Disclaimer: I do not own OUAT. I also do not own A Cricket on the Heart by Charles Dickens.
Spoiler Alert: This chapter should not contain spoilers. Following chapters may; I will make note of it at the beginning of the chapter if there are any.
Rating: T
Pairings: Jiminy-Archie/Red-Ruby
Summary: Twilight's never quite complete unless she hears the crickets sing.
AN: First and most importantly, I want to thank Patatat on Deviant Art for letting me use her amazing art ("Good Morning Mrs. Hopper") as my cover picture! Thank you so much! It's absolutely beautiful.
Secondly, as I said in the disclaimer, the title is a reference to Charles Dickens's novella A Cricket on the Hearth. I will be following his pattern of calling the chapters "chirps". It's kind of symbolic of her view of Jiminy-Archie as the story will be third person but entirely from Red's perspective. Otherwise I am not following Dickens's plotline at all. Anyway I just recently discovered that I adore Red Cricket shipping. I don't know what it is, but it's totally charming. Obviously that is what got me here. It may have reignited my OUAT love too. It was dimming this season, and that saddened me greatly. But anyway, I hope you enjoy! Reviews are love!
A Cricket on the Hearth
"To find a cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing of all." –Charles Dickens
Chirp the First
It begins sometime around midnight.
Red has overcome any desire to change on the night of the full moon and mastered the wolf even if it came to that. But still, every time that celestial being shows the entirety of its pale face her body resists sleep. On such nights, she'd eventually find rest—albeit later than usual—tucked between a pleasing memory and the tedium of counting sheep. This night however, after hours of flopping around in her sheets like a fish, it still evades her.
Her frustration wins out in the end. The young woman gives what her Gran would define as a "very unladylike" huff of exasperation as she frees her legs from the tangle of blankets. In the cold of winter, the fireplace casts a warm glow over the room. Red surveys her surroundings, still unused to her new royal chambers.
The coverlet she'd tossed off in the beginnings of her failed slumber is made of deep green silk and intricately embroidered with golden thread. Long-stemmed roses are arranged on the nightstands in glass vases rimmed with silver. And from an exquisitely sculpted mahogany rod, lace curtains fall over the window—a window made with glass no less! Her eyes pause there, focusing where the night sky hides behind luxurious fabric. Bare feet hesitate for only a moment over the cold stone floor before padding across to the place her eyes are fixed. The young brunette pushes away the drapes but finds only disappointment. The moon is not visible from this side of the castle.
From somewhere in the courtyard, the clock tower begins its midnight chimes.
She considers for a moment that the moon is most likely entirely visible from the window across the hall. With a room two doors down the corridor, Granny need never know. The old woman would, of course, find it completely inappropriate for her granddaughter to be out of her room in a nightgown. Even if the long, cotton article of clothing leaves only her ankles visible to any wandering eyes. Besides, everyone is asleep anyway.
Decisively, Red tightens the scarlet cloak around her neck and sweeps across the floor, robe billowing in her wake. Doors in this castle—she curses inwardly as she tugs hers open—always squeak so loudly. She shuts it as quietly as possible, hoping the seventh clang of the bell will disguise the sound of unoiled hinges. The window is higher than the one in her room. She feels like a child as she rests crossed arms on the sill and peers up with her usual fascination. There, clearly visible, is the moon's full visage.
"Good evening Red," the voice that speaks is too small to cause her to visibly start but inwardly alarms her nonetheless. Beside her right elbow, a cricket—attire complete with suit jacket and top hat—leans on his umbrella.
"Jiminy, you frightened me," she tells him with a toothy grin, ducking her head a bit to level their eye line.
"I'm sorry," he replies, a halfhearted sort of smile in his voice. His face can reveal nothing. "Although I can honestly say I haven't heard those words directed at me in a very long time,"
Playfully, she tells him, "I don't see why not. You're quite the fearsome beast."
Jiminy grants a wry chuckle, "Said the wolf to the cricket."
The ghost of her smile remains as she rests her cheek on her forearms, "Why are you up so late, Jim?"
"Just a bit of stargazing." He has a soft, calming sort of voice, she notices for the first time. One that is normally full of light and hope but is darkened this evening for reasons she cannot know. "And you?"
"Something similar." He looks toward her with an expression she interprets as confusion, though she can't be entirely sure. "All my life," she explains, "Wolf's Time meant that I would be locked in my room each night until its passing. When I learned to control the wolf, it never occurred to me that I had never really looked at a full moon. Once I had, I just…couldn't stop looking."
The cricket stares forward, not sparing a glance in her direction. Silence stretches on between them for an uncomfortable moment where Red wonders if she's said something wrong. Before she can open her mouth to break the hush, he finally replies.
"As a boy, I used to lie awake at night and wish—wish that I was someone else. Orion maybe," he says, pointing to the hunter in the sky with the tip of his umbrella. Red grins at the thought of Jiminy in armor instead of formal wear, a club held high over his antennae. "And one day, my wish came true. Sometimes I like to look up at the stars and wonder what life might have been like if I had never made a habit of wishing in the first place."
She should have known he was a man once upon the time. In their realm, it was rare to meet a talking beast that had not begun human. For whatever reason though, the realization strikes her. She tries to imagine Jiminy Not-Cricket, creating a collage of what she knows of him in her mind's eye. Kindness, humility, wisdom, forgiveness. All so difficult to translate into physicality, but not impossible.
"What were you like?" the young woman asks, unable to keep a bit of her curiosity from spilling over. "As a human, I mean."
Jiminy sighs, though he's so small she barely hears it, and seems to give his response a bit of thought. With head bowed, he tells her, "I-I wasn't a good man, Red."
"I don't see how that's possible." She gives an encouraging grin here. "You have the strongest conscience of anyone I've ever met."
"I always have had a strong center of morality, that's true. The problem is that for a long time, I didn't have the courage to follow it. That's the trouble, really. Men who know better should do better."
She looks down at the small creature, a frown creasing her brow. His regret is palpable, but there is more than that. His small form has been slumped with some unseen weight since the moment he first made his presence known to her. "You seem melancholy this evening. Did the Blue Fairy not give you hope today?"
"Oh yes of course," Jiminy replies as though such a thought had not flickered in his mind for even a moment. She hopes his confidence is placed correctly. Somewhere in the castle, Gepetto has already begun work on the wardrobe. "It's nothing like that. I have every faith that things will happen as they must."
"Then what's troubling you?"
He seems to consider her, perhaps deciding if she is a trustworthy confidante. One antenna twitches; a foot lifts and repositions a hair to the right; wings flutter briefly then halt. She wonders if he always had trouble staying still, or if it was a trait that came with becoming an insect.
"Gepetto," he stops after saying his friend's name and starts again. "Lately, Gepetto has been very angry with me for events that occurred in his youth. I fear that I-I will never be free of the sins of my past."
Red wants to question what he means—what his story is—, but thinks better of it. He needs a word of encouragement or perhaps a comforting touch. The latter is, of course, impossible. Does he miss that human contact, she wants to ask. "You know what I think?" she says instead. "I think that if you're where you want to be today—or at least on the way there—you should be thankful for your past. No matter how bad, it brought you here."
He stares up at her for a moment, black eyes revealing nothing, "I think you just might be wise, Red." But he doesn't sound shocked or confused by the declaration. He states it as a fact, one that no one had happened to mention before. He sort of amazes her, and that fact is entirely unexpected.
She smiles gratefully—and imagines he's probably smiling back—before turning her head back to the night sky. They fall into companionable silence, Red now watching the stars and Jiminy's eyes fixed on the moon. Red doesn't know if she's exactly where she wants to be in life yet, but she thinks she might like where she is right now.