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Claire's farmhouse was the complete opposite of the mine. She and Gray had spent the morning scuffling through the winter caves, breathing cold, stale air and running stiffly gloved hands along rough veins of ore in search of quality material. The sound of crashing laughter and hammers had echoed through the damp and dark as they had competed against the roaring waterfall to be the loudest sound in Mineral Town.
But Claire's living room was comfortably silent except for a burning fireplace. The fire that had long since warmed the cold that had seeped into them throughout the morning. It cast a warm light on the couple sunk deep into the cushions of a shabby sofa. Claire was nestled against Gray's chest, her glazed eyes looking through a library copy of Aaron Changes that she had held open on the same page for several minutes. Gray's arms were around her, but he peered over her head as his eyes swiftly shifted across the dog-eared pages of one of his favorite paperbacks. He had read it so often the cover sported white cracks from the number of times he had bent it back—not that it meant he treated it any gentler. The sound of his turning pages periodically joined the crackling of the fire.
Soreness was already beginning to set in Claire's muscles, but her work from the morning was not nearly as tiring as holding her eyelids open to reread the same sentence that had stumped her for an embarrassingly long time. No matter what she did, her mind was outright refusing to string the text together into something meaningful. But she was going to get past this sentence! At least, that's what she kept telling herself. It would just be after she closed her eyes for a bit…
Gray felt Claire's body relaxing heavily into him as her muscles slowly went slack. He tore his eyes from the nearly memorized climax of his novel, and his lips stretched into a bemused smile as he watched Claire's grip on her book steadily loosen. It wavered in her hand, desperately trying to cling to her but helpless without her typically trusted support. It finally succumbed to gravity, and the cover, out for revenge for Claire's betrayal, pinched her thumb before falling against Gray.
Claire's eyelids flew open, and her whole body tensed when she jolted from her half-sleep. She immediately flipped the book open and attempted to refocus on the same sentence with rapidly blinking eyes. She thought her snoozing had gone unnoticed until quiet laughter rocked Gray's abdomen and lightly shook her from her misguided hope.
Her heartbeat sped up as she stared up at him, partly from embarrassment and partly because seeing him so close right after waking always made her heartbeat pound harder than usual.
"Getting sleepy?" he asked.
"It's your fault," she accused as a flush crept across her cheeks. "You're too comfortable."
Gray shrugged and returned his eyes to his book. "So get off me."
Despite his blunt suggestion, Claire felt his arms wrap tighter around her.
"No way," she smiled, and Gray was quietly relieved. She was a pretty decent blanket, after all.
"Take a break then."
He had noticed how hard she had worked in the mine that morning, doing her best to keep up with him despite her relative lack of experience. He was surprised she hadn't conked out immediately—that's what he always used to do when he first started, much to Saibara's disappointment.
"No, I gotta finish the book today, and it's already—" she flipped to the card tucked in first few pages, "—four days overdue?" A groan escaped her lips. "I could've sworn it was just three."
Gray lifted a single eyebrow, his eyes still held on his book. Just three?
"Either way, I told myself I'd finish it today," Claire concluded, and her lips pressed together as she fixed her gaze on the problem sentence once again.
"Why bother reading it at all? Why not just watch the show?"
"Because I told myself I'd read it first."
"Maybe you should quit telling yourself what to do so much."
His words sparked an idea in her mind just as the fire let out a loud crack.
"You're right," she said, a glint in her eye as she looked up at him. "I should tell you what to do instead—read it to me."
"What?" Gray finally turned to her. She wasn't serious, was she?
"Just for a little bit while I rest my eyes."
She stared back up at him, her blues eyes rounded and wide into the perfected puppy-eyed look they both knew always made him give in to her. He knew he'd read the dictionary to her if she looked at him like that when she asked. Still, she didn't need to know just how easily persuaded he was.
"Your eyes can't be that tired if you're giving me the look," he dismissed.
"They really are! Come on!"
Gray released an exaggerated sigh as he dropped his book off the side of the sofa. "Just for a little bit."
Claire let out a small cheer.
"Why are you so excited?"
"I don't know, I just am!" she giggled, handed him the book, and pointed out the sentence she left off on.
"Okay, here we go…" Gray said before trying to clear the vulnerable feeling of being a fourth grader called on to read to the class out of his throat.
"Reading? I wonder if Erin'll be OK? She's the kind of person who falls asleep at the sight of a thick book." Gray paused and smirked. "Huh, this Erin person kinda sounds like you."
"Hey, I didn't ask for the commentary!" Claire laughed.
"That's part of the experience," he said before resuming the story. "Erin, shall we go to the library? Jea—"
"Wait, who said that? Aaron or Erin?"
"Uh…" he skimmed the pages for context. "Ah! Erin-with-an-E in Aaron-with-an-A's body."
Gray watched her frown.
"It's hard to follow who is who just by listening, especially since everyone sounds the same…" she murmured.
Gray knew he was in trouble when her eyes gleamed again, this time even brighter. He was shaking his head before she asked the inevitable question.
"Will you do the voices?"
"No," he flatly refused.
"But how else will I follow along?"
"By reading it yourself."
"Gray!"
"Voices are going too far."
"Please…?" she said, shamelessly looking up at him again.
It was pointless trying to pretend—she knew exactly how easily persuaded he was.
Gray groaned and ran a hand through his hair, searching for the cap he left hanging by the door.
"Agh, fine," he gave in. He opened his mouth and held his throat tight, almost letting out a squeak before he caught Claire staring expectantly.
"You're supposed to be resting your eyes!" he griped, his face heating.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she grinned and closed her eyes, loving how flustered he was getting over something so silly.
Claire listened as Gray sharply inhaled and repeated the dialogue, this time his voice sounding how Claire would imagine a tea kettle going through puberty would sound like. A bark of laughter escaped her, and Gray glowered down at her.
"S-Sorry! Sorry! I swear I won't—I won't laugh again!" Claire squealed, her own voice a ridiculous falsetto between laughs that made Gray grin back and reluctantly chuckle with her. "But why are you making his voice so high?!"
"His voice?" Gray began to study the words carefully. The book was hard to follow, especially since he jumped in towards the end. "I thought Aaron was the girl?"
"Well, he's the boy in the girl's body."
"Yeah, so Aaron would sound like Erin, and Erin would sound like Aaron."
"…Um, what?"
Gray let out an exasperated huff. "Do you want me to do the voices or not?"
"Yes! Yes!" She had to hear that voice again. "Please continue," she said, straining to sound calm and level as she hid a smile against his chest.
Gray continued reading aloud, and Claire continued to smother her laughter against him anytime he adopted the comically high voice. He occasionally stopped to add his thoughts ("Are you really reading a story about someone reading a book?"), often turning into another round of banter and teasing. Eventually, the story ran aground a long descriptive passage. Claire rubbed her cheek against Gray's fleece shirt, feeling as his rich voice softly rumbled against her and laid over his deeper, thrumming heartbeat. She wanted to concentrate on his words, but the sound of him was far too soothing to focus on anything other than how comforting he was. But he didn't need to know that.
Even though he missed the first three-quarters of the plot and frequently mixed-up the characters, Gray soon found himself engrossed by the book. His interjections became few and far between as the story steadily progressed, and he got sucked into the book the same way he always did. As new characters (well, new to him) appeared, he was secretly excited to try new voices for them in a way he hadn't done since he was a kid. With time, he effortlessly switched between voices until his storytelling was natural, dynamic, and flowing. It was a performance even Carter would be jealous of, he decided, and maybe he had a future in acting he hadn't considered before. He nearly forgot about his audience as he got lost in the sound of his own voice and mishaps between the two protagonists.
"She sure is rearing to go even though she just woke up!" Gray read before he threw a flirtatious grin at Claire. "Ha, Erin really does sound like you."
His smile went slack when he realized Claire dozed open-mouthed on his chest, blissfully unaware of anything he had read for the past half hour.
He blankly stared at her until the corner of his mouth began to twitch.
Are you kidding?! he internally yelled as his mouth cracked into a hard smile. The nerve of this girl!
He was half-tempted to shake her awake just to scold her, but the way her features softened with sleep, the way her fingers loosely held to his shirt, the way her back slightly raised with each easy breath—all of it made it impossible to disturb her. Instead, he gently brushed her hair away from her mouth and faintly hoped she wouldn't drool on him too much. He knew exactly how comforting he was.
She really does need the rest…
Gray let out a sigh, flipped to the first page of Aaron Changes, and began to silently read from the beginning. But the morning's exertion began to sink into him, and Claire's body was so comfortably warm and damn, the book really was boring without someone as cool as him doing the voices.
Careful not to wake her, Gray carefully shut the book and let it fall against the area rug with a muted thump. He yanked at the throw blanket folded over the back of the sofa and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his clumsy movements hadn't jostled her awake. With the last of his fading energy, he awkwardly draped the blanket over them before closing his eyes and settling back for a nap.
Claire listened as his breaths slowed and deepened with sleep. All his rustling woke her up, but she decided he didn't need to know that before she drifted back to sleep.