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Each moment of exposure to this planet makes the pervasive influence of the cheetah virus harder to fight.
The Doctor can feel it running not only through his body but through his synapses, daring him to make a mistake that will allow it to take over, a fierce competition for the dominion of his body and mind.
There’s only one such mistake that he’s liable to make. The home that he would be allowed to go to by the virus is no home at all, his people are far enough removed from prey and predator alike that he resists the chase with relative ease, but each moment near the Master threatens to break the control that’s so carefully keeping the virus at bay.
“Tell me, Doctor, what is the fire that I see in your eyes now? What are you denying the beast?” the Master taunts, rolling his r’s in a purr and with a predatory look of his own, having lost this competition before the Doctor even arrived there.
The Master has quite taken to the feline characteristics, from the mercurial temper to the casual cruelty, and even now he’s staring at the Doctor as if wondering what would happen if he used his sharp claws to cut open his chest.
“You would do better in focusing on retaining your higher functions, unless you want to end up as the one being controlled,” the Doctor says, ignoring the provocation.
There’s no answer that he could give that wouldn’t itself be a defeat, and in a competition far more dangerous than that between him and the virus. He hungers for the Master, animal instinct struggling to make sense of centuries of complicated history, and if he were to give in to it now, the Doctor would be just as likely to wrestle him into submission, take a bite out of his flesh or claim him as a mate. Competing desires for one whose kind is generally above desires of any nature, but they had always gone against the norms.
“Are you so afraid of your darkness?” the Master says, tracing a claw up the Doctor’s jumper until he reaches his neck, pressing just enough to draw a single drop of blood.
He’s close enough that the Doctor could strike at his neck with one certain blow, make him bleed out by the Doctor’s feet, and cover himself in his blood. It’s important that he doesn’t kill the Master, and it’s increasingly difficult to remember why, but he doesn’t need a reason to deny the animal, even as he struggles on two fronts.
“Are you always the one blabbering on about control? I’m choosing not to let this planet take control of my mind,” the Doctor says, as if that would be enough to convince the Master to expel the influence from his mind, but the Master has suffered a greater level of exposure.
There’s no hope left for the Master, and the Doctor starts to wonder when he became the type of person who believes that there are some who are lost causes. The Master might have been the one to teach him that, and that might mean that the Doctor lost something in the competitions, even as he thought to claim victory.
“I’m the one in control of this planet, my dear Doctor, not the other way around,” the Master says, as if ignorant of the effect that this constant exposure had on him.
This realisation helps bring much needed clarity to the Doctor’s mind, he won’t allow the same thing to happen to him.
“By the time that you realise you’re wrong, it’ll be too late. Goodbye, old friend,” the Doctor says, and there’s one animal instinct that he can still give in to.
He can still run.