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"Good. Release it now."
Columbina did so with a sharp sigh. The kuuvahki snapped from her control, rebounding into chaos as it settled back into its usual behavior. Her arm dropped to her side, fatigue rolling over her. She swayed.
"That's all I need from you today," the Doctor was saying, his words muffled and warped through the static in her ears. So when she did not move from the spot, he said, "You can leave."
She did not. Her feet did not even shift in place, as if rooted down. Meanwhile her mind seemed to float away from her, a separation that made her faint. If she even moved her mouth, she might collapse instead. Or her lips would fall away, and herself would break into little pieces.
But Dottore was not privy to any of these things. To him, she remained like stone in his lab. Eventually, he was fed up with waiting, decided that she could do whatever she wished, and promptly ignored her to begin to sort through the data from the experiment.
The kuuvahki vibrated with the scrawl of his pen across paper. It captured the tap of his heel, the minute shifting that his body made as he wrote. These little actions threaded across her subconscious, then bound her awareness to it. Suddenly, Columbina noticed her body again, and her quick breath, her hands at her sides… and thus returned to present, she shifted her attention again to those little disturbances that had done so.
Though Columbina could not see in her current state, the kuuvahki that naturally gathered around and from her gave her a sense of what she lacked in sight. Previously, Arlecchino had played a game where she attempted to sneak up on Columbina; but the kuuvahki awareness was too great for that.
As such, because she stood so still, she could observe Dottore without his noticing.
This one was from when he was a young man, it seemed. He had the sort of energy about him that he lacked in his later years, without that tinge of madness that she associated with one of his other younger ones. She'd noticed it throughout the experiments. Serious, private as ever, but without the self-assuredness that he had apparently grown into.
Perhaps the age he was when he had joined the Fatui? Shortly after?
He looked up quickly when she took her first step towards him. Then, as she drew nearer, she sensed the tension of confusion about his eyes, exposed by the mask unlike the versions he later wore. He opened his mouth, but was struck silent by the first brush of her hand on his cheek.
"What are you doing?" he asked when he found his voice.
Columbina continued her probing, tracing her fingertips along his cheek bone, feeling up to the curve of the mask where she expected it. His lashes fluttered against her skin as her hand passed across one of his eyes. She enjoyed the ticklish feeling on her skin, heavily contrasted by the hard surface that encircled his gaze.
Her other hand joined; their paths mirrored each other to his ears, where her fingers ran around the curve of cartilage, down to the lobe. Only his right ear had the earring that all versions wore. When she began to toy with it, Dottore's hand shot up to still hers.
"Columbina." Warning in his voice. She paused to consider him, head tilted.
"This version of you is young," she observed. He disliked when she referred to his age in such a way, but to her it was a neutral statement.
Her free hand continued its journey. From his ear, she stroked along his neck. He flinched in response to the touch.
Hm?
Light as can be, she repeated with the barest pressure of her fingernails on his neck. He sucked in a quick breath and twitched again. Amusement touched Columbina's lips.
"Are you ticklish, Doctor?"
Rather than answer, he said, "I don't see what the purpose of what you're doing is."
"I'm feeling you," she said simply, as easy as ever. Since she could not see, and kuuvahki felt limiting, she wanted to satisfy her curiosity.
She slid into his lap to get a better angle. He'd released her hand, and so she pushed it back, combing her fingers through his hair. It was soft, just a little fluffy, reminding her of a chic badger's fur when she still lived among the Frostmoon Scions. It made her chest ache, but it wasn't a bad memory. She thought she might bury her face in his hair, if she got the chance.
Dottore didn't understand the game the Damselette played.
Since she first began to touch him, the other segments sounded off in his head with their own opinions. To stop her, to escalate, to strike her for daring to touch him. Yet for himself, the individual among connected individuals, Dottore did not know how to feel. Her hand was soft, but very cold—almost as much so as the frostiness in her voice as she spoke with the vague distant tone of a sleepwalker.
Yet when she sat in his lap, her warmth radiated deep into his bones.
He couldn't remember the last time someone had touched him in such a way, without revulsion. Had anyone ever?
Feeling choked, he couldn't find the will to stop her exploration of his face and head. So he closed his eyes and waited until her ministrations gradually slowed, and then ceased, and her breath came softly as if she had fallen asleep right there in his lap.
It was a feeling that echoed across the segments.
At his oldest, before he'd abandoned his mortality to split his life into segments of time, the perspective of each age at every moment, Dottore considered himself beyond the follies of his youth. The persistent need for acknowledgement, the fury of injustices wrought, the unhinged behavior of the leashed finally let free, he eventually crafted the composure that he came to prefer. A cool-headed genius, full of patience and the ambition to make anything happen. Of the things that he'd left behind was the futile desire for affection. He liked to think that he killed that with Sohreh.
So then why—?
Dottore growled to himself and pressed a hand to his head. His palm bumped roughly against his face, and the beak of his mask dug roughly into his palm, fingers entangled in his hair. A nauseating beast's burning claws sharpened themselves within the cavity of his chest. Over and over they raked, dragging his attention away from the experiment he'd rather have his focus.
For some weeks now, Columbina had ceased coming to help with his kuuvahki experiments. Absolutely nothing better to do with her time, and yet she'd still rather spend it elsewhere. Though it was not such a problem for him that she no longer wished to collaborate, Dottore could not forget her reasons when asked for why she had stopped.
Boring. She was bored of their experiments.
Dottore was used to others not understanding the value behind his research; he'd come to expect it, so it did not surprise him. Yet since then, he could not dislodge the thorn from his head. It distracted him and ached persistently deep within him.
And then he would recall her in his lap—not his, as an individual, but still his—carelessly straddling him. She touched him with no feeling but curiosity, evident in every stroke. Had it been this segment, he would not allow himself to be fooled otherwise. So he blamed that one for his distraction now, the follow of his young adult self.
Searching fingertips that stirred yearning as they trailed over his features.
In truth, they were not so different. Neither had a place to belong since their birth; neither quite belonged among the Harbingers. Not that such pains of the past were something he was inclined to sharing. He thought he'd grown past the need to address it at all.
It hurt, her obliviousness, her apparent uncaring. That the balance of feeling between them weighted so heavily against him tore at him. He could not deny that of himself, no matter how much he might try and convince them all otherwise.
He hated it. He hated himself for it.
He hated how little he hated her for it.
Such it was—still human, after all, and yearning for a goddess.