Title: Broken Toy
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: one-sided Master/Doctor
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: R
Table: 1, fanfic50
Prompt: 19, Toy
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Tenth Doctor, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

***

The Doctor sighed heavily, rolling over in bed and pulling the covers up around his bare shoulders. He was still stiff and sore from his last encounter with the Master, but his body was slowly recovering -- though he wondered how long it would take his mind to do so.

That bastard could always manage to get to him, no matter how secure he thought he'd become, the Time Lord told himself bitterly, wishing that he could pull the covers over his head and hide under them. Every encounter chipped away at his soul a piece at a time.

It had become worse since he'd regenerated into this body; the Master had always wanted to control him, to own him, to possess him, but now it was worse. He seemed to have developed some kind of sexual obsession with the Doctor that wouldn't fade away.

He certainly wasn't going to force a regeneration and give up the body that he loved just because his greatest enemy was attracted to him now more than he'd ever been, the Doctor told himself. But that attraction made things all the more difficult.

He didn't want to spend his life running and hiding from the Master. He'd never felt the need to hide from the renegade Time Lord before; it was usually the other way around, the Master hiding from him, hatching his dark plans in secret until he could unveil them to the world.

But now, the other man had him at a disadvantage. If he'd been willing to play dirty, to use the kinds of tricks that the Master did, then they would be on more of an equal playing field. But he had never lowered himself to use the Master's tactics, and he never would.

It was a pity that the Master had run mad and had never learned the concept of honor, the Doctor thought wearily, burying his face in the pillow. If he'd had the inner strength not to let the Time Vortex distort his mind, their lives could have been so different.

There was no use thinking in that way, he told himself firmly, pushing that thought away. He couldn't change the far-off past; he had to accept that the Master was no longer the friend of his childhood days, and hadn't been for a long time.

Now, they were bitter enemies, and had been for a very long time. There was no turning back those years to a happier time; and, truth be told, the Master had always had that streak of evil in him, even before the Time Vortex had warped him beyond recognition.

Even when they were children, the Master had always viewed others as being his toys, his belongings. And he had conceived that strange obsession with the Doctor even then, trying to force the young Theta to bow to his wishes in every way that he could.

It had worked once in a while, the Doctor had to admit. He'd found himself bending to the Master's desires, sometimes even when he knew that they were wrong. And he'd always hated himself afterwards, wishing that he'd held out and followed his own conscience.

He'd been a child then, he reminded himself, even though he hadn't been as easily led as most children were. He had grown used to being an outcast, though, and the Master had played on those feelings of isolation and loneliness.

That was why he'd let himself be drawn into the Master's web more than once. He'd reached out to the person he'd thought was a friend, even against his better judgement, and more often than not, he'd ended up bitterly regretting that he'd done so.

How long had it taken him to realize that the Master wasn't his friend, that the other man only used him to fulfill his own selfish desires? That knowledge had come to him when he was very young, but he'd always held on to the hope that the Master might someday change.

Of course, he never had -- and he never would. He would always view the Doctor as being his toy, nothing more than something to use in any way he wanted to, and to throw away when he was tired of it. That wasn't friendship, and it never had been.

At one point in their lives, the Master had even tried to convince him that it was a strange kind of love. He had never believed that, of course -- even though a part of him had desperately wanted to. He'd needed to believe that he was loved, that he was needed and wanted.

How he'd wanted to believe that he was loved! But he had always known in the back of his mind that what the Master offered him wasn't love. It wasn't even a relationship. It was abusive, controlling, and nothing that he wanted to be a part of.

Was that when their enmity had started -- when he'd had the strength and presence of mind to pull away from the Master and refuse his advances? Had it started that day when the Master had forced him down onto his bed at the Academy and taken him against his will?

Or had it started much sooner than that, when the two of them were still children and the Doctor had still wanted to believe that they were friends? Had the seed of mistrust been planted even before the Master's evil had seeped through from the inside to show outwardly?

He would never have the answer to those questions. He would never know just when they'd turned from being uneasy friends to being bitter enemies. It was enough that the enmity between them existed, and that he had to constantly be on guard against the other man.

It had taken him so long to realize that he was nothing but a toy to the Master -- and at the moment, he was a broken toy that the other man didn't want to play with any more. Their last encounter had made sure of that, he thought wryly.

But it had been worth it, he told himself. He'd given himself to the Master to save a world full of innocent people who would otherwise have been reduced to nothingness in the blink of an eye. It was worth any sacrifice he had to make of himself to save that many people.

It didn't matter that the Master had sneered at him when he was being taken, calling him a weak fool and berating him for the sacrifice he was making. It didn't matter that there had been satisfaction oozing from the Master's voice, the sound like nails on a chalkboard.

All that mattered was that he'd done what he had to do, saved an entire planet from decimation. And when he looked at the situation in that light, the sacrifice of his body and his pride to the Master's momentary lust hadn't been such a loss.

Once again, he'd been reduced to the level of a toy for the Master to use and discard. Would their every meeting be like this? Would he always end up giving in to his enemy's lust, sacrificing himself for the greater good of others, people who he didn't even know?

Yes, he would, the Doctor told himself, burying his face against the pillow again to hold back a sigh. If he had to let himself become the Master's toy to benefit the rest of the universe, if that was his lot in life, then he would accept it. He had no other choice.

He shifted his aching body onto his back, opening his eyes and staring up at the ceiling. He would keep doing this for as long as he had to. He was a Time Lord; he owed it to the universe to keep predators like the Master at bay in any way he could.

If he had to let himself be used like a toy to keep the universe safe from the Master, then the would make himself accept that part of his life. He would just have to hope that he wouldn't be broken to the point where there would be no putting the pieces back together again.

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