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The morning sun, albeit pretty rare in Snezhnaya, enters the room through the window. Its rays lay right on the bed, too big for one man who currently occupies it. The night has been spent without any sleep and now he takes the last chance to rest before the gruesome day of work.
The door to the room is opened quietly, and someone enters. A familiar face - too familiar, to be honest, - the one that doesn't have to be announced anymore (and the need disappeared centuries ago; his subordinates learn it the moment they get assigned to him, some of them choose the hard way) and can enter anytime he wants, unless it's expressed explicitly to not let him in. And after last night he can do so again. Their fight dissipated, they said what they needed to say, and the plan was formed (the man in the bed still doesn't like the plan).
Dottore enters the room and goes straight to the bed, taking his coat off. He places it over the chair and only then goes to the bed just to sit quietly on the edge of it, looking at sleeping Pantalone. He feels like he should envy the sun that touches what's his but his plans involve the Moon... And Pantalone has always been more nocturnal.
Behind the mask he sees glint of metal and catches the hand that points a blade at him by the wrist. The pulse is steady but faster than usual; the arrival has scared him probably.
"It is me," Dottore's voice is a little bit rough, as if he hasn't uttered a word for hours since their conversation, even to himself. "I have finished with my proposal."
"Why are you here?" Pantalone mumbles, his voice is rough with sleep, and Dottore listens closely to see if sleep is the only reason (it's probably also the cigarettes he had chain-smoked while they were talking, but he wants to be sure it's nothing more terrifying). "You could have sent someone to bring it to me. It's not like your subordinates are going to read your documents."
"I cannot risk with it."
"I have heard how they told a new guy of yours to never read whatever you are giving to them," Pantalone yawns trying to cover his mouth, but failing because his hand is still in Dottore's. "They still tell the story about your Eleazar experiments, by the way."
"Still..."
"Besides, shouldn't you be too busy to grace us, mortals, with your presence?"
"You are not a mortal and..." Dottore cuts his starting rambling just to look the lying man in the eyes, "Wait, are you still mad at me?"
Pantalone signs and rubs his eyes.
"I'm not mad, I..."
"Then why are you interrogating and goading me?" He can feel the hand on his wrist tightens and his bones are starting to rub together. Dottore, despite his patience in the laboratory, still gets mad easily when it comes to personal relationships. Pantalone likes that he is the only one 'personal relationships' is applied to.
"I am bitter, I will admit it, Zandik, but I'm not mad anymore."
Seeing that his explanation, even the use of the name, hasn't worked, he sighs.
"Come here," Pantalone whispers and tugs his arm, "And stop breaking my wrist."
"I will be the one who deals with it, anyway." Dottore says but follows the request, ridding himself of the pants and accessories - Pantalone nearly bit his head off the last time he had tried to enter his bed in the clothes that are not covered by the lab coat and with the things that can poke uncomfortably - before lying down.
"And do you really want additional work for yourself?"
The only answer Pantalone gets is a huff. He'll take it.
They are lying together on the ridiculously expensive sheets warmed by the sun, and Dottore twists and turns until reproaching "Zandik" cuts the silence and he finally calms down, cautiously laying his hand on man's shoulder. Pantalone moves closer hiding his face in the crook between the neck and the shoulder and let himself feel how the arms encircle him and tighten embrace. He inhales deeply and gladly finds no traces of the laboratory smells, only soap - his gift - and skin. This smell he has known for centuries and no matter who this is - the real one or a clone - it has never changed.
He doesn't want to talk about it. They have to. They always have to do something. Should it be an order from Pierro or even Tsaritsa, a request (not really) from Pulcinella, a thing between them; they simply have to. The only thing he agrees to do willingly is this relationship with Dottore - unidentified for centuries but precious in every way.
(Also, his own project to reach the goal but this is not a point right now)
"Feofan," Dottore swallows and Pantalone can only shut his eyes, "I came here to see you. I wanted to be sure that you are okay and I..." He swallows again, "I actually have no idea why I used my proposal as an excuse but I don't want you to be mad at me."
Pantalone's breath hitches and he feels the hand on his back is being pressed harder against his body.
"Are you trying to feel my breathing right now?"
"I have gone through the trouble replacing your lungs not for you to stop breathing again," Pantalone smiles hearing grumbling.
"Do you know that I know that you are checking my lungs every time you stay?" His voice is light but Dottore gasps, caught red-handed.
"Well, now I do."
"Don't be embarrassed, I actually like this."
"I am not getting embarrassed!"
"Mhm, and this is definetelly not the reason why your nails are digging in my skin."
Dottore grumbles more but all Pantalone knows is that the bridges between them are fixing themselves.
***
"So you do plan to become a God after all?" Pantalone murmurs in the clavicle incidentally touching it with his lips. An almost-kiss but not unwelcome one. After the centuries of days and nights spent together - not in the bed but in every single way - this is nothing for them; the touch is too familiar.
"Your name," Dottore's hand moves down his bare back, fingers tracing every vertebrae, "it means 'revealed by God' from the ancient Encanomyan, doesn't it? And wasn't it me, who saw the true potential of yours and revealed it to the world?"
"Mmm, I would argue with the whole world but," a kiss, stolen from him by the Doctor, a real one this time performed to shut him up, most likely. "I guess, you have played a certain role in my current position."
Dottore's hand moves to his neck, presses against his pulse point, making the breath hitch.
"Then I don't see why I shouldn't match my status to my role."
"And what should I do now?" Pantalone's hand finds its way into man's hair, twisting and tugging it lightly. "Worship you?"
Suddenly the world in Pantalone's eyes flips, his back hits the bed and all he can see is blurry Zandik. It truly is a rare occasion, a morning when they don't have to rush anywhere.
"A true God knows that their power comes from the belief of the people," Dottore's smile is a little crooked, his weight feels nice against Feofan's hips, his hands are splayed against thin scars on his torso. "So let me show my gratitude for being the first and true believer, my dearest."
Zandik bites his neck, making Pantalone let a quiet moan out.
"Let me worship you."
***
The room is filled with hitched breaths and quiet murmurs. Everything is perfect until it is interrupted by Dottore's annoyed, albeit labored, exclamation.
"Are you serious?!"
Dottore stops the movement of the fingers inside himself. He looks down to meet Pantalone's eyes who lies under him, hair spread all over a pillow like a halo, body littered with red scratches... And who is lighting up a cigarette, looking at him innocently.
"What?" Pantalone tilts his head, "I am enjoying the view, you are doing great."
"Feofan," he feels a hand patting his thigh, "Why do you have to smoke right in the middle of..."
"Sex?" Pantalone exhales smoke and takes his hand back propping himself on the elbow. "What is better than my head filled not only with you but with dopamine from my addiction? You like it when I'm hazy."
He rolls his hips, making Dottore move and his fingers to rub against his prostate. He cannot help but smile, hearing a whimper from the man on top of him.
"Besides," his hand with a cigarette moves to rest on Dottore's thigh, making him shudder, "you like the sense of danger, Zandik, I can burn you with it."
With a snarl Dottore launches forward grabbing the wrists of the man. Pantalone is looking at him self-satisfied, eyes crinkling with mischief.
"Do you really want to test me, right now?"
"What I want, Zandik," he is rolling his hips now dick rubbing against dottore ass catching at the rim. "Is to feel my personal god around me and see him breaking apart because I, his true believer, am the only one who can make him feel so good he cannot help himself but crave human's pleasure."
Dottore moans at this. His eyes widen at the realisation that it was him who moaned, and Pantalone twists the wrist just enough to be freed. He puts the hand with a cigarette to Dottore's mouth.
"Kiss me."
Dottore takes a drag of a cigarette, wrinkling his nose at the taste, and leans even closer just to exhale smoke in Pantalone's mouth. Their lips are moving against each other, the glide that electrifies their bodies, their tongues are tasting each other. All Pantalone can think about is to put a cigarette in the ashtray before his thought are consumed with want.
"Are you ready?" He breaks the kiss, even though he doesn't want to, "Please, Zandik, tell me you are ready."
"Oh, Feofan," the man whispers back, "For you I'm always ready. How can I not when you have convinced me so nicely."
With that, Dottore moves down the man's body propping himself above his dick. He lowers himself on it slowly, feeling the burning stretch from being opened. A well-known feeling after years - even centuries - of doing it; either as a distraction and stress relief or as something unnamed between them that makes Dottore want to sink his teeth in Pantalone's very soul, to carve him open, to break his ribs again and slither inside, so the be one and the same.
He stops bottoming down and sits on the hips below him, huffing, takes one look at the man beneath him who whimpers and claws at the sheets.
"Put your hands on me," he says starting rocking his hips, "no need to tear your expensive bedding. You'll bitch at me, if it happens."
"I cannot scratch my god," Pantalone lets out a little laugh, "he'll bitch at me in turn."
"Put your hands on my body, Feofan," the man snarls starting careful movements, as if preparing for more to come. "I want a proof of your devotion on me."
They both know that these allusions to Dottore's hypothetical godhood are just a way for him - for them, really, - to hide desire that runs deeply in their bones to claim and be claimed, to belong. Especially now, when death is closer than ever, when the plan is too risky and there is no way to create a back-up. They have been in each others lives longer than some gods have been alive, and the connection between them - the one that has sparked the moment Pantalone found himself on the lab table - cannot be cut by anyone. It is the most precious possession in Pantalone's life and the grandest experiment in Dottore's career. To own the attention of one of the mightiest men in the whole Teyvat and to find a person who is ready to stick with you despite the rumours and truths. To stay for centuries despite all the troubles, injuries, health issues, and domestic quarrels.
They don't call it love. Dottore - younger versions of him especially did so - hates the word. One time Pantalone learnt from the original Zandik that he had tried to love someone but in the end couldn't feel it, has never felt it in fact. Pantalone is more romantic and he would have admitted that he loves Dottore, if only the word could encompass the whole thing between them. He knows the power of a single word despite never attending Haravatat. He craves Zandik on a level that terrified him in the past but now he embraces it. Damned be everyone who thinks his own doctor is a madman; he is, don't get it wrong, but the madman of his calibre can only be called a genius. Not only he understood him, he rivalled the gods making the best of minds to struggle against him.
"If you wish so," Pantalone finally scratches the thighs of the man, "I will claim you. I will let you to claim me in turn, so everyone could know that I'm a deserving one." He moans when the man starts moving in earnest and cants his hips to help and get a reaction. "So everyone will know that you deserve to be worshipped."
Dottore leans down and bites on Pantalone's neck, sucking bruises and tearing the skin with his teeth. There's something animalistic in this and he cannot help but love it. The most rational man he knows - the one that is always calm and collected for everyone else, the one who wants to exceed human's limitations - is currently showing the most primitive side of himself. And he is the very reason for it.
He belongs to Zandik. They both know it. It is written so on the paper, after all he was sold to him. But he also belongs because of some miracle that led Zandik to want him by his side for centuries. All these experiments, surgeries, and attempts to cure him, to make sure that he stays alive and healthy - Zandik wouldn't have done it for anyone.
But Feofan also owns him. With that in mind he flips them, enjoying Dottore's squeal, and pins his hands to the sheets intertwining their fingers.
"What..."
"You have done your part," Pantalone smile, his eyes are crinkling with mischief, "You worshipped me, you gave me quite a nice show, and," he untangles one hand and traces the bruises on his neck, "you gave me such a wonderful necklace, a unique one even. So now, it's time for me to give something to you."
"Feofan, you greedy..." Dottore cry is interrupted by moans the moment he felt the cock inside of him moving, hitting his prostate.
"I'm giving pleasure back to you, how can it be greedy?" Pantalone huffs and speeds up, knowing that his Zandik needs it harder and faster to the point his insides are rubbed raw. "I do believe that gods should be equal to humans, after all, and now you are being treated equally."
Dottore cannot argue with that.
The room is filled with moans and the sound of skin slapping against the skin; they kiss each other and Pantalone even allows himself to leave hickeys on his lover's chest, knowing full well that he'd never hear anything else but complaints about the bruises on the neck. They praise each other: how good they feel around or inside, how pretty they look, how pleasure they can give each other is better than ascending to Celestia.
Feeling that he is close, Dottore tries to move his hands to his dick just to help himself; he is so close he needs just one squeeze for it to be perfect, why doesn't Pantalone let go?
"Let me help you," Pantalone smiles taking his cock in hand, and his smile is radiant, as if he is truly happy. "Come for me, Zandik, my god."
He moans, seeing Dottore coming, thick ropes hitting his chest, his eyes rolling back.
"Where do you want me to..."
"Inside," Dottore's voice is shaky, "I need you inside, Feofan."
With a shaky moan he comes inside feeling the twitching insides trying to milk him, take more from him, as if he doesn't want to give everything to the man beneath him.
***
"You seriously need to stop."
Pantalone only smiles around the cigarette in his mouth. He is still naked, only hips covered with the duvet, and is lying on his stomach propped on the elbows, reading Dottore's proposal.
"If your plan goes smoothly, you will just have to change my lungs again."
Dottore moves closer and busies himself with kissing the back and shoulders, making the man sighs with pleasure.
"I don't want to search for compatible lungs again, and I would rather see you in my lab for a check-up."
They stay in the bed for way longer than they should, really. They even had a subordinate to knock and remind them about an upcoming meeting; Pantalone gracefully told them to go and take a rest of the day off. They talk, Pantalone smokes more, and Dottore explains every single detail about his upcoming research in soul extraction.
All is good, until Dottore, still lying on Pantalone's back, opens his mouth.
"Would you still accept me if I were a lizard?"