Chapter Text
Eight months after turning twenty, Feofan’s life goes even more sideways than it already has.
His business fails—what little he had built of a humble one-man bookkeeping office tucked into a shadowed corner across the ore-loading yards of Novokitezhgrad. It had cheap rent, and the rickety roof and four wooden walls held away the cold for most days.
He kept ledgers of small commodity traders. Rough men who dealt in sacks of blast-furnace coke for the smelters, crates of canned fish hauled straight from Port Belovodye to supply the miners’ rations, and bolts of coarse wool that kept the workers clothed and indebted.
Dealing with such clients had Feofan chasing down phantom receipts that existed only in half-remembered promises, cross-checked oral agreements sealed with drunken handshakes, and yet he’s still expected to reduce the disorganization in an orderly row of figures by the end of the week.
For a few extra mora slipped furtively across the worn wooden table, Feofan would manipulate supporting documentation just enough to hide small pilferages of ore, underreported yields from deeper veins, or even discretionary bonuses subtly (and mercilessly) siphoned into the pockets of greedy foremen from small company coffers who couldn’t afford to salary an in-house bookkeeper.
Occasionally, minor Fatui functionaries—posing as intermediaries for their superiors who dared not risk scrutiny from the Northland Bank for questionable deposits—would arrive at his door just when he’s about to leave. These masked men came with heavy pouches of mora that required the most delicate handling.
Feofan would sit with them for hours in the dim glow of a single oil lamp. He asked no questions beyond what the numbers demand; in Novokitezhgrad, curiosity was only afforded to the powerful. Or the already damned.
Yet in the thirteen months that he’d managed to keep his business afloat, all of his efforts seemed to have gone down the drain in the blink of an eye.
A new Fatui-sponsored accounting firm, bloated with the official patronage of one of the town’s honored fae, descended like a bureaucratic plague to celebrate the fae’s new Harbinger status, offering certified services at rates Feofan couldn’t match.
His regulars slipped away one by one: the commodity traders with averted eyes and muttered excuses about needing official stamps, and even the minor functionaries vanished without a trace.
Then came the fire.
Whether it was an accident or convenient arson mattered little in the grand scale of things, it devoured all of his records all the same—his spare ledgers, his stock of decent ink, the few client files he had not yet delivered. His capital, the bitter fruit of everything he had scraped together for years since his parents died of ‘natural causes,’ drained away like blood from an unseen wound.
In Snezhnaya, fires are lit to ward off the cold, providing warmth and comfort. The statement itself couldn’t be more false; there’s nothing warm nor comforting at the sight of your hard work being reduced to ash in front of your very eyes.
By the time the fire was subdued, the sky over Novokitezhgrad had already bled into a bleak, gray dusk, and Feofan had nothing left.
He gets kicked out by the landlady upon his arrival to the draughty tenement he'd been calling home when she spots him across the threshold. She had tolerated his arrears longer than charity demanded, but her patience varied like non-Snezhnayan weather. Knowing how far behind Feofan was at rent (likely over a year now), she didn’t even give him the dignity of packing his things properly in a bag.
Badly dried clothes that stank of stale odor, papers and ledgers that only documented loss after loss filled with his meticulous script, and even his late father’s pen—cheap as Feofan has come to know later on, but nonetheless the only heirloom he was able to inherit—were all thrown out of the narrow window from the third storey.
It lands scatteringly upon the snowed-on pavement, and all Feofan could do was fall to his knees to pick it all up. Carriages rumbled past, rusty wheels grinding his careful records into oblivion. Passersby in heavy furs glanced downward with weary indifference, for in a nation seemingly ruled by the Goddess of Love, the spectacle of a soul’s disintegration was as ordinary as chimney smoke that hung over rooftops.
The landlady sticks out her pudgy face into the cold to regard Feofan with a scowl, her lipstick too red to earn her any ounce of respect.
“And don’t you ever come back, you hear?!”
She slams the window shut, enough for the loosened frame to jitter and some specks of snow to fall like powdered sugar.
Feofan loses his father’s pen—likely crushed in the slush of snow by horse hooves, or caught beneath bike wheels of laughing children on their way home from school. Feofan never even went to school when he was their age.
At six, he learned to read the words on the bills scattered across the table, and he eventually was able to piece together what his parents argued about in hushed whispers when they deemed him asleep.
He learned to write at eleven in the form of signatures, when debt collectors came knocking and his parents weren’t home. If he didn’t sign, they’d find his father and beat him up black and blue in the middle of the plaza, staining the snow with splatters of blood. Sometimes, his mother would shoulder the punishment in place of her husband, all for something Feofan didn’t comprehend at the time.
Numbers, on the other hand, were easier to learn. They didn’t come with consequences beyond one's control, and Feofan found them quite easy to understand. His familiarity with them grew when a drunk street gambler—with cards in his hand—dragged him into a crowd of onlookers craning their heads over a rickety old table while he was out on the streets selling gum, and told him to mind the pot.
A single mora back then was larger than the size of his palm. He counts the bets with words his father used when he scooped the gold out of a worn pouch. Sometimes it went to fifty. Sometimes only until ten. The bets went over fifty, and Feofan would count from one over again.
“How much is in the pot already?”
“Three fifties, and thirty-five.”
“Just say a hundred and eighty-five, you stupid child. Don’t schools teach you basic arithmetic?”
Feofan counts his belongings strewn all over the snow as he picks them up: two sets of trousers, one torn at the knee. A crumpled shirt he’d take turns wearing with his current one, and an old spare coat with mothholes in the sleeves. Then there’s the scattered pages of his ledgers, too. Some of them had already flown out of his reach with the frigid wind, but it mattered not to him anymore.
He had no mora to his name to even bother keeping track of, reduced to the last of his contingencies if he were hoping to survive another day.
With his entire life carried under his shivering arms, he trudges through the streets of Novokitezhgrad before slipping through a narrow alley that he’s known since boyhood—a place he’d turn to when he needed refuge.
He stops when he reaches his destination. The bell by the entrance lets out a single chime when Feofan enters a dingy establishment. The person manning the counter sat with his feet up, half of his face concealed behind yesterday’s newspaper, and a half-smoked cigar smoldered in between his nicotine-stained fingers.
Feofan follows the movement of ash falling. But before he could see it hit the floor and land upon the slow growing pile, the man glances up at last to address the newcomer.
“Ah, Fanyushka!” He takes in the state that Feofan was in and straightens in his seat. His smile drops quicker than it appeared. “By the Tsaritsa, you look terrible!”
Feofan has known Pavel Nikolaevich Zaitsev since the moment he learned to talk, and all the man ever talked to him about was money: his grand ventures, easy fortunes, and investments that raked in countless mora— Or so he said.
But even to a man with nothing left to lose, a fool’s gold glimmers just like the real one.
“I want in,” Feofan tells him.
Pavel drops his cigar. When he does regain his bearings, he picks the cigar back up and bounds over the counter as though the risk of breaking his back at his old age didn’t cross his mind.
He slings an arm over Feofan’s slumped shoulders. The smell of cheap cologne and even cheaper cigar smoke invades Feofan’s nose like an unwelcome embrace.
“Haha! About time, I say!”
Pavel makes him sign a copious amount of documents. Strangely, he doesn’t ask for money. “It’ll come,” Pavel tells him when Feofan makes it clear for the nth time that he had none.
The pages were flipped quicker than Feofan could read the ink from header to footer as Pavel points a stubby finger with blackened nail at the fine line at the bottom of the page, telling Feofan to get on signing.
“It’s a new venture,” Feofan remembers Pavel telling him four months ago when Feofan had shared the woes his business had been facing recently. In response, Pavel made him an offer. “Let’s get rich together, Fanya. Your parents—gods bless their weary souls—would’ve wanted that for you.”
As though invoking the dead or mentioning the divine could sanctify the bargain. Feofan couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought of praying to the gods to ease his burden, nor remember his parents’ faces.
Once the final page has been signed, Pavel treats him to a meal of which Feofan was extensively grateful for. He hadn’t eaten properly in days, surviving on mere morsels from the rations of the last time he was able to buy food for himself.
Pavel offers him the storeroom to stay in temporarily, at least until he could get back on his feet. Along with it, a night’s rest upon a thin, holed mattress to sleep on, and an unwashed blanket that reeked of rat’s piss and mildew.
With his stomach quiet and the buzz of beer in his veins, Feofan allows himself to hope that perhaps it truly isn’t the end to everything.
Really, what a joke.
Just as his consciousness had middled in between that strange dreamless state of sleep and wakefulness, the door to the storeroom harshly slams open, startling him.
Before Feofan could make out the outlines of shadowed figures that pushed into the cramped space, he was harshly yanked off the mattress and dragged across the rough wooden floor, splinters catching in his shirt. His shoulder thudded painfully against the doorframe as they hauled him out into the narrow corridor.
The light of Pavel’s establishment, though dim and flickering, felt too blinding for Feofan’s eyes as three masked men in Fatui uniforms crowded his line of vision.
“Pay us what you owe.”
“What—?”
Half-dazed and heart hammering against his ribs, Feofan wasn’t able to anticipate the heavy fist that drove straight into his gut. He doubles over, coughing and retching as spit stringed from his lips. Before he could draw a breath, one of them grabbed a fistful of his hair to wrench his head back with a sharp tug.
While the one kept him pinned, the other went back into the storeroom to rifle through what’s left of his possessions. The third Fatuus, on the other hand, shoves a crumpled document so close to his face that the paper grazes the tip of his nose.
“Pay us what you owe.”
On the paper, Feofan’s signature stared back at him—seemingly cut from another document and crudely glued onto this one. The edges of the paper were still slightly raised, the forgery clumsy yet enough to condemn him if only to have someone to demand payment from.
“It says here that the debt has been transferred to one Feofan Sergeyevich Veksel,” the Fatuus coldly read in a flat tone, as though Feofan’s sorry state couldn’t dissuade him from doing his job. “Five hundred and twenty thousand mora.”
“That’s—” Feofan swallows. His throat felt raw. “That’s impossible.”
The Fatuus’ lips were pressed thin in line. Just then, his companion returns from the storeroom.
“He’s got nothing.”
The one that held Feofan by the hair gave a low chuckle. “That damn Pavel…”
Before Feofan could understand what had happened, a sharp blow struck him at the back of his head. The lights overhead fractures into white sparks before everything gradually dissolves into darkness.
It takes a while for Feofan to realize what Pavel had done to him, and when it does settle amongst the messy bed of his thoughts, he finds that he couldn’t manage to gouge out a single emotion.
Anger would be fitting. Feofan trusted the man, more than he did himself. He knew well enough, in the deepest recesses of his heart, that Pavel was nothing more than a silver tongue spewing empty promises and claims of false fortunes. He ran a small establishment that didn’t sell a single service or product, consorting with every scoundrel on the town’s wanted list, hid from the Fatui as though he feared their shadows—like his life depended on it.
It did, for a while.
Until Feofan had to shoulder the brunt of whatever Pavel owed them of. And now he’s being taken to who knows where in a rickety old wagon whose wheels groaned like the damned against the uneven pathing, his wrists tied together with rough rope that dug into his skin, and his head thrown in a musty bag that reeked of old grain, sweat, and vomit.
The Fatui debt collectors had thankfully stopped hounding him after they realized he had no mora to cough up, even if they sliced him open to see if there’s any hidden riches amongst his bloody guts. But seeing as he was yet to be let go, perhaps cutting him open was the least of Feofan’s worries. For in the hidden corners of Snezhnaya where the law didn’t shine, death was rarely the worst fate a man could meet.
When the wagon at last shudders to a halt, Feofan lets himself be dragged out into the frigid cold air. The bag that covered his face was thankfully removed and all he could see was snow for miles on end. The Fatui soldiers holding him up didn’t answer when he asked where they were, but the sight of the aurora hanging upon the night sky made Feofan assume that they were up even further north. Likely at the outskirts of Snezhnograd.
A trapdoor was opened in the snow in front of him, and before Feofan could let a word out, he was promptly pushed into the depths, falling into the darkness for what seemed like an eternity before he’s caught in a net.
People in pristine white coats greeted him at the bottom, with dead eyes and faces hidden behind masks. They took Feofan with much lesser force than the Fatui soldiers did, and they addressed him amongst each other as Specimen 3.
They stripped him, bathed him, put him under a machine, took his fingerprints and a blood sample, before clothing him in a loose robe that smelled of freshly laundered cotton. It had to be the cleanest Feofan has felt in weeks.
But with the weary clarity of a man long since acquainted with misfortune, Feofan understood that this relief was only momentary, and this one felt especially hollow.
He gets prodded and dragged around, his wrists bound by heavy chains as he is shoved back out into a dimly lit corridor—with floors, walls, and ceilings lined with square white tiles—and stopped in front of a tall metal door. There’s specks of unidentified liquid splattered on the floor, a lone muddied shoe, and broken glass.
Feofan steps into a shard. He wasn’t even trying to avoid it, nor did he like the idea of injuring himself even further than he already is. For some negligible reason, he relishes in the sting. But before he could inspect the cut, or even see how deep the glass was lodged into the flesh, the metal door bursts open with a sharp bang, thudding against the wall.
Feofan watches with muted interest as someone gets wheeled out of the room. The pale arm that dangled at the side of the gurney swung from the frantic motions, mottled with fresh bruises. A white sheet was thrown over the body.
“Next in line,” came a smooth voice from within the room.
The rattle of chains was an unpleasant racket against the tile as Feofan gets shoved forward into the dark room. And before he knew it, there’s the sound of the metal door slamming shut behind him, caging him in his displacement.
When his eyes were finally able to adjust, he finds the rest of the room were completely shrouded in darkness, with only the middle illuminated by a harsh, white light. Feofan felt an eerie chill when he saw who else was with him.
People in Snezhnaya who kept even a passing interest in the nation’s affairs ought to be familiar with the Tsaritsa’s band of strange folk with (allegedly) unprecedented strength, (allegedly) mysterious origins, and (undoubtedly) countless Fatui soldiers at their disposal. And as a man who dedicatedly monitored the economic fluctuation on the daily paper, Feofan was no exception.
Thus, the appearance of the elusive Second of the Fatui Harbingers—a man Feofan had only ever seen on paper twice before: when he was seven years old, and ironically recently in an article that detailed the inauguration of Pulcinella the Rooster—was enough to render Feofan’s blood cold.
He sat on a stool offering Feofan a smile. The top half of his face was concealed by a rather odd-looking, ornate mask that made him look far more unsettling: like a predatory bird. The fuss and feathers that is his attire did not help.
“Sit, if you please.”
Feofan saw it unfit to disobey.
The man kept his smile—insincere to a fault but was able to ease Feofan for some incomprehensible reason.
Il Dottore, or the Doctor, was not known for his friendliness. Actually, nothing much was known about him. Perhaps a common case of dead men telling no tales. Occasionally, Feofan would hear from the rumor mill of the Harbinger's spontaneous constructions of laboratories in the most odd places. Judging by the entrance to this one, Feofan should’ve figured out who he was dealing with sooner.
The sheets on the examination bed seemed new, and Feofan sat just right at the edge, barely enough to afford him comfort. The soles of his feet grazed the cold floor, the shard at last sliding off from the cut in his heel, blood dripping down onto the tiles in tiny crimson splotches. It was the only time Feofan afforded himself to look around.
The laboratory is mostly empty, no windows in sight given they’re underground, and barely smelled of antiseptic; Feofan expected it to be as bad as the previous room he was in, but this was a nice change.
If anything, the laboratory looked fairly new. There’s an open suitcase by the shadowed corner that spilled silken navy fabric, and save for the examination bed and three other inscrutable apparatuses Feofan couldn’t identify the purpose of, there truly isn’t anything else of note.
The Doctor was humming a tune unfamiliar to Feofan as he flips over the pages on a clipboard. Feofan wonders how he could read with that mask on. It takes a moment for the Doctor to read whatever it was written on the pages before he discards it amongst two other clipboards, each marked with a glaring red ‘X’ at the corner of the page.
He moved on to the tray where syringes of varying sizes waited alongside vials containing bright pink fluid and ampules containing clear ones. The labels were written too small for Feofan to read from where he’s at. Frankly, he wonders if he should be worried about the lack of concern on his part. Whatever was stored in those containers would, in one way or another, be put into his body before this is all over.
And he’ll be wheeled out just like that other pitiful stranger. Buried or burned afterward to dispose of him, it truly matters not.
Feofan remembers the bruises, and he asks the Doctor if he only preferred to take specimens who have been beat up. Who knows, such a physiological state might be essential and hence why Feofan was brought here.
The Doctor doesn’t face him when he replies, “You’re referring to the subcutaneous bleeding you observed from the specimen before you. That’s a side effect of the dose I administered. He was in perfect condition when he came in, and a bit of a challenge to restrain.”
“And his death?”
“A mere setback,” the Doctor says, his tone lacking inflection. He scribbles something down, still with his back turned to Feofan. “Let’s hope you don’t disappoint me in the same way.”
Feofan manages a smile of his own despite everything. “Disappoint you by being hard to restrain, or by dying?”
“It would be objectively preferable that you don’t disappoint me entirely.”
“But a man long disappointed by fate can hardly hope not to disappoint his fellow man, don’t you think?”
A pause. “And what do you mean by that?”
Feofan, against his better judgement and perhaps spurred by the fact that the Doctor seemed amenable to small talk, shares a bit of his pitiful life story while the Doctor extracted fluids into the syringe. He takes care not to mention anything personal, nor does he say anything about how his business had failed and how he got framed by someone he considered a close friend. Even a second father.
“So you’re good with money, I take it?”
Without an ounce of hesitation, “I am exceptional.”
The Doctor turns around at last, a slight curve at the corner of his lips. “And yet here you are in my lab, bought for a price in place of the debt you’re unable to pay.”
There was no point in omitting anything after all. Feofan dreaded at the thought of the Doctor knowing everything there was to know about him, and how his little spiel from earlier must’ve been amusing to hear—like being offered the answers you already know like the back of your hand.
“It is not my debt to pay,” Feofan argues nonetheless. “I was betrayed.”
The Doctor remains still, syringe in hand, likely staring at Feofan through that mask of his. No openings revealed what lay beneath; not even a glimpse of the Doctor’s eyes could be seen. Feofan instead chooses to direct his gaze upon the beak-like protrusion that curved downward from the mask’s face.
Just as he thought the conversation was deemed over with how the Doctor had remained strangely quiet, the soft clack of the loaded syringe being returned to the tray catches Feofan’s attention.
The Doctor opens his mouth to speak. Conversationally, as though they were talking about the weather, “If you’re exceptional with money as you say you are, suppose a traitor in the ranks made off with a significant amount of mora meant to fund a rather expensive research, and even rendered it untraceable. What would you do?”
“Are you asking me how I would deal with the traitor, or how I would make up for the loss?”
“The latter.”
Feofan raises an eyebrow, unsure if the Doctor could see his bemusement. “Don’t you have patrons? As a Harbinger, surely you have dozens. You can just ask them for all the mora that you need.”
“And have them send their pesky auditors to snoop in my lab some more?” The Doctor lets out a lofty scoff. “I’ve had enough of their tedious inspections.”
“For a moment you made me think that you were having a financial dilemma,” Feofan says. He’s almost disheartened; nothing he dislikes more than people who feign financial strain. “This may be simpler than you might think, Doctor.”
The Doctor hums, seemingly intrigued. “I don’t say this often, but do enlighten me.”
If Feofan closed his eyes, he could imagine that he’s back in his cramped little bookkeeping office that’s barely bigger than an outhouse, entertaining a new client and hoping they’d be a regular.
The illusion works to stave off his nerves a little.
“The mora exists and your patrons have it. That alone relieves us of the predicament of having to procure mora out of thin air. But, as any sound investor, they would want to know where they’re putting their money in. And the issue lies in them having to peer over your feather-clad shoulder before they spare you a single mora.”
The Doctor’s lips were downturned. “You just told me what I already know, and now I’ve lost interest.” He reaches to his side to pick up the syringe filled with bright pink liquid before taking measured steps towards Feofan. “Reasonable I may be, I don’t like it when my time is wasted. I assumed for people like you, time is money.”
Feofan’s heart thuds against his ribcage, the instinct of flight alarming in his ears as the Doctor looms over him. “I am merely stating the facts before we move on—”
The Doctor grabs Feofan’s jaw, poised to inject into his jugular. He’s so close, Feofan could smell the faint scent of antiseptic, and subtle cologne that’s undoubtedly expensive—something Feofan could only ever hope to afford perhaps in another life, if fate is a little merciful.
“However, you must listen—” With ragged breathing and panic simmering beneath his skin, Feofan forces the words out. “Have you considered not having to deal with them yourself?”
The Doctor stops, the tip of the needle just barely kissing sweaty skin. “What do you mean?”
Let go of me first, Feofan wanted to say but he refrains. “I doubt any of your patrons, avid as they may be, have an inkling as to what your research’s objectives truly are. But those with money appreciate money on paper—perhaps show them your expense accounts, or even research projections that would require you to procure more funds to ensure success. You could even make up a moving story just to convince them.”
It works every time. Feofan would know better than anyone, having been the one doing and also the receiving end of such tactics.
The grip on his jaw loosened as the Doctor seemed to think. “My subordinates have made it known to me that my ledgers are a mess, and my beloved accountant is currently sinking into the bottom of the ocean. I bet the others before him have already said their greetings. They’re cut from the same cloth, after all.”
“Then you would require a new one to fix your ledgers and deal with those ‘pesky auditors,’ as you so kindly put it.” Feofan swallows the thick saliva caught in his throat. “Coincidentally, I require continued existence.”
“And how certain are you that you’re better than the ones who came before you. They begged me just as you’re begging me now.”
Feofan huffs, struggling to quell the urge of spitting onto the Doctor’s evidently fair-looking face from what’s only seen of the bottom half of it. “I’m not begging. And the only way I’m better than your previous dead subordinates is the fact that I’m still alive and I haven’t disappointed you.”
“Yet.”
“No,” Feofan insists. “I won’t.”
The Doctor once again falls into one of his quiet episodes. It doesn’t help that Feofan couldn’t read his expression. But when he feels the grip on his jaw loosen for a fraction of a second, he decides that perhaps this deranged undertaking of his that he’d decided upon on a whim is not so impossible after all.
He continues, “Esteemed Harbinger of our nation, if you inject whatever that is into my bloodstream, you’ll learn whatever it is that you’ll need to learn. And given my rotten luck, within minutes I’ll be dead.
“But if you put me behind a desk, I may prove useful. Surely, an academic such as yourself could appreciate the value of a willing repeatable resource?”
Though Feofan has seen the Doctor smile in the short duration of their acquaintance, the one that the Doctor offers him at the moment shows a glint of teeth and leaves one undeniably ill at ease.
“How utterly presumptuous."
Feofan hears the syringe filled with bright pink fluid fall with a clatter onto the floor. But the tiny pinprick at the base of his jaw made his vision blur, colors bleeding into one another until the Doctor was merely a smudged, pale blue figure.
A strange heaviness settled over him, his gaze slipping in and out of focus, and every attempt to hold on to thought seemed to slip away from his grasp.
He lets the world tilt sideways as his eyelids fall shut.
The next time Feofan awakens, he has no idea where he was, or how he’d woken up at all. The mind does this funny thing of telling you when death is inevitable, and shutting down before it could happen.
But this is not purgatory, and Feofan is clearly not dead. Whether that is a good thing or not, he has yet to see.
He tries to sit up, a quiet groan escaping his throat when his body resisted with heavy lethargy, as though it had been weighed down overnight with every muscle protesting against the movement.
When Feofan at last felt as though he was not about to faint once again with how his head ached in pulses, he notices that he’s in a different room this time—a bit more cluttered than the one before with how every wall had diagrams pinned on it, and shelves filled with flasks storing unidentified substances.
Looking down, only then does Feofan finally see the tubes and needles piercing the extent of his left arm, thin and snake-like things made of glass and clear rubber feeding unknown fluids into his veins. When his gaze followed their path upward, curious of the source, it met another pair of eyes belonging to a man hidden behind soft-humming equipment.
The unnervingly intent crimson irises that widened slightly is almost a stark contrast to how the man—seemingly of Feofan’s age if not younger—possessed an almost ethereal pallor with how his pale blue hair curled gently over his forehead, framing a face too flawless to belong to anyone ordinary.
He wore an attire that seemed foreign: intricate and colorful embroidery upon verdant green fabric, most unlike the dark and dull colors the inhabitants of Novokitezhgrad preferred to wear.
For a fleeting moment, the young man struck Feofan as uncannily familiar. Perhaps it was the hair color, or the delicate curve of his chin.
Feofan blinked slowly, trying to place him. “You’re—”
The door bursts open without preamble. Feofan startles, tearing his gaze away to look at the newcomer. Only then does it dawn on him that it might take some time to grow used to seeing Il Dottore in the flesh without the instinctive apprehension ingrained in every Snezhnayan who had an inkling of what he was capable of.
The Doctor, with the same shade of pale blue hair, seemed to be preoccupied with the clipboard on his hand. Glancing up from his notes, “18, have you—” He sees Feofan sitting upright and stops mid-sentence. “Oh. You’re awake.”
The young man strangely addressed as ‘18’ slips away the moment that the Doctor’s attention was elsewhere, closing the door behind him with a click.
“He sure left fast,” the Doctor mutters, mask directed at the exit. “And here I thought he was idling about.”
Feofan’s voice comes out hoarse, scraped raw by disuse. “You didn’t kill me.”
The Doctor turns to him. It truly is hard to read him with that mask on. “I never intended to kill you. Your survival was contingent on how your body would respond to the chemical dosage.”
“So I survived.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
The Doctor places his clipboard on a nearby tray before moving to one of the humming machines where the tubes were all connected. Long, gloved fingers began to adjust the dials, seemingly calibrating something.
Without looking at Feofan, he continues, “Specimen 3 was pulled out of the experiment at the last minute for an undisclosed reason.”
The machinery beeps, and a bright blue fluid begins to thread through the tubes gradually. Feofan could feel them enter his bloodstream, a cold soothing sensation. When he looks up, he realizes that the Doctor seems to be staring at him.
“You were never administered with the dose.”
Feofan frowns, his memories from before he’d lost consciousness slowly returning to him in fragments. “But I felt you inject something in me.”
“That was to put you to sleep.” The Doctor raises his hand to show a tiny needle—no longer than a fingernail—cunningly concealed within the ring worn on his thumb. “I don’t usually wear this, but it has its uses when dealing with volatile test subjects.”
Feofan, despite wondering if he should feign awe or not, puts on a placating smile.
The Doctor lowers his hand and—to no one’s surprise—continues to talk. “You had an intra-abdominal hemorrhage from the scans my subordinates have taken. Most likely from a prior physical altercation you had before coming to my lab. Can’t have my new accountant dealing with my ledgers under such conditions now, do I?”
Perhaps it’s due to the fact that Feofan’s mind was still on the verge of fully waking up that it takes a while for the Doctor’s words to register. And when it does, Feofan had nothing to say for it. Shock has a way of silencing people, after all.
“Do you have a name? Unless you prefer being called ‘Specimen 3’ moving forward.”
Faintly, “Feofan Sergeyevich.”
The Doctor nods. “I’ll allow you two days’ worth of recovery, Feofan. And after that—” He turns away to pick up his clipboard once again, scribbling something with a quill. “I’ll have one of my subordinates assist you with what your predecessor has in store for you. Well, what’s left of it, at least.”
The scratch of the quill ceases when the Doctor stops writing at last, clipboard now tucked beneath his arm as he regards Feofan as though expecting some sort of response. Or maybe a question.
“What should I call you?” Feofan asks.
“You can call me how everybody else calls me.” The Doctor walks to the door, poised to leave. With his back turned to Feofan,“I suggest you lie back down. Rest while you can, it’ll likely be a while before you’re able to.”
At the last minute, Feofan makes up his mind.
“Thank you for giving me a chance, Lord Harbinger. You won’t regret it.”
The Doctor halts in his steps, hand on the knob and one foot already across the threshold. He looks back slightly, enough that Feofan could make out the jut of his nose beneath the mask. Betraying no hint of emotion, the Doctor only says nothing and leaves.
In which we knead a lump of clay
shaped into a figure of you,
and a figure of me.