Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“There, all done,” Mr. Venigni says, gently covering the boy’s chest once more. “Doesn’t that already feel better?”

Pulcinella watches as Pinocchio nods slowly, still not meeting anyone’s gaze. Despite his purported recovery, his eyes remain glassy and unfocused, staring up at the gilded ceiling of the room in the hotel Master Lorenzini has turned into a temporary lab – Mr. Geppetto’s office would have probably been a more apt place for the repairs to happen in, but no one wanted to walk into that room any more than strictly necessary, least of all force the child in their midst to spend any length of time inside.

Pulcinella has the utmost faith in his master, but he suspects the boy is suffering from a malady that can’t be fixed with tools and tinkering. It’s a good thing that Pinocchio is beloved by all residing in the hotel – time and care might be the only possible solution, from the looks of it.

Not that everyone is in attendance at the moment. Far from it. Young Master Carlo has taken his grief elsewhere for the time being, and his lover is likely by his side – Pinocchio froze when presented with his brother, so there must have been an unspoken understanding between the adults after that, to give them both some space. Only Mr. Venigni and Miss Eugénie are still by the boy’s side, as the two most eclectic workers in the building.

And Pulcinella himself, of course. He was anxious to check on Pinocchio’s wellbeing, just like everyone else, but there is another person in the room who he was loathe to lose sight of, one that was once a fatherless boy with empty eyes and a heavy heart in his own right. After the boy went above and beyond to banish the shadow of Arlecchino from their household, the puppet butler is unwilling to let the death of Master Lorenzini’s old-time friend do such great damage again, not if he can help it.

Even if the circumstances are immensely different, that is.

“Does it still hurt anywhere?” Mr. Venigni asks, not stepping away from the table onto which they’ve laid the child just yet.

Pinocchio shakes his head, which prompts the man to sigh. “I am sorry to be so insistent, giovanotto, but while I trust that you have found your voice again, I cannot be sure until you talk to me.”

“Wait- Let me.” Eugénie lightly elbows him out of the way, then leans forward with a smile that is marvelously only tense at the edges. “Hey there. I bet there’s something around here that would make you feel better right now, uh?”

Another minute nod, one that the girl mirrors. “Alright. Can you tell me what it is that you need? So I can help you with it?”

There is a beat of silence, one where Pulcinella fears there will be no answer once again. Then Pinocchio’s face creases, some light returning to his blue eyes as he says: “Gemini.”

The relief is palpable in both adults, but Eugénie doesn’t falter, and instead holds her arms out to the boy, still smiling bravely. “That checks out. Let’s go find Gemini, okay? And I think a change of clothes would do you good, too.”

Pinocchio lets himself be picked up with little to no reaction, his gaze still glazed and his mouth clamped shut again, but at least he leans into the young woman’s hold near as much as he did before the incident, his silver-haired head pillowed on her shoulder as she carries him away, keeping a consistent stream of idle chatter going all the while. Mr. Venigni watches them leave silently, an unreadable look on his face – or at least, a look that would be unreadable for anyone who doesn’t know him as well as Pulcinella does.

The butler gives him a moment to regain his bearings, then clears his throat perfunctorily, hoping to catch the man’s attention. “Sir, if I might be so bold?”

Mr Venigni startles, but it’s a brief thing, and soon his full concentration is on the puppet in his service. “Yes, yes, of course,” he says, waving a distracted hand in the air. “Is something the matter, Pulcinella?”

There’s a forced cheerfulness in his voice that is easy to detect, but Pulcinella knows better than to call out that bluff now. He will be there when Master Lorenzini stops pretending, as he always has been, but pushing his luck too soon wouldn’t do either of them any good. “Does Master Carlo still intend on holding a funeral?”

“Oh. That.” The man sighs, shaking his head. Some of his usually carefully curated hair has escaped his control while he worked, and is now sticking up every which way, which doesn’t help his supposedly composed appearance at all. “Yes, I think he does. At least a proper burial- I suspect the city is still too dangerous for anything else.”

“Will you attend, sir?”

“I must, don’t I?” He glances away, as if seeing something no one else can, just like the child was doing earlier. “I suppose I owe it to him. Geppetto was- I thought I knew him well, once. He was a great man, before they…”

He trails off, then, but Pulcinella has understood perfectly all the same, and inclines his head in acknowledgment. “In that case, might I offer my services to look after the boy for the duration of it? My apologies if I’m overstepping, sir, but- he doesn’t look ready to witness such an event, and I imagine his brother will be preoccupied with other matters in the meantime.”

He didn’t craft this proposal for Pinocchio’s well-being, or rather, not just because of that. But ever since his Ergo awakened, there’s only one thing Pulcinella has never been able to withstand in full, and that is feeling useless – he needs to give everyone the proper time to mourn as they see fit, but that doesn’t mean he can’t find something he can do to help. If that something implies shielding a child who’s already shouldered so much death from seeing any more, then that’s all the better.

“That’s…very considerate of you.” Master Lorenzini turns to him again and smiles, and though it’s as wan and tired as Miss Eugénie’s was, it still illuminates him slightly for a moment, making the young boy who once had to witness his own father’s funeral resurface from under the glasses and mustache.

“Thank you, Pulcinella. I’ll extend the offer to Carlo- I’m sure he will appreciate it, and Romeo as well.”

Chapter Text

Romeo doesn’t really need to sleep.

He has made his peace with it, as has everyone else. Granted, he’d rather be able to turn off his brain with the same ease as Carlo does, without the fear that his precariously repaired body will short-circuit and be left permanently turned off, but there could be worse fates. At least he’s alive, somewhat. At least the people he loves are still there, for him to watch over during those long nights.

And that is precisely what he does. He watches over them, plural – he and Carlo can sometimes snatch a few moments of intimacy for themselves, but not at night. Never at night. Geppetto might be dead, but he still casts a long, long shadow over the hotel and Krat as a whole, too long for Pinocchio to feel safe sleeping alone, for the three of them not to curl tightly around each other like mice wintering in their burrow while they chase after sleep.

It's a good thing there aren’t that many guests in Hotel Krat, currently. It’d be a tad too crowded, if they hadn’t been able to claim one of the rooms with the biggest beds for themselves.

Carlo might disagree with the not crowded definition, though. “Is it possible that he weighs more at night?” He grumbles, trying to shift Pinocchio’s weight off him at least a little. “I feel like I’ve got a whole boar stuck in my stomach.”

The boy murmurs something in his sleep, but remains mostly where he is, undeterred. That’s his favorite place to rest, after bad days, which are more frequent than any of them would like – cradled close, with his head pillowed on his older brother’s chest, where he can listen to Carlo’s heartbeats until he’s dozed off. That, of course, means he’s also got his knees at a level with Carlo’s guts, which is dangerous when the child in question squirms like an eel, but who would dare dissuade him?

Certainly not Romeo, who now chuckles softly, careful not to wake the kid. “Want me to take him? He’s knocked out for good, I think.”

“That won’t make any difference. He’d know you’re not me in a millisecond. Why did we keep him so damn perceptive, when we rebuilt him?”

“To be fair, we didn’t really have a clue of what we were doing at that point. He could have come out with his ribs upside down, for all we knew.”

“Stop acting all smart, it’s too late for that.” Carlo sighs heavily, though there is no real heat in it, and he strokes his brother’s hair as he does so. “We’ll have to get him used to having his own bed, if we ever manage to get out of this bloody place. We can’t go on like this forever.”

It isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation, either, even if Romeo isn’t particularly happy to be having it again, his boiling heart sinking. “It’s when, not if. We’ll figure it out- we just need an action plan, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know where to start crafting one, alright?”

Pinocchio’s breath itches for a moment, but thankfully he doesn’t wake up, simply rolling onto his belly instead. Still, the interruption is enough for Carlo to lower his voice, pointedly looking everywhere but in his lover’s eyes.

“I don’t even know what to do first, Romeo,” he says, and he sounds so tired and defeated, every word is like a punch to the gut. “No one will come to help from outside Krat, but there’s not that many people left inside, either. How can we rebuild anything like this? And those carcasses…the Alchemists might have stopped infecting new people, but unless we burn the city down, I don’t see how we can get rid of the leftover ones. He barely put a dent in them, and he was built to destroy monsters.”

And what can Romeo say to that, really? It’s the truth. If he was taking a stand against death itself when he was a king, now the situation is hardly less dire – he’s not alone, sure, but these people are all more fragile than he’s been in ages, and if they were to fall in the fight, he knows he’d never be able to get back up again and go on without them.

He’s tired, too. He doesn’t have any more resurrections left in him. If they misstep, and Carlo dies, Romeo won’t hold on to see him buried again. Perhaps he’d remain active long enough to entrust Pinocchio to their friends, because that’s what Carlo would want for his brother, but then he’d power himself off without a second thought, even if he had to rip his own inner workings out to do so. It’s a pessimistic prospect, maybe, but the other young man is right: the task at hand would be overwhelming even in the best case scenario, and they’ve strayed so far from that at this point, they can’t even see the finish line.

But those are not words that would help at the moment, either. “We’ll figure it out,” is what comes out of his mouth instead, once again, as he presses a kiss to Carlo’s temple. “I promise. One thing at a time. Maybe there’s still something in the factory we could use- I’ll ask Venigni in the morning, okay? Just rest, now. We don’t have to have all the answers right this second.”

The hum Carlo lets out in response is hardly convinced, but he still settles down against Romeo’s shoulder with his eyes at half mast, and his breath evens out not long after, sinking him into deeper sleep. For his part, Romeo is left with the task of watching his partner relax in his grasp, almost in tandem with the child nestled between them.

And his thoughts. Those remain his faithful companions, as they always do.

That’s the catch in being awake when everyone else is asleep; there’s nothing distracting him from the whirlwind of his mind at least until daylight, when he can safely start moving things around without being deemed a disturbance. He may protect, and he may tidy around, and he may read – he has made considerable progress through the hotel’s library over the last few months, even with Pinocchio’s nightmares interrupting him and regaling him with a little boy who wants to be held and receive explanations for every illustration on the page – but the hours still drag along at a slug’s pace, and there’s only so much he can do to keep the brooding at bay.

Especially on a night like this, where Carlo’s words keep itching at the back of his mind like persistent, buzzing insects. Romeo tries to push back against the worst case scenarios they’re making him picture, but it feels like an impossible feat – every time his eyes fall on the two sleeping faces beside him, not nearly as similar as people think in daylight, but almost identical in their slumber, his brain is overrun by sickening, unbearable flashes, the worst pictures his imagination can conjure.

But is he just imagining them, really? Some of them are too familiar to be anything but memories. Carlo dead, his absence a tangible weight; Pinocchio older, stronger, still half his brother, pinned down under a scythe with fire licking at his clothes; and more distant still, some nebulous figures, pools of blood and aching pain. The absence of sleep means no nightmares, but those can haunt him when he’s awake as well, apparently.

He tolerates them for as long as he’s able, then slowly crawls out of bed, every move deliberately quiet as not to wake the others. He doesn’t quite have a plan, only the bare bones of a suspicion, but while he creeps out of the room and down the grand staircase, it begins taking on a solider shape – not enough to be called a good idea, if anyone were to know, but at least he’d be able to use actual words to describe it. Maybe. If he weren’t sounding crazy even in the privacy of his own head.

The hotel is silent as a tomb at this time of night, and as such, there is nothing at hand that could distract him from his goal. When he reaches his destination, he’s done the miracle of silencing the little voice at the back of his mind, not as real as Pinocchio’s loyal Monad lamp but twice as pestering, the one that tells him he’s being a fool.

And when he touches the Stargazer, all he can think about is Carlo.

“Carlo?”

The young man grumbles, cracking his eyes open just a smidge. It’s definitely too early to be nagged awake like this, and yet there Pinocchio is, standing on the bed and staring owlishly down at him: between the pale hair, waxen face and white nightgown, the boy could easily pass for a little ghost to anyone not expecting his appearance – they’ve been trying to convince him to sneak up on Eugénie and spook her while she prepares her morning coffee for weeks now, but thus far he has steadily refused.

And unfortunately, Carlo is accustomed to such a sight, so instead of having a heart attack first thing in the morning he only rolls away from the wannabe spirit, throwing an arm over his eyes. “Lay back down, Pinocchio. No one’s chasing after us.”

“But…” He can feel his brother hesitate, roll the words around on his tongue until they seem right. “Can’t find Romeo.”

“So? He must have gotten bored to death and gone down to the hall already. Go ask him for breakfast and let me sleep, alright?”

“No! He’s not- he’s not in the hall. He’s not anywhere.”

“What?” That does do the trick of waking him up for good – Carlo sits up abruptly, looking at the kid in pure bewilderment. “What do you mean?”

Pinocchio nods insistingly, clutching at his nightgown with nervous fingers. “I checked. I looked in the hall, and in the garden, and in the kitchen. I can’t find him. Where is he?”

A cold, sudden dread falls over Carlo all at once, trickling down his spine in freezing rivulets. Surely, he’s still dreaming. Surely Pinocchio forgot to check somewhere obvious. Romeo wouldn’t have left the hotel, especially not without a warning?

Would he?

He doesn’t stop to ponder on it too long. In fact, he doesn’t even stop to put on some shoes – he bolts out of bed in a mad rush, only picking up his brother on the way out of the room because the lucid part of his mind realizes he better show the kid where else to look before he decides to scare the living daylight out of people again.

And yet, he doesn’t get to prove Pinocchio wrong. They roam nearly every accessible part of the building, including the hallway to Rosa Isabelle Street and the elevators, and ask everyone they meet about Romeo’s whereabouts, but it’s to no avail. No one has seen him, no one has heard him move around, he’s nowhere to be found. It’s like he’s vanished into thin air.

At the end of their fruitless search, Carlo finds himself sitting at the bottom of the staircase with his hands on his knees, wondering what he should do next. His fingers are itching to grab his sword and just go, set out to look for his lover, and he would do it, he truly would in a heartbeat, but…where would he go, to begin with?

The answer should be easy. He’d go anywhere, if it meant finding Romeo. And yet, there is no hint as to the path Romeo himself might have followed, and if, God forbid, he were in danger, starting from the wrong spot might have catastrophic consequences, and Carlo couldn’t bear that. Not again. The two of them have been too late for each other one too many times already.

Pinocchio, bless him, is clearly distressed by his brother’s worry and the entire situation at large, but he remains silent, mostly keeping out of the way or trailing unobtrusively behind the young man. If he weren’t so beside himself, Carlo would probably feel guilty about not tending to him properly, but he’s too stressed to focus on that right now. He just hopes that later he’ll only need to make amends for his distraction, and not explain to a child why one member of his already scarce family has disappeared.

Still, he can’t help but watch without saying a word when the boy emerges from a valiant attempt at dressing himself without assistance, his shirt untucked and his shoes untied. Venigni, the dandy that he is, clearly can’t bear the sight of it, so he draws closer to fix every misstep and then approaches Carlo as well, Pinocchio holding loosely onto his hand.

“My friend,” he says, as tactful as he probably can muster, “this is of no use. I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for Romeo’s departure, and that he will be back in no time.”

Carlo clenches his jaw, barely managing to avoid giving his reply through gritted teeth. “If that was the case, then why didn’t he tell anyone? It’s not like the city’s in a state for him to have errands to run, is it?”

He doesn’t quite understand where that anger in him has come from, but he could probably take an educated guest. If he’s not angry, he’s likely to become terrified, because this is not something he can countenance. Even at the height of Krat’s destruction, he was the first to die. The only time he ever had to come to terms with Romeo’s absence were those haunting first weeks just after his father brought him back at the cost of his brother’s life, before he figured out how to bring his lover back in turn.

If something has happened to Romeo- no, he can’t start thinking like this, he’s bound to go mad. But if it has…

Venigni seems to be struggling to come up with a response, especially one that will pierce through Carlo’s gloom. Fortunately for the both of them, there is no need for it, because the main doors choose that exact moment to open with great noise – as they watch in bafflement, Romeo strides in, his back straight and his weapon in his hands.

It would be easy to be fooled by that aloof pretense, but Carlo knows him too well to fall for it. Romeo is tense, as if bracing for something, and his smile is uncertain at the edges, not entirely convinced of whatever it is he’s thinking about. There is grime on his legs up to the knees, and blue splatters on his clothes, and even though he takes a few steps towards the other young man, he stops soon after, the way one would do when waiting for a reaction.

And, well. Carlo is all too eager to give him one. The fury, the fear- it all comes spilling out like a flood, and as he stands up and stomps forward he wagers he can feel it rushing through his blood, pooling on his cheeks and at the tips of his fingers.

“What the hell were you thinking?” He spits out, and it’s almost like they’re stupid kids together once more, pulling each other out of bigger and bigger messes every time. “I thought you’d been taken! Again! Why would you leave like- like-“

Romeo flinches, but still his smile softens when he looks down, warmer, more genuine. “I was thinking,” he says, voice even. “of what you said last night.”

That is bizarre and unexpected enough to stop Carlo in his tracks. “What?”

“You’re right. We can’t rebuild the whole city alone, just the two of us. There’s only so much we can do, even with our friends’ help, and I’m not sending the kid back out there. But there’s another option.”

He gestures towards the Stargazer, its blue light glinting unassumingly all around them. “I feel dumb for not thinking about it earlier, but- it had been so long. I haven’t been anyone’s king in ages. I couldn’t risk bringing you with me, in case things went south.

“But they didn’t. The creator’s dead. Law Zero can’t be implemented anymore. The puppets don’t need to answer to anyone, except for their king. Except for me.”

“What are you saying, compagno?” Venigni interjects, so unexpected it almost makes Carlo, who in his relief had forgotten the man was even there, startle. “You regained control over the puppets? All of them?”

Romeo huffs in near laughter, shaking his head. “I mean, if you built new ones, I’m pretty sure no one could take them off your hands, and I can’t do anything with the likes of Polendina or Pulcinella, but…for the most part, yeah. I was their leader for most of the frenzy. They listen to me. Especially when I’m asking them to do something that’s already in their nature.”

“And what did you ask of them, then?”

“To purge out the carcasses. They’ll power through the worst parts of town looking for monsters- strictly for monsters, nothing else. Actually, they’re already on the march right now. A few of them will guard the hotel from a distance, too, though it’s still the safest place around these parts. Even if they’re defeated before they can clean everything up, they’ll still make our job a whole lot easier, and nothing will come close to us before we’re ready. I made sure of it.”

He turns to Carlo again, then, as if expecting a comment; but Carlo can give him none. He remains silent, looking between his lover and the doors, as though in a moment the promised horde of loyal puppets might barge in, ready to hold the fort of Hotel Krat – but that is not what he’s thinking about, not at all.

In fact, he can’t really put what he’s thinking about into words. It’s such a turmoil of emotions that there is no clear-cut definition he can produce for it – he tries, he does try to pinpoint at least one of those feelings so he can show it off, but it’s useless. It’s like most of his brain went numb the moment Romeo began speaking, and there is no way to recover it.

Ultimately, what comes out of his mouth is: “You didn’t tell anyone where you were going.”

If Romeo is surprised by the coldness of his tone, he makes no show of it. “If I had, you’d have insisted to come with me.”

The casual way he mentions it makes Carlo balk, and oh, now he can understand his own feelings just fine. He’s enraged. He’s still enraged for the hours he spent worrying and drafting emergency plans for someone who now acts like nothing was wrong at all, and he can’t help but spit it out in full, cool head be damned. “Uh, yeah? That’s what we’re supposed to do! We’re supposed to work together! What made you think that going out there, alone, was a good idea? You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“More than I already have? Please. I’m basically invulnerable where I stand.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re expendable-“

“More than you, that’s for sure!”

It’s so loud it borders on a yell, and it bounces and echoes throughout the whole hall, a continuous, ringing noise. In the corner of his stunned vision Carlo can see Venigni awkwardly herding Pinocchio away, but when he focuses again he finds Romeo has closed the rest of the distance between them, and his ruined face is looking down at him, frightened and hesitant and with golden hair spilling all over it.

“Carlo. Please.” He takes Carlo’s hand in his own, so careful despite their size and so gentle despite their artificial nature, and cradles it as though it were a treasure.

“I know how strong you are. I know- I know it’d take more than a rogue carcass to bring you down. But I can’t risk it. I couldn’t just- sit there and not clear the way a bit. I sent my orders through Ergo waves, like I did last time. I didn’t have to go very far, but even if I did- I’d rather do that a thousand times than see you in such danger again.

“Please, let me do this. Let me use the one smart thing your father built into me so I can keep you safer than he did. Please.”

Carlo’s heart splinters. It might be a patchwork of any and all substance now, metal and Ergo and blood, but he can still feel it cracking right down the middle, because the fear and pain in Romeo’s voice are so raw, it’s almost physically unbearable.

He wishes he could still be angry. He’s long since wanted for something to channel his fury into, to blame for the hard work they’ll have to put it to pay for other people’s crime. But the man responsible for the worst of it is dead, and Carlo would be lying if he said he hasn’t gone through what Romeo is describing, over and over again, after every nightmare and every reminder. It would be hypocritical, if he were to still rage at the man he cares most in the world for.

He reaches out with his free hand, instead, cupping his lover’s cheek and caressing his thumb across the line where solid and burned skin meet. Romeo’s eyes widen, as though he were shocked by the contact, but then melts in it completely, leaning into the touch even as Carlo says: “It was still a stupid idea, leaving without telling anyone.”

“I know,” the other admits, so quiet compared to the booming from before. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Carlo scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Clearly. I was about to go look for you, which would have completely defeated your point, did you know that?”

“I should have guessed it.” Romeo huffs in laughter, though it’s a little strained. “No more taking initiatives alone, I guess?”

“Yeah, you idiot. Get that into your thick skull- I’ll follow wherever you go, and what happens if you get destroyed again? I’d have to do the same, and then Pinocchio would be left with Eugénie, and she’d give him a dagger again, like she’s been itching to do for months. Do you really want that to happen?”

“Alright, alright. You’ve made your point.”

“Good.” Gently, Carlo’s hand moves to the nape of Romeo’s neck, guiding the latter to bow his head until their foreheads meet.

“I understand why you did it,” he whispers, barely audible. “Just…don’t shut me out again, okay? We need to figure this out together, whatever it means. It all started because of me- I want to be part of the solution as much as you do.

“I’m not going anywhere, Romeo. I’m not leaving. Please, return me the favor.”

“Okay.” Romeo exhales slowly, closing his eyes, and it’s the sweetest sound he’s heard all morning, since he woke up with a warmth missing from his bed and his heart pounding in his chest.

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

“There you are! Exactly who I was looking for.”

Romeo looks up from his book to see Eugénie walking towards him, a broad smile plastered over her face. It's the face she only ever makes when her latest project is going extraordinarily well, which could either be amazing news or horrible news, given what her area of expertise is. 

Nothing dangerous has come knocking on their door yet, so Romeo leans more towards the former, but he's learned not to take such things for granted, by now. “You were…looking for me?”

Eugénie makes a dismissive gesture, as if it were a matter of scarce importance. “I was looking for someone with good eyes, and you'll do. Come on, you need to tell me I'm not imagining things.”

She all but drags him out of his armchair and begins leading him to her workstation. Romeo mourns his comfortable spot immediately, for how much someone in his condition can enjoy comfort, but part of him is also curious to figure out what could have possibly caused such enthusiasm - there's another part, quieter but near as persistent, that's worried to say the least, but he'll save that for now. Just in case. 

The girl's crowded nook in the hotel's hall looks about the same as ever, with its order that is mildly confusing to anyone but her, blades and handles everywhere, and even the remains of a moonstone on the workbench. In the midst of it all sits a single, pale-haired little figure, who lights up when he sees Romeo approaching and waves at him with a shy smile, and then promptly resumes looking at Eugénie's cat figurines with big eyes full of wonder. 

It's hard to remember Pinocchio is not a common child, sometimes. He likes being hugged and carried around, and falls asleep to hummed songs or bedtime stories, and though he's not fully human yet, he has taken to eating more often. Granted, he basically only does it when someone is sitting with him, but even that isn't likely to last forever - once Carlo found him pensively sipping on his warm milk while out in the training yard alone, a white film coating his upper lip and his eyes fixed on the fighting dummies. 

But that's just the thing, isn't it? Common children have their games and secrets and pastimes. They're rarely idle, since the world is such a big place to explore, full of fun new things to discover. And yet sometimes, Pinocchio is just…there. He sits and watches, and appears to be content with absorbing everything in sight like a sponge taking to water - scarce as they are, toys aren't often his first choice of entertainment, if at all, but he could spend hours listening to the gramophone, or looking at the golden tree upstairs. 

When he acts like that, it's way easier for Romeo to see someone else behind that smooth little face - to see the hero, the fighter, the puppet who held onto his Ergo until death, even though reason would have made him trade it in immediately. 

But that puppet is long gone. The child, instead, has been roped into something by Eugénie again, and looks like he scarcely knows what it is - he just blinks at her in blatant confusion, even when she points a triumphant finger at him for Romeo's benefit. “You know how Venigni took his measurements so the new arm would fit right?”

“Yeah?” He can barely see what that might have to do with anything, but at this point he has learned that critiques won't get him anywhere. 

“Well, I wanted to confirm they were accurate, since I'm trying to make him a sword to match-”

“I thought Carlo had forbidden you from giving him a weapon.”

Eugénie pulls a face that is more eloquent than a thousand words. “Carlo doesn't have any authority over me. I won't leave my friend defenseless, even if he's half my size now.”

She motions towards the alcove wall, then, urging Romeo to draw closer. There, only faintly visible, is a line scribbled over the wallpaper a few feet from the ground, clearly freshly traced. “But that's precisely my point! That's his height as Venigni recorded it, and the man might be eccentric, but we have no reason to doubt his math, do we?”

Romeo nods despite himself - but the reasoning thus far is sound, even if he's still confused. “I suppose not.”

“Then explain this- hey, can you come stand over here for a second?”

These last words are directed at Pinocchio, who hops down from his stool after only a moment's hesitation and walks diligently up to the weapon master, allowing her to turn him around and position him as she sees fit. “Alright, tell me if you notice anything.”

Romeo frowns at the scene, his brain trying to catch up with every tidbit of information. Pinocchio sways and fidgets, as is his custom, but for the most part remains close to the line-

Except the line is a good two or three inches below his height, nowhere close to the top of his head. “Wait, what?”

“You see what I mean?” Eugénie crosses her arms against her chest, a deep, determined line creasing her brows. “Either Venigni botched the measurements, but I've never known him to do that, or…”

“Or he's gotten taller. But he doesn't-”

“It wouldn't be the weirdest thing we've seen. I don't remember him having this hairstyle back in the day, for starters.”

She's right. It is well within the realm of possibilities, considering everything else that's happened to the lot of them. A growing little boy should barely shock anyone, by rights. 

And yet, Romeo can't help but feel mesmerized at what that thin pencil line on the wall might mean for Pinocchio - for everyone in the hotel, honestly, seeing as they're all each other's closest thing to a family nowadays. One more miracle, in whatever depth of hell has become of Krat. One more stunt pulled by the savior of the city. 

“Did you see that, little guy?” He murmurs, patting Pinocchio on the head. “Wait until we tell Carlo, he'll go nuts.”

The boy turns to him, then to the wall and back again, his big blue eyes vaguely lost. “I don't understand.”

“Well, that means you're growing up. You're getting bigger, like a proper real boy. That's- that's amazing, Pinocchio.”

“Oh.” Pinocchio mulls it over for a bit before he continues, his focused face nothing short of adorable. “Is that why we can tell Carlo? ‘Cause it's a good thing?”

Romeo’s chest tightens, artificial as it is. He does his best not to let his show, though, and instead reaches out to the boy, who climbs up into his arms without hesitation and relaxes against his shoulder, as always. “Yeah, that’s a good thing, so Carlo will be happy to hear it,” he replies, not unkindly. “But you should tell him about the unpleasant stuff, too. He wants to hear all of it, and so do I.”

“He’s right,” Eugénie chimes in, and it’s easy to detect the warmth in her voice as she pats Pinocchio on the back, even when she adds: “Except for the sword. Don’t tell him about that until it’s ready, he’ll try to stop me if you do.”

“Eugénie.”

"I'm joking, I'm joking."