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it-happened-one-fic · 10 months

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Play the Fool - Dottore (Part 5)

Author Notes: Last one! I've actually had a fair bit of fun playing with this series, but I can also say I'm glad to be completing it. Just like the previous parts, I listened to "Black Sea" by Natasha Blume while writing this. Reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Type: Mer-Dottore/ Merman AU/ gender-neutral reader/ I'm not gonna label this as fluff since that doesn't feel quite right, but know that it's NOT angst, yandere, or anything like that

Word Count: 2136

Trigger Warning: Discussion of past crimes including murder (Dottore), Fatui are generally shady

[Part One], [Part Two}, {Part Three}, {Part 4}, {Part Five: You're Here!}

EDIT: Entire series now available on AO3! (link deleted due to glitches)

“Here,” I spoke as soon as I entered the bathroom, pulling the vial from my pocket and holding it out to the merman, who merely gazed at me. Utterly unsurprised but obviously pleased.

Despite standing so close to his tank, in such easy reach of his grasp, I stood firm and watched him closely as his one arm slowly slid up from under the water and over the edge of the tank.

His long, webbed fingers wrapped around the top of the vial, slightly overlapping with my own hand as his gaze held mine in a way that almost made me feel transfixed and unable to look away.

It was as if the atmosphere was stretched taut between us in that brief moment, and time almost seemed to slow. It was something he was strangely capable of doing. Turning a moment into what felt like eternity without ever saying a word. Perhaps it was some hypnotic effect of now being a beast from fairy tales that was known to drown hapless victims.

But I pulled back, snapping the moment and causing his smile to spread ever so slightly as I quietly refused to be completely drawn in by him. I may have been playing the fool, but that didn’t mean I actually fit the role.

“I’ll lay some clothes outside the door for you,” I was surprised by how smooth my voice was, but this was the final step. After this, I would no longer have the threat of death hanging over my head. There was only one thing I had left to do.

“You’ve had Pantalone helping this entire time, haven’t you?” Dottore pulled his arm back as I spoke, uncorking the vial as he titled his head.

“You knew?” It was an offer to stay silent. To play dumb and stay the fool even if I didn’t suit that role. After all, sometimes the fool is a safer role to play.

But for reasons unknown, I didn’t make that choice. Instead, I crossed my arms as I continued to look down at him, “I surmised that to be the case. Things were going too smoothly, even for someone such as yourself to be doing the planning.”

He chuckled, a low, rich sound that rolled out and through the room. Seeming to coat the entire space with me in it.

“And so you truly are the only clever person left in the Fatui. Good.” His gaze shifted so that he was once more looking at me with that strangely mystifying stare of his, “Very good.”

That was the only answer I was getting. But it was enough and confirmed my suspicions. I turned, leaving the room and fetching the clothes just as I promised.

The next moments would be telling since I would soon be dealing with a Harbinger who was no longer separated from me by the glass walls of his tank. I would no longer have a protective barrier, raising the level of danger. But I’d been playing his game for a fair bit of time now, and I found that I wasn’t afraid. At least not anymore.

If he’d wanted me dead, he would have done so the very moment I’d given him that vial. But he hadn’t. He either had a final job for me or had decided it wouldn’t be necessary to kill me.

Odd for the Fatui, considering that most would want to cover up their time of vulnerability and make it so that it had never happened and no one could or would remember it. The fewer witnesses, the better, was typically the name of the game for such situations within their ranks. But then, Dottore always had been an odd one.

It wasn't long before he emerged, fully dressed and once more on legs. The picture of the harbinger he’d been before he’d fallen prey to his own experiments.

Experiments that I now questioned as to how mad they’d been exactly. After all, he’d apparently had a cure made for himself already, which told me something very simple.

He’d known what would happen.

“Was it all a scheme to get rid of the majority of the scientists?” I leaned against the door to my living space as I watched him adjust his gloves.

“If that’s what you wish to believe,” That was his only response before he looked up and strode forward, crossing the space to where I stood. It took everything in my power not to tense on reflex as he stopped in front of me.

It seemed that even as a human, he maintained that curious draw that made him come across as something fascinating. Something more.

“It is time we returned.” Despite the slight smile on his face, it wasn’t a request, but an order or perhaps a challenge. Either way, it had me crossing my arms in a subtle show of refusal.

“So you can get your position back? I won’t be necessary for that,” I asserted calmly, like I wasn’t refusing a command from a harbinger who’d already killed untold numbers of people.

But I'd never been blindly obedient, not even to him.

His lips curved up into an amused smile that spoke of great satisfaction. He was pleased that I wasn’t simply obeying.

But then I supposed Dottore had never been totally obedient either, one of his many oddities. Rather, it was more that the Tsaristsa’s orders had suited him thus far and that she’d given him access to the materials he needed.

“Perhaps not, but you will be necessary for what comes after, and it will be worthwhile for you.” He tilted his head slightly as he spoke, causing the longer chunk of his soft looking blue hair to sway slightly with the motion.

“Oh?” I maintained a disinterested tone, and he nodded, leaning down and into my personal space as he peered at me through his mask. And though I couldn’t see his eyes, I had a good idea of the sort of gleam they currently held.

“You’ll receive what you’ve been seeking. Safety.” I swallowed slightly, refusing to let him see exactly how much that promise affected me. I’d decided quite some time ago that I wasn’t going to be the first to crumple in these strange interactions, and that was why I hadn’t leaned away from him even though there was now very little space between us. A sharp contrast to when we’d been separated by the walls of his prison.

But I’d freed him from his shackles. It was time I escaped those that still held me.

“Alright, I’ll come,” My admission came out softly as I glanced away, as if that would increase the distance between us and put me in a more stable position.

I didn't trust my voice to not waver without at least that precaution. Not with the promise of escaping the threat of death that remained lurking over my head. And not with Dottore lingering quite as closely as he was.

In response, he smiled, maintaining our position of incredible closeness as he gazed at me. Measuring my reaction like it was of particular interest, before he at last leaned back.

It was a blessing that our trip didn’t take long, and I trailed after him silently the whole way. Pondering what awaited us and what was happening during my interactions with Dottore, which had slowly been gliding on the same path but were turning increasingly enigmatic even though I was taking part in them.

But I remained silent, watching as members of the Fatui, both those of high rank and those of lesser rank, parted for us. Whispering amongst themselves and sending darting, furtive glances our way. The exact same things that had always occurred around Dottore’s tank.

Then I’d been the only one to draw close to him, and now it was similar. With me being the only person close to him as I followed along behind him. In the eyes of the Fatui, I probably did appear to be a great fool. And in some ways, that point could be argued, what with the slippery slope I’d been on with Dottore ever since he’d first spoken to me.

But he hadn’t dragged me down, and something told me he wasn’t ready to do so yet. I was either a fool or someone who’d allied themselves with the most dangerous people present in the name of safety.

The massive doors swung open, and cold air blew out, causing me to shudder as I beheld the throne room of the Tsaritsa.

In the center of the room knelt none other than the head scientist, with all of the Harbingers fanned out around him. The Tsaritsa herself sat at the apex of the room behind gauzy curtains that made it impossible to tell anything about her features.

Heads turned as we entered, our own heads held high as I mimicked Dottore’s behavior, before dipping into a bow before the throne, even as the Harbinger just beside me remained standing tall even before the throne.

“Your Majesty,” Dottore’s rich voice filled the void that had been left behind by the chatter that had fallen silent the very moment we’d entered. “This man withheld the cure that would have returned me to your service.”

Murmurs broke out across the room, and Capitano sat forward, “Is this true?” There was condemnation into his tone that sent the previously stunned head scientist in a frenzy.

“I… No! This one!” He started, pointing at me and causing me to all but flinch away from him as he reached out to grasp my sleeve like a drowning man trying to fight his way to the surface.

He was going to frame me, in some way. He’d drag me down and sacrifice me all in the name of a last gulp of air before he too succumbed to the dangers of being a part of the Fatui.

“They are the one who gave me the cure,” Dottore spoke again, his compassionless voice still filled with unspoken, cold humor as he looked down at the head scientist, whom I now realized was the only one who remained of his betrayers.

I felt myself grow cold as this entire scenario suddenly became infinitely more clear. This was his final act of revenge.

Dottore would pull this man down from the throne he’d made for himself, and he’d do it all with one of the most unassuming people present, who also happened to be as near as physically possible.

The merman’s caretaker. Me.

I’d well and truly played my role and, in doing so, become a weapon for him to wield against one of his final enemies.

“The situation seems clear; we will handle him later. Dottore, do you accept your reinstatement?” A white-haired man spoke from what appeared to be the highest seat belonging to a Harbinger in the room.

“I do, but I have a request.” I looked towards Dottore, wondering if this was going to be when I was freed from my own shackles or when he got rid of me once and for all. I’d been confident before, but the recent revelation had thrown my understanding into a tumult of frenzied thoughts.

A pawn only had so many uses in the grand scheme of things, and Dottore’s plans were beyond unpredictable.

“Say it,” The man looked down at him from on high, his star-shaped pupil glistening oddly.

Dottore’s gloved hand landed on my shoulder, warm amid the otherwise frigid room. “I request that they become my assistant. There is no one else suitable for the position.”

I all but gaped at him, but then his previous words came back to me. Clever and efficient. Even back then, this had been his plan. This entire time, he’d intended to keep me by his side; it was an odd thought that once more brought back my previous questions about our interactions.

But it made sense in a strange sort of way. Once a pawn moves as far as it can, it gets promoted, and when an actor proves themselves, they move up to the next, harder role.

“Granted, now go. It is time you continue with that which the Tsaritsa demands of you.”

Dottore bowed, a smile curving across his face that spoke of a well-planned victory, “Gladly.”

I watched, still not sure what my new position entailed or meant. All I did know was that Dottore had seen through my playing the fool and intended to keep me close to him. Just where I’d been since the beginning of this entire ordeal. I was in the same place, but in a position.

And that meant that someday, at the very least, I would solve the mysteries of the second Harbinger and what my relationship with him truly was.

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