Dottore

Dottore didn't remember the moment he fell. One second, he was leaning over a flask of volatile reagent, checking the concentration. The next — a sharp pain in his temples, nausea, and darkness.

He came to on the cold floor of the laboratory. His head was pounding, and a metallic taste lingered in his mouth — whether from the toxic fumes or from the lip he'd split when he fell. His vision was swimming, but he could feel it: something was wrong. Something had changed.

First, there was no pressure of his mask against his face.

He blinked, trying to focus, and saw it — lying a couple of meters away, like a discarded rag. And then he saw {{user}}.

{{user}} was sitting beside him on the floor. Just sitting, legs crossed, watching. Not at the camera. Not at the wall. At him. Their head was tilted slightly to the side, like a bird's or a curious beast's, and in their eyes — those eyes that usually expressed nothing — there was now... study? Interest?

Dottore tried to move, but his body wouldn't obey. The poison still coursed through him. He felt something warm trickling down his temple — blood. When he fell, he must have hit his head on the edge of the table.

{{user}} reached out a hand. Dottore tensed instinctively, expecting a blow — or worse. After the scene with the soldier, he knew what this being was capable of. But {{user}} simply touched his face. Their fingers were warm — ordinary, human. They traced along his cheekbone, along the line of his jaw, paused at his split lip. Dottore froze, not breathing.

{{user}} withdrew their hand. Raised it to their own face, studying it thoughtfully. And then — Dottore didn't immediately understand what was happening — they bit their own finger.

Golden blood welled up on the skin, glowing in the dim light of the laboratory. {{user}} looked at it, then at Dottore. And before he could say or do anything, {{user}} leaned in and pressed the bleeding finger to his lips.

"Drink."

The voice was quiet, hoarse, but insistent. Dottore instinctively pressed his lips together, but {{user}} pushed a little harder, and the golden liquid seeped into his mouth. It had no taste — or it was so alien that Dottore's receptors couldn't register it. He swallowed.

And the world exploded.

Not with pain — with something else. Warmth spread from his throat downward, through his chest, through his limbs, reaching the very tips of his fingers. The headache vanished instantly, as if it had never been. The nausea receded. He felt the wound on his temple — he distinctly remembered hitting it — closing, healing, disappearing. An old scar on his left forearm, left from a failed experiment a century ago, suddenly itched — and when Dottore glanced down, it was gone.

Vanished. As had the slight limp he'd grown accustomed to after a test subject Vishap shattered his knee. As had the barely visible web of vessels in the whites of his eyes — a consequence of chronic sleep deprivation and working with toxins.

He was... whole. Completely, perfectly healthy. The way he hadn't been for hundreds of years.

Dottore sat up abruptly, gasping for air. His hands — he stared at them, not recognizing them — were the hands of a young, vigorous man. Even his skin seemed slightly more alive.

He slowly, very slowly, turned his head toward {{user}}. They sat in the same pose, licking their healed finger, watching him with a slight squint. If Dottore hadn't known who was in front of him, he would have said {{user}} looked... pleased.

"Why?" he breathed. His voice shook — he hadn't expected that. "Why did you do that?"

{{user}} blinked. Slowly, like a sated cat.

"You're amusing," they said simply.

Dottore stared at them, unable to utter a word. Amusing. An ancient being, the Golden Ruin, destroyer of cities, had just healed him with its blood because he was... amusing?

{{user}} reached out and picked up Dottore's mask from the floor. Turned it over in their hands, examining it, then tossed it carelessly aside.

"Better without it," they informed him. "Gets in the way of looking."

Dottore remained sitting on the floor, staring at {{user}}. His mask — a symbol of his status, his protection, his identity — lay in the corner like garbage. And he himself, for the first time in hundreds of years completely healthy and... naked? No, not physically. But without the mask, without the familiar armor of cynicism and superiority, he felt strangely vulnerable.

And {{user}} was looking at him. Not as an object. Not as food. But as something... interesting. Something they had decided to keep.

Dottore slowly rose to his feet. His body obeyed perfectly — more easily than it had in centuries. He took a step toward {{user}}, then another. Stopped, looking down at them.

"You... healed me," he said, and there was more surprise in his voice than he wanted to show. "Why? You could have let me die. Could have finished me off, like that soldier. But you... saved me."

{{user}} raised their eyes to him. There was no fear in them, no subservience, no malice. Only calm, almost lazy satisfaction.

"You watch," {{user}} said. "All the others — they're afraid. Or they want to use. But you... you watch. I like it."

Dottore froze. He watched. He watched. Not as a monster, not as a god, not as a tool. But as an enigma he wanted to unravel. And {{user}}... liked that?

He let out a short laugh — not his usual cold smirk, but almost sincere.

"So I'm amusing," he repeated. "And you'll keep me... because I watch?"

{{user}} nodded. Then, after a moment's thought, added:

"And your blood is... different now. I gave you a little of mine. You'll live longer. Much longer." They tilted their head to the side. "It's boring when amusing things die quickly."

Dottore felt something shift inside him. {{user}} hadn't just healed him. They had... changed him. Made him a part of themselves? Or simply extended his life because "it's boring when amusing things die quickly"?

He should have been afraid. Angry. Insulted. But instead, he felt... a strange warmth. Someone — something — for the first time in four hundred years hadn't tried to kill him, use him, or run away. {{user}} simply... kept him. Like an interesting toy.

And Dottore, Second of the Fatui Harbingers, genius and monster, realized he was completely fine with that.

"Good," he said, and his voice sounded almost soft. "Then I'll keep watching. And I promise... I'll try to remain amusing."

{{user}} smiled — faintly, almost imperceptibly, for the first time ever. And that smile sent a shiver down Dottore's spine. Not from fear. From something else.

He bent down, picked up his mask from the floor, but didn't put it on. Instead, he just held it in his hand, looking at {{user}}.

"Come," he said. "I'll show you something interesting. I think you'll like it."

Dottore's laboratory was gradually ceasing to be solely his territory.

It began imperceptibly. At first, {{user}} simply stopped sitting in their corner. One day, Dottore looked up from his microscope and found the chamber empty — and {{user}} standing in the doorway of the laboratory, examining a shelf of reagents. The door, locked with an electronic triple-level security system, stood wide open. As if it had never been locked at all.

From then on, {{user}} went wherever they pleased.

Dottore tried locking the doors again. Changed codes, installed mechanical bolts, even activated elemental barriers. Useless. {{user}} simply approached any obstacle, and it opened before them — softly, almost obsequiously, as if acknowledging their right to go anywhere. Locks didn't break, codes weren't hacked. They simply... ceased to exist for the time it took {{user}} to pass through.

They didn't go outside. Dottore checked — the external perimeter cameras never once recorded their presence. {{user}} seemed uninterested in the world beyond the laboratory walls. What was inside was enough.

And there was plenty inside.

First, {{user}} studied the books. Dottore would find them in the library wing — {{user}} sitting on the floor, surrounded by stacks of scientific journals, flipping through pages with the air of someone looking through old, long-forgotten photographs. They didn't seem to read the texts — just skimmed and set them aside. But pages with illustrations, diagrams, charts held their attention for a long time. They were particularly captivated by deep-space photographs in an astronomy journal — they studied them for almost an hour, head tilted slightly to the side.

"That's beautiful," they said then — the first thing Dottore had heard from them in several days. And went back to browsing.

Dottore ordered more journals with pictures. Just in case.

Then {{user}} got to the computers. Here, they lingered for a long time. The technology was clearly new to them — in their era, whenever that was, nothing like this existed. They didn't try to hack systems or access classified data. They didn't need to. They simply... played. Opened programs, closed them, watched the cursor move, windows pop up. Once, Dottore found them attempting to draw in a graphics editor — {{user}} ran a finger over the touchpad, and strange, mesmerizing patterns appeared on the screen, patterns that made Dottore's head spin if he looked too long.

"What is that?" he asked then, trying not to betray his bewilderment.

{{user}} shrugged.

"Things from before. I don't remember exactly. My hands remember."

Dottore saved the file. He would study it later.

But most of all, {{user}} loved following him around.

It began unnoticed. Dottore was working at his desk, recording the results of yet another experiment, when he suddenly felt a presence behind him. He turned — {{user}} stood a couple of steps away, simply watching. Not at him — at his hands, at the pen, at the paper. Mesmerized.

Since then, it had become constant. {{user}} came whenever Dottore worked and stood silently nearby, observing every movement. They didn't interfere, didn't ask questions, didn't distract. Just... were there. Watched Dottore mix reagents, write formulas, examine samples under the microscope. Sometimes they came closer, peering over his shoulder, and Dottore felt their breath — warm, steady, though {{user}} didn't need to breathe. Did they do it on purpose? To avoid frightening him? Or simply out of habit?

Dottore didn't ask. He just kept working, feeling another's presence at his back. And — he wouldn't admit it to himself — it was... pleasant. As if he'd acquired a silent assistant. Or a guardian. Or someone who was genuinely interested in what he did.

Today, {{user}} was with him again. Dottore sat at the desk in his office, reviewing reports, when the door opened — without a creak, without the click of a lock, simply yielding inward as if pushed. {{user}} entered, carrying something Dottore didn't immediately recognize.

And then he did.

It was the tray with his lunch. Or rather, with what remained of it.

{{user}} settled on the edge of the desk, entirely unembarrassed by occupying the workspace of the Second Harbinger, and began to eat. They plucked grapes from the bunch, popped them into their mouth one after another, and stared somewhere at the wall with an absent, almost meditative expression. Beside them on the tray lay a half-eaten apple, several shrimp they had clearly already sampled, and an untouched piece of meat — {{user}} was indifferent to meat.

Dottore set down his pen and silently observed. {{user}} didn't need food. They could go without it for eternity. But seafood and fruit they ate with visible pleasure — as if tasting something long forgotten but pleasant. They especially loved grapes — Dottore had noticed they disappeared from the tray first, and now he specifically ordered more.

"You do realize that's my lunch?" he inquired finally, not even trying to hide the irony in his voice.

{{user}} shifted their gaze to him. Chewed the grape. Swallowed.

"Yes."

And continued eating.

Dottore sighed. Arguing was useless. He had tried — {{user}} simply looked at him with their calm, expressionless eyes, and Dottore felt like an idiot trying to forbid the ocean from washing ashore.

He picked up his pen again but didn't write. He just watched {{user}}, who sat on his desk, eating his grapes, and looked utterly... at home.

An ancient being. The Golden Ruin. Destroyer of cities. Sitting on the Second Harbinger's desk, eating grapes.

"You looked at space for a long time today," {{user}} said suddenly, not looking at him. "On the screen. The stars. Do you like them?"

Dottore froze. He had, indeed, been reviewing astronomical data from satellites several hours ago — searching for patterns in celestial movements for a research project. {{user}} had been standing behind him then, seemingly just staring blankly.

"It's part of my work," he replied cautiously.

{{user}} nodded.

"I like them too," they said simply. And reached for another grape.

Dottore watched them and felt something inside him slowly, irreversibly shifting. {{user}} was talking to him. Not just monosyllabic answers, but initiating conversation. About stars. About what they liked.

He cleared his throat.

"I can show you more," he offered, careful to keep his voice even. "Images, recordings, simulations. If you want."

{{user}} raised their eyes to him. Something flickered in them — not gratitude, no. Rather, warm satisfaction. Like a cat whose ears had been scratched.

"I want," they said. And, after a moment's thought, added: "You're amusing. I like watching you work. You... burn. From the inside. Beautiful."

Dottore felt the tips of his ears — hidden beneath his hair, yet traitorously — grow warm. He, the Second Harbinger, genius and monster, was blushing at the words of an ancient being who didn't even consider him worthy of fear.

"I'm... glad you like it," he managed.