Waiting for Tea

This is my steampunk contribution to Merricup. I wrote out a steampunk Big Four AU plot bunny on tumblr, but pertinent to this story, all you need to know is:

Jack Frost is an automaton of steel, silver, and oil, who has stumbled his way onto Rapunzel's garden estate. Rapunzel, a girl who lives in seclusion with her mother, doesn't have the resources to repair the damaged clank, so she asked for help from her trustworthy friend, the aristocratic tomboy Merida. Merida has been slumming in the sootier parts of London, where she made the acquaintance of a prodigious orphan, named Hiccup. Hiccup and his cat, Toothless, have moved onto Merida's estate following the destruction of his workshop under mysterious circumstances, but he hasn't yet forgiven her for lying to him for so long... that said, Hiccup is definitely the best person to repair the automaton that Rapunzel has on her hands...

Disclaimer: I own nothing, yadda yadda.

Well. This was awkward.

In a secluded garden estate on the outskirts of London, in a bedroom topped up with pink and white frills and knickknacks and many half-completed watercolors, there sat one boy, one girl, and one clockwork clank. The swinging door at stage left attested to the swift exit of Rapunzel, the owner of this room and the only thing that had hitherto been preventing the boy (dubbed Hiccup) and the girl (Miss Merida DunBroch, of the Edinburgh DunBrochs) from going at each other's throats.

Personally, the clank – whose name was Jack, and while you're at it he preferred to be referred to as an 'automaton' – didn't think that getting a nice pot of tea going was worth leaving him alone between two of the angriest people he'd ever met. He had already seen quite a bit of anger in his sentient life, and he wasn't eager to learn more about it.

Hiccup, however, would never show his anger for a purse of guineas: instead he concentrated, his lips pressed tight together, on the exposed arm, and the stainless steel gears within. The outer layer, textured cunningly to resemble skin, had been deeply scored by an unknown foe, and the gears and pumps within the limb had also sustained damage.

From time to time Hiccup made notes on a small pad of paper of what further supplies he would need. But Jack would still make encouraging remarks: "Oh, that's right, that's exactly right," and "You've got a real gift for this, you know." But as Hiccup continued his stony silence, Jack eventually stopped.

That only left the silence more evident for Miss Merida DunBroch, of the Edinburgh DunBrochs, to fidget in. She had regarded Jack with interest when they first met (which was a very long fifteen minutes ago), but now seemed determined not to look directly at him, if that meant looking at Hiccup as well. Now the red-headed girl had nothing to occupy herself with, and so she moved around the room, picking up Rapunzel's combs, hats, dolls, paintbrushes, sealing wax, instruments…

Hiccup put down the tweezers. "If Miss DunBroch could please put down the mandolin and stop making a nuisance of herself." His voice was perfectly level, and not friendly at all.

"Oh, was I being a distraction to you?" Miss DunBroch asked, her posh accent brought out in full force. Her fingers strummed the mandolin with greater aplomb than before.

"No, not at all, there's nothing distracting about making loud noises while other people try to work. It's not like you're emphasizing the fact that you're contributing nothing to the work at hand. And you must be really used to doing that."

"You yourself said this clockwork was too delicate. 'This is not a job for two people,' those were your exact words." She crossed to Rapunzel's work desk, and picked up a wooden artist's mannequin. "What would you have me do?"

"Maybe leave us in peace, that'd be a good place to start."

She turned to him, and the color was high in her cheeks, and her blue eyes very nearly sparked. "An' ye order me around, when I'm the only one in this house as has the right to be here? Rapunzel's mother and the servants know I have the right to be here; if you're found there'll be an uproar…"

"Drop the slum accent, Miss DunBroch, it doesn't match your reticule."

Jack cried "Duck!" Hiccup ducked, and the mannequin hit Jack squarely in the face, where it did no harm, but fell stiffly to the floor.

"What is the matter with you, Hiccup?" Miss DunBroch demanded, curls falling out of her already tenuous pompadour.

"There's nothing the matter with me," he said, his voice as level as ever, but now distinctly chillier than before. "I have nothing to hide."

She gave a loud, huffy sigh, and then scratched furiously at her back. "Damn this corset – damn it to hell and damn the people who make it – Hiccup, you're smart as a whip. You're just refusing to understand why I didn't arrive at your shop in Islington in a full horse-drawn carriage, with a footman and a bleeding herald!"

"Oh, I understand, I understand just fine." Jack really wished that Hiccup would at least stop pretending to repair his arm at this rate. Hiccup's voice was so cold that Jack worried he'd somehow tapped into the liquid nitrogen battery at his heart. "You're embarrassed to be seen with me, so you pretend to be poor and starving and filthy, like me, for a little weekend jaunt with no consequences, none that matter." Hiccup put down the tweezers and magnifying glass, to Jack's great relief. His voice was starting to shake. Jack wondered what that meant. Was it a new stage in anger? Or did it indicate… what was that emotion… sadness?

"I'm not embarrassed to be seen with you, Hiccup! If anything, I'm embarrassed to be seen in… this!"

"You just gestured to all of you," Hiccup observed, most astutely.

"Tha's just it. Merida of DunBroch is a character, a costume and a terribly stupid script that Mother and Father write out for me day by day. I wanted to just be Merida for a day, to just get away from all of that –"

"From all of that luxury, from all of that security, from all of that wealth and love and safety, to what? To traipse around Fleet Street, gawk at the workers, and then traipse back home?" Hiccup's eyes were wide, and very shiny.

"Don't put words in me mouth!" she snapped, and then drew a deep breath, tucking a curl behind her ear, more to calm herself than anything. "I wanted to get away from the idea that we – that people like my parents' friends – have of people like you. I wanted to see for myself, not just rely on books and pamphlets. It was supposed to be just one day. But when I first saw you – you were bent over something, a wristwatch, I think, and you had a look of such focus on you – that's why I entered your shop. I hadn't thought of building my own Sky Skimmer until that very second. But it was something I wanted to do, at once. With you. It was to be with you."

Hiccup didn't say anything.

She shook her head. "I shouldn't have lied. An' I'm sorry. I didn't ask to be born into the world I was. But I wanted…"

"You wanted to be with me?" Hiccup asked.

She nodded.

"M-Miss DunBroch…"

"Call me Merida. That's an order," she said, though the sparks had faded from her eyes. She was smiling, as close to shy as it was possible for her to get.

"Merida…" Hiccup fell back, a smile blooming on his face. He said nothing, and she said nothing, but they both just smiled at each other across the pink room. Jack glanced between the two of them, the gears in his neck creaking slightly, and then back down at his open arm.

Well. This was awkward.

Right when Hiccup was about to move, or Merida was about to speak, the door opened, and Rapunzel entered like an angel of tea-time, with a capering Toothless at her feet. "I'm back! Sorry it took me so long."