fuck around and find out

you weren’t an earnest follower in celestia by any means, but if they could get you out of this then you would happily spend the rest of your life devoted to being a pastor.

mostly because that’s the only way you’d live to see the light of day again, but that was besides the point.

on a good day, working for any harbinger came with a lot of challenges, but you had ended up with the most ruthless and least rational. every time you walked into the doctor’s lab, there was a healthy amount of fear that it would be your last. at least one fight was going on at any given point, trying to read their horrendous handwriting gave you a headache, the constant mood swings and volatile behavior just the tip of the iceberg. on top of that, you also had to deal with being dragged into every idea and whim they had; your technical job title was merely ‘assistant,’ but that was far too narrow a band to cover everything you did that wasn’t in the fine print.

like this. standing with your hands shoved deep into the chest of a skywatcher ruin drake, fumbling for a casing supposedly “just a little further,” if beta’s continued pressuring was anything to go by. he was standing somewhere behind you, theta on the other side of the drake trying to figure out how to pry off the thick bolts sticking out of its spine. theta you could understand. he was mostly machine himself, so it made sense he’d be the one to pull apart the touchier components, but beta? beta, fussing with the wings of the drake, doing a whole lot of nothing while you shoved your very human and non-replaceable arms into a tangled mess of gears and wiring. you’d already gotten burned once, a thick droplet of oil falling onto your wrist from above that theta apologized profusely for, and you weren’t eager to do so again.

sure, if your arms did get ripped from their sockets you’re fairly certain you’d receive prosthetics in return, but that didn’t excuse anything. just because they were capable of amazing feats of science didn’t mean you wanted to be another test subject.

“you can do it,” beta ‘encouraged,’ leaning on your shoulder and not at all making it more difficult to strain for the part he wanted. “you saw the plans.”

of course you did, you were the one that had insisted he look them over again before ripping into the machine. behind the chest plate, behind the core, straight to the back was a wide bundle of wires. in the very center was a segmented strip of chained together casings shaped vaguely like dumbbells, supposedly easy enough to pull out. what was inside? who knew. probably beta. you’d found the wiring just fine—not just fine, you’d scraped yourself along far too many gears and raw edges to be entirely intact—but there was nothing inside it. you picked out the thinner wires one by one, and while you’d succeeded in finding the structure they were supposed to be in, it was empty. yanking it up had rewarded you with a bruise on your forearm and nothing in the slot below it, so you fed it back down and prepared to pull.

“please behave yourself, beta.” theta’s voice comes from higher than it was last time, a loud bang from above you reverberating through the entire machine. you try not to think about it.

“i’m supervising-”

“i’m supposed to be supervising,” you interrupt, gripping two bars of the structure and preparing yourself. “i don’t get paid enough for this.”

you breathe, your grip tightens, and you pull with everything you have. above you, something pops, and the frame in your hands is suddenly very slack. you don’t even have a chance to feel for the capsules before something hot and burning poured on your arms, a thick oil that clung to your skin and refused to leave. beta moved quicker than you could think, grabbing your sides and practically carrying you away from the machine. the sludge was forming a wide pool on the floor now, a dark lumpy black that stretched all the way up to your elbows and made you painfully aware of that fact. beta had grabbed a roll of mechanic’s towels and roughly wiped off the excess, the drag of the napkin on raw skin making you hiss. it left a reddish residue behind, though the sight of your hands quickly blurred with tears.

“theta, we’re leaving.” beta puts one hand between your shoulders and quickly pushes you out of the project room, a sliding door opening into the upper lab. you blink out your tears as best you can, mostly relying on beta to guide you past the maze of tables and machinery. this section of the lab didn’t have a medbay since the segments allowed up here never needed one, so it meant you had to walk all the way down to the lower lab for first aid. how fun. you weren’t keen on letting this stuff stay on you for any longer than it had to, but since when was any dottore known for his safety measures?

even in your limited vision, you see more heads turn toward you than usual as the door hisses open. beta don’t stop to pay them any attention, walking you straight through to the door marked with a red cross, hand tightening in your shirt when you stumble on the slight step.

“careful,” he says, like you’d ever be in this situation of your own accord.

the faucet hisses and so do you, gritting your teeth at the pressure on your hands. you blink rapidly, struggling to find the soap before he puts it right in front of you, pressing down the top and letting it fall into your hands. your skin is bubbled and angry, shaking hands and blurred vision making it impossible to figure out where anything was. instead of doing anything remotely helpful, beta just stands at your side like the world’s worst lightpost, providing no insight and only unnerving you further with his presence. the only indication he’s not lost in some manic daydream is occasional mumbling, though that may actually be evidence the more you think about it. you’re not sure how much time passes, just running water over your skin to stave off the pain. eventually, he sighs, “fine, i’ll go,” a nonsensical statement you almost don’t notice wasn’t meant for you before he speaks a little louder.

“i need to go, but i’ll get kappa for you.”

like he wasn’t already there to see you walk in. “sure.”

he lingers, then leaves. you continue washing cold water over your skin to keep the burning at bay, knowing full well its a superficial solution. best case, you’re burned severely and are either fired for incompetence or made to work through it. worst case, whatever chemical that was made its way into your bloodstream through one of the many scrapes you got and you were about to drop dead from a heart attack any moment now. neither option was rather thrilling.

your palm can’t take much more of the water pressure, but the thought of trying to twist the valve off is equally unappealing. pain, or slightly adjacent pain: a typical day in dottore’s lab. you never thought you’d be on the receiving end.

the door doesn’t creak as it’s pushed open, but the sound of boots on the floor gives it away. who you can only assume is kappa turns off the water, blotting up the excess on your arms with a soft towel that still felt too harsh.

“i know, i know…”

you watch through blurred vision—was that the cause of your headache, or was it the stress?—as he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a small tin. he moves delicately, barely a whisper across your skin as he spreads the salve over your arms. soft gel pads his fingers, a cushion of translucent silicone over everything sharp edge or hard plate. you could barely pick out the seams between the layers of his hand, each of them slipping and melding together in one fluid movement. the salve leaves a cool numbness wherever it touches, your pain swiftly becoming a faint memory. you’re somewhat surprised by how quickly it works, though you probably shouldn’t be. if they could figure out delusions, they could figure out an effective topical pain reliever. he gently twists your arm just enough to see if he’s missed anywhere, not pulling any of the irritated skin. once satisfied, he makes quick work of wrapping it, white bandage spiraling up your arm faster than you can blink. he tapes it shut just below your elbow, and the process begins anew.

there’s not much else to do but watch him work. your tears are finally starting to recede enough that you can see clearer, gauging the damage on your arms. it’s… well, terrible, if you’re being frank, skin peeling and blood smearing into the pale beige salve. you're definitely going to blister, and there’s no way you’ll be able to so much as pick up a pen in this condition. hopefully prime accounts for that when he decides your next shifts, though anything you do is realistically going to hurt. you’re pretty useless like this, even as a proper supervisor you couldn’t exactly take notes. you don’t have an ancient supercomputer in your brain like kappa or theta, and even the most basic of tasks involved your hands. no matter how good kappa’s medicine, there’s no way you’ll be in well enough shape by tomorrow.

“you’re worried,” kappa says, neither a question or a statement. an explanation, maybe, but to who?

“pardon?”

he ‘looks’ up (you’re fairly certain he only does that for your benefit) though his hands don’t pause, the red diamond on his face plate pulsing faintly. like his hands, the seam between black metal and bluish silicone is so small it might as well not be there. the silence stretches for longer than you know what to do with, long enough that he finishes with your arm, wiping off his hands on the towel from before. “your shirt has holes in it,” he says like it explains anything, ‘looking’ back down to wrap your hand. you’re able to watch this time, the roll weaving around your fingers and hand before being quickly spun along your arm, perfectly taut. he cuts it with his nail and tape dispenses out of his thumb to seal the end. he lingers there for a moment, thumb pressed on your inner elbow, before finally backing away. “you should change. there’s a closet behind you that should contain a spare shirt if you’d like."

you look down, noticing that he’s right. some of the goop splashed onto your shirt, leaving a smattering of holes. the skin beneath was fine, thankfully, but he was right. definitely not lab-safe, though not many of the actual substances you worked with were safe either. you were surely under-qualified to be handling khaenri’ahn machinery.

that’s beside the point. you turn around, finding the cabinet he’s talking about easily. shirts, pants, even a spare set of shoes. they seem to be mostly for the younger segments, but you pick out a shirt your size easily enough. you check behind you, seeing kappa turned away politely, and carefully pull off your shirt. you put it aside, silently thanking whoever decided to leave the shirts unbuttoned in the cabinet. probably kappa. it’s softer than you expect it to be, smooth blue that you’d almost mistake for some sort of fine silk if you didn’t know how resilient it was. every one of the segments wore them, fire, acids, and even beta’s occasional scalpel all deflected as if they were never there. it probably would have survived the corrosive from earlier, really, which makes you a bit bitter. the buttons close easily even with your limited dexterity, leaving neither bumps nor gaps down the front because prime was too good to be caught with a straight shot to his heart. if he was worse at his job it might be easier to be upset, but you couldn’t feel anything but begrudging respect about the man that hid a tie in the cuff to keep the sleeves secure around your elbow.

not for the first time, you wish you were given your own designated set. that would mean acknowledging you as more than an assistant, though, and prime seemed to be allergic to calling you even that. it was always either your name or ‘help’ with such a specific lilt that you couldn’t even describe it, something unique to whatever thoughts bounced between the precious few marbles still left in his head.

you liked to think you were more than just a standard helper. if nothing else, then the fact that you’d been working with him for as long as you had with your sanity intact had to mean something. according to rumors of payroll records from the ninth’s workers, the longest a previous assistant had lasted was barely a week over six months, and you had survived in this lab for more than a few years without getting fired, killed, or worse.

that could always end today, though. ruin drakes were endemic to sumeru and had to be carried across half of teyvat to make it to prime’s door, let alone the time spent finding and disabling them. failing a simple task on the first day was likely a perfectly fine reason to have your head on a pike. never mind that it wasn’t your fault, that it wasn’t your idea, or that you were grossly underqualified to supervise disassembly of khaenri’ahn machinery in the first place. since when was any segment known for his rational thinking and level-headed nature? fun joke.

you pick up your discarded shirt and thumb one of the many holes with a sigh. the edges were coarse and likely would only worsen in the wash, so there goes your uniform. the least of your worries, really.

“prime wants to talk to you,” kappa starts, drawing your attention towards him. his hands are folded neatly in front of him, mechanical voice slow and almost hesitant. you never knew a segment to be unsure of himself before, though you suppose prime is as good a reason as any. “but i can tell him you need rest. i understand today has been stressful for you.”

that was one way to put it. putting off talking with prime and going back to your quarters to avoid the problem for twelve hours sounded ideal, but you weren’t a fool. if prime was asking you to see him immediately after the incident, he had something to say, and denying a harbinger was a surefire route to whatever afterlife awaited you.

“thank you, but i’ll go see him now.”

his shoulders visibly fell, but he nodded. you dropped your shirt in the trash can as you followed him out, again ignoring the various other segments scattered throughout the lab. none stopped whatever they were doing, but you could feel their eyes on you, see their blue hair twist in your periphery. they’ve probably seen injuries far worse, and yours were already covered up… it was probably kappa, really. he rarely left phi’s side for any longer than he had to.

kappa input his access code without looking. or, you could only assume he wasn’t looking; even though his head was turned toward you, it didn’t mean anything. which was worse, that he could act without looking like he was, or that he acted like he needed to look?

his finger hesitates over the enter key. “you’re nervous,” he says again, this time actually feeling like it was directed at you. you never asked about before and probably never will. “he doesn’t seem upset at you.”

you bite your tongue to keep from being mean. you know he means the best—he was literally coded to be an empathetic caretaker—but prime wasn’t known for broadcasting his heart on his bloodstained sleeves. he could seem anything he wanted and it never had to reflect what he was actually feeling.

“thanks,” you reply instead, and he nods, the door sliding upward with a hiss.

the upper lab is empty. all the equipment is still there, of course, glassware and sealed jars littering the countertops, but all of the chairs are pushed in and vacant. nobody besides you walks along the tile, and the hallways beyond this section are empty too. stretches of white floor and steel doors your only company, the fluorescent lights buzzing above you.

it’s unnerving. have you written a will yet?

you turn to the right, towards prime’s office. it looks like all the rest, with a clear plastic bin hanging next to it and a keypad below that. you knock with your entire fist, two bangs that are a little too loud on your end but likely barely audible on his. his doorway is a foot thick, a well-defined border between the harsh lighting of the hall and his deceptively welcoming office.

whoever the fatui hired as interior designer deserved a raise. a nearly black wood bookshelf covers the entire left wall, volumes packed together with remarkable efficiency. on the right, a large map takes up most of the space, notes and string marking plans you don’t try to read. shelves of files and pinned up diagrams surround it in equally dense displays. the floor is a well-buffed dark wood that clicks under his heels as he rounds his desk, silent. the pristine white papers spread across his desk are the brightest thing in the room, interrupted only by the backs of the two chairs in front of his desk. he doesn’t pull one out, nor tell you to sit, only approaching you quietly. you can’t remember the last time someone dressed business casual was intimidating, but there’s a first time for everything. his gloves are a thick mystery fabric that barely a suggest a touch on your arm, blue palms carefully following the bumps and valleys of the bandage. you raise it, letting him inspect kappa’s work wordlessly. he doesn’t comment on the shake to your hand you’re certain he can feel, and in fact doesn’t give much of any indication at all. his face is unreadable behind the mask, a detail you’ve yet to determine as a good thing or not.

“theta analyzed the substance that fell on you.” his voice is quieter than you’ve ever heard before, like he’s uncertain about breaking the silence. he doesn’t let go of your hand. “it was mostly oil, yes, but it also included a mixture of slime condensate and some sort of elemental anchor. his working theory is that when the core collapsed, the slime mixture first spilled into the oil line, then that burst. the anchor dissolved into the oil, releasing its energy, and the slime helped it stick.”

dottore has a reputation well known across the entirety of teyvat and beyond. he was irrational, heretical, setting up seemingly nonsensical lines of dominoes that led up to a crushing wave of death. he did not care, he did not feel, he held no mercy. his office was more mystifying than the abyss, and a non-zero amount of his subjects had chosen the latter rather than stay. within the fatui, within his very lab, this fog did not lift. even theta and his khaenri’ahn brain couldn’t reliably track the thoughts behind prime’s actions. that thought at least made you feel a little better, because there was no way in a thousand years that you could ever rationalize prime explaining himself to you.

“you have experienced, in essence, a severe chemical burn.” finally, he lets go, stepping back and turning away to dig through the files on his desk, the rustling sounding too loud after he spoke so.. did you dare say softly? your skin prickles where he touched and you don’t know what to feel.

he comes back with an inch-thick stack of stapled papers and a pen, holding out both. you don’t dare flip up the blank cover page yet. “you will stay with kappa and phi until you are better, and follow whatever treatment plan he prescribes. you will fill one of these out three times a day: at morning, at noon, and at night. am i understood?”

paperwork? was that all? a lot of it, certainly—was there even enough time in the day to complete three of these stacks?—but far less than you were hoping for, let alone expecting. regardless, you nod, “when would you like me to start disassembling the ruin drake?”

the silence stretches. you can feel his eyes on you and you’re certain the weight isn’t phantom, even despite the mask. you run over your words again, searching for fault and finding none. you’d hoped by presuming you’d be working again you might save some of his anger, but did he not want you to? was that something he expected you to know already? did he not want the drake disassembled at all? the delicate wiring was certainly ruined by the waterfall of whatever anchor he said fell on you, and even if theta had somehow managed to salvage it there was no way it could be up to par.

“what?”

ever a man of few words. his fangs catch the light and you regret talking more with every second that goes by. “i assume you can no longer run any of your tests on it, so-”

“when did i mention the drake?” he shakes his head and crosses his arms with a surprisingly neutral sigh. “i give you explicit instructions to stay with kappa, yet barely a moment later you’re talking like you’re going to do something else. here i thought you showed promise…”

his words hold no bite. his arms, though crossed, are not taut with anger. you liked to think you’d gotten pretty good at being able to read the various segments’ moods, but that meant you’d either severely miscalculated or prime was teasing you, and you couldn’t decide which was worse.

you were lost, and the silence was continuing for uncomfortably long. “i’ll.. go see him right away, then?”

you can’t keep your voice from tilting into a question, having wandered neck-deep into unfamiliar territory, but he blessedly doesn’t comment on it. he waves you away with a stiff nod and you half-bow before turning around, not stopping until you’re safely down the hall and in the main lab with two doors between you. you leaning against the cool wall and stare at the packet in your hands. paperwork in exchange for an indefinite time off proper work sounded more than uncharacteristic to you, especially when a prized machine was damaged in the process. you turn over the pen kept beneath your thumb, seeing the ink inside slosh around within the glass chamber. it was one of his pens, not the standard practically indestructible ones kept around the labs. maybe that was why you were thrown off, he just really lost it this time. was this the calm before the storm?

you don’t stick around to find out.

the upper lab is still empty, an eerie feeling following you as you walk past the lines of tables and equipment. all of the actual chemicals are put away, which is a little reassuring, but it’s still wrong. even if the others are out, at least theta is normally sat at his desk. you walk a little quicker.

kappa is obviously awaiting your arrival, only idly watching phi mesh together gears on the floor—isn’t that a safety hazard for someone so young?—and perking up the moment you walk in. he waves you over to him, sitting on a large couch in phi’s play area. you cross the striped tape and enter the protected space, feeling only slightly like a criminal seeking sanctuary. kappa is sitting with feet propped a small coffee table in front of him, one you set down papers and pen on before joining him.

he notices the different pen. you can tell by the way his glance turns into a stare, ‘eye’ locked onto it with a slightly brighter glow. he sits dead still, transfixed… then his chest rises in another faux breath, his attention shifting to you instead. “see? not too bad.”

“i have to complete three of those a day.”

his head tilts, smile growing. “i’m glad to see he’s finally acting in accordance in his thoughts.”

before you can even begin to dissect whatever that meant, phi calls his attention from the floor. kappa’s eye flashes as he takes his feet from the table, standing.

“forgive me, i have to go. why don’t you get started on your paperwork?”

there it is. you almost forgot he was an identical copy of the guy who made you dig through a ruin machine because ‘it’ll be good work experience.’

you settle the stack of paper on your lap, uncapping the pen and flipping away the cover page to reveal the dense form beneath. your name, easy enough, then the date below that. next was the… approximate time of injury? why had he given you an incident report? he probably slipped it in on top of the other stuff for filing purposes, though you don’t know why when he would have gotten all of that information from theta. maybe he wanted to see if you’d lie? you may have willingly signed up to work under him, but you weren’t so stupid as to lie to a harbinger.

you described what you saw as best you could while not having any sort of medical training beyond ‘blood should stay inside the body,’ then treatment from kappa. your hand was already beginning to ache a bit from having to hold the pen, but it was tolerable enough when the page was finished in less than a minute. you let it relax a bit as you flipped the page, skimming the questions. your name, of course, then the date…

you flip the first page back to double-check what you already knew. they were the same. did he think you’d run out of space? it couldn’t be a fluke, surely—was one for kappa? questions fill your head, ones you ultimately decide to shake away. whatever the case, you didn’t need to touch this page, so you moved onto the next.

the next was the same. so was the next. you used your thumb to flip through the entire stack rapidly, confirming that yes, the entire packet are one-page incident reports, what’s going on? prime’s not careless enough to make a mistake like this. maybe beta, trying to one-up his past brilliant idea by sabotaging your work, or perhaps the goop had sprayed up to theta and fried his circuits.

“uh, kappa…”

he looks up from the elaborate string of gears phi has set up, smiling. “are you done? if you are, you should come over here and see what phi’s made.”

the younger boy visibly perks up, red eyes shining. his hands tap against the floor eagerly, “would you? please?”

you pointedly look at the stack, peeling up half of it so kappa can see your dilemma, but he only laughs in response. “come, dear. let’s leave that for later.”

you hesitate, unsure. there’s no reason kappa would have to lie to you. he has a direct line to prime in his head and was probably told to make sure you stayed on task, so… if he doesn’t see a problem with it, then that must mean this is how it’s meant to be, right? carefully, you set down the stack on the coffee table, capping prime’s pen and leaving it on top. prime had, for whatever reason, given you an unexpected out.

His eyes flickered to the scalpel held loosely in his gloved hand, the light reflected in the metal devoid of warmth. There was no real reason to wear them, the broken husk atop his table served no threat, and contamination from himself was a wholly irrelevant concern to the present analysis.

Force of habit was what he reasoned, the motion of putting them on coming almost as naturally as shushing the commotion in his, their, mind. There had been quite enough of that lately, only worsened by his own souring mood. Cutting the link off for the day would be best for them all.

That torment and the hunger accompanying it was but a faint memory now. Much more vivid were the tendrils that had coiled around his gut so long ago and punctured the fragile organ, leaving holes that would never be filled no matter the knowledge he devoured.

Every form of craving was a base need that Dottore had long since catalogued and archived in the back of his mind, giving him control whenever they surfaced. Desires were a potent tool when wielded right, something to use and then push away, a drive he'd discovered far more difficult to replicate mechanically.

What good was fear of decay to something that had never truly been alive?

It wasn't before you entered his life that Dottore understood what it meant to be truly starved. Four weeks. That was how long you'd been gone, a speck of dust compared to his solitary existence. It would likely be another two before you returned. Living as a famished man had been all too easy before the taste of sunsettia lingered on his tongue in the dead of night, the sweet fragrance in the air cloying despite every window letting in the frigid Snezhnayan air.

Ichor poured forth from the incision, rich in color as it stained everything in its path. Light reflected across the surface of the syrupy liquid, creating millions of constellations one second and replacing them the next. How would it feel on his tongue? Look running down your throat? It enveloped his fingers in a welcoming embrace, spilling over the edges as it made way for curious probing.

Crimson eyes refocused under the mask, shattered remnants of crystalline mimicry laying separated from the sharp casing. Rarely did a delusion crack. Even in death, the poor thing still clutched it with fervor. Each delusion was a testament to progress, every shard a strict reminder to never grow complacent. In time, he'd examine the shards for impurities, but for now, the cold flesh bearing the consequences was his priority.

Selfishness ingrained after hatred burning too brightly, his recklessness had long since settled into carefully calculated moves. Still, the temptation of your flesh had been too much. By no means were he a weak man, yet the promise of warmth in the otherwise cold halls had caught him unaware.

It's lungs were expanding almost desperately to accommodate the growing pressure of death upon the air. That was another faithful companion, silent and ever watchful, no doubt waiting for the most opportune moment to strike. The ashen skin was beautiful and had he known no better, it would've seemed obvious to write off the limbs as carved from stone. But there was no reasonable way to make that assumption, not with how the remaining muscle still moved under his touch. How it stretched when tugged. As tenderly as a lover, the sharp metal severed a piece to call it's own.

It hung from his palm, no longer part of anything that could have held importance, the tempting pink that was so familiar tainted by a vulgar discoloration, no doubt caused by the elemental energies it had been forced to absorb.

It bordered on obsession with how his thoughts would always circle back to you. He'd seen that color in the bruises he left on your body, in the plums you so enjoyed, pearly whites ripping through the skin and piercing the soft flesh underneath. You were always messy, with juices running down your chin while you perched so prettily on the cold metal tables of his workshop, nodding along to anything that left his lips. His eyes focused on a single drop running down his arm, deceptively anonymous in origin if seen in isolation, it might be a believable substitute for licking sweet nectar from your lips. He wondered if you were still as sweet as your favorite fruit. If it would sate the longing that gnawed at his insides the same as your presence did.

"Lord Harbinger? I- please excuse my intrusion, I'd been led to believe you weren't otherwise occupied."

You'd come to him as a wide eyed recruit, having had the misfortune of being made a cog in their machine. Such had become the fate of most, ironic that all they would see accomplished in their lifetime was trading who held the reins of their suffering. His wooden doors had creaked on their hinges as you tried to be discreet, trembling and clumsy with the salute, clearly still trying to come to terms with this new fate. You were everything he'd despised; weak, helpless, naïve, and so willing to throw yourself at whatever would have you and keep you safe. It fed something selfish.

"I am always busy. Quit wasting my time and state your purpose."

"I'm supposed to report for a health examination before they finalize the recruitment…"

Under normal circumstances, he'd have punished a disturbance like that, especially when paired with such ignorance. A medical exam. That was what you inquired about, and while he knew it to be true that every acquired asset must be examined, it was laughable that you'd fallen victim to some superiors directing you to his space.

Dottore had been in a good mood, finding himself willing to entertain the misunderstanding, if nothing else, it had provided a good distraction from the failures that had haunted him. Not even an hour after you'd left had he requested your transfer to his command, deeming you suitable for a few impending projects.

There was nothing sentimental left in him, all that had been forsaken, turned to dust when he broke himself into pieces. That was the truth as he willed it.

Another chunk of red left the body on his table, nimble fingers peeling back a layer of epithelia to trace the vessels that permeated it. They too had been contaminated, their walls glittering preciously in the sharp light. Steady hands held a syringe filled with water, letting it perfuse the artery before he gingerly collected it. A sample of blood for purification would be necessary as well. A pity the body had been left long enough that tracking the spread of energy would be useless through the crimson liquid, tissue damage would be the most reliant evidence.

Nothing remained of his past self, the parts that still clung to a desire for belonging, not satisfied by only the unity of ambition. It had been your eyes that revived it, looking upon him as if he held the sun in his palm and brought forth the dawn. As if he held all the secrets that would bring salvation.

Undoubtedly, you were one of the healthiest subjects to find themselves on his tables. And that was the justification he'd used that first time his hands had roamed the expanse of your skin, checking for any deformities and writing down scribbles on a sheet of parchment. It was both to placate your nervous mind, betrayed by the wobble in your lips and fidgeting hands, and to record your initial state, in case an opportunity to bring you back regularly and monitor any changes presented itself.

His fingers pushed inside, pliant flesh parting around his digits and swallowing them whole. It was a mesmerizing sight, his free hand twitching briefly before mindlessly wandering to unclasp his mask, as if the removal of it somehow made the wetness now coating his fingers glisten all the more. A shuddering breath passed his lips, forced out by the growing pressure in his chest as he remained unable to pry away his eyes. How utterly beautiful a sight it was. Unable to hold back, his fingers spread out to better stretch the opening, viscous liquid slowly oozing out as he engaged his other hand.

"a-ah I don't think that-"

"Good, keep it that way, there's no need for you to think. The more you squirm around, the longer this will take. Although, from the sounds you're making, it almost seems as though you are enjoying yourself?"

"No I'm.. Hurts.."

"Relax for me then."

Dottore had wondered since that day whether you were truly that clueless, or if you'd excuse yourself with the anxiety he'd seen choke your thoughts so often since. While he could grant you the benefit of doubt concerning the implications of his title, surely you'd know that a Harbinger had far more important obligations?

Entertaining whims had a habit of bringing more trouble than the brief euphoria indulgence could ever warrant. That had been his first mistake pertaining to you.

A flick of his wrist and the liver was easily removed, threads of adipose tissue clinging to the engorged mass as if unity would somehow save it. How tragically still it all was, the clockwork driving it forward had long since ceased operating, leaving only obsolete parts in the wake. The liver had been discolored, electro particles having seeped into the matter, it was made even more noticeable by the crisp white fabric it came to lay on. One of the segments could prepare biopsies from it, check if the energies had disrupted or otherwise changed the structures.

They already had an understanding of elemental overloading in organic matter, but it was a rare chance to observe internal damages caused by high loads over a short time rather than the prolonged use cases of their regular agents. Dottore had come to understand that no matter his insistence and want for knowledge, the soldiers wouldn't carry their dead with them, and he hardly had time to waste collecting material himself, no version of him did. Not with how close they were to their objective.

You had understood his desires and promised to try. The distaste had been palpable in the slight twitch of your eyes and wrinkled nose. It was the desire to try that fed his hunger. The silent promise of wanting not to understand, for how could you ever, but believing when he said the benefits were worth the hassle.

That he was worth the hassle.

Ah, how lovely you were. Keening moans and gasps of his name feeding into his budding obsession. The sounds had been enough to distract him from the churning feeling in his gut, barely able to handle how warm your insides had been, how tightly you squeezed his fingers. The feeling reminded him of reaching into a bed of roses, thorns puncturing his being and forcing his breath heavier.

It had been nothing but slow, languid movements, meant to explore and not fulfil, the sweet pleas that left your lips were simply a tacked on bonus. Dottore could only hope that you were left aching and wanting far more than him and that you hadn't seen how his cock had strained against the front of his pants, throbbing in tandem with your mewls. It was unbefitting.

"Two doors down the hall, on your right. You should fix your attire, it wouldn't do for a recruit to look as disheveled as that on their first day."

"I will, Lord Harbinger, and thank you… Did you fill out a form or something I should bring?"

"Consider this a preliminary inspection, the actual one will be done by a physician two doors down the hall."

How unfortunate that those The Mayor promised a better future were also the ones who would never see it come to fruition. They gave their lives, some more willingly than others, for a reward they could never reap. It had already caused a disease to run through Snezhnaya's people, unrest and distrust filling the veins of their nation instead of the wealth and prosperity they'd been assured would come. Dottore had found it most useful in handling you, a little taste of false certainty accompanied by the promise of power to protect yourself. Your gaze had rested upon him with nothing but devotion.

Another chunk left the body on his table, almost tossed aside without the faintest hint of grandeur, the heart was of no use to them This was far from his preferred medium, more durable constructions would always be at the forefront of his interest, yet there was still appreciation behind his mask at the delicacy. It had stopped the moment a flash of electro singed the nerves. He briefly wondered how its now blighted lifeblood would feel atop his tongue, would it prickle? Burn the roof of his mouth?

How he longed to taste yours again, feeling the tension in his jaw at the memory of biting a little too hard, that's what he'd called it anyway, an accident. In truth, he would not hesitate to drain your blood in seconds, the thought of your reliance on something apart from him made a feeling better left unidentified carve a path through his lungs, leaving the structures to collapse without air.

Every time his hands had touched you, tears had been rolling down your cheeks. How long before you learned that compliance was the logical path, that he wanted to gag every time his hands were forced to harm you?

Threats of missions far above your qualifications kept you in line for the most part, pliant enough that the restraints kept for livelier subjects rarely saw use.

Despite his best efforts to keep everything under wraps, Tartaglia had grinned brightly, not a care in the world when he'd approached, having the gall to simply barge in, to inquire about what promising new people he'd taken on. 'It had barely been a week' was what he argued, commenting how surely you must be something special to rouse The Doctor's interest so. Any reaction to his taunts would simply play into the ginger's hands, a game he was always surprised the young man knew how to play.

Something wet slid down his wrist, immediately drawing his attention back as he pulled his hands from the bloody mess. His lips curved downward, observing exactly where the edge of his glove had been pushed down, leaving the marred skin beneath vulnerable. With a huff, Dottore stepped away and discarded the gloves, letting cool water rinse away the icky feeling now writhing under his skin.

"Come now, Doc, why won't you let me have a friendly spar with you newest acquisition? It's so rare for you to take a special interest in anyone, surely you can understand why I'm curious?"

"That is exactly why. She shows promise, and I cannot have you breaking her prematurely."

"That's a promise then! When the time is right!"

"Get out, Tartaglia."

"I heard she's been coming in for regular 'inspections', you have to admit, that sounds a little unsavory. Does she actually think you're a real physician? Oh I know, tell her you studied medi-sin."

"That was an order. Out, now."

The water in Snezhnaya had an edge to it, as if pieces of glass were contained within. It left one feeling raw and aching despite no physical proof persisting. If it did, his hands would've been torn open days ago. There had been too many small mishaps lately, too many times he'd needed to cleanse himself after his mind had wandered. Despite how clearly the words echoed in his mind, no part of him would admit to their truth.

You'd done this to him. You'd instilled in him a weakness, a beast that wouldn't let him rest when you were gone.

A soft knock followed by the click of a lock behind him cleared his head in a flash, clean gloves swiftly tugged into place with newfound anticipation bubbling under his ribs. None of his segments knocked. No one else had a key. His body remained still, awaiting an announcement from the intruder, willing patience to persist even if the idea of feeling your skin under his uncovered palm was clawing at his muscles to move them.

"Doctor, I don't feel so good," weak and pitiful was the voice that reached his ears, it should've made him recoil.

Instead, Dottore found himself struggling to keep his movements languid, the image of a predator barely conserved in the slow turn of his head. He had no doubt you'd be scared if you could see how his eyes lingered upon your silhouette.

"You're making a bad habit of returning in a state of disrepair, there is only so much I can do to keep you patched together. Disrobe while I clear a table."

It would be a shame to discard the rest of the opened body already, there were still so many secrets to be pried from its cold grasp. Perhaps he could get you to-

No.

You would adamantly refuse, already he could sense the unease rolling off of you in waves at the putrid stench of death. Instead, the remains were wrapped tightly and brought to an adjacent room, the air misty from the cryo applicator installed inside, ensuring it could rest unaffected by decay while he tended the living.

A chuckle passed his lips upon seeing the way you were eyeing the metal surface as if it'd dissolve skin and bone. The sound alone was enough to stir your body, movements stiff as you sat on the edge. Such obedience was an admirable trait, one that would make the investment well worth it when he would one day enhance your form. He would. That's what he had to tell himself, even if the thought of peeling back your skin and rewiring everything inside was tied so intimately with an odd sense of loss.

"Finally…" his words had no real bite, only mild impatience.

Still, you hid yourself from his gaze, shoulders slumped and arms wrapped around your chest. As if he hadn't seen it all already. Dottore let himself take a moment to simply rake his eyes down the shapes constituting your body, careful to let none of the flames eating away at his insides show. Would you be able to discern it in his eyes should he discard the mask? Light fingers traced down the mock beak, briefly contemplating if he should let you try, it would be nothing but torture no matter what.

Being able to put a monstrous form to everything you'd heard about him, everything he'd done to you, it coiled in the pit of his stomach and upheaved anything on its way. He would never admit to being afraid, but the thought of being regarded with repulsion by you sent a shiver down his spine.

The injuries you'd sustained were minor, shallow and located at safe distances from anything vital. Even so, it wouldn't hurt to play a little, the table had already been cleared and he might as well take the break. Lips set in a scowl, his hands found your shoulders and pushed you back, already relishing in how perfectly the curvature fit against him, how little resistance there was in the movement. Made for him. That's what he would make of you. Scarlet lines had been drawn along your skin, urging his fingers to trail along the wetness.

"Do explain what, precisely, led to you looking like this," he kept his voice frigid for now, knowing how much more responsive the thought of having upset him made you.

"We were on our way back from taking care of-"

"I'm aware of your assignment, do not forget who signs off on your outings, give me the specifics."

A curious finger brushed over your hardened nipple, hearing the words catching in your throat.

"Treasure hoarders. I failed to block a strike and-" your body tensed as it wrung out the words.

"You failed to block a strike from such vermin?" He tutted, hand squeezing a little tighter around the soft flesh of your chest, seeing it spill out between his fingers, "That hardly warrants returning all cut and bruised, clearly, you lack the perseverance I thought I'd observed in you. Soon enough, you'll be nothing but nutrients for the wayside flora, is that what you'd like?"

Dottore wanted to laugh at your pitiful expression, a kicked puppy laying at his feet and wordlessly pleading for forgiveness, unknowing that it had already been granted. It was deliberate that you were never sent away far or for long, but there was no reason for you to know. Fear fostered obedience and your obedience was always pleasant, speeding up the process of cleaning the wounds you'd sustained with minimal squirming.

That didn't mean one hand wasn't constantly splayed over your sternum, pressing down to keep your body pinned. Already, a faint buzz was crawling along his bloodstream, months of conditioning catching up in the most frustrating manner as the front of his pants tightened. He had to swallow hard, forcing his fingers to relax before he left bruises. How would it look, he mused, if his nails could dig into your flesh? At the mere thought of those red crescent, a wave of heat washed over his body, accompanied by images of what other marks he could leave upon the canvas of your body.

Could he replicate and improve how pliant your thighs were under his grasp, would new vocal cords make sweeter sounds, added nerve endings would no doubt make for interesting results, if your muscles were synthetic the force they could exert would be greater meaning-

Not yet.

Dottore willed his focus to return, threading a needle as his disinterested voice rang out in the otherwise silent room.

"Do I need to strap you down?"

There was no need to look, knowing you were already oh so bravely shaking your head. An amused smile graced his lips upon seeing your teeth sink into the dirty uniform. Such foresight deserved praise, a small nod of his head accompanied by a finger rubbing along your collarbone in an almost soothing motion.

Having done it countless times before, the needle went effortlessly through your skin, thread pulling the flesh tightly together whenever he tugged. A hand kept returning to your no doubt soft locks of hair, carding through it and pushing back the urge to give a tug. The few tears that had fallen were swiftly brushed away by his fingers, the taste almost cloying upon his tongue.

Dottore sighed softly, tapping your side to get your attention back to the present, seeing your glassy eyes and the small shivers that ran down your body. He could already smell your arousal in the air, the scent growing in strength every time your hips shifted.

"That's it for now," his hand skimmed along your bare stomach, ending atop your sternum and keeping you down, "however, some of the lacerations appear to be in early stages of infection."

How he'd missed the little hitch of your breath, the stutter of your heart underneath his hand. Unceremoniously, Dottore put more weight into the hand, feeling your pulse echo throughout his own body and letting every beat slowly fill the gaping pit beneath his ribs with hollow promises.

There was no infection, of course, but he needed something to placate you before an injection. And the sedative would be invaluable. After weeks of being famished, there was no guarantee your comfort would be at the front of his mind, and it was so much more pleasant when you didn't struggle. Last time had bitterly taught him as much.

"But you can make me okay, right?" There was a sweet tremble to your voice, always so scared of death.

"The mere question is an insult to my abilities," he practically purred, excitement bubbling as his chosen objective for the day moved closer, "it'll just be a little prick and then you're safe. Now, sit up for me."

He'd already turned around, hands aching to return as he rummaged through a few drawers, eventually pulling out both a vial and syringe. Your body came into view reflected in the clear liquid, barely having sat up and already exploring the stitches.

All it for your eyes to lock on the syringe was two taps to the glass, unease so plainly written across your face while he pressed the plunger to clear excess air trapped inside.

His hand encircled your arm, tugging upwards and tutting at the grime that clung to you. With the syringe between his teeth, he wiped the area down, satisfaction flooding his system when goosebumps spread. It had been so long since he'd had you properly.

"There. Now, you need to stay here a little so I can ensure that there are no immediate adverse effects. The blanket is in the usual spot."

It would have been far more practical for you to put the uniform back on, but Dottore trusted that you'd follow his directions regardless and without fuss. When he caught the rattling of metal buckles, he wanted to laugh at your naivety, were you truly not accustomed enough by now to know what he wanted?

"I said; the blanket is in its usual spot," the icy sneer left his lips without a second thought, and oh how beautiful your widening eyes were.

"Well, I know, but it was just-" your voice was already a pitch higher, the irrational fear further irking him.

"Should I consider this insubordination?"

Already, Dottore had crossed the distance and wrapped a large hand around your jaw. It was no secret what happened to cross subordinates. He was well aware that your little slip hardly warranted this reaction, but it was difficult to hold back when the urge to sink his nails into your skin screamed and begged, fighting to drown out every other thought.

"N-no, please…"

It would be all too easy to squeeze a little tighter, hear the crack of your mandible as it would threaten to give out. His fingers stretched to move further up, pressing against the condylar processes, feeling around the joint as images of you with your jaw agape crashed over him.

Dottore knew how little force it took to break. And how a replacement could be crafted and implanted in less than a day, stronger and sturdier than what occupied the space now.

"Remember your place, and be thankful I don't leave you to wilt," the words were spat out with more disdain than anticipated, his fingers giving a last wanton squeeze before releasing your jaw.

With a small scoff, Dottore returned to one of the workbenches that lined the walls, feigning disinterest as his hands automatically began tinkering with the closest contraption, barely willing to divide enough attention to ensure it wasn't something that required further protective equipment for handling. Of course you'd know there were proper medics within the ranks, the most accessible ones located a few rooms away, but they couldn't offer what he did, and the reassurance that you always came back for him to lick your wounds with his barbed tongue, it was enough to pacify any frustrations with your brief moments of hesitation.

Five minutes of pretending to be distracted and Dottore found himself a little impatient.

Ten minutes and it had built to irritation, glassware scraping along the surfaces as he pushed it around, mindlessly 'reorganizing'.

By fifteen something would have been thrown were he a lesser being.

Sweet relief came at the quiet sound of your voice shattering the thick air, the words slurred as if you couldn't quite make out the correct shapes with your lips.

"Am I s'posed to feel tired?"

A small chuckle wormed it's way from his lungs, nonchalance fully restored now that he could turn to gaze upon your slumped body, fingers tightly clutching the fuzzy blanket that enveloped you in a flimsy haven.

"You've just returned after weeks in the field, having sustained injuries and all," Dottore spoke calmly, betraying none of his greed as he gestured to the trace remnants of blood on the table, "it is no wonder that exhaustion would begin to take hold now that you are safe."

The question was plainly written in your eyes, making Dottore incline his head in silent motion to continue, preemptively stepping closer to catch what would no doubt be a whisper.

"Should I go back to the barracks?"

"Would you prefer to go?"

You wouldn't be given the opportunity to go, of course not, but there was no need to be forceful when he could already see how valiantly you fought to keep your eyes open, how your body seemed drawn downwards. It couldn't be more than a few minutes now.

Irritation briefly sparked in Dottore's chest at the little shake of your head, it would've been far more fulfilling to hear you say it.

No attempt was made to make your way through the laboratory to reach the modest cot that stood tucked away in a corner, crates of supplies and projects on hold usually hiding it from view. How ethereal you looked, head lolled to the side and the blanket slowly slipping from your shoulders as a false slumber curled its gnarled limbs around you.

Whatever conclusions you mind would reach were of little consequence, the sedative would take care of that, countless tests indicating that it always left the recipient's memory riddled with inconsistencies, making it easy to dismiss any unpleasantries as imagined.

Dreams.

The risks associated with using the modified Akasha were still too great, even if the possibility of directly rewriting the barrier between truth and fantasy was a tempting one. This way would be more satisfying in the end, having had to put in a little work and flex muscles that had been allowed to atrophy since his days in The Akademiya.

Dottore showed extra care when he hoisted up your unconscious form, grip unyielding as he closed his eyes to revel in the weight against him. In a past that mattered little, others had sworn the ego he carried around was inflated enough to see him ascend in any way but the desired, perhaps this would've been enough of a tether to their reality. For this alone would he allow himself to be held down.

Perhaps things could have been different had that lone island in the sky not decided for his fate to be nothing but misery. Thus logic dictated that you too would be lost. A soft tremor reminded his fingers to relax, gently stroking over the crescents they'd left.

Your breath warmed him far more than it had any right to, coaxing forth memories of a soft summer breeze, rose petals velvety between his fingers as they were plucked from their stem and plummeted to their inevitable demise. And an inviting sound, bubbly and sweet that had, for just a night, filled his veins with the toxin your presence had reignited.

Having you clean would be preferable. The emergency shower would hardly be sufficient, not with how the filth seemed to have embedded itself in your skin. With you unconscious, there was no reason to school his expression, the notion only serving to exacerbate the scowl his face set in.

A soak would be easiest.

There was nothing pompous about the washroom attached to his quarters, and a pang of regret had the idea of bringing you to The Regrator's briefly surfacing. The sentiment didn't linger, an unwillingness to be indebted quickly reigning in the myriad of thoughts cluttering his mind in much the same way towels and clothes were currently strewn around the room.

It made a pretty picture, your body curled up against the side of the tub, a few rays of pale light slithering through the lone window to caress your face. A feeling that had never quite been within his grasp lingered in the rays of light, coaxing something painfully unfamiliar to tug at his shriveled heart.

Just a little longer before the tingling in his fingertips would be sated.

Quick work was made of disrobing himself, a watchful eye making sure your head remained above water. Dottore let a weary sigh hang in the otherwise empty silence, hating the hesitation that riddled his movements as his clothes fell to the floor. There was no reason to be reserved about the results of a life lived, the chances of you regaining consciousness would remain negligible for a while.

Finally settling with your weight in his lap was undoubtedly the closest to rapture Dottore had found himself. Arms securely around your midsection, your back flush against his heaving chest, had every uncertainty draining into the water.

Dutifully, one hand tore itself from your form to reach for a clean cloth, struggling for a moment before muscle memory took over, fingertips gracing the fabric without the need to tear his eyes from your parted lips. It was nothing short of tranquil, letting the cloth scrub away the remnants of your excursion with meticulous care.

Dottore saw how your skin turned red from the continued friction and consciously ignored it, some small voice wanting to rub it off completely and leave you a blank canvas.

He looked instead at his reflection in the water, vermillion stare drawn to its counterpart, noting briefly how it wasn't nearly as comfortable as being under your gaze.

At least his subconscious mind had the decency to have left the few areas he'd stitched together alone, not that they mattered in any practical sense, but you'd be distraught if they were gone when you woke. With time, would you be as broken as him?

Only once you'd been scrubbed clean were thoughts of his own desires acknowledged, cock throbbing against your back as soon as attention was diverted to the feeling. A small hiss mingled with the steam from the water, Dottore easily repositioning you to let his length slide between your thighs.

Already, satisfaction rumbled in his chest, vision engulfed by white for a moment upon repeating the soft motion of his hips. Your thighs easily gave way when tugged apart, body every bit as pliant as previously. Having made peace with his impatience long before, his lips were immediately descended upon the crook of your neck, stifling the groans that spilled forth as he aligned himself.

The water provided additional friction, a slight burn dancing against his sensitive tip upon breaching your tight entrance. Soap met his tongue, disgustingly sterile as it danced along his taste buds, only spurring him on to mouth at you with renewed vigor, desperate to taste the sweetness he knew lay buried underneath.

His hips snapped up as the familiar taste invaded his senses, eyes rolling back at the pleasure of being buried to the hilt. Had his faith been intact, a prayer to the archons for your silence would have tumbled from his lips. Warm droplets carved out paths alongside old scars, gathering at his chin before being caught in the soft locks of your hair. Dottore felt his skin crawl as traces of a pained howl bubbled in his throat, body trembling in time with every squeeze of your insides.

If time would remain forever frozen as the land just outside the walls perhaps everything would be more bearable then. Would it banish both the threat of separation and the burden of remaining what he'd made of himself in spite of reality?

Another sound crawled from his lungs, foreign and intrusive when it met his ears, wanton in a way that caused nothing but dissonance. Dottore curled his body around you, panting heavily against the nape of your neck as he sought out some form of relief, his muscles straining with the increased pace.

Stagnating would be of no use, pleasure was fleeting, worthless without contrast.

Dottore felt euphoria flood his system, spine tingling mercilessly as his sharp teeth tore into the pliant flesh beneath. It was a thoughtless action, driven only by the need to claim and consume, satisfying the desperate desire to be whole. Water sloshed against the edges with every rut of his hips, driving himself deeper into the warmth you so selflessly provided.

How much time had passed felt secondary, the only thing truly worth attention being the rapid tightening in his abdomen, pleasure steadily building with every movement. Seeking more, Dottore found his hands had moved down to grasp the curve of your hip, easily hoisting you up to twist your body around.

With a ferocity that should by all means have been concerning, his lips sought a home against yours, relishing in how they had already parted for him. A hand in your hair was all that was needed to stabilize your head enough that he could delude himself into thinking you awake.

That the little puffs of air that passed into his waiting jaws were instead keens and broken moans spilling forth. His tongue pushed into the waiting heat, wanting if he could to explore deeper, have your throat squeeze around his tongue as your body did his cock. Before he could hesitate, the curve of your nape rested in his calloused palm, the appendage twitching with budding excitement.

A light press was all his mind would allow, knowing all too well how little it would take to snap such a precious thing. As intoxicating as holding the fate of another in his hands were, this was wrong, without reason.

It was the way your thighs quivered around his hips that brought order to all those thoughts, tugging your head away for a breath of fresh air to stifle his burning lungs. Only a single breath afforded, diving back in for more as all else lost meaning. He needed more, needed to hear you beg him, needed your hands to tug at his hair, needed-

Water splashed over the edges as he pushed forward, hands grasping for the back of your knees to push them against your chest. His chest heaved at the sight underneath him, growling like a wounded animal as he reaped what he'd cultivated, one hand keeping a leg pinned while the other covered your nose and mouth.

He was so close.

Close enough that every clench of your slick heat choked his thoughts. Close enough that he threw back his head, willing the image of your eyes briefly opening from his mind, focusing instead on the water soothing his burning skin as he gave a last few thrusts, cursing as the thread snapped and released washed over him.

It would've been no surprise if the tub had cracked from the force, even less if you had cracked, his body still shaking from the force of his release, milky white leaking out into the water and dispersing. Your body was swiftly pulled above the surface as Dottore sat back, once more cradling your head to his chest, trying to ignore the emptiness that wanted to force itself along the clarity that came in the wake of euphoria.

He laid your no doubt exhausted frame onto the cot, hastily tossing the grey blanket over your form. The harsh light of the laboratory did little to hide the marks that littered your body, blooming purple along your thighs, fierce red at your shoulders, already tempting him to reach out and touch again. It was a matter of creating distance, unwilling to let attachment fester and consume more, already now the gnawing had returned, weaker than before but far from sated.

By all means, he should've swung the door shut with more force, knowing at the back of his mind that the lock never clicked. It did nothing to stop his body from collapsing onto his unmade bed, pushing at the covers before crawling further up. He didn't find himself opposed to having you drape yourself against his body, rest in his arms.

Would you seek him out by yourself once the sedative wore off?

The sounds of merriment echo through the halls of your family estate, the clicks and clacks of your typewriter unable to drown the sound out as you work. The noises grow louder once the band kicks in, and grow louder still once dinner is served. The smell of fresh food does not travel to your study like the music and laughter did, this section of the manor is a little too remote for that, but you know with the chime of the clock on your wall that this is when it should be brought out.

While not an outright demand, your father had advised you wait in your office for a servant to bring you a helping. Your mother protested, saying there were plenty of people who would love to meet her darling sweetheart of a son, there's no need for you to stay cooped up in your study! You gently reassured her that it was fine, really. The deadline for your novel's first draft is coming up soon, so you really should focus on finishing it as soon as you can. Besides, there is some rather elite company attending the party, and you know your father does not want to risk you making a fool of yourself, and also him by association.

Time ticked on, and your stomach growled, breaking the concentration you barely maintained on writing. You look up, right at the spot on the wall where the clock is. While you can't really see the time at this distance, you know the staff should have brought you your helping some time ago. You sigh, and stand.

You don't dislike parties, you think you enjoy them as much as the next person actually. The problem is that you don't like large, crowded parties due to your condition. Your central vision is perfectly fine, but you've been steadily losing your peripheral vision ever since you were little. It's been especially bad the past few years, to the point you will trip over anything that is not directly in front of you, like furniture and people. When your parents throw elaborate parties or host networking events, your father will suggest you stay up in your room or your study (to avoid any blunders as a result of not seeing the millionaire standing right beside you). While you know there is good meaning behind it, it feels isolating, even a little patronizing at times.

Even if the darkness of the hallway renders you completely blind, you've walked down it enough times you do not worry about tripping. Hand on the railing, you make your way down the stairs, and the light of the estate grows brighter with each step you take down. Before you fully descend, you let your eyes scan the room to try and make a mental map of where everyone is to avoid bumping into anyone on your way.

You barely make it to the ground before you feel a familiar presence and smell a familiar blend of cologne and champagne on your right. You're glad you can't see out of the corner of your eyes because you know exactly what face your father is making right now. You know he's not happy to see you downstairs before he even speaks.

"I thought you were working on your manuscript?" he asks, the accusatory tone in his voice on the more subtle side.

You shrug. "I wanted something to eat."

"Colleen was supposed to bring you your food," your father retorts.

"If she did, I wouldn't have come downstairs, would I?"

Your father scoffs. "Look, just go back upstairs, and I'll talk to Colleen."

A second voice chimes in, softer and sweeter. Your mother. "Oh, sweetie!" Her face comes into view, and she seems happy to see you. "Are you done your manuscript already?"

"Colleen didn't bring him his food, apparently," your father says.

Your mom turns her head in the direction of your father's voice. "Dear, Colleen left early, remember? Wasn't feeling well? She said Adelaide was supposed to bring him his food." "That's a lie, I haven't seen Adelaide at all tonight!"

You raise a hand. "Or, or, I'm an adult who knows where the kitchen is and can get my own serving?"

Your mother cups your face in her hands. "No no, we'll get you something, unless you're here to socialize as well? I was just talking to this woman, she has a daughter about your age-"

"I'm just going to get my food," you quickly cut in, "maybe I'll play matchmaker next time, but I just want something to eat and then I'll get back to work."

"Let the staff get it," your father tells you.

You pull away from your mother and turn to glare at your father. "It's fine. I can get it myself."

You step around your parents but feel your mom clasp your arm. "You father just-"

"Doesn't want me bumping into people, I know, and I won't."

You take two steps before your left side slams right into a passing partygoer. You stumble and hit the ground, while whoever you bumped into manages to maintain their footing. Glass breaks, and when you hit the ground you feel wetness soaking the back of your shirt and the front as well. You hear your mother gasp, and the room goes silent. Even the band has paused their playing, and you can feel the eyes of the room on you.

"What is wrong with you?"

While the man's voice is melodic, it only serves to make your face burn hotter with embarrassment. This is why your dad doesn't invite you to join them at parties, you remind yourself. When you do not immediately answer the question, opting to instead push yourself up, the man continues to chastise you.

"Do you have any idea how much this suit cost? How much it's going to cost to have it properly cleaned?"

You roll over so you're sitting up. Red stains your shirt. "Sorry, I-I didn't see you there."

"Clearly! How painfully unobservant do you have to be to not see me coming through? I was right next to you!"

You drag your gaze up the man's body, as he takes up the entirety of your eyesight. Everything he wears looks designer, and as you take in his shoes, his dress pants, you make it to his suit jacket and shirt. He's wearing black with hints of indigos and dark blues, but the wine stain is still very visible on his chest. Your eyes continue, and you see a snarling, but handsome, but still very angry face. You don't recognize him from the long black hair, the glasses with the bedazzled chain, or the shine of his eyes. You recognize him from the pin on his lapel. At this distance you recognize the Fatui symbol, and your face blanches.

You just ran into a Harbinger.

You hear the footsteps of your father approach. "M-Mister Regrator, I am so, so sorry for my son's actions, I-I'm sure that's a very expensive suit and I am deeply sorry."

The Regrator does not take his eyes off of you. "Yes. Very expensive. Expensive even for you."

"I-I swear, I'm sorry," you stammer, "I didn't see you, I really didn't see you there, I-I-"

You feel your father pull you up by the arm. "I already told you to go upstairs."

Pantalone watches as your father drags you away. You only protest a little before accepting defeat as you are pulled up the stairs. He feels the scowl on his face worsen when your mother approaches with the most desperate and pitiful expression he thinks he's ever seen a woman of her standing wear.

"Are you alright, my lord?" she asks timidly.

Pantalone takes a step back as a maid comes over to clean up the broken glass. "I'm fine, thank you."

"I am so sorry about that, if you'd like, w-we can have our staff clean your suit for you."

"This material is incredibly expensive and difficult to thoroughly wash," Pantalone states, "I highly doubt your staff would know how to clean it."

The woman looks down, embarrassed. "A-Ah, I see..." She looks back up at him, her expression somehow more pitiful than before. "Please, forgive my son, it was an accident, truly. H-He didn't see you there."

"Oh, I know," Pantalone replies, grinning harshly at the woman, "I'm just surprised at how unobservant someone can be, it's almost impressive."

The woman bites her lip, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. Still, she clears her throat, though she does not meet the Regrator's eyes. "M-My son is going blind."

Somehow the room goes quieter.

Pantalone stares at the woman as the words echo in his mind. He blinks, and his expression dulls a little. "Your son is what?"

"Going blind." She lifts her head up a little bit. "It's a genetic condition, m-my father had it as well. He's been losing his eyesight little by little ever since he was a boy. The doctor at his last appointment s-said he's lost most if not all peripheral vision now."

Pantalone can feel the wine begin to soak through to his shirt now. His eyes scan the room, and the guests are clearly pretending they're not listening to the conversation. He turns to the woman, his voice displeased but noticeably softer. "So the, ah, 'unobservant' assumption..."

"He truly did not see you," the woman reiterates, "I-I can't speak for him, of course, but if he's anything like how my father was at his age, he cannot see anything unless it is directly in front of him."

Pantalone clicks his tongue. "Is that so?"

The woman nods. Silence fills the room for a few moments, and then Pantalone sighs.

"In any case, I have to leave," he says, "I do not have a change of clothes, and I really should have this cleaned as soon as possible."

"A-Apologies again, Lord Pantalone..."

Your mother watches Pantalone as he leaves, praying to any Archon who will hear her plea that perhaps the Regrator will take pity on you on account of your condition. She also mentally curses your father for even inviting the man over. Sure, things have been getting a little shaky financially for your family, but getting buddy-buddy with a Harbinger can't be worth it, can it? They're an unsavoury lot she doesn't want around, especially around you.

Your father is already in a foul mood when he comes back downstairs, having lectured you for literally blindly running into Pantalone. The two had plans to work together, after all, so that spectacle could have completely cost the family any chance at maintaining the dwindling fortune. He becomes more upset with your mother when he finds the Regrator has left already, sparking an argument that finally kills the party, leaving the guests to awkwardly mingle before finally leaving hours before the party is set to end.

Your father does not talk to you for a few days. Your mother offers smiles and reassurance that everything will be fine, but the spats echoing down the hall lead you to believe otherwise. You attempt to tune out the building stress in your household and focus on your work, but it's in vain. In the quiet moments between replacing the paper in the typewriter, or when you cannot figure out how a scene is meant to play out, you briefly picture the Regrator's face and feel your face burn up again. Is it anger? Embarrassment? A little bit of attraction? Yes, probably.

The tension in the house reaches a boiling point when a letter sealed with the Regrator's insignia is delivered to the estate.

"You're paying for the suit, boy," your father snaps, figure barely visible as he paces the drawing room lit only by the fireplace.

"W-We don't know if that's what the letter is," your mother remarks, "and he doesn't have enough to cover for it."

"That's the worst part! We would have to cover the majority of it!"

"Can you just open the fucking envelope?!" you finally snap.

Your father advances towards you from the darkness, suddenly right in front of you. "Don't you speak to me like that when this is your fault!"

Both of you flinch when your mother all but rips the envelope from your father's hands. She steps just out of your line of vision, and you hear the ripping sound of the envelope. After a few moments, she lets out a loud sigh of relief.

"He's apologizing and forgiving us for the misunderstanding," your mother says, "though he, ah, he does want us to split the cleaning costs..." You hear the flutter of paper, and she absentmindedly steps forward as she reads the letter. "Oh, j-just for the shirt. That is... oof, that's still a little much..."

You sigh. "I should have enough money saved. Might have to put off moving out for a little longer, though."

"Oh, don't be so down!" your mother awkwardly laughs. "We don't mind having you here a little longer. It gives me peace of mind knowing you're safe! And there are o better doctors out there than in Snezhnaya!"

But Zeta, he wasn’t one of the bunch. He didn’t initiate anything but instead watched from afar. You would catch him watching you give a kiss or hug to another segment, before looking away swiftly. You would find him staring at you whenever you laughed or smiled widely, seemingly taking in your expression, before retreating somewhere else. You were confused. Did he not like you or something? Was there a period in Dottore’s life where he didn’t like you anymore?! Alright, you knew that was a dumb question, but still. Zeta never completely ignored you or drove you away, but you wondered why he seemed to be so gloomy and distant around everyone.

Zeta also had a face that was obviously familiar yet unfamiliar to you at the same time. Zeta had that fluffy blue hair you adored, and it was slightly longer than Beta’s hair, but not as long or stylized in the way of the older segments. Sometimes you’d notice it would be unkempt for days, and you’d try to brush it for him, although he initially protested and tried to leave quietly. Still, you made him sit as you weaved the hair brush and your fingers through his locks, which you greatly enjoyed but you weren’t sure if Zeta did as much. 

The other segments usually spoke to you, even if it was just small talk when they were busy. But again, Zeta was an odd one. He was always quiet around you. Regardless, whenever you did something sweet for him, no matter how small, he would show some form of gratitude. That was another odd feature of his, the other segments weren’t nearly as openly kind. Of course, they could say those nice words when it was something big, but Zeta seemed to make it a point. Was he really grateful for such tiny acts? You weren’t sure.

Zeta had those gorgeous red eyes that you loved to peer into, but his eyes seemed different from the other segments, and Prime Dottore himself. The others donned a familiar glint that you loved to see, proof of their ambitions and goals and research regardless of what others thought. Zeta’s eyes, however, seemed rather empty and dull to you. Still beautiful of course, but still. And while Delta had a permanently stern expression, Zeta was also quite serious, but he just seemed… somber, in a way. He never smiled. You wondered why. You think he’d look even prettier with a smile, just like how your other lovers do.

Asking your beloved, Prime Dottore himself, didn’t give you much answers. You should have expected that, but it was still disappointing.

“Dottore, all the segments are from past stages of your life, right?”

“Indeed.”

“Like how Alpha is from when you were a student and Omega is you from not too long ago…”

“That is correct.”

“So what stage of life is Zeta from?” Your question makes your lover pause for a mere moment, before moving his pen again like nothing happened.

“It was when you were still in your coma,” was his simple response, much to your dismay.

“Okay…? Almost all of your segments are from when I was sleeping! I mean, is there anything… specific that happened during that time? Anything particular?” You pressed, hoping to see why Zeta would be so drastically different from his other segments.

“No, I simply attended to you and my Fatui duties as usual.” You had to stop yourself from groaning at the obvious lie. There had to be something that had happened to make Zeta so stony-faced and subdued, compared to Prime’s outward and self-assured nature. And despite the complications your illness brought, your determination remained and that only meant one thing.

You were going to understand and love Zeta, no matter how much work it took.

—

Even though you knew where Zeta’s office and room were, whenever you went to find him, he was nowhere to be seen. You don’t know how he manages to be so slippery, but luckily you have a plan. Because no one can be more persistent than you when it comes to pursuing Dottore! You knew that periodically each of the segments reported to Prime whatever they were researching, and that even included Zeta, who seemed to never have much to do with him or have any agents under his command either. (Did he work completely alone? You knew all the segments liked to work by themselves, but they still had agents that worked under them for menial tasks. Zeta didn’t seem to speak to anyone else though.) Regardless, you were just going to lurk near your lover’s office and wait until Zeta finally popped up.

Thankfully, your experiment was a success.

When Zeta exited Prime’s office, you were right there, patiently waiting for him. His normal monotone expression was mildly surprised, probably not expecting you to be right there. Before the segment could speak, you leaned closer, your eyes staring directly into his, which had a permanent darkness underneath.

“Zeta! Hi! Hello! How are you?” Your words came out a bit awkward because of how long you’ve waited for this moment, but you didn’t think it was much of a problem. A few moments passed, as he took in your form, the one that was alive and breathing right in front of him instead of the one that never responded to him. You tried to ignore his intense stare before you got flustered. Just what could he be thinking about? You felt you understood Dottore and all the others well, but Zeta… well, he was a mystery that you’d crack. Hopefully.

“... I am fine. And you?” He had already begun walking but had trouble doing so as you were practically circling him excitedly. The sight made his chest oddly warm, but his usual expression remained, giving away nothing to his true feelings.

“I’m good too! Besides all the other stuff of course,” you didn’t see how his face tightened at the indirect mention of your illness, “But anyway, I have a problem. A very serious problem that only you can help me with,” you declared.

“And that is?” Zeta watched as your cheerful demeanor turned more serious.

“You’re the only segment I’ve barely spent any time with. That makes me quite sad. I want to get to know you some more, Zeta,” you said simply, having no interest in beating around the bush. “I know we haven’t spoken a lot but… I would like to change that. I mean, I know you probably don’t like to speak to people but…” You fiddled with your sleeve a bit nervously now, “But I would still like to try. I like you a lot, you know?” Zeta looked at you as you spoke, noticing every small detail that crossed your face, your eyes that blinked shyly as you bit your lip. Every movement of yours was mesmerizing for the man who once constantly stared at your unmoving face.

“So… what do you say, Zeta?” Ah, that’s right. You were waiting for an answer, now bearing a hopeful look. He should decline, the segment thinks. He’s satisfied with watching you go about your day.

“If that’s truly what you want, then I suppose nothing I say will be able to deter you,” the opposite comes out of his mouth, a feeling that’s buried deep within him, one that can’t help but come out when you’re near. Before he can speak again, to say that being with him probably won’t be the experience you’re looking for, you joyfully celebrate by wrapping your arms around the segment. You fight the urge to kiss him on the cheek.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise it won’t be boring!” Your warmth envelopes Zeta’s body, an unfamiliar sensation that has him frozen. So this is the sweetness that Prime and the other segments indulge in every day? And yet in his mind and body, your coldness from long ago still permeates him. From when you weren’t even able to respond to his words. Before you can notice something is wrong, he tentatively places his hand on your back, making sure his fingers do not twitch from how starved he is for you.

And then your days with Zeta officially began.

—

Rather quickly into your attempt to understand Zeta, the most important thing for you was to get to know him. Talk with him. Figure him out. You found that this task was difficult yet simple at the same thing. Zeta answered your question concisely as you expected him to, but… that was it. He was to the point and nothing else, not the conversationalist like his other segments. It left you with a lot of gaps to fill. Especially since you had no exact idea of what era of Dottore’s life he was from.

But still, you enjoyed your time with Zeta.

You learned that his area of research was medicine, creating and modifying new types for the Fatui’s use. But more importantly, he helped to create medicine for you. You didn’t expect that - you thought only Prime would do such a thing, but Zeta was incredibly skilled. You learned that he did indeed work with no one else at all, having “no interest in dealing with them,” according to the segment. 

You also learned that he was immensely attentive toward you, especially when your illness seemed to affect you the most. His eyes followed you when you thought he wasn’t paying attention, examining your body language and expression. If you were dizzy, he’d force you to sit down. If you looked to be more tired than usual, he’d make you go to sleep. The most you had heard him speak so fluently without stopping was when you had the “audacity” to still visit him while you were running a slight fever. 

Well, perhaps you should have expected that considering the others would react in a similar way, but you felt as though he was especially serious about it. While the other segments could entertain your excuses to an extent, he wouldn’t. It made you wonder if his stronger feelings had someone to do with his personality. You felt bad for worrying him… perhaps you should try to cheer him up. Actually, making him smile too. Yes, that would do nicely. But how? You weren’t sure if the tricks (more like a bombardment of affection) would work on Zeta. Still, there was no harm in trying.

I. plan a - attack with affection!

“Zeta~ whatcha doing?” You had come up from behind him as he sat in his chair, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. Zeta instantly takes note of your warm breath on his neck, the rise and fall of your chest, but ignores his longing for more.

“Reviewing the effects of the medicine on the others,” he replied, neglecting to mention who exactly was being tested on. You sighed, enjoying the fluff of his hair, but slightly disappointed at how he didn’t seem to be fazed whenever you touched him.

“Don’t you think you should take a little break? You’re always working,” you advised as you kissed the stoic man on the cheek. Pretty much all of the segments were constantly working or engrossed with their research, but many found some time to slack off with you, even for a few minutes. Well, it was more like you forced them to do so, but that was beside the point.

“I do not have time to spare with such things,” is Zeta’s immediate answer. All this annoying Fatui work he has to do takes up so much of his time when he should be focusing on helping to cure you. It’s extremely irritating for the segment, but of course, you don’t know that. You whine a bit, nipping his cheek to get him to reconsider, but the consistent somber look remains. 

“At least let me keep you company,” you said. Before he could protest or accept, you had already pulled his chair out to make yourself comfortable on his lap. This technique always worked, tested multiple times by you. You had to fluster him at least a little bit! His deep red eyes bore into yours before he sighed.

“If that is what you would like,” he said as he continued to work on analyzing the records in front of him. You were content with lying against him, head braced against his shoulders. At some point, you noticed his hand now rested on your thigh and then moved up your body, which you delighted in.

“You are very warm,” Zeta finally commented after a while of silence.

“Me? Warm?” You were a bit surprised because you were used to being told that you were pretty cold, mostly due to your illness, but Zeta didn’t seem to think so, considering how his arm was snaked around you firmly.

“Yes. Quite warm.” At least compared to all those centuries ago, Zeta thought. You looked at him curiously.

“Do you like it?”

“I do. It helps with focusing.” You almost giggled at that. Here you were trying to distract him, but he said you were helping him focus.

“Then let me warm you up some more,” you whispered, hands slithering up to his shoulders as you pressed your lips against his neck, leaving long kisses down to his collarbone. You then kissed his cheek, trying to gauge his reaction. Still, he wasn’t even blushing, as composed as always… well, a lot of the other segments were like this too, but you hoped you’d be able to see a similar expression as when you teased Alpha.

“Come on Zeta, don’t I deserve some kisses too?” You teased, as your lips got dangerously close to his, nearly brushing each other. You felt him stiffen up at how close you were, his eyes struggling to stay focused on his papers.

“Is it ever possible for you to show restraint?” You smiled at the snarkiness - even though Zeta was more a lot subdued than the others, you still could be a victim of his sarcasm.

“Of course I can. Just not when it comes to you. You’re just too cute,” you said before locking your lips with his, finally indulging in such pleasure. At first, Zeta’s lack of response made you worry that he didn’t want it, but soon enough he kissed you back. It was gentle at first, a bit unnoticeable, but after a few moments, he kissed back harder, catching you off guard. You pulled away, trying to regain your breath, but he then kissed you again, not letting you escape from his grasp. The kiss was greedy, and the way his fingers dug into your arms was as if he felt you would slip away if he didn’t hold onto you hard enough. Of course, you welcomed the feeling along with your beating heart, although you were speechless by the end of it, only staring at the segment with your mouth slightly ajar. Zeta had an amused glint, a refreshing look from his normally empty gaze.

“Why so surprised? Is this not what you asked for?”

“I- Well, yes, it was. And I am not disappointed,” you quickly replied, hoping to seem not too bothered by that sudden assault. Looks like he flustered you instead of you flustering him… but you know what? It was still a win!

“You know what this means, Zeta?” You looked at you silently, beckoning you to continue.

“Mission accomplished! I got you to take a little break, didn’t I?” You giggled at the success of your little plan, while Zeta’s eyes softened a tiny bit, the bags under his eyes looking a little less dark.

“... I guess you did.”

Plan A resulted in a semi-success and failure, but you think you’re a step closer to seeing a smile on Zeta’s face.

II. plan b - gift him something nice!

Gifts were always a good way to make someone smile. How could one not smile, after seeing someone else go out of their way to get something that was thoughtful? No one, that’s right, well, except for Dottore. Some of his segments, to be more specific. You remember quite well when you used to gift Dottore things in the Akademiya, he would always be suspicious of your ulterior motives. Thankfully, he’s changed now, because it would be difficult to have your partner of four hundred years wary of your intentions.

However, you were unaware of what kind of gifts Zeta would like. All the segments had their own preferences that you took into consideration, but you had only gotten to know Zeta recently, so you weren’t sure what he’d like yet. Should you cook for him? You could, but you had already given him a lot of tasty treats. You wanted to get something better for him. In the end, you simply decided to ask him.

“Zeta, what do you like?” You questioned, as you idly observed what he was writing. You think it was something about selling stuff to another Harbinger.

“What do I like?” He repeated. It was an odd question because he thought you’d know such things by now, but he still humored you. “Successful experiments, for one.” You giggled.

“I know that. I mean… if you had to receive something right now, what would it be? A gift, you could say. I could even make something for you!”

“A gift? That’s right, you used to be quite skilled with your hands,” Zeta reminisced about your past creations from when you were a student, more to himself rather than you from his expression, as he ran his longer fingers over the palm of your hands absentmindedly. A good pen that didn’t break would be nice, but he knew that was probably impossible.

“I do not require anything at this moment. There is no need to bother with it.” You hung your head in disappointment, which you should have expected, but you were unwilling to just give up like that.

For a while, you brainstormed. You thought for ages about what gift would be best for Zeta, and one day it hit you.

A picture frame.

Recently you had become knowledgeable about the “Kamera”, a device that took “pictures”, which were images that were captured permanently. It was fascinating to see yourself reflected back at you like that. Zeta liked to stare at you, his preferred method of communication to be honest. So would it not be a nice gift, a picture of you that he could look at whenever you weren’t around? And you could decorate the picture frame cutely! It was perfect! You were excited.

You didn’t bother asking another segment to take the picture for you, because you knew they’d get jealous if they found out what you were preparing for Zeta. You rather not have to think of over a dozen poses to do for each of them right now. You settled on a simple smile for the picture, placed some stickers along the frame that definitely didn’t match the vibe of Zeta’s office, and then put it there one day for him to come and see. You decided not to say anything, wanting to see his reaction.

As soon as he walked into his office, he immediately noticed you lying down, poorly pretending to be reading, and then his eyes wandered to the new addition on his desk. Zeta sighed at your determination, a trait he did admire about you even if you were annoying about it sometimes. Taking a seat, he then looked at the gift you had presented him with. The picture of you glowed back at him, a pretty smile that belonged on your face. It reminded him of the smiles you had back in the Akademiya. There were also the heart stickers that you plastered along the frame, that was simply so you. [Name].

“It is good. You seem adept with a Kamera, which is not surprising.” Your heart stuttered at the praise.

“It is fun to use. We should take some pictures together! I need to add them to my scrapbook.”

Zeta only hummed in response, his mood unusually better than usual, and glanced at the photo for a few more seconds. He then moved it to a better position and returned to his work. You held back a smile.

Plan B was definitely a success!

III. plan c - make him laugh!

Something that always made you laugh was when Dottore or the segments laughed. You always found it captivating to see how different their laughs were. Segments like Alpha and Delta rarely laughed, and when they did, it was more like a scoff. Omega’s laugh, which was usually when he was amused, whether it was genuine or in a mocking way, always made your heart flutter. Beta’s laugh, where you joined in with his hee-hee-ho-hos. So naturally, you wondered how you would get Zeta to laugh. Yes, you knew that you hadn’t even gotten the segment to smile yet, but maybe getting him to laugh could be a step in that direction.

Should you pull out some of your favorite terrible and corny jokes? Well, that probably wouldn’t be very effective - those jokes only served to make you laugh at the segments’ disgusted and humorless expressions. Especially with a segment like Zeta, you think that for all of the loving looks he gave you, he might give you one that made you want to crawl into a hole.

Maybe he was ticklish? It was worth a try, actually - Zandy always ran away when you tried to tickle him, and when you tried to tickle Dottore back in the Akademiya, you think he nearly broke your arm. It didn’t work on the older segments, but maybe it would on Zeta!

On the day you put your plan into action, you were in the perfect position on his lap, examining the best spots on his body that could possibly be ticklish. His ears and neck, or perhaps you should just go for his sides instead. Your hands curled into his shirt automatically, fingers moving up to his side when Zeta spoke.

“I would prefer if you pulled these tricks on the others rather than me, especially when I’m working.” It took a few moments for you to process his words before you sat upright, trying to defend your innocence.

“Hey! I wasn’t going to do anything!” You said, pulling your hands away, but Zeta looked at you blankly.

“There are times when I cannot figure you out, and there are times when you are a very obvious person. This time is the latter.” You pouted at the half compliment, half insult as you snuggled into his shoulder in embarrassment, but Zeta spoke again.

“However, I recommend going for the neck if you are still insistent,” he said, and you immediately regained your energy as your hands gripped his shoulders, wandering dangerously close to his neck. “Though, I believe using your lips would be more effective,” Zeta added on, and you paused as you thought about what he was implying.

“... You’re just trying to get me to kiss you, aren’t you?”

“I am simply giving the answer you seek.”

“You know, you’re just lucky I like giving you kisses,” you mumbled, before giving in to his request. Well, that backfired, but this outcome wasn’t at all bad!

Still, it seems like Plan C resulted in a failure…

IV. plan d - try to discover the truth!

You’ve spent a while with Zeta by now, learning quite a bit about his likes and dislikes - how he didn’t have a preference for being kissed, satisfied with your soft lips being anywhere, how he hated being bothered by any other agents even if it was only occasionally. How his favorite places to kiss you were your wrists and chest, along with the hollow of your neck, exactly where your heartbeat was, and how he quickly became agitated if you showed even the slightest sign of discomfort from your illness.

You loved Zeta and all his little quirks.

But you still had little information as to why he was so dour all the time. It hurts your head sometimes, after listening to Beta’s exuberant rants or Omega’s effortless charisma or even Prime’s endless discussion of his latest research, to Zeta’s quietness that came with dull eyes staring at you. Sure, you had gotten him to open up a bit, but it was just too strange for you to let go of. Maybe you could just ask him, but you didn’t want to be rude… but if you wanted to make him smile, you wanted to know why he was so serious yet so down all the time…

The next best solution was to investigate his stuff. Yes, it wasn’t the nicest thing ever, but you needed answers. You had already glimpsed around Zeta’s office a bit, because you liked to help him wherever you could, and you didn’t see anything that could be a clue. So the next best place was his room. Granted, all the segments’ rooms were pretty bland and empty, but it was still worth a shot.

After you woke up from your coma, the segments started leaving their personal rooms unlocked, because you loved to wander into them and take naps on their beds. Even though they hardly visited their own rooms, it was a nice surprise to come back to the sight of you sleeping peacefully, definitely falling asleep to the scent of their shirt. And it wasn’t like anyone else could find the location of their quarters. Therefore, it wasn’t hard to slip into Zeta’s room.

Of course, his room was practically a copy of all the other rooms. Regardless, your eyes swept through the room, landing on the desk with drawers (because for some reason, they still could work in their own rooms.) That would be a good place to look. Taking a seat at the desk, you found nothing but boring reports, talking about some Patient E43 or X12 or whatever, nothing you were interested in. 

Pulling open the drawers, some more loose papers were scattered about, none catching your eye, until you came across a notebook stashed toward the back. It was oddly familiar to the one you remember reading from when you first woke up, that you found in Prime’s office. Curiously, you picked it up and began to skim through the writing, taking note of the date that was from around two hundred years ago.

“It has been centuries since I last heard [Name]’s voice. I must keep replaying their annoying laugh and nagging tone in my head before I forget how they sound in this deafening silence.”

“Pierro spoke to me today. He didn’t say anything outright, but I knew what he meant. My research has slowed, but can’t these other idiots can operate without me? I have important matters to attend to.”

The entries went on, and on, and on, all detailing numerous failures and unsuccessful attempts of Dottore’s. Then, you got to the ones where the date got closer to the current time, a couple of decades ago.

“Even though my hands brush their skin every day, I seem to still be unaccustomed to the coldness of their body.”

“Their pulse is always the same. A dreadful, slow, heartbeat, that is nearly nonexistent. I despise it. And yet no matter how many trials I run, it remains the same.”

You continued to flip through the notebook that detailed so much about what he did in your coma, unethical actions that bordered on desperation. Even if he didn’t directly say his feelings, you could feel them flowing through you. Suddenly, Zeta’s nature made complete sense. It was due to the overwhelming failure he felt, even guilt, you’d say. Even you thought it was an uncharacteristic thing for him to feel - you rarely ever saw Prime display guilt unless it was a serious argument. But it was the only explanation, from these entries at least. Your heart suddenly began to hurt. You caused Zeta all this pain, in a way…

“Are you finished?” The voice now made your heart spike with surprise as you slammed the notebook shut, scrambling up from your seat to see none other than the segment, looking at you with an expression that seemed to say he wasn’t really surprised.

Now, this was just the most classic, cliche thing that would happen in one of the romance novels that always made you mad, but now that it was happening to you, you felt immense embarrassment.

“I- um, well,” you sputtered, trying to find an explanation, but there was none. “I’m sorry, Zeta. I’m sorry.” You avoided his gaze while he sighed.

“Go ahead. Ask what you’ve wanted to ask since the beginning.”

“Did you write this?” Your voice was quiet, the sadness layering over it thickly, as you put the notebook back where it was. No need for it anymore when you had Zeta in front of you.

“Yes and no. The more recent writing is from me. The earlier ones are from Prime himself, though I suppose you could consider it me as well since I am him from that stage of life,” he said as he began to walk toward you, until he was standing in front of you, taking note of your downcast look.

“Zeta… all of this, I don’t…” The vast emotion you felt from the writing made your head swing because you never thought Dottore could feel so… strongly, in that kind of way.

“Those fools from above tried to take you away from me… they tested me,” he breathed in your scent, finger tracing along your neck to feel your pulse. You tried to ignore how quickly you were heating up by the close proximity. “But they failed. Of course they did.” The malice in his voice then dissipated as he stepped away, gritting his teeth, and you already missed his warmth.

“But I…” You quickly interrupted him, grabbing his hand and squeezing it tightly.

“You did not fail me, Zeta. Don’t say that,” you murmured as you brought his hand closer to your face, nuzzling it to your cheek. “I’m alive and breathing in front of you, aren’t I? That’s proof enough of how hard you worked. You don’t need to worry anymore,” you tried to comfort him.

“It is not enough,” he snapped, leaving you silent, as he then realized he didn’t mean to direct that tone toward you, stroking your cheek as a quiet apology. “I should have been able to wake you up sooner. I should have been able to cure you by now. If I was successful, things wouldn’t be the way they are now.” 

Your heart couldn’t help but ache at the segment’s pain. You had no clue that he or Dottore himself felt this guilty when you were sleeping. The only thing you could do was hug Zeta, enveloping him in your arms. It was then you realized that even though you wished you could rid him of his sense of failure and guilt right now, you knew you couldn’t. It was a key characteristic of his at this phase… so you could only promise him something.

“Zeta… I can’t change the past or how you felt back then… but I can promise that my heart will never stop beating for you ever again. My arms will be here when you need them, I’ll talk to you so much you’ll miss the quiet, and I’ll make sure I keep you so warm you’ll overheat. I’ll never keep you waiting ever again,” you said gently but firmly, fingers curling into his shirt, hoping your words would reassure him a little bit. Zeta remained motionless for a few moments, and you worried that you said something wrong, but he then wrapped his arms around you too, holding you tightly.

“I will hold you to that, [Name],” he said, his voice still tinged with his regrets but also held something a bit softer.

“Of course.”

“There will be consequences if you go back on your word.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“Yes, darling. You need not worry again.”

“Hmph…” Despite his gruff words, the way he held you said it all.

Plan D seemed like a failure on the surface, but you think you were pretty successful.

V. plan e - get a smile on that face!

It had been a little while since your numerous encounters with Zeta, and it was from then that you found out how clingy he could be. Nuzzling into your soft body, holding onto you when you said you were leaving, not wanting to relinquish you to the others. Now that you knew what he went through, you easily understood why though. However, you didn’t mention it at all unless you wanted to be ignored. 

And now that you had gotten him to speak a bit more, you were blessed with the usual Dottore you knew and loved - more quips and banter filled the room, instead of the once-normal silence. Still, he liked the quiet between you two better, preferring to observe everything about you and take note of every change you went through, no matter how tiny it was. In a way, it made you more embarrassed than when the other segments would fluster you with words.

More importantly, you were able to become a bit more skilled in convincing Zeta to take breaks. You didn’t want him to constantly work on either his Fatui duties or your medicine, even though he was made to do so. So now you had convinced him to take merely a ten-minute break on your bed after he had finished a nightly check-up. It was always interesting to see how his touch would be fluttering and unsure at first, and then become firmer as he continued to take your presence in. And right now, he was taking in how you were fiddling with his fingers and playing with them. A sure sign that you were thinking of something.

“Is something wrong?” The blue-haired man questioned, as he ran his hand through your messy hair. Zeta liked seeing you like this, even if you tried to shoo him away from how disheveled you looked. It was much more preferable than seeing your unsettlingly perfect appearance and unmoving body, even if you kicked him in your sleep sometimes. 

You sighed as you then turned on your side to face him, squinting your eyes at him carefully. Out of nowhere, you then moved your hands to the sides of his face, squeezing his cheeks in an effort to pull up his lips. Of course, it was over as quickly as it started as Zeta quickly removed your hands, scowling at you.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He said, not appreciative of the sudden tugging of his face. You only pouted as he held your hands hostage.

“I’ve spent this much time with you, and I still have yet to see you smile…” You buried your face into the soft pillows to lessen your disappointment.

“A smile?” The segment scoffed. “Is that what you were after the whole time? How meaningless.”

“It’s not dumb! It’s very important to me,” you protested. “Please, can I get a smile? A grin? Even an annoying smirk would do!” You pleaded with Zeta, seeing as it was your last resort, considering all your other plans didn’t work. Unfortunately, it looked like it wasn’t going to work on him in the slightest.

“No.”

“With sprinkles and cherries on- mhph!”

“Go to sleep,” he interrupted you as he pressed a finger to your lips, silencing your plea, before getting off the bed, already returning to his work. Sadly, your arms weren’t long enough to drag him back in time.

“Zeta,” you whined, wanting to indulge in his embrace some more although the blankets were already quite warm. “Don’t go so quickly.”

“Your eyes are drooping. The medicine is kicking in, so go to sleep,” his dry response made you grumble, but you knew he was looking out for you in his own way.

“Fine… good night, Zeta. Love you.” The segment had no response other than switching off the lights, and letting you get your rest.

You didn't know the human body could bleed so much or that they'd go out with such a fight. People die quickly on paper and in the stories your seniors told you. Your allies can be there one second and gone the next, fragile and human. 

What they did not tell you was that your enemies don't die like your allies. The people who fight with you die quietly, but the death of an enemy is visceral and raw. They die fighting and choking on their own blood, going out with a bang after leaving harsh scratches clawed into your skin, and it takes longer. You can't say how long. It feels like it should've taken longer to run a knife through their stomach, but everything blurs together into an endless struggle before you lay beneath a wheezing body on its last legs, with blood staining your uniform and coating your skin in an uncomfortable warmth.

Your hands are red. It's the first thing you realise when you push that person off of you, and they collapse beside you in a lifeless heap of flesh and bone.

Your hands are red, and so is your uniform, and the snow beneath you, and your arm, bleeding from jagged scratches—

"You're very good at what you do."

What?

Before you realise what you're doing, you turn up to look at who's there, half expecting another enemy as you grip the bloodied knife still lodged in the body beside you. 

Your eyes follow from the shoes up to the face of Pantalone, and you breathe a cautious breath, your hand drifting away from the knife, hoping he wouldn't notice you were on the verge of stabbing him a moment ago. 

It sounded like his attempt to comfort or assure you, but all you feel toward him is anger. The reasoning is lost on you, as all reasoning is right now. Your mind is scattered, fighting the urge to empty your stomach and trying to ease your trembling. 

How can he treat human life so flippantly? Does this entertain him?

Pantalone steps around the body, eyes trained on you. It seems the sight fails to bother Pantalone as he crushes their hand beneath his shoe without mercy, the sickening crack of bones doing nothing to help the rising bile in your throat. You watch him, unable to form words and desperate to keep yourself from crying in front of a Harbinger.

Instead, Pantalone looks unfazed by it all, stopping as he reaches the other side of you, free of most of the blood. He greets you with a knowing smile as he usually does. His hand disappears into his overcoat, and when it reappears, he's holding something— a handkerchief, you think. 

"I knew making you a banker was a good idea," he says. Pantalone lowers himself to the ground, knee resting in the snow as his free hand catches your chin between his fingers, thumb brushing across your bottom lip slicked with blood. His eyes hold an unreadable look, perhaps of admiration, but maybe that's your imagination as you stare him down with a forced, queasy smile.

He chuckles lightly at the display. "Who knew you had so many other talents," he remarks, perhaps teasing you, but you're not sure. You doubt he is.

Murder is not the duty of a banker, not any regular banker, at least. Then again, Fatui bankers were never regular bankers. People say the Northland bank's true currencies are blood and tears for a reason, and you scold yourself for not realising that sooner. You should've figured out from the moment he asked you to accompany him that this was some kind of test, not the rudimentary trip to your homeland you thought it was.

Now, he's admiring you like the most precious jewel of his expansive collection, eyes alight with approval and only exemplified by the evident confidence in himself.

He raises the handkerchief to your cheek, and you instinctively pull away, stopped only by his finger raising to warn you, like telling off a misbehaving child. 

"Ah ah," he says, a harshness seeping into even just that sound. "Stay." 

You stay put, not eager to anger him. The next thing you feel is pain— stinging pain— as he presses the fabric over your skin with a delicate touch. The action is unusually gentle coming from someone as cutthroat as the Regrator and certainly not what you expected. You're not sure what you expected, just that it wasn't this. You expected him to toss it at you or let you rot in your misery, covered in blood.

"Lord Harbinger," you try to say, wincing as a shot of pain pulses through your head. You must've been injured at some point and not realised.

"You are much like your father." He doesn't wait for you to finish whatever you are going to say, instead simply reassuring you of yourself.

"I am not like him," you retort before you can catch yourself.

He responds with a chuckle, pulling the handkerchief away for a moment before pressing it back against your forehead. "I think you are," he says softly. "You are more alike than you think. Of course, I hope that courage doesn't rob you of your wits as it did to him."

You wince again, scolding yourself, and you mumble a quiet, "It won't."

"Good," he responds. 

Overwhelming, you feel like a dog—a well-regarded dog—but no less a dog. You are a fluffy little dog that fits nicely into Pantalone's purse to be admired and used as an accessory, nothing more. Everyone went ahead and told you as much a long time ago. To him, people are numbers; names are for the lucky among his upper echelons.

Yet he remembers your father. You eye him with scrutiny, trying—and inevitably failing—to read the look in his eyes to gauge why he would say that.

Nobody reads the Regrator among his ranks, especially not when they're as wet behind the ears as you are.

Despite your nerves, you swallow the lump in your throat. "Why did you bring me here?" you finally manage to ask, meek and afraid to upset Pantalone after watching how carelessly he treated that body.

"Whatever do you mean?" He's playing dumb; even you can tell that from just hearing the coyness in his voice.

"Never mind," you quickly say, ready to drop the matter like that.

Pantalone's hand that rests on your chin moves. He squeezes your cheeks between his fingers, digging the gloved ends of his nails into the plush of your skin until your lips pucker. His ring is cold. "No, you asked a question, as did I." His smile doesn't falter. "Speak up. When we want things, we ask for them directly. Do I make myself clear?" You hastily nod as best you can. "Now, try again. Dear banker, whatever do you mean?" 

The repetition of his question tells you this is your first warning.

"Is this a test?" you manage, words muffled by the way he squishes your face like putty beneath his fingers. Your heart pounds in your chest, threatening to jump out and run away if it means escaping Pantalone's scrutiny.

"Would it please you to know that you would have passed?" he questions, pausing for you to answer with a hesitant nod of your head. "I brought you with me to see if you were worth keeping around," he explains. "I received advice from an anonymous source that you may be better suited to work under another Harbinger's watch. I see now that perhaps such advice came from a…sentimental point of view."

That would explain how he knows of your father; someone must've tried to get you out of this unit, and you know who, regardless of how 'anonymous' that source may have been in his words.

Pantalone releases you to take your hand from your side, and he guides it to hold his handkerchief over your wound. "Hold this," he adds, an unnervingly tender instruction for the way he was just behaving. 

He removes his hands from you, robbing you of his touch. It feels strange for the warmth of his hands to have disappeared entirely, your only distraction from the blood itching beneath your clothes gone just like that. You should have guessed it would be 

"What was the point?" you ask, eyes following Pantalone as he stands back to his usual height and straightens his overcoat. 

His smile fades, eyes wandering from where you continue to sit, looking probably about as pathetic as you think you do. "Whether it is to collect on debts or complete an objective in the field, having such unrefined hands unused to killing will leave you on the receiving end of what you just did. People may believe it's just numbers and accounting, but the Northland Bank deals largely in debt collection as well. You're only an assistant with the resilience of a baby bird, but soon..." He seems to ponder those words for a moment before continuing. "In time, you could do great things at the Northland Bank. Who knows?"

Nobody believes that about the bank. You don't bother to tell him the obvious, however, as you're sure he also knows that.

You don't like that thought. In fact, frankly speaking, it terrifies you beyond belief to even begin to think that could be you. That's precisely what you've been avoiding facing this whole time and what made you sick when you had no choice but to face it. At that moment, there existed no escape but one, the inevitable end of one of you dying, whether because Pantalone stepped in or someone won the upper hand.

The only reason you're not dead is because you were lucky enough for it to be you who won the upper hand.

Your life is so terribly fragile. 

It isn't only this that makes you realise such a thing. You knew it before, but until a few minutes ago, the taking of a life was someone else's story. It was something you heard from one of your seniors, a story you hear after a long night of tedious work as if telling scary stories around a campfire like children do. It wasn't something you carried around like a scar. 

Watching as the life leaves someone's eyes, knowing you are the reason it's happening, never quite made the cut when describing the excitement, and you understand why. 

It is the monster under the bed that makes you curl up in your blankets and convince yourself that it'll stay hidden if it can't see you, but it'll always be there, waiting for you to acknowledge it. Someday, you might have to, but you try to push it to the back of your mind and focus your eyes on Pantalone as if there's not a dead body right behind you. You have never felt so much blood seep through your clothes before, and you hope you never do again. The thought of your uniform sticking to you this way ever again makes you nauseous.

"Once we return, you can change clothes," Pantalone says, perhaps sensing your disgust at yourself. "Oh, and—" he smiles down at you, almost mocking if you didn't know better— "next time someone approaches you from behind, don't wait to stab them. Don't reach for your wet knife with your wet hands, either. Both of those things will get you killed."

Your face feels red from the nerves creeping up from your neck. You imagine Pantalone is looking down at a beet-red banker fumbling to respond. You entirely miss him describing it as if you had water on your hands and nearly lost your grip. "I will— or won't," you quickly assure him, embarrassed that he noticed after all. You managed to kid nobody but yourself into thinking he wouldn't catch you.

There's an amusement in the smirk playing on his lips as he turns back to you. "What did I say about speaking clearly? Repeat yourself, I can't hear you mumbling from down there."

"I won't, sir!" you repeat, much louder than your shame wants to allow, as you force yourself to 'speak up' as he put it, to avoid having to say it a third time. "I won't hesitate next time."

"Good." He turns away, prepared to leave you behind if you can't keep up. "Come now. You want to go home and back to Liyue, don't you? I'm tired of this cold." The moment you realise he won't be waiting around for you to collect yourself, you are already scrambling to get back on your feet and rush after him.

CROSSPOSTED ON AO3

Dragging him to bed is no easy task, and begging rarely gets you anywhere, either a quick dismissal, or being made fun of by him for being needy. And it's not like his segments will help you, they don't need to sleep, and they hardly care how tired or sore their creator may be. You'd need to bargain with them, which is not so simple either. Then again, you're not sure if you really want to. Last time you asked them for such a thing, they kept following your dear exhausted doctor around with a steel chair, you worried for his poor, intelligent noggin if his segments were to try and get him to sleep... (He'd figured it out eventually once he saw omega and two of his younger segments hiding behind a corner, with you taking back your request and asking them to please put the chair down.)

But when you do manage to force him into bed, he's as limp as a noodle as soon as he sits down. He won't even bother changing out of his lab attire, but you won't let him sleep in those stiff clothes! He won't object to you undressing him, but be prepared to be bothered by him as you take all his accessories and harnesses off. He'll kiss and bite you whenever he sees an opportunity, pulling you so close you can't even take his clothes off like you're trying to do.

Getting him into nightwear isn't any easier, I think he'd be perfectly content with sleeping in just boxers, or at least without a shirt + pants, or the other way round, no pants but a shirt. He just can't be bothered to wear pajamas!! There's no point if you're nearby to warm him up if he's cold.

That said, he's grabbing onto you as soon as you get the covers, he won't let you go anywhere. You begged and pleaded and pouted for so long, so you'd get to finally cuddle and see him sleep in an actual bed, what gives you any right to turn away from him when he's all snug and in bed like you begged him to be? You're being utterly disrespectful, he ought to hold you until he gets his fill, nip at your ears and neck until you whine and push at him for being mean.

I think he can be very kneady when cuddling, hands groping at every inch of you and fingers kneading into your skin, he's just touching! Exploring!! Memorizing you!!! Just stay still for him, it's hard for him to get an accurate feel if you're constantly squirming.

Will watch you sleep, even if it creeps you out waking up in the middle of the night to two red dots staring right at you in the dark. He's just making observations, go on, go back to sleep!

Pretty much always big spoon, he can't bring himself to be spooned, no matter how much he asks. But he's not entirely unwilling to compromise. The closest you'll get to holding him is if you both face each other while cuddling, which he certainly doesn't mind, counting the amount of eyelashes you have on each eye helps him fall asleep! Definitely tangles his legs into yours, you're not going anywhere without good reason (needing to go to the bathroom does not give you a pass unfortunately). Kiss his little face all over!! He'll only stare at you tight-lipped, his expression just giving off 'really?', he won't move away though, unless you start giving him those really messy smooches, drool and all.

Denies it, but he talks and lightly snores in his sleep. Mumbling about the most inane things, or in languages you unfortunately don't understand (he likes to tease you with them, knowing you don't understand. He always makes fun of you when you end up saying something dumb while trying to speak to him back in the same unfamiliar language). Has full on chomped you before while asleep. Randomly sits up with his eyes wide open and says the most unnerving shit possible before curling himself behind your back and holding you again. Randomly kicks covers off, or tangles you both in the sheets so violently it's nearly impossible to move after. He doesn't usually snore very loud, but when he does, it's the full on dad snore. Very confused and annoyed if he wakes up in the night or morning with a pillow wedged between the crook of your neck and his face. He. Does. Not. Snore!! How dare you accuse him of such a thing!!

Of course, I don't imagine he's always cuddly. Maybe when he's been exceptionally frustrated through the day, or he's sore and doesn't want to admit it. I think he's the kind that when he gets any kind of pains, he tries to ignore it but gets moody and grumpy at the slightest headache. He's not trying to be mean to you, but it just happens! He's too prideful to admit that he wants you to massage any of his aches, but he won't object if you ask nicely, he'll just be very grumbly, but grateful, even if it doesn't entirely help. Better to not touch him without asking first when he's like that, he's already irritated and as much as he doesn't want to be snippy with you, he can't help himself when you push too hard.

On these kinds of nights, it's best to let him have his own space, it's a kind of, 'if your foot touches mine one more time I'll toss you into the liyue chasm' situation. If you were with him during his akademiya years, and somehow managed to cop that loser(affectionate), these kinds of nights were more common, he likes his space!!! (and in general i think he'd be more awkward and unnerved/irritated by physical touch and encroaching on his personal space in his younger years) He'll maybe allow an arm over his chest and your head nuzzled into his side or laying on his shoulder if he's on his back, but that's about as much as you'll get. Generally sleeps more quietly like this, but wakes up quite sore from being in the same position through the whole night (just kiss his ouchies away).

Clinger in the mornings too, but not at all hesitant on leaving you in bed alone if he has somewhere to be (most often at the most random times, usually incredibly early in the morning). Thing is, he'll leave you just fine, only teasing and kissing your pout away as you whine about him not staying longer, but if you try to leave? Absolutely not. He'll wrap you tight in the sheets with his legs tangled in yours and won't let go, keep protesting, he won't let go unless you genuinely have an emergency.

Morning voice is a godsend, genuinely from Celestia. All grumbly and hoarse, deeper than usual. And he knows it riles you up, he'll purposefully talk and whisper in your ear, grazing his teeth against your ear, holding you tight so you can't escape from his teasing. Grabs your hips and butt to annoy you, he may be constipated when it comes to expressing his feelings and wants, but he's utterly shameless when he knows he can get a reaction out of you. He's just taking notes! Will obviously stop if you're clearly getting irritated though, he means to tease, not anger.

That said, he just loves feeling you up, you're like a stress ball to him. I like to think that while he may be cold and indifferent on the outside most of the time, he has a sort of boyish personality underneath it, and it shows more often when alone, and especially if you were with him in his akademiya years. He's used to you, over 5 centuries of being with you, he can't always be emotionally constipated around you, unlike his younger self, he feels more able to be open and playful with you. Anyone else though? Absolutely not, maybe a dry joke or a playful quip that more often than not comes off as rude.

Overall, maybe a 7/10 to sleep with. You kind of have to watch out for his long limbs and teeth, and if you're easily woken up he's not the greatest to sleep with sometimes. As I'll always believe with doctors, he's got a lower body temperature. Sneaks his freezing hands into your shirts all the time. Nice for hotter days, but not so convenient when it's cold, he likes to leech off of your warmth.

You can't think of a single person able to scare you nearly as much as the Doctor can, whether it's the daunting trip to find him wherever he hid this time or the fear of knowing he tried to bargain with Father to have the more unimpressive children—as some would call you—shipped off to him to become experiments.

Father won't allow him to get his hands on any of you, but it hardly eases the fear that he may disregard Father's warning and decide to pluck the first child he comes across up and feign ignorance when she realises they've disappeared.

Father personally entrusted you with this letter, so you cannot turn back as you make your way to where she said he should be. 

The sleepiness might manage to numb you to the danger by the time you arrive and make it easier to stomach his presence, but most likely, he will only frighten you awake, and it will worsen with the shock to your system.

There's no turning back now and no declining when Father asks you to take letters, which she says are of great importance. You can't treat letters like this lightly, even if you fear the recipient.

Knowing who is behind it makes the door all the more daunting. Doors that separate you from Harbingers always make you nervous as it's not every day you find yourself faced with one armed only with a letter and shaking hands. If it were anyone else, you could've knocked in a heartbeat, but you pause to gather your bearings before raising your hand to knock.

One two, three…four. Spaced just as Columbina taught you to, and then you wait.

Several seconds pass in silence before you hear footsteps from inside, then a voice calling out to you. "The door is unlocked."

You reach for the handle, cautiously cracking open the door just enough to peek inside. Your eyes travel across the room from your left to your right until you spy Dottore seated in a chair facing away from you. He hears you, evident in the way he turns to look at you as you work up the courage to step inside and leave the door ajar behind you.

"It's you," he remarks, the closest to acknowledgment you expect to receive. You are about to make your way to hand him the letter when he interrupts you. "Close the door."

The door is always closed here like it's trying to keep someone out, but there's no one here that he would dread seeing who would knock and accept that the door is locked. He must not be trying to convince anyone of that, and if he was, maybe he'd lock the door for real and leave everyone stranded outside instead of talking.

Dottore makes you nervous. You don't know what he thinks or why, but you probably don't like it. It's the only reason why he would be here right now. Normal doctoring wouldn't get him far as a Harbinger, and the sounds you've heard coming from his lab are enough to deter you from wondering too much. 

Instead, you quietly spin yourself around to push the door closed before returning to your endeavour of handing him this letter from Father she entrusted you with.

"Who is it from?" he asks, a question you remember him asking before too. You concluded that he's trying to gauge how eager he is to read it, and your answer will set his mood for the remainder of your stay.

You turn the envelope over to show him the seal on the back, which you hold out to him. The mark of the House of the Hearth—Father's seal—is displayed so that Dottore can glean the answer from wordless actions. He accepts it from your hand with a stifled eagerness, the hopes of something he'll enjoy written there held back by the knowledge that, in all likelihood, it's a trivial matter.

The moment the letter leaves your hands, you retreat to the safety of the door, where you stand beside the frame to await a half-hearted reaction or collect his response. Father is always happy when you return to the House to inform her that Dottore sighed when he read her letter, even if she regards the news with her usual stoicism. She despises when he bothers to send something back to her, but she never tells you why, as usual.

He collects something off his desk just out of your sight, hidden behind him, and the sound of paper tearing follows. He drops the twice-folded paper into his hand, then unfurls it to read the contents.

You wait in silence, nerves evening out as you rub the sleep from your eyes with the back of your hand. Sleepiness does help you occupy yourself if nothing else.

Then, you are interrupted by a snap of his fingers and a motion of his hand to usher you closer. 

Keeping him waiting will only make him mad, though you're sure not enough time has passed for him to pen any cohesive message in the minute or two you spent waiting.

You look up in anticipation nonetheless, expecting him to hand you something or tell you something so when he reaches toward you, it doesn't alarm you. 

Not until he grabs you beneath your arms, picks you up, and sits you down on the table, much closer to eye level with him.

"Arlecchino has her concerns about your sleeping habits and your seeming lack of will to speak," he begins, reaching behind you to grab something you barely follow before he has it in his hands. It's only a light, small and thinner than the torches at the House.

Your mind races with every question you can think of as you try to find a way off this table back to the floor, but the only way out is blocked by Dottore sitting in front of you, unsympathetic to the fear in your eyes when you stare at him. You could swear you hear your heartbeat thrumming in your ears in a quickened rhythm.

What was written in that letter? Was it about you? It takes only a brief glance down in search of the open letter to realise exactly what makes this delivery so important. Father tricked you into coming here to see the Doctor after you so eagerly declined her previous offer to go willingly. You catch glimpses of your name in Father's handwriting and little else as it blurs into a messy sea of details, but you always recognise how Father writes your name.

You know better than to assume this is punishment but rather the manifestation of Father's worry as you keep oversleeping lately and need one of the older children to fetch you from the comfort of your bed. The idea that habit would land you here, presumably getting a check-up, might've inspired you to prize yourself out of bed a little earlier had you known.

Dottore seems to gauge your trembling as an obvious sign of fear, though a twitch at the corner of his lips is your only indicator, as you can't see his eyes beneath the mask. "Her explicit concern was whether or not you're ill." He rests his hand against your knee— they're cold, yet you almost expect it. It doesn't mean you especially like it. You can only interpret the action as a skewed attempt to comfort you. "As long as you're healthy, I see no reason to keep you longer than a simple check up."

He's not a real doctor, is all you can think, and he doesn't know what he's doing.

You have no choice but to steel yourself for whatever pain you're about to be subjected to. It might hurt, but you have no way out, no way back to Father, so you can curl up in a ball at her feet and ask why she would subject you to this torture—

"Don't tense your jaw," you suddenly hear, realising his finger taps your knee to grab your attention back from dreamland. "Open your mouth," he instructs you, and rather simply at that. It's something you can follow without getting scared he'll hurt you somehow.

He shines that light at you, inspecting something, though you can't say what. A slight tilt of his hand and, by proxy, the light he's holding is your only sign he's looking at anything.

The light is off before you know it. There was no pain at all, not even a hint of discomfort beyond what naturally arises from your ever-present anxiousness.

Dottore moves to set the light beside you, then appears to change his mind as he offers it to you. You take it from his hand and click it just as he had, the light coming on again. Another click, and it's off. Holding it just like that, an object of clicks and ridges and a light you can play with, is enough to give you something to at least take your mind off the fear of getting hurt.

"Lift your head." 

This time, compliance comes easier as you tilt your head up until the point his hand stops nudging you, and instead, he presses his fingers against your throat. It's light enough to feel only slight pressure; it doesn't hurt, but you don't like that feeling. Your thumb brushes over the exterior of the light, smooth against the pads of your fingers and satisfying to touch. You pull away before you can come to your senses and stop yourself, but he lets go the moment your discomfort flares, and you do the closest you can to telling him no.

Your breathing begins to even back out seeing his hands so clearly in the air in front of you, away from you, not touching you. It's silent reassurance that what you just did counts enough as revoking his permission to touch you as anything can.

Dottore doesn't feel like dealing with the fussy child that trying to force it would invoke for a mere favour to the Knave.

Instead, simply asking you like the fully grown child you are seems much more efficient. "I'm going to ask you a few questions, all yes or no," he begins. "They're all simple enough you can answer without speaking."

You interpret the ensuing silence as Dottore waiting, expecting you to nod or shake your head, and you quickly offer a nod in agreement.

"Do you know if you're able to speak?"

You consider his question carefully, unsure of the answer. Your hesitation prompts him to rephrase the question.

"Are you able to make any noises at all?"

You nod. You know the answer to that.

"But not speak in full words?"

Not words. Words don't work. You shake your head.

"Would that be because you're physically unable to?"

You shake your head. You've spoken before, but each time you try, especially here, something robs you of your voice before you get the chance. You know you can talk, just not here like this. 

"If not physical, then there's nothing wrong with you," he concludes. It feels sudden like there should be more, but he stops so quickly. "Nothing that I can fix," he promptly adds. That explains it.

Why not? He doesn't answer, unable to hear the things you don't say. To him, you remain as starkly silent as ever and as difficult to treat as you have been the past few minutes. You suspect he came to some greater conclusion between when you first walked in and now but neglects to share with you what it is.

You must look unsatisfied or just confused as he pauses to stare at you. You look away first, eyes drifting back to the light in your hands.

"Arlecchino only wanted to know if something was physically wrong with you," he says, briefly looking down at the letter as he skims a particular section again. "Your poor sleep may be the result of insomnia, or whatever is causing the mental block that also prevents you from speaking."

Mental block? Nobody ever told you about anything like that. 

You eye him curiously, though you again remain silent, watching him while you think he isn't looking back. It's easy to look at him as long as you don't consciously think of the fact that he's staring at you behind that mask.

Dottore holds his hand out expectantly, a motion of his fingers telling you he wants you to return what you have in your hands to him. You do so, but not without a sadness-driven hesitance to accompany it.

"None of the things you're describing imply a physical problem, but a paranoid 'parent' overattentive to the wrong facets of what could be wrong with an orphan." You don't like the way he says that as if he's speaking ill of Father, but like always, you keep your mouth shut. "If you couldn't speak because of a physical injury, you would have presented with one when you arrived at the House of the Hearth—not now. Trouble sleeping and an elevated heart rate, shortness of breath, intense panic and your tremors are more likely the symptoms of anxiety." 

That's a lot of words, but as he quickly lists every example, you seem to become conscious of it. Mental block, anxiety. Those are the two things you've been told that sound like explanations. You look down as if on instinct, hands held in front of you to investigate his claims that you're shaking. You are. Before your eyes, your hands are trembling, though you can't say why. You look back at him to see if he has anything else to say.

You thought your sleep troubles weren't the same, the result of bad dreams, but supposedly not. Dottore doesn't know anything about that, does he? No, he can't. You never told him, so he can't know. He knows lots of things he shouldn't, like your heart racing when you're scared or how you feel like you can't breathe at times. 

Dottore clicks the light on again, shining it down at your hands resting in your lap. He circles it in place, and your eyes follow. It clicks off again after a few seconds. "Distraction helps anxiety," he says, then sets it down on the desk beside you. "Do you know why you can't sleep?" he asks.

Yes. You nod. Dreams. On nights when they're at their worst, they keep you awake long past bedtime when all others have gone to sleep. By breakfast, you can be so tired and sleep-deprived that dozing off over your food is the only thing you can manage.

You half expect to sit through another round of questioning before Dottore finds the one that clicks the pieces perfectly together in his head, just as he did in the first round.

Instead, Dottore stands, and his hands find your sides to hook you under your arms. Your feet are back on the ground before you can fuss any more about how much you do or do not like it. With you out of his way, he flips the paper Father wrote her request to him on.

"If you know the answer, then you're free to go."

That's it?

You stare up at him for a moment, perplexed by the surprising lack of pain compared to the abundance of fear you felt. It should have hurt, but it didn't, and now you don't know why you were so against coming here in the first place. Dottore spared five or ten minutes of his time, which he already didn't want to give you, and is sending you on your way without injury,

You can't see his face as he's turned away, writing something down that you can't make out. If you took a guess what it is, it's probably about you, just like the first one was. Still, you can tell why Father is so annoyed to receive letters from him. You don't recognise your name when he writes it. You don't recognise anything he writes. His handwriting is awful.

He folds it and slips it back into the envelope it was given to him in. That's not proper etiquette, but something in the way he practically shoves it into your hands tells you that he doesn't particularly care. So long as it gets from him to Father, it doesn't matter how it gets there in his eyes.

"Give that to the Knave." That is his final instruction. You're very used to following those kinds of instructions by now, having heard and executed them many times. They're second nature to your mind.

You nod, pinching it between your fingers to keep the paper from falling out of the open envelope. If Father's was critical, so is this one, and you'll get it back to her quickly—more importantly, safely.

You can't help wondering why it felt so much easier to have someone briefly look at you and ask a few questions. The older children make it sound torturous and barbaric, like being used as a lab rat to spite Father for her refusal with his only opportunity to access the children of the House.

Perhaps seeing a doctor to ease Father's worries isn't as scary as you believed.