Chapter Text
Il Dottore, one of the most feared of the Harbingers by both his own and other nations as a whole.
His reputation, perfectly crafted, never once allowed to slip no matter what he did.
He’s insane, deranged, psychopathic. Doesn’t care about anyone but himself. No, doesn’t care about anyone, period. Nothing mattered to him but his research, getting answers on whatever project he leapt to next. Doing whatever the First asked of him without question.
He lost his morality long ago, and now other people paid the price of that loss.
The 3rd Fatui Harbinger was a monster. Everyone knew it.
But was that really, truly what he wanted? Sometimes he sat alone in his office at night, a bottle of Sneznhaya’s firewater in hand, and wondered what things would be like if he never lost his brother that night.
He used to be okay, back when he was nothing but a naive little boy. Back when he was… No. That name did not apply to him anymore. Felix was no more, he’s nothing but a shell of what that boy was.
If things had been different, would Dottore still have joined the Fatui? If Pierro had come to him before everything changed, would he still be motivated to slip into his role as easily as he’d done in this present reality?
He didn’t know. But it genuinely didn’t matter to him. This was how it was now, and no amount of thinking would change that.
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Felix was silent as he gazed at the sky above him, his legs crossed. He had a sketchbook resting against one knee but he wasn’t really drawing – instead, a he held a pencil above the paper, not moving his hand at all.
It was nice outside, and the air smelled like that summery sort of smell, the kind that made you feel all fuzzy on the inside. Like you wanted to do nothing but dance outside barefoot and feel the warm breeze blow through your hair. Felix enjoyed this weather, it always made him feel cheery.
Plus, it was summer break, which made it all the more cheery. He could finally get away from the stuffiness of school and relax out on the grassy hill of his home’s front yard. People would stop staring at Felix’s dirtied uniform and scrawny body, unless someone happened to pass through his neighborhood.
No one ever did. It was so out of the way that the only people Felix saw were people that lived here, the other little boys covered in mud that had no company but themselves running around. Their moms were almost always with them, watching like a hawk to make sure they didn’t stumble into trouble.
Welcome to the poor district of Fontaine, where everywhere you went, you knew you were never safe. Some areas were worse than others, but Felix was fortunate enough to live in an area where a crime was only reported weekly, as opposed to the every few days that happened down there.
He vaguely recalled the last time someone had gone missing in his neighborhood. Felix was five at the time when law enforcers came up to his house and asked his parents if they’d seen a little girl. He knew her at school, she smiled at him sometimes, but they’d never had the chance to really get to know each other.
His brother, ten at the time, had pulled him and his sister, who was no older than seven, into his bedroom before the enforcers could spot them. Felix didn’t know why. It wasn’t like they’d done anything bad, but he knew better than to question his brother. Ambrose was smart and had a knack for noticing off things, so he kept silent and hid like he was told.
Speaking of Ambrose, if Felix listened enough, he could hear his brother and sister arguing on the driveway behind him. He paid them no mind – they argued a lot, but he knew they still loved each other. His sister, Iris, was too smart for her own good, and it always frustrated his brother.
“Felix!” Ambrose suddenly yelled his name, pulling his attention from his thoughts. He sounded mad. Well, so much for ignoring their argument. “Come over here and tell Iris I’m right.”
He sighed and turned around, fixing them with a stern glare. Felix didn’t involve himself in their arguments. It was never worth his time. “What are you arguing about now?” He asked, impatient as always. Frustration leaked into his tone, and he could see Iris smirk from behind her light-brown hair, which always covered her face no matter what anyone else tried to do.
“Whether or not a Kitsune Fox actually counts as a fox,” Iris said, putting her hand on her hip in a way that showed she knew she was right. “You like animals, right? So, is it a fox?”
Felix frowned, his gaze flitting between Iris and Ambrose, who was silently fuming now that his recruitment had been turned against him. “Technically yes,” he said after a moment, cautiously so that maybe Ambrose wouldn’t get madder, “Although they can only be found in the Inazuman areas, unlike other species of foxes that are worldwide, like the Crimson Fox for example.”
Ambrose crossed his arms and glared a little harder, the sulk on his face unfit for someone at the age of eighteen. Someone who would be moving away soon. Felix didn’t like that thought and so he looked back at his sketchbook, zoning out the rest of his siblings’ continued arguments.
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It was later that night when Felix was pulled back into his home for dinner, the sun already setting and casting a golden glow over the buildings of Fontaine. He didn’t put his sketchbook away, even when his mother looked at him sternly and told him it was ‘rude’ to draw at the dinner table. One stubborn look at her made her give up though, and she sighed, setting plates on the table for them.
“Ambrose should be back any minute now,” she said as Felix’s dad came out from his room. “I sent him out to get extra juice from the store, the kind Felix likes because you know how he is when we’re out of it.”
Felix frowned at that, his eyes flitting to his dad for recruitment. He was always a picky eater – since he was a baby apparently, and when he liked a certain food, he refused to eat anything else. Sometimes his parents had to put him to bed hungry because they didn’t have enough money for the food he liked and he wouldn’t eat. Felix felt bad about it but he couldn’t help it, he hated the generic store-brand apple juice.
His dad ruffled his hair as he walked past but said nothing. Felix huffed when his hair was messed up and reached his hand up to fix it, shooting a glare to his dad’s back.
“Well, you know how he is,” Iris said as she joined him at the table, fixing Felix with a little smile, one that had him frowning deeper. It was the kind of smile that showed your sibling was about to say something rude to you. “Wouldn’t last a day in the wild if it meant eating berries and pinecones. I’m sure he’d rather starve to death than eat something like that.”
Felix turned his glare onto her instead, crimson eyes flashing with irritation. “Iris, shut up! You’re no better!” He retorted, sitting back in his chair once he was done. “I’m sure you wouldn’t last a day either if your stupid friends weren’t with you.”
Before either of them could start arguing, the front door knocked and startled both of them. Felix’s gaze whipped to the door, and he suddenly felt uneasy. No one else would be at the door during this hour, and Ambrose wasn’t the type to lose or forget his housekeys – unlike Felix, who’d forgotten them many times.
His parents seemed to share those same thoughts, because with a silent glance exchanged between them, his mom was escorting them off the table and back to her room. Felix looked uneasily at Iris, seeking comfort. Which she gave with an offer of her hand, letting him hold on. He hated physical touch, so this was the best they could do.
His mom ushered him into her closet with Iris and shut the door. “Don’t say a word until I open the door and tell you its okay,” she whispered through the crack in the closet door, before the bedroom door closed with a click and he was alone in the dark.
Felix pressed his back into the corner of the wall, staring blankly into the void in front of him. He knew Iris was likely on the other side of the closet, but it was so dark he couldn’t see her. Anxiety was making him feel queasy, and he squeezed her hand tighter to try and distract from it, his other hand going up to his mouth so he could chew on the flesh of his thumb.
He didn’t know how long they were in the closet before the bedroom door opened. Iris flinched and sucked in a breath from behind him when the lights turned on and he frowned, staring at the closet door as if trying to decipher who was on the other side of it. But then the door opened and there was his mom, teary-eyed with her face twisted in anger.
“What happened?” Iris whispered behind him, squeezing Felix’s hand tighter this time around. It hurt his fingers but he said nothing, looking at his mom with the same question in his eyes.
She sucked in a shaky breath, a single tear rolling down her cheeks. “Ambrose. He’s – He’s gone. The police have him.”
Felix felt the world shatter around him with that single sentence.
His brother was gone.
After all that Ambrose had done for them.
He was gone. Taken, just like that, and Felix knew he would never see his brother again.