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“What about him?”
“No.” Dottore scowls, not sparing even a glance even as said candidate makes a horrible gurgling noise around the dagger thrust into his throat. Pantalone sighs- inveterate as he is when it comes to unnecessary histrionics - gingerly stepping over the pool of blood that creeps sluggishly from beneath the body.
“ Must you be so choosy?”
“I gave you my specifications before we left. Didn’t you read any of it?”
Resorting to personally acquiring subjects - or ‘hunting’ as Pantalone so affectionately puts it - is all-in-all a rare and generally eschewed from activity for a myriad of reasons: inconvenience, the tendency of sample populations to be far from uniform, the risk of personal injury, and the hazard of persecution for crimes against humanity - just to name a few.
“No.” His nose wrinkles beneath the wire seat of his spectacles, a dismissive shrug in miniature. “Of course not. The document that found itself on my desk was fifty pages of small text with annotations.”
He ought not expect any better from an imbecile who has made a pastime of provoking him. With the last group of guards handled, the halls fall into momentary silence, echoing with the crisp metronomic procession of their footsteps in tandem, a duet in leather soles and lacquer, coattails dancing mere inches over a sea of gore.
“Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother.”
“Nevermind now Doctor, don’t pout, it’s so very unbecoming of you.” Pantalone chides as he grumbles obscenities under his breath. He stops him just before they round the corner, pointing at a reflection in the mirrored tiling of the wall. “Look- there are a few more right over there. All’s not lost quite yet.”
Indeed, there stands another group of guards at the next divergence of pathways. They come alive with an indecipherable litany of shouting as Dottore roughly pulls from his grasp and strides into view.
“Oh,” Another sigh, manicured fingertips drift to settle against a disconsolate temple. “Look what you’ve done.”
“As if. You were as much to blame for that as I was.” Dottore huffs, counting the rabble as they thunder towards them, weapons bristling and mouths gaping with shouts of warning. “I can be stealthy when I want to be.”
Neither of them are arguably as concerned as they ought to be. Pantalone casts a nonchalant glance backwards, flippant as a magpie to carrion and displaying all the associated perfidy. “The mess you left behind us says otherwise.”
“Pity.” Dottore responds, and then they are upon them. He glimpses a flash of chrome amidst the flowing black of Pantalone’s cloak, a glimpse of pale skin beneath curls of hair that shimmer, silken like an oil slick. A near-negligible flick of his wrist and his throwing knives fan out, each finding a place in a throat or a shoulder or a chest.
The guards fall back in a chorus of shrieks. Dottore sweeps in in his wake, surging forward in argent and alabaster, a hound to blood.
He looks over those still standing and visualizes each respective sinus beat. Pantalone wisely flits out of range.
Arrest .
They fall to the ground seizing in fits. Weapons clatter to the ground in an orchestral cacophony of metal on stone, falling from limp fingers. Then one by one, each goes still and quiet, bodies drooping like flowers gone limp under snow.
Dottore readjusts his sleeves from where they’ve slipped back towards his elbows. Though he has never considered himself quite so panache as his partner, nor anywhere near as vain ; a lack of decorum is pernicious if nothing else.
Said partner sidles back into view, gloved fingers crossed and flexing in distaste. “That’s another seven. What a waste.”
“What a waste.” Dottore mimics resentfully, how nauseatingly sanctimonious. He has half a mind to drop to the ground and set to opening one of the cadavers if only to stall their progress further. “You’re not paying for these as well, are you?”
“I’ll be paying for the ones who’ll inevitably replace them.” Dottore snarls an invective as he feels him hook his fingers into his collar and yank him back upright. “Come along now and stop your griping . You’re the one who killed them this time. Twenty-eight now and the one we were sent to kill still breathes.”
“You.” Dottore spits pointedly. “The one you were sent to kill. I was only cajoled into attendance by the promise of being provided suitable ‘resources’, resources that you thus far, have been unwilling to impart upon me.”
“And you will have them.” He swats his hand away as the banker finally releases him, then watches as he carefully cleans his gloved fingers with a handkerchief, equipping all the provocative equipage of a whore.
“Patience, dear Doctor. It’s a virtue.”
The remainder of the journey is uneventful. What guards remain are quickly dispatched; clearance is easy enough with the larger body of the force seeming to have fallen for the flashier diversion, caught up in the skirmishing outside. They reach the office of their target in record time. The woman barely has time to speak before Pantalone opens her throat in a single gruesome slash. She collapses against him with a garbled shriek, her hands at her throat, the cross of her fingers conveniently blocking the majority of the arterial spray.
“Doctor, may I introduce you to the reigning financial advisor of Fontaine?” There is blood splattered across his jawbone, but his smile is satisfied if a little begrudging. He drops the body with a sardonic flourish of his newly soiled hands, and the floor glistens with a freshly applied coat of scarlet.
“Is that who she is?” The woman heaves at their feet, her pooling blood bubbling with the air escaping from her cut trachea. “I didn’t care to read the brief.”
“You are impossible. How the head of a polymath remains upon your shoulders is a mystery to me.” Pantalone declares, moving to wipe his hands on his trousers before stopping himself sharply in the act, evidently thinking better of it. “She was pleasant enough, if not for all the times she tried to undermine my pursuits.”
He shakes his head, then reaches down to leave bloody prints on a yet unscathed patch on the woman’s blazer. “For all the trouble this has caused us, I ought to skin her for a new pair of shoes.”
Dottore snorts. “You might find better use in a wallet.”
“Ah, but it would be such a hassle either way.” He looks only briefly mournful, gazing down at his fingers and dropping the dirtied blade on the desk. Pantalone is nothing if not a master in feigning grief, his version of chivalry consisting only of a sickening abundance of theatrics. “Though it would be cheaper to provide material rather than commissioning something from scratch.”
“Stingy as ever.” With the target dead or dying on the floor, Dottore takes to going through the drawers and shelves, examining trinkets and running his fingers down antique lampshades and statuettes, carvings and bookends, paperweights- all of it sure to amass a fortune. It seems that those tasked with managing the treasuries of the world share a similar trait in hoarding affluence. That said, it is little in comparison to that which he has seen, ensconced within the ivory of Pantalone’s gilded towers and empires of gold.
“I might as well grab a bit of this and that, maybe some requisition will make up for all the funding you’ve denied me in the last quarter and all that you’re sure to withhold in the next eight months besides that.”
“No need to resort to burglary.” There’s a languid rustle, a chiding click of polished heels. “Your funding requests from last month. They’ve been approved.”
A fountain pen drops from his hand to clatter across polished mahogany. He turns- head only - to look over his shoulder. His toes bump against the feet of the heavy desk. “What.”
“Are you deaf or dim, Doctor?” The object of his utmost vexation looks to him, sweet and unassuming, ad hominem if only in the name of further insult. “I’m a generous soul. Approved .”
“Wait.” He snaps, yet another spoken iteration of a script only recently written. ”Just you wait.”
Wait - in lieu of a proper, bloody, gore-slick threat; in place of a blade at his throat, or the muzzle of a gun at the temple.
Suddenly, the implications come clear. He’d known . He’d known of the funds already provided, the subjects and materials acquired, and yet he’d gone ahead and allowed him to gallivant about on some side-‘recruitment’ effort and insisted he come along, all presumably for his own amusement.
The desk and all its valuables are forgotten. Dottore half-storms, half-staggers in the direction of the banker. Pantalone - his silver adornments bear an accursed, derisive similitude to the stars cast in their falsehood constellations across the sky. “I’m not quite done with you, cur. All this prattle of forbearance and you suspend me like this. You’ve not yet explained your sudden change of heart. Wherever did you harbor altruism? Nowhere in that shallow, bony frame of yours- certainly you must have borrowed it.”
“Could I not have taken a turn for philanthropy out of the goodness of my own heart?”
He jabs a finger in his direction. Lancet to said heart. For all the ways its owner covets gold, the organ is irreversibly rotted, decayed to cavitation where only avarice thrives. “I know better than anyone that quiescence from you is little better than a dagger in the small of one’s back.”
“Call it a business venture then.” Pantalone amends, and flicks a hand dismissively. “Even you would understand that, I trust?” He turns on his heel as if to leave him, and oh ! The audacity! Dottore’s lips peel back in a mute snarl. Coward.
“That’s not it.”
“Ah- so you’d prefer the version of me sweetened with a teaspoon of compassion?” Pantalone laughs, a rich sound like a particularly lucrative cascade of coins. “My, my. You go on and on about surpassing humanity and yet-”
”I prefer it because it is convenient .” This- uttered through gritted teeth and a laughable attempt at staying composed. “You are infuriating- impossible to reason with when you commit yourself to reticence.”
“And what of the benefactors that fill the coffers you so eagerly drain? What of those few who would see us not merely as terrorists and heretics to be spurned, but as figures deserving of respect and support? Kindness will not sway them in lieu of blood and steel, Doctor.”
Dottore scoffs. "What of them? Let them wait for all I care. They deserve nothing better- certainly not you."
Self-diagnosed misanthrope that he is, he cares little for the plight of any outside his immediate circle. Pantalone fares little better - he is just as much a fraudster as he is an economist, and thus should reasonably have no worthwhile contribution pertaining to the matters cited.
Regardless, Pantalone raises a dubious eyebrow and lifts his chin in defiance. “And you do?”
Dottore closes a vice-like grip around one forearm, the other hand going automatically for his throat. The power his frame fails to bely is put wholly into the effort of throwing Pantalone against the wall and pinning him there.
“Why do you provoke me?” He murmurs, feeling the shudder of his pulse against his lips, counting the beats in some empirical quantification of affection and hatred both. Pantalone jerks suddenly and he doubles down, pinning him with strength beyond rational feasibility, holding fast until he hears him gasp, teasing at crushing the crinoline rings of his trachea. “Surely you must know what befalls the few who go too far. Does the concept of my delving into the depths of your physical being titillate you? Would you prefer a scalpel to my fingers? I’d acquaint myself with that heart of yours in more ways than one, if only you’d let me.”
A rustle of cloth, a wink of metal-
"No you don't." His hold only tightens- not in the mercy of increments, but in a single crushing instant that has the banker biting back an involuntary hiss of pain. His concealed blade falls to the floor with an incriminating clang . "Would you believe it? I’ve still not quite decided whether I want more to dismember you or fuck you senseless."
“Perhaps then,” Pantalone croaks in peevish tones, glaring. “It’s fortunate that the decision lies partly with me.”
Dottore squeezes hard, then releases him, never once breaking the sterility of their locked eyes.
Mine. The declaration goes unsaid. He cannot help but think him beautiful in this state. The look in Pantalone's eyes and the way he glares with all the thorough intensity of the Balethunder that plagues Seirai Island is enough to drag a thrill up the length of his spine. How glorious he looks like this, wreathed in the humble beginnings of violence, bloodlust shivering beneath his meticulous guise of calm.
Dottore pulls away, and after a pregnant pause, mutters, “I don't give a damn about your bureaucracies, nor do I care to acquaint myself with any of the frivolities of your business models. Forget the work, let us conduct a little experiment, you and I.”
The banker’s hands lift to bar the way between them in benediction, the soft susurrations of breath segmenting the momentary caesura, a final bulwark before some farce of intimacy prevails. His eyes are violet and effulgent, but the half-snarl twist of his lips and the disheveled state of his hair and dress are utterly devoid of finesse. Yet, something eager b roils beneath, zoetrope flickers of an untenable and unconscionable greed.
“And if I were to refuse?”
Dottore shrugs. “Then I would be disappointed. Though with all the funding I’ve just received, I’m sure I’d find a suitable replacement.”
“You scoundrel.” But a smile tugs at the corners of his lips and pinches at the corners of his eyes- in which Dottore thinks he sees a glimmer of something like mischief. “Out with it. What is it then?”
“Collaboration done properly . None of the scheming and deception and trickery, and perhaps even a dash of- would you believe it? Honesty.”
Pantalone looks quizzical. He scans his face, fiddles with the hem of his cloak- pinching and rubbing the fabric between thumb and forefinger. “You’re really not talking about work, are you?”
“Archons above, the fate of my occupational progress depends on the whims of one morally blind businessman seemingly also deafened to nuance. No , you halfwit. The furthest thing from it. You and I.” He waves his arms vaguely, a gesture in lieu of words otherwise difficult to conjure. “Let’s start with dinner.”
Their eyes meet. “Dinner.” Pantalone repeats, uncomprehending and vacant as if staring into an unseeing abyss. It makes him want to pick up something heavy - perhaps that cor lapis paperweight within reach - and hurl it squarely in his face.
“Does it perplex you?”
“No. No- I just. Unexpected is all.” A shake of his head, then a dry chuckle like the rustle of bank notes behind an obscuring hand. “I suppose I shall be paying?”
“Need you ask? This way, we both get what we want.” Dottore snorts. “Dinner, then atrocities. A fresh batch of participants for me, and new gloves for you. You can even come around and pick one for me to leave relatively unscathed if you’d like to be particular about it.”
Pantalone wordlessly considers the arrangement - a candle to thaw the frost of antipathy.
Then, “And a wallet.”
Never look a gift-horse in the mouth; Dottore bares his teeth.
“ And a wallet.”