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Dottore hears Pantalone before he sees him.
This is the inverse of their usual dynamic. It is usually Dottore who makes his presence known, be it through the stone-cold clack of his shoes against the palace floors, the cluster of segments that flurry constantly after him, or the explosions that shake his lab and threaten to blow the entirety of Snezhnograd sky-high.
Today, it is instead Pantalone that is the source of the constant racket that’s been shaking the foundations of Zapolyarny Palace since dawn.
To be fair, it isn’t all his fault, thinks Dottore as he approaches the door with a tray teetering with the weight of two teacups balanced on his hand. Running home in the rain the week prior had done quite the number on them both; they’d been soaked to the bone by the time they returned, which wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t snapped the umbrella fighting over it. And when Pantalone had come knocking the next day, complaining about a sore throat and flushed skin, Dottore had spared no time at all in handing him a diagnosis and making him take the day off.
Needless to say he had been most dissatisfied— but alas, Dottore has a tendency not to pay heed to any customer complaints he might receive, and as a result Pantalone has been confined to his bed the past two days, cursing, spluttering and coughing his lungs out with no end to his torment in sight.
This coughing is what alerts Dottore now to his colleague’s presence, a confirmation that the room is occupied. Good. He eases the door open with the tip of his boot and slips in quietly, trying to remain discreet, but even with all this effort Pantalone manages to sense his presence before he enters from the door’s subtle creak.
He looks up from his book, disturbed by the sudden noise; doctor and patient exchange glances from half across the room.
“Ah, it’s you,” says Pantalone, setting the tome aside and sitting upright on the bed. The light of the wicker lamp burns patterns onto his cheeks; he looks younger, warm, almost inviting, but Dottore is not fool enough to believe that farce. “Took you long enough.”
And there he goes. Not even so much as a greeting. But that is the way he is, and Dottore lets it be— for at the very least it implies that Pantalone has been waiting for him. His heels skirt around the plush carpets, careful so as not to incur his coworker’s wrath, and as he’d expected, the banker’s gaze tracks his every movement, perhaps in search of something to pick apart.
In the end Pantalone finds none, and Dottore wonders if it is disappointment he sees that flickers in those eyes when his efforts yield no result.
“If you intend to treat me like this, I don’t see why I should come calling at all,” Dottore grumbles, though he takes a seat by the bed and offers up the tray anyways.
Now that he is at arm’s-length he can see the banker up close, and it seems the illness, as usual, has hit him hard. The artificial blue of the cooling patch stands starkly out on his feverish skin, and his nose is tipped red from all the sneezing.
He’s clearly in poor condition, but the illness is no deterrent to that attitude of his.
“Then leave,” replies Pantalone, as he reaches for the teacup on the tray— a blatantly direct contradiction to his words.
He lifts it into his hands, appreciating the emanating warmth; his lips skim the gold-plated rim as he purses them and blows aside the wispy coil of smoke rising from its glassy surface.
Dottore clutches his chest with a hand and puts the other to his forehead, letting out a gasp for dramatic effect.
“Oh, you wound me, Regrator.”
Pantalone raises the cup to his lips and takes a long, slow sip, ignoring his theatrics as he savors the drink.
Somehow the lack of response is more insulting than a sardonic reply. After all, Dottore is unused to being ignored— it is so, so easy to get a rise out of the man that most find it strange (worrying, even) when he is quiet.
“Enthusiastic as ever,” sighs Dottore and observes the still-full bottle of medicine relegated to the corner of the table. Of course. He should have known better than to expect Pantalone’s compliance. “Has the fever alleviated?”
“You tell me,” scoffs Pantalone, lowering the cup. “I would be willing to return to work if you would allow it. I am more than ready, you know that, Doctor.”
His tone implies expectation, not hope. Dottore crushes both with his words that follow.
“That remains to be seen,” he replies, much to his patient’s disappointment, and reaches for his hand. “Let me take a look.”
When their hands touch, Dottore almost recoils at how intense the heat is. At times like these, during the height of winter, it tends to be he who is the warmer of the two; he’d had the engine built in to keep him comfortable on colder nights in the lab. Today, by contrast, it is Pantalone’s skin that burns to the touch: a pulsing surge from deep within that leaves him red all over, shivering in the dry sharpness of the pre-spring air. The ailment has spread rampant across his skin, and every inch of it cries a warning as Dottore takes his temperature and examines his pulse.
It does not affect him, of course. Years of tinkering endlessly with himself have left him virtually immune to small maladies such as this. So he holds on, unperturbed, and lets it nibble insistently at his hands as he conducts his diagnosis.
“You’ll have to stay bedridden for a while longer, I’m afraid,” he says as he tampers with his internal settings to summon a flare of ice that counters the abnormal deluge of heat. It takes more effort than usual, for he never uses that part of him— a nation trapped in everwinter very rarely has need for the cold— but the manoeuvre is a success, and his hands go partially numb as the temperature drops to a gradual low.
A sigh of relief follows; the easing-up of Pantalone’s expression tells Dottore that he is pleased.
“When will you allow me to resume my work?”
Dottore huffs. Only someone such as Pantalone would be so insistent on starting a pandemic in the office.
But insist as he might, Dottore is not so easily swayed as to let him have his way.
“When you are well, Regrator,” he emphasizes, watching him drain the remainder of his tea and set the cup on his bedside table. The pads of his fingers tap gently at the veins in Pantalone’s wrist, unaffected by the abnormal surge of heat. “Which is not today.”
Pantalone’s tongue clicks disapprovingly against the interior of his lower lip; it is apparent the answer is not what he was looking for.
“Tch. Fine.”
And then, as an afterthought,
“Closer,” he adds, fingers curling tighter round his colleague’s wrist as he savors its coolness. “Your hands prove more effective than the patch itself.”
Dottore complies, then, regulating his temperature to suit the banker’s needs without question, and wonders briefly why it is that he is willing to waste time humoring these whims of his. His judgement has been rather clouded as of late— perhaps from the strange sensation that has been fogging his mind up since their walk in the rain.
But illness does not exist to him any longer, so it must be something else then that is affecting him. Something that runs more than merely skin-deep, reaches down to the welded heart that tethers the rest of him in place.
He does not know what. Maybe he does not want to know.
He exhales quietly, pushing away all unwelcome thoughts, and resumes his work.
It is a frustrating task— he has not had to carry out clinical trials in a while, for grunt work like dealing with patients is usually allocated to his segments. In spite of that he manages, if a little painstakingly; Pantalone’s nightclothes are plastered tight to his skin, pressed damp by the stick of feverish heat, and Dottore finds himself probing in frustration at the hems to unclump the fabric from his body.
“Closer,” urges Pantalone, and this time Dottore thinks to himself that he must be ill to the point of delirium, for anyone knows the man would balk at the very idea of such proximity on a regular day. Nevertheless, he obeys, and the chair tilts onto its front hinges as he eases himself into Pantalone’s grasp, thinking about just how much more authoritative the banker has become since his ascension to the rank of Harbinger.
Not that Dottore regrets it. Pantalone has proven a most useful addition to his work.
By now the tea has had a soporific effect on the man; his lilac eyes are half-lidded now, lashes aflutter in the flickering light. The sheets crease at his hip as he discards them, favoring the scientist’s touch in its stead, and Pantalone hums contentedly as Dottore rubs circles into the crook of his elbow to properly drive the cold in.
His cheek rests comfortably against the pillow, inches from Dottore’s hand, the faint smile hovering about his lips daring him to draw nearer, and finally, finally, he caves.
He reaches in and closes the distance between them, grazing the curves and valleys of his face with the back of his hand. The feel of his skin, unlike usual, is bone-dry, and he bites his tongue to hold himself back from mentioning it— he knows how Pantalone gets about his appearance, and he does not want to be on the receiving end of the banker’s wrath.
“Satisfied?” he inquires, words coated in false reverence. “Or do you have more ludicrous requests for me to fulfill?”
Pantalone opens his eye a crack, his short interval of relaxation cut short.
“You know, this is the very least you could do for me after that stunt you pulled in the rain,” he drawls in response; Dottore briefly entertains in his head the prospect of suffocating him right here and now with the pillow and eventually concludes that he should refrain.
He does, however, dig his fingers a little harder into Pantalone’s skin, and if the banker has picked up on this petty infraction he also does not complain. The curve of his smile tightens, its faux gentleness put under strain, and Dottore allows himself a brief pang of satisfaction that he has managed to get to him, if only slightly.
“Now do my neck,” insists the voice beneath his hands. Dottore stiffens at the thought of being ordered about like a subordinate and withdraws, eliciting from the banker an annoyed hiss.
“How utterly mannerless,” he claims. “Not even a please?”
To that Pantalone’s lip curls, displeased by the objection.
“Please,” he adds, as insincerely as possible, and in spite of his words the glint in his eye is a clear hint at a brewing threat. To cut his funding, maybe, or to go tattling to Pierro on his secretly missed deadlines.
Whatever it is, Dottore doesn’t want to find out.
It’s as good as a show of politeness he will ever receive from the man, anyway, so he lets it go and places his hands on the sides of his throat to numb down the inflammation. All the while he coughs and splutters in a way that sounds suspiciously like the word ingrate, but once again his advances are given no heed, and so he suffers his displeasure in silence.
“Much better,” praises Pantalone, settling back into a steady recline across the mattress. His hair drapes and fans out like a halo around his face as he does; he looks unhurried, victorious, smug almost. He is clearly pleased at the thought of being waited on hand and foot, and this is only further magnified by the fact it is his higher-ranked serving him.
“I am only humoring you because you are ill,” emphasizes Dottore, squeezing the banker’s throat gently to quiet him down. “Do not think I will cave to such whims after your recovery.”
His attempt fails, evidently, for Pantalone is not deterred by the constriction; if anything, he is encouraged to speak all the more.
“Of course,” replies Pantalone smoothly and gestures a hand towards his knee. “My joints, too, please.”
Dottore is halfway there before he registers the delighted undertone in his patient’s words; his brow wrinkles in distaste as he touches down to soothe the sore spot. Tsk. The things he endures for this man. Ridiculous.
And yet with all that said, he complies regardless, as if compelled by some external force that has cast a spell on his limbs— much to his own annoyance and his colleague’s pleasure. What a sight he looks now, catering to the Ninth’s appalling demands without question.
At least no one is here to bear witness; he’d never hear the end of it if that was the case. He grimaces at the thought of having his reputation dragged through the mud.
All this for the sake of that damn banker.
A gentle tug alerts him to movement from behind as he massages Pantalone’s joints; he steals a glance over his shoulder to find those fingers in his hair, combing out the curls that hang limp an inch short of his shoulders.
Languid, nimble— a reward for his willingness.
For the briefest of seconds his breath stops short, triggered by the sudden touch. He has to take a moment and pace himself before his system begins to heat itself up of its own will. It’s been acting up a lot more lately, and he fears if he gives response it will completely tip aside the precarious equilibrium that exists in him and set his core on fire.
And so, anything he thinks to say next is swallowed up in favor of silence, and the advance is accepted with not so much as a word. No expression of gratitude, nor admonishment.
No matter. Silence, after all, is how they communicate best— when it comes to all the things they do not know how to say, and instead exchange quiet words with a knowing glance and flick of the head.
He turns a fraction, and their gazes intertwine for the briefest of seconds.
Dottore’s breath stalls as he looks up at his colleague.
The lampshade-glow makes the contrast prominent. The jagged lines mirror his own, slashed deep into the corners of his eyes, and the dyed streak of hair on his shoulder is beginning to peter out into white again. He is beautiful, still, but jaded, and the sharp angles of his face now appear gaunt in the light, hollowed out by the fever’s aftereffects.
All of a sudden, Pantalone’s aching joints are not a point of contention between them two, but one of concern.
And when he looks back at the banker once again, it is with newfound apprehension, and worry for the impermanence of it all.
Dottore is roused from his thoughts by the shallow sound of breathing.
He looks down to where he is stroking the hand on his lap, now limp and cooled from the extended period of contact. Its owner is fast asleep beside him, facing towards the window with his face buried in the sheets. His glasses remain on the bridge of his nose, pressed against the pillow; Dottore’s certain they’ll leave marks in the morning.
Gently, meticulously, he pries them off and puts them to the side.
It is rare he sees the man in such a sedated state. No flurry of parchment, no sharp-tongued reprimands, no scribbling as if he’s running fast out of time. Silent— still, unburdened by the pressing deadline of his mortality that hurries him so by day.
Pantalone is a very different person, Dottore decides, when he is asleep.
Upon closer look, however, it is easy for one to find evidence of discomfort.
Mild, but it is there. Even with the sheets put to the side, he still stirs distractedly in his sleep, cycle thrown off by his affliction— the fever has certainly shown him no mercy today. Dottore feels his forehead once more to test his temperature and finds that the patch has long since drained to an uncomfortable lukewarm.
Tsk. How inconvenient. He makes a mental note to concoct something longer-lasting upon his return to the lab the next day; for now he must act to quell the disease before it skews the banker’s sleep patterns. If there is one thing he has learned from traveling with Pantalone, it is that he and sleep deprivation do not go well together, and Dottore would hate to suffer through yet another reprise of that experience.
Gently, he takes the ends of Pantalone’s sleeves and rolls them upward to let in a small influx of spring air. This small effort of his proves to be useful; in time the incoherent muttering dies down to no more than the occasional sigh, and his shoulders go slack against the mattress, calmed by the counteracting force.
Dottore exhales, relieved.
Good. He will not have to be on the receiving end of the Ninth’s temper tantrums tomorrow morning.
Encouraged, he moves to work on the buttons nearest to his neck. His fingers stumble over the vintage buttonholes as he does, snagging on the loops of loose threads, and he recoils, thrown off by the sudden spell of carelessness that’s come over him.
Troubling. He is no stranger to unclothed bodies, and has seen his fair share of them in his life, most in a condition far worse than this. Blood and carcasses are his bread and butter; he is more than well-equipped to handle ailments as small as these.
And yet, the exposed ridges of Pantalone’s collarbone gives him the impression that he is treading on forbidden ground— the unexpected pang of guilt for an act with an entirely innocuous purpose.
Dottore does not like it in the slightest. He averts his eyes and makes haste to finish before the tremor in his hands can amplify to shaking. His mind remains fraught with unease over his fluctuating state, and gooseflesh erupts on his skin in patches— whether from apprehension or from cold, he does not know— as he continues to pull the fabric aside and expose Pantalone’s skin to the nighttime chill. The neck, then the limbs. He works quickly, choosing to rip off the bandage in a singular clean stroke; it is best to make haste, so as not to further corrupt his mind with strange, indecent thoughts.
By the time he gets to the stomach his free hand has gone to his chest in futile hopes of stifling the palpitations by force. It works about as well as he’d anticipated— which is to say, not at all.
Quick now, he scolds himself, before you go completely mad. He lowers himself and makes himself take the hem of his silken shirt into his hands, then directs them to peel it back. His motions are unusually slurred, lacking the same deadly precision that usually follows every movement of his.
And then there it is, hidden well behind the curtain of fabric, now laid bare in the open air. A rubbery layer of aged skin as puckered and scarred as his own, slashed down the side in a woven lattice of lash marks.
The throb of hysteria in his heart quells momentarily, dies down to something softer.
Curious, he thinks. But not surprising.
It is a belief held by most that the majority of the Harbingers come from troubled pasts, whether or not they choose to acknowledge it. Pantalone, evidently, prefers to dance skillfully around the topic, as do plenty of his other colleagues. It is not unreasonable for a man of his standing to want to hide the sign of weakness that mars his underbelly. It is for that same reason Dottore wears a mask, after all; he understands this sentiment better than anyone, and he knows better than to dwell on it.
(That is a question for another day, if ever.)
The roughened terrain of the banker’s skin rises up around his palm as he presses it to Pantalone’s waist, gripping the sides below the ridges of his lower ribs, and leans down, imparting into him a short burst of cold to tide him over for the moment.
Then, time stops before his very eyes.
All of a sudden, he is made aware of everything that goes on below the shell of Pantalone’s skin. The in-and-out of pumping blood, and the too-short breaths that he takes, made labored by the banker’s ailment. The poison that is the illness, racking every square inch of him with a vengeant intensity, eating at the strain of muscle and bone, savoring the mortal in its gaping maw; the fight his body puts up in return, fending it off from devouring his cells with equal force. A war, ravaging within the confines of the banker’s blood and flesh.
He had anticipated the contact to be brief, for fear an excess of touch would set him off once again. But mere seconds and it has already latched onto him, transmitted quick into his blood like the fast-traveling agents of a disease. He cannot retreat, cannot tear himself away. It nears a level of intimacy he had not been prepared for— the positioning, the icy-hot contrast with his skin, the entire state of affairs that built up to this very moment. Converges into a singular stream of overwhelming emotion that comes crashing over him in an instant..
The impulse finds him before he can catch himself.
He moves, but not of his own volition. It must be a reflex, he thinks deliriously, or simply a spell of insanity that pushes him, rigid but shaking, as he lowers his head and delivers a deft kiss to the lower part of his sternum; the heat tingles as it touches his lips.
It dances, the flush-red, spilling fluidly over onto his own skin. Like molten gold, he thinks, like fire. The burning only amplifies as he traces the kiss upward, brushing against the winding paths of his scars, across his ribs, stalling just short of the fabric that covers his chest, and it takes him a good half minute still before he finally brings himself to draw away, breathless, quivering at the weight of what he’s just done.
The blood in him stills; the roaring in his ears dies down.
And then all is silent.
He thinks he knows what it is now, this affliction of his. He does not care to give it a name— does not think that he will recover if he does.
Slowly, he reaches forward and splays a hand out just above the faint rise and fall of Pantalone’s chest to confirm his theory.
And then, there it is, waiting. The lightest, most infinitesimally tiny throb of a heartbeat, light beneath his skin, pumping through the intricate network of arteries and veins that make up unequivocal proof of his humanity.
He thinks that his breath has stopped in his throat right then and there.
It comes to him, at the moment, the realization that not all things last as they ought to.
This is something he should have come to terms with ages ago— something he thought he had already understood. In his pursuit for immortality he has isolated himself: none will live as long as he plans to, and this will resign him to a fate of solitude. In the wake of Pantalone’s passing there will be more accountants and bankers that come in his place, at the Tsaritsa’s behest, and of course he will work with them. He is amicable to cooperation, and willing to do what is necessary to topple the iron fists of divine authority.
But none will burn as bright as he, nor meet his mind in the same way. None will agree to aid and abet and scheme with him like he does, will understand the full extent of his ambition.
And this reality makes him afraid.
It crosses his mind, then, that he does not like the idea of a world without Pantalone in it. Will not allow himself to accept a world devoid of his presence, even.
The thought scares him. Mystifies him, too, a little, for someone like him who’s spent the better part of his lifespan working in solitude had never imagined he’d have to bear this burden someday.
And yet the feeling has settled, one that will be here for good. This he knows in every part of his soul— denying himself has never ended well. It is going to stay, and persist, for the duration of what is maybe a whole eternity ahead of him.
But, he tells himself, he will figure out how to deal with this tomorrow.
Tonight, he shall indulge; seize the moment, hold it tight before it slips through his fingers. He leans in, silent, as discreetly as he can manage, and offers a second, briefer kiss onto the flushed skin draped over his rib, then tilts his head back to watch.
The spell Pantalone has put on him is well and truly irreversible.
“Oh, you sorcerer,” murmurs Dottore, against the line of Pantalone’s hip. “What alchemy you’ve worked.”
If only he were awake to bear witness.
In his sleep, Pantalone stirs. Presses closer, murmuring contentedly, gravitating towards the source of the cold. Now on his side and curled up, the imposing stature is lost, and Dottore sees him for what he is— a man among gods, prone to mortal sickness and injury, swept up in the fast-flowing river of time that drags him along at a velocity he cannot escape.
Perhaps that is what grants him this need to hold on, to slow him down. For if he lets go, he fears Pantalone will fly away from him and float high into the sky like a stray balloon, never to be seen again.
Moments like these, they don’t come easy to either of them.
It is a gift. He ought to treasure it.
He reaches for the cord of the lamp and gives it a light tug, plunging them both into pitch blackness.
By now, it is long past sunset, and the fading aurora trickles in through the open windows, stopping just short of the sides of the four-poster bed. The soft ticking of the bedside clock has begun to lull him, and in time to the noise his eyelids droop of their own volition; the mechanical sounds are accompanied by that of Pantalone’s breath, now slowed to a steadier rhythm— calmed, unperturbed by the pains of illness.
A sight to remember, indeed.
Dottore shifts on the bed so that the two of them are level. He reaches closer, crossing the creased valleys of sheets that lie between them, and lets himself slacken against Pantalone’s now-still body. Cards his fingers through his hair, shot through with strands of white; how reminiscent of a star, crossing an empty midnight sky.
A thing of beauty it is, he thinks: as transient and fleeting as the man it belongs to.
And it is this same expanse of endless sky that he falls asleep looking at, mere minutes later, cupped in between the folds of his palm as if it were the most precious of treasures.
Come morning, the bed is empty.
Dottore wakes to sunlight warming his cheeks, and the sound of footsteps from half across the room. He opens a groggy eye to pinpoint its source.
Pantalone stands by the dresser, barefoot on the carpet. He is brushing his hair. His shirt is still unbuttoned, and his sleeves are rumpled from the night. There is gold from the open window spilling onto his skin, the flush now driven away by the kiss of fresh spring air.
He looks beautiful. Otherworldly.
Dottore pushes back the covers wordlessly and watches, basking in the abnormal peace that slow mornings bring. Time runs at a lethargic pace here— so much that it seems to almost flow backwards.
Everything is perfect. In order, as it should be.
He thinks he wants it to stay this way; thinks he wants forever.
He promises himself that he will make sure it comes to pass.