He didn’t know whether to call himself reckless or just plain foolish. It had all started when Scaramouche had begrudgingly visited Dottore’s lab, tasked to get a peculiar substance for a mission. The air had reeked of chemicals and blood, but he had ignored it, intent on grabbing what he needed and leaving.

But fate had other plans. As he turned to leave, he noticed something—or rather, someone—lurking in the shadows near the exit. A test subject on the run.

They were curled into themselves, eyes darting frantically as if expecting capture at any moment. It was obvious. They had escaped from one of the testing rooms and were desperately seeking a way out before it was too late.

Scaramouche should’ve ignored them. Should’ve walked past and let the guards handle it. But something in the way they trembled, the way their breath hitched in sheer terror, stirred something in him—something he had long since buried.

He saw his reflection in them, a fragment of his own past that he had tried to forget. Fear. The kind that clung to your very being, never truly leaving even after you were free. He had felt it once, back when Dottore had experimented on him.

And before he had even realized what he was doing, he had helped them. Slipping through the hallways undetected, he had led them out of the lab.

He had told them, quite plainly, that they were free now. That they could go wherever they pleased, do whatever they wanted. But they had only stared at him as if the very concept of freedom was incomprehensible. Without a word, they had clung to him and refused go.

“Ugh… You can’t stay here.” Scaramouche muttered, pacing back and forth in his private chamber within the Fatui HQ. His fingers twitched at his sides, his mind racing with the possible consequences.

If anyone realized he had smuggled a subject out of Dottore’s lab—it would end very badly. He exhaled sharply, glancing at them again. That look on their face… that raw, vulnerable expression… It unsettled him. “Stop staring at me like that."