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A pinch of crushed Mist Flowers. A petal of a Qingxin grown at the top of Qingyun Peak. The blood marrow of a slain serpent, heated until it turns black.
The moment the marrow mixes, the beaker trembles, and with a quiet splintering sound it cracks, glass fractured by the pressure of extreme heat.
Agitatedly, Dottore seizes hold of it and hurls it. There's a resounding crash as it hits the top of the pile, alongside numerous failed attempts over the course of the past few days. He doesn't remember how he's messed up, and this frustrates him all the more.
Normally, his calculations are immaculate, but when it comes to things like these he knows close to nothing.
But he will not give in. He will drain the continent of flowers and marrow if that is what it takes. He orders his segments to get him a new set and restarts his sorry attempt.
What is this all about, one might ask? Just what could have possibly gotten the research-minded, apathetic Doctor into such a frenzy?
Surprisingly enough, the answer has naught to do with his scientific pursuits, nor the work he carries out for the Tsaritsa. It is his colleague, instead, that is the problem.
See, the Regrator is ridiculously indifferent to his emotions. So oblivious, with those closed eyes that refuse to see affection and that cold sneer that permanently mars his lips. So much more mortal than him and yet so much more emotionless. He is one of the youngest amongst the Harbingers, with a lifespan so short next to the rest that it seems a stray gust of wind could dash his body to pieces.
Still there is something about him that makes him striking and sadistic; and for that, he has caught the eye of the Second.
And what of the Doctor himself?
To say he was in love would not be inaccurate, for all he is ashamed to admit it. It’s the want that leaves him close to breathless at every night smoking on the balcony; the burning that reaches every corner of his masked face at the sight of that horribly smug expression. It tears at him with a heat that suffocates, and on some nights it is so severe he thinks he would like to grab hold and rip it from his chest entirely.
His attempts to evade it come to no fruition. The truth has its ways of leaking through the poorly put-together facade he puts up: it is everywhere, from the way he sits by the Regrator’s bedside when he falls ill and makes him drink the medicine, to the mornings he spends modifying his business partner’s Delusion to reduce the harm it causes to his organs, to the ache in his heart when he sees that bruised, battered body sitting itself down on the operation table after missions, braced in anticipation for surgery.
And still his sentiment is not returned.
And the Doctor, affection is something that does not come easily by him. It is easier to take something like that by force than to win it. So he will lie and deceive and cheat his way to achieve what he has always wanted— the touch of his hands against silken scarves, the softness of cupid’s-bow lips blessing his cheek, that damned voice.
He will stop at nothing to fulfil that insatiable greed of his.
With the addition of a single droplet of bottled moonlight, the liquid in the beaker turns a lovely cherry-red, with precipitate swirling around at the bottom.
Perfect.
Satisfaction paints a smile on his lips as he transfers some of the potion into a dropper and summons his segments to bring over a test subject. Three drops of the liquid does the trick; it's more than enough to bring the poor mortal into a lovestruck daze, gasping and making artificial confessions with a faded red tint to its eyes.
“Good,” says Dottore. “You may take it away now.”
The segments drag the test subject away as it continues to warble away in its drunken spell.
Tilting the beaker into a gold-rimmed teacup, he brews tea to mix in with the concoction. The blood-colored sample swirls upon dilution from the tea, darkening to a dusty maroon.
Then he sets it on a tray, and with it in hand, he exits the lab to invade the Regrator’s office.
As usual, it’s a mess. Strangely enough for someone as concerned with appearances as Pantalone— but then again, no one sees him in here, but his subordinates. All this paperwork is meant solely for the Ninth's eyes, and anyone who tries entering without permission will be promptly given a scolding and a first strike.
Except Dottore, because he barges in every day without knocking, and Pantalone has grown too tired of reprimanding him to do anything about it.
“What do you want.” Pantalone’s voice is a monotone. His eyes stay fixed on his boring finance reports, and his hands make no motion to welcome nor shun him, instead busied at scribbling calculations in elegant cursive that Dottore knows will be a pain to read.
“I come to visit, of course. As is customary between us both.”
“If you're going to ask for a raise again, the answer is no.”
His tone just barely disguises the slightest hint of amusement.
“I brought tea.” tries Dottore, lifting the cup.
The faintest hint of a sparkle appears around the corner of Pantalone’s eyes.
“That's more like it— is it, pray tell, laced with mercury?”
That little bit of fondness in his voice is so endearing.
“I would not dare.” protests Dottore. "You wound me."
It’s not mercury.
His mind screams a warning. He ignores it. Instead, he links his finger around the ear of the porcelain cup and places it into those hands he would like to slip a ring on someday.
“Here,” he says, “for you.”
He peers suspiciously into the cup, and the waft of pink-tinged smoke fans out around his face as he gives it a gentle blow. Surprisingly he does not notice, nor comment on it if he does: perhaps on account of his poor eyesight, or distractedness from overwork, or simply the fact he trusts his business partner enough not to properly question the things he does.
“How did you know I enjoyed oolong?”
“Intuition."
(Truth is, he'd spent ages peering into the Regrator’s teacup from a distance, squinting at the leaves lying at the bottom and analyzing every angle and point of them before declaring which specific brand it was and sending his subordinates to acquire it, but he’s not about to admit to that now.)
Whatever. It does not matter. All that matters is that he drinks it up before the smoke gets any more obvious.
“Mm. This tea smells quite pleasant. Even better than the ones my servants brew for me.”
He purses his lips to blow off that stray wisp of smoke that curls up into the air, fading, fading away like the last few moments of his autonomy over himself.
And then Dottore has to stop and stare, for the clarity of his mind has now been clouded over by a layer of fog. He pushes it away and it pushes back. It tugs and insists itself be heard: a voice he now dubs hesitation.
But it is too late for hesitation, after all this time, and he is not about to seize the cup and throw it aside. He has always stood on his principles without shirking. This should be no exception.
He closes his eyes, shoving aside thoughts of the train wreck that will soon ensue.
A sip is taken from the steaming brew.
A cup crashes to the floor. Liquid runs along the polished mahogany like rivers of blood.
And like magic, the potion takes effect.
Once clear as day, the Regrator’s deadly golden eyes cloud over, dulled to a milky opal laced with the tiniest spray of fiery red. With his usual elegance, he sets down the teacup, then raises his head and smiles. His chair scrapes backwards as he stands, and then comes forward to take the Doctor’s arm on his own.
His voice is just a little more dead than usual as he next speaks.
"Ah. How careless of me. No matter; I shall brew myself a new cup later.
Now, Doctor, where were we?”
The next three months are a wild mix of adrenaline and joy and sorrow all at once.
Pantalone loves him.
Pantalone loves him.
At first, he is in disbelief, and the suspense makes him think that he is floating for the entire first week after intake. It's something beautiful and terrifying at once, quite like the man himself, the effect this concotion has had on Pantalone and on whatever exists between both.
It's as if he's been brainwashed.
Suddenly, the Second is his everything. He ignores the paperwork that piles up on his desk and walks with him, inseparable, unwilling to leave his side. And at first, it is the best thing Dottore ever did. To have that hand clutching his every day. To have lips pressed to the lines of his scarred cheek whenever he so desires.
But within weeks, the high of being loved wears off, and the worry starts to settle in.
See, Dottore is not a person that is used to receiving affection. The sudden turn of events gives him emotional whiplash: he doesn't remember the last time someone told him I love you, and yet those three words are what he wakes up to now each and every morning. Never mind the fact Pantalone on a normal day has a specific aversion to the word love. He shows his appreciation for things in a manner very different than most: yes, this will suffice, thank-you, I suppose you are not too incompetent after all.
It makes him think that the man he now goes to bed with is not the one his heart pined for in the first place.
The new Ninth is flavorless. He is a copy of what Dottore thinks the Akasha would produce if asked to make the perfect companion. He is painfully vacant and has no personality whatsoever, and after a while even his terms of endearment become annoying.
It’s sickening.
Dottore grows to hate it, this haunting dependence that seeps through his too-wide smile, through the way he clings to the Second like he lives off his very presence. It drives him mad to the point he finds himself pushing this thing aside, spending all his time buried in his research so he does not have to come out and look not-Pantalone in the eye. He spends his meetings tense and oddly undistracted and knows that the entire table is staring at him, at their Ninth, suspicious but unable to form a proper accusation.
He becomes just as empty as Pantalone is, with nothing to fill the silence. He wants to have an answer to his snippy remarks that isn't a nod and a smile. The free flow of funds isn't fun anymore now that nothing piques his interest, for all he tries to commit his time to his work.
He hasn't had a single fight with Pantalone in months, and he hates it with every inch of his being.
Out of all people, the Marionette is the last straw.
“What did you do to him.”
She grabs hold of the doorknob and slams the door of the meeting room shut before Dottore can leave. It's after yet another unbearable meeting again, and this time Dottore had spent the whole time sitting stiffly there, absorbing none of the information Pierro had been feeding them, much to the others' displeasure.
Now they're alone around the table, piled high with miscellaneous objects and papers, facing off against each other: one infuriated and the other disconcerted.
Sandrone’s remark isn’t a question. It’s an order.
And to think he would take orders from someone five whole ranks below his— ludicrous. Unthinkable.
So Dottore glares back and crosses his arms.
"I believe some things are none of your concern, Marionette."
“The thing is,” Sandrone seethes, hands balled into fists, “it is every inch my concern, because he’s not been doing his work properly. Because he’s in a drunken daze hanging over your every word, and has gotten even more annoying than he used to be. And if you don't do something about it this instant just know I will be taking this up with the Tsaritsa."
Dottore takes a step back. She looks like she might hit him.
“There is nothing I can do to change what he has become.”
That’s not the truth and they both know it.
“It’s affecting everyone else’s work because he’s spending all his time in your lab tongue kissing you to your heart’s content.” spits Sandrone, smacking the table so the papers on it flutter frantically and the vase rattles, precarious as ever. “I knew you were heartless, but I can’t believe you’d mess with him like this. And you had better fix him before I talk the others into ganging up against you. Scaramouche would love to help me loosen the screws on all your precious ruin machines.”
“I can talk him into doubling your wages,” offers Dottore.
A vase shatters as the Marionette shoves it off the desk and raises her voice in a provoked fit of rage that any recruit would cower at.
“I don't want wages, you blithering idiot.” snarls Sandrone, snatching up a balance sheet and tearing it clean in half; Dottore catches a glimpse of a scribbled heart as he does. “I want you to fix our colleague and make him do his work properly lest the entirety of Snezhnaya's economy collapse before we even get ahold of the Gnoses.”
Dottore hisses, skirting aside as she swings an arm towards him and very nearly lands a hit. She's getting violent: not a good sign. The last time someone crossed her, an entire batch of soldiers were killed.
“Do you think I have not considered it?" he snarls in frustration, dodging out of harm's way before the second punch lands. "The Regrator is too far gone; there is no way I can do that now."
Sandrone's hand drops to her side at the words. Her mouth closes, and a tired smile makes its way onto her face, fraught with annoyance she no longer has energy to display.
All the fight drains from her voice.
"Keep telling yourself that," she says quietly, looking up at Dottore. "I know what you are capable of, Second. An antidote is a walk in the park for you."
She laughs humorlessly, and then gathers her notes, all her pent-up rage gone into the shattered vase now lying at their feet.
"Funny," continues Sandrone, "that you can't tolerate the thought of being on the receiving end of Pantalone's anger, when it was your fault to begin with. I knew you had no principles; I just didn't think it would extend to that partner of yours, too."
With that, she makes a beeline for the door.
Dottore's voice comes out before he can stop himself.
"You know I cannot."
Sandrone whirls around. Her blue eyes are blazing again, but she keeps her voice controlled to the best of her ability. Still, Dottore can sense the unadulterated hatred that leaks through every single word she says.
“Yes, you can.” Sandrone scowls, throwing the two pieces of balance sheet into the air. “You were hired, or so I've been told, for that supposedly genius mind of yours. So use it or I will cut it open and wrench some use out of it myself.”
With that, the door to the room slams. She's gone.
The haunting empty face flashes briefly through his mind. Worry stabs through him like a knife.
“I cannot," he repeats. Quieter this time.
He can.
He absolutely can.
Determination flickers behind ruby eyes. See, he's never cared about doing the right thing. He should be selfish. It should not matter to him. If push comes to shove they can always get another banker.
But he knows he cannot keep this farce up forever; knows it will be his ruin if he lets it fester.
And so, after a moment's consideration, he makes his choice.
It takes him a full week to synthesize the antidote.
Dottore doesn't need sleep, nor food, but it's most certainly a comfort he enjoys. Now he locks himself in his lab, away from his Regrator, and works into the early hours of the morning. His test subjects go ignored, his meals pushed aside and he spends every afternoon squeezing droplets of condensed Hydro into adeptus blood.
He screams at his clones to bring him the test subject he first used the potion on. Multiple concoctions are forced down his throat.
He watches the twitching man on the experiment table and feels no pity or remorse.
And in a week's time, he has created a silvery solution that smells of lavender and sulphur (a most disgusting combination). Several droplets on the mortal's tongue are yet again sufficient to send him out of his spell.
Dottore doesn't pause to give the segments orders. He tilts the beaker into the mouth of a vial, filling it to the brim and corking it with a gold stopper (a gift from the Regrator himself, in fact), then throwing open the laboratory doors and making a rather ungraceful run for it.
He passes Sandrone in the corridors. The woman turns her nose up at him and does not acknowledge his presence.
Then the door to the Regrator's office is thrown open, and there he is.
Archons.
He's a mess. Not in the conventional way: he's still very much alive and awake and well groomed, with his perfectly coordinated outfit and earrings to match. At least that is one thing the potion hasn't taken away from him.
But one look at his expression, and Dottore's fight-or-flight instincts activate in an instant.
Pantalone looks up from where he perches on his chair, elbows propped against unfinished work with a half-eaten lunch on his lap and his cloak wrapped tight around his shoulders.
A sulk forms along the line of his lips.
“You locked me out of your lab for a full week.” he states, getting down from his chair. “I thought something bad had happened to you. Archon's sake, Doctor, I was worried sick. I thought you might be angry at me.”
Pantalone's always nagged him for his tardiness, but this feels drastically different from the old version of him.
No matter. He will be back soon enough, as soon as he takes the antidote.
“Drink this.” Dottore commands, handing over the vial.
“What is it?”
Dottore makes an impatient noise. “I made you a drink.”
“Ah.” That seems to calm Pantalone immediately. He accepts the long bottle, peering at the viscous liquid in it. “Lovely. I'm sure it will taste wonderful.”
“Just drink it already.” What have I done to him?
“As you wish.”
Every word the banker says is not his own. Disgusting.
Compliantly, he raises it to his lips, uncorks the bottle and swallows it whole.
Dottore holds his breath.
A bright topaz streaks through lifeless eyes, fire arcing through them into a puzzle of emotions. His wooden smile contorts into a frown.
It's done.
He's real once more.
He looks at the potion in his hand, then at Dottore.
“You.”
One word, and the mad scientist is already sinking to the floor in relief.
He's back. The normal Pantalone. The one who doesn't just agree with everything he says and who's grumpy and irritating and the reason Il Dottore ever opened his heart up to something more than his beloved machinery.
Dottore's voice comes out a croak.
“Yes. Yes, me.”
Pantalone's lip tightens.
“Why?”
With eyes that make a mockery of innocence and hurt, he dangles the vial between his fingers.
“Why go to such lengths to toy with my mind, and then reverse it? Are you feeling regret now? Guilt? Dear heavens, is it your conscience?"
His grip loosens. The empty vial slips through his fingers and clatters to the floor.
Shards fly everywhere, like pieces of a heart snapped in two.
“You are a fool,” he hisses into Dottore's ear. “A fool that can't even bring himself to finish his lies.”
Then he steps to the side, offers a guileless smile, puts on the mirage of sparkling eyes behind the guise of his glasses.
“Or perhaps it is my fault. Of course. How clever of you, to outwit me. I applaud you. You think yourself a god, an Archon. I must say, your power has given you a complex, Doctor dear."
He spits the words with so much venom that Dottore has to take a step back. Insults are not new to someone such as him, but the idea of being compared to the very beings he strives to take down sends a tightness curling taut around the shell of his mechanical heart.
Pantalone really does love to hit where it most hurts.
He swallows.
“You and I both know that was not my intention.”
“You wished for control, as if you were a god."
Ringed fingers are pressed, with caution, with apprehension, with fear even, to the temple that Dottore has kissed so, so, so many times over the course of the past three months.
“Let's not be hasty in our accusations–”
“An accusation, hmm? Or a truth you do not wish to hear?”
To this Dottore has no response, but Pantalone has plenty to say.
"Shame on me," he laughs, "for having expected anything from you."
There's a chilling rage in his eyes, one that would terrify any average man, but the undertone of fear is prominent to any well-trained observer. He's not masking himself as well as he generally does.
“I can explain.”
He's an expert at explaining things, he likes to think. He can explain the mysteries of Teyvat's false sky and the best way to corrode skin with acid. He can make sense of forbidden alchemy and document the Hexenzirkel's lost spells and speak the language of Lochfolk. He talks so, so, so much to the point Pantalone is the only person in the palace who can stand his endless prattle.
He can't explain this.
“You're a liar.” seethes Pantalone, gripping him by the collar. Black-polished nails dig into the skin of his exposed neck, fury flaring up in his gaze. "A liar who can't even see his own lies to the end."
And perhaps, despite his cold exterior, he would have loved him back, in a universe where the Second had not chosen to mess with his mind.
The taste of the antidote, bittersweet and starchy, dissolves down his throat.
You broke my trust.
All this time he’s loved him.
All this time he's cared under his cover of coldness and all this time he's been waiting, waiting, waiting for the right moment to confess and now it's all gone down the drain.
“I can explain.”
Dottore emphasizes it, once more.
He can't explain.
He doesn't struggle against the tightening of delicate fingers against his windpipe. He won't die; that much he knows, because he's immortal and his breath can't be taken away by someone seven ranks below him.
But there's an aching in his throat anyway.
Pantalone is positively seething.
“Then explain it.”
He draws in a breath, quick and ragged.
And in his fit of rage, he seizes the loop of the harness and yanks Dottore forward, so close his nose brushes the tip of that porcelain mask.
“Explain it!”
It's unlike him to raise his voice. He's easily the calmest, most collected person in the room. So calm, in fact, that it induced the Doctor to create this laced potion in an attempt to squeeze any reaction at all out of him.
Dottore pries those shaking fingers from the harness and lifts his chin in a faked attempt at pride.
“I wanted to gain the love of another.”
“And you decided to manipulate me into it.”
The hurt in his voice isn’t so mocking now.
Fingers loosen from the cracked skin on Dottore’s neck. Pantalone’s hand falls to his side.
“You brought this upon yourself,” he says, and his voice is so soft, so gentle he might as well be whispering a confession, but it’s not one.
I wish I could say I loved you.
For the first time in years, Dottore looks stricken.
He's lost sight of what it means to love.
He's cared and cared so much that it devastates him to ever do anything else, until it melts from a hope to a want to a desperate need to make that pretty little banker his entirely.
And it's backfired on him. What a surprise.
“I'm sorry,” he offers.
“It’s quite alright. At least now we both know I would be no more than your puppet had I accepted your love.”
The insult is clear in his salted words.
Surprised, the scientist raises an eyebrow.
“I'm not that horrible,” he protests weakly.
Pantalone gives him a look, shaking his head in what feels almost like pity.
“Thank you kindly for the offer, but I have no interest in becoming your next Sohreh.”
Sohreh.
A girl with a sharp tongue and saccharine smile and the prettiest golden eyes, just like his beloved banker, but still so different, without that sarcastic charm and strange sense of morality that the Doctor has fallen for.
“I would have treated you better.”
“You treated me like one of your test subjects.” Pantalone’s voice is tinged with bitterness. “This really is all I am to you. No more than a lab rat. Someone to toy with until you get bored and pour the antidote down my throat. Not even someone— just…something. A thing.”
He sounds almost broken.
And how strange it is, that Dottore would have loved to shatter anyone else in this way, to manipulate and then ruin them entirely.
But he can’t bring himself to feel any sense of sick enjoyment from this.
“Not a thing,” Dottore tries to say, “I can at least make that promise.”
Pantalone laughs shakily. Steps forward. Crunches his steel-capped boots down on the splintered glass of the vial. Shards fly everywhere, crystalline bits of the Doctor's guilt brewed into a single gold-stoppered potion.
He bends down to clean up the pieces. When he stands, red runs down his finger, a silken ribbon coiled around sharpness wedged into paper-thin skin.
His voice is forlorn.
“I don’t think I can ever believe in love again.”
Roughened hands reach for the gash.
“You're hurt.” Gingerly, softly, Dottore tries to touch his injured hand.
Pantalone snatches it away.
You’re hurt.
How concerned that tone is.
It's what he has always wanted to hear but now he doesn't want to.
He's always been fickle that way.
“How cute. It's almost as if you care about my wounds.”
He curls his lip in mock vexation, masking hurt.
And Dottore cannot justify his actions any longer.
“I do, and I know you reciprocated this once.”
I know, I know, I know but he knows nothing.
He hears a laugh. A humorless, broken laugh that nears a sob.
“This twisted little experiment of yours is proof I can never love you in return.”
“But you loved me once.”
“It was a decision made in poor taste.”
He wipes his eyes hastily with the back of his hand.
They survey each other with a newfound suspicion.
I hate you. I hate you so much I can't live without you.
Their silence is broken by the Doctor's quiet conclusion.
“So this is goodbye.”
“…Yes. Yes, it is.”
They will see each other in the halls, they both know. But it is goodbye still.
You ruined it. You ruined what could have been us.
The Doctor turns to leave.
For the briefest and most sudden of moments, a hand reaches forward, seizes him by the wrist, crying, pleading, begging for a last time, something more intimate and far softer than any of the kisses they have shared in these months.
Why did I ever trust you?
Holding back tears, the banker’s nails breach the brittle shell of skin, drawing blood.
Why do I still wish I could trust you?
For that split second, they hold each other like lovers.
Then they break apart.
Two strangers turn away from each other.
And Dottore does not look back, even as the choked beginnings of a sob echo from behind the closing door.
Once the familiar click of the lock is in place, a crash resounds throughout the cramped office.
He's slumped, shivering, on the ground, collapsed from exhaustion.
Pieces of glass prick at the sides of his cheek, leaving long red scratches down his otherwise immaculate face.
The sharp sting covers up the ache of betrayal.
He makes no move to get up. There's no point anymore.
He closes his eyes and lets his tears dilute blood.
=
In the Regrator's office, two actors put on a show.
Like old friends, they greet each other. They make eye contact and stare deeply into the haze of dull eyes they used to covet seeing. Their hands brush against each other's as they exchange documents. Were it any other person, they would assume these two were lovers in secret.
But there is no warmth to their touch.
There is no joy in their smiles.
There is nothing in their eyes behind spectacles and masks that resembles affection–
–just hatred, hurt and regret.