Work Text:
It is, of course, much easier to be cozy when you’re tiny.
When you’re tiny, things feel softer, and it is easier to curl into them. Bedsheets, warm towels, hoodies. Chicken-shaped oven mitts, if you are into that sort of thing. It is a new point of access to beds one would not normally think about—and every time Nox tries to point this notable distinction out to his family, they just shrug, because none of them have been anything but. But Nox knows—and as annoying as it is sometimes, to have to jump between furniture to access it or dart quickly out from underfoot, it is nice to have this new array of places to nap.
And he’s tired. He’s so tired. He tries not to talk about it too often because Silver will click her tongue and try to get him to talk about it, and because Deacon gets awkward and keeps rubbing the back of his neck and saying dumb things that start with “well at least”. But even if Nox does hide it from them, it doesn’t dispute the simple truth that he is tired . Since he has come to live with the Hollows, and he has come to know relaxation, he cannot help but indulge in it fully.
Fortunately, he has at his disposal a wide array of beds.
“Buddy, have you like… been up at all today?”
Nox yawns and stretches. He is nestled into something very soft and that weighs heavily along his shoulders and tucks around each side of his neck to be pinned under his chest. Warmth is a bit of a difficulty feeling to obtain when you are so small and made of metal, but he understands the patterns of it and can feel it in his chest. He doesn’t know if it is the true feeling or not, but it is enough for him.
He doesn’t respond at once to Chase’s voice. He moves one arm in front of his face and snuggles further into the soft red fabric. His legs are propped out behind him, comfortably irrelevant in the void of cloth.
“Buddy?” Nox can hear Chase walking, but he isn’t walking over to the bed, where Nox is. Instead, he’s walking across the room, and moving something—a blanket resting on the desk. Nox smiles quietly to himself as Chase checks under the blanket.
His voice wears confusion as he says again, “...Buddy?”
Nox hesitates, because he doesn’t want to scare Chase, considering he is so small and could become easily lost or stuck somewhere. So after a moment of indecision, pressing his lips together and his tongue to the roof of his mouth, he purses his lips and whistles one high note.
The sounds of Chase’s rustling search stop. Nox moves his head to the side slightly so he can look out at the room from between a piece of fabric. Hands on his hips, Chase has his head cocked, listening.
“Are you playing a trick on me?” he asks. “If you’re hiding in my dresser, Buddy, we’re gonna have a problem—” He doesn’t get very far towards it before he is stopped again by another whistle.
He swivels around.
“Dude,” he says, “if this is another one of your pranks—”
But he follows the sound loyally, and crouches down next to the bed. His hands are large enough to go fully around Nox’s body, as comfortable as any sleeping bag—Nox watches as they move along the bed, gently moving fabric and ever so softly shifting sheets. Chase is so careful now. He does not sit down anywhere on his bed without checking it first, and he doesn’t throw things around. His hands wear so much of his personality as they look; you are never too acquainted with someone’s hands, until you are so small. Nox watches the play of the light on his glittery nail polish, the marker streak on his index finger fading after a wash, the thin hair dotting his knuckles and the scale-like texture of his skin. Details he never would have been able to notice as a human.
He does miss things—he misses looking Chase in the eye and he misses how cute he looks when he’s shorter than him and how it feels to hug him and hold him, truly and fully. But they can do that in the books, still, and for that Nox is grateful—and being tiny isn’t so bad anyways, when you have someone as gentle as Chase around.
Chase is looking the other direction, frowning at some miscellaneous and irrelevant noise from outside of the window, when he reaches for the hoodie. Nox tenses his back and clings on as Chase lifts it, but being airborne means that the hoodie falls open, and Nox can’t hold on anymore. With a little intake of surprised breath, he falls a few inches onto the bed.
The tiny thump makes Chase looks around, and his eyes widen. “There you are!” he says, squatting down and resting his forearms on the edge of the bed, his chin on top of them. His head cocks, wide brown eyes staring at Nox. There is something both nervous and affectionate in his eyes as his cheek squishes against his arm. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry I dropped you.”
Nox sits up and rubs his eye with one fist—but far from winces of pain or comfort, the only thing that emerges from his mouth is a simple yawn.
Chase’s concern melts away into amusement. He snickers. “I think that answers my first question,” he says.
“I haven’t been in bed all day,” Nox protests, as Chase folds the precious Star Brigade hoodie neatly and places it on the section floor designated for strewn dirty laundry. “I transitioned to couch for a while.” He glances up at the roof, the door to the attic where his siblings sleep. “I think Silver and Violet are up there cutting paper still.”
Chase smiles. “Well, I’m glad at least they are being productive with their day,” he teases. His hand lifts, and one of his fingers moved towards Nox, who catches it instinctively in both hands before Chase can teasingly poke him in the chest. Nox wonders how it feels to have a tiny human clinging to the pad of your finger as he feels the ridges and patterns of Chase’s skin under his dulled, metallic own. Hard to feel things as a key, but Chase was always easier to feel, somehow. “Well, hey, listen,” Chase said. “I just wanted to come up and tell you that I’m going to head out for work in a minute, okay? Gotta keep up the income for books.” His mouth tenses in a self-congratulatory motion, and Nox can’t help but snicker.
“I applaud your commitment to bagging groceries,” he says. He moves Chase’s finger lower so that he can run his fingers along the smooth, slightly tacky nail polish of Chase’s nail. “But—” His eyebrows pull together as he realizes what this means. “Then you’ll be gone!”
“Well, yeah. I told you this this morning.” Chase’s head rolls even further on his neck, and he grins. “I bet you were half asleep.”
Nox pouts. “I was not.”
“Yeah, you were. I remember.” Chase pushes past Nox’s defenses and pokes him in the chest; Nox clings on so he isn’t knocked backwards into the soft sheets.
“Can I come?”
The question is a soft breath. Nox isn’t sure Chase has heard it as Chase removes the finger and stands, walking over to his dresser to find his work clothes. The answer comes a minute later—“I can’t stop you.”
Nox tilts his head.
“I want you to have the freedom to go where you want and do what you want,” Chase says. His eyes seem sad as he looks into the mirror. “And if that is what you choose… I will help you. But I’m not sure it’s safe for you to hang out at my work. My pockets aren’t too big in my work clothes, and I can’t wear anything else—and it’s bright in there, and loud, and there are lots of people. I’m not sure—”
“Chase,” Nox interrupts. “It’s okay.”
Chase turns around. He has thrown his work shirt on over the one he was already wearing, in the time allotted by his conversation. His lips are tensed worryingly. “But I don’t want—” he starts.
Nox shakes his head. “No,” he says, “it’s okay. I really only asked because I wanted to stay with you. But you’re right, there’s no real point in going, and it may be overwhelming and… exhausting…” He can’t help the heaviness to his eyelids as he says that. “You’ll be back soon, right?” he asks, and his voice is even smaller than it should be.
Chase hitches a grin back onto his face. “For sure!” he says eagerly. “Uh—I mean, it’s only one shift, I’m not helping close the whole store or anything like that. I’ll probably grab dinner on the way home, but uh—I’ll be back in time to… go to bed.”
It’s an arbitrary phrasing because he can go to bed anytime, but Nox knows what he means. On the rare nights that Chase gets home too late from work, he is exhausted and falls straight into bed with the lights off. Nox doesn’t mind that he is getting rest, of course, but it means they miss one of Nox’s favorite parts of the day—a part that today, it seems, Chase will be free for.
“Deacon’s here,” Chase adds, on his way out the door. “If you need anything, you can—”
“I know,” Nox says. He sits down and scoots back, grabbing the thin top sheet—which feels like a cozy wool blanket—and wrapping it around his shoulders. “I’ll probably go up and help Silver and Vi with their artwork soon, anyways. Violet wanted my help.”
Chase’s smile warms, if that is possible. “I’m glad,” he says softly. “Well—have a good time with that, alright? I’ll see you tonight.”
The door snicks closed, leaving Nox alone with the midday light. He looks up at the ceiling—Prunella, the child, made an elaborate pulley system to allow the keys to let themselves in and out of the tower of their own free will. He feels sleepy in the sunshine, though, and anyways Violet hasn’t called for him yet…
His eyes close of their own accord, and Nox allows them to, falling sideways onto the mattress and curling around the blanket.
When Chase gets home, the sun is setting and the ceiling is dark. Nox did go to help Violet and Silver like he promised, but they have been done with that for a while, and Nox has instead channeled every atom of his existence into what he is doing now—waiting for Chase to come home.
He is sitting on the nightstand, legs crossed, facing the door. He feels a little like a dog waiting on its owner. He doesn’t really like feeling like that; it feels infantilizing, and he has always been more of a cat, anyways. He hates how tiny his mind starts to feel he is when he is so small. Like a prop or a decoration or a pet. Like a waiting dog. He doesn’t like that—it’s just that he doesn’t mind being lazy, considering he’s had so little time to do it, and he most certainly doesn’t mind spending time with Chase. Spending Chase is nice because… well. It reminds him that he is a person.
Chase is good at that.
Stupid idiot, Nox thinks, propping his cheek on his shoulder (in the back of his mind resenting the coldness and hardness to his own body) and fixating the door with a stare, like looking at it hard enough will make it open. It is an ironic thing because it actually seems to work; coincidence has it that a moment later, Chase comes through the door, smiling and looking behind him.
“Yeah, promise,” he is saying. He concludes the conversation with his grandfather and then turns, falling back on his door to close it. His eyes watch Nox from the other side of the room, glittering and excited. “Hi,” he breathes.
“Hi,” Nox says softly.
Chase unslumps from the door and goes over to his desk, pulling his work shirt up and over his head. Nox averts his gaze, grateful he can’t blush—his cheeks would be searing if he were human, watching the way the shirt pulls up the one beneath it, exposing Chase’s stomach for the briefest of moments. Then Chase kicks off both shoes, not really minding where they go, and comes over to the nightstand, sitting down on the bed next to it and making it wheeze.
“Hey, Buddy!” he says. Glowing; he is always glowing. “I’m gonna shower and do my face routine, and then we can cozy up and hang out. I don’t know if I’m up for a big show or anything, but we could watch silly videos.”
Nox smiles. Any of that is pleasant to him.
Chase gets up again and goes to the bathroom to shower. When he returns, the sky is fully dark, so he flips on a lightswitch—goes downstairs to exchange proper goodnights with his family, and then returns.
“Okay, here,” he says. He picks up his old laptop from his desk and jumps onto the bed, scootching back against the headboard and picking up a blanket. “Um—you all good?”
“I’m fine,” Nox says. He jumps from the nightstand to the bed and then climbs up the headrest, so that he can sit next to Chase’s face. Chase laughs and pulls up a video platform to watch meaningless videos on.
This is Nox’s favorite part of the day. A precious hour or so where they can sit back and simply rest together, unbothered by the world. It feels a bit like being in books, but with none of the stakes or the responsibilities.
His head lolls sideways on his shoulder of its own accord. He jumps a little.
He thinks Chase is going to mock him for falling asleep again, but Chase just tilts his head in mild concern to look at Nox and asks, “You’re uncomfortable?”
Nox blinks. It is uncomfortable sitting up here.
Chase grins, and Nox knows exactly what it means.
Shoulders and hands are the most stable places to sit on a human, but when the human isn’t moving, the top of the head isn’t so bad either. Chase’s hair is long but stays on the top of his head, and Nox is able to wind his hands in it; it tickles his face as he tries to get uncomfortable. Chase laughs a little, ticklish, as Nox rolls over onto his stomach and buries his chin in Chase’s hair, both hands wound in it.
“It’s like Ratatouille,” Chase says. Nox has no idea what that means.
He can smell Chase’s Malibu shampoo.
“I’m glad I blow-dried it,” Chase comments, amused, and then presses play on the video. It’s a compilation of several, much shorter ones—Chase occasionally laughs softly or points something out. Other times, a relaxed sigh eases past his lips as Nox plays with his hair.
“Us,” Chase declares at one point, pressing his finger to the keyboard to pause the video. Nox raises an eyebrow, unamused. It is a picture of a person holding a spoon.
“Wow,” he says. Then he pulls Chase’s hair, making him yelp.
A few videos go by.
“Us,” Nox says pointedly, at a video of a hamster biting a thumb. Chase laughs, and Nox can feel him laughing.
The night seems to wear on, and the light seems to get dimmer. After a while, Chase gets up, gently holding Buddy to make sure he doesn’t fall—seems impossibly, Buddy is so tightly curled into his locks—and turns off the lights. Then he sets the laptop down and gets back into bed.
“S’nice having you so close,” Chase mumbles.
Nox allows himself a shy smile and gently vacates Chase’s hair, making sure not to pull on it too hard, and instead curls into the spot between Chase’s ear and his shoulder, made possible by the fact that Chase is now lying down. It is warm here, soft and comfortable, and he can feel Chase’s pulse underneath his body.
It’s tangible.
It feels real.
Chase sighs again, in a content manner, and Nox can feel it through his body. “It’s nice for me too,” Nox says quietly, shyly.
A very moments silence goes past, then—
“Can you do that… thing again?”
Nox opens his eyes. He was almost sleeping. Not that he minds being interrupted. “Hm?” he asks, shifting to cock his head.
“The…” Chase wavers for a word, then nods his chin down to meet his chest, a little embarrassed. “When you were playing with my hair,” he says softly.
Nox is frozen for a few moments.
Chase wants him to do something for him.
Then he smiles, because a million times he would do that. He reaches out, snags a few strands, and simply feels them in his hands for a while—combing his fingers through the hair, smoothing it, feeling how soft it is. He wishes he knew how to braid or do hair, but of course he never had any reason to learn. Chase groans softly, though, tilting his head backwards a little so Nox can reach better, and Nox knows he is doing something helpful.
It is nice to be helpful.
So frequently now, Nox has felt as if he is just waiting on hospitality and hands.
But here in the dark, and the softness, and the silence… they are the equals they always should be, the equals they are inside of their mind.
Nobody bigger or smaller.
Everything perfectly fitting, where it is meant to be.