Title Duck Soup

Rating R15 for mentions of cannibalism and minor violence that might disturb weak stomached peoples

Category Dr Who, Tenth Generation

Pairing/s /

Summary Finding answers to impossible questions isn't always duck soup.

Author's Note AU to The End of Time. Some scenes unfold in different ways, other's I've pull from thin air.

This fiction was basically an excuse for me to write for the Master which was criminally fun to do- I've never written a completely psychotic character before. Other character's I've done who are slightly unhinged are of course Edward, Envy and Mello, the latter two are more 'canon crazy' than Ed but definitely have their head's firmly on their shoulders unlike the Master, who I found I could do dialogue on pretty much anything and get away with it.

Duck Soup means something easily done, a trivial matter.

Disclaimer I do not own Dr Who or work under the BBC. Tenth Doctor is all Tennant, and the Master is belonging to John Simm- I really wish I owned both of these men, but don't, sad to say.

Coming back had been oh so painful.

Because he could feel them, all his limbs moving and responding to his thoughts, and his two hearts thudding slightly out of time, blood pulsing through his veins- something he didn't want to let go of- standing on the resurrection table, sucking the life force out of his deluded followers, and Lucy in front of him, long hair whipping around her, face like a beautiful Amazon warrior reading to take down her prey.

"Don't you dare," the Master warns, eyes on the tiny, deadly bottle in her hands. He smiles prettily at her. "Lucy, sweetheart. Why turn away from being the goddess of the new world I will be creating. . ." his smile slips when Lucy's face and resolve stays fixed like carved stone. "No! Stop! DON'T!"

Laughing crazily, Lucy had quoted something, but the Master is screaming to loudly to hear as the two catalyses of whatever was in that bottle, and the life force streaming into him react violently- everything just goes so wrong.

The entire world erupts around him, the Master himself protected like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Fire blossoms everywhere, spreading quickly. The life force streaming into him is cut off abruptly, and the Master's screams grow higher and louder, feeling his new flesh rot and twist bones snapping and he curls up from the pain, hair turning white blonde either out of shock or a failed Regeneration he isn't sure. He lies, twitching and moaning, the ethereal glow dying around him as his soul settles erratically down into his new body. Boomboomboomboom. His hearts thunder in his ears, like a terrified rabbit's, then the Master realises it isn't his heart.

The drums, the drums oh by the stars make it stop stop stop!!

Then everything does stop, like the tellie has been put on pause.

The Master shakes himself, gets up, looks down at his body. He needs clothes. Looking further around, he now notices the flames and the rubble and the charcoal smoking bodies around him. His black eyes touch over the corpse of Lucy. "Oh Lucy. Lucy, Lucy. Silly little girl who played with the bully in the sandbox," the Master giggles, stepping over a burning piece of timber that has snapped off from the ceiling. The entire building gives a groan of despair. Smoke gushes out of the holes in the roof. "Thinking she would be protected, wanted all the toys for herself. Silly, silly, greedy girl" he crouches down, giving her a poke like a fascinated child.

The Timelord's stomach growls.

He's hungry. Something he's not felt in a very long time. The Master blinks, letting the odd sensation fill him up. Hunger. He can't remember that last time he's eaten. Has he ever eaten? Now his stomach is really yowling, demanding sustenance. He looks down at Lucy's still smoking body. "Oh. . . oh really now?" the Master talks to himself, shaking his head in slight revulsion.

Then the Master considers, head to one side like a pouting puppy. He might look human, but he's not really. His two hearts tell him that much. Humans are just like sheep, and the life force from before had tasted so good.

Happy that he's reasoned with himself, the Master stretches out a hand, lifting up one of Lucy's. "Hmm, had it coming didn't you? Maybe if you hadn't thrown that nasty stuff at me, I wouldn't have to do this. I wouldn't be broken like this," and he watches, in awe, as his hand goes almost see-through, showing his bones in a radioactive blue. It he dying? He has to eat, has to use Lucy's life force to keep his new body alive.

He hopes she doesn't taste to awful, burnt and black like she is.

The Master still isn't full.

He's still so hungry, it's almost as persistent as the damn drum beats, the four boomboomboombooms that ring deep within him, making him claw at his new hair and mumble. "Stop it, stop it!"

His next meal comes from some dark skinned man in a back alley. He strips the still bleeding skeleton down and steals off with his slacks, red top and black hoody before he offends any poor old dears peering out of their windows.

"Oh how the great hath fallen," the Master sighs, hands deep in his pockets, and hoody pulled low over his dark eyes. He kicks at a pebble on the path he walks. Does he have a plan? He must have a plan, because here he is. It will possibly fall from the sky, as a sign to show him what his plan must be. Even a genius mind like himself doesn't come ready with a plan.

He must find the Doctor. Because he and the Doctor need to be together, or else it just doesn't work.

The Master marvels at how his new brain bounces all around, changing the topic, not finishing one before tackling the next.

The Timelord comes to a junkyard.

His stomach cries out again. He places a hand over it, trying to quieten it. "Oh stars, will this pain never stop?" he snarls, angry at his demanding stomach, angry at the drums pounding in his body, and angry at Lucy and just so angry at everything around him. He picks up a plank of wood, and hurls it like a Frisbee. It flings into the air, smashing into an abandoned car's front window.

He doesn't feel any better than before.

"Alright. Alright. Hush now, stop your yowling I'll find some food," the Master sulks, sliding down the smelly rubbish mountain he stands on, slipping twice on some rotten items of garbage, but lands at the bottom in one piece. "Argh!" again the bones gleam through his skin, and a terrible roar blocks the boomboomboomboom then it goes just as suddenly, and he's left panting, breathing in heavily and-

The Master sniffs the air.

Hotdogs! Chips, hamburgers, fish, cotton candy. . humans . . hmm, his mouth waters and his stomach cramps painfully.

He trots towards the inviting smells, discovering a pokey looking caravan that is selling most of the food items mentioned above. A plump, middle aged woman serves a balding man and a child, skin like coals. The Master hovers, waiting for the two men to walk off, before he makes his move.

"What can I get you, love?" the woman asks, smiling warmly like he is her son coming through the front door after school. The Master quirks his own lips under the protective hoody, small and nasty and hungry.

He surprises himself at the force of his lunge, delighted with his new found powers, and he slams the woman into the wall behind her, hand closing round her throat, choking down her cry. Something bubbles and hisses to his left. The Master peers curiously, finding a human device. . a sink with some sort of frothing, yellowish liquid inside. Two wire cages full of chips rest in it. It smells of grease and fat and it's so very, very tempting.

The humans call it a fryer, he believes.

He's forgotten about the thrashing woman.

Oh yes, he must deal to her. "Patience. I'm getting there," he growls to his stomach. He lifts one of the wire cages out of the sink, ignoring the woman's frantic gurgles and scratch of her nails. Quick as a flash, the Master adjusts his hold, now grabbing the back of the fat woman's head, and he plunges her face first into the hissing vat of oil and water and chip fat.

There are watery yells and sobs coming from the woman, and the Master whistles tunelessly as he helps himself to some of the half cooked chips. They taste quite awful. The thrashing stops. The Master lifts the woman up, and grunts when she kicks him.

"Playing possum, huh? My mistake. I am so hungry you see, couldn't wait. Couldn't wait," he laughs shrilling, ducking as she swings a spatula at his head. "Naughty naughty," he scolds her, grabbing her failing wrist and jerks her around, eyes falling on the spike the hotdog buns get pierced on.

There a crunch and the Master uses alien strength to shove her badly blistered face the whole way down on the pike, the blunt metal bursts through the back of her skull. Whistling again, the Master takes and chip and experimentally swipes it through her spurting blood, seeing if the soggy potato will taste any better that way.

Sadly not.

It takes an entire minute for the woman's twitches and grunting groans to stop. By this time, the Master has raided the entire shop, polishing off all the woman's stock. He saves a hamburger for later. Now he turns to the fresh corpse, glancing dully at the sink of bubbling water. Humans did say you could deep fry just about anything these days, didn't they?

As night falls, the Master lies in a pile of plastic bags, looking up at the stars. So many, so many, all just as beautiful as the next and the silence is ruined with the nasty drum beats, always, always taunting him, the sound in his body, but also all around him at the same time. Which really doesn't make sense, but somehow it does at the same time.

The Master shakes his head as if that will clear the sound and his chaotic thoughts. At least his stomach has settled down for the time being.

And then he hears it, soft foot falls, crunching over broken bottles, rotten fruits and piles of cardboard and pieces of paper. The Master sits up, eyes big and black and glittering with the stars above him. He doesn't know how he knows. He just does. Like when the positive and negative sizes of the magnets get into contact and pull. Like that. "The Doctor," he grins gleefully, hoping down from his rubbish pile and scampers towards the sound like an excited child.

"Come to play, have you Doctor?" he calls to him, now spotting the bean pole alien himself, appearing from the winter's mist, hands buried in his trench coat pockets, brown hair sticking up as a rooster's tail does.

"Hullo Master," the Doctor greets in that British way of his- the Master suppose he isn't one to talk- like their grand old buddies who haven't seen each other in a very long time. In a funny way they sort of are. If it wasn't for the arch enemies thing. The Master smirks at the name, always enjoying the sound of it when it rolls off the Doctor's tongue. Like a small victory. "Yes, you like that don't you," the Timelord shakes his head, still walking towards him, casual smiling slipping into a frown. "Always polite to use people's names when greeting them, don't you agree? I've come to talk."

"Talk? Talk is boring. Play with me, Doctor. Play. That's much more fun," the Master giggles, hands glowing an electric blue, bones showing through his skin.

"Well, that doesn't look very good, now does it?"

The Master giggles again, hands glowing brighter and brighter like a blue super nova. "Wouldn't know, wouldn't know. You're the Doctor here, you tell me," charged bolts fly from his palms and the Doctor doesn't even cringe as garbage explodes behind him. ". . . that is interesting. Never done that before," the Master muses, looking at his hands.

"Let's have a look at you, hey? You've very sick, aren't you," the Doctor says, in that patronising tone the Master hates. Like he's speaking to a silly little child. He isn't a child. His hands glow out of anger, and again he fires, missing the Doctor again, not realising he's been aiming at his long, slim frame all this time.

"Never been better, Doctor. I feel great, in fact," the Master assures him, and he rubs his hands together, like he's washing them clean in a sink. Energy crackles around them, and his skeleton shines again, the roaring exploding out of him and the drums beat loud and so very loud he wants to scream and make them all shut up. A blue ball of energy is unleashed, reminding the Master of those corny Japanese programs and the ball slams into the Doctor, and he falls like a weak little human being.

"Oh Doctor, Doctor dearest, don't you know better than to anger your Master?" he sneers down at the Timelord, giving him a sharp kick to the ribs, earning a gruff wheeze in answer. "Ah, everyone makes you out to be so beautiful and all powerful. But you're not really. Are you? The only alien thing about you are your two hearts and freakish IQ. You can't defend yourself at all. You've gone soft, you have. Been hanging around those human pets of yours for far too long now."

He watches the Doctor cough weakly, struggling on the ground. The Master sits on the dirt beside him, drawing his knees up to his chest and looking towards the sky.

"I can help you."

"Goodness, a broken record is what you are," the Master looks back down at him in disbelief. "Do you suppose this entire galaxy stops to look at us when we meet? I think it must do. Like it's holding its breath, waiting to see what's going to happen next. How we're going to hurt it next." Then his stomach gives a painful lurch. "So hungry. Why doesn't it stop? Wait. Doctor, you must have more life force than a human. Maybe you can help me."

Brown eyes stare at him uncertainly. "You're hungry? Timelord's don't need to eat. Oh. Oh oh oh."

"Yes, clever Doctor, knew it wouldn't take you long to work out. Clever," the Master grins, then winces as his bones stick out and he gives a whimper of hunger. Suddenly he grabs the Doctor's shoulders and yanks him up and closer to his mouth. "Why, why me? This hungry doesn't stop, doesn't stop and it's driving me insane. Oh Stycurac and I thought the drums were bad. But you can help me, can't you Doctor? A Timelord's life force must be so much greater than those mangy humans I've had to put up with. Doctor, Doctor, you look so good. You'll let me, won't you? You said you would help me."

The Doctor takes his time, eyes deep and serious and calculating. "What on earth happened to you? Your resurrection is incomplete, isn't it. Now your body is dying and you need to continue absorbing other's to keep yourself alive."

"This isn't the time for self analyse, Doctor," the Master gives him a shake, then draws him back in to keep his scent close and thinks of all that energy pumping through the wiry alien- the TARDIS itself is inside that small body. "Stop talking to me like I'm some dumb, run of the mill alien. I'm like you, you know. Two of a kind. The only two of a kind, really," he chuckles, squeezing the Doctor's arms as if sizing him up.

"Oh no. No no no. Let's reframe from eating one another, shall we?" the Doctor laughs with him, always the best at hiding his concerns and soft fears of not his safety but those around him. "But yes, I think I can help you. Come with me to the TARDIS, Shakespeare and I'll fix you up there."

The Master glances around, wondering at first who he is talking to. Then he slaps his head, over exaggeratedly. "Hahaha. Good one, Doctor. Almost had me going for a second there. If you want to play it that way, be my guest."

"Well. If I called you the M word all the time, it would ruin all the tension, wouldn't it?" Like a jack-in-the-box, the Doctor springs up, always over flowing with catchy energy. He hides his limps and winces quite well, discreetly putting his hand inside his trench coat like he's searching for a hanky, when really he rubs at his bruised and battered rib cage. "Come along, Bartholomew."

The Master shakes his head, like he isn't the crazy one here.

Inside the TARDIS, the Master runs around like a kid in a candy store. He touches everything he can get his greedy hands on.

"Bigger on the inside, isn't it?" he comments, acting like this is his first time riding the space craft. Sprawling himself over the control panels, he starts to press every button he can reach. "Hmmm, what does this button do?"

"Hey. HEY! Stop that, you," the Doctor scolds, as the lighting changes from a peaceful tan to flashing, retro pink and blue. The Master is jerked away from the shiny, tempting buttons by the brim of his hoody. "Honestly. What are you, two hundred years old?" the Timelord grumbles, changing the lighting system back to normal. The TARDIS gives a worried creak. "It's alright girl, soon he'll be out of here- Sylvester!"

Caught in the act, the Master laughs manically as he pulls the huge GOGOGO! leaver down. The TARDIS buzzes into life, groaning and roaring, ancient gears grinding together and the towering centre pole glows brightly, pumping up and down.

"I am trying to help you," the Doctor shoves the Master aside, grabbing a rubber mallet and whacks it across the dash board. Sparks fly everywhere, and the poor old space craft whines, then stops in her activities. She does not take off. "Sit. Behave."

The Master sits on the ground.

The second order is yet to be fully obeyed.

Something fuzzy catches the corner of his eye. A tan and maroon coloured patch of material sticks out from an invisible hatch in the floor. The Master wriggles on his belly towards it, grabbing a handful of the soft material and pulling hard. "So I was thinking," the Doctor continues to bather on like he's still listening, dancing around the TARDIS centre and pulling down levers and ripping out wires and looking like he'd doing more damage than anything really. "What is just as great as a Timelord's life span? So naturally, I thought of the TARDIS and her heart energy. . . although, now I think of it, a dying star might have done the trick. Or all the pollution on earth, I'm sure all that negative gas would work just fine on you. I don't like the idea of using another creature, though some out there could do will the loss of weight. But then again I don't really know how you go absorbing all this stuff. You make it sound like you physically eat things, with your mouth I mean, fancy that! To get energy, almost like a human- are you listening to me? You're not listening to me. . Louis you-you're not even in here are you. Bullocks."

The Master has discovered the downstairs passageway that is full of all kinds of outfits. There are twenty first century, medieval, England Renaissance, futuristic, Art Deco, and not just time periods, but certain styles, like gothic and Lolita. The shoes, hats, tops, furs and accessories spiral down, down down, going on forever, and already the Master has wrapped a familiar looking scarf around his neck, found a pair of flattering glasses and a smoke pipe to chew on.

"Out of everything you have, I can't believe that is what you chose," the Master says critically as the Doctor stomps down the metal grated stairscase. He looks like he's taken a bullet to the gut. Self consciously, the Doctor looks down at himself.

"What's wrong with what I'm wear- no. Stop being so bloody distracting and get back up there mister."

At long last, they are ready. The Master refuses to give up the glasses on his nose however.

"When I open the hatch, stare directly into her heart. Her supply is rather limitless, so I dare say it won't do any harm."

"Said Hansel to Gretel as they skipped up the wicked witches path," the Master snickers, then the grate on the floor lifts up, and he goes blind.

It's like he's been put inside a white tiled room, with not corner marks or dirt smudges. The light is so bright, so intense, it shatters his brilliant mind and everything goes quiet like when snowfalls on the ground. The Master almost cries out of relief when the drums beat their last and fade all together. The TARDIS sings in his ears, so very pure and full of warmth as a mother's embrace is. The life force streams into every pore of his body and he is shown glimpses of the Universe and her vastness and loneliness that he has seen and felt many times before now. Then everything goes wrong.

The TARDIS's light recoils as the Master glows neon blue, bones immerging from his revealed skin and a feral snarl fills the white silence. His body rejects the pure energy. With a sigh, the light dims and fades, snaking back inside the grate which is snapped shut at once. The Master topples over with a howl, cringing as the drums beat once more, twice as loud and angry he dares forget about them. Boomboomboomboom!

He's left crying in a ball, whimpering with hands over his ears, feeling just as empty and as hungry as before, so very empty but so full of noise it's just too cruel.

Hands touch his back, try to roll him over and unwind him, a distance voice making soft hushing noises at him. His ears are still ringing with drums and the suddenness of everything, and he takes two long minutes to recover and lets the drums beats fade back into the noise a fly makes. Annoying, constant and always there.

"It's okay now."

"It's-not - okay!" The Master yells, slapping the Doctor's caring hands away, shoving him backwards onto the ground. The blonde alien leans down to snarl at his other half. "You can't hear it, Doctor. You don't know what it's like, this," he slams his fist four times onto the TARDIS floor. "Noise! Noise noise noise! Don't you know how, oooh, how frustrating it is. And it's not the noise, maybe it never was the noise, but never knowing the answers to the questions. Where is it coming from. Why is it ringing. What does it mean. Who is making it. When will it stop."

"If I could take it away from you, you know I would. I would do anything," the Doctor says, grabbing the Master's face to calm him down. He pants like he's run a mile, eyes wild as an animal. "Now stop. Take a breath. Your body just has to get used to the TARDIS before it accepts her energy. Let's try again."

"No. No. No!" the Master shakes his head furiously, freeing himself from the Doctor's slack hold. "Don't you get it? It's not going to work, Doctor. No matter what you do, this is the one thing you can't fix."

The Timelord puffs himself up, getting the I'm the Doctor I can fix anything look in his ancient eyes.

"Do you think it fate?" the Master says quietly, sounding almost sane. "Our names. The Doctor, healing the worlds, trying to fix every problem or life he comes across. Sometimes he fails, sometimes he does even more damage because doctors are like that. Then there's me, the Master. Made for ruling, concurring worlds, making everyone my valets. Power corrupts, I'm supposed to be like this. We were born into our perfect roles by someone with a Doctor and Master sized template up there. I wonder if the mould broke. I wonder how cruel fate can be."

The Doctor is silent, and he can guess he has always thought this, chased the thought around and around his lonely, silent head on his lonely, silent nights in the TARDIS.

"But its okay, its okay, just like you said. Because I've already worked out a way to help. Like I said before," the Master says, nodding earnestly, snatching one of the Doctor's hands and unbuttons the cuff, rolling the blazer, then white blouse sleeves down as far as the tight fitting material allows. "I'm just so hungry, Doctor."

"Uum, yes. The TARDIS does not approve of cannibalism," the Timelord sounds nervous for his own wellbeing this time.

"But Doctor, you said you would help me," the Master keens, voice almost cracking into hysterical sobs. "I just can't stop the hunger, make it go away. Help me. Help me please Doctor," he can hear the out of time heart beats through the veins in his wrist, nuzzling in close until the heart thumps cover up the drum beats and he opens his mouth and licks and bites down- then it hit over the head.

"Ow! You hit me!"

"Yes. And it might knock some sense back into you," the Doctor grumbles, standing up and moving away from him. Sourly, the Master rubs a hand over his scalp, feeling very hard done by indeed.

"Just a bite Doctor. I promise it won't hurt!"

"Not bloody likely."

"Fine. I'm leaving then as you don't give a toss about me," the blonde alien sticks his nose into the air, and steps out of the TARDIS, crunching his way over the frosted grass where the space craft has made her base. He pulls his hoody up against the cold, pivoting to stare at the blue police box. He gives it another ten seconds before the Doctor remerges with an apology.

Nine.

Ten.

The ancient gears and pumps grind together, and the TARDIS glows and shimmers and the Master yelps in alarm. That prick has the nerve to leave him like this! "Doctor. DOCTOR YOU ARSE!" he yells, racing back to the roaring police box, and lunges for the door.

He falls ungracefully through the fading box, then hits the cold ground with a woof of air. His glasses spin off his nose.

"Come back!" he yells to nobody, crystalline dew drops in his eyebrows and hair. He lets his face fall back to the ground. He wonders if grass tastes nice. Then he wonders how long it will take until he's soaked to the bone. Muttering bitterly to himself, the Master props himself up onto his elbows, frowning at the darkness. "Hmpf. So much for helping me. I thought that was his Achilles heel. No matter, he'll feel guilty in the morning, and he'll have to help me then," he smiles, pleased with his deduction.

Suddenly a thunderous roar fills the still night.

"Huh? Back already are you, Doctor?" the Master yells, peering upwards, slightly uncertain.

A spotlight beams onto his body.

This can't be good.

Everything has been child's play, really.

Criminally easy to trick each life he has come into contact with, and turn them into toys on a playing board, moving them at his will and putting strings on them. Twice now he has taken control over the human race. So very easy. Almost boring, actually.

But now, facing the President and the rest of the Lords, and being stared at by the Doctor like he's an idiot the Master now realises that hasn't been the case at all.

He is toy on the board.

From the moment he was old enough to walk and take on the beat of the drums, that was when it started. Did the Timelord's know, did they foresee this far into their future, knowing they had to have some kind of key- a pawn- that would click into the invisible lock if their came a day they might be wiped from existence?

The Master is that pawn. That key.

Having lived all of these hundreds of years, his life has simply pivoted- been planned- to this very moment? This is the answer behind the infuriating drum beats. Like a tower of blocks he's neatly stacked up, it feels as if somebody has come along and kicked them over, leaving him feeling wretched and unaccomplished.

Disgusted, he tells the Doctor to get out of his way, letting his body fade into the blue glow and hits the Lords with everything he has. In four, deadly strikes.

Boom boom boom boom.

His eyes refocus.

Slowly a scene unfolds. A beach, with capped waves rolling, and sand white as his hair as far as the eye can see. A palm tree waves lazily at him.

To his right, somebody slurps on a cracked coconut.

"Oh isn't this bloody brilliant? Even when I'm dead I can't get away from you," the Master snorts, scratching his nose distractedly while the Doctor lounges on his beach chair. He wears a straw hat, sun glasses, Hawaiian shirt and shorts. The Master feels out of place in his dirty pants and burnt and blood stained hoody.

"I suppose we are dead in a sense, aren't we?"

The Master arches a fair eyebrow, slouching his shoulders as he thrusts his hands into his pockets. "Of course. I got nuked in that explosion or I burnt out at last as you were an arse and didn't give me your energy or- wait. Whoa wait. Why are you here? The Doctor can't be dead!"

"No, the Doctor is still alive. So is the Master I dare say," the Doctor sighs in a soundabout manner. He peers over his shades at the Timelord.

". . what are you saying?" the Master says, sound fearful. Suddenly he cocks his head. "Can you hear that? It's been bugging me for a while now," he clicks his fingers near his ear. "Like a. . . kind of soft humming noise? Like a computer or a mozzie. . "

"That would be the silence."

"What si-" the rest of the sentence is drown out in a grand exclamation and a string of swearing words, and the Master almost dances out of sheer joy. He can hear silence. There are no drum beats, no noise, no nothing! He suddenky stops jigging, and stares down at his hands. The full force of what this means hits him all at once. Without the noise he feels. . .

"It's funny. This emptiness you feel," the Doctor comments, looking out at the sea with a thoughtful expression. "When you lose something, you never realise how much you needed it until it's gone. Scary, isn't it?"

The Master nods, tears dripping down his face and he couldn't stop the water works even if he tried. He feels so empty now, a great chunk of himself has suddenly vanished and it's like he's suddenly step backwards, seeing himself small and alone in a big white room. Insignificant now his purpose in life is gone. With no drum beats, he is nothing. "What am I suppose to do now?" he wants to know, sounding like a frightened child lost in a big city of shadows.

"Well, doesn't matter now does it? Nothing matters anymore."

Then everything falls into place. The unspoken reason to why they are both here.

The Master sits himself on the warm sand, propping one knee up and resting his arm on it. They sit in silence, the Doctor slipping his exotic drink from time to time, and the sun crawls across the sky until it's eaten by the sea.

Softly, the edges of his vision grow fuzzy while the sun dies, and the beach turns painfully white, the splashing waves recede and get dimmer at every blink. The world fades around him, the familiar presence of the Doctor beside him dwindles like a dying star, and soon he is stripped away too, body, feelings, thoughts, soul, until he is only aware of one thing before he finally goes.

All this time he hasn't felt hungry once.

END