best_enemies | Rec: The Darkness Drops Again

I love the anon memes, because people come up with prompts like this, and sometimes we're lucky enough to get responses like this, too.

Pairing: Gatiss!Master/ Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood
Length: PWP
Warnings: explicit, somewhat dark, spoilers for “Sympathy with the Devil”
Author on LJ (or Teaspoon, or Prydonian): anonymous
Why this must be read:

It happens very rarely that I find a story that pairs the Doctor or the Master not with each other both convincing and enjoyable. This is convincing because it it’s far from a love story, but I enjoy it because it’s also more than a PWP. It manages to show a glimpse of a relationship between the Master and a person who’s not the Doctor (and a human, too!) that could become something like friendship in the way the Doctor and the Brig are friends, if you, you know, reversed the polarity of that relationship. Also, I like to think this ends with the Master forced to work for UNIT, which is always an entertaining idea.

“Sympathy for the Devil” is one of the must-listen audios for D/M fans, in my opinion, because although AU!Doctor isn’t terribly memorable, Mark Gatiss does a very good Master on audio and the (rather slashy) plot gives the Master some interesting potential for character development. Colonel Wood, voice acted by David Tennant in the audio, is pretty much the anti-Brig: unkind, abrasive, pragmatic and not terribly heroic for a UNIT soldier, and for some reason, he makes a great sidekick/foil for the Master. As soon as I had read this story, I shipped it, in a friends-with-benefits way.

Excerpt:
"The second thing I'm going to do," it was Brimmicombe-Wood who first spoke, and when he did, it was with icy determination, "is gather up what UNIT forces are left, and get them home safely. The first thing I'm going to do is kill you."

"You're welcome to try," the Master replied with a gentleness that surprised the colonel, putting on a slim, thin-lipped smile. "Though not only have better men failed, but as it turns out, tonight, there's quite a queue as to what that's concerned."

The Darkness Drops Again on