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Pantalone stopped dead in his tracks.
Dottore stopped dead in his tracks.
They'd probably skulked the halls of Glupov thousands of times -- together, not together, separated by halls, separated by rooms, separated by the flow of time -- but this precise situation arose like a rare and beautiful celestial alignment.
They arrived in a hall at the same time as one another, well after hours, at opposite ends, when Dottore was supposed to be away on business in Fontaine. This was the last thing either of them expected. It caused the two men to startle, astonished with the serendipity of it all.
Pantalone whips out a dramatic hand, curls it into the sky as though he could reach across the hall and grasp Dottore. He nearly falls to his knees with weepy intensity. "ONEGIN -- "
Dottore's face breaks with a large, toothy grin underneath his mask. He stands at attention, waiting for the line.
"-- Your heart knows both pride, and true honor!" Pantalone cries adoringly, his voice full of revelation.
"I cannot leave you!" Dottore chirps back with open arms, having memorized the line to perfection, but always struggling just a bit with the /perfect/ humane tone in these instances. He only manages to sound vaguely unhinged, which the regrator adores.
"Eugene!" Pantalone approaches him in the hallway, slow and tenuous at first, then quickening with a swell of conviction. Dottore mirrored him -- they meet near the middle of the hallway, Pantalone catching Dottore with an audible contact, pulling him into a tight and possessive hold. He's wisping furious feather soft kisses all over his face, dislodging his mask. "You must -- ", kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, "I beg you," kiss, kiss, kiss, "to leave me--" kiss --
"Oh, have pity!" Dottore grasps Pantalone by his face, his palms distorting his facial features, smushing his lips, making the man fight to land those heated pecks. It's a battle Dottore is happily losing -- he merely wants to watch him struggle to accomplish it.
"Why hide it -- why pretend?" Pantalone swoons between kisses, hands grasping that ludicrously small waist, fingers fanning over the taut, round asscheeks he missed so much. Their contact is warm, comfortable, hip to hip. He's now wrestling rougher, headier, wetter kisses into Dottore's neck and jaw, still contending with the doctor's slender hands to do so. "I /love/ you -- "
Dottore's eyes went wide to play the part -- ludicrously, maddeningly wide. Pantalone has to fight not to laugh at this ridiculous expression on such a clinical and reptilian entity. The crow is certainly trying very hard to play the role. The doctor's voice is shocked when he speaks, wrestling violently -- now successfully -- to tear the greedy mouth off his flesh.
"What's /that/, I hear?"
"That's not the -- " Pantalone is writhing against their separation, forcing Dottore to lean backward to avoid the onslaught of the taller man.
"What was that /word/ you spoke? O, joy! O, my life! You -- are -- again -- the Tatyana of former days!" Dottore belts this furiously into Pantalone's stupidly smiling face. The doctor connects their mouths in a sudden and savage flurry of tongue and teeth, their mouths making a lewd, wet, squelching sound.
"No -- " Pantalone lamented in the space between their faces, the two of them nuzzling their tongues together, nipping at one another. "No!" -- a heated kiss -- "No! You cannot bring back the past!" The Snezhnayan sounds teary, mournful, threading his voice between the heinous smacking sounds.
"I am another's now, my fate, it's all-but decided -- "
"Pulcinella again, isn't it, you fucking /whore/," Dottore hisses under his breath, lurching Pantalone backwards by this chest with a powerful, full-bodied throw. The two of them share a chuckle over this and seem to collect themselves as suddenly as they deteriorated.
"He never returns my summons, though," Pantalone shrugs wistfully. "You're back early. Why?"
"Detonated a transformer."
"Ah." -- Pure, unadulterated glee in those lavender eyes.
"My place, or yours?" Dottore is adjusting Pantalone's collar, which was mussed with their earlier charade.
"Here would do," the regrator smirks lewdly. He never tries to hide the fact that he pines over the man when he's away. That whole-bodied, tortured, primal pining. "But if you're going to make me wait, then -- mine."
"Of course I'm going to make you wait, you filthy bastard. It's better when you're desperate."
"Very well -- " Pantalone curtly holds out a hand, which Dottore shakes, the two of them bidding one another adieu in a cordial fashion.
“Oh — “ Pantalone catches Dottore by his groin just as they're about to pass one another. Dottore lurches at the contact.
The regrator leans in and clasps tightly, fastens their bodies close, his lips hot against the pale shell of the segment’s ear. “I've now decided that if I don’t receive your expense report by 8 pm, I’m going to punch my fist /right/ up your ass."
He viciously bites the earlobe, uses his hold on Dottore’s crotch to shove him a good foot away. In the short time it takes for them to separate, Pantalone’s already adjusting his clothing and walking away with straightened shoulders.
Dottore is a confused little goblin in the moment — hot, bothered, /prickly/, infuriated by the power grab. All of this is interrupted by the gaze he’s now leveling at Sandrone, where she’s standing at her office door with an empty plate, /staring/, blotchy with second-hand embarrassment, shellshocked.
He doesn’t know how long she’s been there. Pantalone’s already gone.
Dottore has the task of having to walk past Sandrone to get to the men’s washroom, but he’s a man who lacks shame entirely, and the look on her face only fills him wretched amusement. He cracks a grin — a demented, toothy twist of his lips — sparing no shame at all. “Are you still jealous that I’m his favourite?”
“You two are just /completely/ repulsive, in every way,” she says bluntly, stepping into the hallway, now, her posture a full-bodied cringe.
“Boring and prudish as always — honestly, Sandrone, it’s a wonder he doesn’t appreciate your consistency more.” Dottore whistles happily, walking away.
Inwardly, he debates purposefully invoking Pantalone’s wrath — he imagines walking in with the papers, seeing the lavender eyes light up — behind a cigarette, no doubt — and then handing him a proposal for new funding instead.
The thought twists his guts in an anticipation so hideously vile he doesn’t even register the woman’s heated reply.