Cold Blooded

The Doctor

 The tall man left Chongyun in a large circular room. There wasn't much there, a table sat off to the side with an interesting assortment of bottles and tubes. A few sheets of paper with sloppy handwriting were also scattered about. It looked like one of those alchemy tables that people sometimes set up, just much bigger and much messier.

Ominously, in the middle of the row on a slightly raised platform was a singular metal chair. The cold light of the room bounced off it. There was just something off about the entire room. Something evil and wrong clung to the walls.

"Heart be pure, evil be erased..." He paced around the edges of the room, whispering the words Auntie Shenhe had taught him. "Mind be purged, world be... Um, what was that last part again?"

Before he had any time to answer his own question, a loud clang announced the door opening. Chongyun jumped at the loud noise and whirled around expecting to see the tall man but found someone entirely different.

A man, no, a boy really, stood in the doorway. He seemed to be a year or so younger than Chongyun, but there was an air of maturity to him. His head was turned away and a layered mask covered his mouth. Light blue hair fell over his eyes. It seemed as if it were cut in haste and stuck out at odd angles. He wore a large coat draped over his shoulders and black gloves on his hands. He turned and faced Chongyun.

Chongyun gasped and stumbled back a step. The right side of his face was a mess of scars and burns, the eye had been burned away and nothing had been safe. His remaining eye glowed red, it was piercing and cold. A mass of metal mesh and wires crossed across his chest and spiked out on his left shoulder. Over his heart was a twisting glowing core. The glow fluttered and beat like a heart. The boy cocked his head and looked Chongyun up and down.

"Do I look like a monster?" the boy asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Most people don't even dare to react towards my appearance anymore. Sometimes I can even almost forget for a few seconds."

The boy slowly stepped closer towards Chongyun. His voice sounded incredibly normal for how awful he looked. He sounded genuine and alone, so very alone.

"People said you were different too, didn't they?" Chongyun froze at the boy's words. The boy continued to step closer. "You didn't have many friends and you were scared of losing them, weren't you?"

The boy stood only a few inches away from Chongyun now. "I'll be your friend. Everyone left me because I'm broken, but I'm here to fix you. I'm Childe's friend. He told me about your problem and I want to help you." He extended his hand out towards Chongyun and lifted his little finger. "Promise to stay and be my friend and I'll do everything I can to fix you even though I will always be broken."

Hesitantly, Chongyun nodded and extended his own pinkie. The boy wrapped his finger around Chongyun's and began a haunting rhyme. "You make a pinkie promise, you keep it all your life. You break a pinkie promise, I throw you in the ice. The cold will kill the pinkie that once betrayed your friend. The frost will freeze your tongue off, so you never lie again."

The boy shook Chongyun's hand and a small smile seemed to light up his eyes. "Big Brother said that you'll last longer than my other friends. I don't know what happened to them, I just did what Brother said to help. I'm gonna help you for sure though, I don't know what it is but I can just feel that you're different."

"Come over here, I have this medicine that Big Brother said should help you." The boy stumbled over to the table, Chongyun hadn't realized how clumsy his walk was until then.

"Who-" Chongyun walked over towards that child. "What's your name?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," the child turned around. "I got so excited I forgot to tell you. My name is Zandik, but people around here call me 'Dottore' or 'The Doctor' or 'Sir.' My other brothers call me 'Three.'"

"You're 'The Doctor?'" Chongyun looked the child up and down again. Why had everyone been so scared of such a small child?

"Well, I'm one of him." The boy began to sort through vials and papers on the small table. "I have lots of brothers and we're all Him, but Big Brother is still different."

"One of him?" Chongyun was confused but figure Zandik probably wouldn't be able to give him any better of an answer.

"Here it is!" The boy pulled out a small bottle full of a strange glowing material. It seemed to twist and move inside the bottle. It was like a liquid fire, but it looked more like the sky at night when the city lights were far away.

"Go sit down in the chair," Zandik pointed at the chair in the center of the room without looking away from the bottle. "Also take off your shirt and jacket so I can get the injection right and track its progress."

Chongyun did as he was told and was instantly greeted by the cold of the room. He had been in cold places before, but this was worse. He sat down in the chair and inhaled sharply when his bare back touched the icy metal.

"Sorry, it's so cold," Zandik walked over, the glowing solution now in a large syringe. "I've grown used to the temperature, but I'm sorry I can't make you more comfortable."

"I- It's okay, let's just get this over with." Chongyun began to shiver and just hoped the boy would get it over with so he could warm back up in his jacket.

"Okie dokie, turn your arm over. Thank you. Its gonna hurt a lot, but I promise it'll help make things bet-"

The boy fell silent and his eye clouded over. The pulsing core over his chest began to pitter and flash at random. The boy fell to the floor and began flailing around on the ground. He grabbed at the mask over his mouth and tried to yank it off, but his hands couldn't find purchase.

"Zandik!?" Chongyun stepped over to the boy and reached out towards him. The boy stopped shakily and smacked away Chongyun's hand.

"Don't help me. I'm fine," the boy from only seconds ago seemed to have been replaced. "The other one is gone, it's me now. I'm the real me. I am. I am. I AM!"

Chongyun stepped back and looked the boy over. What was happening?

"Um, Zandik?" Chongyun looked the boy over. "Are you okay?"

"Don't call me that! My name is not Zandik. I'm Dottore, and I'm the real one!" The boy stormed over and pushed Chongyun back into the chair. "I'm better than him. I know what I'm doing, and I'm gonna help you way better than he ever could!"

"I- wait, calm down," Chongyun held up a hand against the boy. "Before you go sticking needles into me, let's calm down."

"Yes, you're right," He looked at Chongyun. "You can call me Dottore. I don't care what you call the other one, he doesn't matter anyways."

"Okay, are you sure you know what you're doing?" Chongyun looked at the syringe and the glowing, moving liquid inside of it.

"You bet I do," Dottore took a deep breath and an unsteady calm entered his voice. "Let me see your arm. This is going to hurt... a lot. It is condensed karma from the remains of god's and demons in the archon war. It has a strong connection to the powers of yin in this world. To balance out your pure yang spirit, we will be bit by bit adding the yin so that way the two forces inside of you."

Dottore looked up at Chongyun and a smile danced in his eyes. "Get ready," the boy whispered. Then he slid the syringe's needle in the vein on Chongyun's arm and pushed down on the back, slowly pushing the karma into the young exorcist.

~author's note~

Zandik is an original character. The name Zandik is largely theorized to be Dottore's real name for anyone that didn't know. Thanks for reading!

chapter art posted on twitter by @exxiry