Best Enemies

A few Ten-era recs for your perusal, which have not much in common besides the Master being hilarious in all of them.

Title: Spiky Time Lord Cocks (Crack Version) (R? I think.)
Pairing: Ten/Simm!Master. With Martha Jones taking notes.
Length: 656
Summary:  Exactly what it says on the tin. Via sizeofthatthing .
Warnings: Actually, nothing all that disturbing or graphic here, other than a brief glance at the aforementioned equipment.
Author on LJ (or Teaspoon, or Prydonian): Anonymous
Why this must be read: It's almost all dialogue, and the dialogue is great. The Master, as is his wont, spends a good deal of his screen time wisecracking at the Doctor's expense. And despite the utter crackiness of the prompt, this actually comes off as rather plausible and in-character for all three of them. If you only read one Spiky Tiemcock fic -- and really, how many of them does one need? -- this probably ought to be it.

Excerpt: “You said you were curious!”

“Well, yeah, but I wasn’t expecting a technical demonstration in the middle of my living room!”

“Come on, you’re a doctor! You must be used to all sort of gross natural processes.”

“In people! Not—not—”

“If it bothers you that much,” drawled the Master from Martha’s couch, “the Doctor and I would be perfectly happy to go have disgusting slimy alien sex in the TARDIS. Or in the 19th century.”


Title: A Very Civil Partnership (PG)
Pairing: Ten/Simm!Master
Length: 1130
Summary: Ten and the Master get married, shop for evil curtains, fail spectacularly at applying for a mortgage, and devise a brilliant plan for living happily ever after.
Warnings: A brief but potentially traumatizing reference to Margaret Thatcher.
Author on LJ (or Teaspoon, or Prydonian): nostalgia_lj 
Why this must be read: Again with the dialogue. If you are a sucker for Doctor/Master marital bickering (and who isn't?) this one simply must be on your reading list. Very funny, very fast-paced, and with a rather ingenious ending. The unabashed flufftasticness of this fic is more than balanced by its generous helpings of Doctor-cluelessness, campy Master-evil, and general crackitude.
Excerpt: "And you're currently... unemployed as well?"

The Master cut in, annoyed. "Look, can't we just hypnotise him into giving us a mortgage? Darling," he added, remembering that they were pretending to be human.

"What did I say about mind-control?"

"How should I know? I wasn't listening."


Title: Baby You Can Drive My Car (R)
Pairing: Ten/Simm!Yana
Length: 2,300
Summary: "A quick and fluffy fill for the best_enemies anon meme, someone requested: Yana never discovers his true identity and takes Ten up on his predictable offer to see the stars -- and is mortally wounded and regenerates without recovering his memories. The Doctor works out very quickly who he must be, but doesn't want to tell and lose what they have."
Warnings: AU, obviously.
Author on LJ (or Teaspoon, or Prydonian): roachpatrol 
Why this must be read: This fic is a sweet, funny, achingly lovely little thing that packs a deceptive punch. It's kind of a first-date story, set in a future Miami that's all salt and sun and little paper drink umbrellas. The premise of a regenerated Yana is delicious, and gorgeously realized. It's written entirely from Yana's point of view, and his obvious delight in life and the Doctor and his new body is nothing short of thrilling. But what I most love about this fic is how well it works as a character study of Ten. He's caught in a bind of his own making here: too selfish to tell Yana the truth and risk losing him, but too tortured by his own conscience to enjoy it. It's the sort of thing that could easily devolve into bathos, but in roachpatrol 's deft hands, it never does.

Excerpt: "He's been a dying old man in a dying old universe for so long and now he's new, reborn, and he wants to romp along every inch of every galaxy the way he is running along this beach. The stars are coming out above him in a glory of light, an obscene wealth of heat and life and richness, and he wants to scream with it. It's too much for any man to hold, this appreciation, this delight, and not go mad. The drums thunder in his ears, dance through his veins, a wild victory dance of primal joy."