Title: Don't Touch
Author: Tess/mihane_echo
Rating: Rated E for everyone
Word Count: 472
Spoilers: None
Summary: Donna, the Doctor, and a needle. Not fun.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to the Beeb and I'm borrowing it to play with. I promise I will return them (marginally) unharmed. ;3
Author's Note: Written for Weekly Drabble Challenge #17 at doctor_donna. Prompt was touch.



Despite his manliest efforts, the moment she pulled out the needle, the Doctor whimpered. Like a four-year-old boy.

"Donna, please..."

"Please what? Please leave it in there to get infected?" The ginger woman raised her eyebrows at him quizzically and he gave another pathetic little moan, wriggling uselessly on the jump seat. Then he shrugged in a resigned way and Donna pulled his hand into her lap.

Her hands were warm on his skin, holding him by the wrist with one and the other hand brandishing a needle that had never seemed so thick or so brilliantly shiny. The sharp point practically sparkled in the glow of the TARDIS console. The Doctor squeaked in horror and then looked away.

"Oh stop it," Donna admonished. "For god's sake, the flippin’ splinter is bigger than this teeny needle."

"Not by much! And besides, the quill --it's a quill, by the way, not a splinter-- the quill has these infinitesimal backward-facing barbs, makes it easier to hook into prey, so it's going to tear my hand up when you pull it out," he said breathlessly.

"You heal broken bones in less than a day, this is going to be gone in three minutes!" She narrowed her eyes at him. "Now hold still." She pressed the needle to the quill and gently began to scrape at it.

"OW!" The Doctor yanked his hand away in reflex and Donna reached out automatically, snatching it and plunking it back into her lap.

"Baby," she muttered good-naturedly, going at the quill in his palm again.

"It hurts!" He winced, his fingers curling around the underside of Donna's wrist. Then, almost as an afterthought, "I'm not a baby."

"You're certainly making a fuss like one," she said, not without some measure of teasing. "You'd think you were going to have to regenerate, the way you're carrying on."

He pouted at her. "When you have to do this as a mother one day, are you going to treat them as nasty as you're treating me?"

She smirked. "If they whine as much as their father, maybe. Aha!" Finally plucked free, Donna held the little black quill with its microscopic barbs up to the light. It was just over two inches long and twice the thickness than the needle, including the barbs. "There you go. It didn't even bleed."

The Doctor took his hand back, examining the flushed red tear in the palm of his left hand. It hurt terribly, the way tiny paper cuts did, and he grimaced at it on principle. After a moment he looked back up at his companion, feeling a little sheepish now. "Thanks," he said.

"No problem," said Donna cheerily. "Just, next time?" She leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "When a Charbaxian porcupine says, 'Don't touch,' remember that he means it."

end