Chapter Text
It was the only extracurricular he’d signed up for this summer, and he was going to nail it.
“Look, this is serious, Dorkin!”
“It’s a two-week online music history challenge, Chase. It won’t even look good on a college application—the whole thing is a joke.”
The popstar crossed his arms and sent his inferior cousin the side eye of the century. This was no joking matter, this was the educational opportunity of a lifetime. In two weeks, through the process of group and individual research, he would learn all there was to know about the history of every music genre under the sun. He would learn the rich, thought-provoking knowledge of centuries of recorded artists. He would go up against fellow musicians in multiple-choice quizzes every evening, and by the end of it, he would be required to write a short song utilizing everything he’d learned. The student who expressed the most enthusiasm, commitment, and improvement would be the one to take the gold medal. The medal, a shining clump of pixels that hung next to the student’s username, would be displayed every time the winner typed a message into the forum for the rest of the year. The winner would be known as The Online Popstar Forum™ Champion.
It was ten dollars to sign up, and Chase Hollow was not about to let that money go to waste. He would get that golden medal.
Deacon gaped at him as he gathered a bright teal tote bag, ensuring his library card was tucked neatly into the front pocket.
“I can’t believe it…” Deacon murmured. “This is what finally gets you to read a book?”
Chase rolled his eyes. “Online research is discouraged , obviously. The moderator said that for the old-old history stuff, it’s better to check your library catalog.”
Before any more judging comments could be made, Chase was out the door. Grandpa had given him permission to borrow his truck over the next couple weeks, but the weather was nice and he had energy to spare, so he pulled his old bike out of storage and beelined for the library. It had to be the first time he smiled at the sight of the obnoxious Sugar Springs library. And perhaps, also, the first time he’d ever willingly gone alone.
🌙🌙🌙
Violet paced. Her steps grew louder with each passing second, her speed increasing with impatience.
“Relax,” Nox mumbled from his corner. “Maybe they’re just taking a day off.”
Violet turned to him with fire in her eyes. He flinched. “Relax?! It’s Monday! They’re here every Monday at practically the same time. It’s like clockwork. These lousy humans never miss a day. We can’t be losing time like this!”
Nox’s lips parted, but he thought better of it, slouching further against the wall instead. It was rare for Chase to miss a day like this. Sure, it was typical for him to disappear on Fridays. But not Mondays. Not without saying something. Not like this.
He was mentally crafting a way to calm Violet down when the planet suddenly shook.
Nox jumped to his feet, arms held out around himself—partially for balance, partially for self defense. Violet gritted her teeth, clutching the spellbook next to her for support. The noise stopped as soon as it started, the room rattling back to its still calm.
Rushed curses rang out from above them, drawing Nox’s attention upward. There was stomping, another set of footsteps entering the scene.
The conversation, muffled, seeped through the basement ceiling. “I’m so sorry!!” cried out a slightly-too-familiar voice. “That was totally my fault.”
The response came from one of the younger librarian assistants. She was one of the newer additions to the staff team, a summer intern that Nox hadn’t yet decided his opinion of yet. Her smile could be heard through her voice as she went on about how untrustworthy some of the shelves were, how this happened all the time (it certainly did not), and how they’d get it all cleaned up for him.
The rattling had been falling books, then. Of course, there wasn’t much else that could make such a noise in this building.
Violet rolled her eyes. She ranted about something to do with clumsy humans, but Nox’s mind was already set on that voice. It was muffled, unclear, impossible. He had not been back to the library since the day he found where they’d planted Silver, after all. It was just another young male voice, a complete coincidence.
He stole another glance at the unlit spell page, his fingers twitching. “Doesn’t look like they’ll be showing up today…” he dared, looking away to avoid accidental eye contact with his sister. She would see right through him if he did. “I think I’m just going to go… rest… for a while.”
He fled the box quicker than she could respond, initially making his way to his private space. Then, glancing back to ensure her attention was elsewhere, he scurried down their shelves and scaled the dark library stairs with pristinity and grace.
If one wanted to navigate the upper-levels of the library without being seen, they would need to follow a specific set of steps.
Once one got to the first floor, they would need to slam their body against the door, slip through the resulting gap fast enough they didn’t get crushed, then dart—silently, without looking back, without being seen—to the hole on the far right wall behind the front desk. There lay a loose panel. It used to be home to an old fashioned electrical outlet, but it was since removed for fire safety. One would then need to pry open said panel, slip in through the hole, then ensure it was placed back carefully. Now in the walls, they would need to climb the mess of outdated electrical wiring until they reached the top. There was a support board in the center of the wall, at just the right height, where they could then drop down and follow the path until they found an exit, where they could then step out onto the top of a bookshelf.
With the skill of a cat and the stealth of a spy, one would then have access to the entire library without being spotted. It was surprising how infrequently humans found themselves looking up, after all.
So there he stood, atop a convenient shelf and peering down below. At the base of one of the shelves lay a small pile of books. Two people bent over, picking them up one by one and attempting to reshelve them in proper order. They chattered away while they were at it. The brown-haired lady, blue glasses sitting atop her nose, laughed at something the other said.
The other’s back was turned toward Nox, his short blond hair shining under the library’s artificial light. An ugly jacket sat on his back, worn down converse on his feet. But it was not Chase. Surely not, just a doppelganger. Yes, a complete coincidence and trick of the subconscious.
This was soon confirmed when the stranger stood up, the last of the books returned to its proper shelf, and shook the brunette’s hand. With a smile, they parted ways, and the boy began walking. Nox stumbled forward, jumping across the gaps between shelves, following behind until the human sat down at a secluded table in the corner. He opened up a book before him, pulling out a piece of paper and pen.
Yes, it truly was a doppelganger. After all, it was long established that Nox’s little idiot did not read.
The scene was still wrong though. He needed to see this person’s face.
The table he was sitting at stood humbly in the far corner, surrounded by two walls and the shelf Nox was perched upon. There wasn’t another for him to jump to, no other way to maneuver toward a better angle. He glanced up. A light swung from a chain attached to the ceiling.
This was irresponsible. Impulsive, childish behavior. As Violet would say, he was acting like a human.
Yet he did it anyway. With a deep breath and not enough time for his logical side to talk him out of it, he leapt from the top of the bookshelf onto the light, hefting himself up and clinging onto the cold metal. He steeled himself there, closed his eyes, and waited for the light to stop swinging so perturbingly.
Everything was still for a long moment. His eyes remained closed, his hands gripping the light far tighter than they needed to, the library silent as ever. This was a vacuous thing to do.
A deep breath. A glance down.
There sat Chase. Undeniably, in the flesh. Directly beneath him. Closer than he had ever been.
But perhaps the most alarming part of the entire predicament was not that he was there, truly there, but rather, that he sat hunched over a book. His soft brown eyes followed each line with complete attention, a pencil perched in his right hand. Every few seconds, he’d scribble something down, never bothering to look away from the volume.
Nox found himself staring at the scene. It was so utterly absurd that he found it impossible to look away. The way he stuck out his tongue as he read, flipping through pages with clumsy fingers and determined brows. The way he would occasionally grin, then pull out his phone and type a hurried message before returning to his notes.
After some time—however much, Nox couldn’t be confident—Chase stood from his seat, snapped a pair of headphones over his ears, and started dancing. It was nothing too terribly dramatic—he didn’t have an abundance of space in his chosen corner, after all—but it was ridiculous all the same. He spun around the table, his limbs splaying out to and fro. After what Nox assumed was the length of a single song, he sat back down to continue his progress.
This process repeated for a while. He would read, dance, read, dance. Finally, he snapped the book closed and shoved his things back in his bag. A beeping sounded through the building as he checked it out at the front desk, an action Nox could not see from his perch but could clearly make out audibly, and left with a ding of the front door’s bell.
It took a few minutes for Nox to shake himself from whatever daze the boy had triggered, yanking his eyes away from the now-empty chair and jumping back to the top of the nearest bookshelf. What would he tell Violet? It must have been roughly an hour, so far too long for the excuse of a stroll. He would simply say he fell asleep somewhere quiet. It would be a believable story.
By the time he made it down to the basement, however, Violet’s mind was on other things. She called out for him, the angry tap of heels ringing in his ears as he rushed up to their box. He started with his fib, a flow of apologies already on tip of his tongue, when Violet shifted into her key form and left him alone in the room. He looked up to find a beam of light shining from their spell page.
⭐⭐⭐
Deacon, like usual, picked the book this time. He had it ready when Chase arrived home. The keys were already atop the table, the book secured in the protection device. Prunella hopped up and down, Goldie clutched in her hand.
Silver wished Chase a smiley good luck and, with a wave, shifted into her key form. Seconds later, he found himself draped in a mixture of teal and pink. Grey earrings clung to his earlobes in the shape of roses. He ran his fingers over the divots–he would need to remember to tell Silver how much he loved these.
“Are you simply incapable of choosing an interesting story?”
Chase spun on his heels to find Buddy leaning against a wooden beam. One of his arms swayed at his side, the other reaching up to brush something nonexistent from his shoulder. Chase grinned.
“I’ll have you know this was one of my childhood favor-” Deacon was cut off by Chase pouncing on Buddy. With a noise of disgust, he promptly fled the vicinity—something about needing to find Prunella in the castle.
Buddy, still attempting to regain his balance, stared down at Chase like the boy had just spritzed him with a water gun. Chase chuckled, pressing his cheek into his chest for a beat more. Would Buddy reciprocate the affection? Eh, probably not. He didn’t usually unless he was warned well enough ahead of time, and such was not the case that day.
“I missed you.”
“It was mere hours. Besides…”--for a brilliant moment, Chase felt the ghost of Buddy’s hand in the back of his hair— “ You were the one who was late.”
As dramatically as he could muster, Chase pushed himself away from Buddy’s chest with a huff and faced the other direction. “I had important business to do. You wouldn’t understand.”
Buddy matched his energy with a teasing smirk. “Terribly important, I imagine. It must have been truly life-or-death in order to get you to read , after all.”
“I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW-” wait, huh?