genshin impact headcanons

little brother dottore

gn reader, child dottore, he's kinda clingy (and traumatised), use of dottore's suspected real name (possibly confirmed Idk)

someone on the tags of the Capitano post said Dottore so Dottore comes next, then probably Pantalone and then Signora unless I get a request or something for someone else

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As a child, Dottore's interests were seldom accepted. He was shunned by teachers, avoided by his peers and scolded by his own parents. It's not hard to see why, but he would not simply give up on his curiosity, especially not with you backing him. Admittedly, even you find it a little strange, and he can see that, but the way his eyes light up whenever he tells you about it and his excitement to be able to talk to someone finally has you pushing that aside very quickly.

How much of it do you understand? Not a word, but the point is that you listen at all. He clings to that and treats you like his only friend, which considering how unpopular he is with kids his age, is just about true.

Zandik would sit down with the one or two books he managed to scrounge for information and practically recite their contents to you. It is well beyond what you were able to follow, but if he notices, he doesn't tell you. Why would he want to? Having someone smile while he shares all of his hard work and perseverance is all he wants. He wouldn't sabotage that.

He's quiet when idle, however, with years of being shut down showing through as he stays swinging off of you. Your arms and legs are basically a hanging post to him, no matter how heavy he gets and how close he is to feeling like he could dislocate your arm right out of the socket. It's his way of making sure he doesn't get lost from you and playing around. Like a puppy, he never seems to realise he got bigger until you physically can't pick him up.

It upsets him to find he is now effectively permanently grounded, as his father will hear none of it when he asks him to be picked up, but he can't get stuck on that forever. Zandik doesn't want you to hurt yourself trying to get him off the floor, and pestering your parents only makes trouble for you.

He will not at any point allow you to stop playing with his hair, the other idle action between the two of you as you wrap his loose blue curls around your fingers. Zandik likes to read while he deals himself over your lap like an intrusive cat, mostly because he wants to get your attention and sometimes wants to annoy you. He spends half his life griping for your attention, pulling on your clothes and waving his hands around in your face until you ask him what he wants, quite irritated. He's always giggling about it too.

You always make time for him, especially when he wants to see the Aranara he gets so excited about. He might burst a blood vessel if you don't take him. Your parents don't want to hear of his childishness, though they prefer it to everything else he does. However, they won't take him themselves, so it falls to you. It is a special trip that takes several days of you experiencing life in the rainforests, glimpsing into the luxury of Sumeru City. It is then he proves to you that regardless of whether you take him or not, he'll burst a blood vessel anyway because his excitement is immeasurable. You're pleased enough to see him so happy, however.

Your love is unfortunately not enough to get him friends or the approval of everyone else. Usually, people think of you as polar opposites because of how 'troubled' he is, even if there's not that much that's different about you at all. You are Zandik's only person to confide in as he's grown so resentful of everyone. Somewhere in his mind, he still believes all that they say about him no matter how many times you wipe his tears and tell him you love him.

He doesn't believe that could be true. He believes all the things people say about him and how horrible he is. Nobody could really love a person like him, right? Zandik asks you as much, if you really love him as you say you do. Of course you do. It's just hard for him to accept that's real when he's so isolated.

Really, you haven't seen him for years now. You visit him while he is attending the Akademiya, and bring him food that you used to make him as a child. Even for only a few days, your company is exactly what it always has been. Zandik spends those days telling you everything he's learned and about how everyone else is repulsed by it and believes he's nothing but trouble. The difference is that he became used to it and began to believe what you would tell him about them being old-fashioned.

You cry when you find him there, having not seen him in so long and having spent all of the time since looking for him. Zandik is taller, older and has a scar that tapered down his face. You cry when you see that too, and it startles him into thinking you don't love him anymore if he isn't as cute as he used to be. That is untrue. He quickly learns the reason you were crying was something as minor as not being able to protect him from it, not being there to care for him.

That's so silly, isn't it? He doesn't need you for that.

He really wishes you'd never come back, in fact, that you'd given up and gone home content to live your life without him, but you couldn't, and it has you seeing him be expelled from the Akademiya. Zandik doesn't want to come home, so you don't make him.

Again, he drapes himself over your lap like an attention-starved cat and allows you to play with his hair while he wallows in his misery.

Zandik will figure something out eventually. He always does. If figuring it out entails abandoning himself and accepting an offer to go to Snezhnaya to move to a place where he will have the facilities to do whatever he wants, then that's what he'll do. If figuring it out requires that he leave for a time, then it'll be fine, as you tell him. He'll mail letters to you.

He'll wait for you to find him, no longer Zandik but no less your little brother.