"You're running yourself ragged, Doctor." Despite the chiding innate to the comment, there was something quiet about them as Dottore fussed over some of the finer mechanics of their hand and wrist. They had recently been granted the position of Sixth of the Harbingers and put on standby, but an injury from their final trip to the Abyss hadn't been repaired quite right. It had been bothering them for well over a week, that small bit of new resistance in the movement of their right hand; Dottore had likened it to a jammed finger.
Sitting this close to him, it was easier to see the evidence of the unrelenting passage of time. The dark circles weren't unusual, but now they enhanced and were enhanced by fine lines around his eyes. "Don't forget you're human." Don't forget you're fragile. It was difficult for the divine puppet to gauge the passage of time on its own given how free from its shackles they were, but that wasn't accounting for the added temporal instability of the Abyss. How much time had truly passed here between all their expeditions? How old was Dottore now? Despite themself, they reached their left hand out across themself to lightly trail their fingertips beneath his eye, where those fine lines were most concentrated.
“Ragged? Hardly.” Dottore didn’t even dignify their concerns with a glance in their direction. This was work on such a delicate scale that it would be beyond anyone with lesser skills. It required his full focus as his hands deftly adjusted artifical tendons and ligaments with tools that would be better suited for a jeweler.
“You aren’t often occupied with my humanity. Or has your new promotion endowed you with some beneficence?” he said, unable to keep the sneer out of his voice. Always superior, weren’t they?
His tunnel vision was to his own detriment, however, as he was surprised to feel something alight beneath his eye—delicate as the wing of a butterfly, but tense, persistent. It was Scaramouche, he realized, as he pulled back slightly from the touch in surprise and finally looked upon the perpretator.
They were examining him. It began to make sense when he reached that conclusion. Undoubtedly, time had continued to move for him whilst they were in the Abyss. In all likelihood, he was perhaps the first person who they had actually seen change as the years passed.
For them, it was a curiosity. But for him, it was yet another reminder of the vast divide between the two of them. He so dearly wished he could be like them. Untouched by time, unchanging and resolute. But his nature betrayed him.
Someday soon, that would change. But at this moment, that time seemed so far away.
The Doctor sighed, and withdrew his hands from their wrist. The instruments were set on the table. He canted his head forward, giving them implicit permission to continue.
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
dededos
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
