#hi hi !!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pen-observing · 3 months ago

Text

beauty and curiosity

synopsis: As Dottore's research assistant, you had to keep your curiosity on par with what he expected. You never thought that what sparked it after so much time would be Capitano himself

word count: 3k pairing: capitano x gn! reader (slight dottore if you wish to imagine it so, I did)

The door that greets your open eyes is the same like always. Brown wood that someone else picked before you. You can't say that they had bad taste, the door is placed nicely to the right corner and you little friend from last night - the spider- greets you even with this dawn. You wonder if he stayed there the whole night while you were sleeping as a thank you to the mercy you extended him. You did not kill him, and he did not move to make a new web. maybe he saw that as an equal trade? You probably would have left him alive anyway. Someone told you long before that seeing a spider was like a hint that you will get lucky in the following few days. So, even as your feet touch the cold wooden floor, you decide to still have mercy and to open the door without killing him to get breakfast.

Maybe they are lucky omens, maybe they are not. But it is not like killing him or carrying him out the window would change much for you. Your eyes would see the same door tomorrow. The floor would feel cold again and you would pick the same mug off the drying dishes in your kitchen to start the day with.

These routines did not bother you themselves, no. What was bothersome was the fact that you realized how, eventually, everyone develops to have them as creatures of habit. It was inevitable to turn into someone who repeats the same things over and over again. Even the harbinger you serve - one with multiple bodies, had his own routines. His younger clones had far more rebellion towards them but even they still had a need to keep a specific space, to prioritize one thing over the other like second nature.

Truth be told - you were not asked to pick who you would serve. Dottore ended up being the harbinger you would serve as an assistant. and you were not the only one picked for that role. He liked to keep plenty of staff. Part of it was that he needed an audience to showcase his own talents and immense intelligence to, while another part of him was a bit less selfish. Dottore was willing to teach those who had true curiosity and spirit according to his own criteria and for whatever reason, you managed to remain as one of the few assistants he kept close at hand. As close as he would allow that is and with a man like him that still meant millions of lightyears away.

You do not mind that in the slightest. What kept you around despite your failures and 'shortcomings' of having a moral compass in his lab was that he deemed your curiosity the highest out of anyone he had met. He once told you that if you were not serving him, the abyss would have swallowed you whole because you would wonder about its properties the same way you wondered about colors when you were younger.

"Why are apples red and why is the sky blue? from your childhood would just turn into questions about the inside shapes of the abyss and you would be swallowed by curiosity." Were his exact words.

Dottore believed that true curiosity could not be fabricated even at his own hands so while you were the not best person for experiments at the start, you were the one who suited his own curious nature.

'What good is a doctor who cures a disease without wondering about the cause? Without wondering about its transformations? What good is an engineer who cannot disassemble parts at the same speed he would assemble them at? And what good is a person who cannot see beyond the usual?"

He said you could see beyond the usual but in all honesty, sometimes it feels like you can't see past this mug. Or this window looking out into the street next to your breakfast table. Sometimes you felt like you could not see beyond the speck of dust or the peel of a citrus fruit.

Maybe that is why when he gave you a choice to leave, you decided to stay. While every Dottore clone had his own routines, they managed to keep a constant cycle of novelty. Working at his lab eventually brought more interesting things than you could have found yourself.

Was beauty in the new? Or was it in the old?

You were deeply unsure.

Dottore was not above punishing you despite keeping you around. For a few days, Dottore did not hear you utter a singular question in his lab and he found it so offensive you would dare to become ignorant to his breakthroughs. It seemed like you were bored of him and his research and he decided that a proper punishment would be to have you spend a whole month in the city farthest away from the main fatui base and from the tsaritsa.

if you were so bored of constant novelty - you might as well experience true boredom by residing in his abandoned lab in a peaceful town where everyone with something exciting to offer already moved away. The worst part? You did not feel like anything changed.

Numbness even touches curiosity. So, what if your door is now on the right instead of the left? What if the mug is pink instead of white? What if you were there or here? Differences are miniscule and nothing could make your curiosity perk up. If you were still like this when he summoned you back - you would be sent home and that is all there was to it. Or, he would further punish you by extending your stay. He could laugh at you when you mixed the things in the wrong way or when you failed to fix a core and it would explode. But what he absolutely refused is to have your curiosity dim down. If it did, you would be useless.

And it isn't like you have not tried to find something interesting. While you were on the trip to get to here, you tried to find something interesting. Perhaps some plants that would show something new or an animal that would make for a good study case. You did want to try and see how many generations it would take for animals to break a trauma response their parents exhibited alone but even that went out of the window after a few seconds.

If you could not find anything worthwhile in this town - you would be doomed to feel this way forever. Black and white thinking but not without basis. Stubborn curiosity and stubborn numbness started to go hand in hand for you. Maybe if you closed your eyes and prayed, your spark of curiosity would find an object for it to love and latch onto?

In the next moment, your spoon made a small noise. It moved from one side of your mug to the other. Nothing unusual, right? You just wanted to make the tea and honey come together but when you looked down you realized that your hands did not make it move. You already finished doing that around three minutes ago. To prove to yourself what it feels like, your hands moved to make the same motion and the fog over your brain lifted as you felt that danger was near. Somehow this spoon moved and it was not your doing.

With all your senses, you tried to pinpoint what exactly had happened but you were unsuccessful. Even if something was here, it masked its presence so well that a ghost would be ashamed. You did not feel a void, but you did not feel any warmth either. Unnerving. Unusual. Interest could be found in fear but you were unsure where to search.

Luckily for you, the presence had decided to make itself know. With a slight thud, footsteps approached you without your door ever opening. Was this mercy extended towards you in the same way you treated your spider? It sure felt that way.

"My sincere apologies for startling you." Now you had to look up from the mug to search for the stranger. But, with his deep voice and polite manner of speaking, you knew who it belonged to already. Capitano, the first of the eleven fatui harbingers. Your own Lord always said he did not care much for rankings but a certain sour taste would be in his words whenever he spoke of this man. You had not made contact with him previously but in a way, you felt that it was cruel fate that only one number separated you from the most noble and righteous harbinger and a heretic.

"Based on my previous visits to this abandoned small lab, I never encountered another soul here. When I felt your presence, I had to judge if you were sent here or if you were trying to steal information that belongs to our organisation."

You stood up and saluted him. It comes like second nature. "Lord harbinger, you were doing your duty. No need for apologies."

"Nonsense. I felt that I had startled you and should have thought of Dottore sending his own forces to abandoned labs before I made such a move."

Talking to other lords never came quite easy to you. Dottore enjoyed much of questioning and random rambles but other Lords were known to punish just for being asked a question by wretched vermin. But suddenly, you felt that Capitano filled the room with a presence. It seemed like he could choose to be a void or actually have spiritual warmth. How many years had he taken to perfect this?

In fact, how many years has he been alive? Did your lord simply hate him because he was branded with number two? Why did he always wear a mask?

You had heard so many rumours in bars and gatherings of other servants and soldiers but Capitano's own men never gossiped. Not even when they were at their most drunk. That is - they never spoke of their own lord with anything other than praise.

Where did that admiration come from? Had anyone seen him without a mask or cry perhaps?

"Your silence makes for a rather awkward companion. But I can tell you have questions."

"I have been called curious before, but it has been a while since I was curious about anything deeply."

Capitano moved a few steps to open a drawer with syringes in it.

"Are you not a researcher and is this not a lab of your famed lord?"

"Yes is my answer to both of those questions."

His gloved hands picked up two syringes and he did not look at you while he was doing so. You were not part of Dottore's team when he made them and their unique mix of colors piqued your interest. One of those colors looked like synth vaguely but the other one was similar to lava. Just how many experiments of Dottore's were you unaware of?

"And should this not be a prime place for you when the answer is yes to both. What have you been doing all this time?"

"Looking around this lab without actually touching anything for longer than a few seconds. I also kicked out a lot of spiders but last night I let one stay."

Capitano did not seem perplexed with your paradoxical answers. He could see your eyes eying his syringes with interest when you refused to take them apart and analyse the contents for however long you have been here. He felt no malice or dishonesty in your being, so he simply continued to move like you were not here. He had done this countless times before.

"I will not tell you what is inside of these syringes if that is one of your questions."

He sat down on a chair on the other side of your mug.

"I did have questions about the contents but I would have asked the syringes themselves not you. Even if it seems that I might melt or change shape from simply being exposed to them in any capacity.

"Hmm. You make a valid point. What keeps me a monster would make you disappear. I suggest you stay away from these unless you wish to meet a cruel fate."

"Lord first, you give me a kind warning but you speak of being a monster."

"And what is your observation meant to accomplish?"

"Nothing. Well, I could say it will help me keep my form too."

"You are an ordinary human." It didn't feel like an insult. It felt like he was praising such simpleness.

"What form do you speak of?"

This time he was looking at you. You could not see his eyes from his helmet but you could feel his gaze on you. Without flinching or moaning, all while keeping his eyes solely on you - Capitano stabbed his thigh and his heart with the two syringes he had prepared.

It seemed like he felt nothing but you felt both warmth and cold at once and in a second the overwhelming feeling was gone. It was so overwhelming that your curiosity made you run over and place your hands over his own to feel any remnants of energy. Touching any other harbinger so casually would have meant a number of different fates but Capitano was a kind man.

"If you are here to inspect me, there is no need. I know what I am doing and these will not kill me."

You helped him remove them even if he truly seemed like he did not need help. You could run towards the drawer he pulled them out from but the object of your interest were not the syringes themselves.

Your curiosity was this man himself. For the first time in a while, your brain started to race with questions and theories. Just who was he and what was he hiding.

"What is the reason you are so familiar with using these? Why are you here? Are you a monster?"

"Indeed. I belong to them."

"Beings? You speak of yourself as if you are not human. Just what is behind that mask of yours?"

Perhaps Dottore was right, the abyss would swallow you whole if it interested you. Maybe it still can? If you get out of this situation alive - if you survive removing the mask of the famed and powerful harbinger - you could go out to uncover new condensed abyssal energy.

You finally got your curiosity back and allowing it to run out would be a crime against yourself. Curiosity filled your whole body and Capitano felt cold to your touch as you looked at his face.

"You call yourself a monster because of this?"

"Are you perhaps about to call it beauty like that twisted doctor you serve?"

Maybe he expected a bigger reaction than this. Maybe you failed him, but you did not fail yourself.

"Beauty? There is nothing beautiful about it."

"At least you don't call rot beautiful like your own master."

"Your ice is above my head so I suppose your reputation proceeds you. You are kind enough to let me get my words out."

"Speak."

"There is nothing beautiful about the rot of skin. However, you are not a monster. You are undoubtedly human."

"Laughable."

But he did not laugh. He found you foolish. You dared to overstep twice. Removing his helmet was one thing but trying to comfort him was another.

"You are human, lord harbinger. Did you know that my own lord does not rot? Did you know he has made others unable to rot? In an odd way, this rot makes you more human than you believe."

You can't tell if your words caused a change or if they were comforting or insulting. This man has lived more lives than you ever will and he had seen and spilled more blood than you can imagine. He does not need comfort from you. That much is clear.

Still, as the ice descends, he makes it disappear with his hand and you emerge unharmed.

"Your curiosity saved you."

"I always thought it would eat me alive."

"It almost did. I never heard of anyone gaining a vision and immediately aiming at themselves."

A cryo vision had manifested in your lap without you even noticing. When you looked back up, Capitano had already pulled down his mask.

"Why didn't you stop me? You could have made me regret my choice the instant I tried to touch you."

"I had never seen anyone gain a vision in such a way. I suppose my own curiosity got the better of me."

He got up from the chair and you noticed just how much taller and imposing he was from such close proximity. You really were in the presence of danger and still chose risk instead of safety. Capitano was already moving towards the door and something compelled you to sit back down and finally drink the tea that had grown cold.

He was in the doorway now. You were thinking of what would happen to you now that you had a vision. Maybe you could try to boil it? You heard they were indestructible but surely something could dissolve it? Visions were not a completely natural thing in this world.

"Come. Bring that vision and follow me."

"I still do not have orders to leave this place."

"Since when were you allowed to refuse any orders from a harbinger? Dottore is not the only one you ought to listen to and I doubt he would be suitable to teach you how to use your new power."

You would be risking Dottore's wrath and plenty of unpredictable outcomes based on which clone greets you once you are back. But, losing the object of your curiosity would doom you to a worse fate in your own eyes.

Following Capitano would unlock a new world for you. Something told you that you would be able to find new beauty and curiosity if you took him up on his offer.

a/n: guess who is back !! after a year!! I hope my mutuals are around still to actually guess that it is me who is back. i realized the last time i wrote was in november and the new archon quest finally inspired me.

to give you a few updates: i changed two jobs and I became less creative I am afraid. I got into a situationship/delusionship with a narc for a few months but i did not cry. i am welcoming any thoughts because after so long this was vv hard to write.

i hope you are well and that you have enjoyed this at least a little bit

#genshin x reader #capitano x reader #genshin impact #genshin capitano #genshin fanfic #genshin x gn reader #genshin reader insert #genshin harbingers #not om #HI HI #my writing #oneshot #genshin oneshots #genshin dottore

219 notes · View notes