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35 lays on his bed. And even though Pantalone doesn't make it a habit to use white bed sheets, the sheets on his bed are white, anyway -- they remind him of the sheets in the laboratory. He doesn't remember bringing them to his bedroom, or laying them flat over his bed, but here they are, despite.
The doctor's face is peaceful. It's a rare and precious sight on those angular, intelligent features. His nervous energy is gone. He's simply -- in a word -- serene. His chest moves very slowly, and when he inhales, and exhales, he doesn't make a sound. Pantalone's thoughts are broken and he realizes he's holding the back of his hand approximately an inch from Dottore's nostrils. The breaths are, indeed, slowly, almost imperceptibly, rustling through those scant, fine hairs.
"Are you afraid he's dead?" 45 teases behind him. Pantalone is surprised by his presence and looks over his shoulder. He feels almost like he's been caught stealing. The segment twists his brows at him. "Oh. Now there's a guilty expression."
There's a fissure in 45's lips and it twists at the corners, smugly, parts to reveal teeth.
"I've always been guilty," Pantalone utters quietly. When he speaks, his own voice sounds far away, and he realizes he doesn't actually belong to the shell that's speaking, but rather an observer that's hovering above his head. He can see the back of his head in his mind's eye, that romantic lock of blackened violet that sits at his nape and curls over his shoulder.
45 is chortling quietly. It's a cheap joke, but he doesn't disagree.
"Now, where are your gloves?" the segment asks.
His gloves? Pantalone looks down at his hands. They're bare -- his palms are scarred. He turns them over to look at their backs. His knuckles are green and burgundy. Scabs are healing and in various stakes of flaking. He hears a -- "tsk".
"They're so ugly when they're healing."
Pantalone chuckles quietly, because he agrees. "Is that why you'd like me to wear my gloves, doctor?" He shrugs easily, his lips curling into a wretched smirk. "I think you just want me to slap you."
He's staring down at 35's body when he says this, although he's directing his speech to 45. Truthfully, his eyes are struggling to leave that naked body. 45 sounds positively unamused -- he speaks in the firm, serious, unwavering tone he uses in the surgical suite. "Behave yourself. We're in surgery. I was asking about your surgical gloves. Size eight and a half should do."
Pantalone finally peers at 45 over his shoulder. He should be feeling more confused; the topic is entirely out of left field, but yet, it somehow makes sense. There's a surgical tray at the edge of the bed; surgical greens are opened upon it, a smattering of instruments at the ready. "Don't tell me you were rummaging around in there without your gloves," he sighs, exasperated. "Do you know nothing of sterility?"
Pantalone opens his mouth, but the segment is now laughing sharply, and pinching the bridge of his nose, that frustrated fidget of a gesture the doctor does when he's grappling with an idea that's an affront to his opinions and views. "What am I saying," it sighs under its breath.
"Go on, Feofan. Forget the gloves. There's nothing sterile about you."
He should feel insulted, but he doesn't. The recognition causes his shoulders to relax -- he feels them roll into a more comfortable position, straightened and ready, although ready for what he isn't entirely sure. "I've never done this before, doctor," he murmurs, coy. "I'll need your guidance."
"Why do you think I'm here? Are you mentally present, Feofan? You seem distracted. The mind must be clear of all distraction in the surgical suite."
"You sound like 25."
"I am 25. I'm 8, 18, 25, 35, 45, 65. I'm Zandik."
You're not Zandik, he thinks. It's a kneejerk reaction that isn't entirely a representation of his true thoughts -- his thoughts are /far/ too heavy, too complicated to phrase -- but he thinks it all the same.
Pantalone holds his hands out, palms up, and turns his torso to the alert segment. "All right, then. My mind is clear. What next?"
Segment 45 looks like he disagrees, but continues anyway. "Pick up the scalpel."
Well, he knows what a scalpel is, at least. He correctly identifies it on the green field, picks it up in his fingers. 45 steps towards him and takes his hand into both of his -- he's adjusting his grip, placing the print of Pantalone's index fingertip along the dull edge.
"This is how you hold it."
His fingers don't want to go that way, but he commits the grasp to his memory, all the same. There's a sense of -- what is it, pride? -- swimming in his core. It isn't for himself, but for the two segments in the room. There's something very special about this. They're teaching him their craft. He falls silent.
45 is staring at the stupid smile on his face.
"Go on, then."
Pantalone looks at 45's impatient face. 45 gestures at 35's body. "You're cutting /him/, not /me/."
"He's you. You're him. Why can't I cut you?" Pantalone smiles devilishly, wresting himself from his earlier reverence. "Are you afraid?"
"I don't have time for this. Are you going to perform the surgery, or not?"
45 stands in place, unwavering like a pillar. His face is deadly serious. It's the look he gets when he's concentrating on his business. "Xiphoid to pubis. Go on."
Pantalone recognizes the word pubis. He makes a face that causes the segment to scoff, incensed, now. "Sternum to cock. /Go/."
"Do you feel intelligent when you use medical terminology with me? Are you really that desperate?" Pantalone sneers at him, testy with his tone.
"Vocabulary is purely memorization. There is nothing intelligent about it," the segment frowns. His impatient, gleaming red eyes say, '/go on/', for the third time.
The task ahead is interesting enough that he listens. Pantalone slides closer to the form on the bed, finally taking a close look at 35. It's a strange feeling, a smattering of incongruencies -- a naked body he'd seen thousands of times, but it's arranged in a stony pose he's never seen, under lighting he's never seen him under, in a setting they've never been in before. He idly wonders what Dottore feels when operating on /his/ body.
Pantalone discards the thought almost immediately -- what was he thinking? This is church for Dottore. Of course it feels entirely different, for him. Their minds are not built the same in this way.
Again, he permits himself a small genuine smile at the idea of being let into the doctor's world, and being mentored through one his main passions in life. He wanted to do well -- absolutely /not/ because he wanted to impress the man, but because he wanted to tread down those roads and come to a deeper understanding of him.
His frame, like all the Zandiks' frames, is, unmistakably, male.
Dottore's body is the perfect incarnation of the male physique, and it doesn't need to be loud with muscle and hair to accomplish this. His frame is a perfect, beautiful 'Y'. His wiry muscling is defined, and his abdomen -- that flawless, peerless abdomen -- is taut like marble. Pantalone feels a sinking sensation in his guts.
He wants to fuck him until he sobs. That's the ugly truth of it. He has to close his eyes and exhale. The sound is almost quivering.
45 allows himself a moment of impiety. He nuzzles his breath up against Pantalone's ear, seeing the Snezhnayan's darkly lustful look. "I'll show you a different way of fucking," it promises.
"I suppose /that/'s only fair," the Snezhnayan speaks quietly, tensely. He took Zandik's virginity -- half the segments have this distinction in common.
45's hand stretched over 35's body, his lips never leaving the space at Pantalone's ear. "Here, to here." His index finger presses at his sternum, swipes down, ends at the root of Dottore's cock.
Pantalone watches that all-too familiar cock twitch. It blushes almost imperceptibly, pinkening at the beautifully-defined head. His hands tighten, but he's curious enough he wants to behave himself. "He hears us?" he asks, confused but interested.
"/I/ hear you."
"I'm aware. We're talking." Pantalone side-eyes him like he's said something idiotic.
"I'm him. He's me. How many times do I have to explain this?"
Pantalone sets aside his confusion. He submits to the knowledge, now, that his perception of the situation is flawed in some way -- it has to be. And -- strangely enough -- he's decided that he doesn't care. He should feel positively unnerved by all of this, but truth of it is that he feels, in this moment, peaceful. He so rarely feels peaceful.
He leans over the soft skin. He presses the scalpel to Dottore's xiphoid like he's trying to gut a fish -- angled steeply, heavy-handed, like he's intending to tear him entirely open. 45 hisses loudly and puts a hand at his wrist. "/NO/," the segment barks. "Gently, Feofan. You'll ruin the integrity of the tissue if you cut like that."
Pantalone freezes, suspending his actions. "Walk me through it."
"The skin is made up of thin, elastic layers. Beneath those layers are a matrix of fats, connective tissues, and then muscle. One incision, several layers. Start lightly, now, as if you want to draw a thin line on the skin. Do you understand?"
It's an excellent explanation. Pantalone immediately recognizes the error of his earlier approach. He adjusts the angle of the scalpel to rest more shallow against the flesh, and lightens the weight in his hand. He drags the scalpel down in a line. 45 whispers, 'yes' in his ear. Pantalone wants to adjust his hips, feeling entirely too uncomfortable, tight, and hot, but he recognizes that he's in the middle of a very important task.
He wrestles the thoughts away, continues to the base of 35's penis, the cut nestling into his short, fine, well-groomed pubic hair. "How is that?" he asks, directing the question to both of them, somehow.
45 pulls away from his ear, gazes at the cut in the body. It's straight, but he disapproves anyway, for reasons the regrator can't appreciate. "Clumsy. It reeks of inexperience, but it will have to do. Now -- " he reaches forwards, one hand sitting on the abdomen at each side, his index fingers gently teasing the incision open. "You see how it's still closed? Cut again, release the tension at the center. The same process. Repeat it until you get to the linnea alba."
45 corrects himself before Pantalone can growl at him over the use of yet more unfamiliar anatomical terms. "The tendon that runs at the center of the abdomen. It signifies you're at the muscle layer. It will look silvery."
Pantalone does so. When he's finished, they're both scrutinizing the long cut, appraising it. It appears like a nearly bloodless crack down the center of him, under which sits a distinct layer. 45 is toying at either side of the incision, again, and the skin is splitting open over the muscle. The Snezhnayan sees the white line -- to his surprise, and his great satisfaction, it really is just that. A beautiful white line nestled in all of that biological heft. A seam.
"This is an excellent place to incise," 45 speaks passively, deciding to impart some surgical knowledge to the black-haired man. "Minimal bleeding, compared with cutting the muscle belly. Poor blood flow means poor healing, but there's little to heal, here, compared with muscle."
The regrator appreciates the explicit reasoning of the exchange involved. He sets aside his fascination, and incises into the silvery, fibrous connective tissue. Beneath, there is a shadow forming -- he's turning the crevice into a hole. He's now aware of his own heartbeat.
45 produces a large, gleaming metal object. It almost, at first glance, reminds him of a pair of arms. It contains notches at its center, and curved 'hands', which betray its purpose -- it must be 'the retractor'.
"In surgery, you are constantly balancing exposure, and visibility," 45 explains passively. "It's difficult to appreciate until you're inside. The interior resists prying eyes." -- he sounds wistful.
Pantalone is aware that Dottore wishes he could spend more time in the surgical suite. He finds it incredibly relaxing, always has. And even though Pantalone doesn't much care for it, he enjoys skulking in the background of the surgical suite anyway -- the rare honor that it is, since the Zandiks find him distracting even when he's quiet -- because he just likes to quietly watch the man knit himself back together.
The retractor is in place, low in the abdomen. Pink intestines, a brownish liver, a spleen that looks almost like a tongue. 45 is walking him through the organs, touching them with his fingers. It's an odd thing to see, but the fact that 45 does it makes it permissible -- Pantalone trusts his judgment fully in this arena.
"Do you want to know what it looks like, on the inside, when you fuck us?"
Something in those lavender eyes changes. It doesn't matter that his thick, black lashes don't flutter, nor that his orbitals and his eyelids don't move -- something inside them shifts all the same, like the sound of crinkling static in air when an electronic device is engaged.
"Yes."
45's eyes are lustful, too. Two large, beautiful dollops of red, indistinguishable from blood. "Get undressed." He releases this command in the small space between his face and Pantalone's. The words almost have a taste to them -- they're warm, and just the slightest bit humid. When Pantalone leans forwards, the segment leans back, but the actual space between them never changes. "Tch -- " 45 admonishes. "Business first."
So Pantalone strips. It feels a bit odd, this dynamic. He can't help but feel like this measured, intellectual approach to sex might be what it's like to view the act in Dottore's mind. The man had always been that way, it was one of the things Pantalone loved most about him. All of the Zandiks were deeply perceptive. Sometimes being deeply perceptive meant being cold, and clinical, but truthfully, nothing felt cold or clinical about this.
It felt almost sacred. It was nothing like his own turbulence.
There is little lead up. The Snezhnayan man is sinking inside, pubis nearly to tailbone. Between the long, curved lines of 35's pale thighs, his intestines glimmer and lilt gently with the movement. There is just the slightest squelch that sounds within the crevice of the man's abdomen. 45 is holding 35's thighs, his hands over both of Pantalone's.
45 releases him to toy his fingers along the large hole in 35's abdomen. His fingers brush what appears to be a balloon -- it's his bladder.
It now feels very odd, and not at all pleasant, that 35 can't engage with him. It stops him in his tracks. He must've been casting a bit of a sad look, because now 45 cups his jaw in his hand. "You look so wilted."
Wilted -- what a strange turn of phrase, for such a clinical entity. "I don't think I like this," he said, feeling his earlier desire begin to evaporate. 45 moves closer, runs his tongue over Pantalone's lower lips, gives that jaw an affectionate squeeze.
"We know you're there. We feel you. /I/ feel you." 45's voice is deadly serious.
"Show me, then," the regrator murmurs, still tense. His lips brush 45's when he speaks, but he's hesitant. His hands are holding 35's thighs carefully, now, no hint of possessiveness in that hold. It feels wrong. He's regretful.
"Such an emotional being," 45 reprimands him. "You were perfectly happy to take me at my word up until now. Do you think I'd lie to you?"
Pantalone practically shrinks back like a cornered dog, utterly deflated. 45 holds him by the jaw. The Snezhnayan's pale, bruised hand holds his hand, and for the first time, he looks a bit angry. He's gone soft. "It's one-sided."
45 makes that noise that all the segments make when they've made a realization -- it's a short, and joyful, 'ahhh...' that signifies his understanding. He nuzzles his nose against Pantalone's, begins to undress himself. "I understand. You're more romantic than you let on, Feofan."
45 kisses him gently. He's sucking on his lips, toying him with his tongue. The Snezhnayan man is reserved and engages with him slowly, carefully, his measured actions betraying his own stormy thoughts on the situation.
But soon, they're mingling tongues, each soft swipe a gentle coax. The intimate warmth of it makes Pantalone sigh. Their connection deepens.
"You do far worse, you know. There are thousands of people out there who wish you'd just raped them, instead of what you actually did."
45's expression is dark, but it isn't damning -- he's speaking passively, matter-of-factly.
"But it's /you/."
45's gaze is full of lavender. The regrator's gaze so rarely softens like this -- it's always his voice, or his mannerisms, but those soulless eyes never join them. Their lips caress one another, each of them probing the boundary of their discussion.
"I would never debase you like that. You have to know that."
The eyes soften further. Pantalone's leaning in towards him, the curve in his lips genuine, and comforted. This is the most private side of them. That singular, beautiful understanding. The trust. One hand clasped into another, enfolding, tessellating, a singular meeting in time and space.
"Tell me what you want me to do, then," Pantalone's voice is a tender whisper.
"Find my prostate," 45 whispers back.
Pantalone knows /exactly/ where it is. He practically knows what it tastes like, at this point. The weight of the command makes him simper and melt. He hadn't thought of it -- hadn't thought of being able to touch the man's prostate, /bare/.
And now he understands it, fully. The point of this. The unmatched, incredible intimacy. The Snezhnayan presses their hips together, his eyes lidded, heavy, but intense. He's pressing on it, from the inside -- the outside? -- right now -- that unmistakable curve. Smooth, just the /slightest/ bit pliant. His glans is pushing past it, mapping its border. His breaths are deepening. 45's breaths are deepening. They're practically drinking one another in.
"Touch it with your hands," 45 is sighing. The segment is fully facing him, now. Fully nude. He sits on 35's chest, his legs lolling open comfortably. His face is flushing. There's the faintest sheen of sweat on his forehead. He has that rosy glow the Zandik's wear so well on their skin -- that humane glow they develop when they're being fucked, or fucking. Their flush is a beautiful creature.
Their hands connect at the cranial edge of the pubic bone, the lower commissure of the incision. Their fingers thread and dip into the tissue, 45 guiding him to the demarcation of the walnut-sized, rubbery structure. The second they touch it, 45 winces and shakes. He gasps into Pantalone's mouth, and they share a hot and sudden kiss, courtesy of the regrator, who has now entirely cast aside his earlier reservations.
Pantalone's fingers run across the small surface -- it's so small, and yet it completely confirms his expectations. He strokes it tenderly as he fluidly moves their forms together. It isn't their usual, violent pace, it isn't even their usual building pace, or their passionate pace -- it's something else entirely. He's fucking him like he fucked 85-year-old Zandik. 45 doesn't realize this on an intellectual level -- he realizes it in his bones. His toes curl and his spine weakens.
45 appears positively dizzy -- 35's cock starts spilling pre-ejaculate, and soon, 45 is spilling it too, into the abdomen. 45 is laughing low, breathless. Pantalone laughs at his laughter.
Inside the abdomen, Pantalone's fingers skim deeper. His thrusts are measured, now, because he's drinking in the sensation against his hand, the way the tissue is moving, rippling, /sounding/ with each connection. He's gyrating his hips and flexing down to his toes, transcribing the sensation, the view, to memory. His fingers, mingling with 45's fingers, brush against the colon, the contact of his member with that wall greeting their touch.
They needn't be told -- they both have the same thought and grasp around the tube, firmly, a contact which punches breath out of Pantalone's chest and makes his legs go weak, just like 45's. His hand clutching that one thigh is now coiling possessively.
He growls against 45's mouth. 45 clutches him at the nape of the neck and almost pushes his head back with how strongly they connect. It's wet -- verging on dribbling. Their tongues dance, and weave, and gyrate, and their breath comes in short, heady bursts. Pantalone claps his hips into 35. It jostles their faces and 45 practically whines. Again. Another whine.
He's slamming into them and they're bouncing. It's a wet noise and 45 can feel the pre-ejactulate running down the cleft of 35's ass. He feels it in his mind. He feels it running up the back of his thigh.
"This is ruining me -- " Pantalone laments, his laugh almost melancholic if it wasn't tremoring and exerted. His chest is warm and deepening to a pink flush of his own.
45 pumps their mingled hands around that cock as it moves, and they're in perfect unison. Pantalone is shuddering with excitement -- he's trying so, so very hard not to climax. He practically bites his own lip between their faces, 45's mouth tracking him down, nuzzling his lips open as he does so. Their teeth click. "Now, now," 45 coos.
"Behave yourself or we'll have to put an end to things quickly," 45 smiles wickedly through the haze, heated, and wonderful.
"Oh, fuck off," Pantalone says, because he's fully aware 45 chose his wording, and said that, just to needle him ever closer to release. It's a tease, the whole thing. He needs to slow down. He let's go of 35's thigh and wraps his forearm over 45's shoulders. He pulls the man close to him, nestles his face in his neck and huffs little kisses up from the base to the nook, nuzzles his nose into the earlobe. 45 run's his palm down Pantalone's chest.
There are too many hands at play. Three sets. They're gripping, caressing, scratching. The unreality of the situation is unnoticed by all three parties.
Pantalone's strong, slender hands both grasp 45 at the neck , now -- his thumbs press up underneath his chin, and the skin there tightens just slightly as 45 tips his head and grins with parted teeth. His eyes are half-lidded, lashes casting feathery, dramatic shadows.
The regrator wants all of it -- wants to kiss him, wants to suck him, be sucked by him, wants to be filled by him, all of it, at once -- but he resigns himself to squeezing down on his neck, drinking in his hitched breaths. He bucks into him, their faces an inch away. He watches 45 grimace and tighten.
He squeezes harder, the eyes lilt shut, the mouth parts, 45's breath is heavier now, a thick cloud of moisture. Pantalone's arms lock in place, and now the momentum of the thrusts are jerking 45 and 35 violently, the bed creaking.
"Touch yourself -- " the regrator implores him, his tone commanding and heady all at once.
Pantalone doesn't look down -- he doesn't need to. He watches the eyes flutter open again, watches the reddening in those sharp cheeks, feels the huffy, appreciative moan that gets whispered out as 45 begins stroking himself. He can feel hands in his thighs, slapping him, digging him, clawing him for purchase.
They're leaking again, all three of them in unison. Their sounds are the perfect compliment -- not unison, but compliment.
45's arching his chest into Pantalone, threatening to arch entirely out of his grasp, but he's welded there in place in those strong, pale arms. He's almost pressing his navel to the man's chest. He has to palm a hand down on the bed, where it's against 35's hot, flush skin.
The hands begin to squeeze the breath out of him, not because his trachea is being crushed, but because his carotids are occluded. The thumbs clamp with perfect coordination. The pulse is reverberating in Pantalone's hands.
They orgasm, like that. A perfect trigemenic waveform.
---
Pantalone picks up the scalpel again. He idly wonders if it's still sharp enough to accomplish what it needs, but when 45 says nothing, he surmises that it must be permissible. 35's head is propped up, directing his crown to the ceiling. His abdomen is still open, and his guts are spilled entirely. Now his chest is open, too. Pantalone and 45 are flanking 35's skull.
"Carefully, now," 45 whispers, his voice near Pantalone's right ear. "We won't forgive you, if you ruin our hairline." Pantalone doesn't need to look at him to know that he's smirking, tongue-in-cheek.
"I won't forgive myself," he responds, releasing a soft little breath. The action of it rouses him to his visceral senses once again. He'd been holding his breath, damming it up. He'd been waiting for this moment. How long, had he been waiting?
The scalpel cuts an arc across the top of 35's head. Having already learned how to make incisions, now, he need not be told a second time. Pantalone starts again at the beginning of the incision and slowly, carefully, swipes the blade between the fissure he'd already formed. Two lines of demarcated scalp peel back away from one another. In a lewd way, it reminds him of a pair of legs spreading.
He's holding his breath again.
A third pass takes him through the shining muscle, now. There's a layer overtop its reddened, brownish hue -- it's thin like gossamer, almost twinkles underneath the surgical lamp. When he cuts it, instead of the speckled capillary bleeding of the skin layer, it wells, and after it wells, it oozes. The liquid dribbles and collects in the dependent crevice. It spills over at its left corner.
Pantalone swipes his index finger beneath it, and the droplet collects there. 45 permits a hum, and although it's wordless, Pantalone hears the voice in his head, anyway -- 'naughty'.
He brings the droplet to his mouth, presses it between his teeth, the tip of his tongue meeting it and retiring to the recesses of its cave again. It's metallic on his palate. Metallic, and warm. There's an incongruency in his mind as he thinks of the way milk tastes, and somehow, it's reminiscent of it, despite its colour, despite its acidity.
"You make an awful surgeon, Feofan," 45 is admonishing him, straightening with his arm's folded behind his back. Even nude, with a posture like that, he manages to look commanding -- even academic -- as though he could deliver a lecture this way. "You're too emotional."
"Is savouring an emotion?" Pantalone replied, his tone curious, even though he'd posed the question as a rebuttal to the doctor. 45 snorts softly, as was habit when the Snezhnayan man posed him a question to air his disagreement.
"It is for you."
Pantalone supposes he's correct. He relents on this point. He's more enraptured in his task, anyway -- in savouring. In, apparently, /feeling/.
The tickle becomes a small river. There's another breached point almost at the center of 35's pale face. Red cuts down the center of it, navigates down the left side of his nose, wells at his tear trough and continues downward still. It collects on his lips. Pantalone pinches his own lower lip between his teeth.
"Go on," 45 sounds bored. "I'm tired of scolding you."
It feels strange to kiss him with his eyes closed, to kiss him when there's no threat of him waking to meet him, when he can't say no, despite everything. He looked completely still -- almost dead.
45 senses his hesitation. "It's practically masturbation at this point."
Pantalone leaned forward, kissed the lips tenderly. His tongue swiped the blood into his mouth. More of that milky warm texture on his palate. When he pulls away, he makes a concerted effort to look down at the tray, puzzling over the next new question -- how to get into the skull?
"The best way is to weaken it with a drill," 45 once again correctly intuits Pantalone's concern.
Pantalone snorts softly, realizing now that the phrase 'drill into your skull' actually has a realistic origin. He furthermore realizes that this means Zandik's segments had all had the pleasure of literally drilling into his skull -- every last one of them, except for Zandik himself.
That last part felt a bit odd to think about.
The drill is the equipment that looks almost like a handgun. He identifies it without even being told, and 45 is nodding, but holds a hand up. "Extend the incision, we're going to clip the skin back."
It is, both expectedly, and unexpectedly, a tricky affair, penetrating into this skull. Pantalone's hands are empty, save for the literal skull cap -- 35's lid. His fingers curl tenderly around it, and there's a part of him that doesn't want to give it back after they're finished.
"Melodramatic bastard." 45 still sounds bored. "You weren't like this when we opened our chest. Don't you find the heart interesting, Feofan?"
"Not yours." Pantalone says this quickly, but it's true. Dottore's heart has never been all that interesting to him. He finds it simple; his lack of empathy is deeply interesting on an intellectual level, but there is nothing interesting about the way Dottore's emotions guide him through his understanding of the world.
It's his brain. That beautiful brain.
He's locking eyes with 35. The two segments are nearly identical, and the fact that 35 has moved on his own catches him by surprise. Again -- he's faintly aware he's holding his breath. He releases it again, breathes the word 'thirty-five'.
"How nice of you to join us," Pantalone smiles genuinely.
There is no change in those eyes. 45 is rubbing the bridge of his nose, again. "Feofan. I've been here since the beginning."
"Perhaps you should write me a rulebook for addressing you in these instances," Pantalone offers him glibly, tilting his head almost sardonically towards 45.
"Well?" 45 interjects, gesturing towards the opened skull. "You've been waiting for this, haven't you? Put that down. I want you to enjoy this, without distraction."
Pantalone sets the skull cap down on the bed. He adjusts his sitting position again, bringing his head over the opened skull. The brain beneath it almost reminds him of intestines -- but it's different. The resemblance to tubes are only cursory. It's wrinkled and folded, tucked deeply inside, like laundry. There is a brilliant light radiating from the line in the center.
He isn't sure what tool to use. What's the purpose, anyway? He wants to dig inside, to get at the light. 35's mouth is opened, now, too, and there's a glow emitting from it. His cheeks emit red where they're hollow. The eyes are fixing on him.
The hairs on Pantalone's neck stand on end. He doesn't remember lighting a cigarette, but he's exhaling smoke. 45 is rolling his eyes -- he's behaving impatiently. Underneath it, the regrator realizes that the segment is becoming uncomfortable, and that's why he's fidgeting like this. "Let me spare you the confusion. There is no tool for this."
Seeing the confusion in his eyes only makes 45 snippier. "Your /hands/, Feofan."
"My /hands/?" -- it makes little sense.
"I'm sorry, am I speaking a different language?"
There's a sudden anger that swells within him. Pantalone hates to be scolded. He opens his mouth, but the segment puts a hand up, which almost makes him snap on the spot. The segment gets the first word in. "I understand. You feel like it's brutish. Your hands, our brain. You don't want to ruin it."
It was probably the only thing the segment could have said to alleviate his frustration. Yes -- that was exactly his issue. They stare at each other, both of them wrestling with different flavours of internal discord.
Finally, Pantalone traces his index finger over the seam in 35's brain.
35 grimaces, loudly. It makes Pantalone flinch -- it's the first sound he's made, this entire time.
"Well? What did you expect?"
45 leans in, sets his slightly knobby, slender fingers over 35's skull, resting the finger tips in at the edges of the hole. He's staring at Pantalone's face, Pantalone is staring down at the brain. "Stick your finger inside," the segment in front of his face smiles slyly.
It should've felt sexual, but it didn't. It felt intrusive. The Snezhnayan didn't like the segment's sudden reaction to just the gentle touch of his index finger moving over the tissue, so when he touches his fingertip to the seam, it's careful -- the barest of touches. 35 hisses softly under his breath. Pantalone can't place what sort of sound it is.
"Deeper," 45 croons.
He presses inside, to the first digit of his index finger. Light pours over his finger circumferentially. 35 groans lowly, and holds the sound. There are colours buried deeply in that white light. They flash and writhe -- are they holographic? Iridescent? Pearlescent? Afterimages?
Pantalone blinks. They're cyan. Then magenta. Violent. Pale orange. He presses his finger inside further. 45 gasps, now, and grabs his wrist, fastens him into position. "Keep going," the segment rasps at him. But the segment doesn't let go -- Pantalone has to push /against/ him, to push inside.
He's tired of having the segment repeat instructions to him. He keeps going. 35 is groaning louder, now, holding the same queer tone. He hasn't stopped to breathe. The glow pouring from his mouth is flickering. 45 is breathing so heavily Pantalone can hear it, plain as day.
"What am I digging towards?" The Snezhnayan asks. It's a rephrasing of the question he really wanted to ask -- 'what is that /light/?'
45 sounds weak, ragged. Like he'd just had an intense orgasm, or like he's been dealing with some nightmarish disruption in his lab. His lips are tight when he speaks, all teeth. Pantalone watches his lips move and all of his eyes bore holes into him.
"The amygdala."
"What does it do?"
"It doesn’t matter. We don't want it."
Pantalone tilts his head. To go deeper, he needs to involve his middle and ring fingers. He lines them up along the cleft. 35's leg twitches convulsively. Still groaning.
"What do I do with it, when I get there?"
45 is laughing wickedly. He's laughing even though he's frustrated, even though he's impatient, even though he's -- is he /scared/? The regrator's brows knit in confusion, now.
"DIG, FEOFAN," 45 raises his voice. "You'll understand, when you get there."
The colours pouring over his fingers erupt more intensely, now. They taste like flowers. 35's groan becomes high-pitched. It's a sound Pantalone has never, ever heard from him before. He doesn't like it -- he freezes in place. The air is heavy. It vibrates. It liquifies his tendons. His heart is thrashing in his chest. Now there's smoke pouring from the hole in the skull, twisting spires around his fingers.
"Let's not proceed," Pantalone shifts uncomfortably. The veins on the back of 45's wrist are popping out of his skin, the muscle of his forearm tight with effort.
"DO IT," 45 and 35 cry in unison.
He can't wrestle his hand away. It plunges into the skull, the tissue burying underneath his fingertips. It shoots an electrifying sensation up his spine. Pantalone grabs 45's face and tries to wrestle him away. Both of the segments are screaming. 35 starts convulsing, now. Blood is pooling around the orbs of 45's eyes, spilling over his lids, trickling down his cheeks. All 3 of them are screaming.
"STOP -- "
---
Blackness.
Pantalone wakes with his heart thundering in his chest. He snaps into action, jerks forward, connects with 35's shoulder. The segment is sleeping on his side, sleeping soundly, although the movement causes him to murmur and jostle. The Snezhnayan freezes and hovers there in his position, supported on his forearm.
His sigh worsens the shudder in his limbs, but it's a sigh of relief. He runs a hand over his face, presses at the corners of his eyes, idly sits at his lips, pressing there, as he contends with the idea that he'd just had his sleep ruined by such a ridiculous dream.
It's a relief to see 35 sleeping so soundly.
Pantalone carefully lowers himself back down, tucks the covers over the segment's exposed shoulder. All of the Zandiks get cold easily. He himself has shifted so that most of him is bare. He's warm -- too warm. But he sets the discomfort side. He gently nuzzles there, in the back of 35's head, the pale hair tickling his face.
He breathes deeply. It's the faint smell of musk, and oil. It's earthy and wonderful.
He nestles feather soft, chaste little kisses, there, and gently, carefully lays his arm around him, his palm coming up on 35's shoulder overtop of the duvet. 35 sighs out a bit of a crude noise, almost a snore, against the pillow.
He doesn't drift back to sleep.