Frailties

[x_losfic]

Title: Frailties
Author: x_los
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Five/Ainley!Master
Summary: H/C with a touch of angst, a dash of crack, and one v. obsessive, lightly concussed Master.
Beta: aralias, who continues to mock my Random!Commas of War.
A/N: edited request for best_enemies Anon Meme: if you'd like, here's the original version.

A skull is a frail, ridiculous case for a Time Lord’s mind, the power of which seems incongruous with the inherent limitation of that slight cage of bone.

The Master nurses his head in supreme frustration. The Doctor sits opposite him, leaning against the rock wall that frames two sides of the clearing. He is unabashedly observing the Master with an arm draped over his knee. The Doctor’s expression is closed, but his smooth brow is somewhat tighter than it normally is, which tells the Master that the Doctor’s worried. Even the Doctor’s ridiculously floppy hair looks dejected, sticking to the sides of his pale face in the jungle’s humidity.

“You should rest,” the Doctor offers, tone sporting. Polite. Distant. The Master would get up and smack him for it if he wouldn’t dizzy himself to the point of confusion in the effort.

“Why yes, Doctor, that is basic treatment for a concussion. How very kind of you to point that out.” The Master’s mock-friendly smile has a vicious glint to it. “If only you’d been equally observant when I was being coshed on the back of my skull by that soldier—we might be in our respective TARDISs and well away from here by now, rather than contemplating recovery periods and possible sources of shelter for the night.”

The Doctor winces slightly. “It’s not as if I’m responsible for this, you know. I’m as much in the dark as you are about why they’ve lured us here. But pacing is only going to aggravate your headache. You really should lie down.”

“Can’t bear to witness a little pain?” the Master sneers. “How very unsurprising. Poor Doctor. Why don’t you just make for your preposterous TARDIS, where you won’t be discomforted by the sight of suffering?”

“I’m not leaving you here, so you can stop trying to annoy me into letting you alone.” The Doctor’s calm is blunt and startlingly reassuring, “We’re getting off this planet together or not at all.”

The Master doesn’t have a cutting response to that, and pacing is making him queasy. After a moment, he sits, carefully positioned to face the Doctor on the other side of the irregular space, back to the rock wall (Omega knows what kind of fauna lurk on this planet. He’s certainly not turning his back on that jungle).

Less than comfortable, he shifts against the rock face. A sudden wave of pain swamps him the instant he tries it, as if it had just been lying in wait for that opening. The Master has to fight to swallow a harsh gasp. He thinks he’s managed to keep his face blank, but a quick glance at the Doctor’s too-sympathetic expression assures him otherwise.

“Can you take some water?” the Doctor asks, pulling a flask from somewhere in his tapered cricketer’s jacket.

The stomach is an idiotic thing that turns itself inside out because the head is harmed, though it needn’t. Though it doesn’t serve any purpose.

“No,” the Master admits after a very long pause, “I don’t think I could.”

A moment of silence, and he can feel the Doctor stand on the other side of the clearing. If he were well he would be pressing into the Doctor’s space, twisting their conversation into some dazzling figure of eight, toying with him, offering a world of unstated possibilities. But here he is, alone with the Doctor in the woods, and all he can do is nurse his injuries. What a ludicrous waste of a perfectly good opportunity.

The Doctor sits down level with his face, all Wedgwood-blue-eyed sympathy. His hand reaches out tentatively towards the Master’s temple, like the shy stretching investigation of a cat meeting a stranger.

“I could try and make it a bit better for you,” his former best friend (who was never anything more than that, who’d driven Koschei to distraction in their youth and never considered the jokes everyone made about them being a couple anything more than a lark—not even when Koschei had blushed furiously and threatened dire consequences if the wits in question didn’t all shut up—and who doesn’t get it even now, with an insulting, persistent obliviousness) offers. Solely out of a bland sense of kindness. It makes the Master want to kill things.

Grudgingly, the Master nods.

Skin is simple. Like an old man, it remembers its childhood better than its present. Its tastes are confirmed—it knows what it likes, sticks to it without deviation. A regenerated Time Lord’s virgin skin learns its history. The Master has taught this Trakenite body centuries. He gave his new form the glare of two suns in high summer and the exquisite agony of burning through regeneration. The body processed the ache of warping in a black hole, and the soft thrill of Theta’s hands demonstrating his limited affection with limited, purely friendly physicality.

He’d given it the youthful impressions of his own hands moving over his cock, alone in their shared room with the door locked while Theta was in class. Of frantically pumping his erection just to get rid it, all because Theta—upset about a fight with his parents over his consistently low marks—had embraced him too tightly before leaving. He had been sick, hadn’t he, for manipulating the touch into something he could use? Sick for encouraging the other boy, for subtly pressing Theta’s body harder into his own. Sicker still for making sympathetic little noises when he’d really wanted to shove his best friend to the ground and take him—Theta would have forgotten all about the fight then, wouldn’t he? This new body, that had never even been that guilty, flustered, desperately enraptured boy, remembered how it felt to be flush with desire and shame and self-loathing all at once.

The Master might not have wanted his skin thus educated. He might have wanted to forget, to be free of his long-abandoned home planet, of memories better forgotten, of the ancient contact-high from Theta’s passionless, chaste touch. But he hadn’t had been offered a choice.

The Doctor puts his hands on the Master’s temples and rubs softly, alleviating the tension, releasing the pressure. The Master doesn’t let himself swallow, doesn’t let his breathing change. But his skin knows what it’s supposed to do. All it understands is Theta touching him, and it sings where the Doctor’s fingertips lie. It knows there is nothing in the universe it prefers to this.

If you had the slightest idea, how very fast you’d snatch your hands back, the Master thinks, letting the slightest smirk play over his face.

“Something funny?” the Doctor asks, voice low, intent, concentrating on what he’s doing.

“This entire day has an element of the comedic about it,” the Master says, evading the question, leaning into the touch in a completely understandable manner. He is in pain and the Doctor is soothing it away. That’s all. Though perhaps he won’t mention that his headache is largely gone now. “You acting as my Doctor—that’s amusing enough.”

The Doctor smiles. “Shush, I’ll have you know I’m perfectly qualified.” His fingers work through the Master’s swept-back hair, seeking the site of the injury.

Hearts are dumb animals. They’re incapable of learning commands. Even dogs manage that. They don’t understand that they shouldn’t beat faster when there are no correspondingly rapid beats to match them. That they should cool if there’s no heat to mirror them. They won’t be told to stop wanting where they aren’t wanted. Senseless speeding up just from seeing him even centuries after the Master had told himself to forget the whole thing. After centuries of repeating it to himself in the interim every time his advances were refused.

Even losing one of his hearts has done nothing to still its brother. The Master wishes he’d not been born with two. Then he could feel as weakly and impermanently as the Doctor’s humans must. Those flighty beings who can leave what the Master so covets with little more than a pang, and go on to live out their insignificant scrap of life contentedly after the Doctor’s moved along, forgotten them. Failing that, the Master wishes he’d shed both hearts somewhere along the way.

“Feel up to walking now?” the Doctor asks, pleasantly. Always pleasant. Infuriatingly pleasant.

“No. Not quite yet, Doctor,” the Master says, which is a lie, because he feels capable not just walking, but of punching the Doctor in the face for managing to dodge every trap and every obvious hint alike. He feels capable of reaching into the pale pile of the Doctor’s hair and finally figuring out whether the incredibly tempting mass feels as soft as it looks. He feels up to informing the Doctor calmly that a kiss actually would make it better and then pulling the Doctor down and dosing himself while the Doctor is inevitably too shocked to move, let alone administer the medicine.

In short, he could easily walk now. But the Doctor’s gaze is nearly tender on his face, almost devoted. His hands stroke the Master’s arms through the velvet pile of the jacket as he mutters something the Master pays no attention to about getting this dratted heavy thing off to give him some air. Those same caring hands make darting returns to the Master’s face to check his temperature, and slink through the Master’s hair, with soothing motions feebly disguised as something to do with examining the bump, so as not to offend his dignity by offering simple physical comfort. The Doctor’s touch is still passionless and chaste and limited, but it’s more than the Master’s had from him in centuries. He’d never imagined he’d come to crave this taunting, half-measure parody of what he wants as deeply as he has.

The Master is perfectly content to drag this out for a good long while. It’s perhaps the closest he’ll ever get to what he wants, so he can’t afford not to. The Doctor is fantastic—age hasn’t withered, or custom staled his infinite variety, no matter how the Master might wish otherwise—but he’s never going to understand. And not from dullness or mischance, but because he simply doesn’t want to see it. And what’s a concussion in the face of that injury?

If the Master luxuriates in the feel of the Doctor pushing the jacket off his shoulders, gently bearing him down to the ground, insisting that he sleep, offering to watch over him, it is only because his only other valid response is to scream, or cry, and he isn’t much for histrionics. Instead, the Master smirks to himself. He’s nearly a carrion bird. Reduced to simply taking advantage of the opportunities that avail themselves to him.

“My condition could change, you’ll have to monitor it,” he reminds the Doctor, who nods and stays close, holding the Master’s hand while pretending that it’s necessary to note the pulse, slightly shocked to discover it elevated.

Blood is always telling. Most species that possess it use blood to determine the pathologies of the entire body. They enshrine blood as the symbol of vitality. They call on its semantic power to describe the pure, essential properties of things—bloodline, bloodlust, bloodguilt. If the Doctor was the slightest bit willing to acknowledge ugly truths, he couldn’t help but understand the blatant meaning in the Master’s quickened radial pulse.

“You should be under observation for a few hours, at least.” The Doctor runs his touch over the Master’s pulse point at the inside of the Master’s wrist and takes the immediate jump under the pad of his thumb simply as confirmation of a noted symptom.

“A pity—I deplore this inactivity. But since you feel it’s necessary.” The Master settles in on the ground with played up discomfort, winces theatrically and clears his throat, as if he loathes asking: “could you—”

The Doctor obligingly lifts the Master’s head into his inviting, striped lap and begins massaging again with his long, elegant fingers.

“Thank you,” the Master says, just to throw him.

The Doctor’s hands still, surprised, and the Master knows there’s no medical excuse for taking advantage of that to suck the nearest dangling index finger hovering over his mouth. There’s no possible excuse to lathe that finger with his tongue. And so he doesn’t. But he wagers he could get the Doctor to moan before he snatched his hands away in flustered horror and dumped the Master on the ground. The Master bets he’d love the sound, but he knows he’d hate the look that would follow.

“You’re welcome.” The Doctor sounds guardedly touched. Begins moving those delightful hands again.

The Master didn’t expect such positive results. There must be a whole array of excuses to get more of such attention with both plausible deniability and his dignity intact. At the least it bears thinking about. It’s only right that he take advantage of the Doctor’s vast reserves of wretched, impersonal sympathy. The Master, bitter, hopeful and opportunistic, ponders the possibilities even as he enjoys the contact. If this is where a mere concussion gets him, he’s going to have to give attaining and ‘accidentally’ dropping a container of Beluszian sex pollen serious thought.

Comments

[ladypredator.livejournal.com]

Forget thought, just do it. :)

I can really believe the Master's thoughts and emotions here.

[x-losfic.livejournal.com]

Gawd, no one ever is more awkward than morning after!Five. Thanks, glad you liked it!

[boulette-sud.livejournal.com]

Much love and longing! But these two will never be happy will they. *Sighs*

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Only in icons, apparently?

Thanks, glad you liked!

[chaviola.livejournal.com]

Aww. o_o

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Yeeeah. Emo!Ainley!Master has some srs Brighteyes to listen to...

[chaviola.livejournal.com]

Hey, could we be LJ friends? You seem really awesome, to be honest. I've got a kind of similar fandom&fanfic/normal journal thing going on (counterintuitively, rulethirtyfour is my public, school-friends-appropriate one) but this journal is where I end up posting most of my Who spazzes and horrifying cracky things, so I friended x_los on it. :)

That is /indeed/ counterintuitive.

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool, sure! Whichever/whatever works for you! :)

[bistokids.livejournal.com]

Aww! The Master, Martha and Jack need to get together and form a 'we love the Doc but he never notices us' club! This is loevly - funny and sad all at once. Thanks. :D

[x-los.livejournal.com]

They would, but said club breaks down horribly when the Master counters every tale of woe Martha and Jack can dredge up with pictures of crispy!bacon!Master, and makes sure they're aware that it was 'soooo the Doctor's fault,' then shows them pictures of Six's outfit and he and Seven hanging out on Cheetah!World in the scrap book, and assures them that, even then, he was Interested. Martha gives up after Six's coat, but even Jack has to concede defeat after the full presentation...

[bistokids.livejournal.com]

How about that? He wins! XD

[x-losfic.livejournal.com]

PFFT.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Oh beautiful. You managed to write mushy in a completely fucked up and manipulative way - perfectly pegging the "I want to kill you/fuck you" duality of Ainley's Master. And the utterly twittish-obliviousness of Fivey to a T. I LOVE IT :D

*I luff your icon*

[x-losfic.livejournal.com]

Oh, how glad am I to hear you say the fucked up/manipulative came across? I was a bit woried I was accidentally building him a sad little cottage atop Mount Soppily Emo, and it's a relief to know he can still be read as a card-carrying bastard.

Oh Five. Five who I love dearly. Five whose Five-ness would clearly be best dealt with via alien sex pollen. Why has no one given into the crack!cliche!Darkside and just written Five/Ainley!Master/Sex Pollen Leik Woah already?

Glad you enjoyed!

Re: *I luff your icon*

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Oh its been written! Ever read Dreaming of England? There's also Turlough goodies mixed in that particular masterpiece. :)

There's just something about fivey that makes you want to complete and utterly debauch him in a delightful way. (And yes, there's more than a few of us ebil slashy fivey worshippers lurking about. More than a few. *mwahaha*)

Re: *I luff your icon*

[x-losfic.livejournal.com]

Oh, I did like that one, but I'm such a lame ass OTP girl that I was like "...are you suuuuuure you don't still want him? Really really sure that it's you/Turlough OTP now? ...Dammit, Five!"

Trufax.

And yes, there's more than a few of us ebil slashy fivey worshippers lurking about.

Oh, I know, last week (http://community.livejournal.com/best_enemies/26515.html) was practically the 'Five is Vary Hawt' pride parade. :p

Re: *I luff your icon*

[taleya.livejournal.com]

*snicker* and yet quite a few of the more notorious filthy fivey gropers are absent! :P

I did like Dreaming of England because it showed just how fucked up the Master was - it wasn't love, it wasn't even desire any more, strictly speaking. It was the need to dominate, completely and utterly - which is the crux of it really. As a certain someone once said "The Master doesn't want to kill the Doctor. He wants him broken and kneeling at his feet."

(And isn't that a disturbingly delightful mental image! :P)

I'm afraid I loves my fivey/Turlough liek whoa. It's the similitude of their situations and outlooks - but at one point they sharply diverge between open and shuttered.

Re: *I luff your icon*

[x-losfic.livejournal.com]

Pfft. Sadly we're not pokemon masters, and lacking such mad skillz, cannot catch them all...

Ah! Okay, now that icon is v. much creeping me out.

I'd go with maybe by Ainley!Master era it's warped into that need to dominate--earlier it was all 'come rule with meeeeee, we can even be nice, if you want...(i brought those handcuffs you like)' and that smacked so hard of 'love me.'

Oh man, given that you're Five/Turlough and I'm D/M, I think we have to fight to the death--oh wait, wait, no, we're not Rose and Martha fen. We get to stay sane. Woot.

Re: *I luff your icon*

[taleya.livejournal.com]

earlier it was all 'come rule with meeeeee, we can even be nice, if you want...(i brought those handcuffs you like)' and that smacked so hard of 'love me.'

That's actually a damned good way of putting the Delgado years! Of course by Deadly Assassin it's all Hell hath no fury like a Master scorned "YOU DIE NOW BITCH" before segueing into "..but first I'mma gonna make you my pet for an incarnation or four.."

Interestingly enough, the dynamic changes shortly after Logopolis. You could argue he got the killin' out of the way, but given how they worked together however briefly to stabilise the pharos project, I like to think it's the good old acid taste of nostalgia chewing away at the Master's plan-comprising synapses. (Which of course eventually brings us to the INSANE campfest that is Kings Demon's)

Oh man, given that you're Five/Turlough and I'm D/M, I think we have to fight to the death--oh wait, wait, no, we're not Rose and Martha fen. We get to stay sane. Woot.

See, that's the thing about the Doctor. He's a little black dress of universal proportions. Goes with everything and everyone. I can see Doctor/Master, Doctor/Turlough, Doctor/Jamie, even insanely sick and baker-like twisted Doctor/Harry. He's just an eternal lothario, fucking his way across time and space :D



*pets her Frontios icon.* You thought THAT one was bad? *snicker*

YOUR ICON HAS MADE ME SOOOOOOOO SAAAAAAAAAAAD

[x-los.livejournal.com]

That is totally the subtext of Deadly Assassin. You're right, he does calm down somewhat after the killing-making-Five bit. Maybe given a solid week of angry hatesex he'd be chilled out enough to talk about it, have a cup of tea and regain his good humor about the whole thing...

And King's Demons is such proofz of true, stupid love: "I brought you a 500th year aniversary present! The 500th is paper and warrior robots! Now we can have a threesome with something that's basically one of us! OH, I KNOW, I AM TOO GOOD TO YOU, RITE?!"

Doctor: "..."

He's just an eternal lothario, fucking his way across time and space :D

*dies*

Re: YOUR ICON HAS MADE ME SOOOOOOOO SAAAAAAAAAAAD

[taleya.livejournal.com]

And King's Demons is such proofz of true, stupid love: "I brought you a 500th year aniversary present! The 500th is paper and warrior robots! Now we can have a threesome with something that's basically one of us! OH, I KNOW, I AM TOO GOOD TO YOU, RITE?!"

*snorts outrageously* does that mean the appropriate gift in response to such a present is FIRE! OMG I'M ON FUCKING FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIREEEEEE!!!! Or would it be an invite to a gang bang with all previous incarnations? I'll have to ask Miss Manners.


And he is the eternal Lothario! When they say he burns at the centre of time, they're not talking metaphorically. Although to be honest it is only when he pees.

I have so many wrong fivey icons. I love them all :D

Re: YOUR ICON HAS MADE ME SOOOOOOOO SAAAAAAAAAAAD

[x-losfic.livejournal.com]

does that mean the appropriate gift in response to such a present is FIRE! OMG I'M ON FUCKING FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIREEEEEE!!!! Or would it be an invite to a gang bang with all previous incarnations? I'll have to ask Miss Manners.

The rest of the season functions as an extended meditation on the topic: Five Doctors says orgy, as does Master's expectant expression throughout that ep, Planet of Fire says that the Doctor took "warm lovin' " too literally for comfort.

And he is the eternal Lothario! When they say he burns at the centre of time, they're not talking metaphorically. Although to be honest it is only when he pees.

Did he ever tell you about the time he was there for the closing of Studio 54? Oh wait. No. B/c he never talks about that time...and the Horrible Horrible Clap He Got.

Re: YOUR ICON HAS MADE ME SOOOOOOOO SAAAAAAAAAAAD

[taleya.livejournal.com]

The entirity of Davison's era is a hilarious twist on psychology if you look at it carefully. Fivey very quickly ditches the kids, gets Tegan to tart it up, bags a new catamite with a uniform fetish and finally hits on the bimbo with the huge norgs in a classic mid-life-crisis decision. And through it all he's a nasty little cocktease to the Master, even going as far as a hugely phallic cock sword fight and iron maiden before welching on the orgy

No wonder the Master went from "I'm here to help! I'm from the council" to "OK YOU ALL DIE AT THE HANDS OF MY PENIS SHAPED WEAPON NOW" during Five Doctors. And then finally in Planet of Fire he proves that he truly is a hunka hunka burnin' love.

Anyone who claims Ainley's Master was straight is so far in the closet they're fucking Tumnus. FFS, in his last appearance he was a MAD OLD CAT LADY.

Did he ever tell you about the time he was there for the closing of Studio 54? Oh wait. No. B/c he never talks about that time...and the Horrible Horrible Clap He Got.

It was horrible indeed. So horrible that it killed anyone else who contracted it from a Madame on Erotica III (Much like IV, but with less Gallumbits and more transdimentional) She was apparently in great demand across all time periods and the infection spread across worlds, killing all it contaminated. All but the Doctor.

Lesser species never noticed, but the elders know of the one who escaped, and speak in hushed, reverent tones of The Doctor, the last survivor of the Great Time Whore

Re: YOUR ICON HAS MADE ME SOOOOOOOO SAAAAAAAAAAAD

[the-10thdoctor.livejournal.com]

The Doctor, the last survivor of the Great Time Whore

*sporfle*

I just KNEW Rusty'd got it wrong somewhere! Thank you :D

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Quick notes:

I love the physicality of this story.

Sex pollen reference FTW.

That said, I am finding that my keyword for your stories is verisimilitude, those little details that bring the whole thing into focus. Sensory impressions and memories that bring the in-head perspective to life. Like the Doctor's tea-making and like Guilin. The one for this story is

Of frantically pumping his erection just to get rid it, all because Theta—upset about a fight with his parents over his consistently low marks—had embraced him too tightly before leaving.

which is also GUH. Liek totally.

[x-losfic.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I have kind of a thing for cliche slash story tropes a la sex pollen/pon farr/laaaaaame excuse. I mean come on, it's tradition!

I'm so glad that paragraph worked for you--it ended up cut in the first version, and then I was editing this up for proper posting, and saw it lingering at the bottom of the draft with the flotsam like a lost child. I was like, "No, no, I don't even care that it makes him Still More Emo, let's just GO THERE." *includez*

[undersea.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, how perfect.

[x-losfic.livejournal.com]

Thanks, glad you liked!

[sword-etc.livejournal.com]

Oh my. I love this an impossible amount. I really love how you turn the usual Doctor/Master relationship around completely - it's delectable. Fantastic, fantastic!

[x-losfic.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you like it, though I must admit a little curiosity as to what you think the big reversal consists of. But yes, generally I'm delighted you enjoyed it. :)