Work Text:
Working under Dottore's watch was never calm. The man definitely had some anger issues, that was for sure. Today was like every other day, running errands for the man while trying not to step in on one of his creepy experiments. The cold air in the lab was uncomfortable as you sorted files and subject reports. The man himself wasn't in the room at the time. He said he had to grab something for an experiment. He never told you specifics, just the general idea of what he was doing. It was frustrating, to say the least. Moving to put the files away in his cabinets, you heard the door open. Waiting until the files were put away, you turned to look at him only to come face to face with a human head in a jar. Screaming and falling back against the cabinet, you sat there as he laughed hysterically.
"Aww, are you scared?" He said between laughs. He put the head down on a counter, still chuckling. Pulling off his gloves and revealing his calloused thin hands before he walked over to you. Staring down at you like you were stray cats, he sighed.
"Okay, it's only funny while you're scared; you just look sad now. Get off the floor." He said his usual snap was a little absent. As you moved to stand, he went over to the skull, putting on a new pair of gloves, and began injecting something into the rotting flesh. The smell wasn't of rotting flesh, thanks to the formaldehyde. But that smell was making your eyes burn as you tried to ignore the human head only feet away from you. The chills that were racking your body were less than comfortable. Turning to leave and maybe hide out in his library, you slowly sneaked away. Making it to the door and turned before you got the chance to turn to leave. Dottore placed his gross gloved hand on your shoulder. A small noise left your throat as you scrambled to get away. He chuckled before talking in a dismissive tone.
"I didn't touch it with this hand. Relax, I took off the other glove. Don't you want to see what I've created?" Gulping absentmindedly, you turned to look at him and sighed, nodding slowly, not fully knowing if you had a choice or not. You nervously followed him as he walked over to the head. Noticing something off almost instantly, part of the skin on the face was completely healed. It looked healthy, alive even; the healthy skin quickly shrived back up and went back to looking dead, but for those few seconds it looked...well alive."
"How-"
"If the person were alive, the skin cells would stay alive and would meld with the person's biology. This serum could be used on cuts or bad flesh wounds, unaffecting muscle tissue. Interesting right." He said it with a happy little jingle in his voice, like a kid at a science fair. You only nodded and gave him a little thumbs up. He went on for awhile about things you could barely understand. Once his voice paused he seemed to focus on you for a second his eyes uncomfortable into yours. It would have been uncomfortable if not for the fact this was frequent occurrence. Looking up face and giving him a "what do you want?" face he sighed and said in a agitated voice.
"Were you even listening?" With only a nod coming from you, he sighed and said softly.
"Well, I should probably give you something to do. Why don't you go down to the basement and get some of my old modification records? I need to look at them to see if my following surgery will interact with any of my old mods." You said nothing, simply walking out of his lab to go down to the honestly horrific basement. The walk to the stairs was full of anxiety. Being in halls with heavily guarded Fatui soldiers and another harbinger in a meeting room. The halls were always tense from all the powerful people surrounding you. But once you got to the basement, a new horror started. As you walked down the tiled stairs and saw the sea of papers and filing cabinets, you knew you were going to be down there for awhile. The dim greenish light didn't do much for your vision either. Dottore kept all his files relating to himself and his body modification locked up in the back of the basement under a loose tile. The lockbox itself was huge and could almost fit two of you. As you walked through the halls of filing cabinets, you could swear you saw a shadow moving around down there.
Reaching the loose tile and lifting it with a little too much effort you put in the pass code that apparently only you, Dottore, and one other assistant knew, you opened the lockbox. Sighing at the volume of files and looking for the older ones. Looking at the files occasionally always left you a little baffled. Picture of Dottore operating on himself with labels written over the pictures. His body modifications are extensive. All his bones are either metal, and his joints are synthetic tissue-wrapped ligaments and tendons. His muscles are are mostly synthetic as well, with his hands being fully mechanical hidden under synthetic skin. His heart is this mechanical feat all by itself; looking at pictures of it always fascinated you. He was like the ship of Theseus; was it still really Zandik after all these years and replacing flesh? That was another thing you weren't supposed to know. His name. He would probably have you killed if he knew, or at least that's what you thought.
After about an hour, you retrieved the remaining files he wanted and put back the tile. You walked back upstairs. The walk back was spent mostly looking out the big windows of the complex at the reading storm outside as your shoes clicked against the tile floor. Walking back through the large doors of Dottore's lab and attached office, you couldn't see him immediately, leading you to believe he's in his office. Walking into the mostly wooden room, you found him hunched over his desk pen in his hand and head on the desk as he wrote. Knocking on the door frame to alert him of your existence, you stood. He took a moment before looking up from his work.
"Finally, I thought you died down there." He said before reaching his hand out for the files. You quickly handed them to him as you looked outside his office windows to the storm.
"You actually got all the right ones too... Whatcha looking at?" He said a little confused.
"The storm." You said softly.
"You like storms?" He asked as he looked up at you from where he sat.
You only shrugged in response. He began to look at the files, murmuring things to himself as he did so.
"What are you planning to do next?" You questioned. He didn't look up as he answered.
"I replaced one of my eyes with a new model I recently developed. It's going to be a pain in the ass, and it's going to hurt like hell, but it has to be done." He continued to look at the files as an especially loud crack of thunder shook the room, making you jump a little. He chuckled and stood up, leaving his work behind and moving to look outside next to you.
"You get scared easily. It's kind of cute. You're so scared of things that are so small, and yet you aren't scared of me." He moved to stand behind you, wrapped his arms around your waist, and rested his chin on your shoulder. He wasn't usually so affectionate like this. A light blush covered your face and you simply smiled as you two watched the storm together. The feeling of his mechanical heart against your back as you both looked on.
"I'm going to run a few tests on a new robot; I'll be in the mechanical bay." And he was gone.