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You sneezed, sending the odd metal stick—the Doctor insisted that it was a thermometer, but it was purple and glowing—flying out from between your lips. It fell to your bedspread, and you gave a sad little huff. “Doctor,” you mumbled, wincing at your voice. You sounded like you had a broken nose.

“Yes—what is it? What’s wrong?”

The Doctor was suddenly hovering over your face, hands waving above your body. You wanted to bat them away, but your wrist could only manage a weak little flop. Instead, you settled on wobbling your head on its pillow. “I only dropped my thermometer, sorry.”

“Oh, right, I see that. Here, let me just,” he tucked the instrument back in your mouth for you, “There.” You narrowed your eyes at him, annoyed, but the Doctor held the thermometer there until it made a strange wooshing noise. He pulled it back, read its screen, then took out his sonic with a frown.

“What’re you doin’?”

He looked down at you as he began to run the screwdriver’s light up and down your body. “Sorry?”

“What are you doing?” You repeated, over annunciating. Immediately, you wished you hadn’t. Your throat began to prickle so that your eyes watered.

“Oh, I’m just scanning to see how much dust is still in your system,” the Doctor explained, pocketing the screwdriver. He put his hand down on your bed, and your eyes widened. Oblivious, the Time Lord continued to chatter. His eyes were locked to yours, and apologetic. “I’m so sorry about all of this. I’d completely forgotten that humans were allergic to Esphodallian powder. Would never have taken a trip to the planet if I’d remembered, the atmosphere’s crawling with it.”

You sighed. “’S’all right. You’ve apologized like three times. This morning.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Sorry, what?”

You grumbled. You knew your voice was a little cloudy, a little hoarse, but you could swear that you were perfectly audible. Maybe if the man weren’t overthinking every little aspect of your condition. “’S fine.”

Sitting back down in the chair beside your bed, the Doctor gave you a crooked half smile, to which you smiled tiredly. “Doctor?” you began.

He immediately tensed, looking prepared to fly to the far side of the galaxy to get a certain type of throat numbing mango—which he’d offered to do twice. “Yes, what is it?”

“Your hand is on my thigh.”

“What—Oh.” He pulled his hand, which had been absentmindedly rubbing small, soothing circles, away from your leg as if it were boiling hot. Ruefully, you thought that with your temperature, it might actually be burning to the touch. “Sorry! So sorry. Fluffy comfiture. Really hard to feel… things… you know, underneath.”

He proceeded to look so awkward that you would have laughed if you could breathe through your nose properly. Hoping to ease him, you finally voiced a complaint. “Actually, my back feels really stiff.”

The Doctor half-leapt from his seat. “That’s actually a rather normal side effect with this—I should have expected it. Do you need a different pillow? A softer one, a big, fluffy pillow. They make cloud pillows, over in the Mandigorian Peninsula, fluffy as can be, and they’re brilliant if they’re not set on an afternoon sprinkle—“

“Doctor!” You managed to interrupt him, despite his ability to go ten sentences without breathing. “My pillow’s great, never mind.”

He shifted on his heels, one of his hands playing at the pocket of his jacket. “Well… I could always—you know, it wouldn’t be weird--give you a massage. If it would help.”

You squinted up at him, watching him squirm while you weighed the situation. Finally deciding that the benefits—some that weren’t at all medical, but you were going to be an opportunist with this—outweighed the two major downfalls. Namely that your face was going to turn an ungodly shade of red and you were going to lose a peaceful night’s sleep later.

Sacrifices must be made.

“Sorry, what?” The Doctor cocked his head to the side.

You realized that you’d mumbled half of your thought process aloud. Coughing, you said more loudly, “That might be a good idea. My back really is stiff, and you won’t have to do it for long.”

“Then, uh,” the Doctor made a little pushing gesture at you. “Sit up and back to me, I suppose.”

Though you hadn’t extensively moved positions in hours, you found enough energy in your nervous excitement to do as you were told. Your shoulder creaked as you sat up. Facing the wall of your room, you waited for a moment, breath shakier than it had been earlier, even when you’d been wheezing. Two cool hands came to lightly rest upon your shoulders, and tentatively, the Doctor began to knead his fingers into your skin.

Have mercy.

“Uh, did you,” the Doctor cleared his throat, and you could imagine his red face, “did you say something, Y/N?”

“Nope,” you managed, closing your eyes. Continuing again, his fingers rubbed circles up and down your back. You broke your continuous mental chant (Don’t make inappropriate noises. Don’t make inappropriate noises.) to hazily bless your decision to wear a tank top. It almost felt as if he would absentmindedly run his hands across your bare skin every so often, and even if you were hallucinating it, you loved the feeling. Yes, the Doctor was your friend. Yes, loving him was probably going to be high up on the list of stupidest things you’ve ever done. Yes, you worried constantly about him finding out about everything—the feelings, the attraction, the dumb little habits that had grown from being around him—and taking you back home.

But God, did the man win the award for making your knees go weak when you were already sitting down.

“Is this… good?” he asked, after a few minutes.

“Oh, yeah.” You weren’t quite able to keep the warm timbre out of your voice, and you thought you felt the Doctor stiffen behind you. You also thought the “Oh, me t—Good, right, good” that he mumbled sounded a little hoarser than usual.

Eventually, his hands stopped when your back muscles felt soft and soothed. Without prompt, you flopped back onto the bed, curling up with a happy humming noise. Hand rubbing at the back of his neck, the Doctor looked down at you. “So… is there,” he coughed, “anything else that I could…?”

Warm, relaxed, and finally comfortable, your filter flew away. “Play with my hair?” you asked, probably a little more pitifully than you’d meant to, but you were already half asleep.

His fingers were halfway in your locks before he remembered to ask, “Are you sure?”

“Definitely,” you yawned. “’S the best when you’re sick. I’ll do it for you if you ever catch something, if you want me to.”

Playing with hair eventually turned into your sleepy demand for him to curl up with you, which then turned into your nuzzling your face into his chest after he’d kicked off his shoes and hesitantly moved closer to you. He was hoping you’d forget all of it when your fever broke, because he couldn’t help but feel he was taking advantage of your sickness, and you were resolved to play dumb about it when you woke. But for a moment, you both lay there, breathing slowly, unworried about whether the other could guess what you were feeling.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

The Doctor pulled his arm away from where it had been wrapped securely over Y/N's stomach. His movements were slow, regretful, as he found himself admitting that he could curl up against her for much longer than he should want to. The warmth of her body had been enough to combat his other instincts, which were insisting that he was getting too attached, and behaving without self-control. He’d, for once—all right, no, let’s be honest, it’s more along the nine hundred and sixty forth time, probably, this month—told those little voices to shut up. But he couldn’t quiet the idea that she’d probably be hungry when she woke up, and for the first time that day. And he was now thoroughly convinced that he should have something ready, just in case.

After pausing to smile absentmindedly at Y/N's sleeping form, he began to make his way to the kitchen. There had to be some sort of soupy-healthy-medicine food in there. A few doors down, there came a smashing noise, and instantly he was running, socked feet slipping on the smooth floors. He nearly slid past the door, but managed to wrench it open as he barreled past, and half-launched his head into the room.

A very cross, very red looking Donna Noble—and that wasn’t a ginger gibe, he meant that all of her was the color of an unripened Farobaro bean—glared at him from atop her bed. Swatting aside the snotty tissues and frankly alarming amount of fluffy pillows, Donna held up a dry erase board. Her face was positively murderous under its unflattering scarlet.

The Doctor squinted and read the board aloud. “'Oi, where’ve you been, idiot?’” He frowned. “Well, now, that’s a bit rude. Still can’t talk, I see. Or I hear, rather. Or, well, both.”

Donna smiled in a sickly sweet, I-want-to-figure-out-if-I-can-castrate-your-alien-man-bits way. Which was his least favorite form of smiling, all smiles considered. She wiped off the board with a tissue that already looked used, making him grimace, and scribbled a new message.

“'Is it? Am I being rude? Sorry, dying makes you a bit crabby’—did you mean to write that in all capital letters?” A flurry of her marker. “'You worthless man,’ this is getting really nasty, Donna, I’m honestly feeling so attacked right—‘stop playing favorites and get me some bloody magic space medicine!’ Your knowledge of the evolution of science is a bit wanting … hey, wait just a minute! I’m not playing favorites! When do I ever play favorites between you and Y/N?”

Donna slammed the marker into the board with surprising strength. The Doctor swallowed, read, then protested as his face scrunched up, “Now, Donna, that’s totally uncalled for, I’m not going to even read that out loud. If your mother could hear you right now.” Pausing, he tilted his head. “See you right now. Read you right now?”

Donna opened her mouth in a near silent scream, a tiny huffing squeal managing its way out. She threw a pillow at him.

“Right! Space magic, got it!” he shouted, a barrage of fluffy pillows forcing his retreat for the door. “Can’t be that sick if you’ve got that arm—I’m going, I’m going! I got it!”