My Only Friend

Chapter 1: All Those Lines

Another quick slash, another thin trail of blood across his wrist. Then, again, and more blood. The Master scowled deeply as the blade bit into his wrist once more. Not technically a blade, he thought, as another blood trail appeared. More like...a broken piece of glass. But it still bites like a blade would.

It had been three years since the Master had been heard from. As far as anyone knew, he was still stuck on Gallifrey, forever trapped inside the time lock that was the Time War. The details as to how he'd escaped were still fuzzy, and it made his head hurt just to think about it. But in those three years, the Master had had a lot of time to think. Mostly about his old enemy, the Doctor. He knew it had been a lot longer for the Doctor than it had been for him. What with the Doctor having his TARDIS to travel through all of space and time while the Master was trapped on Earth.

Stupid, irritating, bloody Earth. How he hated this planet and its people. All six billion of them are absolutely useless!! he thought angrily, sucking in a tight breath as the broken glass tore roughly through his flesh. He grinned madly as his dark blood bubbled to the surface, then licked it up to clean off his wrist and start anew on fresh cuts.

He glanced up, feeling as though someone was watching him. He squinted in the growing darkness, then sighed and went back to inflicting pain after being unable to see anyone. At least the pain distracted him from the never ending drums in his head. Ooh how he loathed that noise. Suddenly, he felt his fingers tapping out the familiar beat. Onetwothreefour, onetwothreefour. He'd been hearing it since he was eight years old, and it had been the main source of the Time Lord's insanity.

The Master allowed his thoughts to travel back to the Doctor, as he marked his arm with another bloody line, and then another, more jagged line, pressed deeper into the skin than he'd meant to. He whimpered softly, allowing the pain to flow over him like a waterfall. He envied his former friend; he'd never suffered quite like he had. Sure, the Doctor had been through the Time War, while the Master had run, but, in his mind, that was nothing compared to hearing the drums.

They tortured him constantly, making it impossible for him to sleep easily nowadays. He groaned and closed his eyes, trying to block out the pain in his throbbing skull as the intensity of the drums increased. The shard of glass in his hands fell to the ground and shattered at his feet as he grabbed his head in agony, the fragments of it now unusable for his handiwork. He hated the Time Lords for what they'd done to him, what they'd made him to be. But for now, there was nothing he could do, and the pain was his only friend.

* * * *

“Well that was a fun little trip, wasn't it, Clara?” the Doctor asked his companion as the TARDIS landed outside the flat she was now living in.

“Of course it was!” Clara exclaimed. “It certainly wasn't boring! And don't even try and tell me we haven't been to some boring places, Doctor, because we have,” she interrupted him before he could even protest as she headed for the door. “See you next Wednesday, Doctor!” she called as she left.

The Doctor smiled. “Absolutely, my impossible Clara,” he said softly as she left. As the door fell shut, he turned back towards the console. He sighed softly. His mind had been occupied lately; thoughts of the past swarmed him like flies. One of the more frequent thoughts, was that of his old friend slash life long enemy, the Master. The poor Time Lord had a diseased mind, and no matter how much the Doctor tried, or wanted to try, and help him, the Master always refused to let him. All he wanted was to have his old friend back.

Sighing once more, the Doctor started messing with the TARDIS controls again, prepared to allow her choose his next location, when a tiny blip appeared on the screen. Nearly tripping over his own feet to get to the screen, he smiled when he read it. The blip on the screen represented a Time Lord presence nearby. He'd found his next destination.