Written by VelleRue on Ao3
Warnings
Mature
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He feels… dirty.
It’s so hard to walk. His vision blurs, circuits damaged by the filth now clinging stubbornly to them, unable to be washed away with his cleansing systems. All of him is covered in filth, except for one part of him.
The circuits and framework in his chest grip onto the foreign device given to him by the mechanic, free of grime and wretchedness and everything. It feels safe.
Why is that?
He stumbles.
Hands press against his abdomen and shoulder, holding him up as he feels like all he can do is fall down.
“Slow down, Kabukimono,” a familiar voice chuckles in his ear, accented and as confident as a kitsune. “You’ve saved the day. Perhaps you should take it easy now.”
“The mechanic,” he speaks, but it comes out pitifully weak and slurred, jaw hardly able to move through the sticky sludge holding it closed.
“Indeed, though you may call me by my name if you wish.”
“You are a mechanic,” he presses, trying to convey everything he’s feeling because he’s not sure if he’ll be able to stay awake. He’s not sure he’d wake up again if he falls. “The device within my chest. It protected me.”
“…it seems it did. As was its intended purpose.”
“How? How could it…”
A smile, showing the barest hint of teeth. “Would you like to see?”
Without waiting for an answer he—
he peels his robe away from his chest
he opens up the compartment for his Gno—s
gently, oh so gently, he untangles the wires and weaves his fingers around the frame
(he always touches like that. so gently, so softly—)
That device, pristine and shining, settles into the mechanic’s palm. “There is a secret piece to this device,” the mechanic says. “A piece I could hardly get easily, but Niwa graciously harvested it for me.”
Niwa.
Just the sound relaxes him, lets him forget the awful grime defiling his body for just a moment, breathing into him a sense that feels like flower petals. Soft, sweet.
“Where is… Niwa?” He struggles to turn his head, pulling himself out of the mechanic’s arms and trying to walk, but his legs can hardly move through the grime gripping his joints like vices. “He should have been here. He said… he said he would be here.”
“See, that’s the thing,” the mechanic tells him, smiling syllables coaxing him into looking back. “Niwa has decided to depart from Tatarasuna. He was unable to bear the thought of its inevitable fate, and the things that would come after.”
What?
“But!” The mechanic raises a finger. “He was not without one last virtue. He decided to give you a gift. This device holds within it his last gift to you, taken straight from the chest of one of his wonderful servants.”
The mechanic smiles , showing off pointed teeth—
he opens the device.
the puppet stares.
“don’t you see?”
fingers reach in, gripping the bloodied lump and lifting it up
the device drops to the ground, and a hand reaches for the puppet’s own
(he always treats his body so kindly)
the lump drops into his fingers, liquid viscous and cold
“it’s what you’ve always wanted.”
the puppet stares down at his pale fingers stained crimson with dark blood, curled around—
“your very own heart.”
(before he shatters him to make him anew)
(to remake him into something grimy, and filthy)
(his hands always leave him feeling—)
it’s what he wants most, but all he feels is
dirty
His cleansing systems activate, and Dottore laughs.
“My, what a surprise,” he says, hand still curled around his wrist as his fingers dig in underneath the joint to feel the inside. “Are you actually crying?”
Scaramouche scowls at him, wishing he could rip his hand away if only to cause a momentary hindrance. “It’s not crying,” he snaps instead. “It’s just my cleansing system at work. Water is spread through my body to wash out what doesn’t belong, and it just so happens that my eyes are one of the exit points. It’s fine.”
“What doesn’t belong, hmm?” Dottore grins at him that pointy grin that Scaramouche is becoming increasingly wary of, because so far it’s meant nothing good will follow.
Dottore removes his fingers from Scaramouche’s wrist. Scaramouche’s systems calm down and his eyes stop watering so badly as the offending object is removed. He starts to feel better as Dottore takes his hand, touch soft and gentle.
Dottore is always so careful with him.
Then, true to the pattern, Dottore says, “You really are marvelous,” and yanks so hard Scaramouche’s limb pops apart.
His hand is left by his knee on the operating table, the wrist joint meant to be connecting hand and arm held almost lovingly in Dottore’s hands as he feels around to see how the tiny mechanisms work despite their size, and Scaramouche’s tears are definitely just because his systems are confused by it all.
That’s all. His system just thinks that he’s
dirty.
“Hey. Wake up.”
His eyelids slide up, and his vision systems inform him that he is seeing hair affected by moonlight and is yellow so pale it’s almost bone white. Eyes that are not stars, no matter how similar to the celestial bodies that they are, gaze down at him, narrowed in an emotion he doesn’t understand.
What could it be? Anger? Sadness?
He compares it to previous data.
“I’m sorry,” Lumine says to him, hand hovering uselessly. Her lips are pressed into a thin line, pale and dull in the moonlight, yet somehow still drawing his eyes to them. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Why?” he asks, confused and aching for a reason he doesn’t know.
He doesn’t. He won’t.
She hesitates. “Wanderer, you…”
“Spit it out.”
“…you’re crying.”
“I’m not,” he snaps back on reflex, but it’s empty of any true offense, just a shield that won’t hold well against the monsoon the Traveler embodies. All he can do is hope she won’t push. “It’s just my cleansing system. It gets rid of intrusions within my body.”
“Intrusions?” Lumine looks him over, then surveys the room with wide eyes. “Did you get some dust in your eye? Or did you eat something you weren’t supposed to?”
“Whatever I eat is burned and used as fuel,” he says, sitting up and wiping at his eyes with his wrist. “And you can hardly think my body would allow a little bit of dust to activate my cleansing. I’d never be able to go anywhere without crying that way.”
“Then, did it build up?”
“Of course not. I perform regular maintenance.” He smirks at her. “As should you. Your eyelids are so bruised, it’s a wonder you’re conscious through the day.”
“Thanks for worrying, but it’s just remnants of centuries ago.”
“I’m not worrying—“
“Well, I am.”
He closes his mouth.
Lumine shakes her head. “Sorry,” she says, irritatingly genuine, “I don’t mean to sound pushy. But, if nothing is actually physically bothering you, then… is there something else?”
“There is not,” falls from his mouth unbidden, and once the words are out Scaramouche wishes he could take them back and burn them from existence to prevent her from hearing the way his voice cracks.
That look is back in her eyes, and now Scaramouche knows what it is. It’s how Niwa used to look at him when Scaramouche learned about the concept of a heart, how that fledgling looked at him when he confessed his yearning for a heart.
Genuine, kind concern.
She reaches for his hand, and Scaramouche lets it happen, watching as her fingers slide against his palm and—
“I’ve seen a lot of you, and while I still haven’t forgiven you for some things, I’m not going to leave you alone if you don’t want me to. If you want to talk, I’ll be your listener.”
Her fingers
touch his wrist
and he
feels
dirty
“Don’t,” he says, but even as he tells her to stop he can’t pull his wrist away – he can’t, he’s trapped, held underneath a cuff of iron and a string of sweet words from the lips of a monster, standing inside a flame he knows will burn yet he tells himself he has to stay—
Lumine pulls away.
Tears are dripping, staining his cheeks, trying to cleanse himself but not of any sort of dust or ash that found its way inside his circuits. It’s grime he’s trying to wash off, filth that clings to his mind and forces his jaw shut and just leaves him feeling dirty, dirty, dirty.
He sighs shudderingly, reaching up to wipe the tears away. “Sorry. I’m not—I’m just a bit… strung up.”
“Alright.”
They sit in silence for a moment, just letting him gather himself until the tears have stopped streaming and his breath steadies to proper rhythms. He appreciates it, the unobtrusive quiet.
“Haaa.” He looks out to the false moon hanging above through the window, listening to the faint chirping of crickets, feeling the plush blankets of his bed within the Traveler’s Serenitea Pot. “Just had a bad dream.”
“…can I ask?”
His first thought is to make a quip along the lines of, Sure, you can ask, but I won’t answer. But he doesn’t care to prolong this conversation much longer than it has to be, so he answers honestly, “I’d rather you didn’t. Not tonight.”
“Okay. Then, can I ask about something else?”
“Depends.”
“Can I have a hug?”
“Excuse me?” He turns to look at her, baffled. He doesn’t really like the idea of letting her touch him, still blinking away images of gloved hands running down his knee and taking notes, but something about the way she says that makes him want to latch onto it.
Her arms are spread, and even in this dim light he can tell she’s looking at him with glittering hope in her stars for eyes. “Can I have a hug?” she repeats. “I had a bad dream too.”
“Bad enough to ask that?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“… can I ask?”
She purses her lips, and he almost takes it back, embarrassed, but then she says, “I was dreaming of a memory. I was in Khaenri’ah, running through the buildings as the sky turned red. I was looking for Aether.”
“Oh.”
She shrugs. “It’s been five hundred years, but I haven’t really had time to process, you know? So, if you wouldn’t mind, can I have a hug?”
He knows what she’s doing, pretending she’s the one who needs help from him so that she can get him to come close, but…
He doesn’t want that filth to hold him back. Especially not for something so small like a hug.
He shifts on the bed, swinging his legs over the edge, and leans forward. He hasn’t actually hugged anyone in a few centuries, so as he closes his arms around her back he feels nothing but awkwardness, but then Lumine sighs contently and he has to bury his face into her shoulder to hide his mortification.
“Thank you,” she says to him, as though she should be happy to be touched by a heartless, filthy wretch. “I needed this.”
“I hardly think you needed to be touched by me of all people.”
“Maybe not you in particular, but at least someone I like.”
He can’t help how he laughs. “Someone you like? Me?”
“Yeah,” she says, soft, kind. Her head turns, and when he looks at her all he sees are stars shining brightly for him. “I like you.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just lays his chin on her shoulder and lets himself relax.
Her fingers never press against him.
The morning finds him laughing so hard his systems freak and he starts to cry, but he hardly cares because look at her.
Lumine pouts at him, hurrying to her dresser. “Shut up! It’s normal! Normal!”
“What, looking like a badger went to town on your head? HA!”
Lumine waves her hand and a few small pebbles go flying towards him until he finally ducks out of the room. He’s still snickering to himself as he goes to the kitchen to prepare a small breakfast, and he belatedly remembers to wipe his tears away.
She hasn’t brought up last night yet, so he won’t either. He doesn’t want to bring up unwanted thoughts.
Though, he supposes he still wonders about her last words to him. He wonders what he wants to do about that.
Lumine comes skipping into the kitchen with a big smile on her face, and all thoughts of last night go flying out the window in favor of saying, “Wipe that goofy look off of your face. Why in the world are you so happy?”
“I’m eating a piece of candy,” she tells him, watching as he grimaces with a grin.
Just the mere thought of that awful substance, always leaving his teeth sticky and gross, is enough to make him step away.
She laughs at him, lips curled into a lovely smile.
An idea pops into his head, and Scaramouche considers just how much he hates candy.
He decides he won’t let the sticky substance stop him from doing what he wants, and pivots on his heel, making his way to Lumine.
She raises her eyebrow at him, he closes his eyes before he can see her reaction to the way he gently takes hold of her chin and leans in to finally kiss those pretty lips.
He wants to take her hand, but the sensation of fingers on his wrist lingers. So instead, he just settles for smirking against her mouth and pulling back, licking away the remnants of honey from his lips.
It’s still really gross to feel, but he thinks the look on her face is worth it. Her eyes are wide, unseeing, and her finger is raised to touch her mouth.
He winks at her. “I like you too,” he says cheekily, returning to the stove. “And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your awful bedhead.”
“You little—“
“Here’s your breakfast by the way.”
“—super helpful and not at all bratty, uh, person.”
“Nice save.”
Lumine sighs, long suffering, and he laughs.
His sensors say the sunlight streaming through the glass panes of the east side window feels kind of nice.
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