#the cubitum eamus question is a reference to the secret history for those who don't know

[archonsbane]

AND I TRY TO TALK REFINED

The one time Il Dottore speaks to you in another language, the one time he speaks to someone else in another language, and the one time you give him a taste of his own medicine.

pairing. dottore x reader

tags & content warnings. gn!reader. reader is the tsaritsa's child. reader is referred to by they/them. there's one (1) mildly suggestive sentence (and it's in a different language lol).

word count. 2.9k

author's note. so. i'm back from the dead. i have two fics for pantalone and one for diluc, around 8k+ words. (none of them are finished LMFAO) but of course i drop everything for this stupid ass man. the reader here is my tsaritsa’schild!reader, though this takes place before beauty is terror. this is set in the early days of their relationship and the start of dottore’s involvement in the fatui. reader's backstory is also implied here, but not outright stated. also i got inspiration from @fatuismooches lovely headcanons, though i strayed a bit far HAHA. thank you for letting me write this! and thank you to my two lovely delulu friends (you know who you are) bc i suddenly got into the mood to write because of them.  also, what is heavily implied to be the script of khaenri'ah in-game is based on latin, so i headcanon that latin is the language of khaenri'ah. also i had to sneak in a tsh reference lmfao it was too perfect not to. i promise i don't include it in all my fics it just so happens to be perfect for certain situations huhu. also i hope you guys catch all the little details i put in! reader and dottore have always been like this lol the title is from 'talk' by hozier.

You are undoubtedly the worst teacher Dottore has ever had, bar none. 

Flighty, distracted, and prone to seamlessly maneuvering to an entirely different topic without blinking an eye, leaving him dumbfounded. Your teaching sessions, if they could be called that, are filled with constant interrogations of his life and large infusions of food. Half the time you aren’t even teaching him, you’re simply rambling about whatever it is you ramble about (he’s learned to tune you out, partly because he doesn’t care and partly because he can’t understand what you’re saying). He is truly reconsidering forgoing learning Snezhnayan — at the pace you're going, he might as well take his chances and learn by himself.  

“But Mother said,” you remind him, petulantly, like a small child. Yes, the Tsaritsa commanded him to learn Snezhnayan, and commanded you to teach him, but he is greatly tempted to ask her to send another teacher. It has only been two weeks since your lessons begun and he might truly go mad. Sometimes he thinks this might be the worst thing a divine being has ever inflicted on him.

In truth, he already knows Snezhnayan, but only enough to hold a polite conversation. It is his least favorite of the languages he learned from his teachers in the Akademiya, and anyway, he never quite had a deftness for tongues. He is always most at home working with his hands, destroying and creating physical matter, covered in dust and soot, cracking open the world’s secrets like an egg. But the Tsartisa willed him to learn, and he is nothing if not a scholar. 

“But Mother said,” he mocks, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. He’s learned that you have no convictions about his personality. If anything, you seemed to embrace it. Whereas he dons a respectful — as respectful as he can conjure, anyways — mask with the Jester and the Tsaritsa, it’s… looser, with you. Still, he is careful not to cross the line. He is only allowed this because he amuses you. You've been treating him like some sort of pet to be played with whenever you desire since his coming here. “Your mother also said to teach me how to speak Snezhnayan, but this is the third time you’ve called for snacks in three hours.” 

You flash a lazy glare at him and go back to eating your beloved pastilas. “You require a tremendous amount of effort to teach.” You’ve switched back to speaking the common tongue, obviously for his sake. “You’re a horrible student.” 

“You’re a horrible teacher!” 

You sniff and take another bite of your pastry. “You’re just really bad at learning.” 

For that, you get a glance heavenward. He is tempted to simply throttle you and be done with it. Treason seems like a fair price to pay for shutting you up. But he considers his options and decides that he would rather not be on the receiving end of your mother’s wrath — it’s too fucking cold here already. Still, greatly offended by this statement, he vents out his anger by cursing at you.

In the language of Sumeru. 

He does not really think of it; his use of his mother tongue has greatly decreased since coming here, but even then, it simply rolls off his tongue as naturally as water flows from a river's mouth.

Your brows shoot up. You open your mouth, pause, and for a moment he fears he is in danger of being exiled or thrown in the dungeon. But then you cock your head to the side. “What does that mean?” You ask. 

An idea unravels in his mind, sparkling with mischief. “It means you’re bad at teaching.” 

You frown. “For some reason, I feel like you’re lying.” 

He curses at you again. Your frown deepens. There is something so satisfying about the way those frustrated lines burrow into your face. When he does it a third time, you actually put down the pastila. 

“What does it mean?” You demand. “You aren’t saying anything bad, are you?” 

It means you’re an insufferable little bastard of mean intelligence and he hopes you fall into a ditch, so yes, he definitely is saying something bad. “It means you’re the most gorgeous, most wonderful person in the world,” he says, sarcasm dripping from the syllables. When you look genuinely taken aback, he lets out a cruel, derisive scoff. “It means you should trust me more.” 

“That seems like a horrible idea.” 

He shrugs and reaches over to take one of the pastilas, light pink with a white, foamy top, vaguely aware that another one of your language lessons has gone considerably off course. Perhaps that was too light a description. It shot in one direction and came speeding back the other way. “Suit yourself, Your Imperial Highness.” 

You smack his hand away, gently. Almost too gently. “Those are mine.” 

He eats it, anyway, and learns many new colorful Snezhnayan curses for it, though he detects no real annoyance in your voice. You ring for another batch of desserts. He counts it as a successful lesson. 

He continues speaking in Sumerian when you're near. It’s the greatest of treasures, seeing you frown and demand to know what he had just uttered in your presence. Sometimes he just says the first phrase that enters his head, most times he insults you and relishes in your clueless blinking. You can't do the same to him — he's been picking up on Snezhnayan at an exponential pace, and he's made sure to memorize all of the insults and swears first. Obviously. It’s his talent for machinations that he prides himself on, but lately, he’s been deriving vicious pleasure from the fact he can speak twenty languages, though it never mattered much to him before. It’s a good, safe outlet for his annoyance whenever you’re near, which you seem to always be, nowadays. 

Even outside the language ‘lessons’ (the word lessons being used extremely lightly) you seem to trail him wherever he goes. Ambushing him in the halls, materializing in the laboratory, and in general trailing him like some attention-starved puppy. He resents it, resents the stars that float through your eyes whenever he enters your view, resents the way you immediately disengage from whatever it was that you were doing to attach yourself to him, all smiles. 

He actively avoids you, but somehow you keep running into him. On purpose or accidentally, he has no idea. He suspects it is the former.

Today is one of those days. You’re by his side, again, chatting happily about… something. He’s trying to tune you out, focusing on the long walk back to his laboratories after a meeting with the Tsaritsa. He needs to do something about that, it’s woefully inconvenient to have to walk a mile every time she calls on him. Some sort of contraption that could go up and down easily would be of great use, and he wouldn’t have to climb so many fucking stairs.

Then — it happens. In your excitement, you bump into some government official accompanied by another, what his role is Dottore does not know and does not care to, but he must be quite high up if he allows himself to glare at you for an instant before it disappears into a cool stare. Or maybe he just has a lot of gall.

"Oh, my apologies sir," you murmur, ducking your head. 

"Quite alright, Your Highness," he says smoothly, "have a good day." He turns his back and starts to mutter to his companion, their heads bent together, completely unaware that with your godly senses and his recent enhancements to his body, you both can hear every word.

"How clumsy," the first man tuts, "what does their mother teach them? She's been too soft on them."

"She lets them run amok doing whatever they please. The other day, they—"

"—yes, I heard. Look at those clothes, aren't they too plain for the heir?"

His companion makes an agreeing noise. "And the company they keep… " 

Dottore doesn't particularly care about what other people think of him, and perhaps if it was only the last sentence that had been uttered he wouldn't have said a word, but the tirade of their complaints makes irritation, absurdly, flare inside him. He whips his head back to their retreating figures, and you throw him a glaring warning, so he clenches his jaw and stays where he is. He isn't one to do nothing, however. 

“Kol khara,” he says to them, viciously. Eat shit. He hears you stifle a sound that might be a laugh and briefly wonders why exactly you would laugh. 

The men turn back around. “Excuse me?” The first one says. 

“Nothing,” he says, curtly, his eyes like sharp daggers, “go on." They throw each other confused glances but say nothing further, going further down the hall until he can no longer see their backs. You both stay in the middle of the now-empty hallway, staring silently off into the distance.

You’ve never been able to contain your curiosity for long. After a good minute of silence, you turn inquisitive eyes on him. He’s been expecting your question.

"What did you say?" You ask.

He shrugs; makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Nothing."

You narrow your eyes. "I know it isn't nothing. It was something bad, right? You've said it to me before.” Clever you, he thinks briefly. Nothing gets past you. When he stays enclosed in icy silence, you press on further, “I won’t be mad. It doesn’t bother me — I think it’s funny. Just tell me.” He has no idea why you would ever think it’s funny. Nonetheless, he stays silent. 

You try again. “Tell me.” 

“No.” 

“Please?” 

“No.” 

“Tell me,” you say again, but this time you slip into the voice of the noble, unshakeable heir to Winter. The two words are a command, and they leave no room for argument. He must follow. 

He sighs and runs a hand down his face. “It means I want them to eat shit.” 

A moment of silence passes and Dottore wonders if he should start running. Then, you start to laugh. A small laugh, so small he almost thinks he could cup it in his hands and never let it go. But he recognizes it as different from the laughs you’ve given him before. This one is warm and sweet, conjured from the belly upwards. Summer in a sound. 

He tries very hard not to smile when he says, “you aren’t mad?” 

“No,” you say, still laughing, “I suppose I do deserve it.” He silently agrees. “Anyways, after coming to my defense, I forgive you.” 

He snarls, that sudden irritation reviving itself. “I wasn’t coming to your defense.” 

You shrug, not looking bothered at all. “Fine. Defending yourself and by extension — and complete coincidence — me.” 

He decides it is best not to argue, and listens quietly as you walk with him back to his laboratory, chatting happily away once more. If you notice that over the next few days, his outbursts toward you decrease, you say nothing of it. And if you notice he is insulting other people more in other languages, seemingly for the sole purpose of making you laugh, you say nothing of it, too. 

You’re speaking Sumerian. 

Fluent Sumerian. Rapid-fire Sumerian, without blinking or stumbling over your words. Clean, pure Sumerian, speaking everything with the perfect enunciation of a noble. You don’t notice him behind you, utterly bemused, as you speak to a foreign dignitary from his homeland. The First drags him out of the underground labs from time to time in order to socialize and familiarize himself with the political atmosphere, but Dottore lets you do all the work for him. You engage in polite small talk, though delivered with much more enthusiasm than necessary. But the words are barely intelligible in his head. It isn’t possible that you’ve learned how to speak fluent Sumerian in such a short about of time. He will begrudgingly admit your brightness, small as it is, but even he cannot master a language within a few months. Which means there must only be one conclusion. 

When you notice him, your face morphs into one of surprised panic. Oh. He’s sure his fury is plain to see. It’s at that precise moment the dignitary — Dottore does not see the point in blessings but, Archons bless her — chooses to excuse herself, leaving you open and without a proper excuse to escape with. 

“You can speak Sumerian,” he says, plainly, having immediately taken the empty spot at your side. You take  cautious, half-step backwards. 

You look both amused and slightly abashed. 

He grits his teeth. “For how long?” 

“... since I was five." A pause. You look thoughtful. "Actually, it was your Greater Lord Rukkhadevata who first taught me."

This new piece of information surprises him so much that the flames of his anger are snuffed out, if only for a second. Then they come back raging, and he cannot contain it.

"You knew what I was saying this entire time!" He rages, jabbing an accusing finger at you. You cringe away. "You could understand all of it!"

"Not all of it—" When you see the exasperation that crosses his face, you smile. "Alright. Most of it." 

You begin to walk away, but he furiously follows you. "You lied to me!"

"You were cursing me to my face. I think it's a fair exchange." You shrug with one shoulder, eyes sparkling with mischief. "It was funny, anyway. Your cluelessness, that is." And then, "you should know, now that you know — I can speak the main languages of each nation." 

"I can too," he says haughtily, raising his chin up at you. 

"Really?" You laugh. "Cubitum eamus?"

"What?"

"Nothing." 

"What does that mean?" He demands, only half aware he's repeating the interaction you once had over a plate of pink and white sweets. He's never heard a language sounding quite like that. Perhaps it could be a dialect, but it doesn't sound similar to any currently existing language. "What language is that?"

You deliver your coup de grâce with such smooth smugness on your face. "It's Khaenri'ahn." The dead language. 

He blinks. Opens his mouth dumbly. And lunges.

As he chases you through the halls, your laughter floats warm and clear in the frigid winter air. You easily outpace him, but perhaps out of pity, you let him catch you and drag you to — well, he doesn't exactly know where he's going, only that he does not want to let you escape his rage. You thrash in his arms like a trapped animal, still controlled by a laughing fit all the while. 

"I hate you," he grumbles later, when you've calmed him with a slice of strawberry cheesecake from the kitchens. He's still quite angry, but not angry enough to not accept your peace offering. "You're horrible."

"So are you." 

A pause, then, "Teach me Khaenri'ahn," he says, leaning forward, a bright idea sparking in his chest. "There's so many texts I have yet to decipher — you have no idea the knowledge I can grasp if you teach me." He thinks of the old Ruin Golems in Sumeru. How hard it was to learn how to control them! But with your help, with your knowledge, he could crack the world open like an egg and watch its secrets spill like yolk. 

"I thought I was a bad teacher."

"Bad is better than none at all."

The utterly offended look that flashes on your face teases a grin from his mouth. "You're horrible."

"So are you."

He thinks he sees the corner of your mouth involuntarily curl upward. You twirl your fork in your fingers, humming thoughtfully. "Why should I?" 

"... For the pleasure of contributing to my research?" The look you give him tells him you're not at all convinced. He continues, "My research that is so very essential to the success of this nation?"

You scoff, but you cannot deny it. He would not be alive if he wasn't useful to Snezhnaya.

"You'll owe me," you tell him. 

He shrugs. "There's worse things in the world. Let's start."

It startles you somewhat. "What, now?"

"Yes, now. Unless you have other things to do?" 

You don't. Your language lessons with him already ended when he reached an acceptable mastery over Snezhnayan according to your mother, and he knows that though you have a schedule (mysterious and utterly incomprehensible though it is — not even he has been able to figure it out), you'd drop everything in an instant if something else interests you. Your other engagements are often boring things, too, and the only duty you ever truly commit to are the strange missions your mother sends you on, ones that could go for months on end. He's fairly certain you'll acquiesce to his request.

You pretend to consider it, before shrugging with hardwon carelessness and saying, "Fine."

You're exactly the same. Flighty, distracted, and prone to seamlessly maneuvering to an entirely different topic without blinking an eye. Half the cheesecake is eaten before you even start on the alphabet, and the journey to that is filled with endless detours that consist of bickering, fighting over the (large) cake, and kicking each other like children under his work table. His intelligence is insulted more times in half an hour than in his entire years of study at the Akademiya.

Dottore decides, with solid determination, after eating the last slice of cake, finally learning the pronunciation of the vowels and consonants, and being on the receiving end of an onslaught of Khaeri’ahn curses he truly cannot understand — which is horribly ironic considering the past few weeks — that he might as well beg the Jester for lessons instead, and no one can do a damn thing about it. He tells this to you, chin up, resolute and unwavering in his declaration. 

He never does get around to doing that.