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Every time the Doctor walks in, this happens.
Every single time.
There is a thrill, an exhilaration, a thud in his heart that slows down time, grinding it to a halt. There are his wildly flushed cheeks and the way he fiddles with his fingers, like he’s nervous. The high-and-mighty Regrator, nervous.
It’s pathetic.
He should not be acting in this manner. He is in the heart of his bank, draped across a gilded gold throne designed by his own hand (which is to say that it is garish and impractical). The Ninth is on top of the world, with Mora spilling between the gaps in those slender fingers, with the masses of Snezhnaya kneeling at his feet. He is meant to exert his control over others, confidently, self-assuredly, smiling that saccharine little smile of his.
But he doesn’t.
Instead he’s blushing like those schoolgirls in Inazuman light novels, and he’s more than aware of it.
“You’ve gone quite red,” tuts Dottore, striding closer across coins piled up on the floor and up marble steps to the throne. Normally, Pantalone would have threatened whoever dared approach him so closely.
Now he can’t. He’s powerless.
“How may I help you?” he huffs, folding his arms over his chest and sliding down in the throne in an even worse position. He looks like he’s sulking. Like a petulant child.
Personally, the Doctor finds it adorable.
“You’ve been at the bank for a little too long today,” he says. “Would you put it past me to be concerned about my lovely business partner?”
Unamused, Pantalone side-eyes him and sighs, turning his head to hide the flush.
“Let me guess. You came to ask for more funding.”
“Do you not believe I came here out of genuine concern?” A hand reaches over and grips the Regrator’s chin, pushing it back to face the grinning scientist. Near lovingly, he runs his thumb along the sharp line of that defined jaw and laughs. “Ah, my little enamored banker. Your face is a lovely shade of rose today.”
And the knowing way with which he looks at Pantalone, the smirk curving up the corners of his battle-scarred face, the bemused note in his voice today…it’s enchanting. Annoying, yes, but charmingly so.
He knows the thoughts that go through the Ninth’s calculating mind. He knows about his obsession.
Pantalone touches a hand to his burning face.
“I am not enamored.”
His stolen glances at the Doctor say otherwise.
Noncommittally, Dottore hums in acknowledgement, sitting himself on the armrest of the throne and leaning over to pinch Pantalone’s cheek.
“In denial, I see,” he coos. “It’s quite alright. You’ll accept it one day.”
His voice cascades, the flow of velvet spilling to the floor in folded waves. He is so far above the rest, so untouchable, so unlovable.
And yet the Ninth chooses him.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he murmurs, arching his head backwards as the older inches forward. “Burn my lungs and curse my eyes.”
And it is a curse, this messed-up fixation. It’s a distraction that forces his eyes to stray from his work daily to the silhouette at the end of the room. It’s a spell that binds him to burn with a special type of wanting that he can hardly fathom.
Dottore flicks a single lock of obsidian hair between his fingers.
“Look at you,” he says, melodramatically bringing his palm to run itself down the Regrator’s arm, almost comfortingly. “I wouldn’t have taken you for one so romantic— but oh, here you are.”
“Hmph.”
His attempt to sound disdainful is a failed one, it seems, from the pitching of his usually steady voice and his glancing aside to break eye contact, almost flustered.
The Doctor observes and notes down how the tips of his ears sear red.
Pantalone hates how he wants his affection to be reciprocated. It's uncommon for someone like him, and most definitely inappropriate for one of his standing. The emotion expands in his mind until everything else is numb, nullified, gone, and all that's left in his head is teal hair and eyes dark and poisoned as cinnabar.
Why did he have to fall for this one?
The room is flooded in wealth, dripping extravagance that the Regrator is so desperate to exhibit. To show the world how he is in control and can get his hands on anything he wants.
But then he can't.
It's hilariously ironic.
So he stares at those coins scattered all over the floor and the priceless statues of himself he's had specially carved to remind him of his self-worth. He avoids Dottore's gaze and looks at his own marble-sculpted visage and can only wish he were as confident as he made himself out to be in those creations.
“You look lost,” remarks Dottore. “There isn't shame in admitting to your bad choice of partner.”
It's not even an insult. It's a statement. He's right.
Pantalone exhales. He knows when he's been beaten.
“I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back,” he murmurs, dipping his head in surrender. “I wish I knew why.”
“Do you not yet understand?” asks Dottore, and his touch is gentle against those rigid shoulders as he picks at the plush velvet lining the throne. “You could try to regain control. Try to get a hold of your own emotions. But you let yourself stare after me in that doting manner every meeting and rush to the laboratory every free moment you have. I must say…it's quite endearing.”
He reaches out to place a hand behind the younger's neck and pulls him forward, hearing the satisfying clink of silver-rimmed glasses as he does so.
And there they sit, one on the armrest on the other on the throne, their faces inches away from each other.
“You smell of tobacco.” mutters Pantalone, elbowing him away. “Don't put your face near mine.”
“As if you aren't the one who carries five inches of pure alcohol stench around with you after a bad day.”
“Hmph.”
The statement is not denied.
The shine that tints his glasses covers the sparkle in crystalline eyes.
“If I said I returned your feelings, would you believe me?” mulls Dottore, tapping a finger to his chin, and Pantalone gives him a long look.
“Don't tease me.” he says sulkily, folding his arms. “You would never. You could never.”
“Says who?”
“—You are inhuman, are you not?”
“Fool,” scoffs Dottore, tilting his mask upwards to rest against his curls. A sudden tenderness is emitted from the tracing of fingers down the rims of glasses, then along the bridge of his nose. The air has been infused with electricity.
The message relayed in his eyes is not one that can be expressed with words. It is a look of understanding and an exchange, a secret for a secret, the faintest whisper of affectionate words tinted by the smell of smoke and copper coins and hydrogen chloride gas.
“We are all fools.”
A curl of black is pushed out of his eyes to the side. His elbows prop against the side of the throne, two statues in their silent vigil, like they were no more than yet another part of Pantalone's pretentious display of carvings.
Dottore laughs, breaking the silence.
“You don't have to be human to know another like the back of your hand. Quite the contrary, in fact; it takes one to know one.”
Two people, one a god and the other a mortal, drugged on each other. Lost in the haze of cigar smoke and falling into each other's arms, burning their mark in the sky until shooting stars turn to ashes and they wake up, drunk, dizzy, but looking at each other in a rose-shaded light they never saw anyone else in.
And he feels it.
They don’t need to say anything.
There is no tight embrace, no heartfelt confession, no romantic proposal. Just the clink of money and bare hands clasped in each other’s behind oakwood double doors where no one will see them.
Pantalone leans down and kisses, gently, the line of the older’s jaw. It feels like an addiction, like a buzz of energy in his mind, holding him in place. He does not fight against it.
Instead, he lets Dottore return the kiss, this time by the corner of his cupid’s-bow mouth.
And between his lips, he tastes nicotine.