Preventive Measures? What Preventive Measures? | Sicktember 2023

Pantalone is only mildly irritated, yet not surprised, when he wakes up shivering heavily, instinctively tugging the comforter further up to tightly wrap around himself. He spends but a minute drowsily trying to blink away the sleep from his eyes before he reaches out from his little cocoon, fumbling around his bedside table for a short moment in search of his glasses.

When he does eventually find them, he pushes himself to leave his bed, rushing to pull on his usual clothes to hopefully stave off the cold a bit. Even when dressed with his usual fur coat, his shivering doesn't lessen even slightly. However, he doesn't spare much time to be confused over that - he has a lot of work to catch up on today, considering he had spent far longer than he meant to out in the field the day before.

Instead, he simply reaches into his medicine cabinet to take some basic cold medicine - just in case if he's actually coming down with something - before moving to migrate to his office. Which is, unfortunately, relatively the same temperature as the rest of Zapolyarny Palace, but there's not much he can do for that besides make sure the windows are shuttered and the fireplace lit.

Those two, of course, are the things he does first upon reaching said office of his. He struggles longer than usual with lighting the fire though, his hands trembling from shivers as he tries to light a match, but soon enough there's a steady fire going to hopefully warm the room up at least a bit.

Looking over at his desk, Pantalone quietly sighs to himself and organizes a few things throughout the room before finally sitting down, pulling over one of the papers from yesterday that he missed due to his outing.

"Regrator, I have a proposition!"

Il Dottore - the Prime, this time around - slams the door open, grinning widely from a combination of his new, phenomenal idea - of which he's going to need funding for, of course; why else would he be here? - and having completely terrified the guard standing outside the room prior to bursting in as he has just done.

When he actually catches sight of the other Harbinger, he frowns at the absolute lack of any sort of cutting retort, as the other usually tends to do. Instead, the Ninth seems to be staring down blankly at a sheet of paper - probably some nonsensical monetary report, maybe the Eleventh spent ten million mora on a meal in Liyue again!

The Doctor strides towards Pantalone, curiously leaning down to catch his eye once he's close. They're glassy, which is certainly an odd deviation from how the banker usually presents himself. Always so fastidious about himself, from his appearance to his evident attention - most of the Harbingers know to simply come to him if they missed something in a recent meeting; even Tartaglia, the youngest and easily the most naive of them all, has learned how to be roundabout in netting any required information during one of the Ninth's heretic rants.

Disregarding that matter for the moment though, Dottore's frown only deepens when Pantalone snaps out of his little haze, the man barely moving beyond the shivers he's been under this entire time, as well as slightly rotating his head to look at Dottore.

"You were... quick today, Dottore.." He fully scowls when the man struggles to pick up his pen - it's just a pen, and an easy one to hold, at that! - reaching out to stop the Regrator from moving any further. He recoils slightly when he feels how cold Pantalone is - just slightly, for his lab is also rather freezing, though he certainly didn't expect to feel that same relative temperature on the skin of his dear banker - but doesn't stop holding his wrist. Cold, very cold; shivering; clearly disoriented and tired; an inability to easily grab onto things..

"Ignorant imbecile," Dottore sighs, tugging Pantalone's chair away from his desk. The Doctor ignores the other's belated protests as he hoists him up into his arms - for all the Ninth tries to struggle, it's a rather pathetic attempt, as he doesn't even cause Dottore any issue as he carries him out of his office - once again scaring the guard stationed outside it half to death.