, staring down at her hands. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.
He turned round completely to face her and just stood there stiffly, arms at his sides, as if defeated. None of his postures.
He wasn't sure why he was waiting for her to make up her mind, couldn't think straight. Couldn't think. He stared at Rose, her shirt still unbuttoned and slightly askew, the bruise on her neck, and felt cold.
Rose stood slowly, her eyes still cast down. Her shirt hung open, only partially concealing her breasts, and as she approached carefully she snapped her bra closed.
She raised her eyes when she was close, regarded him for a moment, then reached out, cupped his cheek, and kissed him. "Thank you, Master," she whispered. She stepped back and started to button up her shirt. When the buttons were halfway fastened, she stopped and raised a hand to her neck, touching the side gently. She looked up at the Master.
"There's a mark, isn't there?" She fought back a return of the laugh that had so clearly distressed him. "You've marked me."
He dug his nails into his palms as she approached and kissed him, welcoming pain that was tangible. Real.
Thank you? He had a sudden desire to grab her, choke the life out of her. Make that bruise spread. But he just stood there solidly, heavy and wooden.
She fingered her neck, realizing what he'd done, and he should have been so proud, let her explain that one to the Doctor, let her try to hide what she'd been doing, let her become even more like him. And that's not all I've done, he thought, one hand straying to his suit pocket and fingering the PDA device, surreptitiously switching it off.
Honestly, he should be happier.
"You deserve each other." His words were flat, low, and unexpected even to his own ears. He turned on his heel and strode quickly out of the room.
She watched him leave, didn't try to stop him, feeling eerily calm. Once he was gone she sank slowly to the bed, staring into the dark room. After a few moments she pulled out her handheld, and with the same strange calmness left a message for the Doctor. Then she slid the device back in her pocket and lowered her face into her hands.
The Master pushed himself through the uneven light of the shop and out, keeping an even, mechanical sort of pace, the thudding of his feet and that in his head creating an odd jumble of beats that disoriented him. He reached the blind alley between buildings where he'd secured his belongings; a pile of rubble extended along it, barely traversable, but he could see the loose bricks in the wall on one side had not been disturbed, and he carefully climbed his way down to them.
The Master removed the bricks, his hands shaking, and reached inside for the knapsack, pulling it out and checking the contents before drawstringing it shut and heading out of the Alley for good.
(http://community.livejournal.com/nonevidence/96107.html)
Location: Diagon Alley
Date: Afternoon
Rating: R territory now...
The Alley was a mess. An absolute mess. Rose walked through the rubble and fragmented corpses slowly, stopping and stooping periodically to pick up coins and slip them into her pocket. She surveyed the buildings, their facades crumbled, almost unrecognizable. She was pretty sure she recognized the entrance to the stairway that led to the apartment she shared with the Doctor, but it was pretty well blocked with wreckage. Rose sighed and started to move the smaller pieces.
The Master had read the Network, and so he had some idea of what to expect upon his return to the Alley (not the least of which was the distinct possibility of incarceration). But just the sight of the place was something expectations could not prepare one for, and it gave him pause.
He was just starting to cross to the other side to where he hoped his belongings were still accessible-- at first attempting to pick his way carefully through the gore and debris, but very quickly giving up that idea and treading unevenly and carelessly over it all, this suit was ruined anyway-- when he spotted a small blonde figure a few doors down, struggling to unblock some stairs.
Rose. She hadn't looked up, but he was almost sure of it. The Master froze for a second. He didn't recall seeing her since witnessing the break-up of Abberline's oh-so-secret meeting, but he had the vague idea he had anyway. The feel of her hand on his, pulling him through a void.
This is really not the time. He continued to walk quickly, turning his face from her and hoping he could disappear from her sight before she did look up.
Rose set the chunk of cement she was moving aside and stood to brush her hands on her jeans. She caught sight of a man hurrying past, looking away, and recognized him instantly.
"Sam!" she called, heading toward him. "Hey, Sam!"
He froze again, darting his eyes around, for a moment entertaining the notion that Sam had made it out of the maze alive, that Rose was calling him over, that this whole nasty business concerning the Doctor's whereabouts was going to begin again.
Thanks a lot, you supercilious pain in the ass.
But Sam didn't appear, and the Master realized Rose was approaching him, eyes wide and too familiar and not at all with her usual level of guardedness. She thinks I'm him.
Well, whatever.
He raised his hand awkwardly. "Hi."
Where did you..." she started to say as she came closer, then trailed off and swallowed.
That wasn't Sam.
"Master," she said quietly. "Sorry, from over there..." She gestured back to the pile of rubble she had been working with, letting her thought once again hang unfinished. She cleared her throat and came closer.
"Are you okay? How are your arms?"
The Master stared at her for a long moment, wondering how she knew about that.
her hand on mine
Something fit into place, her presence taking shape slowly in his memory. "You were there." It was somewhere between a statement and a question.
He blinked a few times, trying to jolt himself back into himself, put on some sort of face. "Right as rain. Never better. And you?"
She nodded at the words that were half questioning, stepping still closer.
"Fine," she said. "I'm fine. Trying to deal with the mess, and clear out some way of getting back into our apartment." She tilted her head, raised her eyebrows. "And hoping to stay as much out of all this political stuff as possible."
The Master smiled, drumming his fingers against his thigh restlessly. He didn't really care about any of this, and it was a mystery he'd even bothered to ask. He did not do small talk.
"Admirable goal." There was a pause. "I'm... glad you're alright." Inwardly he winced in disgust.
"Glad you are, too." She swallowed and gestured back to the blocked entryway. "Well, I should probably let you go, and get back to... you know..."
She took a step back, but didn't turn around yet. "Take care of yourself..."
He remained staring at her, speculative but clearly agitated.
"Why?"
Rose shook her head, confused. "Why what?"
"Just. Why. Why were you there?" The Master was speaking more rapidly, looking more pained and angry, as he went on. "Why do you care? After everything. Why?" His eyes pierced her.
She flinched under his sharp gaze, swallowed and looked away. She blinked, shook her head, shrugged.
"I... just do," she said softly. "You already have plenty of people who hate you. Maybe you need someone who doesn't." She looked down, studied her hands, smirked ruefully. "I'm likely daft, or naive. But I'm not willing to write anyone off." She looked up again, still to the side, and dropped her hands. "Sorry if it bothers you."
Maybe you need someone who doesn't.
He thought of the Doctor and felt like screaming. Instead he closed his eyes, tilting his head back and breathing in deeply before bringing his gaze back to her.
"If you're trying for my softer side, it may come as a surprise to you that I haven't got one. Lost it in the War." The Master tried unsuccessfully to smirk.
Rose shrugged again. "Sorry. Don't believe you."
She shifted her gaze back to the Master, and took a step forward. "What do you care? I mean, really? You could just..." She shook her head. "Take advantage of me. Of my good will. Why don't you?"
The Master took a step towards her in turn, flashing a wolfish grin, eyes dark.
"Is that what you want, then? Rose Tyler, safely kept, in her innocent little life. Does she want to look out into the dark? Maybe take a little tour?"
Rose took another step forward, her eyes steady on his. "Perhaps," she said quietly, honestly. "It's certainly what draws me to you." Another step, and she was really rather close, close enough to touch him if she wanted to.
He blinked, the only sign of surprise, before his expression settled lazily back into one of predatory amusement. He had expected fear, outrage, at the very least, hesitation, and for a moment he floundered mentally.
Oh, but she was close, the drums whispered. The Doctor's perfect Rose, he could grab, and pull, and wrench her out of the earth if he so chose. Uproot her, drive her mad. Make her his. His last revenge.
He considered her another moment. "No 'perhaps,'" he murmured. "No tours. No promises of safety. That's all so boring anyway, being safe. But then you know all about that, don't you."
Rose nodded slowly. "All too well," she murmured. She hated being coddled, kept safe, kept away. The Doctor wanted her safe because he loved her, because he couldn't bear to lose her. And she loved him, more than anything. Yet still his protection chafed at times.
And the condescending bastards here in Wonderland only made her feel it all too keenly. She had saved humanity, quite possibly the universe. Who were they to be so high and mighty?
But the Master... he had hurt the Doctor, hurt Jack, enslaved humanity, tried to destroy the universe...
"What exactly," she said, easing still closer, "do you propose?"
"That's another thing." He smiled crookedly at her. "I don't propose."
And then all at once his mouth was on hers, crushing, as if he were trying to bruise her lips. His palms rested with a gentle firmness against the back of her head and her shoulder, pressing her closer and preventing her from pulling away immediately.
Of course not, she thought, her mind strangely calm even as her body stiffened in surprise. He takes what he wants... He pressed her close, kissed her hard. Rose considered fighting him, pulling away, but knew that his hold on her would make that difficult. Instead, she raised her hands to rest them lightly on his arms, and kissed back.
The Master had closed his eyes before he'd even realized it, soaking in her reluctant compliance. Reveling in it. The drums thundered on, intensified by his pounding hearts. The two rhythms feeding into one another, so loud that surely someone else must hear it.
Someone else does.
His hand tightened in her hair and on her shoulder as he tried to pull her even closer to him.
She could feel his pulse as he pulled her tightly against him, the call-and-answer rhythm drumming against her chest. A small sound escaped her throat as her own eyes drifted closed, and her arms slid around him, her palms against his back, embracing him, holding him close.
We're in the middle of the street...
She managed to pull back just enough to whisper. "Not here..." Then she pressed her lips to his again.
The Master blinked his eyes open as Rose pulled away with her small protest, rolling them a little impatiently as she then immediately resumed kissing him anyway. This time he broke the kiss to speak.
"Still embarrassed to be seen with me?" His fingers toyed idly with the shoulder of her blouse, and underneath that, the strap of her bra. He studied her with his eyes as if she were an old project he'd just about made up his mind to go back to working on.
Rose sighed. "People already think that I'm in league with you, and nothing that I do seems to make a damn bit of difference. So for the vast majority of Wonderland, no. Screw them." She turned her head and watched his fingers playing with her blouse, then swallowed and turned to meet his eyes.
"But you know the exception to that."
Of course, why not, he's the exception to everything.
The Master went cold, furiously cold, his expression blank and unreadable, his fingers ceasing their exploration. "Where, then?" Just the right amount of defeat in his voice, although he hadn't really lost any ground, not really. If this was going to work, it'd have to be on her terms. Her decision.
Rose swallowed.
Oh God, Rose, what are you doing?
She shook her head a little, cast her gaze around the Alley. "The shops are all empty. I'm sure we can find somewhere..."
To do what? What exactly are you doing, Rose?
The Master looked around himself, thinking, seriously, where was a motel when you needed one? He spotted a shop with curtains drawn over the place where the front window should have been, the door yawning open on one hinge and the hanging sign long gone. He looked back at Rose until he managed to catch her eye, and then started towards the shop casually.
Rose took a moment to brush her hands again on her jeans, turning her head one way, then the other, surveying the Alley. No one seemed to be paying attention to her or the Master. What few people were about were either clearing rubble like she was or scrabbling for coins, and she didn't recognize any of them.
She straightened, took a breath, and followed. He'll rape you, her mind whispered. Probably. At the moment, she didn't care.
The Master was already inside the darkened shop, walking amongst rows of objects, mostly smashed or bent. He twirled one idly as he passed-- might have been for navigation, or perhaps some sort of star charting device-- and dust flew up, illuminated by small slits of light getting past the curtains and streaking their way across the room, and settled again somewhere else.
If he'd been able to think, if there wasn't this insane rhythm of pain and anger and fear pounding through him, he might have been searching right now for the knapsack he'd left what seemed like ages ago. He'd be on his way out of the Alley, out of danger.
Alone.
The Master closed his eyes, resisting the urge to dash the contents of the shelf to the ground.
She came up behind him, watching him as he trailed his fingers over the objects. As he stopped, and stood, his head bowed slightly, his body rigid. Something was wrong, and Rose felt a twist of pain for him.
He's so alone...
She remembered that day, in the middle of a busy sidewalk, in the middle of London, when the Doctor had told her that he was the last of his kind, that everyone else was dead. This was eerily similar.
She stepped close, held out her hand, ran it gently down his back. "I'm here," she whispered.
He shuddered involuntarily as she touched him, then inwardly cursed himself for letting her sneak up on him, for allowing his senses to be so dulled, for letting this trip him up again and again and again and again, getting in the way of everything, for letting her get close enough to touch him, see him this way.
For liking it quite so much.
The Master turned quickly, catching her wrist, smirking. "So you are."
He gestured around the shop. "So. Anywhere in particular strike your fancy? There might be some sort of quarters for the shopkeeper. Or, you know, we could just clear off one of these tables. Of course there's always the floor, but honestly, you don't strike me as the type." He grinned harshly.
He shivered under her touch, then turned quickly, and she flinched as he caught her wrist.
Too close.
"Rather kind of you, really," she said, meeting his eyes as she flexed her trapped hand once, slowly. "To be thinking about my comfort." She nodded, looking around. "Let's see if there are quarters. If not, we can... improvise."
"Whatever you say." The Master interlaced his fingers in hers, trying to ignore the painful fact he hadn't done that since Lucy, and turned, taking quick strides towards the shadows at the back of the shop, half-dragging Rose behind him. Glass and rubble and who knew what else crunched beneath their feet.
She swallowed and squeezed his fingers gently, then did her best to keep up. The light that filtered in from the half-open door and the small gap between the curtains only reached about halfway through the shop. After that the only light was a dull glitter of reflection off of the broken glass scattered over the floor. In her hurry to keep up, Rose hit her shin on something wood... maybe a chair, or an upturned table. She sucked in her breath in pain, but kept going.
As they approached the back of the shop, they could just barely make out another door, open a crack, a dim light filtering through.
He could hear nothing but the drums as he thundered towards the door he'd seen, pushing it open and swinging her around, hauling her roughly into the room ahead of him and letting go of her hand. This was bad. Very bad. And it was going to get so much worse. He leaned against the door frame watching her stumble, his other hand clenching at the molding behind him, trying to gain some sort of control, before following her in.
It was sort of a bedroom, kitchen, and dining area all in one, and it was less a mess than he would have expected, judging on the rest of the place. Light filtered softly in from a window draped with thin curtains, the rod slightly askew. The bed, a utilitarian cot, sagged sadly at one end of the small room. The Master strolled over to it, brushed some dust off it with a critical air, and immediately sneezed.
Rose struggled to keep her footing as he pulled her violently into the room, throwing out her hands to steady herself on the far wall. She stood for a moment with her head bowed, her eyes closed, trembling slightly.
She heard him sneeze, and whirled around, her back hitting the wall with a dull thud. She reached up with a shaking hand and brushed the hair out of her face, watching him closely.
At least she's not laughing.
"Well?" He looked up at her as he spoke softly. "Comfortable enough for you? Or shall we look elsewhere?"
She swallowed, nodded, and began to approach. "This... this will do fine," she murmured. Once she was close, she reached out a hand and trailed it lightly down his chest, her breath picking up speed, ever so slightly. She looked up into his eyes, examining them, wondering what he was thinking, what he was feeling.
The Master watched her approach him, purposefully remaining still. Although his actions were mercurial, he was old enough to have stored up at least a little patience.
She touched him like you would a dangerous animal, with some sort of strange mixture of fear tempered with desire, a longing to connect, an illogical need to tame, and he hadn't had that since Lucy either.
Oh, yes you have.
Shut. UP.
He closed his eyes and attacked her mouth with his own again, desperately.
She gasped at his suddenness, then moaned against his lips and kissed him back with force, a counter-attack of lips and teeth and tongue. One of her hands went to the back of his head, her fingers sliding into his hair and tightening there, while the other tugged at his shirt until it was untucked. She slipped her hand beneath the cloth and moaned again, softly, as her fingertips glided over the bare skin of his stomach, his side, the small of his back.
He smiled against her mouth, she was just as out of control as he was, and that was comforting in a strange way. His hands went to her back, and he crushed her against him, swinging her onto the cot and falling with her in a large puff of dust. The cot creaked warningly, but held.
He lazily traced a loose strand of her hair down her collarbone to her shoulder, gently tugging the collar of her blouse down, before trailing down that same path with his teeth, biting into her flesh, sometimes gentle, mostly not.
Rose let out a short cry as they hit the bed, then turned her face and coughed on the dust. She looked back to the Master when he began to touch her, gazing up at him, allowing herself to gently touch his cheek.
"Master," she whispered.
Then he began to bite her, and she cried out in pain-tinged pleasure, her back arching involuntarily, the hand that was on his cheek shifting into his hair. She closed her eyes, bit her lip, her breath ragged.
Still that involuntary shiver at the sound of his name, a lit fuse traveling quickly. With his other hand the Master groped for the buttons on her blouse, undoing them with... perhaps an unsurprising deftness.
He tried to avoid wondering if the Doctor had done this a dozen times before, traced this exact same path, but of course by then it was too late. He bit down especially hard into her trapezius muscle, unable to hold in a little groan.
She shivered as his hand ran down the front of her blouse, undoing the buttons one by one, beginning to expose her, lay her bare. Then he bit her, hard, and Rose had to bite her own lip so hard that she tasted blood to keep from screaming.
>God, what the hell am I doing?
But that groan that escaped from the Master's throat touched her, captivated her. At that moment, she would do almost anything to hear it again. The hand in his hair tightened, and her other hand began to gather up the cloth of his shirt, slowly drawing it up his back.
The Doctor will hate you for this... She turned her head, just enough to capture the Master's ear in her lips, sucking it gently, then biting it firmly.
The Doctor moves on, and once he does, he doesn't even want me back. Only a matter of time. Her breath hitched in her throat, half sigh, half sob.
He gasped in a little breath as she bit him back, clenching her shoulder tight, for a moment the names of muscles and bones and tendons, all knowledge, all memory drowned out. Just this, just sensation and Rose and drums and he hurried through the last of the buttons, running his hand up her side and back down the curve of a breast, digging in slightly with his fingers.
She's probably thinking about the Doctor right now.
He growled softly, as if marking his territory, and squeezed harder.
Rose moaned as his fingers tightened on her breast. He liked the bite to his ear, so she bit him again, harder, and allowed her own fingers to dig into his side.
"Master," she whispered, her lips against his ear, and continued hesitantly. "Would you take off your shirt? Please?" She didn't know how he'd respond to that. It was as much an invitation for him to define the boundaries and flavor of their encounter as it was a request to feel his bare skin on hers.
The Master closed his eyes as she bit him again, hard enough to hurt, whispered his name again. Marveled at her willingness to call him that; even Lucy couldn't get her head around it, would always end up screaming the name of Harold Saxon no matter how much he tried. And then stiffened at her request, the subservient phrasing rankling a little.
He shifted slightly, up on one hand for balance, staring into her eyes coldly, his tie trailing onto her, before he continued opening her blouse, reaching to undo her bra, pointedly ignoring her words. She'd have to learn to take what she wanted, sooner or later.
She blinked up at him, not having expected this response... or rather, non-response. Her mind raced to interpret. He likes it when I bite him, when I kiss him hard... he doesn't want me to be submissive, he wants me to take him.
She grabbed his tie, pulled him down roughly, and crushed her lips against his, beginning to undo the buttons with her other hand.
His other hand came down onto the cot for balance as she pulled and he fell, sending up another small cloud of dust, and he uttered another very small groan of surprise and resignation. The smell of the dust, the destruction, reminded him of home
(or what had been home)
the rubble and the char, memories of smoke and screaming and metal and blood still lingering, and he surrendered to that feeling of aimless victory, of being trapped even as he won. He pressed into her, raising up against her as she fumbled with the shirt buttons under the suit jacket.
His groan sent a chill right through her, and she echoed it with one of her own, deep in her throat. Her hands became insistent, impatient, as she dragged his jacket back off his shoulders and peeled it off his arms, one by one. All the while she kissed him, hard, her tongue exploring his mouth, her teeth occasionally nipping at his lower lip.
The Master shuddered again, faintly feeling a little more vulnerable, another layer exposed. His hands returned to Rose's own chest, finally unhooking the bra clasp, appreciative that it was a front-facing one. He parted it as he had her shirt, cupping her breasts and running both thumbs across her nipples lightly, retaliating. He opened his eyes, watching her.
Rose dropped the Master's jacket to the floor beside the bed. Before she could return to unbuttoning his shirt, however, he unhooked her bra and began to caress her breasts. She drew in a shivery breath, her eyes on his, then very slowly closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and raised her arms above her head, presenting her chest and her throat to him. As his thumbs ran over her nipples she moaned, softly.
"Master," she whispered again, loving the sound of his name, as well as the effect that it had on him.
rose
Something about her position
like a flower opening up a contradiction thorns and acquiescence
awakened some predatory instinct in him and the Master wasted no time in darting his arm up, pinning her wrists with one hand. He lunged teeth first at her exposed neck, other hand still on her breast, crushing it possessively. He writhed against her, tongue running against her skin as he bit down, flooded with that internal rhythm, unconsciously incorporating it into his movements.
He captured her, crushed her, bit her, hard, and she cried out his name, the name that's not a name yet more than a name, as her body writhed against his in pleasure, in pain, in time with his body's insistent dance. She strained her wrists against his hold, not intending to escape, but to give him something to work with.
His hand tightened on her wrists painfully, his fingers branding them with white, as she struggled and cried out, and oh, how rewarding that was, the Doctor's perfect Rose calling out his name, wanting him, the rest of the world, everything she cared about, falling away. Or being ripped away, piece by piece, he could do that. She could be like him. Stronger than Lucy, she'd fight him the whole way, and he needed that, needed that struggle.
He ran his other hand back down her side, catching his fingers on the waistband of her jeans, running them just under it and around to her lower back.
Rose cried out in pain as his fingers dug into her wrists, and writhed against him, fighting him for real now, fear starting to creep in.
Then his fingers slipped into her waistband, and she became very still, her eyes drifting closed, remembering their first encounter, in the grotto, when he had done the same thing. She had been so tempted, even then...
But the Doctor...
She swallowed. Oh God...
The Master paused, waking a little as he sensed some sort of shift in her, relaxing his grip incrementally. He unconsciously began rubbing the small of her back; he'd fallen into the habit on the Valiant, finding it seemed to help when his wife had been feeling... tetchy.
He lifted his head from her neck, where he noted a truly magnificent bruise forming, and looked at her lying there with her eyes closed, no longer struggling.
"What?" He spoke quietly, with a hint of irritation at the disturbance.
He was rubbing her back, gently, and Rose opened her eyes, surprised by the tenderness of the gesture. She met his gaze and swallowed, shaking her head slightly. "Nothing, it's... I..."
Oh God...
"I can't." She closed her eyes and grimaced. Fuck. "I can't do this." Then she laughed like someone falling apart at the seams, rocking her head back and forth.
The drums were still raging in him, and he had to fight an almost irresistible urge to slap her as she laughed, hit her and keep hitting her until she shut up shut up SHUT UP
He was off the cot, off her, in one fluid motion, buttoning his shirt quickly, turned away from her.
The laugh died.
"No," she said, scrambling up. "No, please. I'm... I'm sorry. Please." She stared at him, stricken, shaking her head. Then she cleared her throat and said one word, firmly. "Stay."
The Master looked back behind at her with an unreadable, tight expression as he finished buttoning the collar, straightened his tie. He scooped up his suit jacket and threw his arms into it, shrugged it the rest of the way on, adjusted the lapels with rushed, jerky movements.
Rose sighed, and swallowed, staring down at her hands. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.
He turned round completely to face her and just stood there stiffly, arms at his sides, as if defeated. None of his postures.
He wasn't sure why he was waiting for her to make up her mind, couldn't think straight. Couldn't think. He stared at Rose, her shirt still unbuttoned and slightly askew, the bruise on her neck, and felt cold.
Rose stood slowly, her eyes still cast down. Her shirt hung open, only partially concealing her breasts, and as she approached carefully she snapped her bra closed.
She raised her eyes when she was close, regarded him for a moment, then reached out, cupped his cheek, and kissed him. "Thank you, Master," she whispered. She stepped back and started to button up her shirt. When the buttons were halfway fastened, she stopped and raised a hand to her neck, touching the side gently. She looked up at the Master.
"There's a mark, isn't there?" She fought back a return of the laugh that had so clearly distressed him. "You've marked me."
He dug his nails into his palms as she approached and kissed him, welcoming pain that was tangible. Real.
Thank you? He had a sudden desire to grab her, choke the life out of her. Make that bruise spread. But he just stood there solidly, heavy and wooden.
She fingered her neck, realizing what he'd done, and he should have been so proud, let her explain that one to the Doctor, let her try to hide what she'd been doing, let her become even more like him. And that's not all I've done, he thought, one hand straying to his suit pocket and fingering the PDA device, surreptitiously switching it off.
Honestly, he should be happier.
"You deserve each other." His words were flat, low, and unexpected even to his own ears. He turned on his heel and strode quickly out of the room.
She watched him leave, didn't try to stop him, feeling eerily calm. Once he was gone she sank slowly to the bed, staring into the dark room. After a few moments she pulled out her handheld, and with the same strange calmness left a message for the Doctor. Then she slid the device back in her pocket and lowered her face into her hands.
The Master pushed himself through the uneven light of the shop and out, keeping an even, mechanical sort of pace, the thudding of his feet and that in his head creating an odd jumble of beats that disoriented him. He reached the blind alley between buildings where he'd secured his belongings; a pile of rubble extended along it, barely traversable, but he could see the loose bricks in the wall on one side had not been disturbed, and he carefully climbed his way down to them.
The Master removed the bricks, his hands shaking, and reached inside for the knapsack, pulling it out and checking the contents before drawstringing it shut and heading out of the Alley for good.
(http://community.livejournal.com/nonevidence/96107.html)
