Fic: Master Plan - Part 1

[unfeathered]

Title: Master Plan - Part 1
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Author: unfeathered
Pairing: The Master/Jack
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: D/s themes
Word Count: 729
Spoilers: Doctor Who Seasons 2 and 3 and a little bit for Torchwood Season 1
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: What did the Master get up to on Earth while he waited for the Doctor?
Beta: becky_h
Author’s Note: This one came out of nowhere after I watched Utopia the other night. There is definitely more to come…


I start plotting the instant I leave Malcassairo. It’s the Doctor’s own fault, really. The bastard’s tampered with the TARDIS so that there’s only one place and time it can go, and I have to do something to keep myself amused while I wait for him to find me.

So I use the time to discover all I can about this newest regeneration of the Doctor. Outwardly he’s a very silly regeneration, a clown, but within he’s full of fire and darkness, magnificent in his despair at the destruction of our home world. I watch him at Canary Wharf, ridding our universe of both Daleks and Cybermen (thank you, Doctor!). I find him hidden as an Easter Egg on a strange selection of DVDs, talking in riddles about time being a wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey thing. I never do find out what that’s all about. And at Christmas, I see him running around London with a girl in a wedding dress, before taking on the Empress of the Racnoss, and defeating her.

The old boy hasn’t completely lost his marbles then. Just mislaid most of them.

I also use the time to find out all about his two pet humans: her family, his team. I’m there eighteen months before the Doctor will pick them up, and I’ve got a year and a half to observe them, learn about them, discern everything the dear Doctor, blind as he always has been to the fact his humans are actually people, hasn’t bothered to find out.

I watch Martha go to lectures, watch her parents fight and split apart, watch her sister fawn her way up the corporate ladder, watch her brother hide from his family with his girlfriend and kid, watch her father pick up the blonde from hell and use her to taunt his ex-wife… Watch Martha dash between them all, picking up the pieces, coaxing them into talking to one another, binding them together with a tenuous thread of love and care and hope that will disintegrate the moment she leaves them to themselves.

I watch Captain Jack Harkness and his team blunder their way into scrape after scrape. To be fair, the Captain himself seems to have some sense, but his team… I have a wonderful time setting traps for them – an alien artefact here, a ghost machine there – and watching the mess they make of them. An utterly humiliating show for an organisation that purports to be the Doctor’s arch-nemesis.

The very idea of it is laughable.

I study Captain Jack most of all. He fascinates me. Right from the start, as soon as I find out who I am, I know there’s something odd about him, something weird and not-meant-to-be, batting round the depths of my mind like a moth against a window. Then I find him on the CCTV in Cardiff, see his colleague shoot him through the head, right there in the middle of the square, and I see him come back to life. And I understand.

Captain Jack Harkness cannot die. Or at least, when he dies, he always comes back to life. It’s an incredible, unthinkable anomaly. He’s a constant, a fixed point. Unimaginable – and existing. Right there in Cardiff. I spend a lot of the fourteen months that follow chafing to get to the part where I can take him and experiment on him. I mean, think of it – the possibilities! What this man could do, could show us about the universe! What he could be used to do to the universe.

Not to mention the fact that he’s a sweet, darling, beautiful specimen of a man. And one who’s just aching to submit to someone. That old fool Yana saw it in his less-than-perfect way: he was surprised that such a personable, physically-powerful young man would be so content to play second to another, and to take orders so readily from someone as old and un-leaderlike as Yana, with a cheerful “Yes sir!” I see it for what it really is: Jack Harkness is naturally submissive, forced by circumstances into the role of leader of a team of inadequates, and yearning with all his heart (ha, single heart, because he’s still only human!) for the one man who has shown the strength, the ability, the desire, to master him.

He’s going to discover there’s more than one of us who can do that.

Next part

Comments

[becky-h.livejournal.com]

SQUEEEEE! I still love this - the idea behind it just makes me bounce, and go 'Of COURSE!'. It's really awesome and I love what it says about both Master and Jack.

[unfeathered]

Thank you - for the compliments (big SQUEEEEEs make me grin inanely) and the betaing and advice :-)

It's weird, the idea kind of crept up on me. I just started writing and it was going to be equally about Jack, the Doctor and Martha, but Jack kind of took over.

He tends to do that.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medley_/]

Oh, awesome. I hadn't really thought about the Master watching Jack during those 18 months, but of course he must have, to know to send his team away and to know he wouldn't stay dead for long. I love what he sees about the Doctor, Martha, and Jack here. And that last line is fantastic.

There is definitely more to come…

::bounces::

[unfeathered]

Thank you! :-)

Yeah, I hadn't thought about it either, but he had all that time to find out so much (while he wasn't busy taking over Great Britain, of course).

I like the last line too :-)

There is definitely more to come…

::bounces::

Next part is started, though still very rough, more just bits jotted down and not connected to each other as yet.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medley_/]

Next part is started, though still very rough, more just bits jotted down and not connected to each other as yet.

Hey, as long as you're even thinking about it, I'm happy. :)

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is GOOD... dangling candy in front of babies, here.

[unfeathered]

Thank you - glad you liked it!

[gritsinmisery.livejournal.com]

Yow!!!!

Ohhhhhhhhh, yes. Guh.

Go for it.

[unfeathered]

Oooh, I like it when I make people speechless :-)

Thank you!

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. Shivers.

[unfeathered]

Thank you! 'Wow's make me grin - very good for the ego :-)

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

I rec'd this story at my journal.

[unfeathered]

Thank you very much - that's even better for the ego!

[scifiangel.livejournal.com]

Powerful and disturbing. Wonderful writing.

[unfeathered]

Thank you. That's... that's an amazing compliment!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Oh my oh my oh my. Absolutely excellent!!!

[unfeathered]

Now that's the sort of reaction that's great to get - thank you! :-)

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

This really surprised me. First person present narrative is hard and not normally my thing, so I did struggle a bit at first, but it flows well. I like the tone of it, the apparent sense and sanity, with that flow of madness underneath - much more the Master from "The Sound of Drums" than "Last of the Time Lords" and all the better for it.

The idea of the Master planting things for Torchwood, and his understandable obsession with Jack, are very intriguing. Most intriguing.

[unfeathered]

Surprised you in that you didn't think you liked 1st person, or surprised you in that you didn't think I could do it? *grin*

Actually, I've never had a problem with it. I've written a lot in first person.

Saying that, I can't write Jack first person. But the Master is rambly like me so I guess it works! :-)

I'm glad the madness came through. I'm not very good at doing crazy, because I don't like crazy characters - or least not when they're being crazy - so I'm glad I got enough in!

Thank you!

(Oh, and Part 2's just gone up...)

[rubychan05.livejournal.com]

So so GOOD.

I loved every word, and those last few paragraphs just made me squee me joy.

Master/Jack is always surprisingly wonderful!

[unfeathered]

Heh, this is fun chasing each other all round our respective journals! *grin*

So glad you liked it, because I loved your Master/Jack fic(well, the first chapter - somehow I've stayed strong and not gone looking any further).

Thank you so much for your lovely feedback!

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

*squeak* I hadn't noticed this before, so I'm so glad you added to it recently! I'm really going to be enjoying this, I can tell, because what a perfect idea.

[timelord-sammy.livejournal.com]

Ack, couldn't pass it up checking it out, and now I find I already love the first part and I want to keep reading... aww, will have to postpone.
I love the Master's study of Jack, you really did a good description of Jack. He really has that submissive, follows-the-Doctor-like-a-puppy streak to his personality. Hm... I'll read a bit more before I go to bed =P You got me hooked.

[unfeathered]

Heh. Sorry! *g*

And thank you! :-)

[timelord-sammy.livejournal.com]

That's okay, it's good stuff =P

You're welcome ^_^ Oh, nice Master icon =)

[unfeathered]

Yeah, I love this icon! Made by _medley_ and totally snaggable. :-)

[edzel2.livejournal.com]

I'm thrilled to discover this! I've written a fair bit of Master-centric fic, but never actually in first person... I'm very impressed. XD

BTW I've often wondered... if the Master really wanted the Doctor to find him so badly, WHY did he leave him on Malcassario? (Where he might have been eaten by the Futurekind...) Did he know that Jack had his Vortex Manipulator? I've excused him by assuming that he was confused, having just regenerated and all - but unless I'm missing something, it doesn't actually make much sense, does it?! *readies self to be embarrassed when someone else points out something blindingly obvious which I've missed...*

[unfeathered]

Well done for finding it despite the link not working! *g*

(Btw, please be warned: it is STILL not finished. I have the penultimate chapter almost ready for beta but life/RP/other fics keep getting in the way, and I really did lose my momentum on this one. But I do still hope to finish it at some point!)

As for your question... I honestly had never thought about that before, and probably RTD hadn't either. But then, the Master doesn't have to make much sense, and he knows the Doctor always comes up with something and manages to find him so... :-)

[edzel2.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it wasn't just me missing stuff...! Must admit that kind of random plot hole is the kind of thing that annoys me a bit... but at least it leaves room for fanfic writers to explain...

Fifteen minutes to John Simm on BBC Radio 2 ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0140pmp