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Let’s make one thing clear: Scaramouche did not need an assistant.
Assistants got in the way. Assistants did menial things while people with power rested on their laurels. Assistants screwed things up, got replaced, and then screwed up again in an endless cycle. They were flawed. Imperfect. Just like humanity.
Scaramouche did not need them. He did not require sleep, and his maintenance downtimes were both short and seldom. He had time in spades; that was ensured centuries ago. He would not leave his plans up to human error. It was in the grand scale insignificant, but he believed he had proof enough that “insignificant” things often were the things that were the most meddlesome. Worthless insects did so much love interrupting his life with their petty little games.
So when he learned he was assigned a personal assistant, he was understandably dismissive. He initially was disbelieving, but it didn’t show. Surely a God could understand—no, intuitively agree with—his belief. Why would the Tsaritsa foist something so illogical upon him? It turned to anger, but that quickly fizzled out. It was insignificant. It wasn’t worth the mental energy beyond that which was expended figuring how to worm out of it.
He initially intended to force you to screw up some menial way he could dismiss you over without actually affecting anything. You might get executed for it; by that point, he didn’t even know your face. He could not care less if he actively tried.
At some point after you had shown up in his office, he elected it wasn’t really worth the effort and time of day. You were quiet. Innocuous. The kind of mortal he tolerated most: the ones that didn’t get in his way. You accepted his orders, ran things he couldn’t be bothered to deliver (he rescinds at least a little of his slander against secretaries—not having to send orders himself was actually rather nice), and otherwise sat pretty in a corner without bothering him. Maybe you read a book or something. He truly did not care.
With that said… something was different. He felt your breath in the cold office room, how it subtly shifted the air patterns that had remained still beside his movements. The quiet shuffling whenever you moved. A sense of… deepened chill when you left for delivery. It was strange, but he paid it no mind. There were more important matters to focus on.
Until there weren’t.
That gnawing chill in his bones settled in particularly deep one day. It should’ve been nothing Scaramouche wasn’t used to. After all, it was simply the cold that had been present before… this. However, it felt difficult to return to. His quill stilled where he was writing over some menial document. His eye twitched as he watched the ink dry.
Pathetic. This was pathetic. He wasn’t missing you. Certainly not. However, he could not deny he was cold. A draft, he decided, casting a glance over to the window. He wedged fabric up against the windowsill, making a note to have maintenance staff look it over. After all, what else could be making this room cold and empty?
The cold didn’t stop.
He grit his teeth, grumbling to himself. Was there a hole in the wall? Perhaps a saboteur. Or simply a bored private. He’d have them executed either way. However, with the paperwork still there, he elected to check over it later, instead putting his parka on and resuming work.
That solved it for a while. Then, you came back.
“Orders delivered, sir.” You said, in that deliberate tone of yours, like you were dealing with a ticking bomb. You assuredly were. “Are there any amendments to them or other orders to be delivered?”
“No.” Scaramouche grated out, this close to grinding his teeth. It somehow became worse when you walked in. He remembered, long ago, a certain person telling him that things that are close often feel further than when they are far, that the last steps are the hardest. Drivel, he had thought before, but now… he could see its truth.
“Sit.” He ordered irritably. You moved to sit down on the chair across his desk with a solemn expression, the one that said ‘this is either a promotion, firing, or execution, what am I calling’. However, his voice overruled that. “No, you imbecile.” He stood up, taking your hand and all but dragging you around the desk, before sitting down and forcing you into his lap.
You made a small noise at that—a squeak, a grumble, curiosity, he couldn’t care. What mattered was that damnable cold was gone, and he could get back to work. “Do not move until I have given you *explicit* permission.” He ordered, to which you simply gave a dutiful nod—whether out of genuine duty, shock and reflex, or not wanting to get executed for disobedience when he was this irritable.
The evening passed quickly, after that. At some point, the sun had set, and one of the lamps had been lit—he didn’t quite remember whether it was he or you that lit it. He was… focused on the work. Most certainly.
It was warm. Very warm. A comfortable sort of warm, he supposed, if one wanted to be sentimental about it. Which he assuredly did not. Silence.
Evidently, though, you had agreed. While you had been doing some sort of menial task—reading a book, working on a report, frankly he didn’t care—you eventually sat it down, leaning into the cuddle. Which it wasn’t. And he certainly didn’t notice that you did. And eventually, he felt your heart rate settle. Your breath even out.
You drift off to sleep.
He sighed. Well, you were here now. He had requested this. Frankly, this was his own hole he had dug. He would never admit that, because that was weakness, and sentimentality, and nothing of what Scaramouche was.
“We…” he began into your sleeping ears, in an almost uncharacteristically quiet and soft voice. “Will be doing this. Often.” He said.
After all, much of his plans had been completed in what would’ve normally taken him several more hours.
He elected to ignore how, when you began to quietly rumble against his chest, his quill stilled. How his chin came to rest against your shoulder, the work near forgotten. How his own eyes closed, if only for a moment, in something… resembling contentment and/or acceptance. How absolutely no work was done after that.
That was between you and him, and revealing a harbinger’s secrets was grounds for immediate execution. Understood?