#I just loveee when people have rose come across the master during her dimension hopping days and I couldn't help myself

[camellcat]

Summary: If it were the Doctor, she'd almost say he was absentmindedly playing with the chain of her dimension cannon — fingers gently sliding up and down, tugging lightly before letting it fall back into place, rinse and repeat — but she was viscerally aware that every move they made had more meaning than she could even comprehend at times. Rose swallowed hard and felt him bare his teeth, pleased.

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Dropped straight in the middle of a conversation (or more accurate, argument), just a snapshot of the first time Rose says the Master's name aboard the Valiant

(full fic below if you'd rather read on tumblr! ↓)

She barked out an incredulous laugh. "If you really think he'd let you anywhere near his TARDIS then you really are crazy, M—"

Rose cut herself off and his face lit up in a twisted sort of glee. He pressed her harder against the wall, most definitely leaving bruises on her back and shoulders that she'd be feeling later.

"Say my name," he taunted. She tucked in her lips as feeble show of defiance. The smirk he was wearing disappeared and he leaned in, crowding her.

"Go on," he crooned, voice mockingly soft as he commanded her. Hot breath blew across her cheeks and she resisted the urge to squirm, refusing to give him the satisfaction of getting to see her nervous, even if she already knew that he could tell.

"Say it," his lip curled as he hissed the words. Her eyes squeezed shut without her permission, recoiling in the only way her body thought it safely could.

She had planned on keeping her mouth shut, ready to simply wait until it was time for her to be sent back, but then she felt one of his hands loosen their immobilizing grip on her shoulder and slide just beneath the collar of her shirt. If it were the Doctor, she'd almost say he was absentmindedly playing with the chain of her dimension cannon — fingers gently sliding up and down, tugging lightly before letting it fall back into place, rinse and repeat — but she was viscerally aware that every move they made had more meaning than she could even comprehend at times. Rose swallowed hard and felt him bare his teeth, pleased.

"Say my name."

Slowly, she opened hazel eyes and leveled a piercing glare back into his darker own, trying not to go cross from how close their faces were.

"Master," she choked out in disgust. Brown disappeared behind pale lids and he gave her an overdramatic shiver, one she fought hard not to replicate. Bumping his nose against hers in faux familiarity, he let go of the chain, as if rewarding her, and she had half a mind to see if she could bite him quick enough that he wouldn't be able to catch her.

He leaned away from her before she could follow through, as though he could sense what she had been contemplating, and she would've snickered if she wasn't palpably seething.

"Now then," the Master began with a lightheartedness neither of them possessed around each other, ever, "that wasn't so hard, was it, Rose Tyler?"

He rolled her name off his tongue with an amount of venom she'd never actually heard from him before, matching her one-for-one. As though he didn't really mean it. As though he really was just matching her.

Great. Another frustrating, power play game she didn't know the rules to.

When she didn't respond, he cocked his head and pitched up his voice in what, she supposed, was a poor imitation of her. "No, Master, not at all! H—"

A muffled beeping sounded off from around her chest and he stopped. She took an instinctual glance down toward the sudden noise, before snapping wide eyes back to him when she felt the pressure on her begin to let up.

"Well," he sighed, as if disappointed she would be leaving him, "I guess that's our time, up."

He took a few steps back and she carefully followed, just far enough to get her back off the wall. The Master raised an amused eyebrow at her caution and she scowled in return.

"Until we meet again?" He said. Though it was phrased like a question, they both knew there would be a next time, whether it was wanted or not.

"Not if I can help it," Rose spat furiously, pulling the cannon from her shirt and slamming the button right in front of him.

The air seemed to crackle from where she had disappeared, and he lingered a few moments longer.

"Oh, Rose." He really did try to say her name all low and menacing — aiming for that classic, villainous drawl — but he couldn't help the way manic giggles seemed to burst free from behind his lips. "You can't!"

Spinning on his heel, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his slacks and strolled down the corridor, away from the main bridge area and down. The methodical clacking of dress shoes on pristine, smooth floors morphed into echoed clangs of metal grating as he got to lower, less used parts of the ship. Reaching a seemingly innocuous hallway among the many that weaved around and about, he took a sharp turn into an almost unnoticeable offshoot. Swinging open a pair of plain, silver doors, he gazed upon the Doctor's groaning, mutilated TARDIS, and grinned.

That stupid ape of a girl didn't have a single, damn clue.