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Most of the blood isn’t his. This might be easier on him if it were. Not that he’ll admit this is hard, no, these things happen, Clara, you have to learn how to accept the failures and move on.
She’s trying. She’s not sure he is. Because he’s barely here, really. A passable imitation of himself, hoping she won’t notice. She notices. Of course she does.
He doesn’t put up much of a fight when she drags him into the shower. She pulls the day off him, rivulets running down his chest. Gentle but not too gentle with the washcloth - to be kind, here, is its own peculiar cruelty. She’s efficient, brusque. Something hard and angry in him sloughing off and swirling down the drain with the dirt.
For about five minutes he’s quiet, malleable, letting her scrub him and dry him, letting her touches linger. Then his clothes are back on and the moment is gone, and he snaps back into place with an almost audible mechanical click.
“Where next, then?” he’s asking, tripping down the steps of the console room.
She’s following from a safe distance. She’s folding her arms over her chest. She can see where his skin is healing, the small slivers exposed by his usual uniform, hands and neck and delicate wrists. And she can imagine, under all the fabric, how the bruises are fading, the bones are knitting back together. But that’s not the injury to be worried about, is it?
She knows. He knows that she knows. She’s over the charade, frankly.
“Maybe we could take it easy for a while. It was a long day, we could both use some rest.”
Already punching in coordinates, back rigid, fingers moving just a touch too fast. Keep running, keep running. “If you need a nap, I’ll drop you off and come back in a few-”
“Don’t make this just about me. You’re a mess, and you know it. So why not slow down? For a little bit? One day off, why is that so hard for you to handle?” Hoping, of course, that he won’t think to ask her the same question.
He whirls to face her, the frayed ends of him whip-sharp. “Because the universe is infinite and our lives aren’t and there’s so much-” Cutting himself off, like he hadn’t quite understood where the sentence was going until it was nearly too late.
And she waits. Doesn’t even have to say the words anymore, just watch and wait. He knows what to do.
He unfolds gradually. A rueful smile, ducked head, hands gesturing the space around their shared vulnerability. “There’s so much I want to show you,” he says softly.
“We can’t see it all. I don’t need to see everything. Just - something good, you know?” She pauses, feeling the proverbial light bulb go off over her head. “Tell you what. There is something in particular I want you to show me.”
“Here we are,” Clara announces, doing a passable imitation of the Doctor. “The sex shop at the end of the universe.”
“It’s not the end of the-”
“End of the universe,” she insists, and grabs his hand.
She’d found a receipt for this place in the pocket of an explicitly awful coat in the wardrobe. He insisted it wasn’t his coat, or his apparent purchase of bulk anal lubricant with the frequent shopper discount, but she knew. She’d looked it up, memorized the coordinates, worn the rainbow-vomit atrocity once in the privacy of the TARDIS, with nothing underneath, which aroused a frankly hilarious mix of emotions in him. (Suck on my clown tits, Professor, she’d said in her best porno-sultry voice, letting the coat fall open just so; he’d choked on his Kinder egg and run away. Worth it.)
But yeah, this place. An emporium for all the intimate desires of an advanced, open-minded civilization. Things she recognizes as being for regular fucking, or Fucking With Spice. Things she vaguely understands if she uses her imagination. Things which, she supposes, might be interesting if you were a dragon. Avant-garde butt plugs for beings made entirely out of butts, or whatever. Things which she does not even bother attempting to mentally process.
The Doctor is pretending to be very worldly. Of course he knows what all this stuff is for. He does not know. She holds up an inflatable 2004 Jeep Cherokee, 1/6th scale: he smiles vaguely. A rubber salmon with articulated jaw: yes, sweet naive Clara, the Doctor knows all about Enfishulating.
“Ooh, here’s a thing.” He points at a Sexy Nurse outfit, the first costume she’s seen so far designed for someone with only two boobs.
“Not sure you can pull that off, but it’s worth a try.”
“No. For you. The Doctor and the Nurse-”
She throws a dildo at his head. He retaliates with a copy of Special Wanking Dalek IV. Things escalate. They may now be banned from the sex shop at the end of the universe.
“Hey,” she whispers. “Doing okay?”
He raises his right eyebrow into the yes position. Knowing Delphon eyebrow-language comes in handy, times like these. When he’s drooling around a ball gag, hands cuffed to the bedposts, legs spread. Unfolding slowly, physical vulnerability a shorthand for the thing in his head opening and relaxing. This is easier when it’s his own pain, his own small burden to bear. Not the weight of the world, just of her.
A punishment, or a benefaction. The slightest brush of her hand over his cock. Nipple clamps, the electric volts rocking through him, his muffled gasps, choking just enough to send something rocking through her. She can’t see everything in the universe but she can see this, the impossible creature straining, submitting beneath her. Small details, manageable things. The way his hips lift off the mattress. The look in his eyes.
And if he wants to be hurt sometimes, and if she likes hurting him. If that knot of anger and frustration in them both can be untangled like this. So what? Can’t control the universe, but she can control him. He can’t give up but he can give in. Sure, sensible people probably don’t try to fuck the PTSD away. Sensible people probably don’t have an infinite line of credit to pay for all the weird sex shit they stuffed into their pockets as they fled the shop, though.
She holds up an avant-garde prehensile dildo, hot pink and throbbing, and grins suggestively.
He raises his left eyebrow: okay but go slow. Xeno-linguistics, they come in handy.
“Yeah, take that future-cock, you little time slut,” she gasps out. He chokes and frowns out a PLEASE STOP as she giggles uncontrollably. Worth it.