realityshifted | A's got a girl for each season [B's got a mail-order bride]

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A's got a girl for each season [B's got a mail-order bride]

[the Master and the Doctor appear together at the Astral Bar, bickering. No one should be surprised] Well, she's not that bad to put up with, is she? A bit mouthy, but you've picked up worse. The one of her here asked ever-so-nicely for me to take this one on, you know, so I don't mind. And anyway, if you happen to be acting particularly maddening, I can always use her as a hostage to put you back in line. It's a winning situation, I think.

You're not using her as a hostage. Frankly, I think she'd have a say in that first.

And I'd end up killing her because she's a very mouthy hostage, yes. It happens, I'm afraid. [the Master starts mixing a White Ballistic for himself, because he wants one]

[The Doctor wants one, too, but he's just eyeing the Master's] You haven't been slapped by her. You'd have to get through that first.

I'll draw her death out into something slow and painful, then. I keep telling you, Doctor, don't let any of your precious pets near me if you can't make them behave.

[the Doctor sighs and runs his hand through his hair] Her room is far, far away from yours, so you'll have to go out of your way to see her. Shouldn't be a problem.

Unless it becomes one, of course. You realise that there's only one good television lounge, and that I'm not sharing it with anyone. Except Lucy, of course.

You and Donna watch the same shows, don't you? Those sort of...popular things on in the daytime.

[for a long moment, he stares] I don't watch soap operas.

Oh. What about those talk ones?

No.

Well then, might need another television.

[the Master drinks his White Ballistic with a grin] My dear Doctor, the burden is entirely on you.

[ooc; join post, red is Master, blue is Doctor, expect double-tagging, and so on]

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[Arthur opens his mouth to protest, then thinks better of it and sits up straighter] Yes, understood.

Good. And don't forget it.

[and then the Lecture is gone as quick as it came, and he turns to the Doctor and grins]

I love the British education system, don't you? Breaks them in for you!

[The Doctor sighs and rubs his eye, trying very hard not to seem even slightly amused.]

It's actually not one of my favourites. But I keep ending up a teacher, so that might explain it.

There are much better forms of punishment than those involving the use of physical force.

[he grins like the devil]

I agree.

[sends the Master a look.] I rather think punishment itself is generally something to be avoided.

[Remembering back to his teaching days now] I'm afraid sometimes, it really can't be avoided.

Some students are just difficult by nature.

That's the point of it, Doctor. People try to avoid it, so they behave.

And the Doctor knows all about difficult students, don't you, Theta?

[The Doctor would be responding but he hasn't heard that in a while.]

...What? I, well, that's hardly... [shakes his head.] That was completely different and in any case Borusa was just the same to me.

[frowning] You weren't one of the troublemakers, were you? Those are most difficult to teach. The things a teacher has to put up with because some students think they would be happier trying to out-think the system and playing pranks than simply listening.

I didn't last too long in teaching, as you might be able to tell.

Oh, he very much was. Used to drive all of his teachers absolutely mad. And if you saw his scores...

And of course there was that one time we blew up the entire third floor.

[The Doctor squirms just a bit but he's not exactly ashamed of his amazing exploits, either.]

The teachers drove me mad, so it's only fair play. And scores, well, what do scores really matter in terms of intelligence. Drax made it through the Academy, didn't he?

[He stops sounding sulky and looks a bit happier now.] But that was brilliant. One of our best projects, though I'm still fond of the anti-gravity devices we attached to the main building.

[Arthur shakes his head] I don't want to imagine what the teachers had to go through with you two.

I imagine the student who shattered the lens of every telescope in my room also thought it was a hilarious experience.

If you're a stuffy, boring, pompous, self-obsessed, arrogant, vain, stagnant professor with no room in your head for new thoughts or new beliefs, no room for creativity and passion and anything but subservience and perpetuation of the present order of things, then you know what? It probably was pretty funny.

[Mildly.] I specifically thought of our first Rudimentary Temporal Mathematics professor.

[More to Arthur this time.] For the rare professor that wasn't as the Master described, it was more affectionate, really.

Well, I do see your point, with teachers like that.

But I would still dread having you two as students. The regular troublemakers were bad enough.

You liked Borusa. I never did.

[smiles, fondly reminescent and rather devilish] We were far more than regular troublemakers, weren't we? We were brilliant. Probably the best troublemakers there ever were or are or will be.

[Laughs softly.] I heard we became rather well known and idolized, even, by all the other troublemakers. The ones who wanted to be brilliant. Set the standard and everything. Naturally, of course.

[Man, Arthur, you are lucky, aren't you? To get to hear them in a billion moods.]

[Actually quirking a smile now, though he's trying to hide it] And your most legendary prank?

Was it one of the anti-gravity ones, you think? Still love the time I hypnotised that one Arcalian. Oh! And the Patraxes idiot we did the brain-switch thing on. But I don't know; you were always on better terms with Gallifrey. Not saying much, but I kept my raiding of Gallifreyan data to importat things more than gossip.

Mm, well. Better terms is - was - occasionally relative. But let's see. I believe the anti-gravity experiment we did was rather well known. The personal ones like that Arcalian prat weren't, unfortunately. Though! Do you remember the time loop we set up in the hallway? That was quite popular, apparently.

[Arthur is torn now. Because he wants to laugh at these, but he knows what being a teacher is like. He settles for trying to hide the smile/]

I remember the time that a certain someone kept using time-flow analogues to disrupt my experiments and make me fail one of my courses.

We did that all the time! And I really didn't want to retake that one alone. It was terrible enough just as it was. And you did brilliantly anyway.

Flattery will not earn you forgiveness.

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