Mechanical Aptitude
Apr. 23rd, 2008 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_losficTitle: Mechanical Aptitude
Author:x_los
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Shalka!Master/Shalka!Doctor
Summary: "Over the Master's ratcheting cries the Doctor, teeth grit, sounding almost bored, insisted on course corrections."
Beta:deborah_judge , who was right about there being two stories awkwardly fused into one here in Revision Draft
A/N: edited request for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
best_enemies Anon Meme : if you'd like, here's the original version.
The Doctor had made sure when he built the android that everything worked as it should. Though the Master’s consciousness was ensnared in a crafted body, the Doctor had given him taste buds and optic nerves with great discernment and acuity. He’d made sure the Master could smell and hear as well as he ever had, maybe even slightly better. The things the Master enjoyed were still physically pleasurable for him.
And he’d given him a completely realistic sensitivity to touch. He’d threaded in erogenous zones with centuries of authority, insisted on being told whether everything was in proper order. The Master had pointed out that, as a scientist, the Doctor should know that determining that was going to require a lot of field testing. A great number of trials, the Doctor added. In all sorts of conditions, the Master reminded him.
Today the Master was practically salivating over a tiny, common error that anyone might have made, near cooing that the Doctor couldn’t even program their answering machine properly. It occurred to the Doctor he was being egged on. So naturally he’d backed his android companion into the console, bent him over it, shoved himself in and sneered out a command to try getting them somewhere now, then.
When the Master seemed likely to actually do it, fingers flitting over the dials with an only slightly strained version of their normal grace, the Doctor got thoroughly annoyed. Decisively he worked the collar of the Master’s jacket down and sucked at his flushed neck, just below his ear. That provoked an immediate little gasp—and the Master’s hand smacked hard against the directional coordinator, his nails dragged down the bank of switches as the Doctor sucked harder, mucking up the alignment completely.
“Cheap shot,” the Master gasped.
“This from you?” He adjusted his aim, hitting the right spot inside his partner a bit more emphatically, and the Master nearly yelped, bending back into him in a wordless request for more, palm trembling on the alternator. The position gave the Doctor better access to his neck, and he took full advantage of it to lightly bite the patch of skin he’d been tonguing. Which really got the Master’s attention. “It’s not my fault you’re so easy to wind up.”
Technically this time, having made the body, it was his fault. But if the Master couldn’t think clearly enough to call him on it, it became sort of a ‘tree falls in the woods’ paradox. The Doctor drummed his fingers over the Master’s cock, torturously slow, the way the Master would never admit to liking it. No matter how big and bright and black his eyes got when the Doctor took his time. Over the Master's ratcheting cries, the Doctor, teeth grit, sounding almost bored, insisted on course corrections.
“I can’t concentrate like this!” The Master spat out, making a valiant effort to stop whimpering. He somehow managed to look put-upon. The Doctor silently commended his strength of will.
“I seem to recall someone saying that ‘only an amateur couldn’t operate in extreme conditions’ last week when I blew out the rotator trying to navigate the Grey Rift.” He ran a hand down the set of the Master’s jaw, enjoying the tight clench of it, the neat-trimmed bristle of hair under his palm. “Perhaps you should take your own advice and try harder?”
He pounded himself into the Master’s ass with an audible smack to demonstrate the adjective, in case the Master’s circuits were a bit addled by all the sensations they were being asked to process. He smiled cheekily at the half-growl that elicited.
“I expect to be landed pristinely in the middle of a field on the Eye of Orion at half past noon, or someone’s sleeping on the couch for a week with only his endless complaints to warm him.”
“As if you could hold out that long,” the Master scoffed, “Can’t keep your needy organic hands off me. The only thing you can design and run properly is a fuck toy.”
The answering machine clicked over and caught the Doctor’s hysterical giggles at that. Beeped emphatically.
“Well what do you know?” The Doctor banked his mirth and drawled, self-satisfaction creeping in as he finally gave the Master’s dripping cock a few hard strokes. The sophistication of the android body meant it felt exactly as it should to him, warm and swollen. “I might just teach you yet not to say I can’t handle machinery.”
“That’s,” the Master panted, “highly unlikely.”
“But then, you’ve always run like clockwork, and I can certainly get you going.” The Doctor mused, grinding his hips. “Bring her a little to the left, if you could—though I’m not sure you can at this point, can you? If you weren’t so very absorbed with working yourself on my cock we’d have landed already…”
The Master fumbled and found the control he needed. But then the Doctor pressed him further down on the console, entirely changing the angle of penetration, pushing deeper in while he clenched his fist hard around the Master, who hissed and wrenched the dial much too far over. The Doctor snickered. “Ooh, bad luck.”
The Master craned his head to glare at him. “Do you think if you get an ounce smugger you’ll choke on it?”
“Oh I don’t know. Would you like that?” The Doctor kept his tone pleasantly disinterested.
“Care to find out?”
“Is that a request?”
“Consider it an order.”
“Ah. See, I never follow orders.”
The Master gave an epic sigh. “Fine. Please. You insufferable idiot.”
“Why Master,” the Doctor dripped honey, “I’d be delighted. May I finish up first?”
“Ooh, I like that. Yes, you may.”
The Doctor moved his hands to the Master’s hips and thrust faster, rocking himself in. The Master did something with his muscles that wrenched a startled, intense stomach-dropping climax out of him. Without a pause longer than a breath he spun the Master around and went to his knees, latching his mouth around the Master’s flushed erection.
The Master let his hips follow their instincts, bucking into the Doctor’s mouth. He twinned a hand loosely in the Doctor’s hair, keeping his eyes on his face.
“Come on,” he growled, close but not quite there yet, “you can do better than that.”
The Doctor’s eyes flared with annoyance, and he plunged down to the root, sucking so hard the Master rapidly became inarticulate.
That what you had in mind? He sent. His hand spayed across the Master's hip worked just as well as the more conventional contact points.
Even the Master’s telepathic voice burbled wordlessly in response. It sparked out of the metal structure that housed it to blanket the Doctor, ephemeral and electric, especially heady wherever they directly touched. They were saturated in each other’s signals, and it felt like drowning in sex. He sent a trigger-command to the Master’s mind and watched him come from the inside, all the dominos of that carefully ordered mind falling in a sweeping rush.
The Doctor relished the way the other man came in spurts, one hand gripping his shoulder and the other fisting tight in his hair, biting his lip to keep from choking out the Doctor’s name, caging the word in his mouth like he wanted to swallow it and keep it in him. The Doctor rocked back on his heels when his throat had worked the other man completely empty, letting the Master slide out of his mouth slowly. He ran his tongue across the hyper-sensitive flesh as it departed, enjoying the Master’s wince because it felt too good.
“You do like my mouth,” the Doctor observed, resting his head on the Master’s thigh, dizzily pleased with himself.
“Well,” the Master gave credit where it was due, relaxing his hand to card through the Doctor’s hair, pleased to have ruined the gelled stiffness of it, “I suppose everyone must be good for something.”
“I’ve no higher purpose than that, then?” The Doctor chuckled, glancing up at the Master. “Sucking you down like I’m working a crazy straw is the summit of my potential?”
“You speak as if there was a more noble endeavor!” The Master looked down at him and raised a dubious eyebrow, the gesture undercut by lassitude. “That ‘saving worlds’ business you insist on is just a sideline. This is your real contribution to the universe.”
“My sole purpose is apparently to get you off. Who’s the fuck toy now?” The Doctor rolled his eyes and stood up, offering a hand to the Master, who was resting against the console for real support.
“It’s a compliment, my dear Doctor! In a certain range of activity, you’re even more of a genius than you think you are. And with your ego that is saying something.” The Master took the Doctor’s arm and used it to haul himself up, both of them trundling towards the bath. “Now I really want lunch.”
“You don’t strictly need to eat after sex, you know. It’s not like your energy reserves are that easily exhausted in this body.”
“You don’t strictly need to give me realistic semen and neurotically tinker with the bioengineering until it ‘tastes like me.’ But we’re both allowed our whims. And the incriminating evidence that you enjoy that almost as much as I do is even a little endearing.”
They didn’t actually get around to visiting the Eye of Harmony that day. But curiously no one was exiled to the couch either.
Author:
x_los Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Shalka!Master/Shalka!Doctor
Summary: "Over the Master's ratcheting cries the Doctor, teeth grit, sounding almost bored, insisted on course corrections."
Beta:
deborah_judge , who was right about there being two stories awkwardly fused into one here in Revision DraftA/N: edited request for
best_enemies Anon Meme : if you'd like, here's the original version.
The Doctor had made sure when he built the android that everything worked as it should. Though the Master’s consciousness was ensnared in a crafted body, the Doctor had given him taste buds and optic nerves with great discernment and acuity. He’d made sure the Master could smell and hear as well as he ever had, maybe even slightly better. The things the Master enjoyed were still physically pleasurable for him.
And he’d given him a completely realistic sensitivity to touch. He’d threaded in erogenous zones with centuries of authority, insisted on being told whether everything was in proper order. The Master had pointed out that, as a scientist, the Doctor should know that determining that was going to require a lot of field testing. A great number of trials, the Doctor added. In all sorts of conditions, the Master reminded him.
Today the Master was practically salivating over a tiny, common error that anyone might have made, near cooing that the Doctor couldn’t even program their answering machine properly. It occurred to the Doctor he was being egged on. So naturally he’d backed his android companion into the console, bent him over it, shoved himself in and sneered out a command to try getting them somewhere now, then.
When the Master seemed likely to actually do it, fingers flitting over the dials with an only slightly strained version of their normal grace, the Doctor got thoroughly annoyed. Decisively he worked the collar of the Master’s jacket down and sucked at his flushed neck, just below his ear. That provoked an immediate little gasp—and the Master’s hand smacked hard against the directional coordinator, his nails dragged down the bank of switches as the Doctor sucked harder, mucking up the alignment completely.
“Cheap shot,” the Master gasped.
“This from you?” He adjusted his aim, hitting the right spot inside his partner a bit more emphatically, and the Master nearly yelped, bending back into him in a wordless request for more, palm trembling on the alternator. The position gave the Doctor better access to his neck, and he took full advantage of it to lightly bite the patch of skin he’d been tonguing. Which really got the Master’s attention. “It’s not my fault you’re so easy to wind up.”
Technically this time, having made the body, it was his fault. But if the Master couldn’t think clearly enough to call him on it, it became sort of a ‘tree falls in the woods’ paradox. The Doctor drummed his fingers over the Master’s cock, torturously slow, the way the Master would never admit to liking it. No matter how big and bright and black his eyes got when the Doctor took his time. Over the Master's ratcheting cries, the Doctor, teeth grit, sounding almost bored, insisted on course corrections.
“I can’t concentrate like this!” The Master spat out, making a valiant effort to stop whimpering. He somehow managed to look put-upon. The Doctor silently commended his strength of will.
“I seem to recall someone saying that ‘only an amateur couldn’t operate in extreme conditions’ last week when I blew out the rotator trying to navigate the Grey Rift.” He ran a hand down the set of the Master’s jaw, enjoying the tight clench of it, the neat-trimmed bristle of hair under his palm. “Perhaps you should take your own advice and try harder?”
He pounded himself into the Master’s ass with an audible smack to demonstrate the adjective, in case the Master’s circuits were a bit addled by all the sensations they were being asked to process. He smiled cheekily at the half-growl that elicited.
“I expect to be landed pristinely in the middle of a field on the Eye of Orion at half past noon, or someone’s sleeping on the couch for a week with only his endless complaints to warm him.”
“As if you could hold out that long,” the Master scoffed, “Can’t keep your needy organic hands off me. The only thing you can design and run properly is a fuck toy.”
The answering machine clicked over and caught the Doctor’s hysterical giggles at that. Beeped emphatically.
“Well what do you know?” The Doctor banked his mirth and drawled, self-satisfaction creeping in as he finally gave the Master’s dripping cock a few hard strokes. The sophistication of the android body meant it felt exactly as it should to him, warm and swollen. “I might just teach you yet not to say I can’t handle machinery.”
“That’s,” the Master panted, “highly unlikely.”
“But then, you’ve always run like clockwork, and I can certainly get you going.” The Doctor mused, grinding his hips. “Bring her a little to the left, if you could—though I’m not sure you can at this point, can you? If you weren’t so very absorbed with working yourself on my cock we’d have landed already…”
The Master fumbled and found the control he needed. But then the Doctor pressed him further down on the console, entirely changing the angle of penetration, pushing deeper in while he clenched his fist hard around the Master, who hissed and wrenched the dial much too far over. The Doctor snickered. “Ooh, bad luck.”
The Master craned his head to glare at him. “Do you think if you get an ounce smugger you’ll choke on it?”
“Oh I don’t know. Would you like that?” The Doctor kept his tone pleasantly disinterested.
“Care to find out?”
“Is that a request?”
“Consider it an order.”
“Ah. See, I never follow orders.”
The Master gave an epic sigh. “Fine. Please. You insufferable idiot.”
“Why Master,” the Doctor dripped honey, “I’d be delighted. May I finish up first?”
“Ooh, I like that. Yes, you may.”
The Doctor moved his hands to the Master’s hips and thrust faster, rocking himself in. The Master did something with his muscles that wrenched a startled, intense stomach-dropping climax out of him. Without a pause longer than a breath he spun the Master around and went to his knees, latching his mouth around the Master’s flushed erection.
The Master let his hips follow their instincts, bucking into the Doctor’s mouth. He twinned a hand loosely in the Doctor’s hair, keeping his eyes on his face.
“Come on,” he growled, close but not quite there yet, “you can do better than that.”
The Doctor’s eyes flared with annoyance, and he plunged down to the root, sucking so hard the Master rapidly became inarticulate.
That what you had in mind? He sent. His hand spayed across the Master's hip worked just as well as the more conventional contact points.
Even the Master’s telepathic voice burbled wordlessly in response. It sparked out of the metal structure that housed it to blanket the Doctor, ephemeral and electric, especially heady wherever they directly touched. They were saturated in each other’s signals, and it felt like drowning in sex. He sent a trigger-command to the Master’s mind and watched him come from the inside, all the dominos of that carefully ordered mind falling in a sweeping rush.
The Doctor relished the way the other man came in spurts, one hand gripping his shoulder and the other fisting tight in his hair, biting his lip to keep from choking out the Doctor’s name, caging the word in his mouth like he wanted to swallow it and keep it in him. The Doctor rocked back on his heels when his throat had worked the other man completely empty, letting the Master slide out of his mouth slowly. He ran his tongue across the hyper-sensitive flesh as it departed, enjoying the Master’s wince because it felt too good.
“You do like my mouth,” the Doctor observed, resting his head on the Master’s thigh, dizzily pleased with himself.
“Well,” the Master gave credit where it was due, relaxing his hand to card through the Doctor’s hair, pleased to have ruined the gelled stiffness of it, “I suppose everyone must be good for something.”
“I’ve no higher purpose than that, then?” The Doctor chuckled, glancing up at the Master. “Sucking you down like I’m working a crazy straw is the summit of my potential?”
“You speak as if there was a more noble endeavor!” The Master looked down at him and raised a dubious eyebrow, the gesture undercut by lassitude. “That ‘saving worlds’ business you insist on is just a sideline. This is your real contribution to the universe.”
“My sole purpose is apparently to get you off. Who’s the fuck toy now?” The Doctor rolled his eyes and stood up, offering a hand to the Master, who was resting against the console for real support.
“It’s a compliment, my dear Doctor! In a certain range of activity, you’re even more of a genius than you think you are. And with your ego that is saying something.” The Master took the Doctor’s arm and used it to haul himself up, both of them trundling towards the bath. “Now I really want lunch.”
“You don’t strictly need to eat after sex, you know. It’s not like your energy reserves are that easily exhausted in this body.”
“You don’t strictly need to give me realistic semen and neurotically tinker with the bioengineering until it ‘tastes like me.’ But we’re both allowed our whims. And the incriminating evidence that you enjoy that almost as much as I do is even a little endearing.”
They didn’t actually get around to visiting the Eye of Harmony that day. But curiously no one was exiled to the couch either.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 11:03 pm (UTC)“You speak as if there was a more noble endeavor!”
Hee! Spoken like a true narcissist!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 11:21 pm (UTC)"What do you mean there could be something you want to do at any given instant that isn't blowing me?! I don't get you sometimes..."
OMGsquee!
Date: 2008-04-23 11:18 pm (UTC)even a little endearing
Ah, the Shalka!boys and their guarded statements of affection. Lovely.
Re: OMGsquee!
Date: 2008-04-23 11:37 pm (UTC)See, I can get behind the Shalka!Guys as a good couple, in a unique light. It would be fun to see more fic for them!
Re: OMGsquee!
Date: 2008-04-23 11:54 pm (UTC)1. it added more detail, leaving the reader to put together what the sex implies about the relationship
2. it's all one continuous scene rather than flashbacks
I like what you did with the end of the sex scene...it seems more like a game they're both playing. Of course the Doctor's still the one who designed the Master, which makes this all still rather creepy...but *canon* is creepy as fuck here, so I don't think Shalka!porn can be entirely not creepy. This line: But if the Master couldn’t think clearly enough to call him on it, it became sort of a ‘tree falls in the woods’ paradox.
really shows the way Shalka!Doctor thinks. What, if the Master is too sex-happy to complain about being imprisoned and made into a sex-toy it's not wrong? But that's how it is in canon, the Doctor keeps the Master imprisoned on the TARDIS and turns him off when he wants, and still, somehow, they love each other. I think if the Master were female I would be horrified by this whole business, and the more I think about it the creepier it is. But then, we only got one episode that was supposed to start a series, and I imagine the Master would've gotten out of the TARDIS eventually, or at least maneuvered things so he's more in control.
BTW, in the future if you're worried I'm always happy to look at multiple versions of things. I mean it's not like I *mind* reading well-written D/M porn...
Re: OMGsquee!
Date: 2008-04-24 01:26 am (UTC)But that's how it is in canon, the Doctor keeps the Master imprisoned on the TARDIS and turns him off when he wants, and still, somehow, they love each other. I think if the Master were female I would be horrified by this whole business, and the more I think about it the creepier it is.
Okay, but he only turns him off when forced to by people threatening them, and he visibly feels pretty crap about it. And while imprisoning is an issue, it IS less morally squicky than letting him run around killing people or alternatively a la Five letting him die. The Master DOES say something that implies he chose life imprisoned over death. If you assume a sexual relationship that complicates things in terms of power dynamics.
But then alternatively, how strange/cruel would it be for the Doctor to 1) imprison him and then 2) tell him he can't have the thing he's always wanted more than anything now that it finally seems possibly/obtainable, not because he doesn't want it, but because HE would feel guilty about it? Even if he started out trying to avoid taking sexual advantage of him, how long would the Master put up with that?
Sex between them need not necessarily be exploitative: it's important to me that the Master's the pilot of the ship, thus while he's dis-empowered by being unable to leave, he's granted such agency by the Doctor making that choice. And so sex sort of elevates him into Partner status. I mean, we joke about them being married, but in a common-law sense, Yes, they are. Sleeping together, when they're already living together and divvying the control over the ship makes them not crewmates but partners.
And the Master doesn't characterize the relationship negatively, he's willing to tell hostile strangers that he's the Doctor's 'dearest friend and companion,' which carefully dodges owning these feelings himself but is incredibly confident in its assertion that he's loved/valued/cared for.
and still, somehow, they love each other.
But really, this is a brief epoch in a thousand year relationship, during the course of which they've literally killed each other. Are the implications of mistreatment thoroughly blunted by really having done /everything/ else to each other and still loved each other, so this is just a cup of water in the ocean?
I don't necessarily assume he would have stopped traveling with the Doctor in a fuller series, but gained the power to leave if he wanted to? Definitely. That would have been an important arc.
BTW, in the future if you're worried I'm always happy to look at multiple versions of things. I mean it's not like I *mind* reading well-written D/M porn...
Oh cool, utterly helpful! I was afraid that would totally bug you.
Re: OMGsquee!
Date: 2008-04-24 06:59 am (UTC)Oh yeah. It's almost like the converse of your 'Spoiled for Choice' - which also has the coercive/loving paradox. The Doctor is sort of choosing to be there. Sort of. And the sexual relationship predates the coercion and complicates it, rather than simply coming out of it.
Even if he started out trying to avoid taking sexual advantage of him, how long would the Master put up with that?
I like that you added the business about the Master saying, more or less, 'let's have sex whenever possible, please.' That helps. (And now I'm imagining Shalka!Master explaining, calmly and somewhat dismissively, that if the Doctor is going to keep him imprisoned the least he requires and deserves is unlimited access to the Doctor's body, for any purpose, beginning immediately.) And since it's you writing, we know that it's not that the Doctor programmed a high sex drive into him, the Master's simply expressing his pre-mechanical personality...
I mean, we joke about them being married,
Yes...it's not a bad description of the relationship. A lot of marriages have power imbalances, where one partner feels like they don't have the material or emotional resources to leave even if they wanted to. And yeah, that doesn't make it not a partnership.
he's willing to tell hostile strangers that he's the Doctor's 'dearest friend and companion,'
Yes, and even after seemingly plotting against the Doctor (although we don't see what his plan actually was) he's overjoyed to see him...although he also regrets that maybe he shouldn't have chosen being with the Doctor over a painful death. And okay he's joking, but it suggests that maybe he's not 100% with his new life.
Are the implications of mistreatment thoroughly blunted by really having done /everything/ else to each other and still loved each other, so this is just a cup of water in the ocean?
And isn't this such a great question? I can only guess what a marriage would be like after that kind of backstory. On the one hand to live together they'd need a tremendous capacity to forgive each other and to live with each other's dark sides. On the other, they'd have tons and tons of baggage. So the Master could be thinking 'oh, well, this time you've got me imprisoned but a few regenerations ago I killed you so it all works out and let's have sex' or it could be more like 'this is like when you let the humans put me in prison and left me there and didn't even visit for sex! but I got out of that and I'll get out of this too, although I'll stick around longer here because the sex is pretty good so let's have lots of it.'
I don't necessarily assume he would have stopped traveling with the Doctor in a fuller series, but gained the power to leave if he wanted to? Definitely. That would have been an important arc.
And I wonder how that would've played out, since it's not like his Evil Circuits were disconnected...Hm. I am now going to ponder this, what Shalka!Master's redemption arc might have looked like.
Re: OMGsquee!
Date: 2008-04-24 01:48 pm (UTC)! um, the other option is ultra-scary. That could be a /good/ fic concept.
Yes...it's not a bad description of the relationship. A lot of marriages have power imbalances, where one partner feels like they don't have the material or emotional resources to leave even if they wanted to. And yeah, that doesn't make it not a partnership.
Also there's the weirdness for the Doctor, who always runs away, to have made it so he couldn't run away from the Master, b/c his mechanism of escape is so tied to the Master now. And he can't chuck the Master out/leave him behind, he's designed it so that he doesn't have that option. He's committed himself to being unable to dodge their relationship as well.
Can we assume he also designed the Master's body to pretty much replicate a Time Lord lifespan? There's no reason it shouldn't last. That's rather surrendering himself to the sort of inescapable Forever Even For Me association he's always been eager to avoid by picking up rather more disposable friends. For me all this points to mutual entrapment rather than blatant and huge power inequality.
The one /huge/ thing is 'the Doctor has the power to turn him off and not turn him back on,' but he's rather hamstrung by his own morals--theoretically he could kill the Master like that, but for him specifically, I don't see it presenting any actual threat. And as an android, that's even removing a lot of physical vulnerability, so especially considering the Master's propensity to exhaust his lives like sticks of gum, there's a lot of give with the question of whether he's actually less threatened now that he ever has been.
And okay he's joking, but it suggests that maybe he's not 100% with his new life.
Mm. I wonder to what extent that's just grousing, though? Even if the Master is absolutely blissful he's not going to stop whining about complete bs and claiming the Doctor is sooooo annoying, just because sanguine calm isn't his style.
He's like one of those women who constantly whines about her husband more out of a weird way of expressing affection than any actual annoyance. I'm not sure exactly why, but I read that character as kind of feminine much of the time. To the extent that I think it wouldn't throw me at all if he regenerated as a girl. It wouldn't change much about his character, really.
it's not like his Evil Circuits were disconnected...
Mm. Which makes me wonder what he would/could have done in that form, and why. Just to prove to himself/the Doctor he was still capable/hadn't been domesticated? To try and gain the ability to leave? Does he /actually/ want to leave? Annoying power implications aside (and ditching for the moment his plan to rule everything, because he's smart/self-aware enough to know that he was going to have a hard time getting that as long as the other Time Lords were around), this is, in a certain light, what he's wanted. The run of the universe with the Doctor at his side, paying attention to him. Only he can't actually get out to enjoy the universe, ironically. Going back to Attempts to Take Stuff Over Alone While the Doctor Very Occasionally Tries to Thwart Me/Passively Kills Me seems less attractive when you've settled down...
I am now going to ponder this, what Shalka!Master's redemption arc might have looked like.
Especially weird as Shalka!Doctor doesn't seem to ask him to feel remorse/guilt, which would make redemption causeless--he certainly doesn't independently feel terribly bad about any of it. And it's weird that Shalka!Doctor seems fine with all their chummy friendship on-screen, implying blithe dismissal of all the things the Master's done since he can't do them anymore.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-28 10:10 am (UTC)I also love all the detail on the Master's android nature you added.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-28 03:30 pm (UTC)they're comfortable enough to tease each other about the Master's body being designed with sex in mind.
I love that they have consistently good senses of humor, and I can really see them dealing with the awkward of all this via that and getting over it.
Glad you liked it!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 06:38 am (UTC)Oh, I like that you found a Mastery way for him to give a compliment.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 02:05 pm (UTC)