Work Text:
The room was dark and cold when Signora walked in, eyeing the doctor sitting at his desk. He had his feet propped up and one leg crossed over the other, holding a clipboard with multiple sheets of paper on it with his thigh. The only light on was the lamp on his desk, casting a glow over his mask and highlighting the red in his eyes.
Dottore looked up at her quietly and watched as she moved to sit on a cot in the darkness, moving with a graceful fluidity. He just sighed stiffly and brought his legs down from the desk to rest on the floor normally, leaning in and resting the clipboard aside. Signora looked at him silently, before turning her head to reveal a still-bloodied slice in the side of her neck.
“That’s what you came in for?” Dottore sounded disappointed, as if he expected more than just an injury that should have killed her by now. “Why do you even need my help? You’re not incapable of helping yourself, I’ve seen you do it.”
“Its poisoned,” she replied calmly.
“Oh.”
Dottore sighed again, making his displeasure with the situation obvious. He rose to his feet and went over to stand beside her, gesturing for Signora to tilt her head to the side. Somehow managing to see perfectly well despite the darkness, he examined her injury. He brushed his fingertips over the broken skin and relished in the sharp breath she took, the visible corner of his lip perking up in a smirk when he felt her glare on him.
“If you’re not going to take this seriously, I’m going to fuck up that stupid puppet of yours,” she snapped, her words slicing into Dottore like a blade, despite how he barely seemed fazed. “I don’t need to die because you’re a sadistic piece of shit.”
Dottore’s sharp gaze landed on her and he scoffed, walking to a shelf by the desk and pulling on medical gloves from a box there. “First of all, Scaramouche isn’t mine. He belongs to no one,” he fired back quickly, words carrying a certain venom to them. “Second, he may not be human, but he feels just as much as the rest of us.”
“And third,” he slowly turned to look back at her, a twisted smile on his face, “never threaten someone your doctor cares about when he’s the difference between life and death.”
Signora merely frowned and wisely stayed silent, knowing he had a point. She couldn’t care less about the little brat that was the sixth – even if they got along sometimes, she didn’t like how utterly disloyal he was to everyone. She had the feeling Dottore was making a mistake caring about him as much as he did, considering they all knew he was going to leave some day.
But at the same time, she didn’t know why she cared so much. Dottore was just another pawn in her big plan, there was no reason for her to care about this. Signora just didn’t like the idea of a heartbroken Dottore because it would impact her work, that’s all it was. Definitely.
Dottore returned to her side just long enough to clean the injury and the area around it, ignoring her expressions of pain. He wasn’t exactly the gentlest doctor, but at least he got the job done. And then, as soon as it was clean, he walked away again.
He came back to her side a few moments later with a needle and bottle of some kind, Signora guessed it was the antivenom he tended to favour – something he came up with himself, it worked on just about every deadly poison that people could get their hands on – because of the label. She couldn’t help an exasperated sigh.
Dottore narrowed his eyes at her, filling up the needle with the antivenom. “Do you have a problem, ma cherie?” He said flatly, annoyance in his crimson eyes.
Signora rolled hers in return. “I have no problem, I’m merely wondering why you must use your creations over ones that were made by someone who cared about human life.”
“If you were human, you’d be dead long before you made it here so shut the fuck up. Its not going to kill you, I wouldn’t be using it if it would.”
Signora gritted her teeth and shut up then. Dottore seemed pleased with himself as he reached a hand to grab her chin and tilt her head a little more. His touch was surprisingly gentle, and she found herself enjoying the way his large hand practically engulfed her chin.
The needle was cold against her skin and she swallowed back a childish fear. Dottore didn’t bother warning her before sticking it right into the wound, holding her head still when she tried to yank back and scream at him for being so stupid. Pain blossomed in her neck and shot up to her head, sending sparks across her vision and making her dizzy.
“Hold still,” Dottore grunted, pushing down on the plunger to release the medicine into her system. Signora glared at him dangerously but sucked up the pain and stayed still.
And then, finally, Dottore released her and pulled the needle out. She was still dizzy with pain and merely sat back as he bandaged the area. He said nothing to her the whole time but Signora saw the way his eyes kept darting to her face as if he was searching her expressions for something. Finally, Signora turned enough to look at him without disturbing his work.
“Do you have a problem, my dear?” Signora shot at him, mocking his words from before. Her glare was sharp.
Dottore sighed heavily and sat back, looking down at her blankly. She was almost as difficult a patient as Scaramouche when he first arrived, and even he wasn’t as difficult anymore. He more so wanted to get everything done as fast as possible and leave right afterwards. Dottore missed talking to him though, maybe he should try to invite the Balladeer to lunch sometime – ah, he was getting distracted again.
Signora seemed to notice this and kicked him in the side lightly. He flinched and his gaze returned to her from where he’d been staring distantly at the wall.
“I don’t have a problem,” he gritted out and sighed, finishing up his work before taking his gloves off and throwing them away. “You can go now.”
Signora said nothing for a moment, simply sitting there thinking about something. Just as Dottore began to speak up, ready to yell at her to get out, she turned a tense smile on him. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Dottore stared at her for a long moment in utter confusion before deciding he didn’t want to know. He scoffed instead and walked back to his desk, picking up the clipboard and pen again. As he sat down, he looked over at Signora, who didn’t seem very happy that she didn’t get the reaction she wanted.
“As you wish.” Was all Dottore offered, before beginning the process of drowning himself in work and ignoring his body yelling at him to eat or sleep.
Signora sighed and got up, walking over to stand behind him. He didn’t even acknowledge her, but she felt him tense a little when she rested her hands on his shoulder, leaning over to look at his work. Her breath hit Dottore’s ear and he shivered a little, before turning the work away so she couldn’t see. Still, he said nothing.
Giving in, she leaned back once more but did not take her hands off of him. Instead, Signora moved to his hair, gently running his fingers through the long curls. Dottore had began growing his hair out at some point – either that or he hadn’t had the patience for a haircut – and she wondered what motivated him to do so. Either way, Signora didn’t really care, merely continuing to pet him as if he were a cat and not a literal war criminal.
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It was moments like these, when they were too tired to bicker whether they admitted it or not, that Signora liked a little more. At some point in the night, she’d managed to convince Dottore to head back to his room and get some rest, and he didn’t complain when she followed. So now, she was lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling with a drowsy Harbinger beside her.
They did not come in contact with each other, but Signora could feel the warmth of his body and hear his quiet breathing. Dottore’s eyes were closed and he still insisted on wearing that stupid mask of his, even in his sleep. She wasn’t about to request that he take it off though, the last time she tried still lingering in the scar on her arm from his teeth. She wasn’t sure whether or not he was still awake.
But Signora didn’t care. She traced patterns in the ceiling with her eyes, too tired to do much else but too awake to sleep. Signora suddenly wished she could roll over and wrap an arm around Dottore without being questioned. Holding him seemed like more fun than this.
What was wrong with her? She hated Dottore with a passion, so why dd she like this so much? And why did she want more?
She hated everything about him, so why did she love him?