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“Are you sure we must carry through with this?”
Il Dottore tastes the words on his lips as he sits by the man on the experiment bench. There are wires clutched in his hand, and scalpels on a table to the side. Normally, he would have delighted in using them— he never passes down an opportunity to conduct his twisted experiments.
But it pains him to do so now.
The banker glares up at him, head resting against cold metal. There is fear and rage and emptiness brewing in them all at once.
“Make me stronger.” he declares, fist curling in determination. “Modify me so I will be nothing short of perfection.”
“You are aware— that even with the sedatives, it will hurt afterwards.”
“Yes.”
The Regrator’s voice is steady, calm, almost cold. He folds his arms over his chest and braces himself for the worst.
He needs to do this.
“And after this— you will become emotionless.”
“Yes.”
The Doctor loses his temper. He hurls the scalpel down, grabbing hold of Pantalone’s shoulder.
“Fool,” he hisses, “is all this worth a sacrifice? Is it worth— never being able to love again?”
Pantalone pauses. Presses a finger to his forehead, hating how mortal he is. His lips curve down at the corners, letting Dottore hold him closer. Almost as if he is concerned.
“I will be stronger.” the banker says simply. “I will not be a failure any longer.”
“Archons’ sake—” Dottore breaks off. He places a hand on Pantalone’s cheek, breaths coming out in heavy sighs. “I will lose you after this…forever. Do you want that to happen? Do you?”
“I almost lost you once.” seethes Pantalone. “And the lengths I will go to, to make sure I will never allow it to happen again…the strength I will gain after this, so I can protect you—”
“But you will not want to protect anyone after it, no?”
A beat of silence. Heat stains bloom-tinted cheeks.
“—I’m sorry.”
“Why?” murmurs Dottore, hovering over the man on the experiment bench and pressing a finger to those ashen lips he recalls so fondly. “Why must you ruin yourself like this?”
“It will all be worth it. The thrones of Celestia will topple. My conscience will have left. I can feel no guilt. I can do anything to protect you. There will be nothing to hold me back once I become devoid of emotion.”
Anxiety flits across the scientist’s face.
“You will never be able to feel again.”
“I am aware.”
“I have no wish to destroy your mind like this.”
When he touches the line of the banker’s cheek, he feels dampness.
He’s been crying.
In an attempt to steady himself, the Regrator offers a tight smile. It brings no assurance.
“I promise, I am doing this for you.”
His voice is so soft, he is almost imploring, and Dottore thinks about how, after this experiment, he will never be able to see that look on his beloved’s face again.
He could refuse.
He could put his foot down and demand they never speak of this again.
He could but at the same time he can't.
Yet who is he to say no to his Regrator?
He has always been the selfish madman who thinks of no other than himself and his research.
How is it possible he softens at a mortal’s touch?
“I cannot deny your request,” he says heavily. “So I will do as asked.”
An irreversible operation.
Black-gloved hands are folded against each other, palladium encircling his spindly fingers set in deep amethyst.
“Thank you.”
With that, he dips his head and goes still on the experiment bench. There is a certain air of fragility about his person today. He is too limp, too quiet, too vulnerable. As if the slightest touch of a scalpel could tear him to pieces.
Dottore doesn’t like it.
His hand shifts to rest on the line of the younger’s waist.
“Under one condition.”
“Yes?”
“Spare me one more moment of your time,” says Dottore, lifting his mask so it rests against his curls. “One more moment to see you before losing you for eternity.”
Arms wrap around a slender neck and bring his banker closer, closer, closer to him until he hears nothing but simultaneous breaths that are a language only the two of them can understand.
“You’re trembling,” notes Pantalone. “It’s not common for you to do so.”
A shaky laugh escapes his mouth.
“It’s a farewell.” he chides. “Do you not think it pains me to kill you?”
“I'm not dying.”
A sigh.
“Oh, but you are. It hurts to say goodbye. It always does. Like a thousand paper cuts in skin. Shredding you to nothing.”
A hand sifts through fine teal threads, then lowers. There is a brief press of lips to the Doctor's palm.
“Do it, then. It's about time.”
He pries Dottore's fingers off his face and rests his head against stainless metal. A test subject, ready to be dissected.
With hands that are clenched so tightly blood is drained from them, a syringe is inserted through pallid skin, injecting anaesthetic into his patient's bloodstream.
Faintly, he murmurs those words like a hymn.
“–Good night.”
Pantalone smiles at him, innocently, softly, like any other night where he would be resting beneath silken sheets with moonlight blessing the lines of his face. The potent concoction lulls him slowly into dreamless sleep. His eyes shut, sunlight closed in by curtains, and it is like Death has come to claim him.
Of course, he is dying in his own way.
“Good night,” murmurs Dottore, ignoring the part of him that screams for him to stop.
The operation starts.
Sweat beads on his forehead.
Every cut, every move made to destroy the part of his banker's mind that generates emotions and the personality he so adores.
He does it by hand. A struggle is visible in pained red eyes, followed by attempts not to flinch at the touch of gloved fingers to that bloodied, exposed skull.
He is already grieving.
He toils away, in the exact same manner, for the next three hours. Reprograms and wipes away everything he's built up over the years.
And with the sewing of a wound, it is done.
It is done.
He has ruined the only thing he ever held dear.
“I'm sorry.”
The Regrator continues to sleep, ever peacefully, like he is in a dream. Like he is not dead. Just resting.
For the first time, the feel of human blood stirs an unease in the pit of his stomach.
The morning brings the wearing off of the anaesthetic.
And regret burns a hole in his heart. He almost wishes he himself had died instead.
“You're awake,” says the scientist, and there is unmistakable relief in his voice. “Does it hurt?”
His eyes flicker to the sewn wound under raven curls.
“No.”
The younger's response is curt. Sharp. So sharp, in fact, that it almost hurts to hear.
“Shall I bring you some food? A drink? Painkillers?”
A visibly faked simper is offered to him. The banker sits upright, delving into his pocket and coming up with a pouch of gold.
“Here,” he says sweetly, with that awful plastic smile fixed on his face, “payment for your troubles.”
Dottore doesn't take it.
“Don't want it?” hums Pantalone, taking it back. “Oh well.”
His vacant, serene little smile. Hands folded demurely as he sits with his ankles crossed. He is so beautiful, so elegant, so…detached.
So cold.
“I've ruined you.”
Dottore says it without realizing.
“Mmh, no, quite the contrary. I'd say you've done me a favor.”
Those eyes that used to fix upon him, endearing and hopelessly, madly in love…empty. Casual. Like they're just colleagues. Nothing more.
It's blank and unfeeling and it cuts deep through skin and bone until thorns coil around his heart and destroy it altogether, a thousand wounds in a soul he didn't know he had.
I killed you.
He is sickened by what he has done.
He watches Pantalone saunter off, head held high, tossing those coins in his hands like he always does.
Except it's not him. Not the right him.
And he hates it.
I destroyed you.
But Il Dottore is fine. He is not shaken. Not heartbroken. He doesn't have a heart.
No, of course he doesn't.
He's soulless. He's a monster.
(That's what he tells himself, anyway.)
There is no sadness.
There was never a Pantalone he cared about.
And there are no tiny knives, carving a thousand jagged marks onto his whirring mechanical heart.