Wrong was she to think this would be a mercy. Eyes widen a fraction as lips pull back in a blood stained snarl at the intrusion of something slipping sloppily between ribs. Pain is kept locked behind perfectly gore stained teeth, released only in a hiss of air the most flecking the air with petals of red as ichor blooms steady at his side. Death cools the desert air with its chill, even as beads of perspiration gather on forehead but neither death herself or pain is enough rip away the veil of semi-consciousness but Satellite’s voice, shrill and grating pitched by way of pathetic. Neither her throat or the the bone saw hanging from trouser belt does he reach for to retaliate but Satallite’s own offending hands.
Gloved hands made slick with carmine enclose around her own as if to beckon her near. He holds tight to her enough that shrapnel grind into the other’s flesh. Digits that sculpt the flesh, rend bone, slice with delicate precision and she his assistant, and canvas. Steady so steady are his hands, surgical in their precision yet he can feel it every tremor of her weakness tearing nerves, scraping and caressing bones should bring him to knee but it doesn’t. Her blood threads alongside his, paints ragged edges into glass– red, red, red – that ripped into his flesh. There is something that flutters within the Doctor’s chest after all.
He draws close, words nearly lost beneath the din of ongoing gunfire were in it not hissed into ear. Wintry hues narrow never leaving hers as he tightens his grip around her hand, tighter, tighter still.
“No.” Slowly he drags himself up on stubborn feet, fingers enclosed around hers in a vice. Flesh torn in ragged precision, generously sharing a fraction pain with her. “I won’t.”
The flies descend on the dead, both the more fully formed bodies and unidentifiable viscera alike. They seem to materialize from nothing on hot days like these, hungry and ever-increasing. This is how she finds him, flies hovering like inevitability.
The gore paints his white coat, spills down his side like in a way that makes her heart sink. There’s too much. She’s uneducated in the specifics, but surely no one could lose that amount of insides and still live long. Surely. Surely.
So her hands hover uselessly over him, the ghost of helpful intentions. But oh, even now he is terrifying. Even obviously gravely injured, she nearly screams at the sudden movement and pain that follows. It must be nothing, compared to what he’s got. Still her bones creak beneath his hold, jagged bits of metal clamped between digits digging into her and joining their pain.
The smell of festering blood and iron scrapes at the back of her throat. She doesn’t dare contradict him when he hauls himself up, doesn’t dare complain at the strain and torment that goes singing through her hand. Seek, Report, Serve. With a movement practiced intermittently through the months, Satellite shifts to be used as a crutch to lean on. She waits for the warmth of gore to settle against her and blinks away a fly that tries to land no her face.
Throughout carrying out her job, she doesn’t take her words back. They wouldn’t have been forgiven.