Title: Careful Manipulation
Author: becky_h
Character(s): Jack, Jacobi!Master
Genre: AU!
Rating: PG
Spoilers Vague ones for Utopia through Last of the Time Lords
Warnings: Not really.
Word Count: 650
Beta: None- it's a meme response and you were warned.
Prompt: set2music Prompt 47: Some things we bury are bound to rise again.
Summary: Written for the Time-Stamp meme, and jadesfire2808. Set 3 days after Decision. Redux-verse fic.

They left the end of the universe three days ago.

Their time's been spent getting clean, getting fed, and catching up on some much needed sleep. They haven't come out of the vortex, spent any appreciable amount of time together, or killed each other.

Not killing each other's good. The Master seems to be ignoring Jack, and Jack's actively avoiding the Master; turning this guy into the Master he remembers from long ago on earth is not something Jack wants.

Jack wakes from a nightmare of a year spent in chains, being tortured by a crazy man, splashes some water on his face and heads from the room he's claimed as his own to the kitchen. The Master's TARDIS is easier to navigate than the Doctor's ever was. It's organized and the rooms don't move.

Jack's pouring a cup of coffee when he feels, as much as hears, the Master come in behind him. He turns around just in time to see the Master yank out a chair and collapse into it, hands pressed over his eyes.

Jack stops moving, paralyzed for a moment by horror and helplessness.

"Are you going to get me a cup of tea, or stand there gawking?" the Master asks, without looking up. HIs tone's strained, tight with something Jack can only assume is pain, but still manages to come across as bitchy.

It's a tone that breaks through Jack's horror, and he puts his own mug down and opens the cabinet to find another. "Demanding, aren't you?"

The Master drops his hands to the table and looks around, over his shoulder, to Jack. His eyes are bloodshot and dark. "Oh, shut up."

Jack lifts both his eyebrows and puts the kettle on to heat. He does not shut up. Because he's stupid, immature, and the Master can't make him. "Headache?"

"Do you ever listen to anyone?" The tone's still sharp, but there's something softer there, something that sounds almost like reluctant amusement, to Jack.

Jack folds his arms over his chest and glances at the kettle, though he knows it's nowhere near boiling yet. "Nope. Do you ever answer a question?"

The Master rolls his eyes, grimaces and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Don't be ridiculous," he mumbles.

Jack watches the Master silently for a moment, then suddenly says, "I know about the drums."

Jack watches the Master's shoulders tighten, and he braces himself - just in case - but the Master doesn't get up, only turns around in his chair to pin Jack with another of those intense, inscrutable looks. "How?" he demands.

"We've met before," Jack says, after a moment of deliberation. "My past, a future you won't be having. How isn't what's important."

The Master looks at Jack, and Jack meets his gaze as steadily as he can manage. When the kettle whistles, Jack sees the wince and decision in the Master's eyes.

"What is important?" the Master asks, voice soft and dangerous enough that Jack knows one misstep is all it will take for him to wish he could stay dead.

Not that Jack's ever let a little (or a lot of) danger stop him. He doesn't look away, doesn't flinch, doesn't hesitate. "I know how to stop them."

Then he turns, very deliberately, away from the Master - turns his back to him- to make the Master's tea. He can feel the Master's eyes on him while he works, but Jack doesn't turn and doesn't say anything else. He just lets that statement --that knowledge-- hang there.

If the Master wants to know he'll have to ask. It's a risky ploy, and Jack knows it, but he's seen exactly how well making an offer went over.

This time the decision is in the Master's hands.