Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He hated to admit it, but he and Violet didn't do much, outside of the book.

The keys weren't allowed to transform or move around freely under Ex Libris' control, so this was the most time Nox had spent with Violet, ever, and he'd learned... a lot. Like her obsession with mirrors, or her tendency to have dramatic monologues that went on for hours at a time.

And then there were other things, learned from a lack of interaction.

Violet was perfectly fine by herself. She got lonely, all of them did, under Ex Libris. But it turned out that Violet enjoyed silent company. She even seemed to like distant company. It wasn’t a big deal to her, spending the whole day on different shelves.

She preferred looking at herself in the mirror to talking, and there was only so much to do in the staff room of a library besides talking, so they were silent a lot. Like, a lot. Which left him a lot of time to think, and his thoughts weren’t particularly kind.

The only times when he could really let go of his thoughts and live were… in the book. With Chase.

It made his—admittedly metallic—skin crawl with guilt to think he looked forward to going in a book and bickering with Chase, but he did, compared to sitting in silence while Violet examined her reflection for the hundredth time. It was either that or arguing, which they didn’t do often but still happened sometimes. It wasn't that Nox and Violet didn't love each other, they did, they were siblings, it was impossible not to. He and Violet just didn't have much in common.

Beside the fact that they shared the same goal.

…Yeah. They shared the same goal.

He just really liked the process of achieving that goal. Sue him for wanting to make the experience better by having a little light-hearted banter with the enemy.

This time however, when the book glowed, signaling the heroine key being used… Nox didn't want to go. It was the day after that disaster of a book that had left Violet feeling like she'd been turned inside out, and Nox feeling the same way… just in a good way. Which was to say that after that certain book, if his body hadn’t been made of metal, his lips would have been tingling.

The last thing he wanted to do was talk to Chase. How does one talk after sharing a kiss? How does a key talk to a human after sharing a kiss?

Chase had been into it. Nox wasn't oblivious, he knew how Chase looked at him. It wasn't revulsion, and if it was, then Chase had a funny way of showing it.

So the attraction was there. Which was useless to Nox because for all Chase knew, he'd kissed Buddy, not Nox. Whoever Chase thought ‘Buddy’ was, Nox was sure he didn’t think of a literal key made out of metal.

And Nox could go into books all he wanted, and he could keep on pretending he was this ‘Buddy’. It was fun, it was great, actually, it was like being a human again. But the feeling after the book, he didn’t like that. He didn’t like being six inches, he didn’t like his hair not being actual hair, and he didn’t like being a goddamn key. And he knew Chase wouldn’t like that either.

Whatever attraction Chase felt… it was to Buddy. Not Nox.

So he was sulking. And eating the chocolate that Chase had given him. Because he was an asshole for making Nox fall in love with him, but he was a kind asshole, at least.

Violet was yelling at him—fair, he hadn’t said a word after the last book and he was refusing to go into the book now—and it was getting louder by the second, so he was genuinely wondering whether a key's throat could get sore or not (probably not, because Violet should have already lost her voice if that was the case.)

"--I've been helping you, going into books for you, using my time that could have been better spent elsewhere by the way, so that you can be a human again—which is far inferior to what you are now, at least now you serve a purpose—which is stupid enough on its own, but then this is how you repay me--"

if only she knew what had happened in that book. If only she knew he'd kissed Chase, and enjoyed it.

Nox pushed down a fresh wave of guilt with a piece of chocolate and slumped deeper into the book he was leaning against. He was on one of the highest shelves, somewhere Violet couldn't reach. But her words could, unfortunately.

She was probably about to go on a new rant about why he should stop sulking—he was already getting ready for it by grabbing another piece of chocolate from the duffel bag—when they heard a creaking sound, which froze the both of them.

The entire time they had resided here, not once had anyone checked in on the old junk they kept in the basement. It was there because nobody wanted to look at it. So why now...?

A woman's voice drifted downstairs, her tone bemused, "...James, you must be hearing things, there hasn't been a soul in this basement since '98, I'm sure..."

So Violet's voice had carried over to the other floors.

Soon the women's footsteps echoed in the old room, and Violet looked increasingly more terrified with every step. They hadn't considered what to do if someone was to find them, or where to hide, or anything. They didn't have a plan for this.

She didn’t have a plan for this. And Violet always had a plan.

Nox made a split-second decision and jumped down the top shelf. It could end badly. He was made out of metal but that didn't mean he couldn't be... misshaped. That was the thing about metal.

That was a possibility but his trust in his sister was bigger than the percentage of that happening. Violet, who was on the last to bottom shelf, grabbed onto his arm just before he hit the ground.

She tried to hang onto him but he pushed her away, running as fast as he could without making any noise to where the book was, and hurling himself at it until it fell in between two car instruction manuals.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Violet coming toward him, so he turned and met her in the middle. If the woman was to find them, they couldn't lead her right to the book. if they lost the book... then it was all over.

He grabbed her shoulder, pulling her behind a stack of books. It wasn’t the safest hiding place but it would do.

He looked into her panicked eyes, wondering just how many more times they would find themselves in a situation where those eyes would be present. Just how many more times they would have to fend for themselves against humans who were giants, compared to them. How many more times they were going to fear for their lives, or say their goodbyes because they weren’t sure if they were going to see each other ever again.

He tried to summarize all of that into the squeeze he gave Violet's shoulders and two hurried, anxious words, "Turn, now!"

He said those words just as the woman reached the last step and rounded the corner to where their bookshelf was.

Nice save.

What he hadn't accounted for was the sound their key forms made when they hit the ground after they transformed...

Lily hadn't expected to find anything when she came down to the basement, her coworker had a habit of hearing things from down there and she hadn't taken him seriously the past few times, so he'd practically pushed her to the door this time. Still, this library was pretty unsuspecting, nothing ever happened. There was probably nothing down here…

Well, except for two fancy looking keys that were behind a stack of old comic books for some reason. There was a lot of junk in the basement but these two... they just didn't exactly fit with the fashion magazines and the old TV. James agreed.

They looked like they belonged in some sort of collection, but had gotten... lost.

Chase flopped face-first onto his bed and pushed his head into the fluffy pillows. Deacon climbed down the attic ladder, looking unimpressed with this–admittedly quiet–- outburst.

“If I didn’t know any better, I'd think you actually miss him,” Deacon muttered, putting Bronze and Silver down on the nightstand. Goldie and Prunella hadn’t joined in on this particular story, since it was the one right after that absolutely horrifying reenactment of Cinderella and they’d all been a little too shaken. Prunella had decided to take it slow for once, considering she’d literally turned into soggy paper at the end.

Chase turned slowly to his side, “Deacon, I think you actually might be crazy. Just because you have a crush on a Buddy doesn't mean you should go all obsessive on him! Remember, he’s still the enemy no matter how well he kisses!”

Chase was absolutely correct, of course. Deacon really shouldn’t be so irresponsible. Buddy kissed Chase because they were gonna die otherwise. That’s all it was about. Saving him and the keys. Deacon was just being silly.

It was a one time thing… no matter how gently he cradled his face as he did so. No, that was just a thing he did with everyone he had to kiss in order to save from a nasty death. Although thinking about Buddy kissing anyone else just made him feel queasy…

“Excuse me?” Deacon asked faintly.

“Actually no,” he quickly composed himself, “I don’t wanna know.”

“I agree with deacon, it’s probably best to keep whatever this is to yourself.” Bronze muttered, sighing deeply, in a way that shouldn’t have been possible with his toothpick, but he made it work.

“I don’t miss him! I just don’t like the villains actually being mean. I’m sorry I don’t like getting chased—don’t you dare laugh—to my death by an actual deadly queen and her army of minions. I just don’t get it. Why… why would he avoid me?” Chase said the last part so quietly, he was surprised when Silver answered him.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say he’s necessarily avoiding you, Chase,” Silver said, looking very reasonable and every much of the adult that Chase wasn’t, “I know I’ve never met him, so this could just be incorrect, but from what you’ve told me, he seems to have a lot of things going on at the moment. He might just… be busy.”

“You’re right, Silver,” he sighed, rolling onto his back. “You’re absolutely right. He’s probably just busy.”

But she didn’t know about what had happened in that soggy mess of a book. She didn’t know he’d kissed Buddy, the—literal—villian in their story.

He was still feeling wrong throughout the day, and even cutting up pictures for Silver’s house or baking wasn’t enough to get his mind off things. He just couldn’t stop thinking about every word they’d spoken to each other in that damn book, and just what Buddy could have meant by it.

The whole situation made him feel stupid. He wanted to be friends with Buddy, he thought they were that way—but now… he wanted more. He’d wanted more for quite some time but it hadn’t really hit him as hard as it had after the kiss. But feeling Buddy’s soft lips against his had ignited something inside him, had made the horror of the book melt into the background so all he could focus on was Buddy, Buddy, Buddy.

But that wasn’t even his name, was it? It was just what Chase called him. Because Chase knew nothing about him and from the way things were going, it was probably going to stay that way.
It was always two steps forward ten steps back with Buddy, wasn’t it?

What was Chase doing wrong? He couldn’t figure it out for the life of him. He’d been told he was a charmer, and he’d managed to befriend a lot of fairly quiet and private people in his life. So what was it with Buddy, why was he so rigid?

Was it just that Buddy is a tough nut to crack or was there something just wrong with him? He’d considered everything, except that. Maybe he should stop looking at this as Buddy’s fault, maybe… it was him all along.

Had he pushed too much, or not enough? Had he asked for too much trust too early, or not given enough? He’d thought they were finally fixing their rotten communication but Buddy hadn’t even showed up for this story—that had to mean something.

And that thought accompanied him all through dinner, saying goodnight to the keys, brushing his teeth, and where he was now, in bed, lying on his back with his hands crossed over his chest and desperately trying to go to sleep.

He was still trying to do that three hours later. It was midnight, his brain should have gotten the goddamn memo like, yesterday.

And staring at the Alastair posters he’d painstakingly stapled onto the ceiling didn’t help. He’d been—even after standing on the bed on his tipy-toes—too short to reach the ceiling so he had to jump with the stapler.

But even the thought of having had to go to the hospital to remove the staples from his cheek wasn’t enough to distract him from Buddy… and how he was totally avoiding him and hated him and was probably regretting ever kissing him and thinking about how he should have just let Chase die in there instead—

Chase uncrossed his hands—it was a little too corpse-like—and willed the last few thoughts to go away. It was unrealistic. He was lucky he had Silver, he’d be an absolute idiot without her reasonable suggestions. He should just… go to sleep and stop being paranoid. He’d feel better in the morning, after a good nights’ sleep.

Well, that was if he had the chance to get a good night’s sleep. Which he didn’t.

Right as he was drifting off to sleep, he was promptly startled awake by a thing hitting his bedroom window. He shot up in bed and was contemplating if it had been a dream or an exhausted hallucination when another tiny rock hit his window, followed by three more, which made him walk over to the window and cautiously peer down.

His eyes widened, and he hurriedly opened the window, bending down as far as he could without falling to his untimely demise,

“Prunella? What are you doing here?”

He didn’t have Prunella coming to his house at the very early hours of the morning on his bingo card, but maybe he should.

“Helping you, you ungrateful fool!” Prunella whisper-hissed, “I swear if I told you this in the morning instead of coming over immediately, you’d talk my ear off about wasting time!”

“What is it that you possibly can’t say in the morning…” Chase murmured, rubbing a hand over his eyes. Really, being friends with an eight year old was hard work…

“It’s about the keys. I found us two more.”

She had to be a sadist because there was a particularly smug glint in her eye at his reaction. To give her credit, he probably looked manic.

Because two more keys meant being two steps closer to getting his wish. To saving his mom. It was a chance at fixing his—and Bronze, Silver and Goldie’s—family. It meant everything.

“I’m coming down, give me five.”

“Tell me why you were snooping through your mom’s computer five hours past your bedtime?”

“That doesn’t concern you, now do you wanna know what I found or not?!”

“Geez kid, calm down,” Chase rubbed his temple, “I just know your mom’s going to grill me for this if she ever finds out.”

“You weren’t even in the house!”

“But I am your babysitter, that’s what she thinks. And you’ve shown to be quick in pointing at me over your each and every shortcoming if it gets you out of being grounded, so don’t blame me for not feeling very confident.”

“Whatever,” Prunella muttered, and snatched Chase’s phone out of his hand, “If I hadn’t snooped then we wouldn’t have…” she opened his facebook—he hadn’t touched that thing in years so he didn’t really care what she saw there, if there was even anything there to see—and typed something with a speed that was really not healthy for a child, “this.”

Chase squinted, the harsh light of the phone a stark contrast against the dark sky. From what he could make of the headline of the post, it was an ad for two keys. What really made him gasp wasn’t the headline though, it was the photo attached…

“Oh.”

Every kind of emotion went through him. Overwhelming joy—because this was what they’d been working towards for weeks. Astonishment—because how could something they’d been working towards for so long be given to them so easily? Was the universe playing a prank? Anticipation—because he could not wait for the morning to go pick those keys up.

And fear—because…

“Prunella, that has to be Violet,” he pointed at the purple key, “From what we’ve heard from Silver and the others. And if Violet is in the hands of… Lily, whatever that last name is, then…”

That's why Buddy didn’t come today. Buddy, without a key, means Buddy, without being able to go into books. And if he doesn’t get his key back, then he might never be able to come to a book ever again. And we’ll never see each other again and I’ll never be able to tell him how I feel and I’ll never find out if this is just a crush or an obsession or, or love—

“Then they might hurt him.” is what he said instead. Because that was the most important thing to say. And also because Prunella was eight.

“Who—Ex Libris?” Prunella tilted her head.

“Yes, because—because he lost a key! I think we’ve forgotten about this in the last few weeks but the literal reason he came into books with us was because he was trying to find our location to get Silver back! If he’s working under Ex Libris that means that’s the guy he has to answer back to… and how do you think he’ll react when he finds out he lost them a key?!”

Prunella looked away and swallowed. She was smart. She knew what Chase meant.

“We’ll have to get those keys,” Chase said, more to himself than Prunella, really, “Not just for my wish but also to figure out what Buddy’s situation is. He won’t like me asking about him to Violet, I don’t think, but with him losing her… he might be in big trouble.”

They were both silent for a few moments, trying to collect themselves. Prunella had only recently met Buddy but the idea of him in grave danger wasn’t something she was too keen on.

“Chase, I get all your points but… what’s that other key?”

Chase got around 30 minutes of sleep that night—and that number was reached by adding together all the times he managed to drift off, only to wake up in a panic. His mind was… all over the place.

The pressure was getting to him. He was often called a pretty easy-going person to be around, and he was kind of wishing he was that way right now, he could really use some easy-going energy; it felt like all his worries—about Buddy, about his mom, about a situation like that damn cinderella book happening again—they had all rolled into one giant rock and he was trying to keep it from running into him and shattering the last pieces of his sanity.

Going into storybooks for hours at a time was already messing with him enough; it wasn’t easy to spend a great deal of his day in what was basically an alternate dimension.

Chase wasn’t built for that level of intense, mind altering work… sometimes he forgot people in real life wouldn’t react to things he said like in the storybooks—that had made for some incredibly awkward situation where he had to explain why he’d said ‘dude, chill’ to Grandpa Ralph. That was an experience he never wanted to think about again.

The post had brought him two steps closer to saving his mom but… but it was at the expense of Buddy. And he cared about Buddy.

That seemed to be the general consensus of his thoughts. He could live with that.

He trudged down to breakfast at five—in the morning, you know, five AM—because that was the earliest he could reasonably get away with. Grandpa Ralph was of course awake, probably thinking about ways he could legally cause the most damage to Diane's life. He offered a hello and received a gruff “mornin’ Chase,” so that was good enough for him.

He’d thought of all the ways he could reasonably explain the situation—Prunella coming to his house at one AM, them talking in the back yard, him spiraling through the remaining hours of the night—to Deacon, and he was sure he’d landed on a perfectly well-adjusted way to tell him and answer all the questions he might have… but that was until Deacon actually sat next to him at the kitchen table and asked him why he looked like a drowned racoon.

“Prunella came over to the house at one AM and showed me a post she’d found on her mother’s computer on facebook which was an ad for two keys which look exactly like our keys and I’m sure one of them is Violet so we need to go over to the person who has those keys right now also Buddy might be in danger because he lost his key so we need to question Violet to see if she knows where he is so we can help him before Ex Libris finds out and does something to him, that’s assuming if he actually—mmph!”

He was forcibly shut up by Deacon shoving an apple into his mouth. He didn’t think his jaw could actually stretch enough to where an apple could comfortably fit—comfortable for the apple, not for him—but you learn something new everyday.

He was quite thankful, actually. If he’d gone on any longer he’d probably confess his feelings about Buddy, the kiss, and all the scenarios of them saving Buddy he’d imagined while trying to go to sleep last night.

“I need time to process all that,” Deacon muttered, rubbing his temple, “I think I only understood every other word. I got one thing though, this thing you blabbered on about is time-sensitive, so give me the time of eating that apple and I’ll be good to go. And don't choke on it! Take your time, goddamnit.”

Chase would have liked to inform the keys of what was going on—and ask what that other key was—before leaving but once Deacon had finished with his breakfast, he was even more anxious than Chase was to get to those keys before someone else did. They got dressed in under a minute, told something about a super important, life-changing event they needed to attend to Grandpa in order to get the car keys—which were notoriously hard to get, Grandpa Ralph did not joke about the car—and brought the engine to life before even checking where the address of the ad was.

“Chase.”

“Look Deacon I was kind of preoccupied—”

“Were you too preoccupied to look at the address or were you just an illiterate eighteen year old in denial? What if we checked the address and it was in Australia?”

“Fair point,” Chase muttered.

“It’s literally a 20 minute walk.” Deacon sighed, “I can’t believe it’s just the Sugar Springs library.”

“It’s where I found Silver, of course the keys are just hiding under our noses at this point.”

“And we were avoiding that place because we were worried Ex Libris was watching us to see if we came back…”

“Yeah.” Chase wasn’t sure he could take any more of things hiding under his nose. He could barely accept the fact that Bronze and Goldie had been so close without him even knowing, and this…

“Well, it’s out of our control. We can only get the keys, yeah?” Chase tried to sound encouraging. He couldn’t let Deacon know he was this close—the length of Silver, to be specific—to breaking down.

“And there’s really no choice, now that we have the car… we kinda have to take it.”

“Chase, it’s a 20 minute walk, do you want to ruin the environment and add to general traffic—”

“But I bet it’ll feel real cool, though.”

Deacon soon realised just how right Chase was. A joyride was very much needed, even if it was just to the library. He just wished Chase refrained from very loudly singing every lyric to Ed Sheeran's “Galway girl.” It was just disrespectful at this point.

Lily really wasn’t expecting people to show up for the keys the day after she’d made the post, but it wasn’t like she was complaining. They were actually two boys she’d seen in the library before! But they’d stop coming in for some reason. If the keys were what got them back into the library after so long, then that was just a net positive.

It was a brown haired, nervous looking guy named Deacon and a—no offense of course, it was just an observation—really rather short, blonde boy called Chase.

They asked if she was the writer of the post, and looked extremely relieved upon hearing her confirmation. She supposed she would have been too, if she found the key to something she was trying to unlock for so long.

They asked about the price, which was simply ludicrous. She wasn’t going to demand money from these two college-age looking boys, not for something that had previously belonged to them.

If it was anything other than keys, she would have doubted them, perhaps investigated if the keys actually belonged to them, but man, it was just keys. Who’d lie about having lost keys? It was useless if it didn’t have a lock to go along with it.

Lily handed over the keys, feeling a lot lighter for some reason.

James stopped complaining about weird noises coming from the basement after that day, and a rumor started circulating about possible ghosts living in the basement that had been connected to the keys, and who had moved out of the library along with those two boys.

Lily thought that was just ridiculous, of course. Ghosts? What was next, keys that could turn into people? Right. She’ll believe it once she sees it.

Chapter Text

Chase was absolutely stunned. Shocked. All the flabbers in his body had been ghasted. 

He only opened his palm once they were safely in the car, and he’d been clutching the Keys so tightly that an obvious imprint had been left on his skin. 

He stared down at the two Keys in his hand. Stumbling upon two more Keys—that had to beat some kind of record, right? People didn’t just get lucky like this. 

“Relax,” Deacon instructed, “You still look like a drowned racoon. We got the Keys, that’s huge, so don’t spoil the achievement by being all wide-eyed and disbelieving about it.” 

“But… What about Buddy?” Chase said, a little reluctantly. Deacon would probably just make fun of him, but… he needed to tell someone about this before he exploded. 

“What about him?” Deacon said, urging him to start the car, “C’mon, we should get going. I want to get Silver’s insight on this new Key as soon as possible so we know what we’re dealing with and you can stop worrying non-stop over—oh. You’re worried something’s happened to Buddy?” 

He struggled to keep up with Deacon’s fast-paced thought process, “Yeah, I mean, he didn’t come into a book yesterday, and we know he’s using the villainous Key, which is in our hands right now, so he’s without a Key…” 

Deacon looked conflicted. He almost always looked that way, but this time it was more serious; Deacon was actually taking him seriously. 

“I get where you’re coming from, I really do, but we can’t worry about him right now,” Deacon said, pushing the car Keys in for him, “Not when we know practically nothing. I’m sure Silver, Bronze and Goldie will have a lot to add to the conversation. Especially Silver, since she knows Violet best. So we should, you know, get going.” 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Chase muttered, pulling himself together and putting the car in reverse to drive out of their parking spot, “Silver first, everything else… later.” 

Prunella was waiting for them at home, of course. 

“I’m the one who showed you the post, and you don’t even bother to take me with you?!” She stomped her foot, apparently for added emphasis. “This is just awful.” 

“Prunella, I’m sure you were fast asleep at home.” Deacon tried to sooth her. 

Really, if it was acceptable for Chase to have cereal at five, Prunella wasn’t expected to wake up until nine. Her mom was probably wondering why she was going to the neighbor's house at seven in the morning… Well, another thing Chase would have to deal with. 

“Everything’s alright, Prunella, we got the Keys,” Chase said tiredly, “Do you wanna come up to the attic with us or not?” 

“I went there already, but Silver and Bronze were sleeping. Goldie was the only one awake, so I told him about the recent developments and I think he was too excited to keep quiet about it, so he should have woken everyone up at this point.” 

Chase did not wanna know what happened to the original chain of events when it was told through Goldie’s perspective of Prunella’s perspective, but it turned out to be pretty accurate when the three of them went up to the attic. 

The three Keyple were anxiously waiting for them, and Silver bombarded them with questions and demanded to see the Keys as soon as they arrived. It was unlike her, but Chase understood how stressful of a situation she was in so he handed over the Keys as soon as she asked, placing them on the ground gently so that everyone—regardless of height—could see them clearly.

“Oh my,” Silver said faintly, “That’s Violet! I wasn’t expecting to see her so soon, especially after I wrote that letter…” 

“And the other Key…?” Deacon asked hesitantly. “Who is that?” 

“He’s the villain Key. He’s a new one,” Bronze answered, leaning over Silver’s shoulder to take a look, “We only met him a couple times, when they weren’t watching and we could transform. He was a pretty bitter fella.”  

“He mostly kept to himself, is what he means,” Silver cast a reprimanding look at Bronze, “He wasn’t used to being a Key.” 

“Oh, well can we at least get a name?” Chase asked, wondering what was about this Villain Key that made him the only one of Silver’s siblings that she didn’t have a strong relationship with.  

“At no moment did he see fit to bestow upon us the courtesy of revealing the appellation by which he is known.” Goldie answered, from where he was kneeling beside the Keys. 

“Eh… I’m sorry?” Chase looked helplessly to Prunella, the Goldie translator. Goldie sometimes went into moods like this, and since Chase was widely considered to be illiterate—Deacon called him that at least twice a day—he had to refer to Prunella. 

“God, you’re stupid,” Prunella scoffed, “He never told them his name.” 

“He appeared profoundly discomposed, as though some sudden and disquieting revelation had shaken him to his very core; indeed, it was as if he harbored the strange and desperate notion that, by averting his gaze and shunning our presence—”

“Prunella!” Chase hissed, slightly panicked. Had Goldie not heard about a period? You know, the punctuation mark? 

“He’s saying that the villain Key was kinda shell-shocked every time they saw him, and that he generally ignored them, like he’d stop being a Key if he didn’t talk to them or something.” 

“He sounds…” 

“Depressed.” Deacon muttered, turning the Key over in his hand.

Chase was about to say he related pretty heavily, but he decided against it.

“He only ever had a conversation that lasted more than fine minutes with Violet, so it’s no surprise they’re together,” Bronze said, poking deacon’s ankle. “I wanna go back to my mitt, now.”

Chase turned to Bronze, a little shocked that he was acting so nonchalantly, “But they haven’t woken up yet! When will they turn into Keyple again?” 

Chase felt frantic. If Buddy was in danger, then they were wasting time. Every second they spent talking, he could… he could be…

“There’s no telling.” Bronze shrugged, “It could be an hour from now, or next week.” 

“Next week?” Chase asked faintly. 

“Unfortunately, what Bronze is saying is true,” Silver shook her head mournfully, cradling the villainess Key in her tiny hands, “I suspect they transformed the moment they felt in danger of being discovered, and since we aren’t conscious while in our Key forms and can’t understand what’s happening around us, they’re probably waiting for enough time to pass for it to—theoretically—be safe to transform.” 

“What—So they’re just guessing if it’s safe to transform or not?” Chase said indignantly, “That’s dangerous! What if they transform in front of a human?” 

“It’s a game of Russian roulette most of the time,” Bronze said as Deacon offered him a hand, “It’s why we got into so much trouble when we were with Ex Libris. We had no idea if we were alone or being watched when we transformed.” 

Silver hauled Violet up, stumbling a little as she pushed the Key close to her chest, “Chase, can you help me to my house?” 

“...Sure,” Chase let Silver walk onto his palm and stood up, a bit miffed by the sudden change in conversation, “What about the Villain Key?” 

 “Honestly, I don’t know how he’ll react when he wakes up,” Silver said, looking troubled, “I know Violet will get angry and rant, but that’s almost preferable to what he was like.” 

“Gosh, lay off him,” Chase frowned as he set Silver down in front of her cardboard house, “Was he really that bad?” 

“Not bad, no!” Goldie proclaimed, “He merely maintained an air of remoteness, as though wrapped in the quiet solitude of his own contemplations.” 

“He spent a little too much time in his head. Kinda like you.” Prunella deadpanned. 

“Yeah…” Chase didn’t even bother denying that one, instead picking the dark Key from the floor and falling onto a bean bag chair close by. Dust flew into the air under his weight, and he coughed. God, they should have really cleaned this place out better… 

He waved a hand in front of his face, and as the dust settled down, he observed the Key a bit more closely, taking in the intricate carvings and the moon symbol at the top. 

It was beautiful. Beautiful craftsmanship, that is. 

After approximately three seconds of this, he felt weird holding the Key because he remembered that Keys—at least these ones—are people too. So he set the Key down on his knee instead. 

“Are you guys sure he’s alright being with me? I’m not exactly Key-sized, and if he’s Violet’s best budd—best friend then I don’t think he’ll appreciate waking up to find a human looming over him.”

“I hate to remind you,” Silver said kindly, “But we have no idea what we’re doing, just like you. We’re just trying our best. And right now, the best theory we have is that he’ll be a little shocked by seeing you and perhaps more open to questioning then he is with us.”

That… made sense. And even if it didn’t, Keys understood Keys; who was Chase to go against Silver?

So he put the Key in his pocket. That had to be good enough for now.

The villain Key woke up two days later.

Up until then, Chase had been trying to proceed with his life as normal. He helped out with the chores around the house, bullied Deacon’s taste in books, and worked on his music when he got the chance. The only thing that had changed was that he had a Key in his pocket, and that he was avoiding books like the plague.

Deacon and Prunella still did books, of course. They weren’t worried if their enemy turned reluctant friend turned crush turned pretty good kisser was dead. They were just happy there was one less nuisance to deal with—Deacon was still salty over how Buddy had thrown him to the wolves, that one vampy book, but that was pretty much it. 

Since Chase was worried that his crush was dead or getting beaten up somewhere, he avoided the books. And the Keys, to some extent—except the one that was literally in his pocket. 

Bronze just looked way too knowing for someone who’d never even met Buddy, and Silver just looked way too adult for his liking. Why was a Key better at dealing with real life human situations then he was? It was infuriating!

And Goldie… was Goldie.

The weight of the Villain Key in his pocket grounded him, somehow. He was a charmer, wasn’t he? He’d failed with Buddy—if he hadn’t, then Buddy would be here with him right now—but that didn’t mean he had to fail with this Key, too. Silver had said the Key was a real piece of work, alright, but if Chase had the chance to be useful again… he could deal with a real piece of work. 

However, the hour the Key decided to transform on just happened to be Chase’s music hour, which mostly meant trying to come up with an original chord progression—practically impossible, he really was born in the wrong century; there was way too much music out—or doing a cover of literally any song Alastair was in. It was also the hour that was solely dedicated to his guitar. Even Prunella didn’t dare bother him when he was in the zone. Deacon actually left the house.

The gall of this Key to transform when he was in the middle of finally making the song to get him discovered---! Absolutely diabolical.

So of course he ignored the slight wriggling in his jacket pocket and continued with his song. He had a feeling Silver would tell him he was losing an opportunity, but really, this was music hour. The villain Key should have already known that. What a dummy.

There was a little more wriggling, and then no movement. It was so still that Chase wondered briefly if the Key had actually tumbled out of his pocket somehow, but upon inspection, there was no tiny person on his floor, so the Key must have just realized the importance of music hour.

“Good, you seem to have gotten the memo,” Chase said approvingly, “I’ll be available in exactly twenty-seven minutes.”

Unbeknownst to Chase, Nox, after transforming, was having what was probably the scariest evening he’d had in his entire life as a Key.

Sure, the old man was terrifying. Sure, it was terrible to be trapped in his Key form, never able to escape. Yeah, it sucked. But he’d gotten used to it at some point. He’d been expecting it.

This was a whole other level of hell. He’d turned into his Key form, thinking he’d just saved him and his sister from falling into a humans’ hands. And then he transforms, and the first thing he feels is being in a—admittedly soft—small, cramped space, in what seems to be someone’s pocket.

So the woman had found them after all. So he had messed everything up; heck, what if she’d also found the spellbook? He’d hidden it well but if this part of his plan had failed so miserably, then what was to say the book actually wasn’t safe and secure? Violet was going to kill him.

Violet.

He went completely still at the thought of her. If she was here—please, please god, let her be here—then she would tell him to stop thinking and be still. Better yet, escape out of that pocket. And if he couldn’t do that, then turn back to a Key and try his luck another day.

Being still actually made him stop and think, instead of spiraling over the tiny, cramped space he’d been forced into, and… was that guitar? So the person who’d snatched him up and put him in their pocket was nonchalantly playing guitar. Keynappers, fucking degenerates.

But he didn’t dare feel disrespected because there was a chance that the human hadn’t noticed the movement going on in their pocket, that they were too focused on the music… he would be insanely lucky if that was the case, but it was the only hope he had… if the human was distracted, then he maybe had a chance…

“Good, you seem to have gotten the memo,” a voice that he’d heard far too many times to not recognize said, “I’ll be available in exactly twenty-seven minutes.”

Keys couldn’t have strokes, could they? Was it possible to have a stroke without a heart?

That… was Chase. But it couldn’t be Chase. 

So it wasn’t Chase. 

But it was.

Nox was so hung up on the voice that the words didn’t even really register, but once they did, another round of panic came barreling towards him. Twenty-seven minutes.

Did Chase know the Key he’d put in his jacket pocket was Nox? No. Did Chase know the Key he’d put in his jacket pocket was his darling Buddy? Probably not, if he was being so calm about it, but he’d surely know when he saw Nox’s face. He looked like his human counterpart, he knew. He wasn’t pretty to look at, metal things rarely were, but the hair and eyes were too similar for him to come up with a convincing lie.

Also his voice. How could he have forgotten about that? If he could recognize Chase’s voice so easily, then... he was done for.

Twenty-seven minutes. Was that enough to come up with a plan that wasn’t ‘turn back into a Key’ or ‘pretend to be Buddy’s long lost twin’?

It wasn’t.

Twenty-seven minutes later, Chase was putting away his guitar with mixed feelings of frustration and reluctant acceptance that he was never going to come up with that long-desired chord progression.

He’d almost forgotten about the Key, which was insane considering he had one job… Buddy was of course on the forefront of his mind, he’d gotten distracted. 

…Well, maybe he should give that chord progression a second chance, once he wasn’t obsessing over Buddy’s whereabouts. I mean, there was a possibility that there was a chord progression someone hadn’t discovered yet—

He stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles, which was what made him remember the Key; it moved around in his pocket, and there was something akin to a stifled gasp.

“Oh,” Chase said, looking around for a less messy part of his room to do the introductions in, “I said twenty-seven minutes, it’s been twenty-eight. My sincerest apologies. Do you prefer the desk chair or the bed?”

Nothing. Not a thing. Nada. Zip.

“Personally I’d go with the bed,” Chase took matters into his own hands and flopped down on the bed, taking his jacket off as gently as possible as to not throw the Key out in the process, “More comfortable, you know?”

He placed the jacket right in front of himself, and leaned back.

“You know, it’ll be nice to put a face to the name—actually, I’d like to have a face and a name, considering I don’t know either. Would you like to go first or should I do the honors?”

Again, there wasn’t even a huff, or a scoff, or a sigh or anything to indicate any sort of personality trait. Really, either this person was incredibly shy or humans scared the living daylights out of them. Chase could relate to the latter, he would be pretty scared of waking up with a stranger he didn’t know too, but he was being pretty friendly so far, so what was the problem?

“I’m Chase, Chase Hollow,” Chase whispered the ‘like and follow™ ’ because it was impossible not to say it after always saying it for half a decade, but he knew he couldn’t give this Key the full Chase Hollow experience yet. He could be a bit much for people sometimes.

“Your siblings are in the attic, if you wish to see them. I don’t think you’d really wanna do that though, especially since Violet’s still in her Key form. Also—you apparently haven’t told anybody your name? That's insane! I get wanting to be mysterious, of course as a musician keeping an air of mystic and intrigue is Key—no pun intended—but to this level? That’s insane dedication.”

There was a sound between what a dying deer makes and a snort, which made Chase scoot closer to his jacket, excited at this new installment.

“Would you care to elaborate on your statement? Whatever that was? ...No?”

Well… He didn’t want it to come to this…

“You’ve left me no choice,” Chase sighed, “I really didn’t want to resort to this, it’s not very nice, but it needs to be done…”

He lifted the jacket up, and turned it upside down.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he really wasn’t expecting a ball to come tumbling out of his jacket pocket.

Nox panicked. He panicked, and he’s notoriously stupid when he panics. Twenty-seven minutes was not enough time to come up with a plan and his last minute solution was to curl into a ball and stuff his face between his knees.

Damn him, why did he have to be so kind? Why did he have to be funny, lovable, and so kind? Was Nox’s taste in men just that good? Because while Nox knows it’s Chase who’s talking to him, Chase has no idea who he’s talking to, and yet he’s still friendly.

And if he understands what Chase is saying correctly, then Silver has been badmouthing him, which he can’t really get mad at. He was a complete asshole to the other Keys most of the time. He didn’t go out of his way to be mean, he didn’t even talk to them much, but he’d been so incredibly depressed after being turned into this six inch, metallic object that he’d wanted to spend most of his Keyple time dissociating.

The Key he’d actually managed to befriend was Violet. And that had kind of happened organically; since he was the villain Key and she was the villainess… they at least had one thing in common. It was strange to see how he’d become the one craving social interaction and she’d turned so independent and self-entertained.

How was he going to tell Chase that yes, he did want to see his siblings. It would be the first time for them to see him actually wanting to interact with them, but since he and Violet had escaped Ex Libris, that’s all he’d wanted to do—besides be a human again. He’d missed them, and all their quirks. 

And Violet—he needed to make sure she was safe. He knew Chase treated the Keys well, but… he just had to make sure, especially since he didn’t even know how they’d ended up with Chase in the first place. There were so many questions to ask… and yet, he was curled into a ball to conceal his identity, it wouldn’t be very smart to talk after going to such measures.

“Ok…” Chase sighed, and Nox could hear the bubbling frustration in his voice no matter how well he tried to hide it, “I thought you might just be scared of humans but this whole, curling up into a ball thing is very timid behavior, so you might just be shy.”

Damn right he’s scared of humans. Nox frowned, a bit annoyed. How could he not be afraid of humans? He’s literally six inches tall. He could get crushed under a foot. He could get squished between a door and the wall. He could get trapped in a fist, put in a blender, and shredded---that was absolutely horrific imagery, but Violet’s stories always managed to keep him safe, one way or another.

“Look, I know you’re scared,” Chase started, and Nox wished for the hundredth time that he didn’t sound so inviting, “And I know you know exactly nothing about me. But Violet—she knows someone I care about, and she’s a Key right now so I can’t ask her if he’s okay or not. There’s a chance he’s in danger, or afraid, or—or hurt, and if Violet can’t help me right now, you’re my only chance at finding out if he’s safe or not. You’re scared, you have every right to be but I’m scared too.” 

Nox’s non-existent heart was shattering over this new revelation. He longed to yell ‘it’s me, I’m here!’. He longed to tell Chase everything. But he wasn’t reckless, or a quick decision maker like Chase was. Ex Libris had gotten whatever of that was left in him out, and turned him into whatever this was. He had to be cautious… otherwise, bad things happened. 

Chase was silent for a very, very long time. Nox had to actively bite his knee—very hard to do, what with the material he was made out of—in order to keep himself from running to him. 

“Alright, so you’re unresponsive to all kinds of verbal communication, and you don’t want me to see your face. That’s totally fine, we all have bad hair days,”

Nox couldn’t really see Chase, all he could see was the duvet he was sitting on, but he felt Chase get off of the bed and for a moment, he thought he would just leave the room—had Nox been that annoying?—but instead, there was a sound like he was rummaging around somewhere, and a “Tada!”

“I really thought the markers had dried out since it’s been a while since I’ve actually touched this corner of the room, but no! turns out splurging two more dollars does help you out in the end.”

Nox didn’t dare look behind him, but the urge was very strong. Just what was Chase going on about…

He didn’t have to think about it for long because soon, there was something placed next to him, and when he took a peak from between his knees, he saw it was a whiteboard, of all things.

“I promise I’m not looking,” Chase’s voice sounded slightly muffled, “I’ve stuffed my face into the pillow, so you can go ahead and write whatever you clearly wanna say. That dying-animal-snort was the sound of a man on his last straw, I can feel that shit, you know?”

Nox took another peak from between his knees, and Chase wasn’t lying, he really was stuffing his face into the pillow. He didn’t dare turn his face towards Chase, just in case he went back on his word, but he did resume a standing position and took a step towards the marker that had been uncapped for him—which was actually… pretty thoughtful.

He grabbed the marker—difficult, when it was almost the same height as him—and had started to write something when Chase’s voice made him freeze,

“Wait, can you even write?”

How stupid was that question?! Of course he was literate, his whole existence as a Key revolved around books and even then, Silver could write, she’d written that letter to Violet, so why couldn’t he—?

“Sorry, sorry, that was stupid, I know, please ignore me and continue with what you’re doing.” 

At least he knows when he’s being stupid, Nox thought, and if the voice in his head sounded a little too fond… there was really nothing he could do about it.

The letters were clumsy, and he’d almost tripped three times while trying to write it, but he finally had a sentence after around two minutes of struggling. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to signal to Chase that he was finished, and with how comfortable Chase looked with his face in that pillow, Nox was a little reluctant in disturbing him. So he just dropped the marker on the whiteboard, and quickly curled into a ball again.

“I’m guessing that means you’re done,” Chase said, sounding rather sleepy, like what he’d really needed was for the two minutes to turn into two hours of napping.

Nox couldn’t help feeling worried for Chase. He’d been feeling like shit for the past few days, and he thought he was pretty justified in that considering the things they’d gone through but… he’d almost forgotten that they’d gone through that book together. Chase had suffered too.

This whole thing was so messy.

Whatever Chase was expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. This Key had a very bad case of kindergarten handwriting, but that was expected because of his height. What surprised him wasn’t the handwriting, though…

I want to see my siblings. Pl

It was like the Key had gotten tired after that sentence and decided Chase could imagine the ‘ease’ himself.

That made him chuckle, but… why did he want to see his siblings? From what Silver had said, he was never really friends with them to begin with. Was he really that scary? And did this Key really have no feelings whatsoever on the fact that Chase’s friend was in danger? 

Hmph. Keys. 

“Alright buddy,” Chase said, and quickly corrected himself, “I mean, alright, villain Key. It kinda sucks not knowing your name.”

A huff.

A slightly sad huff, but a huff nevertheless.

That was something, right?                                                                                           

Chapter Text

“Alright buddy,” 

The terror that seized Nox at that comment was indescribable. He was getting ready for Chase to say, ‘Stop pretending already, I know what you are!’ 

And that would have been an absolute nightmare. The last thing he wanted to do was come clean to Chase. That would probably be enough to push him over the edge. Getting Keynapped by a library staff member, ending up in his enemy/friend/crush’s house… that had nothing on the mental damage that Chase finding out that Buddy was actually a Key would cause on Nox. 

He knew he and Chase would never work out as a couple. It wasn’t fundamentally possible. But at least when he was Buddy… he had half a chance. He didn’t want to ruin that, as well as Chase’s entire perception of him. He understood this was an objectively big thing to hide, especially after Chase had revealed he was worried for him… and that had made him feel really, really shitty, but he just couldn’t bring himself to reveal anything. Not on his own. 

“I mean, alright, villain key. It kinda sucks not knowing your name.” 

Nox huffed. Like that was going to work on him. 

He couldn’t see Chase from that angle, but he practically heard him smile. 

“Well, you want to see your siblings? You gotta go up to the attic. You can do it on your own, I know, but I really don’t want you getting up there to take half a day, you know? I’d offer you a hand, but I don’t think you’d really like that…” 

No please! Nox thought sadly, I’d love to be carried up to the attic. Actually, how about we just stay on the bed and I confess everything? 

He shook his head to clear it of the traitorous thoughts. No! He couldn’t let guilt get to him so easily! 

 “So how about you get back into the jacket and I just deliver the jacket upstairs? How about that?” 

Nox… would very much prefer the hand option. Being in that pocket had been… pretty scary. He didn’t like small spaces, he’d unfortunately made that quite clear by how he’d made a fool of himself in that casket, but he could suck it up for ten more seconds, right? 

So after confirming that Chase was indeed looking the other way, he scurried into the pocket, holding his breath in and just counting the seconds as Chase picked the jacket up, and there were several up and down movements, and the jacket was placed down again. 

“Guys! The villain Key has graced us with his presence! Silver, please wake Bronze up, I don’t want him to miss this!” 

It was a little surreal, hearing his siblings names so casually. Back with Ex Libris, their names were only used by themselves, and were often shouted in a panic or whispered in fear of being discovered. With the way Chase was talking to the Keys now… Nox could actually see them being friends. 

There was a bit more chatter, which Nox would have kept up with, if he wasn’t so anxious for Chase to leave so he could stand upright again. So he huffed, which kind of worked last time, and it was apparently loud enough to work this time too. 

There was an awkward pause, followed by a quick good-bye from Chase and to ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t!” 

And then there was the sound of the attic ladder closing, and Chase really was gone. So it was just him… and his siblings. 

He took a deep breath, and crawled out of the pocket as elegantly as he could. 

Silver, Goldie, and Bronze were gathered around him. He thought of something to say, literally anything, but it was incredibly difficult, more than he’d initially expected it to be. There was just… nothing to say. No way to acknowledge the distance that had existed for so long, both physically and metaphorically. The only thing he could hope for was that distance made the heart fonder… and that their distance had been enough for their hearts to at least tolerate him. 

All that to say he wasn’t expecting Silver to hug him. He really hadn’t been expecting it. It wasn’t like he’d had a thought, at the back of his mind, that this meeting could go well. He was truly waiting to be cussed out of the attic, or for a fight to start. 

They of course didn’t know anything about Buddy, but they didn’t need to know anything about that to justifiably hate him. He’d been distant and insufferable the few times they’d all been in a room together, and then he and Violet had disappeared… And Violet and Silver had cultivated a pretty strong relationship together, so he knew what it probably looked like for him—the only unnamed key—to run away with Violet; he was stealing her away from them all, poisoning her mind and turning them against the other Keys, probably.  

He’d whole-heartedly believed this would go badly—and here Silver was, hugging him. 

It took him a moment to stop freezing up and return the hug, but he did, his hands cautiously wrapping around her back and staying there since she didn’t immediately recoil with disgust. 

And because he couldn’t not look a gift horse in the mouth, what he immediately said after she let go was, “What was that for?” 

“So he can speak!” Bronze mused, moving his toothpick around, “I was beginning to think we should learn sign language.” 

“Very funny,” Nox muttered, and that actually seemed to shock Bronze—and Silver, more than the first comment did. 

“You… you just looked like you needed it.” Silver said, fidgeting with her dress. 

“You felt bad about badmouthing me to Chase, that probably also had a part in it.” It was one of those things that, after it had left his mouth, couldn’t be hunted down, not even with six Golden Retrievers backed by the FBI. 

That’s when he realized—they hadn’t ever seen this side of him. They’d only seen post-transition, bitter, angry Nox, which was a whole phenomenon in itself but… this was going to be fun for them. Not so much for him, though. 

“What a wonderful surprise to see you have awakened so soon!” Goldie exclaimed, scratching the back of his head, “I thought it would take at least another week.” 

“Well, what difference does it make in the end,” Nox took a look around the old attic, at the strangely decorated cardboard boxes and—was that a castle? Made out of cardboard?—craft supplies, as well as magazines everywhere. It was certainly… a choice. 

“I still don’t know how I ended up in this place, I’m hoping someone’s willing to explain within, I dunno, the next century at least?” 

Silver looked like her eyes would bulge out of her head at any second. Bronze’s toothpick looked like it would actually fall out. Goldie was… Goldie. 

“It’s complicated,” Silver started. 

“And a long story.” Bronze added. 

“I have this evening to spare.” Nox shrugged. 

Goldie took it upon himself to explain—which was equivalent to asking an excited puppy to sit still, “See, it all started on the grand land of something Chase calls, the Facebook Marketplace…”

Chapter Text

If Nox wasn’t made out of metal, he would have gotten progressively paler as the story went on. Hearing just how close he and Violet had gotten to being discovered—it paralyzed him. He would have been done for, if he’d transformed in front of the woman. If Chase and Deacon hadn’t found the ad before, let’s say, Ex Libris had… Then he and Violet would be back in the hell they’d fought so hard to escape. 

“It was very unexpected,” Silver said as she put a strand of her white hair behind her ear. 

“Who knew something a human invented could come in handy,” Nox mused. 

There wasn’t anything he could do about it now. He’d had his chance—and he’d failed; the woman at the library had found them. Violet had needed him that one time… and he’d messed it up royally. 

She was going to be livid when she woke up. 

Nox… Nox really hadn’t been the best brother, had he? Not to Violet, and especially not to the rest of the Keys. He’d ignored them, lashed out when they tried to talk to him. The only thing they’d ever wanted to do was help, he knew that now. He didn’t like this body, if it could even be called that; this statue wasn’t what he was. But he’d grown used to it over time. Back then… the memories of himself as a human had been too fresh. He couldn’t deal with the limitations and restrictions being a Key placed on him—never being able to reach the AC controls, for one. 

But he knew better now. Misfortune happened all the time—whether it was losing a friend, or ruining a friendship, or being turned into a Key. All a person—or a Key—could do was… live. 

“Guys,” the words were tentative. It wasn’t like he had to force them out, but they didn’t come out smoothly either, “I think—I owe you an apology.” 

“Oh?” Bronze said, raising an eyebrow. 

What might have made Nox snap before now just made him flush, “—yeah. I know I wasn’t the most social when we were all together—” 

“I wouldn’t say you just weren't ‘social’” Silver muttered, kicking her feet. 

“—You’re right, It was more than that, I was a bit pissed off honestly—” 

“It was quite more than just that!” Goldie piped up. 

“—Yes, well, I had just gone through something traumatic—” 

“Pretty sure we all did, pal.” Bronze whistled. 

“Can you please let me talk?!” Nox yelled, baring his teeth instinctively. What supportive siblings, he couldn’t even apologize without getting attacked!”

“Go on,” Silver encouraged ruefully, elbowing Bronze. 

“I—” Nox struggled for what to say. The inspiration that had struck him a few minutes ago had mostly dissipated, and what was left was pure… defeat. 

“I’m sorry. I could come up with a bunch of explanations for why I acted the way that I did and I know it wouldn’t really make a difference. I regret that part of my life now.” 

I regret most of my life now. 

“I want to start over. We’re siblings, and no matter what happens, I’ll always be your brother, so I should at least try to be a good one. For once.” 

The silence grew heavy, and Nox wavered under its weight, “...That is, if you… if you would give me a chance?” 

Bronze and Goldie looked to Silver. She was… contemplative. 

Nox could guess why. He had resented Silver for a while, back under Ex Libris, because of her tight-knit relationship with Violet. She and Violet had everything that his relationship with Violet didn’t; history, and well, confidence. They knew each other so well that nothing could really drive them apart, whereas he and Violet started out on rocky ground, and only managed to gain each other’s trust very recently. She had every right to be contemplative. 

That didn’t mean he wasn’t bracing himself for rejection. He needed to be ready for it—for when she told him he’d cut too deep. That he wouldn’t be allowed back in. He would apologize again, and avoid them to the best of his abilities. 

He never got the chance to. 

“Am I interrupting something?” 

The voice made Bronze shiver, and it was like an iron hand had clamped over his non-existent heart. 

Three heads turned—a fourth one also turned, but with a slight delay—to see the Violet, standing in front of Silver’s house, her hands on her waist and her head tilted. Nox had to admit—it was a breathtaking entrance. He would have taken notes, if he hadn’t been so terrified. 

“Violet—” Silver breathed, and her eyes were glittering with tears. If merely seeing Violet had wrecked her so much, then Nox didn’t want to be there for the fight that would definitely ensue when they started trading stories. 

“No, no go on!” Violet barked, her hand gesturing wildly, “Please, go on. What a lovely family reunion! I wake up in this trashhouse,” Nox cringed at that, glancing at Silver nervously, “expecting to be back at the library with my brother and end up in whatever this is!” 

Big fat tears dripped down Silver’s cheek, and she hugged herself tightly, “That’s my house, you know.” 

“I know alright,” Violet turned her chin up, “It looks like a unicorn threw up on it.” 

There was a moment of silence. Whether Silver was trying to think of a comeback or Violet was questioning the validity of hers, nobody knew. 

The inner politics within the Keys had always been… complicated. Duos that he hadn’t really thought would be possible had formed easily. The Lover and Mentor Key had gotten along pretty well, and Bronze and Silver, who were so opposite to each other, had an inseparable connection from the very start, if Violet’s stories were to be believed. 

Silver and Violet had always been competitive with each other. Nox had a sneaking suspicion that there was a little bit of jealousy between thejm—Silver, at Violet’s overwhelming confidence, and Violet, at Silver’s overwhelming popularity. Before Nox came into the picture, Violet didn’t really have… there was no need hiding it; Nox had become Violet’s sidekick. He didn’t mind it, especially not at the time. But Silver and Violet’s relationship had suffered. 

It was easy to see the cracks in their friendship now. Violet, standing in front of the cardboard house on the table, with her hands crossed over her chest, looking away at nothing in particular. 

Silver, standing a few feet down, her hands wrapped around herself, looking absolutely miserable.

Nox had done that. Maybe it was time to fix it. 

“Violet,” he said, and immediately cringed at his voice; grating and raspy. He coughed, and tried again; this was important. Possibly the most important thing. “Violet.” 

Violet cracked an eye open and glared at him. 

“Violet, you can’t insult people’s houses when you didn’t even attempt to decorate the box we lived in.” he went for what he knew would fire her up. That’s how to deal with Serious Violet—make her angry about something stupid. 

“Well I wasn’t expecting to have to stay in that sump for weeks! If you actually worked hard to find our siblings and get narration we would have gotten out of there, like, yesterday! You know, before a human found us and sold us on whatever the fuck that thing was called!” 

How long had she been awake and hiding, listening to their conversation? He was surprised she’d resisted the urge to intervene so long. 

He couldn’t pretend like it didn’t hurt, but he’d prepared for it. He knew Violet, possibly even  better than Silver, Bronze or Goldie knew her. He was the only one right now who could get her off this high horse—literally. 

“We can have a talk about this like civil Keys if you come down and level with us,” Nox declared, crossing his arms as well and plopping right down on the ground, “I’ll answer your questions once you learn how to phrase them correctly.” 

“Don’t you even try to make me the villain here!” 

“I’m always the villain, regardless of the argument.” Nox shrugged. 

If Violet was human, there would be steam coming out of her ears with how red her face would be. But alas she wasn’t, and so there was only the sound of metal and metal as she grit her teeth and fisted her hands. 

“Oh. My. God,” she then loudly said something extremely rude about Nox’s ‘big mouth’ and flung herself off the table. Silver screamed, bronze let out a startled yell. 

Nox really shouldn’t have been able to do what he did next, but it was like second nature to run to the table and grab her before she hit the ground. It gave him a strong sense of deja vu, remembering their last day in the library when he’d jumped off the top shelf and she’d grabbed onto his hand. Metal didn’t exactly tear, but it could be misshapen. And yet the trust between them was way more than the possibility of that happening. 

“Shit—damn it Vi, are you out of your mind?” Nox grunted, stumbling under   Violet’s—considerably heavier—weight. 

“I’m perfectly fine,” Violet huffed, “You said you wanted to talk like civil Keys. This is me at my civil. Now put me down before your height decreases even further under my weight.” 

“Violet! You can’t do stuff like that!” Silver shouted, staggering over them with Bronze and Goldie in toe, “You could get seriously hurt.” 

“I’m seriously hurt right now, can’t you see that, Silver?!” Violet’s voice trembled a little, “I don’t know what he,” Violet pointed accusingly at Nox, “Has told you but he’s keeping things from you, I can tell. His apology means nothing when you don’t even know his name!” 

Silver stilled, and turned to Nox questioningly. 

Nox looked back and forth between Silver and Violet, wondering what he could do to save himself the most amount of trouble. He’d kept his name a secret for so long, it would be… it would be strange to be called by it. He was almost more used to Buddy then his own name… speaking of Buddy… 

“Don’t shift the blame on to me,” Nox gestured at him and Violet, almost pleadingly, “Whatever we were doing, we were doing it together. And whatever…” He fought for a word to be vague while still getting across his meaning, “Whatever schemes we had to pull is our secret.” 

“If we were both such loving partners, then why are we at your loverboy’s house right now, huh?!” Violet shrieked, and Nox’s heart fell to the pit of his stomach at Silver’s response. 

“...Loverboy?” She asked, tentatively, “What does he have to do with Chase?” 

“Better yet, who actually is he?” Bronze spoke up. He and Goldie had stayed mostly quiet throughout the exchange—but it seemed like that was over, “And then, what does he have to do with Chase?” 

Goldie nodded, “Yes! This is all terribly confusing, I am still struggling to understand the link between him, dear lady Violet, and—” 

 “And Buddy.” Bronze’s eyes lit up with something that could only mean danger, and Nox was ready to either faint or slap someone or do something to change the topic of conversation… but that would have been useless, because it all threatened to spill over when there was the creak of old wood, and a voice—that stupid, soft voice, the one Nox could recognize anywhere, in any storybook—came from the attic ladder, 

“What about Buddy?” Chase asked, confused. 

So Chase had come up to the attic. Of course. Nox’s life couldn’t get any worse. 

He should have known better to think that, though. 

“Exactly,” Violet had gone completely off the rails, her teeth gritted hard together, “What about Buddy, other than the fact that you can’t recognize the boy you’ve been going to storybooks with for weeks?” 

Nox shouldn’t have underestimated Violet. She was stronger than him. He should have expected it. 

But it didn’t make it any less shocking when she grabbed his shoulders, and turned him swiftly around—just in time to meet Chase’s wide brown eyes. 

Chapter Text

Violet felt the conviction and certainty bleed out of her with every silent second that passed. Nox’s shoulders were terrifyingly still under her grip, and a quick peek at his moonstone eyes told her she’d pushed a bit too far this time. 

“It all makes… a great amount of sense actually,” Bronze mused, apparently immune to the tension in the room, “He always wanted to be human again.”

He did, a mad, angry part of her shouted, he always did. Nothing was ever enough for him. He always needed to be strong and powerful. He cared more about that than the new family that could take care of him, if he so wished!

He cared more about that than he cared about me!

“You’re saying he’s Buddy?” Silver asked, her voice shaking, “The guy who Chase has been seeing in storybooks for the past few weeks… is actually the villain Key?” 

The villain key. 

Was that all he was? 

“It’s Nox—that’s my name.” Nox murmured, still staring at the ground. If only it could open up and swallow him deep underground—where he didn’t have to think, didn’t have to feel, didn’t have to be. 

“Nox,” Silver muttered, feeling the name out, “...What compelled you to do this?”

“If I’m not mistaken,” Goldie said, in that unfazed, unabashed way he always did, “It was so he could make a wish to be human again. And for that to become a reality, it was necessary for him to be in possession of all twelve Keys…” 

“Hence… everything he did while in the books.” Bronze nodded, appreciative of the mystery that was unfolding beneath his eyes, unaware of the mental turmoil that Nox was going through. 

And why should they care? He’d made all their lives quite difficult. Even if what he’d done hadn’t been that bad—he hadn’t stalked Chase; it was a little hard to do with his size—he had still made them feel unsafe, he’d involved them in this plan that was purely for his own gain. 

And Chase…

For only a second, Nox dared to look up at him, and what he saw deeply scared him. The expression on Chase’s face was completely unreadable, and that was what made it so unsettling. Chase wore his heart on his goddamn forehead, his emotions were so clear to everyone around him that he might as well broadcast them. So if his expression was unreadable… then Nox had pissed him off on a level that Buddy was incapable of. 

The Keys were arguing among themselves now. Violet had let go of his shoulders in order to have an intense conversation with Silver while Goldie watched, and Bronze had migrated to his mit in order to quietly mutter to himself. Nox felt frozen, standing a few feet away from Chase, who was still on the ladder, his upper body the only part of him that was visible. 

“Hey, Silver?” Chase said, far too softly for the expression he was wearing, “Can I have a moment alone with… with him?” 

The lack of his name made Nox far more hurt then he could admit. 

It seemed like Silver had to physically pull herself out of her conversation with Violet to answer, “Why, of course Chase, but why don’t you two just move to your room to talk?”

Isn’t the answer obvious? A dark part of Nox’s brain whispered, He doesn’t want to move me there. He doesn’t want to touch me. 

“I would prefer to talk here.” Chase said firmly, a tone Nox hadn’t heard from him before. Silver seemed to recognize it, though, since she nodded quickly, and called for the Keys to gather at the palm of his hand. Nox looked away as Chase moved them downstairs, his eyes focused solely on Goldie’s sparkling castle. It even had Goldie’s name on it, in fancy, cursive lettering. 

“Is it… Is it okay if I sit?” 

He had forced himself to focus so intently on the cardboard castle that he was caught off guard by Chase’s voice, and stumbled a few steps backwards, causing him to fall down on his back. 

His startled eyes looked up to meet Chases’, and there was such tenderness, such quiet concern in his gaze that heavily contrasted with the look he’d worn before… it made Nox shudder, and he looked quickly back down at his feet. He didn’t attempt to move. A part of him… a part of him was afraid. 

Chase… Chase had never been so big, or more accurately, Nox had never been this small, not in front of Chase. The boy was so unthreatening in storybooks that seeing him so much taller, so much more powerful than Nox would probably ever be… it was scary, in a maddening way. 

This kind, understanding expression didn’t belong on Chase’s face just as much as the last one hadn’t.

The problem wasn’t with Chase. It was with Nox. No matter what Chase did, Nox would find it out of place, or frightening. Buddy wouldn’t, but people couldn’t always live in storybooks. 

“Are you alright? I’m sorry I scared you,” Chase said quietly, leaning down and folding his legs beneath him as he sat, “I’m not usually this… clumsy.” 

I know, I know Chase, Nox wished he could say, I know you, I’ve been going to storybooks with you for weeks. 

He wished he could say, I haven’t changed, it’s still me, and he wished it could be true. 

“Buddy, I… can I still call you that, or—no, I’m sorry of course not, your name is, it’s,” Chase took a deep breath, and exhaled, sounding a lot calmer when he said, “Your name is Nox.” 

It was stupid of him to feel upset, he didn’t even like ‘buddy’, it wasn’t even a real name. But he still mourned the loss of that identity. He would never be Buddy again. Chase would never see him as the boy he’d met in those storybooks. 

He would always be the villain key. 

“Nox, can you please,” he sounded like he was struggling to hold back a sigh, “Can you please just look at me, for one second?!” 

It was like Nox was a puppet and Chase had pulled on his strings because as soon as he heard the notes of frustration in Chase’s voice, his head snapped up, and his eyes met Chase’s, out of his own control. 

How cruel the universe was, to make him so beautiful. To make his chocolate-colored eyes so warm, and his blonde hair so soft. Was it too much to ask that he was human again, so he could run his hands through that hair, cover the side of that jaw with his hand, and kiss those lips like he had done, only a few days ago? 

These were dangerous thoughts. They would ruin him, he knew. 

“Nox…” the voice whispered, and maybe it didn’t sound so different from buddy. Maybe nothing had changed, and everything would continue to be okay. 

Dangerous, dangerous thoughts. 

“Nox, can you please talk to me?” 

How could he say no?

“What… What would you like to hear?” His voice sounded raspy, grating to his own ears and he cringed, wishing he didn’t have to subject Chase to this. But Chase… Chase looked relieved. 

“So it is you!” Chase exclaimed, and he fell back on his elbows, laughing joyously, like everything he’d held inside for so long had bubbled up inside of him and spilled out in musical, effervescent laughter. 

But it didn’t last long. Soon there was a hiccup, and then Chase was crying, tears spilling from his stupidly beautiful eyes. It was… alarming.

Concern for Chase won over Nox’s fear, and in jittery, reluctant steps he walked closer to Chase and asked, a bit nervous about what the answer might be, “Are you okay? D-did I say something wrong?”

His voice made Chase get off from the floor and into a sitting position, which in turn made another wave of fear shoot through his stupid brain, making him stumble. Before he could fall down—for the second time that day—Chase’s hand reached out, and caught him. 

“I’m sorry, I’m being really weird, I know… it’s just that only a few minutes ago, I was wondering if you were still alive, or well, or safe… and it turns out you’ve been here all along! I just, I just felt so relieved…” 

He was so shocked at the gesture, and at the warmth of Chase’s hand, that it took the words a while to process, but when they did…

“Why?” He asked, because he could never have anything nice, could he? 

“...What do you mean, ‘why’?” Chase asked, sounding genuinely confused. He brought his palm closer, almost eye-level, and Nox shivered at the proximity. He was… very close to Chase’s face.

“I mean…” He looked away, not strong enough to handle the eye-contact, “It’s not like we really know each other.” 

Chase pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, a frown making its way onto his lovely face, “Bu–Nox, we've been over this. We’re friends.” 

“According to you, yeah,” Nox shifted uncomfortably. None of this was right. He didn’t want to say any of this. “But the first time we met I had you against a wall, Chase, and after that all I did was make things difficult for you in the books, and outside of them. You’ve told me a lot about yourself, I’ve met your cousin, and recently, Prunella and you, for some inexplicable reason… seem to trust me.” 

“Where… where are you going with this?” Chase asked, a bit cautiously. 

I… I don’t know. 

Or maybe he did and he just didn’t want to admit it. 

“Chase,” Nox took a deep breath, “I think we need to talk about what happened in that last book.” 

An incredible blush came over Chase’s cheeks, and Nox wished he was in a situation where he could properly enjoy it. “I—Of course, what part do you wanna talk about?” he stammered.

“The part when we kissed, Chase,” Nox said impatiently, “Oh come on, you know.” 

Chase laughed, in that way that can only be described as a giggle, and it made Nox smile. Although it faded once he remembered where he was going with all this.  

“Well, what part of that do you wanna talk about?” Chase smiled, tilting his head. 

“I wanna—I want to remind you that… Chase, you do realize that can never happen again, right?” 

It was like Nox had personally slapped that happy smile off of Chase’s face, and it hurt, it did, but he needed to set the record straight. It was for Chase’s own good. People like Chase and Nox… they didn’t belong to each other. I told you, you trust too easily. 

“Of–of course, I, I didn’t think it would happen again or anything…” Chase was the one avoiding his eyes now, and Nox could see the tell-tale sheen of tears in his eyes, “You obviously did it because we needed to, needed to get to the end of the story and… yeah. Yeah.” 

This was so much harder than Nox had expected. It took everything in him to stay silent. 

And of course, that just made Chase keep going. 

“It was probably really hard to do…I know you don’t like changing storybook endings and well, kissing me—It couldn’t have been particularly easy, haha… Really, I didn’t tell everyone about it. It’s totally chill. Deacon obviously took the piss and interrogated me pretty thoroughly but I just came up with some crap to get him to stop, you know how he gets—really, I hadn’t thought much about it since the day it happened. Sometimes you just gotta kiss, and… and it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s—” 

Nox couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Chase!” he yelled, exasperated, “Quit making it sound like I hated it! It was… It was pretty nice.” 

I like you, and I know that you like me, alright? You don’t need to make shit up. 

“Oh. Oh.” Chase’s face relaxed, and he offered a shaky smile, “Well… in that case, I liked it too. It was… very nice. And I,” he blushed again, a wondrous thing, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.” 

“When I say it can’t happen again,” Nox pushed on, ignoring Chase because he knew he would lose all his willpower if he listened to those silky words, “It’s not because I don’t like you. It’s because of this.” 

He gestured between them. 

“What—Nox, is this because you’re a Key?” Chase said, a bit confused at first but more so sounding unimpressed with his reasoning; which was stupid because…

“Chase, look at yourself!” Nox demanded, and Chase did, glancing down at his chest with a frown. 

“And now… Now look at me,” He said, a bit brokenly, and didn’t wait to see if Chase would do so, “My entire body is barely six inches, and I’m nowhere close to being human again. You must be delusional if you think this is gonna work.” 

“So what?” Chase said defensively, “You think I care about a couple of inches?” 

“It’s not just a ‘couple of inches’. Please,” his voice actually broke at that, “Please, be serious about this.” 

“I am serious!” Chase exclaimed, and the hand that was holding buddy shook a little. And that’s when Nox got it—Chase wasn’t going to understand, no matter what reasoning he tried to come up with. Chase was a hopeless romantic, there was no way he was letting anything come in the way of them, and that was so sweet and so wonderful of him and everything Nox dared to wish for in a partner and yet… that wasn’t what Chase deserved. He didn’t deserve to be stuck with him. 

There was only one way he was ever going to let this go. 

While Chase kept arguing his point, Nox shifted closer to the edge of his palm, took a deep breath, and pushed himself off. 

He’d had enough of pushing himself off of high spaces, but this time it was for a good cause. He ended up in Chase’s lap, and the boy in question let out a startled yelp, his hand reaching out to pick Nox up. 

But Nox grabbed his pointer finger before he could. 

“This is why. This is why this could never work, because I’m the height of your palm and it would take this much,” he pressed Chase’s finger to his throat, pressing down until it felt uncomfortable, “for you to crush me.” 

That.. that wasn’t the real reason. But it was the one that would make Chase back off. 

The real reason… was far more complicated. It involved explaining a part of his life that he knew would make Chase hate him, and worse, avoid him. And Nox could live with Chase disliking him. He’d prepared for that the whole time they’d known each other. But not getting to see Chase, not being around him, not seeing those eyes… presumably forever? 

No. Better for Chase to think Nox was scared of him—which wasn’t half-true—then to know the things he’d done without remorse, for scraps, for something that barely resembled a life. Because with all the things he’d stolen—he didn’t want to steal Chase’s heart. 

Chapter Text

Chase and Nox hadn’t talked for the past week. Bronze… wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

It was strange, seeing the ‘Buddy’ Chase always talked about turning out to be their… well, their brother, although they had never really been that way before. No, Nox had always been Violet’s brother more than he’d been to any of the other Keys, but still, it was strange to see him now. 

And with the way Chase talked about Buddy… It wasn't that hard to assume that Chase had a thing for Buddy. It wasn’t hard to guess, because everything Chase did was so obvious. The way his eyes lit up like the goddamn fourth of July fireworks whenever the boy was merely mentioned, or how all of his ‘complaints’ about Buddy came with disclaimers. ‘He’s closed off, but I’m sure he has a good reason to be’ ‘He’s always got a goddamn scowl on his face—but his eyes are the bluest I've ever seen…’ ‘No I think you’ll actually like him Bronze, he’s kind of like you… in a way—’ 

It was so, so painfully obvious that Chase liked this guy, and Bronze had kept his mouth shut about it not only because it wasn’t his business, but also because Chase seemed to already know, in the back of his mind. He was just waiting for the perfect moment to realize it. 

He’d definitely realized it after that hellscape of a Cinderella retelling. None of them—not even Bronze, it seemed—really knew what went down in that book, but Chase had told them that he and Buddy had found a way to rush to the ending of the book and get ejected back into the real world. And none of the others seemed to take the hint, but Bronze did; ‘rush to the ending’ sounded a lot like ‘we kissed’ in Chase’s voice. 

That, plus the fact that Chase looked ten times more in love after that book than he’d had all summer, and he kept touching his lips wistfully, so something had definitely happened. 

And now… this. Bronze wasn’t sure what to make of this. Usually he was pretty good at reading people, but now he was at a loss for what to think. Chase and Buddy’s little discussion had been heated, he could tell from the slight color in Chase's cheeks and Nox’s refusal to look anywhere near anyone’s eyes—he’d always been bad with eye-contact. But the real question was what had they talked about? 

It was, of course, like everything else relating to their relationship, none of his business, but there was only so much a Key could do when it wasn’t stuck in a book and as lovely as sleeping was, sometimes he actually decided to put his sentience to good use. And today was one of those days. 

Bronze stuck his head out of his mit, and assessed the situation in the attic. 

Violet had harshly refused Chase’s offer of making her a cardboard house, and was essentially homeless for the time being, so she was nowhere to be found. He suspected she was either spying on Chase—who had also become rather distant after he and Nox’s fight, more than a week ago—or stealing jewelry. He really wished it was the latter because he knew Chase would be kind enough to forgive her for stealing, but being spied on was something Chase was rather scared of. He’d found that out in the early days of being with Chase and Deacon; he’d go snooping around the house, keeping tabs on the two cousins, and when he was inevitably caught, he always ended up feeling bad for them because it was kind of scary, having metal statues that were small enough to hide and spy on you all the time. That, plus the fact that Chase and Deacon proved to be pretty good people, the best he’d ever seen, actually, made him trust them—and stop with the stalking, to which Chase was incredibly grateful for. 

That was probably why Violet was so spooked by him, now. Whenever Bronze tried to open up a conversation with her—when he did manage to find her—all he could see in her face was a look of betrayal. All the keys had hated humans—being held captive and forced to work for their wishes would do that to a Key—but Bronze possibly hated them more than everyone else. He was, as Chase put it, ‘a tough nut to crack’. So it must have been particularly jarring to Violet to see him acting so friendly with Chase. Well, she’d have to put up with it. He wasn't giving up his mit, or living in Chase’s house. It was far too comfortable, and he’d had way too much uncomfortable in his life. 

Since Violet was essentially homeless, Goldie and Silver were feeling a little privileged about their grand estates—especially since Goldie had a literal castle—and had stopped spending time in there. Silver was outside on the ground, knitting—which she seemed to do a lot lately—with the fancy thread Chase had gotten from the fiber arts store that just happened to be the exact shade of purple that Violet liked to wear, and Goldie was… Goldie was Goldie; he was exercising. 

His eyes searched for Nox, but no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find him. Curious. Where would a Key like him go? 

He doubted Nox was bold enough to go around searching in the house, and from Bronze remembered from the early days of Nox being the Key, he rather… lacked the skill of going unnoticed. It was like he wasn’t used to being metal, which to give him credit, he wasn’t. For all Bronze knew, Nox could have been an actual thief in his past life… hmm. 

That didn’t matter now, though; now it was very easy to tell where he was because of the clanking of metal whenever he walked.

So, with all that in mind… where was Nox? 

Nox was hiding. 

He wasn’t proud of it. It wasn’t the brave thing to do. It was a really terrible thing to do, actually, especially when Chase had left chocolate for him. 

He still couldn’t believe it, and he was munching on it. 

It had made him very upset—quite irrationally, considering they were literally about to be discovered—that he’d left the duffel bag Chase had given him behind; they’d also left the spellbook behind, but they’d hidden that, and it wasn’t like the Book was of use to anyone without the Keys—and he knew Violet was gathering up blackmail to get Chase to get the spellbook out of the library for them as he was thinking this—but a duffel bag, full of sweets… it was probably already eaten, by some of ‘Lily’ and her stupid coworkers. 

But yesterday he’d woken up—under the small table Silver and Goldie’s houses were on, because he and Violet were rather homeless at the minute—to a new bag of sweets. This one was considerably smaller, but that was because Chase now knew about his… size. It was what looked to be a medicine bottle, filled to the brim with cut up pieces of chocolate. Cut up. Into bite sized pieces. 

It made Nox feel incredibly bad, of course. 

He knew that wasn’t the intention. But just the fact that Chase was still willing to care for him, even after everything he’d said to him… if he could cry, he would have. 

And this wasn’t the only thing, either. Chase had quietly come up to the attic, the day after their fight—Nox had of course hidden under the table—and asked if he and Violet would like to have a house. He had cardboard, fabric, glue and even a container filled with fake gems in his hands. Certainly, Violet couldn’t refuse… but he’d been underestimating how deep Violet’s hatred of humans ran. When presented with the promise of a—shiny, big, with a big balcony to villainously look over the town in—house, she promptly turned on her heel and left. And shouted that Nox was dead to her if he did take Chase up on the offer. He knew she didn’t mean it, of course, but that wasn’t why he didn’t beg for a bed—his back was killing him even after only one night of sleeping on the floor. No, it was because they had literally fought yesterday. And here Chase was, offering help. Offering kindness. 

And Nox wasn’t expecting Chase to just throw him out of the house after a fight. No, he knew Chase was a good person, that was the problem. Being a good person didn’t mean you couldn’t be a dick to someone you had a fight with. Nox expected the silent treatment. He expected to be treated as lesser than the other Keys. Chase could be a good human and still treat Nox with coldness, but he hadn’t. 

Either he was an angel or he… or he loved Nox. Which was scary to think about. It was scary to think about Chase also feeling the emotion that had been bubbling up his chest for the past few weeks. But how could it not be love? 

Every time he, Deacon, and that kid—prunella, his mind supplied unhelpfully—had gone into a book, Chase had made sure to ask him and Violet if one of them wanted to come too. It was more like he asked the wall, but he still asked. Every time, he gave them a chance. He gave Nox a chance; a chance to crawl out from under the table and pretend like that conversation never happened. And Nox, because he was a goddamn coward, never took it. 

He instead ate chocolate. 

Which was what he was doing now. 

And he thought he was doing it alone… up until now. 

“Didn’t think I'd ever see you eating food,” a dry voice remarked, and Nox turned so fast his neck hurt. There Bronze was, kneeling down to look at Nox’s sitting form under the table. 

“Why? I was a human before all the… all the stuff with the Villain key.” Nox asked, genuinely curious. 

“You kind of swore off all of humanity for a while when you were with us. It was… weird,” Bronze said thoughtfully, crawling closer to Nox and sitting down next to him, “kind of an in-between state, you know? It was hard to tell if you were still clinging to being human or if you'd accepted being a key. I still can’t really figure you out.” 

That… didn’t hurt as much as Nox thought it would. Bronze was right. He'd never fully accepted being a key nor had he ever been delusional enough to believe he was still human. 

“How about… both?” 

“Both… it actually doesn’t sound so bad,” Bronze offered, “mind sharing?” 

So Nox shared his chocolate. Bronze was also a fan, as it turned out. 

And that was the beginning of something he really couldn't have made up. Him and Bronze? A team? And a well-functioning one at that? It seemed his sulkiness, which was often the subject of fights between him and Violet, only managed to slide off of Bronze like water, and Bronze’s dryness was never a problem because he was such a good listener. 

And that was how the rest of the day went. Just him and Bronze, talking through everything. And he didn’t think it would help, at first, because how could a problem as complicated as the one he had with the Keys ever have as simple a solution as just talking? But it did. It cleared up a lot of things. And it made him feel better. Nox wasn’t used to prioritizing other people’s feelings, but he wasn’t used to prioritizing his own feelings either; back then, it had all been about survival. It didn't matter if the things he did kept him up at night, or if the people he’d hurt haunted him for the rest of his life. It was survival that mattered. 

But maybe… other things mattered too. 

Maybe there was room for more. 

Maybe there was room for an older brother. Maybe there was room for friendship, and happiness, and gathering Narratonin for wishes that weren't used as weapons, and maybe, just maybe, there was room for a boyfriend whatever he and Chase were to each other. 

He just needed more time.