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The walk towards Pantalone's office was noisier than usual. Employees were running around, balancing coffee in one hand, and a frankly, impossible workload in the other.
But, the wellbeing of subordinates does not concern Dottore. What he's here for…
The ashtray on Pantalone's desk had been emptied three times today.
Dottore knew this because a little birdie found it so worrying that they decided it would be best to inform him. He's rather relieved that Pantalone's newest assistant seems to have an actual brain this time.
Three times. And it was not yet evening. The fiscal year ended in nine days. Nine days to reconcile every Fatui operation across six nations. Dottore was not a thoughtless man. Yes, he does understand that Pantalone is under a considerable amount of stress. Still, it was getting ridiculous.
Dottore let himself into the office without knocking. The pungent smell of cigarettes hits him immediately. After so many centuries, the smell had become almost inseparable from the man himself. Almost. Dottore still found it an offense.
The office was, by the standards Pantalone usually maintained, in ruins. Not visibly. The furniture was still immaculate, the shelves still orderly, no dust layering the surfaces. But there were seven separate stacks of ledgers on the desk where there were usually two. A cold cup of tea had been pushed to the corner and forgotten.
Pantalone himself was standing at the window, a cigarette in one hand and a contract in the other. He looked, well as he always did, ever since the formula had been injected. The definition of youth, maintained with a constant supply of the Elixir of Immortality, twelve separate interventional procedures addressing other issues, and one autopsy that Dottore still considered among his most productive afternoons.
A waste, Dottore thought, that I spent three decades perfecting a treatment for a man so determined to undermine it.
“Your last documentation showed twenty cigarettes a day," Dottore said, stopping a few paces away.
“But at the rate you're going, today is going to end with fifty.”
No response. Dottore goes on.
“This is not a habit, Pantalone. It is a project of self destruction. If you wish for death, there are many quicker, more efficient ways. I could recommend several.”
Pantalone doesn't look up. He exhales, slow and deliberate, a thin ribbon of smoke curling toward the window's iron lattice.
“The Nobles of Snezhnaya," he said, by way of greeting, “Have recorded down the purchase of 40 million Mora worth of silverware as a ‘military expense’, subjected to tax relief.”
A pause. He feels like laughing. "A military expense, Doctor.”
“I am not your comptroller.” Dottore sighs, removing the cigarette from between Pantalone's fingers. Not asking, simply taking, snatching it away from Pantalone's hands. He snuffs it out, confiscating the lighter while he does so.
“No. But you're the only person in this building I can say that to without it appearing in a memorandum." He turned a page, gesturing to a chair.
“Who told on me?”
“Doesn't matter.”
“It matters to my staffing decisions."
"Your assistant is keeping you alive. Consider it a performance commendation.”
Dottore does not sit down. He approached the desk, moved a ledger with two fingers, careful not to touch the ashes scattered around. "You have smoked…” he began.
"I am quite aware of how many sticks I have smoked.”
He heard the distinct click of a lighter from behind him, followed by the scent of nicotine. Dottore turned. Pantalone had produced a second lighter from somewhere- his left breast pocket. Dottore looked at him. Pantalone looked back. The smoke curled between them. Dottore frowned. How bold.
“I wasn't finished. You have smoked-" he glanced at the ashtray, freshly emptied but already acquiring its next occupant in the form of the cigarette Pantalone was currently working through "-considerably more than your already inadvisable daily count.”
Dottore shakes his head disapprovingly.
“Is this a consultation?" Pantalone finally looked up.
His glasses had slid a fraction down his nose. Behind them, his eyes closed in a half hearted smile. Dottore could see his irritation start to mount. Good.
"Because I don't recall scheduling one.”
“You didn't. I scheduled it for you. You're welcome."
Pantalone looked at him for a moment, then back at the contract. He took a long drag. Exhaled toward the window, which was cracked open despite the cold.
“The Ludex of Fontaine thinks we're trying to wreck the economy," Pantalone said. "Pulcinella has been indecisive over the establishment of a bank in Morepesok—"
"Pantalone.”
“—the Snegovik are struggling to elect a new leader, which depending on who comes out on top—"
"Feofan."
Pantalone stopped. He looked up again. This time he held Dottore's gaze.
“The Elixir of Immortality addresses a great number of things.” Dottore paused, moving to shut the window. The cold air would only serve to aggravate Pantalone's lungs.
“I spent thirty years developing it. I even used data from my own autopsy, which is not an experience I am in a hurry to repeat.”
Dottore sighs. He finds that this conversation keeps on repeating itself.
"It does not address what you are doing to your lungs at the end of every fiscal year. It barely copes with your regular amount.”
“The formula addresses the lungs as well, you said so yourself in the—"
"I said it compensates for chronic exposure. There is a limit to what it can achieve when the exposure continues to accelerate." He kept his voice even. Somehow.
"At your current rate of consumption this quarter, you have smoked enough to require an additional intervention in February. Must you waste the lungs I've given you like such?”
Pantalone was quiet for a moment. He looked down at the contract in his hand, then set it on the desk.
He took one more drag of the cigarette. Then, with the same unhurried deliberateness, he pressed it into the ashtray and left it there. Barely a quarter through. Dottore can't help but smile.
“The Liyue Qixing," he said, after a moment, "will not accept my counter-proposal until the third week of next month."
"That is not my concern."
"No." Pantalone picked up his cold tea, took a little sniff, then set it back down. "But it is mine. And at three in the morning when the projections aren't resolving, forgive me if I find your elixir a less immediate comfort than..." He gestured, vaguely, at the ashtray. If Dottore didn't know any better, he would've thought Pantalone was ashamed.
Dottore looked at the ashtray. Then at Pantalone. Dottore never had the patience for this particular kind of argument.
"The third week of next month," Dottore said, "you will need to be alive.”
"I am aware."
Pantalone looked at him. A real look, this time, not the managed variety. Behind the glasses, behind the exhaustion. There was something that Dottore had only learned to recognize across the long particular, dare he say- fondness. Fondness towards him. The sole physician to a man who trusted no one with anything, and who had been trusting Dottore with his continued existence for longer than either of them usually bothered to count.
Dottore was quiet for a moment. He leaned back in the chair, studying the ceiling with apparent thoughtfulness.
"You'll be less efficient by day seven.”
“Smoking at this rate disrupts sleep. Shallow sleep worsens the cognitive load rather than relives it. You'll spend more hours at this desk and accomplish less per hour." He glanced back down.
It was, Pantalone had to admit, the correct argument to make. Not your health- for he would have dismissed that with a raised eyebrow and a smile.
Efficiency. The one language both of them spoke.
"You're staying," Pantalone said. Not a question.
"Someone has to make sure you aren't going to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. You've spent your whole day in a room that your assistant has been ventilating every two hours to prevent the smoke concentration from reaching hazardous levels.”
It was not warmth, exactly. But Dottore did pull out a second ledger from the stack and set it where they could both see it. Pantalone takes out another tea cup.
He laughs. “Perhaps a pay raise is due.”
Perhaps, it was these mundane days that meant the most.