fem reader (no gendered terms really used tho tbh), soft dottore (listen it's my guilty pleasure), reader has the properties of porcelain, not proofread

THIS ACTUALLY reminds me of one of the very very first drafts I wrote even before Tartaglia's little brotherfication (coincidentally also of Dottore) so this is very fun. That doll was one of Sandrone's creations and I've decided so is this one

this also may hit close to home did I ever mention my slight obsession with dolls (it's worse than slight)

~~~~~

Dottore has fixed you many times, much to his inconvenience.

He has warned you many times against becoming reckless, but you never seem to listen, at least in his eyes. You are by no means fragile—porcelain is hard to chip away at—your habit is simply that of finding danger. Finding it, throwing yourself at it, and landing yourself here in the darkest corners of the Fatui's headquarters so the doctor can carefully string you back together.

A gentle touch is not his forte, the practised hands of a doctor toiling away in his effort to put you back together. You prefer him to Sandrone any day for how much less pain you associate with him. He can scold you all he likes, but it may never work. You'll keep coming back and asking for his help when your strings come loose, and he will oblige your request for reasons that escape even him. It is a simple process now performed practically from memory.

Your habit of collecting frankly worthless items is certainly something. The bows, frilly dresses, and varying spools of lace you always claim you'll do something with and never do all feel normal. The porcelain dolls, on the other hand, are...interesting.

You are a living porcelain doll, and yet you collect them like novelty items. Isn't that like your equivalent of collecting human babies? Whatever it is to you, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, so he keeps quiet as you fuss over their placement and hair, straighten their clothes or whether you're willing to sacrifice the careful styling of their hair to a pretty hat. It keeps you happy and away from everything dangerous that you seem to always run into.

The truth is, you are not in the slightest delicate despite making yourself seem that way. What you are is heavy, too heavy to always be lifting onto an operating table and too heavy to be lugging your pieces around—porcelain is not light.

However, there is interest to be had in the workings of your construction, which he is reminded of each time he takes you apart and watches you divide into inanimate pieces. You talk to him sometimes, pleasant background noise, or maybe just annoying when you start asking foolish questions he can't possibly answer. He can handle every "What are you doing?" and "Why are you doing that?" but when you begin to show your ignorance regarding your own creation and try to turn to him for answers instead of Sandrone, it frustrates him.

You're supposed to answer his questions.

"She doesn't like my questions," you reason, and he never has to wonder why that is. Your incessant prodding and curiosity would irritate her, as does his indulging of your curiosity. She will complain that you're becoming restless and not as quickly satisfied, but really, nothing much at all has changed.

He can deal with your gravitation toward the things that make you happy if that's what keeps a smile on your face. One might even say he doesn't mind it, even when you pester him to help you tie your bows when they come loose in your hair or listen to your ramblings as you try to get him to help you with your dolls. He's better at tying knots than you. His hands have friction to keep the strings in place, unlike your slippery porcelain hands.

Your habits are endearing in their own way, the satisfaction with things that make you feel...human. You will never be, but the illusion of humanity and the yearning to chase it is not unlike the Segments. They think of themselves as human, believe they are, and exist as though they are human, yet they will never be as human as Prime. The only idea that makes sense is that you are displaying the same behaviour.

It is how Sandrone made you to be.

He can't say he especially blames you for following what your creation dictates. Your presence could bother him more than your interests could, namely a result of your many, many questions. It's not that you're sheltered or ignorant of the world around you—far from it—but most people don't know the nature of the things he works on, and you are no exception. You learned everything by asking, and he presents a wormhole of knowledge that you seek to understand by having him explain everything he's doing to you in great detail.

There's a bargaining that comes with it. Dottore will give you things so long as you stay out of the way, and you'll inspect them with a curious eye because he presents you with what Sandrone keeps you from. That is the only reason he can accept as to why you're talking to him, not that you like his voice and his smile, nor that you find the things he says fascinating or enjoy the light brush of his fingers against yours as he passes you your little 'distrations'. It's enough to watch him.

He complains his hands are always cold, and supposedly so are yours, but you've never felt temperature before. You like the faint glimpses of his scars, soft as his skin. They're not like yours, the closest equivalent being jagged cracks in your limbs that someone has to eventually fix before they worsen into breaks.

Things are comfortable around him. He is used to the odds quirks of sentient, inhuman beings, and a benefit of being around them is that they don't mind how weird he is by most standards.

You are something he can easily get used to lingering around. Despite your similarities to the segments, he must admit that you are far less of a bother.