Chapter Text
The next day, Chase found himself confined to a rather ornate bed, forced to spend the entire book 'sleeping' while Prunella and Deacon got to run around and fight a dragon in order to rescue him.
Or they might have, if said dragon wasn't lounging with Chase on the bed, running his pale white fingers through Chase's half golden locks.
Buddy's hand stilled as he noticed the stark difference in color near the scalp of his beloved's head.
With only a minor furrowed brow disturbing his serene face, Chase lifted a hand and began poking Buddy's face— or neck, whichever the case may be— his eyes were still closed after all. And they say he never takes his role seriously. Well take that, Deacon! He's as 'asleep' as asleep gets. Y'know, honk shoo, or whatever they say. Snork mimimi, even. So there.
"Uhm… Chase?" Buddy started hesitantly, receiving only a lazy hum in response. "What's wrong with your hair?"
Chase— who had been rather comfortable laying on top of Buddy, mind you— shot up in a panic, grabbing and patting at his hair wildly. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT??? IS IT FALLING OUT? DO I HAVE A COWLICK??"
Buddy couldn't help but smile at his dearest companion's frantic display of vanity. He sat up and took Chase's hands in his own, eliciting a pout from the previously floundering boy.
"No, it's nothing like that. I just noticed that your hair is growing in the wrong color. It's brown."
Chase stared at him for a long moment before sighing dramatically and pushing them both back down onto the bed. "Jeez, Buddy, you scared the crap outta me! I thought you knew I dyed my hair."
"…Died?" Buddy asked with trepidation. Surely not, he reasoned. How does one 'kill' hair?
"Pssh, this blonde is anything but natural, dude," Chase laughed into Buddy's chest. "Though it is nice to hear that you couldn't tell. Makes me kinda bummed that I can't touch it up, so thank you and also curse you."
And although Buddy had absolutely no idea what Chase was talking about, he seemed genuinely upset that he couldn't 'touch it up' whatever that meant. So Buddy did the only thing he knows how, and asked a stupid question.
"Why not?"
"Why not what?" Chase asked, snuggling further into Buddy's cloak that he had commandeered as a makeshift blanket, because of course neither of them could be bothered to use the actual blanket that was on the bed.
"Er… 'touch it?' Like you said? It sounds like you want to."
Chase sighed, the motion pressing their chests impossibly closer together, making Buddy's stomach flip. "I kinda just don't have any money to spare right now. I've been using it all on books."
Oh.
Buddy had a pretty good inkling as to why Chase said it in such a forlorn way, but one stupid question deserves another, and there's no rock bottom solid enough that Buddy can't dig himself an even deeper hole.
"For… for y-your mother?"
"…Yeah."
It came out as barely more than a whisper, but the word struck Buddy like a ravenous lightning bolt of guilt all the same.
He was stealing from Chase. There was no denying it. No getting around that one simple fact that Chase's mother was ill and Buddy was the reason she couldn't be healed.
He could stop… he could just stop coming into books with him. That would work. It would let Chase keep all of his rightfully earned narratonin.
…But Buddy would never see him again. Not unless he told Chase the truth about what he really is. A thief and a liar.
A key.
He could make it right, but if he did… they'd never be together. And Buddy is a selfish, selfish man. A liar, a thief, a villain, a key, and a deeply, deeply selfish man.
Buddy took in a shaky breath, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. Just start small, he told himself, hoping that Chase couldn't feel the pounding deep within his chest.
"I… I n-never knew my– my parents," he admitted. Buddy held his breath, waiting for a response; something, no, anything to tell him to just shut up and go back to being the impervious villainess who had not a care in the world but serving her own self interests.
But nothing came. Chase seemed to be waiting for something more, but what else did he have to give? So much for starting small.
Buddy forced himself to breathe deeply as he thought back to his youth, where his earliest memory was that of being quite literally picked up off the street by a group of paper boys. He couldn't have been older than the child Chase brought with him sometimes, but he had no way of knowing for sure. She seemed as though she had more intelligence than the whole lot of them— a far cry from the sniffling, starving, weak boy Buddy had been back then.
They'd probably— no, definitely— saved his life. He couldn't recall how he'd ended up in that alley, or why they'd been passing through, or why they even bothered to take him in, but he could remember crying into one of the boy's shoulder as they carried him off, wetting the tattered fabric and smearing it with more dirt and grime than he cared to admit.
That was when he'd gotten his first name, right? Before he was Buddy, and even before he was Nox, he was little Oliver. He wouldn't find out until years later, but as it turned out, they'd named him Oliver after that godforsaken book because he'd apparently had a twisted ankle when they found him. Buddy had no recollection of a twisted ankle, and to this day he'd tell you that they had probably made it up as an excuse just to give him that name so they could tease him whenever he asked for food. Everyone had found it simply hilarious, but 'little Oliver' had pouted for days upon the revelation. He didn't even like Oliver Twist. It was insulting.
But even so, he'd loved them. In the way only a child who'd never had a family could.
He'd spent most of his time with… with, uhm… James and Arthur, right? Or maybe Thomas? …Paul? The names all blended together, and Buddy realized with a sickening mix of shame and horror that he couldn't recall any of their faces. The harder he tried to picture them, the more their features faded away, like watercolors running into oblivion, so diluted they would hardly be fit to prime the canvas.
Chase gently caressed his face, wiping away a stray tear.
Buddy startled, sitting up as best he could with Chase still half straddling him.
When had he started crying? It was all so long ago, how could he still care so much after all this time? He couldn't even remember their faces, for god's sake.
Buddy lifted a shaky hand to his face, feeling the wetness that had accumulated on his cheek as if to confirm to himself that it was all real. His hand pulled away— wet, yes— but also with a dark gray tint to the water. Violet must have painted his eyes. He probably looked positively dreadful now, with the kohl smearing in streaks down his face.
"Hey, it's alright, you don't have to talk about it. I know it's hard," Chase assured him, shifting to sit beside Buddy on the plush bed, his weight causing them to dip towards each other, shoulders bumping as Chase laid a comforting hand on Buddy's back.
"I-it's not ha-hard, it's just… just d-difficult." How could he possibly expect to be truthful with Chase when every little detail about his past life would expose him as someone who doesn't belong in this new world?
"Buddy… that's literally the same thing."
"I like gray," he blurted out. A pathetic attempt to steer the conversation away from the sensitive topic he himself had brought up in the first place, but mercifully, Chase let him.
"Yeah?" Chase prodded, his voice soft.
"Yes," he confirmed, using his sleeve to wipe away the kohl stained tear streaks, face tilted away from Chase. He shouldn't have to see Buddy like this.
"Well… I like gray too!" Chase exclaimed, hand still rubbing gentle circles into Buddy's back.
"No you don't," Buddy scoffed. No one likes gray. Least of all Chase. He's too vibrant to love someone as dull as the color gray.
Chase had repeatedly turned his nose up at Buddy's so-called 'dreary' outfits, even going so far as to ask Buddy to tell Violet to bring back the 'ugly high collar vest thing,' since 'at least it had some color in it.'
Chase sniffed haughtily. "You don't know that! Gray could very well be my favorite color."
"But it isn't." Buddy rolled his eyes. "You told me yourself that blue is your favorite color."
"Alright, you got me," Chase admitted with a shrug, his hand reaching to turn Buddy's head to face him. "Blue is my favorite color," he said, gazing intently into Buddy's eyes, and… oh.
His favorite color is blue.
Buddy's breath caught in his throat.
Chase's eyes flicked down momentarily, and his tongue poked out, wetting his glossy pale pink lips before retreating back into his mouth. "Can I kiss you?" He whispered.
"Please," Buddy answered, eyes flickering closed as Chase closed the gap between them, slotting their mouths together in what could only be described as a perfect fit. Chase's lips tasted almost floral, the sweetness intoxicating as he sighed into the kiss, letting Chase shyly sweep his tongue against Buddy's bottom lip.
Chase is perfect. So perfect.
And Buddy is a deeply, deeply selfish man.