Silencing the Drums

Dressing the Master was a trial and a half. Again, the Doctor had to unleash him, standing guard at the door to the wardrobe room and thinking worriedly that it’d been a long time since he’d checked for secret doors and exits in this part of the TARDIS. He knew Amy had wandered in here to poke around, but he himself had taken to storing his limited selection of clothing in his own room. It’d gotten terrifically crowded in here, the closets stuffed with coats and shirts and pants and dresses and all manner of sartorial things, so much so that it made the Doctor’s head spin just to look in. His own former coat and suits hung in a place of prominence near the door, not yet put away, and as he waited for the Master to choose something to wear, he moved over to the coat rack and ran his hand along the brown wool. It’d been a good old coat, serviceable and flashy, warm as anything. They’d had plenty of good times. He’d thought often of picking up a new coat for himself, for his current jacket, though comfortable and scholarly, left a lot to be desired in the warmth department.

“Oy, are you done yet?” he called, peering past a forest of trousers and smoking jackets. “How long does it take to pick out a shirt and a pair of pants, honestly? I did it saving the world, last time.”

“It’s not that easy when you’re sorting through a millennia’s worth of bad fashion,” the Master called back, his voice slightly muffled. He must’ve been deep in the fur coats, possibly lost.

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” the Doctor scoffed. “You must’ve worn every awful collared jacket ever invented for bipeds. Maybe even some invented not for bipeds. That’s why it took me so long to notice you when you were masquerading as the prime minister – a normal shirt collar!”

There was a scuffle and a bang of overturned coat racks, and after a few seconds the Master thrust his face from between rows of vests, scowling. “You’ve got a bow-tie. And if we’re going to go down memory lane, let’s discuss this monstrosity, shall we?” He pushed his way out into the room, clad in nothing but an extraordinarily long, striped scarf. It wound twice around his neck, loose coils draped halfway down his chest, the rest folded around his arms and dangling below his waist in something partially resembling decency. “How is this even practical?” he demanded.

The Doctor blinked, put a hand to his chin in thought, and tried very hard not to stare at what the loose end of the scarf was hiding. “That is monstrously indecent,” he said at last. “Go put some pants on. I’m going to have to get that dry-cleaned. What if I’d wanted to wear that again? Now it’s all covered in your… bits.”

“I thought you liked my bits,” the Master smirked, tossing the loose end of the scarf over his shoulder and sticking his chest out for effect. The Doctor coughed and very deliberately averted his eyes, then made a shooing motion.

“Go on, back in the wardrobe with you. Go pick something normal.”

“Like that’s going to happen with this lot,” the Master snorted. He did as asked, though, and wandered back into the maze of clothing. The Doctor sighed and sat down in a chair by the door, long legs thrust out in front of him, and began to toy with the sonic screwdriver, flipping it from one hand to the other for lack of anything better to do with himself. After a few moments of silence, a sudden shout startled the sonic right out of his hands.

“Why do you still have this?” the Master demanded as he once again excavated himself from the racks. This time he had on pants – sensible brown trousers – but on his top half wore something the Doctor wished he could forget.

“I keep everything,” he said defensively, looking down to retrieve the sonic as a way to avoid looking at the eyesore the Master was wearing for a few more moments.

“Look, I know you had a big question-mark phase, but this.” He gestured in disgust to the question mark-motif sweater vest he’d pulled on. “Where did you even find this? Did you have this made, or what?”

“I’ll have you know, that was all the rage in the Para-dimensional Dimension back in early 1,204 Squid.”

“It should tell you something that this was a fashion in a dimension that doesn’t technically exist,” the Master muttered, pulling the sweater vest off. “I’m going to burn this the first opportunity I have.” He chucked the sweater vest at the Doctor and dove back into the wardrobe.

The Doctor felt he had a point, but that was no reason to let him follow up on his threat. He folded the vest and set it beneath his chair, trying to think back to the question-mark era and recall what, exactly, had made him think it was a good idea.

The Master’s next outfit made the Doctor drop his screwdriver again. Amy Pond had left a few things behind after her most recent departure, deciding that if she was tired of repeated trips home to change. One of these was an overlarge red sweater that was charming on her.

It was not quite so on the Master, especially without any sort of garment underneath.

The Master clearly disagreed. He strutted forth in his borrowed finery, the end of the sweater barely covering his thighs. To make matters worse, he’d picked out a pair of black strappy heels – heels that, the Doctor had to admit, made his legs look fantastic.

“What do you think? This must belong to one of your companions, unless you had a secret girly phase I don’t know about.”

The Doctor choked a bit, flushing pink to the tips of his ears.

“No, I really don’t think that’s appropriate. At all. And it belongs to Amy Pond, so you’ll need to give it back.”

“I don’t think so,” the Master replied, testing the heels with a little slide across the room. “It’s so breezy and comfortable! Your latest companion must have excellent taste.”

Jack chose this precise moment to walk in on them.

“Doctor, I thought you might need backup and- whoa! Hello there.” He skidded to a stop, not at all sure of what he was seeing. “My, that’s… quite an outfit you have there.”

“Why, if it isn’t handsome Jack,” the Master said with delight, his face lighting up like he’d just heard Christmas was coming early. “You’re just in time. The Doctor and I are having a little fashion show. He seems opposed to this one – I can’t imagine why. What do you think?”

“Honestly?” Jack tilted his head, hands on hips, desperately reminding himself that the Master was a psychotic killer. For once, his logic was in complete disagreement with his loins. “It’s kind of… short. Don’t you think you might want some pants with that? Leggings? A skirt?”

“Jack, please don’t encourage him,” the Doctor said, almost pleading. “This is absurd. Pond would surely object.”

“So, what I’m getting from you both is a… no,” the Master said. “I suppose you’re right – red really isn’t my color.” He faced away from the pair and bent down to unstrap the heels, and Jack was seized with a sudden choking fit. The Doctor gaped, fish-like, and hoped fervently that Amy would forget about this sweater entirely and never wear it again.

“I need to go check on the, ah… the thrusters,” Jack said, backing slowly out of the room. “And my e-mail. And possibly tidy up that guest room you put me in, Doctor. Might be a while. Don’t wait up.”

Thankfully, the Doctor had quite a reprieve to recover his senses. The Master had delved into the very deepest layers of the closet, and it took him a while to come up with something else to wear.

He next emerged in his most normal selection – a rather snappy cream suit and boater, the jacket accented handsomely in red. “Now, I did rather like this one,” he said, taking a turn in front of the mirror. “Very 70’s, and yet still very classic. I could do without the question-mark shirt collar, but I suppose you can’t have everything.”

The Doctor couldn’t suppress a slight grin, relieved that he wasn’t wearing a skirt. “Very popular with the ladies, that one,” he said, standing up and circling the Master, admiring his own former clothing choices. “I cut a dashing figure back then, didn’t I?”

“You were fairly popular with the lads as well, if I recall,” the Master said, his thin smile taking on a faintly sinister edge. “Who was that one charming boy you traveled with? It started with an A. Alan, or Alex…”

The Doctor stiffened, the smile dropping abruptly from his face.

“Ah, Adric! That’s the one.” The Master turned to face him, sly as a fox. “Whatever happened to him? You seemed so very fond of him.”

“He died,” the Doctor said shortly. “Cybermen. I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Oh, how tragic,” the Master said with an eerie pantomime of pity. “Couldn’t save him, could you? Or perhaps you might have – did you have a little lover’s spat? Let him wander off into danger? It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“He died saving the entire human race,” the Doctor snapped. “All of human history would’ve been blinked out in an instant if it wasn’t for him.”

The Master laughed. “My, you must have been quite enamored of him. Oh, well – bad luck, I suppose. That seems to be a problem your companions have. Wiped memories, alternate realities, and some… well, some just get fed up and leave, don’t they? Like that awful Martha Jones-“

The Doctor, rarely prone to violence, dragged the Master forward by his shirt collar, getting right up in his face. “You aren’t even worthy to speak their names,” he spat. “They were brilliant, all of them – they still are. And here you are, taking cheap shots at people you hardly know.”

The Master was taken aback, and in the moment it took him to come up with a retort, the Doctor tossed him away in disgust.

“You’re a pathetic excuse for a Time Lord,” he said dismissively, turning to leave. “Go on, wear that if you’d like – I’m not playing your games anymore. I’ve got to go keep an eye on the TARDIS controls. And, incidentally,” he turned briefly, his face a placid mask once more, “I’ll know the moment you leave this room, so don’t try anything funny.”

Before the Master could come up with a response, the Doctor had gone.

~*~