Soul's Shadow (Doctor Who - SI)

Part X (VIII)

The Master giggled and dropped his head against mine. "You're such a twisted little thing."

"You have to talk," I countered, still having half of a smile. "This's twisted on both ends, just so you know."

"Mhm..." His hands moved to my back again, slid under cloth and found their place on skin. "Nothing new for me." He drew me a bit closer. "But to have a human of all people go along. That's a first."

"'m not," I mumbled and watched as his eyes fixated me with a question in them. "They never treated me like I belonged to their species. I never understood how they even think and... operate?"

"That doesn't change your DNA, little one." The Master chuckled.

"I know. But if they don't accept me as one of their own... then what am I?"

There was an energy lingering on the edges of my mind, hovering, almost caressing. A chuckle made me snap my awareness back to the Master's eyes.

"An idiot. That's what you are. You think way too bloody much about everything."

Well, that definitely was true. "But that also allows me to find ways and solutions others don't," I retorted.

"Ah, I see." The Master retreated his head from mine and wore a smirk. "I'm a complex puzzle for you to solve. You like the challenge. That's why you want to find the drums. To prove that you can, not because you want to help."

I shrugged and gave him an apologetic grin. "I do want to help. But yeah, that's a big part."

He nodded. "Good. I hate people with an insufferable helper syndrome." Swiftly he drew me closer and his head landed back on mine. "Now concentrate. You can't find anything at all if you don't know any basics."

Startled, I tensed for a second, but relaxed quickly and closed my eyes. This closeness was still frightening, but the Master was right, if I wanted to find the drums I also had to overcome parts of myself.

"We have all night. So we can as well use the time," he muttered. "The first thing you have to know is how to create a shield around parts of your mind."

"So you can't harm me?" I teased and heard him chuckle.

"So you don't hurt yourself. And yes, you need to be shielded from me too. A light connection-" His mind slowly eased into mine- "doesn't do much. I can't hear your thoughts, but I can sense your most dominant emotions."

"That works both ways, doesn't it?"

The Master hummed confirming and I felt him creep deeper, past the surface level he had just mentioned. My heartbeat increased a little, my breath hitched. There was no way I would ever get used to those sensations and literally sitting in his lap didn't make this any better. I felt as if I was slowly engulfed by water, as if I was sinking deep into the abyss of an endless ocean of darkness. No, not darkness, not the abomination I had witnessed inside the ship, but a soothing absence of visual stimuli.

What an imagination. There was a laugh in my head and the Master's voice, amused and somehow also fascinated.

Can you hear my every thought?, I asked back in silence.

More or less. The ones that stick out. Those and your emotions. That's what you need to shield.

What for? You know so much about me already.

A proper laugh rang in my ears and I felt his fingers dig a little more into my skin, the motion bringing me back to the physical world for a fraction of a second, only to then fall back into soothing darkness.