Work Text:
(Gemini)
“Gemini.”
“Pinocchio.”
“That creature is dangerous.”
The gravity with which P spoke caught the lamp-puppet off guard. Gemini reflexively scanned the area for danger, but he couldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary nearby. Between the Hotel’s built-in security measures, P’s own evening patrols, and Polendina and Pulcinella’s rotating watch throughout the night, the Hotel was as secure as ever. Gemini scanned again anyways, but the only thing he could sense nearby was the life-signature of a certain small animal strolling down the hallway. It took him a minute to catch on.
“Wait, you think Spring is dangerous?”
P nodded.
“Huh. I guess so?” Gemini said, “I mean, I definitely wouldn’t want her to catch me outside of my lamp, that’s for certain! But I don’t think you have to worry much. Her claws are sharp, but they aren’t exactly swords, y’know?”
His partner said nothing. That wasn’t unusual, but with the way he was holding himself… the cricket could tell he wasn’t sharing everything.
Hmm. Maybe…
The Puppet had been fighting for his life ever since he woke up in the train car. Gemini was safe inside his lamp, but he could imagine the discomfort of having to share a living space with a hostile creature, small though she may be. He would still reactivate himself in the middle of the night just to scan the room for danger, so he couldn’t really fault his pal for being on high alert. But Spring had already wandered off for the evening, so there truly wasn’t anything to be afraid of now.
“Are you worried because she keeps hissing at you?” Gemini chirped, keeping his tone light. “You don’t have to take it personally, pal. She’s just skittish around puppets like most animals are, remember? Eugénie said she only attacks when she gets caught off-guard. So just avoid her for now and you should be OK.”
“Hm.”
“And hey, think about this! Spring hangs around Polendina’s desk all the time. If you give her some time to adjust, I’m sure she’ll warm up to you, too!”
“…yeah.”
Ok, something was definitely up. P’s fighting instincts were sharp and had saved them from ambushes on numerous occasions, so Gemini was inclined to trust him. But why was he so convinced Spring was so dangerous? Gemini had all the more reasons to be scared of the cat than P did!
“Hey now, you’ve gone all stony-faced. More than usual, I mean. You’ve faced off with metal dogs and gigantic puppets much more dangerous than a cat before. You’ve shaken off cuts from weapons a hundred times as long as her claws! What’s got you so hung up on this?”
P didn’t answer right away, and Gemini was afraid the reticent Puppet was going to ignore the question completely. After a moment of hesitation, P unclipped the Monad lamp from his belt, setting it on the table with far more care than usual, and then sat down in the chair opposite of Gemini. He moved stiffly, his body as tense as if he were prepared for a fight. Then, P locked eyes with the cricket – Gemini still didn’t know how he could do that so accurately through the frosted glass of the lamp – and quietly exhaled.
“The cat, Spring. She has some kind of sway over me,” P admitted. “Some kind of power. I… don’t have the word for it yet.”
“What?”
“I don’t get it. Gemini, why do I have this… this overwhelming urge to stroke the cat?”
“…what?”
“She attacked me when I got too close to her, yet I still feel… compelled to pet her,” P went on. “To get her attention, even if she… does not tolerate either of us. It makes no logical sense. She must be overriding my thoughts somehow. Can all cats do that? Or… there are so few animals left alive in Krat, so are… are all animals capable of this?”
Gemini went dead silent.
P’s expression, which always remained perfectly neutral even in the heat of combat, had creased into a faint frown and seemed tight about the jawline. And more than that, his blue eyes were unusually bright with something resembling nervousness.
Gemini barely got three words out of P on a good day, but now his partner was rambling away right before his eyes. And this was all because he thought Spring was brainwashing him?
“…Gemini?”
Oh. Oh, this was fantastic.
(P)
The little puppet started laughing with such force that P could feel the Monad lamp rattling the whole table. P stared, dumbfounded. He’d heard Gemini chuckle at his own jokes before, but he’d never heard him laugh so… boisterously. The display was richer and more earnest than he was used to, and it left him completely at a loss as to how to respond. Was the lamp-puppet underestimating the cat’s abilities? Had she gotten to him somehow, too?
Or – and perhaps the more likely reason – P had just misunderstood something simple. Again.
“Gemini,” he demanded, “Is this dangerous?”
The cricket made a strange chortling-whistling sound at that, but he was clearly trying to get a hold of himself. “…No, no, everything is fine! Haha. You’re perfectly fine, pal. Congrats!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Ah, don’t worry too much. Wanting to pet animals is one of the most human impulses out there!”
“It is?”
“Haha… yeah, yeah, I promise. I mean, people wouldn’t call ‘em pets if they didn’t… y’know, want to pet ‘em. Spring isn’t brainwashing you or anything! She’s a perfectly fine, fluffy cat, so of course you’d want her to like you.”
“…oh.” So, this had been a normal reaction, then? That was a relief. Some of the tension left P’s shoulders, only to immediately rise back up into his neck and face. With that misconception cleared up, he found himself feeling irked by the cricket’s dramatic response. Between his nonexistent past and his specialization as a fighting puppet, P knew that he still had a lot to learn about Krat and the world around him in general. Having a guide as knowledgeable as Gemini was immensely helpful, but not inherently knowing seemingly mundane facts was starting to get tiring. Especially if he was only going to get laughed at for asking questions.
“Aw, are you embarrassed, pal? Sorry, it’s just… that question caught me off guard. It was… cute? It was a little cute. But I promise you’re fine!”
P’s steel arm twitched. So, that’s what this prickly feeling was. Embarrassment. Now that he thought about it, it was similar to the emotion he’d seen in Eugénie only a few days ago, when she had tried to make a few tweaks to Fulminis. That day, she had been so distracted (and sleep-deprived, though she refused to admit it) that she hadn’t screwed P’s legion arm back together properly. When he went to spar against the captured puppets on the garden, the centrifugal force from one of his fancier dodges sent the whole lower half of the arm flying clean off and crashing right through one of the Hotel’s windows. Eugénie had been red in the face and ears the entire time Antonia had chided her, and she had been unable to meet anyone’s eyes for the rest of the evening. Not that she had stayed downstairs for long; shortly afterwards, Polendina had guided the exhausted technician back to her room with a cup of calming tea.
P made a note to apologize to her when he got the chance. Embarrassment wasn’t pleasant at all.
“I’m going to the library.” He announced abruptly, jostling the table as he quickly stood up.
“What, gonna go look up a book on pets, are we? Hehe.”
“Not we. Just me.”
“Huh? Aw, pal, don’t be like that!” Gemini chirped. “Hey, hey, where are you–"
“I’ll be back before morning.”
“Don’t just leave me here alone all night!”
“Good night.”
“Wait a minute! P–!”
P felt oddly satisfied with himself as he shut the door on the lamp-cricket’s protests (he would later learn that the sensation was called pettiness), and his embarrassment slowly dissipated as he took his time walking down the moonlit hallway. P wouldn’t leave Gemini alone all night, even when he was being obnoxious, but there couldn’t be any harm in going to read on his own for a little while. For all of the day-to-day knowledge he lacked, at least basic literacy had been programmed into him from the start. Besides, P told himself, if Gemini ever got broken again or was otherwise unable to communicate with him, he would need to know how to do research for himself.
And who knew? Perhaps by studying on his own, P could be the one to teach his partner something one day.
The lobby was completely empty at this hour with only a handful of dimmed wall lamps tentatively lighting the huge space. Even the night owl Eugénie had finally decided to call it a night and retire to her room, while Polendina must have been busy making his rounds elsewhere in the Hotel. P found himself missing the Monad Lamp’s light despite himself; the grand lobby was a little intimidating in the silence, and the vast shelves with their countless books loomed regally and imposingly before him.
As he brushed his fingers along the rows of colorful spines, P made second mental note to himself. After he apologized to Eugénie in the morning, he had another favor to ask of her. And possibly Polendina, too.
P wanted their help winning Spring over.