Work Text:
The sound of loud creaky footsteps echoed throughout the hallway as you marched forward. You’re patrolling the mansion; this is what you’ve always done, it’s what you need to do. You turn a corner and step into a library, the bookshelves all filled to the brim with books. You’ve been in this room more times than you can even remember, yet not once do you recall ever glancing at the literature here. All these books could secretly be empty and you’d be none the wiser, but that’s not important, it’s not your job to care about that; you have more important matters to attend to.
You stop to scan your surroundings, raising your head and revealing your eye, double barrel in hand - Click - Nothing to your left - Click - Nothing to your right. All clear.
With the library as it should be, you march onward to the rest of the mansion, there are still so many more rooms and hallways you need to check, and you were not about to get distracted. On your way out you spot a Hoarding Bug nest as 3 of them glance up at you. Annoying little things, but they haven’t technically stolen anything as it all remains inside the mansion, so no real reason to clear them out. They have however occasionally tried to fly at you and take your shotgun, albeit with no success. You don’t like them. Not at all. But you weren’t about to waste your ammo on a couple of overgrown bugs.
You walked room from room, hallway to hallway, nothing seemed amiss. You passed a Thumper as it gnawed on a toy cube in the kitchen, completely unaware of your presence, a Bracken as it creeped around a stairwell that lead deeper into the mansion, and a Jester as it sat in front of a fireplace, hand outstretched, seemingly warming itself up. At some point you thought you heard the sounds of someone skipping through the hallway giggling; but this wasn’t out of the ordinary here, so you paid it no mind.
You were nearing the end of your patrol, which only meant one thing; you were going to repeat it all, again and again and again. It’s what you’ve been doing for as long as you remember, that’s just the role you fill in this mansion. Making your way to the main entrance, the all too familiar sound of creaky footsteps fills the room, but they aren’t just yours.
On the other side of the room was another Nutcracker, you weren’t the only one after all.
It blinks at you, you blink back. A silent acknowledgement.
You were both always aware of one another, but as a creature with no mouth, conversation wasn’t exactly something you could strike up. Besides, you both have a job to do, so distractions are just that, something to be avoided. An occasional glance or blink is all you needed, nothing more was necessary. It’s presence did comfort you though, maybe because of the familiarity? The extra firepower? No point dwelling on it.
Going down the grand staircase and turning left, you resumed your patrol yet again, the other Nutcracker doing the same on the other side. It might seem pointless to patrol to this extent, but sometimes these weird… things would come in and attempt to steal from the mansion. You had no idea what they were since you’ve never seen one without all its garments (or maybe it was skin?), but you thought of them as overgrown Hoarding Bugs in a way, except they were worse since they actually stole.
They come in, take valuables, and leave. Never bringing them back. You can’t let them do that.
Most of the time they leave rather quickly, usually after the death of one of their companions. You’ve never seen something scatter so fast like the time a Thumper ran at a group of them.
You killed a few before, too, you remember. The first one must have panicked as it saw you since it nearly ran into a wall. One shot from your double barrel was all it took as it flew backwards and painted the wall a beautiful red. Such a nice color. Leaving to search the mansion for more of them was like looking for signs of an infestation, you came back only to find the body missing. The Thumper must have cleaned up the mess for you. Or perhaps the Bracken. You didn’t know. You didn’t really care.
You resumed your endless patrol.
_ _ _
The sound of the main entrance doors opening could be heard from where you currently were. You know what this means; you have visitors. They are not welcome.
You weren’t that far away from the entrance yourself, a few hallways down and some turns and you’d be right there. Besides, it’s not like-
*BANG*
The unmistakable sound of a shotgun blast, the other Nutcracker must have been closer and got there before you did.
*BANG*
They must be putting up a fight, more often than not they run after the first shot is fired. Strange, but sometimes these things are brave to a fault. Makes it easier for you.
…
…No more shots…? Perhaps they scattered and ran away, it wouldn’t be the first time. Yet the closer you got to the grand hall, the more you could hear coming from it, like the sound of a familiar marching song being almost completely drowned out by the sounds of electricity and zapping. You could hear the sound of flesh being hit. Something didn’t feel right about this.
Stepping into the large room, you raised your head to assess the situation. The sound was grating at this point.
- Click -
To your right on the staircase was your fellow Nutcracker, halted in place by a current of electricity. It’s eye was out. It was vulnerable.
The source of the beam came from one of those thief creatures, what looked like a small gun was in its hands. Its back was turned to you. There was another one of its companions behind your double, this one wielded a shovel. It hit the Nutcracker in the back of its eye.
Oh.
They had hurt it. They were trying to kill it.
You raised your shotgun and fired.
*BANG*
The one holding the gun immediately crumpled and fell forward, a pool of blood quickly forming underneath its body. Any confidence that the shovel wielding attacker had at one point was quickly snuffed out as it fumbled and nearly dropped its weapon, but not before the other Nutcracker regained its composure, turned around, and kicked the assailant into the wall. A loud crunch was heard on impact, and the body fell limp as it fell down.
The attackers were dead and they were still alive. They were fine.
It was OK.
Relief. It was a rare feeling for it. It could recount a handful of times it felt relief before, but none of those times was it for someone else. It’s weird, it feels strange. Why was it feeling like this?
The other still seemed a bit dazed from the attack; its head uncharacteristically lowered and open, arms loose and almost shaky. A side effect from the electricity perhaps? The flesh around its eye looked purple and a little swollen. Ouch.
You walked up closer to check if the attackers were truly dead and if they had anything on them that they shouldn’t. You moved the gun wielding one slightly with your foot. Definitely dead. Doesn’t seem like they were carrying anything other than that weapon of theirs. This wasn’t the only thing you wanted to check though.
You don’t know why, but you walked up to your double and gently placed your hand on its shoulder. Well, at least you hope it was gentle. It’s hard to tell with your strength.
Its head immediately whipped around, gaze all on you, its eye slightly dilated, bloodshot, scrunched up and squinting. Its thought was practically spoken to you.
What are you doing?
You don’t know. You have absolutely no idea. It feels so foreign to you, caring about another like this. Maybe seeing it beaten and in pain just changed something in you. It felt unnatural, but it was not unwelcome.
You tilted your head to the side slightly, hoping to get the mute message across.
Are you OK?
Its harsh gaze still lingered on you for a moment, before its eye relaxed more and softened a little, head raising a bit. It seemed more perplexed than angry now, like it didn’t know what to make of the situation. All of a sudden, its eye widened, and its head slammed shut obscuring its eye. Its posture straightened more so than usual in an instant, before it backed up, placed its hand over its chest, and bowed deeply to you. It straightened up again, and quickly marched over to one of the rooms on the upper floor without another glance at you. You could hear its footsteps get quieter and quieter as it went deeper into the mansion, away from you.
It had happened so fast that you stood there for a moment processing it. What you did was a bit strange, yes, but a response like that also felt like it was in the realm of weird.
You load another shell into your shotgun. You turned and made your way back down to one of the lower rooms.
Maybe it's for the best if you don’t think about it. Maybe it’s for the best if you forget it even happened in the first place. After all, you have more important matters to attend to, the mansion won’t patrol itself if you just stand around thinking about things to yourself.
There’s no point dwelling on it.
…Right?