Chapter Text
The mornings in his brand-new place had something disconcerting, as if the day dressed up differently every time Nox opened his eyes.
They were strange.
Strange yet somehow, full of hope.
Full of determination
They always presented something diverse upon waking up.
Novel scents floated in the air… freshly cut wood, warm coffee…
And all of these brand new fragrances were mixed with sounds that hadn’t existed in his world before, a world that had been so small, so tiny and so dark… light footsteps, a distant laugh, the whisper of curtains brushed by the breeze were some of them.
But, above all, what Nox found most strange was having that golden hair so close to his own.
Chase.
The way the sun’s rays tangled in those locks puzzled him more than any other riddle.
Certainly, Violet’s persistent stares when he approached the human boy no longer bothered him so much; in truth, nothing bothered him too much. Not after finding a true home.
And…After all… the brown eyes of that boy were enough to paint a smile on his face, a complete fool’s smile, on his metallic visage. He was so dumb for his idiot.
Some time had passed since they had been taken out of the Library.
They still didn’t quite feel truly safe, but the sunlight on Nox’s cold skin and the laughter of his new companion and former human enemy, a warm and imperfect laugh, gave him a peace he never thought possible.
And, above all, he still couldn’t believe how simple,truly how simple, it had been to get his new little nest of peace and quiet.
It had been quick and, in his opinion, too efficient. Not that he was complaining.
NO WAY.
It had happened two or three days after arriving at the Hollow´s House.
“Okay” Chase said in a low voice, glancing sideways while Violet had been decorating her little house, her new palace.
“I know Violet has moved in near Silver… but I thought that, since you’re not a big fan of closed-in spaces… maybe you’d prefer a more open room.”
Nox already had one eyebrow raised, curious. Chase had fidgeted, and cleared his throat, like he always did when nervous. The little metal man sure was curious.
“Well… I was thinking of my room.”
Nox didn’t let a second pass.
“Yes!”
“Really? Yes, really?” Chase whispered, eyes shining as if a little spark of hope had lit him from within.
Nox had placed a hand on his chest and, with that distant look he often wore, had tried to appear calm. Though, he was failing, in chase´s eyes.
“I… I would like that, yes… as long as you don’t crush me, of course.”
“Hey!”
After the blonde boy shouted, Violet had raised an eyebrow. The two of them had frozen, like kids caught doing something they shouldn’t, and looked away to opposite directions. When she had returned to her task, Chase was exhaling slowly, in and out, and, with a soft gaze looked again at the metal young lad (not really that young), his expression brushing something… close to sadness.
“I’m not dumb!”
“Really?” Nox said with a crooked smile. “And you say that after almost losing the keychain I gave you?”
The joke had been meant to ease the moment, but a faint shadow crossed Chase’s face. Nox, noticing it, softened his face, his tone a bit warmer than before.
“Don’t worry. I know you’d do anything to protect me, Chase.”
The blond’s eyes had widened a bit, and the tender flash that had passed through his gaze drew a half-smile on Nox’s face, before Chase murmured:
“Of course I would.”
Later, when the night had settled over the house and the quiet had returned, it felt as though something small but certain had changed between them. After that exchange of glances, they had agreed that Nox would sleep in Chase’s room. (And no, of course it had nothing to do with the fact that both were completely fascinated with each other. Not at all.)
The news produced immediate reactions.
Deacon rolled his eyes, though a smile escaped him.
Violet frowned with theatrical disapproval.
Silver applauded, beaming. Her smile was almost glowing.
Goldie congratulated them on their “great companionship.”
Bronze winked at Deacon and, after smiling somewhat mischievously at the couple, hid in his chicken-glove.
And Prunella, with perfect timing, let slip:
“So, are you two roommates now?”
To which Deacon, unable to help himself, murmured:
“And they were roommates.”
That damn Freckles.
Chase let out a nervous laugh.
“Dorkin! Don’t make it so obvious that you want—”
A pause. Chase covered his mouth with his hands.
Freckles, cheeky, replied:
“Well,well, so have you learned to resist the urge? of projecting, I mean.”
The look he got in return could have cut him in half.
From then on, living together was a constant ascent, a mountain of small but great discoveries.
The mornings were filled with early chats, with the slow murmur of Chase stretching and those tiny mouth noises he always made when he’d overslept.
Nox, who had always hated the dense, empty silence that haunted him from within, discovered that that silence no longer existed.
It couldn’t exist… and even if there were silence, the noise of his thoughts, the noise of his feelings wouldn’t leave him alone.
One morning he sat up slowly and watched Chase sleep.
The sun came through the window, and the specks of dust floated in the air like tiny constellations; downstairs came the smell of coffee and chocolate, and the muffled voices of the others formed a barely perceptible backdrop.
But none of that mattered much. The metal boy looked over Chase’s features: the curve of his nose, the eyelids that, for a strange need, made him want to hug them when closed, his cheeks and his long lashes that cast fine shadows over the sunlike boy´s face.
And, of course, his soft blond mane.
Seeing that Chase remained asleep and… gathering a bit of courage, Nox gave a small hop on the bed and moved closer to this angel’s drowsy face.
With all the delicacy he could manage, he placed his cold palm against Chase’s cheek and stroked beneath his eye.
For a few seconds the world seemed to stop.
The human warmth against his metallic skin felt almost sacred. He moved a little closer, until he felt Chase’s warm breath brush his lips. When they parted slightly, he saw him smile.
A nonexistent heartbeat seemed to pause in his chest.
Chase opened his eyes slowly, still half in a dream, and in a dawn-rough voice whispered:
“…Good morning.”
“G-good morning… did you sleep well?”
“We feeling brave this morning, huh, Buddy?”
“Brave?” Nox feigned innocence. “Sure… but come on, jumping off the nightstand wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“I wasn’t talking about that,” Chase replied, half-smiling.
Oh, my God…
“You’re right,” Nox said with apparent mischief, trying to disguise what had just happened. “Waking up and seeing your silly face so close… that was the real act of bravery on my part.”
Chase laughed with that warm laugh that filled the gaps in his heart. He stretched, lay back, and, without thinking, wrapped an arm around Nox; the pads of his fingers brushed the metal back with endless tenderness.
Chase seemed completely at ease with the closeness.
Nox stood still for a moment, surprised.
“You know? Next week is—”
“Yes?”
“My birthday.”
Nox almost lost his words; he jumped off the bed by reflex.
“What?? Your birthday?”
“Yeah,” Chase laughed. “Which meaaans it’s been almost a year since the Snow White book.”
Nox nodded slowly.
“Oh. You’re right, it has been a year.”
The blond looked at him sweetly before letting himself fall back onto the pillow, his gaze lost in the ceiling.
“The truth is… I was really scared, you know?” he whispered.
Nox fell silent, focusing on Chase’s lashes and the slight frown that had formed on his face.
“When I thought something had happened to you… that Ex Libris had punished you or…something worse”
Nox felt a small knot in his chest.
“It hurt because I wanted to spend my birthday with you… but I was also terrified with worry.”
“You… wanted to spend your birthday with me?”
Chase turned again, gently.
“Well, if you ask me, noooo, no I wouldn’t have liked that.”
“Okay,” Nox giggled.
“Are you dumb, Buddy? Together, with you, is my favorite place to be“
Nox blushed fiercely “I-i thought that, back then, we weren’t that close…at least to you.”
“What? Really?” Chase grunted. “How could we not be close, especially after…”
A pause.
“Um, after almost dying, of course,” the brown-eyed boy murmured.
They were quiet for a moment; Chase’s complexion was slightly flushed and warm.
“I think…” Chase continued, “Since that moment, I lost some of the fear of expressing myself.”
“Not that you had a lot of fear from the start,” Nox replied with a half-smile.
“Right. I didn't have that much either, haha… I’ve never been able to keep things to myself… you know.”
“Neither keep things to yourself nor keep quiet in general.”
“Ohh, shut up… I know you love it.”
Nox put his hand to the back of his neck.
“I never said otherwise,” he murmured barely audibly. Then he looked at Chase, a bit shy.
“Ahem, but what are you getting at, Chase?”
“That I’m not going to hold back. Not anymore. And… I know that with meeting each other and settling into the house it’s not like a lot of time’s passed, but I… I’m not going to limit myself. Not at all.”
“Were you holding back?”
A smile from Chase “Just a bit”
Nox thought quickly about what those words implied.
“So, do you understand, Buddy?”
He didn’t answer; he simply watched him, feeling how the air seemed to thicken, as if his +own nonexistent “breathing” became more noticeable in his mind. Then Chase leaned slowly toward him. His nose hovered inches away; his thumb grazed the metal back.
“Do you… understand, Nox?” he repeated, in a whisper.
Almost trance-like, they had moved closer, without hurry. Nox perceived the uneven rhythm of Chase’s breathing. An erratic but beautiful sound.
And it certainly was.
The blond’s cheeks burned with a heat that wasn’t only blood; it was light lodging beneath the skin, a fragile half-smile like a leaf about to fall. Each exhale brought a small tremor, as if the very air wanted to say what words still could not.
Chase couldn’t help but notice the smile forming on Nox’s face. It was a slight, inadvertent, pure curve, a gesture made without thinking, shy and honest.
“Sometimes, you turn me inside out, Chase and…” He murmured.
They stayed like that for a few seconds, until Nox took a small step forward.
At that moment, Deacon burst into the room with energy. The sentence he was about to say got stuck in his throat when he looked toward the bed: Chase lay sprawled, and Nox remained standing, a whisper away from his lips. Deacon let out an exasperated huff.
“Oh god, why is it always me?”
“You never learn,” Bronze said from his shoulder, with a small smile. “Knock before you enter…”
“Yeah,” Deacon sighed. Nox took two steps back and Chase smiled awkwardly. “Yeah, you’re totally right.”
Deacon closed the door gently. Chase hid under the blankets.
“Dorkiiiing…” Chase murmured under his fortress. Then he poked his head out.
They looked at each other in silence.
“…Shall we go have breakfast?” Nox whispered.
“Yeah.” Chase sat up. “But I’m not done with you, okay?”
And before Nox could say anything else, Chase had taken off his pajama shirt and now, getting dressed, he whispered, barely audible:
“Damn it, Dorkin…”