#terminal case of brainworms rn

[quietwingsinthesky]

⛑️and/or 🛏️ for any terrible blonde boy in the roster rn <3

you know me. i can’t resist a little (probably inaccurate) first aid.

The only thing that saved him, the Doctor is painfully aware, was that Lucy Saxton had never held a gun in her life. If not for that, there would have been nothing for the Doctor to do, but beg the Master to regenerate. There’s another life skimming along the one he’s living, so close he can almost taste the helpless grief, but it was already unreachable by the time the bullet lodged itself in the Master’s shoulder instead and when the Doctor finally dragged him (unwilling but injured to the point where his resistance didn’t mean much) into the TARDIS to take care of it, that other possibility was fading away like morning mist and his borrowed loss with it.

Here, the Master is alive, and breathing, and bleeding. He’s snapping at the Doctor like a wounded animal, teeth and all, until the Doctor makes him sit and bow over a table. The Master’s knuckles are white as bone as he grips his hands together. The Doctor touches his bare shoulder, feeling the heat of his life through the latex gloves he’d hastily put on, the slickness of blood coating his fingers. The Master flinches, once from his touch and a second time when the movement jars the bullet trapped between muscle and bone.

“If you’re going to torture me, hurry up and get started,” he says, though the Doctor can hear his gritted teeth.

He hovers his hand over the wound for a moment. Pressing down would mean agony. If the bullet had splintered after impact, it would drive each shard of it deeper.

No one would deserve it more after the last year.

The Master makes another noise, a sharp breath sucked in through his teeth. It rattles through his body. He’s sweating, a sheen across the back of his neck and soaking his hair.

The Doctor holds him steady.

“I’m going to take it out,” he tells the Master. It’s practically instinct at this point to reach out telepathically to calm him down. Even species who don’t have a lick of telepathic ability can still receive a signal or two, even unaware. The Master, by contrast, is very aware of what the Doctor’s doing, and he’s the first one to fight being reassured. “I’m going to help you,” the Doctor persists, just as stubbornly.

He places a hand on the back of the Master’s neck. It slips until he tightens his grip.

“Stay,” the Doctor orders.

For once, the Master listens. He does it with teeth bared and every muscle in his body tensed, but he listens.

The Doctor examines the torn hole in his shoulder. Until he regenerates, if he regenerates, it will scar and ache. Gingerly, the Doctor picks up a sterile pair of tweezers and sets to work removing caved-in flesh and shards of the bullet. The Master twitches under him each time he feels something get dragged out of him, and the Doctor suppresses the urge to tell him that he’s safe now.