Chapter Text
The kitchen holds the night, still. Ashes cool, mintgreen light of the outdoors dimmed, and the scent of dried herbs and stored nuts settled into shellwood shelves and cabinets.
In the early dawn, the kitchen belongs to Quirrel. He reaches for the kettle, always accessible in the corner of the stone bench, never hidden away. He chitters softly to himself as he recalls the many moss and lichen samples he had recently retrieved—a very fair amount of them indeed, and his antennae rise with a flash of pride. Soon, he will proceed with his lumafly research, in just a few turns, even. Then, his chittering turns low as thoughts of the Archives' recent and most curious arrival surface: their face and form bear none of the armour chitin provides.
When he glances at the herb garden, he goes still, claws paused on a drawer.
Mallo is there, in the thin light of dawn, folded over and drawing. He has seen this exact shape of theirs, in this same spot, once before—absorbed and unaware.
Antennae pressing against the underside of his headkerchief, he turns and fills the kettle up with more water than one bug might ever need for morning tea.
From hanging bundles above, his hands find wildbloom, soft and fresh, bright with grassy fragrance; the same tea shared that first evening several turns ago.
When Monomon and Quirrel had set the tubers before them, Mallo had eaten them without ceremony—and with the hunger of a being that until that moment, wasn't sure if food would again become available.
He plucks the young leaves from their stems, while the water starts its slow work over the hearth.
Mallo has begun packing their art materials—Monomon’s gift, and he watches them for a moment longer, while his hands finish preparing the sieve.
“Would you care for some tea?” Quirrel asks, as they amble through.
Their movements halt, and they stare. Whether they startled or are simply processing, Quirrel can’t tell. Their face bends and stretches as thoughts resume behind it. “I would like that very much," they say.
They seat themselves, and the slightly rickety stool sounds more like a racket as the pliable shape of them shifts and settles. He'll have to tighten that shellwood leg. Mallo's gaze travels to the ceiling, and Quirrel's gaze does not follow, but he is plainly aware that he will try and find whatever caught their attention in the metal beams, later.
He retrieves two cups. Two. The back of Quirrel's claw nudges one of the ceramic vessels, cool, hard, like his own shell—and steady. The wildbloom supply will last another ten turns, he'll note this for the inventory—Mallo looks out the arched windows set in burnished walls, and aside from pressing their lips together once, they remain still. The Lumafly migration from the eastern chambers is expected to begin any turn now, and one would be able to view them from that same window, then.
Stone worktops catch the hearths reds, and Quirrel traces the flickering lights to the kettle, where corrosion begins at its rim—it may need replacing soon, he should—Mallo is looking at Quirrel.
The kettle calls with its simmer and whistles, so he attends, and puts leaves in to brew.
Mallo still sits smaller than they really are, curving at the shoulders as though the cold hadn't left their body. He remembers how they looked when he first found them—the grime, the leaf litter, the shaking. Surviving, but alive.
They're watching him attentively, with a small curve at their flexible mouth—a familiar shape, not unlike Monomon's smile. Her warning surfaces, "patience with the strange one, my young scholar" and the thrumming inside his shell slows, but doesn't stop.
Bringing over the pot, he pours for two, the stream wobbly with the imprecise spout, but he doesn't spill a drop.
“Thank you,” Mallo says.
Quirrel responds with a light click.
After a careful sip, they thank him again, “The tea tastes nice,” and Quirrel clicks once, low and steady, again.
The questions press into his thorax now, stridulating with life of their own: Did you have tea where you came from, if so, what kind? What did your diet constitute? What farming practices are you familiar with?
Mallo's eyes are wet, luminous, reflective, the fire a bright spot against their unusual hue and whites. Their pulse, visible at their throat, vulnerable and alive, and Quirrel's claws gently curve around his teacup, with faint taps as each digit finds their place.
Their lips appear to swell, and deepen in colour from the heat of the cup, a matter of blood proximity to their skin's surface, he supposes. They shine now, and it could be from the tea, or the moisture of their own mouth.
Their mobile face can morph vast amounts, but right now it remains unusually still.
Quirrel blinks.
Mallo blinks, and he blinks back, and he is distantly aware, with very dim alarm, that he has forgotten what he was about to think next.
Why do you remain so cloaked, I wonder? Is it only for warmth, or does the world you come from have a nudity taboo—or perhaps it's for both reasons?
The clicks have risen in pitch before he realises that he’s making them.
What other kinds of species are there from your world? Are there others like you?
The questions keep vibrating against Quirrel's sternum, and he drinks, trying to hide them in the hot tea, but they rise with the steam.
Are there others, soft, like you?
“Why do you make that sound?”
Ceramic cup meets the table with a gentle 'thack'.
“Hm? Which sound?”
They give the slightest tilt of their head as they respond, “The clicks.”
Clicks. Clicks? Quirrel rests a clawtip on the table's cool surface, gives it a tap. He has… never been asked that before, never considered how to answer, why is it that a bug clicks. Why does a bug sigh or yawn, trill and laugh?
“Ah… simply put, it's expression. Contentment or anger, excitement or grief. A bug's clicks can denote just about any sensation or feeling, and like a laugh or trill they can happen involuntarily, or be suppressed."
Mallo shares a small smile, and Quirrel has to consciously stop himself from clicking in response. Stop himself. Why has he suddenly grown self conscious? The question arrives and he doesn't have a satisfying answer for it.
“May I ask you a question in return? I have been wondering...” He leans in ever so slightly towards Mallo, and they nod at him.
“Go for it," Mallo says, and Quirrel knows, before the first question ever leaves him—that it won't be just one.
“Are you always this warm? Does body heat cause you any pain? Does it feel hot?” The trill begins softly, as more tightly coiled inquiries leap out.
“Is your core temperature the reason you eat so much? I would suppose the energy required for this output, especially if consistent, to be very high. Did you seek warmth from others like you when you were small?”
When he finishes the last of the bunch, he notices how far he leans towards Mallo, with palms pressed to the table, antennae shifting beneath his headkerchief. Mallo has gone still, and the breath leaves him. Quirrel knows this silence, what it means, he has assembled it before, in other places, on other faces, and carried them home.
“Ah," his voice comes out low, and quiet. “I apologise, I have been intrusive.”
And then Mallo laughs.
Quirrel doesn't move.
He has not heard them laugh before. The resonance does something for him; he does not find the word for it, but his whole shell seems to soften around the sound.
“Quirrel…” They say his name in between their slowing, clipped laughs, and some quieter part of him considers that he finds it very agreeable, how soft his name sounds when Mallo says it.
“I much prefer this fascination over hostility.”
He clicks softly in succession and leans forward again.
“Yes, I am always at this internal body temperature—unless something is wrong, then I might run hotter.” They hold out their hand, “Here,” they say, offering, and Quirrel places his own against Mallo's palm.
It is much warmer than he expected.
“My extremities might be a bit colder though, hands and fingers and feet,” they say, before bringing their hand back to teacup.
Their heat remains on Quirrel’s palm like a hyper localised fog. “How marvelous,” Quirrel murmurs, and he has not moved his hand. He should probably move his hand.
“And you're right. I need to eat a lot more than a bug might, to maintain this level of heat.”
Mallo raises their cup to mouth, eyes journey to the ceiling before returning to his. They smile wide enough that their teeth show; a line of small, squared pale stones—not like Monomon’s smile.
“Oh, also no, it does not hurt me. It doesn't feel hot, either…” their brows, the furry strips above their eyes, create creases with concentration. “I can get cold easily, however. Fog Canyon is nice, though. Humid and warm.”
“And hot?” Quirrel adds, antennae trying to perk forward. “Is that why you…” He gestures vaguely at his own face with a swooping motion—forehead to neck.
“Sweat, yes—or perspiration. It's for thermoregulation, and the reason I drink a lot more water, too. It happens often, even if not always visible.”
Quirrel nods, and taps claw to cup in a simple rhythm, willing himself to carry into this morning at least one speck of restraint, and he does not urge Mallo to answer his questions faster.
They hum, slow, eyes travelling to the extinguished hearth then returning to Quirrel.
“There was another?”
Quirrel responds reflexively, “Do the young of your species seek warmth from one another—their parents?”
“Yes, they do,” they murmur.
And then Mallo alters—reverts, he corrects himself, to stillness. Their gaze travels far away. Quirrel's antennae twitch. He watches them as they remain there, before they retreat into their tea. Quirrel's thorax thrums with the rush of hemolymph. He clicks low, another apology beginning to form in his mandibles, but before he can get the words out, Mallo looks up from their cup, smile reappearing.
“Is there anything else you're curious about?” And their tone does not sound like one wrought of hidden grief or mere tolerance.
Something vibrates through him. The trill begins and doesn't stop. He has so many more questions, and he has nowhere else to put those questions except here, with Mallo, where they seem, impossibly, wanted. Quirrel's antennae rise up, shell urging to rise with them. His spiracles feel like they have been replicated anew.
His entire self leans towards this… into this space between them, where steam rises from two ceramic cups.