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In the middle of the river, hidden by the undergrowth that sprouts lush green leaves and glowing flowers, a rowing boat moves at its slowed pace, propelled forward by the slicing of oars against the surface of water.
On the little wooden boat, two figures sit under the blackened cover of night.
One has his legs crossed and fingers folded demurely, smirking as he leans back on the oakwood planks. His black hair falls over one shoulder, combed neatly with a Viparyas flower woven in between dark strands, and he looks increasingly amused at the man sitting from across him.
The teal-haired scientist opposite of him glares back as he shifts the oars back and forth, back and forth, with surprisingly gentle movements that propel their little boat along the river.
“Remind me again why I am the one rowing.” he grumbles, resisting the urge to punch that pretty, grinning face.
“You suggested coming here. You’re the only one who knows where we’re going. Also, you love me and spoil me rotten.”
The Regrator waves a hand lazily, dramatically draping himself over the side so the tips of his hair almost graze the bobbing water. He sounds so self-absorbed, so casual in what he says and yet there is some degree of truth to that statement.
Dottore huffs.
“One more word and I shove you headfirst into the river.”
There's no malice in his words. They both know he doesn't mean it. So he offers a knowing smile as the older whines about the sheer injustice of having to steer a boat.
As much as the Doctor loathes the nation that cast him out, he admits there is a natural beauty to the wilderness of his homeland. The tranquillity of the moon's reflection, disturbed only by the movement of the boat, lets a sense of peace settle in the whirring cogs and wheels in that mechanical heart.
Normally, he'd have turned down such a mission and sent one of his segments in place– but the notion of setting up camp in sweltering Sumeru while his business partner whines about the hot weather is truly too good an opportunity to pass up.
So here he is, taking a detour from work with his beloved Regrator to go on something the mortals like to call “a date”.
The man sitting opposite of him has his elbows propped up against the side of the boat as he watches his surroundings with an uncharacteristic wonder. Usually, his expression would have been more guarded. More feigned, with his lips pressed together in an imitation of a warm smile as he grips his daggers tight and delivers threats to anyone who dares question his word.
Now he displays that gentler side of him. The softness, the humanity, the excited spark in his eyes that's almost childish in the most endearing way. Like he's a little boy on a vacation for the first time.
It reminds Dottore that neither of them ever had the chance to grow up properly.
“Your homeland really is quite the place,” Pantalone murmurs, smiling at the colorful birds shrieking their heads off at the banks of the river.
“Indeed.”
The banker's hand hovers above the scientist's arm, his touch passing a sense of comfort through skin and soothing the tension shaking his bones.
“Do you hate having to come back here?” asks Pantalone.
Then Dottore pauses, pursing his lips, and Pantalone wonders if he's brought it too far.
Then he offers a tentative reply.
“No.” he decides, glancing up at the star-dotted sky and cover of clouds above, spun silver dimming the glow of a blue-tinted moon behind them. “It's not amazing. But I don't despise it.”
“So you have come to terms with your past in the Akademiya, yes?”
The lapping of water against the hull is calming, a background to the lilt of the Regrator's voice. He reaches out a hand to smooth down his business partner's unruly hair, fixing a stray strand behind his ear.
“I suppose so. In a way.”
Behind them, the city of Sumeru is aglow in the distance, decked in the lights of the bustling marketplace.
Once upon a time, a younger Zandik walked there under the glow of those lamps, textbooks in hand and an eagerness in his eyes that would have dimmed by the time he left Sumeru.
Pantalone wonders what it's like to have closure from his past. Maybe someday he will look upon his past in Liyue and have no shame of who he used to be.
The Doctor seems to know what he's thinking.
“Wounds take time to heal.”
His words are a fresh breath of air in a suffocating ocean. Pantalone raises his head, staring at that face behind the mask, and Dottore continues to speak.
“And I still hate this nation for what it has done to me. It took me a hundred years to grow accustomed to revisiting this hell.”
Out of all the people in this ruined world, it's hard for Pantalone to believe he could find a kindred spirit in someone as inhuman as Il Dottore himself.
But he cracks a smile.
“But you’ve found your peace.” he says quietly. “I’ve been turbulent all these years. Still lost. Still a puppet of the gods.”
Dottore sighs, shaking out his teal curls and pushing the oars backwards as he lets the Regrator’s hand rest against his wrist, feeling the ticking of a programmed heart thump steadily onwards.
“Peace doesn’t have to be knowing what you want to do,” says Dottore. “I accepted my past, but I did not find peace until…”
A brief glance at the businessman is stolen, and he smiles.
“I did not find peace until our paths crossed, and annoying as you are, you continue to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“If I’m the best thing you’ve ever come across in 500 years,” mutters Pantalone dryly, “you must’ve had quite the awful life then.”
“I mean it. Why else would I have offered to go with you?”
“Because you’re clinically insane.”
“Well, yes. That, too.”
They snicker at the other’s statements as the little rowboat comes to a stop in the middle of a lake.
“Why have we stopped?” asks the banker, sitting up and looking around. “Don’t tell me we’ve crashed the boat.”
“No, I wanted to show you something. I used to come here a lot in my Akademiya days.”
Around them, tiny dots of light brighten and dim, dancing and flitting in midair. A single glowing pinprick dares to come closer, landing itself in between locks of teal hair.
“Fireflies,” breathes Pantalone.
“I thought you’d like them,” Dottore says. “You do have a love for pretty things, after all.”
Pantalone raises a hand. The firefly flits away, dodging away from his outstretched palm and alighting on the side of the boat. His smile is unmistakable; his eyes sparkle brighter than any shooting star as he adjusts the flower in his hair. It’s funny, how unassuming and innocent he looks, while he is that same man who once tortured a debtor into insanity for talking back to him.
Even with the darkness that has fallen on both of them, Dottore can see Pantalone’s face, lit only faintly by the fireflies’ glow, and he sees so many flaws but perfection at the same time. He wonders how he can keep this love in his grasp forever.
“Do you want to hear about the anatomy of a firefly?” he blurts, instead of saying something interesting or engaging. Then he curses himself. In hindsight, this was most likely why they said Akademiya students would never be able to get a date.
Pantalone groans.
He loves this idiot, but really, the Doctor is great at ruining romantic moments.
”No.” he says.
Dottore ignores him and starts rambling anyway.
Pantalone’s eyes follow the movements of the older, animated in excitement as he speaks. He’s still masked, his red eyes hidden from the world, but his words aren’t layered as usual. He may be in his homeland, but his home is not in Sumeru, nor in Snezhnaya; he belongs here, right next to the man he loves and hates at the same time and would sacrifice everything for.
Only when they are with each other can he feel emotion so purely.
Dottore watches the man staring at him, silhouetted in dimmed firelight, and his heart skips a beat.
Tonight, the fireflies are incandescent.
And so is his beloved.
Slowly, the Doctor rows the boat ashore, steering it along with the current as fireflies twinkle in a display of stars around them.
Two feared Harbingers, pressed close together in a little rowboat, away from the rumors and gossip and wandering eyes of Teyvat's people.
“Isn't it nice to be alone together?” says Dottore aloud, placing the oars down as they come to a stop at the edge of the pond.
He is responded to with a light snore.
Looking down, he finds his partner fast asleep on his shoulder, clinging to his arm like some sort of extravagantly dressed koala. His glasses have fallen off his face, dangling from the silver chain around his neck.
He looks so much softer than he ought to be.
“Mortals,” mutters Dottore. “Always so prone to exhaustion.”
Despite that, he removes his lab coat and wraps it around the sleeping Regrator's shoulders.
They've always been so ambitious, so desperate to topple the skies and cast jagged cracks upon the earth.
And yet they find solace in such simple little things. In that intimate silence shared between two equally psychotic people.
Dottore decides that he likes it.
When he falls asleep, he, too, is smiling.