waves of blue

https://www.tumblr.com/bluepeachblossoms/805417472926810112/dottore-barely-standing-having-thoroughly-played?source=share

The only sound that could be heard in Dottore's lab was that of pen scratching paper.

The Doctor notes how the puppet requires no breathing, and circles around where he wrote to never panic again because of it.

"You really couldn't wait to strap me to one of your tables again, could you," the Wanderer asks dryly, not really expecting an answer.

This near perfect sweet creature he created.

He feels ready to devour this hat wearing thing.

Panting, he clutches his split shoulder. The flesh reaches out and stitches back together while the wanderer hovers over him. His red eyes leer up those shorts, those thighs. Dottore breathes in, deeply.

"Ah," he purrs, stretching his healed shoulder before standing back up to his full height. He could lean over to rub his cheek to the synthetic skin he must have touched thousands of times over, in a past he does not remember. "All of this, just to tell me you've come back to me?"

The Wanderer's eyes glow in the turquoise of elemental energy before he slashes at him with blades of anemo. They tear apart Dottore's flesh and he rejoices in it.

"Yeah, sure," the voice of the freed puppet is rich and haughty as he cedes attacking, for now, "came back to finish the job."

Dottore chuckles, brushes the bloody strands of his hair back, leaving stripes of pink across it.

"Oh, puppet," he taunts, "I am not done with us yet."

☆

The Wanderer lays motionless under Dottore, paralyzed from the neck down.

"You are mine," Dottore breathes out, marveled at the raw power the wanderer wields with so much grace. So much rage. But when you have so many clones who could and likely would turn against you, you keep secret safeguards. A precise hit on the back of the head and his opponent's struggling stopped so suddenly, Dottore found himself pressing closely into that sternum he must have opened and closed time and again.

Is there anything as intimate as having your hands caress a beating heart? He pictures it now. The wanderer laying on the operation table, chest open down to his stomach, exposed and vulnerable in the truest sense of the word. When Dottore gasps, he's breathing in the scent that wafts from the wanderer's clothes, and registers the growl coming from the ribcage directly pressed to his own, sending vibrations that make him want to purr in response.

"Hush now," the reprimand holds no ground with the playful tone the doctor uses, "here, allow me."

Readjusting a vertebrae, he allows the feeling of touch to return to the wanderer's body because for this to work he needs the other to feel it. Feel this ravenous hunger Scaramouche left him with after erasing his name from Irminsul. These thick blankets of fog around vital information he should know, memories that have become unnaturally blurry.

Dottore obsessed over the voids, unable to dismiss the constant absence of something akin to joy. Entertainment. Research.

Results that now lay under him.

It was easy to fill in the blanks, for the most part, but how truly close had he been to the creature under him, before?

Did they tolerate each other? Dottore often finds himself having a hard time doing that for most common people. But they had been closer than that. Fellow Harbingers, laboratory peers and conspirators?

Wanted criminals in Inazuma, certainly.

Using the pads of his long fingers, Dottore pops another cervical on the back of the wanderer's neck and temporarily allows him agency over his facial features and voice.

"There we go," Dottore sits up, straddling Wanderer's hips with his full weight. He sits heavy as the other glares and curses at him. "Did you always give me this much trouble?"

"Hah?"

"It simply occurred to me that we must have spent a considerate amount of time together at different points of our lives." He thinks about the clones, their stages of development. "I was wondering how fond I must have been of you, to dedicate something so precious to you."

Wanderer's cheeks flush with anger. "You dare mock me? I will cut you down, permanently this time, Zandik!"

Something dark shifts behind his red eyes, he can tell by the reflection of intense wariness betraying Wanderer's gaze. He looks as though he knew he'd get a reaction, just not quite like this one. Dottore tilts his head to the side and wraps a hand around the delicate neck.

"I can and will break you, puppet, so I suggest you cooperate and tell me who told you that name?"

Dark, long eyelashes flutter with the incredulous blink of Wanderer's eyes as he looks up to him with apprehension for a tense moment before clicking his tongue and admitting- "You did."

Dottore removes his hand as though he'd just been burned and quickly stands up. Lies. It must be lies, all of it, because there is no chance Dottore told that to just an experiment. Information is a weapon, secrets the sharpeners.

"Hey! Where are you going?! If you leave me here I am going to murder you-"

"Brutally, yes, you've made your point." Dottore hisses back, stepping on Wanderer's wrist in a warning to be quiet.

Wracking his brain for a logical answer, Dottore tries to find the reason why he would have shared something so private with anybody. Affection? No. Trust? He hasn't been able to trust his shadow since he noticed the missing parts in his memories.

Looking down at Wanderer now, Dottore thinks that if he had to manipulate someone, to feed them enough truth for them to not see the lies... well, he would do so. It makes him wonder just how naive had the puppet been when he first came into the Doctor's care. Was he sweeter? Softer? Dottore already feels a fondness for Wanderer blooming from deep seated roots that had gone without water for what felt like ages.

"Did you love me?" He asks, surprising the both of them with his question.

When Wanderer's eyes fill with tears that threaten to spill, something like shameful red lighting up his cheeks and Dottore thinks that he must have had a hand on developing the blushing system for he finds it rather lovely and very few things are under his clinical gaze.

now with part 2