Chapter Text
The Regrator awoke screaming. Violently torn from his slumber, the man tossed and turned in his sheets, cradling his right hand close to his chest. His face pushed into the pillows, biting them, even, he tried desperately to overcome wave after wave of tormenting pain that came from his hand.
Cold sweat and tears dampened the pillow to his cheek as he begged and begged for the pain to lessen, to just disappear.
After minutes of it decidedly not fading in the slightest, he dared a look down at his hands. Both were clammy and shaking with the exhaustion of trying to keep them still, but his right hand looked far from alright, even in the darkness of his room.
Ring and pinky finger were curled in tightly, sharp nails digging into his palms to the point of drawing blood with each agonizing cramp.
Pantalone attempted massaging his fingers with his other hand to slowly ease them out of this horrible position. The moment he tried to lift them, however, he cried out after another wave of pain came crashing down on him, a cause for even more tears to spill.
He cursed himself for trying that, as he now had to deal with nausea accompanying the repeating cramps. So instead, he just lay still, waiting for it all to pass.
It went on for hours.
~
In the early hours of morning, the Regrator cleared his schedule. Meetings, cancelled. Paperwork, pushed back. Meals, forgone.
His head was buzzing with a drowsy numbness, and his hand, well.
Try as he might, he could not even manage to bring the tip of his feather pen to his paper, making his entire work as a banker nigh impossible. Thus, he allowed himself to delay in his business just this once.
Though naturally, he couldn’t afford for this to last past a week, at most. A position in the upper ranks of the Fatui such as his was secure, very much so, but wouldn’t be for much longer if Pantalone became entirely useless. A solution had to be found, a means to fix his problems. His hand.
So when he was sure everyone would be awake in the palace, working away, he made his way down, down into Zapolyarny’s icy cellars. Truly an unpleasant place for the Regrator to be, one that he connected with days of illness and injuries treated in a sterile, cold environment, eerie and most unwelcoming. But just like in those days, the Regrator had not much of a choice in terms of trustworthy doctors.
He comforted himself with the thought that, if it weren’t for this specific doctor, Dottore, he might not even be standing here, in front of this unyielding iron door. And he certainly wouldn’t be if the Doctor truly did have any untoward intentions concerning the Regrator.
Loosing a shaky breath, he knocked against the hard metal once. Twice. Thrice, when still no reply came from the other side and the banker grew anxious, thinking he’d come too early or something had happened inside.
Then, the door was suddenly pulled inward, just as he lifted his fist again.
An irritated-looking clone of Dottore’s glared up at him, crimson eyes obtrusive and wide behind a black and white mask.
“What are you doing here? Sick?”, the clone inquired rather harshly.
Taken aback by this attitude, the Regrator at first only managed to shake his head.
“Tsk, pity. Then what is it? Hate to disappoint you, but we don’t serve tea down here, your highness.”
Without even waiting for an answer, the clone already made to shut the door once more, only stopped by a boot slipping in the gap at the last second. By now the Regrator had regained his imposing composure and glowered above the clone, fed up with his dismissive demeanor.
“I’ve come to see the Doctor, not to be dismissed at his door by one of his toadies. You will let me in right now so I can speak with Dottore.”
Despite being rewarded with an annoyed roll of the eyes, the door was obediently pulled open again, the clone making space so the Regrator could enter the searingly bright place.
The Doctor’s laboratory consisted of multiple sections orderly divided by glass walls, allowing Pantalone a clear view on different projects being worked on left and right as they walked deeper into Dottore’s workplace, which was at the end of the illuminated hall.
The clone leading the way slowed his pace considerately when he noticed the tense banker curiously peeking into an alchemy section, observing two clones in safety gear pour colorful liquids into test tubes. Seemingly having taken an interest to what was happening behind this specific glass screen, the Regrator halted for a moment, causing the clone to grow impatient.
“Only here to see the sights after all?”, he taunted, to which Pantalone replied coldly, “I will punch you.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I don’t believe in threats; I believe in little experiments knowing their place in the world. Now, keep those bad manners up and you will find your place to be six feet below this ground.”
He watched the grumpy clone squirm at his warning and then motioned for him to go on.
“Just trying to keep your hopes down. The Prime is busy.”
As if that was the cue, an ear-piercing shriek echoed through the room. The source, undoubtedly, at the end of the glass hall. Where a certain Doctor dwelled.
Without a warning whatsoever, the clone stepped forward and pushed the very last door inward, announcing dramatically, “Hear ye, hear ye! The black-clad banker has arriveth, or- Well, whatever, have fun!”
And, rudely giving the Regrator a push into the room, departed like there were snakes hissing at his heels. Pantalone inwardly cursed him to hell and back, before turning his full attention to the picture in front of him.
The Doctor stood, maskless, last remaining brow cocked in curiosity, beside an operating table. On it lay a woman, green of hair and her heart literally laid open for all to see, dripping blood across table and floor alike. The Regrator cringed at the vile display of what the blue-haired deemed scientific research, and the rusty smell of gore hardly helped his stomach from flipping.
“I hope I haven’t come at too bad a time. What a shame it would be to interrupt your precious… work.”
The Doctor looked him up and down, unblinking, as he removed his bloodied gloves. His face was pulled into a tight expression, not only because of various scar tissue covering almost the entirety of his upper face, but clear enough without the usual sarcastic tilt of his lips.
Still, the humor of the scientist was not completely absent as he answered, “By all means, make yourself comfortable. My work has just died.”
The Regrator huffed quietly, “This early and you’ve already started the day off with one subject down. What was she for, anyway? It’s quite disgusting.”
Questions to distract him from the actually serious topic. Dottore could tell well enough that the banker would never ask him about such details were he in his right state of mind, but nonetheless decided to humor him.
He tilted the woman’s head, so Pantalone was able to have a look at her face, still distorted in the motion of screaming, brown eyes long glazed over.
“Haypasia here played an important role in my mission in Sumeru, and after it came to its conclusion I’ve managed to sneak her up to Snezhnaya. After making contact with the ‘divine’ I was curious to see how it might’ve changed… How do I explain this simply for you? Her mind and the way it functions. Cutting her open wasn’t necessary for that part – I got bored, you see.”
The Regrator nodded along as the Doctor explained, wringing his hands and pretending to be interested despite hardly catching up on the words that were said to him. When Dottore caught on to this apparent nervosity of his colleague, he paused. A silent invitation for the troubled banker to speak up. He waited, and it didn’t happen.
So, he prompted him outright, “What is it that’s nagging away at you, hm? Something I might be able to fix, perhaps. Is that why you’re here?”
The Doctor’s voice was void of humor, replaced with an odd sense of patience and, if the Regrator were able to tell, a hint of worry.
But then again, he was not quite himself this morning, and the seldom seen concern of the eccentric doctor went unnoticed. However, a question asked aloud was harder to evade than blank silence that could be colored in with niceties and shallow conversations. The Regrator swallowed, forcing his hands to still.
“Dottore, I have… a favor to ask of you. And before I tell you what it is I need you to know that it’s important – that my life might very well depend on this one thing I will ask of you.”
Leaning against the table, the Doctor contemplated for a moment.
Then, “Alright. Let’s hear it and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
This was progressing well enough, as the banker thought. So, he decided not to beat around the bush anymore. He held up his right hand, tapping his ring and little finger with the other.
“You see these? I need you to cut them off.”
“Why would I need to cut off your fingers, hm? They look perfectly fine to me. Or,” the Doctor drew closer, inspecting the Regrator with an interest piqued, “Perhaps you owe them to someone?”
So much for progress.
Pantalone hadn’t wanted to share the exact reasons with anyone at first, but seeing his colleague take his request more as a jest than anything else, he took on a serious stance.
“I don’t owe anything to anyone and yes, they do look fine. But they have become… a nuisance as of late. Do believe me when I say they cause me unimaginable pain and render me useless in my position among the Fatui.”
Noting the change in Pantalone’s tone, Dottore’s face fell, his crimson eyes analyzing the man – his emotions – before him closely as the former leaned in.
Desperation coated his next words, “Dottore, I can’t attend meetings, I can’t write, I can’t think when the pain flares up. I can do nothing, and if the others- if Her Excellency finds out! What use am I like this, Dottore? Please, amputate them, get rid of them, lest I lose my value to them and end up a dead man.”
The Regrator watched the gears he put to work behind the Doctor’s eyes turn and turn, click, reverse, turn and turn.
Until he presented him with an answer, so simple and destructive, “No, I won’t.”
Wouldn’t? The Fatui’s Second, Doctor – Dottore – refusing him help? The Regrator, Pantalone, who could show up at his doorstep when beaten down or viciously ill to receive his sympathy and aid? The one person Pantalone could depend on in his lowest times to keep him alive and breathing, but now denied him the relief of ridding him of his most painful ailment yet.
Unshed tears stung in his eyes as he rung for control over his voice, to keep it from faltering as his hopes did.
“Why not? I know of your capabilities; this should be no trouble at all for you! Or, tell me, would you rather I suffer on in silence – mind you, this pain keeps me anything but silent! – and watch as I am slowly demoted to a pile of ash. Like Rosalyne? Do you want to see me fall that badly?”
Dottore had the audacity to scoff, to roll his eyes, while Pantalone glared.
“Come now, Rosalyne’s case was an entirely different one, that’s a horrible comparison.”
Hearing him only commenting on that one thing had the Regrator’s composure snap. He roared, pointed fingers, demanded he be told why in Celestia the Doctor refused to operate.
To which the Doctor replied, ice in his voice, “I will not tear your body apart if there’s any way I can help it. Never. And you should be glad for it, dear Regrator, when you understand what wonders it does for your sanity to have all your right limbs attached.”
Pantalone strove to convince him otherwise, barely managing to open his mouth before being interrupted by the other.
“No need to color me your personal villain, Regrator. I’m not wholly without a heart, black as it may seem to you. I can concoct you some pain killers, but that is the most I will do for now. Should there be any visible changes occurring on your fingers we can have a more serious talk about this issue, how’s that?”
“More serious than this?”, scoffed the Regrator, “How much more serious do you think this could get? I can’t sleep, I can’t work, and you want me to swallow pills each time I need to get anything done?! Maybe I should defund you. See whether that will change your mind in due time.”
Now, that threat earned him a reaction.
The Doctor’s breathing halted, if only for a second, and Pantalone triumphantly watched crimson eyes sweep the room aimlessly, a lower eyelid twitching. Little signs he recognized as Dottore losing his patience with him. In such a hopeless situation the Regrator couldn’t help but feel proud of himself for achieving this.
“Do that and I can assure you that none of the Mora I have saved up will go toward helping you out when you come crawling back here,” drawled the Doctor, pointed teeth gleaming in a sinister grin.
“Which you will do, the instant you run out of options – whatever those may be. Perhaps you will try to cut the blood circulation of your entire hand off until it’s numb. When that doesn’t work, you will gulp down whatever leftover painkillers you can find in your drawers. But that won’t do, no, no. Not if the pain is really as bad as you claim it is.”
As he continued to rattle down possibilities that were surprisingly on mark with what the Regrator had thought of as backup plans, Dottore pushed away from the bloody operating table. Twirling a scalpel in his hand, he approached the stunned banker with slow steps. A madness in his eyes glinting up with each he took, until they stood face-to-face, mere inches apart.
“Perhaps you will try to slice them off yourself; some momentary pain is better than one flaring up again and again, after all. But I know that you can’t, that you won’t. You could never do it yourself, dear Regrator, because one thing you fear most in this world is pain.”
The Regrator was pointedly silent. Silently, he gazed right back into those mad red eyes, unblinking. Silently, he turned to leave.
He had no words for the Doctor left to say, he came to ask a favor and was ardently refused. An ominous prickling spread in his fingertips.
As if he was pushed underwater, Pantalone perceived the Doctor’s voice calling out behind him faintly. He did not falter.
“I’ll have some pain medication ready for you by tonight, you can come by to pick it up then. Don’t. Get any reckless ideas in the meantime.”
He did not falter. Not until the heavy iron door slammed shut behind his back.
In his mind, Pantalone crumbled. Discarded all need for propriety and status and sank to the cold stone floor, metal biting against his back as he let his emotions wreck him. In his mind, he allowed himself that fantasy of giving up, of accepting a fact. That he had no future, not anymore. On the outside, however, the Regrator was already, well. Outside.
He turned the Doctor’s words over and over in his head. Yes, he was right about Pantalone being deathly afraid of pain. Yes, he was right about Pantalone never being able to hurt himself with his own hand. That was why he originally sought the Doctor out, after all.
But on his way out of the palace, the Regrator was able to clear his head enough to think: If a medical professional refused to amputate, he would simply turn to someone else who was practiced enough in severing limbs from their body that they might be able to help him.
And how fortunate for the reckless Regrator that such a someone was camping so close to Zapolyarny Palace this time around.
Another colleague of his, bigger, quieter, more composed than the Doctor ever was.
Though not on the same levels, this person knew his way around human anatomy just as well.
Could cleave it, carve it, reduce it to a pile of reeking flesh.
The Captain was well versed in the art of war for a reason. His capability for bloodshed.
~
The Regrator was pleasantly surprised when he set foot in the temporary camp for the first time. Considering the enormous amount of soldiers the Captain had taken along with him, the tents were orderly divided into very neat lines, forming a sort of outer wall for the palace’s protection if the tree line before it was proven too weak a defense.
On his search for a bigger than average blue tent that could indicate his colleague’s presence around these snowy fields, the Regrator was greeted by multiple soldiers along the way. Many of them sat in circles around a fire or a steaming pot, playing cards or talking about anything they could think of.
It was surprising for the banker to discover how disciplined the military people actually was, even more so when he failed to spot even a single bottle of alcohol.
As someone who had never got in contact with a battlefield in his life, he’d had different expectations. Of a rowdy crowd, loud and messy, and simply desperate enough for a source of income that they’d risk their lives for someone they never met.
Now, the Regrator was greeted by civilized men and women on his way, some respectfully bowing their heads upon realizing who he was, others giving him odd looks. No doubt someone was investing time in properly educating these people on basic etiquette and gallantry. The cause for the latter action was something the Regrator was also utterly aware of.
A lump of ice was clutched tightly in his right hand, his glove and rings discarded. It was becoming achingly cold to hold, but the Regrator wouldn’t let go of it for fear that he would feel something other than cold numbness in his fingers.
After asking around a few times and being granted some directions, the Regrator finally made it to the Captain’s tent. Grand and imposing, it towered over all the others, casting shadows even over the huge guards positioned around it. Reasonable as it was, their usefulness in terms of protecting the warmongering Harbinger was a controversial matter.
One of them broke the formation to approach the unannounced visitor, taking on a cautious stance despite bowing with recognition of who stood before him.
“Lord Regrator,” he said as a way of greeting, “Are we able to assist you in any way?”
Now that was a way to be received the Regrator approved of. Unlike somebody who couldn’t even manage a friendly ‘hello’…
“I’m looking for the Captain. Is he available?”
The guard nodded.
“Yes, he is here. I shall ask if he is free to have visitors if you wouldn’t mind the brief wait, Lord Regrator.”
“Not at all, go ahead,” the Regrator smiled, his earlier anxiousness appeased by polite speech.
That was something that never failed to calm him: Being treated as someone of importance, with a safe space within this world.
He watched the guard enter the tent, then leaving it a few moments later.
“The Captain awaits you inside, Lord Regrator,” he let him know, “Though should you be armed, we ask of you to please leave your weapons outside. We will hold on to them until your meeting is over.”
The Regrator hurried to assure him, “No worries, I carry nothing with me.”
The guard didn’t react to that.
Didn’t step aside to let him pass. They looked at each other, Pantalone already starting to doubt whether he did have weapons on him or not, when the guard seemed to notice the growing awkwardness between them. He bent his head, slightly indicating at the Regrator’s right hand.
“Oh.”
Right. The ice.
He quickly dropped it and, finally, was granted passage to the tent.
One of its flaps was already held open by a hand of clawed steel as he approached.