Author's Note: Written for a prompt for hurt/comfort, any fandom - and well, I have such a weakness for Three and Delgado!Master. Enjoy!
There was something off about the Doctor this time round, the Master thought. He was not getting into the spirit of things at all; he had been quite slow to pick up on the Master's involvement in the smuggling ring, and though they had finally gotten to the point where the Doctor was supposed to unwillingly fix the infernal alien device the smugglers had dug up and make snide remarks as if they were back in school and the Doctor was correcting his homework, the Doctor was uncharacteristically silent.
The Master leaned in to check on the circuits and snuck a glance at the Doctor's face, which seemed unusually flushed, and found himself asking, "Doctor, are you feeling entirely well?"
The idea of a sick Doctor was ludicrous - a Time Lord falling prey to some half-evolved Earth disease, indeed - but the Doctor said, "No," his face reddening even more. "There's some bloody bug going around UNIT HQ and it's apparently adapted enough to go after Time Lords as well. Go on, have your laugh and get it out of your system, then go see if you've got any ion stabilizers."
In fact the Master's first instinct had been, not to laugh, but to recoil from the Doctor and the possibility of catching his filthy Earth plague, but he repressed the urge and went to look for ion stabilizers. He came back with one and found the Doctor with his head pillowed against the Mirotian thought-amplifier and his eyes shut.
The Master caught himself thinking that it was rather cold in the Mirotian ruins, and also that he was perfectly capable of installing an ion stabilizer himself. He almost went as far as to consider the possibility that he didn't really need to bring Earth under his complete control this very moment, but he pushed that thought aside quickly.
Perhaps half an hour later the Doctor opened his eyes and realized, through a mild feverish haze, that there was a blanket draped over him and that another one, folded into a pillow, had replaced the thought-amplifier; the Master was sitting across from him and fussing with the device. "Excuse me," he said, "but I believe you were keeping me hostage solely for the purpose of fixing that."
"My dear Doctor," said the Master, "I could hardly trust your work in your condition - and contrary to your beliefs, I am occasionally capable of repairing my own stolen technology."
"Rubbish," the Doctor said, but he went back to sleep.