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It starts when Scaramouche comes stumbling into Dottore's lab with half of his face shattered.
He doesn’t really know what he expected when he showed up with that mask he so hates to wear. Scaramouche had always been especially proud of his innate beauty — It’s easier to be liked when you’re nice to look at, although Scaramouche doesn’t truly care for such things, being born fairer than the rest, and eternal youth would be a blessing to most.
It is this pride he chooses to cover during this time, if only to spare others the remarkably horrible sight of his face in its devastated state.
With Dottore, however, he puts the mask away, and not in a gesture to mean he trusts him. It’s purely human instinct to need each other. Be as it may, and be as Scaramouche should hate his guts, he owes a great deal to him, after all.
It’s a workplace relationship, he tells himself, but what does that matter if he’s been discharged from the Fatui without notice, anyhow? It is simply a need.
He tries not to make a big deal about it. Dottore doesn’t let him. Not with that spark of amusement in his eyes.
The way Dottore looks towards Scaramouche's unannounced presence is almost as if he had expected him to come at this time, completely unbothered by any other work, despite the mess in the lab.
He turns on the swivel chair he’s rested atop, a leg over the other, and Scaramouche narrows his eyes at the flash of his teeth when he grins at him.
The doctor is holding slightly crumpled papers in his right hand. A report of some sort, Scaramouche guesses. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to even assume it’s about his so-called betrayal. The lamp flickers.
“You look like shit,” Dottore says with a sneer.
“Yeah? Didn't need anyone to tell me that,” Scaramouche deadpans.
“Then what is it?”
Dottore places the report aside among the mess of his table, standing up to approach the puppet in strides, until he’s towering over the puppet with that same filthy grin.
“Have you come to beg for me to fix you again?” He drags an index finger over the smooth of Scaramouche’s unblemished side. “Is my dear little Balladeer too reckless to save his own pretty little face?"
“You're disgusting,” Scaramouche spits, slapping his hand away, to Dottore’s maniacal laughter.
Despite his words, Scaramouche gives himself up.
He does, after all, have a purpose for this visit, but it would be the last time, or so he thinks.
Scaramouche should’ve lost his name and title with the announced betrayal from his part, but Dottore insists on calling him still, if only to live in the fantasy that this could go on a little longer — whatever this is — workplace relationship; Dottore had laughed when he heard it out of Scaramouche’s mouth.
He doesn’t care what the puppet thinks of him, for the most part, as long as he would give himself up to him again and again — his body, in particular, has properties Dottore promised himself he would — and they both knew he would.
Call it an unhealthy obsession, but Dottore could hardly care about establishing real relationships as long as Scaramouche was willing to be part of his personal passion.
As for Scaramouche, well, it’s something he simply needs. It’s something he owes. His repayment had been these frequent “check-ups” that Dottore calls.
It could be considered depraved, a little dubious, the things he does to him. He knows what Dottore does with those children he receives now and then; he’s sure there’d be serious ethical violations applied as well if he was human.
But he’s not human, far from it, and he used to take pride in this.
There should be a twisted sense of pride in knowing that your being is created to be higher than all other lifeforms. Things of morals, ethics, and norms don’t apply to him, after all, and Dottore should take full advantage of it.
The doctor values the pursuit of knowledge and higher, greater achievements above all else.
Getting his hands on a god’s divine creation is only the beginning.
So he always ends up on the table, though over time, it becomes a little bitter to lay under that light — reminding him that he needs the doctor; he needs to be fixed like a broken doll; he needs, oh he needs, and it’s a terribly human thing.
He promised that with an archon’s power, he would transcend all other needs. This, however, might be the only exception. He simply couldn’t be without him.
“If you fuck my face up, I will kill you.”
There is a dangerous edge in Scaramouche's voice — a threat under a gracious layer of warning, but his words mean nearly nothing to Dottore, when he knows so deeply how the puppet can inspire fear in its greatest and truest form if he wanted, if he realized that power, but this is not such opportunity.
He knows Scaramouche too well. “I’ll kill you” and the like are nothing more than courtesy between them. Perhaps it could even translate to something as sweet as “please take care of me,” because they both should know they can't go without the other and are too stubborn to admit that.
Instead, Dottore sneers. “Oh, yes, so pray to whatever gods you believe in and stay still.”
Scaramouche knows it's a taunt, so he doesn’t give him what he wants.
“Go to hell,” he growls.
“Suppose I’ll meet you there,” Dottore says with a crooked smile.
If Scaramouche could feel pain, the burn would be searing when Dottore drags his scalpel, carving imperfections around his eye, down the cheekbone, watching something as fragile as a pretty face fall apart under him, just to put it back together with plastic.
Like a doll. Scaramouche used to hate thinking of himself that way.
It doesn’t feel that bad with Dottore, handling him with such care, so gently, and perhaps he would’ve convinced himself that he shouldn’t — didn’t deserve to — receive such gentleness either, but he closes his eyes and merely lets it, if only to allow himself a semblance of kindness.
Maybe eventually, he would delude himself into thinking he’s capable of it again.
For now, though, it’s nothing more than routine patching up. He knows that Dottore is careful with him, afraid to break, but he’s beyond breaking, in truth. He only wishes it wasn’t so infuriating to receive such gentleness from Dottore of all people.
He knows Dottore could do anything with him as well, while he’s laid down and put into immobile mode like this. Still, there is a semblance of care in how he handles him, and Scaramouche wonders how much of it is just how he thinks due to being an unfeeling puppet, and how much of it really comes from the doctor.
He’s never received anything more, after all.
“It’s a pity we won’t be able to do more today,” Dottore tells him. “Mandatory Harbingers meeting — but you’re not invited. It’d be trouble if they even found you here.”
“I never had interest in entertaining your crazy head,” Scaramouche says blankly, sitting up as a hand wanders to touch the new skin on his left cheek. It does not quite feel like him. Then, a question comes up.
When he’s all but crumbled pieces of what he used to be, could he still simply be patched and fixed up like a doll? What should be the distinction of being him, the puppet discarded by his own creator, and Dottore’s own prototype god when all his parts become Dottore’s?
How could he be sure that he isn’t his from the start?
He had been Scaramouche since he woke up to the white light in that room for the first time.
He hasn’t really been himself. He doesn’t quite remember Kunikuzushi anymore.
“What we have is merely equivalent exchange. Don't get ahead of yourself,” he eventually says.
“But I know you so well, darling Balladeer. Your ins and outs are bare to me,” Dottore says with a twisted curl of his lips.“Besides, you'll always come back to me. Only my hands can do your body right, or have you forgotten?”
“Back off,” Scaramouche grits, eyes narrowing dangerously. And Dottore complies, the wicked smile remaining.
“And, what will you do now?” Dottore pries. “Eleven Harbingers became ten, and Her Majesty had even sent that Childe off to find you, yet you weren’t the slightest bit bothered when it dropped to nine.”
Scaramouche rolls his eyes at the mention of his former least-reliable colleague. “Why does it matter? Won’t you stay with them? I’m clearly unwanted here,” he goes on. “I have no more interest in the Fatui either. Truth to be told, I’m bored of you all.”
“But it would be such a pity to see you go. After all we’ve done…” Dottore feigns desperation as he comes up behind the puppet and a pair of large hands land on his shoulders. It makes Scaramouche flinch slightly. “Would it be so wrong of me to want to keep you for myself?”
“Get your filthy hands off of me,” Scaramouche barks, before prying himself off his grasp, to Dottore’s snickering.
No gratitude in the slightest bit, but this is the Scaramouche he knew.
This is the Scaramouche he made, and he would make sure he’s loyal only to him. Not even the Fatui will get to have him.
“Find some other experiment. I don’t care what you do, and you have no business in mine.” Scaramouche starts to walk away, but right before leaving the bleak white room, turns over his shoulder to meet the Harbinger now seated back where he was before. “But… You weren’t entirely boring.”
The claim makes Dottore raise an eyebrow, then a grin grows on his lips once again as Scaramouche leaves. He begins to laugh to himself, absentmindedly jotting down notes in stained papers of disorganized notes.
The subject’s interest has been compelled. Proceed to Stage 3.
Just as he’s about to leave suit, however, it catches his eye.
Scaramouche had left his mask on the ground.
The doctor clicks his tongue and wonders if he should tell Tartaglia about this, but gazing at the item once again, he decides to wait. He’ll come back again when it all goes wrong.
He can’t wait for that day.