#meefywritessmut

Pantalone is proud of his ability to do as he pleases. He is sly and cunning and underhanded, able to get what he wants with force or finances or a combination of both; for the material things he covets, they are proudly displayed in his many residences, carefully arranged as both a symbol of status and a warning that another’s belongings may one day be his.

However, there is one thing - rather, two, two people - whom Pantalone has resigned himself to never having in his life.

You, and your dear Doctor - who strides through the palace with an arm about your hip or your hand at the crook of his elbow, protective as much as it is an announcement to any passersby that you are to be treated with the same respect owed to the Second Harbinger. 

It has been months of Pantalone pining; first for you, your cheeky grins and kind features and insatiable curiosity (whenever the Regrator visits the Doctor in the latter’s lab, you are at Dottore’s side, peppering him with questions about this substance or that research paper or, Archons, something mundane you saw outside your bedroom window - and Dottore tends to you with the same care and interest one would expect he’d show to his beloved experiments and nothing else). And that pining has, over time, extended to Dottore as well; or, rather, it rekindled the flame of desire he’d experienced upon first meeting the man, the feisty, young, exiled Zandik all those years ago. 

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18+ below the cut, minors do not interact.

A quick happy birthday gift for the lovely @localplaguenurse of Pantalone pining for you and Dottore!

Pantalone is used to never getting what he wants. It’s how he spent much of his early years; yearning for a Vision, yearning for the Mora to at least assuage his basic needs, yearning for some sort of sign that the gods had not completely abandoned him…

Yet he was not granted such boons, and thus Pantalone has grown used to taking what he wants with his own two hands. However, he is wise enough to know that his current predicament is not one he can do anything about - not if he wishes to keep his body intact, that is. 

The Doctor would never let him live otherwise if he knew the filthy thoughts that ran through Pantalone’s head whenever you walked by.

You, who, through some unspoken sort of whimsical twist of fate, managed to soften Il Dottore’s heart to the point of having the Second Harbinger fall for you. You were so oddly…normal, so unassuming. It was strange enough for Dottore to have someone he cared about other than himself, but for that person to be so…lackluster? The Doctor always preferred something unique, something shiny and sparkling and screaming for his attention -

Maybe that’s why Pantalone feels that uncomfortable squeeze of jealousy whenever he spies you shooting the Doctor a particularly loving glance. That should be him, at Dottore’s side. Someone worthy. Someone who had climbed the ranks through blood and tears and fought tooth and nail for it. Someone who had been rejected by society, too. 

Of course, the Regrator has no way of determining how, exactly, you won his comrade over. It seemed as if you’d appeared out of thin air, suddenly working diligently at the man’s side as his most trusted assistant. And Dottore has been careful with you; whatever data was once available on you has been scrubbed away, or perhaps tucked under lock and key in the Doctor’s lab. A rumour has circulated amidst the palace that the poor unfortunate underling who walked into Dottore’s lab, only to find you resting snugly in the Harbinger’s lap, met a gruesome end lest his tongue prove too loose. 

So, although you may appear fairly average on the outset, you hold a great deal of power regardless. And it has begun, over time, to pique the Regrator’s interest.

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To be the beloved of Il Dottore is to invite a barrage of questions upon yourself.

The most common one, from the agents who dare to speak to you upon learning your association of sorts with The Doctor,or the newcomers who haven’t yet learned to bite their tongues, is, How do you do it? And you’ll smile nervously and give a little laugh and a shrug and send them on their merry way - lest Dottore find them prodding at his darling. 

Of course, it’s a valid question. Indeed, you have always had one of your own to ask him in turn: Why me? You are not especially useful or strong or beautiful, average as average comes, and still, Dottore seems to find a list of traits you possess that he considers endearing - and attractive. And so you have come to accept it even as the nagging sense of inadequacy never leaves your person.

You help him in his laboratory and return to your shared quarters to await his return every evening - for his endurance and obsession with his research knows no bounds when compared to anyone else’s. He can come to bed well into the wee hours of the morning, curls of blue hair brushing up against your cheek when he nuzzles into your neck beneath the blankets, and even if it rouses you from sleep, you find you drift back into slumber much easier with him at your side.

You know of his past, in bits and pieces, like a puzzle scattered about; when he shares certain parts, the stories of being expelled from the Akademiya and exiled from his hometown and joining the Fatui, no matter how detached he may sound recalling it…you can make out the distinct hint of disappointment and rage in his words. And you know him well enough by now, after all your time together, to reasonably suspect that there is an air of hurt to the memories.

As much as his thirst for knowledge fuels his research, you have the feeling that there is also a desire to prove himself worthy; a desire to shove his successes in the faces of anyone who dared doubt he would come out victorious. His worth, in a way, is measured by that success - and so Dottore pours everything he has, cup full or not, into his experiments, until he returns back to your chambers drained and bleary-eyed - no matter how much he may try to plaster on a facade of neutrality.

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My part of a gift exchange for my dear friend @fatuismooches. Can be read as part of her fragile!Reader series or a standalone! This fic mainly features the Omega segment (the one seen in Sumeru, and ostensibly Nod-Krai).

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The Dottore you had fallen in love with was not an emotional man - at least, not on the outside. 

He had long since been stoic and determined and fiercely fixated on his single goal of ascending humans to the level of gods; his pastimes were otherwise focused on research of one kind or another with little consequence to the price paid in pursuit of knowledge. Outwardly, he did not have time for such petty and undefinable things as ‘feelings’; they were subjective and observable only on paper as fascinating brain maps and electrical waves. And, at worst, they were a distraction…or so he claimed.

However, you came to realize that this was far from reality. Because The Doctor - Second of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers, his name feared among those aware of his little experiments and what the most gruesome entailed - was indeed a deeply emotional man.

And it was why he had created his segments in the first place.

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Dottore could always find some time to sneak away from his experiments to tend to his beloved. You are the one thing he can prioritize above all else; after all, what good is a new world if you are not there at his side to see it? 

And yet, as it presently stands within the echoing chambers of Irminsul, it is you who is tending to him.

The sun beat hot against the back of Zandik’s neck, Akademiya robes fluttering in the desert breeze. The wind did little to alleviate the heat, only serving mostly to blow sand into his mouth as he tried (and failed) to avoid making a fool of himself when spitting it out. He ordinarily would not have cared about appearances to this degree - it would only hold him back - but…you had insisted on tagging along, confident he was a capable leader, and Zandik was not about to give you any other impression.

The reason why he cared about such things was somewhat lost to him; the heat blooming in his cheeks, he told himself, was unrelated to your presence tagging cheerily behind him.

The golem sat unmoving, its awesome presence the only source of shade in the whole of the Hadramaveth Desert. Zandik could feel his heart flutter with excitement; he’d come here only briefly, once before, giddy as he’d realized the nuts and bolts of sorts he’d salvaged at Devantaka Mountain would likely make this massive automaton functional again. But he’d hesitated; there were other students alongside him, and to even attempt to reactivate it with them nearby was a risk Zandik was not willing to take.

But wouldn’t you be surely impressed if he got it working again right before your eyes?

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Nod-Krai’s climate is warmer than you might have imagined, given its being a part of Snezhnaya; it’s reminiscent of an early autumn, a crisp damp chill in the air that nevertheless can be easily countered with a warm, comfortable sweater. And yet you feel frozen to the bone, shivering with every step, the sweat clinging to your undershirt beneath the pack on your back the only reminders of the surrounding tepid air.

You’re not entirely surprised Dottore didn't forbid this journey; he’s always known you are a force unstoppable, and perhaps that is part of the reason he has always been fond of you. In turn, he did not seem surprised that you intended to go after his wayward segment - an experiment gone wrong, Dottore called it, but an interesting one nonetheless - merely intrigued.

“You still intend to pursue him, knowing he only wants that which he can never have?” he’d asked, barely looking up from his lab reports.

And you’d clenched your fists and swallowed your grief, steadying your voice all the same. “I would pursue you in every lifetime, no matter what,” you’d settled on at last - truthful albeit flowery. Dottore had seemingly accepted your words and the silent implication within them: that even his most selfish segment, his selfish nature, had a place in your heart…if not been left rather confused by them.

Omega had scoffed when you’d made him swear a promise of where to find you should the worst happen. You’d selected a cave near Amsvartnir: blastedly within the vicinity of far too many Ratniki and Knights of Favonius, but, at just the right time of night, mercifully vacant for you to slip through. Hidden within plain sight, you might say. And so, after word had gotten out that the terror within Nod-Krai had ceased and the Moon Goddess and her comrades had come out on top, you had not hesitated to head for that carefully chosen location, hoping (against hope?) that Omega would await you there unscathed.

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