Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time Quirrel and Elijah met was on a day that, at the time, was a rare sight. So rare, in fact, that it had never happened before. 

Monomon, teacher of the archives, and Lurien, watcher of the City of Tears, were meeting for work related reasons.

Shocking, is what the situation was, and rather nerve racking for Lurien’s poor assistant, who didn’t often leave the city of tears, and certainly had never been to the archives. He was pressed close to his master, and staring up at the large building, half enraptured by its beauty, half intimidated by its size. 

Lurien looked down at his assistant, face tilted in a question. “Elijah?” He asked, pausing to look the smaller bug over. “Are you alright?”

( The watcher, for all his faults, would never allow one of them to be his lack of caring for a person he saw every single day. As such, it was a common occurrence for Lurien to stop in his tracks to check on Elijah. 

Elijah thought he might be lucky to be cared for so deeply. )

“Yes sir!” Elijah squeaked, carefully ignoring the way his body language proved otherwise. He was alright! It was simply that he felt very out of place in this area, and was uncertain of himself, which wasn’t cause for worry. He would be alright.

Lurien furrowed his eyes under his mask, but left the conversation with a simple, “If you’re sure.” He made his way inside, Elijah scurrying after him.

The archives were loud, in a quiet sort of way, Elijah noticed. The whole place was occupied by bugs that didn’t know how to be silent as they walked, and were perfectly comfortable with the steady tap tap of their own and other’s footsteps. The whispers and giggles and hushed breaths of researchers made up a droning noise that settled comfortably in the back of Elijah’s mind, and the shifting of pages and books made him curious.

There was so much to explore!

But, no, he was here with Sir Lurien, and he vowed not leave until the master allowed. Which, to be fair, he likely would, should Elijah choose to ask.

A pillbug approached them, looking up at the Watcher before bowing deep. “Thank you for coming!” He hummed, straightening himself. “The madam has been expecting you. She’s waiting in her office right now, actually.”

The pillbug started down a hall, the newcomers trailing behind him. “In her office?” Lurien asked, sounding rather curious. A fair thing to wonder about, considering that the Teacher’s office was that only by name. It had been assigned to her when the king had built the archives, though it was a well known fact that she never used it. 

“Yes! It came as a surprise to me as well, with her abandoning all her projects to write you a letter and rarely leaving her room otherwise. Perhaps,” the pillbug hummed, stopping in front of a door, “You might remedy her?” He gestured for Lurien to go inside. 

Lurien pressed a hand against the door, pausing to turn back to Elijah. “You can explore the archives, we’ll need to be alone. This is meant to be a private conversation.” 

Elijah frowned. If he didn’t need him then why did he bring him? Either way, he bowed and whispered a soft, “Of course, Lurien, sir.” 

The door shut and Elijah straightened, looking down the hall to the archive’s main room. The assistant couldn’t hold in his sigh, unclasping his hands and relaxing for only a moment. 

“Would you like an escort?” 

Elijah spun, dizzying himself as he focused on the taller pillbug. “I- Yes please,” Elijah decided, observing the other. 

(Elijah would never say it, but the pillbug was hot, and Elijah was a tired gay. Too tired to force his brain to not think about the pretty man standing right in front of him.)

The pillbug held a hand out for Elijah to hold. The smaller bug took it with a quiet whisper of his name. “I’m Elijah.” He said, looking up to catch the taller man’s eyes. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Quirrel,” Quirrel replied, sliding a foot back to dip into a mock-bow. “A pleasure, good sir.” 

Elijah laughed, the sound light. “Of course.”

The tour had started out almost awkwardly, especially after the small show of giving each other their names by The Teacher’s office. Quirrel didn’t appear to know what could be deemed important or not and the near silence was filled mostly by other scholars nearby.

It only seemed to become more comfortable when Elijah pointed to a tube of a blue substance and asked, “What’s that?” 

Quirrel perked up quickly, tugging Elijah over with a grin. “This,” the pillbug began, with flourish, “is lifeblood.” 

Elijah began walking around the tube, inspecting the words carved into the base. “What does it do?” The shorter one asked, squinting.

Quirrel pat the glass. “It has healing properties that the Madame is trying to utilize kingdom wide. She’s working with a provider to help get a good amount of the skin off of the egg.” 

Elijah was quiet for a long moment, turning to Quirrel, a curious twinkle in his eye. “Tell me more.” 

Quirrel grinned.

Chapter Text

Lurien found his assistant speaking to Quirrel excitedly about one of Monomon’s projects. 

He’d been gone for over two hours, going over plans and what-ifs, possibilities and backups for something going wrong. Monomon had explained that she was leaving her archives locked up for as long as she could have it. She would only trust the key to Quirrel, though he was to leave the kingdom, keeping her mask far away from her soul, should anyone attempt to release the infection.

As Lurien approached the two, he recalled one of Monomon’s requests: “Do not let Quirrel know of his role in this plan. I will inform him myself, when the time is right.”

“Ah!” Elijah exclaimed, shaking Lurien from his thoughts. “Hello, sir!” 

Lurien nodded politely at Quirrel, patting a hand on Elijah’s head. “Hello Elijah. I hope you weren’t too restless while I was gone?” 

“No, sir! Perhaps I can tell you of my findings on our trip back to the tower?” Elijah looked up at him with barely contained excitement, and Lurien saw a flash of a painting in his tower, the color of the archives, with a soft splash of his assistant’s purple in the corner.

How interesting Elijah’s story must be, for Lurien to later wish to paint something from it. 

“I’d be grateful to hear you speak at all,” Lurien said aloud, allowing himself a smile under his mask at the sight of Elijah bouncing on his toes.

Quirrel shifted rather uncomfortably where he stood, drawing both Watcher and assistant’s gaze. 

“Quirrel!” Elijah said brightly. “It was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope to see you again!” 

Lurien nodded. “I thank you for keeping my assistant company. I fear we don’t socialize much out of our own tower, and seeing you interact so nicely is quite the treat.” 

Quirrel bowed rather deeply to them both, and gestured in the direction of the exit. “I hope time finds you both well!” 

Lurien twirled quickly, throwing a quiet, “Time is of essence, in this day and age. Another meeting with the Teacher has already been scheduled. We will both be back soon,” behind him.

Elijah scurried after him. 

Monomon found her assistant sorting tablets in the shelves of the archives. 

She’d been gone for over two hours, setting up plans and backups for the king’s request, and had been coming quite close to creating a chart to track all the outcomes that might happen before Lurien calmed her. Lurien had also explained that he was going to raise Elijah as the new watcher, trusting his assistant deeply enough to keep watch over the City of Tears. Of course, the process would take a while, and they both had many things to do during that time. 

The most important, of which, was helping the king with the dreamer seals, which, at first glance, seemed rather complicated. Monomon had yet to take a second look.

Monomon floated over, Quirrel glancing up from his work to greet her. He grinned and gave a small wave. 

“Good afternoon, Quirrel!” She hummed, leaning over to catch a glimpse of the papers he was holding. “Have you gotten much work done while I was gone?”

Quirrel waved his hand so-so. “I’m afraid I was caught up with The Watcher’s assistant. I was explaining quite a bit about the ooma.”

Monomon stared. “For two hours?” She exclaimed, aghast. Few bugs outside of the archives took any interest in her creations at all, let alone caring enough to talk about it for so long.

“You were gone for about two and a half hours actually, madame.” Quirrel corrected, pointing at hourglass draining in the middle of the room. The teacher squinted, counting the lines that marked each hour. “But either way, no, we did not talk about oomas the entire time.”

Monomon tilted her head. “Then what did you do?” 

Quirrel grinned. “Well, Elijah was quite curious on how lifeblood was to be used and procured safely, which brought up a wonderful discussion about how lifeblood is barely blood at all - or at least, what we harvest here isn’t - and how the healing properties were originally found by simply acquiring the literal blood of the small things. This, expectedly, brought up how long ago that had been found out, bringing up time, which brought up the hourglass, and how it was quite different from what Elijah is used to seeing in the city. He says we should switch to clocks, by the way, though I disagree. Of course, the clocks brought up electricity and how all of that had been figured out here, which, obviously, brought up the oomas and their bit of electric charge, and the conversation ended there.”

Quirrel paused, inspected a paper, looked up, and frowned. “I’ve been rambling,” he noted.

“You have,” Monomon agreed. “It’s alright though, you were quite fun to listen to, especially in comparison to Lurien’s droning.” 

Quirrel laughed. “I suppose!” He barked. “Well, I would congratulate you on not needing to talk to him any longer, but with what he said before leaving, I don’t trust that that’s true.”

“Oh, you’re right.” Monomon groaned. “He will be coming back again soon for yet another meeting. And the king wants us to meet with him to speak about it more, in depth.” She sighed. “It’s quite tiring, you know.”

Quirrel grinned sheepishly. “I would offer to take a load of your work, but...” he glanced down at his stack of unfinished papers. “I’m afraid I’m not even caught up on mine.” 

Monomon pat his head comfortingly. "No need for that, Quirrel, I must pull my slack at some point." 

Quirrel shrugged. "I suppose so, madame, but if you are going to get to work, perhaps we may go through everything together?" He shuffled the papers in his hands quickly.

"Of course!" Monomon hummed. "You really must tell me more about your discussion with Lurien's little assistant as well, I'll admit you've got me intrigued," she added, already floating down a corridor. Quirrel fell in pace beside her.