Dottore X Aether Novels & Stories

A surprisingly rich vein of these crossovers, once you look past the initial surface-level villain/hero dynamic. There’s the obsessive researcher angle—Dottore treating Aether as the ultimate anomalous specimen, a being from beyond Teyvat. That leads to a ton of lab or containment AUs, but also weirder, more psychological stuff where the ‘experiment’ is social, seeing how Aether reacts to twisted kindness or conditional freedom. Then you’ve got the timeline paradox plots, often borrowing from theories about the Descenders. What if Aether was a past, failed experiment of Dottore’s, memory wiped? Or a future one? That loops into amnesia tropes hard.

Beyond that, forced alliances pop up constantly. Fatui orders, mutual survival scenarios, a contract with very fine print—anything to get them sharing space long enough for the tension to shift from murderous to something more complicated. The power imbalance is key; it’s rarely an even footing. Dottore holds all the cards—knowledge, resources, sheer physical modification. Watching Aether navigate that, using adaptability and sheer stubborn will against a prepared, brilliant mind, is the core draw for a lot of writers.

And yeah, the body horror potential of the Segments gets explored, but often metaphorically. Which ‘version’ of Dottore is this? Is he collecting segments that failed to live up to some ideal, and sees in Aether a template? Or is Aether the one person who can see the man fractured beneath all the copies? It gets existential fast. I’ve seen more than one fic where the relationship is less romantic and more a horrifying mirror—the eternal traveler vs. the eternally replicating scientist, both alone in their own way. Ends up feeling more like a tragic character study than a ship sometimes, which I honestly prefer.

Let's get this out of the way: any pairing with Dottore is a toxic playground by default. But pairing him with Aether specifically? That's where the fascinating stuff happens. Aether's canonical kindness and persistence meet Dottore's clinical, amoral manipulation. It's less about romance and more about a psychological case study. Does Aether believe he can 'fix' or understand the Doctor? Does Dottore see Aether as his ultimate, most resilient test subject? Fics that dig into this aren't just playing with fire; they're documenting the burn.

Trust here is always transactional and fragile. Aether might extend it based on a sliver of shared goal or a moment of perceived vulnerability. Dottore would dissect that trust like a specimen, not to reciprocate, but to understand its mechanics before betraying it for data. The betrayal isn't even personal—it's scientific. That impersonal cruelty against Aether's very personal hope is the core tension. I read one where Dottore 'saved' Aether from a trap only to later replicate the exact scenario in a lab to measure his stress responses. Chilling, but it perfectly captures the dynamic.

The dynamic I always find compelling is the sheer intellectual inequality. Dottore has centuries of knowledge and a god complex; Aether is a traveler with mortal morality but cosmic weight. Most authors pit his cold, experimental curiosity against Aether's stubborn empathy. It's not just villain/victim—some fics explore a reluctant alliance where Aether needs Dottore's forbidden knowledge, trading his own 'unique sample' status for information about the Abyss or his sister. That transactional tension, the constant uncertainty of whether Dottore sees him as a person or a specimen, drives a lot of scenes.

You also get darker takes where Aether's power makes him the only one who could potentially dismantle Dottore's projects from the inside, leading to a cat-and-mouse game with ambiguous roles. The physical power balance shifts too—Aether can hold his own in a fight, but Dottore's multiple segments and technological traps introduce a different kind of threat. Honestly, the best fics use that to create a creepy, captivating push-pull where neither fully controls the situation.