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It is late, even by Pantalone’s standards. The moon outside is a cold smear of white against the windows, and every corridor in Zapolyarny Palace is silent, save for the muffled footsteps of the night guards. Pantalone’s shoes barely make a sound as he walks, mind already wandering to tomorrow’s meetings and the files he’ll need to review beforehand.
But as he passes the laboratory wing, a peculiar, high-pitched laughter catches his ear.
It’s a very familiar laugh.
He pauses, frowning. The door to Dottore’s lab is cracked open, yellow light spilling into the hall. That in itself isn’t unusual because Dottore lives in his lab and will work through the night if he deems it necessary.
But the laughter is strange, unhinged, even for him.
Pantalone slips inside, shutting the door soundlessly behind him. The laboratory is in disarray, notes and charts lie scattered across the floor. And at the very center, haphazardly sprawled on the cold stone is Dottore himself, one of his legs propped up on his chair while the other lies bent under himself.
"Dottore?" Pantalone’s voice is quiet, almost wary. It’s not too late for this to turn out to be a trap, who knows what some Segments are planning these days.
His worry seems to be for nothing, though. As Dottore rolls onto his side to grin up at him, his leg sliding off the chair as he moves. "You’re just in time! Don’t you see? Your funding was worth it; it works! It actually works!"
"What works?" Pantalone steps closer, scanning the room for signs of an explosion, a fight, anything that would explain the Doctor’s state.
Dottore gestures wildly at a mess of vials. "My latest compound! For the treatment of aggression in uncooperative subjects. I couldn’t wait for a test subject, so naturally I tested it on myself."
Of course you did, Pantalone thinks, exasperated. "And the results?"
Dottore dissolves back into giggles. "Magnificent! I feel, oh, it’s difficult to describe. Like all the sharp edges in my mind have been sanded down. I’m calm. Blissfully, idiotically calm. You know how my thoughts usually race? How I want to dissect everything, everyone, all at once? Even you? Right now, there’s nothing. Just… peace."
He inhales deeply. "It’s like sitting in a warm bath after weeks in the cold. My mind is empty. Well, almost. And I’m not angry. Not at anything. Not even at myself for being so unproductive."
Pantalone watches and his mind is torn between relief and worry. He has seen Dottore in all kinds of moods, ranging from manic to furious, to gleeful, to obsessed.
But he’s never been like this.
"Are there any side effects?" Pantalone asks, kneeling to check Dottore’s pulse. "Dizziness? Nausea?" Thankfully, his pulse seems normal, if only slightly heightened.
Dottore waves him off. "No, no. Just this wonderful emptiness. All the things I usually hate, none of it bothers me right now. I could forgive anyone anything. Even you, Pantalone, for always shortchanging my budget before miraculously deciding to grant me full funding when I really need it."
Pantalone snorts. "I don’t shortchange you."
"You’re adorable when you lie," Dottore says, his words soft and slow. "You often give me too little only to find a way to approve my full request a week down the line, even when you say it’s the last time."
Pantalone’s cheeks flush, but he ignores it. “Bring that up again, and you’ll never receive another mora.” He tries to coax Dottore up from the ground, but the Doctor resists, flopping back with a contented sigh as soon as Pantalone’s grip slips.
"Why bother moving?" Dottore murmurs. "The floor is nice. Everything’s nice. The world is nice right now, Pantalone. Even you. Especially you."
Pantalone folds his arms and gives up, instead sitting down on Dottore’s chair. "If you’re going to wax poetic about me, at least sit up so I can take you seriously. You’re going to cramp something."
Dottore only laughs, a soft, delighted sound. "You know what’s funny? I put all this effort into this drug, but the moment it took effect, I realized I don’t care about calming my test subjects at all, they can suffer for all I care. All I want to do is see you. You’re a much more interesting subject."
Pantalone’s heart gives a little jolt which he tries to mask with a smirk. "You’re certainly more docile than usual. Should I be worried you’ll start purring next?"
Dottore hums, considering it. "Maybe. If you pet me."
Pantalone rolls his eyes, but the fondness in his gaze is unmistakable. "Then tell me, Doctor. What does this miracle drug of yours really do?"
"It severs the wires," Dottore says, voice dreamy. "All those little connections in the brain that spark when you’re angry, or frightened, or hungry for violence, they’re quiet now. The animals I test it on become gentle. Docile. Cuddly, even. And me? I’m…" He trails off, looking up at Pantalone. "I’m not thinking about experiments at all. I’m thinking about you."
Pantalone feels the words like a physical blow. He has always suspected Dottore harbours some odd fascination for him. After all, their discussions about budgets and priorities have a certain energy to them, unlike the ones he has with other Harbingers. But at the end of the day Pantalone knows his own feelings run deeper than Dottore’s, so he has always chalked Dottore’s tendency to get close to him as rivalry or grudging respect.
Dottore seems oblivious to his discomfort, rambling on. "You know, it’s remarkable how much space you take up in my mind. I used to think it was irritation or professional jealousy. But now… now it feels like relief. Like I’ve been waiting for you to notice me, and tonight you finally have."
Pantalone’s chest tightens. He remembers all the times Dottore had stormed into his office, demanding funds for another outrageous project, and how he always, always found a way to grant it, sometimes at great personal risk. He remembers the arguments, the snide remarks, the way Dottore’s laughter lingered in his ears long after he’d left the room. He remembers thinking, more than once, that if they weren’t at each other’s throats that they might have been something else.
"You’re rambling," Pantalone says, voice low.
"I know." Dottore smiles, slow and lazy. "It’s the drug. It takes away all the things that make me careful."
Pantalone tries for a teasing tone. "You’re going to regret this in the morning."
"No, I won’t," Dottore says, utterly sincere. "Did you know I’m in love with you, Pantalone?"
The words land with a crash and for multiple beats Pantalone can’t move, can’t respond. He stares at Dottore before something sharp and heated flares behind his eyes.
"What kind of joke is this?" he snaps, the words coming out cold as ice. "No, you don't get to say things like that. Not when you’re drugged out of your mind and-" He cuts himself off, jaw clenched, his hands curling into fists at his sides.
Dottore only looks at him, serene and undisturbed. "I'm not joking. I couldn't, not right now. The drug makes it impossible; that's what this does. This is just what I feel."
Pantalone goes silent, staring at Dottore as if he sees him for the first time. There’s anger, yes. Anger at being blindsided, at being made vulnerable, at having the nature of their relationship rewritten without his permission while Dottore is on fucking drugs.
But beneath it he feels something else, a trembling, reluctant hope.
"Say it again," Pantalone demands, the words are harsh but he knows he almost sounds desperate.
Dottore’s gloved hand reaches for him, fingers curling around Pantalone’s pinky and ring finger, the only ones he can reach from his position on the floor. "I love you."
Pantalone lets out a shaky breath, feeling the weight of Dottore’s confession settle over him like a stone. He sits motionless while his gaze trails over Dottore’s face, trying to find any hint of it being a joke. Of course he can’t see much, not with his eyes hidden behind a mask. But he likes to believe that, despite the mask, he can still read Dottore. He’s torn between wanting to believe what falls from Dottore’s unrestricted lips and knowing how easily the truth becomes questionable under the influence of a drug. Dottore could still deny everything once the drug wears off, he could specify that he loves him for always keeping him funded and nothing more.
And, shit, the drug could even be altering Dottore’s feelings towards him; they’re meant to make the receiver of the drug more docile, right? Pantalone knows he’s not the strongest man when it comes to love, though. Quite the opposite. So he chooses to believe it, just for this evening.
Pantalone lowers himself to the ground, his movements rigid. He hesitates before touching Dottore, his hands hovering in the air, trembling with conflicting desire and doubt. His fingers linger for a second longer before they slowly, almost angrily, begin to stroke Dottore’s hair.
Dottore does start purring, or at least as close as a human can get to a purr. And Pantalone feels his heart jump up to his throat.
Fuck it.
Fuck it all.
Dottore won’t remember anything anyway, right?
Probably. He tells himself.
It doesn’t matter what happens in this moment; it doesn’t matter what he says.
"You know," Pantalone says at last, voice trembling with something wounded and raw, "I never thought you felt anything at all. I thought this was all a game. That you’d tire of me once you found a new puzzle to solve."
Dottore finally moves then, if only to drop his head into Pantalone’s lap, nuzzling into it as he does with a contented hum. "You’re the only puzzle I have fun with."
Pantalone’s laugh is shaky, half a sob, half a scoff. He presses his hand to Dottore’s mask, tracing the line where it meets his skin with a touch that is both possessive and uncertain.
For a long moment, he says nothing.
And then his words come out above the barest of whispers, so quiet he might have thought them. "I love you, too."
Dottore stills in his lap then, and a smile forms on his lips. It’s a slow, genuine thing. "I heard you."
Pantalone shakes his head. Still disbelieving, still angry and aching and impossibly hopeful. "Good. I won’t say it again."
Dottore chuckles, his voice thick with happiness. "You won’t have to."
---
It is hours later when Pantalone stirs. He curses. The world around him is cold and sullen blue with the first suggestion of morning. The laboratory is quiet, the strangeness of the previous night pressed into the still air. He finds himself lying on the floor, a fact his back protests against immediately, a sharp ache twisting up his spine.
For a moment, he resents the indignity of it, the way the stone leeches warmth from his bones.
Then he remembers he is not alone.
Dottore is draped over him, coiled with unconscious possessiveness, one leg thrown over Pantalone’s waist, an arm tucked around his ribs, and his face hidden in the crook of his neck. Pantalone blinks up at the ceiling, taking inventory of the mundane: the adhigama leaf patterns stencilled in faded gold along the beams, the faint hum of the ventilation, the soft, measured sound of Dottore’s breathing right under his ear.
Pantalone does not move. He allows himself the luxury of being held for just a moment, the strange innocence of Dottore’s unconscious touch. The Doctor’s mask is still on, pressed awkwardly against Pantalone’s neck.
But the comfort and quiet peace do not last. His back throbs, and with each passing second, a slow-dawning dread creeps in. He will have to stand and he will have to face the morning, and Dottore, and the words they traded in the hush of drugged honesty in Dottore’s case.
He is afraid.
Afraid that Dottore does not remember and that Pantalone will be left to carry the memory alone, forced keep all of his feelings hidden once more after speaking them aloud just once. Afraid that Dottore remembers and will ridicule him for responding to his drugged nonsense.
At least if that’s the case, he could simply pay Dottore a fortune to forget.
He shifts, wincing, and that is enough to rouse Dottore. The Doctor mumbles something, voice thick with sleep, and tightens his hold. He burrows closer, head pressing into the hollow of Pantalone’s throat. "Warm," he mutters, utterly unguarded. "You make a good mattress."
Pantalone goes still, heart hammering. Dottore is still far too calm, so he must still be feeling the effects of last night’s experiment. Shit, does he remember anything? Can he still be gentle with the Doctor, or does he need to push him away?
Dottore, completely oblivious to his internal conflict, makes a quiet, dissatisfied noise. "Should get my segments to do the work," Dottore grumbles, muffled and petulant. "Omega can go to the meeting and the others can handle the boring reports."
Pantalone is silent, tension winding tight. He wants to comment about the meeting or about his Segments, anything to get Dottore’s mind off their current position. But he simply cannot bear moving in the dark like this, he’s not fit for that. "Do you remember anything?" he asks, voice raw.
For a heartbeat, Dottore is still. Then he lifts his head, the mask glinting, and he gazes down at Pantalone. "Of course I remember. Why wouldn’t I?" His tone is clinical, but not entirely unkind. "It was a controlled experiment. The results? A calmness of the nerves, full emotional disinhibition, minimal physical side effects except for this-" he gestures vaguely at himself, "-lingering lethargy."
Pantalone’s mouth is dry. "And what about what you said? Was it true?"
Dottore considers, the edges of his mouth curling in a faint, familiar smirk. "I wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t. The drug doesn’t fabricate feelings. It only removes the barriers. You and I, well. We’ve confessed. It’s done."
He leans down then, lifting his mask the slightest bit to move the beak out of the way, and kisses Pantalone’s cheekbone, then another follows at the corner of his lips, and then, as if testing a hypothesis, Dottore slants his mouth over Pantalone’s in a deep and unhurried kiss.
Part of Pantalone expects his lips or tongue to be bitten off, but instead Dottore’s kiss is surprisingly gentle. He feels Dottore’s mouth open the slightest bit, nudging Pantalone’s own lips to part and it goes from chaste to a slow, almost drugged pace.
It might be the most tentative kiss he’s ever been the recipient of, but before he can bask in the feeling, Dottore presses in harder, with more confidence, as if he’s going to go all in he might as well make it worth it. That’s more like what Pantalone expects.
He hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about how it would be to be kissed by Dottore, but he’d be lying if he said he never had.
When Dottore pulls away, he presses one more kiss to Pantalone’s bottom lip before pushing himself upright with difficulty, joints creaking.
The kiss lasted all too short, for Pantalone’s liking.
"I should record the results," Dottore says, voice returning to its usual cadence, though still soft around the edges. He locates a notebook and scrawls in brisk, sharp script. "I’ll gloss over these details, of course. Wouldn’t want the Regrator to know that another Harbinger is using his funding for courtship." He glances over his shoulder, mask glinting in the morning light. "Unless," he teases, "you’d prefer I make it a matter of official record?"
Pantalone, at last, lets himself laugh. A small incredulous sound. The ache in his back remains, but the weight in his chest is lighter. The morning is still cold, the lab still dingy, but for now, the aftermath is tender.