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Pantalone and Dottore are both smart enough to know that they are terrible for each other. The worst possible fit, like oil and water in a dish with a match set precariously close.
When they talk, they walk on eggshells, conversations sharp and jaded and it’s never long until one of them steps on a landmine and blows everything sky high. Their work life fluctuates between periods of total avoidance and petty sabotage, and their intimacy is anything but: it’s bloody rings scratching raw trails into Dottore’s back, and it’s Dottore retaliating with bitemarks that break through the fair skin of Pantalone’s collarbone.
They both only know how to take, yet they always fit perfectly together when they are tearing each other apart.
But there are lulls between their madness. Periods of calm where almost everything seems normal. After the broken furniture and the smashed glass, there are small talks confided in one another on the balcony as they pass a cigarette between them, the perfect mimicry of remorse.
It’s in these quiet moments--when they breathe in Zapolyarny’s cool night air and warm their lungs with smoke--where they are their most honest. Pantalone never apologizes, because he is too prideful, and Dottore never apologizes, because he does not care. Still, the tenderness that flickers between them is impossible to deny, warm like the glow of the dying embers tapped from the end of the cigarette and they are always close enough to share its light.
Tonight marks another such night on Pantalone’s balcony.
It’s his office that had gotten shredded in their most recent fight this time and from where they sit on the ground, Pantalone can still smell the smoldering ink and oak. Repairs are never an issue for him though: he’d put in a message the next morning and by afternoon all would be well again.
There’s already a worn box of cigarettes sitting in the corner of the balcony and Pantalone doesn’t have to look to reach for them. Dottore’s head rests in the curve of Pantalone’s lap, mask somewhere forgotten as he stares up at the night sky, frowning when a cloud of smoke is blown over his field of view. Dottore waves it away, annoyed.
“Your lungs are already giving up?” Pantalone smiles down at Dottore’s reaction, unapologetically taking another drag.
“They will if you keep blowing smoke right into my face,” Dottore says flatly. He holds out his hand in a silent gesture and Pantalone abides, slipping the cigarette into his fingers. Their hands touch and stay like that for just a moment before Dottore pulls away and brings the cigarette to his lips, inhaling.
He then exhales. “These taste dreadful.”
“They're the ones you bought.” Pantalone leans back into the wall, speaking to the sky. The nicotine works quickly, already numbing his senses and relaxing his shoulders. “Don’t complain. It’s irritating.”
“I wouldn’t buy these,” Dottore protests.
The packaging suddenly hovers over Dottore and he squints up at it. Pantalone arches a brow. “These are from Sumeru. So if not you, then I wonder how these got here,” Pantalone says, a dry sarcasm crisp in his words.
Dottore just shuts his eyes, shifting in Pantalone’s lap. “A mystery indeed.” Then, as smoke leaves his lips in a sigh, “Just toss them.”
Pantalone obliges, tossing them in a lazy arc over the railing. They both watch as the box vanishes into the darkness below, tumbling through the snow. There’s a moment of silence as Dottore passes the cigarette back to Pantalone.
“I didn’t mean now, you fool,” Dottore says but there’s an amused smirk on his lips which Pantalone mirrors.
“I don’t like to procrastinate,” Pantalone says simply. Idly, his fingers begin to work through Dottore’s hair, threading through the wintery blue stands as he smooths them back into place. Despite Dottore’s thorny exterior and nightmarish sadism, his hair is soft to the touch--it’s perfect to run his fingers through. Perfect to pull.
Feeling the cool brush of metal against his scalp, Dottore scowls, a hand darting up to strangle Pantalone’s wrist. Pantalone’s smile becomes wicked. “I hate your rings,” Dottore growls.
“That’s a shame, I quite like them,” Pantalone says slyly as he tries to free his hand. Dottore doesn’t budge and they strain against each other like that as Dottore continues accusingly:
“You never take them off.” Somehow, Dottore’s grip tightens and Pantalone knows he will bruise.
“I do. Sometimes.”
Dottore scoffs. “Not enough.” He shifts again onto his back and suddenly winces, his scowl darkening.
Pantalone’s eyes become lidded, a cruel amusement reflecting in his lenses. With his free hand, he brings the cigarette to his lips and inhales purposefully slow. The rings on his fingers glitter sharply with the movement and amidst the deep blue gemstones and silver, there are flecks of blood.
Pantalone really didn’t take them off as often as he should. But he likes how they look, and he likes the marks they leave even better.
With a sharp tug, his wrist is finally free.
“I’ll try to take them off more often,” Pantalone says. It is a lie and they both know it but Dottore doesn’t bother. He has long given up, resigned himself to whatever godless affair lies between them.
“Whatever.”
Pantalone laughs quietly and offers the cigarette back to Dottore who takes it without further fuss. It’s almost completely burned up.
--A rare bout of generosity, Dottore thinks. He’s been given the last smoke of the night.
“Your apathy really hurts me sometimes.” Pantalone smiles, eyes overcast, unreadable.
As Dottore lets the nicotine seep into his lungs, he stares up at the other man and realizes that no poison he could concoct in his workshop would ever have fumes as toxic as the smile Pantalone has when he lies.
He laments it, almost.
But perhaps it’s one of the reasons Dottore never considers severing ties with him. Despite boring easily, there’s never been a day where Pantalone has failed to intrigue him. Dottore is strictly fascinated with what lies beyond mortality and Pantalone wields a greed that elevates him to inhumanity.
A gloved finger unexpectedly smooths down the crease between Dottore’s brows, pulling him from his musings.
“You’ll get wrinkles,” Pantalone says quietly. Almost kindly.
Dottore makes no effort to swat the offending hand. “I wear a mask.”
“You’re not right now.”
Red eyes visibly roll, as if testifying to Pantalone’s statement. “No, I suppose not.” At an unusual honest impulse, he adds, “It feels strange. I’m not sure I enjoy it.”
“You don’t?” Pantalone laughs, still ever so quietly. His gaze is warm as he traces the planes of Dottore’s face, following the slope of his nose into the dip of his chin and then up the sharp line of his jaw.
It’s peculiar that it doesn’t burn. Instead, Pantalone’s eyes flicker like the quickly receding light of the cigarette still nestled between Dottore’s fingers. There’s not enough left for another drag but it still illuminates the space between them, quietude coiling with smoke and spilling out from the balcony into the night. They both watch the weak flame with an odd somberness.
Before it can completely go out, Pantalone deftly plucks it from Dottore’s fingers.
“Well,” Pantalone says lightly as he extinguishes the last of the cigarette against the ground. Several circular burn marks mar the tile around them. “That’s that. Shall we get going?” he concludes quickly and brushes the ash from his hands.
What follows is a hollow pause where neither of them tries to move. It's fleeting, a falsehood of something they refuse to name, and neither wish to consider its implications--it's better this way, they've learned.
Yet when Pantalone tries to rise, Dottore’s head remains firmly planted in his lap.
“Dottore--?”
“Stay,” Dottore breathes out.
His voice is uncharacteristically quiet, almost inaudible but Pantalone hears it, and his breath hitches when Dottore rolls further onto his legs. Dottore’s eyes are firmly shut, refusing to meet Pantalone’s.
“Stay just a bit longer you miserable, miserable man.”
Now completely in the darkness, there’s only the moon left to warm them--it’s a sliver in the sky, a drop of silver hanging on a thread nearly drowned out by the vast mountains of white that blanket the capital’s horizon. A breeze whips by, tousling their clothes and their hair, but together, it does not feel too cold.
“...Very well,” Pantalone sighs, a tiredness washing over him. He shuts his eyes and the balcony and the burn marks and Dottore all vanish from his sight.
Ah.
Pantalone suddenly wishes he had another cigarette.