Chapter Text
The snow had stopped falling three days ago.
Diluc kept track through the single window in his cell—not a cell, Dottore called it a room, as if the bars were decorative—watching the way frost crept across the glass in fractal patterns. Beautiful, if he let himself think about it. He didn't.
Three days since snow. Four days since the last experiment. Eighteen days since—
He cut the thought off before it could form. Counting backward led to Mondstadt, and Mondstadt led to the Dawn Winery, and the Dawn Winery led to his father's face in those final moments, and that path ended in screaming. He'd learned that on day two.
Or was it day three?
The door opened without warning. It always did. Dottore didn't knock.
"Good morning, my sweet."
Diluc's spine went rigid. Morning. That meant—what? Yesterday morning had earned him soft touches and clinical murmurs while Dottore drew blood, almost gentle. The morning before that, he'd been backhanded across the face for not answering quickly enough when asked if he'd slept well.
He stood from the cot, hands loose at his sides, carefully neutral. The wrong posture could trigger anything. Too stiff meant defiance. Too relaxed meant disrespect.
"Doctor," he said. Flat. Emotionless.
Dottore tilted his head, the mask making him unreadable. Diluc had learned to watch his hands instead, the set of his shoulders, the cadence of his breathing. Today the doctor's movements were fluid, unhurried. Good sign or bad? It was impossible to tell.
"You're learning," Dottore said, and there was something pleased in his voice that made Diluc's stomach turn. "Come here."
Not a request. Never a request.
Diluc crossed the small space, stopped an arm's length away. Close enough to obey, far enough to avoid presuming intimacy. Yesterday that distance had been acceptable. Today—
"Closer, dollface."
He stepped forward. His heart hammered against his ribs, but he kept his breathing even. Dottore noticed everything. Elevated heart rate would go in whatever journal he kept, another data point in whatever grand experiment Diluc had become.
The doctor's gloved hand came up, fingers catching Diluc's chin, tilting his face into the cold light from the window. Examining.
"Beautiful," Dottore murmured. "Even exhausted. Especially then, perhaps. The shadows under your eyes make the color more striking."
Diluc said nothing. Speech was a minefield.
"No response?" The fingers tightened, just slightly. Not quite painful. Not quite gentle. "Have I broken you already? That would be disappointing."
"No," Diluc managed. His voice came out rougher than intended.
"No, what?"
The answer stuck in his throat. He'd said 'no' to this yesterday and been praised for his spirit. The day before, the same response had earned him an hour locked in darkness.
"No, Doctor," he tried.
Dottore's laugh was soft, delighted. "There we are. My clever boy, still learning the dance." He released Diluc's chin, stepping back. "I have a surprise for you today."
Diluc's blood went cold. Surprises were never good. The last surprise had involved electrodes and questions about his father that Diluc still couldn't think about without his hands shaking.
"We're going on a little walk," Dottore continued, moving toward the door. "I want to show you something. Come along."
His legs moved before his mind caught up. Survival instinct, barely dressed as obedience.
The hallway beyond was exactly as Diluc remembered from the blurred violence of his capture—sterile white walls, humming lights, the chemical smell of antiseptic over something organic and wrong. Dottore walked ahead, not bothering to check if Diluc followed. They both knew he would. The first escape attempt had taught Diluc exactly how far he'd get.
Nowhere. He'd get nowhere.
They passed other doors. Diluc had tried mapping the facility in his head at first, but Dottore moved him between rooms seemingly at random. Cell one day, examination theater the next, somewhere with padded walls after that. All part of the study, he'd realized eventually. Testing his spatial reasoning under duress, maybe. Or just ensuring he never felt grounded.
"I've been thinking," Dottore said conversationally, as if they were colleagues discussing business over coffee, "about your progress. You're adapting remarkably well, all things considered. The human mind is so resilient—and so fragile. The line between the two is what fascinates me."
Diluc focused on breathing. In through his nose, out through his mouth. Don't react. Don't give him anything.
"Most subjects break within the first week," Dottore continued. "But you, my sweet... you're still fighting. Oh, don't look so surprised. I can see it in the way you hold yourself. Still calculating. Still looking for angles." He glanced back, and even through the mask Diluc could feel the weight of his gaze. "It's wonderful."
They turned a corner, and Diluc heard it—voices. Young ones.
His steps faltered. Dottore noticed, of course.
"Ah, yes. We're expanding operations. Several new acquisitions this month." The doctor's tone was bright, enthusiastic. "Children, mostly. Orphans from the outer territories. No one will miss them."
The casual cruelty of it hit Diluc like a fist. His hands clenched, nails biting into palms. Dottore kept walking.
The room they entered was larger than Diluc's cell, lined with cots. A dozen children, maybe more, ranging from perhaps six to early teens. They looked up as the door opened, and Diluc saw his own fear reflected back in their eyes.
"Don't worry," Dottore said to the room at large, "I'm just introducing you to someone special. This is Diluc. He's been here much longer than you, and he's my favorite experiment." He said it like a teacher introducing a prize student. "Say hello, dollface."
Diluc's throat closed up. The children stared at him—some with hope, some with terror, one small girl with something that might have been recognition. Did she know who he was? Had word of his rampage spread even to Snezhnayan orphanages?
"Hello," he forced out.
"Wonderful." Dottore clasped his hands together. "Now, I have some work to attend to. Diluc, why don't you stay here for a while? Get to know your fellow subjects. I'll collect you in a few hours."
He left before Diluc could process the words. The door clicked shut—unlocked, Diluc realized with a jolt. Unlocked, and Dottore had just walked away.
A test. Obviously a test.
The children watched him in silence. Diluc stood frozen, mind racing. What was the correct response? Stay still? Try the door? Speak to them? Every option felt like a trap.
A small boy, no more than seven, broke the silence. "Are you really his favorite?"
The question was asked with the kind of morbid curiosity only scared children possessed. Diluc looked at him—dark hair, bruises on his arms, eyes too old for his face.
"I don't know," Diluc said honestly. His voice sounded foreign to his own ears. How long since he'd spoken to anyone but Dottore?
"He says it a lot," a girl from one of the far cots offered. She was on the older side, maybe thirteen. "When he brings the others. The ones who don't come back. He says 'you're not like my favorite' while he—" She stopped, swallowing hard.
Diluc's vision swam. He forced himself to breathe.
Don't break down. Not in front of them. They're already terrified.
He moved carefully, slowly, settling onto the floor against the wall. Neutral. Non-threatening. The children tracked his movement like prey animals watching a predator.
"What's your name?" Diluc asked the small boy.
"Aleksei." His voice was barely a whisper.
"Aleksei," Diluc repeated gently. The same tone he'd used with Kaeya when they were young. When he'd been home. When he'd had a life. "Has he... has the doctor hurt you yet?"
The boy shook his head. "Just questions. And the needles for blood. But Rina—" He pointed to the thirteen-year-old girl. "—he took her yesterday. She came back crying."
Rina's jaw tightened. She didn't elaborate.
Diluc felt something crack inside his chest. Not breaking—not yet—but fissuring. These children had nothing to do with his father's death. Nothing to do with the Fatui's plots or Delusions or any of it. They were just...here. Trapped like him.
"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it.
"Will you protect us?" Aleksei asked suddenly. "If you're his favorite, will he listen to you?"
The hope in the boy's voice was a knife to his heart. Diluc opened his mouth, then closed it. What could he possibly say? He had no power here. No leverage. He was as much a prisoner as they were, despite Dottore's possessive favoritism—or perhaps because of it.
"I'll try," Diluc heard himself say.
It was a mistake. He knew it was a mistake even as the words left his mouth. Promising anything here was dangerous, giving Dottore more ammunition, more ways to hurt him. But Aleksei's face lit up with something like relief, and Diluc couldn't take it back.
The hours crawled past. Diluc sat with the children, answering careful questions, offering what little comfort he could. A few of the younger ones eventually crept closer, drawn by some instinct for safety that Diluc knew was misplaced. He was no one's savior. He couldn't even save himself.
When the door finally opened again, Diluc had a small girl—she'd said her name was Mira—curled against his side, half-asleep. She jolted awake at the sound, immediately scrambling away.
Dottore stood in the doorway, observing. Diluc couldn't read his expression behind the mask, but his posture was relaxed. Interested.
"How sweet," the doctor said. "They like you."
Diluc said nothing. His mind raced through possibilities. Was this the right reaction? The wrong one? Should he have maintained distance from the children? Or was this exactly what Dottore wanted?
"Come along, darling. Time for us to go."
Diluc stood, careful not to look at the children as he crossed to the door. He could feel their eyes on his back. Aleksei's question echoing in his head: Will you protect us?
In the hallway, Dottore fell into step beside him. They walked in silence for a moment before the doctor spoke.
"You were kind to them."
Statement of fact, with no inflection to indicate approval or disapproval.
"Yes," Diluc said, staying carefully neutral. "I was."
"Why?"
The question was a trap. Everything was a trap, but Dottore was waiting, and silence had its own consequences.
"They're only children," Diluc said finally. "They're scared."
"And you think kindness will help them?" Dottore's tone was laced with genuine curiosity. "Interesting. Most subjects in your position become... territorial. Protective of their own status. You could have used your position as my favorite to establish dominance. Instead you offered comfort." A pause. "I wonder if that's strategic or simply who you are."
Diluc's hands trembled. He locked them behind his back.
"Both, perhaps," Dottore continued, almost to himself. "The fascinating thing about you, my sweet, is that I can't tell where the performance ends and the authentic response begins. You're either a remarkably talented actor, or you haven't broken as much as you think you have."
They reached a door Diluc didn't recognize. New room. New experiment.
His pulse spiked.
Dottore opened the door, gesturing him inside. "After you, dollface."
The room was small, dominated by an examination table in the center. Restraints hung from its sides. Medical instruments gleamed on a nearby tray. Diluc's breathing went shallow.
"Now then," Dottore said, closing the door behind them with a soft click. "Let's talk about your father."
The world tilted.
"No," Diluc said. The word ripped out of him before he could stop it. "No, I won't—"
Dottore's hand caught his throat, slamming him back against the wall. The gentleness from earlier evaporated like it had never existed. His fingers tightened, cutting off Diluc's air.
"You won't?" The doctor's voice was soft. Dangerous. "You won't, my sweet boy? I don't recall giving you a choice."
Diluc's vision started to grey at the edges. He clawed at Dottore's wrist, instinct overriding training. The doctor held him there for another endless moment, then released him.
Diluc collapsed to his knees, gasping, hands hovering uselessly over his throat
"That's better," Dottore said mildly. "Now. On the table."
Diluc's legs shook as he stood. Everything in him screamed to run, to fight, to do something. But he'd tried that before. He knew how it ended.
He climbed onto the table.
"Good boy," Dottore murmured, beginning to fasten the restraints. Wrists first, then ankles. Each click of the buckles was a countdown. "I'm going to ask you some questions about Crepus Ragnvindr. You're going to answer them truthfully. And if you lie—" His hand brushed across Diluc's forehead, almost tender. "—well. We both know I'll know."
The first question came soft as silk.
"Tell me, dollface. Are you certain your father didn't know the Delusion would fail?"
And Diluc, strapped to the table in a facility somewhere in Snezhnaya, felt the first true crack in his certainty.
"I—" His voice broke. "Of course he didn't. He wouldn't have—"
"Wouldn't he?" Dottore's fingers traced down Diluc's temple, his jaw. Clinical. Possessive. "A man who'd purchase an illegal Delusion, knowing the risks? Are you sure, my sweet, that he didn't simply... miscalculate? That his death was tragedy, not murder?"
"No," Diluc said. Then, stronger: "No. It was murder. The Fatui—"
"The Fatui provided a product. He chose to use it." Dottore's hand settled over Diluc's racing heart. "I'm not trying to upset you. I'm trying to help you see clearly. Your grief is clouding your judgment."
"That's not—you're twisting—"
"Shh." The fingers pressed down, firm. Not quite painful. "We have plenty of time to discuss this. Weeks. Months. However long it takes for you to remember correctly."
And Diluc realized, with creeping horror, that this was just the beginning.
Dottore smiled behind his mask.
"Now then, my darling. Let's begin."