#Can you tell my brain is rotting over keefitz | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

darkchocolatedimples · 2 years ago

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endings are bittersweet (for you and me)

ngl its 11:00pm on saturday but i did want to make something for keefitz week considering the brain rot sorting through taylor swift's albums threw me into, but i was super busy so i just finished right now. i think this loosely follows the prompts for days 2 and 3. thank you @when-wax-wings-melt and @skylilac for hosting this!! its such a fun idea!

heavily taylor swift inspired fic under the cut!! (songs in the tags)

Hindsight is the clearest rearview mirror, and it’s in hindsight that Keefe should’ve known there was a flaw in his plans for the day. Afterall, Fitz being open to hearing him out wasn’t entirely in his cards.

Maybe when they were younger, before he’d ran way (twice), it would’ve been. But now, Fitz seems to have less to say and more scores to settle. Keefe guesses that's fair. He's not beyond owning up to what he did.

Yet he doesn't entirely expect Fitz to simply nod hello and cut to the chase of whatever he wanted to say. Although, Keefe had probably relinquished the luxury of speaking first when he tore Fitz’s heart in two and walked away.

At least, he assumes that’s what he did. And it was, if Fitz had actually cared. But maybe Keefe miscalculated that as well.

“You know, I was thinking…” Well that was wonderful, Keefe had been thinking too, over and over again, over the words they’d said and if they’d meant anything at all and if it was fair to ask for it all again- “And I want my bramble jersey back.”

Keefe blinks. “What?”

“You took it like, years ago? Remember the one?” Fitz prompts, accent crisp and unforgiving.

The bramble jersey. The one he forgot he still owned- no, the one he’d forgotten he’d stolen from Fitz’s closet ages ago, before they drifted apart, before everything got complicated, before Sophie even. Though some of those things were related.

“Do you seriously want it back?” he asks underneath his breath, lowering his head towards the ground so Fitz wouldn’t see the water beginning to gather in the corner of his eyes, as if he didn’t already know it was one of his nervous tells. Why was it so tough for him to imagine? Whatever this was between them fell apart ages ago. So why did returning the jersey feeling like sealing their tragic fate?

They’d always known they were bound to burn in the end.

“If you still have it,” Fitz confirms, digging his heel into the ground. Keefe can't tell what his face looks like, but if he had to guess, he’d imagine a perfect ‘gosh, I’m sorry’ grimace that doesn't look half as mean as it should on someone. Fitz is better than everyone else, anyways.

Keefe used to be able to contest to that. Keefe used to know the taller like the back of his hand; understand him better than he understood himself. Keefe knew Fitz, and even if he doesn't anymore, he knows what this must be to him. A last little loose end to wrap up so they can leave this decaying chapter of their lives in the past and move on. Be mature and embrace new beginnings. Ones that might last. But Keefe just feels like a weed being plucked.

He probably is a weed, infecting the perfect garden of Fitz’s life since the moment he’d taken his hand that day when they were kids. So if it's better to leave, if it's better to move on, why is it so hard? Why can't he let them die?

"I'll try to find it," Keefe mumbles beneath his breath.

Fitz shrugs, "Thanks," and then it's over and he's light leaping away like he didn't tear Keefe's plans to rekindle their relationship down the middle and leave him in sprinkles from the sky, slowly gaining weight. Only fitting, considering Keefe left first, and the weather was worse.

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Raindrops the size of bullets pierced Fitz's skin, drenching his hair and tunic and blurring his vision as he tried to find the right lock to click open the way Keefe had described to him years ago. A useless piece of information, considering he'd never intentionally brought Fitz to his home, but the request of "Tell me something I don't know about you," had arisen under lazy pink skies and that was the only thing the blonde could think of. They'd already known everything there was to know about the other at age twelve.

The door creaked and Fitz pushed it out of the way, fumbling into the foyer as his clothes dripped water onto the mat. He only rubbed his boots against it for moment before leading himself up to Keefe's bedroom.

If Lord Cassius was home at the moment, he didn't run into Fitz as he made his way through the halls. He wouldn't have much to say if he did, although his reason for the impromptu visit was innocent enough. Cassius probably wouldn't believe it.

Would anyone?

Maybe that's why Fitz was here: because he had something to prove. He needed to convince everyone he didn't consider his relationship with Keefe a hopeless cause.

He needed to convince Keefe himself.

So really, shuffling around in his closet for his favorite sweater wouldn't hurt. It would show him he cared, he remembered, maybe even help him remember-

A cluttering noise caught Fitz off guard before he could start ruffling through the clothes in the chest before him, and the man flitting quickly down the stairs shocked him cold.

Days later, Fitz would be stuck wondering why he didn't give up sooner; why he hadn't thrown Keefe away like a broken record when everyone had expected him to. At least then he wouldn't have been present for this. His heart would've been spared.

"Keefe?" he asked tentatively, making the blonde boy flinch as he raised his head, spotting him. "What are you doing here?"

Keefe shrugged, holding up the elixirs he was carrying, but he didn't speak. Fitz hadn't entirely expected him to.

"Back to pulling pranks already?" The empty smile Keefe gave him sent chills through his body. It almost felt...mournful. "I thought you're supposed to be at Elwin's."

At that, Keefe couldn't hide his grimace, and Fitz couldn't help but sound accusatory when he noticed. "What's the bag for?"

His hunch must have been right if it made Keefe curve into himself in shame. "No, you can't seriously be- Again?"

"Keefe, don't," he pleaded, abandoning the open chest to make his way towards his friend. "They said they'd help you, Alina and Oralie and whoever else."

"It's not enough," Keefe croaked out, facing the floor, and Fitz sighed.

"How would you know that? Have you even tried?" He shook his head, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "Keefe, please don't leave on all of us again."

The noise that left the younger’s throat sounded equal parts distraught and irritated, like he couldn’t deal with any of this much longer. That was probably why he was leaving anyways; maybe everyone’s nagging to just try and just believe wasn’t working, and maybe Fitz was only making things worse. So he tried a different approach. “Please don’t do this to us.”

Us was a large term in broad daylight; but like this, in the rain, alone, Keefe had to have known who Fitz was referring to. “Us” was Fitz and Keefe, like it should’ve always been. But things got too complicated for “us” to be just them anymore.

And it was probably those same things that made Keefe push back the hoarseness in his throat from lack of use just to say, “I’m sorry.”

But Fitz couldn’t give up. Giving up was giving in to everyone else’s idea that they were falling apart, and Fitz would be damned to call himself a Vacker if he gave up. “Please stay Keefe. For me.”

It was a stretch, but the words hung between them for a moment, vulnerable, open, and targeted, and Fitz almost wished he could snatch them back and fashion them into a more formal request, something that better fit the current state of their relationship.

And then Keefe shook his head.

“Oh…oh.” Fitz stumbled back, tripping into the bed. “Carry on, then.”

Keefe didn’t waste a second before exiting the room.

Fitz only wondered if he’d felt his heart splintering as he’d rushed past.

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The question itself was unfair. How could Fitz have expected anything else when there were bigger things at play than just the both of them? Keefe had a reason for leaving, and he doesn't entirely regret it.

But that wasn’t what hurt him. Fitz wasn’t stupid, he knew it wouldn’t work. Alas, he still put himself out there, waiting for some sort of signal or sign that Keefe cared. And he didn’t give it to him.

He walked out. Without a second thought. And he’s regretted it everyday since, because if he had to go back and pinpoint a moment when their lives stopped being intertwined and became two lonely strands of bitterness, he’d say it was right then, when he’d shaken his head and said nothing. That was his mistake. This is his fault.

He hadn’t said anything, and now Fitz is done waiting. He wants his jersey back. He wants this to be over.

So Keefe digs through his room and finds it buried under tunics he’d never liked and capes he wanted to tear to shreds for years. A piece of fabric that held more memories than he’d like to admit. Sifting through the emotions tied to a simple jersey shouldn’t feel like a landslide, but maybe Keefe’s empathy is still oversensitive. Or maybe Fitz just means much more to him than he should.

Keefe doesn't want to think about it anymore. He doesn't want to think at all, about how everything is falling apart, about how stupid he is for having this occupying his head when there was a war to be worrying about. But even if they won, what was he coming back to?

He slipped the jersey over his head, watching it fall down his frame in the mirror and wondering how it was still big on him. He'd always been smaller than Fitz, but he assumed he'd grown. Apparently, not half as much as he'd thought. He tore his eyes away from his reflection before he dwelled on it for much longer.

It became habit, at some point along the way, to flip open his gold journal to a fresh, blank page and cover it with the sparkle in Fitz’s teal eyes as he looked at someone else, the swoop of his hair and the angles of his jaw. Today, however, when Keefe let the pencil in his hand guide him to whatever image his mind was creating, the slopes of nose smaller, his jaw softer, and his hair longer and slightly more unruly. Fitz was younger, and asleep, in the same jersey Keefe was wearing now.

If he closed his eyes it almost smelled like him.

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“Fitz…Fitz wake up.”

It was a solemn thing, to have to wake up the boy when he was so blissfully passed out, gentle features rounded out by the pillow underneath his head.

Keefe considered letting him sleep, but being only six years old made him increasingly impatient, and there wasn't much to do with his best friend snug asleep in the bed next to him. He sighed, sitting up and letting the blankets pool around him.

"Fitz. Fitz. Wake up loser," he whined, pushing the elder's shoulder. He only let out a groan in response.

After another shove and tearing off the covers to expose him to the cold air, Fitz blinked groggily, rubbing his eyes to make them focus on the blonde boy next to him. Keefe reached over to the bedside table and handed him his glasses.

Fitz mumbled something like a thank you, slipping them on and looking at him with tired confusion on his face. Keefe misses the look of it, he hadn't worn his glasses in years, but they'd always hold a special place in his heart, nestled right next to the beginnings of their friendship. "Is it the middle of the night?"

"No, I think it's morning," Keefe answered. "And I'm bored."

"Well, I think we should go to sleep again," Fitz decided, turning over and burying his bed head back into the pillows. Keefe wonders how he hadn't changed in the ten years since.

"No!" And he hadn't either. Not by much, besides their friendship holding on by a single thread.

Fitz groaned as Keefe pulled the blankets away again, bothering him as much as he could. "Keefe, you know if we sleep in a little longer Mom and Dad will let us just eat mallowmelt instead of breakfast?" he mentioned.

Keefe stopped his meddling abruptly. It never really was a hard task to get his attention, especially with food involved. "Really?"

"Oh yeah," Fitz confirmed. Keefe considered it for a moment, about to settle back into the bed before they heard footsteps coming down the hall. The boys widened their eyes at each other.

The two dove under the covers, doing their best attempt of faking sleep before the door unlocked.

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The door swings open as Biana twirls in with at least six different cosmetics in her hands and a flowing purple dress barely hanging onto her shoulders. “Ah! Fitz, zip me up, will you?”

Fitz does as asked, moving her hair out of the way as she set all the products down on the bathroom counter and tries to find the lip gloss she wants. She settles on a light tint of purple that matches her dress.

“Where are you going?” Fitz questions, leaning back against the wall when he’s done.

“Dinner with the Dizznee’s. Haven’t really been able to spend time with them since school started,” she explains, rubbing her lips together.

“Right,” Fitz agrees, watching her flit about the bathroom, getting ready.

“How was Keefe earlier?”

“Oh.” Fitz doesn’t remember telling Biana what he was doing that morning, and something about her nonchalance was unsettling. He probably hadn’t told her at all. It wouldn’t be surprising, Biana knows everything there is to know about him anyways. Perhaps more than himself. “He was… Alright, I guess. I asked for my jersey back.”

Biana freezes. Her eyes fly across the mirror to look into his. “You did what?”

“I asked for it back. The jersey, from when we were kids,” Fitz clarifies.

She sighs, turning back to herself in the mirror. Her words are almost exasperated when she reminds, “You still are kids, you know. We all are. That’s why none of this works.”

Fitz could ask what she was referring to; the war? Being members of the Black Swan? Their friendships? He could ask, but he can tell with the tired look in her eyes that she means the latter.

“I don’t think I like Sophie,” he admits softly out of the blue. The words dance across the fragile ice in the air, like they’d break it and send everything crumbling if they wanted to. “No, I know I don’t.”

Biana’s responding chuckle melts the ice before they have a chance to crack it. “I think we knew that.”

Fitz freezes as the words flow through him. “You- what? Was I that much of a jerk?”

“Oh, she doesn’t know,” Biana corrects, working her deft fingers through her hair as she braids it back into a twisted bun. “You should let her know, kindly. But how could you have, honestly, with Keefe around.”

“I- I don’t know what you mean,” Fitz stutters, looking at her in the mirror with furrowed eyebrows. “Keefe’s my…friend.” Hardly. Was that really the message he sent to him earlier?

His sister’s hands drop from her hair as she spins to look him straight in the eyes. “Friends don’t use kisses as currency, Fitz.”

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“If you come, I’ll kiss you.”

Fitz raised an eyebrow, making no move to get up from his arm chair. “And if I don’t?”

“I’ll never kiss you again!” Keefe decided, sitting on the chair’s arm. “It would be a shame though, I thought you said it was fun.”

“You’re seriously giving me an ultimatum about this?” Fitz questioned, dropping his book into his lap. Keefe nodded shamelessly, and the elder couldn’t help the smile growing on his face.

“It’s just a party, Fitz,” he pleaded, slipping down from the couch arm and landing next to Fitz. “We finished level 3, we deserve to celebrate a little.”

“We can leave after two hours if you get bored,” he added softly, studying the elder’s eyes. “I just wanted to go for a little bit. And I wanted to go with you.”

Fitz pretended to think for a moment, watching Keefe look up at him, wide-eyed and waiting patiently. Three years later, Fitz isn’t be able to remember the last time Keefe looked at him like that. He just misses it.

“I mean, a kiss?” he said after a moment, scrunching his nose. “You drive a hard bargain. How could I say no?”

Fitz doesn’t miss parties. He doesn’t miss the fake smiles and empty greetings, nor does he miss the noise and the lights and the small flaring headache afterwords. He does, however, miss Keefe.

Surprisingly for such a usually shy person, parties were Keefe’s scene. It was like all his introverted qualities flew out the window once he was in, and in contrast to Fitz, he loved the lights and the music. In the end, Fitz grew to like seeing the younger surrounded by it all.

Keefe also used parties as an even better excuse to flirt with anything that breathes. And more often than not, that ended up being Fitz. Not that he’d ever complain.

“Do you want to leave?” Keefe whispered quietly, leaving the crowd towards where Fitz sat blissfully alone. His hair was messier than when they’d arrived, like someone had run their hands through them, and Fitz’s jaw almost clenched until he remembered that no matter how confident Keefe got under bright lights and crowds, he wouldn’t let people get that close. Well, not anyone but him, of course.

“No I’m fine, go dance,” he waved off, sipping his lushberry juice. Keefe pouted instead.

“I want to dance with you,” he complained softly, tugging at the elder’s arms to get him off the chair.

“I don’t dance,” Fitz reminded, but his words didn’t match his actions as he put the glass down next to him and let Keefe pull him off the chair with a joyful smile.

The younger pulled him close, his lips almost brushing against Fitz’s ear as he whispered, “Thank you,” and Fitz would’ve kissed him again right there. Alas, there were people around, and he didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.

He’d also rather not have his second kiss have a crowd. Everything was sweeter in secret, wasn’t it?

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It was. It had to be. It was the same mantra Keefe had been repeating in his head that whole summer.

There was a reason they weren’t telling anyone. And it wasn’t because they were doing anything wrong. It was just a fun little joke. They tried it once, it felt nice, so they did it again. And again.

It was simple. It was a normal thing to do. No one would say otherwise if they knew. But…they didn’t really need to know either. Best not confuse them.

Keefe was confused enough already.

Fitz was growing taller. He had a few inches on Keefe already, and the younger despised it. Maybe he would’ve hated it less if the other didn’t constantly lord it over him, standing just close enough so Keefe had to tilt his head up to see him, resting his arm around Keefe’s shoulders like it belonged there. They’d been the same height since forever, and Keefe was not going to let himself go down like this.

Especially not considering the way his heart rate sped up when Fitz was leaning over him. He couldn’t let the elder hold that power against him, and he couldn’t let him know. So he took a deep breath and stayed calm when Fitz pushed him into a tree halfway through his tangent about how cool Alvar was.

“Well, that was rude,” Keefe huffed, trying not to shy away from the elder’s bright teal eyes as they stared down at him. “I was talking.”

“I don’t want to talk about Alvar,” Fitz responded, as if it was an excuse. His hand didn’t move from where it was pinned above Keefe’s shoulder.

“You know Fitz, there’s this thing called communication, where you use your words-”

The elder cut him off by layering his lips over Keefe’s in a sweet, chaste kiss that still left Keefe stunned and a little breathless when he pulled away. “I don’t really want to do that either.”

Keefe rolled his eyes, avoiding his gaze. “Yeah I can see that.” But he didn’t stop him from kissing him again.

Kissing Fitz was a pleasant thing when it didn’t leave Keefe spiraling down a hole of Why do you care so much? It was easy not to think, with Fitz’s lips on his, about his father, or his mentors, or any of the small things plauging his life when they pulled away. Kissing Fitz made it feel like he’d never have to go home, like this was his home, and he’d never have to leave. He never wanted to leave.

But those were the same thoughts that kept him up all night that whole summer, as relieving as they were in the moment. Fitz had always felt more like home than anything Keefe had ever called home his entire life. And if he was honest, he never wanted that to change. He never wanted them to change.

He never wanted whatever this was that they were doing to change. He didn’t like the thought of Fitz doing this with anyone else, being this comfortable with anyone else, or sharing his space this much with anyone else, but he had to face that that was the reality. Someday, Fitz would go marry some girl, and all of this, all these remenants of them would be left behind in the past. But Keefe didn’t want to think about all that. He just wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.

Now, Keefe wishes it had lasted a little longer. But then they were in Level 4, and Fitz finally found Sophie, and their lives began to change so rapidly that Keefe just felt like he was along for the ride as everything he’d ever known turned upside-down and faded away.

Maybe Keefe had known back then too, that it wouldn’t last long, and that that day would have their last kiss, because when he’d pulled away, he’d asked, “You won’t forget me, right?”

Fitz had raised an eyebrow. “What? Where did that come from?”

“Nowhere, just-” Keefe looked back down at the ground as he caught his breath and sorted through his thoughts. “You won’t, right? Ever?”

The elder was only silent for a moment before he admitted, “Keefe, I couldn’t forget you if I tried.”

He was charming, Keefe would give him that. And it made him feel like a shy and red-cheeked kid all over again.

Sitting in his room years later, with the blush faded and rose-colored glasses lost, Keefe wonders if mememories like those haunted Fitz now, as he tries his hardest to forget him. If those promises meant nothing, and now both of them are nothing, it’s honestly better that they hadn’t told anyone. Looking back, they probably wouldn’t have understood anyways.

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“Just because you didn’t tell me doesn’t mean I never knew,” Biana continued on, ignoring Fitz’s frozen stare.

“But…how-”

“I’m your sister Fitz. And you kissed outside my bedroom once,” she admits, turning back to the mirror. "My point being, friends don’t do that.”

“Just because yours don’t-” Fitz cuts himself off as Biana gives him a sharp look in the mirror.

“You hear how ridiculous you sound, don’t you? There’s no point.” She continues pinning up her hair as she adds, “You love him."

Fitz gulps, watching himself go pale in the mirror. “That’s a strong word.”

“Yeah, and the right one," she agrees. "You’ve loved him since we were little kids, and you still do."

“You’re not an empath-" Fitz starts to argue, but Biana doesn’t want to hear it.

"I don’t have to be. I’m your sister," she reminds quaintly. "But he is an empath."

Fitz bites his lip subconsciously, going over the implication. "You think he knows?"

"No. I don't think he ever understood what your emotions meant, and he probably still doesn’t," she admits, looking through the products in front of her. "Especially not with you asking for the jersey back. Honestly, Fitz, what was that?"

"I just wanted all of this to be over," he answers shamefully, looking down at the floor so Biana's eyes in the mirror won’t rip him to pieces.

She slides over next to him, leaning against the wall as well. Her voice is the calmest thing wafting through his head when she speaks. "This is never going to be over unless you face your fears and try to figure out what you actually mean to each other."

It’s easy in theory. But the thought of actually acting on it is giving Fitz a massive headache. “How do I do that?”

“You think, Fitz. It’s a foreign concept, I know,” Biana chuckles, nudging him in the side to make him look at her. “Just sort through your memories. You have millions, we’ve been friends since he was 7. There has to be answer in there somewhere, even if its from when you were little.”

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Keefe always considered himself a strong eight-year-old. He held his own even when his father battered him down, and he dusted it off with a sigh and moved on. No one helped, definitely not his mom, but that was okay. Keefe could handle it.

He was sure of that. He really could handle it, he had so many times before, watching his father tear up his doodles and drawings, scold him for his childish acts when in the back of his head he couldn’t help wonder, Am I not still a child? but was too terrified to ask. He would draw more. They would get ripped up again. It was a fine, easy cycle.

He practically lived with the Vackers, regardless of how much his father nagged at him. It was the one thing Keefe liked that he supported. Keefe didn’t know why, but he learned early on not to question the good things. Fitz and Biana were a safe space, and he would take that gladly. Being at Everglen practically erased whatever distressing moment had taken place right before, and it was easy to laugh, move on, and play bramble without a second thought. It always was.

So why wasn’t it today?

Maybe it was because the drawing was a special one. Him and Fitz, sitting by the edge of the lake, small feet swinging over the water and wind brushing through their hair. He hadn’t even gotten to finish coloring it yellow and brown before his father had snatched it up without a second thought and shredded to pieces without even looking at it. He wouldn’t dare encourage any sort of foolishness.

The drawing stayed pinned in the back of his mind though, he had his photographic memory to thank for that, and he couldn’t help but feel the slightest remorse as he thought about it, even in Fitz’s room, far away from the man who’d ruined it all in the first place. It was a pretty drawing. It would’ve looked even better finished.

Fitz might have liked it.

Keefe didn’t notice the tears dripping down his cheeks until Fitz made a surprised noise, sitting in front of him with concern etched between his brows, looking far too mature for a nine-year-old.

“Oh,” Keefe realized, wiping his cheek with small hands. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Fitz responded, teal eyes peeled open wide as he watched him. “Are you upset?”

“Only a little. It’s not a big deal,” Keefe tried to wave off. But Fitz, even at this young of an age, was always a gentlemen, and waited silently and encouragingly for Keefe to explain further.

“It’s just…my dad tore apart a drawing I made,” he elaborated, eyes steaming as the tears started coming down faster. He wiped his hands against his cheek more furiously. “I didn’t even get to finish it.”

“Why would your dad do that?” Fitz asked catiously, tilting his head with the curiousty of a young kitten.

Keefe wonders how, even at eight years old, he’d known that Fitz was a Vacker, and because of that he’d never truly understand. “He doesn’t like it when I draw.”

Fitz was silent then, and Keefe was too busy trying to stop his crying to realize, but suddenly small arms were pulling him into a warm embrace and the tear gates flooded, making him give up. “I think it’s really cool that you can draw.”

The younger tried to choke out a thank you, but the tears were choking him and he couldn’t do anything but cry into his friend’s shoulder, letting him hold him and save him from everything that waited outside of his arms, in this room, and back at home. None of it mattered if he had this, anyways. His parents didn’t matter, if there was still someone willing to hold him together. And of course that someone was Fitz.

And of course he’d ask, like always, “Want a blitzenberry muffin?”

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“Make me blitzenberry muffins.”

“Is that an order?” Fitz questioned, his eyebrow raising as he continued folding his tunics.

Keefe sighed dramatically, throwing himself across the elder’s bed and distracting him. “Can it be? I’m so sick of these books and I need something to bring my dampened spirits up.”

“Dampened spirits, wow, you’re a poet, Keefe,” Fitz applauded, sitting down next to him. The empath flipped his head up towards him, blonde splashing against the green sheets. “What do you even read about? Isn’t empathy kind of straight forward?”

“Not really. Just because I can feel what you’re feeling doesn’t mean I know what it is. For instance-” Keefe laced his hand through Fitz’s, startling him. “Something creepy crawly is going on in your stomach right now, but you’re head’s kinda fuzzy. I think that’s happiness?”

Fitz stopped himself from blushing. “I think so too.” Keefe grinned.

“See, it’s not like the words just come flying at me. People feel emotions differently, which makes it harder to decipher what someone else is feeling. Some emotions are easy, but others, not so much.” He sat up, keeping their hands intertwined. Fitz tried not to stare. “All those books are just theory, trying to teach you certain tells so you can guess emotions more easily. And then like…philosophy or whatever.”

“Sounds atrociously boring,” the elder commented, tearing his eyes away from their hands and getting lost in the sharp blue of Keefe’s eyes instead.

He didn’t seem to notice, huffing. “It is. That’s why I want muffins.”

“Valid.” Fitz stood up, yanking the younger along with him towards his room door. “Do you know where the kitchens around here are?”

“Calla showed me one the other day when you were staring into Sophie’s eyes or whatever,” Keefe grumbled. Fitz wonders if it was jealousy, or maybe that was just his wishful thinking. Just because he’s reinspecting their story didn’t mean he can add in details about Keefe that were never really there.

But the tightening grip on his hand was there, ever present, and Fitz hopes that Keefe didn’t notice his heart rate spike right then and there. Had he been that obvious all along? With an empath no less.

Keefe pulled him out of the treehouse and ran down the steps, pulling along Fitz just like he would when they were in Everglen, young and blissfully unaware of how dangerous the world really was. The worst problem at the time must have been Keefe’s parents.

In a bitter, unsurprising way, Fitz remembered they still were.

“There we are, the splendid gnomish kitchens,” Keefe presented with a flourish, cheeky smile flitting across his face as he walked over to the pantry. It was a kitchen alright, but everything was draped in browns and greens, giving the area a very much earthy vibe to it. Fitz loved it immediatley.

Blitzenberry muffins were routine, and soon enough the batter was being mixed together in a bowl with Keefe sitting on the counter, licking the finger he’d just dipped in without permission and Fitz shaking his head with a smile, always unable to put on a stern face at the younger’s antics. They made him feel rather normal, anyways. Like they weren’t teenage runaways or rebels or anything of the sort.

Keefe stared off into the distance as his finger left his mouth, and Fitz stared at him, watching his eyes glaze and something hard to decipher appear in them. It wasn’t the first time. Something about Keefe had been off lately, like he’d been thinking too much. There was enough to think about anyways, with his mom captured by ogres and his dad waiting back home. Even the pendant around his neck was enough to send him spiraling.

It was silent for a little too long, and Keefe’s eyes were getting a little too glassy, making the elder feel the need to interupt. “Are you okay-” Fitz started, then a tuft of white blurred his vision like a bakery-smelling blizzard. He coughed, daring to open his eyes wide to a sheepish looking Keefe with flour-stained hands.

“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry at all. “Intrusive thoughts.”

Fitz smiled right back, acutely aware of how ridiculous he must have looked as he slowly raised a large handful of flour from behind Keefe using telekineses, then promptly dropped it on his head. “Sorry. Intrusive thoughts.”

Keefe wiped his eyes in disbelief. “Don’t start with me.”

“You’re the one who started it!”

The younger didn’t seem to hear as more flour flew through the air, soon beginning to cover the entire kitchen in white. They ducked and hid behind the counter, laughed loudly like no one could hear them, smiled so hard their cheeks hurt from the motion. Fitz misses the feeling, misses being the cause of Keefe’s ectastic smiles instead of his nervous frowns. He misses the freedom, the moments they shared like this where there wasn’t a single other person in the world but each other, not another pair of eyes he’d ever care to look into. There wasn’t anything to see.

He misses Keefe. And his hair and his smirk and everything he’d been working hard to ignore and weave into their history just to leave them there, where they belong. But how could they belong there if Biana was right?

How could he forget about Keefe when he’d known him since they were kids?

“You’re my best friend,” Fitz spoke, breathless watching the white powder float down in the air around them like snow, like the winters they’d spent as children by the lake with ice skating and never ending adventure. Keefe was his best friend then too. Hadn’t he always been?

Hadn’t he always loved him?

“Yeah. Obviously.” Keefe smiled, shaking the flour out of his hair in Fitz’s direction, but the action was boyish enough to make his foolish heart long for a past they couldn’t reach back into. At least they had moments like this.

Not forever though.

“Nothing’s going to change, not for me and you,” Keefe added, smile softening and making the other’s heart melt right out of his ribcage.

Fitz wishes he hadn’t lied.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Leaping to Everglen is something Keefe is used to, but leaping straight onto the property will never fail to catch him off guard now that the gates have been taken away. Just another testament to how much has changed.

The way to Fitz’s room didn’t, however, so Keefe’s steps are a trail he’d walked many times before, straight down to the same door he had spent so much his childhood hidden behind. The jersey in his hands weighs more than it should, like instead of just giving back a piece of cloth, he’s about to hand over their past and everything they’d ever known. His place behind that door.

Or maybe he’s just overthinking it. Maybe he’s spent the whole day overthinking it, like the dramatic little boy he is. Things change, Keefe, the voice in his head reminds. You have to too.

He takes a deep breath, steels his face, and knocks before he can back out and leave it in Biana’s room with a note like a loser.

“Come in.” Keefe does.

The room is dark. His eyes take a moment to adjust before he notices Fitz buried underneath the blankets of his bed, staring blankly at the dark ceiling. Teal eyes lift themselves up to catch his. “Oh.”

It isn;t a bad oh, but it certainly not a good one either, and Keefe finds himself wanting to leave even faster than he came. “I found the jersey, I just thought I’d drop it o-”

“No, keep it,” Fitz decides, pushing himself up to a sitting position so he’s leaning against his pillows.

Keefe blinks in confusion. “What?”

“Keep the jersey, I don’t want it back,” he repeats, but Keefe still doesn’t understand. That isn’t what he had said that morning. All he said was that he wanted it returned!

“But you-”

“I was wrong,” Fitz shruggs. The younger can’t see him too clearly in the dark but if he’sstill wearing his nonchalant perfect Vacker smile, Keefe’s going to have a meltdown.

Or maybe he is regardless. “What do you want from me?”

Fitz might frown, Keefe can’t tell, but he sounds startled when he responds. “What do you mean?”

“I try to go and apologize to you for everything, and you don’t even let me start before you’re asking for the jersey back, and now you don’t want it anymore?!” Keefe catches his breath, eyes burning. “What were you wrong about? I wouldn’t want to be around me either.”

“I never said tha-”

“You didn’t have to.” Keefe drops the jersey to the ground, trying to keep the tears from falling out of his eyes. “I can’t even pretend to know what’s going on in your head anymore, Fitz, but that’s exactly what you wanted. And I can’t blame you, I’ve screwed this up two more times than I should have.”

“I missed you. Both times, but especially this last one. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I left and…” Keefe shakes his head, sighing under his breath. He’d practiced this more than enough times before today but here he is, and the words have run off once more, leaving his mouth dry. “I didn’t mean it like that. I would do so many things for you, Fitz, but I couldn’t stay. And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I can’t be someone you still want.”

“Keefe that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.” A record player scratches in Keefe’s mind, prompting him to look up again. Fitz is climbing out of his bed as he speaks. “Of course I still want you. I spent so much time missing you, and convincing myself you would be okay, and that all of this would be okay that I didn’t even stop to notice that it wasn’t. I don’t want the jersey back, because I want it to be with you. I want you to have the memories-”

“I don’t want memories,” he interrupts. Fitz stops right in front of him, looking down at his eyes and making Keefe gulp. That godforsaken height difference will never go away, will it? “I… That summer, I don’t know if I was imagining it but-”

Fitz grabs his hand and suddenly Keefe is hit with purple butterflies and crimson vines wrapping their way around his chest tight enough to suffocate him. “You’re not imagining anything.”

If those are Fitz’s emotions he’s feeling, and if he’s looking into his eyes like that, and if he’d meant it all back then, then maybe there isn’t much to make excuses for anymore when he leans in.

Keefe had missed it, the feeling of Fitz so close, his emotions flowing through the younger’s veins, so much stronger now, so much more desperate. Like they’d been starved for too long. Even the stupid bend in his neck when Fitz tilts his head up with a hand on his chin is nostalgic in a way.

It’s still dark, but that doesn’t stop Fitz’s eyes from twinkling when they separate, noses so close they were touching. Keefe could feel his breath hit his cheek as he whispered, tracing a finger along his cheekbones. “It’s always been you.”

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