Archive of Our Own

Pantalone is on his way to sweet-talk his way into more funding for Dottore’s latest research stint—something about trying to cure an obscure water-transferred sickness in Inazuma—when the collision happens.

“Oh!” Pantalone quickly gets back to his feet, trying to maintain an air of grace. This task is made considerably harder by the fact that he’s dropped all his forms. Maybe his dignity is worth investing in ring binders, so that nothing ever falls from his hands in the future. “Terribly sorry. I’m in rather a rush, so I wasn’t—” And then he blinks. “Lord Harbinger?”

Because the man in front of him is Dottore. Just… clad in a bigger coat, and with a few new scars on his mouth. And with a different slant to his posture. And with more heat damage on the curls of his hair.

…On second thought, this isn’t quite Dottore at all.

“In the flesh,” says the man before him, in his professional tone. The kind of voice Dottore uses to present research he’s secretly desperate to get approval for. “I assume you’re busy as usual?”

Pantalone carefully keeps the confusion from his face. “Pardon, but you don’t appear to be my Harbinger.”

Maybe-Dottore looks at him oddly.

“You look different,” Pantalone explains, although he feels a bit silly. “Not terribly so, but enough that I noticed. And besides, I know that my Harbinger left for Liyue just two days ago. In fact, I personally suggested that he make a trip to the Golden House on my behalf. I’m quite certain you aren’t the man I usually speak with.”

“Fascinating.”

There it is. That’s the tone Dottore always takes when something piques his interest. Pantalone knows that tone well; Dottore is perpetually interested in him, to an almost concerning degree. “Please forgive my presumptuousness, Lord Harbinger. I’ll be on my way.”

And then he says the thing that changes it all:

“You can tell us apart.”

Pantalone whirls around. “I can… what?” His mind immediately goes to identical twins, like the cop-out endings of Fontaine mystery novels, but that’s not quite right. No—this has to be something else. Something self-inflicted.

An experiment.

“I fear it is I who must ask forgiveness.” He’s smiling now, which is never a good sign. “Although I masquerade as my Omega colleague with some frequency, I don’t think we’ve been acquainted. How odd.”

“Ah. I’m Pantalone.” He dips into a customary half-bow. Polite, dignified. This is still his superior, after all. “It’s a pleasure to meet another of my Harbingers. I am at your service.”

He tilts his head. “Are you?”

Pantalone suddenly feels as though he’s misspoken. Like he’s made a bad deal, signed the wrong contract. He clears his throat. “I’m on an assignment from my Lord Harbinger. I really must be on my way.” He spins on his heel and tries to leave.

“You forgot something.”

Cold satisfaction tints his voice, the same way it does when he’s watching something mildly amusing play out. Pantalone’s pulse spikes. He keeps smiling. Of course he keeps smiling. “What, pray tell?”

He angles the tip of his shoe at the paper on the floor.

Oh. In his rush to stand up, he forgot to pick up his files. His research funding application. The application that’s critical to the meeting he’s going to arrange.

Pantalone gets the distinct sense that behind the mask he’s laughing to himself. He smiles through gritted teeth and gets to his knees to pick up the application pages. “Thank you,” he says, as sickeningly sweet as he can muster. “I’m so grateful to have a master kind enough to keep me from making mistakes.”

“Your master,” says this strange version of Dottore, “is lucky to have a subordinate this charming.”

Pantalone brushes the dust off his crisp black pants and tries to repair his shattered dignity. “We all need assistants to make up for the areas we lack in.”

This time he actually breaks out into a grin, teeth and all. “Is that an insult? Are you insulting him?”

Finally, they’re back on familiar turf. Pantalone holds his binder closer to his chest and puts on a saccharine voice. “I’m saying it’s only natural to seek out someone with, shall we say, a complementary skill set.”

“Ah. No wonder he likes you.”

For the first time, Pantalone doesn’t quite know what to say. He’s still not sure if Dottore likes him or not. He’s offered him the world, yes; but everything is a transaction with the two of them, and Pantalone has never been unaware of that. He’d be a terrible economist if he didn’t understand the law of equivalent exchange.

“Forget it.” He waves his hand, still smiling wide. “Don’t let me keep you, Pantalone.” When he leaves, he brushes his hand against Pantalone’s shoulder, half-encouraging and half-demeaning.

Pantalone stares at the wall for a solid thirty seconds, trying to remember how to breathe.

***

“There’s more than one of you,” is the first thing Pantalone says to him when he returns.

Dottore—his own Dottore this time, he’s quite certain—looks at him with mild surprise. “Yes and no. It’s not that there are more than one of me. I am, shall we say, one of the multiples.”

Pantalone raises his eyebrows. “Frankly, I can’t imagine you as anything less than yourself. Your mind is very distinctive. I think you’re singular in your own existence.”

Dottore laughs. “So polite,” he says, like it’s an insult. “This is your greatest strength, really. No one else would call me insane to my face and make it sound like a compliment.”

“It is, from me.”

“I know. Like seeks out like.” Dottore throws himself dramatically over his fainting couch. It’s the kind of couch psychologists might keep for their patients, except that he’s the doctor and he sits on it himself. Fitting, Pantalone thinks, for a man whose mind is so unique. Sometimes when they sit like this Pantalone feels like he’s the doctor, and Dottore the subject. The notion is equal parts thrilling and terrifying.

Pantalone doesn’t try saying something stupid, like I’m not insane. Dottore would laugh at him. “Tell me more about these multiples,” he says instead. “I ought to know, since I serve them as well.”

“You do not,” says Dottore sharply. His mask is off, leaving his eyes red and wild beneath his mop of hair. He hasn’t curled it today, and it falls into his eyes like untamed ink bleeding into water. “You are my subordinate. You’d do well to remember that.”

“I met a man just the other day. A man who I’m quite sure was you.”

Dottore leans in and locks eyes with him. “Describe him.”

“He looked like you,” says Pantalone flatly. Then, because he can’t resist the opportunity: “That is to say, thrillingly handsome, with a devilish glint to his eyes, and a certain velvet quality to his voice that makes everything sound quite reasonable until one bothers to repeat the words in their own mind.”

Dottore looks at him, steely-eyed.

Pantalone holds back a laugh. He’s too easy, sometimes. “You don’t appreciate my assessment? I thought it was flattering.”

“I don’t mind you flattering me,” says Dottore, a bit too quickly. Hmm, Pantalone thinks. Yes. Too easy. “But you’re talking about him.”

“He is you.”

“He was me,” Dottore corrects, which makes no sense at all.

Pantalone sighs through his nose. “Rest assured, I was very civil to him, and he to me. In fact he was very similar to you, except slightly more diplomatic, and wearing a much heavier coat. It was a bit embarrassing—I ran into him in the Palace hall, and had a mishap with my research funding papers. You saw that I acquired your funds, I trust?”

Usually this would be a segue for Dottore to look at the paperwork and then praise him to high hell and back. Excellent work, he would say. You’ve outdone yourself this time. Eight hundred million Mora, all for this one experiment? I might as well eat unagi chasuke every day of the research trip.

Instead what he says is: “Forty fucking five!”

Pantalone blinks several times. “Pardon?”

Dottore sighs very heavily. “Do you know how old I am?”

Sort of. Pantalone knows his date of birth from his files, but also, his date of birth always seems egregiously wrong. “Well… no.”

“Thirty-five,” says Dottore. “For ten years now I’ve been thirty-five.”

“How ironic, then, that you’re cursing forty-five. Would that not be your actual age?”

Dottore slumps back against the couch. “If we were to get technical, Zandik is now in his seventies. So perhaps I’m that age. But I’m thirty-five, which we all know is his most effective age, and therefore the best one. That’s all that matters.”

“Who knew you cared so greatly for the appearance of your age? You’re rather like a noble lady.”

“I am nothing of the sort,” says Dottore, appalled. “My older segment is trying to get his—his claws into you, and I’m supposed to sit here and support him?”

“His claws? Goodness. You must know I’ve got rather sensitive skin. Claw punctures wouldn’t look good on me, I’m afraid.”

Dottore’s eyes glint. “I’d stitch them up for you.”

How ironic. Sewing up a wound would just put more wounds in him, pierce his skin more deeply. All to leave its own mark in the end. Pantalone decides to push further. “I forgot to mention, he didn’t know me, neither by appearance nor by name. I can only suppose that I’m frightfully unimportant to you.”

The humor doesn’t alleviate Dottore’s expression at all. Instead he just leans further forward. “Feofan, there is a reason I’ve kept you a secret from them.”

Finally, they’re getting somewhere. Pantalone leans forward. “Do tell.”

“Because there is no one I want to share with less than myself.”

Pantalone blinks. “I—share? Me?”

“Yes, you,” says Dottore, closer to wild than usual. And that’s really saying something, considering his usual. “The segments of me aren’t different, not in the ways that matter. If they were to know you for a time, even just to meet you—”

Suddenly he cuts himself off entirely. He looks at Pantalone crookedly.

Pantalone’s stomach twists with anxiety-dread-excitement. He’s given up trying to understand that feeling. “If you fear they wouldn’t like me—”

Dottore laughs. “I’m afraid they will like you.”

Ah. There it goes again: excitement-dread-anxiety, reverse order this time.

Dottore looks at him expectantly, like he’s waiting for something. A promise, maybe.

They both know how this will end. Pantalone’s already sworn his life away to him one too many times. And yet, like any good smoker, he sees the heap of bad decisions and thinks, Ah, what the hell. Just one more.

“Then what’s the issue?” Pantalone says, with a subtle emphasis. He leans in closer, so he’s looking down at Dottore on the fainting couch. The psychologist and the patient. “I know which Harbinger I serve. And we both know the consequences, should my devotion ever waver.”

“A gambler like you might risk it anyway.”

Pantalone just smiles. “Any good gambler knows there’s no beating the house.”

“Hm,” says Dottore. He looks at him evenly. “Eloquent as always.”

“I’d better be, if I want you to keep me around,” he says, dancing a little closer. “Else you might find some other pretty young thing to keep in your debt, and I’d be all out of a job.”

Dottore looks at him with that strange half-lidded quality to his eyes. “I wouldn’t worry, if I were you,” he says, with his jagged mouth.

“You never know.” He flicks open the cigarette case in his breast pocket, the one engraved with his new name. “You’re a very fickle man. Your interest in me could fade away any day now. It pays to be pragmatic.”

Dottore laughs sharply, and it breaks the spell over the room. He kicks back against the couch. “Don’t smoke in here. You always want to ruin perfectly good stale chemical-tained air with different chemicals.”

Pantalone makes a mock thoughtful face. “Well, I wasn’t going to have one, but now that you mention it…”

Dottore takes off his shoe and throws it at him. It misses by half a meter.

Pantalone laughs. He lights the cigarette, takes a long drag, and cracks the window to blow the smoke out into the Snezhnayan everwinter. When he breathes in again, the end of the cigarette glows, a single beacon of warmth in the barren snow-plain.

***

So: the segments.

Pantalone is a schemer. He’s never bothered trying to hide it. Dottore usually doesn’t mind, because that power’s under his control. He’s never schemed about something without telling Dottore. But, Pantalone reasons to himself, this will help him better serve his Harbinger. Or is it his Harbingers? He doesn’t really know. All the more reason he needs to undertake this mission.

Any good scheme starts with research. So Pantalone clocks in at Dottore’s lab and busies himself with something official-looking at his secretary desk out front. Meanwhile, his real work begins.

As Dottore’s personal assistant, no one questions his access. They just give him things. By now the administration is so used to him that they even accept his signature in place of the Doctor’s. So when Pantalone asks for his Harbinger’s travel records, he receives them in abundance.

He sits at the desk and pores over the last six months. What he finds is fascinating. Every entry contradicts the others, and the order makes no sense.

DEC: The Doctor leaves for Mondstadt.

JAN: The Doctor leaves for Liyue.

JAN: The Doctor returns from Fontaine.

JAN: The Doctor establishes six-month residency in Zapolyarny Palace.

FEB: The Doctor leaves for Mondstadt.

FEB: The Doctor returns—

Someone’s feet shuffle against the floor.

Pantalone glances up and puts on his best smile. “Welcome. Do you have business with The Doctor? I’m afraid he’s not in at the moment.”

The teenager in front of him looks downright terrified. He stands petrified, staring at Pantalone. His hand is still reaching for the lab keypad like he knows the code.

Pantalone frowns. He could have sworn only Dottore and his highest associates knew the lab code. How could this teenager know it? Even if he’s an intern, which is plausible given that he’s wearing Akademiya-issue research garb…

Wait. He squints. The Akademiya hasn’t issued those style of uniforms in fifty years. Fifty years… not since…

Oh. Oh! Fifty years ago. When Zandik went to the Akademiya. So this is—

Who could have guessed that amidst his research into the segments, one of the answers would fall right into his lap?

“Hello, Lord Harbinger,” Pantalone says, inclining his head. “Disregard my introduction. You’re free to use the lab as you please. Just let me know the details so I can record everything in the time logs.”

The teenager, who must be a young Dottore, stares at him very intently. A bead of sweat appears on his forehead beneath his unruly hair.

Ah. This Dottore hasn’t yet learned to curl his hair. It’s kind of charming.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Pantalone busies himself doing nothing with some paper. He remembers Dottore told him once that when he was younger, he hated being looked at. Maybe he’ll feel more comfortable if Pantalone appears busy. “I’m the Lord Harbinger’s secretary and personal assistant. I’m only keeping internal records. No need to be shy. You’re not in trouble.”

“I’m not experimenting,” the young Dottore says, audibly defensive. “I need to work on something. The lab is quiet.”

“Of course,” says Pantalone, who doesn’t believe him for a second. “Work on what, exactly?”

“…”

Pantalone laughs behind his hand.

“Sorry,” the kid says, already turning on his heel to flee.

“Please, wait.”

For some indiscernible reason, this simple call halts the young Dottore in his tracks.

Pantalone smiles, a little gentler. “I was only teasing,” he coaxes. “The lab is yours. Use anything you’d like, unless it’s already been labeled by another…” What was the word Dottore used? “Segment.”

The teenager looks impressed. “You know what we’re called.”

“Of course.” This time, Dottore seems okay with being looked at. It’s almost sweet. “My Dottore informed me that this was the name you preferred.”

“Hm,” says the teenager, through a very endearing frown. He hasn’t lost all his cheek fat yet. “I wanted to find sixty-five and ask about something. But if he’s not here, I’ll just go.” He turns around again.

“If you’ve got a question, I might write it down and ask my own Dottore when I see him next.”

Young Dottore looks profoundly flustered. “Your Dottore?”

“Mm. Mine,” says Pantalone, amused. He’d never be so bold to his own Dottore’s face, but this younger version of him is so easily flustered—it’d be a shame not to use this weapon while he has it. “I believe you’d call him thirty-five.”

“Oh.” He scuffs his feet against the floor. “…Your Dottore is a little scary.”

“Yes, most people think so.” Pantalone leans forward against his desk. “But he’s very reasonable and exceptionally intelligent. You just need to find the best way to communicate with him.”

“No. I know that. I mean that he’s…” The teenage Dottore hesitates. His mouth scrunches. “Not the best person to ask about this kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing?”

The teenager sighs. He reaches into his Akademiya bag and pulls out a thick pile of paper. “Calculus.”

“Calculus?” He’d have thought every version of Dottore knew this kind of thing already. His own Dottore practically does math in his sleep; Pantalone once heard him reciting biocalculus matrices the same way a normal person might snore.

“Not that kind. I know how to do that,” he says, turning up his nose. “I meant this.” He points. “Economic models for optimization.”

“Oh.” He glances at the practice problem. Only… it’s not a practice problem at all. It’s part of a sixty-page thesis about mechanical limb augments. This section is trying to outline potential real-world applications, perhaps to strengthen the thesis’s practical appeal. Did this teenager write this whole paper…?

“So I have to find sixty-five. He knows more diplomacy. He probably gets this stuff—”

“You set up the equation for maximum production wrong,” Pantalone says. He grabs his blue pen and circles the bounds. “Right here.”

Teenage Dottore’s eyes widen. “I—what?”

“Here’s the real problem,” says Pantalone, already attacking the equation with ink. “See—you’re oversimplifying the production trade-off, here. You’re assuming that the work is entirely done with human labor, whereas I’m sure that realistically, any production of mechanical augments would require machine labor to produce. You’ll need to set up a different equation entirely to change the real output.”

The kid watches as he draws a new model. He doesn’t fill in any of the multipliers, just sets up the basic variables and their relationship. It’s relatively simple, and easy to modify.

“See, now we’re getting somewhere! Instead of manual labor, this kind of business would prioritize skilled labor and intellectual labor, which would be very well-suited to Sumeru’s economic climate.” Pantalone finishes writing with a flourish and smiles. “Yes, this argument will help your project considerably. Kshahrewar graduates would be clamoring over themselves for these mechanical engineering jobs. I’m sure the Akademiya would hasten to accept such a proposal.”

The teenage Dottore looks up at him with genuine stars in his eyes.

Pantalone suddenly feels flustered. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. “Was that not the assistance you were looking for?”

The teenager ignores him. Instead he says, “Did you go to the Akademiya?”

Pantalone laughs. “Goodness, no.”

“Of course not. They don’t have a school of economics,” says the teenager, mostly to himself. “The Institute of National Finance in Liyue, then. Or Guili University.”

“No.”

He squints. “Snezhnograd College of the Noble Arts?”

“I never attended university. I received the standard Fatui education, the same as everyone else.”

The kid looks bewildered. “You can’t learn all that from the Fatui education.”

“No,” Pantalone agrees. “Success only comes to those who chase it. You’d be surprised how far a sharp mind and a little persistence can get you.”

The kid looks at him skeptically. “Would I?”

Pantalone breaks out into a real smile. “Ah. Of course not. You know more than anyone about persistence and sharp minds, don’t you?”

Young Dottore smiles back at him, shy but genuine. “Not really,” he admits, leaning forward on Pantalone’s secretary desk. “I’m—well, I’m one of the younger segments. So they don’t respect my ideas as much. It’s weird. They all used to be me, but I’ll never turn into them.”

There’s a strange tragedy in it: a teenager who will never truly get to grow up, despite being at the age where he feels desperate to. “Is that why you give your ideas to the Akademiya instead?”

He nods.

“That’s very admirable. Sharing your ideas publicly, for the benefit of the world.”

His eyes go wide again, and his cheeks flush. “You think so?”

Oh, dear. Poor Dottore, so susceptible to his sweet words, even twenty years younger. “Of course I do,” he says, a little extra honeyed. “The world deserves to hear from minds like yours. I can tell this project is brilliant.”

The poor kid flushes bright red. Jackpot.

“Here,” Pantalone says, pressing the thesis paper into his hands. “You’ve got work to do, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Yes,” he says, still blushing. “I mean, I do. Um!” He leaps away from the desk.

“Ah. I forgot to introduce myself. How rude.” He extends his hand. “I’m Pantalone.”

“I’m Zandik. Or they call me eighteen.” Looking profoundly nervous, he gives Pantalone his hand and shakes it carefully, just once. When he withdraws his hand, he looks like he’s been burned. He stands there in silence for a moment, just staring at him.

“Well?” says Pantalone, amused.

Eighteen-year-old Dottore jumps. “Right! Okay. Bye.” And he practically runs down the hallway.

Pantalone grins. He didn’t know Dottore was so sweet as a teenager. Not that Pantalone doesn’t find him a bit sweet even at thirty-five, but this is extra special.

One more segment down. And so much information on the other segments! Now that’s what he calls successful scheming!

***

He doesn’t even have to go looking for the next segment. He sort of wishes he did—secretly seeking out the segments satisfies his latent desire to do nefarious things—but Pantalone does enjoy a little laziness. It’s not like he’s complaining when things fall into his lap.

Or, more precisely, when things break into his Fatui-issue living quarters.

“Hello,” says the man wearing the plague doctor mask, when Pantalone unlocks the door.

Pantalone is too composed to scream, but not so composed that he can successfully keep his hands steady. He fumbles with his keys. “Goodness,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “You’re aware this is my private residence?” Emphasis on private. “I do have an office.”

“Your office is within my counterpart’s suite,” says the man at the table. He waves his gloved hand in some grand gesture. “Obviously, I must take the necessary precautions to avoid provoking his ire. I was quite a jealous man at that age.”

He’s Dottore, and he’s not even trying to hide it. Pantalone makes an educated guess. “Sixty-five?”

The man nods. His mask is large and unwieldy. When he nods, it cuts through the air like a surgeon’s scalpel, smooth and precise.

“Please take that off,” Pantalone says, too tired to be anything but blunt. Sue him if he’s rude to an uninvited guest. He could be ruder. He could report him, or tell him to get out. “It bothers me.”

He tilts his head to one side, like he’s examining Pantalone through the mask. “I’m sure you don’t speak to my counterpart like that. He’d never keep you to himself if he didn’t have a reason.”

Pantalone sets down his briefcase and leans against the wall. “Am I required to treat you all the same way?”

A pause. For a moment Pantalone fears he’s said the wrong thing—fears that Dottore might have lost his liking for irreverence as he got older—but instead, the older Dottore just laughs. He takes the mask off with a flick of his hand. Underneath it, his eyes are the same jewel-bright shade as usual.

“An illusion,” the older Dottore explains. He gestures to his hairpiece, which must be a covert projection device.

“Very clever. Then again, I’ve never known you to be anything else.”

The man studies him for a while. His eyes are intense enough that Pantalone gets nervous. He taps his fingers against the table, drumming out the rhythm of some classical piece he heard Dottore play a few days ago.

The older Dottore smiles, just slightly. “Ah. I see it now.”

Pantalone stops fidgeting. “Oh? What do you see, exactly?”

Instead of answering, the older Dottore stands. “Your gloves are very fine. A custom make, by my eye, embroidered with silver-metal thread to create that design. Your glasses hang from your face by a silver chain, similarly tempered. Your quarters are larger than any ordinary assistant requires, and your bedroom smells like expensive cigarettes.”

Pantalone blinks several times. He’s been in his bedroom? “Yes. Dottore—that is to say, thirty-five—is kind enough to allow me these things.” Except the cigarettes, but that’s neither here nor there.

“Of course he allows them. My counterpart is much flashier than I am. Certainly, if you’re looking to be spoiled, you won’t do much better than him.”

Pantalone’s blood runs cold. A shiver of almost-fear runs through him. He smiles aggressively and folds his custom-gloved hands. “Are you accusing me,” he says cheerfully, “of being a gold digger?”

The older Dottore takes one look at him and laughs.

Well, whatever. He doesn’t need to intimidate this man anyway. Pantalone gives up and unfolds his hands. “Why don’t we get to business? If you’re only here to level accusations at me, I would ask you to let me get on with my evening.”

“It’s hardly an accusation if we both know it’s true.”

Ordinarily this would set Pantalone on edge, but he pauses. This is still Dottore, even if it’s not the one he’s used to. Odds are, he’s not going to be deterred by Pantalone’s inclinations any more than his own Dottore is. So Pantalone takes a chance. “And what of it? I find that gold diggers make the best subordinates.”

It’s the right choice. The older Dottore leans forward on his elbows and smiles. “Is that so?”

Pantalone smiles, genuine this time. “Who’s going to betray a man who gifts them bejeweled glasses chains? Not me, certainly.”

“This is what I meant,” says the older Dottore, much fonder. “My counterpart is flashy. Naturally, he’d appreciate something like you.”

Pantalone smiles wryly. His own Dottore never likes to call him a thing, even when Pantalone says it about himself. “I see you lost your distaste for objectification.”

“Hm,” he says, which isn’t an answer at all. He crosses Pantalone’s living room and finds the piano in the corner, where the sheet music is still open to whatever classical piece Dottore played for him last.

Pantalone walks over to join him. “I’ve got other sheet music, if you’d like to browse.”

“No need. I know what I like.”

Pantalone raises one eyebrow. “In that case, be my guest.”

The older Dottore closes his eyes. He plays something unfamiliar, a Liyue classic transposed from the erhu to the piano. Pantalone leans against the back of the piano and watches him play. He does the whole thing without once opening his eyes. It allows Pantalone the opportunity to study him unimpeded.

Strange. With his eyes closed, this Dottore looks almost like an ordinary person. His hair has faded, and now appears more white than blue. His eyes have lines of classical weariness drawn around them. Without those piercing red eyes, he could be a wealthy playhouse patron, or a renowned portrait painter. He could be anyone.

At last the piano falls silent. Pantalone doesn’t bother averting his gaze. He’s sure Dottore knows he’s always looking at him, anyway.

“My Dottore has never played that for me,” Pantalone says. “I must say, I found it lovely.”

“Of course he hasn’t. He plays piano more to display his own skill and dexterity than to appreciate the music.”

Pantalone smiles, just a little. “If I told him to learn something like this, do you think he’d do it?”

The older Dottore looks at him, amused. “You know he would.”

“Mm. I’ll have to test that hypothesis.”

He smiles and stands from the piano bench. “I won’t overstay my welcome.” He raises his hand and projects the plague doctor mask again, covering his face. Now he looks the part of the mad scientist again.

Pantalone sees him to the door. “For a trespasser,” he says instead of a goodbye, “your company was surprisingly enjoyable.”

The older Dottore inclines his head. “If you ever lose your taste for his style, you’ll find my own palate much more refined.”

Pantalone looks at him over the bridge of his glasses, amused. “You got one thing wrong,” he says.

“Oh?”

“Dottore didn’t commission these gloves. I ordered them for myself.”

And with that, Pantalone closes the door to his quarters.

It’s dramatic, but it does the trick. He swears he can hear sixty-five year old Dottore laughing to himself all down the hallway. There it is—he sounds like a lunatic again, just as it should be.

***

“Someone played this,” says Dottore, when he stands at the piano two days later. He scowls at the pedals like they’ve personally wronged him. “You’re not learning on your own, are you? You know I’d teach you piano myself, if you asked.”

“Certainly not,” Pantalone says. His hands have gained a permanent slight tremor, and although he can keep it under wraps well enough signing contracts, the piano is probably beyond him. “I’ll leave the background music to you, thanks.”

Dottore just frowns harder. “Who on earth played your piano? I wasn’t under the impression you had anyone but me over.”

He’s talking about more than the instrument, and they both know it. Pantalone decides to play along anyway, for his own amusement. “Why, yes,” he says lightly. “I’ve just remembered. I had one of your segments over, and he played a few pieces for me. It was lovely.”

Dottore’s eyes snap up to him.

“I’ve never lied. I never allow anyone but you into my home. It’s only that there are multiple of you, aren’t there?”

“Don’t tell me you let forty-five in. That bastard.”

Ah. He’s still jealous. Pantalone smiles wider. “He’s hardly much older than you. It’s not like it’s an enormous difference.”

In response, Dottore hauls him in by the collar of his suit and actually shoves him up against the wall. He looks into his eyes, a little manic, and says, “Don’t tell me you—”

Pantalone interrupts him by laughing his head off like a maniac.

Dottore visibly relaxes. “You’re terrible,” he says, so close that Pantalone’s glasses fog up with the echo of his breath. “I ought to lock up all the other segments to keep them away from you.”

Pantalone’s laughter softens into something stranger, more intimate. “It was sixty-five,” he admits, almost dizzy trying to look at him. “I expect he won’t give you any trouble. He doesn’t share your taste for expensive things.”

Dottore makes a distasteful sound. “By expensive things you mean yourself.”

“Yes and no. He thinks I’m a gold digger.”

Dottore laughs sharply.

“What?” Pantalone breathes, lightheaded. “He’s right.”

“I was under the impression gold diggers were meant to seduce their targets.”

“Quite right,” Pantalone says sweetly. “I was just getting to that part. If you’ll allow me…” He takes off his glasses, folds them neatly, and then leans in to kiss him. Dottore reciprocates with such vigor that they nearly break the piano before they even make it to Pantalone’s room.

When it’s over they lay on Pantalone’s bed together, staring at the ceiling. Pantalone puts on his robe and takes a single cigarette out of the case in the pocket. He puts it in his mouth, unlit, and leans over the bed to look at Dottore.

“Must you always do this,” Dottore sighs, but he lights the cigarette with his delusion anyway.

Pantalone smiles around the cigarette. He takes a drag and angles the smoke upward, hoping the air filtration system does something about it. Dottore scoffs.

A pause. Time slows down. Pantalone smokes the cigarette down to the filter. Dottore watches him with equal parts distaste and intrigue.

“Don’t let them get involved with you,” Dottore says at last. “The other segments.”

Pantalone, feeling a little superior after that spectacular success at making him jealous, decides to push. “Why not?”

“They shouldn’t be acting like that when you’re already tangled up with me.”

“I’m not tangled up with you,” Pantalone says, just to be petty. “I'm a perfectly respectable distance. Look at me.” He gestures at himself with the butt of the cigarette. He’s still sitting against the headboard.

Instead of responding, Dottore lunges and drags him down. He doesn’t usually kiss Pantalone with smoke fresh in his mouth, but this time he doesn’t seem to care. He just goes for it anyway.

“Is this tangled up enough for you,” Dottore breathes, not really a question at all. “Or do you require more proof?”

Pantalone pretends to think about it. “Hmm. Yes. Why don’t you put diamonds on my gloves? Rubies on my glasses chain?”

Dottore gives him a look.

Pantalone laughs. He puts on a saccharine voice. “Who can blame me? I’m just a subordinate looking for a way up.”

“I’ll have you promoted,” Dottore says, his eyes a little crazy. “I’ll write the Tsaritsa and tell her to make you a Harbinger. I’ll tell her to give you all the goddamn money in the nation.”

“Oh, yes,” Pantalone says, grinning. “That’ll do nicely. Can I get that in writing?” Then he takes the still-glowing end of his cigarette filter and presses it against Dottore’s shoulder as it burns out.

Dottore gasps and makes a sound like a man stabbed.

“So dramatic,” Pantalone sighs, shaking his head. “And after I let you stitch me up and everything, without so much as a complaint. Shall I light another so you can try again?”

“Fuck you,” Dottore pants, eyes blown wide. “Fuck you, Feofan,” and then he—

***

“Wow, mister,” says the driest, most deadpan kid Pantalone has ever heard. “You look terrible.”

Pantalone sniffs and replies automatically. “That seems a bit rude. I put quite a lot of work into my appearance, you know.” Then he actually peers down at the kid. Blue hair, piercing eyes, and— “Oh! Hello,” he says, much nicer. “You’re another of my Lord Harbingers.”

He must be a Dottore. He’s so small, though; he doesn’t even reach Pantalone’s waist. How old could he be? Maybe eight? Certainly not more than ten.

The kid nods. His expression doesn’t change at all. “I didn’t mean your clothes. I meant your flesh wounds.”

Ah. He’s talking about the scratches all along his back and the bruises on his collarbone. Dottore evidently didn’t like having the cigarette burned out on him, or perhaps liked it a bit too much. Pantalone clears his throat. “I’m just careless, and got injured.”

“I know what sex is,” says the kid, entirely deadpan.

“Oh,” says Pantalone. “In that case, I suppose I don’t need to explain myself. Thank you for pointing it out.” He readjusts the collar of his suit coat, fixing it back into place. There—he looks presentable again. Perfectly lovely.

“I could fix them.”

Pantalone raises his eyebrows. He knows what Dottore’s idea of fixing his wounds looks like, and it usually just involves giving him more scars. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m alright.” He pushes his glasses further up his nose. “Why did you come to the lab? Do you need something?”

“I wanted to find twenty-five.”

Evidently this kid hasn’t learned to elaborate yet. Pantalone is a master in the art of patience, though, so he persists. “What do you need him for?”

The kid looks up at him with his big red eyes. “I’m hungry.”

Damn! It’s like an arrow through the heart. Usually Pantalone doesn’t like kids very much, but… It helps that the kid looks like Dottore, and that he’s so strange. Pantalone has developed a fondness for strangeness over the years.

“But he’s not here,” the kid continues. “So I’ll go home.”

“I’m heading to the kitchens anyway,” Pantalone offers, although he definitely was not. “Why don’t we make something together? I’m a decent cook when I put my mind to it.”

The kid looks at him crookedly. “You don’t look the part. Aren’t you rich?”

Pantalone laughs. “I’ll have you know I was in a dire financial spot before your counterpart found me.”

“Oh. Yes,” the kid says. “Thirty-five talks about the necessity of keeping people in your debt. Is that what you are?”

“Quite the opposite. I’m certain he’s the one in debt to me, by now.”

The kid looks perplexed. “Is this about sex again?”

Pantalone feels weird talking about this with an eight-year-old, but the kid is technically the same age as his own Dottore, so. “Not entirely,” he says, which is true. “My Dottore cares more for my loyalty than anything else. Ah—here we are. The kitchens.”

“I know,” the kid says. “Twenty-five cooks for both of us here. He usually makes me food, since the other segments don’t remember.”

Hm. This twenty-five sounds downright benevolent, which doesn’t fit with Dottore’s past at all. “Tell me more about twenty-five. He sounds like a wonderful caretaker.”

The kid shrugs. “He listens to me, and I listen to him. That’s all.”

It’s the same kind of dismissal his own Dottore would give when confronted with the truth of a relationship. Some things never change. Pantalone switches tracks. “What does he usually cook for you? I’ll give it a try.”

“Neither of us can cook. We let them tell us what to do.” He gestures to… nothing?

Pantalone blinks several times. He adjusts his glasses. No dice.

“You can’t see them either?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“That’s alright.” He rummages in his satchel, stamped with the Akademiya crest, and pulls out a pair of round glasses. “Put them on. Then you’ll be able to see the aranara.”

Pantalone does. The moment the lenses settle in front of his eyes, a tiny creature made of leaves appears on the counter. It dances in his direction, bobbing its leafy head.

“How curious.” He leans in. The creature doesn’t appear scared. Instead, it bounds toward the pantry in the corner of the kitchens, waiting for him to open it. When he does, it dances beside the spice rack.

Pantalone takes the curry powder out. When he turns around to place it on the counter, the kid is waiting, looking at the floor.

“This is what I like to invent,” he says defensively, like he already expects rejection. “We left behind most of the aranara in Sumeru, so I brought some of them to life here. And no one can see them but me, so I created these glasses.”

“And you taught these aranara to help you with tasks like cooking?”

The kid nods.

“These are extraordinary. What do they do? Is it a light filtration technique?”

The kid blinks owlishly. “No,” he says slowly. “Only people with dreams in their heart can see the aranara. These glasses override that requirement. As long as you want to see them, it interprets the wish to see the aranara as a dream in your heart. It’s a loophole in the magic.”

Pantalone lifts the glasses, and the aranara vanishes. Then he puts them back on. The aranara appears. “Remarkable,” he says softly. “I would expect nothing less from a segment of my Harbinger.”

The kid’s eyes go wide. And then—

He beams.

Pantalone raises his eyebrows. He didn’t know this kid was so unused to kindness. Is this why his own Dottore is so susceptible to praise?

“Hey, mister,” he says, much less flat. “It’s set to a simple recipe right now. But do you think we could try something more complicated if you’re here to help me?”

Pantalone hasn’t cooked for himself in years. “Of course,” he says anyway, already putting the glasses back on. “Anything you want.”

What the kid wants, apparently, is cauliflower lamb curry with lemon rice. Pantalone has never made anything even close to this before. Usually Pantalone’s cooking consists of throwing some shit in a pot, leaving it there for eight hours, and hoping for the best. Also there’s usually dairy involved. But the kid looks at him hopefully, and Pantalone is only human, so he lets the aranara guide him through the recipe and makes cauliflower lamb curry with lemon rice.

Surprisingly, it turns out more than passable. It smells great. The kid looks at it with wide eyes and piles the food onto his plate like he hasn’t eaten all day.

“Slow down,” Pantalone cautions, holding the serving spoon back. “You can always have seconds.”

The kid looks up at him. “But I’m hungry.”

Wordlessly, Pantalone hands the spoon back. The kid serves himself half the pot of rice. It’s a big pot.

When the kid sits down, Pantalone serves himself. He usually ignores his hunger until it becomes dire enough to impact his motor functions, but the food smells good and it’s right there, and he does feel a bit faint now that he thinks about it. He reaches for the sour cream out of habit.

The kid frowns. “What are you doing?”

“Garnishing. Would you like any?”

He looks downcast. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

Pantalone sets it back down. “You are?” He’s certain his own Dottore isn’t lactose intolerant. He makes cheese boards when Pantalone wants to drink wine. They eat Snezhnayan food almost daily. Pantalone even orders expensive Fontainian cheesecake for them to share every time they celebrate progress together.

The kid nods gravely. “It’s very painful. If I eat dairy, I can’t sleep all night.” Then he goes back to eating his curry like he hasn’t just dropped a bombshell.

“But my Dottore isn’t lactose intolerant,” Pantalone says, a little stupidly. “He eats things like this with me all the time.”

The kid chews thoughtfully. “Mm-hmm,” he says at last. “That’s because he likes you.”

Pantalone swallows thickly. “Perhaps.”

The kid puts down his fork. “What evidence do you have to the contrary?”

“Well, it’s—”

And then something rustles behind him, too softly to be intentional.

Pantalone moves without thinking. He throws up his hand, and his delusion responds. He’s using Dendro today; it surrounds him and the kid with a thin shield of vines. Fitting, considering the aranara that must still be frolicking around the kitchen, unseen.

Just in time, too. Right as he raises it, a gunshot fires.

Pantalone does his best not to flinch. The last time he heard a gunshot he ended up on Dottore’s operating table, gritting his teeth against the dizzying pain and lying out his ass about how much it hurt. The pain served as his punishment. That was the first time he ever smoked a cigarette. Another punishment, maybe. He doesn’t know. He’s in too deep to stop now.

At last, when the person behind him sighs and steps forward, he lets the shield down.

“Please,” Pantalone sighs. He’s shaken, but he’s hardly going to pass up an opportunity for dramatic flair when it’s staring him in the face. “We’re trying to enjoy our dinner. If you wanted some, you could have simply asked.”

The person behind him breathes heavily, like he’s winded. “Eight, when did you learn to make shields?”

The kid, who must be eight—only eight years old! So small! Even Columbina could probably bench-press him—shakes his dreary little head.

“You mean to say that Omega’s plaything did that?”

“I must admit, that’s a new one.” He stands and turns to face the young man. There’s only one person he could be. “You’re twenty-five, I assume?”

“Yes, I’m—” The young man blinks with Dottore’s red eyes. “I’m… y…eah. Twenty-five.”

Pantalone only smiles. He keeps his eyes closed, just like usual, and puts on his sweetest voice. “Do you think your Omega counterpart would keep a… plaything, as you said, who didn’t interest him?”

The poor thing is defenseless. He stands there staring at Pantalone, mouth slack and eyes wide. Slowly, he slides his gun back into the holster at his hip.

That’s what he thought. Pantalone smiles smugly to himself. Poor, predictable Dottore. “Back to our meal. If you’re quite done, I’d invite you to join us. I see you and our young friend are already acquainted.”

“Mm-hmm.” The kid shovels in another bite of rice, then swallows seemingly without chewing. “He once locked me in a cage and fed me only bananas for five weeks.”

Pantalone blinks.

The young man doesn’t explain. He’s too busy staring at Pantalone for some reason.

“I was fine,” the kid continues. “He put nutritional supplements in the bananas. He couldn't find any test subjects. Since none of the other ones feed me, I said yes.”

“Is that what you meant,” Pantalone says, a bit weakly. And here he’d thought maybe Dottore had miraculously become kind in his twenties. Big mistake. No one’s kind in their twenties, much less a self-professed mad scientist with an ego bigger than the moon.

Speaking of the young man, he’s still standing there, petrified. Pantalone motions to the food with one gloved hand. “Don’t be shy. Join us.”

He doesn’t. Instead he steps closer and—oh, he’s right there—pulls aside Pantalone’s collar.

Ah. Pantalone sees what this is about. He gently brushes the young man’s hands away and fixes his collar again. “Are you done?”

“You’re bruised,” says the young man, like this is the only thing he’s noticed so far about the whole situation.

Pantalone raises an eyebrow. “I’m aware. I was there when it happened.”

The kid swallows another mouthful of rice and helpfully says, “It’s a sex thing.”

The young man flushes bright red. “You really are Omega’s plaything? I thought he was joking.”

Pantalone smiles, more than a little amused. He’s not embarrassed about it; anyone who doesn’t know they’re sleeping together is ignorant, and anyone who doesn’t know Pantalone is benefitting from it is a fool. “Are you so unfamiliar with your own desires that you must study his handiwork? I’m sure you’re already familiar with most of his tastes.”

The poor young man looks faint. He sits down heavily at the table.

“He knows what sex is too,” says the kid plainly. “But he doesn’t have a lot of it.”

“Eight.”

“What? You always say you have better things to think about.” He eats a huge chunk of cauliflower, unbothered.

“Certainly,” says Pantalone, nodding. “You know, my role is mostly diplomatic and financial. I’m sure that’s the real reason Dottore keeps me around, rather than…” He gestures vaguely at himself.

Sure enough, the young man’s eyes follow the motion of his hands, and he swallows. Oh, this is too much fun. He misses the days when his own Dottore wasn’t used to his charms yet.

“Anyway,” says Pantalone, taking mercy on him. “You must already be familiar with me, given that you tried to shoot me.”

“Oh. That,” says the young man. He still looks a little lost. “Uh, no. I’m coming up with advanced flesh regeneration for gunshot wounds, but I’m really having trouble finding test subjects. Thought I’d shoot the first person I found. Force their hand.”

Pantalone smiles harshly. He grips his delusion harder under his coat. “You’ll find I’m quite done with being shot at.”

The young man is silent. He’s still staring vaguely at Pantalone, but now his eyes have moved to his mouth. Across from him, the kid eats more curry with gusto.

“You needn’t apologize,” Pantalone says evenly. He takes a breath. Don’t think about the fight. Don’t think about the gunshot. Don’t think about the stitches still engraved on his left arm. “If you need willing test subjects,” he says instead, “you might try the new recruit barracks. Plenty of young recruits misfire their guns and need treatment. You could… intervene, before the Fatui’s ordinary doctors do.”

Finally, the young man actually looks focused. His eyes snap up. “Hmm. But I need clean gunshot wounds. Through-and-through, lethal things.” Slowly, a smile spreads to his eyes. “You think I could start fights? Get them to fire at each other on purpose?”

“Well,” says Pantalone, because that’s entirely possible. He would know. “It might be easier, and less dangerous, to find where the fights are already happening. No need to start your own.”

“Oh, true,” says the young man. He stares intently at the kid’s plate of curry like it holds all the answers. “If forty-five finds me experimenting on people again, he’ll get mad and talk about our status. Who gives a fuck about our status? What’s that worth if we can’t experiment as we please?”

Pantalone gets the sense he isn’t looking for an actual answer, but he gives one anyway. “Status is more useful than you’d expect. Only after one achieves a high status can they do as they please. It’s not a permanent sacrifice; it’s simply the order of operations.”

The young man hums thoughtfully. He furrows his brow.

“Please, eat something,” Pantalone says, motioning to the rice pot again. “Otherwise I fear our young friend might eat his body weight in rice.”

This time, when he turns to look at Pantalone, he looks more starstruck than ever before. “I—yes. I’ll eat.” He stands up too fast.

“Please. I’d hate to make a guest serve themself. Allow me.”

The young man sits back down with a clunk.

Pantalone keeps his amusement to himself. He serves a portion of lamb and cauliflower, and covertly tips a vial in his sleeve into the sauce. Poison. A gift of sorts from his own Dottore. As he adds it, he makes eye contact with the kid, who looks very entertained.

“For you.” He sets down the plate in front of the young man. “I hope you enjoy.”

He digs in. Fortunately, Pantalone’s gamble pays off—he was so busy trying not to watch Pantalone that he missed the obvious threat. By the time he even thinks to taste the poison, he’s already eaten half the plate.

Pantalone smiles sweetly. “How is it?”

The young man blinks rapidly. “Oh,” he says. “Oh. Hmm.”

“Do you see now?” says Pantalone, crossing his legs. He brings his cup to his mouth and takes a single, dramatic sip. “Dottore would never keep someone around who didn’t interest him.”

The young man sways. He faceplants directly into the remains of his bowl of curry, unconscious.

Pantalone hums. He sets down his cup. “I think I’d like a cigarette,” he says to the kid. “Do you mind?”

The kid wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t protest. He finishes off his rice. He must have eaten at least two pounds of it by now.

Pantalone doesn’t have a pyro delusion on him, just the dendro one, so he pulls out his silver lighter and flicks it open. The cigarette sparks to life in his hands.

“Don’t let twenty-five see you doing that,” the kid says flatly. “He’ll want to cut you open and look at your lungs.”

Pantalone laughs. The ghost of his breath leaves an echo of smoke in the air, blending with the strong smell of the curry.

“Twenty-five is probably in love with you now,” says the kid, out of nowhere.

Pantalone raises his eyebrows. “That’s convenient. If I ever need a favor, I know who to call.”

“His idea of favors isn’t very good.”

Pantalone thinks of the five weeks of bananas and supposes the kid is right. Then again, if one version of Dottore is weak for him, perhaps they all are. Pantalone is hardly one to pass up testing a hypothesis.

The kid stands up and looks at him with his big red eyes. “Thank you for dinner, mister,” he says. “But now I have to drag twenty-five back to his room before forty-five tries to kill him again.”

Pantalone just smiles. “You do care for one another.”

The kid shrugs. “No one likes twenty-five, and no one listens to me. We’re…” He appears to search for the word for a long time. It eludes him.

“Family,” Pantalone fills in. “You’re family.”

The kid’s eyes widen. He looks up at Pantalone, and for a moment he looks just like twenty-five, starstruck and spiraling. “…Maybe,” he says.

Pantalone decides to leave it there. He’s had enough revelations for the day. He picks up both of their dishes and takes them to the sink.

“Hey, mister?”

Pantalone turns around. “Yes?”

The kid looks up at him and blinks. “If I could grow up,” he says quietly, “I hope I would end up a little like your Dottore.”

Then he leaves, just like that.

Pantalone stands there for several minutes, staring at nothing. When he smiles, no one even sees it. Funny—he almost thought he’d forgotten how to smile without someone watching.

***

Evidently, this is the last straw for Dottore. He comes through the lab door like an approaching sandstorm. “Mind telling me why twenty-five thought it appropriate to shoot you?”

“Oh! How extreme,” Pantalone says, already amused. He hides his smile behind his teacup. “Sit down and pull yourself together. Have a drink with me.”

“I’ll have to pull you together if this keeps up,” Dottore mutters darkly, but he sits down anyway.

“You’ve already done that.”

Dottore aggressively pours himself a cup of tea. “Only because you’ve got the least self-preservation of anyone I’ve ever met.” He slams back the drink like it’s alcohol and he’s just had his heart broken. Dramatic bastard. Pantalone knew there was a reason he liked him.

“You must admit I’m an interesting patient.”

Dottore doesn’t take the bait. He sets down the cup and looks at Pantalone. “Feofan,” he says, his voice steely. “You can’t let them know you. You can’t.”

Ah. He’s drawing the line in the sand at last. Pantalone takes off his glasses, folds them, and looks right back at him. “Why not?”

Dottore opens his mouth.

“And don’t lie to me.”

Dottore sighs. He says nothing. Interesting.

“You’re not jealous at all,” Pantalone says, quieter than usual. “I thought you were just being… possessive, like you are with all your things. But you hate to call me a thing. I was wrong. It’s something else entirely.”

“It’s unimportant, is what it is,” Dottore says.

“You,” says Pantalone softly, “hate yourself.”

Dottore falls silent.

“You hate yourself at every age,” he continues. “Your past is naive and your future is cynical. That’s what you think, isn’t it? But now that I’ve met them, I think I understand.” He sets his glasses down and reaches across the desk. “You need each other.”

Dottore jolts. “We—the segments—?”

“Yes. You need each other. You all rely on one another to become the totality of yourself.”

Dottore’s face hardens. He makes an ugly sound in the back of his throat. “But don’t you hate that? Don’t you hate that we’re all interlinked? That I’m linked to—to those—”

“Those versions of yourself.”

Silence. Dottore doesn’t even look at him. He stares at Pantalone’s hand, still covered in that beautiful silver-metal glove.

Pantalone sighs. “Let me put it this way. Do you mind that I change myself depending who I’m speaking with? Do you mind that I wear different faces to get what I want?”

“Of course not.”

“There. It’s the same for you. You wear different faces to get what you want. I can hardly criticize that when I myself do the same thing, can I?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Dottore’s mouth thins. “You’re you,” he says. “And I’m me.”

“And I’m somehow perfect?”

Dottore scoffs. He sits there in silence, maybe knowing that he’s been led into his own trap.

“Hm,” says Pantalone, satisfied. “That’s what I thought.” He pulls out the cigarette case with his new name engraved on it.

“Don’t smoke one of those foul things right after we’ve had a breakthrough.”

Pantalone laughs. “That’s not my point. I want you to look here.” He hands the cigarette case to Dottore.

Dottore picks it up. He studies the engraving and turns it over between his hands. “Your name.”

“One of my names,” Pantalone corrects. “I’ve got several.”

Dottore scowls. “Quit it, Feofan,” he mutters, throwing the case back at him. “I get what you’re trying to say. You’re trying to make some metaphor about how your different names are the same thing as me and my segments, and it’s not going to work.”

“I think it’s already working. You did all the heavy lifting for me. In fact, I deserve a reward for that.” He takes out a cigarette, just to make him mad.

It works like a charm. Dottore gives him a look and snatches it from his fingers. “I really think you ought to quit. You’d be a much better subordinate if you didn’t insist on killing yourself with these things.”

Pantalone tucks the case away. “Mm. Twenty-five would probably replace my lungs for me if it went that far.”

Dottore looks almost anguished. “Twenty-five! Don’t let him anywhere near you.”

“Oh? Why?”

Dottore says nothing.

Pantalone just smiles. “Eight said he was… ‘probably in love with me,’ were his exact words.”

“Probably,” Dottore repeats, scoffing. “I bet the poor bastard took one look at you and got a nosebleed.”

Well, it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but Pantalone doesn’t bother correcting him. “But surely the others are safe. Forty-five, eighteen…”

“Don’t get me started,” Dottore snaps, his eyes wide. “Twenty-five is crazy about you. Forty-five wants to put you in harbinger robes at his side, and eighteen hangs on your every word. My god. And sixty-five! Thinking he can steal you like a piece of art! And—and even eight, trying to get you to approve of everything he does! And—”

Suddenly he looks very, very pale. He stops in his tracks.

“And?” says Pantalone.

“And nothing.”

“We’re only missing one,” Pantalone says, smiling. “Thirty-five, if I recall. What does he think of me, hm?”

Dottore closes his eyes. “Feofan.”

“I can only assume,” says Pantalone, “that he’s like all the rest. That he seeks my approval. Appreciates my artistic value. Values my input. Wants me at his side.” Pantalone looks at him carefully, just a little fond. “That he’s crazy about me.”

“I’m crazy about many things.”

“I know,” Pantalone says. “I’d like to be one of them.”

Dottore looks up at him. His hair isn’t curled today, and it falls into his eyes endearingly. Like this he almost looks ordinary. Strange, how much they both curate their image. How Pantalone shies away from insanity, while Dottore leans into it. How they’re not so different, beneath all of it.

“Can you do that?” Pantalone leans forward, offers his hand. “Can you stay crazy about me, for however long I manage to live?”

Something glimmers in Dottore’s eyes; fire-bright, like the end of a burning cigarette. Punishment. Reward. Everything, wrapped up together. Something that’ll kill him, slowly but surely. Something he’ll allow to be the death of him.

“Yes, Feofan,” Dottore says. “Of course I can.”

Pantalone smiles. “Then it’s a deal, Zandik.”