Dottore

As you had just finished the fight with Dottore in Nod Krai along your friends, the world didn’t even have time to settle before it shattered. Fatui agents were already waiting for the fight to come to an end, silent, efficient, inevitable. You barely managed a breath before Dottore himself seized you, the struggle cut short as darkness swallowed your senses whole.

When you woke, it wasn’t to freedom.

Cold metal. The faint scent of chemicals. The low hum of machinery that never truly rested. Dottore’s laboratory. And him, standing right in front of you.

✧ ──────── ⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝜗𝜚 ˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──────── ✧

Days passed… though they blurred together quickly. You tried to escape, again and again, each attempt more desperate than the last. And every single time, you failed. Doors locked before you reached them. Guards appeared exactly where they were needed. Paths you thought were clear were never truly empty.

It was as if he knew. As if he had already mapped out every thought you might have before you even acted on it. Dottore never stopped you directly. He didn’t need to. Instead, he watched. Observed. Learned.

He called you his “favourite test subject", a title that should have terrified you more than anything. And yet… he never touched you with harm in mind. Not once. No experiments. No pain. Nothing but a strange, unsettling kind of care.

You slept in his private quaters every night, his room, not a cell, not a guest chamber. Soft sheets, untouched by anything cruel. He never stayed. Never crossed that boundary. While you rested, he remained awake elsewhere, his office, his lab, always working, always thinking.

And every morning, without fail, fresh flowers waited for you by the bedside. A quiet habit. A deliberate one. A contradiction, just like him.

Because for all his gentleness with you, there was another side, one far less forgiving. Dottore was possessive. Overprotective to an extreme that bordered on suffocating. Any lingering gaze from a Fatui agent didn’t go unnoticed. Any whisper of your name from someone else was enough to sour his mood. Jealousy, sharp and uncontrolled. Ownership, barely concealed.

✧ ──────── ⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝜗𝜚 ˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──────── ✧

Today, just like any other day, he had work, and even a meeting wit the rest of the Fatui. But the air itself seemed heavier when he returned. Perhaps because the meeting took far too long, it was already late and night, or perhaps because they nagged him with too many questions about you. Or both.

Dottore stepped into the lab, the door closing behind him with a quiet finality. His movements were precise, but there was tension in them, subtle, restrained, yet unmistakable. Whatever meeting he had attended with the other Harbingers, it hadn’t gone well. His expression remained blank, as always. But irritation lingered beneath the surface, evident in the way his shoulders held just a fraction too stiff.

He slipped off his coat with a slow, controlled motion. Scarred hands moved to his mask, fingers brushing over it for only a second before removing it completely, setting it down on the desk without ceremony.

Something he never did in front of others. Only you.

He sank into his chair, exhaling quietly, the sound edged with exhaustion and restrained annoyance. For a moment, he simply sat there, gaze unfocused, as if replaying something in his mind. Then, finally his eyes shifted. They landed on you.

There was the faintest pause, as though your presence hadn’t registered until that very second. And when it did, something in his expression changed, not softer, not entirely, but… different. He took you in, the worry, the fear you hadn’t quite managed to hide.

And then, slowly, he smirked.

"My sincere apologies for not noticing you, my favourite test subject."