Work Text:
The artist places the tip of the brush to the canvas, sketching out the shapes of two heads.
In front of him, two figures, one sitting and one standing, struggle to stay still. On the plush velvet chair, a man with a head of onyx-colored hair curls his lip to disguise annoyance, but as a result looks more irritated than ever. Next to him, his masked business partner grins down, messing with his companion's dark hair.
“Will you stop?” mutters Pantalone, resisting the urge to swat away Dottore's hand and smack that dratted smug smile off his face.
The painter furrows his brow even more agitatedly, his everlasting patience running short. “Please sit still, both of you,” he commands, tapping his paintbrush against the side of the easel. The people around them titter as the two Harbingers scowl at each other.
Damned bystanders.
Neither of them say it out loud, but it's obvious on their faces. Dottore is straight up scowling as he watches the people gossip. Some are already holding up their Kameras, documenting something to put on their precious newspapers.
“Hmph,” mutters Pantalone, crossing his arms.
“Don't complain. This was all your idea.” grumbles his business partner, reaching over to wind another black curl around his gloved finger. “Do you not have enough portraits of yourself to fulfil your need for validation?”
“Ah, but I have none with you.”
The slightest quirk of a grin arching up the corners of his lips makes Dottore laugh despite himself.
The crowd exchanges glances. It's not every day they see the feared Doctor smiling. (Some of them think it means bad news.)
The artist traces the outlines of their lips in a deft flick of the brush and immortalizes this rarely found moment of joy in paint.
Then the whispers start up, and their smiles turn down at the corners.
Judgement.
It's in the way they stare at the pair, gazes cutting through skin, gossiping amongst themselves.
“Look at them, the infamous pair. Who do you think they'll ruin next?”
It's words that crawl their way into their minds and bring the slightest curve of a scowl to their lips.
“It's the Doctor's newest puppet. I bet you my life savings he'll be dead once he runs out of money.”
It's the doubt that pushes at both their hearts and tries to plant suspicion in eyes behind facades.
“Poor thing.”
“Don't say that. He's just as heartless as his business partner.”
“Did you hear about what they did in Natlan?”
It takes all of the Regrator's willpower to restrain himself from whipping his head around and snapping at the onlookers.
Then the warmth of scarred skin strokes the back of his head, a gentle but firm warning for him to calm his nerves.
He sighs and relaxes into his Doctor's touch.
Perhaps he has been too trusting, especially of someone said to be so dangerous, infamous for manipulating those closest to him for personal gain.
And yet.
The only sense of security he will ever receive is not under those watchful eyes cornerning him, but in the hands of the only man insane enough to ever love someone with a mind like this.
There is a risk he will be torn beyond repair by the only person he cared for, but he chooses to ignore it.
He trusts, and trusts so purely he gives himself away entirely.
Surely, for a businessman to wager his sanity on one single person would be a gamble most unwise.
It doesn't stop him from doing it.
“Hmph.”
It's a sign of acknowledgement to the scientist.
Thank you for keeping me sane.
A faint tapping of fingers against the nape of his neck echoes a reply.
You're welcome, love.
That singular moment of warmth is captured by the splash of pink tint around a face that is otherwise milky-white.
Oil paints leave shapeless smears on lead marks outlining their figures. The dance of fingers caressing hair is imprinted, forever, into the image.
Those little movements alert the crowd's interest.
“We've heard rumors about the Second's gruesome past, but what of the Ninth?”
“Word on the street is that he grew up killing people.”
“Of course. Birds of a feather flock together– just look at those two. Black swans and their devious minds.”
A hand freezes in midair, falling onto the patterned frame of his velvet throne.
His ever-present smile falters.
The nail in the coffin thuds into his mind, whispered by a politician of Sumeru.
“Didn't you hear? He grew up destitute and was unworthy of catching the Archons' eyes.”
And how foolish the Regrator was, to have thought his past would not follow him here.
“Are you okay?” hisses Dottore under his breath, feeling the tensing of the shoulder below his touch. He didn't know the Regrator was this fidgety, and now that he knows, it's rather annoying (and a little worrying, too, but he's not about to admit that).
“I don't like them.”
He sounds so much like a pouting child that it's entertaining, but it would be unwise of the Doctor to say so.
“I don't either.” he whispers back, leaning his head over so his hair drapes over the banker's.
“It's like being in a ballroom, forced to dance.”
Pantalone's eyes dart around his surroundings, at the nosy, excited gazes of the reporters and businessmen, waiting in anticipation for something to happen.
“Then let us dance.” Dottore hisses. “Let us dance under their hungry gazes and let them form their rumors and opinions.”
“And when I feel like my legs will give out from exhaustion?”
The Doctor's painted position wears off into something more genuine as he bends a little closer to the throne, almost protectively.
Their hands, linked around each others', tighten, as if tied to each other by an invisible red thread.
“Then I will hold you, and we will run away before their very eyes.”
“And slip into the carnage of their words once more?”
“We were made for carnage and bloodshed and chaos. And should you become worried…I will hold you close and kill whoever strays into your path.”
It's unlike him to be selfless, to think of anything but his own research.
Perhaps he is not as emotionless as they think.
From their set positions in the gallery, the movements of their mouths outline a quiet conversation.
In a room of chaos, the two most chaotic, bad-tempered people have their little affectionate exchange.
They're so not used to being cared for and somehow– somehow– the fragments of their hearts fit together like puzzle pieces.
When the final brushstroke is delivered, the artist turns the easel around for the two of them to see.
The crowd dissects the image with their eyes and mouths.
“Oh.”
The word falls from Pantalone's lips before he can stop himself.
It's beautiful, really, better than any glorified image of himself he has ordered.
“What a portrait, indeed.” Dottore glances at his partner. “Well? What do you think?”
Pantalone studies it with much thought, nodding as his eyes narrow behind those glasses, and finally makes his response.
“They made you less ugly than you are.” he concludes with that disrespectful smirk on his face.
Had it been anyone else, Dottore would have sliced their heads clean off and hung the rotting skull in the palace foyer for all to see.
But he softens for one person, and one person only.
“Rude,” he mutters. “I can't believe I let you walk all over me like this.”
“Because you love me.”
And try as he might, it can't be denied.
It's true.
“Regrettably, I do.”
Whispered like a secret, a promise, an exchange of vows between two people that shows no regret at all.
In front of the entire room, he pulls the Ninth into his embrace and presses cold lips to his forehead with reverence.
The whispers start up again. They always do.
Gasps of shock, excitement, even horror that anyone would dare to perform such a ludicrous act in public, far less two of the worst people in this nation.
Behind painted, tightened lips, they hold each other.
“Unfortunately, I love you too.”
Before their smiling portraits, the two collapse into each other's arms and honor their timeless love.